It all started with an earlier-than-usual wakeup call. I begrudgingly drug myself out of bed, pulled on my Butte College sweatshirt and headed for the kitchen. Usually the coffee is waiting for me when I get up, but not even my coffee pot wakes up before 6 a.m. I pushed the button and turned on the news.

MILLER TIME!

SCORCHED

For two years Dave Cooper has coordinated Butte College’s Study Abroad Program. Cooper, a graduate of UC Santa Barbara moved to Chico in the late ’80’s to bring his daughter closer to his family here. He started working part-time at Butte as a ceramics instructor and eventually got a job as a full-time teacher with the art department.

On Election Day, Feb. 5, Butte College students had a chance to see their tuitions lowered from $20 to $15 and the state’s community college system could have realized an increase its overall budget. It didn’t happen. Proposition 92 failed to capture the simple majority needed to see these things come true.

Les Jauron, an assistant to the president at Butte-Glenn Community College District, said that lack of education in California coupled with higher inflation has led to a lower per capita income here than the national average.

Students, faculty, staff and visitors who drive to school or enjoy the arts should know the following: Sections of the west parking lots are disappearing. Drivers may have noticed sections of the parking lot were blocked off. DPR Construction Inc. work trailers occupy roughly 24 parking spaces. Fences, caution tape and signs direct the flow of traffic around the trailers. All of this is in preparation for the upcoming construction of the Instructional Arts building. Trailers will be there until May 2009, the length of the Instructional Arts Facilities building project.

Beginning next semester Butte College campus might become completely smoke-free if students do not start respecting the cleanliness of the campus. The signs that have been placed around the campus have already stated that Butte College is a "smoke-free campus", but this is hardly the case. Butte College is actually a "smoke-free campus" except for the designated areas. There are flags with yellow and black coloring that currently mark these designated smoking areas on campus. People who are caught smoking in non-designated areas on campus are charged with a $25 fee.

The art department's faculty exhibit opened on the Feb. 15 and the display is impressive. I've taken my fair share of classes in the art department, and the interesting thing about art classes is that you've got an instructor directing you on what constitutes good technique, how to place your subject within the picture plane for maximum effect, the use of color, but you never get to actually see what the instructor's work looks like. The instructor could just be some no-talent hack who teaches art rather than practicing it. That was part of the reason why this show appealed to me.

Labor groups associated with California community colleges are endorsing the alteration of Proposition 98 for the 2008 ballot, a move that would allow for increased funding of community colleges without taking funds away from K-12 schools, reduce fees to $15 per unit and ensure local control of the "state-local community college partnership," according to the Times Advocate, a publication of the Butte College Part-Time Faculty Association and the Communications Workers of America Local 9421.

According to the Times Advocate, these substantial improvements would be implemented withou

Many of us are wandering the halls of the Chico Center without our morning cup of joe since the disappearance of Coffee's On. The company that offered a variety of mochas, cappuccinos and baked goods up until this semester, failed to renew its contract with the school.

John Gliha, the executive director of development for the Butte College Foundation, said, "It's all economics. We are looking for an alternate vendor. We won't be going back to just the [coffee] bean; we are hoping to expand this service by finding a vendor to also offer food of some kind."