Nathaniel Solley/Staff

In an effort to improve access to key business districts, the city of Berkeley will implement changes to its parking policies Tuesday.

The changes include varying meter rates based on the demand for parking in particular areas and raising time limits for street spots. The city seeks to address frustration over congestion and businesses’ concerns that customers don’t have enough time to shop.

Parking meters Downtown, in the Telegraph area and in the Elmwood district will use a demand-based pricing model, said Matthai Chakko, a spokesperson for the city.

“By increasing the price in the high-demand areas and then lowering (it) in places where parking is more ample, you hope to encourage people to be parking in different places and to not have as much congestion in one spot,” Chakko said.

Parking in popular areas near shopping destinations on Southside and Downtown will cost $2.25 per hour, while parking in less frequently used areas will cost $1.25 per hour, said Matt Nichols, principal transportation planner for the city.

Current parking rates across the city are $1.75 per hour Downtown and $1.50 per hour elsewhere, according to Nichols.

Elizabeth Deakin, a UC Berkeley professor of city and regional planning and urban design who appeared before the City Council as long ago as 2006 to discuss demand-based pricing, emphasized the importance of promulgating information about the new prices and time limits. It could take several months for shoppers and visitors to adjust to the new system, she said.

“If it works well, it will be a little easier to find a parking space if you really want one and you’re willing to pay a little more,” Deakin said.

In the Elmwood district, near College and Ashby, one-hour street-parking limits will increase to three hours, with an increasing hourly rate.

That came as a relief to Melissa Hatheway, the director of marketing and communications for Rialto Cinemas, which operates a theater in Elmwood. Patrons often struggled to find sufficient parking for two- or two-and-a-half-hour films, she said.

“We’re delighted,” Hatheway said. “We’re hoping this parking solution takes off a layer of anxiety and stress from everybody so they (can) come and spend money.”

UC Berkeley senior Max Jason said he would pay more for parking if it resulted in longer time limits and better availability.

“When I’m going and driving around the city, it’s been pretty difficult (to find parking),” he said.

The new rates are the latest in a series of projects in a three-year transportation pilot program funded by federal and regional grants called goBerkeley, Chakko said.

Nichols said it is unclear how the program will affect city parking revenue, but officials will present a detailed revenue report to the City Council in March.

Contact Connor Grubaugh at cgrubaugh@dailycal.org.

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Nathaniel Solley/Staff

The campus Jewish Student Union voted Wednesday to deny membership to J Street U at Berkeley, a Jewish student political advocacy group on campus whose application to join the union also was denied two years ago after the group faced accusations of being anti-Israel.

The bylaws of the Jewish Student Union, an umbrella organization for Jewish student groups on campus, stipulate that a member organization must not host speakers who demonize Israel, said Jewish Student Union President Daphna Torbati.

That requirement was a point of contention surrounding J Street U, which advocates a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Much of the disagreement focused on J Street U’s relationship with Breaking the Silence, an Israeli military veterans’ organization that criticizes Israel’s military operations in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, said Elon Rov, a co-chair of J Street U.

“We are not afraid, as American Jews, to address those (difficult issues),” said Shayna Howitt, J Street U’s national communications co-chair. “We are not afraid … to host people who we might disagree with. We’re not afraid to stand up and question how we can best support Israel, because we’re committed to the safety of Israel.”

Breaking the Silence, however, has garnered serious criticism from other Jewish groups that belong to the Jewish Student Union. Torbati said she was concerned the group unfairly disparages Israeli soldiers.

Jewish Student Union members Avi Hecht and David Eliahu said Jewish students with connections to Israel would be alienated if J Street U were allowed to host Breaking the Silence under the Jewish Student Union umbrella.

“For a lot of members … the (Jewish Student Union is) the only place where they can express their love for Israel because of such an anti-Israel campus climate,” Torbati said. “A lot of people have said that they want the (Jewish Student Union) to stay a place they feel comfortable saying they love Israel.”

Hecht added that Breaking the Silence does not offer a fair picture of Israel’s military operations.

“Regardless of J Street’s intents, the effect of bringing a public event like BTS is detrimental to the image of Israel on our campus,” Eliahu said.

J Street U invited Breaking the Silence to campus in fall 2012, and its founder, Yehuda Shaul, will appear on campus again in November.

J Street U last applied to the Jewish Student Union in November 2011 but was rejected for inviting a co-founder of the Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement to campus in spring 2010, among other reasons.

