May 14 2020

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

@THECALIFORNIAAGGIE

SERVING THE UC DAVIS CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY SINCE 1915

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

@CALIFORNIAAGGIE

@CALIFORNIAAGGIE

VOLUME 138, ISSUE 27 | THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020

THEAGGIE.ORG

THIRD-YEAR UC DAVIS STUDENT FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST UC DEMANDING PRO-RATA FEE REFUND

RA B IDA / AGG IE

UC, CSU systems sued

TESTING OF COVID-19 SKIN PATCH VACCINE BEGUN

BY VERNDARI INC. IN COLLABORATION WITH UC DAVIS

UC Davis Mouse Biology Program collaborates with biopharma-

ceutical company by conducting animal trials

BY MI CHELLE WONG science@theaggie.org

Mrak Hall at UC Davis. The UC and CSU systems are currently facing a class action lawsuit over refusing to refund any tuition and fees. (Photo by Justin Han / Aggie)

BY AL EX W E I N ST E I N campus@theaggie.org Disclaimer: The refunds demanded from this lawsuit would directly impact The California Aggie.

Campus News Reporter Alex Weinstein is a volunteer writer and does not receive a stipend.

Two lawsuits were filed on April 27 alleging that the UC and California State University (CSU) systems breached contract in closing campuses and not rendering certain services. The plaintiffs call for students to be reimbursed.

This may be a challenge, however, as the university is currently facing a major financial crisis.

In a recent letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, UC President Janet Napolitano claims that “direct assistance that UC campuses will receive through the CARES Act will not be sufficient to cover even the first month of [the UC’s] COVID-19 response.”

The plaintiff named in the case against the UC, Claire Brandmeyer, claims that despite these losses, students should still be paid back. Brandmeyer is a third-year student at UC Davis majoring in psychology with a minor in gender studies.

“I feel like they’re doing the bare minimum,” she said about the university’s response. “I feel like they have the money.”

The claims in the lawsuit detail certain fees and expenses that students pay toward the uni-

versity. Plaintiffs claim that some of these services are not being rendered.

For Spring Quarter 2020, the total campus-based fees amount to $641.74, according to the UC Davis Finances website, and the student services fee was $376.

Many fees listed in the suit, however are still partially being used: the ASUCD fee is still going toward paying senators, administrators and funding other online programs, The California Aggie fee is still going toward staff salaries, the campus expansion initiative fee continues as construction is ongoing, the 24-Hour room remains open, counseling and tutoring services are offered online and professors continue to commute to campus to record or broadcast lectures.

When asked about a partial refund for some of these fees, Brandmeyer and counsel gave conflicting answers.

“I am looking for a full refund,” Brandmeyer said.

Noel Garcia, an associate attorney at Cowper Law, PC, one of the three groups representing Brandemeyer and her class, said the refund was considered a pro-rata, or proportional, refund of fees paid for the entire year.

“However, it’s a full refund for the spring quarter fees,” Garcia said.

An answer from the plaintiff, however, differed from that given by the counsel. After being informed of some of these ongoing programs, Brandmeyer said, “all the fees that we are paying

for, what we are not using is the money that I think should be returned.”

The total of fees, according to Garcia, is $1,100 averaged across all UC campuses — a combination of campus-based and student services fees.

The UC as a whole, however, is at over a $310 million loss for Spring Quarter 2020.

Garcia said CSUs and UCs have multi-million or multi-billion dollar endowments to sustain them.

“Not only was it admitted that they have money in reserves, but that they’re not willing to use it to bail themselves out right now because they want to get those monies from people in the future,” Garcia said. ”So instead of using the money they have, they’re tapping into money that’s already been paid by the students, and essentially pushing those losses off on the students.”

She referenced a recent panel of higher education leaders that spoke about endowments.

Many endowments are donated for a specific cause. Donors stipulate that these funds need to go toward a specific project or type of program.

This panel also discussed the existence of unrestricted endowments — those with no direction on where the funds are allocated.

“This seems like precisely the time to use the vast unrestricted endowments available to the UC System,” Garcia said via email.

CLASSACTION on 11

CORONAVIRUS SPARKS INCREASE IN ANTI-ASIAN HATE CRIMES ACROSS U.S. Asians, Asian-Americans have been targets of racial discrimination due to paranoia, misinformation MA R IO R ODR IGU EZ / AGGIE

BY JE L E N A L A P U Z city@theaggie.org Since news of the coronavirus pandemic became public, Asians and Asian Americans have become the recent targets of racial discrimination. Asians and Asian Americans are blamed nationally for the cause and spread of COVID-19, resulting in a significant increase in anti-Asian hate crimes. These hate crimes include derogatory remarks, verbal attacks replete with racial slurs, racist vandalism and, in some cases, physical assault.

Ayanna Yonemura, a professor of Asian American Studies at UC Davis and lecturer at Sacramento State University, admitted that she was saddened but not surprised.

“If we look back at U.S. history, we do see issues of discrimination and scapegoating against Asian Americans,” Yonemura said.

It goes hand-in-hand with the long-existing myths that Asians are dirty and unhygienic, Yonemura further explained, and pre-existing stereotypes about Asians and Asian Americans.

Yonemura viewed this situation as a rude or abrupt awakening of the fact that the nation has more to work on. She emphasized the importance of finding ways to support various Asian advocates and civil rights organizations, as well as taking this opportunity to work with those who do not necessarily identify as Asian or Asian American.

“I want to take this opportunity to express my concern and my empathy for people who are feeling targeted and people who are feeling afraid,”

Yonemura said. “It’s enough of a burden for any human being right now to be afraid for the health of themselves and their loved ones.”

Davis Mayor Brett Lee, who is Asian American, explained that discrimination against Asians and Asian Americans has always existed, but now it has become more visible.

“This current COVID-19 situation has not created racism where it did not exist,” Lee said.

“It sort of opened the door for people to express underlying racist views.”

Lee said the City of Davis does not support the blaming of people’s race in any way, and condemns discrimination and xenophobia in all forms. While Lee was not familiar with any hate crimes that occurred specifically within the City of Davis, he assured that the Davis Police Department would take any reported incidents very seriously.

“I think this has really shown what racism is — at some level — all about, which is trying to find an easy ‘other’ to blame,” Lee said. “As a society, we can do better, and we absolutely should do better.”

Stacey Salinas, a senior historian of the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies, had more to say on how Americans can help fight anti-Asian discrimination with knowledge and awareness instead of ignorance and prejudice.

“We must reorganize and rethink what our federal government’s cultural beliefs are,” Salinas said. “It would fall on us to continue building an Asian platform.”

Salinas also emphasized that taking action against this issue is simpler than one might think.

“Just remember that you matter,” Salinas said.

“As long as you’re present — you don’t have to be the person driving the movement, you can be the person sitting in the backseat or even be in the passenger seat — because as long as you’re part of being present, then that’s another thing to add to the movement of being recognized and having a voice.”

Imagine being able to receive a vaccine through the mail in the form of a transdermal patch instead of an injection at the doctor’s office. Verndari Inc., a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to modernizing vaccine development and delivery, is currently making advances toward this possibility with the help of UC Davis facilities. The company recently announced that they will begin testing their patch delivery system in collaboration with UC Davis’ Mouse Biology Program in the first steps of developing a potential COVID-19 vaccine.

Daniel Henderson, the chief executive of Verndari Inc., initially began testing his designs for the Verndari’s VaxiPatch, a skin patch vaccine delivery system. The skin patch vaccine, for the flu, was a collaboration with UC Davis’ Department of Bioengineering in 2016.

“We hope it can really transform the way we think about vaccines because if we could make them room temperature stable, we could ship them all over the world,” Henderson said.

“If we make it something that is easy to apply, [it’s] potentially something we could self-apply.”

After developing flu vaccines to apply to the microneedles on the patch, preclinical testing began with the Mouse Biology Program. This led to promising results in early December of 2019. As COVID-19 became a more prominent threat, the company switched its focus from developing a flu vaccine to addressing the pandemic issue at hand.

The Mouse Biology Program’s role in this preclinical testing consists of looking at the vaccine’s ability to move from the transdermal patch into the body, according to Kristin Grimsrud, the associate director of vivaria and veterinary care at the Mouse Biology Program.

In addition, they will be making sure the body can recognize the antigens part of the vaccine and build antibodies against it. They hope to optimize the technology of this patch vaccine in order to achieve the same, if not better, results compared to an injectable vaccine.

Grimsrud explained that the FDA requires these animal trials prior to human clinical trials in order to show the vaccine’s safety and efficacy. In other words, animal models are a tool used to make sure there are no adverse effects associated with the vaccine and that humans will be able to benefit from it.

“Before you move [the vaccine] into the human, [...] you need to work in multiple animal models, which takes time, to show that not only were you able to show that it’s safe, but that in the event that that individual got infected, it stopped the infection from causing a clinical disease or at least reduced the clinical symptoms,” Grimsrud said.

Once the rat models prove the vaccine’s safety and efficacy, larger animal models, such as non-human primate (NHP) models, will be used to demonstrate the vaccine’s ability to prevent severe diseases. The California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) helps with providing these NHP models.

“Vaccine immunogenicity and efficacy outcomes in NHPs are more likely to predict outcomes in humans relative to small animal models, making the NHP model a very powerful model for studies centered around COVID-19,” said Smita Iyer, an assistant professor and core scientist at the infectious disease unit at the CNPRC, via email.

The CNPRC has the rhesus macaque, or NHP, model of COVID-19 along with the animal approval protocols in place and ready to start testing once Verndari Inc. is satisfied with the results of the rat studies, according to Iyer.

In the meantime, the Mouse Biology Program is taking an active role in collaborating with Verndari Inc. by brainstorming prototypes and offering intellectual insight rather than solely conducting tests, stated Grimsrud.

“We really like that nice partnership and friendship we’ve built with [Verndari Inc.] over the years, and we’re just really proud of the work they’ve achieved,” Grimsrud said. “Often we don’t get to talk about what we do in animal research and so it’s exciting that we actually do get to talk a little bit about what we do and have others know about it as well so they can value the animals that have contributed to the research as well.”

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

2 | THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020

CONFUSION EMERGES OVER FACE-COVERING REQUIREMENTS AS BUSINESSES ENFORE YOLO COUNTY POLICIES

Essential businesses and customers face unprecedented scenarios in adapting to new policies mandated by county KAITLYN PANG / AGGIE

BY MA D E L E I N E PAY N E city@theaggie.org Local restaurants and businesses are being asked to enforce face-covering policies after Yolo County released a health order requiring all individuals to wear face coverings in public settings.

The health order, which was instituted on April 27, 2020, requires individuals to wear face-coverings while shopping in grocery stores, picking up food at a restaurant or going to see a healthcare provider. Those who do not comply are not likely to be fined, but businesses are encouraged to refuse those who do not adhere to the policy, according to a Yolo County press release.

“Individual violators are unlikely to be cited however essential businesses and other enterprises will be expected to enforce this order,” the release read.

The health order explained more in depth

about specific actions businesses can take to remind customers of the requirement.

“In addition, an Essential Business must also take reasonable measures, such asposting signs, to remind their customers and the public of the requirement thatthey wear a Face Covering while inside of or waiting in line to enter the business,facility, or location,” the order read.

While it adds that businesses should take all “reasonable steps” to remove those who do not wear masks in a business, the order specifically states that, “Nothing in this Order, however, requires or encourages the use of physical force, threats, or intimidation.”

Yet, despite providing businesses with the policies outlined in the health order, there remains some confusion among customers and businesses about the finer details of the policy and when it’s necessary to ask customers to remove their masks, if at all.

One such instance was when Hannah Ste-

vens, a graduate student at UC Davis in the department of communication, was asked to remove her mask while purchasing alcohol at Save Mart.

“I gave the lady my ID, and then she stared at me for a moment — like she was waiting for something. Then she said, ‘Take your mask off please,’” Stevens said.

Stevens, who is 25 years old, said it is not uncommon for her to be asked for identification while purchasing alcohol, but she was uncomfortable with the idea of touching her face to remove her mask after touching her money, her ID and other items in the store.

According to the Center for Disease Control website, those wearing a mask in public are encouraged to limit face touching, or to, “Clean hands with soap and water or alcohol-based hand sanitizer immediately, before putting on, after touching or adjusting, and after removing the cloth face covering.”

Stevens mentioned that there were no signs or written indications stating that she was required to remove her mask for identification while purchasing alcohol.

“I did think it was a little bit odd because I have gone to other stores since social distancing, and I’ve never been asked to take off my mask — even if I’m buying alcohol,” Stevens said.

In an email to The Aggie, Save Mart explained its policies during the shelter-in-place order, including instituting the, “required social distancing measures,” and posting signs for customers, “informing of face coverings requirements.” They added that the “Davis Save Mart store policy is to follow the established guidelines from Yolo County,” but there is no mention in the Yolo County health order of requiring those purchasing alcohol to remove their face covering for proper identification.

Situations like these mark the confusion experienced by customers and businesses alike in adapting to the new shelter-in-place policies without specific instructions from the county.

