NOV. 13 - NOV. 27, 2018
VOL. 86 | NO. 13
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Pass Plate THE
ARTS & LIVING | PAGE 10 Plan an unforgettable Friendsgiving and show off your culinary prowess to your adoring friends.
PHOTO BY VANESSA JOHNSON | THE SIGNAL
ADVISING THE ADVISEMENT
VOTE COUNT
DOWN STREAM
CHAMPIONS AT LAST
Students raise concerns over their time with their advisers, and the director responds.
The preparation for the Georgia governor’s election is at best negligent and at worst criminal.
Are you Apple Music or Spotify? The results may surprise you.
Men’s soccer won its first ever Sun Belt Conference Tournament in a thriller against Georgia Southern.
NEWS | PAGE 4 GEORGIASTATESIGNAL.COM
OPINIONS PAGE 8
News 3
ARTS & LIVING | PAGE 13
OPINIONs 7
Arts & Living 9
SPORTS | PAGE 18
Sports 15
NEWS
2
GEORGIASTATESIGNAL.COM
BLOTTER NOV. 4
Cheaper than Goodwill
A student reported their laundry stolen at 4:38 p.m. in the University Commons Building A. NOV. 6
Doyouknowwheremycaris? *burp*
A non-student was arrested for drinking in public and was issued a trespass warning at T Deck at 5:34 p.m. NOV. 7
Wake and bake
A Georgia State student was arrested in Library Plaza around 9 a.m. on a charge of marijuana possession.
Just practicing my donuts
A Georgia State student was arrested in the University Lofts parking deck at 11:38 a.m. for reckless driving.
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Daniel Varitek
NOV. 8
Editorial NEWS EDITOR Will Solomons
editor@georgiastatesignal.com executive editor (atlanta) Vacant executive editor (perimeter) Vacant
Arrest me? While I’m at a picnic?
news@georgiastatesignal.com
ASSociate NEWS EDITOR Natori Spence
A non-student was arrested for an outstanding warrant in Hurt Park at 1 p.m.
news2@georgiastatesignal.com OPINIONS EDITOR Vacant opinions@georgiastatesignal.com associate oPINIONS EDITOR Vacant opinions2@georgiastatesignal.com ARTS & LIVING EDITOR Sydney Bloeme
Must’ve been two or three textbooks
living@georgiastatesignal.com
ASSociate ARTS & Living EDITOr Samuel Puckett living2@georgiastatesignal.com SPORTS EDITOR Jerell Rushin sports@georgiastatesignal.com ASSociate SPORTS EDITOR Vacant sports2@georgiastatesignal.com copy editor Vacant copy@georgiastatesignal.com
A faculty member reported a theft of less than $1,500 in Classroom South at 9:46 a.m.
Production production editor Devin Phillips
productions@georgiastatesignal.com Associate production editor Vacant production2@georgiastatesignal.com
PHOTO OF THE WEEK Alumni of The Signal and Panther Report News speak to students interested in journalism at Atlanta Press Club’s Get the Scoop event on Thursday, Nov. 8.
PHOTOGRAPHY photo EDITOr (atlanta) Vanessa Johnson
photo@georgiastatesignal.com photo EDITOr (perimeter) Vacant photo2@georgiastatesignal.com Associate Photo editor Unique Rodriguez
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NEWS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2018
www.georgiastatesignal.com/news
Rooftop lounges, dog spas and recording studios The Mix switches up “affordable” Georgia State student housing options ZACH SALLING Staff Reporter
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he Mix is a $90 million development that will offer flat-screen TVs and recording studios, among other amenities. It’s being marketed as affordable housing geared toward Georgia State students. Currently, The Mix is just some blue beams rising off the corners of Piedmont and Avenue John Wesley Dobbs Avenue. But by fall 2019, The Mix will be fully furnished. Officials expect 685 beds and 8,200 square feet of retail space. South City Partner developers, so far, have been slapping down new levels, not in weeks, but in days’ time. “The project is coming along well. We’re putting up a new level every four days, so it’s going up fast. It’s 26 stories total and we’ll be done pouring the top floor in December, so in a month it’ll be at its top level,” said Sean Rosko, South City Partners development manager. The Mix, however, is not affiliated with Georgia State. “Aside from being an official partner and sponsor of the Georgia State athletic program, we are not connected to the university at all. We’re a private development geared toward Georgia State students,” Rosko said. Non-students could live in The Mix if they chose to, yet South City Partners claimed
similar projects, like Square on Fifth at Georgia Tech, housed only three to five percent of “graduates or recent graduates that were working in the Tech Square area,” the remainder being students. “Federally, we cannot regulate whether or not it’s just Georgia State students, but we’re marketed towards Georgia State students whether it be undergrad or graduates,” Rosko said. Amenities set The Mix apart from other student housing, but South City Partners still aims to keep it affordable. “[The Mix is] good budgeting and financial strategy on our part. Our bread and butter is providing the best experience possible for the students at each university,” Rosko said. Many South City Partners housing projects precede The Mix. The Preston Partnership near the University of Alabama boasts similar amenities with success. “We’ve done this at Georgia Tech, Kennesaw State, College of Charleston and University of Alabama.” “That’s kind of what we focus on: providing the best amenities out there at a reasonable price that’s comparable to whatever else is offered in the market. That’s why we’ve been successful,” Rosko said. The amenities, as Rosko said, “are pretty stout”: pool, rooftop luxuries, fire pits, cabanas, pool tables, shuffleboards, study rooms, music rooms, tanning salons, lounge areas, kitchens, grills, a fitness center, a yoga room and a dog walk area. Besides amenities for residents, The Mix also caters to pets.
A new student apartment, The Mix, is under construction and set to open in fall 2019.
“[The Mix] is one of the only places downtown where you can take your pet outside and let them run around a little bit. We’ve got a dog run and we’ve also got a dog spa [free for resident use] on the first level,” Rosko said. Another facet to The Mix’s affordability: energy efficiency. “Every pane of glass on the building is energy efficient UV rated reflective glass,” Rosko said. “Every light bulb in the building is LED. The energy usage of LEDs is less than [25 percent] of a traditional lighting system.” Additionally, The Mix utilizes a more efficient water system, pumping through all 685 bedrooms. “We are using a boiler system which will feed all 685 beds in lieu of each apartment having a hot water heater. Boilers are substantially more efficient than individual hot water heaters,” Rosko said. South City Partners believes The Mix provides “peace of mind,” outweighing the “stout” amenities. “We’ve got state-of-the-art equipment, camera systems and access controls. I know [security has] been a problem in that market. We have everything to make it the safest living environment in the Georgia State market. We’ve got multiple levels of control as soon as you walk in the door,” Rosko said. Unlike Westmar and other private student housing, The Mix will not provide bus transportation due to its proximity to campus. “The Mix is directly across the street from Georgia State shuttle system and they have
five shuttles that go through there all day long, so we will not provide transportation. It’s also within .4 miles to campus, so it’s definitely walking distance,” Rosko said. Single bedrooms value between $1,400 and $1,460 per month and costs decrease depending on the number of roommates a tenant has. Cheaper options list four-bedroom apartments: a $925 starting price with a $1,015 cap, per student renter. Yet, 200 Edgewood, nearby student housing competition on Edgewood Avenue, has The Mix beat at $1,049 for a two-bedroom apartment against The Mix’s $1,150 starting price. Will Casaday, South City Partners’ vice president of development, said in an interview with Curbed Atlanta that considering “the quality of product” The Mix will deliver, “rents are certainly more manageable for students.” The Signal reached out to Westmar Lofts and One12 Courtland Apartments by phone to inquire if prices will change depending on The Mix’s arrival, but no answer was received. South City Developers remain optimistic about The Mix, where Georgia State students could live affordably while taking advantage of their offered amenities. “There’s all kinds of development out there, but we like to set ourselves apart and really offer the best of what’s available to the students,” Rosko said. “We saw that it hasn’t been offered in this market yet and want to provide the same to the students at Georgia State.”
PHOTO BY AZAM LALANI | THE SIGNAL
NEWS
4
Many Georgia State students have complained about the University Advisement Center and its seemingly quick turnover, while officials say they’re simply promoting more.
