forms. What gives CSULB legitimate degrees, including a degree in journalism, is some-thing called a regional accreditation. Regional accreditation comes from one of six geo-graphically based bodies that are recognized by employers, the government, and just about everyone else considering your diploma. Cali-fornia is governed by WASC, the Western As-sociation of Schools and Colleges. CSULB is a recognized and accredited school by WASC, including the Journalism department.

But didn’t I just say that CSULB’s jour-nalism department isn’t accredited? In ad-dition to the standard accreditation, schools can voluntarily apply to professional orga-nizations that bestow more specialized ac-creditations. The Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Commu-nication (ACEJMC), a group composed of professionals and academics, oversees jour-nalism education in the U.S.

The ACEJMC sends teams of profes-sionals to a school to measure it against a set of nine standards like “Curriculum and Instruction,” “Diversity and Inclusiveness,” and “Resources, Facilities and Equipment.” This body only accredits about 25 percent of the nation’s Journalism programs. Lo-cal schools in good standing with this elite accrediting council include USC, CSU Ful-lerton, CSU Northridge, and UC Berkeley. Nationally, schools like Columbia, Univer-sity of Oregon, Kansas State, and NYU fill the roster of accredited programs.

Notably absent from this list since the mid ‘90s is CSU Long Beach. So what happened in the ‘90s that has besmirched CSULB of a precious accreditation? During CSULB’s last ACEJMC evaluation, California was experi-encing a budget crisis and CSULB was expe-

riencing a retiring spree, leaving the school with fewer resources and faculty.

So why is accreditation so important? For Genelle Belmas, Head of the Journalism concentration at CSU Fullerton, accredita-tion is a chance to “measure our program against other programs in the country. [To be] in line with [what] our peers out in the country think is going on.”

For USC, it’s a matter of being “helpful for students coming in to know that they will get an education that prepares them for the jour-nalism world,” Pat Dean, Associate Director of the Annenberg School of Journalism explains.

Accreditation also allows schools to “re-ally take a look at the curriculum that is of-fered. Is it packaged as best as it can be?” says Cindy Reinardy, assistant to the Execu-tive Direction of the ACEJMC.

But there is one caveat that is detailed on the ACEJMC website. “Accreditation is entirely voluntary, and many fine schools do not choose to seek it. Not all institutions go for it for the same reasons,” says Belmas. “Every university situation is unique,” says Patrick Bhatia, President of the ACEJMC.

If every situation is unique, then is it worth CSULB to re-acquire this education? To pursue this accreditation, or even merely a re-evaluation visit, a university has to put together a self-study, an intensive document the department has to prepare for the ACE-JMC. This involves a “systematic examina-tion by the unit of the environment in which it operates, its mission, range of activities, accomplishments, and plans for the future,” according to the ACEJMC website.

What does it mean for departments themselves? The answer ranges from a “shit-ton” to an “astronomical” amount of man-hours, according to Genelle Belmas and Pat Dean. Belmas has “half a bookshelf worth of supplements for the self-study.” The process of conducting the self-study has to be started at least a year before the university is ready to be visited by the group of ACEJMC rep-resentatives.

The visitation requires a few days of the ACEJMC representatives meandering around campus, evaluating the facilities, stu-dents, and faculty. It also costs several thou-sand dollars. Coupled with ACEJMC dues, the self-study, and the visitation team, the total amount spent on participating in this voluntary accreditation process costs around $14,000 and a significant amount of time for faculty to prepare. To remain accredited, this process must be repeated every six years.

For some schools, like USC, $14,000 is a trivial amount. But for schools in the CSU system that money is needed to update facil-ities, like computer labs, or to fund scholar-ship programs, both of which the ACEJMC found lacking when the accreditation was revoked. “With any expenditure, you choose to spend money on A, but take money away from B,” says Belmas.

