PCC Courier, March 02, 1995

OPINION FEATURES SPORTS Balancing the budget should not require an amendment to the Constitution. Page 2 ‘‘The Shadow Box” brings a disturbing, yet necessary look at life and death to the Sexson Auditorium. Page 4 Men’s basketball loses back-to- back games and misses the state playoffs. . Page 6 PASADENA CITY COLLEGE PASADENA, CALIFORNIA VOL. 80 No. 20 COURIER Serving the Pasadena Community since 1915 THURSDAY March 2, 1995 Faculty supports due process, academic freedom By PAT ROBISON COURIER STAFF WRITER The Faculty Senate members voted unanimously Monday night to send a resolution to the Board of Trustees concerning due process and academic freedom. The issue was prompted by the firing of Gloria Gomez, social sciences instructor. (Technically Gomez was not given tenure, therefore, was not rehired.) Ed Ortell, grievance officer at PCC for the California Teachers Association, and Gomez have said they feel that her firing and the nega¬ tive evaluation that preceded it, were unfair. Gomez believes the decision to deny her tenure was done in retali¬ ation for а СТА challenge to have her last evaluation removed from her file. In a memorandum issued to faculty members yesterday, Joyce Black, assistant superintendent of instruction, said the three-member evaluation team did not meet СТА contract specified deadlines and so the evaluation was removed. However, she then says that she and Dr. Gretchen Anderson, social sciences department chair and a member of that evaluation team, conferred and agreed to make that offer (to remove the evaluation) to Gomez. Ortell and Gomez said, though, that before they took their grievance to Black they went to Anderson and she refused to do it. At the Senate meeting Monday, a question was asked as to why Gomez was not given a different team for the second evaluation, Robert McLean, associate professor of social sciences, said, “They gave one reason and that reason was that her evaluation didn’t take place,” since it was not in her file. “It was obvious to anyone who read it that it was biased and preju¬ diced against Gomez and her very reasonable request to have nonbiased neutral administrators evaluate her was simply dismissed out of hand.” Anthony Georgilas, Faculty Sen¬ ate president, said that in another case, “Two faculty members, knowl¬ edgeable people, felt that they were doing recommendations for improve¬ ment and that is not what they are being used for. A peer evaluator had written an excellent, not satisfac¬ tory but excellent, peer report on a faculty member and the department chair did the evaluation. The depart¬ ment chair pulls out one sentence from a full page and the rest is his own. “Joyce Black is doing the same thing,” Georgilas said. “She is compilling all this material and pull¬ ing out what she feels is important. No matter what you write, she pulls it out. This is what’ s happening with Gloria Gomez. So we can go back historically and see that she was evaluated 100 percent excellent. Her lowest was 84 percent. Then her department chair decided to use the lower rating as the standard and tie it to tenure. “They say to you, ’Your evalua¬ tion? Oh nobody sees it but you and the department chair. But it is part of your file isn’t it? That’s put in your file but letters of commendation and letters of recommendation do not go into your personnel file because there isn’t any room. In the case of Gomez, she was evaluated by two faculty Please see FACULTY, Page 4 Students get chance for Capitol trip By JOSE INOSTROZ COURIER STAFF WRITER Four PCC students will be selected to receive all expense paid trips to attend Na¬ tional Student Lobby Day in Washington D C. March 17-20. Kim Georgine, AS coordinator of exter¬ nal affairs, and David Uranga, political sci¬ ence professor will accompany four students who have met application requirements for the all expenses paid trip to Washington D.C. Students from all over the country will converge on Capitol Hill for workshops on issues such as federal financial aid, grass roots organizing, campus safety, and student rights. The four day trip will involve work¬ shops on March 17, 18 and 19. A conference will be held on m Monday, March 20. “We are looking for people who have intelligent ideas about education and the situation that colleges are in right now,” said Georgine. “We will talk about the balanced budget amendment and the fact that the amendment is going to cut funding for financial aid programs.” The trip will be funded through funds collected by the $1 student representation fee students paid at registration. Georgine estimates the total cost for the trip will be between $1,500 and $6,000. In the past two years, students have gone to Sacramento to lobby against proposed tuition increases. Although, the National Student Lobby Day trip is not designed specifically to lobby against fees, it will give students an opportunity to be heard. Although students will not meet directly with senators or house representatives, they will have the opportunity to talk with eids on different issues. “We are going to talk more about financial aid issues like the cap on Pell Please see CAPITOL, Page 6 Not everyone is stressed... "• PASADENA COLLEGE iiititm тип mum? HOWARD BURGER/THE COURIER Students rushing to classes probably wouldn’t mind a leisurely swim in the Mirror Pools instead of always being on the run. Presidency up for grabs in Faculty Senate race By ENRICO PIAZZA COURIER STAFF WRITER The Faculty Senate race is heating up with Ellen Reynolds Ligons, the current vice president, challenging incumbent president, Anthony Georgilas for the presidency. Both candidates promise to fight for the complete implementation of AB 1725, which man¬ dates “shared governance.” The other contested seat is for treasurer, where the incumbent, Keith Oberlander, is challenged by Jo¬ seph Barnes. The other two posi¬ tions, vice president and secre¬ tary are uncontested. In his written statement, speech and communication pro¬ fessor Georgilas said he has kept his promise to “keep