Assemblywoman Young Kim is attempting to ad-dress issues of sexual ex-ploitation with a new bill, Assembly Bill 46, which would reverse portions of recently-passed Proposi-tion 47 and make the pos-session of date-rape drugs a felony.

Prop. 47, approved by voters in November, changed the classification of certain instances of drug possession from felonies to misdemeanors.

The proposition’s param-eters extend to possession of Ketamine, Rohypnol and Gamma Hydroxybutyric Acid (GHB), all of which are commonly known as “date rape” drugs which can be used to incapacitate victims before they are sex-ually assaulted.

GHB is a central nervous system depressant that was approved for the treatment of narcolepsy, a sleep dis-order. This drug has no col-or or taste and is frequent-ly combined with alcohol to commit sexual assault.

Rohypnol tablets-more commonly known as roofies and are chemically similar to sedative-hypnotic drugs like Xanax or Valium, but tend to impair judgement and leave victims physical-ly incapacitated. The drug is not approved for medical use in this country, accord-ing to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Ketamine causes halluci-nations, loss of body con-trol and unconsciousness, and works very quickly, leaving victims with only a short window of time to react before becoming unconscious.

If a nearly naked woman isn’t on the cover, just about every men’s magazine this month bears a big bushy beard instead.

What’s driving men in 2015 to keep the beard going?

A study in the Oxford Jour-nals titled Beards augment perceptions of men’s age, so-cial status, and aggressive-ness, but not attractiveness published in 2012 by Barnaby J. Dixson and Paul L. Vasey, suggests men grow facial hair in order to, “effectively signal their social status.”

Social status in modern so-cieties is mainly determined by occupation and some of

America’s biggest economic crises dating back to the 18th century run parallel to beard trends.

The first crisis reported in the National Bureau of Economic Research was in 1857. A two and a half year crisis that devastated 23 percent of business activi-ty called the Panic of 1857. This crisis is noteworthy because in the first half of the 1800s, a clean-shav-en face was commonplace. Then mid-1800s, a dra-matic shift occurred along with this economic panic.

The Bureau lists eco-nomic recessions increas-ing after 1850 with greater periods of time. Thus when crises rose after 1850, beards grew. And almost out of nowhere.

At this time beards became linked with the notion of mas-culinity, wrote Jacob Middle-ton in his book Bearded Pa-triarchs, published in 2006,

where the image of a Victori-an era man adorned in an aus-tere black waistcoat, top hat and full sideburns or a flared moustache comes to mind.

The parallels of economic crises and beard trends hap-pened again. Into the 19th cen-tury after nearly a half century of what the Gillette Corporate website refers to as the “Gold-en Era of the straight razor,” King C. Gillette transformed shaving with the invention of the first safety razor. Influ-encing men to shave with ease and without having to sharp-en a straight edge razor at the barbers. Possibly the reason the Great Depression, was spared from a bearded, hairy mess.

When beards began to come back in the mid-60s on through the 70s, credit-ed to the hippies; the Dow Jones Industrial Average also reached its lowest point on Feb. 20, 1961.

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Tuesday March 17, 2015 Volume 97 Issue 27The Student Voice of California State University, Fullerton

Women’s rugby making strides since inception

Symposium to feature space explorer

News Sports3 8

New bill targetsrape drugs

Steady stubble has theorists talking

Bill will heighten penalty for date rape drug possesi

KATHERINE PICAZODaily Titan

201420132012201120102009200820072006200520042003200220012000

Undergraduate Enrollment

College of Engineering and ComputerScience enrollment from 2000 -2014

Graduate Enrollment

381459

526 538 527 512 480

598650 633

687 661 685

893

1229

12701331

1278 12511183

12441196 1223 1261 1286

1478

1621

1958

2448

2993

MIKE TRUJILLO / DAILY TITAN

This semester, the College of Engineering and Comput-er Science has seen the largest growth of any college at Cal State Fullerton.

While the growth is a sig-nificant achievement for a col-lege that, fewer than 30 years ago was facing a complete

shut down, it nonetheless ush-ers in growing pains that cre-ate further issues for the col-lege leadership to address.

In the ‘90s the college faced many problems, a situation which nearly led to the closure of the college.

Those issues resulted from a lack of leadership and ex-pertise, along with a decline in enrollment, said Raman Unnikrishnan, Ph.D., dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

“We were considered a prime candidate for closing down,” Unnikrishnan said.

In 1996 Schaffer Associ-ates, a consulting agency, was hired by then Univer-sity President Milton Gor-don to audit the engineer-ing and computer science program.

The agency concluded that faculty at the time was not working together to solve problems, there was a lack of meaningful dialogue regarding the college’s bud-get, and the college could not sustain an environment of change due to a lack of leadership.

Despite these issues the agency recognized the

college’s success in graduat-ing students, and there were many individuals within the college who did want to work toward change.

The agency recommend-ed the college hire a dean who would focus on cor-recting the issues plaguing it. Andy Bazar, dean for the college at the time, resigned shortly after the consulta-tion meetings began.

Part of the enrollment decline was also due to the decline of the aerospace in-dustry in California, said Susamma Barua, Ph.D., as-sociate dean for the College

of Engineering and Com-puter Sciences.

Barua, who has worked at CSUF since 1988, said the lack of employment in the industry brought a correlat-ing dearth of funding to the program, and a correspond-ing decrease in enrollment.

“When enrollment goes down so does the resources that are attached to it,” Ba-rua said. “And because of that we weren’t able to hire any new faculty members and didn’t have money to upgrade new labs.”

College of ECS shows record growth in 2014

KLARISSA ALCALADaily Titan

The driving force that keeps these beards growing

FIONA PITTDaily Titan

Trends come and go and men’s facial hair has a long history, multiple studies and numerous meanings behind the hairy masculine expression.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY FIONA PITT / DAILY TITAN

SEE TRENDS 4

SEE ENROLLMENT 2 SEE AB-46 3

Engineering college sees stratospheric growth

PAGE 2MARCH 17, 2015 TUESDAY NEWS

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Richard Rocke, Ph.D., came into the university as an acting dean for the college in 1997, where he remained for four years, helping to stabilize the program and its budget.

Rocke connected the col-lege with outside industries that helped bring money into the college, and began the process of examining how money was being spent.

“He did a very good job of stopping the hemorrhage,” Unnikrishnan said.

Unnikrishnan took over as dean in 2001 and has been working to improve the col-lege and increase student suc-cess. He started by incorpo-rating a program with foci including recruitment, reten-tion, research, resources and reputation.

“As a dean, I’m responsible for the college’s well being,” Unnikrishnan said. “This col-lege was going straight down because it did not have the re-sources, not the only reason, but I think people were not paying attention to us.”

