Volume 142, Issue #7
.
News
MILITARY RECRUITERS, POLICE SQUARE OFF OVER CAMPUS ACCESS
BY
JOHN SERVATIUS
Staff Writer
Continuing conflict with military recruiters, City College authorities and the Associated Students’ has resulted in the drafting of a detailed letter explaining the college’s policies toward military recruiters and other solicitors.
On Nov. 8, during its weekly meeting, the City College Associated Student Council approved a final draft and mailing of the letter to all military recruiters and other solicitors who visit the Ocean campus.
The letter states that they are only allowed to occupy an information table at Ram Plaza and are not allowed to walk around campus soliciting and passing out literature.
The letter will be sent once its language is reviewed by City College attorneys, according to Julia Waters, vice president of the Inter-club Council.
Two incidents in September involving uniformed U.S. Army personnel spurred the ASC to action, according to Skip Fotch, associate dean of student activities.
Recruiters were spotted in the plaza between the Arts Extension and the Creative Arts building approaching students and handing out pamphlets, Fotch said, which he noted was a clear violation of college policy.
“I was in my office when two students notified me that there were military recruiters,” said AS President Anthony Navarro.
Navarro said he walked to the area where the soldiers had been seen, then escorted them to the Student Activities office and explained college policy.
“They said O.K. and signed the paper. The next day Julia (Waters) saw them on campus again. Skip (Fotch) called the cops,” Navarro said.
Fotch said he and a campus police sergeant then appeared at the scene.
“The policy is very clear and succinct — they must give five days notice before coming on campus. They claimed they were not recruiting,” Fotch said.
He added that the recruiters claimed they were interested in signing up for classes.
“There’s a sense of integrity I expect,” Fotch said.
“The cops told them that they should leave campus.”
Fotch said Army recruiter Sgt. Martin Strand told him: “ ‘I don’t need to follow your policy, because it’s a violation of federal law.’ ”
City College Chief of Police Carl S. Koehler then arrived and appealed to
Strand, telling him that he, Koehler, was a Navy veteran.
“He was passionate, but not impolite. The corporal with him shook my hand,” Koehler said.
The pair then left campus after a call to their superior, he said.
Now Strand stands on the sidewalk most days, on public property, outside the bookstore annex on Phelan Ave.
“I complied to the rules once the rules were made known to me,” Strand said in a telephone interview with The Guardsman.
e-mail: jservatius@theguardsman.com
SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF HEALTHFULNESS
BY ELIZABETH SKOW
STAFF WRITER
PHOTOS BY STEFAN JORA / SPECIAL TO THE GUARDSMAN |
YEOWZA!: Reporter Elizabeth Skow vsited acupuncturist Daniela Freda at the Health Fair, who poked needles into he skull and ears to relieve stress and anxiety. There was a short line at the Health Center at 10 a.m. on Nov. 8; students, staff and faculty were there to get educated and take advantage of a variety of free screenings — body mass index, blood sugar, hemoglobin count, HIV and Chlamydia, to name a few.
I was here to write a story about Health Fair 2006, so I decided to participate in all the free tests and screenings — considering my test results, it turned out to be a good idea.
Associated Students donated 200 doses of Flu vaccine, but line to get one was 45 minutes long. I decided I did not need an influenza vaccine.
Instead, I follow the signs to the blood sugar / anemia screening, stopping to drop off a urine sample in a bathroom cubby for my free Chlamydia test.
A kind and gentle nursing student pricked my finger and while I waited for my results, I chatted with nursing instructor Carol Femenia about the shortage of nurses and nursing teachers.
“City College needs nursing instructors. There’s a nursing shortage, but there’s even more of a shortage of instructors. I’m ready to retire, but I can’t,” she said.
My test results were: low blood sugar and an abnormally high iron count. The low blood sugar was pretty common and could be remedied by more frequent meals, but I was told to get a full blood workup and a liver function test because of my high iron count. The reason for attending the Health Fair was becoming clearer to me.
At the next station down the hall, I held a little device that looked like a PlayStation controller and it measured my body fat; I was nervous about this, fearing the machine would expose my inner glutton. I was surprised that my body fat percentage was low.
