May 2019 – Pima Post

Chancellor spends $20.5K+ on Spring travel

2May

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

News

Chancellor spends $20.5K+ on Spring travel

By AMARIS ENCINAS and JOE GIDDENS During the April 3 governors board meeting, Chancellor Lee Lambert made an announcement about his travels for Pima Community College. “And then I know there was concerns about my travel,” he said. “So as a result, we’re going to enhance the current board’s travel policy. So we will be bringing an amendment to the board travel policy, just to provide a little more oversight and transparency.” The amendment hasn’t been introduced yet, but it will modify Board Policy 4.06 and it includes: The chancellor will inform the board chair of the purpose or overall end goal for travel; following the trip, the chancellor will inform the governing board of the insight acquired from the trip itself; and lastly, the chancellor will at least provide an annual written...

2May

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

News

Journey to commencement

Story and photo by ERIK MEDINA On May 23, Pima Community College will host its annual graduation ceremony at the Tucson Convention Center Arena. At each graduation, one student is chosen to speak to the student body at the beginning of the ceremony, this student is known as the the commencement speaker. This year, that student is Nicole Werner. Werner is originally from Philadelphia, but moved to Arizona at a young age. Although she grew up in Philadelphia, she considers Arizona her home. At 16, Werner was on her own, so she decided to move to Arizona because that’s where her father resided. “I had heard my dad was living out here, so I came and stayed with him and his girlfriend, which was kind of weird,” Werner said. “After a while, I just kind of worked my way ...

Maddy Jeans: fighting for a seat at the table

2May

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

News

Maddy Jeans: fighting for a seat at the table

By KYLE KERSEY A Pima Community College student was honored by the college for her pivotal role in changing the graduation policy of Tucson Unified School District, allowing Native American students to wear culturally significant attire at their graduation ceremonies. Maddy Jeans, a 2017 graduate of Pueblo High School and current Pima student, was instrumental in bringing the issue before TUSD. At a TUSD board meeting on Dec. 11, Jeans and fellow members of the TNYC spoke in support of changing the district’s policy on graduation attire. “I was the student that emailed and contacted all of you my senior year to be able to have this opportunity for all native youths in your district,” Jeans said at the meeting. “I wanted to do this, because I felt like throughout my life, I did not get t...

A tale of two debuts: Kanye’s faith and Weezer’s anomaly

2May

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

Arts & Entertainment, Opinion

A tale of two debuts: Kanye’s faith and Weezer’s anomaly

By KYLE KERSEY Anderson .Paak – Ventura (Soul / R&B) Give me soul Anderson .Paak over rap Anderson .Paak every day of the week. Twice on Sunday. He’s bringing the Marvin Gaye on “Make it Better.” “What’s Going On?” era Marvin Gaye. The best Marvin Gaye. And he’s pulling off some “Brown Sugar” D’Angelo funk on “Winner’s Circle.” He even managed to lure Andre 3000 (of Outkast fame) away from his self-imposed exile to drop some bars on the relentlessly groovy opener “Come Home.” After “Oxnard,” where .Paak and producer Dr. Dre (notorious for his heavy-handed methods) diverged toward hip-hop, I was worried that his days of soulful R&B were over. His effervescent personality (and pearly white smile) were less present than before. It wasn’t as fun. This shit is jammin’. There’s not a ...

2May

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

Features

Pima Community College’s immigrant student center employees

By ANGEL CANEZ Tucked away in the far back end of on the top floor of Pima Community College Downtown Campus Campus Center building in the communication department sits a tiny little office. The Immigrant, Refugee and Student Resource Center or IRSRC. The IRSRC opened its doors at the beginning of the year, provides up-to-date legal information and students to scholarships opportunity and student workshops is headed by student ambassador Dana Pineda a 22 year old a first generation college student majoring in bioengineering. It was already 11:30 in the morning and Pineda was already out making a difference, returning from a high school career fair where she was handing out scholarship papers, undocumented student college guides , “Know Your Rights” flyers to high schoo...

NJCAA addresses gender inequality in awards

2May

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

Sports

NJCAA addresses gender inequality in awards

By MONTY GANTT On April 5, Pima Community College Women’s basketball coach Todd Holthaus sent a mass email to various members of the NJCAA. The email raised a question that was on the minds of coach Holthaus and his players: Why were they simply gifted a game ball for fifth place while the men’s team were gifted with medals and a plaque for seventh place in their respective tournament? Rod Lovett, Director of Championships for the NJCAA, responded with a further explanation as to why the women’s teams below third place received essentially nothing. “The awards provided at the Men's Tournament were purchased by the host school.” Lovette said in an email to coach Holthaus. The host school for the men’s tournament was Danville Area Community College in Danville, Illinois. The hosts fo...

2May

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Opinion

Letter from the Editor

By JOE GIDDENS Years ago, I was wandering the deserts of Central Utah. It’s a stretch of country that more closely resembles Mars or the cover art off a ’70s prog-rock band than it does anything terrestrial. It’s a beautiful and weird stretch of country such as the small town off a state highway where the gas station was populated exclusively by ginger, but I probably just needed to inspect a larger sample size. At the time, I was prospecting for phytosaur fossils in the San Rafael Swell. A Triassic reptile that, if around today, could easily be confused for a gator. Which also helps give an indication of the West’s wetter climate at the time, alongside the massive amount of petrified wood of long since fallen conifers some 200 million years ago. The minerals in that area gave all ...

2May

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News

Some administrators get salary hikes

By JOE GIDDENS Since summer 2015, the average Pima Community College administrator salary has increased 3.5%, while the average faculty salary has dropped 0.5%, according to a report released by the Pima Community College Education Association, the group that represents the college’s full-time faculty. Budget woes have been brought on by declining enrollment, yet expenditure limits haven’t been felt equally across college’s employees, according to PCCEA. This is partly because the college is in the middle of a multiyear plan to cut $15 million from its budget. However, the college did increase staff salaries by 2.5% in fiscal year 2017 as a temporary salary increase. The severe budget cuts apparently haven’t affected some administrators’ salaries, though, with a third of adminis...

Pima Community College’s resident fashionista

2May

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Features

Pima Community College’s resident fashionista

Interview and photos by JOSH GRAY Pima Community College will holding its annual fashion show May 4 at the Fox Theatre. Nancy Spaulding, the head of the Fashion Department, recently sat down with the Aztec Press. Q: What is your favorite piece on display? A: “I haven’t seen everything yet, so I couldn’t say what my favorite would be.” Q:What is your favorite fashion trend? A: “Print mixing, totally.” Q: What is your favorite fashion decade? A: “I would say probably the ’60s because I grew up in the ’60s and everybody was rocking the good stuff then.” Q: What is your favorite part of working in Pima’s fashion department? A: “The fact that it is just full of creative people, and people love fashion and want to create new trends and new designs. It is just a fun department; it...

2May

By Pima Post Editorial TeamNo Comments

Arts & Entertainment, Features

Culture Club: free passes for Pima students

By JOSH GRAY Pima Community College has partnered with Act One to provide free cultural passes to Pima students. Culture Passes are free admission tickets that you and a guest can get by going to your local Pima Library. Act One is an organization that helps provide art and cultural experience throughout Arizona schools. Act One is a non-profit organization that is privately funded. “A lot of it comes from donors and foundations, individual donors and foundations, corporations, that's the bulk of it,” said Geri Wright, CEO and president of Act One. Act One offers two main programs. Its first program is the Act One field trip, which helps Title 1 schools that can’t afford to take their students on field trips. Since the organization’s founding in 2011, Act One has provided “nearly ...