Forwarded with permission.
>Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2003 11:07:30 -0800
>From: Ruben Mendoza <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Fwd: LA Times Story
>
>Dear All,
>
> The following story appeared in the LA Times over the
> weekend. Thought
>you'd appreciate the way that archaeology often receives short shrift in
>the way lab space is allocated based on FTE, by comparison with the
>so-called "hard sciences," at our campus. What the reporter did not
>mention was that the university just dedicated a $50 million dollar
>Science building...and of course, despite open lab spaces in that
>building, archaeology is not on the list of prospects for space use in
>that building either. In the meantime, my students and I continue to work
>with the collections for the purposes of teaching, learning, and
>publication.
>
>Regards, Ruben Mendoza
>
>-------------------------------------------
>
>College Is Short on Space for Mission History
>Cal State Monterey Bay has no permanent home for findings from digs at two
>Spanish churches dating to the 1700s.
>
>By Irwin Speizer
>Special to The Times
>
>November 23, 2003
>
>MONTEREY, Calif. - One day last month, Ruben Mendoza, an archeology
>professor at Cal State Monterey Bay, flipped the light switch in the
>former Army mail and recreation building that he uses to store thousands
>of artifacts from two Spanish missions.
>
>Nothing happened.
>
>The university cut electricity to the one-story building after a
>transformer blew, deciding that the entire circuit was too decayed to
>warrant repairs any time soon. That left Mendoza and his mission
>collection in the dark and surrounded by abandoned, three-story former
>Army dormitories, all ripe for vandalism.
>
>Since he and his students started digging eight years ago, Mendoza has
>moved six times in his quest for space to house the thousands of bags and
>boxes of tiles, bricks, bones and other artifacts collected from Mission
>San Juan Bautista and Mission San Carlos Borromeo in Carmel. This month,
>he got notice of move No. 7, to yet another old former Army building on
>campus.
>
>"These are the first collections of their kind for these two missions,"
>Mendoza said. "I've created a scientific collection that could be studied
>for years. But how long can I continue to do this before I find it
>necessary to rebury it all?"
>
>The university and the Catholic Diocese of Monterey say Mendoza is doing
>important work in historical research and student instruction. But finding
>a permanent home for even a unique collection of historical artifacts is a
>struggle at the college, a campus carved out of the former Ft. Ord base in
>1995.
>
>The abandoned Army buildings scattered around the 1,365-acre campus have
>many structural and safety problems, including lead paint and asbestos.
>
>"Space is really hard to come by on this campus," said Barbara Mossberg,
>dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, which
>includes Mendoza's archeology program.
>
>As Mossberg tells it, the faculty is in a constant scramble to find room
>for its rapidly expanding student body, now at more than 3,600. Mendoza,
>she says, always has been one of the more creative faculty members -
>landing grants for his digs and finding overlooked buildings to use for
>labs and storage.
>
>But George Baldwin, chairman of the Division of Social, Behavioral and
>Global Studies, which includes the archeology department, says not all
>faculty members and academic sections are treated equally.
>
>Money for operations is doled out according to a formula involving what is
>called full-time equivalent students, Baldwin said. Divisions with classes
>that attract a hundred students or more get more financial resources, he
>says. Mendoza's classes typically run 15 to 18 students.
>
>"Our archeology program is always going to be one of the smallest groups
>of students on campus - a small group providing remarkable service to the
>community," Baldwin said.
>
>Mendoza says he suspects that his outspoken campus activism - he has
>gotten involved in several faculty disputes over the years - also may work
>against him.
>
>University spokeswoman Holly White says the school holds no grudge against
>Mendoza, and in fact holds him in high esteem. "The university is very
>interested in supporting him," White said. "It is a question of how we do
>that. The problem we have is that we have an enormous amount of space and
>not a lot of it we can use without retrofitting."
>
>Mendoza continues to dig, along with his students, and has won grants for
>high-tech equipment. Currently, he is excavating beside one wall of the
>Carmel mission; he believes he has found the entrance to a long-lost wine
>cellar from about 200 years ago. He has surveyed the area with
>ground-penetrating radar to map the likely site.
>
>Each day of the dig, he and his students enter their findings into
>portable computer tablets hooked to an on-site wireless network complete
>with a portable satellite dish, which beams the information to a Web site
>(archaeology.csumb.edu/wireless), all made possible through another grant.
>Last week, he came upon a bayonet he believes may have belonged to one of
>the men commanded by Col. John C. Fremont, who arrived in 1846.
>
>Most of what Mendoza collects are building materials used in the old
>missions and bones from animals slaughtered for meat. Each item is tagged
>and bagged, then cataloged and stored in whatever campus building he can
>find.
>
>"I have given up the idea of hoping for anything better," Mendoza said. "I
>just want to make sure that, when we move, the collections are not moved
>haphazardly."
Anita Cohen-Williams
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