Students and faculty alike felt the brunt of the statewide furloughs affecting our campus during the last academic year. The question on the lips of many is whether furloughs will continue this year and cause further class cancellations and forced faculty pay decreases.

The answer is no, for now at least. Although Governor Schwarzenegger signed an executive order for state employees to take three furloughs a month in July 2010, Cal State employees will not be subject to this order.

The furlough mandate comes as a response to the state’s remaining budget deficit of $19 billion, warning that funds could deplete as early as October, according to Cal State Public Affairs.

Chancellor Charles B. Reed said in a news release to the California State University system, “Our employee furloughs ended June 30 and were part of an overall plan to address the massive budget cuts of the past two years.

“While the CSU is not required to reinstitute furloughs, we will continue efforts to cooperate with the state’s effort to minimize the impact on the state general funds,” said Reed.

Chancellor Reed’s statement does not address, however, the general tone of Cal State faculty toward the idea of continuing the furlough process.

Dr. Don Barrett, a Sociology professor here at Cal State San Marcos, presides as the President of the San Marcos chapter of the California Faculty Association.

“Since CSU faculty throughout the state would have had to vote to agree to a furlough, the general assumption has been that faculty would have not agreed to it.”

Dr. Barrett, along with many professors here at CSUSM, felt that furloughing professors was not only unfair, but also counterintuitive.

“…Pay raises that were promised in our 2005 contract have not been paid and the furlough was clearly not a reduction in work but just a cut in pay, so faculty do not seem to be willing to go through furloughing again…Furloughing simply doesn’t work for faculty.”

Dr. Marie Thomas, the Vice President of CFA on campus and a Psychology professor, said that furloughs went beyond salaries to affect a professor’s ability in the classroom.

“As much as I tried to provide students with a positive experience in class, I felt that the furloughs caused me to fall short of my goals.”

Dr. Thomas said that the faculty morale would suffer severely as it had in the past academic year if furloughs ever returned.

“The uncertainty of the budget situation; the difficulty that some faculty had paying their bills because of the reduction in pay; the stress of ‘not working’ on furlough days, knowing that the work would still be there the next day—all of these things contributed to a decline in faculty morale.

“And when faculty morale is negatively affected, it can’t help but affect students!” said Dr. Thomas.

Dr. Barrett and the CFA urge students to vote on the issues that affect them and their education within the state of California. Since the state remains without a budget, it is imperative, according to Dr. Barrett, that students understand drastic cuts will begin in Spring 2011 and beyond if no budget appears soon.

“[The CFA] feel it essential to make sure the voting population understands the issues and gets out to vote in the November election, and have plans for activities along those lines.  If the legislature is aware that demand for services is going to affect their ability to be elected in November, then hopefully they’ll act now.”

Freshman Amy Young’s first collegiate goal in the fifth minute got the season started off right for Cougar women’s soccer, as CSUSM cruised to a 2-0 victory over Daemen College on Friday in front of the home crowd.

#14-ranked CSUSM is now 1-0 on the year.  Daemen drops to 1-1.

The Cougars were solid if not spectacular on the day, controlling play easily and rarely allowing opportunities.  The back line rarely let anything by, as All-American keeper Kaycee Gunion was only called upon to make one save.

 Meanwhile, the Cougar offense peppered Daemen keeper Stephanie Aurand, taking 33 shots and putting 15 on net.

The first of those shots was Young’s, who ran under a long ball from Michele Ramirez and beat the keeper with a well-placed shot in the side of the net.

After a few near-misses, including a potential goal that was disallowed late in the first half due to a foul, the Cougars effectively put the game away in the 71^st minute, when a corner from Taylor Ziencina found Lucia Asbury, who knocked it home to increase the lead to 2-0.

CSUSM will face a very tough test on the road on Tuesday against Vanguard University.

The 2009 season was the culmination of four years of hard work, effort, and perseverance for the Cougar men’s soccer team.  After a tough 1-3 start, the squad rebounded to finish the season unbeaten in its final 9 games, a streak that stretched all the way until the A.I.I. Conference Championship Game where CSUSM gave top seed Simon-Fraser all it could handle in a 1-0 loss.

Now heading into 2010, Coach Ron Pulvers’ squad is looking to reload after losing 8 seniors, including 6 of last year’s 11 starters.  Gone is the ridiculous pace of Brandon Zuniga, the rock solid defending of Curtis Marcikic and Troy Skomra, the control in the midfield of Chris Wyatt, and the creativity of Miguel Jacobo.

