Research in Antarctica is slowing to a halt, perhaps causing irreparable damage to invaluable scientific work on climate issues. Services and benefits for veterans are being cut, leaving veterans with no access to regional VA centers. Until a widespread salmonella outbreak became public knowledge, there was only one person responsible for tracking all domestic foodborne illnesses — the rest had been furloughed. While higher education has yet to be hit as hard as other sectors, college campuses will show greater signs of strain as the shutdown prolongs.

Important research tools such as federal libraries and data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau are available with limited access, if any. Grant deadlines for research projects may be pushed back, and some may be scrapped altogether. For a campus such as UC Berkeley that’s especially reliant on academic and scientific research, these effects of the shutdown are particularly damaging. Students should be angry that Congressional Republicans are wasting our time and resources to score worthless political points.

How did it come to this? How could our government close due to the demands of a minority within Congress, and how could this same minority potentially force a worldwide recession with the debt-ceiling deadline looming?

Let’s be frank: It’s the Republicans’ fault.

In the days leading up to the government shutdown, the Republicans in the House of Representatives worked themselves up into a frenzy. The Oct. 1 deadline for Congress to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government funded approached quickly.

Conservative activists mobilized, seizing this as their opportunity to defund Obamacare. These activists and their allies argued for attaching an amendment defunding the Affordable Care Act to any continuing resolution that would fund the government. The Republicans didn’t have the votes to get such a resolution through the Senate, and President Obama, as he had all along, made it clear he would veto any legislation that defunded the Affordable Care Act.

And even though 28 Republican representatives have stated publicly that they would vote for a “clean” continuing resolution — one with no amendments — Republicans on the House Rules Committee made that impossible. Just before the shutdown, they passed a rule change that prevents anyone other than the House majority leader, Republican Eric Cantor, from introducing a bill to fund the government. Simply put, these Republicans are interested in winning political victories to achieve substantive policy changes by holding the government hostage.

And while a government shutdown may have deeply felt economic and research consequences for the country, hitting the debt limit on Oct. 17 would bring on a complete global catastrophe.

Oct. 17 is a date far more important than the Oct. 1 deadline. If Congress doesn’t vote to raise the amount the Treasury is authorized to borrow in order to service the debts of the U.S. government, we will hit the “debt ceiling.” A relic of a time when Congress used a different budgeting process, the debt ceiling was never used to force major policy concessions until the Republicans used it for expressly that purpose in 2011. If we fail to raise the debt ceiling, the choice won’t do anything to curb our spending; raising the debt ceiling only enables us to pay the bills on things we’ve already spent money on, which are ostensibly decided through congressional budget negotiations.

As it stands, many Republicans in Congress have an incentive to behave like the so-called “suicide caucus.” Many come from rural, overwhelmingly white districts that wield outsized electoral power, and these districts will proudly re-elect their representatives for taking a courageous stand against corrupt liberal boogeymen. Many GOP members of Congress fear they will lose primary challenges to Republicans who are even more conservative than themselves, fueling a never-ending run to the extreme right wing of American politics. In essence, when we say that we’re fed up with broken “politics,” what we’re really frustrated with is the broken system that keeps handing power to a minority with an extreme conservative viewpoint. And it’s this minority that’s dragged us into the whole mess.

If the shutdown continues unabated through the end of the month, two national laboratories in the Bay Area will be forced to furlough their employees. While the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is safe because of contracts that fund the lab through the end of the year, research dollars could dry up eventually. This money and other research funds like it are a key part of the campus’s operations. When they disappear, Berkeley will feel the hurt.

The post Blame the Republicans appeared first on The Daily Californian.

In signing the TRUST Act, Gov. Jerry Brown has taken a tremendous positive step in extending rights not only to students or lawyers but also to undocumented Americans guilty of minor offenses. The new law limits the duration undocumented people can be held to 48 hours maximum, provided they haven’t committed a felony.

And even though there are people who have succeeded in part because of the opportunities afforded by the DREAM Act and legislation like it, millions more will benefit from the TRUST Act.

Until now, the state Legislature seldom addressed head-on the issues of granting rights to undocumented Californians who probably aren’t future cardiologists or business executives. In demanding that these people be “model citizens” in order to access basic public resources — student financial aid, acquiring a driver’s license and so on — we affirm that you have to prove your worth in America, unless you were lucky enough to be born here.

Additionally, the TRUST Act has garnered support from surprising places. In a meeting last week with a group representing undocumented students and their supporters, UC President Janet Napolitano, who formerly oversaw the federal department responsible for deporting undocumented people, said she told Brown the new law would be “good for the State of California.”

