Spartan Daily Vol. 159 No. 20

New law prompts UPD changes

By Nick Zamora STAFF WRITER

On Sept. 30, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1997, a new California State University-wide initiative that addresses on-campus crises through a trauma-informed response team.

The bill states that every CSU campus will have a crisis response team available to address non-criminal health and safety incidents, which includes classroom disputes and interpersonal conflicts among community members.

Roy Buyco, president of SJSU’s California Faculty Association chapter, mentioned how the bill would empower student voices and listen to how they want to be served on their campus.

The California Faculty Association is a union representing about 30,000 professors, lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches throughout the CSU system.

“We think the students ought to have a say on this, right?” Buyco said. “That’s our number one. We want to support the students and their views on the kind of campus safety they want.”

The Assembly Bill 1997 states that before July 1, each CSU campus must convene a stakeholder meeting that includes students, faculty, campus health and safety personnel, staff and bargaining unit representatives.

The stakeholder workgroup is then expected to submit a report to the CSU Chancellor’s Office nine months after its first meeting to provide alternatives to the campus’s current response to non-criminal altercations and employee conflicts.

The bill specifically mentions that the respective response teams must “separate and distinct” themselves from university police to shift responsibilities away from UPDs.

SJSU’s UPD is responsible for processing, investigating and prosecuting all crimes committed on university property and grounds owned, operated, controlled or administrated by the CSU, according to the UPD jurisdiction and enforcement webpage.

The SJSU chapter of Students for Quality Education said it believes this is an obvious step in the right direction.

“It is no secret that university police are ill equipped in responding to mental health

San Jose State student wins prestigious CSU award

By Rainier de Fort-Menares STAFF WRITER

Ome Garcia, San Jose State psychology sophomore, is one of very few to receive the highest-acclaimed award, the California State University Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement, this year within the CSU system.

“[Ome] is a wonderful student, really smart, really hard-working,” Interim President Steve Perez said about choosing Garcia as his nominee. “Ome has overcome significant hurdles put in front of them and uses those to inspire themselves to do great work to support others.” Garcia received the award on Sept. 13. in Long Beach, California.

According to a Sept. 12 blog from SJSU NewsCenter, the annual CSU Trustees’ Award for Outstanding Achievement is the

PHOTO COURTESY OF OME GARCIA

A mural painted in 2017 by Ome Garcia, SJSU psychology sophomore, is portrayed in Watsonville, about 30 minutes from SJSU. Garcia said murals like that are meant to repurpose public spaces into messages that express identity and is a tradition of Muralismo, a form of storytelling.

instances on campus, it is not a secret that police are unsafe for the campus community, and it is no secret that we need alternatives,” Students for Quality Education stated in an email.

Students for Quality Education is an organization that was formed in 2007-08 by students in the CSU system to boost the student movement for educational rights in public higher education, according to its webpage.

SJSU’s Students for Quality Education said it felt the state government has stepped in where the greater CSU system has failed.

Jonathan Karpf, California Faculty Association’s political action and legal chair, said the narrow scope of police responsibility is detrimental to students and having a greater range of resources could save lives.

“I think having people that are trained

to deal with the problems that we’re addressing, makes a great deal more sense than having everything turfed to police who really are only dealing with criminal justice issues,” Karpf said.

He also said calling the police can have implicit danger.

“If a student had a mental health breakdown on campus and police responded, there’s a reasonably good likelihood that they might be injured or killed,” Karpf said. “Having psychologists and social workers respond to these kinds of issues rather than police just makes sense.”

Currently, throughout the CSU system, there is a disparate allocation of money and personnel to address Title IX accusations while some respective campuses allocate about $200,000, according to an Oct. 2 CalMatters article.

Others have an annual budget of around $10,000, according to the CalMatters article.

Across the U.S., about a quarter of female undergraduate students and 13% of undergraduates overall reported experiencing a non-consensual sexual incident, according to a Jan. 17, 2020 Association of American Universities report on sexual misconduct.

Both California Faculty Association and Students for Quality Education members said the assembly bill has been in the works

for about four years and is one of several of those championed by both organizations, but the only one to make it across the state governor’s desk.

