The Battalion: Novemeber 8, 2017 by The Battalion

reserving

recious ground

(left to right) Jonathan Miller, Victoria Kusak, Jayne Hattaway and Heather Bennett clean Bonfire Memorial on Nov. 7.

Photos by Carlos Romero — THE BATTALION

Students, gallery staff help maintain Bonfire Memorial before remembrance By Megan Rodriguez @MeganLRodriguez Armed with scrub brushes, ladders and water hoses, a task force of student volunteers and University Art Galleries department staff members held the first Bonfire Memorial Conservation Day on Nov. 7. From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., 30 volunteers worked in shifts for the annual minor conservation maintenance. In addition to running

the two university galleries, the University Art Galleries department cleans more than 34 sculptures around campus annually. In the past, students from select classes were given extra credit to participate, but this was the first year that volunteering was open to the student body and public, making it the first official conservation day. Cleaning included gently scrubbing the memorial’s metal with non-abrasive soap and coating it with a sculpture wax to restore color, as well as to protect the metal from corrosion and UV rays. This is called minor conservation and is done as an alternative to expensive and invasive measures that would

be taken by a professional conservation team, according to Amanda Cagle, collections manager of J. Wayne Stark Galleries. “What we do is preventative maintenance to preserve the metal, take care of any minor corrosion that we can spot clean,” Cagle said. “There are a lot of preventative things we can do to keep everything in great condition.” The Art Galleries Department began advertising for the conservation day through social media and local media outlets on Nov. 2. Jonathan Miller, communication senior, saw the event on Facebook and invited members of his organization, Alpha Phi Omega, to volunteer.

“Bonfire Memorial holds a really special place in my heart,” Miller said. “Everytime I come out here it’s usually with other people or when I just need a reminder that life is precious. It’s beautiful that we get to come to this university that has such amazing respect for our traditions and people who have come before us, so when given the chance to preserve something like this I was ready to jump on it.” Conservation Day was an opportunity to serve others for Sarah Hall, Alpha Phi Omega member and environmental geoscience senior. CONSERVATION ON PG. 2

Texas A&M professor Valen Johnson’s research could redefine how statistical research is conducted.

Hanna Hausman — THE BATTALION

A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin addressed the ongoing conversation about his job security on the Internet and social media at his Tuesday press conference. Dalia Muayad — THE BATTALION

SETTING STATISTICS STRAIGHT Research done to change p-value could significantly alter mathematical studies By Alex Sein @AlexandrSein In a 2016 paper published in the Journal of the American Statistical Association, Valen Johnson, university distinguished professor and department head of statistics, suggested, along with graduate students Alex Asher and Tianying Wang, that statistical significance should be redefined, or at least refined. The most widely accepted measure for statistical significance is the p-value, according to Wang, which is a measure of how likely a more extreme result is to appear after a set of trials. “This number, in statistics, is like a threshold — the smaller the number is, the more strict your standard,” Wang said. “In many cases it’s very flexible. The researcher can choose whatever they want to use, but usually, people just use 0.05.” There are currently two interpretations of probability within statistics: Bayesian and frequentist probabilities. Johnson was studying Bayesian probability, which judges probability by comparing re-

sults to previous iterations within the same trial. “In studying Bayesian hypothesis testing, I came to the conclusion that p-values of 0.05 were as likely to be evidence for a null hypothesis as against it,” Johnson said. The null hypothesis, according to Asher and Wang, is the idea that the results of a study are due entirely to random chance, or that there is no correlation between observed results. In order to see if the p-value accurately represents how often results are significant, they chose a set of old trials that had recently been repeated. “We used a data set that had been previously gathered by a consortium of scientists called the Open Science Collaborative and they spent more than a year reproducing about a hundred experiments that were published in three top psychology journals,” Asher said. According to Asher, the Open Science Collaboration (OSC) experiments, conducted in 2015, were intended to be fact-checks of the original studies; the scientists worked closely with the authors of the original papers in order to see if the results of the original experiments were still valid. However, according to Johnson, there was a discrepancy in the OSC results and the original trials. STATISTICS ON PG. 4

