Blue & White Magazine: November 2013

blue&white since

1998

U N C - C h a p e l H i l l ’s p r e m i e r m o n t h l y m a g a z i n e

SPENDING TIME ON THE SLOPES UNC-CH’s Ski and Snowboard Team bonds on and off the mountain

INSIDE: One State, One Rate • UNC Theater Goes Hollywood • The Atlantis Project NOVEMB ER 2013 | Vo lume 1 6 | Is s u e 2 | w w w. bl u eandw hitem ag. co m | F RE E

blue&white

UNC-CH Campus Box 5210 | Chapel Hill, NC 27599-5210 Editor-in-Chief COURTNEY LINDSTRAND Managing Editor JESSICA GAYLORD Associate Editor of Content Planning & Development KATIE JANSEN Art Director LISA DZERA Creative Director BRENDAN LEONARD Vice President of Public Relations RACHEL RONDEAU Webmaster DARA SCHWARTZ Treasurer CONNOR BELSON CONTENT STAFF University Editor ANA ROCHA Arts & Entertainment Editor WENDY LU Co-Special Sections Editor CAROLYN COONS Co-Special Sections Editor KATIE KING Photography Editor MARK PERRY Columns/Editorials Editor DALE KOONTZ Blog Editor ANISAH JABAR Writers SAMANTHA BERGESEN, ABIGAIL BREWER, DAVIN ELDRIDGE, BRYAN FRANTZ, SYDNEY HARRIS, CANDACE HOWZE, MEGHAN MCFARLAND, JORDAN NASH, NANA SIDIBE, MORGAN TRACHTMAN, HANNAH WEBSTER Copy Editors JESSICA CASTRO-RAPPL, SARAH CRONIN, MADDIE FLAGER, NANA SIDIBE

Columnists KATE ALBERS, ERIK AUGUSTINE, ESHANY EDWARDS, SARAH LAMBERT, STEVEN WRIGHT Designers CAROLYN BAHAR, DALE KOONTZ, SYDNEY NARAYAN, TARA O’CONNOR, SAMANTHA SABIN, KRISTI WALKER Photographers SHAE ALLISON, CLAIRE COLLINS, LISA DZERA, KATHERINE HARRELL, HANNAH MICKEY, MARK PERRY Bloggers KELLY ANDERSON (columnist), JUANITA CHAVARRO, LIZZIE GOODELL, DELANEY MCGUIRE, SHAWANNE WANG, EMILY WIGGINS (columnist), CLAIRE WILCOX INTERNAL RELATIONS Printing CHAMBLEE GRAPHICS | Adviser JOCK LAUTERER OUR MISSION To inform readers of the unique personalities, events and traditions that define the University’s heritage and help shape its future, and to offer staff members practical and enjoyable journalism, business and management experience.

Blue & White is produced by students at UNC-Chapel Hill and is funded at least in part by student fees, which were appropriated and dispersed by UNC-CH’s Student Government.

Email Rachel Rondeau at rrondeau@live.unc.edu for advertising information.

—————— Front Cover Photo Courtesy of Katie Gerdon

table of contents 16

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in this issue 9 A GREAT RATE DEBATE Students and teachers band together to push for equal financial opportunities for undocumented students.

12 THE INTERNS OF ATLANTIS The Atlantis Program links UNC-Chapel Hill with the Azores Islands, allowing students to enjoy the rich island culture and a unique, hands-on internship experience.

16 TAR HEELS GO HOLLYWOOD Two theater groups at UNC-CH are bringing productions from the big screen to Chapel Hill stages.

19 CREATING A MEDIA MOVEMENT UNC-CH’s newly minted campus chapter of Students of the World sheds light on local, national and global issues through its members’ multimedia talents.

22 MEETING ON THE MOUNTAIN Despite the lack of snow and slopes in Chapel Hill, the UNC Ski and Snowboard team competes hard

in every issue RELATIONSHIP RUMINATIONS

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Sarah Lambert

POP TOPICS 15 Erik Augustine

SIDE(LINE) NOTE

25

Eshany Edwards

CULTURAL CONNECTION

28

Steven Wright

ON CAROLINA TIME

30

Kate Albers

and plays hard.

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that’s hot The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Your favorite dystopian trio is back and ready to fight the power (and look sexy while doing so). We recommend watching in IMAX.

Insomnia Cookies on Franklin

A bakery that satisfies your late night studying sweet tooth and delivers straight to your door? Yes, please.

Black Friday Deals You know the drill: take a tryptophaninduced nap after dinner, then hop in the car and hit the mall.

Reddit Co-Founder Comes to UNC The co-creator of one of the most vibrant (and snarky) Internet communities is speaking in our very own Carroll Hall on Nov. 11.

Homecoming 2013 Between watching drunken alumni swap stories and seeing rapper Wale perform, it’s gonna be a solid weekend.

quad This month we sent our photographer Claire Collins to find unique fashion statements around campus.

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NOVEMBER 2013

in our A Letter From the Editor Change can be scary. Change can be revolutionary.

But, perhaps most importantly, change is powerful. If there is one thing I learned putting together this issue, it’s that students at this university are exceptionally adept at affecting real, progressive change.

The thing is, making a difference is a lot easier than you think. Once you can identify a problem and find a viable solution to it, the only missing piece of the puzzle is how you’re going to get other people to take notice. It’s as simple as standing up and making your voice heard. A lot of the time, the hardest part is gathering the courage to clear your throat.

Courtney Lindstrand is a senior from Greenville.

It may seem like I’m oversimplifying the process, She can be reached at as if it’s exceedingly simple to rally a student body lindstc@live.unc.edu. into motion. But in my personal experience, I’ve noticed that our student body bands together in a really powerful way when it identifies an issue that needs to be spoken about, reevaluated and reconfigured to meet our unique needs.

It’s hard to deny this assertion once you see a group of students standing together for a cause that is important to them. The One State, One Rate movement for in-state tuition for undocumented North Carolina students is a

opinion

that’s not Exams Right After T-Giving

shining example of this, led by a student who was directly affected by the issue (page 9). Or when you see the student push back on social media (tweets and petitions galore!) after policies are enacted that don’t serve our needs, such as the recent shortening of the drop/add period. One of our columnists wrestles with this phenomenon and what it says about our students on page 15.

I think that the volume of the voice of our community is a very influential thing that we should not take for granted. Many people fail to realize how unique it is to have so many young people who share similar values and goals all together in one place. It’s so critical to utilize this while we are here.

You can take advantage of the community and make your own change on campus in smaller ways as well, such as by finding a group of those that share your interests. This could be by getting a group of talented students together on campus to perform a rousing rendition of “Legally Blonde” (page 16) or by finding a void in student life and filling it with others who share your passion, the way the founding members of the UNC-CH Ski and Snowboard team did (page 22).

You have four years to affect change at UNC-CH. The only questions you have left to answer are what you want to do and how you’re going to do it. I suggest you start answering those today!

Before you get a chance to digest your stuffing, you’ll be in the library cramming for ECON 101.

Breaking Out the Uggs Cue every girl’s whining, desperate defense: “But they’re SO comfortable!”

Black Friday Fights Inevitably, we always hear of a smackdown over a deeply discounted TV and then lose a little bit of our faith in humanity.

Demolition of University Square Lets be real­—our only genuine concern here is the future of Time Out.

Unnecessary Movie Sequels Thor: The Dark Lord, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, need we go on?

“Me and my friends made these t-shirts. We wear them at long-boarding competitions.”

Cooper Murphy, freshman “I really like my overalls and I wanted to wear them in fall, so I wore them with leggings.”

Katherine F lippin, sophomore “Some people have to have coffee to wake up.

I just get dressed. It wakes me up to dress nice.”

Ben Lineberger, freshman “I was thrift shopping in Canada and I found this shirt. I like finding cool ideas in thrift shops.

I got these shoes at a yard sale.”

Paige Hanes, freshman www.blueandwhitemag.com

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from the bell Internationally Minded

F illing Up the Bucket

From the historic and refined classrooms of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Saunders Hall, a group of undergraduates meet each Monday evening to discuss pressing global issues.

Be it famine, disease, environmental catastrophe, war, corruption, economic breakdown, or any other menace to any given country within the world, these students work to address such threats as part of the Carolina International Relations Association, or CIRA. Such large undertakings are commonplace for CIRA, the umbrella organization of UNC-CH’s Model United Nations Team.

The club’s activities include educating state youth on international affairs, working with Model U.N. teams from other schools and holding dialogues with diplomats and professionals, such as the deputy director of the U.N. Development Program.

“We do a lot, and there is certainly something for everyone,” says sophomore James Ellsmoor, head of the club’s Campus Affairs division.

Sophomore economics major Brendan McBennett, vice president of CIRA, agrees. He says CIRA encourages members to start their own projects and speak at events.

“A big part is that we have the ability to start your own projects, see them through from beginning to end, see their impact,” McBennett says.

Ellsmoor says CIRA has worked to raise awareness of international issues such as human trafficking, genocide and famine through speaking events.

“We will try to promote discussion of something that people in our club have an interest in,” Ellsmoor says.

Ellsmoor, an economics and geography major from Shropshire, England, says each branch within the group has its own unique functions.

“The organization grew from what it was originally, which was a Model U.N. club, and expanded to a broader group interested in international relations,” Ellsmoor says.

