11/07/03

LC031107


Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

California's community colleges help pave the way to higher
education, but state budget cuts are making it a rough road for
tens of thousands of students.

Steve White>> This is the hardest thing for us because right
now we're in the business of denying access and it really hurts.
We've registered five thousand students in the last six months,
but we've couldn't give a class to.

Val>> And then, we travel to the floor of the Pacific Ocean
where life forms are primitive, but hauntingly beautiful.

It's all coming up next on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> Hello, I'm Val Zavala. California's community colleges
are about to experience what's been called the perfect storm.
First, there is a tidal wave of students headed toward community
college campuses and, at the same time, our state budget crisis
means that hundreds of classes are being cut. And that means
this decade could be a decade of disappointment for nearly two
million college-bound students. I came to Glendale Community
College where the impending crisis is already impacting
students.

It's a beautiful campus perched on a hill in northeast Glendale.
More than 17,000 students come here. For many of them, it's the
path to a four-year college. For others, including adults, it's
their way to better jobs and a better life, but getting there
will be tougher than ever.

>> "I didn't get any classes I wanted."

Val>> Over the last two years, state budget cuts have forced
Glendale Community College and virtually all of the 107 other
community colleges to eliminate hundreds of classes. Steve
White is Vice President of Instruction.

Steve White>> When you combine last year's cuts and this year's
cuts, they've cut over a total of four hundred classes for
students and, if you assume there's about thirty students per
class, you're talking about 12,000 seats eliminated.

Val>> Tzoler Oukayan is Student Vice President of Campus
Relations, editor of the college paper, and head of the Armenian
Student Association. She and thousands of fellow students are
facing hard times.

Tzoler Oukayan>> It was easier to get classes when I first
started, but this semester especially, it was impossible for the
newer students anyway. But we have really nice instructors who
would let in students above their capacity.

Steve White>> Some of them will wait a year or a year and a
half before they get their first class here. Others will walk
away and never come back and getting hard numbers on all this is
very difficult, but we're turning away students in the
thousands.

Val>> In the 1960's, California passed a master plan for
education promising all qualified students in California access
to a public college or university, but it seems that promise is
being broken. Between now and 2010, a surge of students called
Tidal Wave 2 will be clamoring to enroll in community colleges
and an estimated 1.8 million will be turned away. In fact, the
number of students who will be turned away in 2010 will rival
the total number of students enrolled in all of California
public colleges in 1960. Obviously, tighter budgets mean fewer
classes and what classes there are will be crowded.

Aaron Keshishian>> I'm hoping I'm going to be out of here in
three years. Before, it was two years, but now my goal is three
years going into Berkeley. I mean, it has been hurting us on
campus. It has been hurting us.

Val>> It delays your life, really, doesn't it?

Aaron Keshishian>> Correct. It does delay our lives. It
actually delays us being able to get a job as well.

Tatevik Mamikonyan>> I have an on-campus job which was very
conservative to get and I'm only working ten hours. I had to
fit it in with my classes, the schedules, the times, which is
really hard.

Steve White>> The first few days of class were so tense around
here. There were big lines of students in virtually every class
begging professors to add them and every seat being taken. I
mean, there's just a limit to what you can take and maintain
educational quality.

Val>> Even for those who do get into classes, they'll be paying
more. Tuition has jumped this year by sixty-eight percent from
$11.00 a unit to $18.00. Well, you say, that's good news. The
college can use the extra tuition revenue to provide more
classes, right? Wrong. The increased tuition revenue doesn't
stay on campus. It goes to Sacramento to help offset the state
deficit.

Steve White>> The reality of the funding mechanism in the state
is that we don't see a penny of that extra income. It's used to
balance the state deficit. We receive the same amount of money
per student from the state regardless of how much they charge
students.

Val>> So the tuition has gone up, but it's sent to Sacramento
and the money coming back to you is the same?

Steve White>> Well, it's actually been reduced. So actually we
have less money than last year despite the tuition increase.

>> "This is just to tell you that you have qualified for the
fee waiver."