Collected under pressure Sumlin answer tough questions regarding future at Texas A&M By Ryan MacDonald @Ryan_Macdonald2 Despite having to field some hard-hitting questions, Texas A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin was his emotionally-steady self at his weekly press conference on Tuesday afternoon. Since Saturday’s loss to Auburn, there has been much speculation that the Sumlin era would be coming to a close in Aggieland after this season, if not sooner. However, when Sumlin was asked if he has discussed his future at A&M with athletic director Scott Woodward, he said he has not. “We don’t get together until later in the week, he’s always around,” Sumlin said. “Early in the week it wouldn’t be uncommon for us not to get together. He’s usually around practice so when the injury situation clears up that’s when we have a discussion. So, no we haven’t really talked.” Two decades ago, this speculation

would not have as been as widespread. However, the integration of social media has augmented the spread of opinions, thoughts and ideas. Outside noise can often times affect the players in the locker room. But Sumlin said he thinks it is important that his players do not get caught up in what outside people are staying, but recognized that it’s nearly impossible in contemporary society to not allow players to use social media. “You can ask players to stay away from social media, but that’s asking a lot. I don’t think it’s possible in this day and age,” Sumlin said. “I can’t control the outside message. What’s important is that the message in our meeting room becomes the message.” Regardless of the speculation surrounding his future on social media, Sumlin insisted that his mindset is unchanged, focusing on one game at a time. “Whatever happens on Saturday, you move on to the next week,” Sumlin said. “That’s how I approach it, and that’s how I’ll continue to approach it going forward. The big picture will SUMLIN ON PG.4

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The Battalion | 11.8.17

Helping Harvest is Starlight Aggies’ biggest fundraising event. The money raised is donated to the Ronald McDonald House in Bryan.

Dalia Muayad — THE BATTALION Carlos Romero — THE BATTALION

Volunteers who helped clean the Bonfire Memorial also learned about maintaining monuments.

Helping kids during winter holidays

CONSERVATION CONTINUED

Students raise funds for families with children in the hospital

“I saw that [Alpha Phi Omega] posted this specific service event and I wanted to do it because A&M has provided so much and I wanted to do something for the campus itself to stay clean so people could enjoy it,” Hall said. “[This also respects the] memorial itself because it represents the Aggie family as a whole and keeping that tradition. I really like and support the traditions of A&M, so this is how I show my support.” Volunteers who participated had a unique opportunity to learn about preserving monuments, according to Catherine Hastedt, director of the University Art Galleries department. “I like the fact that the students get to participate,” Hastedt said. “It’s an educational thing for them to learn about sculpture conservation because too many people just walk by sculptures and don’t even think about the longevity. We want things to look nice and the students want to honor the students that died in the tragedy, so it’s a win-win for everyone.” The Bonfire Memorial’s annual cleaning is always scheduled right before the anniversary of the collapse, so the monument is at its finest when people gather to remember the fallen, Cagle said. “All the sculptures on campus belong to everyone, we just take care of them for everyone to enjoy,” Cagle said. “This is an opportunity for people to really get hands on experience taking care of these pieces of Aggie history. Particularly, [Bonfire Memorial] because as you’re cleaning, you’re reading the quotes, you’re seeing the faces of the victims that died. This is connecting in an extremely personal way that you might not experience in just a cursory walk through.”

By Deborah Anderaos @deborahanderaos The holiday season can be a hard time for many families, specifically families who are struggling with a pile of medical bills while their children are in the hospital. Starlight Aggies is a pediatric service student organization at Texas A&M with the purpose of assisting children and families in need through games, activities and donations. Starlight Aggies is made up of about 100 members, but are split up into groups, called Constellations, that include 15 members or less each as a way for members to get to know each other better. The organization frequents children hospitals with hopes to make a difference in the lives of patients, according to David Villarreal, kinesiology and neuroscience senior and president of Starlight Aggies. They act out stories, make crafts and focus on getting the children’s minds off of sitting in a hospital bed. The largest philanthropy event for

Starlight Aggies is Helping Harvest. According to Villarreal, their annual fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald House is located in Bryan at St. Joseph’s Hospital. Villarreal said when the Ronald McDonald House opened up in the spring of 2016, Starlight Aggies was one of the first groups to volunteer to help. “Ever since the Ronald McDonald House got built here in Bryan, we have partnered with them,” Villarreal said. “We help them collect donations to serve those families in need that can’t pay medical bills in order [for their kids] to stay in the hospital long-term.” Marleini Ilanga, vice president of Starlight Aggies and biomedical sciences junior, said a donation drive was put together to help stock the Ronald McDonald House room at the hospital for its opening. “We wanted to get donations for them while they were setting up the new room so that they would be able to start off with plenty of donations, we were still figuring out how we wanted to run this, we collected over 700 items our first year including any living necessities,” Ilanga said. Alex Ayala, business management senior and a community outreach chair

