PCC Courier, October 04, 2001

Patriotism Under Attack . see page 2 P A Being Ron Koertge see page 6 щ ■ Lancers Roll 47-31 see page 8 A D С О COURIER Since 1915 VOL. 87 N0.6 www.pcc-courieronline.com OCTOBER 4, 2001 On Campus Plagiarists Beware! * * Teachers utilize new internet program to keep students honest By Bethany Johnson Managing Editor • A new teaching tool that is sweeping across the nation has come to PCC. Although only a • handful of instructors are currently using Tumitin.com, a resource that helps teachers catch plagiarism in student papers, more and more are • signing up. “There are two reasons we’re using it,” said Robert Lee, the English instructor who introduced the program at PCC. “Number one, • it seems more than ever that stu¬ dents aren’t familiar with proper citation. It also enables us to make sure people aren’t cheating.” «, Part of what attracts teachers to Tumitin.com is how easy it is to use. Students upload their papers before they turn them in, then a report is sent directly to the instruc¬ tor indicating the level of plagia¬ rism for each paper. The text of each paper is color-coded accord¬ ing to a scale of one to five, five *' being the highest level of plagia¬ rism. Teachers can just glance at ф see CHEAT, page 4 sill' Пи, A .O 1 vvu: \ ne> Thu U S , ‘•Cut i-vt r.UVi Ы <An<i о,- 5 •UWi* .00 tv, |< el •iTu v ‘ ' А с оЦу Sheryl McQuilkin / Courier AS Raises $3,000 for Disaster Relief Fund Through generous donations and four weeks of events, including pizza sales in the quad and a well-attended benefit concert, PCC’s Associated Students have man¬ aged to collect several thousands of dollars to send to victims of terrorism in New York and Washington, D.C. PCC President Under Fire By Bethany Johnson Managing Editor The results of an unofficial sur¬ vey evaluating the performance of PCC President Dr. James Kossler were released this week. The sur¬ vey, which was organized by the executive boards of two classified employee unions, was conducted last spring to gauge the opinions of faculty and staff. Kossler received mediocre to poor ratings in the survey that polled all monthly employees at the college. The evaluation form was an exact copy of the one the board of trustees uses to assess the presi¬ dent. The official evaluation was sent randomly to 10 percent of PCC employees whose responses, which are kept confidential, are taken into consideration by the board when they do their evalua¬ tion of the president. The unofficial survey was dis¬ tributed to 418 certificated employees and 386 classified employees in March. It was com¬ pletely anonymous; the only iden¬ tifying feature was the color of the paper, which revealed whether the response came from a certificated or classified employee. All faculty and staff who participated in the official evaluation were asked not to respond. Because Susan Talbot, PCC’s publications editor who organized the results of the survey, could not be sure that the 10 per¬ cent did not respond, she included them in her final tabulation. Of the 804 employees surveyed, 32 percent replied. This is not a very representative number, according to Keith Oberlander, a statistics professor at PCC. “I’m concerned about the sample,” he said. “You need at least 90 percent to respond to have a sample that represents the group.” Oberlander said that 32 percent is low because there is no way to know what the other 70 percent said. He thinks that this survey will make it harder for Kossler to perform, and that the • responses probably came from the people with the strongest opinions who took the time to fill out the survey. One of the motivations behind conducting the survey was that the college president’s actions affect everyone on campus; therefore, everyone should be allowed to evaluate him and bring those opin¬ ions out in the open said Talbot. In her report on the faculty and staff’s responses, she said that many members in the campus communi¬ ty felt just surveying 10 percent of the staff was an inadequate process for an employee of this status. “Many people remarked at the time that it would be a useful or democratic thing because he’s basically everybody’s boss,” she said. “People’s attitudes or feel¬ ings certainly sprang out of the dif¬ ficulties we were having with negotiations, but clearly the survey deals with way more than that and p * Teachers Met with Terror in the Sky By Latoya Sturge Associate Editor Five PCC instructors were on a flight on which a rowdy passenger led to the plane being escorted back to LAX by two F-16 fighters and subsequently searched for bombs. The instructors were from PCC’s art and English depart¬ ments. The ■ group was on their way to Toronto for a conference. One professor, Dr. Brian Kennedy of the English division, decided to cancel his trip after the day-long ordeal. Kennedy, who was approxi¬ mately 10 rows from the back of the plane, recalls the bathroom smoke alarm going off. A commo¬ tion between the flight attendants and someone who was smoking at the back of the aircraft ensued. The smoker was of Middle- Eastern descent and so tension built amongst passengers of the plane. “The newspapers made it sound like the guy was running up and down the isle, but it wasn’t like that,” Kennedy said. According to a recent L.A. Times article, the plane was turped around over the Mojave desert and retuned to LAX. According to Kennedy, heavily armed officers boarded the plane and yelled at the passengers to put their heads down. “I thought, matbe now we’re being hijacked,” s*d Kennedy. “This whole thing was just so Swindling Admissions By Erin Ashby Staff Writer PCC could be losing