Thursday, April 28, 2011

Vol. 45 Issue No. 25

How the state park system is handling a proposed $22 million in cuts
POLITICAL FASHION STATEMENT P. 4 QUEER COMMUNITY TAKES THE RUNWAY P. 18 COLUMN: GOD SAVE KATE MIDDLETON P. 21
Public Discourse

Public Discourse
STAFF ABOUT US
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF City on a Hill Press is pro-
Ryan Ayers
Julie Eng
duced by and for UCSC students.
Our primary goal is to report
MANAGING EDITORS
Julia Reis
Should UCSC be more concerned about adding new majors and analyze issues affecting the
student population and the Santa
Alejandro Trejo
or preserving the ones we have? Cruz community.
COPY We also serve to watchdog
Molly Kossoff, chief the politics of the UC adminis-
Lauren Balian Compiled by Bruce Tran & Prescott Watson tration. While we endeavor to
Veronica Glover
Nicole Hardin
present multiple sides of a story,
Alison Kern we realize our own outlooks
Rachel Singer “I feel that we should preserve the ones influence the presentation of the
that we have because the ones that exist news. The City on a Hill Press
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Tess Goodwin, design director
have more merit and they are recognized by (CHP) collective is dedicated to
Rosa Castañeda graduate schools.” covering underreported events,
Hilli Ciavarello ideas and voices. Our desks are
Breeze Kanikula ANH-QUAN NGUYEN devoted to certain topics: campus
Samved Sangameswara SECOND-YEAR, CROWN and city news, sports, arts and
BIOCHEMISTRY
CAMPUS NEWS entertainment, and community
Ryan Mark-Griffin, editor and culture. CHP is a campus
Sarah Naugle, editor paper, but it also provides space
Laurel Fujii
Ana Nicasio
for Santa Cruz residents to pres-
Arianna Vinion ent their views and interact with
Emiliano O’Flaherty-Vazquez the campus community. Ideally,
CHP’s pages will serve as an
CITY NEWS
Nikki Pritchard, editor
arena for debate, challenge, and
Mikaela Todd, editor ultimately, change.
Chelsea Hawkins “It’s impossible to answer this question CHP is published weekly by
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the City on a Hill Press publish-
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Rosela Arce reality is that under this structure, these
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decisions will benefit the administration September to the first week of
SPORTS rather than benefit the students’ June, except during Thanksgiv-
Asa Hess-Matsumoto, editor intellectual needs.” ing, winter and spring quarter
Samved Sangameswara
Eli Wolfe
breaks.
The opinions expressed in this
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Blair Stenvick, editor SECOND-YEARS, COLLEGE NINE & MERRILL the opinions of the staff at large,
Mitchell Bates LITERATURE/POLITICS & FEMINIST STUDIES
Hannah Toda
or the University of California.

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2 | Thursday, April 28, 2011

 Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Toby Silverman Prescott Watson Nick Paris Kyan Mahzouf

P. 4 UCSC COMES P. 9 TENNIS SLUGS P. 10 THE UC’S ONLINE EXCLUSIVE!

TOGETHER FOR DENIM HOPE FOR REPEAT STRUGGLE TO EARTH SUMMIT
DAY PERFORMANCE IN OJAI INTEGRATE by Tyler Maldonado
by Arianna Vinion by Samved Sangameswara by Asa Hess-Matsumoto

P. 5 Robotics Major
Coming in Fall
by Laurel Fujii
P. 6 A Changing UC:
Student motivated by
parents’ sacrifice
by Emiliano O’Flaherty-
Vazquez
P. 7 Events Calendar
Compiled by Molly Kossoff
P. 8 This Week in News
by Nikki Pritchard
& Mikaela Todd
P. 12 State Parks at Risk of
Getting Axed
by Mikaela Todd
P. 14 Through Our Lens
by Morgan Grana
P. 18 UCSC Tradition
Keeps It Queer Fashion
by Mitchell Bates
P. 19 Community Chest:
UCSC Lecturer Promotes
Veteran Awareness
by Aysha Bilal
P. 20 Carl Wilkens Speaks
about Rwandan Genocide
by Aysha Bilal & Mikaela
Todd
P. 21 The People’s Wedding
Finally Arrives
by Rod Bastanmehr
P. 22 TV Analysis:
“Audrina” versus “The Hills”
by Blair Stenvick
P. 23 Editorial: Permanent
funding needed for student
outreach program
Editorial: Media scrutiny
Humanizes Guantánamo
Detainees
Cover photo illustration
by Kyan Mahzouf
& Matt Boblet

cityonahillpress.com | 3
Campus
Speak Up, Speak Out
Denim Day brings visibility to sexual assault, rape prevention and education services on campus
By Arianna Vinion
Campus Reporter
Colorfully painted jeans hang in the
sunny Porter quad for Denim Day. The
friendly colors only add strength to the
words of support emblazoned on the jeans:
“Speak up Speak out.” “Silence does not
equal consent.” “You are not alone”.
Behind a table laden with pamphlets,
buttons and temporary tattoos sit three
women, each a representative of a different
branch of UCSC’s effort to provide com-
prehensive sexual assault and rape services
on Denim Day — sexual health educator
Aleen Raybin with Sexual Assault Facts &
Education (SAFE), director of UC Santa
Cruz Women’s Center Stephanie Milton
and student volunteer Allison Strockis.
Denim Day, put on by SAFE, raises
awareness during Sexual Assault Aware-
ness Month in remembrance of the Italian
trial that found a man innocent of com-
mitting rape because the defendant was
wearing tight jeans. The reasoning was
that the defendant must have helped him
get them off, thus implying consent.
Programs such as SAFE, an umbrella
program of Student Health Outreach &
Promotion (SHOP), provide services and
support for UCSC students regarding the
subjects of rape and sexual assault.
Events like Denim Day are among
many such services SAFE has to offer.
Raybin, a certified rape crisis counselor,
domestic violence advocate, and UCSC
alumna, heads SAFE. She said that rape
and sexual assault affect everyone.
SAFE is open to everyone, regardless of
sexual orientation or ethnicity, and is 100
percent confidential.
“I’m not here to define somebody’s ex-
perience, I’m really here just as a support,”
said Raybin. She emphasized that when
survivors come to SAFE, “they will be
believed and respected and provided with
resources and options.”
Such resources include counseling and
advocacy with reporting to the police or
administration, medical attention and
evidence gathering.
The Women’s Center, located in Cardiff
House near the campus entrance, also
provides rape crisis counseling, workshops
and resources.
SAFE and the Women’s Center are part
of a larger group, Coordinated Com-
munity Response (CCR), which provides
coordinated services.
“The idea is, when we have a sexual
assault on campus we have a coordinated
community response that all of these
people know how we deal with a sexual
assault on campus,” said Meg Kobe, SHOP
director and senior health educator.
CCR members include the University
4 | Thursday, April 28, 2011
Photos by Toby Silverman
of California Police Department, the Santa “The absence of ‘no’ does not automati- ALLISON STROCKIS (LEFT)
Cruz Police Department, Walnut Avenue cally mean yes,” she said. “That’s some-
gives a fellow student a temporary
Women’s Center, Family Student Housing, thing that everybody should know — if tattoo in an effort to spread sexual
Residential Life, Judicial Affairs, medi- you’re an undergrad or grad, faculty or
assault awareness outside the
cal staff at the Health Center, SHOP and staff.”
Counseling and Psychological Services.
Porter Dining Hall on Denim Day,
“Even though we are in the beginning April 27.
stages of figuring out relationships with
different units on campus, I do think there
is a sincere effort among all these units to
try to address violence on campus,” Milton
said.
Student volunteer Strockis pointed out
that SAFE and the Women’s Center are
not just resources for survivors, they are
resources for the community at large.
“If you know that something happened
to your friend and you’re struggling [with]
how to talk to them about it, then these
workshops and these people can help you
be able to be comfortable and help you be
able to support your friend,” Strockis said.
Student volunteers play a big role in
SAFE and the Women’s Center through
the creation and administration of work-
shops.
“The way that I see it, it’s such an in-
credible opportunity for students to have
a voice in shaping what the campus has to
offer,” Raybin said.
Student volunteers work with these
groups to educate all students about the
facts of rape and sexual assault.
“Alcohol is the No. 1 date rape drug,”
Raybin said. “Perpetrators need to raise
their awareness. Before they go out they
need to realize that if they are only looking
for people who are drunk, that they are
intentionally victimizing someone who is
unable to consent.”
Milton hoped the campus community
would take away an important message
from the groups’ awareness efforts
throughout the month.

