Going Bananas

College students enjoy a healthy snack just as much as anyone else. If they feel the urge at CSUN, a single apple or banana at the Marketplace or other campus retailers will cost them $1.00. This compares to $1.00 for two bananas at a nearby 7-Eleven store, and an amazing five bananas for a dollar at Trader Joe's. The most expensive banana I could find off-campus was 69 cents at a local grocery store.

I don't know why students are being overcharged so egregiously for fruit. Perhaps it is the same captive-audience mentality that drives up the prices of snacks at airports and movie theaters. Perhaps, in the face of budget cuts, limited classes, staff layoffs, poor maintenance, and the huge salaries of CSU presidents, it was determined that frequent tuition increases simply aren't enough to keep things running. If only half of CSUN's approximately 35,000 students could be persuaded to pay an extra 50 cents for a snack just twice a week, that would amount to an extra $17,500 per week to The University Corporation, whose website informs us (somewhat ungrammatically) that, "Surplus generated through its commercial endeavors are transferred to the University for discretionary use."

Food for thought.

Needs Cleaning

Sometimes when I use the restroom at CSUN, I have to remind myself, "You survived the pit latrines of the Serengeti; you can survive this, too."

Tough Choices

I can remember many occasions on which I have filled out forms or responded to surveys that asked the question "Sex?" with the choices M and F. But in the modern academic world that is not quite the way it is done any more. Today I filled out a survey for CSUN that asked me, "With which gender do you identify?" followed by three choices: Male, Female, Other.

What the #&*! is CSUN Thinking?

Today I was on the Cal State Northridge campus to take a test. One of the administrators proudly pointed out that the classroom was filled with lovely, newly-purchased desks. Every single one of them was a RIGHT-HANDED desk!

There is absolutely no excuse for this. Two-sided desks have been available for decades. Other schools purchase them. Why in the 21st century would a public institution be permitted to continue discriminating against 15% of the population? This is simply unbelievable.

CSUN's Oviatt Library Discriminates Against Lefties

Last week I attended a class in the Cal State Northridge Library. I moved the mouse to the left-hand side and then attempted to reverse the mouse buttons. Normally I simply use control Panel to change the mouse settings. But Control Panel was not visible on the library’s computer. There was an “Accessibility” menu, but none of the things listed there had anything to do with making the computer accessible to lefties. I asked the librarian in charge of the class how to switch the mouse buttons. She didn’t know how and went to get someone else. She came back with a guy who told me that there was no way to switch the buttons because Control Panel had been disabled for security reasons. He claimed that I was the first person who had ever asked for this. I told him I wouldn’t be the last. He said it would probably be another twelve years before that happened. Wow! My right handed friends agreed with me that his response was inappropriate. And, seriously, if we were talking about accessibility for people who speak Japanese (which was available on that computer) would it matter how many or how often? Would the library refuse to meet the needs of all the various ethnic and religious groups, deaf people, or people with disabilities who are on campus, simply because they haven’t often made these requests? I don’t think so.

Reversing the mouse button is a simple thing that has been easy to do on PCs for many, many years. Not every lefty reverses the mouse buttons, but many do. In fact, even some righties do this, so they can use the mouse in the left hand while taking notes with the right. The point is, those of us who need to use the mouse in this perfectly normal way should not be placed at a disadvantage.

So here’s my request. Whether or not you are left-handed, and whether or not you prefer to switch the mouse buttons, if you are a CSUN student (or anyone who has business on campus) please go to the library and ask for help reversing the mouse buttons for left-handed use. Be polite but firm. In your conversation with the librarian, make sure you use the word “accessible”. For example, “It’s hard to use the library when the computers aren’t accessible.” Or, “How do you plan to address this accessibility problem?” You might also want to use the word “discrimination”, as in, “I’m very surprised to find this kind of discrimination going on here.”

How Old is Old?

It's amazing, the things you can learn just browsing through a university catalog. Our own Cal State Northridge offers a minor in gerontology. One of the required courses is, of course, "Introduction to Gerontology". It covers some of the things you might expect: issues of health, economics, social roles, etc. Among other things, students have the opportunity to engage in volunteer work at "agencies for persons over 55". I'm almost certain that isn't a typo. Fifty-five. Quite seriously, I would have expected people to be at least 70 before falling into this category. But maybe I had gerontology confused with geriatrics. Geriatrics is an area of medicine dealing with elderly patients. I've always expected that to mean people older than 70. (And a lot of people in their 70's will tell you they aren't elderly yet.) Gerontology is the study of the aging process, and includes more than just medicine. Let's face it, we are all aging all the time. Even so, in this era when we are told that "50 is the new 30", I don't think there are very many fifty-five-year-olds who are eager to find junior gerontologists following them around and taking notes.

Not Too Late

Although CSUN has closed applications for lower-division students wishing to enter in the fall, it is still accepting them for upper-division transfer students. Students are strongly urged to use the “easy” online application system. It requires filling out page after page of information. As I neared the end, an error on their part (yes, really) prevented me from completing the process. So I printed out the paper application (8 pages of application, 9 pages of additional paper-wasting material) and will be mailing it promptly.