An interview with Jerry Buss — see page 7
Volume C, Number 19	University of Southern California	Wednesday, February 5, 1986
GSL default rate soars
Loan defaults cause GSL crackdown
trojan
NEVENA HARP DAILY TROJAN
Former USC football star Mike Garrett (right) rings the Victory Bell that returned to campus after a four-year stay in Westwood, as Student Senator Mark Decker “fights
MM **
on.
AFTER FOUR YEARS AT UCLA
Victory Bell welcomed back
By Tommy Li
Staff Writer
Besides Los Angeles bragging rights, the winner of the USC-UCLA football game gets to keep a victory bell for the coming year. The bell has not seen USC territory since 1981, but it returned to campus yesterday.
To celebrate the university football team's victory over UCLA's football team last November and the return of the bell, Trojan Pride, a university spirit organization, held a pep rally at noon yesterday in front of Tommy Trojan.
The rally's program included a recounting of the bell's historv and a visit from Mike Garrett, a running back from 1962 to 1965 and the university's first Heisman Trophy winner.
"We tried to get (the pep rally) for last (Wednesday) but there were conflicting activities, so we decided to have it as close to the (USC-UCLA basketball game) as possible," said Marylu Zenzola, cochairwoman of Trojan Pride's rally task force.
"That's what we really wanted, to real-
ly rub UCLA's nose in it," she added.
Members of the Trojan Knights started yesterday's rally by bringing the bell to the stage in front of Tommy Trojan.
Few people had gathered when the bell was brought out, but the crowd grew to over 100 people when members of the Trojan Marching Band played the "Trojan Victory March."
The band was accompanied by members of its flag unit, song girls and yell leaders.
Mark Decker, president of Trojan Pride and a student senator, recounted the victory bell's history to the crowd through a bullhorn:
The Bruins and the Trojans have been battling for possession of the 295-pound bell for over 40 years.
The bell was given to UCLA in 1939 as a gift from the UCLA Alumni Association.
The history of the battle for the victory bell dates back to the 1941 football season, when six members of the university's Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity took the (Continued on page 16)
Fluor residents extinguish small blaze on burner
By Gordon Gary
Staff Writer
A small fire in a Fluor Tower suite Monday afternoon caused minor damage to a cabinet, a ceiling and a wall before it was extinguished by three students and a Fluor resident adviser.
The blaze apparently started when a burner ignited some trash left on a stove and caused about $500 damage, said Sgt. Mike Kennedy of University Security.
Keith Brinkman, Anthony Follico and Brad Conley, residents of suite 303, initially attempted to put out the blaze with water until the second floor resident adviser came up with a fire extinguisher, Brinkman said.
"There was just some smoke damage, and we'll just have to clean up in there and paint the wall and ceiling," said Alex Radoumis, project coordinator at Physical (Continued on page 6)
By David Miranda
Staff Writer
California's Student Aid Commission began a crackdown last week on what it calls "a spiraling default rate" in the state's Guaranteed Student Loan program, but a spokesman said yesterday that this university does not have a serious problem with student loan defaults.
A statement issued by the committee announced that the Academy of Stenographic Arts in San Francisco will be barred from the GSL program unless it disproves charges of default made against the school.
More than 150 students at the school failed to pay off $170,000 in loans after dropping out. This is the first time the Student Aid Commission has terminated a school's participation in the GSL program, said Lois McNally, information officer for the commission.
In last week's announcement, Samuel Kipp III, executive director of the Student Aid Commission, said that the agency "cannot continue to tolerate a situation where the availability of loan funds for the majority of students is jeopardized by the actions of a few."
The GSL program in California has distributed $3.2 billion in student loans since
its creation in 1979 and has sustained a loss of $310 million in defaults over the six-year period, McNally said.
She said the overall rate of default for California schools was 16.6 percent as of last November.
The most recent figures the commission has on this university are from last September, when it had a 6.3 percent GSL default rate compared to an overall default rate of 14.2 percent.
That figure was "quite good," McNally said. Asked if the university has a significant problem with GSL defaults, she said, "I don't believe so...I doubt it."
According to figures released by Susan Monson, GSL coordinator at the university, the default rate on GSL loans for the university went from 1.87 percent in 1981 to 4.1 percent in 1983.
As of last November, community colleges had the highest GSL default rate (31.6 percent); followed by vocational schools (29.8 percent); the California State University system (12.8 percent); private four-year schools (10.3 percent); and University of California schools (7.6 percent); McNally said.
McNally said that the Student Aid Commission closely monitors schools (Continued on page 3)
SDI threatens global security, expert warns
By Katherine Dyar
Staff Writer
Robert Bowman, president of the Institute for Space and Security Studies and a former director of the U.S. Air Force's Advanced Space Program Development, spoke on the threat presented to world security by the Reagan administration's "Star Wars" program in a lecture Tuesday afternoon in the Seeley G. Mudd Building.
The lecture was sponsored by the USC Students for Peace and Justice.
Addressing a crowd of about 100 students and faculty. Bowman said the Strategic Defense Initiative, hailed by President Reagan and his advisers as a possible defense to nuclear attack, is in reality no more than an "extremely powerful anti-satellite weapon" which would eventually "accelerate the likelihood of a first-strike attack" by either the Soviet Union or the United States.
Bowman, a retired lieutenant colonel who served 22 vears in the Air Force, including two years from 1976 to 1978 as director of advanced space programs development, said he left the military after U.S. policy dictated active testing of SDI deployment in place of theoretical research concerning the possibilities of space weapons.
Bowman said the United States had violated its agreement with the Soviet Union to stop all testing on space weapons by furthering its SDI research, a move he said was begun in late 1980 after President
(Continued on page 6)
RALPH R. CALVO DAILY TROJAN
ROBERT BOWMAN
RALPH R. CALVO DAILY TROJAN
Fluor Tower firefighters (left to right): Brad Conley, Keith Brinkman and Anthony Follico.