April 9, 2012
Vol. 91 Issue 34
ASI Elections: The Results ASI Elections are over and the results are in. Reporter Janelle Arballo speaks to the winning candidates as well as other students to get their reactions.
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CONGRESSMAN ED ROYCE SPEAKS ON CAMPUS
STATE | CFA’s possible strike
Teacher’s union to vote on strike
California Faculty Association reacts to new developments MICHAEL MUNOZ Daily Titan
ANIBAL ORTIZ / Daily Titan Congressman Ed Royce (R-Calif.) speaks to a small crowd in a Steven G. Mihaylo Hall classroom Thursday. The event was hosted by Cal State Fullerton Hillel, a Jewish organization.
Private event excludes some Topics of conversation included Israel-US relationship and other international relations NURAN ALTEIR Daily Titan
At a private event, Congressman Ed Royce came to Cal State Fullerton to talk about the relationship between the United States and Israel, among other topics. Royce attributed the close relationship to Israel’s values, location in the Middle East and current political situation. “Michael Oren, the ambassador from Israel to the United States, was in my office some weeks ago. We were just talking about the map of Israel and the challenges that Israel faces … You’ve got missiles flying from the south, and on the north, of
course, you have Hezbollah and the whole situation with Lebanon. This is the environment that Israel is in, and it is a very, very challenging situation to be in that type of environment,” said Royce (R-Calif.), a CSUF alumnus. During the Q-and-A session, the topic shifted from Israel as attendees asked about Russia, Korea and domestic issues. The talk was hosted by Cal State Fullerton Hillel, an organization that aims to “enrich quality of Jewish student life on campus,” said Daniel Y. Harris, executive director of the Hillel Foundation of Orange County. At least 25 people, including students, faculty and community members, attended the event Thursday evening. The location was kept a secret and attendees were required to RSVP in order to learn the place of the lecture.
“It’s so people invited can maximize the experience,” said Eric Don, president of Cal State Fullerton Hillel and event organizer. He said the event was private because Royce would be speaking about a very “niche” and possibly “controversial” topic which would not interest most people. Attendees said they thought the lecture was a success, but they had hoped more students could have come. Originally, Don intended the event for Associated Students, Inc. executive staff, but was told that in order to do so he had to bring another speaker “because they thought it would be biased” with the one speaker he had lined up. See ED ROYCE, page 2
CAMPUS | Election results
Mason and Ayala win ASI election
CSUF Equestrian club looks to build on year’s success LAUREN DAVIS For the Daily Titan
ANDERS HOWMANN Daily Titan
ANDERS HOWMANN / Daily Titan Alexander Walters, 20, a business and theater double major, sits down to vote at the polling station outside of McCarthy Hall. While Walters didn’t see a lot of students sitting down to vote personally, he did see some candidates campaigning in full force in the Quad.
