Trinitonian First-ever Sex Week
Glass Animals release album
Double Trouble
Members of health services hold open discussions and events this week about different topics including dating, sexuality, and diseases
“How to be a Human Being” is Glass Animals’s second full length album, analyzing the human condition with electronic grooves.
Identical twins, Zoé and Mary Kaffen add some personality to this year’s tennis team. PAGE 13 A&E
PAGE 9 PULSE
Volume 114 Issue 6
Hand, foot and mouth disease
Viral infection is highly contagious BY ALEXANDRA URI
NEWS EDITOR
On Wednesday, Sharon Schweitzer, assistant vice president for external relations, sent an email to the Trinity community regarding a recent outbreak of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD). “Trinity Health Services and the University’s Athletic Trainer have identified eight cases of Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD) among students,” Schweitzer said in the email. According to the CDC website, the disease normally affects infants and children under the age of 5. However, the disease can occasionally occur in adults. According to the same website, symptoms “usually [start] with a fever, reduced appetite, sore throat and a feeling of being unwell (malaise). One or two days after the fever starts, painful sores can develop in the mouth (herpangina). They begin, often in the back of the mouth, as small red spots that blister and can become ulcers. A skin rash with red spots, and sometimes with blisters, may also develop over one or two days on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet; it may also appear on the knees, elbows, buttocks or genital area.” The virus can be spread through person-to-person contact or through contact with contaminated surfaces. Schweitzer provided tips for reducing the spread of the disease in her email. “To avoid the spread of the disease and reduce the risk of infection, thorough and frequent hand washing, especially after using the bathroom and before eating, is recommended. Further, it is recommended that you frequently clean or disinfect commonly touched surfaces in rooms, such as the sink, counter tops, toilet handles, faucet handles, door knobs, light switches and furniture surfaces, as well as laundering clothing and linens,” Schweitzer said. The email also suggested that individuals should stay at home if they start showing symptoms. “Students with HFMD should stay in their residence hall room or in off-campus housing as long as they have fever or rash. The virus may remain in the body for several weeks, so hygiene is critical in preventing the spread,” Schweitzer said. Continued on page 3
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September 23, 2016
Trinity preparing Spain program BY JEFFREY SULLIVAN
IN-DEPTH REPORTER
Trinity students who want to study abroad in Spain will be offered an opportunity with the university’s first faculty-led study abroad program to Madrid beginning fall of 2017. The developing model is a semester-long extension of the previously offered Madrid Summer Program. The development is a collaborative effort involving the “Trinity Tomorrow” plan, the Center for International Engagement, the study abroad department and Bladimir Ruiz, the head of the Madrid Summer Program. “A few years ago, the faculty and administration created a set of strategic plans involving professionalization, experiential learning and internationalization,” said Katsuo Nishikawa, director of the Center for International Engagement and associate professor of political science. “Part of that strategic plan was to kind of give a sense of integration and cohesion to all our study abroad programming.” News of the program surprised students that sought applications to study abroad in Spain because the Trinity program will have precedence over other available third-party program providers. “My initial goal was to study in Seville this spring,” said Kevin Moss, junior mathematical finance and theoretical economics major. “I went in to discuss potential programs with my study abroad advisor and was essentially told that I could try to go if I wanted to, but that Trinity was putting in place their own study abroad program in Spain.” Trinity’s program attempts to address issues with the study abroad experience students that were noticed by the university. “We’ve cared that these programs are safe and give some sort of exposure,” Nishikawa said. “We have very little control over the
curriculum. Many people who have gone on study abroad programs will attest to the fact that it’s easier abroad than here. We want to design programs that fit into our curriculum. The connection from the curriculum to experience to back to school is very undesigned. There’s no intention in how that experience is given and how you take it. ” Mark Brodl, the associate vice president for budget and research, addressed financial aid loopholes the program seeks to close. “What we wanted to get away from were situations where students were looking for inexpensive programs in locations that weren’t probably going to be the most challenging academically,” Brodl said. “Students would have a fairly good amount of aid and what ended up happening was that they were basically getting a financial aid check to go and study abroad and then spending money on top of that. Spending the rest of the summer tooling around Europe or wherever they were. That’s not the intention of the KATSUO NISHIKAWA, director of center for international engagement speaks to students at fall study abroad fair. financial aid dollars.” The price of the program is photo by CLAUDIA GARCIA to be determined for students based on the Home School to study in Spain, there are still some The appeal necessitates Tuition Policy, another tenet of possibilities for enrollment in other students to provide a short essay, “Trinity Tomorrow’s” third objective study abroad programs. no more than 1,000 words, — Enhance Students’ International “Giving priority to our own describing the factors that make it Engagement and Awareness. program is understandable,” said necessary to study in Spain, a letter “The idea is that Trinity University Nancy Ericksen, assistant director of support from a faculty advisor, a will be charging whatever it is that for study abroad. “We have set a letter of support from the department you pay to go to Trinity University. policy that if you want to study for chair for the most relevant major or That will be the cost of going abroad,” a semester in Spain, you will study minor and an additional letter of Brodl said. “All of the financial aid with the Trinity program. If you support from another Trinity faculty that you have transfers with you along have an urgent need to study in the or staff if he or she can speak directly with all of the support structures.” spring then there’s a process where to a special need not addressed by While it is now university policy students are given the opportunity to your advisor or chair — for instance, that the Madrid semester is the first articulate their need and then that’s a coach for athletes. Continued on page 3 consideration for students wishing reviewed by the director.”
Bell challenges students to start talking BY GRACE FRYE
MANAGING EDITOR BY JULIA ELMORE
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Awkward conversations are never easy to have. They’re not fun, they’re not exciting and we usually avoid them rather than diving in head first. However, as college students, awkward conversations are a part of our education and at times, prove necessary. Monday night,
we held these truths in mind as we approached comedian W. Kamau Bell with a proposition. “How would you like to spend an hour talking about race with two white girls?” Bell was almost two hours over his contractual obligations and our professor had asked us not to ask approach him with our proposal. We didn’t expect a positive reaction, but to our surprise, he accepted — as long as it involved good Mexican food.
It was 10:30 at night and Tacos El Regio wouldn’t open for another 30 minutes, so we opted for a San Antonio staple: 24-hour cafe and bakery, Mi Tierra. We had seen his stand up comedy meets lecture presentation earlier that night and were excited to discuss the topics we had heard in a more personal setting with Trinity in mind. At first, the hostess seated us in a small booth in the back of the restaurant, but we quickly realized
that a nearby table was better suited for his 6 foot 4 inch frame. After a few minutes of small talk and perusing the menu, we were ready to start our first awkward conversation about how to start awkward conversations. As two white women who go to a majority white university, we had never really been challenged to talk about racism, so we weren’t even sure how to start. Continued on page 2
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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 •
NEWS
Comedian inspires dialogue about racism
Continued from Front
“I think the first year of college should be spent deprogramming you from the “isms” that you developed in the real world that we should try to get out of your system before we send you to the next stage of life,” Bell said. “It’s often put on the outside of your education instead of on the core of your education. It’s like, ‘Well I’m here to get a degree, I’m here to do pre-med. Also I have to sit through this seminar about racism.’ Clearly by doing that you’re not making it important.” Nodding in agreement, we were eager to hear more. Still not sure where to start, we listened as he continued. “We’re at a critical point where people want these discussions but people don’t feel comfortable having them unless they bring me or Ta-Nehisi Coates or Milo to speak on college campuses,” Bell said. “So it’s my job to be like, ‘Just start having them.’” Simple as that. Just start having them. Naturally, the question as to who facilitates those conversations came to mind. Who holds the responsibility? Often we place it on the nearest person of color and expect patience, guidance and a good sense of humor. But that’s not realistic. “It’s not a person of color’s job to educate this person. White people should get on the front lines of that,” Bell said. Bell continued and said he wants to see more white people actively participating in the dialogue. “For white people specifically there are organizations now that exist to help white people talk about their white privilege and white supremacy,” Bell said. “There is an organization called SURJ (showing up for racial justice), which is a white privilege organization founded by white people and run by white people so white people can have those awkward conversations with other white people. It’s a way for white people to own the space.” And that’s not a bad thing. It may even make it easier to engage in these awkward conversations. “Every white person has a better chance of talking to another white person about race and racism than a black
person or a Latino person,” Bell said. “Just by nature of the fact that you can get closer to a white person and go, ‘Hey can I talk to you for a second?’ And just by nature of the fact that your skin colors gives you entry into that conversation.” At a school where you can’t go a day without hearing the word “diversity,” it became clear that it is important to understand the difference between diversity and inclusion. “Diversity can cover up a number of sins,” Bell said. “So when we talk about diversity, that doesn’t actually help us if it means that 8 out of 10 people in the room are white people. So for me, it’s like the goal is inclusion, and at the very least, an inclusive mentality. So that even if those people aren’t in the room, you respect their viewpoint and you make decisions based on how you think those people will be affected.” At this point we were feeling pretty awkward. We were excited to have open, natural conversation, but it was clear we were out of our depth. Instead of quitting while we were ahead — or at least not too far behind — we decided to push a little more and call to question his call to action of gaining some white pride. “White people seem to be able to divorce themselves from their race and ethnicity,” Bell said. “[For] A black person or a Latino person race and ethnicity is an intrinsic part of who you are. You can’t be a black person and say ‘I’m proud of who I am but I don’t consider myself black.’ Black people would be like, ‘Ah come here, we need to talk to you.’ You can’t talk about pride in who you are as a black person or as an Asian person or a Mexican person without including your race and ethnicity.” And when it comes to racial pride, you don’t make it far without the name Colin Kaepernick invariably making it’s way into the conversation. Bell analyzed Kaepernick’s actions not from the perspective of a black American, but from the perspective of an American who is proud of his country and his freedom to challenge it when he feels injustice is present. “Anyone who thinks Colin Kaepernick isn’t doing what he’s doing because he’s not a proud American … He’s doing
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This is the first story in a new Trinitonian series called “Let’s Make it Awkward.” In the upcoming weeks, stories in the series will be noted as such by the banner seen on page 1. We encourage reader participation in response to the topics we discuss. This series is developed and produced by Editor-in-Chief, Julia Elmore and Managing Editor, Grace Frye.
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what he’s doing because he is a proud American and he has a higher standard for his country than his country currently wants to live up to. When the runners in 1968 are standing at the Olympic Games in Mexico City with the Black Power fists in the air, that’s pride in America. That’s also saying, ‘America, you can do better and because I am an American I want my country to do better,’” Bell said. Preparing to move forward with conversations — no matter how uncomfortable they may be — we were reminded to keep in mind the perspectives we bring and the privilege we posses. “The way I think about this is — one, when you have privilege it’s important to learn the value of shutting up. If you have privilege, then you have benefits you don’t even see. So if a person who doesn’t have privilege says ‘I have a problem,’... if you tell them I don’t think you have a problem you’re just using your privilege against them,” Bell said. “So you really have to own your privilege and perspective.” Excited, inspired and a little less uncomfortable, we are excited to introduce this ‘Trinitonian’ series, “Let’s Make It Awkward.” In the coming weeks, we will explore the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone and engaging in dialogue on topics such as diversity, inclusion, political correctness, safe spaces and the ways in which we can challenge and shape our perspectives. Even if it is hard to have these conversations, we think Bell said it best. “The thing you should do in college is be actively and aggressively pushing your perspective as far and as wide as you can … because when you get out of college you’re not necessarily going to have time to do that work. We shouldn’t wait until shit hits the fan before we have these conversations.”
