February 16, 2017

the California Aggie SERVING THE UC DAVIS CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY SINCE 1915

VOLUME 135, ISSUE 16 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017

JAY GELVEZON / AGGIE FILE

UC Davis experiences several recent hate-based crimes Students receive email warnings from UC Davis police

BY AARON LISS campus@ucdavis.edu The UC Davis community recently received two crime alerts from the UC Davis Police Department (UCDPD) labelled as “suspicious circumstances vandalism/hate incident” and “campus timely warning/ hate incident.”

On Jan. 30, the letters “KKK” were found graffitied on the inside of a Memorial Union women’s bathroom stall in blue ink, six inches tall and 12 inches in length. School personnel removed the etching prior to the police arriving at the scene.

Later that week, a piece of pork tenderloin was left on the doorstep of Muslim students at 416 Russell Park between the dates of Feb. 3 and Feb. 5.

Sergeant Max Thomas of the UCDPD explained the Russell Park incident.

“The people who live at the residence came home after being gone for a while and noticed that a piece of meat was lying out in front of their doorway,” Thomas said. “The three residents happen to be Muslim. Their concern was that it may be referencing the incident at the mosque on Russell Boulevard. We’re still investigating — what we’re finding out now is that it may have been done by an animal, because there may have been a nearby trash bag tore or scratched open.”

The incident Thomas is referring to — the vandalism in which windows were broken, bikes were destroyed and pieces of bacon were laid on the mosque’s door handles — happened in the early hours of Jan. 22. In a university wide email sent the following day, Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter stated that the crime has caused fear and distress among the Muslim community in Davis.

“Acts and words of hatred directed toward Muslims as a group is an urgent and growing problem across our society,” Hexter said in the

GENESIA TING / AGGIE

email.

The police department is still unsure if the two on campus incidents are related.

“In this political climate, you tend to find a variety of different acts of vandalism,” Thomas said. “These small acts can become bigger in these sensitive times, and people can react a lot stronger than they would normally.”

Andy Fell, the associate director of news and media relations at UC Davis, said that the UCDPD has not identified any suspects.

“There are no suspects for either incident,” Fell said. ”They are still being investigated.”

Fell said that the theory of an animal dragging and dropping the pork tenderloin is a possibility, but that the investigation is still ensuing.

CRIMES on 10

NICHOLAS CHAN / AGGIE

City of Davis to retain sanctuary city status

Behind the scenes of student housing

Mayor Robb Davis reaffirms that the City of Davis will not make any policy changes

A look into the life of a resident advisor

BY RAUL CASTELL ANOS JR city@theaggie.org President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 25 threatening to withhold federal funds from cities and counties designated as “sanctuary jurisdictions.” “Sanctuary jurisdiction” is a loosely-defined term used to denote cities and counties that choose to limit their cooperation with federal immigration agencies.

The controversial executive order, titled “Enhancing Public Safety in the Interior of the United States,” was met with immediate opposition.

Many sanctuary cities have publicly stated that they will not change their policies.

The City of Davis has been a sanctuary city since 1986, and Mayor Robb Davis recently reaffirmed that the city will not change its policies or status. Other notable sanctuary cities include New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Davis explained that the City of Davis’ sanctuary policy is simple: police do not, under any circumstance, inquire about immigration status.

“The police will not ask, seek to know, or record someone’s [immigration] status in any interaction […] This is something that we’ve done, as many other cities have, to encourage trust in the police so that if something happens to someone, they’re not fearful of contacting the police,” Davis said.

Davis believes that President Trump’s executive order will make cities less safe.

“Imagine if you’re someone who is brought to this country, and you’ve been trafficked and you’re not here legally,” Davis said. “Are you going to contact the police to save yourself? Maybe not. So I believe that this action [Trump’s executive order] will make cities less safe because people who are victims of crimes will not come forward.”

According to Davis, the City of Davis is not breaking any laws in reaffirming its sanctuary city status and refusing to change its policies.

“Our police chief [and] our city attorney have stated unambiguously that we are following all state and federal laws and the Constitution by actSANCTUARY on 10

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BY ALLYSON TSUJI features@theaggie.org In every residential building on campus behind the door marked “resident advisor” lives a student who pulls the strings that make dorm life possible. UC Davis resident advisors (RAs) juggle an array of responsibilities, from resident issues to student housing duties to academic obligations.

“It’s always scary getting into freshman year when you don’t know anyone,” said Mackenzie Miller, a third-year biological sciences major and RA of Thoreau Hall in Cuarto. “[The RA job] is focused on your residents and building a community on your floor [and] trying to foster friendships between them […] so they get to know each other.”

In order to be an accessible resource for students, RAs live in the dorms with their residents and are trained in topics ranging from communication to diversity to social justice. RAs also perform regular duties that include weekly oncall nights, when they go on rounds to survey the residence halls and conduct one-on-one “knock-

and-talk” meetings to check on the wellbeing of residents.

“On rounds, [...] we have to walk through […] every single hallway,” said Brooke McMahon, a second-year environmental chemistry major and RA of Tercero’s Currant Hall. “You have awkward encounters with people in the bathroom and then you end up chatting in the bathroom. Being on call […] is important, because you have to have someone here that’s […] responsible enough to take care of people when they need to be taken care of at obscure hours of the night.”

For Miller, being an RA in Cuarto is a slightly different experience because of the suite-style living situation. Miller shares a suite with other residents and works in a partner community where she splits the responsibilities of her floor with another RA. “[Cuarto] can present a bit more of a challenge because you’re unable to knock directly on a resident’s door,” Miller said. “It’s a bit of a different dynamic of having two [roommates] living HOUSING on 10

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Katehi controversy prompts decline of UC administrators seeking profitable subsidiary board positions Tighter policies require greater approval of outside jobs

BRIAN NGUYEN / AGGIE

BY J E ANNA TOTAH ca mpu s @ th e a ggi e .o r g

Due to new policies implemented after the investigation of former UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, University of California (UC) administrators are no longer seeking compensated board seats outside of their senior management jobs at the UC campuses.

In 2015, the UC reported that the

majority of approved board positions had compensation, with a total of $1.57 million for 42 managers. After the establishment of the new policies, however, the 2016 report noted that 11 managers were approved for their outside activities from July 21 to Nov. 30, only three of which were paid positions that totalled $9,510 in compensation.

“The new policy requires two levels of review and management approval,” a UC

report read. “In addition, more detailed reviews are conducted to assess real or perceived conflicts of interest or commitment, and reputational risk.”

Activities now have to get approval through the campus chancellor, the president of the university or the chair of the Board of Regents.

The 165 managers, including UC President Janet Napolitano and campus chancellors, have also been limited to

only two paid outside positions as opposed to the original three.

This decrease in UC administrators seeking additional compensated board seats comes after Katehi’s resignation last year, when she faced a series of controversies including holding seats on two for-profit boards.

Bernadette Fox, a fourth-year Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies major, believes the policies are in place to give the UC administrators “insurance” and hide their mistakes.

“Katehi and [other chancellors] have really tarnished the brand of the UC in the last year or so,” Fox said. “By them being able to review these positions they can vet them and make sure from an outside perspective it doesn’t look bad for the UC as a whole. [...] I think it kind of put them in check as far as how greedy [they] want to be.”

Emily Breuninger, a fifth-year sociology major, thought the policies were unsatisfactory and did not demonstrate progress in terms of addressing the large amount these administrators make beyond their outside jobs.

“If Katehi can get away with taking all of these outside board seats over years and years, and it passes by unnoticed, then I don’t see what’s there to stop other chancellors or senior administrators from doing the same thing,” Breuninger said. “I don’t think there [are] sufficient mechanisms to ensure that there aren’t conflicts of interest or that chancellors

are prioritizing their campus duties over their outside seats.”

Although the managers are allowed to maintain the board positions they currently take on, Fox thinks the decrease in approved board positions is because the administrators are trying to avoid humiliation, and not solely because of Katehi.

“Everything that the UC does is very well calculated and is about protecting the expansion of the business model of the UC,” Fox said. “It’s embarrassing to me that it took what it did to get such basic policies put into place.”

Breuninger believes that such policies will not help bring about change at the chancellor level, since the main problems reside within the regents.

“If the regents are corrupt then everything is corrupt,” Breuninger said.

“Their actions are more egregious.”

Breuninger added that the UC administrators are afraid of criticism and losing their jobs.

“I don’t think that [the policies have] to do with any sort of change in heart on their part,” Breuninger said. “This is something that’s in the public eye right now, so I don’t have any hope or optimism that once public attention is turned away from it they won’t go straight back to their usual operation.”

Both UC Davis and UC Office of the President’s media relations staffs did not respond to The Aggie’s request for comments regarding the intentions of the new policies.

THE WORLD IS A WEIRD PLACE Feb. 8 “Recorded phone call from male that asked multiple questions about massages.”

BY SA M SOLOMON c i t y @ t h ea g g ie.org

Feb. 6 “Chronic phone problem.”

Feb. 7 Person “not making any sense.” May be “due to intoxication.”

utes.”

“Sedan occupied by male with female in passenger seat bent over in his lap.”

Feb. 10 “Four outdoor ATM machines appeared to have white soapy powder and water sprayed directly into card reader.”

Feb. 10 “Resident sounds like she’s dropping a heavy item repeatedly onto the floor for the past several min-

Feb. 11 “Chicken trying to cross the road, loitering around the center divide area.”

NICKI PADAR / AGGIE

City of Davis awarded funds for new recycling bins HANNAH LEE / AGGIE

BY DEMI C AC ERES ca mpu s @ th ea ggi e .o r g

On Feb. 2, the ASUCD Senate meeting was called to order by Vice President Abhay Sandhu at 6:12 p.m. Eight of the 11 senators were present, with President Alex Lee and Senators Julie Jung and Sofia Molodanof marked absent.

The meeting began with a presentation by Gallo Wineries. The company announced that it is looking to recruit students and graduates for its management sales positions to help lead the company.

Company representatives will attend the Career Fair on March 1 to meet with any interested students.

The meeting then motioned into appointments and confirmations, where Sexual Assault Awareness & Advocacy Committee (SAAC) chair Rachelle Fishbin introduced the new SAAC commissioners. After a series of questions, Senator Irveen Grewal moved to confirm the three SAAC commissioners. The motion was seconded and there were no objections.

After confirmation of members, the Senate discussed consideration of old legislation. Senate Bill #36 addresses the update of Chapter 21 of the ASUCD Bylaws. According to the bill background,

many of the ASUCD Bylaws are outdated, inconsistent and disorganized. This bill creates consistency in Chapter 21 with regard to previously passed bills and updates sections that were technologically outdated. Grewal moved to call the bill into question. The motion was seconded and there were no objections.

Senate Bill #37 discusses the decision to mandate quarterly commission presentations. Senator Simran Grewal moved to call the bill into question. The motion was seconded and there were no objections. Senate Bill #38 will require newly-elected or appointed ASUCD senators to attend legislation writing presentations by the Internal Affairs and Business and Finance Commission Chairs. Senator Ricardo Martinez moved to call the bill into question. The motion was seconded and there were no objections.

Senate also introduced new legislation and spoke about the ASUCD bills that will go to committees soon. This included a bill to establish the Disability Rights Awareness Committee, a resolution to urge the University of California to divest from fossil fuels and a bill to allocate $120 to the Coffee House to be used at an ASUCD lunch. They then motioned into ex officio and elected officer reports.

The meeting adjourned at 6:59 p.m.

CalRecycle donates $197,851 NADIA DORIS / AGGIE

BY ANYA RE H ON city@thea g g ie.org

The City of Davis will soon have new recycling bins throughout town thanks to a $197,851 grant awarded by the State Department of Resources, Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle).

“The funds will be used to purchase new recycling bins for the Downtown core area, parks and greenbelts and to purchase a few solar compacting trash/ recycling units,” said Jennifer Gilbert, the conservation coordinator for the City of Davis Public Works Department in an email interview.

With new bins, waste overflow and crew maintenance will be reduced. Currently, many of the existing bins lack clear labeling and are too small to allow items to be placed inside, causing bins downtown to regularly overflow with waste. Because of the excessive amount of waste production, park crews spend hours each day managing this waste issue.

“Our parks crews spend 5 hours a day, 7 days a week emptying bins from

Downtown Davis,” Gilbert said. “Within hours of the bins being emptied, they are overflowing again,” To help relieve crew workers and reduce waste production in the city, Gilbert suggested that residents divert personal waste into recycling and organics bins at home and at work.

In downtown Davis, the new grant funds will also go toward solar powered bins. Solar powered bins crush waste to reduce overflow and, once full, alert the city through a messaging system that the bins can be emptied. It is grant funds like these from CalRecycle that make purchasing new and innovative waste solutions a possibility in Davis and throughout the state.

Each year, CalRecycle, a department within the California Environmental Protection Agency that oversees waste handling and recycling programs, is able to award grants to hundreds of public and private entities throughout the state.

According to the CalRecycle website, “During the 2016-2017 Fiscal Year, 172 grants were awarded totalling up to $36,926,744.”

Gilbert said that, in the future, if the recycling program receives more grant money, they will allocate more funds toward dedicated outreach.

Members of the campus community are also working hard to address waste reduction and waste production.

The Waste Reduction and Recycling program, coordinated through the Office of Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability, wants to help the campus reach its zero waste goal of diverting trash from landfills by 2020.

“In the last fiscal year, UC Davis had a 73 percent diversion rate, 4th among other UC campuses,” said Sue Vang, program manager for Waste Reduction and Recycling in an email interview.

