1991_11 The Daily Collegian November 1991

              eatures
The Daily Collegian • November 13,1991
Rescue 911
Anita Mendez, a public safety dispatcher for the CSUF Police Depart¬
ment monitors alarms, police radios, scanners and 911 calls. A new
Steve K. Skibbie/DC photo editor
dispatch station is being added to the existing one and should be
completed in January.
Beating Not Invented Here syndrome
• Westinghouse employs 12,000 research technicians to be competitive with new technology
By Eric Coyne
DC Contributing writer
A vice president in charge of the science
and technology division of Westinghouse
Electric Corporation in Pittsburgh, Pa.,
spoke at CSUFabout recent scientific devel¬
opments and the impact they will have on
society.
Issac R. Barphal, a senior Westinghouse
official, gave a speech on "Technology Fu¬
tures" this week to engineering students
and faculty in the Industrial Technology
auditorium.
The Westinghouse Corporation's 1990
revenues exceeded $13 billion worldwide.
The high-tech company is a world leader
in nuclear, electrical power, environmental
and waste management technologies.
Ba -pal is also the project manager for the
Science and Technology Center, which
employs 2,600 technical personnel who
collectively evaluate and refine cutting-edge
technological developments from around
the world.
Cryogenics research, Barphal said, will
soon allow people to
make a call to any¬
where on Earth
using a cellular
telephone the size of
a wristwatch.
Super-conduc¬
tors, materials which
when cooled to near
absolute zero allow
electricity to flow without any resistance,
will eventually make it possible to store
energy produced during lulls in electrical
power consumption.
This energy can then beavailable for later
use during periods of peak power usage.
"Our research and development budget
exceeded $1 billion lasi year," Barphal said.
Westinghouse employs 12,000 technicians
in research fields alone.
He emphasized that Westinghouse wants
_ ... i ,   to remain a high-tech-
"The Test Of the WOrld   nologyleader.
is as smart as we are...    qbt??|gwTC
rate chairmen should
We Can t afford tO have a   have a technical back¬
ground,*' he said.
NIH (not invented here)
syndrome."
Sssac R. Barphal
"Look what
happened to General
Motors. They had an
accountant as their
chairman for 12 years. They nearly went
broke."
Barphal said he believesif the "Big Three"
automakers had spent more money
trying to remain technology leaders, the
industry wouldn't have seen their market
share lose as much ground to foreign com¬
petition.
"Americans are arrogant," Barphal said.
In 1971, Boeing executives laughed at the
thought of a new European consortium
named AirBus which wanted to build large
commercial airliners.
At the time, Barphal said, every major
airline in the world flew Boeing planes; they
were the leader in their field.
Twenty years later, AirBus has37 percent
of the $12 billion market for heavy commer¬
cial aircraft
"The rest of the world is as smart as we
are ... we can't afford to have a NIH (not
invented here) syndrome."
Barphal pointed out that the Japanese
and Europeans don't have any problems
adopting American technology.
Students eager to earn Japanese minor in spring
By Renee Ruelas
DC Staff writer
At5:45 p.m. Tuesday,.the begin¬
ning Japanese class was nearly full
of students eager to learn the lan¬
guage.
"This class is packed," said jun¬
ior Sally Lomeli, a business major.
There's a lot of people in here."
This is one of the reasons Japa¬
nese is becominga minor at CSUF
beginning in the springof 1992.
Shigeko Okamoto, professor in
the department of linguistics,
agreed there are a lot of students
eager to learn Japanese who are
filling the classrooms.
Okamoto, who helped coordi¬
nate the Japanese minor, said Japa¬
nese is becoming more popular.
The many students who were
interested in continuing beyond
the beginning level was another
reason Okamoto said he pursued
the minor.
At present, the
classes are full and
some students
have been turned
away, according to
Okamoto.The new
18-unit minor con¬
sists of 12 units of
required introduc¬
tory and intermediate Japanese
courses and six elective units.
Okamoto, will be related to Japa¬
nese culture and history.
Okamoto said the program was
developed to provide a greater
understanding of the socio-cul-
tural differences of the Pacific
Nations, despite theirgrowing po-
„_.. ,        ..    li Heal economic
"There are fourth interdepend-
and fifth generation ***■ A minor
, would      also
Japanese who learn meet the in-
it   as   a
foreign *rels,ng
**     demand among
I a,n g u a g e .    studemsto ob-
Shigeko Okamoto £^inorin
"I became interested in Japanese
because of the culture,*' Lomeli
The electives, according to    said. "I mink ifs important for    elective requiremei
people in marketing."
Okamoto said most of the stu¬
dents are business or international
relations majors, but others come
from different areas of interest.
Junior anthropology major Tif¬
fany Hope became interested in
the Japanese language from Japa¬
nese friends.
1 have friends who have spent
years in Japan," Hope said.
Japanese Americans also enroll
in theclasses to learn the language.
"There are fourth and fifth
generation Japanese who learn it
"as a foreign language," Okamoto
said.
Next semester three new courses
will be added to hejo meet the
;ntK>r the mi¬
nor. And the future of the Japa¬
nese language classes at CSUF
looks promising.
Could CSUF join CSU, San Jose
or San Diego State in becoming
home of the next Japanese major?
"Ifs a possibility," Okamoto
said. "Japanese is becoming very
important**
Japanese as a second language
may become part of the future, as
Japan continues to grow as an
economic leader.
The future languages in the job
market will include Japanese and
Russian, Hope said.
And besides, it can be fun.
"If snot that hard once you learn
the basic five vowels. I really like
it" she said.