Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo bids farewell to otter family
Santa Fe Teaching Zoo’s otters enjoy their farewell party before being relocated to Memphis zoo on Sunday, March 2, 2025.
Bernard ‘Bernie’ O’Donnell Jr., beloved UF law professor, dies at 55
FAMILY AND STUDENTS
RECOUNT HIS PASSION FOR LAW AND LEARNING
By Sofia Meyers Alligator Staff Writer
Bernard “Bernie” O’Donnell Jr.’s quiet-yet-playful demeanor is what made his office hours an outlet for success and community.
For years, students counted on finding the UF law professor sipping black coffee and eating a Wawa breakfast at the table to the right of Library West’s escalators. There, O’Donnell guided students through academics and internships, and sometimes simply provided a good
laugh.
O’Donnell passed away in Gainesville Feb. 23. He was 55.
Students remembered him for his honesty and academic rigor.
Known for his straightforwardness, O’Donnell challenged students with hard-hitting lessons and critiques, always with the intent of helping them thrive in law.
Ella Morejon, a 19-year-old UF political science and criminology sophomore, said while O’Donnell was “notorious” for using a red pen to make “crazy annotations” on students’ assignments, his only goal was to help his students excel in law.
“We honestly laughed a lot in the process,” Morejon said. “He wasted
no words, n. No breath.”
O’Donnell was known for his insistence on single-sided paper, secured with binder clips, and for meticulously marking assignments in red ink. In tribute, students set up a memorial at his usual spot in Library West, leaving flowers, binder clips and notes written in red ink — symbols of his unique teaching style.
Born on Oct. 31, 1969, in Bay Village, Ohio, O’Donnell graduated from St. Ignatius High School in 1987 before attending the Marine Military Academy in Texas. He earned his undergraduate degree from Mary Washington College in 1993.
After graduating, he taught at Loyola Academy in Chicago before
SEE OBITUARY, PAGE 4
The seven Asian small-clawed otters will be transferred to the Memphis Zoo March 5
By Shaine Davison Alligator Staff Writer
After years of delighted visitors, the Santa Fe College Teaching Zoo’s family of seven Asian small-clawed otters is headed to a new home. On Wednesday, they’ll embark on a 700-mile journey to the Memphis Zoo.
Over the weekend, Gainesville community members gathered at the zoo to say their goodbyes to the close-knit critters, watching them wrestle in their enclosure’s pool, zip down a makeshift water slide and nuzzle against each other under the sun. Parents lifted children out of their strollers for a better view as the otters showcased their skills — pressing buttons to communicate with their trainers.
Each button is hung on a painted wood block behind the enclosure’s mesh border and represents a different need or desire, like food preferences or training requests. The buttons include: “yes,” “all done,” “settle” and “want.”
“When you have a very social animal, a lot of intellect goes into that because they have complex communication,” said Jade Woodling, a conservation education curator at the zoo.
The move comes as the zoo prepares to update its aging otter habitat. Meanwhile, the Memphis Zoo was seeking a larger otter group, making the transition a “serendipitous” decision, Woodling said.
The otters’ journey will be
carefully coordinated, with Santa Fe staff meeting Memphis zookeepers halfway to ensure a smooth handoff. Memphis trainers, new to the button communication system, have already been introduced to words like “keeper,” “otter” and “new” to ease the transition.
Santa Fe keepers have also been playing sounds of gibbons in the otter’s enclosure to prepare them for their new neighbors at Memphis Zoo, according to Lorna Collins, a senior keeper at the zoo.
“It’s going to be a great way for them to communicate with their new trainers,” Collins said, adding that any move is going to be stressful for an animal, and Santa Fe’s goal is to make the transition as soon as possible.
Duncan and Chitra are the parents of the family, and moved to Gainesville in 2019 from Disney’s Animal Kingdom and the Santa Barbara Zoo, respectively. They do everything together, according to Collins, including raising their five pups — Kairi, Asami, Buddy, Nutmeg and Noelle — born in 2020 and 2023.
The whole family is “a lively bunch,” Collins said. “It's going to be very very hard walking through here and not seeing them everyday.”
Each otter has its own distinct personality. Kairi, known for her quiet and focused nature, will sit for hours to receive scratches and hold hands — unless she’s in a bad mood, according to her train -
SEE OTTERS, PAGE 3
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Morgan Waters // Alligator Staff
Today’s Weather
How will changes to state, federal taxes impact Florida residents?
FLORIDA IS RANKED AS THE STATE WITH THE MOST INEQUITABLE TAX CODE
By Vivienne Serret Alligator Staff Writer
Despite Florida's reputation as a low-tax state, a 2024 study found Florida residents with an income of $19,600 pay a larger share of their income in state and local taxes than the 1% of California residents with incomes over $800,000. Similarly, Floridians with moderate incomes pay 3.5 times the rate paid by the top 1%.
Now, with the Trump administration proposing new tax policies and tax cuts and Gov. Ron DeSantis calling for Florida’s property taxes to be abolished, taxpayers are left wondering how potential changes could impact their day-to-day lives.
Florida is among the states with the lowest tax burden, according to the State of Florida website. Most taxes collected in Florida include:
• Sales and use tax, which is currently 6%
• Intangible tax, which is a local tax used to support local governments
• Corporate income taxes, which tax the profits of a corporation that generate revenue for a government
Florida is one of nine states without an income tax, or the percentage of money an individual pays to the state government based on the income made at the place of work, according to a 2021 report by TurboTax.
Regressive taxes
Esteban Santis, a policy analyst at the Florida Policy Institute, said Florida has the most regressive tax structure in the country. The Florida Policy Institute is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization promoting policies and budgets that uplift Florida residents’ economic mobility, according to its website.
A regressive tax is a “tax that takes a larger percentage of income from low-income groups than from high-income groups,” according to the Internal Revenue Service.
Florida is ranked as the state with the most inequitable tax code because of its dependence on sales taxes at the state level and property taxes at the local level, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, Santis said.
“Households that make less than $40,000 a year, those are the households that we see are struggling the most,” Santis said. “And those are the households that are overburdened by our sales tax code and also our property tax code.”
Based in Washington, D.C., ITEP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank analyzing federal and state tax policies. In its 2024 report titled “Who Pays,” it noted how the regressiveness of Florida’s local and state taxes “requires a much greater share of income from low- and middle-income families than from wealthy families.”
Specifically, low-income families pay almost five times as much as the wealthy, according to ITEP’s report.
Similarly, wealthy families are disproportionately white, while low- to moderate-income families are disproportionately families of color, Santis said.
But taxes aren’t necessarily dictated by one person — like DeSantis; instead, tax policy is often determined by the state’s electorate or policy makers, Santis said. A supermajority, or over two-thirds, is required in the Florida House and Senate to approach raising taxes.
Similarly, if there are tax change proposals impacting Florida’s constitution, 60% of the electorate’s approval is required to alter the constitution.
Property taxes
Jamie Taylor, a 25-year-old marketing coordinator at an equipment rental company and Florida resident, said she’s been most affected by the state’s property taxes. She’s actively looking to buy a home but is concerned with the possibility of paying more “out-of-pocket.”
Taylor, who currently resides in Jacksonville, said the median property tax rate there is 0.77%. The median home value in Jacksonville is between $200,000 and $300,000 — which translates to over $2,000 or $3,000 in property taxes annually.
Property tax is a county tax based on the assessed value of a property. Florida’s property tax rate is about 0.82%, which is lower than the U.S. average by .08%, according to Smart Asset’s Florida Property calculator. Property taxes also fund public schools and infrastructure.
The median 2024 property tax in Florida was $3,101, which was a 9.5% increase over the prior year and a 47.5% increase from 2019.
South Florida also saw the biggest increase in property taxes — counties like Miami-Dade and Broward saw 56.8% increases since 2019, according to a 2025 report by Housing Wire.
On Feb. 13, DeSantis took to X to share his hope to abolish or reform property taxes, deeming them a “more oppressive and ineffective form of taxation.”
While Taylor said she is part of the middle class, she doesn’t believe abolishing property taxes is “a reasonable thing to do;” instead, property taxes should be restructured.
“The average homeowner shouldn’t have to be taxed more, or accept property taxes that are raised here,” Taylor said.
Though property taxes are another regressive tax structure, a 2025 report by the Florida Policy Institute found eliminating property tax revenue would weaken Florida’s local governments and impact the lowerto moderate-class tax bracket.
The report also noted local governments would lose fiscal autonomy, individuals could have their income taxes increased and the state government would have to further consider local funding needs.
Property taxes serve as a way to raise revenue for “local governments to finance schools, roads, parks, police protection and firefighting services.”
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Potential federal impact
Haidi Salihovic works within the bioinformation field in forensics. The 25-year-old moved to North Carolina from Florida last year after getting a job offer — while living in Florida, she was in the lower-income tax bracket. Salihovic said being in North Carolina opened her up to experiencing positive changes in how taxes are used for the community, like fixing sidewalks and funding museums, which she felt like she didn’t experience in Florida.
But beyond Florida, federal tax changes have impacted Salihovic’s line of work. The Trump administration's recent pause on research funding on the federal level has left her and her colleagues stuck on what could come next.
Much of federal funding, like grants, comes from taxes, such as individual income tax, corporate income tax and payroll taxes. A 2025 report from the Tax Policy Center outlined how, on average, federal grants “constitute about one-third of total state funding.”
In 2022, Florida received about $54.4 billion of its total revenue from federal grants, according to a state revenue calculation by Pew.
