SCENE THE
THE
Fall Issue 5
Nov. 16, 2018
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www.thescenefp.com
Taking shame out of sex See page 7
Missouri voting quirks See page 7
St. Louis Community College at Forest Park
New SGA is small but motivated
Navigating campus isn’t easy for students with disabilities
By Joshua Phelps The Scene staff
By Jason Ethridge The Scene staff
Members of the new Forest Park Student Government Association want to do what they can to make life easier for students. All of the SGA’s six members have issues that interest or concern them. Newcomer Soroda Nasiri thinks the campus needs a better space for students to “hang out” between classes. “The Highlander Lounge, a lot of times, that room is booked,” she said. “On Fridays, it’s used for the African Pride Club. It’s also used for conferences, meetings and other events.” Nasiri said Cafe East and Cafe West are always reserved, and other small lounges are in out-of-the-way places. She would like to see a large space that’s accessible to students at all times. Nasiri, 26, is a general transfer student and columnist for The Scene student newspaper. Another one of her issues is transportation. “There’s a lot of students who ride the bus,” she said. “It takes them an hour to two to get to school, go home. We pay for (transportation). It comes out of our tuition. I was thinking if we increase the fee from $1 to $2, we could partner with Uber or Lyft to provide those services.” Finally, Nasiri wants to bring awareness to what she calls a “rape culture.” She believes it exists all over the world, but she is starting her effort to change attitudes at Forest Park.
Forest Park was built in 1967, more than 20 years before the American with Disabilities Act began requiring public places to be accessible to people with disabilities. Campus buildings have elevators, automatic doors and wheelchair ramps, but navigation still can be a challenge. “There are spots that are not accessible, which you find in a lot of large campuses similar to this one,” said Kim Lackey, director of public policy and advocacy with Paraquad. “There are definitely places that have room for improvement to provide maximum accessibility.” Paraquad is a non-profit organization that works to empower people with disabilities and help them become more independent. Its headquarters is less than a block from Forest Park. At The Scene’s request, Lackey surveyed the campus recently with Christopher Worth, 40, an organizing team manager with Paraquad who has cerebral palsy. They found cramped quarters in several bathrooms; mechanical malfunctions with automatic doors in D and E towers; and non-automatic doors that are harder to open than is recommended by Paraquad. Such problems don’t prevent people with mobility issues from getting around, but they can make it more difficult and time-consuming. “I would give Forest Park a C-plus or B-minus,” Worth said, speaking of its overall accessibility.
See SGA page 6
See Disability page 3
Photo by Daniel Shular
Forest Park student Paige Karius boards a freight elevator on Nov. 7 after a long wait on the fourth floor of E Tower.
Artist makes sculptures that ‘deceive the eye’ By Daniel Schular The Scene staff Kristen Morgin’s clay sculptures must be handled with care. Otherwise, they might fall apart. That’s because the Los Angeles-based artist doesn’t fire her sculptures. She lets them dry on their own. “I had expected to fire them,” she said. “(But) the longer I had them in my studio, the more I was sort of convinced that it looked like this really fragile thing, and maybe it would be more honest if it was more fragile.” Morgin, 50, visited the Forest Park campus last week to give a lecture and lead a workshop on unfired clay sculptures in the Art Annex. She specializes in a style called “trompel’œil,” which is French for “deceive the eye.” It refers to artwork that is so realistic, images of objects look three-dimensional. Morgin’s sculptures depict everything from album covers, books and musical instruments to vehicles, toys and even cigarette packs. Many are painted.
Photo by Daniel Shular
Ceramic artist Kristen Morgin works on a piece on Oct. 25 for a demonstration in the Art Annex. “The stuff that she made, I thought that they were actually real objects, and they weren’t,” said Samantha Gilmore, 22, an
applied math major who attended the workshop. “It was pretty interesting to see the things. There were objects that I’d never
imagine (could be) made out of clay.” Morgin taught ceramics at California State University, Long Beach for 10 years before becoming a full-time artist. She participated in the third World Ceramic Biennale in Icheon, South Korea, and has displayed pieces in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the UCLA Hammer Museum and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. “We bring in visiting artists every semester,” said Forest Park ceramics professor Matthew Issacson. He invited Morgin after meeting her at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, Montana. He had landed a fellowship to study there during a sabbatical. Morgin was the recipient of the Voulkos Visiting Artist Fellowship, a very competitive award. “Ceramics students wanted her to come (to Forest Park),” Issacson said. “Some specifically were trying to mimic the style of trompe-l’œil. Kristen is a master of trompe-l’œil, so that was an opportunity for
See Artist page 6
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Nov. 16, 2018
News Disability
from page 1
Forest Park has 250 students with physical or mental disabilities, compared to a total enrollment of 5,321 students this semester.
major modifications, according to Armstead. In other words, some problems are simply too expensive to fix, he said.