Accreditation also imposes limitations on a university’s freedom to control its cur-riculum, for better or worse. “The criteria for accrediting are very limiting. In terms of how many classes you can offer, and the number of units you are limited to,” Raul Reis, head of CSULB’s Journalism depart-

This feature idea has been kicking around in the Union office for almost a year

now. What originally started as a commitment to healthy rivalry (read: a sweet zing) between the Union and the journalism department has turned into something a little bigger and a little more objective. As the only journalism major on staff, I felt it incredibly important to understand more of the inner workings of my own department, what it offers me, and what I can get out of it. What I found out not only enlightened me as a journalism student, but also reinforced why exactly I’m working at the Union and the Daily 49er.

Accreditation allows a school to demonstrate where it stands on nationally recognized academic standards. However, given the cost and effort involved and the mostly professional disregard for a school’s accreditation, are the students of CSULB best served by pursuing and maintaining it?

8 UNION WEEKLY 1 NOVEMBER 2010

JEFF CHANGHEAD ILLUSTRATOR

IllustrationsNOAH KELLYCAMPUS EDITOR

No one talks about accreditation. No one talks about accreditation because no one knows about accreditation. I certainly didn’t when I transferred into the Journalism pro-gram from LBCC. So why is accreditation an issue? Is it because CSULB’s Journalism pro-gram isn’t accredited? Wait, what? CSULB’s journalism program isn’t accredited? The answer to that question is a yes, and a no. To truly understand CSULB’s situation is to also understand such an onerous and opaque word like “accreditation.”

Accreditation comes in a few different

UNION WEEKLY 1 NOVEMBER 2010 9

Is the time and money spent on pursuing the accreditation process the best use of the journalism department’s time? This journalist thinks, not.

The journalism department, along with every other department on campus, already has to perform a smaller self-study every five years. And because the journalism department has structured this report after the ACEJMC self-study, why would you want to spend the time doing it again for the ACEJMC?

CSULB’s journalism department just upgraded their computer labs to Adobe Creative Suite 4 this semester, but Adobe CS5 has already been released. The Journalism department offered over $8,000 in scholarships last year, but just one scholarship made up $4,000 of it. Looking at the matriculation for journalism students, it is impossible to be able to take part in all of the different avenues due to unit restrictions. When confined to 33 upper division units, and 15 of those are required classes, it only leaves room for five elective classes, not really enough for students to become as well rounded and as multimedia- savvy as the new journalism world requires.

I would rather see a more diverse selection of lower-division classes that can help round out some of the electives upper division students never get a chance to take. I would rather see the extra time spent towards gathering new scholarships, finding new internships for students, and preparing students for a world where hard work will pay off in the end more so than where you graduated from; not to mention how much debt you might have accrued.

ment said. These limitations involve forcing students to take 60-65 units in Liberal Arts, and restricting the number of Journalism units to only 34-40. CSULB currently holds those restrictions because it plans to re-es-tablish accreditation.

With every decision, there are benefits and consequences that only affect the aca-demic world. How does accreditation play into the professional world, especially one in the throws of change and layoffs?

CSULB Alum John Canalis, now the Edi-tor for The Daily Pilot, finds there are more important things to look at than the schoo from where you graduated. “[We are] looking at the strength of the writer, looking at pub-lished work first, then where it was published,” he says when evaluating a potential employee during the interview process. John Canalis was the Editor-in-Chief of the Daily 49er dur-ing part of his student years, and also graduat-ed while CSULB was accredited. “Working on a school paper helped,” he remembers when he first got hired out of college.

“Most of [my staff] have less than five years experience. What matters most to me is how well the story is reported,” he further explained about his current staff. “CSULB’s accreditation status is well known, and that doesn’t affect my decision [of who to hire].”

Sue Schmitt, Editor and General Manag-er at the Press Telegram, hasn’t even heard of the ACEJMC. Schmitt regularly lectures at high schools about how to get a job in jour-nalism, and accreditation hasn’t ever come up. “Getting an A in a theory class isn’t as important as a clip that shows us you know how to put together a story,” Schmitt notes in regards to curriculum validating a stu-dent’s accomplishments.

