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<DIV class=note_title>Here are a few articles that shed some light on the direction the SDSU administration is taking when it comes down to local students. </DIV>
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<DIV class=note_title><A href="http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=204834903550">MASS MEDIUM: SDSU uses Aztec Shops to fund projects</A></DIV>
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<DIV class=byline> Monday, December 14, 2009 at 12:01pm</DIV>
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<DIV>MASS MEDIUM: SDSU uses Aztec Shops to fund projects <BR>By Andy Lewandowski, Staff Columnist <BR>Print this article <BR>Share this article <BR>Published: Monday, December 7, 2009 <BR>Updated: Monday, December 7, 2009 <BR>The recent acquisition of Albert’s College Apartments by Aztec Shops, Ltd. is a concealed attempt at university growth during our budget crisis that fails to live up to the company’s mission statement. <BR><BR>Aztec Shops closed escrow last month on Albert’s College Apartments for $24.5 million, plus additional costs. The deal includes six apartment complexes that sit on 20 acres, located close to campus on 55th Street. With this acquisition, the company intends to help meet the demand of affordable, off-campus housing with the preexisting apartments. <BR>The California State University Board of Trustees approved the acquisition in September. <BR>According to the minutes of the Sept. 23 CSU Committee on Finance meeting, “the proposed acquisition plan supports the university’s “Campus Master Plan” goal of expanding its existing portfolio of university-administered housing by 3,000 beds in the coming years.” The deal is considered an auxiliary project, not a campus project, and did not come with the same kind of scrutiny and strict standards required for university-supported projects. <BR><BR>We are in the midst of the greatest budget crisis California and San Diego State have seen. It is inappropriate for Aztec Shops, a not-for-profit auxiliary, to throw around approximately $24 million to basically fund SDSU’s projects. That is not its purpose as an auxiliary. The message it is sending is clear: We will use your money to finance SDSU’s projects. <BR><BR>Aztec Shops is essentially acting like a financing arm of SDSU in efforts of fulfilling the “Campus Master Plan,” the comprehensive plan to accommodate increased demand the school will face through 2025. Acting as an auxiliary of SDSU, the company is not upheld to the same standards of transparency and community discourse we expect from our public school when decisions affecting students are made. This deal is yet another reminder of the severe disconnect between students and our self-serving university. <BR><BR>It’s obvious that the university was aware of the sensitivity and controversy such a multimillion dollar purchase would have created in the midst of our budget crisis had they acquired the property themselves. However, it’s no better to obtain the same goal by exploiting a campus auxiliary. <BR><BR>The company has tried to justify the deal by highlighting its intent to maintain affordable pricing. This is a lie. When the acquisition was approved by the CSU Committee on Finance, it was stated,“The Corporation anticipates that at some point during the first one to three years of operation, increased enrollment will make it financially and operationally advantageous to enter into an operating agreement with the University’s Office of Housing Administration to provide services related to marketing, leasing, rent collection and on-site supervision.” However, once an operating agreement begins with OHA, it won’t be considered off-campus housing anymore. Aztec Shops already owns University Towers, which it purchased in November 2000. Such an operating agreement with OHA is in effect for this residence, making it another on-campus offering. <BR><BR>Further, according to the 2009-10 SDSU Housing costs, housing starts at $6,872 a year with no meal plan at Villa Alvarado and increases up to $18,755 with a meal plan at Aztec Corner for the academic year. It’s obvious that affordable pricing is not in the works, especially considering the school requires freshmen to purchase a meal plan, thus increasing the total cost of housing even more. <BR><BR>This deal is a further transgression of Aztec Shops’ own purpose. According to their mission statement, “Aztec Shops will provide effective campus store and food service operations for the San Diego State University community. These services will be self supporting, sensitive and responsive to the campus community, and will be based on the principle of ‘value at a fair price.’” Nowhere in that mission statement do I see real estate acquisitions as a purpose that serves the school community. What’s more, they label themselves as a not-for-profit corporation, which is ironic, considering the multimillion dollar deal they just closed. If the university feels compelled to expand to meet its goals then it needs to acquire properties itself. <BR><BR>Aztec Shops is a not-for-profit auxiliary operating at the expense of the students it claims to serve. Next time you buy your books at the SDSU Bookstore or ring up a latte at Starbucks, know that the expensive prices and money you pay to Aztec Shops is not being used in your best interest. <BR><BR>—Andy Lewandowski is a media studies senior. <BR><BR><SPAN>—This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec. Send e-mail to opinion@thedailyaztec.com.</SPAN><WBR><SPAN class=word_break></SPAN> Anonymous letters will not be printed. Include your full name, major and year in school. </DIV>
