PCC Courier, April 26, 1990

STUDENT FORUM SPORTS FEATURE Death Penalty Students voice their opinion on capital punishment Page 2 Track Star Tracker Kevin Dallas wins the 400-meter Mt. SAC Invitational Relays Page 4 Ashland English department offers trip to Ashland, Oregon Page 3 Pasadena City College Pasadena, California Vol. 70 No. 10 COURIER Thursday April 26, 1990 NEWSLINE ACCREDITATION Unedited copies of the Fifth Year Accreditation Report are now avail¬ able for the review of students, staff and faculty members, said Mary Jane Cordon, accreditation chairperson. The reports, available in all ad¬ ministrative offices, academic depart¬ ments, library and the AS offices, are being released to the college commu¬ nity for comments before the writing of the final draft. According to Cordon, the uned¬ ited copies are not meant to be a com¬ prehensive document, but rather a report that: • responds to recommendations from the 1985 Accreditation Report •states significant changes since the 1985 evaluation •summarizes important changes in purposes, programs, staffing, services, resources, facilities, organizations and governance •summarizes evaluation and the impact of the planning projects in which the institution has been engaged Comments on the report must be sent in writing to the office of Cordon, C221, no later than May 11. JOURNALISM CONFERENCE Twenty students from the PCC Jour¬ nalism department competed in the annual state journalism conference sponsored by the Journalism Associa¬ tion of Community Colleges. The conference was held last weekend at Cal State Fresno. The two-day conference was at¬ tended by hundreds of journalism stu¬ dents from community colleges all over the state. The following students came home with awards: • Anissa Vicente, Courier staff writer- first place, on-the-spot feature writ¬ ing •Joe Yobaccio, Feature Editor- fourth place, on-the-spot news writing •Debbie Beyer, staff writer-honor¬ able mention, on-the-spot feature writing •James Ojeda, Photo Editor- hon¬ orable mention, on-the-spot sports photo •Gigi Hanna- first place, editorial writing, mail-in • Nelson Green- fourth place, maga¬ zine feature photo, mail-in MEChA / LA RAZA LUNCHEON The annual MEChA / La Raza Scholarship Awards Luncheon will be held on May 2 at noon in the Campus Center Lounge. This year’s keynote speaker is actress Carmen Zapata. Tickets will be sold until April 27 and may be purchased at the Student Bank: $7.50 for students, $15 for fac¬ ulty and staff. All proceeds go to schol¬ arships. Get inoculated or else... You don’t catch measles, it catches you. Page 2 INDEX Opinion 2 My View 2 Editorial 2 Features 3 Sports 4 Portrait of an artist Chase-Riboud shares talents By U LISES VELASCO Staff Writer The image of rough-edged rocks and flowing pieces of fibers flashed on the screen of the PCC Forum while the 1 990 Artist-in-Residence, Barbara Chase-Riboud, described, in detail, the relationship between the rocks’ harshness and die fi¬ bers’ fluidity. Chase-Riboud, who spent her youth in Philadelphia, recieved her first art prize at the age of eight. Now 5 1 , she has evolved into a world-citizen, spending Please see ARTIST, page 4 James ujeaa / i ne оииннгн Post-modern neoclassicist Barbara Chase-Riboud is this year’s Artist-in-Residence. She will be here until Friday. Forensics wins eighth place By DAVID SANDS Special Correspondent While many students sought Southern California’s hot spots during the spring break, eight PCC forensics team members flew to Kansas City, Missouri to compete in the Phi Rho Pi national tourna¬ ment, where more than 77 col¬ leges competed. Led by coaches Chrystal Watson, Renee Orton and Roger Weiss, PCC debaters manipulated analyses using skillful technique and their extensive knowledge on the semester’s debate topic to achieve several awards. The squad placed eighth in the overall de¬ bate sweepstakes. The Cross Ex¬ amination Debate Association (CEDA) topic was “The trend toward increasing foreign invest¬ ment in the U.S. is detrimental to this nation”. The topic medi¬ ated a final and grueling compe¬ tition that PCC debaters were conditioned for victory. “It was a good tourna¬ ment, and it was a great way to end the year,” said debater Marci Sandoval. “As a team, we have become more competi¬ tive, and winning is something we have become quite accustomed to.” Paul Stuart and Stephanie Rudin, senior debaters, placed in the silver standing, capturing sec¬ ond place in CEDA team debate. Stuart also placed second in Lin¬ coln/Douglass debate, and Rudin took third place in L/D debate. Mark Woodsmall, junior debater, occupied a bronze standing, cap¬ turing third place in CEDA L/D debate. “There was extremely tough Please see DEBATE, page 4 Measles virus plagues L.A. Outbreak of the epidemic prompts issuance of preventative warnings By ANISSA VICENTE Staff Writer The longest running measles outbreak in the county has prompted the PCC Student Health Center to warn students, staff and faculty members that they need to get in¬ oculations to prevent the spread of the contagious