Roundup Los Angeles Pierce College
www.theroundupnews.com
Woodland Hills, California
Volume 128 - Issue 2
A FIRST AMENDMENT PUBLICATION
Wednesday, February 28, 2018
One copy free, each additional copy $1.00
Not afraid to ask for help
Health Center assists students who need suppor t ANNA CLARK Opinions Editor @AnnaClarkReport
T
he number of Pierce College students being hospitalized due to suicidal ideations are higher than they have ever been. But that shouldn’t be considered a bad thing. With a total of nine students and 11 hospitalizations, Pierce administrators are speaking out on how the hospitalizations are bringing hope into the dark world of depression. Clinical psychologist Niaz Khani, who supervises over mental health at the Pierce College Health Center, said that the act of hospitalizing a student is meant to help, not hinder. “When the hospitalization comes into place, it's not meant to be a punitive process,” Khani said. “It's meant to get more attention for the person's suffering.” In fall 2017, eight Pierce College students were hospitalized a total of 10 times due to thoughts of suicide. On the first day of the spring 2018 semester, a student was hospitalized, increasing the number to nine students and 11 hospitalizations. The topic of mental health has broadened across the Pierce campus, with a Suicide Awareness Week being held this past fall. Khani said the awareness week could be a factor in the increased rate of hospitalizations, as it focused on teaching students about what signs to look for and how to recognize their feelings. “I personally don't think that more people are feeling suicidal than before,” Khani said. “My hunch
and anxious, and I think that is completely normal because things are always changing in our world,” Khani said. “There's always things happening, so of course that's going to bring up feelings. “ According to Vice President of Student Services Earic Dixon-Peters, everyone in the world has been
CAMERON KERN Reporter @ckernroundup
stressed before. “Our whole purpose is to destigmatized the negativity of needing help,” Dixon-Peters said. “The spectrum of health is from the severity of suicide to ‘I just am stressed out.’” [see Hospitalization on pg. 3]
[see Academic Senate on pg. 3]
Photo Illustration by Randi Love
“We were handing out our name and our addresses, and that's a good thing, if that person had been suffering in silence,” Benne said. According to Khani, feelings of depression and anxiety are a part of being human. “We have a lot of people in this society who are feeling depressed
Cheating on tests can make an easy comeback Students who may want to cheat and plagiarize their way through college may now have their chance. During the Academic Senate meeting, Distance Education Coordinator Wendy Bass announced the end of a partnership with the antiplagiarism company VeriCite, that also owns Turninit. Bass said Pierce College had a contract with Turnitin.com that cost the school about $20,000. But the company upped the fee to more than $33,000, so Pierce moved to VeriCite, which provided professors and students access to their services for free. Yet, now that VeriCite was recently bought by Turnitin, the contract is now terminated. If students and teachers want access to VeriCite’s or Turnitin’s anti plagiarism services they will now have to “pay for it themselves,” Bass said. Based on analytics from Bass, in 2015, out of 125 instructors using Turnitin for plagiarism checking, 81 percent of them submitted less than 100 papers. Bass reported they couldn’t justify spending that amount of the college’s budget on a plagiarism checker that not many instructors use, so they switched to the free VeriCite. Turnitin also charged nearly double the cost to community colleges across California than what CSU’s were required to pay. Turnitin was charging CSU’s 97 cents per full-time employee while Pierce was being charged $2.40. Bass said she thinks Turnitin was being unethical with its uneven charges.
This is a depiction of a student on the Health Center's Kognito suicide prevention awareness page on the Pierce College website. Kognito is an avatarbased training program designed to help people understand and notice the warning signs of a potential threat.
is that they’re just knowing more about what to do and what kind of resources they could have possible.” Health Center Director Beth Benne said that students who are thinking of suicide have come to the health center because of information that was handed out during the awareness week.