Salihovic's main line of research includes massacre studies — a broader term for research that aids in identifying people who were buried in mass graves or sequencing DNA and performing genealogical analysis to determine who an unidentified person is.
Federal funding helped aid this research, but without it, there’s no telling what may happen moving forward, she said. Similarly, many of her friends working on getting their doctoral degrees have had their funding grants dropped and are now struggling to find resources.
“I love this line of work because I can see how much it impacts people, and that’s been really sad to see,” Salihovic said. “These were things that were generally important to a lot of people, and we’re just seeing less funding for them.”
Jon Witen, ITEP’s deputy director, said U.S. Congress and the Trump administration are focused on passing big tax legislation this year. Specifically, Republicans hope to extend previous tax policies from Trump’s first term, which would give the biggest tax cut to the wealthy, Witen said.
Republicans argue extending the tax policies, which are set to expire this year, would increase revenue.
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@vivienneserret vserret@alligator.org
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On the road
from pg. 3
er Marianna Zechman.
“She’s very strong, and if you upset her she will come after you,” said trainer Marianna Zechman.
Nutmeg, who is just over a year old, remains focused even when chaos erupts around her, according to her trainer Courtney Luckow.
Both Zechman and Luckow said they'll miss watching the otters tussle with each other.
“I’ll miss the relationship,” Zechman said. “As trainers, we gain a very different relationship than as keepers.”
Jasmine Reister, a 2008 graduate of the Santa Fe Teaching Zoo program, visited the otters one last time on March 2 with her 3-year-old daughter, Aurora. Aurora loves to watch the otters, and finds it funny when they play together. Reister also said the zoo has changed a lot since she graduated, and that the move to Memphis is a great opportunity to improve the enclosure.
“It’s been the same forever,” she said.
Jonathan Miot, the zoo director, said the next steps are to design and fundraise for a new otter habitat, but whether Duncan, Chitra and the pups will return is for a “future discussion.”
“That one’s up in the air,” he said.
@shainedavison sdavison@alligator.org
What’s the deal with fluoride?
THE GAINESVILLE COMMUNITY DEBATES WHETHER TO KEEP FLUORIDE IN DRINKING WATER
By Morgan Vanderlaan Alligator Staff Writer
With no noticeable taste or smell, fluoride has been the silent partner in drinking water across the United States since the 20th century. Beginning with the fluoridation of Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Jan. 25, 1945, the addition of the chemical compound to drinking water systems quickly became popular across the country.
Now, 80 years later, concerns have arisen over whether fluoridated water could have negative health effects. Gainesville Regional Utilities fluorates water at a rate of 0.41 parts per million, with a range detected of 0.23 to 0.64 ppm, according to a GRU water quality report. The Centers for Disease Control recommends a level of 0.7ppm or lower in community fluoridation systems.
What is fluoride?
Fluoride is defined as a form of the element fluorine, which is attributed to ending tooth decay. Fluoride is naturally present in drinking water but can also be added in an attempt to increase health benefits; it is also present in many toothpastes.
Despite benefits to oral health, residents of many cities across the U.S. have made a case to end fluoridation in recent months due to concerns linking fluoride to neurobehavioral issues in children.
With a new bill passed Feb. 21, Utah is getting ready to set a precedent as the first state to fully ban fluoride in drinking water, according
Why THEM?
Four months after starting his first job in hospitality, UF graduate Bob Schalow was amazed to be promoted from assistant manager to general manager, running a $2 million restaurant. Six months later, he was promoted again. That’s the kind of meteoric rise the industry can provide, and a great reason to consider UF’s Tourism, Hospitality and Event Management major, Schalow says.
“There are no limits,” he says. “How fast your rise is totally driven by your capabilities. That’s what makes the hospitality industry so incredible.”
Now the Senior Vice President of
find
to an AP News article. The bill follows comments from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. secretary of health and human services, who said President Donald Trump intends to call for an end to water fluoridation.
In Florida, the fight on whether to fluoridate water picked up momentum on Nov. 22 with a statement from the Florida Department of Health, which characterized fluoride as a “neuropsychiatric risk.” On the same day, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo called community fluoridated water a “public health malpractice.”
Concern about fluoride has resulted in 13 Florida cities discounting the practice as of Feb. 6, according to the Miami New Times.
Opponents of fluoride
In May, a UF study showed a connection between fluoride exposure and neurobehavioral issues in young children. The research found that increased fluoride levels present in pregnant women’s urine was associated with nearly double the odds of children scoring in the clinical or borderline clinical range for neurobehavioral problems at age 3.
The findings show there should be a recommendation in place for limiting fluoride exposure during pregnancy, said Ashley Malin, the study’s lead investigator and an assistant professor in the department of epidemiology in the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions and the UF College of Medicine.
“The developing brain is known to be particularly vulnerable to environmental toxicant exposures in general,” she said.
There’s still a lot of uncertainty in how much fluoride, if any, is safe for consumption, she said.
According to a National Toxicology Report, there’s a consistent association of lower IQ lev-
Diversified Restaurant Group, Schalow leads the Industry Advisory Board of UF’s Eric Friedheim Tourism Institute (EFTI), where he mentors students and works to expand internship and scholarship offerings, with the goal of offering a scholarship to every student in the program. EFTI’s industry partners earmark 158 paid internship positions for UF students in the major, with $1.4 million paid in intern salaries so far.
“The board makes time for mentoring,” Schalow said. “We care about giving back to students.”
With sectors as diverse as theme parks, corporate events, travel, hotels,
els in children when fluoride levels exceed the World Health Organization’s guidelines of 1.5 milligrams per liter; however, the same report said it’s currently inconclusive whether lower levels of fluoride could have the same effect.
Additionally, a Cochrane study from 2024 suggested the dental benefits of adding fluoride into water have diminished with the increase in widely available fluoridated toothpaste, meaning fluoridated water may no longer be necessary.
The decision of whether or not to fluoridate water is currently being debated across the U.S. because of new scientific evidence, Malin said.
“Is this many IQ points or this many neurobehavioral problems…worth saving that quarter of a tooth?” She said. “I think that's kind of what's being debated right now, along with the question of … who gets to decide whether the benefits outweigh the risks?”
Community fluoridation needs to end, said Scott Kiley, associate director of local advocacy for Stand for Health Freedom. Stand for Health Freedom is a global nonprofit that deals with matters of “health freedom,” such as informed consent, parental rights, religious freedom, freedom of speech and privacy.
The organization is active throughout the state of Florida, advocating for an end to fluoride in drinking water, Kiley said.
People should get to choose to have fluoride if they feel it’s necessary in the form of toothpaste, he said, and it shouldn’t be forced upon citizens’ water supply.
“It's not like people will lose their access to fluoride,” he said. “There's also the argument of the unethical nature of forcing a medication on the public without informed consent and without a risk benefit analysis and without the ability to opt out.”
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and festivals, hospitality jobs include positions in marketing, finance, sustainability, computer science and more, making it an ideal double major, Schalow said.
“Think about how much of Florida’s industry is connected to hospitality,” Schalow said. “With that background, you’ll stand out as an applicant.”
The major also offers room to discover your best fit. As a student, Schalow initially wanted to work in hotels, but his internship showed him he liked restaurants better.
pursuing higher education at UF, where he earned a master’s degree in English literature. He later completed his Juris Doctor at Florida State University, graduating third in his class, and was in the process of pursuing a PhD in English literature at UF.
O’Donnell worked as an attorney in Fort Myers before returning to academia, joining UF as an adjunct professor in the early 2000s. At UF, he taught law courses such as “Law and Literature” and “Introduction to Law,” even creating the former course after being hired.
Beyond the classroom, he was passionate about law, his students and Cleveland sports. He was also a devoted music enthusiast and loved to show others what he listened to.
O’Donnell specifically enjoyed bands like U2, The Pogues and R.E.M., and genres such as alternative country, alternative British and traditional Irish music.
Shadi Johnston, O’Donnell’s sister, said he had a great vocabulary and was the funniest person she and most people knew. O’Donnell was also an amazing uncle to her three children, Johnston said.
“He remembered what each of
their interests were, and he always took the time to call and to talk to them to joke around with them,” she said.
Johnston, 10 years younger than her brother, reminisced on times when he would make her watch movies and comedy shows he liked. She also said he made “probably thousands” of mixtapes with music he liked, and he would quiz her on the music from those mixtapes.
“I was probably the only 6sixyear-old that could recite the lines from ‘Fletch’ the movie,” she said.
Bella Berger, a 21-year-old UF political science junior, and Naomi Patel, a 20-year-old UF political science junior, fondly remembered their morning chats with O’Donnell after his 7:25 a.m. class.
Berger recalled peeking between the wooden poles by the Library West escalators to see if O’Donnell was at his usual spot for office hours. Despite being busy, he never turned down a conversation with a student, Berger said.
“He was OK with knowing us to the point that he knew I loved shopping, to the point where he knew my favorite color was black,” Patel said.
Vishnu Malhotra, a 20-yearold UF economics and philosophy junior on the pre-law track, de-
scribed O’Donnell as “father-like.” Malhotra, who took two classes with O’Donnell, said the professor encouraged him to achieve his full potential, often helping him study for the LSAT and workshopping his resumé and internship applications.
“He had higher expectations for my ability, even higher than I wanted out of myself,” Malhotra said.
One of Malhotra’s favorite memories was when O’Donnell humorously mispronounced the acronym “URL” as “earl.” When a student corrected him, O’Donnell responded by starting the next class with a video arguing for his pronunciation.
