The Reveille 6-05-23

LET THE HOME RUNS RAIN

LSU advances to regional final after beating Oregon State 6-5.

LSUReveille.com @lsureveille

PURPLE RAIN

LSU advances to regional final after weather delay

BY TLER HARDEN & WILL NICKEL @ttjharden8 & WilNickel

LSU’s 6-5 win over Oregon State in the winner’s bracket of the Baton Rouge Regional was originally scheduled to start at 8 p.m. on Saturday night after the Tulane and Sam Houston elimination game finished. However, the elimination game went longer than expected.

From the first pitch to the last out, Sam Houston’s 10-2 win over Tulane took over 22 hours due to continued lightning delays. LSU’s game against Oregon State was moved from Saturday at 8 p.m. to Sunday at 2 p.m.

Shortly after the Tigers recorded the last out at the top of the third inning and were headed to the bottom of the third down 1-0 and with Hayden Travinski due up to bat, lightning in the area forced yet another weather delay.

The tarps were pulled onto the field and fans were told to seek shelter by LSU baseball’s Twitter account with the assurance that fans who left the stadium would be allowed back in. The Baton Rouge Regional was just one of multiple regionals that were forced into weather delays over the weekend.

Texas’ 2-4 win over ULL in the Coral Gables Regional on Friday was delayed over an hour. Texas’ next game against Miami on Saturday was also delayed by weather. Texas would win that game 4-1 after a delay that lasted over 2 hours.

Troy’s 11-10 win over Boston College was also delayed for nearly three hours on Friday in the Tuscaloosa Regional.

Wake Forest’s 21-6 against Maryland in the Winston-Salem Regional was also delayed over four hours on Saturday.

Arkansas and TCU’s Saturday in the Fayetteville Regional was moved from Saturday to Sunday due to weather, but the game on Sunday had to be paused again for around an hour when more bad weather moved in.

Florida and Texas Tech’s game was also delayed due to weather

on Sunday in the Gainesville Regional along with Samford and Southern Miss’ elimination game in the Auburn Regional and Vanderbilt and Xavier’s elimination game in the Nashville Regional.

In total, games were postponed or delayed in eight different regionals in what was a shocking and wet weekend of NCAA baseball.

But when the rain went away, the home run ball came to stay. After a rain delay and a lot of home runs, LSU came away with a 6-5 win to advance to the Baton Rouge Regional final that will be held on Monday.

“Great college baseball game,” Johnson said. “Two great teams, highly competitive.”

Once play resumed, the bats for both teams came to life. Of the 23 combined hits for both teams eight of them were home runs. At that point, the timing of them is what mattered most.

“During the rain delay, we were just focused on staying in the game,” Brayden Jobert said. “We came out and we did our job.”

Travis Bazzana was the only

home run that came before the rain delay, as he gave Oregon State a 1-0 lead in the top of the third. Bazzana finished two four for with two RBIs. Brady Kasper then extended its lead to 2-0 with a home run to left field. Kasper finished one for three with an RBI.

After Oregon State went up 3-0, Josh Pearson got LSU started with a triple to right-center field in the bottom of the fourth. Right after, Dylan Crews homered to left center to cut the Beavers’ lead to one. Crews finished two for four with two RBIs.

But the bottom of the fifth was all LSU. Hayden Travinski started the inning with a home run that sailed over the left-field bleachers, and Cade Beloso homered right after to right field to give LSU a 4-3 lead. Travinski finished one for five, and Beloso finished one for two with a walk and a hit-bypitch.

In the bottom of the sixth, Josh Pearson homered to right center to extend the Tigers’ lead to 5-3. Pearson went two for three with an RBI.

Oregon State wouldn’t go away. In the top of the seventh, Gavin Turley tied the game at five with a two-run home run that went over the batter’s eye. Turley finished 2 for 4 with two RBIs and a double.

But Brayden Jobert responded in the bottom of the eighth with a solo home run to put LSU up for good. Jobert finished one for four with an RBI.

