September 30, 2013

Carson Starkey would have graduated from Cal Poly last spring at 23 years old. But, as many Cal Poly students know, Starkey died from acute alco-hol poisoning alone on a mat-tress in 2008 at age 18.

Most Cal Poly students iden-tify with Starkey’s story — he was, after all, “one of their own,” Julia Starkey, Carson’s mother, said.

But her son’s story isn’t just important within the Cal Poly community, she said. He’s just one example of “a college stu-dent that dies every 44 hours of alcohol poisoning.”

“His story will always be rel-evant, and there will always be stories that are just like his story,” Julia said.

Five years after Starkey’s death, Aware Awake Alive, the peer-to-peer alcohol education program created by his parents in his memory, is expanding to all 23 California State Univer-sity (CSU) campuses.

“This is huge for Aware Awake Alive,” Julia said. “It will help put us on the map nationally, and that’s great because this program doesn’t just need to be CSU-wide, it needs to be nationwide. It needs to be on every college campus and in every high school. We don’t want another family to have to go through a tragedy like we did.”

CSU committed to rolling out the Aware Awake Alive

program to all its campus-es during the CSU Board of Trustees meeting on July 23.

The decision was an emo-tional one, said David Wy-att, communications direc-tor for Aware Awake Alive.

“Carson’s parents went and gave a 5-minute speech and gave Carson’s whole story, and at the end of the speech, where it was just supposed to be this FYI update, the chancellor was nearly in tears,” Wyatt said. “He had this unilateral vi-sion to bring it to all CSU campuses right away. It was an on-the-spot deci-sion, and it was this won-derful sort of turning point where a grassroots, emotional-based vision was given this huge oppor-tunity to expand.”

The program is already empowering students at

more than 60 campuses nationwide, including eight CSU campuses.

“Cal Poly has kind of been a beta tester for Aware Awake Alive,” Wyatt said, “and the goodwill that sprung out of the tragedy in San Luis Obispo is re-ally continuing to keep San Luis Obispo the place where the leadership and commit-ment started and continues to this day.”

Orientation program-ming was one of the places the commitment was first

1

Volume LXXVIII, Number 5Monday, September 30, 2013 www.mustangdaily.net

As he walks around the War-ren J. Baker Center for Science and Mathematics, College of Science and Mathematics Dean Phil Bailey beams. He’s showing off the product of 20 years of hard work and is ea-ger to talk about it with any-one who will listen.

“Does it look OK?” Bailey jokingly asks a professor pass-ing in the halls.

“You did a good job,” the pro-fessor responds. “Thanks a lot.”

Bailey has been working on the construction of the build-ing since 1993, when he and then-Cal Poly President War-ren Baker came up with their vision that is now a 189,000 square-foot, six-floor reality. The nearly-completed build-ing is even better than he envi-sioned. It will benefit not only students in his college, but the entire university, he said.

“You call it the Center for Sci-

ence and Mathematics, but it’s for all students,” Bailey said. “If you just look, it was designed for students.”

With four terraces, multiple study areas and furniture for approximately 400 students in what Bailey calls “living rooms,” the building was cre-ated with students in mind, he said. It is now the second larg-est building on campus, only smaller than Robert E. Ken-nedy Library, and houses eight lecture-style classrooms with a combined capacity of 484 students, 64 faculty offices, approximately 50 state-of-the-art laboratories and about two dozen prep spaces and stock-rooms, Bailey said.

According to Bailey, stu-dents in every college will take at least one class in the building during their time at Cal Poly, and many will take more than one.

“The thing about the build-ing that you’ll see that’s differ-ent from probably any build-ing on campus is that there’s tons of space for students,”

Bailey said. “If we had every classroom and every laborato-ry filled to capacity at any one time, we would have probably 1,300 or 1,400 students in the building at that time.”

Equipment in the building is also unlike any the cam-pus has ever seen. Two new nuclear magnetic resonance instruments — which cost be-tween $250,000 and $300,000 each — will be available for undergraduate use, some-thing Bailey said is unheard of at many universities.

“I talked to some new fac-ulty members in physics that have been other places … and they said, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this for undergraduates.’ This is very unique,” Bailey said.

Other additions Bailey is en-thusiastic about are the seven studio classrooms in the build-ing, which allow for the inte-gration of lectures and labs. The rooms are set up so that students can collaborate easily

Fresh out of a Board of Trust-ees meeting where Gov. Jerry Brown warned the California State University (CSU) system against dwelling on increasing its number of students, CSU Chancellor Timothy White did exactly that Friday at a press conference for student media.

