The Spectrum Vol. 67 No. 50

THE SPECTRUM VOL. 67 NO. 50 | MAY 3, 2018

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT PUBLICATION OF THE UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO, SINCE 1950

UBSPECTRUM

R E T R OS PECT I V E ON THIS DAY THE SPECTRUM REPORTED...�

MAY 3, 1982 - Roughly 7,000 students gathered at Baird Point for the Student Association’s annual “Springfest.” Previously held in the Squire Fountain area, this was the first regular fest held underneath the pillars by Lake LaSalle. Students braved “icy” weather to see 805, Some City Band, Eddie Shaw and the > SEE PAGE 6 Wolfgang, and Leslie West perform. Weather records show a low of 41 degrees on this day, colder than the forecast for this year’s fest, which will take place indoors. Despite the cold and lack of a “name” band, one student said the show “had the spirit of the people, it’s alive.”

Native community members want better representation on campus

MAX KALNITZ NEWS EDITOR

SENIOR NEWS EDITOR

COURTESY | JUDD LOGAN

COURTESY | `MORGAN MORNINGSTAR

Members of the UB community and Native tribes said more native representation on campus is needed.

WANLY CHEN ASST. FEATURES EDITOR

UB stands on traditional Seneca Nation land but not a single sign lets students know this. Only one building –– Red Jacket –– hints at UB’s indigenous past. On campus, American Indian students and faculty struggle to see themselves and their heritage represented and to have their stories told.

Seneca language courses aren’t currently taught at UB. Native student en-

rollment is low and in February, the only American Indian undergraduate club dissolved. UB’s Office of the Vice Provost for Inclusive Excellence recently began initiatives to include indigenous people at the university, but some faculty and students said they still feel underrepresented.

Theresa McCarthy, a transnational studies professor and an Onondaga member of the Six Nations, said UB should take more responsibility for indigenous inclusion on campus. > SEE SENECA | PAGE 9

UB reacts to ‘Boldly Buffalo’ fundraising campaign Students hope for more scholarship opportunity in largest campaign in SUNY history MAX KALNITZ NEWS EDITOR

UB announced its “Boldly Buffalo” campaign Monday, which has collected over $451 million dollars since 2013. The campaign’s goal is to raise $650 million, the most ambi-

tious fundraising initiative in SUNY history.

Seventy percent of money raised will benefit students, 18 percent will support faculty and the remaining funds will be used for UB’s “community,” university officials said.

Since its public launch Friday evening,

MAX KALNITZ | THE SPECTRUM

Members of the administration including President Satish Tripathi gather after the announcement of the ‘Boldly Buffalo’ campaign Monday. The $650 million campaign has received mixed reactions from students.

UB officials address concern about faculty evaluation policy, say nothing has changed SARAH CROWLEY

WANLY CHEN | THE SPECTRUM

email: max.kalnitz@ubspectrum.com twitter: @Max_Kalnitz

COURTESY | THERESA MCCARTHY

A UB student is in critical condition after he was struck by an off-duty police officer Wednesday morning.

Police identified the driver as 62-yearold Mary Pat Kaempf, a detective who worked for the Buffalo police for nearly 40 years, according to The Buffalo News.

The student’s name has not been released.

“The university is reaching out to the family, and we have sent a response team to the hospital to offer our assistance,” UB spokesperson John Della Contrada said.

The student, a 19-year-old white male, suffered a serious head injury and is in critical condition at Erie County Medical Center, according to Buffalo Police Captain Jeff Rinaldo. “[Kaempf] is being cooperative and she’s extremely distraught,” Rinaldo said.

“We are doing a canvas for video footage from private businesses or city cameras at Main and Highgate.”

Rinaldo said the cameras pan constantly and is uncertain if any footage will be secured.

The incident took place around 5:45 a.m. on Main Street near Custer Street.

A portion of Main Street was closed following the accident.

This is the third time this year a member of the Buffalo police has struck a pedestrian.

This is a developing story.

WANLY CHEN | THE SPECTRUM

Nineteen-year-old in critical condition

COURTESY | SAMANTAH RAY

ALLISON STAEBELL | THE SPECTRUM

UB student struck by off-duty police officer

FULL STORY ON PAGE 6

the campaign has received $2.5 million in donations, over $325,000 of which came from roughly 2,000 donations on UB Giving Day. Since 2013, first-time donors made 10,000 of the donations, according to Rod Grabowski, vice president for university advancement.

The announcement, made on all three UB campuses Monday morning with small celebration and fanfare, was budgeted at $24,000 and is expected to come in under budget, according to UB spokesperson John Della Contrada. He said the university won’t know the total cost of the campaign –– which has no scheduled end date –– until its conclusion.

“The university’s objective is to execute the campaign as economically and efficiently as possible in order to maximize the impact of the gifts on the university and our students,” Della Contrada said. “The event provided an excellent return on investment, considering that more than $325,000 was raised in a 24hour period, and we anticipate that a large percentage of this funding will be used to benefit students.” > SEE BOLDLY | PAGE 5

Some faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences were upset and confused last month when they received an unexpected email from their dean outlining procedures to submit annual reports for evaluation. The professors read the email as a shift in how instructors, including those with tenure, will be evaluated.

But administrators, including College of Arts and Sciences Dean Robin Schulze, insist there is nothing new in the policy, except that it asks faculty to submit electronically rather than directly to individual chairs.

Schulze wrote to faculty on Monday to clarify the memo that had left some concerned that administrators wanted to change faculty evaluation policies without faculty input. In her email, Schulze told faculty members they can submit directly to chairs if they “feel uncomfortable for any reason” with the web format.

The concerns came after Schulze told faculty members they would be required to submit an annual report by May 15 detailing their professional work and activities from the year. > SEE

FACULTY | PAGE 10

UB Facilities Interim Director Scott Ludtka on paid leave; Joseph Raab fills role HANNAH STEIN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Joseph Raab took over as UB Facilities Interim Director on April 9 after Scott Ludtka was demoted from the position and put on paid leave.

The university would not confirm when Ludtka left his duties, his terms of employment or whether or not he is suspended indefinitely. Ludtka had been in the position for three years.

Raab will continue as director of Environment, Health & Safety at UB, a position he has held for 15 years. A member of Raab’s team will manage day-to-day EH&S operations, according to UB spokesperson John Della Contrada.

UPD Deputy Chief of Police Joshua Sticht confirmed that a “personnel investigation” has been launched, but would not give any details. Ludtka declined to comment.

Raab did not respond in time for print.

Max Kalnitz contributed reporting to this story. email: hannah.stein@ubspectrum.com twitter: @HannahJStein

NEWS

2 | Thursday, May 3, 2018

Alan Alda speaks at 31st annual Distinguished Speakers Series

ubspectrum.com

EMILY LI | THE SPECTRUM

Actor, director, screenwriter and science communicator Alan Alda spoke at Alumni Arena Wednesday night as part of UB’s 31st annual Distinguished Speakers Series. Alda discussed the value of clear and empathetic scientific communication.

Alda emphasizes importance of communication and science education

MADDY FOWLER EDITORIAL EDITOR

Alan Alda believes science is the “greatest detective story in the world” and has made it his mission in life to educate the public about it.

Alda, an actor, director, screenwriter, author and science communicator, spoke about the importance of effective science communication Wednesday night in Alumni Arena, as part of UB’s 31st annual Distinguished Speaker Series. Alda was the final speaker in this year’s lineup.

Alda is best known for his role as Captain Hawkeye Pierce in the television series “M*A*S*H.” He has also appeared on “The West Wing,” hosted “Scientific American Frontier” and was nominated for an Academy Award for his performance in “The Aviator.”

He has published several New York Times bestselling books including “Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: And Other Things I’ve Learned” and “Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself.” His most recent book, “If I Understood You, Would I Have This

Look on My Face?” focuses on science communication, the topic of his Wednesday evening speech.

Alda said he learned the importance of clear and empathetic scientific communication while traveling in a remote part of Chile. He was hiking a mountain when he developed the “worst pain” of his life in his abdomen. Fearing appendicitis, Alda was rushed in an old, dilapidated ambulance down bumpy, mountainous roads to a dimly lit Chilean E.R. nearly two hours away.

The E.R. doctor was warm and patient and described Alda’s condition in a calm but clear way, Alda said.

“The doctor said to me, ‘something has gone wrong with your intestine, so we have to cut out the bad part and sew the good parts back together.’ And I said, ‘So you’re going to perform an end-to-end anastomosis?’” Alda recalled.

Alda said the doctor was surprised and confused and asked Alda if he was a doctor.

“I said, ‘No, but I did dozens of them on M*A*S*H,’” Alda said, and the audi-

YOU LOOK GOOD IN

ence erupted with laughter.

This moment was life-changing for Alda, he said. It opened his eyes to how important it is for scientists to communicate complicated information in a way that’s easy for the layperson to understand, and do it in a manner that is empathetic.

“Patients are 19 percent more likely to take a doctor’s advice if they feel the doctor is empathetic,” Alda said.

Since his experience in Chile, Alda has become an advocate for science communication. After pitching the idea of a science communication center to dozens of colleges, Stony Brook University was the first to take Alda up on his pitch, and in 2009, the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science was established within Stony Brook’s School of Journalism.

The goal of the center is to help scientists learn how to communicate more effectively with the public, including policymakers, students, funders and the media, according to the organization’s website.

The center offers communication courses that have been taken by more than

200 graduate students in the sciences and health professions at Stony Brook. The center also conducts workshops at colleges and laboratories across the country.

“The public and science have a not so great relationship,” Alda said. “It’s like a blind date.”

