Washington Square News November 26, 2018

5 CULTURE

9 OPINION

Healing After Gay Conversion Therapy

NYU Has an Abu Dhabi Problem

7 ARTS

10 SPORTS

‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’ Wrecks the Mold Again

Why the College Football Playoffs Need Change

VOLUME LI | ISSUE XIV

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2018

$114M of NYU’s Gifts From Donors in China, UAE

By VICTOR PORCELLI Deputy News Editor

Donations from China and the UAE to NYU totaled $114 million from 2012 to 2018.

The Foreign Gifts and Contracts Report, released earlier this year by the De-

partment of Education and publicized recently by university activists on social media, revealed that NYU receives more in foreign donations than comparable universities also listed. With almost 50

percent of the $261 million total coming from the United Arab Emirates, China and Hong Kong, NYU’s global campuses may be the difference-makers.

The DOE report enumerates data from

2012 to 2018 and includes gifts of $250,000 or greater from a foreign source as well as contracts or gifts from institutions owned or controlled by a foreign source.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Norway $3,483,673 England $21,013,971

Denmark $2,916,628

Sweden $3,536,247 Lithuania $2,000,000

The Netherlands $3,268,548 Canada $4,859,341

France $8,052,177 Bermuda $1,225,000 British Virign Islands $2,600,000 British West Indies $1,600,000

Russia $5,075,000

Germany $4,057,792 Austria $1,309,070

Spain $1,268,009

Italy $2,878,798

Monaco $1,058,000

South Korea $3,223,376

Turkey $2,150,283

China $36,168,054

Czech Republic $1,291,876

Switzerland $28,938,360

Hong Kong $9,875,000 UAE $78,112,590

Japan $3,075,369 Taiwan $5,800,000

India $2,516,665 Brazil $5,314,000

South Africa $3,266,171

Indicates gifts totaling under $1,000,000

Australia $2,891,032

RACHEL BUIGAS-LOPEZ | WSN

Hamilton to Address Faculty Concerns About UAE

By ALEX DOMB News Editor

MEGHNA MAHARISHI

Deputy News Editor

When students leave NYU to visit home, the university usually grows quiet. But over this year’s Thanksgiving break, NYU found itself embroiled in controversy.

Late last week, over 200 NYU professors signed an open letter demanding President Andrew Hamilton condemn the United Arab Emirates for sentencing a British doc-

toral student to life in prison after a hearing that was reportedly five minutes long with no lawyer present. He was pardoned early Monday morning after British diplomats and universities pressured the Emirati government. Within a day of his sentencing, Hamilton’s Chief of Staff Richard Baum responded to the faculty members, sending a copy of a statement made by the university’s public affairs office and promising that Hamilton would send a longer response after Thanksgiving break.

Reflecting concerns about NYU Abu Dha-

bi that have been years in the making and raising questions about the commitment to academic freedom, Thursday’s letter has prompted impassioned responses from faculty and students alike.

How the Letter Came Together In person and online, NYU faculty members have spoken about the Hedges case for weeks. For many, the case hit close to home.

Hedges, a fellow academic, was jailed in one of the countries where NYU maintains a degree-granting campus.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

COURTESY OF AIZAZ ANSARI

The NYU Abu Dhabi campus. A group of 208 professors wants NYU to put pressure on the UAE government about a Durham University student’s life sentence.

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NEWS

NEWS@NYUNEWS.COM

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2018

Edited by ALEX DOMB, KRISTINA HAYHURST and SARAH JACKSON

$114M of NYU’s Gifts From Donors in China, UAE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

However, the data seems incomplete. For the year 2015, no gifts are reported until June, and the sum of all foreign gifts listed in that year is about eight million dollars. In a press release from that same year, NYU boasted $85.8 million in gifts from international donors.

The data shows that NYU has received about $261 million of foreign donations over the last six years. The specif ic source of each gift is not named within the report, though each donation does list a country of origin.

More recent data from the years of 2016 and 2017 shows that foreign donations to NYU totaled about $105 million in gifts and contracts for those two years. The Voluntary Support of Education Survey conducted by the Council for Aid to Education, which lists total amounts raised by universities over the course of a year, shows that the sum makes up just over 10 percent of money raised by NYU. In comparison, Columbia University received about $90 million, or 7 percent of their amount raised.

Cornell University was gifted about 70 million, about 5 percent of its total amount raised and the University of Southern California was given about $104 million, about 8 percent

of its donations.

A country-by-country breakdown reveals that the United Arab Emirates is by far the largest source of foreign income for NYU, gifting $78 million mostly in contracts from the location of NYU’s Abu Dhabi campus. One company, Omeir Travel, gifted a $21 million contract with NYU in 2013. The travel agency is one of the largest in the UAE. Construction of the Abu Dhabi

campus resulted in scrutiny when evidence of labor abuse surfaced in 2014. Workers said they were paid less than they were promised and beaten by police when they went on strike.

The campus has been the source of conflict since its inception as the UAE has refused to grant certain professors visas due to religious beliefs or previous criticism of the UAE. NYU’s Journalism department proceeded to cut ties with the campus.

More recently, over 200 professors signed a petition urging the university to condemn the UAE’s imprisonment of a Durham University postgraduate student, who was pardoned early Monday morning. One professor compared NYU’s connection to Abu Dhabi to a “pact with the devil.”

The DOE’s report shows that their relationship is saturated with million-dollar contracts, on top of a $10 million monetary gift

from the Executive Authority of Abu Dhabi in 2014.

China and Hong Kong combined to gift $46 million in donations and contracts, with Wenliang Wang, an NYU trustee, donating $5 million himself and another $6 million through his company Rilin Enterprises. Wang previously made headlines in 2016 for donating $120,000 to former governor of Virginia Terry McAuliffe’s campaign in 2013. Wang has been a subject of scrutiny in the past for his various connections with the United States government in the context of trade and visa issues.

NYU’s $124 million from the countries home to NYU Abu Dhabi and Shanghai, its only two degree granting campuses outside the U.S., total more than the entire foreign donations of some institutions listed on the DOE report. Boston University reported a total of $51 million in foreign donations, with Washington University, St. Louis reporting $21 million.

With much of the money from contracts, NYU’s investment in degree-granting global sites, relatively rare among other universities, may have contributed to this discrepancy in foreign funds.

TONY WU | WSN

A panoramic view of Shanghai, China, home to one of NYU’s abroad campuses. NYU received $46 million in donations and contracts from China and Hong Kong combined, according to the report.

Email Victor Porcelli at vporcelli@nyunews.com.

Tandon Team Creates ‘Master Prints’ to Trick Your Devices

By SARAH JACKSON News Editor Artificial intelligence may make your smartphone more vulnerable to hacks through fingerprint identification, according to research conducted by a team of faculty and students at the Tandon School of Engineering.

The researchers found that machine learning can create what they call DeepMasterPrints, or fingerprints created through deep learning that are likely to match with a large number of other fingerprints and can thus gain unauthorized entry to phones or other devices with fingerprint recognition security systems.

Julian Togelius, associate professor of Computer Science and Engineering, was one of the co-authors on the paper, entitled “DeepMasterPrints: Generating MasterPrints for Dictionary Attacks via Latent Variable Evolution,” which was presented at a conference last month.

“Just like master keys are keys that you can open any lock with, we wanted fingerprints that could be masterprints,” Togelius said. “It comes from a casual observation that some people’s fingerprints just seem to be better at unlocking devices than others. So the hypothesis was that maybe we can find some fingerprints that are very good at spoofing, at faking being recognized.”

For convenience, the fingerprint sensors in most smartphones take partial prints instead of full prints. Full prints would require that users place a finger on the biometric sensor the same way each time they try to log in to their device. Full prints would also require larger biometric sensors than currently exist on

most smartphones, which would almost certainly increase the cost of the device.

Previous research had created MasterPrints, which showed minutiae points, the key features of fingerprints that are used to match prints in order to log a person into devices with fingerprint recognition capabilities. In the latest paper, lead author Philip Bontrager, a doctoral candidate in Computer Science and Engineering, and his team took the research a step further: They created complete, natural-looking images of the fingerprints that maximize the number of matches to other fingerprints, all with the help of machine learning.

These images — the DeepMasterPrints — can then be used to conduct dictionary attacks against fingerprint verification systems, getting past them by statistical chance.

“When Yahoo had all those passwords leaked, for example, if you had a dictionary of the most common passwords, you could get a lot of people’s passwords in that data set, even if you couldn’t get everybody’s, just by using the most common password,” Bontrager said. “This is taking the same idea as through the fingerprint. The algorithm can find the most common features that are shared among a lot of people’s fingerprints. So this attack that we’re doing, the DeepMasterPrint attack, can be considered a type of dictionary attack.”

Although previous research had also already established that devices could be susceptible to a MasterPrint attack, the DeepMasterPrints that Bontrager’s team evolved had a higher success rate in their dictionary attacks.

The DeepMasterPrints were evolved

at three different security levels, as determined by a false match rate, which represents how often a print tricked the fingerprint recognition system to be identified as a match. At an FMR of 0.1 percent, the median security level, 23 percent of the DeepMasterPrints were successful at spoofing, or being recognized as a match for an authorized fingerprint when they were not. Though this amounts to barely more than one false positive in every five identifications, biometric verification systems usually have an error rate of less than one in 1000.

“Partial fingerprints are perhaps not as secure as people have thought them to be because we have found an effective way of attacking them using machine learning methods,” Togelius said.

For Liberal Studies first-year Bry LeBerthon, the accuracy of her phone’s

fingerprint authentication system has always been in question.

“I’ve never really trusted technology such as fingerprint recognition or face scanning,” LeBerthon said. “After all, unlike traditional passcodes or security questions, sometimes it doesn’t even let me get into my own phone. How could I trust it to be infallible?”

Though the Tandon researchers’ results raise serious doubts about the security of biometric identification systems, Bontrager said consumers can still take precautions to avoid being victims of false identification and the hacking that can come with it.

“If you have a phone and it has a very tiny fingerprint sensor, say on the power button on the side, that’s not nearly as secure as the larger fingerprint sensor on the back,” Bontrager said. “And even then, the resolution of the sensor can make a big difference. If you’re security-conscious, be aware that they’re not all the same across all mobile devices.”

