C A L I F O R N I A INDEX
C alendar & B riefs O p i n i o n S ports
VOLUME 66, ISSUE 53
Freshmen help out, get some direction
Titan
S T A T E
2 4 6
The
Daily
U N I V E R S I T Y ,
F R I D AY
Semester’s almost over, time to start studying
INSIDE
BASEBALL: Jon Smith starts for the first time in months and pitches the Titans to a 16-1 victory against Harvard. —See page 6.
M AY 2 2 , 1 9 9 8
CA is scaring minorities away from higher ed
n DIVERSITY: The end of
affirmative action in California universities promises significant decline in underrepresented minorities.
n SERVICE: A new vol-
unteer program helps students decide what to choose as a major.
By KAREN BRANDON Knight Ridder Newspapers
By JEREMY SCHERER Daily Titan Staff Writer
Mike, an 11-year old boy, did not have anyone that he could count on as a big brother. Thanks to a new program sponsored by the Cal State Fullerton First Year Introduction Team, Mike now has someone to take him to the tide pools or an Angel game. Some 125 students have decided to donate their time in similar ways to Mike’s new big brother. In a brand new pilot program, incoming freshmen have a chance to go out into the local communities and volunteer their time to organizations and people that needed help. The FFYIT thought that this new program would help students decide at the beginning of their college career what they wanted to do with their intended major. Kandy Mink, assistant to the vice president for Student Affairs, said, “This whole project underscores how CSUF students are contributing to the community in a way that assists in the students learning.” Mink also said that the program gives students a chance to examine their choices for their majors. Josey Mangahis, a program participant who wants to be a teacher, said, “I think I gained a lot. I learned about the career path I wanted to go into. You saw the reality of going into classes.” The participants in the program were chosen through a mailer that was attached to their acceptance letters asking whether or not they would be interested in giving up their time to help others out. Mink said about 250 students expressed interest in the program. Enrollment was restricted to 125 students for the program’s first semester, but with interest in the program so high, there
F U L L E R T O N
JEFF CHONG/Daily Titan
Huy Nguyen gets some studying in ahead of time for finals in the Titan Student Union on Thursday afternoon. Finals week starts Tuesday after the Memorial Day Weekend and finishes up Friday night.
LOS ANGELES — In another sign of the effects wrought by the end of California’s affirmative action policies, the number of black, Hispanic and American Indian students planning to enroll this autumn at the state’s most prestigious campuses has plummeted, according to reports released Wednesday. At the same time, more of these under-represented minorities said they would enroll at the least selective campuses, leading some University of California officials to express fear that a segregated university system could develop in the nation’s most diverse state. “The most devastating possible outcome . . . is that the University of California becomes a segregated system in which students of color are clustered in a few campuses, and Asian students and whites cluster in other campuses,” said Theodore Mitchell, vice chancellor for external affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles. Only 131 black students are planning to enroll at UCLA, the smallest number in the freshman class in the 25 years since the university began tracking such statistics. A year ago, UCLA reported 219 black students were planning to enroll. “Resegregation on any grounds is unacceptable to us,” Mitchell said. The number of under-represented minorities who plan to register at the Berkeley and San Diego campuses, along with Los Angeles the most coveted of the University of California’s eight sites, also declined sharply. At Berkeley, the number of underrepresented minorities fell by 52 percent compared to similar figures for spring 1997. The sharpest decline was for the number of black students, down 63 percent. By contrast, the Riverside campus, which has the UC system’s least rigorous admissions requirements, saw the number of minority students rise, with an enrollment increase of 39
percent for blacks and 48 percent for Hispanics. Wednesday’s figures represent the number of students who have submitted a $100 deposit and statements of intent to register. While the statistics do not offer a definitive profile of the incoming class, in previous years some 97 percent of students who submitted the deposit and registration form enrolled in the fall. University of California officials sought to put the best face on the news of the likely makeup of the university system’s 1998 freshman undergraduate class, the first since affirmative action was ended nearly three years ago. Officials expressed relief that the declines were not as large as they might have been. All campuses, they emphasized, showed an increase in the percentage of under-represented minorities (blacks, Hispanics and American Indians) who accepted an offer of admission. In recruitment drives, officials sought to show that the university still wants minority students, despite the change in affirmative action policy. “Our message evidently has been heard,” said Carla Ferri, University of California director of undergraduate admissions, “Yes, we want them and they are coming.” Throughout the system, the numbers of under-represented students in the incoming freshman class declined from 17.5 percent in 1997 to 15.2 percent for 1998. University officials were unable to say when the figure had last fallen to that level. The release of the numbers came at the close of recruiting drives by the system’s most select campuses, which enlisted alumni, administrators, professors and students to try to persuade minority students to attend the school. Tasceaie Barner, a senior at Westchester High School in Los Angeles, is one of UCLA’s 131 incoming black freshmen. “I got three calls a day every day saying, ‘Are you coming to our school? We really want you to come to our school,’ ” she recalled. She is concerned about what the campus will be like with fewer incoming black students, but said that, in the end, it was a decision between a UC
