The Sacramento State Council of Affirmative Action along with the California Faculty Association gathered Monday to discuss pressing issues regarding early start initiatives and Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender awareness.

Early start is a program recently adopted in the California State University’s to prepare incoming freshmen students in English and math before they start school because some freshman students are entering college with high school freshman reading levels.

Marcellene Watson, director of student academic success programs, said the program will be time attentive and financially intensive. Watson said something must be done to prepare students before they enroll in college because some freshman students are coming in with high school freshmen reading levels.

“If the program is adopted and students have to attend remediation classes in the summer, students will not be able to eliminate learning skill classes. Students do not have to pass the class,” Watson said, “The idea is to give these students an early transition experience. Some students will need three semesters, others maybe 3 weeks”

The anticipated benefit of the early start program would raise Sac State’s retention rates 15 to 20 percent after one year. Despite the statistic that it takes five years to raise retention rates 1 percent, Watson said she is hopeful about the early start program’s potential success.

The council and CFA also discussed different ways to raise LGBT awareness on campus.

“LGBT issues are happening all over the nation,” said Cecil Canton, associate vice president and chair council for affirmative action and criminal justice professor at Sac State. “Harassment and discrimination of any kind is wrong. We need to raise awareness and send a message out to the community that we are concerned and it needs to stop8212; now.”

Canton referred to specifically to the recent events such as the suicide of Tyler Clementi, a freshman at Rutgers University in New Jersey, who jumped off a bridge after a video of him having sex with a fellow male student appeared online. Another incident mentioned was the controversy behind the editorial comic strip that ran in issue five of the The State Hornet newspaper last week.

David Nylund, Sac State’s division of social work assistant professor, says LGBT students need to remember they have rights and they should not feel confined by their sexual preference.

To reach out to the LGBT community, the two organizations will hold a diversity forum to inform, educate, and spread awareness of racial issues and hate crimes.

This semester’s forum will be held on Thursday, November 18th from 9 a.m. to noon in the Redwood conference room in the University Union. The focus will primarily surround LGBT issues of harassment, bullying and discrimination.

Successful and affluent gay, lesbian and transgender members of society will be speaking to students about how they were bullied, harassed, and discriminated against; yet, still “rose to the top”. “It Gets Better” is a prospective title for the forum.

Laila Barakat can be reached at [email protected].