Talon Marks Committee

The ASCC has established a Talon Marks committee because it is not happy with what goes on in the newspaper.

I have been hearing things that are shocking to me because none of it has been said directly to me.

What upsets me most about this is that no one has talked to me about anyone having a problem with the paper.

The purpose of the committee would be if someone had come to me with problems he or she says and I don't listen.

However, that hasn't happened. I have only directly heard positive comments about the paper.

I have heard that lies are being spread about me even.

And I am put into a position that I cannot defend myself or my paper because no one is saying it to me.

Communication goes both ways. I have no problem with the ASCC and I would say something if I did. I hoped for the same courtesy from the ASCC had a problem with the Talon Marks.

Congratulations on your contributions to iFALCON and working toward making the Student Center look nicer.

Updated Master Plan

This campus construction plan came to me last month and it has some great improvements.

The best improvement is that no tennis courts are going away. Tennis tournaments require a minimum number of courts and the old plan was going to bring Cerritos under that minimum.

As it appears, the parking spots are all going to go horizontally rather than diagonally.

Apparently, that adds more spaces. But the advantage to diagonal spaces is to force drivers to drive only one way down an aisle.

I would think having horizontal spaces would require wider aisles to allow people to go both ways.

The Hill stays. Thanks to ASCC President Michael Barrita and other student government members, that hill of grass isn't going anywhere.

The old soccer field stays. That's good for the PE program.

I thought it wasn't essential since the program only had one field to start. The school just had the new field built before tearing the old one down so not to eliminate soccer on campus for the time being.

But the "practice fields" are here to stay.

The corner of Alondra Boulevard and Studebaker Road has been changed as well. The old plan had more of a rounded parking area and now it's more squared off. It looked nicer rounded but there is probably a reason why it was changed.

Health cost decided... yes

It didn't surprise me that it was passed in the ASCC Senate that the health service fee is going up by $2.

Money is tight for everyone. Costs on everything are going up and people are making less money to spend.

But it's just another couple dollars. It's not a big deal and I got that sense from the senate that the whole group felt the same way.

With this rise in cost, maybe more students will take advantage of the service to get their money worth.

I picked up a pamphlet from the office. I'm definitely going to give it a try.

Beautification

The drilling of the "reflection pool" at the Student Center is coming up in the next couple weeks.

I think it's great to see this come off the ground.

The Student Center, at its current state, is very ugly.

The "reflection pool" is empty and dirty. It's just a hole in the ground that looks ugly.

And now the marquee is being replaced.

A new LCD screen is ordered and it should be up by the end of the semester.

I never had a problem with the current marquee but this new one sounds cool and can only improve the look of campus.

I'm looking forward to see what's going to come out of this Student Center Project.

Upping the health service fee

Nancy Montgomery of the Student Health Center brought up that it may be necessary to raise the student health fee to $16.

That's two dollars more.

The reason for this is because of the rise of costs for supplies. In comparison to going to an off-campus doctor, the Student Health Center is very inexpensive.

Is raising it by a couple dollars really a big deal though? Take advantage of the center once and you already made your money back. Get a $5 flu shot.

The real concern is if it the fee rises by a couple bucks, will that make the next raise easier in the future? If it raises two dollars annually, will students soon be paying $30 in 2012?

The state does have a law setting a bar on how much the school can charge for that fee so students have to worry about that much of an increase in the future.

Whatever the case is, this issue shouldn't cause too much of a problem. With two dollars, skip the double-bacon cheeseburger one day.

On a side note, after Montgomery's presentation to the ASCC Senate, I've been thinking about taking advantage of its $40 eye exams. I skipped my last eye exam because it was too expensive at the office.

Habits of Mind

Dr. Bryan Reece gave a presentation to the ASCC Senate yesterday about what he calls the Habits of Mind campaign, or iFALCON.

It sounds like a great idea. FALCON is a nice acronym for:
Focus
Advance
Link up
Comprehend
Organize and embrace
New ideas

"Falcon" is being used as an adjective here. Do you falcon? I falcon. It also pays homage to all the Apple products (i.e. iPod, iPhone).

So what's making it fun for students is the advertising that looks like the silhouette you see in the iPod advertisements.

Putting up banners and posters is a good idea. But the Faculty Senate wants to hand out cards too. Like when Taco Bell gives you your receipt, it hands you a card with the iFalcon stuff on it.

The main dilemma here is what do we do about students that will just throw them away?

I throw away all advertisements I may get with my receipts. I'm sure many people do.

How do we tell students that these are not just ads?

Instead of just handing the cards out to students, set them down around campus (like the Talon Marks) and let students pick them up willingly.

