(MaSw trojan
Volume CVI, Number 9	University	of	Southern	California	Friday,	January	22,	1988
JAMES SU / DAILY TROJAN
YOU OUGHTA BE IN PICTURES — Raquel Welch will star in the TV movie “Education of Leda Beth Williams,” which is now being filmed on campus.
Escorts miss seminar on rape
By Shannon Rafferty
Staff Writer
A personal safety and rape awareness seminar held Wednesday night at Embassy Residential College had planned to prevent a "Lone Ranger or John Wayne” attitude among 15 Embassy students who began a volunteer escort program to help protect fellow students — but none of the escorts showed up.
Because the escorts didn't attend, the seminar shifted its focus toward general advice on preventing crimes through pamphlets and a video. Twelve Embassy residents came to the presentation.
The seminar's planners, spurred by two recent attacks on women outside the residential college, had intended for the student escorts and University Security officers to work together in rape awareness training.
Two of the volunteers, Eddie Gonzales and Greg Leiser, said they were unaware of the program until it was over because they didn't see any advertising for the event.
"I was expecting to talk primarily to the escorts ... to prevent a Lone Ranger or John Wayne attitude," said Mark Stevens, a university counselor who led the presentation. "There is a lot of responsibility and obligation involved with escorts. The escorts must be made aware that as a male, you're also a potential perpetrator."
Sgt. Peter Whittingham of University Security suggested that a screening and training program for potential escorts would benefit the entire Embassy community and
help coordinate efforts between security and the escorts.
Whittingham said that contrary to a recent Daily Trojan article, the student escort program is "well-supported" and "welcomed" by security.
"We are in a family-type situation and for a student to escort a fellow student is welcomed," Whittingham said. "We in security can do with all the help we can get."
He added that the student escorts should be a "supplement" used only when an officer is not available or when a student is going beyond the point an officer normally patrols.
Whittingham said he expects heavy involvement from students and if the escorts are "needed today, then they'll be needed tomorrow."
Steven Ward, chief of University Security, said that although the student escorts are a good idea, residents may have overreacted to the recent attacks near Embassy.
"Here (at Embassy) the perception of crime is worse than the reality," Ward said. "The level of risk that exists in the area around Embassy is exaggerated."
However, Steve Coger, a junior majoring in broadcast journalism, said a "legitimate concern" existed and the student-run escort program is "definitely a good idea."
Coger, who was involved with a student escort program at UC Riverside, added that any escort screening process must be taken seriously and backed by the university.
"The university has to support it," Coger said. "If the university doesn't care and they just trivialize it, it won't work."
Exodus from Embassy: Many leave downtown building
By Robert Wallace
Staff Writer
The number of vacancies at Embassy Residential College has increased drastically from last semester's level.
Forty-six of Embassy's 362 spaces, or 13 percent, were vacant as of Wednesday, the highest number of vacancies in university-owned housing.
David Blackmar, assistant director of housing, said Tuesday that at least eight students have left r mbassy in the last two weeks. He said the building was irtually full in the fall, with about two or three vacancies.
Blackmar said he hasn't received 'iuch input from students and doesn't know why Embas v has become increasingly vacant.
"I would assume it is in the light of recent events," Blackmar said, referring to a pair of attacks on women outside Embassy including one incident Jan. 10 in which a resident was raped in her car near the building.
"It concerns us very much to have vacancies because it puts pressure to raise rents for existing tenants," Blackmar said. "It's important to fill as many spaces in housing as possible."
Embassy, located downtown on the comer of Ninth Street and Grand Avenue about three miles from campus, has weathered a number of controversies and criticisms since opening its doors to university students last August. The university purchased the 74-year-old hotel last April for $12.6 million.
Almost immediately in August, Embassy officials were faced with a minor crisis, as students had to wait for rooms that had not been fully renovated and furnished. Many students, including the building's head resident, had to room temporarily in other university housing.
As the fall semester progressed, so did some Embassy residents' concerns with the building's maintenance, quality of services and general safety.
Following the 5.9 earthquake on Oct. 1, the building was marked with cracks. Although building engineers said the damage was cosmetic, many students began to question the building's structure.
And the exodus from Embassy began. About 5 percent of Embassy's residents, or about 18 people, moved out within a week after the quake and its aftershock, said a housing official who requested anonymity.
