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INSIDE SPORTS: Fall sports are preparing for 18 nupcoming season
Swimming with the dolphins enhances personal growth
Perspectives: Internet dating — the 15 nwave of the future
—see News page 13
T u e s d ay
Vo l u m e 7 1 , I s s u e 1
A u g u s t 29, 2000
Family mourns student’s death nDeath: Quincy Brown’s body was found in Newport Beach waters
MAYRA BELTRAN/Daily Titan
Shawna Carson, a 14-year-old transfer student, shops for school supplies with her mother on her first at a university.
Student Prodigy Attends CSUF The youngest junior to ever attend the university is only 14-years-old By Sarah Emerson
Daily Titan Asst. News Editor She follows the political elections and knows how she would vote if she could. But it won’t be until the next presidential election that 14-year-old Shawna Carson will be able to vote in an election. “I don’t like Gore; I think Bush is a daddy’s boy — I don’t want either of them to win,” said Carson. “But if I had a choice, I’d go for Bush.” The 14-year-old political science major began this semester at Cal State Fullerton as the youngest junior
ever to attend the university. Carson lives with her parents in Idyllwild, a small town with only two crosswalks and no stop lights. But twice a week her parents will make the one-way 2 1/2-hour drive to take her to and pick her up from CSUF. During the week she will stay with her grandmother, who also attends CSUF. “The only fears I had before coming here were going to a bigger campus and not knowing how the students were going to react,” Carson said. “So far everything has been OK, so my fears have all dissipated.”
For her mother, Cheryl, having her 14-year-old daughter 2 1/2-hours away is not easy. Distance is the reason Carson is coming to CSUF in the first place, rather than an out-of-state school like Harvard or Yale. “It’s very scary for me, but I know that we have got some good contacts here,” Cheryl said. Carson’s first day of school was unlike most students’ experience. Television news crews followed her around campus throughout the day. KTLA went with her to her first class. OCN taped her in her second class. KCBS and KCOP followed her into her
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him afterward. A harbor patrol fireboat was requested to aid the lifeguards in approaching Brown. As lifeguards continued the search for Brown, one body-boarder said he saw a white object in the water, said Newport Beach Fire Department By Raul Mora Spokesperson John Blauer. Daily Titan Managing Editor Marine Safety Lt. Mitch White later spotted Brown under 15 feet Before his death Quincy Brown of water. left a note. Brown’s body was later recovThe 20-year-old high ered at 8:33 a.m. — three school track-and-field hours after his last sightathlete said he wanted a ing. change in lifestyle. “We don’t know Brown’s uncle, who what really happened,” found the note, became Brown’s grandmother, worried. According to Luree Tobin, said. Fullerton police officials, A week after the inciBrown had mentioned to dent friends and relatives his relatives that he had met in the Community been dealing with a bout United Presbyterian of depression and had not Church in Los Angeles. Quincy eaten in days. Brown, who was According to police, Brown raised by Tobin after his Brown, a Fullerton resiparents died when he dent, had said that he was was 16-months-old, was going to spend some time at the deeply religious. He often spent his beach to meditate after he dropped weekends with his family at their off a friend at work. local church. On the morning of Aug. 17, “You think God would like what Newport Beach police tried to make you said?” Tobin said Brown asked contact with Brown, after his uncle her after hearing her use profanity. called in a missing persons report, After she said “no,” Brown asked, as Brown stood at the waters edge “Then why did you say it?” wearing a white choir robe. More than 400 people attended According to Newport Beach Brown’s funeral on Friday. Police Spokesperson Sgt. Mike Even though much of what Brown McDermott, Brown began wading was feeling at the time remains a his way into the water with his arms mystery, many of his relatives feel out, as police approached him. that the suicide ruling is unfair. Once he entered the water he They cannot understand why began swimming and floating Brown would have felt the way he toward the entrance channel at the did. wedge where a series of six to tenTo them, Brown drowned. foot waves began to crash on him. “I don’t like this suicide because “They saw him go into the water, they don’t know the story behind his head came up once, and waves it,” Brown’s aunt, Ezerlene Tobin, crashed on him,” McDermott said. said. Police and lifeguards lost sight of
Debate surrounds summer school nCAMPUS: Surveyed students want summer school fees to equal regular semester tuition By Raul Mora
