The biggest stories of The Broadside for the 2013-2014 school year
Fall
Police investigate $150,000 in theft at bookstore
Over the 2012-13 year, COCC’s bookstore lost over 1,000 textbooks to what could be an “organized effort”
Before fall term even began, news broke of the largest textbook loss in COCC history. The bookstore, which normally experiences around $35-$50,000 of “shrinkage,” or unaccounted-for textbooks, in a year, lost over 1,000 textbooks to what may have been an “organized effort,” according to Ron Paradis, director of college relations.
“In the past, all it probably would have been was somebody sneaking a book every now and then,” Paradis said. “This is obviously more.”
Lori Willis, bookstore and auxiliary services director, has worked for COCC for 16 years and has never seen this much theft.
“Typically the loss on an annual basis is around one percent of our gross sales,” Willis said. “What this amount did is put us in the three to four percent category.”
Paradis believes this could be the result of an organized effort to steal from the bookstore. At larger community colleges in Portland or Eugene, there are people who go from bookstore to bookstore looking for weaknesses to exploit, according to Paradis.
“We don’t know whether that’s the case over here or not,” Paradis said.
Willis and bookstore staff took drastic measures to limit shrinkage, rearranging the store and changing checkout protocol so that the only ones handling textbooks would be store employees.
Their stringent approach has paid off: Textbook theft for this year is down to 25 books, which is a world of difference, according to Willis.
OSU-Cascades student fee committee has surplus of $800,000
Student fee committee still has no plan of what to do with the money
In October 2013, it came to light that OSU-Cascades’ student fee committee had over $800,000 in surplus funds and no plan of what to do with the money. At the Oct. 21 Associated Students of Cascades Campus council meeting, Jack Vanderlinden, student fee committee facilitator, explained that amount is rollover money from previous years.
“Year to year everything not spent goes into a surplus/reserve fund,” Vanderlinden said.
The SFC obtains money every year through the Incidental Fees, which students pay along with tuition. These fees average around $420 per year for students or approximately $140 a term. The SFC and student council act as a system of checks and balances, ethically protecting the spending of student funds. The intention of having student fees is to finance campus activities and clubs, according to the OSU-Cascades Charter.
But with recent enrollment increases and the creation of a permanent four-year university, demand for student fee requests is expected to increase as more clubs and programs become established.
COCC student government faces year full of ups and downs
The year may have been tough personnel-wise, but ASCOCC found the upsides with more outreach and advocacy than before
Personnel issues
ASCOCC started out the year minus one member. Kelly Huskey, 2012-13’s director of student organizations who was returning, was terminated for violating college policy on Aug. 27, 2013.
Student government spent two and a half months looking for a sixth member before they found Amber Ruedi in mid-November, only to lose another member two weeks later when Matt Armstead, director of fiscal operations, submitted his letter of resignation.
By the time winter term began, student government had hired Shanelle Allen to replace Armstead and the council didn’t change personnel for the rest of the year.
Team Landon
ASCOCC came alongside Chris March, campus public safety officer, to support March’s nephew Landon.
At the age of three, Landon will have to undergo 41 months of chemotherapy. For the next three and a half years, he will live with a subcutaneous port – a thin, soft plastic tube that is inserted under a patient’s skin in his chest to allow easier infusion of chemotherapy. Landon will also attend countless doctors appointments, and the treatment will take an intense physical toll on his body.
“It’s hard to see him laying there with tubes in him, not wanting to do anything,” March said. “A three-year-old should be wanting to get up and move and play.”
Recognizing the rising costs for Landon’s family, Hailey Jorgenson of the Associated Students of Central Oregon Community College decided to act. Along with Kurt Killinger and other members of the council, Jorgenson developed “Team Landon,” a non-profit campaign to help Landon’s family.
Jorgensen and volunteers have been selling Team Landon beanies for donations and hosted a movie night on May 17 to raise money.
Landon has his ups and downs, according to March, but their family has their eye on the light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a treatment completion date of December 29, 2016.
“The support from the staff, students and college is great,” March said.
Winter
Dan Cecchini
The COCC employee who traveled across the world as an American delegate is now assisting a lawyer to sue the French government
A college employee’s interest in falconry took him across the globe and brought him face-to-face with an emir. In the February 12 issue, The Broadside covered Dan Cecchini, COCC’s IT guy, who in his spare time serves as the U.S. birds of prey delegate.
