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INTROSPECT
Students juggle lives to create personalized businesses Page 9
Female veterans are honored at a Chino Airport event Page 10
Front, Center With Knight Gladys Knight sings at CSUF scholarship fundraising event By Christina Rodriguez Daily Titan Staff Writer Gladys Knight joined Cal State Fullerton students to perform in the 11th annual Front and Center event at the Arrowhead Pond on Saturday. The event is designed to thank CSUF contributors and to help fundraise for the Presidentʼs Scholarship. CSUF alumnus Jose Mota, a broadcaster for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, emceed the event. Mota said the evening was about thanking the many people who make it possible for CSUF students to receive an education. “Never did I think I would be here. I am glad to be here representing higher education, culture and integration. Iʼd like to thank CSUF, Titan Baseball and the Communications Department for believing in me,” Mota said. The event also gave President Milton A. Gordon an opportunity to invite the audience to visit the campus as well as update them with the progress of the university. “Our campus is now the largest CSU campus with fall enrollment at 35,000,” he said. Gordon talked about the opening of the CSUF performing arts center and the upcoming building for the College of Business and Economics, the Steven G. Mihaylo Hall, which will open in fall 2008. The Orange County Register and the Freedom Orange County Information received the Orange County Titan Award for its long relationship with the College of Communications. The newspaper provides internships for students. Publisher and CEO Christian Anderson III received the award. SEE FUNDRAISER = PAGE 3
Steelers Win Super Bowl XL
The Associated Press
SUNDAY MANIA: Pitsburgh Steelers celebrate its 21-10 victory over the Seattle Seahawks in Detroit last night. Football fans everywhere tuned in to watch the game and the commercials which debuted last night. See news story on Page 3 and sports stories on Page 13.
Union Pickets CSU Leaders Faculty group rallies at meeting to demand pay raises, end to fee hikes By Jimmy Stroup Daily Titan Staff Writer
The California Faculty Association, a union composed of 23,000 instructors in the California State University system, led a student-involved protest against CSU Chancellor Charles Reed, and the 25member board of trustees in Long Beach on Wednesday. Demanding pay raises, more funding and a review of what they view as a series of cutbacks, 150 union members and supportive students chanted slogans and brandished signs, such as “Stop the
Rip-Offs!” and “Keep the CSU Affordable and Accessible.” Alan Nestlinger, a CSUF math lecturer and faculty association member, was at the forefront of the Fullerton delegation. He said the refusal of the chancellor and the board to raise instructor salaries – when seen in conjunction with student fee hikes and administrative raises – was “insane.” “Itʼs a big problem. Whatʼs going on in California is part of a nationwide effort to privatize everything,” Nestlinger said. “At CSU, our task is to create credentialed professionals. And to try to hammer that into a right-wing, corporate model is a bad thing.” The Fullerton association representative, sociology professor G. Nanjundappa, said the union was also at the board meeting to try to get the trustees to see the wisdom in hiring more tenure-track professors, as well as advocating for students within the CSU system and would-be students who are being turned away.
“We have concerns about student fee increases, as well. All eligible students ought to be able to get into the university,” he said. Ten members of the association spoke before the board, voicing instructor and student concerns. John Halcon, Cal State San Marcos professor of education and cultural diversity and vice president of that schoolʼs union chapter, spoke at the meeting asking the trustees to take the associationʼs suggestions seriously. “The association is not against the CSU, but we as faculty are concerned with the cost of living at the universities,” he said. “There are thousands of faculty who agree with the association. It is our goal that you take a fresh and objective view of whatʼs presented to you today.” Students and instructors traveled from CSU campuses all over the state to be at the board of trustees meeting – one of only seven the board holds each year.
Cal State Dominguez Hills was especially well represented, as recent accreditation problems and financial hardships have plagued the students and faculty at that campus. “In the fall, I heard about the chancellor and the board of trustees getting raises, while at the same time … [students] had our fees increased,” said Margarita Gomez, senior human services major at Cal State Dominguez Hills, adding that increased costs have lowered registration levels on her campus. “I would like to see more funding come into the system,” Gomez said. “They need to make it more accessible.” The chancellor and the board of trustees were largely silent as the association members spoke their minds, cutting in only to remind them that the time allotted for public speakers at the meeting was dwindling. Calls to the chancellorʼs and the board of trusteesʼ offices for this story were not returned.
Arboretum Applies New Technology to Thwart Thefts Devices are for iPods, laptops; but plants need protection too By Jimmy Stroup Daily Titan Staff Writer
In the nearly nine years that Greg Dyment has been the director of the arboretum at Cal State Fullerton, the theft of the rare plant species in the arboretum has been an infuriating – if inconsistent – problem. To help try to combat the loss of irreplaceable plant specimens,
Dyment has concocted an out-ofthe-box solution: Data Dots. When MicroID Technologies distributor Ken Walton came to Fullerton to demonstrate the product to faculty and staff in September, he pitched the idea to Dyment as a way to fight some of the arboretumʼs losses. “In the meeting, it became evident that they were being stolen, these rare and exotic breeds,” Walton said, and he suggested Data Dots might be a way to stop it. After some thought, the arboretum purchased 12,000 of the little dots – about six times the amount of dots available in the student kit
U.S. MILITARY DEATHS IN IRAQ
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From March 2003 to Feb. 5, 2006 Compiled from the Associated Press
now for sale at Titan Shops. Mindful that trees and iPods are not made of the same material, Dyment says without hesitation that this is an experiment. But one he hopes can help avoid future plant losses. “I wondered if … [the Data Dots] would work on the bark, since it exfoliates,” Dyment said, likening the tree covering to the constant shedding of human skin. “My big concern is plants leaving here. Once theyʼre gone, we never see them again.” Plant theft at the arboretum has been sporadic. A few years ago, Dyment said, 10 plants, valued at
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$20,000 or more, were nabbed. “Weʼve had plants taken out of here that are taller than you are,” Dyment said. “Theyʼre dug out of the ground, uprooted and taken.” The plants taken in the past include cycad species and segos, a kind of fern. Some of the plants that have been taken were rare and irreplaceable. Some are considered endangered, making them illegal to buy and sell, but also making them more attractive to unscrupulous collectors, Dyment said. “If youʼve got, say, a rare cycad, or a type of barrel cactus – and itʼs on the endangered species list – you canʼt buy it,” Dyment said.
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“Itʼs unfortunate, but if youʼve got money and youʼre a collector, and you canʼt have it legally, youʼll find a way to get it.” Dyment said the rarity and irreplaceable nature of the stolen plants drives up the price of their sale on the black market. And, he said, unlike car stereos and televisions, the stolen plants arenʼt sold on the street, making them harder to track down after theyʼve been taken. Thomas Eltzroth, a horticulture professor at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and the director of the universityʼs Leaning Pine Arboretum, echoed what Dyment said about theft being a sporadic but unfortu-
nate occurrence within the industry. “Over the past eight to 10 years, we may have had only 15 to 20 plants stolen, and all were plants in a nursery staging area waiting to be planted into the garden. That type of plant is easy to lift and move because itʼs in a container, thus easy to steal,” he said. “We donʼt know who stole the plants but we assume the thief was knowledgeable about plants because it was mostly expensive or fairly uncommon SEE ARBORETUM = PAGE 3
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