Newspaper of the University of Southern California
Headlines
Mamiit wins NCAA crown
No. 3 USC men's tennis player Cecil Mamiit ended nis almost flawless freshman season as the first Trojan tennis player in 16 years to win the NCAA men's singles championship.
Sports, page 12
Going beyond the third wave
Staff writer Nik Trendowski reviews a few new album releases proving that Detroit—the birthplace of techno—is still pumping out industrial dance tracks better than ever,
Diversions, page 6
On the wrong track to higher learning
While districts and schcxils try to pump more funding for purchasing computers, editorial writer Amer Anabtawi questions the validity of educating students via computers and modem technology.
Viewpoint, page 4
Memorial service, free concerts
A memorial service for Patrick Kelly, a junior majoring in filmic writing, will be held at University Church Friday, May 31 at 11:00 a.m.
Student Affairs officials said that Kelly recently died in a car accident in Mexico.
•	••
A series of free concerts, as part of the UCLA Etnnomusicology Spring Festival will take place from May 30 to June 2 at Schoenberg Hall on the UCLA campus.
Presentations from 10 groups will include Asian, African and Balkan music.
New directors will be featured at the festival, including Francisco Aguabella and Naoko Terauchi.
Parking is available for the event in lot 2 for $5. For further information, call the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology at (310) 206-3033.
Guitarist wins money, honors
By Christian Cooper
Staff Writer
Daniel Smythe, a graduate student in the School of Music, recently won the $1200 First Prize Gibson Guitar award from the American String Teachers Association.
Smythe is a teaching assistant in the classical guitar department and is pursuing a masters degree.
He graduated summa sum laude with a degree in classical guitar performance from USC's School of Music in May 1995 and was named an Outstanding Graduate.
In addition, Smythe received an award from Pi Kappa Lambda, a music honors society, for outstanding academic achievement.
He first entered a local competition sponsored by the ASTA. After winning that competition, he proceeded to the state competition in San Diego, where he also won first prize.
Smythe said he then submitted a tape of his work for consideration for the national award. He was one of four finalists chosen to compete at the American String Teachers Association National Solo Competition, held April 17 to 19 In Kansas City.
Fifty-five students from 18 states and Canada competed in the final rounds of the competition
(See Guitarist, page 3)
Wednesday May 29,19% Vol.CXXVIII,No.3
Police investigate unexplained death
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By Melanie Asp
Editor-in-Chlef
A Los Angeles Homicide unit is investigating an unexplained death after university Department of Public Safety officers found a woman dead in a Troy Hall apartment on Tuesday, May 21.
Officers found the body of Sonia Hovsepian, a 27-year-old junior majoring in music, on the bedroom floor of her apartment. She had suffered wounds to the neck and held a small knife in her hand, but initial autopsy reports could not confirm the cause of death or whether it was suicide, an accidental death or homicide, said Bob Taylor, deputy chief of the Department of Public Safety.
A male acquaintance called around 11:10 p.m. Tuesday and prompted DPS officers to check on Hovsepian after he hadn't
heard from her in several days, Taylor said.
"When the officer opened the door, he smelled an odor and he knew it to be similar to that of a dead body," Taylor said.
Taylor said the DPS officer called for additional support on the scene and LAPD and fire department officers responded. LAFD officers were dismissed from the scene because they had tampered with a blanket that had been partially covering the body.
The body was partially decomposed when it was found.
"It was difficult to tell how or when she had died," Taylor said. Access statistics showed that the last time Hovsepian had swiped her USCard to enter the building was just after noon on May 16.
"She was laying on the floor on her back, ner clothes were intact, not torn," Taylor said. "There was no evidence of a
struggle or forced entry.... The room was secured and had not been ransacked,"
An L.A. County coroner arrived around 4 a.m. Wednesday and inspected wounds on Hovsepian's neck. Taylor described the wounds as lacerations with two separate entry points near the throat.
"They weren't real deep, " Taylor said. "They weren't puncture wounds."
Taylor said there was little external bleeding but that internal bleeding from the cuts could have been fatal.
Hovsepian also had a small kitchen knife, resembling a paring knife, in her right hand when officers found her body. Taylor said it was likely that she had the knife in her hand at the time of death.
There was blood on the blade of the knife, but the coroner has not confirmed whether the
blood was Hovsepian's or if the knife was even the same used to inflict the wounds on her neck.
The body underwent a complete autopsy Thursday, but the results of a toxicological exam, which tests bodily fluids, will not be released for another two weeks. A comparative analysis on the knife and the wounds will be released at that time, Taylor said.
Although the case is being handled by a homicide unit, Taylor said no one is considering that another person was involved in Hovsepian's death. According to a DPS information bulletin distributed campus-wide, unexplained deaths are routinely handled by the homicide department.
"There is nothing in this case pointing to criminal homicide," Taylor said. "We are not pursuing any suspects and the condi-
(See Death, page 2)
Kerckhoff loses floor to EC2
By Kamron Barron
City Editor
Grant bolsters media labs
By Antonia Barber
Assignment Editor
The School of Engineering received a $12.4 million grant last week from the National Science Foundation to host the nation's only multimedia research program for engineering.
The school was selected from among five other top research universities and the grant will provide funding for 30 faculty members and over 100 students working at the Integrated Media Systems Center. The center will create jobs in the private sector and is expected to bring in more than $30 million in additional grants, said Max Nikias, director of the center.
The multimedia lab uses computer, communications and entertainment technologies which are then put to use for Southern California production companies and on the Internet, Nikias said.
The National Science Foundation, the main federal government sponsor of scientific research, said one of the main reasons USC was chosen is for its large numbers of corporate sponsors and location, Nikias said.
Lynn Preston, the coordinator of the Engineering Research Center, said the university has a great advantage being in Los Angeles, the entertainment capital of the nation.
"I think we will become the world center for multimedia and research," said Chung Kuo, professor of electrical engineering. "We will have a lot of new first class equipment to do video display and these new technologies will attract a lot of outside companies to the university. We will see exchange of information and bring in many important visitors."
According to a recent projection in Project California Update, multimedia and creative technologies will represent a new total market of $40 billion by the year 2000, and $65 billion by the year 2010.
"Our clearly stated intention is for the center research structure to evolve during the first three years of operation from development of an identifiable technology base while examining the specific benefits and shortfalls," Nikias said.
During the past year the center's directors met with their industrial partners and collaborators and translated these
S>als into three interrelated thrusts. These rusts focus on the core advances needed in human-machine interfaces, multimedia networks, and distributed databases.
The $12.4 million will be distributed in a number of ways in the school of engineering and also in the center's other efforts, Kuo said. The center's other facilities, in addition to the 15 electrical engi-
(See Media, page 3)1
Brandan Hancock I Summar Trojan
Kerckhoff Apartments will host offices from the Egg Company 2 multimedia facility.
Beginning next week, the first floor of Kerckhoff Apartments will be renovated to create space for Egg Company 2, making what was originally student housing into incubator space, or a development lab, for the multimedia testbed facility.
Dr. Jon Goodman, executive director of EC2, said that since the three-floor apartment complex located on 27th Street was not entirely filled for the upcoming school year, the bottom floor would be available for use by EC2, which will use it to develop
(See Kerckhoff, page .1)