Members of J Street U said they believed their relationship with the Jewish Student Union had improved after working with the campus Jewish community against the ASUC Senate’s contentious divestment bill last spring.

“We did want and expect that the Jewish community was finally going to legitimize our voice,” Rov said. “But we were disappointed.”

J Street U needed eight votes from the union board and its member organizations to be admitted but received only two, with eight votes against it and two abstentions, Torbati said.

Howitt said that J Street U is not anti-Israel but that it is critical of Israel’s policies in the disputed territories.

“The best way to support Israel is not by refusing to talk about the politics that are often uncomfortable and scary — it’s by addressing those politics,” Howitt said.

As of Tuesday afternoon, a petition circulated online by J Street U calling for the Jewish community to be more inclusive had collected 166 signatures, including those of Jewish ASUC Senators Grant Fineman and Liza Raffi, according to Rov.

“We’re not appealing the decision,” Rov said. “We want to prove to the wider Jewish community that the decision does not reflect the vision of Jewish students … We think this decision is inconsistent with what Jewish students actually want.”

Contact Connor Grubaugh at cgrubaugh@dailycal.org

Clarification(s):
A previous version of this article implied that a number of students at last Wednesday’s meeting of the Jewish Student Union walked out in response to J Street U’s failure to secure membership. In fact, the vote on J Street U was the last item on the meeting’s agenda, so students left the room at the meeting’s natural conclusion.

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Michael Drummond/Senior Staff

UC Berkeley received national media attention Monday night following a bizarre series of events that culminated with an explosion near California Hall and the swift evacuation of campus.

By midnight, the campus was eerily dark, empty except for the flashing lights of fire engines and the haze of lingering smoke.

A series of innocuous disruptions

It began with a campuswide power outage at 4:30 p.m.

Students in Doe Memorial Library, who were evacuated when the lights shut off and fire alarms were triggered, were surprised to find that students in Moffitt Library and other buildings were experiencing similar confusion.

“I figured I’d get in some last-minute cramming (when) all of the buzzers and fire alarms in the North Reading Room went off,” said Max Morton, a campus sophomore. “Everyone was looking around, clearly really confused. Then I headed over to Moffitt, and everyone’s pouring out of there too.”

Within 15 minutes, both UCPD and Berkeley Fire Department were responding to reports of black smoke at locations across campus. According to Acting Deputy Fire Chief Avery Webb, firefighters at Koshland Hall discovered a plume of smoke coming from a backup generator.

That was when the calls started pouring in, Webb said. BFD dispatchers, hearing reports of smoke clouds, strange odors and people trapped in elevators campuswide, quickly passed word on to crews across the city.

“The system was on the verge of being overwhelmed by calls coming in from different places,” Webb said.

By 5:15 p.m., Berkeley Fire Department was so overwhelmed with calls that officials requested crews from Alameda County Fire Department to cover duties at fire stations in the city, Webb said.

Meanwhile, a similar spectacle developed outside Sather Tower in response to the release of smoke from another underground generator. One of the backup generators, which automatically starts in the event of a widespread power outage, was running and emitting smoke, which is typical of the system, said UCPD officer Barry Boersma. UCPD, along with Berkeley Police Department and BFD, was present at the scene.

About 5:20 p.m., firefighters evacuated Latimer Hall after students and faculty smelled ammonia in the building. According to Webb, the chemical escaped into the building when a laboratory circulation fan shut down after the power outage, but concentrations were never high enough to cause serious harm.

“A small amount of ammonia can produce a large amount of odor,” Webb said. “Most of what was being done was precautionary.”

As responders began to stem the tide of stuck elevators, a lull in the action emerged about 6 p.m.

“It looked like things were winding down,” Webb said.

The big bang

About 6:40 p.m., the lull ended.

Officials at their makeshift command post on the west side of the Campanile turned abruptly at the sound of a large explosion originating from an electrical vault just downhill, according to UCPD Lt. Marc DeCoulode.

Campus sophomore Jennifer Han was walking past Wheeler Hall on her way home from a midterm review session when the explosion sent her and other students sprinting in the opposite direction.

“The first thing I thought was, ‘What the heck is going on?’ ” Han said. “I initially thought it was a bomb and just wanted to run away. As I was leaving, someone was yelling through a megaphone, but everyone kept walking towards the area.”

A fire engine waiting to respond to another call was parked just 30 to 40 feet away from the explosion, DeCoulode said. Four people sustained minor injuries from the blast, one of whom was taken to the hospital to be treated for minor burn injuries.

