Photos by Devika Agarwal and Isaac Miller.

On the northern outskirts of town just past the 7-Eleven, old shipping containers lay behind barbed wire in parking lots of deserted shipping warehouses. The Mission Street extension hits a dead end at an unkempt field of concrete, dying trees and weeds. Hiding behind a larger warehouse stands CrossFit, the second-to-last building, a small garage with its doors rolled all the way up. Just before 5 p.m., CrossFit trainee Dave Cianciulli pulls into the driveway for a Tuesday night workout session. A man in a black hooded sweatshirt waves as the trainee drives up and pulls off his hood, rolls back his sleeves and walks into the warehouse, observing the nearly empty gym.

Patrick Barber, a trainer at CrossFit Santa Cruz, is only one of many people working at CrossFit locations now all over the globe.

“I just got back from spending two months in New Zealand,” Barber said. “I helped my girlfriend set up a few things for CrossFit there.”

CrossFit, now an international conglomeration of fitness centers, focuses their programs on high intensity strength training and conditioning. In 2004, CrossFit gyms totaled only four, but since their humble start in Santa Cruz, they have now grown to 1,700 locations worldwide. It offers a high caliber workout that is even used to train police academy recruits, tactical and special operation teams, and hundreds of professional athletes everywhere. CrossFit offers clients a level of intensity and personalization of workouts they can’t find at Gold’s Gym or 24 Hour Fitness.

“We’re different because we don’t say, ‘I want to work on just getting my arms strengthened’ or ‘I just want to tighten my core’,” Barber said. “Instead we want to swim the fastest, run the longest, weight lift the most — we want to do everything.”

Every day a Workout of the Day, or ‘WOD,’ is posted on CrossFit’s website. During each session, the small garage of CrossFit Santa Cruz houses at most 15 people, a shocking contrast to the 50 running on treadmills at 24 Hour Fitness. Barber explained that each member completes the workout with the aid of a trainer, altering the exercises to cater to each person’s abilities.

“Our goal is to maximize work capacity over broad time,” Barber said. “We do as much in every way possible. We push every boundary and constantly expand people’s borders.”

Athletes are always looking for better alternatives to the standard gym, and many have found CrossFit to fill the void.

“The advantage of CrossFit workouts as opposed to standard gym workouts is that CrossFit is constantly varied, consists of extremely functional movements, and is executed at high intensity,” said Selene Teitelbaum, a trainer from CrossFit West Santa Cruz. “[CrossFit] prepares you for anything and everything by constantly changing the stimulus in the workout.”

Teitelbaum is also the women’s head volleyball coach for UC Santa Cruz and a certified CrossFit instructor. She integrates her CrossFit training with her team’s practices.

“CrossFit is the best regime I have found, not only for myself, but for my athletes,” Teitelbaum said. “It is suitable for all sports, especially those like volleyball and basketball which require speed, strength, agility, endurance and power.  CrossFit provides improvement in all of these areas.”

Now with Teitelbaum spreading the word of CrossFit on campus, many UCSC teams are using the service to truly pioneer a new way to train. CrossFit’s use of weight-bearing workouts is new to many teams, but also may bring a higher pay-off when the team regroups during the season for competition. CrossFit approaches fitness in a unique way, giving UCSC teams a leg up over others.

“I haven’t heard of a single NCAA running program in the nation incorporating CrossFit into their training plan,” said Adam Boothe, the UCSC women’s cross-country coach, “so we are really flying on our own here.”

Many athletes have picked up the habit of working out with CrossFit, giving them more than their average, typical training — UCSC’s men’s soccer and women’s volleyball teams along with Boothe’s team have all integrated parts of CrossFit’s techniques into their own workouts.

“CrossFit is also highly competitive, so athletes naturally gravitate towards that,” Teitelbaum said. “It makes the workouts fun, challenging and very satisfying to complete when they are competitive. It also motivates them to improve and is easily measurable to mark your fitness gains.”

With a CrossFit trainer now working in the athletic offices of UCSC, other NCAA-sanctioned teams are picking up CrossFit as another supplemental training tool.

“CrossFit does a few things that I believe can help the cross-country team,” Boothe said. “One, it builds more overall strength than just running, allowing the runners to train at the level they need to, and not get injured. Two, it makes them more competitive, and trains them to deal with competitive pressure.”

Many coaches, like Boothe, are beginning to incorporate CrossFit into their regimen, but they agree the best time to use the program is during the off-season.

“Most of our CrossFit training occurs during the off-season to prepare for season in the fall,” Teitelbaum said. “During season, our practices and competition are physically intense enough and we don’t do CrossFit more than once a week.”