One player who belongs in the above group but who will be returning to this year’s team (thanks to a redshirt 2007 season) is Bradley Seidenglanz.  The senior has taken the primary leadership role on the team, and along with fellow team captains defender Dan Sims and redshirt Brett Crouse, have ensured the legacy of the team’s first class of seniors will carry on.

“Our three captains make the coaches’ jobs so much easier by taking ownership of the team,” commented Coach Pulvers.

Despite the heavy roster turnover, these captains have maintained the professional, business-minded culture that served the team so well last season; which is a huge step towards finding success with a roster that features so many new faces.

At forward for the Cougars, newcomer Sterling Petersen has already shown flashes of dynamic ability.  The sophomore should help fill some of the goal-scoring void left by Zuniga, as will returners Max Blumenshine, Casey Wootan, and Andrew Podruski.

“All our forwards have done quite well in camp, and there will be heavy competition for the two starting spots,” commented Pulvers.

In the midfield, the outside will be anchored by Seidenglanz, who aside from his leadership skills provides solid all-around play and good goal-scoring touch.  Opposite him will be 6’3″ freshman Panos Kotselas from St. Augustine, who is currently penciled in to start.  In the middle, Martin Suarez returns after a strong debut season as a starter in 2009, and he’ll be joined by Jacob Kaiser, the team’s top recruit from 2009. 

“Jacob is going to be a star for us,” noted Coach Pulvers.

On defense, Sims is moving from his previous center midfield position to a wide back position, which should help provide some bite to the Cougars’ counterattack.  Returning on the opposite side is Jordan Shadeed, who scored two goals and tallied two assists last season.  In the middle, Erik Mueller, a freshman from Newbury Park High School, will start alongside Richie Kaiser, who played in 13 games last year for the Cougars.

Finally, CSUSM returns the trio of keepers who were on its roster in 2009:  Kevin Ernst, Kane Leonard, and Kiki Castro, who redshirted last season with an injury.  Ernst will once again enter the season as the team’s starter, though competition for the job will be fierce.

On the bench, incoming freshman Warren Ashcroft joins the Cougars from Poway High School, and should contribute immediately.  His explosive goal-scoring ability may also make him a good fit up front as well as in the midfield.  Fellow newcomers Carlin Kennedy and Anthony Perez will also contribute, and should develop into very good players for the program.  On defense, veterans Cary Cousineau and Tyler Spitznagel have been strong in camp and should see the field, as should freshmen Anthony Fischer and J.J. Paetow.

The squad is also getting a potentially big addition in Eric Lopez, a transfer from Chico State who should join the team early in the season.

Overall, expect this year’s Cougar team to be more attack-oriented than those of the last couple years.  Despite the lack of experience, CSUSM is already receiving votes in the NAIA Preseason Poll, and team is looking to start strong to earn its first national ranking, as well as qualify again for the A.I.I. Tournament.

“I really like this team,” said Coach Pulvers.  “They’ve shown a real thirst for buying into what’s being taught.”

Graphic by Rachael Danyew

The rave movement has turned what were once underground dance parties into nationalized events involving tens of thousands of attendees.  The recent Electronic Daisy Carnival (EDC) held at the LA Coliseum on June 25 and 26, 2010, attracted over 135,000 attendees, making it the largest rave in North America.  Unfortunately, a 15-year old girl overdosed on ecstacy and within days headlines filled Southern California newspapers and the LA Coliseum put a temporary ban on raves at the venue.

The reputable venue EDC was held at and the 18 and over age requirement did not prevent this fatality.

“Drug use can have risks but that doesn’t make raves unsafe, it makes drug use potentially unsafe,” said Nathan Messer, President of DanceSafe, a non-profit harm reduction organization.

DanceSafe has addressed the rising concern that drug use is a dangerous and prevalent occurrence in the rave scene.  The organization’s Web site, www.dancesafe.org, uses education and awareness as the key to making raves a safer environment.  The site has drug information, health and safety tips, as well as drug screening test kits that can take a small amount of an ecstasy pill and test it for other potentially dangerous additives.

“We neither condone nor condemn drug use.  Rather, we believe that each person should make their own choices, and that people DO make better choices when given pointers to good information,” stated Messer.