Bills on topics including more paid-parental leave for CSU faculty, the CSU’s divestment away from fossil fuel and addressing teacher-certification needs through the state are all issues that have not made it to the state governor’s desk.

“We don’t know why Newsom would support [Assembly Bill 1997] over others considering the importance of those other bills,” Students for Quality Education stated.

“We do know that this bill held urgency due to the well known mental health crisis college campuses are having.”

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Garcia said they found out about the award while looking for scholarships to support

They said when they started to look more into the award, they realized they were quite qualified.

Garcia reached out to their physics lecturer, William Seneshen, to ask for a letter of recommendation, one of the requirements for applicants.

They said Seneshen gave them a recommendation and encouraged them to apply.

“When I got the news, I was over the moon,” Garcia said. “It feels so good when you make so many sacrifices and you’re so dedicated to something to have it recognized on this big of a scale.”

Garcia said before coming to SJSU, they worked with the youth in Watsonville, California to empower them through arts, especially as a medium for healing.

“As a kid being able to create, being able to write, was really healing for me,”

After completing their bachelor’s degree in 2024, they plan on going to medical school and completing a residency in psychiatry.

Garcia said they plan on becoming a child and adolescent psychiatrist.

Outside of school, Garcia works in crisis intervention and suicide prevention.

“Art is a way of not only healing, but a way of activism and of education around social issues that affect our community,” they said.

Garcia said they worked as a muralist with youth, doing public arts projects, workshops and other forms of advocacy through art.

They said they worked with the Arts Council Santa Cruz County, Museum of Art and History, Pajaro Valley Arts and the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, which is based in Watsonville.

Garcia is also a member of the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos & Native Americans in Science at SJSU.

“It feels like I have this huge network of people who are cheering me on every day,” they said. “To have a space that understands my culture, my belief system, my community, it means the world to me.”

Garcia said after completing their medical degree and specialty program, they hope to return to Watsonville to better support the youth.

Ramiro Medrano, high school counselor within the Salinas Union High School District, worked with Garcia at Pajaro Valley High School.

Medrano said the work Garcia does with LGBTQ+ youth is vital in Watsonville.

be out

there and be open with LGBT issues being Latina-Chicana, that’s inspirational for me,” Medrano said. “I think for [youth] to meet someone like Ome who embraces their identity . . . is huge.”

Medrano said he believes that Watsonville is in dire need of Latinx mental health professionals that speak Spanish, especially from the LGBTQ+ community.

“I commend Ome for wanting to come back and give back to their community,” Madrano said. “I think Ome would be pivotal and open doors for other mental health counselors to become professionals and serve the community.”

Perez said Garcia’s story is inspirational and he’s glad to see students like them get recognized for their achievements.

“We all have hard days, we all have challenges,” Perez said. “A person that can take those, internalize them and say I don’t want other people to experience this, that’s an inspiring thing.”

Correction

On Wednesday, Oct. 5, the Spartan Daily published a story titled, “SJSU center

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in

Robin McElhatton was misidentified.

The Spartan Daily regrets this

“So that’s why I started to do that with youth in Watsonville.”

Follow Rainier on Twitter @demenares

A young girl paints onto paper during Ome Garcia’s art workshop in Live Oak, Watsonville this year. Garcia is an SJSU psychology sophomore who works with the youth.

PHOTO COURTESY OF OME GARCIA

We think the students ought to have a say on this, right? We want to support the students and their views on the kind of campus safety they want.

Roy Buyco SJSU’s California Faculty Association chapter president

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Never say ‘Never’ on brink of war

Alessio Cavalca

Ken Follett’s latest historical novel “Never,” published in November 2021, is about a fictional complex game of political tensions that inexorably leads the world into World War III.

The British author presents to the readers the scenario where the major world powers slowly progress toward a worldwide conflict – a nuclear one.

In a brief preface to the book, Follett writes about an important element that he learned about during his research for his 2010 book, “Fall of Giants,” a story focused on WWI.

“I was shocked to realize that the First World War was a war that nobody wanted,” writes Follett.

“Never” sets the same concept into today’s society.

