The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Category: News

  • Humboldt queer community faces increased threat, following national trends

    Humboldt queer community faces increased threat, following national trends

    by Ollie Hancock and Camille Delany

    On Oct. 28, the Humboldt County Human Rights Commission (HCHRC) issued a press release condemning “incidents of hate speech and threats of violence against the LGBTQ community.” This came in response to the disruption of a drag event in Eureka on Oct. 23 and a violently threatening anti-trans sticker placed on a public bench and photographed Oct. 27. 

    Humboldt is facing an increase in queerphobic hate events. The bubble of progressive attitudes on campus gives a false sense of security to students. Rhetoric condemning queer culture and threatening queer youth is here in Humboldt too. 

    In recent weeks, local nonprofit Queer Humboldt has seen a spike in reports of hate incidents against LGBTQ community members. The group is a resource center for Queer individuals and groups in Humboldt County. Lark Doolan, a transguy and the executive director of Queer Humboldt, described various acts of queerphobia that have been reported to Queer Humboldt.

    “Hate events happen in our county at a far more frequent rate than many of our allies realize,” Doolan said. “There were a couple of weeks in November where we learned of hateful events almost every day.”

    A nonbinary Cal Poly Humboldt staff member was verbally harassed about their gender and told they didn’t belong. Queer-affirming churches were vandalized, a local trans support group was ‘zoom bombed.’ Most notably, on Oct. 23 protesters disrupted Redwood Pride Halloween, an all-ages event featuring a drag show among other festivities. 

    So far in 2022 the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) reported 124 incidents of anti-LGBTQ protests and threats targeting specific drag events. Their analysis draws from news coverage of threats, protests and violent action against drag events nationwide.

    GLAAD’s analysis shows increasing violence as the year progresses. In October a Tulsa donut shop was firebombed after holding a drag-themed event, and on Nov. 19 a shooter killed five and injured nineteen others in a mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, CO. Across the nation, LGBTQ safety is threatened by proposed legislation and violence that has intensified following Pride celebrations and during campaigning for the midterm elections. Despite being home to a vibrant queer community, Humboldt County is no exception. 

    Bellamy Devine, a trans student at Cal Poly Humboldt, said that they feel safe in certain areas and circumstances, but threatened by transphobia in others.

    “Especially when it comes to events we put on ourselves, like drag shows or themed events, people seem to have a big problem when we come together to have a little fun for once, god forbid,” Devine said. 

    “It’s spiking. It’s part of a national [movement of] villainization of trans youth and scapegoating strategies,” Doolan said. “It’s a strategy that hurts people.”

    Art Wardynski is a volunteer and Resource Director at the Eric Rofes Multicultural Queer Resource Center (ERC) on campus.

    “Lots of other queer organizations are having trouble publicizing their events, because if they publicize it, then bigoted communities will show up and protest it,” Wardynski said.

    The rhetoric claiming that LGBTQ people are dangerous to children is nothing new, Doolan said. Labelling the queer community as perverse recalls the 1970s, when Anita Bryant was campaigning to ban openly LGBTQ teachers.

    “Her argument that queer people are inherent dangers to children is the same false narrative that we are seeing today,” Doolan said. 

    Despite being home to an active and vocal queer community, Humboldt County lacks any sort of official reporting mechanism to tabulate hate crimes and speech against LGBTQ community members.

    Wardynski expressed frustration with finding infrastructural and administrative support and organizing events for queer students on campus. 

    “From a volunteer and a resource director perspective, I definitely have a lot of problems with our current campus in relation to supporting trans and queer students in general,” Wardynski said. 

    Queer people live in every stretch of Humboldt. They find love and community in this rural haven. From dive bars to bike shops and bakeries, they occupy space in Humboldt.

    “The community off-campus is largely amazing,” Doolan said. “There are so many queer people in our community, people who are really proactive about creating a welcoming space. In recent years, we have seen a shift and progress. So this backlash comes from a small, very vocal, very hateful minority with confusing messaging designed to stoke people’s fear.” 

    This vocal minority is threatening access to acceptance and culture. With intimidation, they limit queer youth from self discovery and community. 

    “We know that when youth learn about queer people it’s helpful because it prepares them to live in a world where diversity exists,” Doolan said. “And for queer youth specifically, it helps them see a future for themselves and survive their childhood.”

  • Cal Poly Humboldt lab safety under scrutiny

    by Ollie Hancock

    From admin to student, everyone on campus has responsibility for the dangers of working with hazardous waste and materials. Spills, breaks, and general accidents are expected in any lab. No one can prevent a beaker from breaking, but the university should give students and employees the tools, equipment, and training to react appropriately. Instead, departments create patchwork standards without direction from the administration. A messy lab can indicate a campus-wide issue. 

    “I know that beakers break pretty often, and spills are common too. It’s eventful in there. I don’t think they filed reports for those or anything,” said Clara Lanesskog, a Cal Poly Humboldt student in a chemistry class. “We just clean it up and go on with the day.” 

    Beyond safety oversight and training in case of accidents, students need quality lab safety education. Lanesskog has seen classroom accidents escalate due to lack of risk management. Students see lab accidents frequently and don’t know how to report them.

    “Our instructor disappears a lot,” Lanesskog said. “So if we were to spill acid or something, we don’t know where to find him unless he came back.” This was the case when Lanesskog spilled acid on her leg during a lab.

    “You’re on a time limit, so you feel rushed. There’s not enough space for you to work. Everyone is bumping into each other, trying to rush, and that is how I ended up spilling,” Lanesskog said. She didn’t submit a report.

    “My professor wasn’t there, and he’s not usually there towards the end of our lab,” Lanesskog said. “Honestly, it didn’t seem like too big of a deal to me because other people have done it too.”

    On the University of California Santa Barbara EH&SS website there are public reports of every school chemistry accident and date, including near misses where no one was injured. Their transparency shows awareness and rigor regarding preventative measures. They treat each incident seriously, regardless of scale. At Humboldt, incidents have gone unreported. Only recently has the EH&SS reevaluated how professors are trained to react to incidents. According to our standard operating procedures, any incident should be reported in 24 hours. On Humboldt’s EH&SS website, there is no obvious link to the incident report form.

    Terrilyn Stoflet worked as a hazardous materials technician at Humboldt during the pandemic. In the course of their job, they often felt unsafe.

    “I don’t think we have a very good safety culture on campus,” Stoflet said. “It just never gets talked about until something bad happens.”

    They felt the campus didn’t have enough staff or administrative support to be accountable for environmental health and safety.

     In 2019, Humboldt underwent a Health and Safety audit as part of a CSU-wide investigation. The completed audit cited 21 violations, reflecting a lack of rigor in campus safety regulations. This campus is not alone. A state audit of the CSU system found that Sonoma State and Sacramento State also cited limited resources as explanation for their violations. The story was similar across CSU campuses; the state concluded that the CSU chancellor’s office was responsible. 

    “For over two decades, the University Audit has repeatedly recommended that the CSU Chancellor’s Office increase its oversight of employee and student health and safety training and inspections of laboratory equipment and workplace hazards,” read the audit report by state auditor Elaine Howle. 

    Training programs failed to check if all employees and students who handled hazardous materials and waste were certified. There was no record of which employees worked with hazardous materials, and in the stockroom, waste wasn’t consistently labeled. No self-assessments for safety were conducted in labs, and lab techs didn’t dispose of waste in a timely manner. The list of issues goes on. No serious incidents have occurred as a result, but the audit reveals a looming threat to the campus and community. 

    Sabrina Zink is the Environmental Health & Safety Services (EH&SS) coordinator and the only admin charged with attending to these issues. Zink says she was relieved when the audit brought attention to the problems.  After the audit in 2019, EH&SS planned to meet the regulations set by the CSU. Three years later, progress is unclear.

    “Before we just had a paper reporting system,” Zink said. “We worked out a new incident reporting process so we can keep track of if it was a training issue or operator error, or an issue with oversight. And reiterated to faculty that [incidents] do need to be reported.”

     Funding made available by the polytechnic transition along with an increase in the administration’s willingness to address these issues made way for some progress in Fall 2022. More administrative staff and on-the-ground technicians have since been hired by EH&SS. However, many solutions are still waiting to be rolled out. 

    “Now we have another coordinator in the EH&SS to help with implementing all the audit findings,” Zink said. “And we’re looking for another person for occupational safety to address incident follow up.” 

    After the 2019 audit of campus health and safety, the EH&SS office made a plan to introduce new training and support to address the violations found. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic shifted the EH&SS office’s priorities to managing the spread of the virus on campus. The small team was tasked with writing the trainings, mandates, and regulations that defined campus life for two years. Corrections to every-day safety policy based on the audit were left behind in the shuffle. EH&SS struggled, lacking the bandwidth and support to solve these issues on top of managing COVID-19 concerns.