One of the first things Un-nikrishnan noticed when he came into the college was the large amount of part-time fac-ulty, he said.

“Lots of part timers to teach classes with two stu-dents, three students, four students–that’s a waste,” Un-nikrishnan said.

In 1990 the college had an undergraduate enrollment of 1,813 students and a grad-uate enrollment of 472 stu-dents. By 1996 those numbers dropped to 1,035 for under-graduates and 302 for gradu-ate enrollment.

In the years from 2000-2001, ECS had a total under-graduate enrollment of 1,270 students and a graduate en-rollment of 381.5 students.

In Fall 2014 the college has a total 2,993 graduate students and 1,229 graduate students.

Majors like computer engi-neering, software engineering and environmental engineer-ing master’s programs added

in 2004 and have seen some slower growth because they are newer programs.

Increased outreach by the college following the imple-mentation of these programs aided a spike in graduate en-rollment, Barua said.

The number of degrees awarded to graduate and un-dergraduate from the college showed a gap just before 2010, a jump in graduate degrees earned spiking years before the undergraduate followed suit, Barua said.

That issue is attributable to the fact that graduate stu-dents finish their degrees in two years, rather than the four and a half to six years it takes undergraduate students to re-ceive their degrees on aver-age, she added.

It has been difficult for the college to accommodate this new growth in enrollment, Unnikrishnan said, and the most pressing issue is space––the college does not have enough classroom space, lab-oratory or room for faculty research.

“Do we have the funding? Of course not,” Unnikrishnan said.

With more enrollment, however, comes more money and enrollment initially leads the way for more resources, he said.

The ECS college has pro-posed a project to increase space by closing in the bot-tom where the pillars and ve-randa are located. Bringing the walls down to obtain that space around the building would allow another 4,000-5,000 square feet of space.

The majority of funding for the college currently comes from grants provided by local industries, including Gener-al Electric and Southern Cal-ifornia Edison, and alumni donations.

The Engineering and Com-puter Science Inter-Club Council is responsible for al-locating funds received from Associated Students, Inc. As-sociated Students grants mon-ey to each of the university’s

inter-club councils for each college, and the councils then distribute the money to proj-ects within the colleges.

Much of the funding the council receives goes to proj-ects within the college, as well as travel for conferences and competitions that students at-tend, said Ivan Bernal, a me-chanical engineering major and chair of the Engineering and Computer Science in-ter-club council.

Those conferences and competitions are one way the engineering and comput-er science students are able to get their names out there, across the CSU system and even across the nation, Bernal said.

“We are sending our top students to these competi-tions through funding from ASI and they’re serious about these competitions, and they’re winning first place, and second place,” Bernal said. “But the problem is our enrollment rate is going up and having more students, so its harder to get as many peo-ple involved and it’s harder to send our best and our bright-est out there.”

Seniors Michael Salas and Christian Simpson, both me-chanical engineering majors, have seen significant growth in the program, with stu-dents, faculty and in senior projects.

“It’s our last year and we see a lot more young engi-neers compared to when we were starting out,” Simpson said.

The college was recent-ly ranked no. 16 in the nation for online master’s programs in engineering–one spot ahead of Ivy League school Cornell.

Despite the challenges that come with growth of ECS, Unnikrishnan said they are dealing with the growth and it is a problem they are hap-py to have to address.

“These are the best of times––we have the prob-lem for prosperity,” Un-nikrishnan said.

FOR THE RECORDIt is Daily Titan policy to correct factual errors

printed in the publication. Corrections will be pub-lished on the subsequent issue after an error is discovered and will appear on page 2. Errors on the Opinion page will be corrected on that page.

Corrections will also be made to the online version of the article.

Please contact Editor-in-Chief Samuel Mountjoy at (657) 278-5815 or at

editorinchief@dailytitan.com to report any errors.

The Daily Titan is a student publication, printed every Monday through Thursday. The Daily Titan operates independently of Associated Students, Inc. College of Communications, CSUF administration and the CSU. The Daily Titan has functioned as a public forum since inception. Unless implied by the advertising party or otherwise stated, advertising in the Daily Titan is inserted by commercial activities or ventures identified in the advertisements themselves and not by the university. Such printing is not to be construed as written or implied sponsorship, endorsement or investigation of such commercial enter-prises. The Daily Titan allocates one issue to each student for free.

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OC Man charged for ISIS aid

ISIS uses chemical weapons

White House exempt from FOIA rules

DTBRIEFS

- KATHERINE PICAZO

- STEPHANIE GOMEZ

- ALEX GROVES

An Orange Coun-ty resident pleaded not guilty Monday af-ter being charged with attempting to provide material to a terrorist group and committing passport fraud, the Or-ange County Register reported.

Adam Dandach was stopped by FBI agents attempting to board a flight to Turkey on July 2 at John Wayne Airport.

He admitted to having plans to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State, authorities said.

Dandach’s attorney said that his plans to travel to the middle east were actually to aid wid-ows and orphans.

Dandach could face up to 15 years in federal prison for material sup-port charge, 25 years each for two passport fraud charges and 25 years for obstruction of justice.

The Kurdistan Region Security Council says it has evidence ISIS fight-ers used chlorine gas as a chemical weapon during a Jan. 23 sui-cide truck bomb at-tack, according to The Guardian.

The alleged attack happened as peshmer-ga forces battled for control of a supply road used by ISIS between Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, and the Syrian border.

The council showed video of a truck losing white smoke while un-der fire from peshmer-ga fighters, and later a white cloud after it exploded.

Kurdish officials say its fighters found “around 20 gas can-isters” in the truck in-volved in the attack.

There has been no re-action from ISIS about the new evidence.

The White House Of-fice of Administration exempted itself from Freedom of Informa-tion Act requests, citing court findings that the office is not subject to the same transparency requirements as oth-er offices, USA Today reported.

The Office of Ad-ministration handles certain record-keep-ing duties, including the filing of e-mails among other things. The move has sparked the ire of transparency advocates.

The move came at the beginning of Sunshine Week, a week that ad-vocates for the open-ness of government and ease of access to public records. Partic-ipants in the week in-clude members of the media, civic organiza-tions and nonprofits among others.

CONTINUED FROM 1

Enrollment: College feels growing pains

The Fullerton City Coun-cil will meet Tuesday night to discuss multiple city items, including a potential fee waiver or fee amnesty pro-gram and speed limits within the city.

On Feb. 17, 2015 Mayor Greg Sebourn and Council-man Bruce Whitaker request-ed city staff consider a possi-ble fee amnesty program in order to stimulate community reinvestment.

Some suggestions for the amnesty program include waiving fees for business tenant improvements, specif-ic home improvements, and building permits. The coun-cil most recently waived the fees for 4th of July block par-ties in hopes of encouraging neighborhood engagement.

