absolutely somebody needs to fired. Don’t know who, but total incompetence.

In reading more, the decision to move to the stadium was actually made well before the pandemic. The reasons stated by the university were fewer, larger ceremonies would allow them to procure bigger name speakers, the Pavilion was struggling to schedule everything with a growing number of ceremonies from the professional schools, and a larger venue would allow more tickets per student. The unstated reason was the chancellor having to give 9 addresses over 3 days.

While I appreciate the chancellor apologizing and accepting responsibility—the first time I’ve seen a UCD admin even partially own a mistake, it was ultimately inadequate and of questionable sincerity. Students are saying the communication about the Saturday (2nd) ceremony was conflicting and changing right up to the start of the ceremony, with mumblings from volunteers that the chaos campaign was intentional to dissuade people from coming so they could speed up the ceremony. Other students noted they were only allowed 4 tickets, instead of the 6+ typical at the pavilion. And others questioned how it was ever realistic to have a 2 hour ceremony with 2500 names when the Pavilion ceremonies lasted 2+ hours with only 700 names.

this is at least the 3rd if not 4th turf to go down is Aggie Stadium. It seems artificial turf actually has kind of a short lifetime (maybe the intense heat contributes?). If you factored all of the inputs, I’m kind of curious on the overall environmental impact of artificial turf vs well-managed Bermuda.

I didn’t realize it had been happening for 34 years. I guess it has been kind of a niche event not widely publicized. From what I gather there were a half dozen or so minority groups that held such events this year. I will say that I don’t really understand the purpose of these events, but unto each their own.

This sounds like a grade A fudge up, and one that was predictable for anyone who lived through the opening of Aggie Stadium. I can appreciate the challenges of the Pavilion, namely it has become too small for commencement unless you do at least 6 ceremonies (maybe a tough sell for the admins who have to go to all of them), plus add in makeups for 2020 and 2021 boosting numbers. I can also appreciate that some people, maybe grandparents especially, being apprehensive about being in a sold out indoor venue. If this was going to outdoors in June, it should have been under the lights. Or they should have rented Golden 1 Center for the capacity. Historically Davis has read names, but maybe it is time to consider other ways. For example, Stanford does a stadium ceremony with a kind of informal walk in, the speeches, and then they dismiss everyone to small stages setup all over campus on lawns and lecture halls where each department has a more intimate ceremony to read names. Also, maybe time to abandon commencement speakers. We may remember how long they talk but rarely what they say. As far as banning water, I’ve been to several UCD commencements and never remember smuggled booze being a problem. Sounds like a solution searching for a problem.

EVO seems like a good program that should be available to everyone. One of the challenges with UCD is its sheer size and can be very impersonal if you don’t find your way into some sort of smaller connected cohort and I can relate to the “now what” feeling as senior year winds down. My experience in Letters and Sciences was that it was very difficult to build relationships with faculty and college staff unless you had some sort of marketable personal story like digging wells in Africa without hands or whatever. And it seemed like the internship and career center wasn’t nearly as interested as they were in engineering and bio sciences students. So the idea of building accessible connections with alumni and employers in a broad range of areas who kind of have ordinary professions rather than just the “change the world” types that make it into UCD Magazine seems noble. High schools peddle this lie that good jobs come looking for you if you go to a good university. That may be reality for a few fields, but for many fields the diploma is not as convincing on its own as you’ve been led to believe and you to have to have additional marketable skills and experience to be competitive.

I don’t often accuse Mrak Hall of being reasonable, but thank goodness reasonable minds prevailed here. This exercise was a dumb waste of resources. Now ASUCD can get back to the important things like organizing sit-ins to demand a Punjabi major and free organic tampons in the mens restrooms (both real by the way).

This is a circular issue. 12% voter turnout is considered “well above normal”. Because ASUCD types waste their oxygen on nonsense like this or debating the finer points of BDS in regards to hypothetical assets they don’t have. People don’t vote because the proposals are nutty, but it leaves just enough space for the nutty crowd to push their agenda as if they have some sort of majority mandate.

idk the breakdown of who voted but in this case an organized abstention might have been most effective way to keep turnout below 20% and win by default.

Results were announced today - 79% in favor of getting rid of the athletic fee, however only a 12% voter turnout. They needed 20% turnout for a quorum, so it’s technically null. Also passed was a resolution to request the administration to change the mascot from Gunrock Mustang to a cow. Interestingly 12% turnout is a 470% increase from recent elections.

So basically a vocal minority was able to convince about 10% of students with a noisy get out the vote campaign while the other 90% just didn’t care enough to participate in an online vote.

My recollection is that elections always had a very small turnout driven by the Greeks and some single-issue activists (ie groups with strong opinions on Israel and Palestine always tried to pack ASUCD). Are there enough single issue activists who care one way or the other on ICA? I don’t know. The referendums to initiate these fees had future start dates, so the students voting were doing so on behalf of future students and never paid them themselves. Who doesn’t like raising taxes on someone else? The math could be different here if the tax cut would be immediate and personally beneficial. If the PE thing was what set this unrest in motion, then it was indeed a misstep, although I think in the fine print these referendums are technically advisory and the chancellor isn’t bound to them. On one hand I agree that fees are too high, probably, in my opinion, because too much general fund money gets blown on pet projects leaving basic services in need of special fundraising. But on the other hand, it is important for Gen Z to understand that part of life is paying taxes that may benefit others or the community at large without huge personal benefit.