Val>> That means more students will need financial aid.

Tzoler Oukayan>> Not a lot of students know about financial aid
and that's one thing we've tried to put out there and let them
know about because it is a lot of money for a lot of students
who, you know, live on their own, for example. Or we have
international students who are $138, I believe, per unit. It's
hard for them to get a job.

Val>> Students and administrators are watching the new governor
carefully to see what he'll do for education.

Tzoler Oukayan>> We have sent letters, we have sent postcards,
throughout last semester and now we're in the process of
waiting. We want to see what's going to happen. We won't know
until January and then we'll see if they live up to their
promises.

Steve White>> We're up against a political environment where
cutting taxes is the primary mantra of a lot of conservatives in
the state. I really don't know what to expect, you know. He
calls himself the --

Val>> -- because he was the one that said tax, tax, tax. It's
all we do is tax people (laughter).

Steve White>> Right. He has the anti-tax mantra. He also says
he's for education and children, so we'll have to see. I must
admit that I'm apprehensive about the prospects.

Val>> Compared to other states, California spends less per
community college student. The national average is about
$5,600. California spends just over $4,000 per student. And
compared to the Cal State or UC campuses, community colleges
educate students at a fraction of the cost.

Steve White>> So we're highly efficient. I mean, we teach
students for the first two years of college at a third of the
cost of the Cal State system and a fifth of the cost of the UC
system.

Val>> What the state has taken away, students and supporters
are trying to replace. Maintenance crews have been cut and
students have been urged to help keep the campus clean. They've
also voted to increase student fees by five dollars to help save
some classes. The profits from the book store, which is owned
by the students, went to build a new student center.

Tzoler Oukayan>> We had a student come in and complain about
there's nowhere to study after classes in the evening because we
have to cut down the library hours and that's one thing we're
starting -- we actually approved money yesterday to extend the
library hours during finals week.

Val>> And a support group sells Tupperware to raise funds for
scholarships.

Nickie Malouf>> And a lot of kids are now struggling and they
can't go, so they need money. They need help.

Val>> If there is one thing community colleges have plenty of,
it's public support. Over the past two years, thirty-five
community college district won voter approval for bond measures.
Only two failed. In Glendale, voters said yes to the bond that
built this planetarium and four other science buildings. That's
great news, but there are strings attached to bond money as
well.

Steve White>> It can't be used for classes. It can't be used
for salaries or any other operational expenses, only for --

Val>> -- just physical buildings.

Steve White>> Or capital expenses.

Val>> But no money to operate or get kids in the class or get
teachers.

Steve White>> The irony of this is that the voters understand
how important it is to have quality community colleges with
enough room for people, but Sacramento hasn't got the message
because they don't provide us enough funds to operate and serve
the students who want to come.

Val>> Steve White says what happens at our community colleges
will impact California's future dramatically. He emphasizes
that it is the community college that is the first rung on the
ladder for hundreds of thousands of minority, immigrant and low-
income students. Where will they go if they can't --

Steve White>> -- well, what they'll do is try to find jobs, but
they'll have a ceiling on any kind of advancement. They'll be
in jobs which will come and go. They'll be laid off. If all
the studies are right, some of them will have trouble with the
law and end up in our prison system, which is about ten times
more expensive than educating them in the first place.

Val>> As for Tzoler, it will take her an extra year to finish
her degree in sociology. Next fall, she hopes to attend UCLA
and, whether she wanted it or not, she and her fellow students
have gotten an unexpected education in politics.

Tzoler Oukayan>> Three times we sent students up to Sacramento
to speak to Assemblymen and Senators in regards to our concerns.
We were part of the march in Pershing Square in Los Angeles.
That was a great turnout. It brought students together from all
over. The budget cuts may be a bad thing, but one good thing
that came out of it was the unity.