    “A few years back, before this audit, I had been screaming from the mountain tops,” Zink said. “Please, someone take this seriously.”  

    Due to the fragmented nature of campus departments, there was no consistency in the content or frequency of safety training. The audit found no record of who is certified to handle hazardous materials and waste. Zink wrote trainings that were never assigned. New trainings will roll out in the spring 2023 semester, Zink says. 

     Aside from organizational problems, the campus has inadequate facilities that made some employees feel unsafe.

    “This shed, which is at facility management’s place, it’s unsafe,” Stofelt said. “What my partners and I have had to do in that shed is so stupid, and it’s dangerous. There’s a bunch of rat excrement everywhere.” Beside the rats, the shed itself has structural hazards. A set of detachable stairs leads to racks on the second level, where lab techs carry 15-gallon drums of chemicals and hazardous waste up and down.

    Hazardous waste jugs from various departments are processed in the shed, which is also full of personal protective equipment (PPE) and supplies for HAZMAT technicians. According to Zink, the shed is already outdated for campus needs. 

    “We need something more fit for our needs, especially as we grow and potentially would be generating more hazardous waste,” Zink said. “We’re going to need more space and something that doesn’t leak during the winter.” 

    There are plans to build a new shed, but no location has been chosen.

    Safety standards and regulations vary from department to department. This inconsistent system lets minor infractions slip through the cracks. Facilities often don’t relay the message to techs when bins need disposal. In the darkroom, bins of used chemicals sat full for weeks, nearly overflowing. 

    As the campus grows with polytechnic status and an emphasis on STEM classes, these issues will only grow. The EH&SS has made some progress toward addressing the issues brought up in the audit, but there is still much work to be done.

  • Faculty union challenges TimelyMD

    by Tucker Caraway

    In the print version of this article, Dr. Loren Cannon was referred to as a psychotherapist. He should have been identified as the Cal Poly Humboldt CFA President.

    An Unfair Labor Charge has been filed against the Cal Poly Humboldt Board of Trustees on November 8th due to violations found in their contracting with Timely MD. The Public Employee Relations Board found the University in violation of government codes regarding the failure to notify Unions in contracting decisions. 

    The charge was originally filed back in October 2021 by the California Faculty Association after being made aware a contract was signed with Timely MD without their knowledge.

    “They signed this contract before meeting with CFA, the union that represents counselors, and that’s a big no-no. That’s the basis of our unfair labor practice charge,” said Loren Cannon, president of the Humboldt chapter of the California Faculty Association.

    Timely MD, also known as TimelyCare, is a Texas based counseling provider that works in conjunction with CAPS.  They provide 24/7 counseling support as well as individual counseling sessions during breaks and outside business hours. 

    “I’ve heard when you try to get an in person appointment, they refer you to TimelyCare,” said Chelsea Rios-Gomez, intern for Students for Quality Education. 

    TimelyCare has been available to Cal Poly Humboldt students since March 2022 after switching from the platform ProtoCall due to complaints of long wait times. 

    “If you’re in a mental health crisis, you don’t want to wait online. So they were looking to have something to improve that. But in doing so, they contracted with a company that isn’t just doing emergency counseling, they’re doing regular counseling, which is a union job,” Cannon said. 

    Outsourcing union jobs to out of state entities not only puts faculty at a disadvantage, but also poses a new risk to students engaging with TimelyCare. 

    “You will be finding good counselors. Not all of the counselors there are going to be bad.

    But there are some counselors, some faith based counselors, more specifically Christian counselors, who are perpetrating harm to our students,” said Rios-Gomez.

    Timely MD, while not a Christian organization,  offers faith based counseling services to Christian universities and has a working partnership with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. 

    “We’re outsourcing union jobs, and we’re also outsourcing responsibility for our students’ wellbeing,” Cannon said.

    Texas is a state with a reputation for anti LGBTQ+ policies and practices. Five years ago, Gavin Newsom Passed Assembly Bill 1887, which prohibits state-funded travel to Texas and 23 other states with discriminatory LGBTQ+ policies and practices. 

    “We can’t even fly to Texas for an academic conference because we’d be putting money in the Texas economy,” said Cannon. 

    Thanks to legal loopholes in state jurisdiction, students logging into TimelyCare who, for example, would want to file a Title IX lawsuit, would have to do so in Tarrant County, Texas.

    “The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities actively argues that religious colleges should be able to receive federal funding, and to be able to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students, basically saying they are not protected under title 9,” said Cannon. 

    Students for Quality Education, who work in coordination with the California Faculty Union, has been made aware of an array of discriminatory encounters on on the platform. 

    “It’s a lot of invalidating of trans identities and queerness in terms of pushing Christinaity in that way,” said Rios-Gomez.

    When it comes to addressing the needs of the Cal Poly Humboldt community, Cannon said it’s important for unions to be involved in contracting these services, so CAPS can find vetted counselors that actually understand the needs of the community they’re involved in. 

    “What is the most important thing is to value the people doing the important work on our campus,” Cannon said. 

    As of November 8th, the Board of Trustees has 20 days to respond to the complaint charges by proving they didn’t violate labor laws and union members rights. 

    “The fact that it went forward from that initial step is that the people at the PERB must think that our charge has merit, and I’m not a lawyer, but it’s pretty cut and dry without talking to us and without negotiating it,” Cannon said.

  • Passionate environmental educator Brooke Schryver dies at 25

    Passionate environmental educator Brooke Schryver dies at 25

    by August Linton

    Brooke Schryver, a beloved environmental educator, photographer, and Cal Poly Humboldt student, died on Sunday, May 29, 2022 while hiking the Lost Coast trail. She was 25 years old.

    Schryver was a bright spot in the lives of the people who knew her. She loved guiding people to share in her love of nature, and planned to work in environmental education and interpretation once she finished her degrees in Anthropology and Environmental Science & Management at CPH. 

    “She was enthused about the natural world to where her excitement was contagious,” said fellow backcountry wilderness ranger Johnathon Macias. 

    Schryver’s long-time best friend and boyfriend Andew Weisner remembers how all-encompassing her love for nature was.

    “Except for invasive plant species,” he said. “She didn’t like those very much.” 

    Macias said that Schryver’s excitement about the world and her job as a nature educator helped him get out of his shell. One of Schryver’s greatest and most well-known talents was sharing her joy with other people. 

    Yosemite National Park is where she hoped to work, interpreting and protecting the natural world and reveling in its beauty. 

    Schryver channeled her connection with the natural world into art through her photography. She loved taking pictures since she was small, shooting with a family member’s old camera. Weisner remembers that she “always had a camera in her hands.” She was known to constantly borrow anyone’s phone with a better camera than hers to take pictures. Her photos can be found on her Instagram, @b_photohappy.

    Poetry was another passion for Schryver, it helped her to process her emotions. She wrote small accompanying poems for some of her published photography.

    Schryver’s personality was strong and infectiously joyous. Many who knew her mention her long-held magpie-like habit of collecting shiny objects, and admire her willingness to voice her many strong opinions. 

    “She did everything she did without judgment,” said Weisner. 

    Schryver was an involved and vibrant member of every community she chose to be a part of. During her time at West Valley Community College, she founded their Park Management Club. She also was heavily involved in volunteer work at Humboldt and elsewhere: she went to Y.E.S. events, worked at creek cleanups, and regularly gave her time to friends in need. 

    CPH Student Emily Chao commented on Schryver’s online obituary: “Brooke was my eyes. She gave me my independence.”

    Heidi McFarland, one of Schryver’s professors at West Valley College, also commented: “After our family lost our home to the CZU fire…[she] helped us work on our property to clear trees, and sift through the rubble – of course looking for shiny things.”

    Many remember her willingness to help, always with gentleness and a smile. She was an environmental steward, an outdoor leader, and a mentor.

    Schryver’s legacy is one of powerful, pure love for nature education, and for nature itself. She wanted to make our world a better place, and dedicated both her heart and her time to that cause.

  • Festivities marked one year anniversary of entheogen decriminalization

    Festivities marked one year anniversary of entheogen decriminalization

    by Camille Delany

    Thursday, Oct. 6 marked one year since the passage of a resolution that decriminalized entheogens, or plant-based psychedelics, in the City of Arcata. Celebrations took place in Redwood Park at an event organized by Lissie Rydz of the Do Nothing Society and Danielle Daniel of Microdosing Humboldt. The sky had been overcast all morning, but as the event was underway the sun began to shine through the clouds, illuminating the colorful hammocks and blankets clustered in one corner of Redwood Park.