Reading the book is like living in a gigantic “what if” where the threat of a nuclear war is no longer a menace looming in the dark corners of mankind, but a real and concrete problem on a planetary scale.

However, the author does not present a surreal scenario but a series of plausible events that do not seem far from our current reality.

There are no explicit war declarations between the countries in the book, but rather a series of events and minor conflicts testing the political alliances that dramatically brings the world to the brink of destruction.

The readers can feel the constant tension growing chapter by chapter through political discussions and military attacks.

The passage between “I cannot see them using a nuke bomb to start a war” and “Who is going to make the first move?” is fast and brutal.

He writes about the kind of events that make readers think, “This could potentially happen anytime.”

For example, the desperate illegal travel undertaken by Kiah, a poor farmer living in the Sahara desert, to leave Africa is a representation of the fate that many immigrants face to reach Europe.

Or the tension between two African countries, Chad and Sudan, presented in the very first act of the book, has several similarities to the current situation between Russia and Ukraine.

The tension between Russia and Ukraine, started in early 2014, resulted in a massive invasion of Ukrainian territory by the Russian army on Feb. 24, according to a Feb. 25 CNN article.

Another example reflecting our reality are the racist and hateful speeches that characterize the U.S. Senator James Moore, another character who seems to be a facet of former president Donald Trump.

Evidently, reality is the engine of the novel.

The book also has elements that characterize many of Follett’s past works,

SAUMYA’S

which have involved government spies and politics.

The chapters have a flowing narration without “dead spots” or places where the reader might get bored and lose focus while reading.

There are chapters where an undercover CIA agent, Abdul John Haddad, follows a group of

the book because the author provides clear explanations of the alliances between countries.

The way Follett presents the events to the audience is exceptionally intelligent.

There are many situations where the author does not directly describe events to the reader, but he lets the characters have dialogues about them,

The readers can feel the constant tension growing chapter by chapter through political discussions and military attacks.

terrorists in Sudan trying to find the head of their organization.

It is during those scenes that Follett exhibits the spy-genre elements and also has the audience empathize with the character’s anxiety and stress as he continues his mission.

However, at the same time, the political elements of the story play a fundamental role that engages the audience into the complex system of alliances between countries.

You don’t need any prior political knowledge to comprehend

or, in some situations, live through them in first person.

There are different parts of the book where President Pauline Green holds meetings in the Oval Office. She, alongside the reader, is unaware of the most recent events, and she discovers them during the conference.

It is almost like the reader is taking part in the meeting with the U.S. President and her entourage.

That writing style provides a deep immersion that is capable of directly connecting the reader to the story.

Follett also does not indicate which characters are protagonists and antagonists as the real threat is the nuclear war itself.

As a result, the reader can empathize for all the characters in a similar manner with them presenting opposing political ideas.

It is hard to blame characters for the events taking place in the book.

I desperately tried to find the “bad guy” of the story, but that is not possible because every character is moved by their principles.

The book has an important trait: it makes it possible to closely analyze opposite points of view and attempt to understand them.

I explored cultures and political perspectives that were far from mine and I found that behind those principles, there were people just like me.

People who were not necessarily wrong.

In many real-life situations we tend to find a “bad guy” or an antagonist where, most of the time, on the other side, there is a person similar to us.

“Never” works on that divisive line, making it clear that while people fight against each other, the only real enemy is the conflict itself.

Music recap: female artists amaze

By Saumya Monga ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Paramore’s song and music video “This is Why” (released on Sept. 28)

Most young girls in the 2000s wanted to be Hayley Williams, Paramore’s lead singer-songwriter, at some point in their lives.

Her bright orange hair and voracious lyrics have spoken to the teenage angst.

Five years later, those girls are grown up but many have stayed the biggest fans of Williams and her band.

Fans have waited for Paramore to release music and after posting teasers on social media the week prior,

they have finally released the single “This Is Why” on Sept. 28.

They also announced their album of the same name which is set to be released on Feb. 10.

Girls, get ready to rage because the red-haired, fury-filled Haley Williams is back.

Björk’s studio album “Fossora” (released on Sept. 30)

Icelandic singer Björk has been a thrilling artist ever since she released her debut album in 1977.

