April 26, 2018

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VOLUME 136, ISSUE 24 | THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018

UC Davis conductor accused of misconduct returns to campus after quarter-long unpaid leave

UC DAVIS DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC / COURTESY

Statement from Department of Music in response to concerns over Christian Baldini’s return refers students, faculty to existing resources

BY TAY LO R L A P OI NT campus@theaggie.org

Christian Baldini, 39, a UC Davis symphony conductor, has returned to campus after being temporarily removed without pay after misconduct toward a female undergraduate student. A university investigation was conducted, and a disciplinary letter of censure from Chancellor Gary May was sent to Baldini in September of 2017.

The letter discussed a Title IX investigation report into Baldini after alleged inappropriate behavior was brought to the university’s attention. His behavior toward the student led to her departure from UC Davis. Baldini was placed on unpaid academic leave for the duration of Winter Quarter.

He was not permitted on university property without the written permission of Associate Dean Claire Waters and did not receive salary from Jan. 1 to March 23. “[Investigators] found Dr. Baldini to be in violation of our Sexual Harassment and Sexual Violence policy, which was a violation of the Faculty Code of Conduct, and so he agreed to discipline of being suspended for the Winter Quarter with no pay,” said Dana Topousis, a UC Davis spokesperson.

The letter of censure, which was sent to The California Aggie by Topousis, confirmed Baldini “engaged in conduct that included touching this student’s hands and shoulder, dancing with her alone (including touching her waist and spinning her, leading to her buttocks being held against [his] body), and kissing this student’s cheek.”

It was also concluded that Baldini created a hos-

tile environment by making inappropriate comments, calling her a “bad girl” and sending her messages “reasonably interpreted as being sexual in nature.”

The letter will not be placed in Baldini’s academic review file.

Further sanctions urge Baldini to refrain from the behavior described and any subsequent incidents would be met with potential termination. “[I] am likely to pursue your dismissal from your faculty position should you be found to have engaged in similar misconduct again in the future,” May wrote in the letter. “At the same time, I believe that you are capable of amending your behavior and of conducting yourself in a way that complies with the Faculty Code of Conduct. I trust that your future career at UC Davis will be successful and without any further incidents.”

Baldini’s explanation for his behavior is that of a case of misunderstanding between his intentions and the student’s interpretation.

“Even though nothing sexual was intended, I deeply regret that over time this was perceived by my student in such a way,” said Baldini’s prepared statement, which was sent via email to The California Aggie. “My faults are failing to recognize that my behavior could have a reaction in her that was unintended. I feel contrite and remorseful that one of my students would have felt this way by something I did, and I deeply apologize for any stress and pain this may have caused.”

He referred to his Argentinian heritage as a cultural justification for his actions and comments to the student involved.

ALEXA FONTANILLA/ AGGIE

UC counseling psychologists vote to authorize strike Strike would result in UC-wide shutdown of services

BY H A N N A H HOL Z E R campus@theaggie.org

Recently, UC counseling psychologists voted to authorize a strike after months of bargaining negotiations with the UC Office of the President. 122 counseling psychologists total voted. 121 voted in support of striking — a 99.4 percent majority.

Bargaining negotiations took place between UCOP and the University Professional and Technical Employees over terms relating to employment under the job titles Counseling Psychologist 2 and 3 — previously unrepresented positions being added to the pre-existing healthcare contract. After negotiations failed to result in an agreement reached between UCOP and UPTE, which represents coun-

seling psychologists, an impasse was declared.

According to official documentation of the impasse declaration obtained by The California Aggie, the issues that remain in dispute are “salary increases,” “bonus and incentive programs” and “workplace committees.”

“The strike is occurring because the Office of the President has utilized illegal tactics in its bargaining.They have done direct dealing with employees.

They terminated contract workers in the midst of negotiations, which is a change in working conditions that they’re not allowed to do, as well as impasse prematurely,” said Jamie McDole, the vice president of UPTE. “The university needs to be held accountable.”

The two parties are currently in mediation, a re-

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“It never occurred to me that calling someone a ‘bad girl’ in this context could be perceived as a sexual type of comment,” Baldini said in the statement.

“I obviously need to be a lot more careful and considerate, and I must make sure to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.”

The California Aggie approached UC Davis Communications regarding the university’s response to students’ concerns to Baldini’s return to campus.

Spokesperson Dana Topousis provided a statement via an email written by Henry Spiller, an associate professor and chair from the Department of Music.

“The Department of Music takes its responsibilities with respect to Title IX and sexual harassment very seriously,” the statement read. “We work closely with the campus’ Title IX Office and the Office of Academic Affairs to ensure we are providing our students and all members of our community with a safe and welcoming work and learning environment that is free of harassment. When UC Davis learns of sexual harassment, we take immediate and appropriate action consistent with the University’s Sexual Violence and Sexual Harassment policy.”

Spiller described a meeting he conducted with faculty members of the Department of Music during Winter Quarter in which they reiterated the university’s resources regarding sexual misconduct to faculty and students and “reaffirmed our individual and collective commitments to promoting a safe and nurturing environment in which to study and make music.”

Baldini did not respond to requests for comment regarding student concerns over his return to campus.

May is Mental Health Awareness Month Month of events aim to engage diverse campus communities

BY ALLY R USSELL features@theaggie.org

quired step in the impasse process.

“A state-appointed mediator will go back and forth between two rooms, so the parties don’t interact directly, [...] trying to see if they can bridge the gap in negotiations to an agreement,” McDole said.

“It’s mandated that you show up, but it’s not mandated that you actually have to try and get to a deal.”

According to McDole, the support for a strike from UC counseling psychologists gives UPTE leverage going into mediation because UCOP knows support for a strike means the possible shutdown of services provided by counseling psychologists on campuses. The reality of a strike actually occurring depends on the success of mediation.

UC spokesperson Stephanie Beechem said via email that the “UC has offered multiple proposals that would provide our counseling psychologists with fair wages, continued quality health care, and excellent retirement benefits that few other employers offer.”

“We are disappointed by UPTE members’ decision to authorize a strike against UC,” Beechem said via email. “In UC’s view, strikes unfairly impact students and should not be used as a negotiating tactic.”

AFSCME Local 3299, which represents over 25,000 UC employees, also recently approved to authorize a strike with a 97 percent majority. Potentially, AFSCME workers, counseling psychologists and other workers represented by UPTE could join forces.

“There are other unions who are also able to strike in solidarity, so for our department, it’s pretty much everyone except the physicians and the administrative staff,” said Margaret Walter, the executive director of health and wellness at UC Davis.

“We’re talking about nurses, medical assistants, receptionists, physical therapists, labs, x-rays, counselors — all of these people. We are expecting to have staff joining and participating in the union action.”

Walter said she and other UC Davis management STRIKE on 11

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During the month of May, the UC Davis Mental Health Initiative will host empowering workshops, panels and interactive activities for students to participate in.

Different days and events will feature a wide range of topics, including addiction, mental health in the face of violence and trauma, different cultural approaches to mental health, issues of masculinity and body positivity and many others.

From its founding in 2016 as an ASUCD Senate project, UC Davis’ MHI has grown to include UC Davis Mental Health Awareness Month and the UC Davis Mental Health Conference. The MHI has also influenced other campuses to create their own initiatives.

This year, the MHI has joined forces with the CoHo and the Campus Store to promote events.

Students visiting the campus store can find MHI merchandise and self-care items.

Fourth-year English and Asian American studies double major Sam Chiang is the founder of the MHI and is working closely with preparations to organize the second-ever Mental Health Awareness Month at UC Davis. With a team of event leaders, team members and board members, Chiang is looking forward to the evolution and growth of the month-long initiative.

“This year, we have themed days as opposed to isolated events,” Chiang said. “Each of these days consists of a casual drop-in activity at the MU patio and a related event.”

Themed days like “Body Positivity,” which will take place on May 7, will have events during the day where students can design their own T-shirts and learn about body dysmorphia and fatphobia while also hosting an event later in the evening at 7 p.m. at the Women’s Resources and Research Center entitled, “Ed-ucating Allies.”

This interactive workshop delves deeper into issues surrounding eating disorders and becoming more mindful of the signs.

Tabling events will vary over the course of the month. All tabling events will be held on the Quad from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Radhika Marwaha, a first-year global disease biology major, is the Addiction Day event leader.

Marwaha hopes to engage more of the student body in the conversation about mental health.

“We will be asking folks questions about how addiction is linked to the college culture and its effect on mental health,” Marwaha said.

Marwaha is teaming up with Aggie RISE, Smoke and Tobacco Free Ambassadors and the Joan Viteri Memorial Clinic to host the day’s events.

Kealani Beltran, a fourth-year psychology major, is this year’s Native American Day event leader.

Beltran will be spearheading events on April 24, including distributing prizes and encouraging student involvement. Later in the evening, Beltran will be helping facilitate a dialogue called Decolonizing Documentation. Hailey Ferroni, from the Dry Creek Rancheria of Pomo Indians, will be speaking and sharing her experiences.

“I hope that everyone is able to understand how intersectional experiences affect all communities in different ways, and that mental health needs to be a priority to not only UC Davis, but all universities,” Beltran said.

While some days are organized to tackle different mental health issues, the MHI team has also worked to highlight different communities throughout the month including days focused around the LGBTQIA+, Chicanx/Latinx and disabled communities.

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THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

LAST WEEK IN SENATE: Daniella Aloni confirmed as interim senator

CAITLYN SAMPLEY / AGGIE

BY GE ORG E L I AO campus@theaggie.org

Vice President Shaniah Branson called the weekly Senate meeting to order at 6:10 p.m. on April 12. Senator Danny Halawi was late.

First on the agenda was a quarterly report from the Mental Health Initiative.

Fourth-year English major Sam Chiang, the founder of the MHI, spoke about Mental Health Awareness month occuring in May. Chiang said approximately a quarter of all adults currently live with mental health issues and suicide is the second leading cause of death among college students. The awareness month will include tabling on the Quad every day as

well as events and activities.

Next, the Committee on Student Affairs and Fees gave a presentation.

COSAF representative Jessica Sandoval offered the committee’s purpose as being to “advise the Chancellor through the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs on the use of student fees in Student Affairs units” and “advise on the use, management and capital improvements to student fee-funded buildings and facilities.”

The committee is composed of 10 voting undergraduates, four voting graduate or professional students, one voting faculty member and two voting staff members.

Of the fees overseen by COSAF, the Facilities and Campus Enhancements Fee and Legal Education Enhancement

and Access Program supports on campus maintenance. It is $427.83 per current undergraduate and graduate student.

In the allocation of the separate Student Activities and Services Initiative/ Student Services Maintenance Fee, 8 percent went to Student Community Centers, 22 percent went to financial aid and 34 percent went to Student Athlete Grants in Aid. In light of a recent change to oversight power, Sandoval said COSAF hopes to have more oversight over units on campus “and have a better understanding on how they’re using the money.”

A contentious conversation followed regarding the confirmation of the nomination of third-year communication major Daniella Aloni into the interim senator position left open after Andreas Godderis resigned as a senator. Aloni, who ran and lost in the Winter Elections, was nominated by ASUCD President Michael Gofman. Gofman said he “chose her because of her experience working in commissions and committees and her experience running for Senate.”

“I decided to run for this position after actually losing in the elections,” Aloni said. “As a transfer student, I really wanted to get involved and make a positive impact on communities. I want to focus on my platforms.”

Questions from the table followed.

Senator Ko Ser Lu Htoo expressed concern over the absence of other individuals at the interviews for interim senator — “Are you aware there should be two more Senators at the [interview] meeting?”

Htoo asked Aloni.

Gofman responded that these inquiries should be directed to him and although a link to sign up to help with interviewing was posted, no one responded.

“She showed up and I didn’t want to interview anyone alone so I reached out to Greg Ortiz to interview her so there would be multiple [perspectives],” Gofman said.

Htoo said Gofman could “either withdraw the nomination or I motion to postpone the confirmation until the interview is seen by two senators as it’s not fair for the other candidates.”

Controller Jin Zhang gave her insight on the situation.

“I wanted to clarify that there’s an interviewing committee for interviewing senators,” Zhang said. “However, the only person who really needs to be there is Michael. However, at the same time, the Table can always decline the nomination and another process will be held after this week. The vacancy will be reopened.”

THREE UC DAVIS FACULTY NAMED GUGGENHEIM FELLOWS

Professors Pelo, Rosen, Venkatesan will receive grants for creative work

SHEREEN LEE / AGGIE

Yes, fireplaces make smoke April 12 “Two males going door to door.”

