The Oak Leaf Editorial Board fully supports the Board of Trustees’ Sept. 14 decision to require vaccines for all students, staff and faculty for the Spring 2022 semester, but believe the Santa Rosa Junior...

The result of the Sept. 14 recall election will determine whether California continues to navigate the COVID-19 crisis using science, support public programs like expanded early childhood education and...

There’s no return to education normalcy in our immediate future, thanks to an abysmally slow vaccine rollout that at the current rate would take as long as two years to vaccinate everyone in Sonoma County....

As we leave behind 2020, let’s reflect on what we’ve learned from the worst year of the century—so far. The pandemic has forced us to change how we live and while we would love to leave that all...

The Oak Leaf Editorial Board is vehemently opposed to the events that unfolded on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol Building. Yesterday, the president directly incited an insurrection against the United States...

When it comes to pursuing education after high school, everyone wants to be in California. The state is home to a broad assortment of college options both public and private, and California graduates...

It’s in the back of our brains, omnipresent as we walk from building to building, the unusually torrid October breeze slapping against our skin. Climate change is real. It’s happening all around us...

Guns are an easy target for activists. They’re loud, scary-looking and they account for just over 70 percent of multiple homicides. But the issue of school shootings stems less from guns, and more from...

Even Santa Rosa Junior College has not escaped the ongoing cultural reckoning in America. Since the news broke around allegations of sexual misconduct by Harvey Weinstein this fall, women (and men) have...

Do egotistical people seek power? Or do powerful people become egotistical? When people use their position of power to leverage unwanted touch or an unwilling audience to a sexual encounter, the victims...

The administration responded admirably to last month’s wildfires for at least one of the following reasons: it was the right thing to do and/or to prevent mass disenrollment that would devastate the...

Remember the week following 9/11? When it seemed like every car you saw proudly displayed an American flag decal on the bumper? Or how every house had a flag planted in the front lawn? The entire country...

What you want may not be what Sonoma County needs, especially when it comes to uncertain cannabis laws. While California celebrated the legalization of cannabis, many voters are unaware they opened...

Women’s issues are undeniable. Women aren’t equal and continue to be marginalized politically, economically, culturally and socially. In the United States, Latina women—the most underpaid demographic...

It doesn’t matter if you've never cared about politics in the past. It doesn't matter if this your first time voting. It doesn’t matter if you're a professional athlete, an Uber driver or work at...

Intolerance is the greatest threat facing our country. Violent protests broke out in Berkeley Feb. 1 forcing Milo Yiannopoulos to cancel his planned talk promoting hate speech. Yiannopoulos is an editor...

We’re living in an age where it’s easy to hide our opinions. We can rant and rave anonymously without taking any accountability for our words or actions. But accountability is key. We’ve seen...

California has 17 propositions on the ballot this year along with 23 county and municipal measures. These are not unsavory presidential candidates or local officials you know hardly anything about. These...

Both presidential candidates say they want to invest in us. But in reality, they want to invest in a manufacturing economy that's shrinking. They want to invest in a minimum wage that's way behind its...

Students have two choices: a guaranteed state-of-the-art facility or a chance at a sub-par, decaying classroom. Here at Santa Rosa Junior College we face this choice, and we're making the wrong one. The...

Our greatest right as citizens of the United States is to vote for our commander in chief. Our voice. Our President. But when this infinitely important decision is reduced to a choice between the lesser...

A series of damaging incidents within the student affairs department has snowballed into a catastrophic end to the school year, leaving administrators and student government officers scrambling to tie...

A recent police brutality case involving a Santa Rosa Junior College student sparked a heated discussion, prompting Sonoma County residents to question who’s at fault: the civilian or the officer. The...

A minimum wage increase to $15 sounds great to Santa Rosa Junior College students who make low wages and can barely scrape by. Yet the issue is more complex than a quick pay raise.  Worries about company-wide...

Though we have a full month dedicated to the accomplishments of strong, powerful women throughout history, there is still an overwhelming lack of representation of women in history textbooks. Women’s...

While couples celebrated Valentine’s Day, dedicated members of the Santa Rosa community gathered at Old Courthouse Square to march towards Santa Rosa Junior College to speak out against rape culture. A...

A common perception persists among the nation’s informed public: consistently declining trust in federal and state government officials.   While this phenomenon is nothing new, recent public distrust...

Surprise! Sometimes college students drink alcohol when they’re not supposed to. In what amounts to predictable circumstances, an inappropriate use of alcohol embroiled four student representatives...

