April 7, 2022

FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

@THECALIFORNIAAGGIE

SERVING THE UC DAVIS CAMPUS AND COMMUNITY SINCE 1915

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THEAGGIE.ORG

MEDICAL EQUIPMENT, PREFERRED INSULIN NOT ENTIRELY COVERED BY INSURANCE FOR SOME STUDENTS, TWO UC DAVIS GRADUATE STUDENTS SAY Some UC Davis students are paying high costs out of pocket or accumulating thousands of dollars worth of debt for their medications and medical equipment

approximately 135,000 members, as of fall 2021.

UC SHIP is made to meet the needs of students, Trout and Atwood said. The UC SHIP Executive Oversight Board (EOB) governs the plan, and student voting members decide on the plan’s design and benefit changes. Trout and Atwood stated that students are the most important members of the EOB. “UC SHIP is created for students and run by students!” Trout said via email.

Victoria Watson-Zink, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Evolution and Ecology, conducting research with two coconut crabs in Zanzibar (Victoria Watson-Zink / Courtesy).

BY MARGO ROSENBAUM campus@theaggie.org This is the second installation of The California Aggie’s two-part series on the struggles of students, faculty and staff in receiving coverage for some medications and medical equipment by UC health insurance plans.

Victoria Watson-Zink, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Evolution and Ecology at UC Davis, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in seventh grade and has used Novolog insulin and an insulin pump almost ever since. Recently, Watson-Zink has not been able to get this brand of insulin approved through her student insurance plan.

When Jonathan Eisen, a professor with appointments in the UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology, the Genome Center and the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, tweeted about his difficulties with his UC insurance plan last month, Watson-Zink shared her experiences on the Twitter thread.

“I’ve been using Novolog since middle school but all of a sudden, no matter what I do, I can’t get Novolog approved under the UCD health insurance,” Watson-Zink said in a tweet. “Had to switch to Humalog on a day when I was on my last few units of Novolog — NOT OK!” OptumRx is the pharmacy benefit manager for the UC Student Health Insurance Plan (UC SHIP) and manages their prescription drug benefits and costs. The UC SHIP plan has not been changed recently and OptumRx has been the pharmacy benefit manager for the plan since the 2015-16 academic year, according to Margaret ​​ Trout, the executive director of health and wellness for Student Health and Counseling Services (SHCS).

The recent switch to Navitus Health Solutions as the pharmacy benefit manager only impacted UC retirees and employees, such as Eisen, on Anthem Blue Cross preferred provider organization (PPO) plans — and did not impact students on UC SHIP — but some students, including Watson-Zink, have also faced their own challenges with coverage of medications and medical equipment.

Watson-Zink said she has always experienced “a lot of difficulty” with getting Novolog insulin covered by her graduate student insurance, and since the beginning of 2022, she cannot get it covered at all, and is not entirely sure why.

Novolog is listed in the OptumRx formulary as needing a prior authorization, or more information from the prescriber for coverage, according to Trout and Todd Atwood, the administrative services manager for SHCS. They said UC SHIP has worked successfully with students to complete the prior authorization process.

Watson-Zink said that her doctor was previously able to write a prior authorization for her Novolog prescription, and within a couple of days, she was usually able to fill it. Yet, since January, she said that no matter what her doctor does, she cannot get Novolog covered. Watson-Zink said she was told she must have a documented severe allergy to the generic forms of insulin for her prior authorization to be approved.

“They’re not going to cover the one that I’ve been using since seventh grade, which is difficult because all insulins aren’t created equal [and] all bodies don’t react to insulin in the same way,” Watson-Zink said.

UC SHIP is administered through the UC Office of the President (UCOP) with UC Health providing medical oversight.

According to Trout and Atwood, the UC SHIP plan provides “comprehensive” prescription, medical, vision and dental coverage to UC students and eligible dependents. All UC campuses, except UC Berkeley, use UC SHIP with an average enrollment of

Students and professor say they are unsatisfied with UC SHIP Yet, not all students are content with the care they receive from UC SHIP. Some students have to pay high costs for their medications and medical equipment or do not have access to all of the medications and care they need, according to Elisabeth Forrestel, an assistant professor in the Department of Viticulture and Enology at UC Davis, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when she was a 1-year-old.

