February 25

WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015 | MACEANDCROWN.COM | Vol. 57, Issue 17

Men’s Basketball Defeats Louisiana Tech. C1

CLOSED

The intersection of 49th and Hampton Blvd covered in snow. Monday Feb. 16, 2015. Jason Kazi | MC

Winter Storm Octavia Brings Concerns, Complaints. A3 The Mace & Crown

@maceandcrown

@maceandcrown

A2

Face In The Mace Mace & Crown Staff : Sean Davis Editor-in-Chief editorinchief@maceandcrown.com

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2014| MACEANDCROWN.COM

Hashtag #ODU to see your face in the Mace.

Instagr a m

Brian Saunders Copy Editor briananthony93@gmail.com David Thornton News Editor news@maceandcrown.com Veronica Singer Arts & Entertainment Editor artsandentertainment@maceandcrown.com Nate Budryk Sports Editor & Distribution Manager nbudr001@odu.edu Zachary Chavis Photography Editor photo@maceandcrown.com Rashad McDowell Technology Editor technology@maceandcrown.com

Elijah Stewart Senior Graphic Designer estew010@odu.edu Jason Kazi Advertising and Business Manager advertising@maceandcrown.com Noah Young Digital Content Manager webmaster@maceandcrown.com Jugal Patel Digital Editor jpate016@odu.edu

Staff Writers: Alex Brooks Alyse Stanley Amy Poulter Jasmine Blackwell Jessica Perkins Josh Whitener Libby Marshall Michael High Matt O’Brien Symmion Moore

Staff Photographers: Dawit Samson Jason Kazi Joshua Boone Joshua Caudell Nicolas Nemtala Schyler Shafer Shamon Jones

Mace & Crown is a newspaper published by and written for the students of Old Dominion once a week throughout each semester and once in the summer. Originally founded in 1930 as the The High Hat, the paper became the Mace & Crown in 1961. The Mace & Crown is a primarily self-supporting newspaper, maintaining journalistic independence from the university.All views expressed in this collegiate paper are those of the author, not of the University, Mace & Crown, or the editors.

Phone: 757-683-3452 Advertising: 757-683-4773

T w it t er

NEWS

A3

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

For even more campus crime information, visit maceandcrown.com.

Crime Log Date/Time Reported

Location

Category

Disposition

02/10/2015, 10:39 PM

Larceny

Active

02/11/2015, 5:05 PM

Larceny

Active

Larceny

Active

Larceny

Active

Threatening bodily harm

Active

Larceny

Active

MGB

02/12/2015, 2:19 PM 02/12/2015, 4:06 PM 02/14/2015, 12:28 AM

1300 Block W 49th St

02/14/2015, 6:50 PM 02/15/2015, 10:46 AM

800 Block W 48th St

02/15/2015, 12:49 PM

The District

Larceny

Active

02/15/2015, 2:07 PM

Dominion House

Larceny

Active

Hit and Run – Property Damage

Active

For more details, visit maceandcrown.com

Top: Students enjoy their snow day in front of the Webb Center. Josh Caudell | M&C Bottom: 49th St. near the Webb Center was eerily quiet on Feb 16, 2015. Jason Kazi | M&C

Winter Storm Octavia Brings Concerns, Complaints Josh Whitener Assistant News Editor On Monday Feb. 16, Winter Storm Octavia moved across the Hampton Roads area, bringing with it several inches of snow and two days of cancelled classes and delays. ODU sent out an alert at 10:30 a.m. Monday morning alerting students and faculty that the campus would close at 4 p.m. By that time, snow flurries were giving way to steady snowfall around the Peninsula, dropping four to six inches in Norfolk overnight. Students were alerted close to 10 p.m.

Monday night that ODU would be closed Tuesday. The campus would remain closed until 11 a.m.

Thursday.

Students residing on campus were even concerned with the short walking distance to classes and expressed complaints about the lack of adequate plowing.

“The last two days they got the

plows and everything, but it’s still a pain for me to walk here from Gresham. All of our walkways haven’t been plowed, it’s just packed down ice slabs at this point,” Kyle Ericson said.

The main concern from students, even those living on campus, was the feasibility of commuters to get to campus. Many felt that campus should have remained closed Thursday instead of a delayed opening at 11 a.m.