“I’d like to have the team doing CrossFit three to four days a week in the off-season, and cut back to one or two days a week during our competition phase,” Boothe said.

CrossFit’s involvement with UCSC athletics is becoming more prominent, but some safety concerns have arisen even as popularity climbs.

“I’ve been overall really happy with it, some of the concerns that I have are that some of the repetitions are dangerous, such as squats and lunges,” Runeare said. “The workouts are usually timed and sometimes when athletes go as fast as they can, they put themselves in danger because technique goes out the door. I’m weary of that portion of the exercises but we try to keep an eye out for that and we make sure that we teach them the proper instructions.”

With Americans valuing healthy living now more than ever, a massive expansion to the CrossFit name only helps those who are trying to change their lives for the better.

Working out during a 5 p.m. Tuesday night session, the lone trainee knows the truth about CrossFit better than anyone. Dave Cianciulli, who works for a manufacturing company in San Jose and lives on the Westside, takes a water break after an exhaustive warm-up. Grabbing his bottle, Cianciulli wipes the beads of sweat off his forehead with his sleeve, taking a slow swig of water.

“Seven years ago, I started working out at CrossFit under Lauren Glassman, the founder’s wife. I was [just] off the couch, heavy smoker, heavy drinker, horrible diet, couldn’t do a pull-up or more than five push-ups, and weighed 50 pounds more,” Cianciulli said. “CrossFit changes everything, changes your life pattern — even my kids come and workout.”

Cianciulli is hardly out of breath after a constant, fast-paced warm-up.

“It has a huge impact on self esteem; I was in a really sad state. What CrossFit does is it brings you to a much more sustainable state.”

Sustainable, indeed. While the CrossFit pace is hard and fast, their beginners are not always athlete types — that is much appreciated among the trainers such as Barber and Jesse Bazarnick, a UCSC graduate and alumni of the highly-ranked men’s volleyball team.

“It’s impressive to see someone like Jesse, who’s played volleyball all his life and has always worked out, come in and do well. What’s more impressive is when a 45-year-old housewife with no athletic background comes in, and you get them moving. That’s amazing,” Barber said.

The emerging movement due to a rise in the popularity of CrossFit may have also caused a divide between those who live for CrossFit and those who use CrossFit to live.

“Many CrossFit gyms, or ‘boxes’ as they call them, have become far too cultish,” Boothe said. “Many ‘boxes’ attempt to affect every aspect of your life — what you eat, what sports you play, where you workout, et cetera … Some ‘boxes’ also don’t respect that you’re doing CrossFit to help with other pursuits. Not everyone simply likes to be good at working out.”

Other issues have also emerged and are gaining attention in the community. Many are finding the price of a session at CrossFit creeping higher and higher, almost out of reach. Rates are set by each individual CrossFit gym and while figures are still around the same ballpark, it will not be long before the costs skyrocket.

“CrossFit was invented in Santa Cruz as an alternative to expensive gym memberships that never got you in great shape anyway,” Boothe continued. “The original CrossFit website has WODs you can do on your own, however now these CrossFit ‘boxes’ cost members more per month than any gym.”

For some, CrossFit is a movement sweeping the world, something that becomes a lifestyle or a religion. But the true grassroots purpose of the original CrossFit still holds meaning to many in Santa Cruz — to develop their athletic prowess for whatever reasons.

“I would recommend [CrossFit] to any person whether they be an athlete or not, to improve their physical and mental state,” Teitelbaum said. “Almost everyone can benefit from CrossFit and the beauty of it is that any workout can be scaled to match your level of fitness.  So you can have a 70-year-old grandmother, a collegiate athlete and a high school student, all doing the same workout, simply scaled to their ability.  It builds a sense of competition and camaraderie at the same time.”

While there are problems that need attention, the overall impression of CrossFit is a positive one.

“As a training program, I think it’s amazing,” Boothe said. “It doesn’t take much equipment, it doesn’t take much time, and it’s constantly changing, so you don’t get bored. It’s the best ‘bang for your buck’ training I have ever found. I feel it can be a valuable addition to any sports training program.”

Illustration by Louise Leong.

You might think your friends are comic geniuses at times, but could they win a national stand-up comedy competition?

A team of eight UC Santa Cruz students are hoping to do just that. The group will compete for the title of “funniest comedy team” in the third annual Rooftop Comedy National College Comedy Competition (NCCC) sponsored by television network TBS.

In its first stand-up comedy round against the San Francisco State comedy team, UCSC will battle at San Francisco’s Café du Nord on April 12.

