04.13.2018

Volume 115 Issue 24

Trinitonian Serving Trinity University Since 1902

12 Former student withdraws and 15 Trinity senior talks about his becomes rockclimbing instructor A&E EPs “Quiet Hours” and “McLean”

PULSE

18 Women’s tennis wins SPORTS last home match 6-3

Trinity celebrates 150th Committee prepares to “Commemorate, Elevate, Create” for anniversary

Opinion: I’m not proud of Trinity Univ.

Alumna responds to editorial, Trinity’s Parscale promotion, platform for D’Souza

NOELLE BARRERA | NEWS REPORTER nbarrera@trinity.edu The university has formed a committee to oversee and plan a yearlong celebration of Trinity’s 150th anniversary. Angela Breidenstein, professor of education, co-chairs the 150th Anniversary Steering Committee along with Jacob Tingle, director of Experiential Learning.

According to Breidenstein, the committee maintains a community-based approach to planning events for the sesquicentennial celebration, which is based around the slogan, “Commemorate, Elevate, Create.”

“Instead of our committee saying, ‘Here are all of the events of the 150th celebration,’ we’re asking the community to create or elevate events happening during 2019,” Breidenstein said. “So students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members are all coming together to create unique programs for 2019 or to look into an ongoing program that they already do and think how to elevate that event in the spirit of the anniversary year.”

The committee has begun reaching out to departments and student organizations that have expressed interest in preparing for the university’s anniversary.

TU Press is creating a book to capture some of Trinity’s most influential historical moments and tradition. Breidenstein spoke about what the book will contain.

“The campuses will be recreated in the book,” Breidenstein said. “There’ll be a lot of history and a lot of bygone traditions that you don’t see today, like the freshman beanie caps that make up the background of Trinity and have contributed to its enduring community.”

Students majoring in environmental studies are also incorporating their capstone projects into the 150th anniversary with help from

APRIL 13, 2018

DENISE BOEHM | GUEST COLUMNIST

Trinity cheerleaders pose for a team photo in 1978. Trinity plans to celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2019, and a committee has been created to oversee the celebration. Angela breidenstein, professor of education, and Jacob Tingle, director of Experiential Learning, co-chair the committee. FILE PHOTO

George Hazleton, visiting assistant professor of English.

Alumni have become involved. Marshall Hess, who graduated in 1988 and now serves on the Board of Trustees as well as the 150th anniversary committee, gave his perspective on the anniversary.

“I think it speaks a lot to how great Trinity is that we are able to sit back and enjoy this time period,” Hess said.

Current SGA members junior Amulya Deva, senior Nick Santulli and senior Monty McKeon are all on the committee.

Santulli expressed the event’s importance as a way to reflect on Trinity’s past and future.

“150 years can seem like an arbitrary number, but this provides a great opportunity for us to look back at Trinity’s history and the values that have prevailed over different time periods,” Santulli said. “If we know what we’ve gone through and how we got to where we are now, we’ll understand where we should go in the future.”

Deva, who is the current SGA president, explained how she helped to invent the slogan “Commemorate, Elevate, Create” along with other students on the committee. continued on PAGE 5

Esteemed Editor: Your April 4 Trinitonian editorial, “Don’t stop donating over Parscale” implies that Trinity only found out about the possibility of Parscale’s alleged malfeasance regarding Facebook data and Cambridge Analytics’ use of it on behalf of the Trump campaign two weeks after the university posted the video.

Such bad timing, the editorial laments, asking alumni to keep on contributing because how could the Trinity administration and PR team have known?

And it’s expensive to go to Trinity! As alumni, many of us sympathize with you on the cost of higher education, finishing up paying off our own student loans just as we send our kids who are about your age off to similar institutions.

As to timing, while it’s true that the Cambridge Analytics’ whistleblower did indeed make his claims after the Trinity video posted, CNN reported in May 2017 that the campaign’s data analytics’ operation was already under investigation. Parscale denies involvement in Facebook and Cambridge Analytics’ actions, stating that he has done no wrong; however, his guilt or innocence in a court of law is not the point when trying to make Trinity look good. continued on PAGE 9

SGA wants free textbooks for students.

Here’s how they plan to achieve that Resources to become more accessible with new, focused initiative

graphic by JULIA POAGE, staff illustrator

BOBBY WATSON | NEWS REPORTER rwatson@trinity.edu This semester, Student Government Association (SGA) has continued its open educational resources (OER) initiative through a committee dedicated to bringing more OER resources to Trinity. Sophomore SGA senator Ty Tinker has chaired the committee since early January.

“OER is a national initiative that looks to reduce the price of textbooks and educational resources in general,” Tinker said. “As we know, not all learning has to be done through a book. There is different things we watch [and] read — articles, journals, etc. What OER seeks to do is to consolidate all of those resources into one place, including textbooks, too, and make them all free.”

OER was originally brought to SGA in 2016 by Trinity alumnus Nick Shockey, class of 2009, who worked the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) at the time.

In a 2016 interview with the Trinitonian, Brenna Hill, SGA president at the time,

discussed how SGA was working mainly to make professors aware of cheaper textbooks that OER offered.

“We really just want professors to, at first, just consider those books, to take a look at them and look at the quality, because they’re really high-quality textbooks,” Hill said.

OER has already been implemented in several universities across the nation, such as the University of North Dakota, the University of Connecticut and several other schools in California. Though OER has had difficulty getting its message out, Tinker believes that the rising cost of textbooks will pave the way for change nationally and here at Trinity.

“One of our first and main goals is to start a campaign by the end of next semester, so, you know, have hashtags and groups coming together and looking to figure out what OER is and how it could help Trinity.”

Tinker said. “It’s meant to be a supplement, especially where teachers are seeking to make their textbooks and information affordable.”

The current SGA’s focus on OER is an extension of work done by the previous two administrations. Senior Nick Santulli, 2016 SGA president and current senator emeritus, explained how the previous administrations handled the topic. continued on PAGE 5

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 13, 2018 •

NEWS

Previously, on SGA: The Good, the Budget and the Ugly This issue covers the SGA meeting on April 9.

CAMPUS CLIMATE CHECK Sophomore senator Simone Washington relayed frustration students have had with Student Involvement, particularly in planning events. Washington explained that students feel the increase in security has hindered groups’ abilities to create events.

David Tuttle, dean of students, said it’s complicated, explaining that the source of many of issues is the need to ensure safety and protocol by departments like Risk Management. According to Tuttle, there needs to be planning to make sure Trinity is being properly represented by the events it hosts. Tuttle also mentioned that the university is currently working on creating a policy about protesting on campus.

Sophomore senator Benjamin Gonzalez said a student came to him concerned about food waste at the Commons. According to Gonzalez, Einstein Bros. Bagels discards food every four hours because the bagels become stale. (Gonzalez is an opinion columnist for the Trinitonian.)

Tuttle mentioned that the dining services survey has been completed and that he would like SGA to be involved. Junior senator Julia Shults, sophomore senator Juan Luevanos and sophomore senator Angel Ramirez offered to become part of a new committee to arrange the conversation about the dining services decisions.

Trinity Diversity Connection (TDC) requested $35,042.92, which is the exact amount it requested last year. TDC aims to be the main promoters of social justice and diversity on campus by promoting events that support minority groups and cultural organizations on campus. TDC justified maintaining their budget from last year, citing the many connections made this year that allowed it to create new events with other groups.

Student Ambassadors requested $30,422, which is $3,580 more than it requested last year. The increase is due to an additional conference for ambassadors, as well as more money for giveaways, financing expanded philanthropy and their Future Alumni Week.

Recreational Sports requested $213,263, which is $12,242 more than it requested that year. Part of the increase stems from increased participation in Outdoor Recreation and Club Sports, as well as continued maintenance of the new Bell Center facilities.

OFFICER REPORTS President Amulya Deva, junior, recognized SGA’s success in Student Involvement’s Earn Your Stripes program.

Vice president Rachel Daniel, junior, explained that the Campus Publications will be the last to present since it is has an oversight board that must approve the budget before it is seen by SGA. Daniel reminded senators that they will vote on bylaw changes next meeting.

Chief of staff Monty McKeon, senior, explained that junior senator Sarosha BUDGET PROPOSALS Hemani has resigned, and SGA will not be electing a new senator.

Each spring, university-sponsored organizations (USOs) present budget Legislative relations chair Chiara Pride, sophomore, described a youth proposal requests to SGA. Unlike registered student organizations (RSOs), organization workshop she attended. Pride also emphasized the importance of which receive funds from the student activity fee (SAF) on a request basis, prioritizing the student body and responsible spending.

USOs receive a yearly budget that is funded once for the entire year. Budget proposals will be voted on once all USOs present to SGA on April 23.

With additional reporting by Bobby Watson, news reporter Tune in each week for Kathleen Creedon’s SGA summaries. SGA meets at 5:30 p.m. on Mondays in the Waxahachie Room in Coates University Center.

STAFF

DANIEL CONRAD editor-in-chief JULIA WEIS managing editor GRACE FRYE director of digital presence JONAH NANCE business manager REBECCA DERBY ad director KATHLEEN CREEDON news editor KARA KILLINGER pulse editor AUSTIN DAVIDSON a&e editor KENDRA DERRIG sports editor SOLEIL GAFFNER opinion editor EVAN CHAMBLESS special sections editor HENRY PRATT photo editor LIZ DAY graphics editor JORDAN BRUCE webmaster ELISE HESTER video producer EVAN CHAMBLESS copy chief NICK SMETZER circulation director KATHARINE MARTIN adviser CONTACT INFORMATION EDITORIAL email: trinitonian@trinity.edu ADVERTISING email: trinitonian-adv@trinity.edu ad office: (210) 999-8555 fax: (210) 999-7034

GOT A NEWS TIP? REPORTERS Noelle Barrera, Gabby Garriga, Maggie Lupo, Saul Malek, Skylr McCormickIsom, David Menchaca, Antonio Pedraza, Georgie Riggs, Daniel Rothschild, Bobby Watson, Hailey Wilson COLUMNISTS Benjamin Gonzalez, Theresa Ho, Micaela Hoffman, Gabriel Levine, Manfred Wendt COPY EDITORS Sofia Gonzalez Gonzalez, Corrin McCullough, Nathaniel Pigott, Lisa Vetyuhova ILLUSTRATORS Andrea Nebhut, Julia Poage PHOTOGRAPHERS Chloe Sonnier, Allison Wolff, Stephen Sumrall-Orsak BUSINESS STAFF Sarah McIntyre, Tam Nguyen ADVERTISING STAFF Jenna Flexner, Kaitlin Lima, Veronica Lukanga, Regis Noubiap, Brenda Ramos, Isla Stewart

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TUPD BRIEFS THEFT On Friday, April 6, at 11:58 a.m., an alum reported $1,500 missing from their wallet. The wallet was lost off campus and returned to the mail center, where the alum picked it up and noticed the missing money.

BLACKMAIL On Tuesday, April 3, at 12:17 a.m., a student reported an instance of blackmail to TUPD. The student was recorded and photographed without permission while interacting with someone outside of the country over video chat. The person extorted money FIRE ALARM from the student in return for not On Tuesday, April 3, at 4:52 p.m., posting the videos or photos publicly. a fire alarm was set off by steam from The case will be handled by the FBI. a machine in CSI. San Antonio Fire Department arrived at the scene. THEFT According to TUPD, the machine On Monday, April 9, at 10:20 a.m., has set off the alarm multiple times a staff member reported a box of rags in the past. missing. The box has not be located.

Corrections • In the April 06 issue, in the article “Viva Hemisfair,” Vietnamese

Student Association was incorrectly called Vietnamese Student Organization • In the April 06 issue, the article “Stumberg sees gender disparity” was incorrectly attributed. The article was written by Gabby Garriga.

• In the April 06 issue, in the article “Organizations face challenges,” many facts about the T-Space process were misconstrued. An updated version of the article can be found on our website.

Spot a mistake? Let us know at trinitonian@trinity.edu.

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NEWS • APRIL 13, 2018 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

3

What to expect when you’re expecting to live in San Antonio post-graduation How renters’ rights, cost of housing will affect the newly graduated

illustration by JULIA POAGE, staff illustrator

BOBBY WATSON | NEWS REPORTER rwatson@trinity.edu As the spring semester comes to a close, soonto-be-graduates have to begin thinking about life after college. A large part of figuring that out is housing.

Two major issues that renters in San Antonio face are the supply of affordable housing in light of rising rent and renters’ rights in a leasing situation. Christine Drennon, director of urban studies, explained that renters essentially have no rights in any dispute with a landlord.

