Photo by Benj Salkind

Jim Ellinger, Bellevue College biology instructor, was surprised by two of his former and current students, Kim Williams, BC alumnus, and Anastaysia (Nancy) Lavochina, current student, who spent many months fundraising to donate nearly $2100 to Ellinger’s science camp for children.

Williams and Lavochina have worked through spring quarter to secretly raise money to fund Ellinger. “This particular project was inspired by my son Alexandre Williams who had the opportunity to attend the Bellevue College science camp three consecutive years. At the time he attended, I was unable to afford the fees for the camp, and Dr. Ellinger generously permitted me to work as a volunteer to supplement the tuition,” said Williams.

Now that Williams is an alumnus, she said that she saw this as a good opportunity to give back to the program. She and Lavochina started a now three-person program called Change for Choice, which fundraises for causes. This was the first cause the program raised money for, called Equality in Education, and the next is called Volunteering for Veterans. Change for Choice is made of Williams, Lavochina and volunteer Christopher Moore, but Williams and Lavochina spearheaded this project.

“We stood in the rain outside of Safeway, mowed lawns and pulled weeds in the rain…” said Williams about their fundraising efforts.

Lavochina added, “It took a long time but we had a goal, and we wanted to reach it.” She hand-made hemp beaded bracelets to sell in order to raise the funds as well.

When they raised all the funds, they presented a check to Ellinger on Tuesday, July 31, in his office. Ellinger, who had no idea this fundraising had been going on, was shocked by the gesture. “This is precious,” he said. “Thank you all very much!”

In addition to Williams and Lavochina, David Sandler from Public Relations and Tom Pritchard, the Vice President of Student Services, were also in attendance.

“The way they raised the money was incredible,” said Pritchard.

The money is going towards scholarships for Ellinger’s BC Summer Science Camp for 5th – 7th graders. “We raised money to help out the kids in our community who aren’t financially able to go to your camp,” Lavochina told Ellinger when they presented the check. “It’s a really great camp!”

Ellinger and the Science And Math Institute (SAMI) at BC work together to run the Summer Science Camp, with SAMI managing the advertising, marketing and prizes with Ellinger directing the activities. This year, at almost 48 students and long waitlists, the camp has reached the largest enrollment it has ever seen. The $2100 will go to provide scholarships for students who are enthusiastic about science but unable to pay for the camp themselves.

“That’s going to be almost 10 scholarships,” said Kate Souza, director of SAMI. “It’s going to make a big impact.”

Ellinger went on to say that between 5th and 7th grade was when girls tended to lose their interest in science, and the camp he runs hopes to encourage girls’ interest in science.

“We also run Science Saturdays all through the quarter,” Ellinger added. This program is also aimed at the middle school age group and hopes to keep their interest in science piqued. Science Saturdays are also one of many activities promoted by SAMI, which works on many K-12 science endeavors since its creation by the Science Department in 2007, including the annual Central Sound Regional Science and Engineering Fair, which enjoyed an attendance of 30,000 people last year.

“We try to get kids excited about science,” said Souza.

Ellinger’s camp runs August 13-17 in the S building. More information on the camp is available through the science division website.

On changebychoice.com, Williams said, “We must start from within to help those who do without.”

Source: columbian.com

With the November election not very far away, the campaigns are reaching their full swing, issues are being debated and initiatives are being put on the ballots. On Friday, June 6, two more initiatives were added to the Washington ballot after attaining more than the required 241,153 signatures

The two bills in question are in support of charter schools, and requiring a two-thirds majority to raise taxes in the state. They join four other initiatives on the November ballot, including a referendum voting for same-sex marriage, an initiative to legalize marijuana and allowing University of Washington and Washington State University to reinvest some of their public funding.

According to Dave Ammon, spokesperson for Secretary of State Sam Reed, whom Bellevue College has hosted as a speaker every year, this busy election year could break the 86 percent attendance record set in 2008. “It should be an interesting year,” he said.

