In two weeks, you will be crowding at the on-campus box office to buy tickets to A.S. Council’s Winter Triton Festival, then eagerly cramming yourself into Price Center West Ballroom to watch headlining comedians Donald Glover and Dat Phan.

Or so A.S. Council hopes. And if the Concerts and Events office manages to promote the event and coordinate all its moving parts, this might just be what happens.

On Feb. 5, the council will be hosting the first annual Winter Triton Festival. This will be the first full-scale Winter Quarter event since WinterFest, which was cancelled three years ago after repeatedly abysmal attendance.

On the surface, WTF seems to be the key to a lot of council’s event-planning problems.

Concerts are great and all, but the atmosphere can get too hectic at times, thanks to the impossibility of finding friends in the crowd, the mass of sweaty bodies and the bass-consumed music, so the comedy event is a good compromise between entertainment and feasibility.

This event will cost less than any other major event A.S. Council puts on. The total cost — including security, the venue, labor and talent — is estimated at $31,980. That’s a pretty diminutive sum compared to the $153,000 in student fees we shelled out for FallFest, or Sun God, at $530,000.

Of course, it could be that WTF is the least expensive quarterly council event because there is no sustainable funding for it. But because of this, there is no permanent fund in the A.S. budget to pay for WTF in the future, so if council wants to make the festival a yearly tradition without taking from its own reserves, it’ll need to find a long-term method of funding, which could mean student fees.

The event is funded entirely by the council’s mandate reserves (meaning it takes from the council’s backup money and not student fees).

The reduced cost of having comedians instead of musical acts may be a great way to get quality entertainment for less. Standup comedy shows have been wildly successful at other campuses, like UCLA’s sold-out comedy Campus Events Commission speakers series featuring Aziz Ansari this past May.

The idea of bringing a comedy event to UCSD was introduced after the popularity of comic acts featured at last year’s Sun God Festival, according to event organizers Brian Wong and Kristina Pham.

One of the comedians who performed at Sun God, Donald Glover, is returning to do a set at WTF. His claim to fame is his role on NBC’s “Community,” and as a writer for “30 Rock” and has had his own stand-up special on Comedy Central. Dat Phan, the original winner of NBC’s “Last Comic Standing,” will also be performing.

The talent, for one, should be spectacular. Wong’s office should push the brand names that come with the talent, such as “Community” and “Last Comic Standing,” because while students may not know the comedians by name, the shows they appear on are certainly worth a double take.

But the fact that the only thing that’s confirmed is the talent and the location is alarming — especially given that the event is in only two weeks.

According to Oliver Zhang, Media Assistant of the A.S. Concerts and Events office, no further details will be released until everything is confirmed. This means less information for everyone, and less information means less buzz and less success.

While event organizers claim WTF has been promoted by teaser posters — and although there will be future advertising now that the event’s talent has been revealed —  the fact that nobody on campus has seen these advertisements is not comforting. Most of the students have no idea what the Winter Triton Festival is, which means that the AVP of Concerts and Events, Brian Wong, only has two weeks to get the entire school excited for the event, lest it follow WinterFest’s dismal legacy.

One can only hope that it won’t be as bad as last spring’s Sun God advertising campaign that involved distributing bookmarks with images of the artists on Library Walk. Stand-up comedy is an interactive and intimate art, with an active audience essential to the performance’s feel and direction.

The biggest mistake Wong could have made, and has made, was to schedule the performances in the Price Center West Ballroom, with the option of viewing a live feed of the show at The Loft for overflow.

WTF is supposed to be an event for the entire school, yet this venue has a capacity of just over 850. For a ‘big’ winter event, that figure is pretty exclusive. While watching the show squished in the 200-person Loft on a wide screen doesn’t seem like much of a consolation prize, assuming high attendance, those students will be lucky to see the show at all.

Free for students and funded by previous classes, this event might have otherwise been worthy of total praise. The performers are sure to be great, and WTF will offer students entertainment they normally wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise.

But the Concerts and Events office needs to get it together immediately to build the kind of hype that will bring students to PC West in droves come Feb. 5. No one wants to attend an event without knowing what there is to look forward to.

The UCSD men’s basketball team split its weekend games against two of the conference’s top teams, beating Cal State L.A. 76-73 in a back-and-forth double overtime game before losing a tight 57-49 affair with No. 7 Cal State Dominguez Hills.

On Thursday night against Cal State Los Angeles, junior center Christian Hatch led the way with 26 points and 13 rebounds, while senior guard Casey Ryan added 12 points and a career-high 20 boards. Sophomore forward Justin Brue had 17 points, five rebounds and four assists for the Tritons.

The Tritons came out hot, shooting 43 percent in the first half. UCSD effectively broke the Golden Eagles’ press and played well defensively, going into the half with a 35-27 lead.

But the Golden Eagles clamped down in the second half, and limited the Tritons to 33 percent shooting while shooting 54 percent themselves. CSULA’s 6’6” forward David Norris came alive as well, scoring 16 of his 24 points in the half. Norris’s three-pointer with 8:24 remaining tied the score at 48.