    Danielle Daniel, a local microdosing coach who led advocacy for decrminizalitation at the City Council meeting one year ago, reflected on a year of decriminalization in Arcata.
    “I’m just excited, and feel so blessed, and just like really relieved that everything’s fine,” Daniel said. “That was the big fear of decriminalization. Like, ‘What’s going to happen?’ ‘People will just be tripping in the streets!’ It’s like, no, it opens up access for people to heal.”
    The decriminalization process took a concerted effort from the community, the support of the Arcata City Council, and hard work on the part of organizers


    “Coming into it last year, it was really stressful. It took a lot of energy. It really drained me,” Daniel said. “It was freaking hard! And when it was decriminalized, I was so happy, but I was so drained at that time.”


    “Since then it’s just been really magical just feeling safe to be able to provide my services in educating the community about microdosing and the healing potential,” Daniel said.
    Daniel handed out free microdoses of psilocybin mushrooms (decriminalization permits the gifting, but not selling, of entheogens) in baggies that included a card with her contact information to adults over 21 with proof of ID.


    “There’s been quite a few people coming up to me that have never done [psilocybin] before and they feel safe enough to do it here,” Daniel said. “It’s very cool, witnessing that fear dissipating more and more.”


    Students mingled with members of the larger community as art supplies, snacks, and books were shared across vibrant blankets. Roslyn Gilbert, a Cal Poly Humboldt student, often attends Do Nothing events and values their atmosphere of friendly relaxation and inclusion.


    “Being a trans woman, I feel like there’s a lack of spaces in this world that are friendly to trans women without being explicitly queer,” Gilbert said. “This is a very safe place to be trans. It doesn’t feel like I have to carve out a safe area.”


    Hosting the event with Daniel was Lissie Rydz, who started the Do Nothing Society over the summer. With the Do Nothing Society, she aims to create public spaces for social relaxation in the face of growing productivity culture. The Do Nothing Society isn’t always entheogen-specific, but held Thursday’s “Microdose and Do Nothing” celebration in honor of one year of decriminalization.


    “I credit most of my growth as a person to psychedelics,” Rydz said. “So I think that it’s beautiful that [since decriminalization] there’s not all this fear and anger.”


    Rydz advocates for building community, enjoying public spaces, and making time to play. Do Nothing events are public and, when not held at Redwood Park, can often be found at houses of community members, local events, or a nice river spot.


    “It’s proof of concept by doing it,” Rydz said of decriminalization. “It’s not scary, it’s sweet!”

  • Police chief candidate views cause concern among students

    Police chief candidate views cause concern among students

    by Carlos Pedraza

    The Chief of Police Search Committee held an open forum on Wednesday, Oct. 19 for students to ask questions of Thomas Calucci, one of the police chief candidates. A Cal Poly Humboldt email stated the meeting was being held in the Library Fishbowl but was changed at the last minute to the Great Hall above the Marketplace. In total, only two students were present to ask questions.

    Calucci is a former police captain from the University of Texas at San Antonio and was a member of the Behavioral Intervention Team, an organization that provides mental health checks. While at UTSA, Calucci collaborated with school counseling faculty to provide crisis training to university police.

    Calucci wants to bring a similar program to Cal Poly Humboldt.  

    “I want social workers to ride with our police officers,” Calucci said. 

    He went on to explain how he wanted police to integrate with the community and was against the us vs. them mentality of the thin blue line.

    “I need our cops to understand at this university, we are not here to kick ass and take names, we are here to protect you all,” Calucci said.

    Still, Calucci made it clear his main goal was to protect the university from those whom he saw as outsiders. 

    “I’m fairly certain that somewhere, someone in this community has a grievance against this university,” Calucci said. “Whether it be a faculty member or other student, I’m fairly certain that person is planning revenge… I wanna be here to protect you from them, not from yourself.”  

    When Calucci was asked who “them” was, he answered, “there are people who intend to do you harm, those are the people who I don’t like.” 

    Calucci appears to understand that policing has caused problems, specifically citing police-related generational trauma. Though he is aware of it, Calucci does not consider it his role to solve this problem. 

    “I did not sign up for the things you are asking me to do,” Calucci said.

    Humboldt student Elizabeth Rubio explained how the police system has a history of racism, prejudice, and violence, and asked how Calucci would handle prejudice in his staff and himself. 

    “First thing you said is we live in a racist society and that sucks you feel that way.” Calucci said. He acknowledged that racism was present in society. “ If I could wave a magic wand and make it go away I would because of that crap,” Calucci said in response to Rubio.  

    Rubio proceed to asked if Calucci was aware of the murder of Josiah Lawson and the case surrounding the alledged murder. Calucci said he saw a sign supporting Justice for Josiah, but he did not know any specifics of the case.

    Rubio also asked about the police response to student homelessness. Calucci said police would not harass students sleeping in cars and wanted them to feel safe. He stated his main goal was to get students off the streets and find temporary housing for them. 

    Jue Smith, the other student at the forum, felt that both police chief candidates were unprepared. 

    “Neither candidate did their homework about this area or legislation that’s been passed,” Smith said.

  • Prop 27 explained

    by Tucker Caraway and Camille Delany

    Proposition 27, on the ballot this November, would legalize online and mobile sports betting outside tribal lands. Despite record spending on the campaigns for and against the proposition, widespread advertisements do not make this clear. 

    Yes on 27, funded by online gaming companies, claims that the proposition is primarily a “solution” to “California’s homelessness and mental health crises.” No on 27, funded by tribal organizations, counters those claims and asserts that the proposition puts more Californians at risk for gambling addiction and infringes on tribal sovereignty. 

    The Yes on 27 campaign ads vary widely in their messaging. “Vote yes on online sports betting, and protect tribal sovereignty, and help Californians that need help the most,” one video promoting Prop 27 states, a wide-ranging claim. 

    Cal Poly Humboldt political science professor Dr. Stephanie Burkhalter describes the Prop 27 ads as “very sophisticated.” She said that she has overheard students expressing confusion about their messaging. According to Burkhalter, “Their inclination is to support tribal sovereignty,” but the mixed messages from the advertisements don’t make it clear whether supporting or opposing the proposition is the best way to do so. 

    The situation is made more confusing for voters by the fact that there are two different initiatives on the ballot this November to legalize sports betting in California. Prop 26 would legalize sports betting only at tribal casinos and California’s four horse racetracks, and is less contentious than 27. Many tribes oppose or remain neutral on Prop 26, while Prop 27 is firmly opposed by the majority of tribes. 

    Burkhalter explained that if Prop 27 passes, not just any online gambling would be legal in California. For a company to offer online betting under Prop 27, it must pay $100 million for a license, and must partner with a tribe that holds a tribal-state gambling compact. 

    “Because [online gambling licenses] can only be offered through federally recognized tribes, the sponsors [of Prop 27] had to partner with certain tribes,” Burkhalter said. “So those tribes, while supportive, are a small minority of all the tribes in California.” 

    CPH Native American Studies (NAS) and Critical Race, Gender, & Sexualiy Studies (CRGS) professor Dr. Rain Marshall explained that each tribe has a different, confidential contract with the state of California for revenue profit sharing. If Prop 26 were to pass, it would require tribes to renegotiate these contracts, a long and arduous process that many mistrust. 

    “Negotiating a new contract is timely and costly,” Marshall said. “The tribes are probably like, ‘You know what, we’re good how we are, it took us forever to negotiate this contract with the state.’” 

    Additionally, the $100 million necessary to secure a license guarantees that the online gaming companies that will benefit from Prop 27’s passage are already large and well-funded, with many headquartered out-of-state. Prop 26 doesn’t involve the corporations that support Prop 27, which is a reason why it’s preferred by some, including certain tribes. 

    “By far Prop 26 would support native sovereignty because it doesn’t involve these corporate conglomerates,” Marshall said. But it has still failed to gain resounding support from tribes, with many still remaining neutral or saying “No” on 26.

  • Yurok Tribal Council hosts Summit on Missing and Murdered Indigenous People

    Yurok Tribal Council hosts Summit on Missing and Murdered Indigenous People

    by Andres Felix and Ollie Hancock

    On Oct. 4, The Yurok Tribal Council hosted the first inaugural Northern California Tribal Summit on Missing and Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP). Tribal leaders from across the state, as well as government and State representatives, gathered in Goudi’ni (known as Arcata, California) to discuss the pressing issue of violence against indigenous communities, with a focus on Californian Tribes. 

    “The crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous people has touched every tribal citizen in California and throughout the United States. This has gone on long enough. The time for action is now,” said Yurok Chairman Joseph L. James. “The purpose of this summit is to develop a series of mutually agreeable actions that tribal, federal, and state stakeholders can take in the short- and long-term to protect Indigenous Californians.”

