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• News: 1, 2 • Entertainment: 3 • Sports: 4 • Opinions: 5 • Editorial: 5 • Campus Buzz: 5 • Calendar: 2 • Features: 6 • News: 1, 2 • Entertainment: 3 • Sports: 4 • Opinions: 5 • Editorial: 5 • Campus Buzz: 5 • Calendar: 2 • Features: 6
INQUIRERThe
Volume 77 No. 3 Copyright © 2010 The Inquirer - Diablo Valley College Thursday, October 14, 2010www.TheInquirerOnline.com
S T U DE N T VOIC E OF D I A BL O VA L L E Y C OL L E G E
From priest to president
ANNIE SCIACCAEditor-in-chief
While severe budget cuts have affected students campus wide, those with disabili-ties have been hit the hardest with finan-cial reductions to the Disability Support Services office resulting in their tutoring services being cut completely.
The DSS program is primarily financed by categorical funding from the state, said Chris Leivas, vice president of finance and administration, with only a small portion of support for the program coming from general college funds.
The state reduced categorical funding for DSS by about 49 percent in the 2009 – 2010 fiscal year, Leivas said.
He also explained that because DVC took large budget cuts last year, all programs were drastically impacted campus-wide.
“We did our best to preserve to the ex-tent possible the valuable services provid-ed by our EOPS and DSS programs,” Leivas said.
Students, however, are feeling the ef-fects of the financial cuts.
DSS student Michael Burnside said he is concerned that there are no science tu-
Three DVC tutoring pro-grams are struggling due to re-ductions in their budgets.
Math and English are the two largest tutoring programs fac-ing problems. Disability Sup-port Services–known as Dis-abled Student Programs and Services at the state level– has had to cut its tutoring services completely.
“We knew that the state was going to cut DSPS…much greater than the overall college budget,” DSS manager Stacey Shears said.
DSS tutoring was cut mainly because tutoring is not feder-ally mandated. Shears said the tutors cost about $150,000.
DSS was able to reinstate some tutoring for basic skills math and English students with money from the Founda-tion for College Success, which oversees the Basic Skills Initia-tive. It is unclear whether this will continue in future semes-ters, FCS Co-Coordinator Lupe Dannels said.
“They definitely need the ba-sic skills tutoring,” said Michael Burnside, president of Club A3, a campus club dedicated to ad-vocating for disabled students. “Just because you made it past the basic skills courses doesn’t mean you don’t need tutor-ing.”
He said some of the other tu-
DSS, Page 2
DVC staff struggles to preserve tutoring
TRAVIS JENKINS / THE INQUIRER
JULIUS REANews editor
DSS budgetexcludestutoringprogram
Interim president brings academic experience to DVCTRAVIS JENKINS / THE INQUIRER
JONATHAN ROISMANEditor-in-Chief
DVC will have an experienced veteran at the reigns for the remainder of the school year in new Interim College President Pe-ter Garcia.
Garcia, 58, took over October 1, replacing Judy Walters, who had been at the helm of the college for the past three years.
Garcia was president of Los Medanos College for eight years before taking the interim job at DVC and he will be return-ing to his post there on July 1, 2011.
Although he’s worked in college admin-istration for nearly 25 years, Garcia said DVC would be a new challenge for him.
“What I expect and what I think I’ve been learning, kind of every minute of the last few days,” Garcia said, “is just
GARCIA, Page 2
CLUBS, Page 2
People seem highly committed to an academic environment.
“
”
PETER GARCIADVC Interim President
Confusingrule raisesconcerns for clubs
PARJANYA HOLTZStaff writer
Clubs at Diablo Valley College are criti-cal of a new school policy which emerged early this year charging student organi-zations for the use of media equipment during on-campus events, as statewide educational budget cuts continue to affect student life.
The Students for Democratic Society, one of DVC’s 64 registered and active clubs, held an event at the college’s Performing Arts Center last semes-ter. The club had to pay a trained technician to monitor the school’s multimedia equipment during the event.
“We had to pay some-where be-tween $200 to $300 – a ridiculous sum for the service that was provided,” said Frank Runninghorse, the SDS community ad-viser.
DVC’s current media equipment han-dling policy requires clubs to hire a trained technician to overlook any audio and/or video equipment that is used dur-ing an event held on campus.
