Campus life at other colleges can differ from Long Beach City College; whether students are not culturally accepted for their race, the college isn’t student-involved, or parking is more difficult than imaginable, students that have previously attended other colleges share their personal experiences.
Our students come from all walks of life, various regions, and previous colleges which may help to solidify a sense of community on campus.
Cerritos, Compton, and Cypress city colleges are nearest regionally to LBCC, so it may not come as a surprise to find that some students have attended these schools prior to LBCC.
Student Brandi Ford, who attended Cerritos College before coming to LBCC, saw differences in the atmosphere of the campuses.
“Cerritos campus is more industrial… It’s more beachy and there’s greenery here… Cerritos is just buildings,” Ford said.
Ford explained differences in campus programs offered at LBCC, like helping the homeless.
“It’s a more cool vibe here. People are taking it all in and taking advantage of the stuff LBCC has, like helping out homeless students and having food drives,” Ford said.
Discerning the differences between LBCC and its neighboring colleges gives a sense of understanding to the campus environment we have established for non-native students.
Some students on campus have come from higher educational institutions, like first semester student Duncan Kelly, who attended California State University Long Beach for two years before LBCC.
“It can take about 10 to 15 minutes to get across campus (at CSULB), so if you’re running late it’s just not fun. Also, none of the parking structures let you know how full they are like LBCC,” Kelly said.
Another student AJ Wells, briefly attended Arizona State University after graduating high school.
While in Arizona Wells noted the difference in campus demographics and diversity which contributed to a rigid campus atmosphere for her.
“LBCC is a lot more friendlier than ASU, because Arizona is a red state and some people weren’t accepting,” Wells said.
“That school is predominantly white. LBCC is super mixed, so much more diverse,” said Wells.
The Long Beach Post recently ranked Long Beach in the top 10 of most diverse cities in the country.
Differences aside, students attend college with the same goal in mind: to obtain a degree.
LBCC has been serving the community for over 90 years and has respectably established itself as a student-centered campus, that is resourceful, inclusive, and campus-involved.
Correction: A change was made to avoid potentially insensitive language.
Tormented by a childhood plagued with bullying, loneliness, and insecurities, 26-year-old Mexican-American Karla Antunec was introduced to a new cultural world after meeting her Moroccan boyfriend on a pen pal app called Sweet Talk and converting to Islam.
“I don’t want to say that I converted to Islam just because of him, because that’s rude, but he showed me the religion and I liked the message of peace,” Antunec said.
“I feel comfortable being Muslim.”
Growing up, Antunec, who has always described herself as timid, had no recollection of a period in her past where she had anyone to call a friend.
“I remember the first semester of my senior year in high school, I ate lunch everyday by myself in a classroom because no one wanted to eat with me. I still never got my high school diploma. I just started to get so tired of school,” Antunec said.
“Kids used to bully me a lot, and because of that it’s hard for me to feel beautiful. Basically what people always used to tell me was that I look like a man because I have a mustache and even now, I have neighbors that tell me how ugly I look in my Hijab and how much better I will look without it.”
In a determined search to find companionship, like many other young adults who live an isolated life, Antunec turned to the app Sweet Talk to connect with people from all around the world.
“I just went online to talk to someone. I wasn’t really interested in going online to be in a relationship,” Antunec said.
Despite the negative remarks pertaining to her looks, and men neglecting to date her in person, her online network of friends seemed to think quite the opposite, and her inbox was swarming with chivalrous messages.
“It was weird when guys would tell me that I am pretty and stuff like that,” Antunec said.
“It was guys telling me this stuff from other countries. I started to laugh because they were telling me that they love me, but they don’t even know me. I met my first boyfriend on the app because he was the only one who took the time to get to know me.”
After simultaneously talking to other penpals on the app, her first relationship fizzled and she started paying closer attention to her current boyfriend of two years, 25-year-old Nabil Elmodeen, who lives in Morocco.
“He made me understand that the other long distance relationship I was in was not going to work out. I like that he found the time to ask how my day was going. I like most that he was very caring of me,” Antunec said.
Arguments between the couple would arise from Antunec’s doubts about Elmodeen’s intentions.
Antunec took pride in helping her boyfriend in any way she could, like giving him money for school textbooks and travel but some members of her family could not come around to the idea of them dating.
“My dad is not very supportive of the relationship. He thinks that Nabil is trying to use me for money or a green card,” Antunec said.
Elmodeen speaks very little english so the majority of their relationship is spent communicating via direct messages and emails.
