October 6, 2016

the California Aggie

SERVING THE UC DAVIS CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY SINCE 1915

VOLUME 135, ISSUE 3 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016 MONICA CHAN / AGGIE

FROM WHEAT FIELD TO GATHERING PLACE A look back at the history of the UC Davis Quad

BY ALLYSON TSUJI features@theaggie.org Ninety-five degrees, a cup of iced coffee and a gently rocking hammock can make the perfect combination on a warm school afternoon. But, while most spots on campus are not ideal locations for such a combination, the UC Davis Quad is the exception. “[The Quad] is really the true heart of the campus,” said Gregory Secor, senior project manager for UC Davis Design and Construction Management. “It’s the centerpiece. It seems to be the center element [from] which the campus has kind of grown.”

Located on the northeast corner of the UC Davis campus, between the Memorial Union and Shields Library, the Quad is an area of lawn designed to be a social space, lined with trees for shade and equipped with hammocks on either side, making for an easily-accessible hangout spot for students and faculty.

“The Quad is a centrally located oasis on campus,” said Steve Wheeler, urban design and sustainability professor of the UC Davis landscape architecture program. “It is popular partly because of its location at the center of everything. Everybody’s going by there every day — it is welcoming, it is green [and] it is shady.”

Though the Quad is primarily used as a space for relaxing, it is also home to many events and activities throughout the year. The Whole Earth Festival is an annual celebration that takes place on the Quad every spring; other events include the Involvement Fair, Lawntopia, Picnic Day and the occasional political protest.

When the UC Davis campus, formerly a family ranch, first opened in 1908, the Quad was an agricultural field for harvesting

wheat, barley and other crops. Every four years, however, the students and staff would come together to work on a project to better the campus. In 1932, the project was the Quad.

“It was supposed to be twice as big as it is today,” said Skip Mezger, a UC Davis campus landscape architect. “Unfortunately, [the university] didn’t really stick to that layout much.”

According to Mezger, the walkway outside the Memorial Union that lines the Quad was originally a pathway that ran from North and South Hall (originally dormitories) to Wellman Hall. Now, that pathway is filled with tables and students promoting campus organizations.

Though the campus has been renovated over the years, changes to the Quad have been minimal. For example, the cork oak trees that line the Quad today were planted in 1925.

“There’s a great history here,” Mezger said. “[For instance, the cork tree] is also a product tree; you get cork out of it. If you haven’t gone up to one of those trees, go up and push on the bark and it’s exactly the same cork they use for cork bottles. It’s a very interesting tree.”

Despite few changes to the Quad itself, its surrounding buildings were renovated more frequently. The Recreation Hall, a venue for sports, dances and more, was torn down and replaced by the Memorial Union in the 1960s, and the Shields Library entrance, originally facing the Quad, was moved to the west side.

According to Patsy Owens, a landscape architecture and environmental design professor in the Department of Human Ecology, these neighboring buildings contribute to the the Quad’s atmosphere.

“For me, what’s really special about the location [is] if you look at

other campuses [...] the common university space [is] often located next to campus administration,” Owens said. “What’s really cool about [our] Quad [...] is [that] it’s located next to the student center.”

Since 1932, the biggest change made to the Quad has been the walkway down the center, which was remodeled in 2008 to celebrate the university’s centennial. The walkway was designed by Mezger and Christina De Martini Reyes, UC Davis’ assistant landscape architect.

Over the years, the Quad has become a hub for main campus activities. Students use it for everything from casual frisbee practice to cramming for finals.

“The Quad is part of what [we call] the ‘sacred structure’ [...it] is a place where you can go to get away,” Owens said. “If you’re trying to study for a test [...] it’s a place where you can go and get your head together. It allows a lot of different things to happen there.”

Though the Quad is an important constant in daily campus life, Wheeler believes that environmental issues could impact it in the future.

“There are some redwood trees on the Quad, and redwood trees are struggling in this climate,” Wheeler said. “We do need to think about water. Are these trees going to survive this drought?”

According to Wheeler, the space will most likely make an eventual transition from “turf and trees” to a “native, drought-tolerant aesthetic.” However, it seems that regardless of aesthetic changes, the Quad will ultimately remain a space that continues to draw in the community.

“I think the thing to remember about the Quad is [...] the memories,” Owens said. “It [has] become our space.”

UC DAVIS ESTABLISHES NATION’S FIRST STATE GUN VIOLENCE RESEARCH CENTER State of California to grant $5 million to research center

BY YVO NNE L EO NG campus@theaggie.org

NICKI PADAR / AGGIE

ADVISORY COMMITTEE SET TO ASSIST IN SEARCH FOR NEW UC DAVIS CHANCELLOR

COURTESY / AGGIE

Undergraduate, graduate students to represent student body

BY IVAN VALENZUELA campus@theaggie.org

UC DAVIS HOSTS INDIA ART FESTIVAL AT MONDAVI CENTER A yearlong celebration explores Indian arts from different aspects

On Sept. 13, University of California (UC) President Janet Napolitano announced plans to create an advisory committee to assist in the search for a new chancellor at UC Davis.

Elly Oltersdorf, a fourth-year history major and co-chair of the Student Council on Campus Climate, and Brian Riley, a current Ph.D. candidate at the UC Davis School of Education and former chair of the Graduate Student Association (GSA), will serve on the 17-person committee.

The committee, which will help recruit, evaluate and interview candidates for the position, will help find a reputable candidate that Napolitano can then present to the Board of Regents for consideration.

Associated Students of the University of California, Davis (ASUCD) President Alex Lee was asked in August to present an undergraduate representative for the committee.

“In August I was contacted by the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) and they said, ‘there is that one seat for the undergraduates. As ASUCD president, please pick [a representative],’” Lee said. “I thought it would be very appropriate to have an undergraduate student who was there at the forefront of the movement that ousted [former chancellor Linda P. B.] Katehi.”

Along with Oltersdorf and Riley, the committee also includes Napolitano; Monica Lozano, UC Board of Regents chair; several UC Regents; Shane White, vice-chair of leadership for the UC systemwide Academic Senate; Debby Stegura, president of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association; Mike Child, the former president of the UC Davis Foundation; and Jessica Potts, chief administrative officer in the Department of Chemistry and former chair of the UC Davis Staff Assembly.

ADVISORY on 11

BY BETTY WU arts@theaggie.org The UC Davis Department of Religious Studies is collaborating with the Mondavi Center to host a yearlong celebration of Indian arts, titled “India in the Artist’s Eye,” from Sept. 30 to April 13. This celebration includes a series of photography exhibitions, concerts, lectures and workshops.

As part of UC Davis’ Religion of India Initiative, “India in the Artist’s Eye” explores Indian arts and culture from a wide range of INDIA ARTS on 11

On Aug. 29, University of California (UC) President Janet Napolitano announced that the first state-funded firearm violence research center will be established at UC Davis. This program will spearhead scientific research to aid the development of effective gun violence prevention programs and policies.

The research center will be led by Garen Wintemute, M.D., M.P.H., an emergency department physician and one of the nation’s most recognized authorities in firearm violence research for the past 30 years.

The State of California will give the newly established center will be given $5 million over the next five years. Jay Dickey, a former congressman (R-A.K.) and a member of the National Rifle Association, and Dr. Mark Rosenberg, former director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s injury prevention program, wrote a letter to the California Legislature firmly backing the creation of the gun violence research center.

In a UC Berkeley “Gun Violence in America” event series interview, Wintemute said that the research center’s first projects will start with the “basics.”

“We are going to look in detail at the epidemiology of firearm violence in California,” Wintemute said. “We are also planning to do a large-scale survey to learn about the prevalence of firearm ownership, factors associated with firearm ownership and the benefits that FIREARM on 11

DOWNTOWN DAVIS RECEIVES ARTSY PUBLIC PIANOS With support of local artists, city officials, In the Key of Davis brings music, art to the streets

BY CA R L A A R A NGO city@theaggie.org A piano-art project arrived on the streets of Downtown Davis this summer. On June 5, the city held a dedication ceremony for the public pianos project at the Hunt-Boyer Mansion. Since then, community members have embraced the pianos and shown their support for the project.

The creators of the project, Hailey and Isabelle Shapiro, ninth and seventh-grade students at Holmes Junior High, respectively, BRIAN LANDRY / AGGIE

R e d u ce . R e u se . R e c yc l e Th e Aggie .

PIANO PROJECT on 11

2 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

BRIANA NGO / AGGIE

WOMEN’S RESOURCES & RESEARCH CENTER

ALEXA FONTANILLA / AGGIE

Debunking UC Davis myths, stereotypes

BY AUSTIN CARROLL fe at ure s@t he aggie . org

TO BE MOVED FROM NORTH HALL WITH NEW LOCATION NOT YET DETERMINED, COUNSELING SERVICES TO MAKE USE OF FORMER WRRC SPACE

BY K ENTON G OLDS BY ca mpu s @ th ea ggi e .o r g

The Women’s Resources and Research Center (WRRC) announced through a public Facebook post on Sept. 23 that it will move from North Hall to another location on campus. With no timetable set or new location determined, few details are available regarding moving plans.

The WRRC, which has a 40-year history at UC Davis, has long used North Hall as a central location on campus.

“I don’t know exactly how long the resource center has been held in North Hall, but it has been a good long time,” said Ashley Teodorson, business and finance coordinator for the WRRC. “The women’s center has been on campus for 40 years, and it was originally housed in Lower Freeborn, but primarily for its existence it has been housed in North Hall.”

Counseling Services (CS), which has been located in North Hall for 58 years, is in the process of hiring additional counselors to meet student demand. This expected increase in CS staff prompted discussions about moving the WRRC. “We have heard from students that they would like more access in North Hall which can only be achieved by having more counselors in North Hall,” said Sarah Hahn, counseling director for CS. “Conversations were frequent about a year and half ago in terms of us getting more

counselors, however from my understanding, talk of expanding [Counseling Service’s space] has been going on for years, even preceding my arrival three years ago.”

Both students and the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) have been especially active in asking for additional counselors to meet student demand, according to Associate Vice Chancellor Milton Lang.

“It is a combination of our students who really feel as though there are not enough counselors within the system, UCOP hearing that and supporting that and asking the different campuses to move forward in that regard,” Lang said. “So I would say it is twofold: one, coming from our students, and two, UCOP embracing that and asking us to move forward.”

Lang said that, although students were consulted about the proposition of moving the WRRC, they were not directly involved in the decision process.

“I wouldn’t say that students made the decision,” Lang said. “Students were involved in a process that allowed us to get a perspective; staff was involved in that. We felt that it would be extremely important to have an opportunity to hear from all sides about what we are doing and why we are doing it.”

Lang believes that the WRRC is going to remain a resource for students on campus regardless of its new location.

“I can assure you that the WRRC is

A TEXTBOOK MARKETPLACE IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND

Davis Senior High School students develop smartphone app for local textbook sales

BY J E NNI E C HANG featu res@ th e a ggi e .o r g

High prices and long bookstore lines make buying textbooks every quarter a rough experience.

Amazon, Facebook groups and virtual textbooks are some attempts to solve this problem, but can still prove to be inconvenient. UC Davis students have two Davis high schoolers to thank in creating a new solution to this problem: Bookbag.

Bookbag is a newly released Android app that provides a community for students to sell college textbooks to one another. Users can post listings of textbooks they want to sell, search for specific books they need and set up notifications for when certain books are available. The app was developed over the summer by Davis Senior High School (DHS) students Sheehan Selim and Sam Chung. Selim understands the difficulty college students have with textbooks, having to buy books for a course he took at Sacramento City College over the summer.

“I know that college textbooks are really expensive,” Selim said. “Since [many of ] the same books are used for every class basically every quarter, there’s no need for a student to buy new textbooks and sell them [back] for next to nothing at bookstores.”

Bookbag is exclusive to textbook sales as well as being in the form of a smartphone app, which provides a quick and convenient way for students to search for and sell books to other students at affordable prices. The app is currently only available for Android phones, but the ambitious high schoolers are planning to work with an iOS programmer to make it available for iPhones as well.

“Because [the app is available] on smartphones, it’s much quicker and much easier [...] to post pic-

JUst Davis Things

going nowhere,” Lang said. “This is an asset to our campus that provides a great service to our students. There is a strong commitment to this program within student affairs and we are going to do all that we can to sustain the level of service and really explore ways to enhance this service as we move forward. We are not going to allow this transition to push us in [a] place where we are backing away from our commitment.”

Even though the final location of the WRRC has not been decided upon, other centers on campus have been named as possible facilities.

“I would say that we have had conversations about moving forward with the location at the Student Community Center, so we are having conversations with the students about heading in that direction,” Lang said.

Although the WRRC is going to remain on campus, Teodorson realizes that this change has been hard for students.

“This has been a difficult process for the students that we serve,” Teodorson said. “I think the best and most we can do is try to understand the needs of the students that the WRRC serves and that Counseling Services serves and try our best to work together to kind of come to a solution that centers the experiences of our students. I think we are all trying to do that and I think we will continue trying to do that.”

Does the entire campus actually have the scent of the Tercero dairy cows? Is taking Chem 2A truly the worst decision any undergraduate student could ever make? Is Davis really surrounded by desolate farmland? UC Davis is subject to a variety of myths and stereotypes, however, some tend to be truer than others.

