Volume 45 Issue 12 [1/13/2011]

Thursday, January 13, 2011Vol. 45 Issue No. 12

GraffitiRaises AlarmCampus warned against potential violence

Norse’s Recent Victory p. 10 Football’s Anti-Heroes p. 21

Palin’s Politics p. 22

p. 7

Editors-in-ChiefJenny CainArianna Puopolo

Managing EditorsJulia ReisAlejandro Trejo

CopyMelinda Széll, chiefNicole HardinMolly KossoffRachel Singer

ProductionTess Goodwin, design directorEmily ChisholmHilli CiavarelloSamved Sangameswara

Campus NewsArianna Puopolo, editorJulie Eng, editorRosela ArceRosa CastañedaElaine EjiguKara ForanLaurel Fujii

City NewsBlair Stenvick, editorMikaela Todd, editorChelsea HawkinsStephanie MeadeMichael MottNikki Pritchard

SportsJoey Bien-Kahn, editorElizabeth ArakelianSasha Yovanovich

Arts and EntertainmentAsa Hess-Matsumoto, editorGareth Rees-WhiteRosanna van Straten

Politics and CultureJenny Cain, editorPearl Perez

WebTimothy Lindvall II, developer

Photo/IllustrationMorgan Grana, editorIsaac Miller, editorMatt BobletRachel EdelsteinSalvador IngramMuriel GordonLouise Leong Kyan MahzoufBela MessexNick ParisMolly SolomonKristian TalleyRyan TuttlePatrick YeungPrescott Watson

AdvertisingRyan Ayers, managerAlex LattinPrescott Watson

BusinessBrittany Thompson, manager

Public DiscourseHow would having a child affect your participation at UCSC?

Compiled by Laurel Fujii & Molly Solomon

“I already have a lot on my plate, so it would add more pressure to my schoolwork. It would also be a positive thing, because you’re adding another member to your family. Having children is cool and fun when you’re ready for it.” FELIZ QUINONES THIRD-YEAR, OAKES

INTENSIVE PSYCHOLOGY

“I don’t think I would be at UCSC. I think I’d take a leave of absence and go to a community college. I’d get a job and take night classes.”

CRYSTAL CAJILOGFOURTH-YEAR, OAKES

PSYCHOLOGY

“My life would revolve around my kid. I’d probably drop out and my world would revolve around it.”

LLOYD ALABANFOURTH-YEAR, COLLEGE NINE

SOCIOLOGY

“I guess it depends on how rowdy the kid is. If he’s a rowdy punk-ass, I’d have to drop out. But if he’s a good kid, I guess I could stay.”

WYATT FLOERKETHIRD-YEAR, COWELL

ECOLOGY & EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY

About Us

City on a Hill Press is produced by and for UCSC students. Our primary goal is to report and analyze issues affecting the student population and the Santa Cruz community.

We also serve to watchdog the politics of the UC administra-tion. While we endeavor to present multiple sides of a story, we realize our own outlooks influence the presentation of the news. The CHP collective is dedicated to covering underreported events, ideas and voices. Our desks are devoted to certain topics: campus and city news, sports, arts and entertainment and politics and cul-ture. CHP is a campus paper, but it also provides space for Santa Cruz residents to present their views and interact with the campus community. Ideally, CHP’s pages will serve as an arena for debate, challenge, and ultimately, change.

City on a Hill Press is published weekly by the City on a Hill Press publishing group from the last week of September to the first week of June, except during Thanksgiving, winter and spring quarter breaks.

The opinions expressed in this paper do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the staff at large, or the University of California.

Contact

General editorial(831) [email protected]

Advertising(831) 459-2444advertising@ cityonahillpress.com

Friend us on Facebookfacebook.com/cityonahill-press

Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/cityonahill

Business(831) 459-4350

Send letters toCity on a Hill PressUCSC Press Center1156 High St.Santa Cruz, CA [email protected]

STAFF

2 | Thursday, January 13, 2011

Public Discourse

cityonahillpress.com | 3

Table of Contents

P. 4 AMERICAN STUDIES HOT TOPIC AT ADMINISTRATION PANELby Rosa Castañeda, Kara Foran, Julie Eng

P. 5 BROKE AND BROKEN: UAW CONTRACT WOESby Rosela Arce

P. 6 STUDENTS, FACULTY DISCUSS AMERICAN STUDIES SUSPENSIONby Laurel Fujii

P. 7 GRAFFITI SENDS SHOCK WAVES THROUGH STUDENT BODYby Julie Eng

P. 8 EVENTS CALENDARby Nicole Hardin, Molly Kossoff and Rachel Singer

P. 9 CITY PLANS LAUREL CROSSWALK FACE-LIFTby Michael Mott

P. 10 LOCAL ACTIVIST STRUGGLES AGAINST LOCAL GOVERNMENT by Blair Stenvick

P. 11 UCSC DISC GOLF CLUB WARRANTS ATTENTIONby Elizabeth Arakelian

P. 12 THROUGH OUR LENScompiled by Salvador Ingram

P. 15 CAHILL WESSEL KEEPS THE ART COMMUNITY ON ITS TOES by Rosanna van Straten

P. 18 GOV. BROWN ANNOUNCES OVER $12 BILLION IN BUDGET CUTSby Mikaela Todd

P. 19 DREAM ACT SET BACKby Pearl Perez

P. 20 PELL GRANT FUND SLASHED BY 15 PERCENTby Elaine Ejigu

P. 21 POST-SEASON IN THE NOTORIOUSLY FELONIOUS LEAGUEby Joey Bien-Kahn

P. 22 editorial: VIOLENCE IN POLITICS SHOWS A WIDENING GAP BETWEEN RIGHT AND LEFT

P. 23 editorial: NO CENTS FOR NON-SENSE

P. 24 WHO THE HELL ASKED YOU?!compiled by Elizabeth Arakelian & Kyan Mahzouf&SLUG COMICS by Muriel Gordon

Table of Contents Nick Paris

P. 9 SUSPICIOUS PACKAGE DEEMED HARMLESSby Chelsea Hawkins

P. 16 BALANCING MOTHERHOOD AND EDUCATION: SINGLE MOMS ON CAMPUSby Rosela Arce

Cover design by Hilli Ciavarello & Isaac Miller

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein


Campus

Chancellor George Blumenthal and executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway met with student media news organizations at the chancellor’s quarterly press conference Monday. Among other issues, the administrators responded to queries about the governor’s proposed budget and the future of American studies.

City on a Hill Press: How will the potential suspension of American studies affect the chancellor’s vision of a “cross-cultural” campus?

GB: Both American studies and community studies are programs that do have important cross-cultural contributions that they have made. But I still think, that even with the suspension of admission of new undergradu-ate majors in both cases, there remain programs on this campus that really do provide significant cross-cultural opportunities for students. [The suspension] by no means reflects a reluctance to have them. The steps that involve those suspensions came about for a lot of different reasons, includ-ing the question of whether or not we can continue to support these students at the level they have been enrolling. But their suspension provides us an op-portunity to rethink some of these programs and perhaps have them come back in a different form that might better the cross-cultural initiatives we’d like to see on this campus. I don’t see that as a takeaway. I see that as an op-portunity to improve.

AG: [The suspension of Ameri-can studies] it is very much something we need to work on with the faculty to see if we can take this decision and make it into an opportunity to reformat

some of these things, in particu-lar around ethnic studies. GB: There has been a lot of concern on the part of students as to whether or not we can have an ethnic studies program or major on the campus. The faculty decided many years ago that our equivalent of ethnic studies would live within the American studies major. So the potential suspension of that major does give us an opportunity to rethink things, and we could very well end up in a better place than where we started with.

CHP: How will the university account for the lack of diversity in student interest that might come with the suspension of American studies?

AG: Well, the majors themselves have probably [had] around 200 majors in each of those or maybe a little bit less. So it’s not an incredibly large number of students. More than likely, most of those students would be adopted to other majors on campus. Those programs may not serve exactly the kind of things they would like to do, but we still have the option for the individual majors as well, so some students may be constructing their own majors around that. There are in-ternship programs, such as were provided to community studies, in other fields as well. Sociology and environmental studies, for example, have internship pro-grams. So students may go into those areas as well.

KZSC: In light of the governor’s proposed cuts to higher educa-tion, do you have any insights as to what is going to happen to the university?

GB: We are fortunate that we haven’t spent all the money we

got last year. But we will have to make some significant additional cuts. That will mean that we won’t be able to do everything that we currently are doing, which is already cut back from what we were doing a few years ago. I don’t think we’re in a posi-tion to say specifically which programs might be affected. We can say that a year from now, if this budget passes as it was proposed today, we will have to make cuts. Making cuts means that a year from now there won’t be as many people working at the university as there are today and that’s going to mean a loss of services for students. Exactly where they’re going to be, we don’t know yet.

AG: Obviously, cutting programs in and of itself does not save us money unless the costs associated with those programs go away. And that is something we haven’t done. We have kept the faculty going with most of the depart-ments. The idea that we can just simply go in and discontinue teaching certain areas as we have done in the past doesn’t save us money. So we’re looking at ways of trying to preserve as much of the academic mission as we can. But still realizing savings in other areas.

