After its first ever dry run in the University of California’s history, the waitlist system has yielded results – 17 percent of waitlisted students were offered admission.

Of the 10,712 UC applicants placed on a waiting list (unduplicated; some students may have been offered spots on multiple lists), Davis accepted 595 students and Santa Barbara offered admission to an additional 1,271. All other campuses, with the exception of UCLA and Merced, implemented waiting lists but did not admit any of the students they waitlisted.

Frank Wada, executive director of undergraduate admissions and university registrar at UC Davis, explained this discrepancy in terms of enrollment goals.

“Each campus had enrollment targets that would help us maximize the space and resources we had available for incoming students,” Wada said. “As a result, we were able to offer admission to nearly 600 students who normally would have had to go elsewhere. The other campuses, however, were comfortable with where they were at [in terms of enrollment].”

According to Wada, the decision to utilize a waitlist methodology for the first time this year was based on a combination of factors, including reductions in funding, decreased enrollment space and increased competition.

Hoping to enroll up to 4,415 students for fall 2010 and with approximately 42,000 applicants, UC Davis garnered roughly a 45 percent admission rate.

UC Davis also boasts the largest number of waitlist offerings at 5,000 (1,500 of which were accepted) and, of the 595 waitlisted students offered admission, 351 have expressed an intention to enroll in the fall.

Wada described the idea behind UC Davis’ use of a waitlist as offering an opportunity for students to pause and think before making their decision.

“We wanted to not only give students another chance to tell us more about them,” he said, “but we also wanted to ensure that students knew for certain that this is where they wanted to go. The waitlist was the best tool for achieving both the students’ and the University’s goals.”

One of the ways Davis’ waitlist process differed from those of the other campuses is that it required interested students to write an additional 200-word essay explaining why they wanted to come to Davis.

Shirley Chen, a graduating senior from Lowell High School in San Francisco, lamented the use of the method, saying that it was both stressful and discouraging.

“Davis’ waitlist offer sounded more like a rejection and made me a little bit sad,” Chen said. “And then the waiting was the worst. I wish the notification process was quicker so that students wouldn’t have to be so unsure of their college decisions. It was frustrating to have to explain to anyone that asked that I still didn’t know where I was going for college.”

Chen also cited a slew of unanswered questions she and other high school seniors faced due to the waitlist system.

“I didn’t know if I was going to have to pay [registration fees] first, if waitlisting would affect my chances on other waitlists or whether I would still have a good spot for orientation, housing, etc.,” she said.

Hope Fletcher, a senior at Alameda High in Alameda, agreed with Chen’s evaluation, admitting that she was confused by the seemingly inconsistent information she received from the different campuses.

Specifically, Fletcher took issue with the comprehensive review score (CRS) she was given by UC Santa Cruz, a 5,245, which was unusually low considering her above-average GPA and SAT scores.

The CRS is determined by a combination of factors, such as GPA, test scores, honors courses, achievements and geographic location.

“I was extremely disappointed,” Fletcher said. “UCSC was my number one choice for college and I had expected to get in. However, after being waitlisted, I decided to send in my SIR to Davis instead.”

After choosing to enroll at UC Davis, Fletcher received notification from an admissions evaluator at UC Santa Cruz that her CRS had been miscalculated and that her official score was actually a 5,905. Surprised at the news, Fletcher decided to see if she could appeal her admissions decision at UCSC.

“I set up a meeting with the associate director of admissions who told me that there wasn’t space,” Fletcher said. “Even though it hadn’t been my fault, I couldn’t enroll at UCSC until winter quarter of next year.”

Despite the negative experiences endured by some of this year’s waitlist students, Wada insists that it was the most beneficial action that could have been taken in such difficult financial times.

“We wanted to offer admission to as many students as we possibly could,” he said. “Waitlist students are still very excellent students with a strong desire to come here. We tried our best to give them the opportunity to do so.”

KYLE SPORLEDER can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

When a classmate chooses to skip lecture, one usually assumes they had something better to do. When that fellow student is an ASUCD senator and they decide to miss a senate meeting, it prompts questions about what might be more important than influencing an entire campus.

Attendance at mandatory weekly senate meetings has been low this term, said ASUCD vice president Previn Witana.

“More than half of the senators have missed at least one meeting,” Witana said. “When I was a senator, we’d have one to two absences per quarter, not on a weekly basis.”

