Features
Dancing For Dollars: Students find creative ways to pay for tuition. See page 2.
Editorial
Democracy: How do you define it? See page 4.
How Do You Deal With Finals: Sex, Drugs and Rock-n-Roll See page 10.
Features
September 2, 2004
• Editorial, p4 • Features, p2,3,8,10 • News, p6,7,9 • Movies, p6 • Classifieds, p9
Serving California State University Hayward and the East Bay
PUBLISHED FOR THE CSUH COMMUNITY AND THE EAST BAY
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Job Hunt Trying for Recent Grads
By Erin Vinson
Staff Writer
A Job to Suit You: Career Development Center helps students find jobs. (top) Counselor Andrea Alvarado helps students build resumes. (bottom)
Photo/ Marie Reyes
ith the summer quarter coming to an end, Cal State Hayward’s class of 2004 grads have been having a hard time finding work in their related fields. The Career Development Center is available to help graduates as well as current students. “No one wants to hire me,” said Mia Cheng, who received her degree in business administration. “Its frustrating…I kind of wish that I was still in school so that I would not be going through all of this.” “I have been applying to job after job after job,” said Monique Robinson, who majored in sociology. “I get called in for interviews; I think the interview goes really well and I never get a call back.” “I graduated in June with a communications degree and I have been actively looking all summer for a job,” said Breinne Weymouth. “I have submitted over 200 resumes and (am) averaging about two interviews a week. “I finally received a phone call offering me a position, but it isn’t even in my career field and it doesn’t pay as much as I had hoped for, (nor) does it offer benefits. But it’s a job,” she said. Students with bachelor’s degrees are not only ones having problems. Students with graduate degrees are also pounding the pavement. “I graduated with my MBA in spring,” said Wesley Sato. “I want to go into real estate, and everyone wants me to have experience in this field.
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Budget Cuts Cause Reduction in Student Services
Editorʼs Note: This is the last in a series of stories that have explored how the CSUH budget cuts are affecting different departments, the faculty and students.
Budget Cuts and the Campus Experience
By Elisa Lewak
Staff Writer
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See Jobs, page 7.
Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association To Offer First Student Scholarship
By Melanie Commins
Staff Writer
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Hawaiian Community Art and Soul Festival Returns to Oakland To Celebrate at Pioneer Amphitheater
By Edwin Okong’o
Staff Writer
he Northern California chapter of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association is launching its first $1,000 student scholarship award for students pursuing a degree that pertains to journalism at a Northern California college. Applications must be received by Sept. 17, 2004. “I’m hoping that it sends the signal out that we want to be more involved with students and make ourselves available,” said Janet Kornblum, the NLGJA Northern California scholarship committee chairwoman. “The door is open and we hope people walk through and take advantage of it.”
NLGJA is an organization of journalists, media professionals and students dedicated to promoting accurate coverage of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues in the media. It opposes workplace bias against all minorities Winners will be notified by Oct. 18, and the scholarship recipients will be required to attend the NLGJA’s Northern California chapter’s Excellence in Journalism Awards in San Francisco on Oct. 25. “We’ve always felt that it was important to recognize good journalism as it springs up from the student journalism level because they are the future of journalism,” said Ray Delgado, president of the NLGJA’s Northern California chapter.
The scholarship application states that the student should be pursuing a degree in journalism, but it is open to mass communications and English students or anyone pursuing some kind of study that might pertain to journalism. Recipients will be selected at the discretion of the board, based on academic and journalistic excellence and with an understanding and commitment to the organization’s mission. The organization offers an array of professional development programs in journalism for its members, Delgado said. “The idea for the scholarship has been around the Northern California
See Scholarship, page 7.
ervices given to the student body enhance academic life considerably, but few students consider how cuts to these departments, including the Educational Opportunity Program and the library, affect their education now and in the future. Each of these departments is expecting more than 10 percent of its budget to be cut. The Pioneer examines how the cuts are affecting these two departments. Educational Opportunity Program Diana Balgas, director of EOP, will be forced to decide between reducing the number of students admitted to EOP and focusing more on group advising rather than individual counseling. According to Balgas, the department was told to expect a 16.8 percent budget cut for the academic year of 2004-2005. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to get of rid of all UC and CSU outreach programs. He mistakenly thought EOP was one such program. Although EOP does some outreach through its Summer Bridge program, its main focus is keeping its students at CSUH. The Summer Bridge program helps graduating high school seniors acquire skills Strength In Numbers: Cal State hayward students Photo/ Courtesy they need to be admitted to and faculty members help deliver 10,000 signature cards the CSU system. EOP is designed to help to the Schwarzenegger administration to protest CSU budget cuts. students who have disabilities EOP helps O’Guinn schedule classes, or come from low-income homes, are in foster care or who are the first in the gives him personal counseling and career counseling and helped him decide on a family to attend college. EOP assists about 10 percent of the major. This summer it even gave him a student body, which Balgas estimated job. It is unclear where cuts will be made to be between 1,000 and 1,200 students this year. Balgas says so far the biggest enrolled in the program. EOP takes a holistic approach to help- problem she sees has been the loss of a ing students, offering personal counsel- staff member who coordinated all EOP ing, career advice and financial aid, in admissions to another department. This year EOP received 4,400 requests addition to academic help. Those involved with EOP throughout for admission to the program. With no the CSU system knew that they would full-time staff member to process the aphave to educate the state executive office plications and answer questions, Balgas if their program was to be saved from said that counselors are forced to do the the cuts. Such a fight, they believed, See Cuts, page 6.
