Adia Barnes Q&A

BY DEVIN HOMER

@DevinHomer

Arizona women’s basketball coach Adia Barnes, 45, is one of the biggest names in the history of Arizona athletics.

Barnes started her basketball career at Arizona in 1994. She was a three-time All-Conference selection and was voted rst-team All-American and Pac-10 Player of the Year in 1998. She graduated from Arizona and played 12 professional seasons, both in the WNBA and overseas, winning a championship in 2004 with the Seattle Storm.

Coaching was her next stop: From 2011 until 2016, she was an assistant coach at the University of Washington. On April 4, 2016 Barnes was named the University of Arizona head coach. e impact she’s made at Arizona, in the Pac-12 Conference and the nation have been on and o the court.

First, the turnaround: In the three years before Barnes arrived, the Wildcats had a 3260 overall record. In the last three seasons, Barnes’ teams have gone 69-26. e Wildcats capped the 2019 season with a win in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament— the tournament features the top 32 teams that don’t make the NCAA Division I basketball tournament. In 2021, Arizona earned a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament and advanced to its rst National Championship game, where they lost by one point to Pac-12 rival, Stanford.

As she engineered a turnaround of the women’s basketball program, Barnes got help from her top assistant, who is also her husband, Salvo Coppa. ey have two children, Matteo, 6, and Capri, 18 months.

Life as a coach, wife and mother were at the forefront last spring when during the National Championship game, she pumped breast milk at halftime, which resulted in her being late to start the third quarter. ESPN reporter Holly Rowe let the TV viewers know: “For those of you who think this is too much information,” she said, “let’s normalize working mothers and all they have to do.”

Barnes also founded the Adia Barnes Foundation, which mentors underserved youth, conducts charitable events and community service projects such as school supply drives. Here are three questions with the nationally known Arizona coach as her team attempts to cement its legacy during Women’s History Month:

How she got here:

A conversation with Arizona WBB head coach Adia Barnes

What advice would you give a woman trying to break into Division I coaching?

“You have to study the game, I think networking, studying the game and just working on your craft daily. I think when you have a will and a passion for something and you set your eyes on the prize, there shouldn’t be anything that stops you from doing that. Even if you have to start in high school or junior college, or go be a video-coordinator, you get in there and you learn and you let your work speak for you. I think there are a lot of really hard working people that are determined to be great. If you work hard and you work on what you want and go after what you want and you don’t let anyone stop you from that, you will get there. Sometimes you have to be patient.”

Who are the women that shaped the woman you are today?

“My mother [Patricia McRae], because she was a strong, smart, really hard-working role model. She was tough, she was very resilient and she faced a lot of adversity but she was always extremely strong minded, optimistic. She always told me, ‘when you fall on your face, get right back up.’ So, I think I got a lot of my mentality from her.”

What’s the best advice you’ve gotten from a female peer?

“ ere isn’t one thing that stands out as the best, but understanding that it’s a marathon and not a sprint. Good things take time and you do them the right way. Even if it takes a little longer, that’s how you sustain success. Be patient in the process and believe in yourself and do what you do everyday and believe in it and go for it.”

NATHANIAL STENCHEVER | THE DAILY WILDCAT

HEAD COACH OF THE Arizona women’s basketball team, Adia Barnes, celebrates with her team after the game on Sunday, Feb. 13, in McKale Center in Tucson. The Wildcats would win the game 62-58, beating their in-state rival ASU.

University of Arizona Police Department reaches milestone in female representation

BY SUSAN BARNETT

@Susan_A_Barnett

The University of Arizona Police Department held a promotion ceremony for two female officers on Wednesday, Feb. 16, at the UAPD headquarters on 1852 E. First St.

This comes only weeks after they hired the first female police chief in the university’s history.

It’s all part of a pledge called the 30x30 Initiative that UAPD took in September of last year to increase women in policing to 30% by 2030.

