Investigating the ongoing genocide
What’s inside the sweets See page 9
See page 6
VOLUME 12
ISSUE 5
February 2007
Springing forward soon
Photo by Cody Turk
New art
Sharon Coward Reporter
Americans have been observing the tenets of Daylight Saving Time since 1966. Fall back an hour, Spring ahead an hour. Simple stuff. Don't look now, but it's about to get a lot more complicated. Two years ago, the U.S. government shifted DST three weeks up in the name of energy conservation. That means that instead of springing ahead on the first week of April, clocks should read an hour later by March 11, 2007. This is the first year this policy, called the Energy Policy Act of 2005, goes into effect. “Basically, what happened was, in 2005, the president signed a bill for energy conservation, which is why the daylight savings time is starting three weeks earlier and ending three weeks later,” says Donald Sanford, Pierce College's IT System Specialist III. What does this mean for you? If you have a computer, it means a lot. Your computer is set to automatically update to DST times. The problem is, they're set to update to the old DST times. So for three weeks, your schedule will be behind for one hour. “It's going to affect the personal computers, because…when daylight savings...hits March 11, your clock's not going to automatically adjust,” says Sanford. Microsoft currently has a fix for Windows operating systems. It is an update, available for no charge on their website. “Installing this update enables your computer to automatically adjust the computer clock (to) the correct date,” says the Microsoft website. Try going to the Microsoft updates webpage, however, and you might get a little confused. Sanford explains Microsoft updates: See Daylight on page 17
SERVING THE STUDENTS OF PIERCE COLLEGE PUYALLUP
Tele-Lobby to do something
The installation ofCody Turk Photo Editor After Image by Linda Beaumont in Recently, Director of Enrollment the dining Services and Student Life Mari commons has Kruger, ASPCP President Sean been delayed Cooke and Health and Wellness because of a Coordinator Andrew Monson fabrication attended a tele-conference with Nani Jackins Park, director of student error. The services of the Washington State glass Board for Community and Technical company colleges, as well as other community and technical colleges to further discuss the possibility of becoming part of the Washington State Student Lobby and what such a merger would look like. Throughout the meeting most were for becoming a part of the student lobby, and talk quickly turned towards what the face of that organization would look like. The issue of funding, which has which allows for another bad quarter, been brought up before, continued to but must be followed by a good quarter, be a major subject of discussion. Curand repeat that process without any rently, members of the Washington worries. State Student Lobby pay a fee of This is because the original probation $4,500 a year. This amount of money policy was only turned into a serious is much more than most community matter when students failed to do better and technical colleges are able to pay. during the probation quarter. This led to Another topic that received a lot of the suspension of the student and the attention was vote allocation. Curappeal process. More often than not, rently, the system is based on the this did not occur. number of full time enrollment stuThe policy, in many ways, was as dents, or FTEs. The more FTEs the flawed as it was flawless, because Run- college has, the more votes they ning Start students could easily slack off receive. However, if this system is left one quarter, but as long as they got back unchanged, the community and techon track the next quarter, they would be nical colleges will gain a monumental fine. amount of influence since they have Well, all would have been fine, but more than double the FTEs comwhen facts saying every quarter “about pared to universities. 30 percent of Running Start students are As it is now, the community and placed on academic probation” and technical colleges will have their own classes can now be filled with more than general assembly, as will the four“60 percent Running Start students,” year colleges. Some at the meeting questions are raised regarding whether were worried about what would hap-
Running Start probation woes Tim Guy Managing Editor
Pierce College has been known for its Running Start students, and the fact that Puyallup campus has whopping 600 or more is no annual joke. The truth is, since our campus is surrounded by high schools, it is to no surprise that many of those students are looking for ways to get ahead. However, it has recently been decided that a change be made to a particular policy that could, and will, change the very essence of the Running Start program: the Probation policy. Recently, it has come to the college's attention that the original probation policy was not doing anything at all, at least—so they thought. The original policy was not so much about enforcement, but how a student could go back and forth, each quarter, being on probation and not being on probation. Simply put, you could have a bad quarter, followed by a good quarter,
See Probation on page 17
See Lobby on page 13