“A lot of our members have interests in careers of diplomacy,” he says.

“We want to get those people contacts and get them the chance to question people who are involved in those interests.”

In addition, Ellsmoor says CIRA has plans to become more active among the student community and will be quite busy this year.

The Model U.N. branch of CIRA will go to Duke University, William and Mary University and the University of Virginia for tournaments. And on Nov. 10, CIRA will hold its first U.N. Film Festival, which it plans to make an annual event, in Hamilton Hall from 2 to 8 p.m.

Dark clouds threatened rain on a dreary Friday afternoon, but nothing was going to stop the five sophomores from completing a bucket list item. Their goal is to complete all 100 items on the Daily Tar Heel’s list of things every student should do before they graduate from UNC-Chapel Hill. Already almost halfway through, the group completed its 44th item: hang a hammock and have a picnic in Coker Arboretum.

High school friends Patrick Hahn, Joe Townsend, Faustina Nguyen, Teresa Nguyen and Bryce Edwards started Project Bucket their freshman year, seeking the true Carolina experience after they got bored of just hanging out in their dorm rooms and studying.

They are documenting the entire process through videos they post on YouTube, and Townsend says he plans to publish a full-length documentary at the end of the four years to show the activities UNCCH has to offer.

“We want this to be an inspiration for people who don’t really know much about campus,” Townsend says. “It’s helped us learn about it. My goal in the documen-

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Members of CIRA listen to a speaker discuss the United Nations Development Program at one of the group’s organized events.

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NOVEMBER 2013

BY DAVIN ELDRIDGE PHOTO BY KATHERINE HARRELL

alumni profile: ALLEN MASK Very few people have the opportunity to work for a Fortune 500 company, let alone two. Even fewer have the chance to pursue a music career. Less than five years after graduation, UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus Allen Mask has done both.

Mask, a graduate of the class of 2010, is part of Google’s Android marketing team in Silicon Valley. He joined the Internet giant after a year of working in finance at Goldman Sachs. However, it’s music that has earned this former journalism major the most notability.

“My grandfather was a pianist, and I was always very active with slam poetry in school,” Mask says. “Somewhere between my love for writing, growing up around jazz and blues, and studying music in college, I ended up making my way into the scene and never looked back.”

While at UNC-CH, Mask co-founded Vinyl Records, a student-run record label and music incubator program that won a national music entrepreneurship competition in 2008. He has already released two albums, Pilot Season and Sweet Dreams.

Mask has also had his talents spotlighted in the media, appearing in The New York Times and on CNBC and VH1. In 2011, he teamed up with students from The Rooftop School, an alternative elementary school in San Francisco, and entered DoSomething.org and VH1’s Save the Music Foundation’s Battle for the Bands competition. His song “Next Big Thing,” which he performed at the Do Something Awards in New York City, won the school a $5,000 award for its music program.

This past February, Mask gave a unique talk at TEDxUNC, something he calls “a crazy honor.” Mask was originally slated to give a talk on music education but asked if he could perform a piece instead.

“My Carolina experience was all about taking risks and doing something new,

to the well tary is to teach people the potential of things you can do here at Carolina, to show people what campus has to offer and to inspire people to try things we normally would never try.”

The group says its favorite item was the first one they completed— play racquetball in Fetzer gym— and the hardest was completing a Daily Tar Heel crossword. The friends crossed the halfway point over fall break after going through the Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen drive-thru, visiting the General Assembly in Raleigh, going to the state fair, and sunbathing in Wilmington. They say they are in no rush to complete the list; they are simply doing the easy ones first.

The five sophomores involved in Project Bucket cross another item off of their “We’re trying to knock them out fast, but we don’t have nearly as much UNC Bucket List: hang a hammock and picnic in Coker Arboretum. done as it seems like,” Hahn said.

“Some of them take a long time—one of them is to see every varsity sport team

BY MORGAN TRACHTMAN play. We haven’t been to any games yet.”

PHOTOS BY LISA DZERA Each list item is videotaped weekly and put on their YouTube channel and Facebook group, Project Bucket: UNC, so that other students can view their progress.

“The more we can spread the word and show people what we are doing and give them ideas, the better,” Townsend says.

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which is exactly what I did with my performance,” Mask says.

While juggling a full-time job and a music career can be difficult, Mask finds a way to make it work. He says that managing rehearsals and performances around work isn’t hard, but the demands of writing and producing music are when he really feels the weight of both jobs.

“Regardless of how exhausting the juggle can be, I wouldn’t have it any UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus Allen Mask balances a rapping other way,” Mask says. career with a day job at Google in Silicon Valley.

“At the end of the day I am an artist and always will be. I’m not useful to anyone without a creative outlet.”

Mask credits his time in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication for helping him find his voice and grow as a storyteller. When asked about his time at UNC-CH he speaks with the familiar nostalgia many Tar Heel alumni share.

“I’d take my four years in Chapel Hill—and all of our alum—over any place with anyone on any day.”

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BY CANDACE HOWZE PHOTO COURTESY OF ALLEN MASK

I’m not a business man; I’m a business, man.

— JAY-Z

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is a junior from Winter Park, Fla. She can be reached at lambert7@live.unc.edu.

Sarah Lambert

Relationship Ruminations

YOU ARE WHO YOU DATE A few weeks ago, my friend—let’s call him “Jake”— asked me how much I knew about a girl who lived on my freshman hall two years ago. I didn’t remember much about her, except that she was friendly, cute and sporty. Jake said he was interested in inviting her to one of his fraternity’s social events. I confirmed that she was neither crazy nor clingy and wished him good luck.

I saw Jake last weekend and asked how his date went. He confessed he never asked her out after learning that her last boyfriend was a sleazy jerk. I asked Jake why that mattered. Surely, a bad boyfriend wasn’t an indication of her relationship behavior.

Jake agreed that on most occasions that’s true, but she had dated this loser for a year.

“What’s wrong with her that she would put up with that douchebag for a whole year?” he wanted to know.

This led me to some very Carrie Bradshaw-like ruminations as I planned this month’s column. (I can totally see Sarah Jessica Parker pursing her lips at a MacBook screen with a dramatic voice-over querying, “Are exes a kind of personality test with which we can better understand ourselves? Do our past relationships indicate our future happiness?”)

For starters, I quake with fear for the day I start sounding like a “Sex in the City” character doling out dating and relationship advice.

Second, Jake’s assessment of this girl was premature. He wasn’t privy to the details of her relationship with the aforementioned douchebag. There could be plenty of reasons why she dated him for so long.

Maybe she liked his confidence. Maybe he was really good at hiding his shady ways from her. Maybe she crushed on him for a long time, and when she finally got the chance to date him, she didn’t want to be the one to call it quits even though he was a major sleaze.

A pattern of similar exes are more telling in this circumstance.

Television personality Alexa Chung recently admitted that all of her ex-boyfriends are lead singers. It’s fair to say that she appreciates a creative guy who likes to be the center of attention, but should an introverted drummer forget his feelings for her? Of course not. He has the advantage of being different from her former flames.

We all have types. I go weak at the knees for well-dressed, bespectacled men who hang out at Barnes & Noble. My best friend says he hasn’t met a blond soccer player he didn’t love.

Being attracted to a certain look isn’t a crime, but being attracted to a certain personality can be detrimental.

The term “daddy issues” is often thrown into conversation in jest, but it’s true that girls look for similar traits in suitors that they find in their fathers.

For example, another girl I know­—let’s call her “Amy”—had a father who was very focused on his career while Amy was growing up, and he never had time to spend with her. Amy knew that her father loved her, but at a young age she (falsely) learned that being ignored translated to love.

Now that she’s in college, Amy dates guys that give her very little attention in relationships. Amy’s exes are an external indicator of her internal problems.

Sometimes it takes a string of similar guys to show a girl what she needs and deserves in a relationship. We’re hardly surprised nowadays when Hollywood pairs the beauty and the brain. The super attractive female character dates a slew of bad boys that treat her horribly.

She then falls in love with the socially inept, big-hearted nerd.

This is especially true in college. We’re all trying to figure out what we want in a significant other. You might dream of marrying a preppy lawyer with a perfect smile, and therefore date any and every toothy-grinned law student this side of Van Hecke-Wettach Hall (that’s where the UNC School of Law is located, for those not in the know).

Yet after dating an assortment of future lawyers who love the sound of their own voices, you might find that you want a quiet, calculating and thoughtful partner. A mathematics major, perhaps.

My advice to Jake: Keep an open mind and ignore the list of ex-boyfriends—for now. But if she mentions she misses the adrenaline rush she got from constantly fighting with her ex, it might be time to move on.

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OCTOBER 2012

Emilio Vincente (left), Marco Cervantes (middle) and Pía Rodriguez lead a discussion and informational meeting for Students United for Immigrant Equality at the Campus Y.

The

Great Rate

Debate

by jordan nash photos by shae allison design by dale koontz

As of now, undocumented students in North Carolina must pay out-of-state tuition—but the One State, One Rate movement seeks to change that.

e

EMILIO VICENTE ALWAYS WANTED to go to UNCChapel Hill, but as he reached the age when most kids begin seriously thinking about college, he realized there was a roadblock.