Competitive cheer is an interesting animal because with no national sanction like ncaa it is entirely privately owned. One side of the equation is Pop Warner cheer - technically non profit but the cash cow that keeps the youth football organization in business. The other side is Varsity Inc, privately held by a billionaire who owns pretty much every cheer league that isn’t Pop Warner, as well as vertical integrations like the companies that make the uniforms, produce the music, arrange the travel, and take the photos. These two organizations despise each other and kids don’t tend to participate in both simultaneously because the rules and techniques are different. The organizations trade barbs of who is more committed to safety vs profits. Varsity further has two camps- the school based teams and the private club teams. The deeply committed kids do both. By far the ugliest stuff happens on the private club teams because you’re dealing with people who have money, are willing to win at any cost, and who’s poor behavior goes unchecked until it rises to the level of involving the sheriff. The school teams behave a little better because they usually get the “don’t embarrass the school” talk from the principal. But in both cases you have kids being thrown in the air with really no safety equipment and “coaches” who’s only qualification was being a cheerleader 20 years ago. In fairness, inappropriate behavior from coaches of private teams is not limited to cheer. If there is one stereotype being broken, however, it is that cheer is no longer exclusively “hot girls”—they have grown to accept people of varying body sizes, gender ambiguities, and disabilities—anybody who has a parent with a checkbook.

I went to nations in Davis a few times as a kid but it was gone by the time I was a student. If I had reason to be in Vacaville I would go out of my way to stop at the one there. A different kind of place but I was also disappointed when Habit burger pulled out. What I gathered from someone who worked downtown was that most all the commercial real estate was owned a by a couple landlords who drove a hard bargain on lease renewals.

no, it was funny. Probably offensive, but funny.

I mean, I believe UCD has some of the highest campus based fees in UC at around $3k per year, of which athletics gets about $650. Proposed increase of $69.30 total on the year, $50 of which is for ASUCD and Unitrans. I don’t know that I’d characterize it as a huge fee increase and doesn’t appear was driven by athletics. The dorms are insanely expensive and have been for years. Not sure why other than they can, but I think housing costs are a bigger obstacle than tuition for many because financial aid is much less available to help with housing. I agree the PE thing was a misstep because it didn’t seem like a very expensive program. My hypothesis remains that Campus Rec wanted to drive PE participants to paid activities at the ARC.

The Aggie is also funded by a referendum approved fee. Maybe it should be voted out too due to the narrow viewpoints it tends to publish. Earmarked fees also fund the Women’s Center and Cross Cultural Center, which have very narrow user bases. Dare someone to call for defunding those. Don’t get me wrong, I think student fees are too high and I don’t think student fees should be used to fund fire alarm upgrades or the financial aid office. But cherry picking the athletics fees without questioning why student housing, the bookstore, and parking all turn profits without clarity on where the profits are going seems like a little bit of a manipulated narrative. I wonder what chapped this guy’s hide? Seats too hard in the library main reading room?

Florida here. Pick a different state to compare to. Desantis has been doctoring the numbers to suit his political ambitions and sending armed thugs to rough up dissenters. As such, testing is virtually nonexistent. The mass sites are long gone and pharmacies and health departments are “sold out” of tests. Naturally the less you test the less you find.

I won’t make the game but my company is hiring janitors, starting $17/hr w/ benefits/union, if anyone wants to pass out my card to the seniors on the Sac sideline.

the last one I saw was maybe 2007 near the aquatics center. If it reappeared after, it’s not to my knowledge. I’m afraid @BlueGoldAg is correct that at this point in time large open fires are probably not responsible. At the time they axed it I think the official line was environmental but largely understood to be a budget thing and a desire to distance from D2 traditions as having the football team do skits on a haywagon by firelight was maybe too campy.

@movielover it barely made the news but CAAA bought property in Tahoe to build an alumni retreat but couldn’t get the neighbors on board and sold it a 7 figure loss. From the bits I’ve heard from insiders there was maybe things happening internally not by the bylaws that resulted in a management change. The new vision I’m told is to focus on things that have educational or career development value rather than just social.

Pajamarino waned in student popularity when they axed the bonfire afterward, around the time Aggie Stadium opened. While the Band-uh and alumni band were kind of the main attraction, the event was organized by the Cal Aggie Alumni Association. They used to charter buses to take a big alumni group to the Sacramento Amtrak station to ride the train back and have a big alumni arrival. CAAA had their own scandal a couple years ago and they cleaned house and brought in a outside hire to run it, so maybe it’s just not a priority anymore.

Yup, they released the actual emails between Vaughn, Flushman, and Blue in the full report.