Some were concerned about how they would get to classes even with an 11 a.m. delayed opening.

“The temperature really dropped and I feel like it was really icy out.

It’s dangerous because ODU has a lot of commuters so it’s dangerous for all those people to try and hurry up and get here. 11 o’clock is still early so nothing has melted by 11 o’clock,” Jasmine Belvin said.

Commuter students were irritated by a lack of cancellation Thursday after Wednesday night

The Mace & Crown

saw light snowfall and temperatures drop into the low teens, freezing most of the snow on the roadways from Monday.

Paige Zizzo, a Chesapeake resident, felt the university should have followed the lead of public schools and remained closed.

“I feel like if the public schools are closed then why not ODU,” Zizzo said.

Lauren Eklund, an ODU junior and commuter, explained the risks.

“I live three blocks over... the roads are terrible. They were completely icy and my roommate actually fell coming back from class yesterday. Her knees are badly bruised now,” Eklund said.

Some professors cancelled classes due to the record low temperatures on Friday.

“My teacher this morning [cancelled]. It wasn’t even about the ice it was just about the cold weather,” Eklund said.

@maceandcrown

@maceandcrown

A4

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

Petra Szonyegi

ODU Hosts State Model UN Conference Sara Fernandez Contributing Writer Despite the sudden snow fall, high school students from all over Virginia came together last week in Norfolk for the ODU Model United Nations Conference. The 38th ODUMUNC gave students the ability to deal with real world crises, challenged them to mediate arguments between nations and taught them valuable lessons about the law of unintended consequences.

Prof. Aaron Karp, Director and Faculty Sponsor, and Sean McGuffin, ODUMUNC Secretary-General, opened the conference with a few notes about what attendees could gain from the conference. Combining the characteristics of nations and the problems students face in their everyday lives, created many invariable lessons about cooperation and the importance of making decisions based on the interest of others around them.

Throughout the weekend, groups of students focused on their tasks to

work together representing countries, politicians and even a Powhatan Chiefdom. Crisis committees were split into historical or contemporary crises.

The historical scenarios were The Powhatan Chiefdom, in which students were asked to respond to the European settlement in 1606, and the Rise of the Cold War, where students discussed their responses to the rising Communist challenge starting in 1949 and into the 1950s.

The NATO Crisis allowed students to prevent changes that had already happened in the real world. Every action to implement change brought to mind the actual events of the Cold War. Participants found that by reminding themselves of what actually happened they could avoid the same mistakes. Thinking, however, proved different than agreeing.

In this historical crisis the room was bent on surrounding the USSR with nukes and creating more espionage agents to infiltrate and prevent the Soviet Union from building more

The Mace & Crown

nukes. While some disagreed, they were outnumbered by the hard driven “countries” around them.

The contemporary crisis was a model of the National Defense Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea supposedly held in November of 2014. This group of teenagers had to follow the characteristics and powers of their personas and discussed each motion as if they had the dictatorial leader Kim Jongun’s best intentions at heart.

With Korea’s differences in rule and the little known history of many of their leaders, students had to work with fragments of information. Throughout the weekend they planned and agreed upon the location, security, population, foreign interest and management of a nuclear attack.

They also discussed the recent rise of methamphetamine trafficking from China and even debated their response to the movie “The Interview.”

While there were many rules to the day-to-day decisions of the

@maceandcrown

Model UN, the crisis center takes a few of them in a different direction.

With their three goals in mind students tryed to make deals, gang up on decisions they didn’t wish to go through and ultimately try to stand out for their committee chair member Kimberly Ganczak.

While the crisis meetings were the most fluid, they didn’t compare in size to the general assembly meets in which students split into teams to best enact the positions of the entire world. These students had to tackle problems like cyberterrorism, human rights and nuclear pollution.

Countries were able to pass notes to other countries, form alliances, get support for their motions and grab the entire room’s attention when they wished for these motions to pass.

Even though this was their first year, Monique Ayers and Heather Tomlinson of Northampton High School were excited and prepared to show off all they had been practicing for since early October.

“We had to write position papers

@maceandcrown

for our groups. For each country we had three or four issues and we’d write papers about how our country reacts to certain things,” she said.

