Dear Laura Newell,

Thank you soo much for your article in last week's edition of Otter Realm. I absolutely appreciate you choosing to write about multiculral theater happening on this campus and making a concious choice to include a diverse perspective about what theater aims to do on our campus and in this world.
I really liked the points you made about the play crossing cultural boundaries and being a show that unified women that all of us can relate to.. This piece was very important to see and discuss in and out of class and in our academic community. Thank you again for interviewing us and including us. Although the Vagina Monologues is a world known play, it is equally important to give plays like The Panza Monologues or For Colored Girls equal representation in our student media and newspaper.
I appreciate your efforts to justly represent the diversity of our campus which is supposed to be the 5th most diverse in the nation. Maybe next year we'll see more articles on multicultural theater happening on campus because of efforts like yours. Thank you!

Respecfully,
Marisol Duarte, Producer/Actress/Dancer, The Panza Monologues
Multiple Subject Credential Candidate

Wrestling with Death

For audiences who love violence, blood and action, “The Condemned” will definitely satisfy that hunger. Staring Stone Cold Steve Austin, the film is a loose commentary on our culture’s recent and endless love affair with reality television.  Read More

One Size Does Not Fit All

In life, people take little things for granted, such as being able to walk into a shoe-store to buy shoes or going to a clothing store to buy their choice of clothes in their size. Read More

CSUMB Food Service Doesn’t Stack Up

An overabundance of natural juices, cereal dispensers, Mexican food that tastes like real Mexican food? Read More

Associated Students: An Insider’s Perspective 

As Associated Student leaders many of us feel the article “Meet our student government” was not an accurate representation of our fantastic organization because it did not include many of the positive projects and events AS has recently accomplished or is the
midst of planning.

Students have many free opportunities to have fun and meet new people on campus thanks to the hard work of Jose Sanchez, who has organized free salsa dancing classes, flag football games and more.

Zach Kasow and Zoe Carter coordinated a Voter Registration campaign that registered 390 students to vote in the most recent election which was a phenomenal success.

Joseph Ramos, Bridgett Kroemer and I also coordinated a Holiday Donation Drive which is currently collecting food, clothing and toys for those in need among our local community.

Mason Rothschild has also enticed fantastic bands to the BCC while Tristan Mansson-Perrone spends the majority of his free time lobbying for environmental improvements for our university. 

Most recently, AS also co-sponsored a “Meet the President” event in which students were treated to free root beer and pizza in order to encourage interaction with the new university president, Diane Harrison.

In the spring, Associated Student leaders including myself, Bridgett Kroemer and Zoe Carter are planning a special benefit to honor the Monterey Rape Crisis Center. This event will feature student art work and local speakers.

Although the Associated Students has room for growth and change, we hope students remember the hours of dedicated hard work their elected representatives do on their behalf to best serve the outstanding student community of CSUMB.  

Sincerely,
Christy Cozby

Senator-at-Large
Associated Students

Otter Realm response

We would like to thank Christy Cozby for voicing her opinion about the recent article, “Meet Our Student Government”. We understand her concerns, but also stand by our decision to run the article the way we did.

Keep in mind the article and the investigation was not to promote AS or AS sponsored activities. The subject of the article was to investigate the past and present tasks of AS and shed light on many things that the student body may not know about. As elected officials, it is important to be kept accountable. As the only student newspaper, it’s only necessary for us inform students the good and the bad.

We encourage Cozby, as well as any other CSUMB students to view a longer, more in depth version of the article up on otterrealm.net, where we mention voter registration, concerts, and Tristan Mansson-Perrone's projects. In fact, this issue of the Otter Realm has an article devoted to Mansson-Perrone's accomplishments and his plans for improvements on campus.

As for any other projects, Cozby outlined in her letter, we were not made aware of them or felt it would be unnecessary to include them. In recent issues of the Otter Realm, some of those activities were highlighted already.

Any activities that we were informed about were only ”ideas” at the time this article was being written, and we felt the article would not benefit from a supposed list of plans AS had for the future.

In any case, we believe the student body should be made aware that during the time we worked on the article, AS members were given an apt amount of time to report to us of any projects that they had been working on and accomplished. In fact, most AS members were aware of the investigation and story. Some AS members even prepared their answers prior to their interviews.

One member of AS informed us that during the investigation, members were consulting each other about what questions were being asked in our interviews and what answers they were going to give as to stay in-sync with the others.

We believe that AS had multiple opportunities to share what they had done and they were even made aware of the questions that would be asked of them. As had more than enough chances to set the record straight.

