Tuesday
February 15,1994 Vol. CXXII, No. 24
Weather
Today will be another beautiful but slightly chilly day, full of sunshine and blue skies, The temperature will reach a high in the 70s and drop to a low in the 50s.
Inside
Checking out man inside ‘Fool Moon’
The physical antics and unpredictability of the series of sketches that comprise "Fool Moon" keep audience members clutching their sides (and their hair) in uncontrollable hysterics.
Diversions, page 8
Football players hurt in accident
A linebacker on the USC squad is fine and two former Trojans are in guarded condition after an accident on the 101 Freeway near Calabasas early yesterday morning.
Sports, page 16
Credit crunch coming in 1995
Do you have any investments in the federal government? It might be a wise choice now, but be careful of a massive default on what the government may owe us.
Viewpoint, page 4
F.Y.I.
Engineering job and career fair
There will be an Engineering Career and Job Search Seminar on Wednesday, Feb. 16, from 6 to 8 p.m. in SGM 124. The seminar is free and will cover effective job search skills and methods, employment and information interviewing techniques, job and internship opportunities and mock job interviews. All students may attend.
The seminar is presented by Steve Cheney-Rice, assistant director of the USC Career Development Center, and Bill James, Senior Manager of TRW Space & Electronics Group. For more information, call Imad Sakka at (213) 730-8190.
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Safety concerns close Embassy
Risk of quake damage forces students to move
By Nik Trendowski
Staff Writer
Students at the Embassy Residential College were informed Sunday night that they would have to move due to safety concerns about the building's inside walls and outside architectural details in the event of a stronger earthquake.
One hundred and fifty students will have until the end of the week to move out of the building.
After the Northridge earthquake, the building, which has been owned by USC since
the spring of 1987, was inspected for structural damage, said Kristine Dillon, associate vice president for student affairs.
The building was built in 1914 with a steel frame encased in concrete, meaning it did not have to be reinforced to meet current city building codes.
The inspection revealed no structural damage except to the auditorium and dome. However, concerns emerged about inner partition walls made of hollow clay masonry that could shatter and impede
exit. Also, decorative work on the facade could fall in a stronger earthquake.
"We prefer to err in the direction of extreme caution," said Thomas Moran, vice president for business affairs.
Previously, the university tried to sell the building but took it off the market last month.
Dillon said she saw no connection between students moving out and the attempted sale other than that both apply to the same building.
Residents of the building were called Sunday afternoon
to a meeting the same night.
"If it takes four weeks after the earthquake to decide, more than a half hour's notice would have been appropriate," said Timothy O'Brien, a graduate student in screenw-riting who lives in the complex.
Dillon said the decision to vacate Embassy was not finalized until Sunday afternoon, and administrators did not want to meet with students until the decision was finalized.
Kevin Starr, faculty master at Embassy and professor of urban and regional planning, said he was informed about (See Embassy, page 3)
Touch-tone change too late for student
By Kim Smith
Staff Writer
A new registration policy allowing students to change their six-digit touch-tone access code was designed to give students more security in their class schedule and their grade reports. But the change, made last semester, came too late for at least one student.
Christian Boatsman, a graduate student in the cinema school, went to the cashier's office on Tuesday, Feb. 8, to ask about the tuition remission he receives as a teaching assistant. Instead the cashier gave him a refund for the entire semester.
"I said, 'What's this?' and the cashier said, 'That's your cash return for the classes you dropped,' " Boatsman said. "I found out that on Jan. 28, someone had gotten hold of my registration and my birthdate and had tried to drop all of my classes."
Boatsman said the culprit had been unable to drop all of Boats-man's classes, which would withdraw him from the university, but had left Boatsman with
a schedule of one class of two credits.
The new system, allowing students to alter their codes from their birth dates to a sixdigit number of their choice, worked against Boatsman.
"He (the culprit) changed my password to something completely unknown, so even if I'd found out about the drop, I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it," Boatsman said. "1 was livid, I still am."
Boatsman went to the registrar's office to get his classes rescheduled and was told he would have to file a petition with the academic review department, per university policy, since the deadline for adding classes had passed. Academic petitions require professors' approval for adding classes, a $100 petition fee and up to 10 working days for processing, according to a department spokesman. They are only granted in cases with extenuating circumstances.
Boatsman said the university response varied greatly while he
(See Boatsman, page 3)
For that special someone
i %
Raglna Tao / Dally Tro|an
Julie Lukasko, a senior majoring in International relations and French, picks out Valentine's Day flowers for her roommate.
Numbers down, but applicant quality up
By Nik Trendowski
Staff Writer
The prospective class of 1998 has returned its applications, and the academic quality of the applicants who have so far been analyzed has risen over last year, said the university admissions office.
Although there has been a 9 percent drop in freshman applications to about 10,600, Duncan Murdoch, director of admissions, said the mean grade point average of the applicants has risen over two-tenths of a point since last year, from 3.66 to 3.88, and the average SAT score has remained steady.
"The quality of the class is just stunning," Murdoch said.
This has enabled the university to admit more students than it had last year at this time; 4,600 admissions compared with 4,200, Murdoch said.
Applications from California are up, but domestic out-of-state applications have dropped 22 percent, contributing to much of the overall application drop, Murdoch said. Out-of-state students make up about 35 percent of the student population.
"That doesn't mean we'll end up with a 22 percent drop in enrolled out-of-state students," Murdoch said. "We think that students who have applied have thought through the entire cumulative events that have happened in California, (and) the faint of heart did not apply," he said.
Murdoch noted that, usually, a high percentage of accepted California applicants enroll at USC, partially offsetting the decline in out-of-state applications.
The total number of transfer applications received is about 2,400, up 22 percent over last year.
Murdoch said there was no discernible trend in the majors applicants chose, but the decline in applications may be noticeable in the larger schools, such as business, engineering and LAS, although more applicants have been admitted in these units than last year.
"It's not over yet," Joe Allen, vice provost for recruitment, said, noting some applications had not yet been considered in the trends study. They are not included in the above statistics of accepted students.
Murdoch said the potential downsid of having such an academically strong appli cant pool is that many will be accepted at other universities as well and have more options.
Murdoch said aggressive conversion activities were planned to encourage students to (See Applicants, page 3)