GEORGIASTATESIGNAL.COM
PHOTO BY UNIQUE RODRIGUEZ | THE SIGNAL
Getting to know your advisers — all six of them Students want better service. The center says they provide it. WILL SOLOMONS Staff Reporter
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ith the semester nearly over, students flock to the University Advisement Center to get advice on their classes and to better mould their schedule so that they can graduate on time with a degree. However, some students said their experience with their advisers was less than ideal. One student said that her adviser wasn’t helping to get the classes she needed to graduate. “I’m not really a fan of them,” Nichole Graves said. “One acted like they didn’t care at all when I had questions about classes. She just rushed me out. The next person didn’t know how to schedule the right classes for me. The last one I went to said I needed well over the 30 credits I have left.” Several complaints and concerns echoed this sentiment. “I don’t understand what’s really hard about making your own schedule and why you would go to advisors. They are complete s--- and don’t know what they are doing,” Jerry Vo said. However, Director of University Advisement Elisha Jarrett, who has been working in the center for 28 years, said students can work with the Student Government Association to issue complaints and ask for changes to be made. “We have regular and ongoing [meetings] with SGA … In fact we just finished a pretty large focus group where we focused on some of the concerns of the students as it relates to advising,” she said. Some students said they were assigned multiple advisers throughout an academic year. “I have had 6 advisors. Not one has ever been helpful. My current advisor gives me one sentence responses if she bothers to respond,” said student Henry Bernreuter. Jarrett said that some of the changes in advisers is not from a high turnover rate or apathy but rather from the basic structure
of how the advisement center works. “We have what we call tier-leveled advising. We have advisers one, two and three and then we have graduation counselors. And, as you can imagine, each level has different expectations or minimum qualifications,” she said. Whenever a student is assigned an adviser, there’s no guarantee that relationship will last due to the adviser being promoted. The promotion system serves to retain the advisers rather than lose them. “When I was an academic adviser, we didn’t have tiered advising. That meant I got into an advising position I had nowhere to advance … We very intentionally went out and made it so that we could have tier-leveled advising so that instead of our advisers leaving, we would have an opportunity to promote them,” she said. With this tier-leveled structure, an adviser who originally advised STEM majors, or any major for that matter, could potentially transfer to a different department with a new set of advisees, which may cause the problem that Bernreuter said he had. Still, Jarrett said the effect their promotions have on students isn’t a concern to them. “We’re not not going to promote an adviser … So what happens is [they’re] now promoted … so now [they] have a new group of advisees,” Jarrett said. The advisers also go through extensive training for several weeks before they ever meet with their first student. “Once the advisers are selected … we have a set training for … a cohort of advisers that come in. These trainings are, the modules are already set,” Jarrett said. “We do revise them as we deem appropriate and deem needed, but the adviser training is about four to six weeks. There’s definitely a flatlined four weeks where the new advisers are going straight through nothing but training.” After their initial training, new advisers are sometimes assigned more experienced advisers for on-the-job training. “Sometimes, depending on the progression of the advisers, the extra two weeks is spent with doing what we call
shadowing,” she said. Despite these assurances, Maria Ahmed had a different problem with advisement. She said that she had been passed around several advisers who ended up not helping her. “It is indeed very frustrating, as I needed advice, and finally resorted to talking with a professor who showed me my options. Also, walkin advisement appointments are useless and the advisors are often clueless or careless,” she said. Students have two options when they want to speak to an adviser: they can make an appointment, or they can walk in. Jarrett said she advises all students to opt for the former option. “We have walk-ins anytime. And so when a student walks in, we hope that they can see their adviser. But if their adviser already has appointments that day, they have to see the next available adviser,” she said. Some people said they were concerned about the quality of advisement and that the advisers didn’t help them enough. Jarrett said that it’s important that students use the evaluation tools available to them in order to get the best service possible. “We ask every student to do a survey,” she said. “Those surveys help us structure our trainings throughout the year … it takes a very short amount of time to do the surveys.” They also work to ensure that the advisers aren’t overwhelmed with students so they can provide the quality help students need. “We have been very, very strategic in trying to make sure that the adviser populations are small enough where the adviser can have very one-on-one intentional service. Everybody’s personality is not the same,” she said. “Customer service is not an option, it’s something that is an expectation.” Outside of the Georgia State advisement center, some advisers travel around the country to showcase the programs and procedures that the university’s advisement has adopted, but this isn’t publicized to students. “There’s a reason that we host as many universities and institutions that we do. There’s a reason that we get to go out and share what we do all across the country and it’s because other universities are trying to immolate what we’re doing,”
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2018
NEWS
5
The here and now of climate change
Dangers include extreme heat, drought, wildfires and flooding ADA WOOD Staff Reporter
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cience has proven that the Earth’s climate is changing. 97 percent of actively publishing climate scientists agree that human activity is the cause for change. According to NASA, climate change will drastically reshape the planet in the years to come. This change will consist of rising temperatures, rising sea levels, melting ice caps and ultimately damage to the environment and wildlife, which can also pose extreme risk to human communities and public health. According to the Yale Climate Opinion Maps, only 41 percent of Georgians believe global warming will harm them personally. Furthermore, only 51 percent believe it is already harming people in the U.S. The reality is the majority of Georgians are wrong and climate change is already harming people in the U.S., according to several local climate experts. “It is already affecting local communities,” Kim Cobb, a climate scientist from Georgia Tech and director of the Global Change Program, said of the Georgia population. According to the U.S. National Climate Assessment, the Southeast is at severe risk to three major results of climate change: sea level rise,
ILLUSTRATION BY EVAN STAMPS | THE SIGNAL
increased temperatures and water availability. Georgia threats are specifically outlined on the States at Risk website, developed by Climate Central, an organization comprised of scientists and journalists. The identified threats are extreme heat, drought, wildfires and inland and coastal flooding. “We have seen several particularly active hurricane seasons recently, which has caused increased coastal flooding,” Cobb said, illustrating a rise in extreme weather events. “This has really brought into focus the vulnerability of our coastal presence,” Cobb said. “A warming climate is going to increase the risk of stronger hurricanes that deliver more water.” Cobb said that this increased activity can result in inland damage, with profound lasting damages to Georgia farmers. Hurricane Michael, which hit Georgia early last month, destroyed $1.2 million worth of crops in the state. Only 15 percent of cotton, Georgia’s No. 1 crop in production value, was saved and harvested before the storm hit. But, it isn’t at all unusual for hurricanes to damage crop production in Georgia. In 2016, Hurricane Matthew had a lasting impact on another key crop in Georgia: pecans. Farmers lost as many as one-third of their pecan trees, which take up to seven years to grow and produce again. Some of those trees were older than 100 years. “They are already talking about increasing prices in certain food categories, both here, and across the nation, given the importance of Georgia agriculture,” Cobb said. With increased intensity and frequency, the Georgia economy could be increasingly impaired. A 2017 study compared the future of ten metropolitan cities, including Atlanta, in best and worst-case scenarios for greenhouse gas emissions and temperature increases. In Atlanta, the study saw a decrease in heatrelated deaths under the best-case scenario but an increase in heat-related deaths in the worst-case scenario. This study demonstrated that whether actions are taken to limit greenhouse gas emissions now likely will determine whether things get worse or better. “The poorer communities across the state, both urban and rural, are going to be at the frontlines of any of these climate impacts,” Cobb said. “This last summer, we broke records around the world for crippling heat wave and people died.” Higher temperatures can result in an increase in respiratory disease, which can be exasperated by global warming in the future. A study based in Atlanta found that under
temperature extremes, non-white children, as opposed to white children, saw higher rates of emergency department visits for asthma from aggregate data from 1993 to 2012. Cobb emphasized the importance in helping communities gain access to cooling shelters to mitigate illness and mortality. An increase in maximum temperature results in more emergency department visits in Atlanta for a variety of diagnoses including heat illness, fluid or electrolyte imbalances, renal diseases, asthma or wheezing, diabetes and intestinal infections, according to a 2016 study. “It’s not a matter of ‘if,’ it’s a matter of ‘when’ these communities are coming under really intense threats,” Cobb said. Thankfully, there are local organizations trying to preemptively address these issues, such as the Center for Sustainable Communities in Atlanta, which Garry Harris is the managing director for. “Our primary goal is this: Building a weather-ready nation for all,” Harris said. He said that there are a few communities they look out for most, as they are more susceptible to harm, these being lower-income, minority communities and what he called “vulnerable populations”: youth and senior citizens. “It’s the youth who are most impacted by severe weather, because of impact to schools, disconnection from family,” he said. Two years ago, his team visited the Georgia State campus for an emergency preparedness exercise, which gathered local officials for a campus-wide exercise that simulated a tornado strike. They’ve also recruited dozens of students to be part of their “street teams for energy efficiency and environmental resilience.” “We send out teams of students to lower-income areas and pass out literature on how to make their community more climate resilient,” he said. The Nature Conservancy’s Growing Leaders on Behalf of the Environment internship program is one way students at Georgia State are tackling local climate change. “While work continues across the state we are working with [Georgia State] students in our own backyard of Atlanta,” L.A. Allen, youth and outreach manager, said. “Environmentally minded students at [Georgia State] have been working with us and partners in Constitution Lakes to help remove invasive species so that native plants can thrive and will continue that work with us in the Spring.” Allen said that as the population of Georgia rises, it’s important that action is taken to make communities resilient against climate change. “Students can lead the charge to normalize conversations about climate change which is the first step toward breaking the misconception that no one cares about it and nothing can be done,” Allen said. Moving forward, there is still need for further research to understand climate issues. In the way Cobb put it, it’s not as a matter of “if” but rather “how and when.” The Georgia Climate Project works to better understand the impacts of climate change on Georgia and its citizens. To do this, the project has developed the Georgia Climate Research Roadmap, with 40 key research questions posed toward local government. These include some of the following: What are the most effective methods in Georgia to build resilience in the healthcare and public health systems to protect at-risk communities from climate change? What are immediate steps that policy-makers at all levels can take to implement climate mitigation and adaptation solutions? How will local, regional, and international displacement of people by climate change-related events affect Georgia?
PROTESTERS ASSEMBLE OUTSIDE FEDERAL BUILDING BY WILL SOLOMONS Protesters of all ages gathered on the steps and sidewalk in front of the Richard B. Russell Federal Building to protest the recent political events that have happened in the past few weeks, namely the alleged election fraud in Georgia as well as former Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ resignation. They chanted, “No Trump, No KKK, No fascist USA,” as cars passed by honking. One of those protesters was a former Georgia State biology professor. “I think we all need to send a message to the people that hopefully are paying attention that we are not going to tolerate what’s going on,” Marc Weissburg said. The protesters had planned to march down to the Capitol as well, having already contacted the Atlanta Police Department and U.S. Marshals prior to their assembly. The protests were organized by moveon.org, an activist group that has been monitoring the current administration for months. On their website, hundreds of protest events are listed nationwide. The criteria for triggering these pre-planned protests is if special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is perceived to be hindered by the Trump administration. Because of Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ resignation, and the fact that it was requested by President Donald Trump, the website sent out the alert that it was time to protest. The protest wasn’t the only one in the U.S. Chicago, New York and other major cities also participated, with tens of thousands of people protesting nationwide. The Federal Building protest also included chants against Brian Kemp, the Republican gubernatorial candidate who is facing an intense political battle against Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams, who refuses to concede following the election results early Wednesday morning. “When people are above the law, when somebody has the responsibility to count the votes they are above the law. They are not accountable,” Weissburg said. “This is all about checks and balances.”
NEWS
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GEORGIASTATESIGNAL.COM
Abrams disputes Kemp’s self-declared victory A week of political embattlement continues with no conclusion WILL SOLOMONS, ADA WOOD & DANIEL VARITEK Staff Reporters & Editor-in-Chief
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n one of the most-watched races in the U.S. this election season, Republican Brian Kemp clutched victory for the governor’s office against Democratic opponent Stacey Abrams in the early hours of Wednesday, Nov. 7 — or at least that’s what he has declared. As the election creeped further into Tuesday night with no clear victor, many onlookers — most notably, Abrams herself — believed a runoff to be likely. “To the voters tonight, I say — if I wasn’t your first choice as governor… or you made no choice at all… know that it is my mission to serve you,” Abrams said, apparently addressing third-party voters and non-voters. However, Kemp alongside other high-profile Republicans frankly disagreed. In a late afternoon press call on Wednesday, Kemp’s campaign strategist Austin Chambers issued a statement on their campaign’s stance. “This election is over. The votes have been counted. And the results are clear: Brian Kemp is the governor-elect,” Chambers said. “What they [Abrams’ campaign] do moving forward doesn’t matter. Because Brian Kemp has secured this victory.” Current Governor Nathan Deal wrote on Twitter, “My congratulations to Gov.-elect @BrianKempGA … In the coming days, my office will work diligently with the incoming administration to ensure as smooth a transition as possible.” As of Sunday, Nov. 11, Kemp leads Abrams in the race by 1.5 percent, or just 58,875 votes. That’s 4,006 votes lower than what The Signal reported on Wednesday, Nov. 7, indicating Kemp’s lead is slowly shrinking as more ballots are counted. A secretary of state-affiliated website states that 100 percent of precincts have reported their votes, yet Abrams warns there are a minimum of 77,000 ballots waiting to be counted from seven counties: DeKalb, Gwinnett, Cobb, Chatham, Henry, Douglas and Clarke. Abrams would need to net only 21,726 votes from those remaining ballots to trigger a runoff, which would then be held Tuesday, Dec. 4. If Abrams’ claims are true, that could be a real possibility, considering all seven counties lean Democrat. At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Abrams’ campaign hosted a press call, introducing their plans moving forward. Sparing no time, campaign manager Lauren Groh-Wargo announced a response to Kemp’s claim to victory. “We know our opponent Brian Kemp has declared himself
PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRISTINA R. MATACOTTA FOR THE RED & BLACK
PHOTO BY ADA WOOD | THE SIGNAL Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams and Republican candidate Brian Kemp have gone head-to-head in the past week as their election has seemed inconclusive.
the victor, and we do not accept that,” Groh-Wargo said. She demanded Kemp release all voting data, both to their campaign and the public. Groh-Wargo said there is no reason for their campaign to take Kemp at his word without proof and that it’s long past time for Kemp to resign from his position as secretary of state. “We don’t accept or reject what he says, we just want to see proof because this is public data,” she said. Campaign chair and lawyer Allegra Hardy also announced the formation of a litigation team in defense of the campaign’s motives. “[The team will] ensure all votes are counted and constitutional rights upheld,” Hardy said.