“We need to improve our diversion rate as the goal approaches, but we need everyone to help.”

To help the campus reach its goal, Vang recommended that students make an effort to compost more — not just food, but also napkins and other items as well. She’s hoping that she can bring more composting collection services to the Coffee House later this spring.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017 | 3

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Lecturers, associates and assistants: what is a professor?

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Sitting in the lecture hall during her first class of the day, Aristea Bountouvas realized she knew little to nothing about the person standing in front of her — her professor.

Like most students, Bountouvas, a firstyear biological sciences major, does not often think about what her professor does aside from teaching. In fact, many students aren’t aware of the major differences between their instructors’ official titles.

“I don’t really think about it,” Bountouvas said. “It’d be interesting to know [the difference between faculty], but I don’t know at all.”

Faculty at UC Davis includes lecturers, lecturers with potential security of employment and lecturers with security of employment.

Security of employment is equal to tenure for those on the tenure track, which includes faculty like assistant professors, associate professors, full professors and distinguished professors. “[There’s] a ladder to promotion,” said Nicholas Palomares, an associate professor in the Department of Communication. “You start out as an assistant, then you move to associate, then you move to full.”

Palomares came to UC Davis in the fall of 2004 and worked for five years as an assistant professor. In his fifth year, he was given tenure.

Tenure is security of employment and, at UC Davis, is also associated with associate profes-

sors and above.

“Promotions, at least in the UC system, are considered an advancement from one level to the next level [...] but there are also steps within [each of the levels] [and] the steps within are not considered promotions,” Palomares said.

“They are advancements but not significant advancements to the next level.”

What it means to make the cut is different depending on each level. According to Palomares, an assistant professor at a research institution mainly focuses on teaching and research. “[For the] assistant professor, [...] we want to make sure you’re a good teacher,” Palomares said. “You want to be good at having a trajectory toward great teaching because it takes a while to get better as a teacher. [For] research, however, we want you to be an excellent researcher. The standards are a little bit more high for research, although the standards are very high for both.”

Once a faculty member overcomes the hurdle from assistant to associate professor, they receive tenure. With that tenure, however, comes the added responsibility of service. Services to the university, a department or a discipline can include serving on different committees for a department.

“Assistant professors have a little bit of service but we try to reduce the amount of service PROFESSORS on PAGE 10

ANSWERS TO PREVIOUS PUZZLES

4 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

SCIENCE+TECH

containing the light from the quasar every couple of days and recording the brightness over time.

This group’s estimate for the Hubble Constant is creating an interesting contradiction in the world of astrophysics. An estimation made by the Planck Telescope measuring the cosmic microwave background is different from both H0liCOW’s — an international astrophysics collaboration — measurement and another more traditional method. All of these methods follow the same assumptions of the universe in order to create an approximate calculation of the Hubble Constant.

“If we continue to disagree, then it is a suggestion that there is something else going on,” Fassnacht said. “If we come up with a more complicated way of how the universe is put together it could bring our numbers into agreement and that is the hint of the new physics.”

However, Fassnacht is proceeding with caution due to large margins of error and other unforeseen complications.

“Here at UC Davis we are specializing in a particular branch of what we need for the project,” said Cristian Eduard Rusu, a postdoctoral fellow who worked under Fassnacht on this project. “Studying the environment of the lens, it’s not just a galaxy we are looking at but that galaxy is embedded in multiple galaxies. We need to account for the effect of those galaxies on the particular system that is of interest to us.”

To collect the data, the team used special telescopes to get images with a wide field of view, according to Rusu.

“Our approach is something new, we are basically taking older methods and updating them. We are bringing something theoretically new, for the first time putting in practice a more involved approach,” Rusu said. “We need a team [whose] job is to look for a decade at this particular lens, for us this was a team from Switzerland. We need people who actually take the Hubble Space images and look at that image and measure the lensing effect. All of this study goes together […] the final product is a statistical measurement of the Hubble Constant.”

Kenneth Wong, a UC Davis alumnus and East Asian Core Observatories Association (EACOA) postdoctoral fellow who works out of Japan, is the researcher who analyzes the images from the Hubble Space telescope.

According to Wong, who focuses mainly on lens modeling, locating the mass in the lensing galaxy, most of which is in dark matter, is an important aspect of measuring the Hubble Constant.

“The way we figure out where all of the mass is we have to look at how its bending the light from the background, and from that we fit a model to the galaxies,” Wong said.

Wong worked as an undergraduate with Fassnacht and joined this collaboration in late 2013. Fassnacht, Rusu and Wong are all part of the aforementioned international collaboration, H0liCOW, which Fassnacht helped found. These three researchers and their different specialties highlight the groundbreaking collaboration that this organization is promoting.

This research has created a new way to measure the galaxy through gravitational lensing. It is uniting the world of astrophysics — with UC Davis researchers and alumni leading the way.

nated during manufacture with dioxin tetrachlorodibenzo-para-dioxin (TCDD).

The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies TCDD as a group 1 carcinogen, indicating exposure is carcinogenic. The defoliant was banned in 1970 after researchers found evidence of birth defects in lab animals exposed to it.

“When exposed to certain forms of dioxin, serious types of acne of face and skin can occur, called chloracne. This condition occurred within a shorter time period after exposure,” Bell said.

The 2008 UC Davis Cancer Center study looked at thousands of male war veterans in their sixties and reported the incidence of prostate cancer.

“Looking at prostate cancer, it is hard to study because it is so common in older men.” said Professor Irva Hertz-Picciotto, the director of UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center and a professor in the Department of Health Sciences. “[Linking exposure and risk is] hard to detect because you need a very large study. There was evidence for small risk, but it was consistent.”

This study revealed that between 1988 and 2006, twice as many men exposed to Agent Orange had prostate cancer and were four times more likely to have the disease than individuals not exposed.

“The population is still affected, and there is a risk of developing diseases from an exposure that happens many years ago,” said Maarten Bosland, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and committee member of the updated 2014 Veterans and Agent Orange report.

From 1962 to 1971, an estimated 20 million gallons of chemicals were sprayed over the southern half of Vietnam, contaminating the ground, all of the troops and civilian populations that were present at the time.

Upon the soldiers returning from war, many veteran advocate groups called for research and government help after noticing numerous cancer-related health issues.

“With any type of exposure, one of challenges of public health is that it that change doesn’t happen very quickly,” Bell said.

A strong push from the public and the discovery of more evidence linking Agent Orange to various diseases eventually brought change to both healthcare and environmental policy.

“These studies led to a turning point because we noticed a wide range of outcomes that were not immediately obvious from when a soldier returns from war,” Hertz-Picciotto said. “It prompted coverage of veterans for some long term and chronic effects.”

The congressionally-mandated Veterans and Agent Orange Updates has produced significant results in assigning linkage between the chemical and human health issues.

One example is soft tissue sarcoma, a cancer that can begin in the muscles, fat, nerves and blood vessels of the body.

Other diseases linked to Agent Orange include Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system affecting the white blood cells that impacts the body’s ability to fight off infection, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, where the body produces too many abnormal white blood cells.

The final and most recent update of Veterans and Agent Orange has cited suggestive evidence for bladder cancer and hypothyroidism, a condition where the body does not produce adequate amounts of thyroid hormone, impacting metabolism.

Hertz-Picciotto has chaired the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine panels on Agent Orange and Vietnam Veterans. The committee series began in 1994 and was put in place by congressional legislation that aimed to address the health effects of Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange.

“First, we have a public hearing to hear what veteran groups want to say and the issues they want to address.” Hertz-Picciotto said. “Then we organize how we want to proceed.”

However, veterans are not the only group of people who have been exposed to this chemical.

“I have heard testimonies of people who handled the shipping of Agent Orange barrels, but still got exposed on the military base, not from combat,” Bosland said.

There is large portion of individuals exposed to the chemical that is often overlooked within the civilian and veteran population of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, where the chemical was sprayed years ago. In those areas, dioxins still remain in the soil and the population is in turn being affected to this day.

Even children born to exposed parents today are at risk for birth defects and malformations. Some children die from these unfortunate complications.

Although there is not strong evidence to link these specific disorders to Agent Orange, common issues seen are abnormal neurological and physical development, congenital heart conditions and cancerous tumors.

“We need more information for unique populations [civilians of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos] to more fully understand how exposures may impact their health,” Bell said.

The health impacts of Agent Orange can still be seen in today’s society, not just in U.S. veterans, but to all those exposed.

“Awareness allows us to ask questions and consider all impacts when we do have these exposures,” Bell said. “It [allows] us to make decisions to minimize negative health effects.”

NICHOLAS CHAN / COURTESY

H0liCOW collaborations and the expanding universe The possible emergence of new physics; cutting-edge measurements of the Hubble Constant

BY EM M A ASKEA sci ence@ th ea ggi e .o r g

The night sky holds the secrets of the universe, and UC Davis professor Chris Fassnacht and an international team of collaborators are helping unlock its many mysteries.

The team’s research focuses on measuring the rate at which the universe is expanding. Fassnacht used an analogy to relate his group’s galactic research to California by comparing the measure of travel time from Los Angeles to Sacramento to how they measure the travel time of light from space to earth. Calculating the time it takes for cars to travel through California is like measuring the time it takes light from quasars, extremely bright celestial objects, to reach Earth. However, this specific technique of measuring the distance of light relies on how the

the light of the quasars bends around a large galaxy.

This galaxy acts as a gravitational lens and allows Fassnacht and his team of researchers to provide a new way of estimating the rate of expansion in the universe.

There are many intricate parts that go into creating the final estimation of the Hubble Constant, the rate at which the universe is expanding. Fassnacht was involved in several aspects of this project, which has been long in the making.

“I was the person who collected the data where we measured how fast the stars were moving in the lensing galaxy, and then I was also the [principal investigator] for most of the imaging,” Fassnacht said. “[It took] 10 years of monitoring of looking at the system over and over again.”

According to Fassnacht, the process involves looking at the comparative brightness of the images

PUBLIC DOMAIN

SERIOUS HEALTH EFFECTS LINKED TO AGENT ORANGE EXPOSURE Updated report cites sufficient evidence for various cancers, genetic health problems

BY SHI VA N I KA M A L s ci en ce@ th e a ggi e .o r g

Agent Orange, the infamous and controversial chemical, used as a war tactic during the Vietnam War, may not seem familiar to students and youth of our current generation. However, its impact on human health can still be observed in today’s society.

The UC Davis Cancer Center published a 2008 study in a scientific journal entitled Cancer, with results showing that Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange have an increased risk of prostate cancer compared to those not exposed. In addition, individuals exposed developed the disease at a younger age and had more aggressive forms of the disease.

More recently, Veterans and Agent Orange: Update 2014 was released last year by the Institute of Medicine and The National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine.

The report links the toxic chemical to even more diseases such as bladder cancer and other various cancers.

“All committee members [of the updated 2014 report] are responsible for writing, reviewing and approving the papers.” said Erin Bell, an associate professor of environmental health sciences at the University at Albany and committee member of the updated 2014 Veterans and Agent Orange report.

“Our task was to evaluate if exposure could lead to cancer and if there is sufficient evidence, we can assign cause and effect.”

During the Vietnam War, Agent Orange was the most common defoliant, used to destroy thick and dense forests in order to expose the enemy and their hiding grounds.

The notorious name came from the color of the striped barrel the chemical was shipped in. A combination of two synthetic compounds, it was contami-

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017 | 5

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Recently, the UC Newsroom investigated a similar and potentially just as dangerous contender that has joined the smoking room: electronic cigarettes.

E-cigarettes, also known as “vapes” or “e-hookahs,” are devices that heat a nicotine-containing liquid into an aerosol that the user inhales. What those who vape may not realize is that, besides nicotine, e-cigarettes

can contain potentially harmful ingredients including chemicals known to cause heart and lung disease, heavy metals, carcinogens and other ultrafine particles. Though advertised as “harmless water vapor” by the e-cigarette industry, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

“We are learning more about the health impacts of inhaling vapor, or aerosol and secondhand vapor,” said Elisa Tong, a UC Davis assistant professor of general medicine who works with UC Quits, a tobacco cessation network across the five UC medical campuses. “It is not water vapor but propylene glycol that contains other chemicals [nicotine, flavorings, additives] and particles.”

The sleek design and technological sophistication are just a couple of factors that contribute to a cloud of appeal and normalcy around the notorious e-cigarette. The media, which heavily influences the perception of products on the market, has also played a critical role in skyrocketing popularity.

“Every single big tobacco company has at least one e-cigarette brand,” Tong said. “Since e-cigarettes had not been regulated, they used many of the same advertising tactics that they did for cigarettes years ago.

Certainly this includes getting product placement and celebrity endorsements that are advertised through the media.”

Along with this, a plethora of attractive flavors, such as “Smurf Cake” and “Fruit Hoops,” often make it appear as though you are purchasing a pack of bubblegum rather than a harmful nicotine product. These flavors, though edible, can be harmful when inhaled.

Diacetyl, a chemical linked to lung disease, is an example of a common flavorant in e-cigarettes, according to the U.S. Surgeon General.

Besides the negative long-term health effects, e-cigarettes also have explosive tendencies.

“Batteries used in e-cigarettes have been known to explode causing burns and damage to teeth,” said Diana Cassady, a UC Davis professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences in an email interview.

Another indisputable problem with e-cigarettes is that they continue to fuel smokers’ nicotine addictions, an unfortunate effect considering that many try to use them to wean themselves off of traditional cigarettes.

