thePROSPECTUS
WEDNESDAY
January 20, 2016 Volume 10, Number 2
News | Art
Lifestyle | School Nutrition
Politics | Clinton vs. Sanders
Entertainment | Oscars Boycott
Evening art classes start in February. See examples from Parkland’s metalworking classes! Page 2
First lady, GOP Congress head towards truce on school lunches. Page 3
Facing primary fight from Sanders, Clinton embraces Obama.
Calls for boycott of Oscars grow over diversity of nominees.
Page 4
Page 8
Parkland hosts
15th annual
MLK Jr.
Countywide Celebration Sierra Benson Staff Writer
off a formerly public hallway that included restrooms, converting them into private facilities for the force. Colbrook says the change is more important than one might first think. “If you’ve never been a policeman, you don’t understand the critical nature of having our own bathroom,” Colbrook said. “If nature calls, we cannot simply just lay our gun down anywhere we want…we have to have a private space.” Yet another issue with X109 was a lack of spaces specialized for police work, such as a dedicated room for interviewing or questioning. The old office’s conference room inadequately served the many functions of a meeting space, break room, radio room, mail room, and dining hall, in addition to being the force’s makeshift interview room. The new office now has its own interview room and other spaces that take the load off the encumbered conference room. While X109 had separate rooms public safety used for evidence and armaments storage respectively, the new office provides storage spaces that are concrete brick-lined and contain armored, fireproof safes. In the event of an explosion or fire, any evidence collected by the force would be
Last Friday, Parkland offered to host the annual countywide celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the first time. While people gathered to take their seats a local music group by the name of Mo’ Betta Music played songs by jazz musician Sonny Rollins. There was mention of Dr. King’s principals, awards given to local activists in the community, and also keynote speaker Kathryn Harris impersonating Harriet Tubman. For the past 14 years, the event took place at the Hilton Garden Inn. This is specifically a countywide celebration and therefore a collaboration between the city of Urbana, the city of Champaign, Champaign County, the U of I, and Parkland. “It’s been hosted by UIUC for several years, Parkland’s always been involved, but we haven’t been able to host… I think that it’s very important to branch out from the larger university and come to a space that is much more diverse than the university and a much more accessible location in our community as well,” said sociology professor Evelyn Reynolds. Barbara Kessel who started Books for Prisoners received the James R. Burgess Jr. Award; Rohn Koester an active volunteer for Champaign County received the Doris Hoskins Prestigious Community Service Award; and Melany Jackson received the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Outstanding Achievement Award for her help with the homeless. Reynolds came out to support the activists who had fought for general members of society. That is, to say, members who were not particularly wealthy or part of the dominant group, “I feel like most people view him as one of the most amazing public figures that we’ve had in our history. As far as the way this country celebrates Martin Luther King Jr. I do take issue. Every black history month, or every January there’s always a big focus on Martin Luther King.
SEE SAFETY PAGE 5
SEE MLK PAGE 5
Photo courtesy of the Fine & Applied Arts Department | Parkland College Above is an example of work completed in Parkland’s Art 185 and 186 metalworking classes. See the full story on page 2.
New office for public safety
improves functionality, accessibility Matt Moss Staff Writer
Parkland’s police has a new home in the A Wing, which Chief of Police William Colbrook says allows the force to better serve the college community. The new office is located on the first floor of the A Wing, a major thoroughfare between the college center and the Student Union. This strategic placement increases public safety’s visibility and accessibility to those who may need their services. “Perhaps back in the day, X109 was at a good location,” Colbrook said. “Being here, we’re actually more accessible to the students, faculty, and staff than we were at X109.” X109 refers to the force’s old office space, on the first floor of the X Wing. It was once across from the bookstore, but following the move of the bookstore and other student-oriented services to the Student Union, the main stretch of the X Wing has become a less-travelled area. Colbrook repeatedly stressed the size of the new space, saying it is a welcome change from the cramped, inefficient X109. “Literally, everybody was on top of each other,” he said. “We’ve over doubled our floor space, which gives us a lot more functionality in what we do. As a department in
Sponsored by
Photo by Matt Moss | The Prospectus Parkland’s Chief of Police William Colbrook stands proudly in front of the new public safety office he helped to design. Parkland College…we’ve got very unique challenges for us to do our job effectively.” The plans for a new office had been in the works for several years. Colbrook himself worked with the architect to draw up the space to accommodate his department as best as possible. The purpose-built design is a marked departure from X109, which was an already-existing space which public safety was moved into. “That space…it was, ‘here you go, Public Safety, here is where you’re now going to be,’” Colbrook said of the move to X109 from the force’s office from time immemorial on the second floor of the X Wing. “This space was actually designed by myself and the architect…and we laid out the floor plan specific
for our function.” A wheelchair turned out to be one of the force’s greatest Achilles heels in navigating X109. With everyone already practically on top of each other and available space being a resource in short supply, they had nowhere to put the wheelchair they use for public assistance, forcing them to place it more or less as a centerpiece to their room. Now, the wheelchair has a spacious, cozy home in the office’s medical room. The specialized, made-toorder room gives public safety better capability in performing the key function of being first responders to medical emergencies on campus. When designing the office, the architect was able to wall
Fact or Fiction The actors who played R2-D2 and C-3PO are best friends in real life.
westgateapts.com
Answer on page 5
Newsroom | (217) 351-2216 | prospectus@parkland.edu • Publications Manager | Kelly Youngblood | (217) 351-2216 | prospectus@parkland.edu • Advisor | Chaya Sandler | (217) 353-2627 | csandler@parkland.edu • Production Supervisor | Billi Jo Hart | (217) 351-2216 | prospectus.jojo@gmail.com • Advertising | Linda Ticehnor | (217) 351-2200 | prospectusads@parkland.edu