UC applications are due tomorrow, Nov. 30. That sentence alone perhaps fails to capture the interest of The Aggie’s readership. You are, after all, already here. But this year, that deadline matters more than we realize.

Let’s take a moment to walk down memory lane. Remember what it was like to apply for college? If you didn’t black out the memory as a kind of repressed past, then you probably remember how little we knew about each of the institutions to which we sent our applications. I don’t think this is for a lack of trying — it’s difficult to understand how individual colleges differ if you’ve hardly experienced different high schools.

My perception of colleges was heavily influenced by their brand, which itself was a joint project of what current students told me, how the media stereotyped schools and what the colleges themselves did to highlight their strengths. To this end, in 2008 UC Davis meant a relaxed atmosphere, an agriculture-veterinary-viticulture giant and emerging Public Ivy, in that order.

As the deadline draws near, though, I’m afraid we’ve become the “pepper spray school.”

During the brief reprieve of Thanksgiving break, multiple family members and friends asked if I was pepper sprayed, or at the rally or in a tent on the Quad. Before I can respond, they usually begin to express their broad opinions of the Occupy movement. With all the media attention, it makes sense for their questions to take this form. While I wish folks would ask me about my course load or research, at least I can balance their perception with my interpretation of the past few weeks.

But I can’t do that for the dozens of thousands of students deciding what campus boxes to check on the UC application. UC Davis has had the fortune of rising applicant pools over the past several years. Between the 2007 and 2008 cycles, our pool of applicants increased 20.6 percent — the highest increase in the UC system — from 35,088 to 42,311 applications. It’s the breadth of our applicant pool that allows us the privilege to build a diverse body of students.

With how little high school students know about college, I’m afraid our brand as a school is being subverted by images of hostility and volatility — or worse, memes of Lt. John Pike. At this point, I don’t know how much the admissions office can do to sell our campus to prospective students. So that leaves us.

If I had an internet-sized megaphone that could reach all those cramming to finish their UC application, I would tell them about my version of the last week. I would point to the rally of 5,000-odd students, with an emphasis on the odd. When I went to the rally on Monday, I stood unintentionally next to a past coworker and a former roommate, behind a friend of an old dormmate and in front of a fellow writer at The Aggie. In every direction and at every distance I saw someone I know.

I would point to the ways in which the rally accommodated everyone. A lady on-stage translated the speeches into sign language. Where speakers were lacking, the crowd used a human mic to echo speeches into earshot. To help those at the back see, us in the front sat down on the wet grass. Decisions were made by consensus.

I would make note that many of us were there for different causes, but allied for the same reasons. Many students at the rally called for the resignation of Chancellor Katehi. A lot of students came out against the use of police force on campus. Most students were there to rally against cuts to higher education that are increasingly pricing us out of social mobility. But everyone was there in the most visceral form of community I’ve ever seen.

Shortly after the rally, and through the rest of the week, the campus still had that electricity in the air. On my Facebook newsfeed later that evening, there was a flood of status updates and comments, each expressing what I’d heard throughout the day from virtually everyone — that this is the proudest they’d ever felt to be a UC Davis student.

Color me cynical, but I don’t think this kind of pride is going to make headline news. It lacks the violence and agitation initially, and then consistently, pinned to the recent stories on our campus. And with one day to go, high school seniors aren’t looking for reasons to redeem colleges while they’re trying to cull their lists. So I hope you take from the rally the principle of the human mic, and echo your Aggie pride.

If he could do it all over again, RAJIV NARAYAN would still choose UC Davis. Let him know what you think at rrnarayan@ucdavis.edu.

UC Davis students have a golden opportunity for negotiation and dialogue they shouldn’t let go to waste. With Chancellor Katehi over a barrel, they might agitate and press for her resignation, but what would that accomplish? It wouldn’t fix the structural problems that have produced outrageous tuition. And what guarantee is there that her replacement wouldn’t be worse?

Katehi appears sincerely concerned about last week’s pepper spray incident. This places students in an unusual and even enviable position of being able to insist on a meeting with her to present grievances and petitions. For that, of course, students would have to come up with a list of specific concerns and requests – something more difficult than mere protesting, but also much more productive.

Ultimately we must get beyond exclusive reliance on conflict as a means of solving disagreements and redressing injustices.

John Uebersax
Californians for Higher Education Reform

We, the Chicana/o studies department faculty, join our colleagues on the UC Davis campus in decrying the unwarranted and excessive use of force by the UC Davis police on peaceful student demonstrators on Nov. 18, 2011. We echo the calls around campus for a full investigation into the incident and an analysis of the larger structural inequalities giving rise to the protests here at UC Davis and across the country. We are deeply concerned about the utter disregard for students’ rightful protests against rising tuition costs and the difficulty it poses particularly for underrepresented groups who have traditionally lacked economic access to the University of California.

To that end, we support the creation of a task force to carry out the investigation and believe that it must include individuals with knowledge and experience in civil rights and human rights. We request the appointment of someone like the Honorable Cruz Reynoso, a former California Supreme Court Justice and UC Davis School of Law professor, whose expertise and ethics would lead to an effective and just plan of action.

We also believe that the task force must include the students who risked everything to make the university accountable to its principles. As leaders in this movement, we need to ensure their voices are represented.

Given the importance of accountability and transparency in this process, we would also like the task force to include in their recommendations how specific campus policy changes in the campus Policy and Procedure Manual can be developed so that we can protect all Davis community members’ civil and democratic rights to protest and voice their discontent without fear of intimidation or excessive force.