“Vehicle red convertible Chevy, driving slow, not using blinkers, not able to maintain lanes, reporting party believes possibly under the influence.”

April 13 “Hour ago — reporting party found black jacket hanging from his water meter.”

“Black motorcycle with male rider with neon green helmet going up and down F Street doing wheelies — requested officer.”

“Female walking northbound in traffic in the tunnel and appears disoriented.”

“Reporting party’s friend stated that she is home alone and that someone is in the kitchen.”

April 14 “Maroon 4-door parked facing the wrong direction for last several hours — request vehicle be cited.”

“Two males punching each other.”

April 15 “Two males out in the plot setting off fireworks.”

“Male outside yelling and urinating on front steps of house. Reporting party is scared and does not want to enter house with subjects on site.”

April 17 “Smoke from fireplace.”

KARIN HIGGENS / COURTESY

BY JACQ U ELI N E M O O R E campus@theaggie.org

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation named three UC Davis faculty members as Guggenheim fellows on April 5. Associate professor of music Mika Pelo, professor of art Annabeth Rosen and associate professor of religious studies and comparative literature Archana Venkatesan are three of 175 scholars who were selected out of a pool of nearly 3,000 candidates.

The Guggenheim Fellowship is a grant given to fellows for a six to twelve month period. It is designed to offer fellows a period of unrestricted creative freedom so that they may pursue a project in their field. The fellowship is awarded to individuals who have made exceptional contributions in the fields of creative arts, humanities, natural sciences or social sciences. One must apply to be considered for a fellowship, and only citizens and permanent residents of the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean are permitted to enter the contest.

Mika Pelo is a composer who teaches music composition at UC Davis. He received a fellowship in the category of creative arts in honor of his work in the field of

composition.

Pelo earned a doctorate in composition from Columbia University and also holds several other degrees in music from five institutions of higher education in Europe.

Pelo has been commissioned to compose music for the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Swedish Arts Council and the Prague Moderne, among other ensembles.

The composer draws inspiration from French spectral composition, which involves using technology to visualize the spectra of sound in order to determine the timbre of acoustic or synthetic music.

“Spectral music is much more sensual [than modern music] in a way,” Pelo said.

“It’s not afraid of being beautiful. For me, when I heard it, it provided me with a kind of, ‘Okay, this is where I belong.’”

Music from other countries similarly influences Pelo’s artistic inspiration. Pelo himself is from Sweden, so Scandinavian music, specifically lyricism, shapes his compositions.

“You’ll find a lot of folk music influences in classical music in Sweden,” Pelo said.

“That’s what I was brought up with, and that’s still influencing me.”

Currently, Pelo is working on a composition for an orchestra in Latvia and making

A 10-minute break was proposed, to which Htoo objected. Pro Tempore Jake Sedgley motioned to divide the house.

The divided house voted to proceed on Aloni’s confirmation vote which resulted in seven yes votes, three no votes and two abstentions. Senator Jesse Kullar then motioned to confirm Aloni. Aloni was confirmed with a vote of six yes votes, two no votes and four abstentions.

Senator Htoo voted no on Aloni’s confirmation. Htoo clarified to The California Aggie that this vote was due to unfairness in the interviewing process and a “lack of experiences.”

A break was then held from 7:25 p.m. to 7:35 p.m.

Old legislation came up after the break. Senate Bill #55 would authorize the Vice President to administer the oath of office to ASUCD Senator instead of the Elections Committee Chair. The bill passed in the Internal Affairs Commission on a 4-3-2 vote. Opposition said that they were not sure why the change was necessary and believed the work of the existing Election Committee sufficed. Sentiments in favor of the change said that the new committee is non-partisan and “they shouldn’t be administering the power.”

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preparations for his project as a Guggenheim fellow: writing an opera. This task is of an immense scale with many complexities and components to visualize and create, so Pelo is unsure of how long it might take to complete the entire project.

“There are so many moving parts to it,” Pelo said. “It’s not just the music, it’s the drama of it, it’s the staging, and it’s very expensive to do.”

Pelo’s opera will include several modern and traditional operatic elements and music. Similarly to how he uses computers to assist his music composition, he intends to integrate technology into his proposed opera.

“There are so many possibilities these days with using big screens to project stuff — maybe dream sequences could be projected on screens,” Pelo said. “You can involve electronic music as well, it doesn’t just have to be traditional instruments.”

Although other writers and composers have incorporated modern music and technology into their operas, Pelo is focused on making the simultaneous existence of classic and modern components as seamless as possible.

“Very often, it comes off as quite gimmicky, and I would like to try to make it feel integrated,” Pelo said. “I think in a successful opera, all of these things are integrated.”

Rosen, a co-chair of the Department of Art and History at UC Davis, was honored by the Guggenheim Foundation for her ceramic sculptures. Her art has been shown across the country. Most notably, some of her pieces are currently on display in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1992, Rosen was named a Pew Fellow, and in 2016, Rosen was honored as a fellow

by United States Artists, a Chicago-based philanthropic organization that supports American artists.

The artist’s sculptures are very intricate, and many of her pieces center around combining small, often unrelated objects into larger structures.

GUGGENHEIM on 11

AT THIRD MEETING BETWEEN STUDENTS AND ADMINISTRATION, STUDENTS DISCUSS SOLUTIONS TO UCPD MILITARIZATION, RACIALIZED TARGETING Meeting framed around Stephon Clark Remembrance Week preceding Picnic Day in relation to police de-escalation SCREENSHOT FROM SDS FACEBOOK PAGE

BY AARON LISS campus@theaggie.org

On April 13, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) held a third meeting with administration in conjunction with other student organizations. The meeting discussed the targeting of Black students police in relation to the recent Sacramento police shooting of Stephon Clark.

Stephon Clark Remembrance Week, organized by the Black Leadership Council, Black Lives Matter Sacramento and the Pan Afro Student Organization, was held from April 9 to 12 and included events from the Black Student Union

(BSU), including a die-in on the Quad to visually draw attention to unprovoked police violence.

The officers who shot an unarmed Clark 20 times in his grandmother’s backyard and muted their body-camera 16 times have returned to work. Students in attendance related Clark’s killing to the militarization of UC Davis police and their own lack of body-camera usage. One example of this violent militarization, according to attendees, was the Picnic Day five.

The “Picnic Day 5” refers to a group of five individuals of color who were engaged in a brawl with undercover police officers on Picnic Day in 2017. The police officers

have been accused of engaging with the individuals in an provocatory and aggressive way.

Students framed the meeting’s narrative around addressing how UC Davis administration can work to de-escalate police presence and at the very least around communities of color. This includes the removal of weapons on campus and increased training.

Meeting attendees from the student groups BSU, SDS, Student Workers Ending Racial Violence (SWERV) and other organizations held a printed itinerary with goals and an outline of topics to address, titled “Update on Student Needs.”

First-year sociology major AJ

Ballesteros, the current leader of SDS, talked about the basis for the meetings with administration.

“These meetings with the administration organized monthly are [...] to address student concerns, primarily with marginalized communities, to make sure that the administration of the UC is being held accountable to these communities,” Ballesteros said.

Ballesteros said the BSU came up with the list of needs through collaboration with Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Association, El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlán, SDS ADMIN on 11

THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018 | 3

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

Davis’ Hot Italian closes its doors Davis Commons loses another tenant

BY AH AS H FRANCIS city@theaggie.org

S H A N E CO O N E Y / AG GI E

The Davis Commons at 1st and E streets has had a revolving door of tenants open up and close shop in the location for the last few years. Whole Foods, The Habit Burger, Ben & Jerry’s, Papyrus and Jamba Juice are all among the many businesses that have recently come and gone. Now, Davis’ Hot Italian is also on the list of defunct Davis Commons’ restaurants and storefronts.

“The Davis Commons just seems to have had a run of bad luck,” said Luke C., a longtime Davis resident. “For me, it seems like it’s just difficult for the Davis Commons to retain their tenants [...] You’ve got a lot of competition, especially when it comes to pizza or things like that.

It’s just difficult to do business like that.”

With Hot Italian closed, there are now six spaces listed for lease and one space listed for sublease within the Davis Commons. Whole Foods still holds the lease to its former spot as anchor tenant and has made the 21,609-square-foot space available for sublease. The Halal Guys, a Middle Eastern restaurant, is set to open its doors in May, taking the previous space of The Habit Burger within the Davis Commons.

M IC HE L L E G O R E / AG GI E

Sacramento International Airport considering pet hotel Airport looking for developers to bring amenities

BY STE L L A T RA N city@theaggie.org

A pet hotel, among other amenities, may be in the works for Sacramento In-

ternational Airport. Currently, the airport is looking for developers and proposing various additions.

Laurie Slothower, a spokesperson for Sacramento International Airport, stated

“There are so many things that can go wrong with business,” said Andrea Lepore, the cofounder of Hot Italian. “We have to evaluate each location — each location is subjective and fits different needs [...] We offer something other Italian restaurants and pizzerias don’t, and that’s food made of the highest-quality ingredients and the highest-quality service. People need to understand that comes at a price.”

Lepore mentioned that the primary reasons for the restaurant having to close its doors were location, business and market. She mentioned how honored and thankful the group felt to be a part of the Davis community and that the company was sad to leave.

“It was pretty tasty, but also really expensive,” said Joseph Critzer, a UC Davis undergraduate student. “Part of me thinks there just wasn’t a place or a market for something like that here [...] Davis students aren’t willing to pay 15 or 20 bucks for a pizza like that.”

Hot Italian opened its doors in January 2016, so it’s been open in Davis for a little over two years. Although closed in Davis, Hot Italian still has its original two locations in Sacramento and Emeryville, serving the same food that was sold at the Davis Commons.

that the airport is considering a plaza, as well as other commercial uses.

“Sacramento International Airport seeks developers for an amenities district which will serve current airport customers with a variety of possible commercial uses, and a travel plaza which would offer gas, food and other services to vehicles,” Slothower said via email.

The Request For Proposal, or RFP, will then lead to more changes within the airport.

“The RFP offers ground leases of airport property by the I-5 interchange,” Slothower said via email. “The developer will be responsible for build-out.”

Other uses include meeting centers, restaurants, convenience stores and a pet hotel — or a regular hotel — among other possibilities.

“Potential target uses are not limited to these selections,” Slothower said via email. “We’re open to other business developments as long as they are consistent with the airport’s master plan.”

Nevertheless, the airport is striving to

have a cell phone lot.

“It is recommended, but not required, that the developer adds a cell phone lot so that customers can grab a bite to eat or get a soda while waiting to pick up their friends and family members from the airport,” Slothower said via email.

Slothower then directed more information to be found about the airport’s plans in the RFP. The RFP document stated that the “Sacramento County Department of Airports (Department) is issuing this Request for Proposals (RFP) to allow firms to submit their qualifications and proposals to develop and operate hotel(s), travel center, and commercial mixed use development along the Interstate 5 corridor at the Sacramento International Airport (SMF or Airport).”

The RFP is also allowing firms to submit their ideas to develop and operate the hotel, travel center and other developments along the Interstate 5 corridor PRIVATE PARTNER on 11

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4 | THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

Anti-fascist activists host “Drop the Charges” event

TAYLOR LAPOINT / AGGIE

BY TAY LOR L A P O INT campus@theaggie.org

On April 12, anti-fascist activist and organizer Yvette Felarca hosted a “Drop the Charges” event at the Student Community Center. Felarca’s goal was to gather community support for her campaign to get assault charges against her and two other anti-fascist protesters dropped in Sacramento court. The charges were issued after an incident in June 2016 at the California State Capitol where an estimated 300 anti-fascist protesters and 30 members of white nationalist groups Traditional Workers Party and the Golden State Skinheads clashed, leaving 10 injured.

The LGBTQIA Resource Center’s community coordinator and a fourthyear chemical engineering major MK Chan opened the event by welcoming attendees to the Student Community

Two activists arrested in 2016 Sacramento riot ask for support from community to get felony assault charges dropped Center and explaining the purpose of the event, which was to go over Felarca’s motion to dismiss in an attempt to garner support for her hearing on April 20.

Felarca, a member of the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration & Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), thanked the approximately 20 people in attendance and had each person introduce themselves. Attendees included fellow protesters from the Davis and Sacramento areas as well as a few students and members of BAMN. She said that she hoped to persuade everyone in attendance to come to the hearing on April 20 and recruit them for BAMN. Michael Williams, one of the other anti-fascist activists charged for felony assault in this case, was also in attendance.

He and Felarca said that the case is important because their liberty is at stake, as conviction could see the protesters facing

HA’AM NEWSMAGAZINE / COURTESY

“real time.” They also mentioned the current political polarization in the country and how they feel it is important for people to stand up against injustice.