“A puff on an e-cigarette is not as dangerous as a puff on a regular cigarette,” said Stanton Glantz, tobacco control activist. “The most important negative effect of vaping is that they keep people smoking conventional cigarettes. They reduce the likelihood that a smoker will quit by a third.”

CDC recommends FDA-approved nicotine replacement products, such as skin patches and chewing gum, for current smokers wishing to quit.

The surgeon general also revealed that the use of e-cigarettes is “higher among high school students than adults.”

Despite rising e-cigarette popularity, states such as Hawaii and California have given their citizens reason to take in a breath of fresh air by officially declaring e-cigarettes as tobacco products and issuing regulations on their use, such as setting the minor age of consumption at 21.

research project at the McLaughlin Natural Reserve.

The McLaughlin Natural Reserve, operated under UC Davis, is one of the 39 reserves that exist under the UC Natural Reserve System.

“The UC Natural Reserve System is a network of natural areas around California that have been set aside and protected so that people can do research, learn about natural systems and help address environmental issues,” said Kathleen Wong, the principal publications coordinator at the UC Natural Reserve System.

The UC Natural Reserve system consists of a wide range of natural areas including the Bodega Marine Reserve, the Jepson Prairie Reserve, McLaughlin Natural Reserve and many more. Within these reserves, a variety of people from different institutions and universities come together to participate in various research projects. “[The reserves] are a library of ecosystems that the University of California makes available to both students and faculty, but also the general public,” Wong said.

While McLaughlin Natural Reserve and other reserves in California are primarily utilized for research projects, one of the UC Natural Reserve System’s goals is to educate the public about nature and the world around them.

At McLaughlin Natural Reserve specifically, there are around 50 ongoing research projects. One of the most notable projects is the hunt for conditions on Earth that can be comparable to those on other planets in our solar system.

A group of NASA scientists, including Tori Hoehler, a research scientist at NASA Ames Research

Center, has taken advantage of the rich serpentine soils in McLaughlin to study the types of organisms that grow there.

“The rocks [at McLaughlin Natural Reserve] undergo a process called serpentinization: a reaction between the rocks and water.” Hoehler said. “This same process of serpentinization yields fluids that are rich in things like hydrogen that represent the potential for microorganisms.”

Through the process of serpentinization, organisms have access to hydrogen, a compound that many microorganisms need to survive. Serpentinization also creates a highly alkaline environment that allows specific microorganisms, such as the ones living in McLaughlin, to thrive.

The amount of hydrogen and the specific environment that is formed depends on a multitude of factors, including the composition and temperature of soils.

“The specific reason why NASA is interested in this, is that this process that rocks like our mantle rocks give rise to is widespread throughout our solar system,” Hoehler said. “So this process has the potential of occurring all over the place.”

By looking at the process of serpentinization that occurs within McLaughlin Natural Reserve, scientists are able to see what conditions make life possible on Earth and apply that knowledge to other planets in the solar system.

Knowing that serpentine-like minerals do exist on planets like Mars, NASA scientists are interested in the possibility of this process occurring on other planets. This curiosity is especially sparked by the

fact that many other planets in our solar system do not have easy access to sunlight.

Because of this, there is a higher chance of serpentinization being a major energy source on these planets, compared to sunlight being the major energy source on Earth.

By analyzing the processes that microorganisms undergo and their interactions among each other in McLaughlin, scientists will be able to apply their gained knowledge from Earth to other planets.

Currently, research is still honing in on the microbiological aspects of McLaughlin Natural Reserve.

With this research, McLaughlin now serves as a model for microbial communities that live in alkaline and serpentine-rich conditions.

There are also many other research projects that are currently ongoing within the natural reserve system.

Students and non-students have the opportunity to pose questions and conduct research within these natural reserves. The UC Natural Reserve System gives the public the opportunity to ask questions and get involved.

“All of the reserves would welcome talking to undergrads who are thinking of doing independent studies and help them figure out if doing their research in a natural landscape, such as a reserve would be something that would be rewarding to them,” said Catherine Koehler, resident director at McLaughlin Natural Reserve.

As research continues at this reserve, scientists will continue to get one step closer to figuring out the probability of life on other planets.

BRIANA NGO / AGGIE

CLOSING THE DRAPES ON VAPES Negative effects of vaping explored by UC Newsroom

BY HARNOOR G I LL s ci en ce@ th e a ggi e .o r g

Within the past century, physicians advised smoking cigarettes as a method of keeping a slim figure.

The health effects of this advice were disastrous, and progressive awareness campaigns were launched that gradually brought the smoking rate to its current alltime low in the U.S., 18 percent for adults, according

MORGAN TIEU / AGGIE

LOOKING FOR LIFE ON OTHER PLANETS NASA scientists conduct research at McLaughlin Natural Reserve

BY M OLI NA HAUV s ci en ce@ th e a ggi e .o r g

Since the beginning of modern astronomical research, the possibility of life on other planets has been a topic of peak interest. With the goal of looking into the processes that make life possible on our planet, a group of NASA scientists have been working on a

RYOSUKE MOTANI / COURTESY

FOSSIL DISCOVERY PROVIDES NEW EVIDENCE ABOUT LIFE AFTER MASS EXTINCTION New marine reptile fossil found; life at end of Permian period questioned

BY MOLINA HAUV AND SHIVANI KAMAL s ci en ce@ th e a ggi e .o r g

The Permian mass extinction occurred 250 million years ago and wiped out nearly 96 percent of the planet’s species. However, a recently-discovered marine reptile fossil sheds lights on how quickly life rebounded after the extinction.

The recovered fossil, sclerocormus parviceps, was found in a quarry in Anhui Province, China. Ryosuke Motani, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, along with his colleagues, published a paper in Nature Scientific Reports describing the fossil and how this new evidence changes ideas about the evolution of life millions of years ago.

The fossil belongs to a group called ichthyosaurs, a dolphin-like marine reptile that lived in the ocean during the Mesozoic age when dinosaurs walked the Earth.

“What was striking about this animal was that it was large for the time period it came from,” Motani said.“[Though] its head is really small for the body, and we don’t know why this is the case.”

Despite resemblance to dolphins and fish, the

sclerocormus parviceps is said to have fed at the sea bottom, due to the shape of its snout, and would suck in its prey.

Closer relatives would be reptiles such as lizards, snakes and crocodiles because of the ichthyosaurs’ reptilian skull and fins.

“This animal was very heavily built and its bones are very thick,” Motani said.

Further analysis of the ancient animal determined it was about 5 feet in length, had a short skull and short, stocky body.

In addition, the animal had four fins and a long tail that took up more than half its body length. The animal most likely used its forefins to maneuver itself while swimming.

Over time, it can be observed that the ichythosaurs’ lower arm and finger bones became significantly shorter and eventually the finger became disk-shaped.

According to the fossil record, once ichthyosaurs appeared, they diversified rapidly. Many fossils of different body types have been found, especially from the early and middle Triassic period, around 199 to 251 million years ago. “[The sclerocormus parviceps were] predators [...]

about the size of humans,” Motani said. “To feed this predator in the sea, you have to have enough food. This means small animals [they consumed] were already there.”

Five major mass extinctions are evident in the fossil record, identified by around 50 percent of species going extinct at one time on a global scale.

“The End-Permian was the largest of these five; it’s estimated somewhere between 90 to 96 percent of the species on earth went extinct,” said Amanda Glynn, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences.

With the massive end-Permian extinction, there was not only more space on Earth, but more environmental roles that a wider range of organisms could take over.

“You also have, at that time, changes in sea level, which [made] it more favorable for things to go back into the water,” Glynn said.

Scientists have proposed various theories on why the Permian mass extinction occurred.

Some of the more popular theories include an asteroid impact, or an intense volcanic eruption that clouded the sky with ash, blocking the sun and polluting the air.

“Different mass extinction events appear to have been caused by different environmental changes,” said Jonathan L. Payne, a Stanford University professor and the chair of Stanford Geological Sciences.

“In the case of the end-Permian we have no strong evidence for an asteroid impact, in fact, we have a lot of evidence for volcanic eruptions.”

Other scientists cite evidence for global climate change with sudden rapid heating and cooling, in which organisms would die off because they could not adapt.

A final theory suggests a catastrophic, earthquake-triggered release of methane gas from under the seabed, global warming or an asteroid impact.

There is no solid consensus in the scientific community about which theory or combination of theories proves to be true.

With the conditions of the end-Permian extinction, more organisms made the transition from land to water, resulting in the evolution of these marine reptiles.

Although there was variation among the marine species, there was a general trend of the orgasims evolving from a lizard-shaped body to a fish-shaped body.

The lizard-shaped ichthyosaurs had similar characteristics to living catsharks today, with a more slender backbone and a larger number of vertebrae. The fishshaped ichthyosaurs had similar characteristics to living great white sharks, consisting of a thick body and backbone and a crescent shaped tail.

More information about these animals can be found on Motani’s ichthyosaurs webpage.

“Many people argue that we are entering a period of extinction that could rival some of the major mass extinction events throughout earth’s history,” Payne said. “The farther back in time we search the geological record, the farther forward in time we can see what our planet is going to look like.”

With the discovery of fossils like the sclerocormus parviceps and other organisms as well, the geologic history of Earth continues to unfold.

“This research is important because it tells us about how life recovers after mass extinction,” Motani said.

“It is part of a series of studies about how life copes after massive environmental changes.”

6 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

ELECTIONS BA SE D

J o s h D a l ava i & A d i l l a J a m a l u d i n In order to continue their respective Winter Quarter 2016 senatorial platforms into a new term, Josh Dalavai, a thirdyear political science major, and Adilla Jamaludin, a thirdyear international agricultural development major, have decided to run on the Based slate executive ticket for the 2017 winter elections.

“I think the way that this [partnership] came about was that we both realized [...] that we had a good enough experience pool and similar goals to [...try] this at the next level,” Dalavai said. “It helps that we’re really good friends, too.”

If elected as president and vice president, Dalavai and Jamaludin plan to address issues specific to students by maintaining UC Davis’ status as a “sanctuary” campus, conducting more efficient student engagement, providing adequate lighting in dim areas of campus and incorporating

resources for housing and food security.

“It’s a comprehensive effort, and ASUCD is in a good position to be in contact with all these different groups,” Jamaludin said. “We really want to take a strong stance about [the sanctuary campus status]. We are aware we are not the only students who care about this issue.”

Through their partnership, the two plan to work as a team to achieve what the campus wants to see from its student government, since nothing is a “one person show.”

“With every project [...] there’s always already someone working on it or someone who’s had the idea but just didn’t know how to do it, so we definitely incorporate student input and the voices of students past and voices of students current in everything that we do,” Dalavai said. “Whenever you do public service, it’s collaborative [...] inherently so.”

SAM CHIANG If elected for her second term, Sam Chiang, a third-year English major, hopes to continue her work on the issues for which she has shown passion during her time in Senate thus far.

“A lot of my platforms [...] have similar themes [as last winter], but obviously they’re different projects,” Chiang said. “The things I care about haven’t changed really, if anything I just care more now.”

Basing her platforms on mental health awareness, cultural competency, international student accommodations and disability rights advocacy

and outreach, one of the things Chiang hopes to establish is a mental health awareness month that represents many communities on campus and their needs.

“I think people do care about the work we can do and we can help their communities, so by going to the communities and helping them put on the events that they want to put on in mental health can be very powerful,” Chiang said. “We need to be more in touch with our communities [... and] it’s things like that that make us better representatives.”

Khadeja Ibrahim Khadeja Ibrahim, a third-year political science major, has served as a staffer for former ASUCD senator and current vice presidential candidate Adilla Jamaludin.

One of her main goals as a senator would be to create a minority leadership program.

“It’s a program I want to create specifically for minority students on campus that would provide them with resources and assistance so that they could pursue government careers in the future,” Ibrahim said. “[...]

The reason I want to create something like this is because I don’t think there’s anything like it on campus at the moment and I’d like to see more minority representation in local and national government, and I think that starts on college campuses.”

Ibrahim’s other main platform focuses around mental health. She hopes to help students increase their amounts of sleep by expanding nap areas available on campus and doubling the number of hammocks on the Quad.

BESP OKE R OSY M A RT I N E Z Third-year human development major Rosy Martinez’s senate campaign platforms are founded from her experience as the external director at the ASUCD Pantry.

She has plans to address food insecurity and student homelessness, promote higher administrative accountability and improve financial aid services.

“Currently, the [financial aid office’s] hours are [...] sort of impossible for the working student to have any access [to],” Martinez said. “I’d like

to extend those hours [...] and also have a liaison there [...] so students have someone they can talk to and [...to] be the mediator between the financial aid person and the [student] themselves.”

As a co-founder of the “Bespoke” slate, Martinez would focus her time in Senate on those in need across the UC Davis campus. “[As a slate] we’re trying to sort of drift away from the high political [...] reigns of things and have a community orientation,” Martinez said.

“We wanted to be more than a slate and more of an organization.”

Marcos Ismael Rodriguez Marcos Ismael Rodriguez, a second-year political science public service major, decided to run for Senate in this quarter’s election after staffing for a number of its past members, including Kamal Thomas, Ricardo Martinez and Alex Lee. “I joined [ASUCD] the first quarter of my first year here,” Rodriguez said. “I [have also] joined the business and finance commission of ASUCD and [...] I’ve been the vice-chair for about a year now.”

