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Addition to Enhance Children’s Facilities
Muslims Usher in Ramadan
By Deanna Lucci
Daily Titan Staff Writer
NEWS: A creative and playful atmosphere can be found on campus at the CSUF animation “Head and Hands” class
The Cal State Fullerton Children’s Center will soon be welcoming a muchneeded addition to its facility. A new room will be added on to allow more children to receive daycare at the center. Children’s Center Director Betsy Gibbs reported the news to the Associated Students, Inc. Board of Directors meeting Tuesday. The university allocated $150,000 for the design and construction of the addition, and the room will be finished before the start of the spring semester at the earliest, she said. This addition will make room for 20 more children to be integrated into the Children’s Center program. Gibbs said the new room will also be a place where children of different ages can learn together. “This allows us to have a multi-age classroom [where the children] can learn from each other in a multi-age setting,” she said. “Parents will have a choice where students can be placed.” The Children’s Center is partially funded by ASI and currently cares for 174 children, mostly children of CSUF students. Because of the limited space at the center, there are usually 20 to 30 student mothers who want to enroll their children, and the number on the list is rising, Gibbs said. “The waiting list is growing,” she said. “The new classroom will accommodate more students.” This new addition is the first step in a larger effort to improve the Children’s Center facility. In 1996, CSUF students passed a referendum which raised tuition $10 to go toward building a brand new, much larger center on campus. Approximately $8 of that $10 goes into a savings program for the new center and $2 goes to current operation funds. The center is currently located on the edge of parking Lot A in temporary buildings that date back to the 1960s. The ASI Board of Directors approved plans for an advisory committee for the Children’s Center facility at the meeting Tuesday. The committee will be made up of 16 people, eight of which are students. It will be responsible for reviewing and recommending changes to the current building, planning for the new facility and helping to clarify the facility’s relationship to campus departments, according to ASI President Alex Lopez’s proposal to the board. ASI Executive Director Harvey McKee expressed his excitement about the plans for a new Children’s Center and pointed out the effect it will have on recruiting new faculty. “This will make it easier to recruit new faculty who have children,” he said. He said that with high California
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Detour: The “Truth About Charlie” is that nobody really knows what is going on. Experience two pages of Detour goodness Please see pages 5&6
Group Addresses MuslimPerspective nEVENTS: Muslim chaplain lectured on Islam during event celebrating the Muslim culture By Mayu Ogura
Daily Titan Staff Writer
SPORTS: The Titan Ice Hockey Club is looking to make a name for themselves with their talent rather than with dirty tricks and muscles Please see page 10
LISSETTE LEBRILLA/Daily Titan
Yusef Estes, the National Muslim Chaplain, delivers a lecture on Islam to the campus community.
The Muslim Student Association organized a two-day event, entitled “Discover Islam,” to educate the campus community about Islam during the beginning of Ramadan. The Muslim month-long fast of Ramadan began Wednesday. According to Omar Musallet, a member of the organization, Ramadan is the month on the Islamic lunar calendar during which Muslims abstain from food, drink and other sensual pleasures from sunrise to sunset. At one of the events, Yusuf Estes, National Muslim Chaplain for American Muslims, lectured on “Islam and Terrorism” Tuesday at the Titan Student Union. The Muslim Students Association, Association of Inter-Cultural
Awareness and Associated are about Students Inc. cosponsored the event, which drew the large crowd consist“We know ing of non-Muslims to Muslim students that Saddam and faculty. Islam students iniHussein is a tiated the event with prayer, which is perbad leader, formed by Muslims five times a day but most toward the direction of Mecca, and folpeople that lowed it with a recitation. suffer from Estes, a lecturer who converted from the war are Christianity to Islam, gave a general overgoing to be view of the religion including the founinnocent dation of Islamic beliefs. He then talkcivilians” ed about terrorism. Islam, Judaism Yusef Estes, and Christianity all National Muslim believe in one God, Chaplain for he said. Therefore, people should pay attention to what the other religions