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<DIV class=note_title><A href="http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=263302483550"><FONT color=#3b5998>Deafening Silence around African American Student Enrollment Quotas</FONT></A></DIV>
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<DIV class=byline> Wednesday, January 20, 2010 at 9:17pm</DIV>
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<DIV><BR>Submitted to California Communities United Institute <BR>January 20, 2010 <BR>Pat Washington, PhD <BR>PatWashingtonPhD@aol.com <BR><BR><BR>Deafening Silence around African American Student Enrollment Quotas <BR>at San Diego State University <BR><BR><BR>In 1900, Jews comprised only about 7% of the freshmen class at Harvard University. By 1922, that number had tripled to approximately 21% of the freshman class, generating higher and higher levels of anti-Jewish propaganda among the university’s non-Jewish population. <BR><BR>Harvard president A. Lawrence Lowell attempted to capitalize on the university’s anti-Jewish sentiment by instituting a quota that limited the proportion of Jews admitted each academic year to no more than 15%. In response to this outrage, Harry Starr, undergraduate leader of Harvard’s major Jewish student organization, the Menorah Society, quickly sprang into action to reverse Lowell’s actions. Starr brought together a broad-based coalition of Jewish and non-Jewish students, administrators and faculty for a series of meetings and direct actions that ultimately forced Lowell to abandon his “Jewish quota” agenda. Using a ploy all too familiar to community members currently fighting San Diego State University’s opportunistic elimination of the local student guaranteed admissions policy just two months before the 2010 application period began, Lowell replaced the call for a “Jewish quota” in yearly undergraduate admissions with a call for “geographic diversity.” <BR><BR>By the late 1930s, Lowell was replaced as president by James Bryant Conant, and Jewish students were admitted to Harvard on the basis of merit, rather than on the basis of either an explicit or implicit quota system Harry Starr went on to lead several pivotal Jewish organizations that gave—and continue to give—generous donations to Harvard University. <BR><BR>While San Diego State University (SDSU) is certainly not the Harvard University of the past or the present (despite pretensions otherwise) and while President Stephen Weber has not publicly stated that there is—or should be—a quota limiting the number of African Americans in the incoming freshman class any given year, there is, nonetheless, an obvious contemporary African American undergraduate admissions quota at work at SDSU. How else can one explain why—regardless of the number of qualified African American students applying for freshman admission at SDSU each year—SDSU never admits more than 25% of its qualified first-time African American student applicants and—furthermore—never allows the total campus population of African American students to rise above 5%? In Fall 2007, for instance, SDSU admitted only 24% percent (896) of its eligible African American freshman applicants; of those, only 265 enrolled. In 2008, SDSU admitted approximately only 15% of its eligible African American freshman applicants (598); of those, only 190 actually enrolled. In 2009, SDSU admitted only 18% of its African American freshman applicants (491); of those, only 185 actually enrolled. As a result of this dismal trend—and despite the availability of qualified African American first time students for admission at SDSU—the admission rate of African American freshmen would be charted as a perpetual “flatline.” Even one longtime SDSU faculty member was astonished to learn that the percentage of African Americans enrolled at SDSU has not changed in nineteen years—African American students comprised 4.1% of the enrolled student population in 1990 and they remain 4.1% of the enrolled student population today. Clearly, SDSU does not have an African American student application problem. Rather, SDSU has an African American student rejection problem that could easily be viewed as equivalent to A. Lawrence Lowell’s Jewish quota system. <BR><BR>SDSU’s implicit quota system (as measured by nineteen years of static African American enrollment) puts educational access in peril for growing numbers of San Diego area youth as local school districts strive to generate more college-and career ready youth in the years ahead. The peril is magnified by SDSU’s elimination of the local student guaranteed admissions policy, for the implicit quota system