The Mercury 02 10 20

Feb. 10, 2020

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FINDING YOUR

voice

Deaf America's Got Talent finalist rehearses, performs with UTD choir MADISON YORK Opinion Editor

For singer and songwriter Mandy Harvey, all her music holds a special, personal meaning for her — not in the least because she can’t hear it.

As an up-and-coming vocal and music education major at Colorado State University, the future was looking bright for Harvey in late 2006. Then her life turned upside-down; a connective tissue disorder — Ehlers-Danlos syndrome — caused her to lose her residual hearing. No longer could she hear the notes of the music she so loved; no longer could she hear her own voice.

“You know, there would have been nothing I could have said (to myself at that time) that would have taken away the pain, or made any sense of the situation,” Harvey said. “The only way to really get through trauma is time and a lot of hard work.”

At first, Harvey said, the going was slow. After leaving

Colorado State, she withdrew into herself. Eventually, she said, she realized that she was responsible for moving herself forward, instead of waiting for the world to change her situation for her.

“The biggest thing that I decided to do in moving forward was celebrate the little victories — and sometimes that was waking up in the morning,” Harvey said. “Or taking a step outside and looking at the sun even if I was pissed off and I went right back inside. I made a step that I didn’t make yesterday. And so that was a victory.”

Fast forward to 2017. By that time, Harvey had released three albums, and was preparing to audition for America’s Got Talent, NBC’s acclaimed reality TV show and talent competition. The AGT judges were so stunned by Harvey’s audition that she received Simon Cowell’s golden buzzer, catapulting her to the live shows later in the competition.

Out of all the contestants, Harvey placed fourth overall.

→ SEE HARVEY,

PAGE 10 BHAVAN MEHTA | MERCURY STAFF

ALESANDRA BELL | MERCURY STAFF

New coronavirus not major threat to students

JONATHAN PALANT | COURTESY

UTD's choir performed alongside other choir and orchestra groups in Ciudad, Juarez in January.

UTD choir holds concert at U.S.-Mexico border Performance promotes healing through music following 2019 El Paso shooting CALIS LIM

Mercury Staff

Standing shoulder to shoulder, singing out the last few notes of “Let There Be Peace On Earth,” the singers varying in their ages, backgrounds, languages and nationalities conveyed a message of unity and support.

From Jan. 18-19, Jonathan Palant — director of UTD’s choir and Dallas’ Credo Community — organized “Reconnecting Through Art” festivals in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico on the first day and El Paso, Texas on the second. As a result of months of planning alongside a contact in Mexico, Palant was able to bring around 40 UTD students and Dallas’ Credo Community Choir.

Palant came up with the idea after a gunman from Allen killed 22 people in a Walmart in El Paso on Aug. 3 of last year. When he first heard word of the shooting that night, Palant was at a play that addressed immigration issues

at the border.

“The only thing I knew to do was to bring music to the border to promote healing,” Palant said. “It wasn’t about the music, it was about the music as a conduit to bring people together in peace.”

UTD’s choir and Dallas’s Credo Community Choir sang alongside Ciudad Juárez’s Esperanza Azteca Youth Orchestra and Chorus, ensembles from the University of Texas at El Paso and renowned opera singer Frederica von Stade.

“The goal was to bring communities together that otherwise wouldn’t have come together, and we did that through music and art,” Palant said. “Those from Mexico, those from South Texas, those from North Texas. The goal was never about a big audience; it was to support the El Paso community and say that we don’t want the community to be remembered because of a shooting, we want the community to be thought of as coming together through art.”

This form of art, in music, has various

meanings to the students who volunteered and had to fund themselves to go on the trip. Visual and performing arts senior Benjamin Wise said that art is a universal language.

“We went to El Paso and people who spoke Spanish and people who didn’t speak Spanish still had this moment of coming together and bonding over the music that they shared,” Wise said. “It’s a way of showing empathy without necessarily being able to directly communicate with someone.”

In addition to performing to the community, the UTD choir went as a large group to a local homeless shelter to do community service for a few hours.

“That was more of a corporeal, here’s a thing we can do,” Solvay Linde, an ATEC and computer science sophomore said. “We can help you make sandwiches for people and sort things, but just being there, I think, the unity we provided just

→ SEE CHOIR,

PAGE 10

CINDY FOLEFACK Editor-in-Chief

Recent reports estimate over 34,000 cases of coronavirus worldwide, with 0.0003% of those cases in the U.S. Despite the low case rate, media coverage of the virus has sparked nationwide concern.

Coronavirus refers to a family of viruses usually found in animals that are also responsible for the common cold. The latest strain, 2019 novel coronavirus or 2019 nCoV, made the jump from an animal carrier to a human host in December in Wuhan, China. The first case was reported Dec. 1 and has led to 723 deaths, giving it a fatality rate of approximately two percent. This makes 2019 nCoV less than half as deadly as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a different strain of coronavirus that first appeared in 2002. Associate professor of biology John Burr said that the 2019 nCoV’s genome has a unique feature that makes it less harmful than originally thought.

“It turns out the coronavirus genome is quite large. The coronavirus RNA polymerase can actually do what DNA polymerase does,” Burr said. “If it makes a mistake, it can be detected and go back and correct it and then continue on again.”

Polymerases are enzymes used to replicate genetic information. RNA polymer-

ases are error-prone, which means they make errors during replication which lead to mutations that can make viruses more deadly. Unlike most RNA polymerases, the 2019 nCoV’s polymerase has an editing function, minimizing mutations and decreasing the chances of the virus becoming more deadly.

The 2019 nCoV is believed to have spread from Wuhan’s food markets and originated from a bat. While bats aren’t commonly eaten in Wuhan, they are known carriers of disease and can spread diseases to other animals, which are eventually consumed. Burr said that viruses typically use a host’s immune system to eventually kill them.

“It's often not so much that a virus that kills you, but your own immune system kills you. It's called a cytokine storm,” he said.

“Some viruses, especially the 1917 Spanish flu that killed so many people, really superactivated the immune system and it was the inflammatory response of the immune system, all those cytokines that actually was lethal. So, I suspect that's gonna turn out to be true for coronaviruses.”

Bats have a natural ability to suppress the inflammatory response normally activated by viruses, which is why they’re such good hosts. They allow the virus to

→ SEE CORONAVIRUS,

PAGE 10

Feb. 10, 2020 | The Mercury

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THE MERCURY UTDMERCURY.COM Volume XXXIX No. 45

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LEGEND VEHICULAR INCIDENT

THEFT

DRUGS & ALCOHOL OTHER MAP: UTD | COURTESY

Feb. 10, 2020 | The Mercury

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NEWS

ROSHAN KHICHI| MERCURY STAFF

ECS founders chair professor Bhavani Thuraisingham said the degree covers concepts such as hacker psychology and risk analysis.

Cybersecurity masters degree to be offered fall 2020 Dean of EPPS discusses rise in demand for interdisciplinary approach, policy understanding within cybersecurity job industry EMAAN BANGASH Managing Editor

Starting fall 2020, UTD will be offering an interdisciplinary cybersecurity master’s degree.

Although housed in the school of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, the degree is a joint effort with the school of Engineering and Computer Science, and will contain courses from those schools along with the school of Behavioral and Brain Sciences and the school of Management. Dean of EPPS Jennifer Holmes said the degree is designed to combine both the technical and policy aspects of cybersecurity.

“If working for the government or an agency, you're always trying to antici-

pate new types of threats using new venues, new vectors of attack, that sort of thing,” Holmes said. “We want them to be trained broader, more strategically and also understand, most importantly, the policy, legal and ethical implications of this new area of cybersecurity. They can't be just merely technical. They need that policy component.”

Holmes said the degree was first discussed in spring 2017, and she began having conversations with ECS founders chair professor Bhavani Thuraisingham about the need for an interdisciplinary approach to cybersecurity since it was in demand. She said few universities across the country have a strong policy component within their cybersecurity master’s programs, and that the focus remains

mostly on the technical side. The policy component is usually taught on the job, Holmes said.

