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In two different lawsuits filed in January and September of this year, 39 former clinical psychology PhD students are claiming that their alma mater, Pacifica Graduate Institute, knowingly misled them about one of its key accreditations, an alleged omission that the ex-students say robbed them of thousands of dollars in tuition and fees and future income. For more than 10 years, the lawsuits allege, Pacifica misrepresented its clinical psychology program’s accreditation status with the American Psychological Association (APA), which the U.S. Department of Education and the Council for Higher Education Accreditation have endorsed as a top accreditation for professional psychology programs. The former students claim that prior to and during their years at Pacifica, the school told them its program was APA certified or had accreditation pending; the school first applied for the APA stamp of approval in 2008 but was rejected. Eric Woosley, the lead attorney for the former students, said that each student discovered the issue at different times but were unable to transfer units from a non-APA school to an APA school. As a result, the lawsuits state that the students are each about $150,000 in debt — from tuition, student fees, and commuting expenses — and those who are not living in California, where APA accreditation isn’t required to get licensed, are having trouble finding work. Erik Davis, Pacifica’s director of communications, released a statement on the lawsuits: “We are proud of our standard of education and the programs we provide. We have always been forthright about our APA accreditation status, and we are confident that our clinical psychology programs provide our graduates with knowledge and skills sought after by employers across the country.” Davis also added that all of Pacifica’s programs are accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). According to Jeffrey Thomas, the assistant executive officer of the California Board of Psychology, clinical psychology graduates of schools with WASC accreditation can get licensed in California, but other states may require APA accreditation. Woosley said specific dollar amounts have not been set in the cases but that the ex-students are suing the school for the program’s expenses, loss of future earnings, and attorney’s fees. Woo— Lyz Hoffman sley said he expects more former students to join the lawsuits.
Bay Area on Sunday to watch the San Francisco 49ers play the Indianapolis Colts. At the court hearing, Semenza asked for a court-appointed attorney and delayed entering a plea until October 9. He remains in jail without bail. A Long Beach gang member who was arrested and served time in Santa Barbara County Jail after a March 2010 high-speed chase along Highway 101 was killed in a gun battle with Long Beach police Wednesday morning. Erick Balint, 32, had been sentenced in Santa Barbara Superior Court to five years and four months in state prison — he pleaded guilty at the time to a number of felony charges, including domestic violence, robbery, vehicle theft, and recklessly evading officers — and had been recently released. Police shot Balint after they responded to a domestic-violence call and he opened fire on officers, officials said.
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Leaders from different corners of Santa Barbara’s faith community gathered Friday at the Unitarian Society to sign a pledge saying they would work to reduce the carbon footprint of their individual houses of worship. The event was put on by ECOFaith, a collaboration of area religious groups that formed in 2008 after Rev. Wallace Shepherd (pictured center) of Second Baptist Church spoke with Rep. Lois Capps about align-
ing religious principles with environmental stewardship. Shepherd and the other founding members of the group — Imam Yama Niazi of the Islamic Society, John Reed of Holy Cross Church, and Dr. Ivor John, the organization’s chair — talked on Friday about spreading the “green” message not only to their congregations but also to government officials. “We’re waking the mind up of people as to why the environment is important,” Shepherd said. “The word of God says that we should be good stewards over the environment and take care of everything around us.”
COUNTY The Goleta City Council voted unanimously 10/1 to allow the developers of the Rincon Palms Hotel (proposed for the corner of Hollister Ave. and Storke Rd.) extra time to rework the project after councilmembers and dozens of Goleta residents voiced their concerns — mostly about traffic and obstructed mountain views — at a council meeting on 9/3. The developers came to Tuesday’s meeting with possible changes: decreased building elevation, building height, floor area ratio, and conference-center size (which could reduce the parking). They’re also exploring moving the building farther back from Hollister and reverting back to the original plan for a rooftop deck. The new revisions will be presented to the council at a date to be determined. Vandenberg Air Force Base had a busy week, successfully launching three rockets from its seaside facilities. At 3:33 a.m. on 9/26, it carried out the second of the launches, sending an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental missile across the Pacific Ocean to a test range in the Marshall Islands. The first launch was another Minuteman test mission on 9/22, and the third was the SpaceX show on 9/29. “It is so exciting to see our mission in action,” said Col. Brent McArthur, 30th Space Wing vice commander. cont’d page 12 “We have the potential to
PAU L WELLM AN PHOTOS
Psych Students Sue Pacifica
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SpaceX Goes West
Private Company Launches Rocket
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VAFB: Media witness the liftoff.
