October 3, 2019

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VOLUME 138, ISSUE 2 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019

EMERGENCY GRANTS SOON TO BE AVAILABLE TO UC DAVIS STUDENTS FACING HOMELESSNESS UC secures $3.5 million to address homelessness, basic needs among students CA IT LY N SA MPL EY / AG GIE

CITY OF DAVIS DECLARES FISCAL EMERGENCY TO AVOID ‘DRAMATIC’ LOSS OF TAX REVENUE Tax measure allows city council to call special election

BY TI M LALONDE city@theaggie.org

Entrance to Aggie Compass by the Basic Needs Center in the east wing of Memorial Union on the UC Davis campus. September 24, 2019. Photo by Quinn Spooner / Aggie.

BY A L LY RUSSEL L campus@theaggie.org New funds have been secured to provide UC students with access to rapid rehousing grants. The aid, in the form of grants and resources, aims to address students in immediate crisis as well as those at risk of homelessness.

This past July, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s new state budget allotted $3.5 million for rapid rehousing grants to be distributed across the 10 UC campuses.

Funds are projected to be transferred to UC campuses in November. Until then, UC Davis’ Aggie Compass Basic Needs Center is in the process of utilizing existing funds to provide aid to students facing homelessness or who are in imminent danger of losing their housing.

With funding provided by UC’s Mortgage Origination Program (MOP), Director of Aggie Compass Leslie Kemp has begun implementing strategies from the rapid rehousing model, which works to get students back into housing as soon as possible, to prepare the center for November.

Following the rapid rehousing model, Aggie Compass is leading the vanguard to help identify students in need, provide immediate assistance in terms of short-term housing and sometimes ensure access to food, while also connecting students with resources going forward.

Aggie Compass faces the dual issue of pro-

viding assistance to students in immediate crisis, while also working to provide resources for students that help them secure longer-term housing.

“It’s not all grants,” Kemp said. “What we’re looking for is immediate help for students in immediate crisis — both food and housing crisis — and then also once we get those students out of crisis, then we have a large amount of students at UC Davis who we would say are at risk. We want to keep them from falling into the crisis category, and that’s where food programs come in — all these programs that are both education and immediate resources.”

Today, homelessness among students often takes nontraditional forms including couch surfing, living in one’s car and intermittent homelessness.

In addition to grants that will now benefit students, Aggie Compass has hired a professional staff member in order to help students navigate the rapid rehousing process.

At UC Davis, the exact number of students currently experiencing homelessness or in imminent danger of homelessness is unclear.

Within the last few years, Aggie Compass is aware of around 200 students who have experienced homelessness at some point, according to Kemp. Estimating the number of homeless students today remains an issue that the center hopes to gain more insight on moving forward.

Partnering with the City of Davis, Aggie Compass plans to engage in more outreach ef-

forts to identify students currently experiencing homelessness.

In 2018, around 250,000 students experienced homelessness in California, according to a report published by the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. This figure far exceeds those of any other state, with New York having the second highest rate with around 150,000 homeless students.

As leasing companies and landlords raise rent prices in Davis, and as the UC considers tuition hikes every year, many UC Davis students are classified as either housing insecure or at risk of homelessness.

Alexis Ramirez, a former ASUCD Senator and recent UC Davis graduate, previously served as the adopted senator of Housing Advising for Undergraduate Students (HAUS).

Ramirez acknowledged the increasing financial pressures college students face.

“Whether it be textbooks or tuition, these costs have only exponentially risen, especially when measured next to current wages,” Ramirez said. “It should be a priority to reverse this. This can come in many forms: lowering tuition, offering more financial aid and ensuring that school administrators are not co-opted by publishing companies.”

Students spend $2,000 on non-tuition costs, including food and housing every month, according to research from the 2018-19

GRANTS on 11

ELECTRIC BUSES TO COME TO UC DAVIS IN 2020 Buses to take students to West Sacramento, Downtown Sacramento

BY A N D RE A ESQ U E T INI campus@theaggie.org Students can expect an expansion to the existing bus service from campus to the Davis Medical Center in Sacramento as early as Spring 2020. The buses will be electric and replace the existing service that operates hourly.

Electrify America, a subsidiary of Volkswagen, will be providing 12 buses for the expansion, an upgrade from the two that are currently in use. The university originally announced that the buses would be operational in late 2019.

“The effort has always had an ambitious schedule and is currently ahead of our overall expectations,” said Matt Dulcich, the director of environmental planning for UC Davis, via email. “Ordering and manufacturing of the California built vehicles has proceeded as quickly as possible and past announcements may have reflected outdated project details.”

Volkswagen founded Electrify America in response to the company’s emissions scandal where it was found that it had intentionally programmed its diesel engines to activate their emissions controls only while being tested, in order to meet American emissions standards.

The buses will facilitate the larger plan to increase the connection between UC Davis and Sacramento. Eventually, the buses will also go to Aggie Square, the “innovation hub” that is planned to be built on the UC Davis Sacramento campus. The new development is meant to create opportunities for students, researchers and alumni in the city.

With many employees and students already commuting between the two cities, the goal is that the new buses will decrease the number of single occupancy vehicles on the road. They

Q UI NN SPOON ER / AGGIE

UC Davis Health Center’s shuttle delivers passengers between the UC Davis Medical Center and the Silo on September 26, 2019.

will help with the UC’s system-wide commitment to emit net zero greenhouse gases from its buildings and vehicles by 2025 — a goal unique to the system.

The buses are part of Electrify America’s Green Cities Initiative meant to increase access to zero emission vehicles in metropolitan areas across the country. Sacramento was the first city chosen for the initiative. The company is

investing $44 million to launch initiatives like the electric buses.

Will Berry, the fleet and operations manager at Electrify America, said via email that “no official launch date for the service was ever announced.” The service would be operational “by Q4-2019,” or Oct. 1 2019, according to the website of the marketing campaign for the company’s green city investments.

The Davis City Council voted unanimously to declare a fiscal emergency in their Sept. 3 meeting in an effort to avoid what city staffers warned would be a “dramatic” loss of sales tax revenue. The declaration allows the city to call a special election in March 2020 to put the renewal of the city’s 1% sales tax towards a citywide vote.

A staff report from city officials encouraged council members to approve a resolution declaring a fiscal emergency in order to call for a special election. In the report, city officials warned of a future gap in the city’s tax revenue if the city’s current 1% sales tax was not renewed. This multi-month gap in revenue could cost the city millions, the report stated.

“The loss of the $2.2M anticipated to be collected from January 1-March 31, 2021 would require the City Council to determine how to reprioritize among critical city services, reducing or cutting numerous City programs including public safety (Police and Fire); maintenance of city roads, sidewalks, bike paths and parks; and community programs, such as recreation for youth and seniors,” according to the report.

Declaring a fiscal emergency does not necessarily signal an immediate financial crisis for the City of Davis, according to Assistant City Manager Kelly Stachowicz. Rather, she said, the declaration is a pro forma “procedural move” by the council, meant to avoid a potentially dire financial situation in the future.

“The declaration was done for a very specific reason — to address a chain of events that happened that have required us to move our general election [from March] to November [2020],” Stachowicz said.

The chain of events began in July, when the city received a demand letter from Rexroad Law Firm alleging that the city’s current election system — an at-large electoral system — violated the California Voting Rights Act, disenfranchising minority populations in municipal races.

“Davis does not appear to dispute our allegations that the City has been conducting at-large elections, and that those at-large elections have resulted in racially polarizing voting and dilution of minority voting rights,” wrote Rexroad.

The letter threatened legal action if the city did not switch to a district-based system by its next scheduled city council election, originally slated for March 2020.

The city council disagreed with the premise of Rexroad’s lawsuit but worried about the financial implications of the legal battle. A city staff report, dated Aug. 13, echoed these concerns, asserting that fighting Rexroad’s lawsuit would be costly with little chance of success.

“Should the City Council decide not to pursue a move to District elections, the City would be exposed to litigation and required to pay legal fees not only for the City’s defense, but potentially for the plaintiffs’ costs as well,” the report read. “To date, no city has prevailed on the merits in a lawsuit challenging the California Voters Rights Act, so Davis’ costs would likely exceed $1 million.”

In order to comply with the letter’s demands, the council was forced to reschedule the March 2020 city council municipal election to November of that year, Stachowicz said.

General taxes, like the sales tax up for renewal, are typically required to share a ballot with city council member races in municipal elections, according to Stachowicz. Still, if the 1% sales tax renewal vote is also pushed back to November, this would create a multi-month gap in city revenue collection, she said.

“If we were to wait and have the sales tax at that November date, then [the tax] wouldn’t be able to be in effect until spring — probably April or so — of 2021,” Stachowicz said.

“Meaning we would lose about a quarter’s worth of revenue generated by that tax — that’s over $2 million. That would then put us into that financial emergency.”

The Sept. 3 report advised the council to declare a fiscal emergency, which in turn allows them to conduct the tax renewal vote during an election without city council races.

In response to the report, the council unanimously approved the fiscal emergency resolution, according to the city website. strong.

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

2 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019

Dunloe Brewery hosts Benefit Dinner for ALS KATHERINE FRANKS / AGGIE

Funds raised for ALS Walk-A-Thon

BY TAYLOR M A RT I NE Z city@theaggie.org A benefit dinner, featuring homemade food and music, will be held at Dunloe Brewery in Da-

vis on Oct. 5 for the Walk to Defeat ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis). Among the attendees of the benefit dinner will be Cathy Speck, who has ALS. Her condition inspired her to become captain of her own team, The SPECKtaculars, to participate in the walk. The benefit dinner will

contribute 20% of all beer sales and Dunloe merchandise to this movement. The dinner and the walk are both meant to help those who suffer from ALS and their families.

Speck was diagnosed with ALS after caring for her mother and brothers as they battled the disease. She lost her mother and her brothers to ALS before she received her own diagnosis.

“It’s devastating to watch a loved one go through it,” Speck said. “The average lifespan of a person with ALS is three to five years after diagnosis. I am an exception — being on my tenth year with the diagnosis. There is currently no cure or treatment for ALS.” ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is a fatal progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. Eventually, people with ALS lose the ability to initiate and control muscle movement. The minds of those with the disease stay intact, yet the body is affected.

