Thursday, October 12, 2017

The Cavalier Daily Vol. 128, Issue 8

Thursday, October 12, 2017

STUDENT VETERANS SEEK MORE SUPPORT FROM U.VA. PAGE 3

GUIDE TO CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATES

CLASS SCHEDULING HELP ONE CLICK AWAY PAGE 6

MEN’S HOCKEY LOOKS TO REPEAT SUCCESS PAGE 10

LEAD EDITORIAL: CVILLE INCOME INEQUALITY CRISIS PAGE 11

BY GRACIE KRETH, TADD LUHAN, ANKITA SATPATHY | PAGE 4 RICHARD DIZON | THE CAVALIER DAILY

THE CAVALIER DAILY

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In Brief A summary of what’s happened on and around Grounds in the past week

NEWS

By Cavalier Daily News Staff

October 6

Students, community members respond to white nationalist rally with Carr’s Hill protest

Bicentennial launch celebration

Dozens of students, faculty and community members gathered at Carr’s Hill to protest the return of white nationalists to Charlottesville.The group of protesters stood outside University President Teresa Sullivan’s residence chanting multiple slogans, including, “Black lives matter,” “Blood on your hands,” “This racist system’s got to go” and “No justice, no peace, f—k the police.”

A woman identified the people gathered as “a group of people of color activists” in Charlottesville and began shouting demands which were then echoed by the rest of the crowd.

They asked that charges against the people arrested protesting a Ku Klux Klan rally on July 8 and “resisting white supremacy” at the Aug. 12 “Unite the Right” rally

be dropped. In addition, they demanded the removal of all Confederate monuments and called for the resignations of Sullivan, Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer, Charlottesville Police Chief Al Thomas and all City Council members, among other demands.

About 10 police were present during the entire protest, and stood by for approximately half an hour before making an announcement to the crowd.

Around 11:15 p.m., police said the group had three minutes before the protest would be declared an unlawful assembly. When the countdown expired police announced they would begin arresting people. At that point many of the counter protesters left the premises.

RICHARD DIZON | THE CAVALIER DAILY

The University initiated a two-year long celebration of its Bicentennial Oct. 6 with a launch event held on the Lawn, which featured speeches and musical and artistic performances. The event also featured a telling of the University’s history since its founding through animated projections on the Rotunda.

Musical and artistic performances at the launch featured the Charlottesville Symphony, the University Singers, Janice Chandler-Eteme, Glenn Seven Allen, Bill Barker, Leslie Odom Jr., the Martha Graham Dance Company, the University Jazz Ensemble, Andra Day and a finale concert by the

Goo Goo Dolls.

Speakers during the evening included Jody Kielbasa, vice provost of the arts and director of the Virginia Film Festival; University President Teresa Sullivan; Gov. Terry McAuliffe, Rector Frank M. “Rusty” Conner III, Sarah Kenny, a fourth-year College student and Student Council president; and Class of 1979 alumna Katie Couric.

During the events, three students were arrested by University Police for trespassing after they unfurled a banner reading “200 Years of White Supremacy” in front of a screen showing coverage of the Bicentennial.

October 7 Protesters kneel during national anthem at Scott Stadium The Bicentennial football game was met with a protest organized by the Black Student Alliance in order to support both the demands from the “March to Reclaim our Grounds” and those who have taken a stand against white supremacy.

Approximately 20 students clad in black marched to Scott Stadium and kneeled on the bleachers in the student section during the playing

of the national anthem before the Virginia-Duke football game.The protest was held in solidarity with National Football League quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who began kneeling during the national anthem in 2016. The movement has brought attention to forms of institutional racism, such as mass incarceration, voter suppression and police brutality.

White nationalists return for torchlit rally A group of about three dozen white nationalists gathered in Emancipation Park the evening of Oct. 7 carrying tiki torches as a part of a rally they’ve named “Charlottesville 3.0.”

The rally was held in front of the park’s statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which the Charlottesville City Council voted to remove it earlier this year. However, the city has been unable to remove the statue due to an ongoing lawsuit and has since installed a black covering over it.

Prominent white nationalist and University alumnus Richard Spencer was in attendance and live-streamed the rally from his Twitter page.

“We’ll be back, don’t worry sweetheart,” Spencer said. “You’re covering up the statue of a great hero.”

The group remained in Emancipation Park for about 20 minutes with various people speaking and chanting, “You will not replace us!” and “We will be back!” The group left the park shortly after 8:00 p.m.

The rally comes about two months after white nationalists held a torchlit march through Grounds and the deadly “Unite the Right” rally, which ultimately left three people dead and numerous injured.

October 9

Students protest removal of Indigenous Peoples’ Day flyers Members of the Latinx Student Alliance and the Native American Student Union gathered Oct. 9 in the Amphitheater to jointly protest the removal of flyers which promoted the celebration of Indigenous Peoples’ Day. Approximately 20 students and committee members from both organizations were present at the protest and held a banner which read, “Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” Charlottesville City Council voted in September to observe the second Monday in October as Indigenous Peoples’ Day in lieu of Columbus Day, which had been tra-

ditionally celebrated on that date.

Prior to Oct. 9, LSA and NASU printed out roughly 600 flyers and taped them all across kiosks and permitted areas on Grounds.

However, Deputy University Spokesperson Matt Charles said in an email to The Cavalier Daily that the flyers on the kiosks in Central Grounds were taken down by U.Va. Facilities Management in accordance with its policy which requires all posts on kiosks to be cleared each week.

Charles also noted that there is also a limit of one poster per kiosk with regards to the University’s policy.

October 10

Student Council Update Student Council representatives debated their proposed 2017-18 annual budget during an extended legislative session Oct. 10. Following over an hour of consideration, representatives voted to table the budget until next week’s meeting for a final vote to approve. The budget included the total expenses for each of the 10 Presidential Cabinet Committees, such as Academic Affairs, Diversity Engagement and Safety and Wellness. It also showed expenses for Marketing and Outreach, the Administrative Committees, as well as the Executive Board.

The Presidential Cabinet expenses to-

taled approximately $26,000, while the Executive Board budgeted for over $46,000 and the Administrative Committees’ expenses totaled only about $5,000. The entire budget added to $78,419.

Each line item in the budget included information on how it will be funded — through the Student Activity Fee, or simply from Student Council funds.

Over $60,000, or almost 80 percent, of proposed spending was funded through the SAF, with the remainder coming from Student Council’s own funds.

www.cavalierdaily.com • NEWS

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017

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Student veterans seek more support from U.Va. Efforts underway to improve veteran resources Anna Pollard | Senior Writer While most University students enter straight from high school, Grounds are home to a number of veteran students who enroll to begin, complete or supplement their education after years of service in the military.

Currently, there is no undergraduate organization for veterans, but several students have been working alongside Assoc. Dean of Students Aaron Laushway to create a contracted independent organization on Grounds and improve veteran networks.

Kim Johnson, a fourth-year Batten student and Marine veteran, said she encountered a disconnect between veteran resources in the administration and student affairs when she arrived at the University.

Since then, Johnson has been working to implement federal initiatives schools can opt into, such as The 8 Keys for Veterans’ Success, which calls for the creation of veteran organizations and spaces at universities.The University has signed on to the agreement, but it has not fully implemented its components.

“Today, over 2,000 schools have signed [The 8 Keys to Veterans’ Success],” Johnson said. “I’ve been exposed to other schools with really robust programs, and when I got here there was a gap between what I was seeing here and what I've seen at other schools, so I started troubleshooting … [and] I uncovered [that] one of the aspects of the 8 Keys is having a student organization on campus for veterans, so that's one thing we're working on here.”

Laushway and Johnson, along with several undergraduate students, are seeking to bring a chapter of the Student Veterans of America to the University.

“We just submitted an application for a CIO last week,” said Chris Householder, a fourth-year College student and Army veteran. “We’ve been working with the Office of the Dean of Students, and they’ve all been great helping us, and as long as they keep helping us the way they have, I’ll be happy.”

Johnson is still looking ahead to other steps she and the school can take to reorganize veterans affairs at the University, namely creating a centralized and comprehensive office within the University for veteran students to use to connect with one another and communicate problems.

“One of the roadblocks we were running into was that we

needed 10 veterans to start the [CIO] organization, and even though there are plenty of veterans at U.Va., we can't find each other,” Johnson said. “When a school signs [The 8 Keys], they're supposed to designate a space for veterans on campus, and U.Va. has never done that, and that’s pretty key for us to collaborate.”

Laushway said there are about 50 veterans among the undergraduate colleges, and he is working closely with several, including Johnson and Householder, to implement changes to attract more veterans to the University and address existing gaps in the integration of veterans into the

Edison said. “The University should help veterans by offering discounts for trips and activities and having a social scene where people can hang out and network.”

On the graduate level, schools such as the Darden School of Business and the Law School have active veterans groups, with the Veterans’ Student Association representing interests of Darden students and the Virginia Law Veterans advocating for veterans in the Law School.

Will Nagy, a second-year Law student and Virginia Law Veterans president, says veterans comprise about five to 10 percent of

with all the veterans about how to translate experience not only on your resume but in person to a civilian environment,” Nagy said.

“From day one in the military … No one should ever promote themselves, it’s all team based, and it’s really hard for military people to sell themselves in an interview. Training soldiers to get out of the military mindset into selling themselves and personal value to a new experience is important.”

Steven Laymon, interim dean at the School of Continuing & Professional Studies, works closely with veterans who are often drawn to this “non-tradition-

COURTESY WILLIAM NAGY

Currently, there is no undergraduate organization for veterans, but several veteran students have been working to improve their own networks with each other on-Grounds.

University community. “[Veteran students] are a very special group of people — they’ve come to Grounds with professional experience in the military, remarkable skills that range from pilots to mechanics to medical assistance,” Laushway said.

“There is not a council for veterans right now, but that’s one of our goals — we want to expand upon support for our undergraduate veteran students.”

Lerner Edison, a Nursing graduate student and Navy veteran, said he was drawn here because of the University’s academic strength and public status, but agreed there are additional incentives the school could adopt.

“It’s a state school and I was in-state, they have benefits for veterans and the ranking of the program was high so [I knew] I would get a holistic education,”

the Law School’s 900 students, and the organization helps advocate for these students.

“Virginia Law Veterans does advocacy for veterans at the Law School, like convincing admissions to structure their scholarships and admissions incentives that benefit veterans,” Nagy said.

“So for instance, offering someone a full ride scholarship to come to U.Va. when they have all their cost covered doesn't really do anything, but we try to talk to admissions as structuring aid as incentives such as housing or living stipends, which wouldn't cut in on the GI Bill benefits.”

Nagy, who served in the Army, said the Virginia Law Veterans also work alongside students to help translate their resumes with military experience into civilian language.

“Career services sits down

al” school in the University. SCPS provides undergraduate degrees and certifications to students who are returning to school after partially completing a degree or wanting to supplement an existing degree with new skills.

“We have some students who are veterans who are coming back to complete their undergraduate degree — in most cases they already have their associate's degree, [and] often they have their undergraduate degree,” Laymon said. “And they complete a bachelor in interdisciplinary studies, which is a blended program, available with face-to-face classes and online — the good thing about that for veterans is that it’s part time, so it allows them to continue to work.”

Laymon said that of the approximately 60 veteran students enrolled in SCPS programs, many

are attracted to the certification programs focusing on cybersecurity, contracts and procurement, where there is high overlap between veteran experience and professional skills.

“We do have a couple of certificates that have particular interest for veterans, like cybersecurity, so it’s not a surprise that someone comes back out of the service and they find pursing a degree like this appealing to them,” Laymon said. “We also have one in contracts and procurements, and this relates to building contracts between civilian contractors and the federal government. Veterans are well positioned for this work and understand it well.”

Johnson said the University has significant potential to attract more veterans, particularly if it strives toward becoming a school known for its benefits and resources for veterans.

“The University and the value system here of honor and excellence would appeal to and fit great with military culture, and we could make significant impact if we can attract and graduate and start a new career in public service,” Johnson said. “If veterans know this is a veteran friendly campus and there are veterans on the inside who can be ambassadors, then we can attract great students.”

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THE CAVALIER DAILY

NEWS • www.cavalierdaily.com

Six City Council candidates seek two open seats Council candidates discuss their platforms ahead of Nov. 7 election Ankita Satpathy, Gracie Kreth and Tadd Luhan | Staff Writers As Charlottesville has processed the aftermath of the Aug. 11 and 12 white nationalist rallies, many students and community members have expressed a desire for stronger local leadership and a more definitive direction for the city’s recovery.

This means the upcoming City Council election has particular salience, as people look to the six candidates and determine who they will elect to fill two open seats on the five-member council. Issues of key importance to the candidates range from affordable housing, to transportation, to criminal justice reform, among other local issues.

The election will take place Nov. 7.

Heather Hill (D): Heather Hill is currently the president of Charlottesville’s North Downtown Residents Association and has lived in the city for the past 12 years, during that time also serving in several local community organizations.

Hill formerly served on the board of directors of Charlottesville Tomorrow, a local nonprofit news organization that reports on city development, education and politics.

