February 4, 2016

UNIVERSITY PRESS

The Newspaper of Lamar University

Vol. 92, No. 13 February 4, 2016

Leadership conference set for Saturday Brandianne Hinton UP staff writer The Office of Student Engagement will host a leadership conference Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Setzer Student Center Ballroom.

The conference includes a series of lectures and workshops, called break-out sessions, geared toward helping students reach their full leadership potential.

The keynote speaker is 2014 bobsled Olympian and former NFL player Johnny Quinn.

Julie Eddards, director of new student and leadership programs, said Quinn, who is a Texas native, is an appropriate speaker to help broaden the definition of leadership to include athletes, including those who are engaged in intramural sports, recreational sports, as well as those who consistently use the recreational center.

“We’re excited to even reach out and pull in our student athletes that are not typically, but should be, recognized as student leaders because of their position,” she said.

While the conference is targeting students already in leadership roles, the idea is not only to attract current leaders, but also emerging leaders early in their college education, and begin developing them into leaders in whatever areas they choose to excel, thereby broadening the scope of leadership roles beyond position and title, Eddards said.

“Everyone is a leader,” she said.

“Every day you are a son, a daughter, a friend, a student, and employee. There are so many roles that we have where we encounter people.”

The tagline for the conference is, “Becoming a Next Generation Leader,” which focuses on the evolution of leadership theories and

styles. Focusing on characterbased leadership — defined by who the individual is in any role — is designed to create integrity and intention with the idea that leadership is character-embedded.

“We kind of look at valuesbased leadership and the social change model and kind of mush them together,” Eddards said. “By doing that, you’re implying that who I am as a person can impact social change — it can be in the context of business, it can be in the context of an organization, and it can be in the context of family. It could be in the context of just leaving the world a better place behind you every day, everywhere you are in it.”

Eddards said that this is a selfdevelopment opportunity for students, not necessarily how to function in position and title as

See LEADERSHIP page 2

Lamar Alive! to sponsor Mardi Gras activities Sharinna Byrd UP contributor Lamar Alive! will sponsor a Mardi Gras celebration, Feb. 9 in the Setzer Student Center Arbor beginning at 11 a.m. There will be free food, a cake cutting and music.

“We’re going to have a king cake cutting, so we’re passing out cake and we’re working on trying to get some New Orleans-style food to give away to the students,” Kiet Le, associate director of student activities and civic engagement, said. “We’ll have beads and Mardi Gras masks and will be playing some Mardi Gras style music for the students. It’s going to be from 11 a.m. until we run out of stuff to give away.”

Mardi Gras is a Lenten religious observation for many cultures and nationalities around the world.

“Well, Mardi Gras, it starts on Fat Tuesday which is the day before Ash Wednesday,” Le said. “Ash Wednesday is the day that starts Lenten season, which is a fast for some of the religions for 40 days where usually someone will pick something, say, ‘I’ll give up soda for 40 days.’ So, they’ll give up soda for 40 days. Usually it’s a personal choice where someone would choose a certain item or practice that they do. Some people do social media and they give it up for 40 days for the Lenten season.”

Le said this event, like many others that Lamar Alive! sponsors, is a great way for students to become involved on campus.

“We’re always looking for volunteers in our office for our events to come and help,” he said. “In my office, it’s just myself and seven other student directors that work for me. So we’re always looking for volunteers to come by and help us come up with events or give us their ideas or even help run the events as well.”

Students interested in volunteering can contact Kiet Le at 880-2395, or e-mail him at Kiet.le@lamar.edu.

UP Kyle Swearingen

Faye Hall, left, conducts music with her fork as she listens through headphones while LU nursing student Jessica Neitch looks on. Hall is participating in the Music for Memory Project which helps seniors who have dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.

Memorable Music Nursing students’ project helps dementia patients Kyle Swearingen UP staff writer

UP Kyle Swearingen

LU nursing student Rebecca Robinson adjusts Faye Hall’s headphones.

They may be surrounded in a haze of uncertainty, then a sound of a familiar tune brings them back to memories long forgotten.

Lamar University nursing students, through the Music and Memory Project, are helping patients with dementia and Alzheimer’s at the College Street Nursing Center long term care facility.

Elderly patients who may experience confusion and memory loss are given music from their past to help them naturally recover memories thought to be forgotten.

“The Music and Memory Project is

a national project, and the Texas Department of Aging and Disability services gave a grant to 32 nursing homes in the state of Texas — College Street Nursing Center was one of the facilities that got a grant locally in our area,” Kelli White, LU nursing instructor, said.

“So Dr. Elizabeth Long is a geriatric nurse practitioner and an assistant professor in our Department. She asked if the Lamar University Nursing Students Association would be interested in helping with the project.”

The national project was created to provide unique and local assistance with psychotropic illness.

“The original research was done where iPods were given to elderly patients with dementia and Alzheimers and studied the interaction between listening to music with their symptoms See MUSIC page 2

BAL show to celebrate local black artists Kara Timberlake UP managing editor When Beaumont artist Wayne Goodman was invited to showcase his drawings at the Beaumont Art League exhibition celebrating Black History Month, he said it was an awakening.

“It’s been unbelievable,” he said. “To look at the other artists, it’s like opening a whole new world in itself. It’s just amazing.”

Goodman and other local African American artists are part of BAL’s first exhibition to feature artwork from Beaumont/Port Arthur black artists. The exhibition opens Feb. 6 and runs through March 12, with a free reception scheduled for 7 p.m., Feb. 13.

“Our mission is to help all artists showcase, exhibit and sell their work,” Bridget

Johnson, BAL board president, said. “We want to debunk that myth of being a little old white lady’s club, when it’s not that at all. This particular exhibit is important to us because we want to show unity. We want to show openness.”

In addition, the League will feature two visual arts documentaries, “Colored Frames” and “Five African American Artists & Innovators,” Feb. 18 and 25. “‘Colored Frames’ explores the influences and experiences of black artists over the last 50 years, dating back from the Civil Rights Era and leading up to the present,” Johnson said. “The other documentary features five African-American artists who talk about their struggles with society and breaking into the art world.

Both films are really provocative in the

www.facebook.com/UPLamar

UP Kara Timberlake

See BAL page 2

Wayne Goodman shows off his art, on display at the Beaumont Art League through March 12.

www.lamaruniversitypress.com

www.twitter.com/UPLamar

QUOTE OF THE DAY

INSIDE

“Human reason needs only to will more strongly than fate, and she is fate.”

Thursday, February 4, 2016 University Press

MUSIC

— Thomas Mann

from page 1

and taking their medications,” she said.

“Wanting to see if you could have any positive effects by lowering their dosages and decreasing their psychotropic medication for the elderly,” Rebecca Robinson, Beaumont senior, said.

Psychotropic medication is primarily used to affect the mind, emotion and behavior. Elderly care primarily relies on these medications to help those living with conditions that negatively affect these things. The project is designed to be able to find ways to lessen the need for such medications.

“We are hoping that the music can engage a memory from long ago to kind of open that file back up and improve their quality of life in general,” Jessica Neitch, Beaumont senior, said. “It improves their mood and helps their social

BAL

Page 2

interaction as well.”

Robinson said the students got together with their instructors and contacted College Street Health Care Center, a long-term care facility.

“From there, we each picked a patient — we each individually had one,” Robinson said. “The first day we met with them for a couple of hours, just trying to get to know them, find out what their interests are, what they like and if we could get out of them some kind of genre of music or what they liked when they were younger.”

