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Students Want Their Ethnic Studies
Ram Plaza rally holds cultural presentations and ensembles

By Laura Y. Ruiz
Guardsman Staff Writer

More than 350 students assembled at Ram Plaza on Friday, May 10 in support of recent demands to incorporate ethnic studies into the City College curriculum.

The rally was organized by the Student Coalition, a coalition comprised of different clubs including La Raza Unida, Black Student Union (BSU), Muslim Students Association (MSA), Women's Islamic Association, the Ethnic Studies Club and Pilipinos for Education, Art, Culture and Empowerment (PEACE).

Students held a rally in Ram Plaza Friday to support the incorporation of ethnic studies into the City College curriculum. The rally featured creative and cultural presentations in the forms of music, poetry and even breakdancing.

The coalition is supported by Asian American Studies, Asian Studies, African American Studies, Latin American Studies, Philippine Studies, Labor Studies and the Women's Studies departments. The coalition is demanding that more courses like English and History be incorporated into the curriculum so students may focus on "working class" people from different ethnic, gender and sexual orientation backgrounds.

The coalition also seeks the development of ethnic studies classes that introduce new and different methods of teaching. They are demanding ethnic studies classes that give students credit for community work and that teach how to do community organizing.

The coalition presented Chancellor Philip Day with their demands in a letter signed by the chairs of the sponsoring academic departments.

Nancy Hernandez of the coalition said, "We are here representing students who feel there needs to be representation of people of color, women and queer people." She also voiced the need for more teachers of color to be hired along with more full-time teaching positions in the supporting departments.

The rally also included creative and cultural presentations. Members of Loco Bloco, a drum and dance ensemble, opened the rally with beats that had even the shyest of the shy bopping their head to the captivating rhythm of the drums.

DJ TACTICS added to the musical offerings that kept the crowd inspired.

Off to one side of the stage area, Invisible Fire Movement, a youth-run organization run by youth artists, had a wall set up for graffiti artists to bring awareness to this pertinent social issue.

Irene, a member of 8^th Wonder, a collective of spoken word artists in the Bay Area, stated to the crowd, "We are here not asking, but demanding, not only ethnic studies, but the study of truth."

The Mission Science Project

By Janna Shackaroff
Guardsman Staff Writer

Children involved in the Mission Science Project are amazed at the many discoveries they make when analyzing dirt samples from between Highway 101 and Valencia Street in glass vials.

An after school science program with equal parts geology, biology, physics and good old-fashioned work might seem an unlikely destination for fifteen rambunctious elementary schoolers on a sunny San Francisco afternoon.

But this is no ordinary day care.

This is the Mission Science Workshop, a hands-on, free-form science educational program so stuffed with magic and discovery that it makes the Exploratorium seem dull and barren.

Bounding down a dilapidated City College hallway, a blur of school uniforms head for a door decorated with electrical boards, conglomerate rocks, mini fossils, clay figurines and a kid-crafted quilt announcing, "Taller de Ciencias. Mission Science Workshop."

The doors fly open and a cow skeleton -- and sequential pictures of its decay in a grassy field -- greets them just inside the door (Lesson: anatomy, life cycles, nutrient cycles, decomposition). The students gallop past this towering critter through the Reptile Zoo, Bone Alley, Sound Waves music, zillions of sciency posters of marine mammals, California earthquakes and plant anatomy before arriving at the workshop.

The third through fifth graders converge on the meeting room, shouting "Hello Kelly! Hello Eric! Hello..." to each of the educators. Ten are Thursday regulars. Five others crashed the program today, begging permission to enroll.

"He's really smart," educator Kelly Walsh said, nodding towards a fifth grader named Jose, who ran in yelping towards his nearly complete marble rollercoaster (Lesson: gravity, friction).

"And he's the kind that really needs this place," Walsh said, indicating a smaller boy named Cristián, who took a spin on the human-powered electricity machine on his way to the workshop. "Spending an afternoon here is sometimes much better than getting beat up by your brothers," she said of all of them.

