New GRCC Prez has fresh outlook on core issues
Main Editorial

The announcement came quickly after the last Presidential finalist came to GRCC for the forums and open interview process.

The GRCC Board of Trustees (BOT) made their choice on the same day after the final interview process was finished. The BOT choose someone who they believe will bring GRCC to the next level.

The choice of Dr. Steven Ender was because of his credentials and his impressive interview process said some of the BOT members.

The decision was made in the afternoon of Jan. 29 after Ender’s visit earlier in the morning.

Dr. Steven Ender is currently the President of Westmoreland Community College. Ender has over 30 years experience, he is active in the community and has served in numerous ways in education. Ender is supposed to bring fresh eyes to what GRCC is facing in the future.

GRCC has rising enrollment and limited classes. This has been one of the problems for the College after two failed millage proposals in May and August of 2007.

The BOT suggest that the “fresh eyes” approach is coming from someone who would not be bound by old community ties. The outsider perspective brought by Dr. Ender will let him approach things in a new and innovative way.

Dr. Ender will face challenges at GRCC that are evident in the culture and the current state of Michigan. The rising unemployment rates in Michigan have brought on a mass influx to the enrollment at GRCC.

When Dr. Ender starts he will be trying to address the need to do more for the students, community, and workforce with less resources. The high enrollment has classes filling up faster, and many students are left without the basics to get started toward the degree, certificate, or transfer program they are seeking when coming to GRCC.

Workforce development and moving GRCC forward are just parts of this intricate puzzle that makes GRCC so unique. GRCC foundation classes for those who need to build skills. Then there are the classes that students take to fufill the general requirements so may transfer to a four-year university. GRCC offers the arts, sciences, communications, older learning, and the list goes on and on.

GRCC is an institution that offers so much for its community. One program that may seem irrelevant to some may be so important to others that any decisions need to be looked with feedback and community involvement.

This is one thing we hope Dr. ender and the BOT will remember as they move forward to this next level that is being discussed. Another challenge may be the fact that Dr. Ender will have to work with a BOT that is elected and not appointed.

Dr. Ender was chosen for his qualifications that seem to be what this college needs.

The time is here to see what will be the future of this institution and where it will be going in the next few years. It is time to see where these “fresh eyes” will take this college.

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Cell phones replace our face-to-face time
By Christina Kim
Assistant Sports Editor

Waiting for class to start in the awkward silence that ensues among strangers sitting too close to each other, cell phones are whipped out and wireless communication begins so as not to seem friendless and uncool.

Instead of having a conversation with a neighbor, we crawl into our comfortable bubble of impersonal communication that cell phones create for us. Instead of laughing out loud with our head thrown back, we LOL Instead of listening during class, students strike up a text message conversation, hands furtively hidden under the desk.

We are quickly losing the art of face-to-face communication, losing our humanity in the onslaught of technology.

In a community college, where most students exist in this other world, having a full-time job or other responsibilities that take us away from any sort of campus life, it’s even easier to play with one’s cell phone instead of bothering with other students. And this fall into the technological heart of darkness is starting even earlier in the youth today.

According to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA), an international non-profit membership organization that “represents all sectors of wireless communications,” 79 percent of teens have a mobile device, which is a 36 percent increase since 2005.

Additionally, teens spend more than $100 billion on wireless communications.

The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association also reports that there are over 270 million cell phone subscribers in the United States, which is 88 percent of the population. CTIA also said that there were over 75 billion short message service (SMS) or text messages in the month of June ’08 alone.

With numbers like these, and cell phones easily visible around you, it's easy to see how technology is pervading into our lives and humanity.

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Blowing smoke in all of our faces
By Lonnie Allen
Editor-in-Chief

Whether I’m on my way to the main building or walking up the stairwell on the Bostwick Ramp, I see it.

Every day, I see it: smoking or the evidence of smoking. It has become quite obvious what is going on in those areas on each level near the entrances, and in the corners of the stairwells of the parking ramps.

