Illustration by Joe Lai.

California’s auditor will soon sift through the University of California’s accounting books, at the request of the California Legislature.

State Sen. Leland Yee, a Democrat from the 8th Senate District that encompasses San Francisco and San Mateo, requested that the Joint Legislative Audit Committee authorize an audit of the UC. The committee voted unanimously to approve the request on Feb. 17.

The California State Auditor, California’s nonpartisan external auditing office for state agencies, will conduct the review of the University of California’s finances.

“A comprehensive state audit will help further uncover the extent of the waste, fraud and abuse within the UC, and finally hold university executives accountable,” said Yee in a statement on his Senate website.

The senator asked the auditors to specifically focus on the UC Office of the President (UCOP), the head office of the University of California.

The audit will track where the UC gets its funds and where each dollar goes. Specifically, it will follow where private funds, state funds, student fees and federal funds all end up.

The audit will also search out how much money is spent per student and what the rest is spent on. Also, the inquiry will include a survey of which outside organizations the UC pays to and which funds are used to pay them.

Yee’s audit request was prompted by two recent online exposés about the University of California. Not long ago, the investigative website Spot.us reported that some of the UC’s regents have direct financial ties to many of the UC’s investments. Then CaliforniaWatch.org reported that a consulting firm, Huron Consulting Group, which was recently hired by UCLA, is being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

UC President Mark Yudof, in a recent interview with student media organizations, brushed off the state’s audit of the UC.

“I think it’s fine,” Yudof said. “When people are running out of money they often want to audit and want to make sure that all the dollars are being spent [well]. We have nothing to hide.”

Yudof also noted that the UC conducts an audit every year.

“We have an outside audit. We post it online,” he said. “… I think a lot of the information is really out there already. If the legislature wants to look at an audit then we’re happy to do that, and if they find some things we’re doing wrong we’ll fix them.”

Yee’s office rebuffed UCOP statements, explaining the need for an outside auditor.

“It’s a lot like a fox guarding the henhouse,” said Adam Keigwin, Yee’s chief of staff. “You can’t audit yourself.”

One contention from Yee’s office was that the UC allocates its finances so that funding for the university’s core functions — such as paying salaries and benefits of faculty and staff, or paying for equipment and utilities — can only come from the state funds and student fees. The rest, federal grants and private donations, go into restricted categories determined by departments and research groups.

“The UC has $6 billion of reserves that can’t be spent to mitigate fees or be put into the classroom,” Keigwin said. “We want to know what that money does. An audit will help us do that.”

The UC, on the other hand, says that its reserve is currently around $3.5 billion and shrinking. Administrators said that they cannot legally move this money to offset current funding deficits.

This is not the first time Sen. Yee has been an advocate for transparency and accountability in California’s public higher education systems.

In 2007, Yee authored a law that made executive compensation reports for the UC and the California State University (CSU) available to the public.

In the current 2010 legislative session, Yee has reintroduced two bills related to higher education that were previously vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

SB 650, an addition to the California Whistleblower Protection Act, would give legal protection to UC or CSU employees who report fraud or waste. SB 330, an update to the California Public Records Act, would bring more oversight to private organizations that contract with a UC or CSU.

Yee also coauthored a state constitutional amendment, which gives the California Legislature power to supersede the UC Board of Regents in making decisions about UC.

If the bill is approved by the legislature, it will be put to voters in November.

The audit of the University of California will start within three to four months, and will take about four to seven months to complete. When the audit is finished it will be posted on the California State Auditor’s website.

In a statement after the audit was approved, Yee expressed his incredulity about the alleged financial mishandling by UCOP, but said that accountability and credibility will be achieved by the audit.

“The UC administration expects taxpayers and students to foot the bill without asking any questions,” Yee said. “It is long overdue for the UC administration to start acting like a public institution and not a private country club.”

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

UC Santa Cruz is home to one of the oldest feminist studies departments in the United States, as well as many preeminent feminist professors and passionate students. But until now, there hasn’t been a student group that focuses solely on feminist discourse and organizing. Feminist Alliance, as it is tentatively called, is a new club that plans to take on that role.

“Most people are surprised there wasn’t already a feminist group at UCSC,” said Lindsay Frank, a fourth-year community studies major. “We take it for granted that everyone’s a feminist. But we need to do more.”

Frank helped bring inspiration for the club to UCSC after interning for six months at the Feminist Majority Foundation in Los Angeles for her field study, a requirement for the community studies major.

“We want to mobilize more students, spark a dialogue and interest in feminist activism,” she said.

The group held its first meeting on Feb. 25. Attendees discussed the challenges that feminist activists face today — primarily, the idea that feminism is unnecessary because gender equality has already been achieved.

“People think that because of history and all the movements of the 1960s, that’s eliminated sexism, when really that’s not the case for many women,” said Nick Thorwaldson, a fourth-year American studies major and politics minor from Porter.

Despite vast improvements in gender equality, women still face discrimination in many instances around the globe. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative branch of Congress, reports that women in the United States today make an average of 80 cents on the dollar compared to men doing the same work. In other words, for every $100,000 a man makes, a woman makes $80,000 on average.

Jacqueline Sun and Alexandra McDonald, two national campus organizers from the Feminist Majority Foundation, stopped by UCSC as part of a Northern California campus tour to help get the club on its feet.

One issue the group discussed in detail was raising awareness of Crisis Pregnancy Centers. These are centers that advertise as comprehensive women’s health clinics but in reality offer no medical services.

“People think they are going to medical professionals,” Sun said. “Instead they’re going to volunteers that have an agenda.”

Religious groups and state governments often fund CPCs under laws for abstinence-only education.

Some states have made laws that CPCs must display disclaimers stating that they provide no medical services, but California has no such law. This issue is especially pertinent for college students because CPCs often advertise on college campuses. The Feminist Alliance plans to hold a film screening and distribute fliers to raise awareness of this issue in Santa Cruz.

The group plans to expand its activism beyond Santa Cruz as well.

“We’re working on the local level to effect national and global policy,” Sun said.

Other campaigns the group hopes to get involved in include increasing international funding for family planning, improving women’s health care in Afghanistan, improving child and mother mortality rates in the United States, and pushing the United States to approve international treaties against sex discrimination and child abuse.

Sun and McDonald emphasized that although the world has made huge improvements in gender freedom and equality, it’s important to remember that those rights aren’t guaranteed forever.

For example, Roe v. Wade, the controversial 1973 Supreme Court decision that protects reproductive freedoms, could soon be overturned.

