Thursday April 23,1998 Vol. CXXXm, No. 65
Headlines
Looking at spring's athletic season
The defining moments of USC athletics during the spring semester, including tne men's basketball team's stunning overtime win over Arizona, are chronicled in a special photo essay.
Sports, page 28
'The Big Hit' forgot a big part
Although best work of Hong Kong director Che-Kirk Wong, "The Big Hit" starring Mark Wahlberg, Antonio Sabato Jr. and Christina Applegate is missing one big component — a good script.
■
Diversions, page 11
Giving gangstas a deserved bad rap
Gang members have been terrorizing their fellow citizens for too long, says Editorial Columnist Daniel Chantre, and their dangerous presence should not be kept preserved by legal means.
Viewpoint, page 4
F.Y.I.
Book talk, Filipino films
Lambda Grads, a division of the Gay, Lesbian and Bi
bly, will host a talk by Zsa Zsa Gershick on the book "Gay Old Girls: Lesbians Over Sixty Discuss Their Lives," from noon to 1:30 p.m. Friday in Topping Student Center, room l07.
For more information, e-mail rtchu@usc.edu.
• ••
Troy Philippines will hold the Filipino American Film Showcase from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. tonight in Edison Auditorium, located in Hoffman Hall. The headline film is "A Filipino in America," a USC student film made in 1938.
For more information, contact Patricio at (213) 764-9895.
•	••
The USC Opera will present "Albert Herring," a comic opera based on a de Maupassant short story, at 8 p.m. on April 24 and 25, and
2	p.m. on April 25 and 26, in Bing Theater.
For tickets and more information, call the USC Ticket Office at (213) 740-7111.
Newspaper of the University of Southern California
'Building on Excellence' goal met
The university's 5-year-old fundraising campaign "Building
on Excellence" has reached its endowment goal of $1 billion, according to University Advancement.
President Steven B. Sample said the university never anticipated reaching the goal so soon. "Reaching tne billion-dollar mark so soon is a tribute both to the generosity of the university's friends, and the hard work and dedication of our faculty and deans," he said.
Two gifts helped boost the endowment. Walter Annenberg gave $120 million to the university in 1993, which established the Annenberg School for Communication, which hosts both the communication and journalism school* This February, biomedical engineering mogul Alfred Mann pledged $100 million to establish the Alfred E. Mann Institute for Biomedical Engineering.
Sample said- that the two
donations were unprecedented in the history of higher education fundraising. No other university has received two gifts in the hundreds of millions in a single campaign.
Building on Excellence will continue until the year 2000, and a few administrators have been meeting to refine the plan for the rest of the fundraising campaign.
The original plan had a few
specific goals: "to add 100 new endowed chairs for professors
and administrators, increase the endowment for student scholarships and fellowships by $100 million, double tne annual alumni participation rate, provide $1/0 million in new funds for interdisciplinary teaching and research programs, and fund $200 million in renovation and new construction of state-of-the-art facilities," according to the web page.
—from staff reports
Kickin' it
M
Jessica Namakkal / Daily Troian
A World Cup soccer booth worker watches the kick-off contest in Wednesday's free Alumni Park kinchtkne events.
Program Board reflects on year
By Jonathan Cassidy
Staff Writer
Though the shutdown of Springfest lingers in the minds of students, the Program Board's directors consider this year a success.
Program Board does not keep attendance figures for its events, but Executive Director Phillip Morelock’s impression is that it has been higher this year than in the past.
"I wanted to try to reach every single student this year," said Morelock, who is a senior majoring in political science. "We tried to provide enough variety that each student could point to one and say, '1 liked this event.'"
Program Board, made up of 17 student groups, produces Springfest, pep rallies and concerts and invites speakers to campus. The 17 groups individually may produce events geared toward their memberships, but it is hoped these events stimulate the interest of those outside the group, Morelock said.
"In serving the USC commu-
nity, we need to keep in mind that the community is made up of smaller groups," Morelock said. "We try to integrate the missions of serving the individual communities in forums that appeal to a diversity of people."
Morelock cited Anita Hill’s appearance as appealing to African-Americans and women interested in issues of race, sex or power, while also drawing those with a more general interest in American politics,
Program Board's events are not always intended to be educational, Morelock said.
"We're here to help students enjoy their USC experience," Morelock said. "Concerts are what students remember most. We can touch more students with them, so we really tried to improve our concert series this year."
This year saw performances by De La Soul, Mack 10, Big Bad Voodoo Daddies, Buck-O-Nine, Blink-182, Tha Alkaholiks and the WhoRidas, as well as appearances by Hill, Robert Kennedy Jr., Rita Marley and Bill
(See Program, page 2)
ms
Asian students aided with tuition costs
By Ben Berkowitz
Assistant City Editor
The Office of International Services is in the process of nominating students from certain Asian countries for two programs that will help them defray tuition costs in the wake of the current Asian financial crisis, which has devaluated the value of several Asian currencies in exchange rates with the U.S. dollar.
The ASEAN Student Assistance Awards Program is a grant, and ASIA-HELP is a loan.
"This is national in scope," said Dixon Johnson, the executive director of OIS.
ASAAP will give students grants of $2,000 to $5,000. One requirement of the grants is that
ASIA-HELP Requirements
ASIA-HELP
•	Open to students from Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand
•	Must graduate by end of '99-‘00 school year
•	Must remain enrolled for the full academic year
•	Minimum 3.2 GPA required
•	All majors eligible
•	Permanent residents not eligible
•	Loan carries no interest, and must be repaid within three years
the student's department provide matching funds. Laurie Cox, a counselor for OIS, said that the Office of the Provost has agreed to supply those funds.
Students cannot apply for the grant themselves. The nominees must be selected by OIS, which is allowed to nominate eight students.
ASEAN Award Requirements
ASEAN Student Assistance Awards Program
•	Open to students from Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand
•	Must be juniors, seniors or master’s degree candidates in ’98-’99
•	Minimum 3.2 GPA (3.5 preferred)
•	Must remain enrolled for the entire academic year
•	Open to business, physical science, computer science and engineering majors
•	Permanent residents not eligible
•	Students currently receiving U.S. government assistance not eligible
student; the office is allowed a total of four nominations.
An informational meeting will be held at 3 p.m. Monday in Topping Student Center, rooms 204 through 206.
Johnson said that the impact of the financial crisis in Asia has not yet had a major impact at USC.
'The dropout data was not as severe as expected between fall and spring (of '97 and '98)," Johnson said. “What we expect is that there will be a significant fall-off between this year and next fall."
There are currently 220 Indonesian, 578 Korean, 46 Malaysian, 30 Filipino and 105 Thai students enrolled in the
■sity.
spring of this academic year, 18 Indonesians and four Thais withdrew from the university.
Johnson said that in total there were approximately 150 students who could not pay their tuition bill at the start of this year because of the crisis.
He specifically cited South
(See Aid, page 8)
"Unfortunately, some of our other Asian nations are not covered," Cox said.
Students may not at directly for the ASIA-HELP I either. OIS must nominate the
apply
’loan