Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The Clackamas print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1989-2019 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 16, 2002)
T k e Wednesday January 16, 2002 Clackamas Community College Oregon City, Oregdn Volume XXXVI, Issue 9 synesthesia earns national recognition MAGGIE JIRASEK Editor-in-Chief synesthesia, Clackamas' lit erary arts magazine, won a first-place award in the American Scholastic Press Association’s annual maga zine competition for being an outstanding overall ex ample of a scholastic pub lication in format, content and presentation. The journal competed with other publications na tionwide and according to the ASPA, "it shows a great deal of time, energy and tal ent by the writers, artists, editors, photographers, lay out designers and advisor." The first time synes thesia entered the annual magazine competition, in 1998, it won a second-place award. synesthesia started out as a way to publish the win ners of Clackamas' writers contest about ten years ago but soon developed into a course where students would be in charge of lay out, design and choosing SALENA DE LA CRUZ / Clackamas Print Amanda Coffey, advisor to synesthesia, wallows happily in copies of the college's award-winning literary journal. specific poems, stories, plays and art work for their publication. “The class and the journal go together,” ex plained Amanda Coffey, English instructor and ad visor. “We focus on edit ing and publishing in the literary world and we look at different literary jour nals. Students are respon sible for the whole thing, from the beginning to the end. They do everything from the actual selection to design and software on the computer.” Students who are in terested in literary jour nals, layout and production should sign up for WR 246, which will be offered in the spring term. They should have taken at least one cre ative writing class before, either in fiction, playwriting, poetry or screenwriting. For those who want to submit a story, poem, drama, essay or art work for consideration for the next issue of synesthe sia, contact Coffey at ext. 2829. Unemployment rate rises, hopes fall NICK BARRON Business Manager The unemployment rate for the state of Oregon rose in the month of December to 7.5 per cent, the highest rate of any state in the nation, leaving 129,500 Oregonians searching for a steady source of income. Oregon has experienced a steady increase in unemployment since December 2000, when the unemployment rate was 4.2 per cent. Since then, the state’s num ber of unemployed people has sky rocketed by 58,400, while the number of employed people has dropped by 63,700. Manufacturing has cut the most jobs, letting go of 3,100 people, mostly in the lumber and wood-products industry, which lost 900 jobs. Another reason What's Inside? Opinión...Page 2 News...Page 3 Feature...Page 4 A & E...Page 5 Sports...Pages 6-7 The End...Page 8 behind Oregon’s sky-high unem ployment rate is the impact that high-tech manufacturing has on the state’s economy, an industry that dropped 600 jobs. “Two friends of ours got laid off from Freightliner. They had a shortage of trucks to be built,” said Cassandra Hall, a CCC student. In the construction indus try, the number of unemployed rose more drastically than the normal seasonal decline, as 2,500 jobs were eliminated in Decem ber. The number of employed people in December was 75,600, the lowest seasonal number since December 1995. An industry that usually grows from September to Decem ber is that of retail, which in 2000 hired 12,300 people during that period. 2001’s holiday hiring, though, fell short of that total with just 11,300 jobs added to accom modate holiday shoppers. Tyler VanOsdol, student, was a car salesman for a local re tailer, but noticed his paychecks were getting slim as the economy slowed down. “I quit my job be cause of the economy; no one was buying cars." Clackamas student Scott Vondrachek’s father and father- in-law lost their employment. “My dad lost his job two months ago at Qwest My father-in-law lost his job last month because the company was going under.” There are some industries in Oregon which have not been affected as severely by the eco nomic downturn as other indus tries. For example, the health ser vices industry which includes nurses, pharmacists and lab tech nicians, added 900 jobs in De cember and has expanded by 4,800 jobs since 2001. Social ser vices has added jobs, mostly due to the expanding population. Other industries that have been less affected by the reces sion are those that provide people with local entertainment. In the economic aftermath of Sept. 11, the majority of Americans are opt ing not to travel but to spend time and money close to their homes. This trend led to an increase of 500 jobs in December for the motion-picture and amusement in dustry. Included in this industry are movie theaters, ski resorts, fit ness clubs and video-rental stores. In November, the Port land-Vancouver metro area lost 700 jobs, bucking the trend of gaining several thousand as it has done in recent years. The metro area, which features Clackamas County, has 22,500 fewer jobs than a year ago. “I hear a lot of places are taking the lowest bidders for jobs. It doesn’t matter how good you are, just how cheap you are,” stated Bryan Casey, whose uncle lost his position at an area print shop. Lance Gardner of Adams Temporaries in Clackamas, says that there has “definitely been an increase” in the number of people looking for temporary employ ment Of those individuals, most seem to be non-college graduates. Gardner stated that at this stage, a college graduate is still “in a better position to find them (jobs).” One potential employer for college students in the area has been the Clackamas County Parks Department. Every summer an average of 25 to 30 people, gen erally ranging in age from 18 to 24, are hired. This year, however, may be quite different, accord ing to Mike McLees, parks su pervisor for Clackamas County. McLees believes that his depart ment will be forced to make some adjustments this year, as the state’s budget problems trickle down to the local level. Clackamas County parks may open for the season later than the usual April 1. Another change could be allowing camping just on the weekends. Both measures would mean less hours for sea sonal employees or less employ ees needed. See Unemployment, page 3
