Chico State Archives - Page 3 of 6

Professor Denise Minor remembered as a mother, wife, teacher, writer Teary former students hold impromptu memorial

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.

A memorial fund in her memory has been opened here to aid first and second-generation Latinx students.

Perhaps it was her love of life that explained her courageous, unrelenting battle with cancer and her sadness at leaving those she loved at the age of 62. In gatherings since her July 1 passing, her laugh has been described as “mischievous,” “contagious” and “delighted.” read more

Chico cops report zero hate crimes in 2018 Anecdotal reports tell another story

photo by Karen Laslo

2017 Desmond Phillips vigil at Chico Police Department.

by Leslie Layton

Zero. That’s the number of hate crimes that took place in Chico in 2018, according to reports to the FBI from the Chico Police Department and Chico State’s University Police Department.

That zero doesn’t reflect what happened to an African American man, who has said he was pelted with beer cans last year by several white people in a pickup truck who were using the N-word. He never reported the incident to police, but his girlfriend saw the bruises.

The zero also doesn’t reflect other unreported incidents, and it doesn’t reflect incidents that may have been driven by hate that didn’t surface in a police report or court hearing. And it certainly doesn’t reflect overt and subtle offenses that left people who were subjected to them feeling hurt and scared. read more

Students clash over #Walkaway event Chico State says it will defend free speech

photo by Karen Laslo

A student protester sat alone this morning before more students gathered.

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.

The campus newspaper The Orion reported an altercation or altercations had occurred earlier in the week as the Republican club promotes its #Walkaway event that will bring controversial speakers to campus this evening. The club had erected two booths on the walkway by Meriam Library this morning, where they had hoisted multiple American flags, a Blue Lives Matter flag and a pro-Trump banner. read more

Wrestling with the climate threat to human civilization "Maybe our purpose is not to go gently"

by Anna Blackmon Moore
commentary

When I was 16, I was watching a sitcom on my 8-inch black and white TV. Outside my bedroom window, the sun had set. At the start of a commercial, it occurred to me that I was wracked with fear and dread. By the commercial’s end, the dread had anchored itself inside my body— my chest, my limbs, my temples.

I wasn’t better the following day; I wasn’t better the following week. Anxiety became incapacitating. Two months later, I was taking a now ancient antidepressant, beginning what would become a lifelong path of medication and treatment.

Over all these decades, therapy has been crucial in my recovering from neglect and abuse and countering a deep sense of failure. The issues and illness I confront require consistent strength and will to overpower the monsters in my brain — but relief has always been accessible. I can take my pill. I can unpack personal despair, understand that feelings can be distortions. I can meditate. In short, I can change. Serenity isn’t easy or always achievable, but the tools are there. It will never be too late to use them. read more

Chico State takes the reins in regenerative agriculture Tiny microbes can help addresses climate change - if we stop killing them

courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Thomas Jefferson’s improved mouldboard plow.

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.

The settler-farmers killed the microbes by exposing them to sunlight, erosion, heat and dryness, and they planted monocrops – a single crop like wheat. Or corn. Or walnuts.

The soil’s rich, dark color faded. The soil lost its carbon, its water, its oxygen. The rich, natural, complex collaborative ecologies were replaced by chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides — inputs that continue to strip life from the thin surface of the planet.
We killed everything — plants, animals, insects, microbes. Each living thing other than our single crop was viewed as an enemy, a “competitor,” and we went to war with every tool at hand, stripping the soil of its naturally complex soup of collaborative dynamic life. read more

Racist graffiti unsettles campus community Police investigating hate crime

by Leslie Layton

Racist, homophobic and sexist graffiti was used to deface faculty bulletin boards, photographs and office doors in Butte Hall during the April 6-7 weekend, according to police and faculty.

The Chico State University Police Department (UPD) released a brief statement that says it’s investigating the graffiti incident as a hate crime and “seeking to identify suspects.” UPD estimated the damage and clean-up cost at $400.

Police were contacted Sunday morning and the graffiti that had defaced the Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice was promptly removed.

Two forums are now being organized at Chico State around issues of racism and student safety, and Tim Sistrunk, president of the Chico chapter of the California Faculty Association, says the union is assuming a role and wants to collaborate with police on behalf of teaching staff. read more