O SPREY
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that this magazine was conceived and produced on the ancestral homelands of the Wiyot Tribe - this land was never ceded to the current ruling order, but taken through acts of genocide. More than just acknowledging the wrongs of the past, we encourage our readers to take steps to right the future. We would like to acknowledge the Wiyot Tribe as they continue to live, organize and care for this land. We honor them and all neighboring tribes.
It is important to understand the long history of places in which you reside and to understand your place within that history. Colonialism is not confined to the past. We encourage readers to consider how their actions and mindset can contribute to decolonization. The staff at Osprey put together this magazine being mindful of our present participation and place on these lands.
Learn about whose land you live on. Pay the Wiyot Tribe’s honor tax. Visit Honortax.org to learn more. Support the Rou Dalagurr Food Sovereignty Lab, right here on Cal Poly Humboldt’s Campus. Support Native American owned buisnesses.
EDITOR’S NOTE
With great excitement we present the Fall 2025 issue of Osprey Magazine.
It’s important now more than ever to come together as a community, considering the growing divide within our country. We are proud to say this magazine is a place where our writers are free to authentically express themselves and the topics that they explore. We believe in publishing factual content that you can trust. Our goal is to bring insightful stories to our readers and uplift our community.
This issue is a combination of culture, community and creativity. You’ll find stories regarding the history of the Arcata Plaza, the importance of collegiate
sports, developments within renewable energy, the outcome of the recent statewide election and more.
With technology rapidly developing, artificial intelligence used in writing has become more prevalent. We at Osprey bring you real stories, written by real people.
Whether you’re flipping through on a coffee break, or diving into a specific story, we hope you enjoy reading each page.
Until we meet again,
OSPREY STAFF
Layout Editor
Layout Editor
Marielle Winuk
Marielle Winuk
Photo Editor
Photo Editor
Shane Gayle
Copy Editor
Copy Editor
Maryanne Casas-Perez
Maryanne Casaz-Perez
Layout Editor
Layout Editor
Ursula Newman
Ursula Newman
Ad Manager
Ad Manager
E. Leonard
Distribution Manager
Distribution Manager
Alexis Blue
Alexis Blue
Graphic Illustrator
Graphic Illustrator
Marian Albis
Marian Ablis
Spiers
Social Media Manager
Social Media Manager
Mia Roberts
Mia Roberts Edior-in-chief Leah Spiers
Cretser-Hartenstein
WHAT’S INSIDE
The Extraction Epidemic
Film makes connections between resource extraction, activism, and a new age of AI
Arcata Plaza
Echoes of the past in a modern Square
Art & AI
Effects of AI in the artist community of Humboldt County
Statewide Special Election
The biggest party in the county
E-Wasted
The hidden truth behind your devices
How the Red Pill Leaks into Everyday life
Explore the manosphere and femosphere
Shifting Play
The future of college athletics in the CCAA
The Legacy and Future of the Pledge
A look into Cal Poly Humboldt’s Graduation pledge
Up in the Air
The future of Humboldt wind energy area jobs
Linda Wright dresses up as the Statue of Liberty at the second No Kings protest in Eureka, CA.
View more protest regalia on page 41.
Photo by Marielle Winuk On the Cover:
The Extraction Epidemic
Humboldt-made film makes connections between resource extraction, activism and a new age of AI
By Ursula Newman
Lützerath, Germany:
The site that numerous political and activist groups occupied and gathered in, protesting Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk (RWE’s) expansion of the open pit lignite mine Garzweiler II.
Lignite:
Also known as brown coal. One of the dirtiest types of coal burned to generate electricity. Larger quantities are required to meet energy production levels and it contains high levels of mercury and (other pollutants).
with students to bring her script to life. Lasley’s film is a uniquely thoughtful, serious, and comedic story arc that sends a strong message.
“They’re really willing to put their bodies on the line for what they believe in.”
The generational differences she reflected on led to a creative spark. The story line of Climate Control showcases the embodied youth activism in Lutzerath, and the very contrasting disembodied nature of generative AI. The frames switch between professional documentary style and a technical mishmash of AI randomness.
The film features an interview with a protester who went to Lutzerath on Day X, along with plenty of archival footage, live-action and staged documentary footage, animation, motion capture and miniatures making it a mixture of many techniques and genres.
s protestors gathered to keep the coal in the ground, they occupied the village on the edge of the mine pit for about three years. Building treehouses and community, they wanted to prevent the demolition of the town of Lutzerath. If all the coal beneath Lutzerath was used in thermal power plants, it was estimated that Germany would fail their goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. This is the main goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement, a legally binding treaty on climate change that was adopted by 195 parties internationally. As a response to this threat, activists took a stand.
In a huge demonstration, it is estimated that 35,000 people showed up in Lutzerath to protest on Jan. 14 2023, also known as Day X.
Climate Control is an experimental film that parallels the extraction of fossil fuels, and the extraction of our attention away from important events. The story is about a group of documentarians trying to make a film about recent events in Lutzerath, but a generative artificial intelligence (AI) agent that would prefer to tell a Hallmark love story keeps taking control of the film.
Professor Sarah Lasley of the Cal Poly Humboldt Film Department worked
The project, finished in the spring of 2025, is currently on a festival circuit where it has screened at six film festivals across the United States, along with Germany and Croatia.
From classroom to concept
The concept for the film started in Lasley’s social change filmmaking class at Cal Poly Humboldt. Conversations about genre led to the discussion of horror and comedy as a tool for addressing challenging topics. This inspired Lasley to think about the big differences within generational responses to climate change. She jokingly described herself as the ‘anxious, neurotic, white lady, elder millennial, statistics spouting’ type, and felt that older generations are often focused on the “boomer doom and gloom.” The younger Gen X response could be stereotyped as “disillusioned doom,” but she saw a different response from the students in her social change class.
“They’re really willing to put their bodies on the line for what they believe in,” Lasley said. “They had a really embodied response to action.”
Filming continentsacross
Lasley considered hiring students over any other crew, and she already had a group in mind that had worked well together in a class. The AI Hallmark love story style scenes were to be filmed in the art quad on campus, but the documentary scenes needed to be filmed in Germany, and ended up being set in the areas near Luterzath.
After following the protests in Lutzerath on the news, she was interested in how it was in many ways a signifier protest, a gesture for visibility. They knew that most likely they would be evacuated, but they stayed there anyway to give hope for resistance.
Lasley received an artist in residence fellowship in the summer of 2023, in Darmstadt, Germany. At that point, she knew she wanted to cover the protesting that happened in Lutzerath. From there, elements of the film began to fall into place. German student Hannah Huber was studying abroad in Humboldt when she met Lasley. She ended up joining the film crew in Germany and starred as a main character in the film.
“It was really serendipitous,” Lasley said. “We were able to take three Cal Poly Humboldt students to Germany to shoot, and Hannah connected us with
“My work, for decades, has critiqued
reckless speed with
technology and technosolutionism to man made problems. ”
activists who were actually at the protest. It gave us access to that community without really being a part of it.”
Hannah Huber found the activist featured in the film, Kriztian Muller, a young German man who is involved with the climate change focused group, ‘Green Youth’. Huber interviewed Muller about Lutzerath on Day X, and it showed the unity and perseverance the protestors had.
“He went to Lutzerath when the company of the coal mine came to destroy this little town, and he was there to protest against them,” Huber said. “Meeting him was a really great experience, and then introducing him to Sarah, he could tell us a lot about what happened. We learned a lot from him that she included in her story.”
Lasley wrote the script in early 2023 using humor to explore the idea of AI chatbots stealing human jobs. By the time the film was completed, however, technology for AI had rapidly advanced. Several ‘AI agent’ programs are currently able to complete tasks without detailed instruction. These programs can make a plan of action and make decisions to complete complex tasks.
“Yeah, it happens. I mean, films are slow and technology is fast,” Lasley said.
When Huber was asked how she might explain the film, she laughed and said it is difficult to explain in one sentence. She said that it’s about the protests against a coal mine, and it’s about AI trying to make a love story, but, importantly, it’s also about the struggle of the director.
“It’s about an artist who struggles to come up with more ideas, and then goes back and uses AI, and it doesn’t really create the thing that she wants it to create,” Huber said.
There were about 40 students hired onto the crew, working on the many necessary parts of the puzzle. Producers, sound design, actors, camera operators, costume design, visual effects, stop motion, actors and even researchers were all hired by Lasley to help bring the film to life. If the project had been part of a class, Lasley felt that would have been exploitative.
“I didn’t want my students to work for free, and I didn’t want
Graphic by Ursula Newman based on photos by Branden Brown and Ben Osbourrn.
that, like class, grade power dynamic to be involved,” Lasley said. “I really wanted a ‘power with’ model, not a ‘power over’ model.”
By raising funds from the university, she was able to pay the students professional wages. Lasley created opportunities for them to develop their experience in film production, stepping back to let students direct and co-direct scenes. She said that allowed her to guide the students in a way she was familiar with, and the students received professional credits on the film.
“We don’t have a lot of opportunities up in Humboldt for internships, or, you know, industry experience in the way that you would if you were in Southern California,” Lasley
said. “And yeah, I used that angle to raise money from the school.”
Prompt Responsibly: The impact campaign
The project was completed entirely without the use of AI, which is stated at the end of the film. They replicated generative AI by intentionally using low budget visual effects. Viewers who have seen generative AI video content might recognize some of that signature artificial touch mimicked in the film.
A film student who worked on the project, Emma Lawrence, joined a bit later working as a production assistant and main designer of the companion website, www.promptresponsibly.com. The site is featured at the end of the film with more information about the production, along with the impacts of climate change and AI.
The goal was for it to be a resource, detailing facts about AI’s resource consumption, tips on how to ask generative AI better questions (and less of them), and encourage users to prompt more responsibly. The site also offers options
for getting online help from resources that aren’t powered by generative AI.
“[AI’s impact is] hard to follow if it’s not broken down with graphics and put into simpler terms,” Lawrence said. “We wanted something that would be easily accessible for college students, and just anyone who watched the film and had questions about it.”
With the film’s run time sitting at around 15 minutes, and it being experimental, this website acts as an impact campaign. Something you often see with modern documentary films.
“It’s not like an anti-AI website. I’m acknowledging that AI is a tool, we should use it, but just using it with ethical slowness in a way,” Lasley said. “It’s about understanding how to talk to AI, so that you’re not wasting prompts and you’re having a more efficient workflow. Treating it more like a tool than a friend. With a friend you can kind of stab in the dark, and the friend will give you the time. But AI does have a massive carbon footprint, and each inference, each time that you prompt it, uses a considerable amount of energy.”
Concerns about AI
Most of the initial research for the website was done by Kristin Tran, a student pursuing a computer science degree with a minor in sustainability. She was paired up with Lasley and the project after being very vocal in a class about AI and sustainability. When asked about her personal thoughts on AI and the recent contract the California State University (CSU) system entered into with ChatGPT, Tran expressed that the partnership was disheartening. Especially because it was announced in the final phases of producing the film.