There is no doubt that UC Davis has cows. In fact, cows are not only an animal on campus, but they are also a destination — visiting the dairy cows next to the Tercero dorms is number four on the Aggie Traditions List. However, the potent scent that these cows bring has founded the stereotype that UC Davis is a “cow town.”

“I don’t think it’s an actual stereotype — it smells by the freshman dorms because they’re closer to the actual dairy,” said Lizzie Riggall, a second-year animal science major who has interned at the dairy. “I haven’t smelled it on the main part of campus, but I could just be used to it by now.”

Although the Davis cow town stereotype can seem to prevail, class rumors floating around, such as the first course in the lower division Chemistry series, CHE 2A, being an impossible feat, appear to be relative to the student.

“The freshman come into it not really knowing how to study yet,” said Kimberly Trevino, a first-year graduate student in the department of chemistry and chemistry tutor. “They think they can just attend lecture to get through [CHE 2A], but in actuality you have to attend lecture and go through all the practice problems to master them, because when coming to the exam [...] you should just know how to do it.”

Another overarching stereotype that other UCs have coined for UC Davis is that farmland isolates Davis from the rest of the world, the only fun thing available on the weekends being to visit Yoloberry for some frozen yogurt. However, this is not necessarily true, for if someone is seeking adventure, Davis is in between most activities imaginable.

“I just got back from guiding a six day Yosemite trip,” said Jess Tierney, a fourth-year environmental science major and Outdoor Adventure guide. “Point Reyes is also pretty close [and] our day hikes usually go to Auburn which is just east of Sacramento. We go to the Sierras, there is a car camping trip to Tahoe and sea kayaking in Tahoe and Tamalpais bay. Everything is relatively close and if you wanted to take a trip on your own it’s pretty easy to get to those spots.”

An event that is stressed every year in the months leading up to spring is UC Davis’ well-known Picnic Day. The community, students, plus campus organizations and departments that showcase their year’s work for the city during this April festival usually agree that this is an important day of the year.

“Picnic Day is a very fun day on campus and allows clubs and organizations to show the interested and active lifestyle of students,” said Oscar McBain, a second-year international relations student. “It’s a very well-rounded day and it appeals to both parents and students. It really brings people together.”

Of all the stereotypes other parts of California may designate to the UC Davis campus, Davis being a bike town is one that will stand true for the years to come.

“I’ve heard at least statistically that [Davis] is the second highest city in the world for biking,” said Jeremiah Kepner, a Davis resident who held a free bike repair event last Wednesday. “It is very much a bike town, and everyone uses bikes to either commute or road bike for fun. It’s easy to get to where I need to be, and I don’t have to worry about how long I am parked.”

AMY HOANG / AGGIE LUCY KNOWLES / AGGIE

tures [and] books,” Selim said. “There obviously are [other] platforms right now for selling textbooks [...] but I wanted something more. I wanted something that emphasizes community.”

Bookbag includes a profile feature for displaying personal and professional information for transparency, as well as chat feature for direct contacting. Users also have the option of connecting their Facebook accounts with the app.

“We want to make sure everybody [on Bookbag] is real, and they have a safe and cheap way to get books,” Selim said.

When Selim came up with Bookbag as a way of giving back to the Davis community, he partnered up with Chung, an experienced Android programmer for the Davis High School (DHS) robotics team, and the two students began the project in May. “I used a developing environment called Android Studio, which you can use Java and XML to design and program an Android application,” Chung said.

Over the summer, the pair researched, designed and programmed the app. The two students faced several challenges throughout the project, such as traveling abroad during the summer and learning new skills necessary for the development process.

“I’ll say over 80 percent of the functionality and programming part of the app was new to me,” Chung said. “I had to self-teach throughout the summer – it was tough. There were a lot of bugs.”

Nevertheless, they overcame these challenges and successfully completed the project, and released the app in early September.

“Robotics taught me that it’s not about the skill of a programmer [... it’s] if they have the will to continue [...] to search for new ways to fix a problem,” Chung said. “This project really taught me how to persevere and problem-solve.”

Selim began programming the summer after hissophomore year, and the app’s success has even ended up changing his career plans.

Peet’s Coffee donates $250,000

BOOKBAG on PAGE 11

COFFEE on PAGE 11

TO FUND A PILOT ROASTERY AT NEW COFFEE CENTER ON CAMPUS Center will be devoted to post-harvest coffee research, engineering

BY DE MI CACERES ca m pus @ t he aggie . org

Peet’s Coffee recently announced a gift of $250,000 to UC Davis to fund the Peet’s Coffee Pilot Roastery, which will be part of the upcoming new Coffee Center on campus.

The project was initiated by faculty and staff within the engineering department, specifically those involved in ECM 1: The Design of Coffee, which started off as a freshman seminar but became a full-fledged general education course in Winter Quarter of 2014.

Bill Ristenpart, professor of chemical engineering, will lead the Coffee Center and Peet’s coffee pilot roastery. He will be accompanied by colleagues Tonya Kuhl, professor of chemical engineering, and Jean-Xavier Guinard, professor and sensory scientist in the Department of Food Science and Technology.

Vincent Dagenese, a Peet’s Coffee representative, said that Peet’s Coffee chose to grant UC Davis with this gift because they believe there is no better place to continue working on classic craft roasting.

“We wanted to spread the knowledge and love for coffee, and [UC Davis is] a good place to do that,” Dagenese said. “The main purpose is to keep the legacy of original craft roasting alive.

With some of the coffee companies today, the coffee is not original and not high quality, so we want to keep it as original as possible, evoke a positive aspect and keep the movement alive.”

Andy Fell, associate director of news and me-

dia relations at UC Davis, believes this was a beneficial gift for students and a chance to expand the research on coffee roasting.

“It was a very generous donation by Peet’s Coffee,” Fell said. “They did it because they believe it is important to have a research institution like ours to study the science of coffee [and] it is something beneficial for the students taking the Design of Coffee Class here at [UC] Davis.”

The new center will be located on the north side of the UC Davis Arboretum, alongside the campus winery, pilot brewery and food-processing facilities at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science. After completion, the center will not only include the Peet’s Coffee Pilot Roastery, but also office space, an experimental green-coffee storage facility, a sensory analysis laboratory and advanced analytical labs. The Coffee Center will be the first multidisciplinary university research center in the the world dedicated to post-harvest studies of coffee.

Researchers at the center will study the microbiology of green coffee fermentation, sensory and consumer science and the chemistry behind roasting and brewing.

“The Coffee Center will generate unparalleled teaching, research and collaborative opportunities for our students, scientists and engineers, as well as for industry partners and visitors from around the world,” said Jennifer Sinclair Curtis, dean of the College of Engineering in a statement for UC Davis News Media and Relations. “We are proud

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016 | 3

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

GOING GREEK

DANIEL TAK / AGGIE

NADIA DORIS / AGGIE

NEW INTERNATIONAL CENTER OPENS CENTER TO OFFER INTERNATIONAL STUDENT RESOURCES IN CENTRALIZED LOCATION

BY AUSTIN CARROLL c ampus@t he aggie . org

Panhellenic students discuss sorority, fraternity recruitment

BY A MANDA C RUZ feautu re s@ th e a ggi e .o r g

Before even coming to a university, many students already know whether or not they are going to participate in Greek life. However, prior to joining up, students set on sorority and fraternity life have to endure the infamous “rush week.”

The Panhellenic council is an organization that governs all social interest sororities on campus. It oversees a total of ten sororities on this campus, including two associate organizations that do not participate in formal recruitment.

“We have Formal Recruitment at the beginning of Fall Quarter every year where are all eight chapters participate in open house activities,” said Panhellenic Council President Suzi Jacobs, a fourth-year communication and psychology double major. “[The sororities’] active members speak with members who are going through the recruitment process.

This year we had about 560 people go through recruitment.”

Each day of recruitment has a theme and gives potential new members a chance to get to know each chapter on campus. Jacobs stressed the importance of potential members finding a chapter that will help them grow, and for current members to find recruits who can help the chapter grow.

This process is called “values-based recruitment.”

Special-interest sororities have different motivations behind their recruitment guidelines. For the latina-based sorority Lambda Theta Nu, the recruitment process is longer.

“We’re always recruiting — we have socials for people to come and get to know us [and] study jams where people can get study help,” said Lambda Theta Nu treasurer Quetzalli Haro, a fourth-year political science and chicano studies double major. “That way the girls can start getting to know us — we want to build that home away from home. After that they can decide whether they want to start the process [of becoming a member] or not.”

Lambda Theta Nu is based on the three pillars: academic excellence, community service and sisterhood. Their motivation is to help Latinas thrive on a college campus.

“A lot of Latinas don’t make it to higher education, and

we are here on campus to make sure [Latinas] get where we have to go,” Haro said. “[Our chapter has] the highest GPA in our council, and we are in the top ten amongst all the sororities and fraternities on campus.”

For Haro, the recruitment process is vital in helping potential members understand the goals of the sorority and how they fit in with those goals. Their sisterhood is about inner growth through support that their sisterhood provides.

In addition to social and multicultural options available on campus, professional co-ed fraternities based on major or career choices are just as sought-after. Melissa Leong, thirdyear neurobiology, physiology and behavior major rushed a pre-medical fraternity during the Fall Quarter of her first year, but did not get initiated. She found that rushing too early in her college career was not for her.

“In high school I knew everyone in my classes because we would all take the same classes together,” Leong said. “Going to college, [rushing] and meeting people for only five minutes [at a time] was a really big change for me, and I didn’t like that.”

Leong chose a fraternity with special interest in pre-med in order to focus more on the academic support that Greek life offers. Recruitment activities for the fraternity lasted one week, and included events during which she got to know both members and potential members.

“If you want to rush then go ahead!” Leong said. “But, if it doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t hurt to wait until later on.

There will be more chances for you to do it.” Leong is currently planning on rushing a service-oriented fraternity focused on philanthropy and the community this fall.

She feels more confident this time round because of the time she took to experience meeting and interacting with new people outside of the Panhellenic spectrum. “[Rushing] is not a spur of the moment decision,” Haro said. “Do [your fellow members] hold your ideals? Do you fit in? Are they your home away from home? Does [the chapter] do things you would be proud of? [Joining a sorority or fraternity] is a lifetime commitment, and you need to look for what you want.”

The new International Center, located on California Avenue and Beckett Hall Drive, opened its doors to students this August. The center provides services to international students and scholars, as well as students who are interested in studying abroad.

Previously, the various international resources were not in a centralized location, with the study abroad office located off-campus and the extension center positioned by the student farm. Three Glob-

al Affairs departments comprise the new center: the Services for International Students and Scholars (SISS), Study Abroad and the UC Davis Extension Center. A space is also currently being built for the Office of the Vice Provost within the center.

“All our international centers were dispersed, so at some point someone said that we need to address this and get all these services in one building,” Vanda Rovis, project manager, said. “If somebody is coming and needs to find support, it’s all here.

INTERNATIONAL on PAGE 11

THE HR GROUP ARCHITECTS / COURTESY

HOPEFUL HYATT HOUSE HOTEL DENIED APPROVAL BY PLANNING COMMISSION Plans to develop a new hotel in South Davis faces final vote in City Council

BY JUNO BHARDWAJ-SHAH c it y@t he aggie . org

The Davis Planning Commission voted down a proposal on Sept. 14 to approve the development of a new extended stay hotel in South Davis. The project, which will be built in South Davis on Cowell Boulevard, has faced significant opposition from community members in Rose Creek, many of whom are concerned about the disruption the development will have on the area.

Guneet Bajwa, managing principal of Presidio Companies, who is seeking to build the Hyatt House development, rec-

ognized the community concerns. However, he emphasized that the project will provide an economic boost to the city, which currently has a shortage of high-end hotels.

He hopes a hotel will introduce new shops, cafés and restaurants for Rose Creek residents.

“There’s a very big demand in the city for an extended stay [hotel] and the UC which is the biggest driver of business in Davis, they want an upscale brand,” Bajwa said. “Hyatt is globally known as one of the most upscale brands, so that’s why we HYATT on PAGE 11

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THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

Opinion the California Aggie

FROM THE EDITORIAL BOARD Create a more inclusive UC Davis

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 ELISABETH MCALLISTER Social Media Mangager MADELINE ONG Newsletter Manager DANIELLA TUTINO Advertising Manager

BY THE EDITORIAL BOAR D The University of California (UC) made its strongest effort yet to create a more inclusive public university system by admitting the most diverse class in its history this fall. Following efforts by the UC to recruit from disadvantaged high schools and communities, 38 percent of first-year students are minorities who have traditionally been underrepresented in higher education.

UC Davis, while average compared to other UC schools in terms of admitting black students and other minority groups, showed the most promise in a move toward a greater population of Latinx and Chicanx students.

The Latinx/Chicanx community is the fastest-growing demographic group at UC Davis, making up 24.6 percent of the incoming first-year class this fall and reflecting over 1000, additional students from the previous year. The 24.6 percent figure is also important because when UC Davis hits a 25 percent Hispanic population as a whole, it becomes eligible to be designated as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) which can then receive extra funding from the federal government.

UC Davis’ drive to become an HSI was led in part by then-chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi who, in an op-ed for the Huffington Post, said, “We’re aggressively pursuing this goal because it’s right for the state and our kids and because our shifting demographics make it clear that if California and the U.S. are to remain competitive, we can’t afford to leave behind this growing population.”