Hill also supported the Shelter for Help in Emergency — an area group that provides food, shelter, clothing and counseling services to women and families fleeing from domestic violence — through her work with the Charlottesville Design House.

The election will take place Nov. 7.

Hill’s campaign includes a focus on increasing transparency and dialogue between City Council and the public, as well as bettering city transportation and infrastructure. Additionally, ensuring Charlottesville remains a friendly environment for families and businesses alike is a key aspect of the candidate’s platform.

“More than ever, our city needs strong leaders who are committed to taking responsibility, finding the answers we desperately seek, and working with our community to solve the city’s most complex issues,” Hill said. “I am that kind of leader.”

Specifically in regards to the violent event of Aug. 11 and 12, increasing the accountability of local government to the people is essential for Hill.

“As leaders we need to work together to foster a culture of city responsiveness and accountability,” Hill said. “[A] lack of communication from the city has resulted in heightened anxiety and misaligned expectations. Looking forward, there must be answers and action plans for how these circumstanc-

es can be prevented in the future — through internal processes and local policies as well as holding our elected officials and city staff responsible.”

According to campaign finance information from the Virginia Public Access Project, a public venue that provides data on elections throughout the state, Hill’s campaign has raised $24,538 so far.

Kenneth Wayne Jackson (I): Kenneth Jackson is a Charlottesville native, and over the years has served in multiple community service organizations throughout the city. Jackson also holds roughly 30 years of experience in business management, and previously ran as a Republican in the 2004 City Council election.Jackson’s campaign is heavily focused on bettering Charlottesville’s public safety and infrastructure, as well as fostering a greater sense of responsibility on the part of the city government toward its residents.

A graduate of local public schools, Jackson is also committed to improving Charlottesville’s education system, a key component of the candidate’s plans to improve the city’s economy.

Particularly in light of recent events, continuing to maintain accountability and a steady dialogue between citizens and the city’s leadership is also critical to Jackson’s platform, according to his website.

According to information from the Virginia Public Access Project, Jackson’s campaign has to date raised a total of $3,717.

Jackson did not respond to request for comment for this article.

Amy Laufer (D): Amy Laufer has been on the Charlottesville School Board for the past six years, and is seeking to bring that experience to a position on City Council.

Since she and Heather Hill won their party’s nomination, they have campaigned together for the two open seats on Council.

Laufer’s key platform issues include the public transportation system, providing city funds for graduating high school students in “fair standing” to attend Piedmont Virginia Community College, improving water quality at the local level and increasing the amount of available affordable housing.

“We’ve had times when we’ve built a lot, times when we haven’t, but ultimately what we’re seeing is that people can’t afford to live here primarily because there’s not enough housing,” Laufer said.

“U.Va. puts a lot of pressure on us because they don’t offer enough student housing so a lot of our residential areas become student housing and this is kind of a con-

stant thing that we’re working with — trying to provide enough student housing but then having enough housing for our own residents.”

Laufer said she plans to work with the Virginia Housing Development Authority on providing more affordable housing, and hopes to see Habitat for Humanity’s efforts expanded as well.

As for the events of Aug. 11 and 12, Laufer said it is difficult to judge the actions the city took at the time under constraints citizens may not be aware of, but said she hopes to help conduct a more thorough investigation moving forward.

“We have a group of very energized citizenry that is feeling like they’re not being listened to and I want to help facilitate more dialogue with them that is not just happening at City Council meetings but is happening wherever they are,” Lauffer said. “We need answers so that we can know what happened so we don’t repeat it … I really hope that the city and U.Va. and the county can work together to do that.”

According to the Virginia Public Access Project, Laufer has raised over $24,000 to date for her campaign.

Nikuyah Walker (I): Nikuyah Walker is an independent running for City Council hoping to improve equity and progress in Charlottesville.

According to Walker’s website, her goals include increased transparency, building additional low-income housing, closing the health gap and guaranteeing all city residents a living wage.

“I want to work with you,” Walker says on her website. “We need to create living wage jobs, improve our schools, and make true affordable housing a top priority.

I know what it takes to navigate complicated governmental agencies and get things done."

Walker’s main goal listed is to create a citizen-centered assessment tool to evaluate city departments and non-profit organizations which provide services to Charlottesville schools.

“I know this is a huge undertaking, but we need to change the City allocation process and implement accountability,” Walker said on her website.

Walker has also expressed concern about those affected by the criminal justice system, writing on her website that she “will ensure that our resource-rich community disrupts the school to prison pipeline.” Walker said that Charlottesville must also be willing to hire those who were formerly involved

in the criminal justice system.

In all of her goals, Walker said she hopes to engage the community.

“To create a Charlottesville that we can all believe in, we need citizens to hold City government accountable and demand systemic changes,” Walker said on her website.

Nikuyah Walker was unable to speak with The Cavalier Daily for this article.

Paul Long (I): This is Paul Long’s third time to run for a position on City Council — the last times being in 2011 (a race he withdrew from) and 2009. He has lived in Charlottesville for 19 years and worked at the University Medical Center for 17 years, but is now retired.

Long’s main goal is to improve public transit for both environmental and economic reasons. If community members reduce their use of cars by using the public transit system, the amount of carbon emissions will decrease. Additionally, Long argues a better public transit system will create jobs, which will bring about economic benefits for the city.

“If more people can get around thoroughly throughout the metropolitan area using public transit, they will have access to more jobs and more economic options than if we didn't have that system,” Long said.

Additionally, Long is opposed to incarcerating non-violent drug users. Instead, he said non-violent drug users should be enrolled in rehabilitation programs “I believe that drug use should be a health issue as opposed to a justice issue,” Long said.

Lastly, Long said he wants to create more affordable housing, as prices for rent have gone up exponentially. He plans to do this using the city’s Affordable Housing Fund.

Long said he has been a Democrat all his life but now he is running as an independent because of his frustration with the current Democratic City Council members who he claims to be too subservient to big business.

He also expressed extreme disappointment in the current members’ actions before and after the events of Aug. 11 and 12. In retrospect, he said there should have been a more adequate warning of potential violence, and he criticized the police response, suggesting the responsibility lies with the council because of their failure to control the situation.

“I believe someone gave the police department an order to stand down and not intervene,” Long

said. “City Council should have taken more management.” He said these alleged actions were criminal and calls for the removal of all five members of City Council from office.

City officials have refuted the claim that a stand-down order was issued.

So far, Long has received a little bit over $500 in donations, which he said he has used for flyers and postage.

John Edward Hall (I): John Edward Hall is running for a position on City Council as an Independent. This is his first time to run in for this position.

Originally from Winchester, Va., Hall attended Texas A&M for his undergraduate degree, then moved to Charlottesville where he got his graduate degree from the University of Virginia. He is a design engineer for Home Medical.

Hall has six patents, two copyrights and one other patent pending.

As for matters of the city, he said is particularly concerned with transportation and condition of roads, and overhanging lights that would allow people to walk home safely at night and for University students to run and jog in comfort.

Hall would also like to improve parking around the city, especially downtown.

“We need to have more garages,” Hall said. “It would get more [cars] off the streets.”

With many goals on his agenda, Hall said he is the right person for the position because of his commitment to hard work.

“I work hard, and I try to prepare, to plan, to have a comprehensive plan of what I want to do,” Hall said.

Hall said he wants to make sure he hears the concerns of community members and create a dialogue.

In response to the events of Aug. 11 and 12, Hall said the current City Council members were trying to do something that wasn’t necessary in taking down the Confederate statues.

Hall said he does not have a source of funding, as he has not received any contribution to his campaign. Currently, he is personally funding his campaign.

“I got into this without knowing the best way of taking care of finances,” Hall said. “I did it for the experience and to see how well I could relate to people in town and grow with them and understand them.”

Hall has asked the community for donations and is waiting for the first person to come forward with a contribution to help him further his campaign.

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017

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Student political groups focus on voter registration Students also involved with cavassing for the gubernatorial election Nik Popli and Maggie Servais | Staff Writers University political organizations such as the College Republicans and University Democrats are increasing campaign efforts and voter registration for the Nov. 7 Virginia gubernatorial election. Student Council’s Legislative Affairs committee is also contributing to nonpartisan election efforts. The groups are primarily focusing on voter registration with the statewide deadline on Oct. 16.

Virginia is one of two states hosting a 2017 gubernatorial election, alongside New Jersey. On Election Day, voters will have the opportunity to vote for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general. The gubernatorial ticket consists of Democratic candidate Ralph Northam, Republican candidate Ed Gillespie and Libertarian candidate Clifford Hyra.

Bradley Katcher is a second-year College and Batten student is the College Republicans vice chairman of campaigns.

“This is a very pivotal election,” Katcher said. “Obviously things have been going on in the national political climate — people are happy, some people are unhappy, and this is really a referendum about how we want Virginia to progress.”

The College Republicans are primarily focusing on getting students registered to vote, Katcher said. The group is also canvassing and increasing outreach efforts as Election Day approaches.

“The most important thing that we’ve been doing right now is to try and get as many people as possible registered to vote,” Katcher said.

“Concurrently we’re doing some canvassing — that means talking to people about the candidates, talking to people about elections, finding out where they see themselves in terms of voting and essentially how we can talk to them about certain issues that are important to them, that are important to the election.”

Going forward, College Republicans plans on hosting debate watch parties, undecided voter forums and other events where people can see the candidates and focus on their policy positions.

“Obviously we have a objective to get Ed Gillespie elected, but the most important thing is that people know who they’re voting for and why they’re voting for them,” Katcher said.

Elizabeth Parker, a fourth-year College student and University Democrats campaign chair, says next month’s gubernatorial election will have a direct impact on students at the University.

“This upcoming election is perhaps the most important election for U.Va. students and for students at universities around the Commonwealth,” Parker said.

CHRISTINA ANTON | THE CAVALIER DAILY

Student political groups have been working on canvassing for gubernatorial candidates as well as increasing student voter registration.

“The most important thing about this is the governor of Virginia appoints the Board of Visitors for public colleges and universities around the Commonwealth, so U.Va.’s Board of Visitors will be appointed by our next governor,” Parker added.

Parker said the University Democrats have been focusing their efforts on getting students registered to vote. The group is also canvassing and making films about the candidates they support. As with the College Republicans, the University Democrats will continue to increase outreach efforts as Election Day approaches.

“Much more of this election, I would say, is spreading awareness about the candidates,” Parker said.

“This year, we’re kind of having to brief people more exactly on who the candidates are and why you should vote for them.”

Parker also shared that University Democrats hopes to continue working with Student Council to create graphics and provide rides to the polls for students on Election Day. The Student Council Legislative Affairs Committee is also taking a nonpartisan lead on contributing to election efforts. Victoria Kasonde, a fourth-year College student and Legislative Affairs co-chair, said Student

Council registered over 100 at the fall Activities Fair and are working closely with the Minority Rights Coalition and Rainbow PUSH Coalition to register more minority voters.

Student Council began efforts for the November election last spring when the Legislative Affairs Committee conducted a University-wide survey on issues students cared most about. The committee was able to lobby for student interests in Richmond and are considering hosting a political engagement week or fair.

“We would like students to have the opportunity to learn about civic engagement, its importance and about platforms of candidates they relate to closest,” Kasonde said.

To prepare students and the University for Election Day, Student Council has been sharing information about polling locations, transportation and necessary materials voters must bring in order to cast their ballots. Kasonde said students will receive information from a University-wide email, reminders on Student Council social network platforms and signs put up on Grounds.

The committee said it may also share election information on Beta Bridge or the Amphitheater as the Oct. 16 voter registration deadline approaches and plan on hosting a bi-

partisan debate viewing party prior to the Nov. 7 election.

“We understand the importance of bipartisanship and collaboration,” Kasonde said. “Without a diversity of thought, character and values, we would not be the organization we are today.”

Parker said the 2016 presidential election has impacted campaign efforts from the University Democrats for the upcoming gubernatorial race.

“I would say last fall’s election really helped us,” Parker said. “We have much more of a background in campaign work now than we did before and we’re able to … use the foundation we laid last fall to elect Democratic candidates this fall.”

However, Parker added that last fall’s election has affected the focus of their campaign efforts this year.

“There are a number of districts in Virginia that Hillary Clinton won in 2016 by a large margin but still have a Republican member of the House of Delegates representing them,” Parker said. “We’re really focusing our efforts on those districts which are theoretically blue districts as long as we have sufficient turnout.”

Overall, Katcher thinks campaign efforts have been well received and successful.

“I would say with regards to can-

vassing and you know voter registration, those efforts have been going extremely well,” Katcher said. “We’re really excited about them. We have a really good group on Grounds I can speak to.”

Katcher noted that the 2016 presidential election has affected voter awareness and engagement this election cycle. He acknowledged a lot of voters’ disappointment with the Trump administration and how national politics have been a focus of the state-wide election.

“I wouldn’t say that this is necessarily a referendum on the election but I think that people are definitely a lot more interested, engaged because of what’s going on in national politics,” Katcher said.

Katcher said he recognized the most important part of the process as showing up to vote.

“The most important part of political activism is actually going out to vote because that’s how you speak, that’s how you make a difference,” Katcher said. “If you don’t like what’s going on, the way you make that change is by electing someone who’s going to pursue different policy, pursue different agendas.”