A science haven focusing on low income, minority kids, the Mission Science Workshop has evolved over its ten years to be one of the most effective science educational tools of southeast San Francisco public schools.

The Workshop hosts daily after school programs graders, including Wednes-day's Girl's Science Club, as well as frequent field trips from South East San Francisco public school science classes. Most kids in the afternoon sessions sign up after attending a field trip.

"We make it very hands on because if we said 'wah wah wah... gravity... wah wah wah... physics' the kids would rebel," Walsh said, mimicking adult voices in Peanuts cartoons.

Depending on the student's moods, the educators may engage them in a bunch of small activities or more intensive projects. But today the schedule is set: continue last week's lessons in botany, photosynthesis, respiration, transpiration, water cycle, and life cycle.

Instead of one-dimensional lectures or two-dimensional books, students use hammers and jigsaws to build their own greenhouses (a home!) for seedlings they'd planted the week prior.

"Cristián's grew!" fifteen kids exclaimed as educators brought out the largest of the seedlings. Cristián climbed up on the table to get a better look at his creation and glanced worriedly at the plastic draped over the box.

"Doesn't it need to breathe?" he asked. Educators reassured him that the plastic kept conditions just right, like in a greenhouse.

Staff intern Jose Mendoza said that building greenhouses brought home a multi-layered message: the kids watched life develop, and they helped it in the process.

On a consistent and sustained basis, the after school program introduces females and minorities -- those statistically least likely to pursue higher degrees or careers in this discipline -- to fun and positive experiences in science.

"In regards to MSW, the great thing is that they may have kids coming out of schools that don't have strong enough programs to go to college," Skip Evans, spokesperson for the National Center for Science Education, said. "They may waffle, wondering if they're prepared to go to college, and it may affect them for the rest of their lives."

The kids also benefit from the education that supplements their beleaguered schools. "It's obviously invaluable to them," Evans said.

Fifth grader Clara comes to both Wednesday's Girl's Science Club and Thursday's after school program. The lone female this Thursday, she says she likes Wednesdays better because the girls do things like make ice cream and race snails.

"We found out that snails are stronger than people because they could pull five or six cars we taped to their backs. And a girl tried to pull other girls along the floor but she could only pull four. It's really fun here," Clara said.

Parents seem to like it, too.

One beaming family joined their son Leo, a 4th grader, in the woodshop. Leo doesn't like science class in school, his mother said, but he's thrilled about the Workshop. As she wandered in front of the geologic time scale mural, she said she hopes Leo will leave the Workshop with a love of learning.

Virtually every inch of the Workshop tells the tale of projects past.

Like a limestone cave adorned with stalactites and stalagmites, the MSW has steadily accreted ten years worth of exhibits within its 3000 square foot space. And it looks like an artifact from every science project is strung from the ceiling, taped to the walls and workbenches or stacked somewhere in between.

Founder and executive officer Dan Sudran, a "fossil geek, geo guy, and junk collector" according to his staff, built most of the exhibits himself.

"Dan collected it all personally and let it rot on his back porch," Walsh said with a grin. "He lives and breathes this place."

One of the biggest exhibits is Bone Alley, which is lined with whale baleen, bird skeletons, fossils of eons-old animals, and the evolution exhibit "Our bones have a story to tell (Lesson: evolution, anatomy, physiology, geology)."

The Sound Waves exhibit displays a junk yard of musical instruments, including bamboo flutes, pianos, steel drums, and several odd-shaped gourds (Lesson: wave dynamics, sound, physics).

Walsh said kids respond powerfully to the animals in The Zoo, where Maurice the blue-tongued Tasmanian skink and dozens of his reptile friends drape themselves over driftwood and rocks in mismatched aquariums (Lesson: animal husbandry, taxonomy, life cycles).