Robotics Engineering
Takes Hold at UCSC
By Laurel Fujii
Campus Reporter
Computer engineering professor
Gabriel Elkaim compares a robot to a
washing machine: a washing machine
cleans clothes automatically and doesn’t
require human assistance. By definition,
washing machines are robots.
“It’s so mundane,” he said. “You walk
past it and don’t even think about it.”
Elkaim is a leading professor in UC
Santa Cruz’s new robotics engineering
major, which stems from the current com-
puter sciences, computer engineering and
electrical engineering programs. Students
will be able to declare the robotics engi-
neering major starting in fall 2011.
“Computer engineering has always
been about designing things that do
things,” said Richard Hughey, a com-
puter engineering professor. “We’ve been
expanding to computer networks. It was a
very natural fit.”
Working within the robotics and con-
trol concentration or its predecessor, au-
tonomous systems, are 43 of 129 computer
engineering students, Hughey said. The
new robotics engineering major will give
these students a chance to earn a degree in
this field rather than just a concentration.
“It very rapidly became our most popu-
lar concentration,” he said. “We thought,
‘Hey, we should do something for these
students.’”
The formation of the robotics engi-
neering major is at least eight years in the
making.
“I was hired [in 2003] because they
wanted a bigger robot emphasis,” said
Elkaim, who teaches Introduction to Me-
chatronics, a class in which students build
a robot in a 10-week quarter.
Hughey was computer engineering
chair at the time and helped build the
robotics engineering program. He said the
biggest investment was hiring three core
faculty members: Elkaim and computer
engineering instructors William Dunbar
and Jacob Rosen.
Hughey cited UCSC’s role as a research
institution as a source of major strength
behind the new major.
“Of course, the reason for going to a
research university is because of the way
research winds up in the classroom, put-
ting courses on the forefront of — in this
case — robotics technology,” Hughey said,
“and because of the opportunities that
faculty research produces for undergradu-
ate and graduate lab work.”
Campus
New major to become available this fall
Nick Paris Toby Silverman
Computer engineering professor PROFESSOR RICHARD HUGHEY explains the new robotics major’s
Dunbar is teaching the only class that was
function within the university’s engineering majors.
added to the department’s course list with
the new major: Introduction to Strength
of Materials, CE-115. In Dunbar’s class, ELKAIM HOLDS “The Slugs Autopilot,” a device that controls unmanned
students learn about the balance of forces automotive vehicles,
in the materials used to build robots. Us- or UAVs.
ing courses already offered by the com-
puter engineering department allows the
program to keep additional costs down,
but Dunbar says that CE-115 was added to
the course list because it teaches students
crucial information.
“There’s no class like it here because
there’s no mechanical engineering major,”
Dunbar said.
Despite the creation of the new
major, the engineering department is not
unaffected by the budget cuts. Over the
past three years, engineering faced $1.5
million in budget cuts and is looking at an
additional $800,000 in cuts this year.
“The primary effect of this so far on the
curriculum, and the robotics major spe-
cifically, has been the canceling of planned
hires in robotics (starting about three
years ago),” Hughey said in an email.
With few faculty members, students
have few opportunities to participate in
research and labs.
Computer engineering is making
changes to afford the creation of a new
major.
“We have been reducing the number of
graduate seminars we can offer, as well as
dropping the two-unit ‘Intro to CE’ course
we used to do,” Hughey said in an email.
The department is also hiring for fewer,
if any, positions in the next few years to
adjust to the diminishing budget.
After giving it some thought, Elkaim is
“unconcerned” for the students when he
considers the intensity of the curriculum.
“We were a little worried at first,” he
said. “We only have four years to teach
this. It’s become one of the harder majors,
and we were afraid that’d scare students
away. But it had the opposite effect.”
cityonahillpress.com | 5
Campus
Illustration by Bela Messex
STATS
Name: DJ Bott
Year: First-year
Major: Creative writing
Predicament: Increased
student fees are placing
a significant burden on
Bott’s family, causing
her father to forgo rent
payments in favor
of paying tuition.
6 | Thursday, April 28, 2011
A Changing UC
Out-of-state student struggles to pay tuition
Morgan Grana
By Emiliano
O’Flaherty-Vazquez
Campus Reporter
DJ Bott isn’t going to let a lack
of money stop her from follow-
ing her dream, but says it would
be nice if the California edu-
cational system didn’t hamper
her every move. An out-of-state
student from Miami, Fla., Bott is
struggling to cope with the UC’s
dire financial situation.
“My parents do struggle with
tuition — they always put me
first. They’re really selfless, which
stresses me out, especially since
I can’t get a job,” Bott said. “My
mom doesn’t work, and my dad
works but doesn’t always get paid
on time. He sometimes pays my
tuition instead of the rent for that
month, and so I feel really bad.
There’s a lot of stress on us as a
family.”
Bott is one of many first-
years coping with the student
fee increases implemented by
the University of California
over the past year. A mid-year
increase of $585 in 2010 and an
“[Out-of-state students] have to be prepared mentally for this, otherwise
you’re probably going to want to move back home.”
— DJ Bott, first-year
increase of $1,334 for the 2010- prepared mentally for this, oth- something that Bott has a firm
2011 academic school year has erwise you’re probably going to grip on.
brought the overall average cost want to move back home,” Bott “I don’t really need anything
of attendance to $53,580 for out- said. “If you know what you want else in this life,” Bott said, “except
of-state students. to do, you have to go for it.” to get an education.”
On the surface, Bott, a Know what you want: that’s
19-year-old Porter College first-
year, keeps her composure. Like
any other first-year, she has her
share of financial worries, but
those worries are compounded
by her out-of-state status.
“I didn’t really expect [these
difficulties]. I thought I would get
more loans, and I’ve applied for a
ton of work study jobs,” Bott said.
“Nobody takes me because I have
no experience. It’d be nice if they
gave me the experience here.”
In an effort to lighten the
burden on her family, Bott is
applying for California residency
status. However, the process is
long and Bott has a long way to
go.
“I just got my new [driver’s]
license,” Bott said. “I have to have
it for a year to qualify.”
Regardless of the difficulties,
Bott is determined to stay.
“My brother went to school at
USC a decade ago, and I’ve been
visiting him every summer,” Bott
said. “I fell in love with Califor-
nia, and it’s always been my goal
to come out here for college.”
Though her will is strong,
Bott is troubled by her situation
at home, and is worried that
the price of a UC education is
weighing heavily on her family.
With this on her mind, Bott has
plans to help out her family with
tuition come next fall.
“I’m going home for the
summer and getting a summer
job at my old high school as a
counsellor for writing camp, so
hopefully I can set aside money
to help pay for tuition,” Bott said.
Bott isn’t going to admit defeat
in the face of UCSC’s financial
fluctuations, but she has her own
opinions about what out-of-state
students should expect.
“I’m going to stay here ...
[out-of-state students] have to be

Event Calendar
Campus
Thursday, April 28
• Lecture by Alicia Schmidt
Camacho: “When Human
Beings Become Illegal.”
Humanities 1, room 210. 4
to 5:30 p.m. Free.
• Tips for Job Interviewing for
Students with Disabilities.
College Eight, room 250.
7:30 to 9 p.m. Free.
Friday, April 29
• Workshop: Careers in Hu-
man Resources. Bay Tree
Conference Center, Cer-
vantes & Velasquez room. 1
to 2:15 p.m. UCSC students
only. Free.
• Arbor Day Haircuts. $5
donations toward haircuts
support the planting of trees.
Crown Courtyard.
• April in Santa Cruz: Clos-
ing Concert. Music Center
Recital Hall. 7:30 to 9:30
p.m. Free.
• Queer Fashion Show 2011.
Porter/Kresge Dining Hall.
Doors open at 8 p.m., show
starts at 8:30. $8.
Saturday, April 30
• Spring Plant Sale. Barn The-
ater, base of campus. 10 a.m.
to 3 p.m.
• Day by the Bay: Picnic on
UCSC’s East Field. 12 to 3
p.m. Free.
• Chicano Latino Resource
Center’s 15th Anniversary
Celebration Quinceañera.
College Nine and Ten Multi-
Purpose Room. 4 to 11 p.m.
Admission prices vary.
• Queer Fashion Show 2011.
Porter/Kresge Dining Hall.
Doors open at 8 p.m., show
starts at 8:30. $8.
Sunday, May 1
• Life Lab May Day Benefit
Brunch. 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Free.
• A Writer’s Life: A Celebra-
tion of Writing at UC Santa
Cruz. Humanities Lecture
Hall and Humanities 1. 10
a.m. to 4 p.m. Free.
Monday, May 2
• Women’s Self Defense. Every
Monday and Wednesday
through May 19. East Field
Center, Martial Arts Room.
3 to 5 p.m. Free.
Wednesday, May 4
• Lecture: Humanitarian
Response in the Midst of
Disaster and War. College
Nine, Namaste Lounge. 5 to
7 p.m. Free.
City
Thursday, April 28
• Concert: Maceo Parker.
Kuumbwa Jazz Center.
7 p.m. and 9 p.m. $23 in
advance, $26 at door, $40 for
all-night funk pass.
• Concert: Devil in the
Machine, plus Our Vinyl
Vows and Heap of Stone.
The Catalyst. 8:30 p.m. $5 in
advance, $10 at door. 21+.
• Concert: The Post Street
Rhythm Peddlers, The Scar-
ring Party, Johanna Lefever.
The Crepe Place. 9 p.m. $8.
Friday, April 29
• Jazz on Film: “Rejoice and
Shout.” Del Mar Theatre.
7:30 p.m. $10.50.
• Concert: The Devil Makes
Three, plus Brown Bird.
The Catalyst. 9 p.m. $17 in
advance, $20 at door. 21+.
• Concert: Eastern Conference
Champions, The Ian Fays,
The Getaway Girl. The Crepe
Place. 9 p.m. $8.
Saturday, April 30
• Bellydance Community
Showcase. The Crepe Place.
1:30 p.m. Free.
• Concert: Vienna Teng and
Alex Wong, with Lauren
Shera. Rio Theatre. 8 p.m.
$22 in advance, $25 at door.
• Concert: The Holdup, Wall-
paper and Young Science.
The Catalyst. 9 p.m. $12 in
advance, $15 at door. 16+.
• Concert: Ribsy’s Nickel,
Eliquate. The Catalyst. 9 p.m.
$5 in advance, $7 at door.
21+.
Sunday, May 1
• Barbara Lopez Group. The
Crêpe Place. 6 p.m. Free.
Monday, May 2
• Do Something Reel Film
Festival presents “On Coal
River” at 6:30 p.m. and “Bag
It” at 8:30 p.m. Rio Theatre.
$7 for both shows.
• Concert: Joe Lovano Us Five.
cityonahillpress.com | 7
Events
By Molly Kossoff
Copy Chief
Kuumbwa Jazz Center. 7
p.m. $25 in advance, $28 at
door.
• Film: “The Fantastic Mr.
Fox.” The Crepe Place. 9 p.m.
Free.
Tuesday, May 3
• Do Something Reel Film
Festival presents “Urban
Roots” at 6:30 p.m. and
“Lunchline” at 8:30 p.m. Rio
Theatre. $7 for both shows.
• Concert: J. Mascis, Black
Heart Procession, Rachel
Fannan. The Crepe Place. 9
p.m. $15 in advance, $18 at
door.
Wednesday, May 4
• Do Something Reel Film
Festival presents “Vanishing
of the Bees” at 6:30 p.m. and
“PlanEAT” at 8:30 p.m. Rio
Theatre. $7 for both shows.
• Concert: Neil Hamburger,
K-Strass. The Crepe Place. 9
p.m. $10 in advance, $12 at
door.
Contact us at events@cityona-
hillpress.com. For a complete
calendar of this week’s events, visit
www.cityonahillpress.com
City
This Week in News
Local Office
Occupancy Falls
As unemployment took a
small downturn locally and
nationally this fiscal quarter, of-
fice space vacancy rose in Santa
Cruz County, to the dismay of
landlords.
Last quarter, 15.2 percent of
Santa Cruz County residents
Illustration by Rachel Edelstein
8 | Thursday, April 28, 2011
were unemployed, while 9.7
percent of the country was
unemployed nationally. County
unemployment has dropped
slightly this quarter to 14.6 per-
cent, mirroring the reduction to
8.8 percent federally.
However, despite reduced un-
employment, office space avail-
ability in Santa Cruz County has
risen since last quarter. Of the
office space in
the county,
12.5 percent
is vacant,
up from
12.3 per-
cent last
quarter,
accord-
ing to a
first quar-
ter report
on the
office market in
Santa Cruz County by
commercial real estate firm
Cassidy Turley.
Most instances of vacancy are
concentrated in the Scotts Valley
area, where vacancy rose from
19.2 percent to 19.8 percent since
last quarter, according to the
report.
“The problem is that demand
remains extremely weak,” the
report said, “and leasing activity
continues to be dominated by
renewals and relocations that are
accounting for virtually no
occupancy growth.”
This means currently there
aren’t new businesses clamoring
to occupy office space in Santa
Cruz County. This could be a re-
sult of the high cost of rent ($1.85
per square foot monthly on aver-
age), or that businesspeople are
discouraged by the competitive,
depressed market.
The report presented a fairly
optimistic view of the future.
While progress is expected to be
slow, according to the report, it
will come.
“Look for leasing activity
to slowly build momentum,”
according to the report, “but it
will be next year before we see
anything approaching significant
positive net absorption or rental
rate growth.”
By Nikki Pritchard
City Co-Editor
& Mikaela Todd
New Parenting
Program Launched
in Santa Cruz
The Positive Parenting Pro-
gram, a nationwide program that
has been functioning for nearly
three decades, is now launching
its official program in Santa Cruz
County.
According to a press release,
the goals for the program —
known as Triple P — are to offer,
among other things, information
and support to struggling parents
in the area.
Susan True, director of First
Five Santa Cruz County — a
group whose mission it is to
assure that every child reaches
the age of five “ready to achieve
to their greatest potential” —
said she was glad the Triple P
program was spreading to Santa
Cruz.
“What we’re looking to do is
improve the quality of the parent-
to-child relationship,” True said.
First Five was instated due to
City Co-Editor
Proposition 10, passed in 1998,
which aimed to create a First Five
Commission in every county
across the state of California.
Money generated for First Five
Commissions comes from a 50-
cent tax on cigarette packs, and
funds programs like Triple P.
The pilot for Triple P began
less than a year ago, but partici-
pation has remained high. True
planned to expand slowly, but
now is happy to have the full
launch of the program.
True said that Triple P was
open to every parent, from the
parents with common, everyday
problems to those with serious
issues that can endanger child de-
velopment. The program focuses
on things like bedtime routines,
sibling fights or even just getting
through a shopping trip without
a meltdown from the child.
“You don’t have to be a parent
who is really struggling,” True
said. “You could just have an
everyday problem. So we wanted
that kind of acceptable parenting
information to be available [to
Santa Cruz County].”

