Occidental Greek Council and the Office of Student Life (OSL) are considering introducing new Greek organizations to campus in the next three to five years to address the growing popularity of Greek Life on campus. Several students have proposed the national and historically African-American sorority Delta Sigma Theta, members of which have been on campus gathering support for a potential new chapter of the organization.
Greek Council and OSL will survey the campus to determine whether there is a demand for additional sororities and fraternities this semester. According to Assistant Director for Student Life, Student Activities and Greek Life Diego Silva they will not make a major decision this semester. New Greek organizations other than Delta Sigma Theta are not likely to become a permanent fixture at Occidental in the near future.
According to Silva, one motivation for bringing innew organizations is the increasing number of students involved in the recruitment process who do not receive a bid. Two current Occidental sororities, Alpha Lambda Phi Alpha and Delta Omicron Tau, had an open-bid policy, meaning that all women who went through recruitment would get a bid from at least one organization. But in 2013 both organizations elected to become closed-bid when they determined their pledge classes were becoming too large.All of the other Greek organizations have also traditionally been closed-bid.
“Our Greek leaders want to be inclusive,” Silva said. “We really are taking that seriously, but at the same time we can’t overextend our Greek organizations. This is why we’re looking into organizational growth.”
While Greek Council Women’s Recruitment Chair and psychology majorRachel Lapidus (junior) does not see the local sororities or any other Greek organization moving back to an open-bid recruitment process, she said that having more organizations on campus would increase students’ chances of receiving a bid from at least one organization.
“I personally don’t want anyone to feel badly that they haven’t been accepted into a social organization,” Lapidus said. “We really want that for everyone, and that’s why we’re looking into expansion.”
If the student body and Greek Council agree on the need for new organizations sometime within the next few years, the college will issue a memo to current national Greek organizations expressing its interest in opening a new chapter. Any interested organization will submit a portfolio that will be considered by the Greek Council and OSL.
“We would look for an organization that values things like civic engagement, social justice, inclusivity; things that the students and the campus here tend to value,” Silva said. “Our Greek [council] has definitely made it clear that the organizations that we do bring on here should be in line with the general Oxy culture.”
According to Silva, any new organization will most likely be a national sorority or fraternity as opposed to a local one. National Greek organizations have a presence at multiple colleges and universities as well as a controlling body outside the campus that guides the chapter. Local organizations, on the other hand, were created by groups of students and are self-governed. Although students are welcome to start a women’s or men’s group on campus, Silva said that establishing an Occidental-sanctioned Greek organization without any outside assistance of a national association would likely be too difficult.
The first concrete step in the expansion of Greek Life was visible in the introduction of sorority Delta Sigma Theta. Outside members of the group began talks with potential Occidental members at the Greek Information Session on Feb. 10.
According to Assistant Dean for Community Engagement Ella Turenne, Occidental began consideration of aDelta Sigma Theta chapter after interested students proposed the idea to OSL.
“A number of students approached the college, some even independent of each other, wanting to explore the possibility of chartering specifically Delta Sigma Theta on campus,” Turenne said via email.
Members of Delta Sigma Theta collected the names of Occidental women interested in founding a new chapter this semester.
“There was actually a significant amount of interest … enough for the college to feel that the students were serious about it, and enough for the Delta Sigma Theta National Headquarters to feel it warranted exploring,” Turenne said via email.
According to Silva, the new chapter will not be established until sometime next year.
Ukraine.The inhabitants of Ukraine’s Crimea region voted Sunday to join the Russian Federation on unspecific terms. Turnout was said to be over 50 percent with initial results showing 95 percent in favor of secession. While many Crimeans celebrated the result in the streets, the divisive issue caused some families to flee the peninsula. The European Union, United States and Ukraine condemned the referendum. Critics question the speed with which the referendum was organized and the authorities administering it. But despite Western opposition, Russia issued a decree on Monday officially recognizing the region’s sovereignty.It is unclear when Crimea will become a full republic in the Russian Federation, but Russia could feel the consequences relatively soon as Western leaders discuss financial sanctions.
