ONLINE EXCLUSIVE Read coverage of award-winning comedian John Lithgow’s campus poetry reading.
Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | VOL. 163, NO. 25 | www.dailytrojan.com friday, february 22, 2008
lights, camera, actionless
The Best Picture Oscar nominees are less flashy
and more mature than in previous years. 5
Duck season
The USC women’s basketball team beats
Oregon on the road Thursday night. 12
BY HOLLY VILLAM AG NA
Daily Trojan
Students walking toward Every-body’s
Kitchen on Thursday after-noon
were greeted with a new, more
environmentally friendly choice for
meals after USC’s first on-campus
Trojan Fresh Market set up shop on
the EVK patio.
The market, which will be held
from noon to 4 p.m. one Thursday
each month, will normally be held
in McCarthy Quad, but organizers
moved its location in response to
concerns about rain.
Environment 1st, a student or-ganization
dedicated to promot-ing
environmental awareness and
sustainability on campus, first pro-posed
the market’s creation to ad-ministrators
last year.
“It’s something a lot of people in
the club have wanted to do,” said
Maddie Chavez, a junior majoring
in creative writing and co-president
of the club. “It’s been a long road,
but it’s finally come together.”
The market offered students lo-cally
produced fruits, vegetables
and cheeses purchased Wednesday
from a farmer’s market in Santa
Monica. Fresh flowers, organic
chocolate and rice cakes from Hos-pitality’s
health food distributor
were also sold.
Students had the option of pay-ing
for their purchases with cash,
discretionary or dining dollars.
One of the main goals of the
farmer’s market is to improve
campus sustainability, said Jessica
Starr, a freshman majoring in busi-ness
administration, who heads
the farmer’s market committee. By
choosing to buy local products, stu-dents
are cutting down on carbon
emissions tied to transporting pro-duce
across the country.
“The food industry has a major
impact on the environment,” Starr
said. “I don’t think people think
about how far their food has trav-eled
before it ended up on their
plates.”
Starr said farmer’s markets pro-mote
organic products, which elim-inate
the use of chemicals that may
be harmful to the environment.
“It’s an important message and a
better product,” Chavez said.
Students said the market helped
fill a need for fresh produce that are
not fulfilled by current on-campus
dining options.
“I love that there’s more selection
here than at the dining halls, and a
lot of it is better quality,” said Kayla-
Jo Rosoff, a freshman majoring in
cinema-television critical studies.
Starr said that exposure to or-ganic
products might encourage
students to rethink the types of
produce they buy.
“Many students don’t have the
opportunity to taste the difference
between fresh, organic produce and
what is available at most supermar-kets
where students shop,” Starr
said.
Environment 1st promoted the
event primarily through Facebook,
and event organizers said they were
pleased with the turnout.
Lore Oehmichen, senior manag-er
of Hospitality Services, said 160
Rain threats forced the first
on-campus fresh market to
move to a smaller location.
USC farmer’s market debuts
| see market, page 3 |
By ANITA LITLE
Daily Trojan
After a week of nation wide
school violence that culminated
in the Feb. 13 Northern Illinois
University shooting that left six
students and faculty dead, the De-partment
of Public Safety has been
forced to re-evaluate its own emer-gency
alert system.
TrojansAlert, USC’s emergency
alert system that allows university
officials to send 18,000 text mes-sages
per minute, was implement-ed
in response to the Virginia Tech
shootings last April.
“It can cover the entire campus
in just a matter of minutes,” DPS
Capt. David Carlisle said.
TrojansAlert is a free system that
can send students messages, noti-fying
them of where to go and what
to do in case of an emergency.
Since most students own some
form of electronic communication
device, this is the fastest way to
provide vital information to a large
student body. But said there are
doubts whether TrojansAlert alone
would be sufficient to protect stu-dents
in an emergency.
Northern Illinois University
shooting prompts study of
the TrojansAlert system.
DPS
reviews
alert
system
| see alert, page 3 |
By DANIEL DOPERLASKI
Daily Trojan
With graduation still three
months away, USC named Robert
Iger, the president and chief execu-tive
officer of The Walt Disney Co.,
the speaker for May 16th’s Com-mencement
Ceremony.
Iger began his career as a weath-erman
for a small New York televi-sion
station and started working at
ABC in 1978. By 1994, he was the
president and chief operating officer
of Capitol Cities/ABC and played
a crucial role in the 1996 merger of
ABC and Disney.
“I was hoping [USC] would have
someone with substance,” said Ori-anna
Scafidi, a senior majoring in
cinema-television production. “I feel
that Iger is someone I can feed off
of.”
In 2005, Iger faced a very public
corporate shake-up when he became
head of The Walt Disney Co., after
Disney shareholders voted not to re-elect
longtime chief executive officer
Michael Eisner to the board of direc-tors.
Eisner was Iger’s former boss
and the man who hand picked Iger
as his successor.
Since then, Iger has tried to
smooth out the ripples caused by
Eisner’s departure while expanding
Disney’s reach. He recently brokered
a $7.4 billion merger with Pixar,
which is now part of the Disney Co.
along with ESPN and ABC.
Iger is also a trustee of the Ameri-can
Film Institute and on the board
of directors at the Lincoln Institute
for the performing arts.
But aside from tales of corpo-rate
mergers and insight into the
machinery of media conglomerates,
some students wonder what advice
Iger can give a diverse graduating
class.
“Hopefully his speech will be
broad and sweeping, not just ex-clusively
for business majors,” said
Matt Getz, a senior double majoring
in biochemistry and marine and en-vironmental
biology.
Getz said he was confident in
USC’s decision, though, and that
USC usually chooses people with
broad appeal.
Margo Apostolos, chair of the
honorary degree committee, who
picks the commencement speaker,
said this is the case with Iger.
“His work touches all of us,” she
said. “He is a significant and promi-nent
figure not only in Los Angeles,
but nationwide.”
Apostolos said she was unable to
comment about whether the com-mittee
was considering anyone else
because the committee’s work is
confidential.
Since Iger does not have the
Robert Iger, president of The Walt Disney Company, will
be the speaker at USC’s 125th Commencement Ceremony.
2008 Commencement speaker announced
| see speech, page 2 |
Nicholas Muellereile | Daily Trojan
Fresh | Students and staff browse the produce available at USC’s
first farmer’s market Thursday in front of Everybody’s Kitchen.
Ten years of
commencement:
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Bill
Cosby
Warren
Christopher
Michael
Eisner
Barry
Munitz
David
Halberstam
John
McCain
Antonio
Villaraigosa
Ruth
Simmons
Neil
Armstrong
Ted
Koppel
OPINION »
Reality TV brings the
LGBT community into
the mainstream, writes
columnist Amy Baack.
PAGE 4
SPORTS »
The No. 7 USC men’s
tennis team looks to
extend its home winning
streak to 21 against
Arizona today at 1:30 p.m.
PAGE 12