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BASEBALL: Titans wrangle the UCSB Gauchos over the weekend. —See Sports, page 8.
TUESDAY
Verdict for Kyle O’Brien’s killer: guilty
VOLUME 66, ISSUE 14
n MURDER: Trial ends with
a first-degree murder conviction and 25 years-to-life for the killing of a CSUF student. By JULIE HARDEN Daily Titan Staff Writer
Gilbert Acosta traded in his dress shoes for prison-issue loafers on Friday. Acosta, the accused killer of former Associated Students vice president of finance Kyle O’Brien, was found guilty of first-degree
murder Friday afternoon after a two-week trial. The jury deliberated for about four hours before convicting Acosta, 21, of the murder, robbery, burglary and assault with a firearm that took the life of O’Brien on Aug. 15, 1997. The decision came nearly seven months after O’Brien and fellow CSUF student Randall DePue crossed paths with Acosta while working as loss prevention agents for Sears at the Mall of Orange. Acosta shot both men during a struggle in the parking lot follow-
ing a botched shoplifting attempt. O’Brien died en route to a local hospital after receiving shots to the chest and leg. DePue was shot in the wrist and has since undergone three reparative surgeries. Michael and Donna O’Brien expressed grief over their son’s death following the jury’s decision in a prepared statement. “There is no joy in our hearts at a verdict being rendered nor does anything about this case begin to make up for the tragic loss of our son,” the statement read. “This case was not about revenge, nor
retribution. What it has always been about,is justice. Justice that a murderer will be punished for his crime.” Acosta’s father remained in disbelief after the verdict as he sat in the back of the Orange County Superior Courtroom. “I think he’s guilty of trying to steal but I don’t believe he shot (O’Brien),” he said. “My son is not a killer.” Acosta escaped a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole because the jury did not convict him of the special circum-
Shop ’til you drop
MARCH 10, 1998
stance allegations of murder during the commission of a burglary and a robbery. “The special circumstance was the only part we had trouble with,” said a female juror, who refused to give her name. The decision was based on the jury’s belief that Acosta was no longer thinking about the theft when the shooting occurred, a point central to the defense’s closing statement delivered Thursday morning. “I’m very satisfied with the verdict,” Klar said of the decision
despite the first degree murder finding. He said his standpoint was due to the jury’s consideration of his defense against the special circumstance charge. “The killing was not motivated by the theft but by the unique circumstances of the incident and the actions of the security guards,” Klar told the jury during his closing statement. “The felony was incidental to the shooting, making it out of the arena of the special circumstances.” Deputy District Attorney Lew
n MONEY: Paying copyright
price of this required supplement has gone up in price over the years. “They (the supplements) are a lot more than they used to be,” Overbeck said, though he said he did not know the reason for the price increase. The campus custom publishing department obtains about 4,000 copyright permissions per semester at a cost, on average, of about $80,000 per year, Diaz said. The costs of the packets are determined by one of several factors. A copyright holder, usually the publisher, can charge $5 per packet—at the low end. So, if 100 packets are printed the publisher would be paid $500, Diaz said. Other costs contributing to the cost of packets are royalities paid to departments that put the packet together. As a rule, the royality monies go back into the department, Diaz said. To help keep costs down, communications professor Anthony Fellow has found one place off campus where he claims the cost of producing his supplement has been less expensive than on campus. Fellow has been using AA Copy, a nearby copy shop, for a few years. He said using the off-campus vendor is much more convenient and they usually can complete a job in as little as three days. “It takes weeks and weeks ahead of time on campus (to print the supplements),” Fellow said. It is very inconvenient to have to plan for the next semester’s supplement when you are trying to get your current semester going, he said. Diaz said this claim by Fellow
Copyrights inflate supplement costs holders and royalties add to the cost of class supplements compiled by professors. By CINDY JIMENEZ Daily Titan Staff Writer
RON SOLIMAN/Daily Titan
(l-r) Luz Burgos, Jennifer Nguyen and Betty Fausto check out the artwork in front of the Titan Bookstore last week.