“Women are underrepresented in the profession,” said Cindy Ewer, a police lieutenant at the UAPD. “It’s kind of been a pledge that we decided was really important to diversify our department to represent the communities that we serve, and it’s not even just about women. It’s about the underserved population and increasing the diversity within our agency.”

A Pew Trust study found that women make up 7% of state police agencies, and in 2021 Arizona reported only 4% of women in state police agencies.

The university’s police department reports about 13%, although it can fluctuate because of how small the department is.

“Having somebody to look up to or somebody to to be a mentor to you is important,” Ewer said. “Having equal representation so that you know, you’re not the only female around sometimes. It’s really important having females that want to empower each other and support each other.”

Ewer started at UAPD as a dispatcher and became a corporal, then moved to the first female sergeant and now serves as the first female lieutenant where she supervises half of the patrol. She’s seen the amount of women fluctuate from four female officers up to nine, and now to the seven women working in the department.

The two recent promotions brought the number of corporals on the patrol squad to three men and three women, a first in the university police force’s history.

Melanie Sultan was one of the two women celebrated in her new role as corporal. Sultan began working as a police officer three years ago, but previously

worked as a “social worker for CODAC and Casa de los Niños after graduating with a degree in psychology and political science.

“Behavioral health has always been a passion of mine,” Sultan said. “So I find that it really is paramount to the job that we do as law enforcement now.”

Coming from a family of law enforcement officers, she felt “called back” to a law enforcement profession and decided to take a shot at it.

“For me, the university police department specifically was alluring,” Sultan said. “Partially because of the type of policing that takes place, there is a lot of community-based policing, which is something that I really value.”

She suggested anyone interested in policing to request to go on a ride-along with a police officer, something that can easily be done through a form request and a background check.

“It’s a culture where we need to change,” Ewer said. “The culture to be more accepting of females in the role.”

About 85 agencies had joined the pledge when UAPD decided to join after seeing other Pac-12 schools do the same. However, the police force has been advocating for more women in policing for years.

Camp Fury is a partnership between public safety and the Girl Scouts that introduces teen girls to careers in the police force or as firefighters. “It gives us a chance to mentor them and educate them on careers,” said Corporal Michele Kahn, the second woman being promoted to corporal, “and hopefully give them some insights so that they can make more of an educated decision on whether this is the type of work they want to go into and then having a little bit of exposure to what we actually do.”

Khan mentions that the girls get to go on ride-alongs in the police cars with the lights on, as well as participate in a simulator. On the fire-fighting side, the girls put out real fires and repel off of buildings.

“This camp is such a confidence builder. And by the end of the week these girls have come out of their shells, and they’re just showing superb leadership skills by the end of this camp,” Khan said. “It’s really amazing.”

Khan has been working as a police officer at the university since 2017, but she first started at the Pima Community College Police Department in 2013. In her new position, she works on administrative tasks as well as managing other officers in her squadron.

It’s not only representation women are seeking. The 30x30 website states that female officers use less excessive force, are named in fewer complaints and lawsuits, are perceived by communities as being more honest and compassionate, see better outcomes for crime victims, especially in sexual assault cases and make fewer discretionary arrests.

“Am I gonna take down a 300 pound, 6-foot-5 guy who is in front of me and is not listening?” Khan asked. “My tactic sometimes is deescalation with my words and it works. So, you just sometimes do things differently, but the end goal can be the same.”

LEXI HORSEY | THE DAILY WILDCAT

THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA Police Department headquarters on Wednesday, Oct. 2, 2019, in Tucson, Arizona.

It’s really important having females that want to empower each other and support each other.”

— CINDY EWER, UAPD LIEUTENANT

WOMEN IN MUSIC All-female Tucson mariachi group nds the melody mid-pandemic

BY LIV LEONARD @livjleo

Échale ganas! Give it all you’ve got! Tucson native and musician Diana Olivares is doing just that. Olivares planted her training in voice, theater and years of mariachi experience into a passion project that bloomed into her all-female Latin group, Las Azaleas.

