Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2020
Volume 155 No. 29 WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY
SERVING SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934
A&E Family-owned Halloween haunt terrifies attendees
Sports
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Spartan racing club builds cars amid pandemic
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Reserve funds keep SJSU afloat University seeks to hire diverse faculty members despite revenue decrease, budget deficit
Budget meeting explained Housing is down to 20-22% capacity to comply with COVID-19 precautions.
27,420 students enrolled this year: the highest number in the last four years.
By Laura Fields STAFF WRITER
During Monday’s Academic Senate meeting, San Jose State presidential cabinet members reviewed key aspects of the 2020-21 budget reports that showed the school’s handling of its $92 million deficit. Charlie Faas, San Jose State’s vice president for administration and finance, highlighted deficits and revenues of the university budget while Vincent Del Casino Jr., provost and senior vice president of Academic Affairs, presented the Academic Affairs budget, which mostly focuses on issues dealing with faculty members and staff. Faas and Del Casino said drawing from SJSU’s reserve funds for the 2020-21 academic year has helped maintain similar spending compared to previous years.
University Budget Faas compared SJSU to Harvard University and said he wished SJSU had a similarly large endowment of reserve funds. While he said SJSU is staying afloat financially, the loss of on-campus housing revenue has been costly. “Student housing is the single biggest driver of our deficit,” Faas said. He said limiting the number of students living in the dorms to 800 from the normal 4,200 student capacity decreased student housing revenues. Faas also said the loss of international student tuition is the second-biggest part of the deficit. Even though there are fewer international students enrolled for the 2020-21 academic year, he said the number of in-state students who enrolled increased and students are taking more classes compared to previous years. Faas also agreed to continue funding Transformation 2030, President Mary Papazian’s initiative. Transformation 2030 is SJSU’s plan to financially invest in future projects such as constructing the Interdisciplinary Science Building and attain goals such as student and faculty member inclusivity, according to the SJSU website. He said his main priority is to rationalize the amount of money the university spends
Up to 60% of SJSU reserves may be used to maintain programming, staff and services.
There was a decrease in operating budgets but an increase of $4 million in surplus teaching.
SOURCE: ACADEMIC SENATE MEETING; INFOGRAPHIC BY CHELSEA NGUYEN FLEIGE, ICONS FROM THE NOUN PROJECT
When you have enrollment, when you have reserves and you have the level of leadership that we have, there’s a path to get through this downfall that we’re in. Charlie Faas vice president for administration and finance
this year compared to the amount of money spent in previous years. During the meeting, the university’s deficit was dubbed “the $92 million problem” which includes $43.7 million in coronavirus impacted costs such as purchasing personal protective equipment, campus cleaning supplies and other campus modifications. “When you have enrollment, when you have reserves and you have the level of leadership that we have, there’s a path to get through this downfall that we’re in,” Faas said. Kenneth Peter, a political science professor, asked Faas if SJSU administration members would use up 60% of its reserves to maintain its programming, staff and services if next year is tough financially for the university. “In the short term, state revenues are pretty strong,” Faas said. He also said SJSU is still receiving around the same amount of funding from the state compared to previous years. “What we’re anticipating is the housing problems that we have this year when we’re only at 20-22% of capacity, if we can get up
to the 50-75% next year, that’s what’s baked Biological science professor into my numbers,” Faas said. Brandon White asked Del Casino to clarify the Braven program’s funding, which Academic affairs budget is an SJSU student leadership program Del Casino said high student enrollment that connects employers directly to and changes in department budgets in undergraduate students. the 2020-21 academic year resulted in Del Casino said the program is still an Academic Affairs budget similar to receiving $200,000 from the university previous years. this year. “We’re over-enrolled in total,” he said. “We’ve funded every single one of these Faculty Hiring and Diversity seats at the same rate that we’ve always Del Casino said in his presentation that funded them, so we have not taken he’s committed to hiring more faculty a hit relative to this slight overall because he’s concerned some faculty decline in relation to the overall members are resigning because they have instructional budget.” found better opportunities and living Del Casino displayed an enrollment costs in San Jose make their continued projection graph showing that employment untenable. 