serving the uc davis campus and community since 1915
www.theaggie.org
volume 130, number 102
monday, october 24, 2011
Enchanted Cellar offers discounted disguises Halloween costumes for rent on campus By STEPHANIE B. NGUYEN Aggie News Writer
For the eighth consecutive year, UC Davis students have an array of costumes available to rent from the Enchanted Cellar Costume Rentals at the theatre and dance department, located in the basement of Wright Hall. The Enchanted Cellar offers students recycled costumes from stage productions put on by the department. Students can rent costume kits, which come with a costume and wig or hat, or separate accessories, all for 50 percent off the tag price. “Most of the kits range from $60 to $150,” said Roxanne Femling, the costume shop director. “UC Davis affiliates always get 50 percent off and this year for Halloween, we’ve extended that discount to the Davis community.” This year’s price also includes the cost of dry cleaning. With three changing rooms full of costumes, wigs and accessories, students have plenty of options. Costumes of well-
Final agreement reached between librarians’ union and UC Librarians raise concerns over meritbased salary program
By MUNA SADEK Aggie News Writer
Stephanie Nguyen / Aggie
The Enchanted Celler also rents out a variety of accessories such as hats and wigs. known characters, from categories such as Harry Potter, pirates and classic superheroes, hang alongside more obscure costumes such as a character from the Hitchcock film The Birds. Costumes from science fiction movies and superhero movies tend to be the most popular.
somewhere else, they can find a legit-looking one here for half the price,” said Joanna Kaplan, a veterinary medicine graduate student and employee of the shop. “These costumes are way better looking than
“Captain America immediately left,” Femling said. Other popular choices include costumes from Star Trek, Star Wars and Indiana Jones, as well as Marie Antoinette and Anthony and Cleopatra. “If students don’t want to work on a costume because it’s too expensive
See CELLAR, page 4
Landscape Architecture students host first PARK(ing) Day
Yesterday, UC Davis students reclaimed parking spaces for human use along E Street, between First and Third Street. The spots were occupied from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event, PARK(ing) Day, was held with approval from the Davis Police Department. Organizers from the landscape architecture program said the purpose of the event was to emphasize the need for more people-space in the urban environment. Eighteen projects from the upper-division studio class Social
Factors in Landscape Architecture were on display in downtown. Those from the UC Davis Arboretum donated plants to the students. The projects featured reusable products such as used boxes, newspapers, bottles, old bike wheels and other items. Tara Hanlon, a program representative for the landscape architecture program, said the event normally happens worldwide in midSeptember, but this is before the school year
begins for the quarter system. “This is our first time doing PARK(ing) Day in Davis,” Hanlon said. “There’s always been interest in getting landscape architecture programs involved in this event.” Senior landscape architecture major Weijing Marx constructed a web of yarn connected together by poles, with newspaper hearts hung up to them. She also hung letters that said “one heart, one whole.” “I put different colored poles and let people choose where they wanted to place the hearts,” Marx said. “It’s interesting to see where they want to put them. It represents the differences among us; how we all dress differently, look differently, but the ‘one heart, one whole’ sign shows how we’re all connected.” Kathleen O’Leary, a senior landscape architecture student, said she created a croquet set-up, with benches, because she wanted people to have a place to sit and something to do. “We got to choose what part of the street we put on project on,” O’Leary said. “I included a lot of fake lawn because the owner’s of Pinkadot [the store which her project was in front of] complained about the lack of greenery on E Street.” — Text by Angela Swartz — Photo by Aaron Juarez