Before the pandemic, Olivares performed vast amounts of mariachi gigs, in addition to giving voice lessons at her home studio in Tucson. When COVID-19 hit, Olivares’ previously planned gigs were canceled and her vocal students could no longer attend rehearsals.

With no gigs and students quarantined to their homes, Olivares had lots of time to self-re ect on her career thus far.

“I had a lot of time to think and I always wanted to go back to playing mariachi or Latin music,” Olivares said.

Olivares noticed herself daydreaming constantly about what she wanted to do once she could perform live again.

“I found myself in a position where like, well, got nothing going on, so let’s just write down what I would do if I had my own band,” Olivares said.

Not only did Olivares visualize her dream band, but she began to create and assemble it. Using her extensive connections from previous studies in voice and theater, her own students from her studio and even former teachers, a group began to form.

As Las Azaleas slowly formed, it quickly became evident that the veperson group was all female.

“I didn’t know that this would turn into a woman centered sort of project, but it just ended up being that way. I just knew I wanted to start a group,” Olivares said. e women of Las Azaleas consist of Diana Olivares, Andrea Gallegos, Suzy Villarreal, Azul Navarrete-Valera and Salma Díaz. Each Azalea sings, in addition to playing their own instrument for the group. Olivares, Gallegos and Villarreal all play violin, while NavarreteValera and Díaz both play guitar.

Each Azalea brings something truly remarkable to Las Azaleas, as their musical knowledge and ample backgrounds have enabled them to work together in such a beautiful and dynamic way. Rehearsing together constantly, traveling and playing at such eclectic venues has created a bond between the musicians forever.

Navarrete-Valera, a freshman studying law at the University of Arizona, was one of Olivares’s voice students and used to envision Las Azaleas if it was to ever become a group. She shared the impact the group has had on her since its beginning.

“This group is a huge part of my heart. I love all the girls like family,” NavareteValera said.

After years of knowing each other, Olivares formally asked NavarreteValera to audition to be a violinist for the group the two has always dreamt of. Later, she was asked to contribute her guitar skills as well.

“Next thing I know, Las Azaleas is created and [Olivares] is asking me to audition for violin. I was honored and I auditioned,” Navarrete-Valera said. “[Olivares] mentioned she needed a guitarist and I told her I have prior experience from elementary school.”

A common expression from each Azalea is the empowerment they feel ever since joining Las Azaleas. Villarreal, a violinist for the group with over 30 years of experience, expressed her gratitude for her colleagues.

“It has given me a sense of empowerment because we do not let anything stand in our way,” Villarreal said.

Gallegos, another Las Azaleas violinist, agreed that the all-female aspect of their craft has been a positive change of pace.

“Being in a full all-female ensemble has been empowering. There has definitely been a very refreshing and different dynamic in working with all women,” Gallegos said. “I have always been a mariachi musician within a predominantly male ensemble, and so I know what it is like to have to prove yourself and be the minority in an industry and genre that is very male dominated.”

Las Azaleas has dedicated themselves to performing covers composed by women or popularized by female artists.

COURTESY OF LAS AZALEAS MARIACHI GROUP

ALL FIVE CURRENT MEMBERS of Las Azaleas dressed for their private performances. Every member contributes something special and insightful to the music they play.

According to Olivares, thanks to newest member Díaz, they have been working on original compositions.

“[Díaz] is just so creative,” Olivares said. “She’s such a great lyricist and so thanks to her we’re looking at now composing our own songs, which is pretty cool.”

The Latin group acknowledged that their hard work had paid off immensely when Olivares was offered the role of music director at Tucson’s annual AllSouls Procession in November 2021. Las Azaleas was the musical entertainment for the event and it was their biggest performance yet.

“It was really special to be a part of such a city-wide, iconic event and we were women and we were Latinas and we only performed in Spanish,” Olivares said.

Whether it be a wedding or just a backyard birthday party, the ensemble always arrives in beautiful dresses and flower crowns, ready to enchant their audiences.

“We show up with a deeper sense of appreciation to be there,” Olivares said.