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THE CAVALIER DAILY

Scheduling help only a click away ‘uva schedule | me’ offers simple solution to course scheduling

LIFE Every student at the University is familiar with the horror of registering for classes — the whirlwind of desperately trying to maneuver the Student Information System and find classes that don’t all occur at the same time. With course registration for the spring semester creeping up on us once again, many students would warmly welcome any method of untangling the muddle of classes, credits and conflicting times.

Fourth-year Engineering students Srikanth Chelluri and Nikhil Gupta are the creators of “uva schedule | me,” an interactive website that allows students to browse courses and sections, build schedules and view course grades. Chelluri and Gupta developed the website as a way to simplify the process of choosing courses each semester.

“I found myself, like, using Excel spreadsheets and pen and paper to like figure out what classes I wanted to take, whether they fit in my schedule,” Gupta said.

“It took forever, especially with planning for, you know, longterm situations like what can I do semester over semester — and so I was just thinking there has to be a better way to do this.”

Chelluri and Gupta, who have been friends since high school, initially proposed the idea of a scheduling tool for a Hack.UVA event. Although they did not follow through with the idea during the event, the pair did develop uva schedule | me afterwards.

They launched their original site, a preliminary version that allowed students to visualize schedules, in February 2015.

Chelluri and Gupta publicized their website through word-of-mouth and Facebook posts, attracting roughly 5,000 users in their first semester of operation. Roughly a year and a half later, in October 2016, the pair spent several months revamping the site based on feedback and requests for new features and functionalities. The improved site was launched early this year and enables students to save and share schedules and view full lists of existing classes, descriptions, times, sections, instructors, evaluations and grades.

“We decided let’s just redo it from scratch and just have one central place where people can do their scheduling,” Gupta said.

“We’re trying to replace Lou’s List and theCourseForum in our site and kind of combine it all into one.”

Today, uva schedule | me has

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Shivani Lakshman | Feature Writer accumulated around 320,000 page views, and there are about 6,300 accounts on the site. Chelluri and Gupta earn revenue from the site through advertisements and donations. However, they are not interested in profiting from their venture. All revenue is used to pay services that keep the site up and running.

After the revamping, Chelluri and Gupta are satisfied with their current site and do not intend to make any more significant changes.

“We’ve had a few feature requests, but the way the site is structured right now after all the bug fixes and changes we’ve made since [the] release is how we think it’s the simplest and most intuitive way to actually schedule your classes,” Chelluri said.

Chelluri and Gupta also allow their data on courses, times and grades to be made available to others who want to develop their own applications related to student scheduling. They recognize that the biggest challenge in developing uva schedule | me was acquiring all the necessary data, and would like to make this process easier for others. Several groups have already reached out to Chelluri and Gupta with ideas for further applications based on the information in their database.

The pair said they have received overwhelmingly positive feedback on their endeavor, and that many University students have found uva schedule | me to be an immensely helpful tool in the course selection process.

Third-year Commerce student Elizabeth Muratore has been using uva schedule | me since her first semester at the University and loves the visual aspect of the site.

“It was actually in a format where you could productively build your schedule and see what fit and how it was actually going to turn out,” Muratore said. “I thought it was really useful, and I’ve used it ever since to plan out my schedule every semester.”

Chelluri and Gupta will graduate from the University in December and May, respectively.

The pair are considering what to do with the website after they leave and hope to find younger students who can continue to work with and maintain uva schedule | me going forward.

RICHARD DIZON | THE CAVALIER DAILY

Fourth-year Engineering students Srikanth Chelluri and Nikhil Gupta are the creators of “uva schedule | me.”

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www.cavalierdaily.com • LIFE

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017

TOP 10

7

REASONS NOT TO DROP OUT OF SCHOOL

Grace Breiner | Top 10 Writer

1. Failing a midterm is totally fine So you failed a test and your ego is squashed, that’s just where you ought to be in life! No one makes it through college with their self-esteem completely unscathed. The more cataclysmic mistakes, the better. May as well let your self-esteem take its hits now while you’re young and can bounce back faster than your GPA. Speaking of your GPA, that is going to take hits too. That doesn’t mean you’re not absolutely perfect, it just means that you’re challenging yourself. Look at you surpassing your previous boundaries. I’m sure it brings tears to many a proud parents’ eye despite having failing grades — what they don’t know won’t kill them.

5. There is that one thing that makes you stay Think about your favorite class, or at least that one class you’re doing super well in. Why would you give that up just because you’re failing everything else? Science be damned, you’re killing the Econ game! Or perhaps you have a sport or activity that makes all of the bad things seem like background noise. Maybe you just like watching sports, or sitting on this one bench or napping on the Lawn. Hang on to that one piece and glide through the rest. If there’s even one thing you absolutely adore about being here — even though I’m guessing there’s more than one because let’s be real, the University is pretty great — then you must stay.

Stay and do what you love!

I’m pretty sure every single person here is going to do something amazing with their lives. Do you ever just see people in the library and think they are probably the next president, best-selling author or ground-breaking scientist? We’ll get to say we knew them way back before they were famous. Or we’ll be them, who knows! You’re here to accomplish something and you’re definitely going after it.

Whether you just want to get your degree and dip out or you’re planning on changing the whole world, what you do here will make a difference, if only to you. Don’t worry, you’ll have time to relax later!

To quote Bon Jovi, “we’re halfway there!”

We already made it through half the duration of our classes this semester with varying levels of success. Nevertheless, our progress cannot be stopped!

With half of the semester gone and winter break looming, we are sincerely excelling.

3. You still have your looks

4. The University would definitely fall apart without you Home is definitely the place to be when you need to relax and recuperate, but college is where it’s at in the long-term. Good GPA or not, college life would miss you if you left! What would your favorite study spots even do without you? If you don’t trip in front of a whole group of people, what stories will they have to tell their friends? Who will annoy the people of Clark if you’re not there to loudly whisper about your problems? The people of our University need you! What would your poor professors do if you stopped coming to class — who would lightly irritate them by loudly eating cookies? Don’t even get me started on what your friends would do without you. You are absolutely the glue of this University.

I mean honestly, every other school is inferior, right? I say this in jest but I might secretly believe it. Sitting in the Harry Potter room, in the Special Collections library, on the Lawn or honestly just in my dorm room, I can’t help but think that the University really is something special.

We all have those “wow” moments when we realize we actually get to go to school here. I don’t think any other place would really motivate us like this place does. And when we inevitably get tired of being driven, there’s Bodo’s and any other number of comforting places to soothe our woes. It’s all about balance, and the University has it in plenty!

8. This is your time to make waves

2. You are definitely coasting already

Maybe academia is really just not the best right now. You’re still super cute! Next time you fail a test, really take a look in the mirror. Not to introspectively self-evaluate, just literally stare at yourself. Look at that beautiful failure! And what better place to be young and mid-meltdown than college? A varying array of self-destructive activities are at your fingertips. Dropping out might seem like a good idea when you get a D back on your Chem test, but then where would you party your woes away? Grades go up and down, but you are consistently attractive.

7. What school could compare?

9. A degree could be nice to have SUDHARSHANA KRISHNAN | THE CAVALIER DAILY

6. You are a “Hoo” through and through I don’t know if you went to the Bicentennial launch party, but if you did, I think we all felt a lot of University pride that night. That’s your Rotunda that Leslie Odom Jr. sang in front of. Every time we open a book or walk down the Lawn, we’re making history simply by being here. We’re overly fond of Thomas Jefferson, and that is perfectly fine because he gave us this beautiful place. It’s those times that we all come together that you really know you’re a part of something incredibly important, be it a football game, convocation or a concert. If you see Tina Fey or Katie Couric on television, remember that we are exactly where they were at this time in their lives. I’m pretty sure we’re just as awesome as them, you guys. We are definitely going to conquer this life game just like they did. When you walk past the Rotunda, affectionately known as “Tundie,” or take a book out of Alderman, remember how cool your life is right now. You are essentially living out the plot of “Gilmore Girls.”

Look, I definitely know that many people have been successful without a college degree. Trust me, if I thought I could pull a Mark Zuckerberg, I would definitely make it happen. On the other hand, I would enjoy saying that I graduated from the University of Virginia. Nobody needs to know with what GPA, right? Think of that sense of accomplishment you’ll get upon graduating. You can officially say that you did one better than Edgar Allen Poe!

10. The real world is terrifying I know the whole goal is to eventually have a career, but just not yet, please. The responsibility is already sending me into a state of panic. Let’s stay in our happy “University-life” bubble just a little bit longer. Living here, surrounded by my favorite ‘Hoos, is nothing short of a small miracle when I think of what the world will have in store for us next. The real world has Pavilion gardens and secret societies, yes? If not, I think I’ll just stay here a little while longer and I suggest you do too. Catch us thriving in the stacks. Drink some espresso and get back after it, my lovely scholars.

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THE CAVALIER DAILY

LIFE • www.cavalierdaily.com

You can never have too much pumpkin A meal-by-meal breakdown of best pumpkin-flavored food from Trader Joe’s Emily Kalafian | Food Columnist It’s finally starting to feel like fall — at least in the mornings.

The sky is bright. The air is clear and crisp. Leaves are starting to change colors. And, of course, everything is pumpkin flavored once again.

If you love pumpkin as much as I do, you are probably already aware of the wide array of pumpkin flavored foods Trader Joe’s sells during this time of year.

From pumpkin tortilla chips to pumpkin cheesecake, Trader Joe’s literally has anything and everything you could ever want to consume in a pumpkin flavor.

While I have yet to try anything pumpkin from Trader Joe’s that I absolutely did not like, it can honestly be a bit overwhelming to decide which items to buy.

Here I’ve compiled a short list of some of my favorite pumpkin foods from Trader Joe’s and what makes them so great.

Breakfast: Frozen Pumpkin Waffles.

These are so convenient for a quick breakfast before class or for a lazy weekend brunch. They have just a slight pumpkin flavor, nothing overwhelming or spicy. I would recommend toasting them instead of microwaving so you

get a slight crispiness. Also, you have to try the waffles with nutella. I learned this from my housemate last year, and the spread seriously takes breakfast to another level of good.

Pumpkin Bagels with Pumpkin Cream Cheese. Yes — another bread-based breakfast food.

There’s just something about gluten and pumpkin that goes so well together. Bagels are also a convenient college breakfast that can easily be taken on the go.

These bagels are not overwhelmingly pumpkin tasting — they just have a bit of spice. What makes them delicious is the addition of pumpkin cream cheese.

It’s creamy and cinnamon-y, and compliments the bagels perfectly.

Lunch: Pumpkin Butternut Squash Bisque. You can find this soup amongst the refrigerated prepared foods near the produce.

Okay, to be honest — if you are a fan of Panera Bread’s Autumn Squash Soup and were hoping that this bisque would taste like it, it does not. However, it is still very good, just in a more savory way. This soup tastes earthy and warm, actually not sweet like you might imagine a pumpkin soup.

It makes a delicious meal paired with a sandwich or salad and tastes great with pumpkin seeds on top for some crunch.

Dinner (because who doesn't love a full day of pumpkin-flavored foods): Honey Roasted Pumpkin Ravioli. So many people are skeptical of this one, but do not be afraid to try it if you like Trader Joe’s ravioli. My favorite way to eat the dish is to toss the pasta into a pan with some browned butter, chopped fresh sage, a sprinkle of nutmeg and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Then top it with some toasted walnuts, roasted butternut squash and shaved parmesan. The ravioli is slightly sweet and tastes incredible if you eat it this way. If you are still not convinced, you just need to try it for yourself.

Snacks: Pumpkin Cranberry Crisps.

All of Trader Joe’s crisps flavors are delicious. These pumpkin cranberry ones encapsulate the warm flavors of fall into deliciously crunchy crackers. They are tasty on their own or paired with goat cheese.

Pumpkin Joe-Joe’s. Honestly, these are way better than the

regular Joe-Joe’s. The cookies taste like pumpkin spice, and the cream has a delicious pumpkin flavor as well. They also have a pretty generous amount of cream, which everyone knows is the best part.

And lastly, just because you can never have too much pumpkin…

Pumpkin Rolls. If you like warm and gooey yet

flaky cinnamon rolls and pumpkin, you will love these. That is all.

KATE MOTSKO | THE CAVALIER DAILY

The University Diner’s Grillswith lives on at Fig Years later, Corner restaurant revives fan-favorite late night dessert Marlena Becker | Food Columnist With the months-long Bicentennial celebration underway, alumni point to the people, memories and traditions that made the University feel like home. However, one University trademark often overlooked is the food in Charlottesville.

One dish in particular seems to evoke strong emotions from alumni. The Grillswith, named at University Diner sometime in the late ‘40s or early ‘50s, consists of two grilled donuts and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Although not the most elegant or innovative dessert, it was definitely a fan favorite. As the perfect treat after a night out, the dessert is rumored to be best when eaten after 2 a.m.

University Diner was an iconic place on the Corner famous for its late hours and no-nonsense waitress Ms. Ethel. The Grillswith was so well loved that when University Diner closed in 1985, other Charlottesville restaurants began serving it, so that students would not have to go without it. The White Spot,

Blue Moon Diner and Mel’s Diner all started serving the Grillswith to both honor the memory of University Diner and satisfy students’ latenight cravings.