A paradox hangs over this country. The United States, the wealthiest nation on Earth, has more capital in its economy than any point in history, yet income inequality now parallels the Great Depression....

Every fall, Columbus Day controversy stirs a national conversation about the ugly legacy of European colonization. This evaluation does more than address past injustices, it underscores how elusive the...

Any morning visit Monday through Thursday will expose a glaring transportation problem at this college. Thousands of students from the reaches of the North Bay and Wine Country flock to the Santa Rosa...

It comes down to one day every four years, the first Tuesday of November. Election Day. In one simple exercise, millions cast their preference for the presidency of the U.S. That’s all; one day, one...

American college culture is at a critical point where adherence to political correctness threatens to undermine the sanctity of free speech, a supreme value of higher education. This conflict intensifies...

When Governor Jerry Brown signed the California DREAM Act in 2011, it was a step forward for the U.S. in terms of immigration reform. In 2012, the Obama Administration enacted Deferred Action, designed...

Do you think America is the greatest country in the world? For today’s politicians, the answer to this question doesn’t reveal their reflections on American history; it falsely validates their patriotism....

Most Californians are aware of the drought. Most people don’t like their local water agency telling them how to use water on their property. Yet most people in Santa Rosa probably weren’t aware in...

Last semester the Oak Leaf class interviewed Santa Rosa Junior College president Dr. Frank Chong about his life and issues of the day. It was an open-ended interview in which Dr. Chong took time to tell...

Proposed legislation could require all college students in California to receive the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccination in 2017. Of the 103 measles cases to hit California during the 2014/15...

Santa Rosa Junior College students responded to evangelical Christian radicals Jan. 15 with a small counter-protest, echoing an international debate about the interaction between free speech and religious...

Sale! Sale! The year’s best deals, the lowest prices, the biggest crowds — all encroaching on a holiday near you! Since its earliest usage by police officers dealing with traffic jams in 1960s Philadelphia,...

The editorial board's opinion of the candidates, propositions and measures on the Nov. 4 ballot Dorothy Battenfeld One of the most important questions the Oak Leaf editorial board asked each candidate...

Representation in government: it’s the foundation of the United States of America, it’s the principal core of democracy – and for Santa Rosa Junior College students, it’s sorely lacking at the...

Challenger: Jordan Burns Although he is a new candidate for SRJC's Board of Trustees, Jordan Burns is by no means a new face. Burns graduated as valedictorian from the college in 2009 before...

Sonoma County’s Nov. 4 ballot includes a bond measure proposal from Santa Rosa Junior College, and any objection to receiving $410 million seems nonsensical, considering the college’s needs – and...

Andy Lopez died at age 13. Six seconds, seven 9 mm bullets, fired from the gun of a 24-year veteran of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department. The community’s anguish poured out in rallies and protests....

It’s been nearly a year and a half since the Oak Leaf’s first coverage of the Holzworth investigation, and the former Santa Rosa Junior College District Police officer remains on our newsroom’s radar....

When Onita Pellegrini announced her resignation at the Jan. 14 Santa Rosa Junior College Board of Trustees meeting, students and faculty alike turned their attention to replacing our Board’s only female...

The end of the fall semester is a stressful time for students, a problem exacerbated by the long semester. Thanksgiving break makes them relax and yearn for the end. When it’s darker sooner and longer,...

As finals approach, some Santa Rosa Junior College students have to come to terms with the fact that they might fail some of their classes. Lack of motivation, trouble at home and the stress of working...

As October comes to a close, we say goodbye not only to the omnipresent commercialism of Halloween, but also to the omnipresent commercialism of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Breast cancer is a terrible...

It’s a difficult scenario to imagine, but the possibility of a shooting here at SRJC is all too real. We live our lives under the shadow of gun violence, but there is a very real disconnect between...

We the people. Three very simple words, yet they introduce the most important document in our nation’s history, the document that forms the very foundation upon which this country was built. But we...

Ah, fall. The smell of fresh leaves and crackling pencils. Pumpkin spice lattes and the slow, circular motion of SRJC students searching for parking in an endless loop, doomed to wander the lots like so...

It’s all about trust. Over recent years, the SRJC community has weathered many storms. A revolving door of police chiefs, prolonged search for our new president, years of budget cuts and disappointing...

The following editorial was written in solidarity with 10 sister community college newspapers denouncing the Student Success Task Force’s recommendations. The Oak Leaf did its own investigation and came...