Monique described a mock situation she was told to handle.

“A journalist from America goes to Iran and gets captured, and we have to see how we can extract them without any casualties,” she said.

Real life, up-to-date situations are what keep high school students concious of how their lives and the events of today’s world affect everybody.

Students at the Model UN learn to understand those who have different backgrounds and histories as well as create realistic representations for the challenges the world faces every day.

A5

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

Bridging the Gap!

Students, Community Members Meet to Discuss Issues and Make Change David Thornton News Editor Building solidarity within Black communities while increasing productive communication between many diverse groups is the goal of one of the newest organization at ODU, Generation Forward. Their first event, “Bridging the Gap!,” was held on Feb. 19 and brought together students from ODU and Hampton University, along with members of the Hampton Roads community to discuss the changes they’d like to see, and how best to affect those changes.

“Before we do things in the community, we want to hear from the community,” Morgan Malone, an ODU senior and active member of Generation Forward, said.

Generation Forward traces its roots back to the #757Ferguson movement.

When Police Officer Darren Wilson was not indicted, Malone and other students took it upon themselves to organize a response in Hampton Roads. They led protests and discussion forums on campus, where students could open up about fears, issues and challenges faced by the Black

community both in Hampton Roads and at large.

Due largely to their extensive use of social media, the group gained traction quickly. As they grew, they began widening their scope, discussing some of the greater issues that underlie the cultural gaps and inequalities.

They began focusing on a strategic plan to bridge those gaps and change the conversations about those issues.

One challenge that was heavily discussed at the meeting was the negative media saturation that contributes to stereotypes and the devaluation of Black lives.

“Media has a way of skewing the narrative on black culture,” Armani Gladden, one of the event’s organizers and moderators, said.

Individuals discussed how positive media attention tends to be very general, while negative attention tends to be very personal. Speculations about lifestyle and allegations about unrelated misdeeds, such as the debate about whether or not Michael Brown stole cigars prior to being shot, tend to depersonalize and dehumanize victims.

Participants encouraged one an-

The Mace & Crown

other to be conscious of what they watch on television, listened to on the radio, and repost on social media, and try to provide and share more positive portrayals, stories and role models.

“I find it disheartening how we promote garbage before we promote good things,” Gladden said.

The group also discussed difficulties and stigmas faced when attempting to engage in conversations about race. Many agreed that people are uncomfortable with discussing race because they don’t want to appear racist. Some individuals discussed accusations of reverse-racism stemming from pro-black statements.

“Being pro-black does not make you anti-anything,” Monica Wright, another moderator, said.

“We’ve been told it’s not okay to rally around your culture, or build up your culture,” Gladden said.

Carl Wright, president of the Virginia Beach chapter of the NAACP, encouraged participants to persevere in raising these issues and having these discussions in the face of discomfort and stigma.

“We are not where we need to be… but this is a great start… because

@maceandcrown

people don’t want to talk about it,” Wright said.

Wright went on to discuss how racism is generally brought on by fear and ignorance, while others brought up the fact that racism generally involves denying members of a certain race money, power and resources.

“The system was not made for us,” Monica Wright said. “It did not fail us… it’s doing exactly what it was meant to do.”

To help combat institutional racism, Generation Forward is trying to discover untapped resources within the community.

One of the main ideas behind “bridging the gap” is connecting different age groups within the community in order to share resources and empower younger generations.

The idea is that college students can share knowledge, enthusiasm and access to institutional resources, while older members of the community can share experience, wisdom and historical context. Together, they can mentor younger generations to improve the future of the community.

Towards this end, Generation Forward is engaging in outreach to local

@maceandcrown

high schools in Norfolk, developing entrepreneurship programs and mentoring young students. Some members discussed their efforts to reach students whose plans for the future were limited to “basketball or the streets.”

Generation Forward is trying to change the perceptions of these children and teenagers who do not know that there are more options available to them. They encourage students to consider attending college or becoming entrepreneurs, owning local businesses and helping to build the community.

“We have got to take responsibility for our communities,” Wright said.

“The police are not responsible, the government is not responsible. We are responsible for our own actions.”

The group is also discussing becoming more active in local politics, joining election councils and attempting to influence the platforms of local candidates.