thousands of dollars per semester in unpaid tuition because students have learned how to work the admis¬ sions system to their advantage. Students complaining that the admissions process can be easily manipulated told the Courier that many of their friends, who should have paid $145 per unit in out-of- state tuition, were able to claim residency and were charged only the resident’s price of $11 per unit. They also said that fee waivers are accepted without question, often reducing the cost to $1 per semes¬ ter. The Courier decided to test the system by sending a reporter under cover as a new applicant with a Washington state address, chang¬ ing only the state initials from WA to CA. The reporter used a real address in Washington and claimed her city of residence as Arlington, CA. Under a request for her par¬ ent’s address, she wrote Arlington, WA. When asked where Arlington was by an admission’s employee who noticed the discrepancy, the reporter replied that there were two Arlingtons. Her answer was accepted. The reporter used a fictitious name, birth date and social securi¬ ty number on her application. With no ID or alternate form of documentation, she was able to register without a problem. Although the reporter falsified the admission’s application, claim¬ ing a two-year residency and even graduation from John Burroughs High School in Burbank, no verifi¬ cation was needed. The Washington state zip code written for her legal address and the Washington state area code and phone number went unnoticed by admission and registration staff. The reporter was admitted and received a temporary student ID and was enrolled in one class on the last day of registration. Following registration, the reporter filled out a fee waiver form. She claimed independency and an annual income of $5,000. As an explanation for the low income, the reporter wrote that she “did a lot of volunteer work.” The fee waiver was accepted with no dispute, and the reporter ф see REGISTER, page 3 Tragedy Can't Com¬ pete with Tradition Dr. James Kossler people spoke to a number of dif¬ ferent issues.” The survey was conducted dur¬ ing a time when morale at the col¬ lege among staff and faculty was especially low. Negotiations for a pay raise were still underway and Ф see SURVEY, page 4 out of hand; [airport security offi¬ cers] were overreacting, totally,” continued Kennedy. The officers proceeded to rip apart the seat of the suspect in search of a bomb. After finally exiting the plane the passengers were then ques- tioned by theFBI. The suspect was arrested along with his travelling companion. “I’m not taking a flying vaca¬ tion for a while,” said Kennedy. “I’m grounded for the moment.” By Joseph Claro Courier Correspondent This is the aftermath: American is now reevaluating life after the tragedies that scared our nation on Sept. 1 1 . Slowly, society is return¬ ing to its old way’s. The stock market has again opened, movie theaters have begun gaining rev¬ enue, and mall parking has once again become unbearable. It is with this sentiment of heal¬ ing in mind that people can reflect on a Pasadena tradition that now lives in its third century, a tradition that will not be halted by the actions of the few, but will instead stand as a testament to our nation’s will. On Jan. 1, 2002 Pasadena will demonstrate America’s ability to overcome any obstacle as we come together at the 113th Tournament of Roses Parade to celebrate the theme of Good Times. Begun in 1890, the original Tournament of Roses parade was a far cry from today’s spectacle. Designed to showcase California’s year-round pleasant weather, the tournament has grow from a small¬ town affair to an American tradi¬ tion. The flower-covered wagons of earlier days have paved the way for monumental floats sponsored by such companies as Bank of America and Coca-Cola. The ostrich races that were once a sta¬ ple of the first Rose Parades have been replaced by the Rose Bowl. This nationally recognized football game, once a simple side attraction to the Rose Parade, now provides the primary revenue for the tourna¬ ment ' PCC’s involvement with the tournament began early on in the parade’s history. PCC students once accounted for the entire royal court of the tournament. The num¬ ber has since dropped, as high schools have become the main source of participants in the pag¬ eant. This year, the number of appli¬ cants for rose queen stood at approximately 870 people. This number has gradually been brought down to 25 finalists, from which a panel of nine judges will pick a Queen and Court. A former judge and current tournament volunteer listed appearance, poise, speaking ability and personality as being crucial qualifications for rose court mem¬ bers. In regard to appearance, judges don’t necessarily seek cover girl models, but instead look for young women who represent the “girl next door.” Most notably, judges look for an individual that positively reflects not only the Tournament of Roses, but the City of Pasadena. Acting as ambassadors for the Tournament of Roses, the Queen and Court are responsible for attending over 100 public and media events through their one- year term. As America begins to heal from the events of Sept. 11, society looks forward to the days to come. Airplanes will continue to fly the friendly skies, Los Angelinos will keep on hoping for another Lakers’ championship, and the Emmy’s will go on as scheduled. Americans are coming to grips with the realities of late, and slow¬ ly are learning how to deal with them. On New Year’s Day, the city of Pasadena will stand as an exam¬ ple to the rest of the nation and show that life will indeed go on.