Sky News and The New York Times
Japan. Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe announced Sunday that Japan would not rescind a statement of apology issued in 1993 for the Imperial Army’s use of sex slaves from the mid-1930s to 1945. The clarification does not represent any change in policy on the part of the Japanese government. The announcement is the result of an inquiry commissioned to reexamine evidence of Japan’s use of sex slaves; the findings were consistent with every major investigation into war crimes in Imperial Japan.
ABC News
Venezuela. President of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro called onPresident Barack Obama Saturday to engage in high level talks on matters of “peace and sovereignty.”Maduro accused the U.S. of orchestrating protests and criminal activities in Venezuela, claiming he knew of an American plot against his life. The U.S. denied any involvement in the unrest or such plans.The talks would be aimed at curbing the violence that Maduro said is fueled by the U.S. Violence has increased on the streets of Caracas, with Foreign Minister Elias Jaua calling U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry a murderer and blaming him for the surge of violence.
BBC News
China. Chinese tech giant Alibaba confirmed its plans Sunday to go public on an American Stock Exchange. Hundreds of Chinese companies are listed in the United States but few as big as Alibaba. Analysts predict that the Initial Public Offering (IPO) could be the biggest since Facebook in May 2012 and net the firm $15 billion in revenue. Yahoo, which is the largest shareholder, has stated it will reduce its investment through the IPO.
The board of trustees has a legacy as old as Occidental itself. When the college was founded in 1887, there were far fewer trustees, most of whom were Presbyterian ministers, according to Vice Chair of the Board Dave Berkus ‘62. Now the board is comprised of around 50 members who have an interest in the college and its students.
Many of the trustees live in Los Angeles and make it a point to attend events such as commencement and convocation. But even the Chairman of the Board Christopher Calkins ’67 believes there is a need for more casual dialogue between trustees and students.
“One of the things that we decided to do beginning a little earlier this year was to try to consciously get some opportunities for trustees, on an informal basis, to meet with students,” Calkins said. “That’s one of the things that we actually lack.”
Many of the trustees are CEOs, presidents and founders of organizations. But apart from their jobs and busy schedules, Calkins says they take the time to show their dedication to Occidental and the students who attend the institution.
“They [the trustees] genuinely care about life on campus, and students,” Associated Students of Occidental College (ASOC) President Nick McHugh said.
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WHAT ARE THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES?
The trustees work with the administration to support the needs of the college.
“We grow and preserve the asset that is the college, and that is everything from the money to the physical assets, to the professors to supporting the president,” Berkus said. “Our goal is to help the president in every way. Of course, we are the ones who select and supervise the president, and then supply the resources necessary to make things happen. We are the stewards.”
Instead of overseeing the daily functions of the college, the trustees are tasked with looking after its long-term interests.
“I wouldn’t say that the board is in on the day-to-day functioning and operations of the college, nor should they be,” Vice President for Finance and Planning Amos Himmelsteinsaid. “Boards really provide an oversight, they sometimes bring expertise that they can lend, but they are not the ones who are on the ground and managing what needs to happen on the day-to-day basis of the college.”
That is not to say that communication between the board and the college is restricted to the three to four weekends per year that full board meetings are held. In fact, there is a committee which specifically deals with taking action when the board is not convened on campus.
“There is an executive committee, which is a subsidiary to the board, and really exists just to take action between board meetings when something has to be acted,” Calkins said.
Apart from the formalities of business, there are also informal conversations between the chairs of committees and members of the administration on many important issues. Although they are separate entities, the board and the administration work together to ensure that Occidental stays on track with its mission statement.
The board’s processeach year begins when the faculty and administration convene their budget committees and build proposals for the following year. The trustees then meet in their committees and go through the budget proposals to make necessary recommendations. Changes are suggested until everyone agrees on a final version of the proposal. As long as the administration stays within their allotted budget for the year, the trustees are not involved after this point. For projects that do require financing beyond the funds that have already been allocated in the budget, the administration must send a proposal to the board.
