The Communitarian

By Nicholas Gallo

The DCCC Phantoms baseball team stole a win from Lehigh Community College on April 13, at their home field.

It seemed as if the Phantoms were going to add a loss to their record being down 6-2 in the bottom of the fifth inning, then Phantoms short stop Sean Donahue stepped up to bat. Donahue got on base after the Cougars mishandled a ground ball. Donahue proceeded to steal second, putting the team in position to get a run in with no outs.

Phantoms third basemen Jorge Rodriguez advanced Donahue to third in a ground out to first. With one out, Alec Barr hit a slicing double to jumpstart a comeback.

The next two batters for the Phantoms continued to add more runs onto the board. With two outs and a man on third, Phantom’s first basemen Matthew Long delivered the final run of the inning, tying the score at 6-6.

Entering the sixth inning, both teams picked up their defenses. With a diving play by Phantom’s outfielder, Tyler Butz, and good pitching by the Cougars, neither team was able to score in the inning.

Phantom’s left-fielder Christopher Caltabiano looked to motivate his teammates by hitting a single and being aggressive on the base paths in the bottom of the seventh.

Caltaibiano went into action by stealing second and third base. Butz would break the tie by hitting a double, making the score 7-6.

Caltaibiano continued to perform by hitting a single to bring Donahue home in the bottom of the eighth. Donahue put Caltabiano in position to bring a run in by hitting a single and stealing second base. Entering the ninth inning, the Phantoms were ahead 8-6.

Phantoms head coach Paul Motta said the seventh inning is when things started to turn around.

“When we started to run the bases better and get better pitches to hit, that is when things started to happen for us,” Motta said.

In the ninth inning, the Phantoms walked four consecutive batters to cut the lead to one. With bases loaded and two outs, the Cougars had an opportunity to take the game away from the Phantoms. Christian Burgos of the Cougars popped up an infield fly, giving the Phantoms 8-7 win.

The win gave DCCC a two game winning streak going into Saturday.

“I don’t know what kind of pitching we are going to have for Saturday as we used up most of the pitching today,” Motta said. “We are going to have to hit the ball to win. We are not going to be able to pitch way out.”

The Phantoms take on Valley Forge at DCCC’s field for a doubleheader. First game starts at 12:00p.m. on April 15.

Contact Nicholas Gallo at communitarian@mail.dccc.edu

76ers fans are fed up, and for good reason.

It all started with the acquisition of all-star center Andrew Bynum in 2012. So much hype and glamour surrounded Bynum. The 76ers held a press conference open to the fans at the National Constitution Center to welcome their new player to Philly. Fans packed the center cheering “Andrew Bynum!”

Cheering would stop after hearing Bynum was receiving treatment a week before training camp on both of his knees. Due to a chronic knee injury, Bynum never played a game for the 76ers.

The following year Sam Hinkie took over and “The Process” was born.

Three straight years of “tanking” took place where the 76ers would put together a roster of no-name guys to help stockpile draft picks.

After Hinkie was run out of town by the NBA last April, Bryan Colangelo was hired.

Colangelo received heat from the fans because of the way he handled the Joel Embiid injury situation in February.

Colangelo lied to the public by saying that Embiid did not have a partially-torn meniscus when he appeared on 94.1 WIP on Feb. 10. Colangelo said he suffered a knee contusion. He also said the injury was “day-to-day.” Embiid reportedly tore his meniscus Jan. 20 against the Portland Trail Blazers. The 76ers allowed him to play Jan. 27 in a nationally televised game. His season was over after that game. That is not “day-to-day.”

“Bryan Colangelo is an idiot,” said a 76ers fan on Twitter.

“I love Sixers, the team. Hate sixers the everything else,” said another fan on Twitter. “So unfair to such a loyal fan base. Always kept in the dark about everything,”

During his season-ending press conference, Colangelo described his medical staff as “world class.” This statement went under fire immediately due to the lack of announcement regarding the injury of Embiid along with the questionable handlings of the Ben Simmons and Jahlil Okafor injuries.

“Bryan Colangelo is horrible,” said Angelo Cataldi, sports radio personality for 94.1 WIP.

Talk about breaking the fans trust.

