ONLINE EXCLUSIVE The Daily Trojan catches up with the electro band Hyper Crush.
Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | VOL. 163, NO. 38 | www.dailytrojan.com wednESday, march 12, 2008
forging west
Two USC bands, Danger Bees and Charts and
Maps, head out on a West Coast tour. 7
Tandem of troy
Senior co-captains Jimmy Killian and Juan
Figueroa have led the men’s volley-ball
team to national recognition. 16
Cool Running
Albert Nguyen, a senior majoring
in health and humanity, grabs
some air at the K-Swiss free
running collegiate tour Tuesday
afternoon. K-Swiss is using the
tour to promote the sport of free
Jonathan Wong | Daily Trojan
running and to advertise its Ariake
line of shoes designed specifically
for free running.
Benefits of special
interest floors debated
By TAREN FUJIMOTO
Daily Trojan
Special interest floors offered
through TrojanHousing reflect the
desire of some students to live in fa-miliar
communities, students and ex-perts
said, but they also cause some
students to question whether they
are a restriction or a springboard for
integration into the larger USC Tro-jan
Family.
Journalism and communication
professor Félix Gutiérrez said he
thinks special interest floors will con-tinue
to be useful as long as there are
students who want to live on these
floors.
“I don’t see how it’s retarding,” he
said. “I think it gives students a place
where they can feel at home in an en-vironment
that reinforces their back-ground
and where they want to go in
their academic careers.”
Gutiérrez said it’s impossible to
graduate from USC without interact-ing
with people of races and cultures
different than one’s own.
“You didn’t come here to lose who
you are,” Gutiérrez said. “You come
here to build on who you are.”
Gutiérrez was involved in launch-ing
ethnic-themed houses at Stanford
University when he was an assistant
dean of students in the 1969-70 school
year, and is aware of the important
role such residence units play.
“The kids were very lonely and
spread out throughout campus,” he
said. “There were no Latino activities
for them.”
As campuses like USC seek to at-tract
a racially diverse student body,
white students are involved in organi-zations
that reflect their culture, but
minority students are not, he said.
According to the El Centro Chi-cano
website, “the floors” as they are
referred to, are open to “all students
who have an interest in the Latino
culture and those who want to expe-rience
their first year at USC in a sup-portive
and close-knit multicultural
community.”
The Latino floors, floors six and
seven in Fluor Tower, house 64 fresh-man
residents — 32 per floor — and
two residential advisors per floor, ac-cording
to the website.
There is also a Latino Floor
Alumni Fund, established in March
2003, to provide additional resources
for current residents and staff’s pro-gramming
needs. Interested indi-viduals
and parties are able to make a
tax-deductible donation, and 100 per-cent
of funds go directly to support-ing
student-initiated programs and
Faculty and students say
the floors give students a
home away from home.
| see special interest, page 11 |
Opinion | New hunting
classes reminiscent of
the past, writes columnist
Laura Reeve. PAGE 4
Housing co-op allows
tenants to make a profit
By KYLA SEGALA
Daily Trojan
As students make final deci-sions
about housing choices for
next year and rent prices continue
to climb, another alternative —
Figueroa Arms — the oldest co-op
in Los Angeles, gives students the
chance to be their own landlords.
Figueroa Arms, built in 1925,
allows students to buy an apart-ment
for an average of $200,000,
either up front or in regular in-stallments.
While living there,
students pay monthly dues of ap-proximately
$318 per month for
the apartment, which includes gas,
taxes, security and cable services.
When they move out, students
can sell the apartment and earn
interest.
A co-op is different from a typi-cal
apartment because the tenants
own the property. Students and
other residents are on the co-op
board, so when they want repairs
made, they don’t have to rely on a
landlord.
“It’s cheaper than paying a land-lord
and being at the whims of the
landlord,” said Maria Stallings,
the mother of a student who lives
at Figueroa Arms. “It gives par-ents
another alternative.”
When Farrah Farzaneh, a grad-uate
student in the construction
management program at Viterbi
and a real estate agent, transferred
to the Marshall School of Busi-ness
as an undergraduate student,
she leased an apartment through
Monthly payments on
Figueroa Arms apartments
go toward ownership.
| see figarms, page 11 |
DPS will patrol structures over break
By MARSHALL WILSON
Daily Trojan
With spring break just around
the corner, the Department of Pub-lic
Safety will increase its patrols to
keep crime low while students are
away, DPS officials said.
“Spring break, as well as winter
break, is a particularly vulnerable
time because students are away.
Opportunists know our break
schedules, and they take this time
to break into residential complexes
and cars,” DPS Officer Wyman
Thomas said.
Operation GIFT, which stands
for Group Initiative for Theft Pre-vention,
began in the winter of
2004. Its primary focus is reducing
vehicular crimes around campus.
Prior to 2004, DPS reduced nor-mal
patrols during university holi-days
and neglected off-campus uni-versity
housing, DPS officials said.
Operation GIFT, however, calls for
an increase in patrols.
“During breaks, people leave their
cars in driveways and in the streets,
so we came up with the idea that
if we remove those cars from the
streets and put them in the parking
structures, that would reduce the
amount of vehicular thefts,” Thom-as
said.
After its implementation, GIFT
was successful in reducing crime.
Prior to Operation Gift, there
were 30 automobile break-ins dur-ing
winter break in 2002, and 40 in
2003.
Automobile break-ins decreased
by 90 percent after GIFT was im-plemented,
dropping to just four
during the 2004 winter break. Eight
were committed in 2005.
With Operation GIFT’s success
in reducing auto burglaries, DPS ex-panded
its plan to include residen-tial
complexes.
In 2002 and 2003, there were 30
residential burglaries, 15 in 2002
and 15 in 2003.
After GIFT, that number was cut
in half with seven residential bur-glaries
in 2004 and eight in 2006.
“This clearly worked,” Thomas
said. “We had to keep this up, so
keeping in mind the success of the
plan during winter break, we decid-ed
to apply Operation GIFT during
spring break in 2005.
This place is like a ghost town
when the students are gone, so all of
Officers will continue
Operation GIFT to minimize
automobile break-ins.
| see DPS, page 11 |
Operation GIFT’s primary focus is to reduce vehicular
crimes.
• Prior to Operation GIFT, there
were 30 automobile break-ins
during winter break in 2002,
and 40 in 2003.
• Automobile break-ins decreased
by 90 percent after GIFT was
implemented, dropping to just
four during winter break of 2004,
compared to eight in 2005.
• With Operation GIFT’s
success in reducing auto
burglaries, DPS ex-panded
its plan to include
residential complexes.
• In 2002 and 2003, there
were 30 residential
burglaries, 15 in 2002
and 15 in 2003.
DPS’ Spring Break ‘GIFT’