“I was the leadoff in the inning, just tried to put up a good at-bat and get on base,” Jobert said. “It was a 2-0 count, he threw me a fastball and I put a good swing on it.”

Ty Floyd started the game on the mound but was forced to come out once the delay began. He went 3.0 innings, struck out five, and gave up one run on five hits.

Thatcher Hurd took care of

business on the mound after the rain delay. He received the win, went for 5.0 innings, struck out 12 and gave up four runs on seven hits. He found a lot of success with his breaking ball with two strikes.

“He was the best pitcher in the country tonight,” Johnson said.

Gavin Guidry closed the last inning with two strikeouts.

LSU’s pitching staff combined for 19 strikeouts on the day.

For Oregon State, AJ Lattery got the start. He pitched 2.0 innings, struck out three, and gave up just one hit. But Ben Ferrer received the loss for the Beavers, he pitched 3.2 innings, struck out five, but gave up four runs on five hits.

“Every pitch that we threw where we didn’t execute it, they took advantage of it,” Lattery said. “They got really good hitters, really good offense.”

The Tigers will now move onto the regional final, and will be just one win away from winning the Baton Rouge Regional. If the Tigers were to lose that game, they would play again.

If LSU can secure one more win, it will host a Super Regional against the winner of the Lexington Regional. The winner of that regional will be decided on Monday in a game between Kentucky and Indiana.

With Paul Skenes, Ty Floyd and Thatcher Hurd unavailable, it’s unclear on who will start in the regional final. Javen Coleman is a likely candidate, as he is a left-handed pitcher, and both Oregon State and Sam Houston have thrived primarily off of righthanded pitchers.

“Baseball is a long game, it has its ups and downs,” Jobert said. “But as long as we stick to our plan and focus on what we need to do, I feel like we will come out on top.”

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MATTHEW PERSCHALL / The Reveille

LSU baseball junior outfielder Dylan Crews (3) celebrates a home run June 4 during LSU’s 6-5 win against Oregon State at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge, La.

MATTHEW PERSCHALL / The Reveille Clouds fill the sky June 4 during a delay in LSU’s game against Oregon State at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge, La.

BAR BILL BUSTED

Bill to hold bars responsible for underage drinking fails

BY CLAIRE SULLIVAN LSU Manship School News Service

The mother of LSU student Madison Brooks, who died in January, pleaded with a House committee Thursday to pass a bill to hold bars responsible for serving people under 21.

Despite her emotional testimony, members of the House Judiciary Committee shot down the bill in a tied 6-6 vote, expressing concerns that insurance rates would spike for bars and that sophisticated fake IDs would leave good-faith bartenders open to legal action.

“I think this is a horrible bill,” said Rep. Alan Seabaugh, RShreveport, who was supported by two other Republicans and three Democrats from New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

He said the bill would effectively protect people breaking the law by drinking under 21 by placing the legal responsibility on bar owners and thus making them more vulnerable to lawsuits.

“If you don’t like this, for goodness’ sake, show me what you like, because we’ve got to do something,” Sen. Beth Mizell, R-

STUDENT LIFE

Franklinton, the bill’s author, said in response.

Police say Brooks, 19, was raped by two men after leaving Reggie’s Bar in the Tigerland Bar district near LSU. Then, police say, she was left by the side of the

road, where she was struck by a vehicle and left with fatal injuries. Brooks’ blood-alcohol content was 0.319, police say, nearly four times the legal limit to drive, and three of the four perpetrators arrested in connection to the alleged

rape were under 21.

“My daughter is dead, and everything with this tragedy could have been prevented,” said Brooks’ mother Ashley Baustert in tearful testimony.

The bill changed shape significantly over the course of the legislative session. When first filed, it aimed to prevent anyone under 21 from entering a bar.

Several of the popular bars near LSU allow patrons under 21, denoting their underage status with wristbands or an “X” on the hand. This included Reggie’s before it closed and lost its liquor license after Brooks’ death.

