Journalism senior Niki Burns spent $28 on food for the entire month of February and is posting her experience on her blog for her senior project. Mustang Daily - Leticia Rodriguez

When it came time for Niki Burns to decide on a senior project this quarter, she knew she wanted to do something about eating on a budget. What she didn’t anticipate was was having to feed herself for the entire month of February on $28.

“At first I didn’t think that was really possible, to only eat $1 of food each day but then once I started thinking about it more and more I realized there are ways to eat for free in San Luis Obispo,” Burns said. “Also I realized people are forced to have to live this way and if they can do it, then I hoped that I could.”

Burns, a Cal Poly journalism senior spent $28 on groceries at the beginning of the month and is documenting her experience for her senior project on a blog, located at www.eatonedollaraday.blogspot.com.

Burns hopes that by posting her happenings, others will see how it is possible to live on a small budget and want to challenge themselves.

The uniqueness of her own challenge and the “out of the box” idea is what excites her adviser, journalism professor John Soares. Soares said that as Burns documents the entire month of February, eating only food that she had bought at the beginning of the month with $28, or was free or that she traded or bartered from someone else, she is learning how to generate interest in an era when news is becoming more technologically based. Documenting her experience and her work with the Internet and social media such as Facebook is what makes her project relevant, Soares said.

“She’s doing a story, and it’s going to be newsworthy to a particular audience and that’s part of her senior project: to figure out who it’s going to be newsworthy to and putting it on the Web,” Soares said. “It’s going to give her an opportunity to figure out how many hits is she getting and kind of extrapolate who are those people that are actually going to the Web site.”

Creating her own blog is also giving Burns the opportunity to participate in a new realm of journalism.

“Blogging is a great venue just because it’s free,” Burns said. “It’s time efficient; it doesn’t take me very much time to type up everything each night and just let everyone know how each day is going, and how I eat. It’s just easy and it’s just a way to share your story with the community as a whole.”

Sharing her story and having everything online for people to see is what could land her a job against a competitor with just a résumé because she will be able to show her project and explain the problems or challenges she faced in the process, Soares said.

“The more that you can do, and in this instance, Niki’s project on doing this blog, synthesizing video skills, writing skills, new media skills, working with the web, working with traditional media outlets to gain popularity for a Web site and then all the problems that come along with that and how she solved all those problems within a compressed amount of time, well that just makes her look so good when she goes out there,” Soares said.

Initially, the idea of Burns doing the project to challenge herself wasn’t what worried her family and boyfriend. When Burns first approached her mom, Jennifer Burns, about the concept, Jennifer said she didn’t know whether or not to take her seriously. When she finally realized her daughter wasn’t joking around, Jennifer got concerned.

“I was really concerned about her nutrition, I didn’t like the whole idea. I was hoping she could think of something else to do,” Jennifer said. “I was just like, ‘Niki, you can’t live on a dollar a day,’ and she insisted that it could be done.”

Burns found out that convincing her mom she could do it was easier than the experience itself. By the second day, Burns admitted on her blog that she was “feeling less energetic” and by the fourth day was tired of eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, one of the only food items from her bundle of groceries purchased at the beginning that could be mass produced.

“I just really want nice salad,” Burns said. “I know that sounds like a lame answer, but I’ve really been craving veggies and I really like salads.”

She also came to the realization of just how fortunate she was to be able to eat out when she wanted and to not have to worry about hunger. Burns said the project has made her want to help out others whose reality is her month-long project, something her mom wanted her to walk away with at the end of the month.

“I hope that what she does learn out of it is the value of food and how blessed we are to have an abundance of it, that we don’t have to think about every dollar we spend on food so carefully, because so many people do,” Jennifer Burns said.

Knowing that she would have to make a relatively small amount of food last her for three meals a day for 28 days, Burns set up a list of guidelines on food that was considered free or food that she could accept before starting her project. During the month, Burns babysat a younger cousin for salami, taken fruit from a friend’s tree, traded a potato for an avocado and eaten at IHOP and Denny’s during their free breakfast days.