Vicente came to the United States from Guatemala with his family when he was six years old. He grew up in Siler City, N.C., and attended schools there for almost his entire life. But as an undocumented immigrant, Vicente was not eligible for in-state tuition at UNC-CH. He also was denied access to federal and state grants, financial aid and all of UNC-CH’s merit-based scholarships. www.blueandwhitemag.com

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Vicente says he overcame the language and cultural barriers when he moved to the United States, but there was still a large financial obstacle that stood between him and his dream of attending college.

“I loved UNC [and] I wanted to be a Tar Heel,” says Vicente. “But there was a big chance that I wasn’t going to go to school at all.”

But Vicente got his wish after all when he received a private scholarship that allowed him to attend UNC-CH and covered the out-of-state tuition he had to pay.

dents will graduate high school and continue on to college, according to Golden Doors Scholars, a nonprofit organization that helps provide scholarships for these students. This means that only about 775 undocumented high schoolers in North Carolina will go on to attend college.

As part of his efforts to help other undocumented sudents, Vicente is co-chair of the undocumented committee within the Scholars’ Latino Initiative (SLI) at UNC-CH. SLI focuses on encouraging educational excellence and equal educational opportunity for all students, regardless

“I was really fortunate,” Vicente says. “I know most undocumented students don’t have that. It shouldn’t be about luck.”

Vicente, now a junior public policy major, is striving to take “luck” out of the equation for undocumented immigrants trying to afford college. He wants undocumented students who graduated from a North Carolina high school to be eligible for in-state tuition.

With this goal in mind, Vicente and Pablo Friedmann, a high school math teacher, counselor and dropout prevention specialist, started the One State, One Rate campaign on September 9. The campaign raises awareness about the impediments that exist for undocumented students who want to attend college.

Vicente says UNC-CH would not be breaking any laws by allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition.

He says tuition policies are up to each university or university system individually.

UNC-CH in-state tuition for the 2013-2014 school year was $3,211.50, compared to the $14,102.50 that outof-state students and undocumented students must pay, according to the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid. Friedmann, who works with many undocumented students, says that it kills him to tell bright kids that they must pay more than $40,000 to attend a public university in North Carolina.

“I hope the University will find the courage to become a more public university,” says Friedmann.

There are an estimated 31,000 undocumented students living in North Carolina. Only 2.5 percent of these stu-

of race, class or immigration status through a one-on-one mentoring program between UNC-CH students and North Carolina high school students.

The undocumented committee within SLI is specifically focused on helping undocumented high school students research and apply to colleges. And, most importantly, it also helps them find ways to pay for college.

“Because we have many students that are undocumented, we realized that we needed a committee to solely focus on undocumented students applying to colleges,” says Julia Cedarholm, a senior global studies and romance languages double major and SLI’s co-director of external affairs.

Vicente says that the committee currently advises undocumented students to apply to private universities because these institutions are more likely to give scholarships to undocumented students, since they are not publicly funded.

An attempt was made to change tuition policies for undocumented students through a statewide law when a bill was introduced to the N.C. General Assembly in April 2013.

The bill states that all undocumented students are eligible for in-state tuition if they meet four requirements. The student must have graduated from a high school in North Carolina and have spent a minimum of two consecutive years in a North Carolina high school. The student must also be in the process of filing for lawful immigration status or have plans to do so. Finally, the student must have been accepted to the university and meet all other enrollment requirements.

NOVEMBER 2013

If the bill passes, tuition policies for all public universities and community colleges in North Carolina would change. However, the bill has been stuck in the Committee on Education since it was sent there on April 14, 2013.

Vicente says he does not think the statewide bill will become law.

“It’s going to die,” Vicente says. “We know that.”

He says he believes targeting individual schools will be more effective.

The University of Michigan passed such a provision to change its tuition policy on July 17, 2013. This provision allows undocumented students who are in the process of becoming legal citizens to be eligible for in-state tuition.

Meg Scribner, president of College Democrats at the University of Michigan, says allowing undocumented students to pay in-state tuition was obvious to her.

“My university and the government were effectively denying my fellow classmates their basic right to a higher education because they lacked documentation—a piece of paper,” Scribner says.

“Education is a human right and the greatest means of social mobility in the United States.”

Scribner is also in charge of outreach with the Coalition for Tuition Equality at the University of Michigan. She says many colleges with large populations of undocumented students have already allowed in-state tuition for the undocumented population.

The Coalition for Tuition Equality spent a year and a half lobbying the Board of Regents at the University of Michigan to change the tuition policy.

Scribner says the University of Michigan is unique in that it has constitutional autonomy, something that UNC-CH does not have. Vicente says if UNC-CH wants to allow undocumented students to pay in-state tuition, the entire UNC system would have to pass the provision.

Vicente hopes the UNC system will join the University

“ it’s an education issue.

This is not an

immigration issue, - Emilio Vicente

”

of Michigan, the University of California at Los Angeles, and the University of California at Berkeley in allowing in-state tuition for undocumented students.

So far, seventeen states have also passed in-state tuition policies for undocumented students for the entire state.

Vicente says he hopes the One State, One Rate campaign will show leaders at UNC-CH that people feel passionately about it.

“Right now it’s really hush-hush,” Vicente says. “I don’t think that’s beneficial.”

Vicente says he hopes this campaign get the ball rolling to change the rules. One State, One Rate recently had a call-in day to lobby the Chancellor’s Office to support the campaign. They also have many events planned in the coming months, including an Immigration 101 talk hosted

by Students United for Immigrant Equality to inform the UNC-CH population about what it means to be an immigrant.

Vicente and other supporters are also currently trying to gain a spot on the agenda for the Nov. 20 UNC-CH Board of Trustees meeting to propose tuition policy changes.

“This is not an immigration issue; it’s an education issue,” Vicente says. “We want to be able to be a part of the community.”

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Emilio Vincente holds a poster for the One State, One Rate campaign, a movement he hopes will promote support for tuition equality within UNC system schools.

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The Interns of

Atlantis by abigail brewer design by sydney narayan & samantha sabin

During his time at the University, a UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus conceptualized the Atlantis Project, a program that facilitates internships in the education and health fields.

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NOVEMBER 2013

a

Courtesy of Jessica Maldonado

ACCORDING TO LEGEND, an island in the middle of the Atlantic was once home to a utopian society. The island had a wealth of resources—precious metals and food were abundant—and the culture of the people living there was just as rich. Ten thousand years ago, the island vanished.

Submerged far beneath the waves, it was left to lie on the ocean floor.

Hypotheses have been made about the location of the island, and one of those hypotheses claims that its mountaintops still exist above water in the middle of the Atlantic and are now islands that belong to Portugal. While no evidence has been found to prove this, there is indeed an archipelago in the Atlantic known as the Azores.

The Atlantis Project not only gives students the opportunity to learn through internships in schools and hospitals, but also allows participants to experience the culture and beauty of a new place.

Breathtaking views, like the one pictured right, can be found all around the islands of Azores.

Courtesy of Jessica Maldonado

The islands, which are home to 250,000 people and almost 300,000 cows, are also home to the Atlantis Project, the brainchild of João Toste. Toste, who moved to the United States after living on the Azores for 19 years, got the idea for the project while attending UNC-Chapel Hill.

“Here I am, second year at UNC, living in Old East and having discussions with my friends in the Old East library,” Toste says. “I remember drafting the website for the Atlantis project in the Old East library with my friends.”

Originally established with the broad goal of creating ties between the UNC-CH community and the Azores community, the Atlantis Project has given students the opportunity to learn about the islands’ culture while interning in the education and health care fields there.

Since its launch six years ago, the program has grown vastly. In the first three summers of the program, students from UNC-CH were sent to the Azores to intern in hospitals and schools. In the last two years, the program opened its doors to several other universities, including Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford and Brown. Toste, a 2010 UNC-CH alum, now directs the program as its own private entity, with the revised goal of helping pre-health students become better health care professionals while contributing to the Azores community.

A REGION STRUCK BY ECONOMIC DOWNTURN

Toste still has family ties to the Azores. His mother, father and siblings live on Terceira Island, and he visits them during most Christmases and summers.

Due to the relative poverty of the islands in the 1970s, most of Toste’s extended family emigrated to the United States, while his immediate family stayed behind. Like other southern European countries, Portugal has recently endured a time of economic downturn.

“When people go there, they get to see this reality,” Toste says. “They get to see those things you hear on the news about countries like Portugal, Spain and Greece.”

Two summers ago, Jessica Maldonado, a junior psychology and Spanish linguistics major who knew very little

Portuguese, took part in the education internship offered by the Atlantis Project.

Every morning for six weeks, Maldonado and two other interns made the 30-minute walk from their dorm to the school. Although their main goal was to work with the students to improve their English, Maldonado also learned a lot about the islands’ educational system by observing and speaking with teachers.

“The school wasn’t unorganized, but it was undisciplined. The students were running around in the hallway,” Maldonado says. “I remember in elementary school [in the U.S.], we had to be in a line to go anywhere.”

Maldonado recalls walking into school one day to find an entire class of third-graders wandering the halls. The teacher was absent, and the school hadn’t paid a substitute to come in for the day.

Although the disciplinary system is very different from the United States’, the students behaved in much the same way as they do in American schools. Maldonado had the opportunity to work with both first-graders and 10th-graders. She says the first-graders were adorable and very nice.

The 10th-graders, on the other hand, were a little more rowdy and liked to poke fun at the “little American girls.”