Val>> A group of organizations dealing with higher education
have come together and formed the Campaign for College
Opportunity. They plan to raise public awareness about the
impending crisis and to map out a plan to handle this tidal wave
of students.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and
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[Film Clip]

Philip Bruce>> It blasted into space back in 1977, the
brainchild of scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in
Pasadena. Now twenty-six years and eight billion miles later,
Voyager 1 is entering a brave new frontier. The tiny spacecraft
is leaving the solar system, the first manmade object to go this
far. Earlier today, we talked with Dr. Ed Stone, the former
head of JPL and one of the key scientists in the Voyager
project. Well, Dr. Stone, this must be an exciting day for you.
Exactly where is Voyager 1 right now as we speak?

Dr. Ed Stone>> Voyager 1 is more than eight billion miles from
the sun, ninety times as far from the sun as the earth is.

Philip Bruce>> Now as this spacecraft prepares to leave the
solar system or as it reaches that boundary, beyond that "gee
whiz" factor, what's the significance of that to scientists such
as yourself and to the rest of them?

Dr. Ed Stone>> Well, each star has this sphere around it. In
the case of our sun, it's called the heliosphere and we want to
understand how stars interact with the interstellar medium that
surrounds them because than can affect the star itself.

Philip Bruce>> Now this sphere that surrounds the solar system,
what is likely to do when Voyager 1 goes through that boundary?
Are we talking about smooth sailing or lots of bumps in the road
ahead?

Dr. Ed Stone>> Well, the spacecraft itself will not be aware at
all because it's a better vacuum out there than anything here on
earth. But we have very sensitive instruments which will tell
us that we've begun to explore the final frontier of the solar
system.

Philip Bruce>> Now I remember back in my school days when we
used to look up on the map and there was a very well defined
boundary of the solar system. We had these big circles. Is it
that simple or is there some debate within the scientific
community about where the solar system actually ends?

Dr. Ed Stone>> Well, we believe that there will be a very
distinct end to the heliosphere, an outer boundary to the
heliosphere, where matter from our sun runs into the
interstellar winds that come from other exploding stars nearby
the sun. That will be a very discreet event.

Philip Bruce>> Now this truly is a scientific first, the first
manmade object ever to leave the solar system, ever to get this
far, truly is the first thing that's gone this far where no one
else has gone before. What's it likely to see and what is it
likely to transmit back to us?

Dr. Ed Stone>> Well, we listen to the spacecraft every day.
We're trying to measure how fast this wind is from the sun.
It's about a million miles per hour inside the bubble, but it
will abruptly slow down and then finally pile up against the
interstellar winds. So we'll be measuring the winds, the
magnetic field and the very high velocity particles which are
filling this outer part of the solar system.

Philip Bruce>> Now, of course, this journey began back in 1977
and even before when you and all the other scientists out at JPL
were putting this thing on the drawing board and dreaming what
Voyager 1 might do. We've seen a lot of images that have come
back over the years. Looking back over these two decades-plus,
what do you think have been the most significant discoveries or
breakthroughs or images that have come from Voyager 1?

Dr. Ed Stone>> Well, certainly at Jupiter, the major discovery
has to be the nine active volcanoes on the Moon Io, the first
indication of active volcanism other than on earth. Then we
went on to Saturn where we found the rings were much more
complex than we imagined and we found that the Moon Titan has an
atmosphere that's fifty percent higher pressure than here on
earth.

Philip Bruce>> What is it like just from a human standpoint to
be where you are now? To be watching your baby flying this far
out and all of you who worked on this spacecraft? How do you
feel?

Dr. Ed Stone>> It's a wonderful feeling because we're still
discovering new things. We're still exploring the frontier of
our solar system.

Philip Bruce>> Now back in those early days when Voyager 1 was
still on the drawing board, did you ever dream it could go this
far?

Dr. Ed Stone>> Well, we really had no way to know it could last
twenty-six years, of course, because at the time we were
launched, the space age itself was only twenty years old. But
we all had hopes that we would eventually be able to reach
interstellar space. We have enough electrical power that, if
nothing breaks, we can continue until the year 2020 and might
actually be in interstellar space for the first time.