If elected on the Bespoke slate, Rodriguez would like to create more opportunities for different campus communities to “include their voice

in student government.” In addition to the issues of ASUCD transparency and becoming a representative for the ChiLat community in his position in Senate, one of Rodriguez’s passions is to expand the Housing Advising for Undergraduate Students unit (HAUS).

“I plan [to…] help [HAUS] create housing advisors, which is what their original purpose was supposed to be, as well as expand Housing Day and make more accessible tools for students to know renter’s rights,” Rodriguez said. “In light of the housing crisis, some property managers might want to take abuse to that.”

R A H I S U R YAWA N S H I Rahi Suryawanshi, a third-year international relations major with an emphasis in environmental policy, spent the past year as a staff member for current senator Shaitaj Dhaliwal while also holding leadership roles in Startup Hub, #Include and Bakuhatsu Taiko Dan collegiate Japanese drumming.

“Through Startup Hub I have seen [...] peoples ideas slowly turning into reality, [...and with #Include,] I’ve seen people [who] have already created their ideas,” Suryawanshi said. “I see the determination and diligence and also the business mind that you need to achieve initiatives.”

If elected, Suryawanshi will work to provide UC Davis with free self defense workshops, an online forum for research opportunities and allyship workshops in the residence halls — all based on the idea of community and student government communication.

“As an international student, [...] I have lived and seen the importances of people of different ethnicities living together,” Suryawanshi said. “That is fairly important to my core, and I think it’s important [...] for all kinds of students to learn what communities they live amongst and how they can support these communities when the time comes.”

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017 | 7

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

YA J A I R A R A M I R E Z S I G A L A Yajaira Ramirez Sigala, a second-year sustainable agriculture food systems and Chicana/o studies double major, wants to utilize her experience helping in the AB540 Undocumented Student Center as an ASUCD senator.

“I want to make sure that the undocumented community is being included in these dialogues that are happening on campus, and [...] that there is somebody facilitating those conversations when talking about the undocumented experience,” Ramirez Sigala said. “We don’t want that narrative to be taken over by another person that might not necessarily be undocumented.”

Ramirez Sigala’s campaign platforms focus on the inclusive conversations on campus regarding underrepresented groups, including mandatory sensibility trainings across campus, safe-zone commissions and awareness for the undocumented community. “[This] would mean collaborating with other departments on campus and letting them know about the experiences that other underrepresented communities have faced before coming to Davis so that there can be a more positive student experience on campus,” Ramirez Sigala said. “[We have to] make it more inclusive with letting them know of the other experiences that students might come [with].”

I NDE PEN DENT JASK AR AN CHEEMA Jaskaran Cheema, a fourth-year neurobiology, physiology and behavior major, holds platforms which include increasing the number of squat racks and benches at the Activities and Recreation Center, renovating old bathrooms on campus and securing better WiFi on the Quad.

“We wanted to tackle issues pertaining to a vast array of students,” Cheema said via email. “Therefore, our platform is based on the betterment of campus to foster a healthy learning environment for all students.”

Although Cheema will be shown on the ballot as running with third-year economics major Zuhair Bhatti, due to personal reasons, Bhatti is no longer running with Cheema.

“We have selected a few experienced candidates which we will decide on if we win the election,” Cheema said.

Cheema also hopes to expand career and sexual assault prevention resources for students, ensure that students receive 10 free scantrons per year and increase the amount of hammocks on campus.

SAMIR HIMES If elected, Samir Himes, a second-year economics major, hopes to increase funding for ASUCD’s Entertainment Council so that more performance artists can come to UC Davis.

“A lot of other big schools have events [...] I think that’s something the student body really wants,” Himes said. “I know tons of people who go out of town each weekend to go to shows and I think that’s a loss to the UC Davis community.”

Himes also intends to introduce legislation for transparency in the Club Finance Council (CFC) after some students had an issue with

getting the CFC to fund security for the Milo Yiannapoulous event on Jan. 13.

“Students were upset that their money was going to something they didn’t want it to and so I’m proposing that the CFC, before they give money to an event, [that] they have to make a public notice, which is similar to how a lot of city governments work,” Himes said.

Additionally, Himes wants to put plastic nubs on the bottom of the library’s chairs to decrease the loud noise that the chairs make when pushed in and pulled out.

MICHAEL GOFMAN Michael Gofman, a first-year economics major, has centered his campaign around three platforms: sustainability, affordability and improvement of student-teacher relations.

“I want to get all the [leaders of the] different environmental organizations on campus [...] to sit down at the table together and to centralize the environmental movement at UC Davis, because we’re already one of the most sustainable universities in the world without being centralized, but if we centralize we can achieve much bigger projects and the leaders will see how vast their resources are in order to

achieve different tasks,” Gofman said.

As part of his affordability platform, Gofman, who has experience in writing grants for the ASUCD Pantry, hopes to expand the program’s resources.

“I’m hoping to as a senator [...] help them find more consistent and reliable outside donors and funds from various funding organizations and grants to make sure that whatever the ASUCD budget situation is, however much money they have, no student on campus is going hungry,” Gofman said.

ZAKI SHAHEEN As a transfer student, Zaki Shaheen, a third-year political science major, is looking for ways to ease the transition for transfer students coming to UC Davis.

“I’m a transfer student, so a big platform of mine is working with the Transfer Re-entry Veteran Services Center to provide an increased amount of services to transfer students as well as [to] basically just give a better kind of information about what is available to them to better integrate them into the Davis community because it can be more difficult

coming in later,” Shaheen said.

Shaheen also plans on working with the Office of Advocacy and Student Representation to maintain and improve sexual assault prevention resources. If elected, he hopes to be a representative for different minority groups on campus.

“I’m including my phone number on my [campaign] flyers and everywhere because I guess a theme of what I’m trying to run under is that I want to be accessible to everyone,” Shaheen said.

F R A N K M CG R E A L Frank McGreal, a second-year managerial economics major, drew largely on his experience as an orientation leader while creating his platforms.

“I want to implement a seminar at the beginning of each quarter [...] for any incoming students or anyone who wants to see them [to show] different resources that we offer on campus, different clubs and different communities that are available in order to make the transition from whatever previous institution that they were at to coming to UC Davis as

seamless as possible,” McGreal said.

As a part of his platforms, McGreal also hopes to create a mentorship program that would collaborate with the City of Davis to match an undergraduate student at UC Davis with an underprivileged youth in the community. “[This] mentorship program [would] hopefully influence youth in our city to want to go to a higher [educational] institution one day,” McGreal said.

W R I T T E N BY ALYSSA VANDENBERG AND EMILIE DEFAZIO, campus@theaggie.org P H OTOS BY FARAH FARJOOD, LUCY KNOWLES, DIANA LI, LAURA LONG, ZOË REINHARDT, ARIEL ROBBINS, TAYLOR RUNNELLS, NATALIE SKLOVSKAYA AND NICOLE WASHINGTON

8 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

Opinion the California Aggie

editorial board

EDITORIAL BOARD

SCOTT DRESSER Editor in Chief ELLIE DIERKING Managing Editor

Senate Endorsements: Consider the following that her platforms, which include creating allyship workshops for

Executive Endorsement:

marginalized communities in the residence halls and providing Josh Dalavai and Adilla Jamaludin (BASED)

make a tangible impact on campus.

ALYSSA VANDENBERG Campus News Editor

Both former senators, Da-

SAMANTHA SOLOMON City News Editor

lavai and Jamaludin have the experience necessary to lead ASUCD.

ELI FLESCH Opinion Editor

they demonstrated an understand-

Although he’s only a first-year, Gof-

ing of pressing issues facing stu-

man impressed the Editorial Board

dents, such as food and housing

with his passion for making a dif-

insecurities and maintaining UC

ference at UC Davis. His platforms,

Davis’ status as a sanctuary campus. They are aware of both the

which are well-thought out and

need for transparency within ASUCD and the UC Davis admin-

researched, touch on issues that

istration, and hope to better enable student advocacy on campus.

are important to students: sustain-

The Editorial Board believes that with their experience and their

ability, affordability and improv-

teamwork, they are by far the most qualified executive team in

ing student-teacher relations. The Editorial Board appreciates

this race.

Gofman’s dedication to increasing resources for The Pantry, an

AMANDA ONG Arts & Culture Editor

ARIEL ROBBINS Science & Tech Editor

CHIARA ALVES New Media Manager JAY GELVEZON Photo Director HANNAH LEE Design Director

ASUCD unit that provides food to students dealing with food insecurity. With the recent vote to increase UC tuition, services

Senate Endorsements:

like The Pantry are more important than ever, and the Editorial No. 1 — Sam Chiang (BASED)

Board believes that Gofman’s experience in writing grants for The Pantry will help him achieve this goal.

EMILY STACK Copy Chief

As an ASUCD senator running for re-election, Chiang has

OLIVIA ROCKEMAN Copy Chief

No. 4 — Marcos Ismael Rodriguez (Bespoke)

the experience and the dedication necessary to fulfill her goals in Sen-

As the current vice-chair

ate. During her time in office, Chi-

of ASUCD’s business and finance

ang achieved all of her platforms,

commission and a former staffer

and has already began working on

for several senators, Rodriguez is

the platforms she is currently run-

more than qualified to serve as an

ning on, which include bringing cultural competency training to

ASUCD senator. Rodriguez recog-

students and increasing international student resources. Chiang’s

nizes the need for minority repre-

commitment to mental health awareness is impressive to say the

sentation at UC Davis, especially

least — she recently headed UC Davis’ first on-campus mental

in the aftermath of the 2017 presidential election, and wants to

health conference and hopes to create a mental health awareness

ensure that minority communities have a voice on our campus.

month.

The Editorial Board particularly appreciates Rodriguez’s goal

VERONICA VARGO Website Manager ALEX GUZMÁN Social Media Mangager MADELINE ONG Newsletter Manager LAURIE PEDERSON Business Development Manager

No. 3 — Michael Gofman (Independent)

In their endorsement interview,

EMILIE DEFAZIO Features Editor

BRYAN SYKES Sports Editor

free self-defense workshops on campus, are both feasible and can

of decreasing the disconnect between ASUCD and the student No. 2 — Rahi Suryawanshi (Bespoke)

body — a relevant issue considering that the number of students who vote in the ASUCD elections has steadily decreased in recent

As a staff member for cur-

years.

rent senator Shaitaj Dhaliwal, Suryawanshi has both ASUCD experience and an eagerness to help improve the lives of UC Davis stu-

Students can vote online at elections.ucdavis.edu from Feb. 21 at

dents. The Editorial Board believes

8 a.m. until Feb. 24 at 8 a.m.

Question the value of private and charter schools THE CURRENT ADMINISTRATION POSES A UNIQUE THREAT TO AMERICAN PUBLIC EDUCATION

BY SHOHINI MAITRA samaitra@ucdavis.edu Betsy DeVos’s narrow confirmation as Secretary of Education, in which Vice President Mike Pence had to step in to break a tie, has stirred up unexpected controversy for a position that has historically been confirmed without much opposition. As a department considered less important than others, the federal government’s role in education is limited in scope, and most of the power with respect to education resides at local and state levels. However, the fierce opposition to Betsy DeVos’s confirmation has raised pertinent questions about many long-standing issues of the US. education system.

DeVos’s controversial views on American education are already well-known. She believes in the privatization of public schools and has long advocated for the expansion of charter schools and for-profit schools, as demonstrated by her efforts in her home state of Michigan.

As justification for her views, she believes that all parents — rich and poor — should have the luxury of choice in deciding where to send their children to school. The DeVos couple has consequently poured their enormous wealth into private schools, leading to the rapid growth of charters in Michigan.

Charter schools receive government funding, but aren’t part of established public school districts. They’re governed by separate non-

federal institutions — some for-profit, others mostly nonprofit. So even though they’re funded by taxpayers, they’re under no obligation to perform to the same standards as public schools. They’re an example of public asset privatization, and can charge any tuition they like, with the freedom to change the curricula any way they want.

While charter schools were orginally established to provide a smaller, more intimate learning environment, the institutions and people governing these schools often have their own agendas. This has led to a rapid increase in religious schools that teach according to their beliefs. The students attending would potentially be unprotected from racial or gender discrimination because the schools don’t have to match the same standards of transparency as public schools.

These schools blur the separation between church and state, and many teach controversial topics such as creationism instead of evolution, the evils of homosexuality and the “harmful” effects of birth control. Private schools may teach a similar curriculum, but the key difference is that private schools don’t receive taxpayer funds. It’s unfair for taxpayers to spend their money on these schools when they receive no information about — and may not even agree with — the state of children’s education at the charters.

So why are parents sending their children to such schools, especially if they cost more? The answer lies in the growing number of school vouchers. School vouchers are state-funded programs that pay for students’ tuition, allowing lower-income families to afford educa-

tion at good private schools. Voucher schools are also private schools — but of a slightly different category. Most of the students’ tuition is paid by school vouchers, but the schools themselves follow the rules and regulations of private institutions.

The bigger issue with most charter and voucher schools is that most of them are run by corporate organizations only interested in profits. Much like the public school system, charter schools have varying degrees of academic performance throughout the country — which mainly depend on the socioeconomic level of their locations. Poor or rural neighborhoods meet lower educational standards at their high schools, while the urban elite have access to much better public education and a wider choice of private schools. While public schools in rural areas may be incentivized or given additional support to help improve their students’ performances, the government is not responsible for the students in charter schools.

The current administration should realize that governing the most powerful country in the world takes very different skills than running a large corporation. In a company, profits and losses are the first and foremost priority. In a country, the citizens’ well-being and security take precedence.

