PCC Courier, March 25, 1993

Pasadena City College Pasadena, California Vol. 75 No. 6 COURIER Serving the PCC Community for 75 years Thursday March 25, 1993 Students head off budget battle Sacramento lobbying a success, leaders say By JONATHAN BLAKESLEE Staff Writer PCC students lobbied the state legislature in Sacramento on March 16 and 1 7 against the proposed $20 a unit fee increase. Ninety-seven students traveled by bus and plane to join efforts with students from all over the state in peaceful demonstration. Because of a Cal State rally that turned violent a week ago, state police were apprehensive about the situation. However, the 500-member rally, organized through the California Student Associa¬ tion of Community Colleges (Cal- SACC) never once got out of hand in the course of its four hours of speeches and chanting. Four PCC students opened the rally addressing the crowd on topics including the budget proposal and alternatives to the fee hike. While the demonstration was in progress outside, nine PCC students met with 1 1 different legislators and staffers to discuss budget alterna¬ tives that PCC students advocate. The trip, including all of the ho¬ tel, food, bus, plane and lobby ar¬ rangements was organized and run almost entirely by students. One adviser, Alvar Kauti, assistant dean of student activities, moderated the trip. Elizabeth Contreras, organizer and Inter Club Council vice president, said the trip “went off without any glitches. We would have liked to have taken more people because we had the support and money. PCC was the only school that provided the trip free for its students.” The rally was opened at 9 a.m. Wednesday by PCC student trustee John Robinson. Robinson welcomed all of the schools from various regions of the state. Alpha Gamma Sigma officer J.J. Neward then spoke on the gover¬ nor’s budget proposal and how it will hit community colleges. “Gov. Wilson has proposed an 11.1 percent cut statewide to com¬ munity colleges, which may be off¬ set by a S20 a unit fee increase,” Neward said.“Our government is spending a lot of time and money on creating lower dropout rates and raising SAT’s so people can go to college, and then they pull the rug right out from under us. We arc willing to pay our share, but this is too much too fast.” Dylan Littlefield, presidentof the College Republicans, spoke to the crowd on Senate Bills 48 and 46 which are the two main proposals PCC students were supporting. He also pushed for having no suspension of Proposition 98 which also threatens community college financial resources. “You need to write or visit your legislator at your district office, and tell them how the previous fee hike put 60,000 community college stu¬ ‘We are willing to pay our share, but this is too much too fast.’ J.J. Neward, Alpha Gamma Sigma member SPEAKING OUT Student Trustee John Robinson {left) welcomes more than 300 students to the state capitol, where a PCC group rallied against a fee increase of $30 per unit. (Upper left) Dylan Littlefield, College Republican president, spoke about the Senate Bills students should support while some of the 79 students from PCC held up placards (bottom left). Another lobbying trip to Sacramento is underway in May, when lawmakers decide on a final budget for California. All photos by JONATHAN BLAKESLEE/ The COURIER dents out of the system. “You also need to offer your total support of Senate Bill 48. This is the extension of the 1/2 cent emergency sales tax, which would create $420 million for community colleges and completely offset the 11.1 percent cut by Wilson,” Littlefield said. The fourth PCC speaker to ad¬ dress the crowd, Contreras talked about the effects the fee increase might have. “We know about the implications of the hike. Approximately 300,000 students will be bumped out of the system because they can 4 afford the increase,” Contreras said. “College students are 30 percent of the voting population and we are the economic future. Don 4 let them undermine us and our role in the state’s policies.” Contreras’s speech fell at the end of the lobby session and served to start the already vocal crowd into chants such as, “Educate Wilson!”, “Schools yes, prisons no!” and “Senate Bill 48, and don’t suspend 98!” Including the two sent from PCC, a total of 12 buses converged on Sacramento joining students from L.A. area schools such as Santa Monica City College, Los Angeles City College, and Valley College with students from schools in the Sacramento area. While state police were positioned between students and the doors of the capitol, the rally did not get out of control the way the Cal State rally had a week before. During the Cal State protest, some of the demonstrators were spitting on police and even tried to storm the governor’s office. “The outside rally went really well. From talking to the legislators, the CSU and UC rallies really hurt their cause, but they had a totally different reaction to our rally.” said Fareed Rayyis of the Cross Cultural Planning Board. “When we were inside talking to legislators you could here the pro¬ test going on outside. It was a team effort and it made a difference,” he said. An Associated Student (AS) member said the effort could have been bigger. “Hundreds of sheets of signatures were dropped off at the senate education committee, and hundreds of individual letters were given to the governor’s office, sena¬ tors and assemblymen. The only sad part was that we had 1 70 sign up and only 97 made the trip,” said Clara Hernandez, AS coordinator of pub¬ licity. Due to the establishment of a student lobby account for just this purpose, the cost of the trip was covered by that fund. The projected cost of the two buses, 40 hotel rooms, five meals, and plane tickets is esti¬ mated at about $12,000. PCC students plan to lake part in another rally on May 7-9, when