Men’s Tennis Heads to Ojai Tournament
Slugs to participate in one of the largest tournaments in the country
FRESHMAN BRYCE BETTWY serves a ball during a practice on Tuesday.
JUNIOR YUSHI AYABE returns a serve during the
team’s Wednesday practice. Within NCAA Division III, By Samved
Sangameswara
men’s tennis at UCSC is a powerhouse, with seven titles
and the most Division III final appearances in the country. Sports Reporter
With seven NCAA Division
III titles and the most NCAA
Division III final appearances in
the country, the UC Santa Cruz
men’s tennis team doesn’t have
to do much to prove it belongs
among the elite in collegiate
tennis. However, that reputation
does not leave the team resting
on its laurels.
This weekend, the team is
traveling down to Ojai, Calif. to
participate in the 111th Ojai Val-
ley Tennis Tournament. One of
the biggest tennis tournaments in
the nation, Ojai sees competition
all the way from Division I to the
the high school level. The com-
petition is split into a number of
tournaments, with Divison III,
community colleges, high schools
and the Pacific-10 Conference all
playing in their own individual
brackets.
UCSC men’s tennis coach Bob
Hansen said that size and scope
of the playing field makes Ojai a
proving ground for the players.
“It’s a huge tournament,” Han-
sen said. “It’s a finer atmosphere.
It’s the closest many of our guys
will get to the pros.”
Besides the importance that
the tournament holds in the
tennis world, performance at
Ojai also has implications for the
NCAA Division III tournament
later in May. The seeding for the
tournament is decided by a panel
of judges, and Hansen said Ojai is
one of the judges last chances to
look at the players before making
their decision.
In spite of the mounting
pressure, the team is still keeping
its cool. After a successful
showing at Ojai last year when
senior Brian Pybas took first
place in singles, the team is
confident that they can put on
a strong performance this year.
Sophomore Parker Larsen, the
third-ranked singles player on
the team and Pybas’ partner
as part of the team’s No. 1
doubles duo, said he has high
expectations for the tournament.
“I hope to see every Slug go as
far as they can go,” Larsen said.
“I know we have the potential
to go all the way. I expect to see
medals.”
While coach Hansen shares
that optimism, he made note
of the fact that the tournament
won’t be easy by any means.
“I feel good about where we
are and about our training. I
want to see a deep run by a num-
ber of our players and I expect
to do so [as well],” Hansen said.
“But that being said, from the
first round forward there are a
lot of obstacles. There will be no
shortage of very talented players
for sure.”
sIn addition to the competi-
tion, both Pybas and Larsen also
acknowledged that the sheer
length of the tournament is a
challenge in and of itself. With
cityonahillpress.com | 9
Sports
Photos by Prescott Watson
multiple matches each day over
the entire weekend, the tourna-
ment will also be a test of stamina
for the players.
“It’s a really tough tourna-
ment,” Pybas said. “You play
singles and doubles and you play
three or four matches a day. By
the time you get to Sunday you’re
pretty beat.”
The second-ranked singles
player, senior Erich Koenig, said
one of the ways to combat that
fatigue is to capitalize on the
earlier matches, which may be
less competitive.
“[I want to] manage the
matches I can win easily and not
play more tennis than I have to,”
Koenig said. “[Ojai] is a mental
and physical challenge.”
The team members are eager
to go to Ojai. Larsen and Koenig,
as well as the team’s fifth singles
player, sophomore Sam Rodgers,
agree it is the atmosphere at
Ojai that makes it such a special
tournament for the team. The
players who make it to finals at
Libbey Park have the chance to
play in a stadium alongside the
televised Division I final, and
follow in the footsteps of tennis
superstars like Andre Agassi,
who played at Libbey Park in his
youth.
“[Playing at Ojai means] being
a part of a lot of really special
players,” Rodgers said. “The
history there is hard to match. It’s
what you play for.”
Feature

The
Adversity of
Diversity
Bringing in cultures pushed out of higher education
By Asa Hess-Matsumoto, Sports Editor

Illustrations by Matt Boblet & Muriel Gordon

Photos by Nick Paris

“It is our duty to fight for our people. It is our duty

to win. We must love and protect each other. We have
nothing to lose but our chains.”
Three times over, the hundreds of admitted UC Santa
Cruz students, led onstage by alumna Eden Jequinto,
echoed these words of Assata Shakur — a Black Panther
fugitive and African-American rights activist — in
unified chant.
The high school seniors, a mix of Latinos, African-
Americans and Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders, each
had similar stories to tell: mothers who worked multiple
jobs at late hours, bad neighborhoods on the wrong side
of town, growing up among thugs and gangsters. Many,
if not all in attendance, would be the first in their family
to even consider going to college.
HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS from troubled areas and low-resource homes
are brought to UCSC to convince them to advance their education.

Jequinto is no exception. Growing up
in La Puente, Calif., Jequinto said she
experienced a lot of hardship as a gay
Filipino woman. She watched her drunken
father turn on her mother, members of
her family succumb to alcohol-induced
dementia and die, and at the age of eight,
she began drinking. Throughout high
school, Jequinto said she hated herself for
being homophobic but also gay. She said
the people like herself and those in the
audience that evening were not victims,
but survivors.
“Remember your reason to be here,”
Jequinto said. “Is it your mom who
works two [or] three jobs, coming home
exhausted at night to your five brothers
and sisters? Is it that one teacher who
finally gave a shit about you and treated
you like a human being? Is it your sister,
your pops? Whatever it may be, remember
it, and remember the thousands of your
black and brown brothers and sisters who
could not be here tonight with you.”
What followed next was a proud and
defiant roar — a symbolic reflection of the
adversity with diversity on UC campuses
— thundering and rolling its way out of
the College Nine and Ten multipurpose
room into the cool night air.
Across the entire UC system, various
programs, initiatives and organizations
are in place to encourage and support
first-generation college-bound students
with low-resource and low-income
backgrounds to strive for higher educa-
tion. Programs like the Blue and Gold
Opportunity Plan, which assists low-
income students with college expenses,
and Educational Opportunity Programs
(EOP), which connect students with a
variety of academic and personal support
programs, have had measurable success in
this regard.
“I myself was the first in my family to
go to college,” UCSC Chancellor George
Blumenthal said to the crowd. “I also
know the incredible pride in seeing my
kids off to college. To the students that
come here, we are dedicated to your suc-
cess.”
But a student’s retention is dependent
on more than just dollars and tutors.
Establishing a sense of community —
culturally, ethnically and socially — is just
as critical. In this way, broad, systemwide
programs can fail to provide the localized,
tailored support that students need. The
promotion of an ethnically diversified
campus student body in a university
system that has historically been
predominantly white necessitates resource
centers for outreach and retention.
“Students of color go to where they see
the support,” said Carolyn Dunn, UCSC
Ethnic Resource Center director. “A lot
of these kids coming out of their com-
munities are put into cultural isolation.
But our funding could disappear next year
and we’d be facing significant losses. Our
budget is really tiny as it is. We won’t know
how bad the damage is until we hear from
the vice chancellor.”
The prospects of finding funds to
support more localized programs have
become strained since the $500 million
budget cuts were handed down by the
state to the UC system. To that end, the
role that these localized ethnic resource
programs play, invaluable to many, has
become increasingly restrained.
One such resource center at UCSC is
the Engaging Education Student-Initiated
Outreach and Retention Center, which
connects underprivileged high school
students with college counseling, builds
communities and establishes cross-
cultural networks among UCSC students.
In addition, it provides a means for
educating students about empowerment,
social justice and student activism.
“We look to help provide students
the opportunity to come get a university
education,” said Engaging Education co-
chair Yesenia Ramos. “Our programs help
students build connections to help with
the transition from high school. Students
who come in knowing people are more
prone to staying. Our outreach programs
target students from all over California —