The most recent restaurant to start serving a Grillswith is Fig, whose name is an abbreviation for “food is good.” This is perhaps the most special revival of the Grillswith because Fig is located in the same building — 1331 West Main Street — as University Diner was many years earlier. Current owner Anja Andelic learned of the Grillswith’s relationship to Fig when a group of alumni came into the restaurant, asking about the Grillswith and Ms. Ethel. Although Andelic had heard of the Grillswith before, she did not know its origin.

“I learned that the home of Grillswith, which is the famous dessert, was born here within Fig’s walls,” Andelic said. “Ms. Ethel was well known because she would kick drunk fraternity boys out if they couldn’t put a sentence together,

which usually they couldn’t. She had that fly swatter she would hit them [with.]”

Fig serves New Orleans Cajun cuisine, yet owners try to create the same sense of community that was found in the University Diner.

“Fig is fun,” Andelic said. “I like to think of that F as [standing for] family and friends and good things.”

Ruthie Rosenfeld, Fig waitress and second-year College student, agreed with Andelic’s sentiment.

“I always have fun when I’m here … And everyone who works here is so nice and fun,” she said.

Although University Diner’s Grillswith was simply two grilled donuts with vanilla ice cream, Fig’s version is a little more sophisticated. Served in a cast iron skillet, the dish consists of two glazed donuts in a sauce made of butter, brown sugar, bourbon and a few other secret ingredients, topped with organic vanilla ice cream and four different melted chocolates. Sprinkled with powdered sugar, Fig’s

Grillswith looks almost too good to eat — key word being “almost.”

I made sure to order donut, sauce, chocolate and ice cream all in the first bite, and I’m glad I did. The warm donut goes perfectly with the ice cream, and as someone who is not a huge vanilla person, I greatly appreciated the chocolate. The highlight of the dish for me was the sauce — rich and warm, it wrapped the dish together perfectly. Because of how sweet it was, half of a Grillswith was plenty for me. This being said, I was enjoying it at 6 p.m. on a Wednesday, instead of the traditional 2 a.m. on a Friday.

All in all, if you have a big sweet tooth I would definitely recommend Fig’s take on this University classic.

Perhaps the most unique aspect of Fig’s Grillswith is the price. On the dessert menu, the Grillswith is listed without a price, leaving customers with questions for their server. “[The Grillswith is] pay as you

can, pay as you will, pay as you wish,” Andelic said. “There’s not a correct price or a wrong price whatsoever. Whatever you think it deserves, it deserves.”

Customers gives the Grillswith the price is deserves — usually somewhere between $8 and $12. The Fig dessert menu lists the Grillswith as having a price of “1K.” Andelic said the most important part of the pay as you wish pricing model is that is leads to conversation between the guest and server and allows people to reminisce.

“Whenever people ask about desserts, that’s the one I recommend,” Rosenfeld said. “It’s a fun story, so it’s always nice to talk about that one.”

Clearly University Diner has left a legacy worth noting. I can only hope that, in another 200 years, students will still be eating the Grillswith on the Corner — or maybe some restaurant will be letting you pick a price for its knock-off of the Gus Burger.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017

S

9

Football travels to North Carolina Cavaliers will look to start ACC play 2-0

SPORTS

Rahul Shah | Sports Editor The Virginia football team carries a three-game winning streak into Chapel Hill this weekend, as it gets ready to take on North Carolina for its second ACC matchup of the season. Virginia (4-1, 1-0 ACC) is coming off of a gutsy 28-21 win over Duke, in which the Cavaliers proved that they are capable of beating a good team even when they aren’t playing at their very best — as they had in their two previous wins against Connecticut and Boise State.

North Carolina (1-5, 0-3 ACC) comes into the game reeling, having lost three-straight games, and suffering a litany of injuries. Despite the injuries, Virginia junior outside linebacker Chris Peace said the Tar Heels are still a good team that can give Virginia some trouble.

“I know they have a few injuries … They’re a young team right now,” Peace said. “But, they’re very capable so far from what I’ve seen, so we definitely don’t want to overlook them.”

For the first time in several seasons, Virginia is facing increased expectations. Following their win over Duke, the Cavaliers are determined to stay focused on the goal of winning one week at a time, rather than looking ahead at the fact that they only have to win two of their remaining seven games to reach a bowl game.

A key part of that ideology remaining vigilant, as players on the team, including senior inside linebacker Micah Kiser, went through a similar start to the season three seasons ago and stumbled down the stretch. The Cavaliers started the 2014 season 4-2

and failed to earn a bowl berth.

Virginia Coach Bronco Mendenhall talked about the stress of Kiser, one of the team’s leaders.

“It's reasonable because [Kiser is] realistic in addressing the brutal facts of what the possibilities are,” Mendenhall said. “All this — any momentum can be extinguished … One game or one win or one loss doesn't determine the outcome of a season, but yet the teams that are able to focus on the next game — cliché as it is, like it's the only game — have the best chance.”

Thus, Virginia is taking a week-by-week approach to their schedule and not overlooking anybody. Peace said that he will approach facing North Carolina’s redshirt freshman quarterback Chazz Surratt the same way he would if the quarterback was a

CHELSEA BENGSON | THE CAVALIER DAILY

As one of Virginia’s best players and team’s leaders, Blanding already plays a huge role on a 4-1 Virginia football team that is surprising fans and critics alike. However, this past Saturday’s win over Duke showed exactly why Blanding is the player the Cavaliers need to play well. Senior quarterback Kurt Benkert, who had been on fire in recent weeks, struggled early on against Duke. He threw two interceptions, including one that was returned for a touchdown. Blanding’s pick-six in the first quarter proved monumental in ensuring that Virginia did not fall behind early, giving Benkert some time to find his rhythm. Blanding needs to take advantage of an injury-plagued North Carolina receiving corps to keep Virginia in close games while allowing for the offense to pull away as the game progresses.

Junior failback Jordan Ellis Since taking over the reigns at starting running back at the beginning of the season, Ellis has put up a respectable 81.6 rushing yards per game in Virginia’s pass-heavy offense.

Against Duke, the junior quietly rushed for 96 yards against a defense that was giving up only 80 per game. Though he only averages four yards per carry, Ellis is a workhorse who can get the offense into a great rhythm when he’s performing well.

With that said, Ellis has the chance for a breakout game against North Carolina’s leaky rush defense. The Tar Heels have allowed opponents to run for 247.1 yards per game against them this year, and were recently gashed by the running attacks of Georgia Tech and Notre Dame for more than 340 yards each. North Carolina has been sneakily decent against the pass, but it hasn’t faced a great passing quarterback this season besides Louisville junior quarterback Lamar Jackson.

Ellis can help Virginia put this game to bed and take some pressure off Benkert with a big pressure on the ground. He’s due for a big game, and this may be his best shot yet.

“It's just the same game and different location,” Mendenhall said. “I'm just not a believer in making more of something, regardless of history, than it needs to be.”

Mendenhall added that putting too much emphasis on the fact that the game is on the road takes away from the focus and energy that can be used to help prepare for the actual game.

“I like all of our focus to be on our current preparation, our current assignments [and] our current application of what we're being taught,” Mendenhall said.

“There's just not much more room for anything else to occupy their minds.”

Saturday’s game between the Cavaliers and Tar Heels is scheduled to start at 3:30 p.m. at Kenan Memorial Stadium in Chapel Hill, N.C.

The Keys

Players to Watch #3 #1 Senior free safety Quin Blanding

senior.

“I’m not going to just jump to it just because he’s a freshman,” Peace said. “I’m not going to overlook anybody. He’s capable, just like anybody else. I’m heading into this week playing just like I would [with] a senior quarterback.”

Despite North Carolina’s 1-5 record, Mendenhall said that the Tar Heels are a very adept team and Virginia will need to be prepared — at its best.

“They're a capable team,” Mendenhall said. “It's still so early. It's early for rankings. It's early for records. It's early for anything.”

This game will only be Virginia’s second road game of the season. Mendenhall said Saturday’s game — being on the road, rather than at home — will not be turned into a big deal.

Keeping constant pressure on offense

THE

K E YS

TO FOOTBALL

ARUSHI KUMAR AND AISHA SINGH | THE CAVALIER DAILY

Virginia versus North Carolina — a breakdown

By CD Sports Staff With a bye week immediately following a huge road win for Virginia, many wondered how the team would play against Duke this past Saturday. Would this be a trap game for a Virginia football team that was playing above expectations, or would Virginia rise to the occasion? The Cavaliers answered those questions this past Saturday in a gutsy win over the Blue Devils, showing that they are a team that is not resting on its successes of previous weeks.

It will be interesting to see if Virginia can win its fourth-straight game this weekend, as it gets set to take on North Carolina. This week, the CD Sports staff takes a look at some players and keys to watch out for this Saturday.

CHELSEA BENGSON | THE CAVALIER DAILY

Turnovers Benkert had been stellar in avoiding turnovers through the first four games of the season this year.

Through four games, he had only one interception. He threw twice as many in Saturday’s win over Duke, including a pick-six. Though Virginia pulled out the victory, Benkert will have to avoid costly turnovers help Virginia gain a bowl game berth. The Cavaliers are a team that has begun to be noticed, even receiving votes in the Coaches Poll this week. Thus, Benkert will need to minimize mistakes that opponents can take advantage of. As Virginia plays better offenses this season, it won’t be able to always rely on its defense forcing turnovers and scoring to stay in the game. Benkert will need to lead Virginia to hotter starts right out of the gate, so that Virginia’s talented defense can play more freely and with less pressure.

The Virginia offense has shown this season that it can be explosive and score in spurts with prolific wins over Connecticut and Boise State.

In the other three games, however, the offense has been a bit inconsistent and sluggish at times, forcing the Cavalier defense to spend a lot of time on the field. Though the defense has answered the call many times, Virginia will surely look to correct some efficiency issues with some winnable games this month.

Look for Virginia Coach Bronco Mendenhall to throw some wrinkles into the offense against North Carolina — perhaps some wildcat looks with freshman all-purpose player De’Vante Cross or one of his famous trick plays — to try to confuse the Tar Heel defense and keep it on its toes. Benkert may show more aggression through the air, reverting to more of a Boise State mentality than the short-passing game he had to employ against Duke. If he and the offense can find some constant success in moving the ball throughout the game, North Carolina will have a hard time hanging around on Saturday. If not, this game could get tenuously close.

10

THE CAVALIER DAILY

SPORTS • www.cavalierdaily.com

Virginia men’s club ice hockey team looks to repeat success Cavaliers take on James Madison Friday night Johnny Grassi | Feature Writer

COURTESY U.VA. CLUB HOCKEY

The Virginia men’s club ice hockey team take on rival James Madison Friday night at 9 p.m.

The Virginia men’s club ice hockey team had a simple goal heading into this season after winning its first ACCHL championship since 2000 last year.

“To repeat in an even more dominating fashion,” senior defenseman Henry Pollock said.

It’s been exactly that for the Cavaliers, as they currently boast a 6-0 record and come off a very successful weekend in North Carolina where they won three-consecutive games against NC State, UNC-Chapel Hill and UNC-Charlotte.

“We want to dominate the league and win every game by a wide margin,” Pollock said.

Pollock’s words reverberated through the locker room and inspired action, as the Cavaliers outscored the three North Carolina teams 18-9.

This Virginia team has not

skipped a beat despite losing a solid core of eight seniors last year, which could have eaten away at the team’s depth. Fifthyear graduate forward Kevin McCollum rejected the notion that the team lost depth, especially with the influx of highly-talented freshmen and transfers.

“I think it’s worth saying one of the things I’ve always liked about our team is the depth we had,” McCollum said. “We have a parity on our team unlike any other team in the league — if you look at the stats, no one really stands out. Up and down our lineup, we have skill, and that’s why I think our team has done so well in the past few years.”

Virginia’s success can be accredited to the team’s strong work ethic, as well as the experience of many of its older players, who have been playing since their

childhood. This includes Pollock and McCollum, who both have been with the team for at least four years and strive to be leaders for their new teammates.

The Cavaliers seem to work just as hard as their NCAA counterparts. Players strive to make their teammates better every day and to ensure that everyone is on the same page come game day by dedicating themselves to two practices a week — on Monday nights at 10:45 p.m. and Thursday mornings at 7:45 a.m. The players self-run their own practices once a week and incorporate drills that they have taken from playing high-school or travel hockey.

McCollum said that the practices are “extremely constructive and important,” as it allows for him to learn about the skillsets of his new players and learn their respective playing styles so that

they can build a strong rapport during games.

“We push each other every practice because we all have the same goal at the end of the day, and that’s winning another championship,” McCollum said.

Winning a back-to-back ACCHL championships would be a tremendous feat for the Virginia men’s hockey team. It would truly be the icing on the cake for a team, which is likely spending its last season playing in the downtown Charlottesville Main Street Arena after Taliaferro Junction, LLC and Jaffray Woodriff purchased the rink. There have been unbelievable memories for both fans and the players who have enjoyed their Friday and Saturday evenings getting rowdy and playing their hearts out. “[Losing the rink is] a pretty unfortunate thing,” Pollock said.

