Issue date: 9/5/07 Section: Opinion

Scott Allen [Click to enlarge]

Welcome back everyone to another semester at Sacramento State - "A premier metropolitan university and a destination campus…a university of choice for prospective students and employees throughout the West." At least that is what the school administration would like everyone to think.

The Recreation and Wellness Center is currently under construction. The new bookstore is open for business - all 53,000 square feet of it - which is almost double the size of the old bookstore. Where are the newly built classrooms to relieve the overcrowding of current classrooms?

There is yet another Java City, this time inside the bookstore. There must be some weird building code that requires as many Java City shops on campus as there are classrooms.

Now we have a bigger bookstore that can fit more textbooks at exorbitant prices to line the pockets of the publishers. University Enterprise Inc.'s director of marketing services, David Levy said, "The new bookstore, along with the University Union facility, make this a welcoming first-stop destination on campus…The architectural features in the interior - the drop ceilings, the spotlights, the natural and ambient lighting - are all very professional."

Is the bookstore a first-stop destination? Sure, I go there first, get all the ISBN numbers for my textbooks and then search online for them at cheaper prices. That is great that the building looks "very professional," but I would rather have new classrooms that look state-of-the-art and do not have students sitting on the floor with bugs and rocks because the room is over its seating capacity. This does not sound like a destination campus for students and faculty, but for businesspeople and entrepreneurs.

I realize that money is earmarked for specific projects and construction, but if this school wants to attract and retain great students and great faculty, President Gonzalez and friends need to put money into instruction.

A college is hardly a college when it has a Science and Space Center which is seriously under-funded and has missed its groundbreaking date, a Recreation and Wellness Event Center and a new bookstore while money is slashed from academics resulting in fewer courses offered and overworked professors having to deal with more students and less space.

Furthermore, Gonzalez should not be spending a quarter of a million dollars on "student recruitment and retention" for radio ads and embarrassing flash animation asking "Are you ready?" while playing a terrible version of "Get Ready For This" by 2 Unlimited. I immediately closed my laptop in shame after seeing it and asked out loud, "Is this for real?"

The campus image resembles a corporation, not a university and this brings me to a seemingly unrelated issue, but I promise to connect the dots.

Former Sac State student Shauvon Torres is a cast member on MTV's reality show, "The Real World: Sydney." This season will be full of drunken sex, back-stabbing, and more mindless entertainment.

However, coupled with a previous story done by The State Hornet about a former Sac State student-turned porn star, it seems that an inordinate amount of attention is going to blonde girls who drop out of Sac State to pursue their dreams of "acting" and "keeping it real."

I don't mean to knock what they are doing, but the image of this campus is bad enough. Why exacerbate it by profiling students who left this school to entertain an already dumbed-down America? I suppose I am giving undue attention to them but I am trying to highlight a problem, so let's not give any more excessive attention to them than they deserve.

I hope Ms. Torres had fun and enjoyed herself in Sydney, but there are serious problems with this campus that need attention. The students and faculty are not the priority of the administration.

Students have less classes to choose from and faculty have increased workloads from over-filled classes and no instructional aides to help relieve the burden.

The priority is with meeting admission quotas through cheesy and costly advertising and new buildings that make the campus look nice and bring attention to the school, but that don't improve the quality of instruction and education.

The school is building everything from new residence halls to new bookstores, but not one new classroom. Canceled classes, overworked professors, crowded classrooms, a president that does not care…welcome to the real world.

Scott Allen can be reached at sallen@statehornet.com.

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