“It is not a hyperbole to say that we are probably in the middle of a parallel of Germany in the 1930s with the rise of Hitler,” Felarca said. “We can draw lessons from the mistakes of those who did not stop those atrocities. We’re in that position [to change things], and we [BAMN] are willing to take on that responsibility.”

Felarca had attendees read the motion for the dismissal of the charges. She alleged that there is evidence of the Sacramento police and the District Attorney colluding with TWP, GSS and other “Nazi” groups that pitted them against the anti-fascist organizers. While discussing the evidence, Felarca told attendees to notice that many of the police reports were written long after the June riot and often by police officials who were not in attendance at the riot itself.

They also provided evidence that showed members of TWP and GSS holding knives in their hands that Felarca and her attorney believe were used to stab her and the nine other people injured in the riot.

“You don’t bring knives to something like this without intention to do some-

thing,” Felarca said.

Felarca drew attendees’ attention to various parts of the discovery that suggested collusion between the police department and the white nationalist groups, including a transcript of a phone call between a member of the Sacramento Police Department and a member of TWP in which the officer said “We’re pretty much going after [BAMN leaders].”

Felarca told attendees it was very important for people to show up to the courthouse. She said that attendance has grown with each hearing and a mobilization of public support “makes [the judge] nervous.”

Sacramento artist and activist Jim Prigoff said that it’s important to pack a diverse group of people into the courtroom because the judge needs to realize the importance of the case, echoing Felarca’s earlier statement about the times seeming like early Nazi Germany.

“This affects us all,” Prigoff said.

“We’ve got proof now that supremacist society governs how people are treated in the courts,” Williams said. “We need to get these people out of office.”

Felarca and Williams also talked about an increasing prevalence of white nationalism on the UC Davis campus. Felarca mentioned Richard Spencer, founder of

Campaign for connections

Last week, Arielle Zoken felt a wave of joy wash over her at the sight of a leftover box of matzo on a counter of the dining commons. It was symbolic of Zoken’s efforts to introduce kosher food at the UC Davis DCs for Passover.

“The issue that we were having was that there was no kosher at all in the dining halls,” said Zoken, a second-year economics major. “Passover, even for the most reform, non-observant Jew, means something more than other holidays. A lot of reformed people who don’t keep kosher throughout the year will keep, to some level, kosher for Passover, like they won’t eat bread, pasta, things like that.”

As someone who is more observant, Zoken is very limited in what she can eat during the week of Passover. From pasta to legumes to corn, there’s practically nothing she can touch in the DCs except for fruit. Last year, when she was a freshman, her mother sent her two whole grocery bags of kosher food to sustain her for the week.

“Two of my roommates are not Jewish, and last year I didn’t really see them for a whole week because I was cooped up in my dorm, eating my matzo and like fruit and meat that was in my mini fridge,” Zoken said. “That was embarrassing and also wasn’t fair because I had all these meals that I wasn’t using.”

Zoken and other Jewish students are not the only ones who face this problem. Muslim students on campus who follow a halal diet have also run into obstacles in terms of adhering to their faith when eating at the DCs. “Halal usually refers to the meat [...and] one of the most important things [is that] Muslims don’t eat pork, we don’t have alcohol, so if you were to, say, put alcohol in the [halal] chicken, that completely defeats the purpose — we can’t eat it anymore,” said Hasna El-Nounou, a second-year community and regional development major. “There were some people who were just really sad because the cookies were used with vanilla extract, and vanilla extract has alcohol in it. It was heartbreaking.”

Out of this problem arose an effort among these students to create a halal/kosher food campaign. ElNounou, who is a board member for the Muslim Student Association, and a few other MSA members decided to recruit Zoken and her community for the campaign. Together, they have been coordinating meetings with the DC staff to implement more kosher and halal food options for students during religiously significant times of this school year.

“I went in with the mentality that like, ‘Okay, there’s probably a lot of halal food on campus, I know that the dining commons sometimes offers halal chicken,’” El-Nounou said. “[We went] in and kind of figured out ‘Can we increase the amount of food on campus?’ and ‘Ramadan is coming up, how can we increase [halal options]?’ Then as a board we also took note that there aren’t that many kosher options, there’s actually less kosher options.”

Halal can be found on campus in various places like at TexMex in the CoHo as well as various popular food trucks like Shah’s. But kosher options are few and far between on campus as well as in the community. In some cases, students have to make the extremely difficult decision to give up keeping kosher altogether just because of how challenging it is in Davis.

“I eventually had to give up being kosher full

time,” said Sarah Goldberg, a second-year biochemistry and molecular biology double major, in an email interview. “I also tried to be vegetarian in the dining halls so that I could loosely adhere to the laws of kosher, however that didn’t work for me health-wise. Eventually, I just had to give up keeping kosher besides on Passover. There is little to no kosher food sold in Davis, and the meals that are sold are boxed/packaged items, no meat or dairy products really. Emotionally and mentally, it was really hard to have to give up my religion in order to survive and keep my physical health.”

Goldberg had grown up abiding to a certain set of laws her entire life, and to give up kosher in college was an overwhelming decision to make as a freshman. In order to keep kosher during Passover, she had to get her meals from a local rabbi and his family, but even this was a challenge.

“Basically, last Passover I almost fainted because I didn’t have easy enough access to Passover food and I wasn’t going to be able to go to the rabbi’s house to get food until six PM that evening,” Goldberg said. “So I had planned to just attempt to do a full day of classes and work on no food. Having access to food that you can eat seems like such a small thing, but it can make the [biggest] difference in a person’s daily life. Not having to go all the way to the rabbi’s house, far up Anderson Rd, to get my meals this year was such a blessing.”

This was the first part of the campaign that Zoken decided to tackle specifically with Goldberg in mind: Passover is too important for students not to have access to kosher food.

This year, Passover occurred between March 30 and April 7. After one external kosher kitchen fell through delivering meals for the week to the DCs, Zoken was overjoyed when she got the good news that a kitchen she recommended from Oakland would be providing kosher food for UC Davis students. With this method, students could swipe in or, if not a freshman, buy a meal plan for the week so they had access to kosher food.

“I literally started crying when the texts started rolling in of like ‘I got my food’ and pictures of [students] with their food,” Zoken said. “I don’t think Dining Services realized how many people there were either, but there were options like shawarma, chicken, vegetables, pound cake, there was a really pretty flier that went up and I sent out and shared, and there was matzo. Jewish students, for the first time in awhile, started feeling like ‘hey we matter here.’”

One reason UC Davis might not have a kosher kitchen is because of the specific rules as to what is required to keep one. Zoken has also heard from a DC chef that there aren’t enough Jewish students at UC Davis to justify maintaining a kosher kitchen. This is the catch-22 of the situation, as Zoken pointed out there are not enough Jewish students at UC Davis largely because there is no kosher kitchen.

“I would like Davis to have plenty of different food options for all students’ dietary restrictions,” Goldberg said. “I think a kosher restaurant on campus would be an amazing thing to have as well as regular kosher meals provided for those with meal plans.”

According to Zoken, what this campaign meant was that students were not losing their money by not utilizing their swipes during this religious holiday. In the past, students who kept kosher would be KOSHER on 11

DROP THE CHARGES on 11

Disabled, or differently abled?

Muslim, Jewish students campaign for more halal, kosher food options on campus

BY MA RLYS JE A N E features@theaggie.org

the alt-right movement, who was interviewed by KDVS in February.

“To give air time and a platform to that person, that Nazi, just gives him a chance to try and recruit,” Felarca said.

She also said that whether or not the interview successfully recruited anyone, giving airtime to someone with “dangerous” views only serves to normalize white supremacist ideas.

Felarca and Williams said they were proud of UC Davis for shutting down the Milo Yiannopoulos event last January.

Felarca also mentioned Jeremy Donohue, creator of the alt-right Youtube Channel “Weekly Narrative,” who she believes either lives in or works in Davis.

“Take [the white supremacists’] picture, document what they’ve done and organize a campaign,” Felarca said. “We can drive them underground.”

One of the anti-fascist protesters at the Sacramento riot, Steve Gerome-Wyatt, criticized UC President Janet Napolitano and the UC Davis administration for past actions toward student protesters. He accused the administration of intimidating students who participated in the most recent Mrak Hall sit-in, encouraging them to “fall in line” and threatening them with academic probation.

IDD community, Best Buddies, Special Olympics, students with disabilities BEST BUDDIES AT UC DAVIS / COURTESY

BY SAH IT I VEMULA features@theaggie.org

Best Buddies is a student organization on campus that works to link the community of intellectual and developmental disabilities with UC Davis students. This organization is also present in high schools and several countries. It involves a wide spectrum of people, including individuals with epilepsy, autism and cerebral palsy.

“We cover a very wide range of disabilities, because a lot of these buddies don’t have friends outside of their families, so they’re very secluded,” said Paola Vidal, a second-year neurobiology, physiology and behavior major. “So our point is to create [an] inclusive environment, but our ultimate goal is to not have a club like this. We want the world to naturally provide inclusion for these buddies because they are very sweet […] a lot have been bullied but their spirits are very, very high.”

Best Buddies pairs a college student with someone from the IDD community, called a buddy, and they are encouraged to keep in communication and hang out a few times a month. Best Buddies also hosts a range of events including dances, like the mini prom the club recently co-hosted with another club, along with smaller social events such as their own pool day.

Vidal is in charge of the Global Ambassadors division of Best Buddies, where she focuses on strengthening the soft skills of the buddies. She does this by helping them work through the writing process, focusing on details such as paragraph structure, along with just discussing ideas and encouraging buddies to present if they are comfortable doing so.

“It basically just helps strengthen the communication style of these buddies, [through] writing, speeches, etc.” Vidal said. “Because a lot of them don’t know how to [...] carry out a conversation. My style of [approaching] that program is presenting a prompt. So for one of the prompts in the beginning of the year, I [asked], ‘if you could write a letter to your future self, what would you have to say?’”

Vidal joined Best Buddies during her freshman year. She didn’t live in the dorms, which made it more difficult for her to find friends.

“I remember looking around to find a club based on friendship, so when I found this club that serves the IDD — and I wanted to serve to a minority group, and I know that IDD is underserved unfortunately — so I got in touch with the president and got involved,” Vidal said. “I know what it’s like to feel alone, and I think one of the most powerful things is how friendship can minimize the discrepancy between two people.”

Vidal got paired with her buddy Wesley, who is nonverbal and low-functioning. The distinction between low-functioning and high-functioning, as Vidal explained, is mainly based on how independently can function without a caretaker. Some buddies that are high-functioning have jobs, and work in various places such as Safeway and at the ARC. Some have also pursued higher education.

Vidal mainly communicates with her buddy through fist-bumps and handshakes. They bond over food, use “yes or no” questions, and often go to the farmers market together.

“I got paired up with Wesley because he really likes walking around,” Vidal said. “I think his favorite thing is just walking around the arboretum.

We [also] got matched up because I’ve had previous experience with IDD. Because he is nonverbal, you have to be very affirmative. He has a tendency to walk around [...] but when he sees that I’m getting left behind, he’ll wait.”

Diana Pham is a third-year NPB and bio-psychology double major, who was faced with a disability unexpectedly. She was was loading something into her car when someone slammed the trunk door against her hand. Her hand was bruised but still functional, and she began to work at Kumon, a tutoring company, where she had to vigorously grade papers for four to five hours on end. According to Pham, this stress placed upon her bruised hand seems to have triggered her current hand tremor.

“Mid-senior year, my hand started shaking,” Pham said. “[When] I would write in class, my hand would shake and my pen would fall out of my hand [...] I developed my hand tremor, [and] that’s when I started typing all my stuff.”

Pham found the transition of dealing with this new hand tremor difficult at first, especially since it was less common to use laptops in a high school classroom setting. However, she has found most of her professors here at UC Davis to be accommodating. Most of her professors allowed her to record lectures, to take pictures of notes and to use her laptop to type and use a program called OneNote which lets her write with one finger, lightening the burden on her hand muscles. She is only facing a setback for the first time this quarter. According to Pham, one of her professors is not allowing her to use electronics, and doesn’t find her hand tremor to be a significant enough impairment.

“It’s really hard for me to write in class,” Pham said. “Sometimes I can’t write quick enough to what the professor is saying because of my hand... I have half a sentence and I don’t know what the rest is.”

In general, however, she has found UC Davis to be sensitive to her condition, and expressed that the support of her peers and their willingness to share their notes and allow her to take pictures has been a greater help than any technology has provided her.