Speck was diagnosed with ALS 10 years ago, and she dealt with the disease on top of cancer.

“I am the fifth member of my family to have ALS — more than 90% of ALS cases are hereditary,” Speck said. “We have a very rare genetic mutation. I also have metastatic [or] incurable neuroendocrine endocrine cancer, so I fill each day with as much joy as I possibly can.”

While Speck has been battling the disease, she still remains optimistic.

“I chose to have a positive attitude,” Speck

said. “I know every day is a gift — that I am blessed to still be able to talk. I have a choice to be depressed or positive. I decided to be positive because I want to feel happy.”

Brennan Fleming, the owner of Dunloe Brewery, is also Speck’s close friend. The brewery opened in 2017 and has hosted many fundraising events.

“I met Cathy when I was a kid, and she was working at the Co-op,” Brennan Fleming said via email. “My mom has stayed close to her over the years, and that’s how we got into the ALS fundraising stuff. My mom has been doing the walk for as long as I can remember.”

Maguritie Fleming, Brennan Fleming’s mother, helps with the ALS fundraising by organizing the food and events. She described Speck’s energy when they first met, which prompted her to become interested in ALS awareness.

“I met Cathy thirty years ago at the Davis Co-op, where she was working,” Maguritie Fleming said. “She would play with my kids while we were in line.”

The proceeds of the dinner will go towards the ALS Walk-A-Thon, which is also held on Oct. 5 at Raley Field in West Sacramento. The walk is a fundraiser for The ALS Association Greater Sacramento Chapter (ALSSAC). The ALSSAC is an organization that provides care and support for those who are suffering from ALS and their families throughout the region, including the City of Davis.

UC Davis professor arrested in Turkey recalls experiences Baki Tezcan (middle), along with his colleague (left) and older son (right), pose for a photo in front a courthouse in Çağlayan, Istanbul on July 18, 2019. Photo by Baki Tezcan / Courtesy.

Professor Baki Tezcan considers himself lucky compared to Turkish academics who have lost their jobs in government crackdown

BY RE BE CC A BI H N-WAL L AC E campus@theaggie.org Following a brief arrest in Istanbul, Turkey this summer, Associate Professor of History Baki Tezcan has safely returned to campus. Tezcan, whose research focuses on the early modern Ottoman period, spoke to The California Aggie about his experiences navigating the Turkish justice system.

In Jan. 2016, Tezcan signed a petition that sharply criticized the Turkish government’s actions towards Kurds, an ethnic minority in the region. His indictment came in May 2018 and, when he traveled to Turkey in June of 2019 to conduct research and to visit family members, he knew he would be arrested upon arrival.

Tezcan said he had reasons to return to Turkey despite knowing that he would likely be arrested for his decision to sign a petition openly criticizing the Turkish government.

“I needed to follow publications, be in touch with colleagues, continue my research,” Tezcan said. “And also, I didn’t want to be bullied [by the Turkish government], you know? I don’t think that what I did was wrong and so I thought I should be able to go there and do my share in asserting that what I did was nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to be defensive about.

That was also part of the reason I chose to go even though I knew there were going to be some troubles.”

The petition Tezcan signed was authored on the heels of a turbulent year for Turkey, during which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had lost too many votes in his AKP (Justice and Development Party) to maintain a parliamentary majority. The ceasefire between the Turkish and Kurdish armies collapsed after Erdogan’s government issued a crackdown in the Southeast, following the alleged discovery of trenches built by the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party).

Security operations began in “around 30 urban areas as well as rural areas throughout South-East Turkey,” according to a 2017 UN (United Nations) report. The report said that this “allegedly resulted in a number of persons being killed, displaced or disappeared.” Erdogan’s government imposed curfews in the area, and the calamity was reflected in the displacement of 335,000 residents of Southeastern Turkey, many of whom were Kurds.

Rebuffing attempts to form a coalition government, Erdogan called for reelection in Nov. 2015, after which he regained the parliamentary majority. In was at this time that the government began calling for the arrests of critics and dissidents — academics like Tezcan were targeted by the government. A failed coup in July 2016 only engendered further political and military instability.

The Turkish government, which accused the Academics for Peace petition signatories of “propagandizing for a terrorist organization,” failed to persuade Department of Justice officials in the U.S. to interrogate Tezcan, so they took matters into their own hands when he arrived in Istanbul.

Tezcan’s lawyer from the ACLU tried to have the arrest warrant lifted, but to no avail. Tezcan

also notified the coordination committee of Academics for Peace of the warrant for his arrest.

According to Tezcan, his lawyer said that “the purpose of the arrest wasn’t to send [him] to jail but to make [him] go to court.” Three colleagues appeared at the Istanbul airport to show their solidarity for him, and his arrest upon entering the airport transpired peacefully.

“The [police] first took me to a building,” Tezcan recalled. “They were very courteous and respectful, they didn’t touch me — no body search. They asked me to sign papers about the body search and then the next building was at the police center in the airport and they took mugshots and fingerprints. They were plainclothes police officers. I think they were probably from the anti-terrorism team.”

The police officers then took Tezcan to a hospital, where he received a clean bill of health.

“I think it’s part of the procedure to show that you haven’t been tortured,” Tezcan said.

The officers then accompanied him to court, which was closed to the public; Tezcan described it as an “after-hours court.” Despite the arrest, Tezcan considers himself lucky.

“The court was presided over by a more understanding judge than the judge who presides over the court to which my case was assigned,” he said.

The courts often handle cases differently, Tezcan said, and some of the signatories’ trials were prolonged as a result of this.

While the majority of the signatories whose cases were closed received 15-month sentences that they were unlikely to serve, Tezcan remained concerned about the possibility of a two-anda-half year sentence, which would prevent him from receiving the probation that a shorter sentence would offer. Still, defendants don’t necessarily have to serve time right away and are permitted to appeal their cases.

Tezcan pointed out, though, that many people are put in jail indefinitely as they wait for their cases to come to trial.

“I was not so much troubled by the possibility of a jail sentence because I was thinking I could go back to the U.S. and simply avoid going to Turkey and avoid getting in jail,” Tezcan said. “I knew that the case would be overturned at the European Court of Human Rights because [it} was ridiculous. But I was really worried about travel restrictions, about not being able to return, about having to be smuggled out in a boat or something.”

At the trial, Tezcan brought a written statement to the judge, hoping “to keep the tension low.”

“I wrote something very well-spoken and direct without any self-censorship, except for a few sentences that my lawyer insisted I take out for protecting me,” Tezcan said. “Presenting it [in written form] allowed me to keep the tension low during the trial. I even asked [the judge] whether he wanted to read it and he said no. He decided that I didn’t have to appear in the next court session and that I could go. It freed me from having to be there and he didn’t put any travel restrictions.”

Now, the Constitutional Court, the highest

court in Turkey, has decided that the sentencing of the signatories was an impeachment on individual rights and liberties and has overturned the lower courts’ decisions. Since the beginning of this judicial year, these lower courts have been dismissing the signatories’ cases. As of Sept. 17, the courts have acquitted 171 of the accused individuals. But the atmosphere is still fraught for professors living and working in Turkey — following the July 2016 coup, Erdogan’s government began issuing “summary dismissals” of academics who criticized his rule.

“Private universities in Turkey don’t have tenure and they can dismiss people much more easily,” Tezcan said. “The public universities also find ways of dismissing some.”

Due to changes in the Turkish legal process after the coup, many of these professors are struggling to return to work. Being dismissed by governmental decree also prevents professors from receiving retirement benefits; as a result, Tezcan said, some have taken early retirement preemptively.

“In the dismissals [that the universities issued] it wasn’t mentioned why they were being dismissed and as a result [professors] have to fight an uphill battle,” he said. “As far as we understand, [Turkish] university administrations are given a blank check and can send [lists of names to the government]. Some administrators are decent and some use it as a chance to get rid of people whose political positions they don’t like or who are outspoken for civil rights. It turned into a witch hunt.”

Halil Ibrahim Yenigün, a visiting postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University’s Islamic Studies program who was fired from a Turkish university for his involvement in signing the petition, concurs.

“Moments after Erdogan attacked us in his speech in January 2016, right after the release of our Peace Petition, I was called by my university administration and invited for a meeting to explain myself, my motives for signing the petition, which ended up with my suspension in a couple of days,” Yenigün said via email.

“Eventually, while the investigation was pending, I was attacked on two newspaper columns by a journalist who is known by the Turkish public opinion as an ‘attack dog’ working for the government with an amazing ability to get his targets fired from their jobs immediately,” Yenigün said.

“Indeed, I was dismissed the very next business day.”

Yenigün said that Erdogan used the petition as an “excuse” to continue his “purge” of dissident academics in the public sphere. Yenigün also wrote that he had found sympathy in the U.S. for his situation, but that some American universities maintain financial connections to Turkey and that these universities “have made efforts to keep their money flowing by simply ignoring [my] colleagues and [our] situation.”

Yenigün believes this is largely due to the donor system in the U.S. “There are also some academics who wanted to keep their good relations with the pro-Erdogan academic officials in Turkey so they have kept

silent and they continued to receive their invitations to Turkey,” he explained.

Yenigün does not plan to return to Turkey in the near future due to the potential risk of “detention orders” and the struggles that professors there continue to face.

Indeed, some of the dismissed professors have left academia entirely, while some, like Yenigün, have gone abroad.

“I know personally people who lost their jobs, one of my generation moved out of academia altogether, one moved to a publishing job and one went to the U.S. and felt alienated and is now doing city tours in Istanbul,” Tezcan said. “Even though this story sounds like a beautiful story that ends nicely for me, it doesn’t end nicely for my colleagues.”

Tezcan is waiting for an upcoming court date in Turkey, at which time his lawyer will ask for his case to be officially dismissed. It remains unclear why the Constitutional Court decided to begin the acquittals.

“Was it due to an instruction from Erdogan that it has been enough?” Yenigün asked in his email. “Has it been costly for Turkey’s diplomatic relations and they decided to stop it here? Or was it an act of defiance on the part of the judiciary once they saw Erdogan is losing his grip over the society now after losing Istanbul and Ankara among many other cities? It is hard to tell at this point.”