At the command post, DeCoulode and other leaders made a quick decision to evacuate the campus. A number of similar electrical vaults are spread across campus, and first responders were worried they would burst as well, he said.

Officers spent the rest of the night checking buildings for malfunctioning elevators and other problems, DeCoulode said.

The aftermath

UC Berkeley will now begin investigating the events that led up to the power outage and explosion, said campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof.

Authorities determined early on that the power outage was caused by damage from vandals attempting to steal copper ground wiring in a manhole a half-mile east of campus. Whether this is also related to the explosion is still unknown, Mogulof said.

An entry from the UCPD crime log shows a burglary of copper wire and other ground wires was reported on Sept. 17 at the Big C Trail.

UCPD Lt. Eric Tejada confirmed that this burglary is the incident officials believe is related to the outage and said that high-voltage wire was stolen.

Mogulof said the vandals had a sophisticated understanding of what they were doing due to their ability to locate the access point and the amount of pressure they were able to apply to the wiring.

“These are people who understand their illicit business and know where the access or weak points are of any electrical grid,” Mogulof said.

Another explosion occurred nearly three weeks ago in an underground high-voltage vault, causing a power outage in several buildings. At the time, officials said that the explosion, located near Evans Hall, was a result of construction. Mogulof said the campus has no reason to believe the two incidents are related.

However, the campus is “open to the possibility that there might be something systemic,” Mogulof said. “Just because that’s what we assessed at the time doesn’t mean we’re going to stick to that.”

Chase Schweitzer contributed to this report.

Contact Adrianna Dinolfo and Connor Grubaugh at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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Yi Zhong/Staff

As debate raged about the future of the U.S. military’s controversial “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in 2011, Clayton Critcher, an assistant professor of marketing at the Haas School of Business, was struck by a central question about the policy he thought was never addressed.

He wanted to know how the policy — which required LGBT service members to keep their sexual orientation secret — affected the military’s productivity.

Critcher offers an answer to that question in a forthcoming study on the effects of keeping secrets in the workplace. The study, conducted by Critcher and Melissa Ferguson, an associate professor of psychology at Cornell University, found that workers who conceal aspects of their identity are prone to decreased performance and productivity.

“When people were debating ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ from a policy perspective, it was always through a moral lense,” Critcher said. “But it’s also a question (of) if you’re harming the productivity of our workforce.”

In a series of experiments, Critcher and Ferguson placed participants in mock interviews in which some were told not to reveal their sexual orientation.

At Cornell, participants were asked to perform basic tasks such as taking a military spatial reasoning test. Participants who were told to conceal their sexual orientation performed 17 percent worse on the tests, according to Critcher.

In another trial, UC Berkeley undergraduates were asked to respond to a “somewhat obnoxious” email from a hypothetical GSI, Critcher said. Participants who were asked to conceal their sexual orientation were less likely to respond politely than their counterparts.

Critcher says monitoring — the effort it takes for people to censor themselves when concealing something — is what diminished participants’ ability to perform as well as their peers. And because the phenomenon occurs regardless of whether there is an immediate risk of revealing a secret, workplaces with policies similar to “don’t ask, don’t tell” can hurt worker productivity.

“People have limited willpower to exert self-control” Critcher said. “Our research is the first to figure out that it’s the constant monitoring to make sure you don’t slip up that’s so exhausting. There’s a benefit to being explicit in addressing diversity in the workplace.”

Billy Curtis, director of the UC Berkeley Gender Equity Resource Center, compared it to overloading a computer.

“You only have so much memory. When you open up YouTube and Facebook on your computer, and then you try to do a calculation, what happens to your computer? It’s slower,” Curtis said.

Wendy Moreno, president of the LGBT business group Out for Business at Berkeley, echoed the conclusions of the study.

“If you can’t come into a … workspace with the ability to be yourself, you’re limiting your happiness, your expression, your freedom, your personality. It will eventually begin to affect you,” she said.

Contact Connor Grubaugh at cgrubaugh@dailycal.org.

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Creative Commons/Anne Knight/Courtesy

In an attack that gripped nations worldwide, terrorists took over an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, causing a deadly standoff that continued through Tuesday morning. At least 60 people have died, and more than 175 people have been injured, including UC Berkeley alumna Elaine Dang.

The images of the violence halfway around the world have shocked many, but they hit closer to home for some UC Berkeley students who hail from Nairobi.