“Say something is broken in your apartment, and you fix it ‘cause your landlord won’t fix it.

And you say, ‘I’m not paying 100 dollars out of my rent because I had to fix the dishwasher,’ and they say, ‘Well, no, now you’re in violation, and you’re evicted.’ You have no rights in that case,” Drennon said.

According to Drennon, state legislation has been resistant to allow any limits on the power of landlords, making local legislative change difficult. Drennon warns students to be wary of the fine print of leases.

“Be very very cognizant of that lease. Most of the city, most of the apartment complexes and most landlords use the same lease, but then they’ll often have a list at the very end of additional regulations that apply to that property,” Drennon said. “Pay close attention to that thing because you have no rights. There is no representation for you. You really need to be smart about what you’re walking into.”

However, before students have to deal with landlords they must find affordable housing.

Average income of graduates is about $50,000.

However, these statistics tend to be imprecise due to the wide discrepancy between incomes based on majors and the field pursued by graduates.

“Typically, people say they’re rent-burdened too much when they spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent, so it’s really going to depend on their major. Economics, say,

you make a lot more than English,” said David A. Macpherson, professor of economics.

Drennon explains that if graduates are close to the average above they should find plenty of housing opportunities; if they are below this average, finding city housing can be difficult.

“We have plenty of what we would call market-rate rental housing for somebody making whatever the median income in San Antonio is and above,” Drennon said. “So that’s about 54–55,000 dollars and above.

We’ve got lots of that housing. But if you make below that you’re probably going to need to find something, if it’s going to be in decent shape it’s going to have to be subsidized somehow, and we don’t have that. And most cities don’t right now.”

In order to combat this some have suggested capping the cost of rent, though this has been widely criticized by the economic world.

“If you put a cap on rent, who wants to build new rental facilities? You’d rather make a condominium rather than rent out apartments. So it reduces the housing supply and it turns out to be a shortage. If you put a rent control cap, more people will want to rent at the lower price than there are landlords willing to rent out, so it causes a housing shortage,” Macpherson said. “If we do have people who are having issues, provide subsidies rather than rent control.”

Drennon is currently leading a housing task force that is researching ways to tackle housing issues in San Antonio, like creating subsided housing.

Trinity’s own housing is not above San Antonio’s median trend. On campus dorms cost about $1,086.25 a month, which is slightly more than average rent in San Antonio.

However, these come with a meal plan down playing the extra costs.

City Vista, on the other hand, costs more than average rent by a couple hundred dollars — depending on the room rented and number of roommates — and does not provide a meal plan included in the cost. Some rooms in City Vista can end up doubling the average cost of rent, as explained by junior student Hunter Sosby. “[My room in City Vista] is way more expensive [than on campus living]. The only reason I’m able to do it is because I’m only here for one semester this year because I studied abroad in the fall.”

Sosby stayed in a small single room by himself which costs $7,226.5 per semester.

Though housing can be expensive at Trinity, most students face it with the potential of financial aid or outside help, whether that be parents or scholarships. Graduates are much more singular in their post-graduation housing situation. It is safe to say that San Antonio landlords will not be offering financial aid.

New parental leave policy for faculty Updated language, put into effect this spring, offers more time off

NOELLE BARRERA | NEWS REPORTER nbarrera@trinity.edu The Faculty Senate, a governmental body composed of faculty members from different departments, has updated the parental leave policy for Trinity academic faculty. The new policy went into effect this spring.

According to Pamela Johnston, assistant vice president for Human Resources, the changes extend the amount of time given to faculty members.

“The previous policy guaranteed eight weeks of paid leave but gave up to a semester depending on the circumstances,” Johnston said. “The new policy gives a paid semester or four paid months of leave as the default, with the option to take an additional subsequent unpaid leave for up to four months.”

The policy’s language has also been updated.

“The language [has] changed to make clear that the purpose of the policy is to give faculty members the time to be with new additions to their families, while the previous policy stated

that the primary purpose was to minimize disruption to classes,” Johnston said. “[The new policy] also states that a faculty member will neither be at a disadvantage for taking a leave, nor be required to perform additional work to compensate.”

With these updates, the policy now includes library faculty.

Johnston explained how Trinity’s family and medical leave policy works for couples in which one person is a faculty member and the other is a staff member.

“The faculty member, if they’re the primary caretaker, can use the parental leave,” Johnston said. “If they’re a staff member, then they could use their sick or vacation time, and both faculty and staff members are covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act.” Eduardo Cabral Balreira, associate professor of mathematics, is among the first faculty members on the new leave policy. He is married to Jeanna Balreira, associate director of creative communications, and is the primary caretaker of their son Eduardo James (nicknamed “EJ”), who was born in December shortly after finals.

“I feel very lucky and glad to be in a place where I can take a whole semester off to be with my child,” Cabral Balreira said. continued on PAGE 5

illustration by JULIA POAGE, staff illustrator

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 13, 2018 •

NEWS

Credit hour policy remains unlikely source of academic quibbles, strife Back-and-forth talks since 2013 continue over matching credit hours to courseloads

graphic by LIZ DAY, graphics editor

KATHLEEN CREEDON | NEWS EDITOR kcreedon@trinity.edu Students may have noticed that certain classes and departments have adopted fourcredit-hour courses in recent years. This is a symptom of a quiet conflict that has persisted among faculty since 2013, a debate over how the university should translate course loads into credit hours.

The 2009–2010 Course of Study Bulletin defines a semester hour as “one 50-minute period of recitation or lecture, or three such periods of laboratory work, each week for a semester of 15 weeks.”

This definition recommends two hours of out-of-class preparation. On Oct. 25, 2013, the Faculty Assembly voted to change this definition, which decoupled the link between the credit hour and time spent in the classroom, called “contact hours.”

“The equating of credit hours and class contact hours was never official Trinity University policy,” said Glenn Kroeger, professor of geosciences and member of the University Curriculum Council (UCC.) “In fact, what triggered the current policy and the debate that occurred during its adoption was that ... this policy was deemed inadequate.”

“I think that, generally, students need to spend more time doing fewer things better.”

GLENN KROEGER PROFESSOR OF GEOSCIENCES

This change was divisive among professors.

Some believed it wasn’t representative of the work done out of the classroom; others cited pedagogy as a reason to extend the credit hour.

Aaron Delwiche, professor of communication and member of the UCC, recalled the division the situation created.

“Trinity faculty, we all respect each other.

We all get along, but this is the most divisive issue I’ve seen,” Delwiche said.

Delwiche doesn’t agree with the coupling, explaining that time with professors is important for students.

“I firmly believe that we should keep them coupled, the contact hour and the credit hour,” Delwiche said. “I think that what you’re paying for at a place like Trinity is the time to interact with Trinity. We have this great faculty-to-student ratio; it’s one of the lowest in the country.”

According to Mark Lewis, professor of computer science, the change of definition didn’t clarify how credit hours determined by work would be measured.

“The general rule across campus was that, if a class was scheduled for three hours, it got three credits. And at least that wasn’t arbitrary. It was defined,” Lewis said. “Now the definition is that how much credit you get has nothing to do at all with any class, with how many hours you meet a week. It’s only supposed to be how many hours of work you spend on it — which would be fine, if we had any way of reinforcing it.”

Lewis explained that if the definition allows credit hours to be based on the work required for a class, classes worth more credits should give more work than those worth fewer credits.

However, this contradicts the experiences Lewis has had with students.

“I hear students telling me that their fourcredit class is less work than a one-credit class,” Lewis said. “What I hear from students is that there are a number of these four-credit classes that are not pushing students to think deeper. They’re just getting more credit.”

One might think the change unfairly allows students to get more credit for different, perhaps less-involved work.

Kroeger disagrees.

“The question is, ‘What’s important for the course you’re taking?’ If the course is about reading British novels, then reading British novels is far more important than sitting in class and listening to somebody yap at you about British novel,” Kroeger said. “My view is that ought to be left to the person in the department. I don’t know how to teach British novels, but I assume that my

colleagues who specialize in them do, and I want them to choose how they portion [the] course load to teach what they want to teach.”

Lewis worries that there is no way of enforcing how much work goes into a class or how much work is administered to a class.

“My fear was that this will become a joke, that the number of credit hours for a course become meaningless,” Lewis said. “And I think that’s where we’re going.”

Kroeger thinks the system is fair. Because the university doesn’t enforce a standard number of credit hours per course, professors are able to choose which works best for their departments, provided that the classes are approved by the UCC. “The model that we ended up with does not require that coupling, but it doesn’t prohibit it, either,” Kroeger said.

Lewis agreed that the departmental flexibility is good.

“One of the things that’s kind of nice about this system is that we did not university-wide impose this upon everyone,” Lewis said.

“There were schools that did that.”

Kroeger sees the advantages of both systems, but ultimately thinks the current system is better since it gives professors the option between course hours.

“I listen to both sides, and I understand the difference, but we all have to ultimately decide what we believe in,” Kroeger said. “I think that, generally, students need to spend more time doing fewer things better.”

The current definition of the credit hour is flexible.

“One of the key terms in the credit hour policy itself is ‘expected’ student academic work, and I think that helps with the measurement part of it,” said Duane Coltharp, associate vice president of academic affairs.

“There is absolutely no way to measure how much work students actually do.”

According to Coltharp, departments have their own measures of how long it will take to do certain assignments, e.g. how long it will take to read or write a certain number of pages.

“We know that not every student reads every page that’s assigned,” Coltharp said.

“When it comes to measuring how much of the student work we think is going to go into a course, that’s what departments have actually done. They’ve counted up how much reading goes into a course — how much writing it takes to go into a course, how long they think it will take to take an exam.”

Coltharp said that though this is just an approximation, it gives the university an idea of how much work goes into a class.

Delwiche remains skeptical. According to him, even if students are doing work outside of class, it’s time in class that is most important.

“Trinity faculty, we all respect each other. We all get along, but this is the most divisive issue I’ve seen.”

AARON DELWICHE PROFESSOR OF COMMUNICATION

“I feel like moving to the four credit hour is kind of unfair to students because they’re paying for that extra credit hour, and yet they’re not spending that time in the classroom,” Delwiche said.

Trinity also updated its credit hour policy in order to maintain its accreditation.

“We have to have a credit hour policy, required by our accreditor because it’s required by the federal government,” said Diane Saphire, associate vice president for institutional research and effectiveness.

Saphire explained that any time the university looks at changing a policy, our accreditors, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACSCOC), require that the policy be documented and approved.

In this case, the new policy was approved by the UCC, then sent to be approved by the Faculty Assembly, and the minutes were shared with SACSCOC to document the process.

According to Saphire, the UCC works hard to ensure courses worth four credits include that level of work outside of the classroom, too.

“The person making the proposal has to justify pretty specifically what extra work the student will have to do that will be the equivalent to the number of credit hours that they want to award for the course,” Saphire said. “When we show the work that the UCC does — that they don’t just rubber stamp these — and some of the ones that come through have this extensive justification.”

YEARBOOKS ARE ALMOST HERE! Did you order a Mirage? See online: trinity.edu/yearbook

NEWS • APRIL 13, 2018 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

Trinity’s Sesquicentennial continued on FRONT “We knew we wanted it to be threefold, like three different levels of participation,” Deva said. “One that’s passive, where you just attend events, all the way to creating events like this.”

McKeon talked about how his role as director of the Student Programming Board (SPB) interacts with his position on the steering committee.

“As director of SPB, I’ll be working with various RSOs to help coordinate with them and make sure that they’re on the same page as the committee and make sure that everything is going smoothly,” McKeon said. “We have a small grant of $10,000 to split among activities and groups. It’s not a whole lot of money, but we are hoping that it can help.”

The word “elevate” in the slogan refers to taking preexisting events and making them better. McKeon said that one of the events that the committee aims to elevate is the 2019 Welcome Back Winter Fest.

“We always have our Welcome Back Winter Fest every year around the same time. And so we are going to elevate and try to do it bigger and better than ever before,” McKeon said.

Eugenio Dante Suarez, associate professor of finance and decision sciences, spoke about two ways that students can become involved with the celebration planning process.

“One is to join us and participate in all of the events that are going to be happening, or if they already have an [event] that happens all the time, let’s talk about how we can make it special this year,” Suarez said. “The

other way would be to simply create an event from scratch and take it to the committee and say ‘this is what I would like to propose, this is what I need.’”

Committee members have publicized the 150th anniversary campaign with posts in LeeRoy and appearances at Super Nacho Hour and Milk & Cookies.