Smokers are still lighting up, and some are still doing it in front of the entrances of the buildings. One day while leaving the main building, a student was coming down the stairs and was actually lighting up before he went outside. There is no excuse for that.

I am a former smoker. I know what it is like to want that cigarette, but I never would light up in a non-smoking area, let alone in a public building that has been smoke free for years.

I started smoking when I was 12 and quit for good when I was 25. It was hard, but with the rising cost of cigarettes and the constant doctor visits because of my asthma, I felt it was time to quit.

That morning I had coughed up a chunk of lung that looked like it was a new life form. I immediately quit then and there. I have compassion for smokers, but I have no compassion for rule-breakers.

The GRCC Tobacco Free Policy seems to be a joke to some students here at the college. It is frustrating seeing smokers still at the entrances of the buildings, walking around with their cigarettes lit in hand.

Some smoke free signs lay around campus knocked down with cigarette butts strewn out around them. It is like blowing smoke in the face of GRCC’s administration.

We are told to ask those who are smoking to please put it out. The only response you get to that is a disgusted look and a puff of smoke in your face. We need better enforcement. It is impossible to police smokers if you’re a fellow student.

A classmate that smokes does not listen to another student who asks them to put the cigarette out. Our voices alone do not help. GRCC needs to come up with an enforcement policy that will work.

This was not thought through enough. The idea that students should police others on campus is a foolish notion that only causes friction between those who smoke and do not. Whatever the decision, there needs to be some sort of effort put towards finding a solution.

Perhaps the school could consider an approach that holds policy violators responsible for their actions. The college should charge or fine students and staff for violating the smoking policy.

Money out of the pockets seems to be the only way a student or employee will learn. The collected dollars can then be used to pay for the enforcement of the policy, or to fund clubs and organizations that deal with health issues on campus. The proceeds could maybe even go towards funding a health clinic for students.

The consequences need to be a strong deterrent to end smoking on campus all together. A more extreme approach would be to post photographs of students and staff caught breaking the rules around campus. This would help deter them from lighting up.

Maybe once people can put a face to those who violate the policy, those rule-breaking students may finally feel more responsible for their actions. I am not saying that smokers are bad people. I am just trying to say that if most students can follow the rules of the college, then those who light up should have to do the same.

The campus looks trashy with all those butts lying around and the stairwells stink with odor from the smoke. Please follow the rules and stop smoking at GRCC. Keep the campus clean and stop making it an ashtray.

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'Pay to play' affects your music
By Kyle Kiekintveld
Collegiate Staff Writer

Payola is the reason that the radio leaves a lot to be desired.

Payola, as it is commonly used today, refers to the practice of record companies secretly paying or rewarding radio stations for playing their music

. In 2007, four radio conglomerates settled a payola lawsuit for $12.5 million dollars, in which corporations owned over 1,200 stations.

"Payola affects everything," said Davey D, a Hip Hop historian and deejay who will be visiting GRCC on Feb. 10 as part of Black Student Union’s “Our” Story Month.

"Everything is bought and paid for. It starts with the record label. They pay you X amount of dollars, and they are looking for a certain number of spins,” Davey D explained during a phone interview.

“It is all mathematical. You might have to spin (a song) every hour. It can be really tight."

The deejay continued by pointing out that it isn't always money in an envelope anymore.

If you don't play what the record company tells you to, who is going to play at your concert? Who is going to appear on your charity album? Who are you going to interview?

This means that if you’re a local artist or a local record label, you will most likely struggle to get your music played in comparison to the major label artists.

"What is usually offered on the airwaves via urban radio are records chosen from one of the five major label groups or their subsidiaries,” Davey D wrote on his Web site. "In other words, the only ones who are allowed to sit down and break bread on music day –and, more importantly, be allowed to pull up a chair to the proverbial card table determining airplay—are those who have the chips (resources) to play and pay."

There is no clear-cut solution to the current problem, but our best resources are our voice, because despite the recent massive settlement, radio programming seems to be stuck in a payola-ridden environment.

