ONLINE EXCLUSIVE:
Extended Q&A with Robert Uphoff, basketball coach
NIO U N
FEATURES: UNION HOLIDAY EDITION, Pages 7-12
EL CAMINO COLLEGE
Nov. 15, 2012
Torrance, California
EC accepts accelerated math classes for nonSTEM majors
Drawing out a little death
Thomas Schmit Staff Writer
Kyle Borden/ Union Anaron Yamamoto, business major, draws a Dia de Los Muertos skull for the anthropology club.
Members of EC’s curriculum committee voted Tuesday to accept a pair of experimental, accelerated math courses on a permanent basis, school officials said. The courses are designed to help students who are not majoring in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) more effectively reach proficiency in college-transfer level math, Susan Taylor, math professor, said. “The traditional developmental math sequence we have is geared towards calculus, and toward STEM majors, so we wanted to create an alternate sequence that would be most suited for the majority of our students, who are not STEM majors,” Taylor said. According to the El Camino website, the courses, “Basic Accelerated Mathematics” and “Intermediate Algebra for Statistics” worth five and four credits respectively, essentially condense two semesters of courses into one, with a minimum of three hours of lab time and three hours of lecture a week. Educators hope that by shortening the length of time these non-
STEM majors need to reach college level proficiency in math, the rate of attrition among students in these courses can be greatly lowered, Alice Martinez, math instructor, said. “We tend to have a lot of students who test into math 12, and statistically, only 50 percent of those students continue on to the next course, and only 50 percent of those move on to the next, so you only have 25 percent then, and when only half of those move on to math 40, you basically only have 12 percent of those original students left,” Martinez said. Those numbers quickly add up, as despite the large number of students testing into math 12 classes, only 4 percent of students in those classes actually reach transfer level math courses within two years, Martinez said. “With accelerated classes, you’d think students would do worse, but we’ve found that they actually do much better, since they get more done at once,” Martinez added. In addition to shortening the time it takes students to reach a college level of proficiency in math, the courses have another benefit, Taylor said. “Not only is it in half the time,
the preparation for statistics is a better preparation for most students, since that’s the math that most non-STEM majors take,” Taylor said. However, some students, like Spencer Tanaka, 19, pre-engineering major, have doubts about the new courses’ effectiveness. “It might be a good opportunity for students to finish faster, but if they are struggling then it will be a whole lot tougher on them. If a class goes faster to cover all the materials and student cannot keep up then they’ll just end up even further behind, and might have to repeat the class anyways,” Tanaka said. Of course, other students, like Frankie Villanueva, 21, music major, are more confident that the classes are an improvement over traditional math classes. “It’s good because it means skipping classes that I already did in high school.” Villanueva said. “In terms of being able to handle the accelerated math class, if I sign up for it, it means that I am ready for the amount of coursework.” “A student should know what to expect when registering for classes and they should prepare for it ahead of time,” Villanueva said.
New schedules for Torrance Transit buses Sam Tedla
Staff Writer
Not serving El Camino students the way it would have liked to, Torrance Transit has made changes to its routes and bus schedule, which will take effect on Sunday, a Torrance City Official said. “I think it’s really going to change the way El Camino students really think about transit and get to school because that was a big issue for us,” Bradley Tolloson, management aid for Torrance Transit, said. “We knew that El Camino students weren’t being served as well they could’ve been. We know they need it the most because many of them are just get-
ting out of high school and they don’t have a car or maybe they’re just trying to save money to pay for books and tuition,” Tolloson said. Line 2, which many students take to reach EC, has made changes to its schedule and its last stop on the route. “We have increased the time it runs, so it now runs from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. and the difference is right now it only runs from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.,” Tolloson said. “That line does not go to downtown L.A. anymore, it goes to the Harbor Freeway Greenline Station,” Tolloson added. Line 5 will also be running later, which will allow students who take night classes a source of transportation to get home.
