From: Jo Chamberlain <jchambe1@ucsc.edu>
Date: Fri, Aug 15, 2014 at 11:31 AM
Subject: College Eight Summer Newsletter
To: iammejtm@gmail.com
It Happens Every Summer: College Eight Graduates Set Out to Face the World & College Eight Frosh Arrive in Droves
The annual cycle at College Eight is a fixed one: Every year, in late September, there is a flurry of move-ins into College Eight; every year, in mid-June, academics come to an end, as soon-to-be graduates march to commencement and get ready to embark on their life voyages. For a couple of weeks, the campus is preternaturally quiet, with only crows, deer and a few administrations wandering about. And then, the visitors begin to pour in: tennis, soccer, rock camp kids; high school cheerleaders; summer school students; dowsers, mandolin players, rock stars, neurolinguistics university folk, junior techies, and many others. Over the summer, the Colleges are never quiet, and College Eight is no exception. Not only do we host a range of conference groups, incoming frosh and their parents gather at College Eight to learn about their next four years and then radiate out across the campus, to other Colleges and Departments. They get lost, ask questions, and look bewildered. We try to help them. This summer is no different. Commencement Day 2014 started out with "June Gloom," the foggy overcast for which the California Coast is known (Mark Twain is said to have said "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." But, apparently, he didn't say it). Across campus, commencements run like clockwork, scheduled for 9 AM, 1 PM and 4 PM. Some are bone chilling, others are scorchers. Hats are recommended; water is provided. By the time College Eight's commencement began at 1 PM, the sun had emerged and the thousand or so families, friends and parents were warming up. There our guests sat, stood, conversed and wandered, waiting eagerly for the 350 degree candidates to come marching down the hill from College Eight. Back at the College Plaza, there was much rumbling and jostling, as students and faculty, led by the Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor, got into line and slowly made their way to the festivities at Oakes College West Field.
This year, Commencement was honored by Karen Milian's beautiful rendition of the National Anthem, Peter Benham's student speech, and the Provost's entirely predictable remarks. Our keynote speaker, Professor Karen Litfin of the Departments of Political Science and Environmental Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle, told the audience what was required to protect the Earth's environment and what role the graduating seniors could play in that effort. And, finally, the moment for which everyone was waiting: awarding of the degrees and Executive Vice Chancellor Alison Galloway's pronouncement that those degrees were now official (because diplomas don't arrive in the mail until many months later, students were given seed-impregnated congratulatory certificates, and encouraged to plant them).
For most graduating seniors, Commencement is a once-in-a-lifetime event: it validates the four or five years and tens of thousands of dollars that every student has spent, and it marks the passage from apprentice to full adulthood. For parents, families and friends, it is a sweet moment: not only have their children run the college gauntlet, the graduates now bear the weight of representing those parents, families and friends out in the world. Graduation is a singular moment, and College Eight's instructors and academic and residential life staffs wish their former wards the best of luck and fortune in the future.
Whereas Commencement is a well-planned and orderly affair, due mostly to the efforts of the College's office and residential life staffs, move-in day is a study in chaos. Something like 7,000 students live at UCSC—with almost 800 at College Eight—and for a few days in September, the campus is awash with packed, slow moving and hopelessly lost vehicles. Cars and SUVs wait patiently for their turn and then roll up to their moment in the sun, near the dorms or apartments. Refrigerators, computers and TVs are extracted in great numbers, hauled up to second and third floors, and crammed into small, three-bed rooms whose floors are soon completely covered (How many refrigerators does it take to feed a dorm room? Based on personal observation, at least two, maybe three). After a few days of informational meetings and orientations, the dust begins to settle and the new students wander off, trying figure out how to get across campus. Classes begin and don't stop for 30 weeks. From the perspective of September, it seems like forever, but those three quarters pass like nothing. Soon it is time for Commencement. It happens every summer.
Minor in Sustainability Studies to be Launched
After two years in the planning and many revisions, the College Eight Minor in Sustainability Studies will be launched in Fall Quarter, 2014. It has been approved for a three-year pilot phase, with a limit of 30 students for the first year. Fall classes in the minor are full and close to a dozen students have signed up. The minor builds on College Eight's long-standing focus on "Environment and Society," and complements the College's three-quarter Core Course for frosh and sophomores. It has been designed to offer students from across the campus the opportunity to complement their majors with hands-on projects focused on renewable energy supply and demand, urban agriculture and food justice, water capture and conservation, and data collection and modeling, and to collaborate with faculty, mentors and experts in designing and implementing activities and projects.
Many of the classes required for the minor are already offered by various departments at UCSC, but a number of the basic requirements are part of College Eight's academic portfolio. Unfortunately, the University does not provide funding for such classes, which are wholly dependent on gifts and grants. The cost of running the minor is close to $50,000 per year (primarily instructor salaries and student research grants), and I am responsible for raising these funds. Fortunately, over the past two years, two generous donors have provided College Eight with approximately $60,000, which has funded sustainability-related classes and which will support the minor during its first year. After that, however, there will be precious little in the bank to continue offering the College Eight classes. We are, therefore, initiating a campaign to raise funds in support of the minor. The Provost has committed to send $250 every month to the College specifically for this purpose, and we are asking alumni and parents to give what they can in matching support.
Please consider making a gift to College Eight to ensure that the Sustainability Studies minor can continue and that UCSC students can make important contributions to the protection of the Earth's environment. In future newsletters, we will be reporting on classes, projects and activities, and we invite you to become involved in this effort. For more information about the minor, please see http://eight.ucsc.edu/academic-programs/Minor%20in%20Sustainability%20Studies.html.
Jeremy Tobias Matthews
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