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    Campus United Way Campaign Forges Toward Feb. 15 Deadline


    With the Boy Scouts of America no longer listed as part of Santa Barbara County's United Way Network of Caring, campus officials expect donations to the community umbrella charity to resume the upward climb of the past few years.
    "The Boy Scouts is not an issue this year, so I hope it'll be a very successful campaign," said David Gonzales, campus campaign chair for the second year in a row. Last year he saw contributions plummet 47 percent to around $90,000. In 2000 the total was nearly $170,000.
    As a way to thank previous contributors and encourage new ones, the campus campaign committee is sponsoring an Ice Cream Social on Friday, Feb. 8, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Cheadle Courtyard. All campus employees are welcome.
    In his cover letter to the pledge packet this year, Chancellor Henry Yang set the campus goal at $150,000. The campaign ends on Feb. 15.
    Previously, controversy had swirled around the national BSA's policy of excluding gays from leadership roles in scouting. United Way was then supporting local scout troops with unrestricted funding from its Network of Caring. Many campus employees questioned the ethics of giving to a national organization with such practices even when they approved of local scout troops and their programs.
    United Way turned down the 2001 funding request from the Los Padres Council of the Boy Scouts, finding that the na tional policies generated divisions in the regional community. Eucalyptus, the campuswide committee on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender concerns, expressed approval last fall of United Way's decision to not support divisive or polarizing influences in the general community, according to Joe Navarro, associate dean of students and current chair of Eucalyptus.
    When the Academic Senate voted to extend University nondiscrimination policies to the designated campus charities that helped make United Way's approach even more acceptable, said Navarro.
    This does not prevent BSA supporters from making designated, or restricted, gifts to the council through United Way.