The library was having a casual spring day. The librarian assistants did their daily rounds of searching the study rooms for garbage and found a disturbing sight: A swastika, drawn in expo marker on the ceiling tile of room 153. Since this finding, Solano Community College has opened an investigation for hate crime charges against the alleged vandal.

The swastika, a known hate symbol used by the Nazi party, was found on the ceiling around 6:45 pm via library assistant Kelsuy Collins.

Collins stated, “I read the message on the board and I looked up. I thought ‘that’s definitely not good’ and I took a picture. I showed it to my manager.”

While no formal arrests have been made, the library is currently making plans to be more vigilant against vandalism for the future.

Ruth Fuller, a librarian for Solano Community College, explained, “When there’s a change over in students, our student worker will check the room and make sure it’s clean. They’ll check for garbage and make sure if the table needs to be wiped, but the ironic thing was that the swastika was on the ceiling.” She added, “That’s how we don’t know who it was…Because it was on the ceiling. We now know to check the room more thoroughly.”

While the motivations of the alleged vandal are currently unknown, speculation was provided by Fuller.

Fuller reflected on the current state of the world, “I think it’s the culture we’re living in right now. Ya know, this stuff is really being brought to the forefront and it’s okay to express it.”

Meanwhile, the Department of Public Safety (DPS) has been conducting a formal investigation into the matter. The DPS is currently looking to charge the vandal with a hate crime and are planning to “pursue the matter to the fullest extent.”

While not many details have been revealed, DPS Chief Brian Travis stated to The Solano Pulse, “We appreciate The Solano Pulse’s attention to this matter. However, as this is an active investigation, we are unable to provide further comment at this time in order to protect the integrity of the investigative process.”

Travis continued, “DPS will pursue the matter to the fullest extent permitted by law. We take this incident extremely seriously. Hate has no place here!”

This note was then further corroborated by various members of staff, including Vice President of Student Services Lisa Neeley. Neeley is also the Student Code of Conduct Officer, who is currently a part of the investigation.

She discussed, “I’m the student conduct officer, we want to ensure that due process is observed for all the parties involved. There’s sometimes confidentiality and privacy regulations that we also have to follow, but really it’s making sure we do a proper investigation…”

“Even though we have certain rules and regs for a reason, I think really the goal is to make sure we’re all working together as an inclusive community as one of respect. Sometimes, things happen that aren’t necessarily in line with that. I want to give folks a chance to change the behavior, and to understand the impact of the behavior.” Neeley added.

She concluded, “I’m sort of guided by that restorative justice idea. The goal is to keep students in the classroom and to keep everybody safe.”

Alongside the campus police and the Student Affairs Office, administration has been working to address the vandalism controversy. Superintendent President Kellie Butler released a statement at 12:16 pm via emails condemning the actions of the vandal.

Butler wrote, “Hate has no place here! Solano College is committed to ensuring that every member of our community feels safe, respected, and supported. It is our mission ‘to educate a culturally and academically diverse student population drawn from our local communities and beyond.’”

She added, “We recognize the inherent dignity in everyone, and we value our shared humanity, our diverse and intersecting identities, everyone’s right to exist, and the protection of spaces and environments that support learning and working for everyone.”

Officials have been busy working on figuring out who did this, however the student community still expressed their own concerns. Teddy Seierth, a student, expressed his own concern about this incident.

“That just made the hair on my neck stand up a little bit, that’s a bit scary. I don’t know if it’s out of hate or for attention…I just hope it doesn’t happen again.” Seierth stated.

A common sentiment that is seen has been fear. Others claimed the vandalism was just for attention.

Fellow student Elliot Wai expressed his thoughts with the recent vandalism, “People just kinda do things and they think it’s funny, they don’t understand what they’re doing half the time or the meaning of their actions.”

Correction: Titles of Brian Travis, Kellie Butler, and Lisa Neeley have been corrected.

On a quiet spring day, President Trump decided to sign an executive order to formally end the modern Department of Education after existing for 45 years. Students at Solano College were asked about how they felt about the department’s closure and its impact.

Many people have called into question the legitimacy of this decision, because of Congress’ role in the government. One of the many people to question this choice was Andreas Leon Guerrero, a student attending the college.

“I really think that he’s doing something that’s way out of his control. It should not be something he’s allowed to do, I already know Congress needs to vote on it to remove the department of education as a whole, but gutting the Department of Education? I don’t see how that’ll help at all.” Leon Guerrero stated.

Leon Guerrero added, “I know the White House Press Secretary said that the department would still be doing the finances and all that, but removing the employees will slow down those processes.”

The legality of this decision has been called into question because of Congress. The Presidential Branch is not able to legally create laws or disband departments created by the Congressional Branch. However, Leon Guerrero believes that this won’t matter to congress.

“Based on what they’ve done in the past month or two, I think there’s a high chance they’re going to allow him to continue ruining more federal agencies.” Leon Guerrero stated.

With the legality being called into question, many more questions arise for the public. This includes if certain schools will remain open for public access to students. The Department of Education is responsible for providing grants and loans to both colleges and K-12 schools, which can help fund low income schooling in rural regions.

This now creates an issue for Congress, with how the funding will be given to schools and how students will even be able to access education in an affordable fashion.

According to Education Week, Census data revealed that nearly 14% of youth under 18  lived in poverty during 2023.

Student Carissa Kwiecien discussed the accessibility question that many are currently asking.

