10 Oct 2018

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018

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THE COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW ORLEANS Volume: 62 Issue: 7

OCTOBER 10, 2018

unodriftwood.com

Oktoberfest’s 90th anniversary

BY CASSANDRA JASKIEWICZ Managin Editor Saturday, Oct. 5 kicked off Oktoberfest, a month-long event that features German culture and history activities every weekend.

The Deutsches Haus opened their festival to the many members of the New Orleans community to celebrate German heritage.

“This is my son’s favorite festival; he even brings his own stein ... Last Christmas, we even got him a lederhosen,” said Ashley Merritt, who attended the event with her family. “Every year, we come at least once, but more often than not, we are here every weekend it’s open.”

This event offered German foods such as bratwurst, sauerkraut, schnitzel, meatloaf, pork loin and many varieties of German cheeses and German desserts. They normally have more than 20 different kinds of German beers, nine different wines and more than 20 different schnapps to choose from.

“I’m here for the brats and beer!” said attendee Bubba Freeney, with two beer steins in his hands.

Oktoberfest has many special things planned for each weekend.

In addition to the ongoing live Oom-pah music, there are dance performances and a daily beer stein holding contest. On Oct. 6, there are the two-mile run and the Schnauzer costume contest.

There is a parade planned on Oct. 13 at 6 p.m., as well as a 3 p.m. dachshund race on Oct. 20. For children, the Deutsches Haus has an area featuring games like tic-tac-toe, a maze, cornhole and pipe ball.

The Deutsches Haus is a non-profit organization that relies on their volunteers each year to plan and host Oktoberfest and support the German community of New Orleans. Denise Barnette, one of the board mem-

-Photos Terry Shields The Deutsches Haus holds the annual Oktoberfest throughout October, and other free public events during the rest of the year. bers for the Deutsches Haus, explained how much work goes into planning this event.

“We started organizing this event almost immediately after we finished [the last],” Barnette said. “We have our volunteer party, as it is all volunteers that run this festival. All the food is cooked and even ordered by volunteers. Then we have a review meeting that looks at what worked and what didn’t work, and then we start planning!”

However, this year will be different for the Deutsches Haus workers, as they will be celebrating the grand opening of their new location. Like the homes of many members of the New Orleans community, the old home of the Deutsches Haus was flooded by Katrina. This year is marked by the opening of their

new building.

This year will be packed for Deutsches Haus, Barnett said.

“So instead of us being done and being able to relax for at least a month, we will be working toward that grand opening!”

The new building will hold a lot of the events that had been hosted by their old location.

These events, like Oktoberfest, highlight German heritage and its effects on the New Orleans area.

“This new Deutsches Haus will have monthly lectures on German history and Beethoven and brats, where we have people come in and play classical German music and eat!” Bar-

nett explained.

One of the goals of Oktoberfest is to keep a family environment and maintain a friendly community.

“I think Oktoberfest really brings everyone together … The Deutsches Haus was founded on assisting German immigrants way back in the 1920s. They helped them get food, a job, shelter, or helped them get somewhere else.

Like a community and like a family!” said Barnett. “So to be here now and see all these little kids and all these families come out and keep the original feelings alive, to have a festival, where you have alcohol, but the kids are welcomed too,

and keeping that family environment is very important to us.”

Barnett often is the one who checks emails and phone calls of the organization and often tries her best to help families that want to come and enjoy Oktoberfest. This festival is for the community and many members of the organization work hard to make it that way.

Oktoberfest will continue each weekend in October, with their last day being Oct. 20.

If you miss the festivities, the Deutsches Haus welcomes any guests to their new location on Bayou Saint John at 1700 Moss St. after the festival.

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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018

NEWS

UNO’s “best career fair to date” invites more than 100 employers

Career Services holds an annual career fair and offers a variety of other resources for UNO students and alumni.

BY HOPE BRUSSTAR Editor-in-Chief On Tuesday, Oct. 2, about 120 international, national and local employers congregated at UNO to meet students and fill thousands of job positions.

The career fair was planned and hosted entirely by Career Services, the on-campus office whose primary goal is to prepare UNO students for the workforce.

“This was probably our best Career Fair to date. It honestly gets better and better every year!” said Director of Career Services Celyn Boykin.

