Lemma Coffee Shutdown

Popular coffee chain permanentely moves off campus

With pumpkin spice latte season here once again, returning Comets may have noticed the first floor of ATEC looking more barren than usual. As of Fall 2022, Lemma Coffee Co has ceased its on-campus operations -- both the ATEC and McDermott Library locations have been closed for good.

"We were sad to see Lemma go, but they left their pop-up at UTD to focus on their brickand-mortar stores in the metroplex. We wish them much success," Pamela Stanley, Director of Dining & Retail Services at UTD, said . Daniel Baum, owner and founder of Lemma, explained further.

"Unfortunately, COVID-19 played a massive role in our departure from UTD," Baum said.

Lemma, which was founded as a wholesale roasting company in 2017, did not originally have a physical location. Baum said beginning in 2018, they sometimes catered events out of a food truck. After staffing an event attended by a member of the UTD Dining Services team, they received an inquiry about opening a coffee bar in ATEC.

Lemma opened its first stand at UTD in spring 2019, and would later take over the pre-existing coffee stand in the library. It closed with the rest of campus for the 20202021 school year, but planned to reopen in Fall 2021.

"However, the Delta variant seemed to have different plans," Baum said.

The constant back-and-forth between virtual

SEE LEMMA, PAGE 9

The Student Counseling Center in 2018 provides that among students 53% of clients have thoughts suicide with 17% reporting unwelcomed thoughts of hurting others. In total the SCC provided 2,776 individual counseling sessions to students in a time where the student population was 28,755. Now, the SCC and SWC have to support over 31,000 students coming out of a 3-year long pandemic, where within the first year alone mental illness increased globally by a massive 25%.

“Yes, we are feeling overwhelmed [...] There’s no way this crisis can be staffed by the 20 people the Counseling Center has to solve this

Dallas and also we've had a partnership with the Mayo Clinic Senior Living Center in Rochester, MN. So the ones at Dallas are New Horizon Homes Assisted Living and Teresa’s House Assisted Living and Memory Care Center…

So last semester actually was unique. We had a very large service program with UTD students. So we were awarded a $1000 Victor Worsfold Grant from the UTD Honors College…to fund supplies for us to have music and art classes at different nursing homes.

So that was a four month program, and each month we had three

BARBARIAN CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5 stems from the shock value, and serves as a break from the gritty nail biting scenes. Along with great script and insane plot twists, the film doesn’t try to erase its whimsical nature. It is outrageously entertaining

INVITATION CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

Taylor) exists solely for the protagonist to bounce her ideas off of and sound her inner thoughts to the audience. Grace does not have any independent drive or motivations other than to be “a good friend”. Evie’s servant sacrifices her own life to save Evie because of a bond with a former mistress which is discussed for a whole of thirty seconds. The various corrupt

PROFESSOR CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6

For Nguyen, RateMyProfessor has been a useful tool during his college career. Students looking to have a level of control over their inclass education can use the site to pick teachers who are rated better than others.

“I try to look for classes in my major that are rated highly on the site and also have reviews about leaving knowing more than when people started.” Nguyen said.

Interestingly, both interviewees expressed that RateMyProfessor can be useful in comparing how different professors conduct their classes. Naqvi shared his thoughts on the sites rating function.

“I’m always impressed with professors who have a high rating in both

CRISIS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8 problem or to prevent it completely. They need us, and we need them,” said the Student Wellness Director Kacey Sebeniecher. The SWC and SCC have been

LOANS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 wanting to receive updates on loan forgiveness ought to sign up for automated emails from the Department of Education’s website. Currently, applications will be accepted until the end of 2023, and relief should come within four to six weeks after applying, based on statements from an Aug. 26 tweet by Secretary Miguel Cardona. Moreover, according to the Federal Student Aid’s website, if your balance is less than the amount you qualify for, you won’t be able to pocket the difference.

Another implication for uni - to four UTD volunteers go to each nursing home…we had them go there and teach classes—scrapbooking, journaling, watercolor painting and music. They went there once a month to each location and interacted with the seniors and caregivers, just leading those classes and helping build connections.

If you are able to talk about it, can you tell us your plans for the upcoming year?

So last semester we had the Victor Wordsworth grant funded project which we called Alzheimer's disease patient-caregiver engagement groups. That was our service project and this semester, kind of going off of that, we have the Apollo Project; and a great film for horror movie buffs and scaredy cats alike. vampires fill many different caricatures of the rich—one woman is a catty backstabber, the other a hopeless romantic ala “Emma” by Jane Austen.

In an almost “whodunnit” fashion, the audience is forced to question their instincts and trust mysterious characters who attempt to escape the horrors in the quaint Airbnb.

If nothing else, this movie truly does present a thrill. Despite her lack of in-depth characterization, the viewer cannot help but identify with Evie, and the mystery of her situation creates real suspense. Powerful body horror and the squeamish feeling of blood drinking will make difficulty and the overall course,”

Naqvi said. Both identifying that perhaps the definition of a successful course is not necessarily making it easy for students.