As far as the relationship between the administration and the board of trustees goes, Himmelstein and Berkus both agree that trustees are to be involved but not hold the reigns.
“A long time ago — ten years ago or so — we had a session with an instructor who happened to have been the president of the Getty [Museum],” Berkus said. “We have these occasionally on our retreats and we’ve had them several times since, but this one stuck in my mind. He said, ‘You trustees remember one thing; even after all the things you are learning now: noses in, fingers out. You can find out what is happening on campus, and you can certainly listen, but don’t ever try and make any decisions that go beyond the administration, because you are taking the administration out of an equation and it becomes impossible for them to administer.’
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How does the Board of Trustees carry out its operations?
Students may be familiar with the recent assault weapon investment ban that was passed by the board of trustees in February. At the behest of faculty members, this action was successful as the first ban of its type by any college across the nation. Although the divestment is one way in which the board can operate, it is not their typical way of conducting business.
In fact, as far as Berkus can remember, similar actions have been taken only twice in the college’s history.
“We have to go back to 1985, I believe it was,the very last time this happened. It dealt with Apartheid in South Africa. So, it doesn’t happen very often,” Berkus said. “It’s a bad precedent to set because it is difficult for us to make the most money for the endowment, which helps everybody, at the same time as trying to micromanage those people that are trying to make the money for us. There are times when you do want to do that.”
The investment committee operates through an outside investments manager who helps decide where its funds go. Luckily, because there were no current investments in assault weapons, it was easy for the board to vote to keep from investing in the case of assault weapon manufacturers.
Primarily, the board of trustees works when they meet on campus three times per year, and occasionally off campus for retreat meetings. According to Calkins the point of retreat meetings is to take the trustees out of the regular business environment of Occidental. It helps them get their minds off the usual agenda, so that instead they can think about more long-term issues, such as how the board can help effectively shape the direction that the college is going in the 21st century.
At other times these meetings are held to celebrate Occidental’s relationships with other institutions. There was a meeting held in New York, according to Duffy, to celebrate the anniversary of the Occidental’s United Nations program. Calkins remembered one meeting when the board met at the Autry Museum to honor the newfound connection with that institution.
When they meet on campus, the board works mainly through committees. They do not typically implement restrictions. Task forces, also called working groups, can be set up to address specific issues when they arise, according to Calkins.
“A task force is named by the board for a period of one year, which can be renewed, depending on how well we do, how important our job is, and how well we do it,” Berkus said.
In the past, when the strategic plan was in its primary stages, the trustees established a task force to help deal with any additional matters that could arise in the process. Currently, there are task forces for planning, off campus real estate, and technology (known as the Information Resources Task Force).
There are also currently 11 standing committees composed of trustees, administration members, faculty and student representatives. By law, the board of trustees of any institution must have both an audit committee and a compensation committee. The audit committee members’ responsibility is to review the financial statements from outside auditors. The compensation committee looks at the reasonableness of compensation for the president and the chief financial officer of the college, according to Calkins.
The board also has committees on academic affairs, budget and finance, building and grounds, honorary degrees, institutional advancement, investments, student life and trustee affairs. There is also the Executive Committee, which acts as a subsidiary to the board.
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Why are trustees seldom seen on campus?
The trustees are on campus three times per year for board meetings – two day-long events. According to Calkins, the two days are extremely busy, leaving little time for interaction with faculty and students. In those few days, the trustees are updated on what has happened at the college since their last meeting to ensure that they take appropriate and necessary actions in committees or at their full board meetings.
In addition to board members, the college’s Vice Presidents, Faculty Council President Nalsey Tinberg and the ASOC president attend the board meetings regularly. Select faculty and student representatives also participate and vote on all but the Audit, Compensation, Executive and Trustee Affairs committees. Depending on the subject, students and faculty might also become involved in the decision-making processby participating in task forces set up by the board. After each meeting is finished, the president sends out an email to students. For many students, this is as close as they get to the board members and learning about what they do.