“UCSC is lucky to have so many funny students on campus,” said Jennifer Corbett, a spokesperson for Rooftop Comedy, the media production company putting on the competition.

Over 20 students showed up to audition for the eight spots on this year’s team, which was a greater turnout than at many other schools, according to Corbett.

“It’ll be fun to represent Santa Cruz,” said Nathan Habib, a second-year economics and film and digital media major from Cowell College, selected for the team for the second year in a row.

“We aren’t known for our sports, so hopefully we can be known for our comedy. That would be amazing,” he said.

Some of the nation’s most well-known comedians, including Saturday Night Live actors Andy Samburg and Maya Rudolph, and Saturday Night Live writer Akiva Schaffer, attended UCSC.

According to Will C. Rogers, CEO of Rooftop Comedy, “The NCCC has become the top college series of its kind, with thousands of students participating across the country.  Working with TBS, it will now just get that much bigger and that much funnier.”

UCSC is among 32 American universities chosen to participate in the National College Comedy Competition. The competition begins with regional stand-offs, where the audience and a panel of industry judges will determine who wins.

Videos of the team’s acts will then be posted online at tbs.com where the public can vote on who they think is funniest and should continue to the next round.

Habib says that online voting is one of the most important ways UCSC students can support their college team.

“We need every vote we can get,” he said.

The four funniest comedy teams will compete at the National Team Finals in Aspen, Colorado, June 10-13, and the four funniest individuals will go on to the National Student Finals in Chicago at the TBS Presents “Very Funny” Festival: Just For Laughs on June 15-19.

Many producers and big-name comedians will attend the National Finals, which presents many opportunities for the four selected finalists.

“It could open a lot of doors for a comedy career,” Habib said.

Last year, UCSC’s team beat SF State in the first round, but lost in the second to UC Berkeley’s team. Habib says he has two goals for this year’s competition.

“First is to win the whole thing. Second is to bond with the team we have,” he said. “All eight of us are legitimately funny but we’re also nice people. We’re humble and ready to accept advice from each other.”

The team includes a range of individuals. While some have experience with stand-up, others are newbies.

First-year theater arts student Kat Brown took a stand-up comedy class last fall, where she met someone who had participated in last year’s competition. It gave Brown the courage to take the stage and audition.

Brown was selected for the team and looks forward to the competition and representing half the student body as the only girl on the team this year.

“It’s really important to come and support comedy,” she said.

Last year, the comedians were pleased with the number of UCSC students who came to San Francisco to cheer on their school’s comics.

“Santa Cruz represented so well. The enthusiasm and school spirit was great and we want to continue that,” Corbett said.

Rooftop comedy will provide a bus to transport UCSC students to Café du Nord on April 12.

“You’re getting a free ride to San Francisco and being entertained by 16 comedians and a really cool host,” Habib said.

Habib gave a simple explanation as to why students should attend.

“If people want to be entertained and laugh, they should come,” he said.

~~~~~~

The NCCC bus will depart at 5:30 p.m. to arrive in time for the 8:00 p.m. show. Students can R.S.V.P. to reserve a spot by emailing nccc@rooftopcomedy.com.

~~~~~

{Campus}

Club car cart stolen
March 21, 12:17 a.m. — A UCSC electric cart was stolen and driven around campus. Officers on patrol spotted the cart. Its two unknown occupants fled when chased by officers.

Counterfeit cash passed
March 29, 2:25 p.m. — Someone used a counterfeit 50 dollar bill at the Kresge Co-Op. Previously on March 10, someone had also used a counterfeit bill at the Kresge Owl’s Nest.

Man arrested for trespassing
March 31, 3:39 a.m. — A 21-year-old ex-boyfriend of an Oakes College student was ordered to leave campus grounds and not to return or be arrested for trespassing. The man was arrested for trespassing after returning to campus early Wednesday morning.

{City}

Man robbed in driveway
March 31, 12:05 a.m. — A 33-year-old Santa Cruz man was robbed in front of his home on the 100 block of Sycamore Street. The victim was walking up his driveway when an unknown male suspect approached from behind brandishing a handgun. The suspect then ordered the man to lie on the ground and demanded money from him. The victim handed over all the belongings he had on him at the time, and the suspect then fled on foot. The suspect is described as a stocky black man in his 20s, 6 feet tall and wearing white shoes, dark jeans, a dark jacket and a baseball cap.