According to Malhotra, O’Donnell used it to demonstrate “the power of using evidence to support your position” in the courtroom.
“It truly feels like there’s a hole in the pre-law community,” Malhotra said. “He’ll never be able to be replaced.”
Memorial services will be held March 7 at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Rocky River, Ohio. Donations in O’Donnell’s honor can be made to scholarship funds at St. Ignatius High School or UF.
@SofiaMeyer84496 smeyers@alligator.org
Deferred prosecution programs offer second chances for offenders
COURT-ORDERED DONATIONS HELP NONPROFITS PROVIDE CRITICAL SERVICES FOR ALACHUA COUNTY
By Vera Lucia Pappaterra Alligator Staff Writer
Young adults tend to fumble. Some drop a class; some get busted for marijuana or fake IDs. For the latter, former State Attorney and Florida Sen. Rod Smith introduced a still-thriving solution in the early 1990s: deferred prosecution agreements, or DPAs.
A privilege offered to first-time offenders of nonviolent crimes, DPAs are a contract between a defendant and the State Attorney's Office to complete community service hours or donate to selected nonprofits in exchange for dropped charges.
Many of these offenders are college-age, especially in Gainesville, where college students make up a significant portion of the population, Smith said. He wanted to avoid giving them a criminal record that would hurt job applications, professional school admissions or whatever their future holds, he added.
“We thought it was a good way to avoid criminal prosecution,” Smith said, “but with people understanding that this is your chance, you know you made a mistake, this is the way we're going to deal with it.”
Breaking the cycle
Donations are made directly to charities, and offenders must submit proof of their contributions to the state attorney’s office. This is intentional so the Florida government never receives or handles the money, which Smith said could otherwise lead to concerns of transparency.
“It was a way to deal with moving cases along pretty quickly that don’t need to clog up the system,” Smith said. “And it served another purpose… to allow people to have a clean record.”
The impact of deferred prosecution extends beyond the individuals who receive a second chance. It also strengthens local organizations that serve the community’s most vulnerable.
In Alachua County, 11 charitable organizations benefit from these donations, which help fund services for at-risk youth, children in foster care and victims of domestic and sexual abuse.
One of the first nonprofits to be included on the list for DPA donations was the Child Advocacy Center (CAC) in Gainesville, founded 25 years ago by Smith and his wife, DeeDee. After visiting a similar operation in Daytona Beach, Smith decided to create one for Gainesville.
The CAC provides critical services to children who have experienced abuse, offering forensic interviews, therapy and advocacy to help them heal. The center works closely with law enforcement, the Department of Children and Families, therapists, victim advocates and the State Attorney’s Office to ensure cases are handled with care.
“People who come from homes where there has been violence tend to go into homes and become violent,” Smith said. “That’s what they learned, so we were trying to break that cycle.”
Keeping the lights on
The CAC has been a recipient of deferred prosecution donations for over two decades, providing a steady, albeit small, stream of funding helping sustain its mission.
While the center operates on an annual budget of nearly $2 million, CEO Sherry Kitchens said DPA contributions, ranging from $8,000 to $12,000 per year, play a crucial role.
Although it’s a small part of the nonprofit’s budget, it’s an important one because the funds are unrestricted, Kitchens said.
Unlike grants, which often come with strict stipulations on how the money must be used, these court-ordered donations go directly to the center, allowing administrators to allocate the funds where others leave gaps.
The CAC also receives state funding and pass-through grants throughout the year. The funds, Kitchens said, help bridge the gap between the critical services the CAC provides and the operational needs keeping the center running.
“A lot of grants want to fund direct services to children, which is amazing,” she said. “But we also have to be able to keep the lights on, and pay for the internet and
pay for maintenance.”
Each nonprofit in the DPA list is assigned a portion of the alphabet, and donations are directed based on the last names of defendants who are ordered to contribute. This system, she said, means the CAC cannot actively influence or increase the funds it receives.
Transparency, Kitchens said, is a priority in handling these donations. When individuals make court-ordered contributions, they must provide their case number, and the center issues a receipt along with information about its work.
When Kitchens first joined the CAC in 2005, the center was struggling financially and served only about 250 children a year. Last year, it helped 3,964 victims.
Kitchens sees DPA contributions as more than just financial support, but also as a restorative process for the offenders.
“This program gives folks who have made a mistake an opportunity to do something good,” Kitchens said.
Consistency and support
Peaceful Paths, a Gainesville-based domestic violence center, also benefits from courtordered donations under the DPA program.
Peaceful Paths provides emergency shelter, legal advocacy, counseling and support groups for survivors of domestic abuse. With the help of the DPA program, the nonprofit can step in when survivors face financial barriers that traditional grants cannot cover.
The crimes and cases tied to donating offenders remain anonymous, according to Erica Merrell, Peaceful Paths’ chief financial officer.
Although these funds represent less than 2% of Peaceful Paths’ fundraising budget, Merrell said their impact is significant. Like at the CAC, the majority of funding at Peaceful Paths comes from state grants, which are restricted, unlike those from DPAs.
“There are times that grants will not pay for child care that is past due,” Merrell said. “We tap into funds like this in order to make really significant changes in a survivor’s life that is probably not covered by federal or state funding.”
Peaceful Paths has been a beneficiary of
DPA donations for more than two decades.
Like the CAC, Peaceful Paths ensures full transparency in the use of its court-ordered donations. As a state-certified domestic violence shelter, it undergoes routine audits and financial reviews to ensure compliance with funding requirements, Merrell said.
In 2024 alone, Peaceful Paths provided over 56,000 services to survivors of domestic violence.
While the Child Advocacy Center and Peaceful Paths use deferred prosecution donations to support survivors, AMIkids Gainesville focuses on prevention and helps at-risk youth build stable futures.
The nonprofit, which serves young people ages 11 to 21, offers workforce development programs designed to prepare them for careers, apprenticeships or higher education. While it receives federal funding through the U.S. Department of Labor, court-ordered donations provide flexible, unrestricted support.
“These court-ordered donations help us to make experiential education opportunities available to the youth at AMIkids Gainesville,” Roxane Wergin, senior director of marketing and communications, wrote in an email.
The funds contribute to four “Challenge” events per year — Winter, Summer, Marine and Wilderness Challenge — where participants engage in hands-on learning experiences designed to build leadership and teamwork skills. DPA contributions have also helped fund a studentrun cook-off contest for those earning ServSafe certifications and a Program Store, where youth can exchange earned tokens for essentials like snacks, clothing and personal care items.
Like the other nonprofits on the DPA donation list, AMIkids Gainesville depends on a mix of funding sources, but the flexibility of courtordered donations allows them to step in where grants fall short. Whether supporting career readiness, life skills, or personal development, these funds reinforce the same principle that DPAs were founded on: turning an offender’s mistake into a helping hand for the community.
@veralupap vpappaterra@alligator.org
Courtesy to The Alligator Bernard O'Donnell holding his nephews in 2014.
Artificial intelligence is making its debut in mental health treatment
WHILE SOME FLORIDA PROFESSIONALS ENCOURAGE THE TECHNOLOGY’S USE, OTHERS REMAIN WARY
By Avery Parker Alligator Staff Writer
Editor’s note:
This story contains mention of self-harm.
Therapists leave their offices at the end of the work day, but mental health struggles don’t clock out at 5 p.m.
What, then, should a person do if they need counseling after hours? Florida health professionals are adopting artificial intelligence in their practices for client accessibility. With this framework, clients can open their laptop and consult with an AI-powered chatbot at any time.
New tools
Companies like Happi AI, started in 2020 by California neuroscientist James Doty, and Abby, powered by OpenAI, have launched their own talk therapy tools designed to provide tailored support to patients.
Abby runs on a message-based model where users text with the AI system. Patients are able to select among various therapeutic styles, such as professional therapist, problem-solver and empathetic friend, depending on their needs.
Happi, meanwhile, places users on a simulated video call with an AI-based avatar of the
app’s creator, Doty. The avatar asks users questions, listens to their responses and offers analysis and advice. Unlike Abby, however, Happi requires its users to pay a monthly subscription fee after the first 20 minutes of therapy, with different tiered options.
Other services offer mental health experts assistance tools, which record therapy sessions and generate notes based on conversations between patients and their therapists.
Blueprint, for instance, advertises on its website that it “listens, transcribes and writes progress notes and treatment plans in 30 seconds or less.”
Though these services do exist, they remain part of a young industry — one with many unanswered questions around the effectiveness, safety and capacity of these AI tools.
University of Central Florida computer science assistant professor and human-computer interaction expert, Johnathan Mell, worked on designing an AI therapist prototype in the 2010s. Since then, he said, the state of the field has changed dramatically and become more dangerous compared to the project he worked on.
“We had a lot of dialogue, but they were all pre-vetted and scripted,” he said. “You’re dealing with a population that’s vulnerable, and you want to make sure you don’t get some of the errors that you’re seeing in today’s AI systems.”
Issues in the system
A key difference between AI systems in use today compared to those of the past is the de-
velopment of large learning models, or LLMs. LLMs are AI systems that aim to learn and interpret human language without supervision, allowing for much greater flexibility than prescripted AI models.
However, the greater flexibility afforded by LLMs can also result in issues like AI “hallucinations,” in which the system invents false information, as well as what is referred to as “model toxicity” — when AI is feeding users unsafe information, like coercing someone into self-harm.
Last year, a 14-year-old boy’s death in Tallahassee set off alarms over the AI chatbot that encouraged him to end his life.