Students and alumni who registered for the fair received free name tags and a labeled map of the University Center

ballroom and gallery lounge, both of which were completely full with the employers’ many tables and displays.

Chevron, Chick-fil-A, DXC Technology, the FBI, General Electric, the Naval Oceanographic Office, Nike and Ochsner were just some of the many present at the career fair.

These are only a few of the several dozen employers with which Career Services must coordinate to plan the career fair. Nearly every employer brought with it a set of fresh opportunities for students and the community at large.

Said Boykin, “UNO is one of a consortium of universities that has a partnership with DXC Technology, who

recently opened an office in New Orleans to provide job opportunities to our students and over 2000 technology jobs to the state of Louisiana.”

Meanwhile, industrial distributor Fastenal has been offering management trainee programs to students. “[They] work around the student’s schedule, allowing them to develop their skills and build practical, real-world experience before entering the work force,” said Tyrone Shoemaker, Career Services’ job location and development coordinator.

General Electric also offers a similar program. “UNO has built a great relationship with GE, which has recruited many students for their apprentice-

-Photo by Brennan Probst

ship program, which often leads to a career,” said Boykin.

After one career fair ends, Career Services begins planning for the next one.

Hard work goes into every facet of the event. For example, the career fair’s map of employer tables requires hours of design, and the spreadsheet of open job positions matched to major programs at UNO “takes several weeks to compile,” said Boykin.

When Career Services isn’t coordinating its annual career fair, it is offering a plethora of other services for the student body’s benefit.

Said Boykin, “We offer students and alumni assis-

tance with their resume, with mock/practice interviews, job and internship searches and matching, networking skills, career assessments, career coaching, various career orientations and career workshops each semester.”

In addition, UNO coordinates with Tulane, Loyola, Dillard and Xavier to plan for the Superdome’s annual Mardi Gras Career Expo, which also brings local and national employers.

“We also offer one on one scheduled appointments with our team to assist with any of the students’ employment or career needs,” said Shoemaker.

Meanwhile, those preparing for the job market can visit myapps.uno.edu and download the Handshake app onto their phones, using the same signin as for their UNO accounts.

“Handshake allows students to search for jobs and internships as well as other opportunities for career related events from local and national employers,” added Boykin.

On the app, students can also schedule an appointment with Career Services to address their needs in searching for a career.

Career Services exists to aid the students and alumni of UNO, whether that means giving career advice to inexperienced students, or hosting a massive job fair to engage and encourage students.

“The reports by employers that they hired a certain amount of students from this event or a student coming back to us and sharing their story that they were hired is priceless,” said Shoemaker.

“This is the reason we host this event. It is for the benefit of the students,” said Boykin

Recreation and Fitness Center and UNO students

BY CASSANDRA JASKIEWICZ Managing Editor UNO’s Recreation and Fitness Center is located on campus

right behind the University Center. It offers many activities, some of which the average UNO student may be unaware.

Brittany Buckel, a front desk worker at the Recreation and Fitness Center, offered some insight about the gym.

“We offer a lot of classes, a few different yogas, a swim aerobics class [and] there’s different cycle classes,” Buckel said. “I’ve heard the swim class is very cool.”

Gym fees and the fees that go with taking a class can be an obstacle for students to commit to during the academic year. However, the Recreation and Fitness Center gives students a chance to stay healthy during their time at UNO. “All these classes are free for any UNO student with an ID, or anyone who has a membership with the gym,” Buckel said. “We have really great equipment, and we offer no charges to use our lockers ... while you work out.”

There are many areas to exercise within the Recreation and Fitness Center. Their cardio and weight room holds a variety of equipment for people to use on the second floor, while there are stationary bikes on the first floor.

On the second floor, there is also an indoor track area that overlooks the gymnasium below and the outdoors beyond.

It is very beneficial for those who do not want to run in the Louisiana heat.

Their gymnasium has three full-sized basketball courts, and has the equipment to transform into a volleyball or badminton court, should someone request it.

On the first floor, there is a pool that is 25 yards long, with four lanes and a depth of 4 feet to 4 feet, 6 inches.

There are two racquetball courts with hardwood floors and glass walls behind the players.

There are also dry saunas in

both the men’s and women’s locker rooms that are available for all to use.

