PCC Courier, October 26, 2000

Pasadena City College * * * к » к ? » § » ♦ * • » i * » ,i * * » . it • « • * <* 9 tl he Since 1915 VOL. 86 NO. 10 www. p cc-courieronline . com October 26, 2000 Briefly ■ An afternoon of flamenco for a fallen dancer Tickets are now on sale for the second annual “Remembering Maria Isabel.” The Nov. 5 night of flamenco dancing and music features performances from “Los Maestros de Hoy” and “Flamenco del Future” in Sexson Auditorium at 5 p.m. Tickets range from $10 to $30 and the proceeds raise money for a scholarship fund in her name. Maria Isabel Fernandez was a former student who was killed in 1999. For more information call (323) 655- 8587 or visit www.mariais- abel.org. ■ Deconstructing Mexican art UC Irvine Professor Juan Bruce-Novoa is the featured speaker for the “Mexican Art In The 20th Century” slide show and lecture. Sponsored by the English and foreign lan¬ guages department, the Cross Cultural Center and MEChA, the presentation will be held Oct. 30 in R122 at noon. ■ WebExtra Ever want to have a rockin’ good time with geologists? Check out www.pcc-courieron- line.com for more. In e ■ Jon Heller admires the everyday heroes who don’t get the recognition they deserve. page. 2 . Ш Xerox comes to national commer- . page 3 Ш Halloween is right around the corner. history? page 6 Ш Conference play started out sour for against Mt. SAC. They lost 26-15. page 8 An ounce of prevention Derek Blackway / The Courier Students and faculty alike took advantage of the low-cost influenza immunizations offered by the Health Center. Health Center runs out of flu vaccine in just two days By Cindy Oropeza and Tim Alves Courier Staff Writers That long line of students, staff and instructors you saw snaking out of the Health Center wasn’t the result of some sort of gastrointestinal mishap from the campus cafe¬ teria. No, hundreds of people lined up this week to get their annual flu shot. If you weren’t one of the lucky ones, you’d better stock up on tissues and cough syrup for the upcoming season of aches, fever and runny noses. By Oct. 25, nearly all of the 600 influenza vaccines the col¬ lege stockpiled had been given out.The flu, a respiratory dis¬ ease caused by the influenza virus, is expected to be bad this year. “The vaccine covers a majority of the strains, but most people won’t get vacci¬ nated because there’s not enough of the shots to go around,” said nursing student Treacy Srfiith. From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and again from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, the first floor of the U Building was swamped with people looking to immunize themselves against what is expected to be a bad year for the flu. By noon on Oct. 24, more than 350 of the $3.50 shots had been given out and by 7 p.m., there were only 100 left. “We only have 600 doses because the government had a tough time figuring out which strain would hit here, and that meant they had less time to make a big enough batch,” said Smith. According to the Centers For Disease Control, (CDC), influenza vaccine supplies that are being distributed this year are approximately equal to the number handed out last year, but doses will arrive at most hospitals and clinics later than usual due to manufacturing delays. More than 75 million doses are being handed out to schools, hospitals and clinics nationwide, and the college is thinking about ordering more to meet the unexpected demand. “How long the flu bug will last depends on the immune system of a person and it dif¬ fers between people. It will most likely be a bad flu season if people don’t get vaccinated, and that’s probably why there’s been so many people coming in,” said Smith. Influenza season normally begins in November and runs through March of each year and a vaccine usually lasts for about a year. Since the vaccine is not a live vaccine, it is not possible to get influenza from the inoc¬ ulation. The most frequent side effect of vaccination is soreness at the injection site. Occasionally, some people experience a period of mild fever and fatigue for a day or two after the shot. Rarely, an allergic reaction reaction may occur. However, the people who should not get flu shots are those with high blood pres¬ sure, pregnant women, people allergic to eggs and those with chronic diseases. These people should con¬ sult their physicians to make sure they’re not endangering their health. An arresting 24 hours for campus cops By Steven Shenefield Courier Correspondent The campus police department was rocked during a 24-hour time span when officers became involved in an on-to-off campus pursuit and apprehension of a petty theft suspect and in what appeared to be a domestic dispute and kidnapping. In addition, officers have also had their hands full with an alarm¬ ing surge in physically forceful confrontations between the gen¬ ders. The normal routine has been so disrupted, there is likely to be ample subject matter to be tossed around the water cooler of the campus police station these days. Case in point: Shannon Coffer, 24, a former PCC student was arrested on charges of petty theft Monday evening after police chased him when he left campus with a metal cash box containing 56 $1 bills. The money was generated from the “lap-swim” program that was being held at the Aquatics Center. According to the lifeguard on duty, Daniel Manriquez, the sus¬ pect “looked out of place and acted suspicious as he lingered around in one place.” Around 6:45 p.m., Coffer allegedly waited for Manriquez to walk around to the other side of the pool to turn on the lights, he then approached the unattended box without drawing suspicion from onlookers . The suspect seized the moment, and the box. He ran off in the direction of Lot 3, towards Hill Street and Del Mar Boulevard. Campus police were alerted that a male suspect wearing brown baggy pants and a red shirt had CHASE, page 3 Clubs funded after 9 weeks The long waiting game is over, but for a number of groups the damage, is done By Kristen Glover Entertainment Editor Student clubs that have waited over half of the semester for fund¬ ing from the Associated Students (AS) and Student Services finally have their money. The Inter-Club Council (ICC) and Student Services met to review the budgets for the clubs last week after delays and setbacks prevent¬ ed them from approving the budg¬ ets. They