“It’s really harmful to the
environment, it’s harmful to our mental health, It’s harmful to our learning,” Tran said. “It performs really badly, it’s wrong a lot of the time. A lot of the tasks that people use generative AI and ChatGPT for, there are already smaller AI models existing that can do all of those things without using as much electricity, using as much water, and can be way more accurate and less likely to have AI hallucinations.”
Tran expressed that the CSU system embracing gen AI feels like they’re not hearing the concerns. Lasley was also disheartened by the CSU’s announcement, feeling like it went against our campus values of environmental concern and activism. She says she feels that they have corrected quite a bit since the initial decision, but it was a huge blow to the gut for her.
“It’s very capitalist forward. And my work, for decades, has critiqued reckless speed with technology and sort of, techno-solutionism to man made problems,” Lasley said. “If we need content, AI will give content. And I’m like, do we need content? Is that what we’re really lacking in the world, content? Because, I would say it’s like, compassion and bravery, not content.”
When asked about these concerns, the CSU’s Office of the Chancellor declined to comment.
The films impact
The film is currently unreleased to the public, and is still riding the festival circuit with Lasley. This has allowed her to have conversations surrounding creativity and activism, and she said people seem to be really moved by the film. Sarah explained that the soonest the film will play in Humboldt would be sometime in the spring.
“I just want people to see it,” Lasley said. “ I want them to slow down, to think, to feel, to question, and that’s my intention with all of my work.
The finale is especially emotional. It features an acoustic rendition of Islands in the Stream by Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. The rendition is sung by Lasley’s family friend Nyah Foley, and Matt Trzaskus, both high school students from Indiana. Singing mainly political folk covers, Lasley flew them out to Humboldt to record and film her rendition of the song.
“Instead of things like sail away with me, to another world, we changed it to stay a while with me, there’s no other world. So I rewrote it to have this different message,” Lasley said.
Protesters had put up barricades, resisted on the roofs of buildings and in makeshift treehouses, and hung themselves high in tripod blockades. The film shows a compilation of archival footage, with police forcefully evicting and arresting activists in Lutzerath on Day X. The song alongside archival footage really embodies the emotion of the event and the sweetness of humanity.
“Now that [the film is] doing its rounds, Trump has like criminalized protest, so it has this extra layer of charge to it. And, yeah, I think that the most surprising [reaction] is people are weeping, just watching this footage, and that says a lot about this moment that we’re in.”
Check out @Sarah_Lasley on instagram for updates about future screenings of Climate Control.
Official still from Climate Control courtesy of Sarah Lasley.
If it Ain’t Baroque, don’t fix it! A look into the effects of AI in the artist community of Humboldt County.
Art is all around us, from fine china to office buildings, from cave etchings to comic strips. We view and consume art without trying. You may be reading this thinking it is just a magazine that you randomly picked up but what you don’t realize is that you are consuming a variety of different art styles. From the fonts that are bring used to the way the words are organized on each page, pictures and other artworks to
By Marian Ablis
match! Now imagine if all of these original artworks were entered into an electronic system that can comb through every single one and produce new artwork by submitting a single prompt into the system. Sounds pretty neat right? But what about the artists that rely on their creativity as their livelihood, who have dedicated their time and efforts to hone their skills? How are professional artists and creative businesses being affected by
artificial intelligence (A.I.) generated media?
Well, to answer that question we first need to explore the history of AI. According to an editor for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society Scott L. Andresen’s article titled “John McCarthy: The Father of AI”, American mathematician and computer scientist John McCarthy had been on a journey to see if “intelligence can in principle be so
precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it.”
After getting his bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1948 from the California Institute of Technology as well as a doctorate in 1951 from Princeton, he taught at schools like Dartmouth, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford.
McCarthy’s research focused on a computer programming language that he had developed called the list processing language, or Lisp. While presenting at the 1956 Dartmouth Summer Research Conference he used the term ‘artificial intelligence’ to describe this new programming language.
It was after this early version of AI that artificial intelligence generated art began to emerge. It all started when British abstract painter Harold Cohen decided that he had enough of the usual works of oil paints on canvas in the late 1960’s and wanted a new medium to conquer. In doing so, he created a program called Aaron, a computer program that was designed to produce paintings and drawings independently, while teaching art at the University of California San Diego.
Although there are early references to AI generated art, it wasn’t until about 3 years ago that we saw a sudden boom in mainstream media. This is primarily thanks to the rapid nature of modern technology, and how society is pushed to adapt. Even though we have adapted to it, that does not mean that everyone is fully accepting of it.
ARCATA ART CENTER
Within the Arcata Plaza amongst the thrift stores and cafe’s, you will find a colorful storefront filled with creative possibilities known as the Arcata Art Center. The Art Center first opened its doors back in 2002 behind the North Coast Co-op, and 3 years later claimed its permanence on the Arcata Plaza where it remains to this day. You can meet owners Malia Matsumoto — fellow alumni from Cal Poly Humboldt, formerly known as Humboldt State and Lush Newton.
Matsumoto has an extensive history within the art community. She studied sculpture and painting in the university’s art department, and went on to work in multiple
local galleries. Now Matsumoto indulges in a variety of different mediums, and also leads a kinetic sculpture team in town with co-owner Lush.
When speaking with Matsumoto about the recent boom of AI generated art, she explained that one of her main issues with this system is the stealing of intellectual property.
“The systems that they have used to create this AI generated media, they have vacuumed up art of individuals and synthesized it into a program - many programsbut they are taking people’s originality and not crediting them,” Masumoto said.
She feels the reasons why people rely on the AI system to specifically create art come from a
combination of a capitalistic society and disregard for artists. Capitalism favors the cheapest possible option and society has this initial stigma surrounding professional artists, believing that they chose this line of work because it is fun and easy.
“So when you cheapen people’s work,” Matsumoto said.” I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel fair to all the artists who are working and trying hard to perfect, and do what they do and create something from nothing.”
Matsumoto refers to Newton, as an example of an artist who has years of schooling and experiences within the arts. Someone that can in fact create something from nothing.
Newton studied in the Kansas City Art Institute and graduated with a degree in illustration and worked a variety of jobs designing merchandise and other consumer products for places like the Walt Disney Company as well as the Disney Store Consumer Products Division in Burbank. She designed t-shirts and concert merchandise in the Bay Area for boy-bands like NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys.
Newton also worked on other smaller projects as a freelance graphic designer before permanently moving to Humboldt County where she has worked at the Art Center ever since 2001.
Due to her extensive background within the graphic design and illustration fields, she doesn’t really care much for AI at all.
“I think AI is absurd,” Newton said. “I can remember being in
school and having the argument about using the computer, using [Adobe] Photoshop, using to set up type, all that kind of stuff.”
Newton had arguments with other students often about if this new technology was either going to be a helpful tool in the long run or if it was going to end up taking over the art industry. Although this sounds very similar to the argument that is currently taking place about the use of AI.
“I think folks can tell you know what has a soul and what doesn’t, you know?” Newton said. “Or something that has come from the heart, even if it’s an advertisement, you’ll still know that a human used their brain to make it instead of just talking into a box and spitting something out.”
VISUAL CONCEPTS
When looking around at the local businesses in the Humboldt area, you might notice that many of their logos are so vibrant and noteworthy. Each one of those artistic logos were actually designed by fellow alumni of Cal Poly Humboldt Noah Sampson, who founded the Visual Concepts company two years after graduating from Cal Poly Humboldt with a studio arts degree with an emphasis in graphic design in 2005.
He grew up racing motorcycles and bicycles with his friends and one day he met an older man who was a pro racer in the 80’s. He had such an interesting life story that Sampson decided to make a documentary about this man and
his life after a career-ending injury. This experience of handling all of the editing was how Sampson found his love for Adobe software and graphic design. Now his company works with local businesses to create unique logos, business cards and even websites.
When it comes to the topic of businesses relying on AI generated art to represent their brand, no one within Humboldt County is as frustrated as Sampson.
“Yeah, if we’re worried about this evil situation where money is sucked out of the small people, well, you’re just helping them,” Sampson said. “ You’re training its models on what you and I do and how we build and the things that I’ve spent almost twenty years developing my style.”
Sampson also spoke about his thoughts when he comes across a shop that has very obviously used AI to develop their store’s logo, deeming it very unprofessional and pointing out that using AI in this way shows that you do not care enough about your business to put in the time and effort to properly display it.
This is not the only issue that Sampson has witnessed as a result of AI. He recalls a day that he was visiting some friends who thought it would be fun to play around with the program. He found it to be a very fun idea, however it got him thinking about what would happen if any of his close friends or family were to use AI to create logos for their own businesses instead of coming to him.
“If you have anybody in your life pursuing the arts, you are just stepping on them,” Sampson said. “You are taking their hard work and just showing how little you value it, basically putting money in the billionaire’s pocket instead of your buddy’s.”
STUDENT VIEWS
Local businesses aren’t the only ones suffering from AI systems. Lorenzo Castillo is an anthropology major and studio arts minor who transferred to Cal Poly Humboldt from the Bay Area back in Fall of 2024. The reason why they decided to minor in studio arts is because they grew up watching and admiring the animations used in music
videos as well as online original characters and books like the Warriors series by Erin Hunter. This growing admiration for the craft led to Castillo working with a group of friends who participated in community outreach programs within the North Bay in their teen years, providing them with the opportunity to make music flyers for local groups.
After growing up within a community that was surrounded by art and creativity, Castillo expressed their disdain towards these new AI systems.
“It feels very much like making something that is inherently human, inhuman,” Castillo said. “I feel like it strips away the entire process
of making art, which is the most im portant part of it.”
They even mention that the way in which artificial intelligence goes about collecting their data is monstrous since Castillo themselves has had their own negative experience with AI.
“Yeah, I know I used to have an art Instagram account, but I stopped posting on it because Meta started, like, scraping all of Instagram and Facebook for like AI training,” Castillo said.
Meta decided to allow AI gen eration systems to use their apps and websites for AI training, Castillo found it unappealing, discouraging them from even advertising their artwork publicly.
How to make
Origami Stars
Cut along the strip of paper at the bottom of the page and follow along. Check out a video tutorial on Instagram @ospreymagazine.
Hold the strip of paper with both hands, making sure one end is shorter than the other.
Then, tuck in the short end to form a small pentagon.
Fold the shorter end inwards to create an upside-down ribbon shape.
Begin folding over the sides of the pentagon with the rest of the strip, following the natural direction the paper follows until there is little to no paper left to fold.
Take the long end and pull it through your loop until all edges of the paper touch.
Tuck in the remaining paper, pinch the corners of the pentagon, and you’re done!
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The Hidden Truth Behind Your Devices
By Shane Gayle
Modern technology is an ever-growing industry that helps support society. With the power to access all of human knowledge in your pocket, entertainment at the click of a button, the power to electrify entire circuit systems all because of these amazing innovations. However electronics can’t last forever. Unlike traditional waste, electronics have potentially harmful parts inside of them. You can’t simply recycle this type of waste like a plastic bottle. So what does this mean for the everyday person and
how can we do our part to help properly dispose of this ever growing waste?
