March 11, 2021

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VOLUME 139, ISSUE 19 | THURSDAY, MACRH 11, 2021

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UC DAVIS IS DEVELOPING PLANS FOR RETURN TO IN-PERSON INSTRUCTION IN FALL Administration recommends that students prepare to be on campus by fall, but many details remain uncertain

BY REBECCA GARDNER campus@theaggie.org

The Welcome Center at UC Davis. (Quinn Spooner / Aggie)

UC Davis announced in late December 2020 that it plans to resume in-person instruction for Fall Quarter 2021. Shortly thereafter, on Jan. 11, 2021, the UC Office of the President announced that all 10 UC campuses are preparing to do the same.

Provost Mary Croughan established the fall planning work group to evaluate all of the logistics of bringing students, faculty and staff back on campus.

“The fall planning work group is made up of leaders across the entire campus,” Croughan said. “It’s not just focused on instruction; it’s on every aspect of running the campus. So research, education, service [and] what affects faculty, staff and students.”

The group is working to plan everything from how many students can be housed in a dorm to dining restrictions and research plans for how in-person instruction will function. It is complicated and challenging to make decisions in a pandemic when there is so much uncertainty about the future.

The working group must evaluate all different scenarios, considering the county tier status, state and county restrictions and vaccine availability and uptake. While President Joe Biden has promised that all Americans will be offered the vaccine by the end of May, the UC cannot ensure students will be vaccinated because it is not possible to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations at this point,

according to Croughan.

“The problem with requiring vaccinations is you’re not allowed to mandate a vaccine if it’s still under an emergency use authorization,” Croughan said. “All of the COVID-19 vaccines are under an emergency use authorization right now. We will have to see what the federal government does. If they remove the [Emergency Use Authorization] designation, then it would be possible to mandate, but the University of California has not made a decision on that yet.”

ASUCD President Kyle Krueger is the only undergraduate who sits on the fall planning work group. He explained that travel restrictions could present additional challenges for international students and is concerned with ensuring the administration hears student voices.

“Through the fall planning work group, we’re also planning to do listening sessions with some different student communities to make sure administration is not just hearing from me,” Krueger said.

“I want to make sure that [the] administration hears from a variety of student communities—minority students, international students.

ASUCD is going to work to make sure that those connections between administration and students are made.”

While the details of fall instruction have not been solidified, Krueger and Croughan both concurred that the most important thing for students to do right now is to secure housing for next year because some portion of classes will be offered in person.

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FOOTBALL HOME OPENER POSTPONED TO MARCH 20 DUE TO COVID-19 CONCERNS CW31 will air all UC Davis home football games, and Instagram promotions will be in place this football season to boost student spirit

BY MADDIE DULEY campus@theaggie.org On Feb. 8, UC Davis Athletics announced the postponement of the Feb. 27 home-opener game against Cal Poly.

“The game had to be rescheduled because Cal Poly had some quarantine issues with some of their team,” said Rocko DeLuca, the interim athletic director at UC Davis.

To ensure the safety of both respective teams, the game was rescheduled to the soonest safe date.

“We worked with Cal Poly and the Big Sky conference office to reschedule that game the first bye week, which is the 20th of March,” DeLuca said.

The team still plans on having their first game at Idaho on March 6.

Josh Flushman, the senior associate athletic

director for The Aggies, touched on the safety precautions the team is following in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

“There’s protocols that have been put in place by [National Collegiate Athletic Association] and Big Sky that we’re following,” Flushman said. “For example, when they’re on the sidelines, coaches have to wear masks. When players go to the sidelines, they will have masks on as well.”

The team will also be enforcing protocols to remain safe while traveling and playing games at home.

“We’re testing ourselves,” Flushman said.

“Other schools are following the testing protocols in order to play a game here. The test results have to be attested prior to the game and travel.”

Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the stands will look very different at football games this year.

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UC Davis Health Stadium during Winter Quarter 2021. (Quinn Spooner / Aggie)

AFRICAN AMERICAN AND AFRICAN STUDIES DEPARTMENT GAINS FIRST PRESIDENTIAL CHAIR THROUGH ENDOWMENT BY LOCAL ALUMNI The $1.5 million donation was made by UC Davis alumni after a chance encounter with AAS faculty

BY ANNETTE CAMPOS campus@theaggie.org

Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies at Hart Hall at UC Davis recently recieved $1 million in funding from the state. (Photo by Justin Han / Aggie)

UC Davis alumni couple Daryl and Lois Goss donated $1.5 million to the African American and African Studies (AAS) department for its first endowed presidential chair to help further the teaching, research and contribution to the culture and history of communities of African and African descent.

The Austin and Arutha Goss Presidential Chair is named after Daryl Goss’ parents, who the Goss family has credited with giving them the value of lifelong learning and education. Along with the $1.5 million gift, the UC Presidential Match for Endowed Chairs has also contributed $500,000.

According to a press release by UC Davis, Daryl Goss stated that the development of the presidential chair comes from the current

climate around social justice.

“We want to bring diversity, equity and inclusion to the forefront of everyone’s mind,” Goss said in the statement. “We need to provide appropriate support toward educational opportunities to generate more interaction and understanding of underrepresented people’s histories.”

The endowment, which has been a long-term effort by the department since 2007, highlights the transformative work being done within this field.

“For the department to have an endowed chair is very prestigious in academia during these times of the Black Lives Matter movement, the racial reckoning that’s going in this country, and the social justice movement that is global now because of the Black Lives Matter movement,” said Professor Emerita of AAS Halifu Osumare.

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NASA TEAMS UP WITH UC DAVIS TO LAND THE PERSEVERANCE ROVER ON MARS Faculty at the McClellan Nuclear Research Center conducted neutron imaging on certain components of the NASA Perseverance rover to ensure the rover’s functioning abilities

BY FRANCHESKA TORRES science@theaggie.org On Feb. 18, National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Perseverance rover landed at the Jezero Crater on Mars after seven months of space travel. This was made possible by the contributions of the McClellan Nuclear Research Center, operated

by UC Davis.

The research center’s mission statement is to “provide educational and research opportunities for the advancement of the nuclear sciences in a safe and pro-active environment.” According to Wesley Frey, the director of the McClellan Nuclear Research Center, the center was originally constructed as a base for the U.S. Air Force.

It was run by the Air Force for about 10 years before it was sold to UC Davis in 2000 and has been run by the university ever since.

As the center’s director, Frey’s role is to find new applications for neutron imaging, a vital research technique for the aerospace industry. According to Frey, potential examples include building improved systems to observe water uptake in plant roots so that

water can be conserved and still produce the same crop yield and quality. This application is more in line with UC Davis’ goal to improve the quality of agriculture.

The McClellan Nuclear Research Institute is also known for its outreach program that brings about 1,000 high schoolers to the center every year to see the Training, Research, Isotopes, General Atomics (TRIGA) Mark ll reactor and conduct experiments.

Though the program was temporarily discontinued due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Frey hopes to resume the program this fall.

The McClellan Nuclear Research Institute also played a critical role in Perseverance’s landing on Mars. The technology used can be compared to an X-ray. These work and produce images with contrast because X-rays are preferentially absorbed in higher atomic number and more dense material like bone than lower atomic number and less dense materials like fat, muscle and skin.

Neutrons interact with material a little differently and are effective at interacting with hydrogen and carbon surrounded by metals.

PERSEVERANCE on 11

The nuclear reactor at UC Davis’ McClellan Nuclear Research Center operating at 1,000,000 Watts power. Researchers at the center used the reactor to help test components of the Mars 2020 Mission.

2 | THURSDAY, MACRH 11, 2021

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Asian student leaders speak out for community, elderly In the wake of a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes, students find ways to give back to the community and raise awareness

BY LIANA MAE ATIZADO AND KATHLEEN QUINN features@theaggie.org Students are speaking out in response to a recent influx of anti-Asian hate crimes in California, noting that the pandemic exacerbated racism that Asian and Asian American students and their families have always experienced.

According to a report by Stop AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) Hate, over 800 incidents of anti-Asian hate crimes were reported in California during a period of three months in 2020, with 700 occuring in the greater Bay Area alone since the beginning of the pandemic.

As of Fall Quarter 2019, 32% of undergraduates at UC Davis identify as Asian/Pacific Islander (API), according to the UC Davis student profile.

Raquel Aldana, a law professor at UC Davis, said that oftentimes disparate communities of Asian Americans can be lumped together even though they have distinct experiences and cultures, and she has spoken out about desegregating data on

API students.

Linhchi Nguyen, a fourth-year political science and English double major and the current president of Asian Pacific Islander American Public Affairs (APAPA) at UC Davis, shared the same sentiment as Aldana.

“People have this misconception that Asians, despite being a minority, are protected from any form of discrimination because they’re viewed as this ideal group,” Nguyen said. “That’s definitely not true at all. Ever since the pandemic, that has definitely come to light.”

Aldana said Asian Americans have been assumed to be a “well-integrated” group, and have had so-called “positive stereotypes” that have hindered their ability to be taken seriously by media outlets.

“Take [anti-Asian racism] seriously and make it visible,” Aldana said. “I think a lot of times there is an invisibility around the suffering of certain groups because of all the myths.”

CATHY TANG / AGGIE

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UC multicampus research grant advances automation in agriculture and addresses the cultural preservation of Indiginous groups The $19 million grant is distributed to all nine UC campuses and funds eight new projects at UC Davis

BY MADDIE DULEY campus@theaggie.org The University of California (UC) awarded $19 million to 15 multicampus research programs and initiatives in the biannual research competition. UC Davis will be participating in eight of the projects that were awarded funding.

Each project has support from at least three UC universities and is engaging in research from multiple directions. “[The competition is] a time for faculty across all nine UC campuses to come together across disciplines and do some high-risk innovating work surrounding the issues that are of interest,” said Anne Visser, an associate professor in the Department of Human Ecology whose project was awarded funding through the competition.

Visser, a recipient of the grant, is conducting a project that is investigating the future of automation in agriculture and productivity within the industry.

“California’s agriculture has been facing enormous amounts of pressure both from

climate change and increasing competitors internationally,” Visser said. “From a labor perspective, we’ve had a labor shortage due to immigration controls. Also, the farm worker labor force is getting older in general. Farmers are having a harder time finding people not just to tend to the crops, but in all aspects of agricultural work.”

Initiatives to improve productivity through automation are slightly more complicated in California due to the diversity of crops produced.

“When it comes to types of technologies that are being adopted in agriculture, it’s the same types of technologies that we’re seeing being adopted in other places,” Visser said. “What are the impacts of these new technologies? Do they have implications for long-term sustainability both environmentally [and] economically?”

This project will work to answer these questions while assessing and improving the health of farm workers with climate change increasing their time in the sun.

“We know that farm workers have hotter days, more hot days in the summer, [and] the harvest season is longer,” Visser said. “The dangerous conditions are increasing—how do you

manage these things?”

A transition to automotive technologies in agriculture would also affect the economic landscape of farmers’ wages and call into question the economic sustainability of this change for its workforce.

“When you bring in these types of automotive technologies you are creating new jobs,” Visser

said. “Maybe not as many in number, but perhaps more lucrative in terms of salary or income. Can you utilize these new technologies as a way to improve outcomes experienced by workers in various regions?”

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Dutton Hall at UC Davis during Winter Quarter 2021. (Quinn Spooner / Aggie)

City of Sacramento to receive $31.7 million to help low-income residents pay rent The pandemic has caused many households to experience losses of income and jobs, potentially putting some at risk of homelessness KAITLYN PANG / AGGIE

BY SHRADDHA JHINGAN city@theaggie.org The City of Sacramento is going “to receive an additional $31.7 million in state and federal funding to assist low-income city residents who are unable to pay rent and have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic,” according to a media release from Sacramento City Express.

Around $15.2 million of this aid is from the recent federal stimulus package, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, and $16.4 million is from the SB 91 Bill, which was passed recently

and extended the State of California’s Eviction Moratorium to June 30, 2021, according to the media release.

