Town Hall Takeaways Housing modifies testing requirements for students arriving from abroad
University reveals new academic, housing and auxiliary policies for upcoming semester
FATIMAH AZEEM Opinion Editor
Following a year of remote learning due to COVID-19, UTD is implementing changes across the University for Comets coming back to campus this fall.
All areas of campus are now open at full capacity, with the Activity Center also open for guests and community members. Vice President for Student Affairs Gene Fitch said events taking place this semester may also occur at full capacity, though event organizers can place attendance restrictions if they choose. Though the University has lifted COVID-19 restrictions from events, UTD is discouraging event organizers from serving food, unless the food is prepackaged, and encouraging Comets to wear masks and maintain six feet social distancing at events and on campus generally.
“We are relying on our student organization leaders to be just that – to be leaders and monitor these recommendations that we have put forth,” Fitch said.
When it comes to classes, traditional and the in-person part of hybrid courses will be held at partial capacity for the first three weeks of the semester at the discretion of professors. Provost Inga Musselman said the University is implementing this classroom de-densification in consideration of the COVID-19 Delta variant and that UTD will re-evaluate the need for de-densification on Sept. 8. Classes that follow de-densification protocols will either allow students one inperson class experience per week or one inperson experience every other week for classes that already only meet once a week. However, if a professor is already comfortable with the density of their class, they may choose not to implement de-densification and keep the original class mode. Class schedules will not change with de-densification – just the mode in which students attend.
“We do have an academic contingency plan in place,” Musselman said. “We worked with this plan last year, so we have another modality of instruction that we call ‘remote’ or ‘virtual’ that we could pull if need be. We really hope that we won’t have to do so, but it is available to us.”
In their classrooms and offices, faculty can request students to wear masks but cannot require them. If a faculty member is uncomfortable holding office hours which typically take place in smaller office spaces
with unmasked students, they can choose to host their hours virtually, outside or in a larger room. Musselman said testing options for classes depend on the class mode, and Honorlock is available for Comets in fully online classes and international students who aren’t yet in the United States. For in-person and hybrid classes, faculty can choose for students to take tests or quizzes in the Testing Center, online on eLearning or in class. Faculty can choose but aren’t required to incorporate asynchronous elements into their classes, such as recording lectures for students to view later.
For face-to-face classes, Musselman said UTD is encouraging professors to use seating charts to help with contact tracing efforts. Vice President and Chief of Staff Rafael Martin said the current protocol for contact tracing is that Human Resources or Student Affairs will contact Comets who test positive for COVID-19 and the OEMCP would use professors’ seating charts to identify potential CDC close contacts.
“If a student tests positive for COVID-19 or is determined to be a close contact of someone who tests positive, they will be asked to quarantine by the University,” Musselman said. “Since the University is making that
International arrivals subject to multiple COVID-19 tests
Due to rising COVID-19 cases, students arriving from an international destination and moving into campus housing will be subject to more stringent entry procedures.
University Housing released its protocol in late July for those arriving from abroad, with separate courses of action for both vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals. All students are required to be tested with a viral test three to five days after arrival to the U.S., with unvaccinated students having the added requirement of isolating for at least seven days, regardless of their test results.
request, the University is also responsible for providing the student in quarantine with their educational materials. So, we will ask the faculty instructor to provide those students with the lecture material that they missed during the time they are in quarantine.”
Comets living on campus who test positive or are close contacts can quarantine in one of 38 apartments UTD Housing has set aside for isolation, while commuters are encouraged to stay home for their isolation period. Isolation rooms are also available for students arriving from international locations. Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Matt Grief said unvaccinated international students will quarantine for seven days immediately upon their arrival in the United States. Regardless of vaccination status, all students arriving from overseas will take a COVID-19 test when they arrive to campus and again three to five days later to determine if isolation is necessary.
Also regardless of vaccination status, all Comets are required to fill out the Daily Health Check every day and comply with COVID-19 testing and proactive testing. Dean of Students Amanda Smith said disci-
Associate VP for Student Affairs and Director of Housing Operations Matt Grief said that Housing decided to issue a change through an update to the protocol sent out on Aug. 3 to be proactive and keep everyone safe. The revision included the implementation of an additional viral test right when students arrive on campus, alongside the initial requirement of a test administered three to five days after arrival to the U.S.
“The change in the [policy] came based on the fact that we wanted to be able to test the students prior to checking in,” Grief said. “That way if they are positive, we will find that out within 24 to 48 hours, and we can
quickly get them into isolation. The other piece of that is that if we don't and somebody did directly fly here and move in, then it's possible that we could be waiting five days for that, and they could possibly expose other students. So, we are hoping to kind of attack it from both angles to try to test them when they arrive and then find out when they arrived in the U.S., and then see about the timeline for that three to five days.”
Grief is a part of a COVID working group consisting of several individuals from campus who met daily during the height of the pandemic and are going back to doing so in anticipation of a surge in cases.
“It involves individuals from Health Services, the Dean’s office, OEMCP, Director of Human Resources, etc.,” Grief said. “We discuss cases and changes in CDC and Dallas County recommendations and regulations. And that group, we work together to figure out how we were going to respond and how we were going to test, and then we came up with a procedure for that. It’s all those pieces working together to come to a finalized policy.”
Any travel will be self-reported by students on the day of their move-in.
