May 24, 2018

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UPTE in contract negotiations with UCOP UPTE members show frustrations over lack of cooperation from the university DANIELLE MOFFAT / AGGIE

UPTE-REPRESENTED WORKERS MARCH IN SOLIDARITY WITH AFSCME

BY SABRI N A HA BC H I campus@theaggie.org

The University Professional and Technical Employees union has been in the process of negotiations for several contracts with the University of California for the last year. Members of the union have expressed concerns about the way UC Office of the President’s behavior and how a lack of cooperation at bargaining sessions has led to little progress over the last 12 months. Recently, UPTE workers went on a sympathy strike in solidarity

Eric Gudz running for City Council while sleeping in car Awareness campaign brings Davis’s housing situation into perspective MELINDA CHEN / AGGIE

BY JUST I N C HAU city@theaggie.org

Rather than get a good night’s rest on the campaign trail, Davis city council candidate Eric Gudz slept in their car for a week.

“There’s definitely a lot of things that I picked up on right away,” Gudz said. “The sheer amount of energy that that process took was noticeable. It took a lot of energy to figure where you want to sleep and getting the environment right. That was a big realization for me.”

Eric Gudz is running for city council on a campaign based around affordable housing, transportation and community building.

“Issues around the homeless and rental crisis wasn’t really getting the attention it deserved,” Gudz said. “If I am on the council making policy in the interests of students and other renters, I have to understand that [situation] the best as possible.”

Gudz questioned how to best maintain the population in Davis by ensuring that the new generation has a place.

“We need to be able to keep folks here, otherwise they won’t be investing in the community and we’ll be losing a part of our community because we cannot accommodate everybody,” Gudz said.

Shahrukh Hameed, a fourth-year sociology major, however, doesn’t see much help coming to UC Davis students. To the contrary, Hameed’s friend’s friend received help from Sacramento State’s emergency housing program, which offers students with nowhere else to stay up to 30 days in the residence

with AFSCME workers who were also striking.

Alexis Roberts, a clinical laboratory specialist and UPTE member, gave information about the UPTE contract and described some of the issues encountered with UCOP during negotiations.

“Our contract expired back in October of last year,” Roberts said. “Typically, they are three-year contracts and we’ve been in negotiations for over a year. It’s a statewide contract with all 10 UC campuses, and we represent 15,000 employees up and down the state of California. We feel that the UC is not presenting us with any options; they’re not

halls. Acceptance is on a case by case basis, but if approved, students also receive two free meals a day at the dining commons.

“Sacramento State does a much better [job being] more open about the aid that they provide for their students,” Hameed said. “I think that that’s something Davis should adopt for its students in need.”

On the policy side, the city of Davis has tried some programs to address the housing crisis. For homelessness, Cesar Chavez Plaza offers 53 units worth of temporary housing for homeless people. A job training program also moves the homeless into permanent jobs, according to Mayor Robb Davis.

A homeless outreach coordinator connects people with services.

To assist renters, Yolo County received a grant from Sutter Health to provide bridge vouchers.

These temporary vouchers aim to assist renters while they wait to enter the federal housing voucher program, which helps low-income people cover housing costs. The biggest obstacle to programs like these are due to funding.

“It is not inexpensive to either construct affordable housing units in Davis or to work with individuals experiencing homelessness,” said Kelly Stachowicz, the assistant city manager for the city of Davis. “We do not have dedicated sources of funding, so funding is a challenge.”

According to Stachowicz, rental housing developments need to set aside 15 percent of rental units for people designated as low-income. The Yolo County area median income in 2016 was $57,663.

The city council planned to set aside 35 percent of new rental units to low-income residents, but has decided to keep it at 15 percent for the rest of the year. To qualify for lower rent, low-income is defined as having 80 percent of the area median income and below.

The city also sets aside 10 to 25 percent of housing development for home ownership, depending on the type of home. Within home ownership, 120 percent and below the area median income is considered low-income.

“If it is a single-family home type of development, a developer may propose certain units that are reserved,” Stachowicz said. “The prices of those houses would be capped at a certain income level.”

Davis sees major challenges when it comes to tackling the housing crisis. He also noted that, despite counting the amount of people sleeping on the streets or in shelters every two years, it’s hard to assess the varying needs that people have.

“We’re not really clear what the magnitude of the problem is,” Davis said. “Providing services, it’s hard to get a handle of the need.”

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VOLUME 136, ISSUE 28 | THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

really negotiating in good faith. We have attempted to meet with them every month for 12 months now, and they just never seem to come to the table with anything useful.”

Roberts also mentioned some of the proposals UCOP was offering for future UPTE contracts. “[The UC] continues to try and enforce a 2 percent raise, they want to take the cap off the parking fee, which means they could raise the parking fees to any level they want and they want to take the cap off the healthcare fee,” Roberts said. “With all that they’re taking away, they never want to give us anything. Basically, cost of living keeps going up and our employers keep only offering us a 2 percent increase each year and we’re slipping farther and farther behind.”

The UCOP has maintained that it is bargaining in good faith. UC Spokesperson Stephanie Beechem said in an email that the proposals the UC has offered UPTE workers have been fair.

“UC continues to bargain in good faith on a wide range of issues, including wages, benefits and other employment terms and conditions, with the goal of reaching a new, long-term contract for UPTE employees,” Beechem said. “To that end, UC has offered multiple proposals that would provide UPTE-represented employees with fair wages, continued quality health care, and excellent retirement benefits that few other employers offer.”

Beechem also commented on the sympathy strike that UPTE workers participated in.

“We were disappointed by UPTE leaders’ decision to call a sympathy strike against UC earlier this month,” Beechem said. “In UC’s view, strikes unfairly impact patients and students and should not be used as a negotiating tactic.”

An email to UPTE members from Greg Wine, the vice president of Davis UPTE, however, disagreed.

The email stated that workers “cannot afford NOT to strike” and that patients would be taken care of.

“All outpatients areas are closed,” Wine said. “Patients will be protected for the one day we take off just like they are protected on Sundays.”

In comparing UC healthcare workers to those outside of the UC system, Roberts said that the UC vastly underpays its workers.

“In many of the healthcare professions, the UC wages are 10 to 20 percent lower than market value, market value meaning all of the other healthcare institutions in the region — Kaiser, Sutter and Dignity — are offering more money for those professions,” Roberts said.

Sonia Ghandi, a technical employee at UC Davis and an UPTE member, said the the four bargaining priorities of UPTE are “wages, pension, job security and union accountability.” Elaborating on the priority of union accountability, Ghandi said that “new employees don’t get any advantage of knowing about their union representation and [UPTE is] trying to add that into contracts for new employees so they know their rights.”

Roberts commented on the issues with what the university is proposing with regard to pension and other union priorities.

“They want to compromise the pension by offering newer employees a 401k option, which then just compromises the UCRP pension that they offer all the other employees,” Roberts said. “When it comes to all the things we want that are non-wage issues, the UC is trying to block everything that we’re asking for.

We want sick leave. Sometimes people ask for vacations from their boss and they don’t get an answer.

The UC is not being a good employer — people working full-time shouldn’t be making less than $15

Success of Center for Chicanx and Latinx Academic Student Success

the hiring of the director, which is myself, after that then I began to develop the strategic plan to shape the initiative moving forward with the team. Then the second year we became an office over by what’s now the writing studio. That’s where I first hired the associate director, Lena Mendez, and then a team of student staff.”

With Chicanx and Latinx students making up roughly 25 percent of the current undergraduate population, there was a need to move out of the tiny space in the University House Annex. Cortez estimated that more than 70 percent of the Chicanx/Latinx population is made up of first generation students, making the need for a centralized retention center even stronger.

“It really took about two years in the making to figure out where the location would be,” Cortez said. “[It meant] working with student affairs, working with academic affairs, and the administration team to see where we would establish the new center, looking at the blueprint, looking at the sign, looking at multiple community meetings with students and the community to get feedback.”

Cortez is a UC Davis alumnus himself, having received his master’s degree in education with a social and cultural emphasis, as well as a Ph.D. in education. When he was a student here, there was no centralized form of resources for Chicanx and Latinx students like CCLASS offers today. In fact, Cortez wishes that centers like this existed on all university campuses with a high population of Chicanx and Latinx students.

“I think it really helps out create community, a sense of belonging for first generation,” Cortez said. “[It] helps the student organizations work together, get additional academic support, somewhere to come and speak to professional staff about their experience or their recommendations on how to navigate the university system on a campus this size where they can access academic resources and tutoring, advising, seminars, all that good stuff.”

The CCLASS offers a robust set of resources for its students. For example, the Dean’s offices for the College of Letters and Science and the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences send advisors multiple days during the week, and there are also math, physics, and writing specialists that come to help students throughout the week.

There are also seminars offered throughout the quarters. In the fall, the focus is on research support where librarians come to offer academic support to Chicanx and Latinx students. In the winter, the focus is for the transfer population, and then identity support seminars are offered in the spring.

Center for Chicanx and Latinx Academic Student Success offers robust resources, support for students

REBECCA CAMPBELL / AGGIE

BY MARLYS J EANE features@theaggie.org

On September 27, 2017, the Center for Chicanx and Latinx Academic Student Success opened its doors to the UC Davis community. Since its grand opening, the center’s check-in system has already accounted for roughly 10,000 students coming through its doors.

“Our main responsibility and mission is academic-based — we want to be a space to academically support our Chicanx and Latinx students from first year up to when they graduate,” said Cirilo Cortez, the director of the CCLASS. “I reach out to the students that are not in good standing so they can come in here and use the services, get them up to speed, and acquainted to the university system.”

The Center can be found on the second floor of the MU, right at the heart of campus. Inside, there are study tables and cushioned chairs, some computers and a printer, a table laden with pastries and coffee, as well plenty of Chicanx and Latinx peers and staff members. But this center didn’t just appear overnight — the development process took a few years.

“The initiative itself, our overall umbrella is the Chicanx/Latinx Retention Initiative, under that is the Center,” Cortez said. “It began in 2015 with

UPTE on 11

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UC DAVIS PAYS $5,000 FINE TO RESOLVE CITATION REGARDING RABBIT THAT DIED University faced other criticism regarding animal mistreatment ZOË REINHARDT / AGGIE

SHEREEN LEE / AGGIE

BY E LIZ AB E T H ME RCADO I campus@theaggie.org

Are there any Girl Scout cookies in there?

May 10 “Several vehicles facing wrong way on street.”

“Three duffle bags with Girl Scout property left in front of residence. Request items be picked up.”

“Tenant in office refusing to leave — upset over her vehicle being towed today from fire lane — request officer mediate.”

“Male subject playing a trumpet in the open field by the barn.”

May 11 “Bar closed prior to reporting party getting his ID back — request officer assist.”

May 13 “Reporting party’s girlfriend broke his computer.”

“Female party who is restrained person has barricaded herself inside residence.”

“Boyfriend entered residence and vandalized the reporting party’s property. Subject grabbed a knife and refused to leave the residence. Boyfriend is still in the apartment. Reporting party is on the patio.”

May 14 “Neighbor throwing sandals at the screen door.”

May 16 “Ongoing issue with known male calling reporting party excessively.”

BY CLARA ZH AO campus@theaggie.org

UC Davis recently agreed to pay a $5,000 fine to the U.S. Department of Agriculture to resolve a citation regarding a rabbit that died due to an oversight of medical staff.

The citation, issued in July of 2016, described a procedure on a “rabbit that was to be euthanized before recovering from anesthesia.”

According to a press release on the UC Davis website, the rabbit died under anesthesia when a valve was inadvertently left closed.

After investigating, the USDA notified UC Davis that it had determined a penalty of $5,000 for the citation, and the school agreed to pay the fine.

Despite the penalty, UC Davis maintains that incidents such as this are rare and that the

school tightly regulates animal use through multiple platforms to ensure ethical treatment of animals. These platforms include the campus’ Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, which inspects facilities conducting animal research every six months.

“There is a wide range of research involving animals at UC Davis, from laboratory research with fish or mice to observations of wild animals, involving researchers at most schools and colleges,” said Andy Fell, the associate director of news and media at UC Davis. “Animal research is conducted humanely and in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations.”

However, Ili Zisman, a third-year animal science major and president of the UC Davis People for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty through Education club, still believes the system does not adequately protect animal rights.

“Whenever animals are used as objects, their wellbeing isn’t being prioritized at all and often the conclusions drawn from the animal experiments are not actually useful because animals are anatomically different from humans,” Zisman said. “There are so many better alternatives out there, such as cell cultures, micro-dosing and artificial human skin. It would make so much sense to reallocate the funds used for animal experimentations into programs or avenues that are truly helpful to humans.”

Additionally, members of the University and Professional Technical Employees union have raised concerns about understaffing and its repercussions.

“There is gross mismanagement of funding and resources at the VMTH (Veterinary Medical Teaching Center),” said Karen Galbreath, a member of UPTE’s bargaining team.

According to Galbreath, an animal may spend unnecessary time in the intensive care unit because of insufficient staffing to move the animal to a “step down” unit or ward, which results in the animal spending an extra time block in the ICU and the owner paying hundreds of dollars that could have been saved.

In addition, Galbreath mentioned that animals in the general wards are not checked on at least once per hour per hospital protocol which has resulted in “poor outcomes, including death.”

Despite these complaints, UC Davis is accredited by the International Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care.

The school has conducted a comprehensive internal review of animal care on campus in 2017 that found no systemic shortcomings in the animal care program. The report, however, made a number of recommendations for improvements.

STUDENT GROUP LAUNCHES PILOT PROGRAM TO PROVIDE FREE MENSTRUAL PRODUCTS PERIOD to address menstrual product accessibility on campus

KAILA MATTERA / AGGIE

BY A LLY RUSSEL L campus@theaggie.org

Campus groups are working to tackle the topic of menstruation with menstrual product drives and pilot initiatives.

PERIOD: The Menstrual Movement is a new club on campus working to

increase the accessibility of menstrual products for UC Davis students. Graduate researchers, club members and the student group IGNITE have collaborated to create a pilot program which will provide free menstrual products in several high-traffic bathrooms across campus.

From May 7 to 10, members of HerCampus tabled at the Memorial Union to hold their annual menstrual product donation drive. The team hoped to beat last year’s totals of 1,900 pads and 600 tampons. All items collected will be donated to local women’s shelters.

“The menstrual product drive was hosted by HerCampus. We are partnering with them to distribute the products,” said Annie Wang, a second-year materials science engineering major.

Wang is also a member and one of the founders of PERIOD at UC Davis.

This week, PERIOD launched its pilot program to begin providing free menstrual products in specific bathrooms around campus for students. PERIOD claims that free access to menstrual products is a right, not a luxury.