There are a few occasions in which the board of trustees interacts with students outside of official business.
“I think board members have contact with people in areas related to their responsibilities on the board but also where they are interested,” trusteeand President and CEO of the Commonwealth Club of California Gloria Duffy ’75 said. “If they can help in any way, I know they try to help.”
In late January this year, students were invited to a mixer at Dumke Commons where they could meet with both the trustees and the board of governors.This was one of the occasions when the trustees wished to open up an informal dialogue with the students. In attendance were trustee and Executive Director of the Transamerica Center for Health Studies Hector De La Torre ’89 and Chair Emeritus Virginia Cushman ’55.
Unlike the administration, which is more visible to students and faculty, the board of trustees tries to stay out of the daily happenings of the college.
“You don’t want the board to be too much in the day-to-day because that is not really their role. That’s not their job,” Himmelstein said. “They play a role, but not a significant role that you would notice them as much.”
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What are the most important issues that the board must deal with?
Topping the list of duties for which the board is responsible is the selection of the college’s president.
“The most important decision we made was, it is in each case, the naming of the president,” Berkus said. “I guess if I have to go down from there, it is the allocation of resources, because in any organization, even Harvard, resources are scarce.”
After former President John Slaughter left the college in 1999, the board was shocked by the short term of Ted Mitchell, who led the college for only four-and-a-half years. Between the end of President Mitchell’s term in 2005 and Veitch’s appointment in 2009, the college hosted three different interim presidents. According to Berkus, a high rate of presidential turnover has been especially problematic for the institution, as donations tend to plummet in periods of rapid turnover. However, Berkus for one is happy with the progress Veitch has made since his arrival.
“Jonathan Veitch has been very successful in raising money for the college,” Berkus said. “He has been with the college long enough to be recognized as the president. We had a problem before him because there was such turnover. So it’s been very helpful for us.”
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What is the board currently working on?
The board is working on several projects around campus, as well as dealing with its typical duties set out by its committees.
The Board members are working to promote the growth of the endowment, which is continuing to grow under Veitch’s direction. According to Calkins, raising money for building projects is another very high priority for the board. They are looking into plans for renovations to the Academic Commons, Taylor Pool, the McKinnon Family Tennis Center and the Career Development Center.
The Los Angeles Times fired reporter Jason Felch on Friday following revelations of an inappropriate relationship he had with confidential source for a Dec. 7 article. The article, as well as several subsequent articles authored by Felch, stated that Occidental College did not report 27 sexual assaults it was required to report under the Clery Act in 2012. The L.A. Times retracted this article after college officials presented the paper with evidence that the reporting was in error.
After college officials approached The L.A. Times, the newspaper conducted an investigation on the reporting, at which time Felch revealed that he had engaged in an inappropriate relationship with one of the story’s confidential sources. According to The L.A. Times, Felch did not use that person as a source during their relationship but did before and after. But according to The New York Times, Felch denies using the source following the end of the relationship. Occidental stated in a press release that no one at the college had prior knowledge of said relationship.
L.A. Times Editor Davan Maharaj called the relationship and the delayed disclosure “a professional lapse of the kind that no news organization can tolerate.”
“Our credibility depends on our being a neutral, unbiased source of information — in appearance as well as in fact,” Maharaj said.
Occidental’s carried out its successful campaign to receive a correction from The L.A. Times with the support of the newly hired public relations firm G.F. Bunting & Co.
Last Saturday’s correction published by The L.A. Times explained that several of the incidents cited in Felch’s article did not require reporting under the Clery Act because they occurred outside of the geographical reporting area, were properly reported the previous year or were cases of sexual harassment, not assault. The college has previously acknowledged its failure to report 19 sexual assaults covered by the Clery Act in 2010. A federal investigation by the Department of Education to determine the extent of the violations is ongoing.
