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NAMED NATIONAL FOUR-YEAR DAILY NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR FOR 2020-21 IN THE COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION’S PINNACLE AWARDS

Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2022

Volume 159 No. 2 WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY

SERVING SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934

100%_remote_undergraduate_degree SJSU Online will open three admissions cycles for Californians for five bachelor’s programs on Sept. 1. Admitted students can begin classes in January on two-to-three roadmaps to completion in: Anthropology, B.A. Economics, B.A. Information Science and Data Analytics, B.S. Interdisciplinary Engineering, B.S. Interdisciplinary Studies, Educational and Community Leadership Concentration, B.A.

ALL INFOGRAPHICS BY BRYANNA BARTLETT; SOURCES: AUG. 8 SJSU NEWS RELEASE & 2021 CALIFORNIA COMPETES REPORT

SJSU to offer online degrees By Alessio Cavalca STAFF WRITER

Education is a fundamentally societal aspect and even if obtaining a degree may be millions of high school graduates’ goals in the U.S., it isn’t obvious for students to complete higher educational paths. According to a report published by California Competes in February 2021, more than 2.5 million Californians ages 25-54 have attended college without completing a bachelor’s degree. Financial difficulties, busy work schedules and family complications are aspects that influence whether or not students complete bachelor’s degrees. San Jose State announced in an Aug. 8 news release that it will establish a solution to that problem after considering the California Competes report. Admissions for the new “SJSU Online” begins on Sept. 1 and is designed for California students who need flexibility in their schedules, according to the same news release. Ronald Rogers, university interim vice provost for academic innovations and online initiatives, said SJSU Online will comprehend five undergraduate programs. The three new bachelor’s degree online programs include economics, anthropology and interdisciplinary engineering, which will be joined with two already-existing online programs: interdisciplinary studies, educational and community leadership and information science and data analytics. “The goal is to expand the number of degree programs at SJSU Online,” Rogers said. “We are planning to offer more opportunities to our students.” While the new online program only permits Californians to apply, the university intends to expand the applicant pool to other states in the future, according to the SJSU news release. There will be three rolling admission cycles and students may begin classes as early as January on two-to-three year roadmaps, according to the same news release. “The mission of this program is to provide access to education to all those

Percentage of Californians by race, ages 25-54, who do not have a college degree LATINX

71%

BLACK

61%

WHITE

42%

ASIAN

29%

50% of Californians ages 25-54 do not have a college degree students who face difficulties attending regular classes,” said Ronald Rogers, SJSU interim vice provost for academic innovations and online initiatives. “We want to provide a flexible schedule in order to make it possible for students to work and study at the same time.” Rogers said students who don’t complete their educational paths are often “forced” to do so. He said the impossibility of attending classes in person is often related to the interruption of the studies for many students. “Traditional instruction modalities are not accessible to everybody,” Rogers said. “There are students who cannot move to our campus,

while others are not able to attend classes every day of the week and for this reason, we worked to grant access to education and degrees to those students.” He said SJSU Online’s instruction modality will be online asynchronous to provide the students with the flexibility they need to get degrees. “Flexibility is one of the central aspects that made me choose SJSU Online,” said Jennifer Salinas, SJSU senior who’s been majoring in interdisciplinary studies, educational and community leadership since Fall 2021. “As a student worker, it is essential to have asynchronous instruction [because] it helps with a busy work schedule.”

Salinas said while asynchronous instruction can lead to distractions and lack of social relationships, she doesn’t experience many impediments with online learning. “Personally, I have no hard times with distractions while studying,” she said. “It is up to the student to manage his or her time in order to be able to obtain good results.” Salinas said even though online classes that she previously had during SJSU’s online and hybrid modalities were asynchronous, she had occasional Zoom meetings per the professors’ syllabi. “When I started the online degree program in Fall 2021, we were less than 30 people,” she said. “It was really easy and natural to get in touch and build up a strong group even if we are online.” Rey Penate, SJSU senior director of online recruitment, said it’s ultimately up to the professor if they wish to arrange a few Zoom meetings though the classes will be effectively 100% online. Penate said even if SJSU Online is built to be an asynchronous instruction modality, it is fundamental to not let students feel alone. He said the program will offer solid and concrete support to the students starting at the beginning of their university careers. “Enrollment counselors help students with their registration,” Penate said. “Then, once they are admitted to the program, they will meet program advisers in order to choose the proper educational path for their future.” He said students will also have regular check-ins with their advisers and counselors. Ronald Rogers said SJSU Online also focuses on getting students internships. “Although there is not an internship program for our students, we have a staff [that is] recruiting students who desire to take an internship and we connect them to companies and organizations, offering internship positions,” Rogers said. Follow the Spartan Daily on Twitter @SpartanDaily

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ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

