Sept. 09, 2020

THE TIMES-DELPHIC The weekly student newspaper of Drake University Vol. 140 | No. 3 | Sept. 9, 2020

FEATURES

SPORTS

As universities welcome people back to campus, BIPOC students, low-income students and LGBTQ+ students must grapple with rising COVID rates in their communities.

COMMENTARY

Spikeball is a campus hit, with a recent tournament being held, but some are wondering if it is still safe with COVID restrictions.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and a renewed fight for racial justice in Black communities, the media has continually ignored the plight of Asian-Americans.

Read more on page 5

Read more on page 7

New year, new dog: Read more on page 4

timesdelphic.com

Griff II takes on mascot duties Trish Richards Copy Editor patricia.richards@drake.edu

After nearly five years with the beloved Original Griff, Drake has appointed a new pooch to portray our top dog: Griff II, known on the homefront as George.

George was chosen as Griff’s successor on Nov. 4, 2019 by associate director of marketing and live mascot handler Erin Bell.

“I had met him a few months prior in August and since had been talking a lot with the breeder he came from and others [at Drake], trying to make sure he was the one,” Bell said. “I went to Wisconsin with the approach that if I decided he was right I would just bring him home, and that’s what happened. There was no doubt.”

George’s gregarious personality makes him a perfect fit for mascot life, according to Bell.

“A lot of it is natural– the key is finding the right personality for the job,” Bell said. “That’s why I choose to get a young dog with an established temperament instead of getting a puppy, where we can’t be sure what they’ll become.”

Mascot duties are a full-time job.

“We are on campus more than 40 hours a week,” Bell said. “We do a lot of events and appearances, that kind of thing.

Lots of evenings and weekends.”

Original Griff touched the lives of everyone in the Drake

community, so naturally many were saddened to hear of his impending retirement when it was announced on Feb. 5, 2020.

Nonetheless, the campus has fully embraced George as his successor.

“I love Griff I so much, but I’m glad he was able to retire and just have fun,” Michelle Kofman, a senior majoring in Digital Media Production, said.

“I think Griff II brings a great new energy to Drake. Especially during the pandemic, it’s great to have a young, energetic dog roaming the campus. I can’t wait to see him at games once sports can start again.”

Because of canine susceptibility to the COVID-19 pandemic, the outings that give students the opportunity to interact with Griff II were on pause until recently.

“I adjusted the rules on August 26 to allow for petting/ physical contact with Griff II,” Bell said. “It is now okay for people to touch him if, and only if, they use hand sanitizer before doing so and they are wearing a mask.”

“Because of COVID, there are not the usual events to attend, so I’m trying to get creative,” Bell said. “I’m trying very hard to keep him out and interacting with students because that’s why we are here.”

Griff II will receive his introduction to the city of Des Moines with a grand tour on Sept. 11, complete with stops at all the most significant locations.

The event will be chronicled via his official Instagram, @

GRIFF II is known by his family as George. The “Griff” title is an honorific, one that will be held by every live mascot in Drake’s future, after the Original Griff. PHOTO BY TRISH RICHARDS | COPY EDITOR

drakeugriff. A “changing of the harness” ceremony is also expected later this fall.

Original Griff set a high bar for his successor, but George is poised to bring his own panache

to the role of Griff II–no bones about it.

hubbell renovations result in dining changes for students

HUBBELL DINING HALL, now rebranded as “The Hub,” is one option for on-campus dining. It includes both the now remodeled original Hubbell Dining Hall, as well as the area once known as Quad Creek Cafe. Students can also use meal swipes at Spike’s Conveinience store or Cowles Cafe. PHOTO BY TRISH RICHARDS | COPY EDITOR Lia Reichmann Contributing Writer lia.reichmann@drake.edu

Renovations for Hubbell Dining Hall began last April after months of planning and with the help of several focus groups that included students.

The changes to Hubbell included kitchen and serving station restorations and replacing equipment that was out of date, said General Manager of Drake Dining Services Aaron Knutson.

Knutson added that the upgraded equipment allowed for “greater flexibility to change options and adapt to changing menus” as well as “improve the workspaces for our employees, so they can focus on preparing

food and serving students, faculty and staff.”

Hubbell also got a revamped look that includes new furniture, touchless cashier stations and a mural connecting the north and south sides.

“We wanted to create a better flow, improve the serving areas, enhance vibrancy, replace outdated and failing equipment and improve energy efficiency,” Knutson said.

Before the campus community could appreciate the new renovations to Hubbell, COVID-19 forced the dining staff to implement stricter safety measures to prevent spread of the contagious disease.

Before any shift, the staff must have their temperatures taken, wear a mask in

compliance with campus policy, and go home if they present any symptoms. Self-serve stations were eliminated along with a kitchen and dining room wide break every 45 minutes in order to sanitize and disinfect surfaces and other high-touch areas.

Hubbell also recently introduced new reusable containers for meals that are to-go. Due to the pandemic, disposable containers are currently in short supply.

If a student wants their meal to-go, they have to make a $5 deposit. Students can either use their Flex Dollars, Bulldog Bucks, cash, debit or credit to pay for the deposit. In order to get the $5 deposit back, they must return the container.

“It is a little frustrating

that you have to be charged for the to-go boxes,” first-year Moe Lind said. “I also wasn’t prepared for it. I didn’t know about [the reusable containers] until I actually went to [Hubbell] so the process of getting your food to-go was a little confusing just because I wasn’t informed about it.”

Even with all of these new changes to Hubbell, some students have found the food to be lacking in comparison to last year.

“I think what [food] they do have is good, but I do wish there was a little more variety,” Lind said. “Such as more cultural variations in the food, more differentiation between each night.”

Sophomore Rachel DuBose

twitter: @timesdelphic | instagram: draketimesdelphic | facebook: the times delphic

agrees that there is less variety of food at Hubbell.

“I think some of the items could have more flavor,” DuBose said. DuBose said she would also like to bring back Quad but doesn’t “think they really can at this point.”

On Aug. 26, a petition was created on the website change. org asking to bring back Quad Creek Cafe, which was removed during the remodel.

“The situation remains fluid, and the functionality of the operations will change when state and local guidelines allow for those opportunities to make additional improvements,” Knutson said in response to the petition. “Until then, it’s our top priority to keep our students safe.”

NEWS

News

Sept. 9, 2020 | Page 2

First-years revamp Painted Street

STREET PAINTING traditionally takes place in the spring during the annual Drake Relays. After Relays was cancelled, the Peer Advisory Board and Student Activities Board took street painting into their own hands in order to fix up the iconic street. PHOTO BY ALLYN BENKOWICH | STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Sydney Hamilton Staff Writer sydney.hamilton@drake.edu

First-year students and their Peer Mentor/Academic Consultants repainted the heavily chipped Painted Street during Welcome Week, applying a fresh coat of blue, a few giant paw prints and the slogan “Drake Together” in white.

With the cancellation of the 2020 Drake Relays, the annual Painted Street tradition was canceled as well, leaving the previous year’s designs to further chip away.