for Starlight Aggies, said she contributes to the setup of Helping Harvest. Ayala said Helping Harvest is an important event that brings about the Ronald McDonald House awareness to the community. Helping Harvest is a big event for Starlight Aggies and Ilanga said she enjoys the impact this donation drive has made throughout the community and within the organization. “I have grown through my ability to lead, serve and organize,” Ilanga said. “I will take these aspects with me into the real world, this philanthropy has helped strengthen my passion for families and children within the hospital setting.” Villarreal said they have three locations set up around campus for the last five days of October and the first five days of November to collect donations for their third drive. Locations include the 12th Man Hall in the Memorial Student Center, Evans Library and in front of the John R. Blocker Building. Donations of both household items and money will be accepted at these locations, where t-shirts will be sold as well. All proceeds go directly to the Ronald McDonald House and of the monetary donations they receive will go to purchasing toys for the kids there.

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The Battalion | 11.8.17

Recognizing a spectrum of various eating disorders Students, faculty discuss the symptoms and difficulties of the mental illnesses By Jillian Sanders @jillsands98 One person dies every hour due to eating disorders — the highest mortality rate of all mental illnesses — yet only one-third of people with eating disorders receive treatment, according the Eating Recovery Center (ERC). For experts at the ERC, an international center that works in conjunction with university counseling services, these facts have motivated staff psychologists to take action against eating disorders among college students. The treatment center launched a new Virtual Intensive Outpatient Program (VIOP) this year that allows students

struggling with eating disorders to receive treatment wherever they have internet access. “[It’s] great for students at campuses like A&M where there’s not centers near you, so that you can get the treatment that you need earlier in the disease, or for coming back from higher levels of care to make recovery a more seamless process,” Casey Tallent, national collegiate outreach director for Eating Recovery Center said. Psychologists have seen growth in new types of eating disorders, among college students: Drunkorexia, the reverse ‘freshman 15’ and orthorexia, according to Tallent. “The term drunkorexia was coined about 10 years ago,” Tallent said. “It’s kind of a pop culture term. We see it like any other pop culture term, it kind of rises and falls in popularity. It refers to the process of somebody

restricting calories prior to binge drinking, and the unfortunate piece is that we see that as a red flag both for eating disorders and substance abuse issues.” Research from the ERC suggests that nearly 50 percent of individuals with an eating disorder are also abusing drugs and or alcohol, often as a mechanism to deal with stress. “What we see with substance abuse disorders and eating disorders is that they really become this ultimate coping method for stressors,” Tallent said. “So you may see someone with an eating disorder who utilizes the eating disorder to cope with any emotion that comes up. We see the same thing with substance abuse where that becomes the method of coping. Someone is stressed for an exam and

so somebody binge drinks and we see the same process.” The relatively new terms, reverse freshman 15 and orthorexia, refer to a fixation on healthy eating or exercising that becomes so influential in a student’s life, their overall health

begins to suffer. “When we’re talking about orthorexia, we are kind of talking about an obsession with health gone bad,” Tallent said. “So what we see with orthorexia is that those patterns become more and more restrictive. And somebody may start with very well intentions, like with being gluten free or vegan and then we see that restriction continue and continue until they’re having malnutrition or the same medical complications we see with anorexia. And similarly with exercise — over-exercising can be incredibly dangerous and can cause the same physical issues that we see in anorexia as well.” Although it may be confusing that students focusing on being healthy can become unhealthy in the process, Tallent said there are certain warning signs other students can observe. “To differentiate between orthorexia and ‘normal patterns’ of eating and exercise, we are really looking at if those behaviors have taken over someone’s life,” Tallent said. “People maybe aren’t attending meals, family get togethers, maybe they’re struggling academically. These are all

signs someone may be taking things too far.” According to Tallent, people with eating disorders suffer in silence due to a negative stigma, which she attributes to pop culture. “Unfortunately, eating disorders have been misunderstood for a long time and so people don’t understand the severity of eating disorders,” Tallent said. “So there’s certainly this fear, but unfortunately in our culture we often times make jokes about dieting and eating disorders, which are not joking matters.” For Zach Galiano, business freshman, the topic of eating disorders hits close to home. “I have a close friend who just told us [about it],” Galiano said. “I was pretty shocked, because her parents wouldn’t let her go to her college [of] choice because they didn’t trust her with her eating disorder. I didn’t know it was that bad. There weren’t any warning signs that she struggled with it. Now that she’s told me, I can tell, but over time I never knew.” As science and research shed light on the causes of eating disorders, there is a possibility the disorders can be prevented sooner in an adolescent’s life. “Indirectly, research on the genetics of eating disorders has already made a considerable contribution to eating disorder treatment,” Stephanie Zerwas, Department of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s National Library of Medicine said. “The re-examination of the role of the family in eating disorder liability has ushered in a new era of eating disorder clinical practice.” Along with increases in research to combat eating disorders, Tallent said she has also seen increases in the public’s understanding of the disorders. “There was recently a campaign — Amazon had a shirt kind of making fun of eating disorders and so there was a national campaign to take it down,” Tallent said. “I think advocates are doing a lot of work and experts are doing a lot of work to make it easier for people to come in and recognize they have an eating disorder and get the help that they need.”