The goal she outlined was to earn the distinction by the 2018-19 school year, which can’t come soon enough. The Latinx community is the largest ethnic group in California — 39 percent as of 2014 — so ensuring that they are recruited to Davis isn’t just a matter of earning the HSI distinction; it’s a matter of creating equal opportunity. When one group is underrepresented — and several are at Davis — the quality

of education and student life decreases for everybody.

With few exceptions, students who are exposed to a more diverse educational environment have been shown to hold more positive racial attitudes than their peers in more homogenous environments. At a time when social divisions seem to be widening, and UC Davis has its own trouble with racial sensitivity, the need for inclusivity takes on an added urgency.

It’s imperative, then, that once this university becomes HSI, investments be made in student scholarships and in programs like Achieve UC, which sends admissions representatives on recruitment missions to high schools with low college attendance rates. There’s no reason that UC Davis shouldn’t model itself after UC Merced, an HSI that was founded partly on the promise of expanding educational opportunity for disadvantaged Hispanics in the Central Valley.

If UC Davis “adopts” schools in the Sacramento area with the goal of engaging potential students, it will create a unique opportunity to be academically competitive on both a global and local stage.

Funding should also be diverted to programs that already exist on campus, like ones provided by the Student Recruitment and Retention Center, that assist in retaining students who are at risk of dropping out of school. Encouraging a more diverse student body amounts to nothing more than lip service if steps aren’t taken to guarantee that disadvantaged students find community and academic help.

But even with the HSI designation imminent, problems remain. At the UC Regents meeting in May, UC officials acknowledged that African Americans on tenure track made up only two to four percent of faculty on all campuses. Latinx faculty made up two to 12 percent. Only until the University of California can guarantee diverse undergraduate, graduate and faculty populations can it fully achieve the ideal that a public university should be open to everybody.

Enervating Enrollment RECONTEXTUALIZING THE CALIFORNIA RESIDENT VS NONRESIDENT DEBATE

BY NICK IRVIN ntirvin@ucdavis.edu A fresh school year has brought a new wave of discussion on the University of California’s enrollment figures. This year’s class is the most diverse in UC history. But it’s time for me to be the bad guy and bring the conversation back to a hot button issue of recent years: the controversy surrounding increasing nonresident enrollment. It’s important to avoid demonizing nonresidents in this discussion. Recognizing universities which have the best system for both residents and nonresidents is imperative.

Let’s look at some data from my home state of Arizona and compare its public university system to California’s. California has 32 public universities available to undergraduates and Arizona has three. For every 1.2 million California residents there is a public university, whereas in Arizona the number bends upward to one public university for every two million residents.

Based on these numbers, it appears as if Californians have less of a “squeeze” for public univer-

sity placement than Arizona does.

But there’s a caveat with these statistics — they don’t account for differences in the demand for public education, and therefore the numbers don’t tell the whole story. To account for this, we must examine general enrollment trends for Californians in concert with statewide population statistics for college age individuals.

There was a 16 percent increase in the number of Californians aged 20 to 24 from 2000 to 2010. Over the same time period, there was a 21 percent increase in enrollment of Californians at UC Davis; there was actually a greater number of Californians enrolled at Davis than statewide demographic trends would indicate.

Let’s examine more recent years. From 2010 to 2014, there was an estimated 4 percent increase in the number of Californians aged 20 to 24. During the same time period, UC Davis saw a 5 percent increase in Californian enrollment. UC Davis has not been shorting Californians at all; on the contrary, Davis has been a model for equitable enrollment practices.

The UC system as a whole experienced more

pronounced enrollment figures for Californians compared to the statewide 20 to 24 age-range statistics from 2000 to 2010. During these years, the UC system saw a 27 percent increase in Californian enrollment as a whole. But enrollment fell flat between 2010 and 2014. During that time period, enrollment figures for California residents at UCs overall remained stagnant, despite the four percent increase in Californians aged 20 to 24 in the same window.

The only campuses which saw a comparable increase in enrollment of Californians from 2010 to 2014 were Davis and Merced. Berkeley and San Diego saw a substantial decrease in Californian enrollment, while the rest remained more or less stagnant.

Criticism may be warranted, but it should be focused in the right direction. The blame for stagnating enrollment should not be cast on nonresidents. Instead, certain schools should be charged with failing to work hard enough to ensure enrollment figures reflect demographic changes.

Nonresident enrollment has increased substantially in the UC system. This in and of itself should

not be a problem: more nonresidents enable diversity of thought and enrich college campuses with cultural awareness somewhat akin to studying abroad. (In a perfect world this practice would exist because of its potential social benefits and not for monetary reasons, but that’s a whole different ballgame.)

The million-dollar question is whether nonresident student growth spells doom for California residents. The answer is nuanced. Data from California reveals a gap between general population trends and enrollment for residents. However, some schools like Davis can move the numbers higher in both camps at the expense of none.

This is the ideal paradigm. Understanding what works at the university level is paramount to fixing any perceived injustice in enrollment. As for the student perspective, I implore the following: consider the experiences of nonresidents before jumping on the anti-nonresident bandwagon.

Ask whether you would feel comfortable facing ever-increasing backlash against your origin. Reflect on the power of acceptance and the impacts of diversity. Nonresidents are people, too.

The 2050 Challenge HOW ARE WE GOING TO FEED OVER NINE BILLION PEOPLE?

BY ALICE ROCHA asrocha@ucdavis.edu Did you know in France it’s illegal to throw away food past its “best by” date? Unsold products from grocery stores are sent to food banks, and the repurposed food generates over 10 million meals for those suffering from food instability.

In America, expired food goes to the dumpster.

The United States produces the greatest amount of food waste in the world. This wasted food includes food that is expired, overstocked or considered too “ugly” to sell. Today, we produce enough food to feed the entire population, yet millions do not receive enough food to lead a healthy lifestyle. In the U.S. alone, one in eight people are going hungry.

The world population grows by more than 200,000 people per day. Most of this growth comes from developing regions like Asia and Africa. Whereas the United States underwent its industrial revolution between 1760 and 1840, many underprivileged regions have only in the last few decades started to achieve the same level of manu-

facturing and production.

With increasing industrialization, countries also experience population booms, leading to improved diets and a higher demand for food. This includes meat-based products, which are considered luxuries.

In order to keep up with the burgeoning world population, we will need to produce twice as much food as we do today to feed the expected 9 billion people that will populate the Earth by 2050. We will need to generate twice the amount of calories on the same amount of land in order to preserve our ecosystems.

With such a large population on the horizon, we need to take a long, hard look at the way we grow food today. As it stands, we do not have the means or resources to grow enough food to feed that many people if we keep using our current systems.

Think of it this way: about 25 percent of Earth is land, and only half of that land is available for us to live on. And we only use about 9 percent of land for cities, neighborhoods and factories. This leaves us with only a little over 3 percent of the entire

planet to grow food and only on the top three feet of soil.

With our resources so severely limited, how can we expect to feed ourselves and future generations without completely destroying our planet? Consider this: between now and the end of the century, we’ll have to produce more food than we’ve ever grown in the last 10,000 years combined.

Sustainable agriculture and livestock agriculture, as two of the fastest-growing research fields today, have been trying to keep up with increasing food demands. Scientists and professors all over the globe, including at UC Davis, are working to discover more sustainable methods of growing food.

For example, Dr. Ermias Kebreab, of the Department of Animal Science, works to measure the greenhouse gas emissions from livestock to build mathematical models to search for potential solutions in animal husbandry and manure and soil management practices. His models have been used in New Zealand, the United States, Europe and Australia in order to predict the emission output in those countries.

Another professor at UC Davis, Dr. Frank M. Mitloehner, specializes in designing “environmentally benign livestock systems” –– or the effects of animal husbandry on the environment and vice versa.

He also focuses on air quality and the impacts of livestock emissions on the environment and on animal welfare and health. By reducing the impact these emissions have on animals, their overall production performance will improve, meaning more food for consumers at a lower environmental cost, Dr. Mitloehner has found.

The possibilities are endless and the research is ongoing. Now it’s up to consumers to make a change. It’s time to start reading and educating ourselves about where our food comes from and how it’s grown.

The work done by researchers like Dr. Kebreab and Dr. Mitloehner will help create a greener food production system critical for facing the 2050 challenge in a responsible way.

When we start taking charge of how we eat food, we waste less, we use our resources better and fewer people go hungry.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016 | 5

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

At The Crossroads THE NARROW SPACE BETWEEN SCIENCE / FILM

BY TARYN DEOILERS tldeoilers@ucdavis.edu In honor of World Space Week and the success of the Rosetta Mission on Sept. 30 — which saw a European probe land on a comet — I’m naturally turning this column’s attention to one of the most exciting scientific eras in history: the Space Age. Growing up in Bakersfield, a city that champions the worst air pollution in the nation, I never acquired a true appreciation for the brilliance of a clear night sky. I could count more pregnant freshmen at my high school than stars in the sky. Instead, I looked to movies to admire the incomprehensible beauty of outer space.

Film and space have enjoyed a special relationship since the dawn of cinema. The world’s first blockbuster, the 1902 film A Trip to the Moon, follows a group of astronomists as they journey to the moon and — in true colonial fashion — slaughter all its inhabitants.

With the onset of the Space Race in the 50’s and 60’s, the function of space movies expanded tremendously. The Space Age triggered a creative avalanche as filmmakers scrambled to showcase exhilarating new technology.

But space films shifted away from mere entertainment and attempted to capture the public’s political, spiritual and moral anxieties associated with the final frontier.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, released a year before the Space Race began, features brainwashing aliens that exemplify Americans’

paranoia over encroaching communist ideas. Several other films, such as Forbidden Planet and Invaders from Mars, also use the nation’s obsession with space to express the political atmosphere in the Cold War. Space films also began to tackle philosophical issues, like the insignificance of humans in relation to the universe. The Planet of the Apes’ disquieting final reveal — that the ape-dominated planet is actually Earth in the future — criticizes humankind’s egotistical belief in our lasting place in the cosmos. It presents dominant concerns of the era, like whether our delusions of grandeur and entitled engagement with space will somehow prompt our downfall.

The culmination of the Space Race in art was Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. Working with NASA to produce a scientifically-accurate depiction of space travel, Kubrick allowed science to amaze and inspire viewers. Unlike The Planet of the Apes, 2001 emphasizes that humans are destined for advancement among the stars due to our perpetual need for renewal and growth.

But through HAL, the traitorous computer program, Kubrick still warns against the perils of science to stress the complex relationship between philosophy and science and perhaps to prevent future travelers from falling into the same dangers.

Space movies declined in popularity for years, but a recent resurgence of imaginative and, most importantly, optimistic films has swept theaters.

Take The Martian, Ridley Scott’s 2015 realist science fiction flick based on Andy Weir’s novel of the same name. In order to rescue Mark Watney (a stranded astronaut) from Mars, NASA and the China National Space Administration work together, ultimately accomplishing an incredible feat. It’s no wonder that NASA, amid its dwindling government funding, worked alongside Scott to craft an accurate space movie with a positive message.

Other recent high-grossing blockbusters have reignited a fervor for space. Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity astounds with its majestic, spellbinding cinematography, while Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar entwines astonishing scientific theories with philosophy, love and faith. It also employs an interesting twist on the space genre: space exploration that is critical for humanity due to the environmental devastation on our own planet.

With funding for space programs declining in the U.S. but rising globally, other countries are predicted to surpass the U.S. in space activity.

Promoting science in film can generate public interest, government funding and further creative breakthroughs. Many scientists today consider entertainment media one of the major influencing factors in their own scientific interest.

While part of me just wants to see more of Matt Damon in a spacesuit, my desire for more space films mainly resides in my hope for a public demand for a larger space budget — a feat that I believe can be achieved with the collaboration of scientists and filmmakers.`

The Minority Report HOW THE MODEL MINORITY MYTH CONTRIBUTES TO MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS AMONG ASIAN AMERICANS

BY JEANETTE YUE jyyue@ucdavis.edu Suicidal thoughts are higher among Asian American college students than Caucasian students, said a report from the American Psychological Association. According to findings by the University of Washington, Asian American women born in the U.S. are more likely to contemplate and attempt suicide than any other ethnic group.

These numbers don’t make headlines. Instead, Asian Americans are consistently featured as the “model minority” in media and popular culture.

This doesn’t seem overtly harmful, but that’s only if you don’t consider the implications of this stereotype on Asian Americans and their mental health.

When Asian Americans are stereotyped this way, they are held to extremely high standards: to be intelligent, excel in school and persevere without failure. This isn’t a stereotype reserved for the film and television industry. It is an actual belief people hold about Asian Americans.

This paints them as hard-wired, emotionless individuals who don’t have concerns outside of

academic and financial success. What others don’t understand is that the pressure these stereotypes place on people can increase depression and anxiety.

Perhaps even more troubling, this model minority stereotype prevents Asian Americans from getting help for mental illnesses because they are automatically assumed not to have any problems.

By promoting silence, we are dismissing a reality that many Asian Americans are living.

Stereotypes dehumanize Asian Americans and strip them of their capacity to feel and express emotions.

For most Asian Americans, academic success is a priority; that isn’t false. The Pew Research Center reported that 49 percent of Asian Americans ages 25 and up have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 28 percent of the U.S. population. While this supports the “model minority” stereotype, it certainly doesn’t paint a full picture of why the stereotype persists.