Since the 2013-2014 season, the 76ers combined record is 75-253. That ranks worst in the NBA…by far.

According to ESPN, the 76ers attendance ranked among the worst in the NBA from 2013- 2016. This past season attendance was ranked 18th.

The 76ers 28 wins this season is an 18-win improvement from last year.

To get back to the playoffs for the first time since the 2011-2012 season, health will be a key factor. Embiid and Simmons should be ready to go next season.

The 76ers will have over $28 million in cap space, the most in the NBA.

“We’re going to make it known that we’re a player in free agency,” Colangelo said during his season-ending press conference.

Another lottery pick will give the 76ers another young asset to play with Embiid and Simmons.

With scouts projecting this draft as a deep 2017 guard class, the 76ers could get their guard to play with Simmons and Embiid.

Kentucky shooting guard Malik Monk is projected to go to the 76ers in many mock drafts. At Kentucky, he averaged just under 20 points per game. In a total of 38 games, Monk was held to single digits only twice.

“If the Sixers just landed Monk next year and Joel Embiid is back and healthy and Ben Simmons is back and healthy, they start to become a dangerous team right away,” ESPN draft analyst Chad Ford said on the SEC Country podcast.

Monk’s Kentucky teammate De’Aaron Fox is an option for the 76ers.

“He’s the fastest guard in this draft,” said Ford. “He has elite speed.”

After leading his team to the Sweet 16, Fox’s stock has risen. According to Ford, Fox could go as high as four and as low as eight.

“I would be very pleased with either DeAaron Fox or Malik Monk ending up on the sixers…or both,” said a fan on Twitter.

Expectations will be higher for the 76ers after winning 28 games this season.

“For the draft, I believe the Sixers will hold the 4th overall pick and select Malik Monk due to their dire need of shooters,” said Steve Bertoline, who is a DCCC student and avid 76ers fan. “I think they will most likely copy their plan last year and sign one or two veteran free agents, while retaining some of their young role players. The team as a whole has huge potential to make a playoff run, and I don’t see any reason, beyond injuries, of why they should not have 40-plus wins.”

Contact Colin Anglim at communitarian@mail.dccc.edu

 

By Pavlina Cerna

For 20 weeks each semester since 1999, Justine Ganatra has been teaching American Sign Language as a non-credit course at the DCCC Marple campus.

Working as a full-time project manager, Ganatra gives sign language lessons in her spare time “for fun and for the joy of meeting new people.”

“I get such a variety of people here,” Gantra said. “I have had religious people, security people, police officers, physicians and famous people come in here. A few semesters ago, I had a radio personality here! I have had pregnant mothers that know that the child is deaf and learn to sign before the child is born.”

Ganatra became interested in ASL in college, when she took a graduate level class and later learned ASL at a variety of places, including Temple University, Pennsylvania School for the Deaf and Gallaudet University.

Ganatra, as many other lectors, is able to teach ASL thanks to the “American school for the Deaf ” that opened exactly 200 years ago.

Philadelphia born Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, together with aspiring deaf teacher from France, Laurent Clerk, and a physician Mason Fitch Cogswell, opened the first institution educating deaf and mute people on April 15, 1817. The school was called “Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons,” located in Hartford, Conn. Later, the institution was renamed the “American School for the Deaf.”

When Gallaudet met Alice, a daughter of his neighbour Cogswell, who had become deaf at the age of two, he was determined to educate her. Traveling to Europe to learn the best techniques for teaching deaf, he met Clerk and together they returned to the United States and opened the first American school for the deaf, where Alice was one of the first students.

The Asylum was essential for the creation of the American Sign Language. Until then, different areas had their own signs, but there was not a united sign language in the United States.

Although the United States Census Bureau “counts ASL speakers among those who speak English” because the formulas “used to capture languages spoken and English-speaking ability are not designed to identify American Sign Language users,” ASL is commonly said to be the fourth most-used language in the U.S. Nevertheless, no official data supports the claim.

According to World Federation of the Deaf, there are approximately 70 million people worldwide who use sign language as their mother tongue. The exact figure varies depending on whether people with hearing impairments are included.[Text Wrapping Break]The number of official sign languages existing around the world is estimated between 150 and 300, according to various sources. Sign language developed naturally and independently from spoken language and, just as spoken language, has its own dialects.