The Recreation and Fitness Center even offers fitness assessments and body composition assessments.

Fitness assessment tests look at a person’s cardiorespiratory function, body composition, muscular strength, muscular endurance and flexibility.

This test is only $15 for UNO students, instead of the $20 for members.

If a person only wants to know their body composition, then it can be done separately for $10. This assessment has a trainer look at height, weight, body fat percentage, girth measurements, body mass index and their waist-to-hip ratio.

The Recreation and Fitness Center provides many opportunities for students to improve their health. They welcome people of all athletic levels.

NEWS

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018

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Physics Talk: Observing Whales in the Pacific

Photo by Hope Brusstar Dr. Dennis Lindwall discussed his research on the movement of whales in the Pacific, and some ideas to improve the way we track them.

BY HOPE BRUSSTAR Editor-in-Chief Physics does not always involve lab coats and miles-long particle colliders. Sometimes it means using sonar equipment to hear and study whale activity in the oceans they call home.

On Wednesday, Oct. 3, Dr. Dennis Lindwall gave a lecture entitled “Directional Acoustic Observation of Whales” at the science building. Lindwall has a background in both physics and

music, and physics Prof. Juliette Ioup stated in introduction, “If you go to any music performances around town, you may hear him play the violin.”

Lindwall began the talk by announcing wryly, “I don’t know anything about whales … this is probably going to be the shortest talk you’ll hear.”

His work involved the study of data acquired from sound equipment placed below the ocean’s surface, and his task was to analyze it using mathematical formulae.

Doing this, Lindwall would determine the positions of whales in the ocean.

“A colleague … said that he had access to some whale data … and that maybe we could work together,” said Lindwall.

The primary issue of his talk was how to better determine the directions of the whales as well, in order to get a more complete picture of their behavior.

He showed the audience some graphs to give examples of his data. One was titled “Spectral plots of recordings made during a

Wild Photo

Oktoberfest since 1928

-Photos by Terry Shields The Deutsches Haus, a nonprofit organization, was founded in 1928 and has offered community services and events in New Orleans ever since. This year, they celebrate their 90th anniversary with a truly special month of Oktoberfest activities.

5 minute period,” and he explained that it “contains both blue whale calls and fin whale calls.”

Identifying the whales by their sounds in a recording begins with recognizing the frequencies which different species of whale use to communicate.

Lindwall introduced some of the instruments deployed to collect the data. In this case, underwater microphones called geophones and hydrophones were used to record continuously for more than three years in the Pacific Ocean.

“When you apply for funding, you have to show that the concept works. I had to show that we could get some directional information on some whale calls,” said Lindwall. “We didn’t get funding, so that was the end of it.”

“It is tremendously expensive to put these hydrophones out,” Ioup explained later.

Lindwall described to the audience his idea to help better determine the direction of sounds using the audio equipment. The concept begins with measuring a different quality of the sound movement than the one that physicists usually study.

“Imagine you’re looking at the molecules in a fluid — water or air,” he said. Both are mediums through which sound waves move.

“Normally, people measure the sound with pressure. But there’s a lot more going on than just pressure,” he said, referencing kinetic energy as worth paying attention to. Kinetic energy is the energy an object, such as an air particle, has when it is moving.

“A single pressure sensor — it can tell you the amplitude and the

frequency, but nothing about the direction,” Lindwall continued.

Scientists will arrange an array of pressure sensors to get a better sense of the direction that the sound waves are moving, but this is still imperfect.

Lindwall suggested using a new type of instrument, an “accelerometer-based underwater vector intensity sensor.”

“It’s an accelerometer hydrophone,” he said.

Lindwall also demonstrated that other sources of sound in the area can produce noise that interfere with the data collection. These sources can include things like drill ships and even distant thunderstorms.

There are many reasons to research whale behavior in the oceans.

“We look for how many whales, which kind … with some signals, we can determine the size — whether we have adults or [young whales],” said Ioup. “If you know how many are out there, where they are and how they’re eating — what impact the oil spill had on them, for example — you can take care of them better.”

The physics talk is one of a semester-long series in the physics department. Every week, a new one occurs at 3 p.m. in science building room 1053, and three are left in the semester.