Hung Doan, a graduate student researcher, discussed the movement’s platform and what they hope to accomplish.

“We believe that menstruation is an underserved, and unduly tabooed topic,” Doan said. “We believe that menstrual products, like pads and tampons, are a basic hygiene necessity, equivalent to toilet paper, soap and hand towels.”

Free menstrual products can now be found for a short time around campus.

The initiative plans to provide 140 pads and 140 tampons in multi-stall bathrooms and 70 pads and 70 tampons in single-stall bathrooms each week. Over the course of the entire quarter, this translates to providing 6,720 tampons and 6,720 pads for students.

Newly-provided pads and tampons can be found in Kemper Hall, Sciences Lecture Hall, the Peter J. Shields Library, the Student Community Center and Wellman Hall.

Student volunteers will be tasked with restocking products on a weekly basis for the duration of the initiative. In addition

to restocking supplies, volunteers can help gauge how frequently students are utilizing the products. Anusha Klinder, a second-year global disease biology major, is one of the founders of PERIOD on campus. Klinder spoke about current observations during restocking.

“The initiative is going really well,” Klinder said. “Each time we check the bathrooms most if not all the pads are gone, and most of the tampons too.”

The initiative received support from Custodial Services, Shields Library and the Women’s Resources and Research Center. Student Health and Counseling Services and the Dr. Michelle Famula Fund provided funding for the initiative, which will cost $2,585 in total.

While the pilot program is focusing on short-term provisions for students, PERIOD plans to implement long-term provisions of menstrual products in all campus buildings.

YOLO FOOD BANK SECOND-HIGHEST GROSSING CHARITY IN YOLO COUNTY JAMIE CHEN / AGGIE

SHEREEN LEE / AGGIE

Big Day of Giving has Yolo residents in the spirit of generosity

BY A H ASH F RANC I S city@theaggie.org

Since 2013, the Yolo Food Bank, along with other organizations all over Yolo County, has participated in the Big

Day of Giving, an annual charity event in May dedicated to challenging communities to help raise funds and grow local philanthropy. This year’s Big Day of Giving took place on May 3, and local organizations and nonprofits all over

Yolo County managed to raise over $7.3 million to go toward their respective missions and charities. Through the Big Day of Giving, donors are able to learn about nonprofits and their goals and support their causes by giving and encouraging others to give.

“Our community once again demonstrated its generosity and commitment to supporting the organizations that make such a difference to us all,” said Linda Beech Cutler, the chief executive of the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, the charity that established the Big Day of Giving five years ago. “We are immensely grateful for the good work these nonprofits do every day and for the donors who gave during this year’s Big Day of Giving.”

The Yolo Food Bank’s mission is to end hunger and malnutrition in Yolo County. According to its website, 52,000 people in Yolo County regularly go hungry each month and nearly 17 percent of the county is affected by food insecurity. The Yolo Food Bank funds programs such as food drives, hubs, cheap markets and distribution that combat hunger and

help feed those in need in and around Yolo County. The Bank is located in Woodland but also reaches heavily into Davis, Sacramento and Elk Grove.

“Our overall total went over $64,000 for the day, which made us the second-highest grossing charity in Yolo County for the day,” said Joy Cohan, the director of philanthropic engagement at the Yolo Food Bank. “We outdid our goal for this year quite a bit, and we were really excited by the number of donors we got involved [...] We really tried to focus on e-philanthropy this year, focusing on social media and email marketing with our donor database to try and further spread the word, particularly about these matching donations.”

Supported by several regular donors and philanthropists, this year the Yolo Food Bank was able to start an initiative that had donors matching and doubling each others’ donations. Davis’ own mayor, Robb Davis, along with several other donors, pledged to double their gifts if their original contribution of $6,250 was matched by benefactors from all around Yolo County. Media coverage surround-

ing this pledge and social media sharing of the Yolo Food Bank’s goal made this the most successful Big Day of Giving yet for the nonprofit.

“The day went great. I mean, we almost doubled our number from last year, mostly because Yolo Food Bank is getting more exposure via social media and tabling at different events,” said Raymond Bautista, the volunteer and food drive coordinator at the Yolo Food Bank. “In the next couple months, we have several ways to get involved — our food distributions and food hubs, our kids’ farmers market at different elementary schools all over Yolo County. We have produce packing, rice and beans packing. Anything you can think of that would be in running a regular business, we could use volunteers for.”

Though the Big Day of Giving is over until May of next year, the Yolo Food Bank will continue their work feeding and serving the thousands of Yolo County residents in need of food and care.

Those interested in learning more about the Yolo Food Bank can visit their website, and those looking to give to the organization can make donations online.

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018 | 3

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HISTORIC DRESBACH HUNT-BOYER MANSION REOPENED FOR CITY, BUSINESS USE Mansion will house offices of new police substation, Valley Clean Energy

JO RDA N KN OWLES / AGGIE

BY H A N N A N WA L I U L L A H city@theaggie.org

May 5 marked the grand reopening of the Dresbach Hunt-Boyer mansion, which has been repurposed to serve as a downtown Davis Police Department substation and the headquarters for Valley Clean Energy. The City of Davis hosted an open house for the mansion followed

by a ribbon-cutting ceremony led by city manager Michael Webb.

“The services that we provide at the HB mansion are related directly to some of the needs of our downtown: having that direct accessibility walkable to businesses, literally across the street and next door, and having that friendly face of our staff also being able to be accessible with immediate access instead having to walk

halfway across town,” Webb said.

The Dresbach Hunt-Boyer mansion was first built in 1875 by William Frederick Dresbach. Dresbach was a businessman and was also known for naming the town Davisville. What made the mansion stand out from other houses in the area was its Victorian architecture, which was uncommon for houses in the Davis Area.

Throughout the years, it was passed down to the Boyer and the Hunt families. According to Bob Bowen, a city historian, the mansion is on a national registry for historic buildings.

“In the [1970s], there was a proposal to pick this house up and move it somewhere else and build a modern building here,” Bowen said. “A lot of folks in the community raised money and said, ‘No, this a historic house, we want to keep it here.’ It’s been constantly changing, so this new cycle is encouraging and [it supports] our downtown and our general community.”

The city of Davis bought the house in 1994 from private owners. Today, the house can be found on the corner of Second and E streets, where it is distinguished from the surrounding buildings by its Victorian architecture. Since 1994, the house has been in constant use by the city and small businesses.

Last fall, the previous occupant of the Dresbach Hunt-Boyer mansion — the startup Davis Roots — vacated the house in order to become digital. Afterward, the city council looked at the potential reuse of the house to suit the needs of the community.

According to City of Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel, the substation at the Hunt-Boyer Mansion will primarily be dedicated toward two departments: the Homeless Services and Outreach Department and the Downtown Davis Bike Officer office. This is the first time in 17 years that the Davis Police Department has had a substation downtown after re-

DIA N A LI / AGG IE

locating from City Hall to the current station.

“One of the primary reasons for moving homeless services down here is that a lot of the clients are in this area,” Pytel said. “And so we’re hoping that it is easier for [the officers] to meet with people so that we’re not having to drive people around or having them make express arrangements to have them come over to the police department.”

The other main service of the Dresbach Hunt-Boyer mansion will be the Valley Clean Energy office. Valley Clean Energy is a new, locally owned power provider that will launch in June 2018 and provide power for many areas of Yolo County.

“We have three members of the organization: currently the City of Davis, the City of Woodland and the unincorporated Yolo County,” said Lucas Ferrix during MANSION on 11

DAVIS GARDEN TOUR FUNDRAISER FOR YOLO HOSPICE

DIANE PARRO NAMED DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS AND COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Bringing city, community together

Huei Young’s garden tour

C A ITLY N SA M P L E Y / AGGI E

BY STE L L A T RA N city@theaggie.org

Diane Parro is now the director of business and community engagement for the City of Davis. She was previously the Davis’ chief innovation officer and will now serve as a liaison between the community and the city.

Mike Webb, Davis’ city manager, elaborated on Parro’s role for the city.

“Her position is a bit more focused now on strategic communications, really heading up the city’s efforts, and our staff team that are involved in helping communicate back and forth with the community at large,” Webb said.

Parro jumped into her role right away and is currently filling her new position.

“The changes were effective immediately,” Webb said. “She’s already diving in headfirst with these things. Formally her title with the City was chief innovation officer, and I felt that we really needed to focus more on our strategic communications.

We needed to bolster things even more. She has a background in marketing and she’s a member of our executive team, so she has good access to department heads to quickly cut to the chase and get things done.”

Parro will also work directly with businesses to bridge them with the city as well as involving the community.

“Whenever a business has questions about where to start with a process to get a remodel done or expansion or business licences, Diane is a starting point for them,” Webb said. “With respect to communications, her role also expands to include community engagement on a broader scope and scale.

She’s in charge of helping with organizing and helping to get word out about things that are happening with the city — helping us develop our approach to how each city department engages with the community and creating clear expectations about when we engage with the community.”

In order to get the word out and connect the city and the community, she’s working to use social media platforms such as Facebook.

“Largely, she’s building upon some good things that the city’s done in the last couple of years like

utilizing social media platforms, [such as] using our website and more traditional means of press releases and local media to help get word out,” Webb said.

“Putting signage out in the community, like our roadway construction project [for example], and working with our team to help explain what is happening, like what’s the end product going to look like and what the community can expect in terms of completion and how it’s funded.”

Rachel Hartsough, Davis’ arts and culture manager, will be working with Parro, and noted how the arts are connected to the city’s government and community.

“I am looking forward to working more closely with Diane in this way,” Hartsough said via email.

“Taking a more holistic overview of how the Arts fit in with — and bolster — economic development and other community engagement efforts helps support our ongoing vision of the City’s Arts & Cultural Affairs Program to support community-based arts projects, cultural opportunities, and education initiatives that foster excellence, diversity, and vitality in the arts.”

Parro’s role largely influences how the city can connect to the community better through communication, which includes the arts, among other projects.

“She also has a very good and direct communication style, and she’s also what I call proactive,” Webb said. “She doesn’t wait for someone to come and say to do x, y or z. Part of the expectation with Diane is [...] that we should already be now thinking about to communicate to the community.”

This relationship between the city and the community will allow more projects and practices such as art management.

“The newly formalized relationship within the city’s organizational structure will further strengthen our goals to build community partnerships, explores best practices, and manage the public art collection through an enhanced network of partners in the community,” Hartsough said.

Hartsough stated that the arts and culture program is seeing improvement with overall city satisfaction.

BUSINESS DIRECTOR on 11

BY CASS IDY KAYS city@theaggie.org

Huei Young, a longtime Davis resident, has used her Asian-inspired garden as a site for many fundraisers over the years. On May 20, Young held tours of her garden with all of the proceeds going toward Yolo Hospice. The fundraiser was very personal and meaningful to Young, whose late husband, Frank Young, was cared for by Yolo Hospice.

“They treat you like a family and it feels like you have a relative and not a stranger helping you,” Young said about Yolo Hospice. “You don’t feel alone. I think they are very caring, and I want everybody in Davis to know and to never worry about getting old because Davis is a very good community.”

Young’s garden stands out among the houses within her Davis neighborhood. She spent 45 years changing the entire landscape of her yard and her house for it to become the artistic masterpiece that it is now. Gardening has always been an interest of Young’s, whose inspiration comes from her father.

“I compile all my father’s artwork [...] and I put all the art he has done into my garden,” Young said.

Many may see Young’s house as they walk along the greenbelt next to her vibrant home. The amount of color, artistic detail and the sound of her three ponds can make one feel at ease. Young’s garden has been the site of many fundraisers for organizations, such as Shriners Hospital, as she is invested in helping others.

GARDEN TOUR on 11

Nishi Will Not Solve The Housing Crisis.

Because an expensive tunnel and bridge must be built to get to Nishi it will take Over 5 years to build With only 16 units an acre The project is too small Because Nishi requires new private roads and a +12 million dollar rail crossing Nishi apartments will be very expensive And prominent air quality experts agree, Nishi is not a safe place to live

No on Measure J Paid for by Davis Citizens for Democracy - No on Measure J - No on Nishi 2.0

NoOnNishi.org

4 | THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

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U C DAV I S M I N D I N ST I T UTE / CO URTESY

Keeping the magic alive Davis students give children in need magical experience

BY S N EHA RA M AC H A N DR AN features@theaggie.org

For decades, Disney’s cinematic genius has brought joy to people of all ages.

To this day, Disney continues to give people the opportunity to use their imagination to keep the magic alive. Last spring, a group of Davis students decided to continue to keep the magic alive among children from all backgrounds.

A group of Davis students formed the Disney-themed club Princess Pals in an attempt to bring joy to children in need.

The organization gives students the opportunity to dress up as famous Disney characters and visit at hospitals, foster

homes and shelters. Together the princes and princesses aim to elevate children’s spirits through storytelling, crafts and other activities. This past month the club was recognized as Organization of the Month for its outstanding service to the community.

Third-year pharmaceutical chemistry major Ashley Beyer has been a member of Princess Pals since fall 2017. Beyer was elected to be one of the co-presidents for the coming school year and intends to continue to bring magic to people of all ages. Beyer explained what the club does during their visits to hospitals, local shelters and receiving homes.

“Often times these kids are stuck in

Producing measurable change On Davis ballot: Measures H, I, J C A I T LY N SA M PLEY / AGGI E

BY EM I LY N G UYE N features@theaggie.org

Three proposed Davis ballot measures are set to appear on the June 5 General municipal ballot. The outcome of these elections and the fate of these ballots will have direct impacts on the livelihoods of UC Davis students as well as long-term Davis residents. Here’s a briefing of ballot measures H, I and J: Measure H would renews the existing $49 annual Park Maintenance Tax for an additional 20 years, adding on an annual 2 percent inflator. Revenue generated from the tax would be used to help sustain and improve a variety of parks and recreational public works projects including street trees, greenbelts, bike paths, public recreational facilities and urban wildlife and habitat. Measure H needs a two-thirds majority of votes in order to pass.

“Measure H will not change how much residents are paying, but it will upkeep the quality of parks that we have,” said Aaron Latta, a first-year transfer political science — public service major

and chair of the Davis Housing Brigade of the Davis College Democrats. “What students can expect from it is [that] their roads will be repaired. You’re going to find that you’re going to be paying less in car repairs. You’re going to be able to bike around town a lot easier.”

Many students are in favor of Measure H, especially since they believe that the tax serves an important purpose without creating a significant dent in their wallets.

“I think it’s a good idea,” said Rachel Wong, a first-year political science and economics double major and staff member for ASUCD Senator Alisha Hacker.