A committee of the World Federation of the Deaf attempted to create a universal sign language in 1973, called Gestuno. The name refers to the English word “gesture” and the Spanish word for “one.” Nevertheless, Gestuno is labeled as a system of signs and because it has no concrete grammar rules, it is not considered a real language by many people.

Jeffrey S. Bravin, a current director of the American school for the Deaf with currently 170 students, emphasized the importance of deaf role models in an interview with Comcast Newsmakers on Sept. 17, 2014. Being deaf himself, he speaks through an interpreter, Janice Knauth.

“Often when deaf children are born, they are the only deaf child in the family and they don’t meet deaf role models or deaf individuals,” Bravin said. “So I am hoping when they come to the American school for the Deaf, they will see a deaf person as the executive director of the school which shows them that deaf people can succeed.“

In 1990, Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act, the nation’s first comprehensive civil rights law that makes it unlawful to discriminate in employment against a qualified individual with a disability, yet many disabled individuals still meet with rejections from employers.

Kelly Dougher, a profoundly hearing impaired freelance writer and artist from Pennsylvania, described her struggle with finding a job on a deaf blog called “Limping Chicken” with more than 2500 members.

“I have been forced to find strategies that help me to adapt,” Dougher wrote. “My newest strategy? Stop mentioning my hearing loss in job interviews.” She wrote that many times she was not invited to an interview for a position she was qualified for because of her hearing impairment.

According to the National Deaf Center, 48 percent of deaf people had a job in 2014, compared to 72 percent of hearing individuals.

Deaf people questioned in a video interview for NDC titled “Deaf people and employment in the United States: 2016” expressed their frustration with employers who often do not know how to communicate with them, do not want to hire an interpreter, require them to do tasks they are not able to do or, on the contrary, do not let them do tasks they are capable of for thinking of them as too difficult. Many pointed out that there is a lack of experience working with deaf people and fewer opportunities.

A woman in the video whose name was not disclosed said, “They see that I am deaf and a girl and they think I cannot do the job.”

Nevertheless, Bravin believes opportunities for the deaf have increased and deaf students at his school can succeed.

“I started at McDonald’s, cleaning tables and I worked my way up and [children] need to see it, be assertive and know that with education they can move up and become successful leaders and productive citizens,” he said in the interview with Comcast Newsmakers.

As for Ganatra, she has been an inspiration for many of her students.

“I have five students that became sign language interpreters and four students who became teachers for the deaf and two who are in school for it now,” she said. “They let me know that I started them on their journey.”

Passing her knowledge to 13 students over this spring semester, she devoted the final class on April 18 to teaching curse words that she believes should not be taught on the beginning.

“I usually wait until the last night of last class and I teach any words that anyone wants to know,” Ganatra said.

Those interested in sign language course can register by calling 610-359-5025 or by filling out an application in Return to Learn brochures available at all campuses.

Contact Pavlina Cerna at communitarian@mail.dccc.edu

By Emily Steinhardt

Rose Alvarez from “Bye Bye Birdie.” Adelaide from “Guys and Dolls.” Cassie from “A Chorus Line.” Penelope Pennywise from “Urinetown.” Friar Lawrence from “Romeo and Juliet.”

These are all characters I’ve played in a space that means so much to me: the theater.

I’ve been involved with theater since the fourth grade when I was orphan Duffy in “Annie.” As any theatrically inclined 10-year-old would be, I was very upset when I didn’t land the title role. Nevertheless, I carry fond memories from that show since I had my first singing solo in it.

I frequently attend master classes in New York City where I get to work with Broadway professionals one on one. The classes are open to a wide range of people, so I interact with theater lovers of all ages.

But it always upsets me when I attend these classes, and the younger students only seem to know and care about “Hamilton.” If you ask them about a classic musical, such as “Little Women,” they look at you like you’re crazy and speaking gibberish.

“Hamilton,” a musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda, is very worthy of all the praise it receives. It is a show that consistently sells out all 1,321 seats at the Richard Rodgers Theater where it is running.