The Oct. 10 talk is entitled “DSP Physics, a Deep Learning Solution,” the Oct. 17 talk will bring Joseph Kuhner from Stennis Space Center and Oct. 24’s talk is titled “Ambient Energy-Harvesting Devices.”

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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018

FEATURES

Omega Delta Sigma awards Madison Fisher a challenge coin

BY CLAIRE SARGENT Reporter On Thursday, Oct. 4 Delta Zeta sorority member Madison Fisher was awarded a challenge coin, which is a high-level award from Omega Delta Sigma, the co-ed veterans fraternity on campus. Fisher was given this award for two reasons: her work with Omega Delta Sigma’s president Ollie

Olivero to help revamp their social media; and for taking a standard operating procedure Olivero wrote during his time as a public affairs liaison and making that procedure work for other collegiate organizations as well.

In regards to Fisher’s work with Omega Delta Sigma, Olivero said, “She also worked with our treasurer, Adam Kendrick, in developing a sustainable budget that allows us to

not only pay the required monies to Nationals, but also have excess cash flow to engage in other activities on campus.”

“In the future, our hope is to engage in more fundraising on and off campus while also working with other schools in the area. We are currently keeping an eye on other schools in Louisiana, such as Southeastern and Tulane, to set up another chapter. Madison will be utilized to help us organize

outreach events to the veterans at those schools in order to help us grow.” She continued.

Fisher said that, “In helping Omega Delta Sigma, I’ve had an increase in my self esteem, and they have given me a sense of belonging. They have helped me strengthen and make connections for future endeavors. They have helped me learn to have patience and have given me opportunities to grow as a person and in my

education. The members of this organization truly have the biggest hearts and are willing to give anyone the shirts off of their backs. This friendship with them has made me want to improve myself and extend a helping hand out to others. In the future, I hope to continue to help them with their finances and social media, as well as help increase their presence nationally. More than anything, I intend on being an ally and friend on campus.”

Omega Delta Sigma and Delta Zeta plan on working together more in the future.

Delta Zeta is currently helping Omega Delta Sigma with their philanthropy project with Bastion, a local community for disabled veterans and their families, to give them a holiday experience with toys and other Christmas gifts.

Omega Delta Sigma participated in Delta Zeta’s Claws for a Cause, a crawfish boil competition that raised money for the Starkey Hearing Foundation, last spring semester.

They plan on participating in Delta Zeta’s Alternative Night Out, an event that teaches college students how to be safe and the importance of being safe when going out, which will be occuring later this month.

SPORTS

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018

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New Orleans golf team competes in David Toms intercollegiate in Baton Rouge UNO ATHLETICS

UNO’s Golf team participates in the David Tom Intercollegiate!

Photo by UNO Privateers

Baton Rouge-The University of New Orleans golf team completed competition in the David Toms Intercollegiate, Sunday at The University Club in Baton Rouge.

Round two of the threeround tournament, which was halted by darkness Saturday, was completed Sunday morning followed by the third and final round on the par-72 course.

Max Hellstrom, a senior from Stockholm, Sweden was tops among Privateers for the weekend shooting +14- 230 with rounds of 7382-75.

Senior Ulisses de Toledo, Jr. shot the lowest round of the tourney for UNO, a second round one under par 71. He finished at +16-232 (78-71-83).

Grayson Gilbert came in at +18-234 (81-85-78). Ryan Fulton, a freshman from Covington, Louisiana fin-

ished at +19-235 (77-82-76) and Jackson Smith, of Tyler, Texas shot +31-247 (84-8479).

COACH LORIO’S COMMENTS “Max led us and played pretty consistent over the whole event minus two or three holes. I think he proved his game is good enough to compete at a high level.”

“I still believe we have a talented group of young men. The effort was good we just did not play well.

We have to get back in the saddle and be ready for another good field and tough golf course next week at Louisiana Tech.”

NEXT UP New Orleans will travel to Choudrant, Louisiana for the Jim Rivers Intercollegiate, Monday and Tuesday, October 15-16 at Squire Creek Country Club.

