Issue 9 - Volume 137

THE CYNIC Est. 1883 | Issue 9 - Volume 137 | October 27, 2020 | vtcynic.com

Paige Fisher Cynic News Reporter

Hundreds of community members and UVM students gathered outside City Hall in this year’s Climate Strike, calling for UVM, Vermont and national decision makers to confront the climate crisis.

Attendees of the strike marched from UVM’s Waterman Green down Main Street, fists in the air, finally assembling in front of the City Hall where they heard from activists and politicians, including David Zuckerman, Democratic candidate for governor.

Zuckerman urged the community to push for action, noting the important role students play in pushing for policy change.

“Most elected people know a little bit about a lot of things, but the students and our constituents, often on an individual issue, know more than we do,” Zuckerman said. “And so you are our resource, you are our library of information.”

Friday’s strike featured 14 demands ranging from banning fossil fuels in all new infrastructure in Burlington to terminating Officers Cory Campell and Joseph Corrow from the Burlington Police Department.

The organizers especially focused on holding UVM accountable for its sustainability goals, removing the F-35 fighter jets from the Burlington area and voting democrats into office.

Zuckerman urged the crowd and the students in attendance to vote out incumbent Republican Governor Phil Scott, as well as President Donald Trump. He also asked Vermonters to vote for Lieutenant Governor Candidate Molly Gray.

“I hope for those of you that vote, that you’ll vote for both of us,” Zuckerman said.

And for those of you who don’t vote, I want you to seriously think about the ramifications.”

Some attendees of the march said they came because of the approaching election and to support the climate movement on a broader scale, not because of the specific demands raised by organizers.

“Honestly I’m not really too involved with the demands for at least this rally, but just in general I came to show my support,” said UVM first-year Sabine Love.

Student organizers and local activists that spoke at the march also focused on systematic oppression within climate change, the climate movement and in UVM’s environmentalist culture.

“The truth is that UVM’s brand of environmentalism is inherently tied to white supremacy,” UVM Student and activist Chris Harrell said outside Waterman Green before the group

Negotiations falter

$3.2 million grant

Negotiations between the faculty union and the administration have ground to a halt.

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A team of UVM led researchers win $3.2 million grant, to study the Earth’s “Critical Zone.”

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Students demand climate action PAIGE FISHER / The Cynic

ETHAN GATFIELD/ The Cynic

PAIGE FISHER / The Cynic

ETHAN GATFIELD/ The Cynic

TOP: Students march down main street durinng the climate strike Oct. 23.

LEFT: Activist James Leas speaks on climate issues and the F-35s in front of City Hall during the climate strike, Oct. 23.

MIDDLE: Protestors stands outside the Waterman Building at the start of the climate strike Oct. 23.

RIGHT: Candidate David Zuckerman speaks at the climate strike in front of City Hall, Oct. 23. marched down Church Street.

“I think it’s appropriate then to refer to UVM’s brand of environmentalism as white environmentalism.”

Speakers also criticized UVM’s failure to follow through on its Climate Action Plan, made in 2010, in which they agreed to 100% carbon and net zero thermal energy in 2020.

“We’re not very close to [those sustainability goals] at all,” UVM Senior and Organizer

Sarah Sciortino said. “We also committed to net zero transportation emissions by 2025, which we’re also not on track to meet.”

Many also called for decision makers to ground all of the F-35 fighter jets in the Burlington area.

The F-35s are military jets based in South Burlington that fly over Winooski, a densely populated city with a high concentration of residents of color.

Activist James Leas spoke in opposition to the jets outside city hall, decrying how the construction of the runway in 2019 led to the demolition of many affordable homes across from the airport.

“They didn’t have to put F-35 jets in a city,” Leas said. “They had other choices. Why did they pick the most populated part of Vermont? The part where they could aim at Winooski?”

Leas also said the F-35s can

cause permanent damage to the hearing, learning and the cognitive development of children, and that it makes affordable housing uninhabitable due to severe noise pollution.

In front of City Hall, organizers used wooden sticks to destroy a paper mache model of a fighter jet with the words “$77.9 Million” painted in bold letters on the front, the projected cost to fly F-35s in 2022.

NEWS & SPORTS

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CAPS services limited by pandemic Ella Ruehsen Cynic News Reporter

Up to 10% of UVM students may not have access to the school’s counseling services during a semester where students are feeling more isolated, detached and lonely than ever before.

John Paul Grogan, UVM’s public health outreach director and interim director of UVM Counseling and Psychiatry Services, said at-home students cannot use CAPS because of licensing laws that require mental health professionals to be licensed in the state where their patients or clients are residing.

“There are a handful of states, particularly in New England that have offered some amount of licensure reciprocity,” he said. “And so we can offer more services in those states but it is different by state, and it’s different by credential.”

At the same time that less students can access student health services, more students are in need.

Feelings of isolation among first years were up nearly 30%, according to a Week of Welcome Survey conducted after the first week of the semester by UVM’s Office of Institutional Research.

On top of this, all fulltime UVM students are paying for these counseling services through the student health fee, which is a part of any fulltime student’s comprehensive tuition cost.

According to the WOW survey, at-home first-year students indicated that the University should be offering more support and opportunities for at-home students.

“The support for at-home students has been non-existent,” said one survey response.

“There are no opportunities to make students not in Burlington feel any different than last semester which is extremely disappointing.”

Additionally, students of color and transgender students said they are feeling less socially and academically integrated than their peers.

Vice Provost Annie Stevens and Assistant Director of Student Life Jerome Budomo said that the University has created many events and opportunities, both virtual and physical, for students to attend.

“With virtual activities and virtual events, it’s like we get like a total of 10 people,” Budomo said. “And then, when we asked for feedback, it’s like, ‘we’ve been in classes all day I don’t feel like being on a screen.’”

On Oct. 20 there was a presentation for at-homes students with the Provost, he said.

“And—I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this—but only 18 students showed up,” he said.

At-home first-year student Grace Castonguay said that

although she has not sought counseling from CAPS, she is concerned about that lack of availability to students in her position.

“If I did need that kind of counsel and support, I think I’d be really bummed to find out one of these opportunities or resources that I’m supposed to get wasn’t available to me just because I’m three hours away,” she said.

Castonguay said it’s been difficult to gain the full social component of her college experience because learning from home has made it especially hard to connect with her peers.

She was at one point in contact with someone she was considering rooming with, but after she decided to choose the at-home option for fear of getting sent home anyway and wasting money on room and board, she lost touch with her.

“I don’t have that same sense of connection,” she said. “Even in my classes where we have breakout Zoom, or breakout channels, it’s so refreshing to even have like five minutes with my classmates where we turn our cameras on and we’re just talking.”

Castonguay wishes that there had been more time made available at the beginning of the semester to facilitate those kinds of conversations to help peers get to know one another.

“I certainly think that UVM is trying. I just don’t know if it’s going through correctly,” she said. “I get notifications and emails saying, ‘use the Near Peer app’ or ‘come to this like teams meeting for a social hour thing’ or whatnot, but it’s not really the same.”

She understands that it is difficult to find solutions to the issue of helping at-home students feel connected with their peers, she said.