A few unfortunate events have given raves a poor reputation for being a drug-centric, unsafe environment and has lead police, legislatures and local communities to fight against the new culture of electronic dance music. 

The Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), a subdivision of the U.S. Department of Justice, released “Rave Parties:  A Problem-Oriented Guide for Police,” in 2002.

“The use of rave-related drugs has not been strongly linked to other crimes and unlike other youth events or other types of concerts, raves do not typically involve much assault,” stated Michael S. Scott, a former chief of police and author of the COPS “Rave Parties” guide. 

“Rave culture discourages sexual aggressiveness, and while some drugs do lower sexual inhibitions, they also can inhibit sexual performance.  So in some respects, raves are safer places for young people, especially women, than conventional bars and clubs,” stated Scott.

The acronym that the rave culture lives by is PLUR (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect).  Responsibility was added to the mantra in the late 1990s to increase awareness of drug overdoses at raves.

A junior at CSUSM majoring in Literature and Writing, who chose to be referred to by her given rave name, Raggedy Ann, has attended five raves.

“I like the music at raves.  It’s like every time I go to the club they play crappy rap music that I don’t want to dance to.  People [at raves] are all really nice and just want to dance,” said Ann.  “I don’t feel like the amount of security or police affects the quality of a rave.  They are there to make sure there are no fights and to just have a presence.”

For first time ravers, expect a high entrance fee.  Raves are often accompanied by extravagant light shows and various DJs.  The music is loud, so bringing a pair of earplugs along will protect your hearing.

“Ravers should be advised to wear loose-fitting clothing, drink plenty of water if they are sweating, and take breaks from dancing to rest and cool off.  Rave-related drug users should also eat salty foods to prevent hyponatraemia,” stated Scott.

In addition, you should also be able to spot warning signs to a potentially dangerous rave environment.

“If it is so overcrowded that it is impossible to get to exits easily, if fire doors are locked or blocked, if security isn’t searching for weapons, if cold water is shut off in the restrooms, if bottled water is sold without the caps so you can’t refill it and carry it with you, all of these are bad signs.  Also, some sorts of medical staff should be present for any event with more than about 500 people,” stated Messer.

The upcoming Abstract Festival will be held on September 11, 2010, at the San Diego Sports Arena from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m.  There will be two stages and you must be 18 to attend.  A full bar will be available for those who are 21 and over.  Tickets can be purchased on abstractfest.com and prices range from $40 to $90.

Last fall marked the launch of the Arts Association, a student organization that has quickly became an outlet for creative expression to any CSUSM student who wants to participate.

“We want to encourage students to be involved in the arts outside of the classroom.  It’s recreational, therapeutic, relaxing and expressive.  It gives students a creative space,” stated Marilyn Huerta, Arts Association Advisor.

Huerta, realizing there wasn’t an art organization, began asking students last year if they would be interested in starting a student art organization.  “In the past we’ve had about 120 members.  I expect to continue growing,” stated Huerta. 

Last year, the Arts Association organized events that included Hope for Haiti Art Auction, Falling on Winter Student Art Exhibit, Love Your Body Day in collaboration with the ASI Women’s Center and Operation Art, an exhibit dedicated to veterans. 

The Arts Association will kick off the fall semester with a student exhibit that will showcase student work in the Arts building.

“This club is great for art students who want to step out of their shell, show their work and get feedback.  It also gives the average student a creative space to express themselves,” said Heurta.

Last semester, two Arts Association members, Kevin Cruz and Brittany Galante, won a student contest in which they were selected to paint the mural on the storage sheds located near the basketball courts at The Clarke Field House.

“Through events we do, you are able to network with people who are in the field you’re interested in,” stated Lauren Reynoso, Arts Association President. 

Although the club executives haven’t met yet to discuss this semester’s calendar, Reynoso would like to collaborate with SDSU and UCSD in the future, who both have student art organizations, and create a San Diego Art Association.

Meetings are held bi-weekly on Thursdays at noon in ART 342.  Students can join by emailing Marilyn Huerta at mhuerta@csusm.edu, Lauren Reynoso at reyno46@cougars.csusm.edu or by showing up at a meeting.  The Arts Association is currently looking to fill the secretary and creative director position.

The Arts Association will be participating in the “Leave Your Mark” events held on September 21, in the Library Plaza from 11:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

“If there’s a student who has an idea to do something, bring it to the table and we’ll try and make it happen,” said Huerta.