Functions on RateMyProfessor extend beyond its namesake. Students can also rate their university based on perceived reputation, its facilities, and other categories. UT Dallas holds a 3.7 out of 5 rating on RateMyProfessor. Its most recent review reads:

"Better go to a school like My Computer Career to actually learn something. A poorly run degree mill, be careful if American, student population is like a third world country. Go to a true American College."

Hateful ratings like this, call the sites anonymity function into ques- working together to further address these concerns even with limited resources. SWC acts as a forefront preventative provider for education and awareness across campus events, where the SCC provides secure professional versity students to enter the workforce is the Education Department lowering of the percentage borrowers have to pay each month based on their income.

Assistant Political Science Professor Thomas Gray said these loan payment rule changes could become more important in the long run.

“By changing the maximum you have to pay for loans acquired as an undergraduate from ten to five percent, [the amount of money received] could be well over ten thousand dollars for some people,” Gray said. Forgiveness is also based on your financial situation while in it’s a partnership with the National AFA. So this is focusing on bringing poetry related activities to seniors and caregivers in nursing homes. So they're providing some of the educational materials for that and the framework. you want to look away from the screen. Creepy sound design and a constant sense of urgency won’t let you take your eyes off the screen. tion. Positive or negative, reviewees do not have to put their name on what they write. So, does the fact that students can write reviews anonymously impact the site?

So we're going to bring UTD students to nursing homes and then read a poem and reflect on the topics that that poem brings up, like what memories or feelings that that'll spark and what other creative insights they have from that group of seniors and caregivers. And then we'll synthesize their thoughts into another poem… throughout the whole upcoming year we're just going to do poetry related activities.

The film truly understands that human nature is fickle, and the director fully embraces throwing the viewer into stressful situations that makes the line between antagonist and protagonist seem hair thin.

The story of “The Invitation” (2022) may fail to surprise you. The characters may bore you. But the aesthetics of this tale cannot be denied. Choose to pursue this story in the theatre and you will be treated to a bloody tryst with all the technicolor melodrama of a drag show.

“Absolutely it does, no one would use the site if our names were attached to it. Especially since most of the time it’s used when people have bad experiences.”

Nguyen said.

Remaining anonymous seems to be pivotal to the sites success, but this also has the potential to give students a platform to publish hateful things with no consequence.

Naqvi said that occasionally he does check his own profile on the site.

“There are a lot of times I get upset at the notion of someone being uncharitable and I just remember consultation, support, and even psychiatric treatment. With a new focus on redefining infrastructure to meet student demand and promoting new opportunities, more effective systems are being worked on. school.

“It doesn’t look at who needs the money now. It looks at who needed the money when they were 17,” Gray said, pointing out why some feel the policy is not well targeted.

For example, a person making $124,000($249,000 for families) could see $20,000 come their way.

Even those who agree with the policy feel it doesn’t go far enough to hold universities accountable.

“This policy definitely addresses some of the immediate issues, [but] it's not an end all be all solution,” Lauraine said.

“[College] is really skewed to -

DEMONSTRATION CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 employees are required to follow, stating faculty members cannot discriminate against race, sex, and gender. Additionally, they called criticism against UTD for not taking accountability or being transparent in their eight week investigation, further pointing out that this contradicted UTD’s message of welcome and high ratings for both diversity and the LGBTQIA+ community.

Grievances and concerns could be reported to the Institutional Compliance, Equity, and Title IX Initiatives (ICET), but many of the students noted they didn’t know how to file a report to ICET.

“Going through ICET I was told their report [on Farage] has been closed, citing a lack of severity, a lack of retribution, and that they passed it to the ECS School for review,” Mueller said.” Despite the fact, I have an email sent to a parent last week from Dean Adams of the school stating

CHESS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3 past three months a lot. It’s always been my dream to be a good chess player, to lead my team, to inspire others. And I think that’s going pretty well. And for now I just want to keep getting better. I mean, get as good as I can and then take it from there. I don’t really have plans. And, as my coach used to say, we only make plans for yesterday.”

In order to keep up performance, UTD’s Chess Team treats the game like any other sport, with daily training

LEMMA CONTINUED FROM PAGE 8 and in-person learning drove down profits significantly. On top of that, the lack of plumbing at either stand made logistical management "quite involved.”

"Being on a college campus, if enough students aren’t there, we don’t have enough customers to operate sustainably," Baum said.

"To be honest, I kind of saw it coming," former barista Ellis Blake, a senior ATEC major, said. "People just weren't really in the habit of studying in public spaces, or meeting in person, or buying expensive coffee."

