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Page 2» Volume 107, Issue 10
COURIER Pasadena City College
The independent student voice of PCC. Serving Pasadena Since 1915.
Online edition pccCourier.com Facebook PCC Courier Twitter @pccCourier April 11, 2013
Black Monday Crash in registration system leads to free-for-all admissions chaos
A line of students desperate to add classes extend all the way to the street on Monday. The Lancerlink system, which had been getting two million hits an hour, crashed when
NICHOLAS SAUL Editor-in-Chief
Registration for Extended Spring turned into a free-for-all on Monday when students who could not register online showed up in person to try to sign up for classes. School officials say there is no clean solution to the chaos.
Senior vice presidents Bob Bell and Bob Miller held an emergency meeting with admissions clerks saying all that can be done is to keep students calm, have more clerks man the front lines, and to just simply wait it out. The problem was that students wouldn’t “wait it out,” and they were taking their frustration out on the registration staff.
Lissett Matos / Courier the classes for Extended Spring were available to the entire student body at the same time.
“We can’t do anything from a technology perspective,” Miller said. “There’s no doubt this was poorly handled.” On Monday, the registration system, Lancerlink, had been getting over 2 million hits every hour, with over 400 hits per second. Normally, the first day of registration will see fewer than 50 hits per second, according to
Angry students cause registration clerks to flee
Dale Pittman, the director of management and information services. The significant increase in hits is because priority was not a factor in registration and all 26,000 enrolled students had access to the server at the same time. Because Extended Spring classes would still technically be taking place during the current Spring
CHRISTINE MICHAELS News Editor
Registration clerks fled their posts after feeling threatened by angry students who couldn’t access the online registration server for Extended Spring classes on Monday. An emergency meeting followed with two administrators to work out a game plan over how to deal with the chaos at the Student Services Center. The handful of workers was so overwhelmed, they marched to President Mark Rocha’s office to complain about problems with both the ancient Lancerlink registration server and the manual registration process. Dina Chase,
dean of admissions and records, and Associated Students President Simon Fraser and an AS vice president accompanied the workers. The clerks met in the President’s Conference Room. Senior vice presidents Robert Bell and Robert Miller spoke to the staff. President Rocha did not attend the meeting because he was preoccupied, according to secretary Mary Thomson. Clerk Jeannie Sullivan said she felt very threatened by the students in line at the registration office. “They are targeting us. They were threatening us and cussing us out,” she said. “We are doing what we can and what we are
instructed to do.” The staff heard students making violent threats, prompting them to call in the campus police to patrol the registration line. Sullivan mentioned a Facebook PCC Memes image of someone holding a gun posted Monday that read, “Say ‘start over’ to me one more time! I dare you, I double dare you!” Miller called Police Chief Don Yoder to keep cadets and officers at the Student Services Center until registration closed. “Campus police will be there from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. for the next few days,” he said. Bell apologized to the staff. “I am incredibly apologetic. Continued on page 11
Continued on page 10
President extends olive branch to staff CHRISTINE MICHAELS News Editor
Concepcion Gonzalez / Courier Frustrated registration clerks fled to President Rocha’s office on Monday demanding a solution to the chaos created when computers were overloaded during Extended Spring registration.
semester, the school was unable to create priority schedules. “I understand that this would be a magnanimous crash if we didn’t have priority,” Bell said. Simon Fraser, associated students president, felt administrators didn’t take the necessary steps to prevent the studentwide problem. “I still don’t buy
President Mark Rocha extended a peace offering in the form of a letter to faculty just days after a contentious Board of Trustees meeting in which many individuals read letters highly critical of him and his policies. His letter included two promises to help fix the hostile climate on campus, along with his sympathies to faculty about working under stressful times. “Two things I promise: I am here to listen and we start this process of hearing today. As I hear you express dismay at the current campus climate, I want you to know that I share your feelings and your deep concerns. The current climate is not good if it distracts even one of you from putting your full energy into the service of your students.” At the Board meeting, of the 15
public comments, 13 were directed at Rocha and his administration. Before public comment began, Board President John Martin advised the audience to keep public comments professional and to keep a civil discourse. “If there is ever a place that civil discourse needs to happen it’s on community college campuses where freedom of thought is so highly prized,” he said. The majority of the speakers kept their comments professional and closely within the threeminute time limit set by the board. Another letter read and written by Instructor Lauren Anderson blamed Rocha and his administration for putting an image of the faculty in a bad light for students to inappropriately believe. “Many of my colleagues are Continued on page 9
AS elections to be held April 16-17 BENJAMIN SIMPSON Staff Writer
The annual AS elections will be held at the Office of Student Affairs and online on April 16 and 17 “The Associated Students is the student government on campus, they represent the students,” said Joseph Garcia at the second candidate forum.
Students can vote from 8 a.m. to 6:45 p.m. on both days in CC105. Online voting at: elexpert.net/VotePasadena/ The third and final candidate forum for Chief Justice, and the four remaining vice presidential positions will be held at noon on Thursday in the Galloway Plaza. Continued on page 3