SADDLEBACK & IRVINE VALLEY COLLEGES’ STUDENT NEWSPAPER

VOLUME 46, ISSUE 9 WEDNESDAY, December 4, 2013 LARIATNEWS.COM

@lariatnews /lariatnews /TheLariatNews @lariatnews

(above) The Lasers celebrate on the court after scoring the game winning point against Golden West College to end the regular season 20-0.

Michael GrennellEditor-in-ChiEf

Lariat

For the third time this season, the Irvine Valley College women’s volleyball team defeated Fullerton College, as the Lasers advanced to

the third round of the Southern California Regional playoffs with a three-set sweep (25-14, 25-13, 25-12) Saturday night.

After scraping past No. 9 Los Ange-les Pierce College with a five-set win

in the first round, the No. 8 Hornets couldn’t keep up with the Lasers’ attack.

“I’m disappointed in tonight’s performance,” Fullerton head coach

Ed Rapp said. “We were hoping to carry some of that momentum [from the win over LA Pierce] in tonight. We needed to put a little more pressure on them with our serve. We didn’t get in that rhythm.”

IVC head coach Tom Pestolesi said af-ter the game that the team’s ball control, as well as freshman middle blocker Annie Mitchem were crucial for the team’s win.

“We were able to get the ball to Annie [Mitchem], and what that does is free ev-erything else up,” Pestolesi said. “She was pretty good, as usual, but tonight she was very good.”

Freshman setter Hailey Jones finished the night with 40 assists and 10 digs, her third straight game with 30 or more assists and 10 or more digs. Jones said after the game that she felt the team put out a solid effort.

“Our passing was really well. We were able to run our offense and run our middle line,” Jones said. “Annie [Mitchem] got a lot of kills from the middle because of our passing. We went out as a team and we played really well.”

Mitchem led the Lasers with 16 kills and 3.5 blocks in the win. The Orange Em-pire Conference MVP extended her streak of matches with double-digit kills to five, and has recorded 10 or more kills in 11 of her last 12 games.

The Lasers’ only other player with double-digit kills was sophomore middle blocker Alexis Radecki, who finished the game with 12 kills, 2.5 blocks, and one dig. Sophomore libero and team captain Becky Moodie had her second game of the season with 20 or more digs, finishing the night with 24.

The win marked the first time since 2009 that the Lasers advanced past the second round of the playoffs. The No. 1 Lasers will now host No. 4 Santa Barbara City College on Tuesday night, in the final match before the State Finals.

“We tell them, ‘It’s just another match. We’ve rehearsed this 22 times now, so you know what to do,’” Pestolesi said. “If we do things that we’re capable of doing, I like our chances.”

Santa Barbara is coming off a five-set win (19-25, 25-19, 25-19, 27-29, 15-13) over No. 12 Pasadena College. IVC and Santa Barbara faced off earlier this year, in the Lasers’ second match of the season with IVC coming out on top in five sets (25-21, 25-18, 22-25, 23-25, 17-15). The winner of Tuesday’s game will advance to the State Finals at Foothill College on Dec. 7 and 8.

“I think our chances are really good,” freshman outside hitter Marisa Doran said. “We’re working together, and I think com-ing in undefeated we have nothing to lose at this point, and we’re just ready to work hard and leave it all on the court.”

Even with the Lasers’ performance through the season, Pestolesi remains fo-cused on each game, one game at a time.

“We just worry about us,” Pestolesi said. “We’ll figure things out of what we need to do against [Santa Barbara College].”

The Lasers also received a vote of confi-dence from Rapp on their chances through the rest of the playoffs following Saturday night’s win.

“IVC is on top of their game now,” Rapp said. “They’re looking really strong, and definitely a contender for that state title.”

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BRIEFS

Jazz Combos Monday at 7:30 p.m inside the

McKinney Theater.

ON THE WEB

Arts & Entertainment

Starting Friday the Saddle-back College theater depart-ment will be putting on the Tony award-winning musical, “Next to Normal”, in the Stu-dio Theater.

The musical follows the story of Diana Goodman, a suburban mother who has to balance dealing with bi-polar disorder while maintaining her busy family life.