Contrary to popular belief, Asians are not innately more intelligent. Rather, work ethic and the importance placed on education stem from cul-

tural values that reflect a long, arduous history of lower and working-class Asians who immigrated to America for a better education and life.

These values are imbedded so deeply within Asian American culture that it affects not only the pressure individuals feel, but also how they respond to mental health issues.

Unfortunately, Asian American culture, which values privacy, doesn’t encourage individuals to speak up about mental illness. Often, when an individual has a mental illness, it isn’t even brought up even in the family. Instead it’s kept private, partly because of the shame associated with mental illness.

Because most Asian Americans don’t consider mental health problems valid illnesses, when an individual does have one, it isn’t seen as legitimate, and it isn’t held to the same level of seriousness as physical sickness.

To some extent, even physical well-being comes second to education in Asian culture.

This goes back to the fact that most Asian Americans and Americans don’t have a good understanding of mental illness. To most people, depression,

despite being a disorder, seems no different from sadness.

Depression isn’t a temporary mood to “get over.” It’s persistent and impairs an individual from going about their normal routines. It is a legitimate illness, and it shouldn’t be dismissed.

When nearly an entire community refuses to acknowledge or discuss depression, this only contributes to the shame and ignorance surrounding mental health. Furthermore, doctors and counselors can’t treat and reach out to to a group if they don’t recognize what prevents them from seeking help in the first place.

Ignoring this issue and allowing the model minority stereotype to persist is detrimental to all groups, especially other minorities.

Other minority groups who don’t achieve the same level of academic or financial success are being held up to unrealistic standards. Culturally, not all groups have the same values, and it’s ridiculous to use one group’s supposed success as a standard without understanding the cultural and social factors and the detrimental consequences of that success.

Entitlement, misogyny and “Call of Duty” AMERICA SHOWS THAT A SOCIETY BASED ON ENTITLEMENT, MISOGYNY, VIOLENCE IS MORE PRONE TO GUN VIOLENCE

BY TAMANNA AHLUWALIA tahluwalia@ucdavis.edu Entitlement and America go together like salt and pepper: rarely one without the other. It’s a love affair that dates back to the colonialism of the 19th century.

Misogyny, too, is an ingrained societal norm, in which men objectify and dehumanize women on a daily basis — most visibly seen through catcalling and teasing, but also when men maintain an air of superiority over women.

And gun violence? Compared to 22 other high-income countries, the United States’ gun-related murder rate is 25 times higher, proving that American aggression is out of control.

In 2014, Elliot Rodger uploaded a Youtube video of himself before proceeding to stab three men, shoot two women and another man. In this video, Rodger explained how he planned to seek retribution against women rejecting his advances

and women who did not see him for the “superior, alpha male” that he claimed he was.

Another incident in Philadelphia saw an anonymous threat from a member of “Beta Rebellion,” a group of men upset about their inability to “get” women after numerous sexual advances.

In an increasingly progressive society in which women are now able to choose with whom they do and do not associate, the sense of entitlement that men once heavily relied on is crumbling, forcing them to lash out in violent ways.

And although the violence and rage that Rodgers and the Beta Rebellion group displayed is extreme, the mindset they possessed in relation to women and how they perceive them is chillingly common among young men.

Rodgers felt that he was entitled to punish the women that rejected him, entitled to take the lives of people he felt deserved to die. The combination of the misogyny that caused him to be genuinely angered by rejections of his multiple sexual advances and the sense of entitlement he felt towards

others’ lives is what our society must find a way to combat in order to meaningfully deal with gun violence.

Attempts to do just that have arisen, with the “#YesAllWomen” movement on Twitter spreading like wildfire.

Through the hashtag, people are trying to raise awareness of the everyday differences in the lived experiences of men and women. They strive to make even the slightest change in societal perceptions of women. Hopefully if that change does come, violence against women through guns will become less of an issue.

Violence in the form of video games also has a role in the gun violence that is so common in American society. In 2015, the American Psychological Association (APA) confirmed a link between playing violent video games and an increase in aggressive tendencies. The APA also confirmed that violent video games led to a decrease in both empathy and sensitivity.

For the majority of boys who start to play

video games at age 10 or 11, a desensitization to violence occurs and they adopt a disregard for human life and the value it holds.

Although there is insufficient evidence to conclusively link delinquency and criminal records to violent video game use, it has been established that violent video games are one of the many risk factors that make a person more inclined towards violent acts of aggression, including gun violence.

To perhaps decrease the risk of aggression and increase the level of empathy that children have, it is vital to moderate the amount of video games children play, or perhaps find a way to make video games less violent altogether.

Video games are nothing, however, compared to the sense of entitlement coupled with misogyny that our society ingrains into the value system of our youth. This is where change must begin. #YesAllWomen is simply chipping away at the iceberg of a glacier that will take years to break down, and it is my hope that more groundbreaking social change comes soon as well.

R e d u ce . R e u se . R e c yc l e Th e Aggie .

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Opinion HUMOR SCHOOL TO STOP WORKING ON FREEBORN HALL BECAUSE IT “FEELS LIKE IT”

BY ETHAN VICTOR ejvictor@ucdavis.edu After nearly three years of construction on Freeborn Hall, UC Davis has decided to put a halt on construction once and for all.

Given the university’s lack of progress on retrofitting and modernizing its largest lecture hall, Ronald Elliott, Davis’ chief architect on the project decided it was time to lay the work to rest.

“We’ve put a lot of work in the past three years, but it was an oversight on my part and the rest of the administration to think that this could be done so quickly,” Elliott said. “This has nothing to do with the workers; we [the administration] take full blame for what has happened.”

The updated hall would have included new flooring and desks with built-in tablets, but structural problems abounded. Project managers were unable to locate enough bricks to build up the walls to their required heights. Additionally, the wood used in the roof did not pass inspection after it was listed as a fire hazard given the quality of the wood in the Yolo County climate.

“We warned the school over using birch trees in this area, but the school insisted we do it in order to cut costs. I let them know that this was a poor idea,” said Ron Hinch, the lead architect for Davis Architecture Company. “We did everything we could, but the university felt that it was time to cut ties with us. They now don’t have an architect. Everything seems to have fallen apart from them, metaphorically. Thankfully, it wasn’t Freeborn.”

When asked for a response outside the Mrak Hall offices, Elliott rushed off and simply said, “We felt like it was a necessary to stop.

We don’t have the budget for this anymore.”

Many students, particularly fourth-years who only got one year with the lecture hall before it was shut down for the next three years, expressed confusion. Freeborn is now in the middle of construction, and there aren’t enough funds to keep it up to safety regulations.

“I just want the noise to stop. There’s too much going on, and it’s been happening for pretty much my entire college experience,” said Michael Davis, a fourth year international relations major. “I’m tired of not knowing what to do as I walk around school. I had a blast in there for Psychology 1 and my big brother in my fraternity

heard Drake there. Freeborn has history.”

The lecture hall is conveniently located next to Memorial Union, at the heart of campus. It has hosted performances, concerts and conventions.

“Freeborn is a staple to the Davis student community that has been lost over the past three years. The end is not in sight, except for the construction, simply because some suit felt like it was time to stop spending money,” said an anonymous student.

The school’s failed attempts at cutting corners is another notch in the belt of failures that comes at the expense of students. Instead of using students money for personal gain, the university should be taking measures to ensure the quality of its facilities. This means using appropriate wood in a lecture hall and not stopping because it isn’t in the budget.

Davis has a one billion dollar endowment. There is enough money; it needs to be used to benefit the students. Questioning the credibility of ETHAN VICTOR? You can reach him at ejvictor@ ucdavis.edu. Feel free to help with his followers-to-following ratio on Twitter @thejvictor, because it is pathetic right now.

WOAH — IS THAT AN OBSERVATORY UP THERE?

BY ELI FLESCH ekflesch@ucdavis.edu UC Davis has its problems, but I guess space exploration isn’t one of them. I mean, check it out — is that an observatory up there?

I mean, woah.

Remember pepper-spray? That observatory doesn’t. It’s an observatory — it doesn’t have eyes!

In fact, I don’t even think it’s alive. Unless you consider the lens an eye, which could be a metaphor for the need of students to closely examine their university and demand transparency and accountability from an increasingly opaque administration. Or nah! It’s an observatory!

The sky is big. Observatory’s “observe.” The sky. Sometimes I cry. Woah…

I asked my professor why we have an observatory on campus. He asked what I was doing at his house so late at night. I guess science raises more questions than it answers. Huh. Here’s another problem UC Davis students face: long lines at the Silo. Hmm. Obviously the observatory made me reconsider my place in an infinite universe. So let’s just try to get through with that part of the conversation, okay? It wasn’t good. I felt small.

I’m a passionate man. I’m so passionate. Take the heat energy of an atomic bomb, multiply that by one billion, add seven and that’s a few short of how passionate I am. I’m grunting just thinking about

it. Now, you might be asking: what does this have to do with an observatory?

I was born into a poor family.

My father always said: “Son, we are a poor family — very poor.”

I gazed up at him from his lap. I sat on his lap because we were so poor that his lap was the only chair we could afford. Sad. “Son, you need to be tough to get on in this world. You need to be hard, like the hard metallic shell of a university observatory. Yes, that’s exactly the simile I meant to use.”

I never forgot that.

In conclusion, you now know why I am crying when you see me looking at the observatory on top of Kerr Hall. I am thinking about all the chairs I never got to sit in.

CUTE SQUIRREL ON CAMPUS HELPS STUDENTS FORGET FOR A MOMENT THAT WE ARE ALL DYING

BY BRIAN LANDRY bjlandry@ucdavis.edu Squirrels are a well-known part of the UC Davis community.

They run around our campus with us, often narrowly missing out on the underside of our bike tires.

This is not because we attempt to hit them, but because they are dumb, and they don’t realize that death is just around the corner for us all.

The Aggie talked to some students who recently saw one of these famous Davis squirrels drinking out of a puddle on campus. One of these students was Ellie Robbins, a fourth-year neurobiology, physiology and behavior major and self-proclaimed “vegan icon.”

“I had just finished having an epic stare-down with a crack in the pavement that I tripped on when I looked up and saw the squirrel drinking out of the puddle,” Robbins said. “I saw a lot of me in that squirrel. I, like the squirrel, drink water on occasion. I could also tell that the squirrel was really enjoying life, right up until the moment that a biker came and squashed it like a grape. RIP. It really reminded me that we’ll all die someday, and it could be in a really random and even horrific way, and I think that’s beautiful.”

A friend of Robbins, Grimry Per, a fourth-year biological sciences major, also witnessed the incident.

“I’m a pretty dark person in general, and so it was nice to see the squirrel just having a good time,” Per said. “There is a lot of cuteness in the world, not just death. And even though there was a lot

of blood when the squirrel was run over, I don’t know, there was still something cute about it. I hope my death is that cute.”

The campus squirrels can serve a similar purpose to a lot of students at UC Davis, often providing a much-needed distraction from some of the darker thoughts that a lot of students are prone to.

But the squirrels of Davis deserve to be appreciated, not just as a distraction, but as a spectacle within themselves.

We as students deserve the mental capability to view them without having looming thoughts of despair.

So it’s important to remember that UC Davis provides a lot of resources for students who may be struggling with mental health issues, squirrel-related or not. But let’s be honest, most problems in this world are squirrel related. It’s just the truth. Death is coming.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016 | 7

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

SCIENCE+TECH VENOOS MOSHAYEDI / AGGIE

NEW TEST RELIABLY MEASURES

COGNITIVE CHANGES National Institutes of Health Toolbox Cognitive Battery paves way for treatment of intellectual disability

UC DAVIS SUED FOR FAILURE TO RELEASE PUBLIC INFORMATION U.S. Right to Know files lawsuit for documents on GMOs, pesticides

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

A lawsuit against UC Davis was filed last month urging the university to heed requests regarding the release of documents on its work with genetically modified organisms (GMO) and pesticides and their tie into the agrichemical industry.

U.S. Right to Know, the non-profit organization suing UC Davis, aims to bring light to the backstage of our nation’s food system. A major concern of theirs is that professors may be profiting from websites that work as platforms for sharing research findings with the public.

“Our food system prioritizes profit over health.

How do we get out of that?” said Gary Ruskin, co-director of U.S. Right to Know and plaintiff of the the lawsuit.

One of the websites under the umbrella of U.S. Right to Know’s concern, GMO Answers, was created for discussion about GMOs and pesticides as well as biotechnology and agriculture. The website allows experts to answer questions concerning the public, enabling researchers to showcase their discoveries and clear up any misconceptions. Funding for the website is provided by agricultural biotechnology companies such as Monsanto and Syngenta.

Recently, rumors of experts cooperating with industries for profit have been circulating. These rumors worked as the catalyst for the lawsuit U.S. Right to Know has filed against UC Davis.

According to Ruskin, the university has something to hide — this resulted in the lawsuit’s demands for UC Davis to release documents and email communications regarding involvement with GMO Answers and other research involving agricultural chemistry funding from major companies.

“We are conducting a search, [but] I can’t come to a conclusion based on documents I haven’t seen yet,” Ruskin said.

Kent Bradford, distinguished professor from the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences, is one of UC Davis’ researchers who has responded to questions on GMO Answers.

“As a public scientist that is what I should do,” Bradford said. “To share my views through my 40 years of experience and communicate my ideas on these topics.”

