Although talk has circulated across campus via social media within the past week about a second spring break, Humboldt State officials say that it’s not possible without jeopardizing student learning outcomes.

“Back in December, the university announced changes to the spring schedule,” Grant Scott-Goforth, the communications specialist for the university, said. “We know it’s caused some frustration, but HSU continues to have to make changes to the ever-changing environment of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

This year’s spring break took place during the week of Feb. 22-26, only a month into the semester. Scott-Goforth said that the difficult decision was to help adapt to requirements from the California Governor’s Office and the CSU Chancellor’s Office amid the regional “stay at home” order announced in December.

HSU students just entered the second half of the semester and they feel concerned about the productivity of the remainder of the semester.

After feeling burnt out already with only Caesar Chavez Day to look forward to, students are hoping for some sort of help from the school or their professors.

Ali Holen is graduating from HSU in May with a bachelor’s in kinesiology and a minor in pre-physical therapy and dance studies. She feels as though some sort of help to alleviate some pressure off of workload would allow for many students to get their footing and finish off the semester strong.

“The motivation is little to none and the assignments/exams just keep coming,” Holen said.

For Spring Break, Holen traveled to Santa Barbara with her boyfriend. Although they both worked hard to get all their assigned material done beforehand, they ended up spending more time on school during the break than they had previously expected.

The earliness of the break ended up taking a toll on Holen and she is not the only one who feels this way. Both her roommates and coworkers who are students all have similar feelings where they feel like they can’t catch their breath.

Within the past week, students across campus made it known that they are beginning to feel the burden of this long spring semester. In response, some faculty members understand that a second spring break is not possible, but are offering an informal break to allow students to catch up.

During the week of Mar.29 to April 2, Marcy Burstiner, a professor in the journalism department at HSU, is not eliminating any assignments, but rather giving students the option to do them for extra credit. It will ensure that students who can do the work don’t feel cheated out of learning opportunities.

“Those who feel overwhelmed can skip them and then those who are worried about having fallen behind can make up some work and gain extra credit,” Burstiner said.

There are seven weeks until finals week and the end of the Spring 2021 semester for HSU students.

Home Away From Home and Equity Arcata held a free food and supply distribution event for HSU students on March 15. The rainy event was catered by Roman’s Kitchen and included free food and free bags of supplies like gift cards, shampoo, hygiene products, and more. Equity Arcata hosts events like these a few times a year to help give college students the chance to save some cash on some of the expensive items they’re going to need to live on their own.

Equity Arcata, the group that hosted the event, is a collective of volunteers that organizes various work groups in order to put together events that help make Arcata a more racially equitable community. These groups help to address the potential barriers that can make life difficult for people trying to make their home in Arcata. According to Cati Gallardo, chair of the Equity Arcata communications working group, these work groups focus on things like housing, student safety, and more.

“We have several working groups all focusing on various kinds of racial equity in Arcata,” Gallardo said. “Specific to housing, police and student safety, or ongoing learning which offers racial equity training for community members at HSU and also at K-12 schools.”

This specific distribution event was done by Home Away From Home, a group of volunteers that helps to get food and supplies to college students and to help them feel welcome in Arcata while they choose to live here. This year the event was catered by Roman’s Kitchen, who gave out free sandwiches and burgers, but under normal circumstances, the event would be a potluck where students can come in and get some free food and a free goodie bag of all of the things an underfunded student may need.

Due to COVID-19 restrictions this year and last, that couldn’t be done, but regardless, Home Away From Home member Gillen Martin says that this is the third event done under quarantine and hopefully they can do another around finals week.

“This is our third distribution like this, we did one in October, one in December, and this is our third.” Martin said “Hopefully we get another grant to do another one around finals week. We always like to hold one kind of in honor of finals week too because students are kind of dealing with some stuff, so they don’t have to worry about it.”

The distribution events mainly bring in students from HSU in Arcata but also from any of the surrounding colleges, and are open to any students who could use something to eat and some free stuff. A lot of students are led to the event by one of the many other projects that all dedicate time and effort to helping Arcata and Humboldt as a whole be a more welcoming and safe community.

For many majors across campus, in-person engagement has been a pipe dream. Yet for some majors, particularly ones in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics-related fields, the experience of seeing classmates and professors in a physical classroom or lab setting is now a reality. Lasting until the end of the semester, these courses and activities are being offered on a limited basis.