The rock musical was on Broadway for 750 produc-tions, was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won three. It also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2010 because of the way it represents the problems of living with bi-polar disorder in a more human light.

With music from Tom Kitt and lyrics by Brian Yorkey, the

musical covers the subjects of grieving for the loss of a loved one, prescription medication abuse, ethics in modern psy-chiatry and the struggles of suburban life.

Performances will be held at Saddleback on Dec. 6, 7 and the 10-14 at 7:30 p.m. Af-ternoon performances will be on Dec. 8 and 15 at 2:30 p.m. Tickets at $15 for regular ad-mission, $10 for students and seniors.

For tickets and more infor-mation, call (949) 582-4656 or visit the Saddleback website at www.saddleback.edu/arts.

Saddleback college’s coun-seling services offer online assistance for mental health and safety known as Kogni-to-At-Risk. These training courses require no costs.

This interactive program is a new form of training for students, faculty and staff and those supporting veterans to be able to identify and address those suffering from psycho-logical distress.

The training simulations are different for students, faculty and staff and veterans support-ers, following guidelines spe-cific to each group.

The student training focus-es on peer communication for emotional and academic prob-lems. Students are advised to approach the topics carefully and effectively refer those suf-fering to safe outlets for mental instability.

Faculty and staff training assists in acknowledging stress and its impact on health and ac-ademic performance. Accord-ing to Saddleback’s counseling

services website, this 45-min-ute course is used in over 270 colleges and universities al-ready.

The student, faculty and staff veterans supporters’ 30-min-ute training course focuses on veterans-sensitive topics and various resources available to veterans.

For more information on the courses, visit http://www.sad-dleback.edu/counseling/kog-nito-risk-training. If there are any technical difficulties with accessing the programs, email support@kognito.com.

“Next to Normal” to be performed by Saddleback College this week

Counseling services offer online training

Lasers near finaLs

CeLebRaTe: Sophomore middle

blocker Haley Whyte celebrates after the La-

sers scored in the fourth set of their win over Gold-

en West College earlier this season.

State Finals at Foothill College

Saturday, December 7 2 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 7

p.m.

Sunday, December 8

10 a.m., 1 p.m., 3:30 p.m.

phoTos by MiChaeL GRenneLL

*Lariat will resume printing Feb. 12, 2014. For news over winter break, check lariatnews.com.

OpinionLariatWEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2013

LARIATNEWS.COM

There’s a feeling of joy that you get when you give a loved one the perfect gift. As

they open it you feel excited that af-ter some research, you went to the store and thoughtfully picked out something you know they’ll really love.

Holiday shopping used to be about showing your closest fami-ly and friends how much you care, but consumerism seems to have taken over and shopping lists seem to have expanded to include every-one you’ve ever met. It’s made a thoughtful sentiment of gift giving a stressful impersonal act.

Retail stores earn more than half of their annual revenue from Thanksgiving to Christmas. The av-erage person spent about $423 on Black Friday alone in 2012 accord-ing to statisticbrain.com and more than 300 million people shopped ei-ther in-store or online.

At the top of many people’s Christmas lists are the hottest con-sumer products, but…

All I want for Christmas is:

2

Comments:CampusHas consumerism ruined the

holiday season?

“Consumerism has influenced everything, It is more highlight-ed during the holiday season”

CHAD CALDERON, 20, undecided

“Consumerism has affected the holiday spirit, because people who should be spending time with their family, are now rush-ing to go to a sale.”

LINDSAY IRWIN, 19, fashion and merchandising

“I think consumerism and the holiday spirit can coexist, because it’s all about giving gifts to your loved ones.”JOSEPH RAZO, 18, Criminal Justice

“It puts stress on people who are struggling financially. Gifts are expected”

ALEX DEVINCENTES, 24, undecided

LARIATNEWS.COM/OPINION

MELANIE ROBERTSEDITOR-IN-CHIEF

COLUMN:

ILLUSTRATION BY ANIBAL SANTOS/ LARIAT

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

• EDITOR’S NOTE: The following letter was emailed to Lariat news editor, Kaylee Johnston, in response to her story in our last issue titled, “Night Services Cause Controversy.”