Desy Pollock, a student volunteer, said I should eat more fats. I skipped down the hall dreaming of the rib-eye steaks in my near future.
I decided to take an HIV test and met a lively, golden-haired woman named Cassandra Perkins, a health educator who spends time in low-income communities, taking HIV education to the streets.
She asked me if I needed any “love gloves,” pointing to yet another basket of candy-colored condoms. I grabbed a handful — one can always dream — and stuffed them into my bag.
Perkins next pointed to a garbage can to illustrate her point: “We take better care of a trash can than we do our own body parts. Nobody would throw something away in an unlined trash can,” she said.
My last stop was the booth manned by staff from the American College of Traditional Medicine in Potrero Hill. I asked licensed acupuncturist Daniela Freda to treat me for stress and anxiety.
As she placed needles in each of my ears and the crown of my skull, I wondered about the results of the blood test I had taken earlier.
After I sat quietly for 15 minutes, Freda removed the needles. I felt much calmer.
e-mail: eskow@theguardsman.com
ONLINE COURSES POPULAR WITH STUDENTS, TEACHERS
BY MARCO A. GUTIERREZ
STAFF WRITER
The first and only hybrid photography class in the Bay Area that encompasses both digital and film media together in the same class is in its first semester at City College.
The inaugural hybrid version of Photography 51, Beginning Photography, allows students to learn how to use both digital and film cameras.
“You might spend four hours in the darkroom; you also might spend four hours in front of a computer screen working on an image. The amount of time is the same. That was part of our logic for the hybrid,” said Bob McAteer, chair of the photography department.
McAteer said when camera technology changed, City College changed right along with it.
The idea to create a new program began fifteen years ago, when the industry began to change and digital technology started to become the standard, McAteer said.
Five years ago, the college got serious about changing the curriculum as the industry began to change more rapidly, he said.
McAteer said the department researched two- and four-year universities, looking for a class to use as a model for the new City College class. Most colleges, like Cecil Community College in Maryland, where McAteer taught previously, had switched over completely to digital-format classes.
After consulting with the Industry Advisory Board, the department began to purchase modern equipment with bond money from Proposition A, and funds from a block grant from the Vocational and Technical Education Act.
One of the items that the department recently purchased is a $15,000 Imacon film scanner. The scanner digitizes film negatives so students can load the images onto computers.
Whether the program will jibe with the students is a different matter. Tanya Hough, a part-time faculty member in the photo department, said she recognized that some students will have concerns.
“It’s a new class, and there is a period of adjustment with anything new,” Hough said.
“But the demos have doubled in size. The students get the benefit of both skills.”
e-mail:mgutierrez@theguardsman.com
ENGLISH CLASSES SWAY TOWARD NONFICTION-BASED CURRICULUM
BY
DESMOND MILLER
STAFF WRITER
The English department has been gradually changing the curriculum for English 90 through English 1A over the past four years to include more nonfiction and less fiction.
The department is currently reviewing the new syllabi for next semester to give students writing skills that it says are more useful in other classes.
If students learn the proper foundation for writing a research papers, it will be easier for them to use that knowledge in other courses such as economics or history, English Instructor Ron Johnson said.
“We provide better instruction and a narrow range of examination to be mastered by students if we use nonfiction; we provide a richer experience if we use fiction,” Johnson said.
Dr. Bruce Smith, dean of the school of liberal arts, does not see the switch to nonfiction as a radical move, and said the change has fostered greater cohesion throughout the English sequence.
“We are trying to make sure that when a student moves through their English requirements, each class is a continuation of what they learned,” he said.
“It helps that each teacher will know what the student has learned in a prior class and holds them responsible for what they have learned.”
English instructor Benjami Bacsierra said that the English department has focused on nonfiction and is making sure that the students have the skills to write an academic paper.
“They have always been focused on nonfiction because English 90 through 96 courses are preparing a student for English 1A and above,” Bacsierra said.
