March 1, 2017

Since 1919

Emory University’s Independent Student Newspaper

The Emory Wheel

Volume 98, Issue 19

Printed Every Wednesday

Wednesday, March 1, 2017 STUDENT GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION

Restructure Bill Passes Undergrad Legislature

By Michelle lou News Editor

Michelle lou/News editor

Oxford College sophomore and Oxford-Emory Liason Alexa Cleveland (lefT) discusses her amendment to the restructure bill Feb. 27.

SGA Acts With Unclear Laws

By Julia Munslow Executive Editor

In the aftermath of the Student Government Association (SGA) split, several top SGA officials have issued conflicting interpretations of the state of its constitution both in SGA meetings and interviews with the Wheel.

The Wheel spoke to top SGA representatives about the current state of the SGA Constitution following the Jan. 31 University-wide referendum that passed a constitutional amendment that split SGA into two autonomous bodies. SGA officials offered various interpretations of the state of the Constitution, including the under-

MEDICINE

standing that it currently stands, that some provisions currently stand or that no part of it currently stands.

No case regarding the current state of the SGA Constitution has been brought before the Constitutional Council, so no official ruling has been issued by the Council regarding the current state of the SGA Constitution.

The SGA attorney general, who is not a Council member, is responsible for advising SGA on possible constitutional concerns, according to the SGA Constitution.

The DeBaTe Constitutional

Council

Chief

Justice and Emory School of Law student Alex Cohen told the SGA legislature in a Feb. 6 meeting that the Jan. 31 referendum passage allowed the legislators to do anything necessary to restructure the student government.

“When you had [the] University referendum ... you guys derived the power to do whatever substantive rule-changing [necessary] to get the new student government up and running as long as you guys can agree or disagree to suspend the rules and mess with the little procedural things you guys have problems with,” Cohen said in the meeting.

See SGA, Page 4

A bill to restructure the undergraduate student government will go to an undergraduate-wide referendum after it passed the 50th legislature of the Student Government Association (SGA) Monday.

SGA convened Monday night to host a second public forum on the undergraduate government restructure bill and vote on the restructure and diversity and equity bills.

Bill 50sl24 to restructure the legislature passed 14 for, one against, falling one voter short of quorum according to SGA’s Constitution.

However, SGA Executive Vice President and Goizueta Business School senior Gurbani Singh said that the legislature has been deciding votes on simple majority since the split bill referendum.

SGA President and College senior Max Zoberman said in a Feb. 27 interview with the Wheel that the legislature did not need to reach quorum to pass the bill because SGA is loosely following the pre-split Constitution so long as it does not prevent them from creating a new government structure.

All undergraduate students will be able to vote on the restructure bill in a referendum March 13 to 15 via Orgsync.

A simple majority is required to pass the bill.

An amendment to the bill that

WHEEL

would have created four new divisional councils under SGA — recreation and wellness, service, arts and media — failed to pass with a vote of 14 against, one for and five abstentions.

College Council (CC) Liaison for SGA and College senior Taj Singh read a letter from CC President and College senior Molly Zhu on behalf of CC to SGA expressing opposition to the amendment to create new divisional councils.

“Members of CC are not comfortable with this amendment because there are so many unknown details of the structure … including chartering and financial impact … and the necessary conversations with constituents have not occurred,” Singh read.

Although CC acknowledged that issues in its “bylaws have left holes in funding for groups, especially theater,” CC wrote in its letter that the issue could be explored in different ways.

Singh also said that CC held an informal vote regarding the creation of new councils, and the results were 14 against and one for, with five abstentions.

Zoberman criticized CC’s actions of the last two weeks, stating that “bringing people with [CC] to plant questions during the [SGA] legislative meetings and [advocate] against the measure” was “dangerously arrogant.” “[Their] decision was driven prin-

See CC, Page 3

LEGISLATION

Emory Munslow Elected Editor-in-Chief House Sends ‘Sanctuary’ Doctor Bill to Senate To Lead Nonprofit

By Varun GupTa Contributing Writer

By naTalia BroDy Contributing Writer A leading Emory renal doctor plans to go head-to-head against the Trump administration over research funding as the newly-elected president of the American Physiological Society (APS), a nonprofit that educates the general public and supports scientists in the physiological sciences. Emory Juha P. Kokko Professor of Medicine and Physiology Jeff Sands will assume the APS presidency next year.

APS Director Martin Frank said that the Society’s impending challenges can be credited to the uncertainty that accompanies the Trump administration’s stance on biomedical research. Like Frank, Sands expects the Trump administration’s opposition to scientific research to be a chal-

See SAndS, Page 4

NEWS Atl. ReAl estAte

Co. PuRsues New ResideNtiAl CommuNities ...

PAGE 3

In an unanimous vote, College junior and current Executive Editor Julia Munslow was elected the next editor-in-chief of The Emory Wheel Sunday by the newspaper’s editors, editorial board members and staff.

Munslow ran unopposed, receiving 14 votes. In a precautionary re-vote Tuesday, Munslow received 31 votes for and one “no confidence.”

She and her incoming executive board will assume their roles following spring break.

A creative writing and interdisciplinary studies double major from Rhode Island, Munslow began writing for the Wheel her freshman year. She was promoted to arts and entertainment editor her sophomore year in Fall 2015 and joined current Editor-inChief and College senior Zak Hudak’s executive board as executive editor Fall 2016.

In her election speech, Munslow said one of her most purposeful weeks on staff was during the Trump chalkings and subsequent student protests last year. She contributed reporting about and photography of the protests.

“That protest brought me face to face with our University president, campus

OP-ED

activists and many discussions about open expression,” Munslow said. “By the end of the week our story had gone national.”

She added that, today, she is unafraid, and eager to run toward protests. Her duties as executive editor included overseeing the news section and directing reporting. In her speech, the editor-in-chief-elect emphasized the need for aggressive and comprehensive reporting.

Julia Munslow, College junior and editor-inchief-elect ruth r eyes/Photo editor

“In a time when national media organizations are barred from White House press briefings, journalism and shedding light on the truth [are] more important than ever,” Munslow said.

Munslow aims to “propel the Wheel into the age of digital storytelling” by enhancing the photo and video departments, expanding social media presence and continuing to build the editorial board.

Hudak, who worked with Munslow

PAst ANd FutuRe EMORY LIFE emoRy’s ReFleCtioNs oN mARdi gRAs FiRst, FiRst geNtlemAN tAlks iNdiNg love At CdC ... PAGE 6 Festivities...

F PAGE 5

closely at the Wheel, feels comfortable leaving the Wheel in her hands.

“It’s important that everyone knows that the person in charge works hard, and no one would dispute that Julia works hard, probably harder than everybody else,” Hudak said. “I think the most important thing is that she’s passionate about [the Wheel]. She gets it.”

Current Managing Editor and College senior Elana Cates, who worked with Munslow on the executive board this past academic year, echoed Hudak’s sentiment.

“I’m really happy to see her move on to a new position,” Cates said. “Julia is very passionate about the paper and will lead it in the right direction.”

Current Arts and Entertainment Editor and College sophomore Brian Savino said that Munslow knows how to inform readers about relevant topics.

“She sees [the Wheel] as changing the lives of students at Emory and [allows] us an outlet to report on things that are important to us,” Savino said.

Savino added that he would like for Munslow’s executive board to consult external resources, such as the

A bill that would cut state funding for private colleges that adopting the “sanctuary policy” designation and prohibiting school officials from complying with law enforcement passed through the Georgia House of Representatives Feb. 22 by a vote of 115 to 55.

H.B. 37 will move to the Republicancontrolled Georgia Senate for a vote, the final step before Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal can sign the bill into law.

Sponsored by State Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs), the bill aims to ensure that colleges comply with state and federal immigration laws.

Emory receives state funding, including the Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally (HOPE) scholarship and tuition equalization grants, both of which are awarded to Georgia residents, according to Emory’s Office of Financial Aid. University adminis-

See WhEEL, Page 4

See REp., Page 4

A&E

CAmPus movieFest HigHligHts studeNt Joy, PAiN ANd HARdsHiP ...

PAGE 11

By alex KluGerMan Staff Writer

SPORTS emoRy BAseBAll

teAm wiNs 10tH stRAigHt gAme ...

Back Page

The Emory Wheel

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NEWS

The Emory Wheel

Crime Report Compiled By Monica Lefton On Feb. 21 at 2:55 p.m., Emory Police Department (EPD) responded to a call regarding a theft at Clairmont Campus URC Building A. Officers spoke with an Emory student who reported $90 cash missing from her desk drawer.

She believed someone took the money between Feb. 8 and 18 since Campus Life temporarily relocated her Feb. 8 due to necessary mold work in her apartment. She returned to the apartment Feb. 18 to find her cash missing. The case has been assigned to an investigator.

On Feb. 21 at 6:40 p.m., EPD responded to a call regarding a theft at the Dobbs University Center (DUC).

An Emory student reported her purple North Face backpack stolen from the dining area. She said that she hung her bag on a chair before getting food around 6:20 p.m. When she returned 10 minutes later, it was gone. The bag contained an Apple MacBook Pro, a grey Coach wallet, cash, financial cards, glasses and a water bottle. The items are valued at $2,710 total. A Campus Life representative met and spoke with the student. The case has been assigned to an investigator.

On Feb. 23 at 1:19 p.m., EPD responded to a call regarding a theft from the Robert W. Woodruff Library.

A Georgia Institute of Technology employee reported his Georgia Techissued Dell XPS laptop missing after he accidentally left it in a first floor room in the Woodruff Library Feb. 22 around 4 p.m. When he returned to retrieve the laptop the next day, it was gone. The laptop, valued at $1,000, had not been turned into the library staff. The case has been assigned to an investigator.

On Feb. 24 at 2:21 p.m., EPD responded to a call regarding harassment. An Emory student reported seeing her ex-boyfriend, who is not an Emory affiliate, outside of Smith Hall. She said that his presence on Emory’s campus was making her uncomfortable.

The couple dated from July to August 2016, then broke up, during which time he impregnated another girl. The two spoke again early February 2017, when they decided to remain friends and watch the Feb. 5 Super Bowl together.

However, she broke off all contact with him over text later that day after he took her cell phone and refused to return it until she allowed him to

cipally by their desire to retain authority over the number of organizations and … the percentage of the Student Activities Fee that they do, and I don’t think there was a lot of concern given to the well-being of the student communities that we were actually discussing,” Zoberman said.

College junior Ravi Doshi was the only student who was neither affiliated with College Council (CC) nor SGA to attend the public forum.

Approximately six CC members, including Zhu, attended the legislative session.

Doshi, the co-president of CC-chartered club Emory Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, was concerned with the amendment to add four divisional councils after being redirected multiple times during the chartering process for his organization. Adding more councils would make the process even more con-

fusing, Doshi said during the public forum.

An amendment to the restructure bill to make both Oxford representatives sophomores instead of one sophomore and freshman passed unanimously.

“[CC] was driven principally by their desire to retain authority over ... the Student Activities Fee ... ” — Max Zoberman, SGA president and College senior The legislature unanimously passed another amendment to the restructure bill that would require the executive vice president of SGA to serve as a delegate to the Oxford Council.

3

News Roundup

take her home. After Feb. 5, the subject began spending time on Emory’s campus and reportedly rented an apartment in the area. Although they had not communicated since Feb. 10, the Emory student reported seeing him Feb. 23 on the Quadrangle and later at Panera Bread at Emory Village. The case has been assigned to an investigator.

On Feb. 26 at 2:40 a.m., EPD responded to a call regarding an intoxicated individual at Raoul Hall.

Officers made contact with a 18-yearold Emory student who appeared intoxicated and unresponsive. A student with the subject reported that the two had gone to Maggie’s Neighborhood Bar & Grill together earlier that night, where subject consumed a Long Island Iced Tea and a tequila drink. Officers collected a fake ID belonging to the subject’s roommate, who was at the scene. Emory Emergency Medical Services (EEMS) and DeKalb American Medical Response (AMR) also arrived on the scene. DeKalb AMR transported the student to Emory University Hospital (EUH). Campus Life was notified.

— Contact Monica Lefton at monica.lefton@emory.edu

CC Campaigns Against Amendent Continued from Page 1

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Last year, Zoberman attended Oxford Council’s non-budgetary meetings as executive vice president weekly, and Goizueta Business School junior Gurbani Singh continued to visit the Oxford campus weekly this academic year, Zoberman said.

Zoberman’s and Singh’s commutes to Oxford helped foster the relationship between SGA and Oxford Council and “generate cross-campus programming,” Zoberman said.

The legislature unanimously passed Bill 50sl25, which added a standing committee on Diversity and Equity to the legislature.

The bill also added a vice president for diversity and equity to the executive branch.

The vice president will be nominated by the committee, interviewed by the executive board and confirmed by the legislature.

— Contact Michelle Lou at michelle.ann.lou@emory.edu

Compiled By Richard Chess eMory proTecTs TransGenDer riGhTs EMORY — In a Feb. 25 all-Emory email, Interim Provost and Executive Vice President Stuart Zola and Vice Provost of Equity and Inclusion Lynell Cadray stated that all Emory students “may use restrooms and other sexsegregated facilities that correspond to their gender identity.” The email was sent in response to the Trump administration’s Feb. 22 decision to repeal federal guidelines allowing students to use public restrooms according to their gender identity. In a letter that will be sent to all public schools, the Trump administration decreed that the Obama-era directive implementing that right lacked extensive legal analysis and neglected a public vetting process, according to The Washington Post. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos approved the decision.

Bus fire iMpeDes clifTon Traffic EMORY — A bus fire at the intersection of Briarcliff and Clifton Roads temporarily stopped northbound traffic on Clifton Road. No one was on board at the time of the fire, and no injuries were reported, Associate Director of Media Relations Elaine Justice said. prof. inDucTeD inTo hall of faMe EMORY — University Distinguished Professor Kevin Young will be inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame this year, according to the Athens Banner-Herald.

Young is the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York and has written or edited 11 books of poetry. “We are so happy that our former faculty member Kevin

Young has made such an impression on Georgia and the entirety of the South during his time here at Emory,” Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing Jericho Brown said.

“We hope the good people of New York will enjoy his brilliance as much as we have.” aTlanTa TruMp supporTers r ally ATLAnTA – More than 250 people attended a pro-President Donald J. Trump “Spirit of America” rally in front of the Georgia statehouse Monday, according to the AtlantaJournal Constitution. Trump supporters held pro-Trump rallies in 33 states Monday in response to recent antiTrump protests, according to Reuters.

Debbie Dooley, a Georgia resident and Tea Party member, organized the Feb. 27 Atlanta “Spirit of America” rally.

Dooley said in a statement that the rallies “are inclusive, non-partisan, and open to anyone supporting President Trump in his efforts to bring back manufacturing jobs to America, put the security of our nation ahead of political correctness, improve our infrastructure, revitalize the inner cities and secure our nation’s borders.”

TruMp aDDresses conGress WAShinGTOn, d.C. — President Donald J. Trump addressed a joint session of Congress for the first time as president Tuesday night, according to The New York Times. In his speech, Trump said he would be open to a pathway to legal residency for undocumented immigrants who have not committed serious crimes. Trump said he wants to work across party lines and act in the interest of ordinary Americans.