More information on the 150th Anniversary Committee can be found on the committee’s official website, as well as a page for Trinity community members to submit events and contributions for the anniversary. The committee will be reviewing applications on a rolling basis, with May 15, July 15 and Sept.

15 as key funding checkpoints.

Students can contact Briedenstein at abreiden@trinity.edu and Tingle at jtingle@trinity.edu.

5

they’re going. . . they’re going. . . they are recognized!

Departments and Programs can recognize graduating seniors for their service to the University in the TriniTonian’s annual

Margaret Farris Recognition for Exemplary Service trinitonian-adv@trinity.edu deadline: Wednesday, April 18

Student Gov. Association to bring free textbooks to TU continued on FRONT “We kinda thought about things SGA could do bring OER to campus, so we developed a fact sheet or a sort of pitch in conjunction with the Board of Visitors that compiled facts about OER like students’ benefits as well as [troubleshooting] potential concerns of faculty members maybe about quality or availability of resources,” Santulli said. “Then we also established an OER outreach team.”

OER is a program that must be adopted by professors on an individual basis. Dania Abreu

Torres, Kevin Nickels and Kevin McIntyre are professors at Trinity that have already adopted OER due to the work of last year’s SGA administration.

According to Amulya Deva, junior and current president of SGA, this year’s committee intends to enact more widespread change throughout campus and bring about larger results to previous years through more pragmatic organization and a larger focus on faculty acceptance of OER. “There wasn’t a lot of structure to committees last year in terms of what they were expected to do and goals,”

Deva said. “So the thing that really makes this year different is the fact that we are putting in things like, ‘We expect at least one professor from each department to be contacted by this date,’ and ‘These open educational resources to be pitched to this class,’ so it’s more likely that professors will adopt [OER].”

Tinker has hope that, through this year’s committee, the student body and faculty at Trinity can become more aware and knowledgeable about OER and can sow the seeds for a future at the university with more affordable educational resources.

leave, which is different from the policy for Trinity faculty. Unlike faculty members, staff members must accrue vacation and sick days that can be saved up to use for parental leave.

In an email interview, Balreira wrote about how she saved her vacation and sick days throughout the year to use for parental leave.

“I earn 160 vacation hours per year. This is four 40-hour weeks, or 20 days. ... In a typical year, I may use 80–100 vacation hours, usually on one long — seven- to ten-day — vacation and a handful of other vacation days throughout the year, and maybe 24–48 sick hours,” Balreira wrote. “However, I had to ‘bank’ my vacation and sick leave in order to save the equivalent of 12 full weeks of paid time off, and only took one or two vacation and sick days during my nine months of pregnancy.”

Balreira said that while this procedure worked well for her, it can also be challenging.

“I enjoyed every single minute of being with EJ, but had I not been able to do that, if I [hadn’t] had so much leave saved up, I would have missed out and ... you know, that can lead to harboring resentment or wishing you would have done something different, which isn’t the mentality or the attitude that

you want in your staff members,” Balreira said. Denise Covert, associate director of Human Resources, spoke about the process that staff members go through to obtain parental leave.

“Staff can request leave either through their department supervisor, and once they take the leave, if they are a classified staff employee — which is a nonexempt employee who is paid hourly — they enter their time in the Web Time Entry, and they show it as a sick or vacation time and then their supervisor approves their Web Time Entry,” Covert said.

The process is different for contract staff, who receive a fixed salary while classified members receive hourly wages. “[Contract staff] have a leave request form that they would complete and take to their supervisor, who will deliver it to us so we can track it in our system,” Covert said. “If it’s any relation to family medical leave, they come to me. I give them the proper paperwork that they need to take to their doctor for certification … and it’s approved I follow up with a letter letting them know that everything has been approved.”

More information about the current parental leave policy can be found on the university website.

New parental leave policy continued on PAGE 3 Cabral Balreira discussed problems with the old policy, in which faculty members were given only eight weeks off — the time mandated by federal law — but could also negotiate with the chair of their department to get one course released.

“Trinity faculty normally teach three courses or nine contact hours, so for a faculty to take eight weeks off is really tough on the students, because that’s nearly half a semester. You’re used to having one faculty and then you have another one,” Cabral Balreira said.

“So many people would opt for a course release.”

With the new policy in place, Cabral Balreira can spend six months with his son, taking into account the winter break. Overall, he is happy with his experience with parental leave at Trinity.

“I’ve been very lucky. I don’t think I’ve been getting as much research done, but it’ll be OK,” Cabral Balreira said. “It’s an important time to be with my child, and if I’m that lucky to spend the first six months with him, research will take a back seat for a while.”

Balreira was also able to take 12 weeks off to take care of her son through staff policy for parental

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6

WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 13, 2018 •

OLDS

’96

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’85

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’78 Trinity is celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2019, and in preparation, the university has formed a committee to oversee and plan a yearlong celebration. The committee is co-chaired by Angela Breidenstein, professor of education, and Jacob Tingle, director of Experiential Learning.

FILE PHOTOS compiled by EVAN CHAMBLESS

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Opinion

LET’S HEAR YOUR VOICE.

...

Have an opinion? To feature as a guest columnist, please submit your article to trinitonian@trinity.edu or to Soleil Gaffner, Opinion editor, at LGaffner@trinity.edu by Sunday at noon to be in Thursday’s issue of the paper.

FROM TH E EDITORS’ DESK

Reminder: Take a breath, take a rest Two weeks. Just two more weeks of class, then reading days, and then it’s finals season. Then, finally, the spring semester will draw to a close, and we’ll get to relax and enjoy the summer break.

That relaxation couldn’t come sooner.

This moment in the academic calendar is one of the most stressful: Job and internship deadlines approach, class projects and term papers are due, and soon-to-be spring graduates had better be lining up some plans for where they’ll live once the dorms close and leases expire.

That’s a lot of sources of stress, and the breakneck pace at which they’re coming in only makes matters worse.

We figure that now is as good a time as any to remind everyone that it’s OK to loosen up, to take a break and keep from overworking ourselves.

When you’re in the thick of things, it can be hard to see the bigger picture. Just think of how one of the easiest ways to strike up a conversation with a stranger on campus is to ask about academics: What’re you studying? How are midterms going?

Got a rough finals schedule? Academics are always on our mind.

Put all that to the side for a moment and take a deep breath. The Trinity curriculum isn’t easy, sure, but it doesn’t have to be a hyper-competitive rat race, either.

If your high school college counselor was worth their salt, they kept telling you that perfect grades hardly matter. Nothing within the past four years has changed this, and the fact that you’re chasing an undergraduate degree hasn’t changed it either.

It turns out that good is good enough.

The compulsion to aspire to 4.0 perfection is just that: a compulsion. And those are rarely healthy.

Consider the fact sheet that Counseling Services shared with attendees of the March 21 SGA meeting. Last fall, 276 students — majority female — arranged for at least one counseling session. Nearly a third of them said that they sought counseling because they were struggling academically; half of those folks cited “moderate to severe academic trouble.”

It would be wrong to look at those numbers and conclude that there’s a problem. It’s no sign of failure

or weakness to attend counseling, whatsoever. If anything, it would be better if more students were willing to speak to professionals about academics and mental health.

That’s not license to stop attending class and flunk out. But it is about time that we stop stigmatizing some legitimate ways that we can make life easier on ourselves as students.

There’s no shame in asking for an extension on an assignment, withdrawing from a class or taking an incomplete on your transcript. And spending a semester away from school is a worthy way to spend your time. It can help you recharge, save funds and enjoy a short dip into the ‘real world.’

The tour guides lied to you: triple and quadruple minors are not as common as you might think. Work with your academic advisers to figure out what schedules work best with your life goals.

Finals are nearly here, and they will take no prisoners. But we owe it to ourselves and to one another to keep afloat, rather than turning into a stressful mess.

Good luck, Trin, and stay stressless.

Progressive culture at the book fair ISAIAH MITCHELL GUEST COLUMNIST imitchel@trinity.edu

Authors with regal gaits, brown sport jackets and foreign souvenirs; friendly faced women with clipboards, petitioning for mandatory sick leave; a scraggly man, with a roach clip dangling from his hoodie string, who claimed to have invented the flat-screen TV back in 1975; a gaggle of high-schoolers decked out in dreamsiclecolored Whataburger gear; and, taking a break from his post at the Trinity University Press booth, one fluffy-haired weirdo with a notebook.

Such was the crowd, or at least a small taste of it, at the Sixth Annual San Antonio Book Festival.

That weirdo — surprise, it’s me — didn’t look out of place; that would have been a hard feat to achieve, in a crowd that was equal parts combovers and mohawks, slacks and Harry Potter tights, plain t-shirts and veritable chainmail vests of buttons that proudly displayed slogans like “I READ BANNED BOOKS.” This was the world that San Antonio champions as being so quintessentially diverse and vibrant, the world “which boasts a little something for readers of every age group and interest,” as described by the San Antonio Current. Such was the theme there, a theme that San Antonians probably should be used to by now, with every pamphlet and promotion

Check us out

on the web!

laced with words like “nonconformist,” “diverse” and “varied.”

But beneath the jingle of the ankh earrings and the rosaries and the Fiesta medals droned an incessant message of hatred, hatred for a disappointingly finite and petty list of things — Trump, America, Texas, you name it — popularly in the guise of appreciation for the latter two.I wandered into a random panel and heard an author — some author, any author; I didn’t catch his name, because I didn’t want to hear him finish, because I’d heard it all countless times before — beseeching his audience to resist, persist, coexist, insist, consist, Sunkist — we know the drill.

In the Barnes & Noble tent, I picked up a random book of poetry, turned to a random poem, and read about a speaker’s visit to an empty chapel and how he prayed, only to hear emptiness and realize what a fool he was — critical acclaim on the back of the book described it as “witty” and “original.” The tent was one of many tents in the marketplace just outside the Southwest School of Art’s Coates Chapel, which was also holding author panels and other events inside.

Our own books at the TU Press booth included novels signed by Margaret Atwood, eco-poetry anthologies and books about life on the border, all snugly nestled between titles like “Hometown Texas” and “Land and Light in the American West.”

As I walked past a girl whose shirt that read “I am not your perfect American girl,” I overheard

a lady with blue hair gleefully shouting to a smiling sick leave-petitioner, “I lived in Europe, so I believe all of this crazy socialist bullshit, right?” and got into my car — parked beneath a menacing black-and-white mural of a three-eyed Medusa against a backdrop of the American flag — I wondered how these people could believe this common caricature of America to be such a powerful reality.

I then came to the realization that this is how it’s done — this is how the sleight of hand is mastered, how the pill is coated in chocolate, how, beneath the mask of diverse cultural pride, a great and incessant propaganda machine lurks.

There’s no better way to convince the very people who write, publish, advertise and buy the books, the very people who control the industry, that they are victims who must protest. Every new anti-Trump book that’s churned out on the assembly line must be prescient, relevant, muchneeded and over-ignored.

And yet I have my doubts — after saying the words “incessant propaganda machine,” I feel like putting on my tinfoil hat and booting up Infowars. Of course, I am not speaking of Bilderbergs or Illuminati or men behind the curtain. I just appreciate the trick of it, of putting on a show of diversity to hide the utterly flat and boring monotony of principles behind it all.

I wish I could have enjoyed it.

Isaiah Mitchell is a sophomore English major.

trinitonian.com/opinion GINA TAM

GABRIEL LEVINE

DULCE DAVIS

ELISE HESTER

on student activism on student responsibility

on money and the job search on conservatism and Christ

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letters to the editor Share your quick reactions to Trinitonan coverage and opinion columns. Send 300 words or less to the head editors and Soleil Gaffner, the Opinion editor, at trinitonian@trinity.edu. She or Daniel Conrad, Trinitonian editor-in-chief, will be in touch as soon as they can.

guest columns Can’t keep it to a few hundred words? Pen a guest column and let your views be known.

Please keep it between 500 and 700 words, and give us time to prepare. If possible, submit

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OPINION

CoNtRpIn

Discussing gun control: Where do we stand?

JORDAN BRUCE GUEST COLUMNIST jbruce2@trinity.edu

MANFRED WENDT OPINION COLUMNIST mwendt@trinity.edu “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed,” so states the second amendment. The second amendment, which allows citizens to possess firearms, has played a vital role in the development of the United States; without it, the United States would likely be a very different place. In large part, this is due to the colonial experience and the Revolutionary War’s beginnings within the British attempt to confiscate guns. Over time, the United States has gone back and forth with different interpretations about what weaponry the second amendment permits and what it allows to be banned.