On the Spot: As UCSC isn’t predominantly a graduate program-focused campus, when budget cuts are enforced, do graduate programs get cut more than undergraduate programs? GB: It isn’t easy to look at bud-get cuts always and say, “This is undergraduate, and that is graduate.” We do have a graduate division which does have some money. But most of the cuts that take place on campus affect sup-port units or even if they affect

the department, they might affect graduates the same as under-graduates depending on the department and depending upon where the department’s priori-ties may lie. In addition to that, I would say you’re right, graduate students constitute 10 percent of the student body in this campus and that is one of the lowest if not the lowest of the UC system. But it has long been a goal of the campus and a goal of mine to increase the percentage of gradu-ate students, certainly not to the level of Berkeley or UCLA but at least up to a level that is more consistent to the rest of the UCs. I think it may not be a priority we can easily attain during a time of decreasing budgets, but it is still a priority.

AG: Many times the cuts that we think of as being primarily focused towards the undergradu-ates have profound effects on the graduate programs as well. Examples of these are things like the temporary support for teach-ing. In many cases we cut those teaching assistants but also teach-ing fellows. So we have fewer sections available for under-graduates. We have fewer course offerings available for under-graduates. Unfortunately, those have implications on graduate students too, for whom teach-ing assistantships and teaching fellowships are a very important means of support, so it hits both undergraduates and graduates.

And unfortunately, that is the way things are: One blow does not hit just one people — it hits many.

CHP: With the budget cuts, how can we keep and attract great professors?

GB: I think a lot of our faculty come here and stay here because of the quality of our students, because of the nature of their interactions with other faculty. The research environment and the teaching environment are very important for the faculty, as well as what the future will hold, if things will get better or if they will get worse. I will say up front that we do not pay our fac-ulty adequately. Our faculty are underpaid by national standards — they are easily more than 10 percent underpaid relative to faculty elsewhere at equivalent institutions. Over the past few years our faculty have even been underpaid relative to the UC sys-tem. We’ve been trying, over the last two years and will continue this year, to make sure that our faculty are at least not underpaid relative to other UCs. We don’t have enough money to make them not underpaid relative to the rest of the country, but at least relative to the rest of the UC system, I think that’s one of our obligations. We’ve made enor-mous progress in that regard in the last two years, and I’m hoping we’ll finish the job this year.

Chancellor, EVC Defend Decision to Cut American StudiesAdministrators meet with student media for quarterly press conference

By Rosa CastañedaCampus Reporter

Kara ForanCampus Reporter

Julie EngCampus Co-Editor

& &

Prescott Watson


Campus

Academic Student Employees Disagree Over Contract

New UAW agreement causes dissent within the union

By Rosela ArceCampus Reporter

Members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) Local 2865 ratified a new contract with the University of California ending a four-day voting period Dec. 2 of last year. The proposed contract was approved with a final 62.4 percent vote in a statewide tally.

The union represents more than 12,000 academic student employees, whose mem-bers were divided on the terms of the new contract. While the University of Califor-nia and the UAW were able to reach an agreement after six months of negotiation, some members are unhappy with the contract’s terms.

“The contract’s a joke,” said Brian Malone, literature graduate student and campus unit chair in UCSC for the UAW Local 2865. “I think we’re only seeing that more clearly now. By UC’s own admission, our stipends are wildly below what they should be.”

The UC Office of the President’s recent graduate student survey report found that UC’s average net stipend offer was lower than its competitors’ by $2,697. Adding in the average cost of living at UC locations over non-UC locations, the UCOP report found academic student employees had an overall shortcoming of $4,978.

“I really think this drives home the point that UC is making itself noncompetitive with similar institutions,” Jessica Lancaster, UCSC academic student employee representative, said in an e-mail.

In an open letter, Malone and Lan-caster of UCSC, Nick Kardahji and Jessica Taal of UC Berkeley, and Bron Tamulis of UC Irvine, all dissenting academic student employee representatives, said they felt disappointed by the annual 2 percent wage increase, which falls short of the 3 percent annual inflation rate reported in 2009.

“It’s so expensive to live here in California, already [without the 2 percent increase],” Lancaster said.

The dissenters are in the process of forming an additional organization within the UAW called Academic Workers for a Democratic Union (AWDU), which stemmed from the “no” vote campaign on the contract. Those who disagreed with the tentative agreement, which was settled Nov. 16 of last year, raised a campaign within the two weeks before the voting period.

“It was really exciting to see people

coming together so fast at so many cam-puses,” Lancaster said. “There was this large coordinated effort to blow down the contract, so we could go back to negotia-tions and get something better for our members.”

AWDU members are now creating official chapters on UC campuses, with headquarters in Berkeley. The UCSC chapter is expected to officiate by the end of this month. Because the current contract is legally binding, Malone said the group cannot change the terms of the current con-tract, but instead hopes to change the structure of the UAW.

“We’re organizing these caucuses as of-fering a different vision than how the UAW executive board has been running the union,” Malone said. “I got the feeling that a lot of [representatives in the UAW bar-gaining team] were tired and scared of the UC, and felt like, ‘If we can get anything, we can then go back to our members and say that we squeezed something out of the UC.’”

Michael Strack, an academic student employee for UC Santa Barbara, had a dif-ferent take on the results of the contract.

“[The contract] is a really good deal for me, being a TA,” Strack said. “I’m very sat-isfied. The major win was obviously that, as things are getting worse, and programs and everything are getting cut, being a TA is still an appealing job.”

Santa Barbara, which received one of the highest number of “yes” votes, holds the majority of UAW leadership.

“I haven’t met anybody who’s com-plaining about the contract,” Strack said. “This is my specific department [in electrical engineering], so I can’t speak for everybody else, but I know that we’re very happy. It seems to be all positive feedback from the community.”

UC Irvine and UC Davis were the only campuses where voting results were close in number, reflecting division with the campuses.

“Irvine is a really interesting case,” Malone said. “A group of activists has sprung up [in UC Irvine], very indepen-dent of the UAW… and sort of said, ‘We’re willing to fight, and we’re not willing to take whatever the UC and the UAW lead-ership tell us.’”

Illustration by Louise Leong


Campus

After learning about their depart-ment’s suspension, American studies majors rallied together to organize a town hall meeting to express their con-fusion and anger.

Students affiliated with the major were notified this month that admission to the American studies major will be suspended July 1.

Fourth-year American studies major Shawn Freeman, who helped organize the informational meeting, said it was successful.

“This is exactly what I was expecting,” Freeman said. “Students had concerns and they expressed [them], considering the meeting went over an hour.”

Approximately 30 to 40 students squeezed into conference room 202 in Humanities 1 on Monday afternoon and voiced their opinions and questions.

Some missed class for this oppor-tunity. Others weren’t even American studies majors.

American studies department chair and professor Eric Porter, who sent the e-mail notice of the suspension to majors and proposed majors, led the discussion. The vice provost and dean of undergraduate education Bill Ladusaw and two of the four other American stud-ies faculty members were also present.

Fourth-year American studies major Elena Brown was pleased with the out-come of the conference.

“We didn’t want just dialogue from them,” she said. “We weren’t sure of what the format of the meeting would be.”

Fourth-year American studies major Perry Trucco thought the meeting was straightforward.

“[Porter] wanted to put into our heads there’s not much we can do,” he said. “The true issue isn’t in our hands. Everybody wanted to do something, but it’s not in our control at this point.”

Porter said it was the American studies faculty who voted within the department itself to suspend the major.

Unlike community studies, which was cut in spring 2009, American studies faces suspension rather than elimination. The decision to discontinue commu-nity studies was made primarily by one administrator. American studies, on the other hand, was suspended based on the recommendations of the department’s faculty.

“There have been too few resources for too long,” Porter said.

In addition to the budget cuts, faculty members have transferred out of the department or to other universities.

When students asked why the school

added the new Jewish studies major, the American studies faculty said that the new major requires far fewer resources than American studies would need. Unlike American studies, which has its own professors dedicated to the major, Jewish studies relies on the faculty of other departments, such as history of consciousness, literature and music.

At a quarterly press conference Monday, UCSC Chancellor George Blumenthal said he is optimistic about the suspension. He hopes it will create new opportunities to develop programs like ethnic studies.

“The suspension, or the potential suspension of that major does give us an opportunity to rethink things from anew,” he said, “and we could very well end up in a better place than where we started.”

But students don’t want a new place to start.

Some were frustrated by the short notice and finality of the suspension.

“It’s a little too late,” Brown said. “[The faculty] already have their minds set. They could’ve opened dialogue a lot sooner. I’m a little skeptical ... about their intentions, and maybe they’re just trying to save their own asses.”

Students want to save American studies any way that they can. Some suggested creating a new major with the combination of American studies and ethnic studies.

American studies professor Kimberly

Lau said the faculty has already consid-ered this option.

“We talked to everyone on campus about collaborating, but because of resource scarcity it’s difficult for them,” she said.

Another idea was to integrate the goals of American studies into the classes of other departments.

Trucco said the program helped him appreciate aspects of history he wouldn’t have learned in other classes.

“You can’t get that stuff from other majors,” he said. “It enlightened me more so than I anticipated.”

Lau said the suspension may even benefit American studies majors.

This spring is the last quarter Intro-duction to American Studies will be offered. Instead of teaching the intro-duction course, professors and teach-ing assistants will be able to teach more upper-division courses next year.

And because Introduction to Ameri-can Studies is the only pre-requisite for declaring the major, proposed majors should not have a problem declaring this year.

In 2012–2013, the absence of the 100, 101 and 102 series will free up professors and TAs to teach other American studies electives.

As a result, class sizes will decrease and more courses will be offered for declared majors.

Any proposed majors can get into

Introduction to American Studies next quarter and shouldn’t have trouble pursu-ing the major, the faculty said.

The suspension should not affect majors’ applications to graduate or law school, department chair Porter said.

Meeting organizer Freeman said the turnout was good considering the short notice. Messages announcing the town hall were sent en masse to students and alumni throughout the community.

