Video: Intensely debated change to associate degree requirements narrowly gets approved by Faculty Senate
The Hornet Editor-in-Chief Jake Rhodes reports on the tense debate between Faculty Senate members over the Curriculum Committee’s recommendation on only having Title 5 be a requirement to get an associate degree. Watch now to see how the debate unfolded and what the Faculty Senate ultimately voted on.
May 4, 2024
About the Contributor
Jake Rhodes, Senior Editor
Jake Rhodes is the senior editor for The Hornet Newspaper. He has been on The Hornet Newspaper for five semesters. He is an eight-time award winning journalist. He has received second place in Sports Game Story as well as Meritorious recognition in Enterprise News Story/Series for an investigation into Title IX concerns at Fullerton College from JACC. Jake is also a national CMA Pinnacle award winner, receiving first place in Sports Multimedia Story, second place in Sports Investigative Story, and Honorable Mention for Sports Game Story. In addition from CMA, he received an Honorable Mention for Best Web Sports Section while serving as Sports Editor in spring 2023. He has also received an honorable mention as producer of Around the Hornet for Audio Podcast and a third place finish as a contributor for Audio Podcast from JACC. While Jake has served as EIC, The Hornet secured its first ACP Online Pacemaker award, which has been referred to as the "Pulitzer of college media." The Hornet has also been recognized for "General Excellence: Online News Site" by JACC in both semesters Jake has served as EIC. He was also elected to be the new JACC SoCal Student Representative for all JACC members in Southern California for 2024-2025. Outside of The Hornet, Jake is a head coach with the Varsity Boys' basketball team at Orange High School and is also a bartender at Lucille's Smokehouse BBQ. His end goal in Journalism is to be a beat writer for an MLB or NBA team, or a sportscaster. Jake enjoys spending time with his wife Alexis, daughters Samantha, Madison, and dog Cocoa.
Dana Rose Crystal • May 13, 2024 at 11:07 am
I think it is sad. The reason for requiring Multi Cultural courses is to introduce students to cultures other than their own, since we live and work in multicultural communities. I love these classes and have taken several of them. So do other students, who find them a joy, as well as enlightening.
Removal of Physical Education class requirements was hotly debated in 2007 within the Curriculum committee (I witnessed this as representative for the Associated Students) with many PE teachers complaining that FC bigwigs didn’t care about them, and that initiative was voted down. I have known people who didn’t want to take PE classes: some who argued that because they served in the armed forces that they should not have to — but my late husband, Larry, a combat veteran, was in bad shape (from his various disabilities. including diabetes and old-age) when he returned to college at age 62 and would have benefitted from learning a new way to build muscle and health, as would the veterans who had injuries. I knew one man who was disabled from a car accident, and had never learned a new way to re-build the muscle he lost — he actually gave up on getting an AA rather than take a PE class, but that had to do with his own foolish vanity — he was embarrassed by the way he looked, so quit a 2-week Winter Intercession swimming class; if only he would not have quit, he would have learned a valuable tool in rebuilding muscle.
Of course, one way these instructors might keep enrollment up is for FC to actually pay attention to older people to encourage older people to take classes. Many senior citizens need exercise badly and would benefit from the various classes. Unfortunately, I feel that FC and NOCCCD really don’t value us older students. The Ambassador program has always turned me down when I applied, as it appears that they only want younger ambassadors to recruit High School students. A great many of the multicultural classes I have taken have older students, so there you go, the attitude of the bigwigs causes problems.
I think a really important class is Business Law, which teaches valuable information for anyone — people who are employers as well as employees; people who want to serve in either private or public sectors. Too many people don’t know the laws they need to obey. I think Business Law ought to be required.