Border-crossing journalism from the Sacramento Valley
by Leslie Layton
Spanish linguistics Professor Denise Minor will be remembered for many things – for her creative approach to teaching, devotion to her family, fierce loyalty to those she loved.
She has already been remembered for her joyful laugh, her love of language and her appreciation for its evolution, all of which shaped the students she taught and the Chico State Spanish Program that hired her in 2007.
by Katie McCammon
Saving humankind from climate change disaster is an immense challenge, and there will be no silver bullet solution. However, there are many “silver buckshot,” and two of them involve greening our agricultural system and greening how clothing is produced.
Both are found in the farming practices that turn flax plant fibers into linen clothing. According to an article by The World Bank, the fashion industry is responsible for approximately 10% of global carbon emissions.
by Leslie Layton
Chico State staffers were gathering this morning on a campus walkway in an effort to prevent any more altercations over the tactics of the campus Republican club. But today, instead of noisy protesting, a video posted on social media showed a group of protesters dancing to music as they faced the club’s booth.
essay by Denise Minor
On the surface, this story appears to be about a disagreement over the T-shirt design chosen to commemorate this year’s Almond Bowl, the cross-town football game that each fall marks athletic rivalry between two local high schools.
But beneath the surface, the story is really about how we, as individuals and a society, choose the symbols and imagery we find acceptable to represent ourselves to the rest of the world. And beyond that, it is about the divisions between whom we view as “us” and “them.”
by Richard Roth
When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they applied their mouldboard plows to the prairies, to soils that were rich, dark and black. That soil was steaming with mineral and organic carbon — with soil life so small it was invisible to the human naked (unmicroscoped) eye and, hence, to our consciousness. So we ripped into them with gusto, mining this flesh of earth.
by Tony Waters
“Together we WASC” has been the tagline coming from the Chico State administration in recent months. It is even featured at the bottom of some emails.
This refers to the accreditation process of the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, a private organization from Oakland, which is given the right to accredit all schools and colleges in the western United States by the U.S. Department of Education. Everything from Stanford University to universities in the South Pacific to secondary schools in Myanmar are reviewed.