A Christian Hatch bucket tied the score 59-59 with 1:01 left on the clock. The Tritons forced Norris into a tough shot and got the defensive stop, and held for the final shot without calling a timeout. Hatch’s jumper missed, and the Tritons were unable to get another shot off before the buzzer sounded, despite an offensive rebound.

Neither team played well in the first overtime, but the Golden Eagles hit their free throws to take a five-point lead with 1:18 left. Brue hit a jumper for the Tritons to bring the score to 66-63, and Norris missed a three to give the Tritons a chance with 17 seconds remaining. Ryan drove in the middle and kicked to sophomore guard Tyler McGrath, who nailed a three-pointer to tie the score at 66 and send the game into a second overtime.

“The shot was great,” head coach Chris Carlson said. “That was great execution. Those two guys, having played together for a bit, know how to work off each other. And Tyler [McGrath] made a great adjustment and made the shot.”

McGrath had only six points on the night off the bench, but his shot was perhaps the biggest of the night for the Tritons.

“I was due, I was overdue,” McGrath said. “I had a rough shooting night. The balls just wouldn’t fall, which happens. But my coaches kept telling me to keep shooting, and Casey [Ryan] trusted me at the end, and it was a big shot for us.”

The Tritons clamped down defensively in the second overtime and allowed the Golden Eagles only two field goals. With the Tritons up 75-73 with 12 seconds remaining, Ryan missed a pair of free throws to give Cal State L.A. one last chance. Norris took the rebound and attempted to go coast-to-coast to tie the game, but the Tritons forced him into another tough shot on the baseline and UCSD held on for the victory.

“I thought it showed tremendous growth on the part of our team to stay mentally tough throughout,” Carlson said. “We’ve been through these kinds of games on the road, and just weren’t able to pull it out.”

Carlson said a loud UCSD crowd helped the team in a close game.

“It’s so important to have that support,” Carlson said. “It really gives you that little burst of energy. I don’t think we necessarily have to have that all the time, but it’s such a great thing to have a crowd.”

The Tritons out-rebounded the Golden Eagles 56-38 that night.

“First off, Cal State L.A. is a very, very good rebounding team,” Carlson said. “We know that’s something we have to hang our hat on, and it has to be there for us. So for us to be plus-18 on the rebound count against this team is a considerable thing.”

Against Cal State Dominguez Hills on Saturday night, the Tritons made it tough for the nation’s seventh-ranked team, but ultimately fell as the Toros pulled away in the final minutes.

CSUDH’s Cal State Dominguez Hill’s Zareh Zargaryan had a game-high 14 points in a game that was marked by outstanding defenses on both sides. Brue and McGrath had 11 points apiece to lead the Tritons.

The game’s tempo was slow throughout, especially in the first half. The teams went into the break with the score 23-19, as neither side could find any rhythm on the offensive end.

The Toros got things going offensively in the second half, and led by nine points with 8:32 to play. But the Tritons came roaring back thanks to some clutch shooting by Brue and Hatch, who scored 10 points for the Tritons over a four-minute stretch to bring the score to 49-48.

The Toros responded with a quick 5-0 run, and hit their free throws in the final minute to seal the win.

“They were taking a lot of the shots we wanted them to take, and they just made them,” Carlson said. “You’ve got to hand it to them for doing that.”

The Tritons will stay at home this week, with games on Thursday and Saturday against Cal State San Bernardino and Cal Poly Pomona.

Readers can contact Liam Rose at [email protected].

In Fall 2009, when the Board of Regents approved a 32-percent fee increase, students rioted. When they approved another for the wealthiest students last fall, students rioted. And when a UCSD-specific campus technology fee was proposed at the end of last quarter, students were little more than confused.

Jeff Henry, Director of Academic Computing and Media Services, proposed a quarterly per-unit fee for maintaining and updating on-campus technology in December, though there still remain more questions than answers.

Henry explained that UCSD needs $1.1 million in startup funds and another $4 million per year to maintain technology on campus. Right now, the university has been footing the bill for all our technological needs.

The confusion begins within the ACMS department. While Henry’s proposed fee will charge students $5 per unit each quarter with a cap at 15 units (or $80 per quarter), Associate  Director of ACMS Christine Bagwell said the fee will be $4 per unit. The difference between the two proposals is approximately $1.3 million, so it’s more than a little important to get these facts straightened out.

If the tech fee passes, ours will be the first flagship UC campus to impose a fee of this kind.

The per-unit proposal also presents another campus first; no other fee is determined by a student’s course load. The assumption here is that a student taking more units will be a bigger drain on university resources, though not all classes, of course, use technologies equally.

Then there’s the issue of calculation. With Henry’s math, supposing that the 23,746 undergrads each take four classes a quarter, each student would generate $80 for the technology fee, translating to about $5.3 million per year. Even if every student only took three classes, the fee would still generate $300,000 more than what is reportedly needed to maintain campus technologies.