The council will also

address speed zones in the city, part of a requirement by the California Vehicle Code to conduct speed zone sur-veys every five years on the streets used by the police de-partment for radar speed en-forcement. These surveys are then used to establish the ap-propriate speed limit. The speed limit changes must be within five miles to be com-pliant with state guidelines.

Proposed amendments for 18 streets in Fullerton were presented to the Transporta-tion and Circulation Com-mission on March 2.

One of the speed lim-it changes presented was on Commonwealth Avenue from Chapman Avenue to Nut-wood Avenue. The proposed limit would reduce the speed limit to 30 from 35 mph.

Two sections on Chapman Avenue would be increased from 35 to 40 mph.

The Transportation and Circulation Commission vot-ed unanimously to approve the prima facie speed limits based on the speed surveys presented by the city.

The council will also be asked to approve a tentative side letter agreement regarding Career Enhancement Pay be-tween the city and the Fuller-ton Firefighters Association.

The current agreement, ne-gotiated in 2006, states that an employee represented by the Association may become eligible for the enhancement pay through a combination

of years of service and com-pletion of required classes or certifications.

Since that time, the fire chief stated that many of the certifications have be-come outdated or no longer available. The proposed changes will also have no affect on the current year’s budget.

Also on the consent

calendar, is a request from the Parks and Recreation De-partment to authorize the city manager to enter into a listing agreement with Voit Real Es-tate Services to sell the Merid-ian Sports Club property.

The Meridian Sports Club land is owned by the city and is within walking distance of Cal State Fullerton alongside the 57 freeway.

City council will also address city speed limit survey

KLARISSA ALCALADaily Titan

Fee waiver to be considered

Fullerton City Council will consider possible fee waivers to increase community involvement, and will also address a speed limit survey and the proposed new limits during Tuesday’s meeting.

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“Currently district at-torneys have no discre-tion, they can’t charge for a felony for possession of those drugs,” said Bryan Shroyer, Assemblywoman Kim’s chief of staff. “AB-46 would essentially alter the law … to restore the discretion to district at-torney’s to charge it as a felony.”

AB-46, according to the California Legislature, will amend sections of the Health and Safety code,re-lating to controlled sub-stances. Both sections state that persons in possession of controlled substances, not legally obtained, are subject to imprisonment in county jail.

Shroyer said the use of date rape drugs is concen-trated in and around col-lege campuses and there-fore these areas are largely affected by sex crimes.

“Going after the people who possess these tools to do harm will help keep stu-dents and other women in the community safe,” he said.

Assemblyman Tom Lack-

ey authored the bill, which Kim and other members co-authored.

Their goal is to get the bill signed by the governor by September and have it take effect by Jan. 1, 2016.

Kim’s concern over these drugs comes from being a mother of three daughters, one of whom attends Cal State Fullerton.

“I ran for Assembly in part because I wanted to make our communities saf-er, and protecting women against rapists is one of the most fundamental ways to do that,” Kim said.

In response to opposi-tion, Kim said this bill does not aim to repeal the entire proposition, but rather at-tempts to fix consequences that can put women in dan-ger under Prop 47.

AB-46 has gained bipar-tisan support from groups including the California College and University Police Chiefs Association

which said in a letter to Assemblyman Lackey that this bill will help close

many of the sexual assault cases that do occur on col-lege campuses.

“I’m confident that this bill will pass and be signed into law,” Kim said.

BRYAN SHROYERChief of Staff for Assemblywoman Kim

Going after the people who possess these tools to do harm will help keep students and other women in the community safe.

““

CONTINUED FROM 1

AB-46: Bill to address date rape drugs

Space explorer to give keynote

A year after it brought sci-entist and television person-ality Bill Nye to campus, the Natural Science and Math-ematics Inter-Club Council will bring an astronaut to give the keynote speech at its an-nual symposium.

Anousheh Ansari, the first self-funded woman to ex-plore space, has been a key-note speaker contender for years among members of the council.

Ansari, who is Irani-an-American, got her start in the business world. She gained widespread attention when she took her first space flight on the Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft, becoming the first woman to explore space out-side of a public program

In addition to her space endeavors, Ansari boasts a number of other accomplish-ments. She’s worked as an in-dividual entrepreneur, was the co-founder and chairman of Prodea System and is the for-mer CEO of Telecom Tech-nologies Inc.

“Everybody can find some-thing in her story,” said Amy Mattern, the inter-club council adviser and assistant dean for student affairs.

“She’s an entrepreneur, an engineer, she’s interested

in science. She’s somebody that students all across the university can relate to and that’s very important to our students.”

Ansari—who is still a stu-dent herself—strives to con-nect with students by tell-ing them her story of success and how she made her own dreams come true, Mattern said.

Ansari is currently work-ing to earn a master’s degree in astronomy at Swinburne University to accompany her bachelor’s degree in elec-tronics and computer engi-neering from George Mason University and her master’s degree in electrical engineer-ing from George Washington University.

“She represents the ability to discover new frontiers, not only in scientific fields as our students are doing, but in their personal and professional de-velopment as well,” said Jer-emy Wilson, chairman of the council.

In addition to Ansari and Nye, past keynote speakers have included Bob Ballard, who helped discover the Ti-tanic, and Tracy Caldwell Dyson, a CSUF alumni and former NASA Astronaut.

The annual two-day sym-posium features student re-search in the form of oral and poster presentations as members of the faculty lead presentations.

This year’s symposium theme, titled, “Discovering New Frontiers: Reaching for the Stars,” coincides with

Ansari’s presentation, titled “Reaching for the Stars and Getting There.”

“It was like we were per-fectly synced without even knowing it,” Mattern said.

The parallel themes of both the symposium and keynote speaker emphasize the fact that students can set out to reach huge goals and achieve them with the right mindset

and attitude, Mattern said.The symposium is free and

open to the public and orga-nizers are hoping to provide a educational and high-qual-ity experience for those who

attend, Mattern said. “We want to gauge it by

not only the number of people who come but of the quality of experience of the people who come,” she said.

Natural Science symposium to feature Anousheh Ansari

JACKIE TAMBARADaily Titan

Anousheh Ansari , the first woman to engage in private space exploration, will give the keynot speech at the National Science and Mathematics symposium Wednesday. Her speech will be titled, “Reaching for the stars and Getting There.”

COURTESY OF CSUF

Goal• To reverse portions of Proposition 47, which made

possession of date-rape drugs a misdemeanor

• AB-46 would revert the penalty back to a felony

Authored by• Tom Lackey, representative for the 36th Assembly District

• Co-authored by Assemblywoman Young Kim, representative for the 65th Assembly district, which includes Fullerton.