"To see (the kids) understand that animals encompass this whole area of science, that it's not going to hurt them, and they're not going to hurt it. That they can foster a connection with another living being, and that's science . . . ." With that understanding, educators know they've made an impact, Walsh said.

Aeronautics Bids Farewell to Veteran Teacher
City College Aeronautics Department to find replacement for tough-minded,
caring instructor in the spring of 2003

By Janna Shackaroff
Guardsman Staff Writer

After 32 years with the aeronautics department, "the gatekeeper" is retiring.
W. Stuart Millar, a stern yet loved instructor, is retiring at the end of the Spring 2002 semester. City College will have some big shoes to fill.

"It will be difficult to replace him," said Jorge E. Diaz, department chair o faeronautics.

Millar conducts his AIRC 102 class with a unique mix of humor and precision.

Diaz will begin interviewing for Millar's replacement during the Spring 2003 semester. Until then, the department has enough full-time and part-time teachers to cover Millar's classes.
Millar began teaching with the aeronautics department at its inception in 1970. He is revered by his colleagues, loved and abhorred by his students.

"I know a lot of students who are waiting for him to retire before taking the 102 class," aeronautics student Brendan Hayward said. Aircraft Maintenance 102 (Basic Electrical Systems), has been taught by Millar for the past 15 years and has become known as the class that determines whether a student will make it through the aeronautics program, earning him the title of "the gatekeeper."

"He is very concerned with the quality of the program," Diaz said. "Students know he's a tough teacher."
During a recent class, Millar displayed his friendly side by cracking jokes, while still living up to his tough reputation.

"If you haven't finished the assignment that is due today, you're delinquent. So you'd better stay after class and get it done," Millar says as he begins the AIRC 102 class.

Millar is strict yet caring. "There isn't anything he wouldn't do for you if he sees that you're trying," Hayward said.

Students who do not take his class seriously experience another side of Millar.
Another student, Antonio Dale Jr. agrees, describing an incident where Millar threw a chalkboard eraser across the room to get the attention of some rowdy students.

Millar is proud of his reputation. "The job of the aircraft mechanic is extremely important," he said. "The safety of the flight is dependent on the job of the mechanic. Any good pilot knows that."

Growing up during World War II, Millar remembers watching B24 Bombers and P38 Fighters flying over his Los Angeles area home. With an older brother in the Air Force, aviation was a natural career choice for Millar.

At the age of 14, Millar began his first flying lessons with the Civil Air Patrol Cadets. When he was 20, he worked as an aircraft mechanic at the Burbank airport. Millar finished his flight training in Chicago, Ill., and then moved to Seattle, where he flew seaplanes for about three years.

In 1968, Millar became a pilot for Pan American Airways, which brought him to San Francisco. He would have loved to continue flying, but the hours were long and the work unstable. After two years flying the South Pacific routes for Pan Am, he was furloughed.

In 1970 a friend told him about a teaching opportunity at City College's new aeronautics department. Initially, Millar had no interest in teaching, but it paid $200 more a year than being a pilot, so he figured he'd give it a try.
"I had no idea how much I'd love it," Millar said. "I get so much personal satisfaction teaching students who don't know a screwdriver from a hammer. They come out of this program with valuable skills and make good incomes."

In 1989, Millar was recalled by Pan Am, but he declined. He thinks he made a good decision to stay at City College since Pan Am went out of business two years later.
Millar is looking forward to his retirement. After his wife retires next year, they are moving to Washington to be closer to their children, who live in Seattle and Portland. His plans include spending time on a farm they have purchased and flying planes "when I feel like it."

Millar recently reminisced about his career and the reputation he has earned. "The lazy people hate my guts, the hard-working, dedicated students like me. I like being remembered like that."

A Park In the Hands of Magic

Photos by Charles Chan
Special to The Guardsman

A small man carved from a tree welcomes all with open arms into this magical place filled with plants, animals, and celebrities. Bushes of purple hydrangeas and other flowering plants with blooms of red, lavender and white, peek out from the windy dirt paths named the Garden of Eden and the New Trail of Hope.