The group’s charm has landed them their Fox Theater debut, opening for Flor de Toloache March 19. You can find out about upcoming Las Azaleas live performances, YouTube recordings and sign up for their newsletter to be entered in a raffle to win a private performance at their website.

FACULTY IN SCIENCE ‘Falloposcope’ assists earlier ovarian cancer diagnoses

BY ANNABEL LECKY

@ABlecky_23

University of Arizona professors and students are collaborating to take exponential steps toward nding a cure to ovarian cancer.

Jennifer Barton is the brains behind the whole operation, and her new device, the “falloposcope,” has plans to change modern medicine around diagnosing ovarian cancer. Barton is a biomedical engineering professor at the university and also directs the BIO5 institute on campus.

When Barton rst came to the university, she met with a physician who requested that she try to create something to diagnose patients in the early stages of ovarian cancer.

“When a physician comes to a biomedical engineer and says ‘I need you to build something to solve this horrible problem,’ then engineers always go, ‘yes, OK, I’ll take that challenge on,’” Barton said.

According to Barton, ovarian cancer starts in the fallopian tubes — tubes that transport the egg from the ovaries to the uterus. Much like cervical cancer, it develops from a few abnormal cells. e cells start proliferating and they can stay there for a number of years, yet everything appears ne to the host.

“If we could catch the cancer in that six-year window, then we can cure the disease with surgery or chemotherapy,” Barton said.

However, a lack of modern technology once prohibited oncologists from getting inside the fallopian tubes to do screenings for ovarian cancer.

“Once those cells leave the fallopian tubes, they oat out and then attach themselves to the ovaries or other places in the abdominal cavity and they, for reasons we don’t entirely understand, will start growing very quickly,” Barton said. “It’s not until they have grown very quickly that you start having symptoms and the disease has advanced.”

Most people who exhibit these symptoms are then diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Women are usually in a very late stage of their prognosis when they are diagnosed, which means their outcomes are typically very poor. People with stage 4 ovarian cancer have a relative ve-year survival rate of 17%.

“For a long time people didn’t really know why, because for other cancers, like cervical cancer, you have pap smears every year,” Barton said. “Generally in the United States, you catch cervical cancer very early, but there’s no screening like that for ovarian cancer.”

Barton realized that to catch cancer early, doctors have to get something inside of the fallopian tubes. e cancer cells in the fallopian tubes are too small to be detected by CT, MRI, ultrasound or any comparable sort of imaging modality.

“You really need to use optics; you have to look and analyze it,” Barton said. “ e problem with optics is we can’t look into our body.”

Barton and her team have gured out a mechanism in which they can go through the uterus and into the fallopian tubes.

“It’s just a little bit of a challenge to make something small enough to do that,” Barton said.

Challenge aside, her team was able to make the “falloposcope” to go into the fallopian tubes, shine light on the tissue, collect the light that comes back, analyze it and determine whether or not cancer is present.

“Technology is getting to the point where we have these little tiny bers and these miniature sensors and we have these new materials that are exible and pushable and biocompatible,” Barton said.

In the past, cancer biologists have taken tissue that was being removed in surgery anyway and looked at it in the laboratory. is way, they were able to make sure that the optical techniques will allow them to detect cancer. e next step is seeing if they can get their microscope into the body rather than bringing the tissue to the microscope.

Dr. John Heusinkveld works with Barton in his own personal OB-GYN practices here at the UA. Heusinkveld is a UA alumni who now practices at Banner University Medical Center. He has assisted in the trial of the falloposcope on patients, which is the rst step in the development of the device. e current stage of the study consists of rounds of surgery on people who are not at risk for cancer and do not currently have cancer. Heusinkveld is not a cancer surgeon, but he does complete surgeries on women who are having their fallopian tubes removed for various reasons. e people who Heusinkveld operates on are volunteers who have agreed to extend their surgery so that doctors can try out the cameras and make sure the mechanics are up to par.

