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UTD PD Blotter Sept. 3 • A man was issued a disorderly conduct citation for exposed genitals, reported at 1:28 p.m. He also received a Criminal Trespass Warning, which spans the entire UTD campus.
A
Sept. 5 •A student’s bicycle, which was secured with a four digit cable lock, was reported stolen at 10:25 pm from an apartment in Phase 3.
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Sept. 7 • At 11:05 pm a man was arrested in Building 15 of Phase 2 for theft of property under $2,500.
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Sept. 8 • A student reported that his black Trek bike was stolen from an apartment in Phase 7 at 4:32 p.m.
LEGEND
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E B
VEHICULAR INCIDENT
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DRUGS & ALCOHOL OTHER MAP: UTD | COURTESY
Sep. 14, 2020
TABLE OF CONTENTS PRINT ISSUE 02 | Sept 14, 2020 NEWS student gatherings honorlock elections update gym check-in UTD police canyon creek comet cruiser masks vending machine COMICS LIFE & ARTS Tenet SP/N gallery SPORTS ASC sports tikatee coaching OPINION video platform tech hiring discrimination sorority op-ed logical fallacies NEWS & OPINION JUMPS
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News
Sept. 14, 2020
ROSHAN KHICHI | ARCHIVE
Per Senate Bill 18, students will still be able to engage in expressive activities of 10 people or less.
Student gatherings: what’s permitted, what’s not Vice president of student affairs clarifies restrictions, exceptions MADISON YORK Editor-in-Chief
Student gatherings and club events are prohibited until further notice – with exceptions for free speech activities. Student organization officers received an email from the Student Organization Center on Aug. 18 prohibiting face-to-face or socially distanced events – indoor or outdoor – during the fall 2020 semester. Furthermore, the email said that the EMS room reservation system will not be available until further notice. Three days later, the Office of Student Affairs announced that any students or student organizations found to be conducting in-person gatherings may be subject to suspension. Vice President of Student Affairs Gene Fitch said the decision came after seeing examples across the country – at the University of Notre Dame, University of North Carolina and Michigan State University – of students failing to social distance during gatherings, despite warnings to do so. UTD was the first school in the UT System to open up, so administration wanted to be proactive. “What we want is people to think twice before they put themselves in those situations,” Fitch said. “If two people are sitting in their room unmasked, are they going to be suspended? Probably not. Are we going to have a conversation with them to find out about it? Sure.” Off-campus gatherings between student organizations may also be subject to disciplinary
measures – to a degree. According to subsection 2.3 of the Student Code of Conduct – which refers to the scope of university disciplinary measures – if the off-campus conduct negatively affects the university, that’s when students can be held accountable. “Whether it’s on or off campus, those activities are jeopardizing everybody’s ability to finish the semester,” Fitch said. “If it’s a large activity, the more people you have there, the more potential there is for harm to the community. Because again, those folks are going be coming back to campus, they may be coming back to their classroom, they may be coming back to their residence hall, to their apartments. And like I said, that endangers everyone else.” For informal gatherings – for example, if friends from the same club decided to gather unofficially – Fitch said the Office of Community Standards and Conduct will conduct interviews and investigations to determine if the individuals or the organization should be held liable. If the Office of Community Standards and Conduct is tipped off about a gathering, Fitch said they will start by reaching out to the president of the organization in question – or the individuals involved – and have a conversation
SEE GATHERINGS, PAGE 14
ALESANDRA BELL | MERCURY STAFF
What’s up with honorlock? Students voice concerns, UT System said program does not violate FERPA ELLIS BLAKE HIDALGO Mercury Staff
UTD has implemented online exam proctoring through Honorlock, but the software’s collection of data has led to widespread concerns about student privacy. Available through a browser extension, Honorlock requires a functioning webcam and microphone to be used during exams. Before starting, students are required to have sufficient lighting, present a picture ID and scan the room for other devices. Suspicious behavior is flagged by the software during exams, with a recording becoming available to the course instructor for review. Leaving the screen, looking away from the screen for an extended period or having another person enter the room may warrant the supervision of a proctor, who will then receive live webcam access. To prevent students from searching for answers, Honorlock has patented the use of “honeypot” websites. These sites bait users by offering answers to exam questions, giving unknowing students incorrect answers. According to UTD’s Honorlock FAQ, the software will not specify which students cheated on exams, only that the “potted” websites were accessed during the exam period. Assistant Provost Darren Crone said that since 90 professors have implemented Honorlock into their courses, approximately 2,600 students across UTD will be impacted by the software. In a bid to remove the use of Honorlock at UTD, a student-led online petition has accrued
nearly 6,000 signatures. The petition’s creator, “Rogal Dorn,” did not attach their real name nor respond to inquiries from The Mercury. In the petition’s description, Dorn cited the distribution of recordings containing students’ faces, government IDs and network information to the university and third parties. Additionally, Dorn said the requirement of a functioning webcam and microphone would force some students to make additional purchases to accommodate the software. “The way Honorlock (sic) function is a massive breach of privacy and can lead to a lot of personal student data or even data from other devices connected to the same network to be collected. We risk having personal data from our homes be sold or held by an unknown third party,” Dorn said in the petition. “Schools should not have the ability to take away our privacy out of suspicion. The school or company doesn’t have a right to our personal homes and data.” Since its release, the petition has yet to receive a public response from the university. However, in an Aug. 25 update, Dorn said that he received various responses from university staff directing him to Honorlock’s help desk. Many of Dorn’s concerns are reflected across multiple social platforms – most notably on Reddit’s r/utdallas, where the Honorlock megathread continues to accrue responses and has generated about 162 comments so far.
SEE HONORLOCK, PAGE 14
News
Sept. 14, 2020
JUHI KARNALKAR | Mercury Staff
SG vice president candidate disqualified from elected position Stephanie Royer, running on ConnectUTD ticket, will not be serving as VP MADISON YORK Editor in Chief
ALBERT RAMIREZ | MERCURY STAFF
UREC will be offering eight different types of classes, including yoga, dance, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and more. (Photo courtesy of UREC)
‘We have something for everyone, so stay active’ UREC decreases gym capacity, offers virtual group fitness classes ALEENA HASSAN Mercury Staff
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The Student Government election board has voted unanimously to disqualify vice president candidate Stephanie Royer from her recently elected position as VP. The global business and biology senior ran on the ConnectUTD ticket alongside presidential candidate and public affairs senior Ali Darvishi. Following multiple allegations regarding Royer’s involvement in online solicitation of votes, all six members of the election board voted on Aug. 30 to disqualify her from the VP position. ConnectUTD’s opposing ticket, Amplify, consisted of presidential candidate and finance and economics senior Sara Brennan and vice presidential candidate and history sophomore Rutendo Chando. When the election results were announced Aug. 28, Brennan had won the presidency with 2,404 votes to Darvishi’s 1,838, while Royer had been elected VP, with 2,254 votes to Chando’s 1,931. Not long after the results were announced, students started voicing their concerns on social media about the new VP-elect: namely, that she’d been direct messaging fellow students on Facebook and LinkedIn soliciting votes. One subreddit post shared screenshots of Royer pasting the same message to multiple platforms. According to Article VII, Section 2.2(k) of the student government bylaws, “online solicitation is strictly prohibited, including but not
limited to mass messaging a class GroupMe or Blackboard discussion board. Any such incident shall be grounds for disqualification from the race.” In an email to The Mercury, public affairs senior and election board chair Hope Cory said that the election board decided to convene after receiving multiple communications from concerned individuals. “After hearing all sides, the Board found that Ms. Royer’s actions were in violation of the
Students can now return to recreation facilities on campus—but with a few caveats. Tricia Losavio, the director of UREC, said that the Activity Center and Rec Center West are currently open, and over 250 students have used the facilities between Aug. 10 and Aug. 20. “Students have to register for a time to work out online,” Losavio said. “We are currently — under state and CDC guidelines — operating at 50% capacity.” The Activity Center has a new capacity of 33 students, and Rec Center West has a capacity of 12 students. Students must wear masks during their visit and answer standard questions before entering. “We ask, ‘Have you been in contact with someone who has COVID? Have you traveled recently? Do you feel sick?’ Those types of questions,” Losavio said. “We check temperatures and have them swipe in with their ID, and we have one-way flow traffic inside.” Outside of individual use, UREC facilities are also used by club sports organizations. This summer, all club sports had to fill out a return-to-campus proposal listing what facilities and equipment they would need to use for this semester. UREC is currently reviewing proposals and will notify the organizations with their decisions in the upcoming weeks.