With the rise of school shootings, some people think it is time to change the status quo. There are many different opinions on what to do with the second amendment. Some think the second amendment is acceptable as it is, others think moderate reforms are necessary, while some think it should be removed entirely from the constitution. To have a discussion about what needs to happen next, we must first understand where we are now.

Due to the United States’ division of power between the federal, state and local governments, the current gun laws in the United States vary depending on where in the country you are. There are some nationwide requirements, however: you are required to be eighteen to purchase a rifle or a shotgun; you must be twentyone to purchase a handgun; if you are sentenced to jail for longer than two years, you are banned from purchasing a gun; fully automatic weapons like the tommy gun are essentially banned.

C L A S S O F 2 0 1 8

graphic by LIZ DAY, graphics editor

In 1986, a law was passed banning civilian-owned automatic weapons produced after 1986. The process to own a fully automatic weapon produced before 1986 is lengthy and costly — a process no school shooter has ever gone through.

SHOULD THE AGE TO BUY A GUN BE RAISED TO 21?

Jordan: The age to purchase a gun should be raised to 21. Guns are dangerous, and the frontal cortex of the human brain is not fully formed until the age of 25. The frontal cortex is responsible not only for decision making, but for understanding the long-term consequences of actions and decisions. The teenage brain relies on emotional decision-making rather than the more logical and controlled process of an adult brain, which can lead to rash decisions. While mass shootings make the news, suicide is a deadlier form of gun death: 52.2 percent of all suicides were committed with guns between the years of 1999 and 2013, and just over 58 percent of all gun deaths were a form of suicide. By allowing younger, more emotionally-charged individuals at a higher risk of suicide to purchase guns without restriction, we put their lives — and the lives of others — at risk.

Manfred: No, as raising the age to own and buy a gun from 18 to 21 is the picture of crafting public policy for

self-congratulations without actually preventing the problem. According to Everytown and Vox, both cardcarrying progressive movement groups, only two out of the 156 mass shootings that took place between 2009–2016 were by people who were under 21 years old with an “assault weapon,” progressive slang for a black semi-automatic rifle.

According to these publications only 0.013 percent of the mass shootings in the United States would have been prevented by such a law. I have a better chance of getting a date tomorrow than raising the age of purchasing guns to 21 does of preventing a mass shooting.

Raising the age to 21 also makes an entire three years of adults defenseless to protect themselves and their families from danger.

Pushing the age restriction back is a clear act of age discrimination.

Raising the age to 21 to purchase a gun is nonsensical as it does not solve the problem that it is supposed to solve, unless you want a government that applies all solutions that work at least 0.013 percent of the time. Leave no stone unturned!

It is also important to understand that many people don’t go to college and as a result become full adults at the age of 18 instead of when they graduate college at 21 or 22. This often entails living alone. Should women who are living alone between the ages of 18 and 21 be deprived of the only equalizer

between men and women in terms of force? Should people be deprived of the ability to protect themselves? The benefit, if there is any, of raising the age of purchasing and having a firearm to 21 is outweighed significantly by the cost of disarming and leaving powerless a significant amount of the population.

SHOULD BUMP STOCKS BE LEGAL? Jordan: Bump stocks should not be legal to possess, purchase, or manufacture. These attachments allow weapons to become automatic, akin to weaponry already made illegal.

These relatively cheap attachments are not regulated and need to be banned under the same reasoning as fully automatic guns. Nobody needs to pump 30 bullets downstream in 20 seconds or less.

Manfred: No, unless people are willing to go through the same process one must go through in order to own an automatic weapon. A bump stock turns a semi-automatic weapons into fully automatic weapons, which are heavily regulated. Certain modifications on weapons are banned or heavily regulated, and the bumpstock should be treated similarly.

SHOULD SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS BE BANNED? Jordan: In limited circumstances.

While I don’t believe that semi-

automatic weapons are necessary under the second amendment, I believe that they can be used as recreational firearms safely. Instead of an outright ban, a similar level of safety could likely be achieved with more rigorous screening. First, sales of these firearms should be restricted to licensed dealers.

Private gun sales are not mandated under the second amendment, and this back-channel way of gun transfer poses a risk to effective gun control through the limiting of a black market.

Second, there ought to be a mandatory background check as well as a waiting period. There is no imminent danger that would necessitate the purchasing of an AR-15 or any other semi-automatic firearm immediately. These waiting periods would tamp down gun deaths significantly, according to a Harvard business school study.

Manfred: No, as rifles accounted for 3 percent of firearm homicides in 2016, while handguns accounted for 65 percent, according to reported FBI data. The term semi-automatic tends to be confused with the term automatic.

Automatic firearms allow one to hold down the tigger and the gun to fire until you take your finger off the trigger or you run out of bullets. Semiautomatic guns fire one bullet every time you pull the trigger.

If you ban semi-automatic guns, I assume what would remain is bolt action guns and muzzle loaded guns.

Banning semi-automatic guns would not solve the problem as people would just use other guns. Also, Americans own over 15 million AR-15 style guns.

If the government were to attempt mass confiscation, we would end up with a new government.

It is important to remember that current deaths from gun violence is half of what it was in the 1990’s. As dreary as the media likes to make life in America seem these days, we should remember that statistically there has never been a better time to be alive.

Jordan Bruce is a first-year political science major.

Manfred Wendt is a senior political science major.

T U S E N I O R S

OPINION • APRIL 13, 2018 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

Analyzing mental health HAROLD MAIO In response to Noelle Barrera’s April 4 column, “Admirable movement, flawed manifesto.” Three metaphors that are, to me, problematic appeared in the article.

First, “According to the Guardian piece, if police had known that Nikolas Cruz, the shooter, was ‘disturbed,’ they could have stopped him from harming others.”

That is half the story: The Guardian failed to note that a considerable number of people knew of the danger Cruz presented, were required by law to report it, and did not. To date not one of them has been held responsible.

Second, “People with stigmatized mental illnesses,” a passive voice construction, fails to identify who is doing the stigmatizing. Stigmas do not appear out of the ether, they are pursued by specific people.

Joining them in saying “there is” may not be the route we all want to take. We did precisely that, followed that path with rape stigma for many generations before being made aware of the harm we were were doing by the women’s movement.

Third, “People with mental illnesses” also merits closer examination. People dealing with a mental illness are a broad and diverse demographic, earning to the millions, holding every university degree, and every professional, white, and blue collar job. Generalizing about any such a broad group is fraught with error.

Because words lead to perceptions, and perceptions to actions, carefully choosing the words we employ becomes an important responsibility. Without precision and accuracy, we fail to communicate fact.

Harold A. Maio, M.A., is a retired mental health editor.

Alum: I’m not proud of TU continued from FRONT

Trinity’s administration and PR team should be selecting the best, unclouded associations and activities to promote the university, not lauding alumni who are already established as subject to investigation for illegal use of data and possible collusion with Russian operatives to influence an election. Facebook’s previously-established nonactions to prevent foreign influence on the election, coupled with the numerous confirmed meetings between Trump’s team, Russian officials and operatives to “share” information make it unbelievable that Trinity should showcase Parscale.

If you’re trying to sell your products, services, solutions, education or anything of the sort, you don’t put a potentially polluted feather in your cap. It’s not a political issue; it’s basic PR that you don’t promote a possible criminal as your best and brightest when they’re involved in a situation that has been smelling bad for months. Media timelines don’t add up as to what Trinity should have known before lionizing Parscale.

Trinity does not owe any liar, racist or social media expert who is allegedly involved in election fraud a platform, especially one that brings embarrassment to the university.

As to Parscale’s well-rounded Trinity education, he only spent a year there, right? So, I guess he got most of his history, politics and ethics lessons elsewhere, if at all, which is the only bright light for Trinity in this entire story.

As for withholding donations, Trinity lost me when they provided seating space and oxygen on its campus to Dinesh D’Souza, whose hate-filled rhetoric and “research” wouldn’t pass the basics of peer review on the neglected bathroom floor of an abandoned gas station, i.e., he makes stuff up and sells it with stridency unburdened by facts.

The university has also opened its arms to another propagandist, Milo Yiannopoulos, who is similarly unencumbered by truth and revels in controversy for the attention and money.

Yiannopoulos and D’Souza have both been barred by social media platforms such as Twitter for their hate mongering. Despite their complete lack of academic and personal integrity, though, Trinity invites them in. If either of these speakers could demonstrate a shred of academic support for their rants, I would understand why they are given space to speak at Trinity; however, they cannot.

Yet, Trinity holds a place to promote hatemongers and people under legal and ethics investigations and expects no one to notice and to donate more money.

Free speech is not equivalent to Trinity or any other private entity providing an air conditioned place to speak, ushers, electricity, bathrooms, water and parking, not to mention positive video posts and free public relations.

Let such unproven, suspicious people stand on their own lawns or some public place where they’ve procured a license to make their point.

Trinity does not owe any liar, racist or social media expert who is allegedly involved in election fraud a platform, let alone a promotion, especially one that brings embarrassment to the university.

My daughter applied to Trinity at my request several years ago and was offered a full scholarship, but she had a different preference.

I would not make such a request of her today, let alone donate money to Trinity unless the university demonstrates it understands the difference between hacks and potential criminal behavior versus people with different viewpoints based in fact, valid research and who are not under investigation for illegal acts that subvert American democracy.

As an editorial board, I would ask you to promote this conversation with the administration, and I applaud any attempts you have made or will make to that end. Asking alumni to ignore the discussion between fact and fiction, ethics and immorality, and the true meaning of free speech will not solve the problem or its effects on you financially and educationally, and I am sensitive to your needs as students.

I’m not proud of Trinity right now. I have no intention of shining it on or giving money to make Trinity, where I received an amazing education, seem justified in some really poor judgment. Indeed, it’s my duty to call them out when they act against the values they taught me. All the best to the Trinitonian staff, Trinity students and professors who make Trinity what it is. My very personal thanks to Dr. Mary Ellen Ross and Dr. Nina Ekstein, who were especially key to the value of my education.

Denise Boehm is an alumna from the class of 1987.

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OPINION

Visiting the developing world: Learn first, then act

Rather than pointing to a random place on the southern half of the globe and going there to help with something, it can do much more good to simply understand the full range and depth of the problems people are dealing with in a specific developing country or region.

Doing extensive research and finding out what people who live there say they need can help those of us in developed countries comprehend the broader causes behind the problems faced around the world.

As Teju Cole argues, “If we are going to interfere in the lives of others, a little due diligence is a minimum requirement.”

BEN GONZALEZ OPINION COLUMNIST bgonzale@trinity.edu

As I boarded the plane for Managua, Nicaragua this spring break, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the upcoming trip. As part of a course called International Issues in Health and the Environment, I knew the trip would help us learn more about grassroots health initiatives in Nicaragua and how they apply to the concepts we learned about in class.

A country experiencing an increasingly dictatorial government and a controversial dam construction project, Nicaragua was the perfect place to study the effects of policy on people’s health. However, at the time I was more curious about what we would be doing to actually help the people in Nicaragua.

Sure, learning about health in a developing country is great, I thought, but what else are we going to do to help their situation? The idea of simply recording their problems to further our education, without helping, seemed selfish to me.

However, the more people we talked to during our 10-day trip, the more I realized that material support wasn’t something we were there to provide. It’s understandable to expect that we would be providing such support, given the narrative around humanitarianism that is so prevalent in today’s society.

The standard humanitarian model is one in which people from outside of a developing country visit the ‘third world’ in order to build a school, open a temporary health clinic or visit with orphans. These material actions are seen as honorable sacrifices of time and talent in today’s American society. Just look through your Facebook or Instagram feeds from this spring break, and you’re bound to find at least one post about someone volunteering in another country.

While there’s nothing wrong with wanting to help, it’s easy to fall into the sticky trap of the “white-savior industrial complex,” a term coined by writer Teju Cole. Cole explains that this mindset of helping foreign people in need becomes less about justice and more about “having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.”

To put it simply, short-term projects in developing countries by privileged humanitarian workers often ignore the complex structural issues that created the problems they are trying to fix. Under the white-savior industrial complex, humanitarianism becomes more about making the visitor feel like they are doing something good than about making sure

The Nicaraguan Health and Environment students study and explore a local “campesino” church in the island community. The church was designed to parallel local homes made of modest materials, as opposed to elaborate and ornate churches. photo provided by KATSUO NISHIKAWA

Students traverse the artist’s community of Mancarron, Nicaragua, with the help of a local guide. They learned the lasting effects of revolutionary movements. photo provided by KATSUO NISHIKAWA

the people being helped actually see lasting positive change in their lives.