SHEREEN LEE / AGGIE

Intense bike arguments, terrible parking September 21 “Reporting party attempted to take pictures of [a] trailer parked in the area, X exited and started yelling at reporting party and is now following.”

September 22 “Subjects being loud with apartment door open.”

“Vehicle parked in a ‘Zip Car’ stall and it’s not supposed to be.”

“Reporting party came back to apartment today to find mail on front doorstep and front door glued shut.”

September 23 “Vehicle parked in wrong direction.”

“Squirrel with its leg caught in the fence, reporting party attempted to help it but didn’t want to get too close.”

September 24 “Known subject threw an envelope which struck an employee during a confrontation.”

“Open line… sounds like male in an argument about a bike with someone else in the background.”

“Sold books online.”

September 25 “Vehicle was stopping at green lights, pulling over swerving, stopping in [the] middle of [the] roadway.”

“Reporting party noticed a male who stands in the area and watches people.”

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019 | 3

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

The Role of Professors in Understanding Modern-Day Undergraduate Pressures

An old picture from the archives of The California Aggie shows a person interacting with a cow on the UC Davis campus. Photo by Justin Han / Aggie.

Bridging the gap

BY MI KI WAYN E features@theaggie.org The ever-changing and unpredictable nature of college culture — especially in the past several decades — brings each generation of college students an entirely new set of challenges and expectations. As a result, today’s college student faces a unique set of demands, far different from those faced by their professors. This disconnect may lead to a lack of understanding between the groups.

Christopher Wallis, a professor in the English department at UC Davis, graduated from Saint Michael’s College in 2004. In his opinion as an educator, today’s undergraduate education is framed more as an avenue toward monetary success and advancement in the workforce.

Wallis said that although this aspect of education is important, it’s only a fraction of what the undergraduate experience has to offer in terms of personal growth.

“Of course, job-specific training is a key function of a college education, but it’s not the only one,” Wallis said. “Sometimes this utilitarian thinking can overshadow other, equally import-

ant functions, such as social/diversity awareness or developing critical thinking skills for a more nuanced understanding of our worlds.”

Wallis noted that this focus can be detrimental to students’ mental health. He said anxieties associated with today’s measurements of success could potentially impact the well-being of students, but added these are also challenges that many professors may not be able to empathize with.

“The pressure to achieve consistently high marks certainly impacts students’ mental health,” Wallis said. “Professors who overload their students are just a part of the problem. Without systemic changes and ideological shifts, I worry that these pressures will only increase.”

English professor Frances Dolan graduated from Loyola University, Chicago in 1982 and said that the most significant difference between her experience and the experience of students today are the distractions associated with social media and modern technology.

“I think my students have more distractions than I did — I used a manual typewriter in college and did not have a cell phone, computer or email,” Dolan said.

Dolan said, however, that these added distractions can also serve as a considerable advantage for today’s undergraduates.

“Students now have an astonishing wealth of information at their fingertips,” Dolan said. “The

challenge is to make the most of the technologies available, while still developing the muscles and skills you need to focus and concentrate and to maintain mastery of those resources.”

Today’s students are not the only ones who have confronted a unique set of battles. Wallis said his college experience was largely impacted by 9/11, a tragedy that many of today’s undergraduates struggle to wrap their heads around.

“Sept. 11 occurred at the beginning of my sophomore year, and so much of my college experience was shaped by this event and its aftermath,” Wallis said. “At first, it was hard to concentrate on classwork since we were all grieving the loss. Over time, though, we learned about coping strategies and techniques for self-care.”

Wallis said his professors were vital in helping him and his peers cope with this event.

“Professors regularly integrated the topic into our classes, which helped us to see more readily the relevance and urgency of our studies,” Wallis said.

There is an undeniable generational and cultural divide between students and professors. If each group made more of a conscious effort to understand and empathize with the other, this gap could shrink — and, according to Dolan, this intention must come from students as much as from professors.

She said that, while some professors have un-

realistic expectations of students, a majority of perceived academic stress is self-inflicted.

“Communicate with your teachers,” Dolan said. “If you are struggling, let them know and ask for help. Make time to stop by office hours.

If you have a problem with a deadline, speak up.

The student who speaks up helps everyone in the group and helps me do my job better.”

The disconnect between students and professors is apparent, but it may not be as large as some students perceive it to be. Students may not admit this, but their professors — even their least favorite ones — struggled through their undergraduate career just as they are doing now.

Therefore, professors have accumulated tools and resources that may benefit students.

“I recommend a planner that can provide a daily, weekly and monthly view of what needs to be accomplished,” Wallis said. “Also, have a plan for when things go wrong because they will, inevitably.”

Dolan believes it is important for students to recognize that they are not all that different from their professors, adding that understanding this is the first step in bridging that gap between educators and undergraduates.

“Remember you are not alone,” Dolan said.

“We are all nervous worriers — including your teachers. The more we all admit it to one another, the better.”

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

4 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019

ADVICE FROM STUDENTS, FOR STUDENTS TO BOOST ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE

Sticky notes, public study spots and more among top tips from students

Mrak Hall during a sunny afternoon in Davis. Photo by Quinn Spooner / Aggie.

BY ISABELLA BERISTAIN features@theaggie.org UC Davis students may easily identify with the constant struggle of having too much work

but too little time as they navigate the jumble of the fast-paced quarter system. The start of the new school year, however, offers students the opportunity to learn from past mistakes and try out new study habits.

A few top-notch UC Davis students shared

their top tips with The Aggie on how to stay afloat, juggle a busy schedule and study efficiently.

A good night’s sleep: Hailey Peterson, a second-year psychology major, recalls sleepless nights as a freshman in the dorms, which resulted in compromised school performance. She commented on the importance of a good night’s sleep.

“I thought I needed to do everything, so I stayed up super late and then I was always tired,” Peterson said. “That’s not a good idea if you’re trying to do well in your classes. Sleep is really important.”

Avoid procrastination: Fourth-year political science major Sophia Aldecoa touched on a universally-relatable subject matter.

“Literally, don’t wait until the last minute!”

Aldecoa said. “All of my classes [had] one 10 to 12 page paper that I always [did] the night before, but I’m trying my last year not to do that.

Don’t procrastinate — you think you can do it, but you can’t.”

Aldecoa added that while it is possible to finish a large paper or project the night before it’s due, the stress of procrastination will inevitably affect one’s mental health.

With only 10 weeks in a quarter, students will often be ambushed with midterms in week two or three. This requires staying on top of tasks and, if possible, finishing coursework ahead of time. Anticipating future assignments is a helpful way to keep stress levels low.

Mona Karimi, a fourth-year English and psy-

chology double major, shared her favorite tip for fighting procrastination.

“What helps me is to write down the due date for papers and midterms a day early so I psych myself out and then I actually have an extra day to study,” Karimi said.

Pick study spots wisely: One benefit of attending a large university is the plethora of available study locations. Miles Ducatillon, a third-year human development major, said choosing a private location to study might not be in a student’s best interest.

He said that working on his homework or studying in a public area helps him keep his focus and stay on task.

“I sit myself in a situation where other people can see my screen so I can’t watch minecraft playthroughs or people will literally judge the hell out of me,” Ducatillon said. “I literally cannot, I have to do my homework.”

Make lists: Staying organized is key for academic success — not only because it boosts mental health, but also because it prevents missed deadlines.

One way to stay organized is to buy a planner or post-it notes. Using a pen and paper is both a reliable and a scientifically-backed method used to recall important information.

Briana Amann, a fourth-year political science major, shared that whenever she feels stress coming on, she makes a to-do list and places sticky notes around her room and on her computer.

TOP TI P S on 11

UC DAVIS STUDENT HELMET USAGE STILL LAGS BEHIND NATIONWIDE STATISTICS, DESPITE HELMET HAIR DON’T CARE PLEDGE

Free bike helmets for pledge signers are currently out of stock, will be back Oct. 14 C AIT LY N SA M P L E Y/ AGGI E

BY ANJINI VENUGOPAL features@theaggie.org The Helmet Hair, Don’t Care (HHDC) campaign took its roots at UC Davis in the fall of 2016, when Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS) partnered with the University Honors Program to address the phenomenon of students not wearing bike helmets. The HHDC pledge is sponsored by SHCS, Transportation and Parking Services (TAPS) and the Bike Barn and provides participants with a free helmet.

The pledge asks students to always wear their helmets, stating: “As a UC Davis student, I pledge to always wear a bike helmet on every ride, even on short trips, because my brain is

more important than helmet hair.”

SHCS Health Promotion Specialist Shantille Connolly compared national helmet use statistics to those at UC Davis.

“When the program started, 7.9% of students were wearing bike helmets ‘mostly or always,’” Connolly said via email. “The national average usually ranges from 33-35% […] The main barriers identified were peer use, appearance and access.”

Since the pledge began, there has been a 48% increase in helmet usage on the UC Davis campus. As of winter 2019, 11.7% of students wear helmets — partly in thanks to Connolly, who not only plans the HHDC campaign, but also manages the pledge program. “[My job] involves developing campaign de-

signs, marketing and promoting bike helmets, coordinating logistics for the pledge program and planning events that positively recognize students for wearing bike helmets,” Connolly said.

Jack Rogers, the Bike Barn’s business manager, remembers the HHDC program from when he was a first-year student at UC Davis. His role involves “a little bit of everything” — demanding focus on administrative duties, working on repairs and helping customers.

“The Bike Barn is the easiest place to get helmets through the HHDC pledge,” Rogers said via email. “We have signage posted both in and outside about the pledge that helps spread the message to both customers and passersby. We often hand out helmets to customers who purchase bikes from us and over this past move-in weekend we handed out over 200 helmets from Friday through Monday.”

Connolly believes that the low helmet usage rate on campus — lower than the national average of 38.3% and the UC system-wide average of 43% — is largely because people feel that biking on campus and in the city is “safe.” Davis was recognized as the most bicycle-friendly city in the country by the League of American Bicyclists, and was also the first city to be presented a platinum ranking as a Bicycle Friendly Community in 2006.