As a child, UC Berkeley freshman Winnie Itago would go to Westgate Mall after church with her cousin to get frozen yogurt — always the strawberry and mango flavors — and eat it on the rooftop. When graduate student Narissa Allibhai returned home for the summer, she and her sister would go to the mall on Saturday afternoons for lunch. UC Berkeley freshman Samuel Karani compared it to a Target but said it is smaller.

The students describe Westgate Mall as a popular hotspot for local residents, foreigners and teens. News of the shooting and shock at the violence reverberated among them, and while none of their immediate family members were injured, the attack’s emotional impact runs deep.

Almost everyone in the area knows someone connected to the attack, Allibhai said.

“You would never expect this to happen — Westgate of all places, nobody would expect it,” she said. “I didn’t process it when I first heard the news.”

Yet UC Berkeley experts familiar with the conflict between Kenya and al-Shabab, the terrorist organization that led the attack, say the threat of violence has been looming for some time. What is unprecedented is the size of the attack. The group, which has links to al-Qaida, has perpetrated minor attacks in the nation since Kenya’s military incursion into Somalia two years ago, said Julie Shackford-Bradley, a lecturer in peace and conflict studies. The 2011 invasion targeted al-Shabab strongholds near the Kenyan border, drawing retaliation from the organization in Nairobi and other Kenyan cities.

“The threat was clearly going to grow when Kenyan forces chose to intervene in Somalia,” Shackford-Bradley said. “Those are the decisions that you make when you take a military action into a neighboring country.”

African American studies professor Sam Mchombo said addressing the al-Shabab threat within the nation’s borders is difficult because large Somali refugee communities in Kenya could easily conceal terrorists from authorities.

Despite their awareness of this history, UC Berkeley students from Nairobi said they did not live in fear of terrorist attacks while residing in the city.

The Kenyan students say they have faith the area will rebound from the attack — many Nairobi residents have already donated blood and money for the victims’ recovery. Back in Berkeley, the students have been supporting each other in their own way, confirming that others’ relatives are still safe and keeping updated on the situation.

“Kenya has strong people, and Kenyans are strong people,” Itago said. “We can get through this, and we are going to get through this.”

But uncertainty remains regarding the state of the attack — as of press time, while the Kenyan police tweeted that they had control over the situation, other sources report there are still militants in the mall. For UC Berkeley graduate student Kagure Wamunyu, support from her friends has helped, but she remains worried.

“It’s harder when you’re far from home, because you can only rely on the media,” Wamunyu said. “It makes it more scary, and just talking about it is a little frustrating. You can’t help but follow every news article.”

Contact the reporters at newsdesk@dailycal.org.

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I’ll be the first to admit the attitude I developed toward state politics as child was certifiably starry-eyed. I grew up near Sacramento, and it was hard not to be awed by the big white dome downtown.

Of course we all grow up, and in politics we grow up fast. By the time I finished my first year at Cal, I knew finding work as an intern in a state senator’s office for the summer was an opportunity to experience both the best and the worst of California politics right in my backyard.

And that’s precisely what happened.

I saw the Legislature pass a balanced, on-time state budget for the third year in a row — but I also watched the political corruption investigation of Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, unfold first in an FBI raid on his office and then in news that Calderon had created a legal defense fund to solicit money from family, friends and interest groups that might appreciate his political stances.

I saw incredible integrity in the way legislators and their staff carried themselves through the lawmaking process — but I also watched as real conflicts of interest were sometimes laughed out of the room.

One thing I didn’t see anywhere, however, were the slimy political scumbags we all too often love to caricature, criticize and despise. Calderon notwithstanding, the state Capitol was filled with intelligent, kind and dedicated public servants nearly everywhere I looked. The California statehouse not only didn’t feel more crooked than any other bureaucracy I’d interacted with — it often felt refreshingly scrupulous.

A bit uncomfortably, I realized the legislators, staff, interns and bureaucrats who populate Sacramento, like those who work in Washington or any capital city, are us. Sure, people who choose politics as a career might be more ambitious than most of us — but they’re usually more altruistic. They may not be “jus’ regular folks,” but they’re not cultural anomalies, either — they’re products of the common place and time that defines us all.

So why the dysfunction? How could so many good people come together and yet so often get nothing done? Why does it feel like our government is merely twiddling its thumbs and hoping no one is watching?

The hard-to-swallow answer is this: because the republic the Founding Fathers envisioned is working precisely as it should. Our government is a reflection of society, the very definition of self-government.

