The anger Volume 93 • Issue 9 San Antonio College A forum of free voices since 1926
Feb. 11, 2019 WWW.THERANGER.ORG
Free tuition for seniors coming in fall 2020 The Alamo Colleges is looking for funding from public and private sources. By Sergio Medina smedina104@student.alamo.edu
Finance sophomore Mario Lopez reaches for a tree while leading computer programing sophomore Okhai Omotuebe across a tight rope during a group activity called “Tarzan and Jane” Feb. 1 at T Bar M Camp in New Braunfels. Lopez and Omotuebe walked five tightropes with new student orientation ambassadors supporting them. The office of student life took 10 students to a leadership retreat Feb. 1-2. Brianna Rodrigue
Political science coordinator wants to add Mexican-American politics to field of study Two government courses overlap with the core curriculum. By Dean Contreras sac-ranger@alamo.edu
A field of study curriculum in political science should include GOVT 2311, Mexican-American and Latinx Politics, Coordinator Christy Woodward Kaupert said Feb. 1. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved a revised field of study July 26 with four courses, GOVT 2304, Introduction to Political Science; GOVT 2305, Federal Government; GOVT 2306, Texas Government; and MATH 1342, Elementary Statistical Methods. A comment period of 30 to 90 days will allow educators across the state to comment on the revised field of study. Kaupert said she plans to make her views known. At this college, students can take political science courses that count toward an associate degree, but there is not a specified field of study. GOVT 2305 and GOVT
2306 are part of the core curriculum. If courses are used in the core curriculum, they can’t be used again in the field of study. Kaupert said for this college to offer a field of study in political science, the field of study would have to include GOVT 2311, and another course to allow this college to meet the required number of courses. “There is a limit on political science courses already and converting some to a field of study requirement makes everything more difficult,” she said. The only other political course the Coordinating Board’s Academic Course Guide Manual allows community colleges to teach is GOVT 2107, Federal and Texas Constitutions, which is not offered at this college. Kaupert said students should meet with their program adviser for assistance regarding their curriculum.
The purpose of the field of study courses, according to The Coordinating Board, is to be part of a wider range of transfer success initiatives. “The FOS should focus on students who start at community colleges and want to transfer. The goal of the committee is to create a guaranteed pathway to the degree and minimize the number of excess hours that students take, Garry Tomerlin, deputy assistant commissioner of the Coordinating Board staff said, in a report from the meeting on the website. “The committee members mostly consists of four-year universities, and they don’t accommodate for the two-year institutions’ courses on the ACGM,” Kaupert said. Most two-year institutions have the problem of the core curriculum overlapping with the final field of study curriculum determined in the meeting. For information about the political science program, call Kaupert at 210-486-1008 or email cwoodward-kauper@alamo.edu.
Course syllabuses also available through college website Website still in need of tweaking, instructor said. By Sergio Medina smedina104@student.alamo.edu Nursing freshman Athena Garza didn’t know course syllabuses could be accessed through the Alamo Colleges website, www.
alamo.edu. She was aware of syllabus access through Canvas, as was psychology freshman Rebecca Parrientes and criminal justice freshman Jasmen Halpin, but none of them were aware of access outside of Canvas. The three of them agreed they wished they had known that.
