I was always a little skeptical of the Destination 2010 theme when I first heard about it last semester. Do we really want thousands more students on this tiny campus?

Traffic would be great then, since it take some 20 minutes to get out of Parking Structure 2 in the afternoon already.

A part of this Destination 2010 theme is a fairly significant event that would affect our children, as well as our diplomas, with the proposed name change. I didn’t mind that my diploma was going to have the name of a school that never won a NCAA championship in football or other big income producing sport. (No disrespect to those teams who have won championships; I am just referring to the big money aspect of educational planning.)

I am not comfortable with this changing of tradition, since I would like my diploma to have the same name as my sisters diploma when graduated years ago.

In regards to the Universities future, I always thought the RWEC was a good idea since CSUS has established itself in track and field and it would follow to have a nice facility. I can see the president’s vision there. It would be a wonderful thing if President Gonzalez can come through with that.

But, I see the rest of destination 2010 as a public relations campaign, not unlike big corporations use, to generate money and get the facilities updated since the government, which runs the place, (assembly will have to pass a bill authorizes the name change if approved by the trustees) doesn’t have any money.

A name change that may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars is not the prudent thing to do with limited discretionary funds, since the budget is tight already. I heard one instructor talk in class about the universities’ computer system upgrades come out of the discretionary funds, so clearly a conflict of using money to change a name and try for retail sales for the university bottom line and the educational needs of the university are being decided as I write. Why do visions of hundreds of thousand of dollars being wasted on updating an office dance in my head? I could have done it for half that.

By the way President Gonzalez, some of us older students like the commuter style atmosphere and don’t want to see the average age of the student population drop, and long behold Sac State become a party school.

We already are the destination school for some things. (Rowing, Govt, Etc) I cannot wait for the new space center to be built. We could be a destination school for radio too, but the millions Capitol Public Radio is making will override any educational opportunities that could be created with different policies. I do not believe the University will ever give up one of licenses for a student-run radio.

How about using the money for a name change for new desks in the classroom, or just getting enough for all the students? How about a mascot change instead of a name change? I would bet that if you did a market survey, a wasp or hornet would be the last thing someone would want to buy. It would be like putting a big black widow on your shirts and hats. Some of us cringe at the sight of some species of Gods creation; hence I will never buy a shirt with a hornet on it. I would entertain any other mascot than “Herky the Hornet” in any meetings with my marketing team.

Can we not accept that we are a working class university? We will never be Los Angeles, San Diego or some other prime institution because we don’t have a beach. Spend four years in college and party in Sac, or live and party in Southern California. We at CSUS have some shiny points, and I think we should polish and enhance those.

The bottom line is fine for corporations, but it should never be the primary goal when it comes to university policy. Educational opportunities for the students must come first. I suppose this is a question that will be answered shortly, with or without a broad discussion, when the trustees vote on a name change.

We will face it again when we realize where the other money for the RWEC comes from. Is it going to be Toyota Gym or Comcast Recreation Center? I don’t think we can name every new building after Spanos, but I guess whoever has the gold makes the rules.