U.S. Right to Know has uncovered for-profit cooperation between other research organizations and uni-

versities within the agrochemical industry. Their aim is to expose what the food industry really is.

However, of the information requested, fact-finding, proof of research and public funding is available for the public to see.

“You can find the same information on my own website [as is on GMO Answers], I’m not altering my opinions to please a specific group,” Bradford said.

Alison L. Van Eenennaam, animal genomics and biotechnology expert at UC Davis, has also answered public questions on GMO Answers and other similar websites.

“My inbox is full of tens of thousands of emails about Mr. Ruskin’s requests [for documents],” Van Eenennaam said.

According to Van Eenennaam, Ruskin’s requests take a lot of time, since all of her emails must be sent through legal checks. UC Davis lawyers have to go through enormous amounts of information from the academic researchers involved.

“On top of his [...] requests, he has the audacity to sue them for not doing it quickly enough. I believe the legal team is working as quickly as they can,” Van Eenennaam said.

Bradford explained that the universities have requirements on their own side to release those documents to protect personal information and academics of their own.

With new technology in the genetic engineering of food, it’s natural for questions to arise about safety.

U.S. Right to Know’s overarching goal is to make sure no corruption is occurring in our nation’s food industry. But, according to Van Eenenaam, Ruskin is going on a “witch hunt” against academic professors.

“They are creating an association that academic professors working with industry is automatically evil. That’s just not true,” Van Eenenaam said.

Professor Bradford has no intention of changing the way he communicates his research and ideas to the public. Throughout this process, the university has to pay legal fees for Ruskin’s lawsuit against UC Davis.

“Sadly, I think the truth is losing, and the notion that there is no such thing as a honest scientist will take over,” Van Eenennaam said.

Until the investigation on UC Davis research documents and communications is completed, no decision can be made as to whether there is any profit being made by researchers working with big companies at a public universites.

BY MERAL BASIT s cience@t he aggie . org

Recent breakthroughs in understanding the molecular mechanisms for Fragile X and Down Syndrome have led to extremely promising cognitive gains in animal studies, but have resulted in few successful human clinical trials.

Pharmacological treatments for Fragile X Syndrome and Down Syndrome can be measured by degree of intellectual disability (ID). Thus far, there has been little consensus on how to quantify degrees of ID, which might be contributing to the gap between animal and clinical study results.

Researchers at the UC Davis Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (MIND) Institute have been conducting pilot studies of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Toolbox Cognitive Battery (NIH-TCB), a series of online psychological tests taken to measure cognition.

By adapting this test to people with intellectual disabilities, scientists hope to measure cognition in an accurate, reproduceable way.

Dr. David Hessl, professor of psychology and behavioral sciences at the UC Davis MIND Institute, was the lead researcher on the project.

Hessl teamed up with researchers at Rush University, University of Denver and Northwestern University in an effort to standardize clinical testing which will hopefully lead toward more successful trials.

“When I learned about the [NIH-TCB], I could see that they worked really hard to make it usable for really young kids,” Hessl said. “Because I saw that they were making the test dynamic in capturing very young developmental levels all the way up to very intelligent adults, I figured that it could have a lot of utility for lower-functioning people with intellectual disabilities who have a mental age maybe down to three years.”

One of the difficulties of designing the project was accurately measuring the reliability of the NIH-TCB. Dr. Leonard Abbeduto, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, is the director of the UC Davis MIND Institute and a co-investigator on the project who helps advise project planning and interpret the results.

“We don’t have really good outcome measures of these constructs […] On one hand, we want to develop measures because the measures don’t exist, but you have to compare them to the measures that exist, right? So, it’s a bit of a challenge,” Abbeduto said. “What Dr. Hessl has done is that he has selected a variety of different measures that exist that may not have all of the properties he needs for clinical trials, but at least we know that they are pretty good at measuring [the constructs of interest] to some degree.”

The multi-site project started by altering the

existing program to make it administrable to people with intellectual disabilities. This was done by the researchers who made and manage the NIH-TCB at Northwestern University. Afterwards, the NIH-TCB was administered to individuals with Down Syndrome and Fragile X Syndrome at sites on the UC Davis, Rush University and University of Denver campuses.

Dr. Elizabeth Berry-Kravis, a professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Rush Medical College, was responsible for data collection at Rush.

The test could be administered on an iPad, which was helpful for people with intellectual disabilities, according to Berry-Kravis.

“Often people with intellectual disabilities like to work on the iPad, especially people with Fragile X, because they’re very visual. It seemed like a thing that would be appealing to the kids,” Berry-Kravis said. “Also — it’s brief. It covers multiple areas of cognition and you can repeat it over and over again because it’s slightly different each time, but it gives you basically the same level of testing.”

According to Berry-Kravis, the iPad is operated more intuitively compared to using a mouse to control a cursor on a computer screen. This makes it more accessible to people with IDs. The pilot studies that Hessl, Berry-Kravis and others involved have conducted for the project have proven overall successful, but Hessl said that this is just the beginning of years worth of research.

“We have a few more years to get tons more data,” Hessl said. “People are already asking me if it makes sense for them to use these measures in clinical trials. [...] The challenge is when to give it the stamp of approval, and I would say that’s going to be an evolving process.”

Hessl plans to continue collecting data by administering the test to as many participants as possible, as well as to explore other options for the NIH-TCB, like with event-related potential studies (ERP).

“ERP is where you can measure neuronal activity when someone is responding to a certain task or stimuli so […] we can measure what the brain signature is of people when they’re actually doing the task,” Hessl said. “That’ll be really great as an outcome measure because it’s a direct outcome of brain activity.”

The results of expanding the study past the pilot could help bridge the gap between animal models and clinical trials.

“We don’t want to have drugs or medical treatments that we say don’t work [...] because we measured their efficacy the wrong way,” Abbeduto said. “So, this is a really important study for the field.”

FASTILY [CC BY-SA 3.0] / CREATIVE COMMONS

R U R S E C

E C E E C L

D E U R Y E

Developing nations especially susceptible to invasive species due to increasing globalization, climate change

STUDY FINDS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AT RISK TO BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS

BY E MMA SADLOWSKI s cience@thea g g ie.org

Developing countries are highly susceptible to non-native invasive species and ecological and economic disaster, said a study recently published in the Nature Communications journal. With increasing globalization, biological invasions on developing nations could also negatively affect the global economy and those of developed countries.

Invasive species, such as the zebra mussel and the Asian carp, cause environmental and economic havoc on nations around the world because their proliferation makes them difficult to eradicate.

Conducted by researchers from around the

world, the study was developed to pinpoint where future biological invasions could take place and why those locations are at particular risk.

“We wanted to figure out who was most at risk for future invasions, where the hotspots for potential invasion could be, how those invasions might get there, whether it be by plane, boat or person, and what abilities countries had to respond to an invasion,” said Ted Grosholz, co-author of the study and UC Davis professor of environmental science and policy.

The study found that one-sixth of the global land is extremely vulnerable to invasion, especially those of developing nations.

Developing countries often do not have the

resources or money that developed nations have to prevent and eradicate invasive species.

These countries are also more dependent on international trade and have less power over regulating imports and exports, resulting in more global invasions.

“Some countries do a really thorough job at being on the lookout for invasive species, such as Australia,” said Cascade Sorte, another co-author of the study and a UC Irvine assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. “They know what they’re looking for, they know what they’re worried about, and they’re actively looking for it.”

Developing countries that are already invaded also struggle to eradicate invasive species because the eradication is a costly procedure.

Money spent on eradication, said Jason Sadowski, UC Davis Ph.D. student of marine ecology, could be spent on more salient concerns, such as education and infrastructure.

“Prevention is really the cheapest way of controlling invasive species,” Sadowski said.

“There are invasive species lists in places like California and Australia that help people know which organisms to look out for.”

The study also predicts that air travel will be the main cause of future biological invasions in Africa and Asia. Environmental changes, including biome shifts and fire frequency changes, may also exacerbate the negative effects of invasive species.

The researchers hope that countries will take notice of these findings and prioritize the prevention of future biological invasions by actively identifying which organisms are potentially threatening and invasive.

“I think we not should be complacent about this,” Sorte said. “More people are starting to realize that invasive species are around us and more are to come with climate change.”

8 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

MUSE

STUDENT SOUNDS:

STARRSHA

Davis band talks shoegaze, laziness and their new EP JONATHAN GORDON / COURTESY

BY ALLY OVERB AY a rts @ th ea ggi e .o r g

“We all live together — and you would think that’s a good thing — but because there’s no scheduled practice, and people don’t have to be somewhere, we get kind of lazy,” explained Mitchell Rotter-Sieren, the drummer for Davis band Starrsha.

“Lazy” came up surprisingly frequently during my interview with the band, especially considering Starrsha is comprised of Rotter-Sieren, a fourth-year chemical engineering major; JE Paguyo, a fourthyear mathematics major; and Carlos Pineda, a fourth-year psychology major.

Though it was used in reference to their lackadaisical practice schedules and the delayed release of their new music, such self-proclaimed laziness also manifests itself in their sound.

Whether it’s Pineda’s hushed vocals seamlessly intertwined with his echoey guitar or the indistinguishable layers of Paguyo’s bass and Rotter-Sieren’s drumming, their psychedelic sound is of the laid-back variety. (That’s not to say it was lazily produced — it was professionally mixed, and sounds like it.) Their EP is a complex collage of hazy sounds that places them at the forefront of the shoegaze revival.

The band’s taste in music is “a Venn diagram of music palette[s],” Rotter-Sieren said. His personal taste ranges from garage rock to electronic, while Paguyo’s centers around dream-pop and Pineda’s oscillates between reggae and punk. “But,” he added, “we all love shoegaze, and that’s the center of the Venn diagram.”

Their sound is most prominently influenced by shoegaze, a subgenre of indie rock that arose in the U.K. in the late 1980s and is typically characterized by blurring distorted guitars, feedback and vocals into one indistinct sound. But “everything really just melts together in terms of influences,” Paguyo said.

Each track is heavily layered with the diverse sounds typical of

shoegaze, but the vocals — as Pineda pointed out — are the most interesting component in that they are essentially unrecognizable.

“If you listen to the genre, usually lyrics become more of another instrument. They don’t pop out like they do in other genres. I center more around the overall sound rather than putting something out there that people will be able to understand, [and] my voice more becoming another instrument,” Pineda said.

But it’s not just Starrsha’s sound that draws influence from shoegaze; their punk-ish, DIY aesthetic also pulls influence from the genre — known for its small, dedicated fanbase — that Starrsha calls a cult genre.

“There’s a residual following from the 90s, and those fans focus on the 90s stuff, but new bands show up and they [still] show support. It’s a very small community relative to everything else,” Pineda added.

With support from other local bands, KDVS and members of the underground scene, Starrsha eagerly anticipates the distribution of their new music.

Already available online (including on Spotify, Bandcamp and Soundcloud streaming), the three plan on circulating physical tapes and CDs as well.

“I’m just excited about having something to hold [...] people just forget if they see you once [live] and never see you again. So it’s just something to give out,” Pineda said.

With multiple upcoming shows, the recent release will aid in gaining more publicity as well.

“It will help with booking shows outside of Davis, just to have something to show,” Paguyo said.

The production techniques of the album were mixed; although the band recorded and produced most of the album themselves, they also had professional assistance.

“Nowadays it’s really easy to just stick yourself in your room and

have all the equipment ‘cause it’s cheap enough to do it,” Pineda said.

“So that’s the way we did it.”

However, when it came to mixing and mastering, the band decided to call in outside help.

“We had to contact people to mix it and master it, and had to make connections that way. We ended up getting the guy from Ringo Deathstarr to mix our album,” Rotter-Sieren said.

Deathstarr, a prominent shoegaze musician, had an influence on Starrsha that extends beyond the production and into their sound.

One of his songs, in fact, was the inspiration for Starrsha’s name. After a recent performance hosted by KDVS, Starrsha shared the stage with their idol, who ended up sleeping on the band’s couch. (Their home, it’s worth noting, is called “The Starrship.”)

Letting Deathstarr crash on their couch provided the band both with valuable information on funding and record labels and with a great story.

Not that the band is in short supply of good stories. Whether it’s their semi-famous status on Yik Yak as “That Avalon band” (they used to practice in Rotter-Sieren’s bedroom of the South Davis apartment complex), or the time Rotter-Sieren discovered party-goers using his drum as drug paraphernalia — he was reportedly too lazy to deconstruct the drum set after a show and later discovered it at the party — their tales sound like the ones bands tell, after making it big, about “the early days.”

After the conclusion of our interview, the band walked one way, stopped, mumbled, “We’re indecisive,” and turned in the opposite direction. This was followed, of course, by Rotter-Sieren shouting from down the street, “This is why it took us a year to release an album.”

But good things take time.

Check out Starrsha at their next show on Oct. 15 at Sophia’s Thai Kitchen.

LITERATURE for the

SOUL English Department to host year of readings from prize-winning authors

BY K RIS H AN MI THAL a rts @thea g g ie . org

The English Department’s yearlong series of readings from renowned writers will commence on Oct. 12 with a reading by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Rae Armantrout. The series is sponsored by the English Department’s graduate program in Creative Writing and brings contemporary writers to campus to read their work.