“They are essentially teaching a student how to write an academic paper. Basically the students in the earlier courses are being trained to succeed by teaching them the basics of how to write a research paper.”
John Batty-Sylvan, chair of the English department, declined an interview until after the curriculum committee — the team that will determine and approve which text and materials will be taught — has approved the new syllabi.
The only class to remain unchanged is English 1B, according to English instructors, since it is a literature-only class.
e-mail:dmiller@theguardsman.com
RETIRED ESL INSTRUCTOR AND JOURNALIST DIES
BY ANN CHATRINE-NILSSON
STAFF WRITER
|
Mary Evelyn Thurber covered bullfighting for the El Paso Times. She died of cancer on Sept. 29. Mary Evelyn Thurber, a former City College instructor who was instrumental in forming the ESL department and wrote newspaper articles about bullfighting, died of cancer at her Emeryville home on Sept. 29. She was 83 years old.
The ESL program that Thurber worked hard to transform into to a full-fledged department became a reality after she retired in 1991, according to Dr. Mo-Shuet Tam, credit ESL coordinator.
Thurber was born in Chandler, Okla. in 1923.
During her journalism career, she specialized in bullfighting. Her articles were so well known that she became a story herself and appeared in Newsweek magazine in 1951.
“Journalism was in her blood,” daughter Valerie T. Flores said.
Her renown came during her years at the El Paso Times where her weekly assignment was to cross the border and report on bullfights in Juarez, Mexico.
“She was a strong woman and she would speak her mind,” Tam said.
Tam alluded that Thurber downplayed her journalistic experience to her co-workers.
“We were really surprised. We knew that she was a reporter, but we had no (idea) of this kind of thing,” Tam said.
She and Thurber both came to City College in 1969.
Despite her prominence, Thurber even maintained her modesty to her family.
“I've heard about it, but she never mentioned how famous she was. She never bragged about it,” Flores said.
Thurber’s memorial service was held in the Stinson Beach area on Oct. 28.
She is survived by her two daughters, Valerie T. Flores and Paula Thurber.
e-mail:acnilsson@theguardsman.com
BY JEREMIAH MICHAELS
EDITOR
ALEX HYDE / GUARDSMAN |
Canteen Vending Company, whose contract ends next June, stocks their machines with snacks that the AS has labeled "unhealthy".The Associated Students wants to offer healthy snacks in vending machines by switching to a new supplier.
According to the plan, Laike Vending would replace the Canteen Vending Co. when the latter’s contract expires in June 2007.
“Canteen has an unhealthy selection,” said Katie Martin-Stutzman, the vending coordinator for AS.
“They think Baked Lays are healthy. The Lays have less fat, but are nutritionally void.”
While AS has voiced approval for Laike as the new vendor, the board of trustees has to make the decision and is currently reviewing many vendors’ proposals. Stephen Herman, who works in the department of administrative services, said that he wanted AS to work on the committee with him.
AS has been working on a request for proposal, due in January 2007, which would allow them to pitch their idea to the board of trustees.
Laike is a small San Francisco-based vending company that already supplies the San Francisco Unified School District. Their products exceed California’s standards for nutrition and many of their items are organic, according to the company.
Laike attended a meeting on Oct. 24 and presented their ideas to the AS.
Laike is in cooperation with Stonyfield Farms, an east coast dairy manufacturer that is also the largest producer of organic yogurt in the country. Stonyfield also offers other healthy alternatives, like salads, in addition to yogurt.
In 2004, AS circulated a petition to find out if students would like to see changes in the food offered in the vending machines; Over 100 students agreed that healthier selections were needed on campus.
Martin-Stutzman said that the biggest problem with AS’s proposal is over funding.
While Laike does not sell anything in their machines over $2, they would not provide the machines themselves — just service and restocking.
“One of those vending machines can cost as much as $4,000,” Martin-Stutzman said.
The machines would be able to give paper bills back to students instead of just coins. Some machines would also take credit cards.
e-mail: calendar@theguardsman.com
HIGHER MATH AND ENGLISH REQUIREMENTS APPROVED FOR ASSOCIATE DEGREE
BY LARRY SIMPSON
STAFF WRITER
The state Senate voted in September to raise the graduation requirements for students enrolling at California community colleges in 2009.