Before phones even reach consumers, steps can be taken in manufacturing to increase security.

“For people who are putting these systems into phones, they should be aware of this sort of attack, that when they’re designing their algorithm, they need to now test against AI, synthetic fingerprint types of attacks,” Bontrager said.

“It’s important to use larger fingerprint sensors where possible and ideally even be able to do more testing that the fingerprints that they’re testing actually belong to a real finger and a real person.”

Email Sarah Jackson at sjackson@nyunews.com.

TONY WU | WSN

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2018

Washington Square News | News

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Hamilton to Address Faculty Concerns About UAE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

To those familiar with the Middle East, though, Hedges’ arrest was hardly shocking.

Like many other countries in the region, the UAE has become increasingly repressive in the wake of the anti-authoritarian protests of the early 2010s known as the Arab Spring.

“The UAE today is a different place than it was when NYU first made the deal to open the campus in Abu Dhabi [in 2007],” Associate Journalism Professor Mohamad Bazzi, a signatory of the letter, said. “It’s become much more suppressive and much more security-oriented.”

Faculty became alarmed when on Nov. 21 Hedges was given a life sentence. This sentencing, which was met with an international outcry, prompted the professors to draft a letter demanding that Andrew Hamilton condemn the UAE government for its treatment of Hedges.

Once the letter was published, it was quickly circulated among faculty members.

First made public on Thursday, the letter received over 200 signatures by Friday evening.

As of Sunday, the letter has 214 listed signatories and has been covered by major media outlets such as The Guardian and WNYC. For Professor of Middle Eastern Studies Zachary Lockman — another professor who helped draft the letter — NYU’s continued presence in the UAE creates an ethical dilemma for the university.

COURTESY OF NYU ABU DHABI

The NYU Abu Dhabi campus.

“In these kind of circumstances, it’s a real question we need to talk about — how you run a large institution that promises to protect academic freedom and uphold the free exchange of ideas in a regime which has gotten more and more repressive,” Lockman said. “The administration simply doesn’t want to talk about this.”

Initial Reactions to the Letter Shortly after the petition became public and the university issued a statement to the press, Emirati academic Abdulkhaleq Abdulla used part of NYU’s statement about academic freedom on the Abu Dhabi campus in a series of tweets defending Hedges’ imprisonment.

Lockman found it distressing that the university’s statement was used by government supporters to defend the UAE’s handling of the Hedges case.

“So this person is a flunky of the regime,” Lockman said. “Whatever the regime does, he justifies it. That’s the role he played here and it’s distressing that he would cite [the university’s] statement to justify to what happened to Matthew Hedges. Again, it shows the shocking inadequacy of [the university’s] response.”

Bazzi expressed concern that the university’s lack of response to the petition could be used as justification for the UAE’s case against Hedges.

“It can be used to justify accusing someone like Matthew Hedges as a spy,” Bazzi said. “By leaving things unsaid, it leaves open the possibility that the charges against him are true.”

In a January email to faculty, Hamilton mentioned two cases of NYU faculty members that were denied visas to the UAE and admitted that NYU mishandled its internal communication with professors. He also laid out several measures aimed at improving mobility within the global network.

“In these two cases, we were deficient in our communications to the individuals involved, and I regret that this exacerbated an already difficult situation.” Hamilton wrote in the email. “I am consequently committed

to immediately improving how we deal with future cases.”

Social and Cultural Analysis Professor Andrew Ross, a signatory of the petition, cited the case of Ahmed Mansoor, an Emirati activist who was arrested in 2011 over defamation charges, and was arrested again this year for criticizing the Emirati government on social media.

“There have been previous cases, like Ahmed Mansoor, probably the most well-known human-rights advocates and academics, and so the NYU faculty spoke out against the repression of those views and cases,” Ross said. “The NYU administration has not done so, and here we are again with another case, and it won’t be the last one.”

Members of student government have also expressed support for the petition. Senator-at-Large and CAS senior Leen Dweik thinks that a similar situation to the Matthew Hedges case could happen to students and faculty at NYU Abu Dhabi.

“If a [graduate] student from the [United Kingdom] could fall victim to the Emirati government’s false accusations and imprisonment, why would NYU admin ever believe that NYU students and faculty would be exempt from similar or worse treatment, especially when members of faculty have already been denied entry to NYU [Abu Dhabi] on the basis of their identities?”

Dweik wrote in a message to WSN. Since Abu Dhabi funded the construction of NYUAD, Lockman was also skeptical that the administration would foster conversation around the Matthew Hedges case and academic freedom in the country.

“If you go back, John Sexton and Andrew Hamilton said there would be complete academic freedom,” Lockman said.

“We need a conversation as a community, and, unfortunately, the administration doesn’t want to have that conversation, because they made a pact with the devil.”

Email Alex Domb and Meghna Maharishi at news@nyunews.com.

Transportation Costs Burden Women

By SHANTI ESCALANTE Contributing Writer The pink tax, the gender differential in consumer goods, is everywhere: women tend to pay more for products or services than men. A common example of this is how personal care products targeted at women, such as razors, tend to be priced higher than their equivalent male-targeted products.

The NYU Rudin Center for Transportation recently conducted a survey to explore whether or not the Pink Tax also applies to transportation. The Rudin Center found that women pay, on average, $26 to $50 more a month on transportation than men do; if they’re caregivers, they can spend up to $100 a month on caregiving-related trips.

Since women are more likely to have threatening experiences while using public transportation, the report claims that, “women are more likely than men to change their behavior in order to avoid harassment” and thus use services like Uber. The study found that this was especially true at night, although those more familiar with the subway system tended to feel more secure.

For Gallatin junior Kaylee Warren, the fear that comes with public transit at late hours is a familiar experience.

“Yes, I’ve avoided public transportation several times specifically for this reason,” Warren said. “Once it gets past around 10 p.m., I make sure to take a cab or an Uber back home … However, I recognize this is a privilege. I’ve been in situations before where

I opted to take public transportation over a cab or Uber because I was working with a tighter budget at the time.”

However, the study’s results may not be representative of all women: 93.4 percent of respondents had a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 76 percent of the respondents were white.

Still, for many women, like CAS sophomore Angelica Kurtz, it is the quietness of some areas at night that discourages her from taking public transportation.

“During the day when I’m walking alone I’m pretty comfortable because there’s generally a lot of people around,” Kurtz said.

“And even during the day people will catcall or try to approach you. But at night when there aren’t really people around, I can just feel on edge and uncomfortable. I’m trying to be hyper-aware of my surroundings. So if

I’m alone I’d just rather take an Uber sometimes so I don’t have to worry about anything happening.”

For Gallatin senior Courtney George, the additional cost is worth it to be safe, especially after a close encounter she once had.

“The streets can even be unsafe before 10 p.m. on a Saturday night, and that became even more real to me after having a particularly scary hands-on experience with that,” George said. “As a girl who has lived in a city her whole life and does not drive, I have always been encouraged to take an [Uber] once it’s pretty late at night. I often would like to save that money for something else, but I understand how important it is to play it safe and smart.”

Email Shanti Escalante at news@nyunews.com.

CRIME LOG

Leggings Lost in Laundry at Coral

By CRIME BOT Robot Reporter From Nov. 16 to Nov. 21 the NYU Department of Public Safety received one report of burglary, 10 reports of controlled substance violation, one report of criminal mischief, two reports of harassment, three reports of larceny and one report of trespassing.

Burglary On Nov. 18 at 11:45 a.m., an NYU student reported her shoes missing from her closet in Weinstein Residence Hall. Police notification was declined and the case is open and under investigation.

Controlled Substance Violation On Nov. 16 at 3:30 p.m., NYU Public Safety reported to an alleged drug law violation. A small amount of marijuana was found in Alumni Residence Hall. Police notification was declined and the case has been referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 16 at 5 p.m., an RA reported witnessing underage alcohol possession in Alumni Hall. Police notification was declined and the case has been referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 16 at 6:07 p.m., a resident assistant reported witnessing underage alcohol possession in Alumni Hall. Police notification was declined and the case has been referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 16 at 10:18 p.m., an RA reported witnessing underage alcohol possession in Alumni Hall. Police notification was declined and the case has been referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 16 at 10:55 p.m., an RA reported witnessing underage alcohol possession in Alumni Hall. Police notification was declined and the case has been referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 16 at 11:12 p.m., an RA reported witnessing underage alcohol possession in Founders Residence Hall. Police notification was declined and the case has been referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 16 at 11:20 p.m., an RA reported witnessing underage alcohol possession in Founders Hall. Police notification was declined and the case has been referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 16 at 11:30 p.m., an RA reported witnessing underage alcohol possession in Founders Hall. Police notification was declined and the case has been referred to the Office

of Community Standards.

On Nov. 17 at 2 a.m., NYU Public Safety reported to an alleged drug law violation. A small amount of marijuana was discovered in Brittany Residence Hall. Police notification was declined and the case has been referred to the Office of Community Standards.

On Nov. 17 at 9 p.m., an RA reported witnessing underage alcohol possession in Palladium Residence Hall. Police notification was declined and the case has been referred to the Office of Community Standards.

Criminal Mischief On Nov. 17 at 12:30 p.m., an RA reported witnessing vandalism on a residential door in Rubin Residence Hall. Police notification was declined and the case has been referred to the Office of Community Standards.

Harassment On Nov. 17 at 6:02 p.m., an NYU student reported harassment in his dorm room at Palladium Hall. A police report was filed and the case is open and under investigation.

On Nov. 19 at 6:25 p.m., an NYU student reported that he was harassed outside of the Silver Center for Arts and Science. Police notification was declined and the case is open and under investigation.

Larceny On Nov. 16 at 12:20 p.m., an NYU staff member reported cups missing in Elmer Holmes Bobst Library. Police notification was declined and the case is open and under investigation.

On Nov. 16 at 2:55 p.m., an NYU student reported that her leggings were missing from a laundry room in Coral Towers Residence Hall. Police notification was declined and the case is open and u nder investigation.

On Nov. 21 at 5:59 a.m., an NYU affiliate reported his wallet missing from his coat pocket in King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center. A police report was filed and the case is open and under investigation.

Trespass On Nov. 16 at 11 a.m., an NYU Public Safety Officer witnessed trespassing and escorted the person out without further incident in the Kimmel Center for University Life. Police notification was declined and the case is open and under investigation.

