1997_03 The Daily Collegian March 1997

              New Mexico defeats
women's basketball team
  Page 6	
Weekly
Horoscope
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aily Collegian
Volume 107, No. 95
California State University, Fresno
Weather
Mostly Sunny
high 65/low 40
March 4, 1997
Academic Senate still debating G.E. changes
By Derek Walter
The Daily Collegian
The Academic Senate took action on pro¬
posed changes to the University's General
Education system Monday. The meeting fo¬
cused on the general notes section of the task
force's recommendations. This section estab¬
lishes rules to govern the document's recom¬
mendations.
The first amendment offered, which
passed by a vote of 23-21. changed the word;
'ing of one of the rules to allow courses in
each foundation sub-area to "have substan¬
tially similar goals and content.''
This allowed the department of speech
communication to continue to offer three
courses to meet the General Education re¬
quirement.
Had this amendment failed, the depart¬
ment could have been forced to only offer
one course for GE credit.
Robert Powell, professor of speech com¬
munication, said there was no need to change
the current system.
"I would ask the Senate to consider keep¬
ing the status quo," he said
Powelf said the task force did not find any
data which indicated a change was necessary.
"The task force did not survey students."
he said.
Hal Bochin, professor of speech commu¬
nication, said most students who took a
speech class were satisfied with the results
"We found 78 percent [of students] be¬
lieved they improved their speaking skills,"
he said.
Thomas Dull, professor of criminology,
said speech communication should not re¬
ceive special treatment.
"I'm concerned that we're starting to pick
(il .ipart." he said, "so everyone can try and
^et their whole piece of the pie back."
Donald Ix*et. professor of economics, said
he supported the measure based on his expe¬
rience teaching economics He said an intro-
Please set- SENATE page 4
Culture night
Ryan Weber — The Daily Collegian
Keynote speaker Tony Vang, Stanislaus State professor, speaks at last night's Hmong Culture
Night at the Satellite Student Union
Fresno State celebrates Asian culture
with traditional, modern entertainment
By Rosanne Tolosa
The Daily Collegian
Amerasia Week 1997 has be¬
gun.
Events for the week focus on
educating the community about
Asian American culture.
"Amerasia Week is also used
as a recruiting tool for the uni¬
versity itself to show that the
university as a whole is diverse,"
said David Gee. president of the
Amerasia Club.
Festivities started with Fili¬
pino Night which was held on
March 2 and continued last night
with Hmong Night.
Cecille Tafalla, activities coor¬
dinator for the Amerasia Club, said
that the programs include dances,
skits, and fashion shows.
Filipino Night was modeled af¬
ter a popular variety show in the
Philippines.
"It's like you're watching TV.,
and you also learn about the Fili¬
pino culture," • said Stephen
Camcam, president of the Magkaisa
Pilipino Club.
Other events for the week in¬
clude Southeast Asian Night on Fri¬
day' and Pan-Asian American Fes¬
tival Night on Sunday.
Tafalla said that Festival Night
will include performances from a
mixtureof Asian clubs, as well
as traditonal Japanese Taiko
drum troupe from San Luis
Obispo. Japanese and Chinese
dancers, and several Asian hip-
hop groups.
Tafalla said that Amerasia
Week is also a way to recruit
more people into the Amerasia
Club.
"The Amerasia Club is not
very well-known on campus.
but it's been alive for twenty
years." Tafalla said.
All Amerasia Week events
are held in the Satellite Student
Union from 7-9 p.m.
How credible is that
web site? Check it
out before you cite
By David Boraks
Knight-Ridder/Tribune News
The student at Davidson Col¬
lege, near Charlotte. N.C.. inno¬
cently turned to the Internet for help
researching a paper on the origins
of the AIDS virus.
Most of what she had found,
both in printed and Internet sources,
listed the conventional and widely
accepted theories that the disease
began among primates in Africa or
in an isolated human population
For more on this
subject, point your Web
browser to these sites:
Evaluating web sites: criteria & tools
http://www. library. Cornell, edu/
okuref/research/webevaJ.html — This
site, at Cornell University in Ithaca, N. Y.,
is organized in the form of a tutorial and
offers tips on both Internet and non-In¬
ternet information sources.
Evaluating quality on the net
http://www.tiac.net/users/hope/
findqual.html — Hope Tillman, the li¬
brary director at Babson College in
Babson Park, Mass.. offers a variety of
examples and useful tips in this article
urging Internet researchers to apply the
same common-sense skills to evaluating
Web content as they would any other in¬
formation source. .
- Evaluating internet based information
http://www. Ime. mankato. msus.
edu/class/629/Credihtml — Also in the
form of a tutorial for students, this site at
Mankalo State University in Minnesota
leads Web surfers on a tour, comparing
good and bad sites.
Think critically about web resources
http://www.library.uda.edu/Hbrar-
ies/coIIege/instnict/critical.htmJ
She cited them, offering arguments
for and against the theories.
Then she found an obscure
World Wide Web site, not affiliated
.with any research or governmental
group, that outlined in elaborate, if
sometimes confusing, detail how
the virus was supposedly invented
in secret U.S. military laboratories
as part of a biological warfare re¬
search project. She accepted it at
face value and made it the central
argument of her paper
Her protessors made her rewrite
the essay Why? Be¬
cause the Web site she
used didn't pass the
usual tests for deter¬
mining whether infor¬
mation is reliable
enough for citation in
an academic paper.
"Any time'youhave
a topic that is poten¬
tially controversial,
you're likely to run
across these kinds of
sites." said Frank
Mojjndc. head of seri¬
als and government
documents at
Davidson's EH Little
Library. "You find stu¬
dents assuming that
what's at these sites is
the same sort of thing
as if you were reading
a scholarly journal "
It's not
Although the Inter¬
net can speed and sim¬
plify research, teachers
and librarians sa> it
also has added an un¬
expected and difficult
challenge helping stu-
Please see WEB i
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