Francisco Hinajosa, the president of the Inter Club Council, is concerned that the fee policy is not in sync with the school’s
The question should not be why are theycharging the
clubs, but, whyhaven’t they been
charging them before?
“
”KEITH MONTES
Students for a Democratic Society Vice President
Jonathan Reaves, left, works with tutor Raissa Yona on his math assignments in the DVC Math Lab.
toring programs do not have the services necessary for dis-abled students.
The Math Lab has only two computers with a screen magni-fier for the many students who may need it, said Burnside who suffers from im-paired eyesight.
Shears said that DSS is trying to start discussing addi-tional training to teach tutors how to help disabled students campus-wide.
At the same time, the Math Lab, which provides tutoring for struggling math students,
is having operational difficul-ties.
“Over the past year, we have been trying to smooth out the
operational side absorbing the ser-vices provided by the late tutoring center,” said Ade Origunwa, senior office assistant in the mathematics department.
When faced with an 11.53 percent
operating budget reduction to all divisions for the 2010-2011 school year, contract classes – weekly study groups for Math 75 students – and their as-signed instructional assistants
were cut to keep from reduc-ing hours of a math lab coor-dinator. Math Lab hours were also reduced on Fridays.
The math lab now offers services, including by-appoint-ment and group tutoring, pre-viously provided by central tu-toring which was cut last year.
Math Lab tutor Ken Dao said he has not seen tremendous effects from the reductions.
“The [math] department has tried its best for students not to notice the impact of the cuts,” Origunwa said. “We’re try-ing to make a dollar out of 15 cents.”
Peter Garcia, center, talks to Drama
Department Chair Ed
Trujillo, left, and Robert
Eustes, right, hotel and
restaurant management
department chair, during
Garcia’s reception at
the Business and Foreign
Language Conference
Room.
kind of... the scope and scale of the college {that} make[s] communication, integration [and] messaging a real challenge.”
This is not the first interim position Gar-cia has ever held; in fact he has held four of them at LMC.
“Interim jobs were really good for me,” he said. “They were a chance for me to un-derstand what a job was about, and it was a really good chance for the college and my colleagues to figure out how I did the job.”
Donna Floyd, interim vice president of student services, said Garcia is great at helping her look at her job and the chal-lenges it comes with in new ways.
“He’ll help the college as a whole,” Floyd said.
Garcia said the people at DVC care about their responsibilities and that motivating them didn’t take a complex formula.
“[You] appreciate good work when you see it and get out of the way as often as pos-sible so they can do that work,” he said.
Other administrators have faith in Gar-cia’s ability to run the school for the next few months.
Susan Lamb, vice president of instruc-tion, said Garcia is a high-energy person who’s “very open and willing to discuss things.”
“He’ll come in with a wealth of knowl-
edge, not just with the district, but with teaching and student services,” she said.
Garcia taught philosophy and critical thinking for six and a half years at LMC before entering administration there. He also coached the football team’s offensive line for two seasons.
“Hopeful-ly my skills and experi-ences will be a good fit for the col-lege,” Garcia said.
A native of Contra Costa Coun-ty, Garcia graduated from Pittsburg High School in 1970 before attending Chico State College, where he re-ceived a B.A. in political science and pub-lic administration.
He later received a B.A. in philosophy at St. Albert’s College in Oakland and a mas-ter’s degree in theology at Dominican
PETER GARCIA
COMMITTEE ROLE CHANGES
Tutoring Advisory Committee uses
communication to help tutoring. Page 2.
2 Thursday, October 14, 2010The Inquirer - Diablo Valley CollegeNews
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in the DSS department. His contribution toward
a solution is the founding of Club A3, which, with the help of volunteers, aims to provide certain services for disabled students, such as tutoring, that have been reduced or cut entirely.
Last semester, DSS stu-dent Patrick Ehrhard re-quested an allocation of $5000 from the student government to DSS.
His intent, he said, was for the full amount to go towards the program’s tu-toring.
However, Terry Arm-strong, dean of counseling and student support servic-es, said the sum requested was too small to make any real difference in the tutor-ing cut.
In fact, when Ehrhard announced his intention to request the money, DSS dis-couraged it.
“We said ‘don’t,’” Arm-strong said, “because it will not get anything done. It will only be a tiny Band-aid. Basically $5000 is what we used to spend on tutor-ing in a week.”
But Ehrhard’s frustration with the lack of support for DSS prompted him to ask the Associated Students of DVC for the small amount to help fund tutoring ser-vices.