10 | Thursday, April 28, 2011


Pasadena, Berkeley, the Bay Area — who
may come from families with low incomes,
or be the first and only member of their
family to go to college.”
Engaging Education, headquartered
above the Bicycle Co-op in Quarry Plaza,
is a support system designed and led by
students, for students. As a way of ad-
dressing the low rates of recruitment,
retention and graduation from historically
underrepresented and under-resourced
communities, Engaging Education serves
an integral function in promoting a more
culturally and ethnically diverse campus
community.
Founded in 2003, Engaging Educa-
tion, in conjunction with the Ethnic
Resource Centers and the Ethnic Student
Organization Council, sought to create a
“safe space” for students of color and the
continuation of student outreach. Until
then, there had not been an establishment
of a student-led organization to address
the numerous racially motivated incidents
on campus.
UCSC’s clashes between students and
the administration over diversification
stretches as far back as 1969, when
students of color seized control over the
first graduation ceremony, saying they
were frustrated over being discriminated
against and marginalized. Even after
Engaging Education was formed, hate
crimes, including the drawings of nooses
and swastikas in bathrooms across
campus, continue to happen.
However, thanks largely to outreach
programs like the ones supported by
Engaging Education, UCSC is beginning
to see a significant increase in African-
American, Asian-American/Pacific
Islander and Latino undergraduate
enrollment.
Of the roughly 3,500 freshmen
admitted into UCSC for fall 2011, 3.2
percent were African-American, 30.3
percent Asian-American/Pacific Islander,
and 25.5 percent Latino, higher rates
than in previous years. In particular,
the campus has seen a significant jump
in its Latino enrollment — in 2000 by
comparison, only 13.8 percent of students
admitted were Latino.
Engaging Education’s retention pro-
grams have also yielded higher averages
than that of the university itself — one
such program, the Community Unified
Student Network, a peer program de-
signed to help connect and support Asian
Americans/Pacific Islanders communally
and academically, boasts a 92 percent
CANVASES (ABOVE) PAINTED BY high school students involved
in the Student Initiate Outreach program. The canvases are meant to
inspire members of the students’ communities back home.
first-year retention rate, compared to the
campus’ 86 percent.
“The program is one of my favorite
things about the campus. The enthusiasm
shown, the drive of its staff — it’s truly
a student program and its really great,”
Chancellor Blumenthal said. “Together
with the efforts of the university, we’ve
made great progress on diversity.”
Engaging Education co-chair Ramos,
a fourth-year politics and feminist studies
double major, was influenced by Engaging
Education’s outreach programs in 2007,
which ultimately swayed her into coming
to the university.
“I would never have thought about
coming here were it not for UCSC’s
[outreach] programs,” Ramos said.
“None of my cousins went on to higher
education, and — being a woman — it has
been very hard and very interesting here.
These programs are about understanding
different cultural needs — not every
person and every community is the same.
[The programs] are very valuable and
needed.”
Ethnic disparities in higher education
are not just a problem for the UC sys-
tem, however. Of the 1,563,069 bach-
elor’s degrees awarded in 2008 in the
United States, 9.8 percent of them went to
African-Americans, 7.9 percent to Latinos,
and 7 percent to Asian-Americans/Pacific-
Islanders, compared to the 71.8 percent
awarded to white students, according to
the National Center for Education Statis-
tics — a statistic that has only marginally
changed over the past 10 years.
The state of California in particular has
had an ongoing struggle with maintain-
ing a diverse campus community in its
post-secondary education institutions.
California’s population of over 33.8 million
is 44.4 percent white, 34.9 percent Latino,
12.3 percent Asian-American/Pacific Is-
lander, and 6.4 percent African-American,
according to the State Department of
Finance’s survey. Starkly contrasting that
figure was UCSC’s enrolled undergraduate
ethnic breakdown in the fall 2009 quarter,
during which 48 percent of students were
white, 17.3 percent were Latino, 16 percent
Asian-American/Pacific Islander, and 2.8
percent African-American.
In 1978, in reaction to the Califor-
nia Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative
action, then-UC president David Saxon
mandated the campuses to reflect or “ap-
Feature
proximate” the racial and ethnic composi-
tion of the state’s graduating high school
seniors. Since then, the UC system as a
whole has failed to match that standard.
The UC’s enrolled undergraduate ethnic
breakdown in the fall 2009 quarter was
3.4 percent African-American, 26 percent
Asian-American/Pacific Islander, and 15.3
percent Latino.
People of color continue to be
underrepresented in higher education,
while being overrepresented in the state’s
poverty (22 percent of all American
Indians in California earn incomes below
the federal poverty line), incarceration
(29 percent of all prisoners in California
prisons are African-American), and
high school dropout rates (44 percent of
Latinos over the age of 25 have less than a
high school diploma).
UCSC second-year Nwadiuto Amajoyi,
born in Nigeria and one of five siblings,
serves on Engaging Education’s Student-
Initiated Outreach (SIO) board of direc-
tors. Amajoyi said the UC needs to adopt
a new educational paradigm, one with a
more interactive space, highlighting the
present ethnic disparities at UCSC.
“UCSC is one of the whitest UCs in the
system — one of the least diverse, certain-
ly,” Amajoyi said. “When I give tours to
incoming students — African-American/
black, Latino, whomever — I make a point
to alert them of the campus climate. I don’t
want them to say things like, ‘I feel like
you guys lied to me.’”
Amajoyi said the university has long
misconstrued its interpretation of diver-
sity.
“The administration interprets ‘diver-
sity’ as diversity of perspective,” Amajoyi
said. “But I would have them consider
diversity of ethnicity and race as well. If
it did this, diversity of perspective will
naturally follow.”
Student regent-designate Alfredo
Mireles said that part of the problem is the
public’s perception of the UC system. The
son of a hardworking mother and for-
merly undocumented migrant father from
Mexico, Mireles said he understands the
idea that a university education might ap-
pear unfeasible, if only because of its cost.
“The biggest myth about the UC system
I’d like to push back is the notion that the
universities are only for wealthy, elitist,
white males,” Mireles said. “Most other
schools are nowhere close to how well we
accommodate the underprivileged — we
Continued on p. 16
cityonahillpress.com | 11
Feature
CALIFORNIA STATE PARKS
By Mikaela Todd, City/Community & Culture Co-Editor
FACE DIRE DECISIONS
In light of the governor’s January budget, state parks work towards cutting back
P
hone calls, emails and protests were
the name of the game.
This was the reaction locally and
nationwide when Gov. Arnold Schwar-
zenegger proposed shutting down all 14
state parks in Santa Cruz County and up-
wards of 220 of the 278 existing state parks
in California. Locals of Santa Cruz and
those affected across the state mounted a
massive campaign to save state parks and
won. Instead of following through with
his proposed plan, however, the former
governor cut hours and maintenance at
state parks to appease his public.
Fast-forward to 2011, where the victory
of two years ago is overshadowed by the
ever-growing deficit in California. Gov.
Jerry Brown’s budget, released in Janu-
ary of this year, reflects his need to spend
less in order to shore up the entire state of
California’s economy. What this means for
the California State Park System is a cut of
$22 million over the next two years — an
18 percent cutback of the overall general
fund for state parks. The system expects
closures of some parks at least, a huge loss
for the advocates of 2009.
This funding crisis was not made any
easier when last year, Proposition 21,
which would have attached an $18 fee to
12 | Thursday, Apri 28, 2011
s Photos by Kyan Mahzouf s Illustration by Rachel Edelstein
all license registrations to be used to bal- ABOVE: Mammoth Redwoods fill the Santa Cruz mountains and are an
ance the budget for California’s state parks, integral part of many state parks. Among these are the Henry Cowell,
failed to pass in the November 2010 elec- Wilder Ranch, and Big Basin State Parks.
tions. That money would have replaced
the entire state’s budget allocated to the
BELOW: Natural Bridges State Beach is just one of the 278 state parks
state park system, which could have been
used elsewhere in the governor’s proposed
in California at risk of future budget cuts. To prepare, many state parks
budget, according to Roy Stearns, deputy are looking for other sources of funding to keep them open.
director of communications for California
state parks.
With the proposed cut taken into
account, the state park system will have
lost a total of 37 percent of its general fund
since the 2007–2008 fiscal year budget.
This has amounted to a staggering loss for
the single largest destination in California
— the state park system — which has
a total of 75 million visitors yearly,
almost outdoing Disneyland’s location in
California 5-1.
Despite the advocacy efforts of or-
ganizations like Friends of Santa Cruz
State Parks and the Santa Cruz State Park
Foundation, gaps in funding have left
the California and Santa Cruz State Park
Systems with the difficult task of choosing
what parks to keep open, cut availability
to, or close completely. The California
State Park System is not currently disclos-
ing their estimates for how many state

