Is the crown too heavy? After winning a state title last season, the baseball team entered this season with great expectations. How are they handling the added pressure? Sports | Page 7
Volume 61, Issue 4
www.theCRCconnection.com
CAMPUS PULSE
April 11, 2013
MONEY MATTERS
Professor appointed as ambassador Assembly By Mozes Zarate mzarate.connect@gmail In January, history professor Mathilde Mukantabana was entrusted by the President of Rwanda to represent the country as ambassador to the United States. Almost 20 years since the Tutsi genocide devastated Rwanda in 1994, Mukantabana said that her home country has rebuilt itself through reformed education, expanded healthcare and a “democracy in action.” “It is a country on the move,” Mukantabana said. “They’ve come from the ashes and have created a society that the people are proud of, and I’m proud to expand where I can in terms of the under standing of the American public.”
After Mukantabana met with the Senate committee, the Rwandan government confirmed her position through a national broadcast on March 27. “I was honored and humbled by the confidence placed upon me for this important mission,” Mukantabana said. With the confirmation, Mukantabana will be leaving her teaching position at Cosumnes River College. “We will certainly miss her expertise in African history,” said history professor Jason Newman. “It will be very difficult to fill the gap in knowledge that she has.” Lisa Abraham, an English professor at CRC and close colleague of Mukantabana, expressed excitement about the move, seeing it as an opportunity for Mukantabana to continue her efforts to work
more directly on projects that benefit both Rwanda and the United States. “She’s always, in many ways, been in an ambassadorial position,” Abraham said. “She has been very active in projects that benefit the people in her country.” Mukantabana acts as the spokesperson and president of the Friends of Rwanda, an association that has worked to link the communities internationally, bringing awareness to genocide, and providing relief to survivors. “I wouldn’t have been able to do what I did without the strong support I got from CRC,” Mukantabana said. “Our institution is flexible and encourages individuals to explore other horizons that are not confined to the classroom alone.” Ambassador | Page 2
Stephan Starnes | The Connection
Mathilde Mukantabana, who was named ambassador of Rwanda to the U.S., teaches her History 321 class on April 10.
SPECIAL PROJECT
Piecing together a history of Old Sacramento Post Gold Rush era artifacts have found their way to CRC and they have a story to tell By Zach Hannigan zhannigan.connect@gmail In a tucked away classroom on the southeast corner of campus, Cosumnes River College anthropology major Marcos Martinez picks up a ceramic artifact, studies it and places it into a plastic bag. Martinez, 20, picks up his Sharpie and starts writing on the bag, cataloging it for future reference. He and a few other select students will continue this process until they run out of artifacts. To the average eye, these artifacts are simply old pieces of ceramic, glass and stone. But, these artifacts tell a story and that’s what the Cosumnes River Archaeo-
logical Working Lab intend to unearth. Since the spring 2012 semester, these students along with anthropology professors Anastasia Panagakos and Amanda Paskey and instructional assistant CeeCee Cesario have put in several hours three days a week to piece together a part of Sacramento history in the post Gold Rush era. “We’re taking what we got and we’re trying to come up with a story,” Martinez said. “‘Here’s the stuff we got, here’s the stuff we know,’ so maybe we can figure out who owned this site, how long it was operated and all the little stuff that you really can’t figure out by picking up a piece of a rock.” While the students are getting a rare opportunity, Panagakos said that CRC came about these artifacts by accident. “We actually didn’t know the collection existed, until we saw a newspaper article about the [Old Sacramento] underground tour that was being revived,” she said. “They had quoted an archaeologist that had worked on the original excava-
tion and said that it had been spearheaded by a professor at CRC.” That professor was David Abrams, who along with other CRC students worked on the excavations in the late 1970s. The site is located underneath what is now the Enterprise Hotel in Old Sacramento. However, due to some constraints, the excavation could not be properly analyzed or even catalogued. “They ended up in State Parks’ storage and weren’t really looked at,” Paskey said. But after a few phone calls and a lot of leg work from Paskey and Panagakos, the artifacts were brought back home to CRC. However, the work didn’t stop there. “People on campus had to support us,” Panagakos said. “So the dean [Ginny McReynolds] supported us especially to get us this space and then we had to have an alarm code put in because State Parks has a protocol for the kind of security you need, because some of the artifacts can be CRAWL | Page 11
Bill aims to increase financial aid By Nick Valenzuela nvalenzuela.connect@gmail California community college students struggling with financial aid may soon receive assistance in obtaining FAFSA and Pell Grant funds thanks to a bill recently introduced to the California State Assembly. California Assemblyman Das Williams (D-Santa Barbara) has created Assembly Bill 606, a bill that, if passed, would require the California Community College Chancellor’s Office to create a voluntary pilot program that would help students complete the FAFSA. “The amount of money that we are not tapping into from the Federal Government is staggering,” Williams said. “One estimate from a year or two ago estimated that our community college system is missing out on half a billion dollars.” According to Williams, many students do not receive aid from the FAFSA because they do not know they qualify for it and don’t apply for it. Due to this, a very large percentage of available FAFSA funds go unused. AB 606 has received mass “So literally support across while our the state, with 5 community community college districts and college system a student senator has been majority vote in favor of the bill. starving, we’re Further support just not trying is heard through the voice of CRC that hard to get students. federal money.” “I think it’s a good thing. Everybody needs — Das Williams help with school California because school’s Assemblyman so expensive now,” said Kelsey Simpson, a 22-year-old journalism major. “It’d probably help out a lot of people who don’t realize that there are ways to pay for school that aren’t just coming right out of their pocket.” Thus far, the main argument of opposition to the bill is that FAFSA is too much of a hassle for students and isn’t worth the work that must be put into it, Williams said. “People, in some cases, feel like they’re protecting students from having to do too much paper work,” Williams said. “Life in America in the 21st century is about filling out forms. If we’re going to be able to get through life we’ve got to learn to fill out forms.” However, by suppressing FAFSA completion among students, schools are also missing out on a lot of money coming in that could be used to open up more classes. An estimated 100,000 courses were cut last year across the state due to underfunding, particularly summer semester classes. Williams believes this problem could easily be solved if students were simply encouraged to fill out the FAFSA. “If a BOG waiver [qualifying] student gets a Pell Grant, then the Pell Grant pays AB 606 | Page 4