The project was from September to December and the students would meet with their patients once a week and record their progress in journals.

“I put together a whole playlist for my patient, and the director of the facility

put it on an iPod shuffle for her,” Robinson said. “Every week we would go and meet with them one on one and she would listen to it and I would talk to her.

My patient opened up completely. Every time she had her earphones on she would talk about her dad, her sisters and her daughters. I learned a lot about her just from that. It was like night to day from the first week I met with her to the next when she had her iPod in.”

However even with the grant, the project still needs equipment. The nursing students are having an ongoing iPod drive to receive new and gently used iPods for use in the Music and Memory Project.

Students wishing to contribute to the iPod drive can bring donations to the Nursing Building, room 257 or office 237.

from page 1

sense you can see and hear the artists’ passion.”

One of the exhibiting artists, Kwanzaa Edwards, will facilitate a children’s workshop at BAL, Feb. 20.

“It’s still in the works,” Johnson said.

“We’re actually going to teach the kids about the Adinkra symbols, and we’re going to do artwork in relation to African American history and culture. We’re going to use some of Mr. Goodman’s stencils, and the kids will be able to create their own Wayne Goodman design.”

When putting together the exhibition, Johnson, originally from New Orleans, only knew of one local black artist; therefore, she depended on recommendations from others.

“The selection process really became who do you know,” she said. “I met Mr. Goodman’s brother at a non-profit, and he told me about Mr. Goodman. When I saw his work, I was like ‘You need to be showing this. This is wonderful.’”

Johnson said Goodman’s pieces possess a folkloric quality.

“It’s primitive,” she said. “There are stories behind each drawing. It’s amazing how he transfers what he reads, the images from his head, to the actual paper.

When I saw his work, I was reminded of black folklore books I read growing up as

LEADERSHIP

a child — Br’er Rabbit.”

With no formal artistic training, Goodman said it’s been a long road.

“I started mid-2013,” he said. “Initially, I wanted to take a narrative and bring in a classmate who is a good artist and have him draw what I put out there. But I thought ‘I can’t pay him.’ So I started with regular pencil and ink.”

Goodman’s former job of selling African American history books served as an inspiration for his art, he said.

“I had all these things in my head because I read my product,” he said. “I began to use different people, particularly African American writers, such as Langston Hughes or Richard Wright, and take their quotes and make an image out of it.”

Goodman has about 300 drawings with a variety of different subjects, he said.

“It just comes,” he said. “I’m dreaming.

I’m sleeping. Boom. Wake up. Put it down.

Start it. Write a narrative. Then I go from there.”

Goodman said he uses fundamental tools to create his artwork.

“I get a regular #2 pencil and I’ll just have a thought, or I’ll recall something I read, or I will conjure up a memory,” he said. “I’ll sketch some type of image with the characters and background, and I erase quite a bit. Once I’m satisfied with

from page 1

much as leading from within.

“We’re trying to hit students in two genres — those who are currently in student leadership positions and wanting to really grow and develop, and connect opportunities with students who are interested in leadership,” Eddards said.

There are six different break-out sessions specifically tailored to what leadership looks like in action. Students have the opportunity to choose two of the six sessions throughout the day-long conference.

“The Art of Leadership” session, Eddards said, focuses on how to mobilize people and includes steps as basic as how to have an effective meeting, and more advanced levels of leadership including how to cast a shared vision, inspire that vision, and mobilize people into action.

“There are different skills that embody different levels of leadership, but everybody is a leader,” Eddards said.

The “Developing your Brand” session covers all things related to social media, including the do’s and don’ts of developing and promoting a person’s reputation and marketing a brand with intention.

“Every time you push send, every time you post something, every time you Snapchat something, you’re communicating to the people around you who you are,” Eddards said. “And if you are not intentional about that, you could be promoting all kinds of things. With 93 percent of employers actually utilizing social media to vet out who would be a potential good fit in their company, that doesn’t afford people to be careless with what they put out there.”

One of the main concepts presented in the branding break-out session is

making students realize that they do not exist in a bubble, and whatever they put out there is published and Google-able by anyone, including potential employers, at any time, Eddards said.

“So the conversation is really, as a leader, ‘How do you use this to promote yourself well?’ ‘How do you protect yourself from poor reputation?,’ and, ‘How do you build a platform for what you really want to be known for as a person?’ That’s literally what social media has become. What you’re known for,” she said.

“So, being intentional about what one’s social media influence looks like is leadership in action, and where you can really engage somebody, who may not feel like they are capable of an actual leadership title, to understand that their sphere of influence is the world in which they apply their leadership.”

Other sessions include “Head, Heart, Hustle,” where students are presented with ways to put their ideas and leadership into action; “It Starts with You,” which highlights ways to begin a journey in leadership development; “Diversity,” which gives students the tools to work within a variety of social and cultural situations with integrity, and “Leadership Defined,” which focuses on the idea that everyone is a leader in character-based development.

The conference is free for all students, and breakfast and lunch are provided. There will also be various door prizes for participation. Students are encouraged to pre-register online. Checkin begins at 9:30 a.m.

To register or for more information, visit http://students.lamar.edu/student-engagement/conferences/leadership.html

all of the penciling, I’ll come back with ink and from there, I’ll take the images to Office Depot and make copies. Then I can do a variety of different things with those black and white copies.”

Goodman also has a connection to the quilts hung in the Scurlock Gallery, one of BAL’s two galleries.

“My mom and her twin sister would sit at the table and kind of pull the scraps together,” he said. “It’s not just a big part of African American culture. It’s worldwide.

It goes back to the fifth century. Even Rosa Parks talks about how you weren’t a real woman until you did quilt work.”

Goodman said he thinks the exhibition holds valuable teachings for kids.

“They take whatever narratives they see and make multi-narratives,” he said.

“We all are caught up in our age to the point that we can’t think like those kids.”

Johnson said she anticipates this will become an annual exhibition.

“Next year, we will do calls for artists to be involved in the exhibition,” she said.

“Being the first year that we’re doing this, we wanted to just identify black history month and celebrate these local artists.

This is an exciting moment in the League’s history.”

For info, visit www.beaumontart league.org.

NOTICE

The University Press can be read online at www.lamaruniversitypress.com.

Advertising rates can be found on the site, along with practically all information that a person might be looking for.

CALENDER

February 5

The Dishman Art Museum Exhibition Reception for “Hollis Hammonds: wasteland/wonderland”

Dishman Art Museum 6:30-8:30 p.m.

February 6

Student Leadership Conference

Setzer Student Center 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.

February 11

History Day

Setzer Student Center 1-6 p.m.

Construction Career Forum

Gray Library, 8th Floor 6-8 p.m.

February 15

Fall Spring 2016 non-payment purge after 5 p.m.

February 17

Guest artist jazz concert: Joe LoCascio and Woody Witt

Rothwell Recital Hall 7:30-9 p.m.

February 20

TALH Spring Review 2016

Gray Library, 8th Floor 9:30 a.m. - 2 p.m.

February 23

Academic Lecture Series

Richard L. Price Auditorium, 7-9 p.m.

February 25

Undergraduate Research Faculty Talk

Landes Auditorium 3:30-5 p.m.

3

OPINION

UNIVERSITY PRESS February 4, 2016

‘Star Wars’ –– Then and Now The force awakens positive reviews from audience “Star Wars.” It’s a title that began a long, long time ago.