Special Olympics is another club on campus that works to serve people with disabilities, by using sports as a vehicle for community building.

Suraj Pathak, a fourth-year NPB major, founded a branch of Special Olympics at UC Davis in order to help break some of the stigma around people with disabilities. Pathak believes that athletes with disabilities have enriched his life and the lives of the members more so than they can ever provide to the athletes. Special Olympics aims to host one event per quarter that focuses on the sport of the season.

This season, on May 19, they are putting on a huge clinic to bring out the football team and coaches, and invited different areas of Special Olympics in California to come join them on the UC Davis football field. “[Our student club members] that came up to me right after our basketball game event were just fascinated as to how amazing these athletes are, how they are as people, and how funny [and] outgoing they are,” Pathak said. “Those experiences really hit home for me, because that is exactly what I wanted to see out of the club. The people that came up to me and expressed their joy in seeing the athletes, and how [the athletes and members] responded to one another is the only thing that I could ever take away from this — and that’s all that really mattered to me.”

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

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Daniel Parker, MD knows sports medicine. He’s worked with teams from UC Davis athletics to the Sacramento Republic. He believes “exercise is medicine” and works to keep his patients in motion no matter what stage of life they are in.

In addition to treating everyday injuries and musculoskeletal conditions, he performs advanced procedures such as ultrasound guided therapy and platelet rich plasma treatment to help speed the healing process. If you’re looking for a new partner in lifetime fitness, trust Dr. Parker to keep you at the top of your game.

To learn more visit dhmf.org/woodland/sportsmedicine, or to schedule an appointment, call 530-668-2600.

Dignity Health Medical Foundation—Woodland 632 W. Gibson Rd., Woodland Dignity Health Medical Foundation—Davis 2330 W. Covell Blvd., Davis

THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018 | 5

6 | THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

Opinion editorial board

the California Aggie EDITORIAL BOARD

Hold fraternities accountable

BRYAN SYKES Editor-in-Chief

Syracuse University, others punish Greek organizations for despicable behavior

EMILY STACK Managing Editor HANNAH HOLZER Campus News Editor KAELYN TUERMER-LEE City News Editor TARYN DEOILERS Opinion Editor GILLIAN ALLEN Features Editor ALLY OVERBAY Arts & Culture Editor VERONICA VARGO Sports Editor HARNOOR GILL Science & Tech Editor

CHIARA ALVES New Media Manager BRIAN LANDRY Photo Director CHRISTIE NEO Design Director AMY YE Layout Director MAXINE MULVEY Copy Chief OLIVIA ROCKEMAN Copy Chief JAYASHRI PADMANABHAN Website Manager ALEX GUZMÁN Social Media Manager CARAJOY KLEINROCK Newsletter Manager LAURIE PEDERSON Business Development Manager

Syracuse University has permanently expelled its Theta Tau fraternity chapter after videos revealed its members spouting racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-Semitic language and acting out the sexual assault of a person with disabilities. In one video, which the fraternity has defended as “a satirical sketch” of a politically conservative brother, a member is asked to repeat: “I solemnly swear to always have hatred in my heart for…” — which he then concludes with racial slurs of black, Hispanic and Jewish individuals.

The video, while shocking and disturbing, is just one link in the long chain of inappropriate and downright harmful behavior exhibited by fraternities over the years. At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo earlier this month, Lambda Chi Alpha came under fire when one brother wore blackface and others donned stereotypical gangster costumes and flashed gang signs at an event — resulting in the suspension of Interfraternity Council organizations at the school.

These are not isolated occurrences. Every year, careless hazing leaves students dead and fraternities become embroiled in controversies over sexual misconduct and other insensitive actions — and these are just the cases that have been publicized.

For decades, Greek life has been viewed as a staple of “the college experience” and therefore often wields considerable leverage over universities. As a result, an overwhelming lack of oversight at both the national and university level has allowed fraternities to engage in behavior that can range from morally questionable to criminal.

Only recently have colleges like Syracuse begun taking

a stricter position against such violations. Multiple schools, such as Ohio State, Penn State University and the University of Michigan, have suspended fraternities indefinitely, while others like Harvard University are contemplating following suit.

Given such offenses, the Editorial Board doesn’t necessarily recommend banning Greek life across the board. For many, fraternities help bolster careers, forge friendships, raise money for charity, fortify qualities like leadership and improve communities through public service.

Yet a pattern of reckless and offensive conduct demonstrates a crucial need for systemic and cultural reformation.

After all, is a brotherhood rooted in distasteful behavior, humiliation through hazing and bringing pain to others really a brotherhood?

Colleges must stress that Greek life is a privilege that comes in exchange for productive, healthy and principled organizations. The Editorial Board calls upon universities to strictly and swiftly enforce the rules of Greek life, and not only when another student dies during hazing, the lurid details of another sexual assault case goes public or more members are caught on camera spewing bigoted speech. The tired attempts to excuse the repercussions of despicable conduct as a horrendous accident, “just a joke” or plain ignorance will no longer suffice. Universities must properly hold fraternities accountable, even if that means being willing to ax their Greek life organizations when they jeopardize the physical and emotional health of other community members.

The gravity of the Iran Nuclear Deal LEAVING THE DEAL COULD RESULT IN YET ANOTHER WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

BY H A N A D I JO R DA N hajordan@ucdavis.edu

Iran-U.S. relations have been characterized by overt hostility for decades, with both countries affirming rather antagonistic positions with one another. In Iran’s eyes, the U.S. is a powerful and aggressive force in the Middle East. In 1955, the U.S. assisted the U.K. in overthrowing a democratically elected leader in favor of strengthening the monarchical rule of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The U.S. has also propped up a multitude of dictators in the Middle East, aside from the royal dictatorship of the Shah. From the perspective of the U.S., there is reasonable fear of Iran’s extension of power, as they have funded Hezbollah, backed Bashar alAssad’s regime, declared destruction upon Israel and conducted relatively frequent street demonstrations in which they chant “death to America.”

One substantial hallmark of the Obama ad-

ministration was the Iran Nuclear Deal, which was, and is, widely believed to be the first step to an amicable relationship. Given that Iran is a formidable presence in the Middle East, successful developments in their nuclear weapons program would likely result in catastrophic consequences, with a ripple effect on an international scale. Under this agreement, the U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany have agreed to lift sanctions on Iran and, in return, Iran has discontinued its nuclear program. The deal limits Iran’s enrichment capacity and research and development of uranium for 15 years. The deal also allows for routine and intrusive inspections conducted in Iran to ensure it uphold its end of the deal. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency will continuously monitor Iran’s nuclear program as well as ensure that fissile material isn’t secretly taken to an alternative location to build a bomb. If there is any failure to comply, sanctions will be re-imposed.

With the inauguration of Donald Trump, however, no deal made under Obama is safe. Withdrawing from both the Paris Agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Trump’s eyes are now fixated on abandoning the nuclear deal.

In all fairness, this agreement is riddled with flaws. While Iran has respected the agreement through the discontinuation of nuclear developments, it has emerged as a threat in alternative ways. After the deal was secured, Iran continued to engage in hostile activities, including swarming U.S. navy ships — which is not technically a violation of the deal. Recently, however, Iran has discontinued, to a degree, engagement in such activities, and some credit this to Trump’s tougher approach with the Middle East, contrasting to what some believe was a weak approach to the region by Obama.

But this may not be enough. Former Secretary of State John Kerry previously stated that part of the agreement entails Iran forgoing its hostile posi-

CA IT LY N SA MPL EY / AG GIE

tion toward Israel — which it has not honored.

Presently, Iran appears poised to combat Israel as evidenced through its attempts to turn Syria into a forward air base against Israel. Prior to this, it had used its proxy, Hezbollah, to fight Israel for the nation. It has also continued to develop and test ballistic missiles and plans to unveil new missiles in IRAN on 12

Bill Maher has a point about the Laura Ingraham advertiser boycott BOYCOTTING IS A PERFECTLY VALID FORM OF SPEECH, BUT THE LEFT MUST CONSIDER ITS IMPLICATIONS

BY B E N JA M I N P O RT E R bbporter@ucdavis.edu

Recently, on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” the political-comedy program’s outspoken host angered his fellow liberal panelists by defending Laura Ingraham. Ingraham is in the midst of an advertiser boycott following her controversial mocking of Parkland shooting survivor (excuse me, “paid crisis actor”) David Hogg’s college rejections.

Hogg seemed to point out that these rejections don’t matter when compared to his and his classmates’ inspiring actions to catalyze a nationwide movement against gun violence. Or, in the words of lifelong paragon-of-sincerity-humanitarianismand-positivity Laura Ingraham, “David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and Whines About It.” Hogg fired back by urging a boycott of companies who advertised on Ingraham’s Faux News program “The Ingraham Angle,” a show in which I assume she breaks down the day’s news while going fishing with her guests (I don’t watch it, so don’t quote me on that).

The news of advertisers ditching Ingraham in droves gave many of her critics strong feelings of schadenfreude because of her history of nasty comments. But Maher argued that, despite the many

valid reasons for being against Ingraham and taking joy in the boycott, there’s also an important, principled argument for opposing the boycott.

Maher called Ingraham “a deliberately terrible person,” but also said that if Hogg is “going to be out there in the arena” then “people are going to have the right to argue back.”

It’s difficult to argue that taunting teenage mass-shooting survivors is not in poor taste. But it plays to her audience, meaning it’s indeed a form of arguing back, even if it’s an unprofessional one.

Thus, Maher thinks that it’s wrong to attempt to deprive Ingraham of her platform.

The studio audience and panel pushed back against Maher when he said of the boycott, “Really? Is that American?” Maher then cited his utterly ridiculous 2002 firing from his ABC show “Politically Incorrect” after he made a controversial comment that led to an advertiser boycott.

“It is wrong. You shouldn’t do this by team; you should do this by principle,” he said, jokingly sticking out his tongue at his audience.

Nonetheless, boycott is a valid form of speech, allowing people to protest and demonstrate dissatisfaction. Maher’s panel rightly pointed to the bus boycott during the Civil Rights Movement as one of the best examples of this, although this boycott targeted an entire culture of systematic oppression rather than one individual.

In today’s political reality, however, money is even more directly linked to speech. The 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court decision allowed outside groups to spend unlimited sums on political ads. Critics say that the decision gives those with more financial resources greater ability to spread their message and thus greater free speech power.

If this is the case, wouldn’t denying someone the financial means by which they are able to support their platform for speech be the inverse of this situation?

“Effectively it is the modern way of cutting off free speech,” Maher said, speaking of the ability of people to drive sponsors from the slightest controversy. He’s not wrong about this. It’s a dangerous precedent for commentators across the political spectrum if just a few angry individuals can get someone kicked off the air.

However, it’s also not wrong to boycott, and, as one of Maher’s guests put it, the First Amendment by no means guarantees one’s right to run “soap commercials.” A successful boycott could be seen as the proper functioning of the invisible hand in the free market of ideas, or as something that wrongly gets someone fired, as in Maher’s case.

Since Ingraham’s angle is in demand from a large audience who likes her, Maher would argue that actively attacking her sponsors is not the work of an invisible hand, but analogous to regulation or

censorship, and that a true liberal should simply not watch her show and convince others why they shouldn’t, either.

Seeing the boomerang of karma finally hit Ingraham in the face distracted many joyful onlookers, myself included, from potential free speech implications. An interesting video essay by The Nerdwriter explored the idea of schadenfreude and how the nastiness and polarization of the Trump Era has ushered in a concerning and unhealthy type of “guilt-free schadenfreude,” to which, it can be argued, many on the left fell victim in this case.

Despite the boycott and a week-long hiatus, Ingraham returned with some of her highest-ever ratings. Thus, it looks like Ingraham will continue to have a platform from which she can fish for conservative outrage and dangle upon her angle the bait of airtime for her fellow trolls.

A L LYSON KO / AG GIE

THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018 | 7

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

HUMOR

How I’ve trained my whole life for the Quad Stack Challenge

A PERSONAL ESSAY

BY J ESS D RI V ER phnevin@ucdavis.edu

When I was a little girl in Russia, my mother

used to say, “The shrimp cobbler must have tiny hands,” and I would reply, “Shrimp don’t wear shoes, Mother.” And we would settle our funny, little differences with raf coffee and bean sandwiches. But my affinity for cornbread did not develop for another two years.

When I was 5 years old, I traveled to America as a stowaway aboard a ship delivering, ironically enough, chili beans to orphans. For three weeks at sea, I ate nothing but beans, beans, beans. When I arrived in America, I found employment at a shoelace factory in New York. From sunrise to

sunset, I worked as a machinist, pushing a little cart of tools and stopping to talk with the women at the machines.

