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THE CLACKAMAS PRINT
From thé Editor...
ASG assumes students
will understand Issues
concerning game room
I’m concerned about the voice of the students on
this campus. The decision was made to move the Rec
reation Center without any student input, and now that
it has been approved, students feel that it is too late to
do anything.
Part of my concern is about who is representing us
as a body of students. In a memo dated August 27,1990
from Tony Franklin, Associated Student Government
(ASG) President and Debbie Bakker, Director of Stu
dent Activities it reads, “The students understand the
overcrowding issue in the Community Center Building
and are willing to cooperate with the move of the Rec
reation Center.” This memo was sent to the Acting
Assistant Dean of Student Services Lee Fawcett, initia
tor of the propoals to move the game room.
I would like to hear from all the students that knew
about the proposal to move the Recreation Center on or
before August 27,1990.1 was on campus this summer
and I never heard about the proposal. I even saw Tony
every once in a while around campus and he never asked
me how I felt about the move.
I would venture to say that the members of ASG, of
which there were five working over the summer, were
the students who understood the overcrowding issue. I
will even go so far as to say that of course they under
stand, their offices are also in the Community Center
and God forbid anyone should suggest moving their
offices out to Trailer A.
When the student government, namely the Presi
dent, is making such generalizations about how we stu
dents feel when we’re on summer vacation I think we
should question that. We elected him President, now we
need to let him know how we feel about the issues that
affect us.
When I interviewed the ASG officers at thebegin
ning of the ter m, Franklin said he got involved in student
government because there was “too much apathy” here
among the students. I question the amount of apathy
there is among the students. How can students be apa
thetic when they don’t even know what’s going on?
Students - don’t keep your views to yourself. It is
important that we let ASG and the Administration
know exactly how we feel about the decisions they make
that affect us.
I think it was wrong of ASG to assume that the
students “understand the overcrowding issue” when no
one even knew about it. I also think that it is wrong for
students to sit by passively while decisions that affect
themare being made and not make any effort to finding
out about them before it is final. We have a responsibil
ity to be educated about the issues that affect us.
Angela Wilson
Jim Spickelmier
Jennifer Soper
Aaron Brown
Lane Scheideman
Ron Jagodnlk, Jr.
Gregg Mayes
Carie Gardener
Heather Lee Himes
Brenda Hodgen
Heidi Hoffman
Frank Jordan
Nolan Kidwell
Jennifer Lessard
Richard Marx
Jane Wilcox
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The Clackamas Print aims to be a fair and impartial newspaper
covering thé college community. Opinions expressed In The
Clackamas Print do not necessarily reflect those of the college ad
ministration, faculty or Advertisers. The Clackamas Print reserves
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signed. Clackamas Community College, 19600 S. Molalla Avenue,
Oregon City, Oregon 97045. Trailer B. Telephone: 657-6958, ext
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OPINION
October 17,1990
Knock, Knock.. . anybody home?
potential loss to game room profits which translates into
funds for student clubs and activities, so obviously money
is not a problem for students. Since the game room will not
be totally shut down, this arrangement is financially sound
for ASG.
The facility will continue to function on campus pro
viding a suitable social atmosphere for students to relax.
Of course, this new location is so far away from the center
of life on campus that the word “social” is inappropriate.
This imprôvement to our campus aesthetics, the game
room move, creates a doomed social activity which will
eventually fade into the dark back corner where shelveable
students continue with their “undesirable” activities, af
fecting no one, not even themselves. Eventually, the game
room will not exist because the students’ lack of interest
will not warrant further investments (subsidies) from the
college administration (or rather, from which ever ac
count the costs will come). The whole aesthetic problem
will be solved in one subtle move.
This sounds extreme. Yes, it is. How far from the near
future is it? Close! All depends on how the game room
does in the next year.
For those people interested, a suggestion also raised
by the administration is to move the smoking area under a
make-shift tarp pulled between Trailer A and B after the
game room has moved. This is not fact; it is a rumor.
However, think about the importance of the students here.
Where are the rights of the students in this?
What we have on this campus is a prime example of big
business in action. What we must do as students is weigh
the social value of decisions made by the administration to
the monetary value. The ethical questions must be asked.
After the questions are answered, we as students must
go-
The elimination of smoke inside campus buildings stand up for our decisions, however painful that stance
may become.
supposedly will have the same effect
At least, we as students can voice how we feel about
Unfortunately, as in most big business ventures, the
individual student must pay, and not necessarily in mone the dominance of big business. We might find that we
agree with the administration. We must have a voice.
tary sums.
If not, we may find business as usual. Nothing for us.
Fortunately, ASG is being subsidized $5,000 for the
Wake up! Knock, Knock, Knock! Wake up!
Are we all still asleep in our summer euphoric dream?