“UC Davis is very bike friendly with designated bike paths and a closed campus,” Connolly said. “In short, campus is built for bikes. However, there are thousands of bikes on campus everyday (TAPS estimates at least 20,000 per day), and collisions are bound to happen.”

Second-year computer science and engineering major Nathan Wong agrees, saying that it makes no sense to not wear a helmet.

“There’s no downside,” Wong said. “If I don’t wear [a helmet] and if I get into a crash, I might be more hurt than if I’m not wearing one.”

Wong thinks one reason students forgo helmets is due to the inconvenience of carrying around a helmet. He said, however, this can be easily remedied by locking the helmet and bike up together.

“When [students] are on campus, it just feels

DIVERSITY REPORTING COURSE OFFERED

BY UNIVERSITY WRITING PROGRAM Course designed to diversify reporting strategies, connect people

UC Davis professor Stephen Magagnani poses for a photo in front of Sawyer Glacier in Alaska, where Magagnani went to interview Hmong from California who had moved north. Photo by Stephen Magagnani / Courtesy.

BY CAROLINE RUTTEN arts@theaggie.org The University Writing Program is offering a new course this quarter: UWP111A Special Topics in Journalism focused on Diversity Reporting. The course will be taught by Stephen Magagnini, the retired senior diversity reporter for The Sacramento Bee and a continuing lecturer at UC Davis since 1990.

“One of our staple set of courses has been the 111 series; 111A is the special topics in

journalism course, 111B is investigative journalism and 111C is science journalism,” said Associate Director of Professional Writing Rebekka Andersen. “Students who are interested in journalism will usually take 104C, which is the fundamentals of writing in journalism, and they have the opportunity to take any of the other three courses. 111A is usually offered in the fall, and it can be any number of topics.”

Diversity reporting is especially relevant in this day and age, Andersen said.

“We have a significant population of im-

migrants in the Central Valley,” she said. “We have a lot of diversity on our campus. Diversity reporting is a good way to focus on the needs and the challenges of people from all different backgrounds and ethnicities. How do you write about so many groups of people that is sensitive to their cultures, backgrounds and needs?”

Magagnini plans to teach the course using lessons from his career in journalism as well as through the employment of guest speakers and assignments meant to place students in diverse settings.

“I will teach from my own experience,” Magagnini said. “I have been the only white person in a black township in Soweto on the eve of the first free elections. I have been the only non-Muslim in large groups of Muslims in Sacramento to Pakistan … I will give [students] some assignments where [they] will step outside of [their] comfort zone.”

Exploring how reporters get individuals with a different background than their own to tell their stories to them is a fundamental concept Managagnini hopes students engage with.

“The trick is basically to look inside yourself and tap into your own humanity and your own curiosity about people,” Magagnini said.

“When you go to strangers and they sense that your interests are genuine and you are not there to hurt them or to advance your agenda they will trust you. If you are not afraid of them, they are likely not to be threatened by you. We are human beings first and journalists second.”

The humanizing lessons proposed in the class may be translatable beyond the journalism sphere, teaching students how to host

like you don’t need a helmet as much,” Wong said. “We’re all college students. We’re teenagers and in our early twenties. We’re all stupid [and] a little bit more reckless.”

Rogers, on the other hand, thinks the ubiquity of biking in Davis is the reason students opt to go helmet-less.

“Since people ride multiple times a day and go months or years without having an accident, they come to believe that it will never happen to them,” Rogers said. “This reasoning tends to ripple out, and when incoming students see other students not wearing helmets, they follow along and think that they don’t need to either. However, accidents still happen every day on campus and brain injuries can cause serious damage.”

Coyla Munson, a first-year PhD candidate in the department of chemistry, said she wears a helmet to prevent “getting stuck in the hospital” after a collision. She said she enjoys the feeling of the breeze in her hair that comes with riding without a helmet, but at the end of the day, safety is her priority.

“After getting an undergrad [degree], you want to protect your big asset,” Munson said.

“Also, don’t be fooled: as soon as you get out of this city, you will be hit by a vehicle.”

Munson said students can mix things up with colors and designs, making helmets a fashionable safety accessory — and in a worst case scenario, an identifying feature.

“I like brightly colored helmets,” Munson said. “So if my head does pop off, it can be located at a destination near my body.”

The SHCS agrees that helmets are necessary to prevent head injuries and that safety should be of the utmost priority to students.

“Students invest a lot of money in their education at UC Davis and a bike accident involving a head injury could be detrimental to their academic career,” Connolly said. “Wearing a bike helmet can prevent an injury from occurring so a bike crash won’t impact a student’s academics.”

Students interested in signing the HHDC pledge can visit the SHCS website. Free bike helmets are currently out of stock but will be available again beginning Oct. 14 at the Bike Barn.

constructive dialogue with various people throughout their lives.

“If these students develop some confidence to be able to have these conversations and find the common ground — there always is some — it will help them in every way of life,” Magagnini said.

Fourth-year sociology organizational studies and English double major Aimee Lagrandeur, who took UWP 104C, believes teaching empathy is key to diversity reporting.

“If you go in with empathy, then understanding is easier,” Langrandeur said. “You are trying to listen, you are trying to understand.”

Moreover, this specialized diversity reporting class helps students expand upon the rudimentary information covered in the fundamentals of journalism course.

“It’s cool to have a diversity angle with journalism” said Lagrandeur. “It is something you don’t think about, because you are only really aware of your own experience. The course wouldn’t just be about creating a space in an interview where someone would feel comfortable answering questions. It would also be interesting to open your eyes to the other potential questions you could ask that you haven’t really thought about.”

Lagrandeur suggested that a foundational understanding of what diversity means should be a precursor to the course — “Race and gender, for example, are socially constructed,” Lagrandeur said. “It might be god to vet out some student biases first.”

Overall, Magagnini hopes the diversity reporting class will act as a way to address the hate he has noticed as of recent.

“Some people now think they have a license to hate,” Magagnini said. “That’s something I have never seen before. I don’t know if diversity reporting can combat this, but [I hope] people can get exposed to people who are different from them.”

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 03, 2019 | 5

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

Review: El Patio The latest Mexican food chain pales in comparison to its competitors

BY ANDR EW WI LLI AMS arts@theaggie.org Television: “Catch 22”

When I heard Hulu was creating a show based off of one of my favorite books, “Catch 22”

by Joseph Heller, I was somewhat apprehensive. How could one of the most nuanced, satirical anti-war books of our time be translated into a mini-series? It seemed as though “Catch-22” was written deliberately to be a convoluted nightmare for screenplay writers. Regardless, I gave it a shot and was not disappointed. With George Clooney at the directing helm, the series reflected the book’s same comically absurd and delightfully entertaining humanist critique of war and the ridiculous bureaucracy that backs it. Yossarian, a B-25 bombardier played by Christopher Abbott, embodies the pessimistic realism of the original and makes a perfect centerpiece for the series. As he and his buddies make a ruckus of the Italian island Pianosa, they confront outlandish characters, bamboozling logic and heartbreaking truths. Although I would recommend reading the novel first, the series is a great way to reconnect with Heller’s timeless masterpiece.

The exterior of El Patio, a new Mexian resturant that opened downtown. Photo by Justin Han / Aggie

BY ALYSSA I L SL E Y arts@theaggie.org The vacant space on the corner of E and 2nd Street has been filled by El Patio, a Tex-Mex food chain. Casual dining is always appreciated in a college town, but this establishment’s take on Mexican cuisine might be too relaxed to make a name for itself among its competitors.

El Patio’s ambiance makes for a good first impression. Upon entering the restaurant, I first noticed the clean and welcoming interior.

Customers are seated under a rustic, wooden gazebo with Spanish music playing in the background. There is also an option to sit by the windows, which give a full view of 2nd Street. I was able to watch the chaos of a Friday afternoon in downtown from within the well-lit and decorated restaurant, which was rather relaxing.

However, a convenient location and good ambiance can only take a restaurant so far. El Patio provided a temporary menu for its first few weeks of service, as many developing establishments do.

However, even for a temporary menu, it was pretty sparse. There were no explicitly vegetarian options, and modifications had to be requested by the customer.

The menu also lacks healthy options.

They do not carry black beans, only pinto and

refried. There was also only one salad option: an uninspired chicken salad. Again, this was a temporary menu, so this issue may resolve itself.

However, the health-conscious customers might be better off avoiding El Patio completely.

A friend and I ordered the Super Burrito and meatless tacos. The food was prepared at a concerningly quick speed and was served on cafeteria trays. The burrito was bland at best, but the tacos were particularly unimpressive. The pinto beans, which had not been drained of their fluid, were slapped onto the tortilla carelessly, creating a soggy mess of a lunch.

Chips come on the side of every meal.

Although served warm, which was a nice touch, they still tasted like store-bought tortilla chips.

The salsa bar only offered two types of salsa.

Frankly, the chain doesn’t stand up to its competitors in Davis. Americanized Mexican food can be found in many locations in Davis.

There are two Dos Coyotes locations and La Piñata in town, and El Patio doesn’t have the unlimited soda machines or a salsa bar that compares to these establishments.

El Patio is the perfect dining option for anyone within walking distance of 200 E Street who needs a relaxing place to sit and escape the heat. Besides that, people are better off taking their wallets and appetite elsewhere.

Movie: “Whiplash” Want to get your blood pumping, undergo catharsis and be thoroughly entertained all in one go? Look no farther than “Whiplash.” Released in 2014 and directed by Damien Chazelle, Whiplash creeped into the critical spotlight, earning a handful of Oscars and a nomination for Best Picture (though it should have won). “Whiplash” follows the journey of drummer Andrew Niemann, played by Miles Teller, a first-year jazz student with a relentless work-ethic and an obsession with becoming etched into musical history as “one of the greats.” The movie centers on Niemann’s physically and mentally abusive relationship with Terrence Fletcher, the school’s studio band teacher, played by Oscar-winner J.K. Simmons. As their relationship unfolds, and as Fletcher pushes him to a breaking point, Niemann sees his relationship with the outside world crumble when his life becomes consumed by an addiction to greatness.