On Nov. 8, Kemp resigned from his position as secretary of state, declaring himself again the official winner of the race. However, as of Nov. 11, Abrams still has not conceded the race, continuing to push for more votes to be counted and to ensure that all the votes are treated fairly. Kemp’s campaign called out Abrams on Sunday, saying that she is a “disgrace to democracy” and that her campaign “completely ignores the will of the people,” according to the Washington Times. One Georgia race is actually set to go to a runoff scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 4. Former Democratic congressman John Barrow is facing off against Republican state Rep. Brad Raffensperger.
Riding the MARTA bus isn’t such a breeze Georgia State-issued MARTA cards are on the fritz WILL SOLOMONS Staff Reporter
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or some students, riding MARTA isn’t much of a breeze as originally thought. The Signal received a tip from several students that the Georgia State-issued Breeze Card often malfunctions when students attempt to ride MARTA buses. This malfunction not only prevented boarding, but also charged extraneous fees to the cards, leaving students with a bill that far exceeded the original cost of riding the buses. Director of Administrative and Customer Services Phil Wells said they’re aware of the problems with the cards. “MARTA is having some issues with some [Georgia State] student Breeze cards who ride on the buses,” he said. Wells also provided an explanation as to why this may be happening and said that campus services are working to limit the impact this has on students. “For whatever reason, when some [Georgia State] riders tap their card on the bus fare gate, it causes the card to
show a negative balance in the MARTA system. When this happens, it interrupts the normal use of the [Georgia State] Breeze card and the bus fare gate will no longer admit the rider,” he said. “Once notified of an issue such as this by Campus Services, MARTA will reset the Breeze card balance to eliminate the negative amount and the card will resume working properly.” Currently, MARTA is working to alleviate this issue for students, but there is no set timeline on when this will be resolved. “A MARTA representative advised us [on Oct. 31] that they have recently completed a data collection effort regarding the bus issue and will be providing the information to their IT department so they can investigate and hopefully find a solution to this issue. They did not provide a timeline on resolution,” Wells said. MARTA spokesperson Stephany Fisher said MARTA is still looking into the issue and that individuals will also need to contact Georgia State to have the issue resolved. “We value our partnership with [Georgia State] and its students and apologize for any inconvenience. We continue to investigate this issue and will monitor the situation closely to ensure it is resolved. If a student has an issue with
their pass, please notify your contact at GSU and they will notify MARTA so we can adjust the account or replace the card,” Fisher said. Wells said it was important that students make sure they are not trying to ride on the Gwinnett County Transit bus service or any other county-specific service with their Georgia State-issued Breeze cards. The cards are intended to only work with MARTA trains and buses. “Students may sometimes mistakenly purchase a MARTA Breeze card when they actually want to ride the Xpress buses. Even though MARTA includes the regional carriers such as GRTA (Xpress), Cobb County Transit, and Gwinnett County Transit logos on the [Georgia State] Breeze cards, the [Georgia State] Breeze card will not work for any other carrier. Because of the reduced cost we receive from MARTA, [Georgia State] cards are specially programmed so they will not work with any carrier except MARTA,” Wells said. In the meantime, students who choose to ride the MARTA buses must attempt to convince their drivers that their card is, in fact, legitimate.
OPINIONS TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2018
www.georgiastatesignal.com/opinions
Can a minimum wage job pay off your student loans? Minimum wages haven’t increased in nine years, ouch!
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SHARI CELESTINE Staff Reporter
Shari is a third-year Creative Writing major with an interest in diversity in publishing. In her spare time, she works on her Urban Fantasy manuscript.
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ffective July 24, 2009, the federal minimum wage increased to $7.25 per hour. That was nine years ago and with 2018 coming to a close in just a few short weeks, we might as well round that up to 10 years without an increase to the federal minimum wage. Eighteen states began the new year with higher minimum wages. Eight states automatically increased their rates based on the cost of living, while eleven states increased their rates due to previously approved legislation or ballot initiatives. Georgia was not counted among the eighteen. Workers all across the state are at an economic disadvantage. Right now, Georgia is not the best place to raise a family, live and especially work. Georgia has the lowest minimum wage in the country. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Georgia has 2.3 million workers who are paid at an hourly rate. Of those million, 51,000 were paid below the federal minimum wage (at Georgia’s in-state rate of $5.15). Most workers that fall into the minimum wage bracket are 25 years old or older. Teenagers from the age of 16 to 19, who are paid by the hour, account for about 10 percent of minimum wage workers. Even more boggling is the amount tipped workers maker per hour. Their minimum wage is $2.13 per hour.
2018 HOURLY MINIMUM WAGE $7.25 / HOUR
A large number of people work at minimum wage and it’s a struggle just to get by. Living paycheck to paycheck is a reality many Georgians must live with. Living paycheck to paycheck means your financial obligations are so high that unemployment is not an option; you depend on that weekly or bi-weekly salary to keep your head above water. It’s a balance you have to learn and maintain just to keep your head above water and not drown in a sea of bills. As of right now, there
are no indications that Georgia’s legislatures are going to increase the minimum wage. Stacey Evans, who ran for governor of Georgia in the 2018 Democratic primary, said, “Georgia is 40th in income inequality, 40th in high school graduation, and has the lowest minimum wage in the country.” You might have heard the term “working poor.” It’s what people working paycheck to paycheck might be called, but it’s not quite so dry cut. Not all poor people are living this way; this crosses multiple income levels. You can have an advanced degree in a highly technical field but because of industry downturns, like the job recession between 2008-2010, it might be incredibly difficult to find a full-time job.
WEEKLY MINIMUM WAGE $290 / 40 HOUR WEEK
It’s not just part-time workers. Full-time workers are also living paycheck to paycheck; it’s becoming an increasing trend in America. Even though salaries are rising, the cost of living has continued to climb at an even more accelerated rate. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Georgia residents need to earn $17.53/hour to afford a modest 2-bedroom apartment. At minimum wage, you’d have to work 97 hours per week to afford that apartment. At that rate, you might as well round that number up to 100 hours. It was recently reported that Rockstar Games allowed their employees to work 100-hour weeks in 2018 while working on their newest release, Red Dead Redemption II. It seems to have paid off for them as the game reportedly shipped 17 million copies since its release on Oct. 26. But not everyone can work in the gaming industry, at one of the top video game publishing companies on a highly anticipated game.
YEARLY MINIMUM WAGE $15,080 / YEAR
Juggling the cost of tuition with the lack of funds that come with a minimum wage salary is a challenge every college student faces at some point. Nearly every department at Georgia State employs students. The pay rate is minimum wage, sometimes a little higher but not very often. And yes, financial aid pays a portion of students’ tuition, but far too often students will graduate with student-loan debt. A full-time job is out of the question for most students with 12-18 credit hours packed into a few short months. The American Dream promotes an equal opportunity that anyone can pursue — it’s your vision as you pursue happiness. But you’re going to have to work your butt off and borrow on the side just to achieve that goal. For students, it’s nearly impossible: We start out the gate in debt, trying to catch up in a race we just can’t win. It’s a never-ending cycle of colleges ballooning their tuition year after year, students taking out larger and larger loans to accommodate, thus plunging them into more debt. Raising the minimum wage would help ease some of the pressure put on students, allowing them to work fewer hours while still making a larger salary. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the number of college graduates has been steadily increasing every year since the recession in 2018, but those same college graduates have a high chance of reporting themselves as underemployed and unemployed. In 2012, 284,000 college graduates were working at or below the minimum wage. A bachelor’s degree, masters degree or even Ph.D. might be beneficial if you’re going into specific professional fields of work, but the debt waiting for you at the end might be more than you’d ever be able to pay off. Is the debt acquired worth it?
ILLUSTRATION BY AMBER KIRLEW | THE SIGNAL
OPINIONS
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GEORGIASTATESIGNAL.COM
EDITORIAL Democracy, not Democrats Bipartisan issues shouldn’t be so partisan after all
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e all learned in elementary school how to count. Today, it seems many of our government officials were home sick that day. Voting should be one of the most simple, nonpartisan events in our country. You go to the polls, respond to the issues and that should be it. However, with this past election, that hasn’t been the case. This past midterm election has seen several states’ government positions hanging in the hands of provisional and absentee voters and their uncounted ballots. Some of these ballots are just sitting in mail rooms and being neglected by officials. This voter suppression doesn’t always get as far as miscounting votes. We have seen it through missing power cords, broken machines and other avoidable deterrents. Election Day saw lines extending down and around hallways, making even entering the polling room nearly impossible. Because these lines were so long, many had to leave, abandoning their vote, to return home, make dinner, pick up their children or all of the above. Elderly civilians, ready for political action, cannot — should
not — be expected to stand on tile floors for hours without the proper accommodations they deserve. On Nov. 8, a “rapid response” demonstration was staged in solidarity with dozens of others across the country. The event was called quickly in response to the appointment of Matt Whittaker as Attorney General, fearing he would obstruct special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Though the Atlanta demonstration was called over conflicts in the Trump-Russia scandal, outrage over the election poured from the crowd in chants of “Count every vote,” and “We want Democracy.” The protest closed with organizers giving those hundreds gathered a phone number to call to check that the vote they cast on Election Day was actually counted. That such a measure should be necessary is a sorry shame. In light of alleged election fraud and meddling, there’s one thing both parties agree on: the Democrats want to count the votes. This leads into a larger problem, with CNN and Fox News battling it out to claim on one hand that the Democrats are
spearheading efforts to stop voter fraud and on the other they’re trying to “steal” the election. Regardless of motive or party affiliation, Americans should be looking elsewhere for the blame. It’s not the Democrats wanting to count votes — it’s our democratic principles that inspire us to make sure the very basis of our democracy remains intact. Whenever a major news outlet says it’s the Democrats trying to count the votes (even though it is mainly them), they lead the story with partisanship. Instead, they should be focused on affirming that it is indeed our democracy that is at stake and the fabric of what makes our country function. Voter rights and election security shouldn’t be a red versus blue issue. It should be a red, white and blue, stars and stripes issue. So, next time you see the headlines calling for votes to be recounted, don’t think it’s the Democrats that want it or the Republicans that don’t. Think it’s democracy that needs it and the people who hope for it.