“We take for granted things that we have,” Sun said. “Our generation wasn’t in that battle, but it’s so close to being taken away. We have to keep fighting for it.”

~~~~~~

Students can find out more about joining, future meeting times and events by e-mailing ucscfeminists@gmail.com.

Sophomore Serena Shen rushes downfield toward the net, protecting the ball from her teammate during a practice scrimmage. Photo by Alex Zamora.

Like a nomadic clan trekking across desert plains and harsh climates, the women’s lacrosse team has moved throughout the UC Santa Cruz campus, playing lacrosse wherever they go as they try to find their way as an independent team on campus.

“We’ve tried to practice at so many different places, but we always get kicked off,” freshman center Laura Harris said. “We’ve practiced on the tennis courts … got kicked off by the tennis team; basketball courts, got kicked off because supposedly they don’t let the men’s lacrosse team practice there [either]. We’ve even practiced out here at the College Eight fields.”

On this day the team is practicing at the basketball courts of College Eight in the pouring rain and howling wind. Lacrosse is a winter sport, so a little rain isn’t anything new to the team — however, not being able to hold practice due to the location issue is one of several ways that the team is negatively affected by its lack of an official affiliation with UCSC.

“It doesn’t help that we’re not actually associated with the school,” Harris said. “So we literally have no support from the school, which makes it difficult for us to use the fields and the facilities.”

The process of becoming affiliated with UCSC and OPERS, however, is a hefty task.

“We have been told that there is a cap on the number of club teams allowed, which has been reached, so they are not accepting any more right now,” first-time head coach Cara Couture said. “We would have to petition the whole school, get signatures saying how people want more club teams, and then that gets reviewed. … It’s just a long process.”

Women’s lacrosse was considered a club team until 2008, when a lack of interest ultimately led to disbandment.

“The team just kind of fell apart, lost interest unfortunately, for a couple of years,” Couture said. “No one kept the team going.”

Sophomore Janine Sung, the club’s president and team captain, came to UCSC in the fall of 2008 when there was no women’s lacrosse team.

“I came here freshman year and I was really disappointed to find that the school did not have a women’s lacrosse team, despite advertisements on the OPERS website,” Sung said.

As a result, Sung went out and began recruiting any girls she saw with lacrosse gear.

“I ended up talking to anyone I saw with field hockey sticks, helms, or gear from previous teams,” Sung said. “We now have a roster of 30 girls who are extremely dedicated with lots of talent, and it just makes me excited for these next couple of years.”

The team is currently 1-4, but its members are trying to keep this season in perspective considering it is their first year back.

“The season hasn’t been that bad for us, despite having four losses and a win,” Couture said. “It’s our first season back, so we are still rebuilding and just striving to revive this program.”

Regardless of how the rest of the season goes, Couture is planning to return as the team’s head coach next year.

“I would like to come back next year,” she said. “I have no plans for leaving Santa Cruz, so I would love to come back and coach these girls again.”

Meanwhile, Sung continues to work toward reinstating the team’s official club status.

“We’re going to keep talking and trying to gain back our status,” she said. “We’re going to keep bugging them and hope that they will let us come back on as a UCSC-affiliated club team.”

Students protest beneath the canopy of a handmade banana slug. Photo by Soraya Danesh.

While college students in Sacramento lobbied legislators, some UC Santa Cruz students began the week with protests featuring a giant paper banana slug.

Manning a 12-person slug puppet and a rolling stereo sound system, about 40 students marched throughout the UCSC campus on Monday, March 1 from noon to 2 p.m.

Written on the giant yellow slug: “No fees, no furlough and no cuts to classes.”

One organizer, who asked not to be named, described the protesters’ motives.

“We are trying to raise awareness about March 4,” he said, “and the racist acts on UC campuses.”

The students, their faces covered by bandanas and sweatshirts, began coalescing in Quarry Plaza around noon.

They then marched, in the middle of the street, up Hagar Drive. Making a left onto McLaughlin, they marched up the right-hand lane. Many cars were left stranded in the middle of the road between students, and one campus bus was forced to let students out on the edge of the road.

On McLaughlin Drive, some masked protesters moved construction signs from both the Cowell Student Health Center and Biomedical Sciences Facility sites into the road, blocking traffic going both ways.

Students then turned onto Science Hill, making their way to the Science and Engineering Library.

From there, the protesters entered the College Nine and Ten Dining Hall, calling for awareness of the March 4 protest. Many students cheered and some took pictures of the larger-than-life slug.

Dining hall employees seemed amused by the marchers, but became angry when masked students began streaming up stairs toward Terra Fresca restaurant.

Police detained one student as protesters, standing outside the dining hall, began drumming on windows yelling “Let him go!”

Once the student was released, the protesters left the dining hall. Many pushed over dining hall signs, angering workers who were outside.

University administrators observing the march said that the protest would not be stopped unless it disturbed other students or workers inside buildings, or damaged property.

Michelle Whittingham, an associate vice chancellor who followed the march around campus relaying the student’s actions to other administrators, enjoyed the sight of the yellow construction-paper slug.

“It should be reused for school spirit,” Whittingham said.

Walking back down McLaughlin Drive, protesters stopped at the Humanities buildings, entering the large lecture hall and adjacent buildings. They then attempted to enter the Cowell-Stevenson Dining Hall but were blocked by dining hall workers.

As they made their way out of Cowell College, Gary Roe, a groundsperson at Cowell, gave the protesters some advice: “Go to Sacramento, talk to Schwarzenegger,” he said.

“It’s a great cause,” Roe said, “[but] time can be better spent going to the source.”

The protesters attempted to enter many lecture halls, including Classroom Units 1 and 2, but were forced out by professors and students.

“There is an incredibly disturbing level of antipathy [among UCSC students] toward protesting,” said Leo Ritz-Barr, a third-year politics major from College Nine.

Barr, who held up the head of the puppet slug, said it took four hours to build.

Jim Burns, the director of public information at UCSC, said the administration approves of protesting state budget cuts to the University of California, but not of tactics that disrupt learning and working at the university.

“People have the right to be concerned about the state’s divestment in higher education,” Burns said, “[but] to the extent that [demonstrating] is infringing on other people — that’s not so great.”

For Thursday, March 4, the protesters said that they had two more giant yellow paper slugs ready to snake around campus in a march for higher education.

Illustration by Kiri Rasmussen.

Open up the books already. Seriously.

After years of hiding numbers, snickering, and insisting that everything is fine (“why don’t you just trust us?”), the University of California is finally increasing its transparency to the public. Now that California’s Joint Legislative Audit Committee has voted unanimously to authorize an outside audit of the UC, the state can finally begin to trust the financial operations of the university system. The financial review will be handled by the California State Auditor, the external auditor for California’s state agencies.

The California public deserves to know where its taxpayer money is going. It deserves to see which path the system’s private and state funds will take. Students deserve to rest assured that their fees are being spent efficiently.

The idea that we have been throwing money at the UC and trusting it sends shivers down the spine of any self-respecting taxpayer. It brings to mind the image of a hesitant donor trying to decide whether or not to give a dollar to someone smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer, asking for a couple bucks to spend on “food.”

With the amount of money it costs to run a public university system, it is baffling that this external audit is only being mandated now. As taxpayer money is pushed toward public education and students try to figure out how to handle a 32.5 percent fee increase, it’s about time. Both taxpayers and students deserve to know how the money is being spent.

State Sen. Leland Yee from California’s 8th District, which represents San Francisco and San Mateo, expects the audit to uncover fraud and waste at the university system.

Yudof insists that there isn’t any substantial amount of waste happening at the UC, and that this audit will not produce any groundbreaking findings. He is not expecting to see any easy solutions or quick fixes that should have been implemented years ago. He probably hopes for a crystal-clear report without any easy suggestions that money can be saved.

But looking around at the skyrocketing fees, mounting layoffs, and dwindling resources, we sure don’t. If this audit brings wasteful spending to the public eye, perhaps that money can be used for other valuable expenses. UC campuses will be forced to cut that much less from their resource centers, dining halls and employee salaries.

Really though, this isn’t about whether or not California’s nonpartisan auditor will uncover the fraud and waste that Sen. Lee anticipates. It’s about the transparency and accountability that Californians should be able to expect from their public institutions.

Can you imagine if a public business laid off thousands of workers, cut services, raised prices, and then tried to keep its finances a secret from its shareholders? People would be furious. This audit will hold the UC accountable to its “shareholders” — the California taxpayers and students.

It comes late, but we’re happy to hear about California’s plans to provide an honest audit of the UC. We expect it to be thorough, and we expect it to be complete.

So please, administrators, before you reach into our pockets any further, open up your books.

Hundreds of students rallied on the north steps of the Capitol building in Sacramento on Monday. Chanting could be heard for blocks. Photo by Alex Zamora.

Photo by Alex Zamora.

Photo by Alex Zamora.

Third-year Tiffany Loftin, internal vice chair of the UCSC Student Union Assembly, was one of many speakers who commanded the attention of the large crowd of students gathered in solidarity at the Capitol building. Photo by Alex Zamora.

“Are you fired up?”

Hundreds of demonstrators on the north steps of the Capitol building echoed a response to this galvanizing inquiry: “We’re fired up!”

As the 66th California State Assembly speaker was sworn into office on Monday, student protesters literally made their voices heard in the halls of the state Capitol.

“While we appointed a new assembly speaker we could hear you,” California Labor Federation secretary and treasurer Arch Palaski told City on a Hill Press in reference to the demonstrators. “Your voice is being heard.”

Monday, March 1 was Lobby Day at the Capitol, where chancellors and students advocated for higher education. This day kicked off a week of action in defense of public education, and was a precursor to a statewide strike on Thursday, March 4.

The March for Higher Education on Thursday is a “K through Ph.D.” action that will include University of California students as well as all members of the California education system.

