Charlton "Skip" Fotch served as Associate Dean of Student Activities at City College for over seven years. PHOTO COURTESY OF CITY CURRENTS

By Greg Zeman
STAFF WRITER

Associate Dean of Student Activities Charlton “Skip” Fotch has retired. An interim replacement has been selected by Chancellor Don Q. Griffin and will likely be approved at the next Board of Trustees meeting.

Vice Chancellor Mark Robinson said he was “sad to see him go.”

Robinson described Fotch as “something of a fixture,” at City College and characterized him as a dedicated administrator who cared about students.

“There were a lot of things that would happen on campus and with students. Problems would arise and Skip would deal with them to the point where I wouldn’t find out until later that there had even been a problem. It had been dealt with successfully, and students were pleased with the outcome,” Robinson said. “He was good like that. He did a lot of good things.”

According to acting Dean of Student Affairs Rod Santos, Fotch’s replacement would need to be “someone who has a background in working with students and is very student friendly and organized — someone familiar with the functions of not only student activities, but also with Associated Students.”

“That job description we used for Skip was done about ten or eleven years ago. There wasn’t a Twitter or a MySpace or a Facebook,” Robinson said. “We want this person to be as technologically savvy as possible because we want to be in a position where we can communicate, not only with the Associated Students, but with the entire student body on a regular basis.”

The interim Associate Dean of Student Activities was selected through “a hiring committee comprised of administrators, classified staff members, faculty members who were approved through the Academic Senate and [representatives] from the Associated Students,” Santos said.

The interim position was only available to those currently employed with the district, according to Robinson. However, the permanent position will be made publicly available.

“We should have had way more student involvement,” Student Trustee Josh Nielsen said. “There were some concerns that we [Associated Students] had: None of the candidates we saw was a person of color and I would have liked to have seen a comparison.”

Nielsen also expressed concern about the small number of candidates the AS was given to choose from.

“There were a number of applicants who applied that I thought were very well qualified and they unfortunately didn’t make it through that process,” Nielsen said. “Only two final candidates that the students get to decide on? No, I don’t think that’s fair.”

Robinson said the chancellor’s office is trying to have the position filled by July 1, 2010 in order to allow time for a quality candidate to be vetted.

“We want to talk to some of the people on the AS council, and we want to get their opinion on some of the things they want to include or change or takeout in terms of the responsibility of that person,” Robinson said.

Fotch could not be reached for comment, but both Robinson and Santos said that he had been planning his retirement for some time.

“He’s been planning it for the last couple of years … he’s been an educator for a whole lot of years,” Santos said.

“I know I’m going to miss him,” Robinson said.

By Alex Luthi
ONLINE EDITOR

According to official Associated Students Ocean campus election results released Friday morning, Joshua Nielsen and Ryan Vanderpol were elected to the posts of student trustee and AS president, respectively.

The results were first released via text message by a member of City College’s AS to Rod Santos, acting dean of student affairs and public safety and Diana Munoz-Villanueva, the current student trustee for City College’s board of trustees.

Munoz-Villanueva announced the results of the race for student trustee during the Thursday meeting of City College’s board of trustees at the John Adams campus to the standing room only crowd attending the meeting.

The official results were released to The Guardman by City College student Jimmy Young, an AS senator candidate who ran on the O.S. slate. The results were verified by Pamela Ward, election commissioner, Philip Conklin, assistant elections commissioner and Skip Fotch, associate dean of student activities.

Election Results from Ocean Campus

Vote counts for a candidate appear after the candidate’s name.

Winners of each race are denoted in bold.

District-wide election results:

Proposition S

Proposition S Approved

Yes 467
No 207

Student Trustee Candidates Votes

Joshua Nielsen 846
Bivett Bracket 197
Aito Compton 157

Ocean campus vote tallies:

AS Ocean President

Ryan Vanderpol 277
Alecia Dominguez 265
Paolo Marquez 172
Olivia Franco 118
Jerry Scripter 54

AS Ocean Senators Votes

Nicole Blas 382
Yoowi Jang 281
Marielle Bautista 280
Pedro Alforque 357
Keyla Medonza 325
Laura Medina 311
Moose Adewunmi 308
Choco (Vinci-Paolo) Vilbar 274
Daniel Mancia 266
Eloy Najera 262
Diamond Dave Whitaker 262
Zenryo Trenholm 260
Mei Xuan 257
Rheana Rios 255
Faafetai Tupua 255
Wen S. Li 240
Johnny Lee 239
Raymond Tan 238
Jimmy Young 232
Ashley Brown 227
Christopher Gomora 223
Stephanie Nuttman 217
Joshua Bohar 192
Jacob Anderson 183
Barbara Jefferson 188
Vincent Finkowski 185
Josh Terry 160
William McSwine 152
Tayana Drevaleva 150
Micheál McLoughlin 150

Source: AS Elections

For updates on CIty College’s Associated Students election results, check back with The Guardsman or follow our election twitter feed @ccsfelection.