“I don’t think $49 a year is too bad. I think maintenance is important.”

Measure I would establish a $99 Street and Bike Path Maintenance Tax on residential and non-residential units that would be used to fund the maintenance of streets, bike lanes and bike paths, sidewalks and other transportation-related infrastructure. The tax would be collected annually over a period of ten years.

Like Measure H, Measure I would need to pass with a two-thirds majority.

NIGEL MCINTOSH / COURTESY

Jahz: Rooted in the Bay Student clothing company to spread cultural appreciation

BY CA RO L I N E RUT T E N arts@theaggie.org

Third-year communication and music double major Sammy Seaver was stopped by a stranger while in Germany during a study abroad program last year. Wearing a sweatshirt made by third-year design major Nigel McIntosh, Seaver was asked about the sweatshirt’s brand.

“It started to spin the wheels for me,” Seaver said. “I had some experience in marketing and helping people build their projects, but this is something substantial — the product, the message. This is

not a get-rich-quick type of scheme, this is something that needs to be out there.”

With such passion dedicated to the core of the company, Seaver soon became a member of the Jahz team, the new UC Davis-born clothing line dedicated to promoting cultural celebration.

Jahz, coming from the Rastafarian word for “god,” consists of McIntosh as its founder and designer; second-year history and political science major Andrew Williams as its marketing coordinator; third-year managerial economics major Laili Attai as the operations manager and 2017 alumnus Marc Toney as its finance

hospitals or receiving homes so we want to give them something to look forward to and be happy about,” Beyer said. “We try to interact with them and brighten up their day as much as possible to distract them from the stuff going on around them.”

Like the majority of the members of Princess Pals, Beyer herself has been an avid Disney fan since she was a little girl.

Beyer explains why she as well as many other members are passionate in the work they do for the community.

“It’s really exciting when you dress up and you see the smiles on the kids faces,” Beyer said. “And it’s not just kids, during one of our visits to Kaiser we walked through the ICU, and along with the kids we would see older patient’s faces light up and smile which was really nice.”

On average, the club tries to accomplish 12 to 15 visits per quarter.

Throughout the year the organization also initiates various fundraising events to fund the upkeep of the costumes. In the first quarter that the club was active, there were only five members and three costumes; since then, the club has grown to about 50 members and now has a costume for almost every Disney princess.

Zoe Feldman, a fifth-year psychology major, has been a board member of Princess Pals since the club was founded in spring 2017. As event coordinator this year, Feldman reached out to various hospitals and shelters, such as St. Johns, Kaiser, the Davis Medical Center and the MIND Institute. Feldman explained the process a member must go through to dress up as a princess on the visits.

“There’s certain requirements and processes a potential princess/prince must go through to dress up on a visit,” Feldman said. “We want [members] to have experience dressing up. We usually quiz potential princesses on their respective movie and character to make sure we get the full embodiment of the character.”

Feldman explained how during many of her visits children would ask the princesses obscure questions regarding other characters from the movie. Feldman primarily dresses up as Anna from Frozen and has been asked questions such as “Where is Olaf?” or “What is Elsa doing?”

“If you say one wrong thing you could ruin the whole magic of the moment for them,” Feldman said. “I’ve had children pull on my hair, and I had to act in the moment, so preparing for those instances is really important.”

Feldman explains Princess Pals mission and why the club has been such a rewarding experience during her time at Davis.

“The most important thing is letting kids have the opportunity to be kids,” Feldman said. “When you’re sitting in a hospital bed or going through the foster care system, you don’t have the opportunity to be a kids, and you’re forced to grow up fast, so just letting them play and use their imagination even if it’s for a couple of minutes is really amazing.”

Second-year animal science major Johanna Schulz has been a member of Princess Pals since the club was formed.

Schulz explained the impact the club has

made on her and the community as a whole.

“It’s really nice to see those smiles,” Schulz said. “A lot of the kids don’t have the opportunity to go to a theme parks to meet their favorite character so it’s amazing that we give these kids the opportunity to be kids.”

In addition to the smiles and laughs, Schulz explained some of the difficulties she as well as other princes and princesses face on visits.

“A lot of the places we go to not everybody has seen before or is comfortable with,” Schulz said. “Sometimes kids come up to you and tell you their life stories and a lot of these kids have had a lot of hardships which are almost heartbreaking to hear. We want to be able to bring joy to the kids as the character without breaking character or breaking down in front of the child.”

For Schulz, the club has also had a meaningful impact on her personal life which is why she believes that the clubs has made great strides toward bringing joy to children of all backgrounds.

“I have been in a lot of similar situations myself,” Schultz said. “I know what it feels like to not have that smile on my face and think that your entire world is crumbling down. And to give these kids a reason to smile and be kids for some time is amazing.”

Princess Pals will resume recruitment for new members next fall. Students who are looking to join a unique club that intertwines community service with the magic of Disney can visit the Facebook page or website for more information.

Lauren DeCarlo, a fourth-year political science major, pointed out a possibility for adverse short-term effects arising from the implementation of the tax, namely due to the noisy and disruptive nature of the various street projects that the tax will fund.

“The construction of the roads would be detrimental,” DeCarlo said. “For example, they’re fixing the roads right in front of my house and we have to park three blocks from our house because we can’t get into our court. It’s loud, so it’s difficult to study at home. They start at like 7:45 in the morning and they usually stop around 4. If you’re trying to study at home during that day, that’s not possible.”

Despite these short-term negative repercussions, though, DeCarlo supports Measure I for the long-term improvements that it will bring to the city of Davis.

“I think safer roads outweigh the negative short-term effects of construction and the detriment of $99 per year,” DeCarlo said.

Measure J, arguably the most widely-known Davis ballot measure among the three, would approve development for the Nishi Student Housing Project. If approved, the Nishi project would bring 2,200 single beds, housed in up to 700 rental apartment units, to the city of Davis. The Measure also specifies that a minimum of 330 beds are to be allocat-

ed for low-income students. Measure R, which was passed in 2000, requires that the rezoning of agricultural land must be decided on through a citywide ballot. Thus, the fate of the Nishi Student Housing Project falls into the hands of both UC Davis students and permanent Davis residents.

Unlike Measures H and I, passage of Measure J only requires a simple majority. ASUCD and the UC Davis Graduate Student Association (GSA) have recently approved resolutions in support of Measure J. “Basically what I’ve heard about [Measure J] is that it’s going to be affordable housing mainly for students that go to Davis,” Wong said. “Right now, we have a really bad housing crisis, so it’s really important that we do get it passed.

I believe we have a 0.2 percent vacancy rate, and it’s really hard for someone to apply for housing. UC Davis is accepting more [students] every year, but outside of the dorms there isn’t going to be enough housing for those students.”

Other students, however, reject the Nishi Student Housing Project for a variety of reasons.

DeCarlo believes that approval of the project will inevitably lead to the commercialization and exploitation of Davis’ agricultural land.

“I’m against turning the Nishi land into housing,” DeCarlo said. “I think one of the staples of Davis is its agricultural

land. You go to UCLA, and it’s so gentrified that you just have the school. Whereas in Davis, you have the school but then you [also] have this beautiful agricultural land. And it’s like a precedent — if you turn the land by Olive Drive into housing, it’ll just open the doors to do that everywhere. I think for long-term Davis residents and for students who appreciate the beauty of Davis, it’s important not to turn that land into housing.”

Regardless of what positions students take on these issues, Latta believes that UC Davis students owe it to themselves, as well as to future students and communities who will be affected by the outcome of this election, to exercise their voting privileges.

“There have been students here in our positions since 1908 and there will be students here long after us,” Latta said.

“We are a big part of this town, [...] but the problem is that we don’t stick up for ourselves. The university doesn’t get a vote in city matters; they can’t watch our backs and they have no interest in watching our backs. The only people who can watch our backs is ourselves. By us voting in this election, we’re watching the backs of students five year down the road.

That’s the kind of societal benefit that students should be thinking about when they’re voting. They’re not just voting for themselves. They’re voting for their children, for their children’s children, for their friends. It’s a civic duty.”

operator. Seaver acts as president.

“Nigel and I have been friends since freshman year, and when I started seeing these drawings something really clicked; these are amazing,” Attai said. “Initially I was drawn to the artwork, and when I found out the meaning behind them I was completely sold on the company and I wanted to be a part of it.”

Seaver’s sweatshirt may not be the only recognizable design of the company; the most recent “La Flor de Jalisco” flame tee has made its way to the backs of various students. That’s the point of the clothing company: finding the commonality between all humans, transcending cultural boundaries.

“I wanted to hit a theme that everyone could connect with,” McIntosh said.

“Even though it is illustrating the beauty in every culture, I feel like everyone can in some way relate to another culture.

Culture is just fulfilling needs that everyone has as humans. Jahz is just finding what makes us human to our core.”

Rather than relying on stereotypical or mass-produced images, each handdrawn design takes inspiration from a specific culture.

“Everyone has culture so we can come together in the shared experience of culture,” McIntosh said. “For example, I have a design that celebrates Indian Hindu culture, and there is a god that I find very beautiful [...] I found a picture that I liked and made my own version of that picture. It’s something that peo-

ple can see and think of Hinduism, but it’s not screaming it. It is simply giving you something to think about when you think of India.”

Moreover, the celebration of diversity and culture ties into Jahz’s emphasis on the Bay Area — as a target area as well as a place of inspiration in itself.

“It has a lot of people in different ethnicities in the same place,” McIntosh said. “But they all understand each other without trying to be each other. Since we all understand each other, we can be each other. I want to show the human part of us so we can get along and be normal together.”

Nested in a college campus, Jahz is careful to and adamant about avoiding cultural appropriation with its designs.

“Obviously we’re not in it for approporting cultures; we want to see the beauty in them,” Attai said. “It has been a fine line between how we present these designs and being very genuine about the intention behind each design. We realize we are on a very politically active campus.”

For Seaver, the company’s designs are truly about appreciation, the abstract center of culture and “quintessential appreciation.”

“We don’t want to be ignorant to the specific images that we are using, so when we do use something from a culture, we want to know what it means, what it means to people — we are not using the image for image’s sake,” Seaver said. “We

want to know the specifics behind it.”

Such a message places itself easily on a T-shirt or sweatshirt, an item of clothing and medium accessible to everyone.

“It’s a medium that everyone can see it; it’s not in an art gallery,” Williams said.

You can just be walking down the street and be moved by it. When you wear it you can be proud of it.”

Each shirt also gives back to the community. A percentage of the sales from each merchandise release will be donated to a local charity or nonprofit to help where the image was taken inspiration from or the surrounding community.

“The recent one had the flames and the rose, so we gave back to burn victims and the Santa Rosa Fires,” Toney said.

As for the future of the company, Jahz has plans for expansion.

“Right now our big focus is establishing a strong online presence, establishing our social media and making our website fully functional, so that not only people from Davis but people all around the Bay Area can order our stuff,” Williams said.

“We want to get into retailers as well. I was thinking as a summer project going down to little boutiques in Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco to try to get our message out and be able to present them a look book. We want to expand ourselves, yet staying true to who we are.”

Jahz will be dropping a new shirt design to be on sale in June. To purchase their products and learn more, check out the Jahz website.

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018 | 5

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

MACLEAN HARTFORD / AGGIE

TOP ROW: CHRISTIAN MARTINEZ, EMILY COWAN, CHRISTOPHER LOPEZ BOTTOM ROW: KATIE RICKLETON, VICTORIA ROBERTS, ALEXIS ROBERTS

WHAT ARE YOU DOING

THIS SUMMER? Roving reporter uncovers student plans

BY STE L L A SA P P I N GTO N features@theaggie.org

The summer months can be an ambitious period of self-realization for students. Taking many forms, it’s an opportunity to travel to new places, explore professional realms, complete research and fulfill major requirements. Taking a walk down the quad will reveal the diverse paths students follow and the opportunities that pop up, and slip away.

Taylor Schuman, a second-year communication major, is taking an academic approach to summer 2018.

“This summer I plan on taking summer classes, during summer session one,” Schuman said. “I’m taking a philosophy class and a linguistics class.”

The simplicity of Schuman’s plan evades some students, though they find excitement in taking advantage of the fleeting summer days. Balancing familial obligations and intimacy with internship opportunities can be essential.

Katie Rickleton, a second-year biological sciences major, looks forward to a fast-paced, domestically diverse summer.

“Over the summer I am going to Southern California with my cousin, going to Disneyland for a few days,” Rickleton said. “Then I’m going to New Mexico and Colorado for some family reunion-type

So potentially being [there], [is] setting me up for the future.”

The serendipity of future opportunity close to family is appealing to some, but the lure of travel certainly calls to many. With numerous study abroad opportunities overseas, some including academic coursework, others packing in internship experiences, dreams can come true.

Alexis Roberts, a third-year international relations major, will get a taste of her future career goals in Switzerland.

“I’m studying abroad in Geneva, Switzerland to do the United Nations program so I’ll just be taking classes with WHO, UNICEF, the WTO and several other organizations, IO’s, NGO’s and so it’s going to be a really fantastic opportunity, just to learn about the UN,” Roberts said. “I’ve been doing model UN for quite a while now, so it’s literally like my dream, dream job. [The program is ] about a month, so it’s a shorter study abroad program but I think it’s a perfect amount of time and it’s over the summer, too.

I’ll be traveling around Europe for about two and a half weeks afterwards in Italy and Spain. And then right afterwards I’m not entirely sure, hopefully an internship, but we’ll see. I’d really like to work in Sacramento, hopefully working with some government entity there, I’m not entirely sure which one though yet. At the capital there are so many opportunities.”

Her sister Victoria Roberts, an incoming freshman in Fall 2018, happened to be visiting the campus and was a day away from a trip to Southern Spain.

“Starting tomorrow, I’m leaving for Spain,” Roberts said. “I’ll be visiting Southern Spain. I’m also going to Italy, but she and I are missing each other.

And then I’m going to come back and I’m working for the city of Arcata [...] for their Parks and Rec. Department. I’m a camp counselor, so I’ll be working with kids in the redwood forest. When I come back I’ll be an incoming freshman in the nutrition science program here.”

Emily Cowan, a second-year biological sciences major, looks forward to a study abroad experience that may not speak as directly to career goals, but will get her ahead in her coursework.