The move, opposed by City College’s English and mathematics departments, will effectively raise the requirements to be on a par with University of California transfer requirements.
New students will have to complete both English 1A and Math 860, or the equivalent of those courses, in order to obtain an associate’s degree.
The current graduation requirement is completion of English 96 and Math 840 — both one class below the future transfer requirements respectively.
Frederick Teti, mathematics professor and president of City College’s Academic Senate, urged the Academic Senate and the local Senate to vote against the increase, and said he was disappointed by the state’s decision.“Our English and math departments simply disagreed with the State Senate’s opinion. We felt that our students were extremely well served by the courses we required of them,” Teti said.“The concern for our students' best interests was couched in terms of the need, in the new millennium, for more rigorous communication skills and quantitative reasoning skills.”Originally, the new requirements would have been implemented in 2006, according to Lauren Bell, an English instructor and Academic Senator. He said the state Senate had approved the increase without allowing the proper discussion on the matter.
In response to request for more time to prepare, the state Senate pushed the implementation date back to the fall of 2009, according to Bell.
The California Community College system’s Board of Governors originally proposed the new requirements in 2000 through a change in Title V, which regulates accreditation.
City College has recently updated its graduation requirements. In 2004 the college began requiring Math 840 for graduation, and in 2005 they began requiring English 96 or ESL 170.
Bruce Smith, dean of the school of liberal arts, said students currently enrolled would not be affected by the new decision and that they would retain their catalog rights, the original graduation requirements when they first enrolled.
e-mail:lsimpson@theguardsman.com
VOTERS BRING NEW TRUSTEE, FUNDS
BY THE GUARDSMAN STAFF
Last week’s midterm election netted City College a new trustee and $120 million for construction projects and paid sick days to all workers in San Francisco.
San Francisco voters also passed proposition F, which requires employers provide an hour of sick pay for every 30 hours worked. Prop F was supported by the San Francisco labor-rights advocacy organization Young Workers United, half of whom are City College students.
“I feel really relieved that it passed. Now I can get back to school work,” said YMU member and student Dante Grant. “I’m really glad that those people are going to get their paid sick days.”
City College will also receive a portion of a state bond for over $10 billion for facility improvement, which will match construction costs for the Chinatown / North Beach campuses, and the planned Performing Arts Center and joint-use facility to be built over the existing reservoir on Ocean campus, according to Chancellor Philip R. Day, Jr.
“This is exactly what we needed to have happen,” Chancellor Day said. “We had $120 million worth of projects on that list; more than any other college in the Bay Area.”
John Rizzo unseated incumbent Jonnie Carter for the City College board of trustees by a margin of .63 percent or 1,900 votes. Two of the three incumbents — Trustees Anita Grier and Lawrence Wong — retained their seats.
Rizzo, whose platform included working toward low-cost housing for students, creating a sustainability plan for the college and implementing an environmental science program, said he was excited about his new position.
“The first thing I want to do is talk to all of the stake holders — the student government, the unions and neighbors,” Rizzo said of his first priority as a trustee.
e-mail:jgutierrez@theguardsman.com
ETHNIC PRESS LUNCHEON CONVENES
BY DESMOND MILLER
STAFF WRITER
The City College Department of Journalism and the Chancellor’s office held a luncheon Oct. 30 for 21 local ethnic and gay, lesbian and transgender newspapers.
Twelve representatives from the publications were in attendance.
“The purpose of this luncheon is for City College to reach out and communicate with folk who are in touch with our students,” Chancellor Philip R. Day, Jr. said.
The luncheon was held in the Pierre Coste Dining Room at Ocean campus. The meal was catered by culinary students and served by students of the restaurant and hotel management program.
Chancellor Day presented topics including the College’s ethnic retention programs and tuition.
“After the dot-com bubble burst, the economy in California went south, the California government decided to raise enrollment costs at city colleges to raise revenue,” Chancellor Day said.