“I can’t fault anyone for that,” Castonguay said. “It’s just hard to make a connection with someone when their video

ELAINA SEPEDE / The Cynic

TOP: Students mingle on the sidewalk in front of University Heights, Oct. 23.

MIDDLE: A group of four UVM students lay in hammocks and play cornhole in the lawn in front of University Heights South, Oct. 23.

BOTTOM: Several UVM students gather around a fire on the Athletic Campus, Oct. 23. camera is off and their mic is off.”

Another student, Ryan LaCivita, expressed similar concerns. He is a first-year student too but is living on campus. Even though students on campus can access mental health services, they’re still feeling a similar sense of isolation and loneliness.

LaCivita said the University should consider doing events or meetings for hall or learning community.

He said he understands that it can be hard to balance helping students make connections while at the same time ensuring

COVID-safety, and he believes that keeping cases down should always be the first priority, he said.

UVM recently announced changes to its residence hall policy in an Oct. 20 email from Gary Derr, VP for operations and public safety, now allowing on-campus students to have one guest in their room at a time.

The guest must wear a mask and be a resident on the same floor as the host.

“Given the high testing compliance, consistently low positivity rates and overall low Green and Gold violations, we feel comfortable making some

modest shifts to the current residential policy,” Derr stated.

“If we continue to see lower case numbers, we will consider easing the guest restrictions further.”

However, LaCivita said he doesn’t think the change in policy will make a difference.

“I don’t think it will help as much as either the students or the University would want,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I am going to try to take that opportunity, but for the people who really wanted to have guests over, they were already doing that before it was allowed.”

NEWS & SPORTS

UVM and Burlington Police expressed little concern about students potentially violating COVID-19 safety precautions over Halloween weekend, despite rising cases in the state.

UVM Police Chief Tim Bilodeau said he expects students to follow COVID-19 guidelines, and Matt Sullivan, deputy chief of administration at Burlington Police Department, said the city is planning on taking the same approach as they have in the past to student parties.

“Our expectation is that students will adhere to the Green and Gold Promise at all times,” Bilodeau stated. “It is important that they don’t let their guard down during special celebrations in order to continue to keep the community safe.”

Students are expected to gather in small groups and keep a six-foot distance from individuals who don’t live in their household, Bilodeau said. As always, wearing a mask is mandatory when students are out.

Sullivan, of BPD, said the

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Irene Choi Assistant News Editor

SAWYER LOFTUS/ The Cynic Street signs outside the Davis Center point sudents and visitors towards different campus buildings outside the Davis Center. sive and unnecessary pay cuts.

“I’ve been involved in or observing a number of contract negotiations and I would say this is the most difficult one that I’ve seen,” Roberts said.

Roberts said from the start, the union had a difficult time believing that University proposals which cut benefits and pay over the life of this next contract, were linked with the COVID-19 pandemic as the University has stated.

“It’s pretty clear that it’s not just COVID, that there is just a desire to roll back salaries and benefits, really across the University community,” Roberts said.

In an Oct. 19 letter sent to non-unionized UVM staff, Mary Brodsky, director of UVM’s labor relations and employment

services, stated that the Union’s proposal would cause UVM staff to “disproportionately bear the brunt of faculty demands.”

But, Roberts said that’s not the desire of the faculty union nor a full picture of the truth.

“We’re not the ones who cut anybody’s salary,” she said. “We don’t want [non represented staff] to bear the brunt of this.”

According to the University, the average professor makes around $127,380 a year. But Roberts said that number is misleading.

Roberts said a more accurate number for full-time professors is $89,755 and $69,730 for non-tenure-track faculty, partially because the differences between what a professor is paid in the College of Arts and Sciences and the business

school is “stark.”

Roberts also said in the months of negotiations before the impasse, the union offered up proposals that included one time cuts, a pay freeze for a year and extending the current contract for one year, all of which the University rejected.

The union also pointed to a lump sum of $33.4 million that UVM received in governmental aid as a source to close the gap in the budget, Roberts said.

However, those funds are needed to specifically cover expenses related to COVID-19 outside of the general fund and continued projected expenses, according to Corredera. Meaning, the remainder of the $9.4 million deficit has to come from academic departments.

Halloween not so scary to police this year Lila Cumming Cynic News Reporter

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SGA

Facing a nearly $10 million deficit, UVM is looking to cut faculty salaries and benefits in their latest contract proposal.

However, UVM’s faculty union is sounding the alarm, saying these cuts would worsen the university’s ability to recruit and retain strong faculty.

“It makes it much harder to recruit new faculty as well,” said United Academics President Julie Roberts. “And presumably once the pandemic is over and we’re back to a more normal status, we will want to continue to recruit very qualified faculty and we can’t do that if the salaries [UVM is] offering are so much lower.”

The University has cut down what was a $21.4 million deficit in its general fund budget to $9.4 million, but to close the gap academic departments need to make cuts, according to an Oct. 16 statement from UVM. Specifically, the latest proposal from the University called for 5% cuts to faculty salaries for two years followed by a pay freeze in the third year of the contract.

But since the union rejected the University’s last proposal and didn’t submit a counter offer, negotiations have stopped as both parties wait for a federal mediator.

The University and United Academics have needed a federal mediator for six of the last seven contract negotiations, according to UVM spokesperson Enrique Corredera.

However, Roberts says the latest contract proposal from the University reflects aggres-

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Staff Report

THIS WEEK IN SGA

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UVM and faculty spar over cuts

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department’s response will be no different this year and that violations will be taken seriously as always.

“There have only been limited circumstances so far where students have violated the executive order related to COVID,” Sullivan stated. “Overall, my impression is that students have been pretty good about behaving responsibly.”

Last Halloween, UVM Police Services reported 14 criminal or alleged criminal incidents on-campus in total, including drug and alcohol offenses, suspicious events and property damage.

Sullivan did note that the department will still address house parties, noise violations and violations of the Governor’s executive order, and students should expect disciplinary action from the University in response.

On campus, UVM Police Services has reported 82 COVID-19 compliance incidents since Aug. 1.

Governor Phil Scott’s executive order requires all individuals to wear face masks in public.

MICHAELA REARDON/ The Cynic

A group of restaurant goers sit outside of Sweetwaters on Church Street, Oct 23.

Burlington residents can also not congregate in groups larger than ten indoors or larger than 25 outdoors.

However, some students are less optimistic that students will follow guidelines for the holiday.

“I feel like if there was something maybe going on to actually go to, I would probably go,” first-year Olivia Tumulty said.

Another first-year, Zoë Montalto, said she heard a lot of

discussion about going out.

Despite UVM’s low COVID-19 positivity rate, there have been several outbreaks across the state and in Burlington over the last several weeks.

Case numbers have increased since the beginning of October, and the daily case total reached the third highest instance of new, positive cases in the state since June just last week, according to an Oct. 23 Burlington Free Press article.

Senators in UVM’s Student Government Association must attend a four-hour diversity training to help discourage biases against students and make SGA a more welcoming space for students of color.

SGA Vice President Peter Lally announced the diversity training at an Oct. 20 meeting.

The training will be mandatory for all senators, though its date and time have not yet been announced.