As the philosopher Joseph de Maistre once said, “Every nation gets the government it deserves.”

If the big corporate interests Californians so often decry for corrupting the political process weren’t so wildly successful in selling us their products, they’d lose their legitimacy in the Legislature overnight. Just look to Big Oil, Big Tobacco and Big Agriculture for examples of excessive and unnecessary corporate power run very much amok — a result of nothing more than Americans’ infamous inability to resist the temptation to consume.

And what’s true in Sacramento, of course, is equally true in Washington. If American voters’ discordant voices weren’t so harshly cacophonous — and if Americans learned to cooperate across ideological divisions before demanding their elected representatives do something they can’t do themselves — then D.C. lawmakers’ hyper-partisan deadlock might not look so entrenched.

The concept holds in Berkeley. As UC Berkeley students, we have the right to complain about the melodramatic and theatrical ASUC Senate. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we know we relish the spectacle that is our elected student government. When it comes to the minimally powerful ASUC, where’s the fun in modesty, efficiency and decorum?

I’m reminded of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, when Cassius explains to Brutus: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.”

The harsh reality is that governments at every level — local, state and national — are disturbingly divided because we as a nation are divided. There are simply too many disparate voices in American politics for lawmakers to achieve any lasting change. The nation is disunited — and so is government.

We won’t make any progress with just a few structural reforms to the political process. No, emerging from this slump requires a complete transformation of the American cultural landscape — something to restore the national sense of unity, empathy and mutual understanding that we’ve only experienced in fits and spurts since the end of World War II.

When Cassius later confides in Casca, he knows his beloved republic is on the verge of a just and befitting collapse: “What trash is Rome, / What rubbish and what offal, when it serves / For the base matter to illuminate / So vile a thing as Caesar?” he asks.

To stop and look within ourselves is often harrowing.

But it sure beats an American Caesar.

“Off the Beat” guest columns will be written by Daily Cal staff members until the fall semester’s regular opinion writers are selected.

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Nothing like a scandalous political quid pro quo, complete with new information about an ideologically stained physical assault on Sproul alongside bylaw violation charges galore to awaken our senses. I give you, Divestment: Season 2. After this latest flood of melodrama, politicians in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento look like snoozers.

Please understand, this is not a column about divestment and the many reasons it is an ineffective, rash and brazenly ignorant way to address the staggering conflict in Palestine. There have been human rights violations that require legitimate objection and scrutiny on the world stage, but few students at UC Berkeley truly understand the tense realities of living in a nation surrounded by enemies who desire nothing more than your nation’s complete annihilation. “From the river to the sea,” is the oft-repeated slogan. But this column is not about divestment. The only solution of any lasting quality to our public woes is a campuswide shift in political culture that transcends the issues.

Nor is this a column about judicial charges and constitutional violations. Former Daily Cal columnist and SQUELCH! senator Noah Ickowitz and former Student Action external affairs vice president Joey Freeman filed charges with the ASUC Judicial Council on Friday, alleging rampant constitutional violations in the passage of SB 160. Like America’s cultural obsession with litigation and the inevitable flurry of court cases that follows any major legislation in Sacramento and Washington, the charges of both Ickowitz and Freeman demonstrate a foolhardy determination not to lose this battle, no matter what the broader costs are of prolonging the conflict. In an interview with The Daily Californian, Ickowitz acknowledged that personal ideology was part of his motivation for dragging on this looming legal fiasco. But this is also not a column about ASUC legal affairs.

And this is not a column about ASUC Senator Jorge Pacheco’s recent public foul-up with ASUC President Connor Landgraf. Pacheco reportedly offered last Tuesday to remove his Judicial Council injunction on Landgraf’s health and wellness referendum in exchange for Landgraf opting not to veto the divestment bill Pacheco supported — classic you-scratch-my-back I’ll-scratch-yours political positioning. It’s embarrassing for Pacheco to place himself on such morally questionable grounds, embarrassing for the ASUC to become embroiled in the debacle and embarrassing for UC Berkeley students regardless of ideology. But this column is not about the latest of ASUC scandals, either.

Finally, this is not a column about “campus climate” or a plea for any recently mistreated Berkeley “communities.” Attend any ASUC Senate meeting or elections event, and one will quickly discover the true power those two simple phrases have over student political discourse at UC Berkeley. As George Orwell would have said, those phrases have “lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.” But, alas, this is not a column about tired political rhetoric.