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NEWS • SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM
3
KRTU prepares for anniversary celebration Campus radio station approaches 40-year broadcasting milestone BY CHRISTIANA ZGOURIDES
NEWS REPORTER
On Friday, Oct. 7 in Laurie Auditorium, KRTU will celebrate 40 years on the air with a free concert featuring renowned saxophonist Benny Golson with special guest Henry Brun and the Latin Playerz. Oct. 7 also marks the start of Alumni Weekend. The concert comes several months after the official 40th anniversary of the day KRTU went live on Jan. 23, 1976. “We are welcoming many of the station founders who were there, that started it all,” said JJ Lopez, General Manager of KRTU. The five original founders are Don White, Jim Blakemore, Ron Zimmerman, Anne Conger and David King. Blakemore and White have confirmed that they will be attending the concert. Lopez explained the story of the Trinity students who founded the station. “It was on January 23rd, 1976, we went live,” Lopez said. “A bunch of students were hanging out in the morning, and one of them got a phone call that ... they had a telegram from the FCC and they needed to come pick it up.” The student drove downtown to pick up the telegram, which read: “YOU ARE CLEAR FOR BROADCAST.” “The station originally broadcast at a mere 50 watts. It only broadcast right here on campus. And that was the original goal,” Lopez said. “Just on campus, to entertain the people in the area, and then it kind of grew from there.” Today, KRTU broadcasts at 8,900 watts. The station will expand to 32,000 watts in the near future, the culmination of the Tower Initiative, a project over two years in the making. To put this growth in perspective, the station currently has a service area of 541 miles; with the increased wattage, it will extend to 3,059 square miles. “Expanding KRTU’s tower wattage from 8,900 to 32,000 will be a major improvement
Spain continued from Front The choice of Spain as the location of the first semester abroad program created by Trinity was a choice made with deliberation. “We have incredible depth when it comes to faculty knowledge in the area. There’s lots of specialization in the Spanish-speaking world,” Nishikawa said. “Our longest running facultyled program has been the Madrid program, and Madrid is a very popular destination.” The Trinity program will receive structural aid from a Syracuse University program already established in Madrid. “In this program, Syracuse would provide the housing, the set up with the host families and the courses available for students, ” Brodl said. “That’s through some of their own faculty but most of them are faculty that they hire from Spanish Ph.D.s. Courses will be integrated with Trinity and Syracuse students. Our goal in next iteration is to be able to make something that’s much more tailored to Trinity students explicitly.” Ruiz will serve as the program’s director along with continuing service to the Madrid Summer Program. “From a linguistic and cultural point of view, it’s a program that makes more sense,” Ruiz said. “If we talk about immersion as a way to develop skills that are both linguistic and cultural, six weeks is the minimum but a full semester is ideal.” The possibilities carried over from the Madrid program include the opportunity for students to work on internships in Spanish and in Spain.
not only in audience reach, but it will also create a stronger 91.7 FM signal,” said Monica Reina, station manager at KRTU. The new tower was originally intended to begin broadcasting on Oct. 7, as a part of the anniversary celebration. However, the process has been delayed due to a technical change regarding KRTU’s position on the tower. Lopez explained that an amendment had to be filed with the FCC, and is currently pending approval. A suggested donation of $5 for the Benny Golson concert on Oct. 7 will benefit the Tower Initiative. The station’s goal is to raise $300,000 — enough for the first three years’ rent in the new tower — by May 2017. According to the KRTU website, they have currently reached about $160,000 of that goal. “We have to fundraise in a slightly different way. We’re not selling anything we have to get an engaged listener who understands that it’s a mission that I’m buying into, it’s a mission that I’m part of when I support this radio station to help sustain this rich thing we call jazz, but also that they do community good — and that’s not for everybody,” Lopez said. But operating as a nonprofit organization also has its benefits. “Not only can we support something like jazz, which is very difficult to do anywhere else on the FM dial ... But then we can utilize our airwaves, utilize the fact that our underwriting, our commercials, don’t cost as much as they do on the commercial side, so we can help needsbased organizations,” Lopez said. KRTU switched to a jazz format in 2002. Before that, the station was “free form” and primarily driven by classical music. Lopez explained that the decision to switch to jazz was one of the best decisions that KRTU has ever made, because it helped fulfill the radio station’s mission of being a leader in the arts. “We became part of the national conversation of jazz radio stations, which we’re still a part of today,” Lopez said. There’s less than 60 across the country, less than three in the state of Texas, and if you think about those that program 15 hours like we do, there’s only two in Texas.”
“I interned for the Madrid section of the general workers union of Spain, more specifically in the department of environmentalism and urbanism,” said Anne Ferguson, a senior urban studies and Spanish student that participated in one of the Madrid summer programs. “Without the program, I wouldn’t have known to even look there.” One of the advantages of the administration’s choice of Spain is in the experience and connections brought in by Ruiz. “We have a very good pool of internships that we’ve been trying throughout these years,” Ruiz said. “It’s a consequence of the program that has been running in Madrid for 10 years.” The administration behind the program feels confident in Trinity’s ability to provide a better study abroad experience. “This is a Trinity faculty-led program,” Ruiz said. “When we decided to do faculty-led it was because we wanted people directing this program who care about our students in the way we care about our students.” “It’s basically a situation where you’re building this really cool dinner and kids want to have macaroni and cheese,” Nishikawa said. “Wait on the mac and cheese, there’s a steak dinner a semester away.” Moss feels confident in this first program. “I feel pretty confident that if I end up going, it will be a good program. All the feedback that I’ve gotten from everyone who’s been on the Madrid trip has been wonderful,” Moss said. “It’s through Trinity so you know it’s going to be good.”
graphic by Tyler Herron
In addition to contributing to the greater community and the arts in San Antonio, KRTU provides many opportunities for students to get involved, both through internships and classes such as radio announcing, production and media management. “The knowledge and experience Trinity students receive while working at KRTU help them get jobs in radio and the entertainment business,” Reina said. Benjamin Gomez, events and promotions manager for KRTU and senior, explained that students contribute in a variety of ways including scheduling, programming, event planning, on-air shifts and website content. “Our social presence, as our physical presence, as our on-air presence is pretty student-run, which is pretty exceptional considering that many of us are just trying to balance this between that and getting our papers in on time,” Gomez said. Indie Overnight, which runs from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. nightly, is largely student-driven.
“When the decision was made to go jazz, there was a group of decision-makers who said, there still needs to be a part of the programming that is satisfying to students.,” Lopez said. “Because not all students are going to want jazz. There has to be something else there.” Gomez explained that KRTU’s unique format garners credibility and connections with the community. “We’re of a dying breed, there are a very few amount of radio stations that not only play our formats, both jazz and indie” Gomez said. “But also stations like that that are nonprofit, and stations that that are nonprofit and run on a college campus by college students.” Gomez explained that despite changes to genre and format over the years, KRTU has remained committed to the original goals of the radio station. They will continue to serve the Trinity campus and the greater San Antonio community.
Hand, foot, mouth continued from Front For students concerned about missing so much class, Schweitzer suggested they contact their professors. “If a student is diagnosed with HFMD, it is recommended that they contact their professors to see how they can keep up with course work until they recover,” Schweitzer said. Jackie Bevilacqua, coordinator of Health Services, suggested students should come to health services if they feel sick and to treat HFMD as if it were like the common cold. “If they do get sick, they should drink plenty of fluids, get plenty of rest, take over-the-counter pain medications for their discomfort and that’s really about it. This is a viral infection, not unlike a cold, it looks different than a cold because of the rash and the discomfort associated with the rash, but it is a viral infection. It is spread just the way a cold is spread,” Bevilacqua said. The email also addressed the steps Housekeeping Services will take to ensure that students are protected from getting infected. “The university is taking proactive steps to help minimize the spread of HFMD to include increased housekeeping efforts to clean common surfaces frequently and has made hand-sanitizing stations available in common areas,” Schweitzer said. Despite the low initial number of cases, the Crisis Management Team felt that the university should be made aware of the situation to keep more individuals from getting infected.
“Since it is a contagious virus that can be spread through coughing, sneezing, etc., the university chose to take the step of informing the community in an effort to reduce the risk of infection and provide information on how to avoid the spread of the virus. The crisis management team hopes this early communication might keep a low number of cases from turning into a high number of incidents,” Schweitzer said.
graphic by Tyler Herron
4
WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 •
NEWS
Town hall set to discuss new health policy Campus organizations prepare for campuswide meeting about Tobacco Free Trinity BY PHILLIP McKEON
NEWS REPORTER
Trinity Progressives and SGA will co-sponsor a town hall discussion on the implementation of the Tobacco Free Trinity initiative in October. The meeting will aim to inform the Trinity community about the status of the anti-tobacco initiative and will serve as an opportunity for students to voice their questions and concerns. “The town hall will serve many purposes. [It will] update the campus community on the progress of the ongoing Tobacco Free Trinity campaign and our timeline (past and present), and educate attendees about the benefits of becoming a tobacco-free campus, discuss draft policy, seek additional champions of the campaign, address FAQs with our panel and address any questions from the audience,” said Katherine Hewitt, coordinator of Wellness Services for Trinity. While there is not currently an official date for when the policy will be implemented, the administration says the town hall should help clarify and finalize the matter. “The desired result is education and advocacy for a tobacco-free campus. The campus will be going tobacco-free. However, we aim to walk out of the meeting with a solid idea of when the draft policy will be formally implemented,” Hewitt said.
graphic by Tyler Herron
Samy Abdallah, a junior history major and SGA senator, says that the town hall should help clarify the initiative to students. “I specifically hope that students will learn where the administration is coming from and what they’re pushing because I feel like, as of right now, it seems that a lot of students are fairly in the dark about what the administration is trying to do,” Abdallah said. The Tobacco Free Trinity initiative was first introduced to SGA in the spring semester. “We heard from the wellness coordinator last semester. She came and talked to the senate about why they’re trying to roll out this new
agenda. For the most part, it seemed like most of the senators didn’t see the benefit to this proposal,” Abdallah said. While the policy itself is unavoidable, students who attend the town hall and voice their concerns will be able to influence the implementation of the plan. “I think it’s important to allow the students to have a say in the matter. Hopefully the administration will take this as a chance to hear the students and listen, and hopefully they’ll take into account the concerns people might have for the policy,” said Sara Calvo, logistics coordinator for Trinity Progressives.
The town hall on tobacco is an opportunity for the Trinity community to come together and they are on the same page. “I hope the administration gets to hear from both the students who do smoke and the students who don’t because I do think the administration is being hasty about this proposed idea. Through the polls we’ve given out to the student body, it doesn’t really seem like smoking is a problem on campus, and it doesn’t seem like most people on campus are bothered by it. Hopefully the administration can clear the air about what they’re trying to do,” Abdallah said. The town hall will only discuss what that will mean and when the change will take place. “The thing with the town hall is that this policy will be implemented eventually, there’s already agreement among the administration and it’s pretty much already been decided. So we want this town hall to be a forum where students can ask questions and give feedback and learn more about the policies. So, basically, this is a chance for administrators to learn about students’ attitudes about the policy, inform them about the policy, and from there I think that that will affect the implementation of the policy,” said Nick Santulli, a junior political science major and president of Trinity Progressives. Trinity Progressives is hosting the event in the hopes of providing a medium to convey information about the imminent policy. “Progressives doesn’t necessarily endorse this policy, but we think it’s important for students to have the opportunity to hear the full policy, what it’s going to look like after being implemented and voice their concerns. It’s happening. It’s going to go into effect eventually,” Santulli said.
Annual blood drive Library renovation Students unite to give back to the San Antonio community BY PHILLIP McKEON
NEWS REPORTER
Alpha Phi Omega (APO), a co-ed service fraternity at Trinity, will partner with University Health System to host its annual blood drive at Trinity. APO and University Health System organize the blood drive together each year on campus. “We’ve been doing it since I’ve been a part of APO. We have a partnership with University Health Systems, and we do it because it’s a really easy and simple way to give back without necessarily going out into the community to do community service. One bag of blood can save up to three adults or six infants, so it’s a really great thing that people can do on campus to benefit the community,” said Matt Reynolds, senior urban studies major and president of APO. The healthcare system that APO partners with is vitally important to patients in the surrounding areas. “As the premier Level I trauma center for a 22-county area of South Texas, University Hospital is always in need of an adequate blood supply. The University Hospital Blood Bank was established to provide blood needed for our patients and relies on employees, friends, family members, visitors and the community for blood donations,” University Health System said on its webpage. This year’s blood drive is even more important than in previous years because of the lack of donated blood in storage. “Blood supplies in San Antonio remain at dangerously low levels and the University Hospital Blood Bank is urging donors of all
types to give blood. While blood donors are needed throughout the year, they are most needed during holidays and in the summer. It is during these times that the number of donations declines while the demand continues to increase,” the University Health System said on its blood donor services webpage. Giving blood is an important way to give back to the community and potentially save lives in the process. “It’s not a very difficult thing for people to do. I think if you can give blood, then you should because there are so many times when the only thing that can save a person’s life is a blood transfusion, right then, right there, and those aren’t possible without blood donation,” said Aida Kajs, sophomore biology major and conference chair of APO. The APO blood drive differs from the group’s usual service events in that it happens on campus and is easily accessible to students who want to take part in this event. “It’s one of the ways we connect most with other students on campus, since what we usually do is community service out and about in the community of San Antonio. This, on the other hand, is something on campus that absolutely serves the community and benefits it, but it’s completely reliant on the student body here. We’re really just advertisement, trying to bring as many people in as possible to donate blood in the two days that they’ll be here,” Reynolds said. Coordinated with the University System Health, the blood drive benefits the patients and hospitals of the San Antonio area. “It’s run by the University Health System, so all of the hospitals in the San Antonio area, all of the bleeding patients in the San Antonio area, would benefit from people at Trinity giving blood,” Kajs said. The blood drive will be held Sept. 22 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Heidi Lounge. Orange juice and cookies will be provided to donors.
New additions create more quiet spaces and work areas for students BY KATHLEEN CREEDON
NEWS REPORTER
For more than 15 years, the staff at Coates Library has worked on developing more convenient study spaces for students. From updated technology to more study-friendly furniture, the library has changed quite a bit. “It’s an ongoing process. It will never be done,” said Diane Graves, librarian. In order to know what needed to be done to maximize studying, they asked students to take pictures of their personal workspaces to see what they all had in common. “Before investing, we needed to know what the students were doing and what specific things they needed,” Graves said. Through the survey, the library staff found that students all liked the ability to use a computer, spread their things and have a friend nearby while studying. Although there was a consensus on space, lighting and the availability of outlets, the library staff found that there also needs to be different levels of silence for students’ diverse study needs. Though, overall, it is a quiet place to study, with only the third floor that allows speaking, the library was still getting requests for quieter places. After having students vote on a name, this ultra-quiet space, located on the first floor, was dubbed the “Zen Den.” “The upper floors are too disruptive,” said Quinn Bender, first year. First year Chiara Pride said that the upper floors are too popular with other students.