Meeting organizers met on Saturday night and Monday morning to collabo-rate on a list of concerns.

Students wanted to know what elimi-nating the concentration actually means for the campus community, Freeman said.

Porter said many American studies lecturers and staff work in other depart-ments as well.

Students said they are interested in planning another meeting, possibly with the Student Union Assembly.

Porter said no promises were made to lecturers and graduate students concern-ing jobs for the future or that American studies would be back in two years.

“Even if we hire another faculty mem-ber, that’s not the progress we want to make,” Porter said.

For the time being, the suspension stands, but Porter said he will do his best to maintain future communication with students.

“That’s all we can do,” he said. “There’s just a handful of us.”

Students Meet to Defend American StudiesTown hall discussion organized in response to suspension of major

By Laurel FujiiCampus Reporter

STUDENTS ORGANIZED a meeting on Monday to get answers to their questions about the sudden announcement that the American studies major would be suspended. Approximately 30 to 40 students attended the town hall meeting, along with three of the five department faculty members. Students offered their suggestions on how to maintain the goals of the American studies department even after its suspension.

Nick Paris


Campus

Graffiti Writer Threatens ViolenceMessage discovered in campus bathroom sparks investigation

Graffiti threatening violence, found in a campus bathroom, has prompted an investigation by the UC Santa Cruz administra-tion and police. The graffiti was discovered in early December, before students left for winter break.

Administrators issued an email advisory to the campus community Jan. 11 alerting students and faculty of the discovery of the graffiti, and asking them to be alert for suspi-cious behavior. Recipients were warned that the message threat-ened violence on Jan. 18. Exact details were not included.

UCSC director of public information Jim Burns said the

administration has no plans to release further details.

Sam*, a UCSC student who lives on campus, was informed about the graffiti by a UCSC staff member on Jan. 6. Though he was asked not to share the details of the threat, Sam has since told

“quite a few people,” he said.Burns confirmed that

“members of the campus’ senior leadership team were among the people informed,” before the e-

mail advisory was sent out. In an interview conducted

prior to the release of the official alert, Sam said that though he understands the university’s position, he was concerned for students’ safety. He decided to alert his peers of the threat as

they had not yet been informed by the university.

“I don’t want to interfere with any investigation, but this is too important,” Sam said. “Of course,

it is in the administration’s best interest [not to tell], but I don’t think the university’s best inter-est and the students’ best interest align in this case. I think the best thing is to tell people.”

He said a university staff member informed him about the

threat and included details not disclosed in the advisory e-mail. Sam said, in the message, discov-ered in a men’s bathroom on the first floor of the Social Sciences 2 building, the individual threat-ened to harm a finite number of students before hurting them-selves.

Burns and executive vice chancellor Alison Galloway declined to comment on specific details of the message beyond what was included in the advi-sory e-mail.

The graffiti message was removed shortly after its discov-ery. Jim Durning, supervisor of the UCSC Paint/Sign Shop, said that after threatening graffiti is reported, protocol requires police officers take a picture of the message and members of Durning’s staff are called in to remove it. Durning confirmed that a member of his staff did paint over the message after they were called to do so.

When it was discovered, certain aspects of the message were detailed enough to warrant the administration’s concern, Galloway said.

“The information we had, had enough specificity in it that we were concerned and thought

we should take it seriously,” Galloway said. “That doesn’t mean that it is a legitimate threat — it could be a number of things. But we felt we had to treat it as if it was a serious concern. So we’ve been trying to … reach out to find out who this individual will be and if we can offer some help, offer some intervention.”

UCSC interim police chief Ava Snyder said that an investi-gation has been ongoing since the graffiti was discovered by a student Dec. 2. Though the FBI was contacted for consultation, it is not investigating the incident.

While the UCSC Police De-partment’s plans for next Tuesday cannot be revealed, Snyder said that supporting law enforcement agencies have been notified in case assistance is needed.

As of press time, the admin-istration has no plans to close campus on Jan. 18, said Jim Burns, UCSC’s director of public information.

“We are planning for campus to be open,” he said.

Though the graffiti was discovered in early December, the administration did not send out an advisory until Jan. 11. Galloway said that in withholding the information, the administration hoped to avoid causing unwarranted panic.

“Obviously, the ideal for us would have been to have found the person already and not have to worry about exposing people to the stress of hearing this on our campus,” she said. “But we haven’t been able to do that, so we felt we really had an obliga-tion to the campus community to let them know … that something could happen. And they should be prepared.”

Additional reporting by Arianna Puopolo.

*Names have been changed.

By Julie EngCampus Co-Editor

“The information we had, had enough specificity in it that we were con-cerned and thought we should take it seriously.”

— Alison Galloway, executive vice chancellor


Calendar

CampusTHURSDAY, JAN. 13• Reading: Karen Tei Yamashita, “I Hotel.” Living Writers series. Reading by National Book Award nominee and cre-ative writing professor and Q&A session with her publisher. Humanities Lecture Hall 206. 6 p.m.• Presentation: John MacFarlane: “A Puzzle About Modal Necessity.” Lecture part of the Philosophy Colloquium Series sponsored by the Santa Cruz Linguistics and Philosophy Group. Humanities 1, Room 210. 4 to 6 p.m. Free.• Sports: UCSC men’s basketball vs. Chapman. West Field House. 7 p.m. $5 general, $3 for seniors 65 and up, $1 for students.

FRIDAY, JAN. 14• Volunteer: Blood drive. Porter Fireside Lounge. 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

SATURDAY, JAN. 15• Concert: New Music Works presents “Women’s Voices.” UCSC Music Recital Hall. 7:30 p.m. $23 general admission, $12 for students, $3 for UCSC

music students.

TUESDAY, JAN. 18• Class: Blues dancing. Kresge Town Hall. 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. Free.

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 19• Lecture: Joshua Schreier: “Arabs of the Jewish Faith: The Civilizing Mission in Colonial Algeria.” Humanities 1 Room 210. 12 p.m. Free.• Workshop: Annual Arboretum Vol-unteer Training. UCSC Arboretum. 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Free.• Class: Swinging Slugs swing dancing. Porter College I-Lounge. 8:30 to 10:30 p.m. Free.

CityTHURSDAY, JAN. 13• Concert: Professor Burns and The Lilac Field, Emily Moldy Band. The Crêpe Place. 9 p.m. $8.• Festival: 8Tens @ Eight Festival. 16th annual edition highlighting talent of eight playwrights. Actors’ Theatre. 8 p.m. • Concert: Erik Telford Collective.

Kuumbwa Jazz Center. 7 p.m. Tickets $12 in advance, $15 at door.• Concert: Tribal Seeds, Thrive, Fortu-nate Youth. The Catalyst. 9 p.m. $10 in advance, $14 at door. Ages 16 and up.• Film: “The Blues Brothers.” Regal Cin-ema 9. 8 p.m. $5.

FRIDAY, JAN. 14• Concert: Yard Dogs Road Show. Rio Theatre. 8 p.m. $20 in advance, $23 at door.• Concert: The Afro Funk Experience. The Crêpe Place. 9 p.m. $8.• Concert: David Grisman/Martin Taylor Duo. Kuumbwa Jazz Center. 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. $25 in advance, $28 at door. • Film: “The Big Lebowski.” Del Mar Theatre. 11:59 p.m. $6.50. Event repeats Jan. 15.

SATURDAY, JAN. 15• Concert: CYH Presents: The Black Swans, Elders, Tether Horse. The Crêpe Place. 9 p.m. $8 in advance, $10 at door.• Benefit/Concert: YRB Benefit, fea-turing Extra Large, Houston Jones and Honeymoon. Kuumbwa Jazz Center. Silent auction 6 p.m. Concert 7 p.m. $20.

Tickets available in advance at Gateway Books, Streetlight Records or brownpapertickets.com. • Concert: The Jacka Husalah, DJ Quest, Erk the Jerk, Los Rakas, Nima Fadavi. The Catalyst. 9 p.m. $24 in advance, $29 at door. Ages 16 and up.• Concert: Acoustic Infusion: A Winter Evening with Round Mountain, Inga Swearingen, Amanda West. The Abbey Coffee, Art and Music Lounge. 7 p.m. Free. Requested donation $10-15.

SUNDAY, JAN. 16• Concert: Blazing Steels, featuring Henhouse. The Crêpe Place. 7 p.m. Free.

MONDAY, JAN. 17• Concert: Rudder. Kuumbwa Jazz Cen-ter. 7 p.m. $20 in advance, $23 at door, half-price for students.• Concert: JFK of MSTRKRFT, Mikey Lion, Easy Love Records. The Catalyst. 8 p.m. $25 in advance only. Ages 18 and up.

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 19• Concert: Mac Miller, Casey Miller. The Catalyst. 9 p.m. $12 in advance, $15 at door. Ages 16 and up.

By Nicole HardinCopy Editor

Molly KossoffCopy Editor

Rachel SingerCopy EditorEvent Calendar & &


City

Laurel Street Sees ImprovementUpgraded crosswalks receive community support

By Michael MottCity Reporter

Laurel Street, a major avenue to the downtown area, will be receiving some major improve-ments.

Between California and Pacific Avenue, Laurel Street is a bustle of activity: Cars, buses and bikes on Laurel Street are constantly turning, changing lanes and entering cross-streets. Pedestrians head to and from their homes, students head to the local restaurants and bookstores, and almost everyone heads downtown. This activity only in-creases at night, as people stream to Pacific Avenue, and this can

be dangerous. Over a year ago, 60-year-old

Harish Tailor was struck and killed at Felix and Laurel, on a dimly lit crosswalk. At this cross-walk and at another one a block east on Blackburn Street, the city will be paying for a step-up in safety.

