the California Aggie SERVING THE UC DAVIS CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY SINCE 1915
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VOLUME 135, ISSUE 26 | THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2017
UC Davis Silo renovation to begin in June ALEXA FONTANILLA / AGGIE
MORGAN TIEU / AGGIE
UC Davis commits to American Talent Initiative Initiative holds shared goal of educating 50,000 more low-income students by 2025
Burger place, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, more seating to replace Starbucks, Carl’s Jr., Taco Bell
BY JAYASHR I PADMANABHAN campus@theaggie.org
BY CLA RA Z HAO campus@theaggie.org
UC Davis has joined the American Talent Initiative (ATI), an effort to educate 50,000 more low-income students at U.S. colleges and universities by 2025. The initiative began in December 2015 with 30 members and now has expanded to 68 members. It is coordinated by two nonprofit organizations, The Aspen Institute and Ithaka S+R, with support from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Elizabeth Davidson Pisacreta, a senior researcher at Ithaka S+R, said that the idea for the initiative began in 2014 and 2015, when Aspen Institute and Bloomberg Philanthropies held discussions to tackle the issue of socioeconomic diversity at the nation’s top colleges. Top colleges are defined as having graduation rates above 70 percent. “The ATI was formed in response to participant consensus that, in order to increase access and opportunity, colleges and universities needed to come together around a set of shared goals,” Pisacreta said via email. “To achieve those goals, member colleges and universities would need to work collectively to share effective practices so as to amplify successful strategies and to identify and overcome barriers to progress. ATI began initial membership recruiting in 2016, coordinated by the Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program and Ithaka S+R and supported by a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies.” Institutions are eligible to join ATI if they consistently graduate 70 percent or more of their students, according to Tania Nguyen LaViolet,
The UC Davis Silo, a favorite dining spot for many students, will be undergoing some major changes starting in June. The entire Silo will be shutting down on June 15 for remodeling this summer. This date marks the end of the UC Davis Dining Services’ contract with its longtime vendor, Sodexo. Sodexo is the overarching organization that owns and runs most of the restaurants in the Silo, including Carl’s Jr., Taco Bell and Pizza Hut Express. It also employs many of the students who currently work at the Silo. When the contract with Sodexo ends, the university will be taking over the Silo’s administration. After the renovation, several current restaurants in the Silo will be shut down permanently, including Taco Bell, Carl’s Jr. and Pizza Hut Express. Some students have expressed disappointment regarding the closing of some of their favorite restaurants. “I love Taco Bell,” said David Lee, a first-year animal science major. “If I had to pick a last meal for prison, it would be Taco Bell.” For coffee-dependent college students, though, perhaps the biggest change is the conversion of the Starbucks to a Peet’s, which is set to
open this coming fall along with the rest of the remodeled Silo. “I’m quite sad to hear that Starbucks is closing,” said Antoinyse Chavez, a first-year art studio major. “I go there daily to get my go to juice and breakfast.” The closed-down restaurants will be replaced by a UC Davis-run burger spot, a new space for La Crepe and more seating. According to Melissa Hosking, a third-year English and sociology-organizational studies double major and a student manager at the Silo’s Grab-n-Go and Pizza Hut, the remodeled Silo area will also have more food trucks for students to choose from. The Silo’s current staff also has some concerns regarding these changes. ‘‘Right now there are some benefits that we have […]” Hosking said. “Like Sodexo provides us with meal swipes at the DC [dining commons] but the university isn’t going to be giving it to us […] because then they would have to give swipes to all the UC Davis employees.” Hoskings, currently contracted under Sodexo, will have to reapply and transition to being a university employee along with all the other Silo employees working under Sodexo. In addition, many employees will be reassigned to different posts and positions after the renovation is complete.
LOW INCOME on 8
IAN JONES / AGGIE FILE
CAT TAYLOR / AGGIE
Alleged attack on Picnic Day sends two officers to hospital
Davis vs. food
Cell phone footage shows Davis Police officers fighting off crowd of people
Food competitions around town test endurance
BY SAM A N T HA SO LO MO N city@theaggie.org
Two police officers were sent to the hospital on April 26 for treatment of injuries sustained in an alleged attack on Russell Boulevard, despite special precautions taken during Picnic Day to ensure a safe campus experience. Three people who have been identified as non-UC Davis students were arrested in relation to the incident and there are numerous cell phone videos of the occurrence. Three Davis Police officers were driving in an unmarked vehicle down Russell Boulevard when a crowd of people stopped the car from going further, according to a Davis Police Department press release.
“One officer was wearing police attire with a visible badge and the other two were wearing plain clothes, although they had clearly displayed badges on their chests and visible police weapons,” the press release said. “At the time, Russell Blvd. was nearly gridlocked due to Picnic Day related traffic and many large parties occurring in the area. Due to the obvious safety hazards the group presented, the officers pulled near the group to take action.” The police vehicle was allegedly surrounded by a group of people yelling threats at the three officers. “As the officers exited the car and began to identify themselves as the police, two officers were immediately physically attacked by multiple suspects and beaten on the ground,” the press release said. “[...] As the officers were being assaulted, they could
BY H ANNAH HOLZER features@theaggie.org
Myriad beaming, proud faces fill up a wall at the CoHo South Cafe. These are the faces of daring challengers who have successfully completed the Quad Stack Challenge — a food challenge that requires competitors to eat around two pounds of cornbread and chili in five minutes or less. “Someone orders the Quad Stack and then they have to say, ‘I want to do the challenge,’” said Hayley Rappoport, a student manager of the CoHo South Cafe and a fourth-year genetics and genomics major. “They can have a glass of water if they want but nothing else to drink. They have five minutes to finish it [...] and if they do, we’ll take their picture.”
The Quad Stack Challenge at the South CoHo is one of several different food challenges that exist within the Davis community. The staple of the South CoHo is the Chili Stack, which consists of two pieces of cornbread, two scoops of chili and optional toppings of cheese or onions all heaped onto one plate. Variations of the Chili Stack include the Triple Stack, three slices of cornbread and three scoops of chili, as well as the daunting Quad Stack, four pieces of cornbread and four scoops of chili. Rappoport, who has worked at the Cafe for over three years, said she has seen about 30 to 40 attempts of the challenge, but has seen only between 10 and 15 successful completions. She also said she has witnessed a few challenges gone awry. “I saw someone choke,” Rappoport said. “Her
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UC partners with Vox for Climate Lab video series
HANNAH LEE / AGGIE
Six-part collaboration series explores solutions to environmental issues BY AA R ON L I SS campus@theaggie.org
The popular online media and news company Vox has collaborated with the University of California (UC) system to produce a Climate Lab six-part web series published on Vox’s YouTube channel. Four episodes of the six part series have been released, amassing a total of over two million views. Each of the first three videos has been featured on the “Trending” page of YouTube the day it was uploaded. The third installment, “Why your old phones collect in a junk drawer of sadness,” received over 400,000 views the first day it was released. Researchers have partnered with Vox to advocate for climate change research
in an innovative and accessible way laden with anecdotes because, according to the show’s host M. Sanjayan, “we know that numbers numb and stories stick.” Sanjayan, an ecologist, UCLA visiting researcher and Emmy-nominated news contributor, hosts the six-part series. “We need to change the way we talk about climate change,” Sanjayan said in the first episode, titled “Why humans are so bad at thinking about climate change.” “This doom and gloom messaging just isn’t working. A problem this overwhelming — it’s pretty easy to turn away and kick the can down the road. Somebody else can deal with it.” In the episodes, Sanjayan met with UC and non-UC researchers across campuses to explore climate change solutions
in an innovative and creative way that can be accessible and relatable to a wide audience. Sanjayan interviewed researchers and thinkers in psychology, technology and food science, suturing environmental conservation science with other disciplines. In the first episode, Sanjayan meets with psychologist Per Espen Stoknes, who explains climate change as a psychologically combative issue due to the fact that people become discouraged, overwhelmed and defensive when confronted with the issue. In the same episode, Yale researcher Anthony Leiserowitz called climate change the “policy problem from hell” because it is so psychologically tenuous to grasp in present reality. “Many Americans continue to think of climate change as a distant problem,” Leiserowitz said. “That this is about polar bears or maybe some developing countries.” The second episode, titled “Going green shouldn’t be this hard,” features Lauren Singer, who can fit every piece of trash she’s accumulated in the past four years into a small mason jar. The third episode targets cellular and electronic waste, which is ridden with undegradable toxins and often comes to America overseas on archaic, polluting cargo ships. The remainder of the videos will be published every Wednesday. Jon Christensen, an assistant professor and a journalist-in-residence for the UCLA Institute for Environment and Sustainability, spoke of his role in the Vox video series as well as UC President Janet Napolitano’s commitment to climate reJERO REAL / AGGIE
Police Logs:
Based on a true story BY SAM SOLOMO N city@theaggie.org
May 1 “Female speaking gibberish and being disruptive inside Subway.” May 2 “Intoxicated subject walking in traffic and laying on the ground.” May 4 “Subject refusing to leave the train and locked himself in the bathroom.” May 6 “Male near carousel, yelling and waving a box of cereal.”
BY NICO LAS RAG O campus@theaggie.org
An explosive new gym has opened in downtown Davis: MAX Challenge, which consists of a 10-week program that aims to positively reshape a client’s health. Besides physical goals, MAX Challenge promotes healthy eating and hopes clients leave leading an overall healthier life. MAX Challenge is new to the West Coast. “We are the first one standalone on the West Coast, outside of New Jersey,” said Richard Baciarini, a MAX Challenge of Davis coach. “Our Woodland location opened about two years ago, so that took off very successfully. Then we opened one up here.” MAX Challenge is growing quickly with over 60 locations, but Baciarini said the start of MAX Challenge came from one person’s motivation.
HANNAH LEE / AGGIE
BY EDDY Z HU campus@theaggie.org
The ASUCD Senate meeting on Thursday, April 27 officially commenced at 6:13 p.m. Senators Samantha Chiang, Daniel Nagey, Matthew Yamaguchi, Michael Goffman and Khadeja Ibrahim were absent at initial roll call. The meeting began with a presentation by Unitrans General Manager Anthony Palmere. He updated the senators
messengers.” Sarah Risher, a third-year UC Davis environmental policy analysis and planning major and chairperson of the ASUCD Environmental Policy and Planning Commission, appreciates that the show attempts to bridge the gap between the public and scientists. Risher believes that there is an impending danger of climate change that must be subdued. “I think this collaboration is a powerful tool to educate the public about climate science and climate change,” Risher said via email. “Climate change is the crisis of our lifetime and has not received the recognition it demands from our political administration and national media. I think these videos can help bring more people to the climate conversation and help them realize their individual agency to bring change. We really need all hands on deck to mitigate climate change’s destructive impacts.” Stephanie Beechem, a member of the media relations team for the UC Office of the President, related Napolitano’s dedication to climate science with the new Climate Lab Vox video series. “UC faculty have been deeply engaged in research and scholarship around climate change for decades,” Beechem said via email. “Climate Lab builds on the UC system’s longstanding commitment to addressing climate change, as well as our systemwide work on sustainability issues. UC President Janet Napolitano has made combatting climate change a key part of her agenda, pledging that the UC system will become carbon neutral by 2025. CLIMATE LAB on 8
MAX Challenge opens up downtown New gym in downtown Davis offers 10-week program to a healthier lifestyle
NIKKI PADAR / AGGIE
April 30 “Possible teens setting off fireworks in the fields, one talked about throwing them into people’s backyards.”
search. “I was senior editor on a report that was written by 50 researchers from around the University of California system, across all disciplines,” Christensen said. “It was called ‘Bending the Curve: 10 Scaleable Solutions for Carbon Neutrality.’ We know what it’s going to take to get to carbon neutrality by mid century, which is what we need to do to avoid the most disastrous consequences of climate change. One of the key findings is that that we’ve largely failed in communicating about climate change. I reached out to the UC Office of President to see if they would like to do a video series on climate change solutions. We reached out to Sanjayan because he’s such a fantastic science communicator. The series was produced by the UC Office of the President, and I stayed involved as an advisor and consultant on the research and stories.” Christensen said that the final episode talks about how researchers can reach a maximum audience. “Finally, we will have an episode about having diverse messengers,” Christensen said. “What’s really different about this series is that it’s playful and pithy, but you also get to meet people you don’t typically meet, from a Tea Party activist who cares about climate to an advisor to the pope to young artists. What’s key about this is that we know a lot about the failures of climate change — we know it doesn’t work when it’s presented as a problem that’s too far away, too big, or too out of control for individuals to do anything about. That’s why it’s important to have different stories and different
on the current affairs of Unitrans buses, which included a 4 percent decrease in ridership and an ongoing process of replacing single-decker buses with the double-decker buses. Palmere also revealed that Unitrans buses had supported 10,000 people on Picnic Day and concluded his presentation by announcing his imminent retirement. Palmere received a rousing round of applause and multiple expressions of gratitude from the senators. Following the Unitrans presentation,
“My friend started this franchise, in New Jersey,” Baciarini said. “He went through a funk where he gained a lot of weight, had his kids, kinda got distracted from taking care of himself. One day he realized he needed to take care of himself to take care of his family. Went through full nutrition training, private workout, you know, trainings and really developed this for himself. Then realized ‘Wow, it’s amazing.’ Opened it in a martial arts school and kinda took off from there.” The 10-week program starts with clients choosing an obtainable goal. While many people arrive seeking to just lose weight and stay in shape, Baciarini said MAX Challenge tries to find the real reason people want to work out. “So basically the first week you are kinda digging deep on more than just a superficial goal,” Baciarini said. “For me it was, I wanted to lose weight. But then when I dug deeper it was: you know what, I want to be a role model for my young kids. I want to live to see them graduate. I want to live to see grandkids. And I don’t want to, you know, have a heart attack before my daughters are, you know, I don’t want to leave them too early. I get emotional talking about it, because that’s my Why. [...] When I start thinking about that, I don’t miss a class.” Piyush Dahal, a client halfway through her 10week program, also shared her goals. “I have a wedding coming up in July, so to feel comfortable and confident in my wedding dress,” Dahal said. “But also I’m a teacher in Sacramento, so [I want to] be a role model for my students.” To keep clients committed to the goal Baciarini puts in extra effort to make the classes entertaining. “I want them having fun!” Baciarini said. “I
the senators engaged in a mandatory undocumented student training workshop. A group of students from the Undocupride Speakers Bureau showed a PowerPoint presentation and went over important laws and scholarships affecting undocumented students such as AB540, DACA and the Californian Dream Act. The Undocupride group also had the senators participate in a role play activity in which they were placed in the shoes of undocumented students. After the workshop, the Senate took a break at 8:05 p.m. and resumed affairs at 8:18 p.m. At this point, Senators Chiang, Nagey, Yamaguchi and Ibrahim were present at the meeting. Following the break, a series of Administrative Advisory Committee (AAC) confirmations took place. A motion to form the ASUCD Council on Investment and Services was passed 11-0. A group of students marketing for the Mondavi Center had their motion approved 11-0. Julia Yu, a second-year human development major, was unanimously approved for a Child and Family
don’t want this to be chore. [...] I want someone to say, ‘I can do this five days a week. I can do this for the rest of my life.’ [...] Sweating is number two, if they aren’t sweating I’ve failed, right? I want to make sure they’re moving, you know? You’re coming here for a forty-five minute workout and we want to give you the best workout possible. [...] Smiling, sweating and motivation, is what I would say. Everyone leaves inspired.” Baciarini outlined what a usual week looks like in the program. Mondays and Wednesdays are composed of workouts focused on the legs and core. Tuesdays are for the arms and Fridays are for kickboxing. While much of the work is intense and physical, some is also about bettering eating habits. “We got the full nutrition,” Baciarini said. “And it’s not like you gotta have a meal plan or buy stuff from us. It’s really about the right food, the right portions, and the right times.” The purpose of the program is to begin a new healthier lifestyle, but it doesn’t always feel like work. “We are not just in class, get out, who’s next, turning people over,” Baciarini said. “We’ll cap our classes out at about 35. It’s a community first and foremost, and that’s the motivation that is very powerful.” Natalie Flynn, a first-year French major who is interested in the program, sees how a tighter workout community could help one get in shape. “I see advantages of having a community, it helps you stay engaged and motivates you,” Flynn said. MAX Challenge is located at 912 5th Street, Suite 100. More about MAX Challenge can be found on its website.