That comes as no surprise to Patrick Bhatia or Cindy Reinardy. “Every hiring situation is unique… I think that, as some-body who hires journalists, coming from an accredited program is a huge advantage on

the job market. The employer knows that the applicant has adhered to the standards of the ACEJMC,” says Bhatia (who, while the President of the ACEJMC, is also the Editor at the Oregonian). That being said, “there are plenty of great journalists that come from non-accredited universities. Talent and an established track record trump everything else,” he says.

Even in accredited universities, only about 50 percent of students are aware of their school’s ranking. “When I worked in professional journalism, people only knew what college you went to by the team you rooted for on the weekend,” says Pat McK-ean, who oversees the journalism depart-ment at Long Beach City College, and is also responsible for recommending what colleg-es their students should transfer to. McKean says there are too many factors in deciding on a college to let accreditation play that big of a part. Transportation, tuition, conve-nience, and personal matters all take prec-

edent over accreditation.“I understand that, in the professional

world, they don’t really think about accredi-tation. They don’t use that as a standard to hire people,” Raul Reis, head of the CSULB Journalism department acknowledged. “[Accreditation] sets standards. Even if in the future we decided to not go for accredi-tation, we would still use the standards to make sure that we are giving the students the education they deserve.”

The professional world can be more bi-zarre than classes might make it out to be. CSULB grad and Union Weekly alum Mike Guardabascio is currently one of the Sports Editors (along with Union Weekly alum JJ Fid-dler) at the Gazette’s community newspaper collection. It should be noted that Guarda-bascio graduated with a literature degree, not a degree in journalism. “If I went to USC, would I have had an easier time getting the job I had? No,” he says. Guardabascio worked for three years at the Union Weekly, which he feels was the strongest factor towards him getting noticed for a job. “Learning to how to finish an article tired and hungover is a better real world experience than a classroom.”

While Reis is supportive of re-accred-itation, he does see certain flaws in the program. The ACEJMC does not move as quickly as the world of professional journal-ism changes, and Reis believes that could definitely be a factor down the road for whether or not accreditation will be relevant for CSULB down the line. “We will always be open to that discussion,” Reis said.

Clearly there is a disconnect between the academic world and the professional world. While it may seem like common sense, to succeed in the professional world, the ac-creditation of your university is less impor-tant than your drive, skill, and effort. “I tell students all the time, it’s less where you go, but more what you do with it,” says Belmas. This is a message that every student in his or her own specialization should be aware of. So stop worrying, and start working.

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UNION WEEKLY 7 FEBRUARY 2011

In a small, well-lit laboratory room, Alex Vance has a scalpel in one hand and a flap of skin in her oth-

er. She begins to flay Wayne, who is face down on a gurney, brown gauze wrapped around his head. Not but 10 feet away from her is Dr. Pal, the “Cadaver Queen,” who is forearm-deep inside the body cavity of Mat-ilda, feeling around for something very specific.

“Aha!” Dr. Pal exclaims, and she indicates for Ms. Vance to come over and examine Matilda further. Ms. Vance coos, as though deep within Matilda a kitten was found, but that is not the case. What has been located is a rare find, “A uterus,” Dr. Jacqueline Pal

says. Jeremy Wallender looks up briefly, less enthused about the discovery, before go-ing back to his work on the opposite side of Wayne from Ms. Vance, sheering away the flesh from Wayne’s shoulder.

This is not a scene from the reboot of Silence of the Lambs. This is actually hap-pening on campus, and in person, it was quite heartfelt.

See, Matilda and Wayne have both been dead for some time now, years even, and have been preserved with chemicals (not formaldehyde though, as that is a toxic substance no longer able to be used in California) and have had their bodies donated to science. Matilda and Wayne are now essentially textbooks for students

in the Prosection class, and also various other majors including anatomy, illustra-tion, and kinesiology.

Past a nondescript door in one of the science buildings is the cadaver lab. In one of the two rooms is Wayne and Matilda, who are actively being operated on. In the other room stay the other cadavers: Sofia, Errol, Louise, Zoe, Leroy, and Francois. The other six are in various states of preserva-tion, Francois being among the most de-teriorated. His body was actually from the ’70s, back when formaldehyde was used, and because of this he is actually in better shape for his age. Sofia, who is from only 2001, doesn’t look all that dissimilar from François save for the color (François is red-

dish brown, reminiscent of deep rust, or a pulled-pork sandwich, while Sofia is much paler, close to buttermilk).