Armed robbery at Circle Market
March 25, 7:35 p.m. — Officers responded to the Circle Market on 508 Erret Circle for a reported armed robbery. A store clerk and witnesses reported that two Hispanic men in their late teens or early 20s entered the store and got into the checkout line. One of the suspects pulled a handgun and demanded cash. The clerk complied, and the suspects fled the store with an unidentified amount. The suspects were not located, but a wallet believed to belong to one of the suspects was found nearby. Police hope to use the wallet and store security cameras to identify the suspects.

The Student Athlete Committee discusses ways to increase exposure. Photo by Rosario Serna.

Photo by Rosario Serna.

Division I athletics is big business.

Enormous sums of money are poured into the athletic departments by boosters like Nike CEO Phil Knight, who donated $100 million to the University of Oregon in 2007. Tens of thousands of fans fill giant coliseums to watch college athletes compete live, while local and national networks broadcast the events to millions watching at home. And D-I football and basketball players are treated like royalty at their schools, and many leave college as full-blown celebrities.

D-III athletics, on the other hand, has a different story.

Last Tuesday, representatives from each D-III team at UC Santa Cruz gathered around a wooden table in a second-story OPERS classroom to discuss ways to raise exposure for D-III university sports teams.

Florescent light shined on the framed photographs of UCSC sports teams, as the Student Athlete Committee (SAC) discussed upcoming fundraisers that would increase revenue and exposure for the teams.

The committee discussed the logistics and plans for their fundraiser at Woodstock’s Pizza on Tuesday, April 6, from 5 to 9 p.m. At one point, a committee member asked if more flyers to publicize the event could be made.

“There’s someone using the copier right now,” Alison Aragon, the women’s golf representative, explained to the other representatives.

“We don’t get a lot of promotion, especially being a Division III school,” said third-year health sciences major CJ Villalobos of the men’s soccer team. “We have to promote ourselves.”

The fundraiser will help raise money for the SAC’s main project of the year: producing UCSC athletics T-shirts sponsored by local businesses and student organizations, which will be handed out for free to freshmen next fall.

Sorensen said he views the T-shirt campaign as a benefit for both the local company sponsors and the athletes at UCSC.

“They get their name up here on campus and we get our name out in the community,” Sorensen said.

SAC members hope that the T-shirts will create more publicity for the D-III sports teams around campus.

“You like to play in front of people, especially when you work really hard,” Villalobos said. “People don’t even recognize us; it’s the worst.”

Villalobos emphasizes the need for the teams on campus to stick together and help support one another.

Through the SAC, all the D-III teams on campus can work as one in the promotion of athletics at UCSC.

“We have to support each other, because we don’t get a lot of support from outside,” he said. “We’ve got to stick together and show up and support one another at games and stuff, which is cool.”

Sarah Finder, the women’s cross country representative, said she hopes the T-shirts will lead to more of a sports following among the student body.

“To get the whole freshman class wearing supportive T-shirts makes athletics a big deal,” Finder said. “The goal is to change the culture of the UC here and how sports are appreciated.”

As March Madness wraps up with the Final Four in Indianapolis this weekend, tens of millions of people will watch D-I athletes play basketball. The success and failure of student athletes at Duke, Butler, West Virginia and Michigan State will be written about in sports sections and talked about at water coolers all across the nation.

Members of the SAC understand that D-III athletics may never have the following that D-I schools enjoy, but Sorensen hopes the committee’s recent efforts help to expand publicity and knowledge about the NCAA teams on campus.

He said, “We want to play and we want people to know we play.”

Illustration by Rachel Edelstein.

In response to a resolution passed by the UCSC Student Union Assembly (SUA), Chancellor Blumenthal has increased the voting threshold for campus-based fees in this year’s campus elections from 25 percent to 33 percent.

In campus elections each measure must pass with a 51 percent voter approval. The voting threshold is the percentage of students who must vote on a measure in order for the vote to be valid.

If the voting threshold is not met, the measure is automatically defeated. This was the case last year when only 3,139 of the total 15,719 — or 19.97 percent — of students participated in the elections.

According to the resolution passed by SUA, UCSC’s undergraduates currently pay the most compulsory campus-based student fees of the UC system, 27 referenda totaling $1,073.41 in fees a year.

Members of the SUA, including Commissioner of Academic Affairs Matt Palm, say the previous threshold was too low, allowing for a small number of students to levy a fee against the entire student population.

“We feel very strongly that if we are all going to be taxed, more students need to agree to it and vote,” Palm said. “We didn’t want a continued situation where all students can be taxed, often without knowing what is going on, at the discretion of a small minority of students actually voting.”

The SUA considered the voting thresholds of some other UC campuses in determining the 33 percent figure; however, the threshold differs on each campus because University policy grants the authority to determine campus voting thresholds to the chancellors.

