To the DASB Senate, the boxes sitting in front of them containednothing more than political pawns.
Gooey, sweet, glazed political pawns, that is.
In the boxes were ten dozen glazed doughnuts from Krispy Kreme,sugary inducements for students to petition against proposed cutsto California’s community college budget.
The DASB offered the doughnuts on Feb. 6 to students who signedup for an eventual listserv, or mass e-mail mailing list, for newsupdates on the state budget situation.
The distribution of doughnuts in the Main Quad was sponsored bythe DASB Diversity and Events Committee. Betty Duong, vicepresident of the committee, told students that “by signing yourname today, you will be the first to know what�s going onwith the budget crisis.”
Students were asked to give their names and e-mailaddresses.
With the contact information provided by students, Duong saidthat the DASB will be able to make a mass listserv to keep allstudents updated with the latest budget news.
Several other students, donning Krispy Kreme paper hats, usedbullhorns to say the same message.
The DASB planned to write a petition to Gov. Davis. The petitionwas not only to voice disapproval of the proposed tuition hike, butalso to make students more aware of the impending hike intuition.
“We will be sending [the petition] directly to Gov. Davis,” shesaid. “They want to cancel over 200 classes and raise tuition to$16 a unit.”
“It’s really simple. Sign your name, get a free doughnut,” saidDuong.
Along with a doughnut, students were given a slip of paper,providing contact information for California assemblymen andsenators, along with details on the proposed budget cuts as theycurrently stand.
Handouts given at the rally stated, “Education cuts should beproportional across the board. Legislators intend to impose astatewide $218 million mid-year cut to California CommunityColleges.” DASB proposed a $158 million cut instead, which is thesame amount cut for K-12 schools.
The hope is to have students contact the assemblymen andsenators directly, so they may be able to see just how much theirconstituents are affected.
The Senate is also organizing a town hall meeting, scheduled forlater this month. “Currently we’re over our cap for students,” saidOle Petersen, DASB senator. “We now have to pay for the overage ofstudents out of our own pockets.”
Petersen referred to the state’s subsidies for each localstudent, who pays $7 per unit. An international student pays fullprice, which is $101 per unit. The state makes up the differencefor each local student and sets a cap for the number of studentseach community college can admit. De Anza has exceeded its cap andis losing money as a result.
By the end of the rally, over 200 students had signed up for 120doughnuts.