“Let's say you care about border security. Well, you could shut down the border, right? You could search every car, search every individual, but you're going to kill trade. You're going to kill tourism, right? You're going to cause all sorts of other problems if you only care about one thing,” Holmes said. “You want to promote security, but you also need to keep in mind, what is this agency supposed to be doing? What is the institution supposed to be doing? What's the mission?

And of course you'd have to deal with privacy and … legal regulatory frameworks.

They learn those things on the job or they'll learn that with us.”

The degree does not require any prior technical or computer science experience.

To cover the technical aspects, Thuraisingham said she and eight to nine other CS professors will be teaching two CS courses.

“Not everyone needs to go into the nitty gritty, the nuts and bolts of a system and look at the malware and do analysis.

But of course you need a computer science background, but then there are also what sort of policies that you have to enforce, right?” Thuraisingham said. “So we (as) computer scientists work on policy aspects, but then our work on policy is how you specify the policy in a computer language and how you enforce the policy.”

Thuraisingham said the there are multiple roles within the field of cybersecurity, and the degree includes concepts such as

hacker psychology and risk analysis, which both BBS and JSOM classes will cover.

“Cybersecurity also deals with policy issues, and psychological issues, things like how do hackers think,” Thuraisingham said. “There is ethics, there's auditing, there's risk analysis. (There are) mathematicians, policy specialists, cost economies and brain and behavioral scientists, psychologists, lawyers. They all have a role to play in cybersecurity.”

Assistant professor of political science Vito D’Orazio plans on teaching “Political Violence and Conflict in Cyberspace” next fall as part of the courses being offered within the degree. D’Orazio was approached to cover the policy side of

→ SEE CYBERSECURITY,

PAGE 6

UTD takes part in national recycling challenge

SHUBHECHHYA MUKHERJEE | MERCURY STAFF

Located on the fourth floor of the SSA, 60 students have visited the Student Ombuds Office since its opening.

New office designed to hear student concerns Student Ombuds Office ensures confidentiality, impartiality in discussions CALIS LIM

Mercury Staff

As one student among a sea of nearly 30,000, it’s easy to feel as if your voice can be drowned out. It was for this reason that UTD introduced the Student Ombuds Office, to give students the resources to exercise their agency.

The Student Ombuds Office has many physical and electronic fliers posted, but some students aren’t aware of its function.

In short, the Student Ombuds Office is designed to hear student concerns, relay this to university leaders and administration and start the process of modifications in institutional policies if needed. These concerns can be anything related to the college experience, Diego Garcia Theodore, the assistant vice president for Student Affairs and Student Ombuds, said.

“Most of the concerns we see are academic concerns,” Garcia Theodore said.

“Concerns related to interpersonal conflicts between a professor or student, or students and students or students and staff. That’s across the board for the 400 universities that have Student Ombuds offices. But you’ll also see concerns across the board relating to religious accommodations, complaints of parking — which

is a common thing on campus. Or students might come in and say, ‘I was in the library studying, and it was just too loud.’ The concerns really vary and can be quite unusual.”

The concerns that the ombuds office addresses overlaps with some of the topics that other offices deal with, yet it has a defining characteristic.

“The confidentiality piece is really the cornerstone of the ombuds office,” he said.

“It is a space where students can come and express their concerns in a safe place …

Those discussions between the ombuds and the students are off the record.”

The ombuds office is able to handle the scope of the concerns by reaching out for help from other offices who are better equipped to handle concerns within their field, given that the student allows them to.

“At the core of the Students Ombuds Office, is empowering the student,” Garcia Theodore said. “Empowering the students with the resources so that they can find the solutions to those problems. I can’t advocate for the student. I can advocate for a fair process, but as an ombud, I’m neutral. I don’t have the power to solve their problem; what I can do is empower the student to address their issue.”

The office is also sworn to remain impartial during discussions, and its office is independent in the fact that it doesn’t report to other offices on campus, Garcia Theodore said. If a student discusses a violation of Title IX such as inequalities based on sex or mentions harming themselves or others, however, the Ombuds representative is required to report it, he said. Additionally, the ombuds office doesn’t go through any formal processes like other offices, such as the Office of Community Standards does, on campus.

“We help to analyze, we strategize, we evaluate, we help to develop options to help the students arrive to their own solutions,” Garcia Theodore said. “We also empower the students with university resources and services that they may go to in order to address their concerns.”

There are ombuds offices all throughout the UT System, and according to benchmarks at other universities, established branches see around 250 to 300 students per year. The UTD office, located on the fourth floor of the Student Services Addition, opened last August and their office has had around 60 students visit since then. They hope to increase that number

→ SEE OMBUDS,

PAGE 6

ROSHAN KHICHI| MERCURY STAFF

Near the end of February, the Office of Sustainability will make an appearance with ‘Mount Trashmore,’ a pile of trash made from waste generated on campus.

BEN NGUYEN Mercury Staff

UTD is joining hundreds of colleges nationwide in an eco-friendly competition aimed at maximizing recycling.

RecycleMania is an annual event between schools that serves as both an incentive and benchmark for recycling across the nation from Feb. 2 to March 28. Universities measure how much they recycle and compare it with other universities. The competition isn’t just about the amount of materials recycled however, Sustainability Coordinator Caitlin Griffith said.

“Something that can be a little bit confusing about RecycleMania is that the goal is to increase our recycling rate, but that doesn’t mean to increase our recycling rate,” Griffith said. “The general goal is to decrease our overall general waste and increase our recycling rate at the same time.”

Because RecycleMania encompasses all the recycling on campus, every student and faculty member is participating.

The recycling rate is measured with help from Waste Management, which provides

reports of the weight of all waste sent to either the landfill or the recycling facility.

Previously, UTD was only able to visually estimate how much waste was in the landfill bins, Griffith said.

“We will have hard data as far as our actual true rates are. So right now we’re setting the standard and hopefully in the future years we can refer back to these numbers as a challenge to ourselves,” she said.

While cardboard and paper are wellknown recyclables, students can also recycle plastics, grocery bags, batteries and old clothing at various bins around campus.

“Plastic items I think are probably the most (difficult) to try and figure out how to recycle. The easiest thing to do is to look on the bottom of the container,” Griffith said. “There is usually a recycle sign and inside of the recycle sign is a number. On campus we can recycle numbers one, two, three, four, five and seven.”

UTD is participating in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Food Recovery Challenge in tandem with RecycleMania.

→ SEE RECYCLE,

PAGE 6

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LIFE&ARTS

Feb. 10, 2020 | The Mercury

Video game review: ‘GTFO’ Horror shooter game challenges players to use teamwork to win

CHIAMAKA MGBOJI | GRAPHICS EDITOR

ANNA PHENGSAKMUEANG | PHOTO EDITOR

BEN NGUYEN

Entrepreneurship and marketing sophomore Eric Aaberg dedicates over 20 hours each week for UTD-related extracurricular activities.

LOVER OF ALL THInGS UTD

Sophomore uses social media to create connections, spread school spirit ANJALI VENNA News Editor

He calls himself the sorcerer of school spirit, his personal Instagram is a mosaic of green and orange and Temoc flashes across multiple posts. Entrepreneurship and marketing sophomore Eric Aaberg takes school spirit to a whole new level, and he wants to share that with other students.

Aaberg is the president of Comet Life, a student organization he created his freshman year, runs the JSOM and UTD Spirit Instagram accounts, works as a Peer Advisor in the Residence Halls, is student director of esports and works another remote job.

“A lot of my free time goes back into UTD because I take joy in it.

When I came to UTD I definitely fell in love with the culture we have here, and I really wanted to spread that to other students,” Aaberg said. “We are not a traditional university as we’re only 50 years old, so

school spirit is really a bit different.

I would say it’s growing, it’s not as big as I would love it to be and I’d love to change that.”