Care committee position specializing in helping students with children. A disability advocacy group comprised of four students and a military veteran had its motion passed 11-0. A committee regarding course materials and service fees had its motion passed 11-0. Four students were unanimously confirmed for the Aggie media board. Rosy Martinez, a third-year human development major and external director for The Pantry, presented ideas on increasing staff diversity and had her motion passed 11-0. A group hoping to increase the number of women in STEM fields had its motion passed unanimously, and finally two students were confirmed for Transportation and Parking Services positions. Next came the HAUS unit director confirmation. HAUS unit director Juliana Luna elaborated on her experience as director in 2016 and her candidacy was affirmed 11-0. Senator Yajaira Ramirez Sigala pushed for Dream Committee funding, and after some deliberation regarding her platform of undocumented student issues and the
aforementioned Undocupride presentation, the motion passed unanimously. After a series of public announcements from the senators, which included Senator Julie Jung’s efforts to get a tent for ASUCD, Vice President Adilla Jamaludin announced that the Senate would be seeing the flag bill in next week’s meeting. Two ASUCD bills were also set to go to committee in next week’s meeting, one of which proposes to allocate $632.24 from the Entertainment Council’s Equipment Reserve in order to purchase an audio snake, a piece of sound equipment used to control multiple sound inputs onstage. Two previous Senate bills were then presented. The first, a bill attempting to establish committee chair training workshops, was passed unanimously, while the second, which proposed to to allocate $219.00 for the ASUCD Forum, was unanimously denied. The meeting concluded with ex-officio and elected officer reports. Various commission chairs and senators elaborated on their recent activities and events. The meeting adjourned at 11:30 p.m.
THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2017 | 3
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ANSWERS TO PREVIOUS PUZZLES
CHESS The double check prevents the knight from capturing our rook. 1. Rb7+ Ka8 2. Ra7+ Kb8 3. Rgb7#
Chess Here is a different kind of puzzle. It is black’s turn to move. This puzzle is a tactics and mate puzzle all wrapped into one neat position. HINT: The first two moves are the setup, the last move is dependent upon white’s move. What white does for its 2nd move determines the difference between black winning a great exchange or a checkmate in 3 moves for black.
Sudoku Enter digits from 1 to 9 into the blank spaces. Every row, column, and 3x3 square must contain one of each digit. Each Sudoku has a unique solution that can be reached logically without guessing.
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Active Aggies Week to begin next Monday
HANNAH LEE / AGGIE
On-campus events held to encourage physical activity
BY YVONNE LEONG campus@theaggie.org
Active Aggies Week, a weeklong, campus-wide celebration of moving and staying active, will take place from May 15 to 21. Multiple exercise based organizations, the Wellness Center and Campus Recreations and Unions (CRU) will participate. “Active Aggies Week began as a way to celebrate May is National Physical Activity month and to provide students with fun and free opportunities to be active,” said Shantille Connolly, a wellness education educator, via email. “There are so many way unique ways to move our bodies, so Active Aggies Week is hoping to encourage students to find a form of movement that they truly enjoy.” Connolly believes being active is important for both students’ physical and mental health. “It’s important to stay active because of the positive physical and mental health benefits physical activity provides,” Connolly said via email. “Even a short, 10-minute burst of movement can provide you with an energy and mood boost. Research has found that physical activity has numerous benefits for mental health and we know that 46.8 percent of students report that
RAUL MORALES / AGGIE
stress negatively impacts their academics.” On May 18, UC Davis Yoga Club will be offering yoga classes in 5 Lower Freeborn Hall at 6:30 p.m. Ana Elisa Skomal, a fourth-year food science and technology major and president of UC Davis Yoga Club, appreciates exercise because she uses it to connect with herself and her body. “[Staying active] is an opportunity to connect with my body, with myself in a fun and enjoyable way,” Skomal said via email. “Yes, there are also many health benefits that come along with staying active. However, I feel it is important to not look at exercise as a chore. We have brought together a group of students from all over the world to share their energy and love for yoga.” Reed D. Phinisey, a CRU fitness and wellness center coordinator, believes it is important that physical activity be done for one’s own enjoyment. On May 17, CRU will host its first pop-up hip-hop dance class at the Memorial Union Patio at 2 p.m. Later that day, CRU will host a Zumba-Thon at the ARC four-court gym from 6 to 8 p.m. “Physical activity might be one of the most influential tools when it comes to improving one’s overall wellness,” Phinisey said via email. “This can range from either general exercise modalities (strength training, aerobic exercise, yoga, etc.) all the way to ADL’s (activ-
ities of daily living). It’s important though that we feel motivated to maintain this mode of physical activity but also derive enjoyment from said activity.” Brian Luu, the Fitness and Wellness Center assistant director, said CRU is offering many different types of classes to inspire students to move and be happy. “Campus Recreation and Unions contributes [to better quality of life] by offering a multitude of activities for our students to explore,” Luu said via email. “For us activity does not need to be limited
to just working out in the gym. It can be going on a hike, taking a craft class, tending to a horse at our Equestrian Center, swimming, etc. We want students to find what makes them happy and helps them move. Our students’ well-being is what means the most to us!” Other events happening during Active Aggies week include swing dancing with Davis Swing Dancers, a resistance band workshop, ballroom dancing with Davis Ballroom Dancing, Nerf-based games with the Davis Nerf Club and more.
Bike Polo: Underrated and underappreciated A sport only fitting for a city known for its bikes
BY RAYMOND RUANO city@theaggie.org
West Manor Park not only serves as the Bike Polo Club’s home, but also brings the community together through encouragement and friendly competition. This local co-ed club takes the concept of horse polo or hockey and makes it far more interesting — by playing on bicycles. Although the concept of bike polo has been redeveloped throughout history, it was not until the 2000s that its roots were established in Seattle out of the bike messenger scene. This cycling sport continues to represent a new era of communities coming together as a way for people of all ages and backgrounds to have a good time. However, regardless of its growing worldwide popularity over the years, clubs similar to Davis’ continue to have difficulty in terms of gaining recognition. The City of Davis may be known as the bike capital of the world, but its fails to provide its community with appropriate playing spaces. On the other hand, the team’s commitment and love for the sport
successfully allows for gradual growth through inclusivity and determination. “My role is to help our club grow, recruit players and provide a healthy, safe and friendly environment for people to come together and play a fun sport,” said Jennifer Kutzleb, a UC Davis graduate student and the club’s representative, via email. “We are dedicated to being a safe space for women and other minority groups to feel welcome and safe to play.” The club members’ belief that sports should be for anyone and everyone helps it to succeed and grow, as players develop new skills, meet new people and become a part of a dynamic family. “As a club we are very positive and encouraging to all members,” said Jennifer Tyree Hageman, a UC Davis graduate student and member of the team, via email. “Rather than having a competitive environment, our club really supports each member (and new attendees) to grow and improve as a player. [Bike Polo is] a really good outlet to decompress after dissertating all week.” The team’s overall support for each other and their undying love for the game is what Bike Polo is all about.
Orchard Park set to be demolished
Able Kutzleb founded the Davis club in 2011 after stumbling across the sport when buying bike parts. He quickly became interested and decided to try it out with some friends. “It was so much fun we just couldn’t stop,” Kutzleb said. As for tournaments, the club as a whole agrees it is a learning experience as everyone works together to bring something they love and believe in to life. “Polo is a fun sport, but when you have a dream in a cooperative community, it takes a lot of good, hard work from the whole crew to make things happen,” said Aidan Gilhooly-Gage, a member of the club and a mechanic at B&L Bike Shop in downtown Davis, via email. “A cooperative community where love, friendship and the mutual enthusiasm for bikes take the reigns [...] and anyone could see it as positive environment.” The Bike Polo Club is a true embodiment of the the cliche phrase that there is no ‘I’ in team. The club meets at West Manor Park every Sunday starting at 12 p.m. and Wednesdays at 5 p.m. until dark. Find more information about the club and players’ profiles on its website and Facebook page. CIERA PASTUREL / AGGIE
Replacement to better meet current housing standards
BY EMILY SHINTANI campus@theaggie.org
During the summer of 2017, the Orchard Park Apartments will be demolished and replaced by an updated apartment complex. In May, after three years of planning, UC Davis will request bids from those who wish to move into the new complex, which is scheduled to be completed by Fall 2020. Although the focus of the complex will be to provide housing for students with families, they will not be the only ones with access to living there. “The request for proposal for the new development includes a mix of both apartments for student families and apartments for single graduate students,” said Emily Galindo, the associate vice chancellor of Student Affairs, via email. “Students who request to lease in these facilities are required to provide documentation of relationship status to the lease (birth certificate, marriage certificate or domestic partnership) or have a roommate who is also a full time registered student.” Although officially closed and fenced off in 2014, demolition of the property was postponed in order to first receive the community’s opinions. LUCY KNOWLES / AGGIE RAUL MORALES / AGGIE
“At the time the complex was closed, residents and students raised a range of concerns about the redevelopment,” said Grant Rockwell, the assistant vice chancellor for Capital Planning and Real Estate, via email. “We did not want to proceed with demolition without additional feedback, so we paused redevelopment for a thorough consulting and planning process, including a report by a specially commissioned committee on family housing including student representatives.” Orchard Park was originally shut down in 2014 due to the rapidly declining standards of the area relative to current housing standards, according to Rockwell. “[Orchard Park] would have required significant capital investment to bring [the buildings] up to current housing standards, including, for example, ADA requirements,” Rockwell said. The name and exact features of the new complex are unknown as project developer has yet to be selected; however, Rockwell assured that the intention is to incorporate as much of the original property features, while still upgrading the facility as a whole. “The intent is to incorporate some of the same property features as at the old Orchard Park,” Rockwell said. “These features could include: open green space, recreational amenities for both children and adults and
perimeter parking to avoid vehicular traffic within the community […] this project will focus on affordability, facility design and quality of life.” Daniel Nagey, a second-year managerial economics major and an ASUCD senator whose platform includes student housing, supports the long-awaited plan as it should partially alleviate pressure from the housing crisis.
“I’m excited, of course, that new housing is being considered at Orchard Park since the structure is old and in need of a remodel,” Nagey said. “It has been pending construction for way too long. The progress being made year to year is incredibly slow considering the high need for housing. We are in a housing crisis right now and this is not the time to be putting off something so important.”
Progress in reshaping the hunting ground
Sexual assault awareness; advocacy in UC Davis, larger community
BY SAHITI VEMULA features@theaggie.org
Anastasia Ruttkay
Sexual assault is defined by the Center for Advocacy, Resources and Education (CARE) as any unwanted, nonconsensual sexual act in which a person is threatened, coerced or forced to comply against their will, or where a person is unable to give consent because they are a minor, unconscious, asleep or incapacitated due to drugs or alcohol. But is addressing this issue as straightforward as defining it? Resource centers such as CARE and Student Health and Counseling Services, both of which took part in April’s Sexual Assault Awareness Month, along
with various UC Davis students and ASUCD members, are trying to help survivors navigate this complex experience and work to raise awareness about this issue on our campus and in our community. Anastasia Ruttkay, an ASUCD senator and a fourth-year international relations major, ran on a platform of sexual assault advocacy. She first became involved with this issue when she joined Georgia Savage’s staff and collaborated on her “Let’s Talk About Sex” campaign. “Me being in Greek life, and Greek life being a high risk population, I thought that was something really important that we should be participating in,” Ruttkay said.
