Spring dance show wows audience
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Faculty, staff send off seniors
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Lady Seawolves smash Chico
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Sonoma State Star
SINCE 1979
VOLUME 72 // ISSUE 12
SONOMASTATESTAR.COM
APRIL 22 - APRIL 28, 2014
Students encouraged to “Do One Thing Today” Julia Chacko Staff Writer
S
STAR // Connor Gibson Students gather to show their solidarity for those affected by sexual assault in the annual Take Back the Night walk. Turn to page 8 to read more.
Athletes seek solution for Sports Club Programs Cara Fuqua Staff Writer
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or many of the athletes and supervisors of Sonoma State sports clubs, there is quite a large transition in motion. On July 1, the Center for Student Leadership, Involvement & Service (CSLIS) will become responsible for all campus sports clubs. Students, staff and other Sonoma State community members in attendance of the Associated Students meeting on Friday discussed changing the supervision of all sports clubs from Campus Recreation Sports Club program to CSLIS offices. “The goal in moving the sport club programs to CSLIS is to place all clubs and organizations under one roof for continuity in the oversight of risk management, campus policy and advising,” said Director of CSLIS Heather Howard Martin. “CSLIS has always been responsible for the charter of all clubs, including sport; this just keeps everything in-house and provides for a higher level in the continuity of our services.” For many Sonoma State athletes, this transition over to CSLIS offices is not welcomed. Some members of the sports clubs are against the change because this transition will result in losing the advising of Mike Dominguez, current supervisor of the Sports Club Program. Not only has Dominguez been the supervisor of all club sports for more than nine years, but he also caters to the needs of student athletes. Many of the athletes present at the meeting on Friday had one main goal: to keep Dominguez in charge of all sports clubs. As athletes from a variety of different sports clubs began stating their complaints regarding the shift in supervision, it was clear the main concern was keeping all athletes involved in a club sport safe. Student athletes voiced their concerns regarding the lack of experience CSLIS has in managing sports clubs. “Mike has been a major asset to our team,” said Sonoma State Sapphires Dance Team Captain Sam Bosarge. “Any problem or issue we’ve had, he’s jumped to our aid. Not having him here to help us is doing an injustice to our team and all sports clubs.” As far as Dominguez no longer supervising all sports clubs, Martin said, “With the addition of two new professional staff in the CSLIS office, we look forward to being able to ideally provide a greater level of professional advising and support to our
STAR// Connor Gibson Associated Students President Mac Hart explains that a lack of specialized advisors for high-risk programs, like sports, is part of the current problem. sport club areas, similarly to what we have done with fraternity/ sorority life. We envision maintaining a close, professional relationship with our Campus Rec partners and will continue to collaborate where appropriate and in areas to best serve our students. We remain in the same division, making this very seamless.” The CSLIS offices are responsible for many other clubs, all Greek life and campus leadership programs. After July 1, CSLIS will also be taking over 23 sports clubs consisting of more than 520 athletes. For most student athletes, the main concern is that the knowledge CSLIS has about sports clubs will not compare to the expertise of Dominguez. A few athletes agree that CSLIS has primary expertise in regards to the social aspect of campus
onoma State University’s push to create a cleaner and greener campus community has a new face. The “Do One Thing Today” (DOTT) campaign is the newest endeavor to inform our community about the significant and various sustainability efforts happening across campus. “All the statistics are telling us that global warming is deeply, deeply affecting weather patterns and the ability to produce and equally distribute food and water,” said Paul Draper, SSU director of sustainability. “[DOTT] is an invitation for individuals to do something that is in their power to affect climate change, and it starts at a local level.” “Too often, ‘Sustainability’ is cast as a buzz word and is used without a deeper understanding of the environmental, economic and socio-cultural concerns that are arising out of a globalized, industrialized, digitalized, twenty first century lifestyle,” said Tomio Endo, incoming director of sustainability for Join Us Making Progress (JUMP) and co-director of the Sonoma Student Growers’ Cooperative. “All of us at JUMP and the Sonoma Student Growers’ Cooperative are hoping we can provide practical and meaningful opportunities for students to discover and explore what a sustainable lifestyle may look like from their own perspective.” Although Sonoma State has made several notable achievements in sustainability such as the many Join Us Making Progress (JUMP) programs, student-grown food in the Kitchens, composting within campus dining, and an Associated Students’ resolution concerning water bottle filling stations on campus, there is an acknowledged disconnect between the different efforts. “There are many [sustainability efforts] going on, but each is secluded so we don’t know what each other are doing,” said Allison Jenks, Associated Students senator for sustainability. “[This campaign] is working on connecting all of these parts.” “Do One Thing Today” began in February with the combination of Draper’s desire to connect the dots between various on-campus organizations’ individual efforts and the provost’s vision that sustainability be one of the university’s signature priorities. Partnering with artist Kurt Kemp and East Bay marketing firm Green Flash, Draper released a poster which illustrates DOTT’s aims. He also organized several students, faculty and staff to make a short video about the importance of sustainability on the Sonoma State campus. “As an artist who works pretty much by myself all of the time, it was truly enjoyable to collaborate with Paul and the others involved in the creation of the poster,” said Kemp. The posters can be seen across campus, and the video is on the Sustainable SSU website. “We were asked to come in and help create a video that would inspire others to act sustainably,” said Tom Cavers, a partner of Green Flash who helped with the creation of the video. “The ironic thing about all of this was that we walked away inspired ourselves. It was so neat how individuals were acting on their own to do great things for sustainability.” DOTT’s campaign hopes to draw more support from this week’s Earth Week, a week of sustainability-related events organized by Associated Students including an Earth Day Fair today. The Fair will be held in the plaza between Darwin and Stevenson Hall from 11:30-1:00 p.m. and will feature live music and a Tesla “S” car. Other actions and events planned for Earth Week are a Santa Rosa Creek Clean Up, a plastic bag and clothing drive, a Nutrition Workshop and a Toward Route Zero College Sustainability Tour. For a full list of Earth Week events, visit the Sonoma State website. Earth Week is only the beginning of DOTT’s movement. A campus-wide effort to increase student participation in recycling and waste diversion is occurring during Move Out Week (May 8-9). Student volunteer groups will be stationed near the resident buildings to help direct students to sustainably dispose of their unwanted goods. Last week’s “Sustainability in the Classroom” award recipients will find their proposed courses added to more than 35 existing courses in sustainability offered at SSU in disciplines as diverse as environmental studies, geology, biology, economics, communications studies, philosophy, geology, anthropology, political science, sociology and liberal studies. The new
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