For students who wish to stay active but don’t want to visit the facilities or participate in club sports, there is a virtual alternative. Coordinator of fitness Frances Branham is in charge of group fitness classes and personal training. Group fitness class passes ranged from $20 to $50 last semester but will be free for all students during fall 2020. “We hold virtual livestreams through (Microsoft) Teams and also have in-person classes in the Activity Center should students so choose to come in person,” Branham said. “The classes typically run until finals, but these will run until the end of September, and then we will evaluate whether to extend the program.” Group fitness classes have existed at UTD for five years, but they have never been conducted online until now. This semester, they are offering eight different types of classes, including yoga, dance and high-intensity interval training (HIIT). Students who miss the live classes will be able to watch the recordings posted on the UREC website. The classes are taught by students like neuroscience and cognitive science senior Gina Nguyen, who has been doing kickboxing for three years and began teaching it last year.
SEE ELECTION, PAGE 15
Read the election board meeting minutes, anonymous student testimonies and Royer’s testimony here
SEE UREC, PAGE 15
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News
Sept. 14, 2020
UT Dallas Police Department, Richardson Police respond to Black Lives Matter protests Since July, UTD Police Chief mandated training covering topics such as anti-bias, civil rights ELLIS BLAKE HIDALGO Mercury Staff
In light of the Black Lives Matter movement, the UTD Police Department and Richardson Police have implemented new training and procedural measures to address advocates’ concerns. Following the death of George Floyd in late May, a Richardson Police Department press release stated the department’s opposition towards the actions of the officers involved. Mentioning the ‘continued development’ of their relationship with the community, the release did not elaborate on any specific departmental responses to recent events. However, during a June 22nd presentation to the Richardson City Council, RPD chief Jim Spivey said that existing policies against unnecessary force, as well as ongoing investment in crime prevention,
were being emphasized as more effective alternatives to mitigation. “Policy development is a very dynamic process. It is a process that is constant. It’s not sitting down, writing a policy, putting it in a book and walking away,” Spivey said. “Things are always changing and if you don’t change with it, you’re going to be behind the curve.” Many of the RPD’s existing directives addressing officer usage of body cameras and force have also been made public. Available on the RPD website, Spivey said their new webpage was created to address the public desire for accountability and transparency from the police. While not a direct response, Spivey said that officer training was increasingly benefiting from the use of simulations developed by a team at UTD. This technology, he said, will allow officers to access
SAMANTHA LOPEZ | MERCURY STAFF
de-escalation training and learn how to resolve stressful situations non-violently. RPD volunteer coordinator Meredith Watkins highlighted the importance of training, saying that the primary goal of their officers in any confrontation was de-escalation. In addition, she said that the RPD requires 40 hours of TCOLE training hours per year: double what the state of Texas mandates. “We have ongoing training opportunities throughout the year. The officers receive training on negotiation tactics, on dealing with the mentally ill, on using less-than-lethal defense tactics to do everything short of having to engage and put the person at risk and put the officer at risk,” Watkins said. “We try to equip the officers with so many skills because the most important thing that they’ll be using out there is their brain to try to resolve conflict and talk
it down.” TCOLE, the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, is a state-sponsored agency that trains and certifies law enforcement professionals. Spivey said that among the courses RPD officers are required to take are those focused on racial profiling, multiculturalism and de-escalation strategies. The UT Dallas Police Department (UTD PD) has not issued a public statement on the death of George Floyd. However, during a July 1st presentation to the UTD HR Forum, police chief Larry Zacharias said that since June, the department has mandated officer training on issues including anti-bias, civil rights, communication skills and psychological disorders.
SEE POLICE BLM, PAGE 14
“It’s a comfortable place for students to isolate” CCHN designates ten units as COVID quarantine spaces NANDIKA MANSINGKA Mercury Staff
UTD’s Residential Life office has allocated 100 suites at Canyon Creek Heights North to use as quarantine isolation units. Associate Vice President of Student Affairs Matthew Grief – who oversees all of University Housing – said the units are reserved for students who are confirmed COVID-19 positive or presumptive positive. The dean’s office handles first contact with the student, who either self-reports or fills out the daily survey and has symptoms. The student is then extricated and transferred to an isolation unit, where they will stay for a 10-day period. “We chose Canyon Creek Heights North because all of those units have their own air conditioning system, so there’s no air transfer between particular
units,” Grief said. “And those are fully furnished units with full kitchens. It’s a comfortable space for students to isolate.” Initially, when measures for on-campus isolation were still being decided in early summer, the plan was to set aside 10 one-bedroom University Village apartments, which were expected to meet the need for the predicted amount of cases on campus. “But as the summer progressed we saw where cases were expanding,” Grief said. “We saw a lot of activity, and we were concerned that we didn’t quite have enough rooms available. We were really concerned about air transfer as one of the issues and that’s why we chose UV, but we didn’t have enough apartments in University Village to meet that need. And they are not furnished. We actually had to purchase furniture to furnish those 10 apartments for University Village.”
ANNA PHENGSAKMUANG | PHOTO EDITOR
Presumed COVID-19 positive students are asked to quarantine for 10 to 14 days.
Students are not allowed to leave their units during the entirety of their stay and are monitored consistently. A University Housing staff member checks in on them daily about how they are feeling, their symptoms and to make sure they have everything they need. If a student has been tested on campus through the health center, they will follow up with them daily as well. Housing works closely with dining services to deliver meals to students three times a day, and cleaning services thoroughly sanitize the unit prior to and after its use. One of the concerns about keeping students quar-
antined at CCHN was that regular residents would be in close proximity with presumed COVID positive students. Housing staff were unable to isolate one single floor for quarantine due to the late decision to use CCHN. Housing staff are making sure to regulate this in case a COVID positive student mistakenly breaches quarantine or walks into the common areas and hallways. “What we’ve done this year is hired our own housekeeping staff,” Grief said. “They’re regularly
SEE CCHN, PAGE 14
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News
Sept 14, 2020
protection than surgical masks. “On the surgical masks, there is no sealing around the nose and mouth,” Rojas said. “On the other hand, the KN95 mask has tight sealing around the nose and mouth, which makes most of the air that goes in pass through the mask. These masks should have, in order to be classified as 95, a minimum filtration efficiency of 95%.” Vancil also said he supports KN95 masks as an alternative to both cloth masks and surgical masks. Although the masks’ effectiveness can decrease with reuse due to excess exposure to moisture, they will remain more effective than cloth masks because of the smaller size of their pores and
better sealing shape. But since they are technically disposable, using KN95s every day could be financially difficult for students. “We are supposed to tell you that they are onetime use and disposable,” Rojas said. “But that really adds up and starts to cost a lot.” Rojas also has some tips for students who want to reuse masks. “Our best advice for students interested in reusing masks to save some pennies is to use a trick that many are currently applying to extend the masks’ lifetime: using a cloth mask above the KN95 mask, which helps protect the mask from air,” Rojas said.