We need to stand up and demand that real music makes it to the airwaves, or at the very least, the needle isn't dropped twice an hour on the latest Nickelback or Lil' Wayne single.

Payola is the practice of record companies secretly paying or rewarding radio stations for playing their music.

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How the Camel keeps you hooked
By Jacqueline Prins
Web Design Editor

I was sifting through a pile of mail when something unusual caught my attention. It was addressed to my boyfriend.

In bold lettering across the letterhead, it said, “Camel Economic Stimulus Notice.” This was followed by a long paragraph which began, “Hey good-looking,” and ended with “More relief is here. And this time it’s only good for one thing—a little break on your favorite style of Camels.”

Considering neither my boyfriend nor I smoke, I was surprised to see the advertisement. However, he had signed up for a free pack of cigarettes at a bar once, for one of his friends, and ever since he has been bombarded with Camel advertisements and coupons for up to $2.50 off a pack of Camels.

I was appalled by the advertisements. Here, at GRCC we are a smoke-free campus. Many businesses, including Spectrum Health, are also smoke free. Society expects students and workers at these places to quit smoking, yet advertisements and coupons are constantly being thrown in the faces of these people.

Tobacco companies will suck every penny out of their consumers they can get. They don’t care that every year, according to a report issued by the U.S. Surgeon General Richard Carmona, 440,000 Americans die of smoking-related diseases.

They don’t care, and they don’t want to know. They don’t know that my boyfriend, the person they sent their coupons to, currently has a family member in the hospital battling lung cancer. They don’t care that the cancer was attributed to a life of smoking.

They sent the coupons anyways. Coupons for more cancer, instead of a check for hospital bills. Where are the business ethics?

They did get one thing right. Under the Camel logo, bold print says “Pleasure since 1913.” In The Tobacco Debate, a report released by MSU, nicotine works by “turning on” the pleasure chemical dopamine in the brain’s reward center.

According to the report, “Once a pattern of use is established, nicotine receptors develop and the body goes through nicotine withdrawal if regular doses are not used.”

However, I think an even better slogan would be, “Pleasure, Cancer, and Emphysema since 1913.”

In a keynote address to the Coalition to Prevent Deep Vein Thrombosis on Jan. 22, 2009 Steven Galson, Acting Surgeon General said, “Today, 47 million Americans lack health-care coverage.”

He also said that projections place U.S. spending at nearly $2.4 trillion for health care this year. That is almost $7,500 per person. Plus, premiums have increased by nearly 98 percent since 2000.

With reports like this, it is hard to believe that smoking is even an option for people, especially when taking into consideration the economic instability of today’s society.

The surgeon general’s warning reads loud and clear across the top of these ads: “Smoking causes lung cancer, heart disease, emphysema and may complicate pregnancy.” Although they provide a warning, this list seems a little short.

According to The Health Consequences of Smoking: A Report of the Surgeon General, issued by Carmona nearly five years ago, cataracts, pneumonia, acute myeloid leukemia, abdominal aortic aneurysm, stomach cancer, pancreatic cancer, cervical cancer, kidney cancer, and periodontitis also make the list, but not the Camel ad. This doesn’t even include the list of illnesses to which smoking contributes complications.

The type of advertising done by the tobacco industry is harmful and unethical. It is amazing what these people are willing to sacrifice to make a buck. They don’t care how many people have died because of smoking-related and caused illnesses. They don’t care who they send their advertisements to, or how many people have lost loved ones to the mountainous tobacco industry.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. seems to have the ultimate business plan: hand out free samples of a highly addictive product, and then bombard the consumer with endless coupons and advertisements. In other words, make it as difficult as possible for people to forget, or escape the amazing power of tobacco and the Camel.

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Student Shoutout Online results

Is GRCC asking too much for all students to maintain a 2.0 GPA?
Yes 10%
No 85%
Unsure 5%
(20 total votes)

Click here to vote in our current poll asking if you think GRCC should fine or punish those who violate the Tobacco Free Policy.

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