Seventy-four year old Karen Baird was participating in the non-violent protest on the corner of Reseda and Nordhoff on March 4th. The police viewed her as a threat and hit her with a billy club. Karen Baird has a broken arm, the fracture is close to her shoulder. Her expected recovery is six months to a year.

Now how police can view a seventy-four year old woman as a threat is beyond my comprehension.
However, if you listen closely it is clear other students are provoking the police officers. That is no excuse but sometimes innocent people get injured because of other’s stupid actions.

Watch for yourself……

Here is where I stand and why:
Yesterday I was sitting in class listening to a lecture for an exam in two week. All of the sudden a group of girls with whistles and a loud speaker, open our class room door and tell us to walk out. I am angered mostly because these budget cuts have not only caused pay cuts in professors salaries but has decreased the number of class meetings. Therefore, I fail to see how disrupting an valuable class meeting proves a point. These students walked out of a class to protest the lack of classes. Furthermore, the state wide protest was to begin at 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. (this is still not clear) and these students were being disruptive at 11:00 a.m. I even had a woman in my class say to me,

I am not going to class (at 11:00 am) because I am protesting. But will you meet me at 12:15 (when our class ends) and share your notes with me?

Seriously?!!! For one a grown woman should have enough sense to partake in only organized protest that have the potential to make a difference. Second, do not ask for my notes. You made your uneducated choice so stick with it.

A little back ground on California State University, Northridge:
Our tuition is less the $3000 a semester. Our tuition increased came back in July. Now for University of California Los Angeles students I understand their rage. Their tuition was increased after the deadline to apply for more financial aide. I understand the frustration with not being able to purchase books, pay for classes or have money to eat.
Now back to California State University, Northridge. Our tuition is fairly small in comparison to other state universities. Most run between $5000-$6000 a semester for undergraduates.
The $3000 each student pays only covers about 1/3 of the resources that student uses in one semester. The rest is state funded because the California State University system does not offer Ph.D. programs. Without Ph.D. programs the state universities are not eligible for grants and funding other universities are receiving. Do not get me wrong, I too am outraged at the tuition increase while rumors circulate that our university president and chancellor receive raises. I am outraged at the increase in tuition and class size while the number of class options and class meetings decrease. I am outraged that incredible professors are being under paid and under valued.

I completely understand yesterday was a state wide walk out for all the California State University and the University of California schools. I just do not see the logic behind students becoming violent with police officers and refusing to support the professors who sacrifice time and money in order to perpetuate the spirit of higher education. Again, this pertains to Northridge students. I do not know what took place on other campuses nor do I know their tuition and class situation.

Now, as I was leaving campus after my last class I was informed of an actually organized protest. I would have liked to haven known about this sooner, but again this whole process seems to be incredibly unorganized and under publicized. I support organization that encourages knowledge and takes the appropriate measures for change. As I write this post I am still a little confused on the details of what took place. What I want to make clear is that I do not support ignorant action that was ultimately motived by a reason to skip classes.

The truth of the matter is that other California citizens have to begin to understand the value in higher education. As a state we need to stop giving unemployment to those who are too lazy to look for jobs and too busy reproducing in order to collect more money. We need to stop funding funerals for celebrities that cost more the $5 million. We need to stop throwing Occur and Grammy parties for the wealthy. We desperately need to start giving aid to students who have proven their desire to be successful. We need to start valuing and respecting our teachers. All of this becomes a little more impossible when students fail to educate themselves on the how to make change and march around campus with pie tins and whistles. The people in the class rooms are aware of the problem. The ones who need the eye opener are across the way sitting in their leather chairs and air conditioned offices.

With a new semester under way at CSUN, students arrive back to campus with more questions and a sense of urgency. The California budget crisis has seem to hit an all time low this fiscal year. CSUN alone will face close to five hundred eighty five million dollar budget cut. Professors are forced to take nine furlough days this fall in addition to a ten percent pay cut. However the Professors are not the only CSUN regulars feeling the pinch. Tuition has gone up to almost three thousand dollars and finical aid has been decreased. Universities across the country are facing budget cuts as well, but California seems to be taking a more drastic route.

There is more to be outraged about than raised tuition and decreased pay, our education is in serious jeopardy. With over crowed class rooms and professors being forced to take furlough days, we the students are being cheated. Most might think having less classes is cool, I feel it is severally handicapping our ability to learn and to succeed in the future. With less class meetings the amount of information we should be learning is decreased. Mean while students at other universities remain in eighteen week semesters learning what the furlough days have taken away. With over three million college students in the state of California, this year’s financial irresponsibility could be the end to higher education here in California. Which in itself is another scary issue. With less out of state students interested in coming to over crowded universities with over worked and under paid professors, the economy will take another huge hit. Furthermore the top professors California has fought to maintain will simply go else where. There is will be a decrease in the number of college graduates, which today’s society has grown to depend on.