Daily Titan Managing Editor Students say that enrollment fees are a major factor in deciding whether to attend summer school, a survey conducted by the university said. Nearly half of all students attending
Cal State Fullerton would enroll in summer school if fees would stay the same as they are during the semester, according to a survey conducted by the university in June. The survey, which polled 703 randomly-selected students, asked them to rate their interest in participating in programs that could reduce the university’s high enrollment. Of those polled, 75 percent said they would be either somewhat or much more likely to attend during the summer if fees remained the same as during the regular semester. “One of the things that looks like could happen is that students could take part of their classes in the sum-
mer,” said the Associate Vice President of Academic Programs Keith Boyum. Due to CSUF’s rising enrollment, the university along with the rest of the CSUs, has looked at strategies that would alleviate the concentration of students during the semester. One such option available is to have students take some of their classes during the summer. While the university has offered summer school for years, many students have hesitated to enroll because of the price of tuition. “Traditionally, in the summer, all costs of instruction are paid by students,” said Director of Admissions and Records James Blackburn.
During the semester the state funds about 80 percent of the cost of instruction, while students pay these costs during the summer. The survey also noted that of those that never attended summer school, 45 percent said that the cost deterred them from enrolling. During the semester students often pay $604.50 for up to six units, while the cost of many three-unit summer classes is $429. “There is interest in summer school if the fees were the same,” said Communications Professor Ed Trotter, who conducted the study.
source: Ed Trotter, CSUF professor
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University handles parking scarci- Titan extras ty during first week of new semes- o n l i n e nPARKING: Red zones, carpool and handicapped spots used for overflow parking
By Terry Jolliffe
Daily Titan Staff Writer
LORRAINE DAMINGUEZ/Daily Titan
The increase of new students causes parking lot overflow
With an enrollment of 25,000-plus students, and a mere 9,100 parking spaces, Cal State Fullerton has implemented a six-week experimental stack parking system, in hopes of easing the ongoing problem. At a cost of $50,000 to the university parking service, American Maintenance Parking Company Systems is providing uniformed parking attendants to direct students to temporary parking in the aisles in Lots A and B, where an inventory control tag is attached to the stu-
dents keys and then issued a corresponding claim check. The attendants move cars from the aisles into designated parking spaces, as they become available. When leaving campus, students present the claim check to an attendant and are advised of where the car is parked; in most cases, very close to where they left it Thang Nguyen, a freshman hoping to major in civil engineering, said he liked the stack parking and hadn’t had any problems. Stack parking is available from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Attendants are available in the parking lots until 10 p.m. to relinquish car keys. According to Paulette Blumberg, CSUF Associate Director of Parking and Transportation, feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and if the trial is successful, as it has been at UCLA, it will be expanded to other lots as well. “Most students have been very nice,” Lucio Aguilar, attendant for AMPCO
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said. “Maybe three or four students got a little impatient, but that is normal.” “The first week of school, we waived the student parking fee and the daily permits at a loss of revenue of approximately $25,000,” Blumberg said. “Traffic is so heavy that the staff is assisting students with parking to help the traffic flow. Our interest right now is aiding the students.” “But these are only short-term solutions,” she added. “Our long-term plan is to build a parking structure for approximately 2,000 cars in 1 1/2 to two years.” Further exacerbating the parking problem, 500 more parking spaces will be lost in March 2001 resulting from construction of the next phase of the Residential Hall Expansion Program. Last spring, 72 student and 30minute parking spaces were given to faculty and staff to alleviate parking
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Check out the Daily Titan online this year at http:// dailytitan.fullerton.edu. New features and sections will be available this year!
u p co m i n g n
Part two of car show series Learn about the health benefits of grapes