MISSION STATE HISTORIC PARK AND NATURAL BRIDGES STATE BEACH are two local examples of the
many California state parks that are in danger of facing budget cuts.
parks would close under the governor’s
budget, but closures of any state parks,
which are expected, will take a toll on local
economies and preservation efforts.
Local non-profit Friends of Santa Cruz
State Parks was at the forefront of the fight
against Governor Schwarzenegger’s 2009
budget proposal. Executive director Bonny
Hawley said now her organization tries
to help fund local parks the state can no
longer pay for.
“We’ve had to really try to fill in where
we can,” Hawley said.
Even with help from Friends of Santa
Cruz State Parks, which, according to their
website, has provided $10 million in fund-
ing to Santa Cruz educational programs,
visitors centers and exhibits over the past
30 years, some Santa Cruz state parks still
have trouble staying open. Hawley’s office
is located next door to the Santa Cruz
Mission State Historic Park, which only
remains open on Thursdays, Fridays and
Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. They
used to be open full-time.
Restrooms have also been partially
closed in most of the local state parks and
seasonal campgrounds remain closed for
months longer than usual. Public accessi-
bility has been cut dramatically, according
to Hawley.
“The park used to be open a lot more to
the public,” Hawley said.
Stearns said, Proposition 21 “would
have fixed everything.”
In Santa Cruz County, the proposition
passed overwhelmingly by a 68.4 percent
to 31.6 percent vote, but it failed across the
state by a 57.3 percent to 42.7 percent vote.
“My personal opinion … is that people
didn’t want to pass a vehicle license fee,”
Stearns said. “That doesn’t mean they
didn’t like parks, it means they didn’t like a
vehicle license fee.”
But according to Hawley, there was a
deeper issue that affected the vote.
“I think it had a lot more to do with
trust in government,” Hawley said. “I
think there were people who really didn’t
believe that the money would go to state
parks, that somehow the governor or the
legislature would find a way to put the
money into the general fund for other pur-
poses, even though it was very well drafted
and that wouldn’t have happened. I think
people were suspicious, and the tough
economy didn’t help.”
With the looming threat of closures,
UC Santa Cruz environmental studies
lecturer Brian Dowd-Uribe said his class,
Environmental Interpretation, would be
critically affected. Almost half of his stu-
dents currently intern at state parks.
“Without these internships it would be
hard for my class to succeed,” Dowd-Uribe
said in an email. “The internship allows
students to immediately put into practice
concepts explored in the class. There just
wouldn’t be enough internships elsewhere
to make up this gap.”
To decide which state parks are going
to close due to the governor’s budget, a
team of the California State Park System’s
experienced supervisors and managers
have put together a comprehensive plan
that is currently being reviewed by
Gov. Brown.
According to Stearns, deputy director
of communications for California state
parks, this team of supervisors and man-
agers traveled to Sacramento earlier this
year and spent weeks refining the method-
ology behind the proposed budget cuts.
“You have to balance so that what you
leave open still serves the greatest number
in the public,” Stearns said. “Not an easy
choice.”
Stearns said that “a significant number”
of parks would close if the proposed bud-
get is not adjusted, which he is skeptical
about since tax extensions did not make it
onto this June’s ballot.
The team of supervisors and manag-
ers looked at the cost savings they had
to make, and ran the numbers on how
much a park makes in revenue, or how
much the system saves by closing it. Other
factors the team considered were specific
state parks’ significance, visitation, exist-
ing partnerships and infrastructure. The
information regarding which parks will
close cannot be disclosed until the plan is
released to the public in mid-May.
Dave Keck, landscape architect and
project manager for the Big Basin General
Plan, a long-term plan that is currently
being drafted for Big Basin State Park, said
that with the budget cuts and the wounded
state of the park system, his team is try-
ing to look at how they can obtain other
funding through partnerships. He said
he wanted “methods that we can achieve
objectives for keeping parks open and still
accommodating visitors.”
Feature
CALIFORNIA
STATE PARKS
14 STATE PARKS
IN SANTA CRUZ
COUNTY
14 STATE PARKS
PROPOSED TO
CLOSE IN SANTA
CRUZ COUNTY
278 STATE PARKS IN
CALIFORNIA
220 STATE PARKS
PROPOSED
TO CLOSE IN
CALIFORNIA
On March 26, Keck helped facilitate a
meeting in which members of the public
were open to comment on several different
plan proposals.
“[Funding] is always the first question,”
Keck said. “When you throw out ideas and
want people’s feedback, the first question
is always, ‘Well, where is the state going to
get the money to do all this?’”
Instead of looking to the state for fund-
ing, Keck said that a lot of the funding Big
Basin receives comes from bonds, which
have funded improvements and updates
for the park, its headquarters and its visi-
tor’s center. Hopefully, Keck said, future
bond partnerships will help implement
the current General Plan. Peninsula Open
Space Trust (POST) and Sempervirens
Fund are two of the park’s current bond
partners, which helped secure the territory
of Little Basin acquired early this year.
What this means for Big Basin is their
facilities have not been hit as hard as
those that have difficulty securing funding
through private bonds. Campers and rang-
ers at Big Basin see little difference in the
way the park has been run in the past.
Securing funding is exactly what the
Big Basin General Plan does in effect, Keck
said.
“[The Big Basin General Plan] is used
as a tool to solicit funds, if anything, by
others who have an interest in making the
park better,” Keck said.
Realistically, Keck said, funding from
Continued on p. 17
cityonahillpress.com | 13
Photography

THROUGH
As I walked toward the piers along the
Embarcadero in San Francisco, I could
feel the weight of my backpack pulling at
my shoulders. I had filled my backpack
a diverse mix: some walked to work,
some were out for a run and others were
taking in the city sites. People who live
in and visit the city can take a short walk

OUR LENS
Words & Photographs by Morgan Grana
with two cameras, a wide angle lens,
memory cards and several rolls of black
and white film. That morning I could
not decide whether I wanted to shoot
with my film or my digital camera. When
I was near the Ferry Building, I made
the decision to shoot only with my film
camera. The foot traffic on the pier was
along the piers and end up anywhere.
As one walks down the Embarcadero,
there are plenty of places to stop and take
in the beauty of the city and to notice
the details of what the city have to offer.
What one does in the city is truly a matter
of making a decision and enjoying the
outcome, no matter what happens.

14 | Thursday, Apri 28, 2011

 Photography

cityonahillpress.com | 15
Feature
The Adversity of Diversity
Continued from p. 11
stand head and shoulders above
most other public schools.”
Mireles also said he was
pleased with the UC’s capacity
for providing more aid to more
students in need than Ivy League
institutions do. In 2004, then–
Harvard president Lawrence
Summers indicated that three-
fourths of the students at Ivy
Leagues come from the top in-
come quartile, and only 9 percent
from the bottom two quartiles
combined. While Ivy Leagues
may be able to completely fund
their economically disadvantaged
students’ education, they accept
dramatically fewer students who
qualify for such aid, in compari-
son to the UC.
The percentage of students
at Harvard and Princeton who
receive Federal Pell Grants is
8.4 percent and 8.5 percent,
respectively, and comparably,
38.1 percent of UCLA’s students
receive Pell Grant aid, according
to the Education Trust. UC
Berkeley and UC Davis both
provide more student aid in Pell
Grants than the entire Ivy League
system combined.
Leading the UC’s mission to
assist students with low-income
backgrounds is the university’s
Blue and Gold Opportunity
Plan. Approved in 2009, the plan
established assistance for under-
graduates with financial need and
household incomes below the
state median of $60,000 — now
$80,000 — per year. At mini-
mum, the plan makes up the dif-
ference from federal aid to help
eligible students completely cover
their UC fees. With the threshold
set at the state’s median income,
this potentially enables half of
California’s population to have
their systemwide fees covered.
This qualifies more than half of
California’s Pacific Islander,
African-American, American
Indian, and Latino population,
according to median house-
hold incomes listed in the 2000
Census.
But such successes may prove
to be a double-edged sword for
outreach and retention efforts
like those of Engaging Educa-
tion. With the $500 million in
budget cuts that were handed
down to the UC by the state and
with more on the horizon, the
ability to continue funding these
programs grows increasingly
difficult. Paulina Raygoza, the
16 | Thursday, Apri 28, 2011
Illustration by Muriel Gordon
organizing director of Engaging
Education, said that while its
outreach programs may have
a secure source of funding, its
capacity to conduct outreach
to the state youth has become
increasingly limited.
“Our state funding is used
as a political bargaining chip,”
Raygoza said. “At one point we
had $81,000 from the state —
now we receive less than half of
that. It’s a sort of ‘we’ll give you
the money if you do this’ kind
of thing.”
Presently, a $5 student-
approved campus fee helps fund
the six UCSC Ethnic Resource
Centers as well as the SIO pro-
grams — $3 to the resource cen-
ters, $1 to CARE Council, and
$1 to SIO. The SIO programs, a
subset of Engaging Education,
attract promised funding from
the Chancellor’s office each year,
an amount which used to be $2
for every dollar students pay
(last year the Chancellor’s funds
dropped to $1.75 for every dol-
lar paid).
As one of the campus’s stron-
gest and most effective means of
reaching out to the state, Engag-
ing Education’s SIO programs
are critical to the continued
diversification of the student
body. Yet with the economy in
the state that it’s in and steeper
cuts being handed down by the
UC administration, getting high
school students to and from
their communities to familiar-
ize themselves with the campus
becomes increasingly expensive.
“Prices went up this year
due to the budget cuts and the
economy,” SIO director Amajoyi
said. “We need to transport stu-
dents from all across the state
by bus and plane. This year, our
plane tickets cost $500 more
than last [year].”
Cuts made to the state’s K–12
education have also forced addi-
tional responsibilities onto SIO.
“Because of the budget cuts,
a lot of the K–12 schools are not
doing enough college prep work
simply because they are unable
to,” Engaging Education direc-
tor Raygoza said. “What can we
do to help fill that role? We have
to think about the educational
barriers that affect high school
youths.”
The university’s cutting
of funding to its community
studies and American studies
majors also is seen by some as
indirectly undermining the ef-
forts made by outreach and re-
tention programs. Amajoyi said
that cuts like this discourage
African-American, Latino and
Asian-American enrollment.
“These classes [that get cut]
reflect the histories of our com-
munities that would otherwise be
told from a Eurocentric perspec-
tive,” Amajoyi said. “Think about
it: coming out of high school,
you might know a little of black
history — Martin Luther King Jr.,
Malcolm X, slavery and a bunch
of dead white presidents — but
what do you know of Chicano
history? Of Asian-Americans’?”
Ethnic Resource Center
director Dunn said many of the
students she works with major in
the studies that get cut.
“We used to see quite a few
community studies majors before
it was cut,” Dunn said. “Now a
significant majority are American
studies majors or Latin American
and Latino studies majors. We’re
concerned with who is next.
Feminist studies? LALS?”
To compensate, Engaging
Education also allocates funds to
teach their own five-unit courses
at UCSC. The student-led courses
seek to engage UCSC students
in a comfortable setting with
histories and stories they may be
unfamiliar with.
“The classes themselves are
student-run and serve as more
of a dialogue space than your
standard lecture,” Raygoza said.
“Everyone is their own teacher,
bringing in their own stories. The
class focuses more on our ethnic
identities and the struggles and
our ability to create change.”
In conjunction with other stu-
dent staff at Engaging Education,
Raygoza said that the five-unit
winter and spring quarter class
could not replace the absence of
two entire departments.
Student regent-designate
Mireles said he would do ev-
erything he could to support
programs like Engaging Educa-
tion, and is already lobbying
for Chancellor Blumenthal to
continue his promise to match
SIO’s fundraising.
“I think it’s a tragedy that [the
American studies and commu-
nity studies] majors were cut,”
Mireles said. “But the decisions
made under the budgetary con-
straints are not about targeting
any one group — the entire UC
will have to reevaluate every
program. It’s really all about the
ability to procure external fund-
ing. But I see the importance
in having Engaging Education
— for these high school kids to
see students with similar back-
grounds flourishing in college, it
makes a world of difference.”
Closing her speech onstage,
UCSC alumna Jequinto had the
hundreds of admitted UCSC
students abuzz with excitement
over their futures at the uni-
versity. Turning away from the
crowd, she looked straight down
and to the left, where Chancellor
Blumenthal sat, and addressed
him directly.
“We are ready to fight to
maintain funding for programs
like this, Chancellor Blumenthal,”
Jequinto said. “You’ve got to trust
us, you’ve got to let us do our
thing, because we know what
we’re doing here — I give you my
word. Where I stand, there are
thousands more like me ready to
fight for them.”