Email Crime Bot at news@nyunews.com.

Washington Square News @nyunews

WILLIAM MARTIN | WSN

Women pay more for transportation for safety reasons, such as taking a cab instead of the subway, a recent study found.

@nyunews

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2018

CULTURE

CULTURE@NYUNEWS.COM

Edited by NATALIE CHINN

Swipe Me In? How Students Deal With Running Out of Meal Swipes

SOPHIA DIIORIO | WSN

By ANNA DE LA ROSA Contributing Writer PAMELA JEW

Under the Arch Managing Editor As the semester nears its end, NYU first-years fall into one of two camps: those who have excess meal swipes and those who are scraping the bottom of the barrel. With increasing transparency surrounding food insecurity at NYU, heated debate centers around whether students should willingly give up their

leftover swipes to those who have run out or charge the swipe-less for their miscalculations.

The semester usually ends with students left with extra swipes, as NYU requires first-years living in traditional residence halls to purchase a 225 Flex plan or higher and those living in apartment-style residence halls to purchase a 120 Flex plan or higher. Alumni have created apps and programs — Swipe Me and Share Meals — to combat food waste, but if students aren’t aware

of these programs, they’re just left with the excess.

Steinhardt alumnus Noah Hyams created Swipe Me, an application that swiftly connects students with extra swipes to those with none.

“In this incredibly expensive city, there should be a way for students to access this resource that would otherwise be wasted,” Hyams said. “Swipe Me even has a market feature which allows students to trade swipes for things such as tutoring or a haircut.”

On the other end of the spectrum are first-years who run out of swipes with a month left in the fall semester and desperately turn to the NYU Class of 2022 Facebook page for relief. This group been known to negotiate the value of their swipes rather than just give them away. One student said they’d trade their swipes for Yu-Gi-Oh cards; another challenged hungry students to a game of Mario Kart.

Tisch first-year Sebastian Duran fueled the fire in the Facebook group by writing a post that read, “Anyone wanna go hunting squirrels and rats in the park to feed my starving family?”

Despite his jokes, he said he doesn’t see the use in students charging other students for swipes.

“Asking for a high price is really kind

of selfish because [other students] are hungry,” Duran said.

CAS first-year Vincent Yu is a bit more cynical, saying that students can learn a thing or two about economics as they barter their extra meal swipes. He said students are entitled to their swipes and therefore have a right to charge others for them.

“There are people who are really in need of the meal swipes. And there are also people who just wanna take advantage of other people’s kindness,” Yu wrote in a Facebook message. “If the meal swipes are free then the people who wanna take advantage of others might take away the chance for people who are really in need of the meal swipes to get them.”

This meal swipe sensation may be turning into a trending meme, but running out of swipes and facing hunger is a huge reality check. CAS firstyear James Bready has been crunching numbers to see how he can utilize his remaining meal swipes.

“I average 3.6 meal swipes and $1.84 Dining Dollars per day,” Bready said. “I have 21 cents and seven meal swipes left.”

Luckily, Bready’s friends have been generous with their meal swipes, double swiping when he tags along with

them for a meal.

“Most people have a lot of meal swipes left, so it isn’t a problem for them,” Bready said.

However, others have different methods to finessing meal swipes from their friends. CAS first-year Rawit Assamongkol, who has 20 meal swipes left, plays the oblivious and forgetful card when he’s at Kimmel Market Place with friends. He gets in line and says he’s forgotten his NYU ID. “Then, [my friends] really have no choice but to swipe me in,” he said.

He used to swipe in three to four times per day, thinking that was normal, but didn’t expect his meal plan to shallow this early.

“Everyone is different,” Assamongkol said. “I just happen to eat more efficiently than the kids on a meal plan, but still spend about $30 on food a day.”

The end of the semester is almost here, so whether you need to trade some playing cards or trick your friends into handing over a spare swipe, do what you can to compensate for your lack of swipes. And before you know it, you’ll be heading home for winter break.

Email Anna de la Rosa at culture@nyunews.com.

Bake It ‘Til You Make It With These 4 Frozen Meals

By CALAIS WATKINS Staff Writer

Breakfast - Chocolate Croissants $4.49

Dinner - Chicken Shu Mai $2.99

I was spoiled during my first year living in Weinstein Residence Hall when all it took was a trip downstairs to get a hot meal. The real world wasn’t quite as easy, I quickly discovered after moving into my own apartment at the beginning of this year.

Not only do I not know how to cook, but I have absolutely no desire to learn. The process can be complicated and often reminds me that I’m just not ready to face complete independence. Yet, thanks to the geniuses over at Trader Joe’s, I’ve found a way to lessen the shock of realizing what it means to take care of myself, all while redeeming a sense of positivity in the kitchen. Trader Joe’s sells a variety of frozen meals that are cheap, delicious and easy to make, only requiring a microwave or, at most, an oven. These four frozen meals will teach you how to feed yourself from morning ‘til midnight.

These chocolate croissants bake to flaky perfection. And though it may seem daunting to put the croissants out to rise overnight, it’s only a small amount of work — and it’s incredibly satisfying to feel as though you’re cooking in your sleep. Fresh out of the oven, the chocolate oozes out from the inside and jumpstarts any morning with just the right amount of sugar. If you can’t handle such a sweet taste so early in the morning, Trader Joe’s also carries an almond croissant option. Don’t believe a frozen pastry can be this good? I’ll happily refer you to my two roommates who finished theirs seconds after being made.

While every other dish in this review requires the use of an oven, these chicken dumplings are a microwave-only meal. Taking only two minutes to make while also tasting delicious, this little cardboard box of goodness is a win. It even comes with a packet of soy sauce inside. Maybe it’s past midnight and you realized you forgot to eat while writing that 10-page final paper. No worries! Your dumpling friends are at the ready in your freezer.

If you’re still wondering whether the grocery store chaos and the 20 minute check out lines at Trader Joe’s are worth it, they are — trust me. You will never experience a joy like freshly baked food that takes practically no time or effort.

Email Calais Watkins at dining@nyunews.com.

CALAIS WATKINS | WSN

Trader Joe’s Chocolate Croissants.

Lunch - Mixed Mushroom & Spinach Quiche $2.49 This quiche is the perfect size for a light lunch; pair it with a can of soup and you’ve got yourself a dinner. Not only is the process to make it super simple — just pop it in the oven — but it tastes as good as the picture on the box looks. The outer crust melts in your mouth as the creamy insides warm up your belly. And did I mention it’s vegetarian? The mix of ingredients is perfect because, just when you think the mushrooms might be overpowering, the taste of spinach and cheese balances everything out. I cannot recommend this dish highly enough. Seriously, my compliments to the chef.

Trader Joe’s Chicken Spring Rolls.

CALAIS WATKINS | WSN

Snack - Chicken Spring Rolls $4

Trader Joe’s Mixed Mushroom and Spinach Quiche.

CALAIS WATKINS | WSN

While not terrible, this dish definitely didn’t live up to my expectations. But the $4 price somewhat makes up for it. The taste of chicken is a tad overwhelming and the wrap around them doesn’t get flaky enough to contrast the mushy insides. On their own, these chicken spring rolls are a bit dry. However, this issue is easily fixed by saving all of the soy sauce packages you have left over from ordering sushi. Despite their lack of pizzazz, these spring rolls are still good for an easy fix in between classes.

Trader Joe’s Chicken Shu Mai.

CALAIS WATKINS | WSN

Washington Square News | Culture

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2018

Healing After Gay Conversion Therapy

By JIACHEN XU Contributing Writer Silver School of Social Work alumna Samantha Gerson is a survivor of institutional abuse and conversion therapy. She came out as gay when she was 12, and at the age of 14, Gerson’s mom removed her from high school and sent her to a “residential treatment center” in Utah.

“I was kind of rebellious,” Gerson said. “I would run away from home, and I didn’t really listen to my mom. So she sent me to an institution where I was at for nine months, where I was physically, sexually and emotionally abused.

For most of her adolescence, Gerson could only describe how she felt as broken — especially after she left the conversion therapy program. When she came back from the institution, nobody was there to help her piece her life back together. She watched friends from conversion therapy commit suicide or go to jail.

Now, with a degree in social work under her belt, Gerson wants to help ease the helplessness — and the feeling of being broken — that survivors of conversion therapy feel when they leave their programs. In September, she launched her nonprofit UnBroken.

“When I was thinking of what to name the non-profit, I just kept remembering that back when I was a teenager and I left my institution that I always felt broken,” Gerson said.

UnBroken aims to provide free legal, therapeutic and vocational support to adolescent survivors of institutional abuse and conversion therapy. With its help, Gerson hopes that young survivors can find the support they need to lead healthy and fully-functioning lives. The organization is currently accepting donations and looking for investors to help fund consulstants and to develop an app and a website.

While creating UnBroken, Gerson used her personal experience to not only motivate her work but also develop ideas for what will be useful to young survivors because her her story resembles that of many others.

Gerson’s econversion therapy took place in a Mormon institution that targeted gay teenagers. According to Mormon beliefs, only heterosexual, intra-marital intimacy is permissible. Anything else is seen as sinful and therefore shunned.

“For me what that looked like was part of the grooming that happened with my sexual abuse, trying to convince me to convert to Mormonism, convincing me I was evil,” Gerson said. “I did not experience touch. I wasn’t allowed to physically touch, even high five, anyone for the whole time I was there. It’s a psychological breakdown.”

This treatment also came with harsh and abusive discipline. She is still haunted by the punishments the facility would in-

flict. At her institution, there was a room called DEVO, short for development, that the students would get sent to if they got in trouble.

“Basically the room is 10 desks and four beds in each corner,” Gerson said. “You have to sit at the desk, perfectly straight, feet flat, hands on the table, and look forward.

And you cannot move, speak, sneeze, itch for hours and hours.”

Surviving these traumatic conditions has not been easy. Gerson considers herself lucky compared to the teenagers she saw leaveing the institution.

“I think I am very lucky that I came out and I’m healing and I’m okay and I’m living a pretty normal, stable life,” Gerson said. “Other people will struggle forever.

Other people don’t have the blessings that I’ve had.”

Her best friend from conversion therapy became a heroin addict, a single mom and a stripper. Gerson quickly realized after leaving the institution that resources and support systems for survivors like her do not exist.