ARTS & LIVING TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2018
www.georgiastatesignal.com/artsandliving
grammar scholars hate her! the rise of lowercase text in popular culture
SYDNEY BLOEME Arts & Living Editor
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hat do Target, Girl Scouts and Sears have in common? They’ve all recently rebranded to embrace lowercase text, a growing trend quickly gaining momentum. Most recently, Target rebranded to “target” in place of the previously capitalized “TARGET” logo. Assistant Professor of Graphic Design Carrie Wallace Brown noticed the rebranding of Target’s logo one day driving past a sign being re-wrapped. “I posted a picture to Instagram with the comment ‘It’s a Helvetica all-lowercase kinda brand now,’” Brown said. And this shift isn’t a typo. Brown said the creation of a new logo is completely intentional. “Typographers, those who design typefaces, spend considerable time developing alphabets and glyphs with specific personas in mind. Selecting a typeface should never be taken for granted — compatibility is a must,” Brown said. “Branding is about being relevant, and Target is a master of understanding the modern shopping experience.” As consumers change, the companies profiting off of them must follow suit. One way they can do this is by simply redesigning their logo. “Typography is a critical part of a visual brand … they also set an emotional tone and reinforce a brand personality,” Brown said. Along with Target, Girl Scouts and Sears, many wellknown companies such as Amazon, Facebook and Nickelodeon have also rebranded themselves to become lowercase. In fact, Coca-Cola’s vitamin water website is entirely in lowercase.
IT GOES DOWN IN THE DMS
The increased prominence of lowercase text is closer than the Target down the street — it’s on your phone, specifically in your texts, direct messages, tweets and other interpersonal communication. Auto-capitalization is a feature that can be disabled on phones. Ansley Nix, a student at Georgia State, said she isn’t tech savvy enough to
turn off her auto capitalization and instead takes the extra steps going through her messages editing for case before hitting send. “Sometimes it’ll auto capitalize and I’ll go back and intentionally make it lowercase. Depending on who I’m talking to,” Nix said. Nix said that when texting a friend, she will purposively go back and lower case words such as “cool,” “hi” and “thanks” to
“Sometimes it’ll auto-capitalize and I’ll go back and intentionally make it lowercase. Depending on who I’m talking to.” — ANSLEY NIX Georgia State student match the tone she is trying to convey. “A lowercase will almost say a word differently than a capital. It makes it sound more chill,” she said. “Cool with a capital C sounds different than cool with a lowercase c.” Sitting next to Nix, Keira Douget said that while she turned her auto-capitalization off, she worries she might end up looking unprofessional to future employers because of her alternative casing. “I text potential employers and I can’t have the lowercase ‘i’. It’s not cute. It just looks like I’m a journalism major who doesn’t know grammar,” Douget said. “Potential employers” aren’t the only people who feel strongly about traditional grammar rules. Georgia State student Yvonne Sims said that she wouldn’t ever consider turning her auto-capitalization off. “I like my sentences to be as grammatically correct as possible. I’m kind of old school too, I guess,” Sims said. “I prefer for the [first] words of a sentence to be capitalized like it should be but some people don’t care like I do.”
Cool
POPULAR BRANDS WITH LOWERCASE BRANDING • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
eBay Flickr Macy’s Twitter Tumblr Lyft vitamin water Xfinity Goodwill Belk MapQuest Airbnb adidas Pepsi AT&T Mastercard Vevo BP
why did you capitalize cool? you mad?
nah sorry i meant cool
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY VANESSA JOHNSON | THE SIGNAL
ON THE FRONT LINES
The wave of lowercase isn’t limited to billboards and texts — it’s affecting people in their place of work. Erin Turner has worked at Bang-On Custom T-shirts for the last three years. She said within the past year, she’s seen an increase in the amount of lowercase text customers request on their shirts — an increase she isn’t too fond of. “Aesthetically, it’s not my cup of tea,” Turner said. “Today I had a lady she wanted it to stay lowercase, like the entire text. She didn’t want any punctuation in it either. Which was difficult for me.” Bang-On customers first write the text they want and then Bang-On confirms it with the customer. Turner said this is when she noticed the shift the most. “Before when I would tell people, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to capitalize this, this and this,’ they would be like ‘Oh yeah, I do.’ Now people are purposely wanting it lowercase,” Turner said. So what’s the reason behind the growing popularity of lowercase text? Brown said it’s about tone. “Lowercase typography conveys an approachable and casual vibe, while all uppercase evokes authority and strength,” Brown said. Many of these companies want to stay relevant to their growing audience and do so by speaking like how they do. According to PYMNTS.com, 58 to 62 percent of Target’s shoppers are between the ages of 18 and 44, with Target having the smallest proportion of consumers aged 65 or older, making up only 12 percent of its consumer base. With most of their audience being under 40, traditional, professional branding is out. In its place stands the quirky and meme-able company Twitter that millennials love so much. Never before could you send a message directly to a corporation and receive a memorable and savage clap back within minutes. Within these past 20 years, the internet has changed communication by defying grammar rules and challenging the very structure modern English was built on. God knows what the next 20 will bring.
A guide to your first inclusive Friendsgiving Enjoy a tofurkey with your real family this holiday SARA ABDULLA Staff Reporter
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ike traditional familial Thanksgivings, Friendsgiving, a fusion of the words “friends” and “Thanksgiving,” is about expressing gratitude for loved ones and all the blessings that come with life. As has been emphasized during the recent turbulent elections, stress of final exams and general life tribulations, it’s all too easy to lose sight of the important things in life. The birth of Friendsgiving is sometimes attributed to the hit sitcom “Friends” in 1994. Other times, the term is attributed to the rise of Twitter. Even Baileys, the Irish cream liqueur, adopted the term in its 2011 Thanksgiving ad campaign: “Friendsgiving with Baileys.”
Planning
There’s nothing radical about taking the time and energy to feast and be merry with one’s friends. “We started to plan Friendsgivings for the week before Thanksgiving break when everyone is looking forward to going home to good food and family. So we wanted to have that same good food with all of our friends that we care about so much,” Catherine Rakowiecki, a fourth-year film major who’s hosted Friendsgiving since her freshman year, told The Signal. Logistically, Friendsgiving tends to be straightforward (perhaps moreso than traditional Thanksgivings). “I just called my friends and told them I thought we should all get together before everyone left for the holidays and share a meal. I made up a menu and everyone picked something to
bring. Some of us who can’t cook just bought the silverware and plates or trash bags,” Alicia Edwards, a Georgia State alumna, said. Similarly, potluck-style dinners foster a sense of community and family by allowing each individual to contribute to and participate in an impressive dinner. “It’s all pot-luck style. Everyone brings their favorite side dish, and we provide the wine. I usually put up a couple small decorations. The main one being a small cardboard tree that we all hang leaves off of that say what we are thankful for,” Rakowiecki said. Some people, like Rakowiecki, simply hold Friendsgiving in someone’s dorm, apartment or house. Still, for those who have the money and time, it may be worth making a trip out of it and renting an Airbnb or hotel to make it feel more extravagant than any other regular dinner.
Improve your health
Friendsgivings may be especially salient for the current generation of college students because Generation Z reportedly spends the least amount of time with their families out of the current four (millennials, Gen Xers and baby boomers). “I also think they are important because not everyone has a home dynamic where they feel comfortable or happy spending the holidays with their family,” Carissa Lavin, a first-year law student at Georgia State, said. While some may argue that no relationships can genuinely replace family kinships, studies suggest that robust friendships are more important for individuals’ physical and mental wellbeing than strong family ties, particularly as people age. This dynamic may exist because people have more agency
in choosing their friends than with family members. Friendships are developed overtime whereas familial relationships are, at times, forged out of a sense of obligation. There are a myriad of health benefits to be reaped from bonding with loved ones, including living longer; the longevity difference between people with hardy social ties and those without is comparable to that of those who do smoke cigarettes and those who don’t. Being physically close to loved ones mitigates stressful situations and may even prevent illness. It’s been widely established that support from loved ones, including both friends and family, can be critical in impeding the course of depression and severe anxiety in persons, highlighting the vital role that durable relationships hold in people’s lives. “As the semester ramps up, it can get really challenging for friend groups to find a regular time where everyone is available to get together. I think it’s nice to have a designated event where everyone gets together and dedicates some time to reflecting on the people and things they are thankful for,” Lavin said.
Being thankful
“[Friendsgiving] signifies how important you are to each other and is a good time to reflect on what everyone is thankful for,” Rakowiecki said. Friend groups can certainly shift dramatically, especially while young and in college, but it’s still crucial to take just a few minutes to appreciate who you have in the moment, even if you only have them in your life at that moment. “Friendsgivings give them a safe space to participate in and enjoy the spirit of the holiday. Plus, it’s just really nice to share yummy treats and wine with friends,” Lavin said.
Decorating for Friendsgiving Cardboard trees aside, there are a few ways to spice up your venue of choice.
Candles: Obligatory mainly in autumn-esque scents, like pumpkin spice, red leaves and anything that harkens to a city other than Atlanta that has true seasons.
A DIY holiday backdrop, such as a curtain, that reads something heartwarming and obligatorily cheesy, like “Friends Forever” or “Good Times.”
A bomb playlist for friendship: Favorites include “You’ve Got a Friend In Me” by Randy Newman, “Graduation (Friends Forever)” by Vitamin C, “November” by Kera and the Lesbians, “Rebel Girl” by Bikini Kill, “With a Little Help From My Friends” by the Beatles, “Little Talks” by Of Monsters and Men, “Twin Sized Mattress” by The Front Bottoms and “Never Had a Friend Like Me” by
A pumpkin or turkeyshaped centerpiece
Tiny pumpkin vases: Instead of traditional vases, empty out pumpkins and put flowers or succulent plants in them. Don’t use this idea for candles unless you want your Friendsgiving to go down in flames
DIY Cornucopia Pinata: A fun idea from Brit & Co is to use leftover Halloween candy for a paper mache pinata as a postpie activity that everyone can get into.
Introducing your next
inclusive Friendsgiving menu The Signal, per the students interviewed, recommends:
How to baste a tofurkey because Thanksgiving is for everyone Basting a Tofurkey or other tofu-and-glutenconstituted meat alternatives is somewhat similar to basting a regular a turkey. Here are a few ways to do it:
Beer-Basted Tofurkey
Red wine: Shiraz, Pinot Noir White wine: Chardonnay, Riesling
Turkey and gravy: Often the responsibility of the host, but vegetarians and vegans often swear by Tofurkey Vegan Roast as a more inclusive dish.
Potatoes: Mashed, baked, fried, sliced, diced, sweet, covered in fat-free sour cream, au gratin, roasted or molded into a shrine.
Green beans: Or at least something green in the midst of all the calorie-laden treats.
INGREDIENTS 1 Tofurky Roast, thawed 1/2 cup diced potatoes 1/2 cup diced carrots 1/2 cup diced onion 1/2 teaspoon onion powder 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder 1/2 teaspoon. dried oregano 1/2 teaspoon dried basil 1 teaspoon paprika 2 teaspoon brown sugar 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper or chili powder Dash pepper Dash salt 1 tablespoon soy sauce 1 tablespoon olive oil 1/2 can vegan beer INSTRUCTIONS Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F Place the Tofurky Roast, potatoes, carrots and onion in a deep, oven-safe dish. Combine the remaining ingredients in a small bowl and pour half over the roast and vegetables. Cover with a lid or aluminum foil and cook for 90 minutes. Remove the lid or foil and pour in the remaining basting mixture. Cover and cook for another 15 to 20 minutes. Slice the roast with a sharp, serrated knife and serve ... preferably with some more beer. Source: PETA website
Brownies: A must-have dessert. Cookies are acceptable if, and only if, they’re shaped like turkeys Lentil or chickpea pasta: As a gluten-free, hearty side. It can be used alone, like a conventional pasta marinara, or as a pasta salad or part of a baked pasta dish.