Continuing to work toward Savage’s goals in her own term as senator, Ruttkay has drawn some of her inspiration and the template for her work from that of students fighting against sexual assault in Greek life at UC Berkeley. “I reached out to Berkeley at a symposium that I went to and I saw that they have sexual assualt prevention posters within every chapter house, [...] like a safe space initiative,” Ruttkay said. “Especially with all these open parties happening all the time, Greeks pledging against sexual assault [is] a step in the right direction.” Modeling her work after Berkeley’s prevention posters, Ruttkay created posters headed with the PROGRESS on 12
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NICKI PADAR / AGGIE
Sustainable Sourcing
The Indian Student Association VRINDA GUPTA / COURTESY
Companions and cultural identity: UC Davis’ various student associations Dining Commons lead in sourcing food from local, organic, student-run farms
BY KRISTEN LEUNG features@theaggie.org
Ranking 18th on the The Daily Meal’s Best Colleges for Food List, UC Davis goes above and beyond to provide students with tasty, sustainable meals through its Dining Commons (DCs). Davis’ DCs exceed the UC Sustainability Policy goals for all UCs, but where does this seemingly limitless buffet of food come from, and what exactly does sustainability in food service mean? UC Davis’ Sustainability and Education Program, partnering with other student-led groups, informs DC patrons of the sustainable background behind meals on campus. A recent bulletin board of such information intrigued Justin Zhao, a first-year managerial economics major who eats at the DC daily. “[The program] gives you information on [...] the process of how this food is made,” Zhao said. “You could eat unlimited food for this price so that’s why it’s interesting. How is it that I can swipe [in] once and then get 18 steaks?” A complex chain of production lies behind every plate served in the DCs, and UC Davis Dining Services tries to make every step in this process eco-friendly. The DCs’ advocacy of energy and water conservation, pollution prevention, solid waste reduction, green building and incentives for emission-reducing employee commutes certify it as a Sacramento Area Sustainable Business. “About 50 percent of our produce is sustainable, meaning either local or organic,” said Kiko Barr, the sustainability and education coordinator for UC Davis Dining
Services. “We have a produce distributor and a lot of our local produce comes through them. They tell us what’s local and what’s available.” Ordering ingredients from sustainable farms accounts for a large reduction in UC Davis’ environmental impact, as the university uses produce from environmentally-friendly farms instead of industrial farms that rely on harmful practices, such as the use of fossil fuels and pesticides. With 50 percent of produce coming from sustainable sources, UC Davis is ahead of the UC Sustainability Policy goal of having 20 percent of produce in all UCs from sustainable sources by 2020 and has increased this amount of produce in the past year by 23 percent. Many of these green initiatives are driven by UC Davis’ thriving community of environmentally-concerned students, some of whom are members of UC Davis’ chapter of the Real Food Challenge. This national network of student food activists has successfully lobbied UC Davis’ Dining Services to partially shift away from industrial farms and junk food toward “local and community-based, fair, ecologically sound and humane food sources.” The selection of ingredients used in the DC depends on guidelines like those adopted from the Real Food Challenge in addition to guidelines such as seasonal availability, pricing and taste profiles offered by UC Davis’ food distributor, Fresh Plate. However, special partnerships with select farms expand the array of ingredients DC chefs can consider using for their recipes. Rue & Forsman Ranch, an organic rice farm that has been owned by three generations of UC Davis graduates, provides all of the DCs’ white and brown rice. Michael Bosworth, the latest owner, was an agricultural
Cultural organizations provide space for students to connect, make friends BY MARLYS JEANE features@theaggie.org
There are hundreds of clubs for the thousands of students at UC Davis, but joining a club doesn’t have to be about academic interests or shared hobbies. Whatever one’s background, culture, ethnicity or religion, there is most likely an organization on campus that offers an open space to call home, a space to identify with others. “I love my culture and my heritage and I’m very proud of being Indian, so seeing something like the Indian Student Association was something that I was very excited about, something I was very drawn to,” said Vrinda Gupta, a second-year international relations and Asian-American studies double major. “The main reason I joined is because I wanted to really find a community of people that I could relate to and find my own little chosen family.” Gupta is the director of community affairs for the Indian Student Association (ISA). Although ISA is a social club that provides cultural events for the Indian diaspora on campus, Gupta said the organization has been focusing on social awareness and social justice over the past few years. “Just recently we had a sexual violence awareness workshop, things like that to help
our community stay educated and keep us more involved,” Gupta said. “Every year we also have a philanthropic aspect to our organization [where] we donate to a charity or some sort of philanthropic organization. We have a Culture Show every year, so this year it will be on May 21st,, and the proceeds of that show will go to [the organization] Visions Global Empowerment.” The main mission of ISA is to educate others on and celebrate Gupta and her peers’ South Asian identity, but Gupta points out that it doesn’t matter where someone is from or what their ethnic or religious background is — anyone is welcome to be a part of the organization. This is the case for many other cultural groups on campus as well, including the Taiwanese-American Organization (TAO). “Our members are really diverse, it’s not just limited to Taiwanese or Taiwanese-Americans,” said Michael Ng, a thirdyear international relations and history double major. “TAO is mostly a social and cultural club [and] is a really diverse club.” As someone born and raised in Taiwan, Ng describes his journey to joining the club as one of obligation to the greater Taiwanese community, but his decision was also influenced by the goal of finding a comfortable space with people he can relate to. “I think the reason I joined this club freshman year had a lot to do with identity issues,” Ng said. “I felt like I was trying to
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6 | THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2017
THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE
Opinion editorial board
the California Aggie
Editorial Board meets with Gary May
EDITORIAL BOARD
SCOTT DRESSER Editor in Chief ELLIE DIERKING Managing Editor ALYSSA VANDENBERG Campus News Editor SAMANTHA SOLOMON City News Editor ELI FLESCH Opinion Editor EMILIE DEFAZIO Features Editor AMANDA ONG Arts & Culture Editor BRYAN SYKES Sports Editor ARIEL ROBBINS Science & Tech Editor
CHIARA ALVES New Media Manager JAY GELVEZON Photo Director HANNAH LEE Design Director EMILY STACK Copy Chief OLIVIA ROCKEMAN Copy Chief VERONICA VARGO Website Manager ALEX GUZMÁN Social Media Mangager MADELINE ONG Newsletter Manager LAURIE PEDERSON Business Development Manager
May discusses positions on boards, UCOP audit, free speech The Aggie Editorial Board sat down with incoming Chancellor Gary May on Monday to talk about issues concerning UC Davis students, including his positions on private boards. Below is an abridged and lightly edited version of that conversation. A full version will appear on theaggie.org. Dr. May, you had brought up the idea of meeting after reading the editorial. So to start, did you want to address the editorial? Well I didn't have a problem with the editorial. I just wanted to make sure we had very clear and correct info on both sides. I’ll just say very generally, I’m certainly very philanthropically inclined, and I can give you some examples. But I don’t think what I will do is to direct all my philanthropy in one spot. Right now, I give to the university where I work and I’ll certainly give to Davis. In fact, I gave to Davis today. I gave to Engineers Without Borders today for an activity they’re having May 13. Some examples of things I’ve done at Georgia Tech, there's a tutoring lounge in the undergraduate tutoring commons that’s named after me and my family — I’d really rather not give dollar amounts — but you know that’s a significant donation. There's two scholarships in my name at Georgia Tech, one’s cosponsored by BP that started when I became dean and just a couple weeks ago, at the final College of Engineering program, a group surprised me and announced there would be a scholarship for engineering students of color that already has six figures from pledges and I’ll also be contributing to that myself. So I do do philanthropy regularly. Some things outside the university: church, American Cancer Society — my dad passed away from cancer. American Diabetes Association — my mom was diabetic. And then a variety of who comes at me with the right pitch. I don't want to feel like I should direct all my philanthropy at Davis because that’s not really how I roll. [...] A significant fraction of the money that comes in — not just from the board service but
from salary as well — goes to philanthropy. How would you describe the benefit to students of serving on a board like Leidos? There’s some direct and some indirect benefits. For Leidos in particular — I think I mentioned this in one of the comments I made to the Sac Bee in their eye opening headline article — that it’s resulted in literally millions of dollars of philanthropy at Georgia Tech. How much time do you plan on spending on the Draper board? So those meetings are quarterly. They’re in Boston so I have to fly so there's travel time. There’s dinner and the next day’s the board meeting, so there’ll be four of those a year. We should talk about timing because I think that question’s come up more than once — board service. The way I address with it the student group — there’s 168 hours in the week, probably 40 if I’m lucky I’ll be sleeping, probably 80 I’ll be working for Davis. So, there’s a few hours left in the week that I can do other things. It won’t impact or detract from any way my service as chancellor. The way you can calibrate that is, I’ve been on the Leidos board for two years and the last year my own supervisor said it was my best year as Dean of Engineering. So these things do not detract from my current position. I think, quite frankly, if I was serving on a board of a charity or something, it wouldn’t be an issue. Tell me if I’m wrong. While the optics is part of it, these board positions are still a real issue to students — so how would you address their concerns? This is kind of a cultural thing. When it was announced at Georgia Tech that I’d been selected for this board, it was celebrated. There was an article, none of these sorts of concerns arose but I’m sure EDITORIAL on 14
TV’s fall from grace WHAT WE LOVE ABOUT HOLLYWOOD, POLITICS OR ANY OTHER FORM OF ENTERTAINMENT IS NOW BEING TAKEN ON-THE-GO BY BRODY WAY N E F E R N A N D E Z bwfernandez@ucdavis.edu
It’s every generation's destiny to create a type of slang word or phrase. For Millennials, one newfound verb is “Netflixing,” or “to Netflix.” The phrase has multiple meanings, really, but the base of which defines the verb as to watch television shows or movies on any device via the streaming app. In fact, cable television is becoming more and more outdated as online access to streaming companies like Netflix are becoming the norm. Additionally, the very idea of “television shows” will soon just become “shows,” with no need for the word television. For now, though, the smartphones and tablets
we have in our hands reign supreme for watching our shows, news and all other forms of entertainment. Research has indicated that the majority of young people are now watching less television and spending more time on handheld devices. If you’re between the ages of 18 and 34, you are basically watching about 20 hours of television a week — on an actual TV. However, Baby Boomers, who ushered in the "age of television," are watching about 40 hours or more a week. A substantial difference for back-to-back generations. So, what’s the main cause of the declining, decayed, decrepit death of television? It appears that Millennials’ habits and tendencies might provide us with the answer. Imagine you’re at work, or you’ve been sitting through class all
day, and you get a nice break in between. Are you going to use that time to refuel, get some food and cram in some study time? Of course not. You’re going to watch the next episode of Stranger Things or whatever Bill Nye is now doing. You’re able to accomplish this productive task because the chance that you have a smartphone, tablet or laptop on you is high. It’s a matter of convenience and accessibility. More Millennials are turning off the tube and relying on handheld devices to satisfy their addiction for movies and shows — simply because they can’t take the television with them to class or work. Millennials are accustomed to receiving their information and enterFERNANDEZ on 8
How nuclear war is depicted in sci-fi INCREASING NUCLEAR TENSIONS MAKES SCIENCE FICTION MORE RELEVANT BY NOAH PF LUE G E R - P E T E R S napfluegerpeters@ucdavis.edu
If you’re like me, you’ve probably been thinking a lot about nuclear war. Nukes have existed and proliferated my whole life, but the possibility of a nuclear war always seemed far off — a worry that seemed as antiquated and irrelevant as the Soviet Union. I remember finding a Christian teen self-help book from the ‘80s at a thrift store a few years ago and laughing at the entry about the possibility of Soviets nuking us because of how dated I thought it was. However, the U.N. Institute for Disarmament Research released a report in late April saying that the risk of nuclear detonation is as
high today as it’s been since the height of the Cold War. North Korea is moving full speed ahead with nuclear weapons testing with the intent of creating a missile capable of striking the U.S. mainland. Increasing tensions further, the Trump administration has taken a much harder line on North Korea. Tensions between Russia and the U.S., the two countries with the most warheads, are also at the highest they’ve been since the fall of the Soviet Union. If I read that thrift store book today, I wouldn’t laugh. It’s time to start taking the possibility of war seriously, and one of the ways to do this is through science fiction. At the height of the Cold War, sci-fi was one of the main ways people processed nuclear war. The original Godzilla is a metaphor
for the atomic bomb, alien invasions were metaphors for the threat of a Soviet invasion and annihilation, and in much of the written sci-fi of the time, nuclear war is a reality ever-present in the world the characters live in. The allegories and metaphors weren’t always intentional, but they reflected society’s fears about nuclear war, and the apocalyptic conditions it promised. Nukes are present in modern sci-fi, but their full effects are never realized. A lot of the time, they’re deployed by the government in cases where they feel a city is already lost and where nuking the monster or the army is the only way to destroy the threat, like in the 2014 PETERS on 14
Talent at UCs shouldn’t be concentrated to “elite” schools THE IMPORTANCE OF SUPPORTING LESS-DEVELOPED COLLEGE TOWNS BY TARYN D EOI L E R S tldeoilers@ucdavis.edu
UC Davis significantly increased the number of students enrolled this year, jumping from an incoming freshman population of 6,741 in 2015 to 9,500 this fall. The influx of students follows the recent plan by UC President Janet Napolitano to expand undergraduate enrollment across UC campuses by 10,000 within the next three years. Although UC Davis is fulfilling its commitment to Napolitano’s policy by welcoming more students onto the campus, the university is nonetheless weakening the quality of its education and needlessly sapping students away from other developing colleges in the process. Many UC Davis students — especially those taking mandatory STEM courses — currently find signing up for classes to be a chal-
lenge, and some are unable to complete the units necessary for their degree within the traditional four-year timeframe. Now, with hundreds of additional students vying for spots in lecture, Aggies will likely confront an even loftier obstacle in merely registering for core classes. This could postpone graduation for many students by several quarters, unnecessarily costing them thousands of extra dollars in tuition. Also worrisome is the shortage of off-campus housing, especially since the Davis community has consistently voted down legislation guaranteeing the construction of affordable residencies. A mere 0.2 percent of unit-leased apartments were vacant in 2016, according to a survey by UC Davis Student Housing — yet Davis fails to respond. Unless the city builds more housing complexes, even more students will be forced to commute from other towns simply to attend a uni-
versity that fails to promise them local, affordable housing. As a town with an already strong and established economy, Davis simply doesn’t need the extra economic boost that new college students generate. Many other cities in California, on the other hand, could greatly benefit from an inflow of undergraduates — who, along with visitors linked to colleges, naturally buy a multitude of goods and services and contribute millions of dollars to their city. In Davis alone, students, visitors and faculty associated with the university helped create a $429 million boom for various industries between 2013 and 2014, according to the 2016 UC Davis Economic Impact Analysis. We should strive to reign in cities with increasingly high concentrations of college students and graduates, while also seeking DEOILERS on 14
THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2017 | 7
THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE
Addressing food insecurity in the greater Davis community PUTTING POWER IN THE PEOPLE AND FOOD IN THEIR BELLIES BY C AMI LL E C H A R G O I S cachargois@ucdavis.edu
Sundays are great for reflecting on the past week while preparing for the next as you unwind and destress — and then scrambling to finish work due the next day. They’re also great days to take a leisurely afternoon stroll around Central Park and observe the Davis community beyond the student lens. One such example is the weekly meeting of Food Not Bombs. The Davis chapter has been feeding vegan and vegetarian meals to the homeless and food insecure in Davis for
21 of the 37 years that its national counterpart has been feeding people worldwide. “Food Not Bombs had become a global movement sharing food and literature in over one thousand communities [...] on every habitable continent on the planet,” according to a video commemorating the 35th anniversary of the organization. The movement was founded in Boston by Jo Swanson, Mira Brown, Susan Eaton, Brian Feigenbaum, C.T. Lawrence Butler, Jessie Constable, Amy Rothstien and Keith McHenry. Davis seems to be categorized mainly by its campus events and
affiliations, and the majority of food security and sustainability measures come from the university rather than the community. While university initiatives are necessary, their primary targets are students and those affiliated with the institution, which is a vast group that needs a lot of attention. But that leaves the greater Davis community underserviced. Yolo County currently has a homeless population of approximately 500, with 146 residing in Davis, according to a recent article in the Davis Enterprise. But community members have been CHARGOIS on 13
Laughter as medicine RESEARCH SHOWS LAUGHTER CAN CREATE POSITIVE EMOTIONAL ASSOCIATIONS BY MARI SOL BE AS mbeas@ucdavis.edu
A courtroom artist was arrested today for an unknown reason. Details are sketchy. Your response to that painful joke might have been an open mouth with a ‘haha,’ a jerking of the body and probably loss of breath. It’s laughter — something that we all should experience more often, because it has positive associations with our emotions, social relations and responses. Emotion theorists have studied the transition from negative to
positive emotions that laughter can create. They’ve shown that if a person is undergoing a stressful situation, a quick way to relieve it is to increase positive emotion through laughter. Dacher Keltner, a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley, studies laughter. In one of his articles, he describes the relationship between laughter and the mind. Keltner explains that the first step of laughter involves “a shift in psychological state, from negative to positive emotion,” as well as a movement from “incongruity and violated expectations to understanding and insight.” The second characteristic of laughter involves a “reduction in the distress associated with negative emotion.” Final-
ly, Keltner says that when laughter reduces distress, it creates positive states of feelings such as “humor, amusement, or exhilaration.” Laughter can also create and improve social relationships with your friends and loved ones through a simple contagious process, according to the study. It has the ability to increase success “with romantic couples [and] solve personal conflicts.” In addition, Keltner shows that laughter has the ability to cause more intimate relationships with greater satisfaction and reduce loneliness. The research proves just how great a method laughter is in helping us become BEAS on 8
HUMOR School asks students to limit health problems to within normal business hours ADMINISTRATION CONTINUES TO OFFER PROBLEM-FREE EXPERIENCE TO STUDENTS BY BRI AN L AND RY bjlandry@ucdavis.edu
Universities always have students in mind. No exceptions. Overcrowding? You won’t have to worry about that when you’re dead. Not enough spaces to study? The MU now has lots of tables that are an entire three inches off the ground. Stop complaining! Now, UCD, which stands for U will not be C’ing a Doctor today, is asking students to simply limit their health problems to fit within normal business hours. What an easy and reasonable request that couldn’t possibly have
any drawbacks for students! “We’re actually offering students a great deal here,” said an administration official who declined to be named, but for some reason insisted that it be noted that he has finger-painted over 300 pictures of Ralph J. Hexter. “The Student Health Center is actually open an entire 30 minutes past business hours to accommodate students who might be taking classes or have a job. That’s enough time to see at least one student. I’m no mathematician, but one is almost always bigger than zero,” the official concluded, before tripping a child whowas walking by. Though many students seem to be upset by the fact that the most
convenient source of medical care for students has limited hours of operation, others are quite supportive. “I think it’s really great,” said Rachel Desk, a second-year environmental toxicology major and member of an exclusive Facebook group that only posts pictures of other people’s knees. “I have an office job where I work 12 hours a week in between classes, so my availability lines up perfectly with the times that the health center is closed. And I love it! I used to worry about problems I was having with my health, but since it’s so difficult for me to schedule an appointment, I just forget about them! We’re all slowly inching toward an inevitable death anyway! I feel so free.”
Gary May only here to attend freshman seminar on Star Trek BECOMING CHANCELLOR WAS ALL JUST A PLOY TO ATTEND THE SICKEST SEMINAR IN THE BIZ BY OL I VI A LUC H I N I ocluchini@ucdavis.edu
Ever since the email came out in which future chancellor Gary May professed his love for Star Trek, students have been clamoring to learn more about their future leader. So it came as no surprise when we all found out that he actually didn’t plan on replacing the infamous Katehi and instead was merely here to get two units through an extravagant seminar on the whimsy of space. “We could sort of tell that something was off in the class when everyone else was in sweatpants and shirts while this little fella was in a full-blown suit and tie,” said seminar professor Dan Cortez.
May tried to blend in by wearing the sickest shades he could find at Kohl’s, but it was all for naught, since he had a Blackberry tied to his belt, ruining his cool youngster disguise. The unfortunate nature of it all! “Hello, fellow youths,” May said as he entered the door for the first time, flawlessly mimicking the language of the modern collegiate pupil. As every other student sat quietly listening to the lecture about the magic of Star Trek, May had both of his encyclopedias on the franchise ready and prepped to correct any wrong remark made about this holy work of fiction. “That is not correct,” May said. “If we look to page 745 of the
second edition of-” The quote went unfinished because the person recording it broke their pencil in aggravation. After breaking his cover, May has been coming to class in his exact replica of a Captain Kirk outfit just to show the other students who they’re messing with. “You think you’re a real fan?” May questioned, while challenging fellow students to a duel of wits. “I bet you don’t even know how old Leonard Nimoy was when he got his first chest hair. DO YOU?” May was awarded an A+ in the class, but only because he pulled the “chancellor” card a few times. He is fit to leave come the end of this quarter with a sense of accomplishment and two more units under his belt.
