' / V‘ ' ’
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Win over ASU puts USC 9-3
| Sports, page 28
Old Soviet Union not yet forgotten
Viewpoint, page 5
Holiday films jfail to deliver
Life / Arts, page 11
on
trojan
Volume CXVII, Number 1
University of Southern California
Tuesday, January 14, 1992
Shevardnadze to speak at graduation
Sample ‘delighted’ with final choice
Former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnaze
By Janet Cavallo
Assistant City Editor
Eduard Shevardnadze, former foreign minister of the now dissolved Soviet Union, was chosen by university President Steven Sample as commencement speaker for the 109th spring graduation ceremony, May 8.
"I'm delighted that Mr. Shevardnadze has accepted our invitation to speak," Sample said.
"I feel that Mr. Shevardnadze is one of the really great statesmen of the latter half of this century. His speaking to our graduates is a great honor," he said.
Sample met Shevardnadze last year at a dinner in Los Angeles.
"He is a very, very intelligent man and a very humane man," he said.
Contact was also made through Dr. Vladimir Zelman, an acquaintance of the Shevardnadze family and professor of clinical anesthesiology at the USC School of Medicine, said George Abdo, executive assistant to the president.
"Dr. Zelman played a key role in getting Mr. Shevardnadze to come here as our speaker. We owe a great debt of gratitude to him," Sample said.
The former foreign minister's name was considered during suggestions that Mikhail Gorbachev be invited, Abdo said.
Enthusiasm for the final choice is high.
"I think it's wonderful. It's a real coup for the university," said Dr. Thomas Sei-frid, chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.
"Gorbachev and Shevardnadze share
responsibility for the positive changes that took place in the Soviet Union," Sei-frid said.
"He's not as important as (Russian president) Boris Yelstin is right now but he is clearly more democratically minded," he said.
"The long-term signifigance to this is that those students and parents who attend will remember having heard him for many, many decades to come," Sample said.
Shevardnadze was chosen from numerous recommendations made by administrators, faculty, outside sources and a group of student leaders, said Abdo.
An ad hoc student committee presented its suggestions to the administration after meetings held early in the fall semester, Abdo said.
(See Speaker, page 9)
Coliseum renovation delayed
Molly O’Ner / t ally Trojan
Renovation of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum has been indefinitely postponed.
Seat sales to fund proposed facelift
By Bronagh Byrne
Staff Writer
Renovations that were to begin this month on the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum have been delayed indefinitely, said Matthew Grossman, president of the Coliseum Commission.
Sales of some 280 luxury suites and 10,000 special club seats were to fund the renovation costs, Grossman said. But less than 1,000 of the $3,600 club seats have been sold at this time, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The renovations have been postponed while Spectator Management Group — the private firm responsible for the design, fund raising and execution of the renovations — recesses to adjust their marketing approach, Grossman said.
"The management group has reviewed their stance on the project in light of the economy," he said. "This is not particularly unusual at this time."
Representatives of Spectator were unavailable for comment Monday.
Grossman said there is no definitive answer at this time as to whether Spectator will back out of the renovation project.
Spectator will ideally be able to give that answer by the end of their fiscal
year's first quarter in March, he said.
"I'm very anxious to hear those answers," said Grossman, who remains optimistic that the refurbishment project will go forward.
USC football will continue to play at
the Coliseum, said Mike McGee, athletics director.
"We have a perfectly safe facility to play in in 1993, " McGee said.
McGee also pointed out that mainte-(See Coliseum,-page 20)
Campus crime iricreasing
Illegal incidents climb in 1991
By Tracy Wilson
Assignment Editor
University Security reports showed an increase in crime incidents for the month of December 1991 over the same time period a year ago, marking a dramatic rise in crime for the fall semester.
According to security's December incident report, robbery and vehicle burglaries
were the most prominent crimes committed.
There were 17 incidents of armed or forced robbery in December 1991, while there were only three in that month in 1990. There were 58 incidents of burglary from a motor vehicle, compared to 28 the year before.
Additionally, December 1991 saw two rapes, two as-
saults with a deadly weapon and three misdemeanor vandalisms with damages valued in excess of $1,000. December 1990 saw no crimes of this nature.
"There's a big difference there," said Sgt. John Lewis of University Security regarding the increase. Lewis couldn't give a conclusive reason for the increase, but sug-
gested it might be because of poor economic conditions.
"It's possibly the economy; maybe more people are out of work and forced into drastic situations," Lewis said. "Or maybe more people are reporting crimes."
(See Statistics, page 9)
Please see related story page 2.
Research team probes effects of Gulf War destruction
By Tracy Wilson
Assignment Editor
" 'We all suffer, and especially my children . . . the Americans have hurt us so much.' "
Elisabeth Benjamin echoed these words of an Iraqi mother Sunday afternoon before a crowd of concerned listeners, including members of the Iraqi-American community, in Taper Hall of Humanities.
Benjamin, head of a Harvard study team on civilian conditions after the Persian Gulf War, shared the words of Iraqi people and pictures of the bomb-blasted country with the 40-person audience, narrating the team's impressions and documented research from spring and fall 1991.
Benjamin's presentation, and the dinner that followed, were sponsored by the Ad Hoc Committee for Iraqi Children's Medical Relief, a group of concerned citizens (including two university professors) for human relief in Iraq, and USC's Chaplain's Office.
The Harvard Study Team, whose data, according to Benjamin, represents the only comprehensive survey of the catastrophic effects of the war, went to Iraq in April and May of 1991, and later in August and September of that year.
"The results are staggering," Benjamin said of their findings. "I was astounded by the sight of children dying of cholera, gastroenteritis and hepatitis. These children are dying of Third World diseases."
More than half of the Iraqi population gets polluted water in their (See Benjamin, page 8)