Paige Karius, founder of the Disabilities Awareness Club, has dealt with some of the problems detailed by Lackey and Worth. She has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair. Karius can barely fit in most elevators on campus because they are too small. It’s easier for her to go to E Tower and ride the large freight elevator, which is notoriously slow. “Once you learn the area, you kind of know the shortcuts and backways to get around,” said Karius, 23, a special education teaching major. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.” The Forest Park library is another place Karius faces challenges. Some shelves can only be accessed by going upstairs on a tiny elevator behind the staff office. Maneuvering it in a wheelchair is like “fitting puzzle pieces together,” Karius said. Karen Kacer, reference librarian and archivist, is aware of these accessibility problems. She often volunteers to be a “student’s legs,” making trips to the second floor and finding books for students, or just lending a hand to reach materials on high shelves.
Not all of Paraquad’s feedback on Forest Park accessibility was negative. Worth was particularly impressed with low-standing sinks in several bathrooms, noting how much easier they are for people in wheelchairs to use than standard sinks. Lackey liked high-contrast signage in the basement hallway between C and D towers and outside the Academic Support Center. At that location, there’s also a motorized lift to transport wheelchairs up and down a steep ramp. Apart from navigation, Forest Park has an Access Office, which does what it can to help students with disabilities be successful in college. “We offer academic coaching, note takers, test proctors and even lab assistants,” said Telitha Rogers, office manager. Access Office staff will speak with instructors on students’ behalf if special accommodations are needed for them to complete class requirements. They also loan tape recorders and other equipment; provide audio texts, paper enlargements and other accessible media; and offer services such as sign-language interpretation and speech transcription. The college welcomed Johnathan Mooney, an expert on mental and physical disabilities, to a recent Professional Development Day at Forest Park. “There has been a focus on accessibility from the administration,” Rogers said.
Small elevators, high shelves
Big changes are expensive
Sometimes librarians direct students to digital media that may be easier for them to use. “We are doing our utmost to fill in the gaps and everything we can to help,” Kacer
Praise for some features
Photo by Timothy Bold
General transfer student Tamria Harris, 18, walks down a wheelchair ramp outside the Student Center. said. Lackey and Worth made several recommendations to bring Forest Park’s accessibility in line with modern standards. That includes adding automatic doors and installing swing hinges on non-automatic doors to provide extra clearance. Lackey also suggested better accommodations for visually-impaired students, such as more braille in signage, high-contrast floor markings on stairs and easier-to-read elevator buttons. Many changes that would be required to
provide maximum accessibility at Forest Park are prohibitively expensive, according to Scott Armstead, districtwide assistive technology coordinator for St. Louis Community College. “You’re talking tearing walls down, tearing floors up,” he said of what would be involved in replacing a single elevator. “It could be multiple millions of dollars.” Such costs would be considered “undue hardship” under the ADA’s guidelines, so Forest Park isn’t legally obligated to make
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Nov. 16, 2018
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Staff members hold a food services meeting in the Forest Park cafeteria on Nov. 7. Clockwise from left are Nancy Catanzaro, cashier; Chris Dressel, district manager of food services; Justin Rukick, senior manager of auxiliary services; Matthew Crook, chef manager at Florissant Valley; and Todd Segneri, chef at Forest Park.
Photo by Daniel Shular
AD in t Lif o For Par
Photo by Timothy Bold
Students in the Architecture Construction Engineering mentoring program from McKinley, Cardinal Ritter and Live for Life high schools prepare to tour the Center for Nursing and Health Sciences construction site.
Hellen Young, left, chats on the phone while eating cake at TRiO’s First Generation College Student Symposium in the Highlander Lounge on Nov. 7.
Photo by Jonny Geigle
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Nov. 16, 2018
Photo critic and historian A.D. Coleman, left, gives a lecture on “Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day June 6, 1944” on Nov. 5 at Forest Park. He told the story of photojournalist Capa’s missing negatives from Normandy Beach in World War II.
Day the fe of rest rk
Photo by Daniel Shular
Photo by Timothy Bold
Culinary students Michelle Kramer, 25, left, and Kristana Phillips, 50, sift a mixture of corn starch and sugar for pastillage, which is used for sugar sculptures, in the Hospitality Studies kitchen.
Alumnus LaQuite Feinoid, right, talks to Erica Robinson and O’Dell Harmon of the Young Women’s Christian Association of St. Louis at a job fair in the Forest Park cafeteria on Oct. 25.