Novel: “Factfulness” During times of misinformation, sensationalist stories and alarmist rhetoric, reading “Factfulness” is a necessity. Author Hans Rosling, esteemed professor of health at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, breaks down the trajectory of some of society’s most important metrics from child mortality rate, interstate conflict and women’s education. “Factfulness” examines the long-term patterns of global health and the tools needed to uncover the truth about our growingly complicated world. It urges the reader to be critical, do their own digging and come to their own conclusions. In closing, it may inject its readers with some much needed optimism. Our situation may be a little better than one might assume, despite what we may think by relying on nightly cable news or a Facebook newsfeed.

Album: “Sleep Through the Static” “Sleep Through the Static” is the fourth studio album by Jack Johnson, the easy breezy singer-songwriter Hawaain native. This gem of an album helped me through the turbulent times of adolescence and I have been indebted to it ever since. To me, it has everything that’s great about Jack: his easy-going insightful lyrics are crystal clear, touching on everything from love to despair to the perils of climate change. Crisp guitar and piano riffs add accompaniment to a voice that has the quality of a deep, warm embrace. Some of my favorite tunes on the album include “If I had Eyes” and “Losing Keys.”

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

6 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019

Opinion THE

C ALIFORNIA A GGIE

E DI TOR I AL B OAR D KAELYN TUERMER-LEE Editor-in-Chief HANNAH HOLZER Managing Editor

New band, same members: Harmful Band-Uh! culture cannot be taken lightly or repeated What oversight does the university actually have on reformed UC Davis Marching Band?

KENTON GOLDSBY Campus News Editor STELLA TRAN City News Editor HANADI JORDAN Opinion Editor CLAIRE DODD Features Editor LIZ JACOBSON Arts & Culture Editor DOMINIC FARIA Sports Editor CECILIA MORALES Science & Tech Editor

HANNAN WALIULLAH New Media Manager JUSTIN HAN Photo Director ARIANA GREEN Layout Director SABRINA HABCHI Copy Chief ISABELLA BLOOM Copy Chief ZOË REINHARDT Website Manager SYDNEY ODMAN Social Media Manager LAURIE PEDERSON Business Development Manager

The Cal Aggie Marching Band, known to most students as Band-Uh!, was formally disbanded on Sept. 3. With it, the former band’s harmful culture and traditions, as detailed in The California Aggie, should have disappeared as well.

Since the announcement, though, it seems that members of the new UC Davis Marching Band are not taking themselves to task to focus on creating a safe culture for all members before starting on anything else.

The seriousness of the allegations against the band’s structure cannot be overstated. Courageous former members have come forward not just to The Aggie but to The Sacramento Bee as well, detailing their experiences around hazing, binge drinking, sexual harassment and assault, ineffective leadership, intimidation and more. These survivors should take solace in the fact that their stories have helped put an end to the harmful culture of Band-Uh! Other former members, nonetheless, have taken the band’s elimination in an entirely different light. The spectrum of reactions spans from those who accept that there were problems with the band and are ready for an overhaul to those who have declined to accept that there were any issues in the band at all. This denial amounts to nothing more than victim blaming. Former members have made public social media statements consistent with their views.

Within private law firm Van Dermyden Maddux’ climate survey on the former organization, some former members even expressed concerns “about ‘bias’ in the media against the organization.”

Let it be clear: The Aggie stands behind the courageous individuals who came to this newspaper and others regarding their experiences. In the Editorial Board’s eyes, members

of the new band must keep survivors’ narratives at the forefront of every decision regarding the new band’s future.

When petitions — one authored by a former Band-Uh! and current UC Davis Marching Band member — appear online asking that the new marching band be allowed to perform before the hiring of a faculty director, one can’t help but feel like what happened to the band’s victims isn’t being taken seriously. Recruiting a faculty member at UC Davis is a time-intensive process, and we want this process to be as thorough as possible.

When the same petition states that “our student directors and drum majors have been trained for two or more years for these performances,” and that “the football shows that they have already written are ready to be practiced and performed,” the survivor’s experiences are not centered. They seem absent from the conversation. And when an update to the petition is signed with a well-known slogan from the former Band-Uh!, more insult is added to injury.

The university has promised that the UC Davis Marching Band will be “university-supervised” and not “student-led” like Band-Uh! was. We want to know how the administration will ensure that the students leading the new band, who could have been members of Band-Uh!, are not going to maintain the old status quo.

Members, leaders and the new interim director of the UC Davis Marching Band: This is your chance. Sure, let’s do it for the music. But first, let’s make sure that the harm Band-Uh! did to so many never happens again. Make it a fact that “Far and wide, many have tried, but none have done it better.” Because up until now, that hasn’t been true.

Andrew Luck’s retirement reminds us of the darker side of the NFL IN A LEAGUE THAT DOES TOO LITTLE TO PROTECT PLAYERS, ANDREW LUCK FOUND HIS HAPPINESS TAKEN AWAY

BY CONSTANT REHABILITATION, INJURIES

BY C A LV I N CO F F E E cscoffee@ucdavis.edu Andrew Luck’s sudden retirement from the NFL reflects the darker implications of a sport that humans are not meant to play. A Stanford graduate and generational talent, Luck is the most fascinating NFL figure of the past decade.

As shocking as Luck’s retirement may be, it is commonplace in a sport’s league that makes billions off its players, but doesn’t make player health and safety a priority. Just look at the sudden retirements of Calvin Johnson and Rob Gronkowski –– both players who retired in their prime within a year of their 30th birthday due to constant injuries.

What made Luck so fascinating was how human he was in a league that lacks fascinating and visible stars. He even started a book club in his locker room and a book club podcast because he loves a good story.

He’s the quarterback who congratulates defenders on good hits, even though during his career, he was hit 60 more times than any other player. In a sport so violent, Luck was a force of

relentless optimism, until the sport he loved no longer allowed him to be.

The loss of Luck to the league will no doubt have a major effect on the Colts’ winloss record. But it will also affect locker rooms around the league — as one of the most gifted players in league history retired because the game physically and mentally destroyed him.

“For the last four years or so, I’ve been in this cycle — injury, pain, rehab, injury, pain, rehab — and it’s been unceasing ... And I’ve felt stuck in it,” Luck said. “And the only way I see out is to no longer play football. It’s taken my joy of this game away.”

And who’s responsible for this pain? Is that just the nature of the sport? Does it suck the joy and happiness out of life? It is a multitude of factors that led to this situation.

The first to blame would be the Colt’s former general manager, Ryan Grigson, who surrounded Luck with a dismal supporting class during the first five years of his career. Grigson’s inability to protect his franchise superstar led to Luck taking blow after blow, with a weak offensive line in front of him.

The second factor to blame is the league it-

self. In a recent article, Calvin Johnson exposed the ineptitude of both his former organization and the league. “It’s not about the welfare of the players,” Johnson said. “It’s just about having that product.”

Luck’s situation is almost exactly the same.

Player safety is a major issue for the league.

With any sport there is a chance of injury, but in the NFL players are physically throwing their full body weight at opposing players with forces of over 1,600 pounds. NFL quarterbacks like Luck are asked to take countless hits of that nature play after play, game after game.

After the news of Luck’s retirement leaked to the media during a meaningless preseason game, fans booed Luck as he walked off the field for the last time. Luck’s retirement has been considered as treason by media and fans.

In any other profession, if a 29-year-old were to retire because their job was constantly tearing their bodies apart and putting them out of work, leaving that job would seem like the only choice.

But this is the NFL, a sport where standing up (or kneeling down) for what you believe in will get you blacklisted by the league and fans

alike.

The reaction to Luck’s retirement by Indianapolis fans highlights the inappropriate sense of entitlement among NFL fans that is far too common today. How do you boo a guy who dedicated his health to your organization and city?

At the end of the day, Luck owes the fans nothing — for them to boo a man who lost the love of the game and the happiness it brought him is the worst kind of reaction. Fans should celebrate the winning years, records set and football magic that Luck brought after being drafted to their team, following one of the worst seasons in history.

His decision is not cowardice, it’s courageous. Granted, that decision is much easier when you’ve already made over $100 million in your career, but to walk away from the fame and the accolades is brave.

Luck can do any number of things now.

He can travel and study the architecture of the world, he can try his hand at commentating or he could read all the books for which he never had the time. He’s free now and about to be a father — he won’t have any problem staying busy.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019 | 7

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

CALIFORNIA MUSTN’T BLINK IN FIGHT AGAINST PLASTIC POLLUTION Failing to vote on landmark plastic legislation, California must bring bills back next year, start a national conversation about plastic pollution

Volunteers sort through trash during Coastal Cleanup Day 2018 in Santa Monica, Calif.

BY BENJAMIN PORTER opinions@theaggie.org California’s 2019 Legislative Session reached its chaotic close on Friday, Sept. 13, and, unfortunately, two landmark plastic pollution reduction bills did not come to a floor vote. As we stare down the barrel of our self-inflicted plastic pollution and waste management crises, California must seize the opportunity to lead on this crucial environmental issue when the bills are brought back next year.

SB-54 (Allen) and AB-1080 (Gonzalez), to-

gether known as the California Circular Economy and Plastic Pollution Reduction Act, would create a framework that attacks the plastic pollution crisis from cradle to grave. The bills set two goals: ensuring that 75% of all single-use plastics and packaging are recyclable or compostable by 2030 and reducing 75% of waste generated from single-use plastic and packaging materials by 2020 through source reduction, recycling and composting.

These goals are ambitious, but they are the least California can do as the plastic crisis intensifies. These bills are California’s chance to set an

example on major environmental legislation — as it has before — for other states and the federal government to follow. It’s disappointing not to hear the Democratic candidates talking more about plastic. It’s a complex issue that ties directly to climate change. Global plastic production is expected to triple by 2050 and account for 20% of global fossil fuel emissions. In other words, we need to talk about plastic on the national level, and we need to finally do something.