Biscuits: As a gluten-friendly item on this list
INGREDIENTS 1 Tofurkey 1 cup water ¼ cup maple syrup ¼ cup nutritional yeast 1 tablespoon Better than Boullion vegetable flavor (or 2 homemade vegetable bouillon cubes) ¾ teaspoon marjoram ½ teaspoon thyme ¼ teaspoon garlic powder ¼ teaspoon onion powder ¼ teaspoon rubbed sage ⅛ teaspoon black pepper INSTRUCTIONS Place the tofurky in your 2-to-3-quart slow cooker. Mix the sauce ingredients together and pour over the Tofurky. Cook on low seven to nine hours. If you are at home you can turn the roast over once or twice, but it’s fine if you don’t. Just make sure to pour gravy over all the servings. Source: Kathy Hester, healthyslowcooking.com
Whiskey: Jager (hold the Red Bull, for all that is good in the world) Pies: Dairy- and egg-free pumpkin pie is a favorite.
PAGE DESIGN & ILLUSTRATION BY SHANCHEZE JOHNSON | THE SIGNAL
Slow Cooker Maple Herb Tofurkey
ARTS & LIVING
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GEORGIASTATESIGNAL.COM
Welcome to soup season
All the ways the brothy meal will be served this winter SAM PUCKETT
Associate Arts & Living Editor
dislike. Try to find some you enjoy – you can always switch up the way you prepare them,” Knapp said.
SEASONAL FAIR
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all is here, rudely bleak after a bright and sweltering summer. Soup is the perfect culinary compliment to the damp drearies of fall. Economical, environmental and easy to make, soup saves time and waste like no other dish.
SOUP IS FOR THE LAZY
SSoup is the lazy person’s healthy friend. You only have to use one pot, reducing what needs to be prepared and what needs to be cleaned. On top of that, it is incredibly versatile, as soup is a dish that can be made in a variety of ways and containers. Leslie Knapp is a dietician for Georgia State. She loves the convenience soup offers for eating healthy without an intimidating amount of planning. “There are options for stovetop preparation, or a crockpot, Instapot style. Soups are a great opportunity to load up on a variety of veggies like kale, carrots, celery, mushrooms, cauliflower – and lean or plant-based proteins like chicken or chickpeas, white beans, black beans,” Knapp said. Soup can serve a lot of people, too. It’s the go-to meal for Food Not Bombs, a service organization that gives out food to people in need. The Atlanta chapter has met every Sunday for nine years in Woodruff park at 11 a.m. Adele MacLean is a longtime member and often takes responsibility for a lot of the cooking. “We make soup every week, it’s easy because whatever veggies we get donated, we can chop up and put in the stew. We add beans to make sure people get some protein,” MacLean said. “We make like 8 or 10 gallons each meal and have been running out every time. 50-100 people show up.” Soup can also be a way to try new foods you’d otherwise skip. Throw an unfamiliar vegetable in the pot with stuff you like and you might just discover a new favorite. Variety is very important in your veggie consumption, according to Knapp. “Different veggies have different compositions of fiber, carbohydrates, and proteins, vitamins, and minerals … It’s very common for each of us to have vegetables that we like and
Contemporary commercial life isolates many people from the seasons. Large networks of agriculture and trade mean vegetables are produced and shipped to and from everywhere at all times of year. Traditionally, fall is a season for harvesting all the many vegetables you put in the ground in early to late spring. Root vegetables like beets, potatoes and carrots are ready in early fall and into winter. Tasty greens like cabbage and broccoli come up early fall and offer their vitamin-filled crunch to our broths. Food Not Bombs gets their food from a variety of sources, some varying more seasonally than others. “Some things are harder to find when a season ends in Florida and has not yet begun in California. But soup is easy, you throw in whatever you get. And you can use canned stuff if you don’t get fresh,” MacLean said.
GETTING STARTED
Cooking can be harsh to the unfamiliar and an initial fear is understandable. The fear of embarrassment if we set off an unkind fire alarm will stop many from trying something new. Food Not Bombs works with a high turnover of volunteers. Not every cook in the kitchen will be the most experienced. They benefit from a collaborative approach that helps newcomers adjust and participate. “We all kind of do it together. Everyone chops the veggies and throws them in,” MacLean said. “It’s a non-hierarchical organization so if there’s a disagreement about whether to put something in, we talk about it and come to an agreement.” Another thing that stops people from cooking at home is fear of the time commitment and want for convenience. But soup is the kind of cooking you can leave and do other things. You don’t have to keep a constant watch on your pot. It’s okay to leave and write a paper or two. There are plenty of cooking tricks you can use to speed up the process, and Knapp has a good tip. “First tip to speed up cooking is cutting the veggies into small sizes. The smaller the item, the faster it will cook,” Knapp said. So what are you waiting for? Go make so much soup you’ve got meals prepped for a week.
Soup, an easy and simple dish for the lazy student, is back in season as the temperature outside drops and winter rolls in.
STARTER SOUP RECIPES Mujadara soup: A beautifully simple lentil soup. All you need is lentils, rice and onions. Begin by browning your onion, which should be chopped long. Once browned, add the lentils and then the rice. Add enough water or vegetable stock to keep the rice and lentils covered. You can make this your own by adding any extra veggies or spices you want, but a solid place to start is with kale and bay leaves (don’t eat the bay leaves). Butternut squash soup: Begin by cubing potatoes, carrots and one butternut squash. Finely chop an onion, celery stalks and a garlic clove. Sauté everything until beginning to brown and break down, then add vegetable or chicken stock. After simmering for 40 minutes, this beauty should be ready. Napa and chickpea soup: This one begins with an almost universal combination. Simmer an onion, celery and garlic in a pan until they soften. Then stir in the cabbage and cover till it cooks down. Add beef or vegetable stock and bring the pot to a boil, then pour in a can of chickpeas. Let simmer for half an hour then serve. Red bean Chili: Start this by sauteing an onion with ground beef, substitute with tempeh if you’re vegetarian. Be sure to stir frequently to break down the flesh without burning. Once the meat and onions brown, add tomatoes, garlic, beans and your seasoning. The classic seasoning choices are red pepper and cumin, but there’s a range of wonderful options. Try paprika for a touch of sweetness, or cayenne for heat.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY UNIQUE RODRIQUEZ | THE SIGNAL
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2018
ARTS & LIVING
13 ILLUSTRATION BY DEMETRI BURKE | THE SIGNAL
Music streaming by any other name Behind your favorite algorithms and subscriptions JOSH WINSTON Staff Reporter
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ike the Wild West of American history, the music streaming landscape was once a disunited territory of competing platforms. Each service was vying for the attention of its customers with an intense and concerted frenzy of gimmicks and flashy marketing meant to capitalize on the impending death of traditional music sales. In the fiercely competitive tech economy, few technologies inspire the polarizing zeal and fervor with which music listeners defend their choice of music streaming services. A debate, while not as old as time, but equally as melodramatic, has sprang forth for which streaming service is “the best.” Even though the present conversation surrounding music streaming revolves around the number of active listeners and the abstract market value of streaming companies, this article is less interested in determining which streaming service is “the best,” but rather what service is best for you.
IN THE BEGINNING, THERE WAS ITUNES
Against the backdrop of declining physical media sales, iTunes emerged in 2003 to the delight of music listeners and record companies alike. Finally, the looming threat of online music piracy could be addressed meaningfully. However, while iTunes may have saved the music industry, or at least made sure it didn’t sink completely, it also ensured its own eventual demise. The iTunes Store and its successful business model was eventually reincarnated into its spiritual successor: the App Store. Along with the mainstream adoption of smartphone applications, the App Store also brought about the proliferation of music streaming apps and online radio. Suddenly iTunes was having to compete with its own offspring. Apps such as Rdio, Spotify and Pandora were soon competing for the same attention of music listeners as iTunes. The Wild West of streaming services and the old sheriff that is iTunes existed in tension with one another until the streaming services began to erode the dominance of iTunes. Declining music sales and the increase in online music listeners soon meant the fragmented territories of streaming music services would coalesce into the walled cities of streaming giants. Rdio filed for bankruptcy and had some of its assets subsumed by Pandora, which itself has since reported a declining number of listeners, and the only services left standing with the highest number of listeners were Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora Radio and SoundCloud.
THE BIG TWO
The biggest towers by far in the walled city of streaming belong to Spotify and Apple Music. However, the waged war between these two services is largely incongruous — like comparing, for lack of a better metaphor, apples to oranges. Spotify’s 191 million users still beats out Apple’s 50 million, but it’s hard to meaningfully compare these stats when Spotify’s user base includes its free and paid members while Apple Music only allows paid subscriptions. When looking at just the paid subscription users, Spotify’s gargantuan lead drops to just 87 million compared to Apple’s 50 million — a lead that, while less impressive, still carries significance. It’s also worth noting that Spotify has existed for seven more years than Apple Music has, making its lead in users seem like much less of an accomplishment. If anything, Apple Music’s relatively fast accumulation of users since its debut in 2015 is a more impressive accomplishment. By having its streaming service pre-installed on more than 700 million active iPhones, Apple almost guarantees its success solely through accessibility, whereas Spotify must be downloaded from the App Store.
Digital music curation is nothing new — Spotify certainly wasn’t the first to do it, but its Discover Weekly playlist, the centerpiece of its curatorial endeavors, has definitely caught the attention of the mainstream in ways that efforts of other streaming services have not. Spotify and Matthew Ogle, the director of Discover Weekly, are keenly aware of how big a draw its personal music selection is. “Playlists are the common currency on Spotify. More users knew how to use them and create them than any other feature,” Ogle said. The feature takes on a personal quality that feels almost human in its thoughtful selection of tracks — like a friend who’s known you for years. “It knows me better than I know myself,” Georgia State student Ian Butler said. In addition to its playlists, Spotify also possesses a wealth of user-curated playlists that add to its sense of community and personality. Martin Cessford is someone who loves Spotify. “It’s got all kinds of quirky playlists and compilations. It’s that personal,” he said.
REMEMBER THE IPOD?
STREAMING UNDERGROUND
Many times, people with iPhones, such as Georgia State student Tambresha Durrah, appreciate the convenience of Apple Music. “I have an iPhone so I kind of prefer Apple Music because it’s easier to get to,” she said. As such, Apple Music is marketed on simplicity and boasts the integration of your pre-existing iTunes music library with the ease and accessibility of a streaming service that comes already installed on your phone. iTunes’ legacy was initially a big part of Apple Music’s appeal, with Apple betting that a lot of people would want to keep all music they’d spent years accumulating on their iPods through iTunes. At Apple Music’s initial debut, Executive Jimmy Iovine said, “Online music has become a complicated mess of apps, services and websites. Apple Music brings the best features together for an experience every music lover will appreciate.” By positioning Apple Music as a simple alternative to the “mess” of other streaming apps, Apple hoped its “it just works” philosophy would capture the ears and wallets of its customers. This philosophy has personally appealed to Durrah when considering Apple Music over other streaming services. “It’s easier for me to use,” she said. In today’s overcrowded and overly complicated media landscape, simplicity can be a powerful motivation.
