http://www.columbiaspectator.com/authors/posts/25781 An authors posts... used for embedding en http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27992 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27992#comments News Disabilities at Columbia Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:59:27 -0600 Sara Maria Hasbun 27992 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27828 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27828#comments News Deaf Students Disability Wed, 31 Oct 2007 02:08:40 -0500 Sara Maria Hasbun 27828 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27513 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27513#comments News Wed, 17 Oct 2007 01:03:03 -0500 Sara Maria Hasbun 27513 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27209 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/27209#comments News Bees Long Island Crops study Thu, 04 Oct 2007 02:56:34 -0500 Sara Maria Hasbun 27209 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/26924 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/26924#comments News Global Harlem Jazz Mon, 24 Sep 2007 01:40:17 -0500 Sara Maria Hasbun 26924 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/26462 http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/26462#comments News Bones Diabetes Thu, 06 Sep 2007 01:49:22 -0500 Sara Maria Hasbun 26462 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/55043 Sasha De La Cruz, BC '08, would not have been able to attend college if not for the Higher Education Opportunity Program. "My father wasn't really around until after I was nine, and then only sporadically. My mother got into an accident at work, so I had to get a job to cover my finances," she said. When De La Cruz was accepted to Barnard's HEOP program, the decision was made. "It [money] was the factor in deciding. There were no choices otherwise." As a participant in the program, De La Cruz is exempt from paying tuition, and receives money for books, tutors, housing, and a college prep program. Each year, the state provides $500,000 to Columbia and $400,000 to Barnard to run the program, which aims to give students who may have below-average SAT scores and grades due to their families' financial need the ability to attend college. Next year's state budget, passed at the beginning of April, increased funding for the program by five percent. To qualify for HEOP, the student must be a New York state resident, although Columbia also offers related programs for non-New Yorkers. Students are also accepted based on financial need. For example, students in the program may come from two-parent families of four that earn incomes under $27,800, or families of three with incomes less than $22,350. The student must have a SAT I critical reading score of less than 620, or an ACT English subscore of 24 or below, and a high school average of 85 or higher. Bill Short, president of the New York State HEOP Professional Organization, said by e-mail that the purpose of having a maximum SAT score is to find the students whose finances interfered with their ability to succeed. "The difference comes down to which student had access to better prep, and were therefore [at an] educational disadvantage." Students accepted into the HEOP program at Columbia must have also demonstrated "potential for success at Columbia University," said director of Opportunity Programs and Undergraduate Services Jason Collado during a trip to Albany to lobby for increased aid. When accepted in the program, students are required to spend eight weeks in a required summer program to prepare them for college-level academics. The program is, according to Short, "to make up for what was lacking in high school so our students come to their first semester on an academic par with everyone else." Jack Yuan, SEAS '10, learned English as his third language, after Mandarin and Cantonese. Born in Manhattan, he lived in China until he was four years old. "When I started school, [in the U.S.] I had no idea what English even was," Yuan said. "I spent most of elementary school in ESL." As a student at Brooklyn Technical High School, he majored in computer science, winning $250 in tournaments and scoring an internship at Con Edison. But he still struggled with the English language. "I did horrible on the SATs, especially the reading and writing. Math I did fine in." He was still determined to go to college. "My guidance counselor told me, 'Your SATs are bad, but your grades are good.' I said, 'Let's see what happens.'" Yuan didn't know about the HEOP program until Columbia told him he had been accepted. "My parents were so relieved," he said. Yuan enjoyed the summer program. "At first I thought it was going to be a hassle. But it was really fun, and it was really good preparation for Columbia," he said. De La Cruz found the program demanding. "It was 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. constant work. But it creates a really good support system," she said. According to an e-mail from Dennis Kennedy, director of communications at the Commission on Independent Colleges and Universities, HEOP has produced 30,000 college graduates since its inception. More than one in four HEOP graduates pursues a graduate degree. While institutional and state funding are used to share equal responsibility for the cost of a student's enrollment, costs have continued to grow while state funding hasn't, forcing the institutions and the students themselves to compensate, according to Short. Although state funding has recently begun to increase, "the fact is that public funding is still not anywhere close to its original commitment to students who need it most." Short said. While institutional support has risen from $36 to $78.3 million in 2004-a $42.3 million difference-state funding has risen a mere $500,000 in the same time period, from $20.4 to $20.9 million, according to data provided by the CiCU. "HEOP currently is able to enroll less that five percent of the total eligible population. With more funding, we would begin to bring in some of the other 95 percent." Short said. De La Cruz has nothing but good words for the program. "Every time I have a problem, even if it has nothing to do with school, I can always go to my HEOP counselor," she said, adding that the HEOP office even helped her stepfather to get his GED. Yuan said that he is grateful for the opportunity, but admits that a few changes could be made to make it better. He finds it unfair that students just above the income cutoff (which varies depending on number of dependents on the household) are ineligible. "There should be a margin of error, a give or take," he said. Yuan also believes that SAT scores should be kept out of it. "I don't think anything should be based on SAT grades. That's not how you grasp who a student is," Yuan said. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/55043#comments News Tue, 01 May 2007 23:00:00 -0500 Sara Maria Hasbun 55043 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54996 University Greek Life is facing an administrative crackdown on parties, according to students who belong to campus sororities and fraternities. Members of fraternities worry that Hot Jazz, a yearly event put on by ADP, may not be the last casualty. "Greek advisers and the IGC have been cracking down on unregistered parties," said Margy McCullough, CC '08 and president of the Inter-Greek Council. She said that fraternities are faced with a dilemma: register parties and be denied approval, or not register and get punished. "None of the brownstones are up to code," McCullough said. "There are very few registered parties at this point, and we're making a move to change that, but now with the fire code it's basically impossible." Michael Magdaleno, CC '08 and president of Alpha Delta Phi, said he was upset about the way that administration handled approval of their annual event, Hot Jazz, which was canceled early in April. According to Magdaleno, the second inspection was a week and a half before the event itself, although the administration had known of the matter a month before. The late notice cost the fraternity $850-$1000 in sunk costs for Hot Jazz. "We had already contracted a band," he said. "We were in the process of ordering alcohol. We had to cancel that. We had already ordered things like decorations, cups, all the necessities." According to Herman Matte, Director of Housing, ADP had requested 650 people for the event in a brownstone that could legally hold no more than 74. "That's just not possible." he said. University Housing and Dining did offer the organization alternate locations, but Magdaleno said that all other locations were "prohibitively expensive. It just wouldn't be fiscally responsible." "For the past twenty years we've had a 300-person guest list at least," Magdaleno said. "Where was the University over the past twenty years if we were doing something illegal and unsafe?" "Its just something that needed to be done. " McCullough said, explaining that the recent change in administration overseeing Greek life may have played a role. The fraternities that had been overseen by University Housing-which oversees faculty and graduate student housing-are now under the jurisdiction of Columbia Housing and Dining, which oversees undergraduate residences. According to University Spokesman Robert Hornsby, Columbia Housing and Dining events "might be more strictly regulated. It also could be that it [the situation] wasn't ignored, but rather managed differently." Hornsby said that had the police or fire department been contacted during parties in the past, the events would have been broken up. Inspections are now conducted by Joseph McCormick, associate director of public safety, who declined to comment on whether inspections had happened or why the event was allowed to happen in the past. Inspections were previously conducted by members of the staff of University Housing. Eleanor Daugherty, Associate Dean of Student Affairs declined to comment by press time. The IGC is torn between the needs of the fraternities and the requests of the administration. "We want to have a vibrant Greek life, but the best way is to have the administration like you," McCullough said. "We're just trying to gain respect, and then you can ask for what you want." She believes that the crackdown has already affected Greek life at Columbia. "A lot of organizations are afraid of being caught for having those parties, or they're becoming much smaller." The crackdown will affect fraternities in differing degrees, Magdaleno said. "For some brownstones it may be impossible to bring them up to code," he said. "For others it could be as simple as installing more emergency lights and making sure that all exits are unblocked. Bottom line is that to my knowledge, they haven't even begun to look into this as a possibility." ADP isn't the only member of Greek life that will feel the pinch, according to Magdaleno. "The Theta house won't even be able to have a meeting with active alumni and current membership," he said. "They should they have the right to gather in their own home." Theta members declined to comment. "We're pretty much always a full house," said Edward Beaulac, CC '08 and President of Pi Kappa Alpha, who worries about the future of parties at Pike. "There are always people waiting at the door. Now we might not even be able to have every member in the house for chapter meetings. The administration is definitely getting more strict." "Columbia is only 9% Greek," Beaulac said. "For the most part, people go out to bars-which is not like most schools." He is concerned that fewer parties will hurt recruitment in the fall. "We'll be meeting soon to discuss possible problems with rush," he said. McCullough said that she hopes to meet with all the executive boards of Columbia fraternities to talk about the fire code issues. "Administration views underage drinking like this crazy epidemic thing," Beaulac said. "And of all the other issues that are facing Columbia is seems like it should be pretty low priority. But the frats are an easy target." Other fraternities are also feeling the pinch. Due to an incident that occurred at a AEPi party, the fraternity's party schedule was cancelled until further administrative notice, according to members. A member of AEPi who wished to remain anonymous said the frat and administration have not made any decisions on whether or not they will be able to resume parties next year. "All of these houses are built to be not only residential but social," said Magdaleno, who said he is not optimistic about the future of campus Greek life. "If they're limited in what the building code prescribes for safety, they're not able to function as the social space that they should be." Alex Peacocke contributed to this article. http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54996#comments News Thu, 26 Apr 2007 23:00:00 -0500 Sara Maria Hasbun 54996 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54946 When Ian Sanborn was five, he wanted desperately to join a dance class. But when he and his mother approached the teacher of a dance studio in New Hampshire, she took a look at his hearing aid and