The Sacramento Housing and Redevelopment Agency (SHRA) will be managing the funds, and applications are open through March 19. The eligibility of households to utilize the funds is not dependent on immigration status. More details can be found in the media release.

SHRA Assistant Director MaryLiz Paulson explained that the idea for the program originated as a result of nationwide concerns about households being unable to back pay rent.

“President [Donald] Trump signed the

stimulus bill on Dec. 27, 2020 making funds available for rental assistance, and then Governor [Gavin] Newsom signed SB91 on Jan. 29 making state funds available,” Paulson said via email. “This was in response to national concerns about lowincome families that are unable to pay rent due to the COVID pandemic.”

Paulson added that the applications opened recently, “so information is just coming in.”

Additionally, most work has been completed online due to the pandemic.

“In general, we have been working through online portals, reducing the need for face-toface contact or even sharing paper documents,” Paulson said.

Housing Policy Manager for the City of Sacramento Danielle Foster explained that the pandemic has caused thousands of families in the city to be at-risk of losing their housing due to lost jobs and income. Increased demand for housing in other parts of California has also affected the region.

“Through the leadership of our mayor and council, the city has been able to implement a multitude of housing and homeless resources totaling more than $90 million this last year to directly assist our community impacted by the pandemic,” Foster said via email. “Our region is further impacted by increases in rents and housing prices due to greater demand on local housing from Bay Area transplants due to the mass increase of work-from-home options.”

Foster added that SHRA and “local community-based organizations” will be working to distribute the funds rapidly “to as many people as possible, including those residents who are most difficult to reach due to language and cultural barriers.”

In addition to these funds, there are also “free COVID-related landlord and tenant mediation services available for both commercial and

residential tenants,” to assist residents who may have conflicts with their tenant or landlord as a result of the pandemic or eviction moratorium.

People who may be interested in using these services can visit the website or call 916-850-9010.

Yolo County Housing Interim Chief Executive Officer Sandra Sigrist described that, in Yolo County, the pandemic has caused landlords and tenants to be thrown “into tenuous circumstances as both try to find a path to sustainability.”

“Having said that, the rental assistance available for individuals who meet low income guidelines has reportedly been helpful for both groups, and the pending State-administered rental assistance program launching locally in mid-March, will provide further relief,” Sigrist said via email.

Some housing options that Yolo County has included are voucher subsidies, public housing, partnerships with apartment complexes, “single home collaborative programs,” as well as Migrant Agricultural Family housing, according to Sigrist.

Yolo County Housing has been focusing on outreach to ensure that people have access to housing.

“While safety protocols have been at the forefront, the focus of our efforts has continued to be on supporting safe and affordable housing for all of those who are eligible for the programs we administer,” Sigrist said. “It’s involved a lot more reaching out to check in with people, rather than only responding when people contact the offices.”

Ultimately, Foster explained that these funds are meant to help those who may have been affected by the pandemic and may not be able to pay rent.

“If you are a low-income renter that has been impacted by COVID-19, please apply for this rent and utility assistance,” Foster said. “This assistance can cover back-owed rent and utilities from April 2020 and through June 2021.”

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THURSDAY, MACRH 11, 2021 | 3

Yolo County vaccine distribution extended to frontline workers The expansion ramps up efforts to vaccinate BIPOC residents in Yolo County

A vaccine. (Creative Commons)

BY YAN YAN HUSTIS HAYES city@theaggie.org As of Feb. 15, Yolo County has expanded its COVID-19 vaccination efforts to include frontline workers. This expansion will include individuals who work in childcare, education, emergency services and the food and agriculture industry. Eligible individuals can register on the county’s vaccine page or by calling 2-1-1.

Yolo County Public Information Officer Jenny Tan explained that expanding vaccination coverage to frontline workers makes vaccines available to a greater number of nonwhite residents.

“Now that this county has expanded to frontline workers in education, food and agriculture, childcare and emergency services,

we should definitely see an uptick of non-white indiduals getting vaccinated,” Tan said via email. “For example, we have around 7,0008,000 agricultural workers in Yolo County who are predominantly Hispanic.”

In order to ensure vaccine accessibility, Tan explained that in addition to offering private clinics, Yolo County has been making advertisements about vaccines in Spanish and Russian.

“We have Spanish radio and digital advertisements, Russian radio and Facebook advertisements, billboards, and [have] even sent postcards in English and Spanish to our Knights Landing area,” Tan said via email. “We’ve vaccinated around 1,000 of our agricultural workers so far and we’re making sure to rotate between cities and areas.”

Tan explained that frontline workers are especially important as

they provide essential services for Yolo County residents.

“They are the ones ensuring we have food on the table, responding to emergency needs and teaching our children,” Tan said via email. “Our agriculture industry is especially important as our county has deep roots in agriculture and farming.”

Although the expansion of vaccine coverage to individuals in these crucial sectors will increase the number of vaccinated individuals in Yolo County, individual fears about the safety of the vaccine pose a threat to eventually reaching herd immunity.

Brad Pollock, a professor at the UC Davis School of Medicine, Arline Miller Rolkin Chair in Public Health Science and associate dean for Public Health Sciences at UC Davis, leads the UC Davis Public Health Sciences department. He explained the importance of confronting misinformation surrounding the vaccine.

“Vaccine hesitancy is a real concern in trying to end the COVID-19 pandemic,” Pollock said via email. “There is a lot of misinformation out there. As more and more individuals get safely vaccinated (by the millions) it is possible that some of the fear may abate, but it is important to get as many individuals vaccinated as quickly as possible.”

Pollock explained that residents who have yet to receive the vaccine can help the vaccine rollout by continuing to practice preventative measures.

“Remain vigilant and practice all of the known public health preventive measures including wearing a mask, maintaining physical distance, practicing good hygiene and getting tested on a frequent basis,” Pollock said via email. “These are good practices to keep even after you get vaccinated.”

Associate Superintendent of Support Services for the Davis Joint Unified School District (DJUSD) Laura Juanitas explained that the Yolo County vaccine distribution expansion is a step forward in the DJUSD’s plans for reopening.

“We know that preschool to grade 12 are important years in a student’s education,” Juanitas said. “We’ve been doing a very good job with distance learning, but we know how valuable in-person learning is. We want to [return] in a safe way.”

Juanitas further explained that vaccines and a return to in-person learning is beneficial for both school staff and parents.

“We’ve seen through the course of the pandemic that age is a factor in how ill people can get, so it’s important to keep our school staff as safe as possible,” Juanitas said. “It also benefits the economy when the schools are open. Not everyone can work from home. This has been a hard year for many families.”

Juanitas explained that reopening schools is a top priority for DJUSD at this time.

“Just like parents and students, we want to reopen as soon as possible and as soon as it’s safe and we can get all the adults vaccinated,” Juanitas said. “That way, we can get the kids back in school.”

Yolo County adopts resolution on Feb. 23 that condemns anti-Asian violence Growing calls for the City of Davis to institute own resolution are prompted by recent attacks against Asians and Asian Americans Someone get these birds under control!

February 19 “Driving recklessly in golf cart.”

February 20 “Yellow frat house with blaring music.”

February 21 “2 large racoons were in her backyard but have since moved along down the fence.”

February 23 “Yellow house repeating loud music.”

February 26 “Chicken got out of neighbor’s backyard.”

February 27 “Turkeys are now swarming around, causing traffic hazard.”

March 2 “Ringing door bell and ditching for last 1520 minutes.”

BY JELENA LAPUZ city@theaggie.org The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in anti-Asian hate crimes across the country due to the scapegoating of Asians and Asian Americans as the cause for the coronavirus.

Recent attacks against Asian seniors have caused outrage in the community, which has called for further protection from anti-Asian violence.

A resolution that condemns anti-Asian violence was approved unanimously by the Yolo County Board of Supervisors at the meeting on Feb. 23.

Yolo County Supervisor Gary Sandy explained that the resolution was unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors in a five-to-zero vote.

“The Board unanimously approved the resolution, which calls for stronger protection of members of our Asian community who have been under violent attacks, verbal harassment and reprisals in recent history,” Sandy said.

Sandy further explained how the resolution was brought to him by one of his constituents, Lisa Yep Salinas, who had been victim to multiple incidents of anti-Asian racism.

Yep Salinas, a Yolo County resident and survivor of multiple anti-Asian racist incidents, described how she was a victim of six racist incidents since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of these incidents occurred at local grocery stores or in the parking lot, where the agitators blamed her for COVID-19, swore at her, used racial slurs and even physically assaulted her.

“I had to use a grocery cart to defend myself,” Yep Salinas said. “I hope it never happens to anyone else.”

After President Joe Biden released a memorandum on Jan. 26 “condemning and combating racism, xenophobia, and intolerance against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders,” Yep Salinas was inspired to suggest a resolution to Yolo County and other local entities to prevent the same racist incidents from happening to anyone else.

“People are being harassed on the job, in public, in the streets—wherever they go—and people are being murdered,” Yep Salinas said. “We need to stop this.”

Senior Historian of the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies Stacey Salinas noted how the model minority myth has contributed to the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes.

“Our elders are seen as more vulnerable— more likely to be unable to speak out against these types of crimes because they’re older,” Salinas said.

“Asians are usually seen as submissive and more quiet to represent more of the model minority myth.”

Sandy explained how Yolo County has had anti-Asian racist incidents prior to the pandemic, such as the racially-motivated murder of Thong

Hy Huynh at Davis Senior High School in the 1980s.

“Yolo County was unfortunately the site of a horrific murder of an Asian youth in Davis many, many years ago,” Sandy said. “That has haunted many of us who have lived in the county for a great many years.”

Salinas addressed the long history of oppression against Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) in general in the United States.

“We all have different circumstances— meaning different histories of oppression—but at the end of the day, all the different ethnic groups or racial groups, share a common goal in challenging white supremacy,” Salinas said. “That’s where we find common ground.”

Sandy detailed how Yolo County has had an extensive history of Asian involvement in the community such as farm labor and railroad construction. He also listed notable Asian leaders in the community including, but not limited to, Mariko Yamada, a former Yolo County Supervisor and later Democratic assemblywoman, Ruth Asmundson, a former mayor of Davis and John Kimura, a former mayor of Woodland.

Sandy stated his hopes that the new resolution will begin a discussion about how anti-Asian racism does exist in Yolo County, and how residents cannot be complacent when it occurs.

“We need to take steps to make sure that people have an opportunity to understand the Asian community, that we promote the many ways that the Asian community makes so many KATHERINE FRANKS / AGGIE

positive contributions to life and culture here and to the extent of Asian history that pre-exists so many of us,” Sandy said. “I believe that with greater understanding will come greater tolerance or acceptance over time.”

Salinas further addressed her hopes for the Asian/Pacific Islander American (APIA) community in continuing to defy Asian stereotypes and fight for equity.

“We’re challenging the model minority myth, and we’re showing America that we are not silent, we are not docile, we are not the model minority myth,” Salinas said. “In fact, we’re actually really aggressive when it comes to making sure that equity for all is the main platform that we’re advocating for.”

Yep Salinas urged the UC Davis and wider Davis community to email and call the Davis City Council about adopting a resolution specifically for the city of Davis. This item will be discussed in the next city council meeting on March 9, according to Yep Salinas.

Yep Salinas also added a final note regarding the future of anti-Asian racism in regards to the pandemic.

“COVID-19 has been so brutal—we need to come together stronger as a community to help and protect and respect each other so that we can survive into the next couple years,” Yep Salinas said. “Hating or brutalizing or being violent on the Asian/Pacific Islander (API) community is not a solution.”

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Is it ethical for ancestry companies to sell their customers’ DNA? UC Davis law professors discuss the bioethics of ancestry companies that sell consumer data for research and drug development

BY LYRA FARRELL features@theaggie.org Large ancestry companies such as 23andMe and AncestryDNA have been processing consumers’ DNA for years to provide consumers with a deeper understanding of their family history.

