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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, F u l l e r t o n
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False alarm empties building
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Gov. against text rentals
School house rock
Schwarzenegger vetos bill that is backed with bipartisan support By NIYAZ PIRANI Daily Titan Staff
By MARTI LONGWORTH Daily Titan Executive Editor
A false alarm in Cal State Fullertonʼs College Park cleared the building of classes while the source of the alarm was investigated Wednesday afternoon. The buildingʼs alarm went off around 12:30 p.m. prompting students and faculty to exit. Quang Le, a senior radio-TV-film major, was using a fog machine to create special effects for his portrait assignment in a basement photo lab. Le expressed regret for the disturbance. “I really feel bad for the classes I disrupted,” Le said. Mike Bedford, an information technology consultant for CSUFʼs communications department, said he took immediate action in evacuating the basement Mac lab. “We werenʼt expecting a drill so we reacted as if it was a real fire,” Bedford said. “I had to lead the students to safety.” Le said he has learned from this experience and hopes others will also learn from the accident. “I guess if it was any student at this school, it would have to have been me,” Le said.
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Keyboarder Pouyan Afkary rocks Becker Amphitheater with the rest of his band, Scary Kids Scaring Kids.
Keepers of campus labor through the night Janitors work together for greater good of students and faculty By CASEY RITTENHOUSE Daily Titan Staff
Darkness shrouded the Cal State Fullerton campus and an orange glow loomed above the universityʼs tall structures. It seemed like the campus was entirely deserted. But, unknown to many, a lot of activity was occurring inside the buildings. For about 40 CSUF custodial employees, it all starts promptly at 3 a.m. five days a week. Sandra Malone is a shift leader who has been in charge of the janitorial staff for the past three weeks while the custodial manager, Terri Thompson, is out of the office. Malone walked in a hurried fashion to the Humanities Building, not missing a beat when it came time to make sure everyone knew their work assignments, and she still found time to crack a few jokes with the employees. Equipped with brooms, cleansers and portable radios, the janitors get the job done. “The buildings are split into zones and I am normally at zone one,” Malone said inside a room of the Humanities Building. She took over zone two, which includes the Humanities Building, for a lead who called in. In the Education Classroom Building, Douglas Ball greeted Malone with a wide smile. Malone was delighted to see him and began to tease him about whether or not he was doing his work. Ball, employed by CSUF since 1979, said it is a team effort when it comes to custodial work. “Itʼs a good thing here because itʼs great to know the faculty and students,” Ball said. “And I have the best lead on campus. I canʼt deny
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that.” Malone laughed as he put his arm around her. Malone jumped from one building to the next in a determined manner, looking eager to see the other employees she works with. “I have been here for 10 years, but it seems like a lifetime,” Malone said with a laugh. “No, this is really a good place and Iʼm a people person. I love people.” Malone commutes from Compton and arrives at CSUF around 2 a.m. after having to wake up around midnight. She talks to her dogs and plants at home to get her ready for the long morning. In the basement of the McCarthy Hall, George Montoya is the man in charge. This year he will be retiring after 32 years of service and plans to continue working at his parttime job at the Anaheim Convention Center. Montoya said McCarthy Hall seems to be the least clean because so many people are passing through the building. But one particular area he said is the worst of all. “The womenʼs restrooms are the dirtiest,” he said. “They break off the plastic lids that cover the toilet paper, and play with matches near the lids. I donʼt know if they get bored sitting there or what.” When property is damaged in any facility, all the custodial workers can do is place a work order or call the police. “We donʼt have a lot of replacements [to repair things] because of budget cuts,” Malone said. “But we patch up as best as we can.” Malone said the library is one of the most demanding places to clean because itʼs the building that is open seven days a week. “The floor gets really dirty because itʼs so busy,” staff member Maria Centeno said about the first floor of the library. “It is like a bridge students use to get to where they need to be.”