I just read the article “Night Services Cause Controversy” in the Lariat...so I thought I would at least suggest an idea. When I was a student at UCLA, I worked as a Community Services Offi-cer (CSO). CSOs served as additional sets of “eyes and ears” for the campus police department. They gave us uniform polo-type shirts to identi-fy us, and portable radios. We mainly walked the campus and performed escorts for students from place to place (mostly female, some male). When a student wanted an escort, s/he would call the dispatcher and the dispatcher would radio for

the nearest CSO to provide the escort. We also staffed the police department front desk and did secretarial things like taking bicycle theft reports and fingerprinting. While walking the campus, if we saw an actual or potential problem, we radioed the information to the dispatch center. Some of us CSOs were also trained and certified as EMTs (Emergency Medical Technicians), and we staffed the campus ambulance in addition to patrolling the campus and providing escorts.

I thought it was a great program (especially for those of us pursuing careers in Fire, EMS, law enforcement, health, and public safety), and very cost effective. Although we probably don’t need a campus ambulance here, it might make good and practical sense to start a CSO program for escort and observational purposes only as an aug-

mentation to the overall campus safety system. I would think that it would be a great way for stu-dents to get some extremely valuable practical ex-perience that would be good for their resume and help their career advancement, while substantially improving our ability to detect potential problems and threats before they become actual problems and tragedies.

The expense should be relatively reasonable. We would need some good radios for the CSOs to carry, and we would need to pay them at least minimum wage (we probably should pay a little more than that, but the job would be so presti-gious that we probably could get by with mini-mum wage if that is all we could afford). I believe that many of my EMT students would love to do this kind of a job while they are students, and I’m

sure there are many veterans who would do it also (it does not have to be limited to just EMTs and veterans, but these are just some ideas).

Anyway, I don’t want to get into too many details right now (e.g., training and qualification standards, scope of responsibility, etc…), and e-mail is not the ideal forum for a full analysis, but I wanted to simply make you aware of what I think could be a great idea in many ways to get you thinking about it. If you are interested, I would be happy to help you set up the program and coordinate it if you wanted. Thanks for lis-tening.

–Larry [Grihalva], Emergency Medical Tech-nology instructor

“The holiday spirit is com-promised because everyone is interested in buying things. They forget about what is im-portant. Since of the beginning of time people have always been obsessed with getting the newest, and the best.”

KANELO IRACLIDES, 20, film

1. iPhone (not really)

2.Designer Clothing (sort of)

3.Starbucks Gift Card (or not)

Materialism impedes on family time

While many college students are asking for iPhones this holi-day, I would rather have FaceTime in person with my family. Angry Birds can’t replace the holiday family jam session and you can’t eat the Instagram photo of your mom’s home-cooked feast.

As technology becomes more innovative each year, soci-ety starts to distance themselves from spending time with family in person and relying on text—messaging and video chatting. Caught up in their cellular devices and tablets, many lose out on the true meaning of the holidays, which is re-connecting with loved ones.

In Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death, he writes that people are becoming more interested in their technology than human interaction and it will only get worse as electronic media advances. Karina Gomez, a 19-year-old criminal justice major said, “I feel like its tak-en over and become more important than spending actual time with your family.”

Indulging in my favorite chai tea latte is surprisingly not on my Christmas list, but brewing up quality time with friends defi-nitely is! I plan on wrapping myself in a blanket and fitting in some time on the couch watching Elf with friends. While others may brave overcrowded malls, I would much rather stay home and try on a pair of comfy slippers. While store-bought gifts are nice, it’s more important to spend time with friends instead of money. “We buy or help people during the holidays some-times because we want and sometimes because we have to, but commercialism has changed it drastically by telling people they “have” to buy things instead of giving from the heart,” Breea-na Gomez, a 22-year-old human services major said.

Instead of layering on the latest fashions during the holi-days, I plan on giving away some of mine to charity instead. Stores push out the latest trends during the winter months as shoppers frantically try to get the latest style, but the old clothes are forgotten when someone else could use them.

