Friday, September 19, 2014

New in the UCSC Student Publications Collection: The Mariner (1967-68)

New in the UCSC Student Publications Collection: The Mariner (1967-68)


 

I do not think that the taste of SAGA food is the cause of as much argument as it is agreement. As one student put it: “It's thoroughly miserable.” Descriptions ran all the way from describing the mashed potatoes as a "mountain of library paste" to the calling of cake "dried and coagulated flour with a roach powder bottom." I have personally viewed students gag on hamburgers that could best be identified as rotten horse meat. There is one evening that I particularly remember when a rather too green broccoli dish was served that was actually almost impossible to chew. (The Mariner, May 12, 1967, p. 1)

In 1967 a group of student journalists, dissatisfied with the City on a Hill Press, began an alternative newspaper, The Mariner. The venture lasted only for a year or so, and the writers returned to City on a Hill Press.

The seven issues of The Mariner that we’re posting have articles about the usual concerns of students: bad food service in the dorms, the role of the campus police, town-gown tensions with Santa Cruz city and county, budget cuts and rising “fees” for the UC system.

They also illustrate some particular growing pains of the two-year-old university, with discussions about: the grading system (pass/fail and narrative evaluations), the planning of the Engineering Unit, the experiment in student-taught classes, attempts to create a student government for the campus as a whole, and the policy of dogs living in the dorms on campus.

There was student activism, of course, with articles addressing events of the late 60s, including the Vietnam War, the trial of Huey P. Newton, and the presidential election of 1968 (with students organizing for Eugene McCarthy or Robert F. Kennedy, even though the voting age would not be lowered to 18 until 1971).

There is an article about the Koinonia Coffee House in Santa Cruz (February 9), one about the path of the prospective freeway joining Highways 17 and 1 (April 24), and advertisements for local businesses in all the issues. The co-publication, Mariner Activities Bulletin, lists arts, lectures, and social events that took place on the campus.

The Mariner offers a vivid glimpse of UCSC in 1968, when there were only three colleges (Cowell, Stevenson, and Crown) and the student population was only around 1,825 undergraduates. Check it out!

1968 Commencement in the Quarry Amphitheater.
Peggy Long Photographs, No. 292.