Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | www.dailytrojan.com | VOL. 168, NO. 43 | Monday October 26, 2009
InDEX
4 · Opinion
5 · Lifestyle
8 · Classifieds
10 · Crossword
12 · Sports
Classic rock: Thornton
celebrates 125th year with
Steve Miller band. PAGE 5
Coliseum shootout: USC’s win
against Oregon State was a high-scoring
affair. PAGE 12
By grace wong and alexandra tilsley
Daily Trojan
When Steven Philp ran for president of his frater-nity,
Beta Theta Pi, some of his fraternity brothers
opposed his campaign because of his sexual orien-tation.
“I know that one of the issues that was brought up
was, ‘Do we want a gay president? ’” Philp, a senior
majoring in creative writing said. “And a lot of mem-bers
said no.”
Philp said he heard members discussing whether,
with a gay president, Beta would be known as “the gay
fraternity.” Though he was eventually elected vice
president last year, his experiences as a gay member
of a fraternity have prompted him to speak out.
“It’s stepping into a really foreign and supposedly
hostile world,” Philp said. “Everyone knows the ste-reotypes.”
To make that world less foreign and hostile, the
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Assembly
and the LGBT Resource Center have hosted a panel
discussion featuring former and current gay frater-nity
members and social events in the last two weeks
to try to start a dialogue about how gay students are
treated in the Greek system.
But people involved with the events — both gay
and Greek — said some of the very misunderstand-ings
that necessitated the discussions may have hin-dered
their attempts at starting a dialogue.
The GLBTA and the LGBT Resource Center hosted
a SpeakOut panel discussion on Oct. 12. The GLBTA
had been in contact with the Interfraternity Council
via email during the summer, but eventually the
groups fell out of contact, according to IFC president
GLBT groups
face hurdles in
Greek relations
Communities aiming to increase awareness, but
miscommunications stand in the way.
| see discourse, page 2 |
Carlo Acenas | Daily Trojan
Right lane· Jared Shier (right) and Eric Bruins, members of the USC Cycling Club,
discuss LADOT’s proposed bicycle plan at an interactive public workshop Saturday.
By liz warden
Daily Trojan
To a commuter, Los Angeles may
be a huge city with clogged freeways
and constant bumper-to-bumper
traffic. But to a cyclist, it’s a city of
endless opportunity.
The Los Angeles Department of
Transportation is attempting to take
advantage of the city’s flat surfaces
and static climate to make it a bike-friendly
city with its 2009 bicycle
plan. The plan, which LADOT is pub-licizing
through a number of work-shops
offering members of the pub-lic
a chance to comment and make
suggestions, could alter roads across
the city, including a number of those
around USC.
The plan concentrates on making
a citywide bicycle transportation sys-tem
by building 696 miles of new bike
lanes — the 5-foot line on the side of
a regular street — and separate bike
paths. It also plans to install and im-prove
bike signage and parking, em-phasize
bike safety through edu-cation
and regulation and increase
efforts to fund the plan.
“[The 2009 bicycle plan] is a com-plete
revision of the 1996 and 2002
plans which were essentially the same
plan,” said Michelle Mowery, senior
project coordinator of bicycle plan-ning
and outreach of LADOT. “We
took information [from previous
plans] and figured out what was still
City aims
to increase
bicycle use
Plan would encourage usage
around USC by adding bike
lanes on Adams, Exposition.
| see bikes, page 3 |
By taylor friedman
Daily Trojan
Though the nationwide financial crisis
has had little effect on the university’s oper-ating
costs for this year, the $1.2 billion loss
endured by USC’s endowment over the last
year will likely have an impact on the school’s
spending for 2010, administrators say.
Until June 2007, the endowment, which
pays for 5 percent of the university’s opera-tions
and accumulates interest through var-ious
investments, enjoyed steady growth
leading to a high of $3.7 billion.
But it began a decline later that year, mir-roring
the first tremors of the worldwide
market crash, falling from $3.6 billion in
June 2008 to $2.4 billion by March 2009.
“All markets were down. International
stock markets were down, US stock markets
were down, so there was no place to hide,”
said USC associate senior vice president and
treasurer Ruth Wernig. “Everything pretty
much went down. Plus, we’re in the middle
of a credit crisis.”
USC aims for low risks and high returns
by diversifying its investment portfolio, with
substantial investments both in the United
States and abroad, Wernig said. Endowment
funds are also invested in real estate, ener-gy
investments, bonds, venture capital and
hedge funds.
Though the information for the most re-cent
financial quarter is still being compiled,
Wernig said the endowment rose slightly to
$2.5 billion in June, and showed improve-ment
in July, August and September as well.
Despite a $1.2 billion loss over the course
of a year, the administration minimized the
importance of the endowment for the uni-versity.
“It’s a significant loss for the endowment,
but a drop in the endowment does not have
a big effect on the university like it does at
other schools, so that’s a good thing,” Wernig
said.
USC’s interim senior vice president and
chief financial officer Robert Abeles said the
loss over the past few months did not affect
spending for this fiscal year, which ends June
30, 2010.
As with last year, $140 million, or 5 per-cent
of the endowment, will be spent.
The reason the endowment payout — the
amount the university uses on an annual ba-sis
— hasn’t decreased, Abeles said, is be-cause
USC calculates the payout based on
an average of the endowment value over the
past three years, rather than just the previ-ous
quarter.
This calculation, known as a rolling aver-age,
shields the university payout from year-to-
year fluctuations of the market.
Lawrence Picus, a professor of educa-tion
policy and finance at the Rossier School
of Education, said he would be surprised if
some schools don’t use a rolling average to
help smooth out fluctuations.
“By having a rolling average, it gives us a
soft landing when the value of the endow-ment
goes down,” Picus said. “It’s a strategy
to make sure that no one is badly hurt in bad
times and that we wisely think about how to
use the money in good [times].”
As a result, the endowment payout this
year still factored in gains made in the stock
market three years ago, nullifying some of
the losses from over the last year, Abeles said.
“The endowment went down a billion,
[but] no one has felt that effect yet because
we’ve kept the payout constant,” Wernig
said.
Next year, Abeles said, the endowment’s
decrease will have more of an impact on
spending because the worst months of the
Officials say university’s $1.2 billion endowment loss will only affect 2010
Administration says losses have little
effect on regular operating costs and
endowment funds are now rebounding.
| see money, page 3 |
June 2008: $3.6 Billion
March 2009: $2.4 Billion
January 2008: $2.7 Billion
September 2008: $3.2 Billion
University of Southern California
Total Endowment Value:
Leon Russo | Daily Trojan