There are always charitable organizations like Toys for Tots, and Goodwill that gather necessities and toys during the holidays for people that would otherwise go without. Local women’s shelters are always taking donations as well.

mroberts.lariat@gmail.com

No matter what you do or how much you spend in the next couple weeks, make sure your list isn’t missing the most valuable gifts.

Lariat “Saddleback’s student-run newspaper since 1968”

Web: www.lariatnews.com Address: 28000 marguerite Parkway, mission Viejo ca, 92692

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The Lariat is the student news-paper of Irvine Valley College and Saddleback College. The Lariat is an independent, First Amend-ment, student-run public forum.

One copy of the Lariat is free. Additional copies may be pur-chased for $1 at the Lariat news-room, which is located in LRC 116.

Letters to the editor are wel-comed. Please limit letters to 200 words or less and include a name, valid e-mail address and signa-

ture. All letters are subject to edit-ing by the editorial board.

Unsigned editorials represent the views of the Lariat’s ediorial board and do not represent the views of Irvine Valley College or Saddleback College or the South Orange County Community Col-lege District.

Lariatnews.com launched in fall 2007. Visit us on Facebook at “Lariat Saddleback” or follow us on Twitter, @lariatnews.

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MICHAEL GRENNELL & MELANIE ROBERTS Editors-in-Chief

Community Services Officers could help campus safety

LifeLariat WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2013

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LARIATNEWS.COM/LIFE

Use promo code NEW75B online or present at any branch.¹Present by December 31, 2013 to receive offer. All accounts are subject to normal approval standards. This offer is available to “new” Members only. A “new” Member is defined as a person who has never been an owner or signer of a checking or savings account or loan at Orange County’s Credit Union. Must open a personal checking account, enroll in e-Statements, sign up and qualify for a Debit MasterCard, and either set up and receive Direct Deposit or make 5 Debit Card purchases within 60 days. Social Security can be used as a direct deposit for Basic, Interest, and Pacific checking accounts. Bonus paid by deposit to the new checking account. Bonus typically paid within 90 days. Bonus represents dividends deposited into your account and may be reported to the IRS. Any applicable taxes are the responsibility of the recipient. The new checking account must remain open for 90 days and maintain e-Statement preference for 90 days or bonus may be reversed. Offer available for personal checking accounts including Pacific Checking for youth/students. Money Market accounts are considered savings accounts. Offer not available in conjunction with other offers. Membership in Orange County’s Credit Union is available to anyone who lives or works in Orange or Riverside Counties or the neighboring communities of Long Beach, Lakewood, Cerritos, or Signal Hill. Membership fee of $10 will be fully refunded with this offer. 2Message and data rates may apply.³Available in branches.

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Free salsa classes are offered at Saddleback

Quick. Close your eyes. Now open them. You are now located in Dr. Scott Fier’s Chemistry Lab room at Saddleback College. Surrounding you is a surplus of lab bottles, chemistry books, poi-sonous liquids and gases, and fellow classmates thinking the same thing as you: How will I possi-bly understand the elaborate concepts of Chem-istry? Look up, and the answer is clear. There stands, Dr. Fier.

Dr. Fier, chemist and 2013 Saddleback Col-lege “Professor of the Year”, distinctively teaches his students with passion and drive. He is more than a passionate professor; he is a coach, a men-tor, and an inspirational figure. Each semester students are more than eager to take his course.

Like most inspirational leaders, Fier leads by example and mentoring students to succeed be-yond the classroom. To step into the world with a new vision–one with clarity and a willingness to accomplish goals.

Flash back to Dr. Fier’s eight-year-old self and you’ll find him asking his mom to buy poster board so he has the space to draw every atom in existence.

This residual interest in Chemistry has led Pro-fessor Fier to have the ability to translate regular lectures into interactive discussions with unique motivational tools for his students, such as post-ing the names of the students with the highest test scores on the classroom door.