Oct. 10, after continuous deliberation, an agreem e n t was announced between University of California Librarians and the UC system. The American Federation of Teachers Union announced the new program, which proponents said honors the work of the University of California librarians, while keeping in mind the strained economic state of the university system. Of the 350 UC librarians that the agreement covers, 33 UC Davis librarians are affected. Discussion, which began in June, was limited to 2011-12 salaries covered by the four-year contract, which is set to end September of 2012. An agreement was reached on Sept. 28. The agreement reached entails eligibility for librarians to participate in the annual merit program for 2011-12, as academic employees. Axel Borg, president of the local University Council — American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT) 2023 of UC Davis, and current wine and food science bibliographer at Shields library, has been working as a UC librarian for 27 years. “We want to have a contract in place and one of the things that made it important for us was that the university decided in going into bargaining to not fund the merit salary actions that were earned by librarians until bargaining was done. It was unclear to us whether they would make it retroactive or not,” Borg said. The librarian series, constituted of assistant, associate and full librarians, holds employees that are and are not represented by the union. Those who are not represented received their
merit pay during the negotiation period. The university elected to withhold pay for those represented within the union. “As it was they did make it retroactive and we felt that while the university was legal in doing, that it was damaging to librarian m o r a l e,” Borg said. Irisa Tam / Aggie The agreement constitutes participation in a one-time meritbased salary increase program for 2011-12, which will cover performance evaluation as well. Librarians are able to increase salaries by improving skills and undergoing merit review periodically to move up a step system. The interval for review ranges from one to three years, depending on librarian rank. Expectations for review will grow as the intervals increase, Borg said. Those who show little to satisfactory progress have the possibility of becoming retained or dismissed. The UC-AFT represents non-senate faculty and librarians of the University of California, and negotiates statewide collective bargaining contracts and establishes the rights of employment as a UC librarian. Head of negotiations and president of UC-AFT Santa Cruz Local 2199, Mike Rotkin, explained the University Administration has decided that they are no longer going to range salary adjustments or Cost of Living Increases (COLAs), but would rather base increases on merit. “They have cooked up the fiction of ‘merit-based’ salary programs … [and] will end up excluding a handful of librarians who will re-
See LIBRARY, page 2
Alumnus nominated for Occupy Wall Street, Davis and campus Sports Illustrated contest Steve Wampler recognized for climbing El Capitan now, Sports Illustrated. On Friday, Wampler was named one of three finalists in the Sports Illustrated It took Steve Wampler 20,000 pull-ups and Gillette Sweat for Greatness conto reach the top of El Capitan. test, which recognizes the ath Over the course of six days in letic accomplishments of ordiAugust 2010, Wampler used a nary Americans. self-designed pulley system to The winner will be deterhoist himself up the 3,000-foot mined based on a combination Yosemite rock formation, beof judges’ evaluations and the coming the first person with results of an online vote. The cerebral palsy to complete the grand prize? A trip to New York daunting climb. City for the Sports Illustrated “[By the end] I was so exSportsman of the Year awards hausted and dehydrated and event and $25,000. I lost 10 pounds and I was Steve Wampler “The outcome we weren’t exhappy it was over, but I really alumnus pecting [from the climb] was didn’t take it in until a couple the overwhelming support from days later,” said Wampler, who kids and parents and around graduated from UC Davis in 1992 with a the world saying, ‘Now I can look at mydegree in environmental engineering. self and my kids differently, and you Though it took a few days for Wampler showed us that anything is possible,’” to process his achievement, news of Wampler said. the climb quickly caught the attention Wampler’s decision to climb El of the likes of “Ellen DeGeneres”, “ABC World News with Diane Sawyer” and See WAMPLER, page 3
By ERIN MIGDOL Aggie Features Editor
Today’s weather Partly cloudy High 77 Low 47
This past Friday, the nationwide Occupy Wall Street movement came to the UC Davis campus. Students chalked the Memorial Union court-
Forecast Davis will be looking pretty dry for the next week or so. With that in mind, keep your rain jacket in the closet but bundle up and expect clear, chilly mornings. Kenneth Doss, atmospheric science major Aggie Forecasting Team
Tuesday
Wednesday
Sunny
Sunny
High 75 Low 49
High 72 Low 43
yard with messages about Occupy Davis. The UC Davis Police were called, and the students and police officers had a quiet conversa-
tion about the chalking issue. — Text and photo by Hannah Strumwasser
CONGRATULATIONS! You survived the end of the world. Michelle Huey