Ayse Macknight is a senior oceanography major and a scientific diving minor. Macknight is a teaching assistant for the scientific diving program and assists where she can. The diving program meets once a week in-person to do exercises in the HSU pool.

“I’m helping mainly with skills,” Macknight said. “I’m helping out with all the other diving classes.”

Macknight is satisfied with the way that the diving program is handling all of this with major coronavirus safety measures being enacted.

“When the students first arrive, they meet outside and they brief and then they go into the pool through one door and they pick up their gear and they put it down, and then they go outdoors,” Macknight said. “It’s kind of like a circle — everyone’s always going one direction so it’s like minimize chances of running into each other. Afterward, we disinfect all gear that anyone’s put their mouth on or anything.”

Senior forestry major Sarah McGee is involved in more hands-on classes. She is doing both individual and group activities.

“For my soil fertility class, we’re doing experiments in the forestry greenhouse and so we’ve been assigned two to three 30 minute time slots a week where we can go into the greenhouse by ourselves and conduct our own experiment that’s soil fertility-related,” McGee said. “For my soil microbiology class, we are doing some algae experiments in the soil lab.”

McGee is excited to be back in person doing things rather than staying at home sitting in front of a screen all day.

“It’s a lot more motivating and it’s a lot easier to stay on task and be accountable when you’re meeting up and doing things in person, I think,” McGee said.

Not all in-person classes and labs are STEM-focused. A few other majors like film are also conducting face-to-face instruction. Kylie Holub is a junior and a film major currently in Film 2 where she is learning about lighting and audio. She reiterated the significance of being in-person for film projects.

“Seeing the equipment and being able to have different students have the ability to check out the equipment and then test it out and things like that and to learn about it,” Holub said. “So it’s definitely, I think, very important to have these face-to-face opportunities, plus film is super collaborative so like getting to know your classmates and just like vibing with people is kind of important.”

In the upcoming week, Humboldt State University is expected to communicate where the remaining $11 million from the second round of CARES funding will be allocated after receiving over 200 submissions from campus input.

HSU’s communications specialist, Grant Scott-Goforth, said that although the university planned to seek input through Feb. 26, the university is still finalizing the allocations and expects to announce them this week.

“The President’s administrative team is currently reviewing the input and working to prioritize allocations,” Scott-Goforth said.

The University obtained the input via individual submissions, as well as from various meetings, such as the University Senate, Associated Students, and the University Resources & Planning Committee.

Individual submissions were sent through a questionnaire on the University Budget website that posed the following question: What are the top three investments the University should make to successfully adapt to the impacts of COVID-19 and enhance the educational experience of our students?

In an open forum held by the URPC on March 5, James Woglom, an associate professor in the art department at HSU, opened the meeting by addressing all the people that are currently working on budget plans for the future of the university.

“We have 19 incredible people really informing our conversation and we’re also looking to expand that conversation,” Woglom said. “We’ve reached out since the fall to the CFA in thinking about trying to get a CFA representative on the URCP so that those perspectives can also be shared.”

The committee’s desire for CFA input comes as the CFA chapter at Humboldt State has put pressure on the administration in response to pandemic-related layoffs that the university deems necessary.

On March 10, the House passed the American Rescue Plan. The plan is a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that also includes nearly $40 billion for higher education. This would provide HSU with additional one-time resources on top of the remainder of unallocated funds from the second round of stimulus funding.

The CFA chapter at HSU has specifically mentioned that additional funding could be headed our way throughout this next academic year.

“The CSU is about to receive $800 million in COVID-19 stimulus money. Spend it on the people providing the coursework, the people most responsible for student success,” the CFA Faculty association commented on the CFA Humboldt Facebook post on March 12.

As HSU communicates the allocation of the remaining $11 million in funds from the second package this week, we are likely to see another round of stimulus funding come our way in the coming weeks.

Cats are no strangers to the Humboldt County streets. They can be found roaming around but not all of them are tamed. Oftentimes, these animals are stray and even pregnant, in some cases. They are usually brought to shelters like the Humboldt Animal Rescue Team in Eureka.

Accepting cats from a variety of different circumstances, this volunteer-based group aims to nurture them until they can be adopted.

