The Current Online

Academic Achievement
Danielle Benedict, Sherri Berislavich, Margaret Berter, Angela Brincefield, Sandra K. Clark, Courtney Edwards, Timothy Enke, Linda Fager, Jeremy Flippin, Jennifer Giacone, Kimber Grainger, Su Hui Grondski, Andrea L. Harrelson, Christina Hatfield, Coleman Thomas Hook, Susan Horovitz, Erik Johnson, Bradley Lord, Raun Mason, Elaine Persaud, Terrie Peterson, Susan J. Probst, Jennifer Reeder, Christy Sipek, Brenda Sloane, Sally Stearley, Gary Testerman, Joshua Tucker and Robin Zeigler

Honors Program Graduates
Gina Katzer

PTK Enhanced Membership
Emily Gossage, Lois Robbins, Melissa Sutphin, Ed Wheeler and Karen Wommer

All-Missouri Academic Team Members
Gina Katzer and Deborah Madden

Shoreline Awards
Art/Photograhpy
1st Place: Gabe Corroll-Dolci, 2nd Place: Angela Bond and 3rd Place: Angela Bond
Prose
1st Place: Ernest B. Hogan, 2nd Place: Jason Wendleton and 3rd Place: Jamie Giro
Poetry
1st: Jamie Giro, 2nd: Brian Waldram and 3rd: Paul Lessane

Crystal M. Field Award for Student Writing
Jason Wendleton

Outstanding Alumni Achievement
Roy Mussett

Outstanding Alumni Service
Gail Barham

Debater of the Year
Leviticus Coppock

Individual Events Speaker of the Year
Michael Spruill

Outstanding Baseball Athlete
Skyler Stromsmoe

Outstanding Volleyball Athlete
Amy Ruff

Outstanding Student in Math, Physics or Engineering
Joshua Tucker

Outstanding Student Leader
Jason Blunk

Outstanding Contribution to a Special Interest Group
Student – Angee Mullis
Employee – Keet Kopecky

Outstanding Contribution to the College
Student – Margaret Berter
Employee – Karen Halastik

Outstanding Student Advocate
Jennifer Osterberg and Christopher Osterberg

by LEVITICUS COPPOCK

It Runs in the Family is a poignantly wonderful, warm and realistic portrayal of the complexity and variety of emotions that family life invoke in us all. Screenwriter Jesse Wiguton does an excellent job of playing to these base emotions of family by developing multiple plots for the different members within. Just like in a real family, some are not that interesting and others will grip the audience.
Director Fred Schepisi uses the immense acting talent of Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas and Bernadette Peters to hide the average acting of Cameron Douglas and Rory Culkin. Cameron Douglas struggles in the screen presence of his Oscar-winning father and grandfather, and the last thing this movie needed was another Culkin kid to cute it up.
Mitchell Gromberg (Kirk Douglas), the patriarch of the family, has had a stroke and is recovering. Douglas’ real life ex-wife, Evelyn, plays his wife, and her character is undergoing dialysis. Mitchell’s dealing with his wife’s mortality is Douglas at his Oscar-worthy best. His character steals every scene, shining brightest in a scene has the three generations of Douglas fishing together.
Alex Gromberg strains to maintain a relationship with his family, and approaches it as one of those group-hug dads who watched too much Phil Donahue in learning how to parent. The middle Douglas shares some priceless time on screen with his father. Alex battles to achieve the relationship he wants with his father. The youngest son, Eli, is the overachieving son who does not want his parents’ attention.
Bernadette Peters does an excellent job portraying Rebbecca Gromberg, Alex’s wife and a psychologist by profession. She struggles to understand why she can relate to her patients, but not to her two sons. The oldest son Cameron drives her crazy with his who cares attitude about life. Peters offers a lot and her talent shines on the screen as it always does in her performance.
Cameron Douglas makes his big-screen debut and the best thing that he has going for him is his resemblance to his father and grandfather. He displays a lack of acting talent and it is obvious that Michael Douglas, the producer, should have hired someone with acting talent to portray Asher Gromberg. Ashton Kutcher would have been a better fit for this character and brought more to the film. Asher has no direction and even grows dope at home, but he has a girlfriend that keeps him grounded. She is an excellent student, but is boring compared to Asher, and is portrayed by Michelle Monoghan.
The youngest son is played by Rory Caulkin and he is the over achiever and he adds subtle things to the plot. His character has a crush on a gothic girl who is a classmate, and Abigail Staley portrays her. These two share some good on screen chemistry together. The real question is whether we can stomach another Culkin brother, and I could not.

by LEVITICUS COPPOCK

For students who attend Longview Community College and who have a documented disability, the Access Office offers several types of service to help the students have equal participation in all classes and activities.
The Access Office will provide note takers, readers, adaptive computer technology, helps with testing, sign language and offer maps and information.
Students are guaranteed confidentiality concerning their disability information. In 1992 Title 9, section 504, the Americans with Disabilities Act gave legal protection to students with disabilities from discrimination in educational programs and activities and protected their privacy.
The Access Office has recently made a change in its practice that all students with disabilities who attend Longview Community College should be aware of. In the past the Access Office had a practice of allowing disabled students that had the proper documentation to have written on their Academic Adjustment forms in addition to the other services they needed that may have an occasional absence do to illness.
Disabled students get one Academic Adjustment form for each class they attend and have to take the paperwork to show the instructor. The instructor and student meet and discuss the needs that the student needs and the instructor signs the form. The student signs the form and one copy is given to the instructor, the student keeps a copy for their record, and the final copy is sent back to the Access Office for their file.
Mary Sturdivant, Vocational Resourse Educator, declined to be interviewed in regards to this change in policy.

