Soccer
Quilts & glass
Comets pound Apaches, 5-0
'
New Boehm display Arts &
Entertainment, page 5
Monday, Nov. 8, 1999
Sports, page 6
Volu111e 53,
Palo111ar College- San Marcos, Calif.
9
Follett • moves 1n; not much changes
Interns paying for work Tania Mejer C(Jilege Press
For the right price, you, too, can have a terrific internship. Sound peculiar? At Emerson ¡ College, it's called the "internship trap." The problem boils down to this: Students are taking internships as if they were classes and essentially are paying for the work they do. Here's how the trap often works: T,he college requires students in .,some majors to have an internship under his or her belt to earn a degree. Many companies for which the student can intern require that the student get college credit for his or her work, otherwise the student won't be hired. And the college will not give credit for the internship unless that credit is paid for - usually in the form of tuition - by the student. At Emerson, that means students typically choose one of two routes: They either give up one of their classes in a semester to make way for an internship, or they try to take a take a full load and squeeze in an internship on top of it all provided they meet the academic standards required to overload their schedule. The second route is particularly troublesome because, at Emerson, students may take up to 16 credits (the equivalent of four classes) under the college's annual tuition rate of $18,816. For each credit above 16, students must pay an additional $588. Needless to say, many students would rather spend that extra tuition money on classes - not jobs. It is a backward policy, considering most people receive pay for l~bor not labor for pay. Many ~udents would gladly take internships voluntarily just to get some work experience. Some internships even offer a little pay for hard work. So it isn't fair that a student's tuition pays for an outside-ofschool, semester-long job that students might have arranged on their own without the college's assistance. On the other hand, internships often provide valuable experience fQr students seeking hands-on experience in their chosen field. Though we've heard the horror stories of coffee-fetching interns, we've also heard rave reviews from students offered jobs at the places where they first interned. So, what's the solution? Well, at Emerson, students can earn up to four non-tuition credits for participating in campus organizations. Unfortunately, the college won't allow those non-tuition credits to be awarded for out-of-school internships, and that policy should change. As wonderful as it would be to ask the college to give more nontuition credits to cover students' internships, it is a n unrealistic request. But thinking of ways for students to avoid sacrificing classroom time for job time is a worthy and reasonable request of any institution of higher education.
N~111ber
Bookstore remodel and price increases coming next spring Amy Bolaski Copy Editor
Robert Chavis I The Telescope
Palomar students walk along the front walkway which was torn up for the infrastructure project. The Administration area is almost complete as grass sprouts along finished walkways.
Construction almost done Most phases to be completed in January Michael Paisner News Editor
Palomar College will be waving goodbye to construction crews sooner than expected, according to Mike Ellis, director of facilities. Ellis said all major construction is expected to be finished before students return for class in January. This is sooner than planned in the construction timetable created three years ago. "They will be completed about three months ahead of schedule," he said. According to Ellis, the big thrust right now is that construction crews don't impact parking, roadways and sidewalks by the beginning of the spring semester (the third week of January). There will still be minor construction going on until April. He expects that there will be very little to do after that. "They have to be done completely, and everything signed off on by April," Ellis said. Although the project has been in the works for ten years, the current plan began unfolding about three years ago. The first step taken was to section the campus into nine physical areas or "phases. " Then last year they installed temporary electric and telephone lines overhead, and connected the old lines to them. After that, construction crews laid new water, gas, electrical, telephone and sewer systems underground next to the existing lines. In order to move the overhead electric and telephone wires to the new underground lines, crews have to shut off the power and I or the phone service, disconnect the lines coming to the buildings from the overhead wires then hook them to the und.e rground connections and turn them back on. The switchover from the old to the new systems will be scheduled when it will Least impact students. Even though they are ahead of schedule, Ellis said there were hundreds of snags. He said they are a daily occurrence because of
the old blueprints they had to work from. In previous years, the college started construction projects as they were needed. If the crew ran into a problem they would work around it. No one documented what found or what was done. This created the majority of problems with the refitting. "Without knowing exactly what's underground, all we can do is guess," Ellis said. Rock was the biggest problem. Ellis said the college tested the soil and bored holes to find where rock was. After digging, however, they found rock between the spots that were tested and bored. "You'll have a granite boulder that just comes up and goes right back down . We hit one of those at the Clock Tower," He said. "Just bad luck... You can't test every foot of the trench line." The college contracted the removal of 7500 cubic feet of rock. Right now 2,500 cubic feet has been removed. Although this sounds good, Ellis said that phase eight is where they expected to run into most of the granite. They were right. "We ran into it on Monday (Nov 1)," Ellis said. "Right under the water lines." To remove the rock, they use a "breaker bar," a 70 ton jack hanuner that hooks onto
an excavator. The breaker bar pounds out the rock. This creates a lot of noise and earth shaking. According to the contracts, machinery could not generate over 80 decibels of noise while classes are being held. In order to work around this, the construction that generates high noise levels has to be done between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. and after 2 p.m. when there are fewer classes. Crews work overnight for jobs that could not be done during the day such as shutting down water and sewer lines to switch them from the old connections to the new ones. "Whatever is going to cause a disruption to the learning process has to get done when no learning is taking place," Ellis said. This won't work for the rock found most recently. Vallecitos Water District has a line running through the campus right above the granite found in phase eight. Palomar had to run their water line above the Vallecitos line. This is the first time they have encountered this problem. Ellis said that the only thing that has been frustrating to the people working on the job has been the work load added to his crew. see CONSTRUCTION , page 3
Robert Chavis I The Telescope
Workers continue to patch up holes and trenches dug over the summer and fall. Crews are expected to leave Palomar in January.
Students walking into the bookstore won't notice any changes these days. It's likely they won't for quite awhile. Although Follett, now Follett Higher Education Group, took over the bookstore Nov. 1, things will continue as usual for employees and students. Palomar began looking at private vendors due to increasing costs and competition from other book sellers, and contracted with Follett Higher Education Group in order to maintain the bookstore and its student services. Michael Schaeffer, manager of the bookstore, said, "So far things have been fine. We were ready for it. They (Follett) seem very interested in working with us and the school...It's a learning process for both of us." Schaeffer and seven other bookstore employees are being integrated into the Follett corporation and are working on a smooth transition. For the time being, only a few things will change, including some minor policy adjustments and pricing adjustments which will be implemented in January to match Follett's standard margin of profit. Currently the mark-up margin is about 23 percent. Part of Palomar's contract with Follett stipulated that the mark-up margin could not exceed 25 percent. It's likely see FOLLETT, page 3
Palomar ranked first in state for federal grant New program to help children get to college Mark Brown Staff Writer
Palomar College was ranked number one in a list of California schools to receive federal funds to prepare middle and high school student for college. The $4.5 million grant is part of the Gain Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate educational Programs (GEAR UP). The grant will pay for tutors and counselors for five years. GEAR UP is a new federal program to encourage children to set high expectations for themselves and got to college. This year the government awarded $120 million for the program across the country. President Clinton has doubled that amount in his 2000 budget. Palomar was 16th on the list of schools nationwide to receive funds . Palomar will start the program Sept. 1, 2000 with six full time employees, including counselors, tutors, advisers and administrators. The college will partner with San Marcos Middle and High School, the Boys and Girls Clu b, the Chamber of Commerce, Cox Communications and the North County Times to bring GEAR UP to San Marcos youth.