But Maldonado’s cultural experiences weren’t confined to her classrooms. Maldonado has distinct memories of the frequent bullfights that took place on Terceira. Her face lights up describing how the fights were conducted.

“Five men hold onto the end of a rope that is tied around a bull,” she says. “Everyone lines up on the walls, behind walls or in houses. Guys bait the bull and try to get it to run after them.”

The fights took place throughout the summer, and at their peak, there could be as many as three bullfights per day.

LIFE AS A DOCTOR

Since its beginning, the Atlantis Project has focused on providing interns to both the educational and health sectors. But in coming years, Toste plans on turning the

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{ } “I woke up early

every morning

excited to get to work, anticipating what I would see and do that day.”

— Sapna Patel

Courtesy of Jessica Maldonado

Above: Spectators climb up a building’s facade to avoid a bull’s charge during one of the many bull fighting events that take place on Terceira during the summer.

Right: Residents crowd the street during the festival of Sanjoaninas, a weeklong celebration on Terceira.

Courtesy of Sapna Patel

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NOVEMBER 2013

program into one that focuses primarily on health care while giving students the option to teach English on the side.

Toste believes this will help the Atlantis Project evolve into a world-class health internship program.

Toste recognizes the difficulties students encounter while searching for high-quality health internships. He also recognizes that by interning on an island, students have the opportunity to learn about the variety of services offered by most major hospitals in one small, compact hospital.

“The idea of interning on a small island is that you have small hospitals,” Toste says. “Since they’re isolated you have to operate everything in the hospital. You can’t just fly patients over to mainland Spain or Portugal for services because that’s a three-hour flight.”

Last summer, Sapna Patel, a junior environmental health sciences major, worked full-time in a hospital on the island of São Miguel. During her time on the island, she was able to talk to doctors, patients and students about the different levels of health care and medicine provided on the island.

Patel said that because of this, she was able to leave the island with a wealth of new knowledge and an affirmation of her career goals.

“It was interesting to see how their health care system took care of the services they were not able to provide—how patients were recommended to the mainland for certain procedures,” Patel says.

Since the Azores have relatively limited resources, specialists are brought to the island every few months.

Patel wasn’t watching from a distance as doctors evaluated patients—she was alongside them. In addition to watching surgeries, she was also able to sit in on things like family health counseling appointments. While those working with the program remind students to avoid participating in surgeries they aren’t trained to perform, interns are still able to gain invaluable experience in the health care field.

“I woke up early every morning excited to get to work, anticipating what I would see and do that day,” Patel says.

“Every day was dynamic—it could include a slow ER day with no patients or a day with back-to-back consultations scheduled.”

In the future, Patel hopes to work in both public health and medicine, and her experience this summer allowed her to learn about both of these areas. Her internship also confirmed that she wants to devote the rest of her life to medicine and affirmed her love for traveling.

Patel came away with the exact experience Toste hopes all of his interns receive. Not only was she able to learn about the comprehensive health care system, but she also came away with an understanding of the island culture.

But Toste isn’t done dreaming up grand ideas just yet.

From his office in Georgia, Toste spends a great deal of his time listening to student feedback to improve and extend the reach of the program. For the first time next summer, students will be able to intern on the Spanish Canary Islands off the coast of Africa.

Reflecting on the fact that this idea came about when he was only a sophomore at UNC-CH, Toste says, “It came out of this entrepreneurial sense you often see in the student body.” “[If I had gone to any other university] I wouldn’t have started the Atlantis Project. The further along I go beyond college graduation, the more I realize how entrepreneurial our student body is. That’s a huge asset for the UNC community.”

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is a junior from Georgetown, Mass.

He can be reached at aug13@live.unc.edu.

Erik Augustine

Pop Topics

A SUPERIORITY COMPLEX? A consistent point of tension surrounding many universities is the accusation that they are elitist. To those not affiliated with the institution, a university can appear snobby, arrogant and out of touch with the realities of the world around it.

In the case of UNC-Chapel Hill, there is the oft-added complication of being a public university.

If UNC-CH were run and funded privately, the opinions of outsiders would be nothing more than noise­—unfortunate animosity between groups. But the matter of money makes the University’s attitude something that demands examination. Since the beginning of his term, North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory has made it his goal to change the basis of funding for higher education away from enrollment and toward preparation for future jobs, lamenting the takeover of “academic elites” in Chapel Hill.

So, if the policymakers are the ones that make decisions regarding the goings-on at UNCCH, maybe we should look at why we come across this way. It may be worth looking at and around ourselves in order to ask, what is it that goes on here that makes many state politicians and their constituents simmer?

Often, this assertion develops when Chapel Hill tries to distinguish itself from the rest of the UNC system. For example, many within the UNC-CH community were upset by the passing of a new policy that will shorten the amount of time a student has to drop a class from eight weeks to 10 days. UNC-CH officials and students made the point that, while this system may work at other state schools, Chapel Hill is full of students that are diligent and studious enough to not abuse the longer drop period and have actually benefited from it.

These complaints bordered on arrogance as students implied that the UNC system’s flagship needs unique treatment because of its academic superiority.

As a philosophy major, the issue most pertinent to me is the widely held opinion that I’m being over-educated in a manner that won’t lead to future employment. This opinion isn’t unique to UNC-CH’s surroundings. Philosophy has been the default example of a frivolous study for as long as I can remember, earning mockery in various areas of pop culture such as that one episode of “That 70’s Show” (yes, I remember specific jokes). How would I convince a random stranger, whose only awareness of a philosophy major is the general ridicule it receives, that spending a semester reading and writing about whether or not I (or they) exist has any real world application, or gives me a better chance at finding a job? I firmly believe that my education here so far has greatly improved my thinking and my understanding of the world and that it will prove worthwhile economically for me. However, I need to remain aware that the popular understanding of my studies is not very positive.

Beyond my specific experience, American popular culture is marked by a strong quality of anti-intellectualism. This manifests itself in various media, including TV shows and movies about college life that generally categorize serious students either as villains or as laughable nerds. High levels of education are consistently associated with impracticality, awkwardness and detachment from normal society.

A dramatic addendum to the elitist image in Chapel Hill is the political element. If you asked around for a surefire way that a community could distance itself from the overall population of North Carolina, a likely response would be to develop the kind of liberal community that distinguishes our campus. To see the divide between Chapel Hill (well, really the Research Triangle) and the surrounding state, just look at an electoral map. Vocal student activist groups may deepen the alienating effect of the University’s politics on the state’s more conservative citizens.

Many aspects of the culture here in Chapel Hill lend themselves to accusations of elitism and withdrawal from the rest of the state. This does have its upside—the University has distanced itself from what I believe to be problematic and regressive politics and fought to maintain its academic independence. Even so, the grievances lodged at our community are not unfounded. Maybe in one sense we shouldn’t care, or even be proud to differentiate ourselves based on our strengths. However, as a public university receiving tax money and subject to the politics of the state, it seems that UNC-Chapel Hill can’t quite afford to rest easy in an ivory tower.

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O G S L E E H TAR

Actors and directors involved in two of UNC-Chapel Hill’s major production companies discuss what it takes to bring a piece of Hollywood to Chapel Hill.

w

by hannah webster photos by claire collins design by kristi walker

WHILE IT MAY BE MORE TYPICAL for college students to watch a movie in their dorm room than go to a theatrical production, students now have the opportunity to watch their favorite film come to life on stage.

Pauper Players and Company Carolina, two studentrun theater companies on campus, will each produce three shows this year. The companies’ common goals include bringing quality theatrical productions to campus and providing an outlet for students to gain theatrical experience.

And this fall, their productions are coming from the big screen to Chapel Hill stages. Pauper Players will present “Sweeney Todd” from Nov. 15 to 18, and Company Carolina will present “Legally Blonde: The Musical” from Nov. 22 to 24.

SETTING THE SCENE

Richie Walters, the music director for the upcoming “Sweeney Todd” performance, leads cast members during a warm-up excercise.

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NOVEMBER 2013

Actors are called each week and informed of their rehearsal times. Rehearsals take place almost every day, and depending on the role, actors can be called for multiple time slots.

Senior Edgar Harrell, director of “Legally Blonde,” says the time commitment and hard work bring the cast and crew together to make the production process a valuable experience. It is the largest show Harrell has ever directed.

With a 25-person cast and 12-person production team, it is also the largest show recently produced by Company Carolina.

“I just knew I loved the movie,” says Harrell, a double major in communications and mathematics. “I feel like the musical improves on areas that the movie lacked. How can you go wrong with a musical that improves on the source matter?”

Sophomore Shelley Leazer, an ensemble actor in “Sweeney Todd,” also feels the musical version is more complete.

“There is a whole lot that the movie leaves out, so hopefully [the audience] will come in and hear songs they don’t recognize or just see things done differently and have a new love and appreciation for it,” Leazer says. “If we can inspire people to go beyond movies and see more theater, that would be really cool.”

While Leazer participated in theater in high school, she has never acted in a play before at UNC-CH. “I love working with Pauper,” says Leazer, an English

and sociology double major. “We work hard and they are very talented people, but it is a really fun and relaxed environment. You can tell everyone is doing this because they love theater.”

Leazer is not interested in acting as a career, but many members of Pauper Players as well as Company Carolina are using their theater experience at UNC-CH as a starting point for future theater endeavors.