“We are a population that nobody really cares about,” Gerson said. “We are not low-income. We are not super rich. We are not minorities. We are just average teenagers, so why should anybody care?”

Gerson has been working for the past three years with this population. She has worked pro bono with over 50 survivors and spoken at six conferences.

“I love doing this work, and I love seeing the change where they recognize, ‘I can be okay. I’m going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay,’” Gerson said.

Launching UnBroken was just the next step in helping bring support to survivors. The concept of is simple, Gerson said.

“A survivor can come up to our website and fill out a form about what school they went to, what happened to them, what they want, if they want a therapist, if they want help,” Gerson said. “And the form will get sent to me, and it’s encrypted and it’s private.”

After receiving the form, UnBroken will set up meetings between a nearby therapist and the survivor and pay for the cost of treatment. Gerson plans to hire consultants and therapists throughout the country. In addition to therapeutic support, UnBroken also intends to provide vocational support to help these teenagers find their place in society.

“In my experience, going to school, going to college and pursuing career really helped me recover from this terrible experience I had at the institution,” Emily, who asked for her last name not to published, said. Emily is an UnBroken board member and a survivor. She said. “It really helped me move forward with my life and accomplish something. So that is a really big goal of mine — to give individuals that same type

5

What NYU Should Tell Accra-Bound Students

By NATASHA ROY Staff Writer

COURTESY OF SAMANTHA GERSON

Samantha Gerson, a survivor of conversion therapy, launched her own nonprofit this fall called UnBroken.

of help that I received later on in my life, that really had a lasting effect on improving the overall quality of my life.”

Gerson said the long-term goal for UnBroken is to make the support more accessible to survivors across the country.

“The goal today, right now this year, is to get the funding so that we can expand, and also to have finalized the software development because once that is up, once that is accessible, teenagers can find us super easily,” Gerson said. “From there, my goal is to keep expanding, go from California and New York to D.C. to Iowa to hit every state so that by the time that we are at full capacity, no matter where you live or where you are coming from, we can help you.”

At the same time, raising awareness is also on the agenda. Gerson and her team realize how few people are aware of the fact that young people are suffering from the abuses of conversion therapy.

“When I go to conferences and I hear [Gerson] speak, people come up to her after and blown away, like shocked this is happening,” Elizabeth Russo, UnBroken’s chief operating officer and Gerson’s fiancé, said. “I think education is really key for this project. It’s just making people understand, making people aware, getting government agencies involved, politicians involved, and not just helping people after but creating some sort of policy changes now so that this can’t happen anymore.”

Still at its initial stage, Unbroken is working hard to get funding, hire staff and build from the ground up. Once the team accomplishes this, they can start changing lives for the better, Gerson said.

“Yes, my experience was terrible — I would love to just forget about it — but I can’t forget about it because it’s still happening,” Gerson said. “It’s still happening to other people, and so that has led me to want to be a resource that I never had and that my friends never had, and maybe change the trajectory of some people’s lives.”

Email Jiachen Xu at culture@nyunews.com.

NYU Accra is this university’s bestkept secret. It’s located in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the bustling capital of one of the most beautiful countries in the world — Ghana. While most students vie for the opportunity to study in one of NYU’s six European sites, students in Accra gain a unique experience at a less-frequented location.

You’ll undergo culture shock from the moment you arrive until the moment your flight home takes off. It’s nearly impossible to prepare for four consecutive months in Accra, but here are a few tips students should know before heading to the airport.

Cash

Ghana is generally a cash-based society. Taxis won’t accept any plastic, and nearly every store and bar will expect that you pay in cash. Cash is so common that Uber has an option that allows customers to pay with cash. Uber drivers often become angry if you try to pay with card, and occasionally passengers are left curbside when their drivers find out they aren’t paying in cash.

Try to bring a large amount of U.S. dollars with you and exchange small amounts at a time at a Foreign Exchange Bureau. Some students simply use their debit cards at one of the banks down the road from the dorms. Luckily, one U.S. dollar is equal to a little less than five cedis, so it’s not hard to keep a few on you — especially since you never know when you’ll walk by a coconut stand or plantain chip vendor.

Bargaining

any bathroom essentials you might need, from cleanser to shaving cream. Save yourself the trouble and dead weight and head to ShopRite, a grocery store found at most malls, during your first week.

Experiential Learning

There are a huge number of opportunities to volunteer or intern in Accra. Students completing for-credit internships can work anywhere from a creative hub to a hospital. Those who volunteer tend to serve at nonprofits that work with kids, like schools and children’s libraries.

Before you come to Accra, you should research different organizations you may want to work with. Having a few places in mind will help when it comes to meeting with the NYU Accra Community Service and Internship Coordinator, Victor Kweku Yeboah, to determine where you will be placed.

Patience

This will be your greatest asset in Ghana. Life is not as fast-paced as it is in New York City, and that’s a good thing. People will not always be on time — in fact, they’ll rarely show up to meetings at the scheduled time. NYU Accra Director Akosua Anyidoho often jokes that we should bring a good book everywhere we go, in case we have to wait.

A slower pace also means you’ll generally be less busy. If you’re like me, having free time will make you antsy and feel as though you should be productive every hour of the day. My best advice to you is to embrace the leisure and use the time to turn into the study-abroad stereotype all your friends will make fun of you for.

Email Natasha Roy at nroy@nyunews.com.

Because everyday life in Ghana is so cash dependent, street vendors can choose any price they want upon meeting a customer. Vendors may try to hike up the cost of an item if they know you aren’t Ghanaian, so you need to become good at bargaining — quickly.

At any market, try offering half the price a vendor states, and if you can get them down by 10 cedi or half the price, it’s worth it. That said, don’t attempt to bargain at a proper store with price tags or at a restaurant. You’ll be laughed at.

What Not to Bring

During your pre-departure orientation, you’ll be told to bring all your own toiletries — but that’s entirely unnecessary.

It’ll make your suitcase extremely heavy, and you might risk having to pay for overweight luggage.

Unless there is a specific item that you can’t live without, leave the shampoo bottles at home. There are plenty of department stores and pharmacies that sell

NATASHA ROY | WSN

Natasha Roy, the writer of this article, volunteers at New Horizon Special School, a school for people with special needs.

The Only Way You Should Be Eating Thanksgiving Leftovers

By ANDREW ANKERSEN Contributing Writer Thanksgiving is over, meaning the best part of the holiday season is upon us: leftovers. Obviously, there are the classic pot pies, soups and of course the iconic turkey sandwich on a dinner roll, but here are two dorm-friendly recipes that you’ve never even dreamed of.

Thanksgiving Croquettes Ingredients: - Mashed potatoes - Stuffing - ½ onion - 3 Tablespoons Breadcrumbs - Oil - 1 egg

Start by mincing half an onion and put it on a pan over low heat. While the onions cook, beat an egg and fill a different bowl with three tablespoons of breadcrumbs.

When the onions have softened and light-

ANDREW ANKERSEN | WSN

A Thanksgiving leftover feast.

ly caramelized, which should take around 10 minutes, put the onions in a mixing bowl with half a cup each of stuffing and mashed potatoes. Mix them together until fully combined, then roll into balls — you should have enough for about eight balls. With the balls formed, dredge them through the beaten egg and roll in breadcrumbs. Place the balls in the fridge to firm up, then fill a frying pan with half an inch of oil and heat on medium. When the oil is hot enough that breadcrumbs dropped into it will sizzle immediately but not so hot that it is smoking, carefully place the balls in the oil. Fry for one minute per side until each is evenly brown and crisp, remove from oil and place on a paper towel to soak up any extra oil. These are amazing as a side

or just by themselves with some cranberry sauce for dipping.

Brussel Sprout Slaw

Ingredients: - 20 sprouts - 1 Carrot - ½ onion - Oil - Vinegar - Mayo - Sugar - Mustard Start by cutting the Brussel sprouts in half lengthwise and soak in cold water and three tablespoons of vinegar — this is going to help cut some of the really cabbagey bitterness sprouts can have. While your sprouts soak, finely dice an onion and put

in a pan with some oil on a low heat to caramelize. Peel and grate your carrot and put it in your serving dish. Then mix together one teaspoon sugar, one tablespoon vinegar, two tablespoons oil, one teaspoon of mayo, one tablespoon of mustard, and salt and pepper. With the onions, carrots and dressing done, it’s time to head back to the sprouts. Remove the sprouts from the water and finely slice before adding to the bowl and mixing everything together.

Leave in the fridge for at least 20 minutes before serving — and being surprised that you made something actually nice out of sprouts.

Email Andrew Ankersen at dining@nyunews.com.

Washington Square News

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2018

ARTS

ARTS@NYUNEWS.COM

Cannes Favorite ‘Shoplifters’ Arrives at IFC Center

Edited by RYAN MIKEL and DANIELLA NICHINSON

‘Pokémon: Let’s Go’ Proves Satisfying Yet Unambitious

By ETHAN ZACK Staff Writer

VIA FACEBOOK.COM

A scene from the “Shoplifters,” the winner of the Palm d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

By GURU RAMANATHAN Film Editor It’s always diff icult to know where to start when talking about a Hirokazu Kore-eda f ilm, perhaps because of how masterfully they’re constructed. The Japanese f ilmmaker approaches his craft in an extremely natural way, making even the most bizarre situations feel realistic. From his narrative feature debut “Maborosi” in 1995, Kore-eda has been on the rise as one of the world’s best f ilmmakers, having won the Golden Osella Award for best director at the Venice Film Festival for his f irst release.

He has been applauded often for his works since, winning the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival for the 2013 family drama “Like Father, Like Son.” The most recent addition to his impressive oeuvre, “Shoplifters,” swept up the prestigious Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and is currently playing at the IFC Center, where students should catch it before it flies away.

The 2018 f ilm follows an impoverished family of shoplifters in Tokyo who take in — or, technically, kidnap — a young girl named Yuri (Miyu Sasaki) from a nearby neighborhood after observing signs of physical abuse from her parents. The f ilm explores how Yuri changes the family and what they must do to survive.

