North Coast Journal January 31, 2008 : IN THE NEWS : SHORT STORIES

January 31, 2008

On Shaky Ground | Communication Dept.

On Shaky Ground CR campus map showing construction plans

The Physical Science Building at the College of the Redwoods sits atop a grassy knoll on the corner of the campus. As was explained in detail at a special meeting of the community college’s board of trustees last Thursday, the building also sits atop something called the Little Salmon Fault. In fact, much of the campus seems to be standing on shaky ground.

As it turns out, the fact that the fault runs through campus may result in a windfall of sorts — a state funding stream in excess of $50 million in bond money to pay for a collection of new buildings. If all goes according to plan, revenues from Proposition 1D, a 2006 school bond intended for repair and upgrade of existing campuses, will help replace the Student Services and Administration Building, the Student Union and the Forum Theater, and pay for construction of a new academic building with assorted science and humanities classrooms.

Naysayers who spoke against the plan had a range of complaints: Some questioned the assertion that the “seismically deficient buildings” would fall down in an earthquake. Many simply did not want the look and feel of the campus to change. They love the modern redwood and stone structures built in the mid-1960s. As Peter Portugal, son of CR’s founding president Eugene Portugal put it: “Those buildings represent the heart and soul of CR.”

Others questioned the wisdom of taking on a major renovation when the campus is facing a variety of other troubles. Bill Hole, an instructor in CR’s historic restoration program, pointed to the school’s budget crisis, the threat to its accreditation status and an almost complete turnover in the upper administration. He asked, “How can a school with such a record of bad management believe they have the qualifications to take on such a large project with public money?”

An oft-repeated complaint was that project was approved without sufficient public comment. The trustees approved the modernization plan, basically an overhaul of the entire campus, at a meeting in September 2006 in Del Norte County that interim CR President Tom Harris described as “a retreat.” There was little or no public input, a fact that Harris noted and more than one trustee apologized for. Last week’s meeting was supposed to make up for that, but as more than one person pointed out, the plan was “already a done deal.” The only thing on the agenda for the special meeting was a reaffirmation of the authorization.

In a straight-to-the-point presentation at the start of the meeting Harris explained that the college did not start with plans for a major overhaul. Because of the faults, what began in 2004 with a remodel that would have been paid for by Measure Q (the $40 million bond passed during the administration of former CR President Casey Crabill) spun into something much larger.

Geologist Frank Bickner of LACO Associates presented the science. Trenches dug by his firm suggest that the Little Salmon earthquake fault, first discovered in 1953, runs under all of the main buildings you see as you look up the hill from the parking lot. Bickner explained that under California’s Alquist Priolo Special Studies Zone Act new structures cannot be built within 50 feet of an active fault. Buildings built prior to the law’s 1972 passage are OK, but if a major remodel is planned, and it costs more than 50 percent of the value of the structure, it’s demolition time. Well, maybe.

While the final phase of the CR master plan posted on the school’s website notes, in all caps, “Demo old Science, Library & Forum,” Harris said emphatically that “there has never been a plan to tear the buildings down.” It was suggested that the supposedly threatened building could be leased out. Who might rent them was not made clear.

Project proponents, most notably wheelchair-bound trustee Tom Ross, pointed to the campus’ lack of accessibility for handicapped. New building would solve that.

In the end, the appeal of easy money outweighed all concerns. The trustees voted 7-1 in favor of reaffirming their previous decision. The project will move forward.

One thing that did not come up at Thursday’s hearing was the appeal of the project’s Neg. Dec. (mitigated negative declaration of environmental impact) filed by Alex Stillman, a preservation proponent who sits on the Arcata City Council. In all likelihood the question of whether there should be an EIR will make its way to the Board of Supervisors. You have not heard the last of this issue.

— Bob Doran

Communication Dept.

It would be easy at this moment in HSU’s history — surprisingly fat with increased enrollment as the spring semester freshly sprouts, but also in belt-tightening mode to cover a lingering deficit — to assume that any tales of overstuffed classes and enormous waiting lists has directly to do with this happy-sad situation. One might further accuse that it’s the administration’s fault for not foreseeing what would happen when it went all hyper this past year with its push to meet enrollment targets, HSU having lagged in enrollment long enough to fear the CSU honchos would yank away funding.

And maybe there’s some truth to that: HSU received 2,314 more applications by mid-January this year than a year ago, the increase mostly in freshmen applications. “Everything’s tight this semester,” said Bob Snyder, interim provost and vice president of student affairs.

But consider the case of class 309B, the most in-demand class at HSU, judging by its gargantuan waiting list. The class, “Gender and Communication,” taught by Assistant Prof. Maxwell Schnurer, is so popular that this semester its three sections are filled to capacity and about 120 more students are clamoring to get in, around 70 of them seniors looking to fulfill a final general education requirement in order to graduate this spring.

One of those seniors is Jen McCollom. (Double disclosure: This writer happens to be friends with McCollom, and Schnurer writes for this paper on occasion.) McCollom, an English major who transferred from College of the Redwoods a couple of semesters ago, blames the situation on poor communication.

“Last November, registration opened on Friday, the 16th, at 9 a.m.,” she said. “So at 9 a.m. I was registering [online].” She was able to get into all of the courses she needed, except for one: 309B. (She heard later it had filled up within the first six minutes.)

So at 10:17 a.m., McCollum emailed Schnurer. Ten days later, Schnurer e-mailed her back, saying the class was indeed full but that it was possible she could get into the class if someone dropped out; he’d put her on the waiting list. McCollum left it at that, figuring she’d probably get in.

“My experience at HSU has been, if I’m on a waiting list and I talk to the professor — and typically I’ve only had five people in front of me in other classes — and if I show up on the first day of class, I get in,” she said.

On the first day of classes this month, she arrived at 309B to discover the waiting list was not a mere five students ahead of her, but 30 ahead and almost a hundred behind. She says she wishes she’d known these odds last November; she’d have signed up for something else. But now her school and work schedules are fixed, making adjustments difficult. Besides, most of the other classes she could take to fulfill the requirement are now full.

An advisor told McCollom that 309B was an unusual case — no other class had so many waiting to get in. Snyder explained the popularity of 309B: First, the class fulfills a requirement for communications majors. Second, it can be taken to satisfy three different areas of upper division general education requirements and is one of the less science-y ones, which makes a lot of students happy. Third, it satisfies the “diversity and common ground” course requiremed of every HSU student.

Snyder has little sympathy for seniors who can’t get into that class. “They tell me this all the time: ‘I have to have it to graduate!’” he said. “No, that’s not the case. They would like to have it.” They can take another class, Snyder said. There are about 50 seats still open in this category of required courses.

Schnurer says the “bureaucratic wrangling and heavy-handed pressure from students have made teaching the class more difficult. Rather than focus my energy on preparing for class, I have to field requests and explain the situation to student after student.”

He’s worried what might happen next. “In many ways, Gender and Communication is a classic Humboldt class,” he said. “The subject matter is thought-provoking, the schedule is rigorous, and the students are asked to think about the ways their lives are gendered. Dramatically increasing the size of the class would hurt a lot of those goals.”

Snyder says not to worry. “I don’t have any plans at this point to make this class bigger,” he said. He also doesn’t plan to add more sections. He wishes, instead, that students “would just distribute themselves” better instead of all trying to pile into 309B.

Which gets back to McCollom’s complaint: Perhaps somebody should have warned people about the class’s extreme popularity. “I have to think about it,” Snyder said. “Maybe a note in the online catalog.”

— Heidi Walters

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