PCC Courier, May 20, 1993

OPINION UCLA Latino students have every right to demand their own department. Page 2 FEATURES Asian music with a twist: Giana records beats a new path in musicuituralism. Page 5 SPORTS Hervey denied chance to compete in state track championships. Page 6 The Pasadena City College Pasadena, California VoL 75 No. 13 COURIER Thursday May 20, 1993 Woods wins СТА elections □ The once- embattled president of PCC’s chapter of the California Teachers Association (СТА) is reelected. Opposition calls for unity within group. By ALFREDO SANTANA News Editor Gary Woods, self-described “watchdog” for the college commu¬ nity whose tenure as California Teacher Association (СТА) PCC chapter president has involved is¬ sues that have embellished and tar¬ nished his 12-year administration, swept to a decisive victory last Mon¬ day over counselor Harry Kawahara, clinching another year in the execu¬ tive position. Woods, 49, garnered support from a coalition of col¬ lege instructors who have backed him since 1 979, the year he was first elected CTA/PCC president. From the 152 ballots that were cast by mail between May 4 and May 17, Woods received 88 votes, 59 percent of the total voter turnout. Kawahara garnered 41 percent of the votes. In the same election, incumbent vice presidential candidate Suzanne Bravender, art professor, won over English professor Lee Reinhartsen by an 85 to 63 margin. S he earned 57 percent of the vote, whereas Rein¬ hartsen got only 43 percent. For the СТА secretary position, current office-holder Elvio Ange- loni, social science professor, ran to an easy victory over rival Paul Mar¬ tin from the CSC. Those who voted for Angeloni numbered 101 of the votes or 70 percent, compared to Martin’s 44 votes, or 30 percent of the vote. ‘What is important at this point is to go ahead and not look backward. It’s time to get differences on both sides resolved.’ Gary Woods, reelected СТА president Edward Ortell, who served as СТА chief-grievance officer, ran and won a newly created position called “Di¬ rector # 2.” He defeated Blanca Hemandez-Henderson,aCSCcoun- selor. Ortell, who represents Woods at most college faculty meetings, garnered 107 votes, or 74 percent, against Hemandez-Henderson’s 28 votes, or 26 percent of the vote. Results of Woods’ work at PCC can be seen in theadoption of bargaining contracts for faculty members, down¬ sizing of workloads and improve- AN INTERVIEW WITH TONY LOWDEN ‘Let’s live with reality □ Fee hike inevitable, president of student lobbying group says. Student politicians must be accountable. By JONATHAN BLAKESLEE Staff Writer The California Student Associa¬ tion of Community Colleges (Cal- SAAC) held its annual conference and lobby session in Sacramento to select new leaders and map policy for the coming year. CalSAAC , the lobby group that represents the 107 community col¬ leges in the state legislature, is cur¬ rently involved in a bitter struggle against the proposed $20 per unit fee increase. The key item on the agenda for the conference was the selection of a new president and executive board who will represent the 1.5 million students who make up CalSACC. Tony Lowden of Los Angeles City College, was elected president with an overwhelming ma- _____ jority of the vote. In an interview with the COURIER, he out¬ lined his plans for Cal¬ SACC. COURIER: What will CalSAAC do about the fee hikes? “Some increase in _ tuition is going to be almost unavoidable. We will shoot for having no increase in fees, but we will probably have to be willing to give on that issue. ” COURIER: CalSAAC has had problems with effectiveness in the past. What will you do about this? “The first thing is for CalSAAC to create unity and to stop alienating itself with bad talk. If we are uni¬ fied, then we really do represent 1 .5 million people. “The second and the most crucial thing is empowerment. We are the largest and one of the most influen¬ tial lobby groups in the state, but if the students are not empowered, we are nothing. “Region seven, the area of Cal¬ SAAC that covers Los Angeles, is SAAC that covers Los Angeles, is bringing 1 3 buses of students to the capilol on Monday to lobbying in what will be the largest single day of lobby the state has seen in years. That is empowerment.” COURIER: How do you plan to empower the students? “Get the student representation and lobby fee going at every com¬ munity college and we can have em¬ powerment, because the funds will be there. This will allow students to come up and be heard at the capitol. “Each campus should have a fax have a computer network with modems linking each school to the CalSAAC office, to get current updates and information about leg¬ islation and events. If we modernize CalSAAC, it will become more ac¬ tive. “I would like to set up a commu¬ nity college alumni organization to help finance CalSAAC. Can you imagine the treasure chest we would have access to with an alumni group working out of 1 .5 million students? We can’t even afford to pay some¬ one to answer our phones. This or¬ ganization has never had funds to ‘Why is our state government putting $300 million more into the penal system? We’re tired of living with our forefathers. Let’s live with reality.’ operate with and this is severely holding us back. “The third thing that CalSACC and the individual community col¬ leges need to do is to hold our offi¬ cers accountable. Write into the constitution what each officers’s duties are and force them to uphold them. “Some of our people are paying for conferences in Florida, Wash¬ ington D.C., and what do the stu¬ dents get out of it? Nothing. We have to remember that we’re here for the school. Conferences are not a dating service. “To help us do this, we’re going to create a stipend on my campus, and the only way for leaders to get it is if they do their job. If their consti- ment in the salary scale. With the campaign over, the major candidates urged their supporters toward reconciliation. “What is important at this point is to go ahead and not look backward,” said Woods about complaints raised by some faculty members who said he misuse confidential СТА mem¬ bership lists to mail campaign litera¬ ture. “It’s time to get differences on both sides resolved.” Kawahara was supported by Jane