“It’s going to be harder for me to continue to be in school,” said Nancy Santana, 25, a single mother who attends San Diego’s Miramar College and worries her financial aid will be reduced. “I may be forced to cut school and find a job without a degree.”

-CSUN Blogs

California’s once prestigious higher education system has now become little more than a joke. What would be incoming freshmen are going out of state and graduate students are looking else where as well. I myself am graduating from CSUN in May 2010. I am looking for graduate programs, however none are in California. I do not want to pay higher tuition for over crowded classrooms and irritated professors. Once students move to another state for a better quality education, the likelihood of them returning to work in an economically challenge state is extremely low. This is not just a CSUN issue, this is a state wide issue that desperately needs to be taken seriously before it is too late.

The UC system, which has about 220,000 students, is raising student fees by 9 percent, reducing freshman enrollment by 6 percent and cutting at least $300 million from the budgets of its 10 campuses. UC is forcing most of its 180,000 employees to take furloughs and pay cuts of up to 10 percent, which officials say will make it harder to stop competing universities from poaching academic stars.

-CSUN Blogs

There is a “Vent Tent” on the CSUN campus. I assume the media is covering this crisis on other campuses as well. I encourage all students to speak their minds. Because without action, there will be no results. Being cheated out of a month of learning is not cool, it will effect our ability to find careers in the future.

Throughout the day, students at a “Vent at the Tent” event signed petitions or aired their complaints on videotape, to be forwarded to Gov.Arnold Schwarzenegger. Students spoke of higher fees, of being shut out of classes, of losing financial aid. And of being unable to graduate. Some faculty members, who lost 10 percent of their income to furloughs, spoke of being on the verge of financial collapse.

-Daily News

Long story a little shorter, when I first transfered to CSUN I did really bad for three semesters. I just stopped going to my classes and failed. I was kicked out of CSUN because of this.
Since then I have taken classes at CSUN but paid for them myself because I could not get financial aid because I was not a CSUN student. Finally this Spring semester I was readmitted to CSUN, my financial came threw, later but still arrived. Even my Summer semester has been going smoothly.

Today I get a letter saying I will not get any financial aid in the Fall because I have not meet the academic standards. Keep in mind I just made the Dean’s List for Spring semester which is my first official semester back at CSUN. I call the financial aid office and of course get the run around from some girl who has absolutely no idea what she is talking about. I was told I was going to get a call back, which never happened. Not surprised. The mistake is totally theirs, I looked up in the academic progress section. They cannot penalize me twice for the same thing. I was already kick out because of poor academic performance and re-admitted. Which means when assessing my progress they can only take into account the Spring 2009 and Summer 2009 semesters.
However this is gong to take FOREVER to straighten out. Meaning my Fall aid will probably come two months late as well.
Most of all I am tired of correcting CSUN stupid mistakes. I cannot wait to graduate and get the hell out of such a poorly organized school.

If this would have been a month earlier I would have just stayed there and not worried about the consequences.
However since I have made my “new years resolution” (I hate calling it that), I have turned over a new leaf.

As I laid in bed I began to think about my goals and how I planned to achieve them. I quickly remembered there are no short cuts in life and got my lazy butt out of my california king sized bed and into my not so warm car.

After an intense 50 minutes of pilates and then a 500 swim for time I was feeling fantastic.
I was alert and ready to learn when I sat down in my statistics class.
I had a wonderful day on campus, came home and completed most of my assignments that are due next week.

I learned that the days I want to stay in bed are the days I need to be out in the world!

Is it possible that there is no material world and what we are experiencing is a dream?

Everyone was saying that life is real because we experience death. And I said, what if we are dreaming and “death” is just us waking up?

And one girl replies by saying,

Why dont you kill yourself and find out?

I mean seriously? That is all she has to contribute to the class? I think she needs to spend more time reading the required text and stop being so close minded.

Everyone said she was rude, but I said she was just ignorant.
It was a fifth grade come back in a upper division college class.
I never want to come across as I believe I am right, I just have an open mind to all opinions.

It made me laugh and I thought I would share!

This should be an interesting semester in the girls locker room!

oldman said:

i think you are demanding and stuck up

this life isnt perfect, deal with it

I wrote in response;

@oldman

I am confused by your comment?
I do not understand how being demanding is a negative quality.
It is what pushes us to strive and achieve more than the those around us.

If expecting people to show up on time to a class is being demanding then yes, I am demanding.
However if one choses to be late to class do not interrupt my learning because then that puts you in the category of selfish and I will let you know that.

As for me being stuck up, I do not believe I am. However you would not be the first to place me in that category. I have never said I was better than anyone. I refuse to lower my standards to those around me.

You are right about one thing. Life is not perfect, however that is no excuse to settle for mediocrity.

Furthermore if you plan on leaving anymore comments on my website back them up with a little substance. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and I encourage people to respond to my post. But dont waste my times with unsubstantiated accusations.

<3Jeana

thanks for making me smile and giving me something else to blog about.

With 2 mid-terms just around the corner I will be spending today reading and taking on line tests.

Yayy