Cuts. Everywhere you look in our University of California system, programs, staff and services are being cut. Our schools are being forced to increase class sizes, reduce student enrollment, raise tuition and eliminate programs and financial aid. The UC system is recognized as providing the highest quality of education to thousands of California students every year, but as these drastic cuts continue, it threatens to harm the integrity of our beloved schools.

Our local campus, UC Davis, has been no exception. Programs have been cut, employees have been furloughed and professors have been recruited and lured away, whether by larger salaries or more funding for their research. Last year, the university was forced to cut primary sports programs in order to save about $5 million across five years. Sports teams, and especially winning sports teams, encourage the alumni community to come together and donate back to their university. Small wonder that “sports for the alumni” was listed by former University President Clark Kerr as one of a university’s three major administrative issues.

It is unfortunate, but currently the only two areas that have seen growth at UC Davis are tuition bills and the number of non-Californian students that our schools are admitting, because out-of-state students pay higher tuition. UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi has pledged to add approximately 5,000 new students to the Davis campus, most of whom will be students from outside California. The addition of 5,000 undergraduates to Davis’ student body requires the construction of new student housing and other infrastructure projects. These additions are taking place in response to shrinking budgets and should be done as cost-effectively as possible. The students paying higher tuition and California’s tax payers deserve no less.

In light of all this, I was surprised to learn that top officials at UC Davis recently made a puzzling decision about the next phase of development for on-campus student housing. UC Davis officials chose a general contractor headquartered in Arizona for the third phase of the Tercero student housing development, even though the contractor’s price was $5 million dollars higher than a bid made by a Yolo County contractor who successfully built Phase II of this project on time and on budget.

Additionally, this same local contractor is already performing the site preparation for Phase III. This company not only bid $5 million less, they proposed to use the same California-based design and management team that won UC Davis and the company a prestigious award for their work on Phase II of the Tercero dorms.

The decision to spend $5 million dollars unnecessarily, and to take much of the project work to an Arizona-based contractor, speaks volumes to the community, alumni, faculty and especially to students about why they are paying the price of steep tuition increases. Just think; if UC Davis had accepted the fully-qualified lower bid and saved $5 million dollars, the university could have invested that money back into programs, resources and financial aid that students so desperately need and deserve.

Rhonda Brooks
Davis resident and UC Davis alumna

No more cough syrup for you! That will be the law of Davis if the city council enacts its alcohol ordinance, which empowers cops to detain students walking down the street who they suspect are a) under 21, and b) aren’t even drunk, but might have been drinking. The cops can detain those students and ask them to submit to a breathalyzer test meant to determine whether their blood alcohol content exceeds .01 percent. For the tiny Catholics among you, that’s a level obtainable through a hearty swig of the blood of Christ. Other than its obvious sacramental implications, the ordinance has three main problems:

1) It criminalizes college students drinking cough syrup and smoothies made with vanilla extract, both of which contain alcohol.

2) Although the ordinance contains language stating that “the [alcohol] testing shall be incidental to a lawful detention,” it doesn’t clarify whether that initial lawful detention must be based on the the violation of a different law, or if suspicion of violating the alcohol ordinance alone will justify a detention. This ambiguity makes it sound suspiciously like the notorious Arizona immigration law, where a violation of any random city code could prompt the Arizona cops to interrogate a suspect about his immigration status.

3) The ordinance does make the breathalyzer a voluntary test, which is great – except that there’s no requirement that the cops tell you it’s voluntary. Now be real: If you’d been drinking and you’re stopped downtown by a cop who asks you to submit to a breathalyzer test, would you say yes? Of course you would. The city should add a restriction that forces the cops to tell you the test is voluntary. Cops already have to give these types of warnings in other circumstances. The California Welfare & Institutions Code, for example, allows the police to ask minors already in custody (for habitual truancy, among other things) to consent to voluntary drug/alcohol testing, but requires them to affirmatively tell the minors that the testing is optional. And we’re all familiar with the Miranda rights, which must be read before any custodial interrogation.

I don’t think the ordinance is a wise policy or even a useful one. Cops already badger kids for no reason; they don’t need another arrow in their quiver.