Since 1992, China imported a cumulative 92% of global plastic scraps. But China’s implementation of the National Sword policy bans imports of most recyclable plastic materials, displacing an estimated 111 million metric tons of plastic waste by 2030. While bill opponents think SB-54 and AB 1080 will cause economic harm, it’s important to note that local governments in California already spend about $420,000,000 annually in efforts to clean up and prevent plastic pollution. In addition, thousands of people are already losing their jobs as California’s recycling industry struggles. Now, much of the waste people think is recycled is just going to landfills, incinerators or our waterways.

Every year, our rivers convey about 4.8 to 12.7 million metric tons of plastic into the seas.

It’s estimated that by 2050, the mass of plastic in the ocean will exceed that of fish. Much recent news coverage has been devoted to the unnerving trend of dead whales and dolphins washing ashore with their stomachs full of plastic. A recent study found plastic in the guts of 100% of turtles surveyed. Microplastics have also been found in shorebirds, fish that people eat and drinking water worldwide.

Most of these plastics do not biodegrade — they just break into smaller microplastics and stay in the water, accumulate in the tissues of humans and animals and cause numerous health problems. A new study from the University of

Newcastle, Australia and the World Wildlife Fund estimates that the average person ingests approximately 250 grams of plastic annually, the equivalent of a credit card’s worth of plastic per week.

Over the summer, I had the unique opportunity to intern at Environment California as part of the environmental lobbying community trying to help pass these bills. While our efforts did not push the bills across the line, we must double down next year and prevent this from being all for naught.

After the close of the session, Senator Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), the lead author of SB-54, expressed his disappointment over the failure to send the bills to Governor Newsom’s desk, but he remains optimistic.

“Going into the final week of session, following the last round of amendments, a significant number of previously-opposed industry groups came on in support, or went neutral,” Allen said.

“This gave us momentum in advance of an Assembly vote, and I am confident that if taken up in time the measure would have passed both houses and been signed into law by the governor.”

Legislators must take full advantage of this extra time to improve the bills. But they must also be aware that if they continue to kick this (plastic) can down the road, they’ll only be creating a more difficult problem to solve, allowing for further damage to environmental and public health in the process.

Having also spent a summer absorbing the grandeur of the Pacific while studying oceanography and marine ecology at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Lab, I find this fight especially personal.

It’s disheartening to think that the countless ecosystems there — the fish and aquatic birds they support, along with their counterparts across the globe — are permanently threatened by our inability to innovate our way out of a problem created by one of our most innovative products.

HUMOR

UNITRANS L LINE OUT OF SERVICE DUE TO STUDENT’S FEARS OF “TAKING L’S”

FRESHMAN ARTFULLY DODGES PAST ROMANCE IN THE DINING COMMONS

Why take the L when you can take the W?

“We snapchatted for a few weeks after, then he ghosted me.”

JAY G ELV EZON / AG GIE

JU STIN HA N / AGGIE

BY JULIETTA BISHARYAN humor@theaggie.org The L line has finally dropped out of service after weeks of sudden fear-induced desolation.

As the stressful and rather spooky season of midterms creeps up on us, students can often be seen confiding in bizarre superstitions to survive the ill-fated quarter. For many, this means refusing to take 13 units, avoiding walking under ladders, blowing a kiss every time Gunrock trots on by — you know, the usual. Since the beginning of the new Fall Quarter, however, students have begun avoiding the Unitrans L line like the plague in hopes of not “taking any Ls.” Third-year Unitrans driver Bill Sawyer says no one has stepped foot on his bus in weeks. The number of riders began decreasing more each day until there were none at all, according to Sawyer.

“Even the turkeys won’t get on the bus. What do they even have to lose?”

At this point during the interview, Sawyer promptly pulled out his phone to check his Google calendar and let out a gasp. “I forgot about Thanksgiving.”

Sawyer has been driving for Unitrans for the past two years and says he has never encountered such a strange phenomenon. “Usually, as a driver, I worry about overcrowded buses and being late to each stop. Now, I’m always on time!”

Since the perceived boycott, Unitrans has decided to remove the L line completely and consequently add more W buses with the tagline “take the W!” “I used to take the L line to get to campus, but now I just walk. It’s a four hour walk every day from my apartment, but it was definitely worth the B- I got on my midterm last week,” said chemical engineering student Xiaonan Chen.

“My friend said I could be using those extra four hours to study. Then she got a D on her quiz,” Chen added, shrugging with a cheeky grin.

“That’s all I have to say.”

The L line, which once ran through Pole Line and Loyola Drive, no longer remains in service.

The various bus stops have been removed entirely, with the expectation of boosting the GPAs of UC Davis students.

As the saying goes, “I’m not superstitious… but I am a little stitious.” In other words — it’s better to be safe than sorry during these trying, grade-dropping times.

BY KELSEY STEWART humor@theaggie.org In the Tercero Dining Commons this morning, first-year biological sciences major Katie Smith found herself in the unfortunate position of going to breakfast at the same time as her ex-romantic flame, Trevor Anderson.

Whilst in line to use the waffle machine, Katie told reporters she saw Trevor enter the dining hall flanked by several of his fraternity brothers. Suddenly feeling self-conscious about her culinary choices and the fact she was by her lonesome, Katie reportedly dashed over to the lowly cereal bar. She resolved instead to eat the remnants of Lucky Charms, mixed with slightly stale Cheerios and lukewarm almond milk.

She took a seat in the corner, facing the wall, constantly checking over her shoulder to see if Trevor had materialized behind her yet. He made a beeline for Go Live with his faithful crew, preparing to attack a breakfast burrito. Katie swore,

however, that they made a millisecond’s worth of gut-wrenching, soul-crushing eye contact.

“We hooked up the first week when we met at Fall Welcome,” Katie told reporters outside of Redwood Hall later that day. “We snapchatted for a few weeks after, then he ghosted me.”

When Katie noticed Trevor and his friends advance towards the seating area where she had just taken refuge, she took her bowl of barely-touched cereal and headed to dish return, even though her stomach was still growling.

“Is this how it’s going to be for the rest of the year?” She expressed gratitude, however, that he lived in Old Tercero while she dwelled in the newer building, Redwood.

After she fled the scene, she opted to buy an egg sandwich and an extravagant Naked Juice at the Tercero market with her dwindling balance of Aggie cash.

Reporters from The California Aggie reached out to Trevor Anderson but received no response.

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

8 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019

Review: “Friends” 25th anniversary commemorated in theaters A longtime fan let down due to missed potential Select episodes of Friends recently made a big screen debut at specific theaters.Photo courtesy of Valentina Ariete / Flicker.

BY ITZ ELT H G A M B OA arts@theaggie.org “Friends,” which aired from 1994 to 2004, made its way to the big screen for the first time ever — in select movie theaters, reruns of the cherished sitcom make their big screen debut.

“Friends: The One with the Reunion” ran on three days: Sept. 23 and 28 and Oct. 2, with each day showing a different set of four episodes.

On the first night, the episodes selected were “The One Where Monica Gets a Roommate,” “The One with the Blackout,” “The One With The Birth” and “The One Where Ross Finds Out,” with a total run time of one hour and 40

minutes. On Sept. 28, the night of the event I attended, the episodes played were “The One With the Prom Video,” “The One Where No One’s Ready,” “The One The Morning After” and “The One With The Embryos.” The final night was comprised of the episodes “The One With Chandler In A Box,” “The One With Ross’s Wedding Part 2,” “The One Where Everyone Finds Out”

and “The One Where Ross Got High.”

“Friends” holds a special place in my heart.

Like many people my age, I didn’t enjoy the series in its original run, but with its constant reruns and expensive Netflix deal, it has become part of my everyday routine.

When I first heard about the anniversary event, I thought it would be a documentary or movie that expanded on my favorite characters’ lives in 2019. I was sadly mistaken to find out that it would only be a rerun of four different episodes per night selected by the producers of the show.

I showed up early to the theater to catch the previews, and I was met with another surprise.

The previews didn’t consist of trailers for upcoming movies, but instead it was behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with the cast. The episodes were upgraded from their original film to 4K. The anniversary was a good idea, but it wasn’t executed as well as it could have been. There was a significant opportunity missed for branded merchandise or special features that would have made it worth it to go to the theaters to see episodes I’ve seen before and could easily watch from the comfort of my couch.

It was hard, however, not to love seeing the characters appear larger than life on the big screen. The seats weren’t entirely filled up, but the intimate crowd made it feel like a small group of friends watching TV together.

It also would have been nice to be able to choose which episodes were selected. I would have appreciated the producers creating a website where fans voted for their favorite episodes, as none of the episodes shown were my favorites.

Overall, the anniversary special fell flat and was chock full of missed opportunities. Longtime fans of the sitcom that follows six friends in Manhattan deserved more for the price of the ticket.

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 03, 2019 | 9

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THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

10 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019

A sign indicating the location of California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory on the UC Davis campus in Davis, Calif. Photo by Quinn Spooner / Aggie.

UC DAVIS AWARDED $845.5 MILLION IN RESEARCH FUNDING OVER 2018-19 SCHOOL YEAR

Federal and state government, various businesses, industries granted university funds for research projects

BY MARGO ROSENBAUM science@theaggie.org Known for its strong emphasis in research, UC Davis earns funding from various institutions, and last year was no exception. In the 2018-19 school year, the university received $845.5 million in grants and contracts for research, according to an article from UC Davis.

In total, the university was granted 4,519 awards that went to a wide range of research projects and services, as well as community outreach, according to the article.

Various federal and state agencies and corporations give the awards. These institutions usually choose specific projects to help fund, according to Vice Chancellor for Research Prasant Mohapatra.

“The biggest share is used for supporting graduate students and postdocs,” Mohaparta said.

Compared to other years, the research funding for the 2018-19 school year is $1.2 million below the previous year’s record-setting total of $846.7 million, according to the article. It is also about $70 million more than the 2016-17 school year, according to Mohapatra. He speculates that research funding will increase for the next year.

Similar to previous years, the federal government provided most of the funding, totaling $473 million in awards — $26 million more than the previous year, according to the article.

Other sections of the government provided an additional $88 million in subawards.

Although federal funding increased, California state funding totaled $49 million less in com-

parison to the 2017-18 school year. UC Davis still received a total of $124.8 million, however, making the State of California the second largest source of research funding.

