DACA recipients still have support Undocumented students can receive help om faculty

REBECCA O'NEIL Reporter @rebeccaroundup

As President Donald Trump’s tentative date for the DACA rescindment nears, faculty, staff and on-campus clubs’ commitment to serve undocumented students continues.

General knowledge of how to help undocumented students and campaigns that raise awareness have increased on campus since Trump made his statement.

Dean of Student Engagement

Juan Carlos Astorga said counselor Jeanette Madueña helped develop the resource website for undocumented students, headed the campus-wide Know Your Rights Campaign and conducted “UndocuAlly” trainings for faculty.

Madueña said the knowledge and passion that inspired her to host UndocuAlly trainings came from her working with undocumented students while pursuing her master’s and doctorate degrees.

“When I got here two years ago, I realized there was nothing happening with support mechanisms, trainings, or anything like that,” Madueña said. “At Cal State Long Beach, there has been a training that’s been going on for many, many years. I was part of that training, so when I came here, I wanted to start something similar.”

Faculty who complete the training receive a monarch decal that is then placed outside of their classrooms, Astorga said.

“We use the monarch butterfly because it does a lot of migration,” Astorga said.

She referenced I.D.E.A.S at Pierce (Improving, Dreams, Quality, Access and Success) and said they are trying to create a resource fair for undocumented students.

“Julio Tsuha and this undocumented student support group want to create a resource day full of activities and information sessions,” Madueña said. A report released by the Office of Educational Programs and Institutional Effectiveness stated that 813 of the 11,501 undocumented students in LACCD attended classes at Pierce in fall 2017, 3.9 percent of the student population overall.

Student Equity Coordinator Jose Vargas said his position on Pierce’s campus—designed under California’s Education Code sec. 78220-78221—exists to identify the needs of underserved populations and divert dollars to bring these students to parity.

Vargas, who co-chairs the Student Diversity Committee, said the statewide initiative on behalf of the underserved student population explicitly includes identity, race, gender, veteran status, foster youth and disability.

“The Education code does not enumerate specifically on undocumented students,” Vargas said. “But what we’ve done on this campus—equity, and I would say diversity too—is that we found work-arounds.” roneil.roundupnews@gmail.com sponsored by the Pierce College Democrats, the Vegan Club, the Pierce College Republicans, the Young Americans for Liberty (YAL), ASO and AGS.

Bella Aguilar-Rosil, the copresent of College Democrats, said Day of Politics educates and motivates students to participate. “A lot of people aren’t as politically informed as they should be. This event is a great opportunity for people to come through and learn about issues they ought to care about because the government is a very large and important part of their lives,” Aguilar-Rosil said.

Students can check out Surface Pro tablets for two days or the entire semester. They need a valid Pierce ID and will need to sign a contract to be loaned the device.

Director of EOP&S Kalynda Mclean said that priority for the program is given to individuals who are enrolled in distance education, online or hybrid classes.

“It allows students access to electronic equipment that they normally would not have access to for the completion of coursework,” Mclean said. “For students who are educationally and economically disadvantaged, this program is of particular help to that student population.”

Clay Gediman, the technology library, oversees the program and said it was created to help lowincome students who can’t afford to buy equipment or don’t have time to visit the library.

“Laptops are expensive,” Gediman said. “A lot more classes are online, and though the library has pretty good hours, not everybody can make it in.”

Distance Education Coordinator

Wendy Bass said that the Surface Pros tablets were chosen because they are lightweight and easily portable, in addition to other features.

“We found that the younger generation likes to touch things,” Bass said. “We went with smaller computers, and we found that it was a generational thing. Younger people do work on phones. I can’t stand it. It's too small. But the tablets are nice size, light and versatile.”

The tablets have Deep Freeze installed to facilitate distribution. Students are encouraged to save files on external and online drives because content is erased once the device shuts down, Bass said.

“This would prevent anybody loading any viruses on them,” Bass said. “If the students aren't saving things on them, they won’t worry about losing them.”

Bass said that she and Gediman worked closely together to bring the program to fruition. Gediman tested the tablets by taking one of Bass’ test, failing it, but demonstrating that the devices support Canvas and Proctorio.

“He was instrumental in having us check them out of the library,” Bass said. “He's been hands on to make sure that this program will work and that students will succeed.”

There are 15 tablets available for two-day checkout and 70 to be loaned for the duration of the semester, Gediman said.

The tablets have Microsoft Office and web browsers. Though they don’t have the processing power to run Adobe softwares, Gediman suggests that students visit the Library / Learning Crossroads for those projects.

Gediman said they are letting students know that anyone is eligible to check out the devices.

“They have been getting checked out, we’d just like more students to know about the program,” Gediman said. “In the future, we'd also like to purchase more as others become worn out.” varredondo.roundupnews@gmail.com

Instructor of Life Sciences Jamie Beavers is growing sweet pea plants, Gregor Mendel's model organism, in her Biology 110.

“We lost some of them to rats. We are raising them higher so we don't lose more. These are safe up here. If we can have more of these trays that keep the plants up high, we’d be great. We had them on the ground until recently, because until there’s leaves, the rats don’t care about eating them.”

In the wake of the latest school shooting by a gunman armed with an AR-15 assault rifle, Pierce College should have additional security to prevent a similar tragedy by adding a second campus sheriff’s station on the west side of the school.

Currently, there is one sheriff’s station located on the east corner of the campus.

Although the campus sheriff’s are efficient at maintaining school security, Pierce College is 426 acres. Of that, approximately 225 acres is farmland, which is used for instruction and housing

-Corrections-

Volume 128, Issue 2:

Page 1: A quote from the story, "Cheating on tests" was inaccurate. It should have read, "I’m really sad they got bought out," Bass said. "They [Turnitin] were charging the community colleges over double what they were charging the Cal States."

Page 1: In a photo caption Professor Richard McMillan's name was mispelled.

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See any corrections we missed?

Email us at newsroom. roundupnews@gmail.com animals.

In addition, there are approximately 20,000 students that attend Pierce College and only one campus sheriff’s station to protect them.

At the University of Southern California, which sits on 226 aces, there are three Department of Public Safety Stations. They are all 24 hours and can respond to different areas of the campus.

Pierce College is the second largest geographically of the nine community colleges in the district, behind West Los Angeles College.

Yet we don’t know the best way to get in touch with our sheriff's department, besides the phone number listed in our syllabi.

The other eight community colleges in the district have a website with easy access to location and emergency information. Pierce does not, which can also cause a problem when people do not know who to contact within the department or how to find out certain information or services.

Now if there was a serious emergency or an active shooter on the west side of the campus, police intervention would likely be delayed.

If there was another sheriff’s