Daniel Watts, Esq.
UC Davis School of Law alum, class of 2011

There was a time, long ago, when irreverence was king on campus.

God, stodgy professors, WASP heritage and tradition were easy prey for the deliciously subversive revolutionaries of the ’60s and ’70s. The dusty orthodoxies of time and tradition, the doctrinaire insistence on uniformity, the stale consensus of culture –– those were gone forever. Or so it seemed.

But then a funny thing happened. The students of yesterday became the professors and administrators of today. And with that change came a new orthodoxy, stripped of God and tradition, of course, but no less dogmatic or stifling for the loss. Ironically, the rebels who lived to question authority have themselves become unquestionable authority.

By the time I trundled off to college in the mid-2000s, the trend was pretty much universal. In place of the old educational mores, newly-sanctified principles like “diversity” (only based on skin color), “sustainability” and “multiculturalism” had risen to the level of unassailable truths.

In today’s university, the student who questions sacred doctrines such as “climate change” or “social justice” is politely but firmly relegated to the inferior status of “non-progressive.” Professors who fail to piously mouth liberal slogans are sometimes ostracized, denied tenure or even fired. And administrators occupy themselves by creating Orwellian speech codes that prohibit such crimes as “adversely upset[ting] the delicate balance of communal living” or using “verbally abusive language on university-owned or controlled property.”

One wonders what the free-speaking students of the ’60s would have thought about such draconian restrictions –– but wait, those same students are the ones writing the speech codes now. The brash protesters of the past are the strait-laced dogmatists of the present. In turn, classroom discourse has suffered.

When was the last time a fellow classmate raised his hand to vigorously challenge the theory of the welfare state, or the dogma of man-caused climate change, or the claims of American imperialism? There are some things in college that you just can’t say, or at least not without being ostracized as a racist, denier, homophobe or jingoist. As a result, education is stale, boring and predictable.

Learning becomes regurgitation and the narrow palate of ideological diversity relegates conservative viewpoints to whatever straw-men professors can construct to provide a semblance of balance. Instead of being an unpredictable but brilliant marketplace of ideas, the classroom has become a secular Sunday school where students recite their progressive catechisms.

Part of the problem is the lack of ideological diversity in the faculty and administration. The average liberal arts professor comes complete with a Prius, blazer, upper-middle-class lifestyle and, most importantly, a pre-packaged set of standard-issue leftist doctrines that start with race, class or gender, and veer off into that professor’s personal brand of politically correct inanity.

The research confirms my unscientific analysis. Studies indicate that 72 percent of college professors identify as liberal, while only 15 percent identify as conservative. That’s nearly a five-to-one ratio. When you look at social sciences and humanities, fields where ideology is relatively more important than in engineering or science, the percentages go up even more. At elite universities, a full 87 percent of professors are liberal.

Here in the cornfields of middle-class Davis, one would expect the faculty to be more diverse. But in my years in the history, English and law programs, I haven’t met the mythical 15 percent of conservative professors. I’m beginning to wonder if they even exist.

Whatever the reason for the lack of disparity in academics is, because of it, higher education suffers from a lack of intellectual creativity. Within the halls of learning, the strictures of tradition have been replaced by the even more stifling bonds of political correctness. And the worst part is that the new orthodoxy views itself as sacrosanct and beyond criticism. By defining alternative viewpoints as improper or even hateful, the academic establishment has managed to sterilize education and squelch dissent.

So we’re back to where we began: God has been replaced by Darwin, WASP culture by multiculturalism, tradition by political correctness and stodgy professors by other stodgy professors.

The Who said it best. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

SAM HOEL is a law student at UC Davis School of Law and can be reached at swhoel@ucdavis.edu.

It’s a shame that foreplay has been relegated to the category of things guys grudgingly do to get laid. Foreplay is essentially the stimulation and accumulation of pleasurable physical and mental sensations, which is something you can enjoy regardless of your gender or the gender of your partner.

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that spontaneous, little-to-no foreplay sex is not fun –– it definitely can be. But I want to give foreplay its due, particularly because it is more difficult to define. For some people it means anything not involving penetration. For others it stops as soon as you touch the genitals, and so on. How you define foreplay depends on the people involved, the various anatomical features they have and what your boundaries are.