Still, there’s a long way to for California to go.

In 2007, the median household income of undocumented immigrants nationwide was $36,000, nearly $15,000 below the national median. Furthermore, the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that these families paid more than $10 billion in taxes in 2010 — money they are paying for services the government doesn’t allow them to receive. Simply put, undocumented immigrants are American  regardless of what their passports read, and they pay the tax dollars to prove it.

For now, legislation such as the TRUST Act is an encouraging sign of change to come. Let’s hope Brown and the state Legislature follow through.

The post Rights for all, not for some appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The recently resigned dean, Jonathan Poullard, was an administrator who, in the words of one campus official, elevated “the office of student life to where it is now.” His professionalism and work with student organizations were praised by many others, and his efforts to build dialogue and facilitate civil discourse will no doubt be a significant part of his legacy. Still, concerns remain about his time as dean.

Poullard stood behind former chancellor Robert Birgeneau’s controversial description of the 2011 Occupy Cal protests. When UCPD officers beat demonstrators standing by Sproul Hall, Birgeneau defended the police action. His grounds were that the students linking arms qualified as “not nonviolent civil disobedience.” Poullard, the dean of students and thereby accountable for ensuring student safety and well-being, agreed with Birgeneau’s wrong-headed characterization.

For whomever the search committee taps as the next dean of students, one of his or her primary obligations should be to publicly take on the issue of student protests. The dean should lean into the tension and work with students to address the basis of student civil disobedience and why calls for peaceful demonstration cannot be answered with acts of police violence.

The new dean will also need to bridge the gap between UC President Janet Napolitano and students concerned about her previous roles as the Secretary of Homeland Security and governor of Arizona.  While the dean of students’ job isn not to coordinate public relations for the UC president, it should be a priority to ensure that the UC Office of the President hears the concerns of the Berkeley student community and is able to work on addressing them.

The same also goes for making sure Berkeley’s new chancellor, Nicholas Dirks, is able to effectively communicate his vision for the campus to the student body. Dirks’ proposals of fireside chats with students and increasing administrative transparency are important, and the next dean of students must take on a key role in working with the ASUC to secure the necessary reforms.

The search committee, as Graduate Assembly President Max Gee put it, wants to give students “a voice along every step of the way.” The candidate the committee ultimately decide upon should as well.

The post Finding a dean for students appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Mastering credit card debt, student loans and tax returns, among other adulthood burdens, is no easy task for anyone becoming accustomed to financial independence. According to a 2011 survey by the credit card company Capital One, 36 percent of recent college graduates say they are not setting aside savings on a regular basis. A full 60 percent are at least somewhat worried about their ability to pay back loans.

While walking a financial tightrope leaves little room for mistakes, educating students about important personal money-related decisions can help to lift some of that pressure. In a May 2013 statement given to the Financial Literacy Education Committee, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew stressed the importance of making sure “young people can plan and save for the long term … and that they can handle income shocks while still achieving their personal and financial goals.” On that front, UC Berkeley has a number of useful resources available.

UGBA 196, personal financial management, is a two-unit lecture focusing on personal finance and how to manage money safely over time. There’s also a student-faciliated DeCal course, UGBA 98/198, that teaches students the basics of financial literacy and sets up student-run workshops on basic money management in Oakland. The availability of these classes, while significant in their own right, is still just one step in the right direction.

The ASUC and campus administration should work together to promote further programming that educates students about basic financial facts and smart investment behavior. For example, a productive goal would be to set up workshops on filing taxes and handling credit card debt properly.

Recent studies show that 50 percent of new college graduates find themselves in a line of work unrelated to their degree, and millions across the country struggle to make a living wage; it’s fair to say a broken economy is to blame for many of the money problems of young Americans. Courses teaching the basics of personal finance should not be substitutes for the problems of the economy, but should complement the institutional reforms needed to fix our economy.

This editorial appeared in the Oct. 8, 2013 edition of the Daily Californian.

The post Financial literacy is a must appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The offensive quinceanera-themed party thrown by the Delta Chi fraternity on the night of Sept. 21 is a perfect example of this confusion. The party, the impetus of a recently introduced ASUC Senate bill, was defended by Delta Chi’s president, Cody Kermanian, as never beginning with “the intention to marginalize.”

As evidenced by his remarks, Kermanian is sadly missing the point.

It’s reassuring to hear that Kermanian and the fraternity did not intend to alienate or insult Hispanic students on campus, but the problem with the party was not that it was conducted with malicious intent; the trouble is with the careless reappropriation of an important Hispanic cultural ritual for the purposes of throwing a party.