Restaurants, grocery stores and other essential businesses face unprecedented scenarios while trying to balance remaining open for sales and keeping staff and customers healthy.

Most Davis citizens do seem receptive, however, to the face-covering order and following social distancing rules. Derar Zawaydeh, the co-owner of Crepeville and Burgers and Brew, said that nearly everyone who comes to pick up food is wearing a mask.

“We really haven’t had to refuse service to anyone, which is a good thing,” Zawaydeh said.

“I want to say 95%, if not more, [wear masks].

Hardly you get someone who comes in without a mask and then we tell them that it is required.”

Though he does not feel like the face-covering requirement is currently preventing people from picking up food, Zawaydeh expressed some concern over the effects when restaurants open back up for in-person dining.

“I don’t know how that will affect business in the long term, when things are better in general, whether people will still be compliant or not,” Zawaydeh said.

That uncertainty seems to be a common theme, as essential businesses work with customers toward enforcing policies that will prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

UC DAVIS MEDICAL CENTER NO LONGER TAKING PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT DONATIONS AFTER REACHING GOAL Students, professors across UC work to get masks to communities

Handmade masks. (Courtesy Photo of Robin Hill )

BY JA N EL L E M A R IE SAL ANGA campus@theaggie.org The UC Davis Medical Center said on April 28 it was no longer taking personal protective equipment donations (PPE) after reaching its goal, barely a month after campus departments and units were told they could donate PPE to UC Davis Health through Distribution and Logistics.

The center credited the accomplishment to its donors, including its international partners, Peking University First Hospital in Beijing and The First Affiliated Hospital Sun-yat Sen University in Guangzhou, China, which donated 400 surgical masks and 16,250 boxes of N95/KN95 masks, respectively.

Shu-qin Ding J.M., the director of the Office of International Affairs at The First Affiliated Hospital Sun-yat Sen University, said in her letter sent along with the equipment that during the pandemic, the thoughts of her and her colleagues were with their friends in the U.S. “We will always stand together with you to fight the pandemic,” she said in the letter.

Other donors included the College of Agri-

cultural and Environmental Sciences, the first campus donor to the center. The college donated 2,400 face masks, 700 N95 respirators, 200 isolation gowns, 57,000 gloves and other needed items.

College students and faculty have been collecting or making masks for their communities and for health workers as mask shortages become more common and more counties advise using face coverings when leaving the house.

Jennifer Romero, a fifth-year pharmaceutical chemistry major, is a volunteer in charge of donations for Sacramento Street Medicine, an organization that aims to give resources, food and services to unsheltered people. In light of the pandemic, that now includes masks and information.

“Some of them aren’t really informed about what’s going on, because they don’t have ready access to the Internet,” she said. “They’re detached from the real world. It’s a tough time for them right now.”

While Sacramento Street Medicine aimed to donate masks this past Saturday, they were only able to provide food to people experiencing homelessness.

Romero attributed the struggle to get materials to fabric shortages.

“Most of us don’t have sewing machines, and Joanne’s is running out of materials,” she said.

To continue making and distributing masks, theatre departments throughout the UC system have been using existing materials from their costume shops.

Costume designer and UC Davis Theatre and Dance graduate student Tasa Gleaon said in a press release that she had made around 60 face masks for family and friends.

The theatre arts costume shop at UC Santa Cruz coordinated with UC Santa Cruz’s Environmental Health and Safety Department to make 750 shaped fabric masks and 50 neck gaiters. Any extra masks the costume shop’s manager and assistant produce after the project’s needs are met will be sent to the UC medical centers, according to a press release from the university.

At UC Riverside, theatre employees aim to make at least 750 washable face masks that will be free for essential employees. Costume shop assistant Maria Hong said in a press release that sewing — unlike the pandemic — is something she can control.

“If I can help, even in this small way, I am happy to do it,” Hong said. “I am hopeful the masks will help keep someone safe.”

Like Hong, Robin Hill, an art professor at UC Davis, is using her existing skills to make masks. Hill’s masks have gone as far as New York.

Hill said she has been making masks for about three to four weeks and works from the perspective of being an artist who works with what she has on hand.

“My first mask was made from an artist canvas with flexible metal banding,” she said. “I posted on Instagram that I had made this mask and if anyone wanted one, they could direct message me.”

So far, she has made 20 masks, selling them at $10 each with 100% of the proceeds going toward the Yolo County Food Bank.

“What I say about my practice and what I’m doing is that I am turning old studio materials into food for hungry neighbors,” Hill said. “It feels good to feel like I’m doing something other than just sheltering in place for my own and others’ protection. I have something to contribute and can help in my own way.”

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020 | 3

FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND VIRTUAL UC DAVIS PRIDE MONTH CENTERS ON SOLIDARITY, COMMUNITY

LGBTQIA Resource Center celebrates theme of Nourishing Stories throughout May

The LGBTQIA Resource Center at UC Davis. (Aggie File)

BY ALLY RUSSELL campus@theaggie.org For the first time, UC Davis’ annual Pride Month is being held entirely online with interactive programming sessions and virtual opportunities to connect. Events are organized to bring empowerment, visibility and knowledge to the LGBTQIA+ community, all under this year’s theme: Nourishing Stories.

The LGBTQIA Resource Center (The Center) has been planning for months, organizing innovative events and programs held exclusively

online during the month of May. Participants are taking part in online events with guest speakers, virtual movie nights, sex education seminars and virtual dance parties.

Crystal Knight, the assistant director at The Center, reiterated the description and goals of the month’s Nourishing Stories theme.

“Through our narratives, we can collectively build and sustain a community that provides nourishment for each other’s needs and lived experiences,” Knight said.

While some events can more easily adapt to an online platform, others traditionally depend

on community gathering as a vehicle to spread empowerment and solidarity. One of the month’s most popular events, Out on the Quad, encourages LGBTQIA+ individuals to take up space and physically be “out” and outside. This event is usually co-organized with the Women’s Resources and Research Center (WRRC), and this year is no exception.

Joel Gutierrez is a fourth-year gender, sexuality and women’s studies and American studies double major who works as a community coordinator at The Center.

Gutierrez and others have been working to adapt in-person events to an online platform, acknowledging both the limitations and value of finding new ways to celebrate.

“Our on the Quad can’t be what it’s supposed to be this year, and it can’t even be on the Quad,” Gutierrez said.

Despite the month’s events taking on new dimensions, Gutierrez commented on the need and value of creating events for community members to take part in.

“There’s something really different I think about going to an event and sharing an experience with people and having an intention around it,” Gutierrez said.

At the event, set to take place on May 15, community members will have the opportunity to share stories, #OutFits and other examples of self-expression while enjoying a virtual dance party with a live DJ. “Our intentions are to create a celebration of our community that centers music, laughter, positive energy and willing dancing in your living room,” the event description states.

Instead of working to recreate past years’ events, organizers worked to adapt the functions of events and programming, acknowledging how the ongoing pandemic is likely impacting community members.

“We have a lot of different weeklong ways to get involved,” said Baani, a fourth-year cognitive science major who also works at The Center, who asked for their last name to be withheld. “Every Monday, a new journaling prompt is being released that people can complete either for their own grounding or if they tag us, they can be entered into a weekly raffle.”

Baani clarified that the structure of the raffle will allow for more ways than just journaling to enter.

“We changed the structure of the raffles so that winners will be announced at the end of the month and each submission of a doodling prompt, journaling prompt, or low energy alternative journaling prompt will be considered an additional entry in the raffle,” Baani said via email.

Due to the challenges of life during the COVID-19 pandemic, videos, instead of live-streaming all events, are providing flexibility for those wishing to participate. Social media posts similarly allow participants to take part in events and programs at their pace.

Pride Month is one of the first month-long programming events to shift to an entirely online format at UC Davis. Looking forward, if social-distancing measures continue, Pride Month may serve as a guideline for other campus organizations aiming to adapt in-person events to an online platform.

UC TO HOST TWO-DAY VIRTUAL CAREER FAIR

Students from all 10 UC campuses welcome to attend and chat with employers

A career fair from a previous year taking place at the Pavilion at UC Davis. (Photo Courtesy of Kenneth Cunningham)

BY AARYA GUPTA campus@theaggie.org The UC is hosting a virtual career fair from Tuesday, May 26 to Wednesday, May 27 in order to maximize student access. It is free for students who register and attend any of the 10 UC campuses.

“We didn’t have the right tools to do a virtual career fair,” explained Marcie Holland, executive director of the Internship and Career Center at UC Davis. “It takes a special platform, and we don’t currently have that technology on any of the UC campuses. So rather than each of us trying to get that technology up and running in a really short time-frame, it just made sense to me that if we combine our forces. It would be easier, more efficient and we would be able to more effectively serve our students and reach out to companies.”

CareerEco is being used to host this event.

According to their website, it is “a virtual recruiting platform and talent community for jobseek-

ers, prospective graduate students, academic institutions, and employers who leverage the power of technology and embrace innovation in order to accomplish their professional and academic goals.”

“CareerEco is a platform that we were all familiar with,” Holland said. “They were on our radar. We looked at a number of different platforms and vendors and we went with CareerEco mostly because they had the most experience in this space.”

Additionally, CareerEco is extending an invitation to the UC wide virtual career fair to their 15,000 employers as well, potentially expanding the fair’s reach, Holland said.

“Because it’s an all UC career fair, it will feature companies that are recruiting for Southern California offices and Northern California offices, Central Valley, throughout the state and probably throughout the nation,” Holland said.

“There might be a larger geographical recruitment.”

While most of UC Davis’ internship and ca-

reer fairs last from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., this event will take place from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

“It will be very different from what people think when they think of an [in-person] career fair,” Holland said. “I’m really grateful for this opportunity to help manage student expectations and to help people prepare to be as successful and make most of this event as possible.”

According to the FAQs for students webpage on CareerEco’s website, participants are only required to have a computer and internet access in order to attend. Items like webcams, avatars and photos are not required. Most of the interactions between employers and participants will be initiated by text chatting.

“The whole point of an in-person career fair is to meet people, make eye-contact, shake hands and have that interpersonal connection,” Holland said. “This is very, very different. This will be an opportunity to connect, but it’s virtual and it’s mostly chat-based. So it’s mostly a real-time chat function with representatives from lots of different companies.”

Employers will host chat rooms, and students have the opportunity to enter between one to three rooms at a time. In these chat rooms, students and other participants can talk with and ask questions to employers, according to the CareerEco FAQs. “To be prepared, instead of having a verbal pitch and simple introduction, we encourage students to have that written out so that they can plop that into the chat when they connect with an employer,” Holland said. “You can tailor it a little bit. If you know you’re talking to a company that does finance, you might focus more on your quantitative skills. It’s okay to explain your answers in a little more detail as if you were talking.”

On May 26, the STEM-focused day, employers in attendance include AT&T, Bloomberg, California Department of Public Health and the U.S. Department of State.

“It would be easier for companies to justify going to one fair and interviewing students from all the UCs than having to pick and choose which campuses they participate in,” Holland said.

On May 27, employers in attendance will include the American Public Media Group, Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, Peace Corps and Target.

“There are companies that are hiring,” Holland said. “It still is a way to connect with employers who are hiring. [It’s also an opportunity] to try out a new technology that undoubtedly is going to become more of a normal for a little at least.”

Holland also encourages students to take a look at the UC Davis’ Internship and Career’s website, as it is being updated almost everyday with new resources pertinent to job search in a pandemic.

Looking toward the future, Handshake, “the leading early career community in the U.S.,” according to its website, is building a virtual career fair module with a visual and audio component that the UC Davis Internship and Career Center was able to preview.

“We can help [students] with all the nuances with how to get a job in this kind of work environment,” Holland said. “We have appointments available, and we have new webinars, new videos we’ve created on how to get a job during uncertain times [and] how to do an interview remotely, on video.”

SOCIOLOGY DEPARTMENT CHAIR PUBLISHES GROUNDBREAKING RESEARCH ON CALIFORNIA PRISON, PROBATION TRENDS

Grattet’s research is “first of its kind,” “never been done before” K IYO M I WATS O N / AGGI E

BY HANNAH BLOME campus@theaggie.org UC Davis Sociology Department Chair and Professor Dr. Ryken Grattet recently published innovative research on changes to probation and prison populations in California since Senate Bill 678 passed in 2009.

In cooperation with UC Berkeley Assistant Professor Mia Bird, Grattet’s report assesses the impact of SB 678 on California probation operations since the bill became law in 2009.

According to Grattet’s report, the California Community Corrections Performance Incentives Act has “reduced prison population, reduced prison revocation (returning to prison after pro-

bation), reduced state correctional expenditures, increased funding for probation departments, transformed the culture of probation departments and led to substantial increases in the use of evidence-based practices, and did not lead to increases in crime rates.”

The study primarily focuses on the immediate policy impacts of SB 678. Impacts were measured by changes in prison population and analysis of the evolving culture of probation work.