Besides being required by ASUCD bylaws to be present at Thursday night meetings, the greater issue is that senators who aren’t there cannot contribute to decision-making. If a topic that concerns their constituency came to vote, the people affected by the decision would be without representation.

“Every time we have a meeting there are a lot of things brought up that most of us wouldn’t think about,” said Bree Rombi, president pro-tempore. “We should remember that we’re the voices and vote for everyone, and should use that power instead of being absent and having the vote go nowhere.”

ASUCD president Jack Zwald dismissed school pressure or involvement with another organization as valid excuses to miss a weekly meeting, and called the meetings the most important thing a senator does all week.

“If there is a something else during the senate meeting, your first priority is to go to the senate meeting, because that’s what you were elected to do – you are paid to do it, and you should be there,” Zwald said.

Part of the problem is that the senate lacks method of punishing those who do not attend meetings. Zwald, while a senator, co-authored a bill that would withhold pay from senators who did not attend more than half of that week’s meeting. The bill did not comply with university regulations and therefore failed, but was widely supported by the senate at the time.

There are only two ways to reprimand a senator, Zwald said. One is a formal censure – a two-thirds vote stating displeasure with a senator’s behavior that carries no actual consequence.

The second action that can be taken is to hold a formal recall, which has only happened once in the history of ASUCD, and is frankly unfeasible, Zwald explained.

“One-fourth of the voters from that specific election have to sign a petition of recall for the senator, which then goes to a special election ballot, which then takes a majority vote,” he said.

Senators this term have also neglected their duty to hold four office hours per week, according to Student Government Administrative Office (SGAO) documents.

Records from the first five weeks of the quarter, March 29 through May 7, show that nine of 12 senators had a week where they did not hold any office hours. Five – Levi Menovske, Liz Walz, Osahon Ekhator, Ozzy Arce, and Selisa Romero – had more than one week with zero office hours recorded.

Zwald said that while senators may have their own opinions of justifiable excuses for missing meetings, not holding office hours is just ‘silly.’

“Two of them are down the hall in your office, where you have Internet, and can pretty much do whatever you want,” he said. “And in your public ones you can study somewhere and appear approachable.”

Witana said office hours are the senators’ greatest opportunity to be accessible to students and be as transparent as they can, and that if a senator cannot hold hours one week, they are asked to make them up the next week.

Senator Ozzy Arce said senate members are aware of office hour requirements and have been holding them, and that trouble has come in recording them with SGAO. Many senators, Arce said, believed that SGAO would be notified at the beginning of every quarter where and when senators would be holding their office hours.

“It was not my understanding that every single time you had to check in and out,” Arce said. “Going in and out of the SGAO office in between running around from my own office, job, etc. doesn’t make sense to me, if it’s where I’m going to be at this time from now until the end of the quarter.”

Senator Osahon Ekhator said he is one of the most accessible senators, despite not having many hours logged with SGAO.

“I’m in the senate office, the Student Recruitment and Retention Center, or the Cross-Cultural Center over six hours a week; I’ve just been negligent in logging hours with SGAO.”

The senate has made a plethora of complaints about the process, according to Senator Levi Menovske [cq], who said he has simply stopped trying to record his hours in the SGAO office despite holding them every Thursday this term.

The primary goal of office hours, according to Chapter 13 of the Guideline of Ethics in the ASUCD bylaws, is to reach out to the student community. Chapter 13 also requires all members of the ASUCD Senate to be accessible through SGAO – which is why Witana maintained that notifying SGAO about office hours is necessary.

“The main reason that we have checking in is so that if there is a concerned student and they want to meet with someone, we can inform them of where they are,” Witana said. “Because when they post their office hours, it doesn’t say where they’re doing them.”

Despite the widespread disregard for senatorial responsibilities, Rudy Ornelas, director of legislation and policy for the office of the ASUCD president, said he does not expect anything to change.

“Without any feasible formal punishment, they pretty much know they’re going to be there until the end of their term,” he said. “When you have that many senators not fulfilling their duties, you’re not going to have a unanimous vote against one person.”

MIKE DORSEY can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

The creators of the Campus Community Solidarity Day know what brings communities together: free t-shirts and the chance to meet a friend before the school year ends.

Students from several campus organizations and centers will join together today in the quad to promote diversity and celebrate cultures on campus for the first annual Campus Community Solidarity Day. Organizer Tatiana Bush said that of the many reasons for having the event, hers was one in response to hate crimes.

