Santa Cruz’s new poet laureate discusses poetry’s function, changes in UCSC culture

With the UC budget crisis cutting every corner it can, there’s little hope for UC Santa Cruz’s nonstandard courses. Or is there?

At a university boasting an impressive track record for anti-military activism, several students train to become Marines. Between drill cadences and midterms, student officer candidates provide a new face to the military’s presence at UCSC.

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.