The Ranger (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 65, No. 13, Ed. 1 Friday, January 26, 1990 Page: 3 of 10
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The Second Front
- Jan. 26,1990
The Ranger/3
New software aids test-takers
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traditionally dis-
Loan default rate here decreases
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Absentee voting ends Tuesday
Voting times are:
• 7:45 a.m. to 6 p.m. Weekdays
• Noon to 6 p.m. Saturday
• 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday
THE REGULAR TAX ROLLBACK
ELECTION IS ON SATURDAY,
FEB. 3 FROM 7 A.M. TO 7 P.M.
CITY TAX ROLLBACK
ELECTION ABSENTEE
VOTING LOCATIONS:
Suchil Guerra
News Editor
Dr. Sue Pardue
Project Director
the student's rights and responsibilities to
the lender.
Failure to attend will result in no funding
until the student attends a session, or the
money will be returned to the lender.
Sessions are being held from 2 p.m. to
dial courses.
"This (the study) was based on the
number of people required to take
Eighty-five percent of freshmen
entering this college need remedial
education in at least one area, ac-
cording to a report presented to the
Alamo Community College District
board of trustees Jan. 16 by Presi-
dent Max Castillo.
The report was compiled by the
assessment and research services at
this college.
President Max Castillo reported
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By Marisa Barreda
Staff Writer
By Troy Knickerbocker
News Editor
Applications for the academic 1990-91 year
will be available after Feb. 19. ■
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Program sharpens
skills necessary
on writing exam
gram is available to them for bring-
ing in a disk," he said. "It's almost
free."
The disks should help students
practice five areas tested on the ob-
jective part of the TASP: "recogniz-
ing purpose and audience; unity,
focus and development; effective
organization; effective sentences;
and edited American English us-
age," he said.
Ullmer said the disks and com-
puters to use them should be avail-
able in the fifth floor language learn-
ing lab of Moody before spring break
March 19-24.
Although "The Official TASP Test
Study Guide," a book developed by
the National Evaluation System in
cooperation with the Texas Higher
Education Coordinating Board and
the Texas Education Agency, is also
available for preparation, Ullmer
said the book is "a lot more expen-
sive than my disks." But he said
while the book covers all sections of
the test—reading, writing and
math—the disks only cover writing.
The book costs $12 plus tax.
Ullmer hopes to find someone in
the reading department willing to
"put together questions and analy-
sis" for disk use on the reading sec-
tion of the test. He said preparing
for the TASP is important because of
the sophistication of the test.
"It involves rhetorical develop-
ment and analysis," he said. "That's
really getting a little more sophisti-
cated than merely correcting a semi-
colon or correcting apostrophes." ■
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• Brook Hollow Branch Library
530 Heimer Road
• Central Park Mall
622 N.W. Loop 410
• City Hall
100 Military Plaza
• Cody Branch Library
11411 Vance Jackson Ave.
• Dellcrest Shopping Center
1800 S. W.W. White Road
• East Side Multiservice Center
2805 E. Commerce St.,
Room 25
• Ingram Park Mall
6301 N.W. Loop 410
• Lion's Field
2809 Broadway
• McCreless Mall
4100 S. New Braunfels Ave.
• Memorial Branch Library
3222 Culebra Road
• Plaza de las Palmas
Unit 136
• St. James Catholic Church
907 W. Theo Ave.
• South Park Mall
2310 S.W. Military Drive
• Springwood Center
3534 Fredericksburg Road,
Suite 22
• Thousand Oaks El Sendero
Branch Library
4618 Thousand Oaks
• Valley Hi Mall
S.W. Loop 410 at Valley Hi Drive
• Westlakes Mercado Mall
1401 S.W. Loop 410
• Windsor Park Mall
7900 Interstate 35 N.
A survey of community colleges in Texas
"In Texas, with the population we have, it was conducted in the spring of 1989 to help
just seemed natural that we should gear our determine which occupational-technical
information systems department and elec-
tronics.
Of these programs, four will be selected
through research on the current labor
"But their speaking skills aren't good enough market's demand for workers.
for a totally English environment. "We wanted to stay away from the things
ticularly what we call the limited English ited English proficiency students,
proficiency student," Dr. Sue Pardue, direc-
tor of the project, said.
Funds are being distributed in two dis- Guadalupe Valdez
bursements to make sure students are at-
tending classes, Valdez said.
This college has received one of five grants
nationwide for a Bilingual Vocational In-
structor Training Project, which will help
develop vocational education programs and
train instructors to teach students with lim-
ited English skills.
The college will be awarded $54,619 for 12
months.
The grant, funded by the U.S. Department
of Education, is the first to be awarded to a
Texas college. Of the remaining four grants,
three were awarded in California and one in English before they
Illinois.
While the grants
Bryce Harper
Dr. John Ullmer oversees Adam Huerta, freshman business administration major, Wednesday. Huerta
uses the training program which Ullmer designed to improve writing skills for the TASP test.
dents or Parent Loans to Undergraduate
; are required to attend one loan
dropping session, which will provide information on
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Park row
Lillian De Jesus, freshman accounting major, pays 10 cents an hour to leave her
car in San Pedro Park's lot while she attends class here Monday.
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Students applying for financial aid are J
finding more regulations as the default rate LI
on student loans across the nation increases,
the director of financial aid, Guadalupe
Valdez, said.
However, the yearly default rate at this
college has dropped from 22.4 percent to
21.8 percent, Valdez said.
"We have just received new regulations
over the holidays from Uncle Sam regard-
ing the Guaranteed Student Loans, and there
is a definite impact on us," Valdez said.
The new regulations include the ipultiple
disbursement dates of funds and manda-
tory loan sessions.