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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018

UNO’s “best career fair to date”

-Photos by Brennan Probst On Tuesday, Oct. 2, over 100 different employers came to UNO to share career opportunities with students and alumni. “This was probably our best Career Fair to date. It honestly gets better and better every year!” said Director of Career Services Celyn Boykin.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018

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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018

ENTERTAINMENT

SAC presents a movie, food and discussion

Student activities council presents the First Purge to UNO students followed by a discussion

BY CASSANDRA JASKIEWICZ Managing Editor On Oct. 4, Students Activities Council screened “The First Purge” at Milneburg Hall. They offered free food and drinks, such as pizza and sweet tea, and at the end of the

event they had a discussion about the theme of movie and its relevance today.

“The First Purge” is the latest in the “Purge” horror movie franchise that explains how the premise of the series came to be. For those that do not know, the “Purge” is fic-

Photo via FanFest

tional event that allows for all crime, including murder, to be legal for twelve hours.

Despite coming along well into the franchise, “The First Purge” is a stand-alone film.

The first three movies are not necessary to enjoy the film as it acts a prequel to the series.

It explains how the American government came to the decision behind the new “Purge” amendment, and what had to be done to ensure it.

The movie follows a brother and sister duo, Nya and Isaiah, who will be being staying on Staten Island during the experimental first purge. Those who are leading the experiment offer the residents $5,000 to participate in the experiment and more if they participate in acts of violence as well. Nya and her brother attempt to endure the many acts of violence that are happening around them.

To survive the first purge, the siblings team up with Dimitri, the drug dealer of their area, their neighbor Delores, as well as Louisa and Selina, two members from Nya’s church.

Students got a chance to grab some food before sitting down with blankets and friends at the start of the Students Activities Council event.

Once the movie was completed a representative of Students Activities Council lead the discussion for the crowd.

Students were initially asked for general thoughts about the movie before get-

The Cats of UNO: a student poem

POEM AND PHOTO BY FLORA ISTE Contributer

Translated from French poetry book “The Sound of French in Baltimore” In a small corner of a drenched city, there is an army of cats ready to defend the concrete palace.

Squeezed in between the soft-eyed lake and the tranquil neighborhood, these sneaky cats strut about cute and mysterious along the louisianan campus a micro-city, urban yet snug

ting more and more specific questions. At the end of the discussion, students were discussing governmental violence in low-income areas, the benefits of having people of color be the leads of the movie, and relating those ideas to current political issues.

“It was a good movie,” said Sara Davis, studio art major at the University of New Orleans. “It had a decent plot; I cared enough about the characters, and I just like the Purge movies.

I like horror movies and it’s fun to watch in a group, so I hope if they ever do an event like this again, they keep the same genre.”

“Usually movies like this make me paranoid, but due to the other people with their funny comments, I found it very fun and enjoyed it!” said Crystal Bennett, a psychology major. “I would love to go another movie event that was indoors.”

Many students agreed that this was a good event and hoped to see Students Activities Council host another event like this in the future.

with its 70s-era buildings … residues of brutalism, an unexpected playground, a Desert that students don’t foresee locked away in their dorms or elsewhere, the commuter school.

I explore this landscape.

I am the brutalist cowboy.

Chillin’ with the cats Little green rolling hills Palm trees Stiff wooded chairs in the Math Courtyard Exposed stairwell I am Rapunzel at the top.

But do I want to tumble from this concreted tree?

ENTERTAINMENT

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018

QUESTION OF THE WEEK

If you could make enough money doing anything, what would you do?

WITH CLAIRE SARGENT “I would be a foodie that travels all the time and tries new foods.”

“I would start a non-profit that focuses on the well-being of women in New Orleans.”

VERONICA SPICER Sophomore, Computer Science

MAIA CORTES Senior, Sociology

“I’d be a chef who would focus on making desserts all the time.”

“I would travel the world. I mean, who wouldn’t want to do that?”

KENADY HILLS Junior, Anthropology

TIA MASON Sophomore, Biology

“I would want to have my own ranch and be a farmer.”

“I’d want to become a journalist.”

ABDULRAHMAN IWEINAT Sophomore, Mechanical Engineering

JOSEPH NOLAN Sophomore, Theater

“I would work with special needs children because I love volunteering at St. Michael’s.”

“I’m currently working towards my goal of becoming a veterinarian, so I’d still choose to become a veterinarian.”

TRAVIS KIEFF Sophomore, Mechanical Engineering

ALONA WIDEMAN Sophomore, Biology

“I would become a professional dancer.”