“This summer I’m actually doing one of the study abroad trips,” Cowan said. “Through UCEAP I’m going to the University of Sussex in Brighton, England and I’m getting my whole physics seven series done, in that summer. It starts in June and then it’s going to go all the way to mid-August and then after that I’m going to stay in Europe, because might as well while I’m there, and go to Greece. They offer three different study abroads [...] I really liked the England one because I liked that, it’s easy to fly out of [...] London SUMMER PLANS on 11

events, and then I’m going to the east coast to Boston area for about a month to work in a genetics lab, so I’m going to be doing that for about a month and then I’ll be heading to Seattle to do some more family stuff. It’s honestly just a really crazy summer, it’s usually not like this, I don’t really have a lot of time at home so I’ve just kind of made time for as much as I could because I already knew I had to do a lot of the family things but then I also knew that I really wanted to do these internships and get the experience for school, obviously.”

For science and humanities majors alike, academic internship experience can be a foremost priority. Given the difficulty of balancing academic coursework and a lab or research assistant position, there’s no time like the summer. For some students, like Rickleton, this means planning ahead and respecting family events. For Christopher Lopez, a third-year biochemistry and microbiology double-major, his internship enabled him to stay close to family.

“I’m spending a 10-week program at the Amgen Scholars at UCLA, for research,” Lopez said.

“I’ll be researching in muscular cell disease. I live 25 minutes from UCLA so I’ll actually be living on the campus but I’ll be going back and forth every weekend to say hi to my family, spend time with them. It’s the main reason why I chose going there.

http:

6 | THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

Opinion editorial board

the California Aggie EDITORIAL BOARD BRYAN SYKES Editor-in-Chief

Be an informed voter

EMILY STACK Managing Editor

Vote for gun reform in California primary on June 5

HANNAH HOLZER Campus News Editor KAELYN TUERMER-LEE City News Editor TARYN DEOILERS Opinion Editor GILLIAN ALLEN Features Editor ALLY OVERBAY Arts & Culture Editor VERONICA VARGO Sports Editor HARNOOR GILL Science & Tech Editor

CHIARA ALVES New Media Manager BRIAN LANDRY Photo Director CHRISTIE NEO Design Director AMY YE Layout Director MAXINE MULVEY Copy Chief OLIVIA ROCKEMAN Copy Chief JAYASHRI PADMANABHAN Website Manager ALEX GUZMÁN Social Media Manager

As the June 5 primary elections fast approach, candidates for local, state and federal positions are scrambling to establish themselves as the best people for the job.

The primaries serve as the first major hurdle before being sworn in as a public official, and it’s essential that an electorate is informed and weighs its options before the general election.

Although California is largely Democratic, the state’s political leaning is no guarantee of who will end up on the ballot in November. The competition within the California Democratic Party — and the diverse local elections — means that no two candidates are the same. The Editorial Board urges all Californians to vote in these primary elections. Your vote counts, especially during the early stages when votes are more widely cast among a larger pool of candidates. It’s the time to identify those who resonate with the issues you feel are most important and put them in office.

In such a diverse state as California, it’s not as simple as voting along party lines. Decide what issues you believe are essential in a candidate, and cast your ballot based on that. Vote for candidates who endorse policies that align with your views on the environment, the economy or

other areas.

In the upcoming elections, the Editorial Board believes that gun control is among the most important issues to face the state. California needs strong and vocal elected officials at all levels of government to protect those who could fall victim to preventable gun violence.

The movement that swept through the country following the Parkland shooting must not falter. The Editorial Board urges all Californians to find the candidates who have taken firm stances on enacting gun control regulations throughout the state and nation.

No more of this nonsensical talk of arming teachers.

The Editorial Board recognizes the need for serious legislative accomplishments that will cement the importance of strong gun control laws and take firearms away from those who could do harm to their surrounding communities.

It’s the power of collective action that can enact positive change. Become informed and make your voices heard.

Take a strong stance and make the candidates earn every donation they receive and every ballot cast in their name.

Interact with your public officials — it’s our responsibility to hold them accountable. But most importantly, vote on June 5 in the 2018 California primary elections.

CARAJOY KLEINROCK Newsletter Manager LAURIE PEDERSON Business Development Manager

By focusing on the past, Muslims continue to live in it IT MAY BENEFIT MUSLIMS TO PUT TO REST A 7TH-CENTURY DIVISION

BY HANAD I JOR DA N hajordan@ucdavis.edu

I would never argue that people should not know their own history, nor that of others. I would argue, however, that too much remembrance can be problematic in certain cases, especially if those historical moments occurred in the 7th century.

As a Muslim, I know the story of the Shia-Sunni split well. The division can be traced to the year 632 A.D., continuing all the way to present day.

The split occurred with the debate over succession after the prophet Mohammad’s death. Sunnis wanted the community to determine who would become the next caliph while Shias argued that a member of the prophet’s family should lead.

While Shias didn’t immediately receive gratification, Mohammad’s son-in-law, Ali, would later become the fourth caliph. An onslaught of violence and war brought Ali’s rule to an end after his death. The war continued with Ali’s son, Hussein, who fought against the new caliphate, resulting in the death of 72 of his companions, as well as Hussein’s decapitation — whose body was then carried as a tribute to the Sunni caliph.

While an interesting history lesson, the historical meaning behind these labels doesn't necessarily hold any relevance in today’s world. Despite tense political differences in 632 A.D., both factions still follow the same book, worship the same God and recognize the same prophets. The unique characteristic about a division this strong is that you don’t need to understand why the split oc-

curred originally, because it doesn’t contribute much to the present conflict. The labels mean something, but it’s not about the history or source of the divisions; they’ve become arbitrary titles used to, either knowingly or unknowingly, ensure division. In this case, remembering history is serving no one.

This unrelenting fixation on the Shia-Sunni division shifts focus from present issues while also giving rise to new ones. Rather than deal with the issues that directly affect citizens, such as combating poverty and unemployment, Middle Eastern nations instead allocate time and lots of money to fighting sectarian proxy wars in the region. This results in what feels like a never-ending war with a weak chance of resolution, as evidenced by the 14 centuries that have passed since the split. The Shia and Sunni labels have not only withstood the test of time but have also remained a source of contention. Even if problems like poverty were not ignored in favor of conflict, the presence of these labels indicate that many Muslims have failed to recognize the absurdity of a centuries-old, nowirrelevant political dispute that still manages to dictate politics and religion today. This division has also given rise to problematic traditions like Ashura.

Ashura, for the majority of Shias, is a day of remembrance for the death of Hussein. Muslims are expected to, as the eighth Shia Imam Ali al-Rida once dictated, observe Ashura as a day of rest, sorrow and disregard of other issues or worldly matters. Shia Muslims participate by mourning

and listening to recollections and sermons on the death of Hussein and his family. Along with this Ashura custom comes the practice of self-harm, in which Muslims whip, cut and slash themselves in commemoration. While largely performed by men, children have also taken part in such activities. A chilling image of a young girl being restrained by two men as a third prepares to slice into her forehead always comes to mind; what is the incentive to mourn and beat oneself in honor of a 7th century historical figure? Why is this taught to children to ensure continued practice?

Unquestioning compliance to traditions is not uncommon in the Middle East; restrictive laws and other governmental functions go largely unquestioned, creating a society of people willing to beat themselves without a logical justification for doing so. Perhaps mourning the past is a result of dissatisfaction with the present; Arabs once led civilization and now their region is characterized by proxy wars.

Why do Muslims continue to identify themselves with a political dispute that occurred well beyond the realm of present relevancy? The subject of the dispute now means nothing and the

label now means everything — despite the fact that everything that defines the label (support, or lack thereof, for the prophet’s family to lead the caliphate) is no longer relevant nor of immediate concern to anyone, and that includes Sunnis and Shias. Converts don’t pick a title because the label is entirely separate from Islam itself. It is not mentioned in the Quran and it’s the consequence of political rivalry in the 7th century. So why continue to adhere to a label whose sole basis is division, rather than unity? Even if addressing present day issues is not a motivating goal to loosen the grip on the past, the fallacy of the titles themselves should be motivating enough to do away with them.

It’s difficult not to get lost in the nostalgia of one’s past, but how does an entire religious group continue to feel nostalgia for an event so far removed from present day? Muslims constrain themselves through this remembrance; by mourning the past, Muslims continue to live in it and lead their country and their children as such.

Rather than look to the past as a means to feel sorrow over the present, Muslims should look to the present to establish a better future.

J ER EMY DANG / AGGI E

Smugness, explained for idiots Private data harvesting unlikely to stop after Cambridge Analytica LIBERALS ARE RIGHT ABOUT MANYscandal THINGS, BUT THE WAY THEY COMMUNICATE ISN’T ONE OF THEM

BY BENJAMIN PORTER bbporter@ucdavis.edu

Liberals are frequently accused of being smug — often deservingly.

But in the same way that too many liberals label all Trump supporters as irrational racist bigots, all liberals are often grouped together as self-righteous elites incapable of changing their attitudes when confronted with unfamiliar rhetoric. These are gross oversimplifications that only describe subsets, not the entire groups.

Emmett Rensin wrote in 2016 that this “smug style in American liberalism” is defined by thinking America is divided by “the failure of half the country to know what's good for them,” making liberals think they have “a monopoly on reason.”

A recent New York Times article by Katherine Mangu-Ward traced the history of the divide between smug liberals and conservative trolls, noting that “political squabbling across much of America has become increasingly aestheticsfocused and content devoid.” In other words, it’s become more important to have charisma and flare than it is to practice good rhetoric and make progress on the issues. Mangu-Ward criticizes Jon

Stewart and his ilk for advocating civil, productive debate while still casually savaging opponents, a doctrine of “do as I say, not as I do.”

By extension, many liberals now accept this type of disparaging evisceration of conservatives “who don’t know any better” and “don’t understand their own interests.” This can be effective in calling people out, but not as a way to persuade those who we think need it most. Today’s liberals are failing to reconcile the desire for healthy discourse and the urge to annoy those with different opinions.

In a recent argument with a conservative friend, I had an important realization after I claimed that “I’d rather be smug than ignorant.”

It made me ask myself whether anyone should actually aspire to be smug or think they’ve earned it. But more importantly, the fact that I happened to use the word “smug” in my response alerted me to the fact that I’ve become less and less bothered by smugness over the last three years. I became desensitized to it as political polarization caused me to identify more strongly with people from whom I previously may have turned away due to their smug demeanor and style. But instead, I have laughed at every smug joke and sick burn

they’ve dropped at the expense of Trump and his supporters. This is not good.

Some liberals justify extreme smugness by thinking that “they are correct and the others are wrong,” and anyone alienated for not realizing this isn’t worth convincing. Others may say that liberals need to drop the smugness altogether if they want to stop feeding the trolls. Somewhere in between these two views is probably best advised. It’s okay to be confident that you’re correct about something and to try to convince others of this, but you’ll get nowhere if your argument and tone are derived from the idea that your opponent is inferior.

In an interview with Slate, Mangu-Ward discussed the difficulties of communicating to someone the genuine belief that they are misguided or misinformed. She thinks that it's okay to hold these beliefs, but that saying so explicitly is futile. Instead, someone convinced of their opponent's ignorance must think, “‘It is not that they are confused about their own interests, but simply that I am not looking at the world the way they look at the world.’” Doing this establishes mutual trust, giving your criticism value and even opens the door for using humor and

sarcasm as rhetorical tools.

The interviewer, however, warned that the risk of being condescending arises both from telling people you think they’re being conned and from censoring yourself to imply that you don’t think they can handle what you think is the truth. Surely there’s a place between these two that allows you to be respectful yet persuasive and relentless.

I trust you’ve realized that the idiots referenced in the title are actually my fellow liberals, not those unlettered MAGA-hat-wearing racist cretins you hoped I’d be lambasting. As someone who wants to see the liberal cause succeed and again earn the support of people it has alienated, I will now ignore my own advice and tell my smug liberal allies that I understand what’s in your best interests better than you do.

Smugly talking down to others as if we have that “monopoly on reason” is not working. In order to actually convince reluctant Trumpers of anything, we first must listen and demonstrate that we respect their feelings and motivations. There’s a difference between actually showing why you think your ideas are superior and just showing that you think you have superior ideas.

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018 | 7

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

HUMOR

Allergy Season in Davis

Dog in discussion section clearly has better life than you

BY D I A N A O L I VA R E S deolivares@ucdavis.edu

WHO DOES HE THINK HE IS?

BY BE CK NAVA rnavamcclellan@ucdavis.edu

You walk in to Statistics 13 a disheveled mess. Your hair is in a frumpy knot, you're wearing the same clothes as yesterday and you barely remembered to bring something to write with. You sit down, and there it is — supreme comfort staring you straight in the face: an adorable, white poodle sleeping under the desk next to you.

As you put your things away, one thing is clear — this dog's life is waaaay better than yours. Its tiny, plush bed taunts you. What’s that? Suede? When you pull

out your bag of old, semi-white carrots to snack on, the dog's owner opens a container of freshly cooked steak, cut into tiny bits. The smell permeates your nostrils, and your crunching becomes louder, more frustrated. The dog starts to wake up to the smell of food, but yawns and stretches gloriously, as if to say the entire world is built to fulfill its desires.

You struggle to pay attention to class lecture, as this poodle promptly devours a meal you would murder your mother for.

Thoughts start to flood your mind: “How dare he. How dare he think he's better than me.”

Near the end of class, the anger begins

to simmer down. You've found the right angle in your seat where none of your limbs will fall asleep and those carrots satisfy your physiological desire to bite the dog owner's fingers off. Finally, you're comfortable. The professor dismisses class for the day, and you see the person next to you reach for something. No way.

This poodle gets to ride around bjorned, strapped to this guy's chest. Like a baby kangaroo in a pouch filled with eucalyptus leaves, this dog's got it all. You try to contain your jealousy, but all you can think of is dressing up in white wool and switching yourself out with this dog. To trade lives, even for a day. One can only dream.

UC Davis ranked No. 1 in UCs “Best School Colors” U.S NEWS & WORLD REPORT NOW RANKS COLLEGES BASED ON THEIR SCHOOL COLORS TO GIVE POTENTIAL STUDENTS MORE TO CONSIDER

BY CONNOR SHAW cjshaw@ucdavis.edu

This week, U.S. News & World Report confirmed what Davis students have known for a long time — that UC Davis is superior at more than just veterinary and viticulture programs.

After conducting research for a period spanning 12 months that included 500 universities internationally, the popular site that somehow still convinces prospective college students every year that their happiness is determined by arbitrary number ranking systems has released its list of “Best Colleges by School Color.” Out of all the schools in the

UC system, Davis’ infamous Aggie Blue and Gold secured the number one spot and placed third internationally — below only University of Michigan’s maize yellow and blue and Notre Dame’s clasSchool colors can affect a lot about the college

sources they need in order to make a decision,” a U.S News representative told The Aggie. “By nature, high school students are complete idiots, and we feel it’s our job to prevent them from thinking for themselves and definitively tell them how to gauge their self-worth.”

experience, such as what a e s t h e t i c students are limited to, how often they participate in school spirit and how many college sweatshirts students will see athletes wearing around campus every day.