“Each Chancellor is delegated the authority to determine the voting threshold on their campus, Chancellor Blumenthal has agreed to change it for this year, because of the SUA resolution,” Campus Elections Commissioner Lucy Rojas said.

While the intent of the change is to require more student participation in elections, it will also make it more difficult for students to pass fees in support of services facing cuts from other campus funding sources.

“This policy will impact the ability of referendum to pass — in the future if the sustainability office needs funding, or OPERs wants a referendum to keep the gym open longer, it will be harder to get referendum to pass, but not impossible,” Palm said.

In the past 10 years the campus elections participation has only reached 33 percent twice, and failed to meet the previous 25 percent threshold three times.

The average voter turn out since 2000 has been 27.01 percent, with the highest turnout of 37.02 percent for the emergency election to decide Measure 7 in Winter 2003. The lowest turn-out was the following year with 13.35 percent of students participating in the spring 2004 elections.

Due to the ability of voters to abstain from voting on measures individually, some measures may have failed to meet the voting threshold and therefore failed even if the overall elections participation did meet it.

Campus administrators echo the sentiment that while the higher threshold may make it more difficult to create new fees, it will not be impossible.

“Passing measures is still very possible, it’s just a matter of implementing good outreach and marketing,” said Rojas.

The move to raise the campus threshold comes after the University Office of the President raised systemwide fees by 32.5 percent, increasing the overall price of a UC education. The increase in fees led administrators and students to reevaluate how much they pay overall.

“Chancellor Blumenthal was very sympathetic to the issue raised by the SUA, especially given the recent increases in UC systemwide fees that are challenging UCSC students and their families,” said Jim Burns, Director of Public Information, in an email.

Blumenthal has requested an opinion poll be placed on this year’s election’s ballot to survey student opinion on the change. If students are in favor of the increased voting threshold it will become permanent.

“In this economic climate, it seemed reasonable to him to temporarily increase the voter threshold for levying new campus fees. But he was uncomfortable doing this longer term without additional student input.” Burns also said in his email.

(from left to right)

“I think it’s a good way to get insight on your performance and it’s pretty helpful at a small university. It’s an easy way to get more academic feedback.”
Jonathan Castillo
Third-year, College Eight
History and Politics

“I like evals and it’s good to get more information about your performance beyond a letter grade. Without evals UCSC would be like any other university.”
Rebecca Crebbin-Coates
Third-year, Kresge
Environmental Studies and Biology

“I like evals because it feels like your professors and TAs have to take notice of you to do them properly. More attention can really help a student improve.”
Rachel Forman
Third-year, Stevenson
Film and Digital Media

“They provide good feedback but I think they should be more used in classes with 50 people or less. They’d seem more accurate in situations with smaller class sizes.”
Robert Sadler
Third-year, Kresge
History

Compiled by Veronica Glover & Kathryn Power.

Photo by Devika Agarwal.

The University of California’s Commission on the Future released its first recommendations on how to balance the ideals of accessible and affordable education with the current realities of dwindling financial resources.

Victor Sanchez is the UC Student Association President and UCSC Student Union Assembly External Vice Chair. The fourth-year Latin American/Latino Studies and sociology double major is also one of the three students on the Commission on the Future. He sat down with City on a Hill Press to discuss the Commission’s recommendations and how a few in particular might cause a riot.

~~~~~

City on a Hill Press: How will the Commission on the Future influence UC polices?

Victor Sanchez: Chairman [Russell] Gould and President [Mark] Yudof are the co-chairs, so it’s hard to say that there won’t be any kind of big, significant reforms.

CHP: What kind of influence, as a student, do you have on the commission?

VS: When you count me and [the two other student regents] we could be a real thorn in everybody’s side. Ultimately, by myself, I was speaking up a lot about the recommendations and the concerns I had in terms of the dependency and reliance on student fees.

CHP: Did you propose any of the 29 recommendations?

VS: The institutional aid for undocumented students. It is a campaign that has been wanting to be won for years in terms of allowing students who have paid into financial aid for years to get some in return. (*Editor’s note: currently, undocumented students pay in-state tuition but are not eligible for financial aid) This recommendation will allow them to see access to those funds. We [the student regents and I] are going to push really hard on that proposal. That’s the golden chip we are looking to take with us and move forward.

CHP: Which, if any, of the proposals do you disagree with?

VS: There are some very poor ones. Specifically when you look at funding strategies. There are two proposals. One is to allow fees to increase 5 percent each year for five years … basically bringing fees up to around thirteen thousand dollars. The second [proposal] is for fees to rise 15 percent each year for five years, allowing it [tuition and fees] to get upward of around twenty thousand dollars per year.

It was funny because when we started off with the remarks they had one slide [with the] regent’s priorities and I didn’t see [ a priority of having] ‘no student fees,’ so I made a comment, ‘This is great because we keep hearing that you guys are so reluctant to raise our fees yet it fails to show up on a priority list.’

Ultimately, it’s just unfortunate that they can’t come up with any better solutions than to put the burden on [students’] backs.

I told a [commission member] on the side, ‘If you all pass these funding strategies to raise fees for five years … you’re gonna have riots … it’s going to be real bad.’

CHP: Were there any other solutions other than to raise student fees?

VS: The conversation about alternative sources of revenue hasn’t happened [on the commission] and [commission members] do not want them to happen. There is a need for them to expand the conversation and start having it.

CHP: Were there any proposals you did not expect?

VS: One was the differential fees by campus. That to me totally undermines the mission of the UC. It deters people away from the University of California. You would now have all these little private universities and it’s like, what’s the point? That was one of the pretty far out proposals that we saw. They want to cut down majors instead of looking at GE requirements, which is a good way to slim down stuff.

CHP: Which ideas do you support?

VS: Institutional aid is one and the three-year undergraduate degree option. A lot of students already do that anyways. That option would be good to have for a lot of folks who are prepared and ready for college. I don’t think there’s anything else though.