Kwiecien explained, “I’m not completely educated on things like these, but the [Department] of Education is such an important factor to the younger generations and the country in general. It helps make education accessible to everyone in the country, when before it was established to be for people in the upper class.”

Students often rely on the Department of Education for learning, with the department ensuring that education is an option for the middle and lower class. Kwiecien is one of those students the department helped gain access to education.

Kwiecien stated, “It helps make education accessible to everyone in the country, when before it was established to be for people in the upper class. I know for myself specifically, if it didn’t exist then I probably wouldn’t be able to be here.”

The decision itself remains to be debated by the left and right wing parties, but individual students at Solano seem to be in agreement over disapproval. However, these students don’t represent everyone, so what do you think? Did Trump make the right choice or will this be a catastrophic failure? Let us know in the poll below.

For all the scores you get, the professors you meet, and the final grades you have with classes, all that data is often looked at to rate your chances of future success. All the individual scores may count up for your future; but what about a professor’s success teaching the course? The research department intends on answering this question by working on a student success survey.

The student success survey intends on surveying students from different courses and then calculating the overarching success rates of the student body by professor.

Nathan Rexford, the dean of research and planning, explains the measurements, “There’s an entire launch board that the Chancellor’s Office maintains that contains everything from number of units completed in the first semester, transfer outcome,”

Rexford adds, “But one of the easiest for a college to know at its individual level, and one of the easiest to understand because it really does speak to the individual student journey, is just simply performance in the class.”

With a recent push for student equity by the Student Success and Equity Council, there’s been a push from faculty like Professor Commodore and Dean Watson-Perez for the data to be given to faculty. This has been seen as a controversial move by members of staff.

Rexford weighs in on the debate, “My hope is that if this reticence is from this fear of safety…that the continued efforts of Commodore and of Heather in terms of sharing it will at least be able to demonstrate between groups like the SESC and faculty-run groups like the Teaching for Equity…that there’s enough safe spaces. That they can take the initial step and that we can guarantee the resources are there.”

While the survey’s release for participation is unknown and overarching results are still unknown, the efforts of the council may finally be getting paid off. 

At 6 o’clock on January 21st 2025, the first city council meeting of the new year for Fairfield. With the new year comes new debate and new information. From Solano College’s own Michael Wyly becoming the poet laureate to debate between mayor Moy and project manager LaTanna Jones, Fairfield council is officially back in session.

The discussion heavily focused on the housing projects, which lasted for 55 minutes out of the 2 hours and 28 minute long meeting. This was not the only element from the meeting, with plenty of topics being discussed during the session.

The session began with three formal proclamations acknowledging three major holidays: Martin Luther King Jr day, Lunar New Year, and Human Trafficking, and Slavery Awareness month.

Each proclamation was read by council members Patrice Williams, Manveer Sandhu, and mayor Catherine “Cat” Moy. Alongside them was the Tri City National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the Asian Pacific American Public Affairs, and the Sexual Assault Response Team who all gave their own statements in reference to the holidays.

After the reading, Joe Joyce of the local Chinese Association came to discuss the upcoming banquet to celebrate 29 years of awarding youth with scholarships. In tow, Mary Ann Butler of the resource conservation district discussed a future presentation for the council.

The public comments section would end and professor Michael Wyly of Solano College would officially begin as the poet laureate of Fairfield. Wyly was sworn in by Karen L Rees, with his job being to write official poems in regards to events around the city for the local government.

Once Wyly was sworn in the official resolution passing would begin. Multiple resolutions would be discussed such as confirming the fiscal year’s expenditures and rehiring two retired employees back into the parks and recreation department temporarily.

For the fiscal year, the 2023-2024 year was approved and our status was deemed clean by auditors, meaning no misusage was found in the budget.

The council also motioned to approve the two new hires, who will be on staff temporarily and will be receiving their original salaries with no benefits.

The main events of the meeting would transpire towards the end with a new housing project being proposed by Latanya Terrones, senior project manager, and LaTanna Jones, the Fairfield city housing director. This portion of the meeting would last for 55 minutes because of heavy debate on whether or not this is a worthwhile investment. The local housing project would be co developed with Danco Group LLC, working to convert the SureStay Best Western hotel into a long term homeless housing facility.

The project currently costs $1,000,000 for funding as well as state level funding, with the goal being to provide support and long term housing for homeless or near to homeless people in the area. Despite the mostly cautiously positive perspectives of the council, mayor Moy was staunchly against the project. “What kind of Fairfield are we going to be? Are we going to put a place where we have mentally ill people living, maybe 85 of them, where we had just built a multi-million dollar bank? Why would we put a housing situation inside a zone that’s meant for business? It doesn’t make sense to me, I think we need to decide that this is one of the entries into the city, and we want a nice hotel down there and a little restaurant.” Moy Remarked during the meeting.

She further elaborates, “Is that compatible with this kind of living situation? My concern is, I don’t feel that we as a council have decided what we want for our main brags. I mean, can you imagine putting that in downtown? People are investing millions of dollars down there!”

Later in the discussion, it was established that drug addicts would be allowed to live inside the property but unable to use substances in the building, with the goal for rehabilitation. This is a part of the homekey guidelines created by the housing department of California, these policies were created to help the homeless.

Mayor Moy would end up remarking about the guidelines presented, “Some of these places i’ve been reading about, they set up their own meth labs in there.”

Despite Moy’s protests, the resolution would be passed 6-1, with funding being approved for the project. It still remains on shaky ground however, with the discussion needing to be brought to the business district on north Texas and state level.