“The power is in our hands locally, if we allow it to be,” Malone said.

B1

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

Arts &

Visit maceandcrown.com for area concert photos and reviews.

E N T ER T A I NM E N T

UPCOMING EVENTS The NorVa

Chrysler Museum of Art

The Nighthawks – A Centennial Tribute to Muddy Waters Opening: The J.D. Silvia Band Saturday, Feb. 28 Doors open at 7 p.m., show starts at 8 p.m. $12.50 in advance, $15 at the door

Glass Studio Visiting Artist – Emilio Santini Master of classic Italian glassblowing Feb.26-Mar.1 Thursday – Saturday: 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. & 2:30 – 5 p.m.

Sunday: 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. – Narrated public demos daily at noon

Logic Opening: DJ Rhetorik and Michael Christmas Tuesday, Mar. 3 Doors open at 7 p.m., show starts at 8 p.m. $20 in advance, $25 at the door

Yoga in the Galleries Every Tuesday in March 8:45 – 9:45 a.m.

Open to all levels and free for Museum members

LIGHTS Opening: X Ambassadors Wednesday, Mar. 4 Doors open at 7 p.m., show starts at 8 p.m. $15 in advance, $18 at the door

ODU The Visual and Performing Arts Academy at Salem High School presents “Verve” On view until Mar. 8 ODU Virginia Beach Higher Education Center Free and open to the public The World Outside On view until Mar. 8 The Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries Free and open to the public Water Play Feb. 26-28 at 7:30 p.m.

The Goode Theatre $15 for students, $20 for general public For tickets visit oduartstix.com or call (757) 683-5305

Current Exhibitions: The Art of Video Games On view until May 10 Shooting Lincoln – Photography and the 16th President On view until July 5 Charlottes Web – Virtual Connections visualized in glass cameos On view until June 28

Sky Lantern Festival Feb. 27 at 7 p.m.

Kaufman Mall Throwback Movie Series: The Notebook Feb. 28 at 8 p.m.

MGB 102 ODU Brass Choir – Keyboard and Brass Mar. 1 from 4 – 5 p.m.

Thalia Lynn Baptist Church 4392 Virginia Beach Blvd., Virginia Beach, VA 23462 ODU’s Got Talent Auditions Mar. 4 from 7 – 8:30 p.m.

Virginia Beach Room

The Mace & Crown

@maceandcrown

@maceandcrown

B2

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

Opinion

Submit your letter to the editor or op-ed to sdavi116@odu.edu.

Letter from the Editor: On Apathy and Disengagement

Sean Davis Editor-in-Chief The Mace staff had a chance to visit the Newseum in Washington D.C. a few months ago. Besides the fact that it was largely a temple of the problematic media elite, a lot of it was really interesting.

The spire from the World Trade Center, a section of the Berlin Wall, the Unabomber’s cabin; they had it all.

One exhibit that really stuck with me was the Pulitzer Prize Photo Gallery, which went back 70 years.

It was one of the most disheartening and discouraging things I’ve ever seen – images of war, atrocity, brutality, victims, bullet holes, pain. It was a wall with a hundred little windows into the darkest fringes of human nature.

We actually celebrate the documentation of traumatic events that those involved would never want to relive, and that nobody else would want to learn of.

Only a sadist would find value in this, I thought.

In retrospect, this highlights an interesting sentiment, and one that I fear the vast majority of us identify with: political and social disengagement and apathy. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve heard people say “I don’t watch the news because it’s depressing.”

It’s as if we really think that “the world” is only just what we immediately experience; humanity only includes those we identify with. We think that if we can just look away and ignore the evil in the world, then it isn’t there.

In our supposedly enlightened society, hyper-nationalist and xenophobic rhetoric still dominates the airwaves. We have the ability to communicate and build relationships with each other in ways that were completely unfathomable just years ago, and yet far too often still think in terms of “us” and “them” or “other.”

Our generation was born with the greatest tools to communicate and learn and fix and change that have ever existed, and yet how many of us even vote? How many of us devote any amount of time to causes that matter?

