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A FIRST AMENDMENT PUBLICATION Volume 120 - Issue 4
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Baseball: Bahamas improve winning streak.......Page 8
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
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Wheels to be curbed
Plans shown for new restrictions Carrlyn Bathe Roundup Reporter
TREATS: Maurice Klein purchases a cookie during the soft opening of Lovebirds Café in the Library/Learning Crossroads on Tuesday March 25.
Diego Barajas / Roundup
Campus cafe officially open
Long anticipated Lovebirds Café finally opens its doors to faculty and students Meghan McGillicudy Roundup Reporter
T
he cafeteria on campus officially opened its doors for a soft opening on the bottom floor of the Library/Learning Crossroads on Tuesday, March 25. Regular hours for Lovebirds Café and Bakery will be Monday through Friday between 7 a.m.- 7 p.m. and Saturday from 8 a.m.- 3 p.m. They will be closed on Sunday. They are currently expecting the cafe to remain open through summer session while testing out their hours and even opening their doors Saturdays to students. “The goal was to get their feet wet and then do more of an announcement,” Rolf Schleicher, vice president of administrative services said.
The owners of Lovebirds Café, brothers John and Jahan Jomehri, were setting up for the opening with the manager Fonzie Aliga at 7 a.m. Lovebirds Café prides themselves on the quality of their food, according to Aliga. An assortment of pastries including coffee cake, cinnamon buns, muffins, and croissants will be available daily. Above their display case is a menu with a variety of smoothie and coffee selections. A variety of grab n’ go sandwiches will also be available. “The smoothies are all organic,” John Jomehri said. “They do not have ice in them.” The espresso machine is manual and allows the cafe to make just the right type of coffee for their customers. “I like making custom drinks for people,” Aliga said. Students and faculty arrived at
“We’d love to have some independent vendors come in like Subway and Panda Express and all that.” -Rolf Schleicher Vice President of Administrative Services
the new cafe at 8 a.m. to be some of the first customers to experience the new addition to the campus. “I’ve been waiting for it to open,” Maria Lopez, 20-year-old web design major said. The newly opened cafe also drew the interest from the campus sheriff’s department.
“We were driving around and decided to check it out,” Justin Ramos, a sheriff’s security officer said. “I think it’s nice. It’ll be good for students.” The food trucks positioned around campus will still be available and will continue to operate as usual. “We are planning to leave our trucks on campus,” Larry Kraus, associate vice president of administrative services. “We are going to move some of them around a bit.” Administration may also look into using a full time distributor for the cafeteria after Lovebirds fulfills their contractual obligations on December 31. “Right now we’re going to concentrate on opening the Lovebirds Café,” Schleicher said. “We’re not going to go too far because the district didn’t want us
to open that because of a global contract. We felt the need was high here. We took a little grief for it, but it was well worth it. So it’s not a full fledged food court by any means. We’d love to have some independent vendors come in like Subway, and Panda Express and all that. It’s going to be viable. And we’ve got to have capitalization. No one is moving into these spots for friendships. they move in because they want to make money.” Lovebirds is also thinking of extending their hours during midterms and final exams, though “nothing is set in stone,” according to Aliga. “Let’s just see what the demand is,” Kraus said.
Students who choose to break the already enforced rules of no bike riding or skateboarding on campus could soon find themselves being intercepted by law enforcement. At Monday’s Academic Senate meeting, Pierce College Associate Vice President Larry Kraus showed a PowerPoint presentation on solutions on how to manage the transportation problems on campus. “We’ve all been dealing with bicycles and skateboarding on campus,” Kraus said. “It’s been a real issue for us.” Some of the proposed solutions to the problematic transportation are to purchase newer bike racks, further enforce the rules, and encourage students to park and walk at the appropriate places. Kraus estimated these services costing $23,326. The funding would not only go to new racks for bicycles, but skateboarders would be able to lock their boards on special docks, and “share the road” signs would be placed in high traffic areas throughout campus. One solution is to verbally intercept students riding bikes and skateboards to class. Kraus mapped out the busiest areas where it would be best to stop and ask students to walk the rest of the way around campus. “We want to make the campus more friendly to bicycles,” Kraus said. “We want the bicycle riders to come on campus but we want them to park their bicycles.” The current bike rack locations and designs are not ideal. Kraus admitted that the older racks were not optimal, only allowing for the front tire to be locked in. This makes it difficult for bikers to lock up their frame without scratching it. [See SENATE, pg. 3]
String Theory
District considers narrowing down systems
Too many learning systems cause confusion through out LACCD Stacey Arevalo Roundup Reporter The possibility of adapting a single Learning Management System (LMS) for the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) was recommended as achievable by a team through the Feasibility Taskforce Report on Thursday, March 6. The LACCD is composed of nine colleges which are: Pierce College, Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, Los Angeles City College, East Los Angeles College, Los
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Angeles Harbor College, Los Angeles Mission College, Los Angeles Southwest College, Los Angeles Valley College and West Los Angeles College. Within the nine schools, there are currently two LMS’s being used which are “Moodle” and “ETUDES”, according to Wendy Bass, the distance education coordinator at Pierce College and member of the taskforce. Pierce’s current LMS is Moodle, which is used as a tool by faculty members and students for both online and face-to-face courses that are “web-enhanced” by the
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system. The current annual cost for Moodle, Bass said, is $37,000 under an enterprise license that allows all of the classes to use it. The Los Angeles TradeTechnical College (LATTC) is the only other institution in the district that uses Moodle, according to Bass. The taskforce that recommended the feasibility of the single LMS was created in May 2, 2013 by the Distance Education Stakeholders. This was done in order to investigate the pros and cons of a district-wide system and to see if it would be possible to have just one
The Pierce College Weather Station has provided meteorological data to national agencies since 1949.
Wednesday March 26 High: 66° Low: 49°
system, according to the Feasibility Taskforce Report. By offering a single LMS throughout the district, faculty and students would be able to receive extended technical support, faculty members would receive uniformed training, and each college would pay a possible lower cost, according to the Feasibility Taskforce Report. However, according to the same report, a potential over reliance on one system, training costs, retraining of faculty and the migration of current data from one LMS to the other might become issues. [See LMS, pg. 3]
Nicolas Heredia / Roundup
BULLET: Cellist Andrea Yu (right), violist Theo Ma (left) rehearse before performing for students on March 20.
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