Cecchini traveled in January to Doha, Qatar, in the Middle East, where he gave a speech on the negative effect wind turbines have on raptors, bats and sage grouse. Using his book Spinning a Green Yarn: Another Inconvenient Truth, Cecchini presented to 59 other national delegates.
During his time in the Middle East, Cecchini did more than give speeches. He attended the “equivalent of a White House gala,” where he met Qatar emir Sheikh Tamim.
Currently, the Bend native is working with a French lawyer who is also a devoted falconer. The future plan is to file a “lawsuit against the French government as well as a maker of wind turbines to try and stop additional implementation of wind energy in France,” according to Cecchini.
OSU-Cascades expansion
Fundraising, site plans and a land purchase have followed the announcement of OSU-Cascades’ growth
It all started a year ago.
In 2013, the Oregon University System approved Oregon State University-Cascades to become a four-year university, with one hitch: They wanted to see community support in the shape of dollar bills. OSU-Cascades raised $1.56 million in six weeks, drawing the system’s approval, and with that the expansion began.
Summer 2013, Oregon State Legislature approved a $16 million bond for the campus, prompting OSU-Cascades to begin planning a new campus.
By February, the campus had raised $24 million for expansion, and had settled on the location – a two-part land parcel totaling 56 acres, located off Southwest Century Drive and Chandler Avenue. Feb. 13, OSU-Cascades paid $5 million for the smaller section of the land, the 10-acre parcel.
“I think it’s a wonderful opportunity, not only for OSU-Cascades, but also for the community,” Bend City Councilor Mark Capell said.
The 10-acre parcel was part of a plan to open the first phase of the campus in fall 2015, with a goal of 1,980 students and 70 faculty.
OSU president Edward J. Ray traveled to Bend on April 2 to deliver the “State of the University” address, paying particular attention to the expansion.
“I know of no better way to serve the future of Central Oregon … than by creating the four-year campus of OSU here through a collaborative, transparent and proactive engagement with our many partners,” Ray said.
Presidency search
COCC’s progression to a new president has been far from smooth
With current president Dr. Jim Middleton retiring, COCC has seen plenty of change.
Following Middleton’s retirement announcement at the end of the 2012-2013 school year, the COCC Board of Directors began to look for a new president.
Jan. 31, Dr. Patrick Lanning, Dr. Sheila Ortego and Dana Young were announced as the three finalists for the position out of the total 35 formal applicants. The three visited the main campus and branch campuses from Feb. 24-March 5, after which the board of directors listed Lanning as their favored candidate March 7.
However, on April 9 the board of directors decided not to hire Lanning or any of the other applicants following the news that Dr. Patrick Lanning was on administrative leave from Chemeketa Community College for unknown reasons, a fact not disclosed to the board.
“There are unanswered questions that provide concern and … the college needs to move forward,” COCC Director of College Relations Ron Paradis said at the time.
April 14, current Dean of Extended Learning Shirley Metcalf was appointed as the interim president to fill the gap in the 2014-2015 school year, as the presidential search continues.
Meanwhile, information received from a tort claim notice unearthed by The Bulletin found that Lanning was on leave for allegations of sexual misconduct. According to the tort claimant, Lanning committed acts of sexual conduct or abuse Feb. 6-Feb. 7 at the Sheraton Portland Airport Hotel, while at the 2014 Annual Student Success and Retention Conference.
An investigation is ongoing with Chemeketa, and a police report has verified that Chemeketa college staff saw Lanning drinking and acting flirtatiously with the filer of the tort claim notice.
As for COCC, a new search for a president will begin fall 2014. About $68,838 was spent on the presidential search in the 2013-2014 school year.
$16 million approved for residence hall
After a decade of planning, construction begins on a new residence hall
Nearly 50 years after Juniper Hall was built in 1967, a new residence hall will be replacing it. The new hall, slated for completion June 2015, will house 330 students in 84,000 square feet. “The college has been formally and informally looking at student housing for 15 years,” Dr. Jim Middleton, college president, said to the Central Oregon Community College Board of Directors on Jan. 22, “but the board has never made a definitive yes or no on the project.”