CALIFORNIA STATE PARKS
Continued from p. 13
either the state or private bonds
and partnerships may not ever
be available, but “when and if ” it
is, the General Plan also provides
a framework for where to apply
that money.
“I’ve worked on plans 30 years
ago that still have things in them
that have never been imple-
mented,” Keck said. “This is not
a master plan for development.
Think of it more as a 20-year
plan. It projects that far ahead.”
Keck expects that the draft of
the General Plan will be finished
by the end of the year, and open
for public comment. By this time
next year, Keck projects the plan
will go to the State Park Com-
mission for approval.
The Big Basin General Plan’s
current alternative combines
infrastructure development with
preservation in order to keep
revenue coming into Big Basin
State Park, but also preserve the
old-growth forest, Keck said.
“We’re trying to make
improvements where we can,
and reinforce the protection
and preservation of the more
significant natural and cultural
resources, and things like the wil-
derness experience,” Keck said.
But Keck said this doesn’t
come without anxiety from the
public, who are concerned about
the impact generating more
activity will have on certain state
park areas.
Development is a major threat
to state parks in their current
fund-deprived state, according to
Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis).
It is the main reason why Sen.
Wolk drafted SB580, a bill cur-
rently making its way through
the Senate that would protect
state parks from unwanted devel-
opment.
Sen. Wolk said there is no
clear, existing policy regarding
development in and of California
State Parks. SB580 is the
“commonsense protection” that
state parks need, according to
the SB580 Fact Sheet, authored
by Sen. Wolk and Sen. Christine
Kehoe (D-San Diego).
Some of the major devel-
opment threats in California
include a proposed toll-road
through San Onofre State Beach,
a power-line through Anza-
“State parks play a key role in the
environmental education of our
youth. Park closures would
end these critically important
programs.”
— Brian Dowd-Uribe, UCSC
environmental studies lecturer
Borrego Desert State Park, and
the building of a mega-dairy in
Colonel Allensworth State His-
toric Park.
A similar Senate bill was
passed in 2009 called SB679,
also authored by Wolk, but was
vetoed by Gov. Schwarzenegger
when it reached his desk. Super-
visor Mark Stone of the Santa
Cruz County Board of Supervi-
sors said he hopes the reformed
bill will pass this time.
The Santa Cruz Board of Su-
pervisors, at the urging of super-
Arts & Entertainment
visor Neal Coon-
erty, endorsed
SB580 on April
5. Supervisor Stone
of the fifth district, Illustration by Rachel Edelstein
which includes Ben
Andy Schiffrin, analyst for
Lomond, Scotts Valley and parts
supervisor Coonerty, said in an
of Boulder Creek, said endorsing
email, “As California continues
the bill was a “no-brainer” for
to develop, preserving some of
the board, and that the proposal
our natural assets both for their
moved straight to a vote with no
environmental values as well as
discussion.
for the enjoyment of our citizens,
In a press release, supervisor
is of critical importance.”
Coonerty said, “SB580 ensures
But for Schiffrin, funding of
that our parks have a high bar
the state parks and whether some
for their protection … and these
will remain open or be closed
places belong to every resident of
is not the reason that SB580 is
the state.”
important.
SB580 is also sponsored by the
“Certainly money is an
California State Parks Founda-
important issue,” Schiffrin said.
tion, and supported by organiza-
“However, some projects would
tions including the California
be proposed in state parks irre-
League of Park Associations and
spective of the financial realities.”
the Central Coast Natural His-
Hawley of Friends of Santa
tory Association.
Cruz State Parks said that SB580
Supervisor Stone said the
would be advanced regardless of
concern is developers will prey
the budget.
on parks that have closed due to
“[Regarding funding], I think
the budget cuts, and that generat-
[the bill] would still be important
ing revenue might become more
because as populations increase
important than preservation if
and development pressures
the budget crisis gets worse.
increase, it’s important that there
“What we’re concerned about
is that kind of protection in place
is that notion may come up
for state parks,” Hawley said.
and there might be pressure to
Dowd-Uribe said he also
just sell [the parks] to get some
hopes state parks are protected
revenue, or allow developers to
because of the learning opportu-
get in there and do things that we
nities that state parks provide to
would later regret,” Stone said.
students.
“It’s to avoid temptation. If we
“Literally hundreds of K–12
can’t come back to them when
classes visit state parks over the
times are better, that will be a real
course of the year in Santa Cruz
tragedy.”
County alone,” Dowd-Uribe said.
Stone said he thinks the bill
“These visits are often … the only
will hold on to the “status-quo”
chance students get to directly
of park and that “developing state
learn about the environment.
parks, which are meant to be
State parks play a key role in
natural” would be something the
the environmental education of
state park system would regret,
our youth. Park closures would
and expressly the type of thing
end these critically important
the bill would safeguard against.
programs.”
cityonahillpress.com | 17
Arts & Entertainment
Queer Fashion Show Presents
‘Rainbow Vision’
Annual UCSC fundraiser event set to premiere at Porter College this weekend
QUEER FASHION SHOW, hosted at the Porter/Kresge Dining Hall, will feature several fashion lines and performances created by students.
By Mitchell Bates
Arts & Entertainment
Reporter
One of UC Santa Cruz’s
premier events has returned for
another year. The Queer Fashion
Show will be presenting “The
Media in Rainbow Vision” at
Porter College this Friday and
Saturday. Not only does the
event promise to be some of the
most ambitious student theater
on campus, but the sexy char-
ity show will also donate all
proceeds to the Walnut Avenue
Women’s Center, Planned Parent-
hood and the Diversity Center.
Fourth-years Zackary Forcum
of Oakes College and Jasmine
Fernandez of Porter College will
be directing this year’s Queer
Fashion Show. The two former
dancers have each been involved
in the show’s last three perfor-
mances, and share a passion for
the causes advanced by the queer
community.
18 | Thursday, Apri 28, 2011
“I love that there’s a night to
celebrate queerness in perfor-
mance,” Forcum said. “[During]
my freshman year I saw the show,
and it looked like so much fun.
I immediately wanted to get
involved.”
Queer Fashion Show has long
been a part of UCSC culture.
Forcum discussed some of the
history behind the event.
“No one knows for sure when
it began,” Forcum said. “The
Queer Fashion Show started with
queer individuals emptying out
their closets and parading around
the Porter quad.”
The UCSC university library
documentary project “Out in the
Redwoods” puts the origin of
the show in the late 1980s, when
it was known as the Alternative
Fashion Show.
Since then, the show has be-
come a mainstay at UCSC, and is
emblematic of the school’s iden-
tity as a queer-friendly campus.
“We’ve come a long way in the
last few years for queer repre-
sentation,” Forcum said. “UCSC
is one of the most openly queer
schools in the U.S.”
The show has since grown
from its humble beginnings. This
year, in addition to the usual
Show Info
What: UC Santa
Cruz’s 15th Queer
Fashion Show
When: April 29 and
30. Doors open at 8
p.m., show begins at
8:30 p.m.
Where: Porter/Kresge
Dining Hall
Cost: $6 undergrads,
$8 general admission
festivities, there will be a gallery
showing before the performance.
The show’s directors provided
a few other glimpses of what to
expect.
“You’re going to see four dif-
ferent fashion lines, each student-
designed and all of them very
different,” Forcum said. “We will
be having spoken word, dance
and comedic skits, all performed
by a cast of more than 60 people,
and it will be very, very sexy at
times.”
The show’s reputation for
being provocative is aided by the
work of its designers. College Ten
fourth-year and student designer
Juliana Findlay discussed the
inspiration for her fashion col-
lection.
“My line focuses on a
stripped-down version of the
tuxedo,” Findlay said. “I took it
apart, made it sexier, and did it
in the vein of Michael Jackson’s
‘Bad’ and ‘Smooth Criminal’
music videos.”
The entire production is
student-run, from the creation
of advertising campaigns to the
choreographing of dance rou-
tines, and students participate on
a volunteer basis.
“Our actors don’t get material
Photos by Molly Solomon
things or any sort of monetary
value from the Queer Fashion
Show,” Forcum said. “They only
get a great experience. When
you think about how busy life
has gotten, it’s really beautiful
that people commit so much
time to put on a show for char-
ity. The students get involved in
this event because they care and
because they love it.”
But supporting charity isn’t
the only goal the Queer Fashion
Show plans to accomplish. The
directors also hope to help ad-
vance the queer community.
“The show is ‘Media in Rain-
bow Vision,’ and we’re basing it
on the media’s portrayal of the
queer community,” Fernandez
said. “We want to break their
perceptions. Instead of putting
people in little boxes, we want to
celebrate queerness and diversity.
This is an opportunity to learn
more about the queer community
here at Santa Cruz and the stu-
dent body as a whole. Hopefully
we’ll open some minds.”