School installs BMX park for students to up their bike game OFFICIALS HELP STUDENTS WITH BIKE-HANDLING STRUGGLES, OFFER AREA TO WORK ON TRICKS
BY ET HAN VI C TO R ejvictor@ucdavis.edu
As the Memorial Union games area opened up to much fanfare earlier this month, UC Davis officials decided to bring even more fun to campus with the creation of a BMX park. Students have acknowledged their struggles in riding bicycles, and the school has listened and will be promoting change in the upcoming years. Construction is set to begin in Summer 2017 on the plot of land next to West Village and will cost the school $300,000. The park will have three half pipes, six flat bars and an obstacle course with cones, poles and small jumps that will simulate riding off curbs. A small classroom will also be built for safety courses. “We want it to be like a driver’s test, but optional,” said Tony Lock, the head of development for Student Transportation. “We just want students to refine their skills and learn how to deal with hindrances on the road while having a good time in the process.” Students have received the new idea well. The main concern has been that the location is relatively removed from campus. Otherwise, the community has initially given its approval. The park will also be open to students on VICTOR on 8
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 | PATTIE CHEN
8 | THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2017
THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE
LOW INCOME
POLICE
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senior program manager and project co-lead of ATI at The Aspen Institute. “After we launched in December 2016, senior leaders at UC Davis reached out to us about joining the Initiative,” LaViolet said via email. “Not only does UC Davis have an above-sector-average lower-income student enrollment, but in the last five years, UC Davis has had a six-year graduation rate of over 80 percent — well above our eligibility criteria. We’re very excited to have them as partners in this work as we learn about the best practices in increasing access and success from across the membership.” Institutions will be committing to their own efforts to enroll, support and graduate more students in addition to joining an initiative-wide exercise based on their four focus areas. LaViolet explained the focus areas: recruiting students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds through robust outreach, ensuring that admitted lower-income students enroll and are retained, prioritizing need-based financial aid and minimizing or eliminating gaps in progression and graduation rates between students of different income levels. “In addition to their individual efforts, institutions are committing to learn from each other, share knowledge through a vibrant practice-sharing community and engage others — students and families, the gen-
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eral public, other institutional leaders — around the issue and importance of increasing opportunity for lower-income students,” LaViolet said. ATI will be holding institutions accountable to the shared goal of 50,000 graduated students by 2025. The Aspen Institute’s College Excellence Program and Ithaka S+R will study effective practices that lead to progress and will publish reports and papers with strategies to increase ATI’s success. “Each year, ATI will collect and pool data from member institutions to measure and publish our collective progress,” LaViolet said. “If there are individual institutions that struggle more than others, ATI will be there to provide assistance in connecting them to the support, research and partnerships that can help them make progress over the long run.” UC Davis is one of four UC campuses that is part of ATI, along with UC Berkeley, UC Irvine and UCLA. “As one of the national leaders in enrolling and graduating promising students from all socioeconomic backgrounds, we have much to contribute to this shared work,” said Ralph J. Hexter, the interim chancellor at UC Davis, to University News. “There is also much to gain in developing strategies for even more inclusiveness and more equitable outcomes for all student constituencies.”
COMPETITIVE
see people in the crowd filming the attack with their cell phones.” The Davis Police Department maintains that the officers, while wearing plain clothes, had clearly visible police badges and acted within their rights as law enforcement. Two officers were taken to the Sutter Davis emergency room for treatment. One officer suffered damaged to his eye and face, while another was treated for head injuries after being hit in the head with a bottle. While the Davis Police Department stands by this version of events, some individuals have called the account into question after video footage surfaced showing the officers fighting off the crowd. “[An officer] laid on the horn and was yelling out the window, ‘Get the f— off the street,’” said Isabel Lynch, a Sacramento resident and student at Sierra College in Rocklin who witnessed the alleged attack. Lynch added that the officers were not immediately identifiable as police. She recalled watching the police officers exit the car and begin to engage the crowd. “I did see one of the officers on the ground, and I saw one girl kicking one of the officers,” Lynch said. “A lot of it didn’t make sense. I
think they were just reacting, and they reacted poorly.” Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel disagrees with claims that the three officers involved were acting outside of their duty. “There is screaming in the crowd that definitely indicates they knew they were the police,” Pytel said. This was not the only incident of a breach in community safety on Picnic Day, as Davis police reported the arrest of a man who allegedly brandished a gun in downtown Davis. A crowd of individuals were also caught on tape vandalizing a woman’s car in East Davis as she was driving. Davis police had attempted to prepare for the influx of people by creating a Picnic Day Safety Enhancement Zone. “The Safety Enhancement Zone increases fines for certain offenses to deter unlawful behavior,” said a press release from the Davis Police Department. “Fines are doubled for violations of open container laws, public urination, smoking and being drunk in public places. Davis police ask that anyone with additional video footage or information regarding the incident involving the three police officers on Russell Boulevard contact their investigations unit at (530) 747-5400.
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strategy was to pick up the cornbread and try to shove it in. I saw someone else who was trying to dig in and in the process they spilt their water with their elbow. We did pause the [clock] for him.” Though Rappoport herself has not attempted the challenge, nor have any of her colleagues, she has seen successful competitors finish the Quad Stack Challenge in a couple minutes and ask, “Is that it?” According to Rappoport, the record time for the challenge is around one minute. However, ambition sometimes gets the best of hungry customers. According to Redrum Burger owner Jim Edlund, newcomers to the restaurant who ask for the “biggest burger” on the menu are met with the one-pound Aggie Pack Annihilator burger. The Aggie Pack Annihilator burger, which is four sizes larger than the average Redrum burger, can be purchased as a meal with a large side of fries and a large drink for $13.49. Edlund said the Aggie Pack Annihilator burger, named in support of the Aggie Pack, was first sold in 1997. “It starts out as two half-pound patties [with] double cheese on it,” Edlund said. “We make it with the normal stuff we have — mayo, mustard, lettuce, tomato, onion [and] pickle. We also add bacon.” Edlund said Redrum Burger serves around 15 to 20 Aggie Pack Annihilator meals a day on the weekends and five to 10 meals on a weekday, or around 3,000 meals a year. “About 10 years ago, a man and his son came in [...and] ate an Aggie Pack Annihilator,” Edlund said. “On his way out, his dad says, ‘Well I don’t think you can eat another one.’ I interjected myself into the conversation and I said, ‘If you can eat the second one and finish it, it’s free. If you only eat a portion of it, you’ve gotta pay for it.’ He ate both in 25 minutes.” Redrum Burger used to hold the Fastest Beef Eater in the West contest, during which competitors would attempt to consume just the Aggie Pack Burger in the shortest period of time; the record time for consuming the one-pound burger is one minute and 57 seconds. This July, to celebrate its 31st year in business, Redrum Burger will bring back the Fastest Beef Eater in the West contest in the form of three competitions — one for females, one for males and one for those 50 years and older, according to Edlund. “The winner will get one month’s free food, second place gets a week and third place gets a
weekend,” Edlund said. “We’re trying to get belt buckles made.” Edlund himself said he has successfully finished two Aggie Pack Annihilators, after which he “went right to sleep.” Across town, Taqueria Guadalajara serves the arm’s-length, three-pound Super Giant Burrito, which has been a staple of the restaurant since 2002. “A lot of our students were asking, ‘Do you have something bigger?’” said Rigo Hernandez, the manager of the business. “It first started out as a little game, [where] we would make this if you could eat it. We started making the Super Giant and we kind of started a little competition [where] you had to eat it in a certain amount of time and we’d take a picture and post in on a wall — a little wall hall of fame.” The enormous burrito is available for purchase for $13.99. “The Super Giant Burrito [is] two, 13-inch flour tortillas side by side and the fillings are rice, beans, guacamole, sour cream, cheese, pico de gallo and your choice of meat,” Hernandez said. After polaroids of successful competitors were vandalized, the wall was taken down. Taqueria Guadalajara now holds a Super Giant Burrito eating competition once a year for their Cool Summer Days event in June. “We throw a little party for the community, and that’s when we do a burrito challenge,” Hernandez said. “My cousin is in charge [...] and he has a championship belt — like a wrestling belt – so whoever can finish it the fastest [wins].” Woodland resident Carlos Bautista has won the competition once and placed second twice. The year he won, Bautista beat out five other competitors with a time of around four minutes. He will compete again this year with a new strategy. “Someone told me to just open up the burrito and eat the meat first and then just roll up the tortilla,” Bautista said. Many have taken on the Super Giant Burrito, but, for Hernandez, it’s “impossible” to eat in one sitting. “I can barely eat the super burrito, but you’d be surprised,” Hernandez said. “We’ve had some petite, young ladies that would finish that burrito in one sitting.” If the Super Giant Burrito seems an unconquerable feat, Hernandez said, “for parties, it’s a great idea.”
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And at a time when the importance of federally funded research is being debated on a national level, as President Napolitano recently wrote, ‘It is more important than ever to stand up for science and research. Not only is it vital to our health and economic prosperity, but it’s key to our international competitiveness and to maintaining our country’s stature as a leader in discovery and innovation.’ The partnership is in line with other creative partnerships we’ve had in the past, including on the Fig. 1 video series with Discovery Digital Networks and the California Matters series
with author Mark Bittman and the New York Times.” Josh Dalavai, ASUCD president and a second-year political science and economics double major, believes that urgent action is required for climate change. “I think this is a great collaboration because many people discount the damage of climate change due to its seemingly long term nature,” Dalavai said via email. “This is dangerous because we could potentially put ourselves in a position where we are reacting at crisis point in the future instead of proactively curbing our behavior now.”
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9. Chris Sale Does Not Disappoint After being acquired by the Boston Red Sox for a huge lot of prospects this winter, Chris Sale has been incredible in Boston. In 45.2 innings, Sale has a 1.38 ERA and 63 strikeouts. He has lived up to the hype and should propel the Red Sox toward a deep playoff run. 10. San Francisco Giants Last in the Division The San Francisco Giants have not been a
good club in 2017. Mark Melancon has not been the cure to the bullpen woes as many assumed he would, and the offense and pitching have not clicked. The big loss, however, is the big injury to star pitcher Madison Bumgarner. Bumgarner decided to go dirt-biking during the season and suffered shoulder and rib injuries that will keep him out through the all-star break. Tough loss for the Giants.
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scooters and skateboards. “I like what we’re doing in emphasizing skilled biking habits,” said Mike Seat, an avid biker and Bianchi rider. “I think it will benefit all of us and our ability to ride bikes. Practice does makes perfect.” Seat echoes the sentiments of various students around campus. While bike traffic might be dangerous at the bike park, the risk is worth it. The lack of rain and start of what is traditionally thought of as Spring Quarter means fenders come off and riders tend to move more quickly. A study conducted by TAPS from last year showed bike accidents increase by 30 percent in the spring and summer. Construction on the park
is estimated to last only through Summer 2017 and will be available for students to use beginning Fall 2017 — just in time for Aggies to safely bike to Freeborn Hall’s opening. The school will also be providing riding lessons and TAPS will be sponsoring bicycle safety courses, which include teaching students how to use hand signals, the importance of a bike light and traditional rules of the road that riders tend to forget. The BMX park serves as a reminder to students of the importance of bicycle safety. Courses will be free and, upon the completion of a class, students will receive five new bike lights, a helmet and a TAPS sticker.
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tainment quickly, so it’s no surprise that we are seeing them leave the ancient, stationary form of television behind. While watching an Academy Award-winning film or a CGI-heavy summer blockbuster on a four to six-inch screen seems to take away from the cinematic experience, the truth is that it’s easy, quick and convenient: the holy trinity for Millennials. However, the Boomers paint a different picture, especially now that they’re entering their 50s and 60s. The dominant portion of their free time is centered around the television. If they’re putting in more than 40 hours a week in front of the tube, it’s a full-time job of watching TV (#jealous). Now that’s not to say that Boomers would not have taken advantage of the technology we have today. One theory suggests that once Millennials reach an older age,
they will be more inclined to watch television as much as Boomers do now. However, there isn’t research to support such a theory yet. What we love most about Hollywood, politics or any other form of entertainment is now being taken “on-the-go” to accommodate a busy young generation that has been adapting to technological advances since they were born. This is not a trend or a fad. This is a change in social behavior that is directly linked to variables and changes within the environment. We have all heard that song “Video Killed the Radio Star,” right? Well, it’s still technically true, only that song was meant to exonerate the progressive climb that television has made. It’s not hard to imagine that in several decades we will be yet again looking in the rearview mirror to see just how far television has fallen.
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with another year under the athletes’ belts. “We really bought into what the coaches were saying and we need to work hard every day,” Nafekh said. “That’s what’s going to get us to the end.” This also means that juniors such as Nafekh and Nagel already feel like their roles as leaders are strong and can only get better with one more year. As seniors, their goal will be to help their team not only for next year, but for years to follow. “I feel like we had to experience some types of leadership this past year,” Nagel said. “Obviously it will be different being an official senior. A lot more responsibility and teaching the freshmen things.” Both Nagel and Nafekh agree that it is best to go in with a clear mind, body and spirit before
going hard at next year’s goals. The team begins their full-roster practices during the school’s second Summer Session, and the intensity picks up even more so in fall when full practice begins. Until then, the players are doing what they can to prepare for the next season — the final season for both Nafekh and Nagel. “I’m honestly trying not to think about it right now,” Nafekh. “I can’t believe it. I don’t want to think about it. I’m not ready to leave. So, right now I’m just trying [to] enjoy the time.” The basketball team will continue its light work for the remainder of the quarter, as the Aggies get a much-deserved break before starting the process all over again.
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more sociable. Students may find it hard to relate to others on campus, so why not try a painful joke? Someone might find it rather punny and it could spark your next relationship. Laughter also has immediate effects. You can annoy your friend with bird puns, but they will eventually come to the realization that they toucan play the same game. While you laugh, Keltner has found that, almost instantly, you will have improved psychological functioning, especially during periods of stress. The study also shows how making someone laugh can help reduce the “negative effects of stress.” Participants, after a humorous moment, even “showed lower scores of depression.” In his book Laughter: A Scientific Investigation, Robert Provine, a neuroscientist and professor of psychology at the University of
Maryland, argues that laughter can bring people together. It can also help shape one’s character, making them seem “warm [and] cooperative.” Laughter is a positive emotion, and Provine illustrates how “laughter could produce a benevolent body chemistry conducive to health.” The book says that the power of positive emotions, like laughter, is more widely accepted by the medical world and can decrease “stress, anxiety, and anger.” It’s during times of overwhelming stress that students should engage in humorous activities. UC Davis has a variety of ways to engage in laughter, such as improv shows on campus, open mic nights, humor columns in The California Aggie and even just sharing a joke with a stranger. Remember, when you want to make a joke about sodium, it is Na... a very good idea.
THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2017 | 9
THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE
SCIENCE+TECH NICKI PADAR / AGGIE
Early ozone exposure may lead to lung disease in adulthood Study looks at lung remodeling in response to ozone exposure BY SHIVANI KAMAL science@theaggie.org
Air quality in California is significantly poor, with over 70 percent of Californians living in areas with unhealthy, polluted air. The state’s central valley region represents a highly impacted area of ozone air pollution due to its geography, vehicle exhaust and hot, stagnant air. A study awarded as a grant recipient of the UC Davis Environmental Health Science Center seeks to understand the mechanisms of how ozone exposure affects the lungs during critical time periods of development. High ozone in the atmosphere represents one of the biggest public health impacts, with potential to disrupt lung development, change lung structure and exacerbate respiratory diseases such as asthma. “Summer ozone in California’s San Joaquin Valley (SJV) is especially bad because of hot and sunny days
with stagnant air, lots of driving and the mountains that ring the SJV, hindering the dispersal of ozone and its precursors,” said Cort Anastasio of the UC Davis Department of Land, Air & Water Resources in an email interview. Ozone is a gas that occurs both in the Earth’s upper atmosphere and at ground level. The protective ozone layer occurs higher up in the stratosphere, whereas the ground level ozone in the troposphere is an air pollutant harmful to breathe. This gas is one of the main ingredients in smog, and can damage lungs, exacerbate asthma and in some cases lead to death. There is a worsening of asthma and respiratory symptoms on particular days of high ozone warnings. “It is helpful for students to be aware of high ozone concentrations during the summer so they can plan to exercise outside during the morning when concentrations are lower,” said Ann Dillner, an associate research scientist at the UC Davis Air Quality
Research Center. The formation of ozone does not occur by emission but rather it is formed in the atmosphere by a chemical reaction. “There are three ingredients needed to make ground-level ozone: nitrogen oxides (which come from vehicles, power generation and other combustion processes), volatile organic compounds (which come from plants as well as vehicles and solvent use) and sunlight,” Anastasio said via email. Ozone’s biggest effect is seen in children, specifically in exacerbating asthma. Laura Van Winkle, a professor of respiratory toxicology and principal investigator of the study, hopes to better understand the mechanisms and effects of lung remodeling in response to ozone exposure during lung development. This information is necessary in order to develop strategies that minimize the effects of harmful lung maturation for children exposed to ozone. Lung development occurs prenatally, while a baby is inside the womb. However, much lung maturation occurs postnatally, as a child is growing as a child into his or her early adulthood. Around young adulthood, humans achieve peak lung function, and that is the best function ever to be reached throughout one’s lifetime. “As you age and lose lung function capacity, it impacts one’s ability to resist disease and recover from colds,” Van Winkle said. “People with lower peak function in young adulthood have harder time later in life.” Previously, ozone-induced lung structural change had been an understudied area in regards to ozone research. The main event that prompted interest for this study was the human epidemiology study on UC Berkeley freshman. In a sample population of Berkeley students, results showed students who grew up in more polluted environments had significantly reduced lung function compared to students who did not grow up in
such a polluted environment. “What’s concerning about the study on Berkeley students, is it shows that air pollution reduced the peak lung function during the critical lung maturation time period,” Van Winkle said. “The reduced lung function is less normal and is the best they will ever have in their lifetimes.” The study intends to specifically study the effect of ozone on alveolar growth in the lung. Alveoli are tiny air sacs that allow for gas exchange between the lungs and bloodstream. Growth of alveoli may be disrupted by ozone exposure by remodeling the expression of key genes and proteins involved in lung growth. In addition, altered alveoli may impact the amount of oxygen provided to the body. “We hope to get a better understanding of what time frame [of lung development] is most susceptible, how structural change of the lung is affected and the biological mechanisms behind ozone exposure,” Van Winkle said. Van Winkle hopes to be able to apply her research to the community level and outreach to people in areas most susceptible to high ozone exposure. “I am in collaboration with the American Lung Association as well as partnering with stakeholder groups in the SJV to educate people about why it’s important to stay indoors when air pollution is bad,” Van Winkle said. Further information about air quality in California can be found on the American Lung Association website, with detailed statistics about prevalence of smog in local areas as well as updates on air-pollution regulations both for the state and federal level. “Students with compromised lungs should be especially careful to monitor air pollution conditions,” Dillner said. Looking for better ways to advise susceptible populations on when to be most careful in high ozone environments is the first step into preventing and managing possible health effects.
Less blood results in more benefits for burn patients UC Davis researchers discover less blood more beneficial for blood transfusions in burn patients BY HARNOOR GILL science@theaggie.org
Less is more when it comes to the amount of blood used in blood transfusions, a new study led by UC Davis researchers discovered. The study focused on burn patients who require blood transfusions to boost blood levels, which subsequently aids in essential functions such as maintaining optimal oxygen levels as well as healing wounds and damaged tissue. However, blood transfusions are also accompanied with potential risks, including acute lung injury, circulatory overload and infection, which is a leading cause of death for burn patients. These risks raise concerns regarding the quantity of blood that should be used in blood transfusion. The study, which was held at the American Surgical Association meeting in Philadelphia, was a collaborative effort of burn centers throughout the United States, Canada and New Zealand. It is the largest blood transfusion study in burn injury conducted thus far. “There was also a study done in critically ill patients called the Transfusion Requirements in Critical Care (TRICC) study that suggested using less
blood may be safe in stable ICU patients,” said Dr. Tina Palimieri, the lead author on the study and director of the Firefighters Burn Institute Regional Burn Center at UC Davis Medical Center. “Unfortunately, this study did not analyze wound healing or infection. Burn patients, because they lose a lot of blood in surgery, were not studied. Hence, we decided to ask the question in burn patients.” To answer their query, the researchers recruited a total of 345 patients with burns over 20 percent of their bodies and divided them into two groups. One of the groups received the standard amount of blood, which is about 16 units, while the other group received half of that quantity. The results showed that pertinent factors such as infections, wound healing and organ problems were similar between the two groups and, in fact, there were advantages to using less blood. “Using half the amount of blood decreases the likelihood of the complications of a blood transfusion,” Palimieri said. “Less exposure means that one is less likely to have a complication, including the transmission of HIV, AIDS [and] hepatitis. It also allows blood, a scarce resource, to be available for other people who need it.” Evidently, there are ample benefits of lowering
MORGAN TIEU / AGGIE
the amount of blood in blood transfusions. “The cost reduction is huge — our patients’ bills often are in the millions of dollars, so reducing costs is important,” said Dr. David Greenhalgh, UC Davis co-author on the study and Chief of Burns at Shriners Hospitals for Children in Sacramento. Palmieri added that the reduction in the amount of blood could result in a reduction of about $30 million a year in blood transfusion costs for burn injuries compared to the conventional practice. The study provides proof that doctors can safely use less blood in treating burn patients with no effect on their survival, infection rate, wound healing
or organ dysfunction. The evidence presented allows hospitals to define a safe and optimal threshold for the amount of blood that should be used in a blood transfusion for patients with severe burns. “This study is important because prior studies evaluating the use of triggers for transfusion in the ICU have not included burn patients,” said co-author Dr. Amalia Cochran of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. “A huge amount of blood was transfused for patients enrolled in this study, over 7000 units, and we were able to show less use of blood products with no deterioration of significant clinical outcomes.”
MAY IS BIKE MONTH Instagram Giveaway
Show us your path!
To enter for your chance to win, post a photo on Instagram of where you and your bike have traveled and tag @nuggetmarkets, #nuggetmarkets and #mayisbikemonth. (Make sure your Instagram account is public or we can’t see your entry!) One winner will be chosen each week in May, starting May 9, so get cycling! See official contest rules at nuggetmarket.com/contests.
THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE
10 | THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2017
ARTS & Culture I Q R A FA R O O Q A N D N I C H O L AS YO O N / U C BOA RD O F R E G E N TS
The 39 Steps: A stage version of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 action-thriller
A rich blend of comedy, murder, mystery BY MYA H DA N I E L S arts@theaggie.org
After an expedited four-week rehearsal process, five UC Davis undergraduate students from the Theater and Dance Department are ready to perform their version of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 Steps in the Wyatt Pavilion Theater. Starting on Thursday, May 11, audiences can watch these actors rapidly transform into different characters, perform melodramatic love scenes and execute intricate escape acts — all while speaking in a slew of European accents. Based on Hitchcock’s 1935 film, which was adapted from the 1915 novel The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan, what was originally an action-thriller has transformed into a work of comedy. “It is written as a straight drama, but it is definitely a comedy because it hasn’t aged very well as opposed to Hitchcock’s other works such as Psycho,” said Cailtin Sales, a fourth-year theater and dance major who will be playing nine different characters in the show. Besides the lead, each actor plays myriad different characters, going through rapid costume, accent and set changes constantly throughout the show. “I am playing three different characters in the matter of one minute,” Sales said. “I play characters ranging from a trenchcoat thug-type to a German Nazi.” Not only are actors physically jumping around on stage, but so is the set. Like the movie, the play bounces from location to location, a difficult scenic task to mimic, especially in Davis’ oldest building. “Wyatt is interesting. There is not a whole lot of space backstage for such a prop and scene-heavy show,” said Bonnie Devon Smith, a fourth-year dramatic arts major and the stage
On the beat:
Student DJs and producers
manager for the show. “I am getting some exciting new toys though, such as cue lights and an infrared camera because the booth in Wyatt is really hard to see out of.” Smith makes sure the show happens. From rehearsal reports to communicating with each department of the production, she keeps things running smoothly. Matt Skinner, a fourth-year theater and dance major, literally keeps things running as the lead actor in the show. A charming Englishman accused of murder, the main character Richard Hanays weaves through obstacles to dodge a group of spies who are after him. “He is good at escaping sticky situations,” Skinner said. “But he keeps his British charm throughout the show.” Skinner got up from his seat to demonstrate the various physical actions he will perform on stage. From hanging upside down to running around the entire theater in a wool suit, he is drenched in sweat by the end of the show. “There are parts in the show where I have to run a lot,” Skinner said. “I have to run through the aisles and everything. Oh gosh, I’m probably gonna step on people’s toes or something.” Though it has been physically draining, these student actors are excited to showcase their acting abilities after a rapid and committed rehearsal schedule. “When I’m not on stage, I’m running lines,” Sales said. “When I’m not on stage, I am still working on the show.” The 39 Steps will run May 11 to 13 and May 18 to 20 from 7:00 to 9:30 p.m, with matinee showings from 2:00 to 4:30 p.m. on May 13 and 20. General admission tickets are $18.50, faculty/staff tickets are $17 and students/seniors tickets are $12. They can be purchased on the theater and dance website or at the box office before the show.
Student electronic musicians talk technique, EDM culture
H A N N A H L E E / AG G I E
BY CAROLI NE RUT T E N arts@theaggie.org
Electronic producer Anthony Gonzalez, a third-year technocultural studies major, also known as Anthony Lost, started with a Facebook video. A simple ping or boop can prompt an idea for a mesh of electronic sounds. The pattern of his soundwaves builds off the simple sound of a video. That recording could be the next chart topper; that simple note will, almost comedically, be the building block for his unique electronic sound. The art of electronic music has grown to be a massively popular genre. “I will put a recorded sound in a program, from a sound from an instrument to a sound from a Facebook video, and in there I can play with the sound and it becomes its own creative process,” Gonzalez said. “You can play with pitch and a bunch of different effects. It gets so convoluted in all the different ways that you can change the sound it can often lose the original meaning of the sound, and it creates something completely new. I can add drums or whatever i think will go with it and it can create something you’ve never heard before.” According to Sammy Seaver, a second-year music and communication double major, electronic music stems from the music style of DJing, or disk jockeying. “DJing is a style that started in Chicago that used turntables and scratching with the objective to make one continuous song,” Seaver said. “You have a collection of various pre-recorded or downloaded songs and connect them to make one song.” A DJ is more than the person who plays top 100 hits at a party. Especially in the college scene, this style of music and performance has become a passion for many students, including fifth-year
music major Gregory Dibs, also known as God Dibs. “I like having a library of downloaded tracks and being able to beat match; it is its own kind of skill,” Dibs said. “When you are out at a party it becomes less technical, and you more have to feel the crowd. You could get a good reaction from the crowd or you could get a bad reaction and then you have to make adjustments. A lot of it is from hands-on experience.” The craft of DJing, therefore, is one that requires both an awareness of the crowd and the technical skills to provide such vibes. “For a live DJ, you want to keep a certain vibe throughout the whole set,” Dibs said. “You want to keep the tempo and the speeds of the song similar, and you want to tell a story. You want to show your ability to mix keys and layer drops in together to make your live mashup. I will never press a sync button that will automix and change the tempos. I think the personal changes is what makes the art of DJing — to actually make a good transition, weaving the songs together and having a good idea of the genres.” In order to further differentiate and vary his skills as a DJ, Dibs explains that he occasionally plays his trombone in addition to his live DJ set. “It surprises people because not a lot of musicians mix in live instruments,” Dibs said. By incorporating live and pre-mixed songs, Dibs has entered into a realm of micro-producing. Producing follows DJing, incorporating a similar electronic background. However, instead of mixing pre-recorded songs, producing is original, authentic work. “A producer, an aspiration of mine and most, is to compose your own music and to ‘DJ perform’ what you have made,” Gonzalez said. “Bigger DJs around the world do that.” STUDENT DJ on 13
Highlights of the Whole Earth Festival Lineup J ESSIE WON G / COU RT ESY
The Big Poppies, The Five Thirty among local talent BY ALLY OVER BAY arts@theaggie.org
During Spring Quarter, entertainment isn’t in short supply — from Picnic Day to KDVS’ Operation Restore Maximum Freedom Festival, live and local music is around every turn. However, unlike the aforementioned events, Davis’ annual Whole Earth Festival draws larger, more established musicians as well as a more eclectic sound. That being said, local favorites — including The Big Poppies, Pastel Dream, The Five Thirty, Tempura and Tha’ Dirt Feelin’ — will still be performing. Jessie Wong, a fourth-year psychology major and Liz O’Neill, a second-year managerial economics and psychology double major, are this year’s entertainment directors for the festival. They selected this year’s performers from over 100 applications. In fact, O’Neill and Wong hosted a staff listening party with fellow Whole Earth Festival members and volunteers, giving them a chance to hear potential performers before they were booked. “We are very happy to say we booked everyone ahead of schedule,” Wong said. “Usually in entertainment we’re working until the last second to get all the contracts done, but we’re around two weeks ahead of schedule in terms of booking.” O’Neill and Wong have selected some of this year’s standout performances: Geographer, Saturday 8:45 - 10 p.m. Quad Stage As this year’s festival headliner, Geographer’s wellknown dream pop sound is well-suited for Whole Earth vibes. His Saturday set will close the most wellattended night of the festival. Nine Pound Shadow, Saturday 7:15 - 8:15 p.m. Quad Stage This alternative rock group was recently booked at the local BFD festival. Hailing from Berkeley, Nine Pound Shadow will warm up the crowd before Geographer hits the stage. Hibbity Dibbity, Friday 9 - 10 p.m. Cedar Stage According to Wong, this self-defined “swamp funk” group is the so-called cousin of local band Big Sticky Mess. Expect some funky tunes and upbeat dancing. Louise Benally, Sunday 1:35 - 1:50 p.m. Quad Stage Benally will be speaking at the event, providing insight on Native American culture as one of the original resisters of relocation of the Navajo Nation. “We were able to carve some money out of our budget to bring her here,” Wong said. “Everyone is really excited, especially old members who recognize her from past years.” Tempest, Sunday 2:10 - 3:30 p.m. Quad Stage This Celtic rock group is known for their large fanbase and for drawing large crowds. “I don’t think people realize how big they are; they have their own tab at Amoeba Records,” Wong said.
In addition to these directors’ favorites are standout local talent. Among them is the blues/funk/rock group, The Big Poppies, who are making their return to the stage after a year-long hiatus, and the up-andcoming blues/soul/rock trio The Five Thirty. The Big Poppies, Saturday 2:15 - 3 p.m. Cedar Stage As the band prepares for their second Whole Earth Festival performance, The Big Poppies have plans to play some of their older content — but with a new twist. “There will be some new stuff, and some jammin’. We’re trying to get people to dance,” said Ryan McBride, a vocalist, guitarist and harmonica player for the band. “Old songs but played new. You wouldn’t even be able to tell that they’re old,” added Ari Schwartz, the band’s back-up vocalist and bass player. Lead guitarist and vocalist Max Van Dyke emphasized their excitement to be back playing together. “To the people that usually come see us, you’re going to be in for a big surprise,” Van Dyke said. The Big Poppies are not only frequent Davis performers, but also Davis locals. The band grew up attending the Whole Earth Festival, watching local bands hit the stage as young kids themselves. For them, the festival is more than another venue; it’s nostalgic. Make sure to check out their Saturday set and groove to some free-spirited funk. The Five Thirty, Friday 6:05 - 6:50 p.m. Cedar Stage Also born-and-raised Davis locals, The Five Thirty looks forward to kicking off the first day of the festival with their crooning melodies and soul-infused blues guitar. As brothers, Ben and Brian Simmons comprise the band’s vocals, guitars and drums. “Even though we all came into it with the same interests, we had some of our own personal musical interests and styles because we had all played for a long time before forming the band,” said Brian Simmons, a student at American River College and the band’s drummer and backup vocalist. The Simmons brothers met their bassist, Alex Timmons, during a recording session at their in-home studio, which they used for personal recordings as well as hosting other musicians. “We turned the loft of our parents’ house into mini recording studio,” said Ben Simmons, a student at Sierra College and the band’s guitarist and main vocalist. “One of the people who came over was Alex. He was in a different band at the time. He was in a band called Audio Wave, and he came over and was doing stuff for them. And I was like this kid can play bass really well, so we asked him to play a Homecoming gig at Davis High, my senior year.” Drawing influence from musicians like Jimi Hendrix and John Mayer, you can expect a similar variety at The Five Thirty’s set: some technical rock, some easy listening and certainly a good time.