The main reason for the suspected increase in attendance, according to an associate professor at the University of Washington, Matt Barreto, is the highly advocated same-sex marriage and marijuana referendums and initiatives. The referendum will give voters the opportunity to affirm or reject the earlier legislature legalizing same-sex marriage. These two sensitive issues will be joined to bring voters to presidential and gubernatorial ballots, as well as other local initiatives like charter schools and tax voting majority.

The charter schools initiative was put forth in late May, and the goal is to bring charter schools to Washington, which is one of nine states that currently doesn’t allow them. A charter school is, according to the creators of the initiative, “A public school open to all … created and run by concerned parents and certified teachers.” Charter schools are independent, but publically funded; they provide an alternative to public schools. They have secured over $2 million in funding and are backed by major educational groups.

Charter schools were legalized in March of 2004, but overturned in a referendum that same November. This year the main petitioners behind this initiative hope to succeed permanently and open 40 charter schools over a five-year period approved by the state. Opponents to this initiative object to nonunion instructors, as well as saying that money should not be taken from public schools to create charter schools.

The other initiative, called the Eyman Initiative after Tim Eyman, the main promoter, concerns changing the majority required to raise taxes in the state. Currently in the House and the Senate a one-half majority is required, but if this initiative passes the state House and Senate would have to reach a two thirds majority, or have the new tax approved by voters.

Eyman turned in reportedly over 318,000 signatures on Friday, June 6. He said of this bill, “Taxpayers desperately need protection from job-killing, family-budget-busting tax increases.”

This initiative has already passed in the past, but it has a two-year expiration date and would become moot in January of 2013. If voters want it to stay, they will need to vote it into law again.

Both these initiatives will go on the ballot in November, although they both have groups and organizations who have promised to fight against them – civic leaders against Eyman’s initiative, and union teachers against the charter school initiative. Campaigns for and against have been running in the background during this electoral season, but now it is affirmed that they will be at least voted on.

Source: eeginfo.com

Summer may be a time of relaxation, but the BC Sustainability Department isn’t taking a break. Just last week, on July 4, a new lighting retrofit kicked off.

These retrofits are going to affect most rooms on campus, as part of a Puget Sound Energy grant totalling about half a million dollars. It is thought to reduce energy consumption from lights by 14 percent.

“The lighting retrofits have been in the process for more than a year now.  We are undertaking this project as part of Washington State’s Energy Saving Performance Contracting,” said Deric Gruen, Sustainability Coordinator.

The retrofits themselves will consist of LED technology, motion detectors for lights and high energy fluorescent lights, which are scientifically proven to be much more environmentally friendly. The kickoff for the installation of these lights on the general campus began on Independence Day, but the gym was retrofitted earlier so it could be completed by graduation.

Students will probably not see the retrofitting being done because it will happen mainly after operating hours and on days when there isn’t school so it won’t impact students’ classes, since it is going to transform nearly every room on campus.

This refurbishment happened as a result of petitions and grants by the state. It began in spring of 2011 with an energy audit of BC’s systems. This led to a deeper analysis of BC’s lighting efficiency in the summer of 2011, after seeing room for improvement in the initial audit.

Gruen explained, “Then a proposal was created to replace existing lighting when there was a more efficient system available, as well as other means to improve control of our heating ventilation and air conditioning system and improve the efficiency of our sinks and bathrooms. That proposal came with a guaranteed, enforced by the state, that they would provide energy savings at the amount specified.”

For BC, we were guarantee a 17 percent savings of electricity, a 4 percent saving of thermal gas, and a 19 percent saving of water efficiency.

“All this adds up to about $200,000 a year the college won’t have to pay towards utility expenses  and a reduction of 2,300 metric tons of carbon emissions reductions each year,” said Gruen.

This is part of an onslaught of environmental improvement, including water, heating, air conditioning, and ventilation improvements. The college is seeking grants for these as well. A project for solar energy will be matched by the Student Environmental Sustainability Fund (SESF).

The SESF was founded in 2008 as a way to pay for student ideas for sustainability. Students pay a dollar per credit – up to $10 a quarter – to go into this fund. Any student who has an idea about sustainable projects can make a project plan and present it for funding from the SESF.

More information on the lighting retrofits and the SESF is available on the Bellevue College Sustainability Department website.