He believes good scientific communication follows a similar pattern to a romantic relationship, and getting past that awkward blind date stage is key. In order to do that, Alda explained, during presentations scientists need to use body language and an engaging tone of voice to pique the audiences’ “attraction.” The next step is infatuation. In this stage, the scientist needs to make an emotional, empathic connection with the audience. In order to do this, it is critical for science communicators to move beyond cold, hard scientific facts and above all, avoid inaccessible jargon.

“Jargon is not communication and in most cases it is actually ex-communication,” Alda said.

The last step is commitment, Alda explained. The scientist needs to help the audience connect what they have learned to something in their personal experience –– this helps audience members commit the scientific topic they have learned to memory.

Alda said he thinks empathy is especially crucial when discussing controversial science topics like climate change or whether vaccines cause autism. He said in order to have effective conversations about these topics, science communicators need to make sure they do not dismiss the other party’s feelings and concerns outright.

“Science communication has got to be personal. It’s got to take into account the feelings, you can’t just say no, you’re wrong, stop thinking that, stop feeling.

You wouldn’t do that to someone you cared about. You have to listen,” he said.

“Science has to listen to the public just as much as the public has to listen to science.” email: maddy.fowler@ubspectrum.com twitter: @mmfowler13

UB Student Remembrance Ceremony A CEREMONY TO REMEMBER OUR STUDENT FRIENDS WHO PASSED AWAY IN 2017-18

REMEMBERING OUR STUDENTS W I T H G R AT E F U L A P P R E C I AT I O N

Angel McKnight-Miller Damodar Nayak Dennis Ruchalski

Friday, May 11, 2018 11 am Student Union Theater University at Buffalo (North Campus)

Dedication & luncheon immediately following ceremony.

All are welcome.

#UBuffalo

OPINION

ubspectrum.com

THE THESSPECTRUM PECTRUM Thursday, May 3, 2018 Volume 67 Number 50 Circulation: 4,000

UB needs to do more to acknowledge and represent Native American culture on campus EDITORIAL BOARD

EDITORIAL BOARD Editor in Chief Hannah Stein

Managing Editor David Tunis-Garcia

Creative Directors Pierce Strudler Phuong Vu, Asst.

Copy Editors Dan McKeon, Chief Emma Medina Savanna Caldwell, Asst.

Cassi Enderle, Asst.

Lauryn King, Asst.

News Editors Sarah Crowley, Senior Max Kalnitz Haruka Lucas Kosugi, Asst.

Anna Savchenko, Asst.

Features Editors Benjamin Blanchet, Senior Wanly Chen, Asst.

Erik Tingue, Asst.

Arts Editors Brenton Blanchet, Senior Brian Evans, Asst.

Sports Editors Thomas Zafonte, Senior Nathaniel Mendelson, Asst.

Editorial Editor Maddy Fowler

Thursday, May 3, 2018 | 3

UB operates on Seneca Nation territory while Native American students and faculty still struggle to find representation on campus.

In a university with over 20,000 undergraduates, only 59 enrolled this spring are of Native descent. In comparison, there are roughly 8,000 members of the Seneca Nation living in Western New York. There are only eight Native American faculty members currently teaching at UB, and the closest thing UB has to a Native studies department is a degree in American studies under the transnational studies department.

UB used to offer Seneca Nation language classes, but stopped about 10 years ago. The university requires Seneca Nation language instructors to have a Ph.D in order to teach Seneca language courses, but potential instructors cannot earn a Ph.D in the first place if UB does not offer these courses.

Theresa McCarthy, a professor in American studies, said the university is reportedly working to bring the language courses back but with little administrative support.

The First Nations SA had a derecognition meeting and stopped being a club due inactivity last February. The end of the club brings the Native representation on campus down to only one group, the Native Graduate Association. This contributes to continued ignorance about Native American culture.

The university should develop a standalone department for Native American studies to bring to light the struggles of Native Americans over the course of U.S. history, from the Trail of Tears to the more recent protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. More recognition of Native Americans will bring attention to problems plaguing them and help make UB more diverse.

Public education frequently fails in addressing issues faced by indigenous populations and the country’s history of violence against Native Americans.

High school students learn about slavery and the Holocaust, but schools often leave out indigenous issues, such as the American Indian boarding schools, forced

sterilization or America’s history of stealing Native land.

UB is beginning to make more efforts toward Native American representation. The Office of Inclusive Excellence created an Indigenous Inclusion committee on its leadership council and faculty fellowship program.

UB women’s basketball player Summer Hemphill is a proud registered member of the Seneca Nation. This past summer, the Bulls held a combine on the Seneca Nation reservation for kids interested in playing basketball. Efforts like this are crucial for attracting Native American students to the university. For a school in an area with such a significant indigenous population, it is unacceptable that UB’s indigenous student enrollment is abysmally low.

UB focuses a lot of effort on recruiting globally, with a current international student population of 4,683. International students pay much higher tuition than domestic students, which is likely a large reason behind the university’s international recruitment.

For a university that touts di-

versity as a core value, the representation of Native American, African-American and Hispanic populations is disappointingly low. Seven percent of the student body is African-American and 6 percent is Hispanic as of fall 2015. Of 2,513 faculty members at UB, only 98 were black, according to UB spokesperson John Della Contrada.

If the administration wants to claim UB is diverse, they need to be willing to hire some of the many talented indigenous scholars in this country, as well as other faculty of color.

Beyond efforts to increase enrollment, UB has a responsibility to acknowledge that the campus is built on indigenous land. Other than Red Jacket dorm –– named for a Seneca Nation chief who received a peace prize from George Washington –– there is no acknowledgment of the Seneca Nation history on this campus. The university needs to actively educate students about the land they are living and learning on.

my mom is the best until I am blue in the face, but I think it is ideal for you to understand why she is the most influential person in my life.

I used to dread her coming home from work because she would nag my brother and I to clean around the house, do our homework and behave.

Now, I cannot go a week without hearing my mom’s voice or seeing her because I miss her so much.

I feel remorse for the times I disagreed, yelled, argued and disobeyed her because she is always right.

Going away for college made me much more aware of her un-

conditional support. She never questions any of the decisions I make for myself. She is just there to give me advice and guide me along the way, which I am so thankful for.

No matter how successful I may be in the future, I will never be able to pay my mom back for everything.

It is time I show her my appreciation.

Mothers around the world are so underrated, and we need to show more love and respect for what they do for us.

email: opinion@ubspectrum.com

Multimedia Editors Allison Staebell, Senior Jack Li, Asst.

Elijah Pike, Asst.

Cartoonists Ardi Digap Taj Taylor

PROFESSIONAL STAFF Office Administrator Helene Polley Ayesha Kazi

Why my mom is the most influential person in my life ERIK TINGUE ASST. FEATURES EDITOR

Graphic Design Managers Stephen Jean-Pierre JuYung Hong, Asst.

ABOUT THE SPECTRUM The views expressed – both written and graphic – in the Feedback, Opinion and Perspectives sections of The Spectrum do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial board. Submit contributions for these pages to The Spectrum office at Suite 132 Student Union or news@ ubspectrum.com.

The Spectrum reserves the right to edit these pieces for style and length. If a letter is not meant for publication, please mark it as such. All submissions must include the author’s name, daytime phone number, and email address.

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My mom almost died giving birth to me.

She lost five pints of blood over the course of an hour.

Twenty-two years and five months later, she gets to experience me walking across the stage receiving my bachelor’s degree in communication.

My mother never had the opportunity to go to college, which is unfortunate because she is one of the most intelligent human beings I know, and her work ethic is inhuman. She gets to live vicariously through me and my accomplishments, and knowing this motivates me to exceed my limits.

I do not want her to be proud of what is expected of me. I want her to be proud of what is not expected of me.

I am graduating with high honors. I have a 3.9 GPA, I am the recipient of the Outstanding Se-

nior of the Year award for the communication department, I am minoring in sociology and receiving a certificate in journalism.

Yet, I would not have been able to achieve any of this if it was not for the best mom in the world.

Everybody has adversity they overcome, but my mom has encountered so many different obstacles in her life and conquered all of them.

Last year, she lost both of her parents – two major tragedies. But she did not give up. She was influenced to work hard and ensure we had nothing to worry about.

I tend to often call her and vent when I am having a rough day at school, but she never complains, even when she has the excuse to.

Sometimes, I become overdramatic and think the world is over for me, but she is there to remind me pain is temporary and will drift away eventually.

My mother may be vigorous, powerful and hard-working, but do not let her fool you. She is the most caring and loving individual I know, and has an impact on my behavior and who I am.

I could sit here and tell you why

The reunion tour issue Pondering Guns N’ Roses’ future beyond the Not in This Lifetime… Tour BRIAN EVANS ASST. ARTS EDITOR

At first, I thought of the “Not in This Lifetime…”

Tour as a typical money grab.

Putting aside my excitement for a Guns N’ Roses reunion, there were still plenty of questions needing answers, let alone how the band would work.

The 2016 reunion of Guns

N’ Roses seemed to mildly satisfy fans. Without original guitarist Izzy Stradlin and drummer Steven Adler, the reunited Guns N’ Roses was just Axl Rose’s incarnation of the band, with the addition of original members Slash and Duff McKagan to sell the reunion tour.

Ignoring the scale and grandiosity of the tour goes against the grain on several levels. Slash and Rose had not spoken in 19 years prior to the reunion talks, and any prior rumor of a reunion found immediate denial.

Rose famously labeled Slash as “a cancer” in 2009, adding further fuel to the fire of one of the most tumultuous rock disputes.