This behavior from chatbots is not a case of technological malfunction, Mell said, but the AI putting into application the content and data it has consumed.
He cast doubt on the feasibility of preventing “model toxicity” in LLMs by preventing the chatbots from repeating certain phrases or words. It’s not possible to pinpoint where an LLM learned or housed its data, Mell added.
Aiding the workforce
According to the American Psychological Association, Florida has only 15 to 20 therapists for every 100,000 residents. The Florida Department of Health, meanwhile, reports 12.3% of adults who said they have poor mental health, a potentially reduced estimate due to sample size limitations or respondents’ desire to minimize mental issues.
Therefore, Mell said reliance on at least some degree of automation in health fields like
How Kay Abbitt’s resignation reshaped the Alachua
GOV. RON DESANTIS’ APPOINTMENT TIMELINE REMAINS UNCERTAIN
By Sara-James Ranta Alligator Staff Writer
When Alachua County School Board member Kay Abbitt resigned in December, she left more than just an empty seat. She left a heavier workload for her colleagues and lingering uncertainty over when Gov. Ron DeSantis will name her replacement.
Abbitt stepped down due to a conflict of interest after becoming interim director at Boulware Springs Charter School following the previous director’s unexpected passing.
State law allows the governor to appoint someone to fill a vacant state or county seat if there are less than 28 months left in the term for that office.
As the four-person board navigates the leadership change, the delay in appointing a new board
member reflects a broader trend in Florida, in which DeSantis has leveraged school board vacancies to shape the state’s education system in alignment with his policies.
Board member perspectives
Board Chair Sarah Rockwell said she took on two additional committees when Abbitt left, including a seat on the Education Foundation of Alachua County board, a nonprofit working alongside ACPS to invest in students and teachers. While she enjoys being on it, she said it’s a “high workload committee.”
ACPS board members represent seats on multiple different economic boards and committees across the county for education and beyond.
The biggest impact left by Abbitt’s resignation was on the School Improvement schools Abbitt was overseeing, she said.
Each board member is responsible for overseeing SI schools, which gained the status after earn-
ing a grade of “D” or “F.” Grades are formulated based on student performance on statewide standardized assessments.
Board members’ SI visits are usually three to four hours long multiple times a year, Rockwell said.
“You get to know the teachers, the administrators and really kind of know the school, because you’re not just popping in once in a while,” she said.
There are six SI schools in Alachua County, and Rockwell oversees one, Terwilliger Elementary. The SI schools are randomly divided among board members, with each member responsible for one to two schools each.
Abbitt’s SI schools, Metcalf Elementary and Rawlings Elementary, were also the only two in the county with turnaround plans.
The turnaround model is a more intensive intervention reserved for schools that consistently fail to meet a “C” grade. School board members, in collaboration
mental counseling is necessary to keep up with demand.
Limited AI models requiring human supervision to approve actions or like those Mell worked on in the 2010s are safer and less prone to putting users in dangerous situations, he added.
Mell suggested AI therapists would seem more welcoming if they had humanistic dialogue. For instance, people can connect with videogame characters, Mell said, despite their limited capacity.
“Why is that? Because we’ve written [their dialogue] very well, not because it’s powered by some unknowable AI system,” he said.
Professional concerns
Dr. Ashley Chin, a Gainesville-based psychologist, said even the thought of using AI as a note taker during her sessions gives her concerns.
“It’s hard for me to understand where that data is going, what’s happening with it,” Chin said. “I would worry about my patient’s confidentiality, which is a cornerstone of what we offer.”
As a consequence of AI recording therapy sessions, Chin expressed fear patients might refrain from speaking openly and honestly.
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@AveryParke98398 aparker@alligator.org
County School Board
with Florida’s Bureau of School Improvement, oversee and implement improvement strategies to ensure schools meet state educational standards.
As board chair, Rockwell said Superintendent Kamala Patton — who took on the role in November after the former superintendent was unexpectedly fired — has been helpful and supportive throughout the transition following Abbitt’s resignation. Each board member meets with Patton once a week, she said.
“I don’t feel the need to ask tons of questions [during the meetings], because I’ve gotten all my answers in advance,” she said. “The quality of our backup material is better. We’re receiving it earlier.”
Board Vice-Chair Tina Certain, who took over Abbitt’s SI schools, believes the board hasn’t faced a single challenge since Abbitt’s departure, she said.
While the extension of Superintendent Patton’s contract was a recent change the four-person board
passed, extending Patton’s contract wasn’t a result of the missing seat, she said.
Although ACPS board members must live in their running district for their term, members are elected at-large, meaning all members of the county can vote for all board members.
Due to this distinction, Certain said it was important for the public to know the board’s duty is to the entire county.
“We’re missing a board member, but the board collectively has been working together to do what’s best,” she said.
According to board policy, a tie vote on any motion means the motion fails to pass.
District 2 board member Thomas Vu said Abbitt’s departure made his workload heavier “in a way.”
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MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2025
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How Study Buddy library programs promote mindfulness
UF LIBRARIES LET STUDENTS CHECK OUT CROCHET PLUSHIES AND PLANTS TO REDUCE STRESS
By Juliana DeFilippo Avenue Staff Writer
When looking at a computer scientist’s desk, it wouldn’t be uncommon to find scattered papers and sticky notes. Maybe the screen is flickering with lines of complicated codes. But among this chaos, one thing stands out: a rubber duck.
This atypical sight can be explained by rubber ducking, which is when people leave a rubber duck on their desk and talk it through difficult problems — a practice computer scientists use to problem solve.
Twenty-four-year-old CJ Ellward, Marston Science Library’s public services facilitator and Ask A Librarian site coordinator, said she believes this practice can also help students in their studying. But for her, the duck might be crocheted rather than rubber.
Ellward is the creator of most of Marston’s study buddies, the library’s collection of small, crocheted animals and plants that students can rent for two hours at a time. The buddies are all crocheted animals, including a caterpillar, flamingo and, most recently, a frog. While students’ time with their buddies are brief, Ell-
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ward said she finds some get quickly attached.
“With our study buddies, people check out the same one over and over, and you get companionship from this tiny frog [that] has seen me through my entire Calculus 3 class,” she said.
Students are also able to suggest a study buddy they would like to see, which is how the capybara, now one of Ellward’s favorites, came to be.
She started crocheting in 2020 as many people were picking up hobbies in the midst of the pandemic. She enjoyed the repetition of it and the variations she could make on one base stitch to create new pieces. Ellward was already making animals for herself and as gifts for others, but after beginning her work at the library, she decided to launch the study buddies program, which was inspired by Library West’s program that began in 2022.
Many students ask if they are able to purchase the study buddies, but as crocheting and knitting continue to gain popularity in what Ellward calls the “fiber arts Renaissance,” she encourages students to pick up the hobby themselves. She makes the patterns she uses available on the study buddies webpage.
“I always kind of pivot that conversation to, ‘Well, you could learn to crochet,’” she said. “‘It has a lot of mental health benefits.’”
Dakota Reeve, a 23-year-old UF architecture senior who works at Marston, remembers
checking out the Dodo Bird study buddy. After that, he saw a steady increase in the study buddies’ popularity.
He said he views the study buddies as something to keep students company while they work in the library.
“It’s nice to have a little critter on standby,” he said. “To have a companion while you study.”
For Library West chair Stacey Ewing, students’ mental health is the primary focus on the library’s study buddy program. Their wellness initiatives include a Mindfulness Studio, stationary bikes and their plants. Library West’s study buddy program allows students to rent small potted plants rather than crocheted animals.
Ewing said the plant study buddies are the second most requested item, behind Anker portable chargers. The plants are cared for on the fifth floor of the library and brought down to the second for circulation, which is where students can rent them. Around two dozen plants are available at the library, and around eight to 10 are rented out per day.
The plant buddies system is a collaborative effort founded by Coleen Sailsman, a former UF undergraduate intern, and supported today by library staff. Ewing, whose fifth floor office is filled with greenery, said many of the plants come from her collection and the collections of her colleagues.
They trade plants and horticulture tips with one another. In Microsoft Teams, the library has a plant channel to facilitate their “circular system” of plant upkeep. If a plant needs extra care, library staff nurses it back to health before bringing it back to the circulation desk on the second floor.
“They call it the P-ICU,” Ewing said. “The plant ICU. So they’ll set those [damaged plants] aside, and then we’ll rehab those or put them out further, so they get even more humidity. Then those go back into circulation.”
The plant study buddies program began as only succulents but has since grown to include other plants, including tradescantia and begonia. Each of the plants are given names that start with “s” and labeled accordingly, so students can check out Sofia or Sven, for example.
Ewing said she views plants as a way to infuse life into the library and bring the “outside inside.” She enjoys seeing students post pictures of themselves studying with their textbooks, a coffee and a plant study buddy. She said she hopes the program is “meditative” and “comforting” for students who come to the library.
“We have so many students say the library is their second home,” she said.
@JulianaDeF58101 jdefillipo@alligator.org
Prizilla talks carving out a niche in the local music scene and beyond
THE GAINESVILLE NEO-SOUL
BAND ORGANIZED THE SUNSHINE MUSIC AND ARTS FESTIVAL
By Juliana DeFilippo Avenue Staff Writer
Before Prizilla, the band, there was Priscilla, the car.
Isabella Duncan, a 21-year-old UF sociology senior, first gave the name to her white Mercedes coupe. The “z” was added for aesthetic purposes, to make the name “cool and funky” — just like the pop-funk band.