There is also no denying that “Hamilton,” a musical inspired from Ron Chernow’s book about Alexander Hamilton’s life, is a revolutionary (pun intended) show.

It is changing Broadway for the better by introducing audiences to more diverse casts, a new style of music that is fast paced and keeps them engaged the whole show, and a theme that doesn’t follow the typical Broadway show formula: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy falls in love and gets girl back, the end.

Yet the thing that makes the show so incredible is that it mixes styles from the golden era of musical theater with hip hop, there is a wide variety of music for everyone to love.

In short, “Hamilton” was just what Broadway needed because it seized the attention not just of the Broadway community but the entire nation.

But “Hamilton” isn’t the only eye-opening show out there. Many shows this season are equally as revolutionary and aren’t being recognized by the general populace.

Take the new musical “Dear Evan Hansen,” for example.

This show follows a teenager, Evan Hansen, who has a social anxiety disorder. He invents himself to be a hero after someone in his grade commits suicide, and has a letter on him written for Hansen about how he only has one friend. Hansen wrote this letter because his therapist thought writing to himself might help with his anxiety.

The classmate found it on the school printer the day before he killed himself therefore people assume he wrote it. Instead of telling the truth, Hansen decides to bask in the glory of being the dead kids “only friend.”

“Dear Evan Hansen” is so important because it has taboo topics and songs that chill audiences to their core. It feels fresh, and audiences never want to look away.

Another show making an impact this season is the revival of “Miss Saigon.” Set during the Vietnam War, this show explores the relationships that formed between GIs and South Vietnamese women, the unexpected families that started and were abandoned when the war was over, and the sacrifice some mothers made so their children could live better lives in America.

The performances in this show makes audiences feel like they are watching a very private moment of someone’s life. No one leaves the show with dry eyes because they leaves feeling so moved.

Obviously “Hamilton” is an incredible show, but it doesn’t explore all the gritty topics that other shows do.

Contact Emily Steinhardt at communitarian@mail.dccc.edu

By Shondalea Wollaston

Choosing a college and even a major can leave some students teetering on the brink of insanity. But Theresa Jeanne (Livingston) Cathell read every book about nursing she could find, served as a Red Cross volunteer, and landed a job as a nurse’s aide at Fitzgerald Mercy Hospital in 1964, all before graduating high school.

Cathell thought she had a rock -solid plan. But somehow fate failed to get the memo, and as some say, she was thrown a nasty curve ball in the bottom of the ninth. Delaware County Community College’s first female student never saw this edit coming.

During her senior year of high school, and only weeks after learning she was accepted at Fitzgerald Mercy School of Nursing, the college administration announced a new plan that not only changed the cost of tuition, but also change the course of Cathell’s academic career.

Feeling as if the wind had been knocked out of her, Cathell knew her dreams were now out of reach. Thinking of the financial burden to her parents, still raising her younger siblings, she knew she could not ask for the money.

Now a 1967 graduate of Archbishop Prendergast High School, refusing to give up on her dream of becoming a nurse, Cathell decided to search for a more affordable option.

At that time, the Philadelphia diocese, in an attempt to expedite the process of gaining new teachers, offered to pay for young women to attend Villanova University at night and throughout the summer months, in exchange for a job teaching at a parochial school.

Cathell remembers her conversation with her father vividly. “Maybe you want to be a teacher?” he said. “Dad, I may or may not kill someone as a nurse, but I would definitely kill someone as a teacher,” she replied.

According to Cathell, she felt very depressed, as if all hope had been dashed. However, she remembered just before graduation, a representative from a new community college had visited. She could not stop thinking maybe there was another option she had not previously considered.

Although not yet a reality, due to an ongoing court battle arguing the need for a community college in Delaware County, she allowed herself to once again feel hopeful, aware it was a long shot.

After a heart to heart talk with her father, Cathell travelled to Media, Pa., in search of the community college’s admission center. She scoured the town, determined to find the college and enroll.

Cathell remembers seeing a small storefront in town, labelled on as Community College of Delaware County, with only one employee inside.

This would be the day Cathell, of Prospect Park, Pa. became the first female student to enroll at Delaware County Community College.

According to the DCCC repository, the first location of the college was Ridley High School, in Folsom, and Cathell, like many others, would work during the day and attended classes at night.