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The Battalion | 11.8.17

STATISTICS CONTINUED “In 97 of the original experiments, there was a significant finding of a p-value less than 0.05,” Johnson said. “When they were replicated, only 36 of the experiments replicated, or got a p-value of less than 0.05.” This prompted Asher and Johnson to propose certain changes to the status quo. “One of our recommendations is that 0.05, the sort of traditional rule of thumb that people have been using is not stringent enough to really consider something significant,” Asher said.

According to Asher and Wang, the value that represents true statistical significance varies from trial to trial, but is generally below 0.005 and sometimes as low as 0.001. According to Johnson, since the publication of the paper people have begun accepting his proposed change. “In a paper in Nature Human behaviour, 72 senior scientists and I endorsed the idea of redefining statistical significance to be a p-value of less than 0.005,” Johnson said. A survey later found that around 70 percent of scientists support the idea of lowering the p-value threshold for statistical significance to 0.005.

Johnson said that percentage could be even higher if more scientific journals began publishing statistically significant results as only those with p-values below 0.005 and he intends to continue research in this area. “We’re also looking at ways of designing experiments more efficiently, so that using the same number of subjects that are currently used in fixed designs to get a p-values of 0.05, or getting a significant result with a given power, you can use maybe even fewer subjects and get a significant result at the 0.005 level,” Johnson said.

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Under Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M is 3-12 against SEC West opponents at Kyle Field. The Aggies have also lost seven straight home games to divisional foes.

SUMLIN CONTINUED

Josh McCormack, Editor in Chief Gracie Mock, Managing Editor Alexis Will, Creative Director Katy Baldock, Social Media Editor Angel Franco, Sports Editor Luke Henkhaus, News Editor

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take care of itself.” Sumlin is currently focusing on is the last home game of the season against New Mexico. Though the game is not expected to be close, the game itself will feature two coaching staffs that have close ties. New Mexico head coach Bob Davie was on the A&M coaching staff for eight seasons, from 1985-93. He spent four years as the outside linebackers coach and four years as the defensive coordinator. Jordan Peterson, New Mexico’s current safeties coach, played four sea-

sons for the Aggies and then spent two years as a graduate assistant. Sumlin and A&M offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone were also on staff with New Mexico wide receivers coach Cory Martin at Minnesota. Sumlin said New Mexico has almost 20 players from Texas on their roster and praised the Lobos’ strong running game. “They use a lot of motion and a lot of different options,” Sumlin said. “They want to run it. They’re creative in how they run it. They use a lot of read-option schemes and have been one of the top schools in the country running the ball.”

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Saturday’s game will also be the last home football game radio broadcaster Dave South will call. South has been “The Voice of The Aggies” since 1985 and announced in August he will be retiring from announcing football and basketball games after this season. South will continue to call Aggie baseball games past this season. “It’s an emotional time,” Sumlin said. “To be around a legend like him, a guy who’s truly excited about Texas A&M sports across the board and whose voice is recognized nationwide; you become friends with those who have been in a foxhole with you.”

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THE BUSH SCHOOL “WHAT’S NEXT?” SERIES

Nick Starkel

Kellen Mond

“He’s better. I feel like when he’s out on the field he has control of the ball, he knows what he’s doing.”

Based on the game I saw last weekend, I would say the freshman, Mond … Mond has had the experience all season. Mond held us against Bama.

Peter Blank, mechanical engineering sophomore

Shannon Crosby, psychology senior

The Iran Nuclear Agreement Panelists: Dr. Marvin Adams, Dr. Sunil Chirayath, Dr. Mohammad Tabaar Moderator: Dr. William Norris

Wednesday, November 8, 2017 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM Rudder 302 TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY

bush.tamu.edu/Iran

Nick Starkel

“I don’t really like Kellen Mond, I don’t think he’s good under pressure.”

“Not who we have now, not Mond. He’s not good under pressure.”

Andrew Jansen, meteorology freshman

Ariel Sanchez, history junior

Compiled by Cassie Stricker & Gracie Mock