U.S. News & World Report considers these and other metrics in their careful deliberation.

“We want to make sure that every student hoping to pursue a college education has all of the re-

“I just got accepted into Davis and I’m so happy!” said George Lawrence, a high school senior.

“Davis’ school colors are so much better than UC Berkeley’s. I mean, who would want to wear Berkeley Blue over Aggie Blue? I do wish I could have gotten into Notre Dame, though. They have the best blue and gold in the nation.”

Others are not so happy. “This ranking seems

sic blue and gold.

completely arbitrary,” an administrator from UC Berkeley said. “How can you rank schools based on school colors? Everyone knows that Berkeley has the best blue and gold, I mean our gold is called California Gold. We practically invented the color gold. I just don’t see how this makes any sense.”

CAI TLY N SAMP LEY / AGGI E

Other Options Do Exist: A Review of Access to Long Acting Reversible Contraceptives

DISC L A I M ER: The views a n d o p i n i o n s ex p re ss e d by i n d i vidual columnists belong to the columnists alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The Cal i for n ia Ag g ie. Le t te rs to t he e d i to r can be addre ss e d to opin ion @ th e aggie.org.

ISSUE DESIGNED BY AMY YE | CHRISTIE NEO | CINDY CHEUNG |JONATHAN CHEN | PATTIE CHEN | SHEREEN NIKZAD | LILY LEAVESSEUR | GENESIA TING

8 | THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

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SCIENCE+TECH YONG JAE LEE / COURTESY

Teaching computers to see UC Davis computer science professor researches computer vision

BY NAUSHEE N SUJ E L A science@theaggie.org

Yong Jae Lee, an associate professor in the UC Davis Department of Computer Science, recently won the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, a grant that provides $501,000 over a period of five years to early-career faculty who have demonstrated potential to make significant advances in their fields.

Lee’s specialty is to teach computers how to “see.” The niche of computer science that seeks to emulate the human visual system is known as “computer vision.”

Computer vision involves developing algorithms that process large numbers of digital images and videos and detect patterns associated with various objects. In a very simple example, a computer program trying to learn what a dog looks like would first be fed millions of images containing a dog and millions of images containing no dogs.

First, it attempts to learn the differences between images that have a dog in them and images that do not. Then, it tries to find patterns and similarities among the images with dogs in them: for example, it may detect two ears, two light shapes (eyes) and a dark spot (the nose) among all images containing dogs and conclude that this pattern is what determines a dog.

Current image-recognition techniques rely on images that have been painstakingly annotated by humans. Consider, for example, a photo of an airplane. A human annotator would have to go in,

draw a box around the category they’re interested in (this is known as a “bounding box”) and label it as an airplane. Easy enough, right?

Not so easy, it turns out.

“What happens when we have have thousands of categories? Human annotation can get very expensive,” Lee said.

Lee’s research seeks to eliminate the need for expensive, time-consuming and cumbersome human annotation by developing “weakly supervised” algorithms. Weakly supervised algorithms require very little human annotation and labeling. Instead of having a bounding box and label around an item in a photo, the photo would have no bounding boxes. It would also have minimal labeling: for example, just “plane” or “dog in grass.”

Lee noted that people have been working on weakly supervised computer vision algorithms for a while.

“Typically, weakly supervised learning has been done using only images. We’re adding video,” Lee said. “In video, things are changing, objects are moving. This motion information can be useful for any algorithm trying to learn about the world.”

Lee noted that his research relies on a combination of photo and video. While photos can provide a diverse breadth of information about an object category, videos can teach an algorithm more deeply about a category.

For example, consider an algorithm trying to learn what a dog looks like. Photos can expose an algorithm to thousands of different kinds of dogs.

But videos can show the algorithm a more com-

plete picture of the dog, such as how it looks at a variety of angles.

Lee also teaches ECS 174, an undergraduate course on computer vision. According to his TA, Yash Bhartia, Lee makes an effort to ensure that class projects reflect the most recent and relevant computer vision techniques.

Students in ECS 174 also have the opportunity to build a video search tool application. The application allows a user to search video footage.

For the purposes of this project, students are asked to build an application that allows users to search through footage from the TV show “Friends.” For example, if a user searches for “Joey in a red shirt”, the application returns footage frames containing the “Friends” character in a red shirt.

“The reason I like this project is because people who are not familiar with computer science can still recognize and appreciate the complexity of the task,” Bhartia said.

The potential applications of Lee’s research and similar efforts are many and varied. One such application is building robots to navigate our world.

They would need to be equipped with sophisticated object detection and recognition systems in order to learn quickly about their surroundings.

Harshita Kaushal, a second-year studying computer engineering at UC Davis, worked on precisely such a system during her internship at Intel last summer.

She implemented an algorithm for Intel’s Autonomous Driving Platform that would allow a computer to accurately detect depths of various objects.

“This is important for self-driving cars, so that they can accurately navigate the road,” Kaushal said. “After working on this project, I truly understood the far-reaching applications of it, beyond just identifying faces in your photos.”

There are also ethical dilemmas posed by a computer system that is able to perfectly recognize all objects — including human faces. But as with all technologies, Lee says that there will be “good” and “bad” uses of computer vision technology.

A positive use of human facial recognition would be an intelligent home assistant for elderly people or children. Such a system would need to be able to accurately recognize the faces of the people it is monitoring.

“It is still definitely something to be cautious about,” Lee said. “We need to be aware of security and privacy concerns and think ahead about potential negative consequences.”

New research improves noninvasive brain imaging

BY KI R A BUR NETT science@theaggie.org

review right now.”

Despite the product still undergoing review, it is available for purchase.

Ermias Kebreab, a professor of animal science and the deputy director of the Agricultural Sustainability Institute, took issue with the product’s availability.

“In animal agriculture, you never would’ve been able to get away with that,” Kebreab said. “All the tests that the FDA asks from industry have to be done. There are a number of cases where the technology is good, but because there wasn’t really a champion or an organization behind it, that idea died because of the requirements from the FDA. We only have [AquaAdvantage salmon] officially FDA-approved after 20 years to be sold in the market, and CLEANMEAT on 11

BRAINIMAGING on 11

PUBLIC DOMAIN

Plant-based meat product may have better environmental, health impacts

BY AL I C E RO C HA science@theaggie.org

Probiotic boosts beneficial bacteria in bellies of breastfed babies Bacteria that break down breast milk colonize newborns better with Evivo probiotic

BY G E O RG E U G ART E ME NDIA science@theaggie.org

PUBLIC DOMAIN

WENJUN ZHOU / COURTESY

What might a stroke patient, a drowning person, and someone with severe traumatic brain injury have in common? If the stroke results from a blood clot in the brain, then all three might experience changes in their cerebral circulation. Blood flow in the brain is an important indicator of its health; proper blood pressure and circulation means enough oxygen and glucose are reaching the cells, and they require a lot of circulation to stay healthy.

Traditional methods for measuring cerebral blood flow and pressure include MRI and probes.

However, they come with their own caveats. Metal and electronic items should not be taken inside MRI machines, including implants, prostheses and pacemakers. This procedure is thus limited to people who don’t have those items and is also relatively expensive, making conditions where multiple scans are necessary costly. Probes are invasive, as they must be inserted into the head to sense pressure.

One alternative is diffuse correlation spectroscopy, where certain wavelengths of light are able to penetrate the brain and create an image. This procedure is noninvasive and can be used at the bedside, allowing for continuous monitoring. However, the spatial resolution isn’t very good compared to an MRI, and the materials needed to make it so are very expensive. Currently, DCS is not commonly used in medical practice.

New research from a biomedical engineering lab at UC Davis may help change that. Wenjun Zhou, a postdoctoral fellow working in Vivek Srinivasan’s biophotonics lab, and his colleagues have developed an improved light-based method for measuring cerebral blood flow they call interferometric diffusing wave spectroscopy, or iDWS. “The previous methods required very expensive detectors,” said Srinivasan, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and ophthalmology at UC Davis. “We looked at that method, and while it worked, the problem was that you couldn’t have many detectors detect the light because it would be too expensive. The technology is somewhat difficult to use, and it’s sensitive to ambient light, or environmental light, which makes it difficult to use if you want to monitor blood flow in a hospital environment, where the lights are very bright. So we tried to improve the detector, and we came up with this idea, which is really an combination of two ideas. The first idea is that if you think of what the cheapest, most widely used light detection device out there, it’s got to be the CMOS camera.”

The CMOS camera is the type of camera found in smartphones, which uses a sensor chip to record images. It is easily integrated into other technology, but its resolution isn’t as fine, so it wouldn’t be able to pick up the weak light used for DCS. To resolve this problem, the researchers changed the strength of the light field without strengthening the source.

“Measuring blood flow centimeters below the

Does the impossible burger promise an impossible future?

In 2011, Patrick Brown founded Impossible Foods Inc., which is based in Silicon Valley. The company is dedicated to creating alternative forms of animal produce and released its first product four years ago. Composed of wheat protein, potato protein and soy, this alternative meat has been the subject of intense debate over the last few years.

In many developed countries, new food items must attain a government seal of approval before they go on sale. However, U.S. policy dictates that a company must simply self-certify as “generally recognized as safe” and then they have permission to sell. Impossible Foods got its GRAS certification in 2014 and has been selling its flagship product ever since.

This food item is the Impossible Burger, a plant-based meat substitute.

“We’ve done all these tests and, as of 2014, we’re generally recognized as safe,” said Rebekah Moses, the sustainability and agriculture director of Impossible Foods. “We wanted to introduce more transparency to the process, so we pursued a ‘letter of no questions asked’ that entails rigorous testing on animals, which was a tough thing for us because we do not want to engage with animal testing, but we did so in order to meet this additional step. That is still under

Using light to see the brain

Pediatricians and microbiologists have shown that a short dose of a probiotic product given to breastfed newborns can have enduring impacts on their gut microbiomes. The probiotic Evivo boosts the presence of Bifidobacterium longum infantis, a beneficial bacteria that specializes in breaking down complex sugars found in human breast milk.

“The cool part of this story is here is one particular kind of bacteria that is really good at consuming human milk oligosaccharides — better than anybody else,” said Dr. Mark Underwood, who serves as chief of pediatric neonatology at UC Davis Medical Center. “And here’s the mom who is making these sugar molecules and putting them into her milk at great cost to herself. The bottom line is that the mom seems to be shaping the microbiota — or the

composition of the bacteria in the gut — by putting these sugars into her milk to try to selectively feed healthy bacteria.”

Human breast milk is largely composed of lactose and fat, but substantial amounts of protein and human milk oligosaccharides are present. HMOs are complex chains of sugar that humans cannot digest. B. infantis is the only known bacteria that is equipped with the enzymes to break down all known HMOs found in human breast milk. These tools give it an advantage in colonizing space in the intestines of breastfed human infants and clearing out pathogenic bacteria, which can produce inflammatory enterotoxins.

Although young infants born in nations such as Gambia and Bangladesh have high levels of B. infantis in their guts, babies born in nations such as the United States have much lower levels of the beneficial bacteria, with the gulf widening over the last century. More pathogenic bacteria have taken the place of B. infantis in American babies’ guts.

“It’s most likely that a combination of interventions resulted in this effect,” said Steve Frese, the associate director of research and development at Evolve Biosystems. “Formula feeding reduces the

abundance of human milk oligosaccharides that B. infantis depends on, caesarean sections reduce the ability of B. infantis to be transferred, and on top of that this is an organism sensitive to penicillin antibiotics, which most kids get early in life at least a few times and mothers are often given around birth to prevent Group B Streptococcus infection of infants or as antibiotics for C Section.”

After giving Evivo to breastfed babies between days seven and 28, B. infantis levels spiked from around 30 percent to 80 percent of all bacteria measured in stool. At day 60, after 32 days of not taking the supplement, the levels of B. infantis remained remarkably stable, a departure from typical probiotic responses.

“What we saw was dramatically different from any other probiotic study I’ve ever seen,” Underwood said. “Most of the time, when you give somebody a probiotic, you can measure small amounts of the probiotic in the stool. As soon as you stop giving it, it goes back to the way it was.”

Part of the unique response to B. infantis supplementation likely lies in its ancient adaptations to live PROBIOTICS on 12

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018 | 9

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Chess

Sudoku

White to move, Mate in 3...

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.

AGGIE CLASSIFIEDS JOBS

ROOMMATES

CoffeeHouse is Hiring The Coffee House is now hiring for Fall Quarter 2018 with a limited opportunity to work over Summer 2018. Employees will spend their time preparing great food, providing excellent service, and/or working registers for our 9000+ daily customers.

Resort Help Wanted

ANSWERS

RESORT HELP. Spend a summer in the Trinity Alps Resort Wilderness! Rustic Family Resort now hiring for 2018 Resort Team.

Food Servers, Host/ess, & Store Clerks needed Memorial Weekend through Labor Day. Housing available. Resort info at www.trinityalpsresort.com Call 530.286.2206 for interview.

Personal Attendant CLO a non-profit that provides support for adults with developmental disabilities is looking for people to work with a young man in Davis. Starting hourly pay is $11-13 hr DOE. Training is provided, but applicants with experience preferred. CLO offers opportunities for growth. 916-372-2102, reference code AL . FT employees qualify for benefits. Application: https://clo.ersp.biz/employment/index.cfm

WANTED TO BUY Windows Desktop Computer

CHESS ANSWERS This should be a quick setup. If the opponent knows to slow the pace they’ll take the sacrificial rook but we still promote our pawn to Queen.

1. h7+ Kg7

2. Rxf8 Kxf8 8 3. h8=Q+

Looking for one windows 10 desktop computer, 2017 or 2018 , gaming compatible, by June 15.

Must have original purchase receipt/windows installation registration. Davis only.

Email Mike.

Email 38terrace@gmail.com

Seeking Room Older person searching for a room in a house or apartment. Can be your solution for your housing requirements. Willing to pay $700/mth.

Dependable and responsible. Perhaps foreign or an older student.

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Email agresch@gotnet.net

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Dissertations, theses, research papers, manuscripts, etc.

Go to judyedits.org. Excellent references.