According to Bagwell, if the college councils don’t pass the technology fee, we are in for a world of hypotheticals. We could “suffer from a diminished experience in the classroom.” We might lose out more course reserves online. It’s possible that there will be fewer podcasts in the future.

Miscommunication, poor math and hypothetical scenarios aside, adding a tech fee should be at the bottom of our priorities. On a campus being forced to accept furlough days, staff reductions, layoffs and fewer classes, the last thing we should be trying to fund is keeping up with the latest and greatest technology trends.

While some college council members voting on the proposal fee may have the luxury of paying an additional $240 per year for better WiFi, for others it could contribute to the choice between a UC school and a CSU campus.

We need to be looking at the big picture when it comes to where we ask students to put their money. A podcast isn’t much of a sacrifice in the name of accessibility because with every step we move away from accessibility, we move further and further away from the UC Master Plan’s ultimate goal for universal access to higher education.

A student-financed technology fund might be a workable proposal at another time, but with increasing budget cuts and tuition hikes, it’s just another instance of administrative tone-deafness to student needs.

Suburbia holds a mythical influence in modern music. Pavement’s greatest anthems were born behind white picket fences, Green Day staged an angsty opus within the walls of a 7-11 and Arcade Fire wrote an entire album for its disenchanted residents.

This endless maze of cookie-cutter drudgery affords the misunderstood genius the opportunity to shove a proud middle finger in the face of con- formity and create groundbreaking art from the confines of his own prefab bedroom.

On his debut album Cerulean, glitch/electronic newcomer Baths earns a place in the folklore, transforming adolescent sentiment into effortless ingenuity. The tedium of everyday life — scissors snapping, pens clicking, sheets rustling — is filtered through kaleidoscopic melodies and hip-hop beats. Tracks like the hushed and funky “Lovely Bloodflow” and vocal-sampling “Maximalist” soar and contort with ease. Pepper in some Bee Gees falsetto and acoustic instru- mentation, and the product is a thrillingly modern exploration of a genre.

Baths’ Will Wiesenfeld recently spoke with The Guardian about his influences, his new music video and the cure-all for suburban boredom.

“Hold on, I’m saving a video game right now,” says 21-year-old Wiesenfeld. Despite his age, the man is a seasoned musician with a serious knack for pro- duction. “I guess it’s not a widely known fact about me, but Cerulean is, like, the 20th complete album I’ve made in my life. Eight years doesn’t seem that long, but I’m very productive and I’m making music all the time.”

Yet it is only recently, after being invited by fellow L.A. beatmaker Daedelus to share a stage with rising electronic notables Nosaj Thing and Flying Lotus, that Wiesenfeld reached the national ear. “I remember the first time I was mentioned on [music web site] Pitchfork,” he said. “I had been following it for a couple of years, so it was just a very cool manifestation of something more than just me recording in my bedroom. It was very, very epic.”

The success wasn’t anticipated. “It was definitely a surprise,” says Wiesenfeld. “The way I talked to my label Anticon about [the album]—we both just wanted it to be a mild introduction to my sound. But it got a lot more attention than we expected, and that was just awesome.”

Cerulean is dense with sounds and samples that are stripped from their contexts to create a familiar, though exotic, soundscape. “When a rock band is writing a song, they use lyrics or instruments,” Wiesenfeld says. “Those are their tools. In electronic music, the entire planet is at your disposal. You have a microphone and can record whatever you want. But it’s never a conscious thing like, ‘Now it’s time for scissors!’ It’s just whatever I happen to think fits the emotion of the song.”

The music video for “Lovely Bloodflow,” featuring a samurai death sequence, is surprisingly cinematic for the DIY nature of Wiesenfeld’s sound. “I’m very glad it turned out like that. The combination was very surreal and kind of unnerving.”

He describes filming as “a very involved process. My friends Alex Takacs and Joe Nankin made the video, and at first I was very nervous about it, because I try and maintain a certain look for myself. But upon talking to them, I realized their ideas and visual aesthetic are literally exactly what I’m into. It was kind of creepy.”

The artists he is into are notably bizarre. “Bjo?rk,” insists Wiesenfeld, “is more than just an influence on my music. She’s a life influence. She’s what got me started. It’s this otherworldly, majestic experience when you listen
to her music, and it would be a dream come true to eventually maintain a career like that.”

Wiesenfeld also finds inspiration in modern art, from the commercial films of Christopher Nolan, to the obscurity of late-night television. “The best thing ever was seeing The Room at the Sunset 5 in L.A. and that same night Tim and Eric [of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!] were there. It was just the most surreal thing. So epic.”

Growing up in Chatsworth, an unremarkable suburb of L.A., Wiesenfeld’s creative pursuits sprung from his desire to escape. “It just makes you have that mindset, and you try and look for things that are more alien and different than what you’re used to. There’s just noth- ing out here, so I had to get everything from the Internet or the other parts of Los Angeles. It really makes you want to create that world for yourself. For me, music was the way to do that.”

Maybe it’s this same explorative drive that has crushed any possibility of a Cerulean, Pt. 2.