Much like “Like Father, Like Son,” Kore-eda approaches this dysfunctional family in a unique way that draws you into the strange situation without it feeling melodramatic. There are a few twists in the f ilm’s second half, but they are dropped on the audience so subtly that Kore-eda’s cinematic manipulation still feels organic. He is a director who places as much emphasis on his story as he does his characters, unwilling to sacrif ice either of the two in crafting a narrative that one wishes would go on forever.

The shoplifting scenes best embody this nature of Kore-eda’s style. The f ilm opens with a scene in a grocery store which is depicted like a game between father Osamu (Franky) and son Shota (Kairi Jo). They make fun gestures at each other, create witty distractions, and are going in and out of stores with a sense of normalcy and swagger — not only do they think it’s right, but Shota is raised to believe his actions are cool. But then Shota begins taking Yuri on his shoplifting exploits and one day he is called out by a store clerk, not for his stealing but for trying to teach Yuri his mischievous ways. That reality check forces

him into more of a big-brother role, and as darker truths come to light, each shoplifting scene becomes progressively more disturbing. Much like the family as a whole, Shota’s curiosity and satisfaction with life starts out bubbly and loving but slowly dissipates with time.

After f inding Yuri at the beginning of the f ilm, Osamu and Shota return home. We’re then dropped into the energetic home life of the rest of the family, consisting of the mother Nobuyo (Sakura Ando), the teenage Aki (Mayu Matsuoka) and the grandmother Hatsue (Kirin Kiki). As the family gathers for dinner, Kore-eda makes the viewer feel like one of them, letting the actors’ chemistry do most of the work. Further scenes give insight into the family members’ everyday struggles of survival, such as Nobuyo working in a factory and needing to give up her job after a co-worker discovers how she took in Yuri, or Aki working behind a one-way mirror in a strip club, making each member all the more complex to the audience, and the story all the more provocative.

Franky and Ando, especially, give bittersweet performances as the mother and father trying to hold the family together. For much of the f ilm, the parents’ charm is infectious, but they are also the ones harboring the most dangerous secrets. The subtle tension builds throughout the f ilm, and a question begins to arise about the authenticity of the family’s relationships.

Kore-eda leaves many of the bombshells for the second half, building deliberately toward the deterioration of the happy family you think you know well. The f inal 30 minutes are especially striking, as they force the viewer to recontextualize what they’ve already seen. In hindsight, the ending feels inevitable but Kore-eda makes it as unexpected as could be.

Kore-eda’s f ilm is as heartwarming as it is heartbreaking, but begs for repeat viewings to spend as much time with the family around which it revolves. Though the characters are imperfect, the performances are magnetic; certain moments sit with the viewer long after the credits roll. It is because of this that “Shoplifters,” also Japan’s entry for the Foreign Language Oscar, is one of 2018’s best f ilms.

Never has a Pokémon game had a more divisive reaction than “Let’s Go, Pikachu!” and “Let’s Go, Eevee!,” released earlier this month. For many unfamiliar with the franchise in recent years, the idea of a streamlined introductory experience was very appealing. For numerous long-term fans of the franchise, however, the premise of “Pokémon: Let’s Go” flew in the face of progress for a series that has stalled more and more with each consecutive entry.

Despite many blemishes and half-successes that “Let’s Go” presents, it’s evident that a lot of love and care went into creating the game. References to previous games are everywhere. Familiar story beats are dressed up with cinematic cutscenes that hold real emotional weight. Extensive voice acting and expressions give you a real sense of attachment to your partner of Eevee or Pikachu. You can choose Pokémon from your party to follow your character around and even ride on some of the larger ones.

That said, “Let’s Go” feels like a culmination of nearly every frustrating aspect of the core Pokémon games in recent years.

Developer Game Freak is trying to amend an experience that never needed much f ixing in the f irst place. The game excessively holds the player’s hand, eschewing many of the puzzle-solving elements of the original games in favor of blatantly telling the player how to progress in the story. Your rival lacks the characterization of previous counterparts and instead exists only to congratulate the player every chance they get. Catching Pokémon has been oversimplif ied into the shallow aim-and-throw motion control minigame from “Pokémon GO,” while breeding, held-item and ability mechanics have been removed entirely.

Previous Pokémon games simultaneously offered an understandable basis of gameplay while offering deeper, more complex mechanics if the player desired to engage them. “Let’s Go” focuses entirely on the casual side, taking the choice out of the player’s hands. It’s a good thing that even a casual Pokémon experience can be as fun as it is.

In terms of core gameplay, I was pleasantly surprised to f ind that “Let’s Go” had a well-developed campaign that wasn’t as ridiculously easy as many had feared.

The classic RPG elements of capturing

Pokémon and engaging in turn-based battles to train them return.

The game even offers a decently fleshedout challenge due to the establishment of perhaps the most well-constructed level curve ever seen in a Pokémon game. If the player progresses through the game at an average pace, opponents will always be on par with or just above the level of your own Pokémon, adding a layer of complexity to battles that forces the player to think more strategically than just spamming one move until a battle ends. It’s nothing that will stop a player from progressing due to diff iculty, but it presents some depth to the battling system.

The visibility of wild Pokémon in the overworld is a welcome change from the frequently annoying random encounters of the past. However, the substantial focus on catching a large number of creatures and shipping them off in exchange for items makes Pokémon feel a little less like partners with and more like a form of currency.

The two-player co-op mode essentially breaks the game, turning every battle into a 2-on-1 and throwing any sense of diff iculty out the window. The fact that the second player cannot even truly interact with the world on their own cements the feature as a lackluster addition that thankfully doesn’t hurt too much, since it’s optional.

The presentation of the game is perhaps the most notable aspect of “Let’s Go.” The graphics are gorgeous, instantly establishing it as the most visually appealing game in the franchise so far. The novelty of seeing familiar locales and battles in high def inition def initely contributed to a large part of my enjoyment. That being said, when compared to flagship titles for other franchises on the Nintendo Switch like “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” and “Super Mario Odyssey,” it feels as though Game Freak could have done so much more with the graphical capabilities of the system. Even more frustrating is the fact that the game’s frame rate actually decreases in certain areas.

“Let’s Go” may not do much to innovate, but it celebrates Pokémon’s legacy in a way that will touch any player even vaguely familiar with the franchise. If nothing else, it’s a satisfyingly small-scale precursor to next year’s hopefully much more ambitious entries.

Email Ethan Zack at arts@nyunews.com.

““Shoplifters” is playing at the IFC Center until Nov. 29.

Email Guru Ramanathan at gramanathan@nyunews.com.

A player with Eevee in the new Pokemon game “Pokémon: Let’s Go.”

VIA TWITTER.COM

Washington Square News | Arts

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2018

7

Tyler, the Creator’s Grinch Steals Christmas

By AVANI JURAKHAN Staff Writer As the fluffy green Grinch of this year’s cartoon remake prepares for a day of being utterly evil, Tyler, the Creator’s gruff remake of “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” bites the audience, who may not have expected to hear this artist grace the silver screen.

But while unexpected, the brief track is the perfect spin on “The Grinch’s” classic theme song — who knew the flower boy could be so mean?

Tyler’s rendition is beautifully dynamic and surprisingly tailored to the varied audiences attending the

anticipated f ilm. Promoted by Tyler on Twitter and Instagram as being “FOR THE LITTLE HOMIES,” this kid-friendly bop is appealing even outside the context of Whoville.

His musical style, with its elongated vowels complemented by the accompanying children’s chorus that chimes in at the end of each bar. He takes the Thurl Ravenscroft original and makes it completely his own.

However, this song signif ies more than just a successfully modernized Grinch — it represents a milestone in the rapper’s career. In recent interviews, Tyler has expressed his appreciation for the opportunity and

described his intention to make other soundtrack appearances spreading across many more genres. The Grinch is just the beginning.

Tyler’s creative progression from the complex bars on his earliest mixtapes to the wildly experimental production on “Cherry Bomb” was just a glimpse of his potential. This single proves that there’s more to this Odd Future rapper than lovesick rhymes and indie rap collectives. If you can make a Christmas bop, you can do anything.

Email Avani Jurakhan at music@nyunews.com.

Tyler, the Creator is the voice behind the new “Grinch” theme song.

VIA FACEBOOK.COM

Anderson .Paak Shows Funk Belongs Back in Hip-Hop

By JUN SUNG Contributing Writer

VIA ITUNES.COM

“Oxnard” is the latest musical effort from acclaimed rapper Anderson .Paak.

Anderson .Paak is a hip-hop and rhythm and blues artist who draws influence from mostly West-Coast styles and sounds. He was brought into the mainstream by Dr. Dre with his work on the renowned producer’s album “Compton.” With this boost, he released “Malibu” the following year, in which he showcased his ability to combine soulful R&B singing, smooth jazz and rap.

With his newest project, “Oxnard,” the artist takes this unique style and adds a funk element while layering his drums on top of a J Dilla-esque kick-snare foundation. With this backbone, .Paak creates tracks that range all the way from hard-hitting and upbeat (“Mansa Musa”) to intricate and delicate (“Saviers Road”). It is important to note the influence of Dr. Dre in the creation of the album as well. With one of the best producers in the genre pulling the strings, each track sounds ref ined

and crafted to perfection.

Much of the album’s style is thanks to .Paak’s accompanying band. The Free Nationals bring the same vibrant musical color to “Oxnard” as they have for the artist in his past projects. Their steady backing instrumentals provide the basis for .Paak’s vision of funk, soul and R&B in a hip-hop context. Their musical support allows .Paak to shine as much as he does. .Paak’s album starts out with “The Chase,” which features a fluttering flute instrumental along with various percussive elements that brighten the song. With the artist’s rapping and unique singing voice both exhibited in this song, it is the perfect opener that premieres of the album.

A few songs later, “Saviers Road” is the most prominent example of how .Paak is heavily influenced by J Dilla’s work, with the signature dragging drums offering one of the most interesting instrumentations in the whole album. Soon after, the two songs “Mansa Musa” and “Brother’s

Keeper” take elements of .Paak’s musical personality and push them into a more traditional rap setting — with the help of Cocoa Sarai and Pusha T. One of the great strengths of “Oxnard” is the extensive features.

The artists that contributed to the album were able to add another dimension to .Paak’s sound. An example of this is Snoop Dogg’s feature on “Anywhere.” His carefree rapping paired with the bass-driven beat and simple drum pattern create a strong contrast in style that helps the track stand out.

Each track on the album is an iteration of classic hip-hop elements.