THE MERCURY | UTDMERCURY.COM August 23, 2021 facebook.com/theutdmercury | @utdmercury
NANDIKA MANSINGKA News Editor
One of those programs might look familiar to students who lived on campus last semester: UTD has reinstated the return-to-campus testing policy, requiring all members of the campus community to incentives
to those who do get vaccinated. Lea Aubrey, director of the Student Health Center, elaborates on the specifics of the vaccine-delivery program.
plan
multiple
students, faculty, staff
as the public—to VAX FOR CASH VAX FOR CASH SEE VACCINE, PAGE 9 TYLER BURKHARDT Editor-in-Chief ELIZABETH NGUYEN | MERCURY STAFF ANNA PHENGSAKMUEANG | PHOTO EDITOR JACKY CHAO | OUTREACH EDITOR INCENTIVES
$12,000 IN TUITION SCHOLARSHIPS (10)
$10,000 IN HOUSING SCHOLARSHIPS (10)
$1,500 TECH STORE CREDIT (25) • ORANGE PARKING PASSES (50)
$300 STUDENT ORG FUNDING (60) UTD announces vaccine incentive program, reinstates testing SEE INTERNATIONAL, PAGE 9 SEE POLICIES PAGE 9
“The
opportunities for
and employees—as well
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Art Review: Ephemera(lity)
Eli Ruhala and Tad Greenlaw search for lost time at Ro2 Art
“Rusted Warfare” is one of the few real time strategies (RTS) that can be confidently played “head empty”. It’s basic premise is as simple as an RTS can get, but it’s depth of play is still deep enough to engage with hours on end.
“Rusted Warfare” is a sci-fi RTS inspired by older RTS designs similar to “Command and Conquer: Red Alert” and the original MS-DOS “Dune”, but with design and mechanics adjustments to bring that old style of RTS to the modern age. There is no story, though there is a series of single player missions to be played, but the premise of the game is simple: Build extractors for money, build factories to build units, raise an army to kill the other ones and win the game.
And this is why it can feel like a “head empty” game: more so than other RTS’s, the basic mechanics are much simpler to pick up and play with. The factories aren’t complicated, and the only resource is money, in comparison to a game like “Starcraft 2” where resource management and placement plays as much a role as figuring out what all the units do. The units are easy to grasp, with the main units being a variety of tanks, planes, and battleships. You can boot up “Rusted Warfare”, decide that today you will make a bomber air force to command, and enjoy taking to the skies against some hapless AI.
However, this is a very simple view of the game that has a lot of depth to it. Not only is the gameplay experience much smoother than old RTS’s, with unit pathing and selection being smooth as butter, but the game offers full customizability of hotkeys. The hardcore RTS fan can engage with this aspect to the extreme, optimizing the entire keyboard to quickly switch between controlling different army groups, workers, and production buildings in the span of a few milliseconds.
And the hotkeys aren’t the only things that can be experimented with. Upgrading the basic production factories affords access to more futuristic and experimental units, from aircraft that can shoot lightning to shielded hover tanks that can act as siege units. The army compositions that you can come up with are wide and varied, offering a lot of strategic depth (especially since it isn’t the most balanced game ever).
But let’s say that you miss controlling infantry. Or that the AI isn’t hard enough. Or you just want to play a World War 2 version of “Rusted Warfare”. Lucky for you, there’s mods! Being a Steam game, it’s easy to find and install whatever mods you desire, with all the ideas mentioned above being existing mods on the Steam Workshop. There are many mods to find for a game as cheap as this, adding to the depth of a game that already has plenty for an RTS player to sink their teeth into.
Overall, “Rusted Warfare” is a surprisingly deep, well-made, and polished old school RTS experience. If you want to indulge in the army commander fantasy, this is one of the best $5 ways to go about it.
(Rating: 4/5)
Reading the press release for Eli Ruhala and Tad Greenwald’s partner show, “Ephemera(lity),” a stark déjà vu set in. The purple descriptions of “transitory moments” and “human experience” seemed to be plucked straight from my freshman year lit major mind. They’re the academic’s version of magazine collage ransom notes: hodge-podge and reused. They’re that emphatic “society” tossed into every pseudo social justice warrior’s vocabulary. Thankfully, Ruhala and Greenwald, though fresh off the boat of academia, exceed expectations with work that curtails the pull of time by redirecting focus onto empirically candid narratives.
Both educated at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Ruhala and Greenwald are new artists in the gallery scene. With only a few prior exhibitions, their recent opening was met with a particularly buzzing anticipation and interest in what they had in store. Ruhala’s drywall painting expresses a knack for the experimental while Greenwald’s watercolor technique speaks of expert
training. I can’t help but feel the artists were cheated out of solo exhibitions though, as both bodies of work express equally finished and unique concepts. Redeeming this, an optimistic appreciation of the mundane and forgettable draws a clearer connection between both artist’s work.
In first viewing Ruhala’s work, I felt notably lost. Whether I lost track of time digesting his work or trapped in the memorial space of his stories, my mind bowed and ached in rough waters. Ruhala’s sedimentary compositions expose the layers of age and memory in context to their narratives. Like counting rings on a tree for age, I scope the highly textured surface for answers.
