The Ranger (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 81, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, April 20, 2007 Page: 22 of 31
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The Ranger • www.theranger.org
April 20, 2007 • 25
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By JA Garcia
If you happened to be watching the news at 6:30
By Joyce Flores
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By Adriana F. De Leon
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Pulitzer Prize winner to speak on exposing community college corruption
f
Staff Council will
host parking lot
during Fiesta at
district offices
Elections for Staff Council
May 18.
Students interested in applying
for the Parent/Child Scholarship from
the League of United Latin American
Citizens *Rey Feo de la Feria de las
Flores need to submit their applica-
tions by April 30.
The LULAC scholarship is offered
through the women’s center.
The LULAC scholarship committee
donates $25,000 each year, and 25 par-
ticipants are accepted each year.
To be eligible, students must be
a parent and have only one child 6-
years-old or younger and be willing to
enroll in the fall semester at any col-
lege in the Alamo Community College
District.
The applicant must have complet-
ed a four-hour parenting class and
have completed a Free Application for
Federal Student Aid.
Bertha Castellanos, student service
assistant for the Parent/Child Program,
said participants who are accepted.will
receive $1,000 scholarships provided by
the Alamo Community College District
Foundation for two years.
The participant must receive a cer-
tificate, associate’s degree or transfer to
a university.
Once the participant completes
that goal, their child will receive a
scholarship to any college in the dis-
trict when the child graduates from
high school.
“Students have to complete an edu-
cational goal, and once they do, their
child will receive two-year tuition.”
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all
Students can access the application
at http://www.accd.edu/SAC/students/wc.htm.
For more information, call Castellanos at 733-2299
or stop by the women's center.
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in suburban Washington, D.C.; the Mobile Register;
and Education Daily covering the White House, U.S.
Congress and the U.S. Department of Education.
He has been a general assignments and special
projects reporter at the Birmingham News since 1998.
The Edith Fox King Lecture has been sponsored
annually by the journalism-photography department
since 1978 to honor King, who taught journalism at
this college and advised The Ranger from 1958-1968.
The campus chapter of the Society of Professional
Journalists has been a co-sponsor since the chapter
was formed in 1991.
This is the first academic year in which two
lectures have been scheduled. Ted Jackson of the
New Orleans Times-Picayune spoke Nov. 14 on the
rebuilding of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
The faculty of the journalism-photography depart-
ment decided to return to scheduling the event on
an evening in May to make it more accessible to
the community. Awards for student publications
and journalism students will be presented. For more
information, call the department at 733-2870.
While fun seekers of all ages
prepare for the annual Fiesta celebra-
tion, the Unified Staff Council and the
different colleges’ staff councils are
preparing to host a parking lot at the
district offices on 811 W. Houston St.
Fiesta-goers will be charged $15
to park, and the money will be used
to fund scholarships.
• The money collected will be
divided between the individual col-
leges’ Staff Councils and the District
Staff Council after expenses.
Staff Council President Delia De
Luna said that during last year’s
Fiesta, the council made more than
$6,000.
Staff councils from each college
in the district will take turns working
shifts 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. today, 8 a.m.
to 11 p.m. Saturday, noon to 11 p.m.
Sunday, 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. Monday
through Thursday next week, 8 a.m.
to 11 p.m. April 27 and 28.
This college’s Staff Council will •
be on duty from 4 p.m.-ll p.m.
Monday, 8 a.m.-1:30 p.m. April 27,
and 1 p.m.-6:30 p.m. April 28.
The money raised by the Staff
Council at this college Will be used
for four Educational Enrichment
Awards, which are $250 each. -
The awards are given to eligible
staff, members who are pursuing a
college degree or who are seeking
educational enrichment, De Luna
explained.
The council from this college is still
looking for volunteers to help monitor
the parking lot during their shifts.
To volunteer, contact Melinda
Rivero-Lara, Staff Council Fiesta
Parking Lot Committee chair, at
mriverol@accd.edu.
On Monday, Staff Council began
accepting nominations for eight posi-
tions in time for the May election:
Nominations will be accepted
until 5 p.m. April 30.
The only conditions to apply are
that the person must be full-time
permanent staff or full-time tempo-
rary staff.
. There are eight positions open;
one professional; five classified staff;
and two district staff assigned to this
college.
To pick up a nomination form,
contact De Luna at dluna@accd.edu
or call 733-2363.
The forms can be turned into Box
95 in Fletcher Administration Center.
The positions are for a two-
year term. Staff Council meets at
2:30 p.m. every second and fourth
Tuesday in Room 120 of the visual
arts center.
Staff Council also will be holding
an Employee Development Day May
18 starting at 8 a.m. in the audito-
rium of McAllister Fine Arts Center,
the winners of the Educational
Enrichment Awards also will be
announced.
His most recent coverage appeared Sunday, obout
one year and 50 stories after his initial reporting
detailed problems at the Alabama Fire College,* a
technical school that trains firefighters.
Blackledge said the statewide two-year college
system is vital to Alabama as a stepping stone to
higher education and to meet the workforce demands
of a burgeoning auto manufacturing industry with
significant economic development issues.
The system has 8,000 employees and serves
300,000 students. It was begun in the 1960s by Gov.
George Wallace to give poor people access to higher
education in their .communities, Blackledge said.
Many employees have come forward to help
Blackledge understand hiring, payroll and other pro-
cedures and to pinpoint wrongdoing.