Source: debitum.info

Over the last several years, a problem that an increasing number of students have had to deal with is paying off suffocating student loans, that can easily reach hundreds of thousands of dollars by the time a student is entirely through college. Added on is the interest payments, which can sometimes dramatically increase the cost of attending college. The interest payments for federal loans were set to double by July 1. At BC, that would affect 21 percent of students who currently receive federal financial aid.

The prior interest rate was 3.4 percent, a rate set to expire on July 1. This low rate came from a bill signed by President Bush that gave a lowered rate to Subsidized Stafford Loans – when this bill expires, federal loans ceased being subsidized and jumped back up to their natural interest rate – 6.8 percent. Associate director of financial aid at Western Washington University, Jim DeWilde, said that this could add as much as ten years on the average time it takes a student to repay the loan.

Ever since the release of the information, it has been under debate in Congress as they try to find a compromise to please the colleges and the students who would see their loans double. The Senate reached an agreement last week, though the House still has yet to reach consensus.

This issue has brought others to the surface as well – issues about college affordability in general. Officials from state colleges have been petitioning their representatives with their opinions about this new interest rate. The consensus from all officials is that the students in the greatest need borrow the most, and they are hit the hardest with interest rates.

Also, as tuition rises, available jobs fall, and college financial aid falls, college students are being financially battered from every angle, a fact Representative Rick Larsen reports hearing from many Washington community college and college officials.

A local student said that even if the compromise doesn’t go through the House, students will take the loans anyway because they don’t have another choice.

The uproar about this issue has been forcing a compromise on the interest rate bill, as students from all over the nation cried out against it.

“I want to thank the millions of students across the country who made their voices heard… This advocacy was absolutely critical in pushing this deal to come together,” said U.S. Senator Patty Murray.

The House has not yet reached a compromise, but representatives, students, and officials are all expressing hope that with the public outcry, a resolution is not far away.

The newly complete IBIT headquarters opened last week. Photograph by Amy Leong

Over the last year, Lot 10 has been closed. It was closed for construction happening on the A building. That construction has recently been concluded and the parking lot re-opened. The construction was for renovating and expanding the top floor and creating a suitable office center for Bellevue College’s Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) center.

While the center was being created, IBIT was housed in temporary quarters at L100 for one year, where students could see a laminated page taped to the wall saying “IBIT-L100.” “For a year we conducted business in L100 and learned to deal with the lack of privacy and noise that is inherent in cubicles,” said Margaret Turcott, Assistant Dean of IBIT.

“It worked, but it didn’t provide the same elements we get here,” said IBIT Dean Phil Needles. “We appreciated it, but it was a temporary space.”

The new office space is much larger and beautifully done.  “I am so happy to be in the new IBIT space,” said Turcott. Rather than a paper sign, this new space has a work of art as a sign.

A reception was held on May 29 to commemorate the opening of this new space. Faculty from every division came to show support for the movement of the business and information technology staff. Interim President Laura Saunders was there, accompanied by Lisa Corcoran, her Secretary. Vice President of Student Services Tom Pritchard was also in attendance.

“It [the new center] represents what students need from a place like this: Lots of light, lots of air. It’s a place for student success,” said Saunders.

Needles said that his three goals for the space were “Collaboration, communication and connection. Those support a place for students to be successful, and it’s important to have a physical space to foster that.” Needles loves the new space and sees that it fulfills those ideals.

The open house featured a guided tour,  given by Deanna Tiplin, administrative manager of IBIT. Needles acknowledged her as being “instrumental in all of this.”

“We’ve got a work room, even!” she exclaimed as the tour began. She showed a collection of faculty around, seeing the offices, the window space, the conference rooms and the space for adjunct professors.

“This is our pride and joy,” said Tiplin. “For our adjunct!” In the new IBIT center the largest office, the corner office, was given to the adjunct faculty in the business and information technology departments.

The space for the adjunct faculty was a point of pride among the staff, especially in light of the fact that fewer and fewer adjunct faculty have offices. Needles said, “I’m thrilled for the adjunct team that they have a space that supports their wonderful work.”