Sincerely,

Mary Freeman
Lindsey Stetson

 Staff Reporters for the Otter Realm

Dear Otter Realm Editor,

Thank you so very much for the good laugh I had today! Your paper
is absolutely hilarious! The juvenile way that 98% of your articles
dilute down to SEX was laughable, and reminded me of my high school
days with young boys running about with unbridled hormones...like
lovesick bull calves!
I hope that your journalists are planning on careers as comedians,
because no serious journalistic entity would even so much as sniff at
such material. However, if anyone needs a good laugh, they can always
pick up a copy of the Otter Realm!Thanks again for a comical moment!

Reader  (Annonymous)

Response from the Editor in Chief,
Thanks for reading the Otter Realm and your continued support.

Adam Joseph

Opinion response to “Hey, it’s CSUMB” 
Kristina Kendrick, Staff Reporter

Voices erupted like a tidal wave in response to the opinion article titled “Hey, it’s CSUMB’ featured in the Nov. 30 issue of the Otter Realm.  The phrase is a copout and is just another excuse for slackers to be slackers.  The school has a small student population and community making it unique to the California State University system.  Otter Realm reporter and HCOM major Sean Tibbitts uncovered the sentiment behind the phrase and what it means to students. 

“It’s used when cutting corners, when you increase page margins and use Arial rather than New Times Roman because it will get you an extra half page. It’s used when rather than reading Romeo and Juliet you add it to your Netflix queue. The phrase is used to describe lower standards,” Tibbitts wrote. 

While the statement is correct in placing emphasis on the lazy student, it doesn’t implicate all the other advantages students have in this modern internet world, making the statement just a complaint from a group of juvenile spoiled brats.  College is the place for higher education and academic excellence where hard work and participation do pay off.

 The emphasis on outcome based education, group work, presentations, and reflective papers take the front seat above lecture halls and scantron finals.  Students often perceive this as an easy way to slack off.  The work environment after college requires one to work with others and be able to speak in front of a group.  CSUMB is equipping students with these skills in order to help them succeed in the feisty work world. 

In addition to the education model at CSUMB the computer and internet have vastly improved the life of a student and allowed them to do even less work.  The advance in technology with youtube.com, easybib.com and turnitin.com are just a few of the websites that can provide video for presentations, organize a bibliography, or make sure your paper doesn’t include any plagiarism accessible for students.  With all these advances students still complain about work load and it allows them to take a further back seat in their education and continue to place blame on others like professors and the institution itself. 

Another perk that students have at CSUMB is the only CSU free tutoring center titled ASAP.  This student service is open on campus five days a week featuring peer and professional math, science, foreign language, writing and technology tutoring to students of all levels from freshman to capstone.  Spanish tutor, Global Studies student and Teaching Assistant Cesar Guillen noticed a variety of student dedication over the past five semesters working at ASAP.

“A quarter of the students I see want to learn and the rest just want to get through as fast as possible and those are the ones that are struggling complaining about instructors or course work,” Guillen said. 

He also commented on the attitude of students coming straight out of high school.  “They want everything handed to them by the way they were brought up,” said Guillen.

A student success story that turned into one of CSUMB’s most respected faculty is one example of the benefits of CSUMB and the advantage of small class sizes.  Angelic Cricchio better known as Axil started as one of CSUMB’s first students, then writing tutor and eventually a writing and Global Studies faculty.  On campus since the beginning in 1995, Axil has seen and heard it all from students.  One of the best excuses for not coming to class still resonates.  “I had a class at two in the afternoon, this student was never there and showed up at the end of the semester claiming the reason for his absence was that the class was just too early,” Axil said.

Axil also added that the issues students present that make up the phrase “Hey, it’s CSUMB,” are problems that happen at all colleges.  Bureaucracy is found in all higher education and coming into college is very hard for anyone to adjust to.  Many freshmen are just a summer away from high school, still learning to navigate through both social and university issues and instead of rising to the challenge, the one at fault is CSUMB. 
                                                                                                                
Students have been using the phrase “Hey, it’s CSUMB” in the wrong way.  This phrase should be exuded when something fantastic happens to a former student or when a club on campus gets recognized in the community.  Otters are making waves not only locally but worldwide and our excellence should be celebrated instead of degraded but a handful of slackers. 

--Caitlin Urie

The CSUMB Dining Commons (DC) has a variety of different food choices, many of them healthy. From the partially organic salad bar to the hot cereal and oatmeal or the fruit and yogurt cups to the breakfast burritos, the DC prides itself in being a healthy eating option for CSUMB students.
However, the environmentally friendly changes and healthy options pose a stark contrast to the dining services’ use of “Vegelean” oil, used for all their grill cooking.

