CALS clubs get involved at the North Carolina State Fair

from Pack Heads to Death Valley — Technician 10/18/18

by Technician

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CALS clubs get involved at the North Carolina State Fair

Attendees enjoy the attractions at the 2018 North Carolina State Fair on Friday, Oct. 12. The State Fair regularly has an attendance of over one million visitors.

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Rachael Davis

Correspondent

In the midst of all the delicious fried food and exhilarating entertainment at the North Carolina State Fair, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), along with the Animal Science and Poultry Science Clubs, delight and teach many members of the general public about different types of cattle, livestock and more.

With over 200 volunteers at the State Fair from the Animal Science Club and the Poultry Science Club combined, the presence of NC State students and organizations at the fair is anything but small, just like the fascinating and educational booths that the clubs run.

Payton Smith, a third-year studying animal science and the Milk Booth Chairperson for the Animal Science Club, spoke out about all the interesting opportunities members of the Animal Science Club were able to participate in this year at the fair.

“Every year, the Animal Science Club puts on a Milk Booth, which is a huge learning opportunity for our club members and the community as a whole,” Smith said. “Leading up to the fair, those who are interested go out to the NC State Dairy Unit and work with some of their cows there. Our main goal while doing this is to get the cows used to us petting and handling them. Then, we bring two groups of six to the fair to run the milk booth. Here, people have the opportunity to pay $3 to milk a cow. Since the entire booth is run by our club members, NC State students are able to teach people how to milk a cow, answer any questions they may have about cows, and we even hand out cartons of milk to the participants when they are done.”

In addition to the Milk Booth, members of the Animal Science Club, along with the NC State Beef Unit, show dairy heifers from the NC State Dairy Unit. Just like the cows, members go out at the beginning of the semester and work with the university’s heifers in order to gain familiarity with one another.

The Animal Science Club also participates in community service while at the State Fair. Smith shared more information about the opportunities included in this. “For community service, the Animal Science Club helps out with the Junior Shows,” Smith said. “For this, anyone in the public or in the livestock field can bring their animals to the fair and have them shown. Our club members supplement this. We watch the ring, make sure no animals get out, and pass out ribbons to all the kids that participate. Basically, wherever the Livestock Office needs us, we will be there.”

Similar to the Animal Science Club, the Poultry Science Club is also very immersed at the State Fair. Kat Wilhelm, a fourth-year studying poultry science and the treasurer of the Poultry Science Club, reflects on all of the many different possibilities members of the Poultry Club get involved with at the fair.

“The Poultry Science club has an exhibit set up in the Poultry Science tent,” Wilhelm said. “In this tent, we display chickens that are for sale, and in the corner, we have a booth were we provide information for the public and many different things for them to see, like 3D models of different types of chicken houses,” Wilhelm said. “We also display different kinds of feed and informational posters, as well as conventional and educational coloring pages with different poultry anatomy for kids. Parents like to pick up these pages if they homeschool their children; they like to teach them the egg-laying cycle. We try to answer any questions for the public and engage with them as much as we can.”

If you are interested in viewing these exhibits, be sure to head out to the State Fair, which is running until this upcoming Sunday, Oct 21. If you are interested in helping out with these exhibits and booths next year, or want to join any of the clubs mentioned, you can contact the Animal Science club at ansclubncsu@ gmail.com and the Poultry Science Club at poultryscienceclub.ncsu@gmail.com.

“Since the entire booth is run by our club members, NC State students are able to teach people how to milk a cow, answer any questions they may have about cows, and we even hand out cartons of milk to the participants when they are done.”

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PAGE 8 • THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2018

NC State students shed light on language discrimination

Ben Wolf

Correspondent

“Can you tell if someone is black on the phone?”

The question was met with silence. No one wanted to speak up, to acknowledge the issue at hand. Looking around, there were no black students in the room.

But Shalina Omar, a graduate student in English at NC State, didn’t shy away from the problem. She showed a clip from the 2018 movie “Sorry to Bother You,” in which a call center worker is encouraged to use his “white voice” on the phone. The answer to her question, of course, was yes.

This segment was a part of “Policy Speaks: Language Diversity in Practice,” a Diversity Education Week event hosted by the Language Diversity Ambassadors at NC State. Omar and three other graduate students discussed common conceptions of certain languages and the prevalence of language discrimination in media and daily life.

“When people think of equal protection under the law they often think race/gender/ disability status,” said Marie Bissell, one of the ambassadors and a graduate student in English over email after the event, “but since language can be a proxy for these types of discrimination it is important to clarify its place in the laws of our society.”

One example which demonstrated this was a public service announcement for the Fair Housing Act, which was shown during the event. In it, a man was shown calling the same apartment multiple times, looking to rent. Each time, he put on a different accent, posing as a black, Indian or Chinese man, and was turned away over and over until he finally used his “white voice,” which the woman on the other end was happy to oblige.

The Ambassadors discussed the origin of this sort of discrimination, which often stems from depictions of people of color in mass media. For example, Sofía Vergara’s Latin accent is portrayed as sexy, and Speedy Gonzales’ is lawless and wild. Characters with Southern accents, like Forrest Gump, are often meant to be viewed as unintelligent.

One quote by writer Rosina Lippi-Green, which was featured in the presentation, summed it up nicely: “[Language discrimination] is so commonly accepted, so widely perceived as appropriate, that it must be seen as the last widely open backdoor to discrimination.” Bissell cited examples such as English-only policies, which force employees to speak English while at work. In North Carolina, the Hispanic population has nearly quadrupled since 1990, making this a particularly pressing issue.

Another form of discrimination which can’t be seen — or heard — is audism, the belief that hearing people are inherently superior to the deaf. Alison Eggerth, another one of the presenting Ambassadors and a graduate student in English, spoke on this portion of the event.

“I don’t think it gets the recognition that it needs, because it’s not like people who use ASL (American Sign Language) are coming from other countries,” Eggerth said. “They’re here, in the United States. This is their home, but they still struggle finding accessibility.

Eggerth said that out of the 35,000 students at NC State, only 46 are registered with the Disability Resource Office as hard of hearing or otherwise in need of an interpreter. However, this doesn’t make their experiences any less valid.

“So much of our world is oriented towards hearing,” Eggerth said. “If the fire alarm went off, we’d hear it before we’d see it; if there was a

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gunshot behind us, we would hear it, whereas they’d rely on our expressions to know what’s going on… It’s just not innate to us to know how to communicate with someone who can’t hear us.”

Eggerth also mentioned that students who are hard of hearing are also not granted interpreters for extracurricular activities such as study groups or meetings with professors or advisers, which can be critical for their success.

According to the World Health Organization, over five percent of the world’s population has disabling hearing loss. Despite this, ASL was not recognized as a foreign language for credit by UNC system schools until 2007.

In order to combat the stereotyping and oppression of minorities even when we can’t see the color of their skin, we must be aware of invisible factors like language discrimination. “Policy Speaks: Language Diversity in Practice” was an illuminating seminar for students looking to know more about the way we perceive language in the modern day.

Diversity Education Week will be hosting over a dozen other events throughout the week through Saturday, Oct 20.