2.11.19- Fourth Estate

F O U RT H E S TAT E February 11, 2019

GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY'S STUDENT NEWSPAPER

Volume 6 Issue 14

S I T A H W VE?1?0 LO page

CHIPOTLE UPDATE News page 5

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RELATIONSHIP TIPS Culture page 8

MATTHEW VOSS: THE WRESTLING STORY Sports page 15

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GUN CONTROL DEBATE Opinions page 17

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FOURTH ESTATE

02.11.2019

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

ALEXANDER SHEDD Editor-in-Chief

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

BASMA HUMADI Managing Editor IZZ LAMAGDELEINE Copy Chief LIZ ELKIND ZARA FAROUK SARAH LURIA BEN STOVNER Copy Editors

Dear Patriots, Hope you’ve all had a good start to your semester so far.

In our News section, we have great stories updating you on the political situation in Virginia since Ralph Northam’s yearbook photos came out last week and changes to Mason’s Resident Advisors (RAs) program along with other great content from our News section.

In Sports, read on to learn more about how Mason’s Women’s Basketball game went last week and a feature profile on Matthew Voss, a wrestler at Mason.

I know Valentine’s Day is this week, so whatever your relationship status is, check out our stories on five tips for long-distance relationships or student perspectives on what significance they find in Valentine Day as a holiday.

We have really upped our Opinion section a lot more and have gotten more Mason students voicing their concerns. Read on for more about the hidden benefits of college or understanding email etiquette.

This week, I sat down with Mason student Jie Zheng, a graphic designer who helped start a magazine, NAPIZUM. We talked about balancing work and school, staying creative and finding your voice and growing up in the DMV area. It reminded me of the importance of self-care and learning to say no when you have a busy work-life schedule.

Have a great week. If you have any comments or concerns, or are interested in being a part of Fourth Estate, shoot us an email at masonfourthestate@gmail.com.

DANA NICKEL News Editor ABIGAIL ADCOX Assistant News Editor MONICA ECHOLS Culture Editor HAILEY BULLIS Assistant Culture Editor CHRIS KERNAN-SCHMIDT Opinions Editor NATALIE HEAVREN Sports Editor DOMENIC ALLEGRA Assistant Sports Editor LAUREN SULLIVAN Investigative Editor

Sincerely,

KRISTEN TALMAN GMU Korea Coordinator

Basma Humadi Managing Editor

ALLIE THOMPSON Photo Editor ALEXANDRIA MCALPINE Art Director BILLY FERGUSON Online Director LAURA SCUDDER Social Media Editor

We are always recruiting volunteers for: For all inquiries, please email - WRITERS - VIDEOGRAPHERS - ILLUSTRATORS - COPY EDITORS - PHOTOGRAPHERS

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NEWS

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02.11.2019

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VIRGINIA IS FOR SCANDALS

With four ongoing scandals among Virginia politicians, here’s what you need to know LAUREN SULLIVAN INVESTIGATIVE EDITOR

Top Virginia politicians have been embroiled in scandals over the past two weeks. The turmoil began Friday, Feb. 1, when RealClearPolitics, a conservative political news site, published a photo of Gov. Ralph Northam’s yearbook page featuring a photo of two men, one in blackface and the other in the Ku Klux Klan’s white hood and robe.

The photo was in Eastern Virginia Medical School’s 1984 yearbook. Its quick circulation caused Northam to release a video apologizing for “the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now.” It was unclear whether he was the one in blackface or the KKK costume.

Soon after, it came out that Northam’s 1981 Virginia Military Institute yearbook revealed he had the nickname “Coonman” during his time at VMI. When asked about the nickname, which can be a racial slur, Northam said, “There were two individuals, as best as I can recollect, at VMI—they were a year ahead of me.

They called me ‘Coonman.’ I don’t know their motives or intent.”

FOURTH ESTATE MORGAN MCCARTHY

Northam held a press conference Saturday, Feb. 2, where he reversed his original apology, stating he talked with his college roommate and friends and

was “convinced” he did not appear in the photo. Northam said he sent in the other three photos on his yearbook page, but not the racist one.

Despite reversing his original stance that it was him in the 1984 photo, he said he “vividly” remembers dressing up in blackface another time in 1984 at a Michael Jackson dance competition.

He expanded by saying, “I used just a little bit of shoe polish to put on my cheeks, and the reason I used a very little bit because–I don’t know if anyone’s ever tried that—you cannot get shoe polish off.”

Top U.S. politicians from both the Republican and Democratic parties immediately began calling for his resignation, including Virginia Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, former Vice President Joe Biden and Northam’s predecessor, Terry McAuliffe.

Organizations on Mason’s campus called for Northam’s resignation as well, including the George Mason Democrats, who volunteered for Northam’s campaign in 2017. Their statement said, “Governor Northam’s participation [in racist activities] is universally disqualifying.”

In a statement to Fourth Estate, Mason’s College Republicans said, “While all of us at GMU College Republicans are deeply appalled by Gov. Northam’s yearbook photo, we do not comment beyond that. We do not want to appear as though we

are taking political advantage of a rather sensitive situation.”

Amid the calls for Northam to resign, a sexual-assault allegation against Justin Fairfax, the next in line to become governor if Northam resigns, was brought to light.

It began with a post on Facebook by Dr. Vanessa C. Tyson describing an incident with a current Virginia politician who assaulted her at the 2004 Democratic National Convention.

Wednesday, Feb. 6, Tyson released a statement detailing the alleged incident.

“As I cried and gagged, Mr. Fairfax forced me to perform oral sex on him,” the statement read. “…To be very clear, I did not want to engage in oral sex with Mr. Fairfax and I never gave any form of consent. Quite the opposite.

I consciously avoided Mr. Fairfax for the remainder of the convention, and I never spoke to him again.”

When Fairfax was elected Virginia’s Lt. Gov., Tyson went to The Washington Post with her story. The Post investigated but could not corroborate her story, so they did not print it. In light of the promotion Fairfax might receive, Tyson came forward.

However, Fairfax states he is the victim of “smear” and has adamantly denied the allegations. “Reading Dr. Tyson’s account is painful. I have never done anything like what she suggests. Any review of the circumstances would support my account, because it is the truth,” Fairfax’s statement read.

A source close to Tyson’s legal team said she does not plan to pursue charges against Fairfax and only wanted to make the statement about what happened, then return to her normal life.

As the Fairfax scandal heated up with Tyson’s statement being released,

FOURTH ESTATE MORGAN MCCARTHY

Editor’s Note: This article contains graphic recollections of a sexual assault, reader discretion is advised.

Virginia’s Attorney General Mark Herring, the next in line for governor behind Northam and Fairfax, released a statement revealing he has also appeared in blackface.

Herring’s statement detailed the instance, saying, “In 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time … and perform a song.” He continued, “This was a one time occurrence and I accept full responsibility for my conduct.”

Top politicians and political organizations have declined to call for Fairfax and Herring’s resignations, but have reiterated their wishes for Northam to step down.

The chaos surrounding Virginia’s top three state politicians led to uncertainty about who would become governor of the Commonwealth if Northam, Fairfax and Herring were all to resign.

The next in line behind them is Virginia’s House speaker, Kirk Cox. He appears to be scandal-free at the moment, stating, “I have never appeared in blackface. As you know, I was a schoolteacher, and that’s abhorrent.”

Just as the dust started to settle, another Virginia politician was involved in a

similar scandal. On Thursday, Feb. 7, it was reported that Virginia’s state majority leader, Tommy Norment, was editor of VMI’s yearbook in 1968, when it featured dozens of racist photos and slurs.

Many blackface photos were printed, as well as racist slurs against Black, Chinese and Japanese Americans.

Norment did not appear in any of the photos.

Norment’s statement asserted that he was an editor of the yearbook that year, but was not involved in the decision to include the racist photos and slurs. The statement read, “The use of blackface is abhorrent in our society and I emphatically condemn it. As one of seven working on a 359-page yearbook, I cannot endorse or associate myself with every photo, entry or word on each page.”

Throughout the tumultuous events engulfing Virginia politics in the past few weeks, it seems Northam will remain governor. Six sources close to Northam told Politico that he has no plans to resign and will finish the rest of his three-year term. Sources also told Politico that Northam has been conferring with Virginia’s Republican lawmakers and has hired a crisis manager.

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NEWS

02.11.2019

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

MASON HOUSING PROGRAM WILL TO SIGNIFICANT CHANGES

Chief Housing Officer looks to overhaul the entire housing department PETER NJOROGE STAFF WRITER

According to Chief Housing Officer Dr. Chris Holland, the housing department is undergoing a “reimagining” that looks to provide incoming Patriots with a different and more concrete residential student experience.

These changes include the division of the current resident advisor (RA) role into two positions. In upperclassmen communities, a cutback in the amount of RAs will be partially substituted by a different group of student employees known as “community assistants.”

The new role of community assistants will encompass more of the logistical aspects of being an RA, including working 24-hour desks and maintaining paperwork.

The new system looks to build toward the goal of what Holland described as “feeling you’re a part of here.” Holland also mentioned that while positions for students in Housing might be decreasing, opportunities in other places like Off-Campus Services could be a good landing spot for students looking for employment.

Holland, after taking a self-described “look, listen, and learn tour,”

PHOTO COURTESY OF MASON POLICE

MASON WEEKLY CRIME LOG

decided that it was time to optimize and modernize housing in order to improve student engagement and experiences. From Holland’s perspective, the department is doing exactly what our newfound robotic delivery friends are doing―pushing toward the future.

his residents under this new system.

He anticipates a massive jump in the amount of residents that each RA will be allotted.

Holland said efficiency and redundancy were the major reasons behind the restructuring. The cost, however, will be 30 positions within student staffing in the department.

When asked about how the information was relayed to the current group of student employees, Mummau described an info session where all the changes were explained. The following day, the staff participated in a Q&A session that he felt left far more questions than answers.

While there are mixed feelings among the group, these changes came as a shock to most current RAs, who fear the potential difficulties of being responsible for more residents and competing for fewer positions within the housing department.

“It’s a violent change, very quick,” says current RA Kyle Mummau, a mechanical engineering major. He sees the changes almost as an attack on the position of many current RAs who work in upperclassmen dorms.

He also believes that the split eliminates certain aspects of the job that he currently enjoys.

“The job that I wanted to do doesn’t exist anymore,” Mummau said. “The reasons I wanted to do it still exist, but not to the level of what they [did].”

Mummau also thinks that it will be far more challenging to connect with

Currently, Mummau is responsible for 27 residents. He expects that number to more than double for RAs in the coming semester.

“When they introduced it to us, they annoyed more of us than they won over,” Mummau said. “We spent an hour asking questions.”

However, not all of the students on staff think the changes are going to have a negative impact. Sophomore RA Joshua McLean, a film and video studies major, has a degree of hope about the new system.

“To me, it’s not the end of the world,” McLean said. “I think the changes are positive, and I think they’re going to tweak stuff anyway. … We’ll see how it goes.”

While he still admitted to some confusion, he is open to changes that could benefit both the program and

the university. McLean even sees the possibility of the RAs in this new structure being able to function better together because of the larger scope of their position.

“But in upperclassmen [dorms] where … there are less RAs, I think their thinking is, if there is one RA per these many residents, now you’re working to do more [community-]building programs, like bigger-scale stuff,” he said. “Because that’s what sophomores and above want.”

The main defense for the reduction of the RA presence in older communities is that upperclassmen neither need nor desire the same community-building efforts that their younger counterparts might. Holland believes that this reduction of staff could serve to create a natural transition to life largely without the community services that RAs provide.

reapplying to the program. Unlike in years past, they will have to reapply along with the new applicants. There will no longer be what they described as “returner interviews,” adding what they perceive as an element of indifference.

“We’re fighting every other new applicant for a position,” Mummau said, a reality that is bothering some current employees.

According to Holland, typically half the staff turns over each year, leaving―in theory―plenty of openings for students who want to participate in the program.

Holland concluded that the efforts to reorganize housing were not under the pressure of financial concerns.

“We’re reinvesting the money back into the experience,” Holland said.

While more work may lay ahead for RAs at Mason, they will become, according to Holland, the highest-paid student staff in the entire state of Virginia, a point of excitement for all parties involved.

Both Mummau and McLean intend on

Thursday, Feb. 7- Near Clock Tower and Robinson B, 9:21 p.m.

Thursday, Feb. 7- Dominion Hall (Rm 2510), 3:11 a.m.

Simple Assault: Complainant (GMU) reported being grabbed by an unknown subject.

Fire in Student Housing Facility: City of Fairfax Fire responded to a small unintentional fire in a residence hall. No injuries reported. Minor property damage.