Wednesday through Friday of Welcome Week, each FirstYear Seminar group went to Painted Street to paint their

assigned squares during their 45-minute time slot. Members of the Student Activities Board and Peer Advisory Board stationed themselves nearby to assure the groups were social distancing.

SAB started planning Welcome Week activities at the beginning of the summer and thought that painting the street right away with the first years would be a good introduction to Drake.

“It would be a really cool way to introduce first-year students to a really cool Drake tradition,” SAB President and peer mentor Reilly Atkins said. “It’s something that makes Drake unique and builds community among first-year seminars.”

SAB worked with the Communications and

Marketing Office to create the design. The PAB joined in on the scheduling and helped them split up the design throughout all the squares and assign them to the PMACs and their groups.

All groups planning the event wanted to make sure students were bonding and building relationships, but they made sure to keep everyone safe through social distancing.

“We scheduled everyone in such a way that we didn’t want to have three groups all working on the same squares right next to each other for distancing purposes,” senior PAB member Carson Reichardt said. “So usually there would be someone towards the end of the street, someone in the middle and

someone towards the other end.”

Even though the street was just painted, Reichardt believes the tradition should continue as usual during Drake Relays this spring.

While the SAB did have discussions about potential backlash from having firstyears paint the street rather than current sophomores, Atkins said they felt the pros outweigh the cons and expected that returning students would understand because of the unique circumstances.

“It’s not the usual street painting … it was more like each FYS putting the puzzles together to create something bigger,” Atkins said.

First-year student Kaylee Ostdiek, was excited to

participate in a school tradition right off the bat.

“It was cool to see the finished product … we did it Thursday afternoon so all day on Friday I was just waiting for somebody to post the finished product,” Ostdiek said.

Overall, the event did what it was always meant to do– bring students together.

“Honestly, it felt like filling in a part of campus that was missing because that’s such a huge tradition every year.

Having that taken away from so many students who were really looking forward to it was a huge letdown,” Reichardt said. “So being able to fill it back in with vibrant new color now felt like a welcome back to campus for everyone.”

Attacks on postal service fuel election anxiety

Grace Noack Staff Writer grace.noack@drake.edu

In a Pew Research Center survey released this past April, 91 percent of respondents had a favorable view of the United States Postal Service, a rating higher than any other federal agency.

Yet the USPS finds itself at the center of a political battle after Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s budget cuts.

DeJoy’s changes include reassigning executive members of the postal service, limiting overtime for workers and removing mail sorting machines. Critics of DeJoy point out these changes all have the potential to slow down mail delivery, which could cause issues with mailin voting this November.

In early August, President Donald Trump asserted he opposed extra funding for the postal service because it would encourage mail-in voting, fueling allegations that his administration is manipulating the USPS for political gain.

In an attempt to stabilize the postal service during this critical time, the House has passed $25 billion in emergency funding for the USPS, but it is still unclear whether it will make it through the Senate.

DeJoy has agreed to postpone major changes to the postal service until after the election. Yet many Americans already see disruptions in their mail.

The USPS is used for many vital services, including delivering prescription medication, connecting with individuals in rural communities or on military

bases and helping small business owners ship products.

Drake junior and small business owner Emma Walker depends on the USPS to ship her products.

Walker, a biology and graphic design double major, runs her own Etsy shop: Poppy’s Paper Press. Inspired by her dog Poppy, Walker’s eclectic collection of stickers, postcards, and prints have generated almost 400 sales.

“I never expected it to take off,” Walker said.

She now finds herself shipping orders almost every day and is even getting some international business. Since she opened her shop in June, Walker has seen a significant change in delivery time.

“Towards the beginning, my stuff would usually arrive to the customer in three to four days,” Walker said. “But now I’m getting messages like two weeks after I sent something saying, ‘I still haven’t gotten this yet.’ There’s been a lot of delay, it’s crazy.”

The Etsy community has even banded together to support the USPS, fundraising through buying more stamps and sending out free items.

Those most dramatically affected by changes are the postal workers themselves.

Law, Politics and Society professor Nate Holdren, who specializes in workplace law, clarified the budget cut’s implications on postal workers.

“When resources get tight, it’s the people with the least amount of power and usually, the people who are the least well paid who tend to carry most of the costs,” Holdren said. “That can come in the

POSTMASTER GENERAL LOUIS DEJOY came under fire after ordering the removal of mailboxes and mail sorting machines. PHOTO BY TRISH RICHARDS | COPY EDITOR

form of wage cuts, benefit cuts, more work for fewer people, layoffs and workplace injury if people are working too much.”

More people are opting to stay indoors and social distance since the pandemic began, making postal work harder. Now with the election coming up, postal workers face even greater delivery demands.

Still, as public employees and members of a union,

postal workers have the opportunity to fight for their jobs.

“We live in a pyramidshaped society, most of us are somewhere in the middle or towards the bottom. In a society like ours, we’re sort of trained to look up when we’re in trouble. We think if we just had the right person above us, things will work out,” Holdren said. “The idea behind unionization is more like look down and look

around you. So rather than the right person on top fixing it, all of us together down here can fix it ourselves and force people at the top to listen to us.”

Although the fate of the USPS is largely up in the air, recent calls to support the postal service through buying stamps and contacting your representatives have dominated social media. To learn more about the USPS, visit https://www.usps.com/.

FEATURES

Features

Sept. 9, 2020 | Page 3

History repeats itself?

1918 flu pandemic parallels COVID-19, Des Moines’ response Sarah Bogaards Breaking News Manager sarah.bogaards@drake.edu Emma Brustkern News Editor emma.brustkern@drake.edu

“Des Moines goes under quarantine today,” the front page of the Des Moines Register read.

Similar headlines have popped up in the news recently, but this one is actually from 1918.

A century later, the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic returned to many people’s minds as a parallel to the coronavirus pandemic. After infecting one-third of the world’s population and killing 50 million people worldwide, this crisis became a reference point for the current one What happened in 1918?

One trait these two pandemics share for certain is how they began: travel. In 1918, World War I was in its last year. But the world didn’t know that, nor did they know that the year would bring an event deadlier than war.

“By 1906, the United States had been crisscrossed with over 240,000 miles of railway. All types of ships crossed the Atlantic and Pacific oceans regularly … By 1918, the world seemed far smaller and more connected than it had been at any time previously in history. The world stage was set for the flu pandemic of 1918,” reads a document from the Glen Ellyn Historical Society in Illinois.

Spanish flu was more deadly than past influenza strains; it targeted younger adults, which was atypical of flu viruses, and was often incurable. In Des Moines, many in that demographic were at Camp Dodge miles away from the city center waiting for their call to war. According to the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs, around 8,000 troops were infected at the peak of the flu’s spread, and in the span of two months 702 soldiers died.

At the time, Drake University was home to its own Student Army Training Corps that prepared male Drake students for the war.

From September to the end of the war in November, 102 soldiers lived in the men’s gym, which was converted into housing barracks.

As reported by the TimesDelphic on Oct. 8, 1918, the men quarantined in these barracks for two weeks, not due to the flu but per standard army protocol. However, that day the paper also reported 25 men were taken to the hospital, and confirmed on Oct. 11 that they had Spanish flu.