ROSHAN KHICHI | Mercury Staff
Surgical masks will be available for $1.50 in vending machines across campus.
Vending machines offer disposable face masks UTD joins other universities selling PPE to students SMRITHI UPADHYAYULA Mercury Staff
Vending machines across UTD are now selling disposable surgical face masks to help students safely return to life on campus. As schools and businesses begin to reopen amidst mounting safety concerns, they’re implementing a variety of strategies to keep people safe. One method of increasing the accessibility of personal protective equipment – putting PPE in vending machines – has been on the rise in malls, airports and universities. UTD recently joined a growing number of American universities, including Virginia Commonwealth University and Marshall University, in adding PPE products to its vending machines. The surgical masks are from Honest PPE Supply, a Texas-based family business founded in February to provide affordable PPE during the pandemic. Each mask is being sold for $1.50, and a detailed map of the vending machines’ locations can be found on the UTD dining website. UTD also provided customized cloth masks to students when they moved onto campus. Political science freshman Jeffrey Vancil said he feels this negates part of the benefit of having masks in vending machines. “I feel like since ewverybody’s already been given one or two cloth masks (...) it’s not going to make much of a difference,” Vancil said.
“I don’t feel like people really use the surgical masks over cloth masks because they see them as disposable, and disposable is expensive.” Another concern is the type of mask being sold. Lea Aubrey, director of the Student Health Center at UTD, listed important points to consider when choosing a mask. “When selecting a mask, it should have two or more layers of fabric, completely cover the student’s nose and mouth, and fit snugly against the sides of their face and not have any gaps,” Aubrey said. Honest PPE Supply sells its KN95 respirators for $2.95, and Vancil said he believes that putting them in the vending machines instead of or in addition to surgical masks would be a worthy investment. KN95 masks are the Chinese standard for respirator masks and are analogous to the American N95. The biggest difference between KN95s and surgical masks is that KN95s can filter both incoming and outgoing particles as small as 300 nanometers, while surgical masks only filter outgoing particles. Although the coronavirus itself is only 125 nanometers wide, the water and dust particles it frequently travels on are much larger than that and are easily filtered by the KN95. Jeff Rojas, a manager from Honest PPE Supply, said that because of their sealing capacity, KN95 masks offer better
ROSHAN KHICHI | Mercury Staff
All passengers are required to wear face coverings aboard the Comet Cruisers.
Comet Cruisin’ for a bruisin’ Shuttle service gets new buses, amended guidelines SMRITHI UPADHYAYULA Mercury Staff
To help keep passengers safe, UTD parking and transportation services has installed sanitary features in its new Comet Cruisers and is now operating under updated guidelines and reduced hours. Numerous campus services have had to make adjustments over the past few months, and the Comet Cruiser bus service is no exception. These shuttles serve UTD and the surrounding neighborhood and are different from regular DART buses in that they don’t require any form of pass or identification to ride. Passengers have expressed concerns online about the safety of the Comet Cruisers, especially since they serve more than just
UTD students. New guidelines and modified routes aim to eliminate these issues. DART announced route changes for the fall semester in a July press release. Except for Express trips, the East route is back in service from 7 a.m. – 11 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 10 a.m. – 6.pm. on Sunday. The West route is no longer using the terminal on McCallum, but there will be two new bus stops on Campbell Road. Passengers on all DART buses and trains have been required to wear face coverings since July 3, and DART encourages them to comply with CDC recommendations for handwashing, sanitizing and social distancing while riding the bus. The Comet Cruiser has also recently ob-
SEE BUSES, PAGE 4
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COMICS
Sept. 14, 2020
REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED FROSTED
TRANSACTION COMPLETE
BIANCA DEL RIO | MERCURY STAFF
NO ONE CARED WHO I WAS UNTIL I PUT ON THE MASK
MAIL TIME? MORE LIKE JAIL TIME
ELIZABETH NGUYEN | MERCURY STAFF
AN ARSONIST’S LULLABY
CHARLIE CHANG | MERCURY STAFF
QUINN SHERER | MERCURY STAFF
CHARLIE CHANG | MERCURY STAFF
09
Life and Arts
Sept. 14, 2020
Living in a twilight world REVIEW: Christopher Nolan’s newest film ‘TENET’ pushes the boundaries of rapid-fire science fiction MADISON YORK Editor-in-Chief
WARNING: minimal spoilers The best movies don’t just change the way we see the world after we leave the theatre – they change the way we think. Acclaimed writer and director Christopher Nolan – known for films such as “The Dark Knight,” “Inception” and “Interstellar” – has done just that in his recently released movie “TENET.” While screenings were initially delayed due to the pandemic, the film is now being shown at select locations across the country. The riveting thriller is packed with stunning visuals and audio, edge-of-your-seat intensity and quippy dialogue. But beyond having the characteristics that Nolan fans know and love, “TENET” is perhaps the director’s most conceptually ambitious film yet. The story follows a nameless protagonist – quite literally known only as Protagonist – in his mission to save the world. But the villains in the story aren’t zombies, aliens or even a global pandemic – they’re the people in earth’s future trying to destroy the world in their past. The oft-repeated code phrase in the film “We live in a twilight world and there are no friends at dusk” eerily foreshad-
ows this: the world, near ending, holds only enemies for the people of the present. But before discussing the significance of these people’s motivation to do destroy the world – and how it sets this film apart – let’s dive into the three main aspects of the film: the message, the mechanics and the motifs. First, the message of the movie, and how it ties into the characters’ motivations. As in other Nolan films, a relationship between two characters is the epicenter – and, indeed, a reflection – of a much greater crisis. Sator, the main antagonist, is an evil abuser. His driving motivation is to maintain control over his wife, at one point telling her that “If I can’t have you, no one else can.” He’s not just abusing his wife, though: he is also the go-between for the people from the future seeking to destroy the present, and so is integral to the world’s impending doom. Though we never directly hear from these future people during the film, we can decipher their motivation for destroying the present in Sator’s own character. Their world is dead; the “oceans ran dry”. They would rather tear apart the very fabric of time than face the consequences of their actions – just
WARNER BROS. | COURTESY
Director/writer/producer CHRISTOPHER NOLAN and JOHN DAVID WASHINGTON on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ action epic “TENET,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. (Photo credit: Melinda Sue Gordon)
WARNER BROS. | COURTESY
JOHN DAVID WASHINGTON and ROBERT PATTINSON and in Warner Bros. Pictures’ action epic “TENET,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release. (Photo credit: Melinda Sue Gordon)
like Sator. If they can’t have the world, no one else can. On the flip side, John David Washington – the actor who portrays Protagonist – said that the main character is a representation of the audience. “My first impression was man, this man has a lot of feelings to be a spy,” Washington said. “The fact that his identity is somewhat of a mystery lends itself to the idea of experiencing him, you know, through the audience, through you. So you can be the Protagonist. (…) What he’s experienced, we’re experiencing – and some of the betrayal that happens, some of the let downs and some of the discoveries that are happening (…) I think we are going to experience the same thing.” This leads to the second element that warrants examination: the mechanics of the central idea, and how the audience experiences time. No time turners or TARDIS’s here: time travel happens by literally going backwards, or, as denoted in the film, people and objects can be “inverted”. Glass lies shattered on the ground before someone breaks it. Characters catch bullets when they pull a gun’s trigger. Bruises un-heal. The science fiction of the film is soft – that is, the technical elements of how inversion works are not meant to be thoroughly rooted in fact – although phrases like “reverse entropy” are thrown around. Science of the film aside, however, the idea is elegant and complex. It requires the viewer to adopt a new logic to understand the film: that the effect comes before its cause. Indeed, in an August 2020 press release, Nolan said that the visual medium of film was the only pos-
sible way to convey the story of “TENET”. “The thing about the camera is that it actually sees time,” Nolan said. “Before the motion picture camera existed, there was no way for people to conceive of things like slow motion or reverse motion. So, cinema itself is the window onto time that allowed this project to come to fruition. It is literally a project that only exists because the movie camera exists.” Along the lines of visual representation, the final notable aspect of the film is the recurring symbolic motifs. Division and symmetry are themes that crop up over and over – walls or panes of glass dividing characters, characters realizing how their future actions mirror past actions, even the mechanics of inverted people and materials themselves. The name of the film is reflective of this as well. Evidently, it’s a palindrome – a symbolic representation of the backwardness and forwardness of time in the movie. But it’s more than that. The word “Tenet” itself is defined as “any opinion, principle, doctrine, dogma, etc., especially one held true by members of a profession, group or movement.” It’s a statement about the nature of the film, and further, about the nature of the characters. “Tenet” isn’t just a catchy title: it’s a profession of faith. For Sator, his tenet is one of selfishness and control – a belief that what he wants trumps everything else. For Protagonist, his tenet is exactly the opposite: one of selflessness and self-sacrifice to a higher ideal – and that whether time runs backwards or forwards, nobody deserves abuse.