UTD was not Aaberg’s first choice, but he said he postponed applying to college in general. After an unsatisfying experience the first three years of high school, he transferred to JJ Pearce High School for his senior year. There, he created a club called Remain Happy and joined the swim team.

“The number one lesson I learned was, and this was from Twitter, ‘If you learn one thing from high school, it’s that do not be afraid of what other people think of you,’” Aaberg said. “From that I really took into perspective that I can do whatever I want, be whoever I want and it’s the peoples’ choice to accept me or not.”

At first, he said he viewed UTD as a commuter school and while orientation changed his initial perceptions, he did not expect to be as involved in school spirit as he is.

One way he got involved was by creating the aforementioned UTD Comet Life Instagram account.

“In my freshman year, I missed Comet Camp, so I wanted a way to connect with these students.

Through that, I was able to actually get to know all these people from Instagram,” Aaberg said. “I still have a lot of people come up and be like ‘Oh my gosh I know you from Instagram.’”

University administration has been supportive, Aaberg said, and now, the organization consists of more than 20 volunteers, a majority of whom are freshmen.

“I’m not surprised. Every incoming freshman class has more spirit,” he said. “Even President Benson said in the State of the University Address we just see more school spirit every year.”

In regards to his school spirit, Aaberg received negative feedback and has been told it is “cringey.” “(School spirit), it's a new idea in a sense, something you expect

at other colleges but when people come to UTD it's kind of expected that there's no school spirit,” Aaberg said. “Honestly, cringey is just something other people are too afraid of doing themselves. If I'm going to be called cringey for having school spirit, it just means I'm doing something out of my comfort zone. But it really doesn’t bug me because it's what makes me happy at the end of the day.”

Aaberg puts in 20-40 hours per week in extracurriculars that are related to UTD. Time management and Google calendar allow him to be involved in these various organizations.

“Being so much out there you have so many people watching you, and it feels like that’s a lot of stress and responsibility sometimes and people don’t really see that unless you’re in that position,” Aaberg said. “Yeah obviously I do get tired sometimes, but when it comes to

→ SEE SPIRIT,

PAGE 6

Mercury Staff

Scared of the bump in the night and of social interaction? Then “GTFO” will provide the most horrifying cooperative first person shooter experience you'll have in a while. The only question is, how relevant is it in the modern gaming space?

“GTFO” is a first person cooperative horror shooter developed by 10 Chambers Collective. Ten Chambers Collective is comprised of nine people, mainly previous developers of the “Payday” franchise and Simon Viklund, a well-known DJ who composed the majority of the “Payday” franchise soundtrack. With this previous experience, they are wellversed in making a good co-op game, but “GTFO” is a ways off the beaten track of previous co-op shooters like “Payday” and “Left for Dead 2.”

You play as one of four prisoners sent by a mysterious warden to complete various tasks while not trying to get killed by the various monsters within the depths of the complex. While it’s in Early Access right now, most of the main gameplay loop is there, with only some UI elements and game functionality missing.

In “GTFO,” there are no AI teammate substitutes, nor are there any plans of creating any from 10 Chambers Collective.

“GTFO” is built from the ground up with four players in mind, and that’s because it requires extreme precision and teamwork throughout the entire gameplay loop.

Players will have to stealth through the various zones on a map, silently killing the

→ SEE GTFO,

PAGE 6

Senior rises as new contender in UTD's chicken tender scene Student writes Reddit reviews for fried finger food

ROSHAN KHICHI | MERCURY STAFF

SP/N gallery's contemporary exhibition, Zarafa Unfolding, is running from Jan. 14 to Feb 15.

ANNA PHENGSAKMUEANG | PHOTO EDITOR

Economics senior Joshua Evers has been using the UTD subreddit as a platform to share his reviews of vaious chicken tender restaurants since April 2019.

BEN NGUYEN Mercury Staff

A playful online joke between friends has now grown into a Reddit sensation at UTD. The centerpiece of the content?

Chicken tenders.

Economics senior Joshua Evers said it all started in April 2019 when he had a friend who was constantly making jokes about chicken tenders. At some point, he suggested that they just go to the UTD Pub for some chicken tenders.

“I looked at my friend and I said, ‘How funny would it be if I hopped on the UTD subreddit and I just wrote the most meme review of these, like I was some food critic?’” Evers said. “And he was so into it.”

Under the username u/Throwaway-

forTendies, he posted the first of now five chicken tender reviews to the UTD subreddit. In the beginning, reviews were posted within one to two weeks of each other, and over time the reviews have gotten more and more elaborate, with more things considered when reviewing the chicken tenders. Criteria include the aesthetic of the restaurant, the crunch factor, the seasoning and even the fries.

“I feel like the classic meal whenever you’re not sure what to get at a restaurant is always chicken tendies and fries and those two are so related, ” Evers said. “So you (have) to know how the fries are going to taste, how it’s all going to complement each other.”

→ SEE TENDERS,

PAGE 6

Zarafa unfolding Middle Eastern, South Asian artists tell their stories through art works, installations AYESHA ASAD Mercury Staff

In the late 1820s, the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt gifted the king of France a giraffe from Sudan. The charming animal, which was new to the Parisians, inspired giraffethemed wallpaper, spotted fabric and even horn-shaped hairstyles among the French.

The giraffe lived for 18 years in Paris, attempting to adapt to a new land – and a new culture. She is now known as Zarafa, a word in Arabic that means “charming” or “beautiful” and is a phonetic variant of the word for giraffe, zerafa.

“Zarafa Unfolding,” an art exhibition at the SP/N Gallery that runs from Jan. 14

to Feb. 15, holds true to its name: it is a collection of stories from artists who have adapted to a new land, a home away from home. In one piece, delicate calligraphy adorns transparent panels, with the word “love” in Arabic, repeatedly drawn over and over. The artworks, which are primarily crafted by Middle Eastern and South Asian artists, are soulful and expressive, depicting both the brutality and beauty of adapting to a new homeland, often due to war.

Greg Metz, an arts and humanities professor at UTD and the curator of “Zarafa Unfolding,” said that the stories in the exhibition are from artists who have successfully adapted and lent their contribution

to the cultural fabric of Dallas.

“One of them is from San Francisco, one of them is from Virginia, one of them is in Maryland, one of them is in New York, but from Istanbul,” Metz said.

“I wanted to demonstrate that there isn’t a signature style that says Middle East, South Asian art. There’s an Islamic kind of referencing in some of the work. There is a lot of reference to contemporary, a contemporizing of calligraphy.”

A soulful recording of a man reciting adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, rings out softly in the background of the entire exhibit. The voice is melodious and

→ SEE ZARAFA,

PAGE 6

SPORTS

Feb. 10, 2020 | The Mercury

ROSHAN KHICHI | MERCURY STAFF

ROSHAN KHICHI | MERCURY STAFF

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ROSHAN KHICHI | MERCURY STAFF

A ROCKY START Comets set sights on ASC Championship tournament despite losses in first two games ELLIS BLAKE HIDALGO Mercury Staff

With the spring semester in full swing, the UTD baseball team has gotten off to a rough start in its 2020 season at the Cactus Classic where they lost their first two games 3-0 and 16-6. Despite a tough opening, the Comets remain hopeful for the upcoming season.

The team, which ended its 2019 season with a 21-21 overall record, welcomed 14 freshman players this year. Head coach Shane Shewmake said older teammates have helped bring in the new players.

“It really comes down to the players and their leadership, and being able to get guys together and become teammates and you have a short time to do that,” Shewmake said. “That's really the trick, and the quicker we can do that, probably the more success we're going to have.”

On top of bringing in freshmen, the team has also introduced 10 new transfer players. Besides working to integrate themselves onto the team, Shewmake said they’d helped pull the rest of the team together.

“There's some transfers that have come in and really done a good job as far as being leaders,” Shewmake said. “They've been through it, and it might have been at another school, but they understand what it takes. We've got a couple of those guys that are stepping up and being leaders that way.”