A quarantine on the city of Des Moines, including Drake’s campus, began on Oct. 10. Similar to the March business closures related to COVID-19, the Board of Health in 1918 closed schools, churches and other gathering places and residents were

asked to stay home if they had symptoms of Spanish flu, according to an essay on Des Moines published by the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine. As both of these diseases affected the respiratory system, many of the ways people protect themselves from COVID-19 were also used in 1918.

“They did wear masks back then too, and washed their hands,” said Claudia Frazer, professor of librarianship and director of university archives and special collections at Drake. “I’m not sure how much they did with social distancing in terms of six feet, but they did wear masks.”

At first, residents were not specifically instructed to social distance in 1918, but it occurred naturally when the Board of Health instituted a mask mandate in all public places on Dec. 2 following a resurgence of cases in November.

“It seems like the reactions are entirely different.

Right now there’s a lot of politics involved. Back then, there didn’t seem to be any politics involved. People took precautions all over the country.”

“Across the city, theaters and movie houses reported half of the usual attendance.

Many Des Moines residents, it seemed, so disliked wearing flu masks that they preferred to remain at home rather than to don one,” the University of Michigan essay said. “Bending to the will of the people and business interests, and with the support of physicians who (correctly) argued that gauze masks did little to prevent the spread of influenza, the Board of Health revoked the order on December 4 and once again made the wearing of flu masks voluntary.”

Despite the willingness to stay home, the highest single-day case count was 500 on Dec. 4, the day the mask order was removed.

Officials implemented social distancing guidelines until Dec. 16, closing businesses with poor ventilation and limiting others to half capacity. Although these pandemics exist eras apart from each other, residents and city officials ultimately fought the same enemy.

What’s changed?

98 years after the Spanish flu hit Des Moines, the world has changed greatly in terms of technology, information and culture.

Milo Plavec, a Drake University alumnus familiar with the school’s history, highlighted how the COVID-19 pandemic has been largely politicized in comparison to the Spanish flu.

“It seems like the reactions are entirely different,” Plavec said. “Right now there’s a lot of politics involved. Back then, there didn’t seem to be any politics involved. People took precautions all over the country. There’s similarities with distancing and wearing masks, but it didn’t seem like there was any opposition to that like some people do now.”

Des Moines fared better than other cities in the state, producing a smaller effect on Drake’s campus. The Oct. 11 issue of the Times-Delphic reported the conditions of the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

“The State university of Iowa has been affected much worse than Drake by the ‘flu.’

Over 200 cases have been reported,” the paper read.

“The law and engineering buildings, part of Currier hall, the girls’ dormitory and several frat houses have been turned over for isolation hospitals. The campus is guarded day and night, and passes are required for entering or leaving the campus.”

Despite mass compliance with flu precautions, Drake’s response to the 1918 pandemic was relatively small. Following the citywide quarantine, campus life had largely returned to normal. Drake President Arthur Holmes addressed students for the first time since their return to campus without once mentioning the pandemic.

“This was November 1st.

This was at a pep rally, after the school reopened they had a pep rally,” Plavec said. “A whole bunch of people showed up and they were cheering as if nothing happened. In his speech he didn’t say anything about the flu or the school being closed at all, or saying welcome back. He never even said anything about it.”

Pandemic response at Drake in 1918 was limited largely due to a lack of information.

“Certainly the 1918 administration kept in mind the same goal of health and safety for the community, but there was much less scientific Left: The original Student Army Training Corps barracks where some of the men were quarantined at Drake during the 1918 flu pandemic. PHOTO COURTESY OF DRAKE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

Right: Ross Hall is now the designated quarantine dorm for students who test positive for coronavirus.

PHOTO BY ALLYN BENKOWICH

The Times-Delphic front page from Oct. 11, 1918 shows part of Drake’s response to the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DRAKE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

information available,” said Provost Sue Mattison. “However, the death rate from the 1918 pandemic was much greater than for COVID-19 because the world didn’t have the same tools and modes of communication we have.”

For this reason, Mattison said, the Spanish flu response was not used to inform Drake’s COVID-19 response.

Unlike in 1918, Drake now has access to knowledge of disease transmission and case tracking, as well as concrete plans for isolation and quarantine procedures.

“Our focus is on protecting the health and well-being of students, staff, faculty and the neighborhood,” Mattison said. “We rely on basic principles of pandemic response in general, and evidence-based medicine specific to SARS-CoV-2 that we consider as we make daily decisions.”

Preserving COVID History While Drake did not use information from the 1918 flu to inform their pandemic response, there are still lessons to be learned.

Frazer and her peers are in the process of collecting information from students on their thoughts during the pandemic in order to preserve them for future generations.

“We are trying to hook up parts of our collections, for example what we get about

COVID-19, we’re trying to hook that up with the pandemic of 1918,” Frazer said.

Last semester, adjunct history professor Megan Sibbel asked her students to create oral histories and write diary entries to document their thoughts over the past few months. The library is in the process of collecting and consolidating this information to present a portrait of student life during the pandemic.

“What we’re working on now is a website that will have these oral histories on it as well as little diary entries that these students wrote on what their thoughts were at the time,” Frazer said.

For today’s college students who are in the middle of one, a pandemic seems like a rare, once-in-a-lifetime event. But by turning back just a few pages, the past shows we are no stranger to the danger of disease. Whatever the stage -- battling a disease or remembering it -- accepting the lessons from it become vital to preserving the future.

“We must absolutely be prepared for another global pandemic in our lifetime,” Mattison said. “I know I’m much older than you, but I’ve experienced or seen the impact of multiple infectious disease epidemics and pandemics in my life: 1958 influenza, Zika, SARS, MERS, AIDS, measles, Ebola. We must always be ready for the next pandemic.”

FEATURES

Features

Sept. 9, 2020 | Page 4

COVID-19 pandemic reveals inequities

Socioeconomic barriers harming minority populations in US James Mendez Advertising Manager james.simmons@drake.edu

As millions of students return to school this fall and positive COVID-19 cases soar, groups facing a greater risk of COVID-19 infection include Black and indigenous people of color (BIPOC), low-income and LGBTQ+ students.

Mayo Clinic research shows that Alaskan Natives are hospitalized at 5.3 times the rate of non-Latino whites, while hospitalization of Black and Latino people occurs at 4.7 times the rate of nonLatino whites.

Like other diseases, COVID-19 doesn’t discriminate based on race or ethnic group. Unfortunately, the United States social institution does.

According to the CDC website, “Long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put many people from racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19.”

Discriminatory systems in the United States have provided people of color less access to employment opportunities, housing or infrastructure than white people. Because of this, Black and Latino Americans are disproportionately represented in “essential services,” such as grocery retail, construction and agriculture where they may have higher chances of being exposed to the virus.

Joe Enriquez Henry,

president of Latinos United of Iowa, says that Latinos in Iowa are impacted at higher rates because of their jobs and lack of resources provided by the state.

