Tea House Spa Considering Closure Due to Catalyst Demolition Project
City on a Hill Press is dedicated to continuing coverage of the threatened closure of The Catalyst. When Alyssa Pullen, a third-generation Santa Cruz local and owner of the Tea House Spa in Downtown Santa Cruz, learned of the impending shutdown of the historic Catalyst...
Food as Resistance: Cooking up Community
Not many students at UC Santa Cruz spend their Friday mornings as line cooks. But in the kitchen of Cowell Coffee Shop (CCS), the smell of cilantro, the aroma of citrus fruit and the rhythmic sound of chopping greet you as you enter. On Feb....
More UCSC Students are Graduating in Three Years, but Why?
Finn Westley, an applied linguistics and education double major at UC Santa Cruz, wants to pursue a career in bilingual education. Double majoring while completing general education requirements on a condensed timeline is no easy feat. However, after only three years at UCSC, Westley is...
UC Santa Cruz Lecturer Ryan Coonerty is Running for Mayor
For the third time, Ryan Coonerty, Santa Cruz local and current UC Santa Cruz lecturer of politics, legal studies and Jewish studies is running for Santa Cruz mayor. The primary elections are set to take place on June 2. “Given what’s going on with the...
A Pillar of Resistance: What is a Legal Observer?
“You’re essentially signing up to put yourself in a risky situation,” explained Skyla Tomine, a fourth-year UC Santa Cruz student. The decision to put yourself in harm’s way is not an easy choice to make. In the homestretch of an undergraduate degree, Tomine could devote...
WestFest Music Festival Makes its Return to UC Santa Cruz
Flower crowns, picnic blankets and banana slug balloon hats strewn about the Oakes Upper Lawn — is this Coachella 2016? No, it’s WestFest 2026, the annual music festival hosted by westside colleges and student organizations at UC Santa Cruz. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the...
UCSC’s AI Council is at a Crossroads
Over the past three years, generative AI has gone from an illicit homework helper used by students to a technology embraced by higher education institutions. Last year, the California State University system entered multimillion-dollar deals with multiple companies including OpenAI, Amazon and Nvidia to embed...
First Venezuela, Now Iran: Speaker Event Highlights American Imperialism
In a press conference following the U.S.’s Jan. 3 kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump said the word “oil” no less than 19 times. “And the word ‘democracy,’ anyone know how many times it was said in that press conference?” Gabriel Hetland...
Community Through Tradition: Celebrating Lunar New Year at UCSC
A warm glow radiating from red lanterns, the wafting smell of peanuts and dried fruit, loud festive music filling the College Nine/John R. Lewis Multipurpose Room — this is the scene of Lunar New Year at UC Santa Cruz. Students filled the room on Feb....
Family Student Housing Delay Leaves Residents in Limbo
UC Santa Cruz administration announced the development of a new Family Student Housing (FSH) complex in 2018. After pushing the project back repeatedly due to lawsuits and pandemic-exacerbated cost issues, they finally gave residents a move-in date of fall 2025. Then January 2026. And now,...