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O CC U P Y OAKLAND
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GENERAL ASSEMBLY MEETINGS
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14th and Broadway streets
Svend Larose hands off a bottle of water to a woman rushing to the aid of a fallen protester during the Occupy Oakland protest Oct. 25. Oakland Police Dept. tear-gassed the protesters five times over the span of a few hours. PHOTO BY ELIJAH NOUVELAGE
GOLDEN GATE XPRESS //
STUDENT-RUN NEWSPAPER PROUDLY SERVING THE SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY SINCE 1927.
// 11.02.11
VOLUME LXXXXI ISSUE 11
ELECTION
RANKED VOTING SYSTEM MAY CAUSE CONFUSION San Francisco’s voting method may prove problematic in this year’s elections due to ballot errors and lack of voter knowledge. BY CASSIE BECKER | cassbeck@mail.sfsu.edu
With 16 candidates on the ballot in this year’s mayoral election, it can be hard to pick one candidate, let alone three. San Francisco is asking voters to do just that in this year’s mayoral election with an alternative system called rankedchoice voting. The system has only been used once in the city, for the mayor’s race in 2007 when Gavin Newsom won with 70 percent of first choice votes. Ranked-choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting, allows voters to list up to three candidates as their choice for the position instead of the traditional one choice. In San Francisco the voter may list only one candidate, known as bullet voting, or two candidates and leave the other columns blank. But the system is prone to ballot SEE VOTING ON PAGE 7
CONNECTING: Former women and gender studies faculty Sally Gearhart and recent graduate Zasharah Araujo celebrate the 40 years of women and gender studies at SF State Friday. PHOTO BY JESSICA GOSS
40 YEARS: WOMEN IN EDUCATION BY JUAN DE ANDA | juand@mail.sfsu.edu
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N THE TUMULT OF THE LATE 1960S, A clash of movements ranging from faculty strikes to the Native American occupation of the island of Alcatraz sent San Francisco into a whirlwind of change. As part of the aftermath, the SF State women and gender studies department was born. The program recently turned 40 years old and celebrated its birthday Oct. 28 with a range of events acknowledging its burgeoning history and the curriculum’s impact on students and the Bay Area. The day-long campus event featured testimonies from faculty, staff and students who built the institution and fostered the development of the program. “Truly we are here surrounded by inspirational people and trailblazers of the department,” said Kasturi Ray, assistant WGS professor. “It’s one of these days where I feel very, very tall. I’m going to remember this day for the rest of my life.” The SF State WGS program is one of the oldest in the United States. The first institution to offer curriculum in women’s studies was San Diego State in the fall of 1970.
Women and gender studies began at SF State in the spring of 1971 when four courses, offered by three separate departments, enrolled a total of 160 students. In 1976, these classes became an official program recognized by the University administration. The first graduating class consisted of three women in 1977. The next year’s graduating class consisted of 13 students. Among those was a Robin Song, who spoke at the alumni panel event and acknowledged that the department was born from the heated, larger political context surrounding San Francisco. “For me, women studies was not a career move, it was a political statement,” Song said. “A lot was happening in the community in 1976 and women were out there in the community in huge waves. In the women studies program, we were out being in the community as well and the program had the two integrated together.” Song said that the department integrated ideology and a climate of change within the school community. “We were in the patriarchal institution, and fretted around that a lot. One of the things that we would do was SEE WOMEN ON PAGE 2