“Clearly there’s more demand for people to join the CSU as a student than there is capacity,” White said during his open-ing remarks. “It’s frustrating for me personally to know that there are people who, through no fault of their own, can’t get in our campuses.”

From the CSU’s Long Beach headquarters, the chancel-lor’s comments sounded fa-miliar to those following Cal Poly President Jeffrey Arm-strong’s own goals in San Luis

Obispo. By 2022, Armstrong aims to add between 4,000 and 5,000 students to Cal Po-ly’s student population.

Throughout Friday’s press

conference, White echoed other ideas supported by Armstrong, including using public-private partnerships to enhance student opportuni-ties, enrollment growth and additional classes.

But as lobbyer-in-chief for the CSU, White hovered on a dilem-ma Armstrong doesn’t always

have to tackle head on: how to get money from Sacramento.

“At the end of the day, we have to be persuasive in Sac-ramento,” White said. “And it’s

not about money for CSU, it’s money really to help these stu-dents and their families to be-come vibrant members of the California economy.”

But White will likely have a tough time being persuasive in the state capital as a battle looms for 2014-2015 dollars. Mandatory spending on pris-

ons and firefighting will drain the state’s coffers more than usual, according to a CSU re-port, leaving higher education to fight for a smaller piece of the pie.

The chances of a CSU win in next year’s state budget didn’t look promising at a CSU Board of Trustees meeting this past week, either. Brown, who at-tended the Long Beach meet-ing, told the governing board it will face challenges persuad-ing the state legislature to ap-prove its $250 million funding proposal for 2014-2015. That request is roughly $110 mil-lion more than the legislature’s planned 2014-2015 budget for the CSU.

Under the Board of Trustee’s plan, much of the additional money would go toward ad-mitting 22,000 additional stu-dents and adding 1,000 more classes. But Brown instead

suggested catching up on de-ferred maintenance of aging buildings across the CSU be-fore expanding the number of students it enrolls.

“If you take more people than you’re already serving, you’re going to expand the need for space, gas and electricity,” Brown said, according to the Associated Press. “It sounds like buildings need to be taken

care of before you bring more students in.”

White conceded Friday that persuading lawmakers to give CSU everything the Board of Trustees wants will be difficult, but he continued to emphasize the importance of increasing the number of students in Cal-ifornia higher education.

BROOKE SPERBECK@brookesperbeck7

Center gets community’s approvalCSU system uses Aware Awake Alive

ARYN SANDERSON@ArynSanderson

SPORTS pg. 10: Volleyball sweeps weekend series OP/ED pg. 7: Conservative columninst tackles immigration

The Warren J. Baker Center for Science and Mathematics also includes study areas, which students of all majors can use.ZACH MAHER/MUSTANG NEWS

44a college student

dies every 44 hours from

alcohol poisinong

CSU Chancellor White aims to increase student enrollmentSEAN MCMINN@shmcminn

Tomorrow’s Weather:

sunny

high 77˚Flow 54˚F

Kiristen Black goes from the classroom to the stage.

INDEXNews...........................1-3Arts.............................4-6

ARTS pg. 6Opinions.......................7Sports......................9-10

CHECK OUT

MUSTANGDAILY.NET for articles, videos, photos & more.

CSU Chancellor Timothy White proposed a $250 million funding proposal for the academic year 2014-2015.

TODD JOHNSON/DAILY49ER

If all classrooms and labortories were filled to full capacity, the building can hold approximately 1,300 students.

ZACH MAHER/MUSTANG NEWS

It’s frustrating for me personally to know that there are people

who, through no fault of their own, can’t get in our campuses.

TIMOTHY WHITECSU CHANCELLOR

CARSON STARKEY

see CENTER, pg. 2see AWARE, pg. 3

see CSU, pg. 3

2

A new survey by the Office of University Diversity and Inclu-sivity aims to determine once and for all how much Cal Poly has to do when it comes to race.

The Campus Climate and Di-versity survey will attempt to broach what has become one of Cal Poly’s most revisited and divisive issues: racial diversity. Mentioned briefly in Cal Poly President Armstrong’s State of the University speech earlier this month, the survey is targeted for release in February 2014 and will be issued to all students, fac-ulty and staff members.

The results of the survey will be used to compile “action-items” — a set of at least three initiatives the administration will put into motion to address issues the survey reveals.

