douglas college's student newspaper since 1976 DCSS gets safe walk off the ground Douglas College is close to having a new safe walk program in operation — and you have the Douglas College Stu- dent Society to thank for it. The safe walk program will provide a safe escort in a three-block radius of the college The program should be in operation by the end of the semester. New Westminster City Police tallied 1005 assualts in 1993, 50 of which were sexual assaults. David Freylinger, Vice-President In- ternal and active in getting the safe walk program off the ground with co-worker Joe Spears, felt that the action was nec- essary. ‘I just want students to be able to come to campus at night without be- ing killed, or raped, or beaten up,” Freylinger said. The program costs more than you might think. Original startup costs could be as high as $40,000. That’s partly because a kiosk will be bulit on the concourse to contain the safe walk progam’s gear. It will be installed right across from the Security booth, beside the bank machine. Freylinger said they are asking ad- ministration to foot some of the bill for the venture, and plans are in the works for community donations and sponsorships. Because of their contract to Douglas College, security cannot leave the cam- pus grounds, making the safe walk an even bigger necessity. A note from your ombudsoffice by Carla Alexander The Ombudsoffice provides confi- dential assistance to students that ususally takes the form of advice. Many students need a sounding board for their difficulties and information concerning how to address the issue at hand. The Ombudsoffice may direct the student to various departments within the college, such as Student Services, or may help prepare the student to solve his or her difficulty personally. The Ombudsperson has attended meetings between instructors and stu- dents to help facilitate communication and lend confidence to the student. The office may also be of assistance in the drafting of appeals. The Ombudsoffice is provided for students by the Douglas College Student Society (DCSS). The college has provided the Ombudsoffice with private office space and furnishings, while the DCSS staffs the office with a qualified student Continued on page 3 David Freyling, VP Internal of the DCSS, helped get the program go 9. EDITORIAL by Deesy Esses In 1993, 1005 assaults took place in New Westminster, 50 of which were of a sexual nature. Most of these crimes occurred at night and on victims that were traveling alone. Although these numbers may seem alarmingly high as compared to larger cities such as Van- couver, they are nonetheless, far above the what should be considered an ac- ceptable limit. ZERO is an acceptable limit! Although there is no way to guar- antee absolute safety, there are things that can be done to lower the chances of being a victim. There are approximately 3100 full time students, 4100 part time students attending Douglas College, and 700 staff and faculty members. Unfortunately there are not nearly enough spaces to fufill the demand for parking. Obviously this means many people are forced to park on the streets of New Westminster and walk to the college. Walking to their cars alone at night puts drivers in a high risk group. The Douglas College Student Society is attempting to combat crime by implementing a program called the Douglas College Safewalk Project. This Program will offer students, staff and faculty a safe and friendly es- cort to either their cars parked off cam- pus (up to a three block radius of the College) or the New Westminster Skytrain Station. The hours of operation PHOTO: Tim Crumley will be 6:00 pm until 10:30 pm Mon- days through Fridays, thus, no one will be forced to walk to their transporta- tion alone at night. Probably the single most important factor of this program is acquiring volunteers to do the escort- ing. Without volunteers, the program cannot work.. The program is designed to provide two volunteers, a female and a male, for each escort.The start-up crew will consist of three team per night so the program needs enough volunteers to fill 30 positions per week. Taking into account the legal and ad- ministrative tasks required to operate such a program, the Student Society has plans of a mid-February starting date. Hopefully the program can be initiated sooner. Before the program can get started though, they need volunteers! Besides the satisfaction of knowing they are providing a worthwhile service, there are other benefits to volunteers invlved with this program. It is an ex- cellent place to meet new people from the college and helps build and develop public relations skills. Also, many em- ployers out there, especially in policing and other goverment agencies, are now requiring prospective applicants to have community volunteer experience before even accepting their applications. This volunteering also fulfills some of the criteria required for scolarships and burseries. Perhaps even the satisfaction of knowing that they will be helping to make the Douglas College community a safer place to be will attract volunteers to the Safewalk program. The responsibility to make this pro- gram successful relies upon students to volunteer. Any students who wish to be a part of this program are encouraged to contact Safewalk Coordinator Joe Spear at 527-5575 or David Freylinger of the Douglas College Student Society at 527-5110. Thank you for your sup- port. Let's make sure no on feels unsafe at Douglas College! A new semester begins at Douglas College today. And with the new se- mester comes new challenges, new goals. Jeff McDonald at least one goal this semester, McDonald temporarily takes the place of Lani Hyde this semester as Co- ordinator of the Language Partner pro- gram, which matches ESL students at Douglas with students whose native language is English. He really wants people to take advantage of the pro- gram. “It provides a great opportunity for students both from the ESL student's perspective and the volunteer’s perspec- tive,” he said. Volunteers agree to free up an hour of their time a week to converse with an ESL student. There are some guide- lines that students may follow in con- versation, but it is left up to the part- Having a language partner is good for your health Jeff McDonald would really, really like you to be a language partner. ners themselves what to talk about. “There is some orientation,” McDonald said. “The students who do orientation get some training in cross- cultural communication from the ESL instructors [at the college].” McDonald knows from experience how valuable it is to be a language part- ner. He was one three years ago. The benefits can be more rewarding than job experience. “Charlie Kwon [McDonald's partner] considered me his first Canadian friend.” McDonald thinks the program will be ultimately rewarding for all in- volved. “This country is not a melting pot — it’s a mosaic. I don’t think ESL should be looked at as diluting other cultures, that people who learn ESL can operate in two cultures. It think we can all learn to operate in lots of different cultures.” Parking increase goes ahead, some students want to stop them by Deesy Esses As most of you may realize an increase went ahead without in- terruption even though the Douglas College Student Society collected more than 15C90 stu- dent names in petition against the increase proposed by admin- istration. Administration origi- nally stated that a petition of more than 500 names would be considered as student opinion. The 1500 name student opinion was all but ignored by adminis- tration when the parking motion passed in less than 20 minutes. The implemented increase is as follows: OLD RATES NEW RATES Hourly $0.25 $0.50 Daily $1.50 $2.50 Evening $0.50 $1.00 Semester $54.72 $80.00 The increase will hurt Doug- las College Students. Most stu- dents have limited finances. An increase of more than 45 per cent in the monthly rate will only strain further the limited re- sources of full-time students who work part-time or who are on student loan. The increase is to provide more parking in a new building that is being constructed on the corner of Lome and Carnarvon Streets adjacent to the College Place Hotel. Although the in- crease is for a valid cause there is of course little chance that rates will decrease to their previous levels once the building is paid for. Have a Happy New Year... If you are interested, you can sign a petition protesting the parking increases at the DCSS. ed. note: For what it's worth, the College says the cost is also to cover GST and PST on parking. Until recently, the College absorbed the cost of GST for parking. That changed when the provincial government changed its rules about what it collects tax on. Many items which had pre- viously been exempt were in- cluded under PST legislation in- troduced last year. It was at this point that the college decided to not absorb the tax. This is Douglas College's first parking fee increase since the structure was built in 1982.