Electronic waste also known as e-waste is any electronic devices that are discarded. The term slowly grew in popularity as the environmental movement started to grow in the 2000’s. At the time, recycling had started becoming normalized due to consensus that trash can’t just be dumped into landfills anymore. It started influencing household cultures. But this is where the problem starts.
The concerns with e-waste
boils down to the parts used to make up electronics. All “high tech” devices need Rare Earth Elements or REE. REE’s according to the United States Geological Survey are “a relatively abundant group of 17 elements composed of scandium, yttrium, and the lanthanides.” They significantly improve the quality, efficiency and consistency in function of the tech they reside in. They are typically found and mined from deposits in the earth’s crust, and overall the use of these materials benefit the industry drastically. However,
E-waste causes harmful effects to our landfills. How can we do better?
these elements don’t last forever. Deterioration over time can lead to contamination in both households and landfills. This leakage of metals like yttrium, cerium, thulium, can be harmful both to humans and the environment and to top it off, REE’s are a finite resource. In addition to mining for the resources, the process creates a massive carbon footprint. This has led to a world wide effort to implement ways to not only dispose of e-waste properly but to recycle it so that we don’t run out of this important resource.
Organizations such as the United Nations, Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization have made efforts studying and testing ways to handle e-waste. This has allowed local organizations to copy such methods. One of these groups is the Sustainability Office at Cal Poly Humboldt. To improve natural and human resources, they have devised a waste management system that not only manages normal waste, but e-waste as well.
Elizabeth Whitchurch, the director of facilities operations
at the sustainability office oversees the e-waste collection and refurbishment on campus. Whitchurch explains the purpose of collecting e-waste and how they are placed in e-cycler bins.
“So we’ve got bins for batteries, bins for lightbulbs, special light bulbs, other types of small electronics, anything from a toaster oven to, you know, a smart phone and those E-cyclers are located around campus,” Whitchurch said. These bins have separate slots to allow the sorting to begin. When
collected they are stored in the bin until it’s time to collect the deposited items. Whitchurch shared how the e-waste is collected every week.
“We have a truck that looks like a Franz bread truck that drives, we drive around, and we have different bins set up in the truck to keep things separate,” Whitchurch said.
It is central that the separation is thorough because different pieces of e-waste can be recycled, depending on the quality of the turned over item. Hazardous waste is not accepted into the E-cyclers. Eventually these items are taken to the Sustainabilities Office’s special bay where 150 professional staff members contribute to maintaining operations on site. Once all the items are sorted through, the items that can be refurbished are fixed and sent to a partnering Cal Poly organization called ROSE (Reusable Office Supply Exchange). ROSE is a student run organization that focuses on resource accessibility in addition to waste reduction.
Juliana Bello, one of the co-directors of the reusable office supply exchange program and a student at Cal Poly Humboldt shared more about the organization.
“We have office supplies, school supplies for free for students, and it is all donation based, so we don’t buy anything new,” Bello said.
The faculty and departments at Humboldt, if they have extra supplies, will contribute to the space as it is a growing movement among students. On average, ROSE saves Humboldt students around $8,000 per semester and in 2019 during the fall semester, saved nearly 1,528 pounds of trash from going into
the landfill.
In response a branch of ROSE was created for e-waste and donated electronics called E-ROSE, started by Humboldt student Ethan LeVering. LeVering is a former zero waste intern and co-director of ROSE and wanted to extend his passion about electronic waste to students on campus, in a way that would give back to the community.
“I think disposing of e-waste properly is one of the most important things you could do as an individual, considering your individual impacts to the environment,” LeVering said.
In 2022 the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) reported that a recorded 62 million tons of e-waste was produced, which was an 82 percent increase from 2010.
“On a global level, there is a lot to be done developing better systems repurposing a lot of tech,” LeVering said. His goal of establishing E-ROSE is to help contribute to reducing e-waste and to properly dispose of it. You can either drop in the E-cyclers or sign up for the waitlist to receive refurbished electronics from ROSE.
For students who live on campus at Cal Poly Humboldt, having these available resources can make the difference. Between work and school, it allows easier access to devices while also contributing to helping reduce e-waste. For people who live off campus or in areas not near Humboldt, they can help with the e-waste problem as well.
Schools, libraries, and other educational institutions along with local governments have started to implement their own
e-waste programs in an effort to match the growing amount of waste circulating. Anything from their own E-cyclers on campuses to local events to collect as much e-waste as possible are starting to grow in popularity, because of folks in communities raising awareness about proper recycling and management. It might be a small step, but a step in the right direction, a step to a cleaner future where technology is no longer e-wasted.
Trash and electronics piled up at the E-waste Operations Bay.
Top and Middle: Photos courtesy of the Humboldt County Historical Society
Bottom: Photo courtesy of Humboldt County Photograph Collection, Cal Poly Humboldt
Arcata Plaza: Echoes of the Past in a Modern Square
By Leah Spiers
The Arcata Plaza has been the heart of the city for over 200 years and throughout every change, it has retained its importance to the community. City leaders and local government have preserved the plaza’s character by limiting the number of formula restaurants in specific area zones. As the city grows and demographics shift, community involvement is key to shaping its future.
What was once horse and carriage rides on a dirt road, to packtrains and cows, is now full of various storefronts, local coffee shops, thrift stores and small businesses. The Arcata Plaza has been around since 1850 and has long served as the heart of the city with its unique charm. Over time, it has changed and adapted to the community environment and the zoning laws that have been put in place.
Historical buildings and businesses
In the late 1970s, the plaza transformed from a quiet modernized area, to a bustling hub of small businesses. Alex Stillman, the mayor of Arcata who moved here in 1971 shared how the plaza has revolutionized over the years.
“The Jacoby storehouse was a mercantile store,” Stillman said. “You would go there to get your girl scout uniforms, you would buy your bedding, your clothes, your games.”
Stillman recalls a lot of the buildings being automotive repair shops, among banks and grocery stores.
the statue of President McKinley, commissioned by a local contractor.
While Arcata’s physical landscape
“The Jacoby storehouse was a mercantile store. You would go there to get your girl scout uniforms, you would buy your bedding, your clothes, your games.”
She noted that where the Cal Poly Humboldt bookstore is located, was historically a livery stable. When asked about the center of the plaza, Stillman explained that there used to be fencing and a place to have cattle roam about.
“Then, the city made a decision to not have cows in there anymore,” Stillman said. “They took the fencing down, and they created walkways, planted trees, and built a gazebo out of wood.”
Stillman noted that the gazebo was later removed in 1906 to make way for
evolved, its financial structure remained unique. Stillman shared that in most communities, there’s a general fund given to cities that is made up of sales tax. This general fund helps pay for the streets, police, water, sewage, utilities and other basic needs.
Stillman explained that Arcata does not have the same sales tax income that Eureka has, so the general fund is smaller due to a lesser population. Despite the lack of sales tax, Arcata flourishes in other ways. Being a population of
Photo courtesy of Humboldt County
Photograph Collection, Cal Poly Humboldt Library Special Collections
roughly 18,000 people, the city is more community based, having majority local businesses over large corporations.
Charlie Hilton, editor of the Humboldt Historian and Cal Poly Humboldt alumni shared their findings on the history of the plaza. They explained how in the beginning of Arcata being developed in the early 1850s, a lot of people started their own businesses such as the Jacoby store and Brizards.
“But throughout the early 20th century, we start seeing things like Safeway and Bank of America appear,” Hilton said. “Then, by the end it’s replaced largely by small local businesses, but that’s by the ordinance of the city itself, they outlawed a lot of chain stores.”
Formula restaurants and district zones
Formula restaurants, also referred to as chains, are retail businesses that follow standardized menus, decor and branding across locations. In 1998 the
city of Arcata began drafting legislation on the ban of formula restaurants in the local plaza and surrounding area zones.
This legislation is known as Ordinance 1333, passed in May of 2002 and later revised in April of 2021. Ordinance 1333 states that “formula restaurants are prohibited in the central conservation area.” That only a specified number of these “chain” restaurants can be allowed in each district within the city.
The city of Arcata has different districts and in those districts are various zones where formula restaurants are permitted. In the updated Ordinance 1333, those zones are the following. One formula restaurant on Jane’s Road, one in Northtown, two in Uniontown and five in the Valley West neighborhood.
Ryan Emenaker, professor at College of the Redwoods and former member of the Arcata Committee on Democracy and Corporations, helped draft the original ordinance in 2002. Emenaker recalls that the committee initially discussed a
cap of thirteen formula restaurants.
“The reason we came up with thirteen was because Arcata had sort of thirteen unique districts or neighborhoods,” Emenaker said.
Emenaker shared that rather than Arcata being a cookie cutter town with cookie cutter buildings, we have a flourishing ecosystem of local businesses.
“There’s a Big Blue, there’s a Mazzotti’s, there’s a Jitter bean, and a Brio,” Emenaker said.
David Loya, the director of Community Development for the city of Arcata, was part of drafting the revised ordinance in 2021. Loya explained how the original one had become outdated and it needed to be updated.
“In ‘98 the council directed the Committee on Democracy and corporations to work on a form of restaurant ordinance,” Loya said.
When asked why the legislation to limit chain restaurants was put in place, Loya explained that it was to ensure that
the downtown area retained its character, “That it didn’t become any town USA.”
Loya also shared that two businesses trying to open at the same time is what triggered the revision of the original legislation.
“There was the Domino’s Pizza that’s in Northtown and Subway were both trying to open at once,” Loya said.
Loya also added that Dutch Brothers Coffee was trying to open in the Valley West neighborhood. So, according to the ordinance only two of them would get a spot. Loya explained that the businesses had asked him if there was something he could do, so that they were allowed to open.
“There really was a desire to try and make the ordinance simpler and so that it was clear,” Loya said.
Loya explained that the city council of Arcata are responsible for ensuring that the people are heard. That if there’s a problem or something that needs to be addressed as a community, the council makes those decisions.
With the constant changing demographic in the area, the surrounding businesses and restaurants have had to adapt to what’s popular.
According to both Loya and Emenaker, the updated legislation now states that no more than nine formula restaurants are allowed in the city of Arcata.
“There are nine existing businesses that would count as a formula restaurant,” Emenaker said. “If one of those nine ceased to exist then a new one could come in.”
Moreover, the cap is at nine because that is how many businesses count as formula restaurants. The legislation ensures that the number doesn’t exceed the nine allowed. Then, if new businesses wanted to come in they’d have to follow what the ordinance requires.
Future of the Legislation
Arcata’s ban on formula restaurants has helped preserve the city’s character and allowed local businesses to thrive.
Especially around the plaza, foot traffic from Cal Poly Humboldt students and local families helps sustain independent shops, cafes, and community spaces.
While the current ordinance limits the amount of formula restaurants, its future remains open to community input. When asked about the potential of the legislation changing, Loya made note that there is a possibility, since it’s a valuable section of their code within the city.
Loya further emphasized the importance of students getting involved in the local government.
“Your daily life is most affected by the decisions that are happening in your city by your local city council,” Loya said.
By attending city council meetings, joining local committees, or simply staying informed, anyone can help ensure that Arcata remains a place where small businesses flourish and community identity is protected.