The only comparable example is the Eagles in the ‘90s, label-

ERIK TINGUE | THE SPECTRUM

Advertising Manager

Dear mama

ing its reunion as the Hell Freezes Over Tour referring to Don Henley’s feelings toward any notion of a reunion when asked in 1980.

But the Eagles’ reunion differed in both meaning and timing –– alternative rock dominated the airwaves, and the grunge scene was thriving.

In a year where the charts are dominated by hip-hop, rap and pop, regarding the tour as anything other than a money grab raises too many questions that cannot be answered. Until the band functions as a cohesive unit rather than a cover band of the original Guns N’ Roses, moving forward seems difficult.

All of the pieces for a successful reunion were in place. The new Guns N’ Roses was in need of a guitar player and bass player following the departures of

email: erik.tingue@ubspectrum.com twitter: @TingueErik

Bumblefoot and Tommy Stinson, with lead guitarist DJ Ashba following soon after. Not to say that Ashba’s departure was anything to split hairs over. His references toward the gap and influence left by Slash by use of his own top hat were simply ridiculous and sad.

I can’t possibly elaborate my excitement at the time of the announcement of the reunion tour.

I was over the moon and made sure to be one of the first people on Ticketmaster to reserve my tickets.

After seeing the latest incarnation of Guns N’ Roses three times –– twice at MetLife Stadium and once in Buffalo –– I cannot help but ponder the future of the band. > SEE OPINION | PAGE 5

NEWS

4 | Thursday, May 3, 2018

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SA Senate passes next year’s budget Society of Automotive Engineers and Black Student Union receive most among student clubs HARUKA KOSUGI ASST. NEWS EDITOR

GRAPHIC | PHUONG VU

The Student Association Senate passed its $4.3 million budget for the upcoming school year, during the last meeting of the semester on Monday, a roughly $56,000 increase from last year’s $4.2 million budget.

The SA is primarily funded by a mandatory student fee of $104.75 per semester, which the report estimates will collect $3.7 million from a combined 17,725 students in the fall and 17,000 students in the spring.

The SA mandatory activity fee was last raised in 2014 when roughly 5 percent of the undergraduate population voted to increase the fee from $94.75 to $104.75.

SA Treasurer Janet Austin said she created the budget packet with seven hand-selected Senate members that helped her through the process.

Austin said she wants to see another increase soon.

“I’m hoping there’s an increase in the activity fee,” Austin said. “If people want Fest to be big and if people want Gala to be big, then there has to be a little bit of an increase.”

Looking to next year, $2.1 million of the budget is allocated toward the SA office.

The office finances salaries, office supplies, and rental car expenses and events, such as the Homecoming Carnival held during Family Weekend, according to Austin.

The second biggest allocation will go

to SA Entertainment, the unit responsible for events like guest speakers and the music fests.

The most notable change to the entertainment budget was in production costs for Fall and Spring Fest. This year SA allocated $365,000 toward fest production, but next year it is projected to cost $480,000, a $115,000 increase.

Austin said the budget for fests increased because performing artists are demanding more “intricate production” for the shows.

Austin also cited a new law requiring “professional stage workers,” who charge more for their services compared to SA and Center for the Arts workers.

The budget also carved out $627,085 of the $4.3 million for the SA’s 150-plus student clubs.

The two clubs with the highest budgets for next year are the Society of Automotive Engineers with $35,000 and the Black Student Union with $33,000.

Austin recommended clubs go beyond their minimum fundraising requirements and spend their allocated budget in order to raise it for the following year.

“There are a lot of clubs that didn’t touch their budget at the time budgets were being made, so you’re not really going to get more money if you are not using the money you’re already given,” Austin said.

The SA president, vice president and treasurer will continue to receive $15,000 stipends each.

The budget must be approved by the university’s Student Life department to become official, which will happen sometime next week, according to Austin. email: haruka.kosugi@ubspectrum.com twitter: @kosugispec

SUMMER SESSION IN NEW YORK CITY

SA LOOKING TO REVAMP TICKET SALES After last month’s Spring Gala ticketing process, SA and SBI seeking change HARUKA KOSUGI ASST. NEWS EDITOR

750+ undergraduate and graduate courses Online, classroom, and hybrid formats.

Visiting students welcome.

www.lehman.edu/summer

Hundreds of UB students lined up on April 16, some waiting for four hours, in hopes of obtaining a ticket to Spring Gala, but many left disappointed.

As of Monday, the Sub-Board I ticket office sold 795 of the 800 available tickets, according to general service manager Lorenzo Guzman. The last five tickets will not be sold in the “best interest” of the undergraduate population, Guzman said.

Gunnar Haberl, the incoming Student Association president, said he and his incoming e-board had a chance to see the line and talk to staff about distribution.

He said his staff is planning to meet over the summer to discuss Winter Gala distribution and whether to move toward an online distribution similar to Spring and Fall Fest’s.

“We all agreed that we really need to evaluate the process because the event has grown to such a large interest with the students,” Haberl said.

This year’s Spring Fest tickets were first reserved online by undergraduates and then picked up at the SA office using their student ID. Sarah Snyder, a senior biomedical sciences major, said she arrived at the ticket office at 8:30 a.m. after learning from her previous two years of buying tickets.

“It’s a terrible system. People cut the

line every year, and it shouldn’t take that line to hand out tickets. It should be done the same way that Spring Fest is handled,” Snyder said.

Other students had mixed reviews about online ticket distribution. Many said the UB servers are not equipped to handle large amounts of users at the same time.

Shania Julia Anunciacion, a freshman civil engineering major, said the process of reserving and receiving tickets was relatively smooth except the online portion, which took a significant amount of time.

“Since everyone is on the same website at the same time, it took 30 minutes to get one ticket,” Anunciacion said.

Christopher Kovalas, a sophomore mechanical engineering major, said it took him around 15 to 20 minutes to reserve online because of the school’s servers, but the rest of the process was easy.

“It’s just that the servers are really bad.

The school has terrible servers,” Kovalas said.

Some students have also expressed interest in senior students receiving priority when buying Gala tickets, as it is their last year to attend.

Haberl didn’t express support for this particular idea over email and said he is not willing to discuss specific improvements to the ticket distribution process until he meets with “various stakeholders” over the summer.

“I am not going to speak on any particulars of these conversations until the conversations actually take place, and I have a more realistic idea of how these procedures can be improved,” Haberl said. email: haruka.kosugi@ubspectrum.com twitter: @kosugispec

ubspectrum.com

FEATURES

Thursday, May 3, 2018 | 5

UB Young Americans for Freedom hosts Christina Hoff Sommers Sommers addresses ‘Where Feminism Went Wrong’ without incident KIRSTEN DEAN, BENJAMIN BLANCHET STAFF WRITER, SENIOR FEATURES EDITOR

One year after Robert Spencer’s speech at UB, UB’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter invited a speaker who talked without disruption.

Christina Hoff Sommers spoke to roughly 100 people on Tuesday night in the SU Theatre. Sommers, a self-proclaimed “equality feminist,” is a former philosophy professor at Clark University and has written a number of books like “Who Stole Feminism?” and “One Nation Under Therapy.”

In an hour-long address, Sommers talked about modern-day feminism, rape culture, male privilege, toxic masculinity and the importance of factual information.

The event received $1,200 of funding from a grant through Sub-Board I, Inc., according to the Student Association General Ledger.

Kyle Murphy, SBI’s treasurer, said the service’s programming grant committee takes a number of factors into consideration before funding a grant application.

The committee’s decisions are not influenced by personal opinions on programming content, according to Murphy.

Sommers spoke without interruption, and no students protested inside the theater. Attendees had to register for a ticket with the YAF chapter.

Chris Bartolomei, interim chief at UPD, said Spencer’s speech last year took the

police by surprise, and his department didn’t realize it would get out of control.

“After that event, now, every event where we think there might be a room capacity issue, we have some controls in place,” Bartolomei said. “The best events are this one, a ticketed event, because [people] don’t have to push or shove to get in. They know they can get in, and we’ll also have an idea of how many people will be attending.”

Barbara Ricotta, senior associate vice president for student life, opened the event with a video on “Freedom of Expression.” In the video, A. Scott Weber, vice president for student life, said UB community members must not violate the rights of others, including a speaker’s freedom of expression.

Sommers talked about “what’s wrong with feminism and how we can make it great again.”

“Feminism is one of the great chapters in the history of the struggle for freedom.

There’s still work to be done, but to be effective, the women’s movement has to be rescued from its current, troubled state,” Sommers said.

“Radical feminism is giving a distorted picture of the world. It’s pushing some women over the edge, creates a divide between men and women, creates anger between the sexes and is not solving problems.”

Sommers said she recognizes there “are all sorts of problems that women face” and notes that “women are going to be helped by truth and sober research.”

“Feminism today is drowning in misinformation,” Sommers said. “Some of the myths have been repeated so often, they’re almost beyond rational analysis.”

Sommers said the gender wage gap ig-

BENJAMIN BLANCHET | THE SPECTRUM

Sommers, a self-proclaimed “equality feminist,” spoke about rape culture, toxic masculinity and the importance of factual information on Tuesday night.

nores factors that explain differences between men and women, like types of jobs and work hours.

Sommers also discussed rape culture in her address and said there is no evidence of a “rape epidemic.”

She asked audience members to raise their hands if they’ve ever beaten up or been beaten up by a sibling during their childhoods. Over half the audience raised their hands. She said based on these results, she “could now write an article about an epidemic of family violence in students at the University at Buffalo.”