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Life & Arts
Sep. 14, 2020
Virtual art exhibition spotlights the pandemic ‘Naked, with Fur’ examines humanity at its most vulnerable
Facial Disruption 1 by John Pomara
A Morning by Carle Shi Facial Disruption 2 by John Pomara
AYESHA ASAD
Life and Arts Editor
The latest creative works of the UTD Visual Arts Faculty are displayed in the SP/N Gallery – among them, a digital painting of a blurry, multicolored face against a black background, an oil painting of a roadside hamburger restaurant sign with the words “DAIRY-ETTE” in white and a sculpture of two modern-looking, sleek suitcases. Naked, with Fur, running from Aug. 14 to Sept. 26, is the latest exhibition to grace the SP/N Gallery, and it’s virtual. The artworks reflect modern times, with a few referencing coronavirus and the Black Lives Matter movement. Other artworks delve into the mundane aspects of dayto-day life: a bundle of clothes, unfolded, heaped upon a bed, a number of dishes and containers piled into a cluttered sink – household items that, perhaps, were left to pile up during self-isolation. Greg Metz, Clinical Associate Professor in the School of Arts & Humanities, said that the exhibition title Naked, with Fur described the way humanity, during the pandemic, is “back in our own skins and living in our caves.” “It’s a little bit of a reference where all we have is our creativity and our hair, you know, which could be our fur,” Metz said, “But also going back to maybe more prehistoric times when that’s all you had – your fur – to keep you warm.”
The SP/N Gallery hasn’t had an exhibit like this in over a decade – one that features such an extensive “panorama of artworks” by the Visual Arts faculty. This exhibit certainly doesn’t hold back. In A Morning by Carle Shi, a painter and lecturer at UTD, a woman leans towards the bathroom mirror, one hand pulling back her hair out of her face. The slight blurriness and muted colors of the painting add an air of mystery and intimacy; the painting may as well be a photograph taken by a lover. This exhibition does not shy away from the political – in gallery one, Deep Fake by Greg Metz depicts the President in a swamp wearing a clown top with a ruffled collar and a witch hat bearing the letters “Hoax.” Underneath his body lies the Statue of Liberty, a Confederate flag twisted around her figure. A 3-D print by Andrew Scott, Associate Professor at ATEC, depicts a black sphere with multiple fists rising up from the surface. This shape, reminiscent of the spherical coronavirus particle, appears to be a nod to the Black Lives Matter movement. Metz said that his background of creating what he considers to be political cartoons stems from history, where back before the camera came into being, people often got their news from political cartoons. “In the art world as well, museums were telling pictorial history of one’s country, the battles
they fought and who were the esteemed characters,” Metz said. “In society, they were the ones who could have their portraits made. So museums really were the collectors of the history, but our museums now are… more or less apolitical and deal with the contemporary genres.” Metz said that he tries to take parts of history that seem to be game changers in the landscape or movements of society, such as societal conflict and political characterization, and create a 3-D version of that. “One day, you’ll walk into a museum…and you’ll go, what is that? And that story will come up about the conflicts in government, the polarization of the politics of the day and how things were portrayed,” Metz said. “I have kind of done my own kind of depiction of how the dialogue and the temperament has changed in the political arena...especially with this president, who seems to know no boundaries when defying civility or truth telling or science, and instead is engaging in the demonization of a United America.” John Pomara, Arts & Humanities Professor, has two digital paintings in the exhibition, Facial Disruption 1 and Facial Disruption 2. Both are multicolored depictions of faces disrupted by static. Pomara said that his work, which fuses traditional painting with digital painting, has always dealt with the boundary between traditional painting and digital culture.
Deep Fake by Greg Metz
“The work itself,” Pomara said, “is conceptually about the idea of facial recognition… just the slew of facial recognition, things going on with that and how it’s affecting art and artists who are responding to it.” Pomara, who creates his digital paintings by altering code over printing images and outputting it with a process that involves UV pigment ink, decided to create his art as a response. “What if one came up with ways to disguise or disrupt facial recognition? So when you went through a scanner, all of a sudden you become somebody else or some other kind of a look,” Pomara said. “I want it to play with the notions of disrupting facial coding and recognition and to make it encoded into an abstract sort of face to disrupt it, to alter it, to break it down and put it back together in new ways.” The artworks in Naked, with Fur are reflections of the uncertain times we’re facing in this pandemic – and proof that beauty still exists in an era rife with uncertainty and social unrest. “We’re being led to see through digital means and how it alters and changes our life, how it enriches it in some ways, but also how it also causes us to question things at the same time,” Pomara said. “But…also, I want you to see a beauty. There’s a beautiful aspect to our world, even filtered through digital means – beauty still exists.”
11
Sports
Sep. 14, 2020
Autumn sports stumble, don’t fall ASC announces spring schedule for fall sports
NIKITA BANTEY| ARCHIVE
Women’s volleyball is the only team yet to resume practices.
