Corsair
Synapse Dance
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The Santa Monica College Newspaper
Volume XCIX, Issue 9
www.thecorsaironline.com
Informing Since 1929
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Black Student Conference calls for unity at SMC By John Stapleton IV Staff Writer
This year’s conference was titled “Umoja: Building a Community of Unity.” Last Saturday, students from According to the event program, throughout southern California the purpose of the annual met in the Santa Monica College conference is three-fold: To cafeteria to celebrate the fifth identify potential cultural barriers, annual Black Student Conference. to identify alternative strategies The Pan-Africa Support Group of for black students to overcome SMC sponsored the event, with those barriers and to “develop an help from the Associated Students awareness of the need to contribute and the Black Collegians Program. to the support and encouragement
of others.” This year’s schedule listed activities from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., and included breakfast, guest speakers, workshops, and lunch. The event would conclude with what organizers called their “signature” forums: two simultaneous townhall-styled sessions, during which men and women separate into adjacent lecture halls to engage in spirited public debate.
Guest speaker Elaine Brown commenced the activities over breakfast, delivering a speech to invigorate the attending students. The students could then choose two of the four available workshops to attend over the following hours. While few in number, the workshop topics were grand in scope, focusing on AfricanAmerican history, spoken word poetry, a documentary produced
by a participant of the 1969 Cornell University racial protest, and a lesson on utilizing wise investment techniques to stabilize the financial situation of the black community. After the workshops, participating students enjoyed free In-N-Out burgers, while members of the SMC faculty and student government delivered speeches and raffle prizes.
See ‘Conference’ on page 4
Malibu greenlights SMC satellite campus
Game, set, match for Lady Corsairs
By Debby Vasquez Arts Canvas Editor
Lady Corsairs’ tennis team advances to Southern California Finals
See page 12 for full story Siddhartha Abbazi Corsair
SMC tennis doubles teammates Tiana Lauritzen and Anastasia Eliseeva (back) congratulate each other after defeating Orange Coast College 6-2, 6-3 last Tuesday, April 27, 2010 at Reed Park in Santa Monica.
Santa Monica College is possibly getting a new campus. On April 20, the Malibu Public Facilities Authority authorized SMC to reach agreement with the County of Los Angeles to build a satellite campus on county-owned land in Malibu’s Civic Center. This agreement would also consent to build a new Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department substation as part of the building improvements. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors still has to approve the use of the land which would consist of 20,000 square feet for the college satellite and 5,700 square feet for the sheriff’s substation. Approval by the board is likely, with much optimism among trustees and supervisors. “The agreement has the backing from supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, the sheriff, Santa Monica College, and the City of Malibu,” said Jim Thorsen, city manager. “I am very hopeful the County Board of
See ‘Malibu’ on page 4
SMC celebrates Earth Week’s 40th Anniversary By Alica Forneret Staff Writer
22, the sun peeked through the clouds and the Eco-Action Club, in collaboration with AS, celebrated It is a rare occurrence when the the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. Eco-Action Club, Club Grow and Roughly 450 students were in the Center for Environmental and attendance. Urban Studies hope for no rain, but “Any student is going to walk as it began to drizzle the afternoon toward free food, but I think once before Earth Day, Genevieve they inquired more about what the Bertone, director of sustainability event was and what activities we at the CEUS cried out, “Oh Mother had going on, we had a lot of people Nature!” with her fists clenched participate,” said Calderon. towards the sky. In 1962 Senator Gaylord Nelson, “I literally had nightmares that a United States Senator from it was going to rain, because Wisconsin, began developing it had rained the day before,” a plan to make environmental said president of the Eco-Action awareness more prevalent in the Club, Stephanie Calderon. “I political sector. He felt that the seriously did a rain dance.” government was not adequately Bertone’s bellow and Calderon’s embracing environmentalism and jig fortunately paid off. From 11 so, after seven years of planning a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday, April and a national conservation tour
with President Kennedy, Earth Day was established in 1970. SMC has also dedicated itself to the green agenda. The AS has pushed to remove water bottles from all school-related events, the Board of Trustees adopted a Zero Waste event policy, and vermiculture composting has been implemented on campus as a means of redirecting waste that would typically go into a landfill. Eco-Action Club reduced their budget proposal by 50 percent after the AS requested a decrease. The club made event t-shirts at home and cut out costly attractions like a rock wall. Once funding from AS was approved at roughly $4,500 the groups moved forward with their
See ‘Earth Day’ on Page 4
Sammy Soliman Corsair
Adreana Marmoljl and Fe Celestial handing out metal canteen bottles in the Santa Monica College Quad at the completion of the treasure hunt on Earth Day.