In the form rejected by the committee Thursday, the bill instead aimed to give cause of legal action to those under 21 who suffered injury or damages because they were served underage.

The same cause for legal action would have been given to those suffering damages or injury by a person served underage and to survivors of people served alcohol under 21, like Brooks’ mother.

In one version of the bill, this cause would have been eliminated

Art guild hosts print exchange

BY COLIN FALCON @nestingnests

The LSU Printmaking Guild concluded a months-long, national print exchange on the last weekend of the spring semester.

The guild is LSU’s official student organization for printmaking, providing both a community and an important artistic resource for its 40 members. Building a sense of community is currently the guild’s biggest focus.

Printmaking guild president and second year printmaking graduate student Cameron Savage said a print exchange seemed like the clearest way to do it.

“We really want to build morale back up and get students interested and make sure the club is being active in whatever ways possible, so an exchange was a pretty simple way we could do that,” Savage said.

He said exchanges are commonplace in the printmaking world because the focus of the me -

These LSU students don’t think summer classes are a bummer

BY PAYTON MANUEL @payton_manuel04

When most students think of summer school, they probably feel sick to their stomachs.

“Wasting an entire summer on class? No way.”

But some students are beginning to look forward to them.

LSU just finished its first week of school for the first summer session out of five consecutive weeks and it seems like the numbers of attendees are increasing by the second.

Mechanical Engineer junior Nicholas Kudr is taking summer classes at LSU for the second time, this session being enrolled in two courses: Dynamics and Electromagnetism.

Kudr said that he originally took summer classes to get ahead on the busy work his major requires, but over time the his reason changed.

“In mechanical engineering, when you have so many hours, say, on average like 17-19 hours, and you have to focus on two or three really hard courses, it can get overwhelming very quickly,” Kudr said. “So over the summer it just makes it easy.”

Kudr expressed that he doesn’t know how often courses for his major are offered over the sum-

mer, but that availability tends to be present given the amount of work his major requires compared to others.

On top of the availability of summer courses, Kudr said that summer sessions allow more time to focus on a class compared to traditional fall and spring semesters along with the GPA boost benefits better grades can achieve.

“It’s easier because it’s one class out of one time so there’s a lot more time you can spend on that one class,” Kudr said. “It is a shorter amount of time to learn the information but it’s a lot less time to forget the information.”

Due to the lack of online classes and the price to pay for extra classes, some students stray away from summer school, but Kudr pays for his summer sessions himself and attends class in-person.

According to him, taking things as “bite-sized” as you can is the way to go.

“It’s a small price to pay for the summer and I just let that happen,” Kudr said.

Jacqueline Bach, LSU’s vice provost for academic programs and support services for the Office of Academic Affairs, says that summer school for college students should be encouraged because of the various benefits it offers.

“Summer school isn’t just an

opportunity to make up courses, but it’s also an opportunity to get ahead,” Bach said.

After completing extensive research on the data provided by LSU students’ performance in certain courses, data results were able to determine that students are twice as likely to graduate in four years rather than six years if summer school courses are taken.

Midterm grades from previous spring semesters are also considered when trying to determine what courses should be offered, usually the courses where midterm scores are lower stand a greater chance at appearing in the summer registration.

“You get more of an experience in a smaller setting than you would during the year,” Bach said. “We don’t run classes with a thousand students so that’s a benefit as well, just having that kind of experience with a smaller class.”

Though the benefits of summer school can keep students on track, there are some concerns regarding the cost to attend.

According to Anna Bartel, LSU’s assistant vice provost for academic programs and strategic analytics for the Office of Academic Affairs, data has shown that less students attend summer school due to the extra costs, causing more students to attend summer

school at community colleges for a cheaper price.

“Let’s say you’re going home to Houston, some of our biggest numbers of transfer courses are from the Houston community college area, you have a lot of students who are going back home and can’t find an online course through our LSU summer, so they just take something at their local community college,” Bartel said.