Take Effect• If passed, the bill’s authors hope to have the bill take effect on

January 1, 2016.

Assembly Bill 46

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Finally, in 2010 the Bureau lists the “Great Recession;” the same year that “hipsters” took the 5 o’clock shadow look to greater lengths. And America went full circle back to the bushy beard.

The full beard doesn’t only grace the faces of hipsters in America, in Birmingham, United Kingdom, beard afi-cionado and stylist, Jake Phil-lips said, “the year of the man is upon us.”

Phillips gets clients month-ly to trim and pomp their fa-cial hair.

“We are men not homeless men,” Phillips said.

Beards have also been dawning on the faces of CEO’s in high-tech compa-nies. Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin as well as, Marc Benioff, billionaire founder

and chief executive of Sales-force Inc., a global cloud com-puting company, both have beards. A trend that’s unfa-miliar to a boardroom.

It’s 2015, the recession is technically over, according to the Bureau, but the beard trend doesn’t seem to be shrinking.

If it’s not the economy, then what’s behind the beard? Alun Withey, a writer for The Tele-graph wrote in October that beard trends sometimes occur when masculinity appears un-der threat.

However, Cal State Ful-lerton men’s counselor Matt Englar-Carlson had a differ-ent proposal as to what may be going on with men these days.

“What’s the greatest thing that’s happened to men in the last 30 to 35 years? It’s re-ally been the rise of women

in economic power,” En-glar-Carlson said.

As women have gained more economic power and shifted in their gender roles, Englar-Carlson said, men’s gender roles cannot remain static.

“There are two ways you can view that: you can re-sist against it,” Englar-Carl-son said, where one can be-lieve it’s bad—that women are, “taking a piece of my pie” and become more staunch. “Or the flip side of that, you can view it as more of an opportunity.”

Englar-Carlson views it as an opportunity, especially in his line of work of men’s counseling, where the oppor-tunity allows a wider variety of gender roles.

Men are raised in a very narrow box in terms of what’s acceptable. “You can tighten

that box and become more ex-treme or you can view it as an opportunity to branch outside of that box,” Englar-Carlson said.

He explained that there are multiple forms of mas-culinity. Most the time when we think about masculinity, and how a lot of men believe they’re supposed to be, it’s in an extreme form of toughness. However, most men don’t sub-scribe to that but typically lay somewhere in the middle, En-glar-Carlson said.

Thus as men’s gender roles change, and gay rights gain greater acceptance in Amer-ica, the idea of masculinity will become more flexible.

“It gives guys chances to be who they really are without facing so much sanction,” En-glar-Carlson said.

Research has shown, En-glar-Carlson said, the number

one way you insult a man’s masculinity is calling them gay or, “what you’re really saying is the worst things you can be is not male—but fe-male,” he said.

Guys shame other guys with anti-femininity. But if you grow up in a society where being gay isn’t wrong, it’s just “other,” it loses some of it’s power in how you put guys down, Englar-Carlson said.

Some research says that is happening, Englar-Carlson said.

Men rarely talk to one an-other about masculinity, agree Joseph Condron, a 26-year-old graduate from Cal State Dominguez Hills and En-glar-Carlson. Rather, they say it’s something that’s merely “in the air.”

Condron supported what Englar-Carlson said is a mas-ter marketing program called

“Movember”— a global or-ganization that raises aware-ness and millions of dollars for men’s health in the month of November by men simply growing out their facial hair. If men went about talking aloud about their masculinity Condron said, it wouldn’t go over so well and would likely strike up a fight.

If men are growing beards at a steady rate in 2015 and it’s not because of a bad economy, or because they feel threatened by the rise of women and it’s not “Movem-ber,” where is the trend com-ing from? Perhaps, trends are ultimately an expression of one’s self. An expression that fashion advocates, like GQ or Calvin Klein see in an indi-vidual, promote their persona and that ends up catching on. As not all things that are put on the runway do.

PAGE 4MARCH 17, 2015 TUESDAY FEATURES

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Guiding local business with fresh influence

The comic book heroes of CSUF

From the dark mysteries of Batman, to the daring heroics of Superman, to the interga-lactic battles of Star Wars, the Titans of Comic-Con Society is a Cal State Fullerton club that discusses and celebrates comic books and comic book culture.

Members of Titans of Com-ic-Con Society get together and attend local Comic-Con conventions, as well as play video games, watch movies and hang out at Comic Hero University, a comic book store in Fullerton.

The club and its 14 mem-bers provide an open atmo-sphere for people to come to-gether and discuss what they like the most—comic books, TV shows and anything relat-ed to nerd culture, said Jona-than Higbee, 26, history major and president of the club.

They are accepting of

everybody and not just people who like comic books. “Doc-tor Who, Star Wars, Star Trek … pretty much anything co-splay, we open up to that”, Higbee said. “Magic: The Gathering— everyone comes together under geekdom.”

This semester they’ve host-ed a Super Smash Bros. tour-nament at Comic Hero Uni-versity and watched Big Hero 6 on campus. In April, some of the members will be going to WonderCon in Anaheim.

The club meets every Tues-day at 4 p.m. inside the Gabri-elino Room in the Titan Stu-dent Union. At the meetings they discuss and debate re-cent comic books and movies. They also help each other out by teaching one another about various comic books and shar-ing rare issues Higbee said.

Joshua Beck, 21, a commu-nications major, vice presi-dent and historian of the club, found a home at Titans of Comic-Con Society. It was a place with people that he could relate to, he said.

“I’m not a huge comic book person … but I found this as a place that a lot of people could relate to and

share common interests with almost anything; because nerd culture is humongous and I feel like we have that here in our club,” Beck said.

Andy Walker, 20, a histo-ry major and social chair of the club, said the purpose of Titans of Comic-Con Soci-ety is to be a place for people to fit in.

“My personal reason is there’s a lot of people ei-ther at this school or out there that love comic books or they love anime or they love anything, and they just ... they don’t fit in at times,” Walker said.

Walker is in charge of planning and promoting events Titans of Comic-Con Society puts on and connect-ing with other CSUF clubs.

Going through high school Walker said he didn’t feel like he fit in. At CSUF he doesn’t feel as though he sees a lot of comic book people. He said he sees “hipsters and jocks,” and people into things that he doesn’t relate to.

“I think going into this club, you just feel really ac-cepted,” Walker said. “No one judges you here.”

Trends: Beardedness time after timeCONTINUED FROM 1

The members in the Titans of Comic-Con Society club celebrate comic books and comic book culture. Researching, debating and trading are just a few of this clubs specialties.

ALEX FAIRBANKS / DAILY TITAN

All welcome to gather under ‘geekdom’ in the Gabrielino Room

ALEX FAIRBANKSDaily Titan

ollow uson

With the opportunity to go viral, kickstart a business and be seen by millions with ease in this day and age, some-times the need to come back down to the small scale is gratifying.