“I’ll cook my friend a meal if they cook me a meal or something like that, so I’ve done that a couple of times, and I’ve found different events where I’ve been able to eat for free,” Burns said. “Like Denny’s’ Free Grand Slam, IHOP and I ate at Woodstock’s I think, twice last week for free, just by writing a review about them.”

She wants people to challenge themselves and see that free food is available.

“I want people that can’t afford to eat out to see that there are free ways to eat out. Like there’s a lot for coupons out there on Web sites local restaurants,” Burns said. “I just want people to see there are cheaper ways to eat, maybe not eating a $1 a day but do something that would challenge them for the year because I think it’s important to experience different aspects of life and to always be challenging ones self otherwise you could get bored and get stuck in the same routine every day.”

Moving out of the parent’s house means a blank slate. A whole room, or house that is open for interpretation, but a lot of house décor can be expensive. From Ross to World Market this is a guide to decorating on a budget.

Students and non-students go through a process of gradually accumulating things throughout the years. From old roommates furniture to the mirror found on the street with a “free” sign, picking up random items just seems to happen. Making the random work to create a cohesive living room, or an eclectic bedroom can depend on a few good pieces to tie them all together. In San Luis Obispo there is a wide range of stores available for shopping. There are the expensive, World Market, and there is the little less pricey, Ross.

Starting with World Market, which is located off of Madonna rd., there is a wide array of decor from couches to candles. Store Manager Gillian Mote said that World Market tries to have a wide variety of eclectic pieces to choose from, with a lot of the product being from Asian countries.

“We shop the world so customers can enjoy the product and feel like they are on vacation,” Motes said. “Unique, authentic, affordable, we are a one stop shop from vases to flowers.”

World Market offers décor from Thailand, Indonesia, China, India and many other countries. From rugs, pillows, candles to lighting, the market has one of the most thorough selections to choose from. Cal Poly double master student Fritz Light said that he likes to shop at World Market after a holiday or sale.

“I like to be a year behind in stuff, I don’t want to be with the Jones’. I’d rather buy items when I generally like them not when they are cool,” Light said.

Light, who is double mastering in biology as well as agriculture said that budget has a lot to do with how he picks and buys things. Price and personal budget was a common factor that students took into consideration when purchasing items for their rooms.

Environmental management sophomore Christina McAdams said that she prefers to go to Bed Bath and Beyond for items but only when she can afford it.

“I go to Ross because I can still get decent stuff at a good price,” McAdams said. “But if I’m looking for something specific than I have to spend more money.”

Ross is one of the most inexpensive stores in San Luis Obispo that offers décor. Ross Softlines Manager Julie Woosley said that Ross has many students in the store buying anything from sheets to towels, the basic necessities.

“Ross is great because you cannot find anything we have cheaper anywhere else,” Woosley said. “If you have something specific in mind though, chances are you are not going to find it; you have to have an open mind.”

Having an open mind comes easily for some more than others but Cal Poly student and architecture 3^rd year Brendan Eberhardt defines what it means to be open to ideas. Eberhardt said that he mainly does things himself naming Home Depot as one of the stores he frequents for his home.

“I like to make my own things, working with different woods and metals to create pieces,” Eberhardt said. “Money is a concern and is a factor, when I build my own stuff it’s cheaper than buying from a store.”

Another store that offers a “do it yourself” as well as already made décor is Beverly’s located downtown. Beverly’s is a fabric store but also a craft store that has a wide selection of furniture. Beverly’s cashier Carly Schneider said that she sees all types of students come into the store, from frats and sororities for parties to students buying posters and paint.

“We have a lot of students come in here to create their own things,” Schneider said. “Canvas’ and paint is a big buy, but it’s not everyday that we sell the furniture.”

From the inexpensive to “do it yourself” to the authentic yet more expensive each store has something different to offer.

Dean Dennis "Skip" Parks, of the Office of Continuing Education, said students can expect to see more summer school classes than ever at Cal Poly. Photo by Aimee Vasquez - Mustang Daily.

Summer school will look a little different this year. While Cuesta College will be cutting almost all of its summer school classes, Cal Poly is offering more than ever, but with a projected change in fee structure.