An increasing issue across the country is the lack of office space for adjunct professors. As they teach more and more classes, up to 70 percent in some fields according to the State Board on Community and Technical Colleges, it’s become a problem that they don’t have offices. The IBIT center, therefore, is very happy to have a home for their adjunct professors so students can seek them out.

“I think it [the new center] addresses overcrowding very well,” said Needles about the new space. “It’s representative of how the college can provide for our very important adjunct faculty.”

Tiplin was delighted to be in the new center. “I’ve been here 23 years and we’ve been everywhere!” she said.

Turcott agreed with that for her tenure as well. She said, “When I was hired in 1996, we occupied the A242 area. Most of the staff and all program chairs had offices in A242 with other faculty in offices all around campus. My first office, in 1996, was an electrical closet in the back of A134!”

She reflected on the movements of the business section and how the staff was separated, never in the same office area. With more faculty than space on campus, there was no way for them to be together in the same area.

This is evidence of an overcrowding issue plaguing community colleges all over America. In the last year, massive cuts have been taken from the budget of colleges; because of this schools don’t have the money they used to have to deal with more and more incoming students and faculty, so the space itself doesn’t expand as the population and usage expands. The renovation of the IBIT center, however, is a step in the direction of matching facility expansion with expansion of users. Needles said that it showed how the college can support the institutes.

“When the business division morphed into IBIT, it was determined that IBIT should have a business-like office area where all faculty and staff could be together. So, we were temporarily housed in cubicles in L100 for the last year, while our ‘dream’ office space was created,” said Turcott.

The process of designing and building the new institute began in 2009.

“It’s been most exciting to see the students enthusiasm. That’s a wonderful thing,” said Needles “We want it to be welcoming and inviting, so the students can see ‘this is here to support me.’”

Photograph by Amy Leong

On Tuesday, May 22, the relatively new Political Economy Club hosted a speaker to talk about the future of the political economy through labor unions, globalization and the connection of both these things to the Occupy movement. Sergio Salinas, the president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local Branch #6, came to the Library Media Center for one hour to speak and answer questions on the interconnectedness of these things.

Salinas started by explaining his union and how he came to be the president of it. “We represent the janitors,” he said. SEIU #6 also represents security guards and other working families. “I came to the US about 30 years ago because of the civil war in my country,” said Salinas, who is originally from El Salvador. “I was in jail for a year for union organizing, then I was exiled to Mexico and then I came to the US.”

He explained that organizing labor into a cohesive force has been something he has been very passionate about all his life. “I am privileged to be able to come talk to you about how important students are to social change,” he added.

The primary focus of his talk was on the income inequality and the need for a huge cohesive movement of labor workers to stand up against employers. He peppered his talk with bits of history of labor unions, and statistics – comparing labor union density now (6.5 percent) to density from the 50s and 60s (25 percent), the golden era of labor unions.

“Income inequality is so huge it’s impossible,” Salinas said, “unless we create a movement. Unless we resolve that issue, the future of this country is very, very grim, because the super-rich don’t pay their taxes.”

He believes that the Occupy movement is a good thing because it’s a huge protest movement – so many people moving together, Salinas believes, is the catalyst needed for real change. “We [SEIU] believe that the Occupy movement is an extremely positive development. Finally we have the means to create a movement. We as SEIU have joined to support the Occupy movement.” SEIU is going to a conference this weekend to work with those leaders.

“Unless we do that, unless we ally with the Occupy movement and the 99 percent, labor unions will end up in the Smithsonian museum,” he said.

After his presentation ended, questions began coming from the teachers, staff and students in attendance.

After a question from a student, Salinas said that he would see the Occupy movement solidify behind one cause primarily, and present that one cause out to the media. “We need to bring into the center of discussion the value of income inequality,” he said.

Other students asked clarification questions about the works of SEIU and the controversial acts of specific labor unions in Vancouver. Professor Chace Stiehl, faculty advisor for the Political Economy Club, asked for clarification on the international aspect.