see DIVERSITY/
Students honored for effort Degrees pay off for women to keep buildings from falling competing in the job force see PROGRAM/
n ENGINEERING: Six
students walk away with awards for research into materials that reinforce earthquake-damaged structures. By MELISSA MORRIS Daily Titan Staff Writer
If an earthquake hit today, it could make pebbles out of buildings all over Orange County. Six School of Engineering and Computer Science students from Cal State Fullerton have tested materials that may impact the strength of structural design. Thanks to their work, buildings may someday have the sturdiness to remain standing, even after the hardiest of shakes. The six students won the CSU 1998 Student Research Competition Awards in Chico earlier this month. The May competitions marked the first time CSUF engineering and computer science students competed in the statewide competitions, which recognized
their research into material that reinforces earthquake-damaged structures. The tested material looks like fiberglass, but is stronger than steel. In fact, after applying the material to a ruptured structure, the durability of the building increases beyond its original strength. They returned to campus winners. “It means a lot to us because we haven’t got a lot of university recognition (from the CSU),” Acting Dean of the School of Engineering and Computer Science Richard Rocke said. Undergraduates Cesar Barrera, Lupe Jurado, Nimesh Parikh, Tewodros Mekuria, Vartan Matrosof, and graduate student Ernest Lau, earned the award for excellence in engineering and computer science research. The students were awarded at CSUF’s 1998 Research Competitions in April, before proceeding to competitions in Chico. A $250 cash prize and a certificate of recognition was presented to each winning student in support of their research efforts. The students used the money to help pay for their plane tickets to Chico,
Mosallam said. “It’s not baby work. It’s very tough,” he said of the student work displayed at Chico. Undergraduates labored for nearly a year on their research projects. Lau, who began his graduate research project at the start of this semester, also worked with the earthquake reinforcement materials. “It’s really horrifying to think of an earthquake in Los Angeles—all these buildings are going to fall,” Lau said. Not only was Lau the winner of the CSUF and CSU awards, he also won an award for outstanding graduate research from the Engineering and Computer Science department at an awards banquet held May 16. At the competitions held in Chico on May 2, Lau gave a ten-minute presentation to a three-person panel consisting of professionals from engineering and/or related fields. Lau said,”I think we have started something we’ll see a lot more people doing work on in the coming years.”
n EQUALITY: Studies prove
growing differential between women
that education plays a who have skills and training and those who do not. crucial role in the wages “Education is one of the most powerwomen receive—over other ful determinants of wages in the labor women and men.
By CAROL KLEIMAN Knight-Ridder Newspapers
In real estate, it’s location, location, location. And in today’s labor market, women who try to pull out of a cycle of welfare and low-wage jobs are finding what matters most is education, education, education. While the wage gap between women and men is well-known, there’s also a growing wage gap between highly educated and poorly educated women. Francine D. Blau, a labor economist in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., is one of the experts studying this
Copyright ©1998, Daily Titan
market,” said Blau, who has a doctorate in economics from Harvard University. “The widening wage gap among women is the result of a big increase in demand for skilled workers, the technological revolution and international trade. Today, low skills mean low income.” Her research shows that in 1995, women with fewer than 12 years of education earned 73 percent of what high school graduates made. Those with college degrees earned 75 percent more than women who had high school diplomas. The impact of the wage gap hits women who head families especially hard. “Women without high school diplomas make up 25 percent of single heads of households, compared to only 8 percent of women who are college graduates,” the economist said. Women with college degrees increased their real wages 20 percent
in the 25-year period Blau studied. Those with high school diplomas had an increase of 8 percent. “But high school dropouts saw a decrease of 2 percent,” she said. Blau, one of the first economists to explore how low-wage women are “losing out in the labor market because of a lack of education,” says it’s increasingly difficult for untrained women to get jobs, an extreme hardship for poor working women facing a deadline to get off welfare. “It’s never been easy for women who don’t complete high school to get a job, but today it’s a recipe for disaster,” the economist said. Carol Faber is program director of WINGS (Women Investigating New Goals and Services) at Broward Community College, which has its main campus in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Her organization offers low-income women 40 workshops a year, covering how to get a high school diploma and conduct a job search, as well as train-
see WAGES/