27,420 students enrolled this year, which is “We did not call off one search last year the highest number the university has seen [for tenure and tenure-track professors] in the last four years. and instead [we have] completed However, he said establishing the successfully 67 searches,” he said. “While Academic Affairs budget was challenging it’s not directly ‘budget’ it’s a big piece of because Academic Affairs, faculty members [Academic Affairs] resources.” and staff have centralized and managed the Psychology professor Mark Van Selst budget to compensate for slight declines in responded to Del Casino by asking if revenue during the COVID-19 pandemic. there was a hiring faculty plan to address “We have, however, had a movement the California State University ethnic of dollars around the campus and those studies requirement. movements have impacted certain The California ethnic studies bill requires programs . . . these are just the [operating freshmen in the 2021-22 academic year to budgets],” he said. “There’s about $4 million in take an ethnic studies course in one of four ethnic categories, according to an Aug. 17 surplus teaching.” Certain departments, like the Lurie EdSource article. Del Casino said his approach to hiring College of Education and the Davidson College of Engineering, have saved money in faculty would gradually increase the number operating costs because of fewer in-person of diverse professors in all departments, classes, which created a surplus in the and to help students satisfy the ethnic studies requirement, his first action departments’ budgets. “We are repurposing dollars relative to would be to search for a Native American some other things . . . we’re doing things studies professor. like this only because of the creativity that’s Follow Laura on Twitter happening across the campus in relation to @swimgirllaura the budget,” Del Casino said.
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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 28, 2020
Family-owned fright walk evokes fear By Jovanna Olivares STAFF WRITER
What began as a small haunted house inside a Portland, Oregon family garage in the early ’90s, is now one of Northern California’s scariest fright walks, and it’s located right here in San Jose. San Jose resident Steve Darrough, founder of Dead Time Dreams Haunted Attractions, located on Tully Road in East San Jose, created the local Halloween fright walk in 2010. “I worked [for] Intel and had to move to California but then decided to bring the haunt along with me,” he said. Megan Darrough has worked alongside her father, Steve, as a creative designer who organizes the event and helps manage the ticket booth. She is also one of many scare actors for the attraction, volunteers who act as frightening characters to terrify haunt goers. “It all started as a bunch of kids and [my dad’s] friends [coming] over for Halloween parties and dressing up and scaring each other,” Megan Darrough said. “Now it’s grown to be what it is today and it’s gone scarier and bigger as the years went on.” Steve Darrough said he rented out a vacant grocery store in Portland and used it as Dead Time Dreams’ first haunted house and remained in that location seasonally for five years. The garage was no longer big enough to fulfill the neighbor’s fright requests. Steve Darrough brought truckloads of unused props to California, which were originally created for the Portland haunts. Megan Darrough said most props are handmade and designed by her father. “He’s a business owner and a builder,” she said. “He makes the props and hand paints [the] walls. He’s an artist.” This year Dead Time Dreams is featuring “Horror Alley,” Steve Darrough’s first-ever, open-air haunted attraction in order to accommodate the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. “The open-air attraction is a completely unique design,” Steve Darrough said. “It’s an outdoor corn maze without corn but all the scare possible put in there through its scenery.”
The fright walk began Oct. 16 and will be open until Halloween. The attraction is located in an empty lot, but the overflowing parking lot for the event on Friday spoke to the fright walk’s popularity. Upon entering the lot, all you can hear are the screams of the attendees. Upon arrival, volunteers directed guests to line up for tickets while also ensuring guests wore face masks. Groups were limited to four members or less per party and were spaced six feet apart. Megan Darrough said the attraction differs from other Halloween experiences because of the time and dedication spent year-round on making this fright walk possible. “Even in early days, it was pretty well established,” Megan Darrough said. “You’ll see a lot of originality at this show for sure.” Scare actors and the fright walk’s prop designs created an immersively horrifying environment, which scared some attendees so badly that they didn’t finish the maze. Every year, Dead Time Dreams Haunted Attractions invents a new theme, and this year’s theme included props and wall designs of graveyards, zombies and whimsical voodoo forests. The “Midway of Terror” is a mysterious carnival waiting line before other attractions, which Megan says is a fan favorite. Every detail altered one’s perception of reality as they walked through halls of flashing lights while scream soundtracks echoed and adrenaline filled their body. The attraction’s website even has Amazon webpages for diaper boxes and underwear linked under its “recommended items” tab to prevent attendees from having bowel and bladder emergencies. “We call it a ‘code yellow’ and ‘code brown,’ ” Megan Darrough said. “[It] happens quite often actually.” The Halloween season brings out creativity in many people, including those who volunteer at the attraction. The Halloween haunt is a volunteer-based operation with many volunteers coming back to act as scare characters for the fright walk’s duration. “The entire organization is all [run] by volunteers,” Steve Darrough said. “I may own all the materials and trailers and help be the primary builder, but this is a
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JOVANNA OLIVARES | SPARTAN DAILY
Spyder the clown, a fright walk character, waits for haunt attendees at the end of a maze.
