ON CAMPUS AT OCC:College’s spring semester to begin Jan. 29

Spring semester classes at Orange Coast College begin Monday, Jan. 29.

Automated telephone registration is underway and continues through Saturday, Jan. 27. Many of the college’s more than 2,400 spring classes remain open.

Applications may be filed online at www.orange coastcol lege.edu or in person in the Enrollment Center in Watson Hall. The office is open from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Mondays through Thursdays, and from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Fridays. Anyone who was not enrolled during the fall semester must file a spring application.

The college is offering eight- and 16-week classes this spring, including classes online, in the evenings and on weekends. Spring break runs March 26 through April 1, and late-starting, eight-week classes begin the week of April 2. The semester concludes on May 27.

Tuition fees have been reduced by nearly 25% this spring. Enrollment fees have been rolled back to $20 per unit from $26 per unit.

For spring application or registration information, call (714) 432-5072.

Tuskegee Airmen tribute luncheon in February

The college will host its fourth annual luncheon to honor the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II on Friday, Feb. 9.

The luncheon will include a new event this year. A 90-minute presentation for local junior high and high school students will begin at 10 a.m. in Robert B. Moore Theatre. As many as a dozen original Tuskegee Airmen will be on hand to greet the students. The featured speaker will be former NASA astronaut, Capt. Winston Scott.

Scott, who has logged nearly 25 days in space — as well as three space walks totaling 19 hours and 26 minutes — says that, as an African American, he could never have become an astronaut without the trailblazing efforts of the Tuskegee Airmen.

The luncheon will begin at noon in the Student Center Lounge. Scott will speak at the luncheon, as will Capt. Richard D. Macon, a Tuskegee airman who flew 16½ missions over Europe during World War II as a fighter pilot.

Macon was strafing ground targets over southern France on Aug. 12, 1944 when his Mustang was hit by ground fire. He managed to eject from the plane at treetop level, his parachute deployed and he landed in a field. Macon’s plane crashed into a building used by the Germans as a headquarters, killing more than 40 German officers and soldiers. Macon’s neck was broken in the jump, and he suffered temporary paralysis. He narrowly avoided being shot by a firing squad and was held in a German POW camp for more than nine months. He received The Air Medal, Presidential Citation and Purple Heart.

Macon will relate his story during the luncheon.

The student presentation in Robert B. Moore Theatre is free. Luncheon tickets are priced at $75 each. For ticket information, call (714) 432-5707.

The Tuskegee Airmen were dedicated and determined young black men who enlisted in the military during World War II to become America’s first black military airmen. They trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Tuskegee, Ala., and served their country with distinction.

A total of 450 pilots who trained at Tuskegee served overseas in either the 99th Fighter Squadron or 332nd Fighter Group. The 99th received two Presidential Unit Citations for outstanding tactical air support and aerial combat. The 332nd received the Presidential Unit Citation for its longest bomber escort mission to Berlin, conducted on March 24, 1945.

Part-time faculty member of the year honored

Faculty and staff voted business and communications instructor Jennifer Peters the college’s Part-Time Faculty Member of the Year for 2006-07.

Peters, 44, has been teaching at the college since 1998. Her roots go further back than that, however. Her first assignment was to teach a mass communications class that had previously been taught by her stepfather, Tom Murphine.

Murphine, a former Daily Pilot editor, taught at the college for a dozen years after retiring from the newsroom. He died of cancer in November 1997. Murphine was advisor to the student newspaper, and taught news writing and communications classes. He was one of the college’s most popular instructors.

Peters taught Murphine’s mass communications class the semester following his death.

“I was deeply motivated to continue doing what he loved doing and cared so much about,” Peters said. “Tom loved teaching, and he loved Orange Coast College. He passed on to me an appreciation for this school. This was his home, and it has become my home as well.”

Peters and her mother, Joan Murphine, ran their own public relations agency — McEfee, Murphine and Peters — for 10 years. The agency closed its doors in 2003. The firm specialized in tour and travel industry public relations, and in governmental relations.

Peters will teach several classes this spring, including public relations, introduction to mass communications and business communication. She’ll be recognized as Part-Time Faculty Member of the Year during a special campus ceremony on Wednesday, March 21.

is senior director of community relations at Orange Coast College. He writes the monthly On Campus at OCC column. Reach him at [email protected] or by calling (714) 432-5725.