“I have never spoken with him before, but as long as he treats her right and she is comfortable, I approve of them dating,” said Karla’s 16-year-old sister, Elizabeth Antunec.
This past summer, Antunec decided to put her relationship to the test and fly over 15 hours across the world to see Elmodeen in the flesh.
Seeing each other for the first time brought on a wave of emotions.
“When I first saw her I thought she was good,” Elmodeen said.
“When I first landed and saw him for the first time, I wanted to cry because I was so happy finally seeing him in person,” Antunec said.
During her trip to Morocco, Elmodeen showed Antunec the ways of his culture and the principles of his religion.
“It is not important for my girlfriend to be Muslim, Islam faith does not make me marry a Muslim, I took her to the mosque with me and showed her videos and she chose from there,” Elmodeen said.
When Antunec came back to the states, she faced a number cultural challenges.
Antunec’s parents were born and raised in Jalisco, Mexico.
Mexico has a population of over 125 million people and over 90% of the nation practices christianity.
Less than 0.01% of the Mexican population is of the Islamic faith.
Antunec, now being the only Muslim in her family, had to explain the fundamentals of the religion and why she gravitated towards Islam to friends and family.
“My parents don’t understand why she chose that religion. We grew up very Mexican and very Christian, so it is taking me a while to understand it too. They are cool with her choice now, but it took a lot of coming around in the beginning,” said Elizabeth.
Because Antunec still resides with her parents, she makes continuous attempts to incorporate her parents in her religious practices.
“My mom is supportive of me. I invited my dad to the mosque for Ramadan but he never showed up,” Antunec said.
Regardless of what her family thinks about her conversion, Antunec is regularly going to the mosque to pray and has enrolled in Arabic classes so she can better understand the quran.
With Elmodeen having difficulties getting a visa to enter the United States, Antunec plans to travel back to Morocco in the near future.
“Next time she comes to Morocco, I will ask her to be my wife,” Elmodeen said.
Antunec feels that she finally found a religion that she can connect with and no matter the fate of her relationship with Elmodeen, she will always be Muslim.
“Nabil’s sister let me know that even if the relationship doesn’t work out, being with NabilI has taught me so much. I found Allah and I traveled to places I have never been before, and I agree with her,” Antunec said.
Correction – Some changes were made to this article to improve punctuation and grammar, and to better clarify some if its statistical data.
They say it takes a village to raise a child, yet Long Beach City College has large gaps to fill in places where the institution is not providing entirely for their student parent population on campus.
Even though there is need for services like the Child Development Center and a mother’s room, LBCC does not collect data on parenting students, which may leave the administration, faculty and staff unaware of the growing number.
A Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education (CARE) specialist at LBCC, Deborah Boyle, said she “wouldn’t know statistics on the student parent population.”
To date, many Southern California campuses are taking on a two-generation, or 2Gen, approach to supporting student parents, which is an approach that focuses on fulfilling the needs of both the student parent and their children in order to lesson some of the difficulties that the parent may face while attending college.
Los Angeles Valley College has an expansive family center that provides child care, children’s clothes and many other resources for the children of student parents.
Amber Angel, program coordinator for the family resource center at LAVC, understood the need for 2Gen programs when her water broke during her 8 a.m. math class.
Angel brings her two young girls to the center where she works, which has helped them acclimate to the college campus lifestyle.
“Student data collection is important. If you don’t have the data, I suggest the Institute of Women’s Policy Research, or IWPR. How we initially first got data was through financial aid. FAFSA does ask the students if they have dependents. It is important to know that it is not complete, because there are dreamers, those who don’t qualify and other factors. When we calculated the data at the time, we saw that about 29 percent of our students were raising children which was more than the national average,” Angel said.
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research current fact sheet shows that 22 percent of all undergraduates are parenting students, which means a little more than one in five students on any given college campus may have children, however the report doesn’t specify the age of the children.
Anthropology and Environmental Studies major Lara Mienjtes, who is also a parenting student at LBCC, conducted her own personal survey of students in roughly 40 classes during the 2018 spring semester.
LBCC student and parent Lara Meintjes conducted her own survey of parenting students on campus during the Spring 2018 semester. Image by Lara Meintjes.
Mienjtes’ research concluded about 18 percent of students on our campus may have dependents during a semester.
That is roughly 4,000 of over 20,000 LBCC students who would benefit from 2Gen programs, which is a huge jump up from the roughly 60 students that the CARE program is currently providing for according to Boyle.
(PART II, thinking outside the sandbox)
Meeta May, a parenting student at LBCC, was hoping to find childcare for her son and daughter, only to find out that they were too old for the program.