volunteer show and has always been. We are really a family.” Among the most notable of its frightful monsters include characters like Patches, Trembles and Spyder the clown. “We really just love the craft itself,” the actor who only identified himself as Spyder the clown said. “It’s an art form and a creative outlet and Dead Time Dreams is unique in its way of allowing us to do that.” Megan Darrough said Dead Time Dreams
Haunted Attractions encourages actors to “get their creativity flowing” by encouraging actors to foster that year’s theme to create unique characters. “We’re not like a Great America,” Steve said. “We are just people who love Halloween and come together to share that with the community.”
SUDOKU PUZZLE Complete the grid so that every row, column and 3x3 box contains every digit from 1 to 9 inclusively.
Follow Jovanna on Twitter @joo_zuniga
JOKIN’ AROUND Why did the computer go to the doctor?
It had a virus.
SOLUTIONS
ACROSS 1. Goad 5. Almost 10. Knife 14. Hawaiian feast 15. Donkey 16. Not false 17. Audience 19. Telephoned 20. C 21. American symbol 22. Typefaces 23. Gist 25. Cancels 27. Purchase 28. Moved down the computer screen 31. Greek sandwiches 34. Coming and _____ 35. Avenue (abbrev.) 36. Dash 37. Goes through the air 38. Ear-related 39. Directed 40. Not written exams 41. Marine snail 42. Small amounts 44. Flee
45. Broadcast 46. Frenzied 50. Move forward suddenly 52. Pee 54. Prompt 55. Against 56. The triforium of a church 58. Kiln-dried grain 59. Cooktop 60. Wings 61. Purchases 62. Zeal 63. Neuter DOWN 1. Location 2. Tricks 3. Fertile areas 4. Fitting 5. Abbot’s office 6. Protrusion 7. By mouth 8. Necessities 9. Foot digit 10. A leisurely walk 11. Interpret 12. Parental sister 13. Pleads
18. Lists of dishes available 22. Whip 24. Black, in poetry 26. Coffee dispensers 28. Dirties 29. Wicked 30. A pack of playing cards 31. Mousses 32. Anagram of “Lyme” 33. Beaming 34. Relating to a gland 37. No charge 38. Units of resistance 40. Brute 41. Merchandise 43. Fingers 44. Not the borrower 46. A type of keno game 47. French school 48. Not urban 49. Excited, with “up” 50. Young sheep 51. Two-toed sloth 53. Peel 56. Brassiere 57. Children’s game
10/22/2020
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SPORTS
WEDNESDAY, OCT. 28, 2020
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PHOTO COURTESY OF VINCENT SAW
Spartan racing club moves forward By Stephanie Lam STAFF WRITER
Social distancing regulations restrict a number of activities allowed at San Jose State, but that hasn’t stopped the Spartan Racing team from building cars on campus. The Spartan Racing team is a club that designs, builds and tests Formula and Baja-style racing cars to compete in national and international student race car competitions. The club consists of three racing teams: a combustion team that makes cars with motor engines, an electric team that builds electric cars and a Baja team that creates off-road vehicles. Each team has its own officers and sub-teams to construct their own respective cars. John Schubert, an aerospace engineering senior and chief engineer of the combustion team, and his team are excited to finish building their car, despite the social distancing guidelines that prevent them from working in the shop together. “[It’s a project] we’re really enthusiastic about,” Schubert said over the phone. “I get to start from a blank piece of paper and [in six months] the car is on a track and one of my friends is driving it. It’s really motivational.” The racing team is a chapter of the Society of Automotive Engineers International, an organization that promotes automotive engineering among college students. Racing team members would spend the Fall and Spring semesters
[It’s a project] we’re really enthusiastic about. I get to start from a blank piece of paper and [in six months] the car is on the track and one of my friends is driving it. It’s really motivational. John Schubert chief engineer of the combustion team
