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ccclarion.com VOL LXXV • Issue 6
November 2, 2021
Spirits haunt campus
Citrus custodians and a paranormal history professor share their strangest encounters around campus BY LUCY ARGAEZ
EDITOR- IN - CHIEF
LARGAEZ@CCCLARION.COM
As Halloween ends and Dia de Los Muertos approaches, it has become evident that Citrus is no stranger to paranormal activity. History professor Bruce Solheim, who has had paranormal experiences and teaches a paranormal history class, has witnessed ghost activity at Citrus. Solheim has also published a number of paranormal books such as his “Timeless” trilogy, “Snarc” comic series and “Anzar the Progenitor.”
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“Citrus is a very haunted campus, there are a lot of things going on at night,” Solheim said. “During the day we don’t really notice it because there are so many people, but at night when you are alone then you start seeing shadow figures, hearing things, there are all kinds of things going on.” Solheim mentioned several locations around campus where he and the custodial night staff had experienced strange activity. “I think for most people the paranormal is normal, but they are taught that it is not,” Solheim said.
Faculty petition for vax mandate
Solheim has led paranormal investigations around campus during his paranormal history class at Citrus and says they discovered that multiple spirits reside on campus, including the ghost of a former custodian named Ed. Custodian Supervisor Larry Franks said “I have had guys come up to me and talk to me about the things they have seen, some have even shown me photos and videos of things they saw.” Custodial employee David Vazquez said that his experiences have been mostly limited to where he has worked.
STAFF REPORT
A group of Citrus College faculty delivered a petition to Superintendent/President Greg Schulz on Oct. 26 asking for Citrus College to implement a vaccine mandate for all students, faculty and staff on campus by the spring 2022 semester. The petition was started on change.org by political science professor and Citrus College Faculty Association Treasurer Gerhard Peters. As of Oct. 29, it has been signed by 62% of fulltime faculty, Peters said in an email to administration. Peters first made the Board of Trustees aware of the petition at its Oct. 5 meeting, where he addressed the board. Peters started the petition because numerous faculty in the social and behavioral sciences division reached out to him because they were concerned about the conditions of their classrooms without social distancing and a limited capacity
was playing with the vacuum hose because of the way it was moving. After 10 minutes of watching the vacuum move, he said he built up the courage to put it away. Vazquez said that two weeks after that had happened, he was vacuuming in a classroom when his vacuum repeatedly turned off while being plugged in. “I was kind of like, ‘oh, this place is haunted, but there isn’t anything I can do about it,’” he said. Vazquez also said he has video evidence of a spirit moving the
Read Scary, Page 2
Accreditation team pleased after site visit
STAFF REPORT
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JUSTIN GEORGE/CLARION
62% of full-time faculty support mandatory vaccines by the start of spring CONTACT@CCCLARION.COM
P1 Building “It started off kind of weird,” Vazquez said. One night while cleaning, a water bottle that Vazquez put on a table fell over. He placed the water bottle back on the table, but did not realize that it would only be the beginning of strange activities in that room. “A couple weeks later I put my vacuum backpack on the same table and then I was walking away from it and I turned around, I don’t know why, but I did and the vacuum hose started swinging kind of crazy,” Vazquez said. He said it looked like a ghost
for long periods of time. Although most of the faculty is vaccinated, according to Peters, the CDC says that anyone can contract the virus and pass it along whether they have symptoms or not. Peters was informed of many “faculty having children too young to be vaccinated,” he wrote. “Some have pre-existing medical conditions that put them at heightened risk, even if vaccinated. Some live with spouses or other extended family members with compromised immune systems.” Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in early October that vaccines would be mandated at all K-12 schools. California State University and University of California campuses have also mandated COVID-19 vaccines for students on campus. “Citrus is an outlier,” Peters said. “Instead unvaccinated students can opt to take a weekly antigen test which is notoriously less reliable than PCR (polymerase
chain reaction) tests.” A COVID-19 antigen test is the nasal test that detects certain proteins of the virus with results in minutes. A PCR test is the most reliable and accurate COVID-19 test which detects genetic material of the virus. The Citrus campus is not the same without the hustle and bustle of trying to find parking and interacting with professors in class lectures, Peters said. “Faculty wants to teach again on campus,” Peters said. “Online Zoom classes have been less than ideal, and so many of us crave the opportunity to teach again in-person. But we insist that the college administration take the necessary steps to promote health safety.” In collaboration with dozens of faculty in trying to initiate this mandate, Peters said the whole process took less than two weeks to organize. Many faculty are in support of
Read Vax, Page 2
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Citrus College’s virtual accreditation visit on Oct. 12 and 13 went well, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Accreditation Liaison Officer Joumana McGowan said. The next step in the accreditation process is for the visiting team to share its draft team report, which the college will check for factual errors before the team completes its final report. The visit was conducted using a new process, which only requires five of the 12 visiting team members to be present during the site visit. Citrus is the “guinea pig” for the process, McGowan said. “The general reaction for the
visiting team was a positive one,” McGowan said in an email. The visiting team verified the college’s program review and student learning outcome assessments and commended the college for piloting the new review process, McGowan said. The site visit was conducted over Zoom across three meetings: welcome and introduction, open forum and an exit report. The team reported their general findings during the exit report, but specific feedback will not be known until a team report is finalized. Any commendations, compliance issues and/ or recommendations for improvement will be included in the team’s final report, McGowan said.
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ASCC decorates ofrenda for Día de los Muertos Page 2
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