TYLER BURKHARDT Mercury Staff
While fall sports were officially cancelled, the American Southwest Conference (ASC) has released schedules for student-athletes to play a consolation season in the spring. The ASC announced the new season schedules for women’s volleyball, as well as both men’s and women’s soccer and cross country on Aug. 31. Given the challenges brought on by the ongoing pandemic, the ASC seasons for these fall sports have been postponed to the spring semester, where they will likely play alongside regularly scheduled spring sports. While the NCAA has cancelled their intercollegiate championships for all fall sports, fans will still be able to follow UTD’s fall sports in their race for the regional championship this spring – a race in which Comets on the women’s volleyball and men’s soccer and cross-country teams seek to defend their titles. With the starting dates for winter sports rapidly approaching, ASC has their hands full. Marci Allison, head coach for women’s volleyball, said that the Conference has yet to decide whether or not they will postpone the schedule for winter sports. If they do choose to maintain the regular schedule — which usually
begins in November — a whole set of pandemic procedures must be established on very short notice. Allison also said that if winter sports are allowed to proceed, the volleyball team would look towards basketball protocols to get an idea for what their precautions should look like. Despite the uncertainty surrounding how competitions will function, UTD’s student-athletes are now getting back to practice. Women’s soccer head coach Kanute Drugan said that his team –which resumed practice on September 8th – will be easing into a full-intensity regimen over the course of the semester in a five-phase process including extensive measures for COVID safety. “We split the entire team up into three groups, and they’re each practicing simultaneously on a different one of UTD’s three fields,” Drugan said. “The girls are also social distancing while on the field, as well as wearing masks at all times. We’re screening everybody, every day – all coaches, all players and anyone tangentially related. And right now, we’re only doing skill development exercises. Phase one has no classroom sessions, scrimmaging or competitive drills.” Men’s soccer began practice under the same
SEE ASC SPRING, PAGE 15
Former Dallas Fuel coach collaborates with “Overwatch” team Louis “Tikatee” Lebel-Wong guest-coached the team during practice BEN NGUYEN Opinion Editor
One of the Comet Esports “Overwatch” teams recently received professional advice when former Dallas Fuel coach Louis “Tikatee” Lebel-Wong spent two hours coaching them at practice. This month, Tikatee spent time with the players and coaches – including main tank and ITS junior Jonah “Luey” Salinas and head “Overwatch” student coach and computer science junior Ivan “King” Payne – to work on the team’s structure ingame and out. While there hasn’t been a lot of public interaction between pro coaches and players on collegiate teams, King says it’s not a rare occurrence. “It happens more often than you’d think. Most of these things aren’t in public, but a lot of higher-end schools, a lot of their players are semi-professional players that have graduated high school and said, ‘I just don’t have the time to go pro,’ and that’s where they go to college,” King said. “We know those people, so it happens a good bit. We’re focusing a
lot more on making it mainstream and public to provide incentive.” Tikatee said he is currently looking for opportunities in the Overwatch League, and had the free time to sit down with the team and talk about their gameplay. “We ended up talking back and for a while and it turned into a full on feedback session where I could take a look at not only how the team was playing, but how they are organized as a structure between their staff and they players,” Tikatee said. “The players themselves were very respectful, very receptive to the feedback I gave, their head coach King seemed like he was doing a great job already.” Luey said that despite the busy class schedules of most of the athletes, Tikatee was able to help a lot in maximizing practice time. “He brought in a lot of information we can utilize to change around our structure as a whole and within our coaching staff,” Luey said. “What we can do to maximize our practices, maximize the outcome we get from our practices and what we can
LOUIS LEBEL-WONG| COURTESY
Players got a chance to glean pro-play experience.
do outside of practices even with our tight schedule so we can prepare for each match and tournament coming up pretty well.” More specifically in game, Tikatee was able to provide some insight on how to better execute on specific team compositions, like the dive composition that came back into the meta. Tikatee said that the game as a whole is moving in a direction where team coordination at the highest level is more important than raw individual skill, which he says is good for the game. “So in a [dive] composition like that, in a game like Overwatch, it needs to be very cleanly executed. As we’re seeing in the Overwatch League, teams are getting away with Zarya/Roadhog and punishing any mistakes you show them,” Tikatee said. “Most
of my feedback was about them missing a few steps in their setup, not communicating enough prior to engagements, and just general focus points for what they should be doing.” King said that Tikatee’s professional experience with multiple meta shifts at the highest level of play helped the team adapt to the quickly shifting meta that comes with new patches. “The big takeaway was just kind of realizing how to maximize our few short times together, and then how to really push as much outside perspective as possible,” King said. “And really find a way to shift the focus of our staff, and shift the mentality of the players, that we’re no longer having that luxury of infinity time, and to make every second count.”
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ALESANDRA BELL|MERCURY STAFF
At the mercy of the machine Hiring practices in the tech industry inherently discriminate against minorities SNIPTA MALLICK Mercury Staff
ISABELLE VILLEGES|MERCURY STAFF
Teaming up to collaborate Why the university should take a two-pronged approach to virtual instruction TYLER BURKHARDT Mercury Staff
Sep. 14, 2020
Hiring season is back in full swing. Candidates are polishing their interviewing skills, hoping to snag coveted positions at tech companies. Unfortunately, many minority applicants are shut out even before they can answer “tell me a little bit about yourself.” When Black Lives Matters protests erupted across the nation, major tech companies like Amazon, Facebook and Snapchat made public statements showcasing their commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion in their companies. Yet, the reality is much different. The representation of Black and Hispanic employees at large tech companies is dismal. In 2019, Facebook reported that 3.8% of its employees identified as Black and 5.2% identified as Hispanic. Twitter has not done much better – 4.5% identify as Black and 3.9% identify as Hispanic. Why has diversity and inclusion in tech been such a pervasive issue? The answer is that the tech hiring process is inherently discriminatory. From being subjected to automated Applicant Tracking Systems that screen-out resumes to high-pressure whiteboard interviews and arbitrary assessments of “culture fit,” underrepresented minorities have been systematically excluded from the tech industry because of a broken hiring process. Before a candidate applies to a position, they are referred to an online job application portal where
they submit their resume to an Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that can reject them before they even get the chance to talk to a human. These automated systems were initially developed to help recruiters objectively parse through hundreds of applications by using software that quickly narrows down the applicant pool. However, Ifeoma Ajunwa, Associate Professor of Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School (ILR), believes that these automated — and supposedly unbiased decision-making systems — ironically exacerbate bias and discrimination in hiring. If a candidate manages to get through the ATS, they will still have to pass another barrier: the culture fit assessment. Culture fit refers to assessing how well a candidate’s personality and background align with a company’s values, but oftentimes it has been misused by interviewers to select the candidates they feel they would get along with best. This causes interviewers to be swayed by the idea of looking-glass merit, where they predict the success of a candidate based on how closely their story aligns with their own. While assessments of culture fit could instigate the hiring of perpetually homogenous candidates into the tech industry, companies like Slack have
For virtually enrolled Comets, a two-platform solution optimally balances functionality and convenience in online classes. UTD has no standardized platform for virtual classes. As a result, there are several options professors can (and do) choose from to host their lectures – from Blackboard Collaborate and Zoom to Microsoft Teams and Webex. Among those, Teams and Collaborate are the two most utilized – and for good reason. While every platform has its downsides, these two fill an important niche in the virtual classroom arena: together, they represent an optimal streamlined solution to the imperfect reality of COVID-era instruction. No student should be expected to manage four different virtual learning platforms every semester. To that end, many students are calling for the university to standardize their virtual instruction platforms. But to do that, UTD must first choose a standard platform. Collaborate seems to be the immediate favorite. The convenience and simplicity of the Blackboard-licensed learning management system, which forms the backbone of all UTD classes and hosts syllabi, course readings, virtual discussion boards and even assignment submission portals, cannot be overstated. These features, as well as the seamless integration with eLearning, set Collaborate above external competitors like Zoom. Collaborate is also a fairly robust teaching platform with a number of built-in instructional tools