With “Episode IV: A New Hope” being released in 1977, long-standing box office records were made, and viewers’ hearts had since secured a spot for the growing sciencefiction narrative. Following this success, “Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back” was released three years later, and again with “Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.” These form what is known as the original trilogy. Sixteen years later, the prequel trilogy, episodes I, II, and III, made their debut.

Unlike the overall positive reviews of the original, this trilogy received far more mixed opinions. With the premiere of “Episode VII: The Force Awakens,” fans rejoiced, feeling optimistic to see “Star Wars” finally making its cinematic comeback.

Despite how it would com-

Commentary

Trevier Gonzalez UP staff writer

pare to the original, members of LU agree that while many of the original elements still exist, Episode VII is different, and that isn’t a bad thing.

“There’s a line from the director John Carpenter that said when people see a sequel, they don’t want to see a different movie,” Steven Zani, LU director of faculty development, said. “They want to see the same movie. The interesting element of that is any sequel has to play this very fine line of addressing the joys in hopes of the previous film and yet doing something new enough.”

Nicki Michalski, associate professor in the communication department, said seeing the original cast together, brought about a great feeling, while also being believable.

“I wanted so much to see Han and Leia together,” she said. “I was sad to see that they had been broken up, but it had a truth to it. It felt like a real sort of thing — even great romances don’t always last forever.”

When discussing the diverse cast, Zani said the series has always been a multicultural narrative.

“What you have is gigantic collectives of people coming together of different bodies and shapes and colors, all working on the same team on the good guys’ side as opposed

to fairly innocuous, uniformed monolithic enemies like allwhite Stormtroopers,” he said.

“If that was always a message tucked in the beginning, here we have it even more laid out again, but with this sort of black protagonist where the beauty of it is how it is not explicitly mentioned. It’s simply not even talked about as an issue because it’s irrelevant.”

Nathan Paine, San Antonio sophomore who is majoring in film, said that with the antagonist Kylo Ren, we have a villain that “doesn’t even know what he’s about.”

“When you think about it, you can’t come out of the gate for the first time in 40 years and have a villain that’s better than Darth Vader, who’s arguably one of the best villains ever created for the silver screen,” he said. “We also get to see the villain take their own journey throughout the films, and I think that’s smart because then you get to build yourself a bad guy.”

Michalski, who loved seeing the character R2-D2, discussed how introducing a new droid affected the film.

“They sort of kept that same energy by creating BB-8,” she said. “Everybody can look at BB-8 and go, ‘Well, they were trying to get another R2-D2,’ and you can see that.’ But he was his own character, and had his own energy and he had

his own personality — which is kind of funny to say about a droid.”

When Episode VII was being filmed, Paine said that lenses from the original trilogy were used to capture the good guys, providing a familiar, soft appearance. On the other hand, the bad guys were filmed with cameras that were equipped with new lenses that gave off a harsher, cool image.

“What it ends up doing is creating emotion,” he said.

“The images that you’re looking at when you see the good guys are warmer and it sort of messes with your mind. The attention to detail that they use when doing things like that, it really made me — especially as a film major who wants to one day be using techniques like this — I was like, ‘Bravo, guys. You’re paying attention.’”

Zani compares the issue of ‘“Star Wars” sequels to “Watchmen,” a comic book series he had read in his lateteens.

“It was an extraordinary impact on me, and so part of my revelation is — I know this film can’t do that again,” he said. “I’m no longer 18, so I shouldn’t put the burden on the feeling of having to live up to these sets of thoughts and I was trying to do that with ‘Star Wars’ — not let this film need to have to be this thing that I wanted to be.”

Paine said that the film created a masterful setup for something memorable.

“The potential for VIII and IX is huge,” he said. “If they do it right, Episode VIII could be one of the greatest movies of all time. Might even top Empire Strikes Back, who knows?

I’m excited.”

UPeditorial

Stinging with guilt

Crisis response needs awareness, management

Print control software shames users

Last Thursday, Marshall Middle School closed following a carbon monoxide leak that hospitalized at least 179 students and staff members.

A week before this incident caught national attention, Lamar evacuated campus after ExxonMobil refinery’s power outage led to activated flames that exceeded above normal flare stacks.

These two recent events prove a valuable lesson — crisis can strike at any moment.

Whether an administrator or a student, we can all improve our emergency response. Here are a few things that we can do when facing urgent situations.

First, don’t panic. It’s easy to fall into a, “The sky is falling!” mode (or if you’re a Southeast Texan, “The refinery is exploding!”), but this reaction only leads to additional complications. Hysteria clouds judgment and places emotions instead of logic at the forefront.

Conversely, don’t downplay the situation. When a situation is uncomfortable and the outcome is unknown, people tend to ignore the problem and hope it resolves itself. However, we should take emergency matters seriously and act accordingly to directions from first responders such as law enforcement.

It is important to remember that there is a lot we are not aware of at any given time in an emergency. This is good and bad. The situation can be much worse or much better than we know. To stay informed and calm, we depend on emergency responders. First responders give information on a need-to-know basis to avoid causing unnecessary fright. It is their job to keep the public safe and informed.

Also, there are many forms of assistance available during an emergency. City officials are available via telephone to respond to concerns. The local police department posts press releases on their website, and the campus police department has a MyPD app that sends notifications to the community.

Although we never know when disaster is around the corner, if we utilize our crisis management resources and follow emergency responders’ orders, we can be prepared for the occasion.

Editor ......................................Grant Crawford Managing Editor.................Kara Timberlake Photo Editor ...................................Josh Aych Web Editor..............................Melissa Conley Staff ..............Desmond Pickens, Haley Bruyn, .....................Coty Davis, Trevier Gonzalez, ...................Tim Collins, Elizabeth Grimm, .............Carolyn Kondos, Kyle Swearingen, .....................................Brandianne Hinton Advertising .............................Melissa Conley Office Manager.................Jac’Quor Williams

Lamar University kills 40 trees every year, and if you print anything, you’re part of the problem.

The ability to print is impressive in the grand scheme of things, and if you’ve ever made a run to the library, you know it’s not something we take for granted.

We could complain over the occasional, abnormally long waittimes we put ourselves through to print a single document, or some other first-world problem, but waiting isn’t the issue. You see, I’m tired of being guilted.

For those who don’t camp out in the library, the process of printing any document is done through PaperCut, a program that acts similar to the overprotective big brother you never wanted.

There are three real points that the software company outlines on their homepage, sort of as their mission statement.

Within it, they say the program is designed to “track and control usage and behavior, securely print documents, and eliminate paper waste.”

We could argue that if a program is tracking your usage and

Commentary

Trevier Gonzalez UP staff writer

Letters Policy

behavior, that it’s probably not all that secure, but seeing as I’m not planning to print anything too incriminating throughout my college career, I suppose that will be OK. PaperCut’s idea of “eliminating” paper-wasting is making students jump hurdles when printing. If anyone’s tried to print multiple copies of the same document without paying to use a photocopier, you know what I’m talking about.

I’m not so much trying to downtalk the company as I am trying to understand why colleges would choose it as a platform. I mean, I’ve accepted that color printing is simply a myth, and that’s OK. Plus, grayscale isn’t all that bad, right?

Individuals who wish to speak out on issues should send a letter fewer than 400 words in length to Letters to the Editor, P.O. Box 10055, Beaumont, TX 77710, or drop letters off at our office in 200 Setzer Student Center. The writer’s name, address, telephone number and ID number must accompany each letter. Letters received without this information cannot be printed. Letters may be edited for length, grammar, style and possible libel.