Last season, the team made it to the first round of the ASC Championship tournament, where the players won 11-2 against Louisiana College in their first game before facing a tight 13-12 loss to the same school in the last game of the season. As the Comets prepare to face off against some of the same teams they’ve played in prior years, Shewmake said it would be important for players not to worry about who’s in the other dugout and keep past games in mind.

“Everytime we play somebody, we're keeping charts on them, and their hitters and where they hit the ball and what they hit, and their pitches and what they throw, and all the things you have to do. So the more we play those people, the more you know about a certain hitter and what he does, so you can adjust your defense accord-

ingly,” Shewmake said. “If they're bringing a pitcher in and you can know what his tendencies are and let your hitters know, so that as we play teams we get a little more familiar, you get a better idea of what you want to do against them.”

Kicking off his fourth season with the Comets, senior third baseman Isaiah Swann said he could see the team competing on the national stage.

“We all believe that we can do big things.

We believe we can make history this year,” Swann said. “We're not thinking conference championship, but we're looking past that. I wouldn’t pass it, but we want to get a national championship this year. I feel like we have the talent and the depth. I feel a real difference this year.”

By setting its sights on the national championship, the team is aiming to surpass the 2018 Comets, the first UTD baseball team to win the ASC Championship Tournament.

Having been a part of the 2018 season, Swann said that what the Comets now lack in experience and stability, the new team makes up for with intensity and determination.

“There was a lot of stability there, which I think really helped us as compared to 2020.

We have a lot of transfers and a bunch of new guys, so there's a lot of moving parts.

But the thing that's different, is that there's no… getting a feel for how the team works and things like that here in 2020,” he said.

“Once those guys came in, they were new but they figured it out quickly and there wasn't really an adjustment period. It just felt like everybody fit in and we instantly were going.”

The Comets have been preparing for the season since the start of the fall semester, with some players having practiced through the summer. With their practice schedule coming to approximately 30 hours a week, Swann said it would be important for the team to continue to stay focused on its end goal.

“We set a goal from day one, and we're chasing that goal every day. We’ve got to remind ourselves that's what we're working for every day,” Swann said. “You can’t take one day off, you can’t take a step back.

You’ve got to get one percent better every single day.”

Men's tennis starts season anew Team to compete in East region for first time since 2014 after UT Tyler leaves ELLIS BLAKE HIDALGO Mercury Staff

The UTD men’s tennis team recently kicked off its 2020 season. Having won the 2019 ASC Championships, the team is preparing for what players hope to be another successful run.

After 2019 victory, the Comets were voted the regional favorites in the Eastern Division III tennis conference. While he said he was happy to see the Comets chosen, head men’s and women’s tennis coach Bryan Whitt said the distinction put pressure on the team to live up to the title.

“It’s going to take a whole lot of will, although the players that were here have that experience, they have that confidence, but they also have that pressure now. Part of it is managing that, so while it is the same school, same facility, some of the same players, it's still an entirely new season,” Whitt said. “So you almost start over in that regard, which is not a bad thing, because you want this team to go through that same journey like the other

team did, and not sort of, ‘Hey, we did it last year, so we can do this.’”

The 2020 season marks the first year for UTD as members of the East region, having played in the West region since 2014. Despite facing previously unseen teams and players, Whitt said that with all the changes all teams goes through every year, switching regions wouldn’t affect the Comets’ performance.

“We were 16 teams on the East, seven teams on the West, (UT) Tyler left, so it's seven and five. So we moved over,” Whitt said. “We're in the middle, or the westernmost East team and the easternmost West team. So if there's a number change, we're like a yo-yo; we go back and forth.”

While they make their transition to the East, the Comets have the benefit of having a relatively experienced team. Although both teams graduated some of their top players in 2019, Whitt said the depth of the team meant their younger players were ready to step up and take their place.

For the players that have had to step up,

their responsibilities have gone past their performance on the court. Senior Ashwin Vaithianathan said it was important for the upperclassmen to create a team mindset to help welcome in both team’s new players.

“We're definitely practicing together and all that, but if we can hang out off the court as much as we can and just show them we're friends and teammates, not just practicing together,” Vaithianathan said. “So I'm going to do that as someone that's one of the older guys on the team. I'm trying to get all the young guys, you know, everyone's coming over to my place. We're all hanging out. Just trying to get everyone involved together and have that team mindset going into the season.”

In cultivating a team mentality among the rest of the players, Vaithianathan said he hoped to create the same feeling that helped the team win the ASC championship in 2019. As he helps to integrate new players onto the men’s team, he said he also hopes to see the team’s success continue after his graduation.

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SOUJANYA BHAT | MERCURY ARCHIVES

The UTD men's tennis team were voted as regional favorites at Eastern Division III tennis conference in 2019.

EMAAN SAMANTHA LOPEZBANGASH | MERCURY| MERCURY STAFF STAFF

Feb. 10, 2020 | The Mercury

6 → TENNIS

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“It's been really fun to like to see my own progress. From not being in the lineup, getting higher and higher every year, but it's also been nice to kind of pass that on,” Vaithianathan said. “The next freshmen are coming in, and now they're kind of seeing that our culture has gotten a lot better as a team since I've been here, not necessarily because of me. I've tried to do my

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school spirit, it's definitely something I harness energy from, in a sense, and (it) really motivates me.”

He said he does feel drained when he sees a lack of school spirit among students.

“When we go to certain sports games or even the Homecoming parade, it's kind of sad to see that so much work is being put forth to these programs and not even 100

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monsters while conserving as much ammo as possible. Waste ammo killing too many creatures, and you’ll run out of ammo for the required alarm horde waves, and then your whole team dies.

These monsters are all vaguely humanoid mutant creatures, with melee and ranged variants. Key doors are protected by a security alarm that must be disarmed by the team while fending off an oncoming horde of monsters with a varied arsenal. Once the main objective is achieved, players must perform the titular action, and return to the entrance of the level.

Levels are organized by the Rundown, a constantly changing set of levels ranging in difficulty. The Rundown is essentially a work order from the warden, with more difficult expeditions located deeper into the complex.

Players can play the same levels of the Rundown repeatedly until the Rundown is refreshed. The Rundown has a timer, changing levels with an average time of a month depending on the complexity of the levels created. Each level is handcrafted by the team to be a different experience, not randomly created, and so players can experience and learn about new layouts and tactics every time they dive into the complex. There are currently up to four levels, from areas A-D with multiple expeditions on each tier depending on

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Instead of recycling, the Food Recovery Challenge tracks food waste. In 2019, UTD won the Association of Physical Plant Administrator’s Sustainability Innovation Award for its initiatives to reduce 66% of food waste from campus dining facilities.

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in the foreseeable future, Garcia Theodore said.

“There is much more that we can do, but first we need to get the word out,” he said. “We’re looking forward to the positive

NEWS

part, but I think that our team is a lot more together now than it was when I first came here. So I'm hoping that these guys can keep it going once I leave.”

The Comets have been practicing together since the fall, managing a schedule including hitting and weights. Although they train as a team, junior John Edwards said each player trains differently. As a new transfer from Collin College, Edwards said he’d experienced a smooth transition onto the team,

especially since he’d played against and met many of the players before. As a junior, he said he hopes to continue the welcoming team culture as a senior.

“Competing for conference and winning, trying to keep that going as the years go by can be difficult when you lose players,” Edwards said. “But you want their impact and their legacy to last after they're gone so that you can keep that tradition going, to keep that success running on and really give it to the freshmen.”

people seem to be out at the parade,” Aaaberg said. “It’s something that needs to be addressed, maybe they have tried, and I just haven’t seen a public statement about it, but this is something that I’m passionate about helping with.”

Aaberg encourages students to go to games and other student life events.