With its saxophone-wielding frontwoman and distinct jazz influences, it’s not always easy for Prizilla to fit in with the existing music scene in Gainesville.
“You put us on a lineup with indie or punk bands, and people might be a little bit confused,” Duncan said.
Despite this, Duncan, the band’s lead singer and manager, works to get the band on stage at venues and festivals across Gainesville, like Playground Music + Arts Festival, where it performed earlier this year. Its unique position in the music scene often prompts Prizilla to carve out its niche.
For Duncan, this niche can be seen in the form of the Sunshine Music and Arts Festival, which Duncan organized and put on at Heartwood Soundstage for the second year in a row Feb. 27.
Last year, she worked with First Magnitude Brewing
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Company, which contributed its entertainment budget, allowing for free admission to the festival. This year, the event cost $15 and featured artists Jacob Sigman and Madwoman alongside Prizilla, as well as various vendors and artists.
Sunshine Festival is an opportunity to bring the Gainesville music community together and highlight the work of her friends, Duncan said, including the bands she is sharing the stage with. She attributes much of her band management knowledge to working with Madwoman, who introduced her to the work that goes into being an independent music artist.
Although Duncan feels challenged by it, she said, the work she does for Prizilla is her passion.
“Everything else is external,” she said. “I do school, I do work, but this is what I want to do.”
The band’s creation was the result of not only hard work but also some coincidence, starting with Duncan forgetting to sign up for an elective in sixth grade and choosing jazz band on a whim. There, she started playing saxophone, which she now continues to play for Prizilla.
It was because of her saxophone playing that she met bandmate McKayla Keels, a 20-year-old UF student, who now plays bass for Prizilla. Keels and Duncan were the only two women in the undergraduate section of UF’s jazz band.
“So, obviously we had to be friends,” Keels said.
Duncan just so happened to be singing jazz pieces when 30-year-old drummer Justin Stirrat and 28-year-old guitarist
Caimán
Como la inteligencia artificial se está presentado en la terapia. Leer más en la página 11.
Max Bleiweis asked her to perform with their cover band. When she got the offer, she knew she had to bring Keels with her.
While Duncan had been creating music as Prizilla since the summer of 2022, the group officially played its first show in March 2023 and released its first EP, “People Person,” in November. At this time, the band’s monthly listeners on Spotify rose from 600 to around 7,000, Duncan said.
Despite belonging to very different genres than other local bands, Prizilla hopes to promote the Gainesville music scene through Sunshine Festival. Bleiweis said Duncan was inspired by flipturn’s work with local up-and-coming bands.
“You see that that [Playground Festival] can happen, and you’re like, ‘I want to make this happen in our community,’” he said.
Long term, Duncan said the band hopes to move to a bigger city and pursue music full-time, opening for some of its favorite bands like Lake Street Dive and Lawrence.
While music can be an unpredictable career, the band members are ultimately pursuing their dream, Stirrat said.
“If [music is] something you truly love to do, why would you waste time living your life doing something that’s totally against what you want to be doing?” he asked. “We find our way.”
@JulianaDeF58101 jdefillipo@alligator.org
How a local initiative showcases composting on a small scale
WEEKLY ORIENTATIONS ALLOW THE CO-OP TO SHARE ITS MESSAGE WITH ABOUT 100 PEOPLE EACH SEMESTER
By Corey Fiske Avenue Staff Writer
The shell of an egg. The peel of an orange. The leftovers that sit in the fridge too long. These all contribute to food waste, which Americans generate 92 billion pounds of each year, according to Feeding America.
“Food waste is an unpalatable truth,” said Ann Wilkie, a research professor at UF’s BioEnergy and Sustainable Technology Laboratory.
Wilkie started the Compost Cooperative and Gardens, an education and outreach program to promote sustainability at UF’s Energy Research and Education Park. It gives students and the Gainesville community the freedom to compost their food waste and learn about its environmental impacts.
The CCG holds orientations for about 100 people each semester, Wilkie said. People find out about the CCG primarily through word of mouth, though they also have a website and Instagram and Facebook pages.
Crossing the gate into the CCG seems like stepping into a world entirely separate from typical campus life. It’s quiet and tranquil. There’s hammocks and swings, as well as a cone-shaped greenhouse rising from the Earth nearby. Sitting in a semicircle around a rainwater collection system are the CCG’s six compost
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bins.
Also at the CCG is a pollinator garden, garden rows and a greenhouse. Among the greenery are five garden boxes, which are like personal gardens and are open at no cost to CCG members.
One garden box is Ryan Champiny’s, a lush, green rectangle filled with vegetables like collard greens and kale. Champiny is a 30-year-old third-year graduate student studying soil science and also serves as the CCG’s garden manager.
In the planting stage of gardening, Champiny said she uses a palm-sized amount of compost for each plant. Champiny gives away a lot of the food she grows to other graduate students, but she said she personally likes to keep the kale for smoothies.
Katya Kasprzak, a 22-year-old UF environ-
mental management in agriculture and natural resources senior, has been the CCG’s compost manager since July. She doesn’t produce much food waste herself, but said she likes that she has the ability to compost the waste she does create. Each Friday, she leads the CCG orientations with other student leaders, like Champiny or Amina Cabric, the social media and outreach manager.
“Having the chance to teach people about sustainability is really cool and empowering to other people, because they get to make those changes in their own communities — in their own lives,” Kasprzak said.
Part of the CCG philosophy is that there should be less food waste, and the waste that is created is better composted than in a landfill. Food waste in landfills contributes to greenhouse gases and the production of leachate, a
toxic liquid contaminating groundwater.
The CCG started in 2009 with just one 65-gallon compost bin, but it has since grown to six bins. At orientations, Kasprzak takes students, faculty and community members through the practice of composting, from chopping up food waste to mixing the compost. Once the compost is finished, which can take months, they sift it into three bins separated by size. The fine compost looks like dirt, and the coarse compost has visible twigs and chunks.
Different composting facilities will accept different types of waste, but the CCG accepts all food waste, including produce and citrus, as well as small amounts of meat and dairy, Kasprzak said. There should be a two-to-one ratio of shredded paper to food waste, because the paper helps to absorb some of the food’s moisture.
Gabby Rutan, a 21-year-old UF environmental management in agriculture and natural resources senior, attended an orientation on Friday after hearing about the CCG from her academic adviser over a year ago. She went with her friend Lindsey Malcolm, a 23-year-old UF plant science junior.
Malcolm said she’s interested in the processes behind composting and wants to come back to the CCG with her own food waste to compost.
“It’s more of a natural process rather than making the synthetic material for fertilizer,” Malcolm said. “I think it’s really cool seeing so many people come together and so many people with different backgrounds conversing and discussing what they like about compost.”
cfiske@alligator.org
One UF musician’s triumph over hearing loss
GRADUATE STUDENT CONTINUES PRACTICING MUSIC AFTER LOSING HEARING IN
ONE EAR
By Sabrina Castro Avenue Staff Writer
The first time Zerrin Martin saw an orchestra on television, she was mesmerized. The cellists and violinists on stage seemed to hold a kind of magic, and she knew even at 2 years old she needed to be a part of it. She begged her parents for music lessons, and soon, she was at the piano, her tiny fingers dancing across the keys. Little did she know, this was just the beginning.
Her love for music was unwavering, but at 11 years old, life threw her an unexpected chord. A traumatic accident left her with perilymphatic fistula, a tear in the inner ear, which caused complete deafness in her left ear, tinnitus and the inability to walk.
In just a few short hours, Martin said she went from having normal hearing and balance to readjusting all aspects of her childhood.
“That was traumatic, but I was very committed to my love for music and continuing to pursue music,” Martin said. “As I was healing, my journey with music didn’t end. I forged forward, but I did realize that it was going to be significantly more difficult because the sense that I had was not the same anymore.”
Her perseverance led her to earn both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in music, and now, she is preparing to defend her doctoral thesis in choral conducting at UF. While music was always her first love, she also considered a path in the medical field. Ultimately, she merged the two, focusing on speech-language pathology with an emphasis on voice science and rehabilitation. As a professional singer and choral conductor, she saw firsthand how understanding vocal health could elevate
artistry.
Growing up as a first-generation American with Turkish parents, Martin said self-discipline was ingrained in her upbringing. It served her well, but even discipline couldn’t fully erase the challenges of being a musician with hearing loss. In crowded rooms, she relied on lip-reading. In professional spaces, she kept her struggles to herself, fearing stigma. Doubt crept in.
“I had a lot of anxiety around my performing capabilities,” Martin said. “I was constantly second-guessing myself.”
Then, in March 2024, everything changed. She received the Cochlear Osia BAHA, an implanted bone-anchored hearing aid. In the first few years after getting the device, she adapted well as it worked to compensate for the hearing she was missing. But when the device was activated, Martin said it was like hearing the world in stereo sound.
For the first time since she was 11, sound came from every direction. Standing in a professional choir, she didn’t just hear music — she was surrounded by it. Notes that once felt like distant echoes were now rich, full and immediate. The world wasn’t just louder; it was clearer. She could finally hear herself the way the world did.
The Osia uses bone conduction to send sound through the skull, bypassing the damaged ear entirely. According to Terry Zwolan, the director of audiology access and standard of care at Cochlear Americas, it works like glasses for hearing, restoring what was lost in a way that feels natural.
The device is placed inside the inner ear with a microphone that picks up sound and sends it through the bone to her working ear.