“There’s a chance you’ll run into someone you know on the upper floors,” Pride said. The Zen Den is isolated and offers comfortable study areas as well as good lighting and power outlets — perfect for students who need absolute focus to do their work. In order to find the furniture that best fit the students’ needs, test furniture was displayed last spring, and the librarians asked students to try them out and offer feedback. “There was one thing that everybody loved,” Graves said. “I first saw them at a convention … and thought it would be interesting to see if students liked them, too.” Graves is referring to the blue, pod-like work lounges placed sporadically on the top floor of the library. Each contraption provides a footrest, pivoting table, outlets and a wall that sets its user off from the rest of the library. Some are placed in front of windows in case students prefer to work with a view. The blue pods are the most popular piece of furniture, and Graves says the library is thinking of investing in more because of the positive feedback. “It’s the only place I can be productive. I loved studying outdoors, but it’s hard to be out there with the heat, so it’s nice to be able to enjoy it from in here,” said Laura Gomez, first year. Junior Ruby Waddell said that the furniture in the library does not have a unifying theme to it. “The furniture in the library is mismatched and weird, but it’s comfortable,” Waddell said. Along with the blue lounges and additional study spaces, there have been long-awaited renovations to the bathrooms and power strips placed in more convenient places for students. The library will continue to test out more furniture in the fall, specifically before midterms when the library hits its peak traffic, in order to keep up with new technology and to provide the perfect study spaces for students.
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Opinion
COMMENTARY Have an opinion? Want others to hear it? For a chance to be featured as a guest columnist, please submit your article to trinitonian@trinity.edu by Monday night to be in Thursday’s issue of the paper.
Freshii juicing: Healthy or harmful?
The new ¡Por Vida! program misses its mark by claiming that Freshii’s juices are healthy options Standing in the long lunch-rush line at Freshii — a phenomenon juniors and seniors have come to half-jokingly blame on the swollen class of 2020 — I scan the SARAH HALEY menu, graphic design, OPINION COLUMNIST and the products. My eyes fall on the ¡Por Vida! logo-adorned information sheet, a new addition to the build your own meal clip boards and promotional materials that litter the counter by the registers. In case the reader is unfamiliar with the program, ¡Por Vida! is “a community of restaurants committed to offering healthy choices in San Antonio,” according to their Facebook page. For a food item to qualify for the ¡Por Vida! seal of approval, it must satisfy a smattering of standards related to calorie count, saturated fat, added sugar and sodium content, to name a few, with the specifics varying slightly depending on whether the item qualifies as a meal, a single entree or a side item. It was created collectively by the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District, San Antonio Restaurant Association and the Texas Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics. Yet included on the list of ¡Por Vida! Healthy Options at Freshii are all four juices Freshii offers. Having heard rumblings that the health benefits of juicing are dodgy at best, I can’t help but wonder: is juicing actually good for you? And, more specifically, does it make sense for ¡Por Vida! to label Freshii’s “Carrot Zinger”, “Green Energy”, “Mighty Detox” and “Red Power” juices as healthy choices? Let’s start with the first pressing question. Dusting off my nifty Trinity University Research Skills™, I consulted a variety of research and articles online, attempting to get some clarity on the health effects of juicing. The general health benefits pro-juicers tend to claim are that juicing helps prevent disease, boost weight loss and detox the body, ridding it of toxins (the toxins, in this case, being solid food camping out in your bowels.) In terms of disease prevention, it is true that consuming fresh fruits and vegetables daily is linked to a decreased risk of heart disease and some types of cancer. But there is no research suggesting that these effects are increased from juicing rather than eating whole foods. In fact, while juicing whole fruits and vegetables retains most of the nutrients (vitamins, minerals, antioxidants), it removes almost all of the fiber content by removing the pulp. This is an issue because some studies have linked high fiber content to the diseaseprevention properties of fruits and veggies.
comic by Daniel Conrad
Fiber is also what helps make people feel full when eating fruits and veggies, so one of the risks associated with juicing is that people may make unhealthy food choices to compensate for how empty their stomachs feel while juicing. Weight loss as a health benefit seems sketchy to me from the get-go, because of the long history of fad diets triggering rapid unsustainable weight loss, weight that usually piles right back on — and then some — once the diet is over. Research basically told me as much: while juicing can cause weight loss due to intense calorie restriction, it also can cause muscle loss due to the lack of protein in most juices. Further, the calorie restriction involved with juicing makes the body think it is starving, and the body lowers its metabolism as a result. Research has shown that these metabolism slowing effects can also be longterm, meaning juicing can lead to weight trouble down the road. Even worse, due to the typically high sugar content of juice, and the fact that the human body digests and absorbs liquids faster than solids, consuming fruit juice causes a fructose spike, most of which actually gets stored as fat. And even
worse, consumption of fruit juice is linked to increased risk of developing type II diabetes, whereas consuming whole fruits have the opposite effect. All of this combined lead me to conclude that juicing is neither a healthy nor sustainable method of weight loss. With regard to supposed “detoxing” effects of juicing, the research was pretty clear. Bowels are self-cleaning organs that work in tandem with the liver and kidneys to detox the body naturally. Humans have evolved to do this over millions of years. There’s no scientific basis for any sort of “cleansing” via juicing. All this being said, there are healthy ways to juice and not harm your body. The ideal juice would be composed mostly of vegetables with small amounts of fruit included for flavor. It would have ingredients added to provide healthy fats (e.g. olive oil, chia seeds, coconut oil) and protein (e.g. almond milk, avocado, greek yogurt, whey protein.) For athletes, the ideal juice would also contain alkalizing components (e.g. lemon, lime) to aid in muscle recovery, and some sort of performance-enhancing compound (e.g. sea salt, powdered electrolytes.) The produce used would ideally be organic, to avoid making
essentially a pesticide cocktail. Lastly, the ideal juice would avoid produce with high sugar content in its resulting liquid, like carrots and apples. Holding this ideal juice composition in mind, I invite San Antonio to look at Freshii juices. I could not determine the ratio of vegetables to fruit in the juices because the recipes for them are confidential, so the manager at The Commons was not authorized to share that information with me. Freshii has a 2016 nutrition facts PDF on their website, which enabled me to evaluate the juices on the other criteria. All four of the juices contain zero grams of fat. This is especially worrisome for students, as consuming healthy fats is crucial for mental clarity and energy levels. All four juices have two or less grams of protein. Two of the juices have lemon, but due to the confidentiality of recipes I cannot conclude whether it is a sufficient concentration to have beneficial alkalinizing effects. None of the juices have performance enhancing compounds. The produce used in the juice is not guaranteed to be organic, as Freshii stated on its official Twitter account on Feb. 4, 2014 at 11 a.m. All of the juices contain either apples, carrots or both. The resulting sugar content is deeply concerning. The maximum recommended daily sugar intake according to the World Health Organization is about 25 grams per day for the average adult. Recommended naturally occurring sugar intake (as opposed to added sugar intake) is usually calculated as a percentage of overall carbohydrate or caloric intake, but for immediate purposes this simple 25-gram standard is more useful. The results are grim. Consuming any two of the four juices Freshii offers exceeds this limit. The high sugar content is especially shocking considering the “cleanse” Freshii offers involves consuming all four each day of any cleanse, for a whopping 63 grams of sugar per day. In my opinion, the sugar content of the juices exposes a weakness in ¡Por Vida! standards. Because ¡Por Vida! standards only restrict added sugar content, the high sugar content of these juices skates by undetected. If one of the goals of ¡Por Vida! is to decrease the risk of obesity and diabetes in San Antonio, Freshii juices are not the way. Call me old-fashioned, but humans need solid food. Yet I also acknowledge that not every choice a college student makes needs to be healthy all of the time. If someone wants to consume fiberless sugar water, they have every right to do that on campus. My point is this: it is neither reasonable to label Freshii juices as healthy nor ethical to mislead the public into believing that juicing is a healthy decision, as the ¡Por Vida! logo does in this case.
EDITORIAL
Let’s make it awkward In an interview at our staff training this summer, Dr. Deneese Jones mentioned how her identity as a black woman has shaped many of the experiences and interactions that led her to where she is today. And then the staff member interviewing her moved on to a different topic. All our lives we are told not to make people feel uncomfortable and to be polite. It could be awkward to ask about what Dr. D meant or what specific experiences were most formative
in her career. As a white person, did that staff member even have the right to ask this woman about the black experience? Before the interview was over, Dr. D went back to that moment. She said that she set up the conversation to lead into a more substantial discussion, but that staff member didn’t take the opportunity. That interview was full of stories from a wise, interesting and accomplished woman but most of us will remember one thing from
Dr. D: Don’t be afraid to have uncomfortable conversations. Similarly, W. Kamau Bell, who spoke at Trinity on Monday, encouraged the audience at his presentation to embrace opportunities to learn from members of groups other than our own. He echoed Dr. D’s emphasis on the importance of pushing yourself to consider others’ experiences when trying to understand others’ actions or reactions. Inspired by these and other leaders, our
staff is excited to take what we are learning and encourage our campus to have those uncomfortable conversations in order to learn about, appreciate and respect each member of our community. This issue will be the first in a series of articles and opinion pieces on diversity, inclusion and political correctness. We welcome and encourage reader participation in the form of guest columns or questions and comments to our Twitter (@Trinitonian) or Facebook (The Trinitonain) accounts.
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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 •
OPINION
Tales from our (crazy) Register and vote! Just don’t waste it on Johnson or Stein Trinity predecessors Alumni forebears can impart important lessons, wild stories As my last year at Trinity is now fully underway, I’ve been spending more time pondering this institution, what it means MIA GARZA OPINION COLUMNIST to me and how unique it is. I’ve come to the conclusion that Trinity is a hidden gem, much like many of the students that attend it. Very few know how truly amazing the Trinity experience can be and have witnessed the kind of wellrounded, extraordinary and one-ofa-kind individual it can produce. One of the interesting and prideworthy, yet largely unknown, elements of Trinity is its rich history. There’s a book written by Douglas Brackenridge, a former professor at Trinity, that all students should pick up and read at some point in their Trinity career. “A Tale of Three Cities” shines light upon the long history of Trinity University. Although there are a lot of interesting twists and turns spearheaded by several inspiring characters, there are also some crazy antics of the past that will inspire you in a different way. If you turn to the chapter titled “Students of the Seventies,” you’ll see what I mean. The ‘70s were quite a time for the Trinity community, to say the least. To quote Erin Baker, an editor for the Trinitonian in 1987, “In the ‘50s it was ‘cool’ to actively participate in campus organizations… during the 1960s students attitudes moved to a rebellious anti-establishment, non-conforming tone … with the ‘70s apathy hit campus life like a tidal wave.” This apathy, although generally not the best position to take on campus activities, created some hilarious stories. Among residence hall panty raids and Mabee food fights, Trinity students of this decade seemed to be on their worst and most rebellious behavior. That can’t necessarily be said of the students of today. I’d peg
this generation of Trinity students as a peculiar mixture of apathy and pride. There is an undeniably low attendance rate at campus events, especially athletic events, but students take seriously more fun-centered organizations, such as Greek life and social gatherings. Some of these type traditions that we still have today. If you think that the punchedin ceiling tiles and vomit-ridden elevators of Thomas were a recent development, you may be surprised to learn that it’s been a long standing tradition. “At one party in the Thomas residence hall, attended by an estimated 200 people and fueled by six kegs of beer, students damaged acoustical ceiling tile, vomited in the elevators and hallways and showered security personnel with beer when they attempted to restore order.” What, you may ask, is inspiring about puke in Thomas? Brackenridge points out that there was more to it than the chaos. “Despite such episodes, Trinity students of the 1970s were a diverse group of individuals. Incidents of horseplay, vandalism and apathy were balanced by academic accomplishments, social concerns and ethical conduct. In many respects, theirs was a pioneering generation that inherited an untested ‘Joint Statement of Rights and Freedoms of Students’ and spent the decade attempting to actualize it. By insisting on the right to ‘do their own thing,’ they paved the way to subsequent student generations to enjoy personal freedoms and the right of due process in matters of discipline.” Other traditions explored in this chapter have died out for various reason. Before Bombay Bicycle Club, there was a hangout called the Crystal Pistol where students went to drink, play pool, and hang out. During this decade, the the switch was made to “Bays,” as it’s fondly called, when the Crystal Pistol started attracting a weird audience. Other wholesome yet party-based traditions included a happy hour put on by a fraternity that no longer
exists, Theta Tau Epsilon, that took place at the pavilions in Olmos Park Basin. This Friday afternoon hangout enabled students to drink as much beer as they wanted for just $1.50 for men and $1.00 for women. Another group, the “Woodsies”, held occasional outdoor parties along the Guadalupe River or Canyon Lake which predictably featured kegs and swimming. Off-campus groups sponsored events like an annual toga party in the theme of the movie “Animal House” which took place in Coates University Center, and rock bands that played in Laurie. These events were eventually stopped due to the drug usage and excessive alcohol consumption that they encouraged on campus. Somewhat surprisingly, sorority and fraternity involvement declined during this decade. Other, more alternative, social groups sprang up, such as the Phi Zappa Krappas, named in honor of rock musician Frank Zappa, whose motto was “to conquer alienation through liquor” and the Tappa Kegga Beers, a group of women based on the second floor of Highrise (the previous name for Thomas) whose sole purpose was to buy alcohol for financially struggling students. Tennis was the sport of the decade, and Trinity’s Division I rivalry against Stanford University was one of great interest and entertainment for Trinity students. At this time, the residence halls converted from having house mothers for the women and retired military personnel advisors for the men, to a team of resident advisors similar to what we have now. The dress code was no longer enforced and students were encouraged to dress in best taste — bare feet and cut-off shorts emerged as a trend around this time. There is a lot to be learned from our predecessors, antics aside, which is detailed in this chapter, and I encourage all Trinity students to read it. After all, we do have one really important thing in common with the characters in this book: we’re all Trinity students.