“There is nothing on campus that helps me with time management,” May said.
“I think it would be perfect if LBCC had a daycare for parents with older kids so we can study. About two years ago I went to the Child Development Center, but they said my kids were too old.”
LBCC’s Child Development Centers have a license from the department of Social Services Community Care Licensing Division to serve potty-trained children ages two through five.
According to PCC Child Development Center manager Stacey Smith-Clark, the center has limited space, and it utilizes all the space they have.
The Family Resource Center at LAVC used a little bit of ingenuity to find ways around this.
“Our kid friendly study lounge is the most recognizable on campus because we take in children any age from zero to 18. We have an internship program that is unpaid but provides college credit. Our interns range from students on campus, to local high school students who want to get a college experience. So, if your campus has child development center this would be a low-cost way for a campus to start providing this support,” Angel said.
Following a 2gen approach, if LBCC provided a place on campus for students and their children to both study, this may alleviate pressure from the parenting student while also instilling a sense of belonging in the child by stepping foot on a college campus regularly.
(PART III, The hard way or the Milky Way)
On both LBCC campuses, the student health rooms have what LBCC nurse Leticia Covarrubias calls an “everything room”.
According to Covarrubias, the mother’s room “has always been here and is one of the only places that is closed off” for student mothers to get the privacy they need when breastfeeding.
There is a lactation room located in student health services on both campuses. LBCC has until January 1 2020 to make sure the room is available at any time a lactating student may need the room. Photo by Sabriyya Ghanizada.
“The Mother’s room is open Monday through Thursday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m and Fridays 8 a.m. to 12 p.m,” Covarrubias said.
LBCC has until Jan. 1, 2020 to be in compliance with state law AB 2785 by having a lactation room that is open during any time that a lactating student may need the room.
Our campus currently holds evening classes until 9:50 p.m. and Saturday classes until 2:00 p.m.
These class hours occur after the student health facilities close their doors.
If a lactating student who can’t make it to the room 10 minutes before they close has a need the likely option would be the nearest restroom.
Not only is this not in compliance with the law, it is not sanitary for the breast-feeding student or their child.
When asked when parenting students can expect proper accommodations, director of Student Health and Student Life Deborah Miller-Calvert did not know of any alternative spaces.
“We are definitely still doing investigations and research and trying to be creative in resolving this for the students who might have some night classes on campus, but we don’t have anything finalized yet so, so I can’t share anything,” Miller-Calvert said.
The current mother’s room on both campuses have yet to be identified on campus maps, posted signage or even the website.
LAVC’s family resource room currently has a private breastfeeding room on campus where a ‘do not disturb’ sign goes up and the door can be locked. The resource center has also provided a fridge in the room for sanitary safekeeping of the breast milk.
According to Associate Vice President in the administrative service department at LAVC Sarah Song, if the room is closed, lactating students can still access the room with quick communication to the campus sheriff to open the room.
“They can contact us anytime. We are not open weekends but there are some night time students who may have the need, so if they let us know ahead of time, we will let the campus sheriff know about the need through e-mail or a phone call,” Song said.
This has proven to be a simple and effective way to provide this resource for lactating students as well as create communication on campus about the needs of parenting students.
(PART IV, Does LBCC really CARE?)
The CARE program, which has about 60 students this semester, is designated for a very specific group of parenting students: single students with dependents who are already receiving cash aid.
“I didn’t even find out about the CARE program through LBCC, I found out about it through a welfare program in Compton, so I had to go into EOPS and ask myself. The process was easy, but they really should reach out to students through more social media, make flyers and brochures, maybe post it somewhere noticeable on the website,” May said.
The CARE program also requires parenting students to attend counseling appointments, however children are not allowed with them at appointments in the Extended Opportunity Program rooms.
“When students are meeting with a counselor, we want their undivided attention since they are going over educational goals which are very important. We also share our space with DSPS and have testing going on. Kids will be kids; they may yell cry or scream, and we don’t want to trigger anyone in our DSPS program or distract those who are doing testing,” said EOPS worker Jenna Strobel.
Referring back to the term 2Gen the institutes website states that “ensuring that both parents and children have access to affordable, high-quality educational opportunities, for example, is a core component of a 2Gen approach. Investments in the postsecondary success of parents with young children can increase attainment of credentials leading to good jobs, bring children the benefits of high-quality learning environments, promote later college-going among children, and improve family economic security across generations.”
Cultivating a sense of community for children at a young age will teach them that they are important and should be considered.
The culture of LBCC’s staff and campus must see that as important in order to find solutions around screaming children, like providing toys in the counseling office or a comfortable place to read a book and do homework.