Assistant philosophy profes-sor Rachel Fernflores, who is working closely with the survey team as part of a com-mittee that includes Executive

Director of Campus Diversity and Inclusivity Annie Holmes, said the survey will be one of the most important ever re-leased by Cal Poly.

“We want to know how the practices and policies we’ve adopted as an institution im-pact how students experience Cal Poly,” Fernflores said. “We know students get a lot of sur-veys, you can throw all the oth-ers away. Take this one.”

The survey questions will be selected and compiled by Holmes’ office and will be distributed by Sue Rankin & Associates, a third-party con-sulting agency based in Penn-sylvania. Each student, faculty and staff member will receive an email from the president’s office containing a link that re-directs to the survey. It will not contain questions that ask sur-vey takers to reveal their iden-tity, college or department, nor will the survey itself be hosted on any Cal Poly server.

The survey was inspired by anecdotes from ethnic mi-

nority students on campus, Holmes said.

“Students of differing di-verse backgrounds have dis-cussed feeling excluded and treated differently based on their identities,” she said.

Armstrong has pointed to these anecdotes in multiple speeches as part of the reason for the survey. Selene Roman, a graduate student entering her fifth year at Cal Poly, said she has seen many of her His-panic peers fall short of their academic goals as a result of depression and homesickness that may have been deepened by feelings of isolation.

“I’ve seen a lot of my friends fall into academic probation,” Roman said. “I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that they have to deal with cultural differ-ences on top of everything else.”

More information about the survey will be made available at an open forum to be held Thursday, Nov. 7 at the War-ren J. Baker Center for Sci-ence and Mathematics.

Cal Poly surveys campus diversityNews 2 Monday, September 30, 2013

SHAUN KAHMANN@MustangDaily

The results of the survey will be used to compile a set of at least three goals for the administration to address.

SHAUN KAHMANN/MUSTANG NEWS

CENTERcontinued from page 1

with one another and have access to computers from their desks for interactivity during lecture, he said.

The studio classroom concept was designed by Bailey’s wife, former Cal Poly Chemistry and Bio-chemistry Department Chair Christina Bailey, and has not been implemented on this big of a scale at any other large university in the country, Bailey said. Though Cal Poly did have three studio classrooms before, professors will now be able to use them more, physics associate professor David Mitchell said.

“I was already teaching in a studio, but I will have the ability to teach other classes in the studio now with much more room, and I think that’s much better,” Mitchell said. “I can have students doing things a lot more, so absolutely it will help me a lot to run classes in a better way for students.”

The building is not only student-friendly, but environ-mentally sustainable as well, and it is expected to become LEED Gold certified, Director of Facilities Planning Joel Neel said. The building uses rain-water harvesting, a green roof garden and energy-efficient dimming with low voltage lighting control.

In addition, each of the 114 hoods in the building’s labs has an energy-efficient air system that will decrease electricity costs significantly, Bailey said. In the older math and science building, one hood alone used between $3,000 and $5,000 worth of elec-tricity per year, the amount of a small cul-de-sac of houses, he said. With the new building’s AirCuity system, Bailey said en-ergy costs will decrease.

“That is a huge energy sav-ings, so we are significantly more efficient than a typical lab building,” Neel said.

Though these energy saving systems made things a little more “complicated,” the proj-ect is under its original con-struction budget of $119 mil-lion, Neel said. Thanks to $20

million from private donors such as Chevron Corporation and Dunn-Edwards Paint and $100 million from state funds, the Warren J. Baker Center for Science and Mathematics has “raised the bar for construc-tion in the CSU,” he said.

“I think this is right on par with some of the best Univer-sity of California buildings, and typically the California State University system has not had the ability or the budgets to build buildings on that cali-ber,” Neel said.

There are last-minute details that still need to be finished, such as hanging up the esti-mated $100,000 worth of art and installing frosted glass in the study areas that students can write on with dry erase pens, Bailey said. He hopes it will be completely finished by Nov. 1, when there will be a ceremony dedicating the building to Baker.

“Dr. Baker was the president for 30 plus years and he, as well as Phil, were instrumental in getting this project done,” Neel said. “Dr. Baker has made a huge impact on our campus.”

The Warren J. Baker Center for Science and Mathematics was built with sustainability in mind and is expected to become LEED Gold certified, said Joel Neel, director of facilities planning.