Photo Credit: Nick Ruiz

With the start of a new fresh semester, The Pride brings to its students a new online playground as we unveil the modern, revamped and exciting new website.

The Pride’s improved website, www.csusmpride.com, offers a new kind of interaction that connects students with happenings around campus and community.  The latest news, features, sports, and arts and entertainment stories engage our readers to follow more current events that relate to campus life and around our county.

The simple, slick design allows for expanded content to be featured online as well as a variety of interactive elements bring our readers together by rating favorite stories, commenting on articles and voting on the weekly poll.

“Well the csusmpride.com is based on a WordPress layout, I just created a custom theme to make it look nice, but I could spend an hour going into it so I’ll just leave it at that,” said Nick Ruiz, the web designer for The Pride’s new website.  A Web Design and Interactive Media major at the Art Institute of San Diego, Ruiz also has honorable mentions through his work in designing websites for Element Skateboards.

“A combination of programs came into play when I create any site, I used programs like Photoshop and Illustrator to create buttons and templates. I usually use Dreamweaver to code the site, but most of the work is done by hand where the code is written in,” continued Ruiz.

Another tool that the site now offers is an easy way to connect with The Pride on all our social networking media.  Our Facebook and Twitter accounts can easily be reached, where users will find our daily updates and posts.  Our social media sites keep our readers connected with the latest news and offer a student perspective on current events beyond the San Marcos city limits.

According to Ruiz, since the site is based on a WordPress template, the visual appeal of the site is easier to read and navigate, unlike other over cluttered and busy news sites.

“I ‘d say my favorite part of the site is the styled posts, the thumbnail photos and small excerpt taken from the post is a nice touch I think,” continued Ruiz. “I designed a custom layout in Photoshop that I could reference. Then, with the Photoshop template to work off of, I recreated the layout using HTML and CSS. Once set, I went back in and added WordPress functionality.”

“So, what we got is a blog that looks and works exactly how we want. The major benefit of this is creative control.”

The site sight will enable readers have access to exclusive web content and media that may not be featured in our printed edition. Other perks included subscribing to The Pride and receiving email notices of the new weekly issues.

The Pride invites students to join our team and contribute to our content, by covering student organization events, sport games, attending and reviewing local concerts, or even by providing artwork such as cartoons for an article. A variety of opportunities for all majors are offered by working with The Pride, students can build a portfolio and gain hands-on experience about newspaper productions and the media world.

Volunteer forms are available for download on our website.  Submit completed forms to to Joan Anderson, the faculty advisor to The Pride, in Markstein Hall 259.

The Pride welcomes story idea submissions to our email account at csusmpride@gmail.com.

Weekly meeting are held at The Pride office in Craven Hall 3500. Every Tuesday during U-hour, The Pride distributes 2,000 copies at 14 different locations across campus and is the only independent student run newspaper on the CSUSM campus.

I vaguely remember a “clubs” fair at the beginning of every semester, where you walked around, looked at different booths, signed up for a couple, and boom, you were involved in student organizations… more or less.

The Student Life and Leadership office has taken it to a whole new level, working with student organizations and various campus groups to provide two academic weeks’ worth of welcome, appropriately titled “Weeks of Welcome 2010.”

Running Monday, August 30^th through Friday, September 10^th, events include everything from a casino night to morning coffees. Here are a few ways to make the most of the events available.

-          There really is a place to ask a nice, friendly person for directions. In general, if you’re ever lost on campus, you can ask any of the staff to point you in the right direction. But Monday, August 30^th through Wednesday, September 1^st, you can stop by the Cougar Question Mart from 8am to 5pm to ask for directions to classes, the food court, and to get more information on ‘Weeks of Welcome.’

-          It’s unbelievably easy to join a club. On Tuesday, August 31^st, the Student Organization Fair is going on in the Library Plaza from 11am to 1pm. You’ll hear about various clubs and their events right here in the Features section of the Pride during the school year, but this is a chance to get involved. Reading this article after August 31^st? The Tukwut Leadership Circle’s Open House on September 8^th (11am to 2pm, Craven 3400) is another place to hear all about leadership opportunities and student organization information.

