L
ooking Back
Looking Back at the Past
A
s another academic year comes to a close, we must say goodbye to yet another batch of students. From the inauguration of the first non-Caucasian President to the legalization and banning of same-sex marriages, from a sudden fluctuation in gas prices to huge budget cuts for education, much has happened during our short stay here. If my calculations are correct, then Foothill College is at its 52nd year now. Surely the campus must’ve seen its fair share of changes as well. To find out exactly how our school has evolved over the years, The Loop has done some research on the campus’s past. Structurally speaking, the most obvious modification to our campus is the renovated Campus Center and the addition of the Administration building and classrooms in the 8000 block, completed in 2007. As some of you may know, the main campus lies directly on top of the Monta Vista fault – meaning we’ll be the first to fall to the center of the earth and die a fiery death if there is a major earthquake. The new buildings aren’t only greener, but are also safer thanks to modern architectural designs. Oh, and did you know the “Loop” surrounding our campus used to be a two-way road until 1997? Henry Jung, our Admissions and Records Day Supervisor of three years, told me “due to the huge number of auto accidents involving people driving in the wrong direction, [the school] decided one-way is safer.” And I’ve got to say, with almost every student driving their own cars to school nowadays, if traffic was still both ways, we’d be spending more time stuck waiting for tow trucks than driving home.
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by Jason Chung
Every succeeding generation is bound to be different from the previous one, so to keep up with the times, our administration altered many of its policies to cater to new demands. For example, when instructors began worrying about fairness as some students suffered whole grade point drops just because their work was slightly shy of earning an A, administrators agreed to implement a “+/-” scale to better reflect our achievements starting the Fall of 2008. Aside from emotional trauma, the tragic events of 9/11 took its toll on Foothill in terms of the classes offered as well. Due to the subsequent step-up in security, our once unique, Federal Aviation Administration-accredited Aviation Program had to be shut down as a precaution. Time was, we actually had a flight simulator at the Middlefield campus which only charged a small fee to help students earn their pilot’s licenses. As for the student body, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that today’s population cannot be more different from yesteryear’s. It’s hard not to fall in love with the latest gadgets when we’re so close to some of the most innovative tech leaders in the world. Whenever Apple or Google comes out with a new product or service, our community is usually the first to get our hands on them. As a result, we’ve become highly tech-dependent. In case you haven’t picked it up from my tone, this is a bad phenomenon. Our Media Center Day Supervisor Linda Robinson testifies over her 32 years of services in the FHDA District, “It’s a huge change. When we first started, papers had to be typed on actual type-writers or