“This is about ending the year on a good note, bringing the campus together and being about something other than the negative things that have happened this year,” said Bush, a junior political science major and intern at the Student Recruitment and Retention Center (SRRC).

The event will feature t-shirts that participants can decorate with the theme of community in mind, in addition to free body piercing, ice cream and prizes. Attendees will also be encouraged to sign a pledge promising to respect – and continue to respect – all communities on campus.

“We’ll talk about the events that happened this year and band together as a community,” said Shauna Madison, a junior sociology and African American studies major. “Making t-shirts is a great way to do this. We’ll actually be creating something together.”

Collaborators and contributors include the SRRC, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center, the Cross Cultural Center, the Black Student Union, the Women’s Resources and Research Center, the Outreach Assembly, National Council of Negro Women and the Ethnic and Cultural Affairs Commission.

“Basically everyone we could find that wanted to be a part of it will be there,” Bush said. “We’ll be accentuating on all that we have here [at UC Davis].”

For many communities, the event will be particularly meaningful in lieu of a traumatic year. Sheri Atkinson, director of the LGBTRC said that members of the LGBTIQ community faced many different kinds of hateful acts, but that an event with many campus groups would contribute public awareness and acceptance.

“This is a chance to show that we’re going to stay strong and come together as multiple communities,” Atkinson said.

Madison mirrored this sentiment, stating that a large event with many campus communities could lead to improvements.

“Knowing how the community is affected could change the way people treat others,” she said. “It won’t change people’s lives dramatically, but small change can lead to bigger change in the future.”

LAUREN STEUSSY can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

ASUCD Senate meetings are scheduled to begin Thursdays at 6:10 p.m. Times listed are according to the clock at the May 27 meeting location, the Memorial Union’s Mee Room.

Meeting called to order at 6:10 p.m.

Jack Zwald, ASUCD president, present, left early at 7:36 p.m.

Previn Witana, ASUCD vice president, present

Abrham Castillo-Ruiz, ASCUD senator, present

Adam Thongsavat, ASUCD senator, present

Alison Tanner, ASUCD senator, present

Andre Lee, ASUCD president, present

Bree Rombi, ASUCD senator, pro tempore, present

Don Ho, ASUCD senator, present, arrived at 6:50 p.m., returned late at 7:25 p.m. from a break scheduled to end at 7:20 p.m.

Joel Juarez, ASUCD senator, present

Levi Menovske, ASUCD senator, present

Liz Walz, ASUCD senator, present, returned late at 7:25 p.m. from a break scheduled to end at 7:20 p.m.

Osahon Ekhator, ASUCD senator, present

Ozzy Arce, ASUCD senator, present

Selisa Romero, ASUCD senator, present, left early

Appointments and Confirmations

Perry Sanesanong was appointed as director of the Entertainment Council.

Unit Director Reports

The directors of the Whole Earth Festival spoke about the success of the festival and plans for future improvements.

Director of the Lobby Corps Christopher Lewis recapped the year’s work.

Presentations

The wrestling team formally apologized for planning to throw a party under the theme “hoes and hermaphrodites.” They stated they did not realize the party could be considered offensive and that they were going to educate themselves more on gender issues.

Consideration of old legislation

Senate Bill 1, authored and introduced by Zwald, co-authored by Mark Champagne, Joey Chen and Witana, to enact ASUCD’s operational budget for the 2010-2011 fiscal year, passed unanimously.

Senate Bill 75, authored by Fatima Mohammed-Zakir, co-authored and introduced by Lee to further replace all references to the Student Programs and Activities Center (SPAC) with Center for Student Involvement (CSI) in the ASUCD Bylaws, passed unanimously.

Senate Bill 76, authored by Sergio Cano, co-authored and introduced by Tanner, to establish a process of changing the official ASUCD logo, symbol or icon, passed with a 8-3-1 vote.

An urgent resolution, authored by Tanner, co-authored by Castillo-Ruiz, Ekhator and Juarez, introduced by Juarez, in support of Ethnic and Gender Studies at UC Davis, passed with a 11-0-1 vote.

Public Discussion

Members from the athletic department spoke on their lobbying efforts.

Menovske stated that CalPIRG will host a calling day for the rowing team and encouraged other sports teams to get involved as well.

Approval of Past Meeting Minutes

Approved

Meeting adjourned at 10:13 p.m.

