OPINION
FEATURES
| NEWS FEATURES
Surrogacy
‘The Elephant Man’
Friendly notes
Notetaker brings the color of life to
a student’s quiet world Page 3
A pro and con on the much debated
issue of surrogacy Page 2
The theater arts’ production of Bernard Pomerance’s ‘The Elephant
Man ’ summons emotions viewers would rather not face Page 4
Pasadena City College
Pasadena, California
Vol. 72 No. 13
"'COURIER
Thursday
December 6, 1990
Over the top
Will Lester /The COURIER
Ostell Miles (34) leaps overthe Riverside defense to score the touchdown that gave Miles was named the Most Valuable Player. The matchup between Riverside and
PCC its 29-28 victory. After rushing for 1 60 yards on 23 carries and one touchdown, PCC proved to be the best game of the year for the Lancers.
Funds for instructional computing
are not priority in college
NEWSLINE
A CHRISTMAS PARTY
The college’s Cross-Cultural Cen¬
ter will host its first PCC Christmas
party on Wednesday, Dec. 12. It will
be held in conjunction with the PCC
faculty party, and all PCC clubs will
participate.
“Each club will make decorations
to help with the party,” said PCC
Cross-Cultural coordinator Cayndis
Berhane. The entire second floor of
the Campus Center will exude a Christ¬
mas atmosphere, she added.
In addition to decorating the Cam¬
pus Center, plans are being made to
have a giant “mall-like” Christmas
tree placed in the Student Lounge.
Although the celebration is a club
and faculty sponsored event, all PCC
students are invited.
The exact time and other details
concerning the party will be released
soon, Berhane said.
HUMAN RIGHTS WEEK
Human rights will be the talk of the
college from Dec. 9 to 14 when the AS
launches Human Rights Awareness
Week.
The event will feature many pres¬
entations and activities geared to in¬
form the public about world human
rights issues.
A Human Rights Fair to be held on
Dec. 9 will kick off the week-long
event. The fair will be held in the Quad
from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The event will focus on several
issues such as death penalty and refu¬
gee rights. Besides guest speakers,
several movies and videos will also be
available for viewing.
Worldwide organizations such as
Amnesty International, the African
National Congress and the National
Organization for Women will be par¬
ticipating in the event.
For schedule of various lectures,
please see Page 2.
A FACULTY EXHIBITION
The works of more than 30 mem¬
bers of the art department are now on
exhibit in the PCC Art Gallery.
Called “Personal Choices,” the
exhibit showcases the paintings, sculp¬
tures, photographs, drawings and other
works by PCC’s own.
The show will continue until Jan.
1 1 . The art gallery is open Monday to
Friday from noon to 4 p.m. and also
Monday to Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m.
Page Nyn is not afraid of pistons,
gas filters, brakes and suspensions.
She’s one of many women who’ve
ventured into the territory of auto
mechanics. Page 5
INDEX
Opinion
2
Editorial
2
News Features
3
Features
4,5
Sports
6
By P.J. O'MALLEY
Staff Writer
The budget ax has fallen on operating
expenses for the instructional portion of
PCC’s computer system to the tune of 131
percent since the fiscal year of 1987-87.
According to official PCC budget figures,
current annual expenditures dropped to
$21,930, compared to $50,551 just three
year$ ago.
At a time when school enrollment has
reached record levels and demand for com¬
puting capability is outstripping the supply,
allocations are not keeping pace. The over¬
all budget for the entire system has in¬
creased $591,351 over that period to $1.9
million. Administrative increases, however,
have exceeded instructional by almost 3-to-
1. “Administrative” refers to school-wide
costs, such as registration, payroll, and gen¬
eral expenses. “Instructional” means the
actual teaching of computer use.
Robert Cody, assistant dean for instruc¬
tional computing services, commented on
the school’s commitment to continued
computerization. “We need to be able to
plan for a curriculum to take students into
the 21st century.” Cody pointed out the
accreditation team’s recent visit to PCC.
‘ ‘They voiced concern over lack of planning
and long-term commitment in the computer
services area,” he said.
There are approximately 280 computers
operating on campus. Most are linked to a
network system - that is, they are supported
by a central computer that serves as the
nerve center. Thirteen additional IBM com¬
puters, at a cost of $32,600, are being pur¬
chased for student use in the Instructional
Computer Center (ICC) lab, and will be
installed in 6-8 weeks.