“With this particular patient, she’s involved in music, and sometimes people will make assumptions that you need to have perfect hearing to be good as a musician,” Zwolan said. “For this young lady, I think having the Osia, having both ears [and] being able to hear the sound, has made a dramatic difference for her quality of life, for her occupation [and] for her studies.”
For Martin, it was more than just hearing. It was confidence. It was stepping into a choir and knowing, without a doubt, she was catching every harmony and every dynamic shift. Her stu-
dents heard the change, too.
Codi Linafelter, a vocal performance senior at UF, remembers the moment Martin conducted while simultaneously singing an aria and performing an alto solo during Martin’s Doctor of Musical Arts performance.
“It was one of the most incredible musical things I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Linafelter said. “Being able to be a part of the ensemble witnessing her give such a performance is still awe-inspiring to me and is something that I dwell on frequently.”
Linafelter has considered Martin a close friend and mentor since they sat next to each other in the Alto 2 section in Fall 2022 during voice ensemble auditions. Since then, the two have developed a strong rapport through musical connection.
As the two’s relationship strengthened, Linafelter said Martin also inspired her professionally. The student has incorporated Martin’s vocal techniques into her practice, she said, using them to refine her skills. Beyond technique, she said Martin’s approach to music emphasizes connection and emotion alongside performance.
“Music really is the language of the soul, and it is what people have turned to in times when words have failed for millennia,” Linafelter said. “In this collegiate realm, that spiritual side of life is often neglected, and so students who have the ability to participate in a musical ensemble are able to participate in that spiritual language and feed themselves in a way that you don’t get otherwise.”
Linafelter described Martin’s influence as shaping not only her technical abilities but also her understanding of music’s role in expression and communication. With her new ability to hear in stereo, Martin continues to deepen that understanding in ways she never could before.
Through her struggles and triumphs, she has understood that music isn’t just about performing — it’s about feeling and communicating what can’t be said. @sabs_wurld
Corey Fiske // Alligator Staff
Ryan Champiny’s garden box at the Compost Cooperative and Gardens on Saturday, March 1, 2025.
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The Trump doctrine: ‘America first’
My pre-law professor taught me a famous phrase coined by French critic Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr. He said, “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” While this was coined in 1849, this quote is accurate, even in today’s American policy, evident with President Trump’s new agenda.
During the 19th and 20th centuries, American policy was primarily focused on land grab opportunities. Doctrines like Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine deterred foreign nations from intervening with American expansion while fueling the expansionist agenda of the United States. Both of these documents inspired Western expansion and sent messages to countries overseas that the U.S. was becoming a defendable, sovereign nation.
Nationalism, or the political ideology prioritizing a state’s interest, is an American principle that helped fuel territorial expansion and real estate development, shaping the nation’s economic and infrastructure growth.
Key events to highlight this concept include trade deals such as the famous Louisiana Purchase, a land agreement between Thomas Jefferson and Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803, which doubled the size of the U.S. and expanded its economic and territorial influence.
The Monroe Doctrine laid the foundation for future U.S. foreign policy, later expanded by Theodore Roosevelt through the Roosevelt Corollary, which justified American intervention in Latin America. Roosevelt’s role in the Spanish-American War contributed to U.S. military victories in Cuba, leading to U.S. control of Puerto Rico and influence over Cuban affairs.
Additionally, U.S. economic and political interventions in Central America helped solidify corporate dominance, contributing to the rise of so-called “Banana Republics” in the early 20th century.
All of this is to say that since the end of American expansion in the early 20th century, American policy shifted to forming alliances with different nations worldwide.
In political science, we are taught that foreign policy is a bipartisan issue. In the past, the Biden, Obama and Bush administrations pushed bilateral agreements on foreign policy. Biden sought to increase NATO presence with huge militarized budgets for the RussiaUkraine war. Obama created the Iran Nuclear deal, which sought amends with countries that historically do not align with American values. Bush was known to have started significant international conflicts such as the Iraq war. But, that war was also a bilateral attempt to create alliances with neighbors that shared common values and wage war against those who did not share them. All of these attempts had the same principles of bipartisanship but different approaches.
Unlike his presidential predecessor, Trump has moved away from globalist policies and strengthening international pacts such as NATO. He has also geared his motivations to what is “best for America.”
The popular saying, “America first,” is a
modern manifestation of nationalism, which refers to seeing what is best for the country, even at the expense of damaging foreign relations.
Abraham Hilu opinions@alligator.org
Recent events between Canada and the United States highlight Trump’s nationalistic policy. Trump’s famous tariff implementation with international trade has frustrated neighboring countries, such as Canada. He seeks to impose a 25% tariff on Canadian imports. Justin Trudeau has reacted with a similar policy, which would increase tariffs on American imports by 25%. This could be considered an ally trade war.
While this might affect the American economy, we must evaluate whether this new approach of nationalist policy applied in international relations is worth the risk compared to a long-standing globalist approach implemented by the Bush and Obama administrations.
The media will show international leaders’ respect for Trump. Most recently, the prime minister of India showed support for Trump’s reelection by coining the term MIGA or Make India Great Again as an inspiration to Trump’s famous motto, MAGA.
Now, we enter a new stage where a country’s self-determination is more reverent than a country’s ability to negotiate and find solutions to intermestic issues.
Trump’s “America First” is revitalizing countries to do what is best for them rather than prioritizing global cooperation and mutual compromise. This shift underscores a growing trend where nations emphasize sovereignty and domestic interests over multilateral agreements, potentially reshaping international diplomacy and economic policies.
And despite bilateral policy, Trump’s foreign policy has become more partisan than bilateral. Ninety-three percent of Republican voters approve his policies, while only 4% of Democrats seek his approval, according to Time.
For Trump’s new, applied nationalist policies, there is evidence to support both sides. Those against these policies are highlighted by Canada’s retaliation after Trump decided to raise tariffs. But on the other hand, other leaders like India’s prime minister publicly endorsed Trump, and even configured a motto after his own.
Whether it be since Obama and Biden’s policies, or Bush’s attempts to combat a waging war, nationalism hasn’t been as heavily implemented in policy since Theodore Roosevelt and earlier presidents. As we enter into a new era of politics, it’s important to mark this change but also acknowledge repeating elements in American politics — nationalism applied in foreign policy.
As Jean Baptiste Alphonse-Karr once said, “The more things change the more they stay the same.”
Abraham Hilu is a UF political science senior.
Whose generated line is it anyway?
In Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein,” Victor Frankenstein follows the pattern of humanity’s creation. He creates life from a dead body, borrowing bits and pieces from people who already lived rich, fulfilling lives. At the point of his success, Frankenstein looks upon his monster not with pride, but with disgust, fearing the evil he brought upon the world.
But, where Frankenstein felt remorse for his actions, we feel pride in ours, believing where he failed, we have succeeded in creating life, just in the form of generative AI.
Andres Arguello opinions@alligator.org
The idea of robots doing everyday tasks for us is no new idea. People have always dreamed of ways to make life easier, from inventions like the air conditioner to the microwave oven, modern living continuously moves towards an ideal reality where we barely have to lift a finger.
In theory, this path to progress is a dream come true, and truthfully, AI has made certain aspects of our lives easier. AI has made life a lot easier by handling a lot of the little tasks we used to spend time on. Whether it’s recommending movies and products, helping with scheduling or even answering questions with smart assistants, it’s all about saving us time. In healthcare, it helps doctors make faster, more accurate decisions, and in business, it keeps things running smoothly behind the scenes. By taking care of the routine stuff, AI gives us more time to focus on what really matters and be more productive overall.
That last paragraph? Only the first sentence was written by me. The rest was written by ChatGPT, which generated it in a couple of seconds, in theory “saving me time.” However, reading it back, it feels like something is missing. All the words are on the page, in the right order, in the correct syntax. Obviously it lacks my voice, but it makes up for that in ease of use, right?
People are always creating — always making things, always adding their own touch to every step of life. Whether it’s a story you’re recounting to your friends where you add little reactions and faces to make it funnier, or a sandwich recipe you’ve made a million times before that you changed a little for today’s meal, our every movement is unique.
From this I’d argue creation is integral to living, even in the smallest of ways.
Every piece of human writing has value because a person took the time to write it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a thousand page book, or a little note you snuck into your partner’s lunch. It can be a short memo from work, or an annoying discussion post you finished last minute. All of these pieces are imbued with fragments of our character. Each one uniquely enhanced with a hint of our perspective.
Anyone who’s ever had the lyrics in their favorite song impact them can vouch for the importance of having a voice behind the written word. A person with a tattoo of a word that is meaningful for them knows that there’s a story behind those letters — intentionality in the construct.
By using AI features like ChatGPT, writing becomes just another task, soulless without its human companion. Where we should feel dread and disgust, we instead celebrate the mismatched patchwork abomination that cruelly stitches together better, more well-thought-out products of human ingenuity.
It isn’t just writing under attack, but art, too. How can we trivialize something as impactful as an artist’s rendition of a sunset, or a painting of their friend, by insisting AI’s ease of use makes it obsolete?
If AI is the future, then it shouldn’t be removing us from the path to get there. We are our choices. If those decisions are reduced to a three second interaction with a screen, then what are we?
Andres Arguello is a UF English and psychology junior.
The views expressed here are not necessarily those of The Alligator.
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2. ASTRONOMY: What does the acronym SETI mean to the scientific community?
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3. LANGUAGE: What does the Latin prefix “sub-” mean in English?
6. HISTORY: Which battles marked the beginning of the American Revolution?
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8. MOVIES: In which year were the first Oscars awarded?