“I saw a need,” Ehrhard said of his fund request. “If I help out DSS, they can bet-ter help me.”
Because tutoring is not a federally mandated pro-vision, the money for tu-toring is simply not there, said DSS manager Stacey Shears.
The services that are fed-erally mandated under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act include such aids as physical access to campus buildings, inter-preting and captioning for deaf and blind students, testing accommodation, al-ternate media and the pro-vision of counseling.
DSS doesn’t have the money to pay note-takers anymore, forcing them to rely on volunteers to pro-vide the service for dis-abled students.
“It has been a challenge without a huge incentive to get people to step up to spend a little of the time it takes to copy their notes in the DSS office,” Armstrong said.
This semester, DSS is pro-viding a new incentive for those willing to take notes.
Students providing all the notes they have copied this semester and agreeing to take notes for the rest of the semester will be given early registration for the spring 2011 semester, said Lisa Martin, DSS note tak-ing coordinator.
The students must sign up by October 18 to partici-pate in this program.
The department heard in fall of 2009 that there would be statewide cuts, which was when they made a decision to cut certain services, like tutoring.
“We’ve been bracing since 2009,” Shears said. “We were cut much more than the general commu-nity college fund.”
“Success, as much as we want our students to be successful, isn’t really part of the mandate,” Shears explained. “It’s more about access.”
Her suggestion, in the difficult financial time, is to improve campus-wide tu-toring, so that all students can be more successful.
“We are managing as best we can,” Shears said. “It seems to be the students [who] have the most needs are being cut the most.”
DSS from Pg. 1Committee alters focus
JULIUS REANews editor
Despite drastic reduc-tions to tutoring on cam-pus, a DVC committee has changed its role and begun creating a tool to show the positive impact of campus-wide tutoring this semes-ter.
The Tutoring Advisory Committee, formerly re-sponsible for allocating money to tutoring pro-grams, now tries to in-crease the communication, integration and advocacy of tutoring programs.
“To my understanding, the way we were making money decisions did not comply with accreditation
standards,” said Ted Walk-er, the committee chair.
“Now that we aren’t bur-dened with decisions about funding we can be a coop-erative and collaborative group,” said Walker.
He said the committee also did not comply with its task of managing and pre-serving central tutoring, which was cut last year.
The TAC is working to-wards finding the best tu-toring practices. The com-mittee is tackling its new responsibilities by breaking into three working groups: data inquiry and external and internal research.
While tutoring is strug-gling, the committee’s fo-cus is on uniting the tutor-ing programs throughout
the school and helping them fight for funding ef-ficiently.
Ade Origunwa, math lab-senior office assistant, said students can benefit from the centralizing of infor-mation about individual tutoring centers, one the TAC’s goals this semester, which will “better inform everyone.”
Foundation for College Success, a program which oversees the Basic Skills Initiative that provides funding from the state for basic skills support staff, asked the committee to cre-ate a tool to assess the im-pact of basic skills tutoring to show the state, said Lupe Dannels, FCS coordinator.
Walker said that it was
important to create the same tool for all tutoring programs.
After presenting a pro-posal for a change in re-sponsibilities, the TAC’s new role was approved by the Faculty Senate in April 2010.
Walker said he is trying to work towards reclassify-ing tutoring as an instruc-tional service because cuts usually stay away from in-structional programs. Tu-toring is considered a sup-port service.
“Until society starts valu-ing education, we will nev-er have enough resources,” said Walker.
mission statement. “I don’t like the fact stu-
dents are being charged such a high fee that hinders our ability to enhance our experience at DVC,” Hina-josa said in an email inter-view last week.
Runninghorse said the technician they hired for the SDS event last semes-ter walked from his office to the location on campus where the event took place only to turn on a DVD player and monitor the device for
School of Philosophy and Theology, a graduate school in Berkeley.
Garcia was a priest for three years before leaving to marry his wife and said philosophy has helped him with his different jobs over the years.
“There’s something about philosophy that [makes it] an organizer,” Garcia said. “It helps you really look at the world through prisms and perspective. It gives you a way to organize how you’re understanding life.”
Garcia said the college’s main focus is to get DVC ful-ly accredited again, and that much of his focus would revolve around that while he’s interim president.