also found they didn’t have enough money to fund every¬ one’s requests. The ICC finance committee met last Tuesday to discuss how to cut clubs budget requests, when they realized clubs had asked for almost double the amount allotted to club funding for the semester. The AS has set aside $30,000 in its budget for club funding for the fiscal year, but that budget was only finalized Sept. 26. Due to the budget being final¬ ized so late, the clubs were unable to receive funds. “I was very hesitant to release money based on a preliminary budget,” George Magdaleno, vice president for internal affairs, said. “I wasn’t going to give away money 1 didn’t have. It would be a disservice to the students.” Once the final budget was approved, the ICC met to act on club budgets. Those meetings ran over the time allotted and once again clubs had to wait to plan programs for the semester. Many clubs did not follow the ICC funding criteria, which pro¬ hibits using the money for food, supplies, publicity, or fundraising CLUBS, page 4 A student’s story of abuse By Derek Blackway Staff Writer Editor’s note: The “Week Without Violence” helped many people understand the horrific scope of abuse. And for others, it was a chance for them to tell their story of physical pain and silent tor¬ ture. Here is one such stoiy. If you saw her, you’d never know that her father repeatedly bashed her head against a wall when she was 12 years old. But covering up scars and hiding her feelings was something PCC student Kara mastered at a young age. Kara’s father, a plastic surgeon, beat her beginning at the age of 4 until she was 17 years old. Although her father did not beat her on constant basis, she was liv¬ ing day-to-day wondering what little wrong move would set her father off. Now at 23, Kara is slowly coming to terms with her nightmarish past and trying to get on with her life. At times, her father assaulted her so ferociously, she could not leave the house. “When my dad beat me, my family never let me tell anyone or go to the hospi-' tal. They didn’t want me to go to the hospital because my dad worked there and all of his colleagues who respected and admired him would know what kind of a man he truly was,” Kara said. “The embarrassment of the truth destroying the illusion of my dad to the world, was more important to my family than my phys¬ ical health and mentality.” When Kara was 12, she remembers being at her grandmother’s house. “My dad wanted to play Parcheesi with the family. 1 did not feel well that night and 1 was sitting on the couch; he was in the kitchen. When I told him 1 did not want to play, he grabbed me by my hair - he liked to pull my hair - and dragged me along the carpet into the bedroom. He lifted me up and began slamming my head and body into the wall, yanking my hair out by chunks and scream¬ ing obscenities in my face. He almost killed me. My grandfather came running into the room with a broom and started beating him to get him off me. He dropped me and left me lying on the ground. 1 was too weak to walk and no one let me go to the hospital. He went home after that and called the next morning. My grandmother forced me to talk to him; he acted like nothing happened. He never apologized nor did he even admit to doing it.. He would always say, ‘I never laid a hand on you.’ The front, top and back of my head was swollen and I could not put my head down on a pillow, it hurt so much.” Beatings were not the only problems Kara had to deal with. Her father pulled a gun on her mother and he tried to push Kara out of a moving car. The verbal abuse was also constant in ABUSE, page 4 Violence Statistics: ■ A woman is beaten every 15 seconds. U Nearly 2 in 3 female victims of violence were related to or knew their attacker. U More than 1 million women seek medical assistance for injuries caused by battering each year. ■ Thirty-seven percent of rapes occur in the victim’s home. U On average, 10 women a day are killed by their batter¬ ers. College blocks approval of student’s flier listing salaries By Tim Alves Editor In Chief Philip Gibson says he has not broken any laws nor violated anyone’s privacy, but he feels that his rights are being tram¬ pled by the college’s foot-drag¬ ging over approval of a contro¬ versial flier advertising the salaries of some top adminis¬ trators. Gibson says he spent count¬ less hours and sleepless nights poring over the 2000-2001 budget amassing the salary fig¬ ures from the public docu¬ ment. In light of the college’s ongoing pay-raise squabble with the California Teachers Association (СТА) and the Instructional Support Services Unit (ISSU), his aim was to compile a list that would con¬ trast the salary of the top admin¬ istrators versus the average wages of faculty and staff. “When this document was brought to my attention, the key for me was the number he used for the average annual salary for the (full-time) faculty. It did not reflect the overload and summer classes the faculty teach,” said Salary BrcTikdow n P- ,м, ;■! • K«, i", t c $ ' $ * ш ( ГЛ EM < ушЛ 1>й« :>l N :i ft it it 1 АШ А? ЖГ | РГ * РШпЬткгЪ ШМ: ЩуР * Жт ili - 1 'imt Salary $ Ш.ЖЧ (CEO Average FdCTtme ftariSy $$-&-$ Ш Average CViicxibJ Salary Afk-t ? Ya % Wfeat** Wrsmg. Will Tim Pieitm?? St 1 Jma I hi- JVogrres.b r SlaibriH АШшее m < !n,i m l&Oft Dr. Robert Matthew, interim vice president of administrative serv¬ ices. The controversy started a couple of weeks ago when Gibson took the flier to get it approved at the Office of Student Affairs. After a quick assessment of the handbill’s con¬ tent, he was referred to Stephen Johnson, assistant dean of stu¬ dent affairs. Johnson took it to Matthew to discuss the veraci¬ ty of the numbers being used. “If you’re going to use num¬ bers from the budget, it’s important, I think, to use accu¬ rate figures. I think if he’s the author, he would want to be accurate,” said Matthew. Matthew said Gibson’s fig¬ ures were erroneous because he used budget numbers that reflected a 5 percent increase that was factored in by the col¬ lege in anticipation of giving faculty and staff a pay raise of that amount. The college and two of its unions are currently at impasse in their negotia¬ tions. Matthew also went on to say that the $64,971 Gibson cal¬ culated as the average full-time instructor salary was the one fig¬ ure he had reservations about. Gib.son acknowledges that FLIER, page 3