Monday, April 24, 2000- Palomar College- Volume 53, Number 20
Princeton student claims to have found most distant object TMS Campus
Reform dominates race for president Both candidates wantchangein student activities Tom Chambers
PRINCETON, N.J. -A graduate student at Princeton University, along with three other scientists, has reported finding a red speck of dust in the constellation Sextons that may be the oldest, most distant object ever seen by humans.]A quasar that appears in telescopes as a red speck of dust in the constellation Sextans may be the oldest, most distant object ever glimpsed by humans. The discovery by astrophysics student Xiaohui Fan and an international team of scientists trying to map out half of the northern sky provides a better idea of what the universe was like in its infancy. "Redshift 5.8 Quasar" is 12 billion light years from Earth. The generally accepted age of the universe is 13 billion years, so that means the light left the quasar when the universe was just a billion years old. "We're zooming in to the time when the galaxies were very young and the light first appeared in the universe after the Big Bang," Fan said, referring to the explosion gen-
f\
erally thought to have resulted in the creation of the universe. Other scientists were equally excited. "Because it is so exceptionally luminous, it provides a wonderful opportunity to study the universe when the galaxies that we see today were young," said Robert Lupton a Princeton researcher and astronomer with the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The internationally assembled team is conducting an $80 million, five-year project expected to glean data on hundreds of millions of galaxies, stars and other celestial objects. · Fan and three other scientists made the discovery in April in Hawaii at the Keck Telescope, the world's largest, using data collected in March from a telescope at Apache Point, N.M. The quasar, an emission of light from matter pouring into a massive black hole at the center of the galaxy, surpassed the previous record-holder for the most distant known celestial object, a galaxy discovered last year by researchers in Hawaii and England.
Editur in Chief
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Ch~mhers
I The Te/e,<eope
Loretta Murillo-Colton makes posters advertising her candidacy for president
'92 '93 '94 '9S '96 '97 '98 '99
THE NUMBER OF STUDENTS VOTING IN STUDENT GOVERNMENT ELECTIONS DURING THE PAST DECADE HAS VARIED WITH THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF VOTERS
RECORDS
The two candidates for Associated Student Government President, Loretta Murillo-Calton and Bridgette Roncone, squared off at a candidates forum on April 10. Both candidates said the relationship between the Student Activities Office and student government needs to change. "On the door of the Student Activities Office it says, 'we support student success,' but you'll find that anyone who has gone there for answers has not found help. They're being told no," Roncone said. "This needs to be addressed, and we need someone who's not afraid to do it." Murillo-Calton agreed and said student activites controls too much of what students do. "The student government adviser's word is not the last word," Murillo-Calton said, referring to Bruce Bishop, interim director of student activities. "He should not be making our choices for us." "It's corruption," Roncone added. "They're making decisions for ASG before it gets to ASG. They are stopping clubs that want to get involved." Roncone said the Student Activities Office has held up budget requests for campus groups over the past year. Murillo-Colton, a liberal arts major, was ASG treasurer in 1998 and a senator in 1997. She has been president of the American Indian Science and Engineering (AISES) society for the past two years and is involved
Teacher gives kidney to ailing student TMS Campus
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -Fifteenyear-old Michael Carter will talk biological science with his teacher, Jane Smith, for years to come. Michael and Smith, a teacher at R. Max Abbott Middle School in Fayetteville, N.C., were resting comfortably Monday at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill after she gave him one of her kidneys. The transplant took place April 14. "Although we believe anyone donating an organ to benefit another person is an exceptional human being, the fact that a teacher would be so moved to offer her student such a gift is phenomenal," said Dr. Jeffrey Fair, chief of the abdominal transplant program at UNC. Smith returned home April 24, while Michael is expected to remain
Conviction raises questions about campus safety laws
see President, page 8
Cornelia Grumman Chicago Tribune
Internship program gains .new features,- more participants Nancy Seuschek Campus Beat Editur