Take for instance “Fragments (CrossDress),” where Ruhala depicts five chronological self-portraits in an excavated collage. From left to right, versions of the artist pose in wigs, dresses and bralettes. The autobiographical confrontation of his masculinity breaks with the notion that queer children always “grow into their own” or the counterargument’s less convincing, “they are born queer.” Instead, the specific,
"Hopefully I did
For most freshmen at UTD, the beginning of their college journeys probably entails something like a road trip from halfway across the country, a chaotic day moving into a residence hall or the still-mandatory first day of school picture as they leave the house for a day of classes on campus.
For international students, that journey often starts thousands of miles away, with airport or hometown goodbyes. For Samin Rahman, an ITS freshman from Bangladesh, it began on New Year’s Eve 2020 at 30,000 feet.
“Technology is so weird—I am writing this status from the airplane,” Rahman wrote in a Facebook post that day as he traveled to Dallas for the first time. “I am stoked for the decade that lies ahead, full of personal leaps and challenges.”
It is perhaps a bit ironic that Rahman’s experience studying in the U.S. coincided with the dawn of a new year. But that flight marked what was simply the next chapter in a journey that had already begun months before when Rahman began the lengthy and complicated process of applying to colleges as an international student.
After encountering difficulties with admissions and financial aid applications, Rahman turned his own experiences as an international student into a platform to help
others going through the same process. He launched a YouTube channel in August 2020 on which he chronicles everything about the U.S. college application process, from how to ace the SAT and secure financial aid to applying for an F-1 visa and navigating international travel and luggage restrictions.
When he first started applying to U.S. universities in 2020, Rahman found that his friends encountered the same problems that he had. He first started offering advice in a Facebook group for Bangladeshis trying to study internationally, and that’s when he realized how helpful a YouTube channel could be for other students in his position.
The channel has grown rapidly, with more than 66,000 views, and viewership is increasing in India, Nepal and Pakistan. Rahman said that he will likely start to focus on those geographic areas more in the next few months.
“The response from others has been spectacular; it’s been amazing. In fact, I think I am probably the admission guide that people look up to back in Bangladesh,” he said. “That also means that I have a lot of responsibility on my shoulders … to fact check everything that I say because what I say is literally the gold standard.”
Rahman’s channel offers something else that’s important to prospective international students: glimpses into life at an American university. Viewers saw Rahman ride out
active snapshots rise from their shallow grave speaking not what they “were/are” but what they “did/do.”
“[To] make my feelings into an actual piece and put it out there…that’s the part for me that’s creating the home,” Ruhala said.
Like the materials he uses, Ruhala takes ideas of gender identity and expounds them into the most active of terms. He builds a house for his identity, and, like any well-kept house, it operates in a sustained level of flux, accepting renovations as they come.
Most of Ruhala’s work is not about the artist at all. Paintings of his partner, Joseph, outnumber any other subject and exude a palpable affection with even Ruhala himself saying,
“The work isn’t just about me, it’s about him [Joseph] at the end of the day.”
In the vein of artists like Alice Neel and Egon Schiele, Ruhala captures his partner with veristic honesty and indefatigable passion. With every subtle feature blown up and ¬over accounted for, he imbues the subject with the whole weight of his expression. And this weight manifests in unconventional uses
of joint compound (usually a construction material). Once this weight builds up, a sturdy tenderness stands simply because it was made to. The household materials eek with potential, a potential I hope to see realized in his future career.
As for Greenwald, his work is much less alive. Watercolors of broken down and rusting cars make up what looks like an ad for automobile repair. You could almost slap on the name Clay Cooley and hang it above the tire sales rack. This is not to say his work is lifeless advertisement, but instead that his watercolor technique is so refined that his art looks photographic. These southwestern still-lives appear straight out of a Tennessee Williams production, encapsulating the drawling decay of southern life. Not just ordinary southern life, I’m talking sweet tea and muddin’ southern life.
Even though like in “Three Sedans in Marathon, TX,” Greenwald gives specific callit-like-he-sees-it descriptions of the pieces, the subjects still seem distant and obscure. The
make a change"
the February winter storm and came along for a day at TopGolf. They also navigated pandemic-era international travel with him as he tried to get home to Bangladesh after the spring semester. With campus opening up again, Rahman hopes that he’ll be able to offer even more of this content to viewers.
“This semester, you will probably find me doing random videos and vlogs around UTD, asking people those questions that content creators do in YouTube channels,” he said.
Studying internationally—particularly in the U.S. and Canada—is a goal for probably eight out of 10 Bangladeshi students, Rahman said. But only one or two of those
eight actually apply due to the complexity of studying internationally. Rahman hopes that number will increase as his channel sheds light on the process. He already has a Facebook community for his followers to share advice and is in the process of developing a college admissions blog.
In addition to the immigration hurdles international students face, they don’t have the same support systems that many American high schools have. Bangladeshi students usually do not have college counselors, and people are often hesitant to write recommendation letters because they
Aug. 23, 2021 | The Mercury LIFE&ARTS 5
LAUREN
Life &
ELI RUHALA | COURTESY SAMIN RAHMAN | COURTESY SEE YOUTUBE, PAGE 9
BEN NYUGEN Managing Editor BLAKE BATHMAN Mercury Staff
DOUGHERTY
Arts Editor
Comet decodes U.S. college admissions for other international students ELI
Fragments
36 1/8
ELI
32,
help
RUHALA | COURTESY
(Cross-Dress), 2021, Oil on distressed dry wall, 17 ×
in
RUHALA | COURTESY
2021. Joint compound and house paint on dry wall, 24 × 40 in
SEE GALLERY, PAGE 9
"Ephemera(lity): Tad Greenwald and Eli Ruhala" is currently on view at Ro2 Art in the Cedars, through Sept. 4.