Armantrout is a Bay Area native with an extensive repertoire of poems praised for syntax mirroring that of everyday speech while also dealing with questions of deception and distortion in language and consciousness. Armantrout is just one of the many writers who will visit Davis this year with their thought-provoking work.

Kathleen Peterson, an associate professor of English and organizer of the series, explained the importance of these readings.

“Hearing a story or a poem allows us to tap into the cultural memory we store in our senses [...] not simply in our brains or our resumes,” Peterson said. She explained that listening to poetry can result in a sort of out-of-body experience. “You might for a moment be relieved of your suffering or find yourself in the presence of language strong enough to hold and frame your desires [...] it lines up with your soul and makes you feel like you’re not crazy [...] that’s pretty freaking valuable to me these days.”

The writing series also gives the Davis community a chance to experience poetry in a more interpersonal way. Peterson says audience members will get a better idea of the writer’s work when listening to it in person.

Jacinda Townsend, an assistant professor of creative writing, will be participating in the ZHEN LU / AGGIE

writing series and has written two books that delve into feminism and societal pressures put on women.

Townsend will be reading from her second novel, Kif, about an American named Cathy and an escaped Mauritanian slave named Souria. The novel examines motherhood and what it means to be a mother.

Townsend explained that her inspiration and motivation for writing Kif came from her own experience with motherhood.

“I’d been trying to give birth naturally, without drugs even, so when [the C-section] happened I felt like a failure before I’d even really become a mother. It made me wonder how insurmountable is the process when one isn’t the child’s biological mother [...] I wanted to prove to myself that I wasn’t a failure, that biology determined nothing about motherhood,” Townsend said.

Townsend mentioned that Kif also brings to light the topic of slavery in Mauritania, an issue often not given the attention it deserves.

Third-year global disease biology major Tiffany Willis agrees that the writing series will provide a chance for people to broaden their perspectives.

“Race is such a huge topic nowadays because there are so many issues surrounding it, but I don’t truly understand what certain people go through [...] this [creative writing series] will give me a chance to [better] understand other people’s struggles,” Willis said.

The creative writing series will begin on Oct. 12 at the Shields Library at 7 p.m. and is free and open to all. For more information about future readings, please visit the College of Letters and Science website.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016 | 9

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

4 Movies to Watch During Fall Quarter Prepare for Oscar season by catching up on these much-anticipated movies

BY PARI SAG AF I arts @th e a ggi e .o r g

As we inch closer to the end of the year, we approach Oscar season, meaning that we are closer than ever to the release of Oscar-bait movies. Be prepared to cast your votes by reading up on these four much-anticipated films.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them I, like many others, choose to live in denial and believe that I am still in a world where the era of Harry Potter hasn’t ended, but it seems like J.K. Rowling and Hollywood have been listening to our sad prayers and are giving us the gift of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. J.K. Rowling makes her screenwriting debut on a script based on her 2001 book, and although the film doesn’t feature any of the beloved characters from the original Potter series, it gives us a glimpse into the wizarding world in another time and place.

Set in New York in 1926, the movie stars Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander, a magizoologist who arrives at the Magical Congress of the United States and accidentally turns dangerous creatures from his enchanted briefcase loose on the city. Once they have escaped, the authorities pursue Newt, and it seems that Muggles are catching on to wizards and witches. J.K. Rowling is like the benevolent overlord who has us all wrapped around her finger, and I know that I’ll be waiting in line to watch and read whatever she releases, including this magical film.

Release Date: Nov. 18 Arrival

As spaceships touch down on several countries around the world, panic spreads and a team of experts are brought together to find answers. In this adaptation of Ted Chiang’s short story “Story of Your Life,” Amy Adams stars as leading linguist Louise Banks, who is assigned to work on decoding the vastly different language of the extraterrestrials and takes a non-traditional approach in dealing with a potentially dangerous situation.

Communication is key and time is of the essence, since neither the humans, nor the aliens, are aware of the other species’ intentions, meaning that at any given moment, a global war could ensue due to a potential misunderstanding. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of science fiction is that it explores human beings when they are faced with the “other,” and we, as the audience, are left to wonder who is really the bad guy. I always look forward to seeing the versatile Amy Adams on screen, and am genuinely intrigued to find out the answer to the timely question that this movie poses: are we able to communicate effectively and peacefully with “the other,” or will we attack and destroy out of fear before finding any real resolution?

Release Date: Nov. 11 Manchester by the Sea Just like a parent playing favorites, I can’t help but pick a favorite Affleck brother — which is why I am excited to see the underrated Casey Affleck star in this drama, written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan. The film, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, centers on Affleck’s character Lee, who, after his brother’s sudden death, returns to his hometown of Manchester-bythe-Sea, Massachusetts, to become the legal guardian of his teenage nephew Patrick (Lucas Hedges). It’s apparent that there will be some funny scenes due to the confusing

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DATE PROD.CO. CA AGGIE DIRECTOR CAMERAMAN relationship between uncle and nephew, who see each other more as annoying, inconveniencing brothers, but the film will mainly be a moving story. Judging from the trailer, it beautifully explores difficult topics such as grief, anger, new relationship dynamics and a growing sensitivity and love for someone who’s now seen in an entirely different light.

Release Date: Nov. 18 (limited), and expanding release in mid-December.

La La Land In a sea full of trailers that reveal the entire plot, character development and the best lines of dialogue in a movie, it’s incredibly refreshing to watch the two trailers for La La Land;

JONATHAN CHEN / AGGIE

one beginning with Ryan Gosling simply whistling a western tune, the other featuring Emma Stone singing beautifully to a backdrop with scenes from the movie that could be paused at any point and look like a painting. And the plot is simple — Mia (Stone) is an aspiring but struggling actress in Los Angeles who meets an equally struggling and aspiring jazz musician, Sebastian (Gosling); the two fall in love, and hardship ensues. Although we don’t understand exactly what is going on based on the trailer, we’re intrigued and drawn by the beautiful music, striking cinematography and, most importantly, one of our generation’s favorite onscreen couples.

Release Date: Dec. 9

UC Davis design professor wins award for innovative smart clothing Helen Koo creates clothing help those with movement disorders

BY JENNI F ER D U O N G arts@th e a ggi e .o rg

UC Davis Assistant Design Professor Helen Koo received the $40,000 UC Davis Award for Innovation and Creative Vision in September for her work in smart clothing. The award was established to promote and support exploration, creativity and advances in research. Koo is the first recipient of the award, funded through the support of a UC Davis alumnus and his wife. Her transformable clothing will assist individuals with movement disorder.

Since standard clothing often requires a level of fine motor control that can be difficult for people with movement or sensory impairments, Koo wanted to create garments and products that will increase the independence and quality of life of people with diseases and disabilities that limit their movement.

“After testing fabrics using shape-memory alloy, I thought it would be great to create transformable clothing that can be automatically worn and taken off,” Koo said.

Koo listens to users’ opinions, experiences and ideas to understand consumers’ needs and wants, which are critical in developing and designing clothing products. She also discusses her ideas with

COLLEGE OF LETTERS AND SCIENCES, HUMANITIES ARTS AND CULTURAL STUDIES / COURTESY

experts in other disciplines to create the wearable technology.

“I am trying to understand what people really want to wear and use, and their preferences on designs and functions through interviews, surveys and market research at the beginning of the design process,” Koo said. “I try to open my mind to search for new ways to solve existing problems and to satisfy consumers through interdisciplinary approaches.”

She also had two interns who assisted her with her smart clothing.

“At that time, I worked with passionate interns, Jason Lin and Jasmine Zhou, and created the garments with shape memory alloy-nitinol and microprocessors,” Koo said. “More interns and researchers are working on this project to make transformable clothing for people with movement disabilities using shape-memory alloy and other micro-motors.”

Shape-memory alloy, a material often used for people sitting in wheelchairs, was a key material for creating the transformable clothing, according to Koo. Shape-memory alloys “remember” their original shape and return to them when stretched, bent or deformed.

Jason Lin, a design and psychology double major and class of

2016 alumnus, has known Koo for approximately two years and has learned much about smart clothing and accessibility of fashion through working with her.

“Smart clothing is amazing! Helen was really the one who opened my eyes up to the capabilities of fashion and how to look at it in different ways,” Lin said. “I actually listened to Helen give a TED talk at TEDxUCDavis which was also really inspiring. She talked about clothes that automatically enveloped people and garments for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.”

Koo’s work has inspired and resonated with not just her interns, but with other design students at Davis as well.

“I think wearable technology is progressing heavily, especially with [technology such as] the Google watch. You see it in films and it’s the embodiment of the future and futuristic realm,” said Bronte Blanco, a third-year design major. “It’s cool that [Koo] is able to bring together aesthetic and functionalism to individuals who need it.”

Koo will continue researching transformable clothing for people with movement disabilities and hopes to conduct research to develop wearable technology for elderly people with dementia as well.

INDIA ARTS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

perspectives, from kolam — a form of chalk drawing — to classical Indian music and a discussion of India’s rising film industry.

“We are interested in bringing a range of [Indian] artistic practice to Davis, be it women’s domestic art like the kolam or the vibrant independent cinema that is produced in India,” said Archana Venkatesan, UC Davis professor and chair of the Department of Religious Studies. “We hope that such a festival is a first step in starting meaningful conversations about India through the arts and with artists, particularly at this moment, when the country has emerged as a major player on the global stage.”

The idea of hosting an Indian arts celebration originated with Venkatesan, an enthusiastic researcher and educator of Indian culture and religions.

Through this project, she hopes to bring the artistic aspect of India to the audience not only in Davis, but also to the greater Sacramento area.

She has invited a brilliant selection of nationally-acclaimed Indian artists in order to showcase the beauty of her heritage.

“Through her research, family ties and

personal background in India, Archana’s knowledge of the arts in India is extraordinary, and far exceeds our ‘in-house’ understanding, particularly of cultural and regional differences and nuances,” said Jeremy Ganter, associate executive director and director of programming at the Mondavi Center. “From my point of view that’s one of the major strengths of a university-based performing arts center.”

Shraddha Agrawal, a second-year chemical engineering major and an international student from India, is excited about this celebration and believes that this initiative will be a unique opportunity for the world to learn about the beautiful culture of India.

“The yearlong celebration is going to explore the hidden intricacies of India’s dance, art and music,” Agrawal said. “Some of the very celebrated artists from India are coming to perform. I am pretty excited about it.”

For more information about “India in the Artist’s Eye,” please visit the College of Letters and Science website. For information about the schedule of events in this series, please visit the Mondavi Center website.

10 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

A HEALTHY TRANSITION A look into the wellness resources UC Davis has to offer

BECCA RIDGE / AGGIE

BY FATI MA SI D D I Q U I featu res@ th e a ggi e .o r g

For students new to Davis, navigating their first year can be daunting. This may be the first time students are away from their families, or attending a public research institution, or in the United States. No matter the circumstance, the transition into college is not easy. Fortunately, UC Davis has plenty of resources to help students get through their year.

First-years looking for smaller, more personal classes to complement a lecture-heavy workload can look into the one and two unit first-year seminars offered by the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. These seminars are limited to 19 spots per class, allowing students to develop better relationships with their peers and professors. In the past, popular seminar topics have ranged from zombies to climate change to documentary film.

“Freshman seminars are not like regular courses — [professors] don’t have the same expectations,” said Cristina Gonzalez, professor of Spanish and education. “[Freshman seminars] are a way to actually meet faculty members and to talk to your classmates [in] a more informal setting. I want them not only to learn about the history but also to realize that it’s a very important university. I am trying to make them connect with the institution.”

Gonzalez teaches her own first-year semi-

nar, FRS 001: Introduction to the University of California. For students eager to know more about the history of the campus and the different resources UC Davis has to offer, this class is the one to take. Gonzalez teaches from excerpts of the memoir of Clark Kerr, the twelfth president of the University of California, instructs on how to write an effective resume and introduces her class to different administrative officials from on campus, including Shields Library, the Undergraduate Research Center, Student Affairs, the Internship and Career Center, and Study Abroad.

Students also get the opportunity to interview five people from different levels of education, including lower and upper division undergraduate students, masters students, doctoral students and postdoctoral scholars.

“I want [students] to understand that [going from undergraduate education to graduate education] is progressive, gradual and not that difficult,” Gonzalez said. “At the end of the seminar I have a sense that [the students] are much more grounded and aware of the campus and their options, and the [people they meet] actually have an impact on them.”

Outside of the classroom, first-year students can also receive help on coursework management and finding success as a college student.

The service centers in Tercero, Segundo and Cuarto are home to the Residence Hall Advising Team (RHAT). With approximately 60 team members, RHAT is made up of peer advisors who put on seven workshops throughout the school year. For Fall Quarter, TRANSITION on PAGE 11

Pedal-Powered Mini Mobile Libraries Roll Around Davis

CHELBERT DAI / AGGIE

MORE THAN JUST A WALK IN THE PARK Free nature events to be held at Arboretum every week this fall

BY GILLIAN ALLEN f ea tures @thea g g ie.org

Whether students have jogged through it, biked its length of three and a half miles or only know it as the mysterious forest with a peculiarly green creek, the Arboretum is a campus resource that everyone should visit this fall.

Since its opening in 1936, the Arboretum has hosted free public events for Davis students and community members. The goal of these events is to inspire connections with nature, educate people on key environmental issues and create a relaxing break from work and school.