Both schools’ summer state funding has been cut but Cal Poly will continue to offer classes under the self-supported office of Continuing Education and University Outreach. For students, this means that while California residents will be paying more per unit than ever, out-of-state students might actually be paying less. In addition, more than double the amount of classes will be offered at Cal Poly.

The reason for the reduction in Cuesta’s classes is twofold. One is the elimination of federal stimulus funds for summer school. The other reason is that Cuesta experienced an overflow of enrolled students over the 2009-2010 school year, with approximately 400 students above the state-formulated quota. Officials said the college used money from their general funds to make up the difference.

Cuesta College Vice President Cathleen Greiner said the impacts on students and staff “are just untenable. It is a profound decision and nothing we wanted to do.”

Like Cuesta and the other 23 California State University (CSU) campuses, Cal Poly’s state summer school funding has also been eliminated due to the financial crisis. But the CSU chancellor’s summer school mandate offered several alternative plans. Cal Poly chose to shift the direction of the quarter to the already self-supported office of Continuing Education. In the past, classes have been directed by the Office of the Registrar.

Elaine Sullivan is the marketing director for Continuing Education. She said they traditionally offer classes to un-enrolled adults in the community.

“In terms of why Continuing Education is dealing with the summer term, it’s basically because Continuing Education runs as a self-support function,” Sullivan said. “We have the background and the mechanics in place.”

Biological sciences junior Marrissa Schuman is planning to attend summer school. She said the change isn’t that big of a deal because she is only taking one class, but she added that the lack of Cuesta classes will be hard on her friend, who was planning on attending summer school in order to re-enroll at Cal Poly. Now he, like thousands of other Cuesta students, won’t have that option.

Last year for example, 3,395 students enrolled in Cuesta summer classes. This year, Cuesta will only be offering state-mandated programs, reducing enrollment in 4-credit courses to approximately 84 students.

Greiner said they wanted to focus their resources on offering students a full course load during the coming fall and spring semesters.

“This allows us to create a more certain class schedule for our students and our faculty,” she said.

The first type of courses that will be offered during summer are necessary for year-round emergency services, nursing and psychiatric technician training. Cuesta will also be offering off-campus, non-credit enhancement courses for high school students, taught by high school faculty. Both types of courses they kept are not only year-long programs, according to Cuesta officials, they are needful within the community.

Cal Poly, on the other hand, will be offering approximately 338 courses. This is an increase of more than 170 courses since last year.

In addition, as general education courses fill up, Dennis “Skip” Parks, dean of Continuing Education and University Outreach, said they are planning to create new sections over the course of enrollment.

“I think it’s important to tell students that there’s two messages out there: Summer school is definitely on and people can expect to see as many or more classes than ever before,” Parks said.

While students will have more Cal Poly summer school options, state residents will also be paying more. College of Liberal Arts associate dean Debra Valencia-Laver has been working with Continuing Education to determine what courses will be offered.

“Well, I should say that summer 2010 is going to be a little bit of an experiment all the way around,” she said. “We’re charging a different fee structure than in the past, and we don’t know how popular that will be with Cal Poly students.”

On the other hand, out-of-state and foreign exchange students might find themselves paying less, due to the set-fee structure.

Non-resident Geoff Ledbetter, a mechanical engineering junior from Missouri, said he is planning on attending summer school if he studies abroad later in the year.

“It sounds good to me because I’m out-of-state,” he said. “But either way, I’d consider taking it to stay on track.”

Whether resident or non-resident, the average price-per-unit for summer quarter should be in the $200-plus range, according to Valencia-Laver. The final summer school fee structure has not yet been finalized.

Student accounts director Brett Holman explained that they are still waiting for the last bit of information from California State University officials.

“It’s been a little bit of a moving target because information is still trickling in the from the chancellor’s office about what we’re allowed to charge,” Holman said. “But we want to get the students as much advance notice as possible. We’re not that far away from summer registration.”

Either way, Holman said Cal Poly students will most likely be charged on a fee-per-unit basis, unlike the rest of the year’s half-time and full-time conglomerate sums.

