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Special Issue Student rights, stundent unity
A FIRST AMENDMENT PUBLICATION
Volume 114 - Issue 6
One copy free, each additional copy 50¢
April 6, 2011
ASO fee usage labelled arbitrary Travis Vail/ Special to the Roundup The Associated Students Organization (ASO) requires that all financial requests for the following year must be made by March 15, or any group vying for funds must undergo a petitioning process with its financial committee. Similar to the LACCD, the ASO operates from a budget released prior to its effective year, with appropriations made beforehand to finance many school activities. The ASO does not have unlimited funds of its own; with optional student fees granting them an average of $158,000 per year over the last decade, but it is reportedly very difficult to make use of the reserve fund. Any clubs that don’t submit paperwork during the spring before each academic year are left with the responsibility of convincing the committee that their cause is worthy of support. In effect, most of the ASO’s fiscal decisions are left up to three votes; those belong to President Daniel Axelrod, Vice President Febe Ruiz, and Treasurer Nima Jahanforouz. “The senate doesn’t even know what’s going on in the finance committee meetings. If they look for it, they can find it, but no one really knows what’s going on until it gets approved by the finance committee,” said Senator David Bromberg, chairman of the scholarship committee. “Anything the finance committee doesn’t approve, I never see it in a senate meeting.” For this reason, some who have gone through the process have grown skeptical of the finance committee and its objective approach to each group’s needs. “They make it seem a lot easier than it is. They tell you that you just have to fill out the right forms, but it’s not that easy,” said Erin Hickey, president of the Street Dance Club on campus. “We’ve been trying for about a year now.” During that same year, the Pierce Dance Club also requested funding from the ASO and received a complete renewal of the prior year’s budget of $2,000. The Pierce Dance Club may have benefitted from submitting the right paperwork on time, but according to Hickey, the Street Dance Club has had to photograph forms before submitting them to the ASO to prevent additional copies from being improperly processed. “It’s really discriminatory,” Hickey added. “It feels like this is a campus that doesn’t want its students to get involved outside of classes.” According to Nima Jahanforouz, the ASO’s treasurer, the Street Dance Club’s inability to acquire funds was not a matter of favoritism; but rather, they failed to attend finance committee meetings when they were included in the agenda.
INSIDE SECTIONS
See ASO page 2
News
John Gutierrez/ Roundup
OUTSIDE LOOKING IN: A student in a rush passes by one of many multiple archways entering into the Center for the Sciences Building on the west end of campus.
Construction flaws revealed
Millions of dollars amount to errors unaccounted for inside CFS Sienna Jackson/ Roundup The Los Angeles Times recently published a six-part expose on mismanagement and misspending within the taxpayer-funded $6 billion BuildLACCD program – but little coverage was given to Pierce College. A Roundup investigation of the recently completed $57 million Center for the Sciences project, dedicated in October 2010, uncovered unaddressed flaws in the construction process and within the center itself. The Pierce Center for the Sciences (CFS), funded with Proposition A/AA and Measure J bond funds, is over 100,000 square feet, and took nearly ten years to complete. A Roundup reporter made contact with a member of the college faculty who currently works within the center. The faculty member requested to remain unidentified in this article. “They wouldn’t like it if they found out I spoke with you,” he said, referring to the
corpse fluids away from students, or a unit to collect the waste. Small circular grates lie in the floor, meant to drain blood and feces directly to the sewer system – an illegal setup under state and federal law, according to the faculty member. It is unclear who is responsible for technically completing this project. “The issues are complex, nobody knows the ultimate plan,” said chemistry department chair Isidore Goodman, Ph.D. “It was a long and very complicated process, and I think we came out with a very beautiful building. Are there issues with the building? Yes.” The problems within the center that faculty discovered upon moving in included doors mounted backwards, missing lights, tables with inexplicable holes in them and improperly installed bathroom fixtures. The faculty offices are missing window treatments, and many professors have had to tape paper to the windows to block out the sun. “Just little construction things that had
Joe Kukuczka / Roundup
WASTED SPACE: A table is used for storage inside the ʻlarge animal dissection roomʼ unusable for students. to be completed,” said William Duxler, chair of the physics department. See Construction page 2
Without language, lost in translation The worst case senario following potential budget cuts results in fewer classes Kevin Reynolds/ Roundup The modern languages department at Pierce College is preparing to cut its English and American Sign Language (ASL) classes. Currently classes scheduled for Fall 2011 are planned to continue as normal. However, the district is facing the possibility that without the tax extensions proposed by Governor Brown, they would be forced to cut campus budgets by 15 percent across the board. “I don’t understand why they are always cutting from education,” said Frank Gilmore, a 22-year-old art major. “Why don’t they take money from welfare programs first?”
Opinion page 2
college administration. On Monday, March 14, a Roundup reporter was shown a particular room in the new center that is currently unusable. The ‘large animal dissection room’ in the Veterinary Technology building, room 91101, is meant to serve the very purpose its name suggests. The room was intended as a place for veterinary students to examine large animal cadavers, complete with a heavy steel necropsy table for dissections. It was touted by BuildLACCD as a highlight of the reinvigorated Department of Agriculture & Natural Resources at Pierce. Nearly a year since the end of construction for the CFS, the room is not used for student instruction; instead it is used as a storage closet. Upon entering the room, one is immediately confronted with the acrid smell of preservatives. There is no ventilation for the pressboard cabinets, which store cadavers kept in plastic containers and bags. The necropsy table has no drain to steer
Foreign language classes such as Italian, ous and have a huge variety of classes and Japanese, and French only have one class have the most room for cuts, according to available for each discipline level (French 1, Fernando Oleas the chair of the modern lan2, and so on). Thereguages department. fore, if one class is “If they lay off all the ---------------------------cut, the entire proadjuncts who will teach the Education ceases to be gram is cut. classes,” said Oleas. a right and starts to be a “We don’t want to There are currently no cut any programs if official plans for the posluxury. possible,” said Paul sible budget cuts according -Fernando Oleas Whalen, dean of to Whalen, it is unknown Chair of the modern languages department Academic Affairs. exactly how extensive the ---------------------------“We don’t have any cuts will be. predispositions right “When we get some dinow, it’s all too neburection we will begin meetlous.” ing with [department] chairs,” said Whalen. ASL and Spanish classes are more numerThe school has already proposed a five
Photo Essay
pages 6 & 7
Features
page 8
percent cut by eliminating half of the summer classes and the next winter session, according to Whalen. “Education ceases to be a right and starts to be a luxury,” said Oleas. “Traditionally when fees increase they don’t decrease,” said Oleas. “That’s why I supported the protest.” Community college fees, like gas prices and books, have risen in recent years. “It’s hard enough just trying to afford my classes,” said Jessie Schoolcraft a 24-year-old undecided major. “Now I have to worry about not being able to get into the classes I want.”
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