This mindset distances us from the brutal forces of poverty that are less visible, such as labor exploitation by corporations that pay unlivable wages for terrible working conditions.

Sure, the school you may have helped build is a great resource for that community, but if you go home and buy a product from the corporation that impoverished them, you may be preventing the people you wanted to help from keeping that school open or paying their teachers.

Lasting humanitarian aid requires intense research and understanding of the socioeconomic situation before throwing your efforts at a problem that you might not be ready to solve. This problem has been pointed to as an issue with “voluntourism,” the act of people using their vacation to participate in in the type of projects I’ve discussed above.

Oftentimes, aid without research does more harm than good, such as when voluntourists visit and leave orphans so often that it causes them to develop an attachment disorder.

Lasting humanitarian aid requires intense research and understanding of the socioeconomic situation before throwing your efforts at a problem that you might not be ready to solve.

Whenever we asked the various social activists in Nicaragua what we could do to help them, they never once asked us to help build a building or run a health clinic for them. Every one of them simply asked us to go back home and tell everyone what we learned there, and to get more people to visit and truly understand the issues they are facing.

I, as a student at a well-established university, an opinion writer, a member of my student government and as a straight male, have much more ability and privilege here on campus to try to enact change that can help people than I would if I wandered into a developing country with a shovel and asked where they wanted me to build a well.

Rather than seeking validation for your privilege to make you feel like you’ve done something good, utilize your privilege in spheres where you have influence to see what can be improved. Use your ability to travel to understand the problems before attacking them, and in the process you will understand potential changes within your sphere that can create lasting progress.

Ben Gonzalez is a sophomore anthropology major.

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Pulse

TUWIC teaches girls about computing Student-run TECH camp shows middle schoolers that comp sci can be fun

the camps for three years and is the vice president of TUWIC this year.

“We’re targeting middle school girls because it’s a critical time when they’re trying to figure out: What am I interested in? What do I want to go into?,” Fordin said. “A lot of times people make the distinction of ‘Oh, computing is a guy’s job.

You shouldn’t go in there. It’s too mathy.

It’s too technical. You won’t do good.’ A lot of girls are discouraged around the middle school age.”

TECH camps are funded by the National Center for Women and Information Technology. This grant allows TUWIC to pay for instructor salaries, scholarships for the girls, and any additional equipment the camps might need. TUWIC members contact all the middle schools that they can in San Antonio, asking for any girls who might be interested in science. Many of the schools do not have any introduction computing programs, so many of the girls do not have experience when they arrive on campus.

“A lot of these other schools, they don’t have anything. Most of the girls, when we ask them, ‘What experience do you have in computers and tech?’ They’re like, ‘I can write on Microsoft Office,’ ” Fordin said.

Morgan King, sophomore computer science major and TUWIC president, spoke about the importance of these camps based on her own experience.

“I kind of started in middle school. I was part of a robotics club and that was a lot of fun. Then I took classes in high school, but not everyone has a chance to take classes like that or pick it up on their own,” King said.

King is excited to share her passion with the younger girls by teaching them how to create their programs.

She shows the girls that computing can be a platform to share their thoughts on social issues they care about.

“We give them ideas, and then from there, they can just start learning and researching about the issue they care about. We leave it open-ended — just find something you’re into and make something that you think will help raise awareness,” King said.

The program ends with a sleepover on campus, complete with more food and more games. Sarah Zbidi, junior computer science major and TUWIC treasurer, says the camp leaders try to show the girls that computing can be a fun, life-long passion.

“We see that compared to boys, once they get to middle school, [girls] lose a lot of interest,” Zbidi said. “We want to promote [computer science] because we think that girls have the same amount of potential, but they often don’t get the attention they need. So we show them this can actually be really, really fun.”

everything is running smoothly. Depending on the day, she might have a meeting or two afterwards.

Throughout the day, Gray Parker rotates between proctoring exams, answering emails about the testing center, answering questions about accessibility services and dealing with any small emergencies that may arise.

“There’s always something that comes up, like a TLearn exam not being open, and so it’s like calling the professor and making sure that gets fixed, or a student has a question on the exam, so [I’m often] contacting the professors,” Parker said.

Gray Parker doesn’t have to deal with that by herself, though.

“Thankfully, I have great student workers, so they can do a lot of that without me at this point,” she added.

This interaction that Gray Parker has with her student workers and other students is one of her favorite aspects of her job.

“Since a lot of my job involves overseeing the testing center, I get to see the students all the time, and it’s just really cool to see how their semester is going. ... Even working with my student workers, I really like being able to see how their college life is going. I finished grad school almost two years ago, so I feel like I can relate to them, especially the seniors that are looking to go into grad school,” Parker said.

One of these student workers is sophomore Simone Washington, a receptionist at the

TLC. Washington usually works in two hour shifts for 10–13 hours a week. Her job mostly involves making sure the area is tidy and workable for students, keeping supplies stocked and communicating with the staff to let them know that their appointments have arrived. “[We] just [do the] little things that aid in the overall success of the student here,” Washington said.

Of course, the TLC also aids overall student success in bigger ways. The writing center — one of the major components of the TLC — is entirely devoted to helping students write the best essays they can.

Jenny Rowe, the director of the writing center, explained that although the writing center is available to all students, first-years are the most common visitors.

“We see about 700 students [during the fall], and about 70 percent of those are [First Year Experience] students,” Rowe said.

Rowe herself teaches a section of the HUMA First Year Experience (FYE) and the Successful Life FYE during the fall, making the fall her busiest time of year.

“In the spring, more of my time is spent on administrative stuff; in the fall, it’s chaos,” Rowe said.

The “administrative stuff” that fills Rowe’s time during the spring involves training writing consultants, developing evening programming, helping students with writing assignments and presentations

as well as the task that’s keeping her busiest right now: reading submissions for the FYE writing awards.

The writing awards serve as a common thread of FYE-related material across fall and spring semesters, which Rowe appreciates.

“The writing center job is really heavily involved in the FYE in the sense that so many students that we see are firstyears, so it’s fun to get to know all the different sections of FYE, all the different assignments,” Rowe said. “I’m reading Being Young in Asia papers right now, [which is] a topic I didn’t approach at all in the fall, so that’s really fun.”

This exposure to new, constantly changing material is Rowe’s favorite part of her job.

“It puts me in contact with so many different family members and so many different students doing wildly different things. One day I might be reading and discussing a paper about Japanese cinema, and the next day I’m back to Homer, and then the next day I’m talking about crops and food deserts in rural America,” Rowe said. “The subjects and these students are just so vastly different and fun to engage with.”

The TLC is open from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Fridays, and 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sundays.

The writing center’s hours vary more widely and can be found on the Trinity website.

GABBY GARRIGA | PULSE REPORTER ggarriga@trinity.edu The game was simple. First, one middle school girl wrote instructions on how to create the perfect peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Then, one of the Trinity University Women in Computing (TUWIC) members attempted to build a sandwich by following the list of steps, word for word. The sandwichbuilders were in trouble when the instructions were not specific enough to follow; if a girl had written simply “peanut butter,” rather than “spread peanut butter on bread with a knife,” the process failed.

This game mimicked the precision it takes to create algorithms.

Games like this abound at Trinity Encouraging Computing for Her (TECH) camp. This will be the fourth year since the camp was created. TECH allows middle school girls to come to Trinity every Saturday for three weeks and learn about computing from student volunteers.

On April 7, the girls competed in logic games and got to know each other and the camp leaders.

This weekend, the girls will learn how to work with Scratch, a beginner programming language that allows users to create games and animations.

Once the girls are familiar with Scratch, they will create a game related to a social issue they care about. They then present the game to their parents on the final weekend of the camp.

Sarah Fordin, junior biology and computer science double major, has been involved with

Tiger Learning Commons helps impart academic skills MAGGIE LUPO | PULSE REPORTER mlupo@trinity.edu Tucked away near the main entryway of Coates Library, the Tiger Learning Commons (TLC), new this year, is the hub of academic support for students on campus. The TLC includes Student Accessibility Services, the Writing Center and the Academic Success office. There’s also a big, open study area that all students can walk in and use.

The staff and student workers of the TLC are dedicated to helping students succeed academically, but each person and each service accomplishes that goal differently. For example, accessibility specialist Alyse Gray Parker says that her job mostly involves overseeing the workings of the Testing Center.

When Gray Parker arrives around 8 a.m., the first thing she does is check both her and the testing center’s email. Most of the emails that the testing center gets are students’ reservations to take an exam. Right now, only students who are registered with Accessibility Services can take exams in the testing center, but Gray Parker hopes that soon TLC will have the personnel to allow any student to use the center for make-up exams.

After checking emails, Gray Parker checks in on her student worker — who is usually proctoring an exam — to make sure that

SARAH FORDIN teaches at camp. photo provided by TU Strategic Communications and Marketing

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PULSE

Former student finds joy in Austin Cline withdrew from TU, now loves her new life KARA KILLINGER | PULSE EDITOR kkilling@trinity.edu Grace Cline spent three full semesters at Trinity, and she liked it here for the most part. She had great friends, she appreciated her professors and how much they cared about her as an individual, she was a member of the Jewish Student Association (JSA) and she even found a way to incorporate her passion for rock climbing into her San Antonio life.

She had plans to rush a sorority. She expected her psychology degree would lead to grad school, and then eventually a career as a therapist.

The Trinity environment, with its competitive rigor and sometimes cliqueladen social scene, was sometimes a tough challenge for Cline. But it was nothing she couldn’t handle. At least, that’s what she told herself.

About three months ago, however, Cline made the decision to permanently withdraw from Trinity for mental health reasons. She now resides in Austin and spends the hours that she is not working at a climbing gym hanging out with friends and finding new hiking trails to explore. Her new life may seem simple, but Cline loves where she is.

“I’m really happy and at peace right now.

I haven’t felt that way in months,” Cline said.

Cline is not representative of every student who struggles with mental health or who takes a permanent withdrawal. However, Cline is not the only student to decide they would be better off away from Trinity.

A SLOW REALIZATION Cline said she had a great first year at Trinity, so it came as a surprise when sophomore year wasn’t going the same way.

During her first year Cline was, for the most part, content. However, sophomore year represented a slow decline in Cline’s motivation and happiness.

As Cline’s anxiety and depression intensified, she began to wonder if her college was a contributing factor.

“I guess I was kind of in denial that Trinity was part of the problem. I kept thinking, ‘Oh, it’s other stuff.’ I just need to fix — like, once I join a sorority or once I make new friends, or XYZ, it’ll be fine, I’ll get

GRACE CLINE spends her most of her days in Austin working at a climbing gym, hiking and exploring the city. photos provided by GRACE CLINE

better. Because I loved Trinity my freshman year, so I kept wanting sophomore year to work out that way,” Cline said.

At her lowest point, Cline’s depression led to hospitalization. While she was in the hospital, she was also diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Still, Cline expected to make a full recovery and return to her Trinity life.

“While I was there, I was saying to myself, ‘Yeah, I’m gonna go back to Trinity.

I’m gonna work on this, my professors are gonna help me and I’m gonna be fine.’ I finally had a family friend tell me, ‘Do you really like Trinity? Or do you want to like it?’ ” Cline said.

Hearing that question was a revelation for Cline.

“I guess it kind of blew my mind.

Because once she said that, I was like, ‘holy shit, you’re so right. I don’t actually like it; I just want to like it so bad,’ ” Cline said.

In truth, Cline was beginning to find the Trinity environment toxic. Aspects that she had previously appreciated about the university were becoming restrictive: the once cozy smallness was now claustrophobic, and the once exciting academic challenges now looked overwhelming and competitive. She felt like few people recognized her mental issues as serious, simply because her

symptoms were so common among Trinity students.

“Another thing was just the environment of competition,” Cline said. “Like, who’s more stressed. If I told somebody, ‘Hey I’m really struggling, I’m depressed’... or anxious or fill in the blank, the other person would respond with, ‘Oh, I’m stressed too, I’m taking eighteen hours!’ It was just a competition. You’re not doing well unless you’re sacrificing your sanity a little bit.”

Even though Cline had always been a good student, by early January, she lost all motivation to complete schoolwork.

“I didn’t have motivation to read, to do homework, to study — I just could not do it. And that’s never been me,” Cline said.

Soon after, she spent a full week in the hospital, and began to realize that she needed to make a major change in her life.

