Surf City Squeezed

Surf City Squeeze is a smoothie and juice place on campus that has experienced some changes this year.

Dominique Santiago, 18, a freshman at CSULB, began working for Surf City her first semester as a student. However, about two-thirds through the semester she got laid off because business was slow.

Richard Suh, the manager of Surf City had too many employees working for him at the time and not enough customers, but he gave Santiago her job back this semester.

"The second semester, Richard asked me if I was still interested in working at Surf City Squeeze. Of course, I took it. I'm poor and reminded myself that I am a student," Santiago said.

When asked what the reason was for slow business, Santiago said, "Well, I don't really recall my boss saying anything about the recession except maybe as a joke but mostly, the reason I get from him is because of the weather."

The Current Budget

If you check your e-mail regularly, you should have received the letter from President F. King Alexander regarding the current campus budget.

If you missed it, he begins by stating that there is no new information to address, but the Governor is scheduled to publish his May Revise Budget by May 14.

President King also writes, "Because the political situation remains so uncertain and we have not observed any real movement toward budgetary resolution, the CSU has not changed its budget planning assumptions for next year. This means that we are continuing to implement our targeted reduction in student enrollment and keeping in place our plans for handling the budget cuts that have been assigned to us so far."

King goes on to discuss briefly the layoff situation which cannot be decided until after the Governor's revision, and mentions the $3.7 million the state has provided the university.

The one thing that stuck in my mind after reading the e-mail was this: "The good news is that state revenue is up slightly from last year. While certainly not enough of an increase to come anywhere close to resolving our financial problems, at least we do not expect the situation to worsen."

Art and Furloughs

Some teachers on campus have voiced their opinions about furloughs in their classes, but there are students on campus that are voicing their opinions about them in a different way.

The Daily 49er's article regarding the "Furlough Show" which was an exhibit that took place April 18 in the Werby Gallery on campus, was unanimously in agreement about furloughs.

Maximillian Piras is a junior art major at CSULB that sees furloughs as "the beast that sleeps in every crack of the university and that with each subtraction of a day of instruction, furloughs slowly suffocate the campus."

There was also a television set in the gallery that played footage of the protest that took place in March regarding the budget cuts.

Even in tough economic times, students are finding creative ways to "loudly express their feelings of frustration with the California State University system and the mandated furlough days that have been causing uproar statewide."

'Corporate Corruption Week'

With the furloughs, budget cuts, and economy in a bind, the 'Corporate Corruption Week' that took place last week on campus couldn't come at a better time.

The Daily 49er interviewed Michael Lozano, a senior sociology major who helped organize the event.

"We are organizing the week long event to show that we can resist the corporatism of everyday life, which has affected our democracy, environment, standards of living and individual minds," Lozano said.

Wayne Taylor, co-director of Reclaiming Democracy of Orange County at Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science had a powerful message to say: "We need a student movement now."

A major theme at the event was to recognize that students have power and corporate leaders need to take responsibility for their mistakes.

ASI and Budget Cuts

The budget cuts strike again and this time it hits the Associated Students Inc.

The Daily 49er reports that ASI will have to make cuts for the 2010-11 fiscal year because of a decrease in revenue.

Dave Edwards, ASI associate executive director said ASI is "looking at cuts in a number of areas: Student employment, club funding, support of campus programs...athletics, [the Educational Opportunity Program], some arts programs."

Why? Well, it is because of fewer students attending the university and "a new law that prohibits ASI from charging a summer ASI fee."

"ASI president Chris Chavez said CSULB would lose about 2,000 students for the 2010-11 academic year. This will drop ASI's revenue by about $2,000 since it depends on the $44 charged to each student per semester."

The article goes into detail about the difficulties ASI will face next year and why the fee has been prohibited but to highlight, "ASI is set to lose about $400,000-$50,000 for the 2010-11 year."

California's University System

We should all be familiar with the protest which took place March 4, regarding the budget cuts on campus.

However, the Dailey 49er published an article by Lisa M. Krieger of the San Jose Mercury News regarding California's University system.

Krieger writes, "While the recession turned a slow-brewing problem into an instant crisis, a San Jose Mercury News analysis of California's mess in higher education reveals that many factors drove the inevitable and ugly collision between the university system 's ambitious and uncoordinated growth and the state's declining ability and desire to pay for it."

The article goes on to list the "many factors" that contributed to this "mess" while also stating that population growth and academic goals of students had an affect on the state's promise to universities.

The conclusion: the recession is just another problem to add to the crumbling university system we see before us.

Budget Cuts Hurt Writer's Resource Lab

The Writer's Resource Lab is one of the resources on campus that has been affected by this year's budget cuts.
Fridays have been eliminated from the schedule completely and the staff has been cut. Since there is less staff, help is less available, and the capacity of students allowed in the Resource Lab at a time has shrank.
The Daily49er talked to the coordinator of the lab Todd Fox, regarding the difficulty students are having trying to get an appointment with the lab.
“Yes, students are waiting longer. But have they been unable to get in — no,” Fox said.
Patient students can still go to the Writer's Research Lab, but an alternative for those who need help fast is the Research Paper Clinic where librarians and writing tutors can give students the assistance they need.
Even the Library itself is offering "Citation Formation Clinics between March 22 and May 13 in the Spidell Classroom" as means of more assistance.
It is good to see at times like these that help is still out there, and that although the Writer's Resource Lab is not at its full potential at the moment, other resources are being made available.