“Many [Latinos] are working in industries, such as meat packing, that are essential, and the dilemma is these facilities force workers to work within inches of each other, so the infection rate is high,” Enriquez Henry said.

There are many roadblocks Latino Iowans face when trying to access resources to combat the COVID-19 crisis.

“Healthcare information, unemployment, sick leave, sick pay, all of that information has really been withheld from workers in that industry … because it has not been communicated effectively or translated,” Enriquez Henry said.

Minority workers and students are also more likely to live in crowded housing, or be housing-insecure, than white students.

This summer Dr. Myra Jones-Taylor, the Chief Policy Officer of Zero to Three, spoke at a virtual briefing, “The Effects of COVID-19 on Early Childhood Development and Education,” hosted by The Hill.

During this briefing, JonesTaylor was joined by other early-childhood development and education specialists, who answered questions about health and education disparities between varying socioeconomic communities.

According to data provided at the panel by Jones-

Taylor, Black and Latino children are respectively three and two times more likely to experience crowded living situations than white children.

With crowded living situations, the CDC guidelines for safe social-distancing and to self-quarantine after possible exposure become difficult to follow when there is no available space.

Enriquez Henry also addressed the housing crisis in Latino community in Iowa.

“Many of our firstgeneration families ... live in households where they have not only the father, mother, and kids, but possibly aunts and uncles, and others living in that household,” Enriquez Henry said. “So, the infection rates are high.”

Crowded living spaces aren’t the only housing issue facing students across the country. There has been a steady rise in homelessness and housing insecurity in the last four years, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, but this obstacle isn’t just for adults.

A 2019 study released by the Association of American Colleges and Universities puts the number of housinginsecure or homeless students at 11 percent for four-year colleges like Drake University, and at 16 percent for two-year institutions like Des Moines Area Community College.

Black Americans are the most disproportionately represented in our nation’s housing crisis, comprising

over 40 percent of the homeless population but only accounting for 13 percent of the United States, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Native and Indigenous people account for more than 10 percent of homeless people, though they comprise less than 5 percent of the population. Latinos make up 21 percent of the homeless population, but only 18 percent of the overall population.

Students of color aren’t the only vulnerable population to housing insecurity. The Human Rights Campaign’s 2017 study reports that LGBTQ+ students are 120 percent more likely to face homelessness or housinginsecurity than their straight counterparts, and account for 40 percent of unaccompanied homeless minors.

One of the biggest obstacles minority and lowincome students face is lack of access to technology and internet to safely and effectively continue schooling online, rather than in-person.

According to Pew Research Center, 21 percent of white households, 34 percent of Black households, and 39 percent of Latino households report not having access to reliable internet at home.

Additionally, 18 percent of white households and over 42 percent of Black and Latino households report not having any computer at home, with even more significant disparities reported between urban and rural parts of Iowa.

Schools across Iowa are

getting inventive to address the state’s infrastructure gaps. When Des Moines Public Schools announced a switch to online learning for the rest of the 20192020 school year this past April, they also announced a partnership with Mediacom to provide mobile hotspots to students without internet access.

As part of this initiative, the school district also passed out nearly 21,000 computers and covered the initial cost of installing internet for 1,800 homes. Des Moines Public Schools is only 36.8 percent white, with 76.8 percent of their students qualifying for free-or-reduced lunches.

Enriquez Henry said that lack of access to education technology is an issue for the Latino community, especially first-generation families.

“Because our income levels are significantly lower than the white community ... well, of course we wouldn’t have access to those [technologies] for kids to use,” Enriquez Henry said.

The COVID-19 pandemic is creating many new obstacles while also centralizing the conversation about socioeconomic disparities across this country. While Black, Latino, LGBTQ, and low-income students are at a greater risk of exposure or illness from COVID-19, universities and leaders across the state are all working to address these disparities and provide a more equitable future.

Student perspectives on recent Black Lives Matter protests Andrew Kennard Contributing Writer andrew.connerd@drake.edu

Every year, when students arrive at Drake’s campus armed with textbooks, laptops and snacks, they also bring with them different experiences and perspectives related to a variety of current issues. One of these topics is the recent rise in Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the death of George Floyd.

Within several days of Floyd’s death, Joe Yesufu, a sophomore at Drake, attended a violent protest in Chicago in which police deployed tear gas and fought with protesters.

Yesufu said that he was not personally involved with the rioting, but he does not condemn it.

“I personally don’t have a problem with [rioting],” Yesufu said. “Other people do.”

To Yesufu, the damage caused by rioting is overshadowed by cases of African Americans who died from police brutality.

“It’s been going on for hundreds of years,” Yesufu said about the oppression of African Americans in America. “Time for them to stop.”

First-year student Rachel Shugarts, on the other hand, attended a peaceful protest in her hometown of Gurnee, Ill. in June. The demonstration was organized by students from Shugarts’ high school.

Shugarts and other members of the community took a knee while listening to a student who lived on Shugarts’ street

read off names of African Americans who were killed by police brutality.

Shugarts described the mood of the protesters as “pretty respectful.” According to Shugarts, Gurnee’s police department directed traffic for the protest, and a police sergeant was one of the speakers.

“You hear all of these protests that are violent on the news, and you don’t see the peaceful ones,” Shugarts said. “And, I know this was a smaller town, but it was really nice, and eye-opening to see for myself what a peaceful protest was like.”

However, Shugarts is not entirely opposed to the rioting that has taken place at Black Lives Matter protests.

“I think the rioting/looting and destruction isn’t great but neither is the systematic racism and police brutality that Black people have been facing for so long,” Shugarts said.

Drake first-year John Humphrey is more definitively opposed to the rioting.

“I think that protests should remain peaceful,” Humphrey said. “I believe that riots cause more damage than they do good.”

First-year Nick Sidor echoed this sentiment.

“It just puts a negative light on yourself or the entire movement,” Sidor said.

Drake junior Taylor Fisher attended two protests in August: a protest in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake on Aug. 23 and a march to Des Moines City Councilman’s house on Aug. 29.

During the latter, the protesters made demands that included defunding the Des Moines Police Department and the formation of a civilian review board that would review actions taken by the DMPD. “One of the good things I like to tell people who are considering going to a protest is like, the community of people there is so awesome,” Fisher said. “They’re very supportive and they make sure that everyone’s safe.”

Drake sophomore Okay Djamgouz also sees rioting as an acceptable method of protesting for the Black Lives Matter cause.

“Whatever happens to raise awareness and make change, I support, a hundred percent,” Djamgouz said.

Fisher believes that African Americans should take the lead in the Black Lives Matter movement. In her opinion, white protesters should not lead chants or decide how African Americans should protest.

“I think as a white person it’s not my place to decide how the movement continues,” Fisher said. “I think that I can be an important voice but I think I shouldn’t be the main voice and I should be listening to people who’ve experienced the oppression before I put in my voice.”

Djamgouz, who is from Toronto, Canada, noted that it is important to consider the Black Lives Matter movement in a wider context.

“It’s not just an American thing, it’s a global thing,” Djamgouz said.

