- Title
- PCC Courier, December 18, 1981
-
-
- Issue Date
- 18 December 1981
-
-
- Date of Creation
- 18 December 1981
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- Description
- Student newspaper published and edited for the Associated Student Body of Pasadena City College weekly during the college year by the journalism students.
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- Display File Format
- ["application/pdf"]
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- Repository
- ["Pasadena City College Archive"]
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PCC Courier, December 18, 1981
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VOL. 52. NO. 16
PASADENA CITY COLLEGE. PASADENA. CALIFORNIA
DECEMBER 18, 1981
Student Government Woes
I ng| 1 1
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■р
Two Voice Frustrations
By
Магу
E. Jones
News Editor
“There are a lot of things we could
do that we said we could do before the
elections that we haven’t been able to
do,” said an admittedly frustrated Bob
Carroll, Senate president.
According to Carroll, what’s keeping
student government from achieving its
goals is that too many student govern¬
ment officials aren’t fulfilling their
responsibilities. “The people in the
most responsible positions aren’t doing
their jobs. Instead, people like playing
games and socializing,” Carroll said.
Sophomore President John
McTeague explained that many times
students run for government positions
and then aren’t able to perform their
duties because the responsibilities take
up so much more time then they
expected. Jobs, grades, social lives,
families and college bureaucracy are
just a few of the conflicts student
government officials face, McTeague
pointed out.
McTeague agreed with Carroll, how¬
ever, that several student government
officials seem to only care about hav¬
ing the office on their transcripts.
“After that they say, ‘now I don’t have
to do anything,’ ” Carroll added.
One of the major problems has been
ASB President Barry McGowan, ac¬
cording to both Carroll and McTeague.
“The ASB president hasn’t really chan¬
neled his interests on anything specific
. . . and that’s why he hasn't been as
successful as he may have hoped,”
McTeague said.
McTeague and Carroll are upset be¬
cause when other ASB officials don’t do
the job they’re supposed to do, the
entire process is disrupted. “If the ASB
president doesn’t respond to invitations
or go to Board of Trustee meetings then
it reflects on everyone. You can knock
yourself out, but it all comes back to
him,” McTeague said.
No Impact, No Involvement
Another problem that student gov¬
ernment officials have faced this
semester is student apathy, according
to McTeague and Carroll. “The day of
registration some guy ran up the stairs
of D Building and was about to punch
me out. That’s the closest I’ve come to
any student feedback except from peo¬
ple involved in student government,”
McTeague said.
Many students don’t feel they will
have an impact and thus feel trying to
voice their opinions is a waste of time,
McTeague explained.
McTeague's response to this attitide
is that, “Students are able to speak to
the administration and get ideas
across. The mechanism is there if
students just get more involved by
working closer with their elected stu¬
dent officials, Board members and
administrators.”
“New and innovative ideas can be
put across by students, but we have to
have student support. We have to show
the Board there is a need,” Carroll
added.
With budget problems increasing at
PCC, Carroll feels that the Board is
going to have to start cutting back.
When financial aid and student services
are cut and tuition begins, Carroll and
McTeague say that students will sud¬
denly become more interested in the
college.
By then, however, both say it will be
too late. Students should start now to
battle to save programs. “We’re in for
a big fight this year to try to save
student services,” Carroll said. He
added that if they don’t struggle to stop
these cuts that students will lose child
care facilities, tutors and handicapped
services will be drastically cut.
Some Results
Despite the problems they’ve en¬
countered, Carroll and McTeague feel
that student government does work and
is a worthwhile experience. In fact
Carroll says “student government’s
worked better this year than ever
before.” This he attributes to the fact
that the Senate meetings have been
getting quorums this year and because
of the special projects they’ve worked
on.
Recently McTeague worked to get
the Board of Trustees’ discussion on
the commencement speaker conducted
in a public meeting instead of behind
closed doors. “The commencement
speaker is symbolic. The Board wants
someone to represent them and not
necessarily students,” McTeague said.
Now McTeague feels students will
get a speaker that’s interesting to
them. Heading the list of possibilities is
Bill Cosby who recently received his
doctorate in education. College of¬
ficials will be writing him soon to see if
he will be able to attend.