The plan, intended for sum-mer, will include a raised island with curbs in the middle of the street, bisecting the cross-walk. This will also create room for left-turn lanes and will be funded by a $50,000 grant from the California Transportation Development Act, which was created in 1972.

Mayor Ryan Coonerty said the daily activity on Laurel Street

presents safety concerns worth addressing.

“On Laurel, traffic goes too fast, and people are always cross-ing, and this is a good step we can take to make things a little safer,” Coonerty said.

Both streets are lined with apartment buildings and homes, which house many UCSC stu-dents who must cross the street in order to take the bus up to campus.

Local resident and second-year economics and mathematics major Jaime Martinez explained the problems with the current crossing situation.

“It really can be scary,” Martinez said. “There are always cars coming fast down the hill,

and at night there is definitely a lot of traffic.”

Second-year electrical en-gineering major Steven Telles, another student and resident of Felix Street, said that a turn lane would be especially helpful.

“The cars coming from downtown are battling to turn with the cars coming down the hill,” Telles said. “You don’t know when one might just drive around a car that’s about to turn.”

Vice Mayor Don Lane under-stood safety’s importance as well.

“It’s a great idea to slow traffic coming down the steep hill from California Street,” Lane said in an e-mail. “Clearly, we need to do as much as possible to protect all the folks who are crossing the

street at the bottom of the hill.”Denise Acosta, an employee

at the Salvation Army off of Blackburn Street, is optimistic about the plan because it will help a variety of Santa Cruz residents.

“Not only is it unsafe for UCSC students, but there are children as well, since there is a high school and junior high nearby,” Acosta said. “Also, we do get a lot of elderly with walkers who will get off the bus and cross the street. Some even have stroll-ers with kids.”

Lane explained why the city is improving Laurel Street.

“There was a fatal accident there last year, and we don’t want to see that happen again.”

After examination of an unknown bag in University Town Center, police determine false alarm

Walking the stairs of the University Town Center (UTC) last Monday afternoon, resi-dence and office doors remained closed, and the only sound to be heard was the occasional shuf-fling of feet as students quietly returned to their apartments.

Earlier that morning, students had been evacuated from the UTC building after a suspicious object was found on the third floor near the Internal Revenue Service office. The ob-ject, which was later determined to be a laptop and some wires, was found to be harmless.

There has not been a bomb threat associated with UC Santa Cruz in the past three years, according to the UC Police Department website.

“Since [the object] was placed there before [the offices] opened, they weren’t sure if it was placed maliciously or what might be in it, so we worked with federal of-ficials — because this is a federal office — to determine what was in there,” said Zach Friend, spokesperson for the Santa Cruz Police Department.

The sheriff ’s bomb squad

examined the package and determined nothing inside to be “dangerous,” Friend said.

There were two people from the sheriff department’s bomb squad and six officers dealing with evacuations. An onlooker remarked that when she saw the number of police and fire personnel present, she “thought someone had died.”

Sgt. Tom Bailey said that the Santa Cruz Police Department had received a call from a tenant at around 9:15 a.m. Monday, and also said it is normal protocol to call out the county bomb squad in these types of situations. Once the situation was resolved, he stated that the package did not appear to be an “intentional threat or decoy.”

Although it was determined later that the unattended bag did not pose a threat, some students expressed appreciation for mea-sures the police department took to insure their safety.

Evan Leckman, a third-year literature student who currently resides in the UTC building, understood the situation to be a necessary step toward public protection, despite being hur-riedly bustled out into the chilly morning.

“I don’t want to say [being

evacuated] was an inconvenience because you never know about this kind of stuff and, I mean that whole congresswoman [shooting] just happened,” Leckman said. “They’re just do-ing their job.”

Leckman stood in the stairwell, coffee in hand and textbook cradled under his arm, and described the experience of being asked to immediately evacuate his apartment earlier that morning.

“[The cops] were like, ‘Get out, right now,’” Leckman said.

“I got a book I needed to read for tomorrow, put on a shirt, and went outside. Everyone was just standing out there.”

Leckman said the students were unsure of what was really going on.

“I thought it was the ACLU that [was] threatened, but it wasn’t, it was the IRS,” Leckman said.

The American Civil Liberties Union office neighbors the IRS office in the UTC building.

Although it was difficult to gauge, since many residents were

already away from the building, Bailey estimated that at least half the residents of the UTC had been evacuated from their apartments. Leckman said the situation “wasn’t chaotic” despite students being given little time to leave.

“They had [cops] on every floor, and every time I walked by, [they were] like, ‘You didn’t forget anything, right? You’ve got your keys? Your wallet?’” Leckman said. “[The police] did a great job. They were really nice about it.”

By Chelsea HawkinsCity Reporter

Bomb Scare Leads to Evacuation

Prescott WatsonFIREFIGHTERS PREPARE the University Town Center to allow students and staff back into the building. Students were evacuated from the building when a suspicious object was found on the third floor.


City

The founder of Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom, Robert Norse, is nothing if not a personal-ity — from his voluminous gray beard to his gregari-ous and passionate nature, to the extremely detailed and elaborate speech that every question or remark is likely to elicit.

Having interviewed him several times now, it’s clear that Norse lives to opine, and that has gotten him into a fair amount of trouble — he’s been ar-rested or asked to leave city council meetings a number of times. In 2002, he gave a mock Nazi salute when he thought a council mem-ber cut off another public commentator unfairly, and after being arrested with-out charges, Norse sued

the council. He just won a unanimous decision in his favor from the Ninth Court of Appeals, so I met him at Yan Flower to discuss the case, as well as what he sees as much larger problems with the Santa Cruz City Council.

City on a Hill Press: What do you think your recent victory will mean for Santa Cruz?

RN: It means the city council will probably be a little more nervous about repressing people. They need to exert their own power, they think, in order to prevent other people from ex-ercising their First Amendment rights when they’re in opposition to the council. They have a very high-handed sense of what con-stitutes their power. They believe they can call a “thumbs down” gesture a disruption from the audience. The real issue is they don’t like being called fascists, when they’re acting in a fascist manner.

CHP: Part of the council’s de-

fense in this case is that remov-ing you was “human nature.” What do you think of that?

RN: Strange defense. People in political power have a respon-sibility that people in their own homes don’t have. If you’re in an elected office at a public meet-ing, you have an obligation to hear the public, even if you don’t like what they’re saying. It may be human nature for you to say, “Hey, I want to kick this guy out cause I’ve got an armed police officer here who will back me up even if it’s a violation of the con-stitution.” That’s human nature, perhaps, but it’s not the best part of human nature, and [not] the way a democracy should be run.

CHP: You’ve publicly expressed that the mock-salute fiasco was no isolated incident, but part of a larger problem with the city council abusing power. What do you mean by this, and has it gotten better or worse since 2002?

RN: We have a lawless city in some respects. The mayor re-stricts public space and restricts public comments at city council

meetings.It’s gotten worse. Coonerty has introduced rules that are even worse than [former mayor] Rotkin’s. Coonerty’s rules require that for the public, you’re only allowed to speak for two minutes for all 18 items, put together [during a city council meeting]. It’s unlike any law in any city in California, as far as I know. You can speak five seconds for each item, if you’re lucky. You’re not allowed to talk for more than that, unless you have the consent, the sacred consent, of one of the city council members who know better than the public what items you’re allowed to talk about. That’s a clear violation of both the Brown Act and the First Amendment. This is based on the illusion that they only have limited time, when in fact they could expand the time, obvious-ly, to accommodate people who want to talk, as, for example, the board of supervisors does, and as the Berkeley City Council does.

CHP: Several city council mem-bers, both new and old, have expressed a desire to cut home-less services spending. What do you think of their reasoning

that it would free up funds for other important things, like education?

RN: And like hiring more police officers to arrest homeless people downtown, which they did in a secret, closed session last year. Well, I have to be fair, Hilary Bryant I only talked to once on the sidewalk, and David Terrazas I know only in passing, so I have to talk to them first. Coonerty, of course, is another matter entirely. He refuses to respond to things as a public official, which is a real fault.

CHP: Would you like to see more Santa Cruz residents be-come actively involved in local issues?

RN: Citizens need to establish alternate organs of government. Citizens need to establish es-sentially a parallel government where they set up their own priorities, allow their own input. Conservatives have already done this with groups like the Santa Cruz Neighbors and Take Back Santa Cruz. It’s time for the rest of us to do it so that there’s a counterbalance.

Q&A: Robert Norse

By Blair StenvickCity Co-Editor

Local activist talks about taking on the city council

Ryan Tuttle


Sports

Discovering Disc GolfClub sport has hard-core enthusiasts, others remain oblivious

As the sun gains strength for the day on an early morning in January, two athletes emerge from the shadows that low light has cut upon the East Field. These UC Santa Cruz students are throwing what look like petite Frisbees hundreds of feet across the field. The discs cut the clear air for a few moments before skidding to a stop across the grass, still dotted with dew. One of the students, Ian Kitrick, comments on the beauty of the gliding discs as he leans back and admires his 400-foot throw.

Kitrick is the captain of the disc golf club team. He, along with Colin Chambers, the club’s president, are avid disc golfers.

“I began playing when I was four years old,” Chambers said, peering out at the field through

his glasses. “My mom took me to play so I could burn off some energy. In high school I played occasionally with friends, and last summer I played pretty much every day.”

Although Kitrick has not played disc golf for as long, his enthusiasm for the sport is evident.

“Some friends got me into disc golf about a year ago and now I’m hooked,” Kitrick said.