Djamgouz, Humphrey

Protesters march in a Black Lives Matter protest in Des Moines. PHOTO BY AUTUMN OSIA | PHOTO EDITOR and Sidor all want to see police departments increase the amount of training and vetting that their officers undergo. Fisher wants to see the police abolished and replaced by other emergency services, such as Emergency Medical Technicians and social workers. Similarly, Yesufu wants to see the police dissolved if police brutality continues.

“The police don’t need to respond to certain calls, like a drug overdose shouldn’t have a police respond to that, there’s other people who can do that job, probably better than a police, and can do it with less bias than a police could,” Fisher said. “So I really think that we should completely abolish the police.”

Shugarts falls somewhere in the middle of those two

viewpoints.

“You need some kind of authoritative organization in place, but definitely not one with so much funding,” Shugarts said.

Whatever changes are made as a result of the Black Lives Matter protests, students seem to agree it’s not going to be an easy process.

“It’s going to have to start with people at the top, who feel the same way that we do,” said Djamgouz.

Sidor said that while he hopes to see change, he knows there is no perfect solution.

“I don’t know what will come out of these protests, because there’s no perfect solution,” Sidor said. “In a perfect world, there would be no police brutality, but we don’t live in a perfect world.”

SPORTS

Sports

Sept. 9, 2020 | Page 5

Drake students host controversial Spikeball tournament

SPIKEBALL TOURNAMENT LEAVES CONFLICTED RESPONSES. The tournament was a success, but many students expressed concern about social distancing during COVID. PHOTO TAKEN BY KENDALL HUNT. Darinka Stepan Contributing Writer darinka.stepan@drake.edu

Spikeball, an entertaining outdoor game that nearly anyone can play, has taken over Helmick Commons at Drake University.

The game involves four people, with two partners competing against one another. Before play begins, all four players start six feet from the net, with teammates on the same side.

Play initiates with a serve and once the ball is in play, each team of two has three touches to return the ball back onto the net and to the other team.

The game involves a lot of diving for balls and quick footwork.

The exercise and movement involved in Spikeball has drawn Drake students to the game, giving them a chance to escape the indoors and interact with other people.

On Aug. 29, Drake

seniors Brian Etzenhouzer, Trey Newman and Jordan Delara organized a Spikeball tournament. There was a high amount of participation from both Drake and Grand View students, with over 40 teams and two pro players.

This tournament drew many eyes from the community, with many local businesses donating prizes for the tournament.

Jethro’s, a barbecue staple near campus, donated gift cards, and local gas station chain Kum & Go donated fanny packs.

Most participants left the tournament with a handful of prizes.

The tournament even incorporated amusing contests such as “best dressed,” an award that went to Max Pettit and his partner.

The two left with a twenty dollar gift card to a local coffee shop in dog town.

Many students commented that the Spikeball tournament was a positive experience for Drake’s campus.

“It is a nice thing to do because not a lot of events have been going on,” first-year Dyer Jarabek said. “It’s a good way to connect students.”

“It’s a good activity, but you have to trust students to wear masks and be social” Other students thought it was a good way to get to know more people, especially given COVID-19 restrictions.

Concerns over COVID have led to the cancellation of oncampus activities and events, making it particularly difficult for incoming freshmen to meet new people and become familiar and comfortable with

their new home.

Many students were pleased they were able to meet new people through this spontaneous event.

“Playing in the tournament was really fun and there were a lot of cool people,” Pettit said.

Despite the positive feedback received from many first year students, many students also expressed concerns about COVID. “It’s a good activity, but you have to trust students to wear masks and be social,” Jarabek said. “If we have a rule about social distancing and wearing a mask, I feel like spikeball does not follow that.”

Large crowds gathered to watch the tournament, and none of the players wore masks during competition.

Because spikeball players are standing approximately six feet apart, participants on Drake’s campus did not wear masks, which sparked controversy among students.

“If Drake is limiting the amount of people in a room,

they should limit people playing,” said Aayushi Sarkar, a first-yeart who observed the event.

Hundreds of students walking by and observing the tournament were shocked at the amount of people in a single space playing in an event together.

However, given that the spikeball tournament was successful and no cases were reported, the question then arises: will similar events now be able to occur?

It is unclear if another Spikeball tournament will be held on campus, but many students are eagerly waiting for another competition.

The enthusiasm for the sport certainly has not died on campus; groups of students can be seen playing on the field on a daily basis.

In the end, the tournament provided a unique avenue for social interaction and opened up new conversations about social distanced events that can occur on campus.

DRAKE WELCOMES TRAINER TARA ARMSTRONG Kyra Stepan Contributing Writer kyra.stepan@drake.edu

Drake has a over 15 different sports teams, meaning there are hundreds of studentathletes on campus.

Drake has eight athletic trainers to help the prevention of injuries for these studentathletes, and caring for hundreds of students is no easy task.

The athletic trainers also help with concussion exams and diagnosis in addition to ttreatment and rehab injuries for all of the student- athletes at Drake.

“I don’t know how they do it,” first-year tennis player Darinka Stepan said.

“The athletic trainers are so committed to their craft here.

I hope to work as hard as they do someday.”

Three of the athletic trainers at Drake are Christine Black: Women’s Basketball, Men’s and Women’s Golf, Andrew Vereen: Softball and Women’s Soccer, and Emma Nye: Rowing, and Men’s and Women’s Track and Field.

All three of these current trainers expressed excitement and gratitude to have Tara Armstrong join the athletic

training team.

Tara Armstrong grew up in California where she found her passion for sports medicine after taking a ROP class at her high school during her senior year. ROP is similar to a college class, and Armstrong chose hers to focus on sports medicine.

Armstrong then transitioned to college to study sports medicine and play Division III soccer at Texas Lutheran University.

Armstrong continued on to Indiana State to receive her doctorate in sports medicine.

While at Indiana State, Armstrong met Emma Nye. Nye informed Tara about her job here at Drake. She described the welcoming atmosphere and environment at Drake.

“From the moment I stepped on campus, I already sensed the positivity,” Armstrong said. “Drake is such a lovely place, and I knew it right away.”

Like most athletic trainers, Armstrong has a very busy schedule and hasn’t been able to meet Griff or explore campus yet, but she already feels at home.

Armstrong decided to work with collegiate athletes after watching athletic trainers on campus impact students’

lives.

“The collegiate age range is definitely the best,” Armstrong said. “I also love watching athletes achieve their dreams.”

Armstrong also said that she feels a connection to this population because of her collegiate athletic experience.

“It is so great to work with student-athletes because I was in their place once,” Armstrong said. “I know what they need and how they want to be treated, so I try to emulate how I wanted to be treated in college in my current work.”

At Drake, Armstrong noted that she is able to be in contact with many people and learn more and more everyday from others.

From counselors to athletic trainers to health care providers, Armstrong found a huge, dedicated network of staff at Drake.

“I love that at Drake I am able to be around other athletic trainers and health care providers,” Armstrong said. “There are so many experienced workers here, so it is great to get feedback and continue to learn.”

