The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

The Lumberjack Features Page 5 ACC' s ability to meet need of diverse student population in question continued from page one a few, for the most part, kids While interviewing grow up here and have little Miss B azz;ett, an English . interaction with a variety of professor here at ACC, we different cultures. In Alpena, had a chance to talk about people don't get exposed to faculty representation. She different viewpoints, ideas, shared an interesting th~ory; and approaches that come "Our student's . cultural with having a culturally diversity and the different diverse faculty." minority groups should be Many kids who grow equally represented in the up in Northern Michigan, and college's full time staff." For attend ACC, will likely be example, if 6% of our student transferring to a bigger school body were . African down state or even out of American, than about 6% of state. The fact is, in a school our full time staff would be like U of M, there are huge African American. In our amounts of students from all situation, we would have African American teachers, Spanish or Latino teachers, and maybe some European teachers. The idea is to have people on staff that can directly relate to different cultural backgrounds. It also allows students to feel more comfortable-knowing there are mentors who understand where they are c;:oming from. Step back for a moment and ask yourself: what is the overall purpose of a college or educational institution? B azzett commented on how education is supposed to broaden student's perspectives on the world and its many cultures but more importantly-to bring those cultural perspectives into the classroom. And we do this through staff and students. Jesse Christopherson is a 19-year-old sophomore majoring in Engineering. He was born and raised in Alpena, Mi. He shared how Alpena is a predominantly white community with relatively few minority groups living here. "All though there are over the world. This means a students body full of different backgrounds, lifestyles, ways of doing things, languages, and ways of living life. Having a culturally diverse faculty here at ACC would help students become aware of all together. Lacking diversity in school has an effect on students transferring from larger cities, or from areas with more di verse populations. Two African American students were able to share their thoughts and feelings on the issue at hand. Matt Harrington is from River Rouge, Mi. He's a freshman majoring in Electrical Apprenticing. Broderick Knight is from Detroit, Mi. He's a freshman majoring in Auto Engineering. When asked what their initial reactions were after being here for a couple of weeks, Matt described it as being very different from back home. "In River Rouge, the majority of people were African American, and then all of a sudden, there's not as many." Broderick just thought of it as a whole new Halloween Dance Oct. 26th at the East Cam- pus.· Held by the Student Senate. Have a "ghoul" of a good timel ( Voter Reg.istration Oct. 8-10 at the Van Lare Hall and in front of the library~ Make your voice heard. II D&TROIT ~=~ @ C ALPENA DIESEL SERVICE, INC. COMP~ DI1!811., TAUCK REPAIR • AUTOMOTIVI MACHINE SHOP SEAVlCE MARTIN IUIZIK OWMr/Mlllllltr (1111) aat,mt PARTI • 81AVl01 (817) 384-INS MACHINI SHOP M. JOEL 8U8ZEK Pal'tl Man1111r 1'/'00M-a#WEST ALPENA, Ml 4910'/' experience; something that would be completely different from back home. While chatting with these two, they shared how easy it is to see the surprise in people's eyes and facial expressions. Although there has been no real discrimination they've faced at school, they still notice some people are still just a little hesitant at first, before saying hello or talking. It's almost like there's a natural pause at the time of initial contact. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's primarily due to the limited exposure and interaction most people have had with Aflican Americans, here in Alpena and surrounding areas. It's still a rather new site to see African Americans at school. Bobby Allen is the only African American on staff. He's the Men's Basketball Assistant Head Coach and is involved in helping students on and off the court. Matt commented that having a more diverse staff would provide teachers thing Broderick noticed was who would understand them when people see you, they in a more personal way. automatically assume that "It wouldn't be such you're here to play ball, but a new thing to have an the fact is, there are two Aflican American in class." African Americans here who Allen said. aren't. Broderick shared how .overall, most people look at African Americans as being different. But like everyone else, they too, want to have a sense of belonging. Everyone wants to fit in. One New Alpena Statistics TRACISOBEK Staff Writer Change. That's one thing that always stays the same in life. Everyone can name something personal that has