Within some of these ancestry companies’ terms of service, however, there are statements that require consumers to agree to the sale and distribution of their DNA for research and medical purposes. UC Davis Law Professor Lisa Ikemoto, whose areas of speciality include bioethics and health care law, was featured on 60 Minutes on Jan. 31 to explain the implications of agreeing to these companies’ terms of service.

“You have to look really, really carefully at the websites to find the agreements themselves and then you read through and they’re really long and they’re really detailed and the terminology is not perfectly clear, so it might be hard to understand what you’re consenting to, what you could opt out of,” Ikemoto said.

For Ikemoto, the idea of humans’ genetic material being used in technological advancements raises ethical concerns about who should have rights to that data.

“People are becoming sort of the source of raw materials that are used in science and so there are questions about who should have the say-so in bioethics terms,” Ikemoto said. “Who should have the

control over those cells and tissues once they’re removed from their bodies? Can they be owned by somebody else? Can they be owned by the people who provided those cells and tissues?”

Law professor Alix Rogers, whose research focuses on new biotechnologies and regulating human biological materials, noted that ancestry companies are held to different ethical standards than medical companies.

“If the individual [was] signing up and giving their DNA to a medical study, for instance, we would have strict requirements around informed consent, and in these instances, we don’t,” Rogers said. “It’s sort of left a little bit more willy-nilly on, ‘How good is the informed consent—is it true informed consent?’”

Rogers said that oftentimes consumers of ancestry services tend to invest the same level of trust into ancestry companies as they would a healthcare provider, though she said these companies do not always make as much of an effort to get quality informed consent.

“You think that they’re looking for the individual’s best interest—a doctor has a duty to look after [...] the best interest of their patient,” Rogers said. “They’re sort of existing in this liminal space where it seems like they’re kind of a healthcare provider, but they’re not, so that same duty doesn’t apply, and yet maybe some individuals who are engaging their services don’t quite understand that.”

Professor of Law Stacy-Ann Elvy, whose research focuses on

how commercial law of privacy relates to emerging technology and human rights law, sees possible concerns in the privacy implications that consenting to ancestry services could have for consumers’ families.

“You’re essentially also providing genetic material, genetic information on everyone in your family, and these individuals didn’t consent to having genetic information disclosed,” Elvy said. “Notice and choice is a very important part of this issue.”

According to Elvy, another implication of consenting to these services is that there is no way to mend the damage caused by possible data breaches because genetic data is so highly sensitive.

“So, if for instance there is a cybersecurity incident, a data breach involving a credit card, or something to that effect, [...] you can always get a new credit card number,” Elvy said. “Some things can be replaceable and changed and that’s not genetic data.”

According to Rogers, many ancestry companies make the promise of anonymizing and aggregating your genetic information, but it’s becoming increasingly easy to trace genetic information back to a person.

“When DNA sequences are sold, the assumption is often that you could never trace back through and figure out, ‘Okay, in these 15 sequences, this is John Smith,’ and increasingly we’re able to do that, and so that is troubling,” Rogers said.

King Hall is home to the School of Law at UC Davis. (Justin Han / Aggie File)

Nontraditional Davis kitchens and bakeries find their niche Some food providers have adapted to a new delivery-based model amid the pandemic

BY RACHEL SHEY city@theaggie.org Several Davis food businesses have recently found success despite the COVID-19 pandemic by pivoting to a delivery or pick-up business model, such as Foodies, a former catering business.

Foodies co-owner Sarun Kao explained how the pandemic has impacted its business model.

“We had about 25 weddings planned in San Francisco, and all 25 were canceled from last year,” Kao said. “Some of them have rescheduled to this year, but that’s a lot of revenue lost. We’ve had to alter our business a bit to adapt to the pandemic.”

After taking a break to regroup, Foodies adapted, according to Kao. “We were working out of the Odd Fellows Lodge—it’s a fraternal order,” Kao said. “The Davis chapter, they normally meet every

KATHERINE HUNG / AGGIE

Thursday, and we normally provide the food for them. It got so busy on Thursday that we went to Wednesday and Thursday for food, and we expanded to Friday for a more premium option.”

Pannier is another business that makes use of the Odd Fellows Lodge commercial kitchen has a “cloud kitchen” format, so it does not have a traditional restaurant space, according to Pannier coowner Cynthia Raub.

“We operate a cloud kitchen,” Raub said. “A cloud kitchen is a newer food business model that does not have a retail or front-facing customer experience, so our presence is primarily online. Cloud kitchens have a delivery focus.”

Pannier has been very successful, according to their website, which states that their capacity is 160 orders a week, which they often sell out of within a few minutes. However, the business has taken some time to reach this level of popularity, Raub explained.

“When we first started our business about a year ago, it

would take the entire weekend to sell out of our capacity,” Raub said.

“At that time a year ago, our capacity was about 70% of what we do now.”

Raub explained that cloud kitchens can more easily adapt to a low-waste business model, citing Pannier’s zero food waste system.

“The cloud kitchen concept allows us to take our orders in advance,” Raub said. “So we know how much product to buy for the week to fulfill our orders. We get the orders on Saturday, so we know how many of a certain dish that we have to make for Tuesday and then for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.”

Zoe Mitchell, co-owner of Bran & Ash, a new subscription microbakery, made a similar point describing the more precise delivery format.

“Because we’re operating as a cottage bakery, we don’t have a storefront, so baking each day and relying on people to come in and pick up stuff wasn’t really an option,” Mitchell said. “We wanted to do something where we could set out a certain number and people could order them so we had a few days to prep, so we were making exactly how much we were selling.”

This business model has fewer overhead costs as well, according to Bran & Ash co-owner Casey Hardi, who stated that it’s “easier to predict our needs and keep our inventory small and our production precise.”

Unlike Pannier, Bran & Ash is a community-supported bakery, according to Mitchell.

“Right now, we’re operating on a weekly subscription basis,” Mitchell said. “Each week, we put up a box with a piece of sourdough and a few pastries, and we have a subscription so subscribers get the box automatically. We have a couple extras on the website and people can order them. And then we do all of our deliveries and pick up on one day of the week, and then bake the rest of the week to fulfill the box orders.”

Mitchell recounted how Bran & Ash has also experienced a recent uptick in orders.

“We started in November officially—we’d been planning it since April, but the bakery opened in November,” Mitchell said. “The first few months were pretty slow-going, but the holidays picked up, and then about two weeks ago or a week ago we were in the [Davis] Enterprise and over the last month it’s increased exponentially.”

Correction: The text of this story was incorrect when first published.

The page has since been updated. We apologize for the error.

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2021 | 5

OPINION TOUGH COVID-19 CONVERSATIONS WITH HOUSEMATES ARE INEVITABLE BUT NECESSARY It’s important to still be considerate of housemates as restrictions ease and student vaccinations rise

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ANJINI VENUGOPAL Editor-in-Chief MARGO ROSENBAUM Managing Editor SABRINA HABCHI Campus News Editor EDEN WINNIFORD City News Editor CALVIN COFFEE Opinion Editor SOPHIE DEWEES Features Editor ALLIE BAILEY Arts & Culture Editor OMAR NAVARRO Sports Editor

Housemate conflicts are bound to be especially common this year between the new rules of pandemic etiquette and being locked down together 24/7 for months on end. With some restrictions easing, Spring Break approaching and student vaccinations on the rise, it might be time for some tough conversations about pandemic safety.

The unfortunate reality is that it’s incredibly difficult to quarantine one person who tests positive for COVID-19 away from the rest of their housemates in the cramped quarters many students live in. One person flouting COVID-19 safety guidelines could put their entire household at risk, so it’s important to have honest conversations and to call people out for breaking agreements.

Conflict can be intimidating, especially when it’s with someone you live with during a pandemic and can’t get away from, but frank, frequent discussions are the only way everyone in a household can feel heard and safe. As indoor dining opens up in Yolo County and the weather gets warmer, be sure to touch bases with housemates about everyone’s comfort levels and make sure everyone is on the same page before grabbing a drink indoors or going to the gym.

No one should be partying this Spring Break, but if no amount of arguing can stop someone from drinking cheap beer on a crowded beach, then they at least need to take strict precautions when they’re back in Davis. Encourage them to quarantine as best they can in their rooms, to wear a mask in communal areas and to get tested immediately upon their arrival and at least one more time after that.

But what if someone is vaccinated—then can they party to their heart’s content without feeling guilty about potentially becoming a superspreader of a deadly virus that has killed over 500,000 people in the U.S.? Still no. Getting vaccinated is incredibly important and everyone should do so when they’re eligible, but being able

to return to normal life will be more complicated than receiving the vaccine.

First, it’s important to acknowledge the difference between being vaccinated and being fully vaccinated. If a person receives the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine, they must wait two weeks after their second dose before they’re fully vaccinated, and two weeks after receiving a single dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

All three widely-available vaccines—Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson—are very effective at preventing severe sickness and death from COVID-19. At this time, however, it’s uncertain if a person can still be an asymptomatic carrier of COVID-19 even after becoming fully vaccinated.

The Centers for Disease Control advises that fully-vaccinated individuals can gather with other fully-vaccinated individuals and unvaccinated individuals from a single household indoors and without masks. Despite this new freedom, being fully vaccinated isn’t a valid excuse to disregard safety guidelines or the concerns of housemates. Even if one person is vaccinated, they could potentially put their unvaccinated housemates at risk for COVID-19.

It’s vital to have ongoing conversations about your household’s comfort with expanding its bubble as more students become vaccinated. Everyone deserves to feel safe and comfortable in their own homes, so try to respect the COVID-19 boundaries of your most cautious housemate.

And it’s okay to split up with housemates if the pandemic has revealed insurmountable differences. Some people just aren’t meant to live together. Although it’s difficult and potentially costly to break a lease, it’s possible to find other people looking to sublease on social media platforms like Facebook. If that doesn’t work, sign a lease with different people for next year and count down the days until September.

MADELEINE PAYNE Science & Tech Editor

CAMERON PERRY New Media Manager JUSTIN HAN Photo Director KATHERINE FRANKS Design Director JOELLE TAHTA Layout Director KAITLIN ARAGHI Copy Chief ALEX WEINSTEIN Copy Chief KESHAV AGRAWAL Website Manager BEN CHENG Social Media Manager JOSHUA GAZZANIGA Distribution Manager LAURIE PEDERSON Business Development Manager

IT’S 2021, WHY ARE SOME SPECIES STILL NAMED AFTER CONFEDERATE LEADERS? If we’re going to rename things, let’s add some species names to that list too

BY JOE SWEENEY jmsweeney@ucdavis.edu Laying in bed, scrolling through TikTok like most people my age, I always come across these “morning routine” videos of girls starting their days with an ab workout at 5 a.m. On most mornings they have completed a workout and run before I even wake up–– making me feel unaccomplished the minute I step out of bed.

There’s a constant pressure for college students, especially on social media, to always keep going––even during a pandemic. No matter how many classes I attend or assignments I complete, I never feel like I’ve done enough for the day, even if my overloaded brain says otherwise. We don’t allow ourselves to think completing our homework or going to class is an accomplishment. Instead, we continue to pile more onto our plates in order to keep up with everyone else.

There is this false sense that everyone is doing more than us–– even though most people are updating their social media from a couch. But what works for someone else, doesn’t always work for you. I like to tell myself I’ll get up at 5 a.m. to do a workout, but

MARIO RODRIGUEZ / AGGIE

that never happens––going for a walk in the afternoon is more my style. This doesn’t mean my day is any less fulfilling. Our success shouldn’t be measured by the number of things we do in a day nor society’s standards of productivity.

We are in the middle of a pandemic and living in unprecedented times––restricted from having any social contact and unable to do many of our favorite things. Getting out of bed every morning is an accomplishment in itself. It’s impossible to be productive all the time, no matter how hard we try.

Resting is essential to our well-being. We shouldn’t feel ashamed for wanting to lay in bed all day and binge-watch television. The pandemic, however, has made it next to impossible to give ourselves time to relax when we’ve already spent the day attending class from our beds and couches.