I don’t think it’s our fault. We were born and raised by our parents’ generation to be proud of our near-perfect democracy and free society, but how many of us really feel like we have a meaningful voice? How many of us feel like if we don’t participate, if we just do nothing, then the world will be negatively affected?

Most of us can recite the preamble to the Constitution by heart, yet we never really grasped the notion that democracy requires participation.

In the back of our minds, we’ve all

just accepted that those with money and connections have power, and those with power aren’t going to give it up.

I’ve noticed that most young people, and people in general, have an immediate, irrational aversion to protest, to picket lines and people marching with signs, to deliberate tension with a message.

I think most of the time, we assume these actions are disingenuous. The protesters in front of the business or corporate headquarters are paid actors, or Al Gore tricked them, or they need to just get a job!

The default American lacks the empathy to be moved and to face the discomforting. We’ve hardened our hearts so as to get not get played. Our world is that of Ponzi schemes and identity thieves, of snake oil peddlers and cheeseburgers that never look or taste as good as the commercials.

Everybody is selling something, so we have to keep up our guard.

Again, this isn’t our fault. Our generation didn’t create this society, we were only born into it. Can we change it though? Is that crazy to ask?

I sat in on a discussion on race issues organized by Generation Forward last week. At one point the conversation arrived at the fact that many of us do care about issues like police impunity and racial injustice, but would never consider taking action based on that.

“That kind of thinking is engrained,” one of them suggested.

There’s some kind of axial disconnect between problem and solution.

How do we even begin to change this?

Our heroes and idols rarely use their elevated positions to advocate for anything other than products.

The corporate media frames debates in easy-to-digest ways that discard nuance and truth.

Our popular culture, which supposedly reflects our collective values, offers little of real value.

We weren’t raised by activists; at least the vast majority of us.

Progress challenges existing institutions and ways of doing things, so they didn’t teach us about activism and social change in the education system either.

We were taught that war brings progress. Our soldiers are our greatest heroes and protectors of freedoms.

I don’t mean to diminish the role and value of our armed service members and veterans, but to ignore the entire history of another group of people who put their lives on the line for their fellow man is to distort the truth.

Did war bring us the 40-hour workweek or end child labor? Was it soldiers that marched for women’s suffrage or get beaten for registering black people to vote in the South?

In our collective narrative, our national identity, we’ve largely left out the contributions of people that cared

and acted. We’ve taken for granted the entire history of labor movements, social justice movements, immigrants’ rights movements and collective actions for which we have so much to thank.

I was interviewing a then-very senior ODU Administrator about a year ago, and I asked him why the school doesn’t do more to be sustainable. His answer was simply that nobody was pressuring the administration to do anything.

It wasn’t that it was too expensive or controversial or hard. It was just that nobody cared enough…

It’s weird for me to say, but I’ve really found that in a lot of instances in college. There are so many incredible chances and opportunities that tragically few people take advantage of.

In a way, ODU is a microcosm of the world: We are all here to some degree for a relatively short amount of time, and we spend most of it worrying about trivial things and chasing the “college experience.”

Why work to improve a place if it’s only temporarily your home? Why worry about major problems if you don’t have to? Life is too short to cause a stir or make enemies, right?

Let’s party!

In reality, more so than any other time in our lives, this is the time to do something that matters. (continued D1)

Allyship ODU: Be Open to Others’ Opinions

Katherine Best Guest Columnist

“Today we’re going to talk about race.” Those were the last words I expected to hear from my Introduction to Women Studies professor, Dr. Vaughan Frederick. It was November 25, 2014 and many peoples’ hearts were heavy on that day.

This was because a Ferguson grand jury decided not to indict Officer Darren Wilson in the death of black teenager Mike Brown.

Before the discussion started, she made it clear that if anyone was uncomfortable with this topic, then they didn’t have to participate in the discussion. But, for those who wanted to discuss it, the floor was theirs. She started by simply going around the room, asking everyone individually if they had heard about the Mike Brown incident. It surprised me that several people in the room were not aware of what happened in this case. As someone who stays abreast of current af-

fairs, I became aware of, and had been following, the story since August 9, 2014, the day Mike Brown was shot and killed.

The conversation started off a little awkward. I think some people were afraid to speak their mind and share their true feelings about the issue.

By the end of the class, however, just about everyone in the classroom had spoken and shared their thoughts.