“Prior to the reform, the [probation officer] profession was more focused on law enforcement activities,” Grattet said. “What we’ve seen and documented in the aftermath of the reform is a gradual increase in the what we call the ‘social work’ parts of the job.”

Grattet’s research was commissioned by the California Probation Resource Institute (CaPRI).

Brian Richart, the president of the Chief Probation Officers of California organization, explained the impact of Grattet’s research on California law enforcement practices.

“There is the accountability piece and there is the rehabilitative piece to what we do,” Rickart said. “Probation officers are a synthetic blend of a variety of disciplines.”

CaPRI commissioned Grattet’s research on the effects of SB 678 in order to understand which procedures and operations are most effective in achieving California’s prison reform goals.

“The focus of the legislation 10 years ago was to reduce the prison population by providing a meaningful alternative that could positively im-

pact crime trends in California as well,” Richart said. “Given that California tends to lead more than follow in probation trends, we thought it would be best to focus on probation trends in California from a research perspective. We want to build some infrastructure and build some capacity for California to do that.”

A press release published on April 29 served to inform the community about the research findings. Richart explained that the goal of SB 678 and CaPRI is to educate and train law enforcement and politicians about effective “evidence based practices” regarding prison reform.

“We conducted our press release last week to let the world know that their paper existed,” Richart said. “We want to serve to educate the industry and policymakers so that they can see what works and make well informed policy decisions moving forward.”

SB 678 was the first of many additional California prison reforms and realignment goals.

“California is in many ways, leading the country in terms of downsizing their reliance on prison and jails,” Grattet explained. “There’s still a long way to go but this particular piece of legislation was in many ways the moment where the reform really kicked off.”

Richart noted that Grattet and Bird’s research is truly unique. “[It is the] first of its kind, never-been-done-before in California,” Richart said. “[They are] on the leading edge of something new.”

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

4 | THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020

TWO “ROADMAPS” TO COVID-19 RECOVERY SHOW HOW AND WHEN THE STATE, COUNTY WILL REOPEN

AGGIE FILES

As Gov. Newsom eases some state restrictions on shelter-in-place, Yolo looks to county guidelines for reopening KAITLYN PANG / AGGIE

BY T I M L A LON D E city@theaggie.org Some non-essential Yolo County businesses may be able to reopen — with modified practices — as of May 8, as the state moves toward the second phase of California’s “Pandemic Resilience Roadmap.” The plan outlines a set of criteria state officials will use to determine how and when to ease COVID-19 shelter-in-place restrictions on businesses and other organizations. Yolo has released its own corresponding “Roadmap to Recovery,” detailing the restrictions and guidelines county officials will follow to determine when and how the county will reopen.

A draft of Yolo’s Roadmap to Recovery was released on April 23 and was later supported by the Board of Supervisors in their April 28 meeting. A dedicated page on the county website describes the Roadmap as a “living document,” with its guidelines meant to adapt over time as new information and developments arise.

There are three “guiding principles” that county officials will use in order to determine when business and activities are eligible for reopening.

“1) Allowable activities shall only include those not prohibited by the California Shelter in Place Order; 2) Allowable activities can be easily

modified or require no modification to incorporate social distancing in the activity; and 3) Allowable activities shall minimize the use of shared or communal property or equipment,” the page reads.

The Yolo Roadmap webpage ranks non-essential businesses and activities in terms of risk, which, in turn, corresponds with how soon they will likely be allowed to reopen. A handful of low-risk outdoor recreation activities have already been approved for reopening including golf, hunting, archery and fishing. On April 30, drive-in religious services and construction were approved to reopen, according to a county press release. Other low-risk items not yet included at this time of writing include curbside pickup for retail businesses and childcare services.

The April press release emphasized that all local restrictions are downstream from California’s shelter-in-place order — meaning that counties can only be “more restrictive than the State Order, not less” when it comes to reopening.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in a May 4 press release that California would begin “Stage Two” of California’s own four-stage roadmap to reopening on May 8. During Stage One, the state focused on “Safety and Preparedness Measures:” building out testing, virus tracing, PPE and hospital surge capacity. During this time, the state

DAVIS CONGRESSMAN INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO INCREASE TESTING, TRACING CAPACITY

Representative John Garamendi seeks to employ more government workers to combat spread of COVID-19

also encouraged essential businesses to focus on making their workplaces as safe as possible.

Newsom’s office released a state “Report Card” on May 4 that indicated that California was on track to meet the criteria for moving on to Stage Two. The second phase involves the slow reopening of certain low-risk businesses and activities — provided they can accommodate safety guidelines as outlined by the state. The state release mentions that bookstores, clothing stores, florists and sporting goods stores will be able to reopen “with modifications” — which likely will include curbside pickup for all of them.

While florists can be considered a low-risk business though, The New York Times conducted data suggesting that bookstores and sporting goods stores “are in the top quartile of risk,” showing that there are possible differences in risk between stores that would open during the same phase.

Not all Stage Two businesses will be able to reopen right away, however, according to the release. Offices, malls and seated restaurants will open during Stage Two of the plan but were not eligible to reopen on May 8. Schools are also under part of the second stage but will remain closed for the foreseeable future, according to the release.

“As the Governor noted last week, the state is working with school districts and the California education community to determine how best and safely to reopen,” the release read. “That continues to be the case – this May 8 announcement does not move up this timeline.”

It may be some time before the state moves on to Stage Three, during which higher-risk workplaces — including hair and nail salons, gyms, movie theaters and in-person religious services — will be allowed to reopen. The fourth and final stage marks the full end of the stay-at-home order, and the reopening of concerts, conventions and live-audience sports. Stage Four will follow the development of COVID-19 therapeutics, according to state guidelines.

Both county and state roadmaps highlight the importance of widely available testing to guide the easing of restrictions at a local level.

We get it, you work out April 30 “Just saw bear walking south-west toward pond area.”

“Turkey with broken foot.”

May 1 “Subject working out, dropping weight loudly.”

May 3 “Kids on bikes approximately 14-15 years of age, smashing school crossing signs.”

May 4 “Loud bass music.”

May 5 “Snuck out to meet up with boyfriend.”

“Ripped an airpod out of his ears.”

“Kids playing with phone.”

May 6 “Respondent did not receive stimulus check.”

“Teen neighbors climbed fence into the respondents’ yard to retrieve basketball. Respondent is upset and wants subjects admonished.”

ROADMAPRECOVERY on 11

GIFTING STIMULUS PROGRAM AIMS TO SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESSES DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Goal to infuse $100,000 into Downtown Davis businesses

A row of businesses on E Street between 2nd and 3rd streets in Downtown Davis. (Photo by Quinn Spooner / Aggie) The office of U.S. Congressman John Garamendi in Downtown Davis. (Photo by Quinn Spooner / Aggie)

BY E D EN W I N N I FO R D city@theaggie.org On April 21, U.S. Congressman John Garamendi introduced legislation that would expand the country’s COVID-19 testing and tracing abilities. Garamendi is a Democrat in the House of Representatives who represents the 3rd District, which includes Davis.

Garamendi explained in a tweet that reducing the number of COVID-19 cases and reopening the country will require a large amount of testing and contact tracing.

“The coronavirus pandemic has put an unprecedented strain on our society, and our nation requires a significant scaling of testing and contact tracing in order to flatten the curve and lift stay-at-home orders,” Garamendi wrote.

Tracing entails asking a patient positive for COVID-19 about their recent contacts, then encouraging them to self-isolate for two weeks, according to the CDC website.

“In contact tracing, public health staff work with a patient to help them recall everyone with whom they have had close contact during the timeframe while they may have been infectious,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website reads. “Public health staff then warn these exposed individuals (contacts) of their potential exposure as rapidly and sensitively as possible.”

In order to increase testing and tracing capacity, the legislation — the Undertaking National Initiatives to Tackle Epidemic Act (UNITE Act) — calls for an increase in volunteers in various government agencies as well, according to a press release.

“The Undertaking National Initiatives to Tackle Epidemic Act (UNITE Act) would expand volunteer opportunities within AmeriCorps and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and direct those agencies to enhance testing and contract tracing to identify and monitor the contacts of infected individuals,” the press release reads.

Garamendi explained in a tweet that the UNITE Act will also reinstate and offer benefits to the Peace Corps, which was suspended on March 15.

“The bill would also ensure that @PeaceCorps volunteers, whose service involuntarily ended in March due to the global pandemic, will receive benefits & priority placement in these domestic programs so they can continue to use their skills

by facilitating testing & contact tracing,” Garamendi wrote.

Volunteers would further be responsible for “providing nutritional assistance to vulnerable populations; and administrative duties such as staffing call centers to disseminate public-health related information to the public,” the bill reads.

In a telephone town hall, Garamendi explained that the UNITE Act would be responsible for employing as many as 500,000 people in the AmeriCorps.

“I will be introducing [the UNITE Act] to use the AmeriCorps as a foundation for the employment of anywhere between a half a million and a hundred thousand Americans — young and old — to become part of a Health Corps,” Garamendi said.

Currently, AmeriCorps members receive “a modest living allowance,” according to its website.

The bill also calls the President into action, urging him to use government agencies to expand testing and tracing capabilities.

“It is the sense of the House of Representatives that—the President should fully utilize the competencies of the Federal Government workforce to battle the outbreak of coronavirus, the worst global health emergency the United States has faced in a century” the bill reads.

Since March 14, Garamendi has also voted for the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which increased aid for those economically impacted by the crisis.

“This bill responds to the COVID-19 […] outbreak by providing paid sick leave, tax credits, and free COVID-19 testing; expanding food assistance and unemployment benefits; and increasing Medicaid funding,” a summary of the bill reads.

In the press release, Garamendi stressed his confidence in service organizations and their ability to help fight the pandemic through robust testing and tracing.

“The UNITE Act empowers America’s service organizations to perform testing and contact tracing across the country and deliver the aid and support our communities require during the pandemic. I understand how capable America’s service organizations are to expand our nation’s testing and contact tracing to meet the needs of our country’s pandemic response,” Garamendi said in the press release.

BY S H RADDH A JH INGAN city@theaggie.org On April 22, the Davis Downtown Business Association (DDBA) launched the Gifting Stimulus Program, which “aims to infuse $100,000 into downtown Davis businesses,” according to a press release.

The program’s goal is to support local businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, whether the businesses are open or not, by creating additional revenue for businesses that are members of DDBA. Additionally, the program aims to encourage customers to continue supporting local businesses, such as the ones that are safely and legally open, and to support Downtown Davis once the stay-at-home mandate has been lifted.

As of the date of this article, though, the Gifting Stimulus Program closed “due to stimulus funds being exhausted,” according to Downtown Davis’ website.

Through the program, consumers could purchase up to $50,000 of gift cards or certificates.

The purchase of gift cards was then matched by additional stimulus money provided to Downtown Davis businesses, up to $50,000.

Brett Maresca, the executive director of DDBA, explained the process of matching purchases of gift cards with extra stimulus money for businesses in an email interview.

“Businesses will receive the money for your gift card/certificate purchases plus a match, dollar for dollar, as stimulus money,” Maresca said. “For example, if you purchase a $50 gift card for your favorite downtown business, you will receive the $50 gift card and the business will receive $100 from Davis Downtown (the $50 gift card purchase value + $50 stimulus donation match).

Each Davis Downtown member business is eligible to receive up to $1,000 in matched stimulus funds.”

Maresca noted that the gift cards or certificates have to be purchased through DDBA’s web portal for the program in order for businesses to obtain the matching donations.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses has been “shocking and scary,” Maresca said.

Ken Bradford, the co-owner and general manager of Ken’s Bike-Ski-Board, explained the impact on businesses.

“Many businesses were force[d] to close, by government orders,” Bradford said in an email.

“Ours was less affected — we provide some es-

sential services — but it has changed the staff available to work, the procedures we use to keep them safe, and the services we can provide at this time.”

Having fewer people than normal in Davis has also had an impact on businesses.

“Not knowing when things will be back to normal, or if an outbreak will occur again in the months ahead bringing more mandates is extremely worrisome,” Maresca said. “Most UC Davis students having left town has also made a huge impact, and if that carries into the fall it will be a much longer road to recovery for businesses whether or not all restrictions are lifted.”

Even though businesses may or may not be closed currently, they still have obligations such as rent, utilities and employees, according to Bradford.

“We can use the cash now to pay the bills — and deliver the services later (it’s also a promise by the Gift Card purchaser, to come see us when we re-open),” Bradford said.

Maresca also explained how the cash will be able to assist businesses during a period of uncertainty.

“The cash provided by both customers and the matching stimulus fund infuses much needed money into our downtown businesses,” Maresca said. “It can help them pay rent, employees, product and supplies, or other expenses of theirs during the shelter-in-place mandate.”

Not only will the program help businesses cover costs, but it will also show businesses the support from their community.

“In addition, this program has helped boost the morale of our business owners as they see the community rallying behind them and showing their love and support,” Maresca said. “I feel this is just as important if not more than the money itself.”

Bradford also highlighted ways the public can help support local businesses.