Baseball culture pg. 6
Complete that degree Neighbors you don't want to invite over
Rats and mice have been seen across campus in faculty offices
IGETC courses can be taken online
GLORIA BECERRA Reporter @gloriab75636814
VANESSA ARREDONDO Managing Editor @v_anana
The Pierce community has new neighbors on campus that don't have backpacks, but travel in packs. The North of Mall construction caused a rodent infestation, which has spread to the Library Learning Crossroads and new faculty offices in Alder since December 2017. The rodents used to live in the walls on and would come out at night, creating their homes throughout campus. Department Chair of the Library Learning Crossroads Paula Paggi said she has tried to contact Plant Facilities for assistance setting up rodent traps and disposing of traps with rat and mice carcasses. “At the end of the 2018 winter session, Plant Facilities found rats and mice nesting behind the refrigerator in the library’s kitchen for warmth,” Paggi said. “Plant Facilities has had gardeners setting up rat and mouse traps all over the library.” Instructor of Humanities and History Richard McMillan said he has found rodent droppings on the computer mouse and keyboard he uses in his office and uses Clorox disinfecting wipes to clean his work space. McMillan said he is concerned with the rat and mice infestation on campus reaching his office in the 3100 building. “Rats are in this faculty office
It might be a full-time job or childcare responsibilities, but whatever the reason some students can’t make it to campus. However, there are state and college initiatives that may help students gain certification remotely. Gov. Jerry Brown made a proposal last month to have a fully online community college by fall 2019. The $120 million budget proposal is said to benefit 2.5 million adults between ages 25 and 34 who can’t physically attend college, according to the Los Angeles Times. Eighty percent of Pierce students are enrolled part time. Of that percentage, two thirds work full time or part time, Vice President of Student Services Earic Dixon-Peters said. Because a large percentage also have extracurricular activities, he said, the college needs to offer different opportunities to help them succeed. “One of the needs that we have is, what can we do to service students? Do we have the support services online to help students be successful? Is there online tutoring for an online class, are there financial aid services online, special services,” DixonPeters said. “In some areas we are wonderfully prepared. Can we go above and beyond that? Absolutely.” Some instructors and
RUONLINE?
Brian Caldera/ Roundup
A rat trap that was triggered sits in the office of Instructor of Humanities and History Richard McMillian on Feb. 27, 2018 at Pierce college in Woddland Hills, Calif.
building because they are looking for warmth and food. Us teachers leave our food and wrappers in our trash cans, thus inviting these pests to rummage,” McMillan said. McMillan said that professors may be at least partly responsible for the infestation coming to the faculty offices and that the design of the building facilitates rodents' entry. “I brought my own rat traps and placed them all over my room-behind my door, behind the faculty couch. I’ve caught five rats so far,”
McMillan said. “One downside that makes matters worse is that, at the bottom of each faculty office door, at least three inches has been cut off to help with AC air flow. Those widened door bottoms have helped rats and mice limbo through our doors.” Adjunct Instructor of English Chris Corning said he saw a rat walking on the staircase in front of the business offices on Wednesday, Feb. 14. “The rat looked shriveled up, slow and old. It walked toward me. It didn’t seem scared of me at all,” Corning
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said, “I contacted Plant Facilities immediately.” Pierce instructors McMillan, Paggi and Corning have reached out to Plant Facilities to address the rodent problem although Head of Plant Facilities Paul Nieman could not be reached. McMillan said he could offer Pierce ideas on controlling the rodent population. “Pierce needs to get more cats on campus,” McMillan said. gbecerra.roundupnews@gmail.com
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departments have expressed concerns about having general education classes, such as math and English, fully online, stating that a classroom setting is needed to teach the course materials. “Specifically in the English Department, we have seen that hybrid classes can be more challenging for students because they cannot receive immediate feedback from their instructors or have that interpersonal communication with their peers,” said Chair of the English Department Donna Accardo. “We have found that students succeed better in a faceto-face environment.” However, Accardo said there is a growing desire and need for students who can’t physically come on campus and take classes. Distance Education Coordinator Wendy Bass said that Pierce College is behind other colleges when it comes to online education. “We don’t just want to throw a class online to put a class online. We want to have a lot of student / instructor contact, we want the students to be engaged, we want there to be discussion, and robust learning,” Bass said. Bass said IGETC is not officially online yet, but the goal is to be able provide them all digitally. Some departments don’t have classes online, and though they can’t force departments to offer those courses, Bass said they encourage them. [For the full story visit theroundupnews.com]
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