Financial aid students, on the other hand, might find things a bit different. Summer is the ‘left-over’ quarter for financial aid. Grant and loan eligibility, according to financial aid director Lois Kelly, is primarily based on the first three quarters of the financial aid year.

“If you’re looking at a typical academic year, most of the enrollment activity occurs in the fall, winter and spring, and we base our calendar upon that,” said Kelly.

Since financial aid eligibility is student-specific, Kelly said it’s impossible to make a blanket statement about who will be eligible.

“I can’t just say all students are eligible,” she said. “But no student should make the assumption there’s no remaining financial aid.”

From a student perspective, the shift in fees will be the most noticeable difference.

“But in terms of how you are going to register, it’s going to be just like you always do. It’s going to be seamless,” Sullivan said.

The CSU Employees Union (CSUEU) and California Faculty Association (CFA) both passed resolutions to support the March 4 National Day of Action to Defend Education and expect a small turnout from students because of a lack of interest. Don Hartig, Ph.D., professor of mathematics at Cal Poly said “I think students should be there; our interests are the same.”

CSU budget protests have taken place up and down the state, but Cal Poly protests remain scare with lackluster attendance. (See Interactive Map for details)

This month, Cal Poly students were asked if they would march during the “Rally in support of Public Education” on March 4, or continue to not show up as usual.

Compiled and Photographed by Sean Hanrahan, Mustang Daily. Map by Zach Lantz, Mustang Daily.

For the full Mustang Daily story on CSU budget protests, click Here.

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Cal Poly students will be able to rent a small number of textbooks through El Corral Bookstore this fall, a potentially cheaper and faster option than using online services or regular purchase prices.

The goal of the rental program is to offer books that teachers will assign as textbook requirements for at least three consecutive quarters. Bonnie Murphy, associate vice president of commercial services and executive director of the Cal Poly Corporation, a private non-profit organization that oversees campus businesses such as the bookstore and Campus Dining, said renting textbooks could save students money.

“It’s something that’s an option for students who purchase textbooks,” Murphy said. “Some students may not want to pay as much on the front end, and renting textbooks lowers the cost on the front end because you can purchase textbooks up to about 58 percent lower than if you purchased them right out.”

Murphy warns, however, against jumping into the rental program without considering the needs of the class. Each book can only be rented for one quarter at a time and must be renewed for the rental price each quarter. Murphy said that some of the downsides to renting through a Web site such as chegg.com are the shipping costs, strict return dates and a general policy against markings in the books.

“You have to be pretty disciplined to get it re-entered by a certain time, and if you don’t return it by the date, then you have to end up paying for the textbook,” Murphy said. “And Chegg is very particular about the amount of markings.”

Murphy wants students to consider the financial repercussions of renting a book for multiple quarters versus buying a new textbook outright.

“There are not many quarters where textbooks are needed for multiple terms, but there are some, so those students need to be careful when they go into the rental,” Murphy said. “We don’t want students to spend more money than they have to.”

Saving money on textbooks is always a plus for students, especially when the final price tag for a quarter can be more than $500. Communication studies sophomore Brittni Kiick spent approximately $600 on books this quarter from SLO Textbooks, the new and used bookstore on Foothill Boulevard. While she doesn’t like to shop for her school books online because of the wait, she said renting can be beneficial to students in the long run when it comes to affording the cost of tuitions.

“In reality, I get financial aid so my tuition is free, but living and books make it so I have to take out $7,000 a year, which is a lot when you have to pay it back later,” Kiick said. “I think it’s a really good idea to give students another option.”

The idea of students renting textbooks through the campus bookstore has one professor upset. When a book is bought brand new, the money goes to the publisher, author and editors who worked together to create the book. When a book is bought used, the money stays only with the person or business who is reselling the book. Laura Freberg, professor of psychology and child development and author of “Discovering Biological Psychology,” said what frustrates her the most is seeing her book for sale as used and knowing she won’t receive any payment.

“Considering that my book is probably the result of five years of effort where literally every minute I’m not at school I’m spending on that book, yeah you’d like to have fair compensation for that,” Freberg said. “When I see recycling in the book store where El Corral is seeing compensation for my book and I’m not, it’s frustrating.”