“Let your favorite businesses know you can’t wait to do business there as soon as they’re allowed to re-open,” Bradford said. “Ask if they offer dropship, curbside or local home delivery of your favorite stuff, even if their storefront isn’t open (don’t automatically think of Amazon, continue to “buy local” even when that looks different).”

Ultimately, the Gifting Stimulus Program hopes to garner community support for local businesses and help them in a period of uncertainty.

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020 | 5

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

Opinion THE

C ALIFORNIA A GGIE

E DI TO R I AL B OAR D

Corporations continue to exploit workers during pandemic

KAELYN TUERMER-LEE Editor-in-Chief HANNAH HOLZER Managing Editor

Support workers every day, not just May 1

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 SYDNEE RODRIGUEZ Design Director ARIANA GREEN Layout Director SABRINA HABCHI Copy Chief ISABELLA BLOOM Copy Chief ZOË REINHARDT Website Manager

On May 1, the UC Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) movement and UC Academic Federation of Teachers were among more than 80 graduate and university labor organizations that participated in International Workers’ Day demonstrations. As UC campuses have transitioned to online instruction and have suspended in-person operations in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, graduate students continued their call for livable wages and joined lecturers — who also face job insecurity as they currently work without a contract — in bringing attention to the threat of future staff layoffs.

These actions were set against the backdrop of a larger, nationwide strike at a number of companies — including Amazon, Target, Trader Joe’s, FedEx and Instacart — that took place on the same day. Strikers fought for hazard pay and stricter health and safety measures at their places of work, imploring people to boycott these companies while the strike was ongoing. They want, and deserve, to be properly protected and adequately compensated by their wealthy employers for the essential services that they are still performing.

The Editorial Board is in solidarity with the COLA movement, university lecturers and all workers who chose to take action on May 1. We urge everyone to support the workers who are keeping our education and essential services viable — especially as the country continues to feel the effects of the coronavirus. It’s inconceivable that employers are not providing workers with the bare minimum — financial security and workplace safety — needed to perform their jobs without risking their lives.

The pandemic has taken the lives of over 80,000 people living in the U.S., and the resulting economic slowdown has put tens of millions of Americans out of work. It has exacerbated the profound societal issues that stem from a broken

health care system and a culture of worker exploitation.

Millions of the country’s unemployed are expected to lose their health care coverage as a result of being removed from their previous employer’s plan. And because the country has neglected to invest in a comprehensive plan for Medicaid expansion, almost a third of those people will be forced to go without any insurance because they do not qualify for Medicaid where they live.

Had American workers been compensated with wages commensurate with the growth in earnings that top executives have experienced over the past several decades, it would have been much more feasible for many of those who lost their jobs during this crisis to save up enough cash to get by. But as wages have remained stagnant, American workers and the unemployed are left especially vulnerable during an extreme economic downturn.

But even those who are still employed at this time are being forced to risk contracting the virus without any additional compensation while facing backlash from the wealthy corporations — like Amazon — that employ them. Claims of a shortage of protective gear, lack of sanitation and inadequate paid sick leave policies have driven warehouse, delivery, store and gig workers to speak out against their employers and participate in the May 1 strike.

We encourage everyone to push for fair labor practices and livable wages, and to find alternatives to using the services of companies that aren’t providing their workers with them.

Whenever possible, buy from independent stores instead of Amazon and tip gig workers directly in cash instead of through the app. We all must do our part to help those who are helping us during this difficult and trying time.

SYDNEY ODMAN Social Media Manager JOSHUA GAZZANIGA Distribution Manager LAURIE PEDERSON Business Development Manager

Is the United States balkanizing?

COVID-19 PANDEMIC REVEALS AMERICA’S SLOW PUSH TOWARD REGIONALISM

BY BR ANDO N J E T T E R brjetter@ucdavis.edu Another day, another coronavirus article.

These days, it seems as though every aspect of life is affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. And while it’s true that social distancing has had a tremendous impact on the everyday lives of all American citizens, the influence of the crisis on national politics should not be downplayed.

It is abundantly clear to anyone paying attention that the handling of this pandemic has emphasized the current division between state governments and the executive branch. A widely publicized feud between Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and President Donald Trump was one of the earliest signs of a political dispute that moved beyond purely partisan lines. After previously voicing skepticism over stayat-home orders in numerous states, the president pivoted toward criticizing Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp last week over his decision to open up the state.

Perhaps nowhere has this devolution of the traditional American federalist system been more apparent than in California. While Gov. Gavin Newsom came under fire for referring to California as a “nation-state” last April, his choice of words merely reflected the state’s continued disillusionment with the rest of the country.

Even if the prospects of a “Calexit” remain a long shot, the state continues to develop its own political sovereignty. As Darel Paul noted in The American Conservative last month, California has begun isolating itself from the rest of the country.

Currently, it is the only state allowed to maintain its own auto emissions standards, although the Trump administration is legally disputing this. It has also expressed direct opposition to the politics of red America, barring state employees from official business travel to states with laws considered to discriminate against sexual orientation or gender identity. California also opposes the Trump administration on issues of illegal immigration, instead supporting sanctuary cities, expanding state Medicaid and extending stimulus payments to certain undocumented immigrants.

The move to reopen the American economy in the coming months has also exacerbated pre-existing regional divides in the U.S. While maintaining a commitment to its own method, California advances plans to reduce social distancing within a broader political framework, which includes frequent cooperation with the state governments of Oregon and Washington. A similar plan featuring the bipartisan governments of seven midwestern states –– Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana and Kentucky –– has likewise been implemented, with the group expressing their desire to coordinate in reopening the economy.

The stark division between states in their approaches to addressing the pandemic is part of a broader and much more troubling trend that has effectively divided America. Stark political differences and an almost irreparable cultural divide drives Americans to see one another as belonging to two fundamentally different nations.

Although there are a number of bipartisan efforts during this crisis, much of the po-

T ESSA KOG A / AGG IE

litical rhetoric surrounding these efforts focuses on the inherent differences between red and blue America.

In some ways, the political debate ripping America apart has hastened as states decide how to re-open, with most states’ strategies separated along explicitly political lines. Indeed, most red states are rural, have limited international travel and lower population density –– with blue states characteristically the opposite. Naturally, this would lead to the former opening up earlier and the latter taking a much more nuanced approach.

Simultaneously, the division between these states in strategy is now the target of a superficial culture war –– a sort of politically appropriated catastrophe utilized by either side for political gain. At such a time, this type of disunity is extremely disheartening for those invested in the future of this country. State officials are speeding across the country to cut deals in McDonald’s parking lots. Governors are sending national guardsmen to defend testing kits from federal officials. This is a level of fundamental dysfunction eerily reminiscent of the late Soviet Union.

It’s unlikely that the current pandemic will facilitate any sort of drastic division in the U.S. –– that is, an actual direct challenge to the sovereignty of the federal government. But it will nonetheless expedite an already collapsing collective faith in the American system. As competing factions of the American electorate debate over what the future of our country should look like, the decisions made in the coming months will vastly impact the ability of the country to take pride in a shared national identity.

reduce. reuse. recycle.

The aggie

6 | THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THERAPY IS FOR MORE THAN TIMES OF CRISIS We shouldn’t wait for things to get worse in order for them to get better KA IT LY N PA N G / AG GI E

BY KAC E Y C A I N klcain@ucdavis.edu There are few smooth ways to mention your therapy appointment during casual conversations.

At the mere mention of the phrase, people will immediately question your sanity, look at you sympathetically or simply awkwardly or just

silently stare at you. For whatever reason, talking to a friend about your problems is normalized, but talking to a professional is not.

Society often assumes that if you are seeing a therapist, then you are either emotionally unstable or going through a crisis — or both.

But neither of these assumptions are true, nor should they be.

In the last decade, the culture around mental health has improved dramatically, but a stigma still remains that one only sees, or should only see, a therapist if they are in a crisis. But we shouldn’t have to wait for our situations to worsen in order for them to improve. It should be perfectly acceptable to see a therapist regularly.

Part of the problem has to do with how we categorize mental health. Instead of considering mental health care a necessity, we put it on the back burner as a sort of last resort for our most dire situations. We should be encouraged to seek help for our mental health just as we seek help for a broken bone or a cavity.

Yes, sometimes we can take Advil to lessen our physical pain, but if the pain persists, then we see a doctor. In a similar sense, we can talk to a friend if we are having negative thoughts, but if our thoughts and feelings continue to weigh us down, then we should be encouraged to speak to a professional.

Unfortunately, the social stigma around mental health has hindered people in their attempts to take care of themselves for far too long, contributing to our current mental health crisis.

As a community, we should promote therapy as a healthy means to self-care. We shouldn’t feel ashamed for seeking help. More importantly, therapy is not solely reserved for times of crisis.

Even the most seemingly content among us could use a little time at a therapist’s office.

Under the current circumstances induced by

the coronavirus pandemic, the importance of therapy and access to mental health resources has never been more apparent. So much of our lives has changed since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Being stuck inside and limited in our contact with others is not good for our mental health.

Fortunately, much like many parts of the world, therapists have moved online — making it easier to find help during these hard times.

Yoga, meditating, journaling and going to the gym are healthy habits that may also help us cope with our troubles. They are also an especially great way to get out of the house right now. Therapy, however, can help us work through the problems we avoid, or offer the relief of simply talking to someone about our thoughts, issues, feelings or experiences we often deem too trivial to discuss.

With help from professionals, we may gain new perspectives, learn something about ourselves or find new and better ways to handle certain situations.

There is no age when the stress of life stops. At each stage in life, we will be faced with new problems or stressors that we may not know how to handle. We shouldn’t have to keep our struggles to ourselves. Mental health shouldn’t be a taboo topic or one that we shy away from during conversations. In order to #breakthestigma, we must encourage one another to take care of our mental health and to share our stories without shame.

THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A BETTER TIME TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES There has never been a worse time to develop video games

KATHER IN E FR A N KS / AGGIE

BY CA LV I N COF FE E cscoffee@ucdavis.edu Video games can be a vital distraction from the monotony of quarantine life, but for the developers that worked hard to crunch these games out, the near-future landscape of games looks bleak.

Video game sales are near an all-time high.

“Animal Crossing” is breaking worldwide records.

“Doom Eternal” had the best sales weekend in the history of the franchise. And professional drivers like Travis Pastrana are staying sane by competing in “Forza” online. Everyone is finding their own way to stay sane or fill up some time, and video games provide the perfect solution.

“Gaming is one of those areas that people are diverting to from other activities that they would have done in a normal world,” said Mat Piscatella, an analyst at marketing research company the N.P.D. Group, to The New York Times. “The game sales that are coming out are breaking franchise records.”

But while franchises are selling at an alltime high and companies are doing better than ever, video game developers and publishers are scrambling to tackle this indefinite crisis. The release of the most anticipated game of 2020, “The Last of Us: Part 2,” has moved from May 29 to June 19 due to concerns over physical sales. Factories are closed, leaving no means of producing a game physically in the midst of a

pandemic. Even worse, the entire plot of “The Last of Us” was leaked online. For invested fans like myself, avoiding spoilers is becoming a headache.

Companies like Ubisoft were ahead of the curve and learned all they could from their studios in China about how to successfully work from home.

But some developers are equating working from home during the pandemic to the same experience of “crunch.” For those unfamiliar with the term, “crunch” refers to the strenuous work conditions in video game development in the final stages of a game’s development where developers can work up to 100 hours a week with lengthy periods of overtime.

Not to mention that parents working from home also have to homeschool their children in the time warp of a quarantine workday. Being stuck at home can suck all of the motivation and energy out of us — for developers, that’s on top of the hours and work it takes to create a video game with hundreds of developers at home trying to collaborate. Under these conditions, we cannot expect the quality of our games to be the same come fall, winter and spring.

Any sort of collaborative or creative work necessitates a creative and collaborative environment. Now, without that, video game development is in a terrifying spot. The biggest gaming event of the year, E3, is cancelled. And along with it, a multitude of opportunities for developers both big and small to show off their work that has been in the making for years. Many who were expecting to nail down marketing deals and financing for games at E3 this year are now scrambling to find ways to fund their game.

For independent developers, lag in certification and funding could be a death sentence for their

studios and projects.

But amid all of the trouble that developers are experiencing, for me, there is no better time to play video games than right now. Waking up and checking on the turnip prices in “Animal Crossing” is becoming a habit. “Animal Crossing: New Horizons” was seemingly designed with a quarantine lifestyle in mind. The game gives players their own new world. A world that seems intentionally slow and annoying at times, but one that we could all use to give us a means of escape — and so has taking breaks throughout the day to play “Fortnite” with my roommates.

Both of my newfound traditions are vital elements to find the motivation in a situation where it’s all too easy to fall into anxiety or the slowness of indistinguishable days.

It’s easy to criticize and complain about technology when it comes to stealing our data, dictating how we act and making us feel lonely.

But technology can also provide us with the tools to be social when we are stripped of all traditional means of socializing. Video games provide us with a virtual space to hang out with friends, but more than any other source of entertainment, games are an interactive distraction from the anxiety-inducing environment that is our new reality.

