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A FIRST AMENDMENT PUBLICATION
Volume 115 - Issue 3
October 5, 2011
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Theft in Village building
Jose Romero / Roundup
Evidence: Sheriff Deputy Lynch carries evidence away.
Navid Khoi/ Roundup
Lynn Levitt/ Roundup Pumpkins: Gracya Rivera walks through the festival to pick out a pumpkin to take home and decorate at the Halloween Harvest Festival hosted by the Foundation for Pierce College.
Scaring in the harvest season Yearly festival at Pierce begins with families hunting for pumpkins Taylor Rouch, and Temi Fajemisin/ Roundup
With all the decorated pumpkins, haunted houses, face paint, and of course, candy, the Halloween festivities have definitely begun. “All I need to see are the electric colorful carved pumpkins at the festival and that’s when I know Halloween is here,” said rides supervisor Allison McMenamy. “It’s going to be an exciting month.” The festivities include musicals, comedy and dance performances, rides for kids to enjoy, assortments of carnival food, pumpkin carving, arts and crafts centers, and haunted houses. The Halloween Festival’s founders and owners, Robert and Cathy McBroom, made sure to bring something different to the fesLynn Levitt/ Roundup tival this year. Scary: A fake cadaver sits in a car. “We wanted to switch things up with the activities people could enjoy as well as keep- farm throughout the rest of the year,” said ing our favorites such as the corn maze and Pierce Farm Center Director, Robert McBroom. hay rides,” said Cathy. Funding the foundation The food will be provided by several cater“This is the one time of year when we raise ing trucks, and will include everything from enough [money], that we actually support the barbeque, to roasted corn, and funnel cake.
The Farm Market will sell vegetables grown at Pierce, and pumpkins from Pierce’s Pumpkin Patch. There is also a carousel, a mini-train, and a rickety, fun tractor-pulled ride. “Not only is the annual Halloween Harvest Festival a great way for families to enjoy spending time with one another, but the festival is also a huge fundraiser for providing a foundation for Pierce College and that’s something I’m most proud of,” said McBroom. Families come to pick out their own pumpkins from the patch, while their kids are treated to shaved Hawaiian Ice, and run around with stained red and blue mouths. “We came last year to buy a pumpkin, and thought it would be nice again this year,” Kelly Shmueli said, as she watched her son look enviously on at the other kids riding the train. ‘Creatures of the Corn’ At night the Harvest Festival transforms into the Fright-Fair Scream-Park. Children’s laughter is replaced by the screams of classmates. Fright-Fair offers three haunts: the Factory
of Nightmares Maze, the Creatures of the Corn Haunted Trail, and the Insane Reaction Maze. It’s not only kids who get to have fun at the festival, but teenagers, and adults who come to the festival get a thrill out of the haunted houses. Robert McBroom would suggest FrightFair to any college student that wants to get the “shit scared out of them.” During the day, the festival is geared towards children and families, with its performances and pumpkin carving. Once the sky turns dark, the farm transforms into ScreamPark until 10 p.m. on weekdays and 12 a.m. on weekends. “The ‘Creatures of the Corn’ is scary for me; it’s intense,” said Dragicevich. “Sometimes people hit the emergency exit because of how real it seems, they really did a good job in getting great actors and good props to frighten people.” For the full story visit us online at www.theroundupnews.com
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Walking the P.A.T.H. to accreditation
Pierce committee prepares for accreditation review with town hall meeting Henry Walker/ Roundup
The Accreditation Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, (ACCJC), will review the college during March 2013. The commission will make a judgment on whether or not Pierce will maintain its accredited status. This determines if the classes that students take will remain transferable to state colleges and universities. This process happens at every public university in order to ensure high educational standards.
Opinion
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In preparation for the review the college has been reviewing many of its policies and procedures along with forming an accreditation committee The Pierce College accreditation town hall was hosted Thursday afternoon in the Great Hall. The ACCJC will review “budgets, facilities, technology and human resources,” according to Mia Wood, faculty accreditation coordinator, and an assistant professor of Philosophy. “Pierce College faces recruitment and enrollment issues that
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don’t typically plague selective colleges,” said Wood. The bad economy, high fees at other universities, fewer course offerings, and changes in the philosophical approach to education, challenge our community to maintain excellence, she said. “The role of community colleges is changing in people’s lives,” said Kathleen Burke-Kelly, Pierce College President. Another major hurdle is that student’s needs don’t always match state educational policy, which makes it difficult to plan, she ex-
plained. “If we let the budget drive our planning, we will never be in control of our course offerings and programs,” said Wood, in her report The counseling department is overloaded with a large number of students, and faculty members don’t always guide students toward their goals, according to Wood. “Retention and completion is increasingly difficult,” said Wood. “We know some of the reasons why, but we don’t know all of them.” Wood blames the California Educational Code for the difficulty in
providing classes for new students. She cites in her report the other official entities working for better enrollment management. “Pierce College faculty, staff, administrators, and students have to say what they think, do what they say, and focus on whether or not we think we’re getting things right,” said Wood.
Hard drives and more than 100 Pierce lanyards were stolen from one of the buildings in the village during a break-in Tuesday morning. The time of the break-in is unknown. The last person in the building left at 4 p.m. and the first people to come into the office arrived at 9 a.m. “This is one of the strangest things I have ever seen,” said Public Relations Manager Doreen Clay, as she surveyed her office Tuesday morning. The building, located in the village in room 8341, has three offices in it: the foundation office, the academic outreach, and public relations office. “I’ve been here for almost ten years and nothing like this has ever happened before,” said Clay. The hard drives of Office Assistant Floriya Borzenkova were taken out of her computer and contained important files, but no student information. Foundation checks were also stolen, but they have already been voided. “So disappointing that this has happened, that it destroys peoples work,” said Administrative Assistant Kathy Zanghi. Dust from a fire extinguisher was released around half of the room, leaving many perpetrator footsteps. “It’s going to take a long time to clean up all this dust,” said Zanghi. Also a clock in the building was broken by a thrown tomato. “These are hard times, people are on the edge,” said Clay.
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Bond money builds the
Campus jobs and stu-
college
dents meet the counsel-
Q and A with the ASO President
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Halloween Festival
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