UC President Mark Yudof and UC Santa Cruz Chancellor George Blumenthal accompanied student lobbyists to meetings with members of the legislature throughout the day.

Though Monday’s activities were focused on lobbying, student demonstrators rallied both inside and outside the Capitol. One demonstration, a sit-in at the office of Assemblyman Jim Neilson (R-Yuba City), resulted in the arrest of five UC students.

Second-year Gabi Kirk, one of three UCSC students among the five UC students arrested, described the scene as nonaggressive.

“The coolest thing for me was how beautifully calm and peaceful it was,” Kirk said. “Protests don’t need to be loud and in-your-face — sometimes they can involve students sitting in business suits in an office reading books.”

The five students were arrested for assembling without a permit, and were charged with an extra misdemeanor for disrupting state business, according to Kirk. Because the state Capitol is under the jurisdiction of the California Highway Patrol (CHP), the students arrested were taken by van to CHP headquarters, where they were cited and released.

The demonstration inside began when several students — independent of any organization — gathered outside the offices of Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg and Assemblyman Nielsen, intending to present them with a letter containing two demands.

According to a narration provided by Kirk, the demands were: first, a commitment of nonapproval for a budget that does not increase funding for higher education; second, guaranteed funding for “student-initiated outreach and academic preparation, yield, and multicultural student development programs.”

“We need to see some real results, now more than ever,” said UCSC second-year Claudia Magana, who was among the five students arrested. “We need to hold our legislatures accountable.”

Steinberg met with a group of students and arranged for a follow-up to discuss their concerns on March 25. Nielsen, however, declined to speak to students.

The sit-in began when 11 students refused to leave Nielson’s office until they were allowed to meet with the assemblyman. After asking them to vacate the office, CHP officers zip-tied the wrists of the five individuals who had decided to stay and escorted them to CHP headquarters.

“These actions were taken by individuals to take it to the next level and push the envelope of prioritizing higher education,” UCSC first-year Natan Tietz said. Tietz was among the group of about 100 students gathered outside the offices in support of the sit-in.

Present at the protest for a short period of time was Dolores Huerta. Huerta is considered by many to be a significant figure in the history of grassroots activism, due in part to her role as co-founder of the National Farm Workers Association with fellow civil rights activist Cesar Chávez. A building at Oakes College is named in her honor.

“[Dolores Huerta] is an amazing figure in terms of activism and support for education,” Magana said. “To have someone who is so historically significant in social activism support your issue is very empowering.”

In the hours preceding the sit-in, students and members of the legislature spoke to the crowd of hundreds of supporters on the north steps of the Capitol. Many students spoke to the importance of rallying for public education.

“From all across the state, we’ve come together to say that education is a right and not a privilege,” said Victor Sanchez, UCSC’s Student Union Assembly (SUA) external vice chair. Sanchez also serves as president of the University of California Student Association (UCSA), whose members organized the day’s events.

On the north steps, over the noise of another speaker, Democratic Assemblyman Warren Furutani explained his reasons for supporting the student mobilization.

“We need to circumvent the legislative process,” he said. “Grassroots is the way to go.”

Furutani went on to discuss the significance of bringing the struggle to the Capitol.

“On my desk I have a green light and a red light,” he said about the process of passing legislation. “Often we forget that we are voting on people’s lives. When people come to Sacramento it puts a face [to that]. It humanizes it and makes it about the people.”

Illustration by Joe Lai.

Racism is wrong. We all know this.

But the events of the past weeks, which culminated in the discovery of a noose in UC San Diego’s library, have reminded us that not all acts of hatred stick out like white hoods and color-coded seating.

You’ve probably already formed an opinion about the students from UCSD hosting a “Compton Cookout” and revelers at UC Santa Barbara throwing a “Gangsta Party,” calling them wrong, ignorant, backward, and straight-up stupid. But have you taken the time to ask yourself: How can we take action to prevent behavior like this from happening again? How can we create a university that is more diverse, more open, and more welcoming to minorities?

According to the Census Bureau, California is home to the largest numbers of the fastest-growing racial groups, in the country, Latinos and Asians. Fifty-seven percent of the state’s population identifies as a minority.

Looking at UC Santa Cruz, you wouldn’t know this. We remain one of the least diverse campuses in the UC system, with an undergraduate ethnic makeup of 51 percent white, 16.6 percent Asian-American, 4.7 percent Latino/a (the largest minority in the state), and the now infamous figure of 2.6 percent black.

At Berkeley, 4 percent of the undergraduate population is black, and 12 percent is Latino/a. And because it is a larger campus, that 4 percent and 12 percent accounts for many more people. At UCSD, where students threw a party that poked fun at Black History Month, the total fall 2009 undergraduate population was just 2 percent black — the lowest figure of any UC campus.

Look at our own Latin American and Latino studies department: hacked to pieces, its most talented and dedicated professors handed pink slips. Look at the fact that we lack an ethnic studies department, and the picture of UCSC as an all-inclusive, colorblind institute of higher learning begins to deteriorate. Look on the bus, and you’ll see a campus severely lacking in ethnic diversity. Look into yourself at what prejudices and stereotypes you hold about your fellow students, regardless of the color of your own skin.

There are institutional and economic factors that play heavily into the racial realities at the UC, and now, in a very public way, students’ social activities have turned on their classmates and peers.

But students have not remained silent. Anger and pain has erupted at just about every campus, a likely unanticipated reaction to some thick-skulled partiers’ twisted sense of humor. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger came out Monday and condemned the “intolerable acts of racism and incivility” at the state’s sites of higher learning.

What he did not do, and what no chancellor or regent has done, is ask: why? Why did this happen at schools that host Nobel laureates, schools that graduate lawyers and teachers and reputable members of society, and for the most part, house the brightest minds in the country?

The University of California should be the last place racism occurs. We are better than this. We are smarter and kinder than to even allow an under-the-breath crack at a person of an ethnicity other than ours to slip by unchided. Racism is wrong, but standing by and doing nothing is all that is needed for evil to triumph on our campus. And no one, no matter what their ethnic makeup, wants that at our schools.

One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, fundraiser! Photo by Rosario Serna.

Alcohol has often been known to heal wounds, especially wounds of the community.

As of last year, even domestic abuse programs felt the sting of statewide budget cuts, giving local nonprofits like the Walnut Avenue Women’s Center (WAWC) a reason to fight back.

Their weapon of choice? Some good old-fashioned tequila.

Felicita “Cita” Rasul, associate development director for the Women’s Center, explained why the organization is holding the March 6 event, appropriately named “Agave Agape” — Agape meaning love that is spiritual rather than sexual in nature.

“We need money to stay open. Right now we’re still furloughed on Wednesdays, so we can’t provide services on those days,” Rasul said. “My assistant director said we needed to do something like wine tasting, but she said ‘I don’t like wine, I like tequila!’”

And although tequila is famously paired with its partners in crime, salt and limes, Rasul explained that this event is all about experiencing the drink from a wine taster’s perspective.

“It’s not for doing shots or getting drunk or crazy, it’s really about tasting the tequila and enjoying it,” Rasul said. “It’s not about encouraging drinking, it’s about learning more about a drink that you already enjoy.”

This past July, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger clipped the remaining $16 million from the state’s Domestic Violence Program, causing groups like the Walnut Avenue Women’s Center to stand up and toast to the fundraising cause.

“We’ve been running on this promise of money,” Rasul said. “We’re applying for lots of grants and just working on gaining support from the community, and people have been very generous.”

Lisa Melloni, a UC Santa Cruz student and intern at the center, is one of many people putting the event together and running the center daily.

“I’ve been organizing all of the donations that have been made, and making phone calls and serving people at the event,” Melloni said. “It seems like I could learn a lot from here.”

Rasul discussed tequila’s origin from the agave plant, and the various types of tequila that will be available at the event.

“The three basics are blanco, anejo, and reposado,” she said. “Some of them are aged in whiskey barrels or bourbon barrels, so that’s where the different flavors come in. There are so many tequilas out there — they have their own nuances just like different wines, and a lot of people don’t really know that.”

Melloni is a fan of the Don Julio brand, which will be available at the tasting. She said that there will be about five companies in attendance, each serving two or three different kinds of tequila.

Rasul explained that along with tequila tasting, Agave Agape will offer wine and beer as well as Nuevo Southwest Grill catering, a silent auction and raffle prizes.

“We have a basket of Newman’s Own Organics, we have movie passes, and a lot of the local companies that have supported us are donating items as well,” Rasul said.

Rasul said that initially, the idea of a fundraiser centered on alcohol spelled trouble to the Women’s Center administrators. Recognizing the thin line they walk, the organizers are making an effort to keep the event as comfortable as possible.

“We had a lot of conversations about the appropriateness of having a tequila-tasting event, or any event including alcohol, aligned with the services we offer,” Rasul said. “The center of a lot of people’s trauma stems from alcohol abuse.”

Rasul stated that they plan to make the event as safe as possible, with car services available to take people home if they end up having too much fun.

The fundraiser’s projected 100-plus turnout helps Women’s Center staff members see the benefits of working in this environment even with a withering budget.

Melloni described the priceless feeling of helping women in the community each and every day, and said resources like the Walnut Avenue Women’s Center need as much support as possible.

“I’ve talked to some of the women that come in here. It really makes a difference in their lives,” Melloni said. “These women help them when they come in here and make them feel understood.”

And even though the fundraiser promises a good time, what it really boils down to — for Rasul and others associated with the nonprofit — is the ability to keep the Walnut Avenue Women’s Center running strong even on its shaky feet.

“Right now we are just raising money to keep the doors open and make sure that our services are available,” Rasul said. “It’s really important to support our families that we serve.”