And unlike most other policies, the way we approach education will affect the future generations that will grow up to make important decisions for the country. It’s our responsibility to make sure that those are good decisions.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017 | 9

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

The resurgence of Orwell’s 1984 ORWELL’S VISION OF A DYSTOPIAN REGIME HAS BECOME A BESTSELLER AFTER TRUMP’S ELECTION

BY JAZMIN GARCIA msjgarcia@ucdavis.edu Kellyanne Conway, one of President Donald Trump’s chief advisors, went on NBC’s “Meet the Press” just two days after the inauguration to give an interview. When reporter Chuck Todd asked about White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s false claim about Trump attracting the “largest audience ever to witness an inauguration,” Conway first tried to deflect the question. But Todd pressed for a response, saying that Spicer providing a “provable falsehood” in his first statement to the press corps “undermines the credibility of the entire White House Press Office on day one.” Conway went on to say that the press secretary simply gave “alternative facts.” Todd responded, “Alternative facts aren't facts, they are falsehoods."

The phrase “alternative facts” immediately went viral, and many were quick to point out that it resembles the term “doublespeak”

from George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. Amazon sold out of the book shortly after it rose to the top of its bestseller list. Although Conway’s interview helped accelerate sales of 1984, the book had already sold 47,000 print copies since Trump’s election in November.

In 1984, “doublespeak” describes reality control by the government. More precisely, it’s deliberately euphemistic or obscure language meant to reverse the meaning of words.The novel depicts a totalitarian regime that criminalizes individuality and independent thinking as “thoughtcrime,” which the government suppresses through the “Thought Police” — a branch of the government that “told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.”

Written in 1949, the novel was Orwell’s prophetic vision for the following 36 years. Its conception seemed largely rooted in political cynicism, but in retrospect, it was a warning. It seems especially timely in 2017 America with Donald Trump at the country’s helm.

The President is our modern Big Brother, though Trump is more real

than Orwell’s symbolic figurehead.

“We must defeat Islamic terrorism [and] have surveillance, including a watchlist, to protect America,” Trump tweeted on Nov. 20, 2015. Surveillance, of course, was one of the structures that 1984’s regime imposed upon its citizens. Trump’s tweet refers to a Muslim registry, which he promoted during his campaign. Despite his stated intention to eradicate terrorism, the implications of such a registry would create scapegoats out of peaceful Muslim citizens.

More recently, Trump tweeted, “Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.” Here, he inverts the meaning of “fake news” (another circulating term) to falsely equate “negative” with “fake.” This empowers the President to discredit a fact if he does not like it. Not only that, the meaning of “fake news” GARCIA on 10

Rekindle the affirmative-action conversation A DISCUSSION IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE IN A RACIALLY-MINDED SOCIETY

BY SID BAGGA sidobagga@gmail.com Police shootings, ethno-nationalism and political correctness have pushed the ugly issue of race back into the national limelight.

61 percent of Americans in 2016 acknowledged widespread racism against African Americans, and 41 percent perceived the same against whites. Observation has come with an ugly side effect — America’s view on race relations declined to its lowest measured point since the Rodney King riots in 1992. President Trump’s dubious use of a bully pulpit is unlikely to assuage Americans back into the blissful colorblindness of the past.

California’s public universities are bastions of this newfound racial consciousness. Our campuses are platforms for activists to shut down local micro-aggressions and protest national macro-aggressions.

Questions of racial privilege are raised in almost every political conversation. Yet the conversation of race-based college admissions, an

issue pertinent to students, has largely been side-stepped. This avoidance is dishonest and wrong.

Affirmative action has been banned in California public universities since the 1996 election, when Proposition 209 amended the California Constitution to prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, gender and ethnicity. Back then, the topic was more openly explored.

Walkouts and demonstrations on UC campuses against Prop 209 rivaled the backlash to President Trump’s election last year. Its victory edged out Bill Clinton’s re-election and California’s legalization of medical marijuana for The California Aggie’s election-day headline.

Our editorial pages brimmed with columns and letters on the merits of affirmative action.

Proponents of affirmative action argued that racially-conscious admissions procedures help root out entrenched institutional racism and evaluate minorities more fairly at elite universities. Opponents countered that America had evolved past the worst aspects of racism,

and that colorblind admissions are the fairest measure of merit.

Both sides have been vindicated. High-school GPAs, test scores of admitted students and graduation rates of enrolled students have increased, to the glee of affirmative action opponents. The fears of its proponents have also come true — Black and Hispanic communities, 6.5 and 38 percent of California’s population respectively, made up a paltry 2.5 and 13.5 percent of UC Berkeley’s enrolled freshman class in 2016.

This disparity is alarming, especially considering the socioeconomic opportunities correlated with elite university education.

Those with elite college degrees live longer and earn more than their less educated counterparts.

Yet our activist peers who clamor about racism ignore the glaring inequality in front of them, even when UC admissions are in the news. Compared to the backlash in the 1990s, hardly a peep was BAGGA on 10

HUMOR Panicking student just throws one thing into each type of trash can HOW AN INCIDENT INVOLVING TRASH CANS SPARKED A MOVEMENT

BY BRIAN L AN DRY bjlandry@ucdavis.edu Many UC Davis students will relate to the sense of panic that comes from standing in front of the familiar set of three trash cans — landfill, recycling and compost — that are most common on campus. Though it can be confusing for everybody, garbage-related incidents don’t usually make people angry. Usually.

The event in question occurred one week prior to whatever day you are reading this very real hard-news article.

William Scab, a first-year environmental policy analysis and planning major and shoelace impersonator, was going to throw away his trash when he started to panic.

“See, all I was trying to do was throw away what was left over from my lunch,” Scab said, before talking at length about his horrible experience. “I had an orange peel, a coffee cup from the CoHo and a paper plate. It’s that simple. But when I saw the three trash cans I just

didn’t know what to do. I was used to the ones inside the CoHo that have the nice little pictures to follow — but I was on the roof, and there were no pictures to follow. That’s when the panic started to set it. With no idea what in the world I should do, I just made some really rash decisions that in my mind ended up being really brilliant. The CoHo coffee cup said ‘compostable,’ which is not the same word as ‘compost,’ which was on one of the bins, so that one obviously went in the landfill because it was a coffee cup and coffee is brown like dirt, which is what makes up land. Oranges are going, like, extinct or something so they definitely need to be recycled and put back into the environment — so I recycled that one and ended global warming in the process. And then the plate I just figured should be composted because if you put paper back into the ground it will grow into a tree again, because that’s where paper comes from. Nailed it.”

Scab went on to explain that he felt disturbed by the amount of thinking that had to go into the process of throwing away his food that day.

“It was really unnerving that I had to put an ounce of thought into the way I threw away my food,” Scab said. “It’s just like when people tell me I have to ‘think’ about what I say, and can’t just say whatever I want. Why should I ever have to put any effort into thinking about anything? It reminds me of when people told me I couldn’t lose my son. I was like, ‘watch me.’”

Scab is not alone in his way of thinking. Students are citing the trash can incident as a reason to do away with all trash cans on campus.

They have formed a group called Davis Criticizes Recycling, and their motto is simple and to the point: “We want to be trash.”

“What we’re calling for is to be one with trash,” said Trish Turnip, a spokesperson for Davis Criticizes Recycling who consumed what would have been her twin sister in the womb. “No trash cans means no limits on our freedoms. We want to be able to throw our trash wherever. We want to be able to live alongside the trash, and really feel what it’s like to be actual human garbage. It’s our right.”

Memes are the only viable filler for the hole in my soul THE WOES OF A 21ST-CENTURY GAL WHO HATES LIFE AND LOVES RELATABLE PICTURES ABOUT IT

BY OLIVIA LUCHINI ocluchini@ucdavis.edu This decade has been a one-way ticket to crazy town with the crazy train teetering on one half of the crazy rails. Occasionally, God steps in with something nice like an Oscar for Leo or a video of a lion pulling a Dirty Dancing move with its previous owner in the wild.

However, these past 10 years have generally been awful.

Instead of persevering or making heart-wrenching art like the humans before us, the world has adopted a self-deprecating sense of humor that pokes fun at our struggles and hides our inner misery in the wake of the Facebook era.

Let’s get one thing straight: Memes are not those pictures with some unrelated caption written in giant, white, impact letters. I don’t

know what those are, but I’ll call them Mom Memes… Momes…

Momos… I don’t know — but what I do know is they’re the fake news of meme culture. True memes are things like #saltbae, a true hero to the culinary world who throws salt on a steak to give it a little extra flair. It’s the equivalent of me throwing the word “ultimately” in before I conclude an essay to let the reader know that it’s about to go down.

I don’t know why, but memes are becoming the new puns for me. I need them, but I hate them. For every #saltbae or Evil Kermit I can find, there’s some tool still talking about Harambe, which is the equivalent of making a “Yo Mama” joke except we are not in the fourth grade, so there is no teacher to give me Wednesday Addams eyes to keep me from getting feisty.

Davis memes are essential to the functioning of this university.

You cannot put me in the middle of cows, pepper spray, turkeys, squirrels, buses and the five parking spots shared by 30,000 students and expect me not to look for some oddball, self-deprecating image to fill me with school pride.

The point is that (cue inspirational, astronaut-themed music) I think we all have some holes in our souls, whether they were put there by the economy, the overwhelming rate of bee deaths or even the nonexistent MU Games area — and maybe memes bring us together so we can talk about our feelings. Maybe memes are the key to world peace — nay, universal peace.

Memes are so important to modern communication that I don’t think I’m asking for much when I say I believe we should officially open a “meme studies” major so that we can find the answers to our problems, and find that part of life that is just a little sweeter.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed by individual columnists belong to the columnists alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie . Letters to the editor can be addressed to opinion@theaggie.org.

ISSUE DESIGNED BY

HANNAH LEE | AMY YE | CHRISTIE NEO | CINDY CHEUNG | JONATHAN CHEN

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THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

HOUSING CRIMES

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together and then also [with] suitemates. I think it has definitely improved my ability to work in a team with other people.”

Many residents do not realize that apart from on-call nights and knock-and-talks, RAs are also required to put time and effort into detailed administrative tasks. They plan and host socials for their residents such as movie nights, tie-dyeing, mug decorating and karaoke. For academic purposes, they also put on Residence Hall Advising Team programs that are focused on schedule-building, declaring and switching majors and other types of academic advising.

“It [is] a great feeling when you put on a social event for the residents and you have a really high turnout and the residents genuinely seem to enjoy the event,” said Nick Irvin, a second-year comparative literature major and RA of the Paloma building in Segundo’s Regan Hall. “You, as an RA, put in a lot of effort to make that happen. It really feels good.”

The job is considered a full-time position at 20 hours of work a week, but it can require more or less time depending on issues with residents. In return for their time and effort, RAs are compensated with free housing in the residence halls and a free meal plan in the dining commons.

“It can be a life-changing experience,” said Chuck Huneke, the assistant director of the Cuarto Residence Hall Area. “It is very different from a typical student position. You can work in the ARC or the library […] and have wonderful experiences, but I think [the RA job] is a unique position in that it allows you to work with a breadth of issues.”

Because RAs are also students, the balance between their academic lives and their job responsibilities can be challenging, especially if they participate in other extracurricular activities, all of which must be approved

by Student Housing.

“It’s a pretty time-consuming job,” Miller said. “You live where you work. It’s [the RA’s] job to help [the residents], but you have to be able to know your boundaries. You […] want to be there for them, [but] you have to be flexible.”

An RA’s job is to advise residents, as the title suggests, but in addition to on-call duties and social or academic program planning, they also attend a weekly staff meeting and, in the fall, a mandatory class that expands on topics from their two weeks of training prior to the school year starting.

“The RA position can take some time,” Huneke said. “Trying to balance that with a social life […] can be an ongoing challenge. We talk to [the RAs] regularly about drawing healthy boundaries; in order for them to be successful as an RA we need them to be successful as a person.”

Despite the heavy responsibilities, McMahon said that working as an RA is rewarding in the friendships it builds and the community it fosters.

“It warms my heart to see all of [the residents] becoming friends,” McMahon said. “The greatest reward is [...] just seeing how all of them have changed [...] from the beginning of the year to now, [...and] the way that they do things and see things and interact with people. That’s very cool.”

From the experience, RAs also learn skillsets and habits useful for everyday life and future occupations.

“A big reason why I wanted to become an RA was to enrich my professional development a bit,” Irvin said. “I think there are aspects of leadership and organizational skills that will absolutely come in handy later on in whatever career I decide to do.”

According to McMahon the unexpected surprises that come from interacting with residents are a major part of the experience. “[Residents] do a lot of funny things,” McMahon said. “There was one boy […] that would wait for us in the bathrooms for when we would do rounds. He would wait to scare us or have full on conversations with us from inside of the stall.”

Despite the hard behind-the-scenes work that the position requires, McMahon, Miller and Irvin find the job a worthwhile experience.

“Connecting with these people is a necessary part of the job, and it’s a really rewarding part as well,” Irvin said. “I’m pleasantly surprised by how much that part has ingrained itself in me.”

“That would be a benign explanation,” Fell said. “We’re not able to say anything conclusively at this point. The crime alert we sent out was classified as a hate incident based on the presence of pork outside Muslim students’ residence.”

Dinar Kurji, a second-year religious studies major, believes that the Russell Park incident was targeted towards Muslims to intentionally disparage the community.