Opinions expressed in letters are not necessarily those of the UP student management. Letters by the same writer on the same subject will not be published. Poetry and religious debates will not be published.

What gets to me is when we go back to the “track and control usage and behavior” outlined by PaperCut. As cool and edgy as this line sounds, it just means that our prints are counted and remembered. After this, however many pages we print are entered into a ridiculous algorithm, only to get more numbers shot into our face.

And if you have this much time on your hands, much like my friend Tippett who showed it to me, you can also navigate over to the “Environmental Impact” label, complete with cute icons that highlight just how badly you’re negatively impacting the world. So go See PRINT page 6 The opinions that appear in editorials are the official views of the University Press student management as determined by the UP Student Editorial Board. Opinions expressed elsewhere on this page are the views of the writers only and are not necessarily those of the University Press student management. Student opinions are not necessarily those of the university administration. ©University Press 2016

Page 4

Thursday, February 4, 2016 • UNIVERSITY PRESS

Deadline for Japan trip is Friday Prateek Sharma UP contributor Lamar University has developed a new study abroad program with Yasuda University in Hiroshima, Japan, to explore the country’s historical and cultural relationship with the United States post World War II. The program is scheduled for July 5-19. Students will spend the first week of their trip in Hiroshima and move on from there to Kyoto and Tokyo.

Amy Smith, associate professor of English and Modern Languages, is co-heading the program and will accompany the students to Japan.

Smith said the trip is a unique learning experience for the students, given the country’s rich cultural background.

“When we think about America’s place in the world, thinking about Japan offers a unique perspective on that,” she said. “When you travel, you get a different perspective on things you have thought about for a long time — some of your assumptions are challenged.

“So we are going to spend a week in Hiroshima, and during that time we will be with an historian and look at World War II history, talk about the atomic bombings, talk about the complexity of Japan in World War II and our relations with it.”

Smith said she thinks Japan will be interesting and useful to students because of its unique history with the United States.

“In another aspect, we will be looking at the ways Japan is so different, its long cultural history going back thousands of years — the traditions, the religions, the viewpoints, the art, the food, getting a sense of how diverse human experience is and human ways of organizing ourselves into society,” she said.

Students will be engaging in a variety of informative activities, including Japanese culture and arts.

Smith said that the detailed

Lamar’s study abroad program will take students to Japan this summer. The deadline to sign up is Friday. planning of all the activities of their schedule in Japan was a lot of work.

“The university we are working with has been very generous with us,” she said.

“We came to them with a small budget because our target was to keep the costs down for students as much as possible, and they have been able to offer a very comprehensive package for a small amount of money.”

Students will have arranged home stays, student conversation partners, and will be matched with other university students who are learning English.

“We will have cultural classes, field trips and language classes every single day of the first week,” Smith said. “So that will be a way we can kind of get our feet wet, get used to the language and the culture before we start traveling around. That will be a really helpful way of easing into it for us.”

Yasuko Sato, assistant history professor, will accompany Smith and the students to Japan. Sato has background and training in Japanese cul-

ture and will hold literature and history classes, including film representations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki history.

“Japan is an amazing country,” he said. “I strongly recommend Lamar students to visit Japan and explore the culture there.

“You get to learn both Asian and Contemporary culture side by side, so there is primitive culture on one hand and there is cutting-edge technology on the other harmoniously mixed up together and in that way it is such an interesting country. So there is something deeply fundamental and then there is also the flourishing of latest trends that is always trying to catch up.”

The study abroad group will spend their first week immersed in cultural and linguistic classes while also taking field trips around town. Smith said doing this will help them get accustomed to their new setting.

“When we are in Kyoto, we will go to the Geisha area,” Smith said. “We will see a Geisha show and visit a place

where you can see recreation of samurai. We will try and do all those iconic things, and then we will finish up by going to Tokyo and spend a few days in the ‘Other Japan.’”

Smith said she and Sato included a broad range of experiences for students who have a diversity of interests. Students will also get to interact with professors at Yasuda University.

Smith said that all activities are being planned in keeping with a budget-friendly system. One of the ways that this is being achieved is through fundraisers.

“The concern about costs has been one of the biggest barriers for our students,” she said.

“We sold tea for Christmas, and we are gearing up for a huge Valentine’s Day sale. Students can order candy sushi and fruit sushi until Feb. 8 by emailing their order to lamarjapan @gmail.com. We have been doing bake sales and other kinds of small fundraisers as well.”

Students paid for almost half of their expenses with

Courtesy photo

these fundraisers, Smith said.

The study abroad program is open to students of all majors.

Aric Lange, a Lamar English graduate student, is planning on making the trip and said he has plans of his own apart from the scheduled itinerary during his stay.

“I am hoping to walk to Mount Fuji,” he said. “I did the Camino de Santiago in Spain, a Catholic pilgrimage, although I am not religious. I even got some metal pins from when I was in Spain, and I have got this kind of fascination of walking through nature.”

Smith said that study abroad programs help students to take definitive highs from their travel experiences.

“I think that students gain a lot of confidence,” she said.

“They get a sense of the world being larger than their small town experiences, which I think we all have.”

The application deadline for the program is Friday.

For more information, contact amy.smith@lamar.edu or yasuko.sato@lamar.edu.

5

SUPER BOWL

UNIVERSITY PRESS February 4, 2016

Old vs. New Manning looks to go out on top while Cam creates own style

Millions of football fans around the world tune in to watch the Super Bowl every year, and usually not because their favorite team is playing in it. Drama is what draws us in — the highs and lows that each team experiences, so that we can merely attempt to experience it ourselves.

Analysts have debated all year on what teams would make it through the harsh regular season of the NFL, and eventually make it the big game. Out of 32 teams, the two franchises still standing are the Carolina Panthers and the Denver Broncos.

It’ll be the 50th Super Bowl, and the drama couldn’t be thicker.

The Panthers are headed by the likely MVP Cam Newton, who led the team to their best record ever, finishing 15-1 in the regular season. “Superman” Newton has already been assaulting the league record books this season, becoming the first player to ever throw for 30-plus touchdowns and rush for 10 in a regular season. He also tied legend Steve Young’s record for most career rushing touchdowns by a quarterback.

What’s im-

pressive about that, is that it took Young 15 seasons to reach that mark. Cam? It took him five. He’s the athlete that every team wants. He stands at 6’5”, weighing in at 245 pounds, and ran his 40-yard dash in 4.59 seconds. It’s safe to say that he’s not afraid to tuck the ball and run with it, and honestly, would you if you were that big? Not only does he have the speed, but he can sling the ball into any spot on the field, and with some mustard on it. He has the second highest completion percentage, and the highest yards per pass attempt.

Newton is known for becoming one of the more charismatic players in the league. After every touchdown he scores you’ll see a dance, a young fan in the crowd get a game ball, and of course the infamous “dab” while all of America smiles on. He’s caught some major grief for all of this.

During one game this season, a referee even tried to stop Newton from handing out a ball to a lucky kid. Also, it seems some people just don’t like the dancing, even though every other player in the NFL will do a quick jig after they make a tackle. Basically, he’s the most exciting player in football, and for those who haven’t realized it, he’ll be one of the greatest to do it when he’s done. Oh yea, and he’s only 26.