We also believe that no thorough investigation can be done in the next 30 days, given that the holidays approach and that most students, staff and faculty will be away during the break. As such, we call for an extension of the 30 day deadline.

Finally, we expect a swift yet accurate and equitable response to the incident on the campus Quad on Nov. 18, and the larger unsettling developments across the country. As the eyes of the nation and, arguably, the globe descend on UC Davis, we need to demonstrate a leadership that takes into account this nation’s commitment to civil rights and human rights.

Chicana/o Studies department

Since the Nov. 18 pepper spraying of protesters, Chancellor Katehi has received pressure to resign. Most of the press associated with the event has been directed toward Katehi and she has become the face of this issue. If Katehi were to resign, it would not revolutionize the way this campus is run, it would merely be a symbolic gesture to help the university progress past recent events.

In response, the Aggie Editorial Board has a list of steps for her to protect the university, as we remember that one of the main points of recent protests is that tuition is too high. Should Katehi not resign, we’d like to see her implement the following changes.

1. Katehi should actively fight against tuition increases and explicitly state that she is an advocate for lower student fees. She also needs to restructure the way money is spent at UC Davis by reducing non-essential bureaucracy. We want to see funding go toward our education, not paperwork.

2. She should cut her own salary to show students her commitment to directing funds toward education.

3. Reforming the campus police force is necessary, as they have proven themselves to be harmful. The campus police department should be merged with the city police forces. This seems reasonable, as shown by the recent consolidation of the campus and city fire departments. Furthermore, UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza, and both officers involved in pepper spraying, should be fired immediately.

5. Katehi should make more of an effort to meet students on campus. Katehi doesn’t have a good track record of being seen outside of Mrak Hall, but she has a reputation of calling police to campus on multiple occasions. To turn this around, she should continue reaching out to student organizations and clubs, and increasing her visibility on campus.

6. It’s important that Katehi take forums seriously and make changes based on student and faculty concerns. These meetings should not simply just be held to blow off steam.

7. Katehi needs to reach out to donors, some of whom say that they will no longer give to our university while she still holds the position of chancellor.

Similar actions should be taken by UC chancellors, including UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau, as he allowed for police violence against protesters this past month. With winter break two weeks away, Katehi and other university leaders should not assume the UC Occupy movement and remembrances of the events of Nov. 18 will die out. We will not let go of what happened to our fellow students or our fight for an affordable public education. Things are going to change and this is only the beginning.

I often reference Lord of the Rings to help me say things I might otherwise struggle to articulate. It sounds hokey, but since I committed to it, it’s surprising how well it works.

It’s a way of relating to people, I suppose, when we pick out little phrases from films. It’s what I aim for anyway, and, though I’m usually the one people edge away from at parties, sometimes it really works. I find the problem doesn’t usually lie in the sentiment behind whatever it is I’m trying to say – I’m genuine enough – but instead, in the person I’m relating to not having a clue what I’m talking about.

“Like Sméagol’s struggle with Gollum,” I’ll say when a friend confesses an internal debate they are struggling with. “This is like the scene where Sméagol wrestles with himself, trying to abolish Gollum.” “Yes,” they’ll say, “deciding whether or not to spend an extra year at school to double minor, when it’s going to cost so much and put me a whole year behind, is exactly like that scene…”

Or when I say, “The one ring was Sauron’s insurance,” to a friend dealing with Allstate after the loss of a grandparent. “It was his life-insurance policy. In case anything happened to him, he wanted to know he was ‘in good hands.’” Which, apparently, makes absolutely no sense whatsoever to people, despite the last phrase being both appropriate and the Allstate motto.

To me, the parallels between my references and whatever is being discussed are obvious. When others are lost by what I say, however, I’m reminded that I, and I alone, am the sole occupant of the group that gets my references.

I blame it on not meeting enough Lord of the Rings fans. Though, really, it’s probably that the rest of them have a better sense of when to bring it up than I do and just keep to themselves at places where mentioning it isn’t appropriate. I might have been in the company of avid LOTR fans last time I sat through a safety training day at work, but I didn’t hear any of them commenting on just how much the discussion leader looked like Elrond.

In an obviously doomed attempt at relating to someone who lost their copy of the novel Push by Sapphire, I said, “the precious is looooost!” The few seconds I spent congratulating myself on being clever were interrupted when the person said, “What the hell does that even mean?” It was then that I realized they hadn’t seen any of The Lord of the Rings films, or the movie Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire.

Which, again, reminded me only of how lonely life can seem when you are the sole appreciator of your interests. By “interests” I mean, of course, making references to a fictional place as though it were real. References that I find are lost in casual conversation.

By now, it’s a motion of generosity when people adjust their blank faces after a split second and nod at me, suddenly and abruptly aware that I am the only one who knows what I’m talking about. I’m assuming they realize that ending the conversation will be easier if they pretend to understand the reference, thereby bypassing my lengthy explanation.

Which, to me, suggests that reality is the world most people live in. Though I’m not particularly enamored by it, it’s the one I too am stuck in, where the only things rings stand for are marriage and the Olympics.

Instead of resigning myself to conversations devoid of Tolkien references, I’ve started to use them more sparingly and only when they really say something.

My favorite goodbye, for instance, is when Bilbo says “I bid you all a very fond farewell.” I love the phrase and I use it whenever goodbyes are in order. I don’t often cite the source, though, because, I suppose, I’ve grown to realize that admitting where I got it can diminish its meaning.

So, I’ll leave it there and bid you all a very fond farewell with the best goodbye I know. Though, I admit, I could be biased.

EVAN WHITE loves nothing more than discussing Middle Earth and plans to go there. Contact him at emwhite@ucdavis.edu.