For sophomore Rachael Tuton, who is double majoring in dramatic art and vocal performance, “Sweeney Todd” is her third production with Pauper Players. She hopes to go into acting after graduation and plans to perform in as many shows at UNC-CH as possible. Tuton plays Mrs. Lovett, the principal female character who bakes Sweeney’s victims into pies. She says she is excited to perform in one of her favorite musicals.

“The music is unparalleled. I mean, you should never turn down an opportunity to participate in ‘Sweeney Todd,’” Tuton says. “I think it will draw a large crowd partially because they know the show, but also it’s going to be really well-advertised and it’s going to be [performed] in Historic Playmakers. Historic Playmakers is really rustic and adds to the whole experience.”

In addition to setting, costume design is another aspect of theater productions that is instrumental in developing the scene. Leazer says costumes from “Sweeney Todd” will take on a steampunk, Victorian vibe.

“The costumes are taking an edge that is similar to the movie,” Leazer says. “The fittings were basically trying on pieces [Pauper Players] already had and talking about how they wanted to change them.”

For “Legally Blonde,” Harrell says Company Carolina will draw costumes from several sources: the company

storage unit, a budget allocated for each show and costumes lent from Playmakers Repertory Company, a professional theater company at UNC-CH. Since the play is set in modern times, actors won’t have to create an entirely new wardrobe. Instead, several costume pieces, which include typical college attire, will come directly from the actors’ own closets.

Although most costumes are not replications from the movie, audience members who have seen the movie will immediately recognize Elle’s wellknown playboy bunny costume.

SCREEN TO STAGE CHALLENGES

While producing a show based on a movie may fill more seats in the theater, many actors recognize that it does present challenges. For example, viewers may have expectations when comparing the live production to the movie.

However, the casts and crews from both companies are excited to bring new meaning and a fresh approach to the known works.

“It’s daunting to have these expectations that Reese Witherspoon is Elle Woods,” Harrell says. “I think Jessica Hoffman [the UNC-CH student playing Elle Woods] is as much as Elle Woods as anyone else can be because it’s about the character, not the actress.”

Junior business major Emily Ruffin is performing as the character Brooke Wyndam, the young fitness instructor charged with her older husband’s murder, in Company Carolina’s “Legally Blonde.” Ruffin has been active with UNC-CH’s theater community since her freshman year. As a music minor and having been trained in classical ballet as

“Legally Blonde: The Musical” cast members practice choreography for the musical number “Positive” during a rehearsal session.

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a child, Ruffin prefers musical theater above other kinds of plays.

“I just love ‘Legally Blonde.’ It’s such a fun show,” she says. “The basic plot is the same, and some of the details are the same, but there are some differences and things that are added that are not in the movie.”

For example, Ruffin says her character, Brooke, is portrayed differently and more in-depth in the musical than in the movie.

“In the show, the part is a little bit different. You get to see her as the fitness expert that she is,” Ruffin says. “I think there is definitely a stigma—especially on Elle, but for all roles really. The main thing we are trying to do is be true to the character. If that makes it a little bit different than the character was in the movie, that’s OK.” Harrell says several song and dance numbers and dialogue in the musical also develop characters and relationships better than in the movie. For example, the song “Chip on My Shoulder” deepens the relationship between Emmett and Elle.

Tuton from “Sweeney Todd” says she has also felt pressure in portraying Mrs. Lovett, a character previously performed by actress Helena Bonham Carter.

“I personally like the stage version better than the movie version because [the movie version is] Tim Burton and it’s so dark. The stage version has a lot of comedy and is such a great show,” Tuton says. “The movie leaves out a whole bunch, and the stage brings everything to life and you are more engaged in the story.”

While the shows differ in plot, character development and musical score, one thing that seems to be the same is the director’s approach. Tuton says the director of “Sweeney Todd,” Doug Pass, is collaborative in his directing style, and she says his main goal is to tell the story the way the playwrights intended it to be told.

“I don’t think [Pass] is paying a ton of attention to the movie or preconceived notions about Sweeney,” Leazer says.

“I think he wants to create a story that is very true to what Sondheim [the original composer] intended.”

Harrell, director of “Legally Blonde,” also aims to work with the actors to develop characters with their own style instead of mimicking the versions of characters from the movie.

“I feel like I have a very collaborative approach. I try to select a cast that is going to be very contributing to the vision. I come into rehearsal with an idea of what I want, but I like to let the actors contribute as much as they possibly can to the character,” he says. “I don’t want to take away an actor’s identification with a character.”

While performing a character or directing a show can be a challenge when the audience may already know how the story ends, the cast and crew involved with the shows feel the challenge can be beneficial.

“While it is fun to have people appreciate Broadway or the movie—I love any sort of audience member—but there is something to be said about coming in fresh and there is also something said about having something to compare it to,” Harrell says.

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NOVEMBER 2013

MEDIA MOVEMENT creating a

by wendy lu photos by hannah mickey design by lisa dzera

New to UNC-Chapel Hill this semester, Students of the World uses multimedia to shed light on local and regional issues.

a

photos courtesy of Arianna Holder and Lisa Dzera

AT A UNIVERSITY LIKE UNC-CHAPEL HILL,

there is an organization for every recreational interest, social cause, and set of beliefs. When it comes down to it, students want to leave a legacy that’s deeply rooted in something they’re passionate about. For junior Wynton Wong, that something is making movies.

“The first movie I ever shot was a music video for a Britney Spears song because I found an old tape recorder in my dad’s closet,” says Wong, a biology and communications double major. “That was kind of the beginning of it.”

Over the years, making movies has become more than just about entertainment for Wong. In December 2012, Wong took her multimedia skills to another level and formed the UNC-CH chapter of Students of the World, a national nonprofit organization that produces multimedia to promote awareness of a variety of social causes.

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Wong says she felt like UNC-CH was missing a space for collaboration between on-campus philanthropic organizations and students with media resources and creative skills like photography, reporting and video production.

“There is a gap at UNC where we have a lot of talented media and content creators that didn’t really have an outlet, and we also are a community of very socially conscious students,” Wong says. “Being able to combine media, social issues and change to me and to a lot of other university students across the country seemed like a perfect idea.”

NEW FOUNDATIONS

Before Students of the World became an official student organization and a Campus Y committee this semester, the group had a more broad, international focus.

“Basically [the national organization] would send teams of UNC students to third world countries to document foundations and charities,” Wong says. “And then what they decided was that, one, it wasn’t particularly financially efficient. Sending five 20-year-olds to Malawi and only getting three videos out of it isn’t the most productive way for costs.”

For the first time, the national organization’s executive board decided to create dedicated chapters at college campuses across the United States. The goal was to mobilize university students to produce media for their local, national and even global communities. Over the last year, Wong has worked with the national office, which is based in Austin, Texas, to bring Students of the World to UNC-CH and start on multimedia projects that have a local angle.

Zach Potter, a senior journalism major on the reporting track, says they hope to shine light on important issues close to home and reach out to underserved people in the community.

As the design lead for Students of the World at UNCCH, Potter focuses on the creative side of the organization—“making sure everything goes together, fitting different pieces of the puzzle and making sure [the projects] are all part of the same package,” he says.

ACTION STEPS

For their first pilot project, Students of the World will be featuring Enrich ESL, a Campus Y committee that pairs UNC-CH student tutors with tutees, or adults living in Chapel Hill and Carrboro whose first language isn’t English.

The project will include a promotional video, an infographic and a feature article that highlight Enrich ESL’s mission and the multicultural relationships fostered between tutors and tutees.

Caroline Zullo, co-chair of Enrich ESL, says the organization is in a transitional period, having recently changed its

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The film strip photographs provide a sneak peek into the promotional work Students of the World produced for Enrich ESL, their first project and pilot media campaign for the Campus Y. photos courtesy of Arianna Holder and Lisa Dzera

NOVEMBER 2013

name and headquarters. Just as Enrich ESL was looking for publicity opportunities to promote its mission, Students of the World discovered the group through the Campus Y. “It was such perfect timing because we were having a publicity meeting where Enrich was talking about how we wanted to make a video, but all of our board members weren’t sure how to do that,” says Zullo, a junior global studies and political science double major with a minor in Arabic. “Then [Students of the World] emailed us and said, ‘Can we do this for you?’”

Starting in late September, student journalists and multimedia producers from Students of the World followed Enrich ESL during tutoring sessions. They interviewed tutors and tutees that had been partnered together for the longest as well as filmed footage for the video.

“They got to record firsthand what a tutoring session is like—what exactly that entails,” Zullo says. Interviews allowed tutors and tutees to talk about the impact that Enrich ESL has had on their lives, and how their relationship as tutor and tutee has progressed throughout the semester.

“The tutors were all very energetic and excited about it and there for the right reasons—looking to help—and they really enjoyed their experience,” Potter, who will be writing the feature article on Enrich ESL, says. “I got to hear [the tutees’] stories—it was difficult sometimes because there were different levels of understanding the language. There was one woman I talked to where I needed a translator. I’d never experienced anything like that before, so that was a cool opportunity.”

Once video editing and writing are complete, Enrich ESL hopes to use the promotional materials to help spread the organization’s message around campus.

“We’re really excited about it because this could be a really good opportunity for other students to learn about Enrich. We actually have a new website now and it’s very easy to spread the video through social media,” she says.