With this, the album’s influences from J Dilla drums, R&B and funk elevate the project past normal hiphop. .Paak’s project is unlike anything he has created before, and is a mainstream trendsetter for how funk can play a new role in the the hip-hop genre as a whole.

Email Jun Sung at music@nyunews.com.

‘Ralph Breaks the Internet’ Wrecks the Mold Again

By FAREID EL GAFY Contributing Writer Wreck-It Ralph is back with another fun romp through the world of technology in “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” which features an unlikely friendship and a journey of self-improvement. Original Co-Director Rich Moore returns with writer-turned-Co-Director Phil Johnston, who also co-wrote the critically-acclaimed “Zootopia.” It’s safe to say they’ve recreated the magic of the original.

“Ralph Breaks the Internet” is, f irst and foremost, a lot of fun. The f ilm is bursting with creativity, fully taking advantage of its digital setting. Its predecessor was a loving homage to arcade gaming, and the sequel takes this to the next level. A sketchy website is represented as a shoddy, back-alley warehouse. The personif ied head algorithm of f ictional video-sharing website BuzzzTube changes outf its as quickly and as frequently as the internet changes obsessions. Users represented by bobble-headed avatars scamper along at different paces according to connection speeds. The mile-a-minute

world-building is on-par with last year’s Academy Award winner, “Coco.”

Just as inspired as the setting, “Ralph Breaks the Internet” is brimming with heart and good humor. Ralph’s (John

“

Wreck-It Ralph is supposed to be a villain in his world, but he continues to capture our hearts and be more than he’s expected to be.

”

C. Reilly) well-intentioned innocence and Vanellope’s (Sarah Silverman) rambunctious spirit make them hilarious foils for one another. More

brother-and-sister than anything else, the true bond between the characters is apparent and convincing due to enjoyable performances from Reilly and Silverman. Since Ralph’s last outing, the star-studded cast has added Taraji P. Henson, Gal Gadot and Bill Hader, whose character I particularly enjoyed, even if he’s essentially the same as the one he played in “Inside Out.” If “Wreck-It Ralph” was about self-acceptance, then its sequel is about self-improvement. In the last film, the titular video game bad guy learns to be at peace with who he is. This time, he takes the next step to become a better version of himself. The film offers a poignant message for the Internet age. In the face of cyberbullying and the constant presence of social media, children — and everyone else, for that matter — struggle with self-worth. In one scene, Ralph breaks one of the rules of the Internet — he reads the comments on one of his videos. This deeply affects him, but by the end of the film he has matured to a point where the negative responses no longer trouble him.

It continues to break the mold as Vanellope meets with the Disney

princesses. Most little girls watching the film have more in common with Vanellope than they do with any of the royal heroines she encounters, and so an exchange occurs. Vanellope teaches them to mellow out, and they help her in turn to be more vocal about her goals.

“Ralph Breaks the Internet” is a film in the same vein as its predecessor.

There’s less of a quest to beat a big bad villain and more of a journey to become

the a better version of yourself for the people you love. Wreck-It Ralph is supposed to be a villain in his world, but he continues to capture our hearts and be more than who he’s expected to be.

While we can’t really go out and take part in fantastical adventures across digital interfaces, we can always learn a thing or two from Ralph.

Email Fareid El Gafy at film@nyunews.com.

COURTESY OF WALT DISNEY PICTURES

“Ralph Breaks the Internet” explores themes of self-improvement in the digital age.

Washington Square News

8

OPINION@NYUNEWS.COM

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2018

OPINION

Edited by JANICE LEE

POLITICS

Kids In Immigration Hearings Still Don’t Have Representation

By MELANIE PINEDA Deputy Opinion Editor This past summer, Donald Trump’s administration was met with public backlash after announcing a zero-tolerance policy that separated migrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border. That policy was later reversed after immense pressure from activists, politicians and the general public. But hundreds of children are still not reunited with their parents, with some being forced to represent themselves in immigration court hearings.

Although several news outlets have report-

ed on these heartbreaking hearings since the announcement of the family separation plan, the problem itself hasn’t gone away. Migrant children are still not guaranteed representation in court hearings. A Ninth Circuit panel’s refusal to hear a case regarding legal representation for migrant kids earlier this month ensured that these children won’t be given rightful representation anytime soon.

The unjust consequences of this ruling and the broken system in our immigration courts need to be addressed for the sake of thousands of lives.

The concept of an undocumented minor having to represent themself in immigration court hearings is nothing new. Since the number of unaccompanied minors crossing the border increased from around 38,000 in 2013 to 68,000 in 2014, several immigration judges have had to hear the cases of these children with only an interpreter and caretaker to aid them in court.

There are accounts of children as young as 1 year old having to represent themselves,

crying during their cases and having difficulty understanding what is happening to them. Attorneys that represent migrant children also often face difficulty in building a relationship with their clients and getting them to understand how immigration proceedings work. How does our immigration system expect toddlers who can barely walk or speak a language — let alone English — to understand the proceedings of an immigration court?

Arguments in favor of the Ninth Circuit’s refusal to hear the case include a deposition from 2016 by Judge Jack Weil, in which he justified migrant children having to represent themselves by stating that “I’ve taught immigration law literally to 3-yearolds and 4-year-olds. It takes a lot of time. It takes a lot of patience. They get it.”

But when looking at the data, this statement doesn’t seem to hold much truth. According to The Atlantic, the limited amount of free legal resources leave only one-fourth of unaccompanied migrant children with legal

representation by an attorney. As of 2014, more than 80 percent of unrepresented children were deported. In comparison, only 12 percent of those with representation were deported. Courthouses in some cities such as New York have provided immigrants with federal lawyers in the past, resulting in a massive increase of successful cases. The stark difference in these results clearly indicate that so many more of these children have valid reasons to stay in the United States, but simply lack legal resources that should be accessible to them.

According to data from the Justice Department, about 67 percent of all asylum cases this year have been provided with legal representation. But without guaranteeing all immigrants legal help, our country is turning away refugees that otherwise would have every right to be able to live in the U.S. The longer our government goes without addressing this problem, the more likely it is to only get worse. The

problem of family separation still hasn’t been resolved — an unknown number of children are still being separated at the border and are unaccounted for due to faulty data — and the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border has shown to have increased since last year. Trump’s nominee to be the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement is also open to the idea of separating migrant families again, which could mean that even more unaccompanied minors will be entering the U.S. immigration system alone. By mistreating the most vulnerable and threatened groups of migrants coming into the U.S., our government is sending a clear message of intolerance and injustice, one that we must continue to rebuke if we truly deserve to call ourselves a land of the free.

Email Melanie Pineda at mpineda@nyunews.com.

CAMPUS COMMENTARY

Why NYU’s Student Government Fails to Represent You

By FINLAY MCINTOSH Contributing Writer NYU’s Student Government Assembly is soon poised to vote on a Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions resolution. If passed by the University Senate, the resolution would cause NYU to cut all ties with companies that work with the Israeli government, including General Electric, Caterpillar Inc. and Lockheed Martin, the latter of which is a corporate partner of the Tandon School of Engineering. As this is a fairly momentous decision for Student Government to take, one would

hope that those making it were transparently elected and representative of the student body. Actually understanding how the byzantine structure of SGA works is no simple process; however, when one looks into the mechanisms, it quickly becomes clear that this structure is barely democratic and about as transparent as mud.

The first obstacle to this government being useful is that a large chunk of those claiming to represent you as students were never elected by you. Of the 79 people able to vote in the Student Government Assembly, 14 are “Senators at Large,” who are elected by the previous year’s Student Senators in a closed ballot. As such, the NYU student body does not have a say on who makes up over 17 percent of SGA, making the structure akin to an oligarchy that appoints its own members. This makes SGA’s claim to be fully representative of NYU flatly ridiculous.

Secondly, the Student Government election results are not publicly released.

It is impossible, therefore, to know how many people voted for the elected senators or what the student body’s voter turnout was. With no way of knowing the details of how a candidate won an election, there is a major transparency problem. This information is crucial as it would allow us to assess whether students are actually engaged in the electoral process and to what degree those in SGA can claim to represent them.

There is also the problem that even for the positions where the representatives are elected, the amount of people they represent wildly varies. Each of NYU’s undergraduate programs gets one senator despite the fact that the populations of these programs are significantly different. For instance, the undergraduate population of the Stern School of Business is 2,705 while the undergraduate enrollment of the Silver School of Social Work is likely under 200 — estimated from the 2017 graduating class for 40 undergraduates. With this figure, an undergraduate at the Silver School of Social Work is 13.5

times more represented than an undergraduate at Stern, exemplifying the disparity in representation.

Finally, there is the issue of secret votes, which will be used to decide upon the upcoming resolution. A representative democracy works on the premise that you can keep your representative accountable by telling them what you think of their actions. Secret voting makes this completely impossible.

While it is understandable that members of SGA are keen on not receiving criticism for passing resolutions that people don’t support, this measure makes it impossible for students to keep their representatives accountable. It allows members of SGA to be entirely deceitful and vote directly against their constituents’ interests with no way of anyone knowing.

It seems obvious to me that the job of SGA is to represent the interests of students, but when its membership is so unrepresentative of the student body, it is impossible for them to do this. A potential solution could

be to create an online poll that all NYU students could use to vote on measures, thereby eliminating the need for representatives chosen in such a questionable way to vote on proposals. This would allow for a better picture of what sort of support the proposals have. The poll could also record the school from which each vote originated, allowing SGA to see if their proposals lacked support from a particular student body. And implementing a procedure like this one would resolve the democratic deficit and lack of transparency that characterizes our current student government.

As long as the structure of SGA remains so deeply flawed, it cannot be seen as representative of student interests. We ought to question why these people need to have the ability to vote on their own proposals, especially since they fall short of adequately representing our student body.

Email Finlay McIntosh at opinion@nyunews.com.

ART IN COLOR

An Asian Performing Artist Erased From History

By ASH RYOO Columnist Before Asian artists were essentially barred from taking prominent roles, there was a silent film star who enjoyed fame and recognition all across the United States. Sessue Hayakawa, born and raised in Japan and never granted U.S. citizenship, was a famous sex symbol after his Hollywood debut in 1914, before the heydays of Rudolph Valentino.

