ENTERTAINMENT
The Brubeck Theatre will be showing a new version of Robin Hood with all of your favorite old-time characters.
NEWS
SPORTS
Once again it's election time. Since there's only one office generating a contest, there won't be too much handshaking this time around. Are the new canidates up to the challenge? Page 3
Comets romp the Cerritos City College Falcons 35-3 in last weekend's football season home opener.
Page 8
THE FRIDAY,
SEPT.
18,
1998
PALOMAR
COLLEGE
SAN
Palomar to begin long awaited project Jessica Long Co-Editor in Chief
/ A project 10 years in the making is finally ready to commence with the goa l of upgrading Palomar' s aged and undersized utilitie s. Director of Facilities, Mike Ellis said, "We're very excited about making facilities' workload a lot easier and a lot less disturbing to the learning process (here at Palomar) ." The state funded project will be the first major constru ction on campus since the early l 960s when the plans provided for 10,000 stu dents. Current enrollment for Palomar e x c e e d s Mike Ellis 27,000. The project which consists of a 90 day planning and surveying period followed by 10 consec utive phasing sites will be conduct ed throu gh a partnership franchise. Palomar officia ls will work in conj unction with Parsons Engineering Science, Helix Elect ric, DJF Construction Company and Boyle Engineer ing. The estimated time frame for the project is 585 days. The start day was Aug. 30 withthe approximat e day of completion on April 6 in the year 2000. The progress will be charted through wee kly facilities reports. Construction sites on campus have been broken down into phasing areas so as not to disturb too much of the campus. As one phasing site is completed another will begin. Phase one, which is located on the South side of campus, will start no later than Nov. 30 . The entire phasing process will work in an upward direction on campus. Each phasing process will be handled according to the area's needs, said Ellis. Palomar 's downtimes will be incorporat ed into the construction schedules. For example, explained Ellis , when the water supply will have to be shut off, we' re not going to shut off the chemistry wing while classes are in session. That area will be worked on when classes arc not held.
1.r•. ,
VOLUME
MARCOS
I
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I ',
-1
Staff Writer
( ).
This is a map of Palomar College. The numbers represent the order in which the Facilities Department will begin construction. The first (1) phase of repair is scheduled on the south side of the campus, just east of the dome. The last two phases due for contruction (9 and 10) are on the north end of campus in parking lots 9 and 10 respectively. The project will not be completed until the year 2000.
Noi se nuisance will also be taken into consideration. Barrier s will be put in place to detour sound and construction will be scheduled around exam times. "Our job here is about student learn ing. It's critical that we not disrupt that. We have students, faculty, workers and contractors to take care of during this whole project," said Ellis. · Safety will be a large concern throughout the co nstru ction. Brian Jordan , Project Execu tive for Helix Electtic, said "We:re very familiar with the impact and dangers. "All areas will be fenc ed in or barracked so no one will be able to accide ntally enter and get hurt. Our emp loyees are trained to not compro mise on safety. We' re very for ward and pro-active about that."
Ellis raised two points of warning directed at the work crews that will be on camp us in a preconstruction meetin g. One warning was that sexual harassmen t will not be tolerated. The other was that in the course of removing trees as sched uled, workers may encounter angry bystanders who disapprove of the removals . Ellis said that the trees have to be removed no matter what and in the end the school will benefit with improved landscaping. Ellis and other facilities personnel are taking precautions to ensure that students and staff are kept up to date on all construction progress. Various accessible means on campus will be set up to inform bystanders including bulletin boards, a website and a hotline where Facilities Secretary, Judy Hopkins will be available to answer quest ions.
Facilities working on improving parking situation for students Jessica Gleason Managing Editor
Eve ntuall y the parking situation will get better . Unfortunate ly, first it will have to get worse , Renovationof Palomar' parking lots is part of the majorinfra strllcture upgradeput into the workson Aug,30 according to the FacilitiesDepartment.Lot improvements will incl ude additional spots in most of the camp us' main parking lots but due to the ongoing construction a ll over campusas many as 50 spaces per lot could be lost in the meantimein order to house equipment and traHers. The Jotdirectlyacrossfrom the WellnessCenter is one of many due ro have a majorfacelift. Preliminarystages of construction had been slowed due to the amount of work involved blasting granite boulders and transporting
the dirt off campus.Accordingto Directorof Facilities Mike Ellis the Wellness Center lot will eventually house 120 new slots, "It's moving a lot slower than we would like, but KellyJh,M</ Tlte Te/esclJf)~ because it is a prime parking locationit will be really nice With construction soon to begin, parking spots like this in whenit's done," said KelleyHudson-Maclsaac. manager unpavedareas won't be aroqndfor long. of facili ty planning and environmental health and safety .