“I tell people that (usually) 30 percent of informa-
tion is good,” he said. “In this case, 70 percent was
so good, there is far less to toss aside."
Blackledge, 43, a native of Baton Rouge, La., grad-
uated from Louisiana State University in 1986. He has
worked for the Associated Press; Journal Newspapers
A reporter for the Birmingham (Ala.) News who
exposed widespread corruption and cronyism in the
state’s community college system will speak at 7 p.m.
May 3 at the 30th Edith Fox King Journalism Lecture
in Room 120 of the visual arts center.
Brett Blackledge won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for
investigative reporting for ongoing coverage that has
led to the firing of the chancellor and the removal of
relatives from the payroll and investigations of two
college presidents.
In addition, the community college system’s cen-
tral office is dispatching investigative teams to some
of the 26 colleges under its supervision, and a federal
probe has led to a series of indictments, guilty pleas
and three convictions so far, and several legislators
have either resigned or been fired from their jobs. As
a result of the public scrutiny, the governor has intro-
• duced legislation banning employment of legislators in
community colleges.
“There’s a lot more material to look at regarding
legislators working in or working for different colleges,”
Blackledge said Thursday in a telephone interview.
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Scholarship provides for both parent, child
*
Application deadline for
parent-child scholarship worth
$1,000 coming April 30.
Veteran student works on college benefits
to talk about their experiences because they do not
want to be labeled as having post-traumatic stress
syndrome, which could cause them to be processed
out of the military.*
Being able to talk about those experiences will help
veterans transition into college life, Sutton said.
Other ideas he would like to see initiated for dis-
abled and wounded veterans are providing off-cam-
pus sites at Brooke Army Medical Center or Wilford
Hall Medical Center where veterans can work on
receiving certificates or degrees, having voice-acti-
vated computers and software, providing more note
takers for disabled veterans and escorts for handi-
capped veterans.
With DeLeon’s help, Sutton will be applying
to the San Antonio Area Foundation, which is
distributing $5 million to nonprofit organizations
providing services to fulfill the unmet needs of
military personnel and their families under the
Texas Resources for Iraq-Afghanistan Deployment
(TRIAD) Fund.
Sutton has had an outreach of support from many
people, such as the president of this college, many
of the deans and directors, legislators, Lucchelli,
McConnell and many others after presenting his ideas
to them.
He has garnered the support of well-known local
boxer, Jesse James Leija, who has offered to help
with the cause.
Sutton, who plans to enlist in the Marine Corps
Reserve after he is finished with school, is obviously
more comfortable with where he is in life and college
now.
“Even though I am not in the Marines anymore,
I’m still helping out war veterans ...I don’t need to be
in the Marines to change people’s lives,” he said.
p.m. April 13, on KSAT-12, you would have seen all my examples were military stuff and everybody
Jim Joslyn, the station’s vice president and general
manager, deliver an editorial on veterans deserving
benefits at the end of the news segment.
“From health care to disability, veteran benefits are
falling short of where they should be and leaving vets
with broken promises,” Joslyn said.
Marketing freshman James Sutton, a student at
this college, will add educational services and fund-
ing as another area of benefits veterans are falling
short on.
Sutton is a former sergeant in the U.S. Marine
Corps who has come up with ideas to provide more
benefits for war veterans returning from active duty
who are pursuing a higher education — especially
for those who served in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Sutton served in the Marine Corps for eight years
and was deployed to Iraq three times, serving seven
month long tours.
He also worked as a senior urban assault instruc-
tor in the Urban Warfare Training Center at Marine
Corps Base 29, in 29 Palms, Calif.
There he trained combat Marines preparing for
deployment to Iraq.
If necessary, he' would follow units that needed
additional training to Iraq for two- to three-week
periods. >
Sutton explained that after returning to San Antonio
upon leaving the military, he enrolled at this college for
the spring semester and began his first class, SDEV
0170, Orientation to College, a week before the semes- do is ... talk about some of the experiences we had
ter started, but immediately felt out of place. ' in Iraq.”
He felt awkward being around people he couldn’t He explained that people in the military are scared
identify with.
“When I was in freshman orientation and we had
to give examples of things we’ve done in the past,
looked at me like ‘he is crazy,”’ Sutton said.
He got so discouraged at one point that he started
talking to local recruiters to see when the next unit
of Marines would be going to Iraq so he could join
them, he said.
“I wanted to go back to Iraq because that is where
I felt comfortable,” Sutton said.
After, thinking of his family first, which was
one major reason he got out of the military; getting
support from several instructors such as Student
Development faculty Jim Lucchelli and Kimberly
McConnell and business Professor Sylvia DeLeon;
and working with student organizations such as
the San Antonio Global Ambassadors Club and
the Public Administration Club on the Community
College Day at the Capitol trip, Sutton decided to
stick around.
He wanted to see what he could do for veterans so
that they wouldn’t have to be in his position of feeling
uncomfortable about being in college, he said.
One of his ideas, which he ran by Lucchelli, was
to start an orientation to college course specifically
for veterans.
The course would follow the same curriculum as
the orientation to college course now, but it would be
set in an environment of military veterans which will
allow veterans to associate with people they can relate
to and share their experiences with, Sutton said.
“In the military what a lot of people are scared to
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San Antonio College. The Ranger (San Antonio, Tex.), Vol. 81, No. 22, Ed. 1 Friday, April 20, 2007, newspaper, April 20, 2007; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1354398/m1/22/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting San Antonio College.