On the first day of classes, Cathell excitedly got dressed for work and grabbed her usual danish and coffee. She rushed to catch the Chester- Wilmington Local to 30th street, then walked to the corner of Cherry and 32nd, where she worked as an office clerk at American Foresight.

“I left work early and returned home to make my 4PM class,” Cathell said.

She then walked from her home in Prospect Park to Lincoln Avenue and then MacDade Boulevard where she caught the bus to Morton Ave.

According to Cathell, upon arrival at Ridley High School, she noticed a crowd of people standing in the parking lot. She nervously walked up the hill where she saw her friend Phyllis Corsi, and several other faces from her old high school. She suddenly felt relieved. It was all going to be okay.

All the students were handed class cards which read “DO NOT FOLD, STAPLE, or BEND,” and taken to the book store in the basement of the high school. Cathell recalls feeling a little nervous about the wording on the cards.

“I often wondered what horrible punishment would ensue if I did fold, staple, or bend the card?” she said.

Not exactly thrilled to return to a high school classroom after graduation, Cathell was greeted by her professors, hired from neighboring states and nearby private colleges. “Although it was still a high school, things felt very different,” she said.

According to Cathell, early on in the semester, students and staff began to feel like a second family and new friendships began to emerge from campus social events.

“For 25 cents you could buy a hamburger, fries, and a coke at Johnny’s Hamburgers at the corner of Morton and MacDade Boulevard,” Cathell said, recalling the popular hangout at the time.

During the summer of 1968, Dr. Hill, the director of admissions at DCCC, invited students to meet at his home in Drexel hill to form a Student Government Association. It was here that Cathell learned she was selected, along with 19 other students, to be part of the first nursing program at DCCC.

In order for the nursing program to receive full accreditation, Cathell and fellow students would first need to pass the state boards.

“We were building an airplane, while running down the runway, but we didn’t know it,” she said.

Cathell, unable to drive the first year of college, caught a ride with her friend, Jackie Bell, who would pick her up on days they had classes scheduled around the same time.

While walking from Prospect Park to Ridley High School at Folsom, Cathell mentally completed assignments, even composing an entire sociology paper on one of those walks. “It was my first lesson in time management,” she said.

In 1969, the Deveraux Foundation contacted DCCC to inquire about nursing students interested in a summer job at a camp in North Ansen, Maine. Cathell spent the next three summers as a camp nurse, flying back to Pennsylvania during the summer of 1970 to take the state boards.

While waiting for the results of the state boards, Cathell was hired to work in the newborn intensive care nursery at Crozier Chester Hospital (now a medical center). It was there in the NICU, while feeding a baby, Cathell learned she passed the boards.

“The excitement was overwhelming,” she said.

On June 18, 1970, Cathell graduated from the first nursing program at DCCC, alongside 11 of the 20 students originally enrolled in 1968.

Cathell soon left Crozier-Chester Hospital to work at Taylor Hospital, earning the position of charge nurse on a medical/surgical floor.

While working a shift at the hospital on March 10, 1972, a co-worker insisted that she meet her brother, who had just returned from serving in the U.S. Navy. According to Cathell the co-worker claimed they were a perfect match.

The two met, fell deeply in love, and married on Sept. 2, just six months later.

Cathell continued her academic career, earning her Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN), with a minor in business, from Old Dominion University in 2004.

In 2011, she earned a Master’s of Science degree in Addiction Studies (IPAS) through a collaboration of three universities in an International Program in the field of Addiction Science, King’s College in London, the University of Adelaide (South Australia) and Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Va.

Looking back, Cathell considers DCCC her jumping off point in life.

“I would not trade the lessons I learned for anything,” she said. “I just still can’t believe it has been 50 years.”

Three of Cathell’s siblings also graduated from DCCC, including her sister that graduated from the nursing program in 1978.

Cathell and her husband David have spent the last 32 years living in Richmond, Va., raising three sons.

Today Cathell works part time at Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield, in Va., but these days spends much more time making edits to travel plans as life’s “little things” continue to come around.

“We are always looking for our next adventure,” Cathell said.

Contact Shondalea Wollaston at communitarian@mail.dccc.edu