Experimental, surprising and weird in the best way, Björk’s latest release “Fossora” once again places her at the forefront of the current musical landscape.

In her discordant voice, she sings, “Hope is a muscle / That allows us to connect” on the first track “Atopos.” as it ends with raging drums and deep orchestral arrangements.

It’s a stunning introduction to her tenth album, released on Sept. 30. Björk is a force of nature and through “Fossora,” listeners are shown yet another vision of her dramatic world.

M.I.A’s single “Beep” (released on Sept. 30)

British rapper and singer Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam, more commonly known as M.I.A, first took the world by storm with her 2007 single “Paper Planes.”

While listeners thought she was singing about being free, the lyrics were actually hitting upon her experiences as an immigrant.

M.I.A has an interesting past that can be heard on every single song.

Although she was born in London, she was raised in Sri Lanka where her father fought in the civil war there. Because he was part of the Tamil minority, their family fled to London.

M.I.A’s discography is largely political and “Beep” is the same way, which was released on Sept. 30.

Although the lyrics are not as clever as her previous songs, the production is still in her signature style. It’s gritty and rough.

“Beep” isn’t surprising and is a very lukewarm single but I am still curious to see what that new era of M.I.A will bring.

Saumya’s album of the week: Hatchie’s “Giving The World Away” (released on April 22)

Released on April 22, Australian pop singer Hatchie’s sophomore album “Giving the World Away” feels like tunes from the ’90s.

Her sound is atmospheric and reminiscent of albums released in that decade’s such as “So Tonight That I Might See” by rock band Mazzy Star.

It is clear that Hatchie is heavily inspired by the shoegaze genre, a musical style that is defined by distorted guitars and warbled vocals.

“Don’t Leave Me in The Rain” is an ethereal song with Hatchie’s airy voice singing poignant lyrics including “Time is pointed at me like a gun.”

It makes me feel like I am roaming the concrete jungles of vast cities where the foggy red glow of street lights blurs my vision.

All I can hear is jumbled percussion and Hatchie’s poetic proclamations.

the Spartan Daily on Twitter @SpartanDaily

NyQuil Chicken:

It’s no surprise that there is another dangerous challenge going viral on TikTok. Now, we’re talking about cooking chicken with medicine.

The hashtag #sleepychicken is trending on social media because of a user who decided it was a good idea to cook their chicken in NyQuil cold medicine.

Yes, it’s as stupid and dangerous as it sounds.

Cooking any medication to begin with is dangerous as you risk changing its structure into something different and potentially more dangerous, according to a Sept. 15 article by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FDA stated in the same article that the vapors emitted from medicine when it is cooked can cause harmful damage to the person consuming the chicken.

That isn’t the first time that a stupid challenge has gone viral on TikTok.

In 2018, the “Tide Pod challenge” surfaced on TikTok.

Those trends of what can damage someone’s body continues.

Another issue that those dangerous challenges bring up is the age group that is dominant on TikTok.

According to a Sept. 30 Wallaroo Media blog post, TikTok users aged 10-19 makeup 32.5% of its user base, whereas users aged 20-29 make up 29.5%.

Wallaroo Media is a digital marketing and advertising agency, specializing and working in scaling brands, according to its webpage.

Kids are heavily involved in social

TikTok danger

media, and TikTok is one of the most popular platforms.

Children are peer-pressured into doing what everyone else is doing online.

In 2021, a horrific TikTok trend named the “blackout challenge” took the lives of at least seven children. That challenge encourages users to strangle themselves with belts and purse strings until they pass out, according to a July 7 article published by The Verge.

It’s scary how quickly something that dangerous can become viral and how many people come across it on their feed.

Social media continues to “control” its users by popularizing dangerous stunts.

According to a June 18, 2020 TikTok news release, once a user lands on a for-you-page, they are given videos that are based on their preferences through their interactions on the app.

TikTok has an easy-to-use search engine, as users can simply type in the hashtag “#” symbol with words following directly after, to see all the videos – ranked from most liked to least liked – that are tagged on its platform.

If somebody wanted to, they could simply type hashtag #sleepychicken to see all the videos that are related to the sleepy chicken challenge.