At the end of her address, Sommers said “the answer to a long history of male chauvinism isn’t female chauvinism. The answer to male supremacy isn’t female supremacy.

The answer is equality, mutual regard, respect and friendship. We should not have a gender war, … because in all wars, the first casualty is truth,” Sommers said.

After the speech, Sommers answered questions from the audience for half an hour.

Evan Walley, a junior computer science and mathematics major, asked why she thought Marxism was so popular among people his age. Sommers responded, “Yeah, what’s up with that?”

Sommers said young people “think the world is like [their] family, ... and it just happens that when you take that [Marxist] mindset out into society, it tends to lead to unfortunate, well, mass murder and mis-

ery and poverty.”

“I don’t know why this appeals to educated people. I want it to go away, but here it is,” Sommers said.

Walley said Sommers didn’t answer his question in a satisfying way.

“She couldn’t really give a solution to that, which is understandable, but overall I think the event went better than I thought it was going to go,” Walley said. “It was different hearing her speak in real life, as it’s always different hearing someone speak in real life, but I think she was very well spoken and she lived up to my expectations.”

Another audience member asked Sommers how to address issues of “systemic oppression” and “power structures.”

Sommers said the audience member seemed to want a utopia. Sommers said while she remains open-minded, she does not see a “structure of oppression” in modern day America.

Haley Blonsky, a sophomore political science major, is the YAF chapter’s secretary.

Blonsky said the event went well, and she was pleased with the audience’s respect for Sommers throughout the speech.

“People were engaged, asked great questions and got a good dialogue going,” Blonsky said. “It was a long process to get [Sommers] here. We had to write a proposal through YAF, get approved, book rooms and advertise the event. I think we did well.” email: features@ubspectrum.com

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

BOLDLY Many students said they are excited by the possible benefits from the campaign and feel there’s a need for more scholarships and funding for student experiences.

Terrell Jones, a freshman graphic design major, said he appreciates the university dedicating a majority of the campaign’s funds to students. He said the college experience is something that sticks with you for the rest of your life and likes seeing alumni giving back.

“It’s not easy to get to college, then you have to pay for it,” Jones said. “Especially for poorer students, this could be really helpful. I think people that do donate really love this school and feel that their time here was well spent. It’s cool that people are giving back to something they love.”

For some donors, experiences at UB resonated with them long after graduation, inspiring them to give back.

Buffalo native and orthopedic surgeon Daniel Alexander completed his undergraduate and medical degrees at UB. He and his wife –– who met in Alumni Arena 32 years ago –– donated $1 million to the university and started a scholarship in their name to benefit students from Buf-

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3

OPINION After the initial announcement in 2016, the tour has climbed the ladder of bestselling tours worldwide, with box office receipts in excess of $400 million. With that amount of money coming in, why stop now, if ever?

falo’s inner city.

Alexander is now the co-chair of the “Boldly Buffalo” campaign. He said UB changed his life and feels it’s his “due diligence” to give back to the community.

“I think education is key. It’s key to success and happiness and when we’re part of something bigger than us, it elevates us,” Alexander said. “This is meaningful and impactful work. My wife and I are really grateful for what UB gave to us and the opportunities that it opened up for us.

So, we’re not just giving back money but service and time.”

Some students said they are appreciative, but concerned the university won’t be transparent with how they spend donated money.

Melissa Toback, a sophomore interdisciplinary social sciences major, said she wants to know exactly how much 70 percent of donated money accounts for and where it will be spent.

“I just hope the money spending is transparent after some of the recent issues the university has run into,” Toback said. “How can anyone be held accountable if the [UB Foundation] is private? I feel like no one is going to monitor who receives the money.”

President Satish Tripathi said the recent audit of the foundation proved the

university is “more transparent than required,” and told The Spectrum that money collected from the campaign will be used as it’s intended.

“The board of trustees have initial responsibility to make sure that the money given goes in the right column in terms of where it should be spent,” Tripathi said. “Every year, the donor actually gets a report on where the money is going to. That’s really important, otherwise we wouldn’t be able to raise any money.”

Students have questioned why UB waited to announce the campaign if it has been successfully raising money for five years. Grabowski said the momentum going into Monday’s announcement inspired people to donate. Without that force, he said it wouldn’t have been as successful.

“There was a lot of planning and coordination leading up to Monday’s event.

You have to consider the potential of what we can raise. That goal is what we believe is achievable and also a push to hit it and go over it,” Grabowski said. “It takes time for marketing, branding and teaching volunteers how to talk to potential donors. It’s typical for a quiet phase before you go public. If we launched this with zero money [secured], people would ask if it’s possible. Now the goal is within reach.”

The university is raking in historic levels in private donations, leaving some students confused about its spending. Student athletes are still upset about UB’s decision to cut four of its sports teams last spring, a move that was largely explained as a financial ultimatum facing the university.

Mathew Goodwin, a sophomore exercise science major, said he doesn’t understand why the university cut the teams –– men’s swimming and diving, soccer, baseball and women’s rowing –– to save $2 million, when they can raise millions.

“I saw a lot of people complaining on Twitter after the announcement Monday,” Goodwin said. “I get it. All of those teams were successful, people were drafted into the MLS and MLB, so I really don’t get why we couldn’t keep funding them. I’m a big sports fan, so taking away those sports is a downside to my college experience.”

Tripathi said when UB told donors what it would cost to keep the teams, the money wasn’t there.

“Donations are really based on what [donors] feel can make an impact,” Tripathi said. “But if they want to start a new institute on something we’re not interested in, we’re not going to take their money and say we’re going to do it.”

Guns N’ Roses are booked through summer 2018 in Europe, this coming leg being their second full-length tour in the U.K. It seems that, for now, the band is putting off the inevitable.

Still, the fan inside of me hopes for the best-case scenario at the expense of betraying intellect.

Will they release a new album? Probably not. Slash is already pushing the press

tour behind his work with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators, and Rose has supposedly enough material for a follow-up to 2006’s “Chinese Democracy.” Hoping for the original lineup to hop back into the studio to record anything other than a victory lap’s worth of heartless music is far-fetched.

Guns N’ Roses were never a band to play by the rules. Even when labeled the

biggest band in the world, they did so with a gusto and temperament that was quintessentially hard rock to the point of being borderline ridiculous.

For now, I’ll keep my memory of the reunion tour as exactly that –– a memory.

email: max.kalnitz@ubspectrum.com twitter: @Max_Kalnitz

email: brian.evans@ubspectrum.com

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DAVID TUNIS-GARCIA | THE SPECTRUM

DAVID TUNIS-GARCIA | THE SPECTRUM

Vincent Piazza delivers a superplex to his opponent during training. Piazza wrestles as Vinnie Moon and plans on selling his signature bandanas at the merchandise table at shows.

“The Red Death” Daniel Garcia gets stretched by his opponent at “Fairground Fallout.” Garcia regularly performs in Canada for Smash Wrestling.

Buffalo-area gym aims to train the next pro wre DAVID TUNIS-GARCIA MANAGING EDITOR

Graig Knowlton works for a corporate apparel company. By day, he delivers sturdy work pants to businesses. He drops off and removes 20-foot black rubber mats that collect dirt and salt from the bottom of people’s shoes when they enter the local library in South Buffalo. He is 24 years old, coming up on one year of marriage and teaches the youth group at his church in North Tonawanda.

He’s also a professional wrestler and competed for the Empire State Wrestling Tag Team Championship at ESW’s “Fairground Fallout” in front of a crowd of 350 people last Saturday.

“Who wants to see me fight the Red Death?” Knowlton asked the crowd as he eyed his competitor, Daniel Garcia.

Knowlton’s ring name is James Sayga, a reference to the video game developer Sega. Garcia slapped Knowlton across the face before fleeing from the 6-foot-3-inch Knowlton. When he got his hands on Garcia, he scooped him onto his shoulder like one of the mats he hauls at work, whirling him around like a violent swing dance before driving Garcia back-flat to the ring.

During intermission, Knowlton posed with young children and stopped to chat with a Roddy Piper fan, who wore a kilt, a sleeveless duster and a T-shirt with the late legend’s logo. Knowlton wore a shirt with the number for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. He sees wrestling as an extension of his church work. It’s a chance, he says, to preach the Gospel to people who wouldn’t normally hear it.

Knowlton and Garcia are two of 11 professional wrestlers to come out of Grapplers Anonymous, a wrestling gym in Lackawanna. Local wrestlers go to the gym Sunday, Monday and Tuesday evenings to learn to run the ropes, take bumps and trash talk like WWE Superstars. There is also an advanced class on Wednesday nights where they focus on what makes for a good match and how to connect with an audience.

The wrestlers go on to perform matches in dingy fire halls across Western New York, getting dropped on their heads for a $20 payday. Some performers have spread out to larger shows in Canada and as far as Maine.

Michael Caldarelli said he opened the gym – in a nondescript building on Ridge Road about a block from the Our Lady of Victory Basilica – to fix a problem: there was nowhere for local wrestlers to train to be ring-ready.

Four years later, Caldarelli added, he has higher ambitions.

“There are going to be so many talented wrestlers in the area and not enough places to wrestle,” Caldarelli said. “I’m not a betting man. I only take sure bets, and I would put my own f-----g money on that.”

‘The grandest stage’ ESW is the premier wrestling promotion in Buffalo. “Fallout” took place in a barn at the Orleans County 4-H Fairgrounds in Albion, but most of ESW’s events are in the St. Johnsburg Fire Hall in North Tonawanda. Current WWE Superstars Daniel Bryan and Finn Bálor fought in that building in July 2007 for

the now-defunct promotion the National Wrestling Alliance. Over 300 wrestling fans regularly pack into the venue. The air is always hot and thick and vaguely smells of weed. Beer and pizza override the more illicit scents.