Photo courtesy of the Humboldt County Historical Society
1900’s
Photo courtesy of Humboldt County Photograph Collection, Cal Poly Humboldt Library Special Collections
Statewide Special Election
By Marielle Winuk
hen Prop 50 passed on Nov. 4, 2025, Californians adopted Congressional Districts drawn by State Democratic lawmakers that redrew California’s congressional map, temporarily abandoning those drawn by the Independent Redistricting Commission that were adopted a little over ten years ago.
Democratic Party and National Education Association.
This ballot measure was one of the most expensive and politically charged fights in California’s history.
For Humboldt County voters, Jared Huffman will remain our Congressional representative until at least 2027. He is eligible to run for another term and on Nov. 9, 2025 Colby Smart announced he will be running against Jared Huffman as an Independent. The new district lines drawn by the legislators will be used for the 2026, 2028 and 2030 election. Then in 2032 the Independent Redistricting Commission will once again redraw the lines based on Census data. Though the politically gerrymandered district lines are temporary, Susan Moxon, Republican Party Chair of Humboldt County, stresses the importance of returning to the Independent Redistricting Commission.
“So that’s why it’s so important to have an independent redistrict where you have a combination of all the parties to make the districts. That just makes a lot of sense to me. It just seems fair,” said Moxon. “Voters in the conservative precincts that were grouped into District 2 are now going to be represented by someone who they didn’t vote for. But by taking the more conservative districts and lumping them in with the very liberal districts, it is taking away the representation of the Republicans, especially in Sonoma, Del Norte, because they right now tend to lean Republican. And so if I lived in those counties, I would be very upset,” said Moxon.
This ballot measure was one of the most expensive and politically charged fights in California’s history. Proposition 50 was the fourth most expensive ballot measure in history with total campaign spending of $167,340,589. There was $122,823,019 contributed to support the ballot measure and $44,517,570 contributed in opposition to the ballot measure. Notable contributors in support of Prop 50 include the California Teachers Association, House Majority PAC, California
Tani Sebro, Chair of the Political Science Department at Cal Poly Humboldt, views Proposition 50 as a short term solution and the beginning of a larger response.
The biggest party in the county
A typical election takes approximately six to seven months to plan and carry out. Tasks include finding places to put polling centers, printing ballots, registering voters, sending out mail in ballots and hiring poll workers. The Humboldt County Office of Election had two and a half months to carry out this unexpected event.
“Running an election is kind of like throwing the biggest party in the county,” said Humboldt County Clerk and Registrar of Voters Juan Cervantes. “It’s hiring the people we need in order to get the job done on such a short need of notice, finding the locations that we need and making sure they’re available for us.”
The similarities show in the logistics of it. When the election was announced the cost was Cervantes first priority.
“We’re a small county, if you look at our County budget, we’re running a deficit. If the State didn’t pick up this bill, we were probably going to see a pretty massive impact to the County’s budget broadly,” said Cervantes.
Therefore ensuring that the County was paid sufficiently by the State before the election was an important priority. The county received over $700,000 in statewide funding.
To run this election, it took upward of 150 staff members to fill vote centers, open ballots and deliver supplies. From past
New
Congressional District Lines in Northern California
Cal Poly Humboldt
elections Cervantes has carried out, he’s learned the value of investing in his staff.
“I think the nature of this work is that you’ll see me in the news and you’ll see politicians in the news,” he said.
He mentions that outside of the media the real folks like the elections manager, interns, election specialists, voter center workers and managers are on the forefront of helping carry out the election.
In the days before the election Cervantes focused on preparation and reaching out to the community for feedback.
“I find engaging with the community, the more we’re able to do it before an election, the more we’re able to hear about their concerns and wants, the better we’re able to adapt to it. It’s tough hearing feedback after the fact, because there’s not much I can do about it,” he said.
Election Rigging Response Act
On Aug. 22, Governor Gavin Newsom declared a statewide special election to redistrict California’s congressional lines. Humboldt County lies in District 2 encompassing six other counties including
Del Norte, Trinity, Mendocino, Lake and Marin counties and the majority of Sonoma County.
“To be honest with you, Prop 50, as soon as I heard about it, I was on fire,” said Bev Kummerling, a protester at the second No Kings protest at the Eureka Courthouse. This election was called in an attempt to counteract Texas’ gerrymandering by balancing out the additional five Republican House of Representatives seats Texas expected to gain.
California has 52 congressional districts and therefore 52 seats out of 435 in the House of Representatives. Currently, 43 of California’s representatives are Democrats and nine are Republicans.
Normally, district lines in California are drawn by an independent commission. In November 2008, voters passed the Voters First Act, which authorized the creation of the Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission to draw new district lines. This took the job out of the hands of the California Legislature. The bipartisan commission draws a new map once every decade after the U.S. Census to ensure each congressional district has roughly an
equal number of people. Proposition 50 would enact temporary use of legislatively drawn congressional districts until 2030. The Direct Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission will resume enacting congressional districts maps in 2031 based on the 2030 Census.
Understanding
Proposition 50
The Election Rigging Response Act, listed as Proposition 50 on the ballot, is an example of political gerrymandering. In the 2019 U.S Supreme Court case Rucho vs. Common Cause the court ruled that federal courts have no power to block partisan gerrymandering. Proposition 50’s map must follow federal law, but they are not required to follow the State’s requirements placed on the Independent Redistrciting Commission.
Tani Sebro, chair of the political science department at Cal Poly Humboldt defined gerrymandering as, “an effort by any political party to try to redistrict an area to favor one political party over another.” While gerrymandering is more common in states such as Ohio and across the Southwest, it
Above: Juan Cervantes outside the Humboldt County Office of Elections by the ballot drop box.
Right: Beverly Kummerling protests at the second NO Kings March.
happens nationwide.
Gerrymandering does not create close elections, it creates elections that are incredibly predictable because politicians are appealing to districts drawn to benefit them. It’s like setting up a game of poker where one player gets all the aces, making the hand they play incredibly predictable and unfair.
Sebro describes a slippery slope in the United States, where states feel the need to alter their districts lines to help one political party or hurt another. That cycle pushes even historically balanced states, such as California, toward more aggressive redistricting. The only solution to end the cycle is a federal law that commits all states to fair redistricting practices and does not allow for partisan or racial gerrymandering.
California’s shift
Sebro is opposed to gerrymandering in any form because she believes it is an unjust way of performing politics. Despite the injustice, she says it is happening on a mass scale and is putting power in certain districts to disenfranchise other districts. Disenfranchisement happens when someone is deprived the right to vote or participate fully in civic life.
“You don’t fight disenfranchisement with disenfranchisement, “ stated the Green Party’s gubernatorial candidate, Dr. Butch Ware.
California has a large population of 39.42 million people and only two seats in the Senate. Because of California’s large population it will have relatively less representation in the Senate because each state only gets two senators, regardless of population.
Locally, Congressman Jared Huffman is now going to have to “represent a different demographic,” if elected in his new District, because parts of Redding that will now be incorporated into it are more conservative. Huffman promotes Democrat ideals and likely won’t change his policies to appeal to the more conservative areas that were added to District 2.
“We’re still not going to feel like we’re represented,” said Susan Moxon, Humboldt Republican Party Chair. Moxon is concerned about California
skewing more representation to the Democrats.
“So as it is right now, Republicans only have 17% representation in California. But if this initiative goes through, we will only have probably 8% of the representation in California,” said Moxon. “And so it doesn’t match up with the registered Republicans in California. So it’s totally unfair what he’s trying to do.”
Despite political redistricting seeming unethical, California is coming out of its unwillingness to engage in these practices.
California has a reputation for being “liberal” and has often taken the “high road” and chose not to engage in gerrymandering.
California’s efforts to redistrict are a response to a larger national shift to more conservative policies. More and more states are supporting President Trump’s policies on redistricting, such as Texas, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Nebraska and South Carolina. All those states have considered President Trump’s call for redistricting to benefit Republicans for the 2026 Midterms.
Sample ballot sent out in the Voter Information Guide from the Humboldt County Office of Elections.
Susan Moxon at the Republican Headquarters in Eureka with signs ready to be distributed throughout town.
Sebro recognizes that California’s efforts to redistrict are a response to a larger national move where, “more states and more districts that are more allegiant to Trump and his policies.”
For Proposition 50 to be put into motion certain thresholds had to be met.
“And that threshold has now been met with five seats on the table in Texas that would then lean conservative and place the House of Representatives more squarely into the hands of a conservative, regime, or make it more for the midterm elections,” said Sebro.
Whether Proposition 50 passes or fails, one thing is certain: California’s political identity is shifting. The state once known for taking the “high road” in politics is stepping into the same messy arena it used to criticize.
Crossing the line?
Not everyone sees Proposition 50 as a solution. Dr. Butch Ware, a Green Party candidate for governor in 2026, didn’t hold back during a campus Q&A at Cal Poly Humboldt.
“You don’t fight fire with fire best. We believe you fight fire with water best,” said Ware.
Ware accused both Democrats and
“The alternative is fascism. And that’s not me being partisan, that’s me studying history.”
feel similar to the way I do and for those even more education myself might say this is the only response that we have for what we see going on in the country and other states.”
Moxon believes that Proposition 50 is “childish” and an unfair step to take in responding to Texas.
“We want equal representation. And that’s what the Independent Redistricting Commission does, tries to keep it more balanced,” said Moxon.
Not all Democrats were too enthused about Proposition 50 either.
“I’m not exactly a fan myself of California’s Prop 50,” said Fernandez, “but at the same time it’s like we’re at a point where we need to not just do something or react, but do something substantive. And this is a substantive action.”
Fernandez saw the stakes as much larger than a single proposition.
“The alternative is fascism. And that’s not me being partisan, that’s me studying history,” said Fernandez.
Ware pointed out the political manipulation on both sides to redraw the lines in several states to benefit a certain party.
“The only gangs that wear blue and red that I acknowledge are not Bloods and Crips—they’re Democrats and Republicans,” he said. “And those are the most dangerous gang organizations that have ever existed in human history.”
Ready to vote?
This unexpected election gave a lot of students the opportunity to vote for the first time.
Republicans of using California voters as “a pawn in or a prop in a national political struggle,” calling Prop 50 “madness” and a campaign stunt for Newsom’s presidential ambitions.
Mario Fernandez, Chair of the Humboldt County Democratic Party acknowledged that voters may see the proposition as another example of political manipulation.
“For our low info voters, it just might be like oh these are politicians trying to pull one over on voters,” he said. “For those that are a bit more engaged, they might
Cervantes said one of the largest hurdles in getting students ready to vote is, “having students understand the difference between where they’re registered to vote, where they get their mail, where they go to school, and where some of those are.” He reminds students that where they spend the majority of their time and where they feel their residence is, is the county where they are able to register to vote.
Cervantes, reflecting on his own college experience, empathized with student voters, “When I was a student, I was worried about grades, rent, food, extracurriculars, making sure that I had enough going on with my curriculum vitae that I’d get a job afterwards. There’s so many pressures
on a person that to add what is essentially a survey on top of it—it’s tough for it to climb that hierarchy.”