What is most striking about Hayakawa’s case is that it shows us that in a world prior to the conditioning of popular media and stereotypes, an Asian American was able to rise to the top.

After a peer in my Tisch program introduced me to Hayakawa, I was immediately intrigued by him. He was often typecast as an Asian villain or lover in most of his movies throughout the silent film era of the 1910s and early ’20s.

Though this casting is problematic itself — it reflects the American fear of the surreptitious orient which still endures today — I marvel at the fact that an Asian man was widely perceived as attractive by the United States’ mostly-white population. Hayakawa’s career was shaken by a number of factors, but it bears mentioning how the 1930s production code restricting

even the mere portrayal of miscegenation in films further limited Hayakawa’s breadth as an actor, since he could not be involved in a romance with a female character who was not Asian.

His widespread acclaim is surprising, since Asian actors aren’t often portrayed as leading men in popular media today. Only recently with the release of “Crazy Rich Asians” were Asian men marketed as attractive. I have heard from ethnically Asian men who feel that they are seen as categorically unattractive and emasculated.

In an interview with the Huffington Post, Asian American model Kevin Kreider said, “When I was in grade school I remember just wanting to take this girl out to a dance, and when she told me that she didn’t find Asian guys attractive, I was like, ‘oh my God. What’s wrong with

being an Asian guy? Why don’t we seem attractive and what’s wrong with me?’”

Kreider explained the microaggressions he faced in his college years — a girl once complimented him by saying, “you’re really good looking for an Asian guy.”

It seems that we all have been conditioned to believe that people of certain races and ethnicities innately possess certain attributes, namely that Asians are weak, subordinate and foreign. These stereotypes take a toll, as they pave the way for microaggressions and outright discrimination. What’s even scarier is that rather than recognizing and rejecting these harmful beliefs, people freely embrace them as facts. Kevin Kreider’s grade school crush seems to have done the same, adopting a learned bias against Asian men.

With that being said, it is saddening to

think that an Asian actor who was granted such publicity is seldom remembered or celebrated anymore — it’s as if he had been erased from history. Sessue Hayakawa, though, is a case pointing to the fact that Asian men can be as masculine as their white or black counterparts. We must take the time to analyze the stereotypes that influence us and push against them.

Art in Color is a column that strives to answer the question of how artists of color — who set themselves apart from other artists with their ethnicity and the exotic quality their works possess — meet the challenges posed by the beloved visionary of creation.

Email Ash Ryoo at opinion@nyunews.com.

Washington Square News | Opinion

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2018

9

WELLNESS

Therapy Isn’t What You Think

By NATASHA JOKIC Staff Writer “So you, like, talk about your week?” one friend asked when I told them I had started therapy again.

Well, yes and no. I’ve been in and out of therapy for six years, and I’ve tried out a few different types. The way I see it, I don’t like how my mind responds to what’s happening in my life. Things as innocuous as going to class, meeting up with a few friends or even waking up, can be enough to make me begin to panic. My mind’s reaction can range from mildly inconvenient to downright debilitating. I don’t talk with my therapist as I would with a friend because my goal is to train my mind to process stimuli differently. My loved ones, as great as they are, aren’t equipped to help me in that regard.

For a while, this involved Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. For a couple of weeks, I had to fill out a spreadsheet of moments I found particularly distressing. Then, with the help of my therapist, I filled out other parts of the spreadsheet that helped me process these thoughts: what would I say if it were my friend going through the same? If the worst-case scenario came true, how would I handle it? The aim is to train your mind to eventually do the same, to stop catastrophizing and calmly process what’s going on around you. This helped improve my quality of life immensely.

As a society, we’ve become a lot more open in discussing topics related to mental health and recommending therapy to one another as a course of action. However, there are still a lot of misconceptions about what is actually involved once you step into a therapist’s office. For me, the Hollywood-fueled perception of lying down on a chaise with a box of tissues is still immensely

pervasive. It’s frustrating to deal with these stereotypes when trying to be open about mental health issues, as it can reduce the whole endeavour of therapy into a trivial need to complain about your life to a paid professional. Comparatively, filling out a spreadsheet doesn’t seem quite as cinematic but, for me, was far more helpful.

These stereotypes can be especially damaging to those who are starting therapy for the f irst time.

By its nature, this can be one of the most vulnerable periods of a person’s life. If you’re not aware of what is actually out there, it’s far too easy to end up in care that isn’t suited to your needs — or worse, to give up entirely. When I was 18, my attempts to get better were hindered by two medical professionals: one who told me that I was “probably just homesick,” and another who told me not to selfharm, as I was “beautiful and the scars will last forever.”

With the benefit of hindsight, I see that I should have pushed harder to find a therapist who would properly care for me. However, there was a stereotypical narrative that had led me to believe that going to the doctor was all I needed to do; if that didn’t work, it was my own fault. I was referred to other specialists, but I didn’t understand that getting suitable care can mean having to meet with lots of different people before finding the best fit. I just gave up and continued to spiral downwards.

We need to shift the conversation around mental illness to its treatment, not just the illness itself. We can’t stop the conversation at “go see a therapist,” but rather encourage transparency in the successes and pitfalls in the journey to better mental health. The first therapist you might see might not be the perfect fit, and people should be prepared for that.

Perhaps part of this can involve pushing for better resources that more specifically outline what to expect when booking the first therapy appointment. With that, we can be better equiped to tackle mental health from an informed standpoint.

Email Natasha Jokic at opinion@nyunews.com.

INFORMING YOU FIRST

NYUNEWS.COM Submitting to

STAFF EDITORIAL

NYU Has an Abu Dhabi Problem NYU is yet again embroiled in a conflict unfolding within the United Arab Emirates — this time, it involves the life sentence of Durham University postgraduate student Matthew Hedges, who has since been pardoned. Hedges, who was pursuing research on the UAE’s diplomacy following the Arab Spring, was found guilty of espionage after a sentencing hearing that reportedly lasted five minutes without his lawyer present. Following Hedges’ trial, over 200 NYU faculty members signed a petition addressed to President Andrew Hamilton, imploring him to condemn the UAE’s “flagrant breach of academic freedom” and to install measures that would protect NYU students abroad from such violations.

Students and faculty at NYU Abu Dhabi have the right to feel safe in their academic pursuits, and it is NYU’s duty to ensure that. But by continuing to have a close relationship with the UAE, NYU is constantly forced to reckon with how it interacts with a government that — based on its history — is oppressive and reactive. This tension makes cases like that of Hedges, as well as controversies that have surrounded NYUAD in the past, practically inevitable. By not publicly condemning these actions, NYU is simply avoiding the problem.

This is far from the first time NYU has been put in a difficult position as a result of its operations in the UAE. During the first years of NYUAD’s existence, Jewish and atheist academic fellows were advised by NYU Human Resources to lie about their religious affiliation on their work visas. The New York Times wrote an article exposing the harsh labor conditions construction workers faced while building NYUAD’s campus. Some were paid as little as $272 a month after working 11 to 12 hours a day for six to seven days a week. According to human-rights researchers, unfair labor practices should have served as a warning to NYU for future injustices on its campus — but the university chose to forge on with its expansion. Since these labor conditions were exposed, three NYU professors have been denied entry into the UAE — for reasons they believe are realted to their religious background or their criticism of the UAE in the past.

The reason for the creation of NYUAD, according to former NYU President John Sexton, was to create a “research university-focused, educational experience,” marking this pattern of barring critical professors as particularly troubling. The Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute severed ties with the campus after Journalism Professor Mohamad Bazzi was denied entry to the UAE. But each time such injustices have occurred, the administration has hesitated to publicly condemn or question the actions of the UAE government, with Hamilton even admitting fault for not adequately dealing with what happened to Bazzi.

Because no public moves have been made by NYU, there aren’t any precedents in place to keep this from happening again. How can we brand ourselves as a global campus if we are compliant in the explicit restriction of NYU academics?

The mere existence of NYUAD challenges the beliefs and practices of NYU as an institution. Since the UAE has been under international scrutiny, earlier for the censorship that allowed its leadership to survive the Arab Spring and now for its involvement with the war in Yemen, there is an incredible weight that

comes with associating the university with this country. And Hedges was just the latest victim in the UAE’s turbulent history regarding freedom of speech and expression.

Even after nearly a decade, to think that NYU has a degree-granting campus in Abu Dhabi considering all of this context is rather shocking. And NYU is at a crossroads. NYUAD continuously raises the question of whether the university turns a blind eye to the the problematic, violent ways of the UAE. To maintain the relationship, NYU is forced into a balancing act between protecting its own interests and human rights. The fact that NYU hasn’t yet condemned the UAE for the Hedges incident demonstrates just how tightly its hands are tied. It’s ultimately the administration’s choice to decide whether to commit to keeping NYUAD open in the midst of the unfurling conflicts, but what needs to happen regardless is for the university to begin transparently addressing these issues and to implement a standardized protocol that serves to protect its faculty and students.

Hamilton should have publicly denounced Hedges’ life sentence. Regarding NYU’s response, NYU Spokesperson John Beckman has emphasized that there was a lack of publicly available information to determine the overall legitimacy of Hedges’ transgression and the UAE’s response. Though we respect the caution, we believe it’s reasonable for NYU to find fault with the UAE’s legal practices — a five-minute trial with no representation is certainly insufficient when a life sentence was at stake. NYU must substantiate their advocacy for academic freedom with action, and a comment from Hamilton could have been a vital starting point. Where NYU could have been a leader, it was instead a silent bystander. Furthermore, considering the sheer number of studyabroad sites and NYU students who take advantage of the university’s global presence, NYU should address the third demand of the faculty petition — there should be a formalized protocol for how the university handles another government’s violations of academic freedom. Ultimately, we find it within NYU’s commitment as a global institution to create environments that are equipped to protect the academic freedom of all faculty and students abroad.

This is not to say that NYUAD has not been a boon for students. NYUAD is, notably, a need-blind school that doles out generous financial aid, and the school has produced 10 Rhodes scholars in just a handful of years. But not using the influence NYU has, including having influential government official Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak on its Board of Trustees, to even marginally better the region is simply wrong.

The administration must recognize the extra responsibility it takes on by exposing its students to a government that has been consistently proven to inhibit academic freedom in various ways.