(Part IV, Piecing it together)
When child development major Alexis Hernandez found out her due date she spoke to her counselor about her options and found that there were not many available.
“I knew my due date was going to be before the finals, so I had to withdraw from classes. Some professors were supportive but still said withdraw and some said put it on hold. It was very unclear. I guess they haven’t had many students in my position. If I had looked more into it, I wouldn’t of even have applied that semester,” Hernandez said.
Title IX, a 1972 bill, prohibits discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities.
All public and private educational institutions that receive federal financial assistance must comply with Title IX as it protects students, including prohibiting discrimination against pregnant and parenting students.
Under Title IX, educational institutions ‘must excuse a student’s absences because of pregnancy or childbirth for as long as the student’s doctor deems the absences medically necessary. When a student returns to school, she must be allowed to return to the same academic and extracurricular status as before her medical leave began.’
Despite this over 40-year-old law, LBCC has not established policy measures for student parents or created congruence in attendance policies with its professors.
Our campus has a three-person team in place for handling Title IX policies and procedures.
Dr. Alisia Kirkwood, who is new to the coordinator position also conducts investigations when necessary.
“Most students probably don’t know that if you are expecting, that allows you certain accommodations. We have an advocate for that sole purpose. Maybe the professor doesn’t know that this falls under gender discrimination. Students should reach out to student affairs who will refer them to a Title IX advocate to help the student navigate the conversation with their instructor or professor,” Kirkwood said.
If an expecting or parenting student does not know that they may be able to receive accommodations, they could remain unaware that their circumstance may be protected through Title IX.
Most students and staff may not even know what Title IX is or how it applies to them.
There is a need for a clear policy to be put in place not only to protect the parenting students but to create a culture of fairness and inclusivity on campus that all professors and instructors can abide by.
“It’s just really about raising awareness and understanding,” Kirkwood said.
(Part V: Recognizing the need)
Los Angeles Valley College began representing student parents long before its family resource building opened its doors in 2007.
Director Marni Roosevelt a child development teacher at the time, had students asking her about their own kids and if they could start a social network.
She brought toys and blankets and pushed the tables and chairs in her room around and from there the program grew.
“When the campus first found about it, they offered an empty bungalow, someone donated a small dresser full of baby clothes and we reached out to high end nursery stores to start the clothing group. Roosevelt, just happened to be on a board with real estate developers J.H. Snyder Co., who needed to put it money to childhood development, so they donated one million and a half dollars. We got the donation through the foundation, so we operate like a 501C3 non-profit. The college still comes in to clean our facility and we don’t pay rent. It’s a very unique situation, but we are the base model for a lot of campuses across the country,” said program coordinator Angel.
As the family resource center began Roosevelt wrote grants to support the staffing and provide internships for child development majors, which created a workforce.
The family resource center staff also reached out to financial aid, counselors, and professors to inform them of the new resources on campus.
Early in its inception, the center created an advisory board that includes staff and parenting students who hold quarterly meetings to discuss donations, grants, and the needs of the program.
In her letter to the the Viking News, Lara Meintjes wrote, “A student making use of the lactation facilities is probably a different student to the one who enrolls their 2-5 year old in campus child care, and the low income EOPS student attending a counseling appointment is unlikely to be able to pay for child care to enable them to attend their appointment.”
It would appear that the only common thread holding parenting students together is the fact that they have children.
If these students are each in different places on campus at any given time, they may never begin to grasp the network of other student parents at their fingertips.
On lbcc.com, the resources page does not have a section for parenting students to find resources they may need on campus like the mother’s room, CARE program or more information on Title IX advocacy.
Currently, there is no designated place on campus for parenting students to meet or a club or program on campus for representation.
“If you care about student success then there is a need for resources and programs for student parents,” Angel said.
(PART VI: So, what’s it all got to do with LBCC?)
On Flex day on March 21, a designated day for professional development of faculty, Superintendent-President Reagan Romali announced the establishment of a task force on racial equity and inclusion.
During a discussion about a motion proposed by trustee president Sunny Zia regarding making requests to the superintendent-president, student success was also on Romali’s mind during the April 24 board of trustees meeting.
“My job is to raise graduation rates, raise transfer rates, get people jobs, get people retained,” Romali said.
“We must balance appropriately the needs of the board, the needs of the students, the needs of the faculty, administrators and staff.”
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research most current data shows that students of color are more likely to be student parents, with 51 percent of those students likely to have children, compared to 46 percent of students of color without children.
On the national level, black college students are the most likely to be parents.