ALGORITHMS ARE YOUR FRIEND
While Apple Music hopes you’ll remember the iPod or simply accept the music streaming service that comes pre-packed with your phone, Spotify hopes its algorithmically crafted playlists will help you lose yourself in a digital web of music discovery.
If, as Ogle said, playlists are currency, the streaming service SoundCloud is obscenely wealthy. SoundCloud represents an outsider streaming option with many of its tracks and playlist being uploaded by users and DJs. This is appealing to those who want music that might not necessarily be affiliated with big record labels or mainstream artists: a library of music you won’t find on other streaming services that nonetheless deserves to be heard. This is the streaming service that has birthed its own eponymous genre of rap and a well-established tradition of launching the careers of independent artists. SoundCloud’s contribution to streaming and internet culture at large cannot be overstated as it represents a microcosm of the experimentation and creativity that characterizes the best parts of the web.
THE MORE THINGS CHANGE
Pandora Radio is unique in that it seems to have found a way to survive the dominance of Spotify and Apple and carve out a niche for itself supported by its dedicated user base. Pandora is a simple service; it offers many of the same features you’d find on other streaming services such as curated playlists and a large library of the world’s music. What sets Pandora apart is its long history in the music streaming industry and its ability to adapt in a rapidly changing music industry. Pandora has continuously adapted its business model to better compete with other streaming services. One way it has accomplished this is by developing its advertising and marketing technology to better monetize its customer base.
ARTS & LIVING
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things you don’t want to miss
More events and info at georgiastatesignal.com
thursday
wednesday
tuesday
saturday
friday
monday
sunday
ASTROWORLD
Origami Lessons
Lecture on Political Art
Aubrey and the Three Migos
Midtown Tree Lighting
Weekend Run, WEEKEND FUN
Festival of the Season
November 13
November 14
November 15
November 16
November 17
November 18
November 19
Travis Scott will be in Atlanta for the “ASTROWORLD: Wish You Were Here” tour. He’s bringing Trippie Redd with him to the State Farm Arena, formerly Philips Arena.
A group of Origami enthusiasts will meet at the Thomas Dean Fine Art center at 6 p.m. All skill levels are welcome to join, from beginner to master. It’s all about sharing learning and enjoying yourself.
Molly S. Nesbit, professor of art at Vassar College, will be giving a lecture at the Michael C. Carlos Museum. Admission is free and the event starts at 6 p.m. She will discuss the work and politics of Gordon Matta-Clark.
These four collaborators have had a working relationship on creative projects since 2013. Their highly anticipated tour will come to the State Farm Arena.
The Atlantic Station Tree lighting will begin their christmas village attraction. Come out and enjoy many vendors, live music and a light show at 8 p.m.
The Atlanta Running Club will meet at Caribou Coffee at 8 a.m. for their long weekend run. They run a 10mile route starting at Piedmont Park and looping through Freedom Park to Candler Park and back.
A seasonal celebration kicks off at the Georgia Aquarium this Saturday. A batch of carollers and other live performers will take place every weekend throughout the holiday time.
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this week’s theme:
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Female Singers 15
We’re obsessed with Ariana Grande’s new song “Thank u, next,” so in honor of her and other musical divas, we’ve created a crossword completely dedicated to the ladies of the music business. We hope you enjoy!
To suggest a topic, email us: signalprod@gmail.com
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3. Sadly this artist passed away in 2011 but her songs “Rehab” and “Back to Black” are still played to this day. 5. She collabed with Lil’ Kim, Mya and P!nk on the song “Lady Marmalade.” 12. With Christmas coming up, you’re guaranteed to hear her song, “All I Want for Christmas is You.” 13. She was the winner of the MTV Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award in 2018. 14. This popstar encouraged a spike in voter registration. 15. Appeared in the reality show “Love & Hip Hop: New York” but is now a successful rapper. 20. This songstress recently starred in the breakout movie “A Star is Born.” 21. This artist is most well-known for her songs “1, 2, Step,” “Like a Boy” and “Goodies.”
22. Once a member of Fifth Harmony, this singer is now singing duets with Khalid. 23. She is often referred to as the Queen of Tejano music. 24. With the release of her album “Seat at the Table” she made it into mainstream recognition.
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1. She won the BET Award for Best New Artist in 2018. 2. Once married to Bobby Brown and famous for her cover of “I Will Always Love You,” this icon sadly passed away in 2012. 4. This ‘60s icon is famous for her long hair, low voice and duets with Sonny. 6. With songs like “Cola” and “Born to Die,” this singer has been dubbed the “Queen of Indie Pop.” 7. This singer just released a hit song about all of her exs.
8. You may know her by the name “Chun-Li.” 9. Once a part of No Doubt, this singer ain’t no “Hollaback Girl.” 10. This singer got her start on “Barney & Friends” but is now a popstar with more than 60 awards. 11. She sings the iconic song “My Heart Will Go On” from the film “Titanic.” 16. She started her career doing covers on YouTube, but then broke out with her smash hit “New Rules.” 17. Once a part of Destiny’s Child, this artist is now the most nominated woman in Grammy history. 18. This singer is an entrepreneur with a successful beauty and lingerie line. 19. This British songstress gained popularity with her song “Rolling in the Deep.”
SPORTS TUESDAY, NOVMEBER 13, 2018
www.georgiastatesignal.com/sports
Panthers 2-8 after rushing defense exposed
Louisiana’s two 100-yard rushers move Georgia State to 1-5 in Sun Belt JERELL RUSHIN Staff Reporter
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eorgia State’s losing streak moved to five games as they began a two-game road trip. Louisiana (5-5, 3-3) and its two 100-yard rushers led the Rajin’ Cajuns to a 36-22 win over Georgia State (2-8, 1-5). Aaron Winchester started at quarterback for the first time since opening day in 2017. Dan Ellington did not enter the game due to an injury he suffered last week against Texas State. Both Sun Belt teams entered the game on the heels of a loss. Georgia State was dominated by Texas State’s passing attack in the third quarter of the previous game. This week, Louisiana scored three rushing touchdowns in the fourth quarter and gave up a 92-yard rushing touchdown in the first quarter. Elijah Mitchell ran for 136 yards on 19 carries and he wasn’t the Louisiana back with the most yards on the day. Raymond Calais finished with 186 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns including the 92-yard score. The Rajin’ Cajuns out-rushed the Panthers 355-252 with an average of 9.2 yards to rush. “We couldn’t slow their backs down,” head coach Shawn Elliott said. “We have a lot of fight in us. There’s a lot of doggone heart out there and a lot of effort, but we’ve got to find some solutions. A couple of drives we’d like to have back and contain that running back a little bit.” Winchester, Ellington’s backup prior to the injury, passed 10-of-21 and threw both one touchdown and one interception. The interception was the first thrown by a Georgia State signal-caller in more than five games and 181 pass attempts. Ellington hasn’t thrown under 50 percent all season. Even though the loss only
worsens their already sub-500 record, the Panthers’ rushing attack has some consistency. Georgia State had 252 rushing yards and two rushers with 75 or more yards and another with more than 50. Tra Barnett and his 82 yards made him the leading rusher in the running back corps for the fourth straight week. Demarcus Kirk’s explosive performance was a pleasant surprise for the Panthers. Kirk’s nine carries, 79 yards and 8.8 yards per carry are all season highs. “I’m pleased with the running game,” Elliott said. “You see some great runs out there, like DeMarcus Kirk laying it on the line and doing the things necessary to be successful. I’m really proud of him.” The game begin with a Louisiana drive into Georgia State territory, but it eventually punted. The teams would then, collectively, have five consecutive three-and-outs. Louisiana ended that streak on the very next play. Raymond left every Panther behind, and ran 92 yards to set a new Louisiana record for the longest rushing touchdown in school history with 4:31 left in the opening quarter. Georgia State put together a solid drive of 61 yards to follow, but Brandon Wright missed a 29-yard field goal after the Panthers made it the Louisiana 12-yard line. On the next possession, Louisiana quarterback Andre Nunez found Ryheem Malone for a 32-yard touchdown, and Louisiana took a 13-0 lead early in the second quarter. Nunez finished passing 14-of-19 for 141 yards and one touchdown.Georgia State gained only 86 yards of offense until its final drive of the first half. Luckily, they scored on it. Winchester wasn’t having a good day passing, but he found a stride here, and threw a 45-yard pass to
Georgia State plays the University of Louisiana at Lafayette Saturday, Nov. 10 at Cajun Field in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Cornelius McCoy for the first explosive play of the game. He then connected with Devin Gentry for a13-yard touchdown pass with 0:14 remaining in the first half. The score was 13-7 at halftime and Georgia State was within striking distance after displaying an overwhelmingly underwhelming showing so far. The Ellington-less Panthers were in position to take the lead to begin the third quarter. The offense was flowing, picking up two first downs and 35 yards in its first three plays of the quarter. It came to a halt, and they faced third-and-11 after two unsuccessful plays. Tucker Gregg, freshman running back that hadn’t logged a carry this season, ran eight yards to give Georgia State a 4th-and-3 at the Louisiana 29. The Panthers attempted their third straight fourth down. They were unsuccessful this time and squandered their opportunity. Winchester took the shotgun snap and had a chance to hit Hart early, but he held on and ate a 7-yard loss by running out-ofbounds. Trailing 13-7 with 12:03 remaining in the third quarter, the Panthers tried to keep Louisiana from increasing its lead because they were still in the game. Louisiana brought a solid red zone offense into the game. It almost scored a touchdown after putting together a nice job including two third down conversions. Kyle Pfau made a 21-yard field goal to put the Rajin’ Cajuns up 16-7 with 7:18 left in the third quarter. The 11-play, 60-yard drive chewed nearly five minutes off the clock. Georgia State answered right away. In just 1:46 of game time, the Panthers scored a touchdown cut Louisiana’s led to 16-14. The young offensive line’s blocking was pivotal on this drive. They cleared holes big enough for Kirk to run through, and Kirk’s power added more yards to already big runs. Kirk converted the drive’s initial first down with a 13-yard rush up the middle. On the next play he ran over a Louisiana defender during the 17-yard gain. The run energized the entire sideline including the coaches. Kirk, a redshirt senior, hasn’t played much offense this year. His game high prior to the game was 14 yards, fewer than the 17-yard play. Georgia State faced a fourth-and-1 shortly after and converted it with a quarterback sneak by Winchester. Kirk fittingly scored the drive’s touchdown with a 21-yard rush. The two-point lead after Kirk’s score was as close as Georgia State came to taking a lead. Georgia State’s defense allowed Louisiana to put together a 7-play, 76-yard touchdown scoring drive in less than three minutes. Raymond ran in a 26-yard affair, his second rushing touchdown, and made the contest a twoscore affair. Forty five of the drive’s yards came on the ground and 31 were through the air. The drive encapsulates the total defensive performance for a unit that gives up 496.9 yards per game. That total defense average is 124th out of 130 FBS teams. 250.8 and 246.1 of the yards are rushing and passing respectively. Louisiana scored 20 points within the next seven minutes on its next three drives, all of which lasted less than 2:30. All three scores were rushing touchdowns and one extra point attempt was failed. No teams in the Bottom 10 of total defense except 7-3 Houston have a winning record. Defense wins games, and the Panthers’ record shows that they’ve been well below average this season. Georgia State faces Appalachian State (7-2, 5-1) on Nov. 20 on the road in Boone, North Carolina. The Appalachian State Mountaineers 446.3 yards per game ranks 34th is total offense. Appalachian State averages 2.7 rushing touchdowns per game and Georgia State allows 2.6. Potentially more alarming is that Georgia State has scored just 16 points against Appalachian State in four meetings. The Panthers are 0-4 all-time against the Mountaineers and lost 31-10 to them in 2017. The game begins 2:30 p.m. and will be broadcast on ESPN+. PHOTO SUBMITTED BY GEORGIA STATE ATHLETICS
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Cross country gives back to Girls on the Run Atlanta nonprofit hosts 5K race at Georgia State Stadium DANIEL RICHARDSON Staff Reporter
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he Georgia State cross country team assisted Girls on the Run Atlanta with their annual end of the season 5K at Georgia State Stadium. The 5K, held on Nov. 10, came a day after the women’s cross country team finished 20th in the NCAA East Championship in Tallahassee, Florida. The team traveled back to Georgia to volunteer with the run in the same fashion as it did in 2017. Head coach Chris England first reached out to Girls on the Run last season. This season, England said the team has shown excitement about having the chance once again to participate with the 5K. In October, England told The Signal that the team was equally excited to renew some of the relationships that were formed last season during the run. It is fitting, however, that the Panthers would deem it necessary to help out in their own backyard. To have the women of Georgia State’s cross country team gives the girls of Girls on the Run Atlanta an indelible image that they won’t soon forget. The cross country team is also aware of what their participation means for the event and for their own program. Senior Angela Alonso, who was tasked with aiding the children at the starting line in 2017, said that to see the girls excited about fitness and running made the event that much more worth it. “As a college athlete, I would definitely like to give an example for younger kids,” Alonso said. “[Playing] sports at college is a great opportunity but you also have to work hard. Practice and class take a lot of time but if you plan ahead, it is always possible to volunteer or do something nice for the community.” Girls on the Run’s mission is to empower young girls to be confident and to enjoy a healthy lifestyle through fitness. Girls on the Run Atlanta is driven to help young girls not just with their physical health but also with their mental health. “Our program provides skill-building experiences to nurture girls’ physical, social and emotional competencies that they apply in other areas of their lives such as home, school, and in the neighborhood,” it reads on the organization’s website. “Completing a 5K at the end of the season gives them a tangible opportunity to apply all that they have learned,” the website states.