This is a column about simple maturity.

More than 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Isocrates criticized the Athenian democracy of his day by accusing it of training citizens to “(look upon) insolence as democracy, lawlessness as liberty, impudence of speech as equality, and license to do what they pleased as happiness.” Isocrates’ ancient words were later written by others to reflect modern realities in the Aegean and elsewhere: “Democracy destroys itself because it abuses its right to freedom and equality. Because it teaches its citizens to consider audacity as a right, lawlessness as a freedom, abrasive speech as equality, and anarchy as progress.”

Isocrates on Berkeley politics: “Oh, please.” UC Berkeley and the ASUC are a perfect case studies for Isocrates’ theory, and as evidenced by the April 1 assault on a pro-Palestinian student at Sproul Plaza by a goon who disagreed with the victim’s political stance, we as a university are struggling to stop the bloodletting of overemotional worn-out rhetoric, repugnant political maneuvering and excessively theatrical squabbling that have characterized our campus for nearly a month — with no foreseeable end in sight.

More than anything else, campus politics is centered almost entirely on winning a disturbing and very public game — winning over votes, winning popular opinion and winning elections. It comes at the cost of a collaborative, academic atmosphere and civilized public dialogue.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We’d be wise to put the events of this month in perspective, to acknowledge that the ASUC is only a student government and that our politics do not, in fact, define us as individuals. What this campus needs most — and what Isocrates was hinting at — is a shift in the tone of public discourse.

Anything to stop the bleeding.

Contact Connor Grubaugh at cgrubaugh@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter: @connorgrubaugh.

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Let’s get this straight: online education will never completely replace in-person instruction or totally eclipse the most fundamental tenets of the traditional university. At least, it shouldn’t.

Nevertheless, California State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, introduced a bill in late February that would require the 50 most impacted lower division courses in the California higher education system to be offered online. The bill follows Gov. Jerry Brown’s public advocacy for online education to the UC Board of Regents and also at San Jose State University in January.

But rest assured: This is no educational apocalypse.

Although Steinberg’s bill was criticized by the UC Academic Senate for its foolish outsourcing of education to for-profit third parties, it’s heartening that at least one California legislator is finally beginning to catch on to the most important question in higher education today. As New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote earlier this month, “The best part of the rise of online education is that it forces us to ask: What is a university for?”

If online education is just as capable of communicating at least technical and procedural information (former Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun’s online STEM courses at Udacity can attest to this) — then what, exactly, is the purpose of a university?

Brooks, a notable champion of online education over the years, answered that question for his readers two weeks ago — online education can teach technical knowledge; while “practical” knowledge, the richer and more elusive lessons we learn in college, should be left for traditional universities. That’s a start, but I suspect the actual answer is more far-reaching — and it might leave UC students uneasy.

Ever since the 1944 GI Bill enabled thousands of young Americans to attend college, higher education has proliferated throughout American society and evolved from privilege to workforce prerequisite. Embracing the shift in their clientele and inspired to create a more educated American workforce, colleges and universities across the country drifted from their roots in classical education in favor of the pragmatic knowledge that was and continues to be in high demand. Largely abandoning their position as lofty country clubs for the upper crust of American society, universities nationwide embraced a new role as the engines of the American economy.

Offering vocation-centered, concrete education to a mass audience is admirable — both dreamers and pragmatists are vital to American society. Universities tried to find a middle ground, attempting to instill a sense of purpose and meaning in the lives of students and provide them with the pragmatic knowledge necessary for success in the American economy. Today, when online universities offer technical training at a fraction of the price of a traditional college, it’s clear the dual-purpose model needs rethinking.

I’ve argued for classical education in the past, but I know “Walden” and “Julius Caesar,” as much as I love them, aren’t for everyone. My father was an adjunct professor at a California community college in the Sacramento area a few years ago. He met a student one day who’d been attending a two-year institution for 10 semesters. That’s three years longer than the expected time to earn an associate degree — and he was still a freshman.

Beyond the technical learning, job training and lower-level workforce experience — the vocational schooling — necessary for 21st-century competitiveness, most Americans don’t need or desire the watered-down classical education most universities force down the throats of disgruntled students. Not everyone is meant to go to college, and not everyone should have to. College is about pushing the limits of our feeble understanding to reach unforeseen conclusions and immersion in a culture of constant intellectual challenge to reach into the depths of the elusive truth. College is a sort of education that can’t be forced.