“California city colleges lost an average of about 175,000 students state wide. I will guarantee you that there was an over-representation of people of color who are economically disadvantaged who left city colleges,” he said.
Chancellor Day believes that with the cost of enrollment going down to $20 in the spring of ‘07, and eventually within four years down to $15, all minority students who are financially disadvantaged might be able to complete their education at City College.
Journalism department chair Juan Gonzales considered the luncheon a huge success — with one exception.
“I had hoped that there would have been representation from gay, lesbian and transgender newspapers. Unfortunately, they were unable to attend,” Gonzales said.
e-mail:dmiller@theguardsman.com
JOB PLACEMENT FOR EPILECTIC STUDENTS
BY KAREN M. KINNEY
STAFF WRITER
California Pacific Epilepsy Program is offering free employment services for the first time this semester to any job-seeking City College students living with epilepsy.
Pacific Epilepsy Program, also called PEP Jobs Program, has been training faculty since June 2006 in the areas of drafting employment plans, creating resumes and offering individual discussions of job search strategies.
According to Curt Willig, PEP Consultant, studies show in any given general population 1.5 percent of that population has epilepsy or some kind of seizure disorder.
According to Willig, 1,000 of City College’s 100,000 students could potentially be living with epilepsy.
Paula Cahill, a nurse practitioner in the Student Health Center, estimates that the six or seven nurse practitioners on staff deal with one or two epileptic students per semester, and that they treat five or six major seizures per year.
“It’s one of the most common emergencies we see,” Cahill said.
Matthew Poland, PEP employment coordinator, said the biggest misconception around epilepsy is that most seizures are not noticeable and can be mistaken for other symptoms.
“Sometimes it appears a student is daydreaming and could have moments of losing consciousness,” Poland said.
“People don’t notice these are seizures, but it can be debilitating.”
Poland said most cases of epilepsy are treated with medication, but the student still needs assistance with job placement and is apprehensive of applying for fear of not getting hired.
Once a student meets the eligibility criteria for PEP, the student will work one-on-one with an employment specialist to find a job. After placement, PEP will remain in contact with the student for at least 90 days.
“Our hope is students will know there are employers who will accommodate their needs,” Poland said.
More information about the PEP Jobs Program is available through Matt Poland at (415) 600-1378, the Student Health Center, Disabled Students Programs and Services, and the Career Development and Placement Office.
e-mail:kkinney@theguardsman.com
NASO TO MAKE PRESENCE KNOWN WITH POWWOW AND FOOD BOOTHS
BY JOSE GUTIERREZ
STAFF WRITER
LESLIE HICKS / GUARDSMAN |
Christopher Gomora makes frybread for the Native America tacos he will sell in Ram Plaza for "Taco Tuesdays" this November.In honor of National Native American Heritage Month, the Native American Study Organization will collaborate with other campus-based groups to host various indigenous-themed events throughout the month of November.
“We are a disenfranchised population,” said Christopher Gomora, Facilitator of NASO. “One goal of our organization is to create a space for indigenous people.”
Some of the events planned for this month long celebration are: the First Annual National Native American Heritage Month Pow-Wow on Nov. 28; Black Native American Association, where Mr. Don Littlecloud will speak on the rich history of both African and indigenous cultures; and an indigenous art exhibit in both the ROSENBERG library and art gallery.
“People can take part in Native American culture and have some Native American food,” said Alvin Jenkins, Advisor of NASO. “It will be a rather comprehensive event.”
NASO is also working on food booths as a fundraising campaign with their “Taco Tuesdays” and forthcoming “Fry Bread Fridays,” both in Ram Plaza.
The events planned seek to raise awareness and representation for indigenous people. According to NASO, the indigenous population may be one of the smallest ethno-population in the United States.
NASO is a student council of indigenous peoples that is an Inter-Tribal group of Indigenous First Nation Individuals.
“We’re hoping to have a Native American Studies program,” Gomora said. “We want to show people that there is representation and a population of indigenous people.”
“We want to encourage the native people to embrace their culture,” Jenkins said.
e-mail:jgutierrez@theguardsman.com