"Rusted Warfare" is a cheap RTS that controls like butter
BEN NGUYEN | MANAGING EDITOR
UTD Housing? More like UTD Homeless
Poor communication, delayed move-in date creates unncessary housing stress for Comets
UTD creates unnecessary housing dilemmas for students through inefficient communication and by determining and revealing their campus move-in dates way too late.
My experience is a prime example of how these excessively delayed move-in dates can result in dire consequences, including a roller coaster of housing stress that nearly resulted in temporary homelessness and couch surfing.
I sought out housing at UTD because the rent at the complex I was living in at the time had increased significantly, and I wanted to find some other type of housing by the time the lease ended on Aug. 1. I went ahead and applied for UTD’s hous-
ing near the end of the spring semester, to which I was accepted. UTD Housing informed me that they would email me a specific move-in date sometime in the future but did not specify a date. This had me slightly unnerved as I had to let the current apartment I was staying at know whether I wanted to renew the lease by May. I periodically called UTD Housing to explain my dilemma, but I was either told that they still didn’t know or was transferred to the Housing Office line where I heard the same thing, was hung up on or told they weren’t available.
Two months later I finally was told that the move-in date would be Aug. 20. After learning this, I was slightly panicked because it was too late for me to renew my apartment lease for at least another month, meaning
I needed to find a place to live from Aug. 1-20 as soon as possible. Though UTD was allowing students to move in early for a fee, they were only considering requests for Aug. 13, 14 or 16—and even that approval wasn’t guaranteed.
Now, my options were to either be a bum for a month or, best case, be a bum for about two weeks if my request for early move-in got approved. Exhausted, I just went and found another place to live in for the year and requested to remove my housing application. I just wanted the whole ordeal to finally be over with, so instead of fighting Housing about the cancellation fee, I just went ahead and paid the 25% cancellation fee, which
Band-aid fixes won't make game design a safe space
Activision Blizzard lawsuits illuminate long standing issues of sexual harrasment in game development community
The burden of having to give the most coherent, objective and unbiased information in the vast works of American government is put on the shoulders of today’s civics professors. Their job at the basic level is to educate, but they must also
moderate discussion. In the age of trigger warnings, safe spaces and microaggressions, it’s hard to see past the overall babying effect of universities; nonetheless, when it comes to faculty associated with government and politics, they do not shy away from the responsibility of teaching the most controversial subjects. The consensus of political science professors is that they’re constantly indoctrinating students and blending their own values with the curriculum. In reality, the instructor’s political loyalties have almost no effect on their students. At UTD, I observed this in several classes: in any given lecture, when a controversial topic was brought up for discussion, restraint and the refusal to give credence to
one point of view at the expense of another were regularly displayed. The first rule in maintaining order in a classroom is to not reveal your political leanings. In a public policy lecture I attended, the professor was attempting to manage heated exchanges between an Iraq war veteran and a freshman over 9/11 and America’s presence in the Middle East. There were accusations of “invading for oil” and ulterior motives with Vice President Cheney’s business ties. The professor let the contention fizzle out and after someone asked, “Was there any legitimate purpose to the Iraq War?” he replied, “I believe he had good
The pending lawsuits concerning Activision Blizzard illuminate longstanding issues within the game development community and remind gamers and game developers that we have to do more than just condemn the studio’s actions; we must create safer and more welcoming spaces for women developers at all levels of game development and game culture.
The AAA studio faces allegations of discrimination and sexual harassment which are disturbing in detail but unfortunately not unheard of within game development culture. In fact, other studios have faced similar lawsuits, including the class action lawsuit against Riot Games in 2018 over the sexist “bro culture” that dominated studio life. Notice how the language parallels the Blizzard lawsuit over “frat boy” culture within the workspace. The trend of the casual but also predominately male culture in game studios is entrenched within development practices and perpetuated by gaming stereotypes.
Many game developers choose their career path because they are gamers and love video games. Despite the fact that almost half of gamers in the United States identify as female, according to the Entertainment Software Association, many are not considered gamers by their peers. A study by Thekla Morgenroth, Michelle Stratemeyer and Benjamin Paaßen found that stereotypes concerning gamers are gendered: stereotypes of women are not compatible with the stereotypes of gamers. Competence and agency, for instance, were seen as “related to facets of masculinity.”
Women’s competency and identity within the gaming community are often questioned within that sphere before they even consider turning their hobby into a job as a developer. The consequences of this type of mindset are often reflected in the composition of game development teams examined as recently as 2019: women are underrepresented in games positions and leadership positions in game development. The highest ratio of women to men within development teams in the data set examined was 23%. Most development teams lagged behind this ratio, though newer games did better than older ones.
Without women present in games leadership, retention of women in the games space is low, and any changes that might be made in studio cultures are slow. This is because gender imbalances in the workplace become harder to address when they are only addressed from the perspective of the male gaze. We see more class action lawsuits regarding sexual harassment which we can all agree is terrible, and yet nothing changes. Who wants to work in a creative industry where their creativity and opinions are silenced? Game design loses unique talent, stories and opportunities without the perspectives of females.
