Colle ollegian
EYE IN THE SKY
LACC
WEATHER FORECAST WEDNESDAY
71/57
THURSDAY
73/57
FRIDAY
80/60
SATURDAY
85/62
SUNDAY
88/64
MONDAY
87/62
TUESDAY
87/63
Los Angeles
May "the Drones" be with you in a near future
The Voice of Los Angeles City College Since 1929
Wednesday, May 7, 2014 Volume 172 Number 5
DREAM DEFERRED: Decades Later Dreams Come True
NEWS BRIEFS
Agreement Provides Easier Access to California’s Law Schools Twenty-four California community colleges, including LACC, are part of the “Pathway to Law School Initiative” thanks to an agreement signed by Chancellor Brice W. Harris with six California law schools on May 1. The initiative will provide better opportunities in the legal profession for students, especially minorities, by making sure they complete transferrable courses along with other requirements. The program is sponsored by the State Bar of California’s Council on Access and Fairness.
Mock Interview Sessions Sharpen Job Interview Skills Next week students will have the opportunity to engage in 10-minute question and answer sessions to practice for job interviews. The event prepared by the Career and Job Development Center will be held on May 12, from 5 to 6 p.m. in AD 109. Students will be asked a series of the most popular interview questions and learn how to best answer them.
Communication Studies Student Receives Trophy Marlon Monico earned the second place trophy at the Pacific South Coast Forensics Cool-off Tournament. The prize was for extemporaneous speaking where Monico had to prepare seven-minute speeches in a half hour.
An incident involving a photo and racial insensitivity on the part of an LACC professor took decades to resolve for one student. After a chance meeting, a department chair decided to address the issue at the Academic Senate with the student.
Trae Triplett /COLLEGIAN Henry Walton adresses the LACC Academic Senate in late March.
By Clinton Cameron Daniel Marlos may not want to admit it, but for the past two years, the LACC Media Arts Department Chair has been on a one-man crusade to correct a past wrong. The first step to turning his vision into a reality was introducing a resolution to the Los Angeles City College Academic Senate to award photographer Henry Walton an honorary degree. Walton’s academic journey began at LACC in 1958, but was cut short after he says a photography instructor discouraged him from taking pictures of people with dark skin. “Henry took a photograph of a young black coed and when he turned the work in to his instructor he was told that the work was unacceptable, because film wasn’t designed to photograph dark skin tones,” Marlos told an audience of more than 50 Senate members and guests at the LACC Faculty Staff Center in March.
According to Marlos, Walton stopped attending class and as a result received a non-passing grade. Despite the setback, he continued to practice photography, placing his formal classroom education on hold for many years. During the height of the civil rights struggle, he photographed the everyday lives of people living in Watts. In 2012, Walton’s candid shots of women, children, the Black Panthers and the lesser-known Sons of Watts were on exhibit at Il Tramezzino, a restaurant on UCLA’s campus. This is where he met Daniel Marlos. After hearing his story, the department chair encouraged Walton to retake the photography class and eventually asked him to speak on his own behalf to be recognized for an honorary degree. During the meeting in late March, Walton spoke about how the incident at LACC during the late ’50s affected his views on education. “I saw professors as being, you know, kind of super people,” Walton said. “These were people
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SEE DREAM DEFERRED PAGE 6
By Clinton Cameron
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n invitation to “Cutting up Bigotry” came with a request to bring your own scissors. The Da Vinci Hall classroom was the ideal setting for a collage workshop. Large drawing tables, plenty of walking space and well lit, the room was accessible for students to easily get their hands on hundreds of publications piled up in the classroom. There were barely enough scissors for the more than 40 participants in the workshop hosted by Deborah Lawrence, an adjunct professor at Seattle University. Lawrence has a bachelor’s degree in painting from U.C. Riverside and a master’s of fine art and painting from Claremont Graduate University. More than twodozen residence and 28 solo exhibitions dating back to 1986 are on her resume. Her book, “Dee Dee Does Utopia,” includes 44-pages, most of which present her original collages. The book is the result of her cutting up bigotry and making other political statements. Professor Carol Steinberg teaches Drawing I on Tuesday nights, and for once she welcomed the idea of students cutting up in her class. “I’ve been here for 20 years. This is the first time I’ve ever done this,” Steinberg said. “I just thought, ‘Why not?’ you know, it’s something different.” Bringing Lawrence to L.A. City College’s campus was the brainchild of Laurel Paley, an art and graphic design professor at LACC. The event coincided with LACC’s Book Program theme, “1984.” Paley’s introduction of Lawrence connected her presentation to the larger political discussion at LACC. “Politics is coming back into our discourse at this college. We’ve actually had a lot of political activity among students on campus,” Paley said. “So, it’s a very good time for us to take a look at how we want our art to be speaking not just visually, not just esthetically, but also politically.” During her presentation, Lawrence encouraged the class to use “Cutting up Bigotry” as a springboard for any political ideas that could be cut from magazines. “Basically, what we will be doing is choosing a social or a political theme about which we care very passionately,” Lawrence said. “For some people it might be the environment. It could be very specific.”