“It would kill me to make the same album again. Cerulean is great and it’s its own thing, but I’m definitely mentally and creatively done with it,” he said. “The next album I’m going to make is going to be almost antithetical to how positive Cerulean is. It’s going to be completely different.”

Baths will perform at the Loft on Jan. 14. $8 with student ID, $10 for non- students.

Changes Will Reach a Wider Audience

When Auburn University English professor Alan Gribben announced his intent to publish a censored version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, replacing “nigger” with “slave” and “Injun” with “Indian,” controversy ensued.

Academics can cry censorship, but the new version will be far more accessible by introducing the work toa wider audience . Even at schools where the novel is allowed, parental consent is often required before reading due to its racial slurs. A less offensive version will allow more people to appreciate this masterpiece.

Times have drastically changed since Twain published Huckleberry Finn. It’s a literary masterpiece with a message of equality too often drowned in a sea of controversy over the word “nigger.”

If films like “The Godfather” are regularly censored on TV to be more accessible to a wider audience, applying a similar censorship to the classics isn’t much of a stretch. Adjusting the harsher elements could ease parents’ concerns over the novel, and allow the novel to reach more students.

While the edits might sacrifice some of the edge that has made Twain’s novel so pervasive, they’re a fair compromise if a wider audience is exposed to the book’s cry for equality — which is far more timeless than the choice of language.

— Bridgett Rangel-Rexford

Staff Writer

Watered-Down Novel Ignores History

Alan Gribben’s brash attempt to sanitize history by replacing “nigger” with ‘slave’ undermines the novel’s historical significance.

There is a reason why pejoratives are used in the novel: They reveal the racial climate of the time.

One of the most important messages of the novel is of interracial fraternity. It would be unthinkable to alter The Great Gatsby because of how women are portrayed, or to re-write all the classics in the interest of political correctness.

If all controversial books were to follow suit, we would find ourselves reading watered-down versions of the greats — Kidz Bop for classic literature.

Racial slurs aren’t acceptable, but racism won’t be eliminated through censorship. Educators shouldn’t pretend race is a non-issue by teaching the victorious aspects of history and ignoring the parts that make us most uncomfortable.

Novels like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn allow students to confront race in the classroom and to understand its roots. A revealing lesson in American history shouldn’t leave students with a positive, uplifting feeling, but expose the truth of our country’s past.

— Saad Asad

Staff Writer

Censoring Removes Satirical Effect

The term “nigger” is disgusting, cruel and long-outdated, to be sure, but it serves to contextualize the novel.

What makes Twain’s writing so radical is that in a time when the hatred and cruelty in the South were still rampant, Twain had the guts to use satire to show how wrong it was. The use of the word “nigger” further reinforces Twain’s critique of slavery. By removing a key element of Twain’s satire, the book loses its critical edge.

Set in the early 1800s and published in 1884, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an attack on racism. By humanizing Jim, a black man who escapes slavery, and breaking down the racist assumptions that propelled slavery, Twain demonstrates his disgust with discrimination and unfair treatment toward blacks.

In fact, Twain’s use of the term throughout the book — to vilify Huck’s barbaric father and white slave owners, who constantly use it — emboldens its critique.

To remove the work from its original context — as its opponents are attempting to do today by making it 21st-century PC — is to strip the book of its power. There’s no place for casual use of the slur today, but its appearance in Twain’s novel illuminates the dehumanizing nature of slavery better than any censored version could.

— Arik Burakovsky

Staff Writer

I’ve met enough people who have studied abroad to know, offhand, a shortlist of the most common return symptoms: depression, anxiety, newfound fervor for social justice, scary addiction to British designer drugs.

I came back from Spain three weeks ago with none of these. Which is mostly a blessing, I guess, but also sort of a curse, because as far as I can tell, my interactions with other humanoids right now are supposed to involve lots of starry-eyed contemplation and patronizing explanation — because, I mean, I wouldn’t expect you to get it, or anything, seeing as you haven’t actually been there.

Mostly, though, I’ve stuck to single-word descriptors of the last four months: awesome, amazing, great, etc., which seem to fit the bill — or would, were I to invent a 20- (nay, 10-) second story of blissful, ephemeral Mediterranean romance. Which would hopefully also involve a beachside sunset and sangria — or maybe cava, Spanish champagne, to demonstrate the completeness of my cultural immersion.

It’s a problem I share with a good friend of mine, who’s just back from six months in India. No one really wants to hear her stories, either, lest they include bindis, the Taj Mahal or photo-ops with the cast of Slumdog Millionaire. (Or their probable on-screen stand-ins. Whatevs.)
Thing is, world wonder-/club-hopping gets to be kind of exhausting. The full, awful truth inevitably involves a lot of boring stuff, like learning that no one walks outside with their paper Starbucks cup and that most of the paella they give you is frozen and overpriced anyway. Bet that one made your jaw drop in envy.

Everyone’s collective stomach for the real awe-inspiring stuff tends to fill pretty fast, too. And I can’t blame ’em: spending three boozy months in a dorm in Paris with other UC students does not, actually, make you a connoisseur of French wine. It makes you insufferably annoying. (Also, a likely fellow lit major.)