It is standard procedure at the shelter to isolate the newer, more frazzled cats upstairs where they can acclimate to their new environment without worrying about interacting with any people. But getting them to actually come out of their shells is where HSU students factor in.

Many of the cats that are brought into the shelter are shy and not sociable enough to be adopted by anyone yet. Rose Kessler is a lead volunteer that oversees the other HSU student volunteers. She is very in-tune with how the cats evolve emotionally over time during their stays at the shelter.

“When they first come in, a lot of these cats are angry,” Kessler said.

Kessler is extremely grateful for the Humboldt State students that come in every week and help care for the cats that could not otherwise volunteer at other shelters around the county.

“Right now, a lot of the rescues, from what I hear, they’re not accepting volunteers right now because of COVID,” Kessler said. “And we are.”

Jesse Morales is a fourth-year communication major. They are very experienced with cats and have been regularly volunteering at the shelter since 2019. Now, it is virtually second-nature to them interacting with the cats to the extent that they do.

“We just kind of come in and show that people aren’t gonna hurt them and get them used to us.”

Volunteers begin the process of getting the new cats comfortable by first sitting in a room with the cat. From there, they gradually try to physically engage the cats more and until the cats warm up to them enough that they can be moved downstairs.

Lexi Cortez is a sophomore and one of the newest volunteers at the Humboldt Animal Rescue Shelter. An avid cat lover, Cortez has always enjoyed working at shelters with cats.

“I’ve always wanted to work at shelters and stuff — just being able to help them,” Cortez said, “I’m glad I get to do it now.”

Kessler has been working with Cortez and from what she has seen, is impressed with the work Cortez has done.

“They don’t know her, so they’re a little bit shy,” Kessler said. “I can tell they like her but they’re watching her.”

One of the cats that found a home, albeit temporary, is Oliver. Morales is currently fostering him but it took a lot of patience to ground him in the confines of the shelter and then eventually in their home.

“He definitely was not the nicest cat here and he did not get along with other cats,” Morales said. “And I just steadily worked at him, continuously, until a couple months when I started fostering him.”

Last month, the Native American Agricultural fund awarded the Blue Lake Rancheria $50,000 dollars for the operation of agriculture programs that will take place at the Daluviwi’ community garden. These workshops will focus on the propagation of native plants, mostly food, and also fund a farm stall that will give those taking the workshop the chance to sell what they produce and learn valuable agricultural business skills. Some of this will be done with the assistance of HSU students working with the Food Sovereignty Lab and the Native American studies department to also gain skills and experience.

Daluviwi’ means food it Wiyot, and the garden provides food for both the casino restaurant and for the elder nutrition program, which is aimed at ensuring that elders who may be stuck at home can eat properly. Aside from the individual plots that the garden will use to continue growing those foods, there is also going to be a farm stall built that the garden will not only use to sell the excess food grown that does not go to the aforementioned restaurant and elder nutrition program, but also to teach skills used in the agricultural industry. Daniel Holsapple, HSU alum and manager of the Daluviwi’ garden project, hopes to also use this stall for any number of other possible goods.

“The farmstand is going to be kind of multi-purpose, on one hand, we’re using it to sell excess produce that doesn’t get used by the elder nutrition program or the casino restaurant, and people who use the garden plots will also have access to the farm stand,” Holsapple said. “I’m hoping to do some other things like growing and selling native ornamentals or cut flowers.”

The community garden workshops were also planned to have a deal with HSU for things like compost and to partner with students from HSU’s Food Sovereignty lab project, which works with local native communities to study Indigenous natural resources and environmental sciences. While COVID slowed things down before anything was finalized, according to Holsapple, this would include things like having Native plants available to the Food Sovereignty Lab from the garden.

According to Cody Henrikson, an HSU student who has been working for the Food Sovereignty lab from early on, this partnership currently is taking the form of internships and assistance with community gardens for the Blue Lake Rancheria and other local communities until the primary workspace is finished with construction and larger scale collaboration can begin.