Disc golf is very similar to regular golf. The goal of both is to complete the course in the fewest attempts possible. Players use discs of varying size de-pending on the distance of each shot, just as golfers use specific clubs depending on distance and terrain. And disc golf courses are sprawling grass fields, just like golf courses — though disc golfers throw toward large chain baskets rather than putting toward holes.

On disc golf courses, there are mandatories, known as “mandos,” which are specific obstacles that everyone must follow, such as having to throw a disc to the right of a particular tree. There are also one stroke penalties added to players’ score if they lose a disc or throw one out of bounds, in water or too high up in a tree.

The discs are composed of a hard, somewhat thick plastic and vary in size and width of rim. There are different styles of throwing the discs: the toma-hawk, thumber, backhand, or sidearm, to name a few.

“There is a basic form to learn,” Chambers said, “but everyone ends up tweaking it to find their own style.”

Kevin “Skippy” Givens is the UCSC sports club supervi-sor and former coach of the disc golf club. The game has been around since the late ’60s,

Givens said, and it is a natural progression from the game of Frisbee.

“In 1976, the first official disc golf course was created at the Oak Grove Course in Southern California,” Givens said. “Prior to that, people would throw Frisbees at lamp posts and ob-jects of the like, creating a kind of course by themselves. It was only a matter of time until this game became official.”

The team is fortunate to have a world-class champion, Avery Jenkins, training them. Jenkins was gone fall quarter, but the club eagerly awaits his return this quarter.

For world-class champions like Jenkins and college-age enthusiasts alike, there are few better locations to practice disc golf than the world-renowned DeLaveaga Golf Course, located in Santa Cruz. Known as “DeLa” to the club, this course is known

for the challenging shots its terrain imposes. When not at DeLa, however, the club some-times works on distance throws down at the East Field.

Now that the UCSC team has a great coach and a location for practice, there is just one piece missing.

“We’d love to grow enough support to hopefully get a consistent group out playing,” Chambers said.

Kitrick and Chambers both said that though the team is a tight niche of friends, it has no problem including newcomers into the group. This is evident in its motto: “The most fun wins.”

As the two friends saunter out to collect their discs, the crispness of the morning fades. Hidden among the grass, the discs will eventually be found and packed away until the next cold winter morning when the team will throw them again.

By Elizabeth ArakelianSports Reporter

IAN KITRICK SHOWS OFF his disc golf technique on the East Field. Disc golfers are equipped with a bag of different discs that include drivers and putters. The distance of the throw depends greatly on the disc used and the type of throw.

Nick Paris


Photography

THROUGH OUR LENSPhotography & Words by Sal Ingram

On a recent trip to Nepal, I found portrait photography heaven. Every face was so unique, as were the natural and human landscapes. The people, coupled with consistently overcast weather and a 105mm manual focus macro lens, helped me shoot a collection of photos that has since become my personal favorite.

Continued on p. 14


Photography


Photography

THROUGH OUR LENSPhotos by Sal Ingram

Continued from p. 13

Cahill Wessel gets a kick out of turning humans into dino-saurs.

His creations may lounge by their pool, sip a cocktail or two, and take the “chilling” to the next level.

Having graduated from UC Santa Cruz last winter quarter with a fine art degree, Wessel is full of inspiration and ready to take over a variety of art scenes with his ink, watercolor and unique stylistic approach.

“What I do is incorporate objects that are familiar to every-one, something easily recognized like a taco or skull, and pair it with something completely different,” Wessel said. “Before, these objects are not connected,

but by pairing them together in random fashions, people can’t help but draw some association between the two objects.”

Although some may find his art shocking — with works bearing titles such as “Rhinos and Elephants Having an Orgy While Baseball Players Hit Hom-ers” and canvases showcasing penis banana boats — Wessel tries to keep it humorous and lighthearted, giving his audi-ence a great space for their own interpretation.

“I don’t want my work to be too direct,” Wessel said. “I just want to create funny scenes that have little things happen-ing within them that add to the story, whatever or whomever’s story it may be.”

As a young futurist and creative thinker, Wessel sees what is to come as exciting and

positive. However his work may be received or interpreted, he continues to create spaces in which all forms of stimulants and moments of time collide — kind of like an explosion.

Explosions. He likes those too, and it is reflected in his work in a splattered haze of bright colors and layered patterns.

“I like watching things blow up, but sometimes the wrong things blow up, and that can be really sad and unfortunate,” Wessel said.

The opening of Wessel’s art show at the First Friday event was “awesome,” he said.

“It was really refreshing to talk to a broader audience and see people of generations other then my own interested in my art work,” he said.

The theme of the works exhib-ited at Stripe was encompassing,

and created an opportunity to take things with a grain of salt and in a bit of a humorous way, just like Wessel’s art:

Everything explodes these days.

Wessel said that pop cul-ture magazines and television commercials often inspire the composition of his work: He says he envisions “modern trends, struggles, and accomplishments” when working on each of his pieces because the best art is

what is relevant to our modern society.

“When art is up-to-date, it becomes practical,” Wessel said. “When art is practical, that means it’s up-to-date with what

is happening in different sects of our modern culture.”

Ideally, Wessel would love to make a living creating art for all sorts of scenes, be it the amped and unrestricted style of skate art, the radical and real idea of live art, or the more simplistic independent show art. In the mission statement on Wessel’s website, his work is best de-scribed as an exploration into his interest for the new and his deep-seated openness to the sense of modernity that is often rejected within the art scene:

“We are constantly sur-rounded by our wildest dreams, our worst fears, and our highest hopes and aspirations,” Wessel said. “My work strives to explore our modern circumstance.”

He strives to take the sim-plistic and turn it into someone’s wildest dream, someone’s worst fear, or someone’s hopes and aspirations, whether his subjects be football players caught in an animal orgy or pin-up girls with babies for heads.

Check out Cahill’s art at Stripe in downtown Santa Cruz, 107

Walnut Street. His art will be up until Feb. 3. Prints of his work are

also for sale.


Arts & Entertainment

Skull Tacos and Banana BoatsFirst Friday artist and UCSC graduate Cahill Wessel discusses his inspirations and aspirations

By Rosanna van StratenArts & Entertainment

Reporter

“I like watching things blow up, but sometimes the wrong things blow up, and that can be really sad and unfortunate.”

– Cahill Wessel, artist

Photos courtesy of Cahill Wessel

UCSC GRADUATE Cahill Wessel showcases his unique artwork at downtown Santa Cruz’s First Friday art tour. Through his ink and watercolor techniques, Wessel portrays the usual as unusual, his panache for the bizarre both a mix of shock and humor.


Feature

All the Single Ladies

Single mothers struggle to find adequate child care resources on

campus

“My daughter’s father was very abusive, and I was in a very abusive relationship,” Perez said. “That is the reason I moved to Santa Cruz, to get out of the city that he was going to be paroled to.”

Perez came to Santa Cruz for a better life. She expected similar resources to be available here as they were at her former San Di-ego City College campus. There, she had access to their Child De-velopment Center’s early hours of operation, beginning at 7:30 a.m., and an on-site Cal-Works location.

Cal-Works is a program that provides financial services to low-income families with minor dependents.

The Cal-Works location in Santa Cruz is five and a half miles away from campus near a small residential neighborhood wedged in between Highway 1 and Highway 17. Visitors must have access to a car or bus route 4, Harvey West/Emeline.

Five and a half miles is only an inch on a Google map, but it is more of an obstacle course for a single mother with a pre-toddler at hand.

“I was under the impression the UC system was like [SD City College],” Perez said. “It would be nice if they had something specifically for single moms [at UCSC]. I was disappointed.”

Single mothers find them-selves struggling with the lack of services offered on campus, as well as with the structure of the

university calendar itself. For Perez and other single

parents, the current arrangement is not good enough. Resources are being cut left and right, leav-ing single mothers disappointed. The recently proposed cuts to state-funded aid for single parents would jeopardize their efforts to become financially in-dependent and limit their ability to provide for their children.

Picking up where former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger left off, newly elected Gov. Jerry Brown proposed to cut the third stage of Cal-Works, a resource that Perez used to depend on.

This last stage provided services to more than 81,000 children and around 60,000 families during the 2008-2009 fiscal year.

“These cuts will be painful, requiring sacrifice from every sector of the state, but we have no choice,” Brown said when he announced his proposal.

Perez says that these cuts would be detrimental to her financial stability, as Cal-Works covers one third of her total rent at Family Student Housing and almost $400 monthly for grocer-ies.

“I wouldn’t be able to [contin-ue school],” Perez said. “I don’t know what I’d do. I’m stressed on having two jobs already.”

In the midst of all this distress, single parents around the state are limited by the few resources offered in California. UCSC is no exception.

“Financial aid only covers nine of the 12 months you’re here,” Perez said. “I have to figure out how to pay the other three months.”

Full-time UCSC Dining employee Maria de la Cruz* can relate. Her petite frame and youthful-looking face hardly re-flect the difficulties life has made her endure. De la Cruz moved to the U.S. from El Salvador in 1999 at the age of 19. For her, the limited resources present an especially significant chal-lenge because she has no family members here to support her. She is solely responsible for her 12-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son.

“In the summer, when we don’t work, it’s very hard for me because it’s nearly three months that [many UCSC Dining work-ers] are out of jobs,” de la Cruz said in Spanish. “I’m breaking my head trying to figure out what I’m going to do to give my children food, to give them everything they need.”

To keep up with the cost of diapers, baby wipes and PG&E, Tiffany Perez works at the front desk for the Ethnic Resource Center (ERC) and has recently added another job to her load. She is also the head of the front desk for the IT department. After Family Student Housing’s recent $65 monthly rent in-crease, rent now costs $1,366 for a two-bedroom apartment.