Armstrong currently works with volleyball and men’s and women’s tennis, and Drake is excited to welcome her. She

TARA ARMSTRONG JOINS DRAKE STAFF. Armstrong, who is from California, will be working with volleyball as well as men’s and women’s tennis. PHOTO COURTESY OF FACEBOOK.

has already been a standout among the trainers and has put in long hours to help her teams.

Women’s tennis head coach Mai-ly Tran spoke about her excitement to work with Armstrong.

“I’m am thrilled to work with Tara as our athletic trainer this year,” Tran said.

“She takes initiative and has helped get our studentathletes back on campus safely

and quickly. Her experience will be a great asset to our program.”

Overall, Drake student athletes are extremely grateful for all of the work these trainers do and for all of the hours that they put in.

“Tara has already helped me so much,” Stepan said. “I am so grateful she will work with our team this year.”

Sports

SPORTS

Sept. 9, 2020 | Page 6

NHL AND MLB ADDRESS COVID CONCERNS

MLB PLAYERS SPEAK OUT ABOUT COVID. Several MLB players have protested the organization’s decision to continue to put players at risk by playing, but both the MLB and NHL are preparing for playoff season . PHOTO COURTESY OF AMERICA JOSH Emily Godsey Beat Writer emily.godsey@drake.edu

In the past six months, most of the American population has fallen onto two different sides of the increasingly divided spectrum of COVID-19 caution; one side has been vigilantly avoiding any opportunities to catch and/or spread the virus, while the other half of citizens have candidly disregarded the many deterrence’s presented to them.

In the world of sports, the NHL and the MLB seem to have also taken their respective places on the aforementioned spectrum – one being overly cautious and the other seeming to throw safety out the window.

Only a few days ago, the National Hockey League released an official statement via the NHL Public Relations Twitter account revealing,

“The NHL completed the fifth week of its Phase 4 Return to Play with no positive test results for COVID-19 among the 2,814 tests administered.”

This statement continues to disclose that testing was administered every single day to each club from Aug. 23 to Aug. 29 as they travelled.

It is the fifth straight week that the league has had zero positive tests, proving its dedication to keeping the players and officials safe on and off the ice at all times.

Players across the league are seen in photos wearing masking, social distancing, and keeping themselves safe, and with two designated “Hub Cities” for the playoffs (Edmonton and Toronto), travel is limited and the risk of spread to family and friends is significantly lower.

The idea of questionable dedication is demonstrated by the MLB and its seeming disregard for player safety.

Professional athletes such as Anthony Rizzo have

publicly spoken against the organizations repeated decisions to risk its players health and wellbeing by continuing the season.

Teams like the St. Louis Cardinals have already faced game postponements due to positive COVID tests throughout their club, and it can be inferred that many others are on their way to increasing the number of cases as well.

Similarly to the NHL, the MLB has also diligently been recording and releasing data on case numbers and testingprocedures.

One of the latest statements jointly released

by Major League Baseball and the Major League Baseball Players Association shared that, “The number of monitoring samples collected and tested in the past week was 12,301.”

Four of the samples tested came back positive – two players and two staff members from the same team

had come in contact with the virus.

At the time of this statements release, there had been 66,127 tests administered and 75 had come back positive.

Zero compared to seventyfive doesn’t seem like too major of a difference, but it does show that the NHL and its players seem to be on the same page; they want to finish the playoffs, they want to be able to lift the Stanley Cup, and they’ll take any precautions necessary to make that happen.

When thinking about the dedication that hockey players already have to the sport and advancing in the playoffs, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise to know that each of them is committed to staying COVID free for as long as possible.

In terms of the MLB, players are still fighting with officials in an attempt to not only continue with their season, but to also

stay healthy throughout the duration of it.

At the end of July, Chicago Cubs first baseman Anthony Rizzo tweeted from his verified Twitter account, “Player safety? @mlb let’s sit around for 8 plus hours inside the clubhouse. I’m sure I can find that somewhere in the 113 page player safety protocol.”

The tweet gained an impressive 19.9 thousand likes after the Cubs game against the Cincinnati Reds was postponed due to a rain delay.

There is still time for the MLB to increase caution throughout the league, and there are still a few rounds left in the Stanley Cup playoffs for something to go wrong in the NHL. For now, the best thing for hockey and baseball fans to do is protect themselves; wear a mask, social distance, and enjoy the highs and lows of sports from the comfort of their own homes.

Chicago Bears release initial roster for fall

BEARS LOOK TO COMPETE IN FALL SEASON. Despite COVID concerns, the Chicago Bears announced their team roster for the year, which included some crucial tight end additions.

PHOTO COURTESY OF WIKI COMMONS

Maddie Topliff Staff Writer maddie.topliff@drake.edu @Top_dog30 The past couple of weeks have been bananas, to say the least, for the Chicago Bears.

In the midst of the coaching staff trying to nail down the final roster for the 2020 season, nine COVID-19 tests came back as false positives the week of August 23 due to an issue at the New Jersey laboratory

who processed the tests, according to NBC Chicago.

The lab in question processed the tests of several NFL teams, with almost a dozen total teams who had issues with false positives.

Even with confirmed false positives, affected Bears staff and players still had to follow specific protocols in order to return to Halas Hall.

And then finally, the Chicago Bears announced their final 53-

man roster by the league-wide deadline this past Saturday.

The numbers by position are: two quarterbacks, four running-backs, six wide receivers, five tight ends, 14 total linemen, nine total linebackers, five cornerbacks, five safeties and three specialists.

Stacked up against the rest of the NFC North, there are the greatest number of consistencies on defense and with linemen, with each

individual team taking the most liberty with filling out their offense.

The Bears notably bulked up on tight ends, with five being the most in the division.

Additionally, as Bears Senior Writer Larry Mayer pointed out, exactly zero of the five tight ends on the current roster started the 2019 season in Chicago.

The Bears have struggled with filling the tight end position with consistent performers especially in the past couple of years.

Eyes will be mostly on both NFL veteran Jimmy Graham and second round draft pick Cole Kmet, who comes from Notre Dame.

Next on Chicago’s to-do list was to sign a 16-man practice squad.

It was expected that a kicker would make the final cut in order to provide some relief for second-year Chicago kicker Eddy Piñeiro, and the Bears found that second kicker in kicker Cairo Santos.

15 out of the 16 players were part of the group previously waived or released by the Bears to form the final roster; offensive lineman Jamon Brown was released by the Atlanta Falcons.

By position, the list is largely dominated by defense and also offensive linemen, another area where Chicago has struggled.

Along with Saturday’s roster announcement, head

coach Matt Nagy confirmed on Sunday that quarterback Mitch Trubisky will be the team’s official starting quarterback for week one against the Detroit Lions, beating out new Bears QB and previous playoff foe Nick Foles — if you know, you know.

In Sunday’s press conference, Trubisky gave props to Foles for being gracious during the off-season competition.

“I look forward to helping [Trubisky] any way possible,” Foles said during Sunday’s press conference.

The announcement doesn’t come as that big of a shock, as Nagy has been a die-hard Trubisky truster since he joined the team, despite a handful of injuries and underwhelming performances.