A small business appeals to the human scale. Small businesses aren’t only aes-thetically pleasing but as Charlesetta Medina, manag-er of the Small Business In-stitute (SBI) at Cal State Ful-lerton said, a small business is also “the economic engine for our economy.”

Medina developed a deep appreciation for small busi-ness after she left corporate America from a job at Mit-subishi Motors. The depar-ture forced her to come back to school, which was a bless-ing in disguise. Her school of choice, CSUF, offered her a position while still a student to manage the Orange Coun-ty Networking Directory. That opportunity eventually led her to become manager of SBI, which she’s been doing for 11 years now.

The SBI is a national non-profit organization in its 39th year of business. The center is part of the 14 Cen-ters of Excellence within the Steven G. Mihaylo Col-lege of Business and Eco-nomics and a program for entrepreneurship.

“We’re a very tiny center but we do make a huge eco-nomic impact,” Medina said. “So when you talk about the value for small businesses in our local economy, it’s key.”

That’s what’s really began to turn our economy, is the ability for those small busi-nesses to have held on and still allow for new ones to emerge, Medina said.

As manager, Medina reaches out directly by mail

to nearly 20,000 local busi-nesses. Then she takes those responses and figures out, “is (SBI) a benefit to them.”

The students involved in SBI take on about 40 small businesses per semester and close to 100 businesses a year.

“They get to work in a team environment, with sup-port and resources from the center, from mentors and from faculty,” Medina said. “And they’re able to bring that really fresh perspective to businesses, many of whom may have been in business for a number of years and they feel like they know their business very well.”

Yet, the generation of stu-dents now are able to bring new insight and a new per-spective on how to do some of those same tasks, in new and innovative ways that helps that business, Medina said.

“By far, the most request-ed aspect is social media. You think about the genera-tion of business owners now and you’ve got all this social media—everything is online; and they don’t even have it established,” Medina said.

That is where the SBI stu-dents add a lot of value to the businesses Medina said.

Two clients of SBI being assessed this semester, Mi-chelle Bergquist, co-founder of Connected Women of In-fluence, as well as, Susie Clis-son owner of West County Tire & Automotive Inc., both said they hope to get a new perspective on social media and online opportunities.

Clisson has been in busi-ness for 26 years and said she hopes for some, “fresh in-sight from cutting-edge stu-dents out there learning all that is new in the business world.”

Clisson’s small business in Anaheim alone, supports sev-en families. “It’s a life’s blood of a community,” she said.

Medina also has a per-sonal mission within her numerous responsibilities at the SBI.

Dealing with businesses all day Medina notices trends. “I look at our business faculty, I look at our mentors support-ing the kids, and my ques-tion is always, where are the women?”

Right, wrong or indiffer-ent, Medina said, she makes a conscious effort to bring in and support women in busi-ness. “It still adds value to the program,” Medina said. In the end it still helps the bot-tom line of supporting small business.

SBI’s current business cli-ent, Connected Women of Influence, does just that. The company was birthed in 2008 and is an association of wom-en who are either owners, ex-ecutives or professionals. It’s a specific niche. They aim for a specific diverse selection of women in different industries and roles and their mission is to see more women lead in business.

“Professional women sup-porting one another is an amazing process that we’re looking into—to build each other up and support each other professionally,” Bergq-uist said. “We’re not an island where we’re trying to be all to ourselves,” she stressed.

The members are just look-ing for “advocacy” and a way to support one another.

Along with new social me-dia aspects Bergquist is excit-ed that her SBI team of “20 something’s” are all male Master of Business and Ad-ministration students and looks forward to the male perspective they will bring as opposed to all females. Bergquist’s hopes the next venture for CWI will be to bring it national.

Small businesses are able to change the landscape of business. Not only are they more relatable but they di-rectly support the families and communities, as well as looking quaint, rather than big square boxes.

“Being in the business col-lege, you tend to get put in this little box,” Medina said. “I don’t fit well in boxes.”

Center impacts 100 local small businesses a year

FIONA PITTDaily Titan

PAGE 5TUESDAY MARCH 17, 2015OPINION

VISIT US AT: DAILYTITAN.COM/OPINION FOLLOW US ON TWITTER: @THEDAILYTITAN

A longer life leaves room for more strife

Parking needs reformation

Being a commuter at Cal State Fullerton is not only a time-consuming experi-ence, but an expensive one as well.

A daily self-serve parking permit at Cal State Fuller-ton is $8, a price too steep for students on campus and commuters alike.

The cost of a daily permit pass is only made worse by the fact that parking space is limited, even for those willing to pay.

Over at Cal State Long Beach and Cal State San Bernardino, a daily park-ing pass costs $5, according to their websites. Cal State LA and Cal Poly Pomona charge $6.

The $2-3 difference may not seem like much, but the true cost adds up for stu-dents who buy daily permits on a regular basis.

However, a parking pass is not the only cost tied to commuting.

Many students drive quite

a distance to get to school. the back and forth trips to and from school starts rack-ing up a hefty gas bill.

While it may not seem like there’s a correlation be-tween parking and the cost of gas, there is.

Due to the limited amount of parking spaces on campus, many students end up circling around the lots for up to 45 minutes. This doesn’t do a car’s fuel efficiency any favors.

With the struggle of earn-ing minimum wage, having to pay for rent, gas, school supplies and food it can get very difficult—even over-whelming—at times to af-ford all the expenses.

It is clear that CSUF is not the only university with a parking epidemic, but it’s definitely one that needs to address the issue.

The ratio of the student population to available parking spaces is grossly unequal.

There are nearly 38,000 students enrolled at CSUF.

With three parking struc-tures and some parking lots, there are currently 11,291 parking spots, or around a third of the current student population.

Looking at these numbers

makes it clear as to why parking is such a struggle.

Exasperating the issue even further is the fact that the majority of classes are scheduled in the morning and early afternoon.

Although many of the costs associated with com-muting are inescapable, not all of them are.

Many students choose to carpool, take public transportation, ride a bike

or walk if they’re close enough.

These are some of the ways students can avoid the struggle and cost of parking at school.

However, while these

costs may be inescapable, lowering the cost of parking on campus, be it for a daily or semester pass, would be a good first step in making a commuter’s life just a little bit more affordable.

CSUF needs to lower parking permit prices for students

SABRINA PARADADaily Titan

CSUF students struggle with parking everyday, with a growing student population and not enough parking to accomodate commuters. Daily parking permits are costly and the majority of classes are scheduled in the morning, exasperating the issue further.

AMANDA SHARP / DAILY TITAN

There are too many peo-ple on this planet.