asked his mother, "Are you kidding me?" Ian Sanborn is deaf, but his mother, a French immigrant, wouldn't hear of his exclusion. "I came to the U.S. and learned American Sign Language, and I'm a mother to a deaf child. You can be a teacher to a deaf child," Sanborn remembered his mother saying. Sanborn is now a member of the National Theatre of the Deaf, which came to Columbia on Tuesday to give a workshop sponsored by the Office of Disability Services. The workshop, intended to educate anyone interested in deaf culture about ASL and deaf theater, was attended by deaf and hearing people from all over New York City, including students from Teachers College's deaf education program and students from LaGuardia Community College's ASL interpretation program. The theater, established in 1967, has toured the world and, according to Sanborn, every continent except for Antarctica. Not that deaf people from all over the world understand them-every country has its own sign language. "I speak a little French Sign Language. I was in Germany for a while, but German Sign is really different," Sanborn explained through an interpreter. He also stressed that "ASL is just as deep as English," explaining how signers inflect their gestures with meaning and emotion and use facial expressions in the same way that the hearing use tone of voice. Making big gestures is the equivalent of talking very loudly, and making very small ones is the equivalent of whispering. The troupe, the members of which come from across the United States, performed a scene from its play, Fingers Around the World-Next Stop: Africa, which incorporates rhythm through drums and shouts. "Vibrations are very important to the deaf," explained Sanborn, who noted that he often sees deaf children stand in the corners of tiled bathrooms and scream to feel the sounds. After the performance, the members answered questions about their involvement in the troupe. "I love to use my hands. I'm born to a deaf family," signed Suzette Bartholomee. "So I'm very proud to be deaf." Sanborn did eventually make it into that dance class. When children made fun of him because of his lack of rhythm, his mother gave him a balloon. "I was the only kid holding a balloon," he signed, grinning. "But balloons are really good at picking up high and low frequencies, so all of a sudden I could hear the rhythm. Nothing is impossible for the deaf." http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54946#comments News Tue, 24 Apr 2007 23:00:00 -0500 Sara Maria Hasbun 54946 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54889 If you give Alan money, you can be assured it won't go to drugs. But that's because the government pays for them. "Panhandling pays for my food. The SSI [Supplemental Security Income] pays for the drugs," he said. The SSI is a Federal income support program aimed at helping the disabled. Alan's disability is unclear though he trembles as he speaks, licking his dry lips after every sentence. "I panhandle," he said. "I am homeless. I use drugs." Born in Puerto Rico, Alan came to the Unites States as a baby. After high school, he worked as a waiter until he spent the last of his money on drugs. From then on he was on the streets, begging for money in front of Duane Reade. "I don't have much luck," he said, referring to his daily panhandling. "I make about $20 a day." Alan always begs in the same place, and workers at Duane Reade are used to his presence. Eduardo Castillo, who works behind the counter at Duane Reade, often gives panhandlers singles for their coins to lighten their load. It's "just when they ask people here [inside the store], it's a problem." he said. Other neighborhood institutions are similarly accommodating. "They come and use the bathroom, and we let them, unless they look like trouble. And sometimes they ask for a free slice or a free soda, and we give them one. We try to be nice, you know," Eddie Berisha, manager of Famiglia's, said. But a Koronet's staff member, who only identified himself as Dick, said that the homeless could be a problem. "Sometimes they cause trouble, force people to buy them a slice, then they come back and pounce again, ask for more money." Dick said. Despite his difficulty speaking, Alan was able to point out more than four other local homeless people. They didn't have time to stop and talk while drunken students staggered past local eateries with their wallets ready. When offered pizza in exchange for an interview, one man said, "Money is what I need. You know that." Katy Mason, CC '09, prefers to give the homeless the benefit of the doubt. "There is the whole thing about what they're going to do with the money, but I feel that if they're going to use it for food then that's positive," she said. "If they don't, I guess it's money wasted, but it's the way I was raised." Marbello, who refers to himself as "the candyman", makes no bones about his popularity. "I've spent a lot of years in this same spot. I'm a landmark here." Marbello is one of the men who begs in front of Morton-Williams, staying warm in the winter by keeping wash towels under his hat that hang down like floppy ears. Despite his wheezing cough and his dismal luck with passers-by, he sounds upbeat. When asked why he panhandles, he cryptically replied, "My Achilles heel is that I care about people. When I lose people, I'm like water-I just flow." He declined to elaborate, complaining of a sore throat. He said he used to sing for money but claimed that when he went hoarse, he was harassed by the police. Brendan Tatum, TC '11, decides whether to give money on a case by case basis. "Usually I tend to give to the homeless that look really poor, or if they actually perform some kind of talent," he said. "The homeless that just beg and beg, I usually don't give to those individuals." Leonard Fitzgerald-who acknowledges that "in the street you go by many things"-said he is originally from Mississippi, but has made his way through Arkansas and Washington D.C. to sleep on the steps of the Broadway Presbyterian church at 114th Street. He doesn't stick to one spot­­-he can also be found in the subway tunnels in Brooklyn and Queens. "I'm just keepin' the faith," he said of his sleeping spot. He said his income varies from day to day, depending on the weather and the people he comes across. But in general, he's optimistic. "People are pretty kind, yes ma'am. I mean, some people aren't but they don't know where you're coming from." http://www.columbiaspectator.com/node/54889#comments News Sun, 22 Apr 2007 23:00:00 -0500 Sara Maria Hasbun 54889 at http://www.columbiaspectator.com