This is an issue that hits very close to home for me because Mike Brown could have been my brother, my cousin, or my uncle. As a black woman in America, police brutality is something that I have been aware of and heard stories about since I was a little girl. I’ve listened in on my adult family members tell my young male family members what to do, and what not to do, if approached by a police officer.

So, this has always been a subject that has always been very near and dear to my heart. My sentiments toward this topic have usually only been shared with other people in the Black com-

The Mace & Crown

munity. However, that changed in Dr. Vaughan’s class on that day. It genuinely warmed my heart that I was able to have such an open and honest discussion inside a classroom filled with people who didn’t all look like me or didn’t come from the same background.

Diversity is something that I truly appreciate. Seeing people from different backgrounds, and of different races, come together to support one another is something that I have grown to admire, respect, and applaud. There was a Blackout event in front of the Webb Center on December 4 that I attended along with my professor and a few of my classmates.

The event was held on the day after a Staten Island grand jury chose not to indict any of the officers who stood idly by and witnessed the chokehold death of Eric Garner.

Standing out on Kaufman Mall alongside people of different backgrounds was a very powerful, lifechanging, experience for me.

@maceandcrown

After the event ended, we had class and again we shared our feelings about these recent events and how we felt race played into the outcomes. I found that through these discussions it made everyone in the classroom more comfortable with, and appreciative of, one another.

Personally, I wasn’t someone who routinely volunteered my opinion in any class. But I found myself looking forward to attending this class just so I could share my opinion and hear the opinions of my peers.

It genuinely makes a difference when you feel safe enough to share your feelings and thoughts, and know that you won’t be judged or attacked for your opinion. That’s the kind of space that Dr. Vaughan and my classmates created inside of our classroom.

We had several tough conversations inside the classroom, and I can’t remember one time when someone disrespected or was condescending towards someone else. It’s important to have a place outside of your regular

@maceandcrown

circle where you can have tough conversations about real-world situations and life’s challenges. I find that you learn a lot from people who don’t have the same views and who don’t think like you.

Going a step further, when you have people of different socioeconomic or ethnic backgrounds stand beside you and support causes that affect you, you’re experiencing allyship.

I believe that I experienced true allyship in Dr. Vaughan’s Introduction to Women’s Studies class last semester and I’m eternally thankful to her and my classmates. *** AllyshipODU is a series by ODU students for the campus community that illustrates how people from diverse social identities can support one another in addressing issues of inclusivity and equity. If you would like to contribute to this series, or have questions, please email sec@ odu.edu.

C1

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

Sports

For updated Monarch sports coverage, visit maceandcrown.com.

Ambrose Mosley bumps chests with Bulldogs player Jacob I. Boykins on Feb. 21, 2015. Josh Boone | MC

Monarchs Bully Bulldogs, Get Much-needed Conference Win Nate Budryk Sports Editor The Old Dominion Monarchs were not intimidated by the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs, who came into the Ted Constant Convocation Center on Saturday afternoon sitting at first place in Conference USA with a record of 12-2. ODU was able to get the convincing win, by a score of 72-53.

With the win, Old Dominion moves to 20-6 on the year, with a 9-5 record in conference.

The Monarchs scored the first 11 points of the game, eventually going up by a score of 20-4 at one point, as ODU’s defense stifled the offensive attack of head coach Mike White’s La. Tech Bulldogs.

“Old Dominion was absolutely terrific. I thought the arena was electric a few times and it was definitely a factor. More of a factor was Jeff [Jones] and Old Dominion and how they defended us, how they executed on offense and the poise and toughness that they played with,” said White.

Responsible for the Ted’s aforementioned electricity was the 8,019 sixth Monarchs who made the trip to see ODU’s toughest conference test yet, with a couple more to go as the Monarchs come down the home stretch.

“Great win for our program,” said ODU head coach Jeff Jones. “The guys really responded, and it was fun for me to watch them and how hard they played for the whole game…It’s

The Mace & Crown

been a while since we’ve played like that. We need to figure out a way we can bottle it up and get it about four more times here in the next couple weeks.”