ZACH MAHER/MUSTANG NEWS

made, said Andrene Kaiwi-Lenting, director of orienta-tion and training programs and a university consultant for Aware Awake Alive.

“When the organization came along, it was perfect timing,” Kaiwi-Lenting said.

Right away, orientation programming incorporated Aware Awake Alive into the Awareness Gallery and other Week of Welcome awareness programming.

More recently, orienta-tion programming started

presenting a version of the Aware Awake Alive session during SOAR to parents.

“For the parents, when they see the Starkeys up there talking about the effect it had on them, about finding out the Sheriff ’s Department was calling them to tell them their son was dead, I think it really hits home,” Kaiwi-Lenting said. “This is real, and it really happens to peo-ple. The feedback we’ve got-ten from parents a lot of the time has been, ‘Thank you for opening my eyes to this.’ The impact we’ve had on parents has been crucial. We really wanted to make sure parents were ready and equipped to

talk to their students.”Cal Poly still needs to look

into measuring tangible re-sults of the Aware Awake Alive program on campus, but from what studies have been done, it appears to have positive effects, Kaiwi-Lent-ing said.

Significantly more — ap-proximately 43 percent — Cal Poly students intervened when they thought a peer was drinking too much, compared to the national average of approximately 33 percent, according to the Healthy Minds Study in 2013, the campus program coordinator of California Mental Health Services Au-

thority wrote in an email.“We have seen an increase

in student bystander inter-vention — we’ve seen stu-dents stepping in and step-ping up,” Kaiwi-Lenting said. “The difficult part is that we’ve seen increases to the emergency room in terms of alcohol poisoning, but I truly attribute that to the fact that we’ve been ed-ucating students as to our amnesty policy. So, is it good that they’re going to the hos-pital? No, of course not. But is it great that they know they can? If only those boys knew that the night Carson needed help, then maybe he’d be here today.”

Tentatively, by Nov. 1, all 23 CSU campuses will begin

to incorporate Aware Awake Alive, Wyatt said.

“I know we need more stu-dent enrollment,” he said. “If I don’t stand up for you, then who’s going to stand up for you? So I’m going to stand up and say, ‘Here’s the true need, Gov. Brown.’”

After addressing big-picture issues such as the budget, Obamacare and President Barack Obama’s plan to link college funding to a federal “affordability” ranking, White also took questions from stu-dent reporters at several of the university system’s 23 campus-es, including Cal Poly.

Speaking on an issue that administrators at Cal Poly are already embracing, White en-couraged campuses to create partnerships with private busi-nesses to bolster what campus-es can provide students. White said he consistently talks with private companies about ways they can work together, but he identified some of the chal-lenges they come with.

“The risks are making sure we don’t let private enterprise over-

ride academic decision about the curriculum,” White said.

White promised these con-cerns would not escalate into a reality where businesses hold influence over what happens in the classroom or limit ac-cessibility for lower-income students. Instead, he said pri-vate partnerships will help to “preserve the public nature,” of CSU campuses, a phrase Arm-strong has used several times to describe the same goal.

Facilities, residence halls, re-search and creative opportu-nities and for-pay internships could all benefit from public-private partnerships, White said. The end result, he said, would not be to “make us exclusive and elite, but rather to make us acces-sible and affordable for the men and women of California who want to come to our campuses.”

Though the chancellor sup-ported Armstrong’s points on increasing enrollment and working with private enter-prise, he did deviate from Armstrong on the issue of graduation rates. While Cal Poly’s president said during his State of the University speech earlier this month that the uni-

versity would have a “laser fo-cus” on improving graduation rates, White de-emphasized the point in favor of granting a higher number of degrees.

“For me, the (graduation) rate question is second to the number of degrees we’re put-ting out,” White said. “What we don’t want to do is have an overemphasis on a four-year graduation rate, going up a certain direction, and then it forces us to turn our backs on part-time students or students who have kids.

“I want to make sure we mea-sure what we value, and for me it’s completion,” he said.

Armstrong, in contrast, put a higher short-term priority on upping graduation rates in the State of the University speech. The first of his four strate-gic imperatives he listed was improving graduation rates, while increasing student en-rollment didn’t make the list.

“Candidly, a laser focus on improving Cal Poly’s four-year graduation rate — and yes, I do mean four-year rate — would be our most effective response to the demands by legislators, parents and students to improve

higher education’s accessibility, affordability and accountability,” Armstrong said.