TRINITONIAN STAFF: SIDEWALK SYMPOSIUM Are you registered to vote? Will you be voting in November?
MARKHAM SIGLER
SPORTS EDITOR
I’m not registered to vote.
ALEXANDRA URI
NEWS EDITOR
I’m a political science major. Of course I’m registered, of course I’m voting!
TYLER HERRON
GRAPHICS EDITOR
I plan to register, but then, I did for the primaries too.
I might normally reserve this piece for the Trinitonian’s election issue, but since the deadline for GABRIEL LEVINE registering to OPINION COLUMNIST vote in Texas is only three weeks away, I decided to write it now. (I don’t know about other states’ deadlines, but hey, this is an opinion column, not the internet). Young people, including Trinity students, now make up a tremendous portion of eligible voters, but a perennial issue is that a large percentage of us don’t turn out to vote. This voter apathy could be due to the sense of busyness that comes from college classes, the apparent extra effort required to register and turn up or a lack of connection and excitement with the community and the candidates. Perhaps you feel, understandably, that in the vast sea of hundreds of millions of voters nationwide, and millions within each state, your individual vote will not make a difference. I empathize with these reasons, but none of them ultimately hold up. As U.S. citizens, we are a part of the broader American community. The contrasting policies of the presidential candidates will have real effects on our well-being if they are implemented. This is true in both a direct sense in terms of college affordability and student loan reduction, as well as policies which are not directly targeted at us but that will nonetheless affect our livelihoods. I’m talking here about economic and environmental policy. Taking a couple of hours to register to vote and show up at the polling station in November is a pretty small price to pay to have a say in what the world you live in will look like. Of course, that logic assumes that your vote will actually make a difference. Now, in a purely statistical sense, your individual vote has a vanishingly small probability of deciding the election. But take a step back and see that millions of lazy college students (and voters in general) are making the same mental calculus, and if everyone decided that their vote wasn’t worth casting because it was statistically insignificant, then our representative democracy would fail. It’s the principle of exercising your ability to affect your government by voting, a right that many were denied in the past, and which many are still denied today through voter
GRACE FRYE
MANAGING EDITOR
I registered in San Antonio so I wouldn’t have to worry about absentee voting.
ID laws. Moreover, if you decide to vote and convince people you know to vote as well, then that rapidly creates a cascading spiral of turnout which will, in a very real sense, prove to be statistically significant. Voting does entail more responsibility than just showing up. An ill-informed voter might actually be better off staying at home than casting a ballot based on bad information. As a voter, you have an obligation to examine a candidate’s policies and leadership style from multiple serious and reliable news sources as well as the candidates’ full policy descriptions on their websites. Don’t trust just the fever pit of Breitbart or the faux-outrage of BuzzFeed for valid information about candidates. Then, there’s the question of whom to support based on what you’ve read when it comes to time to cast the presidential ballot. I’ve heard people who dislike both Clinton and Trump say that they think both of them would be equally bad so they’re going to vote third party or not vote. Such thinking is lazy nonsense. Clinton and Trump would have very different policies and thus very different effects on the country, the world and you. Even if you hate both of them, do some research, decide which candidate would be the least bad, hold your nose and vote for them (I’m actually excited to support Clinton, so I’m lucky not to have that issue). Now, I didn’t mention the third-party candidates, Johnson and Stein, because neither have any hope of becoming president. A vote for them will accomplish nothing beyond sending a message that no one will hear under the deafening roar of a Clinton or Trump victory. The same argument goes for those thinking of not voting as a form of protest against the perceived badness of Clinton and Trump. If you’ve shown up at Mabee at 4 p.m. and your only options are beef that’s been slowly drying under a heat lamp for three hours or a salad consisting solely of wilting cabbage, you’ve got to grit your teeth and pick one. Going hungry as a form of protest will accomplish nothing and only hurt you. So, register to vote and get your friends to register. Read up on the candidates’ policies from serious sources with a variety of biases. And when you do show up to the voting booth to exercise your right to vote, choose either Clinton or Trump based on which of the two you think will do the most good (or least harm) for the country.
DYLAN WAGNER
A&E EDITOR
Yes, I’m registered to vote. Will I be going to vote? Yes. Over and over again.
OPINION • SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM
7
The prodigal son, Don Draper and happiness
AMC’s “Mad Men” and one scriptural parable tackled the same question, imparting very different lessons Disclaimer: Don’t read this if you haven’t watched “Mad Men” or if you want to avoid spoilers (unless you MARKHAM SIGLER have memoryissues, SPORTS EDITOR loss that is). The greatest stories do not directly focus on the internal motivators of personal politics, philosophy or religion that lay behind the external workings of people and society. The greatest stories focus on a man and his inner struggle as these unavoidable demons rear their heads during man’s quest for true happiness — the human condition. Whether he was the Lord, a lunatic or a liar, Jesus of Nazareth was undoubtedly a masterful storyteller. His most well-known parable is that of the prodigal son. If you ask any churched person, they’ll give you the prototypical Sunday school description — a delusional adolescent follows a narrative arc that is very familiar — selfcenteredness and lust, turning to desperation and loneliness, finishing with a remorseful attitude that allows him the peace and love he always craved but never deserved. It’s a classic case of redemption, and it sticks with you because the protagonist finds that mysterious, fleeting “it” everyone in the real world wants, but doesn’t seem to understand. The prodigal son simply needed to be fully confronted by his own brokenness and inadequacy in order to obtain it. Modern protagonists bear a stark resemblance to the prodigal. Jon Hamm’s portrayal of Don Draper, the infamous main character in the award-winning TV show “Mad Men,” is one example of this uncanny literary phenomenon (yes, “Mad Men” is literature). Don’s early life, viewed in flashbacks, was spent as an impoverished, unloved child in a whorehouse — a purposefully
despondent situation. In a fashion symbolic of the human tendency to play with personal identity, Don erases this childhood during the Korean War when he steals the name of a fellow soldier he accidentally killed. He uses this new, pure identity and in-depth knowledge of the human condition to become an acclaimed ad creator. His meteoric rise is fueled by a commitment to achievement. Contrary to his associates, the excessive money, fame, alcohol and womanizing exist secondary to what Don is seeking more of: true happiness. This is the underlying similarity Don and the prodigal son share — a desire for more, for the indescribable true happiness. Frankly, it’s the underlying similarity that unites all of humanity. However, this desire manifests itself in a variety of ways based on outer strings we rarely acknowledge — primarily, the setting in which our existence occurs, which predestines our environment and, therefore, our lifestyle. We blindly cling to conventions that have been shaped by entities beyond our control over centuries; whether or not these conventions have truth within them is rarely relevant to the day-to-day affairs with which we consume ourselves. Within our westernized societal convention, an aspiration to defeat expectations has steadily replaced any sort of aspiration for truth. Expectations are what fuel our engine, and they are twofold — the expectations we have for ourselves, and the expectations others have for us. If we meet these expectations, which we base on what ads, movies, politicians, musicians make seem so real, and so readily within our grasp — then the desire for this “it,” this true happiness, will finally be satisfied. In essence, we have become slaves to expectations. If what binds Don and the prodigal son is true happiness, the endings of their respective stories reveal the big difference — the answer to their longings are radically different,
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despite the practically identical questions they are asking. The prodigal son’s expectations were not being met at his father’s house. He felt there was more to be experienced — more to have. In a fit of solipsism, the prodigal son demanded his share of the estate from the father (obviously, this is before his father is dead, when the son would have received his share anyway: to demand it beforehand was a slap in the face). He essentially chose money and the pursuit of more, a fulfillment to his expectations, over his father’s love. The prodigal son predictably squandered his inheritance, and probably experienced quite a few highs during the squandering — but the momentary highs lead to a sullen, lasting low. Depression sunk in, and nothingness delegated the prodigal son to desiring nothing more than to eat with the pigs. His expectations had chewed him up, had their way, and spat him back out, no more valuable in his own eyes then his bovine brothers. In the end, the prodigal son returned home seeking refuge, expecting nothing more than to be a servant. Finally, when the prodigal son’s expectations had been decimated completely and his desires eviscerated by lust, he found what he had been looking for all along. Despite being betrayed, when the father saw his despicable son stumbling up the path home, he sprinted straight to him (something a man of his stature in this time would never have done) and embraced him. A party was thrown in his son’s honor despite his ineptitude. Despite the prodigal son expecting nothing and desiring no more then that which a servant receives, he was given the seat of honor at the table — his desire for more was finally quenched when his expectations had disappeared. Donald Draper’s story, too, is wrapped in an insatiable need for more based on expectations. The seven gripping seasons follow the ups and downs as Don bounces
from wife to wife, from hash to LSD to more liquor and from career to retirement. Through it all, Don works to meet his personal expectations while crafting an exterior that meets the expectations of his contemporaries. The struggle crests towards the end of the seventh season when his ad agency, SCDP, a personal project and source of great pride, is swallowed by the mammoth firm called McCann; ironically, McCann himself tells Don that SCDP is dying and going to advertising heaven. In his first meeting, Don, no longer the top dog but merely rather another genius among geniuses, aimlessly walks out and embarks on a goalless road trip. At the end of the trip, Don finds himself more lost than ever before, at a hippie retreat in California. In a fascinating scene Don sits in on a sort of sharing circle. A balding, married office man describes a life where “I should be happier,” “I sit down at dinner and my wife and kid don’t look up,” and “I know people walk by and don’t see me.” Through this pitiful explanation of the human condition, Don doesn’t look up. What triggers his attention — his empathy — is the line “It’s like no one cares when I’m gone.” People are so tuned into their own version of reality that they barely know that everyone else suffers from the same human condition. So, like Don, we turn to drugs, objectify each other’s bodies and minds, and seek identity in work, to find true happiness, defeating expectations and fulfilling that desire. What makes these stories different? Don’s reaction when he hears that line that he recognizes plagues his own soul. He gets up and hugs the balding middle-aged man. He empathizes with him, realizing that deep down they are the same. Empathy is the solution. After sifting through other secondary characters in their own worlds, seeking happiness, you see Don — doing yoga on the coast of California.
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The scene cuts to the most famous commercial of all time, implying that Don returned to McCann and created it: a Coca-Cola ad where peoples of the world are seen singing, together, at peace with their position in life — universal empathy in the face of an unforgiving, imperfect world. It seems Don has figured it out. You must sacrifice your expectations in order to be at peace, and empathy is the fire that will burn expectations. Cut out selffulfillment. Be empathetic. The Coca-Cola ad paints a beautiful picture of a world where the desire to fulfill expectations is vanquished by universal empathy, and it reflects the message people today attempt to spread in a time with terrible poverty, racial and cultural divides and general emptiness. The conclusion of “Mad Men,” the ad’s actual creators, and empathy warriors all have a very idealistic view of people if they believe such a world is within reach. It’s a nice sentiment, but is it real? Jesus, whatever you make of the man, had a different understanding of the human condition. In his eyes, there was someone who cared when you were gone — someone waiting for you with open arms — God the Father. Empathy has its place in this world, yes. But it is not the key. Cutting out the self in the hope for the Father’s love is they key. In one story, the expectations of this world are sacrificed due to brokenness and replaced with desire-free empathy. In the other story the expectations are sacrificed and replaced with the father, who fulfills the desire. One quenches the desire for more, the other requires mass self-sacrifice that humanity has shown no previous aptitude for. I’m not convinced true happiness can be achieved without a fulfillment of the desire for more, and I side with atheist-turnedChrist-follower C.S. Lewis, who said, “If we find ourselves with a desire this world cannot satisfy, the most logical explanation is that we were made for another world.”
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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 •
OPINION
Ono Mtoto Wako: Maternity and mortality Families everywhere depend on health and wellness care; thankfully, these campaigns are helping ROBERT BLYSTONE
FACULTY COLUMNIST
In 1976, the Indian government incentivized men to volunteer for vasectomies by rewarding volunteers with transistor radios. This example of incentive marketing worked. Tens of thousands of men took up the offer to get radios, which were worth a month’s pay and usually entered the black market. India was in the midst of a massive family-planning social marketing campaign. According to the Times of India, some aspects of that campaign were quite brutal and included forced sterilization, especially of Dalits, or members of the “untouchable” caste. Today there are a variety of social marketing campaigns involving health. One of those campaigns is focused on world maternal mortality. According to World Health Organization statistics, 830 women die every day from preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth. The Lancet reports that in sub-Saharan Africa, the risk of dying of a maternal complication is one in 36. Although maternal deaths are gradually decreasing worldwide, maternal death rates during the last decade are increasing in the United
States, which is the only developed nation experiencing such an increase, reports The Huffington Post. The influential Aspen Institute has created the Aspen Ideas Award, which includes community public health as a funded topic. Two physicians who were trained in South Africa — Chrystelle Wedi, a Rhodes Scholar, and Kopano Matlwa Mabaso, who is also a published novelist — recently were funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to implement a project in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) named “Ono Mtoto Wako.” Ono Mtoto Wako is a Swahili term that means “See Your Baby.” See Your Baby is a highly creative incentive marketing tool that doubles as a very effective maternal mortality preventative. Mabaso and Wedi calculated that pregnant rural women in the DRC would be willing to walk for up to six hours to seek antenatal care if it meant that they could see their babies via ultrasonography. It worked. In the space of two weeks they saw 351 women in six different, very rural villages that essentially had no roads, minimal electricity and virtually no sanitation or clean water, reports Global Health Now.
