Student Newspaper of the University of Southern California Since 1912 | www.dailytrojan.com | VOL. 174, NO. 57 | Friday November 11, 2011
InDEX 2 · Quick hits 4 · Opinion 5 · Sports Extra 8 · Classifieds 8 · Crossword 12 · Lifestyle
Find coverage of Saturday’s game against
Washington in our Sports Extra on Page 5.
Ani Kolangian | Daily Trojan
For ol’ ’SC
Senior cornerback Boomer Roepke assures the crowd at the Homecoming Rally that the
Trojans will defeat the Huskies on Saturday. The Office of Campus Activities hosted the rally
in the Galen Center as part of “All Bark, No Bite: Tirebiter’s Revenge” homecoming Week.
Employees
By Chandler Rabens
and Kenny Lee
Daily Trojan
About 75 students and USC Hospitality
workers attended a meet and greet host-ed
by Students Coalition Against Labor
Exploitation on Thursday night to raise
awareness about hospitality workers’ recent
grievances.
Workers have raised concerns about de-creased
hours in the last few months.
SCALE co-president Tandia Elijio said the
group is committed to creating a socially re-sponsible
university.
“We want these employees to know we
care about their issues, which is why we are
providing a forum to make their voices are
heard,” Elijio said.
SCALE members split attendees into
small discussion groups that included both
students and worker to facilitate better un-derstanding
of workers’ concerns among
students.
Julia Wang, co-president of SCALE, said
she hopes the issue can be resolved promptly,
stressing that student involvement is crucial.
“The best thing right now is for students
to get out and support the cause,” Wang said.
“The more people that know about the prob-lem,
the more people will act.”
Workers in attendance represented near-ly
every sector of USC Hospitality, from
Everybody’s Kitchen to the University Club.
Many said they have had their hours short-ened
from eight a day to as low as six.
Trinidad Leyva and Reyna Sanabria, who
have worked at EVK for more than 30 years,
expressed concern about the hour reduc-tions.
“The management claimed over the sum-mer
that we would get our hours back once
the students returned in the fall,” Leyva said.
SCALE hosts workers,
students for conversation
Unionized workers from USC
Hospitality discussed budget cutbacks
with administrators last month.
| see Workers, page 3 |
By Conrad Wilton
Daily Trojan
Protectors of Tommy Trojan,
the Victory Bell and USC
traditions, the USC Trojan
Knights are celebrating their 90th
anniversary this year.
Trojan Knights Alumni
Director Steve Johnson said
the knights will celebrate the
homecoming game the way they
celebrate all home games.
“We’ll wake up at 6 a.m.
Saturday, maybe earlier, to set up
the tailgate on Trousdale. Then
we’ll enjoy food, drinks and the
company of Helenes and alumni,”
Johnson said. “We’ll paint
ourselves at around 7:30 a.m. and
20 Knights bring the Victory Bell
to the Coliseum at 9 a.m.”
Johnson has attended USC
football games since he was 2
years old and has never heard
fans at the Los Angeles Memorial
Coliseum scream as loud as they
did during this season’s game
against Stanford.
“It was absolutely deafening,”
Johnson said. “It was a tough loss,
but the crowd was definitely a
factor in the game. If we can get
some of that intensity back for
this game against Washington, it
will help lead our team to victory.”
Trojan Knights President
Phillip Larson said despite the
football team’s 56-48 loss to
Stanford in triple overtime and
NCAA sanctions, the Trojan
Knights’ spirit and passion have
not been affected.
“Since 1921, we have been the
guardians of Trojan tradition and
school spirit,” Larson said. “The
spirit has only gotten stronger and
the sanctions have given Trojans
a banner to rally around because
bowl game or not, we’re still a
great team.”
Regardless of the football team’s
performance, in nine decades
of existence, the Trojan Knights
Trojan Knights celebrate 90 years at USC
Members of the Knights said
their brotherhood has grown
stronger over the years.
Spirit
Housing
By Rachel Bracker
Daily Trojan
West 27th Place was award-ed
platinum Leadership in Energy
Environment Development plati-num
certification Thursday, be-coming
the first housing complex
in Southern California to receive
the environmental recognition.
The U.S. Green Building Council
awards the LEED platinum certi-fication
to buildings that meet the
council’s highest standard of sus-tainability
features, according to a
press release from the management
of West 27th Place.
West 27th Place, located on
Figueroa Street, was built with the
goal of achieving the certification.
“We are honored to receive such
a high-level distinction from LEED
and hope that we can be trendset-ters
in having the remainder of the
student housing industry follow
suit,” Al Rabil, managing partner
of West 27th Place’s property group,
said in the release.
The building’s managers
estimate they cut 95 percent of
construction-related waste by
using modular building, a process
in which units are built off-site
and assembled at the building. The
complex has Energy Star-compliant
appliances, a salt water pool and
an irrigation system for water
conservation.
West 27th receives LEED
platinum certification
The building is the only LEED
platinum certified housing
that targets USC students.
Carlo Acenas | Daily Trojan
Gone green · West 27th Place was built with the goal of achieving
platinum certification, which has the strictest standards for
Photo courtesy of Steve Johnson
Traditions · The Trojan Knights, pictured here in the 1950s, have
worked to bolster school spirit, especially at football games, since 1921.
| see knights, page 2 |