Sports Editor David Cisneros gets down and dirty as he joins practice with USC's club rugby team /IO
TUESDAY
October 10, 2000
Of interest...
Valerie Harper stars in new play "All Under Heaven"about the life of Pearl S. Huck / 7
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Funding, repairs needed to air KSC R
Radio: Past management error, which led to decrease in budget, and transmitter problems keep Internet station off AM dial
By REBECCA ZAK
Contributing Writer
It’s a Catch-22.
According to Student Senate funding criteria. KSCR's Internet broadcasts do not reach enough of the student body to warrant more than the $5,000 it received this year.
But KSCR. which is relegated to the web for its second year in a row due to a malfunctioning transmitter, needs more money to fix its equipment to return to the air and reach the student body.
“We can’t show (Student Senate) what we can do if we have no money (to do anything),” said Scot Diamond, a senior majoring in music industry and a technical engineer at KSCR.
“The Senate’s main complaint was that we didn’t do enough outreach to the university,” he said. “If we had increased funds (we could provide programming desirable to more students)."
However, Senate does not allot funding based upon what an organization says it can do; it bases its decision on the groups past performance. As a result, KSCR funding has been cut 75 percent over the past two years, leaving the organization scrambling to make up for management errors that led to the first funding cut two years ago.
Although the transmitter is under repair and the station is expected to return to the AM dial, the future of KSCR is uncertain as Senate has declined to increase funding and academic departments are hesitant to assume control of the station.
KSCR received an operating budget of only $5,000 of the $50,000 the station’s management requested from the Student Senate for the 2000-01 school year. Since 1998, the station’s budget has been slashed from $20,000 to $5,000.
The first major cut two years ago occurred because “apparently KSCR management was late in submitting the
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Rebecca Idk I Daily Troian
Picture perfect. Students attend a barbecue on campus for National Coming Out Week.
Acceptance of gays varies by faith
By KATIE WERNER
Contributing Writer
Normally a sensitive and controversial topic within religious circles, the issue of sexual orientation generally evokes acceptance and tolerance among USC religious groups, especially during National Coming Out Week.
However, while most of the religious groups on campus claim to be tolerant and embracing of gays and lesbians, certain groups provide more outreach than others.
“We acknowledge sexual orientation to be something inherent," said Rev. William Messenger, director of the Catholic Student Association. “There is nothing wrong with being gay or lesbian.”
RELIGION &
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The Catholic student group on campus has been running the Gay and Lesbian Outreach program for more than four years.
“Unfortunately, we can’t get consistent leadership because of graduation and other factors,” he said. “We have a couple students working to get GLO up and running again this year.” The lack of programming for gay and lesbian students who want to be active in other mainstream reli-
gions may be due to a lack of prominence within those groups.
Since student initiative is important for communities — like the Hillel Jewish Center — if no students express the need or desire to create a support or outreach program for Jewish gays and lesbians, there may never be one, said Rabbi Jonathon Klein, director of Hillel Jewish Center.
“1 am not aware of any gay or lesbian Jewish students on campus, but if they are there, we want them to have a place in our group,” Klein said. “We are an organization that prides itself that students are able to bring to the table whatever their interests are.”
Canterbury USC, the Episcopalian student group, does
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For more information on religious gay and lesbian support groups, contact the Office of Religious Life at (213) 740 6110.
Community program rebounds after funding lapse
"Many other after school programs have come to be during the past five years. The need for ASEP was not as key as in
the past."
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SAM MARK
assistant vice president for civic and community relations After School Enrichment Program
Enrichment After school organization revitalized as student-run group
By JEFF SKLAR
Contributing Writer
Despite losing its official university sponsorship and much of its funding, the After School Enrichment Program, which provides enrichment classes for local elementary school students, will continue as a student organization, said Sam Mark, assistant vice president for civic and community relations.
Since its founding five years ago, ASEP has offered arts and crafts, foreign language, computer skills and
other fine arts courses with funding from a USC Neighborhood Outreach grant However, because the grants are “meant primarily for the start up of a program” they are typically not renewed for a program’s sixth year, Mark said.
He also cited several other reasons why the program was discontinued, such as a decreased need for enrichment programs. “Many other after school programs have come to be during the past five years,” Mark said. “The need for ASEP was not as key as in the past”
Mark also said that school facilities in the Los Angeles Unified School District are not as readily available as in the past, and that his office would prefer to focus on aca-
demic, not enrichment programs.
However, when Nick Burger, a junior majoring in business administration who coordinated ASEP last year, approached Mark asking to continue the program, he agreed to help tjim it into a student-run organization.
So ASEP was reborn, but on a smaller scale. Mark is now ASEP’s
faculty adviser, and his office will still provide some funding and office space “to get the program off the ground again," but cuts in the program's scope were inevitable.
Without the grant, which provided the program with about $30,000 a year, the program will continue in only two elementary schools, 32nd St and Weemes, not five as in the
past. Also, participating students will no longer receive stipends for their work, but Mary Abdo, a junior majoring in cinema-television critical studies, and ASEP’s co-coordinator with Burger, sees the volun-teerism as a blessing.
“I’d prefer it stay volunteer because the commitment is greater, since people say they don’t need to be paid," Abdo said.
She said some students who worked in the program last year have expressed an interest in rejoining the program. ASEP also has the backing of the Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity, which wanted "a long-term project to which we could devote our energy," Abdo said.
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