1996_10 Insight October 1996

              Dreaming of
the big leagues
Insight
California State University, Fresno M W   OCTOBER 9,1996
Volume 29 Number 5 ^^^^^^«W
Fa bottle
■ See IN FOCUS,
PAGE 3
Wanna really tick off a professor? Read on
I Professors say they're
annoyed by tardy,
disrespectful students
by Ee-Yen Phun
Staff Writer
It's not wise to aggravate professors. However, if you absolutely insist on it. here's how:
Stroll into class late. Walk out of class early.
Call professors by their first-rtames. Read a
newspaper during lectures. Chat with neighbors during class. Audibly yawn, belch, burp.
or sigh. Have your cell phone and pager go    when I'm lecturing or when one of.my stu- professors,
off. Apply makeup, comb hair and explode    dents is giving a presentation," Conlee said. "I had several students who constantly
-chewing gum.                                                 'That really bothers me a lot." walked out of my lecture within 30-40 min-
If you've ever done one ofthe above, con-       "I frankly think that very often what you're utes of a 50 minute class session, and there is
gratulations, you've made thc Top 10 list of   seeing is people who have gotten away with nothing more annoying than that," Provost
things that professors find most obnoxious    this sort of activity in high school," said David said. "I finally had to tell them off."
about students.                                               Provost, a political science professor. Towering over most people, 6-foot-8-inch
Through the course of the years, students Provost admits not having too much trouble
have not really changed much in terms of be-    Walking out of lectures with rude students during his 41 years of
"Well, they think that they can get away teaching.
nth it here. Most of us wouldn't let that hap- *'h could te ^^ tney m afraid of me•** P"*-
ing disrespectful, according to Professor
Connie Conlee of speech communication.
"The same things that bother me now, have    pen" pr0\ ost said
>t said.
always bothered me," Conlee said.
Provost. 66. noted a decline in students'        Nonetheless, he has experienced instances
"I don't like people talking to each other   djsrcspcctfu| al'ti,udc in c|av> and towards their    where he nad t0 embarrass students and tell
Fresno coordinator. NOW
tS^^k
"We've come a long way, but it isn't far enough. "-Donszepezauer
° V J Fresno coordinator. NOV
HANGING
IARD
Today's young women struggle with
feminist ideals while respecting past
by Elaina Conroy
Staff Writer
Just the other day. Angela Tranchant's mother told her, "All 1 want
you to do is get married and be happy, so you won't have to be alone."
Tranchant, a waitress at an off-campus coffee house in her early 20s,
wants marriage, but first she wants a life.
"I was raised with the whole 'housewife' mentality of the Mid-west.
I'm the only one of my friends back home in Illinois who didn't get
married," said Tranchant. a Fresno State junior majoring in community health. "Women need to explore themselves before they get married. They feel like they have to be married to be whole and that's not
true."
So much has changed since the 1950s, when many women were
either teachers, secretaries or housewives. Today's young women certainly have higher occupational aspirations and goals besides raising a
family. And although most young women's ideals differ from their
mothers' philosophies, many have a common ground and that is the
desire for equality for all people.
"We're pretty much different in the way we look at certain issues,"
said Kama Bettencourt, a graduate student in psychology at Fresno
State, speaking about her mother. "She was more of a housewife role
model."
While many young women share thc aims of the women's movement, just as many have been put off by the negative connotations
held to the word 'feminism.'
A Louis Harris poll for the Feminist Majority Foundation found a
high approval rating for the "women's movement." 69 percent, but
only 51 percent for the "feminist movement."
see WOMEN, page 3
From left to
right, Kama
Bettencourt,
Karen Leal-Graf
and Diana
Giovannetti
have differing
bV?W
views of women
kvY^H
in the '90s.
1'      ^B                      sWaBI
»i by Ryan McKee
"A lot of young women take for granted some of the opportunites that lie before
them now," said Francine L. Oputa, coordinator for the Women's Resource Center.
Generation gap widening for feminists
by Candace Cline
Staff Writer
August 26 marked 76 years since women earned the right to vote. But many older feminists
are fearful of whal lies ahead for the women's rights movement.
The "old guard" of feminism are gelling tired. After opening the doors of opportunih and
paving the road to equality, they still feel there is much work to be done to secure equal rights
for women.
The feminist generation gap between the baby boomers and genX is a concern of many
women from both age groups.
Professor Susan Arpad. coordinator of the Women's Studies program, attended the 1996
National Women's Studies Association conference in Saratoga. N.Y.. in June.
