serving the uc davis campus and community since 1915
www.theaggie.org
volume 131, number 18
wednesday, february 8, 2012
New affordable housing located on Mahogany Lane Units are still under construction
Davis in offering affordable homes to those who would like to purchase a house in Davis but cannot afford the over-$600,000 homes. Warmington builds and markets these units. Four two-bedroom and four threebedroom two-story duplexes will be for sale, ranging from 935 to 1,146 square feet. Two-bedroom homes are $220,000 each and three-bedroom homes are $240,000 each. According to the Davis Affordable Housing website, to be qualified for ownership, total household income cannot exceed 120 percent of the Yolo County area median income values that are dependent on household
By CLAIRE TAN Aggie Staff Writer
Mahogany Lane floor plans
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South Davis will soon house a new neighborhood. The Mahogany Lane Affordable Ownership Housing Program will have eight units available for qualified City of Davis residents, with the first few units to be completed in April. Warmington Residential, a housing agency, is in collaboration with
Student Recognition Awards recognize students’ contribution to community Nomination deadline is this Monday By AKSHAYA RAMANUJAM
Aggie News Writer
The UC Davis Student Recognition awards are given out each year in order to recognize outstanding students on campus. The Mary Jeanne Gilhooly Award, established in 1942, and the Veloyce Glenn Winslow Jr. Award, established 1966, are for outstanding graduating senior woman and man, respectively. The Margarita Robinson Student Leadership Award, established 1982, is for outstanding juniors. “The awards are in place
to recognize students who have made a significant contribution through participation in campus or community service,” said Laura Hall, associate director of Campus Recreation, in an e-mail interview. “Evidence of socially responsible, ethical and outstanding leadership either in specific positions of responsibility or while engaged in service activities are indicators of a nominee’s qualifications for the award.” Staff, faculty and other students can nominate students for these awards or they can self-nominate. Once they have been nominated and the Student Affairs Vice Chancellor’s Office has confirmed that they meet the GPA requirements, the nominees are sent an application. The
Winslow and Gilhooly awards require a 3.0 average GPA, and the Robinson award requires a 2.5 average. “It’s treated like a job interview,” said Ellen Yoshimura, office manager in the Student Affairs Vice Chancellor’s Office. “[A committee] screen through nominations, then it’s narrowed down to an interview, then they make a final selection. It’s a competitive process.” Hall chairs the committee that decides the winner of the Margarita Robinson award. “They actually spend a lot of time reading through the applications,” said Don Ho, recipient of the Margarita Robinson Student Leadership Award in 2011. “The selection committee does a good job of trying to find a good balance
Small fire at the MU put out quickly
between being very strong academically and what they’ve done for the community.” The winners of the senior awards receive a small gift, a $500 check and a plaque at graduation. The winner of the junior award gets a small gift and a $100 check. All the winners are treated to a luncheon with the vice chancellor and the chancellor if she is also available. “I really think this is one of the few opportunities where students who do a lot for the campus can get some recognition for it,” Ho said. The deadline for nominations and applications for these awards is Monday, Feb. 13. AKSHAYA RAMANUJAM can be reached at campus@theaggie.org.
Lo Swim offers fashionable competition suits By LANI CHAN
Aggie Features Writer
Today’s weather Partly Cloudy High 63 Low 41
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Sheeva van Gemeren, right, and Annie Babicz model their Lo Swim competitive swimsuits. so many years. It’s just primary colors and geometric designs.” Van Gemeren and Babicz sent their first prototype, a swimsuit made of cutup pieces of their old suits, to a manufacturer based in China that they found online. Suits were shipped back to the U.S. in batches of 1500 and stored in van Gemeren’s, Babicz’s and their parents’ garages until they were sold on their website, www.loswim.com. Lo Swim products are an attempt to bridge the gap between beach and competitive swim, Babicz said. To do this, the basic two-piece suit has a braided and adjustable neck strap and T-back strap, a tie around the band and pads in the front. The bottoms have a similar tie and cinch detail in the back, and both pieces are in bright, fun colors such as turquoise and fuchsia. Tops and bottoms cost $22 each. Forecast It’s been cold for TOO long. I always like to look forward to a time when warm weather will be back in our Aggie Weather Forecast, so, keep in mind that Picnic Day is only a short 75 days away! Kenneth Doss, atmospheric science major Aggie Forecasting Team
“Picking the colors is the best part,” van Gemeren said. “And that’s a lot of the feedback we get, too — people always want more colors.” The product’s features help the suit stay on through starts and sprints and give it a fashion-forward appearance at the same time. The colorful braided straps and gold hardware are both inspired by brands such as Betsey Johnson, Vix and Vitamin A. “You sort of sacrifice some of your femininity when you jump in the pool,” van Gemeren said. “You have your hair back, in a cap, and then you put on a generic suit and that’s the way it has to be. I wanted to find a way for girls to be able to keep their personal style in the pool.” The suits have gotten plenty of positive
See SWIMSUIT, page 2 Thursday