Palomar College's internship program has doubled the number of students in its ranks since it was revamped during fall 1999. The former, unofficial program was expanded and reorganized by :aob Ebert, internship coordinator, along with Maria Miller, career center director, and Bmce McDonough, chair of co-op education. The new program. two years in development, received 100 requests from employers for students this year, and has placed 60 so far. "(The internship program) was spotty and isolated before," Ebert said. "It's important for Palomar to speak to the business community
with one voice." The developers added some new dimensions to the program, such as enlisting faculty to help match students in their departments with potential employers. The faculty members, who are paid for their participation, attend workshops about advising potential interns. The coordinators have also begun linking the internship program with the college's work-study .program. "In the past, (work-study students) were just placed somewhere on campus. Now, we're placing them in departments of their major," said Ebert, adding that about eight students have made the switch. Students who are participating earn two or three credit units while
in the hospital until April 25 or April 26. One of Michael's kidneys failed to grow and another functioned only minimally. He began four-hour dialysis treatments three times a week in June 1998. A dozen ·of Michael's relatives and friends were tested as potential kidney donors but were rejected.Then last August, Smith told Carter to .Pull up his baggy jeans at recess. He explained that the loose-fitting pants were more comfortable because he was undergoing dialysis and was waiting for a kidney transplant. "I looked at him and said 'I've got two, do you want one?'" Smith recalled. "He said, 'What's your blood type?'" After weeks of tests, Smith was found to be a suitable donor.
"It was the perfect springboard," gammg experience in their fields. Palomar biology major Priscilla he said. "Bob (Ebert) gave me the Hernandez began working in the connections beyond school." During his second semester at Life Sciences Department after Ebert, a biology professor, informed Palomar, Helf got an internship at her about choosing internships Telios Pharmaceuticals in San Diego. "After that, I had enough instead of work-study. "I think the program is incredi- experience to go on to another job," ble," Hernandez said. "Why no·t do he said. Helf is currently applying an internship and work toward to medical school, and recently something? It's something to put on spoke at Palomar about the irnpor. tance of college success. your resume." Although about half of the internShe added that contacts she made through the biology department ships are unpaid, Ebert said he is recently led her to an interview for working to increase the number of an internship at the Wild Animal paid positions. ''I'm always negotiating for stuPark in Escondido. Palomar alumnus Matt Helf was in dents," he said. "But a good internthe former internship program before ship is worth a lot. It can create a transferring to UCSD, where he gradsee Intern, page 3 uated summa cum laude in 1999.
LINCOLN, Neb. -Like leaving a sinister calling card, the man would rape his victims the same distinctive way. He hit tiny colleges, mostly in the Midwest. He wore a dark skimask. He looked for young women sitting alone in music rooms or computer labs. He attacked from behind. When finished, he told his victims to pray for him. Sometimes he took their panties. If not for the struggling screams of one victim, luck and may be even a fluke, the man a Nebraska jury convicted last week of one of those assaults, 38-year-old traveling comedian Vinson Champ, might still be free. Now, while authorities investigating similar attacks decide how to proceed with cases ·in their own jurisdictions, Champ's convictionraises questions about whether recent c.ampus safety laws go far enough in preventing these sorts of serial rampages. While citing the difficulty of tracking any serial criminal across a broad geographical area, some
authorities speculate that schools'traditional reluctance to publicly disclose or share details about campus crimes might have inadvertently prolonged the spree of assaults in 1996 and 1997. "I wonder whether each of these individual departments sort of looked at those problems as just being germane to their specific campus and didn't make the next connection that perhaps there might be a person who might be committing these crimes in a broader geographical area," said John King, president of the Internatiom~l Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators. Already colleges and universiti~s have come under fire for lax corn• pliance with laws requiring greater reporting about campus crimes. The Campus Security Act of 1990 and its 1998 amendments require all colleges and universities to report three years' worth of serious crimes and to keep a daily log book for public inspection. But conformity with that law, known as the Jeanne Clery Act in honor of a 19-year-old student who
see Safety, page 3