NETFLIX’S
N ICKI PA DA R / AG GIE
REVIEW
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF NASTY GAL BY CARAJOY KLEINROCK arts@theaggie.org
Last month, Netflix dropped a new original show called Girlboss, based on the life of the creator of the company Nasty Gal, a vintage-type clothing company that started out as an online retailer. The show follows the life of Sophia Amoruso from her humble start selling clothes on eBay to the successful launch of her website. This show has received mixed reviews, because it’s so hard to sympathize with the main character; this is a good show to binge if you want to watch something so bad it’s good. However, the rags-to-riches story is a common tale and hits home with many American ideals. Sophia is a mess, to put it lightly, and we see this throughout the show. It begins with her life going nowhere but her attitude going everywhere. She is rude, tough and cocky, which causes a lot of problems for her. She can’t keep a job for her life so she decides to make her own business. She has a knack for finding pieces of clothing, transforming them and selling them on eBay. She then becomes the biggest seller of vintage clothing on eBay, and because of her success, the other sellers feel threatened. They boot her off of eBay and inadvertently give her the idea to start her
own business. This gives her the opportunity to sell herself as a brand; the name Nasty Gal arises as representing everything Sophia stands for. The show itself is shot in a grungy style that helps the viewer insert themselves into her life. She is a heroine who is sometimes hard to root for, as she is overwhelmingly selfish. At the beginning of the season we see her more as a child, but as the season grows, so does she. She is full of ups and downs that go along with learning how to be an adult, which adds a degree of relatability to the show. By the end of the season, I felt sympathetic for her and wanted to see her succeed, but her overbearing attitude was overpowering. The show’s timing is a little unfortunate given that, in November, Sophia stepped down as CEO and Nasty Gal filed for bankruptcy. To make it worse, the show was announced in February. Just like Sophia, the show is messy and is in its early stages of creating a successful show. The dialogue is amatuer, to the point where I’m tempted to call the writers and help out. I love the idea of making a show about a successful woman business owner, but I wish the show portrayed Sophia as more than a bossy alpha female.
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A more equitable film festival
Manetti Shrem Museum of Art features new exhibitions
Davis Feminist Film Festival to feature films representing women of color, queer women, women with disabilities BY PARI SAG AF I arts@theaggie.org
In 1991, acclaimed director John Cassevetes said, “I’m very worried about the depiction of women on the screen.” Aren’t we all, John? It often seems that little progress has been made in how women are represented in mainstream media, with female characters lacking complexity, authenticity and being used as mere tropes. And what’s most apparent is the lack of representation of different types of real women — queer women, women of color, women with disabilities. So, for those who have been feeling down about said lack of representation, it’s time to get excited, because the Women’s Resources and Research Center’s (WRRC) 12th annual Davis Feminist Film Festival is just around the corner. The process of selecting the 14 films that will be shown was a complex one; a 35-person committee made up of members of the community, faculty members and graduate students sifted through the astounding 923 short film submissions that had poured in from all around the world. Next, a group of 10 interns watched the top 60 of those films, meticulously discussed them and finally decided on the selected few finalists. Lindsay Baltus, an English Ph.D. student and the director of the film festival, noted that it was important to “build a lineup that was diverse in the people that it represented, issues that it talked about, themes, countries of origin, languages and genres.” Baltus believes that film is a powerful medium for change and kept a broader community context in mind while curating the event. “I feel that events like this represent some of the best things the university can do to address the inequities that women, people with marginalized identities and people of color are facing,” Baltus said. “I think that the university has a responsibility to make a connection between the academic work we do on campus and the marginal communities, including the local community that the university is situated in. So I feel really inspired by this event as a place where we can do that — the festival is open to the community, we’ve done a lot of outreach in Davis.” The film festival is certainly the place to expand one’s horizons for those interested in learning about the stories of all types of different women, as the varied lineup includes experimental films, documentaries, narratives, animation and dance films. Especially given the current political climate, it’s important to represent different people’s experiences in an open and empathetic way that will turn into a wonderful learning experience. Mary Rasooli, a third-year international relations major who is working as a communications intern for the festival, said, “When we’re fed so much rhetoric and people’s identities are essentially being politicized — immigrants, refugees, queer peoples — it’s important to bring all these
identities together and to show an alternative to what we’re watching and constantly being fed.” Through meeting with other interns weekly and discussing feminist films and subjects throughout the Winter and Spring Quarters, Rasooli realized the importance of being aware of who exactly is creating the specific art content that’s being consumed. “When I saw that a woman of color was making a film on women of color, that was something that was so much more special, and you could even see it through the film that there was so much for depth and beauty to it,” Rasooli said. “So ‘who’s writing these narratives?’ is definitely the question that I started asking myself a lot.” Angelica Garcia, a fifth-year psychology and Chicana/o studies double major, is also an intern for the festival. She stressed the need for a conversation surrounding feminism and its definitions. “I think we feel like we’re in a bubble in Davis, or we feel like it’s really liberal, but we forget that harmful and hurtful things happen here too,” Garcia said. “Our goal is intersectional feminism, so explaining that to folks is starting a conversation in places where we think ‘oh, we don’t need that here.’” Creating an open dialogue between all members of the community is vital to growth, understanding and compassion, and for Garcia, the festival is about creating “a healing experience and creating a place for voices that aren’t represented.” Community outreach intern Sabrina Lee, a third-year community and regional development and film studies double major, believes that “watching these films will break down a lot of that stigma, and break down a lot of the rigid definitions that people have created about what feminism looks like.” Lee reflected on one of the films that she’s looking forward to people seeing. “One of the more lighthearted films we looked at is Jessica, which does take a more lighthearted look into what ability, and ‘disability’ looks like,” Lee said. “I think oftentimes, we don’t let folks tell their own narratives, or put these certain expectations and standards onto folks with different abilities, while this type of film changed that narrative and made it so much more lighthearted and really made you love the character on a much deeper level.” Experiencing a wide variety of eye-opening, beautiful, honest and moving films that represent real, complex women might just be the best way to go down a more accepting and healing road during these confusing and frustrating times. Don’t miss this exciting event, which will be taking place on May 11-12. Tickets are now available to be purchased online and at the WRRC; suggested donations are from $5 to $7 for students and $7 to $10 for general tickets. Please check out the link below for more information, including line-up specifics: http://wrrc.ucdavis.edu/feministfilmfestival. html.
Experience a variety of artwork at UC Davis’ very own on-campus museum SA HA R FOROU Z A N FA R / AGG IE
BY SYDNE Y ODMAN arts@theaggie.org
UC Davis students are fortunate to have an abundance of resources available to them on campus, one of which is the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. This on campus art museum is relatively new to Davis, only having opened on Nov. 13, 2016, but it is quickly proving to be a fascinating cultural experience for all visitors. On April 14, the Manetti Shrem switched out its first exhibitions for brand-new artworks to be featured until June 30. The new exhibitions feature a variety of different pieces, including Sadie Barnette’s Dear 1968, YúYú by Marc Johnson and Recent Gifts, a compilation of gifted pieces to the museum from past UC Davis graduate students and more. “I like all the different types of artwork you get [at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art],” said Naomi Weiznan, a first-year history major. “You get paintings, drawings and photographs. The fact that entry is free is fantastic.” In Sadie Barnette’s first-ever solo museum exhibition, Dear 1968, she recounts personal family history in a political context with the use of photographs, drawings and excerpts of files from her father’s days as a founding member of the Black Panther Party’s Compton chapter. Dear 1968 not only highlights historical injustices from the past, but is also relevant in today’s political climate.
Recent Gifts celebrates the history of the Davis community in honor of the donors that made the exhibition possible with their contributions. All of the artists have some sort of connection to the UC Davis Arts Department — some were even Masters of Fine Arts students at the university themselves. YúYú by Marc Johnson is a short film following a Chinese beekeeper performing a rite of spring. The film is full of interesting visuals and contains relevant environmental themes throughout. “The philosophy of the museum is that no matter what exhibits are in here, they should all represent the community and the legacy of the art department,” said Stella Sappington, a first-year undeclared student and a Manetti Shrem employee. Arielle Hardy, the curatorial assistant at the Manetti Shrem, also described the processes behind the selection of each exhibition, and how they make their way to being put on display. “We try not to consider exhibitions individually, but rather to conceptualize a slate of shows that will run together,” Hardy said via email. “Sometimes an exhibition is built around a single object (YúYú, for example), but exhibitions can also be built around an individual artist (Sadie Barnette), or just start with a concept (Recent Gifts).” The Manetti Shrem Museum of Art is open on weekends from 11 a.m to 5 p.m and Tuesday through Friday from 12 to 6 p.m.; admission is free. For more information, visit the museum’s website.
Joel Sandoval Community Health Care Worker SRJC Graduate Read my story: stories.santarosa.edu
This Summer, Save $$, Take Classes At SRJC May 8 Open registration – online and in person June 19 Classes Start! Plan and enroll today: www.santarosa.edu/start Summer Session – 6 and 8 weeks Earn lower division credits – only $46 per unit Santa Rosa, Petaluma, online and countywide Instant Admission Saturday Services, May 13 – Free Assessment, Counseling, Financial Aid The Sonoma County Junior College District does not discriminate on the basis of race, religious creed, color, national origin, ancestry, ethnic group identification, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic condition, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information or sexual orientation in any of its policies, procedures or practices; nor does the District discriminate against any employees or applicants for employment on the basis of their age. This non-discrimination policy covers admission, access and treatment in District programs and activities, including but not limited to academic admissions, financial aid, educational services and athletics, and application for District employment. C17x.DAVIS.11.625x5.375 APR27.2017.indd 1
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words: “Greeks Against Sexual Assault: Put an End to Sexual Violence.” They contain the contact information of the president and risk management official for the house, the UC Davis and Davis Police Departments, and a list of confidential and non-confidential resources. Ruttkay met with Panhellenic, CARE, IFC and Student Housing to implement her design, and finally, the day before this year’s Picnic Day, was able to nail in these boards. “These are now up in every [social] fraternity and sorority house,” Ruttkay said. “It’s basically a pledge against sexual assault and it’s keeping chapters accountable for what goes down in their chapter house. This is not an incentive to point fingers at anyone. The point of these is to make [each] chapter a safe space and hold them accountable for what goes down in [their] chapter.” These posters are symbols of progress and accountability, and Ruttkay believes their physical presence is hard to ignore. “These posters are up — they’re not a sheet of paper; they’re nailed into the walls,” Ruttkay said. “Chapters know what they are. The members know what they are. It’s taking a stand against sexual assault.” However, Ruttkay and Rachelle Fishbin, a third-year women and gender studies major, and chair of the Sexual Assault Awareness Advocacy Committee (SAAAC), both agree that this progress is relatively recent, and that progress in general when advocating for this issue is slowed by stigma and a lack of sufficient support from campus administration. “It wasn’t until my junior year that I saw that [sexual assault advocacy] was something students were passionate about,” Ruttkay said. “[It] was getting shoved under the rug for way too long, and needed to come out. I don’t think we started transforming this culture until last year.” Fishbin and her committee are trying to make up for the lost years in advocating for this issue by addressing the cross-section between politics and sexual assault. “The committee [... is] really centered around policy and laws,” Fishbin said. “Especially right now, there’s like a lot of crap happening with [gender violence issues] because of the Trump Administration. So I think we are coming in at a good time to educate students.” Fishbin is especially concerned about Betsy DeVos’ appointment as head of the Department of Education and how this will affect justice for students in public institutions. “When Betsy DeVos was appointed, that was a huge concern to a lot of advocates and people who do work within sexual assault,” Fishbin said. “She, until this date, has yet to commit to upholding Title IX regulations for dealing with sexual assault.” Although Title IX gives students the rights and a venue with which to file reports, filing a report itself can be a long-winded and frustrating process for anyone to navigate, let alone a survivor who must also deal with the emotional scars they are left with. “The process when it comes to filing a report is kind of burdensome,” Ruttkay said. “It’s very complicated, and I honestly say that’s why a lot of students deter from filing a report. A lot of the times [the report] will get looked at and [discarded with the notion that], there [wasn’t] enough evidence to prove [it].” A UC Davis fraternity, Theta Xi, has been un-
der investigation for almost a year now. According to Ruttkay, the case has yet to result in a conviction. “It’s just really sad to watch that someone had the courage to report, and yet [heard that] there’s not enough evidence to validate that report — it hurts me to my core,” Ruttkay said. Marginalized communities such as the LGBTQIA community are especially vulnerable. They often suffer from higher rates of abuse, but their voices are not heard at an equivalent volume. “Rates of sexual assault are usually a lot higher in [the LGBTQIA] community, especially for transgender women,” Fishbin said. “Trump and DeVos have rescinded guidelines put in place by Obama that specifically protect the transgender community and specifically mandate that Title IX be applied to all students regardless of [their] gender identity. That’s really concerning. Without it, doesn’t seem like there’s any way to hold schools accountable who don’t protect transgender survivors.” Another marginalized population that suffers from sexual violence is the incarcerated. This population is not one that is often thought of, and even when media does highlight it, it is overridden by misconceptions and romanticised notions. Anusha Sundar, a second-year cognitive science and philosophy double major, is the president of Tutors For Inmates, an organization that reaches out to various state prisons and juvenile halls and tutors the inmates to help them succeed academically. As a part of sexual assault awareness month, they held a prison sexual assault awareness seminar. “It’s been my personal intent to start this sort of awareness in this local community, because so many people have misconceptions and preconceived notions from the media about sexual assault and rape in prisons,” Sundar said. “You see those kinds of misconceptions in prison rape jokes — no one really takes it seriously — and it dehumanizes [the inmates].” While Orange is the New Black, a popular television series available on Netflix, may provide fulfilling entertainment to some, it certainly skews the perception of this already complex scenario. “In Orange is the New Black, they have two characters who they portray as falling in love,” Sundar said. “One is a guard and one is an inmate. That’s not a really good portrayal, mostly because it’s not very accurate. No sexual act between a staff [member] and inmate is ever consensual [...] you can’t with the structure and the hierarchy within a prison. A staff member is in a position of authority, and there is no way for an inmate to say no. There is no true consent.” As is evident, UC Davis students, despite the setbacks, are tackling the issue of sexual assault from multiple angles and are trying to help diverse communities both on campus and in our larger universe. Whether it be through spreading word about resources, safe-space initiatives, designated awareness months or even advocating for those we don’t ever see, Aggies are courageously fighting a tough battle. “I think a common thing that [should be looked at] is humanizing people,” Sundar said. “One person at our seminar asked why it is that in those victims’ videos, the crime he or she performed [isn’t mentioned]. Another person [responded that] it doesn’t matter [what the crime was]. No one deserves to be raped.”