Bartel also said LSU is trying to get better at ensuring the acceptance of all students transferring with credit hours so that they can apply to the specific major the student selects.

“You don’t get the perks of a

flagship research university because of the difference with a community college instructor, who might be really good, but they’re not on the same level, I would say,” Bartel said.

Since it isn’t always a guarantee for credits to transfer, Bartel also encourages LSU students to take a summer course with LSU.

“It’s only five weeks, then you get the rest of your summer back,” Bartel said. “I think you get some really cool experiences, especially if you come on campus because you get to experience the UREC and do the river, join intramural clubs, make friends and just enjoy campus culture.”

see FAILED BILL, page 4 see PRINTMAKING, page 4

MORGAN COOK / The Reveille

Few people walk through the Quad May 25 during LSU’s summer session in Baton Rouge, La.

COURTESY OF ALPHA PHI FACEBOOK

Madison Brooks, 19, died in the hospital Jan. 15 after being struck by a vehicle on Burbank Drive.

FAILED BILL, from page 3

if the underage person who was served alcohol used a fake ID. In the version the committee rejected, though, this provision was no longer present, which sparked debate among lawmakers.

“You have a minor who’s using a fake ID, who knows they’re doing something wrong,” Seabaugh said. “And then you have the bar owner, who looks at the fake ID, thinks it’s real, doesn’t know they’re doing anything wrong.”

But the bar owner would be liable under the bill, Seabaugh said.

Mizell was not convinced.

PRINTMAKING, from page 3 dium itself is to reproduce work. Printmakers make several copies or an “edition” of a print, which often leaves them with a surplus of work.

Savage thinks trading prints is essentially just the next step in the process.

“It allows the pieces to not feel so ‘sacred’ or ‘priceless’ in a way,” he said. “It’s not like you’ve created this one painting, and this painting is one of one. For print we can create large editions and trade them even just amongst friends in the print shop.”

Savage said invitations to participate in the exchange were sent

“Frankly, most bars want fake IDs to come in,” she said.

Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans, who joined Seabaugh in voting against the bill, said the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control already has responsibility to ensure that bars are not serving people under 21. “I’m just not sure we need to go here,” she said.

Rep. Jason Hughes, D-New Orleans, also opposed the bill, raising concerns that mom-andpop bars would see their insurance premiums spike.

Jason Nay, the manager and owner of Fred’s Bar and Grill, located next door to Reggie’s, said the bar’s lawyers think the

via Google survey to 40-50 universities across the U.S. and a handful in Canada starting in late August. Participants would pay a $15 entry fee, then send in 15 of their own prints and receive 13 random ones pulled from the pool of submissions.

Savage said submissions began showing up in mid-April and didn’t stop until mid-May.

The exchange ended up with around 40 participants total, leaving the Guild’s four officers and handful of member volunteers with around 600 prints to sort through and redistribute, he said.

“It took days,” he said. “It was a madhouse.”

The prints that didn’t get sent

establishment’s insurer would drop its coverage if the bill passed.

He also defended the role of the bars in the LSU community.

“We’re not just selling alcohol, we’re selling memories,” Nay said.

“I think it’s really important,” Mizell countered later, “when we hear bar owners talking about making memories, that we take some responsibility of the kind of memories we’re allowing to be made.”

Paula Zachary is one mother for whom those memories are painful. Her son Brandon, 19, who was enrolled at Southeastern Louisiana University, died while driving drunk in 2007 after being

back out won’t be wasted.

To continue the club’s current commitment to maximum involvement with the community, Savage said many of the prints sent in and used in the exchange will also be featured in an LSU exhibition during the 2023 fall semester. He thinks an exhibition would generate awareness of the guild and drum up excitement for the next exchange.

Savage encouraged anyone interested to get involved and follow the group’s Instagram account for information on future events.

The printmaking guild is open to anyone who’s taken LSU’s introductory printmaking courses and even to students who haven’t but

served while underaged by a bar in Hammond, she told the committee.

