Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | www.dailytrojan.com | VOL. 166, NO. 64 | Monday April 27, 2009
InDEX
2 · News Digest
4 · Opinion
7 · Lifestyle
10 · Sudoku
12 · Classifieds
16 · Sports
Fish food: A review of L.A.
Live’s newest restaurant,
Rock’n Fish. PAGE 7
Chosen ones: Eleven former
Trojans are headed to the National
Football League. PAGE 16
By Nicole Dailo
Daily Trojan
An elite East Coast club has
just taken in some West Coast
talent: writer T.C. Boyle of the
USC College of Letters, Arts and
Sciences and composer Stephen
Hartke of the USC Thornton
School of Music were elected to
the American Academy of Arts
& Letters, an honor society of
the nation’s most distinguished
architects, artists, writers and
composers.
Founded in 1898, the Academy
keeps its membership static
at 250, with current members
only electing a few new mem-bers
upon the deaths of others.
Academicians remain members
for life, and election to the orga-nization
is considered by some to
be one of the highest forms of ar-tistic
recognition in the United
States.
Boyle and Hartke are the first
USC professors to be appointed
to the Academy and will be of-ficially
inducted May 20 in New
York City. They are two of only
nine members elected in 2009.
The Academy has honored
both professors with awards in
the past, but the esteem they re-ceived
for their respective ac-complishments
was enough to
Academy
elects USC
professors
The American Academy of
Arts and Letters only elects
members when others leave.
| see Academy, page 6 |
By ALEXANDRA TILSLEY
Daily Trojan
In a year in which crime made headlines, deaths shook
the USC community, and students, parents and others were
calling for increased safety measures, Department of Public
Safety officials said despite the perception that USC has be-come
more dangerous, crime rates on campus and in the area
are at record lows.
“In all of my 30-some-odd years of doing this on a campus
somewhere, I’ve never had such a dramatic set of incidents,”
said DPS Chief Carey Drayton.
Concern was sparked in September, when two sexual as-saults
in two days left students questioning their safety. Less
than two weeks later, Bryan Frost, a graduate student in the
USC School of Cinematic Arts, was fatally stabbed in an early
morning altercation in the North University Park area. Barely
more than a month later, USC freshman track star Bryshon
Nellum was shot in the leg outside of a nightclub north of
campus.
USC continued to make headlines in the spring with an of-ficer-
involved shooting that barricaded areas around campus
and then with a hit-and-run that killed freshman Adrianna
Bachan and severely injured freshman Marcus Garfinkle.
Now, as a fraternity on The Row faces a sexual assault inves-tigation,
the summation of the year’s events have raised con-cerns
about safety at USC.
“Parents from around the country were calling DPS about
DPS: Amount
of high-profile
crime ‘unusual’
DPS officials say despite this year’s incidents,
crime near campus has decreased 25 percent.
| see safety, page 3 |
By alexander yaseen
Daily Trojan
Starting this past Friday with a pres-ence
on Trousdale, a new student group,
KIVA@USC, is ramping up efforts to ed-ucate
students about an opportunity to
enact real change in the world.
The USC group is part of a larger
international organization, Kiva, which
connects individuals willing to issue in-terest-
free loans in amounts as little as
$25 to low-income entrepreneurs in de-veloping
countries.
Known as microfinance, this con-cept
utilizes small-scale loans to help
alleviate poverty and was started by
Muhammad Yunus, winner of the 2006
Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end
global poverty.
Through the process of microlend-ing,
Kiva brings microfinance to the in-dividual-
level.
“Having already been a big fan of
Kiva, I didn’t understand why more peo-ple
didn’t know about it,” said Raheem
Parpia, founder of KIVA@USC and a
junior majoring in international rela-tions.
KIVA@USC members lined Trousdale
Parkway, offering free pizza in an at-tempt
to interest students in hearing
about how they can impact the world.
“Most USC students care about issues
such as global poverty and want to help;
they just don’t know how,” Parpia said.
KIVA@USC hopes to meet this need
by educating students about how they
can help.
“We have a three-pronged mission,”
Parpia said. “We are attempting to raise
money to loan ourselves, to encourage
others to loan on their own, and to show
students that they really can make an
impact.”
Last month, Jessica Jackley, co-founder
of the international Kiva orga-nization,
came to campus for an event
hosted by the Lloyd Greif Center for
Entrepreneurial Studies. At the event,
she spoke about her experiences start-ing
the company, from facilitating loans
from a few friends to those in Africa
in the beginning to being featured on
Oprah and now loaning more than $70
million around the world.
“The whole system is really great be-cause
with only a $25 minimum loan,
just about anyone can get involved,”
said Devi Bajaj, vice president of fund-raising
for KIVA@USC and a junior ma-joring
in public policy, management,
and planning.
According to Bajaj, the KIVA@USC
Friday event is just the beginning. In
the next few weeks, the organization
will be having other events.
“We’re trying to expose people to this
wonderful idea, as it really sells itself,”
Parpia said. “With a little bit of money, a
USC student can enable a struggling in-dividual
in a developing country to ob-tain
the resources necessary to pull him
or herself up out of poverty.”
USC students said they agreed with
Parpia’s vision.
“I recently made a loan of $50 to Kuko
Agbayomi, an entrepreneur in Uganda.
The best part is that I can expect to get
the full $50 back so that I can make an-other
loan to another entrepreneur,”
said Cayla Cocanour, a freshman ma-joring
in comparative literature who re-cently
joined KIVA@USC.
Agbayomi has a business making
burglar-proof doors and used the loan
to buy materials necessary for the fab-rication
process.
So far, the KIVA@USC club has
helped to loan money to more than 50
struggling entrepreneurs like Agbayomi
through the combined donations of
members and other individuals.
“While this all sounds really good, we
continue to run into our share of prob-lems,”
Parpia said.
Students join international microfinancing effort
KIVA@USC has used donations to
provide loans to more than 50
entrepreneurs in developing nations.
Members of U-N-I performed during Gearfest at Bovard Saturday afternoon. The event was
hosted by the Black Student Assembly and Somerville Scholars and included a fashion show
with top designers such as Versace and Mother of London, and live music performances.
Geared up Nathaniel Gonzalez | Daily Trojan
Wednesday
A look at how crime near USC this year has affected
the university and its incoming class.
Thursday
The impact of this year’s crime and area safety on
local community members.
Check out the Daily Trojan’s coverage of how
this year has affected safety at USC.
| see Microlending, page 6 |
September 5: A female student was sexually
assaulted outside Cardinal Gardens.
September 6: A female student was sexually
assaulted outside Century Apartments.
September 18: Graduate student Bryan Frost
was fatally stabbed outside an apartment com-plex
near 28th Street and Orchard Avenue.
October 31: Freshman track star Bryshon
Nellum was shot, allegedly by members of the
Fruit Town Brims, in a drive-by shooting out-side
a nightclub near campus.
March 11: An officer-involved shooting at
Budlong and Adams boulevards resulted in the
death of one suspect after a four-hour man-hunt
forced students to remain indoors.
March 29: Freshman Adrianna Bachan was
killed and freshman Marcus Garfinkle severely
injured in a hit-and-run at the intersection of
Jefferson Boulevard and Hoover Street.
April 16: Lambda Chi Alpha was searched by
LAPD after a USC freshman reported she had
been sexually assaulted
at the fraternity two
days before.
UTION-POLICE LINE-DO NOT CROSS A C
High Profile Crimes at USC
Leon Russo | Daily Trojan
Crime & Safety