“It’s definitely disappointing to see, but the team understands the economics of the situation.”

As the longest-tenured player, McCollum feels a deep connection to the rink.

“I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t be a little emotional leaving this year,” McCollum said. “I’ve played on the team for the past five years and it has been a really big part of my life. I’ve made a ton of great friends along the way, and I just really look forward to playing each and every week. Main Street Arena was one of the cooler hockey rinks I’ve ever played at being situated right on the downtown mall.”

The Cavaliers will enjoy what's left of its time this season, as they take on rival James Madison Friday night at 9 p.m.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017

O

Charlottesville’s income inequality crisis

OPINION

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11

U.Va. students should come together with other Charlottesville residents to address this crisis

ollowing the terrifying events of Aug. 11 and 12 and the subsequent Concert for Charlottesville, many members of the University community are asking themselves how they can maintain a sense of unity with other Charlottesville residents. While this is not an easy task, it is worth trying to achieve. An essential factor that plays a role in connecting with life beyond Grounds is understanding the socioeconomic conditions which afflict the city.

To many University students, Charlottesville is a city steeped in history, with great scenery and in-

comparable food; what they don’t know is that income inequality in Charlottesville is larger than any other city in Virginia.

A recent study by the Economic Policy Institute reveals that income inequality is a nationwide problem in the United States — in fact, the income gap between Americans has risen in every state since the 1970s. The study found that “in 24 states, the top 1 percent captured at least half of all income growth between 2009 and 2013, and in 15 of those states [including Virginia] the top 1 percent captured all income growth.”

This phenomenon afflicts states all the way to the county level,

and often times remains overlooked by affluent community members. In the City of Charlottesville, the average income of the top one percent is $1,604,407, while the average income of the bottom 99 percent is $43,652. This crisis in income disparity has not been seen in Charlottesville for decades, and it helps explain a number of other issues — such as gentrification — the larger Charlottesville community is currently facing.

The rise of this so-called “1 percent economy,” at both the national and local level, is a result of policies, such as right to work legislation, which continue to fa-

vor the wealthy and hurt the poor.

Levels of collective bargaining and unionization are at historic lows not seen since before 1928.

Moreover, the federal minimum wage buys fewer goods than it did in 1968. The detrimental effects of such policies on low-income households and individuals have become evident, and it is time to demand more from our local leaders. This crisis offers University students and community members an opportunity to come together and support policies which promote broadly-shared prosperity.

The effects of income inequality are intergenerational; studies

have found that, in the United States, the children of affluent parents remain affluent, and the children of low-income parents remain poor. Virginia has an opportunity to demonstrate to the nation new and more equitable policies. As residents of the city with the largest income disparity in Virginia, Charlottesville community members — including University students and faculty — have a responsibility to come together and demand their government to enact the policies our country needs to become a land of opportunity for all, beginning with the Virginia Gubernatorial election on Nov. 7.

THE CAVALIER DAILY THE CAVALIER DAILY The Cavalier Daily is a financially and editorially independent news organization staffed and managed entirely by students of the University of Virginia.

The opinions expressed in The Cavalier Daily are not necessarily those of the students, faculty, staff or administration of the University of Virginia. Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the editorial board. Cartoons and columns represent the views of the authors. The managing board of The Cavalier Daily has sole authority over and responsibility for all content.

No part of The Cavalier Daily or The Cavalier Daily online edition may be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the editor-in-chief.

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MANAGING BOARD Editor-in-Chief Mike Reingold Managing Editor Tim Dodson Executive Editor Carlos Lopez Operations Manager Danielle Dacanay Chief Financial Officer Grant Parker EDITORIAL BOARD Jacob Asch Jordan Brooks Carlos Lopez Brendan Novak Mike Reingold JUNIOR BOARD Assistant Managing Editors Lillian Gaertner Ben Tobin (SA) Hannah Boehlert (SA) Evan Davis (SA) Trent Lefkowitz (SA) Colette Marcellin (SA) Alix Nguyen

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COMING TO TERMS WITH HISTORY IS NOT ENOUGH Draw on the sins of the past, and our discomfort at our history, and use it to build a better future for U.Va.

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t is probably no coincidence that I should come to write this piece just as it is beginning to truly feel like fall. Fall, of course, being the most aesthetically pleasing of the four seasons, has a way of bringing out the University’s beauty most spectacularly. The bright leaves settle on the lawn, and the cool, cloudless skies contrast brilliantly against the Rotunda. Admiring such things, however, comes with quite a bit of self-imposed baggage nowadays. One cannot take a tour of the University without learning of the central role of slavery in its construction. One cannot walk past the serpentine walls without imagining the forced laborers who once tended to the gardens. One cannot walk past the statue of Jefferson on the north side of the Rotunda without recalling how recently it was lit by the fire of tiki torches, or how Jefferson’s hands remain stained by a vandal’s red paint, as they have been for weeks now. There is a phrase which that I think well summarizes the palpable discomfort permeating every aspect of our University — “the personal is political.”

This phrase was popularized by feminist activist Carol Hanisch, though she does not claim to have

come up with it. The idea of the wide-reaching societal consequences of one’s personal decisions and

cultural holes in its wake where there was once coherency. One can well acknowledge every single

Criticism without purpose, without a clear and immediate vision for the future in mind, can only be destructive.

judgements can certainly be of value in diagnosing some of our ills and encouraging a sense of responsibility. Since Hanisch’s initial use of the phrase in 1969, this postmodern adage has grown in both the scope of its use and the breadth of its definition. History is political, entertainment is political and the political is — more than ever — very personal.

The problem with this relentless analysis and deconstruction lies in its proposed solutions — more specifically, the fact that there are none. It is is concerned only with critiquing the present, and does not consider the future in anything but the most vague terms. As a result, this sort of criticism leaves gaping

interpersonal, intersectional connection present in all aspects of life and society, however what can one do with such information? What are we left with? People resort to advocacy, to awareness-raising and to contextualization. None of these, however, present any coherent vision of our future as a society. Rather than being constructive, such movements are movements of reflection. They ask us to pause, to look backwards and try in vain to come to terms with the crimes and idiosyncrasies of our past. Such reflection can be valuable — necessary, even — to achieving progress.

However, reflection is not sufficient to achieve progress. Criticism without purpose, without a clear

and immediate vision for the future in mind, can only be destructive.

The fact is that it is impossible to ever completely come to terms with the cruelties of history. History is full of the most senseless suffering imaginable, of unnecessary and irrational violence and endemic ignorance. Our University is certainly no exception. Progress, however, consists of those precious nuggets of wisdom and truth that rise to the surface of that ethereal body of history. We should acknowledge that such advances are often borne of cruelty and freak chance, but for these very reasons we must hold on to them all the more dearly, for they are our rare respites from such suffering — glimpses at what mankind is truly capable of.

The question remains as to how one ought to feel walking around Grounds. One is constantly reminded of our history, at times admirable and at other times despicable. My advice would not be to block out and ignore that which makes us uncomfortable, but rather to draw on that which empowers us. The history of our University is one of both oppression and vision, and today it stands as an institution in which truth can be pursued as we see fit. We have stumbled into the

present moment without grace or complete intent, yet here we are.

Today, students are free to ask difficult questions and challenge norms, to advocate for causes and have their voices heard. Students of all backgrounds now reside in Lawn rooms, and lectures on hip-hop are given in The Rotunda. Problems and inequities certainly remain, but in many ways our history empowers us to address these issues. Here, it is our obligation to “follow truth wherever it may lead.”

Fall is finally upon us, and soon the University will assume its most spectacular form. As we walk around Grounds, we should not feel guilty when soaking in the spectacle. Feel free to wallow a bit, to be inspired to use this institution to your advantage in spite of its history. Our past is complex and contradictory, much like our founder’s.

Today, however, this University stands as an indispensable tool in the pursuit of truth and justice, and one shouldn’t deny oneself the pleasure of taking it all in this fall.

BEN BURKE is a Viewpoint writer for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.

RESPECT ALL STRATEGIES FOR RESISTING WHITE SUPREMACY The implication that some forms of resistance are better than others betrays a disregard for different personal experiences

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here is much to criticize about the Concert for Charlottesville. Last Sunday, the activist organization Solidarity Cville came out with a strong condemnation of the weekend’s unity concert in response to the acts of terror committed by white supremacists on Aug. 11 and 12. Declaring “No Unity Without Justice,” they called for a greater focus on rejecting white supremacy and questioned the leadership of individuals like University President Teresa Sullivan and Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer. Many of these important criticisms, however, were driven by an implicit suggestion that students can only respond to Aug. 11 and 12 with direct action.

We should have nothing but respect for those who put their bodies on the line to resist systemic oppression. But we must never stop respecting other forms of resistance as well.

Representing both Charlottesville community members and students of the University, Solidarity Cville raised many criticisms that absolutely ring true when thinking about the concert’s and the University’s shortcomings. The full list of the “No Unity Without Justice” demands is available online, and it’s an important read. One of their most salient points is that we must reject the effort to rebrand. Students at the University have a perhaps

unparalleled ability to advertise on behalf of their institution at the drop of a hat. Promotional jargon for the University –– from Honor to Grounds to Student Self-Governance –– is always at the tip of our tongues. Branding is central to the student experience here, and thereby poses a unique threat to efforts at radically reevaluating policy and procedure. We must make every effort to continue feeling the shame of the white supremacist marches rather than using the concert as an excuse for moving on.

I do, however, take issue with the language Solidarity Cville uses to implicitly criticize all those who have not participated in direct action resistance efforts. Solidarity Cville’s “False Unity” flyer begins with the following sentence: “We represent the front-line activists, students, and community organizers who have been confronting white supremacy in streets and board rooms throughout Charlottesville.”

This is true. Solidarity Cville has been confronting white supremacy in the arenas they list –– streets and board rooms and other spaces for protest. But these responses to Aug. 11 and 12 are not the only avenues by which students can forge a more equitable future. I’m reminded at this point of second-year student Natalie Romero’s comments at the Aug. 21 “March

to Reclaim Our Grounds.” Romero was attacked while protesting white supremacy on Aug. 12, and she –– along with all other students present for those protests –– is an undeniable

ly that student organizers should be supported and institutional leaders should be held responsible, at least in part, for Charlottesville’s August violence. But the phrase “those who actu-

Branding is central to the student experience here, and thereby poses a unique threat to efforts at radically reevaluating policy and procedure.

hero. At the “March to Reclaim Our Grounds,” though, Romero said that “she wished more students had turned out to counter-protest.” “Where were you all?” I remember her asking.

More protesters is, of course, a good thing for resistance. But the suggestion was that all students had an obligation to be present on Aug. 11 and 12, regardless of their mental health or personal safety concerns or any of the other factors that differentiate one person’s skill set from another’s.

The False Unity video denounces the hypocrisy of supporting “city officials and University presidents over those who actually show up to defend the community.” I agree wholehearted-

ally show up” gives me pause. There’s a judgement there –– a suggestion, again, that direct action is the only valuable action. It suggests that other forms of resistance are cowardly or second-tier.

Aug. 11 and 12 have left us with many difficult questions to consider.

Among these are questions of how to appropriately respond to acts of terrorism, and how a person should be expected to respond to trauma in general. It seems clear to me, at least, what the answer should not be to these questions. Namely, that all students must respond in the same way.

This idea ridicules the real challenges students might face when consider-

ing potentially dangerous situations.

What about the student who suffers from panic attacks in large crowds?

What about the minority student who is rightfully concerned about police brutality?

It also disregards all the good that is done in other ways. It minimizes efforts like Madison House’s #DearYoungPerson campaign and other attempts to spread hope or press for change by other means.

Front-line activism is vital to the work of challenging systems of oppression. It is not, however, the only way to fight back, nor should it be. Solidarity Cville should be praised for its courage in challenging the presiding opinion regarding the intentions and effects of the Concert for Charlottesville. And it should work to value and support the full spectrum of strategies employed by students to Reclaim Our Grounds and fight white supremacy.

JACK CHELLMAN is a Viewpoint writer for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017

www.cavalierdaily.com • OPINION

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CITY COUNCIL HAS FAILED CHARLOTTESVILLE Charlottesville City Council bears significant responsibility for the violence and division that has come to Charlottesville in recent months

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harlottesville’s City Council has damaged the city it is supposed to serve. It has consistently shown both poor judgement and a lack of foresight when responding to the recent white supremacist and white nationalist activity which has taken place in Charlottesville over the past several months, and is largely to blame for bringing such activity to Charlottesville. By causing courts to consider the legality of moving the Robert E. Lee statue, it brought unnecessary attention to Charlottesville, causing white nationalist and white supremacist groups to focus their attention here. Were it not for their incompetence, Charlottesville would not be the epicenter of white supremacist activity in America today.

On Feb. 6, Charlottesville Vice Mayor Wes Bellamy and City Councilors Kristen Szakos and Rob Fenwick voted to relocate Lee statue from Emancipation Park to McIntire Park, with Charlottesville Mayor Mike Signer and City Councilor Kathy Galvin voting against such action. Bellamy, Szakos and Fenwick acted in total disregard for Virginia law, which forbids war monuments from being disturbed.

