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MONDAY
march 6, 2017 high 50°, low 39°
t h e i n de p e n de n t s t u de n t n e w s pa p e r of s y r a c u s e , n e w yor k |
N • Looking back
Michele Wheatly was appointed as provost about a year ago. Check out some of the highlights of her time at Syracuse University so far. Page 3
P • On the road
The ROAD is a church that offers a musical way for people of all ages and faiths to connect with each other and bond over open mic nights every Monday. Page 9
dailyorange.com
S • Double or nothing
Both Syracuse lacrosse teams looked like they would drop a home game to Virginia. But both mounted rallies in the second half to come away with victories. Page 16
Records: Howard faced mental health problems By Matthew Gutierrez asst. sports editor
NICK HODGE, president of 5th Medium and a student at Syracuse University, tries out virtual reality in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. Newhouse is one area on campus where virtual reality is currently being experimented with. colin davy asst. photo editor
different dimension Several pockets of SU’s campus are embracing virtual reality By Haley Kim
asst. copy editor
J
illian Cabrera peered down and only a dark space far below greeted him. He glanced to the side and red canyon walls enveloped him. He stood on a wooden bridge, its panels tied together and spaced unevenly apart, that stretched across the canyon mouth as the wind whistled through the gaps. No railing protected him. The only way to get off the bridge was to step off it. Maggie Nhan watched Cabrera, who is afraid of heights, stand motionless in the middle of a basement lab in Shaffer Art Building. She glanced at the computer monitor, which displayed the red canyon walls and bridge. He was hooked up to the HTC Vive, playing the virtual reality game Waltz of the Wizard. Cabrera, clutching the Vive remotes, laughed nervously. “I’m in a room,” Cabrera said, rotating in place. All he needed to do was take one step to the side. “Wow, this is hard. My hands are actually sweating.” Cabrera, a junior Syracuse University student, eventually took the step and was transported back to a wizard’s lab. He and Nhan, a sophomore, are computer art and animation majors who used the Vive to design their own virtual reality games last semester. It’s just one on-campus initiative teaching students how to utilize VR software, as several pockets of the SU community have embraced the technology. SU introduced its first virtual reality course in fall 2014 in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications later introduced its Virtual Reality Storytelling course in the spring of 2015. There’s also a joint course in the College of Engineering and
Computer Science and the School of Architecture that’s centered around virtual reality. In addition to curriculum, SU’s football team previously used VR software to train its quarterbacks in 2015 and will be integrating another program this spring, said Mike Morrison, assistant director of athletics communications. Other projects include commercialized ventures, like imr. sv, launched last August by Sam Lewis, a Martin J. Whitman School of Management student. Virtual reality’s current popularity began in 2010 with the development of the Oculus Rift prototype. The Rift and other VR systems allow users to interact in a virtual, computer-generated environment, where they no longer see their physical environments. VR differs from augmented reality, which overlays a physical space with digital elements, and 360 videos, which allow users to “rotate” in a video. These videos can be considered VR, but not all VR can be a 360 video. Meyer Giordano, an instructor in VPA, taught CAR 230, “Topics in Computer Gaming I,” the course Cabrera and Nhan took. When Giordano first started teaching it in fall 2014, the software was so rudimentary that it was difficult to get the program running, he said. Now the technology has progressed to the point that he could show someone how to create a basic environment in five minutes. “As the technology has advanced, teaching the class has become a lot more straightforward on the technical side, but because there’s more content now, there’s a lot of other directions to explore,” Giordano said. Currently the cost of VR is restraining its expansion. Each high-capability system can cost more than $500. But Cabrera and Nhan said they see virtual page 7
For years, former Syracuse football player Naesean Howard heard voices in his head, experienced stark personality changes and woke up from dreams crying, records obtained by The Daily Orange show. The records, never before disclosed, reveal the struggles Howard faced in school and in everyday interactions. In letters, Howard’s HOWARD family members, former coaches, high school principal and others around him wrote that his behavior changed in the years leading up to April 2016, when Howard stabbed former teammates Chauncey Scissum and Corey Winfield. Those who know Howard said he turned from outgoing to sheltered, from team captain to distanced, from peaceful to — at times — violent. Last month, Howard, a 21-yearold graduate of West Genesee (New York) High School, pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree assault, one count of second-degree assault and one count of criminal possession of a weapon. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison. That Howard was given only one week to decide whether to plead guilty or proceed with trial was unfair, his defense team and family members said. During a court hearing in September 2016, Howard requested that he be remanded into custody. When that was not honored, he purposefully disobeyed a stayaway order by going to the Syracuse University campus anyway. He was promptly arrested. Around that time, Howard declined to take recommended anti-depressant or antipsychotic medications. He refused family visits while at the Onondaga County Justice Center in downtown Syracuse. He ceased telephone contact and expressed disinterest in pursuing testing and evaluation arranged by his defense team, records show. On Dec. 16, 2016, Ralph Cognetti, Howard’s attorney, said Howard would undergo a series of medical tests to discover if he had suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the degenerative brain disease associated to repeated hits to the head. Cognetti said during the pretrial that if there’s a link between his concussion history and decisionmaking, the intent element of his alleged-crime could be negated. “Then we’ve got a tool to use either at trial or in negotiations that will perhaps get a lesser charge,” Cognetti said. Howard was approved to use neuropsychologist Jerid Fisher from Rochester, New York. On Dec. 23, Fisher met with the defense and interviewed Howard.
Another meeting between Fisher and Howard was scheduled for February 2017. But in January, Howard was given only one week to decide whether to accept the plea or proceed with trial. His mother, Shaquoya Howard, said the court system pushed for a resolution in the case without testing and mitigation, which she said “is still puzzling to us and seems unfair.” Richard Luciani, a social worker and mitigation specialist in Syracuse, suggested in court papers that Howard’s mental health history was not exposed because of the case’s speedy process. Luciani, who was hired by Cognetti, hoped the records would be useful in trial.
We wondered if the concussions he experienced had played a role in our son’s drastic behavioral change. Shaquoya Howard naesean howard’s mother
The records, obtained by The Daily Orange last month, suggest the head hits Howard suffered in Pop Warner football from the age of 10 through high school may have contributed to his decision-making on the day of the stabbing. Luciani said he believes Howard’s actions were influenced by an undiagnosed mental health condition and potential neuro-chemical imbalance that did not get exposed. Luciani declined to comment on this story. Brian Rieger, director of the State University of New York Upstate Medical University Hospital’s Concussion Center, declined to comment on Howard’s case, but offered insight on concussions overall. He said the most dramatic effects from concussions are seen one or two weeks after the concussion. When concussions overlap, they can have lasting effects. “While functioning seems to return to normal,” Rieger said, “there can be changes in the brain that persist for a period of time after that.” The records suggest Howard may have suffered from the effects of repeated hits to the head since he turned 8 or 9 years old. That’s when he began playing football with a helmet. From that point on, his mother said he was “always playing catch-up” in class, was embarrassed to read in front of the class and began to shudder. Howard also struggled to interpret teachers’ instructions, see howard page 4