Friday, May 6, 2005
15TH STREET
Rose State College
NEWS
6420 SE 15th Street, Midwest City, OK 73110
Vol. XXXIV Issue 26
May 6, 2005
Kids College teaches, entertains Selling textbooks to college bookstores a Campus to come alive with OKC area youth during summer months viable way to get cash Erin Waltman Assistant Editor
Kids College students dig in boxes of dirt to learn archeology. The wide variety of classes offered by the program has drawn hundreds of OKC youth. students as young as 5. Last summer, the program had approximately 550 different children attending. Since the children were able to enroll in more than one camp, the Kids College program had over 1,800 enrolled in the camps and classes. “Weʼre hoping to see somewhere around that [number of enrolled students],” Skoch said. “Actually, it was a little too big last year for our campus to hold. We want to see similar numbers, and weʼve changed the program up a little bit so we can still keep similar numbers without having the same amount of kids on campus at all times.”
The program begins June 6 and will run until July 29 with a one-week break during the week of July 5-9 to allow families on vacation for July 4 the ability to not force their child to miss a camp or class. Kids College tries to only hire certified teachers to teach their classes, although they do allow people who have had coaching experience to teach some of the sports camps. Skoch believes the Kids College program to be very affordable compared to other daycare and youth programs in the OKC area. “We have compared our prices to a lot of other different places
and the hourly rate for a lot of our programs is somewhere between $2.50 and $3.50 per hour. We felt that that [price] was very reasonable,” Skoch said. “Also, itʼs a very noncompetitive setting. A lot of camps - particularly in sports - focus on competition and we really just want the kids to come and learn something and have fun.” A full price list, along with a full list of Kids College classes and camps, can be obtained in the Tom Steed Center. For more information, contact Skoch or Wood at 733-7392. ewaltman@rose.edu
2005 literary magazine, ‘Pegasus,’ soars Heath Sitton Staff Writer The RSC art and literary magazine “Pegasus” has been completed. “Pegasus” chose 38 students and faculty members as contributors to the magazine. The magazine accepted contributions in the categories of essay and narrative, poetry, short story, artwork and photography. This year saw submissions from 85 students. Professors Karen Holt and Sue Dawson-OʼBrien, along with this yearʼs student editor, Amy Hynson, went through each of the submissions, carefully selecting and editing the works that would appear in the publication. “Pegasus is important because increasingly in a technological society we need those avenues
for imagination and creative expression,” said Karen Holt, professor and editor. “A college needs to encourage creativity in its students and [Pegasus] is a wonderful opportunity for students to receive their first publication.” The magazine was unveiled Monday, May 2 at 3 p.m. in the Raider Room of the Student Center. A reception for those who contributed their work to the magazine was held after the unveiling. This yearʼs edition of “Pegasus” was dedicated to Professor Carl Sennhenn. Carl Sennhenn was appointed Poet Laureate of Oklahoma by Governor Frank Keating in 2001 and served his term until 2003. Sennhenn continues
How to save a pet. See story, Page 9.
to travel the state conducting writing workshops for honors students, disabled students, high school faculty and senior citizens. He served as faculty editor of “Pegasus” from 1991-2004 and is one of the original Poetry at Rose readers and the only one to have read at every annual reading since 1989. Sennhenn has published two collections of poetry - “Harvest of Light” and “Center of Noon” - with his third book in the works. All of those who contributed to this yearʼs edition of “Pegasus” received a free copy of the magazine. Additional copies may be purchased for $3 by the contributors or by anyone who would like to own some of the literary and art contributions of students and
faculty from the Humanities Division office. jhsitton@cox.net
Photo by GINNIE ESCOBEDO
Photo by DEVIN HORST
Class of 2005. See lists, Pages 6 and 7.