“I would want to start a cat farm where people who were depressed or needed a break from their hectic lives could come and visit for a few days and hang out with the cats.”

DONTIERRA SAMPSON Sophomore, Engineering

ALISON MARIE Senior, Education

If YOU could make enough money doing anything, what would YOU do?

We want to hear your opinion. Check out our Facebook page @UNODriftwood

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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018

COMICS & PUZZLES

DRIFTWOOD IS HIRING! Entertainment Editor News Editor PLEASE NOTE: There is a two-week probationary period where we will determine your further employment.

Email driftwood@uno.edu if interested.

SUDOKU

WORD SEARCH

Career Fair Recreation Fitness Oktoberfest Golf Lateness

Purge Disrespectful Money Modern Argument Cats Physics

Whales Fischers Excellence Dream Job Award

Editorial

OPINION

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018

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Despite benefits, lateness is fundamentally disrespectful Lateness can plague universities, with tardy students disrupting classes and missing deadlines for assignments. It isn’t just students that suffer, but professors, classmates and the wallet too.

If students show up on time, they get the benefit of the full class time in which to learn and discuss material. The disruption caused by students straggling in doesn’t only hurt them, but often, missing the first 10 minutes forces the professor to stop the class and repeat what has already been discussed, slowing the fellow on-time students as well.

This can cause animosity and resentment between students if it happens a lot, further eroding the classroom dynamic.

Tardiness is especially destructive in the context of group work, when a team member’s late contributions stall the work of the other team members. It lowers group morale and can affect overall grades.

There is a financial cost to tardiness as well. It’s estimated that the U.S. loses $90 billion a year as a result of people running late. Even for students, the costs creep up. Often, running late means paying extra for services: having someone copy or bind documents for you instead of doing it yourself, getting parking tickets from rushing to school and parking close but illegally, or even buying quick to-go meals when you could make the food at home.

Rushing the printing of documents without doing the time-consuming tasks like second reads or even spell-checking can cost marks.

The panicked rush and resulting lateness is often a result of underestimating how long an assignment or research may take. Research has shown that people, on average, underestimate how long a task will take to complete by nearly 40 percent. Once you underestimate a task by that much, it can snowball, affecting all the other tasks in a day.

Of course, there are absolutely understandable reasons why a student may be late — traffic accidents, child care, health concerns, emergencies

Column On Modern Argument

BY HOPE BRUSSTAR Editor-in-Chief Being honest with myself, I am often the person who struggles to pay attention to the conversation until it is again my turn to talk. We are all selfish — it’s the human survival strategy, after all, so can we be blamed? — and that always comes out in the ways we interact with each other.

But we need to be careful about this. Humans need to prioritize themselves to make sure they and their kin survive and succeed, but they also have to learn to work together. Just like cells in an organism will cooperate because they are better off as a multicellular being than a single-celled organism, humans usually thrive when they work together.

Power in numbers is a fact, but one that we have had to actively work for continuously. Since we diverged from chimps millions of years ago, and even before then, we primates have been working hard on our social strategy. Humans are remarkably good at identifying minute facial expressions, for example, and that’s no accident. It’s because natural selection determined that those of us who could work together better were the ones who would succeed when living in the brutal wilderness.

There are a multitude of ways

we could all work together better, any one of which can be implemented in endless situations. So it can get complicated. But, simply stated: let’s all be more patient with each other. Patience means we have allowed ourselves more time to listen, and listening breeds understanding.

What exactly am I talking about?

When you encounter someone you disagree with, I implore you to take a mental step back and approach the situation carefully before you begin to take things personally. I take things personally, too. But the discussion of ideas is more important than your ego. It’s an opportunity to learn. Even if the other person is absolutely wrong, you can learn about another perspective, and get a better grasp on why people think differently than you.

Learning why others think differently than you is the first step to convincing others that your perspective is right. It may also open the door to learning something that might change your opinion.

Deep down, you might not want to listen because you’re afraid of being wrong yourself. We are afraid of being wrong because that means having to deal with the unknown. “I thought I had all the facts,” you might think. “I thought it was all settled and understood.”

But ask yourself: would you rather be comfortable and wrong, or uncomfortable and right?

The answer you give to this question, I think, will say a lot about you.