Although SGA typically has a diversity training every year, this year’s comes after increasing student activism calling for racial inclusivity on campus and in the greater Burlington area.

Students have raised concerns about UVM Police Service’s presence on campus and the Burlington Police Department’s use of force, specifically against BIPOC community members.

SGA has also recently created a new Social Justice and Action ad-hoc committee in response to these student complaints, according to an Oct. 1 email to students.

The committee was created to “establish a more inclusive and supportive community for our Black, Indigenous, and People of Color at the University and in the greater Burlington community,” according to the email.

Several senators emphasized the importance of the training during the meeting.

“The diversity bias training is great and eye opening,” said Jacque Lewman, chair of the committee on student action and well-being. “One of the reasons people don’t come to SGA is because they think we’re biased, so it’s really important that you come to this training.”

SGA President Lana Al-Namee also encouraged senators to clear their weekend schedules to make time for the training, which will take place on a Saturday and will last around four hours.

“This is an important event,” she said. “We expect everyone to attend.”

Senator Maeve Forbes, chair of the committee on diversity, inclusion and equity, also told SGA that a senator in her committee, senator Caroline Shelley, is pushing UVM junior Kendall Ware’s sexual assault investigation forward.

Ware, a student athlete on the swimming and diving team, accused the UVM Athletics Department of mishandling her sexual assault investigation because her alleged rapist was on the men’s basketball team, according to an Oct. 13 Cynic article.

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NEWS & SPORTS

Early voting shows low student turnout

Lilly Paige Cynic News Reporter Despite efforts from the city to increase voter turnout in Burlington, fewer ballots have been received from student-populated wards, indicating that less students are voting than other community members.

According to an Oct. 8 New York Times article, less than half of Americans ages 18-29 voted in the 2016 election, more than 15% lower than the election’s overall turnout.

UVM’s undergraduate voting rate is below the national college student voting average at just 42.8%, according to a study done by the National Study of Learning, Voting and Education.

Amy Bovee, assistant city clerk for the City of Burlington, runs the city’s election and said students can vote in Vermont or in their home state for the Nov. 3 election.

Bovee said as of Oct. 22, only 2.89% of ballots from Ward 8, the “student ward” of Burlington, have been received, the lowest percentage in all eight wards.

“To put that in perspective, if all of the wards had an even amount of ballots turned in, it would be 12.5% per ward,” she said. “That probably indicates

that we’ve had fewer students voting so far.”

Although student voting numbers seem to remain low, more people in Burlington are voting early than ever before.

“We’ve broken kind of all records of the numbers of early ballots that we’ve received,” she said. “We’ve still got just under two weeks to go, so I expect that number will continue to climb.”

As of Oct. 21, the city had received over 11,000 ballots in total. In the past, Bovee said that the most early ballots she had seen was around 6,000.

“We’ve broken kind of all records of the numbers of early ballots that we’ve received,” she said. “We’ve still got just under two weeks to go, so I expect that number will continue to climb.”

Students who are voting in Burlington can vote absentee using their local address or can vote in-person on election day, Bovee said.

“The quickest and easiest way for folks to register to vote is to do so online,” Bovee said. “Students basically just fill in their name, date of birth, ID information, and then can register that way pretty quickly and easily.”

Once a student is registered to vote, they automatically get mailed a ballot. If students don’t receive a ballot with enough time to mail it back,

they can vote on Election Day in person, and will also have the opportunity to register to vote in-person on Election Day. Alternatively, students that requested absentee ballots can turn in their ballots at the City Clerk’s office in the Burlington City Hall on Church Street or in dropboxes throughout Burlington on Election Day. All polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Nov. 3, Bovee said.

Students are encouraged to turn in their ballots early this election for COVID-19 safety precautions at the polls and to keep voters and election workers safe.

This year, Vermonters can vote in 11 different races, including the presidential election and other statewide elections to vote for representatives in the state House of Representatives and Senate.

Positions that are up for grab on the ballot other than the presidential election and state congressional seats are the Vermont Governor, Lieutenant Governor, State Treasurer, Secretary of State, Auditor of Accounts, Attorney General, State Senators, State Representatives, High Bailiff and Justice of the Peace.

Bovee encouraged students to excercise their right to vote

Infographic by KATE VANNI in this election.

“It’s our chance to have an impact on the direction that we want both our state and our country to go,” she said. “We’re

just encouraging students to go ahead and get registered and if they are registered already to double check that they are at the correct current address.”

Varsity sports to resume play starting next month Hayley Rosen Assistant Sports Editor

UVM fall and winter sports teams will soon return to game play after season resumption plans were announced by America East, ending indefinite season delays due to the pandemic.

America East, which consists of eight schools across the Northeast including UVM, announced the conference’s resumption plans Oct. 19. The plans focus on maintaining competitive play while still ensuring student-athlete and community health and safety.

UVM Athletic Director Jeff Shulman said the announcement from America East is a step forward in getting UVM teams back to competition.

“Catamount studentathletes, coaches and staff have done an amazing job working through a very intentional, three-phased, sport re-socialization process in preparation for the resumption of team activity,” Shulman stated in an Oct. 19 statement.

Outlining resumption timelines for fall and winter sports, the plans allow the basketball teams to start nonconference play in less than a month, and delay fall sport seasons to the spring, beginning in February and early March.

Additionally, the swimming

and diving regular season has been postponed to the spring.

At UVM, no spectators will be allowed at games until further notice in order to protect the health and safety of the student-athletes, coaches and broader community, according to Schulman.

However, games will be offered through live stream for the general public to watch.

Shulman said all resumption planning has been coordinated through the UVM Health and Safety Committee and the Vermont Department of Health.

UVM players and their opponents will be tested three times per week and will operate in ‘mini-bubbles’ for out of state games, where athletes will not be allowed in close contact with anyone other than opponents and game officials who are also following NCAA’s COVID-19 testing protocol.

If a basketball player tests positive, the team will follow UVM’s protocols including isolation, contact tracing and quarantining of all close contacts.

“Of course, in the case of a team, this may result in the postponement or cancellation of games,” Shulman stated.

According to the America East website, men’s and women’s basketball will have a full double round-robin schedule with 18 conference games.

OLIVER POMAZI/ The Cynic

The men’s basketball team huddles together before a game in February 2017.

Last year, the men’s basketball team played 35 games in total and the women’s team played 30.

The official men’s and women’s basketball schedules will be announced in early November, according to Shulman.

The schedule will include weekend series where a team hosts the same opponent on back-to-back days for two games.

In the spring, field hockey and volleyball will also have condensed round robin seasons, while men’s and women’s socccer each have six game schedules starting in February and March respectively.

Hockey East has not released an official plan yet, but Athletic Director Jeff Schulman said scheduling work is underway

for the conference as well as for EISA, the conference UVM’s ski teams compete in.

Basketball has been cleared to start non-conference play Nov. 25 and conference play Dec. 19.

However, Stef Smith, senior guard on the UVM men’s Basketball team, said the team has not implemented any changes to start practicing as a full team with the release of these dates, and is still practicing in smaller pods.

“We’re not changing our practices based on if we’re going to play non-conference games in November or conference games in January,” Smith said.