These cadavers are absolutely nothing like what appears on television. They are not distinctively defined in their faces, they are not plump and fresh like an actor with pale blue paint on them. These cadavers are des-iccated and stiff, their skin a combination of yellow and white, and yet they still hold a wealth of information.

These cadavers are not actually named Wayne, or Matilda, or Sofia, but these are the nicknames given to them by students like Ms. Vance and Dr. Pal. The cadavers are still people, regardless of the fact that they are dead and are being used for science, and

NOAH KELLYCAMPUS EDITOR

JEFF CHANGHEAD ILLUSTRATOR

CHRIS FABELACOMICS EDITOR

Cadaver Illustrations Title Illustration

François

UNION WEEKLY 7 FEBRUARY 2011

CHRIS FABELACOMICS EDITOR

as such, still hold the right to be treated with respect. Photography is not allowed, and an early indicator of class performance is stu-dent reaction upon their first visit to the cadaver lab. Anyone making disrespectful comments or not treating the deceased with utmost care are easily culled from the roster by Dr. Pal.

Despite being dead and completely un-able to communicate (unless renowned psy-chic and politician John Edwards pays us a visit), the cadavers begin to develop their own personalities and quirks. Matilda was named after “Waltzing Matilda,” an Aus-tralian country folk song, due to Matilda constantly “waltzing” from one lab room to the other. Wayne was named (and the group is still on the fence about Wayne as a nick-name) due to his large barrel chested-ness, reminding them of John Wayne.

Watching Dr. Pal, or lecturer Tiffany Price, or even Alex Vance perform their delicate procedures, it is clear they hold a great deal of respect and earnestness for their work and their charges. There is a cer-tain intimacy that is achieved from prod-ding, cutting, and examining these bodies. Price, Vance, and Dr. Pal all agree that the deeper one gets, peeling layer and layer off like an onion, the more the body speaks. Not all too dissimilar from gardeners who

commune with their plants, there is a pal-pable level of affection this group has for all of their cadavers.

Not everything is flowers and puppies here in the lab though. There is a distinct smell that permeates the two lab rooms (something akin to plastic and alcohol) that reminds one of the dissection classes from middle school. The smell, even after only being in there for an hour and a half, still burns slightly in the nostrils several hours afterwards, and can infuse the clothes and hair of those who make prolonged visits to the lab.

As Ms. Vance takes her time scrap-ing the top layer of skin from Wayne’s back, freeing it from the fatty layer rest-ing below, she recounts that after her first day (two weeks ago) on which she peeled about a one 1’x 6” strip from Wayne. She went to eat an orange a little later that day, and upon the initial peeling said, “Nah, I don’t really want this anymore.” This is not the only time when one of the workers has been left hungry and unenthused about eating after their extended time working with the cadavers, and it’s not surprising; despite handling the cadavers with loving care, they are still working with the flesh and bone of a human being.

It is hard not to make correlations from

the human body to that of the animals we eat, and sometimes Dr. Pal and the oth-ers will make references to filet mignon, or ribs, or carne asada as running jokes as they examine different parts of the body. It is not so much a strong stomach that is needed to partake in this, but really a strong desire to learn and be fascinated by the human body itself.

CSULB acquires these cadavers from UCI, at a ranging price of $3,500-$4,500. They are delivered here by specifically li-censed transporters, and usually when classes are not being held, so as to not alarm students by wheeling bright neon orange body bags INTO the building. The question remains though: which would be more per-plexing, the wheeling of bodies into the sci-ence building, or the wheeling of bodies out of the science building?

Of the eight bodies that are currently in the lab, the cadaver lab has just very recently acquired two “fresh” bodies who haven’t even been seen by all of the stu-dents, let alone been named by anyone yet. As semesters go on though, these two will undoubtedly join the ranks of the named and personified.