The third largest source of grants, totaling $74.3 million, came from various businesses and industries, according to the article.

This funding allows groundbreaking research projects to occur at UC Davis.

For example, Vinod Narayanan, a professor in the department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, received a $2.2 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office. In his project, researchers will create “additively-manufactured molten salt-to-supercritical carbon dioxide heat exchangers,” which will capture the sun’s thermal energy and convert it into usable forms of energy, such

as electricity. The $2.2 million will be allocated over three years and is contingent on making steady progress, according to Narayanan.

The U.S. Department of Education awarded $4.9 million to the the LibreTexts project, which was created by Delmar Larsen, a professor in the chemistry department. Libretexts, originally Chemwiki, is a leading, noncommercial open-textbook organization that is working to expand its library of free and online STEM textbooks and educational resources, according to the UC Davis article.

“The goal is to make something that is able to substitute for commercial textbooks so students do not have to buy them,” Larsen said. “We have saved about $40 million so far in student costs and we are growing significantly.”

Like the grant given to Narayanan’s energy research, Libretext’s awards will be used over a three year period.

“The money goes to lots of different things,” Larsen said. “We need faculty to build content; we pay students to bring content into the platform; we pay for dissemination efforts; we have to pay for meetings and ways of presenting information to get the word out; we pay for technology and software to run what we need to do; we pay for analysis and we pay for many other things.”

The state of California granted $12 million to a UC Davis study on Jordan’s syndrome, a rare neurodevelopmental disorder that affects children.

“Not much is really known about [Jordan’s syndrome],” said Jan Nolta, the principal investigator of the research and professor in the department of internal medicine. “It is a really rare disease.”

According to Nolta, the study received state funding because their research could help them understand whether a protein found in Jordan’s syndrome is linked to Alzheimer’s and specific cancers. The funding will help researchers develop gene therapies for kids who have the condition.

Like the other two projects, the funding granted to the study on Jordan’s syndrome will be allocated over a three-year period.

“At the end of three years, we hope to have gene therapy and will understand the disorder better,” Nolta said. “We will find drugs that are already FDA approved and will prescribe them to stop deficits in kids.”

Nolta’s study, along with all the other research projects, are big scientific endeavors that require large teams and expensive equipment. Funding from the government, businesses and industries is necessary for their success.

“We just always have the patient in mind and we are very motivated by children who have the disorders,” Nolta said. “A lot of teamwork goes into this.”

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019 | 11

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GRANTS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Student Expenses and Resource Survey conducted by the California Student Aid Commission. Of students sampled, 35% said they experience very low food security and 33% are housing insecure.

Executive Director of the California Student Aid Commission Marlene Garcia

commented on the study’s findings.

“We at the Commission are listening to students,” Garcia said in the report. “We cannot ignore study after study, including our own, showing that something has to change so that we can help all California students succeed.”

TOP TIPS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4

mizes the problem and makes everything seem much more manageable. I also use sticky notes and put them basically everywhere to make sure I’m aware of everything going on.”

For more tips on maximizing academic performance this year, check out the Student Health and Counseling Service Center’s advice at https://shcs.ucdavis.edu/ topics/study-skills.

WSOC UPDATE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

“I think I give [the team] a lot of freedom to play their styles and to their strengths. But I also think as individuals; we play with a lot of passion and energy,” Hamm said. “I think our effort is fantastic. It is just about having better cohesive effort, rather than individual effort. It is going to be a group effort.’’

Hamm is proud of the team’s culture and chemistry, but now it is just about “connecting the dots on the soccer field.”

After a 3-2 loss to the University of San

Francisco on Sunday, the Aggies now enter conference play and are looking to become a major force in the Big West.

“Our conference is really tough,” Hamm said. “I think every game is going to be a huge battle. All of our pre-season records are fairly similar. I think it is going to be a battle every game. We have got to get some players back healthy, and we will give it a good run.”

Conference play begins Oct. 3 at Cal State Fullerton.

MLB POST SEASON CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

The Yankees and Twins are the only teams thus far in MLB history to hit 300 bombs in a season and will meet in the ALDS in what is sure to be a fireworks-filled series. Of course, before the division series, the opponent for the league-leading Astros must be decided. The wild card game in the American League will feature the Oakland Athletics hosting the Tampa Bay Rays. Both teams boast impressive defensives and bullpens, making for what is likely to be a low-scoring duel. The Rays have allowed the fewest home runs in the league this year (181), while the Athletics have hit the fifth most (257). Whichever team comes out victorious will be a worthy opponent for the Astros.

In the National League, the Wild Card game will feature the Milwaukee Brewers and the Washington Nationals. The two teams are both very well-rounded and have gotten hot at certain points of the season, showing they’re certainly capable of going the distance. The winner will then spar with the NL leading Dodgers, who broke their all-time franchise season record with 106 wins. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ previous record of 105 had been held by the 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers team that consisted of Roy Campanella, Pee Wee Reese and Jackie Robinson.

This year’s Dodgers were led by Hyun-Jin Ryu, who led all of baseball in ERA (2.32), Clayton Kershaw, who went 16-5 with a 3.03 ERA and Cody Bellinger, who batted .305 with 47 home runs and is one of the front runners for NL MVP. In the other NL Division Series will be the St. Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves. The Cardinals and Braves have the best and third best team fielding percentage respectively, making for a series with no room for error. Neither team has been especially hot, but one player surely has and that’s Cardinals ace Jack Flaherty, who has devastated batters since the All-star break, garnishing a 0.97 ERA. He’ll look to lead the Cardinals past the Braves in the second round, hopefully securing a spot in the National League Championship Series.

Given that the reigning champions, the Boston Red Sox, are out of the picture for this year’s playoffs, the World Series is once again wide open. Will the Dodgers finally break through and win a World Series after two-straight Fall classic losses? Will the Houston Astros return to the throne?

Although these questions are still unknown, but if there’s one thing MLB fans can count on, it’s that there will be a bombardment of home runs. Happy playoffs!

FB VS MONTANA CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

Montana seemed to suck the life out of the Aggie defense on a few lengthy scoring drives that took significant chunks of time off the clock. The Grizzlies were content to play a dinkand-dunk style of offense at times, patiently grinding out short gains on the ground and slowly wearing out UC Davis, while always coming up with the right play design to keep drives alive on third down.

UC Davis coaches and players constantly stress the importance of winning the turnover battle, but Saturday’s game could not have strayed further from the plan as the visitors prevailed in that department by a tally of 3-1.

A pair of Aggie turnovers, both lost fumbles, in the opening minutes of the third quarter gifted Montana two easy touchdown drives, which essentially put the game out of reach with still over 23 minutes left in the contest.

UC Davis was fortunate to even get on the scoreboard in the first half, taking advantage of a “roughing the kicker” penalty on junior punter Daniel Whelan that extended a mid-second quarter drive. Sophomore wide receiver Carson Crawford scored on a 3-yard touchdown reception that made it 14-7 at the time, the smallest deficit the Aggies would face for the remainder of the afternoon.

The Aggies went into the locker

room at halftime having amassed just 148 yards of total offense, the lowest of any half this season. UC Davis started out cold with four consecutive punts and an interception. In addition to a stout Montana defense, the Aggies were halted by a pair of key penalties that negated lengthy pass completions to senior tight end Wes Preece and sophomore running back Ulonzo Gilliam Jr. UC Davis was never able to establish the running game, averaging just 1.9 yards per rush, and was forced to abandon it in favor of a pass-heavy attack when Montana started to pull away in the third quarter.

The Aggie offense was not helped by unfavorable starting field position on almost every single offensive drive of the afternoon. Of the team’s 12 possessions, Davis only began past its own 26-yard line two times and was backed up inside its own 10-yard line three times. UC Davis Quarterback Jake Maier and the rest of the offense were faced with the daunting task of trying to piece together drives of 80+ yards and, as a result, were unsuccessful the majority of the time.

“When everything goes well and you score 50 points in a win, everyone tells you how great you are,” Maier explained. “When stuff like this happens, you’ve got to own it because you own

the 50 points and the wins. We’ve got to be more disciplined. We keep turning the ball over and getting penalties in big situations. Regardless of what happens in these games, we can’t do this to ourselves.”

Maier was able to complete 74% of his passes and threw for a trio of touchdowns, but a pair of costly turnovers prevented him from leading the offense to more points and gave Montana prime field position to extend the lead.

On the team’s first possession of the third quarter, Maier was stumbling backwards in the face of heavy pressure and mistakenly dropped the ball on his own while losing his balance. A Montana lineman easily scooped up the loose football at the 14-yard line and the Grizzlies found the end zone on the very next play.

Maier was forced to operate without star junior wide receiver Jared Harrell, who exited early with an injury, but found success with fellow junior wide receiver Khris Vaughn who hauled in a pair of touchdowns to go along with

a team-leading 57 receiving yards.

Maier moved into second place in school history with his 69th career touchdown pass, a 17-yard strike to Vaughn early in the fourth quarter. Other than that, it was a forgettable afternoon at the office for the signal caller, but he did not shy away from taking responsibility for the ugly performance.

“This is 100% on me,” Maier said. “I’m a leader of this team and where I go, this team goes. Whatever we’ve got to do to prepare better, practice better and make sure we’re executing, that falls on me ultimately.”

There’s no doubt that this loss is a negative blow to the Aggies’ playoff aspirations, due to the lopsided nature of the final score and the fact that the game was being nationally televised on Root Sports. Of course, UC Davis has seven more games to redeem itself and right the ship, but there are no cupcakes on the upcoming schedule.

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12 | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 3, 2019

NEW SEASON, NEW MLB POSTSEASON COACH, NEW CAPABILITIES PREVIEW

UC Davis women’s soccer starts strong to open 2019 season

Regular season filled with new historical milestones and countless homeruns comes to an end

QU IN N S P O O N E R / AGGI E A N DR EA GON ZA LEZ/ AG GIE

Midfielder for UC Davis Monet Kunz (5,right) battles defender Hailey Prentice (4,left) for the ball at the Sept. 27, 2019 women’s soccer game against Saint Mary’s College in Davis. Photo by Quinn Spooner / Aggie.