DECIDING TO LEAVE Deciding to take a break from college wasn’t easy for Cline. She’d always thought that dropping out of college was a sign of weakness.

“There is that stigma, like, if you drop out of college, you don’t have it in you. Even I had that bias toward people who dropped out of Trinity, until I dropped out,” Cline said.

Cline’s family was overwhelmed upon hearing of Cline’s intense struggles with

anxiety and depression. Though Cline was first diagnosed with depression in 2011, she was good at putting on a positive face, never letting her family know the extent to which her mental illness inhibited her.

“For me, it was like a slow train wreck all year. But for them, it was all at once — I was in the hospital, I was having to go to counseling every day,” Cline said.

After she got out of the hospital, Cline returned to Trinity to try again. Her father flew in to San Antonio from North Carolina in order to ensure that she would have a support if anything went wrong.

Cline found herself crying between classes, unable to get better.

Upon witnessing Cline’s struggles firsthand, her father understood that a break might be the best decision for Cline.

“That first day back at school, I went to classes, and immediately I was a mess. I was an emotional wreck. I was crying between classes … I realized, ‘Oh shit, I just put myself in the same situation that got me to the hospital.’ For my dad to see me like that, instead of just hear me talk about it, I think really opened his eyes,” Cline said.

Cline filled out the transfer paperwork on Feb. 9 of this year. continued on PAGE 13

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Cline climbs to

contentment continued from PAGE 12

After leaving school, she moved in with her aunt in Austin, and got a job as an instructor at a local climbing gym.

Cline said she loves her new life and does not regret leaving Trinity in the slightest.

These days, Cline usually works in the evening — or occasionally the morning or late afternoon — for about six to eight hours.

The rest of the time is hers.

“It’s a lot of downtime by myself, which I don’t mind. I like it. It’s a lot of like, finding the coolest hiking spot. The other day, I went swimming in Barton Springs without planning on it: I was just hiking, and there were these dogs swimming, and I was like, ‘I want to get in the water with them,’ ” she said.

THE BIG PICTURE According to vice president for enrollment management, Eric Maloof, students who take a temporary or permanent withdrawal from Trinity typically do so after their first year and before beginning their sophomore year.

A cohort study of the class of 2020 showed that 73 students of the 660 who started as first-years in Fall 2016 did not return for the Fall 2017 semester. Of these 73, 51 went to public institutions, 7 went to private institutions, and 15 were not found by the research institution, National Student Clearing House.

Though the 2020 class is only one cohort, Maloof said that the data from that year is relatively typical. Over the last three to five

years, Trinity has retained approximately 90 percent of students between the first and second year.

“Compared to a lot of our competitors, 90 percent is a fairly strong number,” Maloof said.

But there will always be that approximately 10 percent that leave after a year, not to mention even more students like Cline who withdraw during a subsequent year. The decision to withdraw tends to be a permanent one.

“Some of those students come back; the majority don’t,” Maloof said.

Of course, each student has a different reason for leaving. Mental health is certainly not unheard of as a cause for withdrawal, according to Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, Michael Soto.

“Most students who come here are aware of the academic challenges that they face, and if they’re admitted to Trinity, they are capable of meeting those challenges, but there are times when physical or mental health changes prevent them — at least for the time being — from fully rising to that challenge ... It’s not uncommon,” Soto said.

Cline firmly believes that there is no shame in dropping out.

She said that no one should be afraid to withdraw if they feel it is the right choice for them.

“There really is nothing wrong with it.

You’re going to be okay. So many people — so many successful people — have dropped out of college, or dropped out of college and went back,” Cline said.

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Trinity Forum prompts Kusima in the spotlight is an escape for community discussion Singing this talented Trinity junior AMBER ADICKES | PULSE INTERN addickes@trinity.edu

Students shuffled into Laurie Auditorium and took their seats, anticipating the start of the show’s events. Curtains opened to reveal the talents of gifted performers.

Spotlight — Trinity’s annual talent show, coordinated by Student Programming Board — was underway.

Of the talent revealed on the evening of March 23, junior Kenneth Kusima seemed to be a cut above the rest. His rendition of Sam Smith’s pop hit “Too Good at Goodbyes” wowed the judges, winning him first place in Trinity Forum members talk about political issues. photo by CHLOE SONNIER, staff photographer the individual performer category. everybody who has anything to say or even who Kusima was surprised when he learned he just wants to listen to come,” Young said. won first place.

On Thursday March 15, members of Trinity “I didn’t expect to win because I did hear a Forum gathered for their first-ever meeting. lot of people who I thought were exceptional.

GABBY GARRIGA | PULSE REPORTER Eight people met in CSI to talk about guns while But I guess the judges saw something that I ggarriga@trinity.edu eating homemade cookies that Young brought. didn’t, and I’m still very grateful for that,” As Christian Young sat in history class Young came prepared with prompts to discuss Kusima said. listening to his professor describe the salons of the facets of the gun debate — ammunition Twyla Hough, Spotlight judge and the Enlightenment period, Young imagined the regulation, mental illness, teachers with guns director of Career Services, was impressed by people in the salons: their elaborate clothing, and the possibility of 3D gun printing.

Kusima’s talents. their odd food and unfamiliar mannerisms. But To begin, students went around the room “His voice was amazing — smooth, clear most of all, Young admired the lively political disclosing their political ideology, if they identified and dynamic. It was the sound one would discussions that the members of the salons were with one. Next, Young prompted attendees with expect to hear from a professional recording engaged in. They discussed the pressing issues questions. If attendees had something to say artist,” Hough wrote in an email interview. that affected their community, a practice Young about the topic, they would join in the discussion.

Meghan Desai, assistant traditions chair thinks has faded.

Participants at the Forum joked with one for Student Programming Board, found “[Politics] is divisive, and if you talk politics another and respectfully listened to each Kusima’s performance powerful. with your friends, you might end up losing other’s opinions. There were no dominating “His voice captivated the whole friends. And I think that’s just madness ... We extreme positions. auditorium. It was an incredible performance all have brains capable of having a debate, of One participant, Isaac Ogbo, looks forward to and he truly is a deserving winner,” Desai said. having a discussion, so let’s have that discussion,” future meetings with a larger variety of viewpoints.

Kusima decided to perform in Spotlight Young said.

“I think we need just more people from after recalling how much he enjoyed casually Associate history professor Kenneth Loiselle extreme ends to give that base opinion on the performing with Greg Labbe two years taught the Enlightenment course that sparked spectrum of political thought. I think that’ll ago, as an exhibition act during the judge’s Young’s interest in bipartisan discussion. definitely happen once the club starts gaining deliberation period.

“Too often people simply just talk past one more traction,” Ogbo said.

“I hadn’t been performing for a while and another and do not actually engage in deeper Most people agreed that there should be I kind of missed it,” Kusima said. questions about their particular position,” stricter gun control but disagreed on the Kusima has been singing since he was Loiselle wrote in an email interview. “One sees manner to reach that goal. By the end, there a child. He used to listen to his dad’s old this everywhere, from those ordinary people seemed to be an understanding about everyone’s country music, including Don Williams who only listen to media that reflects their pre- position on guns. and Kenny Rogers, and felt impelled to established positions to political candidates Ogbo thinks Trinity Forum is a needed outlet sing along. who during debates never actually engage the for students on campus to discuss pressing issues.

“No one in my family really sings at all, questions asked of them.”

“Many people feel like this campus is some so I kind of wanted to continue singing and To promote discussion about social and kind of liberal bubble or an echo chamber, make it a thing starting from middle school,” political issues among Trinity students, Young and I feel like organizations like this help with Kusima said. created his own salon, a new club called that,” Ogbo said.

In middle school, Kusima performed for Trinity Forum.

Trinity Forum meetings this semester will be the first time.

“It is a civil — emphasis on civil — discussion Tuesdays at 7 p.m. in CSI 437/441. You can “I was asked to be in a performance that about politics of our time. Everyone is welcomed; also contact Young at cyoung3@trinity.edu for our school organized for an end of the year no ideology is barred. I would like to encourage more information. celebration, and I did that and really enjoyed

Organization facilitates campus conversation

KENNETH KUSIMA poses with his first place award. photo provided by KENNETH KUSIMA

it,” Kusima said. “I got great feedback and I kept on doing those kinds of events at school.”

Kusima has performed at Trinity in Spotlight, Trinity Idol and Mocha Life.

While he mainly covers songs, he used to write his own original pieces. That’s how he won Trinity Idol — with an original song.

As a chemical engineering student, Kusima is used to thinking technically and problem-solving.

In music, the absence of a problem to solve is what attracts him.

“Performing really does provide for me a new sense of freedom, in a way,” Kusima said. “Because in engineering, for example, you have all these constraints when you’re trying to solve a problem. But, when it comes to singing, I have absolutely no constraints.

I can go in whatever direction I want. I can be as crazy as I want, and to my surprise, a lot of people think it sounds good, so it’s a win-win.”

Most of Kusima’s experiences with singing have been solely for fun. While Kusima’s friends encourage him to take his talents to the music industry and try out for a music competition, he would rather appreciate music in a more down-to-earth way.

“Deep down, I feel like if I were to do [a show like American Idol], I would not fit in. I tend to think of those competitions as people who take singing as, not just for fun, but part of an industry,” Kusima said. “I hate to think of music as part of an industry, but more of an expression or a way to escape.”

Kusima anticipates that he will be performing in Spotlight next year. “[Singing] is a way for me to be the best version of myself,” Kusima said.

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Black Panther becomes the third-highest grossing film

The newest Star Wars film trailer proves to be sadly dissapointing

The much loved superhero movie grossed an astounding 1.3 billion at the box office, passing the overhyped sobfest that is Titanic.

The unbeatable behemoth that is Disney is pushing the poorly written “Solo: A Star Wars Story” out, even though no one asked for it.

Senior’s band ‘Quiet Hours’ follows multiple solo EPs The Trinity-based musician’s latest musical endeavor is using his new band to revamp his earlier musical creations AUSTIN DAVIDSON A&E EDITOR adavids1@trinity.edu

Senior music major John Morgan has been creating music at Trinity University since his sophomore year. When he lived in Thomas, Morgan created his first EP, “Quiet Hours,” in 2016. He used his friend’s equipment and some of KRTU’s equipment to create the album while the quiet hours kept him holed up in his dorm.

“I was just stuck in my dorm, passing the time, and I had been listening to Alex G, a friend of mine. He had created some bedroom music, basically where he just made music in his room and that music just really vibed with me,” Morgan said. “His music inspired me to just think, ‘if he can do it so can I,’ so I made ‘Quiet Hours.’ ” His first album also had other inspirational roots.

“A lot of the album was me just experimenting with some ideas and concepts that I had,” Morgan said. “Using all the equipment I had, I was able to really just create stuff that had always been in my mind.

I was able to make some bedroom music that reflected my experiences at Trinity.”

This first EP that Morgan made wasn’t created with a genre in mind, so he continued to create music that he liked and

hoped would make others feel the same way.

“I made ‘Quiet Hours’ without a real genre in mind. For me, I just wanted to make music. I put the label of indie on it but that was for the people with stricter views of music,” Morgan said. “For me, music is up to the listener and I don’t want to tell them what genre it is. I just want them to enjoy what they are listening to.”

“Quiet Hours” isn’t Morgan’s only musical project. In 2017, during his junior year spent living in McLean, he made another album called “McLean.”

“My next project was much more polished. This was due to not only me being more experienced with the equipment but also just having more experience as a musician. The more music I made the better it became,” Morgan said. “The EP was more of a progression of myself as a musician and it was just an example of me learning through experience.”

During Morgan’s junior year he switched his major from geology to music. The switch gave Morgan more opportunities to learn about music, which then influenced the kind of music he created.

“Trinity has been a great resource for me to learn more about music. It has also given me the equipment to create the music I want,” Morgan said.

After his two solo albums, Morgan’s latest project is the band he created, Quiet Hours.

This new band is revamping his first EP, and he hopes to create a portfolio of work that he can be proud of.

“My first EP was like a rough draft, something that had a lot of great ideas behind it but one that can be improved on. The new project is for me to amp up what I made in Thomas, and to create a good example of what was an important time in my life,” Morgan said.

This goal is undoubtedly achieved in his latest single, “Planets.” This is the band’s first release and the first part of their EP, which Morgan hopes to be done with by early this summer.