WEDNESDAY, AUG. 24, 2022

MOVIE REVIEW

New satirical horror film slays in theaters By Sam Dietz A&E EDITOR

In the event that your friend is killed, the rational thing to do is take a deep breath, a step back and think logically to find the culprit. In entertainment company A24’s “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” however, mass panic and hysteria ensues as the house becomes a real-life version of the meeting zone in the popular online game “Among Us.” The film stars Maria Bakalova, Amandla Stenberg, Rachel Sennott, Chase Sui Wonders, Lee Pace, Myha’la Herrold and Pete Davidson as a group of wealthy 20-somethings parading around as social media influencers. After a party game gets deadly, the filters fly off and backstabbers, fake friends and ugly truths are uncovered. As a millennial nearing her 30s, the dry and ridiculous Gen Z humor was entertaining, though

ILLUSTRATION BY SAM DIETZ

movie review Directed by: Halina Reijn Starring: Amandla Stenberg and Maria Bakalova Genre: horror and dark comedy

Rating:

sometimes curt, leaving me baffled and asking myself, “did that really just happen?” before laughing at the second-hand social awkwardness. The film pokes fun at Gen Z while also making it its target demographic with its humor. It’s a hard thing to pull off successfully, but it triumphs in mirroring the absurdity of the deadly situation at hand with the group’s wacky responses.

After showing up unannounced at David’s (Davidson), house for a hurricane party, Sophie (Stenberg) introduces her new girlfriend Bee (Bakalova), to Rachal (Sennott), Emma (Wonders), Jordan (Herrold) and Alice’s Tinder-match Greg, a 40-something Gen X and immediate group outlier. Everyone begins to cut loose as the night continues. Water and

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by irony,” said Wonders in an Aug. 11 interview with The New York Times. TV shows including “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’’ and movies including “Not Okay’’ take the Gen Z mindset and liberal agenda to extremes which leads to the message being thrown at its audience so often that it means absolutely nothing. “Bodies Bodies Bodies” takes full advantage of that mindset and reveals the absurdity of actionless language. The film jabs and stabs at its horror-fanatic audience, knowing full well that figuring out the twist at the end of every “whodunit” scenario is what keeps fans dying for more (pun intended).

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drug addict or the one who constantly plays the victim. Society has been so enveloped in various media that sometimes it’s hard for younger generations to separate themselves from the dramatic entertainment content they see online to real life. The film’s overuse of buzzwords including toxic, gaslighting, trigger and nihilistic exemplifies the internet’s influence on each character. The dialogue feels like it’s been ripped straight from a self-help YouTube video: available to everyone everywhere at any time but lacks sustenance and definition the more it’s done. “I think Gen Z has a brilliant, brilliant way of latching onto words, giving them so much beautiful meaning and having it spread like wildfire across cultures and then have it swallowed

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SOLUTIONS

8.22.22

M I N T S M A C H E MM A C E I D E A L M T O E S M E B ON L L AMAM TWA S MN A V E D E P E N D A B L E M I T E M MMMM T R I OMN I N E T Y B U R P M A N Y M E R GMMM A R E AM K I S S M K I N G S H E A R T E NM P A S T U R E T A R R YMGOO DM I D E A MMMO R B M F L U M S EW S T A T T OOM F I L E MMMM A B E L M T H E A T R I C A L S O R I MH I N T MA B O V E S I N K M E R S E M S E V E N E L S E M R E E DM E X E R T

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“Bodies Bodies Bodies”

alcohol bottles litter the top of every flat surface, the music kicks up and everyone raves about social media likes on their phones. The group then decides to play “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies,” a game where one person is picked to be the killer while the rest tries to figure out who it is and vote them out. After the power is cut down from the hurricane, the game turns real as bodies start to pile up. The film makes genuine points about how we will often believe subjective feelings to be facts, instead of relying on the evidence to come to rational conclusions. Instead, the group’s fear ultimately drives many of them to their demise. Feelings are not facts, facts are facts. The game had influenced each character into casting the blame on others in the group; be it the single white male, the rehabilitated

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OPINION

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2022

MPOX

PHOTO COLLAGE BY BRYANNA BARTLETT; SOURCE: SCREENSHOTS BY BRYANNA BARTLETT

US is failing at public health responses Carolyn Brown OPINION EDITOR

The U.S. federal government has not learned anything from the recent coronavirus pandemic and the 1980s AIDS epidemic with their response to the emergence of the monkeypox, now referred to as Mpox, virus across the country. One major fumble in the U.S.’s handling of the Mpox outbreak has been letting 20 million vaccines expire, according to an Aug. 1 New York Times Article, when they could have gone to countries where the disease is endemic which would have prevented its spread. This is indicative of a wider issue in how the U.S. handles viral outbreaks, it doesn’t take a global view. We don’t

really care about it until it is on our doorstep, and even then the response is seriously lacking. The U.S. has a long painful history of not taking health crises seriously, especially when those being affected are viewed as “undesirables” including the treatment of the LGBTQ community during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. The response to the AIDS epidemic was nothing less than criminal. According to statistics from Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates there were more than 100,000 deaths from AIDS from 1980-91. When AIDS first started spreading in the ’80s, it was treated as a joke by the Reagan administration. The short documentary “When AIDS Was Funny” by Scott Calonico includes audio of the White House press corps laughing when journalist Lester Kinsolving asks a question about AIDS.

