A N AT I O N A L PA C E M A K E R AWA R D N E W S PA P E R
Out of their skulls for Dia de los Muertos. B1
Our county’s fluffiest predators. A12 Volume 58, Issue 2
theswcsun.com
October 13 - November 13, 2014
Ebola scare rattles the campus, community False alarm triggers international media coverage, widespread anxiety and fear
April Abarrondo/Staff
GOLDEN EVENING AT GOLDEN HALL— Griselda Delgado and supporters celebrate her election to the SWC Governing Board. She takes office Dec. 17.
By Anna Pryor Editor-in-Chief
Southwestern College’s Ebola scare turned out to be a lie, but the event raised questions about campus procedures for infectious disease outbreaks, emergency management by campus police and crisis communication by college leaders. Rumors of a possible case of Ebola at SWC became an international news story and attracted nearly two dozen print and broadcast news outlets from San Diego County and Baja Califoria the morning of Oct. 16 when campus police and public safety officers began to encircle the quad around the 400, 440, 450, 460 and 470 buildings with yellow caution tape. An estimated 75-100 students from several classes adjacent to the quad were quarantined for more than four hours from about 8:45 a.m. to about 1 p.m. Students in the quad were told to stay inside the area, though some students said campus police urged them to leave quickly before they were quarantined with the others. Campus officials went on alert when a student in an 8 a.m. class told her instructor she was not able to complete an assignment because of family turmoil following a flight from Wisconsin. She initially said she and a sister had traveled on the same flight as one of the two Texas-based nurses who had contracted Ebola while serving in West Africa. She said her sister was hospitalized with a high fever and flu-like symptoms. Her instructor called the campus nurse, who in turn notified campus police. At about 9 a.m. Campus Police Chief Michael Cash decided to seal the area into a quarantine zone. Campus police began to seal off nearby buildings and the quad. Cash said when he learned from San Diego County Health Services that there were no known cases of Ebola in the county, he and his officers decided to enter the faculty office where the student was being held to question her. College officials did not talk to medical personnel at County Health until about 1 p.m. “We went in, talked with her, in less than about five minutes she recanted
Delgado newest trustee By Brian del Carmen Staff Writer
UP IN SMOKE?
April Abarrondo/Staff
FLAME MAY GO OUT ON CIGARETTES — Photography major Mitzy Agraz and other smokers may be out of luck next year if the governing board votes to ban all nicotine products on campus. SWC is the only San Diego County college not to enact a ban.
SCC votes to snub out smoking on campus, governing board has the final decision By Asjia Daniels Assistant News Editor
Where there is smoking there is fire, but a new draft policy passed by the Shared Consultation Counsel is an effort to clear the air once and for all. If passed by the governing board it will formally ban all forms of smoking on the Southwestern College main campus and its satellites in National City, Otay Mesa, Coronado and San Ysidro. A previous policy, which attempted to limit smoking to four areas in or near parking lots, was nearly universally considered a failure due to lack of enforcement. Academic Senate President Patti FloresCharter said most faculty have expressed support for a ban, but not all. “When the policy was first introduced at SCC we did not have a 100 percent consensus,” she said. “Many faculty and
classified professionals smoke.” Former Academic Senate President Randy Beach said the issue has resurfaced for many reasons, but primarily because virtually every other San Diego public school system has banned smoking. “There was a resurgence in the notion of Southwestern College going smoke free,” he said. After visiting other smoke-free community colleges, the SCC directed a re-evaluation of the colleges’ practices, said Beach. “The facilities committee discussed it and there was a lot of back and forth on whether it was a facilities issue, public health issue, police enforcement issue or an employee enforcement issue,” he said. “ The facilities committee deemed that it was not addressable with the way it was presented to them. Most committees looked at it and
please see Ebola Scare, B5
“All four ASO representatives were absent that day. As important as it is for students to be involved in this conversation, they were not present for the day of the vote.” RANDY BEACH
please see Smoking, A4
Part-time instructors seek better treatment By: Abraham Gertz Staff Writer
Cindy Espinoza/Staff
PART-TIME, FULLY FRUSTRATED — Geoffery Johnson criticized the inequality between adjunct instructors and full-time professors.
All men may be created equal, but not all college instructors are treated equally. That was the message from a vo c a l g ro u p o f a d j u n c t instructors during Campus Equity Week, a nationwide initiative to draw attention to the working conditions of parttime instructors. “Faculty working conditions are student learning conditions!” announced Geoffery Johnson, an English instr uctor and Southwestern College Education Association Adjunct Representative, at an outdoor public seminar in front of the cafeteria focused on the plight of part-time professors at SWC
and across America. Campus Equity Week, he said, is part of an effort to obtain equal pay for equal work. Adjuncts, Johnson said, are paid about half what full-time professors are paid for doing the same work. Johnson asked attendees to sign a letter to Governor Jerry Brown describing the unfair treatment of adjuncts and requesting state funds to equalize pay. Equity advocates are seeking $30 million to pay part-time instructors for office hours, $50 million to erase inequalities in compensation and $100 million to hire more adjuncts as fulltime, tenure-tracked professors. Governing Board Member Humberto Peraza said he did not think it was fair that adjuncts
receive fewer benefits than fulltime professors. “They don’t get paid the same and don’t get the same subsidies on healthcare,” he said. “They don’t get paid for office hours.” Despite working at more than one campus, most struggle to make a living wage. Adjuncts make up almost 80 percent of the approximately 1,100 instructors at SWC, said Jo h n s o n s a i d A m e r i c a n higher education has become increasingly reliant on parttime instructors. Between 1976 and 2011 adjunct instructors working at American colleges and universities increased by 286 percent, he said. In the 1970s adjuncts made up 30 percent of please see Adjuncts, A2
Griselda Delgado, the principal of Hilltop Middle School, won the race for SWC Governing Board Seat #1 over former Sweetwater Union High School District Trustee Jaime Mercado and Chula Vista elementary school teacher Veronica Valdivia. Delgado received 38 percent of the vote to Mercado’s 32 percent. Valdivia tallied 30 percent despite not campaigning. “Students first” was the theme of Delgado’s campaign. please see Election, A3
Wellness Center shapes up By Jaime Pronoble News Editor
After 15 years of proposals, debates, scandal, cancellations and re-designs, the first actual building on the long-jinxed corner lot may begin in Spring 2015. An ambitious wellness center and aquatic complex is planned for the dirt field by Parking Lot O, near the corner of East H Street and Otay Lakes Road. Total footprint of the project is 75, 250 square feet, total estimated cost is more than $31 million. Prop R Bond Project Manager Mark Claussen said he hopes to start construction as early as May. The wellness center will have three levels. Level one will house the basketball court, ticket w i n d o w, event lobby and athletic locker rooms. Level two will have a fitness/ cardio HEFFERNAN exercise room, community classrooms and locker rooms and storage for the pool. Level three will host a multipurpose exercise room and faculty offices. Claussen said the wellness center should be complete by Fall 2017. Once the wellness center is finished, the existing gymnasium please see Wellness Center, A4