The Humboldt Republican Party has conducted radio ads and sent post cards to “low propensity voters, which are registered voters that don’t always vote.”
Moxon mentions how historically special elections have low turnout with “just over 50% of the voters vote, which is very sad.”
The Democratic Party is also getting lists of low propensity voters and Fernadez believes, “that’s probably our best bet for winning Prop 50 but also for bringing people into the party.”
As far as outreach to Humboldt students the Republican Party has struggled to reach young voters.
“They’re just not energized to do it, ” she said.
She found a small group of students at Humboldt that started a Turning Point Action Chapter but not too many other young Republicans.
As far as student outreach, Fernandez understands the importance of educating yourself on party values and knowing what your options are.
“It’s like no I don’t wanna have to affiliate with ICE But at the same time, it’s like what are my options here and so it feels very much like when you’re getting involved in voting when you’re educating yourself it’s kind of like well yeah I’m bivalent about this, but I need to do something.”
In addition to outreach, on Oct.18 there was a second No Kings Protest with people marching from the Co-op to the Eureka Courthouse. Thousands of protesters marched with colorful signs, costumes and Yes on Prop 50 signs. Lillian Scofield was passing out signs about Prop 50 at the protest.
“Prop 50 is important because we, the people, have the right to vote for added seats or elimination of seats. “It’s just, it’s outrageous that we have a government that’s going to be assuming that we’re just
going to bend the knee to, to just give up on rights,” Scofield said.
Another protester, Carol Scher, attended the No King’s protest holding a sign encouraging people to come up to her and ask her about Prop 50. When she first heard about Newsom’s call to action she was thrilled.
“And I was like, finally, somebody’s going to do something. So I love, I love Newsom for doing that. And I think not enough people understand what Prop 50 is,” said Scher.
Newsom has announced his ambition to make a Presidential run in 2028. Before that, California will elect a new Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor, state and county judges, all 52 U.S House of Representatives and there will be 35 Senate races in the 2026 Midterms.
Carol Scher talks to protesters at the second NO Kings protest in Eureka to help inform them about Prop 50.
The Art of Protest
Photos by Marielle Winuk and Shane Gayle
Students in Radical Graphics learn that protest art isn’t just about design. It’s about emotion, context, and connecting through creativity. Stephen Nachtigall is the professor for Radical Graphics. The class is meant to be a studio where students make art about things they care about.
“The projects are less technically focused and more about your conceptual approach or your methodological approach, how you use your creative thinking and creative making to yeah, put a message out there in the world,” said Nachtigall.
The first thing he teaches his students is to consider your audience when constructing a protest sign. Secondly, he stresses the importance of simplicity.
“I think one big one is obviously, like, the bigger the text is, the easier it’s gonna be able to be legible from a distance. So keep it bold, keep it simple if you want it to be like, really legible and impactful,” said Nachtigall.
Identify your Audience
Protests happen online, in street and a variety of other places but, “the way that your visual perception works in those places is very different,” said Nachtigall.
Capture your Audience
Protest signs that convey, “humor and craft and putting care into something are also a really good way to capture someone’s attention and share a message,” said Nachtigall.
Lean on Creativity
“Good strategy for that is just like trying to reduce detail and trying to just make sure that it looks good from a distance and has like some kind of bold feeling to it, whether that’s in color or text or image or anything like that,” said Nachtigall.
Make Stuff Anyways
“Whether it’s a sign, an image, or writing poetry, essays, just like make something and share it however you can, because I think, we need creativity to add to these issues so that we can, again, like connect to our shared humanity rather than just be like locked in outrage and frustration and apathy,” said Nachtigall.
How the Red Pill leaks into everyday life
By Maryanne Casas-Perez
lips of self-proclaimed “alpha males” yelling into microphones circulate online as jokes—absurd memes shared in group chats or on social media. Beneath that humor, a darker worldview has spread, influencing perceptions of gender and relationships.
“Misogynistic incels call themselves subhumans,” Joshua Thorburn from Melbourne said, he recently completed a PhD on online misogynist subcultures.
“They believe they are so fundamentally unattractive that they should give up on dating, on sex, on life,” he adds.
Tony C., a Humboldt local who has lost friends to the Red Pill mindset, puts it bluntly: “These men genuinely believe that society has failed them and not the other way around.”
Taken together, those statements point to a digital underworld in which grievance hardens into ideology.
The Red Pill, the Black Pill and everything in between
The language comes from The Matrix. To take the blue pill is to remain in “illusion.” To take the red pill is to acknowledge a deeper “truth.”
“In the manosphere the blue pill means you accept the mainstream narrative — liberated women, 21st century dating standards. Red pill means you accept the truth: traditional gender roles,” Tony says.
Thorburn offers a more detailed mapping. He says the red pill camp believes women secretly run the world through a so-called gynocracy. A gynocracy is a form of government where women rule, or where women hold political supremacy.
Red Pill people argue that women are biologically programmed to seek “alpha males. Men who are tall, wealthy, dominant and that men must compete to become those alphas. Their focus: bulking up, earning more, and mastering social dominance.
But the black pill faction takes it further. These are the incels: men convinced they’re doomed, genetically
or socially, to be rejects. Often self-described as “rejects,” incels are men who see themselves as excluded from sex and relationships, blaming women or society rather than circumstance for their isolation.
They may see themselves as ugly, nerdy just overall not desirable. In a way it’s similar to how women feel about the beauty standards.
“It’s a nihilistic worldview,” Thorburn said. “They refer to themselves as subhumans.” Tony describes it as “the ultimate state of rejection,” linking it to the MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) movement.
Once the terminology is familiar, it appears everywhere. TikTok advice on “high-value men,” Instagram reels about “Chads” and “Stacys,” YouTubers marketing “alpha male” coaching.
Most communities in the manosphere skew younger, teen boys through men in their 20s. Thorburn’s research indicates incel forums he studied have average ages between 15 and 30 but there is no clear data. Men’s Rights Activist groups, which emphasize legal and institutional grievances, often draw somewhat older cohorts.
Women also participate in related forums, such as Red Pill Women or influencer accounts that recycle manosphere language. Thorburn recalls two women in a former Red Pill forum saying: “They wanted dating advice. The manosphere offered them something like an instruction manual.”
Tony describes the demographic most susceptible as “NEETs, not in education, employment, or training, with waaay too much time on their hands… itching to strike to get their revenge.”
The pull
Loneliness, frustration and the feeling of being left behind create fertile ground for the ideology to take root.
“The manosphere offers simplistic, seductive answers,” Thorburn says. “The promise is that everything — dating, sex, masculinity itself — can be explained by a single set of rules.”
Many who engage describe a gradual slide. A person may begin quoting popular podcasts like Andrew Tate, The Joe Rogan Experience or Kill Tony, attributing setbacks to systemic bias. What begins as frustration can morph into rigid ideology.
How to spot the Red Pill mindset
Early red-pill thinking often masquerades as moderation or reason. It might sound like:
“I just think men and women are different.”
“Women say they want nice guys, but they always choose jerks.”
“It’s biology — you can’t fight nature.”
These statements often pass as debate or provocative jokes. Over time, the vocabulary shifts: high value, submission, alpha, feminine energy. Dating, sex and even kindness become transactional.
“You should bring something to the table.”
“Women hit the wall at thirty.”
Once ideology solidifies, contempt replaces curiosity: feminism is accused of “going too far,” modern women are painted as morally degenerate and empathy is recast as weakness.
The red-pill mindset also causes paranoia; people think everyone is lying and emotional vulnerability is a sin.
The consequences
What begins online can spill into real life.Thorburn points to Australian classrooms where female teachers say they’ve quit after repeated harassment from male students echoing manosphere slurs. Some domestic violence counselors report male clients who repeat manosphere slogans in therapy. In 2018, a self-identified incel drove a van into pedestrians in Toronto, killing 11 people.
“The 2020s were the straw that broke the camel’s back. Men radicalized against women, women radicalized against men. It doesn’t bode well for the
already divisive nature of this country — or the planet,” Tony said.
Countercurrents: The Femosphere
If the manosphere builds on resentment of women, the femosphere mirrors it. In forums such as Female Dating Strategy, women dissect how to attract “high-value men” while deriding “zero-value men.” Thorburn calls it “a mirror image of the manosphere,” full of hierarchies and mutual derision.
“There’s an element of entertainment,” Thorburn says. “Some of this stuff is funny. That doesn’t mean they believe it.”
Nevertheless, key terms—“alpha male,” “Chad,” “high-value man,” have entered everyday discourse. As they seep into podcasts, dating advice and even therapy, they reshape how people talk about gender.
Tony warns: “Both spheres act as acid, destroying the fabric of unity so many fought for in the 20th century and beyond.”
What was once rhetoric is now embedded in mainstream conversations.
Expert Insight: Psychological pathways into the Manosphere
ties, increased identification with traditional gender hierarchies makes them more vulnerable to extremist online narratives.
Her findings suggest that efforts to reduce the manosphere’s appeal must address identity, status anxieties, and social norms—not just content moderation.
Thorburn emphasizes that danger lies not only in violence against women. Though that is real and documented but also in those who become consumed by this worldview.
“These beliefs tell them they’re failures before they’ve even had a chance at life,” he said.
The manosphere promises clarity. What it often delivers is despair.
Tony describes it as influencer-driven, especially across TikTok and Instagram:
“They teach women to use men as sources of income. They reject girlboss feminism, but they don’t want equality .powerment and manipulation blur. Both spheres use value, worth, leverage. Love becomes math rather than feeling. In both narratives, mocking and ostracism become weapons. Creeping into the mainstream Not every TikTok user absorbing Tate clips becomes a disciple.
Brooke Franklin-Paddock, a socialpsychologist based in Australia, studies the psychological mechanisms linking identity and masculinity to misogynistic beliefs. In her recent work “From Privilege to Threat: Unraveling Psychological Pathways to the Manosphere”, she argues that diminished acknowledgment of male privilege can drive a perceived threat from feminism, which correlates with higher endorsement of manosphere ideology.
Franklin-Paddock writes that among men who underplay systemic inequali-
The Future of College Athletics in the CCAA
By Alexis Blue
he California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) is California’s home-grown National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division II conference, with the most success of any DII conference in the United States. The CCAA currently has 12 members including Cal Poly Humboldt, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Dominguez Hills, Cal State East Bay, Cal State LA, Cal State Monterey Bay, Cal State San Bernardino, Cal State San Marcos, Chico State, San Francisco State, Stanislaus State and UC Merced. Since the spring semester of 2025, the CCAA has seen very drastic changes including Sonoma State’s elimination of their entire athletic department and San Francisco State’s discontinuation of collegiate teams — baseball, men’s soccer and women’s indoor track and field. Other changes to the CCAA have developed with the addition of new members such as the University of California, Merced joining competition in the Fall of 2025 season and Fresno Pacific University joining in the Fall of 2026.
Background on the CCAA
Founded in 1938, the CCAA has been home to many successful teams and universities in and outside of California, its charters — Cal State Bakersfield, Cal State Northridge, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Chapman, Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, Pacific, Pepperdine, UC Riverside, UC Davis and Grand Canyon University — paving a landscape of success for the conference. Since its inception, the members of the CCAA have won 157 NCAA Championships (103 men and 54 women), the most of championship wins of any of the 23 NCAA DII conferences across the United States.