Women have been raising their voices about game studio culture for almost a decade now. During 2012, an outpouring of concerns from female developers was raised during the #1 reason why Twitter campaign. They shared stories about oppressive studio cultures or development practices and found solidarity within the community. But the games
community has a history of silencing female voices when it comes to raising concerns over harassment in development and gaming culture.
Just a few years later in 2014, the #gamergate movement on Twitter proved itself to be an incendiary and hurtful harassment campaign aimed at silencing women in game development or gamer culture who raised concerns over subjects ranging from negative stereotypes present in games to damaging development practices.
Many UTD students enjoy video games and are gamers or even game developers. Some of our ATEC and computer science students sink hours into technical practices and courses concerning how to make games or participate in game jams with their friends. ATEC introduces the idea of “intentional futuremaking,” which promotes not only imagining a future but thinking critically about how that future will come about and the consequences of technology. As game designers and media creators, changes within the industry can start here on campus in our game jams and labs. We can elevate unique voices by including women and amplifying what they have to say when it comes to making games and game design culture. Our actions cannot be merely performative or short-sighted. We have a responsibility to not only create media intentionally but to create healthy design practices with intentionality.
Our commitment to making game development culture welcoming and safe for people of all kinds begins by acknowledging that it will be an ongoing process, but that it will be worth it.
August 23, 2021 | The Mercury OPINION 7
True
SIHANYA ROCHA Mercury Staff MARTIN FRIEDENTHAL Courtesy ALESANDRA BELL Graphics Editor ANNA PHENGSAKMUEANG | PHOTO EDITOR ELIZABETH NGUYEN| MERCURY STAFF
neutral: The college civics professor
Civics professors teach students how to think, not what to think SEECIVICS, PAGE9 SEE HOUSING, PAGE9
COMET COMMENTS
"That's very nice. I'm vaccinated, and I could use $125!"
Alexia Mullen Healthcare Management Sophomore
What do you think about the new vaccine incentive program, including $125 given to vaccinated comets?
"The $125 will get a few people to get vaccinated, but it’s sad that the University has to do this, because people should get vaccinated by themselves"
Kunal Singh Computer Science Graduate
"I think it’s a great way to get students to get vaccinated so we can keep campus safe."
Kristine Carroll Computer Engineering Freshman
"I think it’s a good way to enforce it without actually enforcing it. I think it’ll be interesting to see the numbers after this happens."
Taylor Vaughan Marketing Junior
“It’s nice, but somehow it’s sad that they have to give money to people. They should be aware that vaccines are necessary.”
Harshita Birole Info Technology and MGT Graduate
"I think it’s a really sketchy way of going about it. I say just give people the choice to do it, but don’t say something like ‘We’ll give you free donuts if you get a shot.’ It just doesn’t seem right"
Ajay Bharathi Computer Engineering Freshman
“Yeah, $125 sounds very nice. I think it’s a pretty good incentive to get vaccinated.”
Rhea Raina Biology Junior
"I feel like that’s another form of bribery."
Samin Hossain Finance Freshman
“If people are not coming forward to get the vaccination this is a good approach, but at the same time people should just come forward and get the vaccination without incentives. But all in all it’s a good initiative.”
Ratnam Swamy Info Technology and MGT Graduate
LEFT BEHIND ALESANDRA BELL | GRAPHICS EDITOR Aug. 23, 2021 | The Mercury COMET LIFE 8
to provide opportunities for individuals who want to get vaccinated but haven’t had the opportunity to do so,” Aubrey said. “The Health Center will be running vaccination clinics on campus for the students who are moving in, as well as international students – many of whom are coming from locations where vaccines are not readily available. We’re also hosting a couple bigger events through a partnership with Walmart, where doses of the Pfizer
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
plinary action for Comets who don’t comply include a referral to the Office of Community Standards and Conduct where a conduct record may be issued.
“That’s something we don’t want to see any of our Comets have,” Smith said. “This could impact your ability to retain scholarships, get into law or medical school [and] even some career fields – especially those that are governmental. Second of all, from a campus engagement perspective, we want to be able to have gatherings and fun campus events that the prepandemic Comets were able to enjoy. So, the best chance for us to be able to do that is for you to do your part.”
vaccine will be offered on-demand: you walk up, say you want to be vaccinated, and they’ll get you taken care of on the spot.”
The first of the on-demand vaccine drives occurred on Aug. 22 alongside Convocation. Two more will be hosted on campus, with the next scheduled for 11 a.m.-3 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 25 (originally intended to coincide with the Cometville student organization showcase that has since been postponed) and will be located at the lower level of the Student Union. Aubrey said that the final
Not all policy changes are academic. For instance, UTD Parking and Transportation won’t require physical parking permits anymore –instead, Director of Parking and Transportation Cris Aquino said Comets’ license plates will double as parking permits. Comets can register their license plates as their parking permits online, where they can also seek all parking services, including exchanging permits and submitting citation appeals and payments. Permit prices are the same as last year and are valid from the date of purchase through Aug. 31, 2022.
on-demand clinic will be hosted at the same location and time on Sept. 15 to enable students who received their first shot at one of the prior events to get their second dose on campus. Students who only receive one of their doses on campus should be able to go to any local Walmart to get the second dose.
