Labeling USC and Its No. 1 Fan

The designation of USC President Steven Sample as “engineer-drummer-pitchman” is apt (“No Longer the University of Second Choice,” by Kenneth R. Weiss, Sept. 17). “Drummer” is a common term for a “traveling salesman”--the quintessential pitchman.

John J. Kuiper

Los Angeles

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Sample says that he doesn’t want USC to be the Harvard of the West or the Stanford of the South. I think a more noble aspiration would be for USC to become the UCLA of South-Central.

Richard W. Kruse

Hollywood

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We wish to correct impressions made in the Sample profile in reference to Pepperdine University. Pepperdine did not leave its original location as a result of the Watts disturbances. Pepperdine left its Los Angeles campus at 79th and Normandie in 1981 to accommodate its growing enrollment. This is some 16 years after the Watts riots.

Today Pepperdine is not isolated in the suburbs; there are five education centers. In Los Angeles County there are satellite centers in Malibu, Culver City and Encino. In Orange County there’s a center in Irvine and in Ventura County at Westlake Village. Pepperdine is proud of the diversity at all locations.

Abigail R. Salaway

Public Information Office

Pepperdine University