There’s a difficult line to walk between airing your smug, bourgie worldliness and staying tight-lipped on your time away. It’s easy to find the appeal in the latter: decreased douchiness, fewer treasured acquaintances lost.

But some — maybe actual friends — will claim to want a full report. They will want to hear about the sights, the food, if his name was Alejandro or Fernando.

And, in truth, it’s hard to tell them. The strangest thing that no one seems to know about going abroad is that afterwards, when you have a suitcase of train tickets and museum passes and clothes that probably smell like cigarettes, there’s not really any other evidence that you’ve been gone.

You hear “please” and “thank you” and “excuse me” at the airport baggage claim, which all serve as a weird, unusually polite reintroduction to America. Maybe the next day you eat your first burrito in what feels like three lifetimes.

But then it’s all sort of normal again.

You get used to the good service at restaurants and carrying a coffee cup outside. The jet lag fades. No one looks at you funny for walking and eating breakfast at the same time. It’s life, and whatever precipitated it wasn’t.

Going back to school is stranger still. After months of alleged studying at a place where classes start 20 minutes late and open-book final exams dare to ask, “What is the protagonist’s name?”, it’s difficult to readjust to a place where failure and ADHD drug reliance are the norm.

It just calls for certain adjustments. Taking Spanish from a nice, perfectly capable grad student whose ancestors may well have sailed over on the Mayflower is a pretty obvious one, but there are also small, forgotten pleasures to behold: the proximity of the nation’s premier nude beach; the phrase “can you charge it to my student account?”.

Two weeks’ time has been distance enough to even make me wonder, in moments of bleary eyed sleeplessness, whether it all really happened. I guess it did.
(And, for what it’s worth, his name isn’t Alejandro.)

There’s Nothing Wrong with Transparency

In the age of Facebook untagging, it’s no secret that Internet personas can hold drastic consequences. For astronomy professor Martin Gaskell, who posted his lecture notes online, it meant being disqualified from a coveted observatory job at the University of Kentucky due to his religious views. But while this may have put a damper on Gaskell’s career, the Internet democratizes information so that a more informed opinion can be made.

It’s for the best that today, you can to log on to social networking sites and discover your future roommate’s closet World of Warcraft obsession — and so too that a prospective employer can sign on to read Gaskell’s “Genesis” astronomy lectures.

We can’t condone religious discrimination, but the public property of the Internet can provides a way for people to make fair assessments and judgments.

Transparency is never a bad thing, no matter the situation. With the knowledge that Gaskell’s religious views crossed over into his astronomy lectures in the past, the head of the observatory at the University of Kentucky was able to make a more educated decision on whether he was the right fit for the job after all.

— Margaret Yau
Associate Opinion Editor

When Bias is Hired, the Students Lose

Though employers aren’t allowed to discriminate based on religion, there are valid concerns to factor into the hiring process when someone’s beliefs interfere with way he does his job.

In this case, the University of Kentucky had the right to deny Dr. Gaskell a job as an astronomer, as his evangelical beliefs contradict widely accepted scientific theory and have compromised his teaching.
The university didn’t just suspect Gaskell of open endorsement of his faith; they had solid proof. In his previous lectures at the University of Texas — another public institution — Dr. Gaskell used astronomical
theory to support the creationism aspect of “Genesis” and discussed what he felt were flaws in evolutionary
theory.

Gaskell’s isn’t the first case of this kind. Astrophysicist Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure at Iowa State University for supporting creationism. Gaskell’s case is even more clear-cut, since he not only endorses religious explanations for the scientific, but openly lectures on them.

Students pay thousands of dollars every year for their education; it’s the university’s duty to ensure that
professors are qualified to teach. Hiring a professor that teaches ideas that are out of date is a great disservice to students. Research universities exist to advance thinking and challenge convention, not rehash religious dogma.

— Revathy Sampath-Kumar
Staff Writer

No Form of Discrimination is Acceptable

Discrimination, whether religious, racial, or sexual, isn’t tolerated in the United States — especially at a public institution. The University of Kentucky’s decision not to hire Martin Gaskell based on his religious beliefs — and a simple Google search that revealed he was using astronomy to prove the creationism of
“Genesis” — is appalling and antithetical to the United States Constitution.

The university refused to hire him based on the claim that Gaskell is “evangelical.” Despite the fact that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prevents employers from discriminating against hiring someone due to religious beliefs, the UK still holds that they’re in the green. According to the ruling in Barnes v. City of Cincinnati, as long as religion was one of the factors used in the decision not to hire Gaskell, the university is in violation of the law.

Christians — like any other religious group — shouldn’t be persecuted for their beliefs in a secular political arena. Professional interviews may be required by law to overlook matters of religious concern, but still, discrimination slips through.

The Constitution’s separation of church and state doesn’t mean that public universities should be sermonizing, but it also doesn’t mean that anyone who has ever been to church can’t work there.