Aubrey said additional opportunities to be vaccinated will coincide with the return-to-campus testing program.
“I believe it will be part of the screening process when you enter the testing center: they’ll ask you whether you’ve been vaccinated, if
said. “Now your license plate is your parking permit – there’s no need to display any sticker.”
For transportation services, Aquino said UTD added three new buses to their DART 883 route to replace smaller buses nearing the end of their operational lifespan. DART 883 East services have resumed Monday to Thursday operations and DART 883 West services can now service Comets every 9 instead of 12 minutes. Additionally, Aquino said four new EV charging stations at Lot T, PS1, PS3 and PS4 are now available on campus.
you’d like to, and if so, direct you to another part of the building where that will take place. All of that will be contained within Recreation Center West.”
Finally, vaccinations will be provided by the Student Health Center throughout the semester by appointment through the patient portal on the Health Center’s website. All vaccinations offered by the SHC will be Moderna rather than Pfizer.
Alongside those programs, UTD is making a serious push to encourage students to get vaccinated. In the Virtual Town Hall on
to help reduce contact points. Stanley said all other dining locations, Starship robots and food trucks are open and in full service and vending machines now accept Comet Cash. The Spirit Friday program, where Comets can eat at the Dining Hall for six dollars (plus tax) if they wear an orange or green shirt on Friday, is also back this semester, and Lemma’s has expanded to a second location in the library.
Aug. 17, Vice President of Student Affairs Gene Fitch announced the creation of a monetary incentive program, including the allocation of $125 to every student who receives a COVID-19 vaccination and self-reports on the voluntary form by Sept. 27.
Vice President and Chief of Staff Rafael Martín, head of the COVID-19 Task Force at UTD, laid out the incentives in greater detail via email to the campus body on Aug. 20.Other prizes will be randomly awarded to the eligible population, including up to $12,000 in a schol-
in-season student athletes for COVID-19 and randomly test off-season athletes and staff. Athletic competitions are subject to suspension based on test results, and guidance for competitions will follow CDC, NCAA and ASC guidelines. Fitch also said the University is implementing attendance restrictions at indoor athletic events, where attendees will be asked to sit in every other row.
arship for tuition, $1,500 in credit to the UTD Tech Store and campus parking passes.
Prior to the announcement of the incentive program, Martín outlined the vaccination status of campus: “72% of faculty and staff have received at least one vaccine, and 44% of students have self-reported one or two-dose vaccinations. … Recent surveys of our on-campus student residents have told us that over 70% of our on-campus residents have had at least one vaccine. I’m hopeful that those numbers will continue to climb.”
events, first-generation student programs, the National Merit Scholar social, academic coaching workshops, student transition programs, military and veteran resources fairs, peer tutoring and a Meet & Treat hosted by the Student Success Center. Smith said sophomores can also attend virtual orientation again and meet orientation leaders to go on campus tours.
“[Online permits] add a lot of value by cutting down the mailing time and the potential for lost permits like we had in the past,” Aquino
In dining news, Director of Retail and Food Services Pam Stanley said Dining Hall West is fully staffed and operational, and attendants will serve Comets as they go through food lines
“We’ve been hard at work while you all have been away this summer,” Stanley said. “We’ve completely refreshed the Dining Hall West space. … You’ll notice if you go into the JSOM building, we’ve completely redesigned that market there.”
In the world of athletics, Fitch said the University will regularly test
To help sophomores who weren’t on campus last year integrate into campus life, Musselman said UTD has set up welcoming events for the fall. Events and programming available for sophomores include Weeks of Welcome, minority student success workshops, monthly engagement activities, cultural scholars’ leaders
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Students will be asked if they have
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out of the Western playoffs bracket with at least one best of five win and one best of seven win. The most exciting timeline is UTD winning the entire bracket and not worrying
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traveled from an international destination within the last seven days, and if the answer is yes, they will be asked for verification of
about a thing. By the time you read this, UTD *should* have already qualified though, so look forward to the final bracket in September.
OWL sponsors pulling out of the league.
Following the recent sexual harassment lawsuits against Activision Bliz-
What should Comets be looking forward to from your team in the upcoming semester?
“I think there’s an enthusiasm here, beyond just the excitement of beginning a new semester, that ‘we have unfinished business.’ The last season was a good breakthrough—it tells us that we
when they arrived to track and follow up with the student for both of their viral tests.
“I've come up with the questions
zard, key corporate sponsors including Coca-Cola, Kellogg, T-Mobile and State Farm have paused or pulled out of sponsoring the league, potentially foretelling further troubles for the league. It is a coincidence that the two losses this column are associated with Overwatch, but even as a whole,
can do what we’ve always believed ourselves capable of, and now we want to go out and accomplish more. Hopefully, we’re going to win the regular-season championship then win the conference championship this year, and then see what we can accomplish at the national level.
for my staff that will guide them through the move-in process and what the staff need to do,” Grief said. “And if they get an answer that they
Overwatch does not look to be in the best spot right now. With “Overwatch 2” at least two years away and no immediate real answer to the lawsuits in sight, Activision Blizzard is looking a little bit too much like a dumpster fire to find more funding for OWL.