“I want to create a call out to students, just take this advice,” Aaberg said. “Hey look, you’re at

UTD, whether this is your first choice or not, take pride in it. If you’re here for the next six months or even four years, make the best of it. Go out to games, go out to do things, take pride in your university, take pride in getting involved on campus. It's really going to improve your life, your academics, and when you look back you don't want to have regrets. Get involved, go do these things; you’ll definitely have fun.”

the Rundown that is currently released. Ultimately, there is no goal but to complete the objectives of the various expeditions and get out alive, but this will most likely change as development continues.

To dive into the complex is no easy task. The developers have stated that this is not an easy game, and it’s easy to see why.

In an early-access state, there is no tutorial, only YouTube videos from various community members. Players need to get acquainted with how the monsters react to light, movement and what it takes to kill them. The patient stealth gameplay that comes with trying to quietly kill most of the enemies can be very stressful; not only do you have to have a good grasp of the stealth mechanics, but the rest of your team also needs to know exactly how to not set off the horde. This can quickly lead to frustrations when teams of players aren’t good at communication or with stealth gameplay in general, as one wrong move ends an expedition into the complex.

The gameplay consists of the team attempting to stealthily melee kill enemies room by room, with nearly no lighting except for flashlights and glowsticks. If the team reaches an alarmed door, they’ll have to fight off a horde of the monsters while disarming the alarm, and if they alert the creatures in stealth, they’ll have to fight them off with precious rare ammo. And ammo rarity, while a staple of horror games, is

unique to the cooperative shooter genre, especially the level of rarity in this game. It is impossible to shoot your way past four rooms at certain points, with the entire team running out of ammo as the monsters keep coming. The sound design in the game features disturbing and creepy sounds emanating from the monsters when the team is still in stealth mode, and music ramping up as the monsters are alerted and the bullets start flying. The combination of the stealth, music timings, environment and creatures create the horror aspect, and more than anything it’s a fear of failure and of starting over rather than of the actual gruesome creatures.

“GTFO” is a difficult game.

In-game matchmaking doesn’t even exist yet, with the official form of matchmaking being the use of the official “GTFO” Discord to group up with other players for expeditions into the complex. It fits the very specific niche of difficult cooperative horror first person shooter and does not offer much to appeal to the broader masses. There are no payto-win mechanics or loot boxes, just a horror game that knows who its audience is. It does a great job of being the perfect game for that niche audience, which is why if you do decide to hop in, it’ll be pretty easy to find dedicated players to play with on the Discord server. But for most people, it’s probably best to go with the game’s title and GTFO.

A full list of recyclable materials is available on UTD’s Office of Sustainability website and office employees will make an appearance at the Chess Plaza near the end of February with “Mount Trashmore,” a pile of trash made up of the waste generated on campus in a single day.

“The purpose is really to, in

the short term, have a competitive nature and inspire everyone to do their best to recycle properly and to just be cognizant of what waste that they’re throwing away on a daily basis,” Griffith said. “But for the long run we’re really hoping that people will take these lessons into their daily lives past the competition.”

opportunities that this office can provide for the students.”

In terms of current projects, the Ombuds office has had conversations that have resulted in positive outcomes, but some concerns take longer to address, Garcia Theodore said. Before his time at UTD, there was al-

ready talk to bring it on campus to improve student representation, Garcia Theodore said.

“All students are welcome to come in and use this office as a resource,” he said. “We are genuinely trying to help the students have a fruitful experience on campus.”

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Originally, Evers ranked the restaurants on a numerical scaale, but quickly realized that when most places are too similar, it becomes difficult to easily compare everything. Evers fixed this by starting to keep a ranking of everywhere he has reviewed, so that comparison becomes easier over time.

“Right now, Super Chix is at the top, because they fry their tendies in peanut oil. It’s like Raising Canes and Chick-fil-A had a love child that’s just better than them. It’s got the sweetness of the Chick-fil-A frying,

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reminiscent. Perhaps that is like the exhibit itself, a reminder of what loveliness resides in our diverse universe – and how swiftly it can be stripped away.

One hanging installation created by Fahimeh Vahdat, a Bahá'í from Persia who immigrated to the U.S., features circular panels dangling from the ceiling, with women’s faces printed on many of them. In one rose pink illustration, magenta smudges partially obscure a woman’s somber face, while in another piece, gray lettering is drawn repeatedly over another woman’s face. “(Vahdat) … has gone on to really make a name for herself, and all of her work is about injustice and domestic violence mostly in her country that she’s come from, but also how some of that is held over and demonstrated here,” Metz said. “That hanging piece has portraits of women who have been disfigured by having acid thrown on

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3

cybersecurity, much of which he already covers in his undergraduate courses such as “Data and Policy.”

“In my classes, we’re talking a lot about the incentives that actors have to use and manipulate the information in cyberspace to achieve their political objectives. So when I think of cybersecurity, I'm not speaking from a strictly technical side like ‘how do I prevent hackers from accessing my data?’ That's a computer science question,” he

the seasoning and freshness that you get at Raising Canes,” Evers said. “It just comes together in this beautiful harmony.”

Following Super Chix is Raising Canes at number two, then Chick-fil-A, the Pub and Chili’s at the bottom.

But why specifically the chicken tenders? Evers said that chicken tenders are something that has universal appeal, so that regardless of age they can be enjoyed.

“It’s not small like a nugget, it’s not grown-up feeling like a bone-in wing. It’s that perfect Goldilocks zone right in the middle,” he said. “I’ve never met somebody that has not had

a soft spot in their heart for chicken tenders.”

Although he took a short hiatus, Evers was called back to action by a subreddit post on Jan. 18 asking about the absence of chicken tender reviews. With previous reviews gaining hundreds of upvotes, and the masses of UTD’s subreddit and more asking for his return, Evers returned to review Super Chix, and soon Golden Chick.

Evers has decided to keep doing reviews since they’ve been well received and it’s just been fun to do.

“May your tendies always be crispy and may the sauce always be bountiful,” he said.

their faces. So when you look at that and you see the drops and things that are drawn into those prints or etched into those prints, that’s the acid disfiguration of an identity trying to be erased.”

A heartbreaking video installation depicts a man named Abdul Ameer Alwan painting soft pink landscapes in front of the camera and watching his daughter play in a park, hoping that she doesn’t forget Iraq.

“All my friends and I are hoping to return to Iraq sooner,” he said in the video. “Today before tomorrow.”

The video evokes a solemnity that is peaceful with a touch of sorrow. One cannot forget that this man was displaced from his home due to a violent, bloody war. Metz said that Alwan never truly adapted but passed away of, more or less, a broken heart.

His art, so celebrated in Iraq, was not considered with the same interest in America.

“He’s someone who came over as a mid-career artist who was well-respected in Baghdad.

After the war started in 2003 as we invaded Iraq, he was exiled to Jordan and then he lived in Jordan for four years until they closed the galleries down there,” Metz said. “When he got here in Dallas, he experienced a tornado for the first time. So he compared what he went through and what his family went through with the invasion of Iraq as a tornado, you know, their tornado or their version of the tornado.”

There’s a little bit of everything in the show, Metz said, but there’s not a signature style or a stereotypical way of looking at the art created by the artists in this exhibition.

“The story trying to be told by this exhibition is how creatives adapt to a new homeland, how they creatively express themselves in a different surrounding reflective of both their culture, their historic descendancy, but also trying to adapt to a very contemporary world and trying to compete on the level of a larger contemporary art world,” he said. “‘Unfolding’ is the telling of that story.”

said. “I'm more thinking about the incentives that adversaries have to get your data, or not even adversaries necessarily, the incentives that governments have to get your data and what they might want to do with it, and the incentives that countries have to get into the network of another country.”

Holmes said the bridge between technology and policy within the degree is necessary for cybersecurity jobs where policy specialists are currently in demand. She said aspiring students at the master’s level

need the policy aspect, or they won’t get jobs.

“I think UT Dallas has a lot to offer, not just of course in our school, but across the university … we can really do well when we work together,” Holmes said. “What I like is UT Dallas is known for strategic areas of strength, historic areas of strengths in engineering, computer science, and the tech side. Well, if we can partner with them, we can create a whole other area for students to go into.”