It’s tough to say who actually

Text, layout and illustrations

by Grant Crawford

leads the Broncos. While their captain is Peyton Manning, the real leaders of this team are the defense. I’ve been watching football a long time, and the Bronco’s defense might be the best I’ve ever seen. They’re absolutely stacked on defense.

With future hall of famers Demarcus Ware and Von Miller on the defensive ends, they’re capable of putting pressure on opposing quarterbacks essentially every down.

While they attack the quarterback, defensive coordinator Wade Phillips can put his best two corners, Aqib Talib and Chris Harris, in man coverage.

Denver has given up the fewest yards this season, averaging 283 a game. Their defense is so solid, that if Donald Trump were to win president, he’d probably hire them to patrol our borders.

Don’t think for a second that Denver’s offense is dismissible.

They haven’t looked much like the team we saw two years ago make it to the Super Bowl.

Peyton Manning appears to have become more of a game manager, and has admitted to not having the same kind of throwing arm. But, if I could choose any game manager, it would have to be Peyton. For those who are counting, he has five regular-season MVP awards.

Take that Cam. The man is a wizard on the field, and frankly, a future legend. This will be his fourth Super Bowl, and because he’s lost two already, some say his legacy hangs in the balance on the outcome of this game. People will say he was a great quarterback, but couldn’t get the job done in the big games.

It’s hard to believe that such a fantastic 18-year career can be dwindled down into one game, but people don’t care about all the records he’s broken, they only care about the rings.

The two biggest stars in this year’s Super Bowl couldn’t be any more opposite. While Newton dances in the end-zone having the time of his life after a

UP STAFF PREDICTIONS Many people are saying that the Panthers will beat the Broncos, and I think I’ll jump on the bandwagon and agree with them. I haven’t kept up with many of the games personally, but from what I’ve read and discussed with others, I think it will come down to old quarterback verses new. The Broncos could very well surprise us, but I’m still going to stick with the Panthers and say the final score will be 24-17. They do say that defense wins championships, so maybe the Broncos will prove the majority in favor of the Panthers wrong.

It’s simple. Utilizing realistic logic determines the winner. Panthers are sly, but can also be fierce. A horse on the other hand, is a horse. And if you're not factoring in a saddle, then it is a clear, rock-cuts-paper situation.

Panthers 30, Broncos 20.

I think the Broncos are going to win, but I wasn’t even sure who was playing until last week. 24-18 sounds like a good football score. Yes, let’s go with that.

Brandianne Hinton

Elizabeth Grimm

Kara Timberlake

I’m torn between the Super Bowl 50 teams.

On the one hand, there is Peyton Manning, one of the best to ever play the game and shoo-in for the Hall of Fame. This could very well be his final game in the NFL. Then there is Cam Newton, one of the most polarizing figures in the NFL to date, mostly because he was doubted coming into the NFL, only to rise to the occasion and “dab” along the way. I like the fact that he never changed or compromised. Even after all the bad press and people talking down on him, he kept winning. I would like him to win as the final, “HAHA I WIN, You Lose” to all of his doubters, and haters. But, he’s young and has time to go back to more Super Bowls, which I am sure he will. So, come this Sunday, I have no idea who I will be rooting for. One of the best to ever play or the young gun who defies all expectations. I guess I’ll go with the Broncos, 24-21.

Josh Aych

Trevier Gonzalez

I predict that the Panthers will win Super Bowl 50, 24-20, not because I’m going to root for them, of course — I mean, who would root for a cat over a horse? Besides, I hate cats. I’m just going with the odds and the formal prediction of the Madden series because it has a good track record.

I think that the Broncos will take home the win. I feel as though Peyton Manning is going to redeem himself from Super Bowl XLVIII vs. the Seahawks. Peyton Manning and the Broncos will walk away with the Lombardi Trophy. The Broncos are the underdogs of Superbowl 50 and will prove it doesn’t matter this Sunday against Cam Newton’s Panthers. Final score, 35-28.

Cade Smith

They say defense wins championships and the Denver Broncos have possessed the league’s best defense all season. Although I’m a fan of Carolina Panthers’ quarterback Cam Newton, I predict a 27-21 victory for the Broncos. If Denver can defend Newton the same way they defended Tom Brady during the AFC Championship game, the Panthers will have no chance of winning. Besides, how nice will it be to see Peyton Manning end his career as a Super Bowl champion? Cementing his legacy as an all-time great.

Coty Davis

touchdown, Manning almost looks sad when he walks off the field, barely pumping his fist.

Both players have had crazy careers thus far. They were both bred to be quarterbacks from an early age, coming from NFL families.

Newton was just graduating high school when Manning won his first Championship, while playing with the Colts. Newton had an unsuccessful stint at Florida University his freshman year in 2007, and Manning was forced to watch his little brother Eli competing in the Super Bowl instead of him.

In 2008, Newton played for Blinn College, yes you read that correctly, and Manning was busy winning his third MVP award. By 2010, Manning had just lost to the Jets in the playoffs, and Newton had just wrapped up his college career after moving to Auburn with a Heisman Trophy and an NCAA Championship (two things Manning never won).

Yes, the two have had tough roads to get where they are today, and the 50th Super Bowl couldn’t be a more fitting game to have both of these guys in.

NFL fans get to see a new generation of players arrive (Newton), while watching older generations leave us crying (Manning).

If you want drama, Super Bowl 50 delivers.

Now, on to my prediction.

The favorites to win are the Panthers. They’ve had a tremendous season and deserve to have gotten this far. Carolina’s defense is without a doubt strong,

but the Broncos’ D is scary. It will be interesting to see if they can contain Newton, though, who is particularly elusive. Not to mention they have a tricky running game that involves read options and quarterback draws.

Meanwhile, Denver has reason to be concerned with their offense after a trying season of injuries and quarterback controversies. The team has quality receivers on the outside in Demaryius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders, though, and if Peyton can get them some quick throws where they can get out in space, Carolina will have a tough time wrapping them up. But, in order for Denver to win they’ll absolutely have to have a balanced attack — Peyton can’t throw his wobbly passes every down.

This is where CJ Anderson and Ronnie Hillman come in. If the running back duo can break some tackles, it will help open up the passing game more, that way Peyton can get the ball to his speedy receivers. Two years ago I predicted that Manning would go on to beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl — they lost 43-8. That Seahawks team had a great defense, though, while Manning’s team was there because of his offensive production.

This year, it’s the other way around. The Broncos are there because of the defense’s ability to get stops. So as the saying goes, defense wins championships.

Therefore I’ll take the Broncos over the Panthers, 24-21.

UP Trivia

Each week the University Press staff will compile a series of questions related to the week in history.

How will you do? This week’s questions are all about the big game. Answers are posted below.

1. What teams played in the first Super Bowl in 1967?

2. Who holds the record for the most yards receiving in one game?

3. Who holds the record for the most rushing TDs in a single game?

4. Who has the longest run from scrimmage?

5. Who has the longest interception return in Super Bowl history?

6. Who has the most career rushing yards in the Super Bowl?

7. Who has the most career all-purpose yards?

8. Who has the most passing yardage in a single game?

9. Which team has appeared in the most Super Bowls?

10. Who was the first African-American coach to win a Super Bowl?

Trivia Answers

1. Green Bay Packers v.s. Kansas City Chiefs. Packers beat Chiefs 35-10.

2. Jerry Rice had 215 yards on 11 catches for San Francisco in 1989.

3. Terrell Davis of the Denver Broncos scored three rushing touchdowns in Super Bowl XXXII (1998).

4. Willy Parker of the Pittsburg Steelers had a 75-yard run in Super Bowl XL (2006).

5. James Harrison of the Pittsburg Steelers had a 100-yard return in Super Bowl XLIII (2009).

6. Franco Harris rushed for 354-yards in four Super Bowl games for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

7. Jerry Rice has 527 all-purpose yards in three games for the 49ers.

8. Kurt Warner passed 414-yards in Super Bowl XXXIV (2000) for the Rams.

9. The Dallas Cowboys and the Pittsburgh Steelers each have eight appearances (Steelers are 6-2 and the Cowboys are 5-3).

10. Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts won Super Bowl XLI (2007) against the Chicago Bears, coached by Lovie Smith, also an AfricanAmerican – the first black coaches in Super Bowl history.

Page 6

Thursday, February 4, 2016 • UNIVERSITY PRESS

TRAVELING POSTER MAN Josh Aych UP photo editor Students walking into the Setzer Student Center this week are being greeted with an unfamiliar sight.

Hundreds of posters, ranging from superheroes to musicians to re-creations of famous paintings, are on display.

“We’ve been coming to Lamar University for 35 years,” Ross Robinson, owner of Ross Robinson Poster Sale, said. “We go one week to each university over the whole United States. Right now we’re working in Texas because it’s not cold.”

Robinson said he owns the world’s largest display of posters for home décor and he has a diverse array.

“We have ‘Star Wars,’ and all the other movie posters,” he said. “Then we have Japanese animation like ‘One Piece,’ ‘Naruto,’ and ‘Dragon Ball Z.’ We have Joker pictures and Batman, Superman, and SpiderMan. “We have prints of the greatest paintings from the last 1,000 years.

We have travel posters from tourist destinations around the world, and we have wild animal pictures. Then, we have pictures of African-American art and history.”

Robinson purchases the posters from various vendors around the world.

“We order pictures from Bangkok, Thailand, Brazil, and South Africa,” he said. “We buy them from all over Europe and America and China.”

Robinson said he pays attention to what is currently popular so he can maximize his profits.

“I have made a careful study of what’s a big hit and what isn’t,” he said. “These are the big hits. This is the biggest accumulation of pictures, anywhere in the world.”

Ross Robinson shows off his display in the Setzer Student Center, Tuesday.

Robinson got into the business of traveling poster sales after owning a record store in New York City.

“The record store was averaging $500 a day,” he said. “I took the records to Lehigh University and on the very first day I was there, they sold over $2,000. I closed up my record store and took the records on a national tour of universities.”

Robinson said he added posters to his tour, eventually phasing out the LPs because his records became too cumbersome to carry, as they weighed 10,000 pounds.

Moving from school to school helps Robinson maintain his profits.

“If you stay in one place, business slows down,” he said. “But if the store only comes someplace once a year, then the people go crazy for a week.

So it’s better to keep on moving.”

UP photos by Josh Aych

Robinson said he has been to more than 750 schools and universities.

On Monday, Robinson said he made over $1,000, a new record for his sales at Lamar.

“Hundreds of dollars go to the students activities office,” he said.

Kiet Le, associate director of student activities and civic engagement, said the funds go to Lamar Alive! to help host events throughout the year.

Robinson said he plans to continue traveling the country selling posters for as long as he can.

“When you get to be 77 years old, you just have to go week by week,” he said. “You don’t know for sure when your body will be able to handle it and when it can’t, but so far, I can handle it.”

LU earns honorable delegation at model UN representing other nations is also required.

“You work with delegates representing other countries Every year, The Central and your goal is to draft resoTexas Model United Nations lutions and work with one anholds a conference and during other to get your countries Jan. 15-17 in Austin, the LU interests into those resolumodel nations received the tions,” Nicholson said. title of “honorable delegation” The Model U.N. may seem for their portrayal of Venezuela like a giant competition of soby the Osgood Center for Incial interaction and persuasion, ternational Studies. however, the idea of winners “The class is a chance for us and losers does not really exist to emulate the delegations of in the model U.N. circuit.

“As far as Model U.N. in general, no one really wins,” Nicholson said. “You just have to be honest with yourself as to whether or not your country was fairly represented and if their voice was heard and at this past conference we definitely were.”

Model U.N. may primarily rely on political science knowledge however it also takes a ability to retain character and performance till the end.

“You will see the best players, the best delegations. They really do emulate the interest of their country. (As) easy as it is to say, ‘Of course, we can give you money Afghanistan,’ is that in their interest? — probably not,” Nicholson said.

“You have to realize that there Alejandro Guadian, left, Savannah Parfait, Dillon Nicholson and Nathan Henry of Lamar’s Model U.N. team sit at the dais in- are some concessions to be side of the House Foreign Affairs Committee room in the Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. Courtesy photo made and we learned that from Kyle Swearingen UP staff writer

PRINT

various committees of the United Nations,” Dillon Nicholson, Port Arthur senior, said. “From security council to ECOSOC and UNESCO, try to take care of certain issues and working with each other and different countries to solve those problems such as nuclear proliferation.”

The Model U.N. offers the opportunity for students to learn teamwork and objectivebased socialization.

“The model U.N. at Lamar is helping students who might not have a great knowledge of international relations or students who do and want a real life feel of how diplomatic processes work and it allows us to not only research governments but also work as a team,” Tara Hoch, Beaumont sophomore, said.

Team work doesn’t stop at your own delegation. Working with other delegates who are

of how the program is designed to “inform the public about how we affect our environment,” but even then, I’m still not buying it.

Despite the green logo, I don’t see anything completely revolutionary that actually saves paper. By informing the public about a process that we — especially as college students — literally have no choice in, we’re not “eliminating paper waste,” we’re just making life harder.

Still, we can’t ignore the facts. ForestEthics.org notes that paper consumption has increased, and does tie in to deforestation.

For more

perspective, the Rainforest Action Network mentions that even though the United States holds less than five percent of the world’s population, we consume more than 30 percent of the world’s paper supply.

I recall the rumors from last semester and how our prints would be reduced from 1,000 to 500. Honestly, I don’t know if that was actually a thing or not, but I remember when other students heard, they voiced their opinion and fought back.

It’s important to remember that, at the end of the day, you’re paying for this as a student. Whether it’s through a library or technology fee, I don’t

watching actual footage of delegations and committees in the U.N., learning the international policy of those more powerful countries, that way we can try to get on their good side. So it can be very manipulative, but also you are doing it for the sake of your country and for the sake of the people of that country.”

Even though there is no winner, it does not mean that the delegates’ efforts go unrecognized by the Model U.N. “There are divisions where delegations and committees are recognized,” Nicholson said. “There were three honorable delegations awarded at the conference. It was based on a combination of the writing skills through the position paper, of the delegation skills by debating and trying to work with other organizers, and then character skills, which is actually how well you represented your country. Three schools where chosen and those were TCU, Baylor and Lamar.”

The Lamar U.N. started in fall 2015 and has operated as three separate countries for two different conferences.

In March the Lamar Model U.N. will attend National Model United Nations conference in New York.

from page 3

ahead, feel free to take note of how many trees you’ve singlehandedly killed, how much CO2 you’ve pumped into the atmosphere, and how many hours of light you would’ve saved if you didn’t print in the first place.

This is where the problem comes in. I’m not a hippie, but at the same time I don’t hate the earth — I even recycle from time to time. But, when students are told this kind of information, what are we supposed to do? Is this an enticement to skip off from printing an assignment, or to use one’s own printer? If so, it’s ineffective.

