trojan
Volume CV, Number 20	University of Southern California	Thursday. October 1, 1987
Computer purchases delayed due to negotiations with IBM
By Michael Cary
Staff Writer
Students, faculty and staff have experienced delays in getting computers from the USC Personal Computer and Phone Store because the store is renegotiating its present contract with International Business Machines Corp., the store supervisor said.
Herman Kepfer, supervisor of the store, said Sean Shimono, who was quoted in Friday's Daily Trojan, was not a senior technician but "a student worker" at the computer store. Shimono did not provide correct information about the delayed order of the Greek Honors House's purchase of IBM computers, he said.
Kepfer said he did not think the computers for the Greek Honors House were ordered directly through the computer store.
Kepfer said the store is currently re-negotiating the vendor contract with IBM. IBM has offered a new agreement to market computers through universities, he said.
Contrary to last week's article, university accounts with IBM were not frozen, nor did IBM plan to raise its prices. Kepfer said everything was "hunky-dory."
Kepfer said computer purchases have been delayed, but he added that the store is "negotiating in good faith and operating between agreements."
All pending IBM orders will be filled through the store's present contract, Kepfer said.
Many schools, including UCLA and the Claremont colleges, are facing the decision to accept the
new agreement or keep their original contracts, Kepfer said.
"No two (colleges) look at it in the same light," he said.
Kepfer said he and other members of the staff are "taking a good, serious look" at the agreement in terms of future effects.
"(You) never want to be locked into any one thing," Kepfer said. "You never know if or if not the situation will change."
The new agreement being offered by IBM differs "radically" from how the computer store presently does business, Kepfer said. He said the store wants to consider "how best to operate for students, faculty and staff."
Gary Gardner, an IBM advisory marketing representative, said the new agreement is offered nationwide to "give the best price to students."
Gardner said the new agreement should "enhance" the computer store.
"With the lower price," Gardner said, "(the store) should sell more systems and, therefore, raise more revenue."
Gardner would not discuss details of the contract, saying it was "a confidential matter." He said IBM benefits were detailed in the contract, and, therefore, it was a "USC matter."
"Details of the contract are up to the university," he said, "and should be cleared with the university."
"We want to make sure students are protected 100 percent," said Leo Reilly, director of telecommunications. He said the store wants to "continue
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HUNKY-DORY' — Herman Kepfer. supervisor of the USC Computer and Phone Store, said everything is fine with IBM.
Dean Orr resists GRE, cites international bias
Ethnic photo exhibit displayed
By Catherine Loper
Staff Writer
By Kevin Ota
Staff Writer
John Orr, dean of the School of Education, spoke yesterday to a group of international graduate students at Waite Phillips Hall about problems and cultural biases in the Graduate Record Examination, a test the school is being pressured to adopt.
Orr said the GRE, which evaluates students applying to graduate school, often creates problems for international students because it is culturally biased.
The university must take this into account when evaluating the applications of international graduate students, he said.
"The School of Education is the only unit in the university that refuses to require the use of the GRE for admitting international graduate students," Orr said. "We thought that there might be cultural biases in the GRE and that we had no way of evaluating those biases.
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"Ethni-City," a photography exhibit by faculty, students and community members that highlights Los Angeles' ethnic diversity, opens today in the east lobby of Annenberg School of Communications.
The exhibit is the end product of a two-semester project during which nine people photographed a specific ethnic group of Los Angeles, said Joan Weibel-Orlando, an assistant professor of anthropology who was one of the photographers.
Diego Vigil, associate professor in anthropology, secured an original grant that funded the seminar, and he has coordinated it since 1985, Weibel-Orlando said.
Professors and anthropologists (specialists in particular ethnic groups) opened the seminar pre-
senting academic papers and studying them. It is "one sign of a coming trend in the USC Ethnic Studies (Program) to understand the ethnic differences in the dtv." said Vigil, who is director of the university's Ethnic Studies Program.
"Rather than be strictly a scholarly work — and because many of the groups are so visuallv interesting and exciting — the participants chose to explore Los Angeles and take photographs of the groups they were studying, she said
"Many of (the participants) are no* reallv photographers, but we were Milling to learn. ’ Weibel-Orlando said.
Three students were also asked to take photographs, Weibel-Orlando said
The seminar group asked Bill Aron, a university photography instructor, to train its members in documentary- photography
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Senate discusses plan to dispense condoms
By Dave Nimick
Staff Writer
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AWARENESS — Phil Clement, senate vice president, talked about Installing condom machines in the Physical Education Building.
The Student Senate, in an effort to heighten awareness about AIDS, discussed ways to educate students on the deadly disease, as well as ways to make condoms available to the campus community-.
The senate's AIDS Task Force, created earlier this year discussed different ideas on how to reach the university- community-. They induded: placing two condom dispensers in both the men s and women's kxier room of the Physical Education Building, having educational stickers placed around the campus to reach a majority of the community-, and having voluntary AIDS testing available to the students.
Phil Clement, senate vice president and a supporting senator ot the AIDS Task Force, said the group decided on the Physical Education Building because of its central location.
"We will install the two machines with full stock for one month, and if they're profitable, we'll go with them." Clement said. "The cost will be approximately $500 for the two machines, but if we get one condom in the right place at the right time, the machines will be worth it," he added.
The senate also voted on a resolution to put pressure on the financial aid department to change the way it presently- operates.
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