COMICS BEST FRIENDS 4 EVA

Feb. 10, 2020 | The Mercury

7

SONIC IS BAE

JENNA CHERREY | MERCURY STAFF

BRO...

QUINN SHERER | MERCURY STAFF

BIANCA DEL RIO | MERCURY STAFF

MUCH WUV, GWIM WEAPER

COUNT CHOCULA HATES TO SEE IT

LOUISE NILLAS | MERCURY STAFF

THE MERCURY OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2020

CECILIA ROMERO | MERCURY STAFF

BOW DOWN, PIGEONS

SHELBY PEREZ | MERCURY STAFF

O&B: CAT GOT YOUR TONGUE

COMET VALENTINE'S CARDS

ELIZABETH NGUYEN | MERCURY STAFF

SARAH STREETY| MERCURY STAFF

LOUISE NILLAS | MERCURY STAFF

8

OPINION

Feb. 10, 2020 | The Mercury

Food for late-night thoughts Campus nightlife can be improved by longer restaurant hours MRUNMAYI SATHAYE Mercury Staff

CECILIA ROMERO | MERCURY STAFF

A couple of weeks ago, I was dropped back to my dorm a little earlier in the weekend than I usually would’ve been. In an effort to prepare myself for the week to come, I decided to take a stroll to the library through campus. As I trudged through the cold, I couldn’t help but notice how empty and dark campus felt.

I wasn’t used to living at UTD over the weekend — let alone roaming around campus — and I was taken aback. Nightlife, which comprises all the entertainment and social opportunities on campus, seems to be lacking at UTD, and food, as well as activities surrounding food can be a potential solution to this issue.

A survey conducted by The Princeton Review on 140,000 students at 385 colleges revealed that UTD was in the top ten universities with unhappy students.

According to an article written by The Mercury, Clinical Direactor of the Student Counseling Center Jenna Temkin said that while the survey was not an accurate representation of the school, the sentiment could be attributed to disconnection. UTD, a school in which 75% of students commute, is a playground for disconnection.

The Student Union is a hub of campus activity: the SU is bustling with people

waiting in line to eat, walls lined with posters to advertise various clubs and meetings and filled with people casually hanging around in their breaks. However, the Student Union is the only central location of student gathering, and even that diminishes over the weekend. Considering how much of the student body consists of commuters, the vivacious activity of the Student Union relies on those students.

Unfortunately, for those living on campus, weekend and night life is virtually non-existent. For a lot of commuters, college simply consists of attending classes and the occasional club.

At night, the streets of UTD are quiet, effectively adding to the disconnection between students.

It is said that food brings people together, and the school can work to cultivate a more active campus. By either adding cheaper options for dining throughout campus, such as fast food or by concentrating entertainment in popular food locations, the school can drive up not only activity, but also revenue. Commuters — the backbone of this school — can benefit massively from these potential solutions and influence campus interactivity.

Creating cheaper food options throughout campus will lead to an increase in demand for food, thus allowing UTD to profit. Commuters would have more of an incentive to stay on campus with cheaper food options, either to study

longer on campus or to hang out. Commuters, even if given the option of going home to eat, might be inclined to pick eating at UTD restaurants if restaurants are more flexible, available and cheaper.

Adding available food all around campus would make eating, studying and hanging out easier. Campus food improvements can also affect the activities provided by UTD. As more people remain on campus at later times, more activities can be created to entertain people which can, in turn, draw more people toward these food locations to eat. For example, an open mic night last month hosted by SUAAB at The Pub actually caused more people to show up. Thus, a positive feedback loop, created from the relationship between food and activities, is formed.

Change is a two-way street. Even if the SU restaurants decide to stay open longer and food becomes more available on campus, the students of UTD have to show up. If students can come in for food during the latest time that restaurants can remain open, it will show the need for extended hours on campus. It would show that extended hours can actually be utilized by students. SUAAB, similarly, holds various events throughout campus, and often, clubs on campus hand out free food. If students can show that extended hours are necessary, they can contribute to changing the dynamic on campus.

Socialism Supported

ZAYNAH REHAN

Mercury Staff Throughout the span of world history, we have both observed and learned from the rise and ultimate demise of global powers that once successfully ruled under their own specific forms of government.

Through these times, the perspective on the ideal choice of leadership has continuously changed. In modern day society, it surely seems to be widely accepted that democracy is an unwavering sign of wealth by the people, respect from the people and a system that maintains the best interest for the people. Despite these things, the inherent flaw of humans has revealed defects within democracy that uprisings and revolutions in the past have repeatedly struggled to end: hunger, unemployment, social inequality, etc. Today, the lack of healthcare and access to education have also become significant problems. In order to overcome these flaws, it is important to understand the underlying ideology of the people, the possible way of fixing issues in the country through socialism, a vital key to improving the state of the nation, and the increasing concern behind such a solution.

Of the greatest “enemies” to the current system we’re so quick to defend as patriots in the U.S., communism has been repeatedly and strongly condemned as an obstacle to the accessibility of freedom to the globe. While communism does in fact keep individual citizens from climbing the socioeconomic ladder for better opportunities — and has come to be universally accepted as a failed form of government post-Cold War — a distinct quality of democracy has also shown a similar failure.

With democracy comes a governmental structure that encourages financial growth from the people that a government alone

Critiqued

can’t possibly control: the exact opposite of what communism, in its time, stood for. Capitalism, an aspect of a healthy democracy, is defined as an arrangement where the economy — business — is privatized and run by the citizens. This very setup, while promising, contains the problematic possibility of spreading to other sectors of a country.

Today, capitalism in America influences two main aspects of a country’s lifeline: healthcare and education. According to NBC, “an estimated 27.5 million people, 8.5% of the population, went without health insurance in 2018.” Furthermore, the average cost of higher education — which is, in many cases, a necessity in order to find a job that pays well today — increased 213% even when accounting for inflation, between 1987 and 2017 according to CNBC. As a country’s health and its level of intellect impacts the quantity of financial gain to its citizens as a whole, both sectors should be as accessible as possible to everyone. After all, democracy itself calls for equal opportunity for everyone. It seems that more often than not, democracy now has become beneficial to only the top one percent, and a struggle to the rest.

In order to properly address this dilemma that affects millions, socializing and universalizing these very areas of necessity for the people will prove to be beneficial in the long run.

Despite many countries that have progressed rather well in a democratic socialist system — Norway and Finland, for example — it is commonly mistaken with the foundations of communism and rejected in the U.S. This misinformation has become highly advantageous to many influential officials in Congress and corporate owners, as those in the government have passed tax cuts while ignoring priori-

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PAGE 10

MICHAEL LOCKWOOD Mercury Staff

Chances are you have running water, clean clothes, a phone and plans for a decent lunch. By the standards of the first 95% of human history, you’re living in luxury. And it’s not just you. Everyone is becoming wealthier, especially the poor.

A recent update from Our World in Data showed that from 2002-2015, the number of people living in extreme poverty has decreased by over 50%, and continues to drop at a staggering rate. As the free market expands across the world, life keeps improving.

Despite this rapid progress, socialist activists push for radical transformation of the current economic system. They claim that the wealthy are exploiting the poor, and assign the Marxist labels of “oppressor” and “oppressed” to each group.

To address this problem of economic inequality, socialists call for the total redistribution of wealth.

Socialism isn’t merely about high taxes and large government benefits. The ideology extends much deeper than popular models like those of the Nordic countries.

The prime minister of Denmark himself said, “Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.” The ultimate aim of socialism is that every aspect of the economy is controlled by the government. All wealth, both production and distribution, is controlled by a central planning agency.

Early socialist thinkers like Karl Marx and Harold Laski openly admitted that such a society could only be accomplished via authoritarian rule. Despite their philosophy, we’ve seen throughout history that a democracy is not efficient enough to pass legislation as complex as a comprehensive economic plan. Delegating

power must be concentrated in the hands of a few elites. This is what Harold Laski meant when he spoke of the need for “delegated legislation” unhindered by “parliamentary procedure.”