— Contact Richard Chess at richard.chess@emory.edu

The Emory Wheel Volume 98, Number 19 © 2017 The Emory Wheel Dobbs University Center, Room 540 605 Asbury Circle, Atlanta, GA, 30322 Business (404) 727-6178 Editor-in-Chief Zak Hudak (404) 727-0279 Founded in 1919, The Emory Wheel is the financially and editorially independent, student-run newspaper of Emory University in Atlanta. The Wheel is a member publication of Media Council, Emory’s organization of student publications. The Wheel reserves the rights to all content as it appears in these pages, and permission to reproduce material must be granted by the editor-in-chief.

The Wheel is printed every Wednesday during the academic year, except during University holidays and scheduled publication intermissions. A single copy of the Wheel is free of charge. To purchase additional copies, please call (404) 727-6178.

The statements and opinions expressed in the Wheel are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Wheel Editorial Board or of Emory University, its faculty, staff or administration.

The Wheel is also available online at www.emorywheel.com.

RESIDENTIAL

Safety Alliance Stalls Condominium Development Near Emory By richarD chess Staff Writer

DeKalb County Historic Preservation Commission voted Feb. 13 to defer its ruling on whether Atlanta-based real estate investment company Minerva can build a new condominium on Old Briarcliff Road.

The Commission requested that Minerva submit a revised proposal by March 3, according to Old Briarcliff Safety Alliance President Russ Haynie, who attended the meeting.

At the Commission hearing, the Alliance’s lawyer Frank Jenkins cited negative impacts on the environment, proximity to adjacent historic and architecturally significant single-family homes and threats to public safety as potential results of the new development project.

The Alliance also presented the

Commission a Nov. 10 letter from Trees Atlanta, a nonprofit working to maintain and expand Atlanta’s greenery.

“Trees Atlanta strongly supports the effort by Briar Park Court residents to prevent re-zoning and residential development by Minerva Homes for the sake of urban forest preservation along Old Briarcliff Road,” the letter reads.

Earlier, the Alliance claimed potential safety hazards from debris falling from a nearby television tower prevent construction of the condominium. However, DeKalb County Commissioner Jeff Rader said the county ordinance prevents tall structures from being installed within close proximity to residences but does not prevent residences from being built near tall structures.

Still, Rader said that he believes Minerva will be able to develop the

Old Briarcliff Road project without hindrance from the Commission. “[Proceeding with construction] requires Historic Preservation review, but if they meet the guidelines for the preservation process then the Historic Preservation Commission will be compelled to approve their project,” Rader said. “Then all they would have to do after that is follow the rules when it comes to developing the project.”

Haynie said he met privately with Rader in January to discuss the future of the proposed development. “[Rader] basically decided that he doesn’t necessarily disagree that there could be an issue … but as a matter of practicality, commitments had already been made to Minerva Homes from the county that [nothing would] come into conflict with any zoning ordinance,” Haynie said.

Minerva is also constructing

courtesy of MiNerva

A gated community on Briarcliff Road, drawn above, broke ground last month. another condominium complex adjacent to the proposed site.

This development on Briarcliff Road received full clearance from DeKalb County and broke ground last month. The site will be a gated community and include 12 condos and

12 townhomes. Pre-sale is expected to begin in one month, according to Minerva Director of Marketing Mikala Carver.

— Contact Richard Chess at richard.chess@emory.edu

4

NEWS

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

The Emory Wheel

SGA Leaders Offer Opposing Interpretations Rep. Deems Continued from Page 1 Cohen clarified in a Feb. 27 interview with the Wheel that his statement to the legislature was “advice on leadership” based on his experience serving in previous student governments rather than “legal advice” as chief justice.

“What I said at the meeting is not binding in any way,” Cohen said. “I was giving guidance because students were concerned about following the rules of the legislature.”

SGA Attorney General and Goizueta Business School senior Christopher Lam said that Cohen’s stance on the state of the Constitution is also not binding.

Cohen said in a Feb. 27 interview with the Wheel that some parts of the SGA Constitution are “probably active,” but he cannot issue an official ruling until a case is brought and all details are presented to the Constitutional Council.

Lam, who was sworn in as attorney general at the beginning of this semester, said in a Feb. 27 interview with the Wheel that there is a “disconnect between what’s written [in the Constitution] and what’s practiced” in SGA. Lam said that SGA was attempting to be efficient because “the pressing matter is that we want to make sure the next SGA has a working structure in place.”

In contradiction to Lam’s interpretation of the Constitution, SGA Collegewide Representative and College junior Will Palmer said in a Feb. 27 interview with the Wheel that “97 percent” of the old Constitution has been followed. He added that he had been aware before the referendum that the Constitution would be void following the split bill’s passage because the legislature would be unable to reach quorum after the dismissal of its graduate representatives.

According to the SGA Rules and Procedures of the Legislature, “a quorum shall consist of a majority of the membership of the legislature (requires at least 20 members present).” That quorum should be maintained through the legislative meeting, the Rules and Procedures read.

No temporary Constitution was put into place because it would have been too much effort for legislators to write

a Constitution that would be amended again, Palmer said.

“What would that even look like?” he asked.

Palmer said that the legislature has been following the Constitution with the exception of provisions regarding graduate legislators.

However, SGA President and College senior Max Zoberman said in a Feb. 27 interview with the Wheel that SGA is currently operating without a standing Constitution. He told the Wheel the SGA legislature could take any action necessary to fulfill the split bill’s directive to create a new undergraduate legislature.

After the Wheel asked questions about the state of the SGA Constitution, Lam said in the Feb. 27 interview that he planned to meet with the SGA executive board later that day to discuss the state of the Constitution. The next day, Lam told the Wheel that he had met with the executive board and that its members came to the consensus that the Constitution is being “roughly followed.” confusion Following Cohen’s Feb. 6 interpretation, Zoberman told the Wheel Feb. 27 that “the legislature … informally decided to continue to govern ourselves according to at least the procedural rules of the Constitution.”

Under that “informal resolution,” “within reason, we would continue to abide by the provisions of the old Constitution so long as it doesn’t inhibit us from passing this Constitution in a timely manner,” Zoberman said.

Legislators agreed on the informal resolution after Cohen told the legislature that he interpreted the Constitution as void, Zoberman said.

“It was a vote ... it was a unanimous decision,” he said.

Nothing binds SGA to that informal decision, Zoberman said.

In contradiction to Zoberman’s claim that SGA had informally agreed to generally follow the Constitution, Executive Vice President and Goizueta Business School junior Gurbani Singh said yesterday that SGA did not pass a formal nor an informal bill stating that SGA would adhere to its Constitution as closely as possible.

“It was an accepted understanding that we would try our best, but you

can’t follow everything,” said Singh, who said she has attended all SGA meetings this semester.

SGA freshman representative Miguel Vivar-Alcade, who said he has attended all SGA meetings this semester except the Feb. 27 meeting, said that he does not recall any informal agreement to follow the SGA Constitution.

In contradiction to his Feb. 27 claims, Zoberman said yesterday that the decision to adhere to the Constitution as much as possible had been a “joint determination made by the legislature and the executive branch.”

The determination stated that SGA would adhere to the SGA Constitution as much as possible barring any provisions preventing the legislature from fulfilling the directives issued by the split bill, Zoberman added.

Zoberman said that concern regarding the status of the SGA Constitution had been raised by the executive board both during and after the Feb. 6 meeting.

He said that the legislature discussed how SGA ought to follow its Constitution in that session.

Following Cohen’s Feb. 6 statements, Zoberman told legislators that Cohen had provided SGA with “a little bit more flexibility in terms of the timeline” of the legislature restructure, but an audio recording of the meeting shows no evidence of the legislature discussing the Constitution. spliT aMenDMenT passaGe Under the SGA Constitution, amendments are “Issues of Significance,” and require SGA to properly notify the student body of SGA’s consideration of them.

The Wheel found that SGA failed to hold a public forum to publicize the split bill per its “Issues of Significance” clause before it passed the bill through the legislature Nov. 21. SGA restarted its voting procedure because had it breached its Constitution and held a Nov. 28 public forum.

According to the SGA Constitution, that public forum must be “accessible to those not physically present, whether by live-broadcast on the internet, conference call or similar means that allows real-time participation in the forum without being physically present.”

When the Wheel asked Zoberman

whether the public forum had been live-streamed or broadcast, he said it had not.

Zoberman said that the real-time participation provision “has never happened in the history of Emory student government.”

He said that SGA attempted to account for that provision by creating an email account which he and Vice President of Communications and Goizueta Business School senior Ben Baranov monitored daily for students to send questions.

The email address was included in a Dec. 9 email sent to the student body by the 50th Student Government Association informing students that the bill had passed through the legislature Nov. 28 and that a University-wide referendum would be held in January. posT-spliT According to the SGA Constitution, a bill to amend the Constitution requires two-thirds of the legislature to vote in favor. In its Monday night meeting, SGA voted to pass the undergraduate legislature restructure amendment 14-1-0.

Lam pointed out that two-thirds of the undergraduate legislature would be 16 legislators, not 15, and that if SGA were following the Constitution as closely as possible under the informal resolution, that vote would be invalid.

“I’ll leave that [decision] to you guys,” Lam said to the legislature.

The Ranking Member of the Legislature and College senior Crystal McBrown presided since the speaker of the legislature was absent. She asked SGA if they wanted to table to the bill as a result of Lam’s comments, to which several legislators chorused “No.” Singh said that SGA has been voting since the split using a simple majority to pass bills and that the passage of this bill was valid on that basis.

“In the past few weeks we’ve been passing things by simple majority — ever since the referendum passed and the split happened,” she said.

The bill to restructure the undergraduate student legislature passed through SGA Monday night, and it is scheduled to go to referendum March 13.

— Contact Julia Munslow at julia.munslow@emory.edu

Sands Fears Decrease in Research Grants Wheel Casts Continued from Page 1 lenge that characterizes Sands’ entire term. White House officials announced Monday that the administration will ask Congress to increase the U.S. defense budget by $54 billion and slash programs relating to the environment, science and education, according to The New York Times.

“The biggest challenge we’re going to face is with [National Institute of Health] NIH funding being reduced,” Sands said. “As funding gets tougher, scientists drop out of science or seek other careers.”

When Sands transitions from president-elect to president in April 2018, he anticipates travelling to Washington, D.C., to lobby for research funding and meeting with NIH officials to advocate for research funding. Rather than a salary, some researchers rely on government funding to support their work.

Large reductions in scientific research funding would decrease the number of grants researchers receive and publications scientists produce.

Without that funding, Sands said, young students will likely become discouraged from pursuing careers in science and research. Sands hopes APS will provide a support network for aspiring scientists.

Jeff Sands, American Physiological Society PresidentElect courtesy of Jeff saNds

The Emory researcher’s APS presidential duties will also focus on strengthening APS’ current physiology publications and improving outreach programs from the next generation of physiologists, according to APS Director Martin Frank. Although physiology is the basis of medicine, Frank said, the field does not always get as much attention as others.

As Sands has been heavily involved

with APS for more than 30 years, Frank believes the APS president-elect will guide APS through any potential roadblocks, including political obstacles to funding.

In addition to his work with APS, Sands serves as the director of the Renal Division of Emory’s Department of Medicine. He also runs the “Urea Group,” a group of Emory faculty and undergraduates in the renal and physiology divisions who research proteins involved in the manipulation of urea in the kidney.

Presidents are elected to a threeyear term, serving their first year as president-elect, their second year as president and then transitioning to past president in their third year of service. The president-elect will work with the other two presidents on an executive committee to guide the general direction of the society, acting as its official spokesperson.

— Contact Natalia Brody at natalia.brody@emory.edu

Precautionary Re-vote

Continued from Page 1 Computer Science and Film and Media Studies departments, to achieve her goal of building the paper’s digital presence.

“Julia is great at finding and recruiting new people,” Savino said. “It’s just the matter of finding those people who can really help with building our digital [presence].”

Hudak issued a re-vote as a precautionary measure Feb. 28 upon discovery of an ambiguous clause in the Wheel’s constitution.

“We’re setting the highest standard of quorum that the constitution can be held to,” Hudak said. “To be safe, what we did is [we] took the most extreme safest measure.”

— Contact Varun Gupta at varun.gupta@emory.edu

Opponents ‘Snowflakes’

Continued from Page 1

tration declared support for its undocumented students, but said that Emory is not a “sanctuary campus.” On Jan. 18, Sterk released an open letter outlining initiatives designed to support undocumented students, including continuing financial support and creating a student organization that advocates for undocumented students.

Ehrhart characterized opponents of the bill as “sensitive snowflakes” in an interview with The Athens Banner-Herald.

“I don’t really care to hear protestations of discomfort or fear,” Ehrhart said to the Banner-Herald. “My admonition to those snowflakes is: I’ll be more than happy to provide the pacifiers in the next budget.”

In response to the House’s passage of the bill, Freedom University Georgia, a nonprofit that provides resources to undocumented students in Georgia and has supported the movement to designate Emory a “sanctuary campus,” released a Feb. 22 statement on Facebook.

“I don’t really care to hear protestations of discomfort or fear ... ” — Earl Ehrhart, State representative

“Undocumented students are not snowflakes,” the statement read. “They are … quite familiar with the injustices and hardships of this world. True cowardice is targeting and punishing young people for daring to learn.”

The group encouraged readers to contact University President Claire E. Sterk to urge her to designate Emory a “sanctuary campus.” The Emory Sanctuary Coalition, which requested a “sanctuary campus” designation for Emory multiple times since late January, shared the post on its Facebook page Feb. 22.

While the “sanctuary campus” term has no legal definition, Emory Sanctuary Coalition members and 221 faculty members called Sterk to adopt the designation in support of Emory’s undocumented students. In addition to the “sanctuary campus” label, the Coalition demanded Emory promise lawful non-cooperation with federal immigration authorities, provide need-based financial aid to undocumented students regardless of whether they have Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status, and issue “full support” of its undocumented students and students from mixed-status families.

University administrators released a Jan. 18 statement announcing that Emory would not label itself a “sanctuary campus” after receiving a Nov. 20 petition with more than 1,500 signatures from the Emory community requesting the designation. In a Jan. 31 statement, Sterk called the label “counterproductive” and “[lacking] substantive meaning for policy and practice.”

Ehrhart and the Coalition did not respond to requests for comment.

— Contact Alex Klugerman at

alex.klugerman@emory.edu

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TIJS SUMMER GRANTS in JEWISH STUDIES The Tam Institute for Jewish Studies is accepting applications for grants to Emory students during Summer 2017, supporting academic experiences that complement and advance undergraduate and graduate students’ pursuits of Jewish Studies at Emory University, such as travel, research, or language study.

A limited number of grants are available for Summer 2017.

Applications Due at Noon on Friday, March 17, 2017 Visit the TIJS website for eligibility requirements, guidelines, and additional information http://www.js.emory.edu/programs/UndergradGrantGuidelines.htm http://www.js.emory.edu/programs/GradSummerTravelGrantGuidelines.htm

Questions? Contact Mary Jo Duncanson at mdunca2@emory.edu or 404.727. 6301

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The Emory Wheel

Emory Life

Wednesday, March 1, 2017 | Emory Life Editor: Alisha Compton (alisha.bhatia.compton@emory.edu)

STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

Hudak Looks Back

PROFESSOR SPOTLIGHT

An Interview with the Editor-in-Chief Before His Last Issue on the Wheel

By Niraj Naik Staff Writer The Wheel sat down with Editor-inChief and College senior Zak Hudak at the end of his term to discover his deepest, darkest secrets. A philosophy major, Hudak joined the Wheel staff as assistant sports editor his freshman year, and most recently served as the paper’s managing editor. The following answers are the results of our investigation. This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

The Emory Wheel: Are you a boxers or briefs guy? On a side note, which sock do you put on first?