College campuses can also expect roughly one in five hispanic students to have dependents, Asian parenting students make up about 13 percent of their population and Native and Pacific Islander parenting students make up over 70 percent of their demographic combined.
Students with dependents are also the most vulnerable when it comes to being in debt and have nearly twice the debt than students without children according to the institutes website.
It would appear that the need for resources for our parenting students is in line with the goals of Romali’s racial and equity task force as well as supporting students, staff and faculty alike.
There may not be a clear solution when it comes to the parenting student population but the need to create community, resources and a plan of action to support student parents is apparent.
In order to fill these gaps and catch up to surrounding community colleges and the nation, LBCC must start collecting data on the student parent population as well as conduct surveys to understand their needs.
But it does not stop there; student parents will need to speak up about their needs and begin advocating for themselves, they can do this by attending board of trustee or ASB meetings, starting clubs on campus and communicating with their counselors about their needs.
This would force the LBCC faculty and staff into taking parenting students needs into consideration when deciding policies, procedures or even resources to provide on campus.
Most of all, there will need to be a shift in the culture of how the LBCC community chooses to connect and communicate with one another on campus.
Students interested in becoming teachers attended an informal three day orientation at Long Beach City College that offered information on what steps were needed to successfully enter the education field.
During the orientation in building L-175 at LAC, education professor and coordinator for the Reading and Teaching program, Megan Kaplinsky provided an overview in the different teaching pathways for students.
“There’s many pathways to become a teacher, so it can be confusing because anything that leads to a bachelor’s degree, can lead to a teaching credential program at the end of that bachelor’s,” said Kaplinsky.
The first step to becoming a teacher is to obtain a bachelor’s degree in any discipline.
Those interested in secondary teaching can earn a degree in the subject they wish to teach in.
A liberal studies degree is the most common for those interested in elementary school education.
Potential educators may also take the California Educator Credentialing Exam and consider enrolling in a credentialing program.
At LBCC, students are required to take education courses such as Education 10, an Introduction to Teaching and Learning and Education 20, an Introduction to Elementary classroom teaching, both offered in the fall.
Students taking Education 10 are required to do 10 hours of fieldwork while those taking Education 20 are required to do 45 hours of fieldwork.
According to Kaplinsky students must be available to volunteer in an elementary school classroom in order to complete their 10 or 45 hours of fieldwork.
Elementary Teacher Education major Julia Ortiz attended the orientation to ensure that she was on the right track.
“I’ve always been interested in teaching, before this I actually got a certificate in medical billing, but it didn’t feel like my passion was there and then I recently was visiting my teacher and I just felt back in love with the way of helping the kids,” said Ortiz.
Former LBCC student Christopher Rivera currently attends Cal State Long Beach as a liberal studies major.
Rivera, who had Kaplinsky as a professor, wanted to gain more information on what steps he should take to further his teaching career.
“I’m a male and there’s not a lot of males in liberal studies major, so I just want to be a male role model for little kids,”said Rivera.
Long Beach City College has students from different walks of life coming together to further their education for various reasons.
While many LBCC students are able to focus solely on their education, others must find a way to balance their time between school and work.
When asked by the Viking News if they were currently working, 111 out of 150 LBCC students said that they currently had a job.
That data reflects the possibility of 74 percent of students working and attending LBCC.
“The rule of thumb is for every hour that you are in class there are two hours of study time outside of class,” department head of counseling Lorraine Blouin said.
With this formula students are able to calculate the amount of time they need to dedicate to their education and the number of units they have the time for.
“If a student is working full time, 40 hours a week, we usually recommend no more than three to six units per semester,” Blouin said.
LBCC student and firefighter engineer for the city of Anaheim Rob Fry is taking a five unit spanish class not only to learn the language but for more opportunities.
His 14 year old daughter is taking the class to get high school credit.
Also, with a proficiency in the language Fry would be eligible for a pay raise.
“We work 24 hour shifts from 7 a.m. to seven the next morning and then we are off the next day, but sometimes we have to work in between the days that we would normally work, so we’ll work 72 hours straight,” said Fry.
Busy work schedules can make it hard for Fry to find time to study and prepare for exams.
“I try to study a little bit at the station, but at home I just study on my day off,” Fry said.
LBCC Sophomore Mikayla Manning is currently enrolled in 12 units and works part time at Regal Cinemas in order to “save for the future and be comfortable in [her] future financial situation.”
Manning manages her time by setting aside a couple of days out of the week to dedicate to school work.