The bodies are unlike organ donors, in which they might come from healthy and young individuals. Instead, these cadavers

are almost exclusively over the age of 80, often times with organs that have been pol-luted by years of substance abuse, surgeries, or cancer. This state of being is what makes some of the organ finds so rare, and interest-ing. For instance, in the case of the uterus be-ing found in Matilda, it is quite common for women of her age to have undergone a hys-terectomy, thus depriving the lab students of a chance to explore a specific organ. In a hu-morous revelation, plastic mock-ups of these inner workings of the body are about twice as expensive as the cadavers themselves, and yet the cadavers are infinitely more interest-ing and informative.

In this fascinating, albeit cramped labo-ratory, semesters will flash by, and Dr. Pal, the curator of cadavers, will still be here, but students like Alex Vance and Jeremy Wal-lender will graduate and move on. New, young hands will take the reigns of unrav-eling all the secrets these cadavers, named and unnamed, still hold within their bodies. However, after watching these students and their supervisor work painstakingly slowly and carefully, no one who spends any more than a brief stay in this laboratory would ever consider using the phrase “beauty is only skin deep,” ever again.

Matilda

François

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Riding through rain, mud and the occasional water buffalo, Olympic cyclist and Long Beach Bicycle Am-bassador Tony Cruz—along with a dozen friends—took their bicycles on a 12-day, 1000-mile ride through Vietnam. And Scott Nguyen was there to film it all.

“The film is about brotherhood and camaraderie,” Nguyen says of Cruzin', the cycling documentary he directed and produced about the trip that's screening at the Art The-atre for the second time this sum-mer. Even though the trek was gru-eling, and the pace difficult to the point of some riders not wanting to be on camera anymore, the bond-ing that the group went through as a result was incredible, he says. “We are all friends now."

The cyclists, however, were

never alone during their demanding journey. Nguyen and his film crew followed them in vans and provided the riders a safety net of a bus that followed them along the entire way, acting as a safe place to store bi-cycles overnight and also to provide assistance to weary cyclists.

“Not everyone was able to bike all the miles, every single day," Nguyen says. "Once you cramp up, you’re done, you’d get left behind."

The 1000-mile road that Cruz and the other cyclists ride in the film winds its way along the Ho Chi Minh Highway from North to South Vietnam, dealing with hot and hu-mid tropical weather the whole way. The cyclists would bike anywhere from 6 to 8 hours a day, needing to cover an average of 80 miles a day. Still, the film crew often struggled just to pace the riders.

“We could barely keep up,” Nguyen says. “There was a steep 23 mile climb and we ended up get-ting separated, and Tony beat us to the top.”

Despite the length of the trip, Nguyen says that all the locals were both curious and courteous. “They would stare at us as they rode by and waved. They were not used to seeing bikes like these,” he said. Despite cycling not being the rec-reational sport in Vietnam that it is here, the respect on the road was still there, “bikes are accepted over there, like here in Long Beach. Not every city here are they accepted.”

The tour itself was coordinated

by Patrick Morris, who owns Velo Asia Bicycle Tours, who handled all the accommodations. Lodging, food, and the route itself was also handled on behalf of the cyclists. All they had to do was ride—which is perfect since that's what they do best.

Cruzin' originally screened at the Art Theatre in July and Nguyen said the reception was overwhelming.

“There was a cycling group who wanted to go on the exact same tour as them. And this group had a hun-dred members,” he says. Nguyen has even been contacted to screen his film in Idaho.

Nguyen has high hopes for Cruz-in’. His next step is to get in contact with Discovery, Travel Channel, Na-tional Geographic even Netflix for wider distribution. He believes with the support he’s seen here in Long Beach that Cruzin’ has amazing po-tential to reach a wider audience of cycling enthusiasts.

Cruzin' screens Thursday, Au-gust 23 at 9PM in the Art Theatre.

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This weekend, the Art Theatre will be screening The Judge, the Hunter, the Thief and the Black Orchid, a lo-cally-made documentary about not just the titular Black Orchid, but also the in-tricate world behind a flower that many of us only see lined up like suspects at Lowes.