~~~~~~

The event will be held at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History (MAH) at the McPherson Center on Saturday, March 6. Cost is $75 per person. For more information, please call (831) 426-3062.

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

A knock on the door can mean many things: the arrival of a friend, the delivery of a package, the surprise of a novelty check. But in 2010, you can expect the census to come knocking as well.

This March, a census questionnaire will be sent to every household across the country in order to quantify growing population areas and redraw district lines for the succeeding decade.

Santa Cruz’s Complete Count Committee is working on ensuring a more accurate count than in past decades. City Councilmember Cynthia Mathews said the committee is performing an important service for the city.

“It’s the Complete Count Committee that’s doing the community and grassroots work to get the word out,” Mathews said.

Santa Cruz is one of many communities across the country, including Watsonville and Live Oak, to introduce the Complete Count Committee for this year’s census.

The committees meet monthly to discuss outreach to “hard-to-count groups” like the homeless, college students and immigrants.

Santa Cruz’s committee meets monthly and is composed of members from a variety of different organizations around the area, including the Familia Center, Homeless Services Center, Americorps, and the Santa Cruz Bible Church. Currently, nine people sit on the committee, with over 30 people working under them in subcommittees and organizations.

It’s important that every area gets its numbers right, especially during hard financial times. Every person counted guarantees $1,476 a year toward the community.

“There are billions and billions of dollars at federal and state level that are dispersed to communities on a basis of the census,” Mathews said. “That’s money being used for housing, education, growth and proper transit. So we want to get a complete count so we get our fair share of money.”

The other reason cities and counties strive for a complete population count is so that growing areas of population are represented accurately in Congress. California is in danger of losing a seat because of waning growth in the state. That vote may have to be given up to a state that has larger population growth, like Texas.

“It’s so important,” said Kymberly Lacrosse, coordinator of the Complete Count Committee. “It’s used on so many different levels. For long-term planning your local officials are using census data to figure out your highways or school systems. That’s why getting an accurate count is so important.”

Lacrosse was hired to coordinate the committee in July of last year. She said that a major difference between the last census and this one is that the city started outreach early.

There are hurdles to be jumped, however, when it comes to getting a complete count this decade as compared to the last.

“Ten years ago, money was coming in from the state and federal levels, and it was used for outreach, and now there is no money,” Lacrosse said. “Zero.”

Despite this financial shortfall, the U.S. Census Bureau continues to work toward getting a complete count. The bureau prints the census questionnaire in six different languages including English, provides language assistance guides for 59 languages, and hires partnership staff capable of addressing problems in 101 languages across the United States. This is to ensure that immigrant populations are being addressed properly.

“There is a cultural difference from 10 years ago,” said Karen Mallory, partnership specialist for the U.S. Census Bureau. “There are more people working for the census to overcome these cultural boundaries. It’s really fantastic, having people looking at the issue from all different angles.”

Mallory started doing census outreach in July 2009. The partnership she works for labored during the last census to get a 3 percent increase in responses, and Mallory is looking for even better numbers this time around.

One of the main groups she targets are immigrant populations.

“There is a lot of anti-immigrant propaganda out there that makes people feel like they aren’t wanted in the country and in the census,” Mallory said. “But especially for people who can’t vote … it’s so important. It’s your voice and it’s being counted.”

Photo by Nita-Rose Evans.

Dangling from a rock jutting out 100 feet above the ground, a chalky hand grips the side of a cliff face. The only thing between Nik Martinelli and the ground is a half-inch-thick rope and several pieces of gear shoved in the cracks in the rock, made of nothing but lightweight steel, springs and plastic. Martinelli gathers all his physical and mental strength and lunges for the next grab. He misses it by inches, and the ground rushes toward him.

He plunges for a terrifying — or invigorating, depending on your point of view — few seconds. The thick rope catches him, and for an instant he is flying, rappelling down the face of the cliff.

This may sound like a scene from a nightmare, but it is something that hundreds of avid rock climbers in Santa Cruz experience by choice.

“God invented rocks for me to climb,” Martinelli said. “And who am I to go against God’s will?”

The rock climbers of Santa Cruz are a community of adventure-lovers young and old who climb local rocks, boulders, and in the indoor rock climbing gym. Beyond community highlights such as the Pacific Edge Climbing Gym, Castle Rock State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the Pinnacles National Monument, top-shelf climbing beckons to adventurers.

“Yosemite, the Sierras, Joshua Tree … there is world-class climbing just a few hours away,” said Mark Brower, the UC Santa Cruz senior recreation department supervisor.

“When you’re climbing, you are aware of the moment, you are in the present, so you feel so much more alive,” Brower said. “It’s a physical dance and a mental meditation.”

Pushing their physical and mental limits, these climbers go to the extreme to triumph the heights in Santa Cruz and beyond.

Life on the Edge

Rachel Fiske was afraid of heights. When her friends asked her to go to Pacific Edge Climbing Gym with them her freshman year, she kept turning them down.

“Eventually they talked me into it and I had so much fun,” Fiske said. “I went back three or four times that week.”

Now a third-year and an avid rock climber, Fiske considers climbing a part of her life. She goes to Pacific Edge a few times a week with her friends.

Diane Russell and Tom Davis, the gym’s owners, estimate that two-thirds to half the climbers at Pacific Edge are students from UCSC, Cabrillo, local high schools, and other youth programs.

