Monday, Oct. 9, 2000- Palomar College- Volume 54, Number 6
Aztecs mascot
'The Exorcist'
Coffee crazy
San Diego State in danger of losing its mascot to political correctness.
The horror classic gets a facelift just in time for Halloween.
Feel like having a latte? Pour a cup of joe, and read on.
Opinion, page 5
Entertainment, page 8
Focus, page 1.0
Governing board candidates face off at forum Laura Mitchell The Telescope
Thr ~e of the four candidates for the Palomar Community College District governing board met Thursday for a question and answer forum at the Governing Board room on campus. Charles Duncan, Darrell McMullen and Howard Scofield answered 20 questions posed by ¡local talk show radio host and newspaper columnist George Chamberlin. Candidate Ralph Jensen, . the current governing board president and the only incumbent, could not attend the forum due to a work conflict. The four candidates are vying for three available board seats in this November's general election. Scofield is a business owner who served eight years on the board before losing to Michelle Nelson in 1998. Scofield emphasized his previous experience on the board, where he served as president, as an asset.
McMullen is director of finance at Vallecitos Water district and is vice president of the Palomar College Foundation. McMullen said that his background in finance and his work with the Foundation give him strong skills to bring to the governing board. Duncan is a retired school administrator from the Glendale Unified and Community College district where he worked for 40 years. Duncan said that his experience in community college administration would assist him in analyzing information and contributing to the board. Forum questions were submitted in advance by Palomar College employees. When asked how they viewed COLAs (Cost of Living Adjustment) and raises, and if they were the same or different, the candidates agreed that COLAs and ra1ses were different. "COLA comes from the state
See Forum, page 7
Palom.ar student dies Freak accident claims life of student pilot ¡ Sean J. O'Connor The Telescope
Susan (Suzi) Elizabeth Hasseltine, a freshman in Palomar College's aeronautical program, loved to fly airplanes. On the way to her airplane at Montgomery Field in Kearny Mesa, Hasseltine was thrown from the golf cart she was riding in. She died the following day at Sharp Memorial Hospital, Sept. 7. Her mother said she spent
almost every available minute in the air. She was 18 years old. A class of 2000 graduate of Torrey Pines High School, she became a full-time student at Palomar in the aeronautics program this fall. "I was just getting to know her," said Jerry Houser, Palomar aeronautics instructor. Houser said she was very well thought of. a great student with a lot of potential and was progressing very well. She had taken two courses at Palomar while she was still in high school as part of her preparation to get her pilot's license at Pinnacle Aviation Academy
See Student, page 9
Marianna Lampe I The Telescope
Ernie Carson, second from left, addresses a crowd of protesters in front of the Rbrary on Oct. 4.
Classified staff protests CCE I AFT vies
for contract agreement; staff unity Tom Chambers T1rt Telescope
Carrying picket signs and chanting, about 100 Palomar College Classified staff and members of other local unions marched through campus last Wednesday, Oct. 4. The informational picket, as they called it, was held to protest the current stalemate in contract negotiations between the Classified staff and the district, and the California School Employees Association's attempts to rep-
resent Palomar's Classified staff. The demonstration was organized by the Certified Classified I American Employees Federation of Teachers Local 4522. the union that. currently represents Classified employees at Palomar. Classified employees include secretaries, groundskeepers, library staff, computer techs and Admissions Office staff. Ernie Carson, the CCE/AFf president, told the crowd that he is working to negotiate a fiveyear agreement with the district that establishes pay increases and Cost of Living Adjustments, or COLA. But, Carson said, the talks are at a standstill because the college won't budge on one issue - holding the rest of the agreement up. The sticking point has to do with the Public Employees
Retirement Supplement. According to Jack Miyamoto, Palomar vice president of human resources, the PERS program is fully funded, and does not require employees to pay into the program. It does, however, require employers, like the college, to contribute some of the time. When the directors of PERS require the college to pay, the college does, Miyamoto said. When PERS does not require any funding from the college, the money that would have been used for PERS is put into the college's general fund. "In times when PERS is fully funded, we balance the budget on the money the district would have spent on it,"
See Protest, page 7
Search committee size causes disagreement Jennifer Jennings The Telescope
The search for a new superintendent/president for Palomar College is heating up. Jack Randall, new interim sup eri n tend en t/ pre si dent, informed faculty and other staff at a recent PAC meeting to begin suggesting a make-up for the search committee. This search committee will be in charge of, among other things, recommending three to five final candidates who will be interviewed by the governing board.
The size of the committee has sparked a small debate among faculty and administration. Anne Hohman, English professor and president of the faculty, suggested a list to Randall that includes 11 faculty members. In the list are the faculty senate president and vice president, the president and vice president of the faculty, and one faculty member from each instructional division. Hohman also included the suggestion of a co-chair, which Randall agreed to. Hohman said she suggested
this amount because there needs to be accurate faculty representation on the committee. The new superintendent/president will work closely with faculty, so it is only fair the faculty has a strong voice in the process of making this decision. Randall counters that 11 faculty members would make the committee too large, thus being inefficient in that scheduling conflicts are sure to arise. He believes the meetings would become too long and tedious. At the Sept. 26 governing board meeting, Randall pro-
posed to the board a make-up for the committee which included five faculty members. The governing board agreed .with Randall's suggestion. This outraged many faculty members, who voiced their dissent at the Oct. 2 faculty senate meeting. Senators were not only outraged at the number of faculty on the committee, but also the board decided to hire a search consultant costing over $20,000, the cheapest of the options. The senate discussed many possible reactions to the decision. Among them mentioned was censure in which the senate sends its verbal disapproval to
the governing board, a vote of no confidence, in which they send a message to the governing board of stronger disapproval. "It's unacceptable. We have to send a message," says Stan Levi, senate member. Mario Mendez suggested the Senate excuse itself from the entire process, not having any faculty members on the search committee. The final decision was to reiterate to the governing board their strong disapproval of the search committee make-up. Chris Barkley will bring the Senate's reaction at the next governing board meeting.