— Saad Asad
Staff Writer

Facing a depleted budget and increasing enrollment, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office has recently discussed the option of limiting the number of times community college students can retake classes they’ve failed.

Within the next several months, Chancellor Jack Scott hopes to present a proposal to the California Community Colleges Board of Governors that would eliminate state reimbursement — funding independent of financial aid provided by the state government to partially cover tuition expenses — to
community colleges for students who retake a course more than four times.

This plan is a response to 8-percent funding cuts for Californian community colleges during the 2009-10 academic year. On Nov. 18, 2010, Scott spoke to the California Community College League Conference, outlining “where we have been, where we are, and where we want to be.” Offering solutions to the state’s financial mess, he stressed two important goals of state community colleges: saving money and boosting the success rates of students.

According to Vice Chancellor Terri Carbaugh, capping the number of times a student may repeat a course to four would save the state roughly $1.5 million annually and free up approximately 740 student
seats in the 2.5-million student population at the state’s 112 two year institutions — but every
bit counts. A four-time retake limit would give a fair number of hard-working students a better chance to enroll in courses currently filled by students retaking them.

Over 33,000 community college students in California have retaken at least one credit bearing course more than five times in the last academic year. The most-retaken courses were in physical education.

California community colleges have traditionally valued their common high-accessibility mission. This mission to serve all eligible students seeking admission won’t be compromised by Scott’s proposal.

Anyone who seeks enrollment at a two-year institution — whether to transfer to a four-year institution, graduate with an associate’s degree, or take remedial high school level classes — will still be welcomed.

But when it comes to cutting costs, some inevitably are left behind. “Being the economy that it is,
you’d like to be able to offer more to more people, but we just can’t, because we’re so dependent on
the state for funding,” Mia McClellan, dean of student services at Southwestern College in Chula Vista, said.

Southwestern College in Chula Vista already has a rule that allows only two attempts at passing a course. The college is doing well today — with an enrollment of approximately 19,000 students and around $13
million in financial aid.

According to Carbaugh, a small number of students would be unable to fulfill certain course requirements. “As much as we’re here to provide access, we’re also here to serve those who desire to transfer or earn
a degree,” Carbaugh said.

If reforms like Scott’s can better serve those students without hurting everyday operations, state community
colleges would be wise to pursue them.

Readers can contact Arik Burakovsky
at [email protected].

There’s something delightfulabout going home for the holidays: My mom makes up for months of not pampering her “baby” by doing my laundry, buying me clothes, and, most importantly, cooking food that doesn’t resemble anything from Pho La Jolla.

After the holiday, as I sat eating Ben and Jerry’s and watching “The Biggest Loser” — putting off finals studying for as long as possible — my jaw dropped when I saw one of the contestants, weighing in at whopping 207 pounds, run a mile in seven minutes and 31 seconds, besting my high school record by a cool minute.

I was watching people twice my size running a marathon. And trust me, there’s nothing more motivating than watching slow-motion recaps of fat folds flapping in the L.A. breeze. I realized that if I wanted to survive the holidays without having to submit an application video to N.B.C. come January, I’d have to take action.

After a little couch-side Googling, I came across the La Jolla half marathon.

This was it. All or nothing. I said goodbye to $60 and pledged to finish the half-marathon come April.

After a nine-hour drive, a $431 speeding ticket and buying those Reeboks that are supposed to make
your butt better, I was ready to hit the gym.

It wasn’t my first walk in the park, but gym rats are still intimidating. The last thing I wanted to do was attempt a work out side-by-side with a meathead giving me a front-row seat to the gun
show. Making a beeline for the treadmill, I figured a half mile warm-up couldn’t be a bad place to start.

Five minutes in, the supposed “comfortable jog” made me feel like a doughy, pathetic, out-of-shape fatty. Although those 13.1 miles were looking less and less like probable, the stingy Asian in me wouldn’t allow
myself to simply throw away $60, so I kept going.

Thirty seconds later, gasping for breath, arms flailing, I hit “stop.”

That was enough for one day.

I knew I had to make a plan if I was actually going to do this. I called my superstar marathon runner and asked for help. His advice: Hit the gym every other day, run two sets, with a cool-down in between, and tack on an additional .25 mile to my work out every day. Easy enough, right?

As obvious as it sounds, I found that it’s a lot easier to watch “Biggest Loser” contestants suffer from verbal
harassment and gravity’s cruel reality from the couch than it is to follow suit.

Over the next few weeks, as I huffed and puffed on the treadmill, I stayed motivated by telling myself, “If they can do it, YOU can. Man up.”

It’s been three weeks since the first day at the gym, and though there were some days that even a visit from all the 6’4” blonds in the world wouldn’t have gotten me off my ass, I’ve been able to stick to my workout regime.

Miraculously enough, through all the blood, sweat and mashed potatoes, I’m making it past the third mile — even though I’d still rather be watching the fatties do it for me.