“The only time I struggle with managing my time is when I have a long shift right before a test because it adds more stress, but I very rarely stress out over not having time to do both,” said Manning.
Though Manning typically works 20 hours each week there are times when she has to work as much as 32 hours a week.
“Our students that are most successful are the ones that do have good time management skills, and they understand the time commitment outside of work, so they try to make sure that they identify those times to study and get their work done,” Blouin said.
According to Blouin students find themselves overwhelmed when they do not understand the time commitments between work and school which may cause them to over commit.
As LBCC enters the Summer and Fall semesters the counseling department is available to advise students on the right amount of units to take for a balanced schedule.
Correction – A correction was made to properly describe a winner’s ethnicity, and a correction was made to clarify the headline.
Honoring the 2019 Jacaranda Essay Contest and The Donald Drury Award in Creative Writing winners, over 40 attendees gathered in the P building on May 16th thanks to the efforts of the Long Beach City College English Department and the Long Beach City College Foundation.
Complimentary pizza and pastries were offered in the English lounge to all who celebrated the winners.
The Jacaranda Essay Contest is comprised of top LBCC student-written essays in literature and composition, with essay style categories of expository, persuasive, and literary analysis.
The Donald Drury Award, awarded to students that write exemplary works of fiction or poetry, was created in the memory of a LBCC professor who died in 1989.
Kicking off the reception, a round of applause and a “thank you” were given to professors and administrators who helped judge the competitions.
Along with LBCC president Reagan Romali, Matt McGaw, Kathleen Scott, Lee Douglas, Brian Garcia, Debbie Whitaker, Beatrice Villa, Jennifer Kehret, Adira Edmund, Kathryn McMurray, and Daren Smoley participated in judging the entries for the Jacaranda Essay Contest, which was chaired by Allison Murray.
For the Drury Award, where Natalie Burgess served as chair, Jason Casem, Anthony Starros, and Jeff Douglas served as judges.
While originality was a key component that all of the winning entries had in common, according to Murray, the Jacaranda essays needed to have academic rigor and intellectual inquiry.
On the other hand, Burgess stated that the Drury Award writings should be creative, polished, and stand out from the rest in order to be true contenders for these awards.
The winners each received a monetary prize from the Long Beach City College Foundation ranging from $100 to $250.
Laura Wheeler announced the Jacaranda Essay Contest winners and read an excerpt from each prize-winning essay to the audience.
Emily Thompson, persuasive winner, wrote a piece called “Wonder Woman: An Idealized Tale of Female Sexual Curiosity”.
Roxanne Ebbat was the persuasive honorable mention recipient for her essay “Nourishing the Body and Spirit”.
In the essay, Ebbat reflected on her childhood growing up as an American of Philippine decent and used those memories to help explore the unhealthy relationships that people share with unnaturally healthy foods.
Ebbat took an English 3 class where she learned about food and how it is marketed and grown.
“My grandma was my first teacher. She taught me how to read, write, and eat. My first memory was her feeding me a spoonful of rice,” Ebbat said.
“The doctor said my grandma is going to outlive me and my sister because of the natural and healthy foods she eats.”
Next, Wheeler presented the expository winners as, John Arceno for his essay “Not a Real College: The Stigma of Community Colleges and the Role Society and School Districts Play in Perpetuating Negative Stereotypes Surrounding Junior Colleges” and the honorable mention essay titled “Let the Past Die: Killing the Gender Binary” by Yasmin Thompson.
When the time came to acknowledge the literature category, Wheeler made it a point to state that both essays were intricate, thoroughly researched and analyzed, and because of this they were both the winners.
Timothy J. Potter wrote “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A View to Britain’s Obscure Celtic Past.”
The poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” whose author is unknown, is what many consider to be a masterpiece of Middle English and Arthurian literature.
“I can see myself suggesting Potter’s piece to my classes so they can better understand this poem,” said Wheeler.
The second winning essay “The Nineteenth Century Romantics’ Influence on the Future of Civilization in Blade Runner” was written by Vuthy Huot.
Wheeler described Huot to have the glorious ability to analyze specific detail in a film.
The Drury Award winners were next to receive their certificates and prizes.
Burgess found it to be more impactful to have the winners come up to the podium and read their own pieces.
Before Kimberly Esslinger read her Drury Award winning collection of poems she made it a point to “shout out” Professor Jeff Epley.
The final Drury Award given went to Damon Vincent Moore II for his fiction story called “Here, Your Auntie’s Tears.”
“Here, Your Auntie’s Tears” is about an aunt going through a chain of heart wrenching and disappointing events with her son, who she ultimately has to watch get arrested.
