The pressure is on for high school seniors to decide where they will be attending college in the fall. National Decision Day is May 1, a day in which students must commit to a university. According to the Common Application, applications have increased from previous years; Harvard University received over 57,000 applications, which is a 47% increase from last year.
Every year on April 22, Earth Day marks the anniversary of the modern environmental movement which started in 1970, with rallies led by universities nationwide. Today, this principle is still upheld, and Sonoma State had its own Earth Day event which celebrated environmental activism.
This Thursday, Sonoma State University kicked off Asian-American & Pacific Islander (AAPI) History and Heritage Month with an opening ceremony. The keynote speaker for the event was Margaret Huang, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
International Transgender Day of Visibility is an annual event, occurring every year on March 31, and it is dedicated to raising awareness of discrimination faced by transgender people worldwide, as well as a celebration of transgender people and their contributions to society.
Early this week, the Sonoma State Dream Center partnered with the Dreamer Resource Center at Sacramento State University to host this month’s Undocu-Wisdom workshop. This week’s workshop was titled “Paying for College as an Undocumented Student & Alternative Ways to Make an Income”.
This week, the Native American Studies Department kicked off a new lecture series, titled Fire on the Land and in Our Lives. Starting off this lecture series, Tribal Chairman of the North Fork Mono tribe, Ron Goode, presented “The Heritage, Perspectives, and Practices of the North Fork Mono Tribe.”
Watch out Sonoma State students- a sustainability minor is coming to campus. Two weeks ago, Sonoma State released the Spring 2021 Sustainability Update, which included updates on all projects currently in progress, or on hold, which aim to improve sustainability at SSU.
One of these projects is a new sustainability minor for students.
Sonoma State recently released the Campus Sustainability Update for Spring 2021, which contained the Fall 2020 Sustainability Snapshot, an informational spreadsheet containing all of the progress that has been made towards achieving sustainability and resilience goals during the Fall 2020 semester.
One of the major goals which Sonoma State is working towards, is achieving the resolutions set forth in the President’s Climate Leadership Commitment, which President Judy Sakaki signed in April 2019. One of the key resolutions in the commitment, is that SSU will need to become carbon neutral in the near future.
After almost a year without in-person instruction in Sonoma County, schools are about to re-open. Districts like Santa Rosa City Schools are on track to partially re-open for in-person instruction on March 1.
At the beginning of this year, the California Department of Public Health released new guidelines for the return to in-person instruction in schools. Under these guidelines, schools throughout California are allowed to re-open once the case rate in their respective counties reaches less than 25 cases per 100,000 residents. Neighboring Marin County currently has schools open for in-person and hybrid instructions, while Sonoma County is almost ready.
Shortly after the arrival of the coronavirus deemed “COVID-19” in the United States, harassment and violence began to skyrocket against Asian and Asian-American communities.
Over the past week, leading up to Lunar New Year- usually a cause for celebration- crime against Asian Americans surged in the Bay Area. Vicha Ratanapakdee, an 84 year old man from Thailand, died as the result of being attacked in San Francisco.
![[Both photos courtesy of sonoma.edu]
Ming-Ting Mike Lee stepped in as the new SSU president following Sakakis resignation in July 2022](https://sonomastatestar.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CC4520AB-22A7-41B2-9F6F-2A2D5F76A28C-1200x1200.jpeg)