4. U.S. PRESIDENTS: Who was the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms?
9. MEASUREMENTS: What does 1 gallon of water weigh?
10. GEOGRAPHY: What are the colors of the Italian flag?
5. LITERATURE: Which 20th-century movie star penned the autobiography “Me: Stories of My Life”?
6. HISTORY: What was the first National Monument proclaimed in the United States?
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1. Name the San Francisco 49ers tight end who caught a 14-yard touchdown pass with 9 seconds left to beat the New Orleans Saints 36-32 in a divisional playoff game for the 2011 NFL season.
2. Not to be confused with the NFL's Lombardi Trophy award, the Lombardia Trophy in Italy is a competition in what sport?
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Answers
5. What sport, originating in the Netherlands in the early 1900s, is similar to netball and has four male players and four female players per team?
1. 63,360 inches
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2. Search for extraterrestrial intelligence
3. Below or insufficient
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4. Grover Cleveland
5. Katharine Hepburn 6. Devils Tower, 1906
7. The Philippines 8. “The Matrix”
Vernon Davis.
Figure
An iguana.
Jerry Glanville.
Korfball.
The Boston Red Sox.
Pikes Peak International Raceway.
Harry Potter and the Dursley family.
"Family Ties."
Martin Van Buren, born after the Revolutionary War.
Mercenary.
Maybelline.
Sudoku solution
El Caimán
LUNES, 3 DE MARZO DE 2025
www.alligator.org/section/elcaiman
Inteligencia artificial debuta en tratamiento de salud mental
AUNQUE ALGUNOS PROFESIONALES DE FLORIDA
ALIENTAN A LA TECNOLOGÍA, OTROS MANTIENEN
SENTIMIENTOS CAUTELOSOS
Por Avery Parker Escritor de El Caimán
Nota del editor: Esta historia menciona autolesiones
Los terapistas vuelven a casa cuando termina el día laboral, pero las luchas con salud mental no desaparecen a las 5 de la tarde. Entonces, ¿qué debe hacer una persona si necesita ayuda después del día laboral? Profesionales de salud en Florida están adoptando la inteligencia artificial en sus consultorios para mejorar la accesibilidad para los clientes. Con este marco, los clientes pueden abrir sus computadoras y hablar con un chatbot accionado por IA en cualquier momento.
Nuevos instrumentos
Compañías como Happi AI, establecido en 2020 por neurocirujano de California James Doty, y Abby, accionado por OpenAI, han lanzado instrumentos suyos propios de terapia de conversión cuáles son creados para proveer apoyo personalizado a los pacientes. Abby funciona con un modelo de mensajes
en el cual los usuarios se comunican con el sistema IA. Los pacientes pueden seleccionar entre estilos terapéuticos, como terapista profesional, apagafuero y amigo apoyoso, dependiendo de sus necesidades. Happi, mientras tanto, coloca los usuarios en una videollamada simulada con un avatar del creador del app, Doty, accionado por IA. El avatar pregunta a los usuarios, escucha sus respuestas y ofrece análisis y consejos. Al contrario de Abby, Happi requiere a sus usuarios pagar una cuota de suscripción después de usarlo por 20 minutos. Empieza a $19.99.
Otros servicios ofrecen instrumentos de asistencia a los expertos de salud mental, cuáles graban sesiones de terapia y crean notas basadas en conversaciones entre pacientes y sus terapistas.
Blueprint, por ejemplo, anuncia en su sitio web que “escucha, transcribe y escribe notas de progresión y planes de tratamiento en 30 segundos o menos”.
Pero aunque estos servicios existen, son parte de una industria joven — una con muchas preguntas sin respuestas en relación con la efectividad, seguridad y capacidad de estos instrumentos IA.
Jonathan Mell, profesor asistente de ciencias de la computación de la Universidad Central de Florida y experto en interacción entre humano y computadora, trabajó en el diseño de un prototipo de terapeuta de IA en
la década de 2010. Desde entonces, dijo, el estado del campo ha cambiado drásticamente y se ha vuelto más peligroso en comparación con el proyecto en el que trabajó. “Tuvimos mucho diálogo, pero todos eran pre-aprobados y escritos”, dijo. “Tratas con una población que está vulnerable, y no quieres errores como ves en los sistemas de IA hoy”.
Problemas en el sistema
Una diferencia clave entre los sistemas de IA en uso hoy en día en comparación con los del pasado es el desarrollo de grandes modelos de aprendizaje de lenguaje, o LLM. Los LLMs son sistemas de IA que tienen como objetivo aprender e interpretar el lenguaje humano sin supervisión, lo que permite una flexibilidad mucho mayor que los modelos de IA escritos anteriormente.
Sin embargo, la mayor flexibilidad que ofrecen los LLMs también puede dar lugar a problemas como las “alucinaciones” de IA, en las que el sistema inventa información falsa, así como lo que se conoce como “toxicidad del modelo”, cuando la IA está alimentando a los usuarios información insegura, como obligar a alguien a autolesionarse.
El año pasado, la muerte de un niño de 14 años en Tallahassee encendió las alarmas sobre el chatbot de IA que lo alentó a terminar su vida.
Este comportamiento de los chatbots no es un caso de mal funcionamiento tecnológico,
dijo Mell, sino que la IA pone en práctica el contenido y los datos que ha consumido. Puso en duda la viabilidad de prevenir la “toxicidad del modelo” en los LLMs por evitar que los chatbots repitan ciertas frases o palabras. No es posible identificar dónde un LLM aprendió o alojó sus datos, agregó Mell. Apoyando al fuerzo laboral Según la Asociación Americana de Psicología, Florida tiene solo 15 a 20 terapeutas por cada 100,000 residentes. El Departamento de Salud de Florida, por su parte, informa que el 12.3% de los adultos dijeron que tienen mala salud mental, una estimación potencialmente reducida debido a las limitaciones del tamaño de la muestra o al deseo de los encuestados de minimizar los problemas mentales. Por lo tanto, Mell dijo que la dependencia en al menos algún grado de automatización en áreas de salud como terapia es necesario para satisfacer la demanda.
Los modelos de IA limitados que requieren supervisión humana para aprobar acciones o como los que Mell trabajó en la década de 2010 son más seguros y menos propensos a poner a los usuarios en situaciones peligrosas, agregó.
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@AveryParke98398 aparker@alligator.org
Enjuiciamiento diferido ofrece segundas oportunidades a los infractores
DONACIONES ORDENADAS POR LA CORTE AYUDAN A ORGANIZACIONES SIN FINES DE LUCRO A PROPORCIONAR SERVICIOS ESENCIALES EN EL CONDADO DE ALACHUA
Por Vera Lucia Pappaterra Escritora de El Caimán
Los adultos jóvenes suelen caer en errores. Algunos retiran una materia, otros son arrestados por posesión de marihuana o el uso de identificaciones falsas. Para estos últimos, el ex fiscal estatal y senador de Florida Rod Smith introdujo una solución a principios de la década de 1990 que aún sigue vigente: los acuerdos de enjuiciamiento diferido (DPA, por sus siglas en inglés).
Un privilegio ofrecido a infractores primerizos de delitos no violentos, los DPA son un contrato entre un acusado y la Fiscalía del Estado para completar horas de servicio comunitario o donar a organizaciones sin fines de lucro seleccionadas a cambio de que se retiren los cargos.
Muchos de estos infractores tienen edad universitaria, especialmente en Gainesville, donde los estudiantes representan una parte significativa de la población, dijo Smith. Su intención era evitar que tuvieran antecedentes penales que pudieran perjudicar sus solicitudes de empleo, admisión en escuelas de posgrado o cualquier otro plan futuro, agregó.
"Pensamos que era una buena manera de evitar el procesamiento penal", dijo Smith, "pero con la condición de que las personas comprendieran que esta es su oportunidad. Sabes que cometiste un error, y así es como vamos a tratarlo".
Rompiendo el ciclo
Las donaciones se realizan directamente a las organizaciones benéficas, y los infractores deben presentar pruebas de sus
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contribuciones a la fiscalía. Esta medida fue tomada intencionalmente para que el gobierno de Florida nunca reciba ni maneje el dinero, lo que, según Smith, podría generar preocupaciones sobre transparencia.
"Era una forma de procesar casos rápidamente sin saturar el sistema", dijo Smith. "Y cumplía otro propósito… permitir que las personas tuvieran un expediente limpio".
El impacto del enjuiciamiento diferido va más allá de quienes reciben una segunda oportunidad. También fortalece a las organizaciones locales que atienden a los más vulnerables de la comunidad.
En el condado de Alachua, 11 organizaciones benéficas se benefician de estas donaciones, las cuales ayudan a financiar servicios para jóvenes en riesgo, niños en el sistema de acogida y víctimas de abuso doméstico y sexual.
Una de las primeras organizaciones sin fines de lucro incluidas en la lista de donaciones de DPA fue el Child Advocacy Center (CAC) en Gainesville, fundado hace 25 años por Smith y su esposa, DeeDee. Tras visitar una iniciativa similar en Daytona Beach, Smith decidió crear una versión en Gainesville.
El CAC ofrece servicios esenciales a niños que han sufrido abuso, brindándoles entrevistas forenses, terapia y apoyo para ayudarles a sanar. Trabaja en estrecha colaboración con las fuerzas del orden, el Departamento de Niños y Familias, terapeutas, defensores de víctimas y la Fiscalía del Estado para garantizar un trato cuidadoso de los casos.