    The National Crime Information Center reports 5,712 cases of missing Native women and girls since 2016. This contrasts with the U.S Department of Justice’s missing person database of just 116 cases reported. Complications in jurisdiction between state, local, federal, and tribal law enforcement make it difficult to pursue justice in these cases. According to the FBI, Native Peoples totaled 1,496 out of the total 9,575 active end-of-year missing person cases across the United States in 2020. The movement has recently moved from referring to the movement as ‘Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women’ to ‘Missing and Murdered Indigenous People.’ 

    The summit panels were open to comments from members of the audience. Ronnie Hostler attended the summit to seek justice for his missing granddaughter Khadijah Britton. Britton of the Round Valley Indian Tribes went missing in 2018. Hostler expressed he was upset with the lack of urgency from Mendocino County about his missing granddaughter. Hostler recounted how Mendocino county Sgt. Matthew Kendall told him there was nothing more he could do to solve his granddaughter’s case. 

    “I asked Matt Kendall if he was looking for any resources, and he said ‘no,’” Hostler said. “I said what about the FBI, and he said ‘they can’t do any more than what we’ve already done.’ He started telling me, ‘why don’t you go to the [Bureau of Indian Affairs]?’ Then he said a few harsh words about the Bureau of Indian Affairs.”

    Chief Greg O’Rourke of the Yurok police department describes how public law 280 impedes tribal law enforcement. 

    “[Public Law 280] takes jurisdiction away from tribal law enforcement and hands it over to the state,” O’Rourke said. “It means reservations rely on state law enforcement to provide a quality response, a timely response to the reservations when somebody is reporting a crime or a call for service.” 

    Dr. Blythe George spoke in the Primer on MMIP & Systems Change panel. The panelists broke the systemic obstacles to addressing MMIP. The panel explained how violence and assault against native women and men began with colonization, genocide, slavery, racism, and the sexual objectification of Indigenous people. 

    “With this issue, you have to realize that some days are going to be so hard, and you don’t want to come to work because it’s gonna be the day you get a call and you know the person.” George then told a story of a mentor who went missing. That experience pushed her into this field. 

    “We have to realize how heavy the work is, even on the good days when we sit here together and we can see tangible next steps,” George said. “So please take care of yourselves after today. Hug each other hard and realize that tears are a necessary part of this work, but it’s time to do something.”

  • Humboldt Alumni speak out against Homecoming in Hawaiʻi

    Humboldt Alumni speak out against Homecoming in Hawaiʻi

    by Oden Taylor and Ollie Hancock

    Humboldt’s alumni organization, Forever Humboldt, planned homecoming this fall in Lahaina, Hawaiʻi, on the island of Maui. In an email, the alumni organization shared their plans for a “fun spin” on homecoming where they would “spread the Lumberjack spirit” in Hawaii.

    Colleen Chalmers, Sabrina Gailler, and over 255 other alumni felt this plan did not reflect their values and what they had learned at the university. Chalmers and Gailler drafted an open letter in dissent, hoping the university would reconsider their plans.

    Chalmers is a Native woman who graduated from Humboldt with a degree in Journalism and Native American Studies in 2013 and now works in communications, racial equity, and homelessness policy. She felt that Forever Humboldt’s plans contradicted what she studied. She also felt the homecoming event doesn’t align with the school’s own vision, core values and beliefs, and purpose statements. 

    “The University consistently says that traditional ecological knowledge is central to solving environmental crises,” Chalmers said. “Then, [they] don’t listen to traditional ecological knowledge when it comes to choosing the   location of their next homecoming event or choosing how to engage in recruitment for new students.”

    The school cites Traditional Ecological Knowledge—TEK as a core tenant of learning across curriculums. Traditional Ecological Knowledge, decolonization, and sustainability are all terms used across the school’s stated principles. Kānaka Maoli—people indigenous to Hawaiʻi have been outspoken about the negative impacts of tourism on their place and people. Many alumni who signed the letter left comments of disapproval and disappointment.

    “The reality is that centuries of colonialism and racism have taken a toll on Kānaka Maoli, the land, and the water,” Chalmers said. “America has illegally occupied Hawai’i for 129 years. An institution like Humboldt that cares about equity and anti-racist work should care about it in all their decisions. I don’t see that in this decision to go to Hawaii during this time.”

    Their open letter has gained signatures from current and former students across nearly 70 different majors, representing graduates from 1973 through 2022. The letter was also endorsed by two nonprofits, Hawaiʻi People’s Fund and Seventh Generation Fund. Kānaka Maoli alumni Brissa Christopherson signed the letter and left a comment for admin and event planners. 

    “As a Kanaka Maoli and lifetime resident of Maui, I would highly encourage changing location for this event,” Christopherson wrote. “Our Maui community has been facing over-tourism, detrimental to natural areas and depleting limited water, in addition to the covid epidemic. Please stop perpetuating colonialist behavior with the fetishizing of our island culture.”

    The university issued a statement that they heard the concerns raised in the open letter. The university cited recruitment efforts and alumni in Hawaiʻi as reasons for the location of the event. The university intends to follow through with its plans to host homecoming in Hawaiʻi.

     “[The Univeristy] will distribute information about respectful and low-impact tourism to those who will be participating,” School representative Grant Scott-Goforth said.

  • Students frustrated with Title IX assault case handling

    by Angel Barker

    Cal Poly Humboldt’s students, organizations, and community are unhappy with the Title IX office as well as President Tom Jackson after recent speeches and handling of cases.

    Title IX is the law adopted in 1972 that stipulates, “no person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” (From Cal Poly Humboldt’s Title IX & Discrimination, Harassment, & Retaliation Prevention website). Title IX is also intended to protect students against sexual misconduct including harassment and assault.

    Female student Jane Doe (whose name has been changed for privacy reasons) reported an assault to Humboldt’s Title IX office in June. It is now September, and from her perspective, not much has been done. At one point in the summer, her case was lost.

    “This whole summer I went through without having responses,” Doe said. “I get there are multiple things they have to deal with, but how do you tell a victim…that you flat out lost her case [and message thread],” referencing an email she received from David Hickcox apologizing for the delayed response.  Hickcox is the Coordinator of the Cal Poly Humboldt Title IX office.

    Doe says due to rumors surrounding the university’s handling of Title IX reports, she did not want to file a report.

    “I didn’t want to go in the first place because I had heard of people putting multiple complaints in and nothing being done,” Doe said. “So I went in with [the mindset of] ‘we’ll see where it goes’.”

    The Title IX office told her they could do two things for her. First, she could get the support she might need, like withdrawing from classes, and having them monitor her academic progress. The other option was to go through a formal reporting process that leads to a thorough investigation of everything that happened. This choice could have led to getting her assailant expelled from campus, through the Student Conduct office. Doe chose the support option.

    “They didn’t make me comfortable to come clean about everything so I took the safer route,” Doe said. “I chose that one because I don’t want him to know what I have against him. That kind of defeats the purpose of having a Title IX.” Doe was told that if she took the investigation route, her assailant would be made aware of her accusation.

    Doe was assaulted in a campus housing dorm room, and now she doesn’t feel safe on campus. “I get a sinking feeling in my stomach. I see him everywhere,” Doe said.

    Students also feel like the Title IX office is not timely enough and that the process takes too long.

    “I think it just takes way too long for students to get the help they need,” said Iman Jackson, a senior who was sexually assaulted at an off-campus party. 

    “It is just a long process,” Jackson said. “Maybe if they warned people that it is a long process it might be better, but if you can’t do it in a timely manner, at least have a plan.”

    Jackson does not think that the process is meaningful enough. “I feel like they kind of fall short in regards to helping men who have been sexually assualted or harrassed,” he said. “I feel like if they want to change the rhetoric of being supportive and inclusive to all, I think they probably change how their procedure goes.”

    Students have taken to social media to express grievances against the Title IX reporting process. Student commenter Lexi Holloman commented on a Humboldt Poly Confessions Instagram post that her report was lost and that she had to file more than once.

    “I contacted Title IX and they said they have been handling the reports of [assailant’s name] in the ways that they can, and so I made another report because they didn’t even have my original report,” Holloman commented.

    When asked to respond to student accusations of lost cases and lack of response, Hickcox said that he was unaware of any lost cases but “encourages them to contact [his] office.”

    In response to feedback on social media, Hickcox said, “I’m aware of the [Humboldt Confessions page] and there is this perception that we do nothing.”

    “I looked at Humboldt Confessions today and I can tell you what I saw on there today is not an accurate representation of what Title IX is doing,” Hickcox said. “It makes Title IX’s job a lot harder when people don’t believe in the process.”

    Recently, President Jackson implied in a speech that it would be better to keep Title IX reports out of the media.

    “I hate being in the news, because we have so many positive things happening on our campus,” Jackson said. He also stated that the Title IX process is designed to resolve cases “behind the doors in a meaningful amicable way.”

    This speech damaged Doe’s opinion on the president and campus’ Title IX handling.