She said she found no fake ID in his possession after his death. Still, she said, the Office of Alcohol and Tobacco Control told her she had no standing for action against the bar.

She held up her phone to the microphone and played one of the remaining remnants of her son’s life: his voicemail message. The dial tone played, and then Brandon’s voice filled the committee room.

“This is what I have of my son,” she said.

Here is how lawmakers voted:

Voting in favor of Mizell’s proposal:

Rep. Randall L. Gaines, D-LaPlace

Rep. Kathy Edmonson, R-Gonzales

Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Pineville

Rep. Sherman Q. Mack, R-Albany

Rep. Nicholas Muscarello, R-Hammond

Rep. Charles Owen, R-Rosepine

Voting against:

Rep. Alan Seabaugh, R-Shreveport

Rep. Jason Hughes, D-New Orleans

Rep. Edmond Jordan, D-Baton Rouge

Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans

Rep. Joseph A. Orgeron, R-Larose

Rep. Thomas A. Pressly, R-Shreveport

have some experience with the practice.

“If you make prints in a tradi-

tional sense, exchanges are always an easy way to be pulled into the community,” said Savage.

MORGAN COOK/ The Reveille

Student relief prints dry Feb. 3 on a drying rack in the printmaking room inside William B. Hatcher Hall in Baton Rouge, La.

SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Column: Is LSU’s Paul Skenes the best pitcher in the country?

BY WILL NICKEL @WilNickel

There’s no question that Paul Skenes is having a special season. But is he the best pitcher in the country?

The LSU ace is now up to second place in single season strikeouts in school history. No one else in the top 10 has less than 117 innings pitched, but Skenes moved to second with only 86.2 IP. He only needs 23 more strikeouts to overtake Ben McDonald’s record.

He also leads the nation in total strikeouts with 33 more than the next closest pitcher.

As Skenes prepared to make his SEC Tournament debut in a pitcher’s duel with Arkansas’ Hagen Smith, I decided to see how he stacks up against the other top pitchers in the nation.

To find the best pitchers in the country, I looked at the shortlist for the Golden Spikes award. The award goes to the top amateur baseball player in the country, regardless of position. Of the 25 players nominated, only six players are purely pitchers (there are a few two-way players).

Those six players are Tanner Hall, Josh Hartle, Rhett Lowder, Quinn Matthews, Hagen Smith and Skenes. To trim that list down, let’s

only pick the top three pitchers in ERA from the list. That leaves us with Lowder, Skenes and Hartle.

What are some of the most important statistics for pitchers?

I have chosen ERA, WHIP, K/9 and K/BB to evaluate the pitchers with. I will not be looking at wins as this is a heavily team-based statistic, and I want to isolate the pitcher’s performances. I used regular season stats, excluding tournament stats.

ERA is the generally thought to be the most important statistic for a pitcher. How many runs a pitcher

gives up on average is incredibly important. However, ERA can be influenced by a poor defense and the seemingly impossible to peg down definition of an error. While not perfect, it’s a great stat to measure a pitcher’s performances with. Skenes came into the SEC Tournament with a season-long ERA of 1.77, good for fourth in the nation. The only pitcher from a Power 5 conference with a better ERA is Lowder with an ERA of 1.73. Hartle has an ERA of 2.32, which is good, but not nearly as good as Skenes and Lowder’s.

Skenes and Lowder have both only given up 17 runs this season on 14 starts. The slight difference in their ERA’s is because Lowder (88.2 IP) had pitched two more innings than Skenes (86.2 IP).

Another important factor to consider is the conferences the three pitchers are pitching in. Lowder and Hartle both are in the ACC while Skenes pitches in the SEC. The SEC’s total ERA is 5.13 while the ACC’s total ERA is 4.95. Not a large difference, but something worth noting.

WHIP is the next stat we’ll look at. WHIP essentially measurers how many baserunners a pitcher allows to reach base on average. If there’s no one on base, no one can score (except of course on a solo home run).