Another accomplishment is the
course information booklet which is
nearly completed. McTeague has
rceived information from several de¬
partments and plans to make it avail¬
able to interested students right away.
Until the information is printed, he
says students can come up to the
Campus Center any time to read the
material.
Carroll is also proud of the student
committees created this semester to
look into various student problems.
There are currently six committees
investigating parking, financial aid and
legislation affecting community col¬
lege students.
Right now McTeague and Carroll are
part of a budget taskforce which will
make recommendations to the Board of
Trustees on philosophical guidelines
for budget priorities for the 1982-83
fiscal year.
“The taskforce says to look at all
aspects of the campus for cuts, but in
reality I feel they’ll hit support serv¬
ices like handicapped services, tutoring
I
Я
and counseling rather than cut cur¬
riculum areas,” Carroll said.
“Many people say ‘PCC can no
longer be all things for all people.’ If
this is so we have to strive to set
priorities,” Carroll said. Carroll hopes
with the input he and other students are
giving to the administration and the
Board of Trustees that some of the
areas mentioned can be saved.
Some Solutions
In order to solve some of the prob¬
lems discussed and accomplish more,
McTeague says that student govern¬
ment officials must set strong, realistic
objectives after being elected. Then
students must work toward those goals
throughout the semester.
About this semester McTeague says,
“There are so many areas you’re sup¬
posed to put your time into. It’s a Catch
22 situation. If you devote yourself to
one area you get flack for not being
involved in the others. If you try to get
involved in all you get spread too thin.”
“Student government officials have
to narrow their focus. If you get a
group of 15-20 you have to focus on a
concern that affects them all. Then you
have a better chance of getting things
done,” McTeague said.
McTeague and Carroll say that stu¬
dent government officials have both a
responsibility and a duty to try to attain
their campaign promises. In order to
do this, McTeague said students must
make more realistic promises.
“Saying we’re going to solve the
parking problem is ridiculous, but if we
present logical, cost effective
proposals they are bound to get re¬
sponses from the Board,” McTeague
said.
“We also need more money,”
McTeague said, “We’re given a token
budget to cover areas like Homecom¬
ing, but we don’t have a base to
generate new funds or to do special
things. We need to fund events that will
capture student imagination and get
them involved.”
Carroll feels that student govern¬
ment officials must open up com¬
munication with administrators, fac¬
ulty, students and Board members in
order to accomplish goals.
McTeague definitely would recom¬
mend the experience of student govern¬
ment to students. “It taught me how to
work with people, deal with different
personalities and has developed my
patience.”
McTeague has been able to take a
number of trips as a student represen¬
tative. He says that “It’s satisfying to
know that students have a say in suoh
things as who their commencement
speaker will be and to know that we can
help college leaders be more respoiisi-
ble in that regard.”
This is the first part of a series of
interviews with Student government of¬
ficials. The rest will follow after the
holidays.
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SPECIAL VISIT
—
Assemblyman Richard Alatore (right) talked to Super¬
intendent-President Dr. Richard S. Meyers before being conducted on a
tour of the campus last week. Alatore represents the 55th District in Los
Angeles. — Courier photo by Winny Ho
Alice Oliver Retires After 1 8 Years
Plans to Stay Busy in the Future
By Jalien Orow
Editor-in-Chief
Alice Oliver, executive secretary to
.the Board of Trustees, is retiring Dec.
30 after 18 years of service to PCC.
Before assuming that post for the
Board she acted as executive secretary
for three superintendent-presP
dents— Dr. Armen Sarafian, Dr. E.
Alice Oliver
Howard Floyd, and currently Dr. Rich¬
ard S. Meyers.
In her current position Mrs. Oliver
deals exclusively with the Board of
Trustees. Her. duties include taking the
minutes, keeping track of and updating
the many lists and documents used,
maintaining files and correspondence.
This takes up a great deal of time but
Mrs. Oliver believes that “You get
yourself geared up to a certain area,
and of course my main concern has
always been the Board. I guess it’s just
the way you train yourself.”