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Judith 530.383.1711

Love Laundry Lowest prices in town! Free DRY with Wash 1776 E. 8th Street, Davis | 5am-12am www.lovelaundry.com

Place YOUR Aggie classified ad (print or online) at: theaggie.org/classifieds

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

10 | THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

ARTS & Culture

Childish Gambino’s “This is America” COLLEGE-PRICED ALCOHOL Try these drinks in the last month of Spring Quarter packed with social commentary

BY R OWAN O’CONNELL-GATES arts@theaggie.org

A LLYSON KO / AGGIE

Adding to discussion about race, politics

BY C E C I L I A M ORA L E S arts@theaggie.org

Forty-eight seconds of light, feel-good music captivate listeners in the beginning of Childish Gambino’s new song “This is America.” However, around 47 seconds into its accompanying music video, viewers are introduced to the jarring image of a man sitting in a chair with a cloth bag over his head. He is shot in the head seconds later by Gambino, and a shift in the tone of the music occurs as the sound of his gunshot rings.

In the moments leading up to the killing and all throughout the rest of the music video, Gambino is shown dancing wide-eyed with his shirt off. But the dancing is strained and it is the first indication that something isn’t exactly right, even before he shoots the man.

His facial expressions depict someone going through the

motions and not really being comfortable with his body performing all these moves.

His demeanor changes to indicate he’s succumbing and, in turn, putting a lot of effort into the execution of these movements that are very reminiscent of popular dance moves blasted all over the internet. The exaggeration and forced quality show just how imposed the happy image of the Black experience in America is when, in actuality, it’s the complete opposite. This stark contrast between the “popular culture’s perception of black experience and its often brutal reality,” according to a contributor on Genius Lyrics, is shown in other ways, too, and is the main idea of the video. The same contributor argues that this is exemplified most clearly “by juxtaposing happy, carefree choruses and dark, aggressive verses.” This is matched in the video with chaotic, ominous scenes in the GAMBINO on 12

2018 Davis Music Fest

BY SY D N EY OD M A N arts@theaggie.org

Returning for its eighth consecutive year, the Davis Music Festival embodies the spirit of the Davis music scene, with live performances day and night throughout the small but vibrant town. Familiar

faces from all over flock to the streets of downtown to enjoy performances from 40 bands including returners such as Alec Lytle & Them Rounders, West Nile Ramblers and Element Brass Band.

“We say that we’re a ‘no headliner, South by Southwest’ type of festival and we really mean that,” said the executive di-

Mellon Music Festival to be hosted in Davis Changing classical music, one friend at a time

E U N G HE E C H O / CO U RTESY

For the majority of undergraduate students, college is a coming-of-age experience, and one seminal moment is turning 21. At that point, the world of legal liquor opens up, and students begin exploring their alcoholic options. But like most college endeavors, these explorations are often hindered by a limited budget. But fortunately, there are many available options for affordable — and not all that bad — alcohol.

Cherry Blossom Pinot Noir Price: $3.99 Found at Trader Joe’s, this surprisingly delicious red wine is one of the best wines for the price. Perfect for budgeted dinner parties or a simple weeknight meal, Cherry Blossom pinot noir allows the possibility of multiple bottle purchases given its cheap price.

Boatswain Double IPA Price: $4.99 In the spirit of Davis grocery stores, we have another Trader Joe’s speciality. Boatswain Double IPA is renowned for having both an exceedingly small price tag and a 6.7 percent ABV content. With caramel notes and a strong hoppy

taste, this beer is a perfect beginning to a night out.

Kirkland Signature American Vodka Price: $16.99 Beloved by college students for its cheap price tag and smooth taste, Kirkland Signature American Vodka is a perfect choice for affordable cocktails. It has gained notoriety for its connection with the luxury vodka brand Grey Goose. And at $16.99 a handle, it’s a steal for those drinking on a budget.

Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA Price: $7.99 For fans of IPAs, Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA is the perfect summer beer. Sold at under $8 for a six-pack, this beer is one of Sierra Nevada’s lesser known products. However, don’t let its status fool you; this beer is packed with flavor and hoppy character.

Beringer Main and Vine Pinot Grigio Price: $6.99 This white wine is the answer to Cherry Blossom pinot noir. A fruity wine with a dry flavor, Beringer Main and Vine pinot grigio is the perfect dinner pairing for fish or pasta. Its crisp flavor is sure to add to any upcoming summer dinner party.

Davis Live Music Collective showcases local talent in annual festival rector of the Davis Live Music Collective, Kyle Monhollen. “You are as likely to hear your favorite band at 3 p.m. in the afternoon as you are at 10 at night.”

Monhollen first got his start with DMF after working for the Davis School Arts Foundation for many years. And while DMF is a music festival, it is first and foremost a fundraiser for the Davis School Arts Foundation, an organization dedicated to raising money for art education in local public schools.

“We’re doing an arts-related music event and Davis public schools have been really good about providing positive art — and especially music — education to students in town,” Monhollen said. “Anything we can do to help secure [that education], we’re gonna do.”

Put on by the Davis Live Music Collective, the weekend kicks off on Friday, June 17 for attendees to enjoy music, food and beer as four acts perform at the Sudwerk Brewing Co. Dock Store from 5 to 10 p.m. On Saturday, the festivities continue at various venues all over town, including

BY B E CKY LE E arts@theaggie.org

Having been a part of the Davis community his whole life, cellist Eungee Cho felt it was necessary to bring Mellon Music Festival to his hometown. Cho, who lives and breathes classical music, believes that it has the power to ignite the community through his festival. Shows will take place this weekend, May 25 to 27, with shows at the John Natsoulas Gallery, RepowerYolo and the Richard Brunelle Performance Hall.

“Classical music has this elitist stereotype that goes along with it,” Cho said. “We actually feel that there’s so much more to classical music, so we geared the programs to be accessible, but still very strongly classical.

For example, on the first program, we have this composer who wrote a piano trio that’s Russian classic and jazz-inspired.”

The Mellon Music Festival aims to bring classical music to a wide audience and change the negative stereotypes attached to it. Moreover, there is a social mission included as well. For example, by including a piece composed by a female composer in the program, the festival brings awareness to strong women in classical music, which is typically

Armadillo Music, Delta of Venus, Sophia’s Thai Kitchen, Davis Odd Fellows Lodge and the courtyard at Pence Gallery. Lastly, on Sunday, the festival wraps up with performances from 12 to 7 p.m. at Three Mile Brewing Co. and Woodstock’s Pizza.

But with the Davis Live Music Collective being a nonprofit organization, how is all of this even possible in the first place?

Two words: local sponsors. Restaurants, brewing companies and shops all over town offer their support in the form of event sponsorship in order to bring this highly anticipated festival to fruition.

“Most of our sponsorships are overwhelmingly from family-owned, small businesses in town that get what we’re doing,” said Monhollen. “For me, one of the most positive things is that we have sponsors who return year after year, so clearly they feel like it’s a worthwhile thing to be involved in.”

As the premier local record store in Davis, Armadillo Music serves as one of the main sponsors of DMF since the festival’s inception eight years ago. Armadillo helps

a male-dominated genre.

The goal is to be inclusive and create relationships with the audience. Cho thought it was best to have the festival in Davis because he remembers the city as being heavily community-oriented and saturated with culture. He felt it was the perfect place to bring high-quality and affordable classical music performances.

“Since moving to Boston, I’ve met a lot of musicians who have the same vision that I have, so I really wanted to gather these musicians in one place — my hometown — and expose Davis to how amazing classical music can be,” Cho said. “There are no geographical limits to what classical music can achieve.”

According to Cho, his musical journey was not something he originally planned on.

It was as if music chose him.

“I started piano just like any other Asian child who gets thrown into it at a very young age regardless of interest,” Cho said. “Then I discovered the cello a few years later. Like many people, I wanted to go to university, but in my senior year, I started to realize how much classical music has changed my life and how much power I feel like I have when I immerse myself in it. I really felt like

the Live Music Collective with event promotion, ticket sales and even offers their stage as a venue for the weekend.

“For what we do everyday, putting music out into the world, it’s great to see people coming into town to enjoy a festival atmosphere, and kind of bounce around from venue to venue,” said the owner of Armadillo Music, Josh Chapman. “It’s just a great atmosphere.”

Among the performers of DMF include Davis native Alec Lytle. Born and raised in Yolo County, Lytle is returning for his second year at DMF with his acoustic group Alec Lytle & Them Rounders.

While he typically spends his time performing all over the western states, Lytle is still based in California, now residing in the Santa Cruz mountains. However, he still holds Davis near and dear to his heart, especially for events like DMF. “A lot of my music really comes from a place of real personal stories, and, of course. a lot of personal stories emanate DAVIS MUSIC FEST on 12

I was making a difference in the world more so than, personally, doing other things.”

Cho entered USC with medical school in mind. However, his devotion to music altered his life in a way that he did not expect.

“I’ve been doing all the rotations, shadowing and internships during my four years of college, but at the same time, I would do a lot of performance on the side and kind of fell in love with it,” Cho said. “I put any thoughts about medical school in the backburner and really just dedicated everything to music.”

Through generous sponsors, friendships and connections, Mellon Music Festival was able to gather a group of talented musicians and host this event with affordable prices. Flutist Ieseul Kim met Cho at USC as friends, but they never got the opportunity to play music together. Now, they are able to showcase their passion and talents in Mellon Music.

“Eunghee and I met at USC and studied together,” Kim said. “For some reason we never played at the same time together, but we’re very good friends and colleagues.

Whenever we grabbed coffee, we’d talk about MELLON on 12

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018 | 11

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

UPTE

MANSION

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an hour for some of these jobs.”

According to Roberts, the university has not been cooperating nearly as well as UPTE members had hoped, and its consistent offer of a 2 percent wage increase per year is inadequate for a number of reasons.

“We don’t feel that the university is dealing in good faith because we’ve been trying to deal with them for over a year,” Roberts said.

“Two percent per year doesn’t even keep up with inflation. It does not offer our employees a decent wage when they’re just jacking all the other costs and fees up. They just don’t come to the table with anything useful. They have an offer that is a really low amount and then they put an expiration date on the offer and they just make it very difficult to try to have any actual negotiations because they won’t agree to our terms — it’s just incredibly frustrating.”

Roberts said the she believes the university is stalling contract negotiations until the AFSCME v. Janus Supreme Court decision comes through — a decision that, if ruled in favor of Janus, would

severely hinder the funds of unions across the country.

“As an UPTE member, I feel that they are trying to knock the knees out of the union,” Roberts said. “This is their strategy: they are delaying and dragging their feet, hoping that when that Janus decision comes down, we will no longer be able to collect fair share dues — we may not have a union if we don’t have 50 percent of people actually signing up who want to have collective bargaining, and [the UC is] counting on that.”

According to Ghandi, one reason that the negotiations have taken so long is that the UC has been uncooperative with regards to the issue of compensation.

“One of the main reasons that the negotiations have taken so long for us is that management has not made any reasonable wage offers,” Ghandi said. “UC hasn’t responded back to our recent proposals and they rejected most of our proposals.”

Roberts said that UPTE is really just looking for one thing: “We just want fairness and equity for our employees.”

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However, these are just a minor sampling of all of the resources and services offered by CCLASS and its staff.

“We plan graduation every year for the community, and that one is growing, there’s going to be over 400 students this year,” Cortez said. “We recently reactivated the Chicano/Latino Alumni Association; now it has leadership and a strategic plan. We just established our first round of scholarships and then we will continue in the future with some endowments to get more financial support. And we have a retention advisory committee that formed to work with students, faculty, staff.”

Perhaps one of the greatest resources of the center is access to professional staff, especially when it comes to helping students graduate and think about pursuing graduate or professional school. Cortez can help in this realm, as can associate director Dr. Lina Mendez, who received her master’s from Harvard University and her Ph.D. from the UC Davis School of Education.

“I think even for me and [Cortez], because we both have Ph.Ds, is we’re able to help students through graduate school, so helping them with letters of recommendation, helping them about even how to ask professors for letters, personal statements,” Mendez said. “I do believe that this particular center has helped so many students who sometimes don’t feel like they see themselves in other places on campus.”

Mendez hopes that students across campus realize that the CCLASS is not an exclusive space only for Chicanx and Latinx students and that students of any ethnicity or background are welcome.

If students are paying tuition to go here and have access campus resources, then that means access to every single space on campus.

“I have to tell that to students so they feel welcome, and they don’t

feel like it’s just for some other people or that they’re taking advantage of resources that are for someone else,” Mendez said. “The reality of these centers is that we focus on these communities in order to retain them and help them graduate, but it doesn’t mean that anybody else can’t use our resources, either the study space, the printing, or even our own knowledge.”

Mendez has been a part of the initiative since its early stages.

Another student who became involved early on was Janet Garcia, a third-year Chicano/a studies and linguistics double major and student staff member at the CCLASS. She found out about the initiative during her freshman year when she was enrolled in an education research class that Cortez helped develop.

“They had four peers, but then they had two special positions, which were the student assistant research ones,” Garcia said. “[Cortez] asked the whole class who was interested [to] keep going and developing more research tactics and what not, and I wanted to so that was how I was able to get hired and develop my research skills.

That was really great.”

Garcia noted that each student staff member brings a unique aspect to the job. They provide peer-to-peer help, information on classes, connecting students to outside resources and services and simply keeping an eye on the center and making anyone who walks in feel welcome and appreciated.

“I feel like every time I go into new places I always come out [having] met more folks, since folks know me more than I know them just because I’m always there [in the Center],” Garcia said. “[Working there] is really fun, just being in a community where it’s really welcoming and part of my roots are there. It has been a really great experience.”

SUMMER PLANS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

area to go to other places so I thought that was nice, it’s [...] more central to other things. I knew I wanted to travel around while I’m doing the study abroad program, so I was like, ‘this is the way to get the cheapest flights and like easiest to fly out of and take a train.’ I’m going to be home for probably like ten days before my trip, because I live in Southern California. So, I mean, I’m already kind of used to not being home for like weeks at a time. Then this is going to be so exciting, I mean, I’ve been out of the country twice before [...] but this is like totally on my own and like studying somewhere else, I’m so excited.”

Christian Martinez, a fourth-year communication major, doesn’t have the plane tickets between his fingers yet, but has plans in the works, and the hopes that they will give direction to his future career

path.

“I’m still trying to figure out what I’m going to do this summer, there’s a possibility of me going to the Ukraine with a friend of mine to work at a summer school program teaching English,” Martinez said. “And possibly also just working or getting an internship here or near Davis. Part of that is to kind of figure out what I’ll be doing this next year after I graduate. It’s dependent upon when I decide but hopefully before, hopefully soon-ish, probably before the end of this month.”

While the summer is only a few months, for Martinez it could be a pivotal moment in his life path. Wherever the summer takes Aggies and no matter how unclear the next three months appear now, it’s clear they take advantage of every minute.