The average resting heart rate of the audience is probably somewhere in the mid-100s, based on the appearance of the crowd members who sit in padded folding chairs arranged around the ring. There was a time when the wrestlers didn’t look much better, but that has started to change since Grapplers opened in 2014.

ESW’s promoter Brett Stymus, 31, said there was no wrestling school in Buffalo before Grapplers. Before the gym opened, wrestlers arrived the morning of a show to get in a few hours of training before they went on. Stymus wrestled for ESW under the name Brett Mednik, but stopped after the birth of his son, Chase, in 2008. He also works as a custodian in a Lockport high school.

“Guys can get in the gym most days of the week to train and work out,” Stymus said. “When people ask how they can get into wrestling or where they can train, we always refer them to Grapplers.

They’re producing great talent.”

The product is evident. Of the eight matches on Stymus’ card for “Fallout,” seven of them contained a wrestler from Grapplers.

‘To be the man…’

Caldarelli is 34 years old and has been wrestling for 10 years. He’ll call you “bubba” or “daddy” in conversation and wrestles under the name Mikey Every-

night. He works at a pallet exchange in South Buffalo during the day and runs the gym with his brother, Kris, in his off time. He turned down a full ride at UB as a football kicker after high school to pursue a career in music. He remembers his friends wrestled in their backyard when they were kids. Caldarelli watched, but never took part. It wasn’t until his brother started training that Caldarelli decided to try it, he said, because there isn’t anything Kris can do that he can’t.

He was 24 and working as a line cook at the Apollo diner on South Park Avenue.

Caldarelli said he did maybe 50 pushups and some basic calisthenics before his trainers put him in a ring where other untrained guys body-slammed him on his first day.

“I didn’t know much at that point, but I knew it wasn’t right,” Caldarelli said. “I didn’t want people to be trained shittily like I was trained. There’s a cycle of violence in pro wrestling that I want to break.”

Brandon Thurston is the head trainer at the gym. Born in Buffalo, he served in the Air Force Reserve from 2008 to 2016 and graduated from UB in 2012 with a degree in psychology. Now 32, he works in the mailroom of the Air Force base in Niagara Falls where he spends most of his time writing about WWE finances for Wrestling Inc. He said he considers it “a federal government grant to be a writer.”

Thurston began wrestling in July 2003, as soon as he turned 18 — the minimum age most people are allowed to start training. Thurston drove to the house of a local wrestler where peo-

CIAL ubspectrum.com

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Thursday, The Spectrum May 3, |2018 Page |7

> SEE GRAPPLERS | PAGE 8

Brandon Thurston locks his opponent in an armbar at ESW’s “Fairground Fallout.” Thurston is the head trainer at Grapplers, where he guides the third generation of Western New York wrestlers.

DAVID TUNIS-GARCIA | THE SPECTRUM

ple trained in a ring set up in the driveway. He can provide a complete oral history of ESW and is more than happy to do so. He gets excited when talking about wrestling; it changes his typically calm demeanor. When he goes to bed at night, he watches old wrestling matches.

The gym is a fluorescent-lit concrete room: a repurposed loading dock fitted with a bare-bones, black ring, an American flag and a poster board sign reading “HARD WORK DADDY YEAH!” – Caldarelli’s catchphrase. In the back is some old workout equipment and a painting of wrestling legend Lou Thesz.

Every training session begins with an “opening prayer,” consisting of burpees, pushups and squats.

Then the ring work begins. Thurston watches as trainees bounce back and forth on the ropes and tumble across the ring. He tells a student to fall forward on his face. The landing needs to be safe, but look real to a crowd at a match. It doesn’t look convincing, so Thurston tells him to do it again. And again. And again.

After a practice match last Tuesday, Thurston noted a student was throwing particularly good chops. He slapped his opponent’s chest so hard through a shirt that it sounded like a bare chest slap and left a handprint. The rest of the students went back to work in the ring, while Caldarelli took the student aside. He worked with him for 20 minutes to find inventive ways to throw chops in a match — bounce his opponent off the rope. Chop. Kick out his legs. Chop. Twist his arm and pull him in. Chop.

DAVID TUNIS-GARCIA | THE SPECTRUM

estling stars

Students at Grapplers arch on their heads and feet without arm support to strengthen their necks during a training session with Jesse Guilmette.

Guilmette teaches the advanced classes on Wednesday nights and focuses on inring storytelling.

DAVID TUNIS-GARCIA | THE SPECTRUM

Nick Pufpaff crushes his opponent at “Fairground Fallout.” Billed at 420 pounds, Puf is a crowd favorite and typically gets the biggest reactions of any wrestler at shows.

DAVID TUNIS-GARCIA | THE SPECTRUM

You start wrestling matches for 10 or 20 bucks, and you’re destroying yourself. You don’t destroy your body for a hobby.”

8 | Thursday, May 3, 2018 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

GRAPPLERS The one-on-one session ended when Caldarelli put the student in a wrist-lock and dragged him around the gym forcing high-fives on the rest of the people in the room with the student’s hand as Thurston continued to run drills.

Thurston takes the craft seriously. He grew up studying Japanese wrestling. In Japan, he said, pro wrestling is treated like any other sport, and the wrestlers strive to replicate reality.

Caldarelli said he is about creating moments the audience won’t forget. He is a natural showman, calling back to pro wrestling’s carnival roots.

Thurston admitted he can come across as “unfriendly,” while Caldarelli considers himself the “people person.” The two present the dichotomy of wrestling: the sport and the show. But together, they are uniquely qualified to train a new generation of talent.

“Everybody has something to offer,” Caldarelli said. “It’s about what you can offer, and if you are willing to put in the work to participate.”

‘You just made the list!’

A trainee at Grapplers must pass a tryout before he can enter the ring. The trial lasts over two hours and involves squats, pushups, wall-sits and stair-runs carrying an 80-pound heavy bag, among other grueling exercises. Caldarelli said he’s seen NFL prospects and marathon runners quit, cry and puke during the tryout.

He said it weeds out the people who think they can be there from the people who want to be there.

Nolan Puleo, 26, has trained with Grapplers for six months. He hasn’t passed the tryout and said he can’t wrestle in the ring yet because his neck isn’t strong enough.

But he does participate. He’s the referee.

“Just being involved with wrestling is great,” said Puleo on his role.

Puleo lost 80 pounds since coming to Grapplers. He, like others at the school, said he’s struggled with anxiety and depression his whole life and wrestling has allowed him to overcome some of his issues. But, he is aware of the toll wrestling can take on a person and said anyone looking to wrestle should be serious about the sport.

“You start wrestling matches for 10 or 20 bucks, and you’re destroying yourself,” Puleo said. “You don’t destroy your body for a hobby. Nobody should come into the gym if they don’t want to be a world champion.”

Vincent Piazza said he attempted the trial three times before completing it.

“It’s mentally demanding as much as physically,” Piazza said. “It measures how much you want [to be a wrestler].”

Before Grapplers opened, the 20-yearold Piazza attended training seminars at local wrestling shows. He wrestles under the name Vinnie Moon, studies animal management at Niagara County Community College and interns at the Niagara Falls aquarium. He has to be there at 7:30 a.m. but is at the gym until 11 p.m. the night before. Piazza looks like a mop with his thin frame and head of long, blonde hair, held back in the ring by a bandana.

After a recent training session, Piazza was excited because he’d just ordered rubber bracelets emblazoned with his name and signature move, the Moon Landing — “you can’t fake it.” He plans to sell them at shows with bandanas like he wears in the ring. When you’re a wrestler, he said, “fans want to be you.”

Both Thurston and Caldarelli independently suggested Piazza start wearing Moon Boots to the ring. Caldarelli said he is already looking out for a pair at the thrift store.

Piazza’s current goal is to “get bigger.”

This involves lifting weights and eating a pound of turkey cold cuts from a plastic baggie with his hands after training.

‘Being the elite’ Jesse Guilmette, 37, looks like a wrestler. He even gets to be one on television.

SPECIAL Standing at 6 feet tall with arms thicker than Piazza’s legs, Guilmette wrestles with Impact Wrestling under the name Braxton Sutter, but announced the end of his contract with the promotion on April 26.

Impact tapes at Universal Studios in Florida and airs weekly on the Fight Network.

Guilmette said he doesn’t remember a time in his life he wasn’t watching wrestling –– a common thread with the guys in the gym. Born in Buffalo, he moved to Cincinnati in 1999 to train under Les Thatcher, a famous wrestler and trainer. He said he never had a backup plan if wrestling didn’t work out: he never wanted to do anything else.

He is one of the only people in Buffalo making a living at wrestling, though he does a bit of personal training on the side.

He’s hesitant to tell people he’s a wrestler, especially the officers at the Canadian border when he is travelling for a show.

Guilmette said wrestling is an “illusion business” where looks are “more than half of it.”

“It doesn’t matter how tough you are,” Guilmette said while eating a meal-prep container of plain chicken and rice. He adds his own hot sauce. “Most of the time I’ve gotten booked from pictures. Look is the first thing people see. I’ll send tapes [of my wrestling], but I doubt they usually watch them.”

Guilmette still stresses ability. He teaches the advanced class on Wednesday nights at Grapplers. On April 18, he began class by screening a 2003 match between Triple H and Shawn Michaels from “WWE Raw.” The group of seven huddled around a laptop as Guilmette broke down the match, explaining the reasons behind each move the wrestlers made.