y Lo
t i o nb
tra
Illus
By Aysha Bilal
Community & Culture
Reporter
Originally, fighting to add
a veteran-friendly class to UC
Santa Cruz’s curriculum was
difficult for lecturer Dennis
Tibbetts. With the support of
Rep. Sam Farr (D-Santa Cruz),
Tibbetts was able to create a
UCSC class that became a source
of knowledge about veterans for
students and a place for veterans
to feel welcome, called American
Combat Veterans.
City on a Hill Press: How did
you decide to teach at UCSC?
Do you enjoy teaching here?
Tibbetts: My family wanted to
leave the cold in the Upper Pen-
Community Chest
A series that takes a closer look at some of UCSC’s finest
insula of Michigan
for the warmth
of California. I
n g approached a few
e Leo different college
u i s
campuses to include a
veteran awareness class into
their curriculum, but I wasn’t
having any luck. Sam Farr was
very interested in a class of this
kind being provided in his dis-
trict. He wrote a letter of recom-
mendation for me to the UCSC
campus and Merrill College was
interested in the course. Teaching
here is great! These are the best
students I’ve had in a long, long
time.
CHP: Do you think veterans
awareness is important at col-
lege campuses? Why?
Tibbetts: I think it’s important to
create a presence when there’s an
absence. It needs to be incorpo-
rated into the curriculum. Viet-
nam veteran stories weren’t in the
curriculum [at different colleges
I have taught at], almost as if
they weren’t welcome. We have
been at war for the past 10 years.
This takes a toll on our country
and our psychology as a country.
War is so brutal. It takes a toll on
the people in uniform and their
families.
CHP: Do you think UCSC has
a high level of anti-war senti-
ment?
Tibbetts: I have been teaching
on this campus since 2002, and
believe that the atmosphere
here has changed from be-
ing unsophisticated to a more
sophisticated campus. Previously,
the students here perceived the
military as being against the gay
community because of its “Don’t
Ask Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy.
I am in favor of gay individuals
serving openly, but the students
went about it in a way that wasn’t
very productive. It seemed like
the students were using the
DADT policy to attack the mili-
tary in a way that didn’t have a lot
of impact.
Recruiters on campus are trying
to recruit educated individuals,
Community & Culture
contributing more good people
to the military. And good people
change the culture in the military.
I didn’t understand the protest
against this. Good people will
only make the military better.
The military has to have really
good people to be leaders —
otherwise changes don’t happen.
Even the Dalai Lama says that we
need ways to defend people and
ourselves.
CHP: How do you think this Photo courtesy of Dennis Tibbetts
affects veterans in our commu- tive military members benefits
nity? the students on this campus?
Tibbetts: Veterans have offices Tibbets: If you are 18 or 19,
and infrastructure here to make we have been at war for half of
them feel welcome. But a place in your life. There’s a lot of trag-
the curriculum is very important. edy and sacrifice going on, a
It gives them an avenue. They lot of money being spent. Even
can come to the class and always though it’s been going on for 10
know it’s there. Who are they? years, the subject remains pretty
What do they do? This [Ameri- untouched. Our society makes it
can Combat Veterans] class can easy to disconnect, but I believe
help answer these questions for as a citizen of democracy it is our
the community. responsibility to know who we
are fighting and why we are fight-
CHP: How do you think that ing them. We can’t be discon-
learning about veterans and ac- nected.
cityonahillpress.com | 19
Community & Culture
The Last American in Rwanda
Sponsored by student group, anti-genocide activist speaks at UCSC
By Mikaela Todd
Community & Culture
Co-Editor
&
Aysha Bilal
Community & Culture
Reporter
Carl Wilkens was the last
American to stay in Rwanda dur-
ing the mid-1990s genocide. Now
he dedicates his time to spread-
ing awareness about genocide
to students and supporters as
a full-time speaker. Earlier this
week, Wilkens spoke at UC Santa
Cruz’s Merrill Cultural Center
about his experiences.
Wilkens was invited to UCSC
by STAND, a national anti-
genocide coalition with over
850 chapters. The group spreads
awareness about Darfur and
other genocide-afflicted regions
of the world, including Southern
Sudan, Burma and the Congo.
STAND, which also has an in-
ternational division that extends
to more than 25 countries, has a
chapter at UCSC.
Passionate about bringing
awareness to places like Santa
Cruz, Wilkens shared his experi-
ences in Rwanda with the hopes
of not just educating students,
but getting them involved in a
more direct way.
“If I can just encourage five,
six, a dozen [students] to go [to
Rwanda], maybe that’s my role
right now,” Wilkens said.
In 1990, Wilkens moved to
Rwanda and did not return to
the United States until 1996. It
was eight years before he got
involved in anti-genocide work
and became an adventist pastor.
He was interviewed by PBS’
Frontline for a documentary
20 | Thursday, Apri 28, 2011
called “Ghosts of Rwanda” in
2003, and since then has spoken
at many events. In January of
2008, Wilkens decided to become
a full-time speaker.
Wilkens’ speech included sto-
ries about near-death experiences
and relationships he built with
Rwandans during the genocide.
He spoke about how the Rwan-
dan genocide gained attention for
a short time and then gradually
faded out of people’s minds.
He disagrees with the idea that
war or genocide can be viewed as
simply a fact of life.
“People think it was inevitable,
Wilkens said. “I don’t want to live
like that. I would rather live with
false optimism. We settle for less,
we get less.”
Chiara Cabiglio is the co-
president of the STAND chapter
at UCSC. Two years ago, Cabiglio
saw Wilkens speak at Pledge
to Protect, STAND’s national
convention, and earlier this year
asked him to speak at UCSC.
“He sounded really enthusi-
astic to come,” Cabiglio said. “It
was perfect.”
Cabiglio and her co-president
Mollie Murphy coordinated
Wilkens’ stay in Santa Cruz
to include speeches at Pacific
Collegiate School — a local
charter school — and a UCSC
psychology class called Children
and War, along with his
presentation at Merrill.
Wilkens’ presentations were
Photos by Sal Ingram
CARL WILKENS SPEAKS to students about his time
funded by a donation from the
spent in Rwanda during the genocide. The event was
national STAND organization, put on by the UCSC chapter of the anti-genocide
of which financial advisor Nicole organization STAND in the Merrill Cultural Center.
Pokojny was in charge.
“We put on events so that peo-
ple will become more aware and
maybe get involved themselves,”
Pokojny said. “It’s an outlet for
people who are interested in anti-
genocide movements.”
The local chapter of STAND
holds weekly meetings consisting
of a group of eight to 10 regular
students. Last year the chapter
was inactive, but this fall, co-
presidents Murphy and Cabiglio
started it up again.
To conduct outreach for this
event, STAND at the UCSC
campus made flyers and banners,
created a Facebook event page
and talked to local newspapers.
Sangetha Komar, a second-
year student at UCSC, attended
the event and has been trying
to become more engaged with
STAND’s organization.
“A lot of the members are
graduating seniors, and I hope to
get involved,” Komar said. “Com-
ing out and spreading awareness
is key.”
Third-year Yaneli Torres also
attended the event. Both Komar
and Torres planned to “like”
Wilkens’ Facebook page for his
organization, World Outside My
Shoes.
“I wanted to learn more,” Tor-
res said. “I learned a lot and I’m
really happy I came.”

Citizen Kate
After eight long years, the wedding the Royals have
been waiting for is finally here — and it’s a lot more
interesting than a lily-white dress
By Rod Bastanmehr
Contributing Writer
T
he story of Kate Middleton was a princess story
before Kate Middleton was even a part of it. The
excitement over the Royal Wedding (capitalized
because it is not merely an event, but the event) on April
29 is hitting a feverish high both overseas and in the
States. In the throes of economic turmoil, Middle Eastern
unrest and political party division, we have collectively
found solace in the brunette from Bucklebury, Berkshire
(a real place, devoid of humor or an awareness of allitera-
tion).
As Newsweek bombastically stated on its cover, “in a
world gone to hell — thank God, a wedding.”
Thank God for a wedding, indeed. A chance to throw
our collective interests and obligations out the window in
order to fully immerse ourselves in the future of a govern-
ment we have no part in. We’ve entered a moment where
politics and media have officially collided like never
before: movie stars as governors who then become movie
stars again; big-business men turned television personali-
ties, running for the presidency during a time where big
business is the problem. We can’t differentiate between
the real and the constructed, so why wouldn’t our method
of escapism be equally as contradictory? A wedding used
to shield our current political climate, ignoring the actual
politics behind the wedding itself.
Because, regardless of the coverage and interest, the
wedding is a political event.
From the minute the engagement was announced and
Middleton jumped on the scene in her royal blue Issa
dress, the intensity was palpable — a reaction I wouldn’t
wish on my worst enemies’ nuptials. Within hours of
announcing the plans, the press hounded William and
Kate with questions of their future and of the family they
have no choice but to build together.
The wedding is less plagued with questions of “Will
they last?” as much as it is with questions of “Will they be
happy?” Because William knows as well as Kate does — as
we all do — that divorce is not a possibility, in this future
or any nearby one. The reconstruction of the monarchy’s
image begins with this wedding. Escapism for some,
reestablishment for others. After a messy divorce that
bled politics and media together in a way only the mid-
1990s could, Diana single-handedly brought the visage of
a unified monarchy down with her.
Now, in a moment where we are trying to reexamine
the notion of fame, riches and excess, the story of an
Column
“ordinary” girl who had posters
of Prince William on her dormi-
tory wall becoming his blushing
bride-to-be is a testament to a new
American Dream: we don’t have to
work to get everything — we just
have to work enough.
This doesn’t mean Kate Middleton
has followed this credo — it just means that everyone Illustration by Muriel Gordon
else secretly wishes they had. Lost for words and without
context, Middleton is the most under-the-radar star to
have been on the radar for nearly a decade. Why didn’t
we care about her before, even when the wedding was
enough of a foregone conclusion that souvenir makers
had wedding memorabilia ready to ship out on the day of
the announcement — whenever that day might be?
It’s because it’s always secretly been about the wedding.
How intensely depoliticized the event has become is itself
a fact worthy of acknowledgement. Because although
she’s probably going to look more gorgeous than anyone
else who’s joined the ranks of her future in-laws (can we
just face that she’s the closest thing earthlings have seen
to an actual angel?), Middleton could have really been
anyone. It’s true: I often imagine her to be me (or me to
be her — whichever puts me in a wedding dress).
What the wedding is is a chance to escape the perils
of politics by witnessing an event so deeply embedded
in politics that it’s almost hilariously impossible to spot.
True, William would have to leapfrog his father for a
chance at the throne any time soon. And considering the
queen’s history with aging (meaning she literally refuses
to), William and Kate will remain poster fodder for some
time to come.
But the royals understand just as well as we do that
such a job is more than enough on its own. Running a
party is easy — being the face of a party is hard. Main-
taining the beauty of newlywed bliss when a country is
finding solace in your newfound happiness is a bizarre
dose of reality for a boy who never knew reality to begin
with, and a girl who has now completely abandoned it by
donning a sapphire ring. With it, she carries the legacy
of the mother-in-law she will never know, one whose
absence from the festivities is, partially, the direct result
of the kind of media hounding with which the wedding
itself is infused. The point isn’t to care about the wedding
— it’s to stop caring about everything else.
cityonahillpress.com | 21
Column