AKSHAYA RAMANUJAM compiles the senate briefs. She can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

For most Davis residents, riding a bike seems as easy as walking or sleeping. Turns out, it’s an action so complex that the National Science Foundation will grant a UC Davis team two years and $300,000 to study it.

Professors Mont Hubbard and Ron Hess of the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering department are researching how humans control bicycles. They hope to discover the control law behind the visual and motion cues required to maneuver the device [CQ].

“We’re trying to understand how humans ride bicycles in a precise, mathematical context,” Hubbard said, who leads the UC Davis Sports Biomechanics Laboratory. “Ultimately, it would be nice to understand how a bicycle can be easily ridden.”

Hubbard explained that because riding a bicycle demands so many of the body’s senses, it is a difficult process to decipher and comprehend. The visual cues, muscle movements and sense of balance bicyclists must possess are more demanding than those needed to drive a car or, as Hess argued, those used to fly an airplane.

“When a human rides a bike, they are using all sensory information available to control something,” he said. This includes vestibular cues, which are located in the inner ear and provide a sense of leaning.

Vestibular cues play a unique role in bicycle riding, as they allow skilled riders to control their bicycle without the use of their hands. These cues are not utilized in the control of most other devices.

“Such a strategy would be impossible in an aircraft or automobile,” said the study authors in a written overview of the project.

Many people see bicycle riding as an inherent action, likely because of the early age at which most learn the skill. However, as Hess and Hubbard argue, the many sensory demands bike riding calls for make it unique.

Brendan Repicky, a sophomore political science and history double major, acknowledged the complexity of bicycle riding.

“It really is an instinctive action,” he said. “I stopped riding my bike for a few years in high school, and when I got to Davis I kind of had to re-learn the balance trick of it. You need to really use your center of gravity.” Hubbard and Hess, along with a group of both graduate and undergraduate UC Davis students, will study human bicycle riders and then attempt to validate their findings by building a controllable robot bicycle.

Bicycles with built in sensors will record the movements of the riders and bikes together. The robot bicycle will remove the human from the process and test whether it is possible for a machine to mirror the techniques employed by humans. Using these samples, researchers hope to determine the mathematical law behind the process.

Hubbard envisions the study’s findings bringing more precision to bike manufacturing. Hess also noted that the study is part of a larger attempt to understand the way humans control dynamic machines, with bicycles serving as an inexpensive and effective way to measure data.

MEGAN MURPHY can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

After 13 years as the women and gender studies program coordinator, Shuanna Ludwig will need to find a new job.

Jessie Owens, dean of the division of humanities, arts and culture studies (HArCS) in the College of Letters and Science, cut Ludwig’s position as a part of the reorganization of the HArCS programs, which are housed in Hart Hall.

African American and African studies, American studies, Asian American studies, cultural studies graduate group, Native American studies and women and gender studies will have one central operating unit. However, staff from American studies and women and gender studies will not be included in this central unit.

“There will be no institutional memory as to the day-to-day administrative functions of these programs and how they are run,” Ludwig said.

Ludwig and Carole Markese, assistant program coordinator for women and gender studies, both received lay-off notices. American Studies Program Coordinator Kay Clare Allen volunteered to retire and a fourth position in the main office was vacated in December and never filled, Ludwig said.

So far, HArCS had an overall reduction of 16 percent in staffing and operating expenses. With a necessary budget cut of $1.63 million from HArCS, administrators will have to continue to reduce the faculty in HArCS by $2.8 million – roughly 27.5 faculty positions.

“We have to find ways of providing services to faculty and students with fewer staff,” said Owens in an e-mail interview. “Division-wide reductions were unavoidable and were done as equitably as possible, based on workload.”

Administrators reorganized the Hart Interdisciplinary Unit into teams to provide student and financial services. Instead of a program coordinator to do things like create course schedules, hire teaching assistants and lecturers for one program, there will be an individual doing one thing for many programs. No changes will be made to the student affairs officers in any of the units.

“I think with the additional load they are putting on people, you’re going to have burnout,” Ludwig said. “People are asked to do more with less.”

Administrative consolidations like this are occurring all over campus, Owens said.

“The university has no choice but to run more efficiently to protect resources for students and faculty,” she said.

However, Ludwig does not think the transition will be smooth come fall quarter.