However, Smith said he is optimistic about the coming season despite the pandemic’s unpredictability, and said the team is still preparing for the

season like they would any other year.

“I think it’s important to stay positive,” Smith said. “I think our team has done a great job with that. It’s also reassuring with the NCAA coming out with all of this new information.”

Men’s hockey Head Coach Tood Woodcroft also expressed his optimism about a season during an interview on September 29.

“I feel very confident that we’ll have a season based on the success we saw with the NHL,” Woodcroft said. We’re competitive people, we want to play games, and it’s coming up real soon.”

Shulman said he anticipates Hockey East announcing plans for a league-only season starting around Thanksgiving.

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EXECUTIVE Editor-in-Chief Sawyer Loftus editorinchief@vtcynic.com Managing Editor Alek Fleury newsroom@vtcynic.com

OPERATIONS Operations Manager Katherine Izadi operations@vtcynic.com

VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE VOTE Staff Editorial Starting a few months ago, as the election got closer, voters began to worry about the postal service’s ability to handle the new volume of mail-inballots due to the panedemic.

Although much of this worry was politicized propaganda from the right, trying to dissuade voters from voting entirely, as evident by the postal service’s outstanding ability to handle the billions of christmas cards that will get sent in just a few weeks, it is obvious that there is an orchestrated effort to reduce the liberal vote.

It’s almost a week until

the United States Presidential Election and this year, it is more important than ever to make absolutely sure your ballot makes it through.

Due to the nature of our current political climate, there is so much that we need to do in preparation for this election.

First things first, research who you’re voting for.

One thing first-time voters might not expect when opening up their ballot is that not only do you need to

Distribution Manager Inquries email cynic@uvm.edu

EDITORS Copy Chief Will Keeton copy@vtcynic.com Culture Sarah Robinson cynicculture@gmail.com Features Greta Rohrer cynicfeatures@gmail.com News & Sports Emma Pinezich news@vtcynic.com sports@vtcynic.com Opinion Gabby Felitto opinion@vtcynic.com

IZZY PIPA

Podcasts David Cabrera vtcynicpodcasts@gmail.com Layout & Illustrations Kate Vanni layout@vtcynic.com Photo Bailey Samber photo@vtcynic.com Digital Media Mills Sparksman cynic@uvm.edu Assistant Editors Ellie Scott & Mac Mansfield-Parisi (Layout), Cole Fekert & Izzy Pipa (Illustrations), Irene Choi (News), Hayley Rosen (Sports), Emily Johnston (Opinion), Sophia Venturo (Culture), Jacob Goodwin (Podcasts), Kyle Elms (Photo), Tulley Hescock (Features) Page Designers Will Guisbond, Maggie Adams Copy Editors Catie Segaloff, Eryn Heiken

choose a president but you may see options for a representative or senator. You might see local elections and local choices or ballot initiatives.

You can look at sites like whosontheballot.org to see who your candidates are. This site also provides helpful links to the candidates websites and social media accounts.

Your next step should be to see if you are properly filling out your ballots.

When filling out your ballot make sure you are properly filling in the ovals. Remember to sign your ballot where it says to sign and use your official signature. Also, remember to check it twice (or even more than that!) before sealing it up.

There has also been much confusion about postage and if you need to put a stamp on your ballot or not as well as how many stamps you need. The United States Postal service will postmark all ballots that are mailed by voters, whether they are prepaid by election officials or mailed

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with a stamp by the voters, according to the USPS election mail page.

After getting your ballot filled out and sealed, you can either mail it out through USPS or can drop it off at different drop boxes around your area.

Many of these drop boxes are usually located in city halls and libraries. Before dropping them off at these boxes though, make sure you are at the right box, as there have been instances of unofficial drop off boxes, as seen in California.

Remember to look up to see where your areas drop boxes are and look up pictures to see what they look like. If you’re registered in Vermont, there are drop boxes at City Hall, the Department of Public Works, Miller center, and Fire Station two.

You can also track your ballot once it’s mailed. To do this, you’ll usually need a confirmation code, name, address, and social security number to be able to track your ballot.

Remember your vote is important, especially right now, so make sure you fill out your ballot correctly and check in very carefully and get your vote in before there’s no time left.

Staff editorials officially reflect the views of the editorial board, which includes the Editor-in-Chief, Managing Editor and Opinion Editor. Signed opinion pieces and columns do not necessarily do so.

The Cynic accepts letters in response to anything you see printed as well as any issues of interest in the community. Please limit letters to 350 words. The Cynic reserves the right to edit letters for length and grammar.

Please send letters to opinion@ vtcynic.com.

Halloween staples should continue, but safely Jordan Spindel Cynic Columnist

Trick-or-treating is a staple of Halloween.

The celebratory nature of millions of children going door to door showing off costumes and collecting candy defines the holiday.

But with a global pandemic ongoing, many wonder if it is safe to continue this tradition in 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a dramatic reduction of in-person events.

Trick-or-treating is one of those events that some may see as dangerous due to interactions with numerous homeowners and children increasing the risk of contracting the virus.

The CDC agrees that trickor-treating should not look the same in 2020. It is not something you can just slap a mask onto and call it safe.

What must change is the way it is done in order to make it both a safe and fun activity.

Trick-or-treating can go on, but a few alterations must be made. To start, all trickor-treaters should wear a face mask.

Costumes that come with masks or cover trick-or-treaters faces are often too thin. That means everyone needs to be wearing CDC suggested masks.

When it comes to candy, safer alternatives should be looked at.

One alternative that health officials are pushing is bins of candy placed outside of homes with instructions on how much to take.

An even safer option would be making individual goody bags for children to take so they aren’t touching the same things.

Lastly, trick-or treating should be outdoors if possible.

Cities such as New York City are only allowing outdoor trick-or-treating due to the increased risk of catching COVID-19 indoors.

Homeowners can still interact with trick-or-treaters, but from a distance.

Having a human presence may make Halloween feel more

JORDAN MCDERMOTT

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familiar and traditional, even though it is a bit different this year.

Still, many may feel uncomfortable with trick-or-treating continuing.

Alternative safer events could include socially-distant scary movie viewings, or doing virtual costume contests.

Halloween will by no means be the same this year.

Many events like haunted houses and costume parties will be severely altered or even canceled.

So this year, if you, yes you

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college student reading this, are planning on going out, make sure to mask up.

But trick-or-treating should go on, just with a COVID-19 twist.

It will be a Halloween like no other, but this tradition will still be the way for children to celebrate the holiday.

Jordan Spindel is a junior enviromental science major.

He has been writing for the Cynic since spring 2020.

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OPINION

I have a confession...I love vampires...a lot Emily Johnston Assistant Opinion Editor

I

freaking love vampires.

I think about vampires more than the average person should. They are on my mind at least once a day and I truly believe they are real. They are also sexy.

Most monsters, like Frankenstein, zombies, skeletons, etc. are hard to make sexy.

Vampires, however, are usually always shown as sexy in popular culture.

Even Count von Count from “Sesame Street” has a sort of swagger, a sort of sex appeal.

Plus, the cinema and content made from the idea of vampires gets most swooning.

Would “Twilight” have gotten so big if it weren’t for teen girls falling in love with the sparkly vampire that is Edward Cullen? I don’t think so.