~~~~~~

Illustration by Megan Laird.

After several months of intense debate and name-calling in the House and the Senate, President Barack Obama signed his heavily touted health care reform package into law last Wednesday, marking the biggest overhaul of the United States health care system since Theodore Roosevelt was in office.

The news set off celebrations and sighs of relief amongst many residents in Santa Cruz who have had trouble gaining access to health insurance in the past. Under Obama’s plan, an estimated two-thirds of the 40,000 uninsured people in Santa Cruz County will now be covered.

“Everyone involved in this important debate recognizes that this effort has been a long, tough and often contentious road,” said president and CEO of Catholic Healthcare West Lloyd H. Dean in a statement. The company owns and operates Dominican Hospital, located in mid-county Santa Cruz.

“This legislation addresses the real problems in our healthcare system: too many people without coverage and the high cost of care for all,” he added.

One of the most significant reforms in the health care package is a mandate that requires all Americans to carry health insurance by 2014 or risk being fined. It also includes extended dependent coverage for young adults under their parents’ insurance plans until the age of 26, and a provision that ends health insurance policies that exclude persons with preexisting conditions.

Valerie Diaz works as an instructional aide in special education classrooms in Santa Cruz County and has an autistic daughter. Diaz says she will gain the most benefit from the fact that health insurers will no longer be able to deny coverage to adults or children with disabilities or illnesses.

Diaz’s daughter Erica was covered by a state-run program “Healthy Families” until she turned 19, at which point Diaz was forced to look elsewhere for a provider to cover Erica’s health care needs. Necessary medications for her cost $1,000 a month.

However, Diaz’s daughter was denied by health insurance companies who consider autism a preexisting condition and was unable to benefit from MediCal because of the money she makes through Social Security. As a result, Diaz had to sign up for her employer’s health insurance — despite the fact that she was already insured elsewhere — so she could put her daughter under that plan as a dependent. This was the only provider who would accept her.

“Definitely the preexisting condition [is the most important provision] whenever that takes effect, which will hopefully be soon,” Diaz said. “It’ll be huge for me and my daughter because it will save me money in the long run … if I can get her on her own policy that will save me at least $400 a month.”

Bill Tysseling, executive director of the Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce, says that the health care package as a whole proves beneficial for local small business owners and their employees.

“Their workers now have access to healthcare that is affordable and guaranteed, and it means they can compete with big businesses and the government for the same employees and not have to worry about whether they can pay for health insurance,” Tysseling said. “The overall picture is that for small businesses this is probably a better deal on average.”

Not all small business owners would agree that the bill makes for a better deal. Ted Burke, who is the co-owner of Shadowbrook Restaurant in Capitola and former president of the California Restaurant Association, calls the recently passed health care legislation “a bureaucratic nightmare.”

He believes it will cause a lot more harm than good for small businesses. Burkepoints to a new regulation which requires businesses with 50 or more workers to provide health insurance or risk a $2,000 penalty for each uninsured person.