Students of the World isn’t just a resource for other campus organizations that are looking to improve their publicity, but also a chance to begin a partnership that can be mutually rewarding for both parties.

Wong says Students of the World is a chance for students who want to inspire change and action using media.

“Students of the World isn’t just for people who already know what they want to do,” Wong says. “It’s for people who know they want to explore and discover what they want to try. If you want to learn how to do things—whether they be editing skills, interviewing skills, photography skills—we have people that are knowledgeable and people around the community with resources who will help you.”

Potter says he enjoys telling stories and getting to know the community, as well as providing a voice for people who wouldn’t necessarily think to speak up in the first place.

“[Students of the World has] given me an opportunity to get out of my comfort zone, which I have been stuck pretty close to for most of my UNC experience,” Potter says. “As far as where it’s going to take me, I don’t know, but I think that’s part of the fun.”

A LASTING IMPRESSION

Working with campus organizations that are dedicated to social causes, like Enrich ESL, is just one part of what Students of the World does. The national organization collaborates with Participant Media, a large media distribution company based in Los Angeles, Calif., that has produced a variety of films, including “Lincoln.” In the spring, Students of the World will pose a media challenge for its 15 campus chapters across the United States to participate in.

Inspired by the national competition, the UNC-CH chapter of Students of the World has decided to host a mini version of the media challenge in November for students taking JOMC 101: World of Mass Communication.

Wong says the challenge will ask students in the class to create a 1-2 minute video based on a prompt within the span of five days.

“It’ll be our first outward event involving people that aren’t specifically in Students of the World,” Wong says.

All videos will be judged by UNC-CH Students of the World executive board members, who will pick the top three videos. The class gets to vote on the grand winner, who will receive a critique session with the university chapter of Students of the World, a one-on-one critique session with a member of the national organization and possibly a cash prize.

At the end of the semester, Students of the World will also have to present their final project portfolio to the organization’s national office.

Each chapter must create media content for a particular social issue—UNC-CH will focus on education in Chapel Hill, with the possibility of expanding to a statewide focus—and then finish all of the project materials by midDecember. The spring semester will be dedicated to an education-focused media campaign, spotlighting the products they finished the previous semester, with the ultimate goal of creating local impact.

Wong says the project won’t just be a “movie coming out,” but the start of a movement designed to begin a dialogue surrounding the issue of education.

“We hope to inspire people to do more and hopefully make the community a little bit closer and a little more educated, a little more well-informed about the amazing opportunities that are offered here,” Wong says.

Josh Richardson (left) and Zach Potter, the design lead for Students of the World, work on plans for the group’s final project portfolio, which will focus on education in North Carolina.

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Wynton Wong, president of the UNC-CH chapter of Students of the World, discusses upcoming projects and goals with team member Josh Richardson.

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Meeting on the

Mountain by bryan frantz design by tara o’connor & carolyn bahar

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Jason Brown performs a tail grab while practicing for the snowboarding regional freestyle competition in Timberline, W. Va., last season. photo courtesy of Katie Gerdon

Although the UNC-Chapel Hill Ski and Snowboard team originally got together because of their love of the slopes, their appreciation for one another has made them stick together even when there’s no snow.

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NOVEMBER 2013

PENGUIN.

That’s what Matt Mears, a snowboarder on the UNC Ski and Snowboard team, calls skier Caitlin Penry. Penry, one of the team’s founding members, is not the one who was dressed in the penguin suit during FallFest, however—that was Jason “Granddaddy” Brown.

Spend enough time around the team and you might meet some of the other characters, including David “Stankalank” Stanley, Katie “DJ Katie G” Gerdon and Emily “Kosmo” Kosmala.

The team is full of nicknames and stories, which is fitting, considering they’re closer than some families.

“The best thing about this team is everyone is weird,” Brown, a member of the PR committee, says. “People appreciate weird, y’know?”

The team enters its fourth season this winter, and its members expect to have the largest team yet. While the founding team, formed in the fall semester of 2010, consisted of just three members, the team has grown significantly each year since. Team President Erin Lunsford predicts 40 to 50 members this season.

For a team with minimal funding and no coach, at a university located hours from the nearest mountains, team members are content with their presence.

“It’s hard to have a big profile in the piedmont of the southeast,” freestyle skier David Stanley says. “The people who really want to find it will seek it out. That’s what I did.”

Stanley, a sophomore computer science major, has been skiing for the majority of his life. He worked at a ski resort near his hometown of Asheville, and his father got him and his twin sister, Hannah, into skiing at an early age.

Brown, a biomedical engineering student from Raleigh, was similarly inclined to find a snow sports team. As a graduate student—hence the Granddaddy moniker—he didn’t have as much access to the team’s advertising on campus, which is often directed towards undergraduates.

But his love for snowboarding and his desire to meet new people brought him to the team.

“I didn’t end up joining until maybe halfway through the year,” he says. “Then it became my life.”

The team has become a priority for many. In just a few minutes with members, it’s easy to see that it isn’t just the love of the slopes that keeps its friendships alive.

During the summer, members of the team will meet up in the arboretum on campus to bond with their teammates through “hammock meet ups.”

“Jason, at any time, has on him a portable speaker, the ‘Jam Box,’ in his backpack,” Skier Olivia Serigano, a political science and biology double major, says. “So set up the Jam Box, get a Frisbee, and put some hammocks in some trees.”

Serigano came to UNC-Chapel Hill from Long Island, N.Y., with Mears, her boyfriend of four years. Both seniors, she is the secretary for the team while he is the treasurer, even though they only joined the team last year on a latenight whim.

“I always say it was the best decision I made since coming to Carolina,” Serigano adds.

As treasurer, Mears has revolutionized the way the team collects dues and supports itself.

An economics major, Mears introduced payment worksheets this season, which allow members to check off which events they plan to attend and what expenses they plan to pay out of pocket.

In return, the team can give members expense estimates for the season.

In previous years, members paid a flat rate, which went toward travel, lodging, food, lift tickets, race fees and other expenses. The problem with that system, says Mears, is that nobody knew exactly where their money was going.

“Last year the dues were 150 bucks,” he says. “We collected them in October and by the start of the season, in January, we had all this money saved up, and we didn’t really allocate it very efficiently.”

UNC-CH sport clubs are required to raise a certain percentage of the funds allocated to them by the University, depending on their position in a tier system used by the sport clubs Executive Board. For this season, the Ski and Snowboard Team has to fundraise 100 percent of the $2,400 they were given.

In addition to the member dues, the team holds fundraising events at local businesses and participates in the UNC Sport Clubs Community Service Incentive Program, which provides sport clubs with service-based opportunities to raise money for their teams. While Mears says meeting the fundraising goal is not a challenge, he wants the team to aim higher.

“Our dues are going to easily cover the hundred percent of whatever that we need, but I would like us to raise a certain percentage of it, not including dues,” he says.

For the team to qualify for the highest tier of UNCCH Sport Club’s hierarchy, they would need to compete for a national collegiate title with regularity. Team founder Emily Kosmala competed in nationals two years ago, and fellow skier Caitlin Penry often finishes in the top 10 in the region. However, the team does not have many other members who can compete among the nation’s best.

photo courtesy of Katie Gerdon

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Emily Kosmala, Liz Shipman and Caitlin Penry prepare to compete at the regionals competition in Snowshoe, W. VA. two seasons ago. photo courtesy of Katie Gerdon

Originally from Denver, N.C., Kosmala founded the team during her freshman year with just two teammates. It has since grown into a team that races five regular season competitions annually, not including regionals or nationals.

Though she has a background in racing, she recognizes that a team facing financial and spatial constraints such as UNC-CH’s is destined to be more fun than competitive.

“The team atmosphere is what made it worthwhile,” she says.

Perhaps Brown sums it up best when he says, “We have an unofficial motto—it’s ‘UNC Ski: We show up.’”

“We’re really good at enjoying ourselves,” Serigano adds.

Much of the team have lengthy histories skiing and snowboarding recreationally. Serigano started skiing when she was two, Stanley started when he was three, and Jack Roberts, vice president of the team, started when he was four, as did Lunsford.

Kosmala, grew up skiing with her three younger brothers on Sugar Mountain, a small village near Boone, which numerous members of the team call their “home mountain.”

Still, they admit it’s a challenge not having a mountain to practice on regularly.

“We don’t have a coach, we don’t have money, we can’t practice anywhere,” Brown says. “Our practice is the competitions.”

“As competitive as we are … it’s way more about just going up to the mountain and hanging out, and much less about actually being competitive and winning,” Mears says.

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NOVEMBER 2013

“You know, we’re definitely not against winning, though.”

As vice president, Roberts is in charge of planning the trips to mountain locales, which includes booking lodging and organizing transportation. A junior from Owings, Md., Roberts majors in public policy and is working on a double minor of biology and sustainability studies.

He says the goal this year is to get a house big enough for the whole team at events. On previous trips, the team has been forced to cram into hotel rooms and condos, often exceeding capacity, and members have been relegated to the floor at night.

While Lunsford would appreciate the added comfort level a house would bring, she mentions a specific weekend in which the cramped quarters brought the entire team closer together.

It was her second race ever, during her freshman year, when the team was still young and only about eight people went on the trip. The competition was at Bryce Mountain in Virginia, and there had hardly been any snow on the course, so the racers were skiing and boarding on dirt by the end of the day.