And because we do have everyone coming back, this is a wellseasoned team. Last year, I had 19 freshmen—they’re not freshmen anymore. This team understands their formations, they can execute, they’ve figured out their style of play, and they’re ready to come back and win it all. Add the incoming
don't quite understand how to deal with, they'll be able to come to me, and then I'll take it back to a group if I need to address that. What we
League of Legends team heads to LANS, students form a club team.
From winning a best of five in 34 minutes to attending the biggest collegiate LAN event in recent history, UTD’s Comets on Summoner’s Rift have had a busy summer. We’ll be expecting new members on the team
girls to this team, and we have more depth than I think ever before.”
Anything else you’d like to share about the upcoming season?
“My anticipation—and I believe that of many of the coaches—before the prevalence of this variant, was that this season would probably be back to normal. As these numbers
want to do is protect our residents and try to find the best avenue we can to get the students tested and starting off the semester safely.”
soon, with tryouts still ongoing, but we’ll also be expecting an entirely new team on campus. The UTD LoL Club will be fielding their own club team to attend collegiate events, and it’ll be interesting to see how far both teams go whenever tournaments start firing back up this fall.
“Staff are mindful of the national discussions and research about these two incoming classes that we have,” Musselman said. “Of course, we’re familiar every year with the first-time freshman class, but our sophomore class is really new to campus as well ... so, our staff have been designing programming this fall for these two incoming classes.” throughout the squad. And since the season ended on April 10, not a day has gone by where a portion of my day hasn’t been consumed with trying to figure out the best approach to this challenge.”
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repetitive blue sky and green grass only work to obfuscate the specificity of the narrative. A conceptual abstraction betrays his fastidious
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technique, trading truth for fiction and vice versa. Ultimately, these could be any cars in any part of Texas (if only you ignore their titles). In a way, quite opposite Ruhala, Greenwald’s hyper-realistic detail
distances the viewer from the narrative’s captured moment.
The work in “Ephemera(lity)” is ultimately archaeological. Whether memories or degrading metal, the narratives exude an anachronistic
presence not unlike fossils in a museum. The impossible coupling of both past and present leaves the latter off-kilter and irrevocably altered. Just as the fossil cannot and will not reassert itself, Ruhala and Greenwald
present moments frozen in time.
In the same vein, Ruhala and Greenwald erupt at Ro2 Art with work you would expect from midcareer artists. It is not often you catch burgeoning talent before
climb, I have less confidence in that. But as of August 10, 100% of my girls are vaccinated, and the coaching staff, athletic training staff and strength coaches are also fully vaccinated, and I’m extremely proud about that. So, let’s all stay safe, do the right thing and trust that eventually the right thing will happen.”
they’ve “made it.” Don’t miss this moment – it may not happen again.
“Ephemera(lity): Tad Greenwald and Eli Ruhala” is currently on view at Ro2 Art in the Cedars, through Sept. 4.
fear some sort of liability, Rahman said. A lot of times, students who want to go abroad are on their own.
“There’s a lack of information and lots
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 a film series, a lecture series,” Hofland said. “We’ll have a couple of events here that are called late-night events, where students can come and experience your Asian art museum in the Arts District. … I’m pushing for a night in the museum where you can bring your sleeping bag and choose your work of art that you want to spend the night with.”
This is all on top of the honors Understanding Art course (AHST 2331),
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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 amounted to $718.75 for housing I never got. All in all, if I had known how late the move-in date would be, I would have just renewed my apartment lease for a month or looked harder at other housing near the UTD area.
I talked to Housing to see if they could provide me with some answers as to why things turned out the way
intentions, but that doesn’t mean the president is justified.” The demeanor of the professor allowed for no one’s agenda to be satisfied. The veteran retained their pride and the freshman felt enlightened. George W. Bush’s character was removed from the discussion, while a critique of executive overreach was acknowledged in all its contemporary forms. Civics professors gain the respect of their students when they don’t make their political affiliations obvious.
In a legal class, the jurisprudence of Roe v. Wade was on the list to deconstruct. Unlike issues where the country
of misinformation about the application, scholarships, financial aid and everything related to it,” Rahman said.
What was already a difficult process was further complicated by the pandemic. In addition to the extra difficulties that
which Hofland is planning to improve this semester with field trips to the Crow to admire the art up close. She’s currently planning four field trips scattered throughout the semester to allow students to be in person with the art, as well as utilizing the planned pop-up installations on campus. While the dates and locations for these aren’t set in stone, there will be two in the upcoming semester to keep an eye out for.
“I think initially we’re talking about ATEC, but we have hopes to place works all over the campus at different
they did. I was told move-in dates for a semester are determined when the previous semester ends, in order from spring, summer and then fall. So, the fall move-in date was determined when the summer semester ended. Housing also had the issues of having some leases not end, preparing rooms for students coming in the fall and trying to assign students apartments based on their preferences.
has largely moderated its views, like gay marriage, abortion has continued to be an emotionally charged policy issue since the culture wars of the 1960s.
After the background was read, a student asked about “packing the Supreme Court” and whether the Republicans would overturn Roe or even the past election. This professor made an exception to give his opinion on the matter because the Senate had already voted on it, but simultaneously pacified students who worried about issues reaching a
6-3 conservative swing court. He stated that if Democrats expand the court so would Republicans, and eloquently conveyed population growth and the
international students now have with securing a visa and making travel plans, some Bangladeshi students can’t finish their required classes, get transcripts or take the SAT, Rahman said. This is particularly a problem in rural areas where
times,” Hofland said.