In the past decade, rent at FSH has increased by 62 percent.

After exhaling deeply, third-year transfer student Tiffany Perez* sits on the sofa of her dimly lit Family Student Housing apartment. Perez gazes intently at her nearly

2-year-old daughter napping on the couch opposite of us.

By Rosela ArceCampus Reporter

Illustrations by Rachel Edelstein

“I have to decide between the gas bill and diapers,” Perez said.

No more than a decade ago, the campus had a few more student-parent resources, but many were student-led.

After receiving several au-tomated responses informing me that my messages failed and calling recycled numbers, it was clear to me that many of these resources left with the students that created them.

Single Parents Action Net-work (SPAN) was a former com-mittee under the UCSC Gradu-ate Student Association (GSA). It dissolved in mid-2002. Until the previous academic school year, GSA maintained a posi-tion for the Child Care Advisory Committee, but the organization is having difficulty filling empty seats left behind.

“This year we have a new core of Executive Council members,” said Jeff Sanceri, president of GSA, in an e-mail. “Since the beginning of the school year, we have been trying to address the problem of membership turnover and the revitalization of committees that this neces-sitates.”

The recently ratified United Auto Workers contract, rep-resenting more than 12,000 Academic Student Employees (ASEs) such as readers, tutors and TAs, has a clause dedicated to child care. Now, according to the UAW Local 2865 website, funding for child care will almost triple. The site contract states that “the total annual amount of child care expenses an ASE may be reimbursed for (from $900 to $2400 a year).” The program will also continue into the summer terms.

Currently, on-campus re-sources specifically for parents are limited to events held by the Family Student Housing (FSH) community and UCSC’s Child Care Services (EECCS), which according to its website offers “children of UCSC students sev-eral child care programs, serving children ranging in age from 14 months to 12 years.” In addition, EECCS sees “parenting educa-tion, social events, and family participation” as crucial points to their work.

Exiting the back entrance of EECCS’s playground together, third-year transfer student Sarah Minos* and fourth-year transfer student Michelle Sanders* trail behind their two playful children on the way to their respective

homes a few buildings away.“There’s like a little commu-

nity they offer for everybody that meets up and hangs out,” Minos said. “This community itself has helped me meet other people.”

Minos is new to the FSH

community and added cooking get-togethers, craft parties, Sat-urday morning brunch, Friday breakfast, and harvest feast as a few of the welcoming commu-nity events she has attended.

In addition to social gather-ings, parents in FSH collaborate with each other in practical matters, like caring for children during EECCS’s off hours, a bi-weekly food pantry visit and forming carpools to and from their children’s schools.

Though the community provides some support for these single parents, there are several instances when they cannot be there for one another.

“My loop [area within FSH complex] is a little different,” Sanders said. “I have adults with little babies, so nobody really knows each other in my loop, and I don’t make it much to the events either because I have so much work.”

Minos adds that everyone also has different schedules.

“I’m the only one who has a kindergartner,” Minos said. “Nobody’s going to go at 12 p.m. to pick up my kid when they have to pick up their kids at 2 p.m., so that’s really hard. I have a class on Tuesday and Thursday that starts at noon, so I have to have him go to a [Campus Kids Connection] program at school, which I have to pay out of pocket.”

Both Minos and Sanders say they would like a few changes on campus to make their life easier.

“There are so many people, so many parents that are just driving to Westlake [Elementary School] to pick up their kids,” Minos said. “All these people are driving when we could just take one big old bus and pick up the kids. That’ll save on gas. That’ll

save on gas emissions that are going in the air.”

Minos gets pulled away by her daughter, who’d been patiently waiting next to Sanders’s son.

“Mommy, Mommy, can I go to the house and get a drink?”

she says. “Yes, we’re going right now,”

Minos answers. Her daughter’s face lights up, and she rushes ahead of her mother.

Many single mothers, includ-ing Minos, Sanders and Perez, are also in need of additional child care support, since Child Care Services (EECCS) doesn’t offer services for most of Decem-ber and only operates from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. the rest of the time.

Arriving at the EECCS, third-year transfer student Lea Campton* prepares her daugh-ter’s cereal inside the FSH Coffee House. Had it not been for the attached kitchen, the building would more closely resemble an arts and crafts room at a kindergarten than a coffee house.

Campton also finds herself struggling with EECCS’s hours of operation.

“I just signed up for a class that starts at 8 a.m. for next quarter,” Campton said in early December, over her daughter’s repeated requests for a napkin. “I’m not sure how that’s go-ing to work.”

Perez has the opposite problem. Her major requires her to take a course that is only offered once a year, and it happens to be at night.

“How am I supposed to graduate if there are classes I can’t take?” Perez said.

Despite the need for more services, changes like shuttles to elementary schools and extended hours in Child Care Services (EECCS) are unlikely. EECCS has already been forced to downsize. It no longer extends

services to faculty and staff.While waiting for a recently

hired employee outside of the EECCS Infant Center’s green door, Emili Willet, director of Early Education Services, had a chance to comment on this issue.

“People think that because of [faculty and staff removal] Child Care Services is only for students now and there’s more space, but that’s not the case,” Willet said.

EECCS went from having 100 spaces for children to 60 when its budget was reduced in January 2010. Of the original 100 spaces, there were 18 spaces for infants. Space for infants is now limited to 12. Currently, there is a waiting list of about 15 to 20

children, which reached up to 50 children when the children of faculty and staff were accepted.

“Child care is so hard to find in Santa Cruz,” Willet said.

Because of these limitations, dining hall staff members like de la Cruz cannot seek child care on campus.

“Most of the time, you have to leave your kids with someone else,” de la Cruz said. “It’s hard. Even more so in this country. Over there [in El Salvador], it’s the poverty, but you can be with your children. [In the U.S.]I have to pay for my kids to be taken care of.”

In spite of all of her labors, de la Cruz feels she must remain optimistic about her children’s futures, and she dreams of the day they will go to a university — not as workers but as students.

“I tell [my son], ‘The good thing is that, when you’re big, you’re going to help me out’,” de la Cruz said. “I say ‘OK? You’re going to work, and you’re going to help me,’ and he says, ‘¡Sí, mami! I’m going to give you everything.’”

Staring out of a College Eight Dining Hall window, de la Cruz clenches her fist and expresses, in a fit of frustration, her anger at


Feature

“It’s hard enough for students who don’t have kids.”

— Emili Willet, early education services director

Continued on p. 18


Politics & Culture

having been left by her children’s fathers.

“I don’t understand why there are men like that, that just leave their children,” de la Cruz said.

Unlike de la Cruz, however, Perez desperately wanted her toddler’s father as far away from them as possible. After four years of difficulties, Perez worked with the district attorney and a detective to sentence her abusive partner to eight years in prison.

“I used it to motivate me and really focus me in what I want to do in my career and achiev-ing my goals,” Perez said. “I want to do prosecution for victims of abuse, which would be child abuse, spouse abuse and elderly abuse. I don’t want to see anyone else fall victim and feel like they’re not being protected.”

Perez is now majoring in politics and minoring in legal studies. She has her eyes on law schools, including Stanford, Berkeley and John F. Kennedy

University.Though funding her own

education has been difficult, Perez did not give up. Thanks to the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and the Smith Renaissance Society she has received the support she needs. EOP serves to promote academic success for disadvantaged stu-dent populations, and SRS cites itself on its own website as “Cali-fornia’s first university-based comprehensive path to college admission for foster youths and other independent students.”

“Sometimes, I have to believe everything will work out, and I was fortunate enough to have everything fall into place,” Perez said. “There are a lot of voices that go unheard. I just cried to the right people.”

*Names have been changed.Statements by de la Cruz were

translated by the reporter.

Continued from p. 17

All the Single Ladies

Governor Announces Budget Proposal for Next Year

$12.5 billion in cuts to state spending, $500 million from University of California

California has been hold-ing its breath in anticipation of Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal for balancing the state budget this past week, hoping he will be the change the budget needs to keep from plummeting down the same course it has been for the past 10 years.

The announcement came on Monday and it was difficult for those affected to hear. The newly elected governor proposed $12.5 billion of cuts in state spending, translating to $500 million in cuts to the University of California system alone. This corresponds with another $500

million cut from the state system as well.

It is a one-time cut, but the governor expects its effects to last for years, and is asking for an extension of taxes for five years to smooth restructuring in the state.

It is still unclear how the uni-versity system will apportion the cutbacks, but it is certain that they will affect higher educa-tion students and their studies. The funds given by the state will have been cut by nearly two thousand dollars per student, according to the University of California website for budget news.

American studies was recent-ly suspended indefinitely from the UCSC curriculum. With the

announcement of these further cuts, more majors and areas of study could be progressively eliminated.

Brown’s plan stands in glaring opposition to one of Schwar-zenegger’s final budget bills signed into law October of 2010, endowing the UC system with nearly $3 billion in funding.

“For 10 years, this state has put together its budget with gimmicks and tricks and unrealistic expectations that have pushed this state deeper and deeper into debt,” Brown said in his speech Monday. “It’s time now to restore California to fiscal solvency and put us on the road to economic recovery and jobs.”

When it passed, Schwar-

zenegger’s budget bill still could not compensate for the cuts that had been made in previous years under his supervision, restoring only $200 million in permanent state funding to UCSC and $106 million in one-time federal stimulus funds to the UC sys-tem. Even just the year before, the UC system faced a $305 million one-time cut.

Further, with Brown’s budget proposal the university system in California would, for the first time in the history of that sys-tem, be given less support from the state than it would be given monetary support through stu-dent fees and UC general funds, according to the University of California website.