From making songs trend on TikTok to making a dance so viral that Fortnite has to include it in its games, social media understands how to take command of its audience.

When users see something trending on TikTok, they go and tell their friends, and those friends go and tell their own friends, and so on.

Once word gets out to such a large number of people, it can easily take over social media.

History cannot repeat itself every few years with dangerous challenges coming and going.

The hashtag #sleepychicken challenge, along with other dangerous challenges, need to be put to sleep.

Follow Brandon on Twitter @brandon_2me

GRAPHIC BY CAROLYN BROWN

Genius behind fresh threads

Director of football equipment spearheads design of latest jerseys

By Nick Zamora STAFF WRITER

Johnathon “Hank” Hankinson starts his day at the Simpkins Stadium Center at South Campus, the hub for San Jose State athletics, the same way that he does most days: with the smell of fresh laundry at 7 a.m.

He brews his morning cup of coffee in tandem with the obnoxious mechanical hum of industrial washing machines set up near the door of the facility, then is off to his first meeting by 7:30 a.m.

34-6 against Western Michigan.

The new drip was in homage to the City of San Jose and is not going to be worn again this season.

“To go from creating things online and coming up with a vision of what you hope for a uniform to turnout like,” Hankinson said regarding seeing his jerseys on the field for the first time.

“Then to see it actually out on the field under the lights, that glow, the smile on the players faces, in the staff’s

Hankinson was named the university director of football equipment in August 2018 and is now entering his fifth season arming the Spartans for battle.

However, this season he decided he wanted to bring some flair onto the field by way of newly-designed black jerseys that were worn by the team in a Sept. 24 game, in which the Spartans won

faces and even the fans.”

Hankinson said taking a look around the field and seeing the quality of the jerseys and the overall reaction was “priceless.”

SJSU football equipment manager Nathan Franzino described the feeling on the sideline as the team took the field with their new kit that day.

“I’ve been watching San

Jose State since I was a kid and it was just an awesome experience,” Franzino said.

Wide receiver Elijiah Cooks said new gear can be the extra push to get more juice on the field and thought he looked faster on first watch of the Sept. 24 game film.

“When you look good, you play good, you feel good, everything, I promise you,” Cooks said. “I love the black jerseys. I wanna bring them out again the way they look.”

Jersey design hasn’t always been Hankinson’s main focus, but after players kept mentioning the

colorway, he said he knew it was a priority.

“We don’t have black [jerseys] in our program,” Hankinson said. “My first four years here, it’s the color that everybody’s just clamoring for, hey, we need black, we need black, we need black.”

The actual fabrication process took Hankinson and Adidas 10 months from first drawing to seeing them on the field.

The jersey was designed on the Adidas’ jersey designer site and is the first collaboration with Adidas to feature all chrome-colored sleeves and chrome-colored

name plates, Hankinson said.

When asked how he approached the aesthetics of the jersey design, Hankinson said he had interest in maintaining the team’s branding guidelines but also wanted to push the envelope as much as SJSU could when it came to the design.

San Jose’s sans serif logo can be seen on the front of jersey chest section as well, in an official collaboration with the city of San Jose.

“Oh, and they fell in love with it too,” Hankinson said regarding the feedback the Spartans received from the city. Hankinson said the team’s reaction to the jerseys

made all the back and forth and attention to detail worth it.

“I had a smile ear to ear, seeing their reaction, seeing the joy in their faces and then just guy after guy walking into the office to say, ‘Hey, you outdid yourself, this was outstanding,’ ” Hankinson said. “Even having the head coach come in multiple times and say how appreciative and how great they looked is just amazing, like, that’s the biggest reward you can get, right?”

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I had a smile ear to ear seeing their reaction, seeing the joy in their faces . . . Like, that’s the biggest reward you can get, right?

Jonathon Hankinson director of football equipment

PHOTOS COURTESY OF SJSU ATHLETICS

Top: One-time-wear San Jose State jersey is displayed with chrome-colored sleeves and name plates. Above: Jonathon Hankinson, director of football equipment, smiles during SJSU’s 34-6 win over Western Michigan on Sept. 24.