disease. “Measles is very dangerous [to college students] because of the complications,” Janis Roman, head nurse at the student center, stresses. “College students have died from encephalitis (brain inflammation). Every childhood disease when ac¬ quired at adulthood arc prone to more serious complications.” Roman adds that the Center for Disease Control recommends that persons born after 1957 be revacci¬ nated because most of the vaccina¬ tions given during the 1970s is not enough to last a lifetime. Los Angeles Health Department officials have launched a campaign to increase awareness of the disease and have more people inoculated against the virus. Officials say the measles have struck 1 ,500 people this year, killing six. Statewide, the disease has af¬ flicted 1,800 people, killing 24. Coming at the heels of a chicken pox sweep, the measles epidemic has not affected the college popula¬ tion yet, according to a health center representative. But health officials are warning that college students are not immune from the disease. “We fully expect some cases of measles on campus,” Roman said. Free inoculations are available to all students by appointment at the health center. Inoculation, health officials stress, remains the best weapon against the sometimes deadly visits of the measles. Measles, also known as rubeola, is a viral disease that combines the symptoms of colds-runny nose, sore throat and cough-with a reddish skin rash. Measles used to be the most prevalent of all childhood diseases. Effective vaccines developed in the 1 960s cut the number of annual cases in the nation by some 99 percent. Yet by the late 1970s, vaccination against measles had begun to taper off and with it the prospect of elimi¬ nating the disease completely. State residents, especially South¬ ern Californians, have been suffer¬ ing from measles since 1987, an epidemic state health officials say is the worst since an immunization shot was developed in 1963. In California, between 25 and 33 Please see MEASLES, page 4 Parking situation to change by Monday By MICHAEL ROCHA Editor-in-Chief Students who usually park on the north end of lot No. 4, located on Bonnie Avenue and Del Mar Boule¬ vard, on Monday will find that it has been closed off for staff parking. As part of PCC’s Master Plan, the college will be implementing the first phase of the library construc¬ tion by expanding staff parking lot No. 5, thus taking away parking spaces from the student parking lot. In order to prevent students from losing parking spaces, however, college officials have announced that they are turning staff parking lot No. 6, located near Sidewalk Cafe on Colorado Boulevard, into student parking. That lot will be the tempo¬ rary student parking until Thurman Baseball Field is paved to make way for more student parking. By expanding lot No. 5 and opening lot No. 6 to students, offi¬ cials said, the hassle of changing lots after Thurman Field is paved will be diminished. When the field is ready, only the students will be involved with the move to that new site. The expanded staff parking lot No. 5 will be permanent. During late spring and early summer, the baseball field will be paved and made into a 278 -space parking lot. As soon as construction of the $19. 5-million library is ready to start, lot No. 6 near the Sidewalk Cafe will be closed. “By making the changes in stages, Please see PARKING, page 4 College promotional video praised, named best in the nation By DEBBIE BEYER Staff Writer The PCC promotional video, “A Great Place to Start,” took first place at the National Council for Marketing and Public Relations festival, which was held last month in New Orleans. The winning production was a collaborative effort primarily of stu¬ dents and instructors in the instructional television (1TV) department. Others in¬ volved included the telcom department and outside professionals, who directed and ed¬ ited the piece. Gail Fostrey, PCC public information officer, heard about the contest just before the deadline and entered the college video. Soon after, the department was notified that the video placed in the top three in its category. Marisa Garcia, ITV supervisorand video producer, and Johari DeWitt- Rogers, direc¬ tor of media services and executive pro¬ ducer, represented PCC at the festival, where the production was awarded the Paragon Award. The award was a first place in com¬ munity college entries from all over the nation. “The genesis of the project started with reading a campus-wide newsletter stating the college had decided to develop a market¬ ing videotape,” said DeWitt-Rogers. She said they were going to use an outside pro¬ duction company, until she convinced the administration to give students the opportu¬ nity. Funding for the project was mostly by Please see VIDEO, page 4 Teresa Kung / for The COURIER The group that produced PCC’s promotional video: From left, Chu Wu, Darren Phan, Tim Berreth, Rod Foster, Carmen Porreca, Marisa Garcia, Brad Hayes, Jim Desmarais, Kelly Nisely, Johari DeWitt-Rogers, Bob Casper and Diana Castaneda.