Newspaper of the University of Southern California
Fast
Forward
Wednesday March 4,1992 Vol. CXVII, No. 33
Partly cloudy today and slightly warmer, with highs in the mid 60's. Mostly cloudy tonight with a 30 percent chance of rain. Mostly cloudy Thursday with a 60 percent chance of rain.
Headlines
Broadcast majors invade airwaves
USC broadcast journalism majors have been given the chance to produce and air their own TV show, "Impact." They may be seen by a potential of 2.2 million viewers.
Diversions, page 7
Volleyball team travels to UCLA
Another Ivie, this time Pat, leads the Trojan attack. The sophomore says he doesn't mind comparisons to his brother Bryan, who was a two-time player of the year for USC.
Sports, page 16
American CEO’s bash Japanese
With the 50th anniversary of Pearl Harbor behind us, the attitude of Americans toward the Japanese is hardly improving. This is bad news for the economy.
Viewpoint, page 4
Transfer figures double last year’s
Embassy civil suit continues
Rape victim's psychiatrist testified that his patient underwent three months of treatment because she has suffered from numerous panic attacks. Please see story, page 3.
Charges dropped against student
Attempted rape charges filed against Ryan Willson, 22, have been dropped by the deputy disctrict attorney because the victim is unable to testify at this time. Please see story, page 14.
By Elaine Pan
Staff Writer
In a "record-setting year," the Office of Admissions has received 13,900 undergraduate applications for the 1992-93 year — 12,200 potential freshmen, and 1,700 transfer students, said Cliff Sjogren, dean of admissions and financial aid.
"We think we're going to end up about 25 percent ahead (of last year's application numbers)," said Duncan Murdoch, director of undergraduate admissions.
The total number of applications last year was 9,585. The number of transfer applications for 1992-93 has doubled over last year's figures, Sjorgren said.
He cites increased recruiting
efforts and "recognition as a very high quality institution," as reasons for the increase in overall application numbers.
The admissions filing period closed Feb. 1, 1992.
One major recruiting effort included staff and faculty calling about 24,000 potential applicants — students who had made at least two inquiries about the university, admissions officials said.
Admissions officals said they were unsure how many applications resulted from this effort, but said some anecdotal information from faculty revealed that the calls did encourage some high school students to apply.
Also, students who applied
before Dec. 15, 1991, were eligible for merit scholarships, early fincancial aid evaluations and a half-price application fee of $25.
In comparison, UCLA received 23,161 freshmen applications and 7,820 transfer applications with an admittance goal of 9,700 freshmen and 3,345
Matt White/Daily Trojan
transfer students.
"We had more freshmen than we wanted last year," said Alan Fedderson, a UCLA principal admissions statistics analyst. "We didn't admit any more than usual, but we had more applicants accept their admission than we expected."
Application numbers on the rise
Nicola Conti / Dally Trojan
John Cheng, a graduate student in Electrical Engineering, uses the IBM’s at King Hall. The computers may crash on Friday because of the “Michelangelo” virus recently detected.
Computers preparing for ‘Michelangelo’ virus
Experts offer preventative measures to save files
By Tess Rafols
Staff Writer
When clocks strike midnight on Friday, all IBM computer hard drives contaminated with the "Michelangelo" virus will be formatted with random information, damaging the system. The virus will make it impossible to retrieve any files, said Chuck Hillier, microcomputer system analyst for University Computing Services.
The virus destroys the boot sector in floppy diskettes, and the partition table in the hard disk.
"The files are still there but they are no good because you can't retrieve them," said EDUTech computer store manager Laurence Durham. "It is one of the most deadly viruses."
He said a virus usually gets its name
from its original location, but in this case, it's named after Michelangelo because the date the virus will go into effect coincides with the artist's birthday, March 6.
The university is aware of the virus and has been taking precautions to prevent possible damage to its computers and files.
Hillier said that some faculty computers were found to be infected with the virus, and have already been treated with an anti-virus program provided by UCS.
The Student Administrative Services building has also taken preventative measures.
"All our computers are set up with internal computer support that takes care of all the hardware, so all IBM computers are checked automatically," said Jim Tilton, se-(See Computer, page 2)
LAS budget to be cut by $10 million
By Brian McDonough
Investigations Editor
, The College of Letters, Arts and Sciences must slash its budget by $10 million for the 1992-93 fiscal year, said Gerald Segal, dean of LAS.
Segal called the cuts, forced by decreased enrollment and other factors, "extremely severe." The $10 million represents about one-seventh of the college's budget after university-mandated contributions to student aid, the library system and other programs.
Departments within LAS are currently determining how to make the necessary cuts, which may include layoffs, Segal said. C.S. Whitaker, dean of the division of Social Sciences and Communications, Robert Douglas, dean of the natural sciences and mathematics and Humanities Dean Marshall Cohen were not available for comment Wednesday.
Segal said the cuts will be designed to have the least possible impact on the undergraduate programs.
"We're trying to meet the very real need (to reduce expenses), but to do things sensibly (and) preserve the strength of the college," he said. "Certainly there will be no abrogation of tenure and no layoffs of non-tenured faculty. There will be some reduction of part-time, temporary faculty."
Segal said it is too early in the budget process to know how many layoffs will occur or how many teaching assistants and part-time faculty will be affected.
The School of Journalism will be eliminating classes, staff and part-time faculty, said director Bill Woestendiek. He said he expects five to ten elective courses with a history of low enrollment to be cancelled, with the part-time faculty who teach them losing their positions as well.
"We've had two or three meetings about it," he said. "(This situation) is true of every school and every department."
Though the journalism school's enrollment remains "very healthy," the budget must be reduced by about 12 percent, Woestendiek said.
(See LAS, page 6)