Occidental College issued a press release on Monday outlining its objections with Felch’s reporting on sexual assault issues to date.
“We want to set the record straight with the facts about Felch’s pattern of unethical and erroneous reporting,” the release read.
Felch apologized for his actions in a statement to multiple media outlets.
“I accept full responsibility for what I did and regret the damage it has done to my family and my colleagues at one of the nation’s great newspapers,” Felch said.
Occidental hired 10 new tenure or tenure-track professors in eight different departments. These 10 hires mark the most tenure appointments in one year for the last five years, according to Dean of Students and Vice President for Academic Affairs Jorge Gonzalez.
Eight faculty members are also leaving the college, either due to retirement or personal reasons, resulting in a net gain of two new professors.
“We are very fortunate to be able to make progress,” Gonzalez said. “At this time, many schools are not able to make this type of progress but we are, and we are very fortunate.”
The college hired new faculty in Art History and Visual Arts (AHVA), Diplomacy and World Affairs (DWA), chemistry, cognitive science, economics, history, mathematics and kinesiology.
Currently the student-to-tenure-faculty ratio sits at 15-to-1. Gonzalez said he would like that ratio to be closer to 13-to-1, which would require the college to increase tenure track faculty from 140 to about 158, depending on student enrollment in a given year. The school’s faculty consists of 46 percent adjunct faculty members, according to Gonzalez. Because tenure faculty are required to teach a full course load of five classes per year and advise students, some professors feel overwhelmed.
“Politics is a popular major, and we do find it challenging to serve teaching and advising needs with our reliance on adjunct faculty members,” Politics Department Chair Caroline Heldman said via email. “Adjunct faculty tend to be excellent teachers, but their job description does not include advising work and co-curricular projects and activities that make a liberal arts education the best form of higher education. This means that tenured/tenure-track faculty take on more work outside the classroom that could cut into the quality of their teaching and research.”
Despite this sentiment from some professors, Spanish and Linguistics Department Chair Robert Ellis does not feel his department is unequipped to deal with its academic responsibilities.
“Right now, in my department, I think we are adequately staffed to serve our students in the classroom and in advising,” Ellis said. “Both the Spanish and the linguistics portions of our program have been steadily growing over the years. This year we hired a new, tenure-track professor of Spanish linguistics. This has helped us tremendously, as we are now able to offer more Spanish and linguistics courses and thus better meet the increasing student demand for these fields.”
Professor of chemistry Michael Hill said that not only has his department gained two new hires, but also the department has benefited from the addition of adjunct or non-tenure track faculty members. He used the example of ProfessorMike Gray, who teaches Chemical Thermodynamics.
“Most departments have to hire someone for whom that is their specialty,” Hill said. “Because of our location here in L.A., we were able to find someone [Gray] who is a chemical engineer, who is an expert in chemical thermodynamics. We can use that faculty line to put money into a more emerging field… In the end, it probably works out better for the students.”
But while some professors appreciate the additional adjunct professors, Sociology Department Chair Richard Mora believes more effort should be dedicated to tenure and tenure-track faculty.
“What Oxy students and alumni value most about their time at Oxy are their relationships with faculty, amongst others,” Mora said via email. “Our students and alumni value the education, the mentoring, the advising and the recommendations that they receive from tenure track faculty and adjunct faculty. That is why spending on tenure track hires needs to be approached as a worthy investment and not as an expense.”
Mora said that adding more tenure-track faculty members would be better for both students and faculty.
“Adding tenure track faculty allows the college to better serve students, who are deserving of faculty members who work full-time at Oxy and are more readily available to them semester after semester,” Mora said. “With new tenure track hires, under-staffed departments can better serve their majors and those students taking department courses to meet their Core requirements. Moreover, with new tenure track hires, departments can expand their curriculum and, thus expose students to more scholarly areas within the discipline.”
Furthermore, he believes that because of the importance of the academic relationships between student and faculty, alumni would likely be able to raise the money for adding more faculty.