    “I was offended. Although I had no say in the media aspect of my assaulter, it made me shy away from going to the office and tainted my self esteem walking into my appointment,” Doe said. 

    Hickcox views the President’s remarks differently.

    “I understand that people are upset because they are inferring that he is saying to not report to Title IX,” Hickcox said. “I think the President is expressing frustration that when sensitive confidential Title IX details get into the media that it lowers the credibility of the process.”

    Students and student organizations like Students for Quality Education are calling on the university to take responsibility and make a better Title IX process. The following is a comment from Students for Quality Education.

    “We as Students for Quality Education denounce the words and actions done by President Jackson. He has furthered harm toward victims and survivors on campus and is an active perpetuator of rape culture. As the leader of a public university you’d expect his comments to be more in line with 2022 rather than the 1950s and you cannot expect systems and institutions of oppression to be fixed by whispers and behind closed doors. It took little to no courage for a man in power to say such things about victims and survivors as if we are still in the past. Secrets do not fix harm. President Jackson has failed to protect students, staff and faculty. Cal Poly Humboldt and the CSU as a whole needs to reform Title IX and continue to support and build on programs focused on supporting and bringing justice for victims and survivors rather than protecting a public image and defending institutions of harm.”

  • Recent break in at the campus apartments leads to questions of safety of the Cal Poly Humboldt dorms

    Recent break in at the campus apartments leads to questions of safety of the Cal Poly Humboldt dorms

    by Alina Ferguson

    During the summer of 2022, a unit of the campus apartment complex was broken into. The police were able to find and arrest the burglar. Executive Director of Auxiliary Operations Stephen St. Onge explained that the units were unoccupied during the break in and no students were harmed. 

    “Unfortunately when the Campus Apartments are not occupied, they become a target,” St. Onge said. 

    The Campus Apartments were not originally part of the campus. According to St. Onge, the building was bought to build infrastructure. 

    “The purchase of Campus Apartments, it was going to be for temporary housing,” St. Onge said. “Then the building was gonna be taken down and then an academic building was going to be put there.”

     Due to its origins, the building is outward facing, easily accessible from the footbridge that leads to Arcata. There is no gate and the doors to the bedrooms are what people see first.  These apartments do not use a key card to get in. Instead, they use a physical key issued to each student. 

     St. Onge mentioned that there is a rather robust camera system set up in the complex, lined with over 400 cameras.

    “We spent over 1.2 million dollars on a very robust security system, every entrance to every residence building has a camera on it,” St. Onge said. “If you go to Campus Apartments, I think it’s about 400 cameras.” 

     The surveillance system on campus can track someone’s whereabouts through the whole campus. 

    “If I could pull up a camera, you could see how detailed those things are,” St. Onge said. “You’re wearing a gray sweater vest right? So we could type into the search parameters, female, brown hair, gray sweater vest and they will- boop boop boop, and you put in a time parameter, and we could walk you across campus.” 

    Other campus housings has camera systems, and College Creek has a gate system. Access to the College Creek dormitory door requires first going through a locked gate. Then, there is an additional key to get into the actual apartment. The system of electric keys makes it safer to live at the apartments. If you lose or misplace your key, you can get it deactivated, which means even if someone picks it up, it cannot be used to gain access into your apartment, unlike the physical keys used for the campus apartments. 

    Since there are plans to demolish the Campus Apartments and replace them between the years of 2028 and 2029, there are no plans to install new safety features in the worn out building. All of the safety measures for Campus Apartments are reactionary safety measures, while other dorms have preemptive safety measures. 

    Jared Van Der Loo, a student at Cal Poly Humboldt, lives at Campus Apartments with three other male students. He said the apartment gets hot and stuffy, and often they will have to leave the screen and the door open, even at night. He said he thinks adding additional measures that other campus dorms have could improve the safety of the Campus Apartments. 

    “I feel somewhat safe in the campus apartments,” Van Der Loo said. “With there being four guys I think we can look out for one another. I also think safety from mold could be improved.” 

    Another student, Ralph Valle, who lives on the third floor of the Campus Apartments, said he personally does feel safe, but as he knows there have been incidents at the school, he is very weary.

    “In my mind I have been prepared for any weirdness,” Valle said. “Almost like a PTSD thing where I am ready to jump if someone tries to get in while I’m inside.” 

  • The Depot raises prices to match the current economy

    by Alina Ferguson

    As many students have noticed, the Depot, Cal Poly Humboldt’s eatery, has undergone quite a few changes, one of the most notable being the price hikes.

    This semester, the prices seem to have become steeper than normal. For example, at the time of publishing, a deluxe meat burrito from Hey Juan is $13.50. The “deluxe” aspect is that there is guacamole and sour cream in it, as opposed to the regular burrito. 

    Depot Supervisor Matt Ritcher said that prices always go up to reflect the current market. He said most of the time, the prices are only raised about 40 cents in the Depot. However, some vendors such as Obento and Hey Juan have their own discretion on how high they can raise their prices. Currently, Hey Juan has raised their prices for burritos by $2. 

    “We try to do a 40% mark up of what we get to make a profit on,” Ritcher said. 

    The vendors are contracted out through the Compass brand. A lot of the places know they are the only ones that the school can get their products from, and will raise the prices. To maintain a relationship with these companies and brands, the school will continue to buy from them, but then they must raise the price for students as well so they do not incur a loss. 

    Not all products are subject to price raise. For some, the school sells the product at the price they purchased it at. They take into account that there are students who do not want to break the bank.

    “If we can keep people happy and coming through the door, and possibly make a little bit of money,” said Ritcher in regards to not always selling at an inflated price, sometimes to the chagrin of the Compass brand. 

    Phoebe Hughes, a senior at Cal Poly Humboldt, says she now brings lunch from home due to the price raises at the Depot. She says that she once spent $10 on a burger. 

    “Yo, that’s bullshit,” Hughes said.

    Another student, junior Katie Hennsey, said they no longer can afford the Depot, despite working three part time jobs. Sometimes they bring lunch from home, or wait to eat until they are done with the day. Sometimes, Hennsey does not leave campus until 8 pm. 

    Hennsey wishes the dining options at the Depot would introduce deals. 

    “And it doesn’t even need to be that great of a deal, it could just be 10% off on Thursdays or something,” Hennsey said.

  • Question For Facilities Management

    by Carlos Pedraza

    On Wednesday, Sept. 14th the Cal Poly Humboldt Facilities Management and Smith Group in Nelson Hall presented their physical campus plan for expanding the campus to the community. The plan is in the discovery phase. 

    The forum was led by Associate Vice President of Facilities management Mike Fisher. A full work plan was shown beginning with the forum and ending in July 2024 when the final plan will be presented. 

    During the forum, students and community members asked questions of plans. A major concern from the community was housing. Throughout, there were questions and shouts about housing. When Fisher addressed the question and made the point that the University wants to work with the town of Arcata, a man in the crowd shouted, “It’s been a problem for 40 years,” referring to the housing crisis in Humboldt county. 

    Ed Fitzgerald, a retiree who has lived in Humboldt since 1973, said, “Adding more housing on the existing infrastructure is not a good idea, we need more infrastructure.” 

    In regard to housing, Fisher said, “You find a lot of the housing inventory has been absorbed by single family homes by non-students and that’s driving difficulties.”

    Fisher went on to state that to solve the housing problem will require a community effort with the university.  

    Candance Kelsey, a Humboldt alumni and local business owner, inquired how the plan would keep money local and in the community. Fisher responded, explaining there is public bidding and other opportunities for smaller businesses to work with the university. 

    “When there are suitable candidates that can [fulfill the bid], then they’re in the running,” Fisher said.

    Staff from the Student Disability Resource Center also brought up accessibility issues on campus and maintenance of current housing. Another question asked by a student was the plan for gender neutral and inclusive bathrooms. 

    The student speaker said, “I have to go five minutes away to use the bathroom for my classes.” 

    Audience member Arlene Wynn also asked for shower facilities for gender neutral students. 

    Rosa Sheng, a presenter from Smith Group, responded, “In our work as architects, the next phase of design is the inclusive all gender design.” 

    She explained how the planning wants to add gender inclusive bathrooms and lactation rooms in the new buildings and current ones. 

    Throughout the meeting students entered and left as classes started, repeatedly asking for the hour-and-a-half long forum to be at a more appropriate time for students and those who work 9 to 5 jobs. Fisher acknowledged the comments.

    The physical campus plan website is the point of contact for students, community members, and organizations to express their concerns or views to the University.

  • The Library Makerspace gives students a place to thrive

    The Library Makerspace gives students a place to thrive

    by Ione Dellos

    The Makerspace has come a long way, starting out as a humble pop-up. It now has a dedicated room in the library, and offers expanded services so students can amplify their creativity. It’s an important space for students to create and design, where they are able to explore fabrication. The space itself also offers many wonderful hands-on activities, such as the collage station, where students can make multi-media collages from all sorts of different materials, the vinyl cutting station, or the augmented reality sandbox, where students can stick their hands in the sand.