“We are partnering up with local tribes to support their local gardens and such,” Henrikson said. “And provide internships as kind of our first phase of what we’re looking at”

The steering committee for the food sovereignty lab is made up of people from the local native communities, including Blue Lake Rancherias Jason Ramos, who is himself an HSU alum. While the lab is still in the process of getting up and running, hopes are that they will be able to help out even more with local gardens like the Daluviwi’ community garden and create a space for the continued preservation of Native food ways. According to Carrie Tully, graduate student and fellow member of the steering committee, these connections will be a big part of the operation of the lab moving forward

“There’s going to be lots of partnerships because our steering committee is comprised of a lot of important people and people representing important groups in the local groups,” Tully said. “So the partnerships are a big thing.”

Recently, the Pfizer vaccine has been doled out to different groups and communities around the world. Now, HSU is joining in and offering the vaccine to employees that are cleared to work on-campus and are considered higher risk.

According to Cris Koczera, interim director of Risk Management and Safety Services at HSU, an estimated 637 doses are going to be picked up and distributed to HSU staff and faculty in the coming week.

“What we get is highly dependant on what’s available through the county,” Koczera said. “We find out pretty much the Thursday before how many we’ll have to pick up the following Monday.”

For Koczera, it is pleasing to see the fruits of her and her colleague’s collective labors regarding getting the vaccine center up and running at HSU.

“It was a lot of coordination with the county because we are functioning as a closed pod unlike a lot of the other sites throughout the county,” Koczera said. “So, our pod is really intended just for HSU staff and faculty at this time and then once we are able to open it up to the wider student population, that will be the plan.”

Among those who are eligible are student employees who work in “auxiliaries” like housing and dining services. Montel Floyd is a senior who is majoring in critical, race, and gender studies with a concentration in ethnic studies. He works for Housing as a resident advisor in the dorms and is appreciative of the fact that he and his fellow RA’s are able to receive the vaccine considering their importance to the university.

“We are the ground workers for residents right now,” Floyd said. “We have the contact with them — daily basis, on our rounds — and if issues arise, we have to have contact with them — sometimes like knocking on doors.”

Even so, Floyd is a bit skeptical of getting the vaccine due to what he has heard about what has happened to some people that have gotten it. Still, he believes that the vaccine will do more good than harm.

“I know it’s important to getting it, I have grandparents that I will be going home to soon,” Floyd said. “And also just got into grad school in Georgia and also going to be working for housing there as well, so I think it’s very important to protect myself with the vaccination.”

Rae Robison is a professor in the department of theatre, film, and dance who is going to get the vaccine on March 10. Doing so is especially important to her because her father recently passed away from COVID-19 complications and her mother tested positive for COVID-19.

“I’m an only child,” Robison said. “He was my person. And right now, I literally just got off the phone with my mother. She’s 77 and they don’t have enough vaccines for her in Arizona.”

Her determination to get the vaccine is fueled by reasons other than the fact that her parents contracted COVID.

“My partner works for St. Joes and we are very aware that if you get it, you can get it again,” Robison said. “The longer my mom and my aunts are not immunized, the more stress I have.”

Robison is humbled by the fact that all of the staff at HSU will get vaccinated.

“Almost all of the staff and faculty and support folks and everyone that works at HSU are older, and in that bracket” Robison said. “I will feel better when the majority of us can get vaccinated.”

On March 5, HSU students were able to tune into the final presentation of the 27th annual Social Justice Summit where Sonya Renee Taylor talked about the importance of radical self-love to undo the systems of oppression that constrict us from being our true selves.

Taylor is the author of “The Body is Not An Apology,” but spoke specifically about the second edition of the book that came out on Feb. 9, “The Body Is Not an Apology, Second Edition: The Power of Radical Self-Love.”

The event opened with Q. Medina ensuring the audience that the Social Justice Summit is intended to breed conversation and provide a comforting place for students to share their personal experiences and opinions that relate to the topic of the event.

“Be open to learning then unlearning and share from experience using ‘I’ statements,” Medina said to the audience.

The presentation from Taylor started with a little background on her 10 years of experience as the founder of the digital media and education company, The Body is Not An Apology.

The content shared by the company reaches half a million people each month, as well as her recent book making it on a number of best sellers lists, including the New York Times.

“What I am seeing and what I am so grateful for is that it has touched millions of people’s lives,” Taylor said in response to contextualizing what it means to be apart of best sellers lists.

She said that New York Times status is unimportant, but what is important is that it means that people are starting to ask better questions about what it truly means for us to live in a just, equitable and compassionate world.