Skenes leads the nation by a wide margin in WHIP. His .75 WHIP is .13 lower than the next closest pitcher. If you only count pitchers that have thrown at least 80 innings, his WHIP is .16 higher than the next closest. Lowder’s WHIP, while phenomenal, is .97. Hartle has a WHIP of 1.05.

K/9 is another incredibly important statistic. If batters can’t put your pitches in play, there is no chance for them to get on base without being walked. This also means your defense can’t hurt

you. It’s a lot less likely that your defense can mess something up if the ball is never put into play.

Skenes leads the country with 17.03 K/9. The next closest player is Wake Forest’s Sean Sullivan with 14.54 K/9. If you look at only pitchers that have thrown at least 80 innings, the next closest is Canisius’ Matt Duffy with 13.28 K/9. Hartle has a K/9 of 11.7 while Lowder’s is 11.

K/BB is up next. The number of strikeouts compared to number of walks is a great indicator of a pitcher’s control. It’s not as important as other stats and can influenced by other things (such as an umpire that has an ever-changing strike zone), but accompanied with other stats, it’s a decent way to evaluate a pitcher.

In K/BB, Skenes is second in the country with 10.93 strikeouts for every walk. Lowder 6.35. Hartle has a K/BB of 7.07 while Lowder’s has a K/BB of 6.35.

Skenes beats Hartle and Lowder in three out of the four categories. The only category Skenes is not first in is ERA, but the difference in ERA between Skenes and Lowder is incredibly small.

So to answer the question: Yes, Skenes is the best pitcher in the country. At least according to the numbers.

Rev Rank: HBO’s ‘Bama Rush’ documentary is a waste of time

BY JAYDEN NGUYEN @jaydenguyen_

Like most college students who don’t participate in Greek Life, I find the world of sorority and fraternity culture fascinating for two reasons.

One, it’s incredibly entertaining. The drama of it all – from the pettiness of pomping competitions to every stupid, high school-esque event that they hold, it’s hilarious to watch as an outsider.

Two, it’s insane. Greek Life is insane. We all know the concept of Greek Life is insane, right?

When I found out HBO was making a documentary about rush at the University of Alabama and its Greek Life, I immediately sent the trailer to my roommate and said, “We need to watch this.”

But after about 15 minutes into the documentary, I realized that HBO had let me down. The remaining hour and 25 minutes would quickly become the least entertaining, least interesting time of my life.

“Bama Rush,” directed by Rachel Fleit (a key character in this), follows the lives of four girls preparing to rush at Alabama. Or, at least, it starts to. And then it stops.

The problem with “Bama Rush” is that it tries to be something that it’s just not – a serious documentary.

The film starts with exactly

what you’d expect: this is what Greek Life is, this is what #RushTok is, this is why Greek Life is so big at Alabama and here are the four girls. Normal documentary setup.

Then, things then start to go off the rails. I started feeling like the documentary was losing track when three current sorority girls at Alabama discussed how they were just normal girls and don’t understand why they receive hate when they live regular lives.

The immediate shot after this insightful revelation is of the girls heavily photoshopping a picture of the three of them, with absolutely zero context or setup for it.

Every semi-deep, meaningful message or scene in the documentary was immediately undercut by something shallow. It’s clear that there are attempts to create an overarching theme of “sorority girls are just like all of us” and “we all want to belong,” but the film fails to actually land anything that feels real and connectable.

The biggest criticism of the documentary and the absolute worst part about it? Rachel Fleit’s odd decision to self-insert her own struggles into the film.

Documentaries are typically an objective view of a topic and its subjects. “Bama Rush” throws all objectivity out the window the moment Rachel Fleit appears on screen, talking about her experience with alopecia.

Fleit then turns about half of

the film into her discussing her struggles with alopecia and how it compares to rushing for a sorority.

