EL CAMINO COLLEGE OCT. 18, 2018 Follow us at @ECCUnion
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Recycling bins added to campus during spring semester
Cardboard boxes added by Associated Student Organization for $10 each, authorities say Alexa Kinoshita Staff Writer
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Several recycling bins, located at the Student Service Center and the Industry and Technology building, were placed on site during the spring semester at El Camino. The cardboard bins, costing no more than $10, were purchased by the Associated Student Organization (ASO), student director of Student Services, Sean Min, said. “Recycling has been a pretty large issue. This has been an issue on El Camino for years,” he said. “There’s never been recycling.” The bins were placed in these areas, but students were not aware of their placement. “I don’t think people notice them, so it doesn’t really matter,” radiologic technology major, Genesis Raco, said. Despite sitting so close to them, nursing major, Kayla Hunt, did not notice the bins either. “I’ve actually never seen it,” Hunt said. ASO’s attempt for more recycling bins and new ways to foster environmental change on campus have been introduced at sustainability meetings and promoted to the Inter-Club Council
(ICC). They have been trying to find ways to encourage clubs to advocate recycling in their own methods, like decorating recycling bins, Min said. With ASO’s Sustainability Committee pushing for more ways to implement recycling and sustainability, Facilities has also been working to find procedures that raise public awareness. “They do have a plan. It’s not definite, but they do have the motive right now,” Min said. The waste and diversion program that Facilities oversees, uses a system in which the trash on campus is sorted through to ensure that the recyclables goes to its proper place. “All of our trash. 100 percent of our tash that you put in a bin either outside or inside of an office, goes to a facility where it’s hand sorted and all of it is recycled at this point,” vice president of Student Services, Brian Fahnestock, said. The trash that people throw away on campus is taken to an offsite location where glass, plastic, aluminum, and compost are separated. “More than 80% of all the trash that goes in the trash cans on our campus is recycled,” Fahnestock
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The El Camino Forensics team is looking to gain momentum following superior performances at recent debate tournaments over the past few weeks, the director of the program said. The El Camino Forensics team currently holds the title of defending national champions following last season’s top placement at the two-year and four-year college competition levels. With the start of the new season, the forensics team performed at a high caliber over the past few weeks, enough for El Camino to take four spots in the top thirty rankings of the National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence (NPTE). “This could be our best year ever, which is big to say because we’ve had some amazing years,” Francesca Bishop, director of the program said. “We’re the defending two-time national champions. I think there’s a good chance we could win three national (championships) because I think we can win NPTE also.”
Fernando Haro @ECCUnionFernand
ASO’s recycling bin in the Student Service Center. said. The waste diversion program at El Camino is very successful, but because people don’t see
the recycling containers, their assumption is that recycling is not being done. “We want to see students care. It’s
Alexa Kinoshita/ Union
really our time to show that we are thinking sustainably and wanting to live in a cleaner environment, ultimately,” Min said.
Assistant Director of department ‘optimistic’ about beating teams previous personal record The NPTE, which ranks 177 twoyear and four-year schools’ forensic teams across America, shows El Camino teams ranked 8th, 14th, 15th and 29th in the nation. With each ranking consisting of a pair of debate students, El Camino will have at least three chances to win the NPTE’s annual invitational tournament this upcoming spring, Bishop said. Such optimism follows El Camino Forensics’ performances at the Mills Invitational, which took place on Oct. 5, and the Aztec Invitational, which occurred on Oct. 6 and 7. El Camino Forensics came away with wins in multiple categories at the Mills Invitational including extemporaneous speaking, impromptu speaking, and persuasive speech. “We had a wide range of students do very, very awesome things at the tournament,” said Assistant Director of Forensics, Joseph Evans. “It wasn’t just we were good at debate or we were good at speaking, we kind of cleaned up all of those things at the Mills Invitational.” At the Aztecs Invitational, El Camino again placed in
Student robbed in Lot L after nearly crashing, police say Staff Writer
EC Forensics eyeing NPTE annual invitational following ‘mind-boggling’ season start Omar Rashad
TORRANCE, CALIFORNIA
multiple categories as the team’s performance had been impressive and surprising, Evans said. With more tournaments ahead, El Camino Forensics is looking to beat the record they set two years ago as they placed 8th overall at the NPTE annual invitational tournament in 2016. “I anticipate that hopefully we’ll beat our record that we set two years ago, I’m very optimistic about that,” Evans said. The El Camino Forensics team is “one of the most talented and most motivated classes that I have seen since I’ve been here at El Camino,” Evans said. “It’s kind of mind-boggling.” Sophomore Zachary Johnson won in multiple categories at the Mills Invitational and has “already got four-year schools trying to recruit him,” Bishop said. Johnson, who is currently ranked 29th in the nation along with his partner Connor Eades, attributed his tournament performance to his team’s coaches and “the fact that they’re able to take these students and tap their potential to the degree that they do,” Johnson said. “You have very dedicated coaches who have been doing this forever.”
No new information on recent robbery in Lot K, authorities say Esteban Mendez Staff Writer
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Omar Rashad/ Union El Camino Forensics took home multiple first place trophies after competing at the Mills Invitational tournament at Palomar Community College on Oct. 5. Ranked 15th in the nation along with her partner, Mina Deshler, Raquel Tahvildari is also the CoPresident of El Camino’s Speech and Debate club. With a large academic workload and a part-time job, it comes down to “trying to set aside those extra hours during the week to push myself to do more practices,” Tahvildari said. “I always know that there’s always areas I need to improve in
and learn,” Tahvildari added. “It’s kind of a confidence boost but at the same time I’m keeping very humble knowing that there are many who are better.” With more tournaments coming up within the next month, the El Camino Forensics team is anticipated to “do very well, if not better than we’ve been doing,” Evans said.
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An El Camino College student was robbed in Parking Lot L on Wednesday, Oct. 10. “There was a camera that got somewhat of a fairly good picture of the suspect’s automobile,” EC Chief of Police Michael Trevis said. “It’s either a newer Toyota or Honda SUV, it is dark in color, maybe dark blue.” According to the Police Beat, the incident was reported as a strongarm robbery. “The victim was driving his car and was driving across Crenshaw to come into Lot L and I guess this suspect honked at him,” Trevis said. “I guess he thought they would collide or something.” Trevis said the two individuals pulled over, got out of their cars and had what cameras captured as a “long talk” that resulted in one of the individual stealing the other’s phone. “The suspect seized the phone on the console of the car, he reaches inside and gets it,” Trevis said. Trevis said the suspect left and the victim proceeded to go home, discussed the incident with his family, and the returned about three hours later to report the incident to EC police. “We’re following up on it through different cameras, not only on our campus, but cameras that the city has,” Trevis said. “We have to check the timing and see if someone can get a plate on this guy.”
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The El Camino College Police Department has said that there are no new updates on the robbery of a student that took place in Lot K on Sept. 26. Chief of the El Camino College Police Department Michael Trevis said that no one has come forth with any new information. The robbery took place on Wednesday. Sept. 26 in Parking Lot K. Two suspects stole $115 dollars from a student and ran south towards Lot A, according to the campus advisory that was released by the ECC Police Department on the same day. One suspect is described as a black adult male, age 18 to 23, 5 feet 3 inches to 5 feet 5 inches tall, weighing approximately 130 pounds. The other suspect was described as a black adult male, age 18 to 23, 5 feet 6 inches to 5 feet 8 inches tall, and weighing 160 to 170 pounds. Anyone with information about the robbery can contact the El Camino College Police Department at 310-660-3100.
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