Foreplay is not necessarily limited to the bedroom. When it comes to going from neutral to turned-on, some people find that a clever line during dinner is the equivalent of a 20-minute back rub. So, when you’re out together and sexy-times are likely, ramp up your flirty dirty talk. Humor is your friend here because there is almost nothing better than a partner who can make you laugh before and after sex (and also during). Once you’ve turned on your partner with your words, it’s time to use your hands.

Hands are, in my opinion, the most underrated component of intimate encounters. For starters, they are useful in locating erogenous zones on your partner. These are places on the body that, when touched or stroked, cause arousal. The main erogenous zones are places like the genitals, lips, nipples and neck. However, most body parts can become erogenous via a conditioning process. These secondary zones can begin to cause arousal after the repeated action of touching them during sexual encounters. The condition, though, may be partner- and situation-specific –– you might feel no arousal when one partner touches a specific part of you, even though you felt it with a previous partner.

Good foreplay will make use of these zones. You and your partner can explore each other with your hands (lips and tongues also work well), and see how many you can find. If you’re in a teasing mood, and you know where a particularly sensitive spot is, you can apply quick, light touches to that zone. Romance novel-level begging for more may ensue.

Lubrication, both natural and synthetic, is also an important aspect of foreplay. The need for lubrication is the most likely candidate for why foreplay is considered a “chick” thing. For those of you without female anatomy, just imagine a dry sponge rubbing against a dry glass. That’s what sex can feel like without sufficient lube. But even with lots of warm-up and an attentive partner, additional lube may be required.

When choosing your lube type, there are properties you need to consider. For example, if you’re using any silicone-based sex toys, then a silicone based lube may ruin your toys. Water-based lubes may be stickier than silicone ones and also dry out faster, so some research might be worthwhile to find a type you and your partner like. One other word of caution –– do not use flavored lube for vaginal  or anal sex. It contains sugars, which can cause yeast infections, which generally suck.

As I promised, a few more words on protection. When it comes to foreplay, many people assume that applying protection will bring the action to a halt (male condoms are the common example). This is not the case. When you’re applying protection, keep doing all the activities you’ve been doing, like kissing and talking dirty. It will also help keep the energy going if your partner puts the protection on for you. And do not store condoms in wallets or anywhere they are exposed to heat. It can make them brittle, which damages their effectiveness.

Next week, we talk about touching yourself and why porn is not the devil.

SAM WALL wants to help you get more out of foreplay by contacting sewall@ucdavis.edu.

The Davis City Council recently proposed the Minor Alcohol Preclusion Ordinance. This measure would make it lawful to fine those under 21 who have a blood alcohol content (BAC) level equal to or greater than .01 percent in a public place, including streets and highways.

This would make it illegal to have alcohol in your system in public if you are under 21, while at present it is unlawful to be drunk and disruptive.

This proposal sets a ridiculous standard, especially for a college town like Davis where underage drinking is prevalent. Not only that, but from an ethical standpoint, it is not the city’s job to impose unrealistic and Puritan morals on its citizens.

Imagine a cop showing up at a party in which students under age 21 have been drinking. It would be an inefficient use of police resources to cite everyone with a BAC at all as the party-goers shuffle out to the street.

Perhaps the city should invest in setting up DUI checkpoints. This would productively prevent drunk driving, rather than worrying about individuals who most likely are only harming themselves.

The potential ordinance has the capacity to inhibit students’ rights, as there are no explicit parts of the proposal that state how police would determine probable cause for breathalyzing minors in public places. Would a person have to be stumbling down Frat Row in order to be stopped, or could police simply breathalyze someone strolling quietly downtown? For some it only takes one teaspoon of cough syrup to break this limit of .01.

Councilmember Sue Greenwald said it best: “Twenty-one is a pretty high drinking age. I’m not sure I want to be on the forefront of the very aggressive enforcement of behavior that for the most part only hurts the person.”

This measure is not going to reduce alcohol consumption; it is only going to make people more fearful of cops, pitting the city against students. Rather than trying to fight underage consumption in a college town, the city should use its time and energy to promote safe alcohol consumption.