Case 2019-001202- Pending

Case 2019-001170- Information Only

Thursday, Feb. 7- Johnson Center (3rd Floor), 6:14 p.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 6- Taylor Hall, 8:34 p.m.

Simple Assault/Disorderly Conduct: Two subjects (GMU) were referred to Office of Student Conduct (OSC) for acting disorderly in public.

Drug/Narcotic Violations/Liquor Law Violations: Two subjects (GMU) were referred to Office of Student Conduct (OSC) for possessing illegal drugs and alcohol while under 21.

Case 2019-001191- Referred to OSC

Thursday, Feb. 7- Fairfax Campus, Multiple times Stalking: Complainant (GMU) reported receiving unwanted contact from a known subject (GMU) on multiple occasions.

Case 2019-001184- Referred to Title IX

Case 2019-001150- Referred to OSC Wednesday, Feb. 6- Fairfax Campus, Multiple times Stalking: Complainant (GMU) reported receiving unwanted contact from a known subject (GMU) on multiple occasions.

Case 2019-001154- Referred to Title IX

FOURTH ESTATE ALLIE THOMPSON

While the population of Patriots continues to climb, the housing department is making changes that will result in fewer student employees, especially resident advisors, effective next semester.

NEWS

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

02.11.2019

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EX-EMPLOYEE SPEAKS OUT ON CHIPOTLE An update on Chipotle’s working conditions since last fall SABIHA BASIT STAFF WRITER

Last fall, Fourth Estate released a report describing the accounts from former Chipotle employees who spoke out against unfair conditions, specifically working extended hours without compensation. Nearly five months later, an employee who recently quit working at Chipotle provided an update on what it is like within the restaurant.

who reported them,” Aaron said.

“They obviously didn’t. It was just to scare everyone, and then most of the crew members wouldn’t talk about it anymore, and all of the [general manager’s] closest friends on the crew stood up for him and were angry that someone had reported him.”

Aaron continued, “They didn’t even

Aaron stated that the current employees are new hires and may not be aware of the previously unfair conditions that Chipotle employees faced.

“We would lose and rehire mostly new crews around every three to four months, so most of the people there now weren’t there over the summer

Aaron said he had stayed as long as he could at Chipotle in order to receive tuition assistance. Tuition assistance is granted to employees after they work for a year and six months. However, the Chipotle staff did not tell him the complete truth.

Shortly after the story was published last fall, the managers allegedly closed ranks on the employees. “[They] all got more secretive and they told all of us that they knew

Despite the roller-coaster experience, Aaron said he cannot deny the fact that he learned valuable skills.

“I use a lot of the skills I learned [at Chipotle] at home,” Aaron said.

“I am much cleaner with my dishes and food prep, which comes directly from working at Chipotle, and I am really great at chopping anything up quickly and efficiently now.”

FOURTH ESTATE GRANT SMITH

“If I had liked worked (sic) at Chipotle, I would’ve stayed another couple [months],” Aaron said. “They give tuition assistance at a year and six months, but they told us it was tuition assistance at a year, which is why I stayed as long as I did. This was not true.”

employees to have shorter shifts, more flexibility for students and their schedules and the ability to leave earlier. Chipotle now closes at 10 p.m. instead of 11 p.m., which lets employees get off earlier and prevents them from working overtime to close up shop.

acknowledge that anything had happened. They just said if you were listening, that they knew who it was.

[There was] no compensation, or pay raises or anything.”

and fall,” Aaron said.

However, Aaron explained that the managers have started improving the working conditions. Chipotle has recruited more staff, allowing

When asked if he would recommend others apply and work at Chipotle, his response seemed sincere.

“I don’t recommend that anyone should work there,” Aaron said. “It’s average pay for a fast-food job, but

they want the employees to treat it like it’s an actual restaurant, and they do not pay accordingly.”

However, for those who do apply or work at Chipotle, Aaron offered a piece of advice.

“I would tell anyone that wants to apply at Chipotle that it’s unlikely they will enjoy working there, and that if enough people quit, you will work long hours and do the work of two or three crew members,” he said. “Also, I would tell them that the turnover rate is incredibly high, so if they make friends or find people they like to work with at the store, unless they’re a manager, then it’s likely they will quit within three months of being hired.”

Despite the debatable conditions, Chipotle remains one of the most popular restaurants at Mason.

“I don’t think it’s ever going to stop having as high turnover rate (sic),” Aaron said. “It’s a pretty tedious and fairly difficult job for the pay. Unless they keep the store really well-staffed, it becomes unbearably miserable.”

Chipotle’s general manager declined to comment.

THIS WEEK IN POLITICS Monday, Feb. 4 Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam showed no signs of resigning over his racist university yearbook photo.

President Trump announced he picked his nominee for the Secretary of Interior, David Bernhardt, a former oil lobbyist.

The federal public defender’s office has filed a lawsuit against the federal jail in Brooklyn, calling the conditions the inmates are faced with a “humanitarian crisis.”

Tuesday, Feb. 5 President Trump delivered his second State of the Union address.

Female elected official, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, donned white to the State of the Union in support of the Equal Rights Amendment and in protest to President Trump.

President Trump’s Inaugural Committee was ordered to hand over documents to federal investigators.

Wednesday, Feb. 6

Thursday, Feb. 7

Stacey Abrams calls for ballot fairness in Democratic response to President Trump’s State of the Union address.

Vanessa Tyson accuses Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of sexual assault.

Former President of Costa Rica is accused of sexual assault.

President Trump announces he is to meet with Kim Jong-un in Vietnam.

Mark Herring, Virginia’s Attorney General, admits he also wore blackface.

British Prime Minister Theresa May heads to Brussels for Brexit talks.

Friday, Feb. 8 A second woman comes forward, accusing Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax of rape.

Virginia Delegate Patrick Hopes states he will introduce articles of impeachment for Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax on Monday, Feb. 11.

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NEWS

02.11.2019

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

PROFESSOR MAKES CAREER IN ASSISTING LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY

How research in psychology is helping Lauren Cattaneo effect change IZZ LAMAGDELEINE COPY CHIEF

“My interest in psychology, more broadly, has always been in social justice and thinking about how social arrangements influence people’s experience and wellbeing,” she stated.

As an associate professor within the Department of Psychology, she has researched “barriers to help seeking” following intimate partner violence within the LGBTQ+ community and the help seeking experiences of sexual assault victims in college.

Cattaneo recalled that her interest in empowerment stemmed from her research into dating and relationship violence.

She stated, “A lot of organizations will say that empowerment is a value

that they have or something they do, but I got frustrated with the fact that it wasn’t clear that we all meant the same thing, and we said ‘empowerment,’ but it wasn’t clear how to measure it.

So from my work in intimate partner violence, I got interested in that concept.”

Cattaneo cares about working to immediately solve harmful issues impacting people in the LGBTQ+ community.

“I am much more interested in what are the problems that organizations working with survivors face, and how can my work contribute to supporting their efforts or answering questions they might have in trying to serve survivors [to] the best of their ability,” she explained.

Cattaneo believes that psychology

helps to both find a cause for social injustices and influence existing treatment so lasting change can be made. She also uses her skills in order to effect change the best she can, with her work in the field as well as teaching.

“I know how to teach. I know how to explain things, so I think a lot about the social problems that I think are really compelling, what can I do about them from where I am with the skill set I have,” Cattaneo said.

had any real rich contact with it, so I will actually do some data-collection myself and interview folks myself,” Cattaneo continued.

and finishing up two papers. She also wishes to research college students’ finances stress as well as their experiences with poverty.

Currently, Cattaneo is working on a housing study as well as analyzing data collected from one of her classes, supervising her graduate students

“Where I really get motivated in terms of doing research is when it’s clear that there’s a question that needs to be answered,” she said.

She tries to be hands-on with her research, often directly interacting with subjects participating in her research studies.

PHOTO COURTESY OF FLICKR

For Lauren Cattaneo, the field of psychology is one where real change for real problems can occur.

“I think it’s really important to understand your data on that level, and to—this is a qualitative study, and I just can’t sit in the room and think about what the data means if I haven’t

MASON OFFERS ASSISTANCE TO STUDENTS AFFECTED BY SHUTDOWN

Discounted courses and programs offered through Mason for government employees Office report calculated that the historic five-week shutdown will end up costing the economy close to $11 billion.

Mason faculty members have done extensive research into the actual cost of the shutdown.

It also reports that the group that experienced the most negative financial effects from the shutdown were federal workers forced to deal with delayed paychecks and compensation, as well as workers in the private sector that lost business.

Stephen Fuller, an economist and head of the Stephen S. Fuller Institute at Mason, calculated the cost of the shutdown based on the amount federal workers were paid back within the week after the government temporarily reopened.

According to a report by the Washington Business Journal, Fuller found that for the 25 days in January, the shutdown cost the regional economy of the greater Washington area $1.62 billion.

Nationally, a Congressional Budget

The 12-page report warns that the shutdown has had grave effects on individual businesses and employees.

Organizations and offices at Mason were quick to provide assistance to federal government workers throughout the shutdown, which started in mid-December.

Mason’s business school offered online courses and programs free for federal government workers and contractor employees. Registration

opened late in December, and the courses lasted until Feb. 7.

Mason’s Center for the Arts offered discounted performances for federal employees. Some performances offered to federal government employees at $5 per ticket have included the Metropolitan Jazz Orchestra, a production of The Phantom Tollbooth and Trey McLaughlin & The Sounds of Zamar.

Mason Athletics also provided free tickets for people who could present their federal employee I.D. to sporting events at Mason throughout the duration of the shutdown.

Mason

has

organized

on-campus events throughout February to provide free food for students affected by the shutdown.

Furlough Fridays have been planned and hosted by Mason’s Off-Campus Student Services. They have served coffee, doughnuts, pizza and other foods.

Northern Virginians affected by the shutdown. The Hylton Center asked for nonperishable foods, as well as financial contributions and grocerystore gift certificates. Food can be delivered Tuesdays through Saturdays during their business hours or during scheduled performances.

The Hylton Performing Arts Center has also hosted numerous f o o d drives for

President Trump and the Democrats in Congress agreed to fund the government for three weeks. The U.S. government is currently entering the third week of this agreement. If another spending deal is not made by Feb. 15, then the U.S. government will return to a partial shutdown.

FOURTH ESTATE BILLY FERGUSON

DANA NICKEL NEWS EDITOR

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history was temporarily halted on Jan. 25. At the risk of another upcoming shutdown with no end in sight, the U.S. is taking the brunt of the damage, including Northern Virginia’s economy and residents.

NEWS

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

02.11.2019

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CAMPUS KITCHEN PROVIDES FOR LOCALS Student organization meets food insecurity with campus dining partnership Lauren Cattaneo effect change SAMI GIBBS STAFF WRITER

The leftover food from Mason’s dining halls is being utilized instead of composted. Campus Kitchens, a student-led organization, is spearheading these efforts on campus as a chapter of the Campus Kitchens Project, a national food recovery group.

The project was created in 2001 as a nonprofit and partner with DC Central Kitchen. The mission statement of the project says that it seeks to “develop innovative local solutions [that] target hunger’s root causes,” according to their website.

When asked about Campus Kitchens’ impact, the Mason Sustainability Office responded saying, “[This] is a great opportunity for students to help Mason become more sustainable.”

They also stated that reducing the amount of food waste on a local and global level is a solution to addressing climate change and sustainability issues.

At Mason, the Campus Kitchens chapter was installed in 2014. Campus Kitchens’ volunteers to package and distribute meals from Mason dining halls to local homeless shelters.

Maria Hurtado, the vice president of the organization, hopes that Mason’s Campus Kitchens chapter can “build a passionate and sustainable program so that we are able to minimize food waste on a daily basis for our campus dining halls.”

In order to accomplish their services, Campus Kitchens partners with Mason Dining. Their partnership started at the same time Campus Kitchens became a student organization, and through their work together they have been able to recover thousands of pounds of food, according to a source from Mason Dining.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States, one-third of all produced food is not consumed, which translates into “a waste of natural resources used for growing, processing, packaging, transporting and marketing food.”

When asked about the organization’s work, Mason Dining commented that “the volunteers have positively impacted [their] culinary team and efforts to recover food.”

According to an analysis by Mason, approximately 50 meals per week are created. Mason has also garnered other efforts to address issues pertaining to poverty and food insecurity including the Patriot Pantry, which collects and distributes nonperishable food items to food-insecure students.

Approximately 64,600 persons live in poverty in Fairfax County, according to data compiled from the Northern Virginia Affordable Housing Alliance.

Beyond the service aspect of Campus

PHOTO COURTESY OF CAMPUS KITCHEN’S FACEBOOK

The chefs mentor the volunteers who reportedly work a variety of shifts, some being early mornings and late nights, and learn to navigate the kitchen. Student leaders of Campus Kitchens collaborate with chefs from each dining hall to discuss potential meals to later package.