The bill, sponsored by CalSERVE Senator Wendy Pacheco, places the party squarely in the context of other offensive events that have occurred in Greek communities on American college campuses. While Delta Chi’s quinceanera party did not reach the levels of UC San Diego’s infamous Compton Cookout or a gang-themed party at Dartmouth College (where partygoers dressed up like Bloods and Crips), it is symptomatic of a troublesome trend in Greek party culture across the country.

There are productive measures outlined in the bill to address this trend. It calls for “intent versus impact” training, and it also asks Delta Chi to issue a public apology for throwing the party. However, the bill also has its flaws.

The bill rightfully recalls the incident last semester in which the Theta Delta Chi fraternity hung a figure that looked similar to a black male out of its window for Halloween — directly across from the African American theme floor in Unit 1.

However, the bill mentions that in spite of an ASUC bill that required “mandatory racial sensitivity” training after the incident, “there have been no updates on the efforts for mandatory racial sensitivity curriculum.”

In order for the Greek system to adequately implement these protocols, the ASUC needs to actively enforce the reforms they demand the Greek system take on. Otherwise, the changes necessary to effect a culture shift will have no incentive to be taken seriously.

Furthermore, cultural reappropriation and racial insensitivity are not exclusively qualities of the Greek system. Co-op parties and student group events are often guilty of the same kind of ignorance.

But Delta Chi’s failure to consider the consequences of its actions or the reasons behind those consequences reflect an unaware attitude that seems particularly prevalent within the Greek community.

Hopefully, after this instance, the necessary changes will be adopted, and the Greek community made more culturally aware.

The post Intent doesn’t equal impact appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Recognizing this, UC Berkeley’s administration reached out to students last week to promote a survey asking important questions about the accessibility of mental health resources on campus as well as about individual students’ mental well-being. The administration deserves credit for promoting the survey, developed by RAND Corp. for the California Mental Health Services Authority, but the fight against depression and mental health issues is larger than just what’s on our campus.

Berkeley doctoral student Scott Wallin, who studies cognitive disabilities, characterized it to The Daily Californian in spring 2013 like this: “If I break my arm, there’s no stigma against going to the doctor and getting it fixed, but if I’m feeling stressed, if I can’t do my work or maintain relationships … (the question becomes,) what’s wrong with me? Am I weak? Why can’t I be normal?”

Overcoming stereotypes and biases concerning mental and emotional problems, particularly depression, is a struggle that is of particular interest to college students. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, one in four people between the ages of 18 and 24 has a diagnosable mental illness. More than 11 percent of American college students reported having undergone treatment for anxiety, and more than 10 percent reported receiving treatment for depression. And most jarringly, suicide is the second-leading cause of death on college campuses across the country.

While opening a campuswide conversation about mental and emotional health issues is of paramount interest to any college campus, UC Berkeley, with its large number of high-achieving students and rigorous academic environment, can be a particularly stressful place at times. Aaron Cohen, a psychologist working at the University Health Services Tang Center, told the Daily Cal that Berkeley is an “intense” place with “stress, anxiety and depression” for many students.

This perception of Berkeley, reinforced by the stigmas mentioned by Wallin, often leads many students to ignore signs of distress or tension, and they subsequently let their symptoms go untreated. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that 40 percent of students with mental health conditions don’t seek help, and 57 percent choose not to request accommodations from their school.

Many students are aware of the resources available but feel trapped by stigmas surrounding mental health issues. Additionally, a number of students don’t know about the counseling services the Tang Center offers or the support lines available 24 hours a day. The campus has recognized this and has repeatedly urged faculty members and campus staff to be aware of the warning signs of suicide and depression. Still, this may not be enough.

To truly build a healthier, more supportive community, we need to be cognizant of the warning signs of mental health issues and encourage one another to be open about internal struggles.

Almost half of all college students report that at some point in the last year, they felt they were too depressed to function normally. The sad truth is that many among us didn’t or were not able to reach out for help, and a good deal of us failed to offer the right kind of help at the right time.

Look for the warning signs, and keep an open mind about others’ needs. As individuals, we may be able to make a significant impact on the lives of a few people we know, but as a campus, we can do even more than that. And if we believe ourselves to be a community that truly cares about one another, we must do more than that.

The post Open hearts, healthy minds appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The General Social Survey, which measures social change in America, reported that in 2012, a full 3 percent of Americans with college degrees identified as lower class, up from 1.7 percent in 2002. While at a glance these numbers seem low and the difference between them insignificant, never before in the history of the survey (which started in 1972) has such a large portion of college-educated Americans considered themselves lower class.