Zak Hudak: I’m a boxers guy. Have been since grade school. Left sock. I’m right handed. I think it’s the angle.

Right hand on the left foot.

EW: Where in Atlanta would you bring someone on a first date? Why? ZH: I think Little Five Points. It’s just an interesting place. Walk around.

See what’s going on. Vortex there.

Incredible burgers.

They have a burger with buns that are actually grilled cheese sandwiches.

It’s incredible. There’s always something going on there.

For people who are from out of town [who] I’m trying to give the Emory experience to — I’ve even taken my parents there — Falafel King. I think that’s a staple at Emory. If you really want to experience going to Emory, that’s a piece of it.

EW: What is your favorite bathroom reading material?

“Things went wrong and this whole pile of gunpowder [exploded] on me. We were inside. I should clarify that. It was not supposed to go off.”

— Zak Hudak, Editor-in-Chief

ZH: Traditionally, The New York Times. I love The New York Times, especially the Sunday issue.

You can probably find in that bathroom down the hall [from the Wheel offices] — sections from the Times [I’ve] left there.

But lately, I’ve actually started using Twitter, which I still don’t know fully how to do, but I’m getting at it, and I’ve loved it in internships when working wire services.

At this point, Twitter has become my little personal wire service, so I’ll just be sitting in there, getting a constant feed of news.

EW: If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? Why? ZH: It’s going to have to be a mixed sandwich from Falafel King because

you can be in any mood and with that spicy mayo dousing your [sandwich], you’ll want to eat it. You don’t even have to be hungry. You’ll want to eat it.

EW: What is your favorite physical attribute?

ZH: Everybody’s gonna say my hair.

Yeah, I guess my hair. Hopefully it stays around for a while. We’ll see.

EW: What is the weirdest scar you have and how did you get it?

ZH: On my hand, you can kind of see scarring. In the summer, when my hand gets tan, it stays tan in a certain spot.

When I was in high school, my friend who is now in the army and I were playing with fireworks and combining them, being little pyromaniacs.

Things went wrong and this whole pile of gunpowder [exploded] on me.

We were inside. I should clarify that. It was not supposed to go off.

My friend is not even [an] army ranger. He’s Special Forces. Really intensely motivated guy. Really strong.

Totally comfortable with all kinds of fighting stuff.

The second he sees the flame, [he] runs out of the room and shuts the door. So I’m in my room with [fireworks] flying around. It was fine, but I got some burns on my hand and on my leg.

My mom made me call my baseball coach and tell him that’s why I wouldn’t be at practice. Not my finest moment.

EW: What was the most embarrassing moment you’ve had in front of a professor?

ZH: I won’t [name] the professor, but a couple years ago, at some point, I had been doing like a million things.

I pulled an all-nighter, and my exam was from 8:30 [a.m.] to 10:30 in the morning.

I woke up at 10 [a.m.], and you know that moment when you wake up and all of the blood goes to your feet and you’re just like “Uh-oh”? I put on a shirt, pants, jumped in the car, flew to school, just parked illegally next to the building, went inside and said to the professor, “Give me the exam,” and he was like, “Go wait outside.”

The entire class was looking at me.

I came [outside] and the professor looked at me and said, “You look like you could really use breakfast.” And I said, “Yeah.” He took me to breakfast, got me coffee and [we] went back and [I] took the exam. This was happening when I took over the paper, because I remember thinking that this professor had shown me kindness that I might not show other people, and it was kind of a check.

EW: If you hadn’t spent your college career on the fifth floor of the DUC where would you have been and why?

ZH: If I would have been able to stick around long enough — who knows how long I would have lasted — but I think on the baseball field. [I] came here as a baseball player. Loved it. Ended up having to decide.

I just couldn’t keep fully commit-

ting to both [the Wheel and the team].

But I think if I wasn’t here, I’d want to be on the baseball field.

EW: What is your recipe for surviving a production night? What food to order, etc.?

Zak Hudak, College senior and Editor-inChief of The Emory Wheel

ruth r eyes/Photo editor

ZH: It helps having the [Editor-inChief] office because I can escape a little bit. My food to get through production was subs from the Sandwich Shop, where Mama Tiger is. Now, I guess whatever good food [Managing Editor and College senior] Samuel Budnyk is ordering. I also like having my notebook. I have everything that’s going in every issue and its status in there. That keeps me sane when there’s a hundred moving parts.

EW: What is your favorite Wikipedia article?

ZH: It’s been pretty interesting to watch the Wheel’s Wikipedia article change when editors change stuff. I’m not positive about this. I’m pretty sure last year when the Trump chalking happened — our coverage was really major and we were under fire from some areas — I think some people changed goofy little things.

I know on the Emory [Wikipedia] page they changed the mascot from Eagles to Pansies. I don’t know what they did to our page but something [happened]. It’s been interesting to watch that change because I’ve been a part of that.

EW: What has been your most cherished memory on the Wheel?

ZH: There have been a ton. I’ve been working on the Wheel since the fall of my freshman year. It’s weird because so many people have gone by.

What I’ll look back on most, or look to first, I don’t know if I’d say it was a happy time, it was in the [middle] of the pro-Trump chalk slogan protests where there was a two-week period where the Wheel became a national authority on something, not on something huge but still we were who places looked to.

I’d become the editor-in-chief two or three weeks prior, and all of sudden we were in the spotlight. It was an incredible thing to watch, and it was hard to step back and look at it because you’re in the eye of the storm.

When I stepped back and saw 25 people working side by side to make this paper come out and continue our coverage, it was really an incredible thing.

Hudak did not contribute to the writing or editing of this story.

— Contact Niraj Naik at niraj.naik@emory.edu

Courtesy of K irK elifson

Elifson and Sterk pose for a photo on a hiking trip the couple took a few years ago.

First Gentleman: Kirk Elifson

By Michelle lou News Editor In a room of 30 AIDS experts, a woman from a coal mining town in the Netherlands met a man from a small Midwestern town at the unexpectedly romantic Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) more than 25 years ago. Those two researchers, now University President Claire E. Sterk and Rollins School of Public Health research professor Kirk Elifson, became “great pals,” and endeavor to advance the University’s fundraising activities and address concerns from Emory community members.

Although Elifson and Sterk were initially uneasy about the time commitment required for the Emory presidency, Elifson said that he realized Sterk was ready for the position when he was preparing her for interviews.

“I was shocked at how … she was so articulate, so quick-thinking, so knowledgeable, that I saw her in a way that I didn’t even know her — and we’ve been married for 28 years,” Elifson said. “That told me that this was the right thing to do.”

Teamwork is a familiar concept to the couple: as research partners, they have published more than 100 scholarly articles together. Recently, the two traveled to major cities, such as Miami and Los Angeles, to meet with Emory alumni and donors. Working with his wife comes “with great ease,” Elifson said, emphasizing that the two never compete with each other, and always maintain an open mind and ear when they disagree.Scattered across Elifson’s desk are pages of his partner’s speeches. He often provides feedback, helps her prepare for meetings and brainstorms how to advance Emory with her in the evenings.

“I understand her voice,” Elifson said. “She knows that I have her best interests at heart.”

Having her best interests at heart entails understanding her views and why she holds them. Amidst a contentious political climate, Elifson noted that Sterk can relate to the trauma that international students feel from President Donald J. Trump’s travel ban executive order, because Sterk is an immigrant herself.

“She still gets nervous going across the border and coming in through

immigration,” Elifson said. “She’s a citizen ... but it still reminds her of one time she was detained in Mexico. She was working for the federal government and she didn’t have a green card at the time and they wouldn’t let her come back in and held her there for a number of hours.”

Since Sterk assumed the University presidency last semester, Elifson has been thrust onto the public stage, receiving more attention than ever before. In supporting his wife, the first first gentleman of Emory University said he sticks to what he knows.

Elifson wears myriad hats: professor, statistician, sociologist, mentor, administrator, veteran and gardener, to name but a few. His daily routine has amassed “more and more work,” including helping Emory bring more military veterans to campus, participating in Carter Center research, mentoring first-generation and low-income students and getting to know the pulse of the University. As the former chair of the sociology department at Georgia State University, his leadership skills aided him in getting to know new Emory faculty members and students, and discussing the direction in which they would like to see Emory head.

Helping first-generation students succeed in higher education hits close to home for both Elifson and Sterk, who come from households where either one or both of their parents did not go to college.

Outside of Emory, Elifson also serves on the board of Hope Atlanta, a nonprofit that provides transportation, shelter and linkage to health care to homeless people. Elifson’s drive to give back also combines with his love for horticulture. As former president of the Olmsted Linear Park Alliance, which helps preserve the historic Atlanta park, Elifson’s eyes light up when he talks plans to spruce up his new home, Lullwater Park, with new flora.

“We … try to bring some sunshine into the world and help people get a chance who haven’t had a chance,” Elifson said. “We’ve had people reach out to us when we were younger and brought us forward, and now we try to do that.”

— Contact Michelle Lou at mlou3@emory.edu

EMORY LIFE

The Emory Wheel FOOD

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

7

COOKIES

By aditya Prakash Staff Writer

sara Cunningham/Contirbuting Writer

Customers can order food and drinks, including chai and specialty coffee, during Java Monkey’s Open Mic Night.

java MoNkey deCatur

By sara cuNNiNghaM Contributing Writer Nestled in downtown Decatur, Java Monkey is a prime location for a pastry break after an afternoon on the town.

Upon walking into the cafe, the first thing that stood out to me was the faded, carrot-colored walls and a warm, laid-back atmosphere permeated my surroundings as soon as I set foot inside. As a coffee shop, Java Monkey does not fail to deliver. The coffee itself is fantastic; if you like it strong and with hints of earthiness, you’ve come to the right place.

And, if you’re in the mood for more than a simple rustic coffee, you might spice it up with a pump of vanilla or hazelnut. I suggest skipping the cream and sugar because the flavor syrups make the coffee sweet enough on their own. I ordered the Chai Tea Latte and only tried a sip of the flavored coffee.

Much to my chagrin, the latte was slightly watery and too spicy for my liking.

In addition to these caffeinated staples, Java Monkey has a number of food options, the cheesecake being a favorite among regulars according to Korey Alsbrooks, a regular performer at the coffee shop .

For dinner, I ordered the Bat, a sandwich on thick, crusty bread with bacon, lettuce, tomato, cheese and mayonnaise. The bread was toasted

and the sandwich arrived warm. The bacon was crispy and thick, and went perfectly with the tomato and lettuce, making the sandwich just full enough to satisfy, without over-stuffing me.

“The Bat makes me extremely happy,” Avery Sanders, a Java Monkey patron said.

The shop offers a variety of sides, including fresh fruit and cole slaw for those who aren’t in the mood for the traditional bag of chips. The food at Java Monkey is good, and their coffee is delicious, but what really makes Java Monkey stand out is its outdoor atmosphere. The cafe holds performances almost every night from 8 to 11 p.m. I attended the Java Monkey Speaks open mic, where performers — mostly poets, but some musicians — dazzled the audience. The open mic, hosted by the eccentric, pun-dropping poet Theresa Davis, is open to all who wish to perform. She makes the crowd cheer enthusiastically for each speaker, especially when it is a performer’s first time.

“I love [the open mic],” Alsbrooks said. “It’s really good entertainment for people, no matter how good they may or may not be. It’s an open, safe space. No one is going to judge you.”

The poets go beyond refraining from judgement; they pay homage to one another. I witnessed one poet quote an earlier poet’s work to preface his own. It is this camaraderie that makes Java Monkey so much more than a cute little coffee shop on Sunday nights in Atlanta.

Whenever a kid sells any kind of food or drink it’s probably going to taste like trash.

I’ve seen my fair share of disgusting concoctions, from overly sweet lemonade to horrifically dense chocolate cake, which I reluctantly agreed to buy out of pity. As a result, when an innocent Girl Scout asked me “Hey, do you want to buy a Girl Scout cookie?” as I was on my morning run to class, I replied tactlessly with a firm “No”.

That was until I noticed all the hype surrounding these cookies. “Hey bro, you have to try Thin Mints,” a hallmate said. “Dude, Samoas are all the rage right now,” my roommate announced.

“Savannah Smiles are hands down the best!” a close friend stated (I realized that our friendship could no longer continue). After analyzing each cookie, I conclude that Girl Scout Cookies are not your average sweets sold by pushy children; they carve themselves a niche that makes them worthwhile rather than pitiable. That being said, not all cookies are equal. A few are always perfect, while others only fill a specific craving and some are totally outclassed by other biscuits. thiN MiNts Many claim that Thin Mints are the best cookie available. According to College freshman Camila Guevara, a Girl Scout alumna taking orders for cookies from other freshmen, of the approximately 200 orders placed through her, about 60 were for Thin Mints. The cookies strike a perfect balance between light mintiness and subtle sweetness, rather than just tasting like chocolate mixed with toothpaste (looking at you, peppermint bark).

Thin Mints are the ideal snack to eat before a party. The lack of gunk (from nuts or the like) that can collect on your teeth means that your award-winning smile will not be compromised.

Additionally, the fresh, minty taste is both delicious and optimally scented, so you need not worry about your breath smelling bad afterwards.

Their crispiness also makes them delectably addictive — yet four of these beauties are only about 161 calories so your dress buttons won’t pop open.

ruth r eyes/Photo editor

Girl Scouts sell various types of cookies on the DUC terraces. ing wrong with Trefoils, there is nothing right with them either. Like Thin Mints, they have a crispy texture. Like Samoas, they are sweet but not overpowering. Like shortbread, they go well with a strong coffee, but in all honesty this country should leave shortbread to its true master: Scotland. do-si-dos A little dry, a little heavy, but certainly an ideal biscuit to pick up if you’re rushing to class.

The savory peanut butter fills you up, and the biscuits that enclose a layer of cream mean your hands are clean enough to take notes (or to text) in the middle of class. saMoas

— Contact Sara Cunningham at sara.cunningham@emory.edu

The best time to eat Trefoils? Never.

While it’s fair to say that there’s noth-

Oh, the Samoa: the biscuit that presented me with the true apex of youth entrepreneurship.

The shabby aesthetic is the mark it bears from the gods, who say to the humble cookie, “O you, who so wonderfully balances the sweet-umami of coconut shreddings with caramel and chocolate, you shall forever hold the mark of an ugly appearance lest you too perfectly replicate the beauty of the heavens.” Guevara told me that among the orders she received from the Class of 2020, the most popular order was for Samoas — for good reason.

These cookies can be eaten anytime but are best-suited for late-night study sessions. In an act of autonomous classical conditioning, these humble biscuits, with their sheer deliciousness, will encourage you to get through your day’s work and to leave the library feeling much happier.

mother is Filipino, [and] my father is Indian. When I was growing up and devouring every fantasy book that I could, there was never anyone that looked like me.

If I looked at the covers, nobody had names like mine and so, for me, writing meant I was writing space for myself. I was writing myself into a narrative.

The more fairy tales and myths you read, [the more] you see across every cultural spectrum. It’s inspiring because it says, “okay, these are stories of shared human experience.”

