Vikings’ skid continues SPORTS
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OPINIONS
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Wanted: full-time adviser Editorial Board demands replacement professor, starting fall semester 2010
‘Bathed In Light’ New production shines spotlight on dance
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ENTERTAINMENT
DVC Bookstore DVC Bookstore Online
Thursday, April 22, 2010 Volume 76 Number 4
Copyright © 2010 Diablo Valley College - The Inquirer
DVC Bookstore DVC Bookstore Online
Law weds textbook prices and online registration DVC Bookstore DVC Bookstore Online
Oksana Yurovsky Staff writer College students should be able to see the prices and ISBN numbers of any required textbooks and supplemental materials at the time they register online for classes, according to an amendment to the Higher Education Opportunity Act signed into law by President Barack Obama last August. The law aims to “ensure that students have access to affordable course materials by decreasing costs to students … while supporting the academic freedom of faculty members to select high quality course materials for students.” It also requires bookstores to make the contents of textbooks “bundled” with supplementary
materials available as individual items. The materials are cheaper than used textbooks, which makes them appealing but lessens the demand for used books, said Bookstore manager Bill Foster. But while DVC managers set an April 15 deadline for faculty to submit that information, a Faculty Senate task force has yet to decide how to implement the provision, which takes effect July 1. According to the law, colleges should provide textbook information “to the maximum extent practicable” and if it “is not practicable [to do so],” books will be given a status of “To Be Determined” until the information is supplied. But Mojdeh Mehdizadeh, the district’s chief technology information officer, and Susan
Lamb, DVC’s vice president of instruction, said this leeway only applies to certain circumstances, such as when teachers receive last-minute class assignments or when out-of-print books are assigned. The distinction is particularly important to DVC’s English department, since instructors switch books often or wait until meeting their students at the first class to choose their texts. English professor Laury Fischer believes the law will save students money at the expense of quality. Enforcing a deadline, he said, may lead instructors to pick the same texts year after year, which “doesn’t promote creative teaching.” See ONLINE, page 6
Photo Illustration / Chris Corbin and Julius Rea / The Inquirer
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College leaves spots unfilled Oksana Yurovsky Staff writer
At a time when two departments are losing their sole full-time professors to retirement, DVC President Judy Walters has authorized some limited hiring for the 2010-11 school year. However, hiring will not occur until January 2011. In an April 16 e-mail to the DVC community, Walters announced her approval for filling six of 12 faculty positions left vacant because of retirements at the end of this semester. She said three of the six were already taken, one by an administrator, social science dean Lyndon Krause, who got a “pink slip” in March and has return rights to the classroom. The other two, Walters said, are faculty members whose positions were shifted to the general fund budget after their special “categorical” funding was slashed by the state.
See RETIRE, page 6
From the Corps to the classroom SDS strife
causes split
Chris Clark Staff writer On Jan. 17, 2007, when most students were returning to campus after winter break, Brian Vargas was a Marine Corps team leader in Hitt, Iraq, who made life and death decisions every day. “I was a kid – but I became a man real quick,” he says today. On that day in January, his fire team was observing enemy activity from a rooftop when they came under attack. Soon Vargas heard the familiar cracking of AK-47s from within the house. His men under attack, Vargas grabbed the squad automatic weapon (SAW) and ran to the rooftop. Fire was coming from an enemy sniper in a house across the street, he recalls. Moments later, blood gushing from his face, Vargas heard his fellow Marines yelling, “Vargas is hit! Vargas is hit!” “When you’re over there, you don’t expect to come back wounded,” he says. “You think you’re either going to live or die.” An enemy sniper had shot him from hundreds of meters away with a Soviet made Dra-
News................ 1, 6 Sports....................4 Features................2 Entertainment........3
Jonathan Roisman Staff writer
“ I sat up, and
The March 4 rally at DVC to protest fee hikes had unintended consequences for Students for a Democratic Society, with nearly a dozen members splitting off to form their own group after a dispute involving SDS member Frank Runninghorse. Members of the new group, Radical Solidarity Coalition, accused Runninghorse of “an undemocratic move” after he issued an unauthorized written statement disavowing SDS’ connection with disruptions that Chris Corbin / The Inquirer occurred during the rally. In the stateVargas remembers telling tongue in half. ment, Running“When I fell back I couldn’t himself, “Right now, in this horse said the hear or see for a minute,” Var- exact spot, I am not going to club did not congas recalls. “I sat up, and the die.” done the pulling His Marines killed the sniper crack of another sniper shot of fire alarms or was so close it brought my and Vargas was flown out on a the opening of classhelicopter. hearing back.” room doors during the He was treated for his inju“It felt like a truck had just campus march. hit me in the face,” he says. “I ries at the Wounded Warrior opened my eyes and just saw blood pouring out of my face See SPLIT, page 6 See VARGAS, page 6 and hand.”
the crack of another sniper shot was so close it brought my hearing back.
”
Brian Vargas gunov sniper rifle, a common weapon used by Iraqi insurgents and foreign terrorists. The bullet went through his cheek and split his face in half, hitting his earlobe on the way out. The bullet also hit Vargas’ SAW ammunition, causing it to explode. Shrapnel bored into his hand, face, and eye, one piece of metal cutting his
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