“We are supported by the Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden who help fund these free events for the public,” said Katie Hetrick, director of marketing and communications for the UC Davis Arboretum. “From showcasing our low-water California Native Demonstration Garden to our scientific collection, it’s important to have these events for students and the public to get out in nature and learn something new about these resources.”

For students who would like to learn more about

SUDOKU

plants and sustainable gardening, the Arboretum also hosts a UC Master Gardeners event which takes place in the GATEway garden at the east end of the Arboretum, as well as in the Storer garden.

“At these events, anyone can learn about native California plants, how they can grow them, how they can sustain those types in their own homes and why [these] are sustainable garden selections,” Hetrick said. “These event leaders act as in person, interpretive experts for these areas and encourage people to discover [what] we have available at UC Davis.”

The Meet the Arboretum Tour is another event geared toward students who may not know much about the gardens. This tour is led by Arboretum ambassadors, student interns who have gained skills in public outreach and environmental leadership. The Arboretum also offers internships in other departments such as edible landscaping, sustainable agriculture and restoration.

Ellen Zagory, director of horticulture, began her work at the Arboretum by growing plants in the nursery. Because of the park’s rapid growth in popularity over the years, ARBORETUM on PAGE 11

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.

Yolo County Public Library introduces new book bikes YOLO COUNTY LIBRARY / COURTESY

BY BI ANC A AN T U N E Z ci ty@ th e a ggi e .o r g

The Yolo County Public Library recently implemented a new service in the Davis branch, as well as the Woodland Public Library: book bikes.

The California State Library’s U.S. Institute of Museum & Library Services issued a $10,000 grant to the Yolo County and Woodland Public Library branches, which funded the book bike project.

The book bikes are custom-built trailers that have bookshelves inside for library materials. These mobile libraries are full-service libraries where people can check out books, access computer-equipped free Wi-Fi and sign up for library cards.

According to an article by the SacBee, “Our goal is to get books in the hands of children in our community who many not have a library card or come to the library,” Woodland Library services director Greta Galindo said.

The book bikes do exactly that. The mobile libraries cleverly cater to whichever location they travel to and even take requests from the public by phone or in person. Librarian and book bike project manager Dana Christy sees the potential of the project in Davis.

“We can curate the collection to fit whatever group of folks we are going to visit,” Christy said. “We take re-

quests for regular stops where customers can request something and we take the materials out to them.”

The book bikes also increase community outreach and help the library bring books to the public. Lower-income residents and people who are incapable of making their way out to the library can now easily access the library resources.

“One of our [Yolo County Library] big missions is ‘Equality, Equity, and Service’,” said Scott Love, Library Regional Manager. “This was another opportunity to take service [out to the community]. There is this misconception that in the digital age libraries are not as popular or needed. The reality is kind of the opposite. We are [more] busy now than ever, we just changed how we do business and this is one example of that.”

The library also recently spurred another new service: books-by-mail.

People can apply to receive library materials by mail for a month for free and renew the books as needed.

Yolo County Library’s book bike will be stationed at Eleanor Roosevelt Circle on Wednesdays from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and every other Monday at the Cesar Chavez Co-Op from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. The book bike has also made appearances at some Davis events, including the Davis Farmer’s Market and Davis Pride, and plans to continue expanding.

ANSWERS TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE 9/29/16

REDUCE. REUSE. RECYCLE THE AGGIE.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016| 11

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

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UC Davis faculty representatives who will attend the meetings include Diana Farmer, professor and chair of the Department of Surgery, professor of history Ari Kelman and Rachael Goodhue, chair of the Davis Academic Senate and professor and chair of Agricultural and Resource Economics.

The committee had its first meeting on Sept. 27 at the UC Davis Pavilion in a closed session. The group plans to reconvene several more times before January, when President Napolitano and the regents tentatively hope to decide on a chancellor.

Oltersdorf spoke at a student town hall meet-

ing at Wellman Hall the day before the committee’s first deliberation, and she stressed that she wants to gather as much student input as possible during the selection process.

“I feel really wary about the idea of trying to represent all undergraduate students at UC Davis,” Oltersdorf said. “[...] On the other hand, I feel very optimistic about the ability of students to mobilize.

I think that if students feel that the process is unfair, then the committee should know about it. As a representative, if there’s something that I am taking away from this meeting, it is a lot of dissatisfaction on the part of the students in reaction to this process so I’ll definitely be taking that with me to the meeting tomorrow.”

As UC Davis’ graduate student representative, Riley will join Oltersdorf in expressing student concerns over the selection of a new chancellor. Katrina Brock, the chair of the Graduate Student Association, facilitated UCOP’s request for a representative and noted Riley’s background in education as a reason for his selection.

“He has a lot of experience working for students and working with [administration] for students, so I feel like he could be a good bridge,” Brock said. “He knows the system but he is still listening to students and [...] even five years after he ended his chair position at GSA, he is still involved in GSA and serving and participating.”

Speaking about the process used in selecting the ARBORETUM

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“I wasn’t too sure if I was interested in computer science, [but] after this, I’m really convinced that I want to try to develop more apps.

Now I’m considering majoring in computer science,” Selim said.

Currently, Selim and Chung are publicizing Bookbag by reaching out to UC Davis students to gather feedback from new users in order to improve the app.

If Bookbag proves to be a success on the UC Davis campus, they plan to further expand to students on other nearby campuses.

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firearm owners attribute to firearm ownership.”

In the interview, Wintemute also said that the firearm violence research center will start with a core group of four investigators from the Violence Prevention Research Program at the UC Davis Medical Center. The additional funding will bring two more faculty members and two more analysts to the team.

“We’ve seen for the past four years now, a breadth and a depth of concern in society about firearm violence that simply was not there before,” Wintemute said.

Bettina Moore, a third-year economics major at UC Davis, believes that the center will have a

“There are several Facebook groups [selling textbooks] right now, but I think that Bookbag is a really interesting idea,” said Duke Cha, a graduate student in the department of cinema and digital media. “If [Bookbag] were to be something that is picked up, we [might be] able to [sell] textbooks [on more than] one campus.”

The platform through which Bookbag is used makes it an easy download for college students.

“I can definitely see how it would be more convenient for some,” said Biftu Mume, a fourthyear microbiology major. “However, I personally tend to use things like Facebook on my phone anyway so [the experience] would be the same for me.”

positive impact.

“I think [the firearm violence research center is] great,” Moore said. “There is a lot of stuff this country needs to do about gun violence. It is good that everyone is aware about that.”

Rebecca Nelson, a third-year psychology and Spanish major, cited recent police brutality against Black individuals as a reason behind why the research center is important.

“I think it’s really important because we definitely have a history of gun violence in the U.S.,” Nelson said. “It’s unnecessary that we have assault rifles legal. There is a huge problem with the militarization of our police, especially in regard to racial violence and the killing of many unarmed Black people. I definitely think it’s re-

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that Peet’s Coffee is one of our founding partners in this bold initiative. We fully expect the center will do for coffee what the renowned UC Davis wine and brewing programs have accomplished on behalf of those industries.”

Frances Radcliffe, fourth-year design major, has previously taken the Design of Coffee class and enjoyed learning about the culture and im-

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The campus wanted to provide a one-stop shop for international students.”

The projected budget for the center was $29,901,000. The 61,700 square foot building offers students academic amenities including modern classrooms, computer labs, a large multipurpose room and a common gathering space.

“The building commons space was originally not funded [and] it was not part of the building,” Rovis said. “Campus provided funding for a space to congregate, something like the Student Community Center. They thought this would be a great place to be a beacon for mingling between the international students and the campus at large.”

Additionally, the International Center features an outdoor BBQ area and a kitchen for catering events.

A coffee cart is also in the plans to be added by the end of the year.

The initiative to build a centralized building for all on campus international ordeals began in 2012.

UC Davis made the project a design build, with different companies submitting their designs for the

ally important to research gun violence in light of recent events.”

On Oct. 15, UC Davis will propose a multi-campus plan for the firearm research center to the UC Office of the President for approval. The plan will propose and prioritize initial research projects, develop a timeline for accepting applications for small grants, outline efforts to increase philanthropic support to sustain the research and define an annual operating budget and structure for reporting activities and accomplishments.

“The existence of the center and the work that it will do will create a foundation of evidence that will not exist anywhere else,” Wintemute said in the UC Berkeley interview. “I can’t put into words how thrilling this is.”

portance of coffee.

“Learning about how coffee is made is extremely important because it is the most widely used ‘drug’ in the world,” Radcliffe said. “A partnership with Peet’s Coffee is beneficial to our campus because working with one of the main coffee store chains in the nation would allow our campus to share and benefit from coffee research and information that they already have, and in turn we can help them to know even more as well.”

building. Ultimately, Flint Builders were given the project. Once the plans were finalized in 2014, the process took under a year and a half to complete, with sections of the building opening at various intervals starting in mid-August.

The UC Davis Extension portion of the center offers classes to international students staying with host families while abroad. Part of this program requires the students spend time learning English, and to accommodate this need, the International Learning Center (ILC) will offer a state of the art facility stocked with books, magazines and online resources.

According to ILC director Abram Jones, the center provides a space that reflects the most modern language centers across the country.

“The fact that we’ve set it up with this modern layout that is sensitive to the community of language centers that are in operation across the country, I think students will really appreciate it,” Jones said.

Students are excited to use the International Center and take advantage of the resources it offers.

“I think it’s really great that UC Davis has taken the initiative to make the international students feel welcomed here,” said Kevin Tang, a second-year chemical engineering major.

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chose [it] as the brand. [It will have] 120 guest rooms and it will be the first extended stay [hotel] in Davis, which the city really needs.”

Many residents in the neighborhood object to the proposal, arguing that the project is incompatible with current zoning regulations in the area, which prohibit buildings of more than three stories from being constructed.

In a change.org petition, residents of the area argue that the developers want the area to be ‘rezoned’ by the city to allow the construction of the Hyatt House hotel.

In a statement to The California Aggie, Alan Pryor, a resident of Rose Creek who was involved in the creation of the petition and opposes the project, highlighted that residents strongly feel that the development will significantly change their neighborhood.

“We are opposed to the zoning change of 2750 Cowell […] and are convinced it will negatively impact our neighborhood. The proposed zoning change would, at minimum, impact neighbor’s privacy, traffic

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Zagory has a lot of experience in sustaining the lush greenery and in managing Arboretum projects.

She has traveled around the state giving lectures on biological diversity and how to engineer vegetation to control floods. As part of the calendar of fall events, Zagory leads workshops for the city on how to create more sustainable gardens by removing high water lawns and replacing them with low maintenance plants.

“The Arboretum [is] a resource [for people] to get outside and relax, become more healthy and just be outside with all of the beauty,” Zagory said. “You can also learn about California and why it is so important that we grow our state’s native plants, and why it is vital to create more diverse environments in your garden by attracting more species like hummingbirds and butterflies.”

Zagory also suggested taking a stroll in the Redwood Grove, which “resembles a cathedral with its majestic and giant trees.” From there, you can even spot river otters that have migrated and settled in the Arboretum because of the ideal conditions in Lake Spafford.

Elaine Fingerett, UC Davis Arboretum academic coordinator, is another specialist who has worked for the Arboretum for 11 years. Fingerett explained that people feel very comfortable in the Arboretum PIANO PROJECT CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

station on Second and E streets, the Hunt-Boyer Mansion patio, the Arboretum and the Davis Food Co-op.

“We’ve had lots of emails from people telling us how much they liked [the public pianos],” Isabelle Shapiro said.

The Shapiro sisters presented their plan to the Civic Arts Commission, which unanimously approved the proposal and offered a grant to cover transportation costs of the pianos and a small stipend for teachers who volunteered to recruit students to help with the project.

Hailey and Isabelle were responsible for finding the pianos at no cost and for getting local students to turn them into public works of art.

“I think it’ll bring people together because they can listen to other people play and talk to each other about it,” Isabelle Shapiro said.

Many teachers from around the community helped with the project. Amy George, from Birch Lane Elementary School, Deanna Leveque, from Holmes Junior High School and Lynnette Diem, from Davis Senior High School (DHS), all worked on the project and encouraged their students to participate as well.

Each school came up with a theme for the pianos; whereas Birch Lane incorporated wildlife TRANSITION CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

the workshops focus on how to be successful with time management, stress, grading options and student development.

“We want to give [students] a smooth transition from their previous institution’s experiences to our college experience,” said Wilburn Wang, third-year communication and economics double major and First-Year Experience (FYE) peer coordinator.

Students are also encouraged to drop-in for advising with the RHAT FYE peer advisers and from the different colleges’ Deans Offices. “[It’s very important to ] have [students] come in when they are transitioning to UC Davis and take advantage of these resources [...] it’s always very helpful,” said Montserrat Garcia Juarez, a third-year political science and chicano studies double major and FYE peer advisor. “We are also peers, so I think

and allow a development that isn’t compatible with a neighborhood of single and multi-family homes. We applaud the planning commission for voting NO on the proposal based on the city council’s criteria for evaluating hotels,” Pryor wrote in an emailed statement.

While Bajwa accepted the privacy concerns, he said that the development has already proposed a plan to implement screened windows on the highest floors of the hotel to prevent guests from seeing into neighbors’ homes, which was a concern of residents.

The hotel developer also emphasized that the project has significant support from the Davis Chamber of Commerce, Davis Downtown, UC Davis Campus Events and many local businesses.

