Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | www.dailytrojan.com | VOL. 168, NO. 46 | Thursday October 29, 2009
InDEX
4 · Opinion
5 · Lifestyle
8 · Classifieds
10 · Crossword
11 · Sudoku
12 · Sports
Fear factor: Spider Pavilion
displays hundreds of live
arachnids. PAGE 5
Game saver: USC’s Kristin Olsen
has developed into one of the na-tion’s
best goalkeepers. PAGE 12
By sabena suri
Daily Trojan
In 2006, USC approved plans to replace the outdat-ed
University Park Health Center, which has just half
the space of health centers at comparable schools,
according to executive directory Dr. Lawrence
Neinstein.
But despite the major problems with the current
UPHC, the plans for the new health center have been
halted and the timeline for construction remains in-definite.
“This particular project was put on hold in the pre-construction
process,” said Robert Cooper, vice pro-vost
for planning and budget. “USC had a hiring and
salary freeze along with a construction freeze for
many projects. We couldn’t delay the campus center
and other things that were already in progress, but
this got put on hold.”
Neinstein said there has been debate about creat-ing
a new health center for almost 15 years. The cur-rent
health center, he said, is lacking compared to
other schools.
“The average standards are two or three exam
rooms per clinician, and we don’t even have one per
clinician,” Neinstein said.
The number of visits to the health center has in-creased
from 31,000 visits in 1995 to 81,000 visits last
year, Neinstein said. He said the health center is un-dersized
for the number of students it serves, and that
affects the f low of traffic and wait times.
“We want to offer what we should be having in a
health center,” Neinstein said. “For students, it’s go-ing
to offer shorter waiting times, more privacy and a
more state-of-the-art outpatient center.”
Though this new health center has been in the
works for a while, the struggling economy stopped
Plans for new
health center
at a standstill
Once built, the new health center will help
accommodate the growing number of visitors.
| see health, page 3 |
By laura cueva
Daily Trojan
USC’s Department of Public Safety
announced in September that they
would be cracking down on bike safe-ty
and security, but more than a month
later students continue to break the
rules of the road without consequence
and DPS says they don’t have the re-sources
to follow through.
“Quite frankly, there are so many
bicycles that it’s impractical,” DPS
Capt. David Carlisle said. “We would
impound more bicycles than we have
room to store.”
Early in the semester, DPS sent
emails warning students that bikes not
secured to racks would be impounded.
But students said they have not noticed
any change, and DPS says it simply
doesn’t have the resources necessary to
handle all bike offenses.
Unsecured bikes can be found all
over campus, but few are ever actually
impounded.
Instead of impounding, Carlisle said
DPS has been relocating bikes to areas
near racks.
In an effort to combat another bike
safety issue — riding in crosswalks and
on the wrong side of the street — DPS
also distributed f liers listing the “Rules
of the Road” and cautioned students
DPS stumped on enforcement of bike policies
Students continue to violate biking,
parking rules; DPS says it is not
equipped to fully resolve the issue.
| see bikes, page 3 |
By christianna kyriacou
Daily Trojan
As part of a continuing effort to
encourage discourse between stu-dents
and the local community,
two USC students were appoint-ed
to open spots on a local neigh-borhood
council, giving them the
chance to weigh in on current de-velopments
near the University
Park Campus.
The Empowerment Congress
North Area Neighborhood
Development Council, part of a
citywide system of local forums,
allows members of the public to
discuss and oversee the develop-ment
and growth of their individ-ual
districts.
“The fate of the campus and the
community is linked,” said Daniel
Wu, a senior majoring in interdis-ciplinary
studies in urban studies,
who was elected to the council .
Wu and Samantha Foley, a se-nior
majoring in political science
and international relations, were
selected earlier this semester to
fill open spots on the council, one
of which was previously filled by
alumnus Max Slavkin. Both said
they plan to contribute to the
neighborhood council by bridg-ing
the needs and concerns of stu-dents,
faculty and staff with those
of community members.
“I’m hoping to have a more co-hesive
environment between the
community and students and
bring the two groups together
a little more, to make the com-munity
more comfortable with
USC and vice versa,” said Foley,
who had previously served as
the director of campus affairs
for the Undergraduate Student
Government.
Foley said she joined to repre-sent
student interests and have a
greater impact on the community.
“We’re dealing with the issues
on a bigger scale than just the USC
campus,” she said.
Wu served alongside Foley in
USG as the assistant director of
diversity last year. He also helped
found the coalition of USC student
organizations known as Campus
and Community United last year.
CCU promotes campus and com-munity
partnerships, inclusion
and economic justice and works
to sustain neighborhood opportu-nity
through education, employ-ment
and affordable housing, Wu
said.
“He’s got a lot of ideas on how
to make the community more co-hesive
with the university,” Foley
said.
Wu said one of his goals in
joining NANDC is to transform
abandoned sites in the area into
community investments like a
neighborhood opportunity center.
“Perhaps USC can partner with
the Figueroa Corridor Land Trust
to developed mix-use retail and
affordable housing in that area
and to really create a win-win sit-uation,”
Wu said. “There’s always
more to be done.”
Wu and Foley started their
work with NANDC by serving on
the economic development com-mittee
to provide input and as-sistance
for its two main projects:
creating a campus and communi-ty
farmer’s market and advocating
select retailers for the University
Gateway development.
The committee was creat-ed
last year to address the needs
of local residents and to gather
Pair of students join council to bridge gap between USC, community
New council members add to
discourse on development of
university’s neighborhood.
| see Council, page 2 |
Mike Lee | Daily Trojan
Locked up · Jack Buntmann, an undecided sophomore, locks his bike in front of the Student Union, where there are no bike racks.
Though the Department of Public Safety threatened to impound all unsecured bikes, few students have had their bikes impounded.
Dieuwertje Kast | Daily Trojan
Discourse · Daniel Wu and Samantha Foley, both seniors, were
elected to the North Area Neighborhood Development Council.