OPINION
FEATURES
SPORTS
WAS THE MIDDLE EAST PEACE
PROCESS DEALT A FATAL BLOW?
The death of Yitzhak Rabin, while tragic,
will probably not derail the peace process,
but will make him a martyr
IN MEMORY OF YITZHAK
RABIN
Monday night, thousands of
mourners gathered in front
of the Israeli Consulate
4
FOOTBALL PULLS OFF
MIRACLE WIN
Lancers win 52-48 with a
touchdown in the final three
seconds against Palomar
• FOURTH ANNUAL
AIDS AWARENESS
WEEK KICKS OFF
Speaking
to help
save lives
By KEN WOO
Courier Staff Writer
Anna Rodriguez kicked off the
annual AIDS Awareness Week by
telling students that HIV is 100 per¬
cent preventable. Her speech was
part of the many activities planned
for this week sponsored by the Of¬
fice of Student Affairs.
Rodriguez, who works atthe AIDS
Service Center in Pasadena which
provides care for people living with
the HIV and AIDS virus, spoke about
various topics regarding the disease
including prevention and treatment.
She also said that 1 5 percent of the
people the center treats are children.
Since AIDS is the leading cause
of death in men ages 25-34,
Rodriguez wanted to stress the im¬
portance of protecting yourself from
the deadly disease. Using protection
when having sex and not sharing
needles are only two ways to protect
yourself . HIV, the virus that causes
AIDS, can be transmitted through
four bodily fluids: blood, semen,
vaginal secretion and breast milk.
The HIV virus can survive up to
five minutes outside of the body.
However, the virus can live longer in
dark, damp places and also in areas
not exposed to air, such as a syringe.
Once you are infected with HIV,
there is no known cure. There are
only drugs, such as AZT, created to
prolongtheonslaughtofAIDS, which
is the last stage of HIV. It could take
up to 10 years before a person with
HIV has full blown AIDS. Even a
Please see AIDS, Page 5
FACING AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE
• 3,600 SIGNATURES MORE THAN ENOUGH
SAMUEL HERNANDEZ
/
THE COURIER
A child stares at a flag during Monday's candlelight vigil held at the Israeli consulate in remembrance of
the slain Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Please see pages 2 and 4 for related material.
Group claims to
have enough for
recall of three
By JOSE INOSTROZ, Courier Staff Writer
In the latest student government shake-up, a group of
students seeking to recall three Associated Student
Board members claim to have obtained 3,600 signa¬
tures, well over the 2,400 required for a recall.
The three board members, Kim Smoot, executive
vice president, Lavonne Ramirez, coordinator of stu¬
dent activities and Laura Duran, vice president of stu¬
dent services, are being recalled for alleged “parking
injustices.”
Darrell Price who is spearheading the recall cam¬
paign said, “The underlying motivation for the recall is
the fact that these officers who were elected to champion
student concerns are puppets of the administration and
they have not addressed the issues that affect all
students.”
The recall campaign begun early in October had 30
days to gather the 2,400 signatures. According to Price,
the signatures were submitted on Oct. 3 1 .
“The signatures were still sitting stagnant in the
office of Student Affairs untouched by the five officials
responsible for verifying the signatures,” he said.
However, according to campus police, there were
several complaints brought forth by students and faculty
that the signatures were obtained while classes were in
session. In one case, it was charged that a student
interrupted a class to seek signatures. “We are exploring
all our options,” said Phillip Mullendore, chief of cam¬
pus police.
Price declined to comment at this time regarding the
allegations.
Stephen Johnson, assistant dean of student affairs
said, “The matter is being looked into, and once we
determine what happened, we will have more informa¬
tion.”
“The next step is a recall election. I encourage all
3,600 who signed the petition to vote to have them
removed. I believe they signed up because they were
concerned enough with the parking problem and the
apathy of the student representatives,” Price said.
“The underly¬
ing motivation
for the recall is
the fact that
these officers
who were
elected to
champion
student
concerns are
puppets of the
administration
and they have
not addressed
the issues that
affect all
students... I
encourage all
3,600 who
signed the
petition to vote
to have them
removed. I
believe they
signed up
because they
were con¬
cerned
enough with
the parking
problem and
the apathy of
the student
representa¬
tives,’’
Darrell Price,
student
• THE RESULTS OF THE SCHOOL-WIDE POLL ARE IN
The college agrees: 'No’ on 17-week calendar
• DEPARTMENT CHAIRS NOW
CALLED DIVISION DEANS
Trustees vote
7-0 to approve
title change
By GILBERT RIVERA, Courier Staff Writer
The Board of Trustees voted unanimously Tuesday to
support an administrative proposal to change the titles of
all 12 department chairpersons to division deans, effec¬
tive immediately.