He dismissed the notion that the majority of Davis’ 60,000 residents oppose the project, and said he is confident that the City Council will override the Planning Commission’s recommendation and approve its development.

Both proponents and opponents of Hyatt House will have to wait until Oct. 25 for the City Council to give a final say in whether the project will be allowed to continue.

Councilmember Lucas Frerichs, who supports the proposal, agreed

new chancellor, Oltersdorf expressed dissatisfaction with the title of her role and how the UC has decided to proceed.

“I think that, for me, “student representative” is almost a misnomer because I think that representative implies [...] that there was some democratic process involved and I was not selected democratically,” Oltersdorf said. “The movement that I was involved in last year definitely tried its best to keep things completely democratic, to not have one leader but instead have a cohesive group of people that worked on a consensus basis and that constantly tried to let in outside voices [...] The process set up by the regents makes this extraordinarily hard. It’s going to be a challenge.”

— making it a friendly and welcoming place.

“The gardens are a massive resource full of collections used in teaching and research,” Fingerett said.

“We have a university connection [which makes the Arboretum] a great place for us to do programming that reaches out to the public and lets them know about what professors are researching and other things going on on campus. The Arboretum has grown so much that we have added more and more programs that became part of the culture.”

While the plants and trees have grown over the years, the influence that the Arboretum has on the Davis community has flourished as well.

“Many more undergraduates and young people come out every year and experience our very diverse learning-by-leading internship program,” Fingerett said. “The Arboretum has grown and empowered a whole generation of undergraduates to go out and take leadership roles.”

Working with students to create public programming has made Fingerett incredibly hopeful for the future of not only the Arboretum, but also the Davis community. She has seen many students who are committed to working in nature and helping people understand how to sustain the environment.

“I think that to me personally, it is very important to help people connect with nature,” Fingerett said. “[Seeing] people of all ages come to the Arboretum and enjoy the environment and all it has to offer is very inspiring.” into their piano, Holmes Junior High created a California beach theme and DHS used a barbershop theme.

DHS student Brandon Lim came up with the theme for his school’s piano, while Shelby Bernauer, Isabel Realyvasquez, Joshua Arias and Alex Timmons — all Advanced Placement (AP) Art Studio students — participated in the painting of the piano.

Mark Stiver, from Watermelon Music, agreed to tune the pianos, doing so at no cost to the city or to the Shapiro sisters.

The public is encouraged to play them between the hours of 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. and post a video to the Facebook page, “In the Key of Davis.”

“This could inspire people to start playing piano and be interested in the artwork that is on it,” said Joshua Arias, one of the AP Art Studio students who participated in the project. “I’ve seen homeless people play on these pianos so I think it could help people that cannot afford one for themselves [to] start playing.”

While walking around Downtown Davis with friends, Susan Brown came across the piano in the Hunt-Boyer patio.

“It was really cool to play it and have people stop by for a minute and listen to me play,” she said. “Hopefully people respect the pianos as pieces of art meant for the public’s enjoyment.” that helps a bit so that [students] can be more open to talking to us about what they want. We are the door to the more advising that we have here on campus.”

Students can find many other resources for adjusting to campus other than in classes and in the residence halls. The Student Academic Success Center (SASC) offers free tutoring in certain subjects for all registered UC Davis students as well as free workshops in math, science and writing throughout the quarter.

Additionally, Student Health and Counseling Services provides free individual and group counseling for students. Located in North Hall, students can meet with a counselor to talk about various mental health issues, family problems, academic problems, concerns about drug and alcohol use, relationship concerns and much more.

“We want to meet the demands of students,” Wang said. “We want to accommodate.”

with Bajwa that the city is in need of more hotels to accommodate visitors, and was also keen to highlight that projects like the Hyatt House are extremely beneficial to the city’s finances.

“The city has a shortage of hotel rooms currently, and many cities rely upon what’s known as Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) to help fund city services,” Frerichs said. “There is both a shortage of hotel rooms and also not a very large amount of TOT dollars that are gained from having hotel rooms right now in Davis. So we’re looking at all our options in the city for potential new hotels and new locations.”

Frerichs, unlike Bajwa, was not so sure about whether the project will be approved by the council and conceded that, as with all cities, new developments are always a contentious issue amongst community members.

“I’m not sure that it will be approved by the city council. People seem to be very torn over the project. I think any site is going to present unique challenges […] You have a site like that nearby a neighborhood, and often [residents] have concerns about any change or development in their neighborhood,” Frerichs said. “It’s not a unique situation for that site and it’s also not unique to Davis.”

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

12 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2016

BACKSTOP

JAY G E LV EZO N / AG G I E

BY N ICOLET T E SA R M I E N TO sports@theaggie.org

Players from around the West Coast competed at the Marya Welch Tennis Center from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2 as the UC Davis men’s tennis team hosted the 2016 Aggie Invitational for early fall match-ups. Studentathletes came out to the three-day event, which featured three singles and three doubles brackets.

Each player from the UC Davis men’s team competed in the tournament except for senior Alec Adamson, who traveled to Tulsa, Oklahoma to compete in the ITA All-American Championships.

On opening day, the Aggies looked good, featuring senior Eli Whittle, junior Everett Maltby and freshman Max Pham — one of the newest additions to the team. All posted straight-set singles victories in their brackets to advance to the quarterfinal round. The Aggies’ four doubles teams also rolled easily into Saturday competition. Freshman David Goulak and junior Tommy Lam, seniors Bryce McKelvie and James Wade and Maltby and senior Jesse Ross all defeated their opponents 8-3, while Pham and Whittle skirted by with an 8-7 win.

All of UC Davis’ doubles teams advanced to Sunday’s championship round, with Goulak and Lam taking down Sac State, 8-5. McKelvie and Wade rolled over Portland, 8-1, in the Flight ‘A’ Bracket, but were edged out 8-7 in the semifinal. In the Flight ‘B’ Bracket, Pham and Whittle beat their Portland opponents, 8-5, and Maltby and Ross sent Santa Clara home with their 8-3 victory.

In singles play, Maltby fell to Portland in the quarterfinal round. McKelvie and Ross both won their

Aggie doubles teams dominate tournament play UC Davis men’s tennis hosts annual Aggie Invitational tournament during start of fall season play

individual matches in the quarterfinal, but when they met in the semifinal round, McKelvie knocked Ross out with a 6-2, 6-4 win.

Pham won his quarterfinal singles match in the Flight ‘B’ Bracket, 7-5, 6-4, but he lost in his semifinal match. Whittle made his way into the championship round after a 7-6, 6-4 upset in the quarterfinal and a straight-set 6-1, 6-4 victory in his semifinal match.

During the final day of play, UC Davis had four representatives in the eight final matches. Doubles team Maltby and Ross claimed their Flight ‘B’ Bracket doubles crown with an 8-7 victory over their teammates Pham and Whittle in the championship match. Goulak and Lam lost their Flight ‘A’ Bracket championship doubles match, 8-7.

McKelvie lost his Flight ‘A’ singles championship match, 4-6, 6-3, 1-0, while Whittle came back from his doubles defeat and was crowned singles champion with his victory.

The Aggies have five more events on their fall schedule before finally opening spring season play in January against Pacific and Fresno State. UC Davis will be on the road for 10 games straight, including its match-ups against top-seeded University of Southern California and University of San Diego.

With a tough schedule ahead, head coach Eric Steidlmayer said that, this early in the season, the team is just trying to figure out where they stand in competition.

“What we’re trying to do in the next three weeks is see where we’re at,” Steidlmayer said. “We have a JAYand GEhow LVEwe ZO / AGGI E chance to evaluate where we are — what we do well, what we don’t do well, fixNit.” The Aggies will travel to UC Santa Barbara to compete in the UCSB Classic from Oct. 7 to Oct. 9.

BRADY'S BACK

MLB POSTSEASON PREDICTIONS

BY M IC HAEL W EX L E R sports@theaggie.org

Once again, I find myself in awe of how the Patriots just seem to get it done year in and year out despite the various hurdles they always seem to face. The last time the New England Patriots had single-digit wins was 2002. That is absolutely incredible. They haven’t just been a paragon of consistency for the past 14 years — they’ve been a paragon of excellence. At the helm of this juggernaut are obviously Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, but for the first four games of the season the latter wasn’t there to man the offense.

We’ve all heard about this by now. The never-ending stupidity of the Deflategate scandal has resulted in a four-game suspension for Tom Brady to open the 2016 season.

If you’ve been living under a rock for the last few years, Brady was accused of involvement in deflating the footballs used in the 2015 AFC championship game against the Colts, which sparked an investigation that ultimately concluded in his suspension.

After a long fight against NFL Commissioner/Dictator Roger Goodell, Brady decided that the Patriots were good enough to survive the first quarter of the season without him, so he abandoned the fight against Goodell’s ruling and accepted the suspension. He was right.

Despite a week-four loss to the Buffalo Bills in which the offense wasn’t able to muster any points, the Patriots are 3-1 and remain on top of the division.

Second-string quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo filled in admirably for Brady, completing 71.2 percent of his passes with four touchdowns and zero interceptions through the first two games — both wins — of the season.

Unfortunately, during a week-two game against the Miami Dolphins, Garoppolo suffered a sprained AC joint, meaning rookie Jacoby Brissett would fill in.

Though his play wasn’t as inspiring as Garoppolo’s, Brissett was able to fight through a torn ligament in his thumb while limiting any self-inflicted damage during his two starts, ultimately allowing the Pats to split at 1-1.

Now Brady’s back. He’s arguably the greatest QB of all time, and he will be given the keys to the engine of a 3-1 team on his quest for a fifth Super Bowl.

In a pretty fair analogy, the Cleveland Browns’ left tackle Joe Thomas claimed that Brady had received the death penalty for going 66 mph in a 65 mph zone.

The analogy was more than fair at the time, but the Patriots’ supporting cast has weathered the storm so well that “the death penalty” for Brady meant Brady got to vacation in Italy while his buddies took care of business.

I feel sorry for the Cleveland Browns next week. Tune in Sunday, Oct. 9 at 1:00 p.m. EST/10:00 a.m. PST to watch a man on a mission demolish the worst team in the league. If you thought he was carrying a chip on his shoulder after being picked in the sixth round of the draft in 2000, just wait until you see him now.

A RT U R O PA R DAV I L A I I I [CC BY 2 .0 ] / F L I C K R

George McConnell gives his forecasts for the Major League Baseball playoffs

BY GE ORGE MCCONNE LL sports@theaggie.org

Maybe some of you remember me as the scrub that predicted the Panthers would stomp the Broncos in last year’s Super Bowl.

Yes, that was me. And I’m back. But I return to you humbled, wiser and, this time, in print. The stakes have never been higher, and I’ve never been more prepared to deliver for my dwindling fan base. With the playoff picture finally set, I’ve predicted each of the winners of the opening rounds.

American League Wildcard: Orioles vs Blue Jays Winner: Blue Jays By the time you read this article, this game will already be in the books. The demands of the printed world are both formidable and exhausting, but that is where #PrintTheAggie has left us.

Nevertheless, in this one-game showdown, I expect our neighbors to the north to take down the Orioles with the power of Edwin Encarnación and Josh Donaldson. The near-unhittable Roberto Osuna will lock it down in the ninth inning. Look for a late-inning bomb at the hands of Jose Bautista and for the Blue Jays to advance to the ALDS to face the number-one seeded Rangers.

National League Wildcard: Giants vs Mets Winner: Giants I am so confident that the Giants will win this series that, if they don’t, you can find me on campus, cite this article, and I will personally give you $5 out of my wallet. I am a 6-foot tall mediocre-looking white guy with pretty bad posture who spends a lot of time on the second-floor stationary bike in the ARC — you can’t miss me. With about 27,000 undergraduates at Davis, I wouldn’t risk $135,000 unless I was absolutely sure. And I am.

National League Division Series: Dodgers vs Nationals Winner: Nationals

The Dodgers will choke like they have every year since 1988.

The Nationals, while riddled with injuries, will rely on some of that old Dusty Baker magic to pull off a series that they have no business winning.

National League Division Series: Cubs vs Giants Winner: Giants I wasn’t 100 percent sure about this matchup, so I swallowed my pride and called up UC Davis redshirt junior outfielder Alex Aguiar for some expert knowledge. Aguiar played summer ball in the Midwest and is exponentially more qualified to write this article than me, so this matchup should probably be your biggest takeaway from this article. According to Aguiar, “The Cubs are satisfied with a good season but can't actually see themselves winning. The Giants don't know how to lose in the playoffs even if they wanted to.” The Giants will move on to the National League Championship Series after they sweep the Cubs.

American League Division Series: Rangers vs Blue Jays Winner: Blue Jays Unlike George Straight, all my exes don’t live in Texas. I did, however, once fall in love with a girl at soccer camp who was born in Toronto. Drake will probably make an appearance at some point in the series and the Jays will take it home for the 6ix.

American League Division Series: Red Sox vs Indians Winner: Red Sox The Red Sox should be the most feared team in Major League Baseball. Their lineup has scored an incredible 83 more runs than the next-best offense in the American League. The Red Sox bullpen is hot, ranking second in the AL in ERA (1.81) and first in opponent average (.198). But maybe most important of all, the Red Sox have an X factor. They have the magic of the final season of Big Papi and 20 years of MLB service, which suggest that they just might end poetically with a trip to the World Series.