ONLINE EXCLUSIVE Read about the Asian Pacific American community storytelling event.
Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | VOL. 163, NO. 32 | www.dailytrojan.com tuesday, march 4, 2008
Revolu tion Woes	
The School of Theatre presents a story about vio-lence
and family in 1970s South America
in “Thin Air: Tales from a Revolution.” 5
stil streaking
The No. 4 USC women’s water polo team
extended its home winning streak to
43 games with two weekend wins. 16
By ALEXANDER COMISAR
Daily Trojan
After waiting in line through
Friday night to sign leases with
Conquest Student Housing,
many students said they feel mis-treated
by the housing company,
citing instances of dishonest be-havior
and misleading prices.
Jack Friedman, a sophomore
majoring in business adminis-tration,
waited in line outside
the front entrance of Conquest’s
Tuscany complex, along with his
roommate and roughly 60 other
potential Conquest leasers.
When Friedman reached the
front of the line, he was told that
all of the leases for one-bedroom
apartments at The Bungalows, a
Conquest-owned complex on the
corner of Shrine Place and 32nd
Street, had been signed.
“We wanted The Bungalows
based on the prices we’d seen
online, but Conquest said they
were all filled, so we were going
to leave.”
Conquest Student Housing
remains secretive about its
increasing contract prices.
Conquest
leasing
prices
skyrocket
| see conquest, page 2 |
Students run in community election
By Kate Mather
Daily Trojan
Two USC students will be pay-ing
close attention to the North
Area Neighborhood Development
Council election results this eve-ning
as they are running for a rep-resentative
position in the council’s
election, which will be held from
noon to 8 p.m. today.
Max Slavkin, vice president of
the Undergraduate Student Gov-ernment,
and Josh Watson, a USC
graduate student, are two of the
four candidates running for two
Area 3 representative positions in
today’s election.
This is not the first time USC
students have run for representa-tive
positions on the council. Stu-dents
have been members for al-most
every term since the council’s
creation in 1999 and Watson is up
for re-election, having held the posi-tion
since 2005.
“There is a very positive experi-ence
one gets from serving the com-munity
and being an active citizen,
which is something I take very se-riously
and always have, which is
why I’m running for this again,”
said Watson, a doctoral candidate
for education.
Slavkin decided to run after see-ing
a growing overlap between the
community and university issues,
many of which he was working on
with USG.
“I didn’t know about the neigh-borhood
council until recently,”
Slavkin said. “I’ve been involved in
student government in a number
of community advisory councils,
and with the housing issues that
have crossed over more than usual,
I started seeing how much influence
the community has on students
and vice versa.”
As an Area 3 representative,
Slavkin or Watson would be re-sponsible
for serving the interests
of nearly 60,000 constituents dur-ing
a two-year term through com-mittee
and project work.
“Much like if you were a city
council member, you are supposed
to represent your constituents’ in-terests,”
said Sharon Stewart, an
at-large representative of the neigh-borhood
council and the director of
community outreach at USC. “You
should be representing the people
in that area in terms of what they
want done.”
According to the NANDC’s
website, USC comprises roughly
half of the size of Area 3. Addition-ally,
the university’s population of
33,500 students and 11,400 faculty
and staff members also comprises
a large portion of the district’s con-stituency.
“One mandate [of the neighbor-hood
councils] is you have to have
outreach to everybody, but particu-larly
to your major stakeholders,”
Stewart said. “If you look at the
Max Slavkin and Josh
Watson compete for two
positions on a local council.
| see council, page 11 |
Eric Wolfe | Daily Trojan
Dedicated Incumbent | Josh Watson hopes to be re-elected to the
North Area Neighborhood Development Council for a second term.
Students immune to fire alarms
By TAYLOR FRIEDMAN
Daily Trojan
Repeated false fire alarms on
campus, specifically in student res-idential
buildings, have left USC
students annoyed and immune to
the possibility of a real fire.
Over the weekend, Parkside
Residential College, Marks Tower
and Webb Tower had false fire
alarms. Each incident required
students to evacuate the building
and wait until the Los Angeles
Fire Department cleared the build-ing
for re-entry.
The weekend’s events are just a
snapshot of an ongoing trend at
residence halls throughout USC.
The Department of Public Safe-ty’s
Crime Incident Report indi-cates
there have been 46 false fire
alarms in residence halls and USC
housing apartments this academic
year.
Of the fire alarms, only one has
indicated a real fire. Twenty-five of
the activations were recorded as
having unknown causes.
Charles Hu, a freshman major-ing
in business administration
who lives in Birnkrant Residential
College, said he has not taken the
fire alarms seriously since the first
week of classes.
“I thought the alarm was real
the first time it went off during
Welcome Week,” Hu said. “But
then, we had another one the next
night, and since then, I’ve never
thought it was real.”
Hu said he no longer evacuates
Birnkrant when he hears the alarm
go off.
“I think, ‘Damn, not another
one,’” Hu said. “I listen to see if
other people are going downstairs.
If not, I wait it out. It’s easier to ig-nore
because it disrupts my sleep
False alarms went off in
Parkside, Marks and Webb
during the weekend.
| see Alarm, page 2 |
1 2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29
Fire Alarms: February 2008
1
2
8 9 10
6 7
3 4 5
Incident
Locations
1-Severance St.
2-Stabler Hall
3-New/North
4-Vista Appts.
5-Troy Hall
6-Portland St.
7-Troy Hall
8-Pacifi c Appts.
9-Delta Chi
9-Birnkrantw
10-AEPi
Sterilization law requires pet
neutering for dogs and cats
By SYANTANI CHAT ERJEE
Daily Trojan
An ordinance signed last week
by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will
require most Los Angeles cats and
dogs to be spayed or neutered by the
time they’re four months old, forcing
student pet owners at USC to take
on new responsibilities.
The law, signed Feb. 26, is ex-pected
to reduce the euthanization
of animals in Los Angeles animal
shelters.
In 2007, shelters in Los Angeles
euthanized 15,000 animals – 30 per-cent
of the animals taken in by the
shelters – at a cost of $2 million.
“By requiring that all cats and
dogs be spayed or neutered, we can
help to humanely decrease the num-ber
of pets abandoned and eutha-nized
each year,” Villaraigosa said in
a statement released last Tuesday.
The ordinance exempts animal
contestants, rescue or service ani-mals
and registered breeding ani-mals.
Violators of the law will be pe-nalized
and liable to a maximum of
40 hours of community service and
a $500 fine.
The ordinance emphasizes that
animal overpopulation is less of an
animal problem and more a people
Dogs and cats will be
required to be neutered
within four months of birth.
| see pets, page 14 |
Eric Wolfe | Daily Trojan
Enthusiastic Newcomer | Max Slavkin, USG Vice President, is cam-paigning
for one of two Area 3 positions.
Opinion |
Literary publications are a
lost form of competition,
writes Kartik Sreepada.
PAGE 4
Obama’s foreign policy
plan promotes talk over
war, writes columnist Tim
Strube. PAGE 4