DVC was put on “show cause” in 2009 before being moved to “probation” ear-lier this year by the Accred-iting Commission of Com-munity and Junior Colleges, because of deficiencies they found in an evaluation in
GARCIA from Pg. 1
2002. “[The goal is] continuing
that path of full accredi-tation, and what I think is rightfully the colleges, which is a really strong his-tory and reputation as a college that does a great job educating students and pre-paring them for the future,” he said.
School finances will also
be a top priority. Garcia said the budget for
the current academic year was mostly set, but he fore-sees cuts for 2011-12, “pri-marily because there will be increased costs, even if the budget’s the same and nothing else happens.”
He said discussions on possible cuts for next year could begin as early as next
CLUBSfrom Pg. 1
about an hour and a half,.Because the club had ap-
plied for financial support with the Inter Club Coun-cil, SDS did not have to pay the technician from its own club budget.
The reimbursement came from the annual ICC fund, currently about $17,400.
Runninghorse said the money should have been invested in helping students with their projects, “instead of paying for a technician to run from one side of the campus to another.”
SDS Vice President Keith Montes said there are li-
ability issues regarding use of the school’s equipment.
“The question should not be why are they charging the clubs, but, why haven’t they been charging them before?” he said.
Montes said students only had to start paying techni-cians in the spring semester of this year.
“My understanding is that they’ve always charged fees, but it wasn’t always followed through with ac-tually sending the clubs an invoice,” Student Activities Coordinator Michelle Za-pata said.
“What’s new is clubs are now getting the bills for the technicians,” said Zapata.
Bill Oye, the dean of stu-dent life, said the current statewide budget cuts bear at least some responsibility for the recent changes stu-dents have noticed.
“My understanding is that they’ve shifted from using salary classified staff for some of these special students events to basically having an on-call media person.”
month. Regardless of what hap-
pens after returns next year to LMC, Garcia said he’s confident in DVC’s future.
“People seem highly com-mitted to an academic envi-ronment.”
Chief of Police Charles C. Gibson, left, meets Peter Garcia outside of the reception in Business and Foreign Language conference room.
TRAVIS JENKINS / THE INQUIRER
Thursday, Oct. 14SRC Financial Aid Visit SRC Admissions and Records Office9 a.m. - 1 p.m. and 2 - 6 p.m. St. Mary’s College Rep Counseling Center10 a.m. - 12 p.m. by appointment and 12 - 1 p.m. drop-in
Local 1 Brown Bag at Pleasant Hill Trophy Room12 - 1 p.m.
Brown Bag Lecture SeriesStudent Union Conference Room 20412:30 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 15Film - Dim Sum: A Little Bit of HeartForum7 p.m.
Drama - Cabaret opensPAC8 p.m.
Saturday, Oct. 16Drama – CabaretPAC8 p.m.
Sunday, Oct. 17Drama – CabaretPAC2:30 p.m.
Monday, Oct. 18San Francisco State International Programs RepresentativeCounseling Center10:00 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. by appointment 1:30-3:00 p.m. for drop-in
College CouncilCommunity Conference Room 2 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 19College Success Workshop SRC E1741 - 2:15 p.m.
ASDVC BOARD MEETINGSU Room 2042 p.m.
College Success WorkshopStudent Union Conference Room 2045:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Oct. 20UC BerkeleyCounseling Center10 a.m. - 12:40 p.m. and 3:20 - 4 p.m.
College Success WorkshopConference Room 2042:30 p.m.
Jazz Jazz JazzFree concert will be held at Concord High School7:30 p.m.
Thursday, Oct 21 JFK University Campus RepCounseling Center2 – 5 p.m.
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For more information call 925.685.1230 ext 2313 or stop by The Inquirer office.
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Entertainment 3The Inquirer - Diablo Valley CollegeThursday, October 14, 2010
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900,000 music fans flock to SF
KEVIN HAYES / THE INQUIRER
Attendees get creative with locking up their bicycles after a shortage of available racks. Roots make a good substitute.
KEVIN HAYES / THE INQUIRER
Festival attendees walk between concert stages as bands prepare for their next show on one of the six stages.
Music festivals are notoriously expen-sive. If you count ticket, food, and merchandise costs, taking out a sec-
ond mortgage to pay for it all may not seem like such a bad idea. Well, for the thrifty music fan, you’re in luck, because admission price for the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival is the low, low price of free.
To read more about the festival that drew nearly a million peo-ple to Golden Gate Park visit www.theinquireronline.com for the full story by The Inquirer’s Kevin Hayes.
