CHANCELLOR AT UC SANTA CRUZ KILLS SELF

UC Santa Cruz, Porter College

I remember UC Santa Cruz... this idyllic campus with a forest in back... I still have utopian dreams about living there, as I did live there for a strong portion of four years... great place to get a degree, very little pressure to conform to what Joel Spring called the "Educational Security State." For the last ten years, though, I've heard all kinds of bad stories about the place, about two new campuses carved out of pristine woods, about the cops flying helicopters around the county looking for hippies to persecute, about the imposition of required grading upon students, about genetic engineering on campus. And now this story about the Chancellor committing suicide.

I guess some of this stress that was on the Chancellor prior to her plunge has to do with an expensive renovation on her campus home. Why does anyone need a home at all at UC Santa Cruz, much less one with $600,000 in improvements? I hope this shows up on campus as a sign that UCSC has chosen the wrong path, and I hope that the people of Santa Cruz listen to the forest once again and heed its message.