the momen¬ tum going” in the implementa¬ tion of AB1725. Georgilas, who Georgilas served three terms as vice president and 12 fives, terms as a representative in the Faculty Senate, also promised to implement the de¬ partment chairs rotation. He says that is also part of that bill, and that has not yet occurred. “The mouth that roars is still roaring, and getting results,” the statement said. “In only seven months of my term, the Faculty Senate has become a force with a ‘take charge’ attitude.” This re¬ sulted, Georgilas wrote, in get¬ ting the faculty the respect of the Board of Trustees, the college administration, and Sacramento lawmakers. last Faculty Senate meeting where he prom¬ ised, if elected, to “nail [administrators’] butts to the stove and turn up the heat.” Georgilas also said he has fought for the rights of part-time instructors, and has elimi¬ nated the “status quo” within the Faculty Senate and transformed it into a “dominant voice in college decision making.” On the other hand, if elected, Reynolds- Ligons, associate professor of business edu¬ cation, saidshe’Hbringtothe senatethekind of “organized and goal-directed leadership that is needed to successfully implement the mandates of AB1725.” Ligons, who has been teaching 25 years at PCC and has served 17 years on the Faculty Senate, added she will bring focus on the mission of the senate. “I pledge to achieve the senate goals through clearly defined and skillfully implemented objec- “I send at least two faxes a week to Gov. Wilson. And thanks to the policies and reso¬ lutions I formulated as a voting member of the California Community College State¬ wide Senate, Sacramento’s lawmakers now know the faculty dominance of PCC,” Georgilas said. In regards to the problems PCC is facing, he reiterated his speech at the Ligons said in her written campaign statements. She also pledged to establish an “open system” of communication that en¬ courages individuals and groups to bring their concerns to the senate for action. Ligons said she was inspired to run for president after listening to a speechby Janis Perry, vice presi¬ dent of the California Community Colleges State-wide Academic Senate. “Out of that speech, I was mo¬ tivated to run for the presidency, because I felt I could bring to the Reynolds-Ligons Faculty Senate my strong man¬ agement and organizational skills,” she said. Regardless of the election outcome, Ligons said she’ll work with the senate. “We must all work together if we want to completely implement AB1725.” All 366 full-time faculty members, which include librarians and counselors, are eli¬ gible to vote. The ballots will be counted on Tuesday, March 7 at noon. Speaker urges students to give nonviolence a chance By TAMINA AG HA COURIER STAFF WRITER Daughter of the late civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy came on campus to share her views on nonviolence, but was taken aback by students’ reactions. Donzaleigh Abernathy has discussed nonviolence with elementary school chil¬ dren and found their views more hopeful and optimistic than those of college age students. Referring to children, Abernathy told the audience, “They seem to have more hope and they’re younger than you.” She suggested that the social¬ ization process has had a negative affect on adults. “I felt truly blessed to have gotten to know greatpioneers ofpolitical thought,” Abernathy said in referring to the civil rights activists she has known, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Abernathy, daughter of one of the foremost civil rights leaders, spoke Tuesday at PCC about the history and her own personal perspective of the movement for nonviolence. Dr. King was a very close friend of the Abernathy family and as a little girl, Abernathy called him, “Uncle Martin. ” Ralph Abernathy found in Mar¬ tin Luther King Jr. a best friend. Both were leading activists in the civil rights movement. Ralph Abernathy is the au¬ thor of the book, “And the walls came tumbling down.” Donzaleigh spoke of the many hard¬ ships Blacks faced during the time they were fighting for their basic rights. She remembers painfully, the America that used to be; one that did not recognize basic rights for African Americans. Among these were utilizing public buses, water fountains, bathrooms, or sitting at the same table with Whites. She told the audience that the pioneers of civil rights, including Dr. King and her father, are to thank for “all of us sitting in this room together.” For they were the ones who rose up and changed the course of his¬ tory. Even though we have come a long way, Abernathy believes that many prob¬ lems still exist for African Americans. In some cases today, “people are judged by the content of their skin, not the content of their character.” In the 1960s the enemy was the system of segregation. Today minorities face economic depres¬ sion which is similar to the effect of segregation in that its self-destructing. The message of love and nonviolence is what, in Abernathy’s opinion, made the civil rights movement so incredible. Its a message she said to the audience, “you all will have to learn today if you’re going to give anything to your children.” While accepting questions from the audience, Abernathy encountered an ar¬ gumentative student who said he. dis¬ agreed with her views on nonviolence. George Battle, Student Trustee, used the example of someone coming up and slap¬ ping his mother in the face. Battle said he would not walk away from that person but would fight back. “After 400 years of slavery, racism, prejudice, lynching and castration, he said, you can’t tell me that I ’ m going to sit here and kiss a White man in the face because I think he loves me. He don’t love me, he never has loved me.” He continued to say, “If he can’t respect me, he don’t deserve no love.” The student’s statement that nonviolence is unrealistic seemed to have support from the audience. Many in attendance clapped at his counterpoints. Please see NONVIOLENCE, Page 6 ERWIN GOLDBERG/THE COURIER Donzaleigh Abernathy