Such action was in vain — no matter how the Council voted, it would

require a change to the Code of Virginia from the General Assembly to lawfully relocate the statue.

In response to the City Council’s vote, several plaintiffs — including the Virginia division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans — sued the city in March for attempting to disturb the statue. Additionally, white nationalist rallies broke out on May 13, July 8 and Aug. 11 and 12 in relation to the issue.

On Sept. 5, the City Council unanimously voted to remove the statue of Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson from Justice Park. Additionally, since the unrest, the City Council has repeatedly shrouded the Lee statue, drawing yet more unnecessary and unconstructive attention to the issue. Instead, the City Council should have examined what happened as a result of initially addressing the question of removing the statue. If Virginia’s citizens want the law regarding war memorials changed, they will vote for representatives in future elections who agree the statute should be revisited. Until that has been clearly established, the Council should act within its realm of authority and avoid tackling such contentious issues.

The legality of removing the statue is currently under review.

On Oct. 4, Charlottesville Circuit Court Judge Richard Moore ruled that Title 15.2 precludes the removal of monuments — including Con-

spurring further counter-protests.

Those who belong to radical groups like the Ku Klux Klan, Antifa and others which brought violence and

The City Council did not act in the best interest of Charlottesville by attempting to bypass the General Assembly in passing a resolution of questionable legality.

federate memorials — constructed before the law was enacted. Such a ruling allows the plaintiffs’ case against the City of Charlottesville to proceed. City officials argue that the statues of Confederate Generals Lee and Jackson have no association with the Civil War and by extension are not protected by Title 15.2.

Judge Moore ruled that the plaintiffs must prove that the statutes constitute as war memorials to be protected.

Hate will persist in our country and throughout the world no matter what action the Charlottesville City Council takes or does not take. Spencer and other white nationalists returned to Charlottesville on Oct. 7 to hold another rally,

division to our city ultimately bear responsibility for their actions.

However, the vast majority of those people are not from Charlottesville or even Virginia. The choices of the City Council brought these hateful individuals to Charlottesville and scarred our community.

While the memorialization of the Confederacy remains a contentious issue in Virginia and across the country, the City Council did not act in the best interest of Charlottesville by attempting to bypass the General Assembly in passing a resolution of questionable legality.

Not only does it show general disregard for the rule of law, but it also resulted in a cascade of unintended consequences that Charlottesville

was clearly not ready to handle. The violence that broke out during the Aug. 11 and 12 rallies was allowed to escalate to a point where the safety of the public could not be guaranteed. In continuing to draw attention to the statues, the Charlottesville City Council has shown they have learned nothing from the mistakes that lead up to the tragedies in August.

None of the City Council members deserve to be entrusted with any amount of responsibility on a municipal level ever again. I call on all of them to resign in disgrace for their culpability in attracting hate to our home. They have shown a preference for expedient decision making over critical consideration of their actions and their ramifications. In order to ensure the safety and continued prosperity of our city, we must demand higher levels of competency, wisdom, foresight and leadership from our elected officials.

THOMAS FERGUSON is a Viewpoint writer for The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.

BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION SHOWCASED U.VA.’S HISTORY U.Va. did not refrain from projecting even the most challenging aspects of its history

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wo hundred years of University history — both good and bad — were celebrated on the Lawn last Friday night. Performers including Leslie Odom Jr., Andra Day and various student groups came together to tell the story of the University’s illustrious past. A captivating projection mapping display visually showcased the transformation of the Lawn from the laying of the first cornerstone on Oct. 6, 1817 to the pioneering academic institution that the University has become today. While the better parts of the University’s history were certainly showcased, the organizers of the Bicentennial Launch Celebration did a worthy job of also exhibiting the not so admirable parts of University’s history. The freed and enslaved laborers who built the University, Thomas Jefferson’s ownership of slaves and the very recent admittance of women to the University were all represented in the event. The Bicentennial Launch Celebration was a time to reflect on all parts of the University’s history — and a time to plan the creation of a more accepting, inclusive and progressive University in the years to come.

The observance of milestones and birthdays presents a time to reflect on and learn from history. After all, as

George Santayana said, “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” By acknowledging the more difficult aspects of the University’s history, the next two years of the Bicentennial Celebration present an opportunity for students, faculty, alumni

the Bicentennial Launch Celebration did not attempt to dodge the challenging aspects of University history.

Instead it confronted them directly

— starting with the commencement of the evening with the projection mapping of freed and enslaved labor-

The Bicentennial Launch Celebration did not attempt to dodge the challenging aspects of University history.

and the rest of the country to learn from the University’s troubled past and improve the institution for the years to come. The celebration highlighted the advancements in equality that the University has seen in the last 200 years — including the admittance of women and individuals from a variety of nations, ethnicities, cultures and socio-economic levels. These additions have only served to enrich the diverse academic environment that Thomas Jefferson envisioned for the University.

Unlike other University events,

ers constructing the Rotunda and the academical village. After the construction of the Lawn, the performance displayed images of the first students of the University — white wealthy men. With this depiction, the celebration acknowledged that the majority of current students would not have been accepted at the University two centuries years ago. This serves to not only demonstrate the changes which can occur over a relatively short period of time, but also the merits which increased diversity has brought to our institution.

From the first class of students at the University, the projection mapping continued to trace history through the Civil War. The performance acknowledged the roles that students played on both sides of the war, with the majority fighting for and supporting the Confederacy. Following the mapping of the Civil War, the descendants of freed and enslaved laborers of Monticello were welcomed onto the stage. Several of the descendants candidly recounted the stories of their ancestors. The organizers of the Bicentennial could have easily omitted these individuals from the celebration, but by including them in the event a more accurate and complete history of the University was showcased. This thorough portrayal of University history continued throughout the night.

University alumnus Katie Couric welcomed to the stage several of the pioneering women who were among the first to graduate from the University in the mid-1970s. The youthful smiling faces of these women served as compelling reminders of recent systemic inequality at the University — that less than 50 years ago women graduated from the University for the first time.

This open confrontation of the imperfect history of the University demon-

strates a divergence in the manner in which University history has been conventionally discussed.

Many argue that the Bicentennial Celebration is a commemoration of 200 years of white supremacy, but the celebration did nothing to refute this claim. It embraced all aspects of the University’s storied history regardless of how challenging or controversial they are. While the University did not openly denounce Thomas Jefferson for being a slave owner, pledge to knock down the Rotunda or promise the removal of all statues to Thomas Jefferson and other white supremacists on Grounds, the University provided a comprehensive and accurate portrayal of history while maintaining the positive outlook of the launch celebration. As the Bicentennial celebrations extend over the next two years, let us look to the coming years as we continue to excel and advance our University towards a more just and inclusive future.

MARY ALICE KUKOSKI is a Viewpoint writer for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily. com.

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HUMOR Welcome back to the “U.Va. News Roundup,” your home for a completely factual (and not at all satirical) compilation of entirely truthful events happening around Grounds. Please, put your dumplings down, your iClicker away and change that SIS password once more as you settle in for today’s takes.

Our first story tonight involves newly-named University President James E. Ryan. Ryan has announced that his first policy as president will be to imple-

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CARTOON

THE CAVALIER DAILY

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U.VA. News Roundup ment a brand new “Three Strike Policy” when it comes to the lingo of the school. That’s right, if you accidentally throw out the word “sophomore” or happen to call these hallowed Grounds a “campus,” then you will be given a strike. What happens when you receive three strikes? Great question. As the old song goes, “It’s one, two, three strikes you’re out,” so any student who incurs three of these penalties will be automatically ejected from the school, no questions asked. So study up on your University lingo, freshmen, or else you might be on a different campus. Damnit.

Our second story of the night involves last Friday’s Bicentennial Celebration event. Although this event was undoubtedly considered a success by students and administrators alike, there was one dark shadow on an other-

wise luminous night. If you’re thinking of that extensively long opening song, then you’re right! Students and alumni were shocked to hear the same two minutes of music repeated over and over a good four or five times. There’s no denying the talent of all the musicians and singers on the stage, but the song was universally criticized for being universally terrible. “It was a bit long,” lamented University Football Coach Bronco Mendenhall, who echoed a similar sentiment expressed by Leslie Odom Jr., who attested that the song was an “amalgam of quotes from the Declaration of Independence and nothing more.” The Honor Committee is reportedly pressing charges against the composer of said song for plagiarism, stating that the song “directly drew from outside sources (the Declaration of Independence)

without proper citation or credit given.” We here at the U.Va. News Roundup will keep you updated on any further developments in the case.

Our final story tonight is about a certain character everyone has been seeing around grounds. Of course, there are many quasi-famous University celebrities — such as Wheelie Kid — that everyone can recognize around Grounds. However, in recent years a new character has emerged around the University: Sensitive Indie Boy. These days, it is easy to find Sensitive Boy around the University due to some major giveaways. Sensitive Indie Boy can be found wearing cuffed pants that lightly hang above a slightly worn pair of Birkenstocks or Vans. He can be identified by a t-shirt referencing some obscure band or by a short-sleeved, button-down shirt

that just doesn’t fit him quite right. He is constantly plugged into headphones, listening to the newest Mac Demarco record or something of that nature. You can quickly identify him by the tone of his voice, usually pleading to some girl that he is “different from those frat boys she used to date” and that he “totally gets her.” Is Sensitive Indie Boy doing all these things for a reason? What are his motives? You can find out for yourself, or you can tune in next week for some more U.Va. News Roundup.

BENJAMIN MILLER is an Humor columnist. He may be reached at humor@cavalierdaily.com.

MIRIAM DU PLESSIS | THE CAVALIER DAILY

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PUZZLES

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THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017

WEEKLY CROSSWORD PUZZLE Dan Goff | Arts and Entertainment Editor

EVENTS

Wednesday 10/11 Girl Up at UVA Presents: Case Competition and Info Session, 8-9pm, Rouss-Robertson UVA Research Park Presents: Fall Food Trucks, 11am-2pm, Research Park Harry Potter Trivia Night, 9-11pm, Mellow Mushroom PSG and Women, Gender & Sexuality Alumni in Residence, 12pm, Newcomb 481 Gym & Juice Free Workout, 5:30pm, Corner Juice UVA Dining Presents: Sustainable Taste Cart, 5pm, Newcomb Dining Hall Thursday 10/12 Sing Africa by Toto on the Rotunda Steps, 9-9:05pm, The Rotunda Charlottesville City Council Debate, 6pm, Wilson 402 UVA aKDPhi Presents: Midterm Care Packages, 12am, Clark Hall Friday 10/13 Pi Beta Phi and Phi Delta Theta Present: Oktoberphest, 4-6:30pm, 1508 Grady Avenue The Rocky Horror Picture Show, 8-11:30pm, IX Art Park Harmonious Hoos Fall Concert, 8-10pm, Maury Hall OYFA Presents: 4th Annual Lakas 5K Glow Run, 6-9pm, Nameless Field UPC Presents: Messy Paint Night, 9pm-1am, Newcomb Hall Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America Screening, 2-4pm, Newcomb Theatre Saturday 10/14 Women’s Soccer vs. Clemson, 7pm, Klockner Stadium The Whethermen Present: The 20th Anniversary Alumni Show, 7-10pm, Chem 402 SHHO Presents: A Throwback DJ Night, 10pm-2am, Crozet Pizza Coffees of Charlottesville, 2-5pm, OpenGrounds Virginia Women’s Chorus Present: Women Against Violence - Let There Be Peace Benefit Concert, 8-9:30pm, Old Cabell Sunday 10/15 A Night of Sufi Music, 7-9pm, Old Cabell Hall KSA at UVA Presents: Korea Day, 2-5pm, McIntire Amphitheatre Shakespeare on the Lawn Presents: Sound Workshop, 5-7pm, SAC Monday 10/16 Media Studies Society Presents: Skillshare Clinic, 11am-12:30pm, Clemons Library UVA Career Center Presents: CPE Workshop - How to Stand out at a Career Fair?, 2-3pm, Newcomb Hall Go Greek Fair, 6:30pm, Newcomb Hall Virginia Homecomings Presents: First Year Kickoff, 5-7pm, O-Hill Dining Hall UVA Career Center Presents: Fall 2017 Healthcare Consulting Night, 6-8pm, Career Center Tuesday 10/17 Field Hockey vs. Maryland, 5pm, Turf Field Men’s Soccer vs. Radford, 7pm, Klockner Stadium Madison House Presents: Milk and Cookies Study Break, 12-1:30pm, The Lawn ISC Study Break: Create Your Own Trail Mix, 8-10pm, ISC Lunchtime Talk: Samuel Kootz Gallery by Rebecca Schoenthal, 12-1pm, The Fralin UVA Career Center Presents Health Careers Shuffle, 6-8pm, Newcomb Hall Wednesday 10/18 HackCville Presents: App Development for Social Impact, 6:30-8pm, HackCville Ross Gay Poetry Reading, 5-6pm, Special Collections Library CPE: Workshop: How to Stand out at a Career Fair?, 1-2pm, Newcomb Hall