She said the generation gap was one of the main issues addressed at the conference.
"There were two groups of young women protesting what they thought was the difference
between the older and younger generations." Arpad said. The protesters argued that older
see GENERATION, page 7
Group helps international students feel at home
by Joanne de Rozario
Staff Writer
Eighteen-year-old Alvin Yeoh took his seat
on a Boeing 747 at Subang International Air-
port in Kuala Lumpur, anxious about what
he would find at the end of his 18-hour flight
to Fresno.
He was homesick and alone when he
arrived, but his mood lifted when he spotted his first sign of welcome. It was a
placard held high in the crowd. It readf
"Alvin."
It was held up by Doyle and Arlene
Merrow, members of Fresno State's International Friendship Family Program. "I was relieved that there were people there, to meet
me, even though they were perfect strangers," Yeoh said.
The program's greetcrs meet 60 or more
students like Yeoh at the Fresno Air Termi
nal every semester. The Friendship Family
Program is a volunteer community service
that cooperates with the Office of International Student Services and Programs (1SSP)
in meeting the needs of international students.
The program provides greeting and emergency housing services to help new students
pet through their first week in the United
States at no cost to thc students or the ISSP.
All costs are undertaken by the volunteers.
Thc program also provides Friendship
Families which allow students to make friends
with American families and become accustomed to the American lifestyle and culture.
Every semester, Merrow, 59, a retired
Fresno Unified School District teacher who
specialized in special education, receives
faxes from students all over the world request-
ing arrival assistance.
students at International Culture Night
GROUP, back page    last week. Friendship Family volunteers helped Yeoh adjust to America.
Alvin Yeoh, second from right,
them off because of their behavior.
"I remember on occasion asking students
to read the papers elsewhere. I've locked the
classroom door so that people that came late
couldn't come in," Conlee said.
Conlee has even woken up students that fell
asleep in her class or told someone else to
"please wake so and so."
Dumb excuses
"The dumbest excuse a student gave me
when I told them to be quiet was 'Well, we
were talking about what you were saying,'"
Conlee said. "I think that's really rude."
Shien-Min Jen, an anthropology professor,
made one of his students write a formal statement on why the student frequently walked
see RUDE, back page
Most frosh
can't make
the grade
■ Only 13 percent of
students passed the
ELM test this year
by Misty N. Fini
Staff Writer
A statewide trend that shows high school
seniors are not prepared for college indicates
that Fresno State is no exception.
Placement test scores show that incoming
freshman at Fresno State are lacking the education they need in order to do well at the
university level.
Recent statistics from June 1996 show that
only 67 percent of incoming students who
took the English Placement Test (EPT) met
the criteria to enroll at Fresno State.
Although that is over half, "Students aren't
nearly where they need to be," said Director
or Testing. William Stock.
This is especially true of the results from
the Entry Level Mathematics (ELM) examination. Only 13 percent met the criteria.
What is causing these low scores? What is
being done to enable college-bound students
to be prepared for higher level course work?
Carole Snee. director of the Learning Resource Center, says there are many reasons
for the decline in test scores. She stresses the
fact that 'diversity' within the system could
be a major contributor.
Some other issues being addressed are:
teenage pregnancy, broken homes, work outside school and poor study habits.
Difficult transition
Fresno State freshman Lisa Garcia said she
was not ready for university work. "College
was more than 1 expected." she said.
"I thought I had good study habits from
high school but found out 1 was wrong. It's
been hard for me to make the transition after
I've been studying one way for so longT'*aid
Garcia.
Garcia transferred from Monterey with a
3.0 GPA and feels her high school educated
her well academically, but fell short on preparing her for college.
She has also found difficulty in getting used
to large lecture halls where instructors don't
have the opportunity to work with students
High <thool instructors are now becoming
aware of these difficulties. Universities have
reduced the number of remedial courses in
order to gel the word out that students should
be better prepared.
Tutors offer help
Until there is a grasp on the situation, students having problems can enroll in a variety
of programs to help them adjust to university
life.
There are tutorial serv ices that cater to any
subject, especially the natural sciences and
math classes.
Last academic year, Fresno State reported
serving students for I0.(XX) total hours.
In 1985, a program called ILE, Intensive
Learning Experience, was established. Students can-gain support from this program for
English and math classes.
There are a variety of other services available through Student Affairs, some of which
cater to ESL (English Second Language) students.