The student organization has also coordinated shifts and delivers to the Katherine K. Hanley Family Shelter, according to information from Mason’s Office of Sustainability. The Katherine K. Hanley Shelter was formed in 1981 and is a “grassroots responder to the homelessness crisis in Fairfax County,” according to their website.

Campus Kitchens is continuing to partnering with local nonprofits and other organizations that are focused on addressing food insecurity and poverty.

PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKIPEDIA

Kitchens, their sustainability efforts are also noted on campus. The Mason Sustainability Office has recognized the organization on their “Sustainable Spotlight” website initiative by describing the volunteers’ contributions as an “effective part of the national effort to eliminate hunger.”

POLITICS OF U.S.-MEXICO BORDER SAMPLE CLASS Correa-Cabrera discusses MS-13, dynamics of countries through Mason for government employees IZZ LAMAGDELEINE COPY CHIEF

When Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, associate professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government, was a professor at the former University of Texas at Brownsville, she began to develop a course on the politics of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Years later, it is now a sample class at Mason’s Arlington campus, held for two hours on Wednesday, Feb. 6.

“I thought that teaching the course here in Washington was very important to understand today’s politics in the United States,” Correa-Cabrera said about it.

The sample class was aimed toward graduate students working on getting their master’s in a government-related field. “[Graduate students] are policy makers, and many of our students are right now working on policy issues or working [on] Capitol Hill [or] government agencies in Washington,” she said. “So many of them have not been to the border, and now this is so crucial for the lives in these countries. So I believe that it is a very relevant course to take.”

Correa-Cabrera has been working on this class for years,

updating it to make sure that it is as comprehensive as possible.

“I [study] border policy, immigration policy, environmental policy at the border, border security and all those different areas of what you have studied in public policy when you focus on the border. However, now I incorporated new elements in this course as to the politics of Mexico and U.S. politics, the political side of border issues,” Correa-Cabrera said.

The sample class also covered MS-13.

Correa-Cabrera co-hosted a forum on migration, homeland security and gangs last semester that heavily discussed the gang. She conducts research on the topic, as well.

“I want to understand much better the dynamics of MS-13 in the Northern Triangle [of Central America], MS-13 in the United States,” she said.“I know these phenomena are related but not of the same nature and of the same intensity, but the discourse has pictured and has depicted MS-13 in the United States as equally violent and perverse for American society, and there are allegations that the connection is very strong, and I haven’t found that yet.”

Correa-Cabrera

hopes

that

the

class will add to the discussion of this crucial topic, both to give context to the current immigration debate and to lessen polarization.

“What is the baseline of how many in what context in which conditions?” she asked. “We cannot criminalize everybody coming from Central America. ... This is why discourse is important, because we’ll be analyzing official data to look at this from a serious perspective.”

Correa-Cabrera also thinks that the federal government needs to make sure when they develop policy that they consider everything that is happening in the area.

“Sometimes federal policies are not [doing] that well to address the needs of everybody, so sometimes it can benefit one part of the border, but it can deteriorate the lives of many other communities,” she said.

Students who came to the forum were highly interested in what the professor had to say.

“I think you get a chance to hear from a perspective from … the other side, so—I feel like it isn’t as U.S.biased in that case,” said a prospective Mason student attending the class.

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GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

DEAR IVY,

Ivy helps a student whose roommate keeps eating their food the fridge.

First and foremost, I really love reading your column.

It’s really amazing that you are so willing to hear problems from everyone and offer sound advice.

This is part of the reason why I am writing you today—I have a bit of a problem at my hands. You see, I get along with my roommate, but lately she has been taking advantage of what it truly means to be a “roommate.”

I had my birthday a couple of days ago, and my friend bought me a dozen cupcakes from a nice bakery. I had no room on my desk so I kindly asked my roommate if it was okay to place them on her desk until I can clear

Dear Cupcake Fan, I’m glad you enjoy reading this column. The hope for Dear Ivy is to make life here at Mason as easy and as smooth as possible. Questions like yours are the best way to make that happen.

FOURTH ESTATE BILLY FERGUSON

Dear Ivy,

I come back from my on-campus job the following day and find that she had eaten them all. It had upset me a bit, and I just told her, “Make sure to ask me next time.”

Now a few days have passed and I have noticed some of my food has gone missing. It’s not that I don’t want to share my food, it’s the fact I wish she would ask me first.

I feel frustrated and I don’t know what to do. Do you have any advice that could help me?

Thanks, Cupcake Fan

as she gets permission first.

Be ready to make a compromise on this. A fair amount of people attending college may not have had to share a room

Worst case scenario, if it happens to escalate even after sitting down and attempting to talk through this, you may have to move to a more nuclear option: the RA. All RA’s have been thoroughly trained in roommate mediation, and most have probably either been in your shoes or dealt with students in your shoes before.

They have the experience and training to find the best outcome for the both of you.

FOURTH ESTATE BILLY FERGUSON

Now, on to your roommate issues. Right off the bat, the best thing to suggest is to find a time where you are available and have a face-to-face conversation about this situation.

Communication is key.

It’s best to nip it in the bud before it escalates into something larger.

as possible is communication.

The resources tab on Mason’s housing and residence life website has tips for conflict mediation between roommates, including how to make the best environment to have the conversation.

with another person and will have a harder time changing their habits.

It also may be useful to go over your roommate agreement you both participated in at the start of the school year. Tell her how eating your food without asking makes you feel, and how you are willing to share food as long

Best case scenario, it could be as simple as labelling food in the fridge. Maybe after a long day she grabbed whatever was closest without looking at whose it might be. However, the first step in solving this as soon

It is very normal to have conflicts with your roommate, as you are two different people coming from different backgrounds.

Most times, you cannot help having a disagreement on one thing or another. What you can help is how you handle it. Catching it early and treating it maturely is the best thing you will be able to do. I know you two will be able to work it out in the end.

-Ivy

Send in letters to mechols@gmu.edu

FIVE TIPS FOR A LONGDISTANCE RELATIONSHIP Advice for how to make your relationship last NATALIE HEAVREN SPORTS EDITOR

Distance is not what ruins long-distance relationships. It can make some issues more difficult to resolve, but it is not what ruins long-distance relationships. Here are five tips for maintaining long-distance relationships based on my own experiences.

If someone tells you they don’t feel like a priority, do not just respond with “I’m sorry” Not prioritizing your significant other is one problem. Not trying to make them feel like they’re an important part of your life is a different problem. The aforementioned situation happened to me, and what hurt the most was that my feelings weren’t even being considered by someone who was supposed to care about me. My suggestion would be to listen when your significant other doesn’t feel important or like a priority and have the difficult discussion about it.

If your significant other is home, spend time with them Obviously, you don’t have to spend all your time with your significant other. However, make sure to hang out with them when they are not a couple 100 miles away. Try planning a date or two. It isn’t rocket science. Quality time is important in every relationship, and not spending time with your significant other when you can sometimes creates difficult situations to navigate. It’s important to be open to having the discussion and talking about how both of you feel before it becomes an issue.

If your significant other wants to talk about communication issues they feel exist, maybe do that Do not ignore requests to Skype or only text the bare minimum amount to get across that you’re still alive and well for months. Doing so may lead to the end of the relationship.

Constant communication should never be an expectation, but having conversations that go deeper than day-to-day surface-level topics is important to all relationships, especially romantic ones. Even if it’s been years, it’s important to find topics and ideas to discuss.

Communication is important If that hasn’t been brought up enough—yeah, communicate. It seems simple, but it can’t just be “Hey?,” “How was your day?” or “What are you doing later?” There’s more to communication than simple pleasantries. And if you don’t go beyond that, you may get broken up with.

Make sure you still have things in common every once in a while You may say, “Oh, of course I’ll know when I don’t have anything in common with the person I’m dating.” Well in reality, it’ll hit you one day.

You’ll spend some time pondering that thought, and it’ll certainly freak you out. You may even ask your friends, who will be like “I’ve been trying to find a way to tell you that for months.”

Then you’ll realize you probably shouldn’t continue dating them for any of the reasons above. And then you’ll break up with them.

You can make long-distance relationships work.

It just takes time, communication and actually putting in effort.

CULTURE

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

02.11.2019

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LEARNING WITH EVERY PIECE Mason artist talks about her experiences with art and about some of her work HAILEY BULLIS ASSISTANT CULTURE EDITOR

making of the three-dimensional tree. In her first piece, McDonald took two tree stumps, sewing needles and thread to make two complementary foxes on the the two stumps.

McDonald, an art and visual technology major with a focus in drawing, is pursuing an English minor to combine her interest for storytelling with her love of art.

“I’m very interested in storytelling, and I love comics and graphic novels,” she said. “So I was wondering how I could combine my art and English minors, and hopefully one day I will pursue writing my own comics.”

“So the first piece I did, a few things I learned the first time, is I did the staining first,” McDonald said. “I painted the wood stump black and then I drew on top of it, and it was very hard to get rid of the pencil drawing underneath because I was trying to add paint after I had done the thread and the pins and what not … With the next piece, the tree piece I did, I put the nails in after I drew the image and then I put the stain on over top.”

While McDonald wants to pursue writing comics, she does not want to stick to one genre. “I love all different genres,” McDonald said. “I think picking a genre and sticking with it is kind of boring, you know ... I think it depends on what kind of story you want to write and what message or ideas you want to convey.”

This attitude can be found in her art as well, as McDonald can be found working with many different mediums throughout her pieces.

“I do all sorts of things,” she said.

“It kind of depends on how I’m feeling, sometimes I’ll do personal pieces expressing feelings that I have or something about myself that I don’t put into words well.

Sometimes I’ll talk about things that are going on in the world, important issues, that sort of thing.

Sometimes I’ll just pick a simple subject matter when I’m trying to do something interesting or creative with the materials.”

McDonald started working with nontraditional media in her nontraditional approaches to drawing class last semester. She took a spherical piece of wood and hammered nails into the wood before wrapping multiple layers of thread and wire onto the nails to create a three-dimensional tree.

This was not her first attempt with such a medium. It was based on a previous project that enlisted more or less the same procedure as the

McDonald has made a total of three such wood pieces. “They’ve been pretty fun to do,” she said.

“I’ve improved with each one and learned things—what to do, what not to do. As with all pieces you tend to learn as you go.”

This is a sentiment McDonald carries with her into her other pieces as she feels she learns something new with every piece she creates.

“The one thing about being an artist is you’re never done learning,” McDonald said.

“You’re always learning new skills and it’s always helping you improve, but I think working with the different materials and having these amazing professors who are helping you do the best that you can do and giving you important feedback.”

“I think there’s that mentality when you look back at something you did freshman year, you can really see how far you’ve progressed and you kind of cringe a little when you are looking at your old work … but there are a few pieces that I worked really hard on that I still kind of really like,” McDonald said.

She continued, “I don’t know if I can name one in particular and be like ‘Yes, that’s my favorite,’ because all of them have room for improvement ... but they are all special to me for different

reasons, whether it was my first time working with a medium and it turned out a lot better than I expected or the subject matter is really dear to me. So even if the drawing is not the best, at the time [it] helped me work through something or express my gratitude towards a certain person or something.”

Besides her wood and thread pieces, some of McDonald’s work includes painting her pieces onto paper towels, one of which depicts a woman with her back to a body of water and another which shows a doll with elderly hands holding onto it.

McDonald plans to continue working with nontraditional mediums in her work and her degree as she moves forward with her art. “I just always like working with new materials, you know,” she said. “After a while, you can only do so much.”

While working on her pieces, McDonald revealed that she sometimes struggles with knowing when a piece is finished. “I think the biggest challenge that all art majors face is knowing when your project is done because … you get so invested in these pieces and you can work on them for hours,” she said. “I know I have worked on projects for over 30 hours, and at some point you have to step back and make sure you don’t overwork the piece.”

McDonald has had one of her pieces shown at the Torpedo Factory Art Center when she took a Comics and Zines class at Mason. Her pieces could also be found hung on the walls of the Art and Design building last semester, along with the works of other Mason students as well.

“One of the best things about being an art major is there is just such an amazing community there like everyone wants to create and help each other and will often give each other advice on projects or like inspire each other and encourage each other to continue to do what we want to do,” McDonald said.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF AMANDA MCDONALD

Nails, thread, wood and paper towels might not be the first materials you think of when you want to create art, but for Amanda McDonald, such nontraditional mediums are normal.

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02.11.2019

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

WHAT IS LOVE?