By Nick Squires
Contributing Writer

With the rising cost of textbooks, many students are looking for alternative ways to purchase books without straining their already tight budget.

“I’ve spent $225 on books for 12 units,” said Angela Penny, a City College student, who is studying video editing and production. “My books cost more than my classes.”

In 2005, the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report to Congress focusing on textbook prices. The GAO concluded textbook prices have risen an average of 5 percent between 2003-2004, and explains the price increase is due to the addition of supplemental material to textbooks making them “bundled” packages. These bundles can include a CD-ROM and access to web programs designed to keep up with the advancement of technology in classrooms and help part-time teachers with additional teaching support.

New bills such as the Higher Education Act, signed into law on August 14, 2008, were introduced to help explain and remedy the high price of books. The act requires textbook manufacturers to provide students with full textbook pricing information in order to budget for each semester. The bill also ensures that colleges and faculty will have wholesale textbook pricing information when ordering for the next semester, and requires publishers to provide “unbundled” options for “bundled” materials.

This trend of adding supplemental material to textbooks is likely to continue. At City College, the majority of foreign language textbooks contain such supplements — from student activity manuals to DVDs.

Supplements are not easily identified as necessary by book buyers. They hinder students chances of selling a textbook bundle back to bookstores at the end of the semester and effect the amount of used copies of a textbooks available. With textbook manufacturers revising editions every two to three years, students are required to purchase these bundles in order to study the new editions.

“The prices of textbooks seems out of proportion to the size of the book,” said Brenda Kahn, a City College journalism instructor. “Many students have trouble locating books for class.”

The prices of textbooks, regardless of bundling, are still unaffordable for some students. “I’m taking just two classes because that’s all I can afford. I guess I will have to hope my teacher doesn’t use the book much,” said Amy Donaldson, a medical studies City College student.

“Rip-off 101,” a 2005 report by The State Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG) Higher Education Project outlined the high price of textbooks stating “The average student will spend nearly $900 each year purchasing textbooks.” This report also concluded textbook prices are rising at more than four times the inflation rate.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently vetoed a Senate bill called the Textbook Affordability Act, which would have lowered textbook prices and extended the length of time a textbook edition would be available to college faculty in favor of the Textbook Transparency Act. The Act will provide college faculty with a detailed list of changes between one edition of a textbook to the next and will go into effect in 2010.

“This bill [Textbook Affordability Act] focuses strictly on textbook publisher policies and fails to recognize that the affordability of textbooks is a shared responsibility among publishers, college bookstores and faculty members,” Schwarzenegger said via a letter to the California State Senate.

At City College libraries, the Associated Students (AS) Book Loan Program provides students with free textbooks. It is available to all students but is targeted toward low-income students with first priority given to those receiving financial aid. The program stocks books based on criteria usefulness to the greatest number of students, usually general education and books for transferable classes, according to the AS. However the selection is small and does not cover many classes.

“Students need to remind teachers to deliver books to the reserve section of the library,”  saidSirious Monajami, librarian at the City College Mission campus, speaking about the all City Colege libraries. “Our number of on-reserve books is growing but still small.”

The Campaign to Reduce Textbook Costs affirms textbooks costs is a major issue for middle and low income students. They offer an alternative in “Open Textbooks”, free online versions of common college textbooks. Examples are available at www.maketextbooksaffordable.org.

Nine trustee candidates have stepped forward

By Liska Koenig
STAFF WRITER

Industrial engineering major Diana Muñoz-Villanueva was re-elected as City College student trustee for 2008 – 2009, while political science major Joshua Nielsen was elected the new Associated Students President during elections for AS government on April 29 and 30.

Earning 431 of the 607 votes, Muñoz-Villanueva promised to advocate for more scholarships and tutoring in her next term. She knows that textbook prices burn into students’ financial resources and wants to reduce costs.

“I learned so much during this past year as a student trustee and feel I can really make a difference in the lives of students,” Muñoz-Villanueva said. “I spend about 25 to 30 hours per week in my role as a student trustee. Sometimes I’m at board meetings until 10 p.m. or longer.”

An item on Nielson’s agenda is the improvement of campus tours for new students.

“Students who are just getting started at City College need to know where to find their networks and communities. Tours should include places like the financial aid office, the Book loan program or where to find tutoring,” Nielsen said.

Nielsen would also like to see the building of student dorms after the parking area has been moved from the reservoir. This would be a way to find affordable housing for students just moving to San Francisco.
Candidate Chirag Dalibar lost, but has expressed interest in actively supporting Muñoz-Villanueva.

“There is enough work for two here and sometimes it makes sense to talk things over with somebody else,” he said. “We need to get together and do something, raise funds for student activities and form a true community.”

So far, the position of a second student trustee has not been approved.

“I encourage students to think about their choices and to ensure that their representation by a student trustee is not only helpful to them, but important for the college as a whole,” Associate Dean of Student Activities Skip Fotch said.