“Students have not had access to all the medications they need,” Forrestel said.

With a son who was also diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, Forrestel understands firsthand the high cost of insulin, which has tripled in the past decade in the U.S. “Insulin is the poster child for a medication that you need to live,” Forrestel said.

Watson-Zink uses an insulin pump and said she recently received a bill for $800 for a three months supply of sensors for the pump. She said she was sent another bill for $250 for the sets that deliver the insulin, which is “a lot of money on a grad student stipend.” Per month, she spends on average about $1,080 on medications, equipment and care for her mental and physical health needs.

“I’m still paying out significant out-of-pocket expenses for my supplies and the surgeries I’ve had and mental health insurance,” Watson-Zink said in an interview with The Aggie. “It’s just been really expensive and it’s not ideal.”

As a result of her difficulties in receiving coverage for Novolog, Watson-Zink had to switch to Humalog insulin in January.

“There’s actually a reason why I was on Novolog, and why I’ve been on Novolog, and just switching it because this insurance doesn’t want to cover it, for reasons that are beyond my understanding, is outrageous,” Watson-Zink said.

Watson-Zink said her glycemic control has “taken a bit of a dip” since her body is not used to the new brand of insulin. While she does not have a documented severe allergy to Humalog, she said it takes longer to work and is not as effective, so she has to take more of it.

“Yeah [my glycemic control] has definitely taken a dive since switching but they said they won’t cover Novolog again unless I have a ‘documented severe allergy’… but suboptimal glycemic control is fine with them,” she said in a tweet on Eisen’s thread.

Watson-Zink said she has several pre-existing conditions in addition to type 1 diabetes, including congenital hydrocephalus, a neurological condition that affects the structure of her brain and has led to three brain surgeries in the past two years. As a result, Watson-Zink said she requires “a lot of support in terms of health care.”

“I think my time at UC Davis has been difficult just because I haven’t always felt like I’ve gotten the kind of insurance support that I’d need to survive with these conditions on my own, because I don’t have familial support for dealing with these conditions and so just doing it on the graduate student stipend has been very difficult,” she said.

Watson-Zink said that managing her expenses to maintain her physical and mental health on a graduate student stipend has been a challenge. After her grandmother passed away from COVID-19 last September, she required “significant mental health support” to get back on track and ready to finish her Ph.D. “It’s been very difficult for me to try to coordinate care for my physical health and my mental health just based on the graduate student stipend and the insurance, because the insurance doesn’t cover enough, and I think it’s just ridiculous that we have to pay so much out of pocket to have these supplies covered when it’s essential to my survival,” she said.

Jennifer Statham, the director of communications at OptumRx, said she understands the financial difficulties people face with chronic medical conditions, like type 1 diabetes. She said pharmacy benefit managers like OptumRx work to provide access to affordable medication. OptumRx negotiates lower costs of prescriptions and helps to determine a medication’s placement on the formulary.

OptumRx, which is the pharmacy benefit manager for UC SHIP, is unable to provide any insight or look into insulin medication without a signed Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) form for OptumRx members in reference, Statham said.

HEALTHINSURANCE2 on 9

@CALIFORNIAAGGIE

@CALIFORNIAAGGIE

VOLUME 140, ISSUE 22 | THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022

MARCH 31 SENATE MEETING INCLUDED SENATOR ADOPTIONS, LEGISLATION ISSUES, ADDRESSING VACANCIES DUE TO RESIGNATION SR #26 and SB #67 passed unanimously, SR #23 was tabled and SB #68 and SB #69 were postponed

AGGIE FILE

BY ANGELINA ANGELO campus@theaggie.org Vice President Juliana Martinez Hernandez called the meeting to order at 6:13 p.m. on Thursday, March 31. Following roll call, she recited the UC Davis Land Acknowledgement.

Next, Martinez asked for nominations for senate president pro tempore. Senator Radhika Gawde was nominated by Senator Owen Krauss, and she accepted the nomination. There were no objections, and Gawde is now senate president pro tempore.