Since then. Embassy has been in the headlines of the Daily Trojan several times: A tram driver working the Embassy route allegedly punched an Embassy student; a student fell through a stairwell; and three rooms were evacuated after asbestos was discovered in door jambs on the eighth and ninth floors.
Computer problems
Mehrdad Kazemipour, an Embassy resident, said that although he liked Embassy overall, the delay in hooking up a computer system is hurting business students living there. The computer room is now open, but only for word processing.
"A lot of business students live here, and they're not able to get into Lotus (a computer language)," Kazemi-
pour said. "(The computers) have to be hooked up to the library computers. They said it would be done by the beginning of the semester. I don't know what the delay is. A lot of stuff has been postponed."
Sonal Seneviratne, a program analyst in King Hall, said university computer services and the library are getting together in providing access to the library databases.
"While we were working on it, a lot of students indicated they wanted Lotus and other things," Seneviratne said. "So we're trying to set that up."
Margaret Johnson, associate university librarian for academic information services, said the system's word processing features were hooked up Tuesday. She said Lotus and D-Base systems would not be available until mid-February.
Structure questioned after quake
Some students said the building's age may have caused
residents to have second thoughts about staying there. Embassy was built in 1914. The structure's safety has been a concern, particularly since the 5.9 earthquake last Oct. 1.
Building officials said Embassy suffered only cosmetic damage following the initial quake and its 5.5 aftershock, with substantial spalls and cracks sustained in the structure's plaster facade.
But the damage, whether superficial or not, rattled many Embassy residents. Lynn, a student who lived in Embassy until the quake, requested that the DT not use her last name. She now lives in Kerchkoff Apartments and said safety was one reason she packed her bags in early October.
"I remember the day of the quake, a lot of people were packing up and leaving," she said. "I moved out very soon afterward. My friend tried desperately to move out, and I don't know what the problem was with him, but he
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Immigration issues discussed
By Catherine Loper
Staff Writer
An activist lawyer who defends immigrants' rights and an Immigration and Naturalization Service official presented opposite sides of the U.S. immigration policy to a Spanish dass Thursday.
Ernest Gustafson, an INS district director, and lawyer Antonio Rodriguez tried to avoid direct confrontations as they discussed illegal immigration in front of the third-semester Spanish students, who listened to the presentation as a translation exerdse.
Although the two voiced many opposite opinions, both agreed that "one of the greatest problems fadng our country today is the question of how to deal with immigrants — especially illegal, undocumented immigrants," Rodriguez said.
They spoke to a special Spanish dass intended for journalism students and taught by Sergio Munoz, executive editor of La Opinion, a Spanish-language newspaper.
The two immigration experts conversed in Spanish with students who jnterviewed them. The students were then assigned to write news articles on what the men said.
Thursday's interview was the first in a series of interviews for the dass on subjects important to the Hispanic community, Munoz said.
Gustafson and Rodriguez spoke in English at the end of the Spanish-language exercise and mainly dis-
ihe Immigrant Reform Act of to iliegal aliens who can entered the United States before Jan. 1, here since
Rodriguez, referring to instances when all family members are not eligible for amnesty, said, "Congress created a policy of family separation" when it passed the law.
Gustafson countered that the law hasn't broken families apart. "So far, we have not separated one family member," he said. Gustafson oversees amnesty applications for an area encompassing eight counties in Southern California.
But Rodriguez warned, "It would behoove the INS and Congress to make sure that existing iaws are now made as broad as possible. . . . Let's extend the date to apply." The law granting general amnesty will expire on May 4.
"May 4 is coming as sure as tomorrow," Gustafson said. If one person walks up to a "closed window" the day after the deadline, "I will feel personally responsible."
Gustafson partidpated in a press conference Thursday morning with INS officials and leaders of the Latino and Asian communities .to encourage illegal immigrants to apply for amnesty.
Harold Ezell, commissioner of the INS' western region, said in a press release that amnesty enables immigrants to obtain jobs, to change jobs, to eliminate fears of deportation, to travel outside the United States freely and to bring family members to the United States legally.
When the law was originally passed, the INS estimated that approximately 3.9 million people were eli-for amnesty. Only 1.3 million have applied thus
Ninety-eight percent of those who apply before the deadline will be approved, Gustafson said.