“‘Planets’ is really a collaborative effort. It was a culmination of lots of my friends, they helped mix it, master it and it just has this great community aspect to it,” Morgan said. “The inspirations behind ‘Planets’ were my time as a geology major, just an appreciation for the planets, and also some of the newer jazz that I’ve been introduced to with my time at KRTU.” “Planets” is meant to make the listener feel comfortable. It is defined by a constant,

warm strum of guitar and soothing lyrics that could serve as a soundtrack to any teenage hangout.

“If the song can make someone feel good, or make them feel comfortable, that’s really all I need. I just want people to feel space in an intimate way and if it does that, then I’m happy,” Morgan said.

Find “Planets” online at quiethourstx.bandcamp.com

TOP: Trinity student and musician JOHN MORGAN performs at Imagine Books and Records in January 2017 with his old band Barbaloots. He then made his new band. photo by KATHLEEN CREEDON LEFT: JOHN MORGAN plays at LimeLight in January 2017. He intently focuses on capturing the feeling in his songs and working hard to create an iconic sound. photo by KATHLEEN CREEDON RIGHT: the album cover of JOHN MORGANS band “Quiet Hours,” which was based off of Morgan’s first EP made in his dorm room sophomore year. The cover was done by THELIO CAMBILLARD

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 13, 2018 •

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Wes Anderson’s latest film misses the mark as it fails to respectfully represent the film’s roots GEORGIE RIGGS A&E CONTRIBUTOR griggs@trinity.edu

The hardest part of watching a movie with significant hype is avoiding disappointment. Hype comes from both outside sources and personal expectations, and it can cause you to not even be able to enjoy something because your mind is primed to focus on the things both loved and hated by others.

I swear I tried to avoid these predispositions before watching “Isle of Dogs.” But legacy weighs heavily on the buzz around Wes Anderson’s ninth film, his second in stop-motion.

Personally, I couldn’t help but be excited last year when it was announced, being a fan not only of Anderson but also, in a shocking twist, dogs as well. But I also felt apprehension towards Anderson using Japanese animation and culture to tell a story that is penned and directed by, and starring the voices of, white people.

The basic plot of this movie finds all dogs exiled out of a fictitious Japanese city to an island of trash. Atari, the orphaned ward of the city’s authoritarian mayor, is on a journey to find his exiled dog. He is joined

by Chief, a former stray who is not used to taking commands from humans.

If this plot had been the sole focus of “Isle of Dogs,” my thoughts towards its approach to Japanese culture might have been different. Though Atari’s words are never translated from Japanese to English, the character’s growth with Chief is clearly communicated through his eyes, due in no small part to Anderson’s knack for visual expression.

There’s no denying that this is a stunning, visually captivating film that departs from the warm look of “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” influenced by Japanese directors Akira Kurosawa and Studio Ghibli’s Hayao Miyazaki. There is a surprising amount of blank spaces and drab colors in this film, especially in sequences shot on Trash Island, which are a welcome change of pace from the saturation of Anderson’s last two films, “Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Moonrise Kingdom.”

But when Anderson ventures out of the wide, open spaces of Trash Island, the film becomes less enjoyable. Many reviewers

have argued that the Japan of “Isle of Dogs” is merely a token, a plot device to serve as a fun and exciting backdrop for white characters to be quirky and generally Wes Anderson-esque.

This isn’t helped by the film’s incomprehensible choice to not use subtitles for Japanese dialogue, instead using American dubbing when it was absolutely necessary to translate the dialogue. For the most part, the Japanese characters speak without translation, while the canonically Japanese dogs all speak a crisp canine American English. This choice is bizarre as it only serves to make the Japanese characters more foreign to the audience, denying any chance for complexity within the human world of the city.

It’s equally bizarre that, though the film has a huge cast and Atari is accompanied by a group of five dogs on his journey, there are only two major roles voiced by women.

Nutmeg is the sole speaking female dog, voiced by Scarlett Johansson, and is limited to the tired role of sidelined girlfriend, a prize at the end of the journey for our hero Chief and little else.

The other female character, Tracy Walker, voiced by Greta Gerwig, is a classmate of Atari who serves as the hero in the second storyline of the film, fighting for justice on behalf of the flu-ridden dogs. If you couldn’t tell from her name, Tracy is not Japanese, but instead a white exchange student from Ohio who sports a blonde afro and speaks English throughout the film.

Though much of her dialogue is unimportant to the emotional core of the storyline involving Atari’s search for his dog, we are regrettably allowed to understand her without the language barrier separating us from Atari. It’s personally excruciating that Anderson made me dislike not only the film’s only major — if you can even call it that — female role but also the one voiced

by Greta Gerwig.

I tried my hardest not to be disappointed in “Isle of Dogs,” but its choices in language and plotting were a major misstep for me.

Look, I’m not made of stone. I definitely miss my dog after watching this. I, along with probably every other viewer, want that earpiece that Atari shared with his dog to be real, so that my dog could hear my annoying voice in surround-sound dog-English, constantly telling her how much I love her.

But the film could have pulled these emotional strings without the orientalist setting, the white-savior second storyline and the lack of subtitles, which all only served to further alienate non-Japanese viewers from the Japanese characters.

The best part of “Isle of Dogs” was trudging through trash against a backdrop of dark political forces and a feline-friendly administration, a concept that isn’t all that foreign, especially to any Trinity student.

illustration by JULIA POAGE, staff illustrator

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT • APRIL 13, 2018 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

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San Antonio rapper is ready to blow up

Native Texan Izaq Roland is a new Soundcloud artist prepared for fame DANIEL ROTHSCHILD A&E REPORTER drothsch@trinity.edu

In the opening lyrics to the song “IDFWN,” San Antonio native Izaq Roland raps, “You a John Doe, I can’t f*ck with you” — lyrics that are made simultaneously ironic and all the more genuine by Roland’s enigmatic presence on Twitter and Soundcloud. He recently emerged from a five-month-long hiatus — which included a bulk deleting of tweets and song links — with his new single “Like It’s Hot.” The song appeared without much context first on Soundcloud, in the final days of March, then spread to other platforms such as Apple Music, Spotify and Kanye’s brainchild, Tidal.

This is the first instance where Roland has branched out from Soundcloud to platforms intended for more widespread digital distribution, which very well may mark a shift in his career.

Izaq Roland has been releasing music onto the internet via Soundcloud since 2015, and by 2017 his name had garnered a fair amount of local fame. On some earlier tracks, he is occasionally credited alongside the producers of his songs, implying that he had a role in the making of his own beats, but this is not true of his more recent

music. The most listened to track on his Soundcloud maxed out at a formidable 350,000 listens. Roland has played at two years of SXSW in Austin, and in 2017 he performed for some of the 30,000 attendees of Mala Luna, a new music festival in San Antonio. Mala Luna strays from the conventions of other big name festivals by catering more exclusively to hip hop fans.

The festival hosted superstars Lil Wayne, Migos and Future as well as more recent breakout artists Playboi Carti, Smokepurpp and a slew of other names.

Roland’s music early on may have been likened to the increased presence of emo rappers, highlighted in the wake of foundational artist Lil Peep’s death by overdose in the fall of last year. Lil Peep was by no means the first to incorporate formal elements of emo music into trap, but the fame that came with his untimely death helped to highlight as well as popularize emo trap music.

This emo influence manifests itself thematically, by delving more directly into issues of depression, isolation and vulnerability, as well as stylistically by emulating vocal melodies the likes of The Used or Taking Back Sunday. The beats in Lil Peep’s music were generally structured around a looping guitar sample, rather than a computer synthesizer.

Roland’s songs like “IDFWN,” “Bleach” and “Cry Now, Cry Later” are examples of his emo streak.

In a live video of one of his performances at 123 Blue Star, a local space in the Blue Star Arts Complex and one of the locations for San Antonio’s tradition of First Friday art shows, Roland stands backed into the corner by the crowd on a claustrophobic stage. He’s wearing a blue baseball cap and pants reminiscent of Sid Vicious, or perhaps

Album cover of “Like It’s Hot” by IZAQ ROLAND

more relevantly, taking after Lil Tracy. There are tight quarters in the venue, but Roland, as well as a few of his fans, are able to glide over the tightly knit bodies of the crowd.

You can see the audience mouthing along to the words. For a big part of the concert, he stands feet together on some kind of a narrow mantle, his feet at eye level of the audience members, close enough to kiss his sneakers.

On white walls behind the stage, a machine projects Street Fighter graphics mixed in with loops of bouncing Cadillacs.

Izaq Roland at one time fit snugly into the lineup of emo rappers that flourished in

the underbelly of Soundcloud throughout 2016–2017, but his music isn’t as tightly linked to the subgenre as most of his contemporaries. In songs like “Blue Flame,” “Super Soaker” and “Ran Up The Budget,” he warrants that his music shouldn’t be limited to the niche category of emo rap.

His newest song, presumably titled after the historic Lil Wayne verse in Juvenile’s 1998 “Back That Ass Up,” transcends his past identification with emo and explores more traditional trap lyricism over an ethereal loop and punishing 808s, but the emotion is still there.

Sports

LET THE GAMES BEGIN:

• Baseball vs. Sul Ross State, Friday, April 13, 5 p.m.

• Track & Field @ UIW Invite, April 13–14 • Men’s and Women’s Tennis @ Southwestern, Saturday, April 14, 9 a.m.

Women’s tennis ends home schedule with win No. 20 team on a roll entering final regular match, SCAC tourney

HAILEY WILSON | SPORTS REPORTER hwilson@trinity.edu The 20th ranked Tigers women’s tennis team has been on a roll this season. They are on a six-match win streak and polished off their home schedule with a 6-3 win over University of Texas-Dallas on April 8. The win brought the Tigers to a 10-10 record.

The match started off slow as both teams split the first two doubles matches. Senior Marie Lutz and sophomore Zoe Kaffen took matters into their own hands, snagging an 8-6 win to bring the Tigers up 2-1. Lutz and Kaffen are 5-0 in doubles this season.

“They came out really strong fighting in doubles. I remember last year we swept them 3-0, but they gave us a run for our money this year,” Lutz said.

UT-Dallas stormed back in singles to tie the match, but Kaffen clinched a straight-set win to gain the momentum for the Tigers.

Kaffen extended her singles win streak to eight. Sophomore Francesca Canjar earned another straight-set win. The victory was

Sophomore FRANCESCA CANJAR and first-year PAULINA GARCIA high five during the match vs.

UT-Dallas on Sunday, April 8. The Tigers won 6-3. photo by ALLISON WOLFF, staff photographer

sealed when sophomore Mary Kaffen scored a 7-6 (4), 6-3 win. Sophomore Ashley DeBauge powered through the second set and took a 6-1, 7-5 victory, her fifth consecutive singles win.

“I think all of our girls are really great and have learned this season to keep fighting until the very last point,” Lutz said. “A lot of people say that it’s very rare that both players [in a doubles team] fight until the

very last point, and I think that’s one of our best attributes.”

Senior Cheyenne Duncan put up a stellar performance, but fell short in the final point of the match. Duncan was defeated 7-6 (4), 4-6, and 10-5.

Although the last match didn’t end in Duncan’s favor, she is very grateful for her four years here at Trinity.

“We’ve had an awesome four years here and I’m lucky to get to play by [Lutz]. We’ve made it to the very end and I think that’s the most special part — just getting to play next to her, especially in doubles,” Duncan said.

The Tigers will head to Georgetown this weekend to take on Southwestern in their final regular season match. The match will begin at 10 a.m. on Saturday, April 14.

“We have a long way to go with Southwestern and then conference coming up and then after that, hopefully, NCAAs,” Duncan said.

After facing Southwestern, the Tigers will travel to Colorado for the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) championships. For junior Andrea De Leon, the team is focused on preparing for the altitude fitness-wise.

“Altitude is definitely going to play a huge factor in playing so going up there a few days in advance to get used to it will be important,” De Leon said.

The championships take place April 20–22.

Softball splits doubleheader against OLLU 5-1, 0-1 Tigers sit at 16-18 as they look ahead to postseason play SAUL MALEK | SPORTS REPORTER smalek@trinity.edu Trinity softball split a Wednesday evening doubleheader against Our Lady of the Lake University (OLLU). After a 5-1 win in game one, the team sat through five scoreless innings in game two until OLLU put one run on the board. The Tigers held OLLU in the top of the seventh, but were unable to send the game to extra innings, resulting in a 0-1 loss.

First-year Allie Holbrook led the Tigers from the mound in their win versus OLLU, allowing just one run of six hits. Holbrook emphasized the importance of routine practice.

“We need to think positive, learn from out past games, and grow together as a team.”