[caption id="attachment_20419" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Philip Jia/UCSD Guardian"][/caption]

As 2010 drew to a close, the UC system underwent a number of changes to compensate for its loss of state funding. Student fees increased by 32 percent, the UC employee contribution to the retirement fund began after a 20-year break, and UC retiree health benefits decreased, while the age for retirement increased this past month. Now, top-tier UC employees — specifically, those earning more than $245,000 annually ­— have threatened to sue the UC system if they do not receive a promised  increase in retirement payments.

In a letter sent to the UC Board of Regents on Dec. 9, 39 UC executives demanded the higher pension benefits promised to them in 1999 under the condition that the IRS raised the cap on pensions from the previously set $245,000. This cap was raised in 2007. The UC calculates pensions as a percentage of salary, up to a cap of $245,000, while those earning between $245,000 and $500,000 receive $184,000 annually when they retire.

After 2007, executives claimed the promised benefits were never allocated. The increase in benefits would cost the UC system an additional $5.5 million a year in addition to a one-time cost of $51 million to make the change retroactive to 2007.

This threat comes at a time when the UC system faces a  $21 billion deficit in pension obligations, a deficit that nearly matches the current state budget deficit of $25.4 billion.  The pension gap is nearly the same as the university’s annual budget of $20.1 billion for 2009-10.

[caption id="attachment_20420" align="alignleft" width="170" caption=" "][/caption]

Furthermore, incoming governor Jerry Brown said Californian public school will face even greater budget cuts, according to San Francisco Gate. In a written statement, Brown criticized the 36 UC executives, calling them out of touch for demanding extra benefits when the state is facing billions of dollars in deficit that strongly affect people far less advantageous.

In the 1980s, the state contributed about 5 percent of its general fund to the university but this share declined to approximately 3.1 percent — about $2.6 billion — by 2009-10. While state funding increased to about $3 billion in 2010-11, funding is predicted to decline further.

The UC system has already begun to reduce its contribution to health care, from the current 89 percent to 70 percent by 2018. For employees hired after July 1, 2013, the age for retirement will increase from 60 to 65.

The UC Commission on the Future was created last year to address the budgetary issues. The committee, co-chaired by UC President Mark G. Yudof and the UC Regents Chairman Russell Gould, released a report last December with recommendations —  20 of which were endorsed.

The recommendations include decreasing the time to earn a degree, increasing out-of-state enrollment from 7 to 10 percent and exploring online instruction through an online course pilot program. According to UCOP spokesperson Ricardo Vazquez, decreasing time-to-degree through pathways such as a three-year degree program or joint bachelors and masters programs would increase undergraduate spots for prospective UC students.

“[Reducing time-to-degree] is likely to be appropriate for only a fraction of UC students, but even if only 5-10 percent of UC undergraduates graduate a quarter or semester early, it would free up 2,000 to 4,000 undergraduate slots per year and increase access to UC for other students coming in,” Vazquez said.

The report also suggested increasing nonresident enrollment to increase geographic diversity and raise money. Additionally, it claimed that increasing nonresident enrollment generates money for the UC system since each out-of-state student pays $21,000 more for tuition a year than California residents.

“California students would not be displaced for out-of-students; they would come on top of California students, not at the expense of California students,“ Vazquez said.

The online classes pilot program will help and generate additional money for UC as well as provide students access to general education requirements that are becoming impacted due to cuts in courses and increased enrollment. The pilot program — projected to start in 2012 and involving up to 25 courses — will run for a year to test its efficacy, according to Vazquez.

Co-chair of the Berkeley Faculty Association Wendy Brown said streamlining degrees and providing online courses would significantly decrease the quality of UC education.

“If you just take those two [streamlined degrees and online education] in combination, you have an education significantly lower in quality, speeded up and [that] loses the dimension of a college education that’s about exploring new ideas [and] opening up new possibilities — and instead, is increasingly designed to crank out degrees and crank out job training,” Brown said.

Other contingency recommendations from the UC Commission on the Future not endorsed by the Regents include decreasing enrollment, reducing faculty and staff in addition to financial aid support.

“These recommendations represent a worst-case scenario,” Vazquez said. “They would have to be considered only if the state budget worsens to that point.”

The Council of UC Faculty Associations President Robert Meister said the unendorsed recommendations should be considered now, not when financial situations worsen.

“The news about the gold commission [report] is that most of the bad things Yudof wanted them to adopt [and] tried to push through were rejected at the Regents, so they kept them as contingency plans just in case is there is another emergency. How predictable is that there’s another emergency?” Meister said. “Jerry Brown has all but said he’s going to cut funding and increase taxes.”

It turns out that the bin labeled “food scraps” in the dining hall is just there for eye candy because in reality it is treated as just another bag to send off to the landfill. This was a shocking and perplexing rumor, but was confirmed dining hall worker who said, “When we actually take the compost bag out, we just plunge it into the trash bin.”

UCSD is known as, and has even won awards for, being an especially “green” campus, so this illusion that the school actually composts seems dishonest. Yet with further investigation, it seems that it isn’t the school that is preventing composting from becoming a reality, but the students.

