PCC Courier, April 24, 2003

т Feature: Batman and Robin need a new home Entertainment: Don’t be hatin’ ‘Malibu’s Most Wanted’ Sports : Pep squads looking for a few good women See Page 4 See Page 5 See Page 6 1 P A S A D E N A C I 1 Г Y С О I . L E G E Courier Since 1 915 VOL. 88 NO. 25 www.pcc-courieronline.coin April 24, 2003 Suspected Stalker Caught Mitchell Wright Sports Editor Campus police offi¬ cers apprehended a PCC student, Monday, on charges of stalking and trespassing after a three-month long investigation. Jorge R. Fajardo, 32, was arrested out¬ side his home by Lt. Bradley Young and officer Alan Chan, after Fajardo repeated¬ ly harassed a female classmate. What prompted the arrest were threating visits to the victim. The suspect was ordered to remain off campus property by college officials last month. However, he remained persistent. “The suspect kept coming onto campus, Crime Watch seeking out to follow and annoy and harass the stalking victim,” said Young. “That happened last Friday when Fajardo was on campus.” The fascination with the young woman began on Feb. 3., with one of six hand delivered letters to the victim. According to the police report, “The writing suggest¬ ed an existing relationship between sus¬ pect and victim,” which the victim denies ever happening. On Feb. 10, the suspect handed her a second letter during class. At the time she informed she was not interested in a rela¬ tionship and asked him to stop giving her letters. After three more letters, she informed her instructor about being followed and annoyed by Fajardo. The report says that he ignored the warning by the instructor and continued to seat himself near the victim, who kept switching desks to avoid him. Things escalated when the victim told Fajardo that she was in a relation¬ ship with someone else. The report indicated that he stood up and angrily said, “That guy of yours must sure be something special!” He then threw down another letter on her desk. The suspect allegedly began fol¬ lowing her around campus, trying to involve her in “bizarre conversa¬ tions.” Though an administrative hearing ordered Fajardo banned from PCC, he still continued to show up to class. On March 14, when the victim entered class, she found Fajardo lying in the doorway. He then followed her see STALKER, page 3 Ш Hi ШШ’- Kenny Kiniura/Coiirier Suspect Jorge Fajardo -a t&v it лгкЗ» , ) хжй+Г :.fcX « , t. у -»ай 5 Г ЛИ . t i с а and to th* pub tic £ or vtsich is а£л»<5», orm ttot ion urilei irs4ivi«si tote, with liberty and lot a il . Africa America ansi to t he , ^ „ Repoblrc tor Which it stands. Republic tor one Nation under which it stands , which xt stan< Ood indivisible, with America and to the Republic £0 one Nation underone Nation un< God, God, d indivisible, indivisible photo illustration by Gilda Davidian Photographer Gilda Davidian, makes a statement on current events in her piece which was displayed at the fifth annual “Borders of Diversity” conference held last week. Davidian was one of a select number of artists to be featured at the all-day conference. The conference featured many student speakers who lashed out against the U.S. military campaign in Iraq. A.S. Elections To Be Tallied Online Linda Rapka and Trina Merry Staff Writers The college’s first-ever online voting system will be used next month for the Associated Students (AS) general election in an effort to improve efficiency and increase student voting. “Other schools have seen larger voter turnouts after implementing an online voting system,” said Steven Johnson, assistant dean for student affairs. Over 1,000 stu¬ dents voted last year, and it is hoped that number will double or triple with the new electronic vot¬ ing system. The AS decided to implement an online voting system after years of facing problems with counting manual ballots. “The Scantron reader we had to use is very out¬ dated, and we kept running into technical problems each year,” Johnson said. “The online voting system will help maintain accuracy and security, and get the technolo¬ gy up to date,” he stated. Students will be able' to vote from anywhere with access to the internet anytime between Monday, May 5 at 8 a.m. until Wednesday, May 7 at 11:59 p.m. Computers will also be set aside as voting booths in the Computer Cafe from 7 a.m. until 10 p.m. during elec¬ tions. A link to the election’s web¬ site will be posted on the college’s website, pasadcna.edu. It will be on a banner at the top of the screen during elections. Prior to online voting, students could only vote on campus at cer¬ tain time intervals during two days. “Students will have a lot more access to voting this way,” said Johnson. The online elections will be # see ONLINE, page 3 School Tests No.1 in STDs Whitney Porter and Dolores Mendoza Staff Writers