Russell and Davis are very experienced climbers — Russell has been climbing for 30-plus years and Davis for more than 20 years — and both have climbed all over the world. Between the two of them, they have climbed on five continents.

Russell forms her life around climbing.

“It becomes a lifestyle,” she said. “I form my whole life around it. I plan vacations around it. It’s fitness, community, and adventure. You can climb any place in the world.”

Russell has climbed in Europe, Asia, Mexico, and all over the United States. She still wants to go to Thailand to climb limestone-lined beaches.

“It’s an incredibly engaging thing,” Russell said. “You’re also engaging with the world by climbing stunningly beautiful places.”

Back in the gym, climbers of all ages test themselves against rocks of varying difficulty. The differing colors of the holds signify the difficulty of the climb. A 10-year-old kid climbs sideways across the bouldering area, while a trio of middle-aged men take turns belaying each other on the top-rope.

“The draw of the sport is the excitement and the adrenaline,” Russell said. “People initially come because they are drawn to adventure. Once they get here, it’s about community, fun, getting stronger, and solving puzzles with your body.”

Davis and Russell opened Pacific Edge in 1993. It was the second rock climbing gym to open in California.

“Twenty years ago, there weren’t any climbing gyms. They helped make the sport more popular,” recreation supervisor Brower said.

The gym also hosts practices for the American Bouldering Series in the fall and the Sport Climbing Series in the spring. These two different competitions are for kids aged 12 to 17.

Joaquin Nagle, a Pacific Edge employee and coach for the American Bouldering Series, said four kids from Pacific Edge qualified for nationals last year. Mid-explanation, he paused to suggest a good side hold to a fellow climber.

“Climbing is good cross-training for other sports,” said Nagle, who is also an avid Ultimate Frisbee player. “It’s a way to trick yourself into exercising.”

In the training room, Nagle demonstrated the various types of holds and the cornucopia of strange names to express them: there’s the pocket crimper, finger stack, hand jam, ring locks, toe jam, foot jam, side pull, pinch, jug, under hang, hand jam, and many more.

Photo by Kathryn Power

The Climbers

In high school, Nik Martinelli worked in a hardware store. He also fell in love with climbing. Somehow, he managed to convince his parents to let him combine these two skills in a very unconventional, creative way: he built a climbing wall on the side of his two-story house.

“They didn’t think it would be a reality,” Martinelli said. “They thought it was just one of my crazy ideas. They were surprisingly okay with it.”

Now the president of the Santa Cruz backpacking club, Martinelli just got back from leading an OPERS snow camping trip — teaching adventurous souls to build igloos, make fires in the snow, and dig snow caves. Usually he goes climbing indoors about three times a week and ventures to Castle Rock or Joshua Tree when the weather permits.

“Anything outdoors, I’m there,” Martinelli said. “I love knots and the technical aspect of climbing. It’s a physical and mental challenge. It’s rewarding to be completely exhausted and come back from a day of climbing with your buddies having conquered some rock. So few people get a chance to experience it.”

Martinelli also emphasized the importance of adventure, not just in a physical sense, but on a social level.

“Rock climbing gives me a chance to go to places I wouldn’t visit normally and meet really awesome people,” Martinelli said.

Newer climbers fall in love with the sport almost immediately. Dangling above a huge drop, the only thing holding you up besides the rope is your own strength — the adrenaline and the endorphins pump through your body like a helium into an inflating balloon. New climbers are drawn not only to the physical excitement of climbing, but also to the daring, supportive personalities that dangle alongside them on their perilous climbs.

After attempting a particularly difficult heel hook, a move in which the heels are swung up above the head and used as leverage to pull the climber up the boulder, Sam Kraus was contemplating his third attempt at the tricky course when he stopped to talk. He started climbing just three weeks ago and is already in love with the sport.

“These are all puzzles that can be solved,” he said, stopping to brush chalk on a handhold.

Solving the puzzles of bouldering results in just a short plummet to whomp — or fall gracefully, depending on your style — on a crash pad just a few feet away. When top-roping, however, the fall lasts much longer, until the rope pulls tight to catch you. For some, falling is exhilarating, but for others it’s frustrating and scary.

“Just because you fall doesn’t mean you’re failing,” said Lauren MacDonald, a UCSC creative writing student. “It means you’re trying.”

MacDonald got into climbing nine months ago and now considers it a huge part of her life. She draws connections between the physicality of climbing and the deeper psychological aspects of the sport.

“It’s extremely mental and emotional,” MacDonald said. “If you’re not in your mind-space, it’s hard to perform. It’s easy to take fear, embarrassment and nervousness and flip it into something you can use.”

Some climbers find their mind-space outdoors, drawing on the connection between body and nature.

Teresa Miller, a OPERS recreation leader of backpacking, river-rafting and mountaineering trips, encourages students to try outdoor climbing.

“Backcountry climbing is a place you feel so far out. You feel so vulnerable and there’s all this wind in your face,” Miller said. “You feel really small, and that’s empowering. Seeing yourself do stuff you thought was impossible is addicting and rewarding.”

Beyond the physical strength built through climbing, nonphysical benefits are endless, recreation supervisor Brower explained.

“It’s a way to build confidence,” he said. “Learn about how you react, how you are in different situations. You feel like you’re going to die, but you take that and use it to your advantage. Climbing allows you to find clarity and learn about yourself.”

On any given OPERS rock-climbing trip, instructors will teach skills in belaying and climbing technique, but the rest is up to you. What a new climber learns that first day on the rock is that willpower is everything. The real obstacle is not the rock itself, but rather something within. When climbing up the side of a cliff, the true test is not of your body, but rather of your mind and inner strength. Do you trust yourself enough to make the lunge?

Months of practice payoff in choregraphed symmetry for the performers of “Random With A Purpose.” A Whirlwind of sight and sound the student run production opens this week, on the theater arts mainstage, for the first time ever. Photo by Morgan Grana.

Photo by Rosario Serna.

Photo by Morgan Grana.

The mixture of Lady Gaga blasting and the flutter of dancers’ feet creates a buzz of excitement in the theater as the 87 dancers of “Random With a Purpose XVIII,” the annual dance performance directed, organized and choreographed by students, prepare for opening night.

For the first time in its history, the show will be presented at the Mainstage Theater due to its increasing popularity.

In years past, the show’s four student directors — Caroline Clarke, Crystal Smith, Evan Adler and Kaylie Caires — participated in the performance, which has various dance forms from contemporary to hip-hop to ballet.

The directors expressed excitement about having such large roles this year.

“This has really been the highlight of my college career,” said fourth-year Caroline Clarke, a history of art and visual culture major.

Clarke explained that there are very few opportunities for dancers at UC Santa Cruz to come together in a setting like this one, where it is a collaborative effort on all parts.

Each student director was chosen by previous organizers of the show. Since the auditions last quarter, they have been working together to create the 18th annual performance of “Random.”

“It’s been a wonderful road,” said co-director Crystal Smith, a fourth-year theater arts major. “Not only to get to see dancers and choreographers work together, but to keep the communication open and participate in this creative artistry.”

According to Smith, about 130 students auditioned, which were an experience in themselves.

Smith explained that the auditions were more of a meet-and-greet, in which dancers could approach choreographers they were interested in working with and vice versa.

“We tried to make it a friendly and open process,” Smith said. “We wanted to get people talking.”

While the show is produced by UC Santa Cruz students, the directors have made a lot of effort to get the production into the city. Their efforts include contacting local schools to see if they can perform for other students.

Working closely with local dance studio Motion Pacific, the performers and directors have been making sure that the show will be seen by as many community members as possible.

“We have a strong community of dancers and as directors, we really want to move our community into the Santa Cruz community and find more opportunities to perform,” Clarke said. “It is a popular show. It has sold out in previous years and organizers are expecting the same to happen this year.”

The group has had run-through rehearsals over the past week and dancers are eagerly anticipating the opening of the show.