With the world in turmoil, video games are helping us now more than ever — we should support those who are struggling to make them.

Without our support, the creative work that we love won’t be present in our future. Sending a message of encouragement to your favorite developer or creator could go a long way in our fight to return to normalcy. We should thank them not only because these games are fun to play, but because they allow us to escape the tedium of quarantine.

HUMOR

TO AVOID CORONAVIRUS ELECTION DELAYS, GOP UNVEILS PLAN TO “VOTE BY MALE” Expanding limited voting opportunity to greater numbers of fewer people KI YO M I WATSO N / AGGI E

BY B EN JA M I N P O RT E R bbporter@ucdavis.edu The coronavirus pandemic threatens to throw America’s elections into chaos. Luckily, Senate Republicans have proposed a brilliant plan to guarantee that our elections can safely go ahead across the country, no matter what. The bill guarantees widespread voting access for as many eligible voters as possible simply by redefining “eligible voters” as narrowly as possible.

Republicans claim Democrats have no room to complain because the bill is almost exactly the same as their failed “Vote by Mail Act” that they proposed in January 2019 — just with a few minor edits and spelling changes. Reporter R.E. Porter obtained a leaked copy of the bill: A BILL To amend the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to allow all eligible voters to vote by mail in Federal elections, to amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 to provide for automatically voter vote R registration.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of

Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. This Act may be cited as the “Vote by Mail Male Act of 2019 2020”.

SECTION 2. FINDINGS. Congress finds the following: (1) As of early May, 16 states have postponed their primary elections due to coronavirus concerns.

The President cannot postpone the general election without an act of Congress, but state governments could use their emergency powers to “drastically curtail in-person voting locations” or even to “take back the power to determine which candidate wins their state in the general election,” given that there is “no constitutional obligation that a state support the presidential candidate who wins a plurality of its vote — or that the state hold a vote for president at all.” Scary! Yes, that’s right, most of us Congressional Republicans are just as afraid as anyone of another four years of Trump, even though we’re too Goddamn gutless strategic to say it — but we simply don’t want to give up our own power in the process.

(1) (2) An inequity of voting rights exists in the

United States because voters in some States have the universal right to vote by mail while voters in other States do not. The goal of more equally distributing the unequalness of this inequality can be achieved not by adopting universal vote by mail rights, but by adopting universal vote by male for Rights, given that women are more likely to vote for Democrats. Thus, voting by male rather than by mail could result in more Congressional seats for Republicans!

(2) (3) Many voters often have work, family, or other commitments that make getting to the polls and waiting in line for hours on election day difficult to impossible, especially for disabled voters. If we send only the strong, rugged, Republican men to the polls, these concerns can easily be avoided. And since men represent less than half of the population, the lines at the polls will be shorter too!

(3) (4) Voting by mail male is cost-effective.

We always say we care about this when we really don’t, so this is just a bonus. However, this makes sense logically since proper conservative God-fearing men with good old-fashioned traditional values all know that women can’t handle money.

(4)(5) Voting by mail male typically increases decreases turnout in all elections. For obvious reasons, we’d like to keep voter turnout as low as possible. This goal is made more feasible by limiting voting to the gender that generally favors Republicans.

(5) (6) A crucial component of a modern voting system is making it easy, affordable, and accessible to register to vote.

SECTION 3. PROMOTING ABILITY OF VOTERS TO VOTE BY MAIL MALE IN FEDERAL ELECTIONS. (a) VOTING BY MAIL MALE IN FEDERAL ELECTIONS. — (1) IN GENERAL. — Subtitle A of title III of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (52 U.S.C. 21081 et seq.) is amended by inserting after section 303 the following new section. This is too wordy and jargony to hold Trump’s attention, and we can’t lose that before that moron signs this into law for us! The President is far too brilliant,

busy, and handsome to waste time reading this. Cut and paste the following into law, Mr. President, Sir! “SEC. 303A. PROMOTING ABILITY OF VOTERS TO VOTE BY MAIL. “(a) In general.—If an individual in a State is eligible to cast a vote in an election for Federal office, the State may not impose any additional conditions or requirements on the eligibility of the individual to cast the vote in such election by mail, except to the extent that the State imposes a deadline for returning the ballot to the appropriate State or local election official. “(b) Provision of ballot materials.—Not later than 2 ? weeks before the date of any election for Federal office, each State sShalln’t mail ballots to individuals who are registered to vote in such election. “(c) Accessibility for individuals with disabilities.—All ballots provided under this section shall be accessible to individuals with disabilities in a manner that provides the same opportunity for access and participation (including for privacy and independence) as for other voters. “§ 3407. Ballots (2) provided for voting in Federal elections “Ballots mailed pursuant to section 303A(b) of the Help America Vote Act of 2002 (individually or in bulk) shall be carried expeditiously and free of postage.”.

(2) TECHNICAL AND CONFORMING AMENDMENTS.— (A) TABLE OF SECTIONS.—The table of sections for chapter 34 of title 39, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: “3407. Ballots provided for voting in Federal elections.”.

Author’s note: Some of the original clauses of the Vote by Mail Act of 2019 have been shortened or paraphrased for brevity’s sake, but still accurately reflect the contents of each clause so as to emphasize the irony of the “edits.” Some clauses and entire sections of the original bill have been omitted for comedy’s sake.

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020 | 7

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

UC DAVIS PROFESSOR HEGHNAR WATENPAUGH AWARDED GUGGENHEIM FELLOWSHIP Watenpaugh focuses on UNESCO world heritage site

CULTURE CORNER

The Arts Desk’s weekly picks for television, movies, novels, music

BY ANDRE W W ILLI AMS arts@theaggie.org

Television Series: “Mad Men” The Dos Equis Man better start hunting for a new day job because Donald Draper is officially the most interesting man in the world. Draper, played by Jon Hamm in his breakout role, is a dashing, debonair and deeply depressed ad-man working on Madison Avenue in the 1960s. The writing department of “Mad Men” pulls no punches, depicting boardrooms and bedrooms laden with all the -isms: sexism, racism and a hefty dose of alcoholism. Yet within all the vulgar humor and frankly infuriating decision making by the protagonist, there isn’t much not to love. The performances by the women of “Mad Men,” namely Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway and Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson, steal the show. Aesthetically, the show hits the nail on the head at every point from set design to Roger Sterling’s impeccable double-breasted suits. But beyond that eye-pleasing facade, we find the show’s core — a swirling mess of insecurity that taps into places even great television rarely ever can.

Movie: “Death of Stalin” dir. by Armando Iannucci

Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh, a UC Davis art history professor, is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. (Courtesy Photo)

BY JOSH M A D RI D arts@theaggie.org On April 8, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation awarded UC Davis art history professor Heghnar Watenpaugh with a fellowship to support her research on the medieval city of Ani on the present-day Turkey-Armenia border. She is one of the 175 artists, writers, scholars and scientists awarded a fellowship, selected from a pool of 3,000 applicants. Prior achievement and potential are the basis for the foundation’s decision.

“It is a tremendous honor to receive this fellowship,” Watenpaugh said via email. “Such prestigious awards are tremendously important, they lend prestige and authority to any research project.”

Declared a world heritage site in 2016 by UNESCO, Ani served as a cultural and trade center on the Silk Road during the 10th and 11th Centuries C.E. Watenpaugh specializes in the history of art, architecture and urbanism in the Middle East as well as cultural heritage and museum studies, which makes Ani a specific point of interest for Watenpaugh’s research. Several of Ani’s architectural feats, like the citadel, still remain, serving as a testament to the ingenuity of their medieval architects.

“I have always known about Ani, since it is such a central cultural and religious site for Armenians,” Watenpaugh said via email interview.

“I was only able to visit Ani as an adult. Ani is a stunning site, and no visitor can leave unimpressed.”

Watenpaugh’s current project is based on an article from 2014 titled “Preserving the Medieval City of Ani: Cultural Heritage Between Contest and Reconciliation” for the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, according to the UC Davis website. The article won the Ömer Lütfi Barkan Article Prize from the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association.

“I am writing a book that will tell the history of this city, and examine the impact these modern visitors had on the city and the way the city transformed them in turn,” Watenpaugh said via email.

She expressed the importance of studying Ani and the vantage point it lends.

“Ani is an example of a stunning cultural heritage site that is caught in contentious political and historical processes,” Watenpaugh said.

“The history of Ani sheds light on dilemmas shared by other cultural heritage sites in danger in post-conflict societies like Jerusalem, Belfast, Mostar, Bamiyan, or Beirut.”

According to a press release, the foundation has granted more than $375 million in fellowships to over 18,000 individuals since its establishment in 1925. This year’s class of fellows are represented by 53 scholarly disciplines and artistic fields, 75 different academic institutions, 31 states and the District of Columbia and two Canadian provinces; fellows range in age from 29 to 82.

More of Watenpaugh’s research and information about the lectures she teaches are available on the Art History Program website.

Scottish director Armando Iannucci refits the demise of Joseph Stalin to his own satirical lens, conjuring up either hearty laughs or prolonged looks of shock depending on your personal opinion of the late Soviet Union. Shenanigans ensue when Stalin croaks and his inner circle jousts for their position. Shots are fired and insults fly high. Making matters more bizarre, all the bickering is delivered in an assortment of haphazard accents — mostly British and none Russian. With the plot being so ambitious and off-the-walls, the execution had to be on point. Taking up the mantle of this task was a cast of comedic stalwarts including Steve Buscemi as a jovial scheming Nikita Khruschev; Jeffrey Tambor as meek surrogate ruler Georgy Malenkov; and Rupert Friend as Stalin’s chronically drunk and petulant son Vasily. All in all, “Death of Stalin” is about as fun as it is absurd — and boy is it absurd.

Book: “Phantom Tollbooth” by Norton Juster My father is an architect and like many architects, he gravitates toward everything architecture. So naturally, when deciding on what to read to his 8-year-old son, he picked up a novel written by an architect. “Phantom Tollbooth” by Norton Shuster is a tale of three characters: a boy, a watchdog (a literal fusion between a watch and a dog) and a stuffy humbug. They set off together on a quest to restore Rhyme and Reason — two princesses — to their rightful place on the throne. While meandering through the bustling word-market of Dictionopolis and traversing the mines of Digitoplolis, the audience is swept into Juster’s love for everything that has to do with knowledge. His contagious admiration for a child’s curiosity is brimming on every page. This book masters every respectable grade school’s teacher dream: to make learning fun. Although the novel is meant for children, I revisited it this past week and found a new appreciation for Shuster’s wit and nuggets of wisdom.

Flipping the book shut, I found I had heightened senses and refreshed appreciation for the time that’s tick, tick, ticking away.

Album: “James Blake” by James Blake There is an often cycled mantra in the design world that “less is more.” James Blake’s 2011 debut album embodies this mantra to a tee. Blake breaks down his art to the minutiae, removing anything that isn’t essential to the feeling being conveyed. More often than not, that feeling is isolation. The wispy electronic soundscapes, deep blue piano and torn soulful voice paint a collage of despondency. His lyrics are even minimal, building more an underlying tone than a precise message. Although I would not recommend heavy doses, his music can be a tonic to alleviate the ache of moments when we feel most alone. When it seems like the world has tuned you out, James Blake is here and he gets it.

COMMENTARY: FADS OF GENERATION Z’S JUVENESCENCE Underlying implications of fads, changes over generations

Child playing with Silly Bandz wristbands. (Photo Courtesy of Melinda Shelton, Flickr)

BY S I ERRA JI M E N E Z arts@theaggie.org As a materialistic nation, embedded in American culture is a want for what we don’t have.

Fads come and go, but their existence embodies memories of the past, specifically our childhood.

Seeing that the majority of current undergraduate students are Generation Z, these post-millennials experience an “inside joke” relationship surrounding fads that left as fast as these fads came.

In retrospect, toys and trends that were to die for during adolescence now remain distant memories of the past. These fads, however, shaped the childhood of many individuals. Silly Bandz, Heelys, Webkinz and Tech Decks were some of the many trends that have bonded Generation Z on a level that no other generation could fully understand.

“[Fads] brought people closer together,” said Kyle Cronin, a first-year ecological management restoration major. “Those that didn’t have much in common now had something in common. It was a big way of keeping friends and making friends.”

Every generation has distinct fads from it’s childhood that render a unique jargon of what was considered “cool” at the time. Of course, if Jimmy or Suzy had the latest and greatest, then everyone else had to have it too — or so we thought for the time being. These trivial items united individuals, while simultaneously isolating others.

As a result of materialism, economic hierarchy is a necessary part of the conversation. Keeping up with consumerism is inherently pricey. Devon Meyer, a second-year political science major, was perplexed thinking back to the amount of money

her parents must have spent on these fads that she would “never touch again.”

While those who could afford to invest in the materialistic nature of fads swam in their clout and popularity in juvenescence, those who did not have the means to partake in the trends were marginalized.

“Those that didn’t have [Vine], are kind of left out even today,” Cronin said.

Not only were they isolated when the fad was considered “cool,” but they are also isolated from the experience of these inconsequential trends that we look back on and bond over today. Financial means, however, are not the only way in which fads divided individuals.