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, find out what Mason students think of the holiday ANGELIQUE ARINTOK STAFF WRITER

Although massive amounts of chocolate, flowers and stuffed animals take over Valentine’s Day, the strong core of this holiday remains love—a love shared between partners, friends and family. Some Mason students have their own ways of celebrating this year’s day of love, commemorating relationships they’ve developed in their personal lives.

Haley Thompson, a senior communication major, is in a four-year relationship with her boyfriend. When she thinks of love, she says it’s about how another person can make you whole. “[It] means finding someone that

is your equal, but they fill in where you lack … finding someone that FOURTH ESTATE BILLY FERGUSON

In 2019, the expected amount of Americans celebrating Valentine’s Day is down to 51 percent compared to 63 percent back in 2009, according to an annually released survey by the National Retail Federation. Identical to the nationwide response, 51 percent of college-aged people said they would be celebrating the holiday in 2019, according to the same survey.

who

attends Virginia Tech, but he plans to travel f r o m

dinner reservations at a restaurant in Washington, D.C., and they are looking forward to celebrating this holiday together for the first time in four years, she says.

Imani Holloman, a junior communication major, is celebrating the upcoming holiday single. Despite that, she’s honoring the occasion with a friend for a birthday dinner.

Another student in a long-distance relationship, Martin Trompeta, a freshman integrative studies major, says that his girlfriend lives nearly 9,000 miles away. “The idea of joining her in person for a dinner date is out of the question,” said Trompeta.

“Love is such a special feeling and it’s unconditional,” said Holloman. “With love, we receive it in different forms, [from] friends, family and relationships with significant others.

But, he says he’s looking forward to celebrating the one-year mark since first meeting, and is making the most out of the holiday through a video call.

“Love is more than just the physical affection we give to our significant other,” said Trompeta. makes person,”

you a better said Thompson.

Thompson is currently in a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend

Blacksburg to see Thompson for the holiday. The couple has a Valentine’s weekend planned with

There’s three key things which he says hold together a bond between partners—love, understanding and communication. Those are the fundamental aspects that keep Trompeta’s long-distance relationship thriving.

Although she’s single, she says her heart is full especially for the love she shares with her mother.

“She is my everything, she’s literally my best friend,” said Holloman.

This season of love goes beyond romantic relationships, extending to personal friendships and family.

Although only half of college-aged students are expected to celebrate the holiday, Mason students have their own strongly held ideas of what love means amid the upcoming holiday.

HIDDEN HANGOUTS: BANTAM KING

Bantam King pitches fried chicken and ramen as a delicious duo PETER NJOROGE STAFF WRITER

include, of course, fried chicken and upscale, semi-traditional ramen— served separately—along with various interesting ice cream creations, including soft serve accompanied by a leaf of real gold, and a wide range of unique Japanese beverages.

Located incredibly close to Capital One Arena in Washington D.C.’s Chinatown neighborhood, just a few steps away from the iconic Friendship Archway and Chinatown metro stop, Bantam King offers a combination of food fare with a creative and original way, making it an awesome destination for students looking for a fun place in the city.

Everything served is delicious. There are various comforting ramen choices, and Bantam King’s take on a Nashville hot chicken plate is one of the menu’s highlights. The restaurant is also affordable and well within the budget of a full-time student.

More than just a restaurant, Bantam King is a youthful communal space that looks as if someone threw together a high school cafeteria and (insert 90s cartoon show here), in a classy way.

Bantam King is loud in every possible way. The restaurant is decorated with explosively bright colors evoking neo pop-art sensibilities. The walls are decorated with an eclectic combination of yellow and cyan lunch trays contrasted with black and white Japanese cartoons.

Things you can find on the menu

The interior-decor fun continues to

follow you into the restroom, where you are confronted with several framed pictures of chickens. Bantam refers to a small, potentially feisty breed of chicken, staring at you from multiple directions.

Bantam King is often filled with the voices of many different people spending time with friends discussing a variety of things. The restaurant always seems to be alive and full of energy, much like the decorations that fill the space.

Typically, the music matches the decor in decibels and tastefulness. It seems that a hit song that you have not heard in just the right amount of time is radiating from the speakers inside the building.

For an intimate date night, perhaps you should skip. For any other occasion, leave the $1 ramen packets at home.

FOURTH ESTATE PETER NJORGE

Along with Jim and Pam, Beyoncé and Jay-Z, salt and pepper, and peanut butter and jelly, Bantam King looks to add Japanese-style fried chicken and ramen to the incredible list of dynamic duos known to those living in the DMV area.

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

CULTURE

02.11.2019

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MASON STUDENT AND GRAPHIC DESIGNER JIE ZHENG IS ON THE COME UP

Zheng talks NAPIZUM, balancing school, and creativity BASMA HUMADI MANAGING EDITOR

Jie Zheng is a graphic designer, a stylist, an artist, editor for NAPIZUM magazine—and a senior at Mason.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NAPIZUM MAGAZINE TWITTER

Zheng grew up in a small town in northern Maryland and was born to first-generation Chinese immigrants.

Initially, graphic design was not something her parents expected her to major in or pursue.

In high school, Zheng did nursing. For college, her parents wanted to push her to study biology or else they would not pay for her tuition.

“They only just recently found out [what I study] but they’re still not really clear on what I do because it’s hard to translate to them what graphic design is,” Zheng said.

“So they just think I work with computers,” she continued. “They used to be very ‘You have to study

“Because I live in Northern Maryland, there’s like nothing there. I’m almost Delaware line. So coming toward D.C. and Virginia was like a whole different world for me [and I saw] so many people with similar interests.”

NAPIZUM was a way to provide a platform for artists Zheng and Harps know in the area to both showcase their talent and creativity and have their voices heard. It features up-and-coming art, music, photography, graphics, writing and poetry.

“We didn’t intend it to be, but we’ve developed a style, kind of the same idea of we want what’s young and new and what’s willing to break boundaries, and that idea of how we see the creatives in this area,” she said. “If you see in our issues, we play off the people’s photos.”

to things. A lot of the times you’re like “Oh I’m missing out on this opportunity,’ and other times you’re like ‘Why does school even matter?’”

Learning the importance of managing your own time while remembering school is important but not everything are what Zheng tries to keep in mind.

“I have to say no to a lot of things just so I can get a school assignment done,” she said. “I have to prioritize things. I used to stress myself out so much freshman year because I wanted to do everything and because I put so much emphasis and pressure on myself to get those grades.”

She continued, “But now I’m like, ‘This isn’t it. This isn’t the end all be all. So just don’t put that much pressure on yourself, because it’s gonna be a lot.’”

The magazine used to come out

PHOTOS COURTESY OF NAPIZUM MAGAZINE TWITTER

I want people to be able to enjoy creating, collaborating and working together, and creating your vision this,’ but I think now they’re kind of relaxed ... and my older sister kind of explained to them, like ‘Oh she’s doing this now, but it’s a good career’ and they felt better about that. It was hard for me to tell them ... I think right now they’re understanding that I’m studying computers and they’re okay as long as I get a career.”

NAPIZUM is a magazine Zheng started her sophomore year with her friend Benny Harps. The magazine stemmed from the idea of establishing an art platform for artists, especially in the DMV area, rather than having to feel like artists need to head to major cities like New York or L.A. to work on their craft.

“After moving here, I met so many creative people that I never could reach back home in Maryland,” Zheng said.

monthly, but now it comes out on a quarterly basis so that the team can spend time ensuring it includes quality content.

“It’s not just a layout of something or you put a photo in one place. All the text, every page is different, it has accents on it, color,” Zheng explained.

“We’re not afraid to play with the image, emphasize them and play up the message. We really storytell and complement the photo, rather than just putting it on the page.”

When it comes to balancing school and a busy work schedule, it isn’t always easy for Zheng.

“I’m struggling this week so much,” she explained. “Senior books, advertising/design, I’m taking figure drawing—it’s just too much. I think for right now, I’ve learned I have to say no

As for advice for Mason students, Zheng hopes more are inspired to find their voice and express themselves.

“Be creative,” she said. “It’s so simple, but I want people to be able to enjoy creating, collaborating and working together, and creating your vision.”

Zheng went on to add, “Especially in this area, it can be very government, so [don’t be] (sic) afraid to be yourself and express your ideas. Because a lot of times when people think out of the box they get shut down, but I think there’s a space for you if you think in your own way.”

More of Zheng’s art, fashion and photography can be found on her Instagram @_jiezheng and NAPIZUM at napizum.com or on Instagram, @napizum.

CULTURE CULTURE FACES OF MASON delves into the lives of Mason students, faculty or alumni, and organizations every week. This week we take a close look at student Alexandra Kostovski, faculty Brandi Blake, alumna Tamia Mallory and organization Black Literary Writing Society INTERVIEWS BY MONICA ECHOLS AND IMANI HOLLOMAN

S T U D E N T, A L E X A N D R A K O S T O V S K I What are you studying at Mason?

I am currently studying Global Affairs, with a concentration in Inequality and Responses. Growing up in D.C., I saw the real world from a young age. The city is full of people from all over the world speaking different languages.

This inspired me to go into the field of Global Affairs. I wanted to connect with people from different cultures.

What is your special connection to/with Mason?

The Johnson Center, also known by many as the JC, was named after one of my grandfathers. George Johnson was the President of Mason for many years and devoted his entire life to academics with his wife, Joanne. When he passed away last year, I was comforted every time I read his name on the signs outside of the JC.

FOURTH ESTATE ALLIE THOMPSON

Who are your biggest influencers?

My biggest influencers are my grandfather, sister, mother and stepfather. My grandfather, Ilja Kostovski, came to the U.S. from Macedonia and was a professor at the University of Maryland for many years. Together, they supported me and have continued to inspire me throughout my academic career.

What are your most memorable moments at Mason?

times I shared with people who have changed my life.

Freshman year, I moved into Presidents Park, nervous to be living with a stranger. That stranger would become one of the best people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing.

I’ll never forget those late nights at Ike’s that turned into early mornings. I also discovered my passion at Mason in a Women and Gender Studies course. I fell in love with advocating for human rights.

What do you like to do for fun?

I love to participate in social movements that promote equality for marginalized groups including women, people of color, immigrants and more. Concerts are another way I love to spend time, reconnecting with friends to see our favorite artists perform. When the lights turn off and the crowd becomes one, what a time to be alive.

What is an important career goal for you to reach?

An important career goal to reach would be a position in the government or a nonprofit organization that would allow me to implement change for human rights. I would like to be involved in the making of policies to represent groups that are often marginalized in society and the law. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Michelle Obama are women figures I look up to. I’d consider myself to be successful if I could be half the person they are.

My most memorable moments at Mason have been the

FA C U LT Y, B R A N D I B L A K E What exactly do you do at Mason?

I am an assistant director with ODIME + LGBTQ Resources. ODIME stands for the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, and Multicultural Education … Primarily I work with supporting Black/African heritage students, so that’s through support, advocacy, advising, one-on-one interactions, developing programs, that type of thing.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ODIME.GMU.EDU

What made you want to come work at Mason?

In my previous role, I worked in residence life and first year experience, but I was one of very little Black people on campus, especially Black women. So what I noticed in my last role is that students started to gravitate towards me, be it about personal relationships or their hair or makeup or black specific things. So I knew that there was a need for me at campuses, specifically predominantly white campuses. So I wanted to serve in that role on a larger scale. So I learned about this role and I applied, and thankfully I got it.

What’s your favorite thing that you’ve done so far?

It’s so hard. My favorite thing I think is connecting with the students and learning their journey. I’ve almost been here for three years, so seeing some of them grow and develop over the years has been very rewarding. It’s not about my personal accomplishments. I feel like I’ve won when they win. So when they get into graduate school,

when they get jobs, when they get something they’ve been working for, if their research is approved, if they get an A on a test—I feel like I win when they win.

If there was a fire in your house, and you could only save one thing, what would it be?

I have a teddy bear whose name is Baby Bear, but he was given to me as a gift at my baby shower. So before I was born, someone gave me that gift, and I have had it throughout all of my childhood and all of my adult life so far. He lives in my bed somewhere. It’s not like I cuddle with him every night, he’s just somewhere on my bed. So I’d probably save that.

What is a goal that you have?

I have so many hopes and dreams for the world, but a goal for my life’s work and my profession I feel like would be to help people with the resources and support they need to live as their full, whole, true selves. And that could come from education or counseling or some type of support.

I’m still working on what my mission or what my purpose is in the world, but I feel like it’s really important to push people to find their authentic selves, because when you are whole and you’re living as your authentic self you have so much more to offer the world. And people don’t get to that point because they’re stifling their identity or whatever it is.

But I would say that’s my life’s work and my mission. My goal is to help people get to that point.