PCC recently found itself rank¬ ing No. 1 in a categoiy where last place is really the preferred spot. Results of a recent study showed that PCC ranked No. 1 for students infected with a form of a sexually transmitted disease. Six other schools, including El C a m i n о College, East Los Angeles College, Los Angeles Trade Tech, South- West College, College of the Canyons and Los Angeles City College partici¬ pated in the study. However, the reason PCC ranked first is because the other six schools did not have as many active participants as PCC. In August 2002, the Student Health Center teamed up with Los Angeles County STD program to offer free gonorrhea/chlamydia testing to PCC students. In the fall semester, students had positive results that were more than double what had been expected. This particular program targeted one of the most common STDs: chlamydia. Women tested at 7 per¬ cent positive and men at 10 percent positive. The goal of the health cen¬ ter is to be 3 percent or lower. PCC being number one means that more students are getting test- ® see TESTS, page 3 STD Awareness Math Second in Nation Nick Barral Opinion Editor Math students at PCC took sec¬ ond place in the national Student Mathematics League competition. The contest took place from Feb. 21 to March 15 this year. Tests last one hour and they are adminis¬ tered one day out of the testing window. PCC lost to City College of San Francisco by four and a half-points “That’s roughly two questions,” Jude Socrates said. Socrates, moderator for the exam at PCC, recruited, advised and coached students who took the test. He administered the hour long test on campus and made certain that students didn’t leak the ques¬ tions. Sixty students from PCC took the test. Of the 60, Jiajing Xu and Xiao Xu placed in the top 10 among the nation’s contestants. . ® see MATH, page 3 Homeschoolers Adjust to College, Campus Life Students have no trouble adjusting to PCC and schooling away from the comforts of home Whitney Porter Staff Writer When students enter their classes on the first day of school, they will pick a seat and often converse with the people around them. Most of them presume that the person sitting next to them has completed their schooling at a traditional high school, but that might not be the case. Many PCC students have been homeschooled. It was recorded in the 2001-2002 school year that an estimated 1.725 million to 2.185 million children between kindergarten and the 12th grade were home- schooled; an estimated 250,000 340,000 were in high school. In the state of California as many as 200,000 students may be homeschooled. This, however, has changed over the past few years. While there are no statistics for the number of homschooled students attend¬ ing PCC, three of the area homeschool groups each send approximately 15 to 20 students here each semester. Despite the new teaching trend of home¬ schooling, many people still find it odd when they meet a homeschooled student. Usually when a student runs into someone who was home- schooled, an often-asked ques¬ tion may be, “Is your parent a teacher,” “Are your days struc¬ tured,” or “How are your socialization skills?” Parents who homeschool their children are often not cre- dentialed teachers; however, they follow a structured cur- Coulson riculum. Studying in the confines of one’s own personal space is one of the major perks, whether it is at the dining room table, under the covers, or maybe on a sofa at home or at PCC. “It wasn’t a big adjustment to start at PCC,” said Adam Coulson, Chief Justice for Associated Students and a formerly Ж Photo Illustration by Julian Philips This homeschooler has had to learn to adjust to life at PCC. to homeschooled student who started here in 10th grade. However, he said that downside was “no organized sports.” Nonetheless, he got involved in club teams and eventually the PCC soccer team. “You are able to focus a lot more on your studies and not be as distracted by your peers,” said Diana Caceres, 19, who has attended PCC since 1 1 th grade. Students develop independent study habits, which directly aids in mainstream¬ ing into the community college setting. The need for independence and individu¬ ality is greatly needed and developed by stu¬ dents due to the extensive family bonding. “When you attend PCC, it is easy to be yourself and not let it affect your work habits. Because of your family relation¬ ships you learn how to get along with peo¬ ple,” said Emily Peters, and 11th grade PCC student. If you are interested in more informa tion about homeschooling, contact the Link newspaper at (888) 470-4513 or www.homeschoollink.com about partici¬ pating in the annual homeschool confer ence, May 1-4, at the Pasadena Hilton Hotel. Whitney Porter can be reached at porter_courier@yahoo.com