Gov. Schwarzenegger officially put his stamp of disapproval on a bill that would have outlined a textbook rental program on Californiaʼs college campuses. Assembly Bill 2678, authored by Assemblyman Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood), was backed by bipartisan support before it went to Sacramento only to have Schwarzenegger veto the bill. “I support the authorʼs intention to lower textbook costs to college students, and am generally supportive of textbook rental program,” Schwarzenegger wrote in his veto message, “However, I am opposed to provisions in the bill that would allow additional fees to be assessed to all students, even those not using the program, in order to keep a textbook rental service financially self-sustaining.” The California Student Public Interest Research Group, the organization that conducted studies on textbook prices and solutions, and members of Koretzʼs office, said they are baffled by the governorʼs veto of the bill. “Itʼs an excuse,” said Bart Broom, senior assistant to Koretz. “We donʼt really know why he vetoed the bill.” One area that both the group and Koretz agree on is that there was a difference of interpretation between the creators of the bill and the governor. “If the schools would have implemented the program the way that
other schools have done it, there wouldnʼt be any such fees that [Schwarzenegger] is talking about,” said Steve Blackledge, the legislative director of California Student Public Interest Research Group. “The way the program works is that the students that participate in the program pay the fee. Itʼs not set up to where students that donʼt participate will pay the fee.” Broom said that it shouldnʼt matter if there was a small fee added to tuition because itʼs not unusual for student fees to cover things that students donʼt utilize, like the gym or health services. There were many different ways to implement textbook rental that were outlined in Koretzʼs bill. “It permitted fees per book, per course, a campus-based fee or through tuition,” Broom said. “One idea was that every student would pay a small fee and then everybody would rent.” As a result of the veto, Blackledge and Broom have a few suggestions to alleviate the prices of textbooks. Blackledge said that pressure should be kept on the publishers to lower their wholesale textbook prices because based on that price the bookstore will add their retail amount. In effect, the bookstore may have a hard time justifying a high retail price if the wholesale price of the textbook is lower than it is now. However, pressuring the publishers doesnʼt only include keeping prices low. Blackledge also said publishers should stop bundling textbooks with useless extras and that there should be a new edition of a book released only when necessary. Blackledge also said more companies should produce “economy” style TEXT 3
Cyclists avoid horrors of campus commute Students pass up the stresses of the road by riding bikes to school By ISAAC FABELA Daily Titan Staff
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Janitor, Chris Chterve, considers CSUF students as his own children. “Without them we would have no job,” he said. Upstairs in the south part of the library, Gregory Nicholson, a 22 1/2-year employee, cleans the aisles between the bookshelves. “Itʼs actually very professional here and we do the job well,” he said. “I call us the X-Men because we do the work of twice as many people.” Because of cuts in the schoolʼs budget, Nicholson said a limited number of people have to take on the task of cleaning the seven-floor library. “We pull double duty,” he said. “But we work together for the com-
mon good of the university.” If the best part of the job is the camaraderie, the hardest part is cleaning things that should have not been messy at all. “Some students act like theyʼre at their friendʼs house by pulling chairs together, making beds out of them,” Nicholson said. Nicholson said he does have some understanding for students who break the no-food-policies in the library. “Well, when [students] need to JANITORS 3
Cal State Fullerton has long been considered the epitome of a “commuter campus,” with the majority of students living over a half hour of freeway driving time away. However, there are the fortunate few that live close enough to campus to breeze by the students stuck at stop lights or waiting in parking lots, and theyʼre doing it on their bikes. Biking in Southern California is a pastime many people do for exercise or entertainment, but for a minority of students at CSUF it is not recreation, it is a necessity. Without bikes, their primary source of transportation to and from school is gone. For those students, the benefits of riding a bike to class outweigh the comfort of driving a car to school. “I never have to wait in line for a bike space,” said Lesli Anne Leslie, 18, a first-year student at CSUF. “Plus it saves gas money. For me it was a good investment.” Leslie bought her bike after walking to campus for the first two weeks of class. Since then she has become so used to it that the approaching winter weather will not be enough make her invest in a parking pass.
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Josh Todd, a senior RTVF major, rides his bike to school daily. “Iʼll still ride when it rains,” Leslie said. “Iʼll have to cover up a little more, but Iʼll be alright.” For local students who donʼt have cars, bikes provide a better alternaBIKES 3