send a letter to the editor

The CDC’s guidance about COVID-19 was frustrating and confusing. Regulations regarding mask mandates, social distancing protocols and even the amount of time that individuals may be contagious have been in constant flux

The Spartan Daily prides itself on being the San Jose State community’s top news source. New issues are published every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday throughout the academic year and online content updated daily. The Spartan Daily is written and published by San Jose State students as an expression of their First Amendment rights. Reader feedback may be submitted as letters to the editor or online comments.

throughout the entirety of the pandemic. Messaging at the initial onset of the pandemic failed to properly inform citizens of how to prevent the spread of the virus. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the CDC, rebuked the agency’s handling of the pandemic, specifically the rollout of the information and testing, according to a Aug. 17 New York Times article. How can we trust a government with a past of mishandling disease

with men, the CDC’s limited messaging that only addresses the LGBTQ community could stigmatize those most at risk. Direct messaging about Mpox is important to reach those most likely to catch it, health officials however, need to balance direction while not inadvertently turning Mpox into a “gay disease.” The CDC treating Mpox as being solely spread by the LGBTQ community is dangerous, the public labeling Mpox as a “gay disease” can cause reluctance for treatments and prevention like in the AIDS epidemic. Labeling Mpox as a “gay disease” implies that only gay people can catch it. It can also lead to the idea that Mpox is purely a sexually transmitted disease (STD), when the disease can be spread by any close contact with someone infected including sharing blankets, according to the CDC.

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OPINION EDITOR CAROLYN BROWN

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I understand the need for disseminating information to those most likely to become infected, but there needs to be a balance. If public health communication was a tightrope, officials would have fallen off a long time ago.

If public health communication was a tightrope, oﬃcials would have fallen oﬀ a long time ago.

Letters to the Editor may be placed in the letters to the editor box in the Spartan Daily office in Dwight Bentel Hall, Room 209 or emailed to spartandaily@gmail.com to the attention of the Spartan Daily Opinion Editor. Letters to the Editor must contain the author’s name, year and major. Letters become property of the Spartan Daily and may be edited for clarity, grammar, libel and length. Only letters of 300 words or less will be considered for publication. Published opinions and advertisements do not necessarily reflect the views of the Spartan Daily, the School of Journalism and Mass Communication or SJSU. The Spartan Daily is a public forum.

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outbreaks? This is still a major concern regarding the government’s response to Mpox. While it is true that around 94% of cases in the U.S. are gay, bisexual, transgender men and women, and other men who have sex

COPY EDITORS CHRISTINE STEVENS CHRISTOPHER NGUYEN GRAPHICS EDITORS HANNAH GREGORIC JOVANNA OLIVARES

Mixed messaging around Mpox has caused misinformation to spread, Republican Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene shared a clip of CDC director Walensky stating, “If Monkeypox is a sexually transmitted disease, why are kids getting it?” in a July 23 Twitter post. Implications like Greene’s are extremely dangerous because they contribute to the myth that all gay men are pedophiles while ignoring the multiple ways Mpox can be spread. There have been some smart decisions around the response to Mpox. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved fractional dosing for the Mpox vaccine making a single vial stretch from one dose to five. Fractional dosing is the practice of taking a small amount of a vaccine and injecting it subdermally, under the skin, in order to create a

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greater immune response according to an Aug. 9 Healio article. By using fractional dosing, health departments are able to stretch the much needed vaccine and help meet demand. However, even this isn’t a perfect solution. In theory, health workers could get five doses from a vial, however, many are only about to get about three to four doses out of a vial, according to a Tuesday STAT article. The Santa Clara County Public Health Department said it was also going to use fractional dosing, according to a Friday ABC7 News article. While it is less common, Mpox can be transmitted through sharing bedding or towels with someone who is infected. Why isn’t there more public concern of it being spread through communal living spaces, which will affect college students? These situations can cause Mpox to spread like wildfire. Why isn’t it being more widely addressed? Health officials are hyper-focused on just addressing Mpox as an STD despite there being so many ways it can spread. Public health needs to be ever-evolving. If we do not learn from our past mistakes, we are doomed to repeat them. Hopefully, we study the mistakes we are making now. Follow The Spartan Daily on Twitter @SpartanDaily

EMAIL: spartandailyadvertising@gmail.com CORRECTIONS POLICY The Spartan Daily corrects all significant errors that are brought to our attention. If you suspect we have made such an error, please send an email to spartandaily@gmail.com. EDITORIAL POLICY Columns are the opinion of individual writers and not that of the Spartan Daily. Editorials reflect the majority opinion of the Editorial Board, which is made up of student editors.