“You must be hungry, Pooshky,” one woman would say. “Here, take a little bread.” I was starving, so I accepted the bread and devoured every crumb, pressing my dirty fingers to the sweet morsels that landed on my overall bib.

“They call it cornbread,” said Shiva, one of the workers. From that moment on, I thought only of cornbread. Where could I find more of this delectable manna? What varieties might I try? I was never satisfied.

10 years later and now living in Elsbury, Missouri, I was passing through my high school’s bake sale, when I met eyes with the corn farmer’s

son, Boon. He stood leering over a pan of freshly baked cornbread. I approached him, hoping to purchase a slice, but he only nodded in vague apprehension. He was a simple boy. He let me take the entire pan. So, I left town and headed west for California!

I arrived in Sacramento with a suitcase containing a sock and a buffalo nickel. But I was determined to find a helping of chili beans and cornbread that would once and for all satiate my strange hunger. I traveled out into the fringes of the city, talked to people on the streets, learned the seedy underground networks and hitchhiked my way to Davis — where I began working as a janitor. When everyone left campus in the evenings, I would sneak into the math building

Cartoon - Picnic Day

Cartoon - Tariff Fight

BY DI A N A O L I VAR E S deolivaresvalencia@ucdavis.edu

BY ARIEL HILOMEN abhilomen@ucdavis.edu

and solve complex proofs left on the chalkboards, because I was secretly a genius. It was just a diversion, though. Something to keep my mind off of my real goal: ingesting an unhealthy amount of chili and cornbread.

Last week, while walking aimlessly through campus and meditating on how I could use my answers to the Millennium Prize Problems to buy a lifetime supply of johnnycakes, I passed the CoHo South Café. I smelled something familiar: cornbread. I pressed my nose against the glass window, ignoring the students inside. That’s when I saw the sign for the Quad Stack Challenge — and the photos of the smiling, happy people who’d conquered the golden, legume-strewn behemoth and I knew.

DISC L A I M ER: Th e vi ews a n d op in i o ns ex p re ss e d by i nd i vidu al colu mn ists be lon g to th e colu mn ists alon e and do no t necessari l y i ndi cate the vi ews and o pi ni o ns hel d by The Cal i for n ia Ag g ie. Le t te rs to t he e d i to r can be addre ss e d to opin ion @ th e aggie.org.

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THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

SCIENCE+TECH MICHELLE GORE / AGGIE

Unknown health impacts of urban fires Historic wildfires in Northern California inspire public health research

BY MAT T M A RC UR E science@theaggie.org

2017 is the most destructive year on record in terms of firedamage to structures, with at least 10,000 structures affected overall. Many structures were razed by fire, as in both the Tubbs and Nuns fires of Northern California. Both fires rank in the top ten most destructive fires in California history, with Tubbs taking the top spot.

“The sky was filled with flames and fire, with ashes falling like snow,” said Rachel Kreager, a resident of Santa Rosa who was there when the Tubbs fire

CASEY PHILLIPS / COURTESY

Swimming into the unknown Freshwater turtles face deadly threat of rising sea levels

BY RAC HE L PAUL science@theaggie.org

The threat of sea level rise is concerning for many animals and plant species, as an untold number of organisms could be affected. One particularly vulnerable group is freshwater turtles, since many of them live near oceans or in areas where salt water and fresh water meet. These areas, called brackish water, will change dramatically if sea levels rise, according to a new study.

“It’s an important project because it takes a step back and looks at turtles globally,” said Josh Ennen, an aquatic conservation biologist at the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute. “And from the paper you can tell that turtles in general aren’t doing well. Over half of them are threatened with extinction or are already extinct.”

Not to be confused with sea turtles or tortoises, freshwater turtles mainly live in the water but can go on land to eat, lay eggs or just to sun themselves.

Types of freshwater turtles include red-eared sliders or turtles one can see in rivers and ponds.

The paper examined what effect sea level rise would have on freshwater water turtle habitats.

Since most freshwater turtles live near the ocean or in brackish water, a majority of them will experience more sea water in their ecosystems in the future.

“We were stunned that a Western Pond turtle, extremely sensitive to habitat change and declining across its range, was inhabiting a highly managed, tidally influenced brackish water ecosystem in the

broke out. “You couldn’t see anything in front of you. I just remember thinking it looked like a movie set.”

Public health researchers at UC Davis felt compelled to help residents of the many afflicted counties in Northern California.

“When the fires were breaking out and raging, especially the first few weeks after Oct. 8, quite a few of us who have lived in this area for a long time felt this very strong motivation to try to address what was going on and what some of the environmental impacts could be, on health in particular,” said Irva Hertz-Picciotto, a professor of epidemiology and en-

San Francisco Estuary,” said Mickey Agha, the main author of the paper. “We found that 90 percent of coastal freshwater turtles may see a part of their range inundated by seawater by the end of the century. If they are unable to adapt fast enough to changing water salinities, they may lose that part of their range forever.”

Using a combination of global informations systems and phylogenetic analysis, the study was able to determine which species of turtles were especially vulnerable. Like Google Maps, GIS can analyze the Earth’s surface, but with more sophisticated tools. Phylogenetics is the study of determining the relatedness between species. Using this, researchers could see if many species responded similarly to changing habitats due to their genetics.

“In terms of the conservation, the most important aspect of the paper is it gives us an initial picture of which species are likely to be most at risk of exposure to future sea level rise and increased salinity that comes with that,” said Justin Nowakowski, a co-author of the study. “Although it’s a broad strokes analysis, it should help us direct future research in monitoring, by giving us an idea of the relative risk for different turtle species.”

Understanding which species are at risk for extinction is important, but another major factor is often overlooked. Most researchers do not know how freshwater turtles fit into the ecosystem. This means that no one knows what will happen to those areas if the turtles disappear.

“We just don’t have a lot of knowledge on the functional roles of turtles in the environment.

There’s just not much out there,” Ennen said. “And I think, as a freshwater biologist, we’re just now touching on what we know [is] the role of freshwater turtles in their environment.”

Studies have shown that sea turtles are essential to their habitats; when taken away from seagrass beds and coral reefs, the areas suffer. However, there is very little research on the importance of freshwater turtles to their ecosystems.

“So this paper could just be another foreboding analysis saying these turtles are in trouble and we need to know what their roles are in the ecosystem,” Ennen said. “We don’t know enough to know what’s going to happen to the ecosystems if turtles disappear, and it’s quite likely that a lot of these communities and these ecosystems will lose turtles if half of them are already threatened with extinction.”

vironmental and occupational health at UC Davis.

Hertz-Picciotto is currently leading a team of researchers interested in the public health consequences of the historic devastation in Northern California.

Called “Wildfires and Health: Assessing the Toll in NorthWest California” (WHAT NOW California), the research will be looking at how smoke from burned debris has affected survivors of the fires.

One component of the project will be to compare various ash samples from destroyed homes and parks in the affected counties. As these fires were largely urban as opposed to forest fires, where primarily organic vegetation is burned down, many unknown pollutants from buildings were likely released into the air. Through the ash samples, the team will characterize the various pollutants.

“I think we’re going to be answering a few kind of new questions like the issue of urban or synthetic materials that are in everything now, like the particle board in lots of buildings that has lots of formaldehyde and solvents,” Hertz-Picciotto said.

Even modern furnishings inside homes may pose a serious health risk, not only in regard to smoke, but also in the spreading of wildfires.

“If I were to do a fire study and take a couch from 1950 versus a couch that’s built today, the couch from 1950 is going to take longer to burn,” said Nathan Trauernicht, the fire chief at UC Davis. “Today’s furnishings are predominantly synthetic and those burn fast, and a lot of them have petroleum products.”

Such synthetic products might pose a serious health risk to survivors. But any smoke, including smoke from organic vegetation, can be dangerous to human health.

“The byproducts of combustion, even naturally burning items — a tree — has carcinogens,” Trauernicht said.

The second component of the research is firsthand data collection through an online survey directed toward survivors of the wildfires. The survey,

which is currently going on, collects information about where the survivors lived when the fires broke out, how many times they were forced to evacuate and what their immediate experience was after the fires were put out. It also clarifies any pre-existing health issues a survivor might have and any symptoms they might have experienced after the fires, explained Hertz-Picciotto. In the future, a second survey will be conducted to check for long-term health impacts.

The survey is in part a collaboration with local health agencies in the various counties. Epidemiologists from Napa and Sonoma counties contributed questions about understanding the needs of survivors, which is an important part of the research, explained Hertz-Picciotto.

“I think that’s part of it: learning a little bit more about what kinds of needs people had and what things people had to do without and helping them plan for future events,” Hertz-Picciotto said.

When Trauernicht was asked about possible preventive implementations for future wildfires, he said he doesn’t believe a simple answer exists.

“Nature uses wildfire to create new life,” Trauernicht said. “When a fire doesn’t have the ability to burn as it was intended, we stop it, but we’re interrupting what nature wants to have happen.”

He believes that a combination of an increase in fire-prevention resources, better fire education and public health research will improve our abilities to fight and manage wildfires. However, where we live and where we build might be something the state needs to address.

“The reality of it is that as long as humans choose to live in the wildland — in the interface [of nature and cities] — the same problem is gonna be coming up,” Trauernicht said. “And this idea of living in the interface requires homeowners to make sure the houses are safe, but even with that has to come a basic understanding you’re assuming a certain amount of risk.”

MICHELLE GORE / AGGIE

Interdisciplinary endeavors of feminist research UC Davis Feminist Research Institute calls for seed grant proposals

BY K RIT I VAR GHESE science@theaggie.org

The Feminist Research Institute defines feminist research as inclusive, intersectional, justice-oriented and transformative. The Institute promotes these values through the promotion of deeply collaborative research.

“We are invested in growing the depth and breadth of feminist research at UC Davis,” said Sarah Rebolloso McCullough, the associate director of the Feminist Research Institute. “We want people to see UC Davis as a leader in feminist research.

Our goal is to make UC Davis a place that is proactively trying to undo systems of gender and racial oppression, rather than just being reactive.”

To this end, the Institute is providing seed grants to selected UC Davis faculty to continue to encourage collaborative projects that apply feminist approaches to interdisciplinary research.

“The seed grants are great opportunities for cross-disciplinary teams interested in research questions and their social and ethical impacts in the world,” said Amanda Modell, a graduate student researcher at the Institute. “If professors want to pilot an idea and aren’t sure that it would get support from a traditional research institute because of how it grapples with its social context and inequalities, the seed grant is for them. And more broadly, the seed grants have the capacity to catalyze interdis-

ciplinary research that works toward a more just world, so in the world I’d like to live in, everyone would apply for them.”

Projects that received funding have included research done by Jessica Moret on the correlation between race, class, power and post-sexual assault treatment, specifically whether it was offered, accepted and completed. Research by Claire Napawan and Sahoko Yui is also underway and focuses on linking traditional domestic practices associated with women to cultural practices, food waste management and community sustainability.

“If you look at our past grantees, you will see that feminist research is as diverse as any other area of interdisciplinary research, with the added benefit of the potential for transformative social/ cultural impact,” said Kalindi Vora, the director of the Institute at UC Davis. “By encouraging new collaborations, FRI seed grantees find novel approaches and innovations that inspire future collaborations and grant applications, as well as energizing new cross-campus research connections.”

This Institute shows the importance of understanding how knowledge is gained.

“Feminist research is not just about gender, it’s about the way that knowledge is produced and the impact it has in the world,” Modell said.

“So even if you think your project has nothing to do with gender, race, ethnicity, or social class, it can still benefit from a feminist approach.”

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The aggie

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A PUZZLE-SCAVENGER HUNT • SACRAMENTO, CA

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Chess

Sudoku

This week’s puzzle is a checkmate.

Enter digits from 1 to 9 into the blank spaces. Every row, column and 3x3 square must contain one of each digit.

Each Sudoku has a unique solution that can be reached logically without guessing.

White to move and mate in two.

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THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

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ARTS & Culture Record Store Day at Armadillo Music

AL LYS O N KO / AG G I E FI LE

Local record store celebrates annual holiday

BY ISAAC F LO RES arts@theaggie.org

Many of those involved in the community that has emerged around the sale of vinyl records were excited for Record Store Day, a celebration conceived of in 2007 to celebrate the nearly 1,400 independent vinyl retailers in the United States.

On this day, record stores across the U.S. often have special deals and celebrations for vinyl collections, which are becoming notoriously expensive. Also, exclusive content only available on Record Store Day is released to the public across many stores.

