Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | www.dailytrojan.com | VOL. 165, NO. 20 | Wednesday September 24, 2008
InDEX
2 · News Digest
4 · Opinion
7 · Lifestyle
12 · Classifieds
14 · Crossword
16 · Sports
Passing Over: USC prepares
for top offense without one of its
defenders. PAGE 16
By Ariel edwards-levy
Daily Trojan
With the economy experiencing
an almost unprecedented level of
instability, panic and anxiety are
fueling cutbacks and buyouts at
many of America’s corporations
and small businesses — the very
businesses where USC’s seniors
hope to find jobs next year.
“Usually in the fall, all the stu-dents
are pretty excited about re-cruitment,”
said Julia Plotts, an
assistant professor of clinical fi-nance
and business economics at
the Marshall School of Business,
and the faculty adviser to the
Trojan Investing Society. “This
year is different. Students are
stressed and concerned.”
Investment banking firms,
which are among the first com-panies
to recruit in the fall, have
been hit the hardest by the market
slump. Merrill Lynch, which was
just bought by Bank of America,
has canceled its on-campus re-cruitment,
said Eileen Kohan,
executive director of the Career
Planning & Placement Center.
Even those firms doing well are
expected to hire laid-off work-ers
from other companies rather
than students entering the work-force,
Plotts said.
Jason Lee, a senior majoring in
business administration, said he
expected to know in the next two
weeks if he would find an invest-ment
banking job. If he does not
receive any job offers, he will be-gin
looking elsewhere.
“I probably wouldn’t have ap-plied
for any other jobs because I
For seniors, Wall
Street a scary scene
Several students had found jobs
with Lehman Brothers, but were
left in the cold as it imploded.
| see carer, page 14 |
By Kate mather
Daily Trojan
Undergraduate Student
Government members are waiting
to hear back from city officials after
learning that a study of the Hoover
and 28th Street crosswalk has been
completed.
USG President Jens Midthun said
he was informed of the completion
almost a week ago and was waiting
to hear the city’s final decision re-garding
the traffic light USG has re-quested
for the intersection.
Midthun said he expected to
hear from the city any day.
“Hopefully they took our ad-vice,”
he said. “We’re hoping they
say yes.”
Midthun met three weeks ago
with city officials and university ad-ministrators
about the intersection,
where the discussion focused on the
construction of a full stoplight.
The study will include the city’s
plan of action for the intersection,
and Midthun said if a stoplight is
approved, USG will focus on mak-ing
it a reality as quickly as possi-ble.
“They’ve [expedited] the process
for us, but normally the timeline is
very long,” Midthun said. “A lot of
times funding is the issue, so we’d
work to speed up that process by
asking for university help.”
Two people have been injured
while crossing the intersection in
the last month. On Aug. 25, a stu-dent
was struck while riding her bi-cycle.
Three weeks later, on Sept. 14,
a non-USC student visiting friends
for the weekend was also injured.
USG waits
on crosswalk
safety study
City officials have yet to reveal
the findings of their study on
the 28th and Hoover crosswalk.
By Steffi lau
Daily Trojan
As students walked to class
Tuesday morning, the USC chapter
of CalPIRG and Power Vote orga-nizers
kicked off a month-long ini-tiative
to gain student support for
environmental protection.
The USC campaign is part of
a nationwide initiative by Power
Vote, an initiative by the Energy
Action Coalition, to gain a voter
bloc of a million young people who
pledge to make environmental is-sues
a top priority in this year’s
presidential election.
“Young people are more educat-ed
about clean energy and already
strongly support it,” said Emily
Carroll, the California coordinator
of Power Vote. “So it’s really just a
matter of getting them to pledge.”
Power Vote is hitting 300 cam-puses
nationwide, including eight
in California, and has collected
150,000 votes so far, Carroll said.
At USC, CalPIRG and Power
Vote are teaming up to reach a goal
of 4,000 pledges from USC by the
end of October.
By 2 p.m. Tuesday, volunteers
were wrapping up the kickoff, hav-ing
received 150 pledges, short of
their goal of 250 pledges for the
day.
“Some students are very aware
of environmental issues, but there’s
also a lot of apathy on campus,”
said Shana Rappaport, CalPIRG di-rector
of campus climate change
and a senior majoring in communi-cation.
“I think it’s a problem with
how global warming is presented
as this big daunting problem that
they don’t feel they have capacity to
change.”
Carroll said her goal is to enlist
the support of 1 million young peo-ple
nationwide so that the voting
bloc can use its broad coalition to
steer the discussion of environmen-tal
issues.
“Having a youth voter bloc of 1
million is very powerful,” she said.
“That can make or break anyone’s
election.”
Although Power Vote is a non-partisan
group, the organization
wants to ensure that the elected
president remains committed to
the environment.
As part of its platform, Power
Vote promotes investment in mil-lions
of green jobs to improve the
environment and the economy.
Another key issue, Rappaport
said, is the ratification of the Kyoto
Protocol, a international trea-ty
by the United Nations in which
countries agree to cut greenhouse
gas emissions. Though the United
States is signed on to the Kyoto
Protocol, not ratifying it means it
is not bound to the treaty, making
Campus environmental groups seek support from students
Power Vote and USC CalPIRG
have seen a dramatic spike in
environmental interest.
| see vote, page 14 |
Jonathan Wong | Daily Trojan
Freewheelin’ · Organizers from USC CalPIRG and Power Vote can-vas
along Trousdale in hopes of enlisting support for the environment.
By Holly Villamagna
Daily Trojan
The University Park Health
Center is seeking to avoid many of
the setbacks traditionally associ-ated
with medical care — among
them, long lines and mountains of
paperwork — and pushing to make
doctor’s visits more efficient by us-ing
a new paperless system for stu-dent
health records.
USC has joined UCLA, UC Davis
and Stanford University in allow-ing
students to access their health
records online. Students can now
make primary care and men’s and
women’s health appointments up
to three weeks in advance on my-shr.
com.
The Health Center has upload-ed
many of the forms students are
required to fill out before they see
their doctor on the website so pa-tients
can print and fill them out
before they arrive at the Health
Center. This makes it easier for
clinicians to see their patients on
time, said Dr. Lawrence Neinstein,
executive director of the University
Park Health Center.
The site also has a messaging
function that reminds students
of their upcoming appointments.
The system also allows them to
Health Center goes digital, but not without kinks
Health Center has switched to
an online storage system for
patient health records.
| see records, page 14 |
Alexandra Tapley | Daily Trojan
Job scare · Many students, especially those enrolled at the Marshall School of Business, are reeling in the
wake of last week’s Wall Street meltdown, which destroyed thousands of jobs and left banks in shambles.
Topics: Daily Trojan co-sponsors
an election debate at 1 p.m.
Ahmanson Hall Room 238.