Our generation is go-ing to live longer than our parents just like our par-ents lived longer than their parents, and our grandpar-ents lived longer than their parents.

With every new year people are born, they are expected to live longer life spans, thanks in part to many medical advance-ments like vaccines and stem cell research.

“During the second half of the 20th century, fe-male life span increased from 88 years to about 96 years and male life span increased from 82 years to almost 97 years,” ac-cording to the Journal of Population Economics in 2013.

A longer life means more time doing whatever it is a person likes to do, right? Well, not really.

What a longer life expec-tancy really means is more time spent working until death. Living a longer life

doesn’t equal living a lon-ger life, rather, it amounts to more time just merely existing.

“Average life expectan-cy worldwide increases by three months every year,” Katherine Harmon said in Scientific American Magazine.

At first glance this might seem like a great thing.

It might seem like an extra three months would provide the time needed to take that trip you’ve al-ways dreamed of or visit your parents more often.

However, the truth is that an extra three months doesn’t necessarily mean your backburner dreams will finally become a reality.

A longer life span would just increase the amount of time spent at work, dream-ing about the things you would rather be doing.

Furthermore, longer lives put an enormous amount of pressure on fur-ther exhausting our natural resources.

There are already mass issues like famine around the world, so a continuous population increase on the planet just seems like the wrong solution.

“Also, on the individu-al level, the awareness of modifiable and potentially

further rising life span beyond the “natural” im-provements of life expec-tancy may have quite dra-matic effects on life-cycle decisions like schooling, savings and retirement,” according to the Journal of Population Economics in 2013.

Fascination with living forever is odd. Life has its number of perfect and im-perfect moments, but peo-ple should appreciate the time they do have and not

worry about how many ways they can come up with to cheat death.

However, the world is filled with so many people focused on just that.

Aubrey de Grey, Ph.D, Sens Research Foundation chief science officer and co-founder, believes that people who undergo ther-apy to give them a moder-ate life extension will live long enough to continuous-ly receive such treatment since the therapies will be

improving faster than the imperfections in the thera-pies, according to his TED Talk in 2005.

“They’ll never be per-fect, but we’ll be able to fix what 200-year-olds die of before we have any 200-year-olds,” Grey said.

We don’t need any 200-year-olds.

Over time, things just aren’t quite as shiny and new as the first time they were experienced.

An extra-long life seems rather dull with that in mind.

More time is not needed to live a fuller life. More bravery is what’s really needed.

You don’t need three ex-tra months to really do the things you want to do.

Go and take the time right now to do the things you’ve always wanted to.

Your responsibilities will be waiting for you when you get back.

Living longer only means more time spent working

KATELYNN DAVENPORTDaily Titan

With rapid advancements in science and technology, the average life span continues to rise with every generation. This isn’t necessarily a good thing; it means more time spent working and exhausting our natural resources as human beings.

COURTESY OF FLICKR

PAGE 6MARCH 17, 2015 TUESDAY OPINION

VISIT US AT: DAILYTITAN.COM/OPINIONFOLLOW US ON TWITTER: @THEDAILYTITAN

Dear Editor, In reference to the Daily Titan article of 3/5/15,

“Bringing Magic to Campus,” we find it very dis-turbing that so much money was spent on Magic Johnson’s 45-minute address to students. That’s more than $1,000 per minute. According to the Orange County Register 3/10/15 (Local section pp. 1 & 4), “The total cost of the event was about $104,000.” Particularly upsetting was that “Near-ly $70,000 was budgeted from the mandatory stu-dent fees … ,” according to the same article. More-over, an article entitled, “Mihaylo Finishes off ASI Debates,” (Daily Titan, 3/12/15, p. 3) reports that there were “mixed reviews” regarding the amount of money that was spent on the Magic Johnson event. Surely there’s a more economical and stu-dent-friendly way to use these fees. How about stopping tuition increases instead?

Sincerely,Dr. Gloria MontiDr. Philippe Perebinossoff

In response to “Bringing Magic to campus”

DR. GLORIA MONTI

DR. PHILIPPE PEREBINOSSOFF

Letter to the Editor

Feminism is still a necessity

UCI flag ban was a campus blunder

The Associated Students UCI Legislative Council voted to ban the American flag from the Associated Students lobby on campus. The decision crossed a line, despite the student council’s commendable intentions of creating a more inclusive environment.

COURTESY OF FLICKR

Thursday, March 5 was a historic day for UC Ir-vine. Questions of colo-nialism, inclusivity and the very meaning of the nation’s flag arose.

It was a typical day when the Associated Stu-dents-UCI Legislative Council gathered for their biweekly meeting as they always do, on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

At that meeting, a mo-tion was passed to ban all f lags from the Associated Students lobby.

The motion was made because representatives noticed some students said that having the American flag hung in the lobby was not inclusive to interna-tional and multi-cultural students and can be seen as a symbol of colonial-ism and oppression.

A motion was made to ban all f lags from the As-sociated Students lobby to create an inclusive space for everyone.

Although some repre-sentatives had reserva-tions that the ban may in-fringe on students’ rights,

the ban ultimately passed 6-4 (with 2 abstentions).

The motion simply bans flags from being hung in the Associated Students’ lobby.

It does not stop students from wearing or carrying the flag in the lobby or elsewhere.

So the real question is whether this is an issue of free speech, or just a mat-ter of the student govern-ment going too far in its quest for inclusivity?

“I think this legisla-tion is made with the best intentions in mind, but freedom of speech can-not deny the freedom of speech to others. I can-not support such a legis-lation,” said Tin Hong, a representative for Cal State Fullerton’s College of Engineering and Com-puter Science.

Let’s say the flag ban is a first amendment issue when it comes to speech and expression, the First Amendment states that, “Congress shall make no law … abridging the free-dom of speech … ”

The government can-not tell the people what to say and what not to say,

within reason of course. Here, the ASUCI Leg-

islative body plays the role of Congress and the UCI students the role of the people. Banning the flag would be potential-ly infringing on a form of speech called symbolic speech.

In 1968, the Supreme Court set a precedent for dealing with symbolic speech in the case United States v. O’Brien.

They established a test

to determine when the government had a right to ban speech. The test en-compasses four rules: It must be within the con-stitutional power of the government to enact, it must further a substantial government interest, the interest must be content neutral and it must pro-hibit no more speech than is essential to further that interest.

If this is an issue of free speech, the ASUCI legislative council does not pass the O’Brien test. Though they have a “sub-stantial government inter-est” by banning the flag to create an inclusive space for all students, their ban

is not content neutral be-cause they are banning the flag precisely because of what it might symbolize.

Emily Erickson Ph.D, a professor of media law at Cal State Fullerton, said this might not be a first amendment issue. Erick-son refers to an estab-lished government speech doctrine which allows the government to speak for itself without any restrictions.