This year, Armadillo Music in downtown Davis held its own special celebration to commemorate the

Kylie Minogue’s “Golden” Australian pop icon celebrates golden age with 14th album

C AITLY N SA M P L E Y / AGGI E

BY JOSH M A D RI D arts@theaggie.org

Kylie Minogue, known as the Australian Queen of Pop, released her 14th album, “Golden,” on April 6.

In “Golden,” the pop icon reinvented herself by drawing inspiration from American country music and merging it with her familiar electro-pop style.

Minogue enters the golden age of her career as she line dances to new feelgood and insightful lyrics about where she has been and where she hopes life

will take her.

Minogue recorded her album in several locations: London, Los Angeles and Nashville. This makes sense considering the eclectic value that the album holds: most of the songs start with an acoustic guitar, and as the layers build, the engineered melodies emerge. Minogue’s style adds a little glitter to old and dusty boots that feature on the album cover.

The lead single on the album, titled “Dancing,” showcases the album’s country-pop sound in its euphoric

holiday and offer customers a range of exclusive deals and content for their favorite and soon-to-be favorite vinyls.

In recent years, vinyl records have experienced a resurgence of popularity unparalleled by any other music medium. For fans of records, there is nothing like listening to some of your favorite tracks on vinyl.

“I think the appeal of records is being able to connect with something that is not from our generation,” said second-year human development major Karen Lopez. “Listening to records gives a different feeling to the music.”

According to an article by Fortune Magazine, vinyl record sales reached a 28-year peak in 2016. Even after such an unprecedented rise in popularity, record sales have continued to increase even into 2018.

“We’re gonna being doing sales on new and used vinyls,” said Paul Wilbur, a manager at Armadillo Music. “There are 300 more releases coming out this year than there has been in previous years.” optimism toward life. The Australian singer learned how to line dance for the music video and admitted to BBC that it wasn’t as easy as she thought it would be. She also pointed out that she was able to write lyrics that she normally wouldn’t be able to with a pop album.

The title song, “Golden,” (my personal favorite) talks about “the hopeful hearts of the human race” and everyone’s capability to shine. This track makes me want to throw on a pair of shades and drive in a convertible down the coast — you know, that vibe.

As a woman that’s been in the business for as long as she has, Minogue has some insight for all the lovers out there. “A Lifetime to Repair” and “Stop Me From Falling” give words of wisdom about the heart. Minogue sings that love is complicated and treacherous territory, but that’s also what makes it worthwhile.

Minogue wanted to create an authentic feel to the album. Her career spans 30 years and includes seven No. 1 singles. As she approaches the age of 50, the singer doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. Adding a bit of country to her new album offered up something new and risky, but this risk has been reaping lots of praise, especially from me.

“Golden” is available on all streaming services as well as vinyl and cassette.

The story behind farmers market avocado toast Family-owned business dedicated to serving Davis community

RAU L MORA L ES / AGG IE

BY SY DNEY ODMAN arts@theaggie.org

Everyone’s favorite Instagram-worthy snack is now at the Davis Farmers Market: avocado toast. For all the foodies out there looking to try the latest food trend, look no further than downtown Davis. At the Davis Farmers Market, residents can treat themselves every Saturday morning to a variety of fresh and delicious avocado toasts at WestToast, served by Zumapoke and Lush Ice. “I’m so happy that we have a place in Davis with really high-quality avocado toast,” said first-year psychology major Gavi Sonntag. “FarMar avo toast is the best, and every week I really look forward to trying a new item on the menu. My favorite is the Bees Knees!”

The craze for avocado toast swept the breakfast scene by storm not too long ago, but has quickly become a staple among most restaurants and cafes. Despite its simple ingredients, avocado toast has become known for its delicious taste, healthy benefits and prime aesthetic appeal. In addition, nearly all of the ingredients used at Zumapoke’s stand are conveniently sourced from vendors at the Davis Farmers Market.

That includes salted rosemary bread courtesy of Upper Crust Baking Co., jam from Sunblest Orchards and the avocados themselves.

“I had heard of avocado toast and thought it was such a perfect market food,” said Farmers Market manager Randii MacNear in an interview with The Davis Enterprise. “Customers love the stand.”

Over the past year, Zumapoke has brought its locally sourced avocado toasts to the farmers market, quickly gaining traction as a FarMar staple. Zumapoke, located at 3rd and G streets, is typically known for its poke bowls in downtown Davis. However, owners Dustin and Rachael Ryen elected to broaden their horizons and expand their business. Due to popular demand, Zumapoke brought the avocado toast from the farmer’s market into the main store on a regular basis. The menu features a unique variety of toasts, such as the Poke-cado toast, which includes the usual avocado topped with fresh poke. As of late, though, Zumapoke avocado toast is only available at the farmers market on Saturday mornings until 1 p.m.

“Zumapoke has been a lifelong dream of ours, made possible by the generosity of our parents, the sale of a family farm, and our life savings,” said the Ryens on their restaurant’s website. “By opening in Davis we have become stakeholders in a community very dear to us.”

In turn, the family-owned business of Zumapoke has made itself dear to the community of Davis as well. With the Ryens originating in the Sacramento and Yolo County areas, their dedication to serving high-quality foods to the local community is demonstrated in the presentation of the food itself and also in the couple’s happy and welcoming customer service.

Zumapoke and Lush Ice is located at 730 3rd St. WestToast can be found at the Saturday morning Davis Farmer’s Market until 1 p.m.

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Third Thursdays at the Manetti Shrem: a review Sweet confections and paintings galore

BY B ECKY L EE arts@theaggie.org

A long line of students trailed across the museum, each waiting patiently for a single scoop of ice cream at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. April 19th’s theme coincidentally aligned with Wayne Thiebaud’s exhibit, full of treats like the ones illustrated in his work.

Thiebaud is recognized for his pop art, mostly consisting of deli foods, pastries and ice cream. Through a technique called halation, particularly by casting a blue shadow around an object, the Sacramento artist was able to distinguish himself from other well-renowned painters of his period.

Kayleigh Becker, a second-year international agricultural development

major, gushed about Thiebaud and his work. At her museum job, she learned immensely about the life of one of UC Davis’ first art faculty members.

“He was a really prominent artist in the Sacramento area for years,” Becker said. “He’s 97, still alive, still painting, still teaching and very involved with the Sacramento art culture. We’re focusing specifically on this 10-year window of time when he started working at Davis, met and married his wife and found his signature style of painting, which is what we have in this main gallery.”

The endless rows of cake with globs of paint swirled on top like real icing could make anyone crave a slice.

Although this Third Thursday at the Manetti Shrem was not themed around Thiebaud’s exhibit, it seemed too perfect to be an accident.

The studio room provided mounds of cake, frosting, sprinkles and candied toppings for visitors to decorate. People of all ages excitedly swarmed around the table to grab some for themselves.

The cake-decorating workshop was in conjunction with Thiebaud’s exhibit and, although unintentional, revealed the beauty in something as mundane as food. Maybe that was the point of Thiebaud’s paintings, after all — each piece pleasing to the eye and good enough to eat. However, there is still question regarding the inspiration behind his paintings.

Dante Golden, a third-year community and regional development major, heard various theories behind Thiebaud’s art from some visitors. The main theory, however, is that these paintings are political statements highlighting

America post-WWII. “A lot of Thiebaud’s paintings are political,” G volden said. “At the rise of corporations, when Thiebaud was coming up, he was seeing all this bread and cake. Every corporation had its own little place in food, because this was right after World War II, and that’s when a lot of money was being made.

Everything was becoming standardized.

The fact that everything was so much more isolated [due to corporations], he wanted to take you back to the day where you can stop by a deli counter or a truck stop and get an all-American meal without looking like a type of product.”

Third Thursdays at the Manetti Shrem are meant for visitors to immerse themselves into the exhibits through interactive workshops. Each one hosts a new theme, hoping students and locals

will come inside and learn something new.

Liz Quezada, a UC Davis alumna and coordinator of student engagement at the Manetti Shrem, wants to get students and the community engaged because art isn’t just exclusive to people studying it. There is always something about it that can resonate with anyone, and Third Thursdays aims to do just that.

“I was a transfer student and I wasn’t an art major,” Quezada said. “I was a communication major. I didn’t really think about art at all. We definitely want to reach out to other majors and the whole university community by inviting them to our Third Thursdays through advisors.”

More information on Manetti Shrem events can be found on its website.

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support “staff participation” and have a contingency plan in place.

“The union will give dates in advance so we can let students know ahead of time, but we will have counselors available for crisis services,” Walter said.

“We’ll also open up our protocall system, which is an after-hours line — we’re going to have that open all day.”

On April 11, a question-and-answer letter was sent from UCLA Employee and Labor Relations to staff members regarding the strike vote. Of the eight hypothetical questions listed, three focused on pay. One question asked: “Will I lose pay for participating in a strike?” “[Answer:] If any employee does not report to work as assigned, UC will presume — absent prior authorization or medical certification — that her/his ab-

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sence from work during a declared strike period is strike-related,” the letter read.

“Employees who are absent from work without authorization during a strike will not be paid for the absence.”

McDole said letters such as these do not cross legal boundaries, but “if they start individually asking people if they’re going to go on strike, if they’re pressuring people, they could get charges for bullying” or “for union busting.”

“The counseling psychologists at UCLA have charges against them for direct dealing, which is a pretty significant charge,” McDole said. “They should be cautious about what they do, but I don’t make any guarantees that they will.”

If mediation goes well, a strike could be avoided.

“The best-case scenario is UCOP

willing to agree to parity with the med. center and then we can work out the logistics of how to make the budget work [and] to settle on a wage that both sides would find market competitive and agreeable,” said Aron Katz, a counseling psychologist at UC Davis and the university’s bargaining representative. “If we could just have the conversation, resolution wouldn’t be far away.”

If a strike were to occur, Walter said management and non-represented staff members would be “available to serve students.”

“We will have a little bit of a reduction in services, but we’ll make sure that that’s communicated out to the students,” said Cory Vu, the assistant vice chancellor for Divisional Resources. “We’ll try our best to meet the needs of the students as they come in the door.”

job requirements of an RA. “It is not the job of RA’s to be mental health professionals, and it’s also not the job of police to be mental health professionals,” Miller said. “They do not have the skills to talk people out of those situations.”

Attendees discussed increasing mental health funding and bolstering Community Advising Network counselors who are culturally trained. Students found cutting initiatives like the Mind Spa unacceptable, especially without administrative notification.

Miller said that administration should demand police officers be trained in cultural competency, mental health and de-escalation skills, which could address institutional racism.

“How are you hiring them?” Miller asked. “What training are you requiring them to have? What actions are they being asking to do on Picnic Day and how does that impact black and brown bodies?

Kelechi Ohiri, a third-year organizational studies major and a student assistant to the chancellor, spoke about the intense racial targeting she has experienced as a black woman.

“I have never been more profiled in my life then on Picnic Day,” Ohiri said.

“There are [police] everywhere.”

Another student talked about seeing around 40 officers in front of a black fraternity throwing a party.

“If black folks are having a party, they’re at the house,” Ohiri said. ”That’s not really a UCPD as much as a Davis PD issue, but there should be a message to the Davis PD saying, ‘OK, our students are here with their family and friends.’ The aggression that gets shown by police officers on Picnic Day is very concerning.”

Ohiri mentioned how an overarching issue is the institutionally racist and micro-aggressive policies and lack of cultural training for police officers. According to Ohiri, administration needs to look at what the purpose of a university police department is at a public learning institution meant to prop up marginalized communities, not target them.

Students in attendance also discussed

redistributing funds in order to restructure policing, citing a community in Colorado that has been helped by replacing the police force with social workers.

Replacing officers with social workers was a need listed.

Students talked about how a bare minimum would be a restriction on undercover police. According to one student, it is not just Picnic Day that contains undercover officers, alleging they saw a plain-clothes police officer at the recent Mental Health Town Hall last quarter.

Ballesteros asked everyone on the table what students can do in working with administration to de-escalate police presence, a presence that students of color say has largely been on them. Sherri Atkinson, executive director of Community Resource and Retention Centers, admitted “Davis City Police” have long been accused of targeting Black students and other students of colors.

According to a student at the meeting, it can be triggering for students of color to see white students intoxicated and acting raucous on Picnic Day avoiding any consequences.

The end of the meeting pertained to the last Regents meeting and revisited topics discussed in the second meeting with administration, where SDS advocated for university-paid busing of students to UC Regents meetings.

Mayra Llamas, the interim executive director of the Community Resource and Retention Centers, said that, by the end of the process, only one student attended the Regents meeting. This student received university-sponsored travel, hotel and food. SDS members wanted further explanation as to why more students who signed up didn’t go.