required “a lot of attention to EOP,” according to Balgas. All 23 EOP program directors throughout the 23 CSU campuses decided to act as a unit and met monthly to facilitate their goal of survival. They participated in rallies and called a government hotline in Sacramento. Alumni sent letters, in which they told their stories, to their local legislators and met with CSU Chancellor Charles Reed. In the end, according to Balgas, Reed agreed that “This is a program we have to preserve.” With Schwarzenegger’s promise to cut all outreach programs by 100 percent, the fact that EOP still exists is a testament to the power of protest between all 23 Cal State Universities. However, the battle frightened the students who depend on EOP counselors to help them through college, as counselors prepared them for attending CSUH without an existing EOP. “You don’t know what it’s going to be like without them,” said Kamar O’Guinn, a human development major and an EOP student.
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celebration of Hawaiian culture will return to California State University Hayward later this month after a 13-year absence. On Sept. 18, Pau Summah Bash will take place at Pioneer Amphitheater beginning at noon and ending at 10 p.m. Several Hawaiian bands will join local bands for a day of music, food and arts and crafts. Some of the proceeds from the event will go toward building a Polynesian culture center in the East Bay, according to Tennyson Lum, the director of Green Grass Productions, which is planning the event. “It will be a great opportunity for the Polynesian community to bond,” said Lum. Green Grass Productions will also be involved in raising funds for academic scholarships and funding educational field trips for Polynesian students, Lum said. Lum’s mother, Ehulani Enoka Lum, used to run a similar annual event called
May Day Program at Pioneer Amphitheater from 1985 until her death in 1991. Although the May Day Program still takes place every year in Pleasanton, where Lum’s sister moved it, he decided to bring a similar event to CSUH to honor his mother’s service to the Polynesian community. “My mother truly loved CSUH,” said Lum. “She would be very happy to know that our community is coming back home to Hayward.” Pau Summah Bash will be like May Day Program with a twist, according to Lum. Hawaiian musician Russell Mauga is one of the entertainers performing at the event. KaEhuKai, Kaleo O Kalani, Aloha Pumehana, Ke Ola Loa and Aloha Brewed will be among more than a dozen bands scheduled to perform on that day. Joey Guila, a Los Angeles stand-up comedian, will host the event. Although he is not Hawaiian, Guila said he had done many comedy shows in Hawaii and hosted many Hawaiian events similar to
Jammin’: Ziggy Marley mesmerizes festival attendees last year in downtown Oakland.
Photo/ Courtesy
By Edwin Okong’o
Staff Writer
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See Hawaiian, page 7.
or Bay Area families looking to save money and travel time this Labor Day weekend, the Art and Soul Festival’s Oakland Literature Expo offers inexpensive entertainment at a local venue. The cover charge is just $5 for adults
and children 12 and older, and the Expo is one flight away from the 12th St. Oakland BART station. “It is going to be incredible,” said Kim McMillon, the festival’s program coordinator. Ethnic foods, spoken word poetry, theatre, writing workshops, panel discussions and lots of music will dominate
the three-day festival that begins on Sept. 4. Tony, Toni, Tone, Los Lobos and the Presidents of the United States of America are just some of the bands in the lineup. At the World Dance stage, tribal Indian, African, Hawaiian, Mexican, Chinese, Turkish Gypsy, American and Pacific Islander performances will reflect the multiethnic makeup of Oakland. “We will be showcasing Oakland’s multicultural brilliance and artistic creativity,” said McMillon. One of the highlights of the expo will be an excerpt from a Muslim Pakistani play, “Domestic Crusaders,” written by Wajahat Ali and directed by Carla Blank. Although it is fictional, the play is an authentic portrayal of Muslim Americans, according to McMillon. It is a sincere depiction of a Muslim Pakistani-American family dealing with the way Muslims are perceived after Sept. 11, she said. On Sept. 4, there will be a First Amendment panel aimed at educating citizens about their civil rights, said McMillon. The festival will also be very kid friendly. Children will have their own stage where youth poets and the Oakland Public Library Storytellers will perform.
See Festival, page 6.