OPINION
NEWS
SPORTS
United Nations should take steps to
stabilize situation in Yugoslavia.
David Mixner talks on campus about fight
against AIDs and the future of gays and
lesbians in politics.
Women's softball team ties
alumnae in first annual game.
PASADENA CITY COLLEGE
Pasadena, California
Vol. 78 No. 4
COURIER
Serving the PCC Community for 7 6 years
THURSDAY
February 10, 1994
This won’t hurt a bit...
SHANE CLARKE/The COURIER
Students respond to the call to donate blood after the nation’s supply went
down to a day’s reserve. The blood drive was held Feb. 7 and Feb. 8.
Non-resident tuition up
□ Board of Trustees
approves a $117 per unit
tuition for out-of-state
and foreign students.
Current fee is $104 per
unit.
By P ATRIA G. ABELGAS
Editor in Chief
Non-resident tuition will go up from S 1 04
to $117 per unit per semester with no
maximum number of units.
The board of trustees approved the new
non-resident tuition fee hike at its Feb. 2
meeting. The raise came in the wake of a
possible $7 increase in fees for California
residents.
By fall 1994, if Gov. Pete Wilson’s pro¬
posal to increase tuition to $20 per unit is
approved by the Legislature, non-residents
could be paying as much as $ 1 37 per unit or
$1,644 for 12 units in one semester.
The college charged non-residents $100
per unit in 199 1 , then raised the fees to $104
per unit for the 1 992-93 and 1 993-94 school
years.
“Regular students have only the proposed
$20 tuition to worry about. I understand
that’s a lot, but can you imagine having to
worry about $117 per unit,” said a foreign
student who requested anonymity.
“It really puts a lot of pressure on me to
come up with that kind of money just to get
through another semester.”
Unlike California resident students, the
cost of educating non-residents is not cov¬
ered by the state. Non-residents include for¬
eign students (those holding F-l, tourist,
political asylum , and other special visas) and
students from other states who have not yet
established a year’s residency in California.
“The state does not pay the full cost of
education for these students because they
haven’t paid taxes,” said Barbara Griffith,
international students adviser.
Griffith said the costs of educating a
student has risen over the last few years.
Expenses include salaries and instructional
materials.
The statewide average for a full-time
student’s cost of education in 1993-94 is
$107 per unit. PCC’s expense of education
for a full-time student is $104 per unit.
The money that these students pay goes
directly into the college’s general fund.
Education Code Section 76140 permits a
community college district to compute the
non-resident tuition fee based on either the
statewide average of expense of education,
the district’s expense of education computa¬
tion, or non-resident fees of other nearby
community college districts.
PCC based its $1 17 per unit non-resident
tuition fee on other districts’ fees.
The Los Angeles Community College
district currently charges $1 17 per unit and
is recommending a $7 hike. Glendale Com¬
munity College District is planning to in¬
crease non-resident tuition from $111 to
$1 17 per unit.
Griffith said it is fair to charge non¬
resident students more. “If you haven’t put
any money in the pot, you can 4 get anything
back. It’s only fair that you pay your share,”
she said.
“Butl’m tom. As ataxpayer, I understand
the fee increase for these students because I
wouldn’t want to pay for their education.
“On the other hand, I work with our
international students every day and they
come to me saying, ‘But my parents don’t
have any more money.’ It’s sad when I think
of all their contributions to this college,”
Griffith said.
Tiberi returns to
PCC after court
reduces charges
□ Professor
reinstated after
enrolling in drug
diversion program.
By PAT ROBISON
Staff Writer
Daniel Tiberi, assistant professor
of social sciences, has returned to
teaching this semester after being
placed on administrative leave last
year after charges of cultivating and
possessing marijuana with intent to
sell it were re¬
duced.
According to
Mark Collier of
theAlhambraDis-
trict Attorneys
Office, both of the
original charges
were felonies but
were later dropped
Tiberi was instead
charged with pos¬
session of more
than an ounce of
marijuana which
is a misdemeanor.
Tiberi never went
to trial on that charge because he was
given the option of enrolling in a
drug diversion program, which he
took.
Patricia Mollica, dean of human
resources at PCC, said that the Cali¬
fornia Educalion Code mandated that
Tiberi be placed on leave because
the charges against him were felo¬
nies. She said that the education
code also stipulates that once he was
no longer charged with a felony that
he be reinstated.
Tiberi said he feels the reason that
he was charged with a felony in the
first place was that when the officers
collected the marijuana plants to be
used as evidence aginst him, they
weighed the plants immediately . The
officers reported the weight as 80
pounds and estimated the value at
$120,000.
Tiberi said that his lawyer, Rich¬
ard Tyson, pointed out in court that
normally a person attempting to sell
marijuana would remove the seeds
and stems from the plants and dry the
leaves and buds w hich would reduce
the weight by 90 to 95 percent.
Judge Michael Kanner of the
Alhambra Municipal Court assigned
Tiberi to the High Road Inc. diver¬
sion program in
Pasadena.
Tiberi said in a
written state¬
ment, “What
has happened
is a personal
health issue
going back to
my youth and
has been equi¬
tably resolved
by my partici¬
pation in a di¬
version pro¬
gram.”