Michaels, the “baby face” or good guy, inadvertently knocked out the referee before attempting to pin H, the “heel” or villain. Michaels had H down for more than three seconds, proving he deserved to win the match if not for the downed referee. This makes H’s eventual victory over Michaels even harder on the crowd, Guilmette explained.

The class transitioned to warmups: pushups, squats and arm circles to the tune of Pantera’s “Cowboys from Hell.”

Next, they arched their bodies, balancing on their heads and feet without arm support to strengthen their necks, followed by tumbles around the ring. They finished the night by breaking into two groups of four to plan out a tag-team match with an objective: 10-minute time limit, faces against heels; heels win. Guilmette critiques the match while judging the physical performance and the storytelling.

“He has a good way of explaining things in a positive way. Even if he says something negative, it’s constructive,” Caldarelli said about Guilmette. “He knows how to give a compliment through criticism.”

Caldarelli also mentions the contacts Guilmette brings. Like any business, networking is critical to success in wrestling.

He said Guilmette adds “credibility” to the gym. Guilmette tells students when he will be traveling for shows and offers space in the car for them to join and connect with promoters outside of the local scene.

Guilmette said “getting out of [his] comfort zone” was key to his success in the business, and he wants to offer the next generation that opportunity.

‘Who’s next?’

Kevin Lockwood said knowing Guilmette has been a “major factor” in getting booked.

“We’re going places and doing things [older wrestlers] never did,” Lockwood said. “Knowing someone is a good foot in the door, but you have to work hard to prove you belong.”

The 27-year-old tattoo artist from Albion is covered in ink, including a Pikachu on his shin and a molar on the side of his face. Lockwood began wrestling in October 2015 after overhearing a client at the tattoo parlor mention Grapplers to his artist. Using the name Kevin Blackwood, he regularly performs for Smash Wrestling, a Canadian promotion.

Everyone at the gym says Lockwood is a natural talent. He had his first match al-

ubspectrum.com

most a full year after he started training, but Thurston said he was ready for a debut six months before.

Lockwood attributes his initial reluctance to his anxiety, but said wrestling has helped him get over it. He counts wrestling as the “coolest thing I’ve ever done with my life.”

Caldarelli said Lockwood signing with a major wrestling promotion is an inevitability.

“He’ll have a contract,” he said. “It’s just a matter of when.”

Lockwood won’t be satisfied with a contract, though. He said his goal is to be one of the greats.

“I want my name to come up in conversations around the world whenever people discuss who the best wrestlers of alltime are,” Lockwood said.

One look at Lockwood and it’s easy to see him accomplishing his dream. He has the looks, the build and talent a successful wrestler needs.

And then there’s Puf. Nick Pufpaff, a 21-year-old Lyft driver, wasn’t wanted at Grapplers by anyone, according to Caldarelli.

“Absolutely nobody wanted him here,” Caldarelli said. “They saw no value, no potential. I saw it from the moment I talked to this fat kid.”

Caldarelli met Pufpaff as a child while Caldarelli worked at the diner. He remembers Pufpaff coming in with his grandfather on numerous occasions and said Pufpaff ’s grandfather originally encouraged Caldarelli to follow his wrestling dream.

He reconnected with Pufpaff at a wrestling show years later at Buffalo Riverworks.

Billed at 420 pounds, Pufpaff fills his Instagram page with shirtless pictures of himself. Pufpaff came to the gym out of shape, Caldarelli said, but had “a smile and charisma you can’t teach.”

Thurston politely calls Pufpaff “unorthodox.” He said he barred Pufpaff from the ring when he first showed up at the gym, insisting he workout extensively to get in fighting shape. Caldarelli worked with Pufpaff, cancelling plans with family and coming to the gym on offdays to train him. He said Pufpaff dropped 50 pounds in three months.

When it came time for his tryout, Thurston still had his doubts.

“I thought he was going to die in his trial,” Thurston said. “I told Mikey to make him stop. I was really worried we were going to have a death on our hands.”

It wasn’t until a seminar with the wrestler Ethan Page that Pufpaff proved himself.

He paid money to attend the workshop held at the gym, though he still wasn’t ringapproved. He impressed the visiting trainer with his skills on the microphone — “cutting promos” — and when it came time for the practice match at the end, Page teamed Pufpaff up with Lockwood.

Caldarelli said Thurston came to the locker room to warn him Pufpaff was about to get into the ring, but Caldarelli insisted Pufpaff paid his money and deserved the chance.

Caldarelli said he could hear the match from the back of the gym: feet running and bodies hitting the mat, and then cheers. Garcia burst into the room and said, “Puf and Kevin just had the best match I’ve ever seen,” Caldarelli recalls.

“If Puf never trained here, wrestling would be hurting,” Lockwood said. “As soon as he gets out there, he’s thriving on the applause and attention.”

Pufpaff wears a powder blue and pink bodysuit in the ring. A doughnut takes the place of his belt buckle on the gear. He shakes and gyrates his hips, and for his signature move, he punches his opponent with the “Whip” dance move. The crowd

at “Fallout” ate it up. Pufpaff got some of the biggest reactions of the night. The ESW crowd is familiar with his work, but Guilmette said Pufpaff gets this response everywhere he goes.

“The glorious thing about Puf is no matter where you take him, or anytime we put him in front of people ... he’s just instantly over,” Guilmette said.

Pufpaff said he always wanted to be a standup comedian, but never pursued it.

He said wrestling “came into [his] life” and he’s doing well. Last weekend, he travelled with Guilmette and Andy Williams — a wrestler and the guitarist from Buffalo band Every Time I Die — to Brooklyn for a wrestling show.

Pufpaff said he hopes to pay his bills with wrestling someday. In the meantime, he is a licensed security guard and is seeking employment as a bouncer at a strip club to supplement his Lyft income.

‘Time is a squared circle’ Caldarelli said he’s accomplished everything he could have wanted in his wrestling career. The only thing he ever wanted was to get paid to wrestle in front of his friends and family, something he did in his first year.

He’s wrestled in 253 matches and said he knows his purpose in any show: “to be the most entertaining motherf----r I can be.”

He considers himself a “mechanic,” a guy who can get in the ring and fix any problem. He said he can wrestle a broomstick if he had to.

Caldarelli has no delusions of wrestling for the WWE. He said he doesn’t need to step foot in one of Vince McMahon’s rings to have made it. But he tells his students that if they get the chance to wrestle for the WWE, say his name when they take their first roll.

“Then I made it, too,” Caldarelli said.

Thurston said at this point in his life, he has more to give to the wrestling community as a trainer than as a performer.

He instilled the fundamentals in what he considers the third generation of Western New York wrestlers, watching them from their first bump to fighting in their first match. He built Grapplers’ online presence, running its Facebook and Instagram pages by himself, exposing the work going on at the gym to people around the world.

He considers himself a “futurist” when it comes to wrestling. Thurston wants to teach his students how to succeed in today’s market and said social media is vital for this generation of wrestlers. He broke down the differences between traditional and modern independent wrestling on a whiteboard in the gym — the same board on which he diagrammed a male reproductive organ to explain how a vasectomy works to some inquiring students. On the back of the board is a list of upcoming shows guys at the gym want to perform at. Most of the dates are checked off.

Still, Thurston said, he can’t help but feel jealous when he sees guys load up in cars and drive to shows he couldn’t book.

He admitted his introverted personality and pride prevent him from making the connections a wrestler needs to ingratiate himself with promoters.

Wrestling is no longer his go-to latenight viewing. These days, he falls asleep watching “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” He recently subscribed to PBS Kids online just to watch.

“It calms me down. Mister Rogers is my hero. It’s the kindness, the calmness,” Thurston said. “A lot of the lessons in there are directed at children, but adults need them, too.”

There are going to be so many talented wrestlers in the area and not enough places to wrestle.”

email: david.garcia@ubspectrum.com twitter: @davidubspectrum

ubspectrum.com

FEATURES

Thursday, May 3, 2018 | 9

UB’s new dining hall named ‘One World Cafe’ Engineering student wins naming contest, awarded $500 in dining dollars MADDY FOWLER EDITORIAL EDITOR

Sayre Stowell, a junior aerospace and mechanical engineering major, won a naming contest for a new international-inspired dining hall set to open in 2020.

In February, the steering committee for the global market cafe launched a contest where students could submit name ideas for the new eatery. In April, students voted on the submissions for their favorite name. Six hundred students voted, and Stowell’s name –– One World Cafe ––

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

SENECA “We need this work to be done,” McCarthy said. “UB has a commitment to diversity and it’s important, but our concerns as indigenous people within that are specific. … A lot of times we get dismissed because [we] are a really small community, but we push back against that.”

The Seneca Nation is one of the six nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Parts of New York, including UB, are Haudenosaunee territory. The territory is covered by the Dish with One Spoon agreement, estimated by ethnologist Horatio Hale to have taken place in 1459, and the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua. The treaties acknowledge and provide the Haudenosaunee Confederacy land rights to these territories.

Only 59 of the 20,000-plus undergraduates enrolled this spring are of American Indian descent, according to Michael Randall, assistant vice president of the office of institutional analysis. In a lecture hall of 500 students, statistically, only one will be American Indian. Between 37 and 64 American Indian undergraduates have enrolled each semester since 2010.

This fall only 10 American Indian students joined UB, according to the university’s institutional analysis team.

The Tonawanda Band of Seneca and the Seneca Nation of Indians are the two federally-recognized Seneca tribes in Western New York. Two former Native faculty members, John Mohawk and Barry White, used to actively recruit at local reservations from these tribes, according to American Indian faculty members and representatives of the Tonawanda Band of Seneca. But Mohawk died in 2006 and White died in 2011. No one has actively picked up their roles, although McCarthy said American Indian faculty in UB often feel the responsibility to recruit.