In response to that, Salinas explained the international structure of labor unions – unions have branches all over the world and are able to press multinational companies from multinational angles. “The only way to fight globalization is by becoming global and fighting internationally,” said Salinas. He talked about how companies will move all over the world for the lowest cost, and the effect that had on the job of a union: “We have to organize those workers; there’s no way around that.”

After a few more questions, the hour was up and Salinas departed.

This speaker was one of several events put on by the Political Economy Club. “We’re a club that gets together and talks about social justice and anything related to politics and economics,” said Ryan Emmerton, the Education Officer of the club.

The Political Economy club doesn’t have a president, but rather five executive officers who function as the governing board.

The club also has readings and article discussions. “It’s a good chance to get together and open your mind to different ideas,” said Emmerton.

Professor Steihl elaborated, “We do a reading event and a speaking event, and we try to tie them together.”

The Political Economy club meets at 10:30 a.m. every other Tuesday in C202.

Source: adbusters.org

Source: thevarsity.ca

Recently, several students have expressed concern over the use of the common essay submission website, Turnitin.

Teachers have students submit their work on this website because part of the service is to provide a plagiarism check – it compares students’ essays to each other, as well as to popular online sources.  This function has served as a catalyst for controversy.

Some students have expressed concerns about the teachers as well as the site itself; they argue that teachers should not be allowed to penalize students who refuse to turn their work in on Turnitin.

The main concern, however, was that it is a violation of their intellectual property rights because the user code does not give specific guidelines of how their work will be used after it is stored in a repertory to check against other students, nor does it seem to explicitly guarantee that this is the only way the intellectual property will be used.

In the aftermath of this controversy, David Oar, librarian, and Myra Van Vactor, copyright officer and Dean of the Library Media Center, set up a phone conversation so they and interested teachers could voice the concerns of the students and discuss the user code and other issues with Angela Rhee, a legal representative of Turnitin.

Turnitin is a service paid for by Bellevue College itself, and the librarians are charged of managing it for the campus. Two teachers also attended: Judy Woo from the Business program and Scott Bessho from English.

After hearing the situation of intellectual property concerns, Rhee said, “We don’t own, as far as intellectual property goes, any papers.” She went on to explain how Turnitin is a service paid for by the institution, and they save papers in a repertoire for a specific school in order to prevent students from reusing papers in different classes.

“We do know that there are some papers that are being recycled,” said Van Vactor. She explained that it was important to know when students were reusing papers from old classes in order to cheat doing the work in a current one, and Turnitin was the service BC used to perform that check.

Oar went over the user agreement clause-by-clause with Rhee, since that seemed to be the primary concern – “We’re not able to ensure them that it’s not going somewhere beyond the immediate usage,” he explained to her. After hearing explanations for all questionable clauses, he said, “Turnitin’s legal language is appropriate for their service.”

Rhee explained that they had checked the legality of their intellectual property very thoroughly. “But there is a difference between what is legal and what is acceptable to the users,” Rhee had conceded when told about the students.

However, one of the concerns was not one that could be addressed by Turnitin. The website was within its legal rights to store essays in a repertory – in fact, it’s legal even to have a paper go into the database without a direct student agreement, although it can be deleted by instructors.

Despite being asked by Oar, Rhee could offer no official opinion on one of the questions: Should students be allowed to refuse to submit their work to Turnitin? Rhee was clear in saying that the decision as one for the institution itself. “We’re really just working for the institution,” she said. She suggested that students should ask their instructors to delete their essay at the end of the quarter if they were still concerned about Turnitin’s legal ground with storing essays for plagiarism checks.

Van Vactor explained that the plagiarism check, while the most famous use of the site, was not the only one. “The purpose of this is to really help the students,” she said.

The service, in addition to checking plagiarism, also scans grammar and run-on sentences and offers suggestions for how students can improve their paper. Some teachers will even select an option to allow a student to look at these suggestions before submitting a final draft. It serves as a writing tool as well as a plagiarism check.

Although the teachers have observed that not many students take advantage of this function, “I‘ve told students it’s a good tool, but in the 600 students I’ve taught only one has gone back to look at the report,” said Woo.

Oar added, “This is really a service that has value in learning. The reason we’re here is to protect the students.”