Listening to each other — and paying real attention to yourself and your own beliefs, too — is just the beginning — and perhaps the end. But there are a lot of steps in between. Modern argument is truly flawed, because we all think we know everything, myself included. It’s possible to be wrong, it’s possible to get the wrong information, and it’s possible to be lied

to. This era is no different from any other in that our information can still be incorrect. There is just a lot more of it.

Something else new about this modern period: the medium through which we share thought has dramatically changed! We don’t sit at tables with strangers in a coffee shop anymore. That time is long gone. Now we share ideas over the internet. Obviously. But the problem with this new means of meeting strangers is that it’s far more public than a coffee shop or a town square.

Hundreds of millions of people can view that conversation you’re having with an opponent in the Twitter replies.

So now, if you seek to have a real, honest, truth-seeking discussion with someone, and perhaps you even want to change their mind, you can’t do this in public. You must do this privately — via direct messages, for example. When a discussion is being had in front of such a potentially large audience, there is an inherent conflict of interest that involves pride and impressing others.

When others can see what we say, we can automatically become like a middle school bully in a hallway. We want to make an example and make ourselves look good, even if it means putting down a stranger — and what do we have to lose by insulting an anonymous person, anyway?

This can lead to very childlike behaviour.

From now on, I intend to listen better, ask more questions, and above all, have the discussion privately. You shouldn’t have anything to prove to thousands of other people when you are trying to have a conversation with one person. This is how ideas are exchanged healthily, and if we could all do this, maybe we’d be a little less polarized.

— as well as some benefits.

A 2001 study by by Jeff Conte, associate professor of psychology at San Diego State University, discovered that there’s also a personality type that’s more likely to be late.

While achievement-oriented Type A individuals are more likely to be punctual, Type B individuals, who are more laid-back, tend to run late.

Type B individuals, however, tend to be more optimistic, so engrossed in what they are doing as to forget time. These individuals can perform higher on tasks requiring innovation or thinking outside the box.

A later 2003 study by Conte found that those who preferred multi-tasking were more often

late to their job. Multi-taskers tend to be more creative and less worried about results. This can free them in the production of their work, as they are less prone to stress.

The positives of being tardy mostly privilege the person who is late. That errant individual doesn’t break a sweat, or stress about time, strolling in at a moment that is convenient for them. Being punctual is more respectful of others’ time.

Promptness helps in the greater good of the classroom, by allowing the professor to finish the lesson and students to learn the full volume of work to be covered, promoting equality in group work and keeping up morale.

DRIFTWOOD Staff

2000 Lakeshore Drive, UC 252 New Orleans, LA 70148 (504)280-6377 Hope Brusstar, driftwood@uno.edu......................Editor-in-Chief Cassandra Jaskiewicz...........................................Managing Editor Erinn Langille...............................................................Copy Editor Kimberly Williams.................................................Visuals Director Nate Nguyen...............................................................Layout Editor Brennan Probst..........................................................Photographer Matt Stennis........................................................Business Manager Missy Wilkinson...................................................................Adviser

Driftwood is produced solely by students of the University of New Orleans. Driftwood publishes every Wednesday during the fall and spring semesters, with the exception of holiday breaks and midterms/finals week.

Letters to the Editor and columns are the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinion of the Driftwood editorial board. All letters to the Editor are subject to editing for length, style and grammar.

Editorials are the opinions of the Driftwood editorial staff and do not reflect the opinions of the University of New Orleans, its administration or staff.

Please limit letters to 500 words. Submissions can be emailed to driftwoodeditor@uno.edu and must be sent no later than 5 p.m. on the Monday before publication.

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WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2018

JAZZ STUDIES PRESENTS

JAZZ @THE SANDBAR FALL 2018 GUEST ARTISTS

performing with UNO Jazz Studies Students

10/10 Don Byron: Clarinetist 10/17 Mark Turner: Saxophonist & Ethan Iverson: Pianist 10/24 Danilo Pérez: Pianist 10/31 Ashlin Parker: Trumpeter 11/07 Phil Degruy: Guitarist 11/14 Jeremy Pelt: Trumpeter

WEDS: 7:00 to 8:30pm U.N.O. | THE COVE $10 suggested donation at the door sotaperformances.uno.edu UNO Student Government Association