Prior to a rehearsal, Tandy Beal, theater arts dance lecturer, gave the dancers a little talk to amp them up.

“Everyone is coming together now to make their dreams come true,” Beal said to the group. “This is the moment where you really get to be who you are.”

Men’s Tennis
2/21 vs. American River (home) (did not play)

Men’s Volleyball
2/26 vs. Holy Names (home) 3-0 (win)

Women’s Tennis
2/23 vs. Sonoma State (away) (did not play)

{Upcoming Athletics}

Women’s Tennis
3/10 vs. Gonzaga (home) at 2 p.m.
3/11 vs. University of the South (home) at 2 p.m.

Men’s Tennis
3/11 vs. University of the South (home) at 2 p.m.

Men’s Volleyball
3/13 vs. Philadelphia Biblical (away) at 1 p.m.
3/13 vs. Cal Baptist (away) at 4 p.m.

Illustration by Kenny Srivijittakar.

The University of California prides itself on diversity, but its 10 campuses have been reminded that there’s still work to do.

On Feb. 25, a noose was found hanging from a light fixture in UC San Diego’s Geisel Library. The scene was grouped with several similar racially charged incidents.

“Before the noose was the San Diego ‘Compton Cookout’ and an incident with their student TV station,” said Steve Montiel, the media relations representative for UC’s Office of the President. “Someone also found swastikas drawn on a door at [UC] Davis.”

The imagery found at UCSD has now filtered into UC Santa Cruz.

A mass e-mail on Monday from the office of Chancellor George Blumenthal stated that graffiti found in an Earth and Marine Sciences building bathroom made a clear reference to the San Diego noose. It allegedly contained an image of a noose accompanied by the words “San Diego” and “lynch.” Over the next two days, additional instigative graffiti was found at the Women’s Center and the Music Center.

Jim Burns, UCSC’s director of public information, said the search for suspects is ongoing.

“Unfortunately, the people responsible are not always identified,” Burns said. “The chancellor wanted to condemn it and also ask people for help.”

In the case at San Diego, a UCSD student came forward and claimed responsibility for herself and two others. She has been suspended pending further investigation.

With nothing but word-of-mouth and a Facebook event, three to four days of preparation brought nearly 100 students to Kresge Town Hall on Wednesday to discuss the outbreak of intolerance.

The event was independent of administration and had no organizational affiliations; it consisted of student-led discussions and student ideas.

Not all student outrage was directed toward the individuals immediately responsible.

“The administration’s response is inadequate because an e-mail is insufficient,” said first-year politics major Delia Zaragoza. “In terms of the ‘Compton Cookout,’ a school-sponsored fraternity put that on, and the school indirectly supported that.”

Small-group discussions focused on structural inequalities keeping ethnic minorities out of higher education, such as the drastic student fee increases. Zaragoza directly associated waning diversity with rising tuition prices.

“It all goes back to [the university] putting up road blocks that are veiled behind administration purposes,” Zaragoza said. “They say it’s due to budget cuts, like they have no options … I’m not surprised there are still racial tensions in the university.”

Illustration by Kenny Srivijittakar.

If we had a penny for every time our respective mothers told us not to talk to strangers, I’m pretty sure we’d have none. Our mothers were never the type to embrace American turns-of-phrase, or in this case, warnings — which might be why we are the ideal audience for Chat Roulette, the new craze hitting the web with the force of a hundred blogs and the power of a thousand chat rooms.

Created in November 2009 by a 17-year-old Moscow high school student, Andrey Ternovskiy, ChatRoulette.com is a website where once you arrive, you’re greeted by a cesspool of sexy singles, a plethora of bored teenagers, and far too many college students looking for a new medium of procrastination.

Once you click “play” — curious terminology that tips the site more in the direction of game-playing than networking — you spiral down a rabbit hole of characters that you can see and hear with the help of a mic and webcam.

But of course they’re not characters, they’re real people. That’s the allure of a site that requires no registration, no log-in, no password, nothing but a cam and mic and a desire to immerse yourself in random connections.

The suspense builds each and every time you push the “next” button, which disconnects you from your current camera partner and connects you with a new stranger: will I meet a group of 12-year-olds, or will I run into a Jonas Brother? Am I looking at a flesh-colored body suit, or is that a… oh, never mind. In the world of Chat Roulette, anything is possible.

A masquerade of people throw all inhibitions — and underpants — out the door because they know that with the click of a mouse, they will probably never see you again. Within two weeks the estimated user count skyrocketed from 5,000 to 50,000. The chances of running into a Roulette-ex are slowly getting lower and lower.

Yet the site has an odd feeling of faddishness embedded in its digital bloodstream — a flash-in-the-pan quality that just feels as if it’s teetering on an expiration date. Some have called it the future of networking, but that title, meaningless in a rapidly evolving techno-society, is ill-deserved.

What it does do is speak to our desire for simplicity. In an era of mechanical overhaul, when even books are becoming obsolete, the myth of the digital frontier and its ability to unite us from across the country — hell, the globe — not only still exists, but also is oddly exciting.

Most people have no idea what they’re getting themselves into — a labyrinth of people, places, and penises from all over the world that will keep you glued to the computer screen for hours on end. One minute you’re making eyes at a handsome Brazilian and the next, you are suddenly acquainted with a weathered bratwurst in Germany. With no moderator and no filter, it truly feels as if anything goes — the first rule of Chat Roulette is you don’t talk about Chat Roulette.

Yet we still find ourselves curiously fascinated by a website that has been manifested out of our sudden desire for voyeurism at a mass level. At times, the rawness of what you’re witnessing is overwhelming. We had a short conversation once with a man in orange. It wasn’t until we spotted an armed guard in the background that we realized the man was in jail.

But that realness is what makes Chat Roulette endlessly fascinating. Its goal isn’t to oversimplify our “interests” or “activities,” dumbing our personalities down to a few tag-able anecdotes. Maybe our goal for the digital revolution was never to friend our friends, or limit our thoughts to 140 characters. Maybe all we ever wanted was a good conversation.

(from left to right)

“Yeah. I only have one more class to take, so I had no problem enrolling. It’s an independent study.”
Phil Carter
Fourth-year, Oakes
Community Studies

“No, I wasn’t able to. I think it filled up after the first day. And now I’m looking for a third class. I’m probably going to have to take a random class — and all my GEs are filled, so it’s kind of a waste of time.”
Vanessa Trafis
Third-year, College Nine
Environmental Studies & Business Management Economics

“I had some holds on my account, so I had to take care of that first. But I was able to enroll in the end. It took some effort though.”
Sami Abed
Third-year, College Ten
American Studies

“Yeah, I’m a marine biology major. I’m taking chem and bio, so I got into my classes pretty easily.”
Nathan Schaffer
First-year, Stevenson
Marine Biology

Compiled by Mitchell Quesada & Devika Agarwal

(from left to right)

“‘Johnny Tsunami.’ I remember he was an underdog and that was cool.”
Stephanie Dias
Fourth-year, College Nine
Psychology

“‘Motocrossed’ because dirtbikes are cool.”
Karl Schmidt
Fourth-year, Crown
Physics

“‘Brink’ because I used to in-line skate and thought it was awesome!”
Nick Duval
Second-year, College Nine
Biology and Health Sciences

“Never seen any of them. I watched Nickelodeon.”
Matt Boitano
Second-year, Stevenson
Politics

Compiled by Ben Gevercer & Morgan Grana

Photo by Jacob Pierce.

Robert Norse always does his homework.

So, when the homeless advocate and I sat down for breakfast at Hoffman’s Bakery, he made sure to study up and bring copies of the two weekly papers I write for and his own tape recorder.

Norse will be the first to admit that he and Hoffman’s have, at times, been “on opposite sides of the fence.” He has disagreed with the restaurant management on minimum wage legislation, and one of Hoffman’s managers serves on the Downtown Commission that supports several city laws Norse is fighting. But he loves their eggs Benedict and besides, for Norse, criticism is nothing personal.