To borrow a phrase from UC Berkeley public policy professor Jane Mauldon, why the shift in “class identities?”

Simply put, more and more members of our generation are probably realizing that the middle-class promise, the idea that hard work and a college degree would lead to a stable career, is illusory. Last month, the unemployment rate for 18- to 29-year-olds, adjusted for those not in the labor force, was about 11 percent. In comparison, the national unemployment rate is 7.3 percent.

Even without counting the millions of graduates underemployed working jobs such as barista or sandwich artist, these figures are troubling on their own and explain some of the economic unease illustrated in the survey. These statistics, however, are only part of the picture.

UC Berkeley is an elite university with an aesthetic to match that status. When prospective students come to visit, they see the magnificent pillars of Sproul Hall and the beauty and scope of the Doe Library. They learn about the storied history of the Free Speech Movement as well as the top-tier academic research that happens on this campus. What they aren’t prepared for, though, is what happens when their time at Berkeley is over.

Students here know all too well the fear of becoming a second-semester senior with no post-graduation job lined up and a degree society tells them is worthless because it’s in the wrong major. Even previously “secure” concentrations in fields such as biology and economics are no longer so safe, seemingly independent of the high GPAs we work to achieve during our time here.

While the campus offers resources such as Callisto and appointments at the career center, they are insufficient in assisting students coping with an economic environment unlike any other in the last quarter-century.

But even if we can’t overcome this challenge on our own, the Berkeley community still has resources left to offer.

Berkeley alumni are some of the most accomplished in the world, counting Fortune 500 CEOs and Supreme Court justices among their ranks. Strengthening the connections between alumni and present undergraduates would give students professional development opportunities that are hard to find in the present economy.

Another strategy is to get professors involved in the job hunt process earlier on. A lack of exposure to relevant career paths is part of the reason many leave UC Berkeley with no prospects lined up. Some professors already do this. A number even use their courses to showcase different occupations available to people with what might be considered less “practical” degrees.

Still, better professional development may not be enough.

The moment in which many soon-to-be-graduates or recent graduates find themselves is complex. On one hand, getting those internships and letters of recommendation really does make a difference. On the other, taking an unpaid internship to advance a career is a luxury many cannot afford.

Millennials are hurting right now, and because no one seems to care, many of us have decided to tune out for lack of a better option. Here’s to hoping someone thinks of one.

The post No jobs, no hope, no cash appeared first on The Daily Californian.

According to a report released last week, sales of luxury seats from the Endowment Seating Program declined during the March-to-June quarter, falling by 77 seats. Fewer than two-thirds of the 2,902 available ESP seats have been sold since the initiative was launched.

Despite a year-to-year improvement from June 2012, the low figures represented a deeper problem underlying the Memorial Stadium project and held serious ramifications for what the funding plan aimed to do going forward. This has since changed, as the renovation funding plan is now ahead of schedule. More broadly, however, the paltry receipts from the ESP symbolized many of the stadium retrofit’s initial  flaws.

To begin with, the idea of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on an athletics facility and a football stadium for a school that has won a division title exactly once since 1975 was perhaps too lavish. When the decision to move forward with the project was made in 2009, lowered interest rates (a result of the 2007-08 financial crisis) and the glory days of the Tedford years of Cal football lent the Memorial Stadium retrofit a sense of optimism.

In that light, making the stadium as seismically sound as possible was not only a worthy goal — particularly because the structure sits directly on top of a fault line — but it also reflected the hopefulness of the moment. Yet was it really a wise decision to spend the rough equivalent of the GDP of a small nation on a top-flight athletics compound?

New UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks and Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance John Wilton (who came to campus in 2011) recognize this and have taken steps to mitigate some of the damage that has already been done. Wilton reached out to professors from the Haas School of Business to evaluate a new plan developed by Intercollegiate Athletics for the stadium’s finances. The report the Haas professors released in March of this year addressed the previously grim fiscal reality and outlines creative steps the campus can take to generate alternative revenue.

The Haas report outlines many of the administration’s new tactics to bring the renovation funding plan back onto the path of financial sustainability. These include utilizing the stadium’s capacity as a rental space and revamping the ticket sales strategy. The new direction Dirks and Wilton seem to be taking is a positive one, to be sure, but the stadium’s financial future is far from certain.

Former UC Berkeley chancellor Robert Birgeneau and former vice chancellor of administration  Nathan Brostrom were ambivalent about providing the details that were the basis of their initial revenue estimates — projections that have proven to be excessively optimistic, as the Haas report acknowledged. Disconcertingly, the authors of the Haas report note they were “unable to obtain detailed explanations of the process by which the original (revenue) forecasts were made.”