Online education, on the other hand, has the potential fill the gap in American vocational schooling that traditional universities have failed to address.  Like the “pragmatization” of American universities in the 1950s, the Internet is the next medium that will expand education to a wider audience worldwide. The Internet can be a forum for the democratization of technical education — a place where all Americans, for the first time in history, can learn the skills necessary to compete in the 21st-century global economy rather than hanging on in community college for five years or more.

For students like the young man my father taught, for American industrial workers left without jobs after production-line outsourcing, for anyone left behind in the relentless race of the modern economy — online education just might hold the promise of the future.

Contact Connor Grubaugh at cgrubaugh@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter: @connorgrubaugh.

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If impulsive California legislators and the money-hungry National College Players Association have their way, UC Berkeley athletes may soon be going pro.

The Sacramento Bee reported Saturday that California State Assembly Bill 475, currently being considered in committee, would require UC Berkeley and UCLA to pay student athletes an annual stipend of $3,600 and guarantee their scholarships for five years. Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown (D-San Bernadino), carrying the bill through the legislature with the NCPA’s sponsorship, told the Bee: “They should say here is your five-year scholarship. Here are the tutors you need. The $3,600 stipend, that’s toothbrushes and other things.”

Those are some pricey toiletries.

Beyond the costs of tuition, room and board, books, and tutoring that are already covered by UC Berkeley full-ride athletic scholarships, it’s hard to imagine any UC Berkeley student spending more than $1,000 a semester on incidentals like snacks, clothing and gold-plated toothbrushes — and that’s more than a little generous. Absurdly, in the bill’s current language, the stipend only applies to students already receiving full rides from the university.

If any UC Berkeley student athletes struggle to meet living costs outside of their full-ride scholarship, it has nothing do with their participation in athletics and everything to do with extreme economic circumstances. So why give the stipend only to athletes?

If legislators were honest with themselves, the citizens of California and the students of this university, they’d acknowledge that AB 475 is just another attempt to address the current reality of college sports: student athletes are money makers, and they’re paid extraordinarily meager “salaries” in light of the revenue they generate. Lofty NCAA rhetoric about amateur athletes has grown rote as the commercialization trend continues, so educational institutions are looking for alternatives. The bill would professionalize college sports at UC Berkeley — and some are welcoming it.

But public education in California has arrived at a critical crossroads — as the tide of public opinion swings in favor of financial compensation for student athletes, institutions of higher education must decide whether running heavily commercialized, expensive and burdensome athletic departments is a violation of their traditional academic commitment and credibility.

The NCAA’s widespread “Going Pro in Something Other Than Sports” television ad wowed viewers with statistics about the supposedly stellar academic performance of student athletes, ending with a feisty question-and-answer: “Still think we’re just a bunch of dumb jocks? You need to do your homework.”

At UC Berkeley, however, our homework is done. In October, the NCAA released data revealing that only 48 percent of Cal football players who enrolled here between 2002 and 2005 graduated within six years — the lowest football graduation rate in the Pacific-12 athletic conference. Of male varsity basketball players who received athletic aid to attend UC Berkeley in the same period, only 36 percent graduated in a six year time span.

This unfortunate reality may have something to do with the UC Berkeley athletic department’s role in ensuring high-value recruits are admitted through the admissions office’s “Admission by Exception” allowance. Sixty-three student athletes were admitted for the 2011-2012 school year without satisfying UC Berkeley’s admission requirements — or perhaps more accurately, the 2011-2012 “season.”

Clearly, even at this prestigious academic institution, either college athletics has become time consuming to the point of absurdity, or the “student” athletes in revenue-generating sports like football and basketball are simply not up to snuff in the classroom.

A common argument for maintaining the current collegiate athletic system is that it promotes education for those who might not otherwise be able to earn a college degree — especially minority groups. It’s as if athletic scholarships have become a less-objectionable form of affirmative action. But rather than inspire students to achieve where their prospects are best — in the classroom — the structure of American athletics pushes students to the high-stakes gamble of big-time football and basketball.

It’s high time someone takes on the NCAA. Under the guise of a nonprofit organization, the arbiter of all things college sports has deceived young people across the country into believing that competition in NCAA Division I big-money sports and meaningful, lasting higher education are not mutually exclusive. But sadly, the evidence increasingly suggests otherwise. And with annual revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars, we’ve paid a high price.