Taylor believes it is essential that readers understand the necessary shift away from masculine energy, disentangling the term from gender and biology. This would move us out of a time where the focus has been power over the individual and into a time where we question how our individuality impacts the collective.

She said that we tend to have this notion that how we choose to live does not impact anyone else. But, as COVID threw us into a virtual world last March, we saw firsthand how one chooses to use their digital space impacts those around them just as much as within their physical space.

“We are at a time where how we move inside our own beings has to shift because we need each other,” Taylor said.

She said that this particular season of life emphasized that our liberation is bound up together. How one lives in their own body opens up a greater pathway for how others live in theirs or it can continue to constrict and restrict others’ identities.

Taylor said that this practice of radical self-love does not mean solving one’s self esteem or self confidence. Rather it’s the part of us that longs for the source within us—an inherent, original relationship with ourselves and others.

To invite our inherent origin of radical self-love we must work to undo the systems of oppression that pull us away from who we have always been to begin with. We must undo the systems of hierarchy, terrorism, violence, oppression and degragation that create a ladder in society with an allusion that there is a top.

“If the ladder had a top that you could actually attain, Jeff Bezos would stop making money and Elon Musk would not be trying to send cars to Mars,” Taylor said, receiving a lot of praise in the comments.

She said that this allusion of the top of the ladder is really just white, able bodied, relatively young men. The remainder of the ladder consists of the rest of society establishing their self worth through trying to figure out where they fit.

Taylor closed the presentation by saying that the goal of finding radical-self love within ourselves is for us all to hop off this ladder and abolish it. The ladder being the systems of oppression that we understand and organize our lives inside of our bodies and the social world.

The audience responded enthusiastically, with Tim’m West, who is teaching Hip Hop & The Black Experience at HSU this semester, personally expressing his gratitude to Taylor within the chat.

“I love the ownership of your identities and the embodiment of your truths,” West said.

HSU’s Formerly Incarcerated Students Club hosted a webinar on March 5 to highlight the effects of COVID-19 in prisons and ways in which those effects could be mitigated. The Formerly Incarcerated Students Club also works with Project Rebound, an organization that helps formerly incarcerated students return to life outside prison and advocates for solutions to the United States’ high prison rates.

With incarceration rates being as high as they are in the US, prisons can be a prime breeding ground for COVID-19, and often are left without much in the way of support or resources to help combat it. This lack of support can greatly endanger the lives of many people in prison who are highly vulnerable.

The state and the CDC both have implemented guidelines for ensuring that prisons remain safe, but these guidelines are often not nearly enough to ensure that people are actually secured. COVID rates in state prisons are often significantly higher than the rates seen in the state as a whole. Considering that at least 17% of inmates are over 45 and are at increased risk of severe symptoms, this lack of security can be a death sentence for people whose crimes are relatively minor.

According to Jazmin Delgado, President of the FISC and student support for Project Rebound, the responsibility for this comes primarily down to states failing to properly implement safety measures in state prisons. While prisons may test staff and inmates, only half of US states actually require prison staff to wear a mask, and most do not stock adequate soap and disinfectant for inmates in accordance with CDC guidelines. This comes partially from a lack of resources, but also a lack of effort.

“State facilities are either A) not implementing these guidelines,” Delgado said. “Or B) not implementing them to the fullest of their abilities.”

Ultimately, a large part of the problem is that prisons are simply not built to allow for proper social distancing and safety measures. Prisons in the US have people constantly coming in and out, both staff and inmates. Additionally, people are packed so close together that the only way for them to properly isolate themselves would be solitary confinement, which is itself deeply undesirable and discourages inmates from revealing if they have symptoms or not. This has led to large spikes in the numbers of cases of COVID-19 in state prisons, which can become spikes in the surrounding areas when correctional staff return home later.

According to Project Rebound’s Jeremy Teitz, these guidelines are almost impossible to implement and getting harder with rising prison populations.

“How are these guidelines that are already near impossible to follow going to be followed when jail populations are increasing?” Tietz said. “Jails aren’t made for social distancing, and I’m not sure how the CDC thought jails would implement these guidelines.”