I would expect a politically correct answer along the lines

really care. But we shouldn’t allow some program that boasts about being “green” and “economical,” when in reality it’s just overcomplicating things.

Making people feel partly responsible to the “destruction of the environment” is pretty rough, too. Anyone can gather numbers and shocking statistics to make you change your lifestyle. If someone told you that if you stopped reading altogether you’d get 20 more hours of sleep each week, would you do it? If you considered it, that’s OK. I enjoy sleep, too, but we have to realize that there are some things in life that we can’t go without and reading is one.

Being able to print? I think that’s pretty damn close.

When it comes down to it, it’s a service you’re paying for.

Students owe it to themselves to take advantage of not only something like printing, but anything around campus that even sounds appealing to them.

So print all you want, but try your best to refrain from printing a textbook. If that’s not possible, avoid doing it during the rush.

PaperCut might want us to believe that we’re monsters, but assuming we don’t eliminate recycling anytime soon, I still have some faith for the human race.

7

SPORTS

UNIVERSITY PRESS February 4, 2016

LU suffers last second loss Men’s basketball fall to Bearkats, 69-66 Coty Davis UP staff writer Before the start of the conference season, the Lamar Men’s basketball team lived up to their preseason expectations with a 9-4 start.

Since then, the Cardinals (2-8 SLC, 10-12 overall) have now lost eight of their last nine games. Their most recent 69-66 defeat came at the hands of the Sam Houston State Bearkats, Monday, in the Montagne Center.

“This may be the most frustrating loss of the season so far,” freshman forward Dorian Chatman, said. “As a team, knowing that we were right there for the win and to come up short in the last couple of seconds hurt more than anything.”

During the first half, it was the same old story for Lamar. LU committed several turnovers that converted into easy fastbreak buckets for the Bearkats, while shooting a 28.6 percent from the field.

“No one will be able to give a straight answer for our early struggles,” sophomore guard Kevin Booze, said. “We are probably the hardest practicing team in our conference, yet when we get to the game it’s just a slow start. It feels like a curse that’s hanging over the team.”

LU not only suffered offensively, but on the defensive end as well.

During the first half, the Cardinals

gave up 24 points in the paint, and allowed a few second chance buckets as they gave up nine offensive rebounds to the Bearkats.

Sam Houston State’s dominating low post presence came from their junior center Aurimas Majauskas from Lithuania.

During the first half, Majauskas scored 12 of his 17 points, and pulled down 6 rebounds helping the Bearkats take a 35-22 lead over the Cardinals.

“We did not come out ready to battle in the first half,” head coach Tic Price, said. “We did not give the effort we needed on the defensive end.”

The Bearkats came out in the second half hitting their first two of three shots from behind the arc, and pushed their halftime lead to 22 points.

With 14 minutes remaining in the second half, Price made some defensive adjustments which allowed the Cardinals to begin their comeback.

The Cardinals’ intensity picked up on the defensive end as they forced the Bearkats to commit 12 turnovers due to their full court press defense.

“Our guys did a good job with their traps and rotations,” Price said.

“It allowed us to disrupt their offense, and force them to commit turnovers, which converted to easy fastbreak points for us.”

Price said the Cards’ full court press changed the complicity of the

game. The Cardinals scored 22 points off turnovers and came within one point in the final seconds.

With seven seconds remaining, the Bearkats hit two shots from the charity stripe. This gave the Cardinals one last hope to complete one of the biggest comebacks in school history.

With one last look at the basket, Booze’s three-point attempt bounced off the back iron as time expired in regulation.

“We thought they were going to deny the ball and we had a couple of screens to provide Nick (Garth) with the last second shot, but they did not play the way we anticipated,” Booze said. “With the ball in my hands as time expired, I tried to provide the bucket we needed.”

Lamar was led by their freshmen players Dorian Chatman, guard Nick Garth, and forward, Josh Nzeakor, who all contributed 12 points each in the Cardinals loss.

“Right now this loss is more mental than anything,” Price said. “After you lose so many games, it becomes fragile to the team. I keep telling my team this is life. It’s 10 percent of what happens to you, and 90 percent how you handle adversity when it arises. This loss is nothing short than a life lesson.”

The Cardinals will return to action Saturday when they take on Incarnate Word, in the Montagne Center.

Tip off is at 4:30 p.m.

UP Josh Aych

Freshman Nick Garth takes a shot during LU’s 69-66 loss to Sam Houston State in the Montagne Center, Monday.

Lady Cards look for payback against ACU Grant Crawford UP editor The Lamar women’s basketball team will look for revenge when they face Abilene Christian University for a Southland Conference matchup in the Montagne Center, today. The Lady Cards fell to the Lady Wildcats 90-62 in Abilene, Saturday, making it the first loss to ACU in school history.

“We didn’t defend,” head coach Harmony said. “We let them beat us off the dribble, and when they beat us off the dribble they kicked it out — shot threes and just drained it.

We only had three kids play well — KD (Kiara Desamours), Chas (Chastadie Barrs) and Laka (Blache). The rest of them were nowhere, so for the majority of the game it was three on five.”

ACU shot 60 percent from the field (9-15) in the first half, including 50 percent from behind the three-point line (510). The victory for ACU extended the team’s winningstreak to 14 games and are currently 9-0 in the SLC (18-2 overall).

“ACU is a good, fundamentally sound team,” Harmony said. “We have them at our place this time, but we know it

Baileigh O’Dell shoots a floater during LU’s 78-76 loss to SHSU in the Montagne Center, Jan. 27.

UP Josh Aych

will be a challenge. We have to be tough for 40 minutes.”

Freshman Kiara Desamours led Lamar with a career-high 23 points in the two team’s last encounter. Following her was Laka Blache who recorded a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds, and Chastadie Barrs who also scored 12 points.

“Kiara, Chastadie and Laka are all starting to be consistent,” Harmony said. “Our future is bright, but you can’t beat a good team with just three players. We need everybody to play well.”

Harmony said she expects the team to play better, and show that they shouldn’t be losing to a team by nearly 30 points.

“I think they’re upset,” she said. “They know they got blown out. They need to react and say, ‘You’re not 30 points better than us.’ Our kids have to take ownership of how they played, and now they’re home with their own baskets, their own court, and they need to do better.”

To have a better performance this go-around, Harmony said that the squad’s defense will have to pick up.

“We went over their offense, we just need to stop them,” she said. “We’ve been working on our defense now — we’ll try to stop them from driving one

dribble, contain them, and not let them bring their shot up, because they’re great shooters.

We have a little more time to go over their plays. We’ll know what they’re running, and if we can keep our defender in front of us then it will make a big difference.”

The Lady Cards are now 4-6 in the conference (8-13 overall), which is very different from their previous two seasons — winning a regular-season championship in 2013-14 and finishing second in the league last year.

Harmony said she didn’t expect her team to be where they are at this point in the season, but she also didn’t expect her starting center, Kiandra Bowers, who had double-doubles all last year get injured and be out for the year.

“I think if she’s in the game, every game, we’re a different team,” she said. “She’s a great leader. When teams play us in a zone, she is a force in the middle that they really have to guard, so when they guard that, then we can kick it out to our post. If we don’t have that force in the middle that is legit, then they’re not really going to worry about our post game.”

The game against ACU will tipoff at 7 p.m.