At the temporary clinics, the pregnant women were checked for malaria, HIV, anemia and high blood pressure. Several of the women were discovered to have twins or a possible breech birth. Many were treated for malaria and given folic acid, and three women were sent to HIV clinics. In two weeks, the physicians had exhausted their $25,000 grant from the Aspen Institute with unserved DRC villages begging and fighting over the chance to See Their Babies. Alfred Montoya, assistant professor in the sociology and anthropology department, and Robert Blystone of the biology department discuss a number of Ono Mtoto Wako-like developments in their team-taught course, “Introduction to Global Health.” The course will be taught this coming spring term. Trinity has also made arrangements for students to shadow pediatricians at the San Antonio Children’s Hospital with another eight-week session scheduled for February and March of next year. Nanette Le Coat, associate professor in the modern languages department, has arranged a bus trip to the Vaccine Development Labs of the Baylor College of Medicine Tropical Disease Center at the
end of September as part of the International Studies Colloquium. Trinity alumnus Mark Kline has provided access to African pediatric AIDS clinics through the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative, which will accept Trinity
undergraduate volunteers during the summer. If you are interested in a global health minor, please contact professors Montoya (amontoya@ trinity.edu), Blystone (rblyston@ trinity.edu) or Le Coat (nlecoat@ trinity.edu) for more information.
Tiger Fest Tickets! Monday, 19th 12pm-2pm Tuesday, 20th 12pm-2pm Wednesday, 21st 3pm-5pm Thursday, 22nd 3pm-5pm 23rd September, 930 onwards Sunset station Buses leave from campus (8-2) Theme: masquerade Carry TU ID 21+ carry state ID for alcohol
Pulse
FACULTY SPOTLIGHT “I would say to focus more on my studies [to my underclassman self]. I didn’t really get serious until my third year.” Katsuo Nishikawa, director of the center for international engagement
Sophomore MADELINE KENNEDY hosted a Q&A with OBGYN and Trinity alum KRISTIN BROZENA SHAH, who returned to her alma mater to host the mock discussion about sexual well-being and gynecological health. photo by CLAUDIA GARCIA
Introductory sessions of Sex Week bring large crowds and open chats The new annual program replaces “Pizza and Pleasure” as a source of advice BY ELIZABETH McENRUE PULSE REPORTER This past week was Trinity’s inaugural Sex Week, a pilot program designed by Katherine Hewitt, coordinator of Wellness Services. “The numbers of attendance for Pizza and Pleasure declined last year — that was our sixth year — so it makes sense to me that she would want to try something different, something fresh,” Richard Reams, associate director of Counseling Services, said. Hewitt’s goal was to create a weeklong, holistic program for students to better understand topics such as sex, dating, relationships, sexual health and sexuality. “This is the first time we’re doing Sex Week at Trinity, so we’re really treating this as a pilot just to see how it goes. I think there are some really interesting, creative events where hopefully students can take advantage and learn something
from. I think it’s great,” said Jackie Bevilacqua, coordinator of Health Services. The first event for Sex Week is titled “The Bachelorette,” which is a combination of “The Bachelorette” and the famous 1960s game show “The Dating Game.” “A lot of other colleges offer Sex Week programs that incorporate some sort of matchmaking or incorporate some sort of love aspect. I was trying to figure out what could be fun and modern, and we really wanted to have a gameshow,” Hewitt said. Ivy Clafin, a sophomore psychology and Spanish double major, was the bachelorette for the night. “Honestly, it was a really fun experience. It was the goofiest thing I’ve ever done. I had a little script with what kind of questions I was supposed to ask the bachelors. I just asked the bachelors, who I couldn’t see, questions and they answered them. There was a sexual health component, I believe, and then at the end I chose one of the 3 guys, and he gave me a rose. We got a gift card for $40 for the restaurant La Fonda,” Claflin said. Joseph Khalaf, a junior accounting major, didn’t know what he should have expected when he decided to attend “The Bachelorette” event at the last minute.
“I thought it would be entertaining to see how it unfolded. I didn’t really know what to expect from the event, so I actually kind of wanted to go to see what the event actually turned out to be,” Khalaf said. When one of the bachelors was a no-show, Khalaf volunteered to be a participant because he was already present in the audience. “The audience definitely found it entertaining, to say the least. Myself and Bachelor #3 weren’t taking it seriously at all — we were just kind of having fun with it.” Tuesday’s activity titled “Shock the Doc” centered around a mock women’s wellness exam presented by Kristin Brozena Shah, obstetrician/ gynecologist and Trinity alumna (‘02). Shah explained to participants what to expect at a wellness exam, as well as answered audience questions about topics within sexual and physical health. “I think that we were able to cover a lot of topics that are pretty stigmatized in today’s society. I think it was good that we were able to discuss them with a decent amount of candor and in a comfortable setting with a licensed health care professional to answer our questions in an appropriate, informed way,” said Madeline Kennedy, sophomore political science and Spanish double major said.
As for “Hump Day,” Hewitt elected to not have programming so as not to overwhelm students with the pilot program. “Sometimes it doesn’t necessarily make it better if there’s more quantity versus quality, so that’s the angle that we’re going with it. We wanted to make sure that the programs we had were top quality and to focus on attendance for those events,” Hewitt said. For those who participated in the Pizza and Pleasure series, familiar faces from that event will reappear. “Cay Crowe has been coming to provide some of the sexual and relationship education programs for probably 5 or 6 years,” said Richard Reams, associate director of Counseling Services. As a certified sex therapist, Crow will host a sidewalk sex clinic in the lobby of Coates University Center on Thursday. There will be trivia and opportunities to get the answers to all types of sex-related questions. Friday’s event includes a Sex Week fair with sexual health vendors and information in the lobby of Coates. “It will be a solid tabling event for a lot of student organizations, campus resources, and community resources,” Hewitt said. The resources available are PRIDE, the San Antonio AIDS Foundation, the Love Shack, Coalition for
Respect, Planned Parenthood and Health Services. “Everything that I learned about sexual health I learned because I thought that it was important to get informed,” Kennedy said. The sexual-education program at her high school was nonexistent. “I think that any time that we can open up the conversation about sexual health and sexual activity and discuss it in a way that’s mature and open is a valuable experience. So I think that it’s good that we had Sex Week here to allow us to do so.” “I went to a private, non-religiously affiliated high school, so we did take a health class that basically served as a sex-ed class,” Khalaf said. Looking back at this health class, Khalaf was not satisfied with the amount he learned. “Especially after being at Trinity and hearing about what other people had in other states, my education could have definitely been more indepth,” Khalaf said. Other students have also expressed concern over their lack of knowledge. “It baffles me how many people are uneducated about sexual health and sexual education. It’s so logical that everyone should be properly educated.” said Claflin. This sexual health education series has been sponsored by Wellness Services, PRIDE and Zeta Chi.
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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 •
PULSE
Virtuosos refuse to give their tunes a rest Students and staff find time to record and perform with their own bands BY ELIZABETH McENRUE
PULSE REPORTER
Trinity University is home to various bands made up of students, faculty and staff alike. From jazz to blues to classic rock n’ roll, the campus teems with musical talent. A new band featuring Trinity students is The Barbaloots, whose name comes from Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax.” John Morgan, junior music major, and Dominic Walsh, firstyear engineering and physics major, are two members of this four-part San Antonio-based indie group. Morgan recently switched majors from geosciences to music to continue the pursuit of his passion. “Don’t get me wrong — it’s all beautiful, but I don’t know, I feel like I could really do something good with music if I tried hard enough,” Morgan said. “Who knows if my major will change next semester? But, as of right now, music’s the only thing that’s made me the happiest.” Despite taking 17 credit hours and conducting research on the side,
Walsh has still been able to dedicate time to practicing his music. “You have the routine set up from summer and from before. And you know most of your music, music that you’ve written. You have it down. And so you have to, for a while, not have a few practices, get into the routine of school. Eventually just find time on weekends or on days when you don’t have classes in the afternoon to practice,” Walsh said. Walsh’s commitments to performing in The Barbaloots and preparing adequetly in school have cost him a great amount of time. “The life of a musician involves being up really late at night. Really, a lot of the free time you get as a college student is at night when you don’t have classes, so it’s just when you’re done studying throughout the day,” Morgan said. Steven Gutierrez and Daniel Rothschild, junior communication and English majors, respectively, make up Burn Your Enthusiasm, a recently created duo influenced by Modest Mouse, Attic Abasement and Joan of Arc. Living in separate states postponed Gutierrez and Rothschild’s collaboration until they reunited at Trinity. “It’s mostly been building off of previously worked-on stuff we did separately. I would have some things
that couldn’t really get past not having a guitar, and Steven would have some really nice, little riffs worked up that he was trying hard to get out.” Gutierrez’s favorite part of being in a band is the ability to creatively collaborate with someone else who shares his passion. “Having someone else to give you opinions and have other ideas. It just makes for more material; it enhances the productivity, you know? It makes it more fun. You’re not by yourself. There are certain aspects that get in the way, but mostly it makes things pretty easy,” Gutierrez said. Gutierrez and Rothschild need a rehearsal space instead of storing their gear in their dorm room. “We’ve gotten a couple angry poundings on our walls and we’ve gotten a couple noise complaints for that,” Rothschild said. They’ve spoken with professors about a rehearsal space but to no avail; the spaces are reserved for music students. “Maybe the most ideal space would just a small classroom-size room that had whatever equipment they have available, but you could bring your equipment to it too. Because we actually wouldn’t mind lugging all of our stuff across campus. It would honestly be cool
to have a space that’s just open to the general campus,” Gutierrez said. Kory Cook, jazz music director for KRTU, is a member of five separate bands. The Whale, however, is the only band Cook attributes to himself; this band is made up of a saxophone player, Cook on drums, and a rotating cast of special guests. “Personally, I think it’s really all about creating something that no one’s heard. So in art, if you wanna make something known to people that is in your soul and in your imagination that you have never seen somebody else do — or maybe you wanna create something that no one else has ever heard — that’s not easy,” Cook said. Cook has learned through significant amounts of rehearsal that being able to think on your feet is the most valuable skill a musician can possess. “It’s more important, in my opinion, to be able to improvise and do it very well. And that’s what I’m always working on as a musician.” As previously mentioned, The Whale frequently features different guests during their performances. “Our next show is Sept. 25, and this guy named Farad Ibrahimovic is from Yugoslavia — and the point is that I’ve never played with Farad. But I know he’s gonna play with
me, and I know it’s gonna sound amazing because we’re gonna play extreme improvisation, and he’s gonna be able to do whatever he wants,” Cook said. Peter Olofsson, professor and chair of mathematics, is another faculty member who performs in a band. He plays piano for a rock n’ roll group called The Dead Barons. They have one album out called “Swimsuit Optional.” “The Dead Barons is sort of a pun on the Red Baron who was a fighter pilot during World War I, and you can see there are some German war planes in the background here on the album, and a girl is sitting on a bomb. I like the cover. I think the cover is the best thing about the CD,” Olofsson said. Olofsson cites Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard as his influences. With their trademark red and black striped shirts, The Dead Barons have played at venues all over San Antonio, including at Fiesta. “We once played at the River Boat Parade. We played on one of those boats, so we actually had over half a million people in the audience that time,” Olofsson said. Information about performances by these bands can be uncovered by contacting the various members of each group.