Perhaps it is possible to have authoritarian rule over the economy while maintaining democracy in all other facets of government. However, when one considers just how reliant people are on the economy, it becomes clear that total economic control means control over every aspect of human life. It is no surprise, then, that almost every socialist-turned government, if not already run by a dictator, quickly becomes totalitarian.

Venezuela was once the wealthiest country in South America. In late 1990, it transformed into a socialist nation under the leadership of Hugo Chávez. Leftists around the world celebrated Venezuela as a great socialist victory — until it experienced the worst economic collapse in recent history, in part due to socialism. Today, impoverished citizens struggle to obtain basic necessities like bread and toilet paper. Crime is rampant and nearly everyone is hungry. So hungry, that in order to solve the problem of starvation, the government has forbidden hospitals from reporting “malnutrition” as a cause of death among infants.

As the economy declines, socialist dictatorships must find a way to deal with social unrest. The traditional solution has been terror and suppression. Midnight raids, false confessions, interrogations, torture, forced labor and executions have characterized nearly every socialist government in history. The Soviet Union led the way in brutality shortly after the state seized control of the Russian economy.

Soviet Russia’s torture victims could expect anything from having one’s skull slowly crushed, to standing six inches

→ SEE LOCKED,

PAGE 10

Feb. 10, 2020 | The Mercury

9

OPINION EMILY SMITH

Mercury Staff

Over What Weight?

Debunking the Body Mass Index

“The FitnessGram pacer test is a multistage aerobic capacity test that progressively gets more difficult as it continues…”

Now considered a meme, the FitnessGram was a staple of many childhoods.

Despite making people laugh now, one part of the FitnessGram was far from a joking matter: being weighed in front of the entire class. Weight — more specifically Body Mass Index — has been used for decades to define what it means to be “healthy.” However, BMI is not a proper indicator of health, and using it as such can be detrimental to an individual’s physical and mental health.

Since 1972, doctors, insurance companies and government officials have placed emphasis on the importance of maintaining a healthy BMI. However, what many don’t know is that the formula for BMI was created by a mathematician in 1832 to track overall health trends of a population. When the formula was revived in the ‘70s, however, more emphasis was placed on the BMI of individuals and it began influencing prescribed treatments. To this day, an individual’s BMI is marked down every time they visit the doctor’s office, even if just for a flu test. It is actually well within a patient’s right to refuse to be weighed, barring there is no medical need for an updated weight.

The reason BMI cannot be used as a marker of individual health is because it simply takes into account weight and height. It does not look at body composition — such as water, bone, muscle, and fat mass — which puts many athletes into the “overweight” category, implying they are unhealthy. Think of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, he is not in the “normal” BMI range, yet is still far from unhealthy.

Additionally, the cutoff for an “overweight”

BMI is completely arbitrary. In 1998, overweight was considered to be a BMI of 27.8 or above. However, overnight the National Institutes of Health changed this number to 25 to be more in line with global standards.

Who set these standards? Pharmaceutical companies selling weight loss drugs and would benefit from more people being categorized as “unhealthy.”

Because of the misunderstanding of BMI, it has been given more power than it warrants in the medical field and weight loss is often overprescribed. It is assumed that if a person is in a larger body their illness is due to their weight and thus their fault. Multiple studies have shown that while weight may be correlated with certain illness, it is not a proven cause of many. This correlation could be due to genetics that impact weight and resistance to other illnesses, such as Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which often leads to weight gain, but is not caused by weight gain. A study in the International Journal of Obesity found that even Type II Diabetes, an illness so commonly attributed to being at a higher weight, is closely linked with yo-yo dieting and weight cycling, where an individual frequently fluctuates within 20 pounds. Individuals who engage in yo-yo and crash diets are more likely to be at a higher weight and be insulin resistant, a key feature of Type II Diabetes.

Even if losing weight — and thus having a lower BMI — had a direct correlation to decreased health risks, it has been proven that weight loss is rarely a successful medical intervention. A ten-year study published in the American Journal of Public Health studied BMI changes in individuals of all weight brackets. This study showed that at least 50% of those exhibiting an initial decrease in BMI experienced an increase in BMI long term equal to or greater than the weight that was initially lost. However, for many people not losing weight is not just falling short of a goal, but a moral failing.

In a society that values thinness and equates a low weight with health, failure to lose weight and even being in a larger body to begin with can feel degrading and demoralizing. In fact, a review in the American Journal of Public Health found that being pressured to lose weight and maintain or achieve a “healthy” BMI often times leads to increased stress and decreased health promoting behaviors. Ultimately, when BMI is treated as the end all be all of health, it often does more harm than good.

Although society likes to paint weight loss as a task of willpower that results in a happier life, this is not the truth. The truth is that bodies exist and are healthy at a wide array of sizes, and refusing to acknowledge this results in poor health care and worse mental health. It’s time for the definition of health to evolve just as so many others have.

How individuals feel and what they’re doing to take care of their body is more important than what their weight to height ratio. So next time you feel the need to comment on someone’s body or even criticize your own body for being “overweight,” ask yourself “over what weight?”

Are You Looking After Yourself?

Let us know with your questions here! We'll do our best to answer in later issues:

L E T T E R T O THE EDITOR

On-Campus housing is purpose-built MATT GRIEF Contributer

In the Jan. 27 issue of The Mercury, Ellis Blake Hidalgo wrote an article about apartment construction at Northside, the goal of which is to provide more housing near campus. Brent Miller from real estate developer Wynne/Jackson was interviewed for the article. Miller stated that there was “no purpose-built student housing at UT Dallas prior to Northside.” Miller also noted “The university had residence halls and there’s some older housing … but nothing recent, nothing you think of as purposebuilt student housing.” I’d like to provide some history about the growth of Universi-

ty Housing at UT Dallas, which was most definitely, “purpose-built.”

Between 1989 and 2003, garden-style apartments were constructed for our large graduate student population, and, over time, our increasing undergraduate and first-time freshman population. The units were unfurnished and were built in a style that closely aligned with what the privatized sector provided for apartment units in the area at the time.

As the university’s student population grew, we saw the need to provide personalized living options for our freshmen, and in 2007, we hired an outside company to evaluate those needs. They led focus groups, conducted surveys and met with students about the variety of housing that

might be constructed. As expected, students wanted affordable accommodations with private bedrooms (all freshman lived in private rooms in 4-bedroom units prior to 2009). Students expressed a desire for places they could study, hang out and interact, including with faculty.

The resulting residence halls were designed with privacy, community growth, interaction and student support in mind.

We intentionally created floors and hallways with one peer advisor for every 24 students (the typical ratio is 50:1). We included study rooms, lounges and classrooms. We selected our furniture in the 3-bedroom units for flexibility, allowing students to loft beds and move fixtures around to meet their personal preferences.

We created a bathroom area that included a private toilet, private shower and three sinks and drawers, one for each resident.

We also included a small living area with space for a mini-fridge and microwave.

After the fifth residence hall was completed, we continued to see waiting lists for upper class and graduate students.

We again met with student groups and our existing resident population, who expressed the need for more one- and two-bedroom units, fully furnished with kitchens. Thus, we began design of our two newest student housing options at Canyon Creek Heights. These facilities added 800 beds that are nothing like previous housing on campus. They also include several lower-cost shared-

bedroom options.

Each of the five residence halls (with 2,200 beds) constructed on campus from 2009 to 2014, and the two Canyon Creek Heights facilities that opened in 2017 (with 800 beds), were purposebuilt to meet the needs of our on-campus student population. We recognize the wishes of students may change over time, and we continuously evaluate how we can meet those wishes. We also continue to invest in our housing to improve the quality and longevity of all facilities. In leading our program’s growth and development over the past 14 years, I’m very proud of our thoughtfulness in providing purpose-built student housing on the UTD campus.