“My role is that I ask people if they are interested in participating and if they do agree in participating, I am the one who looks at the fallopian tubes with the device before I remove them,” Heusinkveld said. “Because we’re moving toward something that will eventually help with cancer care, a lot of women are willing to do this. We’re not going to extend their anesthesia time for more than 15 minutes and there’s no harm to these patients.” In this trial, the main priorities are to nd out what a normal fallopian tube looks like and ensure that the operation does not cause harm to the fallopian tubes. “ ere is a huge variation between people,” Barton said. “You really have to understand what normal looks like before you can determine what disease looks like.” e next step after this study is to test the falloposcope in people that are at high risk for ovarian cancer.

Barton has been working on this study for over 20 years, but may be nearing the nalization of her device if the next stages of development run smoothly. Barton’s said her goal is to get a medical device company to license this technology and start producing it once it has completed su cient trials.

“My students and I are building like 30 or 40 of these endoscopes in the basement of our building and we can do that, but we can’t build hundreds or thousands,” Barton said.

Andrew Rocha is a Ph.D. candidate in the optical science program at the university who is working alongside Barton. Rocha

needed to nd a new project two years into his Ph.D. and a new principal investigator who had funding. Barton had made a callout to the college, saying that she had a funded grant to do some endoscope work. “When I applied with her, I let her know that most of my experience was building space optics and most of my internship experience had to do with laser communication satellites and optical systems,” Rocha said. Although out of his original field of interest, Rocha said he knew that this was a notable opportunity to try something new. Initially, he started on his first project which was making an endoscope with the application of trying to do early detection of pancreatic cancer. “I wanted to absorb as much information as I could, so I hopped onto the falloposcope project because they were in the middle of building endoscopes. I had never built anything that small before; I wanted to get that exposure,” Rocha said. JT THORPE | THE DAILY WILDCAT Rocha was able to continue A DIGITAL ILLUSTRATION OF a uterus, fallopian tubes and ovaries. on this team and took part in the initial trials with Heusinkveld. He helped continue the pilot study, which is making sure that the endoscopes are meeting all of the specifications of the design. Before this, Rocha mentioned that he had never even set foot in a surgery room, let alone instructed a doctor on how to use their device. “I think the challenging part about it is we are essentially doing things that have never been done before so everything is a learning lesson, … learning how our medical device is going to be used versus how it works in the lab,” Rocha said. “Everything is so different and I think that’s a really tough part of it — trying to anticipate how things are going to happen in the real world.”

ARTIST PROFILE Jesse Hinson shows domesticity as art

Daily Wildcat photographer Carly Markovich joined MFA student Jesse Hinson for an intimate tour around her studio. Hinson, originally from Cleveland, N.C., is in her final year at the UA’s MFA printmaking program.

Hinson started her art education journey studying painting at the San Francisco Art Institute before transferring to the University of North Carolina at Asheville after two years. She later did two years of post-baccalaureate in ceramics at UNCA.

While in the graduate program, Hinson has taught classes at the undergraduate level. These classes include mapping and relief printmaking. She also works two days a week at a facility in Oro Valley teaching painting and drawing classes for primary school children.

Hinson makes work about the domestic. Being a woman is reflected in the things she is crafting. She has had issues with people respecting her boundaries and understanding her work because it’s about the domestic.

CARLY MARKOVICH | THE DAILY WILDCAT

JESSE HINSON, UNIVERSITY OF Arizona graduate student, stands in front of her in-progress thesis work. She is in her third and final year of UA’s MFA printmaking program.

CARLY MARKOVICH | THE DAILY WILDCAT

THREE PRINTS HANG ON a clothes line inside of Jesse Hinson’s studio. Hinson’s work focuses on the domestic and these prints show intimate moments in the home.

Through her craft art, Hinson reacts to the idea that women artists are taken less seriously than men because what they create is viewed as domestic.

Hinson said she believes a big issue in the craft art world, and the art world in general, are the positions men hold over women. While there were only three male students in her undergraduate program, only one faculty member was a woman.

“I find it interesting because a majority of the people I’ve gone to school with and in the classes that I have taught are women, yet it still feels like the majority of instructors are males,” Hinson said.

