By Patrick Cowles

Daily Titan Staff Writer

In late July the administration of Cal State Dominguez Hills decided to stop funding the student newspaper due to budget cuts, leaving the campus as the only public university without a student-run newspaper.

The Department of Communications hopes the paper will be on hiatus only this year and return next fall, but budget proposals for funding the paper are still preliminary, said Ed Whetmore, Department of Communications Chair at CSUDH.

CSUDH’s the Bulletin had been without financial support from the university for two years. For the previous two school years the Bulletin had been funded by the Office of the President, along with help from Associated Students. Prior to this arrangement, the class received funding from the College of Arts and Humanities, said Whetmore.

Although CSUDH has been quiet about the recent cancellation and hasn’t offered a public announcement as of yet, the Department of Communications expressed sadness over the loss of their paper. “I can’t tell you how many success stories we’ve had with this paper,” said Cathy Risling, adviser to the Bulletin. “Hopefully it’ll be back.” Risling also said the department had planned on adding a journalism focus to the curriculum soon, given the success writers attained through the Bulletin.

Prior to the recent cancellation of the Bulletin, the class worked as an elective to cover certain upper division writing classes for their communications majors, said Jim Sudalnik, professor of communications. Since CSUDH does not have a journalism focus, the class was not required for any student.

Yet with an average of 10 to 20 students per semester enrolled, students will miss out on an opportunity to gain tangible work experience before entering their profession if they intend to become journalists, explained Risling.

Journalism major Rafael Guerrero, 24, said getting a job within journalism would have been a lot harder without the Bulletin. At CSUDH, Guerrero did a lot more news, which expanded his range of experience. Prior to transferring to CSUDH, Guerrero attended Cerritos College, where he only covered sports.

Guerrero also had more room to write at CSUDH. At Cerritos, he would write one story an issue, but at CSUDH, he wrote two per issue.

During his two semesters writing for the Bulletin, he accumulated between 20 and 30 clips. With these clips and advice from Lori Bashedo - who worked with the Bulletin, and currently works with the Orange County Register - Guerrero applied for an internship with the Register. He will begin covering high school football for them Sept. 4.

Guerrero also expressed sadness over the cancellation of the Bulletin. He, however, remained sure that it would return. “It is indicative of the professional industry,” he said.

The Bulletin was printed bi-monthly on Wednesdays and totaled 16 issues per academic year. Although Dominguez Hills has been without a student paper before, the Bulletin had been printing for years, said Whetmore.

The student writers generated most of the content, which included: sports, entertainment, features and news. They recently had obtained their own Web site, uploading individually scanned issues of the paper in PDF. Although it served as an online archive for the printed issue, it had only been online for two years, said Risling.

Other colleges have also suffered paper cancellations. The College of the Canyons recently shut down Canyon Call. The adviser retired at the end of last year, and another was not hired on to continue printing in the fall, Jay Seidel, President of the Journalism Association of Community Colleges said. Canyon Call was planned to return in web-only, said Seidel.

Cerritos College almost suffered a similar fate. It sought to move web-only to save money, but with large amounts of outside aid, the faculty convinced their administration to continue the paper in print at least through this semester, said Seidel. Whether the paper will continue throughout the year in print is unknown.

For the rest of the Cal State Universities, student papers will continue to print. Only CSUDH is without student-generated news content. Department of Communications Chair Ed Whetmore regretted that, “our student’s won’t have this opportunity.”