Big Brother? No—at CSUF Big SIS is watching
n PRIVACY: Committee
acts to regulate access to students’ personal and academic information. By JOAN HANSEN
Daily Titan Staff Writer T h e T RW f o r m h a s i t , t h e Internal Revenue Service wants it and some even say incarcerated prisoners can get it. But at Cal State Fullerton, the Student Academic Life committee is seeking to make students’ personal information harder to get than a suntan in February. At this time, 600 personnel, including statisticians, professors, and counselors at
CSUF, have access to students’ personal information. This includes grades, Social Security numbers, addresses and phone numbers through a medium called Student Information System, a.k.a. SIS+. But a committee is looking to make sure that list is only accessed by “need-to-know” authorized persons. The Student Information System records personal information and allows authorized persons to enter the system by using a password. Irene Matz, chair of the Student Academic Life committee, said that access to the current password system requires an oath of confidentiality on the part of users, though it is conceivable that
authorized persons could allow assistants and student aides to gather information for them. No such breaches of privacy have been reported, however. The SAL committee has been asked by the Academic Senate to address ways to enforce the Code of Responsibility which prohibits unauthorized use or access to student records. The committee is also seeking to add specific mention of SIS+ in the University Policy Statement to further validate the current confidentiality requirements. “Our main concern is to protect students from people who should not have access,” Matz said. “We have had no record of any misuse. This is a proactive move.”
Matz said that to further ensure student confidentiality, SIS+ needs a tracking system. The e-mail system tracks each message. The Titan Card records how many Cokes a person buys from the vending machine. SIS+ has no tracking system for accountability. University policy states that it will maintain the confidentiality of student education and personal information. Additionally, each person using SIS+ must sign a Code of Responsibility detailing regulations. “Anyone who works for me has been instructed to confidentiality, and any breach would deny the guilty party any further access,” said director of
“We’ve had some negative publicity this past year and we’re trying to use every outlet to overcome that and to get a positive image to the public about the solid program CSUF has to offer,” said Richard Rocke, dean of the School of Engineering and Computer Science. As part of this image-building process, five students from Norman Nager’s Public Relations Management class have accepted the School of Engineering and Computer Science as a client for their class project. The group will collect data and conduct surveys to be reported to the School of Engineering and suggest ways it might improve its public image. Based on the group’s findings, the school will decide on a plan or mode of action most suitable for its needs.
“We will be looking at how other universities promote themselves to high schools and junior colleges,” group spokesperson Kathy Cox said. Rocke and Nager agreed the project would be of great benefit to both the school and the students. The project, worth 35 percent of the student’s course grade, gives the members hands-on experience. “They could kill themselves doing everything that goes into a PR audit,” Nager said. Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of the project to the school itself is the amount of money being saved. “It’s safe to say that a good professional PR firm would charge several thousand dollars a month, plus any fees and out-of-pocket expenses,” said Madeline Zucker-
man of Zuckerman Public Relations Advertising in Newport Beach. When more visibility is wanted it could be for a number of reasons, including name recognition, recruitment of good talent, creation of a strong moral, or “to increase visibility if they’re looking for investors,” Zuckerman said. At a recent meeting, David R. Falconer, associate dean of School of Engineering and Computer Science, said the school is looking for investors in proposed new courses to be added to the general engineering concentration. The school is working to acquire $30,000 from several pharmaceutical companies to support an eight-course sequence. If the school receives the money, the brand-new sequence would prepare students
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PR students seek to rebuild Engineering’s image n ENGINEERING:
Students from the public relations management class work to save the recovering school’s image. By MELISSA MORRIS Daily Titan Staff Writer
The School of Engineering and Computer Science is holding its head up high despite a broken ego and a tarnished image. Last October the school was labeled “a hotbed of dysfunction” by an independent consulting firm. The university gave Schaffer Associates $25,000 to determine what improvements could be made in the school. The recommendation was that the school be given until June to fix itself or disband.
Copyright ©1998, Daily Titan
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Have you ever wondered why the required supplement package your instructor has put together for class is, in your opinion, so expensive? The answer is just inside the front cover where there is a notice explaining one of the major reasons for the cost: “The price of this book includes fees paid to the authors and publishers of the material contained in this anthology or book.” And the legal verbiage continues: “All copyrighted material contained herein is reprinted with permission by the copyright holder . . .” According to Titan Shops Custom Publishing Manager Peggy Diaz, one reason for the initial and sometimes subsequently increased cost of the packets is the increase in the cost of obtaining copyright permission from the owners of the material instructors wish to copy. Unfortunately, the permission does not last for a year or two but must be renewed each semester. That may be why a supplement in the spring costs more than the same supplement in the fall. For example, the fall 1997 edition of the California Supplement for the Communication Law class was priced at $15.25. The spring 1998 edition is priced at $17.50. Communications law professor Wayne Overbeck admits that the
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Today in Opinion ...
Find out who’s on the witness stand now. (Hint: it isn’t James McDougal.)
—See page 4