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With the exception of Maltby, the Aggies were a senior-laden squad led by Adamson, McKelvie and James Wade. “We had five seniors this year, most of them playing in the starting lineup,” Adamson said. “We had a lot of experience.” Wade and McKelvie combined to form a potent doubles duo that led the Aggies doubles teams with 16 wins. They finished out their careers as number one and two respectively on the career wins list in UC Davis men’s tennis history. “Bryce and James have had a lot of big clutch wins over the last four years, they’ve held down their spots really well,” Adamson said. “They’re great guys, they work hard in practice and they’re really good competitors.” Adamson is no slouch either. One of the most decorated UC Davis men’s tennis players ever, he was honored as the 2015-2016 Big West Player of the Year and earned a trip to the NCAA Regionals. This year, he finished with his fourth straight first team all-conference honors in both singles and doubles play. The seniors’ success is a testament to Steidlmayer’s
work. He arrived in 2012 and his swift turnaround of the UC Davis men’s tennis program has been a joint effort between his senior recruits and his coaching staff. “He’s taken the program a long ways,” Maltby said. “We’ve now beaten teams that we weren’t even contending with a few years ago.” With half the team graduating, the Aggies will need players to step up next year. As one of the team’s two soon-to-be seniors, the other being current junior Tommy Lam, Maltby feels as though he can help fill the void. “I want to be able to lead the team next year,” Maltby said. “We’re going to be a pretty young team, so I want [Lam and I] to take charge and get us to where we want to be, which is winning that tournament next year.” While it may be the end of a UC Davis men’s tennis era, a strong freshman recruiting class is hungry for its shot in the spotlight. If Aggie fans need any indication as to the direction of the program, it was announced on the morning of May 4 that freshman David Goulak was honored as the first ever UC Davis men’s tennis Big West Freshman of the Year.
and resources economics masters student. “[Bosworth] was a UC Davis graduate and is really passionate about organic rice and creating a habitat for wildlife, especially birds that need places to stay during their migration,” Barr said. “California used to have a lot more wetlands and because they’re disappearing, rice fields have taken [place] of that. A lot of migratory birds go north and they need resting places and places to get food.” Other student-led efforts promote campus-based food sources, such as Aggie Grown, an award-winning student group that works directly with DC chefs to order ingredients from the university’s resources.The Meat Lab, run by the Animal Science Department, offers students hands-on opportunities in the animal and meat industry. The Olive Center, originally a creative solution to reduce the olives that would cause hazards on bike paths when they ripened and dropped, is now a world-renowned leader of research in the olive industry. Russell Ranch is a 300-acre facility that is part of UC Davis’ Agricultural Sustainability Institute and partners with the university to perform agricultural research and provide field trips and internships for students. The Student Farm’s organic Market Garden, a production field on campus established in 2011, is staffed by a community of 40 to 60 students who work there daily to provide produce for the DCs. “[The garden] was created as an alternative ag-
riculture space by a group of grad students who didn’t like all of the conventional agricultural research that was going on around Davis,” said Lexi Fujii, a fourth-year sustainable agriculture and food systems major and Student Farm community events organizer. “They really wanted a space to try alternative farming, which is really just a lot of organic farming methods.” The growth of the Student Farm’s production has been rapid. Composed of only seven acres of land, it now grows about 3.8 percent of all of the DC’s produce compared to only one percent last year. In spring 2016 alone, the Student Farm sold the Dining Commons 970 pounds of cabbage, 407 pounds of beets and 270 pounds of potatoes, and it is continually expanding production. Despite these staggering quantities, the order and delivery process is simple and streamlined. “We order from our student farm on Google Sheets, they pick it, and our students pick it up and deliver it,” Barr said. “Sometimes it’ll be [harvested] the day of [...] and then it’s served.” Close proximity of ingredient sources enable consistently fresh food shipments arriving two to three times per week. To many UC Davis students, these sustainable food practices are a no-brainer, but finding out how food gets from the farm to the DC plates can enlighten even the most frequent of DC visitors. “Maximize the location [by sourcing locally] for good food,” Zhao said. “I like it. It saves money, and it’s fresher.”
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get this sense of belonging because I I felt like I was too Taiwanese for Americans but too American for Taiwanese. So that’s one reason, just to see what I could find in this club, to find companions and cultural identity, which I successfully did. It’s basically my family now.” One organization that bridges the gaps between multiple identities but connects on a common ground is Aggies for Israel (AFI). Israel itself is a central symbol for the three faiths Christianity, Judaism and Islam, and AFI works with the intention of educating students about Israel from multiple perspectives. Arielle Zoken, a first-year undeclared humanities major and the programming chair for AFI, has family that lives in Israel and spent last year there herself. Many of the organization’s members’ identities are connected to Israel for different reasons, but despite the differences, Zoken feels very connected to the other members. “Aggies for Israel has really connected me to the pro-Israel community here,” Zoken said. “Also making new friends across the board and having a space where I can dialogue. Because of Aggies for Israel and the connections I’ve made, I was able to kind of connect with those who understood the pain that I went through last year and how difficult it was, and that’s because Aggies for Israel had connected me to those people.” Another group on campus that serves as a social space as well as promotes education about their cultural past is the Armenian Student Association (ASA). “Probably the biggest event would be the mock wedding that we host,” said Gayane Malayan, a fourth-year biological sciences major and music minor. “A big part of Armenian culture is the wedding [... as] it’s a very big formal religious ceremony, which we don’t really follow in the mock wedding because the main purpose is to have fun. At least half [of the people who come] are not Armenian and are just friends who get invited, so it’s a way for us to show them how we like to have fun.” But the ASA isn’t all social events. One of the organization’s most notable events of the year is on April 24th, when members stand on the Quad and hold signs and chant in protest of the United States’ lack of recognition of the Armenian Genocide, a tragedy of the early twentieth century that affected the lives of Armenian students’ ancestors. “[I like] being able to protest and have the same cause as other Armenians,” Malayan said. “Standing here and yelling things out, I don’t feel embarrassed, I don’t feel scared or nervous. I feel like I have the support of other Armenians, because [...] our history is very rich and it has a lot of tragic things, but it has
a lot of very important things.” Being able to connect with other Armenians in college was not something Malayan anticipated she would want when she moved away from home, where she had been surrounded by an Armenian community. However, since becoming a part of ASA, interacting with people who share her heritage and her culture has been extremely comforting. “[I appreciate] being able connect with those people, like Armenians, it doesn’t matter if they know you or not, they are going to treat you like you’re close, like you’re family,” Malayan said. This situation is similar to the experience of Sasha Safonova, a fourth-year linguistics major and officer for the Russian Cultural Association (RCA). “I grew up in Sacramento, so that’s predominantly Russian, so for me [...] I wanted to see if there were different types of Russians in Davis,” Safonova said. “I met all these Armenians, Russians, from all over and who aren’t necessarily that cookie-cutter mold from Sacramento. I’m from a super Russian area, and I wanted to be a part of that but also see what else is out there, and that’s exactly what I’ve found here.” Kristina Harmonson, a fourth-year Russian and sociology double major and the president of RCA, chose UC Davis partly because it offers the Russian major. Harmonson found the RCA as the perfect outlet to find people to connect with and expand her knowledge of Russian culture. “I love the language, the culture, the people, the food, the everything,” Harmonson said. “I couldn’t be without it, and from the moment I met this club I felt like I was in a family setting. I felt so included, and that’s where most of my friends come from.” Although it’s a fairly new club, like many other cultural organizations on campus, the RCA is predominantly social, but sometimes offers members lectures and other educational opportunities about history and politics. Some of the most popular events the RCA hosts are its cooking nights, where new faces even Safonova and Harmonson have never seen before tend to show up. Harmonson said the best part of being in a cultural organization like RCA is the leadership experience and friendships. “Although you could identify with a lot of people, just meeting people who come from similar cultural values [is nice],” Safonova said. “I’ve met a lot of Russians who are from all sorts of different religions, but just knowing that you have a lot of cultural similarities and that you can understand [...] why people act the way they do, [...] we can all identify with that. [RCA] is small enough where you can actually build lasting friendships.”
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quoted saying that the numbers don’t add up to how many they observe on the street and at the programs provided for the homeless. How is the greater community upholding similar standards or practicing similar initiatives with this different target group? Or, more importantly, what is the greater community doing that’s different from the norm set by the university with which it shares a name? How does the Davis community distinguish itself from UC Davis on the matter of combatting food insecurity? I set out to answer these questions one Sunday at 1 p.m. in Central Park, the weekly meeting time and place of Davis’ Food Not Bombs chapter. When I arrived, I waited for half an hour before Facebook messaging the group to see if they were coming this week or if they had decided not to meet. At that time the Yolo County Volvo Club was eclipsing the park with a beautiful display of vintage and restored cars ranging in different models and years. Having not heard back from the group another half hour later, I decided to explore Davis beyond my student and journalistic assignment lenses, to simply be a citizen of the greater Davis community and find people with whom to talk. I did this also to determine on an anecdotal level the impact and scope Food Not Bombs’ work has in the community. I soon found myself talking to homeless individuals in Central Park and Downtown. After building up a comfortable repartee between myself and my interviewee, I asked each person if they sought out assistance through Davis’ home-
less resources and, if so, whether one of those resources was Food Not Bombs. Of the 10 people I spoke to, six regularly seek assistance and three of those six go to Central Park on Sundays for lunch. “Food Not Bombs is a blessing, but not a well known one, I fear,” said one woman who wished to remain anonymous. “I haven’t quite figured out if I like it that way or not. It works best for me because the resource isn’t being bled dry, but it also doesn’t serve the way it could if more people knew about it.” The four who do not seek any type of assistance have varying reasons as to why not, but the unifying opinion on the issue is that support is not regular, substantial and organized enough at the moment to make a significant difference. If there was more direct action and less bureaucracy, then there would be better reception not only by the homeless groups that Food Not Bombs tries to service, but also by donors and community members such groups hope to recruit. “A meal here and there, though appreciated, won’t help my situation,” said one man who requested anonymity. “I feel like the problem with the humanitarian non-profits or whatever else is that they don’t see us as people, just mouths to feed. There’s more to homelessness than feeding and housing people, though that is a big part of it. The main thing they’re missing or that they need to recenter to be their most important goal is seeing us as people before they see us as bums, and to get the government to do the same. Then real change will start happening, and then maybe I’ll consider them to have helped.”
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According to Seaver, once DJing moved out of Chicago and went abroad to places like London, it became more underground in the United States. At this stage, producing electronic music started its trajectory as a popular genre of music. As Seaver explained it, like a talented rapper will make his or her own “beats,” a good producer will do the same. The beauty of electronic music, to Seaver, was the genre’s ability to flip what he knew about music — the techniques, the production — on its head. “I studied music for so long, and you could hear a sound you’ve never heard before — it’s like discovering a new color,” Seaver said, “You don’t know what to make of it, it’s new. It follows the same patterns as other songs, it just a new dimension. If you study classical music, Beethoven and Bach wrote the rules for how music should be made and for centuries it followed. But now we have computers and can basically make new instruments.” For Gonzalez, electronic music opened a Pandora’s box of what he could do as a musician — what would be musically and artistically acceptable. “In 2011, Skrillex was one of the first-time artists without lyrics who got on the radio,” Gonzalez said. “That opened my eyes that a producer can be their own person, do their own tour and be on the radio. Before, usually a producer would have to give away your music away to some other person to perform, so seeing a DJ open the realm to being your own artist changed everything what is means to be an electronic artist.” A distinct creative process has thus emerged in electronic music, allowing inspiration to stem from various places. Moreover, the accessibility and openness associated with the genre has limited the amount of technical training needed to be deemed a musician. “You have the ability to bypass the acoustic and training aspects of music,” Gonzalez said. “You could have no knowledge of music theory and still be talented. I have a friend who is like that — he just clicks different sounds in and keeps doing that, and it sounds really good. He is one of the best musicians I know, he doesn’t even know how to play an instrument.” However, electronic music does not only imply a mastery of button-pressing. “The same musical principles apply in EDM music — I have a whole grand electric piano,” Gonzalez said. “I am using technology to allow my acoustic performance to be integrated into it. I am trying to get that live feel. With technology becoming so prevalent in music-making, acoustic and electronic music are becoming more of the same. Now you can click and make something sound like an acoustic sound. With microphones, you can record acoustic instruments and then layer them to make them sound electronic.” That meshing of electronic and acoustic sounds can allow for a greater play with sounds in general. Indeed, the strict configurations of genre seem to bleed in between the lines.
“My style has changed so much, and it feels like even monthly it is evolving,” Gonzalez said. “For me, I started making electronic music, but now I have found I can incorporate singing, bass and guitar. A lot of people think of electronic music as the style of EDM, but a lot of music is nonetheless made electronically on a computer one way or another.” For some, this accessibility of electronic music has diminished its seriousness in the music industry. “I was at Coachella a couple years ago, and Arcade Fire said ‘shoutout to all the people who are playing real instruments here,’” Seaver said. “It kinda separated people into what is real music now and what is not. A blues guitarist will respect an electric guitarist in one way. Even though they are different styles of guitar, they are all the same type of music that they are talking about. EDM and electronic music is in a different category — it is like a painter and a graphic designer. None of them are better than the other, it is just different.” Skill and technique seems to be a factor that differentiates this style of music as a serious art from a mere hobby. “It’s like the ideas that iPhones give everyone a camera — anyone can call themselves a photographer, but becoming a paid photographer has become even harder than it was before,” Seaver said. “Everyone can technically do it, so to be another level is even harder.” That same accessibility is part of the beauty of electronic music. “In the end whatever gets good music made is good and I think technology allows us to do that,” Gonzalez said. Electronic music, thus, can still hold merit and be used as a platform for musical growth. Seaver’s brother, popular electronic musician Mako, utilized the popularity of electronic music as a catalyst for his music career. “EDM can be a way to get your foot in the door because it is so popular and then you can expand upon it after,” Seaver said. “My brother knew that he would have to start doing EDM, but now that he got his foot in the door, he has been able to expand. Now, mixed with his electronic sets, he has a full band up there with him.” Don’t be mistaken; EDM music, primarily focused on melodies and killer beats rather than lyrics, can still foster intense emotions. “One of my favorite songs of all time is ‘Sea of Voices’ by Porter Robinson. It is just noise and a lot of layers, but when I first heard it, it was so powerful,” Seaver said. “On the surface, EDM can seem like it’s just for fun. It’s like a beer die tournament — you are not going to find the meaning of life with a beer die tournament — but there can be more to it.” Even without an emphasis on lyrics, electronic music can still convey poignant sentiment. Indeed, techniques can speak louder than words. “There is a ton of culture in EDM,” Seaver said. “It is representative of our younger culture. It comes at a really good time in our lives.”
being absent because the tournament coincided with their collegiate season. With a Team U.S.A. mainly comprised of young teenage standouts, this tournament seemed to be about building chemistry for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo. Team Australia came into the championship game winning every game in round-robin play, except one on May 6, when Australia lost 9-7 in a shootout to the U.S. Going into the championship on May 7, it was a hard-fought rematch of the previous day and the previous year between Team U.S.A. and Team Australia, and Team U.S.A. took the hard fought loss, 10-7. “I take away a lot,” said Bayley Weber of U.S.A. “Teamwork and the way we came together despite our loss. I feel like we had better chemistry even though we didn’t put away our opportunities, but as a team I feel like we grew a lot and learned a lot more.” The game started off strong for Team U.S.A., which won initial possession. However, shortly into the first period of play, Australia’s Elle Armit put one into the back of the net at the 7:14 mark, giving it the 1-0 lead. At the 4:13 mark in the same period, Armit made another goal, extending Australia’s lead 2-0. At 6:51 in the second period, Armit scored her third for Australia. Less than a minute later, Team U.S.A. equalized, and continued to shrink the deficit at the 1:25 mark, as Jewel Roemer placed a stunning goal at the five-meter mark to bring the score to 3-2. On a power play for the U.S. in the third, Aria Fischer scored at the 5:38 mark, tying the game at 3-3. Australia’s Rowie Webster matched goals shortly after to give Australia the 4-3 lead. On an even-strength goal around the two meter mark that same period, Keesja Gofers extended Team Australia’s lead 5-3, which increased to three after a penalty shot was scored by Webster at 2:18 in the third. Headed into the fourth period, Team U.S.A. did not seem disheartened, as Paige Hauschild
earned one for the U.S., bringing the score to 6-4 (7:18). Roemer scored a penalty shot at the 6:30 mark to shrink Australia’s lead to one. Continuing on a back-and-fourth goal scoring, Hannah Buckling added one more to Australia’s score at 6:05 for 7-5 in Australia’s favor. After two unanswered goals by Team U.S.A. at the 4:50 and 3:04 marks, the game was all tied up at 7-7. Armit scored her fourth goal of the game for Australia, giving it the one goal lead with less than two minutes remaining. After a lobbed goal at the five-meter mark, the lead for Team Australia extended to 9-7, and at the 0:03 second mark, Gofers put the final seal on the game with a goal. The three late goals by Australia proved too much to come back for U.S.A., taking the hardfought loss 10-7. Before the medal ceremony, individual players received awards for their performance throughout the week. The top scorer award went to Australia’s Webster, with 18 goals in the tournament. Best goalkeeper went to Jessica Gaudreault of Canada and Seidemann of the U.S.A. received the MVP award. Canada was awarded the third-place medal, defeating Japan 5-2 in the third place match. Team U.S.A. took home the silver and Australia’s win earned them the gold. These top four teams will meet China, Hungary, Russia and the Netherlands, which previously qualified in the Women European Preliminaries, in the World League Women Super Final in Shanghai, taking place from June 6 to 11 later this year. “We take a ton of things from this,” said head coach Adam Krikorian of Team U.S.A. “The key is what they take from this and hopefully they learned a lot. Hopefully the learning doesn’t stop and I am very happy with how the team listens, how receptive they were and how much they competed. I can’t thank Davis and the community enough. Everyone is so friendly and helpful and it just makes it fun to be here, and I can’t thank everyone enough.”