CULTURE CULTURE A L U M N A , TA M I A M A L L O R Y What did you study when you were at Mason?

probably the most fulfilling thing I did while I was at Mason.

I was a communication major, and my concentration was media production and criticism, and my minor was journalism.

What are you doing now with your career?

What clubs, organizations, and other activities were you a part of ?

PHOTO COURTESY OF TAMIA MALLORY

I was involved with Mason Cable Network. At first, I was the daily anchor and I would just say what was going on for the day. I did that freshman year and sophomore year. And then for a little bit I did PR for Mason Cable Network, so I was doing social media. And then I started hosting The Spill, which was like a little entertainment talk show. I did that junior year and my senior year. I was a peer advisor, so I taught University 100. I did that for two years. … My freshman year I was in BSA and I was also on the Street Team, which is like PR and social media. I did PR for GMU Fashion Society, too. And then I had a lot of internships.

What would you say is one of your favorite memories from being at Mason?

I ended up quitting peer advisor my senior year because it just became way too much. You have to make lesson plans and all that. And it just became too much with me having internships. But being a peer advisor opened me up to a lot, like having students. When you’re a peer advisor, you teach with a faculty member, so … working with a faculty member … that was probably my favorite memory. And just me and other PAs. Two of my really close girlfriends, I met them from being a PA. So I would say that that was

I am a digital content producer at NBC 12, and so what that means is basically I write articles for our website. I write news articles. I edit content. So reporters write their own stuff when they have their own stories, but we have to edit them. So like edit for AP style, edit spelling, grammar errors. I run the social media account, so Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. I send out app alerts, schedule livestreams, just everything digital literally.

Have you always known that you wanted to work in media?

Yeah, I knew when I came to college. No matter what college I applied to, no matter what application I put in, I applied to be a COMM major … When I first got to Mason, I didn’t have a minor. I knew that I wanted to work in media, but when I first came to college, I was like ‘I want to be a TV/radio personality.’... But when I would look at internship requirements or even job requirements in media, they wanted writing samples, and I was not big on writing at all. … So then I chose my minor in journalism so I could build my portfolio, and once I chose my minor I would have different classes where I would write. I knew that I still wanted to work in entertainment ultimately, like an entertainment media company, but I knew that I wouldn’t mind writing and doing on-air stuff. So a magazine ultimately is where I want to end up.

O R G A N I Z AT I O N , B L A C K L I T E R A R Y W R I T I N G S O C I E T Y What is the Black Literary Writing Society (BLWS)?

PHOTO COURTESY OF BLACK LITERARY WRITING SOCIETY

Evetra Lewis, founder: It’s something that I felt was missing on campus. There’s BSA [Black Student Alliance] and other African-American based organizations, but nothing structured toward literacy and improving that and the stigmas in that community. And that’s one of the goals for BLWS.

we didn’t finish, I feel like that’s a good goal to have and to bring that toward our campus. But I really wanted to specify it toward the Black community because they’re underrepresented, and there’s a lot of stigmas toward creativity and writing.

What are some events that you all are planning for this semester?

Josh Miller, vice president: Often times in the Black community, people play down the creatives or play down the artistic career paths, or even just modes of using your time. So I feel like this organization is just a really good way to emphasize that writing, poetry, prose, is a valid way to spend your time and is a valid career path if you choose to do that.

Miller: A poetry slam that we’re going to do. An idea that our founder, Evetra, has come up with is correlating with the different awarenesses for each month. So we have things planned for sexual assault awareness month, things planned for Women’s Month, Black History Month … just different things like that.

Do you have to be a writer to join?

Miller: To create a safe space for writers. We are going to meet biweekly and allow an opportunity for our members to come together and share their work that they’re working on and receive critique or any tips or helpful insight into what they’re writing to get their project off the ground. So I would like to see personally growth within the organization, not only in numbers but in the things that we are allowed to do and the collaborations that we’re allowed to have.

Lewis: I never wanted to limit it to just writing. It’s really to express any type of art form that you feel isn’t represented already on campus, to express your feelings and to share your stories.

How did you go about the process of starting it?

Lewis: So in high school, I was in a literary writing society, but it was a majority Hispanic school, so there was less than 12 Black children there and everyone who was Black knew each other. I was one of the only Black girls in the club …

I knew I loved to write, and my teacher really inspired me for the goal to finish a book within a year. Even though

How do you hope to see the org grow in the future?

Lewis: That is a goal, but also one of my bigger goals is to get it on other campuses at George Mason and other locations like different schools. And maybe bring it back to my personal high school and other high schools.

14

CULTURE

02.11.2019

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

BLACKNESS IN THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY Access Islam hosts event discussing the close ties between Islam and African-American heritage

KATHYA MENDEZ STAFF WRITER

During Black History Month, the Mason community spreads awareness of the creativity and contributions of the Black community throughout history. On Thursday, Feb. 7, Access Islam hosted a lecture in the Johnson Center’s George’s about the meaning of Black History Month with a Muslim perspective.

Walid spoke about Blackness, “Ahl al-Bayt,” an Arabic word meaning the family of the Prophet Muhammad, and Africa. He explained that some of

FOURTH ESTATE NICOLAS MACOTTO

Dawud Walid, the speaker for the evening, is a member of the Council

on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a researcher, a writer on the Islamic faith, a racial justice proponent and the author of “Towards Sacred Activism” and co-author of “Centering Black Narrative” along with Ahmad Mubarak.

the prophet’s family was of Ethiopian descent and that some of the prophet’s followers had African mothers.

The event touched on topics such as the the Western constructs of “Blackness” and engaging the concept of “Blackness” as a historical reality within the family and descendants of the prophet Muhammad.

The concept of Blackness is not a sense of identification for people outside of the U.S., but instead, Walid said, “How we understand Blackness here in America in a Western concept is based on race. For instance, if one would go to, let’s say Western Africa, people don’t go around identifying themselves as Black people. People identify themselves based on their ethnic groups such as Fula, Mandinka people, Serer or a Soninke people.

That is how they identify themselves.”

Some students attended this event to extend their knowledge on their

culture and also get to know more people. Ahmad Mutawak, a junior born in the Middle East, mentioned that he typically doesn’t hear much about how Islam and African heritage are tied together. Therefore, he decided to attend this event.

“I learned that a lot of the Arabs at that time were much darker skin tone than I thought. In general, some of the descendants of prophet Muhammed were considered almost dark-brown in skin tone,” Mutawak said.

Another student attending this event was Alfaisal Al Churaikhi.

“The most important takeaway from this event is the fact that there are some topics that Muslims and Islamic circles don’t touch upon—some sensitive topics, and I’m glad that the speaker first of all elaborated on them, and second, shock the audience (sic),” Churaikhi said. “People live their whole life not learning about certain

names, topics and facts, so that was the main takeaway.”

Walid knows that sometimes people take a contemporary construct of race in America, of what Blackness means, and try to impose it in other parts of the world, but that is not how it should be.

Walid added, “When we read Islamic history, we read stuff to decolonize our minds about how we read Islamic history because we might look at something or Blackness or how people are described, and it’s described people based on phenotype.”

Walid’s final advice for Mason students is to continue be intellectually honest and to be able to have an open transparent discussion about all the people in history that is focused on the history of Muhammad and their descendants for future knowledge and contributions in society.

A NIGHT AT THE THEATER St. Olaf Orchestra visits Mason

St. Olaf ’s Orchestra is a full symphony orchestra founded in 1906 based in Minnesota. Once a year they travel on a domestic tour playing around the country, and have played nine international tours, playing in Europe, Asia and South America.

St. Olaf ’s Orchestra arrived on stage in a sea of black dresses, pants, shirts and skirts. Their warm up started loud and dramatic, the high whine of the violin mixed with the steady drum beat and the clash of symbols in the back of the stage.

The silence was sudden and immediate, as if the orchestra acted through one mind. The first chair walked out with a hurried confidence and bowed gracefully. The orderly tuning of all the instruments commenced under their watchful eyes.

Out walked the conductor Steven

Amundson wearing a white bow tie and black tailcoat.

Amundson raised his hands, and music materialized from the stage immediately and bounced around the theater.

Contrasted by a quietness created by near imperceptible bow movements from the instruments, the orchestra played with incredible precision and maturity, not quite matched by the opening Lake Braddock Secondary School orchestra.

The tune was familiar, like a word on the tip of your tongue. It was a cinematic opening to the concert, like a ballad in a film when the protagonist is running to the arms of their true love. The musicians’ eyes flicked back and forth from their sheet music to the conductor who swayed with the music, seeming to pull the sound from the students’ instruments with his arm movements.

“This is story telling without words,” Elliott said. “It’s wild.”

St. Olaf ’s Orchestra ended the first

half of the show with Hedwig’s Theme, a song recognized by many from the Harry Potter movies. As soon as the first notes spilled from the instruments, it was as if the music could paint a picture.

“I’m shook,” Brayshaw said. “That was so good.”

Coming back from Intermission, the orchestra played “These Worlds in Us” by Missy Mazzoli, a piece that premiered in 2006 as explained by Amundson. The music is a meditation on how as people grow older, they accumulate different worlds through their experiences. There are home worlds, a work world, a world at war, and as people get older their worlds start to collide.

Mazzoli wrote the piece for her father, a veteran of the Vietnam war. The piece was played with many sliding scale sounds and a melancholy tone that was a refreshing change from the other pieces played throughout the concert. The piece also included

a mouth organ called a melodica.

The concert continued the slightly darker tones with a song about unrequited love. It started dark and slow, and swayed between fast and upbeat and slow and contemplative.

For the grand finale of the show, Lake Braddock Secondary School combined with the St. Olaf ’s Orchestra to create a sound to fill the stage.

The piece seemed to be a classical music piece, a grandiose tune fit for an epic quest.

By the end of the concert, the consensus between Elliott and Brayshaw was clear—going to more theater events at Mason would be happening in the future.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THOMAS DUNNING, CLASSICALMPR.ORG

ALEXANDRIA MCALPINE ART DIRECTOR

Camille Brayshaw and Rhyan Elliott sat front and center in the fourth row with the orchestra opening in front of them.

15

02.11.2019

SPORTS

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE @IVESTATE_SPORTS

WRESTLING WITH A PASSION

Redshirt senior Matthew Voss shares his wrestling story at Mason NATALIE HEAVREN SPORTS EDITOR

were going to happen at this program and that I was going to do good things. … So I moved across the country on a prayer basically.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF MASON ATHLETICS

His parents would have preferred Voss stay close: “They were pulling for the closer options for sure,” Voss said.

“At first I know they weren’t happy, but they respected my decision and supported me in it and eventually they came around, and not too long ago they told me ‘You know you made a really good decision going out there.’ … It’s good to know the people behind you support you.”

“I started wrestling when I was six years old, and I’ve been doing it ever since,” said redshirt senior Matthew Voss.

“I would be wrestling around with my little brother in the house and my dad asked us if we wanted to try to actually wrestle [and] we said ‘Sure,’ so good and young, and it worked out,” he continued.

Voss grew up playing a variety of sports including baseball, football, a little bit of basketball and soccer.

While wrestling was his favorite sport growing up, soccer was a close second.

“I stopped playing soccer as a freshman in high school,” he said. “I knew I was going to be a wrestler, so I focused more on that at that point.”

When asked why Mason, Voss, a Washington state native, responded, “I came here because my former coach recruited me to come out here, and I totally believed in him and his leadership and he thought that good things

As of Feb. 8, Voss leads the team with a career-high 26 wins, with several meets left in the season. While the team finished the season with three victories against conference opponents, grabbing the most wins against their Eastern Wrestling League opponents since they joined the league in 20132014, Voss finished with a 6-0 dual record against conference opponents this season.

He was ranked No. 12 at heavyweight in the first NCAA Division I Coaches’ Rankings. The final Coaches’ Panel Rankings will be part of the selection

process to determine the qualifiers for the 2019 NCAA Division I Wrestling Championships that will be held March 21-23 at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

“But also I’d like to graduate with a 3.5 which I’m darn close with both of my degrees—which is going to happen if I keep doing what I’m doing. Things are going to wrap up pretty nicely.”

Voss qualified for the NCAA Division I Championships last year while going 24-13 with six falls, five major decisions and seven decisions.

Voss has very specific plans for the future. “I’ve thought very seriously attending a seminary school and learning to become a pastor,” he said.

“That might be a little bit later in life but that’s kind of the idea.”

When asked about if he expects the success he had last season he said, “I thought that I could, I never knew for sure if I would, but I knew that my potential to do so was very high. So I guess at that point it was trying to keep my head down and work hard to try to make sure I could meet that potential.”

Voss, who is double majoring in communication and religious studies, has high goals set for both the academic and athletic end of his collegiate career.