NUMBER
2
Corona eager to deliver what he promised voters Shigehiro Kondo
I
52,
The new president of the Associated Studen t Government , Xavier E. Corona, is anxious to get under way with many of the ideas that got him elected. Corona is 25 years old and has been at Palomar for two years majoring in history and po litical science. While studying at Palomar, he has also been cons t antly invo lved in the ASG, serving as a senat or for his first se m ester and then as a vice president of state affa irs until last spring. B es i de s Xavier E. Corona being the ASG president for this school-year, Corona holds the position of student trustee at the California Comm unity College Trustees (CCCT) which represents the 7 1 commu nity college districts in California. He is also a member of the board of directors at the American Students
Association of Community College (ASACC). Corona says although his roles as student trustee of CCCT and a representative of ASACC are important, his primary responsibility is to succeed as the ASG president. Corona bel ieves his efforts will help Palomar students more directly. Besides those positions, Corona is also busy serving as a student trustee at the gove rning board, which is the legislative organization of the Palomar Community College District. As a rnle, every ASG president has to keep this position in order to report the students' opinions and grievances to the board. In recent board meeting, he addressed the issue regarding the bookstore and the complaints of DSP&S (Disabled Student Programs and Services) students. Corona is also enthus iastic about letting Palomar Students, know that the ASG officers are represent ing them and coming thruc for their best interests . For example, he recently visited some internat ional students required classes and exp lained what the ASG is doing and also informed them that the intermationl students are welcome to run for the next student elect ion. SEE
CORONA,
PAGE
3
Binge drinking still on the rise for college students Christine Tatum College Press Exchange
CHICAGO - More than half of American college students drank to get drunk last year, and the number of binge drinkers is virtually the same as it was four years ago, according to a study released last week by the Harvard Schoo l of Public Hea lth. The survey of 14,521 students is the sequel to a 1993 analysis of students' alcohol consumption . Both studies were based on responses from random ly chosen students attending 130 co lleges across the country. The latest repo rt, published this month in the Journa l of American College Health, shows that 52 percent of students drank to get tanked in 1997, compared with 39 percent in 1993. Overall, the number of students who binge - defined as five drinks in a row for men and four in a row for women dropped slightly, from 44. 1 percent in 1993 to 42.7 perce nt last year. Howeve r slight, that drop is basically the study's only bright spot, said Professor Henry Wechsler, lead author of both studies . The decrease, he said, could be attributed to a rising number of students who abstain from drinkin g altogether. Nineteen percent of students reported that they hadn't had a drink in a year, compared with 15.6 percent in the earlier study. Wechsler said more students may be abstaining because they 're repu lsed by the behavior of their drinking friends and tired of vomit -filled bathrooms, un wanted sexual advances and latenight disturban ces. That makes sense to Dan Meade, a senior at George town University who said his struggles with binging prompt ed him to quit drinking more than a year ago - a decision , Meade said, that has made his life "immeasurably better."
"I wou ld get so drunk I'd black out and not remember a thing I'd done," he said. "I had to make a lot of apologies to people for things I didn't remember. At first, my drinking was largely limited to weekends ... then it started to hurt my grades." Both of Wechsler's studies say the biggest beer-guzzlers on campus are in fraternities and sororities, where four of five of those students binge. While many fraternities have announce d plans to go dry, Wechsler criticized the one caveat usually attached: in the year 2000. "Postponin g things until the millennium is not the way to handle the problems of today," he said . While the study did not show which colleges had the most drinkers, it did indicate that binging students are more likely to be found on campuses throughout the Northe ast and Midwest. Students at histori cally black and women's colle ges and commuter schools where few students live in dormitories tend to drink less, the study also indicated. Identifying the prob lem of binge drinkin g is far simpler than finding ways to stop it, Wechsler said. And to make any change, everyone - including alumni who toddle back to "tailgating parties on campus so they can get intoxicated" - needs to assume responsibi lity in the fight against unhealthy drink ing habits, he added. Campuses shouldn't necessarily ban alcohol, just ensure that students of age are drinking responsibly, he said. The crafting of new policies should be interesting, Wechsler said, noting that one in five students are frequen t binge drink ers, while another one in five abstain from alco hol consumption . Falling betwe.en the two extremes is one-fifth of students' who binge occasionally and two-fifths who drink but do not binge. · ·