Philip Bruce>> And you know, many of us who are not scientific
experts wonder how it ever got this far in the first place, how
such a small spacecraft could reach this outer boundary of the
solar system without some kind of super power jet engine.

Dr. Ed Stone>> Well, we took advantage of the swing-by of the
giant planets. When we flew by Jupiter, it acted like a
slingshot and flung us on. Then we passed by Saturn and got
another big boost and those two big boosts actually are what
gave us the speed we have today.

Philip Bruce>> And that was a fairly unique window, was it not,
back when you launched?

Dr. Ed Stone>> Yes. Once every 176 years, there is a window to
launch such that you can fly by all four of the giant outer
planets.

Philip Bruce>> But you still have power onboard Voyager 1 that
is sending back those incredible pictures and all that data.
Where does that come from?

Dr. Ed Stone>> We're very fortunate to have these nuclear power
supplies which are a heat source that provide electricity just
thermoelectrically, so it's a very robust power supply that
should last until 2020.

Philip Bruce>> Now besides all of that scientific data that
you've been able to gather and all the instrumentation that you
have onboard, I've been reading about some of the things that
you and the other JPL scientists put onboard Voyager 1 back in
1977. Photos of earth people, greetings in more than fifty
languages and a collection of songs including "Johnny Be Good"
by Chuck Berry. Who do you imagine might be seeing all of these
things someday?

Dr. Ed Stone>> Well, no one knows, of course, if this will ever
be found, but really I think the important thing is that it's a
statement that, for the first time, our technology allows us to
even think about sending something deep into space that will
orbit forever in our galaxy leaving earth behind.

Philip Bruce>> I heard one of your colleagues talking about
this expedition and likening it to Lewis and Clark and saying
that maybe we're not at the mountaintop yet, but we're
definitely at the foothills. What's at the mountaintop, do you
think?

Dr. Ed Stone>> Well, the mountaintop will actually be getting
into interstellar space, leaving behind all of the material
that's associated with our sun and entering into a regime where
the material is coming from other stars.

Philip Bruce>> Are there any limits to Voyager 1? Can it
continue to go where no one else has gone before?

Dr. Ed Stone>> Voyager 1 will be our first interstellar probe.
Newton tells us that. It's on its way, we can't stop it. The
only question is, will it get to interstellar space while we
still have electrical power and it can transmit to earth?

Philip Bruce>> Dr. Ed Stone, thanks for being with us today.
Congratulations to you, all the folks at JPL and to Voyager 1.

Dr. Ed Stone>> Thank you.

[Film Clip]

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Val>> We take you now more than two miles beneath the surface
of the ocean to a place where life has never been shown before,
but now a daring IMAX filmmaker has taken a camera and lights to
show us a part of the world that has never been seen by human
eyes. The film is called "Volcanoes of the Deep Sea" and one of
the biggest challenges was outfitting the sub called Alvin with
lights powerful enough to cut through intense darkness and
withstand crushing water pressure. I talked with IMAX director,
Stephen Low, who's credits also include the IMAX films,
"Skyward" and "Titanica".

Stephen Low>> The scientists lit about eight feet out.

Val>> Oh, is that all? Eight feet? That's nothing.

Stephen Low>> Yeah, they were using like four hundred watt
light bulbs, tungsten light bulbs, and shooting on video. So we
were lighting on this film something near the size of a football
field and shooting with IMAX which is, you know, ten times more
powerful than Hollywood cameras.

Val>> So literally, human eyes were able to see something that
they had never seen before because light had never even hit this
place on the planet before?

Stephen Low>> That's right. Most of the areas have never been
lit at all. We've been going out where scientists normally
don't work, so very likely we went into areas where light had
never been shown in the history of the world.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Some of the things we saw are these shrimp. Describe
those.

Stephen Low>> The shrimp are part of this sort of extraordinary
mystery of the chemistry down there. At first when the
scientists discovered these vents in the late 1970's, they
really had no idea and were not expecting that kind of volume of
life and intensity of life.

Val>> Because it's incredibly hot down there. Hot enough to
melt lead, so you were thinking what kind of life could live
there, right?