-          There are a lot of people who want to support you. We’re a diverse campus and we’re very proud of it. It’s one of the most important parts of what makes CSUSM an amazing place to go to school. During ‘Weeks of Welcome,’ you can attend various offices’ open houses: the ASI (Associated Students, Inc.) LGBTQ Pride Center (September 7^th, 8am to 5pm, Commons 201); the SLL Cross Cultural Center (September 8^th, 11am to 2pm, Commons 207); the ASI Women’s Center Open House (September 9^th, 11am to 3pm, Foundation Classroom Bldg. 5-102); and the Veterans Center Open House (September 9^th, 10am to 3pm, Craven 3^rd Floor). There are also several student organizations devoted to celebrating our diversity.

-          We’re big fans of fun. ‘Weeks of Welcome’ includes free events ranging from casino night previously mentioned (September 2^nd), to a pep rally on September 7^th, to a free movie night at the local Edwards Theatres on September 7^th as well, and various other fun-for-the-sake-of-fun events. The two-week welcome fest ends with a chance for students to attend a San Diego Padres Game on September 10^th (tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the ASI Office).

Stop by the Cougar Question Mart until September 1^st, or the Student Life and Leadership office after September 1^st to get your full schedule of ‘Weeks of Welcome’ events, or visit http://www.csusm.edu/sll/onsp/WOW2010.html. Events I didn’t get a chance to mention include things like a study abroad information session (September 7^th), and a session on getting a part time job (September 2^nd), just to name a few.

Textbook buying time is here. No matter how much you resent spending your hard-earned summer dollars on books you will only use for one semester, it’s the reality of going to college.  Fortunately, there are many ways to duck around the high sticker prices and keep some cash in your pockets! Here are 10 easy ways to cut textbook costs.

1. Shop early. Check the CSUSM bookstore website at www.csusmbookstore.com or email your professors to get your list of required textbooks as early as possible.  This will give you more time to shop around and compare prices.
2. Talk to students who have already taken your classes. Maybe you can use their old book. Check Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace for local connections.
3. Use online price comparison sites. Once you have the ISBN identification number of your textbook, type it into websites like DealOz.com.  They do the hard work for you, searching hundreds of online bookstores to find you the lowest price on your particular textbook.  According to their website, they have listings up to 97% off retail prices.
4. Visit used bookstores. The CSUSM bookstore and Discount Campus Books are local options for used textbooks.  Search eBay, Amazon.com, Half.com, and other online marketplaces that specialize in used books.  Some may offer coupons or combined shipping options.
5. Rent your textbooks. According to their website, the CSUSM bookstore has partnered with Chegg.com to offer book rentals at a minimal cost.  As an added environmental bonus, Chegg’s website says they will plant a tree for every book rented.
6. Check your library. Today’s technology allows you to search the CSUSM library card catalog online at biblio.csusm.edu.  Check your local library branch as well.  This option works well if your class requires mass-market books or classic literature.
7. Form a textbook-sharing study group. Get to know your peers and save money by forming a study group.  You can all pitch in for a book, or meet at the library to use their non-circulating copy.
8. Talk to your professors. They may be willing to work with you and provide you with alternative options if absolutely necessary.  Maybe you can use an older edition of their required text.
9. Research textbook scholarships. The Cougar Shops Scholarship offers $500 each to 20 students who meet the award criteria.  The next opportunity to apply is in January.  Nursing students can apply for the Jeremy Pallon Memorial Nursing Scholarship, which can go towards textbook purchases.  For more info on these and similar scholarships, contact University Store manager Kathy Brown at (760) 750-4730, extension 4731.
10. Sell your textbooks back. The CSUSM bookstore offers buyback options for both used and new books.  Students can receive up to 50% of the original retail price, depending on certain conditions.  Visit the bookstore for specific details. You can also sell your textbooks using numerous online sites like Half.com.

The beginning of the academic year is a great time for both new and returning students to learn about services offered by CSUSM, especially ones that can not only keep you healthy, but also keep a little more money in your pocket.

Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS) is located directly across Twin Oaks Valley Road at 120 Craven Road.  It’s within easy walking distance of campus, and offers a significant amount of health services for free, or at reduced prices, to students. I got a chance to sit down with Dr. Karen Nicholson, SHCS’s medical director, to talk about how SHCS can help you as a student.

PRIDE: What would you say are the most important services offered here?

