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NIVERSITY IMES
Feb. 15, 2016
www.csulauniversitytimes.com
C A L I F O R N I A S T A T E U N I V E R S I T Y, L O S A N G E L E S
Issue 211.07
Students push to improve campus infrastructure
nance that occur on University grounds on a nightly basis. “We have a midnight crew who works from 10 o’clock at night to 8 o’clock in the morning in Salazar Hall and we hope that after Salazar Hall is done we will start on the Fine Arts building.”
| Photo by Gerardo Amezquita
CSUs anticipate potential 5-day CFA strike Taylor Preza
Production Manager As time draws near towards reaching a possible settlement, on Feb. 8th, the California Faculty Association (CFA) had announced that its Board of Directors have set dates for a potential strike in April. Faculty on all 23 California State University campuses have agreed to strike for five days if no agreement is reached with the CSU management. The five-day strike will occur between April 13-15 and April 18-19 unless the required statutory process yields an agreement. According to the CFA, if a strike takes place, all faculty work on behalf of the university will cease. “We’ve said all along that we don’t want to strike, but we will if we have to,” said Dr. Jennifer Eagan, CFA President and Professor of Philosophy and Public Affairs and Administration at Cal State East Bay. Within the past two years, CFA has waged a “Fight for Five,” a 5 percent General Salary Increase for faculty. However, according
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INSIDE: LA ONDA: RELACIONES AMOROSAS: SE DESTRUYEN O
Marcela Valdivia Contributor
Dirty bathrooms, messy chalkboards, broken desks, rusting doors, and filthy microwaves are only a few aspects in building maintenance that Cal State LA students want to see improvements on after a petition was signed by copious students. “The University looks beautiful from the outside, but from the inside it looks like a tornado just hit,” said junior Linda Du.
| Photo by Pablo De La Hoya
Buildings such as King Hall, JFK Library, and Fine Arts have been constructed several years ago and are some of the oldest buildings at Cal State LA that could use improvements in cleanliness and physical appearance. “There are a lot of broken desks sitting outside the hallways, a lot of old computers for teachers to use, ceiling tiles coming off, and everything just brings the campus image down,” said Mariely Pozuelos, Communications major. “As a school that is trying to be progressive and trying to attract
more students of a population of ethnic minorities there should be improvement to make the school look better.” Nevertheless, there is an understaffed number of custodians, a limited budget, and a waiting list of projects to fulfill these improvements. As a result, students are uninformed of the extensive process and the costs to enact certain upgrades on campus. In an interview with the University Times, Vice President Lisa Chavez spoke about the mainte-
The reason for the midnight crew is because the campus is empty. Throughout the day it is harder for custodians to actually work on these physical improvements. In addition, when there are breaks throughout the year they are fairly short and the projects take weeks to complete. Chavez is aware of the poor building maintenance on campus and has recruited fifteen more custodians. There are a total of sixty-six custodians currently on campus for all the buildings and she hopes to see improvement by fall 2016 with the small changes done on flooring and painting. The money for these projects strictly comes from state dollars. The Capital Outlay Program is a five-year capital improvement program that provides California State University (CSU) with money to fulfill one of their projects requested in order to enhance the building quality on campus. Continues on bottom of page 2
Best-selling author of The Soloist speaks at Cal State LA Hannah Jacobsen Staff Reporter
The University-Student Union Los Angeles Room was filled to the brim with people Thursday night, Feb. 11th, as the crowd gathered to hear Dr. Steve Lopez—an award winning L.A. Times journalist, a current professor at Cal State LA, and the author of this year’s ‘One campus, One book’ selection, The Soloist—speak about mental illness, homelessness, and the
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story of Nathaniel Anthony Ayers.
“One day, exactly 11 years ago, I was walking through Downtown Los Angeles, looking for a column, and I heard some music playing, some pretty good sounding music,” Dr. Lopez said. “I turned and I looked, and there was this gentleman playing the violin. As I looked a little closer, I realized that the violin was missing two strings.” As Dr. Lopez took in the missing pieces of the violin and a grocery cart of belongings labeled with a little sign spelling ‘Little Walt Disney Concert
Hall’ in magic marker, the column that he’d been searching for began to form together before his eyes.
“I thought, isn’t that a great little scene,” Dr. Lopez said. “This guy, his concert hall is a slab of pavement between Pershing Square and Downtown Los Angeles, and he’s playing with all his heart.” While his attempts to reach out to Mr. Ayers were at first met with suspicion and fear, Dr. Lopez slowly gained this homeless musician’s trust and friendship over a series of months. As this relationship built,
Mr. Ayers’ startlingly story, both tragic and joyous, unfolded. “One day, he’s scratching names on the sidewalk with a rock. Stephanie, and Andria, and John, and Richard,” Dr. Lopez said. “I asked him ‘who are they?’” These were Mr. Ayer’s old classmates at Juilliard. This man was once a musical prodigy, a success story. The son of a single mother in Cleveland, he discovered his love for music in junior high, and that passionate talent earned him a full ride to Juilliard after a year of
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