“At the end of the season I hope to accomplish a Division I National Championship in men’s wrestling on an individual basis. … that’s kind of the main goal, that’s kind of the thing everyone wants, but I guess I’m no different in that way and I’m looking forward to that as well,” Voss said.

However, in the short term he said, “I might stick around the sport for a little bit, whether that be coaching or training still and seeing if I still can on more of an international basis, something like that probably.”

He’s excited for the little things as he closes out his time at Mason, saying, “I suppose I’m most excited to just cherish the little bit of time I have left hanging out with my teammates, or when we’re at the national tournament staying in the nice hotel room, and you’re always getting good food to eat [so] that kind of stuff, just really appreciating the experience for when it’s there.”

Mason hosts the EWL Championships on March 9 in EagleBank Arena.

RUN, MASON, RUN!

Mason’s Running Club works to run to new lengths

HAILEY BULLIS ASSISTANT CULTURE EDITOR

Mason Running Club welcomes everyone no matter their skill level and is flexible according to a person’s schedule. “If people who are interested in the running club did compete in high school and they kind of miss the cross-country, track and field culture, that this is a great way to get that,” said President Rebecca Burris.

Burris, who ran in high school, knew immediately that she wanted to continue running in college. “So

I actually like, looked to see if there was a running club as soon as I was at George Mason’s orientation for my freshman year because I’ve been a runner since my eighth-grade year,” she said.

Running quickly became Burris’s “thing.” “I actually got into running, and I wouldn’t want anyone else to feel this way, but I felt like I didn’t like the way I looked, so I wanted to do something about it,” she said. “So I got into running basically just as a form of exercise.”

Burris brought her love for running with her into her presidency, and she was able to beat her own personal record by about 10 minutes in the 6K last semester.

The club is an opportunity for Mason

students to run at the collegiate level.

“We serve as … an avenue for people who ran in high school to compete at a collegiate level without having to be a part of the DI team,” said Burris. “So we do offer competition if those people would like to improve.”

In the collegiate level, the Running Club season is broken into two— sometimes three—parts, with the Fall semester being cross country and Spring being track and field. It is also divided between winter track and spring track, with various meets for each part taking place.

The club has a total of 39 members and a regular practice attendance of 15 members, a dramatic increase from last year when on average only five members showed up. They were

able to run to new lengths this year when they attended both regionals and nationals, something they were unable to do last year.

“In terms of meets we actually did really awesome about going to them and having a turnout to them,” said Burris.

“This year we went to nationals and regionals, whereas the previous year we didn’t get to go to regionals or nationals because our previous president forgot to sign us up.”

Mason’s Running Club attended a

meet at Penn State on Feb. 10, one of the largest meets in the country for running clubs with almost 400 athletes present. The club will be attending the Capital Relays March 24 hosted by American University.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MASON RUNNING CLUB

If you ever make your way down to the picnic tables by the Aquatic and Fitness Center Wednesday at 4:30 p.m. you will probably find a group of students warming up to run across campus. If you see them, break a sweat—you have found the Mason’s Running Club.

16

SPORTS

02.11.2019

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE @IVESTATE_SPORTS

A PATRIOTS BASEBALL PREVIEW After losing key players, the Mason squad looks to repeat their 2018 succes s

ROSS SHINBERG STAFF WRITER

After an initial shock to the system, the Patriots immediately faced adversity.

“It was a crazy year,” says Brown, who enters his 38th season as head coach for the Patriots. “Early in the year we didn’t play well, and then we had a slew of injuries, and all of a sudden we looked up and we were 0-8.”

After the team’s initial plunge, Mason rallied over its final 46 games of the season, going 27-19 and earning the No. 2 seed in the Atlantic 10 tournament.

In the double-elimination tournament, Mason defeated George Washington twice and Fordham once. Mason dropped one game to the top seed, Saint Louis, before reaching the title game—also against Saint Louis.

Mason failed to score a single run against the Billikens in the finals, losing 5-0.

Brown attributes the great turnaround to his players, saying they were the ones to take responsibility of fixing the situation.

“The players are the ones that ultimately have to say, ‘Hey look, we’re just not gonna be this team, we aren’t this team,’” he said. “‘We’ve really gotta get more invested, we’ve gotta work harder.’ And credit to those guys, they did exactly that.”

The Patriots lost pitcher Zach Mort, whose ERA of 2.48 last season was nearly a full run lower than the next best pitcher on the team. The junior tied for the team lead with six wins and led the team with 108 strikeouts.

On June 5, 2018, the Chicago Cubs selected Mort in the eighth round of the MLB draft.

The other significant loss is Bryce Nightengale, whom the Oakland Athletics selected in the 16th round.

Nightengale posted as impressive marks as Mort, recording six wins to go along with 80 strikeouts and a .246 opponent batting average.

With starters Brian Marconi and Jared Dicesare returning and stepping up to fill the assignments left by Mort and Nightengale, a gap opened up in the third starter’s slot.

“We’ll have a battle, an in-house battle, for that third spot,” says Brown. “There’s four or five kids who are in the mix for that, and they’re being conditioned to be that person.

Somebody’s gonna get an opportunity to be that guy, and be that third guy that opening weekend.”

With Mort and Nightengale moving up in the ranks of professional baseball, a stalwart of Mason’s baseball team over

the last two seasons looks to step in and lead the team.

When junior catcher Logan Driscoll steps into the batter’s box for the first time next weekend, he will make his 100th career start for Mason. After an impressive sophomore campaign, there are lofty expectations already in place.

Baseball America, a sports magazine scouting all levels of baseball, named Driscoll their Atlantic 10 Preseason Player of the Year. They also named him the best 2019 MLB Draft prospect in the conference.

For his efforts during his freshman season, Driscoll earned Atlantic 10 All-Rookie honors. After his sophomore season, he was named to the All-Conference First Team.

Driscoll’s skill-set in the batter’s box is unmatched even by some professionals.

His .886 OPS demonstrates his ability to crush the baseball, while his sub-ten percent strikeout rate indicates exceptional plate discipline and control of the bat.

When describing what makes Driscoll so valuable to his team, Brown didn’t need to cite any statistics.

“It’s his overall makeup,” Brown said.

“It’s not a stat, but it’s off the charts.

His makeup is what puts him in the upper echelon of players in the league, and quite honestly in the country if you want to know the truth.”

Overall, Baseball America projects Mason will place fifth out of the 13 A-10 schools in 2019. To outperform this projection, Driscoll will need help.

That help will come in the form of some fresh faces stepping onto the diamond.

Nearly half of Mason’s 2019 roster lacks experience on the field in a green and gold uniform, as there are nine freshmen on the team.

PHOTO COURTESY OF MASON ATHLETICS

PHOTO COURTESY OF MASON ATHLETICS

“Oh my God, what happened here?

We were supposed to be pretty good,” said head coach Bill Brown, reflecting on the start of the previous season.

The most significant issue facing Mason heading into the 2019 season is finding a way to replace the team’s top two pitchers from the previous year, both of whom are now a part of Major League organizations.

Brown notes how there is a juggling act when dealing with such inexperienced players, especially at the pitcher position. “One, you’re always concerned about the experience factor, but you’re also concerned about the maturity factor,” he said.

Despite some of these general concerns, he is hugely impressed with this year’s class of players.

“They are so mature, and it looks like

PHOTO COURTESY OF MASON ATHLETICS

Last season baseball got off to a rough start, losing their first eight games.

a majority of the group, if not all, are ready to play from day one,” Brown said.

In addition, numerous players have been with the program for many years, but have not seen the field much—if at all. Those players will be asked to step up, along with the veterans who are every-day players. That combination, according to Brown, creates a winning formula.

“Somebody will step up out of that group who’s been here,” the coach said. “There’s gonna be a few guys out of that freshman class who step up and ultimately make huge contributions.

And then what you’re hoping for is that your veteran players who had a chance to play a lot not only give you what they’ve given you in the past, but even more this year. That combination will give you an opportunity to win every day.”

Mason will play its first seven games of the season on the road. That includes the season opener against the University of Iowa on Feb. 15, and matchups against Marshall University and Villanova University.

The Patriots return to Fairfax on March 1 at 2 p.m. for their home opener against the Princeton Tigers.

OPINIONS

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

02.11.2019

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17

COLLEGE REPUBLICANS VS. GMU DEMOCRATS

A TIME TO PRIORITIZE

IAN WAITE COLLEGE REPUBLICANS’ CONTRIBUTOR

76,142. That is the number of individuals who were denied the ability to purchase a firearm in the United States during 2010. Each one of these cases was referred to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) Denial and the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) Intelligence Branch for further investigation.

Yet at the end of the year, an astonishingly low number of cases were referred for prosecution.

Sixty-two to be exact.

There is something very wrong with this disparity.

The lengthy and convoluted bureaucratic process through which NICS denials are investigated has allowed far too many people a second chance to do harm in our communities. Our country is suffering from a deficit of information within the NICS as well as a severe lack of enforcement

of existing gun laws. The answer to America’s gun violence problem is not further unenforceable regulation but rather a complete overhaul of America’s background check infrastructure.

For starters, the ATF and FBI ought to be on the same page when considering what may disqualify an individual from purchasing a firearm. As of now, the two agencies struggle to reconcile terms such as “fugitive from justice,” resulting in the possibility that someone may fail the background check run by one agency but pass with little issue on another.

Between 1999-2015, it is estimated that these sorts of instances led to 49,448 transactions in which the ATF did not agree with the FBI’s decision to allow the purchase to go through. Furthermore, even when law enforcement agencies act in unison, they often do so with incomplete information. During a study conducted by the Office of the Inspector General, a sample was taken of 631 state processed transactions. In

630 of these cases, the states failed to completely update the FBI or NICS databases, resulting in a system riddled with incomplete information.

The potholes in our background check infrastructure, including those which I have highlighted and the numerous which I do not have space to adequately address, have life and death consequences. On July 17, 2015, in Charleston, South Carolina, nine African-American men and women were killed while attending prayer service at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The killer, who will intentionally remain unnamed in this article, was in illegal possession of the firearm, and yet was able to purchase it due to a previous run-in with the law being unreported to NICS. Even in a more day to day capacity, Americans feel this impact. 8 out of every 10 cases of gun violence in America are perpetrated by an individual in unlawful possession of a firearm. It is time for the United States to get serious about

enforcing our existing gun laws.

After the devastating shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, President Obama created a new series of policies meant to address gun violence in America called “Now is the Time.” According to the aforementioned Inspector General Report, published in September 2016, the weakest developed part of the plan was the “maximize[ing] enforcement efforts” provision.

This is simply a further reflection stating that a solution is not effective without a plan to follow through.

To suggest that our government is currently capable of enforcing new gun laws when its institutions lack the clarity and resources needed to enforce existing regulation is to court debate on the outskirts of reality.

If our aim truly is to address gun violence in America, then we must end the meaningless pageantry of new legislation, and hand our federal law enforcement agencies the tools they need to effectively complete their job.

A NECESSITY, NOT AN EVIL CAMDEN LAYTON GMU DEMOCRATS’ CONTRIBUTOR

For almost a century, the debate over firearms, the second amendment and gun control have been a hot topic in our society, especially as mass shootings have been gaining more media attention while becoming much deadlier as time goes on. This often leaves us with one question: what can we do to limit these shootings in the future?

The issue of gun control is often seen as a controversial and extremely political, but the Giffords Law Center cites that 97 percent of gun owners support the implementation of a required background check before purchasing a firearm. The fact that there is such a majority of people,

regardless of party, who support a background check while there is a lack of legislation around the country that addresses this policy is quite intriguing.

If we want to move forward and combat this issue, we will need federal legislation to set a standard for the country. Currently, only six states require background checks for every purchase, regardless of the manner in which the firearm was bought. There are an additional 12 states that have partial background checks for official sales, but many of these sales in these states occur in a manner that is not covered by the background checks, such as at a gun show or through classified ads.

The gun show loophole is a very dangerous loophole that many people use to purchase firearms, solely for the perceived ease of transaction. The vendors at these locations are often unverified and have no accountability to report their sales. If we were to close this loophole, our country could become that much safer with verified responsible gun owners.

One other piece of legislation that would be instrumental in assisting a more comprehensive gun control plan in the United States would be H.R. 8—the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019. This bill, according to Congress.gov, would “require a background check for

every firearm sale” and currently has 230 cosponsors, five of which are from the minority party. Passing this bill would require all of the states to implement more thorough background checks which would contribute to a more safe society, not to mention the almost universal approval of these protections.

Although gun control is a highly controversial topic, it is something that is necessary to protect Americans from all sorts of dangers. A common misconception of the Democratic party is to abolish the second amendment. In fact, there are many within the party who just wish to promote more responsible gun ownership and a more thorough process to obtain such dangerous tools.