Friday
Sunny
Sunny
High 66 Low 39
High 65 Low 39
See MAHOGANY, page 2
News iN Brief
Former Aggie swimmer’s swimsuit company flourishes Creative and driven college students who always wished to turn their side passions into successful business ventures can indeed make their dream a reality. Lo Swim, an athletic swimsuit company founded by former collegiate swimmers Sheeva van Gemeren, UC Davis alumna, and Annie Babicz, UC Berkeley alumna, has been successfully operating out of Oakland, California since the fall of 2009. Lo Swim is the embodiment of the women’s collaborative style-conscious intellect and effort to make more functional and fashionable racing suits available to competitive swimmers. “It started with some really basic thoughts, when Annie and I worked and coached together at the Claremont Swim Club,” said van Gemeren, who graduated in 2009 with degrees in international relations, political science and philosophy. “We thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just adjust your suit so that it stays on? Wouldn’t it be nice if your suit was actually flattering, cute, and if you were excited to go shopping for your suit?’” Both founders swam competitively on the Division I teams at their respective schools and have extensive backgrounds in the swimming world. Throughout their aquatic experience, van Gemeren and Babicz noticed several issues with women’s practice and competition suits that, while relatively minor, would increase comfort and confidence if fixed. “We wanted something that was functional. That’s where the adjustable factor came in. We wanted something to stay on the entire time,” said Babicz, who graduated from Berkeley in 2007 with a degree in American studies. “Additionally, being fashion-minded, we wanted the suit to be an extension of a swimmer’s personal style on the pool deck. The suit market is pretty stagnant — it hasn’t changed in
size. “There is a whole realm of qualifications that people need to figure out,” said Warmington Residential Vice President of Marketing for the Northern California division Joanne Anderson. “There’s income limitation and there’s a whole program set up by Davis.” For each new home community in Davis, there is a part of the approval process called inclusionary zoning, which includes affordable, belowmarket-rate houses as well as market-rate houses. For Mahogany Lane,
A small custodial closet fire at the Memorial Union (MU) Tuesday afternoon forced a complete evacuation of the building. “It was an accidental fire in a custodial closet. It was put out very quickly and there was very little damage to building,” said Gina Updegraff, acting Captain of the UC Davis Fire Department. Initial reports said that the fire was caused by lighting issues in the closet. People were asked to evacuate the MU, including the ASUCD Coffee House and Lower Freeborn. Firefighters allowed people to re-enter the building after approximately 20 minutes. No one was injured in the fire. —Hannah Strumwasser
Federal appeals court upholds gay marriage in California A federal appeals court ruled the 2008 Proposition 8, California’s ban on samesex marriage, unconstitutional yesterday. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 against the proposition. Those in support of the ban are expected to appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court or first ask for a review by a larger panel of the appeals court. The decision upholds the 2010 ruling by U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker that the ban violates gay individuals’ equal protection and due process rights. “By using their initiative power to target a minority group and withdraw a right that it possessed, without a legitimate reason for doing so, the people of California violated the Equal Protection Clause,” the majority wrote in a statement. “We hold Proposition 8 to be unconstitutional on this ground.” ProtectMarriage.com carried the appeal forward after former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and then-Attorney General Jerry Brown, now governor, declined to defend the ban in court. The California Supreme Court ruled in November 2011 that proponents of ballot initiatives could defend the measures themselves in such cases. The majority, in an opinion written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt, stated they ruled the gay marriage ban unconstitutional because it stripped gay and lesbian people in California of a right they previously enjoyed. “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples,” the ruling stated. The judges did not consider the broader question of whether gay and lesbian couples may ever be denied the right to be married. Courtney Joslin, a UC Davis law professor who co-authored an amicus brief that was filed on behalf of 28 California family law professors in the litigation challenging Proposition 8, said it is unclear what will happen in the next stage of the process to review gay marriage and that the Supreme Court does not even have to accept the review. “The [appeals] court did so in a fairly narrow way; the ruling only directly addresses circumstances of California,” she said. “It didn’t address the question if excluding same-sex marriage generally violates the constitution.” In a dissenting opinion, Judge N. Randy Smith said he was not convinced the state had no legitimate interest in Proposition 8. He argued for judicial restraint when intervening in legislative enactments. — Angela Swartz For those of you still looking for a Valentine’s date, I’ve got some inside scoop to share. According to Yahoo!, the best cities for dating are Austin, Boston, Chicago, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Phoenix & Scottsdale, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. So, take your pick and jump on that plane fast! Amanda Nguyen