Student Dean Janet Cline said, “the Access Office had a practice of indicating that a student may have an occasional absence due to illness on the Academic Adjustment forms. There was concern that the statement would be interpreted as a violation of the attendance practice of the instructor. The Access Office at no time intended to imply that students are exempt from attendance.”

The faculty, division chairs, and the Access Office decided to change this policy.
This change in practice does not extend beyond Longview. Maple Woods still allows this practice of writing on the Academic Adjustment forms that a student may have an occasional absence due to illness. Leah Shelton, who works in the Access Office at Maple Woods, said, “Specific to each student will send on form to document how it will effect the student and instructor, and that it can be hand written on the form that student can miss time.”
Johnson County Community College allows students with disabilities who have a note from a physician to have paperwork that says that they would occasionally miss class.”
Student Dean Janet Cline said, “Attendance is something that is important, and it would be discriminatory against the students with disabilities to change the standard. The law does not provide for students to miss additional time and all students are held to the same standard.”
If a student has a problem with their attendance and they cannot resolve it with their instructor, there is a grievance procedure they can follow. The first step is to address the issue with the instructor. If an agreement cannot be reached the second step is to go to the instructor’s division chair. If no solution can be reached then the student can appeal to the Dean of instruction, and the Dean has the final decision.
The Americans with Disabilities Act guarantees that students have the right to confidentiality and privacy when it comes to disclosure of their disability, but disabled students are not given that right. At Longview the policy requires students to meet with their instructors and to discuss their special needs for their disability. This would appear to be a violation of the legal right to privacy and confidentiality. This policy is not found at Penn Valley or Maple Woods.
Longview makes special preparations for students with several disabilities. If a student is in a wheelchair the college will put in ramps and elevators to accommodate them so they can get to class and law protects this. A student who is deaf will be given access to a sign language interpreter. But, if a student has disability that will require them to be absent more than the average student with their health then they are not given guaranteed legal protection so they can finish school.

by LEVITICUS COPPOCK

When George Ryan, the republican governor of Illinois, commuted the death sentences of 167 inmates this month, he made a terrible mistake.
The good governor decided that the rights of guilty inmates were more important than the rights of the murdered victims, and the rights of the families of these victims. Three of these inmates whose sentences were commuted will be eligible for parole and one day they will be back on the streets with our families. This is an example of a politician not thinking through his actions before he acts.
This is not an act that is supported by the incoming democratic governor, Rod Blagojevich, or the majority of the citizens of Illinois. The blanket amnesty that has been granted to all these death row inmates is a collective slap in the face of the prosecutors, police, judges and jurors who put these people in jail. The majority of the people who had their death sentences commuted are people who were found guilty in a court of law and who have not been found innocent of their crimes.
The families and friends of the murder victims are getting the wrong end of the deal, as they see people guilty of the most heinous crimes committed against their loved ones get to live. One of these victims is Vern Feuling. His son was murdered in 1985 by a man whose death sentence was just commuted to life in prison. Once Feuling heard that the murderer of his son William’s sentence had been commuted, he had this to say: “My son is in the ground and justice is not done.” Why should the murderer of his son not die if he is guilty?
The United States Supreme Court ruled more than 30 years ago that the death penalty in this country was not cruel and unusual punishment and that it met Constitutional criteria. The death penalty as it stands is legal and that is a very good thing. It means that horrible people who commit wicked acts should die for them. Serial killer John E. Robinson, who last month was convicted and sentenced to death in Kansas, deserves a punishment worse than death, but death is as far as we can take his punishment. People like him have no place in society or on this Earth.

Opponents to the death penalty sometimes say that when the government kills, it is playing God, and that is not a right the government should have. But, government did not start the game. It was the killers who started to play the game of life and death. These inmates showed no mercy toward their victims and the government should treat them the same. If it were your family member or friend who was the victim, would you not feel the same way?
Yes, innocent people will die if capital punishment is continued in the state of Illinois, but how many people will the truly guilty death row inmates kill in prison during their life sentence? We as people can not expect any system to be perfect so why is capital punishment expected to be? In anything that deals with life and death, there is always a loss of innocence. In war it is called collateral damage. If a cop shoots the wrong person it is an accident. These few people would lose their innocent their lives on death row are just that collateral damage.