In our culture, we pride ourselves on always being busy and having every second of our day planned. The minute we wake up, we start working and keep going until it’s time to go to sleep. Even when we try to relax, our cellphones make it difficult to disconnect from emails and pending assignments.

We need to place boundaries on our time and availability.

More specifically, there needs to be a time when we stop working, put away our computers and phones and just rest, without guilt.

We need to start finding accomplishments outside of a to-do list.

Life shouldn’t be rushed or constantly on-the-go. It’s important to be motivated and organized, but it’s unhealthy if those qualities make us plow through our day without time to rest. Ultimately, we should focus on filling our time with things we want to do and not worry about what everyone else is doing. If you are someone who likes to get up early to workout, then kudos to you. But if you’re someone who likes to sleep in and eat breakfast as soon as you wake up, that’s just as acceptable. Our accomplishments are determined by the quality of our time, not by how early we wake up or the number of tasks we check off a to-do list.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by individual columnists belong to the columnists alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie.

6 | THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2021

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

HUMOR DAVIS ADMIN LAUNCHES DUO DURING COVID-19, BECAUSE WHY NOT? How bad could it be?

IAN COSNER / AGGIE

BY IAN COSNER iacosner@ucdavis.edu In a maddening choice from the UC Davis administration, the move to the authenticator app Duo has been enacted, and students have been forcibly moved, kicking and screaming, to the new education platform.

Regardless of student reception, the university will continue with the move. Even with only about 10% of the student body now currently on Duo, chaos has engulfed the campus. The sun didn’t rise yesterday, cows are walking on two legs and professors are still trying to give closed-book tests online. It may not have been the rapture we all expected, but the end of times is surely upon us.

With flames engulfing the Memorial Union, a Davis administrator gave a speech while a group of demons played frisbee on the quad.

“We’ve gotten a lot of feedback on Duo, and we’d like to know that you’ve all been heard. And subsequently ignored. We see the impact of our actions, but the apocalypse is no excuse for students not turning in homework or not going to online lectures. We ask our student body to come together and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. I may not have had to go to school during times like this, but you don’t see me complaining,” one administrator said.

The California Aggie attempted to get further comments on the subject, but the administrator was abruptly taken away by a flying monkey and thrown into the void in the sky that has now replaced the sun.

CONGRESS SET FOR BATTLE OVER HIKE IN DAYLIGHT SAVINGS We take you inside the explosive battle on Capitol Hill KATHERINE FRANKS / AGGIE

BY EAN KIMURA etkimura@ucdavis.edu Much of the news coverage out of Capitol Hill remains largely focused on the battle over COVID-19 relief checks, the minimum wage and the confirmation of Neera Tanden. All three are equally important battles that will affect the lives of citizens on a day-to-day basis.

However, another imminent battle looms over the chambers of Congress. No, not a literal one, just one that nobody really cares about.

Daylight savings time usually begins midMarch, but this year it’s a little different. The U.S. has faced a mounting debt of daylight, and according to policy experts, the country is in danger of defaulting on it’s daylight debt, plunging the nation into the darkness.

House Democrats have put forth a proposal that would raise the daylight savings rate from one hour to one hour and 37 minutes, citing the fact that since the beginnings of daylight savings time it has never been raised from one hour.

In these trying times, I would also like to ask students to come together and tough out the end of the world. Education comes from hard work and perseverance and a few firestorms; wandering cow demons or Satan won’t stop you from getting your degree. So grab a pitchfork and some holy water, and fight for your education.

UC Davis administration would like to remind students that finals will still be held during week 11—and fending off the souls of the damned is not a legitimate excuse.

Disclaimer: (This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and/or names of “sources” are fictionalized.)

THE PROCRASTINATION PANIC. YOU JUST HAD TO BE THERE.

BY KE LIN keylin@ucdavis.edu

They have also called on states like Arizona and Hawaii to stop freeloading off federal daylight.

This proposal has already faced steep opposition from the GOP, as they advocate for sunshine austerity measures rather than taking more sunlight from the days of American citizens. They propose that we should just make daylight cuts when daylight savings time ends every November. Although it should be noted that they too agree that Arizona and Hawaii should stop freeloading off of federal daylight.

So much for unity?

It should be noted that this is not a real issue. However, if Congress would like to stall any important bills that should come their way, and they feel like squabbling over means testing and forcing the entire bill to be read out loud is too cliche, they can feel free to use this as some irrelevant culture war issue to do so.

Disclaimer: (This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and or names of “sources” are fictionalized.)

Disclaimer: (This cartoon is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and names of “sources” are fictionalized.)

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2021 | 7

Davis Independent Music Initiative offers grants for local musicians Joel Daniel of the DIMI aims to help Davis’ struggling artists

BY JACOB ANDERSON arts@theaggie.org The Davis Independent Music Initiative (DIMI) was founded in 2019 with one mission: secure the future of independent music in Davis by collecting resources that would allow musicians to reach their full potential.

Joel Daniel, the founder of DIMI and the first recipient of its $5,000 grant (now $6,500, and as Daniel says, “Hopefully up to $10,000” in the future), remembers a time when “The G Street Club had bands like every Thursday to Saturday night minimum.”

“I’ve watched musicians in town just sort of come and go over the years,” Daniel said. “And when I first got to Davis in the late nineties there were a bunch more venues to play in. Now there’s just fewer venues.”

“My hope is that we can all be like, ‘Oh yeah, I love that band’ and be like ‘Yeah they came from Davis!’ and have that personal connection to this thing that comes from the town that we all hopefully like,” Daniel said. We just want to support an original musical work from Davis that we could conceivably all be watching on the ‘Tonight Show’ in two years.”

The money for the DIMI grant comes from the city, and though the work has been challenging, Daniel hopes that it will help breathe

life back into a local music scene that has faltered over the last 20 years. The annual DIMI Artist Grant is just one part of the project.

Applications for the 2021 grant closed recently, and though just one of the 13 applicants will receive the funds, Daniel intends to “come up with other ways to help the other 12.”

Some of the other ways DIMI intends to help aspiring musicians are through a series of video lectures and bi-weekly “Tune Ups,” which Daniel said will serve as a kind of “songwriting workshop,” with “the end goal being just trying to make people’s work better. To take something that’s good and make it really good.”

Ultimately, as Daniel said, “It’s just really hard to live in this town and support yourself when you do art. Over the last 5 years I’ve had rent increase like 25%. There’s no way any musician is going to be able to have 25% more revenue coming in over a 5-year period of time unless all of a sudden you get nominated for a Grammy.”

The intention is that the grant, and DIMI itself, will make it easier to survive as an artist in Davis, even with the ever-ballooning rent prices and pandemic-induced lull in local art.

The fact remains that initiatives such as the DIMI may become essential—especially for music—to keep local art scenes alive. With streaming services like Spotify offering $0.003-0.005 per listen, putting together a sustainable existence has become much harder even for musicians with established audiences, let alone those first starting out in a local scene.

Daniel comes across as optimistic, though.

“If this resonates with any of your readers, they’re welcome to reach out to me. I’d love people to come to the Tune Ups if you write songs, but you don’t have to. We want a community to talk about this stuff. I just would like to see Davis be a place where you could think, ‘Yeah, these things are happening there, and that’s cool.’ We want to foster an artistic community.”

Davis Independent Music Initiative’s logo. (Davis Independent Music Initiative / Courtesy)

Students and professor discuss the impact of COVID-19 on the theater department Despite pandemic restrictions, the Department of Theatre and Dance has continued to produce shows over Zoom

BY KATIE DEBENEDETTI features@theaggie.org COVID-19 has had a “devastating impact” on the theatre industry; national financial losses are estimated to be $14.8 billion.

Broadway and regional theaters have been closed for almost an entire year since early March of 2020, and venues will not be able to reopen until the fall at the earliest. This has left not only actors, dancers and musicians out of work, but it has also greatly interfered with training the next generation of performers.

Mindy Cooper, a professor of theater and dance at UC Davis, said that teaching any class is challenging over Zoom, but in the arts it has proved to be somewhat impossible.

“It has been incredibly difficult,” Cooper said. “What I do is so hands-on. I find that you need to be able to embody a character and physicalize, and that helps you often find your way in. So my class is incredibly frustrating to retrofit my teaching style, my technique and my syllabus to ‘Brady Bunch’ boxes on a computer.”

Like most classes at UC Davis, every course in the Department of Theatre and Dance has been completely virtual since the start of Spring Quarter in 2020. Cooper said that by transitioning from inperson to online classes, a lot of her material had to change and that she has had to work 10 times harder to produce her class.

“There are aspects that we have had to just leave by the wayside and hopefully pick those up next year,” Cooper said. “I have a whole running list of stuff I couldn’t really explore with my students, and so I will fold it in as best I can hopefully next year, when we can be in person. You lead with what you can. You really concentrate on the stuff that you can hone in on, and for me personally, that has been the creativity and the cerebral, the thought process of acting.”

Ann Dragich, a first-year Master of Fine Arts (MFA) student in the performing arts, said that her professors have found ways to make virtual classes effective.

“There have been really creative ways that educators have [made virtual learning] work,” Dragich said. “Rather than learning movement by simply watching and copying, which is a very standard way to do it, there’s been very creative meditations and directed improvisation. Coming at something in different ways is really valuable for a learning experience, so that’s been a great thing to explore.”

KATHERINE HUNG / AGGIE

Even with adjustments and new curriculum, Cooper said that a lot of her classes focus on ensemble acting where students work off of each other’s energy to produce scenes, which is nearly impossible over Zoom. She also explained that in many of her courses, she will have students go out into the community and immerse themselves in the atmosphere of a scene on which they are working. She used to send students to the zoo for an acting exercise based on animals, but with lockdowns and restrictions, her students have had to make do with internet research and prior knowledge.

According to Cooper, in addition to classes being more challenging online, it has been hard to drastically scale back the university’s performance schedule for the year.

“We had to cancel a lot for the department,” Cooper said. “We have scaled it back quite a lot and that’s tough because so often, students learn so much by being in rehearsals, on stage, working, as opposed to in the class. It’s been hard to not have as many performance capacities.”

This year, UC Davis is putting on just three shows. The Department of Theatre and Dance presented “Clique” in the fall, “FOOD” premiered on March 5, and they will be putting on “Juliet and Romeo, A New Musical” later in the spring. All of these shows have been and will be completely virtual, Cooper said, which has meant that they have had to take creative measures in the production process.

Cooper explained that each student who has a role in the shows has been sent an “actor kit,” which essentially creates a 10-footby-10-foot greenscreen stage that they use to record their own performances from their homes.

“We give them these massive kits, and then there’s a video that teaches them how to set up their kits,” Cooper said. “A lot of them are doing it in their apartments or at home with their families. Some students have to take it down every day and put it back up because the footprint is 10 feet by 10 feet, and some people don’t have that much space to just designate to [their] actor kit.”

Although this innovation has allowed performances to go on in some capacity, actors in the shows have said that it has been a challenging experience.

Dragich, who was in the March 5 and 6 productions of “FOOD,” said that she struggled with how long it takes to make the technology of her kit work correctly.

“It’s been a very rigorous time [...] editing video and putting things together and figuring out computer systems to make things work,” Dragich said. “Managing those things, and just trying to make sure I hit the button at the right time on my computer, is much harder than it sounds. These things are not that simple, and they don’t always work the way they should. So it’s been actually a lot of work and very stressful, and that’s taken away from time I would like to be spending practicing my performance of it.”

Joseph Fletcher, a first-year MFA student in the performing arts who also features in “FOOD,” agreed that filming the show from home has been challenging.

“Communication is hard, especially in a large group because you’re all trying to say something and respond, and people’s internet becomes unstable or they can’t show their faces or people are talking over each other and getting cut off because [of] how Zoom works,” Fletcher said. “It adds more layers to the process and more difficulties to getting good communication and getting a vibe, especially in theater where being in a room together creates an energy.”