“The people in the night classes will finally be able to take a bus home; now they won’t have to try to find an alternative for getting home,” Kyle Ihde, psychology major, 19, said. “The biggest impact is they’ll be able to get to school and for those night classes they’ll be able to get home from school as well,” Tolloson said. Torrance Transit has created a new bus which is Line 10 that will run much more frequently than the other transit buses. “The other line we’ve created is the new line 10 which will run north and south down Crenshaw Boulevard, which will start at Crenshaw and PCH, then in route at Crenshaw Greenline Station, and it will run from 5 a.m. to 10
p.m.,” Tolloson said. The transit will continue to also to give students a discount for their bus fare. Students must show ID before paying bus driver in order to receive the discount. “I definitely think it helps because there are a lot of students on campus that can’t afford to pay $2 a day to pay for going to school every day,” Ihde said. The Torrance transit will look to make more changes so to stay on top of all changes students should go their website at www. torranceca.gov. “We encourage all students to check all our new changes, and if they go to a section called what’s new on our website they can see a laundry list of service changes,” Tolloson said.
Philip Prins/ Union Students board a bus in front of the college at the corner of Crenshaw and Redondo Beach boulevards yesterday. The Metro bus system begins a schedule on Sunday.
EC awarded $650,000 in grants for medical and allied health students needing financial aid Angela Songco Staff Writer
NEWS LINE
Nursing students who are experiencing economic hardships can be eligible to receive up to $15,000 each in federal grants, college official said. Katie Gleason, executive director of EC Foundation, said that students in the nursing program could qualify for the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grant if they meet all the guide-
By Zachary Weber
lines for it. “The grant EC received is an award of $650,000 a year for four years and is for students in the medical and allied health field,” Gleason said. “It is for those who are disadvantaged economically and environmentally,” Gleason said. “This is not only based on their income levels but also on where they live. At EC, they must also be enrolled in the nursing program and are making progress in their studies. The grant is also
available for nursing students of the EC Compton Center.” Gleason said that nursing students would automatically receive a letter about this grant once they are enrolled in the program. The letter will inform the students on what information will be required from so that the foundation can see if they qualify for it or not. “We identified our nursing program as the program that we are looking
for support for,” Gleason said. “The EC nursing program is for four semesters. In the third semester the coursework gets incredibly intense. Many of the students have to work,” Gleason said. Gleason said that to work while trying to manage that academic workload is very difficult so the nursing department has a high attrition in the third semester. Theresa Kyle, director of Nursing, said that a lot of their students struggle
because the program has a very difficult schedule and that they have a lot more inclass and hospital time than regular full-time students have. “They already have two whole days in the hospital (for clinical),” Kyle said. “Then one to two more days of lecture.” Chandra Richardson, 43, nursing major, said that her clinical could take so much of her time that the nursing department recommended that she does not work
while in the program. “I go to my clinical two days a week with eight hours each day, but then with that I also have to add four hours of clinical-related paperwork each week,” Richardson said. “In clinical, we have to look up the patients’ every single medicine, some of the patients can have as many as 21 medicines. We have to research each medicine. We also have to write a care plan for each patient. We have to do so much pa-
perwork just for clinical. Then we still need a lot of time to study. We have a lot of readings, a lot of paperwork,” Richardson said. She added that, despite having about six hours a week of worth of lecture, she also go to optional classes that can help her practice and improve her skills in the field. [See Nursing Grants, page 2]
Last day for students to receive a W is tomorrow
Last CSU workshop is next week
Undeclared workshop for Workshop on joining the students nursing program
Scholarship coordinator available after finals
The last day for students to drop a class with a W is tomorrow. Classes may be dropped by going the EC website, logging in to my ECC and clicking drop a class. Dropping a class will not affect the student’s overall GPA. Classes dropped after tomorrow will receive their current grade.
The last day to attend a CSU workshop is next Monday from 12-1:30 p.m. located in the Social Science building Room 213. This workshop will teach students how to fill out a CSU application for students who are planning on transferring to a Cal State school. For more information, contact the Transfer Center.
The Career Service center has scheduled a workshop for undeclared majors on Nov. 29 from 1-3 p.m. in the Social Service Center. This workshop is open to all students attending EC. For more information, contact the Career Services Department at ext. 6137.
These workshops are designed to assist students with the online scholarship application such as uploading unofficial transcripts, and clarification on questions related specifically to the application. The scholarship coordinator will be available at 3 p.m. on Dec. 17 to help out with scholarship applications.
The counseling department is holding a workshop for students who are interested in becoming a nurse. The workshop will be held at the ECC Distance Education Center located next to Schauerman Library. This will be taking place on Nov. 26 from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.