    Cyril Oberlander may be the University Library Dean on paper, but in person, he is a very vocal supporter of Makerspace. Much like a pot of pasta you turned up too high and then left on the stove, he is bubbling over with enthusiasm for the Makerspace, and he gleefully talks about all the programs that the Makerspace offers for students. 

    “We really want to create a space for what people are interested in!” Oberlander said. “We’re going to roll out the vinyl cutter this semester, so you can do paper crafts or do vinyl for stickers or ironing. We have a guitar you can check out, and we have some other audio equipment that you can take home.”

    You can see the sparkle in his eyes as he talks, and he looks proudly around the Makerspace as he shows the crown jewels of the room. There is a beautifully shiny yellow electric guitar, a sewing machine surrounded by associated fabric squares, an audio workstation complete with a studio microphone and headphones, and two brand new 3-D printers that members of the Makerspace assembled themselves. While set-up of the printers was “pretty easy,” and only took an hour, the real beast was getting them to work as intended.

    “They were pretty difficult to calibrate and to get working,” Oberlander said. 

    There were some initial anxieties about a lack of funding for the program, but in true Makerspace spirit, they built out and shaped funding around actual use. Oberlander does not feel daunted by their request for funding being denied, and expects that the Makerspace will get more funding in the future. 

    “We have gotten funding in the past, and so we expect that we will get funding again,” Oberlander said.

    Jonathan Pena Centes, head audio expert at the Makerspace, personally appreciates the equipment they have available to check out. Growing up, he didn’t have access to a lot of the resources now found in the Makerspace, and that’s why this function is so important to him. 

    “A lot of students don’t know about this resource,” Pena Centes said. “It’s a great resource for students who don’t have access to the original materials.”

    The Makerspace’s hours are 1-7 pm, Tuesday through Friday, although hours are subject to change with their student staff working their schedules out around fall classes. It is located on the second floor of the school library, right by the exit of the stairs that lead up from the Library Café.

  • An ode to “The Laundry”

    An ode to “The Laundry”

    by Jack Hallinan

    Anyone who has paid a visit to the ceramics lab here at Cal Poly Humboldt knows that it’s not your typical classroom. The run-down warehouse looks more like an abandoned industrial space invaded by artsy 20-somethings, which, after a look at the history of the building, isn’t far from reality. However rough around the edges the lab may be, it is well loved by ceramics students and staff alike, which is why the recently proposed demolition of the building and its replacement with new housing and parking structures is a controversial topic. 

    While the new construction will provide much-needed parking and housing for Cal Poly Humboldt’s growing student body, the demolition of the art spaces is a cause for some sadness and reflection for the university’s ceramics veterans. Keith Schneider, who retired from his twenty year career as a ceramics professor at Humboldt last spring, reflected on the history of the building as well as his own personal connection to the space. 

    “Over the past 50 years, tens of thousands of students have developed their work and

    honed their skills here, made lifelong friends, and some even met their future spouses

    here in the lab,” said Schneider. 

    The lab’s long history begins with the Arcata Laundry, a commercial laundromat once located in the current ceramics lab location. Reese Bullen, who developed the ceramics program at Humboldt, was successful in purchasing the space under the condition that as a temporary lab, no major structural improvements were to be made to the building. In 1969, the ceramics department staff and students moved all of the laundry equipment out of the space themselves, and replaced it with the ceramics equipment that had previously been stuffed into an undersized room in Jenkins Hall. The ceramics lab continued to be endearingly referred to as “The Laundry,” and in the first few months of its existence as a classroom, former Arcata Laundry customers would wander into the studio with bags of dirty clothes wondering if they could still get them washed. 

    The proposed demolition of this unconventional yet beloved space is one of many small changes occurring throughout campus. The ROSE house and Bret Harte house are also set to be demolished, a decision that has received pushback from students and staff who feel that the charming, if outdated, buildings enrich the character and history of Humboldt’s campus. 

    “Someone said, the best art is made in spaces that look the least like classrooms,” Schneider said. “If you get a chance to walk through the lab, you will get a sense of what our students love about it. It’s not a classroom, it’s a funky old run-down industrial space, with remnants of the past everywhere you look.” 

    Since transitioning to a polytechnic university, Humboldt has received state financial support for the construction of several multi-million dollar projects. At least ten new buildings are listed on the school’s “Infrastructure Projects” web page, mostly including science labs and housing. Included in the prospective are plans to construct a new Campus Apartments building and parking structure where the current residence and ceramics and sculpture labs are now located. 

    According to the web page, the building complex will consist of “600-700 beds in total that will be built in relation to a new 650-stall parking structure.” While Cal Poly Humboldt students are undoubtedly in need of both housing and parking, a vital part of campus culture and art will be replaced by the facilities. Brandy Ayon, who is currently enrolled in their second class in the ceramics lab, expressed this sentiment. 

    “I will miss it. It’s bittersweet,” said Ayon. “The old-timey-ness and roughness of the building is very Humboldt. I’ll miss it, but I’m excited for the new opportunities a new space will bring.” 

    Ayon hopes that the new space will be like a blank canvas for students. It is unclear where the new studio will be located, or when it will be ready to use. The demolition of the ceramics and sculpture studios is proposed to be completed by 2026 and is expected to cost $2.5 million.  

    “A new building may come with all the latest technology, but the character and quality that students have come to love about the Laundry would be very difficult to recreate. A huge part of history will be lost when/if this building goes,” said Schneider.

  • Parking problems perpetuated by parking pass sales

    Parking problems perpetuated by parking pass sales

    by Nina Hufman and Cash Rion

    Every day, Cal Poly Humboldt students drive through full parking lots past rows and rows of parked cars as they desperately and often fruitlessly search for the rare and elusive open parking spot. This is the result of the university selling an excess of both general and residential parking passes in tandem with an increase in students due to the school’s new polytechnic status. There are more active passes than there are permitted parking spaces on campus, with active passes including both semester and year-long parking passes.

    “I’ve heard from a lot of students that don’t live on campus that it can be hard to find parking unless you get here really early,” said Evan Vieira, a wildlife and conservation major. “I’ve known students who have gotten here only as late as 9 or 10 am and have not found parking.”  

    A public records request revealed that, this semester, Cal Poly Humboldt oversold parking passes for both general and residential parking. As shown in the graphs, overselling parking is a growing trend across semesters, with 119 more general passes sold than there were parking spots, and 431 excess residential passes.

    “It sucks total ass,” said art education major Mikayla Nicholas. “I don’t personally drive but I have friends who do and it takes them at least 20-40 minutes [to find parking.] They sell way too many parking passes than they have spaces.” 

    The number of general parking passes sold has increased from last year. The number of active general parking passes increased by 79% from fall 2021 to spring 2022. The number of active general parking passes for fall 2022 has more than doubled since fall 2021, but the number of general parking spaces has remained the same. 

    Total active residential parking passes

    Meanwhile, sales of residential parking permits have stayed relatively consistent, being oversold each semester. In fall 2021 and fall 2022, 431 more passes were sold than there were spots for, and in spring 2021 the number rose to 579 oversold. Anyone with a residential permit that cannot find a space in resident-specific lots overflows into general parking lots. This further contributes to the lack of general parking.

    “I think it’s alright most of the time if you live on campus,” Vieira said. “I live in campus apartments so my car doesn’t move that often, so I’m typically in a parking spot.”

    While those who live on campus can generally find parking, students who drive to campus are becoming increasingly upset at the lack of available parking.

    “Horrible, absolutely horrible,” said Harrison McDonald, a wildlife management and conservation major. “Since I have an 8 am, I get pretty lucky, but when I don’t, it takes me anywhere from 10 to sometimes even 40 minutes if I can even find parking.”

    Many students are frustrated that they pay for general parking passes, only to have to pay for metered parking or to be unable to park on campus.

    “Humboldt for the year, you pay over 300 dollars for [a parking pass] and you’re not guaranteed a spot and you still have to pay for parking meters,” McDonald said. 

    Other students are frustrated by the message that they feel overselling parking passes sends. The university profits from parking pass sales, but has nowhere to put the extra vehicles. 

    “I did not know that [parking was oversold],” Vieira said. “I feel like that’s not great because then you’re kind of saying to a lot of students, ‘you can all park here,’ but then not actually having the spaces to give them parking.”

  • El Jardin Santuario faces a series of hateful attacks

    El Jardin Santuario faces a series of hateful attacks

    by Carlos Pedraza

    Editor’s note: In print El Jardin Santuario was only referred to as “Centro del Pueblo’s community garden,” and “Arcata community garden.”  This article and headline have been edited to address the garden by its name.

