OPINION
FEATURES
NEWS FEATURES
Passe Pennies
Cash in your pennies and start
rounding off Page 2
One-act plays
Theater Arts Department presents three
plays from the 50* s & 60’s Page 3
Scholar Visits
Robert L. Middlekauff lectures on
the revolutionary era Page 6
Pasadena City College
Pasadena, California
Vol. 73 No. 6
"" COURIER
Thursday
March 28, 1991
Computer errors cause problems
NEWSLINE
EARTHQUAKE DRILL
Students, faculty and staff beware
of the earthquake drill that will occur
April 2. April has been designated
California’s Earthquake Preparedness
Month, according to a memo issued by
James Kossler, assistant superinten¬
dent of administrative services on March
20.
The drill will begin at 10:15 a.m.
and will be signaled by a continuous
bell. Students, faculty and staff are
asked to duck under desks or tables
and remain quiet during the time we
would actually feel the movement of
an earthquake if this were a real emer¬
gency, according to Kossler.
Upon hearing the intermittent evacu¬
ation bell, the next step will be to
evacuate the building and stand at least
50 feet away from any structures. When
a second continuous bell is heard,
students, faculty and staff are asked to
return to their classroom or normal
work stations.
MUSIC AWARDS
The Third Annual Chicano Music
Awards will be held April 6 at 7:30
p.m. in Sexson Auditorium. The event
will be sponsored by Dr. Daniel Castro
to raise scholarship funds.
AUDITIONS
Auditions will be held for a “A
Night in Elsinore” and “Would you
Mind Repeating the Question?’ ’ in the
Little Theater, April 4 and 5 from 7:30
p.m. to 10 p.m. in C130. For more
information call 585-7216.
SPRING DANCE
PCC invites students to a Spring
Dance, April 6 from 7 p.m. to mid-
nightintheCampusCenter. Thedance
will be sponsored by the Vietnamese
Student Association. Admission is $6
and S3 for students with membership.
For more information call 585-9250 or
(213) 255-2966.
PROTEST POLICE BRUTALITY
The International Committee
Against Racism will hold a conference
March 30 from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in
Harberson Hall to discuss Police Bru-
taliy and War Aftermath.
Picketing at Parker Center will
begin at 10:30 a.m. Transportation will
be provided.
SUMMERJOBS
Although the summer solstice is
not due until June 22, the PCC Career
Placement Center is urging students to
drop by their office, C236, and leaf
through books containing lists of
summer jobs and internships.
If you want a job out of state, then
you might want to send an application
to Yellowstone National Park. If Cali¬
fornia is more your type, try Yosemite.
If those two jobs do not suit you, why
not try a job with the Los Angeles
Parks and Recreation Service.
Those jobs are three of many jobs
now available through the Career Place¬
ment Center.
For more informationon summer
jobs, call 585-7381.
INDEX
Opinion
2
Editorial
2
Features
3
News Features
4,5
Sports
6
By BECKY ROUSE AND CANDY
DANIELSON
Problems continue to plague the office of
admissions and records where both com¬
puter glitches and human error caused a
week’s downtime.
According to Stuart Wilcox, associate
dean of administration and records, that is
how long it took for computer services to
straighten out the mess created when a pro¬
gram that stores students ’ grades in a histori¬
cal file was run twice. “For example, a
student enrolled in 16 units appeared to be
enrolled in 32 units instead,” said Wilcox.
During that time, the transcripts office
was unable to process any requests, Wilcox
said. He also stated, rumors that grade point
averages were being miscalculated were
untrue.
While some people were unable to ob¬
tain their transcripts, others were unable to
By ROSEANN RENZULLO
Editor-in-Chief
Washington D.C. was the destination for
the two winners of the Twenty-Second Annual
Student Symposium trip. The symposium
was sponsored by the Center for the Study of
the Presidency. The recipients flew 3,000
miles across the county to visit the nation’s
capital and, to attend various lectures and
issue panels that were held March 22 through
March 24.
After landing in Washington D.C., Lois
Chatman and Shipra Bansal took a taxi to the
Hyatt Regency on Capitol hill where they
stayed for the duration of their four day
conference. They were joined by about400
students from across the U.S.
‘ ‘Washington is fabulous. It is a city like
any other city, but it is the nation’s capital. I
was glad to have the opportunity to see the
history of our country,” said Chatman.
“I also enjoyed the social conversation
which was very important to me, because I
am very interested in hearing what other
students think about the same things I think
about."
continue classes at all. Students on progress
probation who improved their grades last
semester were dismissed from the college,
along with approximately 200 other stu¬
dents routinely disqualified.
Wilcox explained that a safely feature in
the computer program that processes stu¬
dents for dismissal failed to catch those who
showed improvement during their last se¬
mester. He said that approximately five to
10 students were inadvertently dismissed in
this manner, but they were sent letters ex¬
plaining the error and asked to return to the
college.
The computer problem may be narrowed
down to two computers: the Hewlett-Pack¬
ard (HP) computers in the Office of Com¬
puter Services (OCS), dubbed George and
Jenny. The two may have caused late finan¬
cial aid checks as well as false transcripts.
George, a model 950, houses account¬
ing, financial aid, student aid, and bookstore
On Friday, Chatman and Bansal toured
the Lincoln Memorial and The Capitol,
however they were disappointed to find the
the White House tour and the State Depart¬
ment briefing were canceled because of se¬
curity considerations and replaced with a
tour of the National Defense University.
‘ T was heartbroken that the White House
tour was canceled because I probably won’t
be able to have the same opportunity again,’ ’
said Chatman.