Gregory Pasztor, radio-television-film instructor, said easy access to syllabuses is something students should be informed about. “I didn’t think finding the syllabus was easy,” he said. “I don’t think most students know how to find their syllabus for their
See WEBSITE, Page 2
As soon as fall 2020, high school graduates in Bexar County could have their Alamo Colleges tuition covered completely through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid and the Alamo Promise program. The “last-dollar scholarship” through the Alamo Promise program, will cover tuition expenses not covered by FAFSA for graduating high school seniors for a total of two years or 60 credit hours, Chancellor Mike Flores said in an interview Jan. 30. Only high school seniors enrolled in FAFSA would benefit from by the promise program. “Our students would have to complete the FAFSA — financial aid application,” he said. In case a student’s financial aid does not entirely cover tuition for the semester, then the lastdollar scholarship would pay for the remaining balance. “Last dollar means, if there is a gap — so we’d say it’d cost $2,500, and Pell (Grant) covers $2,000 — then Promise would cover the other $500 and close that gap,” Flores said. “If a student makes too much, or their parents — their Flores household — make too much for Pell (Grant), but they’re still struggling day-to-day to pay tuition, then Promise would cover the full amount of tuition for that student.” Flores said, “If we just look at 70 percent of graduating high school seniors, so 70 percent of 16,000 — that’s our goal, right? — if they were to participate in Alamo Promise, come to San Antonio College or one of the other colleges, then at full implementation, it would cost $13.5 million.” He said the district is seeking external resources to fund the program. Ideally, every senior in Bexar County would be covered, but that depends on the funding available, he added. The goal is for Promise to become a permanent program. “Right now, we’re talking with the city, the county and private sources to pay for it,” Flores said. “So the money is not coming from our existing budget.” The goal is to have yearly, continuous support to fund the program, he said. Students would need a 2.0 GPA to be able to qualify under Promise, he said. Flores said the purpose of the
program is to increase the college-going rate. “That college-going rate right now is anywhere from 35 percent to 55 percent,” he added. SA2020, a local nonprofit that tracks community indicators such as college and graduation rates, reported college enrollment in San Antonio sat at 47.1 percent among high school graduates in 2017. Furthermore, 34.7 percent of adults in San Antonio had a college degree in 2017. The report can be found at https://report.sa2020.org/education/. “One out of three San Antonians currently has a college certificate or degree; we need one out of every two San Antonians to have a degree for us to be more competitive in the future,” Flores said. He said the program would be only for graduating high school seniors in Bexar County. High school seniors will begin to be recruited as early as September, during the academic year 2019-20. “So the first students, if we work with the graduating, the high school seniors this ‘19-20 academic year, would come in summer of ‘20 and would start classes in late August of ’20,” Flores said. During summer 2020, Flores said students would attend boot camps to learn about the six Alamo Institutes, which include creative and communication arts, business and entrepreneurship, health and biosciences, advanced manufacturing and logistics, public service, and science and technology. For more information on the institutes, go to https://www. alamo.edu/enroll/plan/. Flores said a competitive community needs educated citizens, and education is one of the main drivers in improving the quality of life, he added. “Alamo Promise would be a way to ensure that more students come to us,” he said. Once through college, these students will have better income opportunities to support themselves and their families, he added. “That’s really the goal of Alamo Promise, to support students by paying tuition — it tells all graduating high school seniors, ‘We believe in you as a community,’” Flores said.
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WEBSITE from Page 1 class. You’re supposed to be able to get to it from the website.” Pasztor said Canvas is a useful utility once students sign up for a class, but easy access to syllabuses through the college’s website can help interested students learn more about a class before registering. The district’s homepage does not have a link for course syllabuses available. Upon accessing “academic resources” on the homepage’s pop-up menu, a new webpage revealing a selection of academic links appears, but underneath the bold letters reading, “Course Syllabi,” a sentence reads: “Learn more (coming soon).” Per Texas House Bill 2504, course information should be available at no more than three links away from an institution’s homepage. From Northeast Lakeview, Northwest Vista, St. Philip’s and this college’s homepages, it takes two links to get to the course syllabus directory. Palo Alto College’s course syllabus directory is three links away. From there, a search is needed to locate a specific course syllabus. Palo Alto College’s homepage aside, the quickest route to the syllabus directory is to scroll to the bottom of the col-
Feb. 11, 2019
WWW.THERANGER.ORG/NEWS
