UCSC Needs to Change

To Whom It May Concern:

I would like to address many issues surrounding UCSC and its ideas and motives. You may think that I am going to continue to rant about how the large number of liberal hippies are smoking too much marijuana and clogging the streets of Santa Cruz with their bikes and bio-diesel cars. However that is just the thing, I am seeing less and less of these beloved free thinking activist students, and I am seeing more and more school officials concerned with their federal funding, trying to subdue and eliminate any controversial activities. Trying to conform to the rigid and conservative ideas of the UC system.

I grew up in Santa Cruz, and am now attending UCSC as an Art Major. I came to UCSC looking to find a creative, liberal and different approach to education, however what I have found is an ever-changing corporation that is slowly but surely being drawn to the dark side of corporate greed and pressure from the higher ups. For example, think about what UCSC was only ten years ago, free from a rigid grading system and much more open and encouraging of their activist students. This year, 2007, on 4/20 a holiday that is commonly used to celebrate marijuana, UCSC requested that a large number of police be present to stop anyone from participating in the holiday. This was unsuspected due to the fact that UCSC has always seemed to turn a blind eye to this kind of thing. When I asked the Student Affairs representative, who was responsible for requesting all the police presence, why they were here, he responded by saying that the reason they had to stop any celebration was because if they didn’t their federal funding would be cut.

Is this the same college that refused to remove a sculpture depicting a nude male even when threatened to have funding cut. Why is UCSC giving in to this federal pressure. Why are they trying to expand and destroy acres of forest that make UCSC such a wonderful campus? The creativity and freethinking of the students is being repressed by UCSC’s attempts to look good in the eyes of the UC system as well as Federal higher ups.

I believe that there are many other people that could share similar stories and opinions regarding this censorship and conformity that is happening at UCSC, I feel as though if you did some research and interviewing you could come up with an interesting article, and it could spawn some action and pressure for reform.

Thanks,
Calen Barca-Hall