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Godzilla remake or the first Avengers movie. The other way nukes are used is as a means for bad guys to terrorize the world. They go after nuclear launch codes so they can deploy them and scare the world into giving them what they want. This is what the villains do in X-Men: First Class and The Dark Knight Rises. The nuke is usually stopped just in the nick of time and doesn’t go off at all, but when it does, it’s never in the middle of an important, populated area but rather some place where humanity can’t feel its full effects. It’s taken way out into the ocean like in The Dark Knight Rises or diverted through a wormhole and into an alien fleet off in space, like in the first Avengers movie. While nukes themselves are shown in modern sci-fi, nuclear war isn’t. The best option in these movies is to go in and neutralize the bad guys without the use of nukes. There are a few movies that deal seriously with large-scale destruction in modern times. Kaiju movies like Pacific Rim and the 2014 Godzilla call back to classic nuclear metaphors of the Cold War and the massive devastation monsters create. Alien invasion movies like Battle: Los Angeles and Independence Day 2 show what military operations in a nuclear-sized attack might look like and the dangers soldiers might go through trying to rescue citizens. However, a recent sci-fi movie that arguably best represents what a nuclear attack would actually look like is 2006’s Cloverfield. The movie, presented as “lost” hand-held footage, follows a set of characters who go from partying to running for their lives in a matter of minutes. At first, none of them know what hit them, and only after hours on the run do they realize they are living through an alien invasion. The fact that the film’s characters are average citizens adds to the realism of the movie. They never find out what’s truly going on, they don’t know how widespread the phenomenon is and they know nothing about what parts of town are safe or unsafe. They have no solid strategy and simply go from space to space trying to survive. And the audience is as much in the dark about the attack as they are. The U.S. generally monitors nuclear test sites, so it’s possible citizens would have at least a little warning before the warhead hits, but even so, citizens would have a very short time to prepare, and it could turn anybody’s normal day into a fight for survival. Even an hour of forewarning probably wouldn’t save most average citizens who would have to fight their way through crowds to a safe place, and even then may not be guaranteed survival. Though there are a few examples and representations of the devastation of nuclear war in modern sci-fi, it doesn’t seem widespread. Maybe it’s just the fact that we as a society aren’t ready to deal with the implications of nuclear war in the modern era, or the modern threat is too recent to have an impact on culture yet. If nuclear tensions continue to rise, I have to imagine we’ll be seeing a lot more sci-fi depicting that demise.
to revitalize less-developed college cities with an inpouring of well-educated individuals. And besides the immediate economic growth attributed to hosting more students, college towns also benefit in the long run as a result of multiplier effects. According to research conducted by Brookings in 2015, approximately 42 percent of four-year college attendees stay in the same area after they earn their degrees. Combined with evidence that individuals with higher levels of education tend to earn higher incomes, cities with large populations of young graduates are likely to experience an overall economic boom over the years. An influx of bright, inventive individuals will undoubtedly spawn a more robust job market, more high-tech, local innovation and a better reputation for the region. All of these elements make enrolling more students at UC Davis a tempting option. But if we truly want to witness sustained growth in
educated populations across all corners of the state, we must make an effort to pour more intelligent, creative and gifted young adults into areas beyond the condensed, highly-educated regions where many elite schools are located. Allowing other colleges and even UCs — such as UC Merced, which currently has less than 8,000 students enrolled — to embrace the bulk of Napolitano’s policy would breathe economic vitality into many overlooked counties while also enhancing the quality of all colleges across the state. By counteracting overcrowded classrooms, campuses and towns, California will ensure greater educational experiences, produce more satisfied alumni and attract more prospective students. The plan to oversaturate a small suburb like Davis with students, however, is an unnecessary strategy to secure funding that will only serve to water down the quality of education for those attending.
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this is partly due to the historical issue that you had with previous chancellors so I get that. But really board service is an indicator of thought leadership and it’s really a feather in the cap of any university or institution. I’m not the only chancellor who serves on boards, nor am I the only faculty member in the system that’s on boards. A good friend of mine is on the board at Intel and she’s a professor at UC Berkeley. Faculty members in general get outside income from many sources — there [are] people who consult, people who are expert witnesses for legal cases, a football coach has camps, people are comedians or concert pianists. Outside income is not necessarily a bad thing. So I’m disappointed it’s received this kind of stigma, and I understand why, but I’m disappointed and I hope to be able to turn that around. There are some students protesting the board positions because they believe it profits off war. How would you respond to that? The company, Leidos, does not make, manufacture or deploy weapons or make decisions that impact that. They have three business areas: defense, civil infrastructure and health. Defense does intelligence, info gathering, security, sensors, occasionally a prototype is built, like there’s an unmanned underwater vehicle that was prototyped in our San Diego office. But by the same logic, the university itself — many faculty have contracts with the Department of Defense and other places, so the university benefits off war if you use that same logic, and I don’t necessarily prescribe to that logic. [...] I’ll characterize what Leidos does on the defense side is keeping both citizenry and the soldiers in the military safe by providing information, reconnaissance, all those sorts of things that help people out on the field and give them more info to do a better job. The company does not necessarily benefit from war. I think that’s really crazy because the company existed from a company called “SAIC,” which has been in existence for 30 to 40 years and has been profitable in times of peace and in times of war, has nothing to do with whether there’s a war going on. I actually consider myself a pacifist and I also don’t like crime, but I’m glad there’s police.
ternal boards like Wiley and Sons and DeVry pose an implicit conflict of interest? Now, I’ve heard it argued both ways. Now, when you look at Wiley, the argument that says it’s a conflict says Wiley’s a textbook company and she could influence what textbooks are bought on campus. But if you know anything about how textbooks are selected for classes, chancellors have very little influence on that at all. You know, the faculty guard their curriculum very jealously, and, if I tried to stick my nose in textbooks for a particular course, I wouldn’t get much out of it. So there’s a perceived conflict, which I get, but I don’t think there’s an actual conflict in that case. Now, DeVry is a little different because DeVry was being investigated for some bad behavior. You could argue whether she should have used better judgment about that but as a board member you have some liability because you had fiduciary responsibilities to the company. [...] So, [...] rather than talk about her positions and decisions, I’d rather have us moving forward, because I don’t want to come off as being critical of my predecessor, I don’t think that’s productive. Would you consider utilizing income from board position for philanthropic purposes? I do now. Some of the philanthropy I’m engaged in now is a result of that income. Now I should say — I should make some clarifying remarks about the income. So for Leidos, it’s approximately $250,000 a year: $100,000 cash and $150,000 in stock. The stock does not vest until a year after it’s granted, so it doesn’t do anything for me until a year later, and I have to maintain a certain amount of stock ownership in order to be a board member because you have to have skin in the game, otherwise you don’t have enough personal interest to be effective. Thus far, in two years, the funny thing that happens is the stock vests, it becomes income that’s taxable and I actually lose money because I haven’t sold any of it. I’m not complaining — I certainly recognize the personal and financial benefit I receive from this, don’t get me wrong — but it’s not as straightforward as it might seem from seeing the figures.
Do you think that former Chancellor Katehi’s positions on ex-
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UC DAVIS WOMEN’S BASKETBALL BEGINS OFFSEASON WORKOUTS
Aggies finish season off strong in Round 3 of Women’s National Invitation Tournament BY B RAD L EY G EI S E R sports@theaggie.org
Just a month removed from its 2016-17 season, the UC Davis women’s basketball team is already looking forward to the next one. After a brief, four-week hiatus from basketball activities, the athletes are back in the gym. Since their Round 3 finish in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, the Aggies received recognition from professional sports teams like the Sacramento Kings and Rivercats, the California State Assembly and the Chancellor’s dinner. Now, it’s time to reflect upon the Aggies’ year as they ease into the offseason. Players like junior guard Rachel Nagel and junior forward Dani Nafekh are doing their best to simultaneously wind down from a long season while still working toward future competitions. As both entered their final years in Aggie uniforms, the grit and grind of the basketball season is nothing new to either of these players. “We go the whole school year, minus the break we have for about a month,” Nafekh said. “You’re free for Summer Session I, and then we come back for Summer Session II and train.” The proper balance of relaxation and training is important in preparation for the upcoming year. Working too hard right off the bat will do no good. It is up to the players to know their limits and listen to their coaches and trainers in the offseason. “We’re still recovering from a really long season, and it’s not going to be like, ‘Think about the season right now and getting a championship!,’” Nagel said. “It’s more [about] individual improvements and everyone focusing on one skill that they would like to master. Stuff like that.”
Team USA women’s water polo claims silver medal at Davis tourney
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It is at that time that the team gets to meet any incoming players, typically freshman, and let them ease into their roles as both students and team members. With only one senior leaving this year, forward Lauren Beyer, the team will go into the 2017-18 season looking largely similar to the one that played last year, save for the incoming players. Building off such a successful year, this should bode well for the basketball team, as many of the values that head coach Jennifer Gross has instilled into the team should only improve WBB OFFSEASON on 8
Looking back at the 2016-2017 UC Davis men’s tennis season BY R OWAN O’CON N E L L- G AT E S sports@theaggie.org
The UC Davis men’s tennis team concluded its 2016-2017 season on Friday, April 29. The Aggies finished another successful season under head coach Eric Steidlmayer. “We had a good year,” said senior Alec Adamson. “We finished second in conference regular season and we had some good wins over teams we’d never beaten before like [UC] San Diego, San Diego State and Fresno State.” The Aggies finished with a 14-7 regular season record and a
Softball (La Rue Field)
Friday, May 12 vs. CSUN at 3 p.m. Saturday, May 13 vs. CSUN at 12 p.m. Saturday, May 13 vs. CSUN at 2 p.m.
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Top ten observations from Major League Baseball thus far BY MICHAEL WEXLER sports@theaggie.org
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INTERNATIONAL WATER POLO on 13
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Friday, May 12 vs. UC Riverside at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13 vs. UC Riverside at 1 p.m. Sunday, May 14 vs. UC Riverside at 1 p.m.
M L B Ta k e s f r o m t h e F i r s t M o n t h o f t h e S eas o n
BY RYAN BUG SC H sports@theaggie.org
Future bright as Aggies bid five seniors adieu
Baseball (Dobbins Baseball Complex)
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USA national women’s water polo team secures silver medal at FINA Intercontinental Tournament
The U.S.A. national women’s water polo team made its way to Davis, Calif. last week in an out-of-the-ordinary appearance to face five other international teams trying to claim the gold medal in the FINA Intercontinental Tournament at the Schaal Aquatics Center from May 2 to 7. Greg Mescall, the director of communications for U.S.A. Water Polo, said that the organization looks for various factors when choosing the venue for tournaments of this caliber. “First, for a facility that can hold an event, has to have a certain size pool, stands, can support practices,” Mescall said. “Davis checked all those boxes and is a water polo community that appreciates high level water polo. When you have all of that together, it is a slam dunk to come to a place like this.” The FINA Water Polo League is the world’s first global league; it brings national water polo teams from around the world to compete in preliminary-round tournaments with the goal of advancing to the FINA Water Polo World League Super Final. The winner of the Super Final will earn the World League title and the largest share of the competition’s prize money. This year, the Super Final is held in Shanghai, China. As host, China automatically advances, leaving Kazakhstan, Canada, Japan, U.S. and Australia to play for the the top four spots that will advance to the Super Final. Team U.S.A. headed into the championship game going undefeated in the round-robin play, where every team in the tournament faces each other at least once, to earn its its spot in the finals. U.S.A. previously won the tournament in 2016, beating Australia 6-5. However, only two of the players who competed in the 2016 Rio Olympics were on the 13-woman roster, the others
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4-1 record in Big West play. Despite the regular season success, the Aggies’ season abruptly ended in the Big West tournament semifinals with their eighth and final loss of the season against a nationally-ranked Cal Poly team. The Aggies posted a series of big victories over the regular season, beginning with a 4-3 comeback win over UC San Diego, Steidlmayer’s alma mater, in February. “We were down in the doubles point, then we came back and [freshman] Max [Pham] and I clinched it in doubles,” Adamson said. “We came [all the way] back and won 4-3. That was a pretty good win.” Fast forward to the beginning of Big West conference play in March; the UC Davis men’s tennis team opened against Cal Poly, which began to take on a nemesis role after ousting UC Davis in last year’s Big West Tournament semifinals. The Aggies set the tone for this year’s regular season conference matches with a gutsy 4-3 win over the Mustangs behind the strong play of Adamson, junior Everett Maltby, senior Bryce McKelvie and senior Eli Whittle. Unfortunately, the regular season success didn’t quite transfer over to the Big West Tournament, as the Mustangs posted a 4-2 victory to oust the Aggies for the second straight year. “They have a lot of talented guys on their team and they’re known for being a pretty rowdy group,” Maltby said. “They’ve proven to play pretty solid in the tough moments as it gets closer to the end of the year.” MENS TENNIS SEASON on 13
The MLB season has taken off, and there have been many surprises in the season thus far. Let’s take a peek around the league. 1. Eric Thames’ Incredible Start Eric Thames, the former MLB flameout who went to the Korean Baseball League and learned how to hit off-speed pitching, has come back to the United States and has started raking for the Milwaukee Brewers. Thames has already hit 12 home runs and his batting average stands at a very solid .308. 2. Starling Marte’s PED suspension Starling Marte, the star outfielder of the Pittsburgh Pirates, was suspended in the middle of April for using Nandrolone, a substance banned by the MLB. The Pirates are currently in last place in the NL Central, so this suspension is a huge blow to Pittsburg. 3. Toronto Blue Jays’ Struggles After being strong contenders over the previous two seasons, the Toronto Blue Jays are struggling out of the gate. The Jays are in last place in a very strong AL East division and it looks as if a recovery to reclaim the division is a lost cause. They deeply miss the bat of Edwin Encarnacion, who departed for the Cleveland Indians this summer. 4. Yankees Come Out Firing The New York Yankees were not supposed to be this good this soon. After tumultuous years with overpaid and elderly players, the Yankees have finally invested more in their youth and have resurged. The big surprise this season is the start of Aaron Judge, the 6’7”, 282-lb right fielder who has been amazing in his rookie season. Judge is tied with Ryan Zimmerman
with 13 home runs, leading all of the MLB. Additionally, he has batted .320 to start the season, a number that many did not expect him to achieve after a very poor .179 batting average in 95 plate appearances last year. 5. Cycles Both Trea Turner of the Washington Nationals and Carlos Gomez of the Texas Rangers have hit for the cycle in the first month of the season. For those unfamiliar with the term, a cycle means hitting a single, double, triple and home run, all in the same game. This is a very rare feat, and for two players to accomplish this in the first month of the season should not go unnoticed. 6. Ryan Zimmerman: the Legend Once a great player for the Washington Nationals, age and injury have lent a hand to the decline of Ryan Zimmerman. He has not been a relevant baseball player since 2013, making his incredible start to the 2017 season dumbfounding. Zimmerman is hitting .435 with 13 home runs and 34 RBIs to start the season. It has been a tremendous surprise. With his play, coupled with the return of Bryce Harper to stardom, the Nationals have a legitimate case as the best team in baseball. 7. Cody Bellinger: Savior of the Dodgers Okay fine, maybe this is not as notable as other performances, but Cody Bellinger has passed the struggling Dansby Swanson as the favorite to win NL Rookie of the Year. Bellinger came up for the Dodgers after Logan Forsythe and Joc Pederson were sent to the Disabled List for injuries, and he looks like he needs to stay. Bellinger already has five home runs, 14 RBIs and is batting .357 in 46 plate appearances. Bellinger is assumed to be Adrian Gonzalez’s replacement at first base in the future, but with Gonzalez struggling, the replacement could come sooner rather than later. 8. Noah Syndergaard Refuses MRI Do not try to be a hero in April. After Noah Syndergaard refused a request by the Mets to have an MRI, he tore his lat muscle in his next start. Not a good look for the New York Mets. MLB HOT TAKES on 8
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