Also, it’s just week one. If Trubisky royally screws up against the Lions, then Nagy can just sub Foles in scandalfree.

It would’ve been real wild if Nagy had gone with Foles right out the gate.

The gasp would have been heard around the world, and by the world, I mean the Midwest.

After all of that, we are officially in game week, and my heart is racing.

Clear your calendars for Sunday, September 13 at noon because the Bears are back, baby. Until then, mask up and Beardown.

COMMENTARY

Commentary

Sept. 9, 2020 | Page 7

The media is failing Asian Americans

Asian Americans find themselves left out of the narrative Caleb Lillquist Staff Writer caleb.lillquist@drake.edu

Police brutality protests across the nation, the latest political bargain between Democrats and Republicans in Washington, and the neverending Covid-19 coverage would have you believe that nothing else of significance exists within the country.

It is blatantly obvious that the media is more than willing to provide 24/7 coverage of the violence that has permeated our nation after peaceful protesting in a push for ‘racial justice,’ and rightfully so. Violence and police shootings get the most views for outlets, so why not cash in on the broadcasting and publishing?

Yet, despite the recurring narratives seen played out every day to gather the most clicks, the media have impressively and inadvertently downplayed the abhorrent hate crimes and racism towards the Asian American communities across the United States.

Even before the corona virus hit, the daily racism that Asians have yielded over the years seems to be nonexistent from established media sites. Asians roughly make up about five percent of the entire U.S population, and only about two percent here at Drake University, second to last above Native Americans.

Defending established media for the act of simply ‘going to

the next topic’ only reiterates the lack of Asians represented in mass media and journalism as a profession.

Where exactly is their representation of Asian culture and daily struggles in a predominantly white culture and being the minority of minorities in today’s media?

The following is just a snippet of the number of hate crimes against Asians in the past few months: CBS News published a piece on July 2, 2020, reporting that 2,120 hate incidents against Asian Americans were reported in a three-month span. Citizens of all races, other than Asians, have been shown to maliciously target and beat Asian Americans just for the sake of their race.

Axios published a story in May 2020 which reported that over 800 cases of hate incidents occurred over a three month period in California.

In late July, in New York City, ABC 7 reported on an incident where an Asian woman was beaten and set on fire by two men. The heinous incident’s motive is noted as to be because of the woman’s Asian descent.

Journalist Andy Ngo, who has also been the victim of racially motivated assault, reported on a video from Philadelphia posted to Twitter showing a group of men beating an Asian man until he lay incapacitated. As the man lay on the ground, the men stomped, kicked, and

threw a cone on his head.

Vox News also posted a video in San Francisco of an elderly Asian man being harassed and beaten by another group of men. “ We don’t want to start a race war,” said the mayor of San Francisco when asked about the incident.

“Where is the justice for those suffering in the Asian American communities who are being verbally and physically harmed for the last few months?”

In Albany mid-June, 6 News reported an Asian employee being beaten by a man after being told to follow the store’s COVID-related guidelines by wearing a mask.

The customer told the man, “Go back to your country,” and proceeded to sucker punch and kick the Asian man.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, three teens are seen recording a confrontation with an Asian woman as one of the teen’s drops kicks the woman in the face in May. Also this May in Vancouver, another man is seen walking up to a 22-year-old Asian woman and punching her in the face, according to NowThisNews.

This is not including the

numerous Asian-owned businesses that were looted and destroyed amid the horrific incident of George Floyd. The Global Times interviewed a Chinese business owner, Huang, in Minneapolis whose restaurant was shot at by rioters.

“We Asians are a weak group in the U.S. We don’t dare speak even if our stores are smashed in the protests,” Huang said in an interview with the Global Times. “Blacks are under protection of the socalled ‘political correctness,’ but Asians here are protected by nothing.” The piece noted that, though many Asian Americans support the stand against police violence, Asian Americans interviewed feel, “There wouldn’t be such a large scale of protests if the victim was not a Black man but an Asian.”

The Columbia Journalism review interviewed Russel Jeung, a San Francisco Asian-American Professor, who studied how the media covered Asian Americans.

When asked his opinion on, how the mainstream media serves Asian Americans, Jeung responded with, “They tend to neglect us. And again, stereotype us.”

Where are the protests?

Where is the 24/7 news coverage for the hate against Asian Americans?

Where’s the declaration of a National Emergency? If this were to happen to any other minority race at this astronomical rate these past

three months, this would be headline news coverage for weeks.

Where’s the justice for those suffering in the Asian American communities who are being verbally and physically harmed daily for the past few months?

It wasn’t until COVID hit that I began to notice my own identity as being Korean.

People have and continue to stare at me in stores and various restaurants whenever I am out. During the summer, I took up a delivery job for DoorDash, in which some individuals would glare at me as they stood on their front lawns that displayed their proud Confederate flags.

Even before COVID I have experienced discrimination, whether that be being made fun of because I am.

Not living up to my Asian heritage in mathematics, or being forced to wear a “Jackie Chan” name tag by a manager at work since I was the only Asian employee.

As an Asian American myself, the only thing I can concur from current reality is that Asian lives don’t matter in the media, let alone in the scope of public opinion.

The message is clear to myself and other Asian Americans across the country, Your obstacles of racism are neglected, and your race is only used to display what it means to be a “Token Minority”.

Best and worst: Mask Edition Grace Noack Contributing Writer grace.noack@drake.edu

Masks have become a daily staple in our new reality that we all tolerate. A lot of people complain about having to wear a mask, which I get– they’re hot, kind of hard to breathe through and wreak havoc on sensitive skin.

However, they also offer a lot of benefits: like keeping us alive, allowing us to show off our quarantine sewing projects and covering up our “maskne,” or mask acne. Like everyone else, I’ve come into contact with a lot of different kinds of masks, and I have compiled a list of the best and worst.

Starting with my favorite: cloth masks. First of all, cloth masks are so soft it feels like a little blanket on your face, which I find to be an incredible comfort during these trying times. Yes, they do get a little sweaty, but they’re super easy to wash and reuse. The variety of cloth masks alone is enough to make them my favorite. Still, according to a Duke study, they are also very effective comparing the prevention efficacy of different types of masks.

Blue surgical masks

are fine. They work well, and they’re a little more breathable than the cloth blanket, but they’re boring and not reusable. N95s, much like the surgical mask, work well but again are very bland.

I think N95s are great if you need a confidence boost, though. After all, they are the holy grail of masks.

Sock masks! I have no idea if these are effective or not, but they always make me laugh. Plus, they’re incredibly accessible and easy to make in a pinch.

First up in the worst mask category are neck fleece, also called neck gaiters. I don’t know what it is about these, but I find them so upsetting.

They’re like ill-fitting turtlenecks, and they always look like they’re on the verge of falling off. Additionally, they performed very poorly in the Duke mask study.

Bandannas were kind of fun in the beginning, but now that we’re entering the seventh month of the pandemic, it’s maybe time to invest in a real mask. Like the fleece, bandannas did not prove to be very effective in preventing the spread of water droplets.