for efficiency over ideology. Lewis spoke with an first year student struggling to find vegetarian meals at Mabee Dining Hall. “She got tired of eating sides all the time because they never have a vegetarian main course,” Lewis said. This came in conjunction with his daughter, a vegetarian, dining at Mabee most of last summer. Despite her appetite for simpler meals, Lewis said “She also has [shared] she eats better as a vegetarian at Rice than what she could do at Trinity.” Both of these encounters inspired Lewis to look into the opinions students have about the food options at Trinity. Some students, such as Brian Guenther, an engineering
sophomore, arrived on campus with experience refraining from eating meat, as he has maintained his vegetarian diet for the past few years. “I’ve been a vegetarian for almost six years now. I started this because I don’t like the idea of hurting animals,” Guenther said. Time has made adopting a meatfree lifestyle easy, and Guenther’s optimistic outlook on vegetarianism extends to Trinity’s dining options. “I’ve had a pretty good experience eating on campus. I think there are a lot of options. I actually like Taco Taco the most. I sometimes get a bean and cheese taco, or cheese enchilada filling with green sauce instead of meat sauce. The veggie
quesadilla is pretty good too.” Guenther has spent many years looking for creative meat-free meals, and has ultimately been pleased with his on-campus experience. “I’m pretty happy with the options, but I guess maybe in Mabee they could have more. It seems like they’re working on trying to have more options this year, like weird tofu at the stir-fry. I can’t really complain, but maybe if you’re vegan, you can,” Guenther said. Bella Dillman, a first year, became a vegetarian two years ago and experienced a very different Mabee than Guenther did. “It’s been pretty hard for me actually because salads are very monotonous, and the salads
have also been sitting out for a long time, which stresses me out to eat them,” Dillman said. Days upon days of similar meal items made Dillman disgruntled with the restrictive combinations for vegetarians and even more limited possibilities for vegans. “There are other options other than Mabee, but all the salads at the P.O.D. have meat in them, so I honestly just purchase bread and peanut butter and eat sandwiches every day,” Dillman said. Guenther’s opinions lack the same allure for Dillman. “One time, this girl commented ‘it just looks like you’re eating two s a l a d s ,’ ”
Vegans and vegetarians seek alternatives Members of the community struggle to find meat-free meal options BY ALEXANDER MOTTER
PULSE REPORTER
Medical concerns, a healthier diet and animal advocacy: there are many reasons to consider pursuing vegetarianism or veganism. Meat does not have to be given up entirely, however; Mark Lewis of the computer science department, isn’t completely vegetarian, as he has chosen to limit meat consumption
Continued on page 11
What advice do you have for new vegetarians and vegans? “I’ve actually made hummus a couple times with the garbanzo beans in the salad line. You just mash the beans with a fork, and mix in salt, pepper, oil, and soy sauce.” Jake Spitz “Instead of buying fruit from HEB, there’s a two fruitpolicy in Mabee, so I just grab two fruits.” -Sarosha Hemani
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“Mabee should have at least one vegetarian option in each line, and have some sort of variety in the options.” - Bella Dillman “The stir-fry is a good source for any vegetarian. You can mix it up every time, it’s a great option. ” - Brian Guenther *Limit one per customer. Must present phone
PULSE • SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM
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Community questions boxes of abandoned books Outdated resources have been moved to the Laurie parking garage to be discarded BY COURTNEY JUSTUS
PULSE REPORTER
Members of the community may have noticed large boxes of books stored at the bottom floor of Laurie Auditorium. These books were once part of the Coates Library collection, but have been discarded, as their subjects are either no longer being taught or their research is outdated. “This library is designed to specifically support the courses that are being taught at Trinity,” said Beatrice Caraway, head of collection strategies and resource sharing at Coates Library. “What we want to do is create a collection that has the most important classic works that support the curriculum, plus the current scholarship.” Coates Library cannot accumulate as many books over time as larger libraries can, since doing so would require expensive remodeling and off-site storage. Library employees must take unused books off the shelves, which results in the placement of these large book boxes inside of Laurie Auditorium. “That’s our goal: to keep a really focused collection that supports the courses that you’re taking today,” Caraway said. “The result of all of that is that we have to review the collection and see which books haven’t been checked out in 12 or 15 years.” Caraway ensures that, in addition to outdated research, heavily damaged volumes
Vegetarians
Bins of discarded library books rest in the parking lot of Laurie Auditorium. The books will be discarded and recycled to be used in future publications, allowing Coates to free up space for more current and relevant literature photo by CLAUDIA GARCIA
also get removed from the collection. Students and professors, however, are allowed to keep certain books if they put in a request ahead of time. “That constant analysis of what’s in the collection leads us to make decisions to pull things out of the collection, so that what’s left is useful to you,” Caraway said. During New Student Orientation this year, Caraway lead students in an exercise to help them learn more about the literature collections at Coates Library. “We had two or three trucks of books that had been selected and we scanned the spines,” Caraway said. “Then, when we saw a phrase on
a spine that they thought looked like it might be part of a good poem or give them a theme for a poem, they’d pull that out and then look for other ones or go back to that one.” That poetry exercise wasn’t the first one in which students used old books. Last April, students in Jennifer Browne’s poetry writing class participated in a found poem exercise, in which they tore out pages from old library books and crossed out different words in order to create brand new poems. “I felt kind of bad ripping pages out of books, but I found it fun to hunt and peck for words that sort of go together, but at the same time don’t,” said Sarah Wysocki, a sophomore
human communication major. Wysocki and the other members of the poetry writing class participated in this project last April, which marked the twentieth anniversary of National Poetry Month. They hung up their creations across Coates Library to celebrate. “It was interesting to see how everyone took a poem and branched off from what they thought of it,” Wysocki said. “It was fun to use that exercise as a template for our creative juices to flow.” Some students were surprised when they found out how such large collections of books had been removed from the library and were just sitting in boxes. “I remember being just a bit thrown off by the fact that we had novels in the library that could even be referred to as scrap,” said Yesenia Caballero, a sophomore English and theatre major. “Knowing that there were boxes of books just collecting dust and being treated as scrap paper was a little bit heartbreaking.” Caballero struggled at poetry writing during high school, but enjoyed Browne’s class and was grateful for the opportunity to work on such distinct creative projects. “All it took was one class with Professor Browne to completely change my opinion of poetry writing,” Caballero said. “She really treats writing as the art it is and as a result she works with everyone at their individual levels of skill and style and helps them develop. By the end of the semester, it was clear who wrote what because we had all really come into our own and found a style for ourselves.” Trinity faculty and staff strongly encourage students to use the library often, as it contains abundant resources that are key to reaching a higher academic and creative potential in the most updated collection of resources as possible. A current list of all available books can be accessed by visiting the Coates website.
Continued from page 9 Perspective can often change with experience, as sophomore Sarosha Hemani learned when she experienced the transition from meat to full vegetarianism this school year. “I’m actually pretty new. I started being a vegetarian this summer for diet reasons, but I originally started by watching a bunch of videos like “Cowspiracy” and [decided] it’s not ethical,” Hemani said. Although Hemani primarily began eating vegetarian last semester for health reasons, she has noticed significant changes in the food options since the Farmers Market arrived on campus, which have encouraged her transition. “Comparing the food they had last semester to now, there’s definitely more vegetarian options, which is great,” Hemani said. Other students have also initiated the transition to vegetarianism recently. Senior communication student Emily Williams became vegan last January for environmental sustainability reasons. Like Dillman, Williams doesn’t hold Mabee in very high esteem. “You’re already eating in a repetitive eating environment; the food gets boring for anyone here. When you’re limited even more, there’s really only so much you can do to just mix it up,” Williams said. Living off campus now, Williams prefers eating at places like the P.O.D. because their packaging lists all the ingredients. This allows her to make the most educated choices about the components of her meals “Even when you’re eating at Mabee and get something custom made, there’s always random things [thrown] in that are a concern if you’re vegetarian or vegan, but also if you have an allergy. That’s the toughest thing. As a vegetarian, it’s easier to tell when an ingredient is clearly misplaced, but when you’re vegan, a lot of times there’s ingredients that you wouldn’t expect,” Williams said.
Although the dessert bar is home to countless of vegetarian and vegan options, such as the famous Mabee cookies, many students who refrain from eating meat are primarily concerned with finding more variety in their dishes, as well as better sources of protein in the various dining establishments that operate on campus. File photo
Like Williams, senior business major Jake Spitz is also vegan, except he’s kept up the diet for about 15 months. Spitz originally gave up meat and dairy to lose weight. “Last summer I lost 50 pounds, and since then I’ve kept it all off. Once I got to my goal weight, however, I decided I would continue being vegan to reduce my environmental impact,” Spitz said. Despite having one of the most stringent dietary restrictions, Spitz found the change to be rather painless, and has maintained his vegan diet since then.
“I think the most challenging thing is probably learning new recipes using tofu, but other than that, I think being vegan actually makes eating a whole lot simpler,” Spitz said. He’s also learned to find other food options outside of Mabee, and now relies on other dining establishments for meals that fit his vegan lifestyle. “Freshii was also a huge win for the vegan and vegetarian community,” Spitz said. Individuals with dietary restrictions constitute a significant portion of the Trinity’s student body, and they hold many differing
opinions on the quality and quantity of acceptable meals on campus. While some members of the community are pleased with the variety of options available, others encourage the dining establishments on campus to become more compatible for vegetarians and vegans. However, the same individuals generally hold the consensus that the university is ultimately moving towards a better and more health-conscious campus. For vegetarian and vegan dishes available on campus, students can check the Real Food on Campus at theTrinity University website.
AE &
Return of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” The gut-busting and occasionally heartwarming comedy is back on FOX, bringing the mentally unstable crew back to police work, occasionally.
Brangelina Split Well, there goes the only celebrity couple I can ever remember. The real question is, what will happen to their 20 billion children?
Apple releases iOS 10 update and shows off early iPhone 7 details
New operating system and phone add content and subtract headphones from company’s canon
On September 4, Apple provided the iOS 10 update and revealed the long-anticipated iPhone 7 three days later. NABEEHA VIRANI Last year, the A&E WRITER iOS 9 update included emojis with different skin tones, generating a positive reaction from iPhone users. iOS 10 brought out new emojis as well. There are now female athletes, police officers and detectives, men with turbans, single parent families and the rainbow flag. Not all emojis have gotten positive reactions. Apple made the decision to replace its pistol emoji with a plastic water gun, making a bold statement against gun usage in everyday lives. Apple has a history of standing up to powerful organizations. Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook refused to help the FBI hack into San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook’s phone, and this year Apple is standing up to the NRA and gun lobbyists. The idea to get rid of the pistol emoji came from New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, who started a campaign to get rid of the pistol emoji, called #DisarmTheiPhone. They wrote
graphic by Tyler Herron
an open letter to Apple, asking them to “stand with the American people and remove the gun emoji from all your products as a symbolic gesture to limit gun accessibility.” iOS 10 is a complete reformation of what the iPhone can do. Other new features include revolutionary additions to text messaging. You can now send handwritten and invisible messages, pictures and symbols. It’s also possible to replace certain words with emojis by a simple tap of the finger, as well as turn on read receipts for specific people.
Furthermore, there are several special effects in which you can send messages with emphasis. Options include “loud” messages sent with a bang, “gentle” messages sent in a small font that eventually gets larger and messages that include a “slam” effect. There are also different screens in which you can send texts with balloons, lasers, fireworks and other wacky effects. Other than emojis and texting, major changes are a bolder font, a new way to unlock the iPhone, the ability to delete preinstalled apps (such as Stocks, Watch, etc.) and the layout
of the Music app. To unlock the iPhone, you now have to press the home button in addition to scanning your fingerprint. There’s also no more “slide to unlock,” which provided an easy way to enter in passcodes without as much hassle. Overall, iOS 10 has gotten a mixed reaction, but many are wary of the iPhone 7 due to some controversial changes to the phone. The new iPhone 7 doesn’t have a headphone jack, so FaceTiming in your dorm room and even listening to music will be a hassle. There is an alternative, though. Apple announced its wireless headphones, called AirPods. Their battery lasts up to five hours on one full charge, recognize your voice and include sensors and motions that know when you take them out and put them back in your ears. Airpods do come with the phone, if you should choose to buy it. Apple has been called out for its failures to provide users what they really want, while many of its advanced characteristics have gone unnoticed. The iPhone 7 is water-resistant and has a better camera quality and resolution, presenting results as “more representative of what you see with your own eyes,” said CNN writer Heather Kelly. In his review of the new iPhone for The Verge, Nilay Patel calls it “the future in disguise.” Whether or not you like the updates, it’s clear that both iOS 10 and the iPhone 7 are changing the way we communicate and see the world. Even their minute details, such as certain emojis and camera resolution, hold such large influences on our lives. Being able to enjoy and criticize technological advancements shows just how much we care about these products and how we’ll still use them in the years to come.
