Monday, November 2, 2009
Vol. 95, Issue 37
THE
DAILY
AZTEC
Tw i t t e r : T h e D a i l y A z t e c
w w w. T h e D a i l y A z t e c . c o m
STATE
OF
MIND.....2 SPORTS.....5 HEALTH & FITNESS.....6
STATE OF MIND
HEALTH & FITNESS
LA CHARGERS?
BOOT CAMP TRAINING
A new stadium in Los Angeles may move the Chargers.
See how some celebrities get their ready for the red carpet.
CLASSIFIEDS.....7 THE BACK PAGE.....8
page 2
page 6
San Diego State University’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1913
SDSU
UNM
23
20
Glenn Connelly / Photo Editor
AZTECS CATCH CRITICS BY SURPRISE TO REACH 4-4 Despite falling behind early, the San Diego State football team defeated New Mexico on Saturday to improve to .500. For the first time this decade, SDSU has an even record eight games into the season. Full coverage of the Aztecs’ win on page 5
Mixed reactions to campus furloughs K R I ST I N A B L A K E S E N I O R S TA F F W R I T E R
Already more than two months into the fall semester, San Diego State students, faculty and staff are still adjusting to furloughs. Political science and Spanish senior Darlene Powell spent last year abroad in Spain, but has come home to differences besides culture and language. She said that the furlough days have made her semester different from her previous semesters at SDSU and that they are affecting her education. “Since teachers are basically forced to take these days off because of their pay cut, they had to switch their whole curriculum around and try to teach what they would normally teach in less time,” Powell said. “It really puts a burden on what they’re trying to teach and how we learn.” As a result of state budget cuts to the California State University system, offices have had to close and faculty and staff have had to take days off because of mandatory furlough days. Biology freshman Grace Oira also feels that the furlough days have hurt her education. “There isn’t enough class time,”
Oira said. Not all people dislike the mandated furloughs. David McHenry, known to students as “McHank,” said he is profurlough. This is McHenry’s first semester as administrative support assistant for the sociology department. He worked in the Career Services office for almost two years, but was transferred when his position was eliminated. “I don’t think that there would be a position at all available for me if not for the furloughs,” McHenry said. “I think the furloughs are beneficial because it’s way better than being laid off.” Sociology Department Coordinator Melanie Dumont works in the same office as McHenry. She appreciates that furloughs have allowed some people to keep their jobs; and, as a working mother, she enjoys the time off. Still, she said furlough days could have been scheduled better. “I don’t like the implementation of it because there wasn’t any consistency between faculty and staff, and also, the various departments,” Dumont, who has worked on campus for more than four years, said. “So a student could possibly come in to do several things on campus and encounter a problem where
one office is open and one is closed, one faculty member is here and one is not. So it just seems very willynilly, and there’s no consistency.” Dumont said while she is not being affected much, the students are. She said that students have even come into the office to voice their frustrations to her. “I think the students are suffering the most from the furlough,” Dumont said. “I just feel for the students. They actually don’t like their faculty not being here as much. They don’t like not getting as much class time or as much accessibility to the instructors, so that’s the negative side that I see.” Dumont is not the only person who has recognized how the furlough days are affecting students. Many professors and lecturers have tried to schedule their furlough days in ways that are the least detrimental to students. Economic Lecturer Jack Russ has worked on campus for about 25 years. He said furloughs have not made a difference in his life this semester because he has chosen not to take his furlough days on instructional days. “My students need the time in class,” Russ said. He understands that some professors may need to use instruction-
al days as furlough days if they teach five days a week. But, because Russ works on Mondays and Wednesdays, he has decided to schedule his furlough days on Tuesdays and Thursdays. “Students need this time so that they don’t get shortchanged and get their full measure of instruction,” he said. Faculty members decide when to take their furlough days for a variety of reasons, however. Rebecca Moore is the religious studies chair and an associate professor. Although she also has a Monday / Wednesday schedule, Moore has opted to take a few of her furlough days on instructional days. For her, this decision is strategic. She wants to accommodate her students while making a statement at the same time. “I think that it’s important for students and the public to know that the furlough is hurting students and is hurting the university,” Moore, who has worked on campus for 10 years, said. “If I didn’t take an instructional day, no one would know that there’s a very serious effect and cost to the furloughs.” For a variety of reasons, Moore believes the furlough system is flawed.
“I find the furlough system very frustrating because you never know when someone is going to be in the office or out of the office,” Moore said. “In addition, it’s very, very difficult to teach around the furlough days. I find that I feel I’m shortchanging the students by having to reduce course material and I think it’s a very serious problem.” Still, if mandatory furlough days cannot be eliminated in the future, some people believe changes should be made to the system. Dumont suggests the school have campus-wide furlough days so that the designated days would be more manageable. She added that it would help save resources, such as electricity, too. Still, she fears that furloughs are “like putting a BandAid on something” and may not fix things in the long term. “The term ‘furlough’ has a negative connotation to me, because it basically represents what I feel like is the shrinking of the university,” Dumont said. “It’s just the first step of more steps. It feels like a little bit of a blow, I guess, because you see that education is not being funded. (Furloughs) are the first step; it’s not the end of it.”