Despite these challenges, Dragich did say that the cast has been able to bond in the virtual space.

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Aggies: Will you accept this rose?

UC Davis students share their experiences watching “The Bachelor” and participating in “Bachelor” culture

BY NORA FARAHDEL features@theaggie.org “The Bachelor,” a romantic reality television show with the end goal of engagement, has been airing on ABC since 2002. The show has since expanded to include “The Bachelorette” and “Bachelor in Paradise,” along with other series as it accumulates viewers who tune in to the show year after year.

In fact, the term “Bachelor Mondays” was coined for the routine airing of the show on Monday nights for each season. Amid the drama and roses lies a “Bachelor” fanbase made up of people across the country, including those in Davis.

Dana Lawrence, a fourth-year environmental science and management major, was introduced to the show during her freshman year at UC Davis. This year, Lawrence is more committed to watching the show and has created traditions with her six housemates.

Every week they gather together with a glass of wine and watch the newest episode, chatting all the while. Lawrence shared that on some nights, everyone dresses up for the episodes. For instance, she and her housemates dressed up as their parents for the hometown dates episode in which the final contestants introduce their families.

She shared that her watching experience exceeds each episode’s duration as everyone in the house recaps the dramatic events afterwards.

“There’s usually about 10 minutes of all of us laughing, bringing up things that happened in the previous episode, definitely more of a discussion part,” Lawrence said. “There’s a lot of yelling that goes on, a lot of excited talking and definitely predictions about what’s going to happen the next week.”

Moreover, Lawrence shared that the pandemic did have an impact on her renewed commitment to the show this year.

“I’d say that having more free time and being home in the evenings is definitely why I’m watching it,” Lawrence said. “Especially with seven people, it’s crazy that schedules can align that way and so I

think the pandemic [has] played a role in that.”

Looking at the show broadly, Lawrence shared her opinions on why “The Bachelor” franchise has retained such a dedicated audience over the years.

“On a basic level, I think that a lot of viewers want to see people succeed in finding love,” Lawrence said. “It’s a very simple concept that you can create your own characters in and then have these recurrent characters that people can root for.”

Julia Phalen, a fourth-year sociology—organizational studies and communication double major, started watching the show with her sister during her freshman year. As she got more interested in it, Phalen began watching with her friends as well.

Although Phalen always tunes in to “The Bachelor” and “The Bachelorette,” her favorite series from the franchise is “Bachelor in Paradise,” a spinoff that involves people from both shows. She shared that it’s interesting to follow her favorite contestants from previous seasons as they embark on a new love journey.

“You see people that you liked from one show meet another person and then fall in love,” Phalen said. “And that’s super entertaining to look back [on] and be like, ‘Oh, I remember when he was on that season.’”

Phalen said that her favorite part about watching the show is getting to share the experience with her friends.

“I like getting to talk about it with my friends afterwards and having it be a thing where we all get together,” Phalen said. “My housemates and I have all been watching it together, so it’s been kind of fun to watch with them and talk about it with them. And none of them have been super into it in the past, so it’s been kind of fun to explain all the little traditions that the show has to them.”

Maddy Stein, a fourth-year human development major, is a longterm viewer of “The Bachelor” franchise. Stein began watching at the age of 11 and hasn’t missed a season ever since. While her initial watch was motivated by her love of reality television, Stein is now attracted to the social aspects of watching the show. This includes watching the show with her friends and exploring social media

CATHY TANG / AGGIE online to learn more about the contestants.

“As I got older, it turned into more of this whole franchise through social media and the contestants that I really liked I now follow on social media,” Stein said. “It’s sort of learning about their lives through social media, and I just get really invested in it.”

For Stein, one of the best parts of watching the show is participating in funny memes and TikToks about the show to laugh about with friends.

“We’re all just busy with school, and all we do is school, school, school,” Stein said. “But then Tuesday nights are our night to come together, hang out and watch the show.”

Stein foresees herself continuing to watch the show as long as she has a community to watch it with in the future. She recommended those who haven’t watched yet to start the show, stating that it has many intriguing qualities.

“It’s very dramatic, but also has this way of drawing you in and makes you want more, especially when they do the previews at the end of the episode,” Stein said. “It’s interesting to follow this journey of 25 girls trying to get one guy to fall in love with them. I would say it’s a light-hearted, funny, dramatic show.”

8 | THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2021

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

‘Race, Museums, Art History’ speaker event highlights whiteness of museums

The 2021 Templeton Colloquium at UC Davis outlined ways to reframe how museums include non-white art and better understand the role they play in enacting real social change

BY ANGIE CUMMINGS arts@theaggie.org On Friday, Feb. 19, the Department of Art and Art History presented a lecture over Zoom from Professor Bridget Cooks of UC Irvine and Dr. Susan Mullin Vogel, a curator, filmmaker and founding director of the Museum for African Art in New York. The two speakers discussed the roles of American museums in showcasing culture for the public, and their long history of both under and misrepresenting cultures outside their own.

Both Cooks and Dr. Vogel spoke on the ways in which museums have consistently displayed art outside of their usual white, American or Eurocentric cultures as “other,” inferior (or primitive) and something to be anthropologically studied rather than appreciated. The separating of the “real” art in a collection from the “outsider” art reinforces a colonial hierarchy in the art world, one of the primary reasons why it feels so out of reach for many.

How diverse art is presented has detrimental effects beyond the art world, easily illustrated by the framing effect in psychology, where the way in which information is presented can highly influence one’s subsequent decisions and attitudes toward it. If white museum curators are consistently presenting and grouping AfricanAmerican artists simply by race, rather than by themes of the art or mediums (as is expected for white exhibits), unaware audiences will continue

to see “Black art” and the Black experience in America as a monolith. The ways in which American museums have failed Black artists in this country is applicable to countless other non-white groups and cultures and has seriously deterred true understanding and appreciation of them.

The duty of museums today, in this emerging era of accountability and social justice, is to change their harmful curatorial practices, and to make real, long-term changes to their collections. According to Cooks, this means more than the unsustainable approach that museums like the Brooklyn Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art have taken, in which they are selling off portions of their permanent collections in order to fund the purchases of art by Black and/or women artists in the wake of calls for proper representation over the past summer. Cook argues that the only way to fully transform these collections and presentations is through the boards themselves, which are, as the New York Times puts it, “strikingly white.”

Museums are technically democratic institutions, but when those who make all the decisions come from one highly privileged group, it is quite unlikely that any big changes will be made.

The solution here, proposed by both speakers at the event, is to not only diversify the current positions of power within the art world, but to make a real effort in terms of art education and accessibility across divisions of class, race and gender. Allowing students to explore early on about the truth of art and its history—not just that of the white, European narrative—will not only

foster a deeper understanding of art, but might encourage those with more varied perspectives to step into what often seems like an untouchable world.

The loud calls for justice in the art world will not be fully answered until museums and institutions go from spouting mission statements on cultural awareness and diversity to actually being aware and creating diverse environments—

both in terms of who holds the power within them, and who is given access to understanding and appreciating their collections. If American museums were to take the steps toward a more inclusive future, they could become spaces from which audiences at large and other institutions outside the art world could really learn about the beauty in all cultures and perspectives.

KATHERINE FRANKS / AGGIE

The Peloton Bike is a display of the privileges of the wealthy During a time when staying healthy is vital, it’s easiest for the upper class to stay fit while avoiding COVID-19

BY MUHAMMAD TARIQ arts@theaggie.org The term “pay for convenience” has never been more applicable than with the 2012 introduction of the Peloton bike: a stationary spin bike that combines the experience of instructor-led classes and the convenience of your own home all into one.

At a staggering price of $1895, the basic model Peloton is a bike touted as an “immersive cardio experience” with a sweatproof 22 inch HD touchscreen, connecting you to a variety of instructor-led programs and challenges that are only accessible with a separate $39 a month all-access membership that is required with the bike’s purchase.

If you are feeling adventurous and want to pay two months rent (in Davis) for an exercise machine, you can purchase the Peloton Bike+ which will run you $2495 for the basic plan.

It comes with a 24 inch HD touchscreen that rotates 360 degrees and an even more tricked out audio system than the original Peloton, with two front and rear facing speakers.

Not even a government-issued stimulus check can cover the cost of owning a Peloton.

Prior to the pandemic, Peloton was viewed as a luxury item for the rich; an indicator of which tax bracket someone is in.

However, due to COVID-19 restrictions, gyms closing and lack of outdoor exercise accommodations, the world set its sights on Peloton, and its popularity has skyrocketed during the pandemic.

Given the increased demand for the bike, Peloton bought Precor, a fitness equipment provider, for $420 million in cash to add 625,000 square feet of production space in order to deliver Peloton bikes even faster to its members.

Peloton is projected to make approximately $1.8 billion in sales in 2020, with its membership base increasing from 550,000 people at the start of 2020 to over 880,000 today.

KAITLYN PANG / AGGIE

According to Pew Research on “Trends in Income and Wealth Inequality,” a country’s Gini Coefficient is a statistical indicator representing the wealth distribution in a country between a 0-1 range, where 0 means wealth is distributed equally for each member of that country and an 1 indicates that wealth is held by one person. This coefficient can help standardize the degree of wealth inequality in a country.

The U.S. has a Gini Coefficient score of .488.

In other words, there is considerable income inequality in the U.S. where wealth is unequally distributed into the pockets of the upper-income households.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity prevalence has increased from 30.5% to 42.4% from 1999-2000 to 2017– 2018 with 1 in 3 Americans being considered obese. Not only that, but there are roughly 655,000 Americans dying from heart disease each year.

In addition, there is a correlation between socioeconomic class and obesity in which often those who are poorer have lower qualities of health.

In a country suffering from economic decline, a global pandemic and a health crisis of obesity and diabetes where those who have a lower income are most affected, it is somewhat appropriate to infer that an almost $2000 bike isn’t for the average American—it’s for the economically stable.

As gyms became inaccessible during a time where staying in good health is imperative and doing at home workouts became the norm, those with the financial means could bring the convenience of a gym membership to their very own living rooms, while those who are most vulnerable to COVID-19 lost access to their typical means of staying fit.

Many people would love to be able to afford a Peloton, especially during a global pandemic where going to public gyms and trying to stay healthy no longer go hand-in-hand. But no matter how you spin it, the reality is most people don’t have $2000 lying around to afford such a luxury— even if they’re the ones who need it most.

BY ITZELTH GAMBOA arts@theaggie.edu

Movie: “To All the Boys: Always and Forever” dir. by Michael Fimognari (2021) The final “To All the Boys” movie finally arrived last month, and it was my favorite addition to the series. Let’s admit this truth: Lana Condor carried the entire series on her back with her charm and adorable sense of humor. She is everything we could want in a main character, and we are robbed of seeing her in more productions, so I am sad to see this series come to an end. However, it was a bittersweet moment because I loved the way things wrapped up. As Lara Jean plans out her life, she sees herself next to Peter Kavinsky at Harvard, where they both go on adventures and never have to say goodbye at the end of the day. But when a trip to New York University comes along and college acceptances roll in, Lara Jean has to reevaluate her decision of whether staying near Peter is worth her

TV Show: “Light as a Feather” This Hulu original depicts the challenge that I was too afraid to accept as a teenager.

The challenge “light as a feather, stiff as a board” is when a group of friends tries to lift someone with just two fingers. The show takes this challenge and tells the story of four friends inviting the new girl over on Halloween to play the game. They quickly regret their decision as they notice each girl starts to die off the way the game predicted. Because I never liked the introduction to the game, which proclaims the person lying down as dead, I was never up for playing it. The show isn’t the best horror series, but it kept my mind off of homework for a while, and it was a nice twist on the popular slumber party activity.

Artist: Dove Cameron Dove Cameron herself is a literal angel so it only makes sense that her voice is angelic.

She doesn’t have an album released yet, only a couple singles throughout her career. But saving all of those singles and listening to them on repeat is sort of like an EP. Cameron was made for live theater, which is what she worked on most before COVID-19, but it’s a blessing to have her released music that I can appreciate at home.