Director and Producer Rich Walton’s documentary follows an orchid hybrid-izer, one of a dying breed, Fred Clarke. Clarke—who created the one-of-a-kind Black Orchid—explains why his hybrid-ization is unique, but also why his pro-fession is slowly withering.

Along the way Walton, a Long Beach resident, shows us the perspec-tive from other rival growers—the pas-sionate and the businessmen alike—as well as views from all aspects of the or-chid world.

“It’s actually quite interesting,” Wal-ton says of how he began his investiga-tion of the orchid community. “It was all right here in Long Beach.” Walton had discovered that Long Beach was home to two different Orchid Societies—the Long Beach Amateur Orchid Society and the South Coast Orchid Soci-ety. From there he was introduced to Clarke and his Black Orchid, who ends up being almost the protagonist of the

documentary.Also central to Walton’s film and the

orchid world as a whole is the Conven-tion on International Trade in Endan-gered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. CITES, as it is called, is presented as a way of conserving species (orchids included) by outlawing their trade, im-portation and exportation from the 173 countries participating in it.

CITES finds its way into all aspects of the orchid world, garnering criticism from collectors, hunters and judges. Orchid enthusiasts and professionals both explain how CITES is counter-pro-ductive to the propagation of orchids and how smuggling has been the only option of acquiring new species.

Featured in Walton’s documentary are the judges from the American Or-chid Society and how the accolades they award to flowers can help the le-gitimacy of a particular species of or-chid and also boost the reputation of the grower, which is crucial to growers like Clarke.

The documentary culminates in the World Orchid Conference of 2008 in Florida, showcasing the popularity and vastness of the orchid growing world. And what awards ceremony would be complete without a conspiracy theory from a slighted entrant?

Despite the popularity of Susan Or-

lean’s The Orchid Thief, Walton was not as much influenced by that as he was from another book, Orchid Fever, by Eric Hansen.

“I wanted something not fictional-ized,” Walton says. Even some mem-bers of the orchid societies he met with were suspicious at first, he says. These members had felt that The Orchid Thief and later the film Adaptation, had over fictionalized the culture, painting it in an unrealistic light.

Despite those suspicions, Walton found that the societies themselves were not nearly as clandestine as one might think.

“I read that it was very closed door but since I’ve been involved in them they have been very open,” he says. “For the most part they were very friendly and wanted people to know.”

“The Judge, the Hunter, the Thief, and the Black Orchid,” is a fascinating documentary with some very unique perspectives. Decrying the cloned or-chids of big box stores, Walton’s film shows how one flower and a pile of conservation laws can lead to some re-ally big things.

The Judge, the Hunter, the Thief and the Black Orchid, will be shown at the Long Beach Art Theatre on Aug. 11 at 12:30pm. Rich Walton and Fred Clarke will be on hand to do a Q&A session after the screen-ing.

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CSULB Program Makes Princeton Reveiw’s Best 300 List

By Noah Kelly

The Princeton Review named Cal State Long Beach’s Master Business Administration program one of the “Best 300 Business Schools” for the fifth year in a row, citing the program’s three schedule-based pro-grams.

Because not every student has the same time availabil-ity, the College of Business Administration program offers three programs to correlate with students schedules: the Fully Em-ployed, Self-Paced Evening

and Accelerated MBA.

The Fully Employed pro-gram offers classes ex-clusively on Saturdays, allowing students who are full-time employees to pur-sue higher education.

The Self-Paced Evening program is geared for students who are either part-time, or full-time, allow-ing them to take evening classes.

The Accelerated MBA program is for students who want to finish their educa-tion quickly, allowing them to complete the program in a year.

The Princeton Review breaks down its list into 11 different categories, some of

which include “Best Campus Facilities,” “Best Professors” or “Hardest to Get Into.” In each of these categories, the top 10 schools from the list of 300 are chosen.Though CSULB is not among the top 10 in any category, dean of the Col-lege of Business Adminis-tration Michael Solt says he isn’t discouraged.“Everyone who goes here knows what a great educa-tion they are getting,” Solt said.