Would “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” still be super popular today if the characters weren’t loveable fools? Probably not.

It’s the same with the “Vampire Diaries,” the show has now had two spinoffs, “The Originals” and “Legacies,” because the idea of vampires is just so appealing to the public and the fans stay watching.

The public loves vampires, and I can relate.

Perhaps it’s the way vampires suckle blood from the neck, a sweet spot for most lovers.

Or, maybe it’s the way they only come out at night and have to be invited inside. They care about consent.

I will say, the inability to eat garlic is a turnoff for this Italian, but if a vampire wanted to marry me and be with me forever I’m sure I could work around that.

Whatever it is, I cannot stop thinking about vampires and have not stopped since I found out what a vampire was. I know I am not alone in this.

The costume is fairly simple; all it requires is a pair of fangs and some fake blood.

I am 20 and I think I’ve been a vampire for at least 10 Halloweens in my lifetime.

Each costume rendition slightly differed, as I’ve been everything from the classic victorian vampire to a 1920s flapper girl, that happened to also be a vampire.

It is an obsession, but I don’t think I’m harming anyone with this obsession. I think it is very fun to know way too much about vampires.

I love the whole idea of them— the way they are undead and can only come out at night (depending on the lore, they can go out in the day if

ELENI PAPPAS

they have a witch working with them.)

Turning into a bat and flying is also sick, imagine just being like, “Bye human form, I’m a cute cuddly creature now!”

The myth of vampires started with Vlad the Impaler, AKA Vlad Dracula, but legends

of blood-sucking undead originated before Vlad walked the Earth.

The Lamashtu, a Mesopotamian myth, and the ancient Greek striges are both very similar to the modern concept of a vampire; they were bloodthirsty bird-like creatures.

The modern concept is however much more romanticized, instead of appearing like monsters vampires now are personified-they fall in love, they have complicated family relationships.

It is the humanization of vampires that makes them sexier than other monsters; they are relatable to humans and that is why we fall in love with them.

Other monsters can fall in love in media, an example being in “Warm Bodies,” but it is the vampire that is known for wooing.

It seems that in media having a vampire character means a love story. The Salvatore bros, the Cullen’s, even the guys from “What we Do in the Shadows” think about love.

Even Justin from “Wizards of Waverly Place” falls in love with a vampire. Juliet and Justin’s love story introduced young kids to the idea of undead love.

Whether or not they are real, vampires will forever have a place in my heart as the best and sexiest monster.

Emily Johnston is a Junior evironmental science major.

She has been a Cynic since fall 2018.

Perspective: All students deserve mental healthcare Elliot Walsh Perspectives First-year Engineering major

M

ental health was a significant reason why I chose UVM. At the prospective students’ day I attended, the importance of mental wellbeing was emphasized and Living Well and Counseling and Psychiatry Services (CAPS) were presented as helpful, easily available resources.

As someone who has struggled with depression for years, the thought of robust mental health services during a big transition sounded invaluable.

I was excited to be attending a school where the administration gave students’ mental health the attention it deserves.

The reality of UVM’s mental health network is far from the glowing image the administration cultivates.

Counseling through CAPS is limited to a short-term model of a few appointments per semester, even though many students need ongoing support.

Finding help off-campus can be nearly impossible - I have spent months calling

over a dozen therapists and counseling centers, only to be informed that they have a waitlist or simply not get a response.

Furthermore, private therapy can be prohibitively expensive and requirements

COVID, and pandemic’s toll on mental health has only increased the need for robust counseling.

This leads to students being unable to get the help they need.

A fellow student I talked to

counselors and staff members, it is a result of the school’s budgeting priorities.

While CAPS struggles with its resources spread thin as it serves over 10,000 students, UVM unveiled a counseling program specifically for student

“The reality of UVM’s mental health network is far from the glowing image the administration cultivates. Counseling through CAPS is limited to a short-term model of few appointments per semester, even though many students need ongoing support.”

- Elliot Walsh First-year

that insurance cover mental health are continually threatened. Other colleges offer ongoing therapy for students free of charge; UVM doesn’t.

There is a dire need for better mental health support at UVM. According to a Cynic article, student demand for counseling services was rising even before

was told by CAPS there were no openings and they couldn’t help them, despite their desperate need for therapy.

This should never happen, let alone at one of the most expensive public universities in the country.

UVM’s inability to meet its students’ mental health needs is not the fault of CAPS

athletes in 2017.

Despite a hiring freeze as a result of the pandemic, UVM hired two men’s hockey coaches with salaries totalling over $150,000 and another with an individual salary well over $150,000 days before the hiring freeze.

According to the Cynic, UVM administration claimed

these hires were essential to the wellbeing of the team’s members, but athletes and coaches only saw the hires as a way to improve team performance.

The Athletic Department has an annual budget over $10.8 million, and the hockey team alone has nine paid staff. Meanwhile, the Center for Health and Wellbeing, which CAPS is a part of, has an annual budget of less than $9.4 million, and CAPS only employs 21 total staff.

The fact that the University approved three hires totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to benefit the 27 members of the men’s hockey team, while over 10,000 students lack access to robust and high quality mental health care is absurd.

The fact that this occurs at a school with an annual budget over $380 million, which prides itself in student wellbeing, is inexcusable.

“Perspectives” is a subsection at The Cynic, giving the UVM community a platform to share their stories.

For submission send your piece, first and last name, a headshot or photo of your face as well as your year, major and pronouns to opinion@vtcynic. com.The Cynic reserves the right to edit submissions for length and grammar.

7

OPINION

Opinion Staff: Cynical Halloween Tunes VALENTINA CZOCHANSKI

Emily Johnston “She Wolf” Two breaths, in and out, fill the room in the middle of a song and everyone goes wild.

That is the typical reaction when “She Wolf” by Shakira comes on, making it the best Halloween song. That song can turn any gathering from a dud to a bop. My love started as a kid playing with my siblings listening to the song. We would designate a “she wolf” among the group and whoever was the she wolf would hide in the closet until the breaths came and then they would pop out.

Throughout my life, “She Wolf” was always fun around Halloween.

Jordan Spindel “Thriller” Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is a signature Halloween song. The tempo sends chills down your spine, yet at the same time, the catchy rhythm and lyrics give you a sense of joy. What puts the song above others is the music video made for it. Running for 18 minutes, it shows a story of horror and somehow manages to make it comical. The dance that Jackson and dozens of zombies performed to the song became iconic.

Whenever I hear the song, I imagine that dance and feel a sudden urge to perform it. This combined with the catchy tune makes Thriller the best Halloween song.

IZZY PIPA

KATE VANNI

Sophie Oehler “Tusk” In my opinion, Fleetwood Mac owns spooky season. No, they’re not like Michael Jackson with his twenty some odd Halloween anthems. But there’s something about their music that makes me feel like a celestial witch who lives deep in the forest in a cottage made of stone with my herd of deer and raccoon familiars. “Tusk” is my personal favorite. Its drum beat is perfect for dancing around a fire in a white nightgown while worshipping your favorite pagan god and the faded hooting in the background sounds vaguely like the baying of wolves through the trees. This Halloween, put “Thriller” and “Monster Mash” aside and join Stevie Nicks’ witches coven. We’re brewing the cure for corona with stars in our hair.