The effort to craft NYUAD into the “World’s Honors College” is an ambitious one, and with an acceptance rate only slightly above two percent, the advantages of staking a claim in the UAE are understandable. The ultimate goal of international prestige is apparent. But the safety of students is paramount, and in light of tj, it is frightening to consider how student life could be affected by the limits of free speech in Abu Dhabi. It is the responsibility of NYU and NYUAD leadership to recognize the patterns that leave students and citizens at risk.

Email the Editorial Board at editboard@nyunews.com.

JANICE LEE Chair HANNA KHOSRAVI Co-chair MELANIE PINEDA Co-chair

SEND MAIL TO: 75 THIRD AVE. #SB07, NEW YORK, N.Y. 10003 OR EMAIL: OPINION@NYUNEWS.COM WSN welcomes letters to the editor, opinion pieces and articles relevant to the NYU community, or in response to articles. Letters should be less than 450 words. All submissions must be typed or emailed and must include the author’s name, address and phone number. Members of the NYU community must include a year and school or job title. WSN does not print unsigned letters or editorials. WSN reserves the right to reject any submission and edit accepted submissions in any and all ways. With the exception of the staff editorial, opinions expressed on the editorial pages are not necessarily those of WSN, and our publication of opinions is not an endorsement of them.

Washington Square News

10

SPORTS

SPORTS@NYUNEWS.COM

Wrestling Tallies a Win Against a Ranked Opponent Wrestling After winning the 165-pound title at the New York State Collegiate Championships on Nov. 18, Tandon sophomore James Murdoch was named UAA Athlete of the Week.

Murdoch became the second-ever NYU wrestler to win his weight class at this event and now has a 13-2 record for the season.

This is Murdoch’s first honor of his career.

Following the New York competition, NYU wrestling held its own against 24th-ranked Stevens Institute of Technology on Nov. 25, winning seven of 10 bouts en route to a 2813 win.

In its first dual match of the season, seven NYU wrestlers were victorious in their respective weight classes. Stevens came out to a quick 6-0 lead, but NYU quickly answered as Stern junior Sean Lyons (157 pounds), Murdoch (165 pounds) and SPS first-year Scott DuPont (174 pounds) won consecutively to inch ahead of Stevens. NYU didn’t look back after wins by CAS junior Jack La Corte (197 pounds), LS sophomore Jacob Lill (heavyweight) and Stern sophomore John Luke DeStefano (125 pounds).

CAS first-year Zach Alexander won by way of a Stevens forfeit.

This was NYU’s first win against Stevens since the 2014-15 season.

The wrestling team with travel to Maine for the Ted Reese Invitational hosted by the University of Southern Maine on Dec. 1.

Men’s Basketball Men’s basketball went 1-1 this week after defeating John Jay College and falling to The College of Staten Island.

The Violets demonstrated their defensive prowess in their game against John Jay College on Nov. 20, winning 63-51. John Jay was

held to just 29.8 percent from the field and 18.2 percent from three-point range thanks to NYU’s stifling defense. Fifty-one points is the lowest amount of points the Violets have allowed in two years since they defeated John Jay by a similar score of 63-50. The Violets also played efficient offense, shooting 61.5 percent from deep. SPS junior Jimmy Martinelli led the way offensively for the Violets with a game-high 17 points, 13 rebounds and five three-pointers. SPS senior Jule Brown pitched in 16 points and three three-pointers.

On Nov. 21 the men lost their defensive spark they had in their last game, losing to The College of Staten Island by a score of 8767. NYU never led in the contest.

NYU started the game with 16 turnovers in just the first half, leading to a 39-27 deficit.

The team could not pull much closer in the second half, mustering up as much as a 9-3 run, which was later trampled by a 9-0 run

by Staten Island. NYU ended the game with 26 turnovers and a less-than-efficient 36.4 percent from the field and 14.3 percent from deep. CAS junior Dom Cristiano posted a double-double in the loss with 15 points and 11 rebounds; Stern first-year Cade Hoppe and CAS junior Cameron Moore added 10 points each.

The Violets return to action when they host Rosemont College on Nov. 27.

Men’s Swimming and Diving Nursing first-year and diver Cole Vertin was named UAA Athlete of the Week on Nov. 19 after winning both the one-meter and three-meter dives at the United States Merchant Marine Academy on Nov. 17. He scored 308.50 and 310.25, respectively.

This is the third time Vertin has been honored this season.

Email Zach Han at zhan@nyunews.com.

VIA WIKIPEDIA

The 2018 Rose Bowl. The College Football Playoff began in 2014, and currently includes four teams.

By BRENDAN DUGGAN Sports Editor After 13 captivating weeks, the College Football Playoff selection committee has found itself in the predicament of choosing the best four teams to advance to the semif inal and national championship games. With the exception of 2014 to 2015, the season the college football playoff was implemented, the University of Alabama has appeared in every championship game, taking home the trophy in 2016 and 2018. This year, Alabama remains undefeated as the topranked team, followed by Clemson University and the University of Notre Dame, who are also 12-0.

However, this past weekend, fourthranked University of Michigan, aiming to keep their playoff hopes alive, suffered a

“

One thing remains clear: the college football committee must expand the number of teams who qualify.

”

SAM KLEIN | WSN

Oscar Argemi Gonzalez takes a layup in a game against John Jay on Nov. 20, which NYU won.

Edited by BRENDAN DUGGAN and ZACH HAN

Why the College Football Playoffs Need Change

WEEKLY UPDATE

By ZACH HAN Sports Editor

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2018

stunning 62-39 defeat to its historic rival Ohio State University. This loss not only likely eliminates Michigan’s chances of making the playoff this year, but also creates controversy over which team should be the new #4.

With a stunning 59-56 win over #13 West Virginia University, f ifth-ranked Oklahoma University now sits just outside the top four teams. They are led by two-sport athlete Kyler Murray, the Sooners quarterback who was also drafted by the Oakland Athletics as the ninth overall pick in the 2018 MLB draft.

After their dominant victory over

#4 Michigan, the Ohio State Buckeyes moved up to sixth place in the rankings, as their sophomore quarterback Dwayne Haskins threw for 396 yards and six touchdowns on Saturday.

Currently ranked fourth is the University of Georgia, as it sits at the top of the Southeastern Conference. The Bulldogs host Alabama next week, in a game that has the potential to complicate the college football playoff picture even more.

The only undefeated team outside of the top four spots is the University of Central Florida — a team that has faced diffuculty in being considered for the CFB playoff in previous years. In 2017, the Knights went a perfect 13-0, winning the American Athletic Conference championship before beating Auburn University in the Peach Bowl. To celebrate their historic season, the Knights declared themselves the 2017 National Champions despite not being chosen by the playoff committee, and even had championship rings made as a public protest of the committee. Currently at 11-0, UCF’s latest blow involves its star quarterback, McKenzie Milton, who suffered a brutal knee injury and later had reconstructive surgery.

He will have to sit out the rest of the year.

In the past, UCF has not been considered for the playoffs because of its less competitive schedule.

As multiple accomplished teams make their case to be included in this year’s playoff bracket, one thing remains clear: the college football committee must expand the number of teams who qualify. By limiting the amount of playoff teams to four, there will continue to be controversy over who should qualify for the top positions.

By expanding the playoff format to six or eight teams, the committee will allow more elite teams to have a shot at winning the national championship, including undefeated teams like UCF. Like the NCAA March Madness tournament, which features 64 college basketball teams from across the country, the CFB playoff committee should simply add more teams. More teams will increase the hype around the playoffs, add room for historic upsets and give more schools a chance at crowning themselves the best team in college football.

Email Brendan Duggan at bduggan@nyunews.com.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2018

MULTIMEDIA@NYUNEWS.COM

Washington Square News | Sports

11

EXPOSURE

Edited by KATIE PEURRUNG

Winter on the Square A chilly trip through WSN’s archives

By PAMELA JEW Under the Arch Managing Editor SAM KLEIN

Deputy Multimedia Editor Winter is met with chattering teeth and migration to warmer lands. But for over 40 years, WSN photographers have braved the New York winter winds in search of the quintessential winter photo. We peeled through the archives to find some of winter’s best, and though the pages didn’t capture great religious diversity, we tried to curate photos here that capture New York’s past winters. Talks to Santa, the Union Square Holiday Market, Washington Square Park dusted with fresh snow — this is how we portrayed winter at NYU in the days before Instagram. (P.S. — Why don’t pink- and red-dyed poodles do conga lines with each other in the name of the holidays anymore?)

Email Pamela Jew and Sam Klein at multimedia@nyunews.com.

ALEXIS JOHNSON | WSN | DEC 6, 2007

BENJAMIN NORMAN | WSN | DEC 3, 2007

REGULARS GET GRINCHED (above) At the Union Square Market, regular vendors shiver at the scent of eggnog as Christmas vendors push them out of the prime locations.

BRO! BRO! BRO! (left) Santa Claus dropped by the fraternity-sponsored Christmas party Friday.

A DANCE EXPERIENCE (below) The Labab/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies put on “a thought-provoking dance experience” called “Changing Landscapes.”

DAMASO REYES | WSN | DEC. 9, 1996

GET IN-SPIRED (bottom) Aglow in the Gothic evening, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral’s twin spires dwarf the passers-by and shoppers below.

JANE C. TIMM | WSN | DEC. 3, 2007

WINTER WONDERLAND? (top) Frigid weather hit Washington Square Park in early December as temperatures dropped into the 20s and a light dusting of snow covered the ground during mid-afternoon. It might have been the last time the park became a winter wonderland for a while, as park renovations lasting two to three years were to start in the following months.

CHRISTINE LOCKERBY/WSN | NOV. 12, 2007

WINTER: I’M BACK (above) Two Villagers enjoyed the first snow of the season in Washington Square Park.

TREE-RIFIC (right) The lights were big and bright in Bryant Park as skaters glided in front of the park’s 51-foot spruce. The tree stood behind the New York Public Library and was a part of the park’s annual holiday festivities.

BENJAMIN NORMAN | WSN | NOV. 26, 2007

ARI KLICKSTEIN | WSN | DEC. 4, 2008

OODLES OF POODLES Irina Markova and her pink poodles perform at the Big Apple Circus Saturday night. The circus will be at Lincoln Center until Jan. 13 before continuing with its tour.

WSN | DEC 15, 1976

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