“Heelys made me feel left out because my mom would never let me get them,” Cronin admitted.

The empty feeling of lacking the experience of

the “coolest” trend of the time is now referred to as “FOMO” or fear of missing out. Fads engrave a deep desire to be “cool” and to fit in with the crowd from a young age. “[Fads] really laid the groundwork for a lot of us to seek validation and approval from others, external from ourselves,” said Ethan Wellerstein, a second-year international relations, philosophy and Spanish triple major.

The dopamine rush of engaging in consumerist values have “conditioned” individuals to “seek external validation” by the means of following the latest trends. As the generation to witness the rapid evolution of technology, Generation Z was arguably the last age group to undergo non-technological dominant fads in childhood.

“We had a good number of physical [fads] that were tangible,” Wellerstein said. “Our [fads] weren’t solely digital.”

Comparing Pokémon cards to Fortnite, for example, the players are required to interact with other people for the game to work. Rather than isolating oneself to a screen, Pokémon cards require face-to-face socialization, which is lacking in many modern fads. The new form of socializing is formatted by computer-mediated communication through the means of a device.

Fads in contemporary times are still “trying to make us look better [by] following whatever everyone else is doing,” according to Meyer. Now, however, they are digitized to showcase to the entire world, not just your friends on the playground.

“For some reason I felt so compelled to buy [Silly Bandz], to have a rainbow fruit loop collection of rubber bands going up my arms,” Meyer said. Now, you need to have “at least over 1,000 followers” to be considered relevant in the digitized world we live in.

In their childhood, Generation Z would become aware of the latest trends by word of mouth or advertisements on such popular television channels as Disney or Nickelodeon. Now, with on-demand streaming at our fingertips, these advertisements are minimal. Instead, social media advertisements target individual interests by monitoring online activity.

Fads still come and go in an endless cycle of consumeristic attraction to materialistic trends, whether they’re tangible or digital. Inevitably, fads create hierarchies, defining individuals by their material possession and knowledge of popular culture. Although controversial in the morals embedded in the meaning of fads, they do play a significant role in childhood — and create a good laugh looking back at old pictures when a few rubber bands would make or break your popularity.

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

8 | THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020

SHELTER-IN-PLACE ADVICE, BASED ON YOUR HOGWARTS HOUSE Like horoscopes but for houses KATH E R I N E F R A N KS / AGGI E

BY ITZ E LT H G A M B OA arts@theaggie.org J.K. Rowling’s Hogwarts houses are such a popular concept that just about everyone on the face of the planet knows what house they belong in. With that said, in these messy times of staying at home while handling schoolwork, housework and maybe even actual work, these are my guesses on how you’re handling this situation based on your Hogwarts house.

Ravenclaw This quarter goes out to the Ravenclaws.

There’s a big difference in being the “smart” house to being the house that values intelligence and creativity. Wherever creativity is, adaptation soon follows. In 2020, adapting is definitely the solution to all of your problems. School continues and professors give three-hour lectures instead of the regular two (because of the pausing and note-taking and all), so you’ve put your best foot forward in handling the situation in a thoughtout and timely manner. This is probably what’s best, and it’s not something that everyone can do.

You’ve created a schedule for yourself each day, prioritized what’s important and tried to

follow through to the best of your abilities. Google Calendar is now your best friend, and I can assure you that no one looks better in those blue light glasses than you do. This time has been going well for you, though I must admit your sleep schedule is beyond fixable. Two a.m. is not a good time to sleep, Ravenclaw — you and I both know that. You are currently the type of person that will get everything done even if it kills you. But the truth of the matter is, you can’t go around with a bad sleep schedule, terrible eating habits and headaches from staring at social media all day and say that you’re “thriving.”

Hufflepuff You can’t do it all, little badger. Hufflepuffs are using this time to do things they never had the time to do because without having to drive everywhere, get dressed or physically attend meetings or class, everyone has at least an extra hour in their day. There are so many opportunities to get ahead on work, read a little more, pick up a new hobby or binge-watch a new show. This was supposed to be the perfect time to do everything — I know, I had that thought too, and it sounds like a beautiful idea. But let’s be honest, that’s all it was — an idea.

BIRDSTRIKE STUDENT IMPROV TEAM EXPLORES NEW COMEDY OUTLET WITH “BIRDCAST”

Team shares its podcast creation journey, emphasizes importance of creating laughs during crisis

Taking on something new was going well for a while, but some weeks are better than others.

Some weeks it’s hard to simply open up your laptop and go to lecture, while other weeks you’re an entire week ahead on your readings and are speaking up in class. Everything is fluctuating, and it’s important to remember that this is completely okay.

Hufflepuffs, there is a very fine line between giving your work your all and completely burning out because of it. It’s not okay to beat yourself up for not doing one reading today. It’s okay to have lazy days and it’s hard for Hufflepuffs to grasp that concept. Solely focusing on doing work and using this time to improve yourself is one thing, but not focusing on your mental health is something to watch out for. It’s important to remember that as attentive as you are with your friends, you should also check in with yourself. Take the advice you’re giving everyone and use it.

Slytherin You are doing surprisingly well, Slytherin.

If not for the sheer determination to get a good grade, then for the idea that you’re not going to allow a blow to your GPA. This is the time for perseverance, and this is what you’re best at. You

are the type to find something that benefits you in every situation, and this stay-at-home order is no different.

You are most definitely the type of person who gets ready for meetings from the waist up, and I don’t mean throw-on-a-new-T-shirt kind of ready. I mean style your hair, maybe do a little makeup and throw-on-your-best-smile type of get ready. You go to office hours, speak up in class and even have the video on while you’re in a Zoom lecture.

At this moment, what’s important for you to notice is that you’re trying. You’re striving for your best and that’s wonderful, but keep in mind that these are uncharted waters, so it’s okay to simply be your best and not the best.

Gryffindor This time is the worst for you. Out of the four houses, you are by far the most social. You miss hanging out on the Quad and having a white chai; you miss the sound of hundreds of bikes (and bike crashes) around campus and you even miss the long lines at the CoHo during lunch. It hasn’t been going great, and with your splash of arrogance, it’s easy to fall behind on classwork.

Procrastination has never been easier, and this is a big problem for you Gryffindors. But not to worry, because you have your friends by your side.

At the moment, your friends are your biggest support system. And as the extroverted person you are, you’ve heavily relied on them during these times. If you’re in Gryffindor, you’ve most likely set up FaceTime calls with your friends and enjoy the weekly Zoom meetings that school organizations are still putting on.

You’ve even resorted to having FaceTime study sessions with your friends. By simply having them on the phone and doing work, you get to enjoy your time being alone without feeling entirely lonely.

A quick tip for Gryffindors during these hard times: Try using the Netflix Chrome extension. It lets you watch Netflix with friends and chat with them through a built-in chat box. It gives you a movie night with friends in the comfort of your own home and jammies.

With that said, it is important for all the houses to remember that this is an unprecedented time, and it’s okay to not be productive. It’s okay to fall a little behind — not having any motivation is understandable.

Sometimes it’s best to take a step back and do what you love doing for a couple of hours.

Whether this means binging Netflix, playing Animal Crossing or simply scrolling through Instagram for a while, take a couple of breaks here and there.

UC DAVIS STUDENTS WORK FOR YOLO COUNTY FOOD BANK TO COMBAT COVID-19-RELATED FOOD INSECURITY Graduate student Eliza Oldach drives food delivery trucks, fourth-year Lily Keene assists deliveries through GIS KA ITLYN PA N G / AGGIE

BY S O PH IE DE W E E S features@theaggie.org JO E L L E TA H TA / AG GI E

BY NO RA FA RA H DE L features@theaggie.org The absence of campus life this quarter has led student organizations to find creative alternatives to function and connect. Birdstrike Theatre, an improv team at UC Davis, has developed a podcast called “Birdcast.” Under normal conditions, Birdstrike meets twice a week and performs in-person shows at UC Davis where they showcase their improv skills to an audience.

The team, like the rest of the world, has had to adjust to the circumstances of the pandemic and adapt to functioning as a remote team.

“Adjusting to remote practice has been a constant work in progress and we’re constantly evaluating how everyone feels about the team’s new direction,” said Adam Castro, a fourth-year design major and co-director of Birdstrike. “We still have practice twice a week and we begin each practice as we normally do, by checking in with everyone to see how their weeks are going and how they’re feeling.”

“Birdcast” was started in lieu of in-person shows as a way to continue making content and reaching an audience despite obvious obstacles.

The podcast includes two hosts who begin each show: Castro and Tyler Pruyn, a fourth-year English major and co-director of Birdstrike. The podcast continues with the rest of the ensemble spread out over the course of five games.

The general structure of the podcast is a combination of short- and long-form games, along with special features like a segment called “Commercial Break.” Pruyn shared how the audio-only podcast format gave the team freedom to explore new depths of their comedy.

“We can be innovative with our improv, as

in we can go to places we’ve never been before,” Pruyn said. “Actually, putting sound effects in there is something that’s been really fun. And then just working on our voice work. Something that all of us struggle with, because we have 15 shows a year traditionally, is just finding new characters to do. This has been really helpful in creating new characters because all you have is your voice and you don’t have anything else.”

Still, the podcast has come with difficulties because of its inevitable variation from a regular improv show. Specifically, it’s difficult for the group to adjust to the lack of an audience, a key feature of an improv show. Because of this, Birdstrike has potential plans to incorporate shows on Zoom where the audience can interact. For now, “Birdcast” will continue to be posted every other week on YouTube, along with the occasional previously performed shows posted on Birdstrike’s Facebook page.

Whether it is on stage or online, Birdstrike remains a tight-knit community for the team. Despite the adjustments, Taylor Davis, a third-year political science and history major and member of Birdstrike, said it remains important for the Birdstrike team to continue putting smiles on people’s faces, especially during such trying times.

“I think it is super important to keep creating content and keep laughing during this time,” Davis said. “It can be way too easy to remain isolated during this time, get bogged down in horrible news, work and not be able to look with any certainty to normalcy down the line. Our main goal has always been to entertain people and make people laugh. Especially when so many people are going through scary and uncertain times, by continuing to create, we hope we can continue to bring laughter and happiness to our community.”

Amid the current crisis, food insecurity is an even greater issue for people in need. To combat this, the Yolo Food Bank recently began running a grocery delivery service made possible thanks to local volunteers who oversee distribution and package and deliver goods to households in the county.

Eliza Oldach, a UC Davis ecology graduate student, began volunteering as a delivery driver once a week for the food bank after the shelterin-place order was enacted.

“When shelter-in-place started, it was so obvious that things had changed so much, so quickly,” Oldach said. “All of a sudden, it felt like a lot of the choices that were available to me before were no longer choices that I had control over.

But I know there are a lot of people that are doing a lot worse, and so it felt like helping was the most important thing to do as kind of a rebellion against feeling like you’re in crisis mode.”

Although she and other drivers are required to practice social distancing, for Oldach, volunteering has provided a way to continue community interaction.

“You’re physically distant, but there are these ties that I’m making and all the other volunteers are making to people living in Davis or living in Woodland [that] for sure I wouldn’t have made otherwise,” Oldach said.

The deliveries are coordinated through an app similar to DoorDash or UberEats: Volunteers are assigned drop-off locations and drive their own cars. According to Oldach, the convenience of the app makes it easy to contribute a few hours each week.

“They made it really straightforward to be involved, and it instantly felt like you were doing something useful,” Oldach said.

Behind the app, there are many volunteers and food bank employees working to facilitate easy delivery. One of these volunteers is Lily

Keene, a fourth-year sustainable environmental design major.

Keene works in the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database for Yolo County Food Bank, helping with the influx of food bank requests through fixing addresses and responding to driver concerns.

“As people sign up for food deliveries, they put where their location is, but people who aren’t familiar with the software sometimes set it wherever and it’s not where their address says,” Keene said.

Keene, along with several other UC Davis students assigned to different areas of Yolo County, works to match the points with the correct addresses so delivery drivers can go to the right location. In her last quarter at UC Davis, Keene is close to completing a minor in GIS and said she appreciates gaining experience in real-world applications of the technology.

“This is some of the first GIS experience I’ve had working on something that’s real and doing something helpful,” Keene said. “I know that sitting behind a computer doing GIS isn’t my dream job, but it’s nice to know that when I’m doing it, it’s for a purpose.”

GIS provides a way for Keene to contribute in a unique way to a cause that assists people.

“During this time, it’s hard to feel purposeful,” Keene said. “I feel like it was something that made me feel like I had a little bit of help that I could give to the situation, even though I’m not directly working with anyone.”

According to Keene, although her work involves clicking and moving points on a computer, this application of the technology for Yolo Food Bank has important impacts on a larger scale.

“I think GIS is a very powerful tool,” Keene said. “Making sure that they’re getting the correct amount at the correct time at the right address means so much more than just moving points on a map.”

To volunteer, donate or request a food delivery visit the Yolo Food Bank website.