“Overall, I find the legislation extremely harmful to our industry and country,” Burke said. “The number of employees has no relationship to profitability … Shadowbrook has a hundred employees, and we’re only open for dinner, but are we considered a massive business? Hell no. But according to the law we are, and we’re supposed to have the same financial resources as an attorney’s office with a hundred employees, and that’s just plain wrong.”

Burke went on to explain that, unless this new provision is changed or repealed, his business would either be forced to change their current policy or drop health insurance altogether and risk facing the fine, which Burke says would result in “far less bookkeeping and money.”

Larry deGhetaldi, president of the Santa Cruz division of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation, also believes that while aspects of the healthcare reform are positive, it left out several key components.

For example, physicians who take Medicare patients will see a 21 percent cut in compensation. It also omits a provision proposed by Congressman Sam Farr that would reclassify counties like San Diego and Santa Cruz as urban counties to modify medicare payments. He called them “two painful omissions.”

Overall, however, deGhetaldi says that much of the criticism that this bill has received lacks merit.

“I think it’s just a manifestation of the political polarization in the country … people assume that this is socialized medicine but this is the furthest thing in the world from that. The criticism is nonsense.”

Meanwhile, Valerie Diaz is hopeful that the health care reform will be beneficial to many Santa Cruz residents like herself and her daughter.

“All these people don’t have any insurance and aren’t being able to get their medication, so if they could get on any kind of a plan it has to be better than what they have now,” she said. “But I hope the politics can get out of it because this is a right, not a privilege.”

Women’s Tennis
3/11 vs. University of the South (home) 7-2 (win)
3/20 vs. Whitman (home) 7-2 (win)
3/22 vs. Whittier (home) 9-0 (win)
3/24 vs. UC Riverside (home) 1-8 (loss)
3/26 vs. Occidental (away) 8-1 (win)
3/27 vs. University of Redlands (away) 1-8 (loss)
3/28 vs. Claremont M-S (away) 7-2 (win)

Men’s Tennis
3/11 vs. University of the South (home) 9-0 (win)
3/20 vs. Cal Lutheran (home) 4-5 (loss)
3/21 vs. Pomona Pitzer (home) 8-1 (win)
3/21 vs. Whitman College (home) 6-3 (win)
3/23 vs. Middlebury (away) 1-8 (loss)
3/23 vs. Whitworth College (away) 9-0 (win)
3/24 vs. Occidental College (away) 8-1 (win)
3/25 vs. Claremont M-S (away) 1-8 (loss)
3/27 vs. University of Redlands (away) 7-2 (win)

Men’s Volleyball
3/13 vs. Philadelphia Biblical (away) 3-1 (win)
3/13 vs. Cal Baptist (away) 2-3 (loss)
3/19 vs. Cal Baptist (home) 3-2 (win)

{Upcoming Athletics}

Men’s Volleyball
4/2 vs. Holy Names University (home) at 7 p.m. (Senior Night)

Illustration by Patrick Yeung.

While college students shut off their laptops, sold their textbooks, and headed toward the beach for spring break, President Obama and Congress enacted a new healthcare law, a task that has eluded lawmakers for over 50 years.

The new bill, signed into law on March 22, will make health care accessible to all Americans and will also include specific reforms directed at college students, specifically an overhaul of the federal student loan system.

The legislation — shunned by Republicans and passed by Democrats only — will allow all Americans to purchase affordable health insurance and will enable the federal government to offer more Pell Grants, which are cheap student loans that are easier for students to pay back. The two reforms make affordable healthcare and a college education, now staples for a sustainable and successful life, a tangible attainment for millions more Americans.

This reform will create a healthcare system accessible for all Americans while outlawing the worst abuses by health insurance agencies. Effective this year, insurance companies cannot drop you from your health plan if you get sick, and by 2014, uninsured Americans will have access to a competitive insurance exchange marketplace where people can compare prices for the best deal on an insurance plan they like.

This reform is a huge step forward from the current system where 30 million of 300 million Americans are uninsured.

Beginning in 2014, all Americans will be required to purchase health insurance. Those who cannot afford to pay for it will have their insurance subsidized. Also, insurance companies will be barred from dropping patients because of preexisting conditions.

Most importantly for students, this law will allow young people to stay on their parent’s health insurance until they are 26 years old, without the current stipulation that they must also be enrolled in school. So even after you decide to graduate, travel the world, start your own company or are in-between jobs, you will still have health insurance.

Republicans tried their hardest to mischaracterize the bill. They fought tooth and nail against so-called death panels, and scared seniors into believing the bill would cut their coverage. They warned of a massive governmental takeover. However, it is evident that this law contains many Republican ideas and also mirrors a bill signed by Republican governor Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. Their opposition to this bill was more political than substantive, and many tried to delegitimize Obama and Democrats rather than offer any real solutions.