FOURTH ESTATE ALEXANDRIA MCALPINE

FOURTH ESTATE ALEXANDRIA MCALPINE

Republican and Democratic side-by-side take on gun control

18

OPINIONS

02.11.2019

Opinions do not reflect the views of Fourth Estate. Submit opinions to ckernans@gmu.edu

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE @IVESTATE_SPORTS

IT’S OKAY TO NOT CARE ABOUT FOOTBALL SUSAN KATHRINE CORKRAN STAFF WRITER

There is no denying that football is at the heart of American culture. However, it does seem worth remembering that this sport is, at the end of the day, just a game that not every American fawns over with quite the same enthusiasm.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have anything against the fanfare and celebration. I didn’t grow up in a family that cared for American football in the slightest, but I have since seen how sweet it can be when football becomes a bonding moment for many families who love supporting their home team together. I enjoy seeing fathers tossing a football around with their kids, and it makes me happy to think of families getting to spend the day together, relaxing and enjoying themselves.

force-feed them a bag each year because “everybody else is eating them!”?

We can respect certain differences in fondness for music, movies, books and food, but many people seem to view football as a ubiquitous trait of American life. Bald eagles, apple pie and touchdowns—God bless America!

What I do not care for is the mockery that some sports fans feel is necessary to offer those of us who will not be following the football season … or, for that matter, cannot reliably list more than five NFL teams. Isn’t it odd how we have singled out this particular sport as a mandatory activity that everyone must enjoy?

There are so many fierce debates surrounding the safety of football, enough to make it a national scandal for prominent politicians to say that they would not allow their sons to play the often-violent sport. Nothing seems to boil people’s blood more than a differing opinion “attacking” the sanctity of the game, especially when the uncomfortable issue of concussions is brought up. The phenomenon meant to bring people together can also be polarizing, which seems counterintuitive to me.

For those of us who are unfamiliar with the rules and general sports culture, it is intimidating to have wellmeaning friends who try and force the game onto us. If you really loved the taste of, say, potato chips, but your friend didn’t like them, would you

Can’t we simply accept that some people love this game, some people think that it needs certain restraints and some people simply don’t care?

We are lukewarm. Our blood doesn’t match any team’s colors and we aren’t keen on cheering ourselves

hoarse while figures move about on a screen. It’s not a bad thing or a good thing—it’s simply a preference.

So enjoy your potato chips, but please don’t expect me to take a bite.

PHOTO COURTESY OF PEXELS.COM

weekend. Even my priest mentioned the game during his homily.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SAB0TEUR

The Super Bowl has come and gone, along with all of the great American pastimes that accompany the massive televised event. For many people, it is a tradition as important as Thanksgiving, usually with similar amounts of food. I’ve seen jerseys on adults, children and animals this past

WHY EVERY STUDENT SHOULD START THEIR OWN BUSINESS When you think of a business owner, a young college student is definitely not the first thing that comes to mind.

I haven’t founded a giant internet company, sent my car hurtling into space via rocket or appeared on Shark Tank (though I have talked to Mr. Wonderful). Regardless, I am a proud student entrepreneur.

Though I am not a tech mogul or prolific serial inventor, I’ve had my share of entrepreneurial experience.

I have owned and operated a lawn maintenance company for almost 6 years. I have also worked as the COO of a mobile car services startup. Currently, I am an engineer at a robotics startup. I have been involved in these businesses all while being a full-time student.

Though my story is definitely not ordinary, it is attainable and realistic for nearly every student I know. Being an entrepreneur while also being in school has provided rewarding opportunities and given me innumerable benefits, both tangible and intangible. I am a firm believer that there is no better time to start a business than

as a student. In other words, every student can––and should––start their own business. Here are just a few of the most compelling reasons why.

No time like the present: For the most part, students have more time at their disposal than they will for the rest of their lives, so they should not wait to start a business. It is a well-known management strategy to fail “early and often” to achieve long-term success.

Thus, the earlier an entrepreneur can start their business, the better. If there is ever a good time for a student to spend time pursuing a business, it is now.

Explore passions: School is a pivotal time in life when students get to choose a major, investigate career options and ultimately set a trajectory for the rest of their lives.

Why should a student skip on the chance to venture into a business built around their passion and learn the lay of the land? Entrepreneurship is a sensible and effective way for students to ascertain what path they may pursue professionally before they finish their degree.

Develop

necessary

skills:

Starting, developing and operating a business provides the opportunity to become proficient in areas that school cannot teach alone. Such areas include time-management, risk mitigation, iterative design, project management and interpersonal skills.

Also, no matter what type of business they enter, student entrepreneurs are forced to learn to effectively communicate their ideas––which can be used as a powerful as a weapon for students to pack in their arsenal.

because it is a viable opportunity to make more money. Over the last few years, my entrepreneurial ventures have provided me over 10 times more capital than my other jobs have combined. Starting a company should give most students the chance to make significantly more money than any employer is willing to offer them when they have little-to-no experience. After all, what college kid wouldn’t want to pursue the prospect of adding another zero onto the end of their paycheck?

Use of available resources: Students have an overwhelming number of resources at their disposal that help them get a leg up when pursuing an entrepreneurial venture.

Mason, for example, encourages entrepreneurship with programs such as the Mason Innovation Exchange, the Entrepreneurship Club and grants and summer incubators, among others.

These resources are luxuries that many entrepreneurs do not have when starting their first business, so students should take advantage of them.

Be their own boss: If my story shows anything, I hope it is that entrepreneurship, school and internships are not mutually exclusive. Starting a business allows students to be their own boss and schedule their work so that they can still pursue other priorities in life.

Additionally, if the company grows, being in charge allows students to bring on employees and gain leadership and management experience, which are advantageous both in and out of the workplace.

Make more money: If for no other reason, students should start a business

Last, but certainly not least, the entrepreneurial mindset: Though 90 percent of startups fail, student entrepreneurs can still walk away with 100 percent of their experiences and mindset. I believe that the most valuable asset of being an entrepreneur is the outlook that comes along with it.

Opening a business provides students with a propensity to recover quickly from failure, hunger for innovation and ambition to strive for lofty goals. These qualities are indispensable in this world and will make student entrepreneurs a valuable asset to their future employers and the world around them.

PHOTO COURTESY OF CREATIVE SERVICES

DANIEL SCOTT MITCHELL STAFF WRITER

OPINIONS

Opinions do not reflect the views of Fourth Estate. Submit opinions to ckernans@gmu.edu

THE REAL RULES OF EMAIL

DOMINIC PINO STAFF WRITER

First, the reader of your email never cares as much about your email as you do—you can call this “Pino’s Law.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF GMU CREATIVE SERVICES

We have all done it: type an email, save it as a draft, go back to it, change minor words and phrases (“thanks” or “thank you”?), save it again as a draft, go back again and erase the whole thing, rewrite an email that ends up looking eerily similar to the one that was just erased, hover over the send button for fifteen minutes, decide to let some friends read over

it only to hover over the send button for fifteen more minutes. Finally you send it, soon realizing that you can’t take it back and fearing the ramifications of the email, pondering whether you used just the right words. Then, you see the notification that the response has arrived, and, trembling, you think, “What will it say?” Clicking on the message with nervous anticipation, you see:

that demands your full attention and closely meditate on every word, right?

Of course not! You either glance at the message or mutter, “I’ll get to it later,” and go on with your life. Guess what: other people do the same thing.

someone to set up a phone call. No one talks on the phone to set up an email. The phone is instant. It requires no typing and tone is conveyed easily, but cold-calling is weird. Email is a very effective path to a phone call.

Secondly, short emails are always better than long ones. Professionals get lots of emails. Hundreds per day. They don’t have much time. Never use two lines if one line will do. Keep it brief.

“OK,

Third, when possible, email should be used as a means to a better form of communication. Email is slow, messages get lost in the milieu of your inbox and many of the intricacies of language are lost when communication consists solely of text on the screen.

Of course, this is not always possible. Being a superior form of communication, the phone is also a bigger commitment than email, and that is not a commitment that some people can make. But it often is. In a majority of offices, everyone has a desk phone. It’s sitting there, waiting to be used. In fact, its feelings get hurt when you don’t use its awesome, magical powers to speak directly to people in a faraway place.

Don’t hurt the desk phone’s feelings.

Use email to get to the phone.

thanks.

Best,

Dave”

Why do we do this to ourselves?

In our example here, Dave did what every sane human does when receiving an email—he glanced at it.

Next time you get an email, note your own behavior. Your phone or computer notifies you of an email, and you stop everything you’re doing, treat it as if it were a revelation from heaven

In fact, we all implicitly admit that email is not the best form of communication every time we email

THE HIDDEN BENEFIT OF UNIVERSITY DAWSON WEINHOLD STAFF WRITER

Over the last several years there has been much debate over the cost of going to university. As the number of college graduates rise, some of the overt benefits of going to college seem to disappear.

In the past, being a college graduate often ensured a job right out of college. At the time, that made sense. In 1970, only a little over 8.5 percent of the nation was enrolled in college. By 2016, that had over doubled to a little under 20 percent.

This growth in the college-level job market means there’s a lot more competition, so a decent paying job straight out of college is no longer the norm. Because of this, many people are beginning to doubt if college is worth the cost. This isn’t an unreasonable concern, and the goal of this article isn’t to justify the often-absurd sums of money people pay to go to college. The goal is to point out several of the “hidden” benefits of going to university.

Networking is often one of those buzzwords that get thrown around without being truly understood. If you plan on going into the business or political world, you probably

hear a lot about how important networking is, but have never really thought too deeply about it. Simply put, it’s exchanging information and gaining professional contacts.

The point of networking is to find people that help each other professionally.

Finding a job often isn’t about having the right qualifications—rather, it’s about knowing the right people. The act of networking itself isn’t that hard, but finding places with enough people in similar professions to network with can be trickier. This is where one of these hidden benefits come into play.

Universities are a treasure trove of networking opportunities. Registered student organizations (RSOs) provide a place for students with similar interests to get together and form relationships that help lay the groundwork for future networks. Often, there are sororities and fraternities built around specific majors the purpose of networking.

Mason often hosts job fairs that provide space for employers to connect with soon-to-be graduates. College isn’t always about taking classes. It’s also about providing a space for students to grow professionally. To some, this

makes college a lot more beneficial.

The second hidden benefit of university are the experiences it can provide. I am aware of how cliché that sounds, but allow me to take a more analytical look at what this means. University is like an internet service provider in that you can’t pick out the individual features you like and only pay for those features.

You pay for everything in a bundle.

You can’t separate the cost that goes to paying for your classes from the portion that goes to funding other activities. Mason puts a decent amount of money into funding things like RSOs and study abroad programs, so it’s often up to the students to take advantage of this.

Today, the cost of university is high, but it is not devoid of benefits.

Students should strive to get the most out of their college experience through the opportunities it provides. I’m not saying college is the perfect experience or that everyone should go, but for the ones that it is for, don’t cheat yourself out of the opportunities it provides by never taking advantage of them.

PHOTO COURTESY OF GMU CREATIVE SERVICES

If you want some guidance on email etiquette, then you are in the wrong place. This article is email without romance, email as it actually is. Email can be an effective and efficient tool for professional communication, but all too often it is a quotidian quagmire.

It is time for the real rules for email:

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Finally, proofread. This might seem

contradictory to Pino’s Law. If the reader of your email does not care as much as you do, then you can get away with some grammar mistakes, right? Wrong! People expect you to be literate, so prove it by writing clearly and correctly. That way, it is much easier to glance at while comprehending a message quickly.

Plus, if you follow my second rule, proofreading will not take very long.

I believe the world would be a much better place if these four rules were followed regularly. These are not exhaustive, and if I am so inclined, I might come up with more rules in a future article. But for now, remember this: Pino’s Law will save you time and stress, as will the corollary. It’s an email, not a marriage proposal, so for the love of all that is holy, hit send.

RALPH THE RACIST ELIJAH NICHOLS STAFF WRITER

As many have probably seen, the once kind-hearted and grandfather-like figure of the great Commonwealth of Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam, is not as innocent as we all thought. Within the last week his leadership abilities have been called into question due to a photo surfacing from his medical school yearbook, where there is one man dressed as a Klansman and the other in blackface—this all falling underneath his name.

Since this photo has become public, we have seen a great number of political leaders from all facets of American politics speak out against Northam’s action and ask him to resign. Virtually all of the Virginia Democratic Party has asked him to step down, excluding “Democratic” Senate Minority Leader Richard Saslaw, of course.