limiting admission of African American first time students has now been explicitly expanded to all local students. <BR><BR>In light of its historic treatment of qualified African American students, SDSU’s elimination of the guaranteed admissions policy for qualified local students should serve as a wake-up call for all families, businesses, social justice organizations, and concerned citizens of every ilk who care about college access and equity for local students. We may have maintained a decades-long deafening silence about SDSU’s practices concerning first time African American student admissions, but we still have an opportunity to keep SDSU’s “anti-local student” policies from becoming etched in stone. And, what benefits all qualified local students will most assuredly benefit qualified African American students from this area who have been subjected to an artificially imposed limit on access to SDSU for years. <BR><BR>In the 1920s, Harvard’s Jewish students had Harry Starr. Ultimately, once Harvard stopped trying to crush the academic dreams of Jewish Americans, Starr became a staunch advocate of both Harvard and fellow Jews. But, first, he refused to be silent about any attempts to discriminate against Jewish students in admissions to the University. By refusing to be silent, he galvanized Jews and non-Jews alike to reverse Harvard’s attempts to place a cap on certain types of students. We need to emulate Starr’s outspokenness and activism in our dealings with SDSU. <BR><BR><BR>Sources <BR>Fikes, Jr. Robert (2010). The Black in Crimson and Black: A History and Profiles of African Americans at SDSU. <BR><BR>SDSU: Applications, Admits and Enrollees: 2007, 2008, 2009, SDSU Office of Institutional Research <BR><BR>Website: <A onmousedown='UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this), "0b1b8e385bc1c95e17a5e144807b61e2", event)' href="http://www.jewishvirtuallylibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/harvard.html" rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT color=#3b5998><SPAN>http://www.jewishvirtually</SPAN><WBR><SPAN class=word_break></SPAN></FONT><SPAN>library.org/jsource/anti-s</SPAN><WBR><SPAN class=word_break></SPAN>emitism/harvard.html</A><FONT color=#333333> </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV class=note_title><A href="http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=290022203550"><FONT color=#3b5998>The Hurdles to College in San Diego</FONT></A></DIV>
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<DIV class=byline> Friday, February 5, 2010 at 2:33pm</DIV>
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<DIV><A onmousedown='UntrustedLink.bootstrap($(this), "0b1b8e385bc1c95e17a5e144807b61e2", event)' href="http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/education/schooled/article_ae52b49e-1286-11df-a68a-001cc4c002e0.html" rel=nofollow target=_blank><FONT color=#3b5998><SPAN>http://www.voiceofsandiego</SPAN><WBR><SPAN class=word_break></SPAN></FONT><SPAN>.org/education/schooled/ar</SPAN><WBR><SPAN class=word_break></SPAN><SPAN>ticle_ae52b49e-1286-11df-a</SPAN><WBR><SPAN class=word_break></SPAN>68a-001cc4c002e0.html</A><FONT color=#333333> <BR><BR>The Hurdles to College in San Diego <BR><BR>Posted: Friday, February 5, 2010 10:45 am | Updated: 10:46 am, Fri Feb 5, 2010. <BR><BR>Why do only 38 percent of San Diego Unified students graduate with the classes needed to apply to the California State University and University of California systems? We delved into the issue last fall, talking to counselors and teachers at Lincoln High and other schools about the requirements. Now an outside nonprofit called the Education Trust West has taken a look at San Diego Unified to answer that same question. <BR><BR>The school board will discuss its findings in detail on Tuesday morning, but here are some interesting -- and sometimes troubling -- nuggets from their presentation, now available online: <BR><BR>Black and Latino students are significantly less likely than white students to meet the UC/CSU requirements when they graduate. Only 26 percent of black students and 30 percent of Latino students made the bar in 2007-2008, compared to 72 percent of white students. <BR>Those numbers were even more dismal for English learners (5 percent) and students with disabilities (6 percent). Part of the problem for English learners is that separate English classes for them don't meet the college requirements. And while it might not seem surprising that students with severe cognitive disabilities might not be eligible, keep in mind that "students with disabilities" includes a wide range of teens that may have less severe impairments such as a learning disability. <BR>English, math and science are the most frequent barriers to meeting the requirements, with 57 percent of students failing to meet the English requirements and 57 percent falling short in math. <BR>Algebra was a stumbling block in math. If teens struggled with algebra, they rarely went any further in math. Math offerings also differed noticeably from school to school. One school had more than twice the percentage of advanced math classes as another, the report found, though