An anchor for men’s and women’s collegiate sports, the CCAA hosts competition in men’s basketball, baseball, cross country,
golf, soccer, and track and field, as well as women’s basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, track and field and volleyball. The competitive nature of the conference has led many teams from the CCAA to transition to join Division I conferences, including the most recent development of the University of California, San Diego in 2020 joining the Big West Conference. Since UC San Diego’s departure from the CCAA in 2020, the biggest change the conference has seen was on Jan. 22, 2025 when Sonoma State announced its decision to eliminate their entire athletic department due to a nearly 24 million dollar deficit.
Cuts in the collegiate landscape
The NCAA overall has seen many changes in collegiate athletics over the past year, including within the state of California. In April of 2025 Academy of Art University announced its discontinuation of all athletics following the conclusion of the 2024-2025 academic year. Academy of Art, a DII school and a member of the PacWest Conference, is located in San Francisco and had been a part of the PacWest since 2012. In a press release shared by the university, the Chief of Staff Chris Visslailli shared why athletics
exception to budget deficits and athletics taking a hit as a result. California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, a DI competing member of the Big Sky Conference, encountered challenges with its announcement to discontinue swimming and diving for both men and women. A letter from Cal Poly’s President Jeffrey D. Armstrong announced these changes March 7, 2025, the discontinuation of swimming and diving to be effective immediately, though the swimming and diving championships were expected to occur at the end of March.
Impacting 58 swimming and diving student-athletes at Cal Poly and approximately 140 student-athletes across all sports at Academy of Art, the devastating impact of budget cuts on student-athletes doesn’t end there. An additional 44 student-athletes at San Francisco State University, a part of the CCAA, were faced with heartbreaking news of the discontinuation of three of their sports teams announced on March 6, 2025. From the office of SF State President Lynn Mahoney, they addressed the campus community on this matter.
“Last fall, the University formed an Athletics Task Force to address the ongoing budget shortfall in athletics and formulate a plan
Athletics develop students — not just as athletes.
were no longer going to be offered following the 2024-2025 academic year.
“This difficult decision allows us to redirect resources toward opportunities that align with the interests of our broader student population while maintaining our commitment to providing exceptional educational opportunities.”
Division I schools are not an
to create a sustainable model for Gator Athletics at SF State. The task force recommended we reduce our number of NCAA teams. After reviewing their recommendations in light of our current budget and enrollment projections, I have made the hard decision to eliminate three of our teams: Women’s Indoor Track & Field, Baseball and Men’s Soccer as of July 1, 2025.”
“I had that in the back of my head that if this can happen at Sonoma, who’s to say it can’t happen at the next school.”
The discontinuation of eleven collegiate sports
A part of the California State University system, Sonoma State is found in Rohnert Park California. Founded in 1960 and a member of the CCAA since 1998, Sonoma State’s athletics saw many achievements on the pitch with a total of 41 conference championships and three national titles from Men’s Golf in 2009, Men’s Soccer in 2002 and Women’s Soccer in 1990. A standout name in collegiate athletics, 27 years came to an abrupt end with their announcement to eliminate Sonoma’s athletic department. This came in conjunction with the elimination of several programs and departments, the non-renewal of faculty contracts — both tenured and adjunct and more layoffs of staff and administration.
This announcement from the university consequently left nearly 230 NCAA student-athletes, in addition to coaches, and faculty
within the athletic department with an uncertain future and virtually nowhere to go. Sonoma’s Interim President Dr. Emily F. Cutrer announced a budget update for the campus community on Jan. 22, 2025, sharing a layered announcement of the budget deficit lending to a multitude of cost reductions and the consequences of these reductions.
“We also have made the decision to eliminate NCAA Division II athletics. Our Athletic Director is informing our student athletes and coaching staffs of this decision today. We are wholly committed to working with every impacted student athlete to ensure they are aware of their options as they consider whether to remain at Sonoma State or to transfer to another institution. Student athletes who choose to remain at SSU will remain eligible to receive scholarships, as long as they meet the current terms of the scholarship. We will also support and assist
those who wish to transfer in order to continue participation in intercollegiate athletics.”
A Sonoma State studentathlete experience
Emily Morandi, a senior majoring in English and in her last season of competition on the women’s soccer team at Seattle Pacific University, was a part of the Sonoma State Women’s Soccer Team when the news of the end of athletics for Sonoma set in.
“I remember it really vividly,” Morandi said. “I think I was one of the first on our team to find out because I was in an English class at 11:30 in the morning, and I got an email on my phone that looked like one of those regular mass emails from the school. I wasn’t going to read it at first, but someone texted saying, ‘What’s this email about?’ So, I went in [to the email], and it listed so bluntly that they were cutting 40% of majors and all Division II
athletics.”
“I thought, ‘This can’t be real. My coach would know — I feel like we would have had somewhat of an idea what was happening,’” Morandi said.
Morandi described her profound shock at this news and her overall frustration in the way Sonoma dealt with this news — how and when they decided to tell the campus community, student-athletes and faculty and staff that were affected by this immediate change. For Morandi, this change and the hindrances that were to come extended to and beyond the field.
“To start with outside of sports, I once again have lost credits in transferring. That is a financial burden on me,” Morandi said. “Emotionally, I was really happy with where I was at in Sonoma, to be honest — with my friends, in the community. There were so many things about Sonoma that I still miss now.”
“It was an emotional time. There were lots of tears. It’s hard leaving people, especially the ones that have been there three-plus years. It’s hard to have to get up and be like, ‘What am I doing?’ That was the biggest thing for me off the field. I have to restart again. I have to go through the transfer portal again,” Morandi said.
A hurdle that became prevalent with Sonoma’s timing of this announcement included student-athletes finding schools that allowed them to continue their competition and that still had athletic scholarships to offer for these transferring athletes. This is because at the end of January, it is likely that many teams are done recruiting for their upcoming season and thus have likely used much — if not all — of their scholarship-allocated budget towards the incoming class of athletes. For Morandi also, she carried a frictional factor of only one year left of athletic eligibility — lending to several schools telling her that they
would be interested in having her if she had more than one season left.
The transferring process Morandi faced was rocky with an unexpected start, prompting a lack of motivation towards finding somewhere to go when she wasn’t ready nor wanted to leave Sonoma.
“I entered the transfer portal the same day as the rest of my team — maybe a week after we found out,” Morandi said. “I jumped in the portal and then didn’t email a coach for two or three weeks. I didn’t even have any motivation to get on an email and reach out, but about three weeks after, I reached out to a couple of schools within the CSU system.”
“I had that in the back of my head that if this can happen at Sonoma, who’s to say it can’t happen at the next school,” Morandi said.
Despite their initial declaration that they were there to help the athletes through this process, Morandi shared that she navigated this transfer process amidst the emotional rollercoaster, with little to no help from the university — solely from the coaching staff for her team.
“That was the biggest thing they kept promising — support for student-athletes. ‘Support, support, support,’” Morandi said. “I’m trying to think really hard, but I don’t remember a single thing they did to help. The one thing they were offering was that if you decided to stay, you could keep your athletic scholarship, but that’s just not appealing to anyone who wants to continue playing.”
In spite of the adversity that was thrown at Morandi and the almost 230 other student-athletes at Sonoma that were affected by these cuts, Morandi was able to find a university to continue playing and finish her last season of collegiate soccer at Seattle Pacific University. Morandi’s story is one of many athletes that have come face-to-face
with a sudden, radically different reality, uncertain of how and where to continue their academic and athletic careers. For many student-athletes like Morandi, they are forced to navigate the uncharted waters of collegiate cuts.
The road behind and the path ahead
The Director of Communications of the CCAA Danny Barnts commented on the changes that the CCAA has seen in the past year, with changes like the loss and addition of members.
“We were unfortunate with the news of Sonoma State — that obviously took everybody by surprise. But our commissioner, Allen Hardison, had been working actively to recruit new members into the CCAA,” Barnts said. “UC Merced was already lined up to come into the conference. They were coming up from the NAIA, so they kind of filled the spot of Sonoma State where we didn’t have to drop below 12 members in most of our sports, which would have been a bigger hit. As much as you might feel stability, you know that athletics is always a changing landscape.”
Barnts also addressed financial pressures that universities face, particularly concerning athletics, one of which being the cost of travel for
a university’s teams. For the CCAA, all of its members are in the state of California, but for many other DII conferences, members cross different states because of the geographical access they have to one another. For teams at Fresno Pacific that are a part of the PacWest conference and are joining the CCAA in Fall 2026, this means that they are able to cut costs of travel that were otherwise unavoidable like traveling to compete against members in Hawaii or other states.
Barnts also touched on the adaptability within the CCAA.
“Our commissioner is willing to look beyond traditional qualities within the CCAA and understand that you can’t just rest where you’re at. The landscape is continually shifting,” Barnts said.
“Understand that traditions have got you to this point, but within college athletics as a whole, it is shifting and you have to be able to adjust. If you are only going to sit in what got you to this point, you are probably going to be left behind because others around you are changing and shifting,” Barnts said.
While some financial pressures that universities are facing are irrevocable and have ultimately led to the elimination of entire athletic departments or cuts of teams entirely, transformations like changing conferences to instead adapt to these pressures are necessary for the future of collegiate athletics, particularly within the CCAA.
Barnts shared that while it’s nearly impossible to say what exactly the future of CCAA looks like or DII athletics as a whole, the current times and concurrent changes lends to some apprehensions of the future.
“I think there’s a bit of ‘holding your breath’ that [athletic eliminations across the NCAA] doesn’t become too much of a trend,” Barnts said.
Regardless of the changes that have happened and the many more
changes that are to come, Barnts emphasizes the importance of athletics within a university and the magnitude of maintaining college athletics.
“I think of athletics in two ways — as the window to the university and the front porch of the university,” Barnts said. “The way everybody views the school initially is through their athletic department. That’s the one they’re seeing in the newspaper. That’s the one you might see run on TV, and even sometimes that the student-athletes are going out into the community. Often the first time you’ll get onto a campus, the first time you’re on their front porch, is in athletics.”
Not only is college athletics crucial to the university and to the community that is impacted by the university, but collegiate athletics is valuable to its student-athletes.
“Athletics develop students — not just as athletes,” Barnts said. “It has a tie into the community on campus and into the overall community in those areas. There is a lot of value that athletics provides — the discipline, the development of young coaches and ones that
develop to coaches at higher levels as well.”
“There is a lot of value for the development of people, not just them as athletes,” Barnts said.
The shifts that the NCAA and the CCAA have seen in the past year have left student-athletes like Morandi, among others, in the murky waters of uncertainty of their future as a student and as an athlete. It also facilitates unanswered questions like what does the future of collegiate athletics at the DII level look like? What does the future of the CCAA look like? With still wavering questions, there lies the unwavering importance of maintaining college athletics — as the window and front porch of the university. Protecting college athletics not only protects student-athletes, staff, and administration affected by athletics, but it fortifies a well-rounded college experience for all students. As financial decisions continue to shift the playing field, it is important that universities prioritize the value of college athletics in opportunity, community and supporting a healthy student body.