designing, manufacturing and testing their cars. The cars would be completed in the summer before the organization’s student car design competitions began. During these events, the team presents its Formula or Baja-style car to industry professionals and races them against other colleges. When SJSU announced there would be a limited number of on-campus activities this semester, the Spartan Racing team took their club and turned it into a class within the mechanical engineering department. The department’s administrators decided to create multiple classes and labs for the racing team members to enroll in for the Fall semester. The administration decided this so members are able to access machine shops and continue building the cars they left unfinished
ABOUT The Spartan Daily prides itself on being the San Jose State community’s top news source. New issues are published every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday throughout the academic year and online content updated daily. The Spartan Daily is written and published by San Jose State students as an expression of their First Amendment rights. Reader feedback may be submitted as letters to the editor or online comments.
PHOTO COURTESY HAYDEN FARRIESTER
Top: Electric team member Brian Ngo, a mechanical engineering senior, disassembles a motor from the team’s car from last year in the machine shop in October. Middle: Patrick Yao, an electrical engineering senior, checks the cell voltage of one of 650 cells that make up the powertrain’s battery pack.
PHOTO COURTESY ALYSSA FROELICH
last semester when the campus closed. The racing teams also decided to create Zoom workshops to train new members and catch them up to speed with the projects. However, some club members said this makes it difficult for them to form friendships.
EDITORIAL STAFF EXECUTIVE EDITOR CHRISTIAN TRUJANO MANAGING EDITOR OLIVIA BOWMAN EXECUTIVE PRODUCER JESUS TELLITUD NEWS EDITOR ANDREA BRISEÑO ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR BRYANNA BARTLETT PRODUCTION EDITOR CHELSEA NGUYEN FLEIGE A&E EDITOR ERICA LIZARRAGO SPORTS EDITOR KATHRYN HOEDT PHOTO EDITOR BLUE NGUYEN
SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR ALYSON CHUYANG STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS GIA PHAM AHMAD ALIABIDI YANN LAPNET SANJUANITA GARZA COPY EDITORS HAILEY FARGO JAMIE BENNETT DESTINEE VARGAS GRAPHICS EDITORS NICK YBARRA BRIANA CONTE HANZ PACHECO RAQUEL GARCIA SENIOR STAFF WRITERS JONATHAN AUSTIN JOCLYN AGUIRRE ANDREW GLENN
“A big part of the team bonding aspect is building the car together [in person],” James Wong, a mechanical engineering graduate student and chief engineer for the electric team said over the phone. “[The electric team] not being able to work [and bond] together has been a major sticking point for me.”
STAFF WRITERS LAURA FIELDS SAMANTHA HERRERA RUTH NOEMI AGUILAR ESMERALDA BAUTISTA ISALIA GALLO OLIVIA GERBER SHIRI MARWAHA JOVANNA OLIVARES FELIX OLIVEROS ALEXANDRA SHEZIFI STEPHANIE LAM PRODUCTION CHIEF MIKE CORPOS NEWS ADVISER RICHARD CRAIG
Though the team cannot support one another in person, they are still able to answer questions, welcome new members and continue current efforts. “[The team] are not going to let new members sit there and be lost in the information,” Ashana Patel, an electrical engineering
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Bottom: James Wong, a mechanical engineering graduate student and chief engineer for the electric team, cuts out a battery pack module.
junior and member of the electric team, said over the phone. “They’ll teach them and answer any question they have. I think that’s one of the nicest parts [of the team].”
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