She said that her using wigs to gain acceptance growing up was similar to how the four girls long for acceptance and “love” (yes, one of the girls said she was rushing to find people who “actually loved her for who she really is, unlike her friends and family”) from their sororities.

Fleit’s alopecia storyline takes up so much time from the documentary, it’s as if she forgot to address anything that really matters, like more information on the Divine 9, how two of the girls in the documentary were roofied while filming, the underlying sexism in Greek Life and so many other issues that were not covered indepth.

The documentary even ends with Fleit doing various activities with the subjects of her documentary.

Now, I am no documentary director, but I don’t think it’s normal for directors to hang out with the people they filmed to create a real, objective documentary.

A lot of the documentary just feels like Fleit trying to say that we shouldn’t judge sorority girls or sororities for anything ever because they’ve never done anything terrible in their lives. But despite the attempts to rescue the reputation of sororities or the girls themselves, “Bama Rush” can’t hide the toxicity, racism and sexism that is

at the core of Alabama’s culture.

Although it’s obvious that the film’s message is about how sororities are a means for self-acceptance and belonging, I think Fleit’s framing gives it the opposite of the desired effect. After watching this, I felt more than ever that sororities and rushing ruins the sense of self.

Think about it: who could ever find their true self by conforming to an organization’s rules on how to act? If you have to make yourself look a certain way or be coached by someone just to be picked by a bunch of other girls, how are you supposed to get to know the real you?

I know I’m not a member of Greek Life, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to truly understand why people want to join it. At one point in the film, one of the girls talks about how the main reason

she wants to join a sorority is because they “do good for the community,” and I literally laughed.

Why pay all that money just to “do good” when you could donate that money or use it to actually contribute to your community? What, specifically, is the “good” that these Alabama sororities are supposedly doing?

I don’t want to discredit anyone who is a member of Greek Life, and I respect that people enjoy being part of it. However, I think this documentary missed the opportunity to take a hard critical look at what really is at the heart of Greek Life.

Unless you want to essentially learn nothing about sorority rushing at Alabama and everything about how it relates to alopecia, don’t give this documentary a watch.

MATTHEW PERSCHALL / The Reveille

The ball zooms out of LSU baseball junior pitcher Paul Skenes’ (20) hand on April 28 during LSU’s 8-6 win over Alabama at Alex Box Stadium in Baton Rouge, La.

GRAPHIC BY MADDIE FITZMORRIS

Scheduling classes at LSU shouldn’t be as stressful as it is

ISABELLA’S INSIGHTS

ISABELLA ALBERTINI @BasedIsabella

Scheduling classes shouldn’t be a stressful process.

But for many LSU students, scheduling courses for the next semester can be stressful. Between trying to figure out which classes they should be taking and waiting until the scheduling portal opens, students are on their own when it comes to scheduling.

There should be more resources to help students navigate through the scheduling process, from knowing where to find your degree audit and CATS status to how it all even works.

“The first time I had to schedule for this semester, I had to do it on the spot,” Abby Sant, a political science freshman, said. “A lot of the gen ed classes… the convenient times are full before you’re given a chance to schedule, so you have to take super early morning or late night classes. The more specific ones for majors are completely full.”

She said navigating the process for the first time was hard

for her as she had no one to guide her.

“As freshmen, they don’t tell you how to access your degree audit or anything,” Sant said.

But scheduling classes isn’t any easier for upperclassmen either, as getting a spot in majorspecific courses can sometimes be crucial to graduate on time.

“They give you a scheduling date, and when you get to that date, all the classes you needed

were filled,” Madeliene Moss, a senior double majoring in political science and English, said. “So you sit there and wait for the portal to open up, and it shuts down because it’s too busy. And once you can get in, all the classes are night classes. The suggestion I was given was to go in with a plan and backups, but in the end, you’re busy trying to fill the classes and you’re stuck with gen eds. So what do I do? Take a

random class?”

Moss had to be on the waitlist for her capstone class for a month and had to email professors and advisors to try to get a spot in the class. In the end, she got a spot in the class three weeks into the semester.