It can be exhilarating to be a student of Fier’s Chemistry class. Chemistry student and Public Health Science major, Chantelle Gil said, “He’s one of the best professor’s I’ve ever had at Sad-dleback. He helps motivate his students, not only

to pass the class, but also to grasp the concept of Chemistry. He really wants to push us to do our best.”

Fier not only inspires enthusiasm in students, but in colleagues as well. “The Chemistry depart-ment is as strong as it is here at Saddleback large-ly due to the work and energy Dr. Fier has put into it,” said Saddleback College Chemistry Pro-fessor Dr. Ryan McKeachie. “I am comforted to know I have a colleague with the level of experi-ence and passion for teaching Dr. Fier possesses, and I hope to match that enthusiasm throughout my career.”

As a former Little League Baseball coach, Fier finds that just as each season of baseball and each semester of college quickly progresses, each time span serves as a period of growth to influence the character, knowledge and success of his students.

He encourages students eager to major in the competitive field of Chemistry. “Take it one class at a time, with small steps and by setting small goals, you can achieve pretty much anything,” Fier said.

Fier describes his most memorable moment at Saddleback College as the time he received the “Professor of the Year” award at the Orange County Teachers of the Year Gala this past Oc-tober. Since Fier began teaching at Saddleback College, he has built upon his world of elements, arranging and intricately building the prosperity of students each year, semester, month and day; inspiring all to succeed and never to stray from their dreams.

Sarah DhanaphatanaContributing Writer

Have you ever wanted to learn how to dance but didn’t want to pay for the classes on campus?

No need to fear! Saddleback Salsa is here!

Every Tuesday night from 8-9:30 p.m. in room PE 301, the Saddleback Salsa club gets together to work with dancers on their tech-nique and rhythm. Whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned salsa-er, this student run club will be able to help you get where you want to be.

Sarah Santoyo, one of the stu-dent instructors for the club, said, “Anybody who wants to come…we teach the basics every week and then we’ll teach you a move. So, for the more advanced people, we’ll teach them something else if they want to learn. But we welcome all beginners.”

Established almost ten years ago by Professor Carmenmara Hernan-dez Bravo, the club was original-ly run by two instructors, Rachel Amara and Ishmael Mendoza. In 2011, it became an entirely student run organization with Hernandez Bravo being the club advisor.

But the classroom isn’t the only place where dancing goes on.

Vanessa Klink, a 21-year-old massage therapy major, and also one of the instructors for the club, said, “We’re trying to be more ap-plicable to social dancing…For me, that’s the main reason why I wanna keep improving because when you go out and social dance, you can dance with anybody and feel com-

fortable with what you’re doing. So social dance is ultimately where the desire for dance comes from.”

So not only does the club meet up on Tuesday nights to work on steps, but they also gather off cam-pus and go to dance clubs to real-ly get into the salsa groove. Klink recommends going with a group for the first couple of times to clubs like Tapas in Newport or Atomic Ballroom in Anaheim because it can be intimidating for someone who is new to dancing.

Klink said, “Depending on where you go, like if you go to Tapas, it can be intimidating if you focus on the really good dancers. There are always beginners wher-ever you go, though. Whether they dance or not is unknown, un-less they dance. I would say that if you’re a beginner, try to go to Atomic Ballroom or some sort of dance studio that actually has more of a variety of skill levels. Because if you go to Tapas, that’s generally a little more advanced.”

All of the proficient dancers and the instructors in the club had to start somewhere and remem-ber their experiences as beginning dancers.

Alexander Bowers, a 25-year-old medical major, has been danc-ing with the club for almost three years. He said, “With the club, I learned so much just from the peo-ple are here because you have the people who are more experienced than you are and you have the peo-ple who are not as experienced as you are, so you get to train with them and you get to learn with the

people who have more experience. Whereas in class, there’s only one teacher. Everyone else are noobs. It’s not really practical, per se.”

It is because of this that the club is very welcoming and friendly to all the newcomers who are curious about learning to dance.

Vickie Brown, who is not a Sad-dleback student, found out about the club from a Google search and figured she’d come and check it out. She said that she had always want-ed to learn how to dance and was surprised how much she learned in one lesson.

