Corsair The Santa Monica College
Volume C, Issue 4
www.thecorsaironline.com
Informing Since 1929
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Fee-free health technology program launches at SMC By Adam Rubin Staff Writer
As technology becomes more and more prevalent in the workplace, more classes are being created to fit this new climate. Health information technology is an upcoming example of this: a new tuitionfree program being offered by the Santa Monica College Computer Science and Information Systems Department. All of the costs associated with the course, including books, are being funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. However, space is limited in the program, which requires an application process. “We’re really trying to recruit people with some IT or healthcare background and at this point it’s a non for credit program. But hopefully we are going to take it to the Curriculum Committee and get it to be for credit,” explained Wendy Demorst, the project manager of recruitment for the health IT program. “People go through our training program and they end with a certificate as an implementation manager or a trainer,” Demorst added. A health IT trainer is someone who trains people how to use electronic health care records. A health IT project manager is someone who would “go out to the small clinics and doctors offices and oversee the whole installation process and implementation of electronic health records,” Demorst added. This means that doctor’s offices and hospitals are moving from paper files to an electronic health
[See IT, page 3]
Albany Katz Corsair Festival goers enjoy one of the twenty original art installations displayed at “Glow” in Santa Monica last Sunday. The dusk to dawn art festival featured acrobatic performances, glow in the dark paint and a mountain of soap bubbles spewing from the top of lifeguard towers. [See Glow, page 6]
Decision delayed again over student organizing fee By Ariana Masters Staff Writer For the second consecutive week, Santa Monica College’s Associated Students Board of Directors has postponed voting upon the student organizing fee of $1.50. Having run an online ballot to determine whether or not to establish a permanent student organizing fee of $1.50 per term
for the purpose of providing funds to organize students on issues of importance, the Board remains divided as to whether this fee will be implemented. Sixty two percent of voters who responded to the online poll (initiated in May of this year) approved of the fee increase. Should the AS sway with the collective majority, the fee will go to fund such programs as the Student Leadership Academy
and CALPIRG. Max Morgan, the 2008-09 SMC Chemistry Club president and former member of the Constitution Committee and Great Appeals Committee, said, “I think that they rushed it. Nobody really looked at what $76,000 would do to the AS budget.” Current AS President Tiffany Inabu, believes that the only reason this year’s board is considering a fee withdrawal is
dissimilarity between student’s thoughts and the proceedings of the Board. She said that although this topic needs to be voted on, “we had to postpone it till next week. We will discuss it then.” Responding to these recent events, previous AS president Cameron Henton said that during his time in office CALPIRG was fully funded for an entire year while they achieved all [See AS, page 3]
Weighty issues, a burden of our environment In a lecture at SMC, Dr. Deborah Cohen elaborated upon the environmental pressures and subversive marketing strategies that inflate the nation’s obesity rate. By Zuliema Alvarado Staff Writer Obesity is becoming increasingly prevalent in today’s society. People are choosing coke instead of water, chips instead of fruit and video games instead of exercise, all of which are affecting our health in a big, fat way. If someone is overweight, should they be the
ones to blame for lacking will power? Are we in control of what we eat, or is it all an illusion? On Tuesday Sept. 21, Dr. Deborah Cohen, a senior natural scientist at the RAND Corporation, who is board-certified in public health and preventative medicine, held a lecture at Santa Monica College explaining the effects of the environment on our health. The lecture, entitled, “How the Environment Causes Obesity and What We Can Do About It,” covered multiple ways in which we can take action to prevent obesity and the fundamental components of why so many people are obese. Cohen started the lecture by explaining that everyone is
affected by obesity. Whether are most healthy? “We think that you’re rich or poor, young or old, obesity is initially self-control obesity is a common problem or not having knowledge, but that keeps growing and growing. that has nothing to do with the “Everyone problem,” Cohen is being explained - eating affected and It may not be apparent is an automatic what’s really but our brain has limited behavior. s u r p r i s i n g capacity to think about According to is that even more than one thing at a Cohen, the main e x p e r t s time. problem with in weight obesity is our control have environment. Food problems with their weight,” advertisements, junk food that is Cohen said, followed by an uproar relatively less expensive and large of laughter throughout the room. portions constantly surrounds As funny as it sounds, this us. If we see food, our brain is is no joke. But why are health automatically triggered to want professionals being affected? to eat. She explained that seeing Shouldn’t they be the ones who convenience foods creates desire.
Dopamine, a neuron-hormone that is a powerful motivator, is automatically secreted in response to food cues. For example, an experiment was conducted to see what happens when you put a jar of candy on a secretary’s desk. An opaque jar, where the candy can’t be seen, was placed on a desk. In another case a clear jar, where the candy was seen, was placed on another desk. According to Cohen, the secretaries with the clear jar ate 46 percent more as opposed to the opaque jar. This is an example of desire and convenience. When visiting a supermarket, we don’t realize that the fatty
[See Lecture, page 3]