because these religions closely relate to one another. He said Islam doesn’t only mean peace, but also surrender, submission, obedience and purity. “The very things Islam teaches are to fight oppression and terrorism, even if it means you are giving up your lives,” Estes said. “Islam forbids suicide,” Estes said, “Anybody takes their own lives without any purpose, they go to the hell forever. Additionally, Islam forbids any killing of innocent soul.” Estes said that the things people may hear or read about Islam through the media or a certain religion have a certain amount of bias or prejudice in it. Estes said when people attack you,
then you are going to automatically assume that it’s an act of terrorism; at the same time, you have to ask why they are attacking. “As a Muslim, I pray for all people in the world,’’ Estes said, concluding the lecture. Eihsan Khalife, president of the organization, said they organized the event to inform the campus about Islam beliefs from the Muslim perspective. Khalife said members in the organization, which has over 100 members and has been an active club for many years, meet twice a week and also gather to pray five times a day in their room, which is located in the TSU. The members comprise diverse ethnicities including Middle Eastern, Korean, Vietnamese, British, American and black Muslims. Khalife said there have been some hate crimes against Muslims off campus after Sept. 11; however, none have taken place on campus. “On campus people are usually more intelligent,” Khalife said. “And they know that some indi-
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TITAN
Titan Online Rehab Hopes to Improve Connections
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nREGISTRATION: Campus officials urge students to use Titan Online quickly and wisely this winter
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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!
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What will the regulations be for students adding classes this Spring? Read about it in tomorrow’s Daily Titan!
By Lissette Lebrilla
Daily Titan Staff Writer As the spring semester approaches, so does registration. Whether it is through Titan Online or over the phone, many students have found the registration process frustrating. Some of that aggravation comes from the busy traffic on the phone and online. Students find it difficult to register for their classes as soon as their appointment window opens up because other students are doing the same. Titan Online became busy this
last semester with students logging on for information that was only available on the site. “We are trying real hard to use the most consumed resource on Titan Online, which is registration,” said Dick Bednar, senior director of Information Technology. The new student portal has helped to keep those lingering students off Titan Online. Students are able to personalize their student portal to access information, including class schedules, grade reports and other campus services. With the convenience of the student portal, students will not use Titan Online as much and will free up space for students that need to register for their classes. “We are experiencing more students using the Web for registration,” Jim Blackburn, director of Admissions and Records.
“But the way they register doesn’t make a difference to us.” The first registration window opened up on Tuesday at 7 a.m. and so far everything is just fine, but Blackburn said that it is just the beginning. When Titan II opens up, there will be fewer classes and students will have prepaid for their classes already. Registration for the spring will have more windows for a smaller number of students. Blackburn also said that they received more memory for the mainframe computer. “The problem is when people call at the beginning and the end of their window,” Blackburn said. “No one seems to call in the middle of their window.” Another change that may occur is if there appears to be too much traffic, then there may be a possibility of disabling other services
online, Blackburn said. “Registration is our top priority,” he said. Blackburn’s advice for a successful registration process is to have multiple scheduling plans and to not procrastinate. Bednar said students need to look out for themselves. “We are concerned about what people are going to do in January,” Bednar said. “Are we communicating to them?” The important thing that IT wants students to know is what is happening around them. Bednar said students come to Cal State Fullerton because it fits their lives. “Students here don’t get the convenience of a full-time college experience,” Susan Lasswell, director of IT Administration and Communications said. The student portal allows for
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REGISTRATION TIPS Log out of TITAN Online when you’re finished. TITAN Online requires 10 minutes of idle time before logging you out. This ties up TITAN Online for10 minutes. Use the student portal to find your grade reports and detailed study list. Do not request a Degree Audit Report during heavy registration periods. The process of creating a report slows down TITAN Online. If you are having trouble accessing TITAN Online, use telephone registration [(714) 278-7902]. - courtesy of Information Technology