Very Active Past
Mrs. Oliver is also active in OMD
and the Alumni Association, which she
was president of for two years. She was
recently the Alumni Association Hon-
oree at Homecoming, which is one of
the highlights of her years at PCC.
She said that she had ridden in the
old-fashioned homecoming cars before
but this was especially fun because
“this year I rode in a fire engine.”
As far as OMD, “I try to be as active
in that as possible,” she said.
Mrs, Oliver has made a specialty out
of planning and organizing social ac¬
tivities, such as dinners for retirees,
receptions and particularly breakfasts.
“We used to have, some great break¬
fasts,” she remembers fondly.
“I like to help with any social ac¬
tivity,” she explains, and she also gets
a great deal of satisfaction when a lot
of hard planning goes into these events
and they come out successful. “It's a
lot of work, a lot of planning,” she says.
Mrs. Oliver plans to take things a
little easier once she’s actually retired.
She and her husband Ross have a 25
foot recreation vehicle, and plan on
taking it across the United Stated and
Canada in the near future. "We were in
boating for 12 years and we really miss
that, so our RV will take its place for a
while.”
Busy Times Ahead
Also in her plans for the near future
is a trip to Europe, where she has never
been.
Mrs. Oliver fully expects to stay
busy. In addition to everything else she
has seven grandchildren, two of them
arriving just last month. I don't in¬
tend to be a babysitter all the time but
I do want to see them and enjoy them,”
she says.
Born in South Pasadena. Mrs. Oliver
has lived in this area all her life
“except for three years in Arcadia,”
she adds jokingly. “I didn't get around
much, did I?” All three of her
daughters went to PCC, “so we've been
supporting Pasadena schools for a long
time," she laughs. She currently lives
in Altadena.
Volunteer work is also on the agenda,
but “I don't want to get too involved
right away."
Mrs. Oliver's attitude toward retir¬
ing is that "you miss the people but not
the work.”
“I’ve had some good board members
to work with. They've all been very
nice to me and very considerate to
me," she' continues. "I feel like I've
been good friends with several of
them."
“My heart's here at the college," she
concluded. “I want to keep in contact,
and I hope they'll keep in touch with me
too."
Vi.
Binge/Purge Syndrome — Bulimarexia
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By Eddie Williams
Contributing Writer
Rosemary's, friend spotted some¬
thing suspicious in a supermarket. A
woman was waiting in the check-out
line with a shopping basket full of junk
food. Cookies, cake, ice cream, potato
chips; all piled into the cart. The
woman wasn't overweight. In fact, she
was quite slender. Rosemary’s friend
walked up to her and said, “I hope
you're going to keep all that down."
The stranger’s face suddenly turned
pale. Fear engulfed her eyes, and she
turned away quickly. She had been
discovered.
What Rosemary's friend had tacitly
accused the stranger of was planning to
eat the whole basket of food in one
sitting— a “binge”— and then vomit it
up intentionally afterwards— a
“purge.” The stranger was probably
suffering from what professionals have
entitled bulimarexia, or the binge and
purge syndrome.
Bulimarexia (Greek for ox hunger)
is a disease so new to the medical
world that it hadn’t even been identi¬
fied until last year when the American
Psychiatric Association declared it a
separate eating disorder. Yet experts
estimate that as many as 15-20 percent
of all college women in the country
have had “some involvement” with it.
and one local doctor placed that figure
even higher for the Pasadena area.
Before being separately classified,
bulimarexia had generally been
lumped with the more publicized ill¬
ness known as anorexia nervosa, which
drives young women to diet to such
extremes that they can starve them¬
selves to death. Though there are defi¬
nite similarities between the two prob¬
lems, the differences are even more
pronounced.
Anorexics commonly suffer an iden¬
tity crises brought on by pampered,
middle class childhoods in which the
pressure for them to achieve is strong
and their own freedom to make de¬
cisions is limited. They may see them¬
selves as a blank, and so try to live to
plese others, fearing rejection. Their
friendships are usually shortlived.
They feel they have nothing to offer,
and so may resist growing up.
They are often also afraid of male
rejection, and hence resist growing up.