BY FRANKIE VEVERKA sports@theaggie.org After a tough 2018-19 season, the UC Davis women’s soccer team enters the new year with high hopes and a new game plan. The Aggies open this new season with a new coach, Tracy Hamm, who is one of only two American women to hold the prestigious United European Football Association “A” coaching license.

In addition to a new coach, the team welcomes 15 new players, including transfers, freshmen and red shirts. With Hamm’s help and vision, this new-look Aggie squad finished off its non-league play for this season with a 5-5 overall record. The team is ranked number three among Big West Conference programs with 11 assists, and the Aggies’ 11 goals allowed is the third lowest total in the conference. The team ranks third in points in the Big West and tied for first in shots per game with just over 15.

Some of the standout players for this year include redshirt freshman midfielder Leslie Fregoso and sophomore forward Casey Palmer. These two offensive forces have tallied three goals each, which accounts for six of the 14 that UC Davis has scored this season so far. Additionally, Fregoso is the Aggies’ first Offensive Player of the Week selection since last September, when Emma Hasco ended a year-and-a-half-long drought.

At the back-end of their non-conference

play, the Aggies faced Saint Mary’s College last Friday in a tightly contested match. The game was a fierce head-to-head battle with intense play both offensively and defensively for both squads, and ultimately ended in a 1-0 defeat for the Aggies.

“We are balanced both on the defense and attack, we have got some key players,” Hamm explained after the game “We have got to be able to adapt and change our system, and we need players to step up.”

The Aggies plan to build from the loss and take it to their future play by “not [making] mistakes,” according to Hamm. It was pretty even both directions.

“We need to make sure we play a full 90 minutes and not take plays off.”

At the beginning of the second half for UC Davis, goalkeeper Jessica Lima made five of the Aggies’ seven saves, which included a crucial stop of a Saint Mary’s penalty kick.

Lima was the brick wall that kept the Aggies within one, but they were unable to find that all-important equalizer following a first-half Saint Mary’s goal.

What lies ahead this season should make Aggie fans excited. With new leadership and major additions to the roster, the team is looking forward to a competitive conference slate where every game should be a battle.

Hamm believes that the team possesses a number of beneficial qualities that could fuel a successful run.

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BY AJ SEYMOUR sports@theaggie.org From the year 1900 until 1916, there were fewer home runs hit in Major League Baseball than the 2019 season alone. This season, the league-wide home run record was not only broken, but utterly obliterated, as teams amassed an unprecedented 6,776 dingers, almost 700 more than the previous record of 6,105 set in 2017.

Although the league never officially confirmed that any changes were made to the baseballs, fans and analysts have been rather skeptical of the sudden barrage of four baggers. Many games this season ended with the only scores coming from homeruns, posing the question of whether or not “small ball” still has a place in the league. The coming years will reveal if this year’s nonstop moonshots was an anomaly or simply the new norm.

Luckily for the game, overall pitching quality ceases to decline, as many top-tier pitchers have continued to succeed despite the changes hitters have made. Most notable among this upper-echelon is Justin Verlander, the Houston Astros right-handed ringer, who just implanted his name all over MLB record books in his final outing of the season.

In Verlander’s final start of the season, he became the 18th pitcher in history to record 3,000 strikeouts in a career, joining the likes of the legendary Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Nolan Ryan and more. In a 12 strikeout night against the Los Angeles Angels, Verlander also incredibly

threw his 300th strikeout of the season. In the sixth inning, Verlander struckout Kole Calhoun to earn his 300th K, doing so for the first time in his career.

The only other player in the MLB to do so this season was teammate Gerrit Cole, who led the league with 326 strikeouts. The only time this has ever been done in league history was in 2002, when Hall of Fame pitchers Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling accomplished the miraculous feat. This puts the duo in elite company, showing that the Astros are the team to beat in the playoffs, just two years removed from when they were crowned World Series champs.

Cole and Verlander led the Astros to a league best record with 107 wins, securing home field advantage for the duration of the postseason.

Not only did the Astros have one of the strongest pitching staff this season, but they also ranked third in the league in home runs hit with 288.

Adding to the broken records, prior to the season beginning, the previous mark for the most home runs hit by a team in a single season was 268, set by the New York Yankees last year.

Before that, the record since 1997 had been 264.

This season, four teams trumped that total: the Yankees (306), Minnesota Twins (307), Houston Astros (288) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (279).

All four teams proved that the style of power hitting is the most effective way to win — each team won its respective division and they were the only four teams to surpass 100 wins.

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AGGIE FOOTBALL HUMBLED IN BLOWOUT LOSS TO MONTANA UC Davis suffers 45-20 home defeat in Big Sky opener J U ST I N H A N / AG G I E

Sophmore running back Ulonzo Gilliam (34, middle) avoids the Montana defense to gain yardage on the play.

The UC Davis football team lost to the University of Montana Grizzlies 20-45 during the second home game of the season and now have a 2-3 record for the season. The game was held at the UC Davis Health Stadium in Davis on Sept. 28, 2019.

BY BRENDAN OGBURN sports@theaggie.org The UC Davis football team suffered its worst defeat of the season in Saturday’s Big Sky opener, falling to the visiting Montana Grizzlies by a final score of 45-20.

It was a stunning blow to the Aggies, a top-5 FCS team in many rankings polls, especially after last week’s hard-fought loss to the defending national champions.

The postgame mood in the home locker room wasn’t one of panic or anger, but rather pure disappointment and frustration due to the oppor-

L.A.’S OCTOBER DEMONS

How October ends could have big ramifications for Dodgers’ future after two straight World Series losses C AIT LY N SA M P L E Y/ AGGI E

tunities left on the table and numerous sloppy, uncharacteristic mistakes.

In his postgame press conference, UC Davis Head Coach Dan Hawkins explained that losses like this are par for the course along the journey of an ascending program and for a team still learning how to sustain success.

“Hardly ever, when you first learn how to fly a kite, do you just get it up in the air and it just goes the whole time,” Hawkins said. “You’ve got to lose a kite in the electrical lines or trees before you figure out exactly what you’re supposed to be doing.”

“It’s probably the first time in my two and a half years here that I felt like we got out-coached, out-energy-ed, out-executed and out-desired,” Hawkins admitted.

While the team is playing this season under the weight of increased expectations, every Aggie opponent also has added incentive to put forth their best effort and knock off last year’s conference champions.

“It’s interesting for these guys to understand wearing the target on your back,” Hawkins said.

“When you go win the championship, every team and every staff that plays you will go research the heck out of you, figure out how to stop you and study your film. They’re gearing up for you.”

UC Davis simply could not get anything going on offense for all four quarters and found itself constantly playing catch-up, trailing by as many as 31 points early in the third quarter.

The Aggie defense was significantly overmatched for much of the afternoon as well, failing to get off the field on third downs and missing an alarming number of tackles in the open

field. Every time it seemed like UC Davis had a chance to get a defensive stop and swing the momentum, Montana rose to the occasion and made meaningful plays to move the chains.

A particularly damaging breakdown in coverage on the third play of the second half led to a breakaway 62-yard touchdown for the Grizzlies and opened the floodgates for a nightmarish third quarter.

“I think it really came down to tackling,” said junior defensive back Erron Duncan. “[Montana’s] quarterback did a great job of creating on the run. Even with their running backs, they were pounding us and we couldn’t tackle. We were in the position the majority of the plays to stop the run for a minimal gain and we just couldn’t make the plays.”

UC Davis was severely gashed by a relentless Grizzly rushing attack that totaled 260 yards on the ground and averaged an even six yards per carry. Montana quarterback Dalton Sneed used his legs to escape the pocket and take off running on many occasions. With many one-on-one coverages downfield, Aggie defensive backs had to choose between covering their assignments or crashing toward the scrambling Sneed, who ran for 81 yards on 10 attempts.

“He made us look silly in the open field at times and was able to beat us around the edge,” Hawkins said. “You could really sense his competitive fire and you’ve got to admire that. He struggled a little bit last year against us so I give him a lot of credit for coming back and playing like he did.”

BY OMAR NAVARRO sports@theaggie.org

our best but part of it, a lot of it, is you’ve got to give credit to the opponent. And we have a lot of time to think about this one. But, again, spring is going to be around the corner.”

For many teams, especially in a sport like baseball, the window for opportunity to win a championship is very small. Typically for teams that make it to back-to-back World Series, that next season spells the beginning of a sharp decline. It is rare for a team in the Major Leagues to hold success for an extended period of time without faltering. That is what makes this Dodgers team so interesting.

For seven straight years, including 2019, the Dodgers have won the National League West Division, and the majority of those wins came in a very comfortable fashion. It is the third-longest division-winning streak of all time, and with every new division title, the pressure builds even higher on the team to finally bring home a world championship for their fans who have waited for 31 years. Over the past six postseasons, the Dodgers have lost in the NLDS, NLCS and World Series twice each in that span.

A mix of veterans and homegrown talent have passed through the Dodgers organization during this run. Big names like Adrian Gonzalez, Hanley Ramirez, Manny Machado and Yu Darvish all donned a Dodger uniform, but what has really

In front of an electric crowd at Chavez Ravine in the afternoon of Nov. 1, 2017, the Dodgers stood one win away from capturing their first World Series since 1988. All 54,124 fans were on their feet as Game 7 was about to begin. But in a flash, the dream turned into a nightmare for the Dodgers. They went quietly into the night, and the Houston Astros took home their first-ever World Series, celebrating on LA’s field.

“We’ve just got to regroup,” said Dodgers’ Manager Dave Roberts in the postgame press conference. “I like our guys, I believe in our team and I expect us to be in the same position next year.”

Nearly exactly a year later, the Dodgers made another run to win the NL West division title, survived a grueling seven-game series in the National League Championship Series with the Milwaukee Brewers and made it back to the World Series — this time facing the Boston Red Sox. After several questionable managing decisions

by Roberts, the Dodgers blew a four-run lead in Game 4, and ultimately lost the World Series again, this time in a quick five-game series.

“We’ve just got to go back out there, and I expect us to be back here next year, but celebrating on the field,” Roberts said after the Game 5 loss at Dodger Stadium. “I don’t think we played

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