The Legacy and Future of the Pledge
A look into the history of the Humboldt Graduation Pledge and the research shaping its future
By Ursula Newman
Graphic by Ursula Newman, document courtesy of Graduation Pledge Folder, University Archives Pamphlet Collection, Cal Poly Humboldt Library Special Collections
“...does a pledge at graduation actually make a difference in the way graduates move through the world?”
No matter their field of study, Cal Poly Humboldt students put in the work before crossing the green-and-gold stage, diploma in hand. A gauntlet of exams, essays and presentations lay behind them on graduation day, but one final question stands between them and their futures in the form of a paper card. Printed on its face is the university’s graduation pledge, a personal vow to consider the social and environmental consequences of decisions graduates will make in their lifetime and careers.
The small pledge card reads, “I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work.”
The pledge was offered at commencement for the first time at Cal Poly Humboldt — then Humboldt State University — in 1987. Countless graduates have taken the oath here, and through student efforts the idea was adopted at other institutions across the United States and beyond. Chances are you or someone you know has taken the pledge.
But does a pledge at graduation actually make a difference in the way graduates move through the world?
Friends of the Dunes Education Manager, Jennifer Ortega, formerly worked as faculty in the Environmental Science & Management
department, the School of Applied Health and as a Sustainability Faculty Fellow. Ortega said that through her job she was aware of the university’s sustainability-focused courses, and the impact they were having on students’ learning in the classroom. That led her to become curious about how students carry on what they learn about sustainability.
“They go out into the world, and what? What do they do with their learning? I was able to, through my [own] research, see that indeed, students were shifting in their mindset towards sustainability. It made me wonder what happens beyond the classroom when they graduate and they go into the workforce,” said Ortega.
The wording of the pledge is centered on the mindful consideration of jobs, and the question quickly became, “how are alumni living out the pledge?” Ortega teamed up with Psychology professor Gregg Gold as they oversaw a team of student researchers, beginning in 2023, to ask this question. They set out to evaluate how the pledge has shaped alums’ behavior — if at all. This new research is important for protecting the future of the pledge as well as its legacy.
The Grassroots Beginning
Pledge co-author and soil scientist Jennifer Wood — formerly Jennifer Burman — came to HSU
for a degree in botany. Early in her college career she met Matt Nicodemus, a community member, part time HSU instructor and philosophy graduate of Stanford University. Nicodemus was involved in anti-nuclear organizing on campus. Together they were part of the small group of community members and students that started the advocacy group Student Citizens for Social Responsibility. She helped Nicodemus draft the graduation pledge after one of their weekly meetings. That’s how she ended up at one of the tables in 1987 handing out pledge cards with a little green ribbon.
“I just came with idealism and wanted to be part of making the world a better place, coming to college and being attracted to community organizing,” Wood said. “We were thinking about holistic ways to promote peace in the world, and we thought that really, it all comes down to our values and what people choose to do with their careers and their lives. This group of us that started the Student Citizens for Social Responsibility came up with this idea for a pledge of environmental and social responsibility.”
Wood was primarily involved in the early stages of developing the idea and writing the pledge. She explained that it was part of the anti-nuclear weapons, anti-war movement that was very strong at the time. At weekly gatherings
“I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work.”
“I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work.”
with Nicodemus, they would look at the military industrial complex and think about the larger ideas for what creates peace in the world.
“We were trying to go for a very ‘root cause’ kind of approach. We wanted to ‘do something’ — what are we going to do that could make an impact? Somehow, this is what we came up with,” Wood said. “It was obviously very idealistic. [I think the pledge] could somehow fundamentally change the trajectory of the world towards peace and justice, more peace and justice for more people.”
Another student who was heavily involved in the pledge’s inception was William Ihne. In 1987 he was a junior organizing on campus for peace. He spent time attending meetings to learn more about social and environmental issues such as global wars at the time and the
fight to save Headwaters Forest.
“I just thought, ‘wow, there are all these issues, and they all seem to be patching holes in a rubber raft,’” Ihne said. “Then I heard about this meeting for Student Citizens for Social Responsibility, and I went to it, and we discussed having a pledge focusing on the individual.”
Ihne said it was overwhelming at times to see all of the issues going on in the world. A pledge in which individual actions and their impacts on the world are considered was something he wanted to help create.
the topic note that the decision was endorsed by the HSU Faculty Senate and the Arcata City Council.
Working fast, Student Citizens for Social Responsibility gathered support to get the pledge onto an upcoming student election ballot. They were able to gather enough support to approve the pledge to be part of graduation in a mere two months or less. Previous articles on
Ihne went on to help with spreading the pledge movement to other schools. He and Nicodemus sent out a network letter to as many schools and people as possible. The Grad Pledge Alliance (GPA) was formed to pursue the national efforts of the program. They published a pledge organizing manual that was distributed to over 3,000 U.S. university student governments and 3,500 campus newspapers. The GPA held a national press conference in San Francisco on April 11, 1988 to promote and announce new developments to the campaign.
Ihne went on a speaking tour, set up a network in the Bay Area and Stanford President Donald Kennedy even spoke about the pledge to an audience of 30,000 people, all with-
Photo by William Ihne
Pledge co-author Matt Nicodemus smiles wide as the first ever graduation pledge is signed during commencement in 1987.
in the alliance’s first two years.
Many things evolved after the creation of the grad pledge, with students and faculty asking related questions in critical thinking courses, hosting pledge-related essay contests and forums discussing career paths.
The graduation pledge was the first of its kind, and word of it spread fast. The story was picked up by countless other university publications and outside newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles Times and many more.
In 1988 a 7 foot tall peace pole was donated to the university by the Michigan Peace Education Association (a Michigan based peace organization), as a gift for the work done to establish the grad pledge.
One of thousands placed around the globe, the pole reads, “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in four languages. English, and Ihne picked the three other languages. Associated Students President Al Elpusan was instrumental in this process, and chose the spot for where to plant it.
“I picked the languages, but they were a no-brainer. Cold WarRussian. California used to be Mexico- Spanish, and then the land that we’re on- Yurok. Then the pole came, Al Elpusan and I pulled it out of the box. Matt [Nicodemus] wanted me to make a pole ceremony,” Ihne said. “I really didn’t want to do that, and tried to pass this on to Al. It ended up just four of us welcoming it as it went into the ground by the health center.
Nicodemus, Ihne, Elpusan and Vincent Booth, the artist who painted the cover for the pledge organizing manual, were the four in attendance. Ihne said The Lumberjack Newspaper reporters didn’t show up but made it out to see the pole and wrote a blurb about its origin a few days later. The peace pole still stands on campus in front of the Student Health Center near
the library circle, and has never been moved. Below the pole also sits a memorial plaque for Elpusan who died in a public transportation accident while in his home country, the Philippines, only two years after the installation of the pole. He was involved with many aspects of the pledge, he drove pledge alliance members in a black HSU town car to a National Press Conference held on SF State University’s tallest building, and lobbied for the installment and continuation of the pledge.
According to records, by spring of 1988, there were already at least 11 universities where students were actively campaigning to incorporate a similar pledge into their upcoming graduation ceremonies. Another 40 other schools — and a few high schools — were also expressing interest.
“Over 200 universities in a number of countries, including the United States, Canada, France, Australia, Singapore and Taiwan have instituted the Graduation pledge,” Ihne said. “In the U.S. institutions like Stanford, MIT and Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, University of Colorado, Boulder and Manchester University have utilized the pledge. Some have continued offering it since its inception.”
In 2006, Ihne wrote a timeline of the major accomplishments for the Grad Pledge Alliance titled “Starting a Campus Tradition: A Graduation Pledge of Responsibility”
“We wanted national coverage, and why not? In 1988, the President of the United States, George H.W. Bush was pushing for a mandatory pledge of allegiance in schools, and making burning of the flag a national issue too,” Ihne wrote in the 2006 publication. “Why couldn’t our voluntary graduation pledge be part of the national dialogue, a pledge intended to help students to think about how to improve their own lives and our collective future?”
The journey of creating the pledge did have a few minor bumps. From disagreements within the student body and government, to issues with funding and support from the university, keeping the pledge alive has been a labor of love. This most recent research on the pledge is born from that same spirit.
Studying the Impact: The Research Project
After Ortega and Gold met, they thought researching the pledge would be something psychology students would be interested in. They began looking into how much research there was, and it turned out there wasn’t much.
Ortega said there was talk of discontinuing the pledge, and that if there was research that could vouch for its importance, it would be better maintained and protected.
The main question the Social
Historical documents courtesy of William Ihne
Influence Research Lab sought to answer was this: does the pledge have any effect on alumni’s behavior?
“That’s where the collaboration with Dr. Gold and his graduate students began, for us to develop a survey, get it out to alumni and start seeing how to gain that deeper understanding of the effect of this pledge,” Ortega said. “What we’re really looking at is, what are their behaviors? Could we identify social justice actions? Could we identify environmental behaviors that were performed post-graduation?”
Coming from an education perspective, she was curious if impactful classroom learning experiences could be identified. Wondering if a specific class, instructor, project or modes of learning were remem-
“In additon to reminding people of all of the wonderful things that you might want to do as alumni, remind them about the pledge that they took.”
bered as drivers of ethical behavior.
With the idea starting in 2023, psychology masters student Max Cartagena led the project as its research director. They worked on this project all the way up until this semester, delegating work within the research group, helping choose measurement systems for the survey and beginning to write the report.
“I was interested, from the perspective of, ‘oh, the university puts a lot of time and attention into this. How impactful is it really?’” Cartagena said. “I was mostly interested in it from the perspective of, ‘there’s a lot of hype around this, let’s see what the real impact is.’”
The researchers created a survey with questions that directly borrowed language from the pledge. The answers then produced a “score” at the end of the survey for each person, measuring how environmentally and socially conscious the answers were.
The survey was sent out to alumni by the university’s alumni
association, Forever Humboldt, in January of 2024. The result was over 1,200 alumni taking the survey, the data from whom two analyses were made: one measuring social justice and one for environmental engagement. The researchers ended up with four categories to compare: people who said they remembered taking the pledge and its meaning, people who remember taking the pledge but do not remember what it was about, people who were unsure and people who said they did not take the pledge.
Gold said that the 1,200 respondents ranged from recent graduates to people in their 60’s, showcasing a range of generations.
“What we found was that those who remember taking the pledge tended to score higher on both the actions to be environmentally conscious, and the actions to be socially conscious in their lives since taking the pledge,” Gold said. “If you’re going to look at the overall results, that is what we found.”
If they were to follow up on this project, one of the things the lab would be interested in looking at is what techniques can sustain the pledge over time.
The survey also brought answers to one of Ortega’s original questions – what classroom techniques are most impactful for students for shaping positive environmental and social justice action? The results showed that surveyed alumni cited more participatory actions such as classroom discussions and projects over things like journaling or reading a book.
Cartagena and Gold both explained that this wasn’t an experiment—in the sense that they can’t talk about cause and effect. What the study does do is open the door for more research.