Students then asked how administration reached out to marginalized students centers about going to Regents meeting. As was mentioned at previous events, some SDS members and other campus group members revisited goals of sending out campus-wide emails. Atkinson and Llamas said they don’t have access to that, only the Chancellor’s office and a few others do.

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SWERV and the Davis College Democrats.

Everyone in the room then read the needs. The largest focus was working on police de-escalation, increased mental health and cultural competency training and de-weaponization on campus.

Students argued that a higher education institution does not need officers with guns, and this does not prevent violence but adds to it.

Demands on the sheet related to police de-escalation included adding the establishment of a police-free zone on campus, the removal of officers from Picnic Day and encouraging UC Davis to make a statement about the Picnic Day 5. Another need that many attendees spoke about was the removal of police from residence halls, especially floors that house African American students.

Ballesteros acknowledged how these are needs asked by one marginalized group on campus and that there are many others with their own specific and individualized needs.

Students said that police targeting students of color over other white students can reconfirm statistics of police profiling.

According to “an analysis of the available FBI data,” it was found “that US police kill black people at disproportionate rates.” The analysis discovered that “Black people accounted for 31 percent of police killing victims in 2012, even though they made up just 13 percent of the US population.” And a study conducted by the University of Chicago found that violence against civilians by police officers is “an extremely or very serious problem according to nearly three-quarters of blacks,” but “less than 20 percent of whites.”

Student attendees also said police officers are not trained for handling people going through mental crises, which could result in escalated outcomes. Amara Miller, a Ph.D. student in sociology, said that when she was an RA, an individual tried to jump out of the window due to a suicidal mental health crisis.

Miller’s coworker had to talk that person out of the window, a task far beyond the KOSHER

can motion in and out of things allows us when we’re getting a completely new Senate Table to push things forward and let them learn.”

ASUCD Senate Bill #57 was subsequently tabled.

Next was the introduction of new legislation. A Senate Bill to allocate $2,556 for covering Entertainment Council’s sound and lighting expenses from Lawntopia 2017 was proposed and sent to the Business and Finance Commission.

Another proposed bill would allow students to serve on no more than three subordinate bodies of the ASUCD Senate. This was sent to the IAC. Next was the status of passed legislation. All past legislation was approved and signed.

Next was public discussion.

“There’s been a difficulty getting in touch with Kelly Ratliff,” Gofman said.

Ex-officio Reports and Elected Officer Reports were delivered. Past meeting minutes on April 5 were unanimously approved and the Senate meeting adjourned at 9:46 p.m.

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“I make my own found objects, and then pack them together to make shapes, to make sense of disparate things,” Rosen said. “Even with disparate things, things that don’t have logic or belong together, sometimes their sheer proximity makes a kind of logic because you comprehend and see them in the same field of vision.”

Rosen noted that as an artist, she draws from new wells of inspiration every day, and that it can be challenging for her as an artist to constantly find unique sources of inspiration for her work.

“You know what you did yesterday and you kind of know what you’re working on today but you can’t say, ‘That worked yesterday, so I’ll do it again,’” Rosen said.

Rosen intends to use her fellowship not for an upcoming project or proposed creation, but to find inspiration and knowledge abroad. She will be traveling to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and other parts of Asia to learn more about Asian art. Rosen may also hold a lecture or art show while abroad.

“I’ve had a long term interest in certain Chinese artists who I’d like to talk to,” Rosen said. “I may go once, I may go twice, I don’t quite know yet.”

Archana Venkatesan Venkatesan is an author, researcher, translator and associate professor at UC Davis. She earned her Ph.D. in South Asian studies, which is closely related to her current research interests into South Indian literary texts.

Most specifically, Venkatesan translates and researches texts in the Tamil language. Her interest in this language stems from her undergraduate study at UC Berkeley, where she took a life-altering class on Tamil literature and translation.

“It was like a whole world just ex-

ploded in front of me,” Venkatesan said.

“I had no idea that there was poetry and there was literature and drama and all of these kinds of things. It just changed my life.”

Venkatesan has devoted nearly 10 years to her research into the Adhyayana Utsavam, or the Festival of Recitation.

The 20-day festival revolves around the recitation of verses from a revered poem in Tamil as well as a dramatic and complex visual performance of the text.

“I started this project interested in one temple, but this temple is actually embedded in a network of other temples,” Venkatesan said. “It’s taken me ten years to actually understand what’s happening in this festival, like what is going on.”

She described the festival as exciting and intoxicating to experience. Even after having attended the festival for 10 years, she believes there is still more to learn about the festival itself as well as its implications and effects on its audience.

Her research details several components of the festival, delving past the literal form of the poem and into the meaning of the poem itself.

“There are some very deep patterns that reveal themselves, sort of very complex ritual things,” Venkatesan said.

“The poetry has all these dimensions, so it’s poetry that is visualized; it’s poetry that is shown through the ornamentation of deities, it’s poetry that’s used to transform space — just by reciting this poetry, this ordinary space is transformed into Heaven for that duration.”

Venkatesan intends to use her Guggenheim Fellowship to continue her research on the festival. The grant will support her annual observation of the ceremony.

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losing out on those swipes and essentially wasting money, or were having to pay extra to get food plans at local synagogues, but an aspect of the campaign’s message is that students shouldn’t have to pay to keep their religion.

This also rings true for students who eat halal and observe the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which occurs from the middle of May to the middle of June this year. A component of Ramadan entails a fast from sunrise to sundown, which means no eating or drinking.

“Last year was difficult because the the early morning meal, which is at 5 a.m., the dining commons isn’t open, and I think the dining commons were actually closed when students could break their fast, so basically there was an entire month where none of the students could eat anything,” El-Nounou said.

“So I went into the dining commons with everyone and I was like ‘listen, we can’t have that happen because they’re basically losing an entire month’s worth of swipes, and they don’t have food, they don’t have a kitchen to cook, they don’t have the dining commons, like, we have to figure that out.’”

Despite the change in DC hours to being open all day long this year, the weekends will still prove problematic because on Friday and Saturday evenings

Notable questions about the bill followed. Senator Htoo said the Elections Committee was not in favor of the bill as it changes ongoing procedures that have worked in the past. After continued debate that merged toward a resolution, a vote was taken on SB #55. It failed with four yes votes, five no votes and three abstentions.

The next bill was Senate Bill #58, which would allow commission chairpersons to make motions, second motions, motion to confirm and object to motions throughout the Senate agenda.

It passed in the IAC unanimously.

“I just really enjoy motioning us into public discussion and this bill would prevent me from doing that,” Gofman said.

“I enjoy motioning and seconding stuff.

This bill creates an exception for committee chairs to do that but it doesn’t create the same exception for the president.”

A member from the public said that it was their understanding that the bill would save time during Senate meetings.

Academic Affairs Commission chair Abby Edwards said “making it so we

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doors close at 7:30 p.m. or earlier, which is too early for students who are breaking their fast at roughly 8 p.m.

“I’m actually going to be meeting with [DC staff ] tomorrow to discuss regulations, what we want to do for the month of Ramadan,” El-Nounou said.

“Hopefully we can do something where students can have a take-out box and swipe it out, so that they can eat whenever they want, something along those lines. But to kind of work around that, maybe to offer more halal meat options around those times for students, during that month especially.”

El-Nounou also pointed out that it would be economically advantageous for UC Davis to adopt more halal options for its students because it will attract students who previously couldn’t eat there to finally do so.

“There’s a huge population of Muslim students on this campus, it’s absurd, like we can’t even tell you how many there are it’s such a big population, that’s why all the food trucks now, the majority of them are halal,” El-Nounou said.

“They’re getting so much business because you actually make more money if you offer halal meat because people who don’t really eat halal don’t really care, people who eat halal obviously are going to care and it just doesn’t harm your

business in any way.”

According to El-Nounou and Zoken, some people who eat halal will also eat kosher. Although the debate stands and this is not a universal decision by any means amongst people who eat halal, it illuminates the greater message of the campaign.

“Us having more kosher food on campus, hopefully in the long-run, some people who keep halal will eat the kosher food because it was killed by a God-fearing person — it all comes down to a connection, there is a solidarity there,” Zoken said. “I really hope that through this campaign, work can continue of us coming together rather than being further apart, because we live in a world right now that is so divisive.”

Ultimately, the halal/kosher food campaign is about increasing dietary options for students and bringing together people in a way that enables them to focus on their similarities rather than their differences.

“Nationally, people want to paint this big hatred that Jews and Muslims can have toward each other, but when it really comes down to it, there’s a lot of overlap there,” Zoken said. “You can have connections be achievable if you do more things like this and we can understand each other better.”

at the airport. They are considering the developers are most responsible for determining the best use for the land with a conceptual design for up to 30 acres of development.

The document also mentioned that “the Amenities District is approximately 98 acres located at the ‘front door’ of the Airport, situated at the main entrance and is intended for retail, office, food and beverage, and hospitality. The SMF South District is located within approximately 295 acres conveniently located along the south side of Interstate 5 allowing for high visibility and access for a travel center.”

In addition, airport passenger levels hit a high in 2017, at around 10.9 million fliers. According to The Sacramento

Bee, John Wheat, the local airport chief, elaborated on how the airport can expect an increase in ridership; however, he expects them to go up in the next few months and then drop to the 3 percent range in a few years afterward.

“Airline flight plans indicate ridership could be up 12 percent in the first half of 2018,” Wheat said.

The push for more developments to attract customers is now on the agenda, as a hotel can have many uses, according to Slothower. It is not specific, however, to the airport’s focus, as it’s open to other business developments aligning with the master plan.

“The goal is to bring amenities to customers who are already on airport property,” Slothower said via email.

DROP THE CHARGES CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4

“The administration of this campus is now under the auspices of [...] Napolitano who [...] has come from the Department of Homeland Security, as one of their directors,” Gerome-Wyatt said. “To me it’s not surprising in the least that in the last two or three days that the student protesters at UC Davis — any student protesters — have

been put on notice that ‘You step on a line, you’re going to suffer for it, so fall in line. We’re going to have sanctions against you. You want to protest at Mrak Hall? [...] You’re not going to do that no more, ‘cause we’re going to go after you. We’re going to put you on student probation, if you screw up on that, you can be expelled.’”

12 | THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

IRAN CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6

A FORKFUL OF OMELETTE WAS IN MY MOUTH WHEN MY FRIEND CAME STORMING IN...

BY TERRY HUDSON arts@theaggie.org I didn’t know what was meant by that text. Was I successful in finding trouble? My highly dramatic self is always on edge because of the ambiguity of text-based communication, so I was at a standstill.

I looked over and saw Paul looking at his phone while lying on top of his bed. I ever so slightly twiddled my fingers, and he amazingly understood that I was trying to say hello, so he waved and said, “Hey.” I asked him how the family time was, and he immediately said, “Hated it.” I liked him even more at that point, but not in that way, although I do play for the same team.

The night before did get me wondering about how I was going to find a bull in cow town, but there were more pressing matters in front of me. I unplugged my phone (I managed to actually plug it in the night before) and turned onto my back. I

replied to the text my friend had sent and waited for a response.

I checked out the dining commons that I was going to be eating at for the next nine months. If I had to say anything about it, I’d say it wasn’t bad.

A forkful of omelette was in my mouth when my friend came storming in and sat down next to me.

“Remember that guy from the party? The one you went up to and told that I was into him?” I nodded my head in agreement, curious to see where this was going. “Well, I’m seeing him this weekend,” she replied.

I congratulated myself for being so bold, but I was worried about what else I forgot from the night before. On the bright side, we had a date to plan.

Next week: Oh, men.

in its annual military parade.

That being said, the deal is working. Thus far, inspectors haven’t found Iran to be in violation of the terms. Furthermore, withdrawing from the deal could yield severe diplomatic repercussions. Abandoning the deal would insinuate to the rest of the world that respecting our international agreements is dependent on who holds presidential office. Seeing as we live in a democratic society with a new president every four to eight years, we would essentially send the message that our word is tempermental — likely making future deals more difficult to forge. If the deal is discontinued, the outcome has already been guaranteed by Iran: the immediate recommencement of its nuclear program. Rising tensions in the Middle East, specifically between Iran and Israel, also make for an incredibly volatile environment in which nuclear weapons are not beyond the possibility of usage.

It’s possible that we, in the West, are pretending we’re at a peaceful resolution, while Iran is preparing to fulfill what it believes is God’s desire to destroy Israel. It’s also possible that an abandonment of this deal, and, consequently, Iran’s recommencement of its nuclear program, could lead to yet another world war.