The current administration appears poised to pursue a different strategy.

Whereas Birgeneau and Brostrom’s picture of the Memorial Stadium renovation contained rosy revenue forecasts, Dirks and Wilton should be upfront with the campus community about the size of the obligation we need to meet. As stakeholders in the university, we are owed further explanations about the colossal debt obligation that our campus faces and what the options are available to tackle the problem.

At present, the quarterly reports on the stadium are easily accessible only by clicking through the clunky CalBears.com website, and Dirks has yet to fully address the students directly about the stadium’s muddled finances.

Publicly engaging the student body and making resources such as the quarterly reports more readily available would go a long way toward bringing the campus up to speed on the issue.

The post Flawed from the beginning appeared first on The Daily Californian.

California’s current minimum wage of $8 per hour is ahead of most other states, but legislators in Sacramento correctly identified that it was not enough for most families to live on and accordingly took action.

That said, the legislation still has not caught up to the sky-high cost of living in Berkeley. Even with the minimum wage of $10 per hour, California’s new law still would not be enough for workers living in Berkeley to meet basic needs, according to MIT’s Living Wage Calculator. The calculator, which uses data from sources such as the Census Bureau and Consumer Expenditure Survey, estimates the minimum hourly wage needed to get by in Berkeley for a single adult is $11.51.

This is not to say that the increase is pointless or that it will only be felt by those at the bottom of the income ladder. As people earning minimum wage make more, employers who pay just above the minimum will likely be forced to raise the wages of their staff in order to compete for workers. This effect should ripple throughout the economy, elevating incomes and ensuring workers get a healthier chunk of their employers’ profits.

For students, this act will provide a much-needed boost to those working part-time jobs, many of which are at or near the minimum wage. The measure also includes workers who have wages that include tips; California’s tipped minimum wage is $8 right now, but the federal tipped minimum wage is only $2.13. California is boldly setting the example that it is unfair to pay tipped workers such a substantially lower amount, as they have been stuck with the same wage floor for the last 22 years.

However, California should just be the beginning.

Nationwide, entry-level workers at corporations such as Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Amazon and elsewhere make very little and are often overworked, while shareholders and corporate officers reap substantial profits.

In that vein, UC Berkeley public policy professor and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has launched a petition on MoveOn.org calling on the CEOs of McDonald’s and Wal-Mart to increase the base pay of their workers to at least $15 per hour. State legislators would be prudent to think even bigger and advocate the new act to be expanded to other states as well.

Smaller businesses with just a few employees may initially be forced to shed workers or reduce hours as a result of the new law. This should be negligible damage, though, when compared to the standard-of-living increases that workers will experience.

California experiences one of the largest income gaps in the country, and a higher minimum wage may not close it. The new law will not completely ensure all Californians are able to earn a living wage. But it’s a start, and it’s a promising indication as to what direction the state government aims to go.

The post A win for California’s poor appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Debated at Sept. 10’s City Council meeting, the roughly $50 million proposal to construct an environmentally sustainable building that can provide permanent residence, social services and a much needed emergency shelter is potentially a new direction for the city administration. Councilmember Jesse Arreguin assured the chamber the cost could be covered by the Berkeley Housing Trust Fund, a pool of money devoted to providing resources for Berkeley’s homeless, in addition to other sources. Because the proposal’s price tag is so substantial, squaring away the funding concerns is a clear priority.

Despite Arreguin’s promises to the contrary, the mayor and Downtown business leaders have expressed skepticism about the project’s financing, in addition to concerns about the new facility displacing more than 100 parking spaces.

Given Bates’ and the business community’s vocal support of Measure S, a failed 2012 ballot initiative that would have effectively kicked homeless people off of commercially zoned sidewalks from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., it isn’t a surprise they are apprehensive about the project.

Bates is right to be aggressive about the security of financial support for the project (and for how much the city might be on the line), and business owners in Berkeley have legitimate grievances about wiping out 112 parking spots in the notoriously parking-scarce Downtown Berkeley area.

That said, there are constructive conversations to be had about how to proceed with this project. Finding ways to integrate more parking spaces with the new facility is a must, and so is reconfiguring the streets surrounding it to allow for more parking spots. There may be a net loss of spots once the project is completed, but business owners stand to benefit from the facility in the long run; an environment with the resources necessary to accommodate the homeless population can only help local businesses.

Downtown Berkeley is a uniquely vibrant atmosphere that will attract customers regardless of whether it takes five or 10 minutes to find parking, but business owners will hurt if parking accommodations aren’t made.

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