[My] story is a lot about fate and destiny and how those things are squishy boundaries.

That was a really important thing for me to remember, because, when I was writing [the novel], I felt so locked in with my choice [to write]. Everyone told me that when I graduated with a degree in English I would either go to

law school or become a teacher. [But] that is such a narrow view of looking at the world. When you have a great educational experience, like the kind Emory provides, it is on you to become imaginative about what to do with that.

It’s really scary to put your work out there and to have other people not just critique it but tear it apart. The scariest thing is trying to stay tuned into your voice and to tune out all [other] voices, because at the end of the day that’s your name on the book, nobody else’s.

Self comparison will be the death of you. This is a world driven by social media, and we never take the time to appreciate that these are highlight reels of our’s and other people’s lives. If you spend your life bitter and envious because you want the flames that somebody else’s career or spark might have, it doesn’t make your life burn any brighter.

Success is not like a jug of milk. There’s no expiration date.

You do things at your own pace and you believe in yourself above all.

One of biggest things that you learn after graduating is that you can do this on your own. [For example], working as a legal secretary, as I did, for a year in a freezing tax law office will teach you a lot about yourself. It was that moment of going into a cold dark office and studying for the LSAT in complete and total silence that told me I don’t want this with my life. I wanted to do something else, and nobody was going to hold my hand and that was okay.

It’s a shock to find out once you graduate from a liberal arts [college] that the world doesn’t revolve around you. Nobody is going to hand you anything. That’s one of the things that made college so great. Everything was handed [to you] on a silver platter, and all you had to do was reach.

It’s so easy in college to get lost and

trefoils

s’Mores If the Samoa is the perfect kid who graduated college with a 4.0 while also playing quarterback for the football team and then earning millions in his self-founded start-up, the S’more is the average son who took a forced gap-year to “find himself.”

While the Samoa successfully does something different, the S’more does nothing special with the standard cream biscuit formula. In short, this banal biscuit is not worth $6 at all. Stick to Oreos for your late night munchies. savaNNah sMiles Although I think it tastes like the little bits of chewed DUC pancake stuck on my teeth after I take a swig of orange juice, I can see why people like these.

That light, tangy flavor makes it ideal for eating while reading something super dense and profound (think Arthur Schopenhauer or some other European philosopher with a really cool sounding last name ).

Savannah Smiles demand a level of discipline; you are not basic enough to order just the chocolate-covered cookies. toffee-tastic (gluteN-free) Do you have a medically confirmed gluten intolerance? Because that is the only instance in which it is acceptable to eat these boring cookies. Stick to Samoas.

— Contact Aditya Prakash at aditya.prakash@emory.edu

ALUMNA SPOTLIGHT

By MoNica leftoN Staff Writer Roshani Chokshi (13C) graduated from Emory with a English degree, with an emphasis on Medieval English. After working as a legal secretary and attending law school at the University of Georgia for a year, Chokshi left her law plans behind to follow her passion as a writer. Her first novel, The Star Touched Queen, a young-adult fantasy, came out April 2016 and was included on The New York Times Bestseller List. Her second novel, A Crown of Wishes, releases March 28. The new book’s launch party will be held at Little Shop of Stories in downtown Decatur March 28 at 7 p.m, kicking off a week-long national tour. The Wheel spoke with Chokshi about her newest book and her time since Emory. This is an edited transcript.

I grew up in a mixed-race home: my

to feel as though your voice doesn’t matter or that what you’re learning is just sort of passive absorption. It’s on you to make it active. It’s on you to push yourself farther.

Take advantage of it all. Go to … the Schwartz Center and listen to those concerts. Go look at the manuscript, archive and rare book library. It will just shock you, the tiny treasures tucked away. If you haven’t already, hang out in the Carlos Museum because it’s amazing. Allow yourself to find the little different worlds tucked into the campus.

Everyone should always go walk in Lullwater in autumn at least twice, to feed the ducks and then to chase them. There’s one creepy mill thing off to the side, and I swear if you make a wish on a quarter and throw it in, it’ll come true.

— Contact Monica Lefton at monica.lefton@emory.edu

&

The Emory Wheel

Arts Entertainment Wednesday, March 1, 2017 | A&E Editor: Brian Savino (brian.savino@emory.edu)

HORROR

AWARDS

Oscars Feature Few Surprises

Awards Show Pays Touching Tribute to Cinema Sure, there have been flubs before.

There was a wrongful announcement from a mistaken envelope back in Yet another predictable year for the 1964 when Sammy Davis Jr. read the Oscars: the 89th Academy Awards award for Best Original Score during his presentation for Best Adaptation or proceeded as expected.

A few minor unexpected wins were Treatment Score.

But there has never been an acciscattered throughout, but the predicted story of the night was La La Land’s dent that awarded the wrong film in ultimate victory, riding a number of the same category, especially not the technical awards and Best Picture. one that was as unexpected as this.

Wait, hold on, it appears I was handed What a shame.

The mistake was the wrong envelope. disheartening not only The story of the for the La La Land 89th Academy Awards It’s a shame that team, who gracefully centers around the the overwhelming handled this disapfinal moments, when narrative about these pointing moment, but one of the most awards will be the also for the Moonlight unprecedented and insane flubs in Oscar biggest on-air mistake team, whose major accomplishment was history snapped in Oscar history. overshadowed by everyone awake. the confusion of the During the Best award.

Picture announceSo, let’s give Moonlight its proper ment, presenters Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway were handed the praise.

An all-black production team made wrong envelope, a duplicate for “Best Performance from an Actress in a a $1.6 million film about a young black Leading Role”, which went to Emma gay man and it won Best Picture.

A film that feels similar to Hong Stone in La La Land. In the midst of La La Land’s team acceptance Kong dramas and independent art speeches, the film’s producer, Jordan films took the top prize in Hollywood.

Horowitz, took the correct envelope This monumental occasion is comand announced that Moonlight actually won Best Picture.

See BeSt, Page 10

By Brandon Wagner Wheel Alumnus

Courtesy of universal PiCtures

Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) stares in terror in ‘Get Out,’ a film that unexpectedly propelled Jordan Peele to director fame.

‘Get Out’ is Horrifying, Comedic

By Vikrant nallaparaju Film Critic Grade: A Politically charged horror films are a tricky balancing act: if you focus too heavily on the horror elements, you’ll lose the subtext you’re trying to project. Conversely, prioritizing politics can lead to a preachy film devoid of anything remotely terrifying.

That’s not say it can’t be done; David Cronenberg and George Romero have been doing it for decades. However, we

end up with more films like The Purge, delivering ham-fisted political commentary without subtlety or nuance.

It’s all the more surprising to see comedian-turned-director Jordan Peele deliver not only a socially conscious thriller in his debut film Get Out, but also a brilliant horror comedy.

The film centers on a young couple, Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose Armitage (Allison Williams).

After several months of dating, Rose takes Chris to meet her parents. Chris is apprehensive since Rose hasn’t told them that she’s dating a black man.

INDEPENDENT

While her parents seem accepting of their relationship, Chris notices something off and uncovers a sinister conspiracy lurking beneath the surface of their community.

What Get Out may lack in plot setup, it more than makes up for in execution and subversion of expectations.

Once Chris steps into the Armitage’s home, we are eager to know why everyone is acting strange. There’s no M. Night Shyamalan-esque twist supplanting the reveal, but Peele isn’t con-

See HOrrOr, Page 10

FIRST-PERSON SHOOTER

‘Potatoes’ Charms, Fails at Innovation By daniel park Contributing Writer Grade: C+ With several highly anticipated Triple-A releases like “Mass Effect: Andromeda” or “For Honor,” it’s easy to overlook smaller indie games; they struggle to gain visibility and traction without big developer names, pristine graphics or unlimited budgets, typical of the games currently saturating the market. “Holy Potatoes! We’re in Space?!” is one of those unnoticed games with a glint of quality in this overpopulated race to be noticed.

“Holy Potatoes! We’re in Space?!” centers around two young potatoes, Cassie and Kay, traveling the galaxy on their spaceship to find their missing grandfather.

The gameplay is divided into three types. First, there is travel to and exploration of distant planets in an “Oregon Trail”-text-adventure-style; events are relayed to the player in text boxes providing options for the player’s course of action. Second, the play-

er can assume responsibility for ship maintenance and upgrades that can be purchased at hubs and shops in each solar system. The game also allows the player to assume command of the ship and crew for turn-based spaceship-onspaceship combat against the Eclipse, similar to Star Wars’ Empire.

While gameplay becomes simple once the player masters the caveats and rules, the game is initially overwhelming for a casual gamer. The interface has many small menus that leave the player punching random buttons and experimenting rather than working from a concrete keyboard guide.

Moreover, the game’s tutorial provides little help, offering vague directions as to where each button is. The bright orange arrows meant to point out the different menus do not stand out in this otherwise slick, vividly colored world.

The visuals are compelling. The cartoonish style of the game exudes a professional feel compared to some of the

See inDie, Page 10

Courtesy of treyarCh

Soldiers dash into battle in “Call of Duty Black Ops 3” (2015) with airborne support from a Mothership.

‘Call of Duty’ Needs to Step Back

By Brian SaVino A&E Editor

I remember the excitement I felt playing “Call of Duty” after a busy week — the competitiveness and laughs with friends made it a good alternative to sports for a kid with bad eyesight. But in recent years, I have found myself void of that strong desire to play the game.

Sledgehammer Games is developing the upcoming “Call of Duty,” set to release November 2017. The game is rumored to be set in Vietnam, a sign Activision listened to its fans’ concerns about futuristic warfare, after almost four years of hyper-futurism, and is moving to a simpler time period.

However, in order for their upcoming game to succeed, Sledgehammer Games will need to pay close atten-

tion to the “Call of Duty” community’s suggestions and focus on quality over quantity in addition to ditching the exo-suit movements, that allow players to soar into the air and wall-run.

The exo-suit movements introduced in “Advanced Warfare” (2014) caused the series to lose its magical feeling. Exo-abilities, which include

See UPCOMinG, Page 10

9

A&E

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

The Emory Wheel

MOVIEFEST

Campus MovieFest Sheds Light On Student Realities, Fantasies By anthony Chau Editorial Board Member “It’s just one of those things,� begins the quintessential Emory tour guide mantra. “It’s there if you want it, but you’re not missing out if you don’t.� It’s a tactful half-truth students use to justify our campus’ noncommittal stance on everything from sports to parties to the arts.

It seemed Campus MovieFest (CMF), despite being the world’s largest undergraduate film festival, had become “just one of those things� — an annual, ubiquitously known tradition treated more as a peripheral spectacle than a galvanizing, community-wide event.

Organizers’ attempts to glam up the screening Feb. 27 with a red carpet, photography umbrellas and ostentatious amounts of La Croix in the Dobbs University Center went largely unnoticed.

Yet as the audience swelled in Harland Cinema to watch the top 16 films selected from a pool of 129 student teams by a panel of anonymous judges, I was struck with the feeling that I had stumbled into something far more enormous than I could comprehend.

Surely a team of half a dozen Emory students could come up with nothing more than frivolity — a pet project peppered with inside jokes to be shared amongst friends, a hodgepodge of convenient locations and culturally salient storylines, a representation of the common banalities college students face.

And yes, we saw this in the uproarious “Group Project,â€? carried by pristine editing and the cast’s impeccable comedic timing and delivery (“You might be wondering why I’m dressed as a hot dog ‌ I have a very exclusive unpaid internship for the promotional company of the leading hot dog company here in Atlanta ‌ it’s really quite prestigious, honestlyâ€?) and in “Netsplice,â€? a bizarre, avantgarde patchwork of CGI, memes and unedited takes of actors breaking into laughter that concluded the screening. College senior Evan Welch’s “Strangers Play Cards,â€? which bore more resemblance to a Buzzfeed video than a short film, pairs students playing cards games under different rules and captures their resulting confusion, ending with the fairly obvious moral that, “It’s not distance that keeps people apart ‌ But rather a lack of communication!â€?

Yet teams also leapt at the opportunity to tackle weightier, controversial topics with sociopolitical relevance. Within seconds, College sophomore Alex Kass forced audience members into a tense, deeply intimate

discomfort with her performance in “One in Five,� portraying a sexual assault survivor’s imagined backlash if she ever spoke out about her attacker. Conversely, “Waylon� follows its eponymous subject who, with her skeletal cheekbones and tattoo sleeves, presents a stark contrast to the sterile, conventional college campus aesthetic as she speaks about her sex transition in a dimly lit bathroom and sings about hormone replacement therapy.

Audrey Easton, who captained both projects, won a Silver Tripod — Performance award for a third film titled “Butchered� by AE Films, a gory jumpscare short that breaks the fourth wall in its final 20 seconds (“Let me go!�/“I can’t!�/“Why not?�/“Because this is a horror movie!�). “Butchered� also took home one of four Jury Awards, alongside “The Fisherman & The Butterfly� by Studio 53, “Petals� by FemmeFilms and “Garden� by Torrian Robertson.

Most compellingly, College freshman Melissa Ackaway and College junior and The Emory Wheel Video Editor Leila Yavari’s documentary “Are We Next?â€? intersperses home footage with an interview of Yavari’s mother, Marjan Yavari, about her family’s escape from Iranian religious persecution as members of the Bahå’í Faith. Though Marjan Yavari never addresses anything beyond Iran — touching on her father’s arrest, the revolution, the execution of a childhood friend and Saddam Hussein’s violence — a poignant stillness settled on the audience as parallels with today’s political climate emerged, building toward questions of morality and humanity: “This is the moment when you think, would I do that?

If push comes to shove, will I be that person that will open my door and put my own family’s life at risk to save another family?�

Other shorts eschewed storylines and themes in favor of integrating vivid imagery. “I like to get my hands dirty� focused its camerawork exclusively on a pair of hands, which, after the dissolution of a marriage, succumb to increasingly toxic vices and become filthy, savage and disturbingly violent, culminating in a gratuitous, nearly twenty-second closeup of ripping apart raw, bloody meat. “The Fisherman and the Butterfly� and “Garden� became strange, captivating blends of poetry, choreography and cinematography, albeit to remarkably different outcomes: the former as a folkloric tale reminiscent of animated tangram fables and the latter employing Biblical imagery to examine the intersection of religion and sexuality, which team captain and College senior Torrian Robertson dedicated to men who recently taunted him with homophobic slurs.

After originating in 2001 “in a dorm with two dudes and a computer� (“like most horrible things in college,� co-host and Wheel alumnus Brandon Wagner quipped), CMF has since become a conduit for the boundless range of Emory students’ ideas. Sure, it is difficult to be profound with a five-minute cap. The films don’t boast the gravity of Tropfest shorts or Hemingway’s six-word-stories — but they are not and were never supposed to. These are Emory students reinterpreting stories they know too well, shedding light on them so we too might bear witness to this shared beauty, pain and foolishness.

When discussing CMF on my tours, I tack on a sheepish, self-deprecating admission — “But, you know, we’re pretty busy. So they’re not that good� — to choruses of chuckles. To the filmmakers, producers, writers, actors and artists who submitted films, consider this a formal apology and acknowledgement that I must eat my words. Your work is far greater than the sum of its parts and captured glimpses of humanity — its depravity, its joy, its mundanity — with breathtaking conviction. Bravo.

Courtesy of CamPus moviefest

Audrey easton (left) and Alex Kass (r ight) pose before the ceremony.