“I have never been to Washington D.C.
and I was so impressed by the Lincoln
Memorial. It was so much larger than I
imagined,’ ’ said Bansal. She added that the
life size statues inside the capitol were great,
but the parable ceiling is really beautiful.
Friday evening through Sunday, the stu¬
dents attended lectures, by notables, includ¬
ing Chief Justice Wanren Burger, Sen. Nancy
Landon Kassebaum, R-Kan., Mary Collins,
associate minister of national defense from
Canada, Charles Cordday, defense corre¬
spondent for Baltimore Sun, and Anne Reilly
Dowd, associate editor of Fortune Maga¬
zine. They spoke about various topics such
as the bicentennial of the Bill of Rights, new
data, and will have been on campus four
years in September. Jenny, model 935,
currently stores library information, and is a
one-year newcomer.
Within a year, “she” will be promoted
to keep records transferred from the instruc¬
tional center computer.
Although the department’s 13 full-time,
staggered shift employees may have put a
human touch on the two HPs by naming
them, that alone offers little comfort to stu¬
dents victimized by persistent bugs in the
system. Repeated attempts to reach Dale
Pittman, director of administrative comput¬
ing, for a comment on the computer prob¬
lems have been unsuccessful.
However, Carla Henderson, assistant dean
of scholarship and financial aid, offered
explanations for delays in aid checks, de¬
claring “there’s enough responsibility to be
shared.”
Claiming “we are no longer three months
world order and the media.
“ A lot of the speakers were one-sided. It
was all in support of the war. They talked
about the brutality of Saddam Hussein, but
never mentioned that Syria invaded Leba¬
non and that many massacres occurred.
This issue situation in Lebanon is com¬
pletely overlooked by our government and it
is not even mentioned in the media,” said
Bansal.
“I thought Chief Justice Burger was the
best speaker because when he was con¬
fronted with a question that was unanswer¬
able or he was unable to disclose certain
information. He answered honestly and did
not try to side-step the issue,” said Chat¬
man, who added that it was quite an honor to
hear him speak in person.
“It does not thrill me to celebrate the
bicentennial of the Bill of Rights because
when the Constitution was founded and when
the original Amendments were written,
blacks were not considered citizens,” said
Chatman.
She added that the real celebration of the
Bill of Rights for black Americans is from
the Thirteenth Amendment on.”
behind,’ ’ she said the problem was a combi¬
nation of the following, converging “at a
very inopportune time.” Her department’s
staff turnover, the changeover of financial
aid records from Sigma to SAFERS, and the
institutional change (in the OCS) from Red
to Gold (Santa Rosa Gold, the software ac¬
commodating 50 programs running simulta¬
neously, including records and transfers).
Regarding late checks, Henderson said
most students were helped with emergency
loans “which are processed in one working
day, while cash loans up to $50 are ready the
same day.”
Expressing sympathy with students’
problems, she said her staff worked week¬
ends, evenings and during Christmas break
to assist students.
“I’m optimistic that we have worked out
the major problems. If we are on time with
the April checks, I am treating the staff to
lunch,” she said.
Congress warned
not to slash
school spending
By CANDY DANIELSON
Staff Writer
A major reform suggestion to post-sec¬
ondary schools and repeated warnings against
denying educational access to low-income
students were included in remarks to his
colleagues on the House floor by Rep. James
M. Inhofe (R-Oklahoma).
Throughout his talk there was a tacit
recognition of the pivotal role held by com¬
munity colleges as educational catalysts.
"Our Nation’s economic future is at stake,”
said Infoe who cautioned that in preparing to
re-authorizethe 1965 Higher Education Act,
“we must continue to ensure that all stu-
dents-regardless of their socio-economic
status-have access to the kind of post-sec¬
ondary education that best meets their needs,
interests and abilities.”
Inhofe cited the growing need of skilled
workers “if the United States is to remain
economically competitive in the 1990s and
the 21st century.” He pointed out that
although traditional four-year colleges edu¬
cate a segment of the work force, “only 50
percent of high school graduates go to col¬
lege and only 42 percent of them get a
college degree.”
Inhofe warned that “we cannot forget
the rest of the American work force who
may not go to college but may need some
post-secondary education.”
He conceded that the default rates by stu¬
dents who apply for federal loans has “become
a very serious and costly problem requiring
tough, but fair, steps to fight fraud and abuse
in student aid programs, and to ensure that
students pay back their loans.’ ’ Despite the
default crisis, Inhofe said, student access to
student financial aid should not be denied
because of the type of school he or she
chooses to attend.
In the re-authorization of student finan¬
cial aid, Inhofe said such legislation should
recognize the diversity of post-secondary
educational options available to students.
He called for ensuring that “financial aid is
neutral, not favoring one type of education
over another.”
Inhofe suggested, as “one important
reform,” the helping of students to make
informed consumer decisions about which
school to attend.
“We should require all post-secondary
institutions to provide information on the
cost, educational requirements, chances of
succeeding, and employment or continuing
education possibilities experienced by their
graduates.” he said.
Repeating his warning against denying
educational access to those with low in¬
comes, he said, “To deny those at the bot¬
tom of the economic ladder the opportunity
to go to school would defeat the whole intent
of the Higher Education Act of 1965.”
Katrina Ten/The Courier
Many local schools and students are either celebrating their spring break or they are planning to next week. But, PCC students
need to be aware that spring break does not officially begin until April 8. Classes will resume Monday, April 15.
From PCC to Washington, D.C.