“We made a team dinner of, like, giant pots of spaghetti,” she says. “We all stuffed our face. We all fell asleep on the floor with the X Games on the TV­; we all just passed out we were so tired.

“It was just such a bonding experience, to have everybody living together in such close quarters and having such a good time on the mountain.”

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Side(line) Note Eshany Edwards

is a freshman from Fayetteville.

She can be reached at eedward2@live.unc.edu.

SHOULD HE STAY OR SHOULD HE GO? The 2013-2014 season for Carolina Men’s Basketball has now begun! I’m confident that Roy Williams and the team have prepared extensively for this season, considering the fact that they have lost six remarkable starters to the NBA in the last two years. Over the summer, they almost lost another—not to the NBA, but to the police. Over the summer, the team survived a major hiccup in the media as 6-foot-5 junior shooting guard PJ Hairston got into trouble with the law.

The Greensboro native was arrested in June during a traffic stop in Durham for the possession of marijuana. The trouble didn’t end there—he was also driving a vehicle without a license. The vehicle was reported to have been rented under the name of a convicted felon. To add fuel to the fire, not even a month had passed before Hairston ran into trouble again. Williams suspended Hairston indefinitely on July 28 after he received a traffic citation for allegedly traveling 93 mph in a 65 mph zone.

At the time, there was a consensus around the school that Hairston deserved the suspension. Seeing that he is one of the most talented players on the current roster of a top Division I basketball team, one would think Hairston would watch his actions, especially after the first offense, but he didn’t.

Despite his suspension, Williams has given him the chance to practice with the team.

In response to Williams’ decision to allow Hairston to stay with the basketball team, athletics academic tutor Jack Halperin resigned. He had worked for UNC-Chapel Hill for 23 years.

“If I were arrested driving with no license, illegal drugs and a gun in a felon’s car, my employment at this University would end immediately,” Halperin said in a statement.

While some people find the tutor’s actions a little too extreme, I personally agree with him. He did not believe in the integrity of the decision, and I do not either. To put it in perspective, do you think as a student there would not be any consequences if you were to commit the same offenses as Hairston?

Chelsea Howze, a junior communication studies major, said she thinks Hairston’s offenses would be worse for an employee than a student. UNC-CH employees who become involved in legal issues are almost always fired. Students, on the other hand, would be reprimanded—but only if the offense directly affected UNC-CH or went against the Honor Code.

Athletes certainly have the privilege and added pressure to represent the University more than the average student, similar to an employee. They also have the benefit of national and university-wide fame to bail them out.

A part of me is torn, considering that Hairston is our leading scorer. We all want to win. It has been four years since the University has rushed Franklin Street in celebration of winning a NCAA championship. With the absence of Hairston on the court and the uncertainty of how the new starters will play together, are our chances of winning slim?

I personally interviewed Hairston in September, and I can tell that he means no harm.

He’s a pretty laid-back guy and all he wants to do is to play some great basketball. When the media first got ahold of his story, it affected him for a while. But as time passed, he no longer let it get to him and he just decided to focus on basketball. He remained pretty quiet about his situation to the public other than an issued apology at the team’s annual media day stating that he was sorry for his mistakes that brought negative attention to the team, the University and his family.

It is very likely that Williams knows Hairston better than all of us and can see firsthand the potential that he has. I believe that as a fellow Tar Heel, we should remain hopeful and supportive of Hairston while he is still here. Let us hope that we see this season unfold as a great one. Go Heels!

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player profile: SHELLIE COHEN For most people, playing with a Frisbee is just a fond childhood memory. For world champion Ultimate Frisbee player and UNCChapel Hill senior Shellie Cohen, the game brings back memories of being able to represent her country.

The first tangible memory Cohen has of the sport was at the age of six. Her father, who had played Ultimate Frisbee as well, taught her how to accurately throw her disc.

By the time she was nine, she had attended her first Frisbee camp. After four years of being a camper, she was a counselor for another two. At 16, she tried out for Team USA’s U20 (under 20) team. Unfortunately, Cohen was recovering from surgery at the time of the tryouts, so running was problematic. Even though she didn’t make the team, Cohen knew she wanted to play at the national level.

“From that moment I was like, ‘I want to be on a team of people from across the nation who are so good at Frisbee,’” Cohen says.

Over time, she got better. She played throughout high school, joined a club team in the region called Phoenix, and now plays for the UNC-CH club team called Pleiades. It wasn’t hard for her to find family within the Ultimate Frisbee community.

During her junior year, a teammate on the UNC-CH club team suggested Cohen try out for a new Team USA that had just been created: U23.

“That tryout experience was even more eye-opening than the one I still remember from five years ago,” Cohen says.

Cohen flew down to Florida for the tryouts, competing with girls from the eastern part of the United States for a spot on the East Coast half of the squad. She says getting to play with players she had only read about in Ultimate Frisbee magazines and articles online was an indescribable experience for her. So when she got a call a few weeks after the tryouts in Florida telling her that she made the team, she can remember exactly how she felt.

“I freaked out,” Cohen says. “I was super excited.”

Over the next few weeks, Cohen completed the workouts that were sent to her, attended the Team USA camp in New York, and then finally headed to Toronto for the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) championships to compete against other countries.

Competing with the best players in the world was something she says she had wanted from the moment she stepped on the field at Team USA tryouts four years earlier. She says taking home the gold made it that much better.

“High-level competition kind of gives you a different mental outlook,” Cohen says. “Giving it all you have for your country and your teammates who mean a lot to you, it just translates well into coming back into playing every single point and proving you are the best.”

From the mental edge she took back from the WFDF to the community that opens its arms to her and the family she has found within it, Ultimate Frisbee helps define Cohen’s life.

When Cohen is stressed over school or the pressure of being a senior, she says she enjoys going to practice with her UNC-CH club teammates. Being out there, playing the sport she loves, is a great way to take her mind off everything else. Not to mention, she’s on the field with some of her best friends.

“It’s like having another family,” she says. “You want to be the best version of yourself you can be for them, not only on the field, but off the field.”

BY SYDNEY HARRIS PHOTOS BY HANNAH MICKEY

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NOVEMBER 2013

sports Right: Shellie Cohen throws the Frisbee to another teammate during a team scrimmage.

Below: Gathering around the coaches after practice, the Pleiades listen as they gain suggestions for how to improve their skills. Shellie Cohen, a senior on the team, sometimes interjects advice she has gained from her many years as an Ultimate Frisbee player.

Do not let circumstances control you.

You change your circumstances.

—JACKIE CHAN

Kau Sze Ta Sheng Pikua Men is a variation of Monkey Kung Fu brought to UNC-Chapel Hill by the Carolina Monkey Kung Fu Club. This variation of martial arts brings together motions often performed with an ax with the movement patterns of monkeys. In addition to its unique name and techniques used, the traditional form of martial arts adds both relaxation and diversity to the portfolio of activities offered by Campus Recreation.

Practices are held twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. They usually start with warm-up exercises, which then evolve into forms—a series of techniques and moves connected together to create an imitated scenario, according to Hinar Polczer, the instructor of the club and a computer support analyst in the Department of Biology. The classes close with a few breathing and relaxation exercises.

“I was looking for some sort of martial arts to stay in shape and learn self defense, and it just seemed like the most interesting,” says Jack Hannon, a senior peace, war, and defense and history double major from Raleigh. “I did try some of the other ones, but they weren’t nearly as exciting or intense.”

The basic stances are much lower to the ground and allow for more dynamic movements than other forms of martial arts, Hannon says. He also added that the discipline involves attempting to deceive opponents.

“It’s really intense,” says Cobey Mauldin, a sophomore history major from Siler City, N.C. “You really have to push yourself to see results.”

Kau Sze Ta Sheng Pikua Men, the variation of Monkey Kung Fu that the club practices, was created in China by a man named Kau Sze, according to Polczer. While in prison for murder, Sze observed the movements of monkeys from the window of his jail cell and analyzed how they defended themselves and attacked other animals—to the point of killing them.

Sometimes described as secretive, Monkey Kung Fu— like other forms of Kung Fu—was usually passed down through families. Attending organized practices like UNC-

CH’s club does is a modern concept.

“If you weren’t part of a family or accepted by the family, you wouldn’t learn everything,” says Polczer.

In contrast, the Carolina Monkey Kung Fu Club isn’t at all secretive. Its goal is to help its members acquire coordination and flexibility, Polczer says. Members rarely have experience upon joining the club.

“We take everyone and help them get better,” Polczer says. “Kung Fu is not about competition.”

Polczer, who is originally from Hungary, first created the Monkey Kung Fu Club in 2006 as a group exercise.

The group then grew into a student club before becoming a sports club in 2010. As a sports club, the group now has access to better practice facilities such as the Woollen Combatives Room.

Polczer was drawn into Monkey Kung Fu when he was 15. Martial arts were popular among young people with the advent of celebrities such as Jackie Chan.

When he moved to the United States in 1997, Polczer brought with him his knowledge of the discipline. Encouraged by his master, Marin Velin­, also known as Chu Li Shao, ­he started teaching in the United States.

The Chu Li Shao School in Hungary, created by Master Velin, is the father school of the Carolina Monkey Kung Fu Club. Master Velin has visited UNC-Chapel Hill in the past, with the most recent visit in March. During his visits, he trains members and offers yoga or self-defense seminars.