Last of all: crocheted masks-perhaps the dumbest mask I’ve seen. I appreciate the craft and the time that

Many masks of different sizes, types, and materials are all available from many different sellers and sites over the internet. PHOTO COURTESY OF AMAZON

went into making them, but they’re literally full of holes.

I also can’t imagine how itchy that would be to wear.

I honestly haven’t been overly impressed with the masks I’ve seen. We could stand to be a little more creative, so I’ve created a little mask wish list in an attempt to manifest my dream masks.

Please consider making these a reality.

I want a mask with a little

pocket on the front for a convenient Chapstick or ID pouch.

I would love to see a mask made out of a weird material, like a corduroy or denim mask.

I’d like a mask that is a picture of the bottom half of the wearer’s face. I think this could potentially be very profitable, especially if marketed to those who are having a difficult time

recognizing their friends in masks.

If you want to learn more about how different masks performed, you can check out The Fayetteville Observer article about Duke’s mask study. Most importantly, though, thank you for wearing a mask.

Commentary

COMMENTARY

Sept. 9, 2020 | Page 8

Black Voices Column Racism in Recruitment Process

Nala Gauvin Contributing Writer nala.gauvin@drake.edu

I didn’t want to do it; I was terrified. Not because the women talking to me looked scary, but consequently, I didn’t look like anyone else.

Recruitment on its own is nerve-racking because you want to find your forever home. You want to fit in and find your place. You want to feel accepted. How do you fit in when you stand out so much?

Last year, I decided to go through recruitment, and with that decision, I knew I needed to change as much as I could to fit the part. I straightened my curls. I put on foundation to have perfect skin. I wore outfits that I felt fit the part for the stereotypical sorority girl. Although, no matter how hard I tried, it wasn’t me.

On my first day of recruitment, I went to all five houses on campus. After leaving each house, I started to become more confident. I felt as if I fitted in. The feeling left quickly when it was time

to leave the house and rotate to the next. As I was exiting the house, I was talking about how excited I was to come back because I thought I found my forever home.

One of the sorority members who was already part of the chapter overheard my excitement, and before I left, she told me, “You won’t get asked back. We already have our token.” Then, she circled by and disappeared into the house.

“All I could put throught my head is that I was another quota in the sorority houses. I would be their token. I was a pity vote.”

At the time, I attempted to convince myself that it was not a racial remark, but it was made clear the next day when I received the list of houses I was asked back too and that

house was no longer on my list. Embarrassed, angered, and regretful is all I felt when I read the list. Embarrassed for the mere fact, I truly thought I could change myself and be accepted for that version of me. Angered because it was made clear to me that my race identifies me before my personality does. Regretful because I wish I never went through recruitment.

The rest of recruitment was awful. All I could put through my head is that I was another quota in the sorority houses. I would be their token. I was a pity vote. They didn’t want to look racist for not accepting me. Once I received my bid, I was still nervous, but I grew a special bond with my sisters throughout the year, which I am so grateful for.

Over time, I shared my story in hopes to raise awareness of the underlying racism that circles Greek Street. Everyone was shocked, not because it happened to me but because it happened on campus. When, in reality, it is happening everywhere.

My name is Nala Gauvin.

I was born in Norwich,

Getting dressed up in more formal attire is an important part of recruitment that can be both fun and stressful.

PHOTO BY DESTINY NELSON | CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Connecticut.

I am Native American. I am majoring in BCMB and Spanish with a Concentration in Comparative Animal Behavior. Currently, I hold the Equity and Inclusion chair

of Delta Gamma. I found my forever home, and with that, I have worked endlessly to make sure that from now on, no one will have a story like mine to share again.

Candace Against the Universe: Review Olivia Klassen Contributing Writer olivia.klassen@drake.edu

There’s a hundred and four days of summer vacation, and a revival of Phineas and Ferb came at the end of it.

On Aug. 28, the movie Candace Against the Universe hit Disney Plus for streaming and searching for some preserved happiness from my childhood, I decided to give it a watch.

When Candace discovers a machine that is sure to “bust” her brothers once and for all with Vanessa, she decides to investigate it.

In reality, it’s an alien space pod ready to take her to the planet Feebla-Oot. Upon seeing Candace and Vanessa being whisked away, Phineas and Ferb gather the gang together to help get Candace home by building a portal but end up at Doofenshmirtz’s office because he is also trying to build a portal to save Vanessa.

Through the help of one very secret agent P, and a spaceship, They reach FeeblaOot, but only to find that Candace is the “chosen one”

and has made friends with the ruler, Super Super Big Doctor, who happens to have a very common name for her alien planet.

The rest of the movie plays out on both Feebla-Oot and Earth as Candace fights to feel like she’s worth more than just busting her brothers, and as Phineas and Ferb try to show her that she is.

Although I had my doubts, this movie left a nostalgic taste in my mouth. It left me longing for more Phineas and Ferb.

The humor in this movie was well written for the target audience of people who grew up watching this show. The characters are dynamic, with issues that have relevance to people now, such as mental health, finding purpose, and “adulting.”

There is a lightness about this movie that kept me laughing out loud while my roommate was on a Zoom call and continued to have me engaged for the entire hour and twenty-six-minute feature.

The problems I had with this movie were with songs.

Coming from a musical

theatre background, when I hear a song that has been very clearly audio-tuned, my ears start to cringe.

I truthfully was disappointed by the soundtrack for this movie, seeing as the Phineas and Ferb I used to know produced jam worthy songs that I still know most of the words to could do me so dirty as to give me only a few earworms.

The student newspaper for Drake University since 1884 RACHEL JAMES, Editor-in-Chief rachel.james@drake.edu TARYN RIPPLE, Managing Editor taryn.ripple@drake.edu

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a song that goes from sunshine and rainbows to death metal, to an entire song sung by none other than Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz about “adulting” to a new character, Super Super Big Doctor, having a therapeutic breakthrough, this is a movie that most any college student would enjoy.

The TV show Phineas and Ferb ran new episodes on Disney and Disney XD for eight years, with multiple straight-to-home movies also being released. PHOTO COURTESY OF AMAZON

THE TIMES-DELPHIC

JEFF INMAN, Faculty Advisor jeffrey.inman@drake.edu

Some of the songs in this track honestly feel like they were shoved in to increase the movie’s length, but the humor and the animation saved this film for me.

The bottom line, this movie is most definitely made for the college-aged people who grew up asking the familiar question: where’s Perry?

From the start of the movie with Candace singing

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Emailed letters can be sent to rachel.james@drake.edu.

ADVERTISING POLICY

The Times-Delphic’s business office is located at 2507 University Avenue, 124 Meredith Hall, Des Moines, IA 50311. The Times-Delphic is published on Wednesdays during the university’s fall and spring academic terms. The newspaper is distributed for free around the Drake University campus. All advertising information is to be submitted noon Sunday for the Wednesday edition. Advertisements can be designed by The TimesDelphic or submitted via e-mail. We accept cash and check. A 10 percent discount is offered for prepayment on advertisements. The business office can be contacted at 515-271-2020.