The official student newspaper of florida Tech
sPRING, issue 1
JANUARY 22, 2014
Florida Tech students launch t-shirt line Hershlay Raymond Editor-in-Chief It may seem strange for tech school students to begin a clothing line, though it’s not peculiar to Kriston Liburd.
klova drama Garden of Eden is Kriston Liburd’s favorite design.
Liburd, a junior in aviation management, is the CEO and founder of Klova Drama, a clothing company that specializes in t-shirt design. Co-founder and chief financial officer Ibou Seck first saw one of Liburd’s designs last May. “I said that it looked really good. It would look really good on a shirt,” Seck said. “We should start a shirt company.” Liburd admits that it began with him doodling in class. “We said this is cool and we don’t see this around. Why don’t we make our own stuff?” Liburd said. “If you look around you just see a lot of the Nike shirts and the generic text shirts. We could make shirts and sell them cheaper than that and there will be a lot more unique
Men’s swimming finishes 6-4, sets sights on conference finals David Barkholz Sports Editor Three years ago, there was no NCAA swimming program at Florida Tech. There wasn’t even a pool to swim competitively in. Now, three years later, there is competitive swimming pool at Florida Tech – and there’s a swimming program making some pretty significant waves in it. With a 122-68 victory over Rollins in their final meet before conference finals, Florida Tech’s men’s swim team has posted its first winning season in a very, very short program history. Led by team captain Will Mitchell, the young Panthers (6-4) are now setting their sights on the Sunshine State Conference Championships in February. The Crimson sat down with Mitchell to discuss the surprisingly successful season on Feb. 14, one week before the team split its final two meets. Crimson: You guys are 5-3 with three straight wins at home now. What is it that has been clicking for you this season? Mitchell: Definitely, we’ve come together as a team over the past couple of months. We had some initial hardships at the beginning of the year, but the team really came together to push toward the end of the season. Crimson: The first of those three wins was against Lewis, the No. 22 ranked team in the country. What kind of confidence did that give you guys going forward? Mitchell: That was a really big boost. I remember that meet was on New Year’s Day.
Everybody was kind of not really feeling it, but once we all got into it, it was kind of like, “We’re actually doing pretty good. We have the potential to beat these guys.” Crimson: You’re team captain and you’ve been here since the team started three years ago. Can you talk a little bit about how the program has grown in those three years? Mitchell: The program has grown. We’ve brought in a lot of fast kids. That’s probably one of the major reasons we’ve been so successful, we’ve had really active recruiting. The year that I came in, it was all walk-ons. Then the second year they recruited just fast kids and that kind of worked out, but then this year they recruited kids who were fast and had good character. That’s helped with team spirit and energy a little bit more. Crimson: That first season you guys had 11 kids and now you have 32. What is it like to compete on a bigger team? Mitchell: Oh it’s really interesting, definitely. The whole new dynamic and whatnot. I remember that first year when it was just us and then the next year we had the new kids come in and they were looking up to us. That was kind of a strange experience. We were like, “We’ve just got to figure this out.” Those sophomores this year have definitely had time to gel with us a bit more and now they’re trying to set
See SWIMMING, pg 7
Panther power rankings See rankings, back page
individuality in each shirt.” Along with Liburd and Seck, Klova Drama is made up of Adrian Devezin and Cory Saputo. “We came together and started making designs,” Liburd said. Everyone on the team makes their own designs. They then come together and pick out the best. From there, they begin making the shirts. “Over the summer, we made over a hundred designs, and put them out little by little. Each and every shirt is made with thought and consideration,” said Seck. According to the Klova Drama website they strive to “break off of the everyday boring and simplistic text tees or generic dull design that any recording artist can spin off. We create from scratch, vivid, unique designs that relate to someone, so there
is always something for everyone.” The founders of Klova Drama collaborated with the Student Business Incubator under Scott Benjamin. “He’s been making sure we meet and exceed deadlines,” Liburd said. Klova Drama has achieved a great deal in the few months they have been active. They have designed shirts for the African Students Association and they have had one of their shirts worn by Miami Heat basketball player LeBron James. The founders insist that it’s not an overnight success. “There were a lot of obstacles trying to make the best product at the most reasonable price,” said Liburd. The obstacles included attaining the shirts, the production of the products, and figuring what kind of image they wanted to send out.
Liburd says that it’s great working with his friends. “All of us are not clothing or fashion majors. We’re made up of aviation majors and information technology majors. We just came together and did this.”
klova drama For Greater Glory is Ibou Seck’s favorite design.
Hollaback! Movement committed to ending street harassment
Autumn Booher Guest Writer The Hollaback! Movement was co-founded by Emily May and Debjani Roy in 2010 after they got together with some friends and exchanged stories of street harassment that they have experienced. Hollaback! is dedicated to ending street harassment by exposing the prevalence through social media and creating active discussions in public spaces. In a recent study done by the Hollaback! Movement, they found that 67 percent of students experience harassment on campus and only 17 percent of these students reported the harassment to a person of authority. Hollaback! defines street harassment as a form of sexual harassment that takes place in public spaces. Like all forms of sexual harassment, it is about dominance. Hollaback offers a blogging space; a safe place to discuss street harassment experiences, what response they gave/wanted to give, and acts as a support network for victims all around the world. They also
have an app that lets individuals map out incidents in real time. “The feelings that they walk away with: fear or anxiety or feeling that they didn’t respond in the right way or they didn’t say enough or helpless,” said Debjani Roy. “The blogging platform gives a space to explore all of those feelings.” Roy also went on to say that, their blogging platform is a place where victims discuss that street harassment is not okay and that they should not have to tolerate such behavior while giving up their feelings of safety. Street harassment is more than just an interruption in the victim’s day and is not as isolated as many people think. “It is a global problem and it is no different than other forms of gender-based violence,” Roy said. “Therefore we should be talking about it the same way we that talk about domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking and dating violence. It has the same impact.” Hollaback! allows victims of street harassment validate their experiences and allows them to work through the feelings that an incident can incur. Emily, a senior at Florida Tech, shared a few stories of
A Q&A WITH CATANESE See Q&A, pg 3
street harassment that she has experienced. “The first week that I started here I had to bike to the Commons. It was August so I was wearing shorts and a tank-top, and this truck full of guys just starts yelling at me and jeering,” Emily said. “And this summer I came back to campus to do some research and see my friends that were around. I was just wearing a dress and these two guys just started following me, talking about how they wished the wind would lift my dress up and what they wanted to do to me.” Another student, Mariona, says that she is not bothered by the street harassment because she is good at ignoring the behavior, but no one should have to put up with street harassment. As for her own personal experiences, boys in a truck have followed her to her dorm causing her to change her route that she takes to her dorm so that they would not know where she lived and another time she was blocked from crossing the street. Carmen, a sophomore on the swim team, also believes that street harassment is a problem on campus. Guys in passing cars have yelled at her. However, her experiences have crossed into another level. She has a stalker that got her cell phone number off a fellow swim team member. “He sends pictures of himself to me,” Carmen said. “It’s inappropriate.” Street harassment is not a behavior that is limited to large cities like New York or distant places like Tokyo, Japan. It is not isolated. This behavior is not something that anyone should have to put up with and the Hollaback! Movement is working with the rest of the world to put a stop to street harassment by breaking the silence.
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