Comparing classic Disney to modern releases with Hollywood’s bottom line A look at the quality of old and contemporary releases BY ALEJANDRO CARDONA
A&E WRITER
Are Disney movies getting better? Sometimes it’s hard to gauge whether modern hits like “Zootopia” and “Frozen” will ever live up to the pantheon of Disney classics that we were all raised on. Seeing as nostalgia makes it difficult to look at these films without romanticism, I turned to numbers — box office numbers — for answers. Taking box-office sales as a rudimentary measure of cultural impact at the time of release, we can navigate the story told by the numbers. It’s an imperfect and biased story, but an interesting story nonetheless. At first glance, Disney movies have indeed made more money with every passing year, making “Zootopia” and “Frozen” the 24th and ninth highest-grossing movies of all time, respectively. The Disney classics are
graphic by Tyler Herron
nowhere to be found on that list, which is due in part to inflation, and the increasing number of theaters around the world, which makes it hard for a movie from the 60’s to compete with a recent release. When we eliminate those factors by looking at the highest-grossing movies domestically (adjusted for inflation), the result is very, very different. “Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs” is the 10th highestgrossing, “The Lion King” is 19th, “Fantasia” is 23rd, and “The Jungle Book” and “Sleeping Beauty” are 32nd and 33rd, respectively. “Frozen” can be found a long way down the list at 106th, behind six other Disney animated films. Think about that for a moment. Consider the pervasiveness of Elsa, the endless Olaf plush toys
and the fact that you couldn’t go anywhere without being bombarded by the ubiquitous “Let It Go.” It was a cultural phenomenon, and nobody seemed to be able to stop recording themselves doing their best impression of Idina Menzel. That’s for the movie that came in at 106th top-grossing. Imagine the cultural impact of No. 10, “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” which
sold twice as many tickets as “Frozen” (adjusted for inflation). Again, ticket sales are not an accurate or complete measure of cultural impact, but it’s a worthwhile glimpse. To put this further in perspective, Disney was not a major studio in the 30’s. In fact, they were considered an independent studio, and from that position they released “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” the first feature-length, full-color animated film. That’s the modern-day equivalent of making James Cameron’s “Avatar” with just a handycam, 3-D glasses and a toaster. Despite Disney’s classics having historically dominated the record in the domestic box office, modern releases do not chart that high, and with good reason. In the beginning, Disney practically invented the genre of child-oriented animated movies, and as a result, had the market in their pocket for years. Nowadays, however, competition is fierce, with numerous major studios and independent animators releasing an endless slew of child-targeted animated films. It’s hard, even for a giant like Disney, to break through the noise of a fragmented media landscape. Continued on page 13
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT • SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM
Glass Animals releases new album full of grooves and genuine character studies “How to Be a Human Being” a beautiful addition any fan’s collection In June of 2014, Glass Animals debuted a whimsical and unique sound with their first EMILY PETER a l b u m A&E WRITER “Zaba.” Unlike “Zaba,” the recent album they released this summer moves beyond eclectic noise and explores a fresh sound. “How To Be A Human Being” is the result of global tours and travel, two years worth of anecdotes and musical growth. Although very consistent with the
sound of “Zaba,” their new album goes beyond background electronic sounds and brings the strangeness to a new level by exploring the human experience. High-pitched flutes ride along the central melody of “Youth,” while clips of conversations on the road begin and end several tracks. “Premade Sandwiches” is a rap about the dismal reality of modern consumption. Of course, the album still features plenty of contemporary electronic grooves such as “Cane Shuga” and “The Other Side of Paradise.” Arguably the most experimental track, “Season 2 Episode 3,” owes its individuality to a well-executed hip-hop beat and hihat percussions reminiscent of more R&B-leaning music. The greatest change from “Zaba” to this album is the inclusion of their spoken poetry about humanity. Where their first album displayed a diversity in sound, “How To Be A Human Being” expands from
Emily’s Quick Picks • “Agnes” • “Season 2 Episode 3” • “Life Itself” • “Cane Shuga” unique instrumental choices to the idiosyncrasy of life itself. This new album looks to explore storytelling and human expression through sound and language. Many songs conjure eccentric characters and tell about their lives through instruments. There’s the loner in a basement characterized in “Life Itself,” the dangerous wife in “Mama’s Gun,” and the laid-back girlfriend in “Season 2 Episode 3.” The vocalist weaves in and out of these characters as the tracks progress, fully immersing the
listener in the character’s own reality by offering an anecdotal approach. While vocalist Dave Bayley narrates, each instrument helps paint the scene, adding dimension and incorporating thematic elements. As one character relays the voices in her head in “Mama’s Gun,” the listener hears a faint echo. The flute that contrastingly adds an upbeat tone in “Youth” is also present in this song, lacking in quick repetition and resulting in a haunting melody. Much of “How To Be A Human Being” and its videos take listeners on a journey of action and exploration of the dark qualities of human nature. There is an obvious shift in mood when they approach the Red Hot Chili Peppers-esque track, “Poplar St.” The flute and electronic sound disappears and and guitar riffs take over. This song floats back and forth when it comes to perspective, allowing the audience to believe in the possibility of personal
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influence in the lyrical construction. In the final track, “Agnes,” the lyrics also suggest that the events happened to the songwriter himself. “Agnes” oozes raw human emotion and concludes the album with just the right amount of pure expression. Glass Animals has used life on the road to evolve their old sound, but not completely abandon the sound created in “Zaba.” After touring the world for two years, a list of people and places served as inspiration for their second album. They chose to stay close to their original sound, but strengthen their ability to use a single instrument to tell a story to their audience. What they saw on the road was the thematic muse with which to hone their skills. The wide variety of characters they met on their travels make “How To Be A Human Being” much more disjointed than “Zaba.” However, when it comes to natural human expression, Glass Animals nailed it.
YouTube’s swashbuckling tale of creativity, innovation and plenty of content buffering The video-sharing site’s transition from a Hot or Not copy to a kajillionuser phenomenon in 11 short years More than a decade after the c re a t i o n of the w o r l d ’s largest MAX FREEMAN and most A&E WRITER popular videosharing website, YouTube has evolved into a new kind of company
Disney movies old and new
entirely. What was YouTube like in the beginning, and what is it now? YouTube’s earliest years were volatile. One of its first plans as a company, according to a Time article from 2006, was to emulate the Hot or Not dating site, but with video uploading and sharing as an added, unique bonus feature. Although it didn’t completely succeed in replicating the competition, the company did succeed in other ways. In 2006, Google bought YouTube, which set it on a new path toward becoming what we know it as today. With Google’s help, YouTube became a great site for people to post their experiences and messages online. Anyone with an internet connection and a free subscription could post videos. And as a result, the diversity in the content found on the website grew to eventually include
music videos, video gameplay and commentary, comedy sketches and independent viral videos. Certain channels became popular enough to give people a sustainable way of living. The idea behind the channels being able to create content that generates enough views to attract advertisers. But the opportunities YouTube offers to the content creators also gives these people an interesting influence over their audiences. As the people who make those videos with millions and billions of views grow in popularity and size, their influence on their audiences significantly grows beyond what it would have been without YouTube. For example, the most subscribed channel on YouTube, PewDiePie, was started by a Swedish man who recorded himself commenting and
playing video games. It currently has over 45 million subscribers, which is about the same as the population of Spain. With the attention of that many people, the man behind the channel has paved the way for new producers to pursue a similar manner of living off YouTube. His channel is one example of the pioneering that is taking place on YouTube. As PewDiePie’s channel grew in size, so did other channels whose stars struck the same chord with viewers as PewDiePie did (and monetized). Fame and success has always inspired other people, but YouTube seems to have a unique closeness between those who are successful — the channels with millions of subscribers — and those who are enthralled by them. Like many big YouTube channels, PewDiePie puts
his face in his videos, giving them a personal feeling that makes the audience more directly connected to the experience while they watch. The small distance makes the job more appealing, and therefore seems like a possible factor responsible for the growth in YouTube’s content diversity as more people create and search for new ways to gain a significant following on the site. YouTube looks like a promising community to be a part of right now. It’s connected to Google, which I’d like to think is a secure parent company, and rewards users who are able to create a following using their channel. Actually, why am I even at college? It’s free to make a YouTube channel, and if I generate original content that’s interesting to enough people, I could make a living playing video games in an apartment.
continued from page 12
Despite this acknowledgment, the numbers make me inclined to declare “old Disney” the victor. The data help put into perspective how many people flocked to theaters to see “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “The Lion King.” In fact, modern media is so competitive that a hit of that caliber might be a practical impossibility, since it’s hard not to get buried in the noise. Maybe what we really all feel nostalgic for is a single movie-maker who would, once a year, produce a reliable piece of animation which we could all keep in our collective imaginarium.
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AND SO IT SHALL BE FOR ALL TIME Over 100 years ago today, in 1911, Cy Young notched his final major league victory. That’s before WWI. Young’s name lives on through the award given to the top pitcher in each league at the end of the MLB’s season. While the honor is widely known, and certainly one of the most recognizable awards named after a player in all of sports, little is known about Young, besides his incredible aptitude for throwing an enormous amount of pitches, and therefore games. His unbreakable records include 511 wins, 316 losses, and, wait for it — 749 complete games.
Sports
Halleanne Durre and the women’s soccer team continued their undefeated season this past week, and is now at no. 7 in the national rankings. Nither team scoring until 70 minutes in, but the Tigers were able to win in OT. photo by Noah Davidson
Women’s soccer remains undefeated Tigers win in overtime thanks to goal by Yasmeen Farra, move to 4-0-0 and no. 7 in national ranking BY HALEY McFADDEN
SPORTS REPORTER
Trinity women’s soccer has continued their winning streak with a victory at home against the Sewanee Tigers. This win gave the no. 7 nationally-ranked Tigers their fourth win of the season, putting them at a 4-0-0 record for the season. The first half was scoreless by both teams, and it was not until 70 minutes into the game when senior Brigitte Taylor passed the ball to sophomore Halleanne Dure, who scored the first goal of the game. This marked Dure’s first season goal and Taylor’s second season assist. The score remained 1-0 until, with only seven minutes left, Sewanee scored, tying the game and forcing the teams to go into extra time. However, the Tigers did not get discouraged and rallied together to pull through. “It was disappointing to give up a goal to Sewanee to allow them to tie up the game with only a few minutes left in regulation, especially since we had dominated the majority of the game,” said senior midfielder Yasmeen Farra. “However, I think the team rallied together strongly in the overtime minutes and got the job done. We had full confidence in our ability to
win the game, and I thought that translated very well on the field and resulted in our goal.” In overtime, the women continued fighting to take back the game. At 96 minutes, the game-winning goal was scored by Farra, marking her second goal and first game-winner of the season. The women walked away with a hard-fought and welldeserved 2-1 victory. “Although we’d always rather find a way to win in regulation, it was great to see how everyone just kept working in overtime and how we played hard until we scored,” said junior forward Julia Camp. All season long, the Tigers have relied on their will to win as a mechanism for closing out tough games. “I truly believe it came down to ‘which team wants it more’ kind of thing. Our team, ten times out of ten, will always be that team, so I’m not surprised we came out with the win. We didn’t just fight for 90 minutes in regulation, we continued to fight during overtime and that definitely made the difference,” said senior defender Jordan Leeper. Trinity’s goalkeeper junior Kalli Douma made one save in regulation, preventing Sewanee from getting ahead. This marks
the second time Trinity women have beaten Sewanee since Sewanee left the SCAC. This game is the Tiger’s last non-conference game of the regular season. They plau Austin College this Friday, Sept. 23rd at 4 p.m. at Austin’s field, followed this Sunday, Sept. 25th by another away game against conference team Centenary College of Louisiana. The Trinity Tigers are currently the only women’s soccer team in the SCAC to be undefeated, and the team feels ready going forward into not only conference level games, but games on the national level. “Being undefeated in our early non-conference competitions is a great validation of all the hard work we have been putting in throughout preseason. It reaffirms our belief in our ability to become the best team in the country, and it will motivate us moving forward to continue to strive for that goal” Farra said. “One more main goal that we always have is to continue to push each other in training and support each other always, because through that hard work and emotional bonds that we form, we believe we will go very far in competition.” With an undefeated record and a national ranking, that goal is within reach.
Tigers vanquish the Lutes in last-minute victory Running back Evan McDowell rushes for 197 yards, scores go-ahead touchdown in final minutes BY CHRIS GARCIA
SPORTS REPORTER
A loss on the road against Millsaps on Sept. 10 left many unanswered questions heading into a home game versus Pacific Lutheran University this past Saturday. The Tigers won 9-3, a low-scoring game with some major fireworks in the final seconds, demonstrating great resilience throughout. The electric atmosphere Saturday night did not translate into a big air attack for the Tigers, as they only accounted for 53 passing yards. Their running game picked up the slack, with junior Evan McDowell leading the way with 189 of their 197 rushing yards. McDowell played well, and it was his touchdown with 16 seconds on the clock that propelled Trinity to victory. “This past game the mental side of preparation was probably more important than the physical because of the complex defensive schemes that they run. I put my trust in my coach, coach Kevin O’Keefe, that we’d be ready as a backfield on all fronts. He prepares us for every situation possible, so much so that it becomes second nature, so that when it’s time to react
it’s more of a natural reflex than a thought through response. Being prepared mentally makes everything slow down, it’s like playing against a team in slow motion,” said McDowell. McDowell’s performance was the most prolific display of rushing that Trinity has seen in a long time, and more than enough to shatter his own career high. His contribution on the game-winning drive, in which he rushed for 65 of his total yards, plus a 28 yard run to keep the drive going, sealed the deal for the Tigers. This low-scoring game was won in large part due to great defense. Trinity forced four turnovers, and only allowed 81 yards on the ground. The defense was on the field for over 33 minutes of the entire game and battled hard, picking up a lastminute interception on a desperation throw from PLU. Junior Damiyon Harris led both teams in tackles with 14. “The key to our success was playing as a team even through adversity. It was a very low-scoring game that could have easily been decided by one play. So we came together and played for each other to get the win,” Harris said. “We knew last week’s
loss only came because we had a lack of focus through the week. Our defensive coordinator called us out this past Monday and asked us write our own story and how we weren’t last year’s team. We still had a story to be written.” Not far behind was senior Luke Packard with ten tackles. Double digits are nothing new for Packard, who leads the team with 37 tackles and 4.5 sacks on the season. “I think all the work that we did as a team this offseason in the spring and summer has propelled our success so far this season. The key to success is to take all the critiquing from our coaches and learn from our mistakes in practice and in games. We improved as a team from the previous week with our focus during practice,” Packard said. “We need to continue to get better as a team. We can improve on every aspect of our defense still, but stopping the run will always be important to have a good defense. “ Trinity is 2-1, and will travel to Orange, California to play Chapman University this Saturday. Chapman is coming off a 34 point loss this pass Saturday.
SPORTS • AUGUST 20, 2015 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM
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to the club Double Trouble Welcome Rugby become the Meet the women’s tennis team’s identical twins COMPILED BY ELISE HESTER
Zoë and Mary Kaffen come to Trinity from San Juan Capistrano, California. The first years are identical twins, best friends and doubles partners on the Trinity women’s tennis team. During a break from competition this past Saturday, the Kaffen twins told me a little bit about themselves.
Who is older?