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______________________
Ruben Garcia
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An English professor has devel-
oped a computer program to help
students prepare for the writing
portion of the Texas Academic Skills
Program test.
Dr. John Ullmer has created a
writing skills preparation program
with a $4,150 grant from the Disci-
pline Specific Grant Program.
The state-mandated TASP pro-
gram tests entering freshmen in
writing, reading and mathematics.
The software is available to stu-
dents and instructors for use on IBM
computers.
Copies of the program are avail-
able by bringing two 5 1/4 floppy
disks or one 720 K (720,000 bites),
3 1/2-inch floppy disk to Ullmer's
office in Room 602 of Moody Learn-
ing Center or the English depart-
ment office in Room 611 of Moody.
The blank disks will be traded for
disks with the program.
Instructors also may leave ex-
change disks in Ullmer's mailbox in
Room 609 of Moody, and he will re-
turn the program disks to the in-
structor.
"What we're trying to do now is
get the word out to people who are
facing the TASP test that this pro-
"We wanted to stay away from the things
"So when they go into college, they can everyone thinksofas the traditional voc-ed
take English as a second language; but why programs that Hispanics go into," Pardue
through the semes- Students who applied for a Guaranteed
ter to stop the Student Loan, Supplemental Loans for Stu-
abuse of students <’
getting their check Students
and <’
out," he said.
Pell Grant funds
of $1.5 million
were disbursed to
almost 3,000 stu-
dents Tuesday.
Valdez says within 3 p.m. Tuesday and from 5:30 p.m. to
the last 10 days, 6:30 p.m. Wednesday in Room 105B of
more than 1,200 ~
checks amounting
to $1.1 million of
Guaranteed Stu-
determine which occupational-technical
grant toward the Spanish speaker, and par- courses had the highest enrollments of lim-
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Five programs were selected—manage-
ment, child development, word processing
She manages the program development in the business technology department;
for the occupational, technical, and continu- computer programming in the computer
ing education division.
"These students have been admitted to
college; they graduated from high school in
Mexico, or perhaps even Texas," she said.
Fletcher Administration Center.
Applications for summer financial aid will
be available beginning Feb. 12. Funding
will cover one summer session only. The
dent Loans were priority deadline is Feb. 28.
sent to students. The second disbursement
"The multiple disbursement is to make is Feb. 6.
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make them wait until they've mastered
can start taking their
regular major courses?" Pardue said.
are traditionally dis- The project coordinator is Abraham
persed in areas with high Hispanic popula- Dominguez, an educational skills specialist
tions, the grants may be dedicated to devel- in the child development department,
oping programs for any language. A survey of community colleges in Texas
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said.
The programs were selected for a variety
of reasons, including San Antonio's devel-
oping trade relationship with Mexico; the
increase in activity in the maquiladoras, or
twin plants; and the growing need for bilin-
gual child care, Pardue said.
"We wanted to focus on areas that are
good career fields for a person to go into no
matter what their English ability is," Pardue
said.
When the four fields are chosen, the next
step will be to gather Spanish materials
available for the areas.
In addition to gathering Spanish materi-
als, the program here will develop teaching
materials, such as slides, transparencies,
cassette tapes, lesson plans and handouts,
Pardue said.
"One of the things we have to figure out is
what there is already and what we could
develop on our own to add to that," Pardue
said.
"We're going to invite the faculties from
the community colleges who teach in these
four areas to come to SAC and participate in
a workshop on how to use the materials,"
Pardue said.
The workshops will be held in May and
August, with 20 faculty members partici-
pating in each one.
They will receive instruction on how to
utilize bilingual materials in the classroom
as well as teaching strategies for occupa-
tional-technical classes with limited English
proficiency students, Pardue said. ■
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The information for this college fall. The number of students eligible
was based on results of fall 1989 for remedial classes does not reflect
Assessment of Skills for Successful enrollment in those classes, Villar-
Entry Test and the Nelson-Denny real said.
Reading Test, Velda Villarreal, co-
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_ - Of the 936 TASP scores received
ordinator of assessmentand research by this college by the end of the fall
services, said. semester, only 82 were for first-time-
The ASSET is a placement test for in-college freshmen.
students in two-year colleges. The state-mandated TASP tests
The report said 3,764 first-time- entering freshmen in reading, math
in-college freshmen enrolled in the and writing. Students who fail a
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portion of the test must take a reme- of entering freshmen needed reme-
dial course in that subject area.
Dr. Stephen Mitchell reported that,
at St. Philip's College, 54 percent of
entering freshmen needed remedial developmental classes," Villarreal
reading, 82 percent needed reme- said, "but that does not necessarily
dial math and 64 percent needed re- mean they would be enrolled."
medial English. Some TASP scores were not re-
A1 Cervantes, interim president of ceived until November and will be
Palo Alto, did not have a break- included in a report to be compiled
down by courses but said 70 percent in the spring s,emester. ■
College gets $54,619 grant
“W e wanted to stay
away from the things
everyone thinks of as
the traditional voc-ed
programs that Hispanics
go into.
Report shows 85 percent need remedial classes
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at the meeting that test scores indi-
cated that 58 percent of entering
freshmen enrolled for fall 1989
needed remedial reading, 82 per-
cent needed remedial math and 64
percent needed remedial English.
Presidents of the district's three
colleges reported results of the Texas
Academic Skills Program for the first
time since it was first implemented
in the fall.
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sure the student is "That's just the minor disbursement to
still here halfway clean up whatever is left," Valdez said,
through the semes- Students who applied for a Guaranteed
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San Antonio College. The Ranger (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 65, No. 13, Ed. 1 Friday, January 26, 1990, newspaper, January 26, 1990; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1350578/m1/3/?q=Lamar+University: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting San Antonio College.