Girls on the Run was founded in 2000 and is a nationwide organization that has done work in most of the country. Girls on the Run’s message of better connecting the community is a moving one that has translated to many other states around the nation. Girls on the Run’s message is one that coach England and Georgia State Athletics resonated with and wanted the team to take part in championing. “We worked with the Georgia State Athletic department to recruit volunteers for the race and expanded the partnership with the [cross country] team this year to have [cross country] runners with each of our waves leading the way, as well as a couple of runners in the very back as the ‘caboose’ so that we had support from the fastest runners to the walkers,” Stuart Dougherty, community outreach director for Girls on the Run Atlanta, said. Each season at Girls on the Run is a two-month program that ends with a 5K aimed at reinforcing the lessons taught. This program’s aim is to nurture the students into becoming mature, conscientious individuals in society. “We know that girls’ self-confidence begins to drop by age nine, and that physical activity levels decline starting at age 10 and continue to decrease throughout adolescence,” Dougherty said. “At Girls on the Run, our mission is to inspire girls to be joyful, healthy and confident using a fun, experience-based curriculum which creatively integrates running. Girls on the Run is the only national physical-activity based positive youth development (PA-PYD) program for girls with compelling evidence of program impact.” In 2016, Dr. Maureen Weiss, a University of Minnesota professor, conducted an independent study on the unique curriculum of Girls on the Run, finding that the program was overwhelmingly successful in educating and enriching their students. More than 97 percent of the girls showed improved development in a litany of life skills, including “making intentional decisions, managing emotions, resolving conflict or helping others - that they were using at home, at school and with their friends.” Girls on the Run has put a majority of its focus as an organization on increasing the amount of physical activity and discipline in its students’ lives. “The [Weiss] study found that the physical activity aspects of our program also work, especially for girls who begin with lower physical activity levels,” Dougherty said. “In fact, girls who were the least active at the start of the season increased
their physical activity level by 40% and maintained this increased level beyond season’s end. We are moving the needle on girls’ holistic health, and giving them the tools they need to be the joyful, confident women they can grow up to be.” The communities that Girls on the Run Atlanta serve — Cobb, Fulton, Gwinnett and Dekalb counties — are seeing a beneficial impact on their children. This year’s 5K race saw nearly 1,500 volunteers and over 400 volunteer coaches from the local and metropolitan communities show support. Everyone involved could see how much the race and Girls on the Run have become an influential part of the lives of local citizens. “None of our girls were runners before Girls on the Run, and it’s amazing seeing their growth,” Jackie Mancini, teacher at Fair Oaks Elementary and Girls on the Run Atlanta coach, said. “One thing that I noticed at the mock 5K is that they were still talking about the lessons and having informal conversations. They take the empathy lesson seriously and say, ‘You know I had to put myself in his shoes.’ They take what we learn at Girls on the Run and apply it to their everyday lives. They even wanted to do extra laps during the mock 5K!” Girls on the Run Atlanta is extremely grateful that it was able to hold the 5K in Georgia State’s neighborhood and that Georgia State was present the entire time. “Prior to holding the Girls on the Run 5K presented by Piedmont Healthcare at Georgia State, we held the run at Turner Field,” Dougherty said. “With easy access to parking, a beautiful route through historic Grant Park and a wide open space for our 5K festival, it’s a great venue. We have enjoyed working with Georgia State Athletics and like the influence of a college setting for our participants so they can see one of the many world-class universities Atlanta has to offer.” Girls on the Run partnered with a multitude of sponsors in Atlanta to create the best positive experience possible. “We are grateful to many sponsors and partners who helped to create a fun and memorable event for our participants and their families on race morning,” Dougherty said. “At the 5K festival, runners and spectators could take advantage of the Piedmont Healthcare stretch and recovery zone, a homemade button station by Sprouts, samples and giveaways from KIND, RX Bar, Honest Tea, Phidippides, Cigna, Go Go squeeZ and Axiom, a glitter and flash tat station hosted by Gamma Phi Beta of Kennesaw University and much more.” Despite the frigid temperatures, the environment around Georgia State Stadium was warm and inviting as volunteers and parents happily dedicated their Saturday morning to the children.
PHOTO COURTESY OF TIFFANY FARMER OF GIRLS ON THE RUN
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2018
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Welcome to Georgia, where football means more For its size, Georgia produces some of the best players in the country CHRISTIAN CRITTENDEN Staff Reporter
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hen it comes to football, not many places do it quite like the state of Georgia. From the little tykes to the big leagues, the athletes here are superior to those found in other states. Georgia’s population is around 10 million, which ranks 10th in the country. Despite being dwarfed by Texas and California,Georgia produces a high number of college athletes for its size. According to SB Nation, from 2013 to 2017 Georgia produced 141 “elite” blue chip prospects which makes up for about 8.5 percent of elite prospects in the country. In 2017, Georgia produced 33 blue chip recruits, and California, which is more than double the size of Georgia, produced 35. So what is it about Georgia and high school football that lends this success? Two words: coaching and resources. “There are good high school coaches in the state,” Georgia State football recruiting coordinator Rusty Knight said. “There are good high school players in the state. Conversely, they’re getting coached better, so they’re a little better product than what gets put out there in other states. There’s no question.” Access to high-level coaching and resources are leading to better players, but another area that’s helping out Georgia athletes is their quick development. Players begin training and playing at a very early age in comparison to 20 years ago. Trainer and East Metro Steelers football coach Derek Benson works with players beginning at the age of seven. Because of this, he’s able to see the kids’ development firsthand. “The development of the kids is a lot faster now than when I played,” Benson said. “I have kids who I train in the eighth grade that are able to bench press 200 pounds and squat over 300 pounds. So everyone is a lot more conscious of the process now, and it’s helping their development move along faster.” Benson once played football at Eastern Michigan and has worked with young athletes in many states, but what he’s seen in the state of Georgia is unmatched. “The work ethic of the players that I’ve worked with is what separates them from the rest,” Benson said. “I have kids who practice five days a week and train five days a week. The work that’s put in behind the scenes is a lot more than I’ve seen in other states. Most of kids that I see just want it more than everyone else.” Additionally, most young athletes in Georgia play two sports, which is what coaches prefer when recruiting. Players who can do more are highly valued because of their versatile skill sets. “Coaches likes athletes who run track, or that play multiple sports, but preferably track because it helps gives them an idea of how athletic you are,” Benson said. High school football sideline reporter Brandon Joseph has been reporting on high school football for five years now, but he has seen Georgia players dominate on the field more than their contemporaries in other states. “I think Georgia is the best, and if they’re not the best they are second best, probably to Texas,” Joseph said. The competition levels still vary within the state. Teams in south Georgia are oftentimes better than the schools in Atlanta because of differences in mentality. A lot of the players who live south of Macon, Georgia play with more of a chip on their shoulder because playing good football is a way of making it out of their hometowns. They’re also more technically sound in most areas of the game. “Their players in the southern part of the state are a lot more football savvy. They take on the game different,” Benson said. They may differ in terms of skill level, but regardless, each region in Georgia has talented players, and it gives home schools like Georgia State, Georgia, Georgia Southern, Georgia Tech and Kennesaw State a recruiting advantage. With riches of talent in these schools’ backyards, their recruiters don’t feel pressured to leave the state and can instead field the majority of their teams with players just hours away. “It doesn’t matter what state you’re in, you always want to try and do the best you can in your home state,” Knight said.
In 2017, Georgia high schools produced 33 blue chip football recruits compared to the 35 by California, which is more than twice as populated.
“I have kids who practice five days a week and train five days a week, the work that’s put in behind the scenes is a lot more than I’ve seen in other states. Most of kids that I see just want it more than everyone else.” — DEREK BENSON high school football trainer “Of course we’re going to focus first on recruiting the state of Georgia. We’re going to do the best job that we possibly can recruiting the state of Georgia as hard as we can and get as many of the best players we feel like fill out needs. But that doesn’t mean if there’s a better player in another state then we won’t take him.” For a lot of players, there is a sense of pride to stay home and play at a university like Georgia because their parents went there and they want to carry on the family legacy. But there’s a bit of a twist now because every game can be streamed via the internet. That adds another obstacle to the list that schools in Georgia have to battle. Coaches from out-of-state schools such as Clemson have been able to successfully recruit Georgia-grown players because their brand is more visible and enticing to athletes. “One thing that you see that’s becoming a little bit of a growing trend is a lot of guys are going out of state to go play college football because they want to get the full college experience and be gone away from home,” Knight said. “And that’s happening all across the country, it really is.” There is no doubt that Georgia produces some of the best college talents, but those same players are making it in the NFL. In 2016, 97 NFL players were from Georgia, and that’s an increase from earlier numbers. With the recent additions of stars like Alvin Kamara, Deshaun Watson and others, Georgia’s national football influence is certainly growing.