Sam Jefferson “Monster Mash” I am not a fan of halloween, call me crazy but I despise dressing up and have always found the parties underwhelming. I could 100% do without the holiday, but since it is celebrated every year I’ve found other things to enjoy. One of these being the musical classic, The “Monster Mash” produced by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and The Crypt-Kickers. Those names alone are reason to listen. The chorus brings back fond memories, when halloween was innocent fun, sprinting around my neighborhood dumping “take one” bowls into my pillowcase, laughing with my friends about our candy heist. Yes, I was that kid, and I have no regrets. That was my version of having a monster mash.

JULI BALDICS KATE VANNI

Gabby Felitto “IT is the end” As an emo kid at heart, “IT is the end” by metalcore band Ice Nine Kills is the best halloween song. While it was hard to pick between their other songs from their horror movie inspired album, “The SIlver Screen,” this just goes so hard. The rain in the beginning puts you at the scene before little Gerogie gets snacthed by Pennywise.

The singer puts himself in the clown’s shows as he sings as Pennywise upping the creep factor. Its ska inspired usage of trumpets in the chorus adds a bit of grooviness to the heaviness of the fast drums as the singer describes the carnival of carnage that Pennywise causes. This is a blast to headbang to while putting on your spookiest face, just in time to float down in the sewers with the dancing clown.

OPINION

8

Attention: Don’t have sex with killer clowns Sophie Oehler Cynic Columnist

We all have that one celebrity or fictional character that we feel a little silly for thinking they’re hot.

For me it’s Bill Hader. Don’t ask why, but there’s something about a middle aged comedian that makes me want to run feral in the streets.

For other people, fictional or celebrity crushes stray further from guilty, and faster towards downright concerning.

And I’m not talking about teenage girls who are in love with men twice their age.

I mean people who fawn over Ted Bundy, or young Joseph Stalin, or even Pennywise the Dancing Clown who also murders small children and eats their faces off.

I don’t want to shame people for something they can’t really control, but it’s also a tad frightening that the internet seems to constantly be screaming “choke me daddy” about characters that will, in fact, choke them and then finish the job.

Take Ted Bundy for example. During his trial for brutally raping and murdering over 30 women, young girls would come from across the country to see him, support him even.

Some would call them groupies. I would call them delusional.

Bundy was handsome, there’s no doubt about it. But that was his weapon. He used his charm and looks to disarm his victims and lure them into his trap.

It would seem that his tactics continue to work today.

Once Netflix released “Conversations with

SAVANAH TEBEAU-SHERRY

a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes,” a mini series highlighting Bundy’s crimes, and his “confession,” the Bundy stans rose from the ashes to drown our timelines in their thirst.

As user tedbundytears puts it, “loving someone you’ve never met is the hardest thing you can do.”

Which is pretty deep and philosophical until you remember it’s about a serial killer.

It got even worse when Zac Efron took up a role as the

lain is, Netflix sure does crank out a lot of shows with murderous dreamboats.

“YOU” depicts the one sided relationship between a stalker and his victim and the horrific things he’ll do to keep her “safe.”

Joe Goldberg, the dark and mysterious antagonist played

by Penn Badgley, commits just about every crime known to man and murmurs narratives to make even Dahmer’s skin crawl.

ileges,” Badgley told the paper.

“But I think when only one group has them, it’s actually a horrific blindness when it comes to being in touch with humanity.”

It’s also curious that most of the men we hate to love to hate (the Joker, Charles Manson, Draco Malfoy) are all these handsome, yet tortured white boys that we find reasons to forgive.

It begs the question, if Joe Goldberg had been played by a

“I think the problem is our inability to

distinguish between character and actor.

Efron, Badgley and Skarsgard are all gorgeous men, inside and out. But that doesn’t mean they extend their same glowing qualities to their characters. ”

- Sophie Oehler Cynic Columnist

famous killer in “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” a film that focused on Bundy’s side of the trials, and his numerous escapes from the law.

Netflix even had to issue a tweet to all its followers.

“I’ve seen a lot of talk about Ted Bundy’s alleged hotness and would like to gently remind everyone that there are literally THOUSANDS of hot men on the service — almost all of whom are not convicted serial murderers,” the tweet reads.

For all their reminders of remembering who the vil-

Yet, in September 2018, Joe Goldberg became Twitter’s coveted “White Boy of the Month,” much to the dismay of Badgley.

In a 2019 New York Times interview, Badgley responds to a question about what attracts people to Joe’s character.

“To me, Joe is this work in progress in dismantling and dissecting the myriad privileges that a young, attractive, white man carries with him.

I’m not suggesting that the rest of the world shouldn’t have these so-called priv-

handsome Black or Latino actor, would he still have an army of women defending his actions as “blinded by love.”

And then there’s Pennywise the Dancing Clown, played most recently by Bill Skarsgard, who sort of looks like if the skeleton from anatomy class had the spark of life breathed back into him, but in a very sexy, very suave way.

When I first heard that Twitter was having a meltdown over “IT,” I assumed it was either out of shock (you know… murder-

ous clown?), or because they’d finally seen Billy Boy without the makeup on.

But no.

Through fanfiction and startlingly sexual memes, Pennywise clawed his way into the Internet’s heart.

I think the problem is our inability to distinguish between character and actor. Efron, Badgley and Skarsgard are all gorgeous men, inside and out.

But that doesn’t mean they extend their same glowing qualities to their characters.

I guess you could say it’s the directors’ fault for casting Hollywood’s sweethearts as people we shouldn’t fall in love with, but will regardless. But we should all look inwards and analyze why we are attracted to these characters, or even why we enjoy watching movies with such morbid topics.

Maybe we all like bad boys.

Or maybe we’re unwilling to recognize that monsters exist in plain sight, masquerading as handsome and approachable faces.

Whatever the reason, it feels like we’re missing the point.

Most of these shows or movies are created to either scare us, or reflect on some severely problematic behavior.

If we’re too busy writing fanfiction and thirst tweeting over men who would sooner tie us up than tie the knot, how are we going to recognize dangers off the screen?

A lot of you like to boast that you would survive a horror movie. Would you though?

Sophie Oehler is a Juniorpolitical science and French major. She has been a Cynic since fall 2019.

CULTURE

9

Masks for all occasions

ELLIE SCOTT

Sophia Venturo

Kellyn Doerr

Sarah Robinson

Sarah Robinson

Laura Meyer

The Mask Club (One for $13.99, five for $50)

Best mask for glasses wearers - Nosewire ($5 for one)

Durability - Kize premium mask, ($25 for two pack)

Basic everyday - Athleta, ($30 for five masks)

Best mask for exercise Disposable surgical masks, ($15 for pack of 50 masks)

Kize’s premium masks are sturdy and built to last come.

While a bit on the pricey side, the company donates a portion of every sale to feed hungry children in the United States.

This mask is breathable but doesn’t budge.

They maybe aren’t best for exercise, but Kize’s mask will certainly come in handy for the rapidly approaching winter.