In addition to helping Cal

Poly’s reputation with parents and lawmakers, Armstrong said doubling the four-year graduation rate from 36 per-

cent by 2022 would also help increase enrollment and re-duce students’ cost of attend-ing Cal Poly.

CSUcontinued from page 1

News 3Monday, September 30, 2013

AWAREcontinued from page 1

4

Arts 4 Monday, September 30, 2013

As the sun goes down, the volume turns up

MC Geologic and DJ Sabzi hopped over the half wall and onto the stage to face a small but excited audience, setting the casual, chill atmosphere for the whole night.

The hip-hop duo wasn’t afraid to interact with the crowd on a personal level. If anything, the concert felt like a conversation you might have with a best friend who just happened to have mad rapping skills.

Blue Scholars’ performance in the University Union (UU) Plaza was a breath of fresh air, starting off the sunset concert series on a good note.

Although they originate from Seattle, the duo had the casual vibe of a native Cali-fornia town. Geologic, “Geo” for short, even had a bro tank, shorts and hat on, taking ad-vantage of the warm weather.

They took cues from the atmosphere and performed “Marion Sunshine,” an ode to the setting sun, as one of their first songs.

One of the most refreshing things about the duo was their humor about their own art form. The two certainly weren’t afraid to laugh at themselves or

other artists.“As a rapper, I feel that I have

an obligation to say ‘turn it up’ and other ambiguous shit to sound cool,” Sabzi said.

The crowd began to grow larger as the sun disappeared behind Bishop Peak and the energy level picked up. Soon, the whole UU was packed with students.

Blue Scholars wasn’t afraid to throw a little social commentary into the mix as well as some sage advice and humor about it all.

“Life is your No. 1 teacher,” Geo said.

“But don’t make stupid de-cisions,” Sabzi added with a laugh. “We are the most whole-some rap group in the world.”

No subject was safe from the duo; topics ranged from the Vietnamese cuisine Pho to the use and misuse of weed and in-secure starlets who rely on the love of men for success.

Each song was followed by a story from another city they had been in or comment on someone in the crowd. The whole performance carried an air of authenticity. Their commentary felt honest and natural, rather than rehearsed or canned.

“They seem like a really chill band,” English senior Liam

Hedriana said. “They know not to take themselves too se-riously. They did a really good job involving the crowd.”

The duo wasn’t shy about get-ting near to students in the au-dience. DJ Sabzi sang a whole verse up close and personal, inches away from English se-nior Alison Gyepes’ face.

“They were really goofy and funny,” Gyepes said. “Sabzi was such a tease.”

The audience was a mix of students who had never heard of Blue Scholars and those who had been listening for years.

“I heard about them fresh-man year,” biomedical engi-neering senior Luke Cole said. “That’s the best that it’s free. I probably wouldn’t have come if it wasn’t.”

For more scheduled sun-set series concerts, check the events calendar on the Associ-ated Students, Inc. website.

KELLY TROM@kttrom

DAVID JANG/MUSTANG NEWS

For more photos of the concert, check out the article at MustangDaily.net

Blue Scholars bring hip-hop to campus

Mustang Daily Presents

THURSDAY

OCTOBER311 AM2 PM

TO

COME TO MOTT LAWN FOR FOOD, FREEBIES, AND FUN!

5

Arts 6Monday, September 30, 2013

Over clinking glasses of rich red wine and hushed conversa-tion, a woman takes the stage. With arms toned like Michelle Obama’s, the black-dress clad blonde props a guitar to her hip. Kristen Black is ready to give the audience at ‘alegria wine and ware’ an education … in rock ‘n’ roll.

Most of the time, though, when she’s teaching a crowd, it’s chemistry. Literal chemistry. By day, she’s a tenure-track organic chemistry and neurochemistry professor at Cal Poly. By night, a

rockin’ musician.She goes by Kristen Black on-

stage to “protect (her) anonym-ity,” she chuckled.

Offstage, Kristen Meisen-heimer leads a dual life.

“There have been times where I’ve had a gig right after lab, and I’ll be literally changing in the bathroom, getting my guitar and then going downtown to play,” she said.

Although it’s jam-packed, liv-ing a double life has its perks.

“I’ve had plenty of times stu-dents come in, and they don’t know that I’m in the band that’s playing, at SLO Brew or Moth-er’s Tavern, and one time tequila

shots immediately flew up on the stage,” she said. “The fingers that point up on the stage with the ‘Oh my God’ look are always pretty funny.”