“A lot of the time, the advising team and the professor don’t communicate. I’m not expecting special treatment, but expecting to email somebody and receive

their help, not sink or swim, especially as a senior. It’s very stressful,” Moss said.

The problem is not only the scheduling times, but the class availability.

For example, journalism majors, such as myself, are required to take MC 2101. There is only one section for this course for Fall 2023, with a total of 19 spots that are already full. In a university with over 30,000 students, there should be more than 19 available spots for a class. There should be enough space in courses so that students can make timely progress in their majors.

Getting on the waitlist never hurts, but there’s not much hope when you’re number 14. Sometimes students have to email professors to be given a spot in the class. All the while, they must have backup classes scheduled just in case.

LSU must offer and promote more scheduling resources for students to help make this chaotic experience we call college a little less stressful.

GRAPHIC BY BLAINE SWANZY

Today’s headlines show humanity is broken, needs change

MADDEN’S MADNESS

LAUREN MADDEN @lllomadd

Once again, another crime has occurred in Baton Rouge. According to a report from The Advocate on May 29, “A man has been arrested, accused of taking a woman home from Fred’s bar in Tigerland and raping her as she slept, police documents say.”

As she slept? You mean the human requirement to function, where we are rendered unconscious, trusting that we are safe?

A night that was intended for fun ended in agony.

We have become desensitized to various headlines like this one and the climbing number of crimes. These actions have become a norm. We are numb. We are broken. And like times before, this incident will soon be forgotten until the next time it reaches the media.

That is not okay.

EDITORIAL BOARD

Will Nickel Editor-in-Chief

Managing Editor Jayden Nguyen

John Buzbee News Editor

Lauren Madden

Opinion Columnist

I used to wake up, get dressed and walk over to my neighbor’s house to ask if she could play. We would play freely in the neighborhood streets, without direct parental supervision, knowing that when the sun hit the trees it was time to go home.

We would ride our bikes around town to spend our hardearned lemonade stand money at the most prestigious stores: Dollar Tree, CVS, Walgreens and the gas station. We didn’t worry about our safety and neither did our parents.

It wasn’t a utopia, crime still existed, but since those days something has changed.

The darkness that used to shadow the horrible acts of humans now works to not only shadow it, but empower this inhumanity. We see the headlines, the social media posts and hear the call to action, yet the only thing that changes is an increase of fear.

Not everyone is afraid to go out, but the world in its current state calls for it. It’s a fear we

The Reveille (USPS

shouldn’t have to have.

We should be able to go out with our friends and have a fun time. We shouldn’t have to worry about our clothes receiving blame, waking up in an unfamiliar place or having to vigilantly watch the bartender pour our drink.

It’s as if all respect for others has vanished as time has gone. The humanity that existed in decades past has been suppressed as we’ve hidden further behind our screens. We’ve forgotten how to interact with the people who exist in the same space we do, how to connect, how to talk to others and how to be decent human beings.

The college experience today is not the same as it was 10 years ago.

College is supposed to be the bridge between childhood and adulthood, where you have more responsibility and a platform to freely exist. All we have now is more responsibility and an increased understanding of how cruel the world is.

The world is a scary place, es -

pecially while we are discovering it, but it shouldn’t be as malicious as it is. We shouldn’t fear for our safety in everything we do. Our safety should be an unspoken guarantee.

LSU, you need to do better. Baton Rouge, you need to do better. Humanity, we owe it to ourselves

to do better. Wake up! Nothing changes if nothing is changed. Don’t wait until the next headline because by then humanity may be broken beyond repair.

Editorial Policies and Procedures Quote of the Week

“There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.”

Isabella Albertini is a 23-yearold mass communication major from Lima, Peru.

Lauren Madden is a 22-year-old mass communication senior from Mandeville.

MADALYN CUNNINGHAM / The Reveille

Signs stand tall throughout Tigerland on Feb. 20 on Bob Petit Blvd. in Baton Rouge, La.