Book: “Pan’s Labyrinth: The Labyrinth of the Faun” by Cornelia Funke and Guillermo del Toro Guillermo del Toro’s beautiful movie “Pan’s Labyrinth” was turned into an illustrated book. The book adheres to the movie’s creepy yet whimsical aesthetics, as young Ofelia goes through three challenges, trying to prove that she is the lost princess. Set in World War II (as in the movie), young Ofelia and her pregnant mother must move in with a sadistic captain. Thirteen-year-old Ofelia is hopeful that fairy tales exist, so when a creepy faun reveals that she is the princess of an underworld realm, Ofelia is quick to take on the task to prove it. The princess is said to have left her kingdom one day, but the sun was so bright that it erased her memory. Her father, stricken with grief, decided to open up multiple portals so that she could return home, but because so much time has passed, only one portal remains, and Ofelia must quickly complete the three tasks in order to return home to her realm and be at her true parents’ side.

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2021 | 9

Sudoku Enter digits from 1 to 9 into the blank spaces. Every row, colum, and 3x3 square must contain each digit. Each Sudoku has a unique solution that can be reached logically without guessing.

Answer to previous puzzle 3/4/2021

Crossword Answer to previous puzzle 3/4/2021

10 | THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2021

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SCIENCE & TECH UC DAVIS NEUROLOGICAL SURGERY FACULTY MEMBER AWARDED FOR RESEARCH ON DECISION-MAKING A recipient of the Edwin Boldrey Award, Dr. Ignacio Saez, is recognized by the San Francisco Neurological Society

BY BRANDON NGUYEN science@theaggie.org For many, decision-making is given little to no thought on a day-by-day basis. However, one faculty member in the UC Davis Department of Neurological Surgery did not overlook what often seems to be subtle and instinctive to the human mind—the idea that decision-making is governed by neurological processes that can be observed and even altered.

Dr. Ignacio Saez, an assistant professor at the Department of Neurological Surgery studying patients with implanted electrodes as part of their clinical treatment for specific neurological conditions, recently received the Edwin Boldrey Award for his impactful research on the essential cognitive function of decision-making.

“The main focus of my lab is the study of the neural basis of decision-making,” Saez said via email. “In other words, what activity patterns in your brain lead you to make decisions, from the trivial (what plans you’re making for lunch) to the transcendental (i.e. career and family choices). The awarded project focuses on brain oscillations, relatively slow waves of electrical activity in a deep part of our brain, the orbitofrontal cortex.”

His findings have tremendous implications in guiding future clinical research on relieving symptoms of neurological conditions regarding impaired decision-making.

“We found that different patterns of oscillations occur when patients experience a loss versus a win in a gambling game,” Saez said.

“This is the first observation of the involvement of these deep neural oscillations in decision-making, which we speculate may underlie behavioral adaptations (for example, changes of strategy following a bad outcome) or memory effects (for example, remembering the choices that led to a good outcome).”

Saez acknowledged that his work would not have been possible without close collaboration with fellow colleagues and physicians.

Dr. Kia Shahlaie, a professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery practicing cranial surgery and conducting research at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience, was one of many physicians who had the chance to work closely with Saez inside and outside the operating room.

“As a colleague, he’s very thoughtful, intelligent, very humble, probably more than he should be because he is very accomplished,” Shahlaie said. “He likes to spend time thinking alternative hypotheses and ideas. He’s a true academician and scientist, very open-minded and wants to find the truth and collaborate and work

with others as much as possible.”

Dr. Gene Gurkoff, an associate professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery who also conducts research with models of traumatic brain surgery and epilepsy at the UC Davis Center for Neuroscience, recalled his first encounter with Saez.

“One of the things that stood out to me about Dr. Saez is his leadership capabilities,” Gurkoff said. “The kind of research he does involves working with basic neuroscientists, including graduate students, post docs and undergraduates. At the same time, he also has to work with the technicians that run the lab at the hospital as well as the physicians. This is a big group of very diverse personalities, and it really takes a certain kind of person to bring everybody together into one room, speaking the same language so he can do these very complex experiments.”

Saez hopes that this award will help him further build connections and fuel many others with a passion for basic science research.

“It is always an honor to be recognized by a professional society, especially one to which so many talented clinicians and researchers belong,” Saez said. “San Francisco and the greater Bay Area contain some of the top neurological surgery departments in the world, and being recognized in that context is really humbling but also energizing. As a junior faculty member, I hope the award will get the word out there about the science we do in the lab and facilitate interaction with colleagues from other institutions.”

Despite the immense recognition that the award has brought to Saez’s name, his persistent humility and work ethic has illustrated for many other researchers the importance of collaborative research efforts.

“Basic research is essential to refine our understanding of brain function and lay the groundwork for future treatments, but it requires a special type of support in a clinical department,” Saez said. “I think this award is further proof that team-based research efforts, and cross-pollination between clinical and basic research, is fundamental in today’s research environments. I hope it serves as a bit of inspiration for clinical departments and basic researchers that training young researchers and physicians that are comfortable in both worlds will be able to make great contributions to both basic science and patient care.”

Dr. Ignacio Saez, recent recipient of the Edwin Boldrey Award, was recognized for his research on the essential cognitive function of decision-making. (UC Davis Regents)

TEXAS POWER OUTAGES SHED LIGHT ON THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIABLE POWER GRIDS Extreme cold weather conditions caused failure of power plants, leaving Texans without electricity

MARIO RODRIGUEZ / AGGIE

BY MICHELLE WONG science@theaggie.org The devastating conditions in Texas have been broadcasted across the country as Texans have suffered through several crises due to power outages, which stemmed from a series of severe winter storms beginning Feb. 10. Residents have had to go days without adequate heat, electricity and water—some losing their lives due to a lack of these resources. Such events have caused speculations surrounding the winter storm’s potential link to climate change.

Yet Matthew Igel, an adjunct professor in the department of land, air and water resources, explained that this may not necessarily be the case.

“There’s some disagreement about the role of climate change in these kinds of events,” Igel said. “Certainly these temperatures are uncommon in Texas, but they’re not unprecedented. It’s not that these kinds of events historically have been impossible, but they are very rare.”

He explained that he is hesitant to attribute this particular snowstorm to climate change, and that similar extreme weather events happened in Texas in the early 1900s and in 1985. For this snowstorm in particular, he explained that the polar vortex—cold air trapped in the arctic—became unstable due to a pattern in the

atmosphere known as blocking. Igel elaborated that air began to build up over the Pacific, which led to the slowing down of the polar vortex. This created an instability that allowed the cold air from the polar vortex to migrate toward the Southern U.S. “It’s easy to think of cold air trapped at the arctic as like a spinning top,” Igel said. “So when a spinning top spins really fast, it’s nice and stable. It doesn’t move. But when a top starts to slow down, it can start to wobble.”

Although there is some evidence that how much the polar vortex wobbles may increase as the world grows warmer, this is still a growing field of research. Though these recent events may not necessarily shed light directly on climate change, they do highlight another area in need of change: power grids.

When extreme cold temperatures hit Texas, the state’s power plants were unable to continue operations. According to an article by the New York Times, out of natural gas, coal, nuclear and wind power plants, natural gas production was affected the most.

The article further explained that, simultaneously, demands for electricity increased past estimations, forcing the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to initiate controlled power outages.

“Electricity systems need to balance supply and demand every second or it can result in complete grid collapse that can take weeks to recover from,” said James Bushnell, an economics professor, via email. “In order to prevent the total collapse, ERCOT, the system operator in Texas, started rotating blackouts. The supply shortfall was so massive that up to half of all demand had to be curtailed at some points.”

Keith Taylor, an assistant economic development specialist in cooperative extension in the Department of Human Ecology, explained that there were multiple causes behind the power outages.

One of these causes is that there is no requirement for stockpiled energy resources. While the absence of this requirement helps keep costs down, it also means that the grid is not well prepared for disasters.

In addition, Texas’ power grid is isolated from the two major American grids, according to Bushnell. For example, California is much more integrated with neighboring states compared to Texas.

Although the two states differ in the types of energy they use, both rely on natural gas to sustain operations. Because of this, Taylor explained that since Texas was not able to pull more capacity from the electric grid, it could have pulled more from the natural gas pipelines feeding into Texas if more were connected to other states.

In order to avoid such issues from occurring again, Taylor expressed the need for the weatherization of power generators, along with the hardening of the transmission infrastructure which facilitates the delivery of energy from power plants to consumers. “[This event] certainly revealed that all energy sources have an array of vulnerabilities. We need to harden the system for the entire mix of energy sources,” Taylor said.

Although this specific event was concentrated in the Southern U.S., power outages have also occurred in California in conjunction with strong winds and high temperatures this past year. Bushnell expressed that as climate change causes more extreme swings in weather patterns, the swings themselves are expected to increase in severity.

“The lesson from the last 12 months in both California and Texas is that electricity systems can, in turn, expect larger swings in both demand and available supply as a result,” Bushnell said.

“In California, the increasing share of renewable generation creates further correlation between weather and supply, but Texas demonstrates that this correlation can impact natural gas as well.”

Bushnell explained that policymakers should examine the natural gas market and the pipeline systems moving forward.

Furthermore, he emphasized the importance of reconsidering the way the reliability of electricity systems is assessed.

“The traditional approach to reliability planning in electricity is to target generation ‘capacity’—that is the maximum a plant can produce if all goes well,” Bushnell said. “As we rely more and more on alternative resources such as renewables, batteries, as well as hydro and even natural gas sometimes, the problem is not one of capacity at all but rather the ability of that capacity to produce electricity when we need it.”

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THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2021 | 11

FALLQUARTER CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 “ASUCD is going to do everything it can to advocate to make good online options for students who can’t come to campus and make sure courses are [as] accessible as possible,” Krueger said.

“Despite our advocacy, my recommendation for students would also be: If it’s possible for you to come back to campus [then] do that because [inperson instruction] probably is going to still be better despite our best efforts.”

Looking at the various ensuing scenarios and attempting to make “good educated estimates,” Croughan said possibilities for instruction could include seating students six feet apart, offering more sections, rotating who comes to class in person and live streaming lectures. The goal is to have such details figured out in time for fall registration, according to Croughan.

“The only way you can go back to having a lecture hall be full in a pre-pandemic number would be assuring that everyone had been vaccinated, everyone is wearing a face cover, everyone is practicing safe hygiene practices and everyone is doing asymptomatic testing at least once a week,” Croughan said.

Krueger said that over half of the student population who will come to campus in fall 2021 will have never taken an in-person course at UC Davis before, between first years, sophomores and transfer students.

Warren Jia, a first-year chemical engineering major, said he is worried about transitioning from online to in-person instruction, especially because most of his online exams allow for open-note test taking.

“I’m a little scared because I haven’t done a lot of the memorization in my prerequisite classes,

FOOTBALLOPENER CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 I’m going to be behind,” Jia said. “I’m going to have to re-learn a lot of material later when I take upper division courses that require me to recall knowledge I learned this year. I’m not really scared of going back from a safety perspective because I believe in the vaccine.”

While Jia said that he looks forward to inperson instruction, as opposed to sitting at the computer all day watching hours of lectures on end, he expressed concern about social activities.

He said that he hopes the university will offer support and opportunities for socializing for first-year students who lost out on the college experience.

“There’s certainly a desire to go out and once you get your vaccine to go party or do something fun like that,” Krueger said. “I think that could pose an issue if folks prematurely start commencing with back-to-normal activities, like partying or large group activities, before everyone is vaccinated. We want to send the message that some things are re-opening, but it’s not back to normal until everyone is vaccinated and the public health officials say it’s back.”

In terms of enforcing social behavioral regulations off campus, Croughan said that expectations for students are the same when students are off campus as when they are on campus.

For those who are already in Davis currently, Croughan said that students have done a great job complying with social regulations.

“I am just really proud of our students for knowing what will help them and everyone around them stay healthy and follow those guidelines,” Croughan said.