Different units on campus, such as the Bike Barn, the Aggie Reuse store and the Pantry, heard from different senators and adopted a senator for the spring quarter.

Following unit adoptions were the committees; the Student Health and Wellness Committee, DREAM Committee and Aggie Housing Advocacy also adopted senators. Each committee heard from multiple senators before making their decisions.

The Disability Rights Advocacy Committee (DRAC) held confirmations for one new committee member.

“Nicole Cimmarusti has been advocating for others for a few years now,” said Unit Director of DRAC Sarah Theubet. “She would like to expand her advocacy into the disabled community here at Davis, and we are happy to have her.”

With no objections, Cimmarusti was confirmed as a DRAC committee member.

Public Comments occurred next, and Martinez Hernandez stated that this time is designated for the public to ask questions, raise concerns and initiate conversation. She encouraged the public to come to Senate meetings and voice their concerns.

No members of the public shared any comments, but senators brought forth issues such as removing graffiti from the Hutchison parking structure, Ramadan announcements and the upcoming ASUCD newsletter.

Then, each elected officer and ex-officio provided weekly reports.

All previous legislation was approved and signed. There was no introduction of new legislation.

SR #25, legislation addressing DRAC’s concerns on refusal for disability accommodations, was tabled. External Affairs Commision (EAC) Chair Maahum Shahab said that this was tabled because there are parts that need to be edited, but the EAC wholeheartedly supports all the issues addressed in the legislation regarding the providing of accommodations to students.

SB #67 was introduced. This bill allocates $2,375 to the ASUCD Volunteer Award Committee. After a brief discussion, this bill passed unanimously.

SR #26 was introduced to address the fact that ASUCD did not agree to the administration’s guide to creating a student fee initiative. UC Davis student Calvin Wong shared that multiple senators have reached out to the administration regarding this document and have not heard a response. The document also includes direct violations of the ASUCD constitution, according to Wong. SR #26 affirms that ASUCD did not agree with this guide, and therefore the guide is null. SR #26 passed unanimously.

SB #68 and SB #69 were assigned to the Internal Affairs Commission (IAC) and postponed to week two of spring quarter.

Both of these pieces of legislation need to be reviewed by the IAC before being brought to the Senate table because they discuss ballot measures.

Meeting minutes from both March 3 and March 10 were approved unanimously.

Next, Martinez Hernandez opened the floor to members of the public.

SENATE on 9

CURRENT STUDENTS SHARE ADVICE FOR PROSPECTIVE CLASS OF 2026 UC Davis students share their favorite parts of the university and tips for high school seniors making college decisions

BY JALAN TEHRANIFAR features@theaggie.org Months after the application submission deadline, UC Davis released admissions decisions to students of the upcoming Class of 2026 on March 11. Newly admitted students have until May 1 to submit their commitment to attend the university next fall.

Current students — whether they’ve attended UC Davis for just a few months or multiple years — have gathered college insight and advice for newly admitted students to help them choose their university and thrive upon arrival.

UC Davis’ campus is known for its agriculture and campus animals, according to Vaidehi Gupta, a third-year cell biology major.

She recommended that new students check out the entirety of the campus when touring or arriving next fall.

“Explore UC Davis because the campus has so much to offer,” Gupta said. “It’s a really unique, cool, beautiful campus.”

Gupta also said that Davis has a lot of resources for new students and students who are struggling to adjust to campus, which she recommended.

KATHERINE FRANKS / AGGIE Curtis Dong, a second-year environmental policy analysis and planning major, emphasized the importance of community at Davis. Dong also said that, when he was choosing his university, he found that Davis had the perfect mix of focused classes and fun.

“I think that Davis is the perfect place to focus on your education while still having those

‘college experiences’ because I think the town really encourages it,” Dong said. “There’s stuff to do, but not so much that you’re overwhelmed, where you can’t focus on school.”

Jessica Chan, a second-year design major, said that she’s found Davis to be pretty small but encouraged students to take advantage of the areas surrounding Davis during their time here.

“[Davis] is a small town, but you can branch out and take the bus to Sacramento or San Francisco,” she said.