The University of California should lobby intensely to kill AB 475 — because California universities should be moving in precisely the opposite direction. Exceptions in the admissions process, disturbing levels of athletic department spending on comprehensive support for full-ride athletes and twisted incentives embedded in this nation’s sports machine are all signs that we have travelled too far down the road to commercialized college athletics — and the only way to move forward now is to turn back.

$3,600 toothbrushes be damned.

Contact Connor Grubaugh at cgrubaugh@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter: @connorgrubaugh.

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Things are pretty bad when Washington is happy about a filibuster.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, with help from a small group of primarily Republican senators, staged a nearly 13-hour filibuster of John Brennan’s nomination to direct the Central Intelligence Agency last week. Paul’s anti-Obama rant added up to little more than a symbol of opposition to supposed White House overreach, as the president’s policy on the use of drones was quickly clarified the following day, and Brennan was easily confirmed by the Senate that afternoon.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t Brennan’s nomination that Paul specifically opposed — it was a statement from Attorney General Eric Holder. Writing in response to a query from Paul about whether the president could authorize lethal force like a drone strike on U.S. soil, Holder explained that the administration had “no intention” of ever using drone strikes in the country. But he didn’t explicitly rule out using lethal military force in case of an “extraordinary circumstance” like a terrorist attack. The response wasn’t to Paul’s satisfaction, so he proceeded with his headline-grabbing diatribe.

And Washington is abuzz. Twitter exploded with the hashtag “StandWithRand” as Paul’s speech dipped into prime time. Just hours after his tirade ended, Paul told Politico he was seriously considering running for president in 2016.

Granted, it is true that Paul’s filibuster stands out in recent political memory. It’s the first talking filibuster to exceed five hours since 2010 and before that since 1992. Modern-day senators, in a twist on centuries-old Senate rules, typically just tell their leader they intend to filibuster a bill or resolution, and the matter is dropped. Bills with so-called “holds” on them are simply never scheduled for a vote. It takes no effort and requires no public interaction.

So it’s noteworthy that Paul chose to actually talk in this last filibuster — to own his cause and fight for it in the public eye with real skin in the game. But at the same time, massive support for Paul and calls to resurrect the “old rules” of the filibuster reveal a certain desperation in the Senate and American politics in general. After all, no landmark legislation was passed, and no dangerous bill was killed — even the target of Paul’s filibuster, Brennan’s nomination and subsequent confirmation, easily slipped away.

It was all just talk, and everyone’s celebrating. In Berkeley, we suffer from a similar malady. Whether it’s prolonged discussion about Telegraph revitalization that should’ve happened years ago or the city’s consistent but hollow commitment to solving the problem of widespread homelessness on Shattuck, on Telegraph, at People’s Park and elsewhere — Berkeley has an acute case of U.S. Senate syndrome.

We often hear about the value of “discourse” and “meaningful conversation” while attending Cal and living in Berkeley. Conversation is powerful, but real discourse is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Without effective action as a result, though, discourse is just a waste of everyone’s time.

As for the Senate, it’s simply time to change the rules. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, appeared to go along with numerous Democratic proposals to do away the filibuster in 2011, only to strike an agreement with GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, that cut through a little red tape but left the Senate’s institutionalized system of interruption and delay largely intact. Almost every action in the Senate requires 60 votes now — the voter-approved Democratic majority in the upper house is essentially meaningless.

But it doesn’t have to be. The American public, the media, the White House and many in the Senate are ready to do away with the filibuster or at least the anonymous pseudo-filibuster “hold” that’s so often used today. What reason could there possibly be to not trash the rule that allowed Strom Thurmond to block the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for a record-setting 24 hours and 18 minutes?

In the Senate, as in Berkeley and in many other state and local governments across the country, achieving forward motion has to entail cutting back. The Senate’s rules combine with the personal motivations of American elected officials to prevent Congress from being an effective governing body. When arcane rules and bureaucratic inertia change the nature of American representative democracy without approval of the people, the reality of that democracy is fundamentally threatened.

It’s time for the Senate to relinquish its grip and acknowledge that today it is just as much the people’s house as the House of Representatives. The American people have suffered far too long to be refused this time — since John C. Calhoun popularized the ploy in 1841, since Huey Long perfected its use for personal gain 1935 and since Thurmond attempted to block civil rights in the 1950s.

Paul’s filibuster may be less ideologically repugnant to Americans than the escapades of Long or Thurmond, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less reprehensible.

Contact Connor Grubaugh at cgrubaugh@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter: @connorgrubaugh.

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