Our rights as students on this campus are quickly receding
out of our reach. Can we stand by and let the administra
tion walk into our lives and disrupt our peace of mind?
As in all big business, the administration has sold out
our rights as individual students to assemble at our leisure,
for potential profits.
Yes, the game room is still a hot issue.
Why shouldn’t it be?
With reminders of last year’s issue, the indoor smok
ing controversy, still gracing our campus in their splinter
ing splendor, the administration has again forced through
renovations to the campus way of life without student '
approval. Last year as this year, all decisions about the
issues in question were worked out during the summer
months when the campus daily traffic of students is nil.
Of course, the students had representation during the
whole process. That technicality was covered, but as in
most decisions made that affect the campus, the urgency to
come to an agreement was emphasized by the administra
tion. How can any elected official on or off campus make
a decision without an opinion from the people that it will
affect?
That question can be easily answered. Money! The
financial sense of closing down the game room appeals to
the administration. With the game room removed from
the center of attention, more desirable students and more
community organizations will use the facilities we have on
campus. Eventually, this process will bring a profit to the
college, and probably more money than ASG can make
providing the game room. Business will boom, as theories
Greed, ignorance threaten to engulf us-
Yet we are capable of change...
I awoke one morning and discovered that I am a
the presence of strong evidence that the forests are the
crank. Not only that, but I am the worst sort of crank; an
planet’s strongest defense against global warming ant
environmental crank (my father would be horrified). I the greenhouse effect.
This litany of destruction could go on indefinitely,
have no feelings of guilt or shame on the matter, quite the
contrary, I revel in my aberration. I think we all have a but why bother? Anyone with an above room
little “crank” in us these days and maybe even have a need temperature IQ knows what a mess we’re all in. What can
to vent this crankiness in a constructive manner but lack any one of us really do about it after all? To start off with,
a suitable method. Allow me to introduce you to the En we can all make use of our power to influence our elected
vironmentalist’s Grimoire. During the next few months I officials (don’t laugh) and vote our conscience.
We all can individually make a difference. Yount
will be offering up essays designed to enlighten, occasion
ally, and enrage the crank within you more often than not. students can help to shape the future. That’s not rhetoric
It is the intent of these forthcoming articles to motivate All facets of our education can lend strength to the
you into thwarting the greed and ignorance of those who growing resistance to the illogic of waste and poison
would rape and despoil our planet
producing industrial practices.
Environmental
To that end I submit the Grimoire”s
Although accounting is not generally
regarded as an environmentally
Grimoire
first recipe...
sensitive career, a CPA is capable of
by
helping by caring enough to
Ever since the publication of
recommend - when the opportunity
Randall
Hodgins
Gerald Barney’s “Global 2000” report,
comes - that Corporation A and Mr. X
the nation and most of the world have U
been attempting to make some (painfully slow) progress choose, as their tax reducing charity, an entity that works
toward cleaning the poisons and infuse out of our soil, to improve the global condition.
Older people with children can, at least, rear their
water, and air. It’s a monumental job that dwarfs the
children to reverence the earth we share in common and
resources of any one individual - or so it seems.
There are thousands of inactive and abandoned teach them how to take care of it. If our children are
hazardous waste dumps in the U.S. and thousands more raised to perceive and reject the hypocracy of current
still active - along with deep well inj ection sites. Nearly all technological mores, then the battle will have been
of these either threaten to leak or actually are seeping engaged in ernest. If they grow up to become a people
their wastes into drinking water supplies. In our own that are compelled to turn away from materialistic ideals
community groundwaters have been poisoned; the city of in favor of a deeper sense of social-ethical-ecological
Gladstone currently buys its water from another source stewardship, then the battle is won.
In the past fifty years we, as an organism, have
because of the wastes seeping into its groundwater
supplies. Chemicals are being introduced into the developed our ability to influence our surrounds to a
environment without any knowledge of the effects that destructive potency. The worst damage has been done in
they may have on it. Monies dedicated to clean up the last twenty years. The Aged, therefore, are the most
'inactive waste sites are being spent largely on planning important group of all. They are the only people who can
and litigation instead of reparations. The Mississippi give living testimony to how little time it has taken to
delta is eroding at a rate of more than 62 mi^/yr and is bring this planet to the brink of desolation.
The truth is that the only way to make a change for
accelerating the destruction of one our largest wetlands.
Despite the fact that wetlands are a rapidly disappearing the better is to begin by making a change in the way that
resource, canal dredging continues along the delta. The you perceive yourself. We are all responsible. We arc
Brazilian rainforests are being harvested not for the land also all capable of making a significant contribution to
or for lumber, but to be rendered into charcoal for use as solving our problems - as individuals that care and are
a cheap industrial fuel. This deforestation continues in willing to fight within our means.