Staying thin helps preserve the “little
girl” image, and for most this includes
shrunken breasts and even the loss of
their menstrual cycle. Anorexics take
pride in their thinness, even when it
approaches emaciation. Their self-im¬
age is distorted and the more they are
told they are too thin the more they are
flattered. One anorexic prided herself
on being able to survive on. only one
Cherrio a day.
Because they fear being common,
which they may equate with failure
because of the high standards placed on
them, their will-power and control
make them feel special, and their
exaggerated appearance brings them
attention. When they cannot hold out
any longer, they usually break their
fast with a huge food binge, like the
traces are much less visible than
anorexia.
They feel they can eat all they wish
and never gain weight. Some
bulimarexics have been reported in-
jesting up to 60,000 calories at one time.
Yet eventually the process of binging
and purging can overcome them, mak¬
ing them lose control. They use food as
a smokescreen, a sort of anesthetic for
their real problems, according to psy¬
'We're getting two messages. One is: eat ,
eat, eat. The other is: be thin. We see a
model who weighs 1 20 pounds on a page
right next to a recipe for cookies. '
bulimarexic, but it is infrequent and
they continue to drop pounds, often
needing hospitalization.
The example of the supermarket
woman illustrates the difference be¬
tween the two illnesses. Unlike anorex¬
ics, bulimarexics have large appetites
and have discovered that the way to
cope with the problem is by inducing
vomiting. Though bulimarexia can re¬
sult in serious physical harm, the proc¬
ess is much slower and the outward
chologists. Feeling angry and dis¬
satisfied with herself, the binger turns
to food for relief. After stuffing herself,
guilt sets in, along with the feeling of
being fat and ugly, which leads her to
purge. The purge leaves her depressed
and even more guilty, which in turn
sets her up for another binge. It be¬
comes a compulsive cycle.
It is guilt which makes the
bulimarexic’s problem a secretive one,
one she will go to great lengths to
conceal. The supermarket stranger's
reaction was predictable. Because its
detection has been so recent, the symp¬
toms of bulimarexia have only lately
become noticeable, so for years many
bingers have been successfully able to
conceal their habits from friends and
family.
Rosemary Spahn is not a fictitious
character. She works in the medical
records department of the Student
Health Center at UCLA, and holds a
bachelor's degree in psychology. She
has also worked at the Foothill Com¬
munity Clinic in Pasadena for the past
six years. And she has been a
bulimarexic off and on for 18 years.
“I still binge about three times a
week,” said Spahn. “Until last April
though, I was binging for six, eight,
sometimes 12 hours in one sitting.’’ At
the height of her conflict Spahn became
Heightened. “It was a thrill— the
sneakiness of it— having the envy of
other women. When we lunched to¬
gether they would say, ‘My gosh, how
can you eat like that and stay so thin?’
I loved their jealousy; they were rein¬
forcing me. By 1980 though, I was
binging and purging, but still gaining
weight. I got scared. I said to myself,
‘Why do I need to do this every day?
It’s not working, yet I do it.’ ”
It wasn't until Spahn started bringing
the subject up in therapy in the sum¬
mer of 1980 that she found help. She had
been seeing a therapist since 1974
because of personal and family prob¬
lems. Rosemary Spahn’s experience
illustiates how the pressures in today s
society can lead a woman to
bulimarexia.
"We were the Twiggy generation."
she explains. “The last generation had
larger, heavier sex-symbols. My
mom's whole identity was wrapped up
in food; who she was, how successful
she was, was based on how we felt
about dinner." Spahn describes her
mother as overweight, and her father
as a heavy drinker, and says that the
only sort of attention she could get was
negative. Yet to a child, says Spahn,
any attention is better than none, and
Spahn earned hers by abusing food. “I
had to start a fight to get attention, so
I would go to the bathroom after dinner
and throw up, then come back and brag
about it to my family." The domineer¬
ing mother figure and distant father
are common to many bulimarexics.
Also common is the fact that they are
usually highly motivated and in¬
telligent women.”
“I had a 4.0 grade point average,”
says Spahn of her college record. “But
(Continued on Page 6)
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