— Contact Anthony Chau at anthony.chau@emory.edu

ruth r eyes/Photo editor

Audrey easton (left) makes a speech alongside Adnan Basrai (r ight) after winning a Jury Award for “Butchered.�

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A&E

The Emory Wheel

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Upcoming ‘Call of Duty’ to be Developed by Sledgehammer Games Continued from Page 8 jumping 20 feet in the air and zipping over buildings, made multiplayer gameplay exhausting and aggravating.

You could, for example, sneak right behind an enemy soldier while on a killstreak, only to have them exo-jump into the air and blast you from some unknown area in the sky. Exo-abilities took away any flow that boots-on-theground games like “Black Ops” (2010) had.

“Call of Duty” is a twitch shooter — a large part of online gameplay is based on quick reactions and good aim. Any amount of lag, which results from poor internet connection, depletes multiplayer enjoyment by causing a delay between the moment you press a button and the moment the game accounts for it. Exo-abilities amplify this effect. It is hard to hit a laggy player on the ground, much less one pixelating through the air.

Treyarch, the developer of “Call of Duty 3” (2006) “World at War” (2008) and all three “Black Ops” games, made the best of what they were given.

Influenced by Activision and other futuristic games to create another exosuit-based game, Treyarch developed more fluid movements in “Black Ops 3” (2015) as opposed to the bouncier ones in “Advanced Warfare.” Jumping was smoother and wall-running better allowed for flanks and comebacks.

But that wasn’t enough to convince gamers that exo-suit combat is the series’ best course of action. Players’ concerns about exo-abilities and an overbearing amount of features are clearly reflected in “Call of Duty” sales:

Best Picture Presentation Falls Short Continued from Page 8

Courtesy of infinity Ward

A player in “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare” (2007) prepares to enter combat on the multiplayer map Downpour. disc-based copies of “Infinite Warfare” (2016) are down nearly 50 percent from 2015’s “Black Ops 3.” So how can they bounce back?

Part of the reason “Call of Duty” has been going downhill both in terms of sales and enjoyment is developers’ tendency to keep adding features to the game — more scorestreaks, weapons, weapon customizations, maps, player customizations and special abilities — without paying attention to quality.

Developers need to take a look at past games. In many cases, simpler is better — a lower quantity of weapons, maps, customizations, etc. means that the developer can focus on making each aspect of the game as good as it can be. The best “Call of Duty” games, such as “Black Ops,” are grounded in simplicity, set in the past or nearfuture. The uncomplicated settings

gave developers less material to work with, which made each aspect more well thought-out and balanced.

Take a look at another recent game: “Battlefield 1,” developed by DICE. It’s set in World War I, a time of much simpler military technology, yet the game is graphic, intense and all-around fun.

Dodging mustard gas and jumping off blimps are only the beginning.

With the 2016 game, DICE made the most out of a little rather than adding redundancies to an already-saturated game.

That isn’t to say first-person shooters can only be good if their settings only go as far as the near-future.

“Halo,” though futuristic, doesn’t contain an overbearing number of weapons or abilities and the gameplay is skill-based and strategic — knowing sight-lines and how to use weapons is

a must.

“Black Ops 2,” (2012) constructed by Treyarch, was the most balanced and fun “Call of Duty” game. Though set in 2025, weapons are fair, maps flow well and developers created patches to diminish players’ qualms about the game.

If Sledgehammer Games prioritizes balance, intensity, skill-based gameplay and consistent developer support in their upcoming game, the simple Vietnam War setting — which will hopefully be void of exo-abilities — could allow for a revival of the “Call of Duty” we once knew and loved.

With E3 coming out in May, we can only hope “Call of Duty” moves in the right direction.

— Contact Brian Savino at brian.savino@emory.edu

Continued from Page 8

Courtesy of daylight studios

A player takes command of a ship, using turn-based combat to defeat the evil eclipse in “Holy Potatoes! We’re in Space?!”

Indie Game Displays Witty Dialogue Light,” a more intuitive spaceship simulator with more pixelated graphfree, crudely done, independently pro- ics and simpler-to-grasp controls. The crafting and comduced PC games now merce of supplies and available on Steam. weapons feels like The gameplay Unfortunately, it working at the rest is interwoven with is only the creative stops and centers of cutscenes rife with questing RPGs. The banter and potato visuals and witty story is hackneyed, puns but the story writing that allow is not crucial to the [“Potatoes”] to stand like a typical “Mario” game where the story game; the cutscenes on its own. centers around navioffer humor alone. gating multiple worlds However, the proto save the Princess — tagonists are well designed with amusing personalities except, in this case, the “princess” is a and entertaining wordplay, creating a wizened old potato.

While “Holy Potatoes! We’re in break from repetitive gameplay.

Unfortunately, it is only the creative Space?!” is a fun romp, it can get old visuals and witty writing that allow quickly, and is not worth the $15 price “Holy Potatoes! We’re in Space?!” to tag. stand on its own.

— Contact Daniel Park at The gameplay itself is uninspired daniel.park@emory.edu and reminiscent of “FTL: Faster than

cerned. He’s interested in the buildup to the heart-stopping climax. The film is paced deliberately, developing Chris’s backstory and the Armitage’s personalities appropriately. The first act of the film plays out like a quirky romantic comedy;the girlfriend’s parents must come to accept her daughter’s suitor. It creates a false sense of calm, causing the film to shock you when it delivers the horrific goods.

The film takes a few unexpected twists, primarily in Chris’ character.

Horror films get a bad rap for their reliance on clichés and actions in the name of cheap jump scares and contrived death scenes; however, Chris is perceptive and tries to make sense of the situation. This intelligent scriptwriting imbues a sense of realism and logic to the film.

The trailers make the picture a dark mystery that’s played completely straight, but there’s also a masterfully executed balance of comedy and horror.

The comedic elements punctuate darker moments, offering the audience a few moments of levity to catch their breath and process what’s happened before being yanked back into the darkness. It never degenerates into slapstick routine or spoof territory, such as Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein or Student Bodies.

Instead it focuses on the inherent comedy of the situation to create a seamless flow between genres.

The horror is effective because it’s

pounded by the simple fact that Moonlight is a masterwork of empathy, filmmaking craft, acting skill and sheer cinematic beauty that cannot be matched.

No film has been so deserving of the Best Picture prize in a long time.

As for everything else, the surprises came early in the night. Suicide Squad beat out Star Trek Beyond for Best Makeup and Hairstyling, a tragedy considering the intricate work that went into the most recent in the Star Trek series.

Hacksaw Ridge took two surprise awards in Sound Mixing and Editing, killing La La Land’s chances at the sweep it anticipated.

Fantastic Beasts took an award for Costume Design, the first recognition for the Harry Potter franchise.

Eight-time nominee Arrival only walked away with one award for Sound

It finally felt like the Oscars understood what it meant to pay tribute to cinema.

grounded in something real, specifically the tumultuous social climate in America today. It’s said that movies are a product of their time, but Get Out’s message is terrifying precisely because of how little has changed.

Themes of neo-slavery, eugenics and cultural erasure are interwoven, while the horrors-lying-just-beneath-thesurface-of-peaceful-white-suburbia concept isn’t new for the genre. Peele’s black protagonist certainly is, representing an outsider who feels alien in this community.

The glue holding the whole film together is Kaluuya. Chris is a fantastic protagonist because he’s an everyman. Kaluuya plays the character as reserved yet resourceful. Chris feels like a real person rather than a cipher. Comedian Lil Rel Howery is a delight in the small supporting role of Rod, Chris’ friend. The two have great comedic chemistry and their banter makes for some of the film’s best moments.

Get Out has no right to be as good as it is considering the background of its director and the fact that it’s his debut film. Perhaps it’s Peele’s penchant for biting social satire that made him the perfect choice to head such a project.

It’s a fresh concept from an unlikely talent that left me unnerved.

Raising the specter of racism and prejudice, it dares to suggest that the horrors of the past aren’t so far behind us after all.

Editing.

There were still expected wins. La La Land took six awards, including the Best Director prize for Damien Chazelle (the youngest winner for Best Director ever) and Best Actress for Emma Stone.

Best Supporting Actor went to Mahershala Ali for Moonlight, marking the first Oscar-win by a Muslim and Best Supporting Actress went to Viola Davis for Fences, who gave a fiery acceptance speech.

Best Documentary went to OJ: Made In America, the longest film to ever win an Oscar.

Foreign Language went to Iranian film The Salesman, a solid political punch of a statement.

Animated went to Zootopia, which we all saw coming.

The only nailbiter was Best Actor, which went to Casey Affleck after a fraught and long-fought battle with Denzel Washington, of Fences, for the award.

It’s a shame that the overwhelming narrative about these awards will be the biggest on-air mistake in Oscar history.

Outside of that and Jimmy Kimmel’s less successful bits (we get it, none of us have seen these movies), it was a smooth and classy affair, even amazing at times.

The Best Original Song performances were energetic and aweinspiring. The Oscars need a standing appointment for John Legend to perform something every year.

The co-presentations between the actors and those who inspire them (Seth Rogen and Michael J. Fox, Javier Bardem and Meryl Streep) were touching and lovely tributes to the power of filmmaking.

It finally felt like the Oscars understood what it meant to pay tribute to cinema.

— Contact Vikrant Nallaparaju at vnallap@emory.edu

— Contact Brandon Wagner at brandon.h.wagner@gmail.edu

Horror Film Questions Racism, Prejudice

Continued from Page 8

10

The Emory Wheel

Editorials

Wednesday, March 1, 2017 | Editorials Editor: Annie Cohen (annie.cohen@emory.edu)

Editorial

SGA Acts First, Thinks Second When students voted on a University-wide referendum to split the Student Government Association (SGA) into two independent bodies, the debate focused on the proper balance of graduate and undergraduate interests within the new SGA. SGA President Max Zoberman, Graduate Student Government Association (GSGA) President Jared Greenbaum and others on SGA’s executive council aggressively lobbied for a “yes” result.

By rushing the vote, Zoberman and Greenbaum led the student body into dangerous uncertainty.

Websites were made and town halls were held, all without mention of the aftermath: the dereliction of a constitution for an exclusively undergraduate SGA to operate under.

Minutes from SGA’s Dec. 5 meeting question whether enough “due diligence” has been done to take the “split bill” to a vote. Legislators noted their discomfort with the bill’s lack of specificity, especially undergraduates for whom the “next steps” after the split had not been decided.

Nonetheless, SGA irresponsibly passed the bill that day and sent it to a student referendum. Now, there is debate as to whether or not the Constitution is still active. According to Zoberman, “the revelation that [SGA is now] not bound by a constitution didn’t come until after the vote.”

Our elected leaders engineered a plan failing to account for any of this, and are now operating without checks on their actions. Though Zoberman stated SGA hopes to adhere to the old constitution until a new one is approved, relying on our leaders to act in good faith is unacceptable. SGA controls a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars, predominantly from students’ activities fees.

While it’s not clear that SGA has abused the enormous responsibility of handling such a budget, there is currently little to stop them from doing so. The situation is tenuous. Even if SGA passes a new constitution, a majority of students will still need to ratify it in referendum. Zoberman himself said the situation would be both “shocking and dangerous” if it fails to garner enough support to pass.The present situation could easily have been avoided by attaching provisional constitutions to the split bill.

Regardless, Zoberman unapologetically placed both in an untenable and potentially disastrous position. Whether the decisions that led to these circumstances were a calculated power grab or just thoughtless, SGA owes it to students to acknowledge their failures and ensure that a functioning, responsible governing structure is put in place for next year.

Zoberman promised the split would improve student government – it hasn’t.

Transgender Rights Are Human Rights In a disappointing move, President Trump reversed Obama-era federal protections allowing transgender students to use bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity.

By allowing states to deny transgender students access to public spaces, the government is limiting students’ ability to fully express their gender identity. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer justified this reversal as a states’ rights issue, an argument traditionally used to justified slavery, Jim Crow-era laws, discrimination against disabled Americans and, most recently, same-sex marriage.

This is yet another point in history when the government must step in and protect a minority demanding the right to use public spaces.

Another common excuse used to oppose federal protections for transgender individuals is the fear of attack against women. Critics claim that if transgender people are allowed to use the bathroom of their choice, the rate of predatory men harassing women or young girls in bathrooms will increase exponentially.

This fear-mongering is an artificial message targeted at people who genuinely misunderstand the transgender community. The initial reaction to a group of people who are misunderstood is to exclude them; politicians use this baseless fear to pass discriminatory policies that appeal to a bigoted and misinformed electorate.

For transgender people, there is evidence that they are at risk. The UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute published a survey on gendered restrooms that showed over 70 percent of their respondents have experienced either “denial of access to facilities, verbal harassment [or] physical assault.” The fears and vulnerabilities of transgender people have serious consequences that should not be taken lightly or dismissed for states to handle. Legislators and the Trump administration forget that these people are both American citizens and their constituents.

Society as a whole should be ashamed of our intolerant past. The best path forward is to acknowledge that transgender people exist and deserve to use public spaces without scrutiny.

Therefore, everyone should be allowed to identify as their preferred gender in public spaces. Federal protections only reinforce our choice to accept transgender people as they are.

The above editorials represent the majority opinion of the Wheel’s Editorial Board. The Editorial Board is comprised of Anthony Chau, Annie Cohen, Duncan Cock Foster, Zachary Issenberg, Jennifer Katz, Madeline Lutwyche, Shemlah Naphish, Boris Niyonzima and Tarrek Shaban.

The Emory Wheel Zak hudak editor-in-Chief Julia Munslow exeCutive editor elana cates Managing editor Senior Editor/Layout Hayley Silverstein News Editor Michelle Lou Arts & Entertainment Editor Brian Savino Emory Life Editor Alisha Compton Editorial Page Editor Annie Cohen Sports Editor Andrew Burnside Photo Editor Ruth Reyes Video Editors Hagar Elsayed Leila Yavari

saMuel r. Budnyk Managing editor

Copy Editor Leigh Schlecht Social Media Editor Nicole Sadek Asst. A&E Editor Devin Bog Asst. Editorial Page Editor Madeline Lutwyche Asst. Sports Editor Kevin Kilgour Associate Editors Hannah Conway Anwesha Guha Emily Sullivan Brian Taggett Goodbye, Zak Hudak

Volume 98 | Number 19 Business and advertising nathan Janick | Business Manager On-Campus Sales Manager: Celeste Leonard Off-Campus Sales Manager: Brittany Fales Sales Associates: Cate Beggins Business/Advertising Office Number (404) 727-6178

The Emory Wheel welcomes letters and op-ed submissions from the Emory community. Letters should be limited to 300 words and op-eds should be at least 700. Those selected may be shortened to fit allotted space or edited for grammar, punctuation and libelous content. Submissions reflect the opinions of individual writers and not of the Wheel’s Editorial Board or Emory University. Send emails to zachary.j.hudak@emory.edu or postal mail to The Emory Wheel, Drawer W, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, 30322.

The War for Truth The Dangers of Trump’s Treatment of the Press It was their final, most essential command.” He also realizes that “if all others accepted the lie, which the party imposed, if all records told the When I applied to Emory, I wrote same tale, then the lie passed into my supplemental essay about the history and became truth.” importance of a free press.