“I am certain that many Oxy alumni would much rather gift in support of the faculty’s commitment to students than gift to the general fund or not gift at all,” Mora said.
Hill and other faculty are part of a committee that is looking at the ratios of students to tenure faculty and how to better improve the ratio. They will have preliminary findings in the next few weeks.
The Occidental baseball team (9-11 overall, 7-5 SCIAC) churned out a successful week on the diamond, producing in every facet of the game to finish 5-3 over the course of spring break. The squad’s resurgence culminated in an 11-2 victory over No. 12 California Lutheran on Sunday afternoon.
Tiger head coach Luke Wetmore attributed the team’s breakthrough to the noticeable improvement he saw in the batter’s box, something that was absent during a previous stretch before taking on Caltech in which Occidental lost six of eight games.
“The bats have started to come alive,” Wetmore said. “We’ve been stringing some hits together and moving runners around the diamond.”
Since the series against George Fox University on Feb. 21-22, the black and orange has raised its collective batting average roughly 30 points.
The Tigers played eight games in eight days this past week, starting with a home-and-away series sweep against Caltech.
The Tigers took Game 1 on the road, defeating the Beavers 11-0 in seven innings via the mercy rule. Pitchers Joe Kling (junior), C.J. Murayama (sophomore) and Trevor Lecka (sophomore) combined for seven scoreless innings and allowed just four hits.
Catcher Victor Munoz (junior) and third baseman A.J. Libunao (junior) provided the pop on offensive, as Munoz finished the day 3-for-3 and Libunao broke the game open in the fourth inning with a bases-loaded triple.
Caltech played tighter in Game 2 at Anderson Field, but the black and orange pulled out a 3-2 victory behind starter Mitch Margolis’ (senior) five innings of one run ball. Riley James (first-year) finished the game with a four inning save, giving up no earned runs.
The Tigers duplicated the results of Game 1, sealing a 13-3 victory in a shortened seven innings again via the mercy rule.
Occidental then took a break from SCIAC play to host two East Coast squads from Drew University and Ithaca College, who made the trip out west from New Jersey and New York, respectively.
Pitcher Nolan Watson (first-year) picked up his first collegiate win against Drew on Monday as the Tigers cruised to an 8-0 victory. The newcomer tossed six shut-out innings and allowed just one hit.
Left fielder Chris Strain (junior) served as a break-out performer at the plate. He finished the day 2-for-2 with a walk and three RBI, including double to left center that scored two in the bottom of the sixth and put the game out of reach.
After four straight games in which the pitching staff only surrendered a total of five runs, the Tigers ran into trouble against Ithaca, who came to Los Angeles with a No. 15 national ranking. The Bombers trounced the Tigers 16-5, tallying 24 hits in the process. Wetmore had to use eight different pitchers in the contest. None of the Tiger arms lasted longer than 1.2 innings.
“We just got away from a game plan a little bit,” Kling said. “We left a few balls up.”
But Kling himself answered the call to get the staff back on track against SCIAC powerhouse Cal Lutheran in a 4-1 loss. The 6-foot-2 junior went head-to-head with reigning 2013 SCIAC Player and Newcomer of the Year Jake Petersen (senior) Friday at Anderson field. Both pitchers threw complete games, but the Kingsmen managed to scatter four runs (three earned) on six hits, and the Tigers could not give Kling the run support he needed to pick up his third victory.
“Joe is an absolute competitor,” Wetmore said. “I’d venture to say there’s nobody in the conference who competes the way he does on the mound.”
Occidental completed its long week with a doubleheader in Thousand Oaks, Calif., on Saturday. The Tigers dropped a tight one 4-3 to the Kingsmen in Game 1 and rebounded with a nine-run victory in Game 2.
In the top of the ninth in Game 1 with the Tigers trailing 3-1 and facing Cal Lutheran’s all-time saves leader Aaron Roth (senior), Tiger first baseman Johnathan Brooks (junior) and shortstop Riley Smith (senior) both collected RBI-singles to tie the contest at three.