In Wooley v. Maynard (1977), where the doctrine is implied, the Supreme Court ruled that though the government can’t com-pel anyone to say or be-lieve anything, the gov-ernment can speak for itself as long as it isn’t re-stricting the rights of oth-ers even if they have op-posing viewpoints.

The flag ban is just a case of the student gov-ernment over-reaching in trying to create an inclu-sive environment. ASUCI was not trying to restrict speech, however, it ended up doing just that.

It was only making a statement standing for the inclusivity of all the stu-dents it represents, which is a commendable thing to do.

However, by banning all f lags in a public space, it defeated its goal and ex-cluded everyone.

The ASUCI crossed the line when they banned the U.S. flag

DANAE RODRIGUEZDaily Titan

The flag ban is just a case of the student government over-reaching in trying to create an inclusive environment.

““

Celebrating Women’s His-tory Month gives an oppor-tunity to reflect on the leg-acy left by the women who fought for equal rights.

Although it’s good that there’s a month to appreci-ate the strides women have made, there are still per-sistent problems with how society treats women.

Women may have the much of the same opportu-nities that men have, how-ever, there is still a social bias that prevents women from competing in the work-place, defending themselves from sexual harassment or

being objectified in the mass media.

Women have a higher en-rollment in bachelor’s and master’s degree programs, according to the United States 2014 Census.

However, there is still gender discrimination in the workplace, even though many men and women enter the workplace with the same education.

The wage gap between men and women has nar-rowed since the ‘70s, but it’s not completely gone.

Women working full-time only make 77 cents for every dollar a man makes today, according to WhiteHouse.gov. In 2013, on average, men in California made $50,268, while women earned $42,199.

Women are still subject-ed to sexual harassment in many public and private sec-tors. Women who are raped,

harassed and sexualized are held accountable for being the victim.

This victim blaming has not stopped. There have been protests within recent years on college campuses, but this doesn’t stop the problem, it only helps expose it.

Women are still objecti-fied in the mass media and are constantly sexualized for entertainment purposes in music videos, television and in capital culture. The fe-male body is used in adver-tisements to sell materialistic things.

These images tell women to alter and “fix” themselves. It’s not only degrading, but it has a devastating effect on young girls.

A young girl will like-ly wish she was skinnier or want to change her appear-ance at age 12, lowering her self esteem, according to the NYC Girls Project, New

York City’s public education campaign focused on raising young girls’ self-esteem.

The study also found that 60 percent of girls compare their bodies to airbrushed, edited photos of women. This issue can lead women to be more susceptible to depres-sion, eating disorders and substance abuse, according to a study by the American Psychological Association.

There needs to be an en-couragement of young wom-en to pursue important ca-reers, to love their unique bodies and to make choices that will benefit themselves and not society’s idea of what a woman should be.

Women should be proud for what they have accom-plished in the past 40 years, however, they should contin-ue to fight for their right to equal treatment and opportu-nity in the workplace, in their home and in society.

Submit a letter to the editor at editorinchief@dailytitan.comwith the subject line as‘letter to the editor’

(Letters may be edited to fit our style)

HEARD

HAVEYOURVOICE

Women are still fighting for true gender equality

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PAGE 7TUESDAY MARCH 17, 2015

BEFORE!

YOU POST

Is it true?

Is it helpful?

Is it inspiring? Then why post?

It is necessary?

Is it kind?

Cyberbullying was found to havecatastrophic effects upon the self-

esteem and social lives of up to 70%of young people.

studies found in http://nobullying.com/cyber-bullying-statistics/

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poor academic performance, anxiety

and unhappiness.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”

- Robert Frost

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Q: Did you hear about the two bed bugs who met in the mattress?

A: They got married in the spring.

Q: How do you know that carrots are good for your eyesight?

A: Have you ever seen a rabbit wearing glasses?

JOKES OF THE WEEK

CLASSIFIEDS

ARIES (MARCH 21 - APRIL 19):

Defending your ideas against someone with a different agenda than yours can turn into more of a debacle than you want.

TAURUS(APRIL 20 - MAY 20):

Your hopes for the future are fueled by ideal-istic fantasies today. Unfortunately, your reality doesn’t necessarily support your inspirational dreams.

GEMINI(MAY 21 - JUNE 20):

Your greatest challenge today may involve choosing which tasks to complete and which ones to postpone for a later date.

CANCER (JUNE 21 - JULY 22):

You might have made a commitment that’s weighing heavily on your mind now, and there appears to be little you can do to prevent some-one’s disappointment.

LEO(JULY 23 - AUG. 22):

Staying in touch with your inner spirit takes extra concentration when you’re feeling stressed. Fortunately, you have a deep reser-voir of determination and resolve.

VIRGO(AUG. 23 - SEPT. 22):

You’re stuck between two uncontrollable forces without an apparent way out today as clever Mercury locks horns with unpredict-able Uranus and unrelenting Pluto.

LIBRA(SEPT. 23 - OCT. 22):

Someone’s hidden motives come to light now, adding to the stress between you and others. Your coworkers might not like what they learn today, but the awkward energy should begin to shift

SCORPIO (OCT. 23 - NOV. 21):

You are usually up for a good challenge when you know that you’re doing the right thing. But now as communicator Mercury aggravates your key plan-et Pluto, make sure that you’re not being played as a pawn.

SAGITTARIUS(NOV. 22 - DEC. 21):

You might secretly believe you’re fighting for a losing cause today, but holding firm to your fading optimism may still be the best thing you can do.

CAPRICORN (DEC. 22 - JAN. 19):

You are feeling extremely passionate about your life now and are eager to work hard just to keep all the balls up in the air.

AQUARIUS(JAN. 20 - FEB. 18):

Your nerves are on edge today, making it nearly impossible to complete what you start because you can’t concentrate. Your current impatience prompts you to talk before your thoughts are fully developed.

PISCES(FEB. 19 - MARCH 20):

Uncertainty rises from the hidden depths of your subconscious and your initial impulse may be to clamp down on your fantasies and become uncharacteristically rigid now.

PAGE 8MARCH 17, 2015 TUESDAY SPORTS

VISIT US AT: DAILYTITAN.COM/SPORTSFOLLOW US ON TWITTER: @DTSPORTSDESK

With no pads and no hel-mets, Rugby is a violent game in which the players are at risk of being perma-nently injured and never being able to play again.

However, this hasn’t stopped a group of dedicat-ed women at Cal State Ful-lerton from competing.

“A ride or die sport” is how Samantha Kanyavong, the captain of CSUF’s women’s rugby club team, likes to describe it as.