Many audience members were moved to tears once Moore was finished reading his story.
“I teared up because Damon has been a student of mine for some time and just getting to see a student read his work, and to know how deeply vested he was in it, is a great thing to watch,” Burgess said.
The winning entries can be read online at https://www.lbcc.edu/jacaranda-essay-contest and https://www.lbcc.edu/donald-drury-award.
Having a strong resume and a confident interview that will prepare our future K-12 teachers for entering the workforce was the main focus of workshops hosted by the Future Teachers Club at Long Beach City College on May 3.
As part of the LB College Promise Educational Pathway, an education initiative that includes the Long Beach School District, LBCC, and California State University Long Beach, LBCC created an AA-T program for students who aspire to be a K-12 teacher.
With the help of the Future Teachers Club, guest speakers participated in the Annual Future Teachers Club Day to help students work on new techniques being applied to teaching and career exploration.
The students included were from LBCC, Jordan High School, and CSULB which helped to create a networking and mentorship environment.
Brad Pollak, from America’s small business development center network, gave the students tips on what should be included in their interviews and resumes when applying for a teaching job.
Coordinator for the Future Teachers Club Day Megan Klapinsky shed some light on how important this program is for future teachers.
“Our goal is that once a year or more we get together the Jordan High School in Long Beach, the LBCC Future Teachers Club, and the CSULB College of Education students who all want to pursue teaching at various stages on their pathway. We’re trying to unite the institutions to make a little bit of a mentorship opportunity so students feel comfortable knowing all about the two colleges they can attend … So we’re working on that partnership for the Long Beach College promise,” Klapinsky said.
The guest speakers and counselors helped the students focus on an education plan that will work best for their individual needs and also discussed the students goals.
LBCC student Fabiola Rojas said, “It was always something I wanted to do ever since actually being in elementary school. I imagined myself being a teacher, after a few years I didn’t really embrace it at first but then I did and I figured out that’s actually what I wanted to do.”
Students had the opportunity to network during the provided lunch following the first workshop.
The Faculty Association of California Community Colleges gave a vote of no confidence in Eloy Oakley during his ongoing tenure as chancellor of California Community Colleges which is the governing body of California’s community college system.
Oakley, the former superintendent-president of LBCC from 2007 to 2016 was appointed as chancellor to the CCC in 2016.
The vote took place during the FACCC board of governors meeting on May 10 in Burbank and is based primarily around the idea that the office of the chancellor doesn’t consult faculty organizations enough when proposing and implementing new policies and procedures for the community colleges in California.
One of the most often cited examples of the lapse in communication between faculty groups and Oakley’s office is the proposal and budget allocation for the new community college funding formula, which will now allocate state funds to community colleges based on student completion, as opposed to the old formula that granted funds based on student enrollment.
According to the executive director of FACCC, Evan Hawkins, the funding formula will hurt the success rates of some students, endanger the jobs of many state community college faculty members, and incentive colleges to push students on educational paths that they may not need.
“It creates a system of winners and losers,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins also mentioned that the process to get the funding formula passed went through with little consultation from FACCC.
“These are major changes to our system and from our perspective, we only were made aware of it during the state budgeting process,” Hawkins said.
“It was completely inappropriate … If we had been apart of the process from earlier on, we could have avoided many of the problems that we are having with the new funding formula.”
David Morse, an LBCC English professor and former Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) president, says that the ASCCC has always been against a funding formula that is based on performance, partially because it can encourage bad behavior in terms of lowering standards to meet funding requirements.
Morse also says that there is no evidence that shows that the performance based funding formulas improve a college’s overall performance.
“In 2011, I spent a year as a member of a student success task force, that was created by the legislature to look at performance based funding, and then broadened out to look at student success in general, so we spent a year meeting with various constituent groups from all over the state,” Morse said.
“We heard from people from states that had performance based funding, in Ohio and Washington, and a couple of others, and they told us that they could give us no evidence that it had improved their outcomes, by connecting funding to performance.”
“And so that group, in 2011, came to the conclusion that we were not going to recommend going to performance based funding because there was no evidence that it would provide any benefit,” Morse said.
The other example of the breakdown of the shared governance system in this scenario is the newly implemented statewide online college system, which is set to go begin teaching students this fall.
FACCC and other faculty advocacy groups say that the statewide online system is redundant because all the community colleges in California have online classes in place, and that the online system would put part-time faculty at risk of losing their jobs.
Morse also says that another issue that advocacy groups have with the chancellor’s office pushing through the statewide online college is that the administration for the college isn’t being hired based in compliance with the California Department of Education Code of Regulations.