But Cal Lutheran answered in the bottom half of the frame when second baseman Kyle Sanchez (first-year) reached on an error by Occidental second baseman Walker Marks (first-year) and stole second base. Kingsmen pinch-hitter Atherton Kniseley (sophomore) then drove in the winning run off Tiger reliever David Feasler (senior) with an RBI-single.
The black and orange was then able to notch the 11-2 win in Game 2 on the shoulders of Brooks’ five-hit, four-RBI performance. Second baseman Charlie Caccamo (sophomore) also tallied four hits in five at-bats, while Watson picked up another victory on the mound, hurling eight innings and allowing two runs off four hits.
“Everyone is more committed to the pitch and seeing what they’re going to see,” Brooks said. “Early on [in the season], everyone was trying to be the hero. But when we settled down and everyone realized their role and realized what they were going to get, that’s when we started hitting better.”
The Tigers return to action Saturday, hosting non-conference opponent Rutgers-Newark at Anderson Field for a doubleheader. First pitches are scheduled for 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Recently I showed up to a non-Weekly work meeting smelling like beer and cigarettes. The co-worker sitting next to me leaned in and whispered in my ear, “The York?” Whether this is a testament to the amount of time he spends at The York or the obviousness of my condition is irrelevant. What is important is that before this year, I would have never even entertained the notion of showing up to a meeting in such a state. To be fair, I had ducked into The York to avoid the rain and had one beer (stout serves as an excellent blanket on a cold day). But my relative sobriety did not preclude the fact that subconsciously, I had validated this behavior because I am a senior and therefore such irresponsibility did not matter.
Senior year, whether it be in high school or college, is widely recognized as a time when the pressure of previous years is lessened. On the cusp of a life upheaval, students are allowed one year in which the strangleholds of responsibility and decorum are relieved. This is in part due to the fact that by the time the average student reaches his or her senior year of college, they have undergone nearly two decades of education. To say that most of them are ready to check out is an understatement.
As a junior, I had a senior friend who spent his senior spring semester in the bowels of the Chemistry Department, slaving away over a reaction he prayed would work. I asked him once why he had chosen to spend his semester of freedom under more pressure than ever before in his college years.
His response (and I’m paraphrasing) was, “Everyone keeps telling me I’m supposed to have fun and enjoy this time and not care. But why would I waste this time not learning everything I can and working my hardest while I still have the freedom to do so?”
I swore then that I would take his words to heart because he was, in fact, correct. I started the first semester of senior year off strong, working diligently on my Senior Comprehensive Project (comps). I discovered magical corners of the stacks, unfouled by loud whispers or the sounds of students hooking up and hid there for hours, surrounded by dense academic texts. But it was not long before this drive to do my best began to rot. I was working three jobs and for the first time paying bills, taking care of a pet on my own and keeping up a large and ramshackle house. Suddenly, everything else in life seemed more important than my studies. The phrase heard most frequently in my home was, “I didn’t do it because it simply doesn’t matter.”
Now, as a second semester senior who has finally turned in and passed her comps, these feelings have only worsened. My comps paper is my best research, my most concise academic writing and it is all I wish to ever again say to the English and Comparative Literary Studies (ECLS) department. Now, in class, instead of focusing on a lecture I busily search for jobs or do work for the jobs I already have. These are the things that pay for my life – the things that possibly lead to career opportunities. School now feels like a tedious day of forced baby sitting, in which I am the errant child and my professors the babysitters who refuse to let me eat a popsicle. An hour-and-a-halflong class is an hour and a half that could be spent doing research for an internship, sending out cover letters and resumes, updating a LinkedIn profile, divvying up the DWP bill or cleaning the dishes that have mounted in the sink.