Across

1

1. High-profile vehicle

2

3

4

8

5. Ocean 8. Relating to gameteproducing organs 11. Poultry and beef, for example

5 9

10 14

16

17 19

22

14. You might see a movie or a play here

26

27

17. Here, all eyes are on you usually in a bad way (two words)

32

18. Roman spelling of Chinese capital 19. What Virginia might get to compete in if they keep winning games

33

34

21 25 29

31 35

40

41

45

46

48

20

28

30

16. Opposite

36 42

37

38

39

43

44 47

50

49

51

52

54

53

21. Major pre-Columbian empire

12

15

24

23

7

11

13

18

13. "Barber of Seville" composer

6

56

55

22. Petty, as a crime

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58

24. October birthstone 25. Team Virginia beat last Saturday 26. If you missed the game, just read or watch the ___ 28. Generally, large muscles on backs of upper arms 30. One who repeats or reads aloud 32. Network responsible for "Parks and Rec," "This Is Us" 35. Joan of ___ 36. Green, leaf-like part of a flower 40. Villain's hideout 41. "I am woman me ___"

hear

48. "Mona Lisa" or "The Thinker," for example

6. "The pizza's gone it's been ___" (two words)

First Nation groups of North America

50. Enlarged lymphatic tissue between the back of the nose and the throat

7. Common misspelling of recorded music form popular in 1960s and 70s

31. Not straight

53. Predict

8. Firm hold

54. Prepared a violin bow, maybe

9. Prefix with -body or one

55. Inflated

10. "How low can you go?" game

56. Depleted of water think wells (two words) 57. Urgent abbreviation 58. They can be ugly or ceramic

1. More crazy

43. Island famous for being immigration port

2. Enviable tuition status 3. Relating to medieval fraternity of sorts

45. Scottish or Irish Gaelic language

4. Thor's dad

46. Painted, decorative tin 47. Bullets, for example

5. Popular location for beach houses

33. Brown-yellow pigment 34. Thinly twisted yarns 37. Gliding, soaring 38. Heart-healthy nuts 39. Having qualities of a certain green fruit comparative

11. Greeted 12. Stiff structures in invertebrates 14. Prevent, cause to fail 15. Band known for "Long Cool Woman" and "The Air That I Breathe"

Down

32. Not wide

40. Flips through pages, maybe 42. Not the front 44. English slang for damp

20. Relating to vision

49. Capital of Norway

23. Sticky road substance

51. Shannon is an example of a "new" one

27. Places where partridges live, according to a Christmas song (two words)

52. Jacob's brother in the Bible

29. One of the largest

*SOLUTION FROM LAST WEEK’S PUZZLE IS BELOW

P A T S Y

A E R A T E D

N E O N A T E

B L I M P

R U I N O U S

A R M H O L E

D R U G G I E

R I S E

S M U T T R E A S C H L E E D

A N G A L L O G G S P R L E A S T E T E E D R S S

K A R O R O O E G S E E

I O D I D E S T O R L E L E F

A P E R

T I T A N I R A S V E P L E A C F T A R R O

I C E L A N D

E E L L I K E

N A I L I N G

S T Y R E E S E T S

S L Y L Y

THE CAVALIER DAILY

A& E ARTS &

‘Blade Runner 2049’ is beautiful but flawed Denis Villeneuve’s sequel to 1982 classic is uniquely dazzling, yet somewhat of a throwback

ENTERTAINMENT

For all its slick futuristic trappings, the heart of “Blade Runner 2049” is something like a fairytale. The long-awaited new chapter to Ridley Scott’s 1982 original returns to the brutally vast, rain-blitzed megalopolis of Los Angeles 30 years later, and the titular blade runner is the stoic Officer KD6.3-7 (Ryan Gosling) — K for short.

Like Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) in the first film, K is tasked with hunting down and euphemistically “retiring” older rogue replicants — the bioengineered androids created to serve as convenient labor for humans.

But we quickly learn K himself is a replicant — specifically an enhanced, newer-generation Nexus 9 model bred for perfect subservience — trained to kill his own kind. But despite his programming, K is unexpectedly sentimental. He begins to suspect he’s destined for something greater, hoping to become a genuine chivalric hero — a toy horse, paralleling an origami unicorn in the original, even becomes a key emblem of his connection to humanity — rather than Deckard’s cynical hard-boiled detective.

The central mystery of “Blade Runner 2049” revolves around the search for a missing, miraculous heir — the progeny of Deckard and Rachael (Sean Young), his replicant sweetheart from the previous film, who has since died in childbirth. Replicant manufacturer Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), imbuing his drama-school freshman impression of a god complex with an affectedness that’s more tiresome than menacing — believes the child could reveal the secret to engineering replicants’ abilities to reproduce. If controlled, this function would virtually guarantee his domination of Earth and beyond. K’s boss, the hard-headed Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright) warns that the child’s existence could “break the world” — if replicants realize they can reproduce on their own, they could quickly overtake their human masters — and tasks him with retiring it.

One of the film’s recurring phrases, from a “Post-Trauma Baseline Test” that K is routinely subjected to after

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Aline Dolinh | Senior Writer missions, further hints at this puzzle of heritage and individuality — “Cells interlinked within cells interlinked / Within one stem. And dreadfully distinct / Against the dark, a tall white fountain played.” It’s a verse from Vladimir Nabokov’s “Pale Fire.” A cryptic, metafictional novel with two

If this setup seems a little too perfect, that’s because it is — it turns out that the lost child isn’t a son — but a daughter, the brilliant memory fabricator Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri). K’s youthful recollection of the toy horse, supposedly a gift from his father, was in fact implanted from her own ex-

COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

“Blade Runner 2049” is a worthy, shiny sequel, but ultimately lacks the humanity of its predecessor.

main narrative strands, “Pale Fire” is comprised of a long poem by the fictional John Shade, enveloped within commentary from Shade’s neighbor, Dr. Charles Kinbote, an academic who believes himself the exiled king of a distant eastern European nation.

It’s easy to draw parallels between K and Kinbote. As the former chases the truth, all the clues suggest that he’s the prince in hiding everyone’s been looking for. Halfway through the film, it seems only a matter of time before he accepts his fate as the replicant messiah.

perience. This plot point is a smart upending of the overplayed “chosen one” trope, and the film is a lot more interesting once it’s clear K is no preordained savior — his role is to be not the replicants’ prince but a mere foot soldier, willing to sacrifice himself in the service of a greater cause.

Likewise, Villeneuve’s direction reflects the absence of a golden-boy hero by spending less time lingering on Gosling’s coolly handsome face than on the slight, darkened form of his increasingly brutalized body.

The climactic battle between K and

Wallace’s Terminator-esque replicant henchwoman, the ironically-named Luv — played with chilly, mesmerizing ferocity by Sylvia Hoeks — is unflinchingly vicious. It’s a knock-down, drag-out affair that takes place aboard a sinking vessel rapidly taking on water, and relishes in the grim, excruciating attrition of two superhumans, trying to destroy each other by any means possible.

Roger Deakins’ sweeping cinematography renders this world beautiful, even as it seems increasingly apocalyptic. Even at roughly three hours, the film never stalls. Rather, it is content to meander across its wondrously imagined spaces, from the wide-open space and sharp contrasted lines of Wallace Corporation’s headquarters to an eerie strobe-lit fistfight in an abandoned hotel ballroom, utterly silent save for holograms of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis glitching in the background.

Las Vegas becomes a fallout-wracked wasteland with tangerine skies — its desert strewn with massive statues that recall the “colossal wreck, boundless and bare” swallowed up by the “lone and level sands” of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias.”

That’s not the only visual element of the mythic, either — one of the most breathtaking images renders an advertisement for K’s software-program girlfriend Joi (Ana de Armas) as a towering neon-skinned goddess.

Yet for all these innovations, the film’s storytelling is also frustratingly retrograde. While de Armas plays Joi with a sweet earnestness that makes it easy to root for her relationship with K, she’s also never granted much characterization beyond the promise that she’ll tell you “everything you want to hear.” The problem isn’t so much that she exists. After all, American society isn’t too far removed from the conception of women as literal products designed to please men, and it certainly could have been an intriguing way to further explore the franchise’s eternal question of what makes one human.

Her manufactured creation and eagerness to be a “real girl” offer clear parallels to the replicants’ desire for

freedom.

But the film never grants her the narrative agency to raise these questions, and her role, which amounts to being little more than K’s cheerleader, remains largely extraneous to the main adventure. Mackenzie Davis is similarly underutilized as Mariette, a hooker with a heart of gold who’s part of the replicant resistance yet gets to do little more than serve as a sexual surrogate for Joi and conveniently rescue K when he’s in a bind. Even Luv, a riveting antagonist who sheds tears as she kills, isn’t granted the same cerebral depth and philosophical monologues that characterized renegade replicant Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer). Batty is Luv’s analogue in the original, and the latter’s unequivocal ice-queen cruelty makes the film’s distinction between heroes and villains disappointingly straightforward.

Likewise, the few speaking characters of color are largely relegated to single scenes as devices to assist K on his quest — cast as seedy brokers or unscrupulous orphanage overseers. It seems odd, too, that the film depicts a future undeniably influenced by East Asian culture yet completely void of any Asian people. Japanese characters plaster Los Angeles’s holographic cityscape, a cheongsam is featured as one of Joi’s sexier outfit options, and the grimy, claustrophobic slums were reportedly influenced by “coffin cubicles,” a type of subdivided low-income housing unique to Hong Kong.

There are moments that hint at this world’s potential to explore a more fascinating, fully realized future. These include scenes in which a woman visits Wallace Corporation in consultation to buy a “pleasure model” replicant of her own, Luv deploys drone missile strikes from the comfort of the corporation’s pristine headquarters all while receiving a manicure or meeting Freysa (Hiam Abbass), the female head of the replicant resistance. Yet they’re all fleeting, like tears in rain, and their presence only leaves one wanting more. “Blade Runner 2049” is an unquestionably stunning film, but one wishes it were a little more human.

www.cavalierdaily.com • ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017

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Poet Rita Dove discusses representations of violence U.Va. Creative Writing Program holds a public conversation with English professor and former U.S. Poet Laureate Yixuan Liu and Joshua Okada | Staff Writers The University Creative Writing Program held a public talk with English professor and former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove Tuesday night at the Paramount Theater, contemplating poetry and its contemporary significance after the violent white nationalist events of Aug. 11 and 12.

The event was originally supposed to be a conversation between Dove and Mark Doty, the University’s Kapnick distinguished writer-in-residence and a recipient of the National Book Award. However, Doty was unable to attend due to a medical emergency.

Although the event was first planned to be held on Grounds, the location was changed to downtown Charlottesville.

“Once we realized how hungry the community at large [was], everyone needed to have this conversation,” Dove said in an interview with The Cavalier Daily.

“Then we thought the only thing

to do was to try and move it off Grounds to the places where fear and intimidation were in the streets.”

Jane Alison, an English professor and director of the Creative Writing Program, said holding the event at the Paramount Theater was made possible by the Provost’s Flash Funding initiative, which provides support for programs addressing racial tension in the community.

“In other times of public violence, wars, lynchings, events like 9/11, many of us have turned to poetry,” English Prof. Jahan Ramazani said when introducing Dove. “Poetry can bring us into the experience of such violence but also provide us with a wider frame to understand.”

Dove laid out the framework for the event — she would share and discuss poems she and Doty found easy, difficult and impossible to write.

Because of Doty’s absence,

Dove read aloud his poem, “In Two Seconds,” about the 2014 police shooting of Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio.

“There is a point in the poem where it needed to come out more than caring what anyone thought about it,” Dove said. “I think one of the things that keeps us separate is fear that we have of what other people will think if we voice an opinion.”

For Dove, the poem she wrote with ease was “Trayvon, Redux.”

It was told from the perspective of George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin in 2012 in Sanford, Fla. She wrote the poem in just a few hours, but said she had been thinking about it for a year and a half.

“What I couldn’t do, and I knew it even at that moment — I could not forgive,” she said. “I could not get into that space that would have allowed me to give him any moment of compassion.”

By contrast, the poem she

found difficult to write described forgiveness in the aftermath of violence. This poem, “Transit,” was inspired by Holocaust survivor Alice Herz-Sommer.

Dove then shared an email from Doty describing the poem he could never finish. He attempted to write about Sandra Bland, who committed suicide in a Waller County, Texas jail in 2015 after being arrested at a traffic stop.

Bland’s family reached a settlement in a wrongful death lawsuit against Waller County and the Texas Department of Public Safety for $1.9 million in 2016.

“I wanted to focus on the particular atrocity of the officer’s language,” he wrote in the email statement. “I don’t know how much these words mattered to Sandra Bland, but I am a poet, and they matter a great deal.”

Dove shared snippets of unfinished poetry, which also explored the inadequacy of language to describe the current political envi-

ronment.

“One of the things that is difficult for all of us, poet or not, is to reclaim the language that has been kind of brutalized in all the brutal things that have happened,” she said. “Although the events of this summer have left us all shattered, what I find even more frightening than the events is the numbing effect it has had on us.”

Alison and Dove both told The Cavalier Daily that as University professors, they saw that issues of identity and violence have become increasingly part of the conversation around poetic expression for creative writing students.

