SPORTS
NEWS: Students help keep Newport Bay clean through Project Earth, a program organized by CSUF’s Volunteer and Service Center, page 4 FEATURES: Years after leaving his home country of Ethiopa, student finds his place as a leader at Cal State Fullerton, page 5
PAGE 8
Titans upset UC Berkeley at home Since 1960 Volume 85, Issue 10
Daily Titan
Monday September, 17, 2007
The Student Voice of California State University, Fullerton
DTSHORTHAND
Entertaining the masses
Police to conduct DUI checkpoint The Fullerton Police Department will be conducting a sobriety checkpoint Saturday along a major thoroughfare in Orange County. Drivers will receive literature from the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving as well as Community Services Programs Inc. in a continuing effort create awareness of the dangers of driving while intoxicated. The checkpoint – to be held from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. – is the latest move by Fullerton Police’s R.A.I.D. Traffic Safety Program to prevent unsafe driving practices. For more information, contact the Sgt. George Crum at (714) 738-6815.
CSUF’s Concert Under the Stars celebrates Titan pride
Student advocate busted for DUI
BLOOMSBURG, Pa. (AP) – Bloomsburg University’s student government president was charged with drunken driving just weeks after saying the media has unfairly portrayed students as irresponsible. Christopher Bevan, 21, was pulled over last weekend after a campus police officer said he saw the student driving more than 50 mph in a 15-mph zone. A breath test showed Bevan’s blood-alcohol level was .147 percent, authorities said. The legal limit for drivers in Pennsylvania is .08 percent, the same as California. Bevan recently wrote a letter to the Press Enterprise of Bloomsburg about media coverage of the central Pennsylvania college’s annual Block Party, an event critics have described as rowdy and alcohol-fueled.
YOUTUBE: BUSH VS. THE GREMLINS
By Aline Lessner/For the Daily Titan Lesley McKinnell sings during the Concert Under the Stars, which was held at Cal State Fullerton to help celebrate the university’s 50th anniversary. The show, “From Hula Hoops to iPods: A Celebration of 50 Years of Popular Music, was the largest outdoor concert production in the history of the university. The two-hour show drew in 5,000 people.
A memorable trip taken makes for great research Veracruz, Mexico is at the center of a quest to learn about the Olmec
In this parody from “Robot Chicken,” G. W. is given a fuzzy new “grumblin’” that he dubs Fruit Loop. Of course, he pays no attention to the rules surrounding gremlin care and soon the White House is overrun by the little monsters, who kill mama Bush and attack Dick Cheney before orchestrating Armageddon. Duration: 2:01
By Breanna Moore
Daily Titan Staff Writer news@dailytitan.com
Correction
Due to a reporting error, one of the charges levied against Cathleen Louise Smith, a former administrative assistant, was misidentified in the article “Former CSUF employee pleads not guilty.” She was actually charged with possession of methamphetamines. The Daily Titan regrets this error.
WEATHER
TODAY
TOMorrow
By Karl Thunman/Daily Titan Photo Editor Nguyen Thao Nguyen does the hula hoop for five minutes to win a t-shirt in a competition during the ASI Block Party in the Quad.
50th anniversary observed at CSUF Using today’s technology Weekend event included a modern version of the traditional elephant race By Robert stroud
Daily Titan Staff Writer news@dailytitan.com
High: 77 Low: 59 PARTLY CLOUDY
CONTACT US
High: 78 Low: 57 PARTLY CLOUDY
Main line: (714) 278-3373 News desk: (714) 278-4415 Advertising: (714) 278-4411 E-mail: news@dailytitan.com
For some the trip was not a vacation but an adventure. Driving along a dirt road in Veracruz, Mexico, a group of nine Cal State Fullerton graduate students packed into one vehicle suddenly came upon a small pool of water in the road. After assurances from the locals that their vehicle could drive through, and after testing the depth of the large puddle with a stick, the group, in-
cluding graduate student Karin Pitts, 29, decided to go through the puddle. The car got stuck. “Oh my gosh!” Pitts said she remembers saying. “We just sunk the school car!” Frantically rushing around trying to fix the problem and borrowing a jack from one of the locals, the group worked out a way to free the car from the soft mud, Pitts remembers. For CSUF professor Carl Wendt, and a group of nine other CSUF graduate students, the summer vacation wasn’t exactly a vacation. In fact, it was more of an adventure. Using asphalt to study the ancient civilization of the Olmec in Central America, Wendt and his students See OLMEC, Page 2
In celebration of Cal State Fullerton’s 50th anniversary the entire campus was opened up last Saturday to students, alumni and guests for a chance to experience what the university has offered the community over the past five decades. Among the guests at the open house were members of the first intercollegiate racing team. This group of alumni held a special presentation to answer questions about their historical club, but only
after watching a modern version of the elephant races. The participating clubs were responsible for creating and racing their own elephants. While entries for the more traditional races closely resembled race cars, a separate race was created allowing students to create and race robotic elephants. The open house was organized by CSUF’s 50th anniversary committee, an assortment of volunteers from different departments throughout CSUF. The event was made up of multiple booths, each run by a different college or club from the university. While the booths run by the colleges consisted mainly of information on what that department had to offer incoming students, the tents run by the campus clubs offered a variety of
activities as well as promotional material for the organization. The colleges were left with the responsibility of setting up their own booths and choosing how they wanted to portray their departments. “Each college left it up to their faculty and staff to decide how to promote their schools,” said Dean of Students and anniversary committee member Kandy Mink Salas. “We just asked people to do an open house to showcase their college and their department … to be available and open to prospective students and certainly to welcome the alumni back to the campus and to show them what has been going on.” While alumni might be interested in seeing how the different colleges have developed over the years, the in-
See ANNIVERSARY, Page 3
to unlock the ancient past Student applies chemical analysis suspected to be Olmec bitumen samples By Karl Zynda
Daily Titan Staff Writer news@dailytitan.com
History and chemistry are intersecting on the lowlands of the coastal region of southern Mexico. From Cal State Fullerton, Tuan Vu is using the lab equipment in Dan Black Hall to put a magnifying glass on a long-lost culture. Archaeological and chemical studies are merging to decipher what tar samples can tell about an ancient civilization’s trade habits.
Vu, 25, is a history major who is currently completing a minor at CSUF in chemistry. He is one of three other students working on applying chemical analysis to bitumen samples. The testing is part of an archaeological project conducted by CSUF professors Carl Wendt and Scott Hewitt. Vu originally decided to enroll in CSUF because of its good teaching credential program. He declared history as a major, hoping to become a history teacher. After earning his history degree, he changed his mind about teaching. He decided to earn a minor in
See RESEARCH, Page 2