This is Cayuga Park, which might have remained a weed-infested piece of property were it not for the work of one man.

Demetrio Braceros has single-handedly turned Cayuga Park (located minutes from City College) into a haven amidst a city of chaos.

Braceros, a city park employee, divides his time as a gardener between Cayuga Park and Alice Chalmer's Park, located on Brunswick. But Cayuga is the recipient of Braceros' gifted imagination and peaceful sculptures.

"One time, there was a storm that knocked down some of the trees there," he said. "I was motivated by carving them instead of putting them into the garbage."

One of those fallen trees became a tribute to John Lennon. It sits next to a bench constructed from branches and a shrub trimmed into the shape of a man's face with two pieces of tuft for the goatee. Many of Braceros' sculptures contain inspirational themes such as the shaking hands carved into the middle of a growing tree with the inscription "Peace be with You." Others, such as a dog carved out of thin perforated wood, seems like they are just for fun.

" I am very fond of art. I love art," Braceros said.

Braceros' art has garnered quite a bit of attention from local publications, such as The Independent, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, which named Cayuga Park "Best Folk-Art Garden in a City Park" in their 2001 Best of the Bay issue. The Guardian called the garden "a serene one, where plants and art work as equal partners, sensitively combined and balanced for a harmonious effect." Scott Ostler, columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle describes it as "an artistic and spiritual oasis."

And now, City College is taking notice of Cayuga Park. The Rosenberg Library is presenting an exhibition of photographs taken of the park by former City College student Charles Chan and his cousin, SFSU student Ian Chin. The park is so secluded even the photographers were unaware of its existence.

"I just thought it was a regular park with a few carvings," says Chan, "but when I got there, Geez! There were at least a hundred trails and carvings and gardens! There is some unique stuff out there."

Chin said his favorite sculpture is what he calls " ' the joker, ' a carving of a laughing man who is hiding behind some bushes," he says.

Cayuga's park wasn't always the apple of the neighborhood's eye. It's been a 16-year labor of love, taken on by Braceros. He was working at the Arboretum in Golden Gate Park before he was "awarded" the deserted, rundown park from a job raffle. Little by little, Braceros planted hydrangeas, canna and other tropical plants native to the Philippines, interspersing them with his beautiful carved creations, along with rocks painted with thoughtful phrases like "botany is the study of man." The result is a masterpiece of landscape design. Folks can play basketball or baseball, take courses in the recreational center, or just sit amidst the foliage in the garden and contemplate their navels.

In recent years, the park has had a few troubles, such as a bizarre case of hydrangea theft. Like other public areas, it is prone to occasional graffiti and littering. In spite of these issues, the park is less tattered than most areas.

"Demi (Demetrio Braceros) has set up this energy down there that commands respect and is respected pretty well," said Jo-Carol Davidson, president of the Cayuga Improvement Association (CIA).

The community is understandably concerned about what the state of the park will be once Braceros retires, and is looking into alternate care-takers for the garden.

"We need a successor. There is nobody to take care of it," said Davidson.

Davidson and fellow members of the CIA are working on possible ideas for alternate help. One option is to develop an intern program with the horticulture department at City College.

"What an opportunity it would be for teachers to teach students in a place like this," said Cindi Avanzino, a student at City College, resident of the neighborhood and frequent visitor of the park.

In the meantime, Braceros continues to create, sculpt and relay his message of peace and serenity.

"My only vision is to satisfy the people for the good of the city," he said.

And Braceros is doing just that for this tight-knit community.

"We all feel exceptionally lucky (because) he chose our park to breathe into and we will be forever grateful," said Jean Feilmoser, communications chair of the CIA and resident of the neighborhood since 1982. "It's foggy, windy, and cold out here in the 'Alemany Gap' wind tunnel, but Demi's sweet creations make our corner of San Francisco extra special."