“I think that act was committed to humiliate a particular sect and to show disrespect,” Kurji said.”They don’t understand that we didn’t consume it and that it is not unholy to touch or clean it up. It was done out of ignorance [and] hate and wasn’t a positive message.”

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ing,” Davis said. “We don’t have any concerns about the administration’s threats […] the Trump Administration is absolutely just blowing smoke. We’re not in a position where we’re going to be acquiescing simply because the president says we need to be an enforcement arm of immigration.”

Andrew Casas, a second-year English major, disagrees with Davis’ affirmation of sanctuary city status. He believes it contributes to division and polarization within the American political system.

“Whether you like Donald Trump or whether you dislike Donald Trump, he’s the President of the United States. It’s the same thing that happened with Barack Obama when the Republicans were in Congress; he was trying to do his best and people just kind of screwed him over with ‘no, we’re not going to pass any of his bills’ […] We should be working with the president to do our best to make the best America possible,” Casas said.

Jessica Angel-Gonzalez, a fifth-year animal science major at UC Davis, agrees with Davis’ stance on sanctuary city policies. She does not believe that anyone should be questioned about their immigration status by police if they are not breaking the law.

“For somebody to come around asking random questions like ‘Hey, are you a citizen here?’ It’s kind of none of their business. If they’re doing nothing wrong, then it shouldn’t be right for someone to [have to] show documentation. I’m completely against what Trump is trying to do with defunding the cities […] I think Davis is doing a good job by keeping this a sanctuary city,” Angel-Gonzalez said.

Sanctuary city policies protect undocumented immigrants from city and county law enforcement agencies, but they do not offer protection from federal law enforcement agencies. On Feb. 5, an undocumented immigrant living in Davis was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The individual in question had visited the Davis DMV office a few days prior to pay a ticket and apply for an Assembly Bill #60 driver’s license. AB #60, signed into California law by Governor Jerry Brown in 2013, makes it possible for someone to receive a California driver’s license without proof of legal residence.

The undocumented individual had multiple arrest warrants, and his AB #60 application prompted Immigration and Customs Enforcement to arrest him at his home a few days later.

The legality of President Trump’s executive order remains to be determined by the judicial system. Several sanctuary cities, including San Francisco, have filed lawsuits against the Trump administration over the order.

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because the hurdle for tenure is so great,” Palomares said. “[...] We want people to succeed. He or she can focus on research and teaching and making those things excellent.”

The jump from associate professor to full professor includes more research and much more service.

Dr. Emily Albu is a professor of classics at UC Davis, starting as a lecturer in 1994 and was eventually getting hired as an assistant professor. After authoring several books over a number of years, Albu stands tenured as a full professor. At a research institution there is high standard for research, but according to Albu, the standard for teaching is also rising at all levels.

“I think there’s been a real recognition here of rewarding quality teaching and rewarding it at every level,” Albu said. “[For] example, I am on a committee that’s just been formed in Letters and Sciences to think about create teaching prizes. We do this with the thought that this would be an encouragement and just another sign that teaching is really valued at this university. [We want the prizes to] serve as an incentive for excellent teaching at every level.”

For Albu, students not being able to distinguish between professors is a good thing.

“I think in our program, in classics, we really minimize those differences,” Albu said. “We don’t advertise to students [...] because in [the classics department’s] culture [...] we are all colleagues on the same mission.”

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is compromised, as it was previously used to berate false reports and is now used to reprimand public opinion. This is dangerous, and it undermines democracy. If 1984 is the gospel depiction of a First World totalitarian regime, the United States is not far off.

Most importantly, the novel’s comeback reminds us that art is a valuable and necessary form of protest. The novel ends with the line, “He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.”

While this seems to suggest succumbing to the oppressive regime, the novel also reminds us that surveillance of thought is impossible and that in this way we preserve history and keep it from being appropriated or rewritten. The novel says that anyone who can control the past can also control the future — and that he who controls the present controls the past. Accordingly, we must not let the President’s account of objective facts become truth.

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heard on campuses when Governor Jerry Brown vetoed affirmative action authorization in 2011 or when lobbyists prevented a Prop 209 repeal from making the ballot in 2014.

Why has the chatter of the 90s lulled to a murmur? The establishment of race-conscious admissions today would not be at the expense of the privileged white male. In fact, whites are also underrepresented at UCs relative to their share of the California population. Diversity proponents would instead have to take up arms against another minority — Asian Americans.

Asian Americans make up 14.7 percent of California’s population, yet they represent a whopping 42.3 percent of UC Berkeley’s freshman enrollment. If admissions were based on the racial picture of California, their enrollment would plummet. As a result, wealthy Asian American families have formed special-interest groups to block attempts to reinstate affirmative action, as they did in 2011 and 2014.

This does not fit the typical narrative of white privilege. But that’s not a fair reason to stop the conversation on campuses. If progressives wish for Latinos and African Americans to overcome their institutional disadvantages and earn more college degrees, they must acknowledge that privilege is not solely the domain of whites, that racism does not affect all non-white people in the same ways and stand up to Asian American special interests. And those against affirmative action ought to defend disproportionate Asian enrollment by articulating the concept of merit.

This discussion will be especially difficult, as college admissions hit close to home for many UC students. Yet it’s one we must endure to continue down the road toward racial justice.

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In this way, Sipin is also a historian. Mentally cataloguing the work of earlier musicians, she recognizes that every sound she makes can be attributed to that of another. It is for this reason that she cannot put her music on a pedestal.

“Since then, I’ve been thinking more critically about the form of songs that I’m using, because not until I read that book did I really realize the historic origins of blues music and how it was mainly a vehicle for people from emancipation,” Sipin said. “I try very much to pay homage to the artists that have written in the same styles.”

Looking forward, Sipin anticipates opportunities to expand her skillset and knowledge of music.

Having only graduated in the spring of 2016, she is exploring different career options as well as the future of her music.

“Right now I’m broke and I need to work, but eventually I am going to sit down and pay attention to myself and work on my musicianship, and do all the planning that it takes — and all the boring stuff that it takes — to be really good,” Sipin said. “Right now, it’s just been ‘fresh out of college,’ and not having all the time that I could to dedicate to music.”

On a more technical level, she hopes to expand her music into something more robust. Take a listen to her SoundCloud and its collection of solo acoustics, and this becomes apparent. Her soulful melodies beg for the companionship of a full ensemble.

“At the moment, I am starting to try and reach out and kind of networking for people to play with, people to bounce ideas off of,” Sipin said. “But ultimately, for people to grow a band with [...] I think to play music like The Alabama Shakes would be really good.”

Honing in on her sound is a modest goal in comparison to her others. As a queer woman of color, Sipin aspires to establish and maintain confidence in her identity and her sound.

“I want to make sure that I represent myself in such a way that’s strong and confident and proud of my identity. Because the other option is not being open,” Sipin said. “I think that it’s a way for me to kill two birds with one stone — expressing myself through my music and creating music. That hopefully appeals to people, while also confirming my own identity.”

Behind this humility, however, there lies a confidence in Sipin — a confidence in music, in its history and in its stability. It is this appreciation of the past that will sustain her in the future.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017| 11

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

ARTS & Culture A night under the stars

R EBECCA R I DGE / AGGI E

Arboretum Open Mic night offers stage for performers to express themselves freely

BY BET T Y W U arts@ th e ag g i e . o rg

There is something magical about the sound that acoustic guitars produce: it’s crisp, warm and soothing. With the right music, you can go anywhere and do anything — forget about stressful midterms and feel the warm summer breeze at the beach — even on a rainy Thursday night. The Open Mic Under the Stars at the Arboretum provided the perfect opportunity for people to gather and share their talents and opinions with a welcoming audience.

The open mic was hosted by the Arboretum GATEways Outreach Program (the GATE stands for Gardens, Arts and The Environment) on Thurs-

day, Feb. 9. It consisted of an evening of arts from talented community members who performed everything from from music to comedy to spoken word poetry. The purpose of the event was to create a safe and welcoming environment in proximity with nature that encouraged community members to express themselves freely.

“The purpose of this event is to create a truly ‘open’ Open Mic,” said Drew Hanson, a fourth-year managerial economics major and one of the organizers of the event. “Many open mics have become politically correct to the point where many musicians, poets and comedians have become limited in what they can say or do, and I find this to be [a] travesty.

To me, an open mic is a place for individuals to ex-

NAD I A D O RI S / AGGIE

press themselves and their ideas that differ from our own perspectives, yet in such as environment, they will be able to openly cover whatever they wish without fear of being labeled negatively.”

Despite the chilly weather, a large crowd of guests showed up to cheer and clap for the performers.

Most performers sang either pop music or original songs accompanied by an acoustic guitar.

According to Hanson and other organizers of the event, they strived not to define this event by a single theme — the “openness” is what mattered.

“Open Mic Night is a safe and open space for people to share their creativity and passions at the Arboretum,” said Vivian Le, a third-year civil engineering major, one of the organizers of the event and

Twenty One Pilots: emotional roadshow world tour

Hamster balls, disappearing acts, Mario Kart and more

BY C A RA JOY KL EI NR O C K art s@ th e ag g i e . o rg

The Twenty One Pilots concert at the Golden 1 Center was hands-down one of the best concerts I have ever been to. The band was so enthusiastic and genuinely seemed ecstatic to be performing. Twenty One Pilots is one of the most versatile bands when it comes to its sound; many people have a hard time categorizing the band because of its wide variety of songs and because the members truly perform and write music that they want.

When the show began, the songs were a lot darker; I could feel the bass pounding in my heart. The stage was dark and they were stationary for most of the beginning. They started to get more energetic toward the end of the third song, and that’s when the vibe of the concert changed completely.

From then on, they engaged the crowd throughout the entire performance. After the third song, lead vocalist Tyler Joseph put a blanket over himself while on the piano and then, a few seconds later, appeared on the top level of the stadium in the nosebleed seats. This disappearing and reappearing act was a common one throughout the show. The audience was constantly on their toes to see where they would appear next.

At one point, Josh appeared in the middle of the crowd with a drum set and started playing the set literally on top of the crowd. Later in the show, he got inside a big red hamster ball and ran around on top of the crowd, trusting the crowd to hold him up. They even showed up in the back of the pit with a piano and drum set waiting and ready and performed three songs back there, allowing the people who got to the pit later, myself included, to have a close-up spot for a little while.

The band was also able to involve the crowd through innovative experiences that I’ve never seen at a concert.

One of the best parts of the concert was when all the music stopped and an MC came out to announce that they would be having a Mario Kart race against a fan.

The race began, the audience was cheering them on and we literally watched Tyler play Mario Kart for five minutes. Later in the night, he explained that their managers had asked what they want to do for the concert and their answer was to play Mario Kart, of course.

When one thinks of a Twenty One Pilots concert, one doesn’t necessarily think there will be costume changes; however, there were at least five. They were either wearing a mask or a red beanie and hat at all times, with the show starting with both of them donning a black ski mask paired with a red suit. This changed after the third song, when Tyler donned a white dress shirt and red beanie and Josh changed into an outfit of bright red pants and no shirt, which made for an interesting look.

Then, for the song “House of Gold,” Tyler changed into a black tank with a long floral jacket and big white circle sunglasses along with a ukulele. This was such a different feeling on stage than their previous outfits and each outfit perfectly fit the song they were playing. One of the more memorable looks was when they performed their earlier songs wearing skeleton sweatshirts. This felt like an ode to where they came from, since it was the outfit the guys would wear for all of their early career performances.

Most bands want to get out of their hometown, but these guys seem to be itching for any chance to go back to Ohio. During the concert, they would allude to their struggle of getting started and gaining popularity with their eclectic sound. They showed a video about the start of the career and it was clear that they are genuinely grateful for their career and fans.

Later, during the song “Stressed Out,” the set design was transformed into virtual windows that would occasionally open and show scenes from the song’s music video, which was shot in their Ohio bedrooms, again adding to the feeling of nostalgia that permeated the show.

Overall, the set design and lighting were exceptional and set the mood for every song. Definitely a concert to remember.

the co-coordinator of the Arboretum GATEways Outreach Program.

Unfortunately, due to the rain, the event was hosted indoors near the Arboretum.

“Having events like these will demonstrate to the community how important the Arboretum is and will give them [the attendees] a new appreciation of it,” said Vanessa Verdugo, a second-year human development major, an intern for the GATEways Outreach Program and one of the organizers of the event.

Another Arboretum Open Mic Night will be hosted next quarter. Those interested in performing or attending may call (530) 752-4880 or visit http:// arboretum.ucdavis.edu/calendar.aspx.

HUAN YU / UC DAVIS

UC DAVIS THEATER AND DANCE PRESENTS ITS NEWEST COMEDY Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike brings together humor, student acting, real-life drama

BY MYAH DANI ELS a rts@t heaggi e. org

If you thought your family was crazy, wait until you see this one. Starting Feb. 23, the UC Davis Theater and Dance Program is performing Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, a Tony Award winning comedy written

by Christopher Durang.

Set in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, the show centers around Masha, a middle-aged actress with a twenty-something-year-old boyfriend named Spike; her siblings Vanya and Sonia; their cleaning woman, Cassandra; and their neighbor’s niece, Nancy. The play takes several elements from Russian playwright Anton Chekhov and blends them to create a comedic and relatable piece.

“It is a really funny peek through a window at someone else’s family,” said Mindy Cooper, the director and Granada artist-in-residence for the UC Davis Theater and Dance Department. “It is an updating of a very old theme of a crazy family that are divine and hysterical and madcap, and taking it to today’s present day sense of humor.”