     A community safety meeting was held on Saturday Aug. 27, where organizers from Centro del Pueblo and Cooperation Humboldt discussed the recent attacks. The first one was hate speech written on the garden stop sign, the second a week later when anti-Semitic flyers were left in the garden. The most recent attack was when someone cut down corn stalks growing in the garden, grown from seeds brought from Mexico by Adan Cervantes, an immigrant and the head gardener.   

    The organizers have spoken to Arcata police, who told them of a person of interest with connection to neo-Nazi groups in the area. According to Centro del Pueblo organizers, the police have also promised to send an extra patrol to check the garden during the night. 

    The police offered a donation of surveillance cameras for the garden but were refused. 

    “We wanted to have control over the surveillance, not the police to have control over the surveillance,” said Jasmine Segura, the Volunteer Coordinator of Centro del Pueblo. “Also, we don’t want surveillance during the day.” 

    Segura believes the police do have good intentions but she describes working with them as a double edged sword, since the garden is considered a safe space and is used by the unhoused. 

    The majority of the meeting was discussing fundraising $5,000 to fund the cost of setting up cameras. Humboldt students and locals came together to pitch ideas: from a silent auction, to food trucks, and legal concerns like food permits. There was a general sense of cooperation with students and locals all volunteering to look into food permits and to speak to artists and businesses asking for donations. 

    Photo by Carlos Pedraza | Cal Poly Humboldt student Hannah Deshais speaks on up coming community events.

    Humboldt resident and member of the Peace and Freedom party Hannah Deshais decided to volunteer after hearing about the attacks.

    ”I feel hopeful this has started something beautiful from something hateful,” Deshais said.

    Deshais stated she would continue to support the garden through volunteering and pushing her party to be more involved.

    After the meeting, a few people, including children, stayed behind to do work in the plots, digging out weeds and attending to the vegetation. 

    “This attack, it’s like a reminder to us that our work here is not done,” said Xochitl Cabra Sanchez, the Community Outreach Coordinator with Centro del Pueblo.

    El Jardin Santuario will be holding a fundraiser on Sep. 24 and a free jiu-jitsu self-defense class on Sep. 11, with people of color being offered the class first.

  • Against campus “cop-liments”

    Against campus “cop-liments”

    by Alana Hackman

    A few weeks ago, I accompanied a friend to the University Police Department after her wallet went missing during the Durand Jones and the Indications concert.

    While in hopeful pursuit of her wallet, I was quickly reminded of the dystopian nightmare we live in when I came face to face with a neatly stacked pile of yellow “PRAISE COUPONS” prominently displayed atop the UPD information desk. “When one of our officers or staff members treats you in an exceptional way, please let us know!”, the coupons exclaim in a migraine-inducing font combination of Papyrus and Comic Sans. There are also blank lines left for comments and the name of the officer or staff you wish to praise. 

    Good to know our Cal Poly windfall went to these babies. Who would’ve thought University police would need “good job” stars to get their jobs done? Although the pile did look pretty untouched the last time I saw it. After this experience, I pondered the reason for these praise coupons’ existence. 

    I wondered why UPD officers are the only ones with access to these praise coupons. Why can’t I give one to the nice lady at the housing desk? Or the groundskeepers who wake up at 5 a.m. to beautify our campus? Why isn’t there a pretty little stack of coupons at every help desk on campus to show some love to our staff? Sure, I could make my own coupons to show my appreciation, but how come the UPD gets the fancy ones on cardstock?

    I then began to wonder what the reason would be for an officer to receive these praise coupons.  Refraining from use of excessive force? Oh, I know, maybe we actually got someone to stay in the position of police chief for longer than a year?

    Then it hit me. It was right in front of my face the whole time. Praise kink. I realized that maybe all of the UPD officers might just have a little bit of a praise kink. Hey, I’m not judging you! This is the only plausible answer to why you have “PRAISE COUPONS” strewn about your department. I mean, you even give people the opportunity to mail the coupons to you if they slap a stamp on them. At least you’ve made it easier for the sender by pre-addressing them to the Chief of Police on the back of each card. It comes off as a little desperate to me, but I’m not here to yuck your yum. 

    I may have judged you too soon, UPD, when you’re just trying to find some pleasure in your work—literally. I wouldn’t say incorporating others into your fantasies is the most humane choice, but you’ve gotten away with far worse human rights violations. 

    For real though, students: show some appreciation for university staff that help you with your daily dilemmas without needing a PRAISE COUPON. Cal Poly Humboldt would crumble without their behind-the-scenes work. Remember kids, validate your local cop’s praise kink, because we don’t kink shame!

  • Cal Poly Humboldt spends nearly $16,000 replacing stolen sign letters over the summer

    Cal Poly Humboldt spends nearly $16,000 replacing stolen sign letters over the summer

    by Ollie Hancock

    Over the summer break, the iconic signs brandishing the school’s name lost their letters again and again. Vandals would rip the acrylic letters from the wall over the course of a few nights before they were replaced. The sign might stay intact for a few days, then the cycle would start again. The signs had only recently been changed to read “Cal Poly Humboldt” with the new polytechnic designation.

    The signs read like a game of hangman: “C_L PO_Y HUMBO_ _ _” one week and  “_AL _OLY _UM_O_ _ _” the next. Replacing the sign letters isn’t an easy process either. It requires one member of maintenance staff to place the letters on the facade while another climbs inside the sign to tighten them. An anonymous source, one of the vandals, explained that pulling them out was much simpler. 

    “It was easy,” the anonymous individual said. “They popped right off.” 

    When asked why they pulled the letters down, the vandal explained that they were dissatisfied with the school. They faced backlash over the anonymous chat app Yik Yak, where users complained that their actions would increase surveillance and police presence in the community. This appears to have been borne out, as cameras were installed on light poles facing some of the signs over the summer. 

    “I think that the school is wrong for bringing in more cops to solve the problem,” the anonymous source said. “Why spend so much time and money fixing it when you could do something to show legitimate support for the community instead? They seem more worried about the signs than their students.” 

    There were a total of 54 acrylic letters stolen or broken over the course of the summer. UPD is actively investigating these incidents as repeated acts of vandalism.

    “Unfortunately, signage is expensive and it’s costing the University thousands–nearly $16,000–to cover the amount of stolen lettering, replacement letters, and labor,” said Cal Poly Humboldt spokesperson Grant Scott-Goforth. “If we need to change all the signs to metal letters, it will cost the University at least an additional $12,000.” 

     “[UPD has] increased patrols, and we will pursue the maximum penalty when the people responsible for the vandalism are caught,” Scott-Goforth said. 

    For the last weeks of summer, the signs sat blank. Facilities Management was able to re-letter most of the signs by the start of the semester, so families and new students could identify the campus. Two signs still remain empty on the intersections of 14th and Union St., and 14th and B St. 

    In addition to the increased patrols and surveillance, the University is considering replacing the current sign letters with harder-to-remove metal lettering.

  • Comfortable at the Comfort Inn

    Comfortable at the Comfort Inn

    by Angel Barker

    Dorm life is an important part of the college experience, but what happens when your university does not have adequate housing for its population? They turn a hotel into a residence hall. The Comfort Inn in Arcata, located in the Valley West area, is now home to almost 100 upperclassmen students.

    The housing shortage is nothing new in Arcata. For students like Gabriela Mendez, a transfer student majoring in psychology, finding off-campus housing was unsuccessful.

    “I was hoping to find last minute housing off campus,” Mendez said, “but there was nothing.” 

    Mendez has a roommate in the hotel, as all rooms are double occupancy. Each is supplied with two beds, desks, and dressers.

    When asked her opinion about what it is like living in a hotel, Mendez said, “People can say ‘you don’t get the full college experience,’ and like, the college experience might be cool because I am a transfer student, but I am just grateful to have housing.”

    Osiel Palomino, a returning sophomore majoring in environmental studies and management, had the same reaction. 

    “If it wasn’t for that room, I would have held off on going back to school for another semester,” Palomino said. 

    Palomino lived on campus his freshman year in 2019-2020 right before the COVID-19 pandemic, and moved home and took a break from school until classes were back in person.

    Sarah Neumann, a business administration exchange student from Germany, is Mendez’s roommate.

    “We made a good situation,” Neumann said. “I like it because I think we have more space and privacy, especially with our own bathroom.”

    “One thing that I really love is each room has their own shower and bathroom. You don’t have to share one bathroom with the whole halfway, you avoid those problems,” Palomino said.

    In addition to each room having their own bathroom, they also have free amenities like linens, a minifridge, a microwave, TV with cable, housekeeping services, continental breakfast everyday, Wi-Fi, and pool and gym access.

    Compared to living in a freshman dorm on campus, Palomino said that living in the hotel still feels relatively the same.