Higher education wasn’t the

only institution targeted. Medi-Cal was cut by $1.6 billion, CalWORKs by $1.5 billion, developmental services by $750 million and In Home Support Services by $500 million.

Based on the supposition that Brown’s budget proposal will pass, UC Santa Cruz has planned to outline how it will deal with these cuts by March 1.

“As a campus, we have weath-ered deep cuts before, always managing to preserve the integ-rity of this beloved institution,” Chancellor George Blumenthal said in an e-mail to the UCSC community. “Our collective efforts are essential to our abil-ity to make these reductions without eroding our accessibility, distinctiveness and excellence.”

By Mikaela ToddCity Co-Editor

Despite the long efforts of student protestors, which led to nine UCLA students facing felony charges and the possible deportation of four ASU stu-dents, the Senate voted on Dec. 18 to not pass the DREAM Act. The dream of 20,000 immigrants in California, and 2 million im-

migrants across the country, was tossed into the realm of impos-sibilities as the act fell five votes short of the 60 required to pass. Had the DREAM Act passed, the “DREAMers” — those who would benefit from the act —would be able to gain legal status by pursuing post-high school education or joining the military.

The majority of 55 votes for the act came from Democrats, while the 41 against were Re-publicans. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) gave his opinion about why the act failed to pass.

“Unfortunately, [the DREAM Act] has fallen prey to the shameful cowardice of white pol-

itics,” he said during the DREAM Act Senate news conference on Dec. 18. “It’s a shame that white politics took the center course of this set of events.”

During this same news con-ference, Majority Leader Harry Reid addressed Republicans’ concern over the safety of the U.S. borders and the availability of education spots for Ameri-cans, as well as tuition assistance. He also explained why immi-

grant children should not be denied an education.

“Senate Rep ublicans have spent years de monizing [immi-grant] children; they’ve played to people’s worst fears,” Reid said. “They didn’t decide to come here…didn’t control the condi-tions in which they came.”

This brought forth the issue of having the children of immi-grants pay for the actions of their parents.

A majority of Republicans voted against the Act.

Republican Tom Graves called it “a pathway to amnesty to encourage millions more illegal immigrants in our country,” while Republican Steve King

said, “This bill [is] really not a dream; it’s a nightmare for tax payers of this country and for America itself.”

In response to these arguments used against the DREAM Act in the Senate, Rosalee Cabrera, the director of the Chicano Latino Resource Center here at UCSC and supporter of the act, stated the “DREAM Act [is] caught in a time warp of politics…the agenda [in Congress] has everything to do with not allowing an Obama proposal to pass.”

For Cabrera, the immigration conundrum in politics is remi-niscent of playground brawls among school boys and girls — Democrats and Republicans — where nobody wins. When the Senate spat a big “No!” on the DREAM Act, the Republicans gained back the few feet they had lost when Obama’s Health Reform passed.

However, critics of the act say that the Democrats’ sup-port is political maneuvering to gain the vote of the Latino populace for November. What-ever the case, students support-ing and hoping to benefit from the act were devastated.

One such student is UCSC student Marissa Camacho, who is actively involved in the DREAM Network, an organiza-tion that supports and spreads awareness about the act.

“I felt disappointed about how the vote came about,”

Camacho said. “It was really rushed.”

Omar Villa was also upset by the vote. Villa is a former AB 540 student and member of the Stu-dents Informing Now program, which supports undocumented students currently pursuing higher education at UCSC.

“Democrats were very weak,” he said. “They didn’t keep it together. A lot of them voted against [the act] and some sena-tors didn’t even show up.”

He added that since Repub-licans have now taken over the Senate, it will be increasingly difficult for the DREAM Act to pass.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) repeatedly stated his support of the act, yet he neglected to vote when the day came.

For the moment the DREAM Act will have to wait, yet Reid gave comforting words during the news conference to the sup-porters of the act.

“We’re not going to give up,” Reid said. “The DREAM Act is going to pass … it’s the right thing to do, not just for the fu-ture of young Americans but for our own.”

This is “just a small stop,” Cabrera said, “there will be another effort, we need to get out there and do more work.”


Politics & Culture

Students’ ‘DREAM’ Crushed

Senate votes down the DREAM Act despite student

protests

By Pearl PerezPolitics & Culture Reporter

“The DREAM Act is caught in a time warp of politics. Congress’ agenda has everything to do with not allowing an Obama proposal to pass.”

— Rosalee Cabrera,director of Chicano Latino Resource Center

ROSALEE CABRERA discusses the current state of the DREAM Act, which failed to pass by five votes.

Molly Solomon


Politics & Culture

Funding for the Federal Pell Grant is short $5.7 billion this year, after Congress underestimated the number of students who would request aid and the amount of money they would require. Currently, 39 percent of UC undergraduates — 70,000 students — receive the Pell Grant, accord-ing to the University of California website.

Unlike a loan the Pell Grant does not have to be repaid.

The amount of money awarded depends on students’ individual circum-stances. For the 2010–2011 school year, the expected maximum amount of money to be distributed was $5,500. However, with the new reductions, the amount of money to be distributed for 2011 and the next school year is $4,705. This equals a 15 percent decrease and an approxi-mate $845 taken off of every Pell Grant awarded.

UCSC student Jamiee Cook, a first–year from Kresge, has received the Pell Grant for two quarters now.

“I already get a lot of financial aid, so my tuition and housing will still be covered. But [because of the Pell Grant downsize] I’m going to have to find other means to pay for school supplies like books and an i>clicker,” Cook said. “[The Pell Grant reductions] really suck ... I

already took another loan to cover books this quarter because [the price of] hous-ing is ridiculous here.”

Every year the Pell Grant’s funding must be approved by Congress. One mil-lion moderate-income students may lose the Pell Grant, and about 6 million low- and moderate-income students will have smaller grants, said FinAid.org website publisher Mark Kantrowitz.

Pell Grant funding shortfalls have oc-curred and been resolved before.

“UC expends a great deal of time and energy advocating for financial sup-port for students,” said Nancy Coolidge, coordinator for government relations for the University of California Office of the President. “We expect and hope that [Congress] will again fund Pell Grants … as the law anticipates they will — a maxi-mum award for 2011–2012 of $5,550.”

As of now, 8,200 students at UCSC stand to lose aid.

“All students who receive need-based financial aid would be affected [by the Pell Grant shortfall] because a decrease in one fund program causes a shift in all of them,” said Jaimie Vargas, director of strategic planning and communication for Student Affairs at UCSC.

Genevieve Hammang, an Oakes first–year who receives the Pell Grant, said she has already witnessed a decrease in financial aid.

“Last year, my expected family con-

tribution with the FAFSA was $3,000 to $6,000,” Hammang said. “This year it is $17,000.”

The expected family contribution is the amount of money that a student’s family will have to pay after all financial aid is taken into account.

For students who do not qualify for private loans and students who do not

want them, the only way around an unaf-fordable education would be to pursue cheaper tuitions at other schools. UCs could potentially lose students to other schools due to their rising expenses and decreasing financial aid. In fact, first–year Cook is planning to leave UCSC next year.

“I’m going to a CSU next year because the tuition there is half of the tuition at a UC,” Cook said.

At least one statewide organization is currently working to solve this problem.

The California Public Interest Research Group [CALPIRG] employs professionals that directly lobby state officials to negoti-ate the amount of money that goes into

education. At UCSC, CALPIRG raises money by encouraging students to add a $5 expense to their tuition each quarter to contribute to financial aid reserves.

“[CALPIRG] will be working to show broad face support for a reinvestment in higher education and to stop the Pell Grant cuts this year,” said UCSC alumna and CALPIRG campus organizer Katie

Roper after learning of the Pell Grant cutback.

Roper also said that CALPIRG has a plan for the new year that involves calling UC students to action. With a student board of eight people from different UCs, it plans to fight for higher education by getting its concerns publicized by the media.

“Studies have shown that Californians are apathetic to the degradation of higher education,” Roper said. “But the UC sys-tem helps boost the economy.”

UCOP recently stated that it “fully ex-pects Congress to sustain level funding for Federal Pell Grants for 2011–2012.”

By Elaine EjiguCampus Desk Writer

Lawmakers Underestimate Funds Needed for Pell Grant

Due to miscalculation, federal grant money to be cut by 15 percent

“[Because of the Pell Grant downsize,] I’m going to have to find other means to pay for school supplies like books and an i>clicker.”

— Jamiee Cook, first-year

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein


Column

Playoff Time in the League of the Anti-Hero

Felonious league forces fans to ignore morality of players

Last Sunday, the former head of a dogfighting ring threw a late interception that sealed his team’s defeat. Next Sunday, a twice-alleged rapist will face off with an ex-convict who once stood accused of murder.

So it goes in the NFL, which probably should stand for the Notoriously Feloni-ous League.

Every Sunday, mil-lions of Americans

watch football without a sec-

ond thought about the

moral-ity

of the masked brutes. Football is a violent

game, and fans have

come to accept that not all the

violence will remain on the field.

But as the drama

surrounding Michael Vick

has proven, America expects more from our quarterbacks.

Because of his position, Vick’s

involvement in dogfighting offended foot-ball fans who casually ignore the scores of linemen, receivers and linebackers who have been charged with battery charges and drug offenses.

People could not believe a quarterback would commit such a heinous crime. It didn’t fit the classic storyline of the quar-terback as a wise leader of men.

The quarterback is the field general and the face of every franchise. He touches the ball on every play and he, more than any other football player, is recognizable and relatable to the average fan. He is not 6-foot-6 or 300 pounds and he usually can speak coherently and read at at least a high school level.