Atheta’s basic mask is my daily go-to. Averaging at $6 a mask, the tri-fold design is breathable and comfortable.

A wire for the bridge of your nose keeps the mask in place, and adjustable ear loops provide for maximum comfort.

This is the mask I choose when I’m busting up Pearl street to campus, and it’s light enough that I’m not concerned about keeling over short of breath outside of Cohen.

These masks can be purchased online or in the Athleta store on Church Street.

As a Slayyyter stan, a 2000s baby and a lover of (almost) all the neo-Y2K style trends, I think about Hello Kitty a lot. Which is why when I was scrolling through my Instagram feed, my algorithm, naturally, presented me with an ad for The Mask Club. It pictured a cutesy, light blue mask with Hello Kitty’s pink face peppered up and down it. How could one resist?

The Mask Club has hundreds of silly nostalgic and current prints to choose from. There are mask designs referencing every TV show from “Avatar: The Last Airbender” to “The Twilight Zone.” You can shop by theme, pattern or event. You can even find 2020 election merch there. . .if you’re into that.

All of The Mask Club’s products are machine washable, have elastic ear loops and have a pocket for a carbon filter. It may seem like a little much for everyday, but The Mask Club is perfect for when you’re feeling down to clown.

I wear glasses, my boyfriend does and so do a lot of my friends and we all experience our glasses fogging up and it’s the most annoying thing.

I found these masks from Etsy that are around $5.

They’re a reusable, washable four layer cotton mask with a nose wire!

The nose wire will stop from air flow going up into your glasses and fogging them up.

They come in 75 different patterns and you can even buy add ons like more filters or a plastic “ear saver,” which will minimize ear tugging if that’s something that bothers you.

As a ballet dancer recovering from injuries, I have found the disposable surgical masks are great for vigorous exercise.

At physical therapy and ballet class, the cloth masks tended to be uncomfortable.

I would breath heavily from reps of squats or from petit allegro, and my mask would get suctioned to my mouth, sticking to my face from the trapped perspiration.

Not great vibes.

Though not environmentally sustainable, the disposable surgical masks don’t stick to my face when I exercise, making the experience much more comfortable and enjoyable.

COLE FEKERT

10

CULTURE

UVM Concert Band masks-up, plays on Luke Davis Culture Staff Writer

When senior Kyra Johnston took out her trumpet for her rehearsal, she never thought it’d be from the comfort of her bedroom.

Concert Band is back in session on campus this semester. Rehearsals are held in the Southwick Ballroom, though not every participating student can be found there come class time. Students also play in practice rooms or in their dorms, tuning into the rehearsal via Teams.

Johnston spoke about the numerous policies that musicians must adhere to while in the ballroom.

“We have the rehearsal broken up into two sections, with a half an hour in between to air out the room,” Johnston said.

“Everyone is seven or eight feet apart.”

She went on to mention that all the wind players have to wear special masks with holes cut in them, so that aerosols, a fancy word for spit, can’t be dispersed out of the corners of their mouths as they play.

Not only that, but all wind instruments except flutes have to have bell covers, which is essentially a mask that they spread over the end of their instruments to prevent aerosols from being projected out of the instrument itself.

Senior percussionist Luke Nawrocki spoke about the ad-

MARY MCLELLAN/The Cynic

A UVM Concert Band member plays the saxophone through a mask with a mouth hole in it, Oct. 14 in a class led by music professor Dr. Thomas Turner. justment to playing music in a COVID world, but clarified that things straightened out pretty quick.

“It’s been a rocky start for some ensembles,” Nawrocki said. “But I think everyone’s starting to get on a page where things are going well.”

Making music competently is a task made monumental through adhering to COVID rules. Johnston said, when the music necessitates the musicians to inhale hard and fast, you run the risk of inhaling the mask instead of air.

More than just the physical consequences is the struggle of making playing in the band feel like playing in the band, said D. Thomas Toner, former chair of the music department, now professor and conductor of the Concert Band.

“One of the reasons that a lot of people play in bands is the camaraderie. And when you have fewer people, there’s no way around it not being the same,” Toner said.

Johnston said that she felt very isolated from the rest of her fellow trumpet players this

semester.

“One of the things that I’m sad about this year is the fact that we can’t have sectionals with the trumpet section,” she said. “I feel like I haven’t been able to get to know any of the newer students.”

Toner echoed this sense of detachment.

“I think it’s inevitable. It’s not like it used to be. It doesn’t have that connection that it usually would,” he said.

Toner said his hopes were not high for the remainder of the semester. He said that there

was an element of newness to playing in a COVID world that made it suck a little less.

However, things have now changed.

“After about a month in, the thrill is gone. All the newness is gone. And it’s drudgery for me from here on in,” Toner said.

Toner’s bleak view of the future of band has not swayed the optimism of his students.

“It makes me happy to see that the ensembles in general are taking as many precautions as they are.” Nawrocki said.

‘Hausu,’ the perfect introduction to Japanese horror Evan Peck Culture Staff Writer

E

very Halloween season demands a horror/thriller movie on a cold and dark fall night with some warm popcorn on a cozy couch.

But, maybe you’ve seen all of the classics from “Nosferatu” to “Get Out” and you’re looking for something new this season.

Some of my favorite scary movies come from Japan.

“Kwaidan,” “Audition” and “Kuroneko” are some great ones to check out. Confession: “Kuroneko” was so frightening that I had to watch it in parts.

However, the scary movie I love the most is called “House,” or “Hausu.”

“Hausu” is a psychedelic horror/comedy about seven friends who visit an aunt in the countryside. While they are there, supernatural events begin to occur immediately, including a possessed cat, a dancing skeleton, a floating head and an odd obsession with watermelons.

Gorgeous, and her high school friends, all named for their supposed qualities: Sweet, Kung Fu, Mac, Prof, Fantasy and Melody, decide to go visit Gorgeous’s aunt after an unsettling encounter with Gorgeous’s father and new stepmother.

KATE VANNI

On the ride there, everything is great. It isn’t until they step into the house that they enter an environment filled with absurdity and evil, with events taking the girls one by one, each more interesting than the last.

This 1977 cult-classic has so many memorable scenes in it that are somehow both laughout-loud funny and traumatic at the same time.

Just by watching the You-

Tube trailer, you can understand the overall tone. You can’t doubt its creativity.

From the start, the movie explores and experiments with unique editing, including animations within the live-action scene. The music, performed by rock band Godiego, seems hilariously inappropriate at times, yet works as part of the overall feeling of fear and confusion.

That being said, the mov-

ie is more entertaining than confusing.

There is a gentle interlude throughout that runs in and out of the film. However, by the end, the interlude becomes haunting. In one scene, Melody is playing the song on the piano and the piano takes over and eats her like it’s a giant mouth, leaving nothing but her severed fingers still playing.

The film is colorful and intentionally artificial as if it is emulating a dream, or a nightmare for that matter.

In fact, the director, Nobuhiko Obayashi used his young daughter’s imaginative dreams to write this film.

Obayashi, who passed away earlier this year, was a popular advertisement director in Japan, with little motion-picture experience. When Toho studios couldn’t find a director for a script meant to compete with “Jaws” they chose him, and Obayashi definitely made this project his own.