PRESIDENTIALCHAIR CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 “[It] definitely highlights the importance of African American studies and higher education in general in the world.”

The relationship between the AAS department and the Goss family started in 2006 when the couple came to visit UC Davis, curious about where the department had gone since they graduated, and had a lucky interaction with a faculty member.

“On that day, when they were wandering the hallways of the department, professor Milmon Harrison happened to be in his office and saw this couple looking curious and [...] so he walked over to them,” said AAS Professor Moradewun Adejunmobi. “That led to a lengthy conversation and Harrison then invited them to meet the entire faculty.”

Adejubon mentioned that in the first visit, between introducing them to the faculty and students, sitting in on current classes and being offered lunch, the department began to explain their needs and the ways they could assist.

“We stated that we would like gifts to give to our students because many of our students come from homes where they are facing all kinds of financial challenges, and so if they are doing well we would like to be able to reward them,” Adejunmobi said. “One of the things we listed was if we could wave a magic wand, we would like an endowment for a professor worth at least a million dollars. We set that in 2007”.

The endowment is the latest in a series of gifts to the university; they have contributed directly to students as well as developed many student scholarships. One of the scholarships, the Goss Academic Achievement Award, gives AAS student majors the opportunity to receive $1,000. Other scholarships funded by the Goss’ include the Gary Perkins Academic Achievement Award for Student Affairs and the Joe Singleton Athletic Scholarship.

AAS faculty members mention that this endowment will help to expand the program and bring more opportunities to the department.

Currently, the department has only six faculty members teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, the same number as in 2007 despite student enrollment in the major, and student attendance in the classes, increasing.

AAS courses are not only taken by those looking to major or minor in it, but also by many undergraduates looking to fulfill certain credits to graduate.

“I taught a course called, ‘The Survey of Ethnicity in the United States’ that drew people for their humanities diversity credit for graduation from all over the campus,” Osumare said. “One of the things we often talked about as a faculty was that we were not only servicing our

major, but the entire campus in terms of teaching undergraduates in particular about issues of diversity and social justice.”

The faculty has trouble meeting the demand of students for their classes due to it’s small size.

“What we hear resoundingly from students is, ‘We want more,’” said Interim Chair of AAS Mark Jerng. “‘More classes being offered, more research opportunities, more forms of community engagement.’ And in order to do that we need more faculty.”

Adejunmobi said that recruiting cuttingedge researchers helps to expand academic work, recognition and contributes to social justice causes as well.

“We obviously need activism that’s often happening on campus, but we also need scholarship and academic work that is happening on campus that is justifying and showing why the kind of things we are advocating for need to happen,” Adejuboni said. “In a research university, no matter what you are advocating for, if there is any reason to question to deliver on the research front it undermines whatever else you’re advocating for. This endowment helps us in our ability to deliver on the research front.”

Daryl Goss, who now works as a chief executive officer at Inform Diagnostics, a leading provider of anatomic pathology services, graduated from UC Davis with a degree in AAS in 1983. Lois Goss graduated in 1985 with a degree in Sociology. Currently, Lois is involved with the College of Letters and Science Dean’s Advisory Council, the Women and Philanthropy Advisory Council and the Davis Chancellor’s Club Cabinet. Darryl Goss serves as the UC Davis Foundation Board chair.

Both of Daryl Goss’s parents, the namesakes of the endowment, received higher education at an older age, with Arutha Goss attending community college classes while her son was in college and getting her bachelor’s, master’s, and later, at the age of 70, her doctorate degree. After a 20-year military career, Austin Goss received his bachelor’s.

Whenever Daryl and Lois Goss have the opportunity to meet the students who they are directly helping, the Gosses want to make it known that they are there.

“It means so much to the current students when they see alumni. I think for students at any point and time it is hard for them to envision the future, but especially right now because it looks like the future doesn’t exist,” Adejunmobi said.

“When you see someone who walked the same challenges you are dealing with right now and you see how they have been able to put it together, it means so much more than what a professor can tell them or what a student counselor can tell them.”

PERSEVERANCE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 For example, neutron radiography can be used to image flowers inside a lead container because neutrons go through lead easily and can interact with flower material, according to Frey.

This technology is used to image pyrotechnic devices such as an airbag initiator. The initiator works by having a small explosive charge that sets off a gas-generating reaction to inflate the airbag.

The majority of devices received at the research institute are one-time-use devices. The images make sure the devices are assembled correctly through nondestructive testing.

The neutron imaging method works similarly to X-rays, but instead of an X-ray tube, a neutron source such as a nuclear reactor is needed.

The rover landing on Mars required onetime-use explosives like an airbag. The engine start up and space separations are possible with energy transfer lines, a fast-burning fuse that carries a signal from one place in the vehicle to the other. The nuclear research institute captured images of these lines using their TRIGA Mark ll reactor.

The institute is distinguished as one of two facilities in the country that can do this. There are dozens of reactors in the country similar to that of UC Davis, but only two are built to do this specific type of work of capturing images using neutron radiography, according to Wesley.

The imaging technique was used for the lander equipment as well. Images were taken of the generator that pushed out the parachute and of the explosive pellet that severed the parachute cords.

The reactor also imaged the NASA standard initiator that starts rockets that are fired on the lander, more pellet cutters responsible for cutting

the four cords that lower the lander down and the four propellant tanks on the lander to make sure the rubber diaphragms inside the tanks are intact. This is an efficient way to make sure that all the moving parts of the equipment are placed correctly, according to Frey.

Dawn Sumner, a professor in the UC Davis Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, is one of the scientists on the Curiosity rover team and works directly with the rover, interpreting the data it gathers on Mars.

“It’s still going strong, collecting excellent scientific data,” Sumner said.

The Curiosity rover and Perseverance rover missions are connected because the results from the Curiosity are being used to make improvements to Perseverance, such as having the ability to map out the distribution of different types of organic molecules more efficiently. The two rovers are also in different locations on the planet and are used to make comparisons while asking the same scientific questions.

“Different areas have different characteristics, and we need to explore a lot of places to understand the planet,” Sumner said.

The Curiosity and Perseverance missions are both international collaborations and consist of individuals with a variety of approaches working together on a difficult task. Missions like these inspire the younger generations to want to improve the world through science and engineering, according to Sumner.

“I hope the public can be inspired by what we can do as a society. If we can land on Mars, we can solve a lot of the problems on Earth,” Sumner said. “We just need the will and persistence and resources to do so.”

“Unfortunately, right now, we are not anticipating any fans in attendance for football or any of our home athletic events right now,” DeLuca said. “That’s just due to the tier we’re in right now, which is red. We’re going to have to get to yellow in order to have fans in attendance.

In order to compensate for a lack of fans, The Aggies have a plan in place in order to enable Davis residents to enjoy the game from home.

“We’re going to have home football games on local TV, on CW31 for home games, as well as streaming for the away games,” DeLuca said.

This will mark the first time in history that UC Davis Health Stadium games will be aired for local residents.

“CW31 is all about our community and what brings us together,” Justin Draper, the vice president and general manager of KOVR and KMAX-TV, said in a UC Davis article. “We look forward to our partnership with UC Davis. It’s a perfect addition to our lineup that already has

Sacramento State football, the Stockton Kings and Sacramento River Cats.”

In addition to airing home games on local TV, UC Davis Athletics is striving to maintain audience enthusiasm and student spirit during difficult times.

“We’re going to try to do some interactive text to win, or promotions, especially on Instagram, for students, for all sports,” DeLuca said.

These promotions can be found on the UC Davis Athletics and UC Davis Football Instagram accounts.

COVID-19 has undoubtedly led to many changes this season. Looking forward, UC Davis Athletics anticipates that it may be awhile before everything is back to normal.

“I can’t imagine that we’ll be going back to life without any adjustments,” Flushman said. “I think we’ll see how everything plays out, but I’m sure there will be some adjustments for next fall as far as what we will be doing.”

CULTURALATTACKS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2 APAPA promotes education, professional development and civic engagement centered around social issues impacting the AAPI community. APAPA hosts events to raise awareness and facilitate discussions about these issues.

In addition to providing support for students, APAPA has raised money for organizations that fight against anti-Asian discrimination, such as Stop AAPI Hate.

“It’s important to look up different Asianbased news sources because they are the ones who are definitely vocalizing about the different hate crimes,” Nguyen said. “It’s hard to see it in like mainstream news media, but it’s definitely out there.”

The Japanese American Student Society (JASS) at UC Davis is a social and serviceoriented club open to students who are interested in Japanese and Japanese American culture.

JASS participates in outreach events led by its two social chairs, Ashley Uyehara, a second-year animal biology major, and Joseph Hong, a thirdyear biotechnology major.

“Now is the time for Asian Americans to band together under a common unity, to stop not only hate against Chinese Americans or even Asian Americans as a whole, but to stop hate in general,” Hong said.

The two are working with the Sacramento Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) to organize a group of students who can escort elderly Asian Americans, as this group is often the target of hate crimes.

“We’ve definitely felt the need to take action,” Uyehara said. “It’s really frustrating to see something like this because of the past history of strong racism against the Asian American community.”

Uyehara is also the educational chair of the Nikkei Student Union (NSU), an organization that promotes civic awareness and social justice for the Japanese-American community. She said she felt personally affected by the destruction of the Buddhist temple in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, as her grandparents used to visit the site regularly.

“When I was growing up, we were a part of a Buddhist church,” Uyehara said. “After feeling like they’ve given so much to me and helped

shape who I am today, I want to give back in some type of way. And to see that my JapaneseAmerican community is being affected this way really hurts my heart.”

Emiko Miller, a third-year human development and English double major, is one of the two coordinators of JASS’ family program in which members get to connect with one another in smaller groups, or “families.”

“As unfortunate as it is that all these hate crimes are occurring and increasing, it’s also bringing more light to how people have been treating Asian Americans for a long time,” Miller said.

Miller emphasized the importance of educating oneself, not only about current issues but also about the history of discrimination against marginalized communities. She explained that one way she educated herself was by taking an Asian American literature class at UC Davis.

“I never felt represented all through high school,” Miller said. “English was always my favorite class, but I only read books by white authors. [During this course], I got to read a book by a Japanese woman which was very moving for me.”

Hendry Ton, the associate vice chancellor for Health, Equity Diversity and Inclusion, said that anti-Asian racism has gotten worse over the past year.

“Speaking with our students, it’s certainly a fear that they have had in recent weeks,” Ton said. “The fear has been for their parents and their grandparents and the anxiety that they are not close at hand to help protect their parents.”

There has been a tradition of relying on children to navigate the social systems for their parents and grandparents who have limited English proficiency, Ton said. That, coupled with the recent targeting of Asian American elders, has weighed on students who have left their families to attend UC Davis.

“The message is: please see the suffering, please speak to it when you see your colleagues, check in with them,” Ton said. “They may not be talking about it, but the pain is nevertheless there.”

FUNDINGCOMP CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2 By emphasizing labor productivity and agricultural health, the project strives to improve California’s agriculture without sacrificing the well-being of individual farmers.

“Agriculture remains a very important part of our economy and I think it’s being challenged in many ways and in new ways,” Visser said. “My hope is that our project not only highlights these challenges, but also identifies ways to mitigate these challenges and ways to make challenges in what might be seen as obstacles strengths in these regions so that we can create resilient agricultural regions.”

In addition to projects addressing agriculture, the research competition also awarded an initiative to protect Tribal stories through an effort titled, Centering Tribal Stories of Cultural Preservation in Difficult Times. “[This project offers] an interdisciplinary approach to thinking through repatriation and cultural heritage protection and developing educational modules and curricula for UC students,” said Beth Rose Middleton, a professor and department chair of the Department of Native American Studies who works on the project. “We will work in partnership with Native community members to develop curriculum about multiple aspects of and considerations regarding repatriation and cultural heritage protection.”

Middleton touches on the importance of having this conversation in California.