After taking care of their parents, Vanya and Sonia struggle with their roles in life and never fully grow up. Meanwhile, their sister Masha rushes back into their lives with her hot new man and tries to get them to sell the family house. Their sassy maid Cassandra has incredible insight, and Nancy offers wisdom beyond her years. Each character adds a little something to create a wickedly dramatic and funny story.

“The script is hilarious. It focuses on family issues. I relate to it because the sister Masha has left home to become an an actress […]

I’m from Los Angeles, so the whole bougie, uppity manner resonates with me. The whole ridiculousness of stardom and getting lost in fame, you lose your roots which is what keeps you grounded,” said Terra Dao, a third-year

design major and assistant lighting designer for the show. “It makes you question where you are from, who you are as a person, and rediscovering yourself.”

The show stars a variety of UC Davis students, ranging from Ph.D students who have worked in the field professionally to undergraduates with no previous acting experience.

“I thought it would be a really great piece for the talent pool here,” Cooper said.

The theater department allows many people from various backgrounds to display their talents; even former UC Davis football player George Lamen has a major role in the show.

“I went in there and auditioned. It was definitely a different experience. It was something I never did before,” said Lamen, a fifthyear psychology major. “Mindy gave me a callback. She told me to come back the next day and I read it. She said ‘thank you, you could keep that or either throw it away.’ So I thought I didn’t get the part […] then I got an email saying I got the part and I was pretty excited about it! I have developed a greater respect for actors and how hard they work.”

Lamen admitted that performing on stage is not unlike performing on the field.

“I used to play on the football team,” Lamen said. “It is definitely a flip, but at the same time, you have to listen to what your coach tells you to do, and at the same time create plays on your own [...] You have to listen to what the director says, but also make your own moves.”

Audiences should expect absurdity, modern-day toils and a lot of shirtless scenes from Spike.

The show runs from February 25 to March 4 at 7 p.m., with 2 p.m. matinees on Feb. 25 and March 4.

Tickets for the show, located in the Main Theater connected to Wright Hall, can be purchased on the Theater and Dance Department’s website.

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

12 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017

ARTS & Culture G ENESIA TING / AG G I E

2017 Oscar La La Land

Nominatio n

expected to

BY PAR I SAG A F I a rts@ th e ag g i e . o rg

I look forward to the Academy Awards every year; the glitz and the glamour, the moving speeches and that special feeling of watching something universal, knowing that people all around the world are tuning in. But I admit that I also watch it for the awkwardness that comes with combining celebrities with rambling speeches, terrible jokes, hurt egos — and the hilarious memes that these moments will produce. But I also believe that it’s a serious and beautiful event that celebrates the art of film, and we should never dismiss the impact that cinema has on our daily lives and opinions. Given the much-warranted backlash of last year’s #OscarsSoWhite, I’m happy to see people of color being given better roles and earning nominations. With my predictions below, I tried to keep in mind the politics of Hollywood, given the importance of promotion, current events, who the Academy Award voters are and what they historically have preferred.

1. Best Picture: La La Land This year’s best picture nominations feature such amazing and vastly different films that it makes me cringe to watch them compete. There’s the heartbreaking Manchester by the Sea, the hair-raising excitement of Arrival and the empowering Hidden Figures, but I believe that it’s going to be a close race between Moonlight and La La Land. Both have received astounding critical acclaim, and although I feel that Moonlight should win for its groundbreaking and intense portrayal of a modern African American character, I have a strong feeling that La La Land will win instead for its revival of a bygone film genre, much like when the silent film The Artist won Best Picture in 2012.

2. Actor in a Leading Role: Casey Affleck Casey Affleck’s quietly understated yet riveting performance in Manchester by the Sea has been consistently raved about, and he’s considered to be a serious contender for the Oscar. However, there’s been much controversy surrounding the sexual assault allegations against Affleck, which raises the question of whether the public is willing to separate the artist from his craft, and whether the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and

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ictions

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Sciences will take this into consideration as well. Hopefully we have moved past ignoring alarming personal information about the people we watch on screen, but Affleck’s string of recent awards — including a Golden Globe — seem to hint at him winning the Oscar as well.

3. Actress in a Leading Role: Emma Stone I’m personally offended that Oscars sweetheart Amy Adams was snubbed for her work in Arrival, so, with her out of the race, there is a close competition between Natalie Portman’s performance as Jackie Kennedy and Emma Stone’s performance in La La Land. I’m not a huge fan of either, and although Hollywood loves biopics, I believe that Emma Stone will win for Best Actress given the overall popularity of the film and the vague consensus that it may be “her time.”

4. Actor in a Supporting Role: Mahershala Ali I hope that Mahershala Ali wins for his incredible performance in Moonlight, in which his character takes on the role of a fill-in father for the movie’s main character, providing emotional comfort and acceptance. Ali portrays all the vulnerability that we want to see in this character, and since I don’t believe the other contenders to be too strong (except maybe the young Lucas Hedges), Ali seems a shoo-in.

5. Actress in a Supporting Role: Michelle Williams I found Michelle Williams’ performance in Manchester by the Sea to be incredibly moving, and very Michelle Williams-esque: reserved, yet appropriately and genuinely emotional when need be. Although she doesn’t get much screen time, she is powerful and heartbreaking when we do see her, leading me to assume that she will win in this category.

6. Foreign Language Film: The Salesman There’s been much international buzz for Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman, and initially, it seemed almost a given that the film would win this category, as the director’s A Separation won the Oscar for Foreign Language Film in 2012. However, since Trump’s executive “travel ban” order,

ards season

all participants in the film, including the main actors, have decided to boycott the Oscars. I hope that if the film does win in the category, the director will tune in via Skype, but as of now, everything is up in the air.

7. Directing: Arrival This category’s a tough one, since La La Land’s director has been praised for his creativity with tackling a unique category, and Kenneth Lonergan is also a strong contender for Manchester by the Sea. However, I can only hope that Arrival wins, as the film portrayed sci-fi in an unexpected and compassionate way that we haven’t seen in a long time.

8. Music (Original Song): Anything from La La Land I am willing to bet all of my meager life savings on at least one of the two nominated La La Land songs winning this category, which would be much deserved. Considering that they are up against that unbearable Justin Timberlake song from Trolls, I would not be surprised in the slightest. However, if Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “How Far I’ll Go” from the animated movie Moana wins, he would be the youngest EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony) winner in history.

9. Writing (Original Screenplay): Manchester by the Sea Once again, given all of the buzz for La La Land, I can’t help but be almost certain that it will win in this category. A close second — and a more deserving winner, in my opinion — would be Kenneth Lonergan’s Manchester by the Sea for capturing an ordinary scenario and making it genuine, believable and touching.

10. Cinematography: Arrival Moonlight’s strong contrasts and beautiful indigo-and-violet palette shine throughout the movie, and La La Land stands out with its bold, happy colors, yet Arrival’s cinematography in my opinion best captures the film’s world. The cold uncertainty of the movie is portrayed with its foggy and sleepy tones, steely greys and darkness that allow only a few, quick moments of light. We’d normally call it muted, yet in this context, it is startling, which is why I think that Arrival will take home the award for this category.

B RIANA NG O / AG G IE

student sounds:

Samantha Sipin Davis graduate talks female powerhouse musicians, literature, the blues

BY ALLY OV E RBAY art s@ th e ag g i e . o rg

Samantha Sipin’s sound can be deconstructed by the threads of her influence: a strand from Amy Winehouse, another from Carole King — each one interwoven by the needle of blues and soul.

For the singer-songwriter, music is never “new.”

It can only be understood in the light of the musical pioneers and composers and lyricists who came before her.

“Really nothing is original. I can’t stress that enough,” said Sipin, a recent UC Davis graduate.

“And so whenever I write something, or something

sounds like something [else], I am very deliberately trying to show my appreciation for the people who have written like that before.”

But Sipin’s humility extends beyond her speech.

Eager and well-spoken, she can immediately identify the musicians who contributed to the cultivation of her soulful sound. When she speaks of such musicians, she is thoughtful and gleamy-eyed, slow and deliberate in her descriptions.

“After watching [Amy Winehouse’s] biopic, it was especially enlightening to me how much her divide was due to people putting pressure on her and people having this idea of her because she might have been sloppy a couple of times — and that im-

ANH-TR AM BUI / AGGI E

Latenight eats in Davis

Best places to satisfy midnight cravings

BY SYDNEY ODMAN art s@t heaggi e. org

It’s 1 a.m. on a Friday night and you’re wandering the streets of downtown Davis with friends. Although it may sound appealing to go home and get in bed, the only thing you really want at this very moment is warm, delicious and greasy food that you will undoubtedly regret eating in the morning. This is Davis nightlife in a nutshell.

Whether you spend your Friday and Saturday nights at the bars downtown, dancing the night away at a party or simply hanging with friends, we’ve all been there. Davis, being the college town that it is, is home to numerous late-night eateries available to satisfy your late-night cravings.

Burgers and Brew To kick off the list, Burgers and Brew is a classic. This burger joint is praised by Davis residents as delicious during the day as well as in the wee hours. What sets Burgers and Brew apart from other burger places in Davis, besides their addictive curly fries, is the fact that it is open until 3 a.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Burgers and Brew also has a delicious selection of different desserts and milkshakes for when that food craving quickly turns into an untamable sweet tooth.

“They have these alcoholic milkshakes at Burgers and Brew that are really good,” said Mary Grafilo, a fourth-year neurology, physiology and biology major.

Burgers and Brew is located at 403 3rd St. Taquería El Burrito More commonly known as El Burrito, this authentic Mexican taquería is the real deal. The portion sizes are huge, and trying out their carne asada cheese fries is a must, especially to share with friends in the late hours of the night. “[My friends and I] would always go in a big group after going out to the bars, and somehow we always ended up at El Burrito for the carne asada fries,” said Emma Batmazian, a fourth-year neurology, physiology and biology major.

Taqueria El Burrito is located at 223 F Street and is open until 3 a.m. on weekends.

Woodstock’s Pizza After a long night out, you can never go wrong with a slice (or more) of pizza. Woodstock’s is famous among Davis residents for having some of the best pies in town. Woodstock’s is open until 2 a.m. and, most importantly, they deliver! So, when the late-night cravings hit, you won’t even have to leave the comfort of your own bed.

Woodstock’s is located at 219 G St. Sno-Crave Although Sno-Crave is only open until midnight, this dessert and drink tea house deserves a shout-out due to its close proximity to campus and its delicious selection of boba and sweets. Sno-Crave has it all, from its unique shaved ice to their special honey toast. Kevin Din, a second-year neurology, physiology and biology major, loves Sno-Crave’s more unconventional menu items.

“At Sno-Crave, I definitely go for the crepes and the chicken!” Din said.

Sno-Crave is located in the University Mall at 825 Russell Blvd.

age was just perpetuated,” Sipin said. “And then she just fell into it. But underneath all of that, she really was depressed, and she had her own demons, and she was working through things, and you could see that in her music.”

In fact, the sincerity of Sipin’s admiration was enough for her to write and compose “A.W.,” a song dedicated to Winehouse.

“I think her lyrics offer some real poetic talent, and I don’t think of myself as anywhere near the songwriter she is because her lyrics are so strong,” Sipin said. “But also vocally, it’s effortless for her.

She’s never trying too hard, she knows exactly what’s she doing, and she never sings a song exactly same way twice [...] And that requires an incredible amount of musical knowledge and comfortability and confidence that I don’t think people really understood while she was alive.”

But Winehouse isn’t Sipin’s only pool of wisdom.

“In terms of songwriting, I really love Carole King. She’s an extremely prolific songwriter, and I don’t know if the masses understand how far-reaching her music is,” Sipin said. “She’s been covered by a number of girl groups from that era, and then her songs have been popularized by other artists. But in terms of songwriting, she’s the big inspiration.”

Lyrically, Sipin thrives. And with powerhouse vocalists like King and Winehouse as her idols, it’s no surprise. Sipin admits her music follows a theme of unrequited love, but acknowledges this wasn’t intentional. It’s simply what she’s feeling.

“It’s not necessarily something that I love talking

about, but it’s on my mind enough, and it resonates with people,” Sipin said.

This theme becomes apparent in her track “You Smile,” and the melancholic lyrics are well-accompanied by her swinging falsetto and bluesy guitar strumming: “I love the way you smile at me / But you smile all the time [...] I can take a hint / I know who I am / I realize it may take a while to start this all again.”

As an English major, Sipin’s appreciation for lyricism makes perfect sense. She attributes her understanding of writing mechanics and rhythm to her English and literature studies.

“I think the most helpful thing that English has done is the study of meter and poetry, and the way that words have stressed syllables and unstressed syllables, and finding how they fit in with a melodic line that you’ve written,” Sipin said.

She adds, modestly, that her own skilled lyricism has been acknowledged before.

“I was telling a friend (she was asking about me) that I was an English major, and she said, ‘No wonder you write songs really well,’” Sipin said. “And I took that as a big compliment because when you look up to people like Carole King and Amy Winehouse, you don’t think much of yourself.”

Reading, too, has been a creative catalyst for Sipin. Angela Davis’ book Blues Legacies and Black Feminism altered her perspective on blues, and Sipin explicitly takes note of the way blues songs are constructed.

STUDENT SOUNDS on PAGE 10

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017 | 13

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

CAT TAY LOR / AGG IE AS H LEY LUGO / AGGIE

What are your thoughts on UC Davis athletics?