Though performing is “the only place where you can have a drink on the job,” she said, Meisenheimer isn’t looking to pursue music full-time in the near future.

“I love teaching and interact-ing with my students and inspir-ing them to be the best organic chemists they can be,” she said.

Actually, chemistry and mu-sic have gone hand-in-hand for Meisenheimer since college.

Meisenheimer’s father was a

chemistry teacher at her high school, so she shied away from taking chemistry classes to avoid the embarrassment of having her dad as her teacher.

But when Meisenheimer went to college and had to take the class, her chemistry with chem-istry was undeniable.

“I couldn’t ignore that I liked it — I just didn’t want to admit it,” she said. “When I took gen-eral chemistry, I thought it was pretty cool, but then when I took organic chemistry, it was like a light shone down upon me, and I realized that I really, really en-joyed it.”

Meisenheimer’s first live show was with a band she started in graduate school with other chemistry students. The name? Spontaneous Human Combus-tion, of course.

Since then, as a professor, chemistry and music have re-mained intertwined. Meinsen-heimer is known for teaching

students songs to help them re-member concepts.

And, as a musician, she’s far more comfortable in front of a crowd because of her experi-ence teaching.

“Teaching and performing definitely complement each other,” she said. “I took some time off of music when I got my tenure-track position, but there was a void in my life. I realized that I’m a better professor, bet-ter mom, better person when I’m doing both music and teaching. There’s a difference that spills over. I’m happier and better in the classroom when I’m playing music. They feed each other.”

In a way, chemistry and mu-sic are very similar, Meisen-heimer said.

“Organic chemistry uses the artistic side of your brain. It’s al-most like telling beautiful stories, taking a molecule and making it into something else. And I think

music does the same thing — it tells a beautiful story.”

Still, her tunes might surprise some of her students, Meisen-heimer said, then laughed quietly.

“I think my students might be shocked by some of my lyr-ics and shocked at how rockin’ some of it is,” she said. “Some of my lyrics are maybe on the un-politically correct side of things. Like, I have a song called ‘Love on Drugs,’ which is about, well, love on drugs. Really, though, I’m still drawing from my neuro-chemistry side.”

Not surprisingly, Meisen-heimer’s favorite molecule is serotonin.

And if she ever had the honor to grace the cover of “Rolling Stone,” what would she want her headline to say?

“Chemistry and Rock: Mix and Stand Back.”

So stand back, Mustangs, your chemistry professor’s about to explode.

ARYN SANDERSON@ArynSanderson

Kristen Black’s school of rock

ZACH MAHER/MUSTANG NEWS

ZACH MAHER/MUSTANG NEWS

6

Eric Stubben is a mechanical engineering sophomore and Mustang News conservative columnist. These views do not necessarily reflect the opinion or editorial coverage of Mus-tang News.

For the last four summers, I worked at a teller station in a bank tucked away in a small valley of northwest Wash-ington. Late every Friday, the rush of farm workers came scrambling in to cash their paychecks after a series of 11-hour work days. Most of them spoke only a few words of English, donned tattered clothes and a friendly smile. Unfortunately, many of them weren’t able to cash their checks because they had a secret to hide: they are illegal immigrants. The current im-migration system has failed them, just as it has for millions of others wishing to legally be-come American citizens.

Immigrants are an integral part of the United States’ agricultural and overall economy as they provide hard-working labor in un-desirable jobs for a very low cost. However, reform is necessary with more than 11 million illegal immigrants living within the United States using our taxpayer services without paying in-come taxes.

Immigration reform has been a menacing issue since Presi-dent George W. Bush began pushing for reform in 2005 just as Congress became stagnant, narrowly killing the bill.

Many far-right activists will completely discredit the hard work and integrity that illegal immigrants bring to our coun-try by suggesting mass depor-tation of anybody without legal documentation of citizenship.

Their philosophy, however, is shamefully against conserva-tive values as the cost of mass deportation is estimated to be nearly $300 billion and would uncomfortably cram illegal immigrants into trains and busses across the border. For a party with goals of severe spending cuts and improving their racial image, this is cer-tainly not a good option.

On the flip side, many liber-als continue to push for am-nesty for all illegal immigrants who are currently residing within our borders. As if the deportation price tag wasn’t large enough, experts estimate that with amnesty, our country would lose $5 trillion over the lifetime of all legalized immi-grants. That’s quite the price to pay for a country that’s almost $17 trillion in debt with no signs of slowing down.