    “You still feel the college experience because everyone living there is students,” Palomino said. “You still feel like you’re on campus even though you’re not.” 

    A large banner welcoming Cal Poly Humboldt students and the friendly front desk staff also help with that feeling.

    Staying connected can be difficult, but the RAs and the Office of Housing and Residence Life are hard at work to help the students feel included in campus life.

    “The RAs have little events, to make it feel like the real dorm college experience,” Mendez said.

    Neumann and Mendez even bought a whiteboard for the outside of their door.

    “People can just write anything, so we can still communicate with others when we don’t always see them,” Mendez said.

    Overall, students are satisfied with the University and the Comfort Inn solution to the housing shortage.

  • ROSE House evicted

    ROSE House evicted

    by Carols Pedraza

    Editor’s note: In this article, Ella Moore was misquoted as saying the ROSE House needed to hire a moving company to move out over the summer. This was incorrect. A.S. requested the ROSE House hire staff to move out, not a moving company.

    The Reusable Office Supply Exchange, currently located between the Campus Apartments and Bret Harte House, accepts donations of unused office supplies and provides resources for students in need of them. The house has been ordered to move with all of its materials to Nelson Hall in an unknown room. 

    This order was sudden, Ella Moore, co-director of the ROSE House, said. 

    “Last semester, right before the summer, they told us we would need to hire staff to move out over the summer. And just two days ago, we were told we needed to be out by September 1st,” Moore said.

    While the Rose House is still accepting donations and is giving access to students, Moore continued to explain how the move will interrupt the program. 

    “This is definitely going to interrupt our programs, take hours away from real work,” Moore said.

    Some of the shelves in the ROSE House are empty now, but many of them are filled with supplies. Rows of manila folders and binders from small to large still hug the walls of the building. Textbooks and unused scantrons are found in the building.

    “The Rose house means a lot to us,” ROSE House co-director Hannah Wholsanchez said. “It’s a nice place to hang out and create opportunities for students to live sustainability.”

    Its door is remaining open to students who still come in periodically. Student Whitney Messer was visiting the House after viewing the prices at the Cal Poly Bookstore. 

    “This totally saved my bacon. I’m on loans, no support from family.” Messer said. 

    Messer gave a tour of the buildings and their supplies, expressing gratitude to the organizer. 

    “Whoever started this, bless them,” Messer said.

  • Humboldt students struggle to find housing

    Humboldt students struggle to find housing

    by Ollie Hancock

     In August of every year, a new batch of students fills the dorms, apartments, and homes in Arcata neighborhoods. Overbearing parents pilot SUVs in a line around the block on check-in day. Students scramble through Craigslist listings in search of a last-minute opportunity. It’s no secret there is a housing shortage in Arcata, but the new polytechnic designation will increase demand. Cal Poly Humboldt expects to double in enrollment in the next six years. There are plans to build infrastructure, but they won’t be available until 2025 at the earliest. During this in-between period, the school will provide “bridge” housing. Steven Onge, a representative of Housing and Residence Life, explained the plan to master-lease nearby hotels to house students in the meantime. 

    “We’ve been working with it for over a year [and] we’ve developed relationships with several hotel owners and property managers,” Onge said. “This property was nice. There’s a pool there, and laundry is included, so we think the location was good, and the amenities are good.”

    This academic year, the Comfort Inn will house almost 98 students with amenities like maid service and free continental breakfast. Residence Life is doing their best to make it a genuine college dorm experience with group dinners. Students can take the bus to campus in about 10 min. 

    “We’ve got some vending machines which will have fresh food in them, and we’ll do weekly community dinners and events to support students,” Onge said. “I’m hoping to get a food truck that we can use.” 

    Students still aren’t convinced. Kirby Marks, a nonbinary student, was made to choose between staying in male or female dorms when the gender-neutral dorms were unavailable in their building.

    “I had to call them, and I was like, ‘I have no choices. There is no housing for me to choose from. I will not be able to live on campus. What’s going to happen?” Marks said. “So I had to change my gender marker to male so that I could actually get into housing.”

    Opportunities for housing off campus are few and far between. Senior Humboldt student Zack Gamble says the high demand for housing allowed landlords to take advantage of students. 

    “It’s too easy to be a bad landlord out here,” Gamble said. “You don’t have the opportunity to turn down a place because you might not get another one for a few months.You have to take what you can get no matter how run-down decrepit it is.” 

    Since moving to Humboldt, Gamble has experienced his fair share of shakey Humboldt housing, from dry rot-ridden houses that shift with every earthquake to out-of-code heaters that require DIY maintenance. Gamble thinks the school should look critically at how the polytechnic designation will impact housing. 

    “You can’t increase your student base every year but have nowhere to put them,” Gamble said.

  • District attorney candidates debate on Cal Poly Humboldt Campus

    by Liam Gwynn

    Humboldt County district attorney candidates Stacey Eads, Micheal Acosta, and Adrian Kamada debated a variety of pressing issues on Monday in Cal Poly Humboldt’s Native American Forum.

    Students from the sociology department moderated the debate, choosing questions submitted by Cal Poly Humboldt students. Each candidate was given a two minute introduction and a two minute closing statement. After the introductions, the moderators would ask candidates a question and they would each get a two minute response followed by a round of one minute rebuttals.

    The Three Candidates

    Stacey Eads is currently the Assistant District Attorney and has 20 years of experience as a criminal prosecutor. She is the lead prosecutor for the Sexual Assault & Child Abuse Crimes prosecution team . She touts her many years of experience, connection to the current District Attorney Maggie Fleming, and love for Humboldt as leading factors in why people should vote for her.

    Micheal Acosta has been a practicing defense attorney for twenty years. Acosta moved to Eureka after being recruited by the California Indian Legal Services as a staff attorney. He’s a controversial figure and is running on the idea that he would implement major changes to face problems like policing for profit, racial inequality, and gender discrepancies in sentencing. Acosta isn’t just controversial because of his ideas, he’s also currently facing a felony drug possession charge in the Humboldt Superior Court.

    Adrian Kamada graduated from Cal Poly Humboldt with a BA in Political science and a minor in Environmental Science and Ethics. Kamada has eight years of experience. He served as Deputy District Attorney from 2014 to 2020, when he transitioned to a position as a public defender. Kamada is running on a promise to lower the crime rate, which he says has risen by 30% in the last five years. He wants to do this by implementing new methods of criminal correction for first-time offenders that focus on keeping people out of the criminal justice system with alternative help like mental and drug abuse treatment.

    Standout Questions

    Could you please explain what racial justice means to you and could you provide concrete examples of instances where you’ve helped promote racial justice in Humboldt county?

    Acosta was called to respond first and was prepared with direct instances citing cases he worked on with the California Indian Legal Services. He cited a case where he was able to reduce a black man’s sentencing that was disproportionate to the sentencing that white people had received for the same crime.

    “Where you really see it in sentencing is where dispositions are made, and people of color get harsher sentences and get treated differently by the probation department,” said Acosta.

    Eads responded to the question by denying that race played a role in prosecutions but providing instances of how she has helped minorities by prosecuting for children who had experienced child abuse but were not believed because their community didn’t think that someone in their race could commit that type of abuse.

    “I think that race, outside of a hate crime type of analysis, really doesn’t have a role in terms of how we prosecute an individual,” said Eads.

    Kamada responded by acknowledging the fact that minorities are incarcerated at a higher percentage and saying that the problem needs to be fixed.

    “Religion, race, ethnicity, those things don’t have anything to do with justice, but we can’t ignore the fact that there has been injustice for a long time towards people of color,” said Kamada.

    If you are elected DA, will you prosecute the Lawson case?

    Eads answered first saying that she wants to prosecute the case but that they need to have enough evidence before taking it to the preliminary hearing again, because if the judge doesn’t think there’s enough evidence then it will be almost impossible to prosecute in the future.

    “We can only bring it before the judge one more time, and if we don’t have enough evidence to do that we will not be able to find Justice for Josiah,” said Eads.

    Kamada gave a similar response saying that he won’t promise anything he can’t guarantee while reassuring everyone that it would be a priority and claiming that he has the support of Charmaine Lawson in his election.

    “I will do everything possible, including coming up with new investigation techniques if necessary, but I can’t make a commitment that I can prosecute that case unless I’ve seen the entire case file,” said Kamada.

    Acosta’s response was bold, saying he would prosecute the murder case and bring charges not just to the murderer but also to accomplices in an attempt to get information from a plea deal.

    “There is significant new evidence this time to bring charges back and whether you do that through the complaint process or the grand jury indictment process is open to question, but absolutely yes, probably against more than one person,” said Acosta.

    Registered Humboldt County voters will be able to vote for the Humboldt County district attorney position during the Statewide Direct Primary Election on June 7.