And these feelings are not okay. Each time I ignore a professor to search for a job – a professor who has shaped my career at Occidental and in some way my life, who I once looked upon with eyes full of respect – an ugly feeling of guilt creeps into my gut. Each time I turn in a shoddy paper late, a piece of self-loathing nestles itself in my brain. When did I stop caring?
The answer: I stopped caring when I realized that on Sunday May 18, the trajectory of my life is completely dictated by my decisions and actions, and it is no longer moored by the warm safety net of education. On a sunny Los Angeles day, with grass under my feet and the sound of the fountain not far off, it is more important to cherish laughter with a friend or to find a job than to ace an exam.
Here is what no one tells you: some liberal arts students will exit college and their degrees will immediately pave the way for a career. But for most, the things we have learned will not necessarily enable careers. They will, however, enable us to think critically and analytically about all facets of our life. In doing such, our education is both our burden and our saving grace. It is that thing which has given depth and color to our world, and it is also that thing which causes us to remember all of the things that are of so much more importance than going to class.
Ari Laub is a senior English and Comparative Literary Studies major. She can be reached at alaub@oxy.edu or on Twitter @WklyALaub.
This month, Latinos will become the largest ethnic group in California. Making up 39 percent of the population, they will overtake the non-Latino whites, who comprise 38.8 percent, according to the Pew Research Center. The fact that Latinos are projected to become the largest single ethnic group in California will require the state’s government to evaluate current legal policies and theeconomic opportunities the demographic shift fosters. The Latino population is an important group that should not be ignored and marginalized by the United States. California has an excellent opportunity to demonstrate how to properly embrace the changing demographics and institute positive laws for Latinos, especially Latinoimmigrants, and create a model for the rest of the nation to emulate.
The U.S. as a whole must recognize that Latinos are critical contributors to the nation’s economic success. The 2010 Census Data results show that the Latino population purchased $1.1 trillion of consumer goods and generated about half of the total increase in consumer expenditures and the nation’s population over the previous decade, according to Fox News Latino. Latinos made up 16 percent of the labor force in 2012 and this groupcontinues to be one the fastest growing segments of the population, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Moreover, in 2007, the Public Policy Institute of California stated that 97 percent of day laborers are Latino and 80 percent of the Latino day laborers do not have citizenship. The U.S. must pass legislation that supports the improvement of working conditions for this growing population of laborers.
The nation must also limit deportation agencies’ right to question an individual’s citizenship status to only those situations where reasonable motive exists. The Immigration Policy Center released a study in April 2011 showing that if undocumented immigrants were given legal citizenship in California, the state would see many positive changes, including an increase of 633,000 jobs, $26.9 billion in labor income and $5.3 billion in tax revenues. According to the Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project in 2012, roughly three-quarters of the 11.7 million undocumented immigrants were Latino.
California has already made strides in creating legislation designed to embrace the emerging Latino population. Last year California Gov. Jerry Brown ratified the California Trust Act, implemented in January 2014, which allows the state to be less responsive to the Secure Communities Initiative. Secure Communities is a federal deportation initiative that is responsible for detaining individuals that are suspected to be in the U.S. illegally and deport them if that is the case. While this is a step in the right direction, California must go further and develop clear rules that law enforcement agencies must follow. When rules are applied incorrectly, there must be consequences.
In 2013, Brown ratified 805 bills in support of improved working and paying conditions for Latinos and undocumented immigrants, according to The Monterey County Herald. Many of the bills that Brown passed focused on providing protection and, in the case of immigrants, providing protection from the threat of deportation. Bills such as these should be the model for future legislation regarding the Latino population.
Ultimately, the nation must recognize that the growth of the Latino population will drive a significant shift in U.S. demographics, its economy and its politics. California must continue supporting the creation of programs for Latino immigrants to seek legitimate legal status, as the nation’s future is intertwined with that of the Latino population. If the nation does not embrace Latinos, it will limit itself economically, intellectually and culturally.
Christian Morales is an undeclared first-year. He can be reached at cmorales@oxy.edu or on Twitter @WklyCMorales.