The Aggie asked students about their on-campus spor ts teams

BY ALEX AREC H I G A sports@theaggie.org

UC Davis is often regarded as a prestigious research university that puts a large focus on academic success, but a completely different facet is its athletic prowess as a NCAA Division I competitor. With over twenty teams participating in the Big West Conference, The Aggie sought to gauge the interest of UC Davis students in the university’s sports programs and to find what can be done to promote student participation in attending sporting events.

Shawn Geronimo, a fourth-year sociology major: I haven’t attended this year, but I used to work with the football team last year so I attended all those games.

I went to the ESPN game for basketball last year too. I haven’t [gone] this year, I’ve been busy. I would say [giveaways and events] are enticing to attend more games, but I feel like if we had a bigger sports program in general, that would bring a lot more people in. If we keep on getting better, I’m sure more people would attend.

Hopefully in the next year or two, attendance will be really good.

ally, I was going to go to a football game last year, but it was so hot outside. And I was thinking, do I want to do that or do I want to get a margarita? If you’re going to do giveaways give something relevant to [the atmosphere] of the game. So for that football game I would’ve wanted a little fan or something.

Luca Cerny Oliveira, a first-year undeclared major: I’m a huge sports fan. I really love soccer and went to all the games this year, and a couple other games too.

It was a lot of fun and we have great teams. I feel a lot of Aggie pride when I go.

Mariah, a fourth-year psychology major: I know about them but I don’t watch them. I love baseball. I would attend more if school somehow magically stopped! It’s just studying and projects, and making sure I do that before I go out to a game.

Jenn Taylor, a fourth-year psychology major: I don’t attend mostly because I need to study. I’m an older student, so I don’t care about giveaways. If I want something I’ll just buy it. I don’t really know if there’s anything that would make me attend. Actu-

Franco Ramses, a fourth-year economics major: Today we are going to the basketball game! We are [studying abroad] here, and I’m really interested in learning how to participate more, and where to go to find out more about the teams.

A look back at the history of the Williams sisters

In light of the most recent matchup between professional tennis’ legendary sisters Venus and Serena Williams in the Australian Open, in which Serena came away with her seventh Australian Open title victory, let’s take a look back to when these two first entered the world of tennis.

The Williams sisters started their tennis careers at an early age. Venus was 10 when she was serving 100mph tennis balls to her opponents and began her pro career in 1994, at the age of 14. Serena was three when she first starting swinging the tennis racket and went pro in 1995. The sisters would go on to change the face of tennis with their combination of pure strength and incredible athleticism.

Although these two sisters have experienced huge amounts of success playing on separate courts, it has been an epic showcase of two legends of the sport each time they have competed against each other or have doubled up to take on opponents. The first time Venus and Serena faced off was in the second round of the 1998 Australian Open — the two teenage sisters would leave a lasting impression on the crowd and on future opponents, but only scratched the surface of what would be two celebrated careers.

Venus won the first four out of five matchups, including their first

UC Davis men’s basketball remains undefeated at home, beats UC Riverside 77-63

William, a fourth-year managerial economics major: I’m aware of the sports on campus, I go to [a game] like once a year. It’s just time constraints that keep me from going.

A lifetime of tennis

BY DAV I D F LO R E S sports@theaggie.org

AGS COMPENSATE FOR RECENT LOSS TO HIGHLANDERS WITH DECISIVE WIN

meeting in the 2001 Grand Slam final. It was only a matter of time before the tides turned and Serena caught her dominating stride that nearly took over this sibling rivalry.

The period between 2002 to 2003 was when Serena established her dominance over her older sister, defeating Venus in all four Grand Slam finals. The last time Venus defeated her sister in a Grand Slam event was in the 2008 finals. Their recorded single title victories are: Venus 7, Serena 23.

Together, their dominance is a different story. As a team, Venus and Serena have 14 wins and no losses in the Grand Slam doubles finals and have racked up an astonishing 15-1 record and three gold medals in the Olympics for doubles, receiving their first loss in the 2016 Olympic games in Rio. The competition has always been fierce when these two face off on the tennis courts, but they have always praised one another for the other’s inspiration and overall reasons for success. Their impact on the sport will always be remembered — whether it be the way they ferociously grunt while swinging their rackets or the sheer power that both have exhibited — that few opponents have been able to withstand.

Venus and Serena Williams will go down as two of the best professional tennis players in the history of the game.

BY LIZ JACOBSON sports@theaggie.org

The UC Davis men’s basketball team had something to prove on Saturday, Feb. 11. The last time the Aggies faced off against the UC Riverside Highlanders, they lost 61-55 in the Aggies’ lowest-scoring game of the year. That loss didn’t faze them, as the UC Davis men’s basketball team kept its undefeated home record intact with its 16th overall win of the season, beating UCR 77-63.

The Aggies started rough, plagued by missed baskets and poor ball handling.

Sophomore guard Siler Schneider scored the Aggies’ first points of the night with a layup, and that set the team in motion.

“I felt good about our guys wanting to atone for the loss,” said head coach Jim Les. “I knew they were going to come out with really good energy and try to make up for what was a bad game and a bad loss. I think we had some defensive breakdowns and we didn’t quite execute as well I would like, but part of that’s on me. I had different line-ups in the game and there wasn’t as great continuity with guys getting used to playing with one another.”

Ten minutes into the game, with the score 14-13, it was looking like it was

going to be close. With four ties and five lead changes throughout the first half, the Aggies had to remain focused and on their toes.

Just before the halftime buzzer, the Aggies kicked into gear. Aggressive defense under the Highlander basket kept the ball open for the Aggies. Together, Schneider and Lemar knocked down four three-pointers in the first half.

At the half, Schneider lead the team with 13 points.

“Siler is really playing well, playing confidently,” Les said. “We’ve got a lot of confidence in him and he just makes plays. He makes plays on the defensive end, taking charges, he comes up with loose balls. He’s a really, really good shooter. He has that ability to put us on his shoulders and carry us through the course of the game and he did that in the first half and allowed us to get that separation.”

During the second half, the Aggies opened with a 6-2 scoring run and kept the lead for the rest of the game.

Lemar finished the night with 14 points, with four of his five baskets coming from behind the arc, tying a career high for three-pointers scored during a game. Freshman forward Mikey Henn finished close behind with 11 points.

“It felt like I was in the flow today,

more than usual,” Henn said. “We just wanted to get back after it and give [UC Riverside] that loss. We didn’t play as well as we could have [last time] and they stole one from us.”

Les called a timeout with just 54 seconds to go, coaching right up to the last minute. The game ended with a 14-point lead for the Ags and a final score of 77-63.

“He wants us to stay focused and wants us to know the game isn’t over until the horn blows at the end,” said junior guard Arell Hennings. “We just had to stick to what we were doing to get that lead throughout the whole game and not take any breaks.”

The UC Davis men’s basketball team has just 24 hours to celebrate its win, according to Les, before focusing its attention on the Long Beach State 49ers. The Aggies head south on Feb. 16 for a 7 p.m. tip-off. “[I feel] excited,” Les said. “I have a lot of respect for Coach Monson and the program they have. I know playing in the Pyramid, it’s always a tough road contest.

We’ve got to put our work hat back on and get back after it because Thursday is not going to be easy and we have to go pick off a couple road wins before we can get back here in the Pavilion.”

14 | THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

BACKSTOP C I E R A PASTURE L / AGGI E

AFTER STELLAR FIRST QUARTER, UC DAVIS WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM HOLDS OFF UC IRVINE 62-42 Slow mid-section doesn’t stop the Aggies, as they take control of the first, fourth quarters en route to victory

BY B RAD LEY G EI S E R sports@theaggie.org

R U R S E C

E C E E C L

With four wins in a row and a 17-6 record this season, the UC Davis women’s basketball team was in prime position to take advantage of the 3-20 Anteaters of UC Irvine, who came in on a six-game losing streak. The Aggies scored the first 19 points of the game, including three three-pointers, and ended the quarter with a 29-4 advantage. UC Irvine never found a way to catch up and fell to the Aggies 62-42.

The matinee game, which began with head coach Jennifer Gross’s own son, Josh, introducing the Aggies’ starting lineup, had energy from the start.

Junior guard Dani Nafekh, who was playing on her birthday, felt it at tip off.

“We always want to come out with energy,” Nafekh said. “I think that when you hit 100 percent of your shots, it helps. But we just try to play hard and have our defense start our offense. And also Josh’s announcing at the beginning was amazing!”

Gross was impressed with her team’s mindset go-

D E U R Y E

UPCOMING GAMES Women’s gymnastics (The ARC Pavilion)

Friday, Feb. 17 vs. Alaska Anchorage at 7 p.m.

Sunday, Feb. 19 vs. Alaska Anchorage at 1 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 18 vs. UC Santa Barbara at 10:30 a.m.

Women’s tennis (Marya Welch Tennis Center) Women’s water polo (Schaal Aquatics Center)

Saturday, Feb. 18 vs. Pacific at 11 a.m.

Saturday, Feb. 18 vs. Sonoma at 4 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 18 vs. Occidental at 6:30 p.m.

Sunday, Feb. 19 vs. CSU Bakersfield at 12:30 p.m.

Sunday, Feb. 19 vs. Nevada at 10 a.m.

Men’s tennis (Marya Welch Tennis Center) Baseball (Dobbins Baseball Complex)

Tuesday, Feb. 21 vs. Pacific at 2 p.m.

Women’s basketball (The ARC Pavilion)

Wednesday, Feb. 22 vs. Cal Poly at 7 p.m.

ing into the game.

“We were just extremely focused to start the game,” Gross said. “I thought our energy was really good, and we just came out, hit a couple shots, and it just kind of fueled us from there.”

Nafekh tallied 20 points, going four for six from downtown, and pulling down six rebounds during the course of the game. Helping her was sophomore forward Morgan Bertsch, who tallied her second double-double of the season with 12 points and 10 rebounds, in addition to three blocks and two assists. Junior forward Pele Gianotti also contributed with 14 points, 12 of which came from behind the three point line, where she made four of her eight attempts.

Despite their opponent’s record, the Aggies knew they were going to have to play them tough, and the Anteaters controlled the middle quarters of the game on the back of freshman guard Andee Ritter,

who scored 15 of her 16 points in the second and third quarters.

According to Gross, the team did know to watch out for her hot hand.

“They do so many things to get her open, and so you just constantly have to work to be aware of where [Ritter] is,” Gross said. “And I thought we went from playing individual defense to playing more team defense on her, and I thought we did a better job.”

With just five games to go, the Aggies are looking to finish the season strong. According to Nafekh, that means keeping their composure.

“We’re just trying to stay really focused and just keep getting better,” Nafekh said. “I know it’s a long season, but we’ve worked so hard. We don’t want to just let it all slip right now, so stay focused on practice and let that translate to games.”

After playing Hawai’i on Feb. 16 at 4 p.m., the Aggies will face Cal Poly on Feb. 22 at 7 p.m.

B R IA N LA N DRY / AG GIE

WOMEN’S LACROSSE SOARS OVER THE BROOKLYN BLACKBIRDS Aggies earn first victory of the season with 19-7 rout

BY DOMINIC FARIA sports@theaggie.org

The UC Davis women’s lacrosse team claimed its first win of the season with a 19-7 thrashing of the LIU Brooklyn Blackbirds on Sunday afternoon.

Fresh off a tough 20-10 loss in their season opener against Stanford two days prior, the Aggies came into Sunday’s game with renewed energy and focus.

One of the team’s bright spots in the season opener loss was senior attacker Melissa Kellan, who led the team with five goals and added in an assist against the Cardinal. Kellan stood out once again on Sunday, as she tallied four scores and two assists in the contest. She leads the team in goals scored with nine in the first two games.

“I know we have a young team, so trying to be the ‘mother figure’ on the attack is what coach has been talking about,” Kellan laughed. “Just trying to lead [the young players] through these first games.”

Against LIU, the Blackbirds were the first to get on the scoreboard with a goal coming off a free position shot. The Aggies, however, came roaring back less than a minute later with a score from sophomore attacker Shannon Cross, who, after her initial shot was halted, collected the deflection and hurled the ball into the net to tie the game at one.

A goal from each side tied the game for the second time.

Kellan then made her presence felt, scoring off of a terrific interior pass from freshman midfielder Maddie Myers to break the game’s deadlock and give the Aggies the lead for good. Minutes

before halftime, Myers added in a goal of her own, showing off her speed on a brilliant breakaway and putting the Aggies up 7-3 at the break.

The Aggies fed off the momentum from the first period and came out on fire in the second half, rattling off eight straight goals within the first 15 minutes of play. Kellan, freshman attacker Amanda Outcalt, junior midfielder Kelsey DeJesus and sophomore midfielder Taylor Cuenin each scored two goals in this offensive flurry.

The Aggies’ firepower overwhelmed the Blackbirds, helping UC Davis secure the victory. All in all, eight different players scored in the contest for the Aggies.

“Today was really good because we had so many different scorers,” Kellan said. “It was great to see that we can have those younger players step up.”

Head coach Tee Ladouceur said that the win was important for the young players.

“We got everybody in today,” Ladouceur said. “Last game we had two freshman score, this game we had two different freshman score and it’s just good for them to gain that experience moving forward.”

The Aggies will head to Colorado next weekend to take on Denver University and Colorado Boulder before returning to UC Davis for a slew of home games during the first half of March.

“It’s going to be a tough weekend,” Ladouceur said. “That’s why we were looking to get all of our freshman in today, make sure that we can go in with a clear mind and get those jitters out.”