If the government has a monopoI cited events in Russia, Turkey ly on declaring what is true or false, and Egypt as examples of the dan- they can circulate lies as facts. Thus, gers of a government that does not journalists are needed to ensure the respect the rights of its journalists, government is truthful, not viceand could never imagine that mere- versa. ly one year later I would be writing It is much easier for one governabout the importance of protecting ment to lie than it is for hundreds press freedoms in my own country. of news outlets to do so collectively.

President Donald Trump’s at- Trump acts as if the public should titude toward the press was always just take everything that he says as problematic, but his refusal to allow fact, but his viewpoint is inherently several renowned news outlets into biased in favor of his reputation. the White House press briefing Feb. On the other hand, the media col24, as The New York Times report- lectively acts as a source of objective ed, crossed the line from problem- information about current events atic to unacceptable. and policies.

This act marked the culmination While certain outlets may be of Trump’s attacks on media sourc- slightly biased, there are so many es that question his rhetoric and de- media sources in this country that cisions. combined they paint an objective The press bears the important re- picture of reality. sponsibility of holding the governTrump’s idea of media conspiracy ment accountable by educating the constitutes a rejection of truthfulgeneral public, and we must work to ness and objectivity. ensure that Trump does not silence Scholars in all fields of study it. scrutinize their peers’ work to enGovernment accountability is sure it meets high standards of one of the cornerstones of liberal quality. Should we not subject our democracy, and the press has long president, arguably the most powbeen its source. In the early 1970s, erful man in the world, to the same two Washington scrutiny?

Post reporters, Bob Without media Woodward and Carl sources from all Bernstein, exposed ends of the political the Watergate scanspectrum, we lose Without media dal that eventuour objective view ally led to President of our government’s sources from all Richard Nixon’s resactions. Information ends of the political about the activities ignation.

More recently, In- spectrum, we lost our of our government is vestigative Journalcrucial to the demoobjective view of our cratic process, since ist Seymour Hersh, who had already government’s actions. citizens rely on it to won a Pulitzer Prize vote in elections. for exposing the My If nothing that Lai Massacre during Trump does is critithe Vietnam War, cized, the general uncovered the horpublic does not have rific torture taking place at the Abu enough understanding of Trump’s Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to successes or failures to responsibly The Independent. These are but a vote in upcoming elections. few examples of American journalBy barring news sources from ists who fought to expose the truth a press briefing, Trump equated and protect people’s rights to know journalism with falsehood. Were what their government is really do- the media to stop asking questions ing. or scrutinizing the government, the The fundamental problem with door would be left open for ramTrump’s attitude toward journalists pant, institutionalized lying. is that he does not believe in govAs I write this article for publicaernment accountability. According tion in a newspaper, Trump’s escato The Los Angeles Times, hours lating attacks on journalists hit close before Trump barred news outlets to home. from the press briefing, he told his The press, whether local, national audience “I want you all to know or international, works tirelessly that we are fighting the fake news. to keep people informed. In a digiIt’s fake, phony, fake.” talized world where information is He continued to declare that the paramount, journalists are more “fake news media” was “the en- essential than ever, and their rights emy of the people.” While truth in and freedoms must be protected for journalism is certainly imperative, our own sakes.

Trump’s tweet labeling renowned I encourage anyone reading this news sources The New York Times to ask why you are reading this and CNN as “fake news media” is newspaper to begin with. You probabsurd and unfounded. There is a ably seek information about your marked difference between ques- community that you cannot obtain tioning the president’s actions and on your own. telling lies.

The media provides the informaThe very idea that dissenting tion that allows citizens to underopinions in journalism must be in- stand and engage with their governherently untruthful is extremely ment, for as The Washington Post distressing. While comparisons recently stated in its new slogan, between George Orwell’s 1984 and “democracy dies in darkness.”

Trump’s actions are often baseless, If we lose the free press, we will two quotes from that novel are par- fail to understand the world around ticularly foreboding about the press. us; American democracy cannot afIn the novel, the main character ford such a catastrophic loss.

Winston describes how “the party told you to reject the evidence of Cameron Hall is a College freshyour eyes and ears. man from Columbus, Ohio.

Cameron Hall

The Emory Wheel

Duncan Cock Foster Starting around 2013, Emory’s administration embarked on an initiative to reform the Greek system. In a Jan. 31 interview, Dean of Student Life Ajay Nair stated his goal was to “create a sustainable future” for Greek life. Nair arrived at Emory in 2012, the same time Emory began this initiative.

As a member of Beta Theta Pi (Beta), I witnessed administrators abandon their vow “to uphold the dignity and rights of all persons through fair treatment, honest dealing, and respect.” Persecuting Greek life was a higher priority than maintaining their ethical guidelines. This is most evident in the way Emory investigated fraternities, using aggressive tactics that did not necessarily yield truth.

Nobody was held accountable for violating student’s rights.

Thomas Tassin, President of SAE

OP-ED

Emory’s War on Greek Life

during an investigation for hazing in 2015, said that Emory investigators threatened to expel new members in an effort to get them to cooperate with the investigation. Emory is not technically forbidden from threatening students like they did, but the Code of Conduct forbids students from “threatening, intimidating, or coercing any person.” Emory engaged in behavior it forbids students from engaging in. Head of Conduct Judith Pannell, did not respond to requests for interview. Nair declined to comment.

In 2016, Beta was charged with drugging a female student at one of their parties. A four-month long investigation ensued and a formal hearing was conducted, but mishandled.

“We were guilty until proven innocent,” said Julian Adler, the then-president of Beta. “I do not believe their goal was for true justice. It felt like we were at the mercy of an agenda that didn’t

want our chapter on campus.” Beta was informed of the formal hearing one day before it occurred, despite the fact that the Code of Conduct requires notification a full week beforehand. A surprise witness, not on the official list of witnesses Beta reviewed as required by the rules, testified at the hearing.

Beta was never given access to the notes the Conduct Office prepared during the investigation of our case, despite the fact that the Code of Conduct gives accused parties “the opportunity to review all written information” when undergoing the formal hearing process. Without the notes, Beta could not find favorable witnesses or information to prepare a defense.

Emory eventually conceded that they had violated their own rules. Assistant Vice President of Community Suzanne Onorato wrote in a May 5 email to Beta parents and advisors that “we acknowledge that there were in fact flaws in the process” with Director of Greek

never responded to mailed interrogatories, and on some occasions, simply failed to show up to meetings. Eventually the tribe objected that DAPL would affect cultural sites. In response, the US Army Corps invited the tribe to participate in a survey of the land so that Dakota Access could better avoid any sites of import, and the tribe declined participation.

Dakota Access followed the law: they assessed collateral damage, attempted to meet with the tribe to discover cultural sites and invited them to assist in mitigating harm.

At every pivotal moment, Dakota Access and the Corps acted to protect the tribe’s rights. At each moment, the tribe demonstrated utter neglect towards the same sacred land they allege is being thoughtlessly eviscerated by outsiders.

The tribe is permitted to make claims of destruction of religious and cultural sites per the National Historic Preservation Act, and of course, religious freedom is among the most important freedoms any state must afford its citizens.

But at some point, religious freedom reaches its limit. Eventually, externalities are created, and others are implicated. All freedoms must be balanced against the competing rights and interests of other citizens. The tribe were granted sufficient time to object pursuant to the law and they were invited to participate in discussions from the conception of the project. They cannot, in any valid legal or moral sense, retroactively claim that their

rights have been violated. To force Dakota Access to withdraw this late would violate Dakota Access’ rights, as they have acted courteously and within the bounds of the law for the project’s duration.

If Dakota Access were ordered to withdraw their pipeline, two precedents would be set. The first is that no burden lies on tribes to point out land of cultural significance until the company is on its doorstep — a dangerous precedent, as tribes are the only people who possess this knowledge; therefore, without any required proactive input, companies would be rendered unable to conduct business. The second precedent is that the law itself holds no weight. If Dakota Access continues to build, the onus rests, as it should, on tribes to identify the locations of sacred sites.

If due process of law were being denied or if a court or administrative agency decided in favor of the oil industry at the cost of tribe rights, this op-ed would reflect a different opinion. In the case of DAPL, due process of law was afforded to all parties, and a just decision was rendered. Ultimately, the tribe’s flippant attitude towards their cultural sites is their own fault. To order Dakota Access to reroute their entire pipeline despite following the law and demonstrating utmost concern for the tribe is no longer the exercise of religious freedom, but the exploitation of it.

Build the Access Pipeline Grant Osborn In 2014, a group of tycoons sought to construct a pipeline that would spew thousands of gallons of oil per day into Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s water supply, plunder their virgin lands and mutilate religious sites; or at least, that’s the idea. The only problem is that this version of the story is anchored in few facts and several misunderstandings.

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has of yet no official health concerns, pending the US Army Corps’ actions, so I will not yet opine on this major element of the controversy; the scope of this opinion is the potential violations of the National Historic Preservation Act. The relevant part of this legislation notes that any federal agency (The US Army Corps) undertaking such a project must grant any sovereign tribe “a reasonable opportunity to comment on the undertaking.” Once any disputed territory is assessed, the tribe must be given reasonable opportunity to “participate in the resolution of adverse effects,” and the onus is on the agency to mitigate as much harm as possible.

Indeed, copious efforts to assess and address potential issues such as destruction of historic lands were made by Dakota Access.

Dakota Access met with the tribe’s leaders to assess additional concerns countless times. The tribe

Georgia Clark/ Contributing

Grant Osborn is a College sophomore from Springfield, Ohio.

Life Marlon Gibson and Nair CC’d.

Emory held nobody accountable.

Head of Conduct Julia Thompson, responsible for ensuring the conduct process is done correctly, remains Head of Conduct.

Thompson and Nair declined to comment. Administrators claim including students and alumni in Greek life reform is critical, but a closer look reveals that Emory only makes it appear as if Greek students and alumni agree with proposed changes. The Greek Life Task Force (GLTF), convened by the secret society Ducemus as an effort to determine potential reforms, met and released an initial set of recommendations in January 2016. Emory solicited feedback on the set of recommendations, which Ducemus compiled into a report.

Ducemus concluded that Emory was using the GLTF as a rubber stamp to get results they desired, writing to the school, “Ducemus and [GLTF student committees] have become a veil for administration

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

12

visions.”

Consequently, they requested their name be removed from the process.

The report also revealed intense alienation from the larger Emory community many Greek Life Members feel.

There is an “extraordinary level of discontentment. Change since 2013 has not included any student feedback, it is all surfacing now,” Ducemus wrote. Marlon Gibson refused to comment on the GLTF in our meeting. It is clear that changes need to be made to the administration’s conduct.

Emory has betrayed the trust of its students by failing to follow its ethical guidelines, and must take drastic and immediate steps to earn that trust back. If nobody is held accountable, Emory proves to its students that their guiding principles of ethics are not worth the paper they are printed on.

Duncan Cock Foster is a College senior from Seattle, Wa.

Penance and Absolution

Tyler Zelinger

This weekend, many Emory students and I took part in a massive exodus to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. As I hurdled home over the Interstate’s sun-soaked asphalt in my friend’s 1996 Toyota Rav4, I reflected on what exactly I had hoped to find in the old city at the mouth of the Mississippi and how successful I’d been in finding it.

Undeniably, part of the motivation for making this trip was pure, unadulterated fun. In traveling to New Orleans each year, we experience the benefits of the friendships we’ve developed at Emory while leaving the drudgery of daily life behind in Atlanta. It is, if nothing else, a break from normalcy; an alien and exotic world defined in shades of purple, green and gold For many people, this is the entire point of the trip. There’s nothing wrong with that — being a student is stressful, and there’s no shame to be had in wanting a brief change of pace. I believe, however, that there’s something else to be found in the swamps of Louisiana, in our own American Venice.

Like most pilgrimages, this one carries a certain ritualistic or religious weight that transcends parading around Bourbon Street. For all of our modern conceptions of happiness and how to achieve it, there is an older, internally derived satisfaction to be had in experiencing childlike jubilation in the face of an increasingly adult life — a personal victory over stress itself.

By enjoying ourselves, we are reminded that the aspects of our daily lives that make us doubt ourselves can be overshadowed by those that reassure us of our worth.

More importantly, this trip offered a strange absolution for those of us approaching our futures with a new sense of certainty, and questioning how those futures would have changed had we made different decisions. This is not to say that we are dissatisfied with where we stand, but rather in a world of endless possibilities, it is easy to find oneself preoccupied with hypothetical alternatives.

At the center of the maelstrom of sequins, glitter and sweat that will envelop the French Quarter in the coming days, there is a basic human joy that serves to reassure us that our current realities are satis-

factory, and even vastly fulfilling. It reminds us to enjoy the lives we live instead of wondering how we could change them.

It is etymologically coincidental, yet fitting for my purposes, that the words “revel” and “revelation” are so similar. Throughout human history, people used huge festivals as forms of mass-catharsis. Moreover, they were opportunities for selfreflection, as we find a paradoxical introspection through socialization in weekends like this. When we thrive in the absence of the institutions that usually provide structure or authority, we can be truly ourselves.

As each technological advancement moves us farther and farther from the societies of yesteryear, Mardi Gras represents a joy shared across generations. Our ability to reflect upon and eventually accept the consequences of our actions by removing the parameters of our daily lives is an essential part of the human condition; Mardi Gras manifests this process in a sunny weekend in late February.

Through my upbringing in both Roman Catholic and Jewish households, I have come to understand there is an implied suffering, or at least devotion, associated with penance. To achieve peace and forgiveness, one has to pray or express some great remorse. I believe, however, that there is self-forgiveness in joy, and an alternative penance in simply existing.

As beads rained down around us and music reverberated from the pavement below, we might have forgiven ourselves for past mistakes, as our resultant exuberance was in and of itself proof that everything’s turned out alright. As New Orleans opened up her arms to us this weekend, it was this sense of peace that I had hoped to find among the bricks and cobblestones of her well-worn streets.

Now, as I sit in the library completing paying my dues for this weekend in the form of a midterm paper on Russian history, I can say that I achieved that goal. Even as I continue to reflect and acknowledge the mistakes of my past, I take heart and find solace in the friendships that I’ve built. It is a strange thing to be a senior, and be simultaneously confronted with the staggering infiniteness of adulthood while reflecting on how much we’ve changed in the recent past.

Graduation offers a new and more stoic coming of age; a new chance to decide what type of adults we’d like to be for the rest of our lives.

It is weekends like Mardi Gras and other treasured memories from college that steel our nerves as we forge forward into the great unknown, confident in who we’ve become and optimistic about who we will one day be.

Tyler Zelinger is a College senior from Commack, New York.

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Wednesday, March 1, 2017

SportS

The Emory Wheel

Pitching Stymies Men Second, Women Third at UAAs Huntingdon in Sweep TRACK & FIELD

By proSper FieldS Senior Staff Writer

Continued from Back Page three for four with a double, triple and two rBIs. ronpirin went two for five with a double and three rBIs. After Friday’s 12-7 win, the Eagles looked to notch another victory against Huntingdon Saturday, Feb. 25.

In a lower scoring game, Emory was lifted by sophomore starting pitcher Billy Dimlow. Allowing one run and striking out 10 batters through eight innings, Dimlow stymied Huntingdon’s offense.

Emory’s bats were active early in the game, marking three runs in the first two innings.

In the second, the Eagles loaded the bases. Emory went on to score two runs after wild pitches by the Huntingdon pitcher.