changed in the last ten years. In the community, things have also changed over the last ten years. Not only have businesses and buildings changed, so have the statistics of Alpena County. Alpena County is approxirpately 574 square miles with 55 people per square mile. The 2000 cen- sus showed that approxi- mately 31,314 people reside here. That is a 2.3 percent difference from the 1990 cen- sus. In the 2000 poll, females outnumber males by 868. Caucasians make up nearly 98.2 percent of the population. People of two or mote races are 0.7 percent of the community. Four- tenths of a percent of Alpena is American Indian and AlaskaNative. Alpena also consists of Asian (0.3 per- cent), African American (0.2 percent), Native Hawaiian (0.1 percent) and ot1Jer races (0.1 percent). High school gradu- ates ages 25 and over, make up about 47 percent of Alpena's population. How- ever, only 7 percent of those people are college graduates. Over 1,000 people are unemployed in Alpena. Almost 18,000 are employed either full-time or part-time. The average earnings perjob are about $24,000. These are only a few of the many statistics of Alpena. Will these numbers increase or will they de- crease? We wi.ll find out in 2010. Mr. Ray Plas Ton of Fun in Brazil JENI MANNING Staff Writer Tom Ray, an English Professor at ACC, traveled to Brazil over the summer. Throughout his travels, he learned about the economics, history, education, business, family, and social life within the country of Brazil. Ray applied for the Global Studies Exchange sponsored by The Rotary International. To his surprise, he was accepted along with two other people from this area and two from Lower Michigan. The Rotary International for Professionals accepts people between the ages of twenty- five and forty to participate in the cultural exchange. Through the exchange, the nominees are sent to learn more about another culture. In return, B~azil sent people to The United States. Ray and the other four participants left for Brazil on May 1st and returned May 29th • In order to communicate with the people, he had bought cassettes to teach himself Portuguese. The group stayed in the state of Parana. They traveled to nine different cities within · P_arana. Each city was different due to its size and population. Parana is located in Southern Brazil and according to him it is like Southern Florida. Each new city meant a new family to stay with. The chosen families were all upper-middle class families. During the interview the question about comfort arose and he said, "The families were very warm and friendly. They were very inviting." According to Ray the most difficult patt of staying with the families was that many spoke little English. Throughout his stay in Brazil, Ray visited ~any m·eas and cultural landmarks. He toured a number of small · museums, factories, and industries. In response to the question about the factories he stated, "They are similar to ours, they are technical and modem." The group visited many tourist parks and architectural landmarks. Of these, the Wire Opera caught his eye the most. It is an indoor opera with a steel frame and glass walls. The entire structure is made of steel and glass. The opera lies in the middle of a park. Out of all the places he visited, there were three which he found the most memorable for their beauty. The first, Foz do lguazu, meaning mouth of the river, was ultimately beautiful according to Ray. This waterfall is the largest in the World. As stated by Ray, six times the volume of Niagara Falls passes over the Foz Do lguazu falls each minute. The second, Vilha Velha, is another one of Brazil's most famous landmarks. It lies in the city of Ponta Grossa. The third most memorable landmark was Ilha do Mel, meaning Island of Honey. On this island no motorized vehicles are allowed. All travel is done by foot, on sandy paths. During his description of the island, he compared .it to Mackinac Island, because of its tourism industry. Ray viewed these places as "magnificent beauty". The question arose about the similarities and differences between the U.S. and Brazil. In response to the question Ray stated that we are alike in many ways. He defined the biggest difference as our attitudes. The people of Brazil are warm, friendly and inviting. Americans tend to be colder, even arrogant. Brazil patterns their democracy around ours, creating even more similarities. Brazil, like America, is centered on many different ethnicities. One-other major difference spoke of by Ray was the amount of meat they consume, at least twice as much as Americans. When asked if he would ever return to Brazil, Ray stated, "In a heartbeat." In fact he is planning to return during the summer of 2003, to teach at a University in Brazil, Univeidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa. He is excited about this opportunity. He stated that if he wer~p't going to China this summer to teach at Beijing University, he would be in Brazil.