leges’ homepages, where the “concourse syllabi” link is found. The placement of the link is below the fold. Below the fold refers to the bottom half of a newspaper page and now also means the area of a website that is only visible after scrolling down a screen. Course syllabuses can also be found through the district and its colleges’ respective search engines, with only Northwest Vista College not showing relevant results. Furthermore, the employee directory is not accessible on the district’s homepage. Only this college has a link to the directory at the bottom of its homepage; it does not appear on the website of the other four Alamo Colleges. Pasztor said he has had mixed results with the search engine on the website. Pasztor said the website is a good attempt at organization of district information, but for a new student, it might prove confusing. “It needs to be tweaked and tuned,” he added. As an instructor in the radiotelevision-broadcasting program, Pasztor said his program’s webpage needs updating. Pasztor said he turned in updated information for his program’s website to the pub-
lic relations office at this college in mid-January but has not received a response. “If you go to our website, even though it’s the radio-television, and now we’re doing some film classes, when you go there, it says, ‘what is the radio program?’ — it’s like all the other stuff isn’t there; that’s what I was trying to get fixed,” he said. Public Relations Director Vanessa Torres said in an interview Feb. 5 she cannot precisely estimate how long updating a website takes because it depends on the content that needs to be edited. “It depends on if it’s ‘change this one word,’ or ‘change my entire page,’” Torres said. Under the PR “menu” of services, webpage text-based edits and navigational edits require a one to two-week wait, respectively. “We definitely don’t want to keep anybody waiting,” Torres said. Pasztor said technology is in a constant testing stage. “The hope is that it evolves and changes with feedback — and that they’re open to feedback and that they’re responsive, you know, to what the academic departments need for their students,” he said. “I mean, that’s all we really care about — making what we do accessible to our students.”
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Students gathered on the fourth floor of Moody Feb. 5 to welcome artist-of-the-month Kimberly Hopkins as part of the Black History Month launch party. Her photography exhibition, accompanied by a lecture, was called “African American Families Through Her Eyes (The past, the present, and the future.)” See story at www.theranger.org. Lionel Ramos
Applications due Feb. 15 for study abroad in Italy Students can apply for scholarships and use the Summer Momentum Plan for tuition. By Marissa Macias sac-ranger@alamo.edu
Students can still sign up for study-abroad courses in Italy May 20-June 10. Out of the 15 offered, six spots are still available, international programs Coordinator Maria Rivera said Feb. 5. “We are continuing to promote the program so we’re going to have one last session on Feb. 14 during new student orientation,” Rivera said. New student orientation is at 8 a.m. Feb. 14 on the first floor of Loftin Student Center. The district office of international programs is offering four courses available to any student registered in the district. Students must sign up for two. Students can sign up for ARTS 1301, Art Appreciation, taught by fine arts Professor Alfonso Cantu and PSYC 2319, Social Psychology, taught by psychology Professor Irene Young at St. Philip’s College. Students can also choose ARTS 2356, Photography 1, and ARTS 2357, Photopraphy 2, taught by fine arts Coordinator Rebecca Dietz. Dietz gave students information during a session Jan. 31 in Loftin Student Center.
“I find that overseas travel really stimulates students,” Dietz said. “They come back really empowered and really excited about the world.” Students need to be at least 18 years old with a minimum GPA of 2.0 and have 12 cumulative academic credits at any district college and a valid passport by Feb. 15. “We’re doing what’s called ‘open semester.’ It will technically fall in the Summer 1 program, but we’re leaving in May,” Dietz said. “We have a couple of days where we meet here at SAC to go over the basics of each program, and then we’re off.” Dietz encourages fulltime students to apply for the Summer Momentum Plan to help pay tuition. By taking 24 total credit hours in fall and spring semesters at any of the five Alamo Colleges, students can earn up to six free academic credit hours during the summer. Scholarships such as the Alamo Colleges District International Education Scholarship and the Benjamin Gilman Scholarship are offered to students interested in studying abroad. “We recommend that stu-
dents plan for student travel by getting involved, coming to the meetings and learning about the scholarships and how to set aside money from your financial aid,” Dietz said. According to the application form for the International Education Scholarship, students must have completed or be enrolled in 12 credit hours at any of the colleges in district, be in good academic standing, be cleared of financial aid holds, have a minimum cumulative average GPA of 2.5 and have not previously received aid from this scholarship. The application can be found at alamo.edu/studyabroad. The Gilman Scholarship is available to U.S. citizen undergraduate students who receive Federal Pell Grant funding at a two-year or four-year college or university, according to the application website. This application is available at www.iie.org/Programs/ Gilman-Scholarship-Program. The application deadline for the 2019 Italy Summer Abroad program and the International Education Scholarship is Feb. 15. The Benjamin Gilman Scholarship deadline is March 5. For more information, call Rivera at 210-485-0084 or email dst-studyabroad@alamo.edu.