How does PCC stack up against local
two-year colleges of similar size?
Santa Monica Community College has
neither a computer lab center for instruction
nor a networking feature like PCC’s. But
according to Gary Kidney, director of insti¬
tutional computing, the school has approxi¬
mately 300 computers on campus.
Kidney said his instructional computing
budget for the fiscal year 1990-1991 is ap¬
proximately $2.5 million. “It has remained
at the same level for the past two years, but
the budget has jumped from only $1 15,000
in 1985-86,” he pointed out. Although the
college has no formal plan, Kidney charac¬
terized it as having “a very strong commit¬
ment to institutional growth.”
Close to home is Mt. San Antonio Col¬
lege in Pomona, which has a total computing
budget of $2.2 million, two-thirds of which
is administrative. The college boasts about
700 terminals and personal computers, with
500 of these designated for instructional use.
budget
In spite of these figures, Hal Roach, director
of instructional services was not satisfied
with his college’s plan for growth. “The
technology is changing too fast,” he said.
“All of our three-year projections were out
of date in a year and a half. But we are
committed, no question about it.”
Dollar figures were not available from
Glendale Community College because its
approach to computing is too diversified.
Virginia Lashley, coordinator of instruc¬
tional computing, said the college had no
comprehensive planning or budget, since
each division makes its own expenditure
projections. Glendale has approximately 225
administrative-type computers, plus 144 for
instructional purposes in its computer center
for students. The college plans to add an
additional 44 computers by the spring.
Despite apparent lack of funds, PCC has
managed to take a leadership role in innova-
Please see Comparison, Page 3
i
Abortion is topic of debate in latest forum
By BECKY ROUSE
Editor-in-Chief
“It’s been an agonizing six months
trying to put together a well balanced
presentation,” said Barbara Phillips
Turner, associate professor of social
science, in her opening remarks at the
Social Science forum on Wednesday.
That her presentation inspired some
thought-provoking questions from the
audience is an indication that her prepa¬
rations paid off.
Given the topic, “Pro-Choice/Pro-
Life: Are There Real Differences?” it’s
easy to see why Phillips Turner found it
difficult to compile material for the is¬
sue. Abortion arguments run the gamut
from multi-faceted emotional and psy¬
chological factors to religious and politi¬
cal arenas.
Instead of focusing on the reasons
why the abortion debate is such a touchy
one, Phillips Turner delved into the po¬
litical and social contexts of the issue.
She described how growing concerns
about women’s health arose in the early
19th century, when the death rate in New
York City for women who had surgical
abortions was 30 percent. This compared
to the death rate of three percent for
women during childbirth. The American
Medical Association, formed in the mid-
1800s, lobbied for government regula¬
tions to prevent unsafe abortions, and the
country entered its first period of abor¬
tion legislation. The church, particularly
the Roman Catholic Church, advocated
restricting abortions when advances in sci¬
ence revealed the nature of the fertilization
process.
After discussing the increasing number
of children bom with birth defects, as well as
a changing social attitudes about births re¬
sulting from rape, Phillips Turner touched
upon the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision,
in which the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 to
allow women to have abortions.
It was widely believed that abortion would
play a major role in the 1990 elections, but
that never happened. According to Phillips
Turner, ‘ ‘campaigners decided the issue was
still too controversial.” She doesn’t expect
the abortion battle to heat up again until the
“new” Supreme Court is challenged. The
three justices who were on the court when
Roe vs. Wade was decided are now in their
eighties, she said, and with Reagan’s
three appoin tments, and now w i th
В
ush ’ s
appointment of David Souter, it’s a whole
new court.
The first question that Phillips T umer
addressed from the audience was “is it
possible to achieve a moderate position
politically?” She responded with a dif¬
ferent question, asking “is it possible to
be a little bit pregnant?”
But Phillips Turner’s most emphatic
remarks came when she was asked about
society’s role in the abortion debate and
in sexual education in schools. She said
that she would like to see a society that
faces up to the hypocritical attitude of
denouncing sex for the young, while at
the same time selling it, bartering it, and
forcing it in all aspects of life.