Category: Education

By Arturo Castañares / La Prensa / May 2, 2024

San Diego State University and the California State University Chancellor’s office now claim there are no public records related to a 2022 proposal from a private developer to build a new sports arena at no expense to taxpayers within the SDSU West campus in Mission Valley, although a term sheet was reviewed in mid-2022.

SDSU President Adela de la Torre, several University officials, and two private businessmen flew to Texas on a private jet in May 2022 to tour a similar sports arena built at the University of Texas at Austin’s campus

A contact of the Rag’s at UC San Diego has just informed us that the situation on campus appears that law enforcement is preparing to shut down the Palestine solidarity encampment.

The encampment — now in its 5th or 6th day — consists of some 50 tents and is mainly near the Geisel Library.

Students at UC San Diego have settled into their encampment of support for Palestinians in the Middle East, near the Geisel Library. And due to the protest, UC San Diego officials announced the cancellation of the annual Sun God Festival that was scheduled to take place on Saturday, May 4.

The UCSDivest Coalition is demanding a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war. Among the group’s other demands is a call for the university to divest from all of its Israeli financial interests.

Meanwhile, Jewish Faculty and Students at UCSD just released a statement of solidarity with the campus protest.

1300 Arrests and Calls for National Guard to Deal with Palestinian Protests Echo May 1970 Rebellion and Kent State Murders

Whether I submit to it or not, because I’ve just finished writing a book about the height of the anti-Vietnam war movement over 50 years ago, I am now an expert on the era that brought us the Kent State massacre and the first national student strike of May of 1970.

The reports of up to 1300 arrests nation-wide of pro-Palestinian protesters, up to 2 dozen college campuses undergoing protests, numerous building take-overs and encampments, clashes between police and students, threats to bring in the National Guard and now claims of “outside agitators” — all echo what happened during the high-water mark of the decade long movement against the US wars in Southeast Asia.

As pro-Palestinian protests have erupted on college campuses nationwide, protesters — including students and faculty — have been arrested. The protests grew after an encampment on the campus of Columbia University in New York City led to the arrest of more than 100 protesters on April 18.

by Ernie McCray

The war between Israelis and Palestinians is affecting Arab and Jewish students in our schools, requiring educators to tend to the learning and emotional needs of both groups of young people.

But many Arab students claim that they aren’t getting the amount of attention that their Jewish counterparts are receiving. These students took part in a focus group as part of a study conducted by a doctoral student who is from the local Arab American community.

Students say they’re feeling alone, unheard, extremely uncomfortable with the way the armed conflict in Gaza is discussed on their campuses.

By Gary Robbins / San Diego Union-Tribune / April 20, 2024

A decision by Point Loma Nazarene University to limit the screening of a documentary about the Bible and homosexuality has angered students who say the move was disrespectful to the gay community and is having a chilling effect on free speech and academic inquiry.

The outcry is the latest in a series of controversies that have strained relations between the small, private Christian school above Sunset Cliffs and members and supporters of the LGBTQ+ community.

Student Host Group Forced to Show Film at Much Smaller Venue

By Charis Johnston / LomaBeat.com / April 1, 2024

Voices of Love (VOL), a Point Loma Nazarene University student group that provides community for LGBTQIA+ students, had been told by their faculty and staff advisors that they followed the guidelines to host an all-campus showing of the film “1946: The Mistranslation that Shifted Culture,” which discusses an alleged mistranslation responsible for the Christian condemnation of homosexuality.

Despite the event initially being approved by Jake Gilbertson, dean of students and faculty advisor to VOL, it was canceled by Mary Paul, vice president of PLNU’s Office of Student Life and Formation (SLAF) and Gilbertson, on April 1.

By Ken Stone / Times of San Diego / April 7, 2024

After a rally and brief march Thursday, a group of labor-union advocates at the University of San Diego entered the Hughes Administration Center and made their way to Room 222.

The office of James T. Harris III, USD’s president. They buzzed for entrance. No answer. “The door was locked,” Meghan Donnelly told fellow nontenure-track faculty and supporters after emerging from the campus HQ facing the stately Immaculata Church. She reported that an election plan had been slid under the door, so Harris would see it when he returns.

by Ernie McCray

Well, it seems
that my friend, Lallia Allali,
a renowned leader in the Muslim community,
is no longer
welcome
to tend to the learning needs
of Arab students in San Diego City Schools
ever again,
in spite of the district’s supposed
restorative justice practices wherein it claims
to be about cultivating relationships that help build and sustain
school cultures
that are positive and welcoming
for students, staff, and families.

by Ernie McCray

Like a bat
responding to vibrations
from its echoes,
I listen
for feedback
from those whom
I’ve asked
to try seeing matters
through the eyes
of Lallia Allali
who says that what she’s seeing
is a lack of support for
Muslim students

By Steve Anderson / LomaBeat.com / Feb. 14, 2024

Part I: Before There Was a Blunt… There Was A Point

The college was on unstable ground. A once-stout Nazarene college that sat northeast of Los Angeles in Pasadena decided to move to San Diego in 1973, drawing more than just Nazarenes. Their new campus sat on Sunset Cliffs, a dreamy oceanfront property that brought surfers and Nazarenes alike to the newly named Point Loma College (PLC): An Institution of the Church of The Nazarene.

The move couldn’t have come at a more socially intense period. Fresh out of the 1960s cultural revolution, the 1970s were just the next step in a radical socio-political attitude. An attitude especially poignant among the youth.

PLC didn’t lack its fair share of radicals;