Blake said management frequently complained about profits being lower than they had been before the pandemic. In addition, Lemma now had two brick-and-mortar cafes, which were bringing in far more customers. Blake also attributed wards the working class and it’s pretty much designed to keep everyone either in debt or just becoming worker bees to where we’re either constantly paying off debt or constantly in this work cycle … it’s a form of indentured servitude.” Lauraine believes that we are beholden to institutions with significantly more resources.

History sophomore Connor Kinney believes student loans were problematic from the start and is skeptical of the new policy.

“Student loans were mishandled in the first place when they were government funded , now they’re half private and half gov - that there was no ECS investigation. Maybe they’re scared of appearances.”

Demonstrators said that this is just the start of their action against Farage. QR codes to the petition can be found across campus cork boards, asking many organizations to join them.

“We have an open letter that we are asking many of the organizations on campus to sign and so that along with the names on the petition, we are going to be submitting to the president's office when they are completed,” Mueller said. “I have been in contact with the Federal Office for Civil Rights and they are processing whether they think that UT Dallas has taken enough action on this situation. They are currently in the middle of their review. They are going to be asking the school for their information and their records, which I think is good in getting them to realize that this was a situation that actually matters.” necessary for consistent results. Every Friday is “chess day”, where mornings are reserved for physical training, and afternoons are reserved for the theoretical. The other days of the week are left to individual study, so that team members can work on areas where they are lacking. The team’s intense training represents a large time commitment.

“In general, I just think that you have to enjoy it,” Schitco said. “Of course you have to do some work...But at the same time, I love chess a lot. So for me, it's a passion, so I can easily work on chess two or three hours every day. Maybe even financial issues to the location of Lemma's second stand.

"The library is just such a bad location. No one goes there," he said. "I think it could have swung better if it was like, first floor right by the entrance. But yeah — basement level, behind a staircase? It was never gonna work."

Students can visit the current library coffee stand, Novel Brew, in the McDermott Library from 9 a.m. -3 p.m. on Monday – Thursday.

Rumors that management would be cutting back operating costs circled among staff for months. But Lemma didn't just take espresso drinks off the menu, as several employees anticipated. Instead, Blake and the rest of Lemma's UTD staff received an email in mid-June informing them that Lemma would not be returning in the fall.

"The email effectively laid us ernment-funded,” he said.

It’s impossible to cure a system that allows universities to charge more money and students will end up paying more, Kinney added.

After prominent conservatives, including Texas Senator Ted Cruz, vowed to bring lawsuits against Biden’s mass cancellation, some fear they won’t receive aid if Republicans win either majority in the House or the Senate.

“Somebody has to bring a lawsuit … and has to be hurt,” Gray said referring to politicians who call the move unconstitutional.

“[You] can’t just not like it.”

Since “the government has

Farage’s impact has sparked debate between what separates freedom of speech from hate speech across campus organizations. However the underlying concern for this protest was to clear up misinformation that UTD hasn’t been publicly transparent about and to establish that even if it is a matter of freedom of speech, it shouldn’t mean freedom from consequences.

“I just want to reiterate some of the misinformation that I've seen and clear that up. Farage is not tenured,” Mueller said. “So that is not what's preventing action from being taken. It has been exactly eight weeks and no action has been taken. He has not been fired. He has not had any further positions taken away from him. We are just hoping that action and transparency is taken whatever form you think is right. I hope that at least many people can agree that some amount of responsibility should be on the school for this situation.” more.”

Schitco would especially like to thank UTD’s chess coach, grandmaster Julio Sadorra. Schitco said that while his previous coaches also helped him greatly, Sadorra was the last help he needed to reach the level of grandmaster.

"After three or four months of working together...it just all clicked. And in April I got my final requirement for the grandmaster norm and in summer I fulfilled everything. So it was just a cumulative effect after that. It just all came into place. And my game took a completely different shift and I elevated my level.” all off," Blake said. Lemma's UTD stands didn't operate during the summer, so the staff was primarily made up of seasonal student workers. Most, like Blake, were forced to seek out other employment for the upcoming academic year. Despite their sudden departure from campus, Baum is grateful for the "unbelievable" opportunity the pop-up stands provided. promised you something and you reasonably rely on it, we’ve formed a contract.”

"We loved being a part of UTD’s campus. We had the opportunity to build some incredible relationships with students and staff," Baum said. "It’s something I’ll always be appreciative of."

In addition to their Carrollton and Frisco locations, Lemma Coffee Co will soon be opening a cafe in downtown Plano. Students craving an iced Bee's Knees latte can stop by to get their daily dose of caffeine, and a taste of UTD past.

Gray pointed out that Biden’s statements are an example of “reliance.” Effectively, the government is prevented from withdrawing a promise (i.e., forgiveness) once the policy is put in place. The loan servicing companies - the most likely to bring a suit - have until the beginning of October when the department starts processing applications.

“If it was struck down, I could see it not being reversed for those who had already finished, but being stopped for anyone else and would also mean there wouldn't be a round two,” Gray said.