With Dimlow shutting Huntingdon down and an early three run advantage, the Eagles glided to a 5-1 victory.

Emory’s top hitters were senior third baseman philip Maldari, who went three for four and scored twice, and Hernandez, who went two for five with an rBI. Emory returned home to Chappell field to take on Huntingdon one last time Sunday, Feb. 26. Senior pitcher Luke Emmett led the team on the mound, remaining unscathed until the fifth inning.

the Eagles had an early lead, scoring four runs in the third inning. ronpirin led the scoring with a three-run triple.

However, Huntingdon struck back in the fifth inning, accumulating five runs and surpassing Emory 5-4.

In the bottom of the seventh, Emory trailed Huntingdon 6-4 but responded by scoring four runs.

Emory tacked on one more in the bottom of the eighth before senior relief pitcher Kyle Monk went out to save the game.

Monk pitched a scoreless top of the ninth and recorded his second save of the season. the Eagles’ 9-6 victory topped off a three-game sweep over Huntingdon. recapping a speech made by the seniors, Hernandez noted that the speech gave the team the motivation it needed to have a big seventh inning.

“In between innings, the seniors noticed that our team was down and had very low energy, which is very unlike us,” Hernandez said. “We called up a meeting and said they put up five runs in an inning and we can do the exact same thing.”

Emory will return to the diamond tuesday, Feb. 28, for one game against Berry College (Ga.).

— Contact Stephen Mattes at stephen.mattes@emory.edu

Emory’s men’s and women’s track and field team travelled to Boston, Mass. this past weekend to compete at the University Athletic Association (UAA) Indoor Championship at Brandeis University (Mass.). the men’s team earned second place, while the women finished third.

Wrapping up the meet with 80 team points, the men racked up eight AllUAA top three finishes. the weekend was a big win for senior Kyle Veator who started off the meet by claiming first in the long jump with a personal record of 6.86 meters. Junior Shane Sullivan followed with a top finish and a new personal record in the 5000m, running 14:50.13. Both Veator and Sullivan scored third in their individual events, Veator with a time of 6.61 in the 55m dash and Sullivan crossing the line at 8:28.70 in the 3000m.

“I had been feeling good throughout the meet and working a lot in the past weeks leading up to it,” Veator said.

“We’ve had a lot of injuries lately on the team and honestly Saturday didn’t really go exactly as planned for us.

Still, we pushed through and did our best and were overall satisfied with the result.”

Junior Charlie Hu medaled second in the long jump, breaking his previous personal record with a mark of 6.70 meters. Hu took the top spot in the triple jump with a personal best of 13.97 meters. Junior Benjamin rogin

FIGURE SKATING

Premature Selection Restricts Team USA

By Anthony ChAu Editorial Board Member

on Feb. 3, 2013, I posted, “I hope Michael Jordan scores a home run in that thing today” on Facebook, hoping to broadcast to all 400 of my friends that I was too esoteric to be concerned with the Super Bowl. the truth is, as much as I enjoy turning my nose up at hypermasculine fans of what I deride as bloodsport, I get it. I get investing your whole heart into a team with whom you have nothing more than a geographic or patriotic link. I get the thrill of witnessing new heights of record-setting, history-making human achievement. Most of all, I get the righteous satisfaction that accompanies meritocracy — that the day’s most deserving athlete won.

Hence why the latest update in my chosen sport, figure skating, is so disheartening. Ignoring calls from journalists, pundits and fans to send 23-year-old Mirai Nagasu to the World Figure Skating Championships in Helsinki, the United States Figure Skating Association (USFSA) will not retroactively revise world team assignments.

At January’s 2017 US Figure Skating Championships, Nagasu finished fourth overall, just barely missing a berth on the three-lady World Championship team. Fast forward to the Four Continents Championships Feb. 18, a trial run for skaters to build toward Worlds in March. Nagasu skated a career-best long program, surging to a bronze medal 17.85 points ahead of Mariah Bell (sixth) and 28.13 points clear of Karen Chen (twelfth) in a sport often decided by tenths.

However, because the 2017 Four Continents Championships are not included in the world selection criteria, Bell, the national bronze medalist, and Chen, the national champion, will compete in Nagasu’s stead. Despite the fact that Nagasu’s best international scores (i.e., her scoring ceiling) surpass Bell’s and embarrass Chen’s this season; that she has competed at this level since winning nationals in

2008, while Chen and Bell admitted feeling pressure at Four Continents, a relatively low-stakes event. though she may not be a beacon of consistency herself, Nagasu peaks when it counts later in the season. the consequences extend beyond the scope of world medals. placements at the 2017 World Figure Skating Championships dictate the number of athletes the USFSA can send to next year’s Winter olympics and Worlds; a combined placement of 13 or less by two skaters (e.g., fourth and ninth) will keep a third spot; anything worse will relegate us to two.

With three dominant russians and three Japanese ladies nipping at their heels, a resurgent Carolina Kostner back from hiatus and two newly competitive Canadians to contend against, American veteran Ashley Wagner will likely finish no higher than fifth — and Bell and Chen far below that, jeopardizing that valuable third olympic berth. the USFSA’s policy of naming international teams prematurely — two months before Worlds — has a history of backfiring. In 2011, Nagasu was again an alternate for Worlds, easily defeating her compatriots at Four Continents; yet world assignments were not reconsidered and an injured rachael Flatt finished 12th. Alissa Czisny remained on the 2012 team even as every sign pointed to her performance deteriorating over the course of the season. She fell seven times and placed 22nd, the worst showing for an American lady since 1994.

Given the circumstances, the USFSA is the only major federation that would not reassess the team. the russian Skating Federation still has yet to publish their Worlds roster and has previously replaced struggling skaters. US women’s gymnastics has revolutionized a centralized system of training camps that place gymnasts under internal competition. Constant scrutiny breeds preternatural levels of mental fortitude, drive and competitive nerve, reinforced by the knowledge that, should an athlete’s perfor-

mance falter, a plethora of equally talented women can and will take their place. the result? the russian ladies’ field, favored to sweep the podium, is so embarrassingly deep that two olympic gold medalists and the 2015 world champion were left off the 2016 team. US gymnasts have not lost a team competition since 2010 and boast the last four olympic all-around champions. reevaluating team assignments would be decried as unprecedented for the USFSA, and unsportsmanlike and unfair to the athlete being replaced, so the USFSA will operate the way it traditionally has. Bell and Chen will botch one or both of their programs and lose that coveted third spot. our national champion will tumble outside the top ten for the first time since 2009. We will send Wagner and one of five interchangeable non-contenders to the pyeongchang Games, coming to terms with the slow, bitter end of the American ladies’ reign. And fans will bide their time, energy and talking points for when this debate is inevitably brought out onto thin ice once more.

My take? Figure skating is as cutthroat as its eighth-inch wide steel blades suggest. It is not a practice in the art of diplomacy. the USFSA must prioritize results over coddling, being more conditional in their assignments and more willing to monitor and replace athletes who underperform between nationals and Worlds.

While this bucks longstanding trends, it will be a welcome change to a sport criticized for its adherence to archaic standards, lack of transparency and politicking. So long as this change is communicated clearly, the underlying message will not be that the USFSA is untrustworthy, but rather, that it is serious about reemerging as a major player in ladies figure skating on the world stage.

Your move, USFSA.

— Contact Anthony Chau at anthony.chau@emory.edu

was bested by just 0.04 seconds in the 55m hurdles finals, racing a time of 7.77. Brandeis saw the talent of Emory freshman Aria Mohseni who qualified for the 400m dash Saturday, placing fifth in the finals with a time of 50.75 Sunday. Mohseni went on to compete in the 4x400m relay with teammates Veator, rogin and junior Max Brown. the four rounded out the meet, coming in fifth with a time of 3:28.56. the women had a solid run, achieving seven All-UAA finishes and 85 team points. Freshman Gabrielle Davis opened the meet with an impressive performance in the long jump Saturday. Davis placed second with a mark of 5.21 meters, the first UAA finish of the weekend for the women.

Another second place went to the distance medley relay team consisting of junior Gabrielle Stravach, sophomore Clare Ubersax and freshmen Jordan Burgess and Kaitlyn Leonard, who finished with a time of 12:18.93. “overall we really came through for each other as a team,” Stravach said.

“We knew we would have to run the race strong especially with the tough [competition]. A lot of people view track as just an individual sport but being there for each in this event was really important.”

Freshman Isabel Saridakis took a figurative and literal leap in the pole vault final, earning fourth place and a mark of 3.52 meters, besting her previous school record by 0.11 meters.

Sophomore Dani Bland was in top form Sunday, placing third in the

200m dash with a time of 25.86 and second in the 55m dash with a time of 7.16, both All-UAA finishes. Bland’s time in the 55m dash broke the previous UAA record and tied with the fastest time in school history.

Stravach placed second in the mile with a time of 4:47.04, a school record and the first sub five minute mile in school history.

“I’ve been trying to run a sub five minutes time since senior year of high school and have had a lot of bumps along the way,” Stravach said. “It was an amazing feeling crossing the finish line knowing what I had just accomplished and seeing the reactions of my teammates and coaches.”

Sophomore Ariana Newhouse raced with a time of 57.96 in the 400m dash and sophomore Jordan Small earned a mark of 1.59 meters in the high jump, both finishing second in their respective events. to close out the weekend, the 4x400m relay team composed of junior Erica Goldman, Leonard and sophomores Dilys osei and Newhouse finished second with a time of 3:57.22.

Next week, qualified Eagles will compete in the Last Chance Meet at tufts University (Mass.) where Bland, Brown, rogin and Sullivan along with the women’s 4x400m relay team will have a final opportunity to qualify for the NCAA Division III Indoor Championships held at North Central College (Ill.) March 10-11.

— Contact Prosper Fields at prosperity.fields@emory.edu

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

Bevan, Kaniut and Sweeney Finish Strong

By Stephen MAtteS Senior Staff Writer

the Emory women’s basketball team closed their 2016-17 season with a tremendous win against the University of rochester (N.Y.) Yellowjackets 73-57 Saturday, Feb. 25.

Star senior point guard Shellie Kaniut closed her career with a bang, leading the Eagles in scoring with 20 points.

Kaniut was one of three seniors to play their final game at the WoodpEC. Senior guard Fran Sweeney and senior guard/forward Michelle Bevan also played their final game in front of the Emory faithful.

Head Coach Christy thomaskutty praised her seniors for their hard work and contributions to the basketball program. “[Kaniut, Sweeney and Bevan] are three special young women,” thomaskutty said. “Each one of them has given their heart and soul to this program and university.” outscoring the Yellowjackets 21-8, Emory scorched rochester in the first quarter. the Eagles established a 13-point lead, concluding the quarter with a 9-0 run. Kaniut was strong out of the gate, posting 10 points.

In light of Kaniut’s brilliant performance, the point guard affirmed that it was her ability to make her teammates better that was most important. “the best part of it is when you’re playing well and making others better,” Kaniut said. “It wasn’t just me having a big game, but I thought a lot of our younger players stepped up.

Everyone rose to the occasion.” rochester battled back, cutting Emory’s lead down to two points before the end of the half. the Yellowjackets stepped up on defense to limit Emory to eight points in the quarter.

After seeing their lead nearly vanish, the Eagles were poised to distance

themselves from rochester. Emory bounced back and started off the third with six unanswered points. rochester attempted to chip away at Emory’s lead, but the Eagles remained strong. thomaskutty recapped how her team was able to respond to a challenging second quarter and control play again in the third.

“We had a little bit of a letdown and foul trouble in the second,” thomaskutty said. “However, in the third quarter we just kept on plugging away. our seniors and younger players both propelled us.”

With a 47-39 lead entering their final quarter, the Eagles fought hard for victory.

Emory’s execution was magnificent, growing their lead until the final buzzer; the Eagles’ offense shined as they scored 26 points to rochester’s 18. riding the offensive momentum, Emory finished with a 73-57 win. thomaskutty reflected on what made her team effective in their preparation and matchup against rochester.

“Every player had a good couple of days of practice leading up to the game,” thomaskutty said. “In all three phases: offense, defense and rebounding, we battled during every possession.”

Kaniut considered the victory a great way for the seniors to end their careers and for the underclassmen to establish a benchmark moving forward.

“It was an awesome way to wrap my own and other seniors’ careers,” Kaniut said. “It also sets up the team really well heading into next season.”

Emory’s victory advanced the squad to a 6-8 UAA record and 15-10 record overall. the Eagles finished fifth in the UAA, an improvement from last season’s seventh place finish.

— Contact Stephen Mattes at stephen.mattes@emory.edu

14

SportS

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Swoop’S Scoop Sport

Friday Mar 3

Saturday Mar 4

Opponent

Time

track & Field

Last Chance Meet

All Day

W tennis

team Indoor Champs

5:30 p.m.

M Basketball

texas Lutheran

6:30 p.m.

Softball

Chris Newport

1 p.m. & 3 p.m.

Baseball

Millsaps

2 p.m.

track & Field

Last Chance Meet

All Day

track & Field

Point Final Qualifier

All Day

W tennis

National Indoor Champs

All Day

Baseball

Millsaps

1 p.m.

Softball

Chris Newport

12 & 2 p.m.

W tennis

Nat. Indoor Champs

All Day

Golf

the tournament at Callaway Gardens

All Day

Tuesday

Golf

Callaway Gardens

All Day

Mar 7

Baseball

Oglethorpe

2 p.m.

Sunday Mar 5 Monday Mar 6

*Home Games in Bold

Cycling a Way of Life for Student Continued from Back Page Cotton talks about adventure the way most people talk about a close friend — someone you frequently hang out with for no other reason than to experience the pleasure of their company.

“Adventure stems from using the bike as a means of transportation,” Cotton explained. “You can go a long ways on a bike; you can move at a pretty good speed … but there is a real connection to wherever you are.”

Great adventures make for great stories. Already, Cotton has more than enough content to write a hefty memoir filled with laughs, failures and incredible people.

In one such story, Cotton and a friend departed to bike the Arizona trail, an 800-mile hiking range.

However, they encountered a major roadblock on the first day of their journey: the trail was completely unbikeable. the pair of bikers only made it a few miles on a day when they planned to cover over 60.

“After that day, we basically just had a hitchhike, hobo adventure,” Cotton said. “We decided we didn’t like mountain biking. So within 24 hours, we each sold mountain bikes and bought road bikes.”

What ensued was a journey fraught with bargains for sleeping arrangements, lost equipment, hitchhiking with pot grandmas and a brief run-in with a nudist colony.

Adventure is what started the journey, but it did not take long for racing to enter the mix.

After a summer spent with Bike and Build, a program that works for affordable housing and youth empowerment, Cotton challenged himself to go further and faster. “[Bike and Build] is where I started wanting to be competitive and trying to push myself,” Cotton said. “A couple of months after I got back I did a 200 mile bike in a day — just to see if I could do it.”

If adventure lay on one side of the cycling spectrum, racing lay on the other. Fortunately for Cotton, he loved both.

“I am not sure I have ever heard of anything that has the word passion thrown around as much as I have about cycling, and it’s because there is that joy of riding a bicycle,” Cotton

said. “Some people, myself included, have a joy for beating themselves up. ” racing in a full and a half IronMan along with the Grant park and river Gorge races, Cotton pedaled right into the competitive cycling world. Yet with no team or coach, Cotton had to embody all of those roles himself if he was going to be successful. “there is definitely a lone wolf aspect to it,” Cotton explained. “When it comes to cycling and training, I am a voracious reader. I just read books about it for fun.”