This way, fewer students will be throwing them away and they wouldn't be wasted.

But not a drop to drink

Last semester, ASCC President Michael Barrita had a plan to offer free [Yosemite] water on campus.

Pepsi shot that down. How do you make an official free water to all students on campus while Aquafina bottles are being sold?

At the end of last semester, Barrita announced that he was going to put a filter in the water fountain in the Student Center.

Now, the ASCC Cabinet is putting together reports about all the water fountains on campus to get them up to speed.

I remember Barrita saying the free Yosemite water was because of the water fountains being below par.

So why not fix the fountains in the first place? Who will fight that?

Give out free water, corporate giant Pepsi will fight.

And there's the misconception that tap water isn't as clean as bottled water.

Bottled water is tapped water in a bottle, but a lot of people think it really is cleaner.

So I ask, if all the water fountains are neat, pretty and perfect, will people drink from them?

Challenges from the ASCC

I probably could have told you what happened at the ASCC senate meeting today before it happened.

A bunch of commissioners and other positions were appointed today.

Before each appointing, the senate is allowed to ask questions to make sure these candidates are right for the job.

The room was silent for the majority of these periods of time.

These students were then appointed.

I ask, where are the challenging questions?

All the information you are getting about these people coming from a piece of paper you are given or from their 30-second speeches.

The only questions that were asked were regarding GPA, how many units they are taking and school involvement.

Some senators wondered if the students up for the positions had time for student government.

These students need to be challenged before being appointed because we need to know that the best people are being put up for the jobs.

Because someone says they want to try something new doesn't mean that person is qualified or reliable enough to be in the position.

But for some of these students, that's all we know about them.

Where's the symbol?

After watching both water polo games the other day, I got to thinking.

Why doesn't the men's team sport the Falcon logo?

The players have the Falcon on their swimsuits, but you don't see that much at all in a game.

The women's players have the Falcon on their helmets, where they're noticed and look quite good.

The men's players simply have "CC" printed on theirs. Playing against ECC the other day, that could get confusing for someone.

There might be a reason for this. I'm just throwing this out there.

I think as a standard, water polo teams need their logos on their helmets, just as football teams have their logos on their helmets.

Preaching on campus

On Wednesday, there were three people that were preaching to students about God and Christianity in the amphitheater.

What I noticed in particular was a total disrespect from both worshipers and non-worshipers.

What these people were preaching is that they're right about religion and anyone who disagrees is wrong.

And there were students that weren't giving these people the respect and let them say what they wanted to say.

However, there are people on campus that don't want to hear about religion. Christians deserve respect but so do the evolutionists, atheists, agnostics and any other type of believer.

There was one student that was debating with the first speaker. They carried on their debate close enough to respectful.

But there were other students that were singing and making rude comments, interrupting them.

I think these people are doing a good thing, but need to go to a different setting than a popular student hangout spot.

They were obviously going to get more backlash than praise.

They could have easily put up posters like, "Want to be saved? Come to (insert location) at (insert date and time)."

That way, they could save those who want to be saved. Obviously, all their words on Wednesday fell on deaf ears and all they got in return was sarcastic comments.

Comments about the paper in contrast to last semester

I'm not bragging to Scott here but I'm pleased with the compliments I've gotten in regards to the paper.

At yesterday's ICC meeting, one person from Teacher TRAC and ASCC President Michael Barrita both referred students to read the articles about them in the paper.

I found it nice in contrast to last semester when Student Trustee Jason Macias and Barrita trashed the paper's first issue (Jan. 16).

That wasn't in regards to the quality of the paper. They just disagreed with the editorial.

I'm constantly thinking of ways to improve for the next issue coming on Sep. 10.

I'm also excited for the new TalonMarks.com that's coming. My goal is to have it launched next week.

In comparison to the format of the current Web site, it'll blow you away.

My first issue is out

My first issue of the Talon Marks as the editor-in-chief is in the print.

I'm proud of how everything turned out.

There are a couple of decisions I made against the suggestion of the editor-in-chief from last semester. I stand by them. Because I'm the editor, that's why.

I think it's a really good looking paper and we got it done in better time than I could've asked for, especially considering our staff has only three returners.

Others are picking up on the process and if the last week foreshadows the rest of the semester, it's going to be a good semester.

The editors are:
- Scott Watkins, online editor,
- Andres Escamilla, news editor,
- Esmeralda Infante, arts editor,
- Sylvanus Stephens, sports editor, and
- Ernesto Gomez, online community editor.

They're a great staff and I look forward to working with them for the rest of the semester.