it didn't name names. <BR>Researchers wrote that San Diego Unified seems to have only two clear tracks: one to college and one away from it. Teens who start high school not headed to college rarely move into the college track. Students are "'getting by' with academic minimums and no clear pathways," the presentation states. <BR>Overall, 64 percent of classes met the UC/CSU requirements. Most foreign language and arts classes met the bar, but only 1 percent of other electives did. <BR>-- EMILY ALPERT <BR><BR>-- <BR>Leo Carrillo <BR>Equality Alliance Organizer <BR><SPAN>equalitysandiego@gmail.com</SPAN><WBR><SPAN class=word_break></SPAN></FONT> <BR>www.equalitysandiego.org <BR>Education Consortium of San Diego County <BR>www.educatesandiego.org <BR>San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium <BR>www.immigrantsandiego.org <BR>619.756.4303 <BR></DIV>
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<DIV>LATINO CONCILIO on HIGHER EDUCATION. <BR>of SAN DIEGQ COUNTY <BR>Carta Abierta to Chancellor Charles Reed and Trustees, California State University <BR>October 6, 2009 <BR>On October 5, 2009 President Stephen Weber of SDSU announced that at SDSU "our goal will be to maintain our ten year averages for diversity and for locals vs. out of region first time freshman." In making this announcement he is again arrogantly ignoring the growing opposition from students, community organizations, parents, local elected officials, SDSU alumni, and educators to the new admissions policy. <BR>The establishment of the new goal is not academically logical. Moreover, for the past ten years students of color have been severely under-represented on the campus. In the case of Latinos, Latino representation has never exceeded 23% among undergraduates, this year's portion, although SDSU is located in a region where Latinos make up a larger percentage of the population. <BR>According to analysis by the chair of the Academic Senate's Diversity, Equity and Outreach Committee it is Latinos who will be disproportionately affected by the new admissions policy. Thus the new policy is a direct assault on the Latino community in the SDSU service area and its quest for equal educational opportunity. <BR>Additionally, the establishment of the new goal cynically obscures the fact that for the past ten years SDSU has been systematically discouraging local students from enrolling at the campus through initiatives such as the dual admission program several years ago. Now it will limit local student enrollment to an announced 37% of the incoming freshman class and undoubtedly will continue to find ways of administratively obstructing the enrollment of community college transfer applicants. <BR>Let's be clear what is happening here: The SDSU administration is deliberately and formally institutionalizing ethnic and racial under-representation and the marginalization of students from the San Diego area. <BR>The SDSU administration's actions have damaged its credibility. In the San Diego area it is known that the SDSU administration, if it could, would have SDSU be separate from CSU. <BR>Is CSU willing to also lose credibility among taxpayers, students, parents, educators for the sake of a rogue campus administration? Is CSU willing to be complicit in that administration's opportunistic and myopic marginalization of thousands <BR>of students in the SDSU service area thereby condemning them to second-class citizenship? <BR>PO BOX 151160 san diego CA92175 ~LI/~ <BR><BR><BR>The architects of the new policy, President Stephen Weber, Provost Nancy Marlin, Associate Vice President Ethan Singer, and Director of Enrollment Services, Sandra <BR>Cook ("the axis of exclusion and racism," as they are coming to be known in the area) <BR>have chosen to reproduce the disparities in educational opportunity by pursuing the new <BR>policy. <BR>Will the injustices of the perpetuation of educational inequality, the public institutionalization of ethnic and racial under-representation and marginalization of local students in San Diego County also be the legacies of your tenure as Chancellor and Trustees? <BR>We again urge you to rescind the new policy and restore the local student admit guarantee and join with us in a community-wide forum on enhancing access for local students. <BR>Please serve the public trust of your offices by preserving the rapidly diminishing legitimacy of SDSU and CSU in the San Diego area. <BR>In short, serve place bound local students and save SDSU from its administration. Instruct the so-called "flagship" of the CSU to follow the leadership of it sister campus, CSU, San Marcos and do, as it has chosen to do, ---give priority to local students in accordance with the local student admit guarantee. <BR>Cordially, <BR><BR>Patrick Velasquez, Chair <BR>Latino Concilio on Higher education of San Diego County <BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV> <br /><hr />Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft’s powerful SPAM protection. <a href='http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390706/direct/01/' target='_new'>Sign up now.</a></body>
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