It’s crucial that one key aspect of Iran is recognized: Iran is more than just its regime. Iran is its

people, who are notably pro-Western (despite death chants). It has been argued that the Iran we see in 15 years will be far more liberal. If this is the case, then abandoning the deal could curtail potentially liberal developments in Iran. When the time comes to renew the agreement, under a hopefully more liberal rule, preferable and more peaceful terms may be reached, which could significantly alter the fate of the war-torn region. After decades of meddlesome intervention, it’s time we give the Middle East a chance to thrive. That being said, harsher enforcement of the terms unrelated to nuclear developments should be instituted.

It’s imperative that, in either decision Trump makes, we understand that we are discussing a possible war. Throwing away a deal such as this does not come without consequence. Forsaking the deal could result in both diplomatic and security issues, which Trump currently appears unprepared to deal with.

This deal is not like that of the Paris Agreement or the Trans-Pacific Partnership — this is about inhibiting the use of a weapon that guarantees catastrophe, by a country that guarantees instability. There’s no plan for the aftermath of this possible fallout, no guarantee that Iran will not continue its nuclear program. If Trump is going to terminate the agreement on May 12, he must come prepared.

PICNIC DAY SPORTS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 13

“We’re excited,” Maze said. “Six and two is the best conference record we’ve ever had. We were six and two in 2011 and we were seeded second in the tournament. We got a shot at being seeded second again.”

In Jorgensen’s opinion, she believes that the Aggies have a legitimate shot of winning it all at Indian Wells this year.

“I think this is the best season that I have had on the team,” Jorgensen said.

She said that every match is competitive, and that the Aggies will be preparing for the “slower” courts at Indian Wells by adjusting their game styles to be better suited to win “down south.”

After Saturday’s results, UC Davis women’s tennis team finished the regular season with a 15-6 overall record, earning the team a three seed heading into the Big West tournament this weekend. The Aggies will take on their first opponent in the Big West tourney at 11 a.m. on April 27 at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden in Indian Wells, Ca. Across campus at the Schaal Aquatic Center, the UC Davis women’s water polo team also played in its final home contest of the season with a tilt against third-ranked California. Like the Aggie tennis team, the water polo team took the opportunity to recognize its six senior athletes. Among the seniors being honored was center Greta Kohlmoos, who finished yet another stellar season with 43 goals and 46 overall points.

Prior to her final home game, Kohlmoos shared how “surreal” the whole situation felt, given how emotional it has been watching the seniors of previous years honored at their final home games.

“Now I’m going to be the one up there,” Kohlmoos said. “There will be tears, for sure.”

In light of all of the emotions, Kohlmoos said that the seniors viewed Saturday’s game as an exciting final challenge to leave their final mark on the program.

“I feel like I can’t even begin to put into words what it has meant to be on this team,” Kohlmoos said. “Because it has given me so many opportunities that I never even thought of before I came here.

Being a part of a team of really strong, smart women and learning from them.”

Kohlmoos also took time to praise her senior co-captain, utility Paige Virgil, who had a career year in the water, netting 53 goals and 14 assists for 67 to-

tal points. According to Kohlmoos, Virgil injured her elbow and was in a sling for the team’s games against Hawaii and Irvine.

“The fact that those were our two toughest conference opponents,” Kohlmoos said. “She was still on the bench cheering, giving advice and doing everything she could with the best attitude for her situation. I think that was really great to see –– it definitely pumped up the team. We wanted to win those games for her [...] She’s the kind of player and person that everyone on this team looks up to and wants to be.”

As a senior member, Kohlmoos has participated in several games on past picnic days. She admits that it’s “kind of been a bummer” to not be able to participate in all of the fun events going on across campus and in the community, but understood that this is one of the sacrifices she willingly makes for the sport she loves.

The Picnic Day games themselves, Kohlmoos countered, are a blast to be a part of in their own right. According to her, there is “not really any other game that’s quite like it.”

“It’s really cool too, because it’s Picnic Day, a lot of [alumni] come back to see those picnic day games, so it’s really cool to see that community,” Kohlmoos said. “Although I wouldn’t mind being able to go on campus and see some of the other cool stuff going on.

But we have our own cool thing going on at Schaal.”

California turned out to be a challenge for the Aggies on Saturday, defeating UC Davis 15-6 despite two goals from Virgil. With an overall record of 18-10, the Aggies will be seeded second in the conference tournament this weekend, meaning that the team will have a bye on the first day of action. It’s an asset going into the tournament, but Kohlmoos is also “disappointed” because it means that she has one less game to play. Nevertheless, she is confident that she and the team will make the most of the opportunity to win it all.

Elsewhere on Saturday, the Aggies were turning up wins all over campus. The UC Davis softball team earned a pair of victories against UC Riverside in the day’s double-header games. Also victorious over the Highlanders was the UC Davis men’s tennis team, which won its match by a convincing 6-1 score. UC Davis baseball defeated UC Santa Barbara 5-3, and UC Davis women’s lacrosse crushed Fresno State 2312.

13 | THURSDAY, APRIL 26, 2018

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

SPORTS A PICNIC DAY TO REMEMBER Women’s tennis, water polo, lacrosse shine in senior send-offs

BY DOMINIC FARIA sports@theaggie.org

Picnic Day: arguably the best day of the year in Davis. The entire UC Davis experience is on display for visitors and students alike. The parade is rolling, the sun is out and the community is buzzing with excitement –– on campus and off. For UC Davis student-athletes who have events scheduled, however, the Picnic Day experience is a little different from that of the general student population.

There were seven home UC Davis sporting events scheduled throughout the day this past Saturday, meaning that six different teams had to forgo the festivities, at least for a few hours. The women’s tennis team, for example, had an early start to its Picnic Day as the Aggies squared off in a causeway battle against Sacramento State. Being the final match of the season, this picnic day contest also served as a send-off ceremony to honor the team’s three seniors. Kristy Jorgensen, Lani-Rae Green and Jessie

DAN N A W E I N T R AUB / CO URTESY

DAVIS COMES TOGETHER FOR SOFTBALL IN SUPPORT OF CAMP Cancer’s far-reaching impacts creates shared connections in support summer camp

BY B OBBY JO HN sports@theaggie.org

Spirits were high at the Davis Senior High softball field as the Davis Blue Devils’ girls softball team hosted Camp Kesem Day in a special gathering of the Davis community. The softball team gifted supplies for the upcoming summer camp and defeated the Monterey Trail Mustangs 11-0 on April 19.

Counselors and campers from the UC Davis Camp Kesem chapter filled the stands as they cheered on Blue Devils. Davis Blue Devil girls softball head coach Lyn Christopulos lost his brother to cancer last year and wanted to host Camp Kesem Day to honor the organization and its impact on his family.

Camp Kesem hosts free summer camps for children whose parents have been impacted by cancer.

UC Davis’ chapter is run primarily by UC Davis students, a group of around 100 counselors who host 260 campers for a week-long camping session.

Campers and counselors create nicknames that speak to their personality.

Nathan, or “Alleyoop,” a Davis High sophomore and Kesem camper, got his nickname be-

Lee played in their final match.

“Of course, as anyone, I’m a little sad –– you know, my last match on these home courts, but I’m excited to hopefully beat Sac State,” Jorgensen said before the match. “Honestly, this is the best season I could have asked for for my senior season, so even though I’m sad, I can’t really focus on being sad because I’m so pumped.”

Head coach Bill Maze said before the match that he looked “forward to honoring [the] seniors” and anticipated another energetic Picnic Day atmosphere –– something that has become somewhat a tradition for Maze’s teams.

“There’s a buzz, we love it,” Maze said. “It’s definitely different, and that’s why I try to schedule on Picnic Day as often as I can. I love playing on Picnic Day, and I hope we get a good crowd [...] I can’t remember the last time we didn’t play on Picnic Day.” Coming off a tough shutout loss to Nevada on Friday, the Aggies edged out Sac State 4-3 on Saturday morning. The Aggies were successful in doubles play, sweeping the one and two matches 6-3 and 6-2, respectively. After securing the doubles point, the Aggies held on to clinch the match in singles play. Green and sophomore Nikita Pradeep each earned straight sets victories, while Jorgensen suffered defeat at the one spot after taking her opponent to three sets. It was freshman Sara Tsukamoto who earned the clinching point with her three-set victory at the five spot.

cause he played basketball. He thinks the Davis community coming together for this occasion is a good thing.

“I think that’s honestly amazing,” Nathan said.

“I think it will spread the word even more and get more people involved in the camp, which is always awesome to help people get through experiences like what I have gone through.”

Nathan’s mother battled breast cancer for three years before passing away. His experience at Kesem has inspired him to become a camp counselor as he is now a counselor in training. He will be attending the camp this June in Grizzly Flat as a camper, but will also mentor younger campers.

“The first year I went and it was like the second or third day and we were down by the campfire area, and two of these counselors had this one skit that they did,” Nathan said. “It was really funny and it kind of showed me what Camp Kesem is all about. It’s all about having fun with people who know what you’ve been through, which I thought was awesome.”

Fifth-year history and international relations double major and co-director of Kesem’s UC Davis chapter John Dolan, nicknamed “Hobbes” for his fascination with Calvin and Hobbes, says the chapter just hit its fundraising goal for the year.

At the most recent Camp Kesem fundraiser, Make the Magic, around $90,000 was raised. But Dolan wants to break last year’s record. With two months until camp, he is optimistic they will break last year’s fundraising total and hopes the extra funds will benefit his campers.

“We do a lot of events throughout the year going to different schools and school boards,” Dolan said, “and talk about what Kesem is and trying to help as many kids in the area as possible.”

The Blue Devil girls softball team split up into three groups to see who could get the most donations for Camp Kesem’s supplies this year. The supplies were mustard, ketchup and chocolate sauce for the camp’s “messy olympics.”

For the messy olympics, campers get their choice of condiment to spray the counselors. Dolan recalled the experience of getting sprayed with ketchup and mustard and the feeling of condiments baking in the summer heat.

Fourth-year global disease biology major Kevin Coral, nicknamed “Apollo” for his love of boxing, has been a camp counselor for three years.

RAU L MORA L ES / AGG IE

The added dynamic of Picnic Day seemed to fuel the Aggies, rather than hinder them. Even Jorgensen admitted before the match that picnic day tends to attract a bit more noisier of a crowd, which can be detrimental for a lot of tennis players.

“For tennis, you always want a quiet environment, so it takes a lot of being ready for that and accepting it,” Jorgensen said. “Honestly, it’s not that much different [than other matches]. You get the occasional drunk friend that rolls through and wants to cheer you on, but they’re drunk so they don’t really know what they’re saying. The opponents get upset. Other

Coral recounted one of his most moving moments as a Kesem counselor at a parent memorial.

“Some of my campers asked me to go. I went and there were about 60 or 70 people in this little room, and they went around in a circle and shared a memory of their parent,” Coral said. “It was a heartbreaking and humbling experience to hear a 6-year-old saying.

‘I miss my mom, but it’s okay because I have [Camp] Kesem,’ I was crying the whole time.”

After the game, Kesem counselors and campers were invited on the field to share their experience as counselors. The counselors then started singing camp songs, and everyone joined in.

“Uh-huh! Oh-yea! One more time,” chanted the counselors as they led everyone. “Race car style! I said a vroom shifta vroom!”

Christopulos’ brother, George, was diagnosed with stage-four glioblastoma six years ago. Lyn recalled that his niece and nephew struggled with their father’s diagnosis at first and that the diagnosis weighed

than that, it’s a really good time. We get more fans on picnic day and after –– after a win –– we get to walk around and see all the festivities. Work hard, play hard.”

Although it’s this batch of seniors’ final Picnic Day match, they along with the entire team still have the Big West conference tournament to look forward to this weekend. Maze admitted that physical fatigue and injuries have hindered the Aggies at times during the season, but the team is still “raring to go.”

PICNIC DAY SPORTS on 12

heavy on their minds. Kesem was not on their priority list.

“They were not really excited about going first.

They were struggling with the diagnosis to begin with,” Christopulos said. “But when they went and came back, they were beyond excited and empowered by their experience.”

Camp Kesem has had a contagious effect on the Christopulos family, Christopulos’ daughter is now a counselor at University of Oregon’s Camp Kesem chapter, and his nephew is the director at UC Berkeley’s chapter.

As the Blue Devil girls played duck-duck-goose with campers on home plate, Christopulos reflected on the team’s experience of collecting donations for Kesem.

“We were all in from the first moment,” Christopulos said. “This is a perfect way to get them involved, and look at them all, they’re all in, and I love that my girls dove in and embraced it.”

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