Photo by Bethany Taylor
Nov. 16, 2018
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Page 5
News Artist
from page 1
Photo by Daniel Shular
An unfired and painted clay sculpture by Kristen Morgin features images of a Pac-Man ghost and the cartoon character Scooby Doo. students to learn from her and learn these techniques.” Morgin started making sculptures with unfired clay as a graduate student at Alfred University School of Ceramics in Alfred, New York. She liked the fact that they were fragile and not necessarily permanent. “It’s a kind of metaphor for mortality,” she said. “All things are mortal. We all have this unspoken timeline. We all know we’re
going to die, but we don’t think about it ever.” Another workshop student at Forest Park was Will Eder, 25, a biotech major. He found Morgin to be inspirational. “I really like the concept of using unfired clay, using that with glue (and) wire instead of the more classical way of using clay that I’ve always learned,” Eder said, “Being able to work alongside a prominent artist like that was really helpful.”
SGA
from page 1
“I want to educate because I feel a lot of violence comes from harassment, and the culture that we live in is OK’ing objectification of women and men,” Nasiri said. The SGA is a 15-seat organization that acts as a liaison between students and the administration. Members are supposed to be chosen in campus elections, but sometimes there aren’t enough candidates to fill all the seats, and voter turnout is low. Members need at least a 2.5 grade-point average. An executive board, consisting of Campus Life manager Donivan Foster and SGA supervisor Dedra Duncan, also can make appointments. “(SGA) is, essentially, a voice of the campus from the student body,” Foster said. This semester, there were six SGA candidates. All won in an election on Oct. 4. Foster said 200 to 300 students voted. “It was based on the participation in the Fall Fest,” he said. “In order for people to participate in the Fall Fest, they had to show their student ID and vote. They were able to participate in everything else.” The SGA president is Dalia Alshawi, 21, a biochemistry major. She got involved because she likes team-building activities. Other officers include Lester Hope as vice president, Massooma Mikhwir as treasurer and Daison Williams as parliamentarian. Nasiri is a representative at large, along with Ndakize Mihigo. Alshawi, an international student from Iraq, said, “I joined the SGA because I really love this school and this community. I just wanted to bring change to it.” One of Alshawi’s most pressing issues is helping other international students who
are in the English as a second language program. Alshawi said some ESL students need assistance with FAFSA, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. She gave an example of a friend who incorrectly filled out the form, resulting in her financial aid being rejected. At the SGA’s Oct. 24 meeting, members discussed ideas for helping these students, including providing translators to guide them through the process. “I love to help students and come up with new ideas for the school or change things I don’t like,” Alshawi said. Graphics major Daison Williams, 18, became an SGA candidate after being encouraged by his friends. One of his goals is trying to bring down the high cost of food in the Forest Park cafeteria. “I guess they could bring that down a bunch,” he said. Hope, 19, is a general studies student. He ran for SGA to make an impact at the college. “I’m trying to get more students involved in activities,” he said. It’s not too late for Forest Park students to get appointed to the SGA. Specifically, the organization needs a corresponding secretary and recording secretary. Alshawi said one problem with trying to drum up interest is that many students aren’t aware the organization even exists. “I didn’t know until I got a job here as a student worker, and they told me there was a club called the SGA,” she said. “The people who don’t work here in the department don’t know about it, and they don’t know the benefits of it.”
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The Scene is a publication written and designed by students at St. Louis Community College at Forest Park, 5600 Oakland Ave., St. Louis, MO 63110. The office is in F Tower, Room 408. The telephone number is (314) 644-9140. The e-mail address is the_scene_fp@yahoo.com. All text, photos, graphics and other content are property of The Scene and may not be used without permission. Views expressed are not necessarily those of St. Louis Community
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Nov. 16, 2018
Opinion
It’s time to take the shame out of sex Uncensored
By Soroda Nasiri The Scene staff My family immigrated to the United States when I was 5 years old, but I was raised to be a Muslim Afghan woman. I’ve always had conflicting thoughts about sex. As a child and young adult, I never heard the word “sex” uttered by relatives or friends in my community. It was considered dirty, shameful, taboo. I was told that if I had sex before marriage, I would burn in hell. So naturally, I avoided any thoughts or feelings of sexual desire. When I entered high school, I was a naïve and sheltered 14-year-old girl. I believed that love was magical, like it is portrayed in Bollywood movies. I remember vividly the moment I learned on how children were conceived. The topic came up in gym class. I was