The focus for the on-campus exhibitions is going to be local contemporary artists, more akin to the current “Divine Spark” and upcoming “The Critical Dictionary of Southeast Asia” by Ho Tzu Nyen rather than the other exhibitions from the museum’s current collection. Hofland said that the Crow’s goal is to bring students’ attention to the very real presence of the grassroots local art movement.
“I think they’re going to be high impact,” Hofland said. “We really want to
While there is reasoning behind this explanation, I don’t see why I wasn’t at least informed that the move-in date would be determined at the end of the summer semester when I emailed and called Housing in May or in the initial housing acceptance email. When I asked Housing about the defining factor for choosing the move-in date, I wasn’t given a clear answer. All of this is odd as in my experience, regular apart-
Constitution’s lack of specificity regarding the number of required justices as his reasons for expanding the Court.
Instead of using the lectern as a pulpit, an alternative response was introduced and multiple well-reasoned perspectives on the issue were presented without the professor revealing a political north star guiding his every belief.
History holds a similar importance in teaching students about government, yet the discipline has recently been treated as ammunition for much broader partisan warfare. I observed lectures where the class’s goal was to cover social issues in a historical frame yet would result in teachers preaching
not everyone has access to the internet. Rahman said that prior to launching his channel, very few people in Bangladesh had ever heard of UTD. Thanks to his channel, he estimates that 50 Bangladeshi students applied this year, a
inspire students with the idea that there is a grassroots and serious community here in our region that is adding to the world’s story of contemporary Asian art.”
All of this is part of Hofland’s goal for the future of the Crow Museum as part of UTD: to expand the Crow outside of the four walls in the Arts District. From increasing its presence on campus to reinstituting meditation and yoga programs in the museum, Hofland said that the Crow wants to make a difference in the community.
“Since 2000, for 21 years, we’ve
ment complexes let applicants know then and there when the move-in date is and for what types of apartment sizes.
Based on what my friends who successfully secured and lived in University apartments said, UTD Housing requires that students notify them in advance if they are or aren’t staying another school year and also immediately leave after the semester ends. So, not knowing
to the presumed choir or a student taking command of the floor and forcing everyone else to nod in agreement.
Instances where a student complained about the lack of diversity in a book about history's greatest thinkers and a professor pushed Trump’s name in a session over who historians think is the worst president in history have convinced me that those environments are geared towards cheap emotion and scoring political points. Contrastingly, in a recent constitutional law class where the concept of Black voting rights was said to have existed in Maine and Vermont’s constitutions, the instructor inquired, “Could black people vote in the early
couple of whom will be on campus this fall. He knows that more Bangladeshi students were accepted into Ivy League schools this year as well. He credits a lot of that success to his followers’ willingness to give advice and help each other
taught yoga in the galleries. In 2011, we added mindfulness. That’s what led me to be really interested in if we’re going to be here in the Arts District, how can we make a difference in the lives we serve? And what I saw was that people were looking for ways to manage stress,” Hofland said. “So I think hopefully I can bring that application to the student body.”
At UTD, the Crow is planning on building a permanent building on campus to have a long-term location for installing future exhibitions. Hofland said
when there are vacancies for rooms shouldn’t be an excuse.
There simply has to be a better method of determining move-in dates than the one that is being used now.
Considering that Housing requires students to indicate intent to continue or cancel on-campus housing far in advance of the upcoming semester, there ought to be a system in place for giving students a realistic estimate of campus vacancies. An unannounced
republic years?” Students responded and refuted, backing their claims with evidence from the textbook; some even found common ground. In all these situations, the professor's posture was key. They were not beholden to the most pompous voice, encouraged the timid to interject, and most importantly, intentionally called on people who don’t normally raise their hand. Additionally, I have observed that civics professors seem to have several methods of maximizing their neutrality: political round tables before class, student polls and not tempting themselves with the low-hanging fruit of partisan discourse. The modern college campus has
out. “I’d like to attribute at least some of that success to me,” Rahman said. “Hopefully I did help make a change, and hopefully that number will keep on increasing from next year onwards.”
that this is part of the goal for the Crow to be able to put together different exhibitions outside of the Arts District.
“I envision this as one museum with two locations, so we’ll build a second location just south of JSOM and east lot,” said Hofland. “I imagine it as this one large Asian art museum for the city with two locations. We’ll be very thoughtful about the exhibitions that are downtown and those that are uptown, and [we’ll be] just thinking about relevancy and what this city wants to say about Asia in our time.”
email in the middle of July is ultimately counterproductive for students who do not already have guaranteed housing in the DFW area.
UTD Housing should determine and tell students their move-in dates far in advance to avoid conflicts like mine. At the very least, they need to inform students when they can expect knowing the final move-in date, so students can plan—and followup—accordingly.
turned professors from lecturers to moderators of student exchanges, but at some point, when students and teachers use the curriculum to achieve partisan ends, an objective voice must stand in sharp contrast. This is not a gloss of all political science professors, but it seems that those with the most challenging subjects to teach have proved themselves most adept to the task at hand. They have stayed true to UTD’s motto: “A cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy.” Civics professors are unique because they don’t misuse their power despite having many opportunities to do so. Instructors in other departments should learn from and model their behavior.
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