Board member Joe Krenowicz believes the new project will bring residence from the background to the foreground of the COCC experience.
“Student housing is a major component in our learning package,” Krenowicz said. “Those students in Madras will probably move down here.”
COCC is one of only four community colleges in Oregon with student housing, according to Alicia Moore. It is part of a trend of almost 400 community colleges across the United States with student housing, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Kurt Haapala, principal architect for the project, told the board the housing had been designed with student success in mind.
“It’s about creating opportunities for student engagement,” Haapala said. “We want a building that encourages that.”
Spring
Emma Chaput at the Boston Marathon
“Faculty member takes one large step for COCC following the bombings of 2013”
April 15, 2013, three bombs exploded at the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring 264. April 21, 2014, COCC assistant professor of human biology Emma Chaput took a flight to Boston and ran the race, as a demonstration of hope for the college and America.
“As a result of the bombing, I got a little bit pissed and said, ‘You don’t get to do that to my people,’” Chaput said regarding her motive for running the race.
Chaput, who has been running steadily for 25 years, qualified for the Boston Marathon at the Foot Traffic Flat Marathon near Portland, Oregon, with the top finish time in the women’s category.
Her speed payed off in the Boston Marathon, as with a time of 03:13:15, Chaput beat every other Central Oregon runner competing.
While running the race, COCC’s professor saw “survivors who had been injured last year and were running,” and was at milepost 20 when American runner Meb Keflezighi won first place, the first American runner to do so in over three decades.
Speaking overall of her experience, Chaput was “moved.”
“It was profound in a way I didn’t quite expect,” Chaput said.
OSU-Cascades site delays
The growth of Central Oregon’s Beaver school is facing uncertainty with site opposition and a drawn-out city approval process
Between Truth in Site and necessary city approval, Oregon State University-Cascades will not have doors to open at the new campus site by 2014.
While OSU-Cascades had already purchased 10 acres off of Chandler Avenue and Century Drive Feb. 13, in March Truth in Site formed opposing the site. The group began raising $50,000 to hire a lawyer in hopes to oust the campus from the west side to the east side of Bend due to traffic, parking and campus life concerns.
“It’s a reality that you’re going to have parties,” a financial contributor to Truth in Site, Greg Knowles, said in the April 16 issue. “There’s going to be that kind of activity in that area, and it’s not appropriate for an area that has a lot of families and kids.”
Following Truth in Site, the City of Bend sent the first phase of OSU-Cascade’s site plans to a hearings officer in anticipation of an appeal.
As the land use entitlement process requires public involvement and response, both city setbacks and involvement reasons prompted OSU-Cascades – to delay the expansion past the starting deadline of 2014, to fall 2015.
OSU-Cascades will continue with hiring and recruiting outreach during the delay.
One reporter, a wheelchair and college on a hill.
One Broadside reporter finds out what its like to go to class in a wheelchair.
On the May 7th issue of The Broadside, the campus ADA accessibility was put to the test as Broadside reporter Brayan Gonzalez jumped on a wheelchair and managed the impossible – to get to class up in Grandview Hall.
“I consider myself a healthy person; I work out every day, so I assumed going up a hill in a wheelchair would be nothing,” Gonzalez said.
During the adventure, Gonzalez was accompanied by Britney Peterson, a student at Central Oregon Community College who suffers from cerebral palsy. Together, along with Britney’s dad Mike, they made their way through all of COCC’s ADA accessible entries to see how compatible they really were.
Along the way, Brayan Gonzalez realized that the project was tougher than he initially realized, and came out of it with a newfound respect for disabled people.
When asked about ADA accessibility Joe Viola, director of campus services, added that with the construction that’s been going on, [COCC] has managed to incorporate some ADA improvements to along to make it more efficient and effective, according to Viola.
COCC is not done improving or growing, though.
“Right now, the biggest project for the campus student services is building the new students housing,” Viola said. “The building will be three to five stories high and be completely ADA accessible.”
COCC plans to implement this project and others to improve campus ADA accessibility.
Scott Greenstone | The Broadside
(Contact: [email protected])
Brayan Gonzalez | The Broadside
(Contact: [email protected])
Junnelle Hogen | The Broadside
(Contact: [email protected])