MARY: Mary. ZOË: What? MARY: (laughs) ZOË: It’s a debated fact. MARY: I’m older. ZOË: Ok, but only by one minute. MARY: Ok, but scientifically I’m older. I’m older. Mary is older.
Why did you start playing tennis?
ZOË: I have to say my favorite tennis player is Roger Federer.
Who is the Venus and who is the Serena in your relationship? ZOË: Isn’t Serena more intense? You’re Serena. I’m Venus. MARY: Cool. ZOE: Mary’s Serena and— MARY: —Zoë’s Venus
If you did not play tennis, what sport would you play? ZOË: Beach volleyball. MARY: Yeah! I really wanna play beach volleyball. Maybe one day.
What is the biggest difference between you two?
MARY: We were kind of forced to by our parents. ZOË: No, don’t say that. MARY: OK. We really love the sport.
MARY: Zoë’s more talkative— ZOË: —and Mary’s quieter.
What is your on-court relationship like?
ZOË: People will ask us “Are you twins?” and then we’ll say yes, and then they’ll ask me when my birthday is, and then they’ll ask Mary— TWINS: —when [my/her] birthday is. ZOË: That’s probably the most annoying part. MARY: That’s an annoying question.
ZOË: Mary and I are hitting partners, doubles partners just— TWINS: —partners. ZOË: We play against each other and with each other and help each other out.
What is the worst part of being twins?
What is the best part of being twins? What is your off-court relationship ZOË: Always having someone to hang out with, who you can talk to. like? What is a misconception about you ZOË: With each other? MARY: Yeah with each other! It’s a relationship. two? ZOË: (laughs) I don’t know. We are always with each other. ZOË: We hang out all the— TWINS: —time. MARY: We’re besties.
Do you fight a lot?
ZOË: We fight a lot on the court. MARY: No we don’t! ZOË: Oh, no we don’t. MARY: We don’t fight on the court all the time. ZOË: We fight over clothes and over regular girl stuff but not over tennis.
Who is your favorite tennis player?
MARY: I really like the Bryan Brothers, obviously ‘cause they’re identical twins and they play doubles.
ZOË: I think a misconception would be that we like all the same things. We differ in a lot of things— MARY: Yeah we have a lot of different… ZOË: —likes and dislikes. MARY: I’d say the same thing. We don’t like everything the same. We have a lot of differences.
What are you looking forward to in playing tennis at Trinity?
ZOË: The team. MARY: Yeah, the team for sure. Playing on a team with— TWINS: ….everyone ZOË: Getting to know all the girls— MARY: —for four years. ZOË: It should be fun.
latest addition to Trinity’s sports scene BY CHRIS GARCIA
SPORTS REPORTER
With a slew of various intramural and club sports, Trinity offers people of all types of interests a chance to participate in the sport they know and love. Whether students are into flag football, lacrosse or equestrian sports, Trinity has a team for them. The athletic administration and students take pride in the intramural and club teams on campus, so it is no surprise that when a new sport club is formed, a bit of buzz is generated. With a newly formed Rugby club on campus, championed by Calvin Usiri and Simba Machingaidze, the buzz is back. Rugby has always been a tremendously popular game overseas, particularly in countries like Ireland and New Zealand. However, like soccer, rugby has not been able to crack that elite top tier of American sports. Lately the sport has been picking up steam in the U.S., and in many states you can find youth rugby programs and interscholastic competitions between high schools. Rugby is starting to build its foundation in the U.S. Other colleges have rugby teams, and although it is not an NCAA sport, the level of competition and talent is extremely high. A spot at the Collegiate Rugby Champions in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is the ultimate goal for all of these teams, but the camaraderie formed through playing this demanding sport can be equally rewarding. That is a philosophy Usiri and Machingaidze have in mind for the Trinity rugby club; to not only give it their all on the field in hopes for a victory, but to foster genuine friendship among players. “What is great about this sport is that everyone has to do the part. You can’t win as a team of individuals. That’s what we want to emphasize to people,” Machingaidze said. “It’s about brotherhood for many rugby teams. The memories are irreplaceable and the friendships are difficult to break. If you felt like giving up during the hour of fitness, your teammate will pick you up.” Machingaidze had tried in years past to get rugby on campus, but the interest simply
wasn’t there. This year is a different story. So far, the rugby club has gained interest from over 25 students, which is especially notable considering they only started practicing a few weeks ago. Their practices are every Friday, and they are working with the athletic administration in order to secure more concrete and consistent practice locations, as well as attempting to find funding in order to purchase uniforms, hire a coach and cover travel cost. Usiri and Machingaidze plan is to start locally and build the program up. “So the end goal is to set up a rugby club to compete for national rugby championships. It will be a challenge because rugby is somewhat of a foreign concept here, and we also need to obtain funding. Right now we are receiving good interest, but we are more focused teaching the basic skills and rules, and over time hoping to play around the state and compete at the highest level possible,” Usiri said. Usiri and Machingaidze have deep ties to rugby, both playing since childhood, and are very passionate about passing on knowledge of the game to their peers. For Usiri, an international student, playing rugby reminds him of home, which inspired him to reach out to Machingaidze and get the ball rolling on this project. “I went to a British boarding school in the highlands of Kenya, so you can say that rugby was the culture there. Coming to Texas, I didn’t have the opportunity to touch a rugby ball, so I felt homesick fairly quickly. In order to ease the homesickness, my friend purchased a ball and we decided to toss around. Then the idea to start a club came,“ Usiri said. This rugby club has piqued the interest of many people with no prior experience playing. Just ask Aaron Johnson “I got interested in rugby while watching the Las Vegas 7’s tournament on TV last year. That, plus the Olympics this past summer, really spiked my interest. Practices have been focusing on the fundamentals of the request but it is starting to be more physical. Anyone is welcome to come out, it is a real fun environment,” Johnson said. With Olympic rugby airing this summer, it is no surprise that interest has grown in the sport. This exciting game will be a great addition to Trinity club sports, as long as the athletic administration assists in its formation.
Pushing through: Struggles and injury recovery
Trinity athletes have a lot of experience with the long, difficult process of returning to sport post-rehab BY ELISE HESTER
SPORTS REPORTER Trinity athletes are no stranger to injuries. Blair Walker, a sophomore distance runner for the track team, had to sit out most of last year because of achilles tendonitis. After spending all of last year on the mend thanks to a torn ACL, Nicole Gardini, senior center defender on the women’s soccer team, was almost ready to get back on the field before sustaining a stress injury in her shins earlier this fall. Katie Glomb, a senior pitcher on the softball team, is currently riding the pine with a vascular malformation in her knee. These are a few of the many Trinity student athletes who have experienced sports-related injuries. Many people believe sports injuries occur spontaneously during games in those dramatic moments where everyone in the stands suddenly drops their voices to a whisper as the athlete lies motionless on the field, like Jason Street in the first episode of Friday Night Lights. However, many of the situations in which an athlete becomes sidelined due to health concerns are because of stress-related injuries and overuse. Such is the case with Walker, who has struggled with his condition
since high school, having it flair up to an uncomfortable point recently. “It didn’t suddenly happen. I had this achilles pain that just kind of crept up on me and once I kept running on it, it kept getting worse to the point where I couldn’t run on it anymore,” Walker said. “It’s just a lingering pain that still bothers me now.” Though Glomb was born with vascular malformation, she was not aware of her condition until recently when the pain flamed up due to overuse in practice. “The hurting started happening this summer. It kind of just appears out of nowhere,” Glomb said. “You have it but you don’t realize it until a certain point.” Nicole Gardini, who is currently recovering from a routine stress injury due to overuse, suffered a more dramatic injury last year. “It was our first preseason practice last fall,” Gardini said. “We were playing a four on four tournament and I went into a tackle and turned up the line and there was a little bit of contact and my knee just popped out. I tore my ACL.” Gardini missed all of last season. Walker only got to run at two meets. Glomb will miss the fall season, but will back in the spring.
“It’s pretty demoralizing,” Walker said. “You’re going to practice just like everyone else except they get to go run and compete at meets and you just sit around.” A big part of what makes these injuries so difficult is not being able to play and feeling like you cannot contribute to your team. “It’s hard being out here and not being able to do anything,” Glomb said. “I know all I can do is help and encourage my teammates and know I’ll be out here as soon as I can.” For Gardini, the hardest part of the process was the six-month-long recovery period and the fact that it was the second time she had torn an ACL — th first was in high school. “It’s almost harder when you know what to expect because you know how long and drawn out and how exhausting of a process it is to go through,” Gardini said. “Definitely my faith and my friends and my teammates helped me through.” These athletes’ struggles are saddening yet inspiring, as they push through setbacks and pain to continue their dream of being a collegiate athlete. Its a relevant part of the sports world that often gets overlooked for the more glamorous parts of the game, but these athletes do indeed deserve our respect.
graphic by Tyler Herron
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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • SEPTEMBER 23, 2016 •
SPORTS
When sports influence tribalism Collin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem only deepened America’s political divide A Beaumont youth football team recently followed Colin K a e p e r n i c k’s example and kneeled during the national anthem before their game. The team, made up of mostly MARKHAM SIGLER fifth graders, has SPORTS EDITOR proclaimed they will continue to kneel for every game until the end of the season. Kaepernick’s decision to kneel during the anthem invited criticism from the likes of Trent Dilfer, Jerry Rice and Drew Brees. The most thoughtful responses recognize the need for improved education systems and safer communities while questioning the method — disrespecting the flag and the men and women who have fought to defend it. Some have attacked with less patience, defaming Kaepernick’s moral character and calling him spoiled and pretentious. ABC News utilized a wonderfully simple and effective phrase to describe the QB’s action: “Kaepernick takes a stand for social justice.” His football rivals have joined him in kneeling, and President Obama and Stephen Curry both voiced their admiration. Many publications also have asserted that critics merely make Kaepernick’s voice stronger, which is evidence of the undeniable effect one backup quarterback can have in such a politically polarized time.
One thing should be understood about Kaepernick and his growing support team. Athletes should never be required by law — be it federal, state, local or a private organization’s — to stand during the national anthem. That seems a bit too Orwellian. The First Amendment was created to prevent any sort of state coercion of the people according to that state’s will. An individual’s right to protest through peaceful means is a right that no governing body should tread upon. Instead, what should be debated are the vast implications of kneeling, minus the already tired clichés of Kaepernick being either a deluded athlete or a hero for the disadvantaged and needy. In his recent column for The New York Times, David Brooks drives at an important point — as Americans, we have collectively expected nothing short of greatness since the founding of our country. Whether it is in the arts, sports or our role as the world’s foremost technological innovator, our nation has demonstrated the merits of having an environment free from government interference into our businesses and social structures. Our uniquely diverse influx of people and ideas has bequeathed a country unlike any other. But America is certainly not without its faults. We are, after all, humans, ultimately driven by self-interest and conditioned by our family and culture’s histories to pursue lifestyles that clash with those from different backgrounds. In this way, our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness. America has become the most powerful and influential nation the world has ever known, but it is also one with an indisputably distressing problem — and it’s
not racism (although racism plays a part) — it’s tribalism. Our presidential election provides a glance into this disgusting national pathology. The rise of social media, TV news circuits vying for your attention during breakfast and big, biased media has steadily culminated into an Age of Affirmation. Trump supporters, Hillary supporters, frustrated Bernie loyalists and selfdefined stalwart conservatives who refuse to back Trump — each has essentially formed their own independent tribe that spends little time pursuing open dialogue with those that disagree with them and more dedicated to patting themselves on the back for their personal morally superior perspective. Selfaffirmation, and the affirmation we receive from our fellow tribe members, trumps selfdenial in the hopes for a better future. At times it feels like we are going in circles, achieving nothing besides boosted egos. It would be wrong to suggest that Kaepernick is kneeling to spite the offended tribes, or to affirm those that have overtly drooled at his bravery and willingness to defy traditional norms. But we should be careful not to misconstrue his actions, and the subsequent actions of those he has inspired, into added ammunition for the already intense, empty political war we are witnessing. Too often the search for common ground is undermined by our political identities. The real socio-cultural problems America faces cannot be solved this way. We need real, carefully thoughtout solutions based on graciousness and accountability. That being said, Kaepernick kneeling has not proven to be a solution. Kaepernick
donating $1 million to various charities that aid communities in need — that is part of the solution. Kaepernick and former Green Beret Nate Boyer candidly discussing the issue on a one-to-one, man-to-man basis — that is part of the solution. Mass kneeling has only served to further divide a country which many believe is more divided than it has been since the end of the civil rights movement. Each tribe assumed its inevitable position and has neither budged nor demonstrated any interest in listening. What we can learn from the further polarization that Kaepernick has unintentionally fueled is that enough is enough. His actions on an individual scale are admirable. His utilization of his status as a professional-athlete to give the disadvantaged a voice by disrespecting the flag may be sending the wrong message, regardless of his original moral objective. Instead of kneeling, we could learn a lesson from the Seattle Seahawks, who link arms while standing during the anthem. Their united stance serves as a beautiful example of solidarity in the face of tremendous odds — a characteristic of America that has unfortunately been discarded over time in favor of tribalistic power plays. Open discourse across the political spectrum, and volunteering with communities in need are things that will help. Encouraging our elevenyear-olds to kneel during an anthem that honors American soldiers, the true heroes, as well as the freedom and unity we share that makes America a special place, may only serve to move us backwards.
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