PCC Courier, January 27, 1994

SPORTS OPINION Smoking ban respects the rights of non-smokers to have clean air. FEATURES Bookstore manager Al DePonte retires after 31 years of serving PCC. Fitness workshop keeps staff and faculty moving. PASADENA CITY COLLEGE Pasadena, California Vol. 78 No. 1 THE COURIER Serving the PCC Community for 76 years THURSDAY January 27, 1994 Transfer rate still stable despite fee hikes □ Students are still going to UC and CSU campuses even though the cost of public higher education has been steadily increasing. By PATRIA G. ABELGAS Editor in Chief Transfer students seem undaunted by the ever-increasing fees al the state’s public universities. Despite constantly increasing tuition fees that have plagued the CSU and UC systems, the number of transfer students to those universities has remained relatively stable. Tuition at CSU campuses has increased from $708 a year in 1989 to S 1 ,440 a у ear last Fall . On the UC campuses, tuition was raised from $1,476 a year in 1989 to $3,454 a year in 1993. And the end to the hikes is not near yet. Under Gov. Pete Wilson’s proposed budget for 1994-1995, CSU will be facing a 3.9 percent increase and UC a 3.2 percent in¬ crease in their current tuition. Yet students still keep going to them. “The state colleges are still the most reasonable option for students,” Harry Kawahara, PCC counselor, said. At UCLA, the number of transfer students jumped slightly from 2,013 in the fall of 1992 to 2,230 in 1993. Prior to that, the figures were 2,138 in 1991, 1,955 in 1990, “The state colleges are still the most reasonable option for students.” Harry Kawahara and 1,795 in 1989. The total transfer rate at all CSU cam¬ puses decreased by 1,794 students in 1992, from 46,678 in 1991 to 44,884. Figures for 1993 were unavailable. In 1990, the total number of transfer students to the CalState system was 45,723 and 45,402 in 1989. Philip Garcia, Cal State’s associate direc¬ tor of analytic studies, said that CSUs and UCs are the only affordable options for transfer students. ■ ,-TT^ • Si.-;*:?.»..- '*'7,.. ' * ^ -.X." * МмЫМ «ьз ~ V . . . . ANITA NARDINE/THE COURIER Children play under National Guard army tents set up in Tent City in Canoga Park. Hundreds of families displaced by the 6.6-magnitude earthquake Jan. 17 are still camping out, refusing to go back home until the “ground stops shaking.” □ Southern Californians are asking if there's a place where there are no earthquakes? By PATRIA G. ABELGAS RAY ARMENDARIZ Earthquakes, earthquakes everywhere, but where else can we go? Southern Californians were asking that question last week as aftershocks kept the ground shaking days after the 6.6-magni¬ tude earthquake woke them up in the predawn hours of Monday, Jan. 17. Going to the moon is probably too much of an extreme but that was what Lee Reinhartsen, assistant professor of En¬ glish and foreign languages, felt like do¬ ing. “That morning, I’d like to have gone to the moon,” Reinhartsen said. “For the first time in my life, I have been truly afraid.” Reinhartsen lives in Sylmar, where a lot of houses were damaged by the quake. His own house, though still standing, suffered extensive damages. “We lost everything inside. Every piece of furniture broke, the TV set flipped over on its side but didn’t break,” he said. “We were hit very hard.” Dr. Bruce Carter, chairman of the physi¬ cal sciences department and earthquake ex¬ pert, should know of a place Californians could find shelter from the quakes. “If I do have to go, I might choose a place where there’s white sand and beautiful cli¬ mate,” he said. “I’d go to Rio de Janeiro; they don’ t have earthquakes there, they have a beautiful climate. But there’s a great deal of poverty and I don’t think that’s pleasant. Carter said he wouldn’t go to Southern Europe either because there are a lot of earthquakes there. “So I wouldn’t say I’d go to Spain or Italy. I’d love to go to Norway, but I wouldn’t survive the winter. “Actually , I was born in the mountains, so I’d probably go somewhere where there’s a lot of mountains. But then, that’s exactly where the earthquakes are.” So are Californians doomed to wander the four comers of the earth with no respite from the rolling and shaking? Caroline (last name withheld), law major, said people just have to live with that fact. “I don’t think you can escape disaster. You just have to choose which one you can live with.” She chose earthquakes. Joy Hilado, 19, said she’d rather have the tornadoes and hurricanes in her native Texas. “At least in Texas, you can prepare for the tornadoes. Y ou get notification that it’s coming at least two hours in advance. An earthquake just wakes you up at 4:30 in the morning.” But Hilado shows an almost fatalistic attitude toward the shakers. “If earth¬ quakes kill me, then so be it,” she said. Carter said there really is no place on earth where we can escape earthquakes. “We live on a planet that has tectonics, moving plates that keep shifting around. Given the planet’s surface, we will get earthquakes anywhere, it’s just that some areas you get more shifting than others.” His only suggestion is to move to a place that doesn’t have the same tectonic surface as the Earth, like perhaps the moon. But then again, what about moon- quakes? Is the moon safe enough? “If somebody raises the price at public universities and there are no other schools offering lower tuition, where else would the student go?” Garcia asked. Timothy Sand, 21 , said a Cal State cam¬ pus is