“It validates the usefulness of having a pledge,” Gold said. “The other interesting information that I think is going to come out of this is which classroom methods are most effective in inspiring people to consider social justice and environmentalism in their lives. What pedagogical techniques can faculty choose?”
“Just based on these results, those who remember taking the pledge or thought about the pledge more often tended to score higher,” Gold said. “If you’re going to be part of the Alumni Association, in addition to reminding people of all the wonderful things that you might want to do as alumni, remind them about the pledge that they took.”
The survey collected information from alumni through write-in answers. Information about what they do for work now, influential classes, specific professors and thoughts on the influence of the location and culture of Humboldt was collected. These aspects of the research will be included in a written report that is hoped to be published in the coming spring.
Cartagena noted that while there was a measurable difference in scores between different groups as previously described, the difference was relatively small. Cartagena explained that a small difference is still meaningful at the end of the day.
“Something that we saw, especially as it related to the environmental behaviors, was people discussing how much just being in this area, being in the environment, surrounded by the trees, the ocean, the physical location of the campus, and being immersed in the county, how much of an impact that had on how they view the world,” Cartagena said.
Cartagena wondered if that may be a factor into why there weren’t huge differences in the scores, because the community here has been exposed to nature and had unique learning experiences in that way.
“Perhaps you would have seen more of a difference if this had been done at a university that’s in more of a metropolitan area,” Cartagena said. “Those are some of the questions that we’re left with, because what is causing the difference or lack thereof is ultimately, something that’s not known.”
The pledge grew bigger than the original founders ever expected. With different meanings for many, this research marks a new wave of life for the pledge. Wood reflected on all of the changes over the years, and felt that this was an important step in the right direction.
“I don’t think until this time, anybody has ever asked, what is the effectiveness of this thing?” Wood said.
The Future and Endurance
The pledge has been analyzed by many over the years, and was adapted to create the “HSU pledge” in 2019. Its impact has been smaller, but the Grad Pledge Alliance oversees it as well, symbolized with a yellow ribbon. The incentive was to create something for students to engage with while still in school. For it to be used as a reminder to build a strong campus community and as a step towards the grad pledge. Both Ihne and Wood felt that students thinking about the meaning,
and adapting it, is exactly what the graduation pledge is meant for.
As is the nature of universities, students come and go. In the years before COVID-19, Forever Humboldt had money for the pins and the cards, but there was a lapse in student engagement. COVID-19 hit, and that slowed things down. After that is when people like Ortega stopped and said wait, we can’t lose this.
Currently the Graduation Pledge Alliance is small, but those involved are working hard to boost its presence. Sophomore biology major Roslyn Montanez explained that it’s her first year being involved with the pledge. The team consists of her, Katie Koscielak (her environ-
mental sustainability advisor) and a handful of others collaborating to make it happen. Montanez is the officer of environmental sustainability in Associated Students (AS), and through that position she automatically became part of the alliance.
She and Koscielak meet monthly to go over agendas, meeting more often leading up to the fall and spring commencements. She explained that there’s some gray area, but the Grad Pledge Alliance is part of AS collaborating with the Sustainability Office.
Montanez said that right now, the main efforts have been focused on tabling in the quad on
campus, in an effort to remedy the fact that in recent years there hasn’t been much tabling or outreach. They are brainstorming bigger plans for the future of the pledge, such as documentary work, educational outreach, updating websites and more.
“We were talking about doing some type of artwork [like a mural on campus] to show past alumni that have taken the pledge, and then also the future students,” Montanez said.
When asked, Montanez was already aware of and excited about the research happening in the psychology department. She explained that this research has led to more connection and conversation about the grad pledge with both alumni and pledge creators. It has been an educational experience for her. She said the research is important for the future of the pledge.
Ortega also mentioned that the grad pledge should become more prominent in new faculty and staff orientation. That way as they develop courses and do their work, the graduation pledge is a guiding principle. Word of mouth and community awareness are also important for educating students.
”If things aren’t passed on to the next student, things can get lost,” Ortega said. ”Whoever’s [working with the] pledge needs to be able to get the students engaged so that it doesn’t die out.”
Reflecting on the history of the pledge, Ihne mentioned that considering the pledge early in education may help students define their values and find direction and passion in their time at the university.
It supports a certain support system for students to have the kind of discussions and thinking that helps them to define their values, [and] to provide enough
resources for them to find careers that align with those values,” Ihne said. “I think the goal is to not just make the world a better place, but to have happier graduates and workers.”
As a fellow alumnus and pledge taker herself, Ortega has been inspired by the recent conversations that have come as a result of the research project.
She hopes that the pledge and its message continue to be carried on and that this research can be one of many efforts to preserve the pledge.
I feel like there is value in it, especially since funding is a concern,” Montanez said. “Down the line, we don’t really know what’s going to happen, especially since it’s an alliance that has been put in different areas around campus.”
“Taking the pledge is one thing,” Ortega said. “Living the pledge – that’s a story of hope.”
The Future of Humboldt Wind Energy Area Jobs
By E. Leonardo
The wind has been knocked out of job sector growth not only in the North Coast of California, but in the United States as a whole. From coast to coast, renewable energy development is at a standstill due to the Jan. 20, 2025 federal moratorium on wind farm construction. The unchecked executive order, “Prevents consideration of any area in the OCS (Offshore Continental Shelf) for any new or renewed wind energy leasing for the purposes of generation of electricity or any other such use derived from the use of wind.” Federal funding propelling development of these untapped renewable resources is currently stopped. Likewise, withdrawal of backing from private sector matching funds doubly stalls out the industry until the political fracas over energy domination
blows over.
“I want to be clear, this has been an assault on all renewable energy, not just wind,” says Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA) Executive Director Beth Burks. “RCEA’s strategic plan really envisions a future for Humboldt county where renewable energy is a cornerstone for our economy… Wind was always a huge part of that.”
The Humboldt Wind Energy Area (HWEA), Humboldt Bay, and Cal Poly Humboldt, combined, form the lucrative triad required to create a profitable off-shore wind farm. The Humboldt Bay provides a safe harbor with a workforce to build the nine-story high turbines. Shipping the turbines, completing the installation and maintaining equipment is made easy, due to the proximity of the HWEA. Cal Poly Humboldt generates specialized graduates
and serves as a communications and innovations hub. The green nexus of untapped resources in the HWEA can be harnessed to produce more than enough energy for the North Coast with excess for export to surrounding regions.
The consequent Aug. 30 rescinding of the HWEA by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has stifled economic growth in Humboldt County for years to come. The cancelled 2028 construction commencement abandons invested leaseholders and leaves many graduates without local, state or even national occupational alternatives within their field of expertise.
“More than 80,000 jobs have already been lost or stalled in the clean energy sector,” reports Climate Power.
The three stage ramp-up to a
fully functional wind farm in the HWEA includes a thorough reinforcement of the local grid, an upgrade to bay access and services and the actual turbine construction. The foundered project would build local occupational opportunities for mechanical engineers, electricians, environmental monitoring technicians, marine shippers, oceanographers, business managers, public relations, government liaisons and community engagement personnel.
This energy job market chasm is to be spanned by concurrently deregulating fossil fuel industries, thus creating work for petrochemical engineers, geologists, coal miners and wildcatters to drill exploration wells.
“Unlike wind and solar, coal plants can run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, regardless of the weather. Coal also means good-paying jobs for American workers in the communities that brought about the Industrial Revolution,” states Environmental Protection Agency head Lee Zeldin in a press conference on September 30.
With the resurgence of fossil fuel use, American communities can experience Industrial Age, long-term health consequences like black lung again. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Air pollution is a major contributory factor to the epidemic of noncommunicable diseases… stroke, heart attack, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and more than one half of deaths due to pneumonia in childhood.” Maintaining combustion as a primary energy source decreases quality of life, while continuing the looming threat of more major environmental disasters like Deepwater Horizon.
Fossil fuels are depleted in offshore sites where energy needs once thrived upon them, like the Brent Oil Field in the North Sea of Europe and the Mumbai High Field
off India’s west coast. Abandoned inland wells and closed mines continue to contribute methane out-
“The amount of graduates from HSU/ Cal Poly Humboldt you will encounter in these fields is punching way above the weight of a small to medium sized institution.”
gassing into the atmosphere and pollution runoff into water tables.
“Clean energy is the energy of the future,” says Dr. Arne Jacobson of the Schatz Energy Center. “Fossil fuel is the energy of the past. It doesn’t pay to cling to the past.”
A balance of different types of renewable energy combined with modern energy storage technol-
ogy will constitute a stable power source for an upscaling electric demand that won’t leave the air, water, and soil a sooty mess.
The about face of federal energy funding has cost the United States its position as an innovator in new technology implementation.
“I want us to be a leader on offshore wind the same way we were on solar, but because of the federal administration’s reluctance, I think we’re missing our opportunity,” says Matthew Simmons, J.D. and contributor to North Coast Offshore Wind. “It’ll be us catching up to the rest of the world… We’ve sort of missed our chance to lead.”
The European Wind Energy Association, Brazil, India and China have leapt ahead in wind farm installation and reap the clear, clean benefits, today.
Stateside, there are several, separate clean energy programs slugging forward, albeit without the deep pockets of the Fed or permission to use the continental shelf. California has pledged to source
fifty percent of the state’s growing energy needs from renewable resources by 2030, via CA Senate Bill 350. The North Carolina General Assembly continues to fund public projects in wind and solar, “as one of the nation’s leading hubs for clean energy technology development and demonstration,” reports the NC Clean Energy Technology Center. “Texas has abundant renewable energy resources and is first in the nation in wind-generated electricity,” according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Boosting off-shore progress has been confined to planning, research, and litigation in the hopes of a future reversal of primary and subordinate energy legislation.
“There’s a lot of work for lawyers in the environmental space,” says Simmons. “There’s going to be a lot
of work rebuilding... There will be job opportunities, moving forward.”
There is another whisper of hope for the continuance of changeover to renewable resources within the North Coast region of California. It is the profound influence of the university culture present in Humboldt County.
“There’s something really valuable about going to Cal Poly Humboldt,” says RCEA Executive Director Beth Burks, “The amount of graduates from HSU/Cal Poly Humboldt you will encounter in these fields is punching way above the weight of a small to medium sized institution.”
The key to providing a future that is powered by clean, renewable energy to an educated, enlightened populace rests in the hands of current Cal Poly Humboldt students.
The dream of making clean, green, reliable energy a reality awaits those who study hard, work hard, and fuel their own projects with a passion for creating a better tomorrow. Still, uncertainty in the future of energy production and public safety is daunting. Regarding the student reaction this year to the federal moratorium on off-shore wind power, Dr. Jacobson is asked if any of the students were worried about the future of Environmental Science studies.
“Many,” chuckles Dr. Jacobson, “They’re right to worry, but not to
Left: Executive Director Beth Burks directly empowers local control over energy choices every day at the RCEA.
Right: Dr. Arne Jacobson of the Schatz Energy Center publicy presents his report ““Power Behind the Redwood Curtain,” October 29.