Junior guard Trey Freeman led all scorers with 27 points on 9 of 15 shooting, and contributed seven rebounds. Denzell Taylor, starting in place of Richard Ross, led the team with nine rebounds. Aaron Bacote also chipped in ten points.

Raheem Appleby led La. Tech’s scorers with 10. Michale Kyser and Erik McCree also chipped in nine apiece.

Energy was key not only from the sixth Monarchs but also from Monarchs 1-5.

“I just think we had a lot of energy.

@maceandcrown

Last game, I feel like we dozed off a bit in the second half, so [today] everybody was real energetic and everybody was upbeat so we’re just having fun out there and just playing.

It reminded me of the VCU game. We were flying around, energized and ready to go,” said Freeman.

Bacote thought that the win was the Monarchs’ most complete victory since their early-season trouncing of powerhouse VCU. “It was definitely a big win. [We] played well on defense…got out in transition, were able to get some easy baskets. [We] started out fast, and overall it was just a good game.”

The win was undoubtedly a complete one, as ODU got back to its trademark defense, La. Tech man-

@maceandcrown

aged to shoot a meager 32 percent from the field, and only 12 percent from beyond the three-point line.

Additionally, that stingy Monarch defense held the Bulldogs to twenty points less than their season average.

Granted, the win was at home, a place where the Monarchs have had no trouble winning whatsoever. The hope is that a win against the conference’s top dog will give ODU confidence as they close in on the Conference USA tournament in Birmingham. Fans of the Monarchs hope their energetic and loose play can continue, as it has been a winning formula so far, and perhaps can continue all the way to March.

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

Aaron Bacote celebrates with Jordan Baker on Feb. 21, 2015. Josh Boone | MC

The Mace & Crown

@maceandcrown

@maceandcrown

C2

D1

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

Technology

Visit maceandcrown.com for video game reviews and more.

Wikipedia

The TVs are Listening Rashad McDowell Technology Editor This past week’s snow was the perfect time for students and their families to snuggle in on the sofa and bond over television. Freed from the insanity of school and work, they could finally enjoy that nice Samsung Smart TV that Santa dropped off for Christmas. What could possibly ruin such a great time? Well maybe the fact that the TV might be listening to every word said in front of it.

In the privacy policy for their Smart TVs, Samsung made it clear

to customers not to discuss personal details in front of the set.

Each Smart TV comes equipped with voice recognition software that allows for voice commands. When active, the set will constantly “listen in” on anything said around it. This opens the door for the set to then share information with Samsung and third party companies.

This policy was brought to the public’s attention in a story by the Daily Beast on Feb. 5. Following the story, the Electronic Frontier Foundation began circulating the policy all over Twitter, with obligatory Big Brother

references.

“Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through the use of Voice Recognition,” the final line of the voice recognition policy warns.

Comparisons have been made to the telescreens from George Orwell’s “1984.”

The third party in question is Nuance, who handles the speech to text aspect of the voice commands. Samsung confirmed this fact to the BBC.

Nuance specializes in speech-to-text software and is the company behind Dragon Dictation Software.

Samsung responded to the heavy circulation of its policy by attempting to clarify how the voice recognition works. The company emphasized that the feature can only be activated from the remote control.

“If a consumer consents and uses the voice recognition feature, voice data is provided to a third party during a requested voice command search. At that time, the voice data is sent to a server, which searches for the requested content then returns

the desired content to the TV,” Samsung explained.

The release of the privacy policy was in the interest of transparency, Samsung said. The company expressed that it takes customer privacy “very seriously” and wanted to make sure they were well informed.

Samsung finished with assurance that no recordings would be sold or stored by the company. As a final aside, the company informed customers they could tell when the voice recognition had been activated by a microphone icon on the screen.

(continued from B2) And in this day and age, collective action, organizing and pursuing democratic ideals have never been more important.

That is not a hyperbole. The challenges we face now– worsening droughts, rising seas, increasing population, environmental destruction and disregard, mass extinction, rampant inequality, institutionalized oppresion and subjugation – are un-

like anything we’ve ever seen.

In the grand scheme of things, we, humanity, only recently acquired the ability to completely destroy everything we’ve ever known. We’ve evolved from adapting and subjecting ourselves to nature’s laws to subjecting nature to our will.

