The UC Santa Cruz men’s soccer team is out to prove the adage that numbers don’t lie. With an 8-0-1 record they’re well on their way to proving that they deserve their current ranking as the fourth-best Division III team in the nation, according to the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA).

Last Week’s Results: Men’s Soccer 9/22 vs. Menlo (home) 2-0 (win) 9/27 vs. La Sierra (home) 4-0 (win) Women’s Soccer 9/25 vs. Southwestern (home) 5-0 (win) 9/27 vs. La Verne (home) 2-1 (win) Women’s Volleyball 9/26 vs. Luther (home) 3-2 (loss) 9/26 vs. La Sierra (home) 3-0 (win) 9/29 at Mills (away) 3-0 (win) Upcoming [...]

Ashley Nguyen attended her first day of college among a raucous and riled-up group of hundreds at the base of campus yesterday, where unions, faculty members and students rallied against the budgetary problems facing the University of California.

At UC Santa Cruz, the local chapter of the University Professional and Technical Employees (UPTE) union led the beginning of the rally responding to the elimination and cut back of staff provided for research programs along with broader budgetary issues affecting UCSC.

Twenty masked persons took over UCSC’s Graduate Student Commons around 5 p.m. today, protesting the measures taken by the UC Board of Regents to deal with a budget crisis. Pay-cuts, furloughs, cut classes and privatization are among the issues protesters inside and outside the building wanted to bring to the fore. The occupants and their supporters are willing, they say, to stay as long as they possibly can.

Despite opposition from various groups and individuals, including regent and Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, the board approved a plan that will require each member of the 180,000 UC workforce to take between 11-24 unpaid days, off depending on salary level.

If the plan is also approved by labor unions in contract with the university, top earners making over $240,000 could expect to see the largest salary reduction, while those making under $40,000 could expect to see the smallest. Overall, employees could see a 4-10 percent pay reduction for twelve months, starting Sept. 1 2009.

The University of California Student Association (UCSA) voted in early August to campaign for the preservation of Cal Grants by pushing the state to amend its constitution.

The campaign came in response to Gov. Swarzenegger’s proposed state budget revision that opts to phase out Cal Grants starting in 2011. If Cal grants are not made permanent prior to that date, nearly half the undergraduate population at UCSC could eventually be affected.

Just past the seven-store town of Davenport, 12.5 miles north of UC Santa Cruz on Highway 1, stretches a little slice of paradise.

Swanton Berry Farm, this lush, utopian place, includes forty acres of rich, fertile soil from which ruby-red strawberries, sunflowers and a dozen other foodstuffs burst. Old Army barracks sit nearby and now serve as low-cost housing, and the former mess hall today turns out mouth-watering masterpieces.

Richard Donnelly is on a mission to create the best tasting chocolate in the world.

In a unassuming, toffee-colored shop on the corner of Bay and Mission, the middle-aged chocolatier believes that he’s almost reached perfection when it comes to concocting the world’s finest chocolate.

Homegrown harvests and bread baked by the family down the street. Medical care subsidized by local taxes and available to all residents of a municipality. Mixed-use housing, water catchment systems galore, walkable neighborhoods and thriving community connections.
Transition Santa Cruz, a citizen coalition that educates and acts on the principles of personal and community resilience in a future devoid of cheap oil, believes all of these and much more are possible in a post -petroleum world.

For years, UCSC has been praised throughout the country as the pinnacle of alternative education; UCSC has long been portrayed and idealized as a campus with a unique community and liberal ideology, paving the way for progressive curriculum and alternative fields of research.

But times have changed; what once began as a showcase for cross-disciplinary undergraduate education, innovative teaching methods and contemporary architecture has since evolved, perhaps unavoidably, into a public university of the highest order.