‘The Hills’ Have ‘Audrina’ doesn’t yet live up to

Returned… Sort Of its parent show’s brilliance

By Blair Stenvick
Opinions Editor

R
eality TV: can’t live with it, can’t bring my lazy self
to change the channel when it comes on. At least,
that’s the attitude I used to have, though lately this
has grown into a full, outright appreciation for the genre.
I genuinely like the stuff, and a lot of it has more cultural
worth than most give it credit for. That being said, it’s ob-
vious that not all “reality” is created equal, which is why
it may seem strange that I sought out the first episode of
new series “Audrina” on VH1.
Before I get into defending myself, some background
about the show and its star. Audrina Patridge is famous
for being famous. She’s an It Girl, a descendant from
the lineage of Edie Sedgwick and Paris Hilton, and with
her new reality show, she’s milking that status for all it’s
worth.
“Audrina” is different from Patridge’s former real-
ity show appearances, “The Hills” and “Dancing With
The Stars,” because it’s all about Audrina (get the title?)
and her family. The producers are obviously going for a
“Keeping Up With The Kardashians” type of show here,
down to the details: It’s a family with an overbearing
mother, three clashing sisters, a harmless brother and a
meek father, living in Southern California and generally
being a collective pain in the ass.
Here’s why I was so excited to watch the show: I love
“The Hills.” Although I was late to the party, as soon as
I gave the show a chance, I was hooked, because it’s real
life. Not real life in the sense that what they filmed are
things that literally happened — it’s obviously scripted
and hyped up. But it is real life in the sense that it has
some of the most realistic plot lines on television, espe- Illustration by Louise Leong
cially in the first few seasons.
It’s a story you know — people hang out with their while, the dad serves as a sort of hands-off voice of sup- isn’t the plot, but the way it’s filmed. Confessionals are
friends, some stupid drama or misunderstanding breaks posed reason, and the brother is just a friendly guy who commonplace on reality shows (though they never were
out, and then a whole week is spent hanging out, hav- wants to have a good time. a part of “The Hills”), but what’s intriguing about this
ing lunch and overanalyzing the situation to death. How What I liked about “The Hills” was that everyone was new program is that it shows a wide shot of the studio
many times have you had to sit and listen to the same basically shown in the room where they are filmed,
complaints and observations from the same bitter people, same unfavorable light. before focusing in on a cast
and then have to respond by pretending these were highly Although it was prob- “The producers are obviously going for a member’s face. The same
original insights? lematic to have a show studio, with a white screen
Also, remember when LC abruptly left the show with from a girl’s point of view ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ type in the background, is also
hardly a goodbye, and Kristin came in to take her place, being mostly about boy of show here, down to the details: It’s a where the opening cred-
and nobody on the show even commented about how troubles and fighting with
weird that was? Some saw that as highly unrealistic, her friends, at least those
family with an overbearing mother, three its takes place, which are
clearly and openly posed.
but when you’re a young adult, people lasso in and out boys she stressed over clashing sisters, a harmless brother and a These things serve as
of your life with surprising flexibility. It all depends on were equally shallow and meek father, living in Southern Califor- constant reminders that the
schedules and proximity and late-night intoxicated bond- clueless. So yes, Heidi show is a production, and
ing or fighting sessions, so for some people, every quarter is a terrible role model nia and generally being a collective pain not in any way a straight-
brings a new cast of characters. for young women, but in the ass.” forward representation of
“The Hills” just takes all of that to the extreme, and Spencer isn’t some sort of what happens. It’s picking
the results were hilarious and addictive. The writers for scholar himself. The point up where the famous finale
that show got it: people hold grudges, act stupid, make up was that these people were of “The Hills” took off, when
and generally don’t learn anything from their mistakes, the worst parts of ourselves. the camera pulled back to reveal that they were actually
although they claim to. It’s real life. Hopefully “Audrina” will develop to show both on a staged version of a Hollywood street.
“Audrina” looks like it could be building on that genders on an equally low plane. I can get past awkward Truth be told, “Audrina” just isn’t as entertaining as
theme, though this time with a focus on family dynamics bikini photo shoots that clearly objectify Audrina, but “The Hills,” and that’s a shame. But, hey, given the fact
instead of a group of twenty-something friends. There are only if her boyfriend gets into some sort of crazy voodoo that I apparently have nothing better to do than watch
some obvious gender implications that come with that. crystals, as Spencer famously did. Then it can be equal and write about these shows, maybe “Audrina” being
Audrina’s mom and sister are shown as raving lunatics, opportunity idiocy. boring just makes it even more like real life than anything
quick to jump to conclusions and hurl insults. Mean- Probably the most interesting part of Audrina so far else.

22 | Thursday, April 28, 2011

 Editorials

Chancellor Must Deliver on Promise

Permanent funding needed for critical outreach programs

I
t’s official, UC Santa Cruz is the “whitest” UC. Al-
most.
According to the admissions data for the freshman
class of 2011, UCSC and UC Santa Barbara are tied for
the highest percentage of admitted students who identify
as white, at 37.5 percent. That is 6.9 percent above the
systemwide average of 30.6 percent.
To give that figure more context, California’s over 33.8
million residents are 44.4 percent white, 34.9 percent
Latino, 12.3 percent Asian-American or Pacific-Islander,
and 6.4 percent black, according to the State Department
of Finance’s survey. Somehow, UCSC is falling short on
its promise to provide an education for all qualified high
school graduates.
There are attempts to address this disparity, such as
the UC’s Blue and Gold program, which promises that
students whose households earn less than the median
family income a year will pay no student fees. But these
programs are not enough to truly provide equal access
to all of California’s citizens. Many prospective students
of color would be the first in their family to attend an
institution of higher learning. High student fees, with or
without the Blue and Gold program, foster a perception
that a UC education is solely for the rich. Because of the
low percentage of UC students from minority communi-
ties, a student of color who chooses to attend a UC may
experience cultural isolation.
Engaging Education works to change the social
climate for students of color. Their Student Initiated
Outreach (SIO) programs connect prospective students
of color with current UCSC students who can share their
stories and inspire them to seek a college education. One
program covers all travel expenses for accepted students
of color to stay at UCSC for a weekend visit. This experi-
ence allows them to bond with current students of color,
thereby setting up a community for students, should they
accept the offer of admission.
Funding for SIO programs is limited. Aside from a
modest allocation from the state, the programs are fund-
ed by a promise from the Chancellor to match fundrais-
ing accrued through a $5 student-approved campus fee
distributed among the six UCSC resource centers. SIO
receives only $1. The Chancellor originally promised to
match these funds at a rate of $2 for every dollar raised.
However, last year the Chancellor’s match dropped to
$1.75 for every dollar. With $500 million in budget cuts
projected, this number shows no signs of increasing
anytime soon.
But it should.
Chancellor Blumenthal is himself a first-generation
college graduate, and says the SIO programs are one
of his favorite things about the campus. If Chancellor
Blumenthal and UCSC are truly committed to providing
equal access to a UC education for all residents of Cali-
fornia, then he should let his actions speak for him and
sign a written agreement to permanently match funds at
the original promise of $2 per dollar raised by students.
It is no secret that the university is strapped for cash. Illustration
We have all heard the doomsday predictions about stu- by Matt
dent fees of $20,000. The decisions made in this moment Boblet
will shape the direction of the university for years to
come. When determining spending policies, administra-
tors should preserve the values the UC was founded on,
not just the bottom line.

Revealing Faces in the Crowd

Recently leaked Guantanamo profiles humanize detainees

I
n Guantánamo, prisoners are held without trial. There
aren’t any juries, or any systems of due process or
rights. Prisoners can be held indefinitely.
Over 700 documents detailing these prisoners at
Guantánamo Bay were made available to The New York
Times earlier this week, including prisoner demograph-
ics, Al Qaeda and Taliban allegiances, and the personal
conclusions of interrogators.
Released by the uncensored web giant WikiLeaks, the
documents do not keep record of any interrogating tech-
niques. Instead, they list what the prisoners held in their
pockets, illnesses they sustained, infractions incurred
and areas where interrogators could still push for more
information.
The files have been covered by many major news
outlets in the past week besides the Times — NPR, The
Telegraph, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles
Times, to name a few — and this is a good thing.
By publishing and republishing these documents for
citizens to see, major news organizations and WikiLeaks
are providing a necessary service. In this political climate
of fear and hard-cut party divisions, we cannot afford to
simply categorize a group of people as “terrorists,” and
releasing and writing about these documents puts a face
on the detainees at Guantánamo Bay.
Illustration by Bela Messex President Barack Obama once pledged in his cam-
paign to close Guantánamo Bay, and to ban all torture
techniques used there. Although the current administra-
tion claims that torture’s out of the picture, Guantánamo
remains.
It’s easy to label prisoners at Guantánamo Bay as war
criminals, and we hope that people are sent there for a
reason. However, Rudyard Kipling once wrote, “All nice
people, like Us, are We, and everyone else is They,” and if
we don’t identify these prisoners as people, as human be-
ings, then we get stuck in a “we” versus “they” mentality.
All too often, governments will demonize or dehuman-
ize perceived threats, and we can’t afford to do that, be-
cause these prisoners are human beings and they should
be treated as such.
And while there is a very real risk that some of the
prisoners in Guantánamo are potentially dangerous and
could be a real threat to national security, we have to keep
our humanity and not succumb to fear-mongering.
Critics of WikiLeaks have asserted these documents
can be extremely dangerous, and that’s true. But the
people of the United States have a right to know what
their elected government is really up to, and if organiza-
tions like The New York Times can continue to analyze
these documents, then the public can see the victims of
our country’s unjust actions.
Guantánamo Bay is a symbol of the former Bush
administration’s tactics in the War on Terror. It’s a symbol
of the fear that part of America still holds in international
politics, and it’s good that with these documents, we can
finally put a face on those who are held there.

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