Freberg compared the renting and reselling of textbooks to the relationship between Napster and the popular iPod program, iTunes. Napster emerged in 1999 as a free music-sharing Web site that upset many people in the music industry who weren’t being paid for the distribution of their music. When Freberg’s publisher, Cengage, began offering her textbooks for rent through their site, she was thrilled because all the money would be made available to the companies and the books would be offered at a cheaper price to students.

“It’s like an arms race: We try to get around the problems posed by the book market and of course the book markets are matching us step for step,” Freberg said. “What they do is buy my book for virtually nothing from the students and they warehouse it for about a week or two and turn it around and sell it back to the students. It’s a really screwed up business model that’s hurting students and producers alike.”

SLO Textbooks would not comment on Cal Poly’s rental program, but Kiick hopes the new program will result in the bookstore having to step up to the demands of its customers and compete by offering even lower prices.

“Eventually, they’re going to have to step up to the plate and catch up to El Corral, because obviously they have something to offer that SLO Textbooks doesn’t,” Kiick said. “If they’re smart in their business choices, they’ll end up offering this as well.”

Even with this new option for students, Murphy wants students to make the wisest choice based on their individual classes. She said students who buy new textbooks and sell them back to the bookstore will save money.

“I just want to make sure that we make sure customers or students determine what the best option is,” Murphy said. “Hopefully, they will make a good decision when they do that.”

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California State University (CSU) campuses must now comply to a mandate from the Chancellor’s Office to reduce undergraduate enrollment. Cal Poly must cut 1,648 of 17,349 students, but administrators said the cuts should not affect diversity on campus.

Reducing the number of admitted students proportionately reduces the number of available spots for eligible minority applicants, Chancellor Charles B. Reed said in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Stricter admissions policies are often thought to discriminate against minority students, who might not have access to the same academic opportunities.

However, Cal Poly administrators like  Provost Robert Koob say the university will be able to avoid this.

“By lowering totals, we don’t anticipate to inappropriately impact the minority groups,” he said.

The decrease may very well change the racial makeup on campus but will do so inadvertently, he added.

There are three ways Cal Poly will reduce the number of incoming students: graduating more students, reducing the size of the incoming class and enforcing academic disqualifications.

Graduating those who are eligible reduces the number of students on campus and is not influenced by race or ethnicity. The university is also block scheduling some students, especially seniors, to ensure they graduate.

Though graduating students will help alleviate some of the pressure by lessening the number of students enrolled, the undergraduate student body will be most impacted by the acceptance of fewer students and the disqualifying of currently enrolled students.

Cal Poly had a record number of applications for its fall 2010 quarter with nearly 39,000 submissions.

Race is not a variable in this process, said James Maraviglia, assistant vice president of admissions, recruitment and financial aid.

While more than 600 first-time freshmen already accepted early admission offers, Cal Poly still has no record of how diverse the new class of students is, Maraviglia said.

According to state laws, race cannot be a factor in the admissions process. California’s Proposition 206, passed in 1996, says California State University campuses cannot admit students with consideration to race, sex or ethnicity.

“The admission that we do is truly race and ethnicity free, solely dependent on qualification,” Koob said of Cal Poly’s admission process, which is largely based on standardized test scores and high school grades. This is unlike some universities which include more components, including essays in their admissions decisions.

Prospective applicants will face a more competitive pool because of the limited spaces and undefined number of available spots, he said.

Reducing the incoming class is only one change, though. A more immediate effect of the budget is reducing the number of Cal Poly students through academic disqualifications.

Disqualification is based on a student being placed on academic probation for consecutive or multiple quarters.

Academic probation occurs automatically when undergraduate students earn less than a 2.0 grade point average in a given quarter.

Only a small percentage of students on academic probation each quarter are disqualified because Cal Poly has not yet rigorously enforced the policy, Koob said. But Cal Poly asked each college to evaluate students eligible for academic disqualification more strictly.

Electrical engineering junior and Black Student Union president and electrical engineering junior Adonna Anderson said disqualification does not automatically affect minority students.

“I think more on the mindset that everyone is equal with the same opportunities and chance of making it here, regardless of being a minority,” Anderson said.