As if we have a collective memory of disease and wild animals and the uncontrollable killing and maiming us for centuries, we show no mercy.

I spend most of my waking hours reading news and learning about current events. Honestly, a lot of the time, I don’t see a way in which we can work everything out in the face of such “engrained” inaction and apathy. It’s easy to get overwhelmed and discouraged.

I am an optimist though.

Through my work with the Mace, I’ve had the privilege of covering some extraordinary stories of stu-

dents that cared and acted selflessly for a greater good.

I’ve listened to students gather and talk about issues the corporate media would never touch.

I watched 398 students get arrested in front the White House to fight a pipeline many thousands of miles away.

I’ve seen people skip sleeping to fight injustice.

I watched a large number of ODU

STUDENTS(!) organize on campus to fight institutionalized racism and police brutality.

I’ve seen shaking voices move crowds and I’ve met 20-somethings that really believe there’s more to life than mindless consumption.

I’ve seen the resolve in the faces of young people determined to change the world, and that gives me hope.

The Mace & Crown

@maceandcrown

@maceandcrown

E1

STUDENT

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

For more pictures of recent events, visit our social media!

LIFE

ODU’s Latino Student Alliance held their largest cultural event of the year, Cafe con Leche, on Friday Feb. 20, 2015. Jason Kazi | Mace & Crown

The Mace & Crown

@maceandcrown

@maceandcrown

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

The Virginia Symphny Orchestra performs “Music of the Rolling Stones” at the Ted on Friday Feb. 20, 2015. Schyler Shafer | Mace & Crown

The Mace & Crown

@maceandcrown

@maceandcrown

E2

E3

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

Student leaders congregated at the ODU vs. Southern Miss. men’s basketball game on Thursday Feb. 19, 2015. Josh C Caudell | Mace & Crown

The Mace & Crown

@maceandcrown

@maceandcrown

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

ODU Women’s Lacrosse beat Longwood 19-7 on Feb. 22, 2015. Josh Caudell | Mace & Crown

The Mace & Crown

@maceandcrown

@maceandcrown

E4

E5

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

WINTER STORM OCTAVIA

For more pictures of the snow storm, visit our website!

OC

Top: The Student Recreation Center glows in the snow. Feb 16, 2015. Jason Kazi | Mace & Crown Bottom: Students’ bicycles trapped in the snow covers campus. Feb. 16, 2015. Joshua Caudell | Mace & Crown

The Mace & Crown

@maceandcrown

@maceandcrown

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

Top: A german shepard enjoys the snow on Kaufman Mall. Feb. 16, 2015.

Bottom: Snow blankets Kaufman Mall on Feb. 16,2015.

The Mace & Crown

@maceandcrown

@maceandcrown

E6

Top and Bottom: Josh Caudell | Mace & Crown

Creative

F1

M&C| WEDNESDAY | 2.25.2015| MACEANDCROWN.COM

Submit your creative pieces by emailing artsandentertainment@maceandcrown.com

E NC L AV E

sudokucollection.com

Never Have I Ever Never have I ever believed in others Never have I ever hated my mother I have never consider my nationality as black I have loved but never been loved back Never have I ever been to New York and seen the statue of liberty Never have I felt like I have ever been truly free The oppression of education And the shackles of debt still bound me Yet never do I ever make it an excuse for me I have had surgery I may have more Never have I ever gone a day without think ing about that existing door.

What may lie behind it?

Who might pull me through?

Will I walk right in?

What ever would I even do if I ever knew?

Never have I ever been drunk Never will I ever like it when people drink Nor when they smoke Cigarettes or weed Not because I’m a saint I worry for you just like you worry for me

Yet never anyone took the true opportunity to listen to me Never tried to see things the way I see Took My problems and My issues From my point of view.

Except one.

And never did I ever think I would meet that one And never could I ever imagine it would ever be her.

Now I don’t think I will ever look at people the same For once in my life someone understands.

Never until now have I ever been fully under stood And last night gave me faith that understand ing can be achieved Break of the Day by Nate Fakes

Never ever will I ever again settle for any thing less.

By R.A.W Inspired by My Soul Mate

The Argyle Sweater by Scott Hilburn

The Mace & Crown

@maceandcrown

@maceandcrown