The amnesty approach would also send a strong mes-sage to Latin Americans living south of the border that it is okay to cross our borders ille-gally, because once one group is given free citizenship, the same legislation is likely to be used with future generations. Not only is undocumented immigration illegal by fed-eral law, the trip across the border is often uncomfort-able — and sometimes fatal — as immigrants squeeze into

cars or try to meander their way across the desert and over the Rio Grande into America.

In an agricultural college town such as San Luis Obispo, immigration is a necessity for college diversity and agricul-tural employment.

The approach on immigra-tion needs to be one that allows not necessarily an easier path to citizenship for immigrants, but a shorter one. Immigrants of all nations are a critical part of the United States economy and are the basis of the forma-tion of our great country.

But, to allow illegal immi-grants to gain citizenship in our great country, two key compromises must be made.

A strict code needs to be set barring citizenship to any il-legal immigrant convicted of a felony. Not only does a felon become a detriment to soci-ety, an illegally-immigrated felon has not paid the taxes that build and maintain our jails, therefore should not be entitled to the services of the American jailing system.

Also, retaining the Ameri-can Citizenship Test in Eng-lish is important to not only the functionality of the United States economy, but for the success of immigrants. Al-though there is no official language in America, English is the profoundly dominant language. To be successful in a global market, immigrants must learn English to commu-nicate with their employers — although many employers are now learning Spanish. For im-migrants’ sake, passing the test in English would provide as-surance that they are not only able to read, comprehend and answer questions in English, but that they can have an op-portunity to thrive in a vastly English society.

As for conservatives, leading the charge in immigration re-form could prove invaluable to

a right-wing revival. Shorten-ing the waiting period between arrival and citizenship would show a compassion for diversity and minorities while lifting the stigma of a “dominantly white” party, all while creating tax rev-enue for local and federal gov-ernments. Strict laws on felonies along with a “path to citizen-ship” program can also show a dedication to the safety of cur-rent citizens and a drive to see success in immigrants.

For the American Dream

to be revived, a Republican-led bipartisan bill needs to be in the works soon. America needs the integrity, drive and ideas that immigrants have brought for centuries to make the United States the best country in the world.

Ignorance in the short term may be easy with a topic as tough as immigration, but kicking the issue down the road will only create more dif-ficult obstacles and blunders in the future.

Expedited legal immigration must become a priority now

Op/ed 7Monday, September 30, 2013

The approach on immigration needs to be one that allows

not necessarily an easier path to citizenship for immigrants, but

a shorter one.

Eric Stubben is a mechanical engineering sophomore and Mustang News conservative columnist.

IAN BILLINGS/MUSTANG NEWS

A historic building in San Luis Obispo will soon be home to the women of the Kappa Kap-pa Gamma sorority.

The San Luis Obispo Plan-

ning Commission considered the Sanitarium on Osos Street to become the sorority’s of-ficial house on Wednesday. It approved the plan for the Kappa Kappa Gamma house in a 5-1 vote.

Ten women will live in the

house, which was built in 1895. It has since been a private hos-pital, a private residence and a bed and breakfast, according to KSBY local news.

The planning commission’s main concern at the meet-ing was parking in the area.

Neighbors and sorority mem-bers there expressed their opinion about the property going greek.

“Addressing the issues of meetings at our house, I think we would try to have them later in the day to reduce the

impact of the other business in the area,” city and regional planning student and Kappa Kappa Gamma member Emi-lie Morse said.

The sorority joined the ranks of Cal Poly’s greek organiza-tions in 2012.

Kappa Kappa Gamma gets new houseCal Poly’s newest sorority will move into SanitariumKATIE MCDERMOTT@katiejmcdermott

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Thursday, Septebmer 30, 2013 Volume LXXVIII, Number 5

©2013 Mustang News “Wait, I’ll say something funny” Kappa Kappa Gamma became a Cal Poly sorority in 2012 and obtained permission make the Sanitarium on Osos Street its official house.

KATIE MCDERMOTT/MUSTANG NEWS

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Monday, September 30, 2013 Sports 9

Senior outside hitter Megan McConnell had 11 kills on 20 total swings in the win against Long Beach State Saturday night. After five losses to teams ranked in the top-25 or to teams that recieved votes, the Mustangs opened Big West play with a weekend sweep of UC Irvine and the 49ers.