PLEASE DON'T MAKE ME ASK AGAIN

SAM LOPEZ | MERCURY STAFF

Feb. 10, 2020 | The Mercury

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Now, following the release of her newest album in 2019, Harvey is touring the country, performing with and teaching choirs across the nation. Despite her deafness, Harvey said she’s fulfilling her dream that began when she started singing in her church choir at age four: building a community around music.

“I want people to know that they’re not alone. They’re not alone in some of the awkward fears, they’re not alone in their anger, they’re not alone in their joys,” Harvey said. “You have that beautiful knowledge that you’re not struggling in the dark by yourself. That’s been the biggest help to my career and songwriting. I want people to know the same feeling.”

Harvey was in Dallas for a brief time with the Eisemann Center, and performed with the UT Dallas Chamber Singers on Feb. 8. Shivani Sundar, a biology senior and member of the choir, said rehearsing with Harvey was

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by showing up, talking to people, and showing that we care was probably more impactful than service work.”

In order to follow the themes of compassion that the festival tried to convey, Palant selected individual songs with similar meanings. “‘When We Love’ by Elaine

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ties such as healthcare. By socializing healthcare and education, we will provide greater access to aid as well as the ability to excel in our personal careers.

Many may argue that socialized medicine and education is unfair.

It may seem that through socialization, healthcare will, according to The Federalist, an online conserva-

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from a white wall for days without blinking, to being pushed through a pipe lined with iron hooks that would shred one’s sides open.

Every failed socialist state, from the USSR and Cuba, to Venezuela and the Congo, has been initially celebrated by Leftists. But time and again, after their economies crumble and millions perish, the praise quickly shifts to denial: “That’s not real socialism.” Those countries no longer count. Somewhere along the way, they messed up.

What this really means is “if I had been in charge, I would have gotten the job done.” This state-

NEWS

a magical experience.

“The way she would listen to us, she used her body — because she can’t hear, she can’t instruct us in the traditional sense,” Sundar said. “So, it was different, but at the same time, she was so good at teaching people, that it didn’t feel different from a normal choir rehearsal.”

Harvey said that keeping time and sensing rhythm is relatively straightforward. When she performs onstage, she often doesn’t wear shoes, and is able to sense the vibrations of the bass and drums through the floor. As for hitting notes and staying with the melody, Harvey said she uses a variety of techniques, aided by the fact that she was born with near-perfect pitch.

“I use visual tuners every day to see what I’m singing, and then get used to how that feels on my throat as I’m singing, and that modifies throughout the day,” Harvey said. “If you find one note, then you can find them all, just based off of how many half steps or how many intervals that is to finding the next one.”

In rehearsing with Harvey, Sundar said Harvey gave incredible advice when it came to songwriting, as well as a great deal of helpful, constructive criticism in general. Sundar said that Harvey’s personality was sweet and down-to-earth, and her sense of humor shone through in the way she talked.

“I had lunch with her earlier this week, and it was like talking to a friend — it wasn’t like talking to a celebrity,” Sundar said. “This is one thing that I’m not going to forget, that’s for sure.”

With the help of an interpreter — and through her music — Harvey is able to communicate with a world she cannot hear. Her songs, Harvey said, have multiple meanings: one for herself, and one for the public.

“Don’t be afraid to fail,” Harvey said. “Truly, every time you fail, you learn something new. There are so many ways to overcome obstacles and overcome barriers, but you have to be willing to try, and to be willing to try means that you have to be willing to fail. And it’s a beautiful journey.”

Hagenberg is a gorgeous, powerful song talking about the effect of love, not just the person who’s getting the love, but also the person who is giving the love,” Wise said.

“That was kind of the relationship that we were trying to get with us going to El Paso. We’re going with this attitude of service, but it also changes us.”

Like all choirs, the UTD choir

aims to sing well, but they also have a mission beyond that: the choir has a sense of a greater social purpose, which is really inspiring, Wise said.

“For me, it reinforced this notion that we have a power in our community and the things we can do as a group are greater than the things we can do as individuals,” Linde said.

tive magazine, “result in shortages and long wait times, which means worse care. It is rife with inequality and inefficiency, leading to serious harm.” However, with universal aid, people all over the country will, regardless, have access to care and will not have to choose between suffering or living in debt afterwards. One can also argue that by having free education, taxes will increase heavily, but as more citizens are able to learn, such a drawback will be out-

weighed immensely by the fact that fulfilling basic needs will allow us to focus on other aspects of society such as arts and sciences.

Therefore, it is in our best interest to have free education and healthcare. Socialism of certain sectors in an overall democratic society is nothing to fear as the advantages are many and disadvantages few.

These are necessities that all humans require, and should never be considered as anything otherwise.

ment, lurking in the minds of many socialist ideologues, is perhaps the most terrifying statement that could be uttered.

It is in the nature of human beings to be corrupted by unrestrained power. One of the only essential differences between murderous dictators like Stalin and every other human, is that while the latter is restrained by legal and moral sanctions from acting out their vengeful desires, the former need only lift a finger to make the most cruel and despicable imaginations a reality. And even if by miracle someone incorruptible were to obtain power in a socialist government, history has shown time and again there would be someone a hundred times more ruth-

less ready to kill that person and take their place the moment they turned their back.

Attempts at achieving socialist ideals have consistently resulted in unimaginable human suffering and death. There is an alternative economic system, however. A system which, rather than killing hundreds of millions of people, has lifted billions from poverty and granted luxury to billions more. A system where people are more than mere cogs in an economic machine of redistribution, but instead are individuals, responsible for their own fate. A system which grants virtually unlimited potential provided one exercises enough diligence and personal responsibility. This system is capitalism.

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maintain the ideal environment to replicate and spread without killing the host. Despite the sizable death toll, 2019 nCoV has killed far less people than the flu. The CDC estimates 12,000 deaths occur from the flu every year in the U.S. alone. Burr said that the widespread concern over 2019 nCoV despite the existence of deadlier diseases isn’t abnormal.

“It's just human nature. I mean, would you not be a little bit iffy? I wouldn’t go to campus today if we knew that there was a massive outbreak of the newest strain of flu going around on campus here,” he said. “Probably not going to kill you if you get infected, but it's a damn unpleasant experience to go through.”

The spread of the virus has led to criticisms of Chinese cuisine and increased racism toward Asian people in general.

UC Berkeley came under fire for listing xenophobia as a common reaction to the 2019 nCoV.

Several posts on social media, including the UTD subreddit, have made jokes about avoiding or fearing Chinese people. Assistant professor of instruction of sociology John Malek-Ahmadi said ethnocentrism, or a sense of cultural superiority may be part of the problem.

“Although there's plenty of Americans who eat Chinese food and Japanese food or all sorts of Asian cuisine, they'll make excuses for it and say, ‘Well, that's not our food.’ And so when something's wrong with it, or you know, there's an outbreak like this, it's easy for people to say, ‘Oh, well that's, that's something caused by other folks,’” he said. “It's kind of the ‘othering’ process takes place wherein if you have a virus like this one that has originated in a particular country, it's really easy for people many miles away to ‘other’ them, to dehumanize people and to treat them negatively as a consequence of that. Because they're not really seeing the humanity in it.”

Malek-Ahmadi said people are

so quick to label certain groups of people as “other” due to tribal instincts despite the fact that there are more genetic similarities across races than within them.

Media sensationalism also has a role to play in public reactions by causing widespread concern, he said.

“You're scrolling through your feed on your phone and you're seeing stories about this coronavirus. You're hearing it on the news, maybe people are talking about it, certain circles at work and when it becomes sensationalized, of course it seems like it's a bigger deal than it actually is,” he said. “Then, of course when people are scared, they tend to act irrationally and they'll go back to those baser instincts. And that's where you're probably getting the racist comments from.”

The incubation period for the virus is about 14 days and 2019 nCoV is actually less contagious than the flu. No deaths have occurred from the virus in the U.S. and no confirmed cases have been reported in Texas.