DR. NICHOLSON: Well, the most common thing we see students for are issues surrounding family planning and sexual health… We have a free services program called Family PACT. It provides family planning to students who qualify, both men and woman. That could be free pap smear, free birth control, free STD screenings for women. For young men, it can include free STD screens and condoms.  It’s our third year of providing Family PACT. (For more information about the program and to find out if you qualify, stop by SHCS and talk to the Family PACT registration coordinator Monday through Thursday from 9am to 11am or 2pm to 4pm, Friday from 9am to 11am.). We see a lot of headaches, sore throats, upset stomachs… We also see a lot of students for depression and anxiety. If students have stress or depression, we refer students to our counseling section, which is part of this center. We have three staff psychologists and a part time psychiatrist who can prescribe medication.

What do you think is the most important thing for students to know about SCHS? Something that you would want incoming students to know?

As a registered student, students can see medical providers and counselors for free, with the exception of the psychiatrist. If a student needs to come every day, there’s no co-pay. There are some charges for labs or medications, but not all of them. It’s also good for students to know that we have a registered pharmacist on staff, and we carry a lot of over the counter medications at significantly reduced prices for students. We also look for ways to help students save money on their medications. They’re not obligated to use our pharmacy. We’ll tell you if a medication might be cheaper at Walmart or Costco.

So why would students with health insurance come to SCHS?

Sometimes, it’s just more convenient to come here. If students who have insurance see us, there’s no co-pay. If they need a prescription, sometimes they can submit the receipt back to the insurance company to be reimbursed. (WRITER’S NOTE: The Family PACT program offered by SHCS mentioned earlier can also help students who have insurance, but need confidential sexual health services outside of their insurance.)

Tell me about SCHS providing vaccines. I know you were sending out e-mails left and right when people needed the H1N1 vaccine last year.

We offer a lot of vaccines. We’ll have the flu shot in early fall, no later than the end of September. We’ll advertise the dates of the clinics. This year, the regular flu shot and H1N1 vaccine will be combined in one shot. It was about $10 for students to receive the seasonal flu vaccine last year, and it’ll probably be about the same this year… We also have the vaccines for Hepatitis A and B, Tdap which is the tetanus shot, the meningitis vaccine, MMR, and Gardisil, the HPV vaccine that has now been approved for use in both men and women. . All of our vaccines are $65 or less, except Gardasil. It’s $120 per shot, because it’s so new.

So, what about H1N1? I’ve also heard about whooping cough starting to be a problem in elementary and high school.

We’re in contact with the county and we help them manage any potential outbreaks, so we’re well prepared for anything. Most of the stuff people are hearing about whooping cough in the media is happening to little kids. However, we do know that adults can spread it to children, so we mostly want to make sure students who work with kids are immunized.

What about emergency services? Do you have any advice for students if they have an emergency?

We don’t have an emergency room here, and we don’t offer urgent care. We are in a good location, though, with emergency response teams on both sides of us, that can transport students quickly to either Tri City Medical Center or Palomar Hospital… We do have same day appointments, though. These aren’t for life threatening emergencies, but they’re for urgent problems that happen overnight. We keep these appointments blocked off until the day of the appointment. Typically, even in non-urgent situation, people can get appointments in one to two days. The wait for counseling appointments does get longer as the semester progresses.

One last question, since I know this is information that may be very important to both our male and female readers. What are your resources for dealing with sexual assault?

If any student is the victim of a sexual or physical assault, they can come here for an initial evaluation, which will include a conversation with one of our police officers. We’re not a sexual assault response team (SART) center. The closest one is at Palomar. However, between clinical help and counseling support, we do everything we can to help the student. There’s also a new webpage from the Women’s Center website about sexual assault advocacy that may help students (http://www.csusm.edu/sadv/sa/index.html).

Well, Dr. Nicholson, thank you so much for your time.

You’re very welcome.

For more information about SCHS and its services, check online at http://www.csusm.edu/shcs/ or call 760-750-4915.

That any sense of play and pleasure remains amid all the doom and the dust, the poisonous potions and murderous sentiments, is partly a testament to the remarkable sturdiness of this movie franchise, which has transformed in subtle and obvious fashion, changing in tandem with the sprouting bodies and slowly evolving personalities of its young, now teenage characters. The series is now almost as old (it took off in 2001) as Harry was when he started his journey, which found the orphan whisked after his 11th birthday from a cramped, tragic nook to Hogwarts, a school of witchcraft and wizardry in a parallel world teeming with wondrous creatures, including an embarrassment of lavishly talented British screen actors.