“It’s going to be more hectic than it’s ever been in the past,” she said. “You’re going to have people doing jobs that they’ve never done before and working with issues that are going to be complex, to say the least.”

Owens said some staff will continue working with the same program or will have the opportunity to learn new responsibilities. Administrators will provide training sessions for all the staff.

Ludwig acknowledged that everyone involved would do the best they can, given the circumstances.

“The staff remaining is very capable and are coming into this with a positive attitude, knowing that it is going to be a tough transition,” she said.

Academically, students may not feel a large difference in the reorganization. The same classes will be offered and all the degrees are remaining.

However, students will not have an individual program office to come into and the programs will not have their own separate identities, Ludwig said.

Approximately 150 students, faculty and staff met on Wednesday outside of Hart Hall to discuss the changes and protest.

Protestors read aloud a list of demands, including that UC Davis must publicly reaffirm ethnic and gender studies programs and departments and that administrators must hire 10 full-time faculty members for each individual program.

Protestors also wanted the diversity requirement altered to require histories of underrepresented and marginalized communities, institutional funding for cultural days and for Chancellor Linda Katehi to issue a denouncement of Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 and House Bill 2281.

“The administration cannot homogenize all of our separate communities,” said Sebastian Atilano Zuniga, a senior psychology major, at the protest.

What is happening in Arizona could happen here in California too, Zuniga said. Professor of Chicana/o Studies Malaquias Montoya echoed these sentiments.

“There is a climate of hate all over the US,” Montoya said. “This is a time where we need ethnic studies more than ever and they are taking it away.”

Protestors also read aloud a letter to Owens, asking to discuss their demands and warning of further action if demands are not met.

Owens maintained that UC Davis has a long and proud commitment to ethnic studies.

The UC Davis Native American studies program became the nation’s first Department of Native American studies in 1993, and later became the second to offer a Ph.D. in Native American studies. More recently, Chicana/o studies and Asian American studies were raised to department status last year.

While there is little money for new faculty, Owens is filling two positions in HArCs in the upcoming year and both will be in the ethnic studies departments of Chicana/o studies and Asian American studies.

JANELLE BITKER can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.

In a special election culminating Friday afternoon, a large majority of students placed their criticism on UC President Mark Yudof and the UC Regents.

Exactly 986 students voted that they don’t have confidence in UC President Mark Yudof, with 103 voting that they do have confidence. Twenty-five abstained. On a similar resolution declaring “no confidence” in the UC Board of Regents, 993 students voted in favor, 91 voted against and 26 abstained, according to the Elections Committee results.

“I don’t want to say that I’m happy about it because it sucks that we have such crappy leaders,” said Brian Sparks, senior international relations major. “But it’s good that students got their voices heard.”

Student campaigners began gathering signatures for the resolution’s petition earlier this month, collecting over 2,000 signatures of students who said they would be interested in voting.

In addition to this year’s 32 percent student fee increase, students cited a multitude of other organizational and managerial reasons for voting “no confidence.” For instance, many believe that Yudof and the regents hold positions on other boards that may lead them to make decisions marred by conflicts of interest.

Students also expressed concern that the administration’s growth exceeded that of the students and faculty. They also cited a Council of UC Faculty Association study, which claims that tuition dollars are being used as collateral for construction projects.

In response to the vote of “no confidence,” representatives from the UC Office of the President stated that though they are pleased to see students expressing their opinions in a democratic way, they are concerned about students’ perceptions of UC’s future.

“It’s disappointing … to see students propagating misinformation about ideas and recommendations presented to the UC Commission on the Future by working groups,” said Steve Monti el, UC spokesperson in an e-mail interview. “Rather than relying on superficial characterizations of the work of the commission and its working groups regarding student fees, students should take advantage of the transparency of this process and read the first round of recommendations made to the commission.”

The campaign leaders of the “no confidence” vote hope to send copies of the resolution to the UC Davis Academic Senate, a governing body at all UC campuses, which sends recommendations to the UC Regents. However, in initial contact made with the senate, Sparks said that it is unlikely that the senate will review the resolution.

He added, though, that other UC campuses are considering holding a similar election, such as UC Santa Cruz, but will probably begin collecting signatures in the fall. “[Further action] depends on what students want to do when they come back in the fall,” said Sparks, who will be graduating this quarter. “I think right now students are just going to study for finals and think about their summer vacations.”

LAUREN STEUSSY can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.