Survey reveals class of 1979 chose university for academics
By Diane Kessler
SUfT Writer
Are football, pretty girls and parties the only reasons for attending the university? The class of 1979 was surveyed in
1975	when as freshmen they chose academic and career interests as the major reasons for enrolling at the university.
The Office of Institutional Studies administered the survey to 527 randomly selected entering freshmen.
Of those surveyed, 80% chose the university because of its academic reputation. A degree from the university would help them to get a better job, 62% of those surveyed said. Students who indicated themselves probable majors in business and law rated the value of the degree obtained from the uni-
versity more importantly than all other career areas surveyed.
Financial aid programs affected more students at the university than those in other private institutions surveyed.
Receiving financial aid was considered important by 42% of university students compared to 26% of the students surveyed at other private institutions.
Students also said they attended the university because of advice from high school counselors, college representatives and friends.
Contact with students or
alumni of the university were important factors for more than one-half of the entire survey group.
Ethnic origin of students had no effect, however, op the rating of the importance of academic reputation for selection of the university, the survey showed.
Academic ability of students, as shown by their self-reported high school grade-point averages, also made little or no difference in their ratings of career-academic reasons for
choosing the university.
The influence of family and friends also had little effect upon college students differentiated by career objectives with the exception of students interested in^the health professions or journalism.
Financial and geographic considerations were another major reason for choosing the university.
Approximately two-thirds of the surveyed group received some amount of financial aid in the form of loans, grants or
scholarships. This group indicated that this was a major reason for their decision to attend the university.
The university was chosen by 27% of those surveyed because they wanted to live at home. The survey suggested that compared to other universities, students choose to stay at home because of the urban location of the university.
The survey is administered nationally each fall.
The American Council on Education Cooperative Institutional Research Program sponsors the survey to provide insight into the factors affecting those students who choose to attend college and their selection of a particular college.
$3.5-million grant donated for cancer research center
By Mike Schroeder
Staff Writer
A $3.5-million grant has been donated for the construction of the university’s proposed Cancer Research Institute at the Health Sciences Campus. President Hubbard told the President’s Advisory Council Friday that the grant nearly completes the financing of the center.
The donation by the Norris Foundation brings the university’s commitment to the project to $5.5 million out of the required $6 million, removing a major obstacle for che construction of the new research center.
Construction of the facility now has “one big hold up,” said Douglas Buckmaster, director of development for the cancer center.
A certificate of need is required from the state to begin construction under the terms of a law designed to “put the brakes on unrestricted hospital construction and the buying of medical equipment," Buckmaster said.
“In December, we made a major application fulfilling this law, and on Thursday a hearing will be held in lieu of a public meeting on the issue," Buckmaster said. The meeting will be held at the County Health Administration Building in Los Angeles.
Buckmaster expects no organized opposition to the project, though taxpayer groups fought a proposal to finance the project through property taxes in 1976.
The original project called for the county to contribute $34 million to the construction costs but was rejected when Proposition C, the tax measure dealing with the center, failed at the polls. (Although Proposition C received 57% voter approval, a two-thirds (66%) majority was necessary for passage.)
The only opposition expected this time might be from the hospital employees in the area who think that the center will take patients away from their facilities, Buckmaster said.
He explained that the center will act as a transfer facility for patients being treated at the County-USC Medical Center across the street from the proposed construction site.
The $16.5 million facility’s financing also includes an $11.88-million grant from the National Cancer Institute, an agency of the federal government.'
A 60-bed clinical investigative unit and an ambulatory patient-care facility are included in the center's day hospital. The care facility is equipped with tumor-research facilities worth $500,000.
Another hearing is needed following the public meeting, with construction not expected to begin before April, Buckmaster said.
Daily § Trojan
University of Southern California
Volume LXXIII, Number 16 Los Angeles, California	Thursday, March 2, 1978
Senate considers replacing New Activities and Services Agency
The Student Senate considered dissolving the New Activities and Services Agency in its meeting Wednesday.
As part of recommendations for a restructuring of programming and allocation of funds for student-run organizations, the agency would be replaced by a student services committee.
Three changes in the Campus Activities and Allocation Board were also considered in the recommendations. The board has jurisdiction over 75% of the funds collected from the student programming fee. The changes include alterations of funding criteria, the budget cycle and the structure of the allocation board.
“The most important feature of the restructuring of programming is it provides better programming and it makes it easier for groups of all kinds at USC, bringing students together across the differences in their groups,” said Dennis Al-fieri, a member of the Student Senate Affairs Committee.
Alfieri and Suzanne Nora, another committee member, worked last semester on the recommendations. They gained the assistance and advisement of all major campus student-oriented groups
in developing the recommendations.
The stuaent services included in the responsibilities of the new committee would be a financial aid handbook, a course guide, an experimental college (providing out-of-class instruction in special interest areas), a student survey and a contingency fund for other on-campus services.
The student survey would be taken yearly and used as the basis for student group programmers to determine the allocation of their funds, which are derived from the student programming fee.
Other recommendations included the creation of a campus-wide programming unit that would be responsible for allocation of funds for the University Speakers Committee, the Student Committee for Popular Entertainment, the Coffeehouse, Bovard Concerts Series and the Student Cultural Events Committee.
“In an overview, these changes will occur in three steps,” said Bill Dauster, Student Senate chairman. “The recommendations must be reviewed and approved by the Student Senate. Recruiting must begin next week for new committee appointments and then all this must be put into bylaw form.”
Shopping center repairs fire damage, adds new lessees
By Jim Saenz
Staff Writer
Three of six buildings located in the Campus Plaza complex that were damaged by fire are now in full operation.
The fire, which occurred Oct. 24, 1976, forced the shutdown of a laundromat. Radio Shack and a pharmacy located across the street from the university on Vermont Avenue.
During the reconstruction that began in April last year, Sorbonne Market, the coffee shop and the medical center were the only businesses in the complex that remained open.
“The pharmacy was the first business to reopen since it suffered only smoke damage,” said Edmund Wong, operator and property owner of the complex.
A photocopying shop has replaced the laundromat and the university’s Placement and Job Development Office is now in the space where Radio Shack used to be.
“The last I heard, the cause of the fire was ruled as arson," Wong said.
Police and insurance reports concluded someone entered the laundromat, stole some clothes and set fire to the place to cover it up, Wong said.
(continued on page 2)
IN BUSINESS — The Campus Plaza on Vermont Avenue is slowly but surely finding tenants to replace the spaces vacated at the center which was damaged by a fire
a year and a half ago. A photocopying shop and the university's Placement and Job Development Office are the complex's newest tenants. DT photo by Marsha Traeger.