The extra cost of composting is actually due to the fact that it literally takes a man to scavenge through all of the compost to pick out what doesn't belong. The dining halls are holding off on composting until the students to get used to dividing their compostables into the correlating bin.

I took a look into the composting bins in most of the campus dining halls, and found that students are in fact horrible at separating their waste into the correct bins. There were tons of straws, plastic sauce containers, soy sauce packets, and “to go” baskets in the clearly labeled “Food scraps” bin. The UCSD Housing, Dining, and Hospitality Department recently changed the bins labeled “Compost” to be called “Food Scraps” just to ease confusion of what should be deposited. Apparently UCSD students are in dispute of what “food” implies.

The problem is that UCSD cannot be a part of the composting program in San Diego if the compost material doesn’t contain less than 1 percent contaminants. The composting plan is otherwise a green light, with a procedure set of how to collect the food scraps every weekday, compact them, and then empty organic material at the Miramar Landfill Greenery section to become compost.

This compost program is projected to divert 53 percent of waste from the UCSD dining halls and save the university about $30 per ton of disposals by not dumping it into a landfill. Additionally, it is great for the environment. The only thing preventing this beneficial plan from becoming a reality are the students living on campus.

It is important for students to recognize what the “Food Scraps” bins are meant for. Anything edible can be composted, from the bones in your chicken to the syrup on your pancakes. The un-bleached napkins can be composted too. If you are not sure if something is compostable or you don’t want to have to worry about separating your waste, then just dump it all in the trash—NOT the compost.

As an intelligent and progressive campus so we should be able to separate our trash—UCSB was able to! UC Santa Barbara is moving toward having everything organic that comes onto campus to stay on the campus, with all waste either recycled or composted. UCSB was able to work out an arrangement with their primary trash hauler to implement a more effective waste management plan. At this rate, UCSB sees complete withdrawal from the use of landfills in 10 years.

UCSB found that one of its most effective renovations was the removal of trays in dining halls. This has reduced the amount food waste greatly because students only take what they can carry. Also the amount of water and materials needed for washing has decreased because trays are no longer being washed and the students now consolidate their food to fewer plates and bowls.

So as you can see, it can be done. It is easy to blame the people getting six-digit salaries who sit on their pedestals making decisions on behalf of the university for major problems such as the lack of composting, but it’s not their fault this time. UCSD is ranked the 9^th greenest university in the country, so it seems like if anyone were to tackle composting, it would be us. However, while this is a green campus, the students on it are not.

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Only one week of hell left. If we make it through finals, we’ll be kicking it with the fam, comparing stories with hometown friends and, thank god, eating food that comes from neither Plaza’s hallowed halls nor the frozen food aisle of Ralph’s.

With the holidays fast approaching, it won’t be long until you stumble home from your last final with the realization that you have three hours to pack your worldly possessions for the great migration home.

As excited as you might be to eat your mom’s roasted chicken again, when you’re surrounded by months of dirty clothes, early-purchased Christmas presents, one suitcase and no desire to shell out $50 to check an extra bag, it may feel like it’s time to panic. Luckily, How-to Guru is here to teach you how to pack.

The most important thing to remember is to roll your clothes — or at least the ones that can stand a wrinkle here and there. Rolling squishes out air pockets so your clothes take up less space. You can roll underwear and socks and shove them into shoes to save even more space. If your shoes are victim to disgusting foot secrets, shove dirty clothes in instead — there’s no harm in adding a little extra funk to clothes that are already dirty, right?

Unless you like the thought of your favorite body lotion violating your clothes mid-flight, throw all your toiletries in a sealed plastic bag.

Better yet, leave them behind — mom and dad have toothpaste to spare, and
unless your little siblings have gone unwashed in your absence, there will
be enough spare shampoo and lotion to make toiletries a low-priority item.

The entire closet of shoes doesn’t need to come either. If you’re pressed
for space, stick to the basics: Flip flops (a given), a pair of sneakers and dress
shoes (for Grandma’s sake). Though it might be a hassle when you reach the body scanners, pack your flip flops and don your sneakers. The space you save by not checking your bags is well worth having to untie your shoes in front of security. In fact, wear all of your heaviest clothes to the airport — your biggest coat, your thickest jeans, your clunkiest shoes. You might look like a fool — or a terrorist — but your suitcase will thank you.

Now, the real packing begins. Shoes go in on the very bottom, covered by stacked clothing rolls (jeans and jackets first!), but save the flip flops until the very end, when you’re wedging things along the side of the suitcase. Make sure breakable items are wrapped in your thickest sweater and placed in the middle, where they’re shielded from the shock of your frantic run up an escalator.

Let’s say you’ve followed all of these tips and, short of stealing Hermione’s purse from Harry Potter 7, there is just no way to cram in Dad’s UCSD snow globe. Have hope! You’re also allowed a backpack or a purse — transfer your copy of Les Miserables, along with the most expensive electronics (laptops, iPods, hard drives and the like). Anything worth more than a paycheck should be closest to you at all times. The last is a lesson is one this Guru had to learn the hard way — don’t forget your pajamas.