IAN BILLINGS/MUSTANG NEWS

VOLLEYBALLcontinued from page 10

after this weekend we have a lot of confidence and we’re just going in knowing we’re the underdogs. We have noth-ing to lose.”

Tough is an understate-ment. Five of Cal Poly’s seven losses this season were against schools currently ranked in the top 25 or teams that re-ceived top 25 votes. That in-cludes No. 7 Stanford, No. 16 Arizona State and No. 19 Col-orado State.

“Those teams, Pac-12 teams in particular, honestly, they’re a different kind of level in terms of height and athleti-cism,” Crosson said. “Even though we didn’t come out victorious in those matches, (they took away) a belief that they know that they can. And I think that’s the biggest differ-ence between this year’s and last year’s team.”

And part of that underdog mentality stems from the Big West preseason poll, which ranked Cal Poly No. 8 in the conference.

The Mustangs have the op-portunity to shatter those expectations next week with matches at UC Santa Barbara and the reigning Big West champion No. 6 Hawai’i.

“We just gotta keep working hard in practice,” Hardin said. “Keep working hard and keep having that confidence. Even though we got two wins this weekend, there’s no letting up.”

September 27 vs. UC Irvine

Cal Poly opened up the 2013 Big West campaign with a three-set sweep over UC Ir-vine in Mott Athletics Center Friday night.

The Mustangs topped UC Ir-

vine with set scores of 25-22, 25-18 and 25-11.

Setter Maddie Kuber racked up 33 assists while Steffi Sooter led the Mustangs with 12 digs. Hardin recorded a team-best 14 kills.

The Mustangs head south to take on rival UC Santa Barbara in their next match on Saturday. Tip-off is set for 7 p.m.

BY THE NUMBERS vs. LBSUCal Poly Long Beach State

8-7 (2-0 Big West) 8-7 (1-1).347 .2253 210 5

RecordHitting PercentageAcesBlocks

The Cal Poly men’s soc-cer team split its week-end matches, winning 5-1 at Air Force on Friday night before falling 2-1 to Denver on Sunday. Se-nior forward Mackenzie Pridham helped the Mus-tangs extend their win streak to five games be-fore their eventuial loss to the Pioneers, by notch-ing a hat trick Friday. He leads the team with eight goals on the season.

MUSTANG NEWS FILE PHOTO

8

Sports 10 Monday, September 30, 2013

The Cal Poly volleyball team is getting pretty handy with a broom.

A three-set victory over Long Beach State on Satur-day gave the Mustangs their second sweep in as many nights.

Cal Poly also advanced to 2-0 in the Big West Confer-ence, beating UC Irvine on

Friday night in Mott Athlet-ics Center, and 8-7 overall.

“I thought it was good that our team was able to sus-tain how they played (Fri-day) night,” head coach Sam Crosson said. “I thought their mentality and their effort and their focus as a whole were good. I think the group itself is understanding that we’re good together.”

The Mustangs sailed to a 25-18 victory in the first

set, which featured five-kill performances from Chelsea Hardin, Megan McConnell and Hannah Schleis.

In the next two sets, how-ever, drama ensued. Both squads went back and forth for the better part of each contest, but Cal Poly held on and finally pulled ahead with 27-25 and 25-23 set victories.

“We just come back into our circle and remember it’s our little bubble,” Hardin said.

“No one outside can influence our bubble. We look back into each other’s eyes and we know that if we’re on the same page we can all do it.”

Players contributed across the board. Hardin finished the night with 15 kills, fol-lowed by freshman Taylor Gruenewald who notched 12 of her own. Steffi Sooter led Cal Poly with 10 digs.

The Mustangs lack a stand-out player at the moment,

which, according to Cros-son, is actually a strength.

“It’s a collective group ef-fort,” Crosson said. “The more that they start to unite and understand the details about communication and helping one another, the out-come seems to be a little bit easier to produce, point by point. I don’t think that we’ll ever get to a point where we just have someone who needs to play well for us to win.”

So far, things are different for the Mustangs in 2013. A year ago, Cal Poly went 3-15 in Big West play. Unless they drop the next 15 out of 16 conference matches, the Mustangs will likely improve on their ninth-place 2012 campaign.

“It’s all about our mental-ity,” Hardin said. “It was a tough preseason, but I think

JACOB LAUING@JLauing

see VOLLEYBALL, pg. 9

Volleyball starts 2-0 in Big West

IAN BILLINGS/MUSTANG NEWS