“It was always going to come on the backs of the few indigenous people that are here to try to make this campus a more hospitable place, and that’s the structural piece that’s wrong,” McCarthy said.

“There’s a whole infrastructure that needs to be put in place to better support indigenous students, and it just doesn’t exist.”

In 2011, the College of Arts and Science formed the transnational studies department to encompass minority studies like American studies. Donald Grinde, director of graduate studies in the department, said he believes this decision was a consequence of administrative budget cuts.

He said American studies has struggled to continue finding resources and funding to teach some courses. The university has not offered a Seneca language course in nearly a decade.

“We lost the language, and that’s a function of not being able to pay somebody to do that,” Grinde, a member of the Yamassee Nation, said. “[The course] is still on the books, but there are just no resources to [teach it].”

The transnational studies department is currently working with the Seneca Nation of Indians to bring the Seneca language

won with 49.45 percent of votes.

“The name for an international eatery in the heart of the campus should reflect unity and diversity, just as much as the university it represents,” Stowell said.

Campus Dining & Shops awarded Stowell $500 in dining dollars, which Vice President A. Scott Weber presented to Stowell at an award ceremony Monday in Founders Plaza.

The new dining location will connect Flint Circle to Hamilton Entrance, according to Vice Provost for Graduate Education Graham Hammill, who is directing the project. Construction is set to start in June. email: maddy.fowler@ubspectrum.com twitter: @mmfowler13

course back. McCarthy said course offerings have been difficult, however, with limited support from the university administration.

“I just don’t feel like [indigenous studies] was valued anymore,” McCarthy said.

“We watched [resources] all erode, lines in positions go away and never be replaced.

We lost ground in indigenous studies from where we were 10 years ago.”

Only eight American Indian faculty members teach at UB, less than one percent of UB’s overall faculty, according to Institutional Analysis. The number has decreased from 13 faculty members in 2008. The amount of American Indian staff members has also decreased from 19 to 12 since 2008.

LuAnn Jamieson, a hawk clan mother of the Tonawanda Band of Seneca, said the lack of native faculty and staff is a concern. Jamieson said it’s challenging for native educators without proper credentials to teach a course at UB. “Part of the problem with the education system is that they require Native studies teachers to be certified and to have gone through the education system,” Jamieson said. “For a long time, we didn’t have graduates or students who went to school and came out with a degree.”

Brandon Martin, Seneca language immersion director for the Seneca Nation of Indians, agrees with Jamieson. Martin is currently working on the initiative with McCarthy to teach the Seneca language at UB. Martin said the U.S. government’s usage of boarding schools on Native students was an ethnocide against American Indians, and consequently led Natives to be wary of the U.S. education system. He said UB’s support for Native education would demonstrate support against the government’s past actions.

“If UB were to support developing the proposed relationship by accrediting local Haudenosaunee language adult immersion programs and offering Haudenosaunee language courses, it would show their support against government ethnocidal practices of the past, and for Haudenosaunee language and culture revitalization efforts of the present and future,” Martin said in an email.

Summer Hemphill, a forward on the UB women’s basketball team, belongs to the Seneca Nation of Indians. Hemphill said she has never met anyone from her tribe at UB and had to learn most of her heritage by attending classes at the Buffalo Native Resource Center.

Hemphill said the resource center gave members who didn’t grow up on the reservation the opportunity to learn cultural aspects and the language.

“Through my schools, they never offered any courses about indigenous [culture] or anything,” said Hemphill, a sophomore sociology major. “You just learned what’s in the history books and really focus on that.”

UB’s Office of the Vice Provost created an Indigenous Inclusion committee on the Inclusive Excellence Leadership Council and an inclusive excellence faculty fellowship program, according to Despina Stratigakos, interim vice provost for inclusive excellence. The committee and fellowship program began this past fall, ac-

COURTESY | DOUGLAS LEVERE

Vice President for Student Life A. Scott. Weber presents Sayre Stowell, who submitted the winning entry in the global market cafe naming contest, with a check for $500 in dining dollars. Stowell said he chose the name “One World Cafe” to reflect the “diversity and unity” he believes the university represents.

cording to McCarthy.

If Native undergraduates want to reinMcCarthy is one of the faculty fellows state the club, students would have to start of the program for the academic year. the club under a new name and become Her project aims to create indigenous in- a temporary club for two years before reclusion programs on campus and in the ceiving permanent status. local community.

Barbara Weston, assistant director for She and other native faculty will pres- lifelong learning at the Seneca Nation Edent at UB’s Inclusive Excellence Sum- ucation Department in Irving, New York, mit Thursday and Friday to discuss indig- said a communal space on campus is necessary for Native stuenous inclusion at UB dents. These spaces and SUNY campusprovide the proper help es. McCarthy will also to adjust to the changbe hosting a UB-spones of living away from sored indigenous retreat home, she said. at UB with the indigenous community later “Our freshman stuthis month. dents definitely need that support especialJudd Logan, a sely when they start at a nior cognitive science especially large school major, said UB should because a lot of our reach out to nearby kids come from a small tribes to incorporate close knit community,” more cultural classes Weston said. and activities on campus.

The Native Graduate Association is an al“Native representernative for native untation could definitedergraduates seeking a ly use some work,” Losense of community. gan said. “UB has a The struggle for memlot of cultural resourcbership, however, exists es here that I haven’t there, as well. seen [them] use, and it shows. UB needs Club member Morto show that support gan Morningstar said through resources.” a decrease in membership in the last two McCarthy said UB’s years has affected the Native student comclub’s ability to host the munity was more apAnnual Indigenous and parent in her time as a American Studies StoFulbright fellow at UB rytellers Conference. in 2001.

The first conference “It was a time where began in 2004 and was there was more repheld annually, but will resentation, and there not be held this year was a lot of activifor the second time in ties going on with very a row. big and active stuThe conference feadent groups,” McCartured indigenous scholthy said. “I was just ars from across North amazed that there was a Theresa McCarthy America, with a bangraduate student group quet to address Moof Native students that had 30 people, but that [has] all changed.” hawk’s community impact. Morningstar, a The Student Association recognized the PhD candidate for American studies, said Native American Cultural Awareness Or- fundraising and organizing the conference ganization as the first native club in May was difficult with too few members. “[The conference] is a lot for three peo1970, according to SA administrative director Mark Sorel. The club, renamed First Na- ple working on Ph.Ds and master’s [detions SA in 2013, provided a support sys- grees] to do on their own, and sadly that tem for Native members and helped to ad- was what we were down to – three peodress Native students’ needs, according to ple who were full-time active students,” Morningstar said. the club’s first constitution.

The burden of facilitating these NaBut the club’s 48-year history halted in February. First Nations SA was officially tive clubs shouldn’t rely solely on students, derecognized during the SA Senate meet- McCarthy said. She’s working with the UB ing on Feb. 21. The Senate, in a unani- administration to recognize and contribmous vote, derecognized the club due to ute to the support Native students need. inactivity. None of the club’s representa“Indigenious students see no reflection tives attended the meeting. of themselves when they come on to the Samantha Ray, vice president of the for- campus. … There really is nothing, no inmer club, said SA requirements were hard digenous space or support system that are available for people,” McCarthy said. to meet with her busy schedule.

“When you’re completely invisible in an “[The club] is a lot of work for not a lot of people,” Ray, a sophomore psychol- institution that’s in your homeland, that’s a ogy major, said. “There hasn’t been peo- form of violence.” ple that joined because there’s not a lot email: wanly.chen@ubspectrum.com of Native students [here], and non-Native twitter: @Wanly_Chen students get the idea that they can’t join.”

It was always going to come on the backs of the few indigenous people that are here to try to make this campus a more hospitable place, and that’s the structural piece that’s wrong.

There’s a whole infrastructure that needs to be put in place to better support indigenous students, and it just doesn’t exist.”

NEWS

10 | Thursday, May 3, 2018

ubspectrum.com

SHUBH JAIN | THE SPECTRUM

Members of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee met Wednesday afternoon in Capen Hall. The committee passed a resolution last week in response to faculty concerns about evaluation policies.

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FACULTY In her April 16 email, Schulze cited a memo from Provost Charles Zukoski that said deans and chairs are both responsible for looking at the reports and that the “distribution of faculty activities can be altered as appropriate to ensure equitable workloads and better enable us to advance our mission.”

University officials said the email sent to faculty was merely a reminder of existing policies required of all UB employees.

“First and foremost, while the format and vehicle for reporting activity is new this year, there is no change to the role that chairs and faculty play in establishing norms of faculty activity within departments,” Schulze wrote.

The policy has always required faculty to submit annual reports to both department chair and dean for evaluation, according to university officials.

Some faculty members in the college say that’s not the case and that the reports have always gone directly to department chairs, who may better understand the type of work their faculty are doing.

English professor Kenneth Dauber said the announcement “set off red flags” for some faculty. He said they felt it suggested a policy that would result in less nuanced faculty evaluations and would take power away from department chairs to determine faculty workload.

“What may result from that is an evaluation that’s not based on disciplinary understanding, that’s not based on intellectual criteria but that becomes a push toward number crunching,” Dauber said.

In response to faculty concerns, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee passed a resolution last week asking the dean and provost to postpone the May 15 deadline until the Faculty Senate had time to review the “new policy.” The resolution passed 15-1. The provost attended the meeting April 25.

The resolution says that Schulze’s announcement violated Faculty Senate bylaws, which require voting faculty to either initiate or approve policies related to the evaluation of research and teaching.