While many might say that the playful and zany gore may be too unrealistic to be scary, I felt that the artificial dreamlike insanity was more frightening than anything so-called “realistic.”

Plus, movies are all unrealistic and what may make something really scary is just its unpredictableness as opposed to its believability. Like, why doesn’t it make sense? What’s scary is mostly subjective.

However, its content isn’t anything more than a child’s nightmare or fable. At the very end, there are some images that make you feel like you are in a fever dream.

If cinema can be that powerful to captivate you in a world so far out of reality, then I believe that is a part of an artist’s success.

“Hausu” is so quotable and a perfect Halloween movie to watch with a group of friends.

I walked away from the film the first time wondering, “Was that really good, or was it really bad? Did Obayashi want to critique 70’s horror genre, or just want to have fun?”

After thinking about it for a bit, I realized I loved it. It was just so unique! A powerfully completed vision from Obayashi, or just plain nonsense, either way, it made me happy.

This Halloween season, check out “Hausu” at the Howe Library Media Desk, or you can rent it from Amazon or Apple TV on some spooky dark night with some friends. No matter your opinion at the end, I guarantee you will still have had a super fun time watching.

One of my friends even cried at the end. He didn’t even know why.

Evan Peck is a senior political science and French major. She has been writing for the Cynic since fall 2019.

11

SPORTS

Photo Illustration by Kate Vanni

ELAINA SEPEDE/ The Cynic

ELAINA SEPEDE/ The Cynic

KATE VANNI/ The Cynic Kate Vanni Layout & Illustrations Editor

KATE VANNI/ The Cynic

ELAINA SEPEDE/ The Cynic

KATE VANNI/ The Cynic

“All of the Lights” blasted from speakers as skiers and riders snapped their bindings in and hit the rails for the first time in six months.

UVM’s Ski and Snowboard Club set up their makeshift park on the outside of University Heights South. The crew prepared the hill by shoveling snow out of a pickup truck onto the grass and sprinkling instant ice over the melting snow.

The Ski and Snowbard Club chose to set up on the Athletic Campus this year to have better crowd control in order to adhere to COVID regulations.

Though usually held at night, this year’s Dawn of the Shred: Lite was divided into

two sections. The first section began at 3:00 p.m. and lasted until 4:30 p.m.. The following section was from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m..

Brianna Hillier, the Ski and Snowboard Club’s Events Coordinator went around the fence line with pink spray paint and a tape measure to put down spots marking six-feet of distance for the crowd members.

Students watched from their dorm windows and socially distanced on the green as skiers and snowbarders debuted their tricks and skills.

While the event did not draw the typical crowds present at Dawn of the Shred, the energy from the club members was the same.

FEATURE

12

‘Critical Zone’ team awarded $3.2 million Rebecca Holt Feature Staff Writer

The University of Vermont received a grant of $3.2 million towards research, bringing together professors from different disciplines all pointed towards understanding the Earth’s climate and ecosystems.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded UVM the grant to study “the Critical Zone,” or what Environmental Engineering Professor Donna Rizzo (CEMS), contributor to the project, described as “the portion of the landscape and the groundwater that we as humans have a direct impact on.”

The group includes more than 20 collaborators, including four professors from all four UVM colleges, six Gund fellows, four professors outside of UVM, graduate students and undergraduates.

The contributors will all work together collaboratively on the research, focusing on the snow-dominated ecosystems across the U.S., according to the Gund Institute for Environment webpage.

Julia Perdrial, associate professor in UVM Geology and a fellow of the Gund Institute for Environment leads the investigation.

“I find working with people in fields that I know nothing about to be the most fascinating,” Professor Rizzo said. “This is definitely a multidisciplinary grant because we have really different backgrounds. People trained in engineering, people trained in biochemistry, people trained in computer science.”

UVM was one of 10 groups awarded a grant as part of NSF’s “Critical Zone Collaborative Network” initiative.

The teams across the nation will receive a combined total of $10.5 million per year for five years, according to the Gund Institute for the Environment webpage.

“We honestly didn’t think we’d get it funded,” Rizzo said.

“We were just really, really happy that we got this.”

Outside contributor Ben Abbott, Plant and Wildlife professor at Brigham Young University, said that one of the main goals of the Critical Zone project is to understand how ecosystems respond to disturbances.

“Humans have modified about 80% of Earth’s land surface directly from wildfires, agriculture, buildings, roads, things that we’ve done to the ecosystem,” Abbott said.

“Understanding why some ecosystems are very resilient and some ecosystems are very vulnerable is crucial to maintaining the health of our planet.”

Understanding the ecosystem processes in the Critical Zone will reveal which areas in the world need the most conservation, Abbott said.

Much of the Critical Zone

KYLE ELMS/The Cynic

TOP: Graduate Student Manya Ruckhaus works in the Geology lab on Trinity, Oct. 22.

TOP LEFT: Project leader Julia Perdrial and Graduate students Caitlin Bristol and Manya Ruckhaus work together in the Geology lab on Trinity, Oct. 22.

MIDDLE LEFT: Graduate Student Caitlin Bristol holds a glass vial for her research in the Geology BOTTOM LEFT: Geochemist and Project leader Julia Perdrial works in the Geology lab in Delehanty Hall on Trinity Campus, Oct. 22.

RIGHT: Project leader Julia Perdrial and student Caitlin Bristol work beside each other in the Geology lab, Oct. 22. team is composed of data analysis specialists, tasked with combining data science and machine learning with ecological datasets, according to Abbott.

“You know how Facebook reads through all of your posts and then a computer algorithm will say, ‘Hey, this is the kind of thing that you might be interested in seeing next’?”

Abbott said. “We want to apply those kinds of tools to ecological data sets.

UVM Computer Science professor Byung Lee is the leader of the data management team and works to clean up data and prepare it for analysis and modeling.

“We have been amassing

tons of data collected from environments through sensors, but data have been just piling up, and they were just left there full of noise,” Lee said. “Now, led by NSF, there is an effort to make use of those data in an effective way.”

Lee believes that data can only be valuable once making good use of it.

“It is exciting because finally we are making use of the data to extract gems. It’s like mining gold,” Lee said.

Though the research has progressed with the grant, UVM Civil Engineering professor Scott Hamshaw said that trying to make multiple sources of data mesh together will pose some difficulties for the team.

“With work that’s so reliant on trying to extract meaningful patterns that are just under the cover of data, there’s a lot of trial and error in exploration of making that happen, as opposed to straight field based studies where you’re collecting data and seeing your results,” Hamshaw said.

The compilation of data from UVM can then combine with the research from the other nine groups out of the “Critical Zone Collaborative Network,” creating a “Coordinating Hub,” according to the NSF Critical Collaborative Network webpage.

In addition to providing the means for complex data analysis, the grant funds

outreach components that otherwise would not exist, according to Rizzo.

Researchers plan to speak with seventh to twelfth grade students about data analysis.

In addtion to teaching about raw data and computations, researchers also plan to highlight the importance of understanding the environment, aiming to introduce ways that students can make environmental analyses on their own.

According to the Gund Institute, the team’s research and outreach activities may facilitate future discussion and decisions about how humans and the environment interact.