Incarceration in the US is a problem that is getting worse. Project Rebound hopes to assist students who have served prison sentences and to advocate for solutions to this continually rising issue, such as lowering sentencing for nonviolent crimes and allowing for individuals to get their felony records expunged and reenter the workforce. In the words of Project Rebounds Program Coordinator and HSU Graduate Tony Wallin, this is an issue that affects everyone, not just people who are currently imprisoned.

“We’re at this weird time where things have exploded and you don’t see people who aren’t affected,” Wallin said “One in three people have a criminal record. There are the same amount of people who have criminal records as have college degrees.”

The Native American studies department is currently hosting a fundraiser to raise money for the construction of a new lab space. The monthlong fundraiser will include a telethon, a silent auction, a currently ongoing film series, and more. The lab will be part of the BSS building, and contain workspaces for the cultivation and preparation of indigenous natural resources including food, and will provide hands-on experience for students to learn about these resources while engaging with and supporting students and local communities.

The fundraiser hopes to raise $25,000, which will fund the construction of the lab space itself in the fall but the lab is largely tasked with paying for it themselves. To do so along with the fundraising site at justgiving.com/campaign/NASFoodLab, and the film series that’s going to be showing a movie the first Friday of each month till May, they are going to be running a telethon on Mar 19. starting that Friday and running through the weekend. According to Cody Henrikson, one of the students working to get the project off the ground, the telethon will include music, speakers, a silent auction, and more.

“There’s going to be stand up, art demonstrations, all sorts of cool stuff going on,” Henrikson said.

The Food Sovereignty lab and cultural workspace began as a class project in the Native American studies department, hoping to create something that will continue to benefit students in upcoming semesters and create a space for the research of indigenous food and cultural resources. After winning second place at the CSU research competition for graduate behavioral sciences, the project became an idea for a central space for the nine local tribes to help generate knowledge about Indigenous natural resources and how they can be utilized for the betterment of the community. Because the topic is so far-reaching, many different classes around campus will get to all utilize this space.

According to Amanda McDonald, research assistant for the Native American studies department and one of the people involved in the lab’s conception, it was the product of asking native students, staff, and faculty what kind of things would be beneficial

“We asked what do we want to do that will have lasting impacts for the community, be something that future students can use,” McDonald said. “And we thought let’s ask our Native staff and faculty what they think should be on campus. We asked students in ITEPP and Intercept and Native Americans studies majors what can bring more healing and vibrancy to the modern existence of Indigenous people.”

Once the lab is constructed, the hope is that it will be used for projects in conjunction with local tribes, specifically anything that involves the cultivation and use of Indigenous natural resources and the continued sustainability of those natural resources. This includes not just food practices but things like creating regalia that is vital to native cultural practices, and the production and storage of things like basketry. Indigenous food and resource practices are complex and have a very important place for Indigenous cultures, and require delicate ecological management. According to Assistant Professor Kaitlin Reed, these food resources were targeted by settlers along with Indigenous people themselves, making their preservation all the more important for both indigenous cultures and ecological issues at large.

“When settlers invaded California, they attempted to not only kill and remove Native peoples,” Reed said. “They also supplanted ecological management which dramatically reduced food production that Indigenous peoples were dependent upon.”

Students attempting to rent in Humboldt county face a huge number of hurdles. From exorbitant prices to restrictions on pets and activities that you are allowed to do on the premises, many students find themselves struggling to find adequate housing while in school and after they graduate. This can leave them faced with the choice of spending huge amounts on unstable or undesirable housing, or dropping out and returning home, and with the risk of COVID-19 the search hasn’t gotten any easier.

The largest hurdle is money. Many students are living on their own for the first time and might not know what to do, what their rights are, or how to effectively find a place. They may not even qualify for a place, as they might not have any real credit to speak of. When they do, students can be left spending all their money that could otherwise be spent on supplies for school just to continue to be able to attend.

According to HSU student Karlee Jackson, this can get even harder when accounting for pets or service animals, particularly if a person needs more space than a room in a stranger’s house.

“it’s frustrating all around, but usually it comes down to the price of a place and how if you want to get a room in someone’s house it’s really expensive.” Jackson said. “For a little more you can get a place for yourself, but if you have an animal it’s really hard. Or you need really good credit, and for students, you might have none.”