4 Thursday, October 14, 2010The Inquirer - Diablo Valley CollegeSports
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Friday night lights, Monday night math
If you take 20 hours out of your week do you still have free time? Add at least a single four or five hour game. How about now? Then add a 12-unit class schedule and you would be hard pressed to find time for anything at all.
That’s the life of a student athlete.“It’s really hard and stressful, but it’s
worth it to play football, a sport I love and am really passionate about,” said Socrates Rodriguez, a DVC football player learn-ing to juggle school and his duties to his coaches and teammates.
Football players are required by Big 8 Conference regulations to have at least a 2.0 grade point average and be a full-time student with a total of 24 units for a calen-dar year.
Head Football Coach Mike Darr expects his players to be at practice on Mondays and Wednesdays from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Players also have weight lifting two times a week from 1 p.m.to 2 p.m. and film meet-ings, also twice a week from 2:10 p.m. to 3:20 p.m. This is not including additional meetings for special teams players, which are players who are on the field on punt, field goal and kick coverage.
But now students on the football team having difficulty with their coursework are in luck.
Offensive coordinator Ryan Byrne has started a group called the Student Athlete Success Program which provides tutoring for athletes who don’t have time to go to the tutoring center during its open hours.
The program was started by Byrne, along with the help of Athletic Director Christine Worsley, who is also the dean of physical education, athletics and dance.
Byrne comes from an athletic back-
ground. He completed a master’s program at the University of California at Berkeley called “Athletes and Academic Achieve-ment” with his focus on student athletes transferring from junior colleges and their difficulties getting into a four-year institution.
Both Dean of Counseling Terry Arm-strong and counselor Lupe Dannels have been great resources in Byrne’s quest to provide better support to student athletes, who are required to have an Education Plan on file with the college and meet with a DVC counselor once a semester.
“That way they make sure the student is on track to receive their degree,” Byrne said.
Armstrong has made it so that counsel-ors, who are difficult to book at DVC, are available to the athletes, while Dannels helps when it comes to funding for tutor-ing.
Gilbert Rocha, admissions and records senior employee, also helps to make sure athletes are meeting the requirements to continue playing dur-ing their short time of eligibility at DVC.
Rocha tracks the athletes’ grades and makes sure they never drop below the minimum standard, while also calculating team GPA and other academic statistics.
“They’re on a two-year time period here,” Byrne said. “They have to be out in two years if they are playing. It’s difficult to get them the classes because they have half their day taken up with class and practice.”
When attempting to juggle classes and sports, there are several classes that a stu-dent athlete can take, starting with the ori-entation class that uses the help of coun-
selors to assist incoming freshman with the demands of being a student athlete. The program is available to all athletes
who need help in lower division English and math classes.
The Student-Ath-lete Success class is a way to help guide athletes hav-ing trouble with their schooling and makes their class work more
relevant to their life. “It’s really hard to keep up with school
work because you’re so tired from being at school and practice really tires you out. Sometimes I feel like there aren’t enough hours during the day,” football player Ro-driguez said.
Student athletes also have a height-ened responsibility to turn forms in on time, whether it is financial aid or any
drop forms, because the scholarships that many athletes receive are based on their academic performance.
“Every issue on this campus is magni-fied for these guys because they have such a small window of time to do what they need to do,” Darr said.
Coaches teach their players that they can’t take these programs for granted be-cause they don’t have much free time.
“Their time in between classes isn’t spent out on the quad or surfing the inter-net, we give them quizzes on game plan,” Darr said.
He said all coaches try to ensure that their students are aware of the respon-sibilities they have both on and off the field.
“People see the game of football and think we just run and hit each other but it is a lot of work,” Darr said. “They aren’t just studying school work, they’re study-ing what we have for them as well.”
Offensive Coordinator Ryan Byrne draws up game plan to success
GERARDO RECINOSSports editor
CHRIS CORBIN/THE INQUIRER
Ryan Byrne lectures during the Student-Athlete Success class on Monday, October 11, 2010.
People see the game of football and think we just run and hit each other but it is a lot of work.