CLEAN MEAT CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8

it’s only found in Canada right now. If the FDA required that something be verified and have data on it that then that should be completed before it is available to consumers.”

A UC Davis club, Peace for the Elimination of Animal Cruelty through Education, still sees great potential for this burger.

“There [are] definitely environmental benefits for consuming a product that is similar tasting and with a similar nutritional profile as meat,” said McKenna Maxwell, the co-vice president of PEACE and an environmental studies and management major at UC Davis. “But the environmental impacts — the land use, the water use, the carbon dioxide equivalent — is much less when you’re consuming a plant-based burger versus a traditional animal-based burger. There are also health benefits. There’s no cholesterol, there’s no saturated fat, there is unsaturated fat found in plant foods that’s easier for the body to digest.”

Although the Impossible Burger might have the same number of grams of protein and have fewer calories than a beef burger, Kebreab argued that there is more to nutrition than these values.

“It’s not just having livestock products,” Kebreab said. “It’s looking at amino acid profiles. Animal proteins have the amino acids that we need as humans. Eggs for example have a nearly perfect profile of essential amino acids, which you will not get from plants. I am not saying you should eat animal sourced food all the time. You need to balance vegetables, fruits and animal proteins. For some groups this is more important than others, like children or pregnant women — you have to have some type of animal sourced food in order to have good development.”

Environmental factors are another issue at play when it comes to creating the Impossible Burger. Impossible Foods wanted to reduce the amount of land needed to create a meat-product, thereby improving the sustainability of their item.

“We do need to find alternative means

of producing animal-based products,” Moses said. “The demand for those is going to increase by 60 to 70 percent. One-seventh of human based greenhouse gases are the results of animal farming. 30 percent of our water goes to it globally, 50 percent of the ice free surface of the planet is devoted to [livestock].”

Environmental concerns is also a hot debate in the livestock industry. But depending on where you are, those numbers change. In the US, where resources are carefully controlled and research is constantly ongoing to mitigate livestock’s impact on the environment, there is a different picture.

“It really depends where you are,” Kebreab said. “Here, in the United States, it’s going to 4 percent, but if you go to New Zealand, it’s going to be 50 percent because they have a lot of sheep. For greenhouse gases, it varies where you are. Globally, the number is about 14.5 percent from animals. That number comes from the FAO. In terms of water use, yes, 30 percent sounds correct, but this includes the water used for crops grown as feed for livestock animals. In terms of space, 50 percent of the ice free land doesn’t really make any sense. You have to think if this area good for agriculture or not. If it’s not, like a lot of the rangeland isn’t in California, most rangeland would be barren. The grass will not grow because you need to have the cycle where animals graze and deposit their manure. This adds value to the land.”

With the global population expected to reach over 10 billion people by 2050, precise and responsible stewardship of limited resources is becoming more essential than ever before. According to the Center for Food Integrity, the world will need twice the amount of food produced today by 2050.

“I see the Impossible Burger playing a key role as a transition into making better products with better technology that will decrease the environmental footprint of our individual consumption habits,” Maxwell said.

Technology will definitely be on the forefront of how food will be produced in the fu-

ture. Humanity needs to learn produce more with less and, depending on who you ask, livestock can either be part of the solution or be part of the problem.

“I don’t think it’s feasible to feed 10 billion people on the system we have now,” Moses said. “There are improvements in yield across plant-based foods and increases in efficiency for livestock. Those are good things but we need, in order to feed that many people, a transformative technology in addition to yield improvements if we do not want to hugely compromise natural resources. There are many ways we can initiate food system sustainability, for the 2050 population I just don’t see how we do that with the existing system.”

Many individuals within the UC Davis Animal Science department argue that livestock is an essential part of that future transformative system Moses is referring to.

“A lot of beef cattle are grazing on grassland where you can’t do anything else. A lot of the crops being grown for human food are being fertilized by manure,” Kebreab said. “If you’re going to get rid of animal agriculture, this would increase the amount of inorganic fertilizers you would have to produce, which takes quite a lot of energy and would result in a lot of associated emissions and the whole system would collapse.”

Moses said this product will help bring optionality to our food production system in order to meet growing demands.

But does the Impossible Burger stand up to the challenge? Moses said that blind taste tests have found the Impossible Burger comparable to a beef burger. Other consumers are not convinced.

“To actually call the Impossible Burger a burger doesn’t seem right because nutritionally it is not comparable,” Kebreab said. “It’s not just calories and proteins. You need to look at the trace elements that we get, like iron, which are essential for human beings.

This comparison will give you a better picture as to why we need animal sourced protein.”

the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“Those three governments are partnering in this new power providing role of Valley Clean Energy. We are so happy to have our first headquarter offices here in downtown Davis.”

According to Bowen, the Dresbach Hunt-Boyer mansion’s history aligns with that of Davis. And while the house has gone through many different hands over the past hundred years, Bowen thinks that

this knew repurposing will take a part in making the community of Davis stronger.

“This [house] was on the edge of town,” Bowen said. “This was built in 1875, [and] the university opened to students in 1908.

The city of Davis was incorporated in 1917. So this house has lived through all of that [...] over the years. It’s pretty extraordinary to think about.”

BUSINESS DIRECTOR CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3

“The Arts & Culture program has seen incredible growth and momentum in Davis during the past few years, and this will really continue to help us have a positive impact on the quality of life for all Davis residents and visitors,” Hartsough said.

According to The Davis Enterprise, Mayor Robb Davis indicated that open communication will only add to the City’s momentum to engage with the community.

“Transparency is of critical importance and I am supportive of efforts to deliver more information using traditional and emerging modes of communication,” Davis said. “I am pleased that the city manager’s office has reorganized around existing staff to place greater emphasis on providing information to the public and engaging the community in myriad ways.”

Webb added that he believes that there is more potential for communication between the City and the community.

“I think we’re very fortunate to have the engaged community that we have, and I think this is a good time for us to be doubling down on our communication with the community on what’s happening,” Webb said. “Day in and day out, there’s good things that the City is doing out there in the community, whether it’s posting a forum or meeting or working on a capital improvement project and a myriad of other things. I think there’s a lot of good things that are happening, and we need to be in communication with the Davis community about those things. I’m pleased to see that we’re going to be able to move that forward.”

GARDEN TOUR CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3

Besides gardening, Young’s other hobby is volunteering as a cook for homeless shelters, an activity she used to do alongside her husband.

Huei’s garden holds not only the sentimental value of her father, but of her late husband as well. A bright bench sits surrounded by flowers in her front yard in memory of Frank.

“Other people go to cemeteries, but I go there,” Young said. “I change the color around the bench depending on the season for him.”

Having the ability to give back to an organization that offered her so much help provides Young with solace.

“Hospice makes you feel good [...] people don’t always understand it,” Young said. “They helped me.

I had a caregiver stay with me for one year.”

Yolo Hospice is incredibly grateful for what Young is doing.

“There have not been any other fundraisers like this,” said Louise Joyce, the community relations manager at Yolo Hospice.

People can be misinformed or unaware of all that Yolo Hospice provides. Joyce expressed that it is more than just helping a patient.

“Part of the service of Hospice is to not only support the patient, but the family, and remain with them until that loved one passes,” Joyce said. “And then afterwards, we provide bereavement services to get the family through the first year.”

Ashley Flemming, a second-year sociology major at UC Davis, was originally unaware of the services that Yolo Hospice offered. Flemming, after learning about Yolo Hospice, spoke in support of Huei Young’s fundraiser.

“I think it’s a really great thing that she’s doing,” Flemming said.

“Not a lot of people nowadays will do something so genuine out of their heart and give back to a cause that not a lot of people think about donating to.

All the money fundraised for Yolo Hospice will go toward patient outcare and uninsured patients.

Huei Young’s garden is a hidden Davis gem.

Young wants people to take in the beauty of her garden and to see the potential within it.

“You can make nothing into something — anybody can do it,” Young said. “I did it beginning with one plant to all of this.”

BRAINIMAGING CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8

surface has required expensive approaches to count the small numbers of light particles, or photons, that make it back,” Zhou said in an email interview. ”Boosting the light power on the scalp is not possible due to concerns about heating.

Instead we use an interferometric approach to boost the weak sample light field with a strong reference field, creating intensity fluctuations that are strong enough to be measured by a inexpensive CMOS camera.”

The combination of multimode fiber interferometry and CMOS cameras is a promising one; not only does it cut much of the cost, but it also has highly sensitive and parallel detection capabilities for faster and deeper imaging. It also has the potential to become better as CMOS camera quality continues to improve at a fast rate. The

lab is currently collaborating with doctors at the UC Davis Medical Center to further develop this technology, including Lara Zimmerman, an assistant professor in the department of neurological surgery and neurology at UC Davis and co-director of the Neurocritical Care Service.

“When the brain is injured, it undergoes a period of swelling and the pressure inside the skull (intracranial pressure) increases,” Zimmerman said in an email interview.

“This is a very dangerous problem which can lead to additional brain injury due to lack of blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain.

Currently we are able to monitor intracranial pressure with invasive probes, but ideally want to develop a technique to monitor cerebral blood flow non-invasively, which is the goal of this collaboration.”

12 | THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

THE CONVERSATION FLOWED NATURALLY...

BY TERRY HUDSON arts@theaggie.org I couldn’t get my mind off of him over the next few days. There really was no reason for it.

I mean, he wasn’t even the guy I went on a terrible coffee date with, but the thoughts were still there. I am by no means a romantic — because who would want to be classified an “endangered species?” About a week had gone by when he sent me a text. It read, “Hey, how’ve you been?” I put my phone down, planned to strategically reply 30 minutes later, but completely failed. I immediately responded and said, “Doing well. Been busy.

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

And yourself?” He said he had two midterms the previous week and thus he was exhausted.

Much to my amazement, he asked me to out on a real date in Sacramento. I said that I needed to check my schedule because I was so busy (I really wasn’t). The evening came and he picked me up from my dorm around 7 p.m. He didn’t probe me with questions about myself, which was great, but instead he asked me what I thought about different topics.

We’re both intellectuals; small talk would be a waste of our intelligence. The conversation flowed naturally, and we both were naturally unapologetic about calling out each other’s bullshit. To most, that would be too much to handle. To me, all I could think was “Finally.” We arrived at the restaurant and parked. He didn’t open my door for me because I was perfectly capable of doing it myself.

However, I compromised by letting him open the front door for me. The hostess sat us at the bar — and so it began.

Next Week: Chance

DAVIS MUSIC FEST CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

from where you were born and raised,” Lytle said.

“So, there’s a lot of Davis in my music, for sure.”

Alec Lytle & Them Rounders will be performing at DMF in a style of what the performer claims to be a little different for them. With a trio of a drummer, an upright bass player and Lytle himself, singing and playing guitar, the Rounders will be bringing a non-traditional, fully acoustic sound to the festival.

“You’ll hear music that’s got a lot of storytell-

ing in it, a lot of personal stories,” Lytle said. “I’m always trying to relate it back to other people. My whole reason for doing music and performing music is because it’s the best way that I have to communicate with people.”

For more information leading up to DMF, visit davismusicfest.com.

Tickets are just $15 per venue, with festival admission on sale online or at Armadillo Music for $35 in advance and $40 day of.

PROBIOTICS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8

in the human gut and break down milk sugars as a food source.

“Our hypothesis was that we didn’t need to keep them on a probiotic for weeks or months,” Underwood said. “We could just give a short course, and then as long as they were still getting human milk — as long as they were breastfed — those bacteria we gave as the probiotic should be able to outcompete the other bacteria and be the dominant strain. That’s what we saw.”

Besides consuming HMOs, which would normally be passed through the infant digestive tract, B. infantis creates short chain fatty acids as a byproduct. These acids help to lower the pH in the intestines, energizing intestinal cells to tighten junctions with neighboring cells and creating an uncomfortable environment for pathogenic bacteria.

Infant formula contains mostly lactose and other simple sugars that feed many types of bacteria, some of which are linked to poor gut health. Breastfeeding a baby helps B. infantis outcompete bacteria which can create inflammatory compounds in the belly.

“We see in the literature that when babies have higher levels of these pathogens early in life, they’re at higher risk for allergic diseases,” said Jennifer Smilowitz, the associate director of the Human Studies Research Program at the Foods for Health Institute.

“We see higher rates of asthma, allergies, a type of eczema and type I diabetes. These are all immune-related diseases which are higher in people, adults and children, when they have higher levels of pathogens in their guts in infancy or early life.”

Infants are quickly colonized by bacteria during birth and being exposed to the world outside of the womb. Babies delivered vaginally are first colonized by microbes in the birth canal, while babies born via Caesarean section are first colonized by bacteria from medical equipment and mother’s skin. Since B. infantis is anaerobic, it’s unlikely to survive well on skin.

“We think mom has a constitutive amount in her colon, and during labor and normal delivery, it is passed into the baby,” Smilowitz said.

After analyzing commercial

probiotics advertised as containing B. infantis, researchers found all but one product contained different types of Bifidobacterium than what the packaging suggested.

Such products would not help a breastfeeding baby colonize their gut with beneficial B. infantis or improve gut health.

“They are so functionally different, but they look so similar when you do DNA sequencing,” Smilowitz said. “David Mills’ lab was one of the first to develop methods to differentiate the two.

You’ve got all these products on the market claiming to have B. infantis, but they actually have B. longum.”

B. infantis is being packaged into a product called Evivo by Davis startup company Evolve Biosystems, founded by UC Davis faculty members to translate academic research into tangible impacts for the community. Future experiments will look into how long the increases in Bifidobacterium concentration last, how older infants respond to Evivo treatments and how changes in the infant microbiome can affect health in adolescence and adulthood.

eral) is also something the scene alluded to given that, again, the cars are old and inexpensive.

The final scene we are left with is Gambino sprinting towards the camera with a mob of people following him in the dark. This has been compared to the Sunken Place from Jordan Peele’s movie “Get Out.” According to a tweet Peele posted in March of 2017, “the Sunken Place means we’re marginalized. No matter how hard we scream, the system silences us.”

The Washington Post summed it up perfectly in an article on this very topic: “Whether this reference was intended, the video makes clear how black people have been trapped and/or harmed by American culture. Gambino seems to keeps the darkness at bay by acting within white-imposed boundaries for most of the video — hence the rich depth of field, with his giddy dancing layered in front of violence — but it eventually catches up with him.”

What I initially thought of as Childish Gambino’s attempt at new age trap rap was quickly transformed into a greater appreciation for his project. However, Donald Glover (the man behind the mu-

sical project Childish Gambino) isn’t really interested in the analyses taking place. At the Met Gala, in response to a Vogue representative asking him what he would like people to feel when they see “This is America,” he replied, “I honestly just wanted to make a good song.

