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Drummers from the San Francisco Taiko Dojo transition to the next piece of their performance, employing rotating movements to add to the rhythm of the beating drums. See page 4 for more photos.
SCC softball smashes Yuba city SPORTS ON 8
• APRIL 23 - MAY 6, 2014 • VOL. 30, NO. 13 • FAIRFIELD, CA • www.solanotempest.net •
Election committee elects to re-elect After protests and debates regarding procedure, voting for student government is happening... again. John Glidden Staff Writer jglidden@solanotempest.net
After deciding to move forward with the spring election amid protest from employees at Solano Community College, the Associated Students of Solano College election committee reversed course, deciding to hold a second voting week. In a 3-1 vote during their April 7 meeting, the election committee voided their prior decision, made just three days earlier, to “move forward with the election.” “I’ve been thinking and it would be too sketchy to move forward with the results,” said Latifah Alexander, chair of the election committee and current student trustee, to the committee during the meeting. “I do think it would be violating the student’s equal protection rights.” On March 25, Lorenzo Hays-Phillips, ASSC and Inter-Club Council Alumni
Advisor and SCC Academic Success Center Coordinator, submitted a letter to the election committee protesting the loss of student’s right of a secret ballot during the election. On March 24 and half of the 25th, SCC students wishing to vote during the election were required to sign their names on a blank paper and given a numbered ballot. Interim-director of Student Development, Jose Ballesteros, was tasked with matching the signatures with the numbered ballots to ascertain if the ballots cast were from SCC students. During the remainder of voting week, students voting signed next to their names on a printed list generated by the SCC admissions office. “Some of them are numbered (ballots) and some aren’t,” said Alexander to the committee during the meeting. “The ones that are numbered can be traced back to a name.”
Casey Bess, the only candidate for president, asked the committee about the rights of students who already voted in the election. “I feel that students who voted, their votes aren’t going to matter anymore,” Bess said. Bess is the math and science senator with ASSC. “We are going to toss the elections based on the protestations from a non-voting person (Hays-Phillips),” Bess asked the election committee. “It feels wrong to me.” Bess also addressed the committee regarding the right to a secret ballot, arguing that when he cast his own ballot during the election he knew he was waiving his right to a secret ballot. “Rights are something that can be waived,” Bess said to the committee. “Invalidating the ballots and redoing the election seems like a waste of the voters’ time and erodes confidence in the system,” said Steve Reczkowski, a member of the
election committee and current associate public relations officer, in an e-mail. “Hopefully, the controversy will bring more attention to the election and more voters to the polls this time around.” Reczkowski was the only member of the committee to vote no on re-doing voting week. Steve Reczkowski is a staff member of The Tempest. The committee also voted to restructure the election calendar allowing a new election week to take place after spring break. Ballesteros confirmed that all declared candidates are still eligible to be placed on the ballot during the second voting week. There are four candidates for four positions, all running unopposed. “I’m very pleased,” said Hays-Phillips regarding the election committee decision to re-do voting week. “They made a very wise, moral and ethical decision.” The second round of voting will take place April 28 through May 1.
Solano student secures coveted research engineering internship Anthony Salazar fights for and wins renewable energy internship in Colorado Addi Simmons Staff Writer lsimmons@solanotempest.net
Solano student Anthony Salazar is spending his summer vacation finding defects in semiconductors. The 19-yearold chemical and material science engineering major has recently been granted a prestigious REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) summer internship through the Colorado School of Mines. “What I’m going to be doing in Colorado is more like renewable energy with solar panels,” Salazar said. “They’re making silicon nanocrystals in the films, so we’re looking at the defects in those crystals. If we’re lucky we can find out what the defects are, but usually we can just find out where they are and how many there are.” Salazar said. Salazar has been interested in science and renewable energy since middle school and found out about material science last semester when he took a Properties and Materials class. “I’ve got to say my best subject is material science, but I’m not the type of person who thinks that you should be good at just one thing. You’ve got to be everywhere. You’ve got to know everything,” Salazar said. Salazar said the thing he looks most forward to during the internship is to gain the hands-on experience and see what it’s like doing research in a lab. “Basically, they set you up there. You’re going do this research with these graduate students and then by the end of it, I’ll have a poster with all my work and there’s a conference at the end and I’ll be able to present my poster at the conference,” Salazar said. “They give me money to go present my stuff at other conferences there and other parts of the country and they teach
you how to pick a graduate school so that you’re ready, so that you’re more competitive once you get up to the upper division classes. I’m just excited to be put to work. I just want to see what real research is about.” Salazar first found out about the internships through engineering professor Melanie Lutz. “Dr. Lutz was telling us about students in her class that had gotten internships. I asked when they applied and she said, ‘Now,’ so I got on the Internet and found it. Dr. Lutz just had this sense. She was like, ‘That’s the one I want you to apply for.’ She knew that was the one for me, so I went after it,” Salazar said. Lutz said Salazar wants to be a role model and inspire others who may have not considered science as a possible path for them. “Anthony is a very serious student who already has a passion for science and a deep desire to understand things on a fundamental level,” Lutz said. “The opportunity to participate in actual scientific research will be invaluable to him.” The program that Salazar will be participating in takes a maximum of 20 students from around the country. “It was a fight for sure. I had to do a lot of phone interviews. I got denied a couple of times by the program so I talked to the director and said ‘Look man, I’m super hard working. I need- I want this so bad,’” Salazar said. After Solano, Salazar hopes to transfer to U.C. Davis or U.C. Berkeley, or possibly head back out to Colorado and do research at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “I’m going to find someone who’s going to put me on Dagmar Kuta / Tempest research,” Salazar said. “That’s my main goal. Either wayAnthony Salazar majors in chemical and material I’m going to keep fighting for it.” science engineering at Solano.
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QUOTE OF THE WEEK “You know, everybody’s ignorant, just on different subjects.” - Will Rogers