Surgically adapted by Steve Kloves, who has written all the screenplays save for No. 5, “The Half-Blood Prince” was to be the penultimate film, the corollary to the J. K. Rowling book. Instead, the concluding volume, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” has been deemed hefty enough by Warner Brothers — 784 hardcover pages, 2.4 pounds shipping weight, a fight to the death — to be split into two movies that will hit in late 2010 and summer 2011. Considering that the take for Harry Potter and His Big Pot of Cinematic Gold now totals almost $4.5 billion in international box office, the studio’s reluctance to embrace the end is touchingly obvious.

But, seriously, could we just get on with it? For at least one committed follower of the series, who closed the last chapter on Harry soon after “The Deathly Hallows” was published in 2007, the lag time between the final books and the movies has drained much of the urgency from this screen adaptation, which, far more than any of the previous films, comes across as an afterthought. Mr. Yates, who directed the last movie, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” which also arrived in summer 2007, does a fine job of keeping Ms. Rowling’s multiple parts in balanced play, nimbly shifting between the action and the adolescent soap operatics. Yet even with a surer directorial touch, he can’t keep the whole thing from feeling like filler.

Not that he doesn’t juice the material for all it’s worth, starting with some preliminary mayhem meant to signal that this isn’t your 10-year-old’s Harry Potter.

After a nod to the last movie’s big finish, with Harry bloodied but victorious, the new picture opens in London, where an office filled with nonmagical humans (Muggles, in Rowling-speak) are staring out the high-rise windows — as slack-jawed, presumably, as those filling theater seats — at sinister gray clouds surging in the sky. Suddenly three plumes of black smoke, Death Eaters in fast, fuming motion, cut through the moody overhead dome, race through the streets and wobble the pedestrian-only Millennium Bridge that slings across the Thames, snapping cables, fatally upending human bodies and further unnerving the wizardly world.

If you haven’t been keeping up with the story, well, there’s always Wikipedia. Although Mr. Kloves has done an admirable job tailoring Ms. Rowling’s progressively longer and baggier books, he or, perhaps more accurately, the series’s producers have not made many concessions for the uninitiated. If you have kept pace, you will grasp why Dumbledore (the invaluable Michael Gambon), the headmaster of Hogwarts, has placed so much trust in Harry, a callow student with prodigious wizard gifts and little discernable personality. The chosen one, Harry has been commissioned to destroy the too-little-seen evildoer Voldemort, a sluglike ghoul usually played by Ralph Fiennes (alas, seen only briefly this time out) and here played, in his early embodied form as Tom Riddle, by the excellent young actors Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Frank Dillane.

There must be a factory where the British mint their acting royalty: Hero, who plays the dark lord as a spectrally pale, creepy child of 11, is Ralph Fiennes’s nephew, and Frank is the son of the terrific actor Stephen Dillane (Thomas Jefferson in the HBO mini-series “John Adams”). The younger Mr. Dillane, who plays Voldemort at 16, conveys the seductiveness of evil with small, silky smiles he bestows like dangerous gifts on Jim Broadbent’s Horace Slughorn, a professor whose trembling jowls suggest a deeper tremulousness. When Slughorn, the fear almost visibly leaking from his body, shares the secret of immortality with Voldemort, you feel, much as when Ralph Fiennes raged through “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” in 2005, that something vital is at stake.

If that sense of exigency rarely materializes in “The Half-Blood Prince,” it’s partly because the series finale is both too close and too far away and partly because Mr. Radcliffe and his co-stars Emma Watson and Rupert Grint, as Harry’s friends Hermione and Ron, have grown up into three prettily manicured bores. Unlike the veterans, notably the sensational Alan Rickman, who invests his character, Prof. Severus Snape, with much-needed ambiguity, drawing each word out with exquisite luxury, bringing to mind a buzzard lazily pulling at entrails, Mr. Radcliffe in particular proves incapable of the most crucial cinematic magic. Namely the alchemical transformation of dialogue into something that feels like passion, something that feels real and true and makes you as wild for Harry as for all those enticingly dark forces.

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). The movie is more suggestively than overtly violent, though sometimes rather intense.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Opens on Wednesday nationwide.

Directed by David Yates; written by Steve Kloves, based on the book by J. K. Rowling; director of photography, Bruno Delbonnel; edited by Mark Day; music by Nicholas Hooper; production designer, Stuart Craig; visual effects supervisor, Tim Burke; make-up and creature effects design by Nick Dudman; produced by David Heyman and David Barron; released by Warner Brothers Pictures. Running time: 2 hours 33 minutes.