“
”Mike Darr
Head Football Coach
BUSINESS MANAGER Ryan BeckPHOTO CHIEF Travis JenkinsSTAFF WRITERS Brian Donovan, Lisa Marie Garcia, Kevin Hayes, Parjanya Holtz, Carly Jones, Emma Li, Soledad Lopez, Jacob ParkPHOTOGRAPHERS Carly Jones, Ryan Beck
Censorship, as an ideal and an action, could be closely compared to the flu virus. Both are ever chang-ing in a constantly evolv-ing world and both tend to rear their ugly heads when you least expect it.
This is something that the “Southwestern College Sun,” the campus news-paper for Southwestern College in southern Cali-fornia, has been learning firsthand since early Sep-tember.
The controversy stems from a long-standing rule recently enforced by cam-pus administration, stat-ing that when shopping for a new printer the print-ing contract for “The Sun” must go out for a competi-tive bid – a policy “The Sun” has not followed this semester. As a result, the campus administration pulled their print funding, citing the breach in pro-cedure as grounds for the action.
What would normally be a cut and dry instance of failing to adhere to col-lege procedure is made more interesting by a de-tail that gives the story a more sinister side.
This detail is the tim-ing in which the college
has decided to enforce the rule. Southwestern College, much like DVC, is having problems with its accreditation. “The Sun” had planned to print some stories in its first issue that were perceived to shed a negative light on the em-battled administration and would bring ever more negative attention to the college administration.
At this point, the pull-ing of funding could be interpreted as merely an unlucky coincidence, but here’s the kicker; the pa-per has not been following this particular policy for the last 20 years and this is the first time the college has decided to enforce the rule.
The college first stum-bled upon this dormant policy back in July, but didn’t inform “The Sun” they were in violation of the rule until two weeks prior to printing their first issue of the semester – one in which they planned to criticize the college ad-ministration. All of a sud-den the administration’s actions look like either a case of longstanding in-competence or opportu-nistic censorship.
Was there no one within
the college administra-tion capable of catching this before it continued for a decade and a half? If there wasn’t, then maybe it’s time some of the col-lege administrators get re-placed because of such an oversight.
Moreover, did anyone in the administration con-sider the possible ramifi-cations and, in this case, bad press, that would be tied to the timing of such a decision? If they didn’t want bad press, they are
certainly getting it now.While the college even-
tually relented in its de-cision, in what was no doubt bowing to outside pressures from local and national press coverage, it is unclear whether or not this controversy is over. By the time the adminis-tration relented, the print date for “The Sun’s” first issue had passed and they were only able to print with outside help from former alumnus and Em-my-Award winning writer
J. Michael Straczynski. One can argue for hours
about the supposed in-tentions of the college’s administration, but this much is clear, on a cam-pus already battling issues with its accreditation, was this really a battle worth fighting or will this inci-dent be construed by the accreditation committee as nothing more than the proverbial crucifixion of free speech on the cross of rule and regulation?
EDITORS IN CHIEF
NEWS EDITOR Julius ReaFEAUTRES EDITOR Scott BabaOPINIONS EDITOR Taliah MirmalekENTERTAINMENT EDITOR Troy PattonSPORTS EDITOR Gerardo RecinosONLINE EDITORS
VISUAL EDITOR Christopher CorbinCOPY EDITOR Ariel Messman-Rucker
Opinions 5The Inquirer - Diablo Valley CollegeThursday, October 14, 2010
Editorial Board Staff
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Could you live without your cell-
phone?
Editorial
SCOTT BABA / THE INQUIRER
Opinions
BuzzThe
Juhwi Kim, 21Undecided
“I cannot really func-tion without my cell-phone.”
Administration pulls plug on ‘The Sun’
Are cell phones more of a help or a hindrance?Take a look around. Whether
you’re in class, or on your way to or from class, you will see roughly the same thing: people on their phones.
However, these people are prob-ably not placing a call. They are texting, surfing the web, checking out Facebook or maybe all three at once.
Texting has become such a common occurrence in class that teachers have had to take extreme measures to reduce it. A history professor of mine, Brazell Carter, made his students turn off their phones and place them on his desk every time we entered class.
Cell phones have become such an integral part of so many lives
that when they “die” or we leave them at home (by accident of course), many people seem to feel inadequate in some way, as if they are not fully functioning members of society. In short, we feel naked.
Many of us need those constant updates from other people. It’s hard to resist checking our Face-book feed to find out what others are doing at that exact moment. We have that nervous tick that makes us check to see if someone loves us enough to send us a text message in class.