Another can be the difficulty of actually getting to an apartment as a student. Typically renters are expected to actually go to the property before they rent it, which can be a problem for students coming from very far away. The cost in both time and money to come all the way to Humboldt County without any guarantee that they will actually be able to get the place that they hope to rent can be extremely restrictive, And there could possibly be charges even before the prospective renter gets there. HSU however does provide services to assist students in finding a place nearby.

Chant’e Marie Catt, HSU’s off campus housing liaison, helps students get into contact with landlords and work out an equitable deal with them, along with giving students walk through tours of properties over Zoom and providing information about what to do in order to get a property that they may otherwise not be aware of.

“As far as helping students, the biggest thing is sharing knowledge and being there and making sure the info is out there.” Catt said. “That helps students understand so much better what they need when they have one on one meetings for information.”

Many students who do rent find themselves living in rented rooms, possibly with other families and students. While this is currently undesirable for a lot of people due to the pandemic and the difficulties of keeping track of what your fellow renters are doing, it happens and can be preferable to some. Sonya Nichols and her husband Mike until recently rented out rooms in their large Victorian-style home to at least 6 students, mostly international.

“Having them from an international family and learning about their cultures, we totally enjoyed it.” Nichols said “My husband’s mother had the home we had for 27 years, and after she passed away we bought the home and did the same thing as far as housing students”

Zurite, Peru — a tiny town nestled in between ginormous mountains in the heart of Peru. For many in this agriculture-based community, getting water on a regular basis had been a struggle due to constant landslides and other factors out of their control. Bonanza en Los Andes sought to fill that void.

A several-year-long project that wrapped up funding in December of 2020 involving students and professors from the College of Natural Resources and Sciences at HSU. The group was twenty members strong and helped plan, design, and build irrigation canals connecting the mountains to Zurite. The project wrapped up funding in December of 2020. One of these students, geology graduate student Wyeth Wunderlich, helped oversee the technical side of things.

“Our goal is to say ‘Okay — this is an agrarian town that relies heavily on agriculture,” Wunderlich said. “So how do we connect the water resource availability upstream basically up in this watershed with what the water resource demands are in the community?”

Wunderlich explained that around the world, water resources are incapacitated to an extent and there is not a lot of knowledge on how these hydrological systems operate. For him, this is where his wheelhouse comes into play but he did not want to be too aggressive.

“We don’t want to tell anyone what to do, but if we can develop good quantitative estimates of what happens when and where in the landscape water is coming from,” Wunderlich said. “Then hopefully it can help inform management decisions for Zurite and other communities like Zurite.”

Wunderlich would like to take what he learned from Bonanza en Los Andes to future endeavors.

“I hope to bring the same skill set that I’ve used here in the project with Zurite and the Ramuschaka watershed to our local water and groundwater-surface water systems here in Humboldt and the California coast,” Wunderlich said.

Jasper Oshun, a geology professor, was the principal investigator for this project. He emphasized the value of forming bonds across cultural boundaries.

“It’s important to foster these types of relationships between college and younger students in terms of providing the opportunity for students to travel in see the similarities and differences in different parts of the world,” Oshun said.

Staying on the same topic, Oshun appreciated the collision of different disciplines at HSU when it came to this project.

“These types of environmental issues — issues of water, issues of water quality and quantity or land management — they all require a diverse set of viewpoints in terms of the stakeholders involved in the differences of science,” Oshun said. “And people need to come together on the same page and there’s a lot of value in having different perspectives.”

As someone who wrote the grant for this project, Oshun is frustrated that there aren’t more opportunities for his students in the College of Natural Resources and Sciences to travel abroad.

“I think it’s not necessarily on the radar of students in CNRS that there is an opportunity for them to travel abroad,” Oshun said. “And that their skills are valued or their skills could be immediately applied in a way that could benefit a community.”

Nolan Marshall, a senior and geology major, was a major force in Bonanza en los Andes. In addition to drafting geologic maps, taking stream discharge measurements, cataloging soil samples and testing them in his critical zone lab for water content, Marshall also created 2-dimensional cross-sections of peatlands. He is grateful to have had the opportunity to take part in a bridge-building project with the local Peruvians.

“They were not only a joy to be around but local professionals and students contributed so much to the project — it wasn’t possible without them, ” Marshall said in an email interview. “One of my favorite work days was when I logged core with the all Peruvian drill crew. I’ll never forget it. “