“I loved it. They’re so cool. They’re so nice and friendly and sweet. They just grabbed me and were like, ‘Come on girl! You can do it! Start dancing!’ It was nice, I had a really great time,” Brown said. “I asked, ‘How do I get to be in the club?’ and they were like, ‘You’re here, girl! You’re in al-ready.’”

For more information, Saddle-back Salsa has their own page on Facebook where they post which nights classes will be and when the group will be meeting outside of class to go dancing.

This 2013 “Teacher of the Year” ignites the fire in his students each semester

lariateditor@gmail.com

mhardy.lariat@gmail.com

Michele harDyCopy Editor

COuRTESY OF DR. FIER

MICHELE HARDY/ LARIAT

ChemistryinstructorDr. Scott Fierinspires hisstudents byexample

SCienCe: Dr. Fier titrates liquid in his chemistry class.

Instructor Sarah Santoyo (right) watches while Alexander Bowers (left) shows Vickie Brown (middle) some basic moves.

SportsLariat WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2013

LARIATNEWS.COM

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LARIATNEWS.COM/SPORTS

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Saddleback College basketball player Eric Thompson has signed a letter of intent to move on after the 2013-14 season to a 4-year school, The University of Pacific.

Offensively, power forward Thompson, is averaging and leading the team in points per game at 17.8, leading in free throws 19-22 with a 65.5 percent success rate, and is second on the team in field goal percentage at 26-38 at 68.4 percent.

Defensively, Thompson leads the Gauchos in rebounds with 42.

According to pacificsports.com, Pacific head coach Ron Verlin said, “Eric is a big powerful athletic big who can finish around the basket in traffic. Look for Eric to be a force on the boards for the Tigers.”

Gaucho basketball coach Perry Webster tweeted, “Special night for me to have my guy, Eric Thompson, commit to university of pacif-

ic. Special young man and I’m a proud coach. #gauchos .“

The power guard stands 6’8” and scales in at 240 lbs. and hails from Clawson, Michigan where he played at Lake Michigan College.

At Lake Michigan, Thompson shot on aver-age 9.7 ppg and made a total of 90 free throws, 52 percent on the season. On the defensive end of the ball Thompson earned on average 51 blocks on the season as well as stealing the ball 33 times. On rebound offensively he made 101 and on defense 158, averaging 9.59 a game.

Thompson and the Gauchos will be hosting El Camino-Compton Center this Tuesday, Dec. 3 at 5 p.m.

After finishing last season 27-5, the Saddle-back College Gauchos start out the 2013-14 sea-son with a current win streak of seven games.

Saddleback is ranked No. 1 in the Orange Empire Conference with a 7-0 record, yet not far behind in conference, Irvine Valley is also unde-feated, 6-0.

The Gauchos have played in two tournaments this season, both away at Ventura and Fullerton College and have come out victorious. Saddle-back also played a non-conference game against LA Pierce at home for the win in between the tourneys.

In their match up against LA Pierce College they manage to score 94 points over Pierce’s 68 for the final score. Pierce held off Saddleback from a huge lead at half time when Saddleback only had the lead by six points, 43-37. The Gau-chos had four players with over 15 points on the night as well as rebounding 41 shots.

As far as the tournaments go the Gauchos swept the competition in both events. In the Ful-lerton College Tournament Saddleback College first faced Barstow in a one sided game resulting in a 91-41 victory, Barstow only held the lead during the first score of the game. At the next match up the Gauchos defeated Chaffey 67-51, then took down San Diego Mesa 69-47.

Gauchos took the Palomar Thanksgiving Tournament in another 3 game sweep. The first game against LA Trade Tech was a victory 89-63, following two more marginally large scoring games against LA Harbor and Southwestern, 69-52, 69-47.

Saddleback will be hosting non-conference El Camino-Compton Center College at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 3, as well as playing at non-con-ference San Diego Miramar College the same time Friday, Dec. 6.

Thompson declares for University of Pacific

Gauchos start season undefeated

AdAm KolvitesSportS Editor

akolvites.lariat@gmail.com

AdAm KolvitesSportS Editor

akolvites.lariat@gmail.com

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