Cal- S ACC holds its annual conference at the capitol. The timing of this event are cru¬ cial to the fate of community college fees because it falls just before the budget battles that decide who gets California’s funds. Drug Awareness Day set By RODNEY MITCHELL Staff Writer Out of growing concern over increasing alcohol and drug abuse by students and staff, the PCC Foun¬ dation will present its 5th annual Alcohol and Drug Awareness Faire on Wednesday, March 31 and Thurs¬ day, April 1. The faire, underwritten by the Foundation, Student Services, Ca¬ reer Transfer Center and Commu¬ nity Skills Center, will be held at the Quad from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. One out of ten students in PCC suffer from the disease of alcoholism, said Bar¬ bara E. Bondurant, RN, director of substance abuse prevention. Bondurant said that on any college campus, alcohol is traced to two- thirds of all violent be¬ havior, one third of all emotional problems and one third of all aca¬ demic problems. Of all student hospital admissions, one out of three hospital admissions are alcohol-re¬ lated. Although alcohol is legal and is acceptable in American society, statistics from the City Council on Alcohol Abuse show that there is a higher fatality rate associated with alcohol than cocaine and her¬ oin. Professional drug and alcohol counselors from Pasadena treatment centers will be available during the faire to offer guidance and direc- toion concerning drug and alcohol abuse. A representative from the As¬ sociation of Recovery Homes will also offer specific information on recovery homes in Pasadena. Forum helps women cope By MERISSA GOODRICH Staff Writer When PCC hosted the 16th an¬ nual Pasadena Women’s conference, “Women of the 90s— Healthy in All Ways,” both PCC students and Pasad¬ ena residents learned that more women are injured by the men in their lives than in muggings or car accidents. The conference, coordinated by the Pasadena Commission on the Status of Women with help from the Friends of the Commission, focused on health issues confronting women. “There is a lot of work that goes into the conference but a special thanks goes to Cindy Kunisaki with¬ out whom this never would have happened, and a thanks to the St. Luke Medical Center, the Bank of America, Kaiser Permanente, Pasad¬ ena City College, and others for all their support,” said Sandra Ritten- house, chair of the Commission on the Status of Women. For the first time in 16 years, the conference of¬ fered workshops in Spanish. “ The workshops taught me how to handle stressful situations and how to manage my time in order to avoid stress in the first place,” Dana Lea- goon, a sociology major said. The goal of the conference was to educate women in health issues such as AIDS, and to create a greater feeling of confidence and pride in themselves. Rick Cole, mayor of Pasadena, and Katie Nack, vice-mayor, wel¬ comed everyone to the conference and expressed hope that the gains women have achieved in the last few years will continue to grow. “I stand here as a participant and sometimes a victim of the issues that this conference addresses,” said Nack, “But trends are flowing in the direc- Please see “WOMEN,“ page 6 More students need aid By MERISSA GOODRICH Staff Writer Student loans are at an all time high in California because of the recent tuition increases at all state- funded colleges. Fewer students are able to afford the new tuition and scholarships are more difficult to get because of increased competition. In the future, more and more students will borrow money, and colleges will be forced to use larger por¬ tions of their budgets on financial aid, a national survey has found. Many PCC students apply for loans and financial aid here and when they transfer. “We were one of the first community col¬ leges to get SI million in finan¬ cial aid. Now we’re receiving $5 million,” said Karla Henderson, assistant dean of scholarships and financial aid. The increasing cost of higher education, pegged at $ 500 or more per unit at some schools, has made it difficult for transfer students to afford their educa¬ tion. Students who don’t have a 4.0 grade point average find it even harder to get a scholarship and usually apply for a grant or get a loan from a bank or the federal government. Between 1970 and 1990, the num¬ ber of students receiving federal as¬ sistance increased significantly, ac¬ cording to the American Council on Education report. In constant 1990 dollars, student borrowing under the guaranteed loan program more than tripled, from $4.3 billion in 1970 to 1971 to $14 billion last year, the report said. During this same period, grants also doubled, from $5.7 billion to $13 billion. “Twenty years ago, more student aid was given in the form of grants than in loans, but today the reverse is true,” said Charles Andersen, a senior staff associate with the Ameri¬ can Council on Education. Numbers At Odds 1970-71 1990-91 $14 billion The situation is not expected to improve. The 1992 amend¬ ments to the Higher Education Act raised annual and cumula¬ tive loan limits for students bor¬ rowing under the federal guar¬ anteed loan programs, and also changed some income limits to make more middle-class students eligible for grants. However, budget limitations resulted in a cut in the maximum award for Pell Grants in 1993 and 1994, from $2,300 to $2,200. “With continuing pressures the federal budget likely to restrict the size of increases in federal grant programs, it seems likely that significant growth in feder- Please see “LOANS,” page 2 Student borrowing under the guaranteed loan program more than tripled between 1970 and 1990, from $4.3 billion in 1 970 to $14 billion last year. However, amendments to the Higher Education Acts in 1992 raised the limits for student borrowing under the federal program. I