However, as of today, Northam has refused to resign, somehow admitting to previous racist actions yet denying that the photos are of himself. In a news conference with C-SPAN and others on Feb. 2, Northam did admit to wearing blackface on an occasion in the early 1980s for a Texas dance contest as well as how fellow classmates referred to him by a racially insensitive, hateful nickname.

With all of this in mind I believe it is only necessary that we demand respect for people of color, both within the Commonwealth and outside, by asking Northam to resign. There is no need to uplift someone to higher office who has given in to the injustices that white supremacy has caused—especially

when there are those who have not committed some sort of hateful action advancing the agenda of white supremacists.

The ability to elect those to office who plan to do great things, like Medicaid expansion, should not have to come at the cost of respect for people of color. There is no scenario where we have to choose between someone who believes in great Democratic ideas or a racist. As citizens, we have the capability to advance those who have both our common values in implementing liberal policies and respecting those within every facet of our community.

While some white allies of Northam are saying that we should use this opportunity to create a conversation about white supremacy and learning from our mistakes, which I don’t think many people disagree with, I believe that it is only necessary we respect communities of color by making our first amends be that of removing the face of racism from office. Only then can we start having an honest conversation about reparations and the true meaning of allyship between white people and people of color.

FOURTH ESTATE MORGAN MCCARTHY

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

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OPINIONS

02.11.2019

GMUFOURTHESTATE.COM @IVESTATE

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DO WE STILL NEED THE POSTAL SERVICE?

The Trump administration recently proposed allowing private companies to pay the United States Postal Service (USPS) for the privilege of putting packages into mailboxes, a practice which has long been illegal. The proposal is a way to make money for an organization that has lost over 50 billion dollars since 2007, at a time when other mail carriers are thriving. It seems that the USPS cannot turn a profit despite its legal monopoly on carrying letters.

Mark Dimondstein, the president of the American Postal Workers Union, told NPR that he opposes the measure

that would allow companies like UPS and FedEx to put packages in mailboxes because customers might choose to use those companies instead of the post office.

His comments show how the survival of the post office depends on the government’s ability to prevent people from choosing how, and by whom, their mail is delivered. For this reason, we need to turn the post office into a private business.

catalogs and coupons that most people throw away. Only 3 percent is person to person mail, and much of the rest are bills, many of which can already be sent electronically. The money that goes to the post office is keeping paper billing and print advertisement on life support, artificially lowering the cost of mail that isn’t environmentally friendly or particularly useful.

No private company could continue to exist if it suffered the kind of losses that the USPS has over the past decade. What was originally intended to be a self-sustaining business now costs taxpayers billions each year.

Some argue that we still need the postal service because of the tiny portion of its services that customers still value.

Some people might prefer receiving paper bills and the occasional physical letter from their grandchildren. Bill collectors might start charging extra for physical copies of statements if it costs more to mail them, and private mail carriers will almost certainly charge more than current post office prices to send letters. In addition, people living in rural areas fear that they will have to pay more if a private company were delivering their mail.

Where does all of that money go?

The post office’s losses are essentially a subsidy, allowing mail to be sent at lower prices. Sixty percent of that mail is advertisements, an assortment of

It is true that without a government postal service, consumers might notice higher prices for some kinds of formerly subsidized mail, but this does not necessarily mean that

the cost overall will be higher. The reason prices are so low right now is that part of the cost of sending a letter is paid through postage, and the rest is paid in taxes. A private mail carrier would require customers to pay the entire cost of sending their letter as postage, as private companies cannot use tax money.

Under a private system, people would still have to pay to send mail, but they would not have to pay for all of the inefficiencies that result from the government postal service’s failure to adopt new technologies in a timely manner. UPS and FedEx have developed extremely efficient methods of processing and delivering mail at a pace that the bureaucracy of the USPS simply could not match. UPS trucks famously make very few left turns in order to save tiny amounts of gas. Sensors in UPS trucks track every part of the delivery process

collecting data to make further improvements to routing. Though the costs under a private postal service would be distributed differently than they are under the current system, they would almost surely be lower than what we see today.

For that reason, we should follow in the footsteps of dozens of countries around the world and privatize our postal service. This would mean putting the USPS and all of its assets up for sale and allowing a group or combination of groups to buy it. By running the post office like a modern business and not a dying government agency, a better quality of service can be provided at a lower overall cost.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SOFUEGO

PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN PHALEN

JACE WHITE STAFF WRITER

KAMALA HARRIS AS THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE MAKES SENSE

OWEN FERGUSON STAFF WRITER

One Democratic candidate has emerged whom I believe has the tools to take down the president.

Her name is Kamala Harris.

For those of you who that have never heard of Senator Harris, she is a graduate of Howard University and UC Hastings College of the Law. She is currently serving as the junior Democratic Senator for California, and has previously served as the Attorney General of California (2011-2017) and the District Attorney of San Francisco (2004-2011).

Harris has gained a following crowd with her continuous criticism against President Trump and his nominees.

According to votesmart.org, Harris has

org, that she will not be accepting money from corporate political action committees (PACs). This is an important promise because corporate PACs are infiltrating elections,

voted against every single presidential nominee over the past two years. This hard position against the president has given her good support inside the Democratic party and around the nation. Harris held a rally in Oakland, California on Jan. 27th which kicked off her bid for the Oval Office.

In Harris’ speech during her Oakland rally, the senator hit on what has gained her popularity: calling out the Trump administration for their repeated attacks on the press, among many other things. Harris also attacked the president on the border security issue saying, “When we have children in cages crying for their mothers and fathers, don’t you dare call that border security, that’s a human rights abuse.” In my opinion, this is one of Harris’s biggest strengths. Her ability to energize the American people and not be afraid to stand up to the president is what we need in a Democratic candidate.

Harris has chosen the message “For the People” as the slogan for her campaign, and has even gone on to state on her website, kamalaharris.

damaging democracy and pushing average citizens to the sidelines. Her PHOTO COURTESY OF KAMALA HARRIS

For the past two years, the American people have dealt with one of the most outrageous and hypocritical presidents in recent memory. As time marches forward, President Trump’s approval rating has continued to drop, while his base is weakening.

With this down-tick in support, the door is open for a strong candidate to take over the oval office in 2020.

devotion to the American people is almost a forgotten feeling given that the current president pushes his own agenda no matter the cost to citizens.

Harris’ focus on the American people will do her well as she continues to campaign around the country, as many people feel unheard or forgotten.

As for the senator’s positions on

key issues, her standings are mixed between liberal and more progressive ideals. For example, Harris’ views on Medicare and free college tuition greatly resemble those of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), as she has backed Sanders’ “Medicare for All” bill and the “College for All Act.” These are the types of changes we need to see in America, as the cost of both higher education and medical care continue to skyrocket. I believe her standings on those two positions alone will get her a very strong backing, especially from the younger generation.

Another reason Harris has the best shot at the Oval Office is campaign financing. Money does not play as big of a role as people believe. But if push comes to shove, Harris has plenty of finance connections in many sectors, most notably the legal sector. According to votesmart.org,

during her 2016 Senate campaign the industry where she received the most money was from lawyers/law firms, to the tune of 2.6 million dollars.

A huge factor that comes into play is that Harris doesn’t look like the average politician. Harris is the daughter of an Indian immigrant and a Jamaican immigrant. If elected, she would become the first woman, the first black woman and the first Indian-American to ever become Commander-in-Chief. As most people realize, race and gender still play too large of a role in politics today, but I believe Harris’s gender and ethnicity will be an advantage. With the rise of the #MeToo movement and recent attacks against immigrants, Harris can become a voice for these groups and push for improvements in both areas.

Even though it is still very early in the 2020 presidential race, I do not believe a better candidate than Kamala Harris will come forward. Only time will tell if we have to deal with the Trump Administration for another term or if we can start cleaning up the mess that has been made.

OPINIONS

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Opinions do not reflect the views of Fourth Estate. Submit opinions to ckernans@gmu.edu

THE IMPORTANCE OF TRAVELING

SUMMER BROWN STAFF WRITER

PHOTO COURTESY OF ANTIGONE_GONE

I remember when I went to Austria for

the very first time when I was four years old on one of my mother’s business trips. I went to a playground with my father and could not understand the concept of one of the rock walls it had.

Three Austrian boys a bit older than me came up and we all began talking to each other. They were speaking German and I was speaking English.

Of course, I didn’t understand what they were saying, but somehow we were able to communicate with each other and they easily taught me how to accomplish climbing that wall. Within no time we had become good friends with each other, despite the fact that we would never see each other again.

Through that experience, even at such a young age, I learned the lesson of the importance of communication. We were in a completely different environment and they were speaking a foreign language that I was not accustomed to, yet a

common language was not necessarily important to establish that connection.

Another time that I learned an invaluable life lesson was when I went to Germany 12 years later. I was given a personal tour of the sites in which my grandfather had fought for the United States in one of the world’s bloodiest battles. Even though I was a history scholar in high school, primarily with an interest in World War II, it didn’t take years of studying to achieve the understanding that I received there in the eerily silent forest. All it took was to look at the endless rows of trees where millions had died in that bloody time period to understand how fortunate I was to be able to stand there that very day amongst peace between the countries connected with it.

of how complex yet wonderful the world truly is. You get to learn things you will absolutely never learn by staying stagnant in your location. You get to live out your sense of adventure.

You get to see places that have had a heavy influence on modern day society, and perhaps you even get a flavor of what life will be in the future.

You get to meet people different than you—some eager to learn about your own culture and maybe even some people not so much. You get to hear stories and experiences from

others’ perspectives that you may never have thought of before. You get to live a life that’s different than your own for even a very short while.

So, whatever your reason is to study abroad, do it. You will never forget the moments that you had in another country. Ever. The experiences you will gain there will allow you to become wiser than you were in the past, allowing your lessons to help guide your life to allow the world to be a better, more understanding place.

All in all, being able to travel is something I strongly believe everyone should absolutely do, even if it is only once in their lifetime. By doing so, you get to experience cultures, foods, history, sciences and so much more that you can’t find back in your hometown.

PHOTO COURTESY OF PIXABAY

If there’s one thing I tell someone the most, it’s likely about the importance of travelling to another country. Since I was six months old, I have been travelling the United States and the globe, eventually racking up vitists to 41 states and 13 countries so far. A common theme that I have noticed throughout my numerous travels were lessons I could not have obtained while staying in my home state of Illinois.

These lessons often mix interpersonal and international dynamics.

You get to achieve an understanding

GAME FOR THOUGHT: TRIBALISM IN GAMES ARIANNA GOODMAN STAFF WRITER

PHOTO COURTESY OF BAGOGAMES

I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve been yelled at in a game or the number of strongly worded comment chains I’ve read, all concerning game community disputes. Each and every time, the arguments bore zero fruit.

At least one side was aggressive in their opinion, often resorting to base tactics such as name calling or broad generalizations. For instance, in a discussion on how the now all too popular game Fortnite rose to fame, I’ve seen players of the game refute all criticisms and non-players repel all praise. Both were seemingly incapable of seeing eye-to-eye.

Gaming communities can be toxic.

Some can even be quite destructive, and yet they persist. Popular titles such as Dota 2 and Fortnite have been described as having terrible or cringeworthy player bases, but these games still have players putting in their time and effort. Why? What drives players to identify so strongly with a game or console such that they feel the need to

defend it despite all odds? What lessons can we draw from this and bring into our daily lives going forward?

Admittedly, as one of the members of the “PC master race,” I am well acquainted with the trends of brand loyalty in the gaming community. Whether it be the consoles or the companies or the individual games, people always

Some may see this and similar type of divisive behavior as tribalism. With the backdrop of today’s political landscape in mind, tribalism can be broadly defined as the tendency to think and act within the interests of one’s own tribe, social network or group, sometimes at the detriment to oneself or others. To a certain extent, tribalism is normal.

Human beings are social animals,

and it is often more productive to function as a group instead of as an individual. Communities of like-minded individuals often provide safer environments and fulfill our social needs.

However, as with many things, too much can prove to be harmful.

Multiple studies have documented both the positive and negative effects of so-called “us vs them” mentality on social interaction, cognition and critical thinking. The concept of social identity can be applied to games and help us to understand what role we play in the toxicity of our communities.

Although tribalism has helped us evolve into who we are today, it is important to remember that we are not beholden to the trends that may guide us.

In

the

gaming

community, such belief systems are often blown out of proportion for comedic effect, but the truth that lies there points towards a larger societal issue—a lack of selfawareness in how we treat others. In the digital age, it might be easier to depersonalize the other party that appears through the screen, but that doesn’t make it any better in terms of effective communication.

Sometimes it can be hard to notice our own bias, but our treatment of other people is a good place to start.

PHOTO COURTESY OF SERGEY GALYONKIN

seem to find a way to form group identities and stereotypes around it.

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