“It’s just a matter of the girls stepping up and having pride,” Harmony said.

Football aquires new defensive coordinator Trey Haverty Elizabeth Grimm UP staff writer Gritty players tackling, bright stadium lights and the blur of a crowd in the stands, coaches see it all both on and off the field.

Trey Haverty, Lamar’s new defensive coordinator, wants to focus on improving the team and showing the fans why they come out each gameday.

“They want to see improvement,” he said in a phone interview. “The time that we’re here, we’re just coaches and I know sometimes people get caught up in this and that. And there’s been a lot of good coaches where things didn’t go the way that they hoped or vice versa.

“I hope to show improvement defensively and make a difference off field, if nobody will ever know

except us in here. Show improvement, stuff that people necessarily won’t see. That stuff matters to me and a lot of people on the staff — off the field issues with these kids.”

Before he was hired at Lamar, Haverty had in mind what he aspired to do for his next job.

“I don’t want to come off as though I had a million options because I did not,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to call a defense and a good friend of coach Woodard’s, Phil Bennett the defense coordinator at Baylor, has been very good to me.

“I told him what I wanted to do and we talked about it. And this was an avenue that we thought was a good stepping stone and there were no guarantees. He told me to go for it and he helped. Coach Woodard was

good enough to give me a chance, and from that standpoint, I don’t want to let him down.”

Unlike some believe, there’s much more that goes into coaching and it’s not the career many expect it to be.

“Make sure you want to do it,” he said. “Shadow somebody just to make sure. To a lot of people, coaching sounds fun but then you don’t realize the hours that go into it. It’s not just showing up for practice or showing up at eight.

“When one of your kids has something wrong with them academically or off the field you have to be there for them. There’s a lot more that goes into coaching than on the practice field, that’s a little part of it. You’re basically a father figure or a big brother, however you want to say it. You take these kids away from home and it’s the

Trey Haverty on the Texas Tech sidelines during a loss to LSU in the Texas Bowl. first time they’ve been away from home on our level, college kids and even high school kids.”

Haverty said that it’s a great profession to help kids and wants to see the players graduate and be successful.

“The sad thing is, the houses we walked into more than not, they need that — not all,” he said.

“A lot of them do. It’s something I

care about. Down the line, hopefully if I’m a good enough coach, one day I’ll have a microphone and I can try to address some issues that I’m passionate about that are going on with some of these kids.”

Knowing that he can make an impact on the player’s lives is a See Haverty page 8

Page 8

Thursday, February 4, 2016 • UNIVERSITY PRESS

Sci-Fi/Fantasy club caters to all tastes Haley Bruyn UP staff writer Lamar senior Caitlin Wheeland is half of the pair of students that formed the Science Fiction and Fantasy Club in 2015. As the president, she played an integral role in making the club what it is today “We thought it was strange that Lamar didn’t already have this club,” Wheeland said. “We were going to try to do a Harry Potter Fan Club, but we thought maybe that was too small of an idea, so we decided to expand on that. We like science fiction and fantasy, so we modeled it off of those ideas.”

Both Wheeland and her roommate, Devyn Coleman, were members of the Japanese Entertainment and Culture Club, but felt it didn’t embrace everything they were interested in, so they started their own club.

Wheeland said the club has a different focus for each meeting, and that it takes inspiration from its

HAVERTY

members.

“We vote on five different options,” she said.

“We use Facebook, and have our members elect anything that falls under science fiction and fantasy genres, like books, movies, music, comic books — anything.

“I want the members to be more involved, so we have them make suggestions and then present over it. Whoever suggested the winning topic has to make a presentation.”

New members may be hesitant at first, Wheeland said, but she and her fellow officers present at the first meeting of the semester to show newcomers what to expect.

“It’s very low key, very informal,” she said. “It’s the presenter showing why they liked the topic and why they suggested it, and why we should watch it, listen to it — it kind of expands people’s interest.

Some things that were suggested in the past were things I didn’t know about, and I’ve found some really cool TV shows

Lamar’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Club logo incorporates a dragon, a robot and a galaxy. to watch or video games to play.

“Our treasurer wanted to do the Youtube series ‘Bravest Warriors,’ which I haven’t heard of. It’s going to be fun for me because I get to let the treas-

urer take over and do the presentation, and I’ll learn something from it.”

Wheeland said she likes to bring a snack or treats to go along with her PowerPoint presentations, or a game modeled

after it.

“We had a Harry Potter meeting for the first meeting last spring, and we made our own wands — it was actually really cool,” she said.

Wheeland said the club

tries to organize an event every semester. Last fall they carpooled to the Renaissance Festival.

“This semester we’re trying to figure out what event we can go to that will still include everyone,” she said. “Whether it’s something that we put on ourselves or decide on through a voting process, we just want to make sure that it’s fun for everyone.”

Wheeland said the club is open to all students.

“If you have any inkling of a fancy for science fiction or fantasy, if you like to play card games, if you like to read, if you’re a movie buff, if you’re a Potterhead, if you’re in love with ‘Game of Thrones’ — anything — you can come to this club and enjoy it.”

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Club held its first meeting of the spring semester Tuesday.

The next meeting will be Feb. 16, at 6:30 p.m. in 107 Maes.

For more information, visit the club’s OrgSync page.

from page 7

bonus in his career, he said.

“I know it’s broad and semicorny, but you know it’s rewarding when you see a kid turn the corner and that could be athletically or off the field,” he said. “I don’t know if there’s one (memory) that sticks out. Obviously it’s fun when you put all this hard work in and you grind every day and you have the results on Saturday — it makes it worth it from an athletic standpoint.”

Haverty was born in Louisiana but grew up in Richardson, Texas — a small suburb north of Dallas. He spent his time playing sports — what-

ever happened to be in season.

At times, thinking he was Wayne Gretzky or playing basketball but then realizing he was too short and couldn’t shoot, then finding his success in football.

Haverty and his wife met at Texas Tech. A few years after college, they saw one another again and went on their first date. Together they have a son who will be three-years-old in April and a daughter that is nine-weeks-old.

Haverty said an important factor in staying family-oriented is being organized.

“In a lot of ways, they’re sin-

gle parents because you’re gone, especially during football season,” he said. “I think most spouses pick it up. I’ve been fortunate and a lot of coach’s wives are very supportive, when you do have time you try to make time to have family night or date night or whatever it is.”

One good way of spending time with his family is hanging around the house doing stuff around the house because you’re able to have quality time, he said.

One of the bigger stresses of the job is moving to a new location, Haverty said.

“When you have a family you

have to move them — sometimes that can be stressful,” he said.

“Finding a new house, getting a house sold — making sure where you’re moving to. When you’re taking a job in our business, you don’t always know. You could end up in Kansas or Iowa, not that anything’s wrong with that, but you just don’t know. I’ve been fortunate enough to stay in the South.”

Haverty said it’s important to focus on the present.

“Right now, it’s day by day,” he said. “I know that’s another politically correct answer but to move up in this profession, get

to the highest, whatever that is — move up the chain. Right now, all I’m thinking about is Lamar.

If you don’t do a good job at Lamar, moving up the ladder doesn’t happen.

“I hope to get to the top pinnacle, where the guys are in this business that are regarded as some of the best. Like anybody, that’s what I strive for. But that starts with getting Lamar better, starts with tomorrow morning and this afternoon — just staying nearsighted. If you start thinking about all that, little details don’t get done, and little details turn into one or two losses.”