BY T Y L E R H AY D E N three years, the Falcon — named after Han t was one small step for commercial space Solo’s Millennium Falcon in Star Wars and for travel, but it was a giant leap for the star- its nine liquid-oxygen-burning engines — will shooting company that shuttles private be fitted with a small capsule to carry humans. satellites into orbit and is developing reus“Launch was good,” Elon Musk, SpaceX’s able rockets to put people on Mars in 10 to 20 founder, CEO, and lead engineer tweeted Sunyears. day. “All satellites deployed at the targeted orbit On Sunday morning at 9 a.m. under a per- insertion vectors.” Before the launch, Musk said fectly clear sky, Space Exploration Technolo- that he hoped to recover the Falcon ’s firstgies Corporation — better known as SpaceX stage cylinder after it dropped back to Earth, fir— launched its upgraded Falcon rocket from ing its engines to slow its descent speed to near Vandenberg Air Force Base in a “demonstra- zero before it splashed into the Pacific Ocean a tion mission” that released few hundred miles south a small Canadian research of Vandenberg. Musk gave satellite above Earth. the recovery plan a 20 percent chance of succeedBecause the launch was ing, which turned out to technically a test of the new rocket and had a 50 be a fair prediction, as the percent chance of failing, recovery system failed and the client — aerospace the equipment was lost. This time, though, the first contractor MacDonald, stage made it back through Dettwiler and Associthe atmosphere before it ates (MDA) — got a big smashed to pieces on the discount at $10 million; SpaceX normally charges water. In all other launches, $56.5 million for such it had exploded upon reenservices. tering the atmosphere. ALL SYSTEMS GO: From its new The mission was Vandenberg facility, SpaceX is Musk, who cofounded PayPal, is much of the SpaceX’s first from the scheduled to launch an Argentine Southern California base satellite next year that will monitor brains and money behind — five Falcon s have natural resources around the globe. Tesla Motors and was the inspiration for Robert taken off from its Cape Canaveral launch pad — and the Hawthorne- Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Tony Stark in the Iron based company’s manifest says it has 12 more Man movies, has repeatedly said that one of Vandenberg launches planned for the next four SpaceX’s central goals is to create reusable rockyears. SpaceX broke ground on the Vanden- ets to dramatically drive down the cost of space berg launchpad in July 2011 with a visit from travel. To that end, the company recently tested Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, who said its Grasshopper rocket, a 10-story space vehicle the venture would help reverse the downward with four spindly steel legs that rose 1,000 feet trajectory of U.S. space travel. Since then, the in the air then dropped back down to its launch company has added 50 missions to its sched- pad in a perfectly straight line. And though Sunule, representing close to $5 billion in contracts, day’s rocket wasn’t recovered, it provided engiand signed a $1.6 billion deal with NASA to fly neers a ton of usable data for the next attempt. cargo to and from the International Space Sta- “The most important thing, we believe we have tion. Now in its 11th year, SpaceX has around all the pieces of the puzzle,” Musk said during a 3,000 employees, a few hundred of whom are teleconference. Mostly, he was pleased the Falstationed at Vandenberg. con delivered on its promise. “It’s certainly a Sunday’s launch was a success, according huge relief to have successfully delivered [the to SpaceX and MDA representatives. “It was satellite] to orbit,” Musk said.“It’s been weighing an amazing flight,” John Insprucker, Falcon on me quite heavily.” product manager, said in a company webcast. Vandenberg officials said Sunday’s launch “There’s tons of data coming back. It looks was part of an ongoing process to vet SpaceX like it was a picture-perfect flight; everything to see if it’s capable of delivering a larger miliwas looking good, right down the middle of tary satellite into orbit. That market is currently the track.” Perched on the nose of the 224-foot- monopolized by United Launch Alliance, a joint tall rocket, the couch-sized MDA satellite was venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Air deployed 14 minutes into the 17,000-mph flight Force Captain Blake Turnquist, who oversaw and is beaming back data on how space storms mission flight support, said SpaceX has worked affect radio communications and GPS naviga- at a frenetic speed to get its rocket in the air tion. Four smaller research devices were also and challenged the military to keep up with its released that will measure solar flares, calculate fast and fluid pace. For the sake of competition, the drag on satellites in low orbit, and improve Turnquist said, more launch providers would be ■ GPS accuracy to the millimeter level. In two to a good thing. october 3, 2013
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