THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE VOLUME 133, ISSUE 9 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2013
SERVING THE UC DAVIS CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY SINCE 1915
ROSA FURNEAUX / AGGIE
Student Esmeralda Cano and protesters rally at the University of California’s union strike yesterday.
AFSCME 3299 members protest systemwide Service, patient care union strike in response to threats
JASON PHAM campus@theaggie.org
On Nov. 20, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees for the University of California (AFSCME 3299) went on a one-day Unfair Labor Practice Strike of nine UC campuses and five UC medical centers. The union, which represents university service and patient care workers, struck in response to alleged intimidation by UC management when they participated in a two-day hospital strike in May. The systemwide strike began at 6 a.m. and ended at 7 p.m. on the
same day. AFSCME 3299 members employed at UC Davis held their strike at the corner of Hutchinson Drive and La Rue Road. According to an AFSCME 3299 press release, the union stated that UC administration illegally harassed and intimidated service and patient care workers when they struck to advocate for patient safety. “We’re here because of an unfair labor practice. When employees expressed safety concerns, they’ve actually been intimidated and harassed by management to not bring it up. We’re here to express that we’re tired of being harassed for speaking
N E W S I N BR I EF California Lecture Hall to be constructed A large format lecture hall that seats more than 600 people is in the process of being planned and is expected to be completed fall 2017. The California Lecture Hall will be constructed on the UC Davis campus at the corner of Storer Hall and California Avenue. The goal of the new lecture hall is to accommodate increasing class sizes and the upsizing of impacted courses. “The project is intended to relieve classroom backlog and alleviate current course waitlists benefitting time to degree,” said Debra Smith, senior project manager of Design and Construction Management at UC Davis. According to Smith, the new lecture hall will include a variety of building resources to strengthen building development and public outdoor spaces, and will be careful of respecting historic trees already on campus. It will also have sufficient bike parking to accommodate the large amount of students. There are plans to follow requirements and budget constraints to be a net-zero energy facility, and the project is also in alignment with the California Sustainability Practices Policy. The project is in the middle of a three month programming phase during which decisions about how the lecture hall will be used are going to be made. A workshop was held on Nov. 6 that included faculty, staff and students in order to figure out what technologies and environments would be best used in the hall. Students, faculty and all others that use main lecture halls on the UC Davis campus are encouraged to provide input on the project via a survey released on Smartsite. The link for this survey is scheduled to be released this coming week. Students and faculty will also be able to comment on the project through other social media sites. The survey allows students to rank the importance of various lecture hall characteristics such as indoor temperature, ability to hear the professor and other students and overall size and layout. Allison Berkowitz, a second-year biological sciences major took the survey to provide input on the project. “It will be beneficial to all to pinpoint the flaws in order to build the perfect lecture hall to promote academic success,” Berkowitz said. — Laura Fitzgerald & Jordyn May
up on the behalf of patients and students’ safety,” said Fernando Garcia, AFSCME 3299 member and a UC Davis grounds employee. Leticia Garcia-Prado, a medical assistant at the Student Health Center, said her administrators harassed her with questions on whether she was going to come to work or not when she struck in May. She said she was threatened both verbally and through email. “We got emails that actually said we could be disciplined if we didn’t call in.We don’t have to call in. Once
Food stamp cuts hit Yolo County More than 17,000 residents affected by cuts HARRY GIBBONS
city@theaggie.org
On Nov. 1, more than 47 million Americans who take part in the federal food stamp program saw their monthly benefits shrink as a temporary boost from the 2009 stimulus package expired. According to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a non-partisan think tank, a family of four collecting the maximum monthly benefit of $668 saw a reduction
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UC Davis plans to have its Renewable Energy Anaerobic Digester operational by January 2014.
UC Davis biodigester to power campus in January 20,000 tons of waste to be diverted from landfills LUJAIN AL-SALEH features@theaggie.org
In January 2014, leftover pasta and other unfinished food from the dining commons will be put to use as the newly established UC Davis Renewable Energy Anaerobic Digester (UC Davis READ) converts organic waste into campus electricity. For nearly a decade, Professor Ruihong Zhang of the UC Davis Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering has been researching the high solids anaerobic digestion technology necessary to create a biodigester. “The successful development of the biodigester facility is a dream coming true for many people, including me and my graduate students and my colleagues around campus,” Zhang said. The facility is currently in its final stages of construction, and extensive planning and collaboration have been imperative to the project’s success.
In order to move the anaerobic digestion technology from her laboratory to the commercial scale, Zhang has worked with university facilities, campus departments and Mike Fan, the Waste Program manager, for about eight years. Zhang said that under the leadership of Fan and David Philips, the utilities director, the Facilities Department allocated research space at their wastewater treatment facility to construct a pilot digester system. The department also provided free utilities and staff to support Zhang and her industry partners to test out the pilot system equipment, processes and different feedstocks prior to the development of a full scale biodigester system. Sid England, associate vice chancellor of the Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability Office, is among the many faculty members who worked with Zhang on this project. “The biodigester was explored as an option for renewable energy at
West Village, and then evolved into a campuswide project,” England said. Due to the considerable cost of implementing the biodigester facility, both Zhang and England explained that adequate funding for the project was one of the primary obstacles they faced. Additionally, UC Davis alumnus and CEO of CleanWorld Michele Wong believes that an entirely other set of challenges made the project all the more difficult. “Anytime you are dealing with a public entity, there are extra hurdles to jump,” Wong said. However, by partnering with CleanWorld, “the North American leader in anaerobic digestion” according to Biomass Magazine, the prospect of building the facility began to look much brighter for Zhang and those involved in the project. Once CleanWorld acquired the license to commercialize Zhang’s technology and agreed to operate the facility, the construction process was kicked into place. Fortunately, energy on 15