Hallinger, who unsuccessfully ran against Woods last year. He said what is important for СТА members now is to heal political differences and to gel things done. “It’s time for unity, it’s time for healing,” said Kawahara. “The people have spoken, so we have to work for common objectives.” This was the first time CTA/PCC elections were held by mail. Ballot counting was conducted by СТА state officials. Ballots were mailed to members’ homes and they were marked and sent to the СТА Los Angeles office. According to СТА statewide rules, to be elected presi¬ dent of a commu¬ nity college chap¬ ter of СТА, a can¬ didate must gamer at least 75 votes from instructors who are members of this organiza¬ tion. CTA/PCC chapter has 202 members. Kawahara Vote Breakdown A total of 152 СТА members reelected their leaders in a climate of infighting and power negotiations with the administration. Following is the percentage breakdown of the СТА presidential race: Harry Kawahara 11% Art professor Suzanne Bravender won over Community Skills Center assistant professor Paul Martin by a 57-43% margin. Elvio Angeloni, professor of social sciences, was elected secretary and Ed Ortell, professor of business, was voted director # 2. tutional tasks are not done each month, then they don ’ t receive their stipend. Period. “What I am fighting for are the oppressed. Anytime you raise fees on a group of students that are un¬ able to afford them you create op¬ pression. “When 150,000 students left the community college system over a $4 increase, there is no benefit and 300,000 more will leave the system if the $20 per unit fee increase goes into place. That is how we create homeless people and people in the penal system. Why is our state gov¬ ernment putting $300 million more into the penal system? We’re tired of living with our forefathers. Let’s live with reality. “We need to take over the government and groom our politicians.” COURIER: How do you intend to do that? “I would like to see CalSAAC hold the state accountable for the laws “ 1 it creates. SB 95 says that our state cannot raise tuition more than 3 percent in one year. They want to raise it 200 percent. The state is violating its own laws and should be sued. “Let’s look at placing a fee cap and creating more financial aid to help people. California used to be first in both education and industry, and the correlation is definite. However, now we’ re 46th in educa¬ tion and all our companies are mov¬ ing out to Third World countries. Education should be as sacred as a church. “We also need to make our poli¬ ticians more approachable. I would be happy to come speak at PCC. I am approachable and I want to work for you and CalSAAC. ” Faculty boycott Social science professors bow out of chairman selection process By ALFREDO SANTANA News Editor In a motion that social sci¬ ences professors hope will be followed by the rest of the aca¬ demic departments as a show of support for them, the social sci¬ ences faculty pledged to boycott the newly created plan to select their department head. The social science decision came 13 days after the college Board of Trustees ruled that four professors along with four ad¬ ministrators would make up the committee designed to narrow the pool of applicants for the chair position. In case of a tie at that level, a high-ranking admin¬ istrator would break the tie. At a meeting held last Tues¬ day at noon, about 30 social sci¬ ence faculty members took a stance that places them in the odd position of not having any representation on the selection committees. “Nobody [in the social sci¬ ence department] was in favor of sending people to the interview levels,” said Robert McLean, so¬ cial science professor “Not one person advocated to sending rep¬ resentatives.” Social science professors Elvio Angeloni and Suzanne Ander¬ son, who along with McLean and Suzanne Anderson originally made up the faculty representa¬ tion on the first level interview panel, said their decision to bail out of the bilateral selection com¬ mittee could be supported by in¬ structors from different academic departments. “I have received phone calls from different [college] teachers expressing their support for us,” said Angeloni. He added that if instructors from other departments follow the social science example of not participating in the selec¬ tion process, they could force the administration to change the current policy. Bruce Carter, acting vice presi¬ dent for instruction, tried to persuade them to join the two committees. However, social science professors did not budge. “No one indi¬ cated their willing¬ ness to participate,” said Carter, who together with Pauline Crabb, dean of instruction, Katherine Rodarte, dean of extended opportunity pro¬ gram and services, and Robert Navarro, engineer¬ ing and technology chair, compose the panel that repre¬ sents the college administration. “The ideal solu¬ tion is to have them in the selection process,” Carter said. In previous meetings with Fac¬ ulty Senate mem¬ bers, professors from nursing, mathe¬ matics, art, and business departments expressed their total support of the social science professors in their quest to convince president Dr. Jack Scott and his administration that a major¬ ity of professors is needed at the first interview level as well as two pro¬ fessors at the second round of inter¬ views. But as professors continue their plea for change, the selection proc¬ ess continues. “It’s regretable not to have social science [members] on the committee,” said Scott. “But we have to go ahead.” Patricia Mollica, dean of human „IKii £ шШШШт Photo by KATRINA P TEN/ The COURIER Elvio Angeloni, professor of social sciences, said a policy change can happen if all faculty members refuse to join the selection process. resources, whose job i is to see that ethnic diversity exists among the possible chair candidates also indicated that the process is going forward. “Nothing has changed from what the Board of Trustees [ruled on May 5].” The Board of Trustees is an elected panel who sets govern¬ ing policies for the college. Board members supported Scott and his proposal by 6-0 vote. It is expected that a replace¬ ment for Kennon Miedema, cur¬ rent social sciences chairperson, will be chosen before the school year ends.