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

Sudoku

Enter digits from 1 to 9 into the blank spaces. Every row, column and 3x3 square must contain one of each digit. Each Sudoku has a unique solution that can be reached logically without guessing.

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020 | 9

Answer to previous puzzle

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

10 |THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020

MENTAL HEALTH INITIATIVE CELEBRATES FOURTH ANNUAL MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS MONTH WITH DAILY EVENTS MHI officials talk about organization’s mission, implications of hosting events online KATHERINE FRANKS / AGGIE

May Is

Awareness Month

BY LYRA FA RREL L features@theaggie.org Every May, in celebration of Mental Health Awareness Month, the UC Davis Mental Health Initiative (MHI) hosts daily events geared toward destigmatizing and improving understanding of mental health. The student-run campus organization focuses on a different intersection of mental health during every Zoom event, placing high value on inclusivity and encouraging diversity in the demographics who join.

“We want to invite people to learn more

about how mental health is not simply just a one-type model where you go to therapy with a white therapist and they assume you’re able-bodied and they assume you have enough money,” said Deborah Widjaja, a fifth-year neurobiology, physiology, and behavior major who co-directs the MHI. “Mental health really is more than just that — it’s community care, it’s culturally relevant, it is justice-seeking, it is caring about your neighbors, caring about yourself.”

During the month, online events can be accessed from the organization’s Facebook page.

These events include themes such as sexual as-

sault, masculinity, autism, mass incarceration and basic needs. Widjaja said observing the events, especially when the theme doesn’t apply directly to someone’s identity, can be illuminating, as the events are meant to foster improved understanding of the realities of others, in addition to an understanding of oneself.

“It’s a learning space, so you come in there to learn more, to humble yourself on what it is that you don’t already know — and I think that should be the mindset of everyone,” Widjaja said. “I don’t think people should shy away from knowing or honoring something or someone else because you don’t know how to. You go there because you don’t know how to, and so you go there to learn how to.”

In addition to daily events, the MHI also posts stories to its Instagram, featuring DIY videos and recipes. To kick off the month, they hosted a “Livestream with Llamas,” which had 850 total guests in attendance.

Widjaja said the new online format of the events is a factor that makes attendance much easier, especially for those whose anxiety may have prevented them from joining before.

“Let’s say you just woke up from a nap,” Widjaja said. “You can literally just roll [...] to your side and open your laptop or your phone and just jump in on the event. I think that’s a lot of flexibility. I think this is especially useful for folks with a high level of anxiety [...] or some level of just not wanting to be around people, because sometimes people just don’t. Maybe you’re introverted, maybe it’s just not your day.”

Inara Chatoor, co-publicity coordinator of the MHI, emphasized the importance of not letting the global pandemic overshadow the impor-

tance of Mental Health Awareness Month. “[A] great thing about carrying on with our events without focusing too much on the pandemic is that it [...] gives a little sense of normalcy, where just because there’s a pandemic doesn’t mean the other intersections of mental health automatically do not matter anymore,” Chatoor said. “We still wanted to continue on with our month, because we wanted to acknowledge that for the people in those communities, for the people struggling with those intersections, they still have a platform; their feelings are still valid.”

With the new online operation, the MHI’s events are open to UC Davis students as well as anyone with access to the Zoom links. Chatoor recounted that one event’s turnout included a variety of geographic representation.

“It was people tuning in from [places] like Canada, Seattle,” Chatoor said. “That’s the small positive side of having these virtual events is that we can reach out to people, whoever it may benefit, and it’s not limited to people who can show up at Wellman Hall at 7 p.m.”

The MHI strives to create the right online environment to discuss mental health: one where anonymity is also an option among speaking out.

“Nobody is asking you to give your name and major, or three facts, any of that kind of stuff,” Chatoor said. “It’s all for folks to learn. It’s all for folks to be in a comfortable space, talking about an intersection which they are passionate about, or which they want to learn more about and have a discussion on. We’re just trying to show everybody that it’s okay to pause and think about your mental health. It’s okay to start the dialogue, it’s okay to start advocating about it, and just to take a breath.”

PSYCHOLOGY STUDY ON OXYTOCIN UNCOVERS POSSIBLE WAYS TO ALLEVIATE SOCIAL WITHDRAWL SYMPTOMS FOR INDIVIDUALS WITH MENTAL ILLNESSES

Experiments with mice illustrate “social vigilance,” “behavioral inhibition” also seen in humans MARIO RODRIGUEZ / AGGIE

BY MA RG O ROSE NB AU M science@theaggie.org To “flatten the curve” of the novel coronavirus, individuals have been asked to stay in their homes and distance themselves from others.

Many find this unprecedented social distancing stressful, yet avoiding social situations is a common tendency in individuals with autism and psychiatric illnesses, including depression and anxiety disorders.

Therapies for these symptoms remain widely misunderstood, as effectiveness of treatments varies among patients. UC Davis researchers, in collaboration with scientists across the U.S., studied how oxytocin, a neurotransmitter produced by the hypothalamus, affects social behavior. Through experiments with mice, researchers investigated whether pharmacological therapies

should target oxytocin in order to alleviate social withdrawal in mental illness, said Alexia Williams, a postdoctoral student in biological psychology and lead researcher of the study.

“This study aims at identifying which oxytocin receptor downstream molecular pathways mediate different aspects of motivated social behavior,” said Natalia Duque-Wilckens, a postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University, via email.

This study’s approach stems from previous research which identified that individuals are less likely to engage in unfamiliar social situations after exposure to stressful situations, said Brian Trainor, a professor in the department of psychology. If an individual had a previous negative social experience, that person will often be more cautious in the future and the person’s motivation to engage in new social situations will di-

minish as a protective response.

“What our lab has been focusing on lately and kind of bringing more attention to you is this idea of vigilance and that it’s not just that individuals are avoiding social situations after a bad social experience, they’re actually paying attention to other individuals,” Trainor said.

Through behavioral tests with mice, researchers created stressful social experiences, like exposing the mice to a “bully” mouse. The researchers observed that the mice not only started to avoid the stressful situation, but also displayed “social vigilance,” where they paid attention and orientated themselves toward it, as though they were watching, Trainor said.

“We study behaviors in rodents that we think are in some ways reminiscent of some behaviors that people show,” Williams said. “For example, rodents after they’ve experienced some sort of stressful experience, they’ll avoid social contact.

We consider that to be similar to how people will function. People choose to isolate themselves when they’re feeling very anxious or feeling very depressed.”

This behavior displayed in mice has been studied by developmental psychologists for a long time. Behavioral inhibition, a combination of avoidance and vigilance, is one of the biggest risk factors predicting whether a child will have an anxiety disorder, Trainor said.

“Not only are [the mice] avoiding these situations but they’re paying attention to it,” Trainor said.

After observing the mice’s behavior, the researchers studied their neural circuitry. The researchers focused on understanding the nucleus accumbens (NAc), an area in the brain known to mediate motivated behaviors and express oxytocin receptors. When activated, these oxytocin receptors promote social approach, Duque-Wilckens said.

The researchers investigated how cellular activity, through different molecular pathways, is

modified by oxytocin receptors. By using different drugs that activate or inactivate only one or a subset of these pathways, Duque-Wilckens said the researchers were able to better understand the role of oxytocin in social behavior.

The study’s results suggest that the oxytocin receptors in the NAc modulate social approach using a specific downstream pathway. Activating that pathway can reverse the negative effects of stress on social behavior, Duque-Wilckens said.

“This is the first study to show that different oxytocin receptor molecular pathways regulate distinct behaviors,” Duque-Wilckens said.

Because pharmacological manipulations of oxytocin receptors usually result in changes in all downstream molecular pathways, knowing which pathway to specifically manipulate may boost efficiency and effectiveness of potential therapeutic outcomes, Duque-Wilckens said.

In the long term, this research may have benefits for people suffering from psychiatric disorders that cause social anxiety and reduced social motivation.

In the short term, preclinical and clinical studies could better use drugs to manipulate specific downstream pathways of oxytocin, Duque-Wilckens said.

“The reason why [the study] is important is that there’s a lot of interest in coming up with different ways of treating depression,” Trainor said. “There’s a lot of interest in maybe trying to use oxytocin to treat depression or anxiety, but the problem is we really don’t know how.”

A few treatments have been created for people who struggle with depressive or anxiety disorders, but less than half of the people who take them actually see a recovery in their symptoms, Williams said. To create effective treatments, researchers must target both social avoidance and social vigilance, and understand how different neural circuits are activated.

WITHDRAWAL on 11

INSPIRATION IN ART: THREE STUDENTS ARE FINDING WAYS TO BE CREATIVE IN QUARANTINE Student artists use quarantine as “an opportunity” to dive into their passions

BY AT H E NA AG H IG H I features@theaggie.org

Post Office

TESSA KOGA / AGGIE

Maxine Aiello, Natalie Tate and Sally Ellberg are three UC Davis students that have found comfort in art, utilizing creative outlets in order to present a new narrative of the world. By analyzing their styles, backgrounds and intentions, these artists each provide a unique understanding of how art surpasses pen and paper, as well as how it can become an integral part of every person’s life.

Aiello, a fourth-year studio art major, makes art focused on the environment and climate change, using recycled materials for sculptures.

She is responsible for the mirrored pieces on the trees throughout UC Davis’ campus — creating living designs out of her passion for the environment.

In her studio art major, she discovered the therapeutic aspects of doodling, finding it to be an easy and effective way to stimulate a creative mind.

“I doodle a lot for someone that loves art and takes it seriously,” Aiello said. “I would say that doodling is the most fun, freeing and beneficial.

It may not turn out as a masterpiece, but it’s a way for you to find out what you like to draw if you can find patterns in the things that you doodle. For me it was aliens, [...] so eventually I went with it and started developing the doodles a little more into a particular style with a particular message. I use them as a metaphor for ourselves, often portraying the less beautiful sides of our personalities.”

One of Aiello’s main inspirations is Agnes Martin, an artist who paints with lines or grid patterns, advocating for personal discovery through art.

“[Martin] said she paints with her back to the world, which I think is great advice you need to follow when making art,” Aiello said. “You need to tune into yourself and shut out the rest.”

Tate, a second-year biological science major, also finds solace through her art and has used quarantine to develop her interest in portraits.

She works in color as well as black and white, experimenting with different compositions in order to portray feeling and reaction.

“I saw quarantine as an opportunity to really dive into my passions and hopefully teach myself something new,” Tate said. “I love how experimental art is — there’s so many abstract styles that I’m drawn to, and I’m constantly getting new inspirations and ideas from other artists. At the moment, portrait art is my absolute favorite just because they capture so much emotion and I love to play around with different facial expressions and color schemes.”

Ellberg, a fourth-year biological sciences major, shared the inspiration behind her paintings, which incorporate female power and natural beauty. Her artwork portrays dancing women, angry tigers and orange trees, all of which are composed with vibrant colors.

Ellberg said quarantine has allowed her to continue to craft her art, finding ample free time among the endless days.

“A lot of my inspiration comes from a compilation of artists I have been following on Instagram for the last few years,” Ellberg said. “Try discovering artists you really like and you might notice a theme — like materials used, content depicted, et cetera — that is similar in all of them.

That’s ultimately how I found my style: realizing through all my favorite artists that they were all abstract with elements of nature and women.”

Pos

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020 | 11

CLASSACTION CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

According to James Hyatt, the UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor and CFO Emeritus, however, endowments are not “as great a source of flexibility as one would think.”

“If [donors] view their endowment that they give for particular purposes to be used as a fallback fund, […] they may not be as receptive to giving future gifts to the university,” Hyatt said.

The question of redirecting restricted endowments was also discussed during The California Aggie’s interview with Garcia and Brandmeyer.

“It falls directly in line with whether or not [the UC] can reallocate funds from students that were paid for a specific purpose,” Garcia said. “Is it legal for the schools to take fees already paid by the students for a specific purpose and move them to pay for something else? Is it legal for them to do the same thing with endowments? Those are all things that will be played out in this lawsuit.”

Garcia said the legality of transitioning funds and the outcome of this case was to be determined by the court. This argument would then shift the financial burden onto the endowment funds.

The UC has $21.1 billion in endowments, according to a 2019 report, though it isn’t specified how much of that is in restricted funds.

Across the 226,125 undergraduates who attend UC schools, at $1,100 each, the suit would be seeking approximately $249 million in refunds.

Assuming the unrestricted endowments have not already been allocated, this situation raises the question of whether the university can ethically use endowments as a bailout. “[The UC] has made several statements about how they’re constantly saving and putting away money for a rainy day,” Brandmeyer said, but she didn’t offer a source for these claims, where this money is or how the UC accumulates it. The UC is a public university system, meaning that, by nature, it is not-for-profit.

When asked for comment, Kelly Ratliff, UC Davis’ vice chancellor of Finance Operations and Administration, said tuition funds and fees are being used for what they are normally used for, although there are extra expenditures in

some other areas.

In a previous article, The California Aggie explained the current use of tuition funds and fees,and this breakdown is also explained on the UC Davis Finances website.