talking directly to students and organizations on campus. He said that the pair approached at least 50 student groups. Voter turnout was very low: Of the 36,000 students enrolled at CSUF, 1,665 (roughly 5 percent) submitted votes at the polling stations or via
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the campus network. While last year’s turnout was around 7 percent of the student population, Samuel Morales, 21, a political science major and the election commissioner, said this was largely due to the runoff election. “People tend to forget that the 7
percent from last year was from the runoff election,” said Morales. Voter turnout was 5 percent of students in the initial election and another 2 percent voted in the runoff. See ELECTION, page 3
See STRIKE, page 2
Sports | Club sports
Three members qualified for regionals, two for semifinals
Race defined by a landslide win and low voter turnout
The winning presidential and executive vice presidential candidates of the spring ASI elections won with a 68 percent majority, making a runoff election unnecessary. Dwayne Mason Jr. and Katie Ayala will be serving as president and executive vice president of the student organization, respectively. Brenda Lopez and Jessica Hernandez received around 20 percent of the student vote and Jeffrey Benson and Robert Perez received 10 percent. The remaining 2 percent were for other candidates. “It was just really overwhelming and super exciting,” said Dwayne Mason Jr., a senior animation major. “(There were) a lot of emotions and we are really happy to see all of our work pay off.” While Mason and Ayala used social media to get the word out on their campaign, Mason said that the team’s greatest asset was
The California Faculty Association, a labor union that represents 23,000 faculty members, will vote beginning April 16 across all 23 California State Universities on whether or not faculty will go on strike. The strike will be based upon contract negotiations that CSU management have kept at a standstill over Chancellor Charles Reed’s new proposals that will transform the CSU system into a so-called private and for-profit education model system. “We have said all along that we don’t want to strike, but we will,” said CFA President Lillian Taiz. “CSU Chancellor Reed has chosen a path during our contract negotiations that hurts students, faculty and all of California.” The CFA’s current contract expired on June 30, 2010. The terms and conditions of that contract still hold until a new contract is decided upon. Reed’s proposed new contract would see no new salary increase in 2011-2012, would allow the chancellor to demand reductions to faculty salaries and benefits in 20122013 and 2013-2014, and would make the chancellor immune from taking any proposals that have been on the table. Proposals on the table include the increase of student tuition, executive compensation and the expanding operations outside the regular university system,
including the newly proposed Cal State Online. The CFA salary proposals to the chancellor include a 1 percent General Salary Increase (GSI) over the 20112012, 2012-2013 and 2013-2014 school years. They also propose that the CSU increase the GSI to 5 percent the first year the CSU operating budget reaches $4.79 billion. The 5-percent increase was promised in 2008-2009 when the operating budget reached that figure, but the chancellor refused to renegotiate the raises then. The CFA also wants to be treated like other state employees and receive a pay service salary increase each year. “We had a contract, and the last year those steps were not kept; they were not honored. So we have been without increasing salary for years,” said Reyes Fidalgo, CSU senator and professor of modern languages. “Now, when they are negotiating a new one, they are not making much progress ... Expenses go up every day; your salary is stuck and you’re making less money.” Conflicting proposals have resulted in a stalemate between the two parties. If a strike is voted on, it will likely take place in the beginning of the fall term. Brian Ferguson, CFA communications specialist, said the CFA has not decided what kind of role the strike will play. He said the strike will most likely be a two-day rolling strike, which means that every two days one CSU campus will strike, picket and not teach their respective classes.
With a total of eight years under its belt, this season’s Cal State Fullerton Equestrian Club has left its mark by proving the saying, “hard work pays off.” The club finished this season with three members qualifying for regionals and two qualifying for the semifinals, while also landing third in their region — all in all a successful season. Even with the team competing in both Western and English horseback riding styles, the team is still the smallest competing group throughout. According to Katy Olson, the club president, a liberal studies major and history minor, the method for more competitors in either the English or Western classes next year will come from better chemistry with the competition horses. “When we started out this year, a lot of the members were new, so they had to get used to showing in this type of environment where we literally walk up to a bag, draw a name out of it, and that’s the horse that we ride. It’s very difficult at first because they’re used to riding specific
horses,” said Olson. With the determination of the members to place in their specific classes, Olson stated that progress has already begun to show through the members working together as a unit. “As the year has gone through, they have improved dramatically,” Olson said. “We work really well as a team and help each other out when we are out there, which is fantastic. It’s a great environment to be learning in as well as working in.” The club’s activities outside the training centers include philanthrophic events such as collecting canned foods for the volunteer center on campus, along with fundraisers such as selling team T-shirts. The Sports Club Inter-Club Council Fest took place Thursday, with all the sports clubs present to help inform students of the sport activities on campus, while also providing games to play. While the events, such as the SCICC, do provide more members, the club’s small size is no dilemma against larger teams based on the admirable work ethic of the members, according to vice president Emily Chiang, a computer science and animation double major. See HORSES, page 8