Photo courtesy of Bret Wood
As the semester begins to wind down, students once again turn to their textbooks. However, textbooks are now seen less as study aides and more as moneymakers. The end-of-semester book buyback - which begins May 9 and lasts until the 13 - is something nearly all students look forward to as a way to make back money they spent on their textbooks. However, many students are familiar with the reality that they never seem to receive as much back for their textbooks as what they were charged. “Like any retail business, we have costs involved in getting books on the shelf and we have costs involved in purchasing them. What [students] see as a retail price has very little profit in it [for the bookstore] at all,” said RSC Bookstore Manager Mark Smith. “So, when we turn around and buy [the books] back, we actually pay more for a book when we buy it back than we made in profit when we sold it brand new.” With the popularity of Internet sites like Half.com and Amazon. com, students are beginning to look to the Web as a viable market for their used books. However, students have to remember that lowest priced textbooks sell first, and someone who paid $80 for a textbook in January may only be able to sell it for $35 in May due to some other person listing a textbook on the Web site for an extremely marked down price. Students selling textbooks at the RSC Bookstore, however, usually receive half of what they paid for a textbook as long as its condition is not horribly deteriorated. “The better the condition of the book, [students] might find they get paid a little bit more than a book that was in bad shape. If itʼs in bad enough shape, we wonʼt buy it back at all,” Smith said. Buybacks are handled by an outside company with a list of the textbooks that the RSC Bookstore plans to keep and resell. As long as students are selling those textbooks, they will get approximately half of what they paid for their textbook. However, once the RSC Bookstore has bought back all the books they need for the next semester, the amount of money students can make from selling their book plummets. “The earlier in the week they bring their books back, the better the price theyʼll get in buyback,” Smith said. Students can sell books at any time during the semester, but the price will always be the wholesale price. Students stand a better chance of making money from their textbooks by selling at the beginning of the book buyback. Buying textbooks at the beginning of the semester also offers students the option of standing in line in a bookstore or surfing online to a Web site. However, while students may get a better price on a textbook bought from an independent seller online, they are urged to be cautious. “It depends on what you call a better price,” said Smith. “A lot of times, they will have a price that is less than ours when you first purchase a book - but theyʼre not going to buy the book back. If you take the price of a book and take 47-50 percent of it, which is what youʼre going to get back, then the difference is what your real cost of the book is. Then compare that to what itʼs going to cost you online.” Smith also added that students should be cautious of deals that seem too good to be true. Oftentimes, students may unwittingly click on a link for an older edition. Students usually cannot get refunded for things like this. “If a book has a very, very, very cheap price on it and it looks too good to be true, it probably is not true,” Smith said. Students who prefer the comfort of shopping for their textbooks via a home computer rather than going to a bookstore may soon have that option at RSC. The campus bookstore plans to have a Web site up and available to students by the fall 2005 semester. ewaltman@rose.edu
Erin Waltman Assistant Editor During the summer semester, RSCʼs population swells - with children. Since 2003, the campus has offered community children the chance to interact with other children at Kids College, a summer youth program. “Our Kids College mission is to provide a quality and safe learning experience for the youth of Eastern Oklahoma County in the areas of sports, recreation, arts and academics in a non-competitive setting. In our camps, mini-camps and Kids Classes, every child has the potential to achieve success,” the Kids College informational pamphlet reported. There has been a program for children at RSC since the inception of the Continuing Education division in the 1970s. However, it was not until 2003 when Bret Wood, director of the Continuing Education program, stepped in that the program known as Kids College began to take shape. At that time, Wood - who was then the assistant director - wanted to start a bigger program than what was offered in the hopes that it would draw in more youth. The program offers a wide variety of classes that fall under three main categories - recreation, sports and academics. Recreation includes classes and camps such as leadership camp and an etiquette class. The sports camps are typically an all-day or half-day camp and include things like tennis, soccer and dance. The academics classes are short, one-hour sessions and cover things such as the Cooking with Fractions class that teaches math skills. Jennifer Skoch, Continuing Education Specialist and assistant director to the Kids College program, said, “In addition to all our camps and classes, we do have an early and late care program for working parents who need to drop their kids off early or need their kids to stay a little late.” The program is open for children ages 5-15, depending on the class or camp. For example, the junior lifeguard and cheerleading camps are offered to students up to the age of 15 while the Lego mania class is open to
The 2005 Pegasus is dedicated to Professor Carl Sennhenn.
Which board do you ride? See how-to, Page 11.