According to Solt, CSULB would love to compete with bigger schools like Harvard, but that’s nearly impossible due to the difference in finances.“Instead, we focus on mak-ing sure that we give our students what they want ...

the best education for their money and schedule,” he said.

According to senior editor of “The Guide,” Laura Bras-well, The Princeton Review does not rank the top 300 for schools outside the 11 categories. It instead lists them alphabetically, with paid-for Featured Schools at the top of the list.Students can find CSULB’s program listed at princeton-review.com or in an in-store edition of The Princeton Review.

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Long Beach Jazz Nights Give Home to a ‘Surpris-ingly Vibrant Community’Noah Kelly | Thursday, De-cember 15th, 2011

A rotating So Cal jazz lineup has taken residence Mon-day and Tuesday nights at McKenna’s on the Bay in Long Beach, Calif., making the Alamitos Bay-side res-taurant a lot more hip in the last six months. The lineup includes three sets each night from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Organized up by Anthony Shadduck, with a master’s in jazz studies from Cal State Long Beach, jazz nights at McKenna’s is one of the rare spots hosting quality jazz performances. Shadduck’s rotating lineup has had patrons toe tap-ping and clapping since mid-June, back when it was

only on Monday nights. Since then, the jazz night has expanded to Tuesdays, and provides what he said is a “much needed place” for jazz musicians to come and play.

The crowd though, doesn’t include the young urban cats you’d expect. McK-enna’s regular patrons are generally in their upper 30s, or older, and the younger crowd is more than likely to be full of jazz college stu-dents. With recent promo-tions aimed at local college students — one night they got happy hour prices all nice long — that could cer-tainly change soon.

Make no mistake; McK-enna’s is not a “venue.” The difference, according to Shadduck, between a venue and a restaurant fea-turing music is quite distinct. McKenna’s atmosphere of

dim lighting accentuates the candlelit tables versus nar-rowing in on the musicians, so as not to make the stage the highlight of the night. The volume is also lowered, allowing for ample dinner conversation to flow right alongside the beats.

At the last college promo-tional night on Nov. 22, the performance was marked with a sizeable group of students, who came to see Christine Guter, head of the vocal jazz department at Cal State Long Beach. Students Ian Berkke and Steve Blum were in attendance, and appreciated the “chance to come see live Jazz,” Berkke said. Even though places to see jazz seem few and far between in Long Beach, Blum said “there is a sur-prisingly vibrant community for jazz.”

Jazz nights at McKenna’s

are still going through their growing pains. The musi-cians want to play out — it’s clear — and when they do, they seem to be invariably asked to turn down the vol-ume by management.

The restaurant isn’t packed on these nights, either. But Shadduck is confident that more people will come, es-pecially after he organizes more marketing campaigns on popular radio station KJazz and other avenues.

What is going on though, is a great place to eat dinner and listen to quality music. When the winter hours start to recede, gorgeous sunsets will accompany the musi-cians as they play some up-tempo jazz to go along with your dinner, date or drink. If you go, you can tell all your friends that you were there before it was cool.

UNION WEEKLY 28 FEBRUARY 2011

CAMPUS

NOAH KELLYCAMPUS EDITOR

STUDENT EXCELLENCE FUNDMO’ MONEY MO’ PROBLEMS

“There is never a good time to raise fees.” President Alexander said that and truer words have never been spoken. And yet, given this economic gutting the CSU system is facing, there was never a better time to raise fees than right now. Coming next semester there is going to be a $94 in-crease in tuition, and that doesn’t include the 10% raise in fees that are already sched-uled for the fall (which might not happen if the fee increase is bought out, but that’s not likely to happen).

But fees are bad, yeah, boo fees! Boo school trying to provide things for me. That really sucks to have to pay $2 more a se-mester to have free rides on the LB Transit busses. That really sucks to have to pay $6 more a semester for the health center, and the counseling and psychological services.

