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Volume CV, Number 55	University of Southern California	Thursday. November 19. 1987
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GLENN SWAM DAILY TROJAN
“DUNK THE BRUINS” — Ray Macika, a graduate engineering student and member of Trojan Pride, gets dunked during acitvities Wednesday during Troy Week. Look for the special Bogus Bruin supplement inside.
FINANCIAL AID WOES
‘Mad as Hell’ rally to be held Tuesday
By Michael Carv
Start Writer
To kick off the presidential task force's investigation of the financial aid office, the Student Senate has planned a rally in front of Tommy Trojan at noon Tuesday for students who are "mad as hell' about financial aid problems.
Bruce Clausen, senate president, said he ts hoping for a Urge turnout, but he realizes a number of students Mill be leaving early for the holidays.
Clausen said the senate is distributing fliers and contacting university groups for the rally. Buttons with the "Mad as Hell" slogan will also be distributed .
"I would like to think we could put together a situation where students win and financial aid wins too." Clausen said
"The response of the administration and staff is for our taking a stand," Clausen said, adding that the response to the senate's actions has been "overwhelmingly positive."
After talking to "a number of highly placed campus individuals he said, "nobodv as of vet thinks the financial aid office is free from blame."
The financial aid office is still understaffed. Clausen said. Current
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Escort Service enacts new ‘silent-horn’ policy
By Kevin Ota
Staff Writer
Drivers for the university's Escort Service, who normally honk their car horns upon arriving to pick up passengers, have been told to keep their horns silent after an angry community resident dted a Los Angeles municipal code prohibiting the unnecessary use of car horns in residential areas.
Dennis Archambault, special programs administrator of University Security and Parking Operations, said a resident brought the dty law to his attention Monday w'hen he called to complain about the use of car horns by Escort Service drivers near his Portland Street residence.
Archambault .said he looked up the code and found that Section 114.04 under Noise Regulations prohibits the use of any audible device that creates a noise exceeding 50 dedbels within 500 feet of a residence.
"It never dawned on me," Archambault said. "The law never came to our attention because no one ever complained about the horns before."
He said the service's new silent-horn policy is important because it should force people who use the service to look for escort cars, rather than just listen for a honk.
Escort Service drivers have been told to pull up to their assigned pick-up spot and wait for two minutes, Archambault said. If the passenger doesn't show up, the driver will go on to the next stop.
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Senate reaffirms duty to international affairs
By Catherine Loper
Staff Writer
The Student Senate reaffirmed in a resolution Wednesday night its duty to "debate, consider, and vote" on national and international issues that may not "directly affect the university campus."
In addition to that resolution, a constitutional amendment was proposed by David Simon, a graduate senator, that would spedfically make it the senate's responsibility to approach issues of national and worldwide impact. The amendment will be voted on in two weeks.
World issues are currently "not out of (the senate's) agenda," they are just not spedfically outlined as part of the senate's jurisdiction, said Phil Clement, Student Senate vice president.
The resolution was "just reconfirming what we've alwavs done/' he said.
However, measures regarding "campus-specific" issues will be given higher priority than world-community issues, according to the resolution.
Defining the senate's jurisdiction became an issue when resolutions regarding the recent Supreme Court nomination of Judge Robert Bork were presented by senators in October.
At the time, the senators discussed whether or not they should debate issues of national concern, rather than discussing the actual issue of the resolution, said Tom Henry, a graduate senator.
Wednesday night's resolution was written so that the senate will not have "to spend half (its) time dedding if (an issue) is
Test shows lack of geography skills
By Kevin Davis
Staff Writer
More than 900 students at Cal State Fullerton proved once again that knowledge of geography is "abysmal" among university students when they were voluntarily tested Monday and Tuesday as part of National Geography Awareness Week at the Orange County campus.
It's a situation that university educators say is similar nationwide — and USC is evidently no exception.
"USC students are not significantly different than students at other schools," said Tom Jab-lonsky, an assistant professor of geography and adviser to the geography- department. ."They are no worse, and unfortunately they're no better either.
"The only difference may be that students here have had more opportunities to travel/' said jab-lonsky, who has taught at several California state schools. "But they go and see places and do nothing else to really leam from the experience. It's not unlike having seen just a snapshot or slides ."
Jablonsky said the problem was more than just lack of spedfic geographical knowledge.
"There is general ignorance of what geography is," he said. "The importance is not so much to find Vietnam on a map. but what the implications
of geographical placement had on U.S. policy there.
"If Vietnam had been in Central America, we probably would have dealt with the situation in a completely different way'. Things occur at a certain place for certain reasons. That's what it's all about."
The students at Fullerton 'did better than usual, but still abysmal" on the 21-question, multiple-choice test administered by geography professor William Puzo, and averaged between 11 and 13 correct answers on the test. Puzo said
Only 14 percent of the students tested could locate the eastern Caribbean Sea area w here Columbus first touched land, 26 percent correctly identified the Soviet Union as the third most populous nation in the world, and only 26 percent of the students could identify and locate Canada as the leading trade partner of the United States, he said
Those figures were much higher than normal, probably because students who volunteered to take the test had better than average knowledge of geography, he said.
Puzo first attracted attention in 1984 when he released results of similar tests given to his introductory geography students, which demonstrated only 49 percent could locate Japan He said this year's results were even worse, however with
(Continued on page 14)
GLENN SWAM DAILY TROJAN
BE AWARE — Not only is it Troy Week but it’s Republican Awareness Week as well as the sign in the background can attest.