Now, with hopes of expanding his competitive racing portfolio, the goal is clear: become as fast as possible. Whether or not that will be fast enough to pursue a career in professional cycling at this point remains unclear, but the drive is there.

“If it’s not fun, then there’s no point, but for me it’s really fun,” he said. “And if that path takes me to racing at a high level, or not, that [it’s fun] is what matters to me. that pipedream exists for me. I can’t say that it doesn’t.”

If you haven’t noticed, the words “professional cycling” rarely escape Cotton’s mouth and when they do it is generally done quietly and quickly, like a back-alley drug deal. But unlike those back-alley dealings, it is not shame or fear that slows Cotton, but simply a hesitance to put too much hope in an all-too uncertain dream.

Between school, work and training, Cotton has unfortunately had little time for racing. But with graduation looming, the opportunity to chase his goals grows near. this summer, Cotton plans to bike the Great Divide, a 2,800 mile trek from Canada to Mexico that passes straight through the rocky Mountains. He also has plans to compete in the Shenandoah 100, an ultra-endurance mountain bike race held in Virginia.

Whether the future holds a professional racing career or not, one way or another Cotton will find his way onto a bike.

“I found a passion at a young age and it’s something that brings me a lot of joy,” Cotton said. “I couldn’t imagine my experience here at Emory without it. It is always going to be a part, big or small, of who I am.”

— Contact Kevin Kilgour at kkilgou@emory.edu

The Emory Wheel

Next Stop: Texas & Softball NCAA Tournament Returns To Form Continued from Back Page

a clutch three that gave the Eagles a 63-60 advantage. the Yellowjackets quickly answered, Coles acknowledged that playing on senior day brings its own unique cutting the lead to one. After an Emory miss on the following possession, challenges.

“You try not to think about it too rochester had an opportunity to take much and try to treat it like any other the lead. one name that was not mentioned game, but obviously this is the last time that we are going to play here, often at the scorer’s table Saturday was so it has a little bit of a different feel,” that of Gigax, who had one of his worst outings of the season.

Coles said. the UAA leader in points per game, the Eagles were the first to strike.

Gordon, DaGue and junior forward Gigax provided only two points Friday Donald Avant helped the team to a night. However, in a play that would 20-11 lead with five minutes left to play determine the outcome of the game, Gigax came up with a critical defenin the first.

However, this brought the sive stop. receiving a pass on a strong Yellowjacket offense to life and cut to the rim, rochester sophomore they poured in 20 points during the forward Andrew Lundstrom seemed final five minutes of the half to give to have a clear path to the rim and an easy lay-in that likely would have won rochester a slim 31-30 lead. the game assumed a more consis- the game for the Yellowjackets.

However, the junior recovered to tent rhythm in the second half; the rust from the first disappeared as each stuff Lundstrom at the rim, denying rochester the lead and ultimately team embraced the flow of the game. the biggest change in the second securing a 63-62 victory for Emory. “[playing on senior day] motivated was the Eagles’ attention to post play. us more, got us riled After an easy feed up,” terry said. “this from sophomore guard Gebereal “this was our last time was our last time at home for sure, so Baitey to DaGue at home for sure, so we we wanted to go out resulted in a lay-in at wanted to go out and and make the best the rim, the Eagles make the best of it.” of it. We had a really continued to feed good crowd here and DaGue down low. that gave us a lot of With junior for— Jonathan terry, energy.” ward Christopher Senior Guard After the game, Avant out with Zimmerman was an injury, DaGue proved to be a critical asset, finishing pleased that the seniors could savor with 22 points and six rebounds on 70 one final home victory.

“I’m really happy for the seniors percent shooting from the field.

“DaGue had one of the best games to win their last game at home,” of his career,” Head Coach Jason Zimmerman said. “Hopefully we get to Zimmerman said. “He has been play- keep playing.”

Zimmerman’s hopes were fulfilled ing better and better the past two weeks and he was really special today.” Monday when Emory received the Neither team shot particularly well NCAA D-III tournament bid.

In the first round, the Eagles will (35 percent for rochester and 36 percent for Emory), resulting in a physi- take on the Bulldogs of texas Lutheran University (19-9) Friday at Hardincal, low scoring affair.

A three from rochester senior Simmons University in Abilene, tex. the winner will advance to the secguard Sam Borst-Smith gave the Yellowjackets their largest lead of the ond round for a matchup Saturday game at 54-48 with just under nine against the winner of Hardinminutes to play; however, the Eagles Simmons University (tex.) (22-6) v. closed the gap thanks to five straight LaGrange College (Ga.) (18-10). points from DaGue. tied at 60 with 90 seconds remain— Contact Kevin Kilgour at ing, junior guard Whit rapp drained kkilgou@emory.edu

Continued from Back Page Baca indeed had a notable weekend.

“Baca hit a home run during the piedmont game,” Wray said. “We scored five runs in that inning, so we almost ended up mercy-ing them thanks to Cassie.”

Wray said the start of the season was tough within such a large percentage of underclassmen on the team.

“I think our team is unique because we are so underclassmen-heavy, but we have an awesome, really talented freshman class,” Wray said. “We’re utilizing this raw talent and these girls are going to someday become leaders on the team.”

According to Maday, this weekend meant a lot for the Eagles, especially following some tough losses.

“As individuals, we’re all so talented, so it was just a matter of putting that talent together to form a cohesive Emory softball team,” Maday said.

“With everyone being so passionate about what we’re doing, we all have the same goals in mind — a national championship — so we just are now making sure that our talent is all on the same page.”

Last season, the Eagles suffered a total of four losses; this year, the team is already at three.

While Wray says this is a bit worrisome, Maday looked on the bright side. “those initial losses really inspired us, and made us feel the rest of the season should go up from this point,” Maday said. this past weekend was more positive than how the team performed in the first two weekends of the season. this is a trend that the team will look to continue for the rest of the season Now on a winning steak, the Eagles return home next weekend to play Christopher Newport University (Va.) in four games over Emory’s spring break. the games are scheduled for March 4 at 1 and 3 pm. and March 5 at 12 and 2 p.m.

— Contact Allison Gelman at allison.gelman@emory.edu

DIVING

Burke Shines at Regionals, Takes Second By proSper FieldS Senior Staff Writer

this past Friday and Saturday, freshman trevor Burke from Emory’s men’s diving team competed at the NCAA Division III region 2 Diving Championships held at Grinnell College (Iowa).

Burke was selected as one of five divers to compete from the South, Midwest and West regions. the top finisher from the first and second days of competition received an automatic invitation to the NCAA Division III Swimming and Diving Championships in March. Burke narrowly missed, finishing second Friday and third Saturday.

“I felt very fortunate to have been invited to [the region 2 Diving Championships],” Burke said. “I was going against the best Division III divers in the country. this is my first year so I can’t set my expectations too high.

I’ve made some mistakes but all I can do is take them and put them into

being better for next year.”

Friday afternoon featured the 11-dive one-meter event with Burke earning a personal best score of 468.15. Burke was edged out of first place during the final round

by Claremont Colleges (Calif.) diver

“Second place was not the best way to end the season but, nonetheless, I had an incredible year.”

— trevor Burke, Freshman Diver Kendall Hollimon. Earning the top spot by a margin of 10.35, Hollimon will automatically compete at the NCAA championships in March.

Burke reflected upon his feelings going into the last rounds of the event.

“I was super nervous,” Burke said. “I had a lot on the line, especially facing

such intense competition. But all there was for me to do was come out and perform and leave it all out there.”

Burke ended Saturday by taking third in the 11-dive three-meter event with a final score of 445.35 points.

Second place went to freshman Chaz Brouillette from BirminghamSouthern College (Ala.), whom Burke beat out earlier in the season at the Sewanee University Invitational (tenn.) in october. Hollimon went home with first for the second day in a row.Burke is coming off of a successful freshman season, breaking a school record.

“Now I know just exactly what it takes to make it [to nationals],” Burke said. “Second place was not the best way to end the season but, nonetheless, I had an incredible year. I’m taking the support I have and the mistakes I’ve made to work hard and fix what I need to for next year.”

— Contact Prosper Fields at prosperity.fields@emory.edu

The Emory Wheel

The Emory Wheel

Sports

Wednesday, March 1, 2017 | Sports Editor: Andrew Burnside (andrew.burnside@emory.edu)

MEN’S BASEBALL

CYCLING

Baseball Rolls to 10-0 Start Senior Gears Up

For Cycling Future Cotton Races Towards Uncertain Destination

By Kevin Kilgour Asst. Sports Editor

Gemy Sethaputra /Senior Staff

Junior shortstop Nick Chambers connects on a single to left center in the Eagles’ game Friday against Huntingdon (Ala.). Chambers’ two RBIs lifted Emory to a 12-7 victory.

By Stephen MAtteS Senior Staff Writer After this past weekend, the Emory baseball team remains undefeated, having successfully pulled off a threegame sweep against Huntingdon College (Ala.). With these victories, Emory improved their record to 10-0. the team’s perfect record and strong team play earned the team the No. 1 spot in D3baseball.com’s rankings.

Head Coach Mike twardoski stressed that despite their ranking, the team still has much more to accomplish.

“As far as being number 1, I am very proud, but we have a long way to go,” twardoski said. “We will keep working

hard to try to keep it going.”

Senior designated hitter Brian Hernandez expressed his excitement at Emory’s No. 1 ranking and what it means for the team moving forward.

“I hope we’re able to keep this level of play up,” Hernandez said. “Even though right now we’re still not playing our best, if we’re one of the best teams in the country it’ll be exciting to see what we can do once we get into the swing of things the series against Huntingdon began Friday, Feb. 24, the team’s first away game of the season. Senior pitcher Jackson Weeg started on the mound for Emory, allowing two runs (one earned) on four hits, three walks and six strikeouts.

SOFTBALL

trailing by one run in the third, Emory lit up the scoreboard with a monstrous inning. the Huntingdon pitcher was atrocious, giving up three hits and a walk. Huntingdon’s pitcher hit two Emory batters, allowing the Eagles to waltz through two of the six runs in the inning. Six different Eagles recorded rBIs. Although Huntingdon scored seven runs in the game, Emory’s batters continued to execute offensively. the Eagles added six more runs over the course of the fifth, sixth and seventh innings. Hernandez and senior designated hitter Jeff ronpirin were the top offensive players. Hernandez went

See PItCHING, page 13

Searching for one’s passion can often be a long journey. Some people wait half a lifetime before they discover their source of unexplainable joy. Many wait longer. But for Emory senior Micah Cotton, the discovery came easily. over the past few years, cycling took hold of Cotton. Beginning as a pathway to adventure, he has now set his sights on the realm of competitive racing.

Cotton doesn’t just love to ride a bike – he loves to ride fast. With hopes of taking his cycling to the next level, Cotton is racing ahead to the next step, lifting his head from the pavement every now and then to enjoy the journey.

As a competitive cyclist, Cotton raced in both the Grant park Criterium, where he took second place in the category five division, and in the river Gorge road race, placing fifth in the category five division. His cycling resume boasts numerous multi-100mile trips in the US and abroad, traversing both road and off-road terrain, in addition to completing a few triathlons. At Emory, Cotton started the cycling team under the Cycle and tri Club, and successfully got the team certified by USA Cycling. Yet, while competitive cycling advances to center stage in his life, Cotton’s story is about much more than racing.

Unlike many serious athletes, Cotton had little experience with his sport as a child. It was not until the age of 18 that Cotton’s love affair with bikes truly began.

taking a summer job as a delivery boy, Cotton cycled every day for an entire summer. Biking began as nothing more than a means to getting from point A to point B, but the summer of 2013 changed that, and much more.

What hooked him? “the freedom,” Cotton immediately responded. “You are completely exposed to the air, the wind. You get to enjoy being outside. the feeling of coasting and going really fast on a bike is a beautiful expression of movement.”

After his summer delivery job, Cotton began his education both in the classroom and on the bike at oxford College in Fall 2013.

“When I came to college, I bought a mountain bike,” Cotton said. “Actually, I bought a couple, because I didn’t know what I was doing.”

Located just a short ride from the Georgia International Horse park, the home of the first-ever olympic mountain biking trail, oxford College proved the perfect breeding ground for Cotton’s cycling habit.

“I would ride on the fat bike [a mountain bike with 4 inch tires] out there, do a couple loops, and ride back.

I would do it in between classes … which is kind of funny because riding a mountain bike on the road sucks, but riding a fat bike on the road is like glue on the pavement. But I loved it — that was my saving grace throughout freshman and sophomore year,” he remembered.

Even now, cycling and what Cotton calls “adventure” are inseparable.

See CYClING, page 14

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Sweep Puts Eagles Redemption Over Rochester Back on Track

By Kevin Kilgour Asst. Sports Editor

By AlliSon gelMAn Senior Staff Writer In an exciting weekend, the Emory women’s softball team swept all four teams they played at the William peace triangle Classic in Cary, N.C. the Eagles won 2-1 against Messiah College (pa.), 4-0 against North Carolina Wesleyan College, 8-1 against piedmont College (Ga.) and 7-5 against Averett College (Va.).

“I think this weekend was one of the first few moments where we felt like we were playing the Emory softball we know we can play,” captain and senior second baseman Amy Wray said. “We fought hard and came out with four wins.” the highlight of the weekend came in the fourth and final game for the Eagles when the team was neck and neck with Averett for the entire game, each making big gains until the final inning when the Eagles pulled through

with a tight victory. the Eagles previously played Averett twice this season, losing the first time 7-4 but prevailing the second 7-0.

Head Coach penny Siqueiros noted the strengths of her pitching squad this weekend. “[Senior pitcher] Brittney File and sophomore pitcher Madeline Maday on the pitcher’s mound had a fantastic weekend, with [freshman pitcher] Sami Feller who did really well [too],” Siquerios said.

In the game, File and Maday had six and four strikeouts, respectively.

In addition to the superb pitching, Siquerios added: “[Sophomore shortstop] Cassie Baca did a phenomenal job this weekend and I’m really happy for her. She produced very consistent play throughout the four games on defense and offense.”

See SOFtBAll, page 14

Saturday’s home win against the Yellowjackets of rochester University (N.Y.) provided the exclamation point on the end of a four game win streak to close out the regular season. the Eagles took down the No. 2 team in the UAA and honored the accomplishments of four senior athletes.

Emory finished No. 3 in the UAA (9-5) with an 18-7 overall record and received a bid to compete in the NCAA D-III men’s basketball tournament next weekend. prior to the game, Emory’s four seniors took the floor in recognition of their accomplishments and contributions to the basketball program. the seniors, guard Jonathan Coles, forward Austin DaGue, forward Jim Gordon and guard Jonathan terry, helped the Eagles to 79 wins, two UAA titles, two Sweet 16s and an Elite Eight since the start of their freshman season in the Fall of 2013. the seniors and junior forward

nafimul huda /Senior Staff

Senior forward Austin DaGue blocks a shot from Rochester senior guard Sam Borst-Smith in Emory’s 63-62 victory.

Adam Gigax started the game.

Whether it was due to the jitters from the senior celebration or the intensity of each team’s defense, turnovers plagued both teams early on.

After the first 10 minutes of play, the two teams combined for only 20 points.

See NExt, page 14