to enhance virtual classroom engagement, such as the ability to straw poll participants, hold miniature quizzes and create breakout rooms. Considering that Teams – a “chat-based workspace in Office365” – lacks any integration with eLearning and doesn’t have many of the aforementioned instruction tools, it might seem easier to just adopt a one-platform approach. However, there’s a problem with that. Following jurisprudence from two 2019 anti-discrimination lawsuits, universities must legally provide transcription services for all online courses. Given UTD’s stance on a universal asynchronous option, all UTD courses this semester must be captioned and transcribed. And effective, inexpensive automated transcription services are few and far between – with one exception. UTD already licenses Office 365 for email services, and one previously underutilized application – Microsoft Stream – automatically transcribes all uploaded videos. That’s why all Collaborate recordings are being uploaded to Stream then linked externally from eLearning this semester. Yet, the ubiquity of Stream flips the total integration argument on its head, as the only platform that seamlessly integrates with Stream is Teams. Teams also has an advantage in its real-time direct messaging feature, making it substantially more convenient for one-on-one
SEE TECH HIRING, PAGE 16
SEE VIDEO LEARNING, PAGE 16
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Sep. 14, 2020
College+greek life=A new you Rather than partying all night, sororities are about taking on responsibility ASTRID HERNANDEZ|MERCURY STAFF
Logical fallacies kill reason Why fallacies pollute political conversation, how to avoid them EMAAN BANGASH Managing Editor
If we vote for [insert candidate name here], eventually democracy will die out. This is because [insert candidate name here] will lead us into an authoritarian regime and destroy our country, and everyone knows this, so we shouldn’t vote for them. Sound familiar? The statements above are seemingly valid and commonly brought up in social media debates, news outlets and dinner conversations. But no matter how clever they sound, these types of statements are fallacies or otherwise poor arguments. They can result from either innocent mistakes in reasoning or deliberate attempts to manipulate an audience, but both usually occur in order to win an argument. Not only are fallacies extraordinarily commonplace in pop culture and media, but they can also lead one to believe downright ridiculous things just because they’re widely accepted or well said. With the upcoming 2020 presidential election, it’s imperative to start thinking more critically about fallacies when consuming media. Fallacies are sneaky but can be found nearly everywhere – YouTube comments, Twitter replies, headlines and speeches by politicians. They sound clever, persuasive and probably look like a roast, but in reality, they’re a way for people to argue without providing any sort of evidence. And if they do offer evidence, it could outdated or irrelevant to their point. Is someone claiming that all Muslims are terrorists because a small group of them are? That’s a hasty generalization. Not all Muslims are terrorists, and a small few do not characterize the majority. Are they claiming that marriage has always been one man and one woman in this country? That’s an appeal to tradition. Just because something has always happened doesn’t
mean it will or should continue to happen that way (see: slavery, racism). Are they claiming that one political party wants the country to fail because of their policy choices? That’s a strawman. A group favoring one policy choice you think will lead to bad consequences doesn’t mean they want to see the country fail. Are they equating the coronavirus to the flu to make the former sound less lethal? That’s a false equivalency. The novelty of the coronavirus could still potentially make it more dangerous. When it comes to politics and discussing policy, fallacies prevent the honest exchange of ideas and make solving problems way less efficient. People stop considering other possibilities when faced with a fallacious argument that assumes one cause is the only cause, or one solution is the only solution or one group’s viewpoint is representative of the entire group’s viewpoint. Instead of discussing what gun control policies would help curb gun violence, one side will depict the other as advocates for murder if they support a more lax policy. Solving the problems associated with a pandemic is much harder when people denounce wearing masks and say they’re akin to slavery without providing any sort of evidence. Just because a few people were responsible for riots during a Black Lives Matter protest does not mean that all people at the protest support violence, or that the BLM movement necessarily stands for that. Presidential debates turn into insult matches and candidates will imply their opponent is a liar or irresponsible; the focus then shifts to which candidate sounded better rather than which candidate had the better policies. When enough people believe a fallacious
SEE LOGICAL FALLACY, PAGE 16
QUINLAN SHERER|MERCURY STAFF As well as CPC and IFC organizations, UTD Greek Life includes Multicultural Greek Council (MGC) and Divine 9 (D9) organizations.
The dreaded red solo cup. Every sorority girl’s worst nightmare is to be caught on camera with it. I won’t sugar coat it: your sorority or fraternity will absolutely dictate the types of posts you can make on social media at some level, at least until you’re 21. If you’re thinking about going into Greek Life, you need to be aware that it’s not all beer pong games and pre-set Instagram filters; it’s a new guide to setting up your future self. Going Greek has a complicated history and list of responsibilities, but the pride of being a member outweighs the work. Some sororities and fraternities require reporting a minimum number of study hours dependent on your GPA, which helps keep the overall average Greek Life GPA higher than UTD’s average GPA. Additionally, most chapters require volunteer work and offer a multitude of events geared toward community service. Chapter meetings are usually about an hour per week and require business casual or formal clothing to practice for a professional environment. Beyond these explicit rules, there are also inherent responsibilities for members. Anyone in Greek Life will tell you that you only get out of it what you put in. On top of the semesterly philanthropy events, recruitment weekend, weekly chapter meetings and grade upkeep, the organization wants you to do more during your time with them. They want you to become a big to a new member, a committee leader, an officer, an active part of their organization. By being a contributing member, you have the opportunity to live, think and learn differently about others around you. You’ll find yourself maturing when you become the sponsor to a new member and feel a sense of pride when they get initiated as if they’re your blood relative. Your bond to your brothers or sisters will become so close that even after college, you’ll know that any one of them would answer the phone when you called or help you if you ever asked. I often look back at my nearly four years of Greek Life and reminisce on the times when I used to dread go-
JADE NOLAND Courtesy
ing to business chapter or waking up at 3:00 AM for some philanthropy event. I wasn’t your typical sorority girl at the start. In fact, I was even actively against Greek Life when I first came to college. But now, during recruitment season, I’m moved to tears when I think of the ways my sisters have impacted my life. I never had a circle of friends that I could truly rely on prior to going Greek. Just by being in the same organization, my sisters were willing to give me rides to class, tutor me when I was having difficulty and offer me advice if I asked. Though my friends outside of Tri Delta would do this as well, it was amazing to me that sometimes the sisters who offered to do these things were not my close friends. In fact, many times we hadn’t spoken yet. Though there’s no formal policy or agreement, being sisters allows us to lend ourselves to each other. I had absolute, full confidence that if I ever needed help and just texted it to our organization’s group chat, I’d have someone reply within minutes. I had never believed in myself to the extent that my chapter believed in me, but when they placed me as president, I knew that they really trusted me as a leader and a sister. It gave me a newfound confidence that carried with me through difficult situations. I think back to the rituals and ceremonies that I didn’t understand when I initially went through them. Now that I’m conducting the same ceremonies, I find new purpose in the words and actions that go back to our founders and their intentions to empower us as women. You will be held to higher standards than average members of the community while wearing your letters. However, in my experience, it’s a small sacrifice to not post that photo of you with the red solo cup. There is nothing you’re losing out of not advertising illegal underage drinking, and it could potentially save you from professional embarrassment later on. But if that picture of you doing the keg stand is so important that you
SEE SORORITY, PAGE 16
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with them about the allegations. Worst case disciplinary measures, such as suspension, come from repeated offenses – in a similar way to students not complying with on-campus mask regulations. “And oftentimes, that may be where it ends,” Fitch said. “The more information we have to follow up on, the better…if we get a date, a time and a location, it becomes more difficult for someone to say ‘well, we didn’t do this.’” However, if it’s known for certain that no students became sick or transmitted the virus during their interaction, that will be taken into consideration. “Part of it’s going to come down to timing – I think it’s going to depend on when this event or
