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With much of the Barnes Center at the Arch opening earlier this month, meet the staff who is trying to help students with their mental and physical health. Page 7
Graduate Student Organization President Mirjavad Hashemi plans to focus on increasing representation and improving mental health services. Page 3
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Without nose tackle Chris Slayton, SU football will need defensive ends Alton Robinson and Kendall Coleman to repeat their success from 2018. Page 12
on campus
SHIFT IN POWER
Student to nominate Richardson for degree By Gabe Stern
asst. news editor
JAIME HOWLEY (LEFT) AND PALMER HARVEY, two Syracuse activists, aim to inform tenants of their rights and advocate for greater protections as leaders of the Syracuse Tenants Union. dan lyon asst. photo editor
Statewide housing law gives tenants new rights, but some still feel stuck By Emma Folts
asst. news editor
We have a lot of work to do and a lot of families to help and continue to support. Stephanie Pasquale department of neighborhood and business development commissioner
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awanda O’Neal wants desperately to move her family out of their apartment on Syracuse’s Northside. But she doesn’t want to move until the company that owns her home exterminates bedbugs that have festered inside for about a year. Endzone Properties, Inc. owns O’Neal’s apartment, along with 44 other properties. A property manager she has dealt with rushes her off the phone often and doesn’t send maintenance to properly address issues with
the property, O’Neal said. She only knows his first name, Sam. After first calling the manager about the bedbugs, a person came with store-bought bedbug spray. In response, O’Neal called the Division of Code Enforcement for the first time in July 2018, she said. After calling Code Enforcement, O’Neal got her first eviction notice. “Before I called Codes in July, I never had an eviction notice, never, and I had been here for two years at that point,” she said. The owner of Endzone was not see evictions page 4
city
Syracuse to adopt 5G plan, expand connectivity By Gabe Stern
asst. news editor
Syracuse is set to be part of the first batch of U.S. cities to adopt a citywide 5G network from Verizon. For months, lawmakers have juggled the unknowns of the plan, such as health concerns regarding the wireless connection, with its potential to spark the city’s growing tech sector. The proposed 5G network is expected to expand
connectivity throughout Syracuse, fitting into Mayor Ben Walsh’s Syracuse Surge plan to modernize the city’s economy. “We are actively working to prepare our city to be competitive in the new economy,” Walsh told The Daily Orange. “We’re entering into what most are considering the fourth industrial revolution, which is based on connectivity and the internet of things, the idea that everything that we’re using from
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Number of cell phone towers Verizon plans to install in the next several years.
our phones to our cars to our computers is all connected” Verizon pitched the plan in
front of Syracuse’s Common Council. The vote was delayed due to a lack of information in early May, but passed later than month, Syracuse.com reported. Verizon selected Syracuse because the 5G plan paired well with Syracuse Surge, Walsh said. The Surge is a $200 million combination of public and private investment that emphasizes technological advancements.
see verizon page 4
Kevin Richardson of the Central Park Five will visit his dream school, Syracuse University, in September, more than 30 years after his wrongful arrest. Jalen Nash, a senior political science major, started an online petition in June that urges SU to award Richardson an honorary degree. For Nash, the September visit is an important gesture — but one that’s incomplete without the degree. “I’m happy that they did something,” Nash said. “It’s not enough because that’s not what we asked for.” Richardson was one of five teenagers arrested in 1989 for the assault and rape of a jogger in Central Park. The five teenagers — four black and one Latino — were exonerated in 2002 after a convicted serial rapist and murderer confessed to the crime. They were dubbed the Central Park Five.
I’m happy that they did something. It’s not enough because that’s not what we asked for. Jalen Nash senior political science major
Requests for honorary degrees must go through SU’s chancellor, University Senate and Board of Trustees. The timeline varies from a few months to more than an academic year to process, said Christian Day, a professor and chair of USen’s Honorary Degrees committee. Anyone from the SU community can act as a reference and nominate a candidate by submitting a onepage reference letter and a nomination packet, which is then reviewed by USen’s Honorary Degrees committee. The committee, which is comprised of students, staff and faculty, meets about four times a year to discuss the nominations. The entire Senate body then discusses recommendations from the committee. Candidates are required to visit campus before a final approval from both Chancellor Kent Syverud and the Board of Trustees. There have been instances when USen has backed a candidate for an honorary degree, but the university’s chancellor or Board of Trustees didn’t vote in favor of it, Day said. In Day’s six years on the see richardson page 4