NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Ctiangs of plans. Things haven't gone aa planned for the USC women'* soccer team, but it hopes that will change in the aecond half.	______1
hool Information Day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today on
talk with more than 100 graduate and professional itatives from graduate, law and allied health programs
Devoid of COk)f. The new movie "Pleasantville1 looks wonderfully bright but ia a bland utopia of 1950s American ideology.	*
throughout the country.
October 22, IMS Vol. CXXXV, No. SS
Employees call benefits change unfair
TllltlOII: Administrators say ne policy will improve skills, but staff feel options are limited
By DAVID KHALAF
Projects Editor
University administrators implemented a number of changes this summer in tuition benefits that staff members receive for working at the university, a move that surprised many USC employees and is still largely unknown to many students and faculty.
Administrators say discussions about benefit changes have been going on for nearly two years. But staff members were not convinced that the changes would really happen.
“Our impression was that it was stiU in a discussion stage when in fact the tuition assistance (change) was in the process of being implemented," said Steven Barnhart, director of student information systems and president of the staff assembly.
Staff members angry about the changes have written more than 150 letters, Barnhart said. He said he encouraged employees to send the letters to Senior Vice President for Administration Dennis Dougherty.
Tuition assistance is a benefits program that allows staff members and their families to take classes at USC at reduced or entirely compensated rates.
Under the old system, staff members could take six fully compensated units per semester from any department. Now, staff members can still take six units at no cost, but courses are limited to classes that staff employees take for a degree or are defined as work-related by supervisors. Changes do not apply to faculty members who have a different benefits package.
What this means is that employees will no longer be allowed to take a class for personal interest.
*1 know some employees who wanted to take painting, and I wanted to take Spanish classes this semester, but I didn’t pursue it because I knew I couldn’t,* said Maryam Seyedroodbari, payroll and personnel coordinator in student affairs.
But there have been advantages to the change as well. Under the old system, some children received foil tuition to USC and some received half, depending on the employee’s seniority. Now, all children of staff members can receive foil assistance.
“The university’s employee benefit package is among the most generous in higher education and is substantially more generous than benefit packages available to governmental or for-profit sector employees,* Dougherty wrote in a statement concerning the changes.
Administrators said that the changes have little impact on most of USC’s nearly 9,000 staff members.
‘Relatively few employees utilized the benefit to enroll in classes unrelated to career development or work-related training — less than three percent of the eligible work force,’ Dougherty wrote in his statement. ‘By eliminating central funding of these courses and reorienting the mechanism by which we provide work-related training, the university is able to save approximately $2 million annually.’
A large portion of the $2 million saved will go toward improving staff development courses, said Janis McEMowney, associate vice president of administrative operations.
These courses function to advance the skills of employees, including eveiything from handling emotions to learning business skills in the USC system.
This semester, the staff development department will offer for the first time courses in computing and English as a second language.
"We’re providing classes that are going to fill what we see as a gap," said Charlie Lane, director of staff
(see Tuition, page 3)
Monica Pietle I Dady Troian
Slowly but aural* Scott Denne, an undeclared sophomore, putts at Tuesday’s Collegiate Golf Experience Tour 98 on Trousdale Parkway.
Internet originator, USC employee dies
knowledge concerning networking.
“There probably isn’t another person we know who could have done what he did with the internet because of his patience and his vision."
Postel’s service to internet development began 30 years ago when he and a small group of computer scientists created the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, a precursor of the internet used today. He worked on software that connected hosts to the first ARPANet packet switch to route network traffic, and he helped install that switch in October 1969, marking the birth of the internet
As part of UCLA’s Network Management Center, he conducted tests and analysis on ARPANet. At age 25, he started a list of network protocol numbers on scraps of notebook paper which eventually led him to direct the federally financed Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.
Much of his life was devoted to coordinating and maintaining internet addresses and editing technical documents for the Request for Comments, a series of notes that often laid the foundation for technical standards governing the internet’s operation.
“One of his main contributions was editing these technical documents, and yet he had a very keen sense of humor," said Bob Braden, ISI project leader. "Every April (Fools’ Day) one of those documents would appear that wasn’t on the up and up, that wasn’t true — that was his humor showing through.
IMtury: Co-workers remember advancer of technologies for many awards and modesty
By SHARON STELLO
Staff Writer
Computer scientist Jonathan B. Postel, who helped create the internet, and worked at USC’s Information Sciences Institute, died Friday of complications following emergency heart surgery at St John's Hospital in Santa Monica. He was 55.
Postel, who lived in the Mar Vista district of Los Angeles, was co-director of the ISI’s Computer Networks Division in Marina del Rey. During his career, he helped develop internet protocols including the Domain Name System, File Transfer (which led to e-mail), Telnet and the basic internet protocol.
“Jon was a modest person, but a person of real substance and major accomplishment," said Ronald Ohlander, deputy director of ISI, who had worked with Postel since 1985.
“If you were to have a conversation with him, you wouldn’t find out about how many awards he had won, but rather you would find yourself entering into some technical discussion of mutual interest, which revealed the depth of his
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Born Aug. 6,1943, in Altadena, Calif., Postel earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering from UCLA in 1966 and 1968, respectively, and his doctorate in computer science in 1974.
In July, he received the International Telecommunication Union’s silver medal for contributions to the development of the Global Information Infrastructure. He was also a member of the Internet Society’s board of trustees and became the first recipient of the society’s Jonathan B. Postel Service Award.
Po6tel’s co-workers said he was a modest, casual man who always wore Birkenstocks and kept his hair and beard long.
"I don’t know if he even owned a suit," Braden said about Postel, who came to ISI in 1977. “He was generally
(see Obituary, page 2)