Look, CSULB is one of the highest pop-ulated CSUs and yet out of the 23 campuses we are (currently) only 21st in how much we pay in fees. CSU Dominguez Hills pays more than we do. Dominguez Hills! With the $94 increase, we’re moving on up to 16th, and that’s only if no other school follows suit and increases their fees either (which is highly likely given that every

CSU is fucked for funding). What this fee increase also does is pro-

vide ASI an additional $500,000 to spend on a variety of different services. None of the money is allowed to increase salaries, but where the money will go exactly, has yet to be decided. Where did this extra money come from? Well, Intercollegiate Athlet-ics used to receive around $800,000 from ASI and the Instructionally-Related Activi-ties. Now, they’re limited to $300,000 from those funds.

“There has been this attitude of ‘I’ve got mine, so why should I pay for someone else?’” said Matt Dupree on Thursday when President F*King and Vice President of Student Affairs Doug Robinson came to sit down with us about the fee increase. Matt is right, there is this attitude that prevails not just in campus life, but in the country as a whole. That we shouldn’t pay for some-one else. If we don’t have kids, why should we have to pay for schools? If we aren’t old, why should we pay into Medicare? This selfish attitude is what blinds us to not re-alizing that we need all of these things to have a functioning college environment. If you don’t play intercollegiate sports, why

are you paying for an athletic fee? Because not only are you fully capable of participat-ing in these sports if you so choose, but also because those same athletes are paying for your use of the writing resource center, or the student health services.

“I don’t expect students to agree with this at all, but I want them to understand what this will go to fund. If this were to vanish, thousands of students would not be moving on to graduate,” said President F*King. And he’s right. CSULB has a high graduation rate, and we need to keep it that way. Having one of the cheapest educations in California even after this fee increase is worth it.

For all you students who don’t go to games, and don’t get sick and go to the health center, and don’t play any sports, and aren’t part of any clubs, and don’t go to ad-vising, and don’t ride the bus or the shuttle, and don’t apply for scholarships, and aren’t getting screwed by class closures and im-pacted majors: Who the fuck are you? You don’t exist. And if you did, what is it like to have such a joyless robot life? Why are you even in college, Robot? You shouldn’t go to college, you can’t even learn.

ACADEMIC CHAIRS EDUCATIONAL SERVICES SUSTAINABILITIY/U-PASS/SHUTTLES

MULTI CULTURAL CENTER/ STUDENT CENTERS STUDENT SUCCESS, HEALTH &

WELFARE FUNDASI RELIANCE RELIEF

INSTRUCTIONALLY-RELATED ACTIVITIES RELIANCE RELIEF

HIGHLY VALUED DEGREE INITIATIVES FIRST YEAR ACADEMIC SUPPORT PROGRAMS

INTERCOLLEGIATE ATHLETICS

We at the Union would like to send out a correcton on behalf of the Daily 49er. On the front page of the Feb 24th issue of the Daily 49er, President F*King was quoted as saying, “[If extended] , everything is on the table” in regards to our funding situation. What the Daily 49er meant to write (and yes, they have fixed their online copy) was “if the taxes do not get extended.” This is a very important distinction that thankfully isn’t anywhere near the June special election. Normally fuck ups like that are pretty incon-sequential and aren’t worth men-tioning (we would probably have to have a full page dedicated to corrections if that were the case) but this one was a big one. I look forward to digging through the second page news jungle on Mon-day to find the print correction.

Programs include: enhancing year-round university and college-based advising; continuing JUMP Start; re-ducing high unit, excess time to de-gree programs and majors; improving high failure rate courses; continuing Summer Bridge Program; enhancing SOAR and GWAR, and others.

Programs include: enhancing psy-chological services; expanding student health services; developing and deliver ing financial literacy programs; expand-ing retention efforts; enhancing parent programs with language-specific POP.

CSUFCSUNLBSUUCIUCRUCSBCal PolyUCDPacific

$396.70$422.85$517.89$568.10$574.74$660.85$765.50$900.04$4,324.42

ASUWSUWash.UCLACalOSUOregonUSCStanford

$1,254.34$2,043.28$2,197.37$2,400.88$2,784.11$3,238.41$3,875.52$4,739.03$12,449.79

BIG WEST PAC 10

ATHLETIC COST PER STUDENT$34

$33

$7

$7

$6

$3

$2

$2