He went on
to say that he appreciated the support
of college president Jack Scott but
that he is “distressed by the board of
trustees,” whom he said decided to
act on hearsay and speculation when
they placed a letter in his personnel
file.
He said the letter was designed to
“denigrate my character and teach¬
ing competence.”
Tiberi also said he appreciated
the help of Mollica who he said has
been the greatest source of informa¬
tion for him while he tried to deal
with this issue.
‘What has happened
is a personal issue
going back to my
youth and has been
resolved by my
participation in a
diversion program.’
Daniel Tiberi
After the Quake
Parking garage: Is it quake-proof?
After last month’s earthquake
Southern Californians pondered
the future of many things. At Cal
State Northridge, the campus suf¬
fered damage to more than 50
buildings including a large park¬
ing garage. Every time pictures of
the damaged or collapsed build¬
ings were shown a parking ga¬
rage was guaranteed to be part of
the coverage.
At last week’s board of trust¬
ees meeting, the major question
involved PCC's parking garage.
“Is the $9.3 million parking ga¬
rage on campus going to be built,
just to fall down in an earthquake?”
The answer was, “No, it will
not,” according to contractor Rob
Saxon, representative of Interna¬
tional Parking Design.
“Pasadena City College is fortu¬
nate that the ground on which the
garage is to be built has a solid soil
base. This allows us to use methods
other than most garages are built on.
The garages that were affected by
the quake, for the most part, used
‘pile’ foundations,” Saxon said.
Saxon continued, “This process
is used when the ground is not stable
enough to support the full weight of
the building during an event like the
earthquake. To make it more stable,
the contractor places “piles,” or
prehardened concrete slabs, into the
ground to support the structure’s
foundation. PCC’s ground is much
more stable for the campus parking
structure. The concrete will be poured
at the foundation site.”
“Pile columns absorb most of the
shock in an earthquake, and most
shatter under the pressure, separat¬
ing the walls connected to it from the
rest of the structure. From this ac¬
tion, the building basically mush¬
rooms and falls to the ground,”
Saxon said.
It was also pointed out that the
PCC garage will be under stricter
building restrictions. The Northridge
garage had never been reviewed by
the Office of the State Architect,
which requires a 15 percent higher
standard for earthquake preparation.
Along with the additional 10 per¬
cent required by the state for all
community c6lleges, the building is
already 25 percent stronger than the
Northridge garage before it is even
built.
The second question addressed
by the board of trustees is a rather
tall problem facing PCC. The
boiler room smoke stack, which
has been kept in place because of
its architectural design heritage,
was damaged during the quake. It
was termed as a “seismic hazard,
and an architectural loss” by Dr.
Jack Scott, superintendent-presi¬
dent of PCC.
It was estimated that it would
take more than $80,000 to repair
the stack, but in doing so the
architectural design of the stack
would be jeopardized. “It is a sad
situation with no real good solu¬
tion. The smokestack is the lastof
that design, but again, safety of
the campus and students must
come first,” Susan Mann, board
member, said.
The decision was made Mon¬
day evening at a special session.
The stack will be removed while
there is time before the parking
garage is built. A bid of slightly
more than $41,000 was added to
the parking structure contract.
Forum discusses gay/lesbian issues
□ Gay activist
lectures on politics
and the battle ahead.
By ENRICO PIAZZA
News Editor
David Mixner, senior adviser for
BillClinton’spresidential campaign,
proposed a national civil rights bill
to protect gays and lesbians, some¬
thing that will avoid what he called
“ballot-box terrorism.” He made the
proposal during a talk last Friday in
Sexson Auditorium. Mixner said that
there are currently eight initiatives
in various states designed to deny
equal rights for gays.
“We will fight these measures
with everything we have. It doesn’t
matter how they vote because we
will never go back into tyranny. We
will be a free people, no matter what
they do. They do not have the capac¬
ity to stop a community that has seen
what it is capable of and what it is
now allowed to do. We have to do
this in the midst of AIDS.”
Speaking on “The Status of Gay,
Lesbian, and Bisexual Rights,”
Mixner said that discrimination
against those with different sexual
orientations can not only be found in
southern states, but also “in our back¬
yard,” at UCLA campus.
“You don’t have to go far to find
discrimination against gays and les¬
bians, like Texas, where they shot a
gun at a young gay man’s feet to
make him dance before they blew his
brains out.”
Mixner said that if students en¬
rolled in UCLA’s Reserve Officer’s
Training Corps (ROTC) are discov¬
ered to be gay, they lose course
credits, are dismissed from the uni¬
versity, and might have to pay back
scholarship money. He said that the
school finances ROTC, gives stu¬
dents course credit and academic
recognition, all “with yours and my
tax dollars.
“We have a university that has
become a partner in discrimination,
and that’s unacceptable,” he said.
“If the Department of Defense
continues to insist on practicing dis¬
crimination against gays and lesbi¬
ans, whose only desire is to serve
their country, take it [the program]
off campus. Let’ s not give them state
funds and course credit for discrimi-
Please see MIXNER, Page 3