Included in the bill was also a reform to the federal student loan program, making it easier for struggling students to afford college education and pay off their debt when they graduate.

The law expands individual Pell Grants, doubling its funding while expanding the maximum Pell Grants given to students by around $500. More students will have a shot at higher education, and the rising loans will help combat rising costs.

It also ends a federal subsidy for banks that make loans to college students, so students will get loans directly from the federal government. This will not only save taxpayers money, estimated in the billions, but also keep interest rates for these loans low and affordable.

Paying back these loans will now be easier too.

The law institutes loan forgiveness programs for graduates. Federal student loan repayments will now be capped at 10 percent of a student’s income and loans will be forgiven after 20 years of payment. Students who pursue public service employment will have their debt forgiven after 10 years.

Republicans called the federal student loan reform “another government takeover,” but they miss the point of these loans in the first place. The purpose of this law is to provide a college education to students from all backgrounds, not to help banks. With the federal government extending these loans, interest rates will be lower than a bank’s because the government will not be looking to profit.

If you are one of the thousands of students overburdened with loans, talk to your college financial aid offices and take advantage of this reform.

Illustration by Louise Leong.

The UC Regents need to get in touch with the students they supposedly represent. Over the past few years, the UC system has slowly moved its way towards a privatized, more expensive education system that has put education farther out of reach for thousands of students.

This has all been discussed and decided within the confines of UC San Francisco, a good distance away from many schools that want to be represented or take part in these discussions. UCSF is a graduate school that recieves over 100 percent of its educational fees back. This favortism towards graduate campuses excludes all the undergrads that make up the majority of the UC system. Regents should return to the policy of rotating to a different campus for each of their six meetings every year. This would allow them to hear more student perspectives during public comment sessions, as they weigh our futures.

This past year, students have voiced their disapproval with protests and strikes across the state, both on campuses and at the capital. But the regents aren’t getting the hint. Recently, a member of the UC Commission on the Future pitched an idea of annual fee increases ranging anywhere from 5 to 15 percent over the next five years. This proposal comes at a time when the UC system is experiencing the largest fee increase in its history.

Nothing is for sure, and members of the commission have made this clear with the inclusion of a disclaimer underneath the policy suggestions. It reads, “Nothing in this policy constitutes a contract, an offer of a contract, or a promise that any fees ultimately authorized by The Regents will be limited by any term or provision of this policy.” But the fact that the regents are even considering a new fee increase is unacceptable and frightening.

The regents will do what they please to push the UCs toward their vision, and from the looks of it they plan to do so without consulting the student populace. Aside from the much-ignored public comment portion of the regent meetings, during which Richard Blum usually ends up asleep at the wheel, the only way student opinions are expressed and accounted for is through the one student regent on the panel. It’s not the fact that students across the state are not speaking their minds, it’s the fact that the regents don’t care to listen, and would prefer to pursue their own goals and visions.

The regents need to recognize that students are not going to tolerate having their fees increased again while their voices continue to go unheard. Students want to have a say in where their money goes. They should not have to see their fees increased by a group of undemocratically appointed officials who do not have the students’ best interests in mind.

The UCs have seen some positive changes due to the protests — most notably when the governor cited student activism as an influence in his decision to cut prison spending in order to increase finances towards public education. The regents should look to continue this momentum in the state by working to push education bills like Assembly Bill 656, which imposes a gas and oil tax on any producer and puts that money back into public education. Instead they are looking for ways to dip back into the students’ pockets.

The regents need to use the student population as an asset and an ally, and raising our fees again is not the way to do it. Not giving us a reasonable amount of say in decisions that affect our whole system is not the way to do it. We need to come together to build a UC system that reflects what we all want, not just what the regents believe to be best.

(from left to right)

“Generally that seems silly. It’s a pointless waste of administrator’s time. If there’s any budget money going to this I’ll be really upset.”
Lindy Lavender
Third-year, Kresge
Literature

“As long as it doesn’t involve property damage or harm people and cause emotional damage [it shouldn’t be fined]. It’s a thin line.”
Rich Sportsman
Third-year, College Ten
Psychology

“Whoever proposes that is asking to get their toilet bowl saran-wrapped.”
Andy Moskowitz
Fourth-year, Cowell
Environmental Studies

“It depends on the severity of the prank. Some of them are over the top and some of them are all in good fun.”
Justin Kennedy
Second-year, Crown
Literature

Compiled by Elsbeth Riley & Morgan Grana.

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