I’m not saying cell phones are all bad. They’re convenient when it comes to getting things done quickly. Sending out a text on a Friday, to see what friends are up
to, can sometimes yield a quicker response then a series of phone calls.
But when they become such a necessary part of your life that
even when you’re with other people, they’re constantly in your hands, it’s time to acknowledge that you have a problem.
Every once in a while, it’s good to cut yourself off – to completely sever your connection with that constant stream people love so much.
So, I present you with this chal-lenge: every so often, log off your Facebook, turn your phone on si-lent, make some “face time” and actually pay attention to those around you.
Who knows? Maybe you’ll learn something.
Budget WoesBudget cuts are happening all
over the United States. The econo-my is in a difficult condition right now and it’s having a detrimental impact on our schools and the stu-dents who attend school. I know that prices are rising, professors are being let go, and courses are being cut. Book prices, tuition fees, and even parking passes are more expensive.
One of the most important things in a person’s life is their education, and yet it seems to be one of the most difficult things to posses. In an article from the New York Times, Jesse McKinley writes, “California’s public education sys-tem has been racked by spending cuts because of the state’s finan-cial problems, which include a looming $20 billion budget defi-cit. Budget cuts are causing us stu-dents to stay in school longer and ultimately, it’s making us spend and lose more money.”
Let’s face it, a good education is never cheap, but it can be cheap-er and easier than it is now. One possible solution would be for the
government to put a tax on Cali-fornia’s oil producers. There are so many possible solutions that could help us with keeping our classes and lowering prices. We need a more willing government to lend out a hand to the genera-tion that’s trying to learn how to help the next.
I’d rather walk.When I first started at DVC in
Fall 2007, a parking permit was only $20, but the cost of the permit has now risen to $40. There are a number of reasons as to why the parking fee has increased in the past three years: primarily school budget cuts.
As of now, I park on the street off of Viking Road and it is about a 10-minute walk to my first class. In terms of worth, that 10-minute walk everyday outweighs the $40 parking fee. Another student, Robert Bentley, says, “There is no way I am going to pay $40 for a parking permit. I would rather park on the street and walk.”
Considering that I am work-ing part-time and paying for my classes, forking up another $40 is more than I can handle. I believe the parking fee will only increase as the years go on. As a student, I would like to see the money spent on parking permits go toward ex-panding the parking lots. Hope-fully, our school will do something to improve the issue of parking fees but the outlook does not look good.
InternationalityAt Diablo Valley College, the en-
rollment fee for local students is $26 per unit, while international students pay $216 per unit. This is more than eight times higher than local students. This is also a problem at four year universities. For example, at UC Berkeley, the tuition fee is about $6,230 per se-mester for residents and $17,670 for nonresidents. This huge gap is the result of extra fees: $429 high-er educational fee and $11,010.50 of nonresident tuition fee. Since
their F-1 Visa allows them to work only on campus, it is diffi-cult for them to afford tuition by themselves.
Most of international students are not happy with this outra-geously high tuition fee. Toshi Ono, a male international student from Japan, is equally mad: “Even though we pay much more than them, we have to enroll in the classes after residents. Sometimes we need to register for classes that we do not want to take to keep F-1 Visa, which requires us to take at least twelve units each semester.” He says that paying such a huge amount for unnecessary classes is a “stupid idea.”
In this sense, international students think they are seen as a source to take money from by schools. They feel no respect since priority always goes to local stu-dents. Residents have been loud since the budget cut, and now it is time for international students to stand up.
Ryan BeckStaff writer
Josh Brooks, 20Undecided
“Yes, I did for four years. When I didn’t have one I had a lot more privacy.”
Stacey Allen, 19Undecided
“I can live without it, I just wouldn’t want to.”
Sarah Alves, 19 Psychology
“Yes, but not very well.”
THE INQUIRER
Diablo Valley College321 Golf Club Road, H-102
Pleasant Hill, CA 94523
The Inquirer is published Thursday mornings during the school year by the journalism students of Diablo Valley College. All unsigned articles appearing on the opinions page are editorials and relfect a two-thirds majority opinion of the editorial staff. All signed columns and cartoons are the opinions of the writer or artists and not necessarily those of The Inquirer, Diablo Valley Col-lege or Contra Costa Community College Disctrict.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Leah Brudhurst Student
Daniel De Leon Student
Interviewer: Ryan BeckPhotographer: Carly Jones
Yumi SatoStudent
6 Thursday, October 14, 2010The Inquirer - Diablo Valley CollegeFeatures
Our hotel in Cannes, France was attached to a McDonald’s, and it was here that my trav-eling companion and partner in crime, Emma, and I pondered whether we were being too “mi-serly,” as her father put it, with our money and that maybe next time we should pay an extra few euros for a place to stay that wasn’t also home to the Big Mac.