The sports club participated in its first competition in April at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Because Monkey Kung Fu is a more traditional form, it is harder to find competitions that offer it.

“There are a lot of wushu competitions, which is kind of a more Westernized and modernized type of Kung Fu,” Hannon says.

The club now has roughly 15 members, compared to 10 during its first year as a sports club. While the number of members fluctuates every year, the group is relatively small, which allows members to hone their developing Kung Fu skills in a welcoming setting.

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MONKEY KUNG FU

shorts

BY NANA SIDIBE PHOTOS BY MARK PERRY

PT Zhang crouches while executing a monkey maneuver.

Instructor Hinar Polczer watches as students perform warm-up exercises at a practice in the Woollen Combatives Room.

www.blueandwhitemag.com

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cultural IF YOU’RE ANYTHING LIKE ME, then you’ve

STEVEN WRIGHT

is a sophomore from Sanford.

He can be reached at stevenwa@live.unc.edu.

probably struggled to identify with a particular culture at some point in your life. I was born in a small town, and even though it’s fairly diverse, most cultures seem unwelcoming if you don’t meet certain ethnic or social criteria.

But when I came to UNC-Chapel Hill, I finally understood that culture doesn’t have to be restricted to where you were born or what language you speak. To me, culture became art and achievement.

On campus, I was approached by a variety of cultural groups, including dance, a cappella, religion, and music organizations—to name a few. These groups were not only eager to help me transition into my first year of college but also to help me find myself. Because of these experiences with culture, I no longer felt alone, and I started to feel like I was a part of something bigger than myself.

So what exactly is culture? I recently spent time with Chapel Hill Chalkaa co-captains Sapna Patel, Bhavik Lakhani and Aisha Venugopal to get an answer to that question.

Chapel Hill Chalkaa is a Bollywood fusion dance team that mixes western dance styles with modern and traditional Indian dance. As members of the team for two to four years, all three co-captains regard dance as a culture of its own. Although Chapel Hill Chalkaa captures many different dance cultures, such as Bollywood, hip hop, fusion, modern and classical, the most important aspect of the team’s culture is found in how members interact with one another, as well as with other dance organizations.

I first learned about UNC Chalkaa last year when I attended Bhangra Sutra, a dance and a cappella group showcase on campus. There were so many groups focusing on different styles, ranging from dance team Kamikazi’s hip hop to a cappella group Achordants’ beatbox and pop variety. Although every group showed deep ties with cultural identity, I couldn’t help but focus on UNC

Chalkaa. The team not only connected with the audience through Indian culture, but they also connected with people who enjoy hip-hop and other contemporary forms of dance that are popular in the United States. Because they intertwined different cultures in their performance, they were definitely a crowd favorite.

Culture is about bringing different groups of people together who share a common interest—regardless of ethnicity, sex or location. For example, Chapel Hill Chalkaa is open for anyone to join. Prior dance experience isn’t even necessary! Instead, the team focuses on creating a diverse culture, fusing people from different social backgrounds, just like the dances they fuse together.

The team also dances at events with other cultural dance organizations on campus, such as UNC Bhangra Elite, Tar Heel Raas and UNC Ek Taal. United by their common desire to spread culture, they interact with each other on a friendly competitive level. I’ve had the opportunity to watch all four groups performing at the same event, and the cultural dynamic was palpable. UNC Bhangra Elite brought to life forms of Punjabi folk dance that is popularly associated with bobbing shoulder and quick, alternating footwork. Tar Heel Raas also focused on folk dance, more specifically the Raas and Garba styles—using two sticks throughout the majority of the performance. UNC Ek Taal appealed to the classical Indian dance with forceful hand and foot movements unique to Bharatanatyam, a dance representative to the fire element in the human body. After watching all of these styles performed separately, it was refreshing to watch Chapel Hill Chalkaa bring them all together in one fluid performance.

Maintaining a cultural dance group is not an easy task.

With team members dedicated to their schoolwork and many other extracurricular activities, it’s important for Chapel Hill Chalkaa to stay organized. Much of the work to maintain a team is split between the members. The

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE PICK-UP LINE? PHOTOS BY CLAIRE COLLINS

DUNCAN SAUNDER, SOPHOMORE

“Are your legs tired? Because you’ve been running through my mind all day.”

SAMANTHA LINK, FRESHMAN

“Did it hurt when you fell from Heaven, you angel?”

connection PHOTOS BY LISA DZERA

team’s three co-captains allocate the different tasks that must be accomplished during the week, such as cleaning up choreography, brainstorming new ideas and promoting future performances. This not only helps the team stay productive, but it also builds a greater sense of camaraderie.

To spread their culture around campus, Chapel Hill Chalkaa will perform at Journey into Asia, a UNC-CH showcase of talent pertaining to Asian culture. The team will also travel to national competitions, such as The Manhattan Project 5.0, a national fusion event, at the end of November. This competition attracts more than 1,500 people from across the United States. The objective of the project is to show the talent and creativity of South Asian student dancers across the country.

Behind the hard work, dedication and perseverance it takes to run Chapel Hill Chalkaa, the team is just a group of people who love to dance, have fun and share their enthusiasm for diverse culture with the world.

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UNC Chalkaa practices dance routines for their upcoming performance in the Journey into Asia showcase.

CAMERON MANNING, FRESHMAN

“Can I Hakunah your ma-tatas?”

HOLLIS DAMERON, SENIOR

“If I were an enzyme, I would be DNA helicase, so I could unzip your genes.”

On Carolina Time Kate Albers

is a sophomore from Mooresville.

She can be reached at kalbers@live.unc.edu.

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CTOPS 2012

A FEW WORDS ABOUT GRATITUDE When I was a little girl sitting at my parents’ dining room table, there were always mountains of food. I could barely see my dad, who was nearly hidden between bowls of mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans and rolls. As we gave thanks, my dad always said, “Thank you for this turkey.” Winking at me and laughing, he would add, “Imagine how the turkey feels.”

This Thanksgiving, that small, seemingly insignificant comment will shape my fall celebrations. Before, during and after Thanksgiving, imagine how the turkey feels, how your friends feel or how strangers feel.

PREPARATIONS

Before we leave for Thanksgiving dinners and family gatherings, we’ll give thanks with our UNC-Chapel Hill family.

Whether in a dorm, apartment or house, we all celebrate in some way. You may have even had to explain the holiday to your international friends. Honestly, who doesn’t want another excuse to eat and relax? At that moment, you gave thanks for your foreign friend.

Some of you may even try to cook a holiday meal in a residence hall kitchen. You’ll buy all the groceries and lug them up eight flights of stairs because of a perpetually broken elevator. Huffing and puffing, all you’ll want to do is eat stuffing. That is, until you realize that you forgot to defrost the turkey.

If you don’t defrost the turkey, you might actually be lucky. It’s much better than setting a fire in your dorm. Although such a mishap may seem to ruin Thanksgiving, you’ll definitely be expressing thankfulness when the fire trucks arrive.

It’s OK; you and your friends can eat cookies and potato chips instead of a frozen or incinerated bird. Maybe next time you’ll even get around to baking a pie.

Just remember to end your UNC-CH family-style Thanksgiving with a toast. Toast to your grades. Toast to those around you. Toast for the courage to go home and face your judgmental family members.

FEAST

When we do finally travel home, we are so grateful for a break from classes that we don’t even mind when our older siblings are bossy. It’s about that time of year when we all start to lose our minds, especially when we remember that finals are approaching.

As UNC-CH students, we feel the need to succeed. As humans, we feel the need to be the best.

Thanksgiving is the perfect time to forget about both of those things. It’s one of the rare times many of us humble ourselves enough to think about our blessings and give thanks—for things besides grades.

To show thanks, we eat and eat and eat. After mashed potatoes and broccoli and rolls and pie and turkey and stuffing, we often look around, smile at our family and friends, and then dig in for a second helping.

After dinner, my aunt almost always has too much to drink and dances around in front of the television. As you can imagine, football game watchers do not appreciate this in the slightest. Last year, as they tried to wave my aunt out of the way, they knocked over the mashed potatoes. The dog cleaned up the mess before we could stop him. In my opinion, our dysfunctional family was more entertaining than any football game, and it taught me to be thankful for one very important thing: imperfection.

As the day continues, some watch football. Others scan through the newspaper ads preparing for Black Friday sales, and even more do what I do: take a good long nap.

RECOVERY

After a relaxing Thanksgiving, I used to dread the return to school. Looming exams and a tiny dorm room seemed so much worse than overprotective parents. But over the months, as I think most students would agree, I came to understand that UNC-CH is not just a school. It is my home.

Now, nothing gives me more pleasure than cramming all my coats and jackets into my best friend’s car as we leave for our second home.

Perhaps the best way to recover from Thanksgiving is to look forward to relaxation. I tend to avoid problems—and final exams fall under that category—so instead of reflecting on political or mathematical theories, I reflect on family.

My biological family and my UNC-CH family are different. I don’t know when it happened, but as I developed my friendships at school, I knew they would always be there for me. It just happened somehow, in the middle of classes, clubs and dorm life. I couldn’t tell you where I was when I realized I had found my school family—my other family. But something I do know is that I care about them a lot. And, what’s more, I’m thankful for them and the good times to come.

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