Still looking for a home

As the fall semester draws to a close, the Cal State Long Beach journalism department and its publications, the Daily Forty-Niner and University Magazine, are still waiting to find out where their new home will be in the spring 1996 semester.

Karl Anatol, vice president of Academic Affairs, said Friday that a new campus location should be chosen by early January.

Anatol has charged Scott Charmack, associate vice president of Facitlities Management, and Marilyn Jensen, dean of undergraduate studies, with finding a space to house the department as well as the newspaper and magazine. The publications require newsroom facilities, including multiple computer terminals, a small darkroom and a photo lab.

The publications have been operationg in the North Campus Library since an August flood forced them out of their old home in the basement of the SSPA Building. Since then, asbestos-containing floor tiles have been removed from the basement, and repair of the basement's waterproofing system has begun.

The journalism faculty, however, opposed moving back into the basement due to health and saftey concerns. That position was supported by President Robert Maxson at an October Academic Senate meeting.

According to Anatol, 20 to 25 other campus interests have expressed a desire to occupy the SSPA basement.

Most of the journalism faculty have temporarily relocated to third floor offices in the SSPA Building, but the department office remains homeless. And the North Campus Library facilities are reserved for the New Media Center when the spring semester begins Jan. 29, leaving the Daily Forty-Niner and University Magaz ine adrift.

Complicating the search, according to Anatol, is the fact that CSULB is currently filled to capacity for instructional and office space, meaning someone will have to be moved out to make room for the journalism department.

"You're talking about backing up the Bekins van and moving out people who've been there 20 years," he said. "It's something we have to approach gingerly."

Anatol said some areas currently being used by engineering are under consideration, but he woud not specify which buildings. He also referred to the possibility of journalism "sharing time slots with other programs."

One possibility that drew an initial interest from the journalism faculty was the trailer near Lot 10, which was used as temporary quarters for the athletic department while its main building underwent renovation. Cindy Masner, assistant athletic director, said the trailer is no longer needed and will soon be removed. The area will then become part of the parking lot, as it was before.

Charmack and Jensen are already two weeks behind the timetable given to Anatol and journalism department Chairman William Mulligan for their decision on a new location.

The long wait has irked many journalism faculty members, who are concerned about setting up a newsroom and production facility in time to prepare next semester's Forty-Niner and University Magazine.

"The situation we are in is not unlike a homeless person staying at a homeless shelter for a night but not knowing if they're going to be allowed in again the next night," said G.M. Bush, the Daily Forty-Niner's news-editorial director. "It's a tenous situation that's really not fair to the journalism sutdents, the newspaper or the campus."