still the only option that he has. “It’s still the cheapest. The tuition fee hikes are very discouraging, but what can I do?” Some students end up going to private universities, like Loyola Marymount Uni¬ versity and University of Southern Univer¬ sity. Tuition at these colleges is $13,060 a year for LMU and $16,490 a year for USC. “Community college students go to us because they can’t get classes at the public universities,” said Veronica Horton of the admissions office at LMU. She said that LMU has seen a slow increase in the number of transferring students from community colleges in the last four years. USC’s community college student trans¬ fer rate has remained stable. “USC is a very expensive private university. Yet though the cost has gone up over the last years, the financial aid we offer has increased along with it,” Lee Slawner, USC counselor, said. CSU campuses are also increasing finan¬ cial aid to cover possible tuition fee hikes, according to Colleen Bentley- Adler, spokes¬ person for CSU’s Chancellor’s Office. Allan Feddersen, principal administra¬ tive analyst at UCLA, said students have found a way to offset the rising cost of tuition. ’They’re trying to get in as transfer students instead of freshmen because its cheaper. That way, they pay for fewer classes,” Feddersen said. “They haven’t been discouraged yet.” Clinton’s top aide to speak on campus □ David Mixner, described by Newsweek as “the most powerful gay man in America,” will lecture on the status of gays in the administration. By ALFREDO SANTANA Special Correspondent David Mixner, a longtime friend of Presi¬ dent Clinton, who helped convince gays and lesbians to vote for the democratic candidate in the 1992 presidential election, will be speaking on campus next week. A gay activist and spokesman of the militantantiwarVietnam movement, Mixner is scheduled to lecture to the Pasadena com¬ munity on Friday, Feb. 4 at 7:30 p.m. in Sexson Auditorium. The Gay and Lesbian Student Union is sponsoring the event that will delve into the stateof gays, lesbians and bisexual rights and what homosexuals are bracing for under the current Clinton Administration. Mixner’s political relationship with a group of wealthy, influential Los Angeles gays in 1991 was considered vital in Presi¬ dent Clinton’s quest to reach the gay and lesbian community. Mixner’s help also gave Clinton entree to a broader circle of money from Hollywood to run his campaign. He also served as Clinton’s presidential senior campaign adviser, and is the only openly gay member of the executive committee. “Our main goal by bringing Mr. Mixner to PCC is to let the people know what the status of gays and lesbians is under the current administration,” said Kevin Fullen, Gay and Lesbian Student Union (GLSU) president. In order for Mixner to visit and speak before the Pasadena community, the GLSU had to raise $3,500 to pay him. The student services fund allocated only $1,500 for this purpose, so the students devised other ways to collect the rest. They held car washes and food drives, among others things. Fullen said he expects the 3,000 seats in Sexson Auditorium to be filled with local students as well as with people from other colleges in the Los Angeles area. Tickets for the talk are $5. Money gar¬ nered from the event will go to the AIDS Service Center of Pasadena and to some local shelters. Students work for legalization of hemp By DAVID MUSHEGAIN Staff Writer PCC students launched a campaign Mon¬ day striving for the legalization of mari¬ juana. Students supporting the group Earthwise, among others, hope to get more than 350,000 signatures in the Southern California area in order to have the Califor¬ nia Hemp Initiative (CHI1994) placed on the November 1994 ballot. Hemp, otherwise known as marijuana or cannabis, was declared illegal by the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. The group of student petitioners are acting in hopes of relegalizing hemp for both smoking and practical pur¬ poses. Several handouts provided by BACH, the Business Alliance for Commerce in Hemp, display the practical reasons for hemp legal¬ ization. Hempcan beusedasabiomassfuel, to make gas, charcoal, methanol, and gaso¬ line. Beside industrial uses, the petitioners claim that Hemp has medical value. It has been prescribed for illnesses such as glau¬ coma, asthma, and for pain and stress relief. According to a report given by Hugh Downs of ABC news, 25-30 million Ameri¬ cans currently participate in the smoking of marijuana. An estimated $4 billion a year is made from illegal hemp crops yearly. So although illegal in the United States, mari¬ juana is not a scarce plant. Most of those who oppose the idea of legalizing marijuana felt that its legaliza¬ tion would lead to drug abuse and a general decline in society’s already fading value system. Others fear that this is an initiative which is simply being used as a way to make smoking marijuanaalegal activity and noth¬ ing else. Some also brought forth clinical arguments, stating the ill health effects such as brain and lung damage. Whether or not marijuana should be le¬ galized is a controversial question and one with substantial arguments on both sides. Nevertheless, the California Hemp Initiative petitioners stand firm to their position. “Even if you’re not going to smoke mari¬ juana or even sign the petition, we just want you to be aware of the facts. People should not be afraid of the plant.” said Heather Heater, Hemp activist and Earthwise mem¬ ber.