Morse refers to the hiring of Heather Hiles as the CEO for the new online college.
“They start planning and hiring for this before they even have any faculty in place. Title V of the education code says that decisions made about educational programs must involve consultation with the academic senate,” Morse said.
“The online college has no academic senate to consult with, and they’re still making decisions.”
“They’ve gone ahead and hired a chief executive officer, who is getting paid an ungodly amount for that position, with again, who was the input for hiring that person,” said Morse, “That person then gave out some of the positions of her upper administrators, kind of giving out contracts to people she knew, with no competitive or real interview process.”
Morse also points out that without faculty in place the deadline to have classes in place by this fall might be a problem.
“They want to start offering classes this fall. They don’t have a faculty, they don’t have a curriculum, and they’re doing it without the experts,” Morse said.
Another issue raised by Morse about Oakley’s office pushing through the online college system is that he believes that to Oakley it’s less about having a statewide online system, and more about having a college system that falls outside of the regulatory constraints that are in place for the actual community colleges.
“I remember him (Oakley) saying several years ago, ‘We need to worry about serving the students right in front of us, instead of worrying about serving students all over the world.’”
Morse said, “I don’t think it was ever about online education for Eloy.”
“California community colleges are about the most regulated system that you can find. We have a lot of laws telling us how we can do this, how we can do that … How we can spend our money, like the 50% law. It’s a hugely regulated system.”
“I think what Eloy wanted was a sandbox to play in that maybe was a whole new thing that he could argue could operate outside all of those rules, that we could experiment… in ways he wanted to, but never could. He was a chief business officer and most chief business officers hate the ways the state tells them they have to spend their categorical funds,” Morse said.
Morse then pointed out that he and Oakley have worked together for a long time, and that he was very supportive of Oakley and his policies when he was leading LBCC, but he also acknowledges that he doesn’t feel that Oakley consults with faculty groups at the state level in the same capacity that he did when he was head of LBCC.
“I felt that he did include faculty voices in the decision making, with a few exceptions, but by and large I did think he was respectful of the consultation process with the faculty and the college as a whole,” Morse said.
“He was cooperating, he was talking, but since he has gotten to the Chancellor’s office, it has been a disappointment for me. I’ve seen him operate. He knows the right ways to do things, but that’s not what we’re getting now.”
When the Viking News reached out to the chancellor’s office for comment, Paul Feist, the vice chancellor for communications and marketing said in a statement that the chancellor’s office is committed to working with faculty groups on the new policies and initiatives.
“We recognize that the pace and scale of change we are pursuing to enhance student success is sometimes challenging to college faculty, but it is vital to the future of the more than 2 million students who attend our institutions. The Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges calls upon faculty groups to continue to share their views with the Chancellor’s Office through the extensive and longstanding statewide participatory governance process,” Fiest said in the statement.
At the time of writing this article, LBCC administration officials were not available for comment.
As Long Beach City College nears the end of the Spring 2019 semester the motivation of students once felt for learning and school spirit here is beginning to dwindle as the days go on.
Students tell the Viking News that they are finding it harder to show up to campus during the week because of all the stress put on by final projects and tests that can culminate during this time in the semester.
What many students are experiencing is that there is no school spirit radiating from students to actually attend events and support the clubs that are meant for them.
It isn’t difficult to find some sort of event happening for the students on both LAC or PCC, in the middle of the day.
If you go on the school’s website, you can browse all of events such as the Science and Engineering Club Tamale lunch, and the Memorial day barbecue that is still to come.
Loud music is played, food is on sale, games can be played, yet it always seems as if there is no one to put this on for.
The same goes for sporting events that happen on campus.
According to the Viking Athletics website, there has been several low attended games for many of LBCC’s sports such as men’s basketball, men’s volleyball, and women’s water-polo.
After speaking with some students on campus, they admit that the events don’t really affect their mood or how they feel about were they are in the semester at all.
There are a few solutions, though, such as doing surveys for events that the students will actually want to see happen on campus and the ones they’ll want to partake in.
Other community colleges like Cerritos College are experiencing a very similar situation, in where it is becoming increasingly difficult to up attendance to school events.
According to Kathy Azzam, student body president of Cerritos College, returning students typically don’t have spirit once they return for following semesters.
Azzam also mentions that school spirit boils down to the students themselves and if they really care about the events going on around them.
Other universities such as Cal State Long Beach, ASB members go around in person and collect data on what students would want to see as far as entertainment on campus. They physically reach out to the students in person and ask what or “who” they want to see for upcoming events.
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