Dove expressed hope that the conversation around poetry, divisions and violence would continue.

“And if we’re going to be talking about divisions, then one of the chief divisions of this town is between town and gown,” she said. “We really have to break that one down too.”

CHARLOTTE MCCLINTOCK | THE CAVALIER DAILY

Rita Dove speaks at the Bicentennial Launch Celebration Oct. 6, the weekend before her event at the Paramount Theater.

THE CAVALIER DAILY

H&S

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Improving on-Grounds network protections

HEALTH & SCIENCE

A look at cybersecurity at U.Va. Catherine Wiedmann | Senior Writer

After last month’s Equifax data breach, the issue of online security has once again been brought into the national spotlight.

As one of the three nationwide companies for credit-reporting, Equifax’s data breach means that millions of people’s private information has been stolen. Information like names, birthdays, addresses, Social Security and driver’s license numbers has been compromised, as well as around 200,000 credit card numbers.

“Over the next year, two years, you’re going to see a major change in what people are doing [in terms of security,]” said Jason Belford, the University’s chief information security officer.

In 2015, the University community was sent an email about a cyber attack and the resulting changes in security measures.

“Federal authorities had alerted the University of a possible cyber attack, and this was confirmed by the University on June 11,” Patrick Hogan, the University’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, wrote in the email. “Upon becoming aware of the attack, the University engaged Mandiant, an internationally recognized cybersecurity firm, to immediately help the University identify the nature of the attack and take corrective action.”

No personally identifiable information was stolen in that breach.

“After that, we started the SecureUVA program,” Belford said. “Any network that’s part of the on-grounds networking infrastructure — we’re actually making a lot of changes across all of them.”

The security enhancement program is currently working on several initiatives, with awareness being a key part of the movement toward safety.

“One of the things that I love about Charlottesville is the sense of community here,” Belford said. “We do have to doubt things that are coming in [to our online networks] and our education awareness program is trying to do that. We have to understand that the people that are attacking us are not in Charlottesville.”

When students first create their NetBadge account, they go through a brief internet security training.

“The survey definitely supplied me with more detailed information,” firstyear Nursing student Alice Bremer said. “I feel more educated on the subject.”

In order for it to be more timely, the survey will be undergoing some updates in the near future.

“It’ll be a little less dry and it’ll be very informative,” Belford said.

One of the most effective aspects of training are the phishing simulation exercises sent to students, faculty and staff.

If someone clicks on the link and puts their information into the page, they are taken to a screen that lets the person know it was a phishing simulation. It shows the red flags in the message they were sent, so they know what to look for in the future.

“We take all of that data and look for hotspots,” Belford said. “Who’s answering at the highest level? That lets us focus the in-person training. We’re trying to get people to stop clicking on messages, to start questioning messages.”

Recently, about 100 student accounts were compromised when a fraudulent email told students they could get a reduction in fees.

“This one pretended to be Student Financial Services,” Belford said. “In a lot of [these] cases, the unauthorized user, the bad guy, went in and changed their account information.”

In addition to awareness training, NetBadge logins will become more secure. Though students like Bremer trust the system, there is always room for improvement, especially when it comes to phishing.

The University is working on implementing a two-factor identification for NetBadge logins. It’s mostly implemented for faculty and staff and then will move to students. The additional step will be optional to start.

“You’ll go to NetBadge, put your username and password in, and then you’ll do something on your phone,”

Belford said.

Additional measures to increase cyber security at the University include an intrusion prevention system and an academic protected network, as well as updates to IT security policy and procedures.

Data classification is moving from a three- to four-part system.

“The first category is highly sensitive data: that’s the health data, the financial data, stuff like passport numbers, driver’s license numbers, social security,” Belford said. “In our policies those require a lot more control around it. The machines that hold the information, there’s certain places it can be, there’s certain ways you have to access it.”

Moderately sensitive data is protected by law and regulated, or sensitive in nature, but not to the same extent as more personal data.

Memos and emails fall under a third category, internal use. Security measures are still in place around the data, but not nearly as many as the sensitive categories.

“That last category is public — it’s the stuff we stick up on the webpages,” Belford said. “I need to still protect those web servers, but I don't need to protect the data because it’s meant to be public.”

Third-year Engineering student Ethan Trinh is taking CS 4501, Network Security, with Computer Science Lecturer Ahmed Ibrahim.

“All the information in the world is becoming digital and a lot of that is meant to be confidential,” Trinh said. “It’s important to learn about the methods used to keep that information safe and identify potential vulnerabilities in the currently used methods.”

As far as off-Grounds cyber security goes, there are a few steps to follow.

“There’s a couple of things you want to do, just basic user hygiene,” Belford said. “Keep your machine up to date. Make sure you have some kind of anti virus. Understand what phishing is.”

Though breaches that occur within companies like Equifax make people question the safety of their information on the internet, according to Belford, the attacks aren’t any more likely to occur online than in real life.

“To me, it’s actually safer if you’re ordering online with a reputable organization than it is doing some transactions in person,” Belford said. “I have confidence that they’re handling that information correctly.”

With all of the upcoming changes, Belford believes that student, faculty and staff information will be better protected than ever.

“We’re making the network safer,” Belford said.

U.Va. Cancer Center makes top rankings Cancer center among top three percent across the country, according to U.S. World & News Report Anugya Mittal | Senior Writer The University Hospital Cancer Center was recently ranked in the top 100 health care systems with oncology programs across the country for the fifth year in a row by Becker’s Hospital Review. The University Hospital moved up in the U.S. World & News Report rankings as well, rising from No. 31 to No. 30 for the top 50 cancer centers.

Administrator of cancer services Jody Reyes said that the recognition on these lists reflects the work put in by the team at the cancer center.

“We've been working so hard to create a great environment for our patients, for our families,” Reyes said. “[And] create not only the clinical expertise that they deserve, but the research that goes along with that. And then trying to create the patient experience where when they come there, they feel very cared for and they feel that we are really right there besides them as they are taking this journey.”

University Cancer Center Director Thomas Loughran Jr. compared

the center making the Becker’s top 100 list to making the World Series five years in a row. When Loughran joined the University Hospital four years ago, the Cancer Center was ranked No. 67

by U.S. World & News Report. Then two years ago, the University’s cancer center moved up from No. 67 to No. 31 — a significant jump according to Loughran.

According to Reyes, the University cancer program differentiates itself from other programs in that its physicians are all specialized in particular diseases and diagnoses. For example, there are surgeons that only operate on patients with breast cancer. Furthermore, the specialty teams are expanding as the University hospital is recruiting more doctors, according to Loughran. According to Reyes, several of the oncology programs also involve an outreach aspect. For instance, the breast program educates members of the community about breast exams and screenings. Furthermore, the federally funded program Every Woman’s

Life is administered through the University so that uninsured women are able to get mammograms and other screening services. The lung cancer program is also working with smaller hospitals in Southwest Virginia to help diagnose lung cancer in the earlier stages.

The Cancer Center also follows a high-tech and high-touch model, according to Reyes. High-tech model involves the use of new and innovative technologies to treat patients, while the high-touch model involves establishing a more intimate relationship with patients.The hospital takes a comprehensive approach by providing psychosocial services that help the patient along with clinical treatment to the patients.

“We can have … the cutting-edge research, have the cutting-edge treatment, but if a patient is so sick that they can't eat, then having those treatments does us no good,” Reyes said. “Or if the patient is so depressed that we can't encourage them to come

in for their appointment, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter whether we have those wonderful therapies or not because we're not going to be able to actually give them.”

According to Loughran, Becker’s Hospital Review also acknowledged the research contributions of the University Cancer Center. The center managed to double the number of patients in clinical trials in the past five years. Furthermore, the center is part of the Oncology Research Information Exchange Network — a program designed to profile individual tumors so people can receive more targeted treatments. The University program only started a year and a half ago, and it has already treated 2,000 consenting patients.

The Cancer Center is working towards getting a higher level of designation from the National Cancer Institute. The center is one of the 69 hospitals that is recognized as a cancer center by the NCI, but it wants to become one of the 45 comprehensive

cancer centers across the country. One way in which they are trying to expand on the research side is through population research. “[Population research] is basically aimed at healthy lifestyles, cancer prevention, cancer survivorship, cancer genetics, genetic risk for everyone — not just the patient with cancer, but the entire population of the Commonwealth that we serve,” Loughran said.

On the clinical side, the center is trying to expand to accommodate growth. It plans on accomplishing this by opening up the fourth floor of the Emily Couric Clinical Cancer Center as well as moving more patients into the new hospital tower that is going up.

“We will never stop [improving our programs],” Reyes said. “Part of the discouragement — in some ways — in the world that we live in is that cancer is everywhere. And we are approaching it from both the treatment aspects as well as the research aspects.”

www.cavalierdaily.com • HEALTH & SCIENCE

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2017

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Audio manipulation technology could create fake news New technology altering voice recordings leads to ethical concerns Stella Sotos | Staff Writer More advanced and realistic audio manipulation is now possible with the development of new software such as Adobe VoCo and Lyrebird. With the ability to alter speech or even to add new words, these technologies intend to make audio editing easier in cases when a speaker stumbles on a word or misspeaks. However, these programs bring with them various ethical concerns and could contribute to the rising distrust of the media.

Adobe’s anticipated VoCo software works by breaking down a sample of recorded speech into phonemes, referring to the smallest discernible unit of the speech system, according to TechCrunch. These phonemes are used to create a speech model that can be used to alter the original recording.

This technology is reliant on deep learning, an approach to machine learning that uses layered neural networks, modeled after the brain, to break down and recreate the task in a way that can be addressed by a computer.

Asst. Computer Science Prof.

Vicente Ordóñez said this technology uses a form of deep learning called “generative adversarial networks” which allows for the generation of new content — in this case the generation of words that had not been spoken.

“So you show your software, or model, or algorithm a bunch of examples of what you’re trying to generate and the model will learn to generate new samples following, more or less, the distribution of the samples you showed the algorithm for images, text and audio,” Ordóñez said.

Engineering and Society Assoc. Prof. Rosalyn Berne said the release of this new technology is intended to be an incremental stage of improvement on existing technology despite the potential negative implications.

“These technologies are moving so rapidly that I think it's going to be a little hard for human beings to keep up with the changes,” Berne said. “Because we’ve adopted these things over evolution of a million years, and now they’re being tampered with pretty directly.”

These technologies may also impact the way we form and define relationships, Berne said.

“There’s a great film, ‘Her’, that I use in my class, that sort of began to play with that notion of what will it mean when we begin to confuse relationships with people with systems,” Berne

said. “It’s foreshadowing a question about what is a relationship, what do we expect from other people when we are now having to interpret meaning from systems that sounds a whole lot like what a person sounds like.”

Not only may these technologies alter perceptions of what a relationship entails, but they have the potential to be used to imitate others, especially those in the public eye.

This technology would allow a user “to generate the audio that resembles a particular person you’re targeting,” Ordóñez said. “This is more problematic for public figures where you can gather a lot of audio from public speeches so you could conceivably do that.”

The manipulation of recorded speeches also has the potential to contribute to the rise of fake news.

“It’s very relevant these days with the fake news,” Ordóñez said. “You will be able to gener-

ate not just text that is fake, but potentially the video or the voice will sound like a public figure.”

Berne said she believes it will be impossible to ignore programs like VoCo or any prevalent technology — similar to how students can no longer go without a computer.

One reaction to this technology is teaching how to better identify fake news as part of college courses, Berne said. However, a proactive way to address implications of this technology would be to integrate ethical measures in the software itself.

“You could conceive of having some type of code or signature that accompanies audio or video manipulations that shows that it’s been digitally modified after some point in time,” Ordóñez said.

Despite having the technological capability, designing in elements to prevent misuse may not be one of the engineer’s primary technological goals, Berne said.

According to Berne, these concerns are more likely to be addressed post-development, at the policy level. Often this will be after the technology has hit the market when questions concerning expectations, consumer needs and consumer safety are brought to the forefront. Like Berne, Ordóñez said ethical concerns may be better addressed outside the realm of engineering.

“Certainly software engineers have the technology, but for addressing some of the other ethical questions, you have to look into the humanities as well,” Ordóñez said. “I think it will require a lot of interdisciplinary work, with other people working on computer security perhaps, working on digital content identification, but I think it general it even comes down to doing better journalism.”

Ordóñez said that readers must also be more wary of what they see or hear or read on the internet.

According to Berne, the excitement of new technology can often be distraction.

“Most of us are just becoming skeptical, but we’re also enamored with a lot of this technology,” Berne said. “A lot of people get excited about the next iPhone, and the next app and what it can do. As consumers who have a propensity for wanting to be entertained, I think we are going to be more entertained than concerned until it gets to the point where we actually realize what has happened.”

Nevertheless, people must be discerning when consuming media, Berne said.

“Be a critical consumer, of everything,” Berne said. “A lot of us are very careful now in choosing what we eat, what we put in our bodies. Maybe we just have to be really careful about what we put in our minds, and that’s a matter of intention.”

AISHA SINGH AND NATALIE SEO | THE CAVALIER DAILY

Adobe’s new audio software breaks recordings into “phonemes which can be used to create speech models.

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