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In a separate post, Reddit user u/xXKaiiroXx questioned Honorlock’s privacy statements, saying it was likely that collected student data would be shared. “They also claim they aren’t going to be sharing data or accessing it from other devices but they literally explain how they do that to cross reference things you Google on other devices with the questions on your exam,” the user said. “The wording about how they share data is very similar to sites like Facebook and
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“Managing people is hard. It takes skill to do that, and I want (UTD PD officers) to build up their skill. That’s why we said, ‘Let’s do the refresher training, let’s do the de-escalation training,’” Zacharias said. “For our officers, it raises their attention to what’s going on in the country so that when people look at them, that’s not what they’re seeing.” In addition to being expected to hold certification as Mental Health Peace Officers, Zacharias said that most UTD PD officers had received some of this training in the past. However, given recent events
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cleaning throughout the day. What we did this year specifically COVID-related is we’ve hired an outside company, and they bring in people after the hours of four o’clock, and they’re constantly wiping down surfaces – common space elevators, door entries, those kinds of things – that are really the high
News
Sep. 14, 2020
this gathering happened, when we got the information on it, how quickly we get that person in,” Fitch said. “And after 10 days it’s kind of like, okay, maybe we know at that point that no one’s been infected – but it still would require one of those teachable moments.” Despite these guidelines, there are exceptions when it comes to free speech activities. Senate Bill 18, which went into effect September 2019, protects the right to expressive activities – which is any expressive conduct protected under the First Amendment – including assembly, protests, speeches, distribution of written material, carrying of signs and circulation of petitions. Even with COVID-19 guidelines, SB 18 still holds. On June 28, 2020, Governor Abbott issued Executive Order GA-28, detailing the types of activities allowed given the current circumstances. Less than a week later on July 2, he issued a shorter
amendment to the original executive order limiting outdoor gatherings to 10 people. State mandates take precedence over university policy. Students can still engage in expressive activities on-campus if they keep it under 10 participants, and will not need to reserve the event in advance if it takes place in a public outdoor space. Ultimately, Fitch said, it will be up to the police monitoring expressive activities to determine – on a case-by-case basis – whether or not those activities should be broken up. Fitch also said that there are several potential scenarios where EO GA-28 protocols could still be followed if participants spread out. “I know that the organizers (of the expressive event), they can’t help if others walk up,” Fitch said. “Maybe it’s where you’ve got your 10 people in the expressive activity, (and) you’ve got five (more people) that walked up. Maybe
it’s a matter of different pods of people: you’ve got one on one side of the Mall, and you’ve got the other five on the other side of the Mall. Maybe that’s how we address it. Because we want people to be able to express themselves per that senate bill. But we’ve also got to do it responsibly per the governor’s order.” Fitch said he acknowledges the difficulty of the situation, and understands how young adults want to be with their friends – and how they can’t even socialize in a traditional classroom setting for the time being. “We’ve all made sacrifices. And I realize that we’re asking to just make another sacrifice, which is to avoid those situations,” Fitch said. “And we know it’s hard. I mean, we’ve all been cooped up since March, and this is part of the collegiate experience: to interact with people, establish our identities.”
it’s highly likely that our data is being shared even though they claim it isn’t.” In response to the criticism online, Crone said that while he was sympathetic to student concerns over privacy and data protection, the software was necessary to ensure that grades earned over the semester would retain meaning. Citing an increase in average grades over the summer semester, which ended prior to the implementation of Honorlock, Crone said that both faculty and students had requested exam proctoring as a result. “There were students that reported seeing
other students doing some things they shouldn’t have been doing,” Crone said. “About 75% of classes are online, and so (the Testing Center) was removed from the equation. Both faculty and – believe it or not – students wanted something in place that could help safeguard academic integrity.” Prior to its implementation, Crone said that Honorlock was vetted by various campus offices and the UT System to prevent undisclosed data theft. It was determined by these groups that students’ FERPA rights, which exist to protect student privacy, would not be violated. Given that not all students have access to quiet,
isolated testing environments required by Honorlock, Crone said that they should then take exams in quiet public locations like coffee shops and libraries. For students without access to the required webcam and microphone, he mentioned the webcam checkout available to students through OIT. Additionally, Crone said that students facing issues with the software should communicate with their professors to work around any usage problems. “Faculty are absolutely willing to work with students. We recognize that this is a really tough situation, it really is,” Crone said. “A student will not be frozen out of taking an exam.”
and the fact that some officers did not undergo formal police training before joining the department, he felt it was necessary to mandate specific training programs. UTD PD has reported a decline in the department’s yearly complaint total since its peak at 34 in 2009: the time of Zacharias’ arrival. He said the decrease was largely a result of there being a community institution aiming to improve campus life rather than strictly police it. “We don’t celebrate the complaint process, but when we have a violation that needs to be attended to, we attend to it,” Zacharias said. “You’re not going to see a UT Dallas officer or any person with a histo-
ry of 17 misconduct complaints still working at this department. It’s just not going to happen.” Initially written in a petition put forward, but not authored, by the Black Student Association, the hiring of more ‘BIPOC and women-identifying officers’ was proposed as a means to ensure that specific demographics wouldn’t be over-policed on campus. Zacharias said that their demographics are frequently subject to change, but UTD PD currently employs seven Black officers, making up 10% of the department. At 69 officers total, they also employ 20 female-identifying officers or 29% of the total. Current university demographics place Black students at 5% of the total student population, with
female-identifying students at 43%. Zacharias had previously stated his satisfaction with the UTD PD’s diversity, calling it a strength of the department as a whole. In response to the petition, he said that he supported increasing diversity in the department but the department would need more funding to do so. No formal plans to expand the department’s minority demographics have been announced. “We will always seek minority officers, particularly as our diversity on-campus grows,” Zacharias said. “That should be something that any minority organization would want their police department to do…so what they ask for is natural and common.”
touch areas.” Grief said that most infected students will not come in contact with regular students because once they’re in a unit that’s where they’ll stay. But if the school or staff is made aware that a student left the building when they shouldn’t have, there are very serious consequences. “We haven’t had anything yet, but what we would do is refer those students to the Dean
of Students office who handles the one-onone conversations with the students. And if a student regularly does not comply with our requests they could be asked to leave campus, because we want to keep the students who are here safe,” Grief said. “A student who puts other students in a serious situation is something we don’t want to happen, but we’re ready for it if it does.” He said that compared to the cases in oth-
er schools, UTD has been quite effective in keeping their campus cases low. Students have been very responsive and understand the seriousness of the situation, even if they may be inconvenienced for 10 to 14 days. “I think we’re putting a plan in place that is in the best position to meet the needs of our students if they come down with the virus, and then protect the other students as well,” Grief said.
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phased approach on September 14th. After two weeks, they may be allowed to expand their groups slightly, but Drugan said that the pace at which the teams move between the phases will be dictated not just by timeframe but also by screening, testing and monitoring results. Cross country head coach Danielle Kcholi said that both the men’s and women’s cross country teams are just entering phase two, with slightly larger group sizes. Similar to the
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Student Government Bylaws as stated in Article VII, Section 2.2k and related to mass online solicitation,” Cory said. “Because of Ms. Royer’s disqualification, the vice president position was awarded to VP candidate Rutendo Chando.” Student government functions on a three-strike infraction system. According to the Aug. 30 election board meeting minutes, Royer had already received two strikes prior to these new allegations.
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“When it comes to athletics, I didn’t really get into fitness until I was in college. I started doing UREC classes and then I kept going and I kept going and I kept wanting to learn more so I ended up getting my group (fitness) certification,” Nguyen said. “I always think about fitness in two levels: your mental state and your physical state.