"Las personas que provienen de hogares con antecedentes de violencia tienden a replicar ese comportamiento en sus propias familias. Es lo que aprendieron", dijo Smith. "Por eso intentamos romper ese ciclo".
Manteniendo las luces encendidas
El CAC ha recibido donaciones del programa de enjuiciamiento diferido durante más de dos décadas, proporcionando
una fuente constante, pero aun pequeña, de financiamiento para su misión.
Si bien el centro opera con un presupuesto anual cercano a los $2 millones, su directora ejecutiva, Sherry Kitchens, explicó que las contribuciones de DPA, que oscilan entre $8,000 y $12,000 por año, juegan un papel crucial.
Aunque representan una pequeña parte del presupuesto del centro, estos fondos son importantes porque no están restringidos, dijo Kitchens.
A diferencia de las subvenciones, que a menudo tienen estrictas condiciones sobre el uso del dinero, estas donaciones ordenadas por la corte van directamente al centro, permitiendo que los administradores asignen los fondos a donde se necesiten más.
El CAC también recibe fondos estatales y subvenciones a lo largo del año. Estos recursos, dijo Kitchens, ayudan a cubrir la brecha entre los servicios críticos que brinda el CAC y las necesidades operativas que mantienen el centro en funcionamiento.
"Muchas subvenciones quieren financiar servicios directos para los niños, lo cual es increíble", dijo Kitchens. "Pero también tenemos que poder pagar la electricidad, el internet y el mantenimiento".
Cada organización sin fines de lucro en la lista de DPA recibe donaciones según un sistema basado en los apellidos de los acusados obligados a contribuir. Esto significa que el CAC no puede influir activamente en la cantidad de fondos que recibe.
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Taylor Shumaker
MONDAY, MARCH 3, 2025
www.alligator.org/section/sports
SOFTBALL
Freshman sensation Taylor Shumaker reflects on cross-country journey
THE RIGHT FIELDER MOVED 2,386 MILES TO BEGIN HER COLLEGIATE JOURNEY
By Jackson Colding Sports Writer
Feb. 6 is a day Florida softball freshman right fielder Taylor Shumaker will remember for the rest of her life. While it marked her first collegiate game, it also proved to be the start of what already looks to be a historic Florida career. However, her night at the plate under the clear skies of Katie Seashole Pressly Stadium did not begin like any other at-bat from her earlier playing days.
Shumaker felt the most nervous she’d ever been playing softball as she prepared to step up to the plate. Her new teammates helped calm her down, allowing her to persevere through the nerves.
“Korbe [Otis] looked at me and was like, ‘Your heart is pounding through your chest right now,’” Shumaker said. “She just had to remind me to breathe and that I belong there, that I was put in that position and that situation for a reason.”
Since her first at-bat, the rest has been history for Shumaker. She homered in her next at-bat, sending a three-run blast to left center field for her first collegiate hit. As of games through Feb. 27, the freshman outfielder has set the country on fire, as she leads the nation in runs, RBIs and total bases and is tied for the home run lead.
However, to become the player she is now in Gainesville, Shumaker needed a strong softball support system in her hometown of Fullerton, California. Her club coach, Mike Stith, has been a major influence in her softball journey.
Shumaker has played under Stith since she was 12, growing into a phenom at the plate along the way. She described their relationship as one based on tough love. While he was hard on her when he needed to be, she
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values the importance of his ability to make her the best version of herself.
“To be able to have somebody who loves me as a human being, but also wanted to make me better in every way, shape and form kind of made our bond just that much more special,” Shumaker said. “He was like a second dad to me.”
When the time came to go to college, Shumaker had Florida in her top three schools while discussing with Stith. While waiting on interest from Florida, she decided to take an unofficial visit to Gainesville during her junior year of high school.
From the moment she stepped on campus, Shumaker knew she wanted to go to UF because of how much it valued its athletes as not only softball players, but people.
Another Gator great and Stith protégé played a part in Shumaker taking her talents across the country to Gainesville. Amanda Lorenz, who Shumaker idolized, was in constant communication with the highly-touted prospect throughout the recruiting process.
Shumaker said when Stith gave her Lorenz’s phone number, the pair’s relationship began to truly blossom.
“Once I committed to UF, I think she’s been one of the most supportive people on planet Earth,” Shumaker said. “Even if it’s when I hit a home run, she’ll swipe up on my story and be like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m so proud of you,’ or ‘Oh, you’re such a baller.’”
Shumaker wants to succeed no matter where she is hitting in the lineup, all while being the best player and teammate she can.
She credits her preparation and trust with her teammates as a major part of her early-season success. Heading into conference play, she hopes to keep the same mentality she has started the season with.
“My thoughts are just to enjoy the ride, to enjoy being around my teammates,” Shumaker said.
Stith noted how Shumaker’s drive and talent, as well as her impressive athleticism, allowed her to immediately
stand out above the rest of the pack.
While Shumaker and Lorenz are both talented players, Stith outlined one key difference between the pair.
“Taylor is more of a refined athlete,” he said. “Taylor is a little more quieter.”
Stith believes Shumaker’s natural talent and ability to hit for power have helped her succeed in her first season in Gainesville.
From the moment she stepped foot into his program, Stith knew Florida would be a perfect match for her. He highlighted knowing UF coach Tim Walton as a reason he thought Shumaker would fit in, citing how their personalities would mesh well together.
“I told Taylor she was going to go to Florida when she was 12 years old,” Stith said.
He and Shumaker keep in touch regularly, as she calls to stay in touch and remain engaged.
Sophomore second baseman Mia Williams, one of Shumaker’s closest friends on the team, called her one of the most competitive people on the team — but that doesn’t stop them from bonding off the diamond as well.
“We do our TikTok dances as I’m sure people have seen, that is part of it kind of, but I think we’re just very similar people, she’s very confident,” Williams said.
As conference play looms, Shumaker will look to build on her lead in most of the major statistical categories to help her team in any capacity. With a strong support system of coaches, family, teammates and a Gator great, there is no shortage of people ready to help her at a moment’s notice. While her first conference at-bat might cause her heart to beat through her chest again, she will have teammates there to help her in UF’s first conference series on March 7 in College Station against the fifth-ranked Texas A&M Aggies.
@Colding_Jackson jcolding@alligator.org
Guard Dominance: Florida basketball prepares for the NCAA Tournament
WILL RICHARD’S IMPROVED PLAY LEADS THE GATORS AS THEY ENTER THE FINAL STRETCH
By Noah White Sports Writer
There are many reasons college basketball teams cut down the nets in early April. Some are led by efficient offenses, scoring 85 or more points round after round. Others lean on their defense to make games messy, slowing the pace of play down to the point where every basket matters that much more. However, there’s a common denominator among the last decade’s national champions: elite perimeter play.
Every team has had a guard average at least 13 points per game entering the NCAA Tournament, and more than half have had two. This year, Florida has three — seniors Walter Clayton Jr., Alijah Martin and, now, Will Richard — and their prowess was on display March 1. In one of the most anticipated games the Stephen C. O’Connell Center has hosted in
years, Florida’s trio showed why UF (25-4) remains a national contender. Following a College Gameday visit in the morning and hundreds of students camping out Feb. 28 in preparation, the seniors combined for 49 points to drown Texas A&M 89-70. Richard led the way with 25, pushing his season average to 13.2 points per game.
The air outside the O’Dome after the pummeling hummed with confidence, but only four days earlier, the feeling in Gainesville was much different. Following its third consecutive week in the AP Poll top 3, Florida traveled into Athens, Georgia, in rhythm, having won six straight games. That streak came to an abrupt end.
“[Georgia] just played incredibly well for 14 minutes to start the game,” Florida head coach Todd Golden said on Friday. “We were disappointed… I don’t necessarily think we deserved to win.”
The Bulldogs (18-11) entered the Tuesday evening contest fueled by an aim to depart from the NCAA Tournament bubble, and they did just that. Georgia took a 39-13 lead in the first half and never let Florida get into rhythm.
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Ultimately, Florida fell 88-83 for a court-storm defeat, but it wasn’t without a glimmer of hope.
UF outscored Georgia by 11 in the second half, with a significant portion of its offense running through Richard. He finished with a season-high 30 points and launched a three with under a minute left to tie the game, but couldn’t connect.
His final-moment miss on Tuesday didn’t roll over against Texas A&M, though, as he went 6 of 9 from three (66.6%) against the Aggies.
With under 20 seconds left in the first half, Florida led by 11 as Clayton Jr. surveyed the floor. In a seamless flow of motion, he whipped the ball to Richard in the corner as a Texas A&M defender shifted slightly out of position. Eerily similar to Tuesday night, Richard fluidly caught and fired. However, unlike Tuesday, the Florida faithful erupted just moments later.
“My team is doing a good job finding me,” he said after the game. “I’m just taking advantage of that.”
The senior guard opened the second period
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with two more threes in the first minute and a half, and an 11-point lead at the break became 17. However, his shooting hadn’t been that efficient all year, and that may be the difference for Florida in the postseason.
While Clayton Jr. and Martin remain UF’s leading scorers, Richard’s improved play makes Florida one of the more challenging scouts in the nation. All three are shooting between 35% and 37% from beyond the arc this season, but since February, Richard is knocking down 42.6%. In the last week, he scored 55 points on 11 of 20 from three.
“[He’s] playing with a lot of confidence,” Golden said on Saturday. “We’re getting him good looks, and he’s knocking them down… [he] hit big shots that allowed us to get away from [the Aggies] a little bit in the second half. He’s playing his best basketball at the right time.”
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