PHOTO BY JERELL RUSHIN | THE SIGNAL
GEORGIA’S BEST NFL PLAYERS • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Tyreek Hill Cam Newton Deshaun Watson Alvin Kamara Cameron Heyward Casey Hayward Grady Jarrett Eric Berry A.J. Bouye Cordy Glenn Kareem Jackson Wesley Woodyard Jerick McKinnon Morgan Burnett Alec Ogletree Jared Cook Stephon Tuitt Darius Slay Lorenzo Carter Ulrick John Telvin Smith James Carpenter Josh Harris Trent Jones Roquan Smith Kenyan Drake Justin Houston Demaryius Thomas Bruce Irvin Bud Dupree Vic Beasley Leonard Floyd Nick Chubb Evan Engram Pacman Jones Robert Nkemdiche
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Men’s soccer wins first ever Sun Belt championship Hannes’ hat trick helped lift the Panthers past Georgia Southern JOSHUA FIFE Staff Reporter
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eorgia State won its first ever Sun Belt Conference championship with a 4-2 win over No. 2 seed Georgia Southern in Statesboro on Nov. 11. A hat trick from senior Hannes Burmeister and a late goal in the final minute from Frank Rosenwald gave the Panthers a 4-2 victory over the Eagles. This marked the first ever hat trick in a Sun Belt championship game. Burmeister scored the first two goals for the Panthers on penalty kicks in the 27th and 74th minutes. Georgia Southern got on the board in the second period when the Eagles’ Javier Carbonell scored off a mistake from Kyle Lancaster in the 66th minute. Lancaster tried to bring the ball back into the box to pick it up when Carbonell stole the ball and knocked it in for the easy goal. Lancaster made his first start of the season in the championship game due to the injury of the Panthers’ primary keeper Paul Tyson. The Eagles then took a 2-1 lead in the 72nd minute off a set piece from Aldair Cortes. The Panthers regained hope in the 74th minute when a foul gave Burmeister his second penalty kick of the day which he converted to tie the game up at 2-2. The biggest goal of the game came from a beautifully placed lob from Max Hemmings to Burmeister, who beat the goalie to punch in his third goal of the day and give Georgia State the advantage. A final defensive stand from the Panthers with 45 seconds to go lead to the Rosenwald having a wide open goal on an empty net in the final moments. Burmeister went scoreless during the entire year, but his three goals in the championship moved him up to ninth place in Georgia State history for career goals (26). “I said in the beginning of the season as long as we were successful as a team and we find a way to win this championship I didn’t care how many goals I had,” Burmeister said. “And for it to actually happen – I’m just as happy as I could be.” After going to the conference championship and losing for four consecutive seasons, finally coming away with a win was very emotional for the team’s eight seniors. “To be able to get over that mountain is huge, and I’m
Georgia State’s men’s soccer team celebrates their win in the Sun Belt Conference on Sunday, Nov. 11.
pleased for these guys. They deserved it, they put a lot into it, and it feels good,” Surrency said. The first-seeded Panthers had a quarterfinals bye into the semi-finals where they beat defending conference champion Coastal Carolina 2-1. This was a huge win for Georgia State, who have lost to Coastal Carolina in last two conference championships. The Chanticleers dominate the series, winning 10 of the last 13 competitions going into Friday’s match. Friday’s semi-finals matchup started off with a goal headed in by Hemmings off a cross from George Proctor in the 13th minute. Hemmings scored two goals in the Panthers’ 4-3 victory over Coastal Carolina during Senior Night. Then the Chanticleers were awarded a penalty kick in the
PHOTO SUBMETTED BY GEORGIA STATE ATHLETICS
37th minute and converted it to tie up the score 1-1. Georgia State was finally able to break the tie in the 77th minute after a deflected shot from Tristan Jumeau was booted in by Frank Rosenwald for the 2-1 lead. The 2018 season was a historic one for the Panthers. They won their first ever regular season title, went on a six-game win streak for the first time in over 30 years and secured the first Sun Belt title for the program. The team also received nine postseason honors, the most for any team in the conference. The Panthers had four first-team selections, two secondteam selections, Defensive Player of the Year (Kyle Clinton), Freshman of the Year (Logan Luque) and Coach of the Year (Surrency).
Panthers excelling in areas they weren’t last season Women’s basketball 2-0 thanks to strong defense TAJ STRICKLAND Staff Reporter
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he Panthers are off to an impressive start this season. Exceptional offense, fourth quarter defense and rebounding in both games helped Georgia State start 2-0 for the first time since 2014. Despite his team’s success in the first two games of the season, head coach Gene Hill is still hunting for areas to improve in. “I am very proud of the team’s performances in the first two games, but as a coach I’m always focused on what we can do to get better,” Hill said. “I know we still have a lot of room for improvement. Though they won both games, the Panthers gave up some big runs in both games. Against the North Carolina Greenville Spartans, they gave up a 7-0 run to start the game and allowed them to shoot an 52.4 percent from the field in the third quarter. Against the Florida Atlantic Owls, they gave up another 7-0 run to start the game. The Panthers also allowed the Owls to shoot 46.7 percent from the field in the third quarter. The Panthers won their first game of the season 70-63 against the North Carolina Greenville Spartans. Redshirt sophomore Jada Lewis gave the team a boost with her 14
points and six assists, which led the team. Walnatia Wright, a redshirt graduate, helped considerably by scoring 15 points and grabbing 11 rebounds, a team high. KK Williams also contributed well with 13 points and four 3-pointers. Allison Johnson logged eight points and nine rebounds in 28 minutes. The Panthers finished the first game with 41 rebounds and out-rebounded the Spartans by five. They also had four blocks and seven steals. Georgia State struggled in the fourth quarter, but UNCG struggled more. While they only shot 33.3 percent from the field, the Panthers held the Spartans to a dismal 14.3 percent from the field in the fourth quarter. UNCG didn’t connect late anywhere, and shot 40 percent from the free throw line. Georgia State then pivoted and won their second game of the season 75-59 against Florida Atlantic. Lewis put up even more points this time around, scoring 20 off a 53 percent shooting. She also dished three assists and grabbed nine rebounds, a career high. Lewis, the 2016-2017 Sun Belt Conference Freshman of the Year, hurt her foot during the Panthers’ third game of the season last year. Before her injury, she averaged 15.5 points, which included a 20 point performance against the Florida Gators. Although she was out for the most of the season and it devastated her, Lewis looked and played like she had never left in these two games. “I worked hard to make sure I was ready for the season,” Lewis said. “My mentality is always to fight to win and do what the team needs me to do.”
Shaquanda Miller-McCray grabbed 12 rebounds and scored 13 points for her first double-double of the season. This is crucial for the Panthers considering Hill stressed winning the rebound battle every game. Miller-McCray’s three blocks complimented her double-double against the Florida Atlantic Owls. “The coaches were letting us hear it about our defense in the third quarter,” Miller-McCray said. “I’m always trying to get my teammates hyped whether I’m on the bench or in the game.” The Panthers displayed good defense in both games. In the game against the UNCG Spartans, the Panthers didn’t allow a field goal in the final 4:18. Against FAU, the defense was also stellar during the final stretch and didn’t allow a made field goal attempt in the last 5:59 of the game. One important component of the win over FAU was Georgia State’s rebounding. The Panthers grabbed 61 rebounds to the Owls’ measly 39 rebounds. They also shot an efficient 44.8 percent from the field against the Spartans and 39.5 percent against the Owls. While the Panthers look better on offense, their defense is loads improved to begin the season. Strong rim protection and on-ball defense is something that head coach Gene Hill emphasized before the season started. The next opponent on the Panthers schedule is Rice, and they played FIU on Nov. 12. The trip to Rice is final of a fourgame road trip. Their next home game is against Georgia Tech on Dec. 2.
SPORTS
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2018
panther of the week
SPORTS CALENDAR BASKETBALL
NOV. 15-21
men’s basketball
SUN BELT CONFERENCE TOURNAMENT
MERCER
7 P.M.
•
• • •
• •
Burmeister was named the Sun Belt Conference Tournament’s Most Outstanding Player Though he hadn’t scored all year long, he scored a hat trick in the title game His third goal broke a late 2-2 tie the Panthers held with Georgia Southern His hat trick places him ninth all-time for goals scored (26) in Georgia State history He led every player in points and goals in the tournament Burmeister scored in the 29th, 75th and 83rd minutes
SPORTS BRIEFS men’s basketball • •
• • •
Won its season opener over East Tennessee State Jeff Thomas scored a career-high 26 points and Malik Benlevi logged a double-double Lost on the road 81-74 to Montana Georgia State was called for 31 personal fouls and Montana shot 28-of-43 D’Marcus Simonds led the game with 30 points
football • • • •
Moved to 2-8 on the year after losing 36-22 to Louisiana on the road Allowed two 100-yard rushers Gave up a 92-yard rushing touchdown in the first quarter The Panthers rushed for 252 yards and two touchdowns
cross country •
• • •
Finished 20th in the NCAA Division I South Region Cross Country Championships The Panthers had a total time of 1:56:38 Angela Alonso finished first for Georgia State with her 22:20.1 time in the 6K Sophomore Lotte Meyberg had a time of 22:42.0
NOV. 13 TBD
atlanta hawks GOLDEN STATE
GSU Sports Arena
10:30 P.M.
Oakland, California
NOV. 18
FOOTBALL
NOV. 19-21 Men’s Soccer
ATLANTA SPORTS
VOLLEYBALL
NOV. 13 GSU Sports Arena
Hannes Burmeister
19
atlanta falcons
men’s basketball CAYMAN ISLANDS CLASSIC
TBD
Grand Cayman, Cayman
NOV. 17
DALLAS
APPALACHIAN STATE
2:30 P.M.
Boone, North Carolina
NOV. 23
NOV. 22
NOV. 24
women’s basketball RICE
3 P.M.
Houston, Texas
1 P.M.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium
atlanta falcons
GEORGIA SOUTHERN
2 P.M.
Georgia State Stadium
NEW ORLEANS
8:20 P.M.
New Orleans, Lousiana
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NFL FOOTBALL PREDICTIONS
2018 FOOTBALL STANDINGS
JERELL RUSHIN
EAST DIVISION
Staff Reporter
GREEN BAY V. SEATTLE DALLAS V. ATLANTA
SEATTLE
ATLANTA
PITTSBURGH V. JACKSONVILLE
PITTSBURGH
CINCINNATI V. BALTIMORE
BALTIMORE
PHILADELPHIA V. NEW ORLEANS MINNESOTA V. CHICAGO
school
conference
overall
streak
TROY
6-0
8-2
W3
APPALACHIAN STATE
5-1
7-2
W2
GEORGIA SOUTHERN
4-2
7-3
L2
COASTAL CAROLINA
2-4
5-5
L2
GEORGIA STATE
1-5
2-8
L5
WEST DIVISION school
NEW ORLEANS
CHICAGO
KANSAS CITY V. LOS ANGELES (RAMS) LOS ANGELES (RAMS)
conference
overall
streak
ULM
4-2
6-4
W4
ARKANSAS STATE
3-3
6-4
W2
LOUISIANA
3-3
5-5
W1
TEXAS STATE
1-5
3-7
L1
SOUTH ALABAMA
1-5
2-8
L3