“We felt that changing the titles would more clearly
reflect our positions in the college as administrators,”
William Farmer, English and foreign languages depart¬
ment chairperson, said. Farmer, representing all depart¬
ment chairs, brought the measure to the board.
“In most community colleges that are of our size and
complexity, the title of department chair is a faculty title.
That is not the case with our department chairs. We are
administrators.” Farmer also said that because the de¬
partments are so large, it is better to identify them as
divisions.
According to Farmer, the change was needed to
satisfy a recommendation made by the 1990 accredita¬
tion team, which stated that “attention should be given
to the need for further delineation and clarification of the
duties and responsibilities of department chairpersons.”
PCC comes up for accreditation every six years, and the
next scheduled visit by an accreditation team is in
October of 1996.
Initially, the title change included a somewhat “up¬
dated” job description of the department chairperson.
The additions, according to Farmer, not found in the old
job description were: coordinating the program review
process and formulating reports for the Office of Instruc¬
tional administration, and guaranteeing the integrity of
Please see CHANGE, Page 5
By FELICIA BRICHOUX, Courier Staff Writer
A scant 30 minutes after they began their meeting, the
PCC Calendar Committee voted unanimously to recom¬
mend keeping the 18-week semester schedule, rather
than dropping a week from each semester. The commit¬
tee based its decision on a non-binding poll of a repre¬
sentative sample of 1 ,253 students and all of PCC’s staff,
managers and faculty members, conducted in October.
The message sent by all the groups was the same: if it
ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
The college Calendar Committee, composed of fac¬
ulty, administration, staff and student representatives,
met Tuesday to hear Richard Palermo, director of testing
and research, present his tabulation of the survey results.
Members voted and then a recommendation was given
to Dr. Jack Scott, superintendent-president. Scott will
now pass the results on to the various campus bargaining
groups: unions representing faculty, managers and sev¬
eral staff groups. The poll was non-binding, and the
Board of Trustees will make the final decision.
Palermo presented graphs to the committee showing
a consensus on the calendar issue. Every segment of the
campus preferred an 18-week calendar over a 17-week
calendar. Students chose the present calendar at a rate of
48.2 percent, vs. 38.3 percent for the 17-week calendar.
Figures from the faculty were 51.8 percent vs. 38.1
percent; classified staff, 81.3 percent vs. 9.9 percent; and
supervisors and managers, 80.4 percent vs. 9.8 percent.
The total of all people surveyed showed 53.4 percent in
favor of the 18-week calendar and 34.3 percent in favor
of 17 weeks. Ten percent of those polled had no prefer¬
ence, and 2.3 percent chose neither alternative.
Palermo explained that “The poll was not garbage in
and garbage out,” referring to informal polls with little
control or validity. “This wasn’t happenstance,” he said,
“ft was planned with a standardized procedure, and then
it was conducted by the assessment staff. The staff and
student aides went to classes and conducted the poll.”
Students were asked for some demographic informa¬
tion, not to invade their privacy, Ricards said, but to be
used to judge whether the students tested were a true
cross-section of the student body.
The demographic range of students tested was very
Please see POLL, Page 5
FACULTY, STAFFAND STUDENTS GET WET FOR MONEY
Blasting-a-Scholar
By RAY ARMEN DARIZ
Courier Staff Writer
Remember that day when your
professor embarrassed you in
front of your class mates? Or
what about the time your professor
humiliated you in front of that spe¬
cial someone who sits in the next
row? Well if revenge is on your
minds and your minds are on re¬
venge, today is your lucky day.
Alpha Gamma Sigma Honor So¬
ciety [AGS] is presenting its fourth
annual Blast-A-Scholar from 11:30
a.m. to 1 :30 p.m. in the Quad. Stu¬
dents will be able to blast away at
faculty members and at the same
time help raise money for AGS schol¬
arships. But remember there is a
price to pay in proving once and for
all that your professors are all wet.
Students can expect to pay any¬
where from $1 to $5, depending on
how many balls you want and how
close you want to be to your target.
Students are already planning their
attack. “I can’t wait to get them,”
said Jocelyne Beach, an excited stu¬
dent who says she will be looking for
her “physical education instructor.”
“Just seeing her get blasted will be
worth more than I’m paying,” Beach
said.
Scholars will be seated in an ap¬
paratus with a bucket of water, or ice
if the student cares to spend a little
extra, over head. When a target is hit
the bucket will empty its contents on
the scholarly head, which usually
sparks roars of laughter from specta¬
tors.
Blast-A-Scholar was created five
years ago by the AGS student board
and was patterned off Sink-A-
Scholar, which is held during the
spring semester and involves faculty
diving into the swimming pool fully
clothed.
Since the first Blast-A-Scholar
was first held, there has been a big
change in the way students do the
blasting. In the past, faculty used to
Please see BLAST, Page 5
P.E. instructor Dennis Gossard gets wet in last
year’s Blast-A-Scholar, sponsored by the AGS.
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