He is also critical of other downtown businesses, the Santa Cruz City Council, the City Manager’s Office, and even our city news desk here at City on a Hill Press, all of which he says re-affirm the status quo.

Norse, co-founder of Homeless United for Friendship and Freedom (HUFF), opposes the downtown ordinances that discourage panhandling, street performing and generally target the homeless. The ordinances forbid anyone from sitting on a public bench for more than one hour. They also forbid panhandling after dark or within 14 feet of trash receptacles, public art such as statues, or directory signs and 50 feet of an ATM.

~~~~~~

City on Hill Press: You have been a longtime opponent of the sleeping ban, which is not a ‘downtown ordinance,’ but rather applies to the entire city. Why is that such a big issue for you?

Robert Norse: You can’t really do anything else unless you can sleep at night. The criminalization of poor people for sleeping opens up a huge amount of harassment to homeless people, and essentially, it’s a ‘get out of town’ law for poor and homeless people. It’s a code that doesn’t belong in any 21st-century city.

CHP: What is HUFF doing to address these issues?

RN: I wish we were doing more. … There are a lot of illusions about Santa Cruz that we try to dispel in the hope that the myth can really become the reality, that we really will become a liberal, progressive city.

CHP: You and four others are each fighting $445 citations you received for publicly singing your version of Petula Clark’s 1965 classic ‘Downtown’ with revised lyrics. How do you think Petula Clark would feel about the rendition?

RN: I don’t know what her views were on civil rights for poor people. She was kind of a cheery person. Although I liked her songs, can’t say. I don’t know that much about her as an activist or a person — I don’t know that she was an activist. She might have been, but we certainly have changed her lyrics.

CHP: You have lost two court cases over the past few years, one for an incident at the Metro Center and another for performing an ironic Nazi salute at a City Council meeting. It sounds to me like Robert Norse can’t catch a break. Why do you think that is?

RN: Well, I don’t think that’s always true. I’ve won cases. We’ve successfully sued the city. … I haven’t won much recently, though. I will say that.

CHP: You have serious problems with the decisions that some City Council members have made, but I have found that most of the council members have good intentions and are good people. What do you think of this discrepancy?

RN: To be very critical of these people is not to be critical of them personally at all. I would be the first to try to be helpful to any one of them if there was a problem. In fact, I’m friends with the guy I’m suing in court — friends is a strong word. But you know, we’re amiable. We see each other, we say ‘hi.’

CHP: You have a lot of issues with the leaders and media in this town. Why do you stay?

RN: Well, it’s where I live. What can I say, man? It’s really a good question. I don’t know … I know people here. … I even like some of the people that I disagree with, but I don’t know if they’re the reason that I stay. Maybe I’m just too old to move.

CHP: You have a place to live and sleep. You appear much better off than many of the groups you work to support. How did homeless advocacy become such an important cause for you?

RN: I come from a social justice background. Also, I’ve been homeless myself, briefly. I didn’t like it. So I just got involved, and I never got dis-involved. It became sort of a habit. It became something that I thought was important to pursue, maybe a comfortable niche. I don’t know that your social position or your income necessarily determines what you do.

CHP: Students may not be familiar with HUFF and many of the issues you fight for and support. Is there anything in particular you would like to tell them?

RN: We need help. We’re interested in how poor and homeless people are being treated on campus. We’re interested in getting people involved downtown, encouraging businesses, encouraging the police and the City Council to adopt a more sane and reasonable solution to obvious problems that aren’t going to go away and that need some kind of natural response, instead of a ‘drive ‘em out of town’ response.

~~~~~~

For more information about how to get involved with HUFF, call (831) 423-4833 or visit HUFFSantaCruz.org.

{City}

Man Flips Truck on Empire Grade

Feb. 25, 3:18 a.m. — California Highway Patrol responded to a report of a pickup truck on its side on Empire Grade near UC Santa Cruz. When officers arrived on scene, the driver was nowhere to be found. Around 7 a.m., a Santa Cruz city worker spotted the 29-year-old suspect, intoxicated and injured from the crash, at the intersection of High Street and Tosca Terrace. He was taken to Dominican Hospital for his injuries and then booked into Santa Cruz County Jail on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Wanted Man Runs From Police

Feb. 25, 2:46 p.m. — A 37-year-old Santa Cruz man wanted on a stalking charge fled from police on the San Lorenzo levee and into downtown. About an hour later, officers spotted the suspect at the Santa Cruz Metro Center on Pacific Avenue and took him into custody. He was booked into Santa Cruz County Jail for an outstanding warrant and evading a police officer.

{Campus}

Jogging Woman Sexually Battered

Feb. 25, 1:35 p.m. — A woman jogging in UCSC’s upper campus was sexually battered near Fuel Break Road and Chinquapin Road. A suspect approached the victim on his bicycle and grabbed her buttocks. She described the suspect as a white male in his 20s, with a slender build, light brown spiky hair, and a very light complexion. He may have followed her from the parking lot near the fire station.

Hateful Graffiti Found on Campus

March 1 — A image of a noose, with the words “San Diego” and “Lynch” written on the sides, was found on the inside of a bathroom door at Earth and Marine Sciences. It is currently under investigation by UCSCPD as a possible hate crime, as well as an act of vandalism.

March 1, 2:43 p.m. — Graffiti was found on the office door of the Women’s Center stating “Beware! You Should Be Scared!”

March 2, 12:41 p.m. — Graffiti was found at the Music Center with the words “Diego Lynch” written inside the image of a noose.

Audiopharmacy performs at Kresge Town Hall, bringing visibility to minorities struggling in the face of ongoing territorial occupations. Photo by Morgan Grana.

Four centuries after the first white settlers landed in New England, Native American groups are reaching across the ocean to war-torn Palestinians.

Aiming to support a liberation struggle some think is analogous to the early days of America’s manifest destiny, the Bay Area-based Indigenous Youth Delegation to Palestine made their first international contact during a two-week tour through refugee camps along the Israel-Palestine border in August 2009.

Ras K’Dee, a member of the delegation and editor of Seventh Native American Generation (SNAG) magazine, shared his experiences from the trip prior to a concert in Kresge Town Hall. The event, a publicity venture in ongoing efforts to increase awareness of minority struggles, was hosted by UC Santa Cruz’s Native American Resource Center.

K’Dee described his goals.

“There isn’t that international wedge of support for Palestine either,” K’Dee said. “In the long run, we want to create a solidarity movement.”

An ethnic Californian Pomo Indian, K’Dee drew multiple parallels between the two groups. He equated the Cherokee Trail of Tears with the forced migration of Palestinians from Israeli lands, and compared placement of Native American children into boarding schools with Palestinian families separated by impassable military checkpoints.

“The U.N. created a land for Jews, who have been historically kicked around Europe,” UCSC student Eliot Rosenstock said. “[The Jewish people] wanted a base, and it hurts me to see my own people now marginalizing another religion.”

Native American Indians are a minority in their own home country. A 2008 diversity report revealed that they make up about 1 percent of the student population at UCSC.

Fourth-year Merrill student and attendee Amalia Coronado stated that as a Native American, she felt a connection to Palestinians in what she felt was a battle for visibility and equality.

“There’s just so much going on everywhere, it’s great to make these cross-cultural ties,” Coronado said. “We’re all fighting for similar things.”

Debates rage over the legitimacy of Israeli settlements, pitting Israelis against Palestinians.

The divide permeates Rosenstock’s own life as well. While his family consists of unequivocal supporters of a Jewish nation, Rosenstock was found tabling on behalf of Palestine.

“To them, as soon as I stop supporting Israel, I become ignorant,” Rosenstock said.