That was it. Honestly I just hope people, you know, get to just enjoy it.”

In a Jimmy Kimmel interview, Glover stated how sensitive he is and how he hasn’t been on the internet since the Thursday night before he first debuted “This is America” on Saturday Night Live for fear he will take criticism too personally.

What we have here is an artistic expression and statement by a talented musician, artist and actor. We are well within our rights to examine, discuss and praise the depth Gambino added to his productions and what they mean in a greater context. But at what point is it over-dissection?

Ultimately the story Childish Gambino weaves is extremely intimate to him, his roots and the people that can relate to it. Maybe in all the close inspections we break down this intimacy.

talked to some of the girls,” Zuraek said. “And you get to know people, and I have friends who are competing right now that are competing at Texas A&M, [Southern Methodist University, Texas Christian University.]”

For beach volleyball, the hiring process is more straight-forward.

Senior Associate Athletics Director Michal Lorenzen described ideal qualities for a beach volleyball head coach.

“They need to be really well connected, like in any other sport, to the club community,” Lorenzen said. “So they can go out to tournaments and have an instant street credibility, so people know that we are serious and kids that want to advance and get better will come.”

According to Lorenzen, Dan Conners, the women’s volleyball head coach and director of women’s volleyball (including beach), has researched potential candidates and narrowed the list down to candidates who the committee plans to invite to campus for interviews before the end of the month.

Lorenzen highlighted some of

the search committee’s goals for the new head beach volleyball coach, which is partially driven by academics.

“So we’re trying to figure out how do we bring that caliber of student-athlete to Davis, ideally somebody that has beach volleyball coaching experience at a Division I institution and understands the challenges of balancing both high-level demands of both athletics and academics,” Lorenzen said.

Lorenzen noted the culture Conners has built since 2014 and its vitality to the position.

“They have to fit the culture, because Dan [Conners] is the director of volleyball,” Lorenzen said. “hey have to want to fit in with his culture that he’s built with the indoor program.”

As for coaching experience, the candidate should have enough experience to lead the program into the 2018-19 season.

“They have to get beach volleyball at the college level enough that they can hit the ground in September and be ready compete in January,” Lorenzen said.

GAMBINO CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

MELLON CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

music things. He told me he was having a festival and asked me to play. Whenever he asks me to do something, I always say yes because he’s such a good musician as well. It’s my honor to be a part of Mellon Music Festival.”

Classical music is powerful, according to Cho, but also deeply ingrained in each musician’s personal life. Like Cho, violinist Tanja Roos has had a deep bond with music since childhood. Growing up in London with a family of musicians, it felt natural for her to dive into the art as well.

“My grandmother was a famous violinist and played numerous concerts,” Roos said. “I remember distinctly going to her concert when I was about 3 and being absolutely blown away. Ever since then, I pretty much only wanted to be a musician. At 15, I wanted to expand my musical journey and auditioned for a violin teacher in Vi-

enna named Boris Kuschnir. I moved to Vienna without my parents to study with him, which was daunting but incredibly exciting. I remember at the time thinking that this was the first step to truly building character, and that it did.”

Ultimately, the Mellon Music Festival is about building friendships with musicians and audience members. Inspired by “The Lord of the Rings,” Cho named the music festival after the Elvish word for friend, “mellon.” “‘Lord of the Rings’ was my life basically growing up, and I thought this friendship theme was so appropriate,” Cho said. “We wanted people to come, mingle and build friendships. We don’t want there to be a barrier between the performers and the audience.”

Purchase your tickets for Mellon Music Festival via its website.

background while Gambino dances both alone and with a crew of people in the foreground.

And when Gambino isn’t dancing, he is engaging in the violence — namely, shooting people. The first instance was the one at the beginning of the video and, in retrospect, that shooting was the one most set up to happen. Compared to watching the second instance, in which Gambino reenacts the Charleston church shooting (with himself as the shooter and an ensemble of Black gospel singers as the victims), it is more shocking and unexpected every time. He follows up the silence of the gospel singers with a pronounced “This is America” with a stoic face. It is unsettling.

If you take a closer look at the cars that Gambino is surrounded by and dancing on top of, you notice none of them are expensive and are decades old. For me, it seemed to point at police brutality, given that many tragedies and/ or displays of racism arise from a white cop pulling over someone of color in their car. Other than that, the persistence of income inequality (and disparities between people of color and white people in genHEADCOACH CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

Nachmann says she has met with students on UC Davis’ equestrian club teams.

“We’re excited that the students are excited,” Nachmann said.

Third-year political science major Hayley Fredericks has competed for UC Davis’ western equestrian club team for three years.

She was offered a partial equestrian scholarship to Baylor University.

“My goal in high school was to go to a school that I could ride for, so I met coaches and I created a video and I did the whole thing,” Fredericks said. “And I had a couple different offers from a couple different schools.”

Fredericks turned those offers down, and decided to attend UC Davis. She is excited to try out for the new team.

Zuraek also plans to try out in the fall. Like Fredericks, Zuraek was searching for a college with a strong equestrian program.

“I flew out to the University of Georgia, and I flew out to Texas Christian University, met with the coaches, watched some lessons,

reduce. reuse. recycle.

The aggie

13 | THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2018

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

SPORTS NATIONWIDE SEARCH FOR HEAD COACHES UNDERWAY

Search committees working to attract candidates

BY BOBBY JOHN sports@theaggie.org

Solid collegiate sports programs are typically backed by a coaching staff with grit and experience, and after UC Davis Athletics officially announced the addition of equestrian and beach volleyball to UC Davis women’s Division I sports, two search committees were formed to begin a nationwide search for head coaches with these qualities for the projected 2018-19 season.

The two search committees are structured differently and require input from different stakeholders on campus.

Equestrian is essentially a year-round sport and requires experts who know how to train and care for horses. For this reason, the search for a head and assistant coaches has become a collaborative process with the Department of Animal Science, the Equestrian Center and, once it’s all sorted, the School of Veterinary Medicine.

First-year animal science major Charlize Zuraek has been riding since the age of six and knows firsthand the kind of collaboration necessary for proper horse care.

“We are asking them to do a lot more than your typical horse on any pasture,” Zuraek said. “You have to give them the proper nutrition, proper healthcare, proper maintenance procedures as needed.”

Anissa Nachman, the associate athletics director

A L E XA FO NTANI LLA / AGGI E

WOMEN’S CLUB WATER POLO CAPTURES NATIONAL COLLEGIATE CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP Win over Cal Poly was 5-4 comeback victory for crown

BY RYA N BUG SC H sports@theaggie.org

For the second straight year, the UC Davis Aggies women’s water polo club team defeated the Cal Polytechnic State University Mustangs in the Sierra Pacific Division to be crowned National Collegiate Club Champions. With this year’s win, the Aggies earn their fourth championship in five attempts as well as the second most National Championships in the title’s history. The team is three championships back from Cal Poly to tie for most national championship victories.

Neither team disappointed in the championship game, with both teams sprinting back and forth through the water throughout each quarter. The Mustangs jumped on the scoreboard quickly, placing two goals in the back of the net midway (4:49), and near

of budget and finance, oversees the committee and talked about the kind of candidates it hopes to attract “I’ve been reaching out to the coaches at the other programs and looking for recommendations,” Nachman said. “It’s going to likely be some people that we’ve been talking to. They’re leading smaller programs but are head coaches or they’re assistant coaches at large programs.”

Nachman believes that progress is being made, but because most Division I equestrian programs are on the East Coast, the transition would be costly for candidates who would have to move to another part of the country.

“A little bit of it is difficult because they would have to move cross-country, and they’re from less expensive cost-of-living states,” Nachmann said.

“I’ve heard that a lot — about the cost of living in California — and that is going to be a little bit of a challenge.”

UC Davis will compete in the National Collegiate Equestrian Association, which requires that the host team provides the horses for the competition. Nachmann says that a small subset of the equestrian community has this type of riding and coaching experience.

A lack of NCEA specific experience is not necessarily a deal-breaker for the committee, it is open to candidates with strong riding experience.

“That’s why we would look at really strong folks from the equestrian world,” Nachman said. “Who

the end (2:40) of the first quarter to lead the game 2-0.

It took until the end of the second quarter for the Aggie offense to show up, when Player of the Game, sophomore driver Sydney Preston, converted a goal with a man up at 2:31. Cal Poly continued to push through the end of the second and scurried a shot past the goal line with 12 seconds left, bringing its lead to 3-1.

Near the end of the third quarter (2:05), it seemed that the Aggies’ chance for a national championship was over, with Cal Poly using a power play opportunity to increase the gap between teams to 4-1. Recognizing themselves as a comeback team, the Aggies were not worried with the deficit, and continued to play their game.

“I think one of our teammates said during a timeout that they weren’t nervous at all and that we got this,” said senior defender and president of the club Sofia Caryotakis. “It was nervous excitement, and we all knew that we were there to get the job done and we did.”

Preston added that the team is known to battle back often in games.

“The culture of our team is that we are definitely a comeback team,” Preston said. “Being down 4-1 didn’t scare us because we had been there before, and we knew we would be able to pull through and just play.”

The calmness presented by the team allowed it to take control of the game with 1:42 left in the third, propelled by Caryotakis launching a shot in the net, decreasing their deficit to two. In a deja vu-like scenario with 12 seconds left in the third, UC Davis used a six-on-five opportunity to get one past the Mustang’s goalie, and bring the score to 4-3.

Beginning the fourth quarter was a battle between teams, until Preston secured her second goal of the game at 4:37 to tie the game at four. For Preston, it

may not have the exact experience, but who we think can take their experience and translate that into what we’re doing.”

Fresno State’s equestrian head coach Eric Hubbard said that his background was mostly in horse training with western riding experience.

Despite the lack of NCEA experience, Hubbard was able to adapt.

“You’ll have a very diverse background of riders who come into a program,” Hubbard said.

As for the timeline, Nachman had hoped to pick out a candidate by June 1, but is now hoping for July.

Nachmann says she has met with students on UC Davis’ equestrian club teams.

“We’re excited that the students are excited,” Nachmann said.

Third-year political science major Hayley Fredericks has competed for UC Davis’ western equestrian club team for three years. She was offered a partial equestrian scholarship to Baylor University.

“My goal in high school was to go to a school that I could ride for, so I met coaches and I created a video and I did the whole thing,” Fredericks said. “And I had a couple different offers from a couple different schools.”

Fredericks turned those offers down, and decided to attend UC Davis, and is excited to try out for the new team.

Zuraek also plans to try out in the fall. Like Fredericks, Zuraek was searching for a college with a strong equestrian program.

“I flew out to the University of Georgia, and I flew out to Texas Christian University, met with the coaches, watched some lessons, talked to some of the girls,” Zuraek said. “And you get to know people, and I have friends who are competing right now that are competing at Texas A&M, [Southern Methodist University, Texas Christian University.]”

For beach volleyball, the hiring process is more

was the feeling of confidence from her teammates that attributed to her solid game performance “It was really my teammates because the day before, none of my shots landed,” Preston said. “While we were warming up, I was passing, and I said ‘today is the day.’ Just having the confidence and having my teammates telling me not to worry because it was a new day helped.”

One minute later, the Aggies pushed the battle-back mentality to unload one final goal between the posts to finish the game 5-4, and earn National Club Championship status.

After the championship game finished, the 2018 Women’s National Collegiate Club Championship All-Tournament Team was announced. For Caryotakis, earning Most Valuable Player of the tournament was a huge honor attributed to the team as a whole.

“It really is just a testament to the program itself developing me so that I can help develop the team,” Caryotakis said. “It was a huge honor because that was a sum of 10 plus years of the sport and I wouldn’t have been able to get there without my teammates.”

Both Caryotakis and Preston feel that this championship victory attests to the success of the club water polo program as a whole, and are excited for what the future holds.

“Davis has always had a very strong water polo program at all levels,” Caryotakis said. “The sophomores and the juniors can step up and shape the program where it needs to go and it is already on the right trajectory.”

Preston added onto Caryotakis’ comments with excitement for the future of the team and the program.

“I was not only excited for winning the tournament but for the future,” Preston added. “We have a very young team and I am just excited for the freshman potential our team has and I am excited to see what next year holds.”

J EREMY DA N G / AGG IE

a challenge.”

UC Davis will compete in the National Collegiate Equestrian Association, which requires that the host team provides the horses for the competition. Nachmann says that a small subset of the equestrian community has this type of riding and coaching experience.

A lack of NCEA specific experience is not necessarily a deal-breaker for the committee, it is open to candidates with strong riding experience.

“That’s why we would look at really strong folks from the equestrian world,” Nachman said. “Who may not have the exact experience, but who we think can take their experience and translate that into what we’re doing.”

Fresno State’s equestrian head coach Eric Hubbard said that his background was mostly in horse training with western riding experience.

Despite the lack of NCEA experience, Hubbard was able to adapt.

“You’ll have a very diverse background of riders who come into a program,” Hubbard said.

As for the timeline, Nachman had hoped to pick out a candidate by June 1, but is now hoping for July.

HEADCOACH on 12

The men’s and women’s teams also share something intangible as well, and that’s passionate, dedicated leadership. An excellent illustration of the type of selflessness and devotion comes from the men’s team president, third-year economics and philosophy double major Stevie Benko.

“The part of my role that really makes me feel like I’m making a difference [...] is being able to set some sort of example to the team,” Benko said. He explained that last year he sustained an injury that kept him out of rowing for nearly 10 months.

“Every second of being on land while my friends were out on the water was awful,” Benko said. “But I did my physical therapy, I waited for my injury to heal, and I showed up at the boathouse for practices I knew I could not participate in. I truly loved the sport enough to where just sitting there watching everyone else row could make my day; a vicarious experience. I hoped that people saw my determination to get better, that people saw my love for the sport - and I hope that it helped some of my teammates see just how worth it the whole thing was.”

Gullet, a graduating senior who plans on pursuing a Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Illinois, reflected on her past four years, explaining what her experience with the team has taught her.

“Mental strength and confidence.” Gullett said.

“Confidence in my leadership skills, confidence in who I am as a person. I feel like I have learned so much about myself through this because when you’re out on the water and it’s cold and you’re tired and your coach is yelling at you because you don’t have good technique, you’re out there with all of these other strong women and you’re just like, ‘I can do this, I can do anything.’”

Led by exemplary student-athletes, UC Davis men’s and women’s club rowing is a shining example of how sacrifice and love for a craft leads to true success and lifelong friendship.

�anks to UC Davis for your continued support!

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