Middle school students participated in the Career Technical Education Spring Boot Camp during spring break at LACC. The boot camp helped young students explore career opportunities in the theatre industry. At the end of this program, students prepared a play called "Story of the Stars." To view the behind the scenes video of this program, scan the QR code, or follow the link below. youtu.be/H-CYC4aObG8
Opinion & Editorial Campus Life News Features Scholarships Sports Armenian Genocide
who had that information; that knowledge that I needed, and they were here to dispense it.” Dean of Academic Affairs Allison Jones says she supports Marlos’ efforts. “He deserves to get an honorary A.A. degree,” Jones said. “He seems not to have any bitterness. He really has moved on with his life and turned it into something positive.” The lives and education of Japanese-American students were disrupted during their internment in Manzanar Concentration Camp in World War II. In 2010, they were recognized for their prewar educational efforts. L.A. City College administration conferred honorary degrees upon the formerly detained alumni at the 2010 graduation ceremony. Jones says she sees a connection between the pursuit of an honorary degree for Walton and the degrees conferred upon the Japanese-Americans. “Certainly, this is to me in the same light as that,” Jones said. “I think it’s very fitting. We did it for that group of students, we should be doing it for Mr. Walton as well.” Marlos says he views the moral issue of Walton’s mistreatment as equal to those who were interred. When looking at the connection between the two however, he says there is a difference that presents a challenge for him in his efforts to gain future support. “This is a singular issue,” Marlos said. “There is not a statewide initiative to look at people that were perhaps wronged because of being black in the years immediately surrounding the civil rights activities that were going on. It’s just here at City College.” The timing for Walton’s recognition coincides with the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. “I just thought it was a really nice opportunity to tie Henry’s personal struggles with civil rights and his personal documentation of the Civil Rights Movement as well as to honor him with a degree that he should have earned many years ago,” Marlos said. Librarian Rosalind Goddard represents the Academic Senate for the Martin Luther King Jr. Library. Goddard witnessed many of the struggles faced by African-Americans during the civil rights era. “Mr. Walton’s experience mirrors and matches
Collage Workshop Cuts Into Politics
Middle Schoolers Explore Theatre Careers in Behind the Scenes Video
INDEX
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Honor Student First at City to be Awarded Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship By Krystle Mitchell Three thousand seven hundred and five students nationwide applied for the Jack Kent Cooke scholarship this year and City College’s John Niroula is one of the 85 undergraduate transferring students chosen for the award. College President Reneé Martinez and LACC Foundation Executive Director Robert Schwartz presented the scholarship to Niroula who was unaware that he had been selected for the award. “When [Schwartz] first called me, it didn’t sound anything special,” Niroula said. “It was just like it’s a surprise and it’s a good thing. That’s all he said and that’s all I knew about it. … It’s almost 90K, you know, so that’s great.” Niroula is the first LACC student since the scholarship was established following Jack Cooke’s death in 1987 to receive the award. The scholarship provides up to $30,000 per year for up to three years depending on the financial aid package that is awarded by the school to which the student is transferring. “I was so excited all weekend just thinking about what his reaction would be, because this is truly the best scholarships you can get,” Martinez said. “To know that in two to three years, he could get his bachelor’s, his master’s degree … is something that you dream about that students would get.” Currently, Niroula is a tutor for the STEM Academy, a guidance program for science students. He also presented his research paper “The Spitzer Space Telescope: Groundbreaking Discoveries and Innovative Design” at the Bay Honors Consortium Research Symposium at UC Berkeley on May 3. He says he is planning to double major in math and physics upon transferring. “I’m so happy for him,” said Vin Lee, a math professor at City. “It’s great to see he got some recognition. He was a student of mine also and I know he’s brilliant and very, very hard working and loves mathematics and physics.”
Make Hay While the Sun Shines: Summer Session is a Go By Lorenzo Quintana More than 130 classes in subjects ranging from theater to communications are being offered by the college for this year’s summer session. These are high-demand classes, such as basic skills and transferable classes, and are limited to 40 students each. The condensed courses may benefit new students wanting a head start on units and students attending four-year universities who need one or two classes over the summer at a lower price. Computer science major Dray Collett says he only needs two classes to graduate and rather than wait until fall, he has decided to take the classes this summer.
Dave Martin /COLLEGIAN
SEE WORKSHOPS PAGE 6
SEE SUMMER SESSION PAGE 6