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