Cal State Fullerton’s women’s club rugby team was established in 2009 as a member of Division II of USA Rugby, starting

with only 10 members and no official coach. Since then, the team has had their share of ups and downs, but does their best at progress-ing each year.

The team thrived in 2013, with over 30 women on the team. They were able to es-tablish themselves by fin-ishing third place in their league. Now entering 2015, the team has slowly de-creased to an active roster of 18 players and currently does not have a head coach, meaning they are ineligible to compete for the spring semester.

To some this would be discouraging, but not for this team.

Kanyavong, a junior criminal justice major, said she is still having the team keep up with weekly prac-tices and is using this sea-son as a great opportunity to rebuild and gain players

to get them comfortable with the game in prepara-tion for next year.

Other than three of their current players on the team, the rest are all brand new to the sport. For some, it’s actually the first sport they’ve ever joined.

“Getting new players has always been a little diffi-cult because most don’t un-derstand that, not like any other sport, it is so easy to pick up the basics, and are hesitant on giving it a chance,” Kanyavong said.

Even though the team is currently ineligible to com-pete, the women still set their booth up at the spring semester’s Days of Dis-covery, encouraging other potential players to come out.

“The show must go on,” said Danica Alley, a cur-rent CSUF player and a for-mer player at Ohio State.

After an unexpected, yet exciting turn out from Days of Discovery, about 10 new girls have started going to the weekly practices on Mondays and Wednesdays from 4 to 6 p.m.

Normally, the team’s sea-son starts in the spring, while their preseason is in the fall, but they’re us-ing this year to prepare for when they’re eligible to play again.

“Although we’re not playing in league match-es this semester, the fact that we’re only practicing and conditioning tireless-ly is actually an advan-tage because we can build our team’s skill and fitness levels, Alley said. “With the influx of new players, our offseason is benefi-cial because we have lots of time to teach rugby and tackling safety before our team faces others, which

makes the sport much less intimidating.”

The team’s goal is to try to win first place in their league for the first time. Third place was an accom-plishment for the women, but their intent is always to shoot above and beyond.

Each year the team has competed, it has been in-vited to nationals at Stan-ford University, but win-ning first place in their league and then heading off to nationals is a goal to-ward which these women are focusing all their hard work and efforts.

Women’s rugby at Cal State Fullerton hasn’t been the most recognized, but every time these women step foot onto that field, fans can bet that the play-ers are going to play their hearts out.

“The women’s rugby team at CSUF is a group

of extremely supportive and kind ladies with a pas-sion for one of the most ex-treme collision sports in the world,” Alley said.

While there is no coach at the moment for this women’s team, Kanyavong continues to hold practices and recruit new members because of the devotion and high hopes she has for the near future.

Kanyavong has been playing rugby now for 10 years and has yet to grow tired of the sport.

“Rugby is such a unique sport, my first sport, and will be my only sport. The game teaches you hard work and immense sportsmanship and I tru-ly am hopeful for the day to arrive where this sport is much bigger and rec-ognized on this campus of Cal State Fullerton,” Kanyavong said.

After sweeping the Easton Tournament over the weekend, the Cal State Fullerton softball team will look to stay on the win-ning track as it plays a dou-bleheader against the State University of New York at Buffalo Tuesday at Ander-son Family Field.

Buffalo currently car-ries a 6-14 overall record and will prove the perfect opponent for Fullerton to turn weekend momentum into middle-of-the-week consistency.

The Easton Tournament brought the smiles back to Anderson Family Field and boosted the Titans to a 18-12 overall record, but Tues-day’s encounters against the Bulls might prove pivotal to a Fullerton team that has yet to deliver five wins in a row all season long.

The Titans are marginal-ly better when it comes to batting average, hitting at a .303 clip compared to the Bulls’ .302 average. Tues-day’s difference-maker, however, will come down to the pitching.

The Titans have had their

ups and downs in the cir-cle throughout the season, but the pitching staff man-aged to rein in their throws at the Easton Tournament. The Titans allowed only one run throughout the tournament’s four games, a stark contrast to the 33 runs they gave up in the previous tournament.

The Titans’ earned run average now sits at 3.67. Redshirt junior Desiree Ybarra is leading the charge in the circle for Fullerton. Her 2.73 earned run average in 92.1 innings pitched is currently the team’s best.

Ybarra is coming off a stellar performance at the Easton Tournament, pitch-ing 13.1 innings of shutout ball over three games, be-fore being rested in Sat-urday’s encounter against Charleston Southern. Yba-rra will be especially lifted by the fact that her last per-formance in the circle was a complete-game shutout of Nebraska in which she also managed four strikeouts.

With a doubleheader, Ybarra will likely split time in the circle with sophomore Christina Washington.

Washington is Fullerton’s second-best pitcher, tally-ing a 3.87 ERA over 79.2 innings pitched. Washing-ton also saw significant playing time at the Easton Tournament, going 12.2 in-nings over two games and

allowing just one run in that stretch.

The Fullerton batters can also be expected to take advantage of a Buf-falo pitching staff that has tallied an abysmal 6.45 ERA. Hayley Barrow leads her team’s pitching with a 4.79 ERA, but even that number is misleading, as

the senior has also pitched the Bulls’ fewest innings (30.2). Leading the Bulls in innings pitched is Bobbi Langlois, who has amassed a 6.05 ERA.

The Bulls won’t be the toughest competition for the Titans, but Tuesday’s games will certainly be two of the most important

for a Fullerton team that only nine days ago looked disjointed and dejected af-ter losing three of their four games at the Judi Gar-man Classic.

If the Titans can add two more wins to their re-cord on Tuesday, they can prove that the hardships of the Classic were worth it

and that the sweep at the Easton Tournament was not just a flash-in-the-pan performance.

Big West Conference play is only 11 days away. The time for consistency is now and the Titans need some statement wins.

First pitch against Buffalo is at 3 p.m.

The team may not be competing in spring, but training for 2016

JESSICA BURFORDFor The Daily Titan

The Cal State Fullerton women’s rugby team competing against the USC Trojans. The team was established in 2009 and has placed as high as third in their league. The Titans, who have 18 members, are not eligible to play this spring season because they don’t have a coach, but junior captain Samantha Kanyavong said they are using their offseason to train and recruit for next season.

COURTESY OF CSUF WOMEN’S RUGBY

Women’s rugby has high hopes

Softball looking to keep momentum goingTitans to host Buffalo Bulls after sweeping Easton Tournament

RUDY CHINCHILLADaily Titan

Senior first baseman Eliza Crawford fields a grounder during warmups. The CSUF pitching and defense were superb in the Easton Tournament, allowing just one run in their four games combined. The Titans will look to match that effort against Buffalo Tuesday.

AMANDA SHARP / DAILY TITAN FILE PHOTO