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Feb. 11, 2019
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Opinion 3
Staff Editor Sergio Medina Managing Editor Rogelio Escamilla News Editor Lionel Ramos Web Editor James Russell Staff Writers Breonica Broussard, Dean Contreras, Sandy Cordell, Travis Doyle, Julian Gonzales, Blanca Granados, Lilliana Guerra, Geoffrey Hovatter, Marlon Anthony Juarez, Marissa Macias, Janie Medelez, Sarah F. Morgan, Jackie Muralles, Matthew R. Perez, Alberto Ramirez, Michael Smith, Isacc Tavares, Samantha Woodward Photographers Mitchell Gawlik, Deandra Gonzalez, Brittany Maria Moreno, Brianna Rodrigue Photo Team Andrea Moreno, Amaru Ruiz, Maria Sauceda Illustrators Raia Blankenship, Amanda Graef
©2019 by The Ranger staff, San Antonio College, 1819 N. Main Ave., San Antonio, TX 78212-3941. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission.The Ranger news outlets, which serve the Alamo Community College District, are laboratory projects of classes in the journalism-photography program at San Antonio College. The Ranger is published Mondays except during summer, holidays and examinations. The Ranger Online is available at www.theranger. org. News contributions accepted by telephone (210486-1773), by fax (210-486-9292), by email (sacranger@alamo.edu) or at the editorial office (Room
Amanda Graef
Use VIA’s U-Pass during construction U-Pass offers a greener wallet, environment and easier parking. The struggle for students, faculty and staff to find parking will undoubtedly intensify as construction eliminates parking Lots 20, 21, 22 and 29 until spring 2020. Students taking morning classes may choose to arrive earlier, put on gloves and brawl over limited parking or take advantage of this college’s solution: a partnership with VIA Metropolitan Transit offering free bus rides to campus. The service, called VIA U-Pass, is offered to all Alamo Colleges students, falculty and staff. All they need to do is show the bus driver their Alamo Colleges ID. Campus commuters should take advantage of this opportunity because it can save money and prevent a few headaches. Riding on a bus can be
more fuel efficient than driving alone, which benefits the environment and students’ wallets. According to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuels Data Center, in 2018, transit buses had lower per-passenger fuel economy than cars because of low ridership rates nationally. One solution is to fill buses with more passengers, a closer goal because of U-Pass. As more passengers are transported together, the fuel consumed per-passenger decreases. This is the same reason airlines are listed as having the second best per-passenger fuel economy, second only to intercity rail systems. If environmental benefits alone don’t convince more students to ride buses, maybe financial benefits will. Consider the amount of
money spent on gas compared to the practically free method of transportation U-Pass offers. The savings will add up and serve as a lifted burden on many students’ bank accounts. Riding a bus also allows students to be more productive. The time spent paying attention to the road, changing lanes and blowing through yellow lights while driving can now be repurposed. There is additional time to read a book, study or relax during a stress-free commute to school. The last thing any student needs before an exam is a bit of road rage. Students can also take advantage of VIA’s Park & Ride service. The service allows drivers to park in a free designated parking spot and ride a bus to their destination. There are eight free parking
Editorial
locations, spanning from Stone Oak to Elmendorf, which can be found at www.viainfo.net/ park-ride-commuting/. One downside to taking a bus to this campus is not being able to leave at any time and travel directly somewhere else. Driving to this campus means a student can be more independent. However, this does not change the limited parking on campus during construction of the new parking garage. Leaving campus during the day still puts a driver at risk of not finding a parking spot upon return. While driving gives a commuter more options, riding a bus is a more consistent and reliable method of travel. Instead of driving to campus, students should consider a more consistent schedule, more time to be productive and a greener environment and wallet as reasons to use the U-Pass.