The suit claims that CARES Act funds, along with other government stimuli, do not excuse the university from returning the service fees.

At UC Davis, the “CARES Act Emergency Relief Grant Fund [will provide] emergency financial aid assistance to students for expenses related to the disruption of campus operations due to the coronavirus pandemic,” according to a recent school-wide email from the financial aid office. UC Davis is providing nearly $17 million in stimulus funds to the 71% of undergraduates who qualify for financial aid due to disruptions from COVID-19.

“This does not absolve University of California, however, of being required to disgorge the wrongly-retained monies that Plaintiff and the other Class members paid for fees,” the suit said. “The CARES funds are intended to be used as emergency cash grants, not as a vehicle for universities to retain money that is not theirs to retain.”

The UC Office of the President (UCOP) has not changed its stance on refunds, saying on its website that though some or all instruction for all or part of Academic Year 2020–21 may be delivered remotely, tuition and mandatory fees have been set and will not be refunded.

When asked for comment, UCOP media strategist Stett Holberg said the UC has provided more than $300 million in prorated housing and dining refunds systemwide for students who chose to leave campus housing. Holberg did not offer comment on the lawsuit.

The lawsuit does not discuss room and board refunds, and at the time of publishing, UCOP did not reply to a further request for comment relevant to the suit.

“I love Davis, and I love going to Davis and I love living there,” Brandmeyer said. “I’m truly [pursuing this suit] because I can see the pain and the suffering with my own eyes. I feel like they’re not taking this seriously enough.”

ROADMAPRECOVERY CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4

Counties must meet state guidelines for testing, treating and tracking the number of cases in order to progress through Stage Two, according to Newsom’s release. On May 1, county officials announced the opening of two new state COVID-19 testing sites in Yolo County beginning May 5.

Both roadmaps emphasize the dynamic and tentative nature of the reopening process. In the press release for the Roadmap to Recovery, the county said that it was prepared to close reopened activities again if they appeared to worsen the spread of the virus.

“There is flexibility in this Roadmap to

move forward and release additional services or business (if indicators show improvement) or backwards (if indicators show regression),” the release read.

Newsom expressed a similar sentiment in his April 28 press conference.

“If we pull back and we modify our stay-athome order too early — if we see an increase and surge in cases, hospitalizations and spread — then we have to have the ability to toggle back,” Newsom said. “We have to have the ability to adjust. We have to have the ability to fix it.”

WITHDRAWAL CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

“Maybe we can design a drug that targets oxytocin systems and maybe that will help people who aren’t seeing any relief with the treatment they’re being given,” Williams said.

Although this study has not created a cure for social anxiety or depression, it has led researchers closer to understanding the neural activity of individuals impacted by these stressors, Trainor said.

“People get excited and they want to know the cure for social anxiety and it’s not that simple,” Trainor said. “You can’t just give someone oxytocin because you don’t know what parts of the brain is going to go to. And then depending on what the sort of basal activity is that could influence what kind of response you got.”

After concluding this study, the researchers were left with additional unanswered questions.

Because different downstream pathways within the NAc can affect behavior so differently,

Duque-Wilckens said she is interested in exploring how receptors in other important brain areas use pathways to modulate different functions of oxytocin. “[Williams] showed that when you put oxytocin specifically into this part of the brain, called the nucleus accumbens, it has the effects that people would like to see with oxytocin, reducing effects of stress,” Trainor said. “But if you put it in another part of the brain, exactly the opposite [happens].”

This study helps to emphasize the importance of science to improve human experience and health, Williams said.

“I hope that people take mental illness seriously and understand the value that goes into research to try to understand what leads to some of these behaviors and what can we do to help people that really struggle with that,” Williams said.

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

12 | THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2020

DAVIS CITY COUNCIL DISCUSSING PLAN FOR POTENTIAL SPORTS COMPLEX Mayor Brett Lee explains necessary steps before process can begin

Davis City Offices in Downtown Davis. Davis City Council is currently plans to construct a new sports complex in Davis. (Photo by Quinn Spooner / Aggie)

BY RA I N Y E K I K I A N

sports@theaggie.org

Davis City Council is currently looking into the possibility of building a new sports complex.

The council remains in the discussion stage on several aspects, such as location and most importantly, finding the funds to do so.

Davis Mayor Brett Lee explained the city council’s current approach to the sports complex and the impact that COVID-19 has had on any

future plans.

“We had what was called a sports park task force made up of community members looking at the need for additional sports facilities and what it might look like,” Lee said. “After they had done their work, we hired a consulting firm to dig a little deeper into it and their report was presented to the city council a couple weeks ago.”

After the consulting firm presented the city council with a few recommendations on how to begin planning, most of which involved spending a fair amount of money, the city council

chose one recommendation with which to move forward, said Lee. At the moment, the city council will consider making a “request for proposals by some private entities.” There is a belief that a private entity may be interested in partnering with the city to handle most of the upfront costs that would come with building the sports complex, according to Lee. Lee explained that due to the city’s current shelter-in-place orders and the majority of businesses in Davis shutting down as a result of the

COVID-19 crisis, the city’s finances have taken a hit. This makes it even more difficult to fund such a project.

“Cities up and down California and probably across the U.S. are not receiving as much tax revenue as normal,” Lee said.

For this reason, attempting to partner with a private party that is willing to cover some or all of the costs would be the best idea during this time.

“Without actually testing the waters, it’s hard to answer some folks because they say there’s a lot of private entities that would be happy to build six soccer fields in exchange for naming rights and being able to run tournaments there, which sounds a bit too good to be true,” Lee said.

Nonetheless, the city council will move forward with that idea and open up the option for private entities to present their proposals, if they do in fact have any interest in working with the city and contributing to a potential sports complex.

Lee also explained that the consultants’ report highlighted that there is a shortage of sporting facilities in Davis.

“We do have a shortage of sporting facilities, whether it’s baseball, softball, soccer, things like that, so there are additional needs,” he said.

“Right now, the city doesn’t have the ability to go out and actually pay for those ourselves. So in the interim, we’re seeing if there really is an interest from outside entities to come and help fund facilities like that.”

The city council has not yet figured out where the sports complex would be located, although their original report contained “general magnitudes” and the required acres for this project.

The sports complex could be located either in one individual location, or across multiple separate locations throughout Davis, according to Lee. Some members of the community have already expressed the desire for more sports facilities. Once a specific proposal is put together, the city plans to gather input and solicit feedback from the community, said Lee. Lee describes the current planning for the sports complex as “conceptual,” without much knowledge yet regarding location, cost or how many fields will be constructed.

“We are going to wait and see if there is any private interest in developing those facilities first and then based upon what we find from that we will figure out what our next steps are,” Lee said.

“There’s still lots of steps to go.”

UFC 249 DEFIES PANDEMIC PRACTICES

Event goes on despite heavy criticism, satisfies sports-hungered fans

TE SSA KO G A / AG G I E

BY O M A R N AVA R R O sports@theaggie.org Advertised as one of the most stacked cards in recent history, UFC 249 brought an official end to the near two-month sports drought last saturday, in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

After first trying relentlessly to make the event happen back on April 18, UFC president Dana White released a statement marking May 9 as the official date of the event in Jacksonville, Florida.

Even though stay-at-home orders had been lifted in some states, sporting events were still not allowed. But, in the state of Florida, employees of professional sports organizations are considered essential workers, thus giving White the ability to bring the event to the mainstage.

Headlined by a lightweight championship bout between Tony Ferguson and Justin Gaethje, UFC 249 was held in an empty VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena. Although the event was approved to go on despite safety concerns, questions were raised regarding whether the UFC had the capabilities to continue with this event while ensuring public safety.

White’s resistance to public and governmental scrutiny is nothing new, as he has defied many critics throughout his career. But this time it seemed like he might have taken his biggest risk so far.

Outlined in a 30-page health and safety precautions document, the UFC presented its plan for keeping the event sanitized and safe. The document has not been released to the public, but UFC did provide details about certain precautions that it was taking. White told Yahoo Sports that there would only be about 150 people from the company in the building on fight night and

distancing would be a priority.

“We’re gonna go so overboard making sure everybody is healthy and safe that I just don’t see how we can possibly [expletive] this up,” White told Sports Illustrated.

White’s claim seemed to hold true, as it was reported that the company used 1,200 coronavirus tests on 300 people throughout the week leading up to the fight. Fighters were tested upon arrival to the hotel where all fighters would stay.

“It’s just more calm,” said bantamweight champion Henry Cejudo in an interview with ESPN. “Obviously, we know we’re fighting, but it doesn’t feel like fight week. It’s deserted, which is actually kind of peaceful.”

During the week leading up to the fight, it looked as if there was a possibility that the event would go on without any concern. That ended, however, when on the Friday before the event, one of the fighters tested positive for COVID-19.

Ronaldo Souza was scheduled to fight Uriah Hall, but was immediately pulled after he and two of his cornermen tested positive for the virus.

Souza arrived in Jacksonville from Orlando, where he was staying with family and training for the event. Upon arrival, he informed UFC that a family member may have been infected. At Friday’s weigh-in, Souza arrived wearing a mask and gloves, still awaiting the results from his test.

Once the test came back positive, all three men left the host hotel and self-isolated off the premises.

Unsurprisingly, questions and criticism were abound after the positive test result. But the event would go on as planned. All 23 other athletes tested negative for the virus, so the card would continue with 11 fights.

When it came to fight night, the event itself

ran rather smoothly. Besides the fighters themselves, nearly all who were present wore a mask and gloves. The setup was different from any previous UFC event, as announcers, crew members and others were separated in order to follow social distancing guidelines.

The card was both exciting and filled with great fights. Four of the five matches on the main card ended in technical knockouts, including the main event between Ferguson and Gaethje, which resulted in Gaethje pulling off the upset.

The one action that raised some eyebrows came from color commentator and post-fight interviewer Joe Rogan. It’s tradition at UFC fights for Rogan to join the fighters after the bout to interview them, but the UFC announced prior to the event that these in-ring interviews would not be held. Instead, fighters would be taken to an isolated area outside of the cage where they would be interviewed by Rogan from a separate location.

It is unknown what changed, but after the conclusion of all but a few fights, Rogan joined the fighters in the octagon and proceeded to interview them normally. Wearing no gloves or mask, he stood right beside them and even shook the hands of some fighters after the interview was over. This went against the safety precautions that the company had stated it would follow.

Nevertheless, the event served sports fans their first taste of new action in almost two months. It was a great event indeed, but questions remain about whether it should have even been held to begin with.

White made it clear that he fought hard to make this event happen, and even secured the support of President Donald Trump. But that doesn’t mean that the decision to hold it was a

perfect one.

The weigh-ins were held in the host hotel ballroom and included the traditional faceoff. Faceoffs are typically done for promotional purposes, so why this was instituted is unknown. This was unnecessary given the circumstances and the fact that the UFC was going to proceed with the fights the next day regardless. Doing this before the fighters’ tests results came back appeared rather irresponsible.

Souza, who eventually tested positive, at the time did not yet know his results when he arrived at the weigh-in. Although he had a mask and gloves on, he faced-off against his opponent and fist-bumped White as he left. To make matters worse, White did not wear gloves or a mask during the face-offs, hugging and fist-bumping everyone.

The criticism leading up to the event came from almost all places but one. Interestingly enough, no one who was set to participate in the event had anything critical to say. Stephen Espinoza, the president of Showtime Sports, reported that all participating fighters and their teams were required to sign a contract stating that they would be in danger of losing their purse and bonuses if they said anything negative about the UFC’s protocols.

White doubled down on this claim, telling Yahoo Sports that these types of agreements had been in place for other events and would only come into play if the claims made by someone were untrue. That explanation seems fair, but a third party who chose to remain anonymous shared the non-disparagement clause of the document, showing that that may not have been the case.

Fighters in the UFC have rarely been vocal due to the nature of the company. Since White is in charge of the money and making the fights happen, some athletes fear that saying or doing anything that goes against the UFC could negatively affect their careers.

“My fighters and my employees have been told: If you’re not comfortable coming back to work, you don’t have to,” White said in an interview with Sports Illustrated.

Fighters only get paid when they step into the octagon, so refusing to do so because of the pandemic may have an impact on their future long after this is over. White’s fear tactics have long been criticized by former fighters and it seems as if UFC-249’s non-disparagement clause is another one of those tactics.

“We don’t need it decided in the court of public opinion,” said Mark Shapiro, the president of Endeavor, the live-events conglomerate and primary owner of the UFC. Continuing with the event was obviously done without regard to public opinion. The value that the event brought outweighed any other concerns in the eyes of both the UFC and ESPN. Only time will tell what impact this may have on sports going forward, but it is possible that the layout presented last saturday night may be one that leagues like the NBA and MLB replicate.

White has tried for years to grow the UFC and make it as big as other major sports organizations. UFC 249 was another example of how far he is willing to go. Being the only official sporting event taking place in the U.S. at the time, all eyes were on the UFC, just like White has always wanted. It seems likely that more events will continue regardless of what else is going on in the world, but whatever happens, good or bad, it will be