But what if Vick played linebacker rather than quarterback? Would the pub-lic even care that he’d killed a few dogs?

Vick missed two years during the prime of his career, spending 182

nights in a federal prison cell. Still, many fans do not feel the punish-ment was harsh enough, call-ing for a lifetime ban from the league.

Jeff Benedict and Don Yae-ger’s 1998 book “Pros and Cons:

The Criminals who Play in the NFL” found that one in five NFL players

at the time had been charged with a serious crime. Twelve years later, players continue to be arrested at an astounding rate. In November, a month when teams practice five times a week and play games on Sundays, three players found time to get arrested for DUIs and one for a brutal domestic abuse charge.

Ray Lewis, middle linebacker and team captain of the Baltimore Ravens, was accused of murder and charged with misleading police in 2000 and did not even receive a suspension from the NFL. He was awarded the Superbowl MVP the following season and Defensive Player of the Year in 2003.

If anything, the murder allegations added to Lewis’s mystique. Linebackers are big, bad bullies meant to be feared. They are behemoths who run like gazelles,

crushing quarterbacks and running backs with violent force.

But Vick isn’t a linebacker and because of the public’s desire to frame quar-terbacks as heroes, he continues to be admonished for his actions.

However noble, it should be irrel-evant that New Orleans Saints quarter-back Drew Brees gives money to cancer research. However pious, it should be immaterial that former Arizona Cardi-nals quarterback Kurt Warner publicly thanked God for his success.

The perception that a quarterback, or really that any athlete, is a man to be looked up to and followed is a foolish mis-take that our country continues to make.

Charles Barkley famously said, “I’m not a role model. Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.”

As long as we continue to expect poor-ly educated men blessed with superhu-man strength to show us how to be good people, we will continue to be let down.

Last Sunday I rooted for Vick, the convict, Lewis, the alleged murderer, and Brees, the philanthropist. I cheered for Vick’s knee-buckling jukes, for Lewis’ bone-rattling hits, and for Brees’ perfectly placed passes. Morality had nothing to do with it.

Football players are entertainers. They are gladiators born out of time. But they are not heroes.

Vick treated pit bulls in an unforgiv-able way. Lewis may have had a hand in the death of another man. But on Sun-days, they’re just two more face-masked monsters, no different from any other NFL player.

Check your moral compass at the door. It’s playoff time.

By Joey Bien-KahnSports Editor

Football players are entertainers. They are gladiators born out of time. But they are not heroes.

Illustration by Kristian Talley


Editorial

We must have all been in the seventh grade when we learned about fair and equal competition.

Back then, we were taught that no amount of cheats, threats or physical abuse could get us ahead of our class-mates on the soccer field, or even ahead of our families in a game of Monopoly. That’s why it should be so astound-ing to the nation that a woman in her mid-40s could debase herself to those very threat tactics on the political world stage and not be rep-rimanded for it. Her actions were, and continue to be childish, violent and irresponsible.

Regardless of whether Sarah Palin’s “crosshairs” ad, depicting the crosshairs of a gun pointing toward 20 dif-ferent U.S. district locations where government representatives voted for the health care bill did or did not inspire fanatic Jared Loughner to set out on a killing spree last weekend, murdering UC Santa Cruz alumnus Gabriel Zimmerman and seriously injuring Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), her actions still represent violence in and of themselves. Even without the connection, just the fact that her ad exists puts her at some degree of fault, not for the killing but for igniting the flame of violence, and

there should be no room for that violence in politics. Some conservative factions of the public sphere

have taken a particular interest in hounding the second amendment lately — drilling it into the ground, in fact. But it’s not just fanatics on the right that have been fed enough right-left political and media garbage to motivate them to end another person’s life through terrorism.

The political left is at fault as well. The Arizona killer,

Jared Loughner, apparently had interests in the books “The Communist Manifesto,” and “Animal Farm,” as discovered on his YouTube channel, and some believe

him to be leftist and radical. He is also speculated to be insane, and some of his classmates testified to that after his crime. But he did target a representative in government — how can that not be political? The fact that Giffords is a Democrat points simply to the fact that politics inspires violence in general, especially the factious politics of today, something

Sarah Palin champions.All you have to do is look at the online com-

ments for our very own opinion piece that ran in last week’s issue, about Palin and her identity politics, to realize that people get extremely fired

up about politics, and about Palin as a political leader in particular. She has a very devoted fol-

lowing, garnered mostly through her divisive stances on issues and her “with us or against us” rhetoric. It’s exactly this that leads to horrific tragedies like the shooting this past weekend.

Our call for hate-free politics is not new, and perhaps it won’t last long enough to prevent the next tragedy, but we hope, alongside many Americans, that it will — and that this disaster will not be forgotten so quickly.

Increasing Violence in Factious Politics

Sarah Palin widens the gap between right and left

Illustration by Patrick Yeung


Editorial

With $22 billion budget deficit facing the UC system, it is only natural that we should witness difficult — even painful — cuts across the board.

But where one would expect the administration to make careful, perhaps surgical cuts around the UC’s heart there is instead a likeness to that of the cleaving of a butcher’s blade.

At UC Santa Cruz, the students have come to know this all too well. Most general education courses once offered at UCSC with classes of fewer than 100 students have been all but wiped out. UCSC Extension programs? Gone. Arabic language courses? Gone. Classical music minor? Gone. The American studies department? Suspended. (But in the words of Shakespeare, “A rose by any other name...”)

As the university slashes away the programs that make UCSC what it is, it is important that we not respond with apathy. Steadily, UCSC has seen a progressively smaller turnout from students protesting against program cuts and fee hikes. In comparing the hundreds of students creating an uproar about the 2009 fee hike to the roughly 30 that gathered to object to the American studies program getting slashed, it is clear that students have started to feel complacent.

But this is our university, and we should fight to protect it.

UC president Mark Yudof once described the position of the president of the University of California as “like being manager of a cemetery.” True to form, we — at UCSC alone — have seen $32 million worth of campus units sent to the grave under his presidency, not including the $28 million one-time cuts felt mostly by UCSC’s staff and faculty and their salaries.

Sadly, soon to join the list of the dead is the aforemen-tioned American studies program, reduced now to only a handful of staff and faculty due to the administration’s fund-starving initiatives. This major, unique to UCSC has gone out with a whimper.

The implications of cutting yet another long-standing “nonstandard” program of UCSC is not only absurd but altogether detrimental to the quality of its students’ educa-tions. As a degree that had something to offer those interest-ed in literature, race and ethnicity, politics, history, econom-ics and U.S. culture and society, the administration’s decision to cut the program only further discourages pursuits in interdisciplinary education.

While nobody ever likes to be portrayed as the villain,

it is becoming increasingly difficult for the student body to sympathize with those holding UC’s purse strings. In the face of a beleaguered, yet animated statewide student body that has repeatedly mobilized and protested against their decisions, the UC regents have provided little else but over $4,000 worth of fee hikes per student and zero indication that the program cuts will end.

At least Dr. Evil had the decency to laugh maniacally when he did a das-tardly act.

Grotesquely, the shorter a student’s time spent in the UC system, the better off financially the student will be. With Gov. Jerry Brown’s predicted $500 million slash to the UC budget on the table, there’s little doubt as to who will bear the brunt of the blow.

College-bound students might have once asked, “How soon can I get into college?” In the face of the mounting wall of UC debt, they’ll soon ask, “How soon can I get out?” Yet, as the proverbial walls to California’s systems of higher education shudder, threatening to collapse on the students they shelter, there remains hope.

Within former Gov. Schwarzenegger’s ap-proved budget for this year were $305 million restored to UC funding. Top that off with the additional $620.8 million predicted to be gener-ated annually from the two consecutive fee hikes approved by the UC Board of Regents, and there’s a siz-able sea of green to keep our schools afloat.

But how the money is used and where it is allocated will always be the issue, and it remains up to the students to keep the pressure on the regents to spend appropriately. That oppor-tunity is coming on Jan. 18 in San Diego, where the UC Board of Regents will meet to talk for the first time this year.

As the UC reevaluates its priorities, we must remind them that our voice still matters.

Goodbye, UCSCSuspension of American studies shows elimination of ‘nonstandard’ programs,

collapse of university system onto its students

Illustration by Matt Boblet

SlugComicsBy Muriel Gordon

Who the Hell

Asked You?!

Who is the hottest professor or TA

you’ve had?

Compiled by Elizabeth Arakelian & Kyan Mahzouf

“My dreamy-eyed astronomy professor last year. His name was Ryan and he taught Over-view of the Universe. I went to every class. He was tall, dark, handsome and sustainable. He didn’t dress to impress ... but he impressed me.”

ANNELIESE HARLANDERSECOND-YEAR, STEVENSON

ANTHROPOLOGY

“Richard Mitchell. He has a way with words so you can’t stop looking at him. And he uses nice chalk. The way he erotically rubs it on the board just radiates energy.”

JUSTIN SKOOTSKY & GABE MATSONTHIRD-YEARS, COWELL

MATH/ECONOMICS & ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES/MATH

“Kate Dallas, my oceanography TA. She was charismatic, tall, blond and had classic American looks.”

BEN MIDDLEMISSTHIRD-YEAR, COLLEGE EIGHT

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

“For AMS 11A, my TA was hot because he was this surfer guy who didn’t wear shoes to class.”

LEXI RUBINSECOND-YEAR, COWELL

ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES


Who the Hell?!

Volume 45 Issue 12 [1/13/2011]

Documents

Transcript of Volume 45 Issue 12 [1/13/2011]