212 of Loftin Student Center). Advertising rates available by phone 210-486-1765 or as a download at www.theranger.org. The Ranger is a member of the Texas Intercollegiate Press Association, the Associated Collegiate Press and the Texas Community College Journalism Association. Guest Viewpoints: Faculty, staff, students and community members are welcome to contribute guest
Faculty: Keep in touch with your senate An electronic drop-box can be used to facilitate constant communication.
viewpoints of up to 450 words. Writers should focus on campus or current events in a critical, persuasive or interpretative style. All viewpoints must be published with a photo portrait of the writer. Letters Policy: The Ranger invites readers to share views by writing letters to the editor. Space limitations force the paper to limit letters to two double-spaced, typewritten pages. Letters will be edited for spelling, style, grammar, libel and length. Editors reserve the right to deny publication of any letter. Letters should be emailed to sac-ranger@alamo.edu or submitted online. Letters also may be brought to the newspaper office in Room 212 of Loftin Student Center, mailed to The Ranger, journalism-photography program, San Antonio College, 1819 N. Main Ave., San Antonio TX 78212-3941 or faxed to 210-486-9292. Letters must be signed and must include the printed name and telephone number. Students should include classification, major, campus and Banner ID. Employees should include title and telephone number. For more information, call 210-486-1773. Single Copy Policy: Members of the Alamo Community College District community are permitted one free copy per issue because of high production costs. Where available, additional copies may be purchased with prior approval for 50 cents each by contacting The Ranger business office. Those who violate the single-copy rule may be subject to civil and criminal prosecution and college discipline.
The faculty at this college need to take advantage of the opportunities they have to express their concerns and communicate their ideas. Currently, departments have been assigned a representative or liaison to hear the voices of faculty during department meetings and relay the message back to the Faculty Senate. This is supposed to allow for a steady stream of information. According to past Ranger reporting, Lennie Irvin, president of the Faculty Senate, said a list with each department and its representative or liaison will be uploaded on the senate’s website at www.
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sites.google.com/view/sac-faculty-senate. In the meantime, faculty should directly call Irvin at 210-486-0672 or email him at lirvin@alamo.edu, to ask who represents their department. The fact that faculty members must contact someone to know who to talk to about their ideas and issues might be time-consuming and could prove to be discouraging for many of them. Despite this, faculty members should be more proactive about it for the sake of an accurate representation by the Faculty Senate. More consistent communication means stronger and more compelling arguments when presenting department wide con-
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Fine arts department has new interim chair By Sergio Medina Cheryl Startzell, chair of allied health and kinesiology, is serving as interim chair of the fine arts department. Startzell was brought in as acting chair in late January, Dr. Conrad
Krueger, dean of academic success, said in an interview Jan. 29. “She’s an excellent chairperson,” Krueger said. Krueger said administration is looking to hire a new chair.
cerns to college and district administration. A good way to ensure a constant flow of information stemming directly from the faculty of various departments, is to provide an electronic drop-box on the Faculty Senate’s website. That way faculty, and even students, can write a note containing an opinion, concern or comment, along with their contact information and move on. The comments can then be separated by a member of the senate either by department or topic so they may be discussed with all faculty to whom they pertain. That is a way to ensure that the senate can be consistent in providing those they represent with a platform to be heard and considered by college and district officials.
Editorial
Advocacy center offers food, clothing, support groups By Jackie Muralles The student advocacy center has free food and clothing as well as support groups. Ten support groups target specific audiences such as veterans or encourage diverse members with a common interest, such as poetry.
Groups will begin meeting Feb. 11, and information can be found in pamphlets in the center. One of the most popular programs is the grab-n-go snack area, Valerie Villarreal, drug counseling sophomore and work-study, said Jan. 31.