Stephen Low>> Well, yes. Right on the vents, it gets very hot.
Just slightly off the vents, it's near freezing. It's sterile
and there is very little nutrients because all the nutrients
have to come from the surface.

[Film Clip]>> "In total darkness bathed in the poison breath of
the inner earth at 3,500 pounds of pressure per square inch and
temperatures exceeding 230 degrees Fahrenheit lives the
hypothermaphile."

Stephen Low>> When they discovered these vents, it was just a
fantastic quantity of life and obviously not photosynthesis, so
there was a huge mystery at first. Now the shrimp are bathing
themselves in hydrogen sulfide coming out of the vent --

Val>> -- which, to humans, would be --

Stephen Low>> -- it's poison, yeah. To any life on earth, it's
poison. But the shrimp were living off the bacteria that was
growing on their bodies. They were scraping it off and the
bacteria were taking hydrogen sulfide and using it in a chemical
process called chemo-synthesis. It's just an incredible
discovery.

Val>> And then the other amazing thing were these tube worms.

Stephen Low>> Again, another great mystery because how were
they living in this poison oasis? Gradually, over many years,
they figured out the puzzle that they were living off this
bacteria that was using hydrogen sulfide as a nutrient in
effect. It was an incredible discovery because what it meant
was that life was not just dependent on the sun's energy and
heat and photons, light energy, that effectively light harnessed
both ends of the thermonuclear spectrum. At the center of the
earth is decaying radiation from us, the star that blew up and
gave the material to build the solar system. At that center of
that is this decayed radiation. Well, life figured out how to
use both --

Val>> -- both extremes, both ends.

Stephen Low>> Both ends of the candle, if you will.

Val>> Now when you're down there and you're the cameraman down
there, can you appreciate what you're seeing or is it only when
you get the film back that you see how stunning, how gorgeous
this stuff is?

Stephen Low>> Well, you don't really have time to look around.
The time is so valuable down there. You really have to look
through the camera. The camera has to be in the window. There
are two other windows, but they're facing down and out the side.
So, in fact, there's no good way to really look out normally
except through the front window and, of course, the camera is
there.

So you're looking through the viewfinder of the camera and
trying to find the interesting subjects. You're trying to see
your way around and trying to help the pilot who's lying on the
floor, you know, shouting obscenities most of the time
(laughter). You're inside an active volcano blowing off, you
know, seven hundred degree water. If you get over a vent -- and
there is a porthole actually in the bottom as well, it's plastic
-- you'd be dead pretty fast.

Val>> So if you stayed over that vent too long?

Stephen Low>> Well, more than, I don't know, thirty seconds,
you'd be dead.

Val>> Oh, my God. Did you have any close calls?

Stephen Low>> The worst thing that happened was that my
partner, Bill Reeve, came back with the side of the sub burned,
a hole in the plastic on the sub. You know, the scary thing
about that is that they didn't know that they'd even got that
close.

[Film Clip]>> "The sub's temperature probes indicated water hot
enough to melt lead and it was laden with poisonous hydrogen
sulfide. There should have been nothing alive here at all."

Stephen Low>> The incredible thing is that you're steaming
around in this submarine when you don't know what's going to
loom out of the darkness, you know? You're in a very active
zone where there's a great deal of volcanism and life, so you
don't know. Out of the darkness always loomed something big and
spectacular and, very likely, no one's ever seen that particular
thing before.

[Film Clip]

Val>> Well, thank you so much for letting many, many more
people see what you've seen. You're very, very lucky, and thank
you so much for all your hard work.

Stephen Low>> Thank you very much, Val.

Val>> And that's our program. Our thanks to the folks at
Glendale Community College for all their help and hospitality.
I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for
watching.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

Val>> Monday on Life and Times, this high-tech gizmo could
reduce traffic on city streets, so why is it banned in some
local cities?

>> I haven't ever heard of an accident where somebody on a
Segway has collided with a pedestrian.

Val>> That's Monday on Life and Times.