The event culminated in a performance by hip-hop group Audiopharmacy, whose mellow-feeling beats incorporated lyrics of indigenous opposition, a message coinciding with the one carried by the delegation. Or in K’Dee’s words, “resisting the exportation of oppression with solidarity.”

Cross-continental connections were made with the youth of Palestine, who welcomed the delegation as the culmination of a program of study centered around Native American and immigrant populations of the United States.

“It was dope, man,” K’Dee said. “They were doing their traditional dances for us. We did an exchange with them, did some of our own cultural things.”

K’Dee spent two years prior to the trip learning about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the situation of displaced Palestinian refugees.

“We could never provide the real truth if we hadn’t been there,” K’Dee said. “We want to educate people … and the ultimate goal is change.”

In a closing remark, K’Dee noted that Palestinians have so far counted 42 years of what has been considered occupation, while American Indians have counted 560.

Unicycle Basketball team members pose after a rainy practice. The unofficial UCSC team was founded by Jason Andrews and Ally Bortolazzo. Photo by Devika Agarwal.

There’s a new sport on campus and it’s not curling, figure skating or anything inspired by the Winter Olympics.

The game of unicycle basketball has found its way to UC Santa Cruz, thanks to founders Jason Andrews and Ally Bortolazzo.

What started as a casual conversation between acquaintances has become the most innovative activity on campus. First-year Andrews first picked up his unicycling hobby as a teenager, and was introduced to the basketball aspect of it 12 months later.

“I picked up unicycling from some friends in high school my junior year,” Andrews said, “although I didn’t really do anything with it for a while besides the occasional jaunt around the neighborhood or off-road. Then senior year I heard about unicycle basketball from my ex-girlfriend, whose uncle is on the Berkeley team that recently got second place at the world championships held in New Zealand.”

Held in late 2009 and early 2010, Unicon XV, or the 15th Unicycle World Championships and Convention, saw unicycle basketball teams from all over the world converge in Wellington, New Zealand to compete. Teams such as the Puerto Rico All-Stars and Berkeley Revolution are well-established, but there are leagues forming everywhere.

The idea to start a team at UCSC was not premeditated or planned by Andrews or Bortolazzo. Rather, it came to both of them by chance.

“I don’t really know [how it started],” Andrews said. “I realized that there were lots of people around who unicycled, and I met Ally [Bortolazzo], who unicycles. We unicycled and one day, I remembered unicycle basketball, so we made fliers and put them everywhere while riding our unicycles. We met a few more people who do it, although I would not fully refer to us as a ‘team’ yet.”

Unicycle basketball may be a hard sport to visualize, but the club members are working extremely hard to fix all kinks.

“It’s basically whatever you can manage to do physically on a unicycle while staying within the bounds of a basketball court,” Bortolazzo said. “When we play, there is consistently an issue about what happens when the ball is on the ground, because you can’t really pick it up while staying on your unicycle. We aren’t sure about that one.”

Despite the minor issues and slight problems that have arisen during practice, there is still much buzz about the sport. Even athletes from other sports have shown a keen interest in playing.

“There is lots of interest from people I know, like basketball players who want to start playing a real game,” Andrews joked.

Members of the team are more than passionate about unicycle basketball, and it shows in the way they speak of their sport.

“I think the game’s really unique, fun and rewarding,” sophomore Elaina Wagenet said. “I played basketball, soccer and softball in high school, and I learned to ride the unicycle at a camp, and all of it converged.”

Although the club is in its fledgling state, Andrews and Bortolazzo have much envisioned for UCSC’s unicycle basketball team.

“We are still in the very humble part of our beginnings. The recruitment process continues, and we welcome all interested individuals regardless of skill level,” Bortolazzo said. “It is exciting though, because this is a sport that is still in its beginning phases. I think that Santa Cruz is a good place for the sport to grow, and eventually I could see us fielding a team to compete with Cal [Berkeley], perhaps part of a NorCal unicycle basketball league.”

Even with their serious efforts to make this sport work, there’s still a lot of time to joke around.

“If I didn’t [start this team],” Andrews said, “Shaq would smite me, for it is my destiny.”

UC President Mark Yudof addresses student and state media organizations at the February 2009 Board of Regents meeting. One year later, Yudof is still facing many of the same budget and diversity issues on UC campuses. Photo by Arianna Puopolo.

UC President Mark Yudof sat down with student media representatives from UCs Santa Cruz, Berkeley, Merced, Davis, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. The topics of conversation ranged from student demonstrations to financial aid to the recent racist incidents at UC campuses.

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City on a Hill Press: You increased the threshold for the Blue and Gold Plan, which now waives education and registration fees for students whose families earn less than $70,000 per year. How will you inform high school students of this so that they aren’t deterred from applying to the UC because of cost?

Mark Yudof: We have been communicating directly with the parents, we have met with the guidance counselors, [and] we have produced materials on the Blue and Gold Program. If I had my way, the window would be much higher and we’re looking at [whether] we should increase it to $80,000 and so forth. …

We have to obey the state and federal rules on awarding financial aid, and if we award more than what they determine is your level of need, they subtract it out someplace else in the process. So we need to make sure students actually come out ahead in this process. … It’s absolutely almost a moral issue that if you’re below $70,000 we need to help you, but there are significant financial issues for families above that, who are not poor but not rich in the sense that they can just sit down, write a check and not think about it.

Daily Cal [Berkeley]: Where do you think that student actions and your lobbying efforts meet? Are they complementary, or are they at odds?

MY: They’re complementary. The peaceful demonstrations are helpful. … The governor had his constitutional amendment … reducing prison expenditures and increasing [funding for higher education]. … Now, I’m not endorsing anything like that per se, but what I am saying is he made clear what the problem is.

Twenty, 30 years ago, 13 percent or 17 percent, some high percentage of the budget was going to the universities, 3, 4, 5 percent was going to prisons, and now it’s just the opposite. It is not smart public policy and the governor called attention to it and I’m grateful. …

We’re at great risk in this country because everybody has a recession, but in America it’s harming K-12 education, and it’s harming the community colleges. And our competitors abroad are not doing that. … Both developing and developed countries, even in hard times, they’re putting their money in their young people and that’s where it belongs.

City on a Hill Press: What is your opinion on occupation as a tactic of protest?

MY: I’m a First Amendment maven. I even wrote a book on it … in fact, over the years I’ve written about … rights of students to protest … but I’m not thrilled with taking over buildings and inconveniencing a lot of people, and on a few occasions destroying property in the buildings. That’s not protected speech.

California Aggie [Davis]: There were … demonstrations yesterday at UC Irvine and UC San Diego motivated by some latent issues of race within the campuses. How will the UC make an effort to [address them]?

MY: Well, there’ve been different incidents. We’ve had at least three of them that I can think of just in the last few days. … It’s a grave insult ­— well it’s really an insult to everyone, but particularly our African-American students and faculty.

The [UCSD] chancellor, I think that she’s having teach-ins and discussions — there were various demands from the African-American students and I think we’re going to try to implement as many of those as we can. … I’ll just be honest with you: I really think there’s an issue, and we need to work to increase African-American enrollment down there, and African-American appointments to the faculty.

I think everyone joins me in condemning these particular incidents. … This is an enormous problem, and I wish I had a simple answer. We’re working with campuses — the people on the ground have to do it. I issued statements and all that, but the real action has to be on the campuses.

California Aggie: Does this mean that you’ll be looking at any kind of affirmative action policy?

MY: My position on affirmative action has been clear for at least 25 years, maybe longer. I’m pro-affirmative action. Proposition 209 was a mistake. I’m in favor of giving financial aid to undocumented students.

But we have a state law … the new admissions system pushes very hard for comprehensive review — that means your life is not summed up just by your SAT and your GPA. We’re hopeful that that will be helpful. We’re hopeful that more community college transfers [will apply]. … We have to obey the state law even if we don’t like it, and we could be called to task for not doing that, so I feel like I have one arm tied behind my back with these issues.