ALLIE HOLBROOK FIRST-YEAR PITCHER

“We will practice before our games this week, working on defense, hitting and our mental game. We need to think positive, learn from our past games, and grow together as a team,” Holbrook said.

The team has been inconsistent this season, currently sitting at a 16-18 record and ranked fourth in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC). Over the

weekend, the Tigers fell to Southwestern University 1-3 in a four-game series. From March 16 through March 24, the team held a 1-7 record, including four shutout losses.

These performances are polar opposites to other stretches of play for the team this season. The Tigers swept a series over the University of Dallas from March 30–31, limiting the opponent to just 10 runs in four games.

With the regular season ending on March 21, the team can’t help but be excited for tournament play. Of course, prior to playing in the tournament, the team needs to really settle down and make the adjustments they know they have to make to experience success consistently.

“We are going to be working hard to get ready for our conference tournament. We have a couple of weeks until the tournament, and after this weekend we know what we need to work on to be successful,” said outfielder Sara McCarty.

The team has 10 regular season games left — eight at home and two on the road. Considering this tidbit, the team has performed quite well away from the friendly confines of the Trinity campus, maintaining an even 11-11 record on the road. At home, the team is 4-6. The 2018 softball campaign has been a bit up and down, but the team is confident in their ability to close the season out on a strong note.

“We are just going back to the basics and working on fundamentals; to finish the season on a positive note, we just need to hit collectively and play strong defense,” said junior outfielder Marisa Trevino.

Softball will face University of Houston-Victoria away in a doubleheader on April 17. Their final home games will be versus OLLU on April 21. The SCAC tournament will begin on April 27. with additonal reporting by Kendra Derrig, sports editor

TOP: Sophomore ADRIENNE EDWARDS pitches in a game versus Southwestern on Sunday.

LEFT: First-year infielder CARLI JONES takes an at bat during game two on Sunday.

RIGHT: Junior STEPHANIE CRUMRINE catches. photos by ALLISON WOLFF, staff photographer

SPORTS • APRIL 13, 2018 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

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‘DIII-SPN’: Tiger Network sets university standard Free HD streaming service has grown to new proportions since launched in two years ago HAILEY WILSON | SPORTS REPORTER hwilson@trinity.edu

Trinity’s No. 1-ranked baseball team and brand new football scoreboard — the biggest in DIII — already set Trinity sports apart, but the Tiger Network, the online streaming service, boosts Trinity far ahead of the pack.

The free, HD service provides both live and on-demand coverage of campus events, including academic lectures, Trinity traditions and sporting events. Students, alumni, friends and family that want to stay connected with the Trinity community can to do so from all corners of the globe.

Tiger Network started off small in 2015, with single camera coverage and on-and-off commentating. James L. Turner, who graduated from Trinity in 1962, stumbled upon the network while living in the Philippines and decided that he wanted to help elevate the network even more.

Turner donated $100,000, and coverage has skyrocketed since then. Tiger Network allows fans to watch sporting events from multiple camera angles in high definition, and provides instant replays and highlight packages. The manager of Tiger Network and Trinity’s sports marketing coordinator, Joshua Moczygemba, says this has been the goal all along.

“Our goal was to provide engaging broadcasts that would be closer to the types of games that you would see on television,” Moczygemba said.

Moczygemba doesn’t do it all on his own.

Tiger Network uses many student interns to film, control, announce and produce most of the streams.

Callum Squires, a recent Trinity graduate, is currently the lead broadcaster for the network.

“Usually, that means I do play-by-play commentary and host the stream itself.

Sometimes, I’ll do color commentary to mix it up,” Squires said.

He’s been doing commentary ever since the network started in 2015. To prepare for the broadcast, Squires will research on the opposition a few days before the match, read through up-todate statistics for both teams and work out who the top players are.

“Commentary is really storytelling and the more detail you have the better story you can tell.

It’ll usually take me a good hour or two of research for me to be happy with the stuff I’ve learned and feel comfortable with name pronunciations and knowledge about both teams,” Squires said.

On the day before the broadcast, Moczygemba sets up all of the cables that allow the broadcast to happen. The day of the broadcast is filled with camera set up and audio checks.

Tiger Network is accessible to anyone around the world, and it’s also free, which is what makes it unique compared to other live-streaming services operated by competing colleges and universities.

“I love the fact that we’re able to connect with people all over the world. We’re able to bring the Trinity campus into their homes, or their phones,” Moczygemba said.

Trinity student-athletes also appreciate the livestreams. Athletes are able to replay film and share video clips of their performance. Students who are unable to attend lectures are able to watch them on demand afterward. It’s a win-win for all.

The Tiger Network plays a huge role in the student-athlete experience.

“My family is able to watch all of my games online for free, which is really important to me.

As an out-of-state athlete, having something

Fantasy baseball is more than a game

illustration by ANDREA NEBHUT, staff illustrator

like the Tiger Network is crucial to my Trinity experience,” said Brooke Bastien, a sophomore on the volleyball team.

Moczygemba credits the administration for helping boost Tiger Network.

“Having well-known guest lecturers and one of the best athletic programs in the country not only helps but pushes Tiger Network to be better,” Moczygemba said.

Tiger Network is also superb in quality when compared to other DIII broadcasts. The streams are constantly being complimented on social media platforms, and other schools are stunned by the detail that goes into the scoreboard graphics, commentators and multiple camera angles.

“We’re garnering recognition from around the country and I only want to continue to raise the profile of the university and the professionalism of the product we put out,” Squires said.

In comparison, other schools of Trinity’s size don’t host their own live streaming network.

Universities will typically send their stream to another platform, such as CollegeTV Ticket, which parties must pay a fee to access. Streams are often limited to one camera angle, and broadcasters are scarce. Digital scoreboards aren’t used, and the streams are rarely in high definition.

“I jokingly call the Tiger Network ‘DIII-SPN,’ but that’s genuinely where I see us taking it,” Squires said.

Online competition can maintain friendships SAUL MALEK | SPORTS REPORTER smalek@trinity.edu You call yourself a baseball fan, but do you really know what WOBA is? No? That’s OK. How about VORP? Didn’t think so.

The average baseball fan probably isn’t spending much time mulling over advanced baseball metrics. If your team wins, you’re happy. If your favorite player hits a home run, that’s an added bonus. Members of the St. John’s fantasy baseball league do not think this way.

Fantasy baseball is a game where members of a fantasy league — usually 8–12 people — draft real major league baseball players from across the MLB onto their virtual “team.”

The players’ statistical performances in real life dictate how well one’s fantasy team does.

I have been a proud part of the 12-man St. John’s league since middle school; the league is comprised of myself and 11 friends from middle and high school. All of us share two things in common: a love of baseball and a love of trash talking.

Countless high school evenings were spent talking as much trash as possible over everyone else’s teams. Even if your team’s pitcher melted down or your best hitter went 0-5, there was always something to be said about the poor quality of another person’s team. The top-three finishers in the league receive a cash prize — the amount seems to vary from year to year — in addition to bragging rights.

Yes, the league has done a lot to enhance the league members’ collective baseball knowledge, but the value the league has

brought goes well beyond that. I never expected to work together with the members of my league in any sort of business context.

However, during one night of typical trash talking, one of my buddies messaged about the idea of all of us working together on creating a website with information and advice on fantasy baseball. After going through the steps of acquiring a domain name from GoDaddy, the men of St. John’s fantasy baseball league had succeeded in creating baseball-breakdown.com.

Although our site is no longer up — we figured that since we were all going to different schools for college it would be impossible to keep a schedule for producing content — I look back fondly on the memories I have of writing for our site. The site also led me to explore other opportunities, including writing for preexisting fantasy websites and attending classes focusing on sports communication.

The website may no longer exist, but the league itself is very much still alive. We may not message each other as consistently as we used to in high school, but the league has definitely been a way for everyone to keep in touch and maintain their baseball knowledge. The league has given me countless memories and I wouldn’t trade my league with my group of guys for any other league out there.

I just know that one day when we’re all 40 years old, have families of our own and are working full time, we will always make time to keep in touch and continue the storied St. John’s fantasy league.

Chef-Led Cooking Demonstrations More Retail Options Including: • Steak ‘n Shake • Starbucks • The Sandwich Shack

Dining via Mobile Food Trucks Meal Plan Enhancement

20

WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 13, 2018 •

SPORTS

Distance runner discusses year of injury and grief Gerlach finds a way forward after discovering a cartilage defect and the sudden death of her father ELISE HESTER | VIDEO PRODUCER ehester@trinity.edu

Almost one year after Amanda Gerlach suffered a cartilage defect that left her unable to walk, the sophomore distance runner races once again. From the moment the starting pistol goes off, she hears her father’s advice in her head, his voice echoing until she crosses the finish line.

She is still moving forward as she turns her head back toward the crowd, which she can’t help but to scan in search of her father’s face.

“It’s hard to finish a race and look around for your dad and realize that he’s not there,” Gerlach said.

Gerlach lost her father unexpectedly last August, while Gerlach was in the middle of a painful recovery thanks to the cartilage defect, which emerged due to overuse.

“I was in shock because I had just seen my dad a couple days beforehand. I shut myself off.

I didn’t go to class as much ’cause I felt weak, I felt tired,” Gerlach said. “I was retreating from all my relationships. I wasn’t eating. I wasn’t sleeping. I was struggling to pay attention in class and to connect emotionally with others.”

Over the past eight months, Gerlach’s grief has evolved. “[Grief ] was something that consumed me,” Gerlach said. “Now it’s kind of like a visitor, or like something that sticks in the back of my mind.”

Gerlach thinks about her dad every day. She wonders what he’d say about certain situations.

She wishes she could show him a joke she saw, or talk to him about her recovery process.

The sorrow of loss is much like the pain in her knee — Gerlach may have conquered

the hardest part of the process, but the pain will resurface at various times throughout her whole life.

“Injuries and grief, at least in my situation, [they’re] very similar in that they pop up when you least expect it,” Gerlach said. “I’m learning to use my grief in a way that propels me forward as a motivator for life. It is definitely something that I work with, and I work towards getting better at what I do and becoming a better person through this, so I can understand what other people are going through. I can be more sensitive to them and as a whole, just living life the way my dad would have wanted me to.”

On the brick walls of Gerlach’s dorm along with photos, art and other quotes hangs a decorative print that read, “It is well with my soul.” Gerlach picked out the piece weeks before her father’s death because she liked the colors, but following his passing, the words — from of a famous hymn by Horatio G. Spafford — and their meaning would later be a source of needed comfort to the grieving Gerlach.

In November 1873, Spafford was sailing to England to join his wife, who was the only one spared in a deadly shipwreck that killed the couple’s four daughters. Overlooking the expanse of open ocean where it was thought his daughters had perished days earlier, the Chicago Presbyterian penned these words: “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way/ When sorrows like sea billows roll/ Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say/ It is well, it is well with my soul.”

Aware of the context, Gerlach often repeats the final sentence in her head to remember that even in the pain, there is, from her perspective, a peace that surpasses understanding, found through faith.

AMANDA GERLACH talks through how she has been able to cope with unexpected death and debilitating injury. photo by ELISE HESTER, video producer Also on her wall is the Bible verse Romans 8:28, reading, “We know that God works all things together for the good of those who love him, who are called according to his purpose.”

“It’s not saying that life is gonna be good, but God works for the good and that’s just really comforting to me,” Gerlach said. “God will support me and use me in whatever situation he wants in life.”

Gerlach, known for her sunny disposition since childhood, acknowledges that is difficult to open up about brokenness.

“I am this one person which is very positive, but I also have a lot of emotions inside me that I can’t show the rest of the world,” Gerlach said.

“It’s a pressure that I have, where I have to give off this vibe like everything is OK, even when sometimes it’s not.”

Gerlach has found it is important to not walk this journey alone.

“I heavily, heavily rely on my mentors like my coaches and several of the faculty here on campus,” Gerlach said. “Dean Tuttle has been a great resource for me, and Dr. Morais in the sport management department — he’s positive and so motivating, and he’s helped me in ways that he can’t even imagine.”

In a grief support group organized by Tuttle, students have found solidarity in the shared experiences of loss. In a school year that has seen two students pass, the process of mourning — in all its different forms — is something Gerlach thinks our community needs to address, despite its surrounding stigma.

“Life is, you know, it’s not perfect,” Gerlach said. “If you are sad, you’re allowed to be sad.

You can have grief. You can be frustrated and deal with your problems, and if you need help, I think it’s really important to get help.”

COME HOME IN STYLE.