“University of California and many other universities around the nation are what’s known as land-grant universities, meaning that the government either granted land or revenue from the sale of land to develop a public university,” Middleton said. “That land was taken from Indigenous peoples.”

Middleton plans to pursue her ongoing efforts of repatriation and rematriation of Native lands within the project.

“I hope to collaborate with my colleague at The Maidu Summit, Lorena Gorbet, to talk about The Maidu Summit land transfer,” Middleton said. “I’ve also been in conversation with Morningstar Gali (Pit River) about land transfers to Pit River, and with Alan Wallace (Nisenan and Washoe), who works with The United Auburn Indian Community, about their observations or experiences with cultural and land repatriation processes.”

Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, a professor in the Native American Studies department and the director of the C.N. Gorman Museum, will also be joining the project from another angle. Tsinhnahjinnie will be documenting and preserving the Native stories of Pam Gonzales (Cachil Dehe Wintun Nation).

“We put together a project where [Gonzales] is going to highlight five stories,” Tsinhnahjinnie said. “I’ll be documenting her stories and videotaping. We’ll go to the sites, we’ll talk to different people, we’ll go to archives and we’ll have five videos that will be a part of the modules to have students understand where UCD is situated.”

At UC Davis, signage can be seen across campus acknowledging the campus’ location on Native grounds. This project strives to further that effort.

“How can we really deepen everyone’s understanding of what it really means to be within Patwin homelands and what responsibilities that carries, in terms of how we relate respectfully to the people here as guests within their homelands and how we work to address situations of injustice that have long languished?” Middleton said.

PERFORMINGARTS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7 “I feel very close with the cast because it was a devised process,” Dragich said. “We spent a lot of time doing dramaturgy together, just throwing out ideas and basically explored all of our relationship to food, and the show kind of ended up in this space where it’s an exploration of consumerism, wastefulness, selfishness of people and selfishness of societies. We were able to share those issues with each other and really formulate our ideas about how we feel about the world around us.”

Dragich is also hopeful that the pandemic might ultimately lead to more access to the theater community in the long term.

“We are reaching more people,” Dragich said.

“There’s people who live in places that don’t have access to the arts who are seeing what’s going on right now in the artistic community that they were never able to see before. And I think it’s really wonderful. I’ve heard so many people being overwhelmed and having their minds opened and thinking in new ways about art and life. The art itself [...] is very ordinary to me. However, I also see how if it’s not something that you’re around, it can be altering to one’s perspective, which is amazing.”

For information about the Department of Theatre and Dance’s upcoming and past virtual productions, visit their website.

12 | THURSDAY, MARCH 11, 2021

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

SPORTS Big West Tournament Season Both UC Davis Men’s and Women’s teams look back on their wild year, and look ahead to the ultimate goal

BY OMAR NAVARRO sports@theaggie.org A rollercoaster regular season for both UC Davis men’s and women’s teams has come to an end. Despite the long layoffs on both sides, they are entering the Big West Conference Tournament with some momentum and hoping to make the most of this unpredictable season.

In a year where everything has been different, one thing stayed the same: The UC Davis Women’s Basketball Team once again captured the Big West Conference regular season title for the fifth straight time. Led by their stellar defense which allowed just 56.2 points per game in conference play, the Aggies have been able to keep their winning ways even in a difficult regular season like this one.

“We were out of the gym [during the shutdown] at least three weeks, where we really weren’t doing anything,” said UC Davis Women’s Basketball head coach and four-time Big West Coach of the Year Jennifer Gross. “We came back around the end of December and our county thankfully allowed us to start practicing as long as we were doing antigen testing daily. At that point we just got back to practice and tried to treat the weeks like game weeks.”

After their long 59 day layoff, they picked up right where they left off, winning the first four games in their return. In a matchup against No. 12 Oregon in Eugene, the Aggies suffered their first loss of the season, losing a close one down the stretch. Still, the Aggies showed that they could play with the best. After their quick trip to Oregon, the Aggies resumed their Big West Conference play and clinched their No. 1 seed once again, winning five out of the last six and finishing with an impressive 10-2 overall record. They will face the No. 8 seed UC Riverside or No. 9 Cal State Fullerton in their first game of the Big West Tournament. In one of the toughest seasons in every player’s career, this proved to have tested them in more ways than one.

“As a senior, you expect to be a leader on the team and be a role model to the younger players, but this year took it a whole lot further than that,” said senior guard Mackenzie Trpcic. “As seniors this year we had to help guide our team through this pandemic, making tough decisions, keeping spirits high, all while being away from our families for long periods of time and maintaining our team bubble that we knew had to happen for our season to even be possible. The name of the game this year has been making sacrifices, and that is what we’ve done thus far and I’m very proud of this program and specifically my teammates for making my final year one I will always remember.”

Like previous years, this Aggies squad found production in many different places. Aside from their defense oriented approach, they had five players average at least 9.8 points per game. Preseason All-Conference forward Cierra Hall led the charge averaging 14 points and just under seven rebounds a game. Redshirt junior Sage Stobbart led the team in rebounding with eight while also adding in just over 10 points as well. Trpcic handled the guard duties, averaging almost six assists per game and just under 10 points as well. With major contributions from Evanne Turner and Kayla Konrad, the Aggies had multiple players to go to at any point during the games.

After missing a chance to go back to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Tournament last year, the Aggies are hoping it can fuel them to yet another trip to the Big Dance.

“I think we’re all super motivated for a bunch of reasons,” Trpcic said. “The types of big games that we have coming up are what competitors like us dream of playing from when we’re young.

So, to be in the position that we’re in and having the opportunity to compete and represent our support system at the highest level is very exciting. Missing the opportunity last year was obviously

UC Davis men’s and women’s basketball teams in action during the 2020 season. (Justin Han / Aggie) very difficult and I feel like it made us appreciate so much more what it means to compete for an NCAA tournament spot, so this year we’re going to leave it all on the court and cherish the entire experience.”

On the men’s side, with a total of only 16 games played—10 of them being in conference—the amount of time the team had to fine tune everything was very slim. With the regular season now being in the rearview mirror, looking back on the season shows how difficult it truly was.

“I would say it was unprecedented territory,” said UC Davis Men’s head coach Jim Les. “We dealt with scenarios and situations that we never had to deal with. It was really unique and I really want to credit our players. They had to be extremely flexible and disciplined.”

When they returned to play on Jan. 22 against UC San Diego, the rust was evident from the start. Losing four of their first five games in their restart, the Aggies sat with a 3-6 overall record.

Needing a crucial win, they got just that in their second game against Cal State Northridge in the beginning of February, sparking what would be a five game win streak that included sweeps of Long Beach State and Cal Poly. “[During the time off] we had some periods where we weren’t practicing and some periods where we were,” Les said. “From a mental standpoint, getting to gym, practicing and working on your game yet having no date in the future or no game to look forward to became a real challenge to keep everyone motivated from a day to day standpoint.”

Playing with just one senior, the Aggies’ team is built differently from other years, with a lot of younger players who have continued to develop during their time at UC Davis. Jumping from a little

over eight points per game last year to 14.9 this year, sophomore Elijah Pepper has seen his usage jump this year, becoming a major contributor on both the offensive and defensive end. He also leads the team in three-point attempts and percentage at 44.6% and has the team’s season high in points with 32. Alongside fellow sophomore and Preseason All-Conference guard Ezra Manjon, the two have given the team a jolt of energy and given them the onetwo punch they were missing.

In addition to both Manjon and Pepper, they also have two other players averaging double digit points in juniors Damion Squire and Caleb Fuller, who are averaging 12.3 and 11.1 points per game respectively. A well rounded team that prides itself on the effort on the defensive end has them feeling good about their chances headed into the Big West Tournament.

“I think we have the best all-around team in the league,” Pepper said. “We have solid bigs, good guards, we play well together and we work hard. I think it’s coming together at the right time for us.”

Who awaits them in Las Vegas is Big West newcomer Cal State Bakersfield, a team they last played in 2008. With only two matchups in history between these two programs, there will be much unfamiliarity. Going into the tournament as the fourth seed, the last couple weeks gave them confidence—confidence they hope they can turn into their second ever NCAA Tournament bid.

Both squads had their share of tough moments due to COVID-19, including questions about whether they would even return. As both teams say, however, the university and its advances in testing allowed this to happen, and now with March upon us, both Aggie teams are hoping to make their mark and go back to the NCAA Tournament.

This story was originally publiched online on March 10, 2021.

UC Davis Softball season is in full swing After a long layoff, the team is grateful to be back on the field

BY KATHERIN RAYGOZA sports@theaggie.org Back in March 2020, all UC Davis sports games were put to a halt to avoid the spread of COVID-19. After much progress and a lot of movement, most spring sports returned to play this year’s season. Some fall sports, like football, are also allowed to compete during the spring.

UC Davis Softball made their way back onto the field for the first time in 11 months in February of this year. In their last season, they were only able to make it all the way to March 10 before having the last three games of the season canceled. This new season began Feb. 11, and the Aggies are determined to finish the season and face all their opponents as the year progresses.

“I’m looking forward to getting back on the field and feeling some type of normalcy even though it is definitely different,” said UC Davis’ softball head coach, Erin Thorpe. “It’s tough as an athlete when one of your largest priorities is being a member of a sport, and not being able to participate or play is a hard hit. For us to be able to play the game, and now compete, is amazing.”

Normally, 56 games are played in a regular non-pandemic season. This year, because of the pandemic and certain safety protocols, only 45 games will be played. This means that instead of playing five to six opponents a week, only two or three games will be played in one weekend.

“There are definitely many changes this season,” Thorpe said.

We have a lower number of games than we would usually play, but we still have a full schedule. We’re also limiting our exposure to other teams as much as possible, we’re not flying anywhere and we have to follow the right procedures of the locations we travel to.”

The stress of being in the middle of a pandemic and trying to play the season has been on the mind of many members of the softball team. No matter how safe or how many precautions are taken, there are always risks.

Athletes had to face a constantly changing routine as COVID-19 guidelines were modified throughout the year. Players were used to always practicing as a team, and now they have become accustomed to practicing in small groups of three to four girls, or oftentimes, individually—which was a huge adjustment.

“Practice always looked different because we never fielded the entire team. Even when we had a bulk of the team tested, we never had the full team,” said senior outfielder and international relations major Marissa Jauregui. “The institution was making sure we were safe; we were getting tested as much as possible. I know that we’re getting tested much more now just because testing has really expanded. We test three times a week. We also heavily sanitize every single thing that we touch, and we’re very very strict on social

distancing.”

During their offseason, Thorpe took the extra step to insure the health of her players. She asked her players to remain in a bubble—similar to the National Basketball Association—and they weren’t allowed to participate in activities that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention allowed, in terms of leaving the area or going out to eat.

Last August, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) allowed all athletes to opt out of the season due to concerns about contracting the virus. Not all players returned to Davis during the fall, but after keeping in touch with their teammates and hearing how smoothly everything was going, many decided to come back in December.

The players were isolated physically from each other and also from their families, but that didn’t stop them from keeping in touch and making sure their teammates were doing okay.

In order to stay connected as a team, the UC Davis softball team had to get creative on how to stay in contact. They held many

events, one in particular was a remake of the wedding scene from the show “The Office” through Zoom.

“We’d be on Zoom with each other for an hour or an hour and a half just asking how our day was, because not everybody did come back from Davis,” Jauregui said. “Even though we were in different parts, we just continued to have those weekly or biweekly Zoom calls where we could catch up.”

Leading up to the spring softball season has been rough when it comes to maintaining social distancing and following the proper procedures to stay healthy. The team, along with its coaching staff have all been determined to start the season the right way and hope to finish strong. It is not what they were all used to, but they are grateful to be back in whatever capacity.

“Softball is our relief. It can be motivation in itself to get back out on the field, get the opportunity to play and compete, with all the other things we have to worry about right now,” Thorpe said.

“We’re really trying to do everything in a safe way, while trying to get our normal life back.”

UC Davis softball field during Winter Quarter 2021. (Quinn Spooner / Aggie)