But it wasn’t just the Golden Arches that lent a general feeling of tackiness to our tempo-rary living space. In fact, our first concern was the fact that the hotel was in a location surrounded by billboards and emp-ty, sun-baked parking lots. It was distinctly un-European.
So, when we entered a tiny, musty room with grimy carpets, a door that did not lock, lights that did not work and a broken shower, we weren’t all that sur-prised.
This was not the classy Cannes known for its upscale beaches and glamorous film festival, although we did see that part of Cannes during our visits to the down-town area – a place rife with designer stores and expensive cafes fre-quented by celebrities.
Multiple times, we felt ourselves experiencing the contrast between the elegance of a city and the not-so-sophisticated lifestyle we led as back-packers.
The day before we arrived in Cannes, we spent a few nights in Nice, France – known
for its popularity as a vacation destination.
As Emma puts it, “If the stereotype of the rude Frenchman is inac-curate, all the other sup-posed clichés are true.”
We were shocked to find that no one in the south of France seems to be employed, at least not in any other capacity than espresso-drinkers and croissant-tasters. It all seemed very luxuri-ous to us in our search for cheap food and free fun.
One late afternoon in Nice, Emma and I each brought a crois-sant (a staple in the diet of penny-pinching, nomadic backpackers) back to our communal hostel kitchen. Still hun-gry, we lucked upon a half-empty bag of pasta someone had left on the counter. We took it upon ourselves to assume that no one would claim this pasta and decided to use it for dinner.
We were feeling pretty good about our thrifti-ness until a fellow hostel dweller came in to begin work on his masterpiece of a sandwich.
He was amused by our basic meal and offered us a half-empty package of cheese, but I reassured him that we were not, in fact, starving, and that we’d be fine without it. However, when he pro-ceeded to throw the per-fectly good cheese away and leave the kitchen, I was too shocked and too set in my resource-ful ways to not retrieve the securely wrapped cheese from the rubbish bin – I firmly believe in the 5-second rule.
Emma had to suppress a laugh when the dispos-er of the cheese walked
back into the kitchen and caught me grabbing it from the garbage.
Although we were en-joying our, at times, piti-able situation, our fami-lies and friends began to worry about us. More than that, they wondered how we could be having any fun at all while we trekked around on foot and hopped on busses, ate very little food and stayed in rooms with multiple foreign strang-ers.
We often laughed at our attempt to explore the ritzy south of France on such low funds. But despite the occasional hunger pang or moments of frustration in trying to navigate French train maps, we were having the time of our lives.
The fun, I think, comes with the liberation of carrying almost nothing and of knowing almost no one in a particular area. We felt like observ-ers in the most extreme sense of the word. By living in this nomadic style, we were able to watch the daily energies of each city unfold be-fore us.
We would not have ex-perienced that had we disconnected our per-spective of the cities by staying in upscale hotels or continuously dining in fine restaurants.
So, instead of involving ourselves in the glam-our of Cannes or the conspicuous wealth of Monaco, we were able to sit back and take in the bizarrely pristine sights, occasionally dotted with a McDonald’s.
ANNIE SCIACCAEditor-in-Chief
Halfway through a backpacking trip across Europe, a stop in the French Riviera proves less glamorous than earlier anticipated.
A new perspective on the
old world Entrance to the Museu Nacio-nal d’Art de Catalunya, below, in Barcelona, Spain.
Statue at the front of the Mu-seu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, below left, in Barcelona, Spain.
Interior of the Colosseum, left, in Rome, Italy.
Catedral de Santa María la Real de la Almudena, above, in Ma-drid, Spain.
Visitors, left, take a ride in a gondola along the Grand Ca-nal, in Venice, Italy.
Editor-in-chief Annie Sciacca crossed Portugal, Spain, France, Monaco, and Italy during a summer backpacking trip through Europe.
GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS CORBIN
PHOTOS BY ANNIE SCIACCA
You can find more of Annie Sciacca’s trip across Europe online at www.theinquireronline.com