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Feb. 11, 2019
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Motorsport team readies hydroelectric car for contest By Lilliana Guerra
sac-ranger@alamo.edu
Kinesiology freshman Celeste Arriaga scores 2 points over a Palomino defender in the second quarter Feb. 6 at Palo Alto College gym. Arriaga scored 18 points and had four fouls. The Rangers defeated the Palominos 72-67. The next game is at 6 p.m. Feb. 13 against Victoria College in Gym 1 in Candler. The men’s basketball team plays at 8 p.m. Brianna Rodrigue
A booklet of blueprints lies open on a table Feb. 1 in the MESA center and is being scrutinized by engineering students as the team develops a game plan. Their first deadline is Feb. 19 when the hydroelectric prototype vehicle the San Antonio College Motorsport team is building must be ready to drive for the worldwide energy efficiency competition Shell Eco-marathon Americas Division April 3-6 in Sonoma, Calif. They’ve been working on this project since the start of fall, working between 10 hours a week to full days. On Feb. 2, the team spent 12 hours crafting the front shell of the car, lab technician Ben Uresti said Feb. 5. So far, mechanical engineering sophomore Joshua Chavana said, all changes and modifications to the design are finished, but the car is still missing some major parts. “We’re running out of time, but we have some big stuff like the shell that’ll be done within the next week,” he said. Without the shell, which is molded from a foam placeholder, the floor of the car also cannot be cut and placed because the measurements would likely be off. Once the floor is in, other parts can be mounted and drilled into it. Some parts of the car are being recycled from last year’s project, such as the driver’s seat, but others are brand new, notably the car’s telemetry system, which will allow the team to livestream information and videos from the car as it is moving. The way this works, Chavana explained, is
by connecting a phone to the car via Bluetooth, leaving it on or inside the car while it displays data such as voltage level and watts, and then screen-sharing the information. This could help the team reach an international audience if they share the videos online Further, the system would not only be capable of sharing internal data but also videos from the phone camera itself so viewers can watch the event from the driver’s perspective. Audiences should not expect a fast race, Uresti said. “It’s not like speed demons running down the road,” he said. “It’s kind of slow. They look like they’re just lumbering along.” But the competition does have a time limit, which varies among divisions. “For example, there’s the hydrogen fuel cell (category), there’s battery-powered vehicles, there is internal combustion vehicles,” Chavana explained. “You can also go into the prototype category or the UrbanConcept category, so this is the prototype category.” Uresti said their division’s time limit is 15 minutes and that the car travels roughly 12-18 mph. UrbanConcept requires extra parts for the cars, such as windshield wipers and lights, and must be able to fit two people. Chavana described it as a “more complicated category, which (the team) will be ready for next year.” The competition awards teams both for time and fuel efficiency on the track and five categories off-track — vehicle design, safety, communications, technical innovation and perseverance.
Mechanical engineering sophomore Isaac Medina uses a milling machine Feb. 6 in Chance to cut aluminum square bars to be a mounting place for the wheels of a hydroelectric car designed by the SAC Motorsport team. The bars will be cut into spindles, which will allow all four wheels to turn. The team will enter the finished car April 3-6 in the Shell Ecomarathon in Sonoma, Calif. Deandra Gonzalez This year will mark the team’s third time competing. Last year, SAC Motorsport placed fourth of nine in their category and won first in design. Teams who win awards not only receive recognition but also prize money, which Chavana said peaks at $3,000. Chavana, who acts as the team’s project manager and has worked on every Eco-marathon car this college has competed with, said the tournament judges are “very strict” and test the cars in stations. One of them, he said, requires the car to be put on an incline and hold its position with only the brakes. Another makes sure that in an emergency, the driver is able to escape the vehicle within 10 seconds.
#GoCodeSA
CODEATHON 2019 FRIDAY - SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 22-24, 2019 TRINITY UNIVERSITY CAMPUS
Be a part of VIA’s GoCodeSA Codeathon, an event designed to bring together the best coders, designers, and tech minds in the area, and challenge them to turn bright ideas into smart transit innovation. GoCodeSA Codeathon is free for participants, to compete for cash prizes based on their work. Applicants must register as a group, each composed of at least two and at most five individuals. Tech-field judges will conduct reviews and select the top three entries. More than $10,000 in cash and prizes will be awarded. Register at GOCODESA.com.