Zukoski said he only sent the letter to deans to restate the policy and to ensure its enforcement, and emphasized that nothing has changed regarding the reporting policies.

Schulze’s letter sent Monday to faculty echoed the provost and president’s position: No new policy.

Schulze also added that faculty may submit their reports and CVs directly to chairs in “whatever form they wish.”

Faculty chairs will create reports to summarize activity in their departments and then report to the dean, which Schulze said is “long standing college practice.”

“I will ask chairs to discuss individual faculty activity in relation to the current norms in their departments and the documents that their departments have created in regard to norms. Here again, the web forms were designed to make this process less labor-intensive for chairs and faculty during a busy time of the year,” Schulze wrote.

In the letter, Schulze repeated that all faculty activity reports are still due by May 15. email: sarah.crowley@ubspectrum.com twitter: @crowleyspectrum

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SPORTS

ubspectrum.com

From player to operator THOMAS ZAFONTE SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR

Karin Moss’ time on the Bulls didn’t start with a MAC Championship, NCAA appearance or even 20 wins. In 2012, she started on a Buffalo team that was struggling under brand-new head coach in Felisha Legette-Jack.

It was not ideal for a player who had just committed to UB. “People don’t realize how bad Buffalo looked back then,” Moss said. “From somebody weighing their options on where to play, people would not tell you UB was the place to be. It would have been the greatest mistake of my life if I didn’t come, though.”

Moss was the sole senior on the Bulls’ first MAC Championship season four years later. In her time at UB, she became a top contributor on defense and played for University of Durham in the U.K. after graduation. Moss joined the team again in 2017 as director of basketball operations, in which she prepares equipment and performs other tasks outside of the game.

As both player and staff member, Moss saw firsthand the turn-around of a program that recently came off a Sweet 16 appearance.

“When I first took over the team, we stunk,” Legette-Jack said. “We won 12 games that season. I knew the only thing that was going to keep the players here and getting people committed was getting them to buy into what we can do.”

Coaches said they regard Moss, a 5-foot4-inch former guard, as a key figure in establishing the success Buffalo has today.

“I really was not sure if I was going to come to UB,” Moss said. “When coach Legette-Jack took over, I was up in the air on coming here. Then she called me, and we talked for about an hour. I could feel her energy on the phone and just felt I needed to be here.”

Yet, Moss said her freshman year was a rough experience. Though she believed in where the team would go, she did not understand her role. At the start, all she wanted to do was shoot the ball.

Former women’s basketball player Karin Moss details time on team, transition into staff role “You are not going to be the player you were in high school,” Moss said. “You are not going to go in there and take a bunch of shots and get 15 points for your team.

There is a role we can all do that will be the most effective for the team. I just hadn’t found that role.”

Moss said her teammates helped her early on. It was a collective effort of support, but she pointed out current assistant coach Kristen Sharkey –– a forward on the team at the time –– as her biggest supporter. They became roommates and formed a bond by playing together. Moss said her relationship with Sharkey today is sister-like.

“We are super close,” Sharkey said. “I think that’s something that whole team shared, and we still have on the team. We still get together as a team, with anyone who still is in the area.”

Sharkey joined the team as a coach shortly after an ACL injury her sophomore year. Sharkey said while transitioning into being a coach, she saw Moss grow as both a person and player on the court.

“It didn’t come quickly,” Moss said. “I knew I had some speed, but I didn’t know how to use it. Eventually, I started to focus on my defense and it clicked. In my junior year, … they started to call me an ‘Energizer Bunny’ on defense.”

Both Moss and Sharkey credited the team’s success to the “focus on the person.”

Legette-Jack said the focus creates an atmosphere of family and support: an environment that can grow “strong and confident women.”

“We focus on respect within the program, and that is big for our players,” Sharkey said. “They call me Mrs. Sharkey, they call our guy in communications, [Louie Spina], Mr. Louie. Just showing respect to those who are supporting you is huge for character. We want fantastic women here because we know they make fantastic basketball players.”

Sharkey said the family environment helped her to move forward in her transition into being a coach quicker. Moss also credited her time on the team for helping her succeed in spheres outside of basketball.

After graduation, Moss went to the University of Durham to play in the collegiate league and earn her master’s degree in supply chain logistics.

“Durham was a good experience, but I realized I needed to start to think of my life post-basketball,” Moss said. “Sharkey said I should think about coming back to Buffalo after Durham, so I did. My plan was to start my own business here. I was going to start a clothing line.”

Moss took the director position upon her return to Buffalo. After interviews with the team, she started for the 2017-18 season. In her first season as director, the Bulls went 29-6 and made it to a programfirst Sweet 16 appearance.

Legette-Jack said that the family environment goes beyond just the years on the team, now having two players she coached in Buffalo on the staff.

“She has done an amazing job. Our first season with her, we make it to the Sweet 16. What more proof do you need?”

Legette-Jack said. “We don’t even have managers for booking things like playtime, food and travel, and [Moss] will do it all.

That is the part of the team no one sees that I believe is intangible to our success.”

Players have come to appreciate a manager who is familiar with the team and the game.

“Moss is great,” said junior forward Courtney Wilkins. “She can’t get on the court because she is not a coach, but everything she brings as a manager is just invaluable. She fit in so well, and you can tell she values the system here.”

Moss said she is not planning a longterm stay with the Bulls, but she is more than happy to be back with her “basketball family.” Moss said she will always

COURTESY | PAUL HOKANSON, UB ATHLETICS

Former Bull Karin Moss tries to push in the paint for a layup. She joined the team again in 2017 as director of basketball operations.

have the support of her teammates and knows they will help her in any endeavor.

“I don’t see her being a coach,” LegetteJack said. “She doesn’t desire it. I see her working on her own fashion line or working over in California with a tech company. She is the kind of person who can succeed at anything she applies herself too.” email: thomas.zafonte@ubspectrum.com twitter: @Thomas_Spectrum

WOMEN’S TENNIS TO PLAY NORTHWESTERN IN NCAA TOURNAMENT Bulls to make third tournament appearance in program history THOMAS ZAFONTE SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR

The Bulls are heading back to the NCAA Tournament for their second consecutive season as they get ready to take on the No. 14 seed Northwestern Wildcats in the first round.

The Bulls (17- 3, 8-0 Mid-American Conference) will head to Evanston, Il-

linois for the second NCAA Tournament appearance with Kristen Maines as head coach. The Bulls celebrated the announcement at a live viewing party of the selection show Tuesday afternoon at Alumni Arena. The team was present to celebrate the announcement of the Northwestern (21-5, 11-0 Big Ten) matchup. Maines congratulated the team and said she expects more big program wins in the near future.

“It is exciting; it’s record-breaking, but above all it really is not surprising,” Maines said after Tuesday’s event. “Just given how talented this team is and the work they put in, this has by far been the most talented group we have ever had. We

THOMAS ZAFONTE | THE SPECTRUM

The women’s tennis team reacting to the announcement of its first round NCAA Tournament opponent, the Northwestern Wildcats. The Bulls will travel to Evanston, Illinois for the first round matchup on May 11.

have a school outside the top 10, so we couldn’t ask for anything more. Now it is time to go to work.”

Buffalo won both the MAC Season Championship and MAC Championship this year, a program first. Maines credited the depth of the team for its success this season. She said having players who are capable of taking a point in all six singles games gives them the ability to win at any level.

Team captain senior Tanja Stojanovska said Buffalo is ready to return to the Chicago area, this time with a chance to earn a programfirst win at the NCAA Tournament.

“I’m very excited to go back. This year has been very exciting and special for all of us,” Stojanovska said.

Last year, the Bulls took on the Ohio State Buckeyes (14-8, 7-4 Big Ten) in the first round, losing 4-0. This year, both coaches and players have said the team’s biggest goal was to earn a win at the NCAA Tournament.

Stojanovska said that the added experience compared to last year’s team has been a big help. The addition of the transfer players this year gave the team added depth and maturity. Maines said this year is the time for the Bulls to win, and they have a better seeding than in years past.

“I haven’t looked [Northwestern] up and I won’t until I step on the court,” Stojanovska said. “I don’t like doing that before a match. I don’t want to have any ideas or expectations in my mind. I just want to go on the court and play.”

Senior Lolade Ogungbesan, one of this year’s transfer students, said she is excited to play in her first NCAA Tournament.

Ogungbesan was named the MAC Championship’s Most Outstanding Player this past weekend and is hoping to carry that success to the national stage.

Ogungbesan said she doesn’t expect nerves to play a role as she enters the last tournament of her Division I career.

“I am going to miss this sport and I want to go out on a really good note,” Ogungbesan said. “This past weekend was amazing and I am still really happy, but now I am looking forward for the opportunity.”

Maines said she is not very familiar with Northwestern and that Buffalo has never played them in program history. She plans to use the time she has to study the team so they are more prepared for the Wildcats.

“I think it is good to play a school we haven’t yet,” Maines said. “There is no history. You go in there with no expectation. We are going to give it all we got to pick up our 15th win.”

The Bulls are currently tied for the second longest win-streak in the NCAA at 14. Maines said women’s tennis can emulate the success of UB’s basketball teams this season.

“They left some big shoes for us to follow,” Maines said. “Buffalo is on the radar because of what basketball did this year, and that is huge. People know Buffalo.

That is something we hope to do by making some national noise so people know Buffalo tennis, too.”

The Bulls are set to take on Northwestern on May 11, with a starting time set for 4 p.m. email: thomas.zafonte@ubspectrum.com twitter: @Thomas_Spectrum