Vegelean is the first ingredient in Vegelean oil spray. It is vegetable oil but it is partially hydrogenated to give it a thicker consistency and a longer shelf life.

Hydrogenated oil (trans. fat), is the unhealthiest thing a human can consume. Hydrogenated oil sticks to and clogs arteries, like putting barbed jacks through the veins. The top nutritionist at Harvard recently said, "By our most conservative estimate, replacement of partially hydrogenated fat in the U.S. diet with natural un-hydrogenated vegetable oils would prevent approximately 30,000 premature coronary deaths per year, and epidemiologic evidence suggests this number is closer to 100,000 premature deaths annually."

The DC is a great place to get a good meal on the way to class; it provides many choices and the employees are friendly. It is unfortunate that the company policy is to cover the grill and everything on it with hydrogenated oils.

According to one DC employee, they use 100 percent vegetable oil which is better than butter. But they refused to add any further comments on company policy and refered all questions to a manager.

Another employee, who wishes to remain anonymous said that the “Vegelean is used because it is what we’re given to use.”

According to the Vegelean can, it sticks to the grill less than butter and doesn’t burn like butter does. It also gives people serious heartburn and heart disease. As a substitution for the hydrogenated death spray, students can ask for “butter” at the DC.

Photo by Adam Joseph

"Hey, it’s CSUMB"
Sean Tibbitts, Staff Reporter

Students at CSUMB have a real acceptance of mediocrity, a general acceptance that classes are easy and professors are easily manipulated. A common phrase among students is “Hey, it’s CSUMB.” It’s used when cutting corners, when you increase page margins and use Arial rather than New Times Roman because it will get you an extra half page. It’s used when rather than reading Romeo and Juliet you add it to your Netflix queue. The phrase is used to describe lower standards.

When I first thought about this piece I wanted to ask why students are satisfied in classrooms filled with excessive bias, and why half-ass work passes with the same marks as exceptional work. I wondered why there are so many classes that seem completely impractical. It bothers me that the students who pay to get their education here at CSU Monterey Bay become so jaded and disgruntled because they don’t agree with the curriculum or because they feel the young school lacks prestige.

Then I thought about the individual responsibility that students have when they come to college. Those who are here to for the education, rather than just a degree, are studious and do very well, while other students at CSU Monterey Bay are able to do well without putting forth much more effort than at a junior college.

Senior Travis Clark, BUS major, has been here for four years and has been able to succeed without struggling too badly. “I get pretty good grades in my courses, and don’t spend a whole lot of time studying outside of class,” Clark said. “I do well but I dislike how biased some teachers can be sometimes.

Indeed some professors at CSU Monterey Bay may not be ideally impartial, and it may feel awkward disagreeing with a professor. I have found that here it is often best to remain silent, to agree with the professor rather than contest the often opinion-rich material being taught.

Zachery Ishikawa, BUS senior, felt his Service Learning course was unreasonably opinionated. “I spoke my mind in that class and disagreed with the book and teacher. I did way more work than some people who I know did much better in the class than me.”

Perhaps this is an isolated incident, but the fact remains that so much material taught is loaded with opinion.

“If you recognize a teacher’s bias you can tap that for a good grade,” said Justin Kleinman, LS senior who believes in high standards. “It’s like everything else holding value gets thrown out the window if you play to their opinions.”

As difficult as it may be to oppose an instructor, students can look at the biases as a chance to challenge a professor, a time to make your own beliefs known.

“You should use that opportunity to transcend and step up your game,” said Kleinman.

I agree. Here at CSU Monterey Bay we are given the choice to either absorb the material aught, or to skate by never accomplishing what we came here for. Students may always feel a particular class is unnecessary; there may always be professors that seem to have an agenda. In the end it comes down to setting your own standards. Yes, it may be CSUMB, but your learning is up to you. Even though it’s possible to skate by doesn’t mean you have to or makes it right. We pay to attend this university, and individuals control their own education.

Dear President Harrison
I am unable to make it to your speech today. I have to work in order to make the $525 a month in rent and on top of the 20 units I am taking, because I cannot afford to come here another semester with fee increases.
I am writing because of the claim you made of having our interests, the student interests, at heart. One thing I would like to see brought back is Otter Stream. It is a widely used medium on our campus. It would serve to teach those that would like to get into media. Also, it would allow us to communicate the unfair distributions of wealth and power throughout the CSU. Especially on o ur campus.
I would like to share with the student body that I have yet to see some action that affects us. Other than the passivity at the closing of the Child Development Center.
I will be waiting for your response and watching your actions. If we had Otter Stream, we the students, might know all that you do. Instead of the majority of students that have no idea of what their executive decider is doing.

Most students did not even know you were going to speak today...

Annette Partida