sitting in a circle with other students, waiting for the coach to assign us to a dodgeball team, when one of the female students asked, “How long can sperm stay in the vagina?” With a curious tone, I asked, “What is sperm?” Immediately, the other student’s question became obsolete, and the spotlight switched to me. The circle became very awkward and quiet. I can still feel the sharp stares I got that morning. One kid sarcastically said, “Ask your mommy how babies are made.” I told him what my mother had told me: “Once I get married, my husband and I will sit on our bed holding hands to ask God for a baby.” There was a moment when I felt like everyone hoped that I was joking, but I wasn’t. Their eyes were glued on me, then they looked at each other and burst out laughing. This caught the coach’s attention. He asked what was going on, but no one wanted to say. I was sitting there, not embarrassed, but confused. The coach reminded us to use our inside voices, and he carried on, drafting us into teams. Once everyone got their giggles out, we went back to our circle. There was one senior who wanted to make sure I knew the truth about life. She went into great detail, explaining how intercourse worked and how it could result in pregnancy. Everyone was listening closely. I wasn’t the only one who benefited that day. After gym class, I was very disappointed that I had been lied to by my family, and part of me didn’t want to be-
lieve the senior who had given me the lesson on reproduction. I tried to produce funny images in my mind, hoping to erase the disturbing picture that she had painted. I felt dirty. I felt like a bad person for believing someone else over my mom, and then I felt empathy for her because she was probably just repeating what her mother had told her. When I got home, the first thing I did was give my mom a hug and tell her that I loved her. I never shared my experience in gym class with Madar jan (Mom). Throughout high school, anytime I found myself in a discussion about sex, I would spell out the word. I was not comfortable saying it out loud. Families, schools and religious institutions often teach that abstinence until marriage is the key to a healthy life. But marriage is not for everyone, so why should people have to get married to have sex? Why would God create all the goodness that comes with sex but set rules and regulations to discourage it? In Afghan culture, men who have sex with their girlfriends won’t marry them because it’s believed that these women are promiscuous. Men aren’t encouraged to do this, but they aren’t ridiculed, either. Even here in America, there is a double standard. People look down on women who have “casual sex,” but not on men. They brag about it to their friends. It’s like a badge of honor. The bottom line is, sex shouldn’t be taboo for anyone. It shouldn’t have all
Chaos and Contradiction
this negative juju tied to it. It should be accepted as an enjoyable part of life, as long as it’s consensual. I’m not saying go around and have sex with everyone, catch diseases and get into hurtful situations. I mean, let your guard down and have fun making love with yourself or a partner. Set your own boundaries and morals. I have been sexually active for about seven years. Only recently, I was able to break free from feeling guilty about sex. The voices that once echoed in my head have faded away. The shame that used to lead to self-hatred after each sexual encounter has shattered. That fear of burning in hell is no longer there. Instead of telling young people that sex is a negative thing, we should emphasize the positives. We should provide them with the tools to understand their inner workings and encourage them to pleasure themselves as part of this self-exploration. We should educate them on the opposite gender. We should make sure they know how to protect themselves from pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, abuse and violence. This way, they will think about the consequences of their actions. I know that conversations like these are uncomfortable, but we need to have them. I like the approach the people in the Netherlands have toward sex. They start talking to children about it at age 4. That’s why their rates of molestation, rape and teen pregnancy are so low compared to other developed nations.
By Arrak Hutcherson
Missouri voters’ split personality
Nov. 16, 2018
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Campus chatter Mary Knapp, 45, photography “Robert Downey Jr. All his movie roles would make good conversation.”
Lucia Bolay, 20, nursing “Whitney Houston. I love the charity work she did in Africa, and her music is very inspirational.”
Claire Baecholy, 24, surgical technology “Absolutely not Donald Trump. He’s an idiot, and he would make my grandma upset.”
Lonesha Toliver, 19, theater arts “Cardi B. She’s my spiritual animal, bringing out a different side of me.”
What celebrity would you invite to Thanksgiving dinner? By Timothy Bold
Ronald Thompson, 20, general transfer “John Legend. I’m a huge fan. His music inspires me.”
Aundrea Jordan, 21, medical information technology “Michael Jackson. Listening to his music helped me through some tough times in my life.”
Tanya Carr, student service assistant “Oprah Winfrey. She’s very wise and knowledgeable.”
Brandy Englert, math professor “Justin Timberlake. He’s my Hollywood boyfriend.” Photo illustration by Joshua Phelps from clipart
Hamdi Ali, 18, social work “Rihanna. She’s an outgoing, people person with a great personality.”
Daison Williams, 18, graphic communication “(Rap artist) XXX Tentacion. I’d like to thank him for all his accomplishments in music before death.”
Tariq Ahmed, 18, clinical lab science “Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden. He’s so cool, and he plays really good music.”
Leah Roberson, 27, nursing “Jayson Tatum. I’d just like to see how his life is going, being a superstar.”
Layout by Jayy Dixon
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Nov. 16, 2018