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tained three new buses. Director of Parking and Transportation Cris Aquino said the buses were
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soccer teams, they have been splitting into practice subgroups, focusing on socially-distanced drills and avoiding physical contact. While the athletes do not wear masks while running, they do at all times during drills, stretching and calisthenics. Furthermore, the cross-country team has replaced all practice races with individual time-trials in order to prevent accidental contact on the course. Finally, Kcholi said she has been encouraging the runners to self-isolate from non-teammates outside of practice. “We call it extreme team-building,” Kcholi
said. “Ultimately, we’re just taking everything day-by-day; (the athletes) are handling it all really well. I’m impressed.” The women’s volleyball team stands alone in having not yet resumed practice, although Allison said that they’re looking to do so soon “They’re anxious to get back on the court. The team unanimously voted to get back on the floor with the understanding that (practice) is going to look different, a product of the new normal,” Allison said. “Tentatively, we would be starting practices towards the end of September. Then, two weeks before all of these students go
back home (for the semester), they would be ending on-court practices and continuing with strength conditioning from there.” Men’s soccer head coach Jacob Hirsch said that what the university and ASC have done to postpone the season but still give players chances to play games in spring is a nice compromise. “It would have been very easy to say that ‘this thing is bigger than sports, let’s just cancel,’ and nobody would have blamed them,” Hirsch said. “But by giving us more flexibility to instead play in the spring, the players have something to look forward to.”
In her testimony to the election board, Royer said that given the current circumstances, social media is the main avenue of communication now, and she wanted to spread awareness about student government elections. During the Aug. 30 meeting, Cory said that she had sent out multiple emails to candidates regarding online solicitation and that she communicated it expressly at campaign orientation meetings and encouraged candidates to reach out if they were unsure. Cory also said that Royer never emailed her to check if the DMs would be acceptable.
Royer did not explicitly ask for recipients’ votes in her direct message; however, she did outline her ticket’s goals, encourage students to vote and ask for them to respond with suggestions and concerns. Royer’s complete testimony to the election board – as well as the 33 students who submitted statements to the hearing – can be read here. Information was redacted by the election board to keep students who testified anonymous. But Royer wasn’t the only candidate sending DMs to potential voters. The Mercury received evidence from a source – who wishes to remain anony-
mous – of a Movement ticket candidate reaching out over GroupMe direct message. The source said they hadn’t been in contact with the candidate for several months when the candidate reached out. The candidate said they wanted the source to show their support for the Amplify and Movement tickets, and asked them to share a link to a Reddit post detailing Movement’s platform. It is unknown how many other people this candidate contacted. Brennan testified at the election board hearing but declined to give comment after the decision was announced.
Once you get into it and find an exercise that you like that is a fun activity for you, it becomes a little bit more like finding a mental balance instead of just focusing on the physical aspect.” Nguyen’s kickboxing classes, like the majority of the other group fitness classes, will not require equipment. Nguyen said that in most cases, body weight will work fine in the place of equipment. “With kickboxing, there’s a surprising amount that you can do offline. You can do shadowbox-
ing, working on your form and building your balance,” Nguyen said. “Kickboxing is one of those sports where if you’re not that powerful or strong, you can get away with having good form and speed.” UREC additionally offers one-on-one personal training, which is currently available online and in-person. Like group fitness instructors, all personal trainers are certified from a third-party and have regular check-ins with Branham.
Looking ahead, Branham said UREC hopes to build a library of on-demand fitness videos for students. Students who feel like their interest is not reflected in the UREC offerings are welcome to reach out to the staff. “Our motto is, ‘we have something for everyone, so stay active,’” Losavio said. “If you have an idea for something you want to see, come see us. We want to remove all barriers from people’s fitness.”
acquired through a joint effort between UTD and DART in order to replace three existing buses that were nearing the end of their operating life. The new buses were placed into service earlier
this month and have all the features of the current Comet Cruisers, including Wi-Fi and a passenger counting system. UTD Transportation has also included extra features on these buses to help protect
passengers during the pandemic. “We are equipping them with touchless hand sanitizers and mask dispensers to help reduce the spread of COVID-19,” Aquino said.
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made great strides on developing a more inclusive hiring process. By actively recruiting Black and Latino developers, standardizing interview questions to eliminate subjective assessments of culture fit and training their interviewers, Slack boasts that 13.9% of their workforce consists of employees who come from underrepresented backgrounds. It’s time more candidates and employees encourage other tech companies to do the same by providing feedback to hiring managers and pushing for active changes in recruitment policies. Companies shouldn’t just aim to hire minorities for the sake of diversity. They should follow in the footsteps of companies like Slack to develop a more
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that could have been prevented if those arguments simply weren’t used in the first place. Being critical of what information you consume helps prevent you from immediately believing a baseless statement. When discussing current issues, there’s the potential for misinformation to be distributed. It’s already difficult to determine what’s true and what isn’t, but this can be mitigated by looking at a variety of sources. How do you determine whether your favorite speaker or media outlet is being fallacious? Look at their evidence (or lack thereof). Look at how they argued their point, and if it feels incomplete or does not follow, it may be fallacious.
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communication and small group meetings. In comparison, Blackboard Collaborate is the strongest lecture platform. But with total integration to Blackboard being simply impossible, as well as more and more Office 365 applications creeping into Comets’ repertoire of courseware, Microsoft Teams also deserves a seat at the (virtual) table of university-sanctioned learning platforms.
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need to share with your followers, then my advice is don’t join a sorority. Joining a chapter is not for everyone. At times, you will be thinking about dropping because you’re overwhelmed with school and you feel like it’s a distraction. You will be tired of being bombarded by notifications reminding you of an upcoming event and promotions of fraternity
OPINION objective system and hire equally qualified minority candidates. Until the tech industry changes, candidates should try to beat the ATS by making sure their resume has keywords from the job description, having conversations with Diversity and Inclusion Officers and continuing the push for representation in tech. Even though the hiring process is currently virtual, the ATS and culture fit assessments will remain constant in the industry, which will hurt minority candidates unless employers take steps to standardize their procedures. The Black Lives Matter protests have created a pivotal moment for actionable change towards increasing diversity and inclusion in tech. It’s time that we started holding companies accountable for their support for racial equity in the tech industry. Give yourself some time to evaluate what a person is telling you, including the evidence they provide for their conclusion, rather than buying their point immediately just because it “sounds smart.” It’s easy to make poor arguments, and it’s often just as easy to believe them. In the upcoming presidential elections, don’t fall for merely cleverly stated arguments, impassioned lines and fallacious talking points about either side. Let truth and reason prevail, even if it’s hard to accept at first. This information is readily available, and you don’t have to take a logic course to understand basic logical fallacies. Googling some of the most common ones and reading about them is one of the quickest and easiest ways to start learning how to think more critically. Critical thinking and skepticism can be exhausting but fruitful in the quest for truth. A dual-platform approach simplifies the number of courseware students must master and maintains instructors’ flexibility in adopting the tool best attuned to the situation at hand. At the end of the day, students should focus their efforts on fully engaging in classes and working with their professors to optimize their classroom experience. If they would like to provide general feedback on their online learning experiences this semester, Comets can fill out the Remote Learning Feedback survey posted on eLearning. sweatshirt sales. That’s just the reality of it. It’s your decision about how much effort you want to put in before you decide it’s no longer worth the time. But I promise you, rather than thinking about it as a hindrance to your collegiate path, if you invest yourself in your chapter, it will give you the utmost return. Jade Noland is president of Tri Delta sorority and an ITS senior born and raised in Plano, TX.
Sep. 14, 2020