dy% trojan
Volume XCVII, Number 26	University of Southern California	Tuesday, October 9, 1984
JACK LARKIN/DAJLY TROJAN
EILEEN STEVENS
Horrors of hazing reviewed in Greek pledge conference
By Frances Hong
Staff Writer
Fraternity and soi*ority pledges, attending the university's first mandatory pledge conference, were warned Monday against hazing and were encouraged to work toward a greater sense of community within the Greek system.
"The houses expect friendship, loyalty and commitment from their pledges and you should represent your house in an appropriate manner," said James Dennis, vice president of student affairs. "The university expects the same from you as well as being responsible students."
The conference in Bovard Auditorium was arranged by the Greek Leadership Team, along with Office for Student Affairs, to describe to pledges what their individual chapters and their university expects from them, and to promote a positive pledge program.
"This is the first time this conference has been done and is an experiment," Dennis said. "Our goal is to prepare you for experiences you will face as a member of the Greek community.
"The university recognizes fraternities and sororities — the Greek system is important at the university and you are important as well. We want you to represent yourselves in the variety of ways in which
you (hold) privileges and responsibilities."
The main focus of the conference, however, was hazing. Eileen Stevens, founder of the Committee to Halt Useless College Killings, said in an emotional speech that hazing has no place in the Greek system.
"People have a choice to resist hazing and should speak out against it," Stevens said.
Stevens founded CHUCK after her son. Chuck, was killed in a hazing in a New York fraternity. In that incident, pledges were put into the trunk of a car, given wine, beer and a pint of whiskey, and forced to finish them be-fpre they were released.
Although the fraternity said the prank was a tradition and had never caused any harm, Stevens' son lost consciousness in the trunk and later died of severe alcohol poisoning.
Hazing has worried administrators at this university recently. In one incident, a member of a fraternity suffered severe alcohol poisoning during a drinking game and died. In another incident, a member was forced to eat an inedible substance, choked and died.
"I'm not blaming the houses, but I'm trying to express in a dramatic way to the fraternities and sororities to fo-(Continued on page 2)
Students, faculty eat to meet
New program tries to provide more interaction
By Karen Kucher
Assistant Qty Editor
The gray-haired professor lecturing at the podium to a class of more than 150 students could be your lunch date next week.
Taking a professor to lunch is one of the programs the Office of Residential Life and other university departments are sponsoring to improve relations between students and faculty members.
"A big emphasis of all our programs is to provide an interaction. It helps in the student development, growth and experience, and establishes a role model," said Paula Johnson, director of the Discover SC program, which is part of Residential Life.
Johnson said most of the programs help students to get to know faculty members on an informal basis, and give them the opportunity to chat about many subjects, not only about course material.
University professors are also concerned about the interaction between faculty members and students, and are often surprised at the lack of involvement when they first arrive at the university.
"When I decided to work at this university, my wife was very excited about getting involved with the campus, but what we realized is it doesn't work here. It's not like living at a small liberal arts college," said Larry Raful, assistant dean of student affairs in the Law School.
Raful said he and his wife have attended student productions and plays on campus but have not seen too many faculty members there.
One of the main problems involved in student-faculty relations is the location of the university and the distance faculty members have to travel to go home, Raful said.
"They don't stay — they go home at 5. After spending 45 minutes on the freeway, they don't want to come back," he said.
Although there will always be faculty who don't want to participate in the programs, he said, interest is growing.
"The dean of the Law School
has all first-year students over to his house for dinner," Raful said. This year that activity includes 180 students.
Raful praised the university programs, calling them "tremendous."
The Faculty Entree program allows students to invite the faculty member or administrator of their choice to have lunch in the residence dining halls, with the program picking up the tab for the guest.
Raful, who has participated in other student-faculty programs, said the afternoon programs will be successful "since there are more people on campus for lunch."
"Statistics show that students are much more successful if they have that type of relationship (with faculty members)," Johnson said.
Another program set for this year is Food for Thought. This year-long program, which has existed for a few years, has five students meet for dinner with a faculty member either at the professor's house or at the Faculty Center.
"We are shooting for 42 meals for the fall and 13 in the spring," Johnson said.
"(Faculty-student interaction) is a universal concern. Staffs are working to make sure the stu-(Continued on page 2)
Bypass surgery not vital in all blocked artery cases
By Karen Castro
Assistant Qty Editor
A team of doctors from the School of Medicine has concluded in a study that bypass surgery is not necessary for coronary arteries that are less than 50 percent blocked.
The study team, the first of its kind, consisted of cardiologists and preventive health specialists, all of whom are associated with the university's School of Medicine.
"The heart would be better off left with the native vessel, as opposed to being bypassed," said Dr. Linda Cashin, who led the research team.
The results of the study were reported in the Sept. 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. In that same issue, Dr. Floyd Loop, a surgeon at Cleveland Clinic, wrote in an editorial, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Cashin said, which is essentially what the study concluded.
Coronary bypass surgery involves removing a vein from elsewhere in the body and sewing it into an obstructed coronary artery, bypassing the blockage and enabling the flow of blood to nourish a part of the heart muscle that otherwise would be deprived.
The team examined the angiogram records of 85 men who had bypasses at 40 different hospitals three years prior to the start of the study. The 85 patients had among them 93 vessels with less than 50 percent blockage that had not been bypassed. In 26 patients, there were 37 vessels that were less than 50 percent blocked but had been bypassed.
A significant discovery in the comparison of the two groups revealed that further blockage occurred iO times as often in vessels that had been bypassed as in vessels that had not.
In several cases, vein grafts had been placed in vessels in which no blockage was visible in pre-surgery X-rays. When the researchers examined the vessels 36 months later, one of the grafted vessels had become 30 percent obstructed, and 50 percent of them were totally blocked.
Cashin said the study will affect the way surgeons perform by-pass surgery. Presently many surgeons practice a procedure called total revascularization, in which all coronary arteries are bypassed whether they need to be or not.
The reason behind the study was to observe what happens to minimally blocked vessels that are bypassed. Cashin called the USC study a "retrospective sub-study" stemming from an ongoing research project headed by Dr. David Blankenhom of the USC School of Medicine.
Each year more than 150,000 heart patients undergo bypasses in order to greatly improve the quality of their lives and, in some cases, lengthen lives.
Team handball rises to victory
By Sallyann Capuano
Staff Writer
Grunting and gasping for breath, a sweat-streaked player pounds down the hard court looking for an open man. At the last moment, he cocks the small white ball behind his head and throws hard — right at the open net. A diving attempt by the goalie isn't enough. Score! The university's team handball club wins again.
Even though they won a national championship in 1983, they haven't received much attention here at the university from the students or the administration.
Just about all the team handball club has is enthusiasm, but that may be enough.
Although the university has had an intramural team for about five years, Robert Sewell, team captain, said handball is a very low-key sport on campus.
There are more players than spectators in attendance at each game, and there are relatively few teams to compete against throughout the country.
But Sewell sees handball as a sport on the rise. "It's new to the United States. We're just setting up the California Handball Association. We 'the university) sponsored a championship at Fullerton for an Olympics preview and that gave us some TV coverage," he said.
Furthermore, people had the opportunity to (Continued on page 3)