In her experience, she has seen that men typically do not seek MFAs because they have a higher chance of getting a job without one than women do.

“It’s interesting that men find their way into instructor and professor positions. Certainly, I have had some great male professors, but I have run across rigid and antique beliefs,” Hinson said.

CARLY MARKOVICH | THE DAILY WILDCAT

A SEWING MACHINE SITS in front of a quilted artwork hanging in Jesse Hinson’s studio. Hinson works with textiles and things that relate to craft histories, bringing attention to domesticity and the history of women in the home.

Find a safe space on campus in the Women and Gender Resource Center

BY VANESSA LUCERO

@Vanessa_Luc31 e small bulletin board above the Women and Gender Resource Center director Kim Dominguez’s desk over ows with thank you cards. Pinned to the board and taped against the wall, the cards serve as a reminder that someone was able to nd help through the WGRC.

“You can impact people and you can make positive change, even if it’s one person at a time,” Dominguez said.

Over the years, Dominguez has kept all the cards and graduation invitations she’s been given by students. ey enforce the notion that her work is meaningful amongst students facing challenges such as food insecurity, gender-based violence and sexual assault.

Dominguez herself faced many challenges while attending the University of Arizona, where she got her B.A. in Mexican American studies and women and gender studies. She grew up in a low-income household with a single mom. During her childhood, Dominguez shared that she noticed social inequities. She remembers wishing there were services for moms and their kids to combat issues she and her own mother faced, such as grocery shopping and trips to the laundromat.

Dominguez was actively involved in ethnic studies during her junior year of high school as a student organizer for the Social Justice Education Project. Dominguez noted this experience left her seeking a feminist environment and a safer space for genderoppressed individuals.

During her time attending the UA, Dominguez’s gender and women’s studies minor allowed her to intern at the Feminists Organized to Resist, Create and Empower, also known as FORCE. FORCE is a feminist internship program through the WGRC that o ers educational outreach and support for the feminist community.

Her FORCE internship ended in 2015, yet Dominguez stayed close to the program and has been working for the WGRC since 2017.

“Regardless of my title, I’ve really tried to be a leader and create consistency for the students, be a familiar face driving our values. I care a lot about the space and the students and their experience,” Dominguez said.

Daniela Garcia, co-director of FORCE, came across the FORCE internship when looking at the UA online club directory. As a rst-generation student, Garcia knew from a very early age she wouldn’t be able to a ord college easily and knew they would need scholarships to graduate debt-free.

“I don’t think I’d be in college if it weren’t for FORCE,” Garcia said. “FORCE is a fun opportunity to create genuine connections.”

Garcia says she owes a great deal of her college success to Mariah Harvey, the coordinator of feminist engagement at the UA from 2019 to 2021. ey noted that Harvey was a good mentor during their FORCE internship and during their transition from high school to college.

Garcia shared the support she feels from the WGRC and Dominguez, explaining that she hopes FORCE will always maintain an intersectional feminist framework and be a truly diverse space.

Genesis Buckhalter-Horne, a UA graduate student in the College of Public Health, is an assistant at the WGRC. Buckhalter-Horne is involved in numerous engagement programs on campus such as the Mothers of Color in Academia, a group aimed at supporting mothers of color during their time in college and beyond.

“With the work that we do, we really try to make sure that we’re amplifying student voices and that they are aligned with student demands,” Buckhalter-Horne said. “A lot of the work that we do is making sure that students have the platform.” e WGRC is located on the fourth oor of the Student Union Memorial Center and is open to those interested in promoting their mission of creating a space on campus for activism.

COMIC: ‘COLLEGE COWBOY’ BY MARY ANN VAGNEROVA

CARLY MARKOVICH | THE DAILY WILDCAT

INSIDE THE WOMEN AND Gender Resource Center on the fourth floor of the Student Union Memorial Center. This center holds events, hosts outsideof-the-classroom learning and raises awareness for the intersectional issues on campus.