For students who have decided on attending Davis next fall, Elisha Aguirre, a second-year neurobiology, physiology and behavior major, said that her biggest piece of advice for new students is to branch out of their comfort zones.

“Really try new things,” Aguirre said. “Try to be outgoing and open-minded, [and] try to introduce yourself to new people. [That’s a good way to] maybe make some really great connections and friends.”

Nik Childers, a third-year political science major, said to be wary of reading too much about professors and courses online before arriving on campus.

“Don’t trust what you read on Rate My Professors,” he said. “A lot of the professors I have taken have got ‘meh’ reviews, but I haven’t had a single bad professor here.”

Grace Heller, a third-year design and economics double major, said that her biggest advice for incoming students is to be open to new experiences and friends as a first year.

WELCOME2026 on 9

2 | THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

DAVIS COMMUNITY MEALS AND HOUSING’S HOPEFUL PROJECTION FOR 2022 Davis Community Meals and Housing faced changes during the pandemic, but officials are optimistic about the future

Davis Meals Building in Davis, CA. (Quinn Spooner/Aggie)

BY CHRIS PONCE city@theaggie.org The effects of the pandemic have repercussions for both the local area and businesses alike. Because of their general demographics, people experiencing homelessness (PEH) are at a very high risk for contracting COVID-19. A study conducted by BMC Public Health concluded that those experiencing homelessness in the U.S. are especially vulnerable to impacts of the pandemic.

“The particular vulnerability of PEH and consequently the increased risk for PEH to contribute to community transmission of COVID-19 should have prioritized these populations in pandemic response and relief efforts,” the authors of the study stated.

Davis Community Meals and Housing is a local non-profit organization that aims to provide housing and meals for people in need, according to a statement on their website. Davis Community Meals and Housing has been operating since 1990. Throughout the pandemic, Davis Community Meals and Housing had to uniquely adjust its outreach and guidelines to further aid the local Davis community.

One of the first major changes Davis Community Meals and Housing observed during the pandemic was not being able to provide a dinner on Thanksgiving 2020. In a statement made on the Davis Community Meals and Housing website, the organization urged high-risk volunteers to avoid participating. “We request that all volunteers who are deemed to be in a vulnerable class of individuals or for any other reason to stop volunteering at this time. Your health and safety is very important to us,” the website stated. Davis Community Meals and Housing Executive Director Bill Pride commented on these changes.

“The biggest change during the pandemic was we had to switch from indoor seating and dining for the folks coming to eat with us

to actually handing out sandwiches and that type of thing,” Pride said. “We’re transitioning back to the sit-down dinners hopefully

by May or June this year [2022].”

Pride also commented on how the pandemic affected outreach for the organization.

“It’s certainly affected the number of folks we’ve had and a few other things, but we still managed to feed a lot of people every week,” Pride said.

Davis Community Meals and Housing heavily relies on volunteers. Its volunteers work in a variety of programs offered by Davis Community Meals and Housing, such as the Meal Program, Resource Center and the Shelter and Transitional Housing Program. Pride said that the pandemic also had an impact on volunteer outreach.

“Soon it affected our volunteer base quite a bit because many of the volunteers working there were older and [were] a highly vulnerable population, so some of those folks have not volunteered probably for a year or year and a half,” Pride said. “Some of them have come back, and some of them still haven’t come back. It affected our ability to have the number of volunteers we’ve had there in the past. I usually have, every week, probably about 50-60 volunteers there on various days, and that’s probably down to less than 50 at this point.”

In spite of having to make some adjustments, Davis Community Meals and Housing has still managed to keep most of its operations and projects open and ongoing. Its Resource Center has remained open and still has around 35-40 people visiting each day, according to Pride. Its Transitional Housing program is still running and functional. The Street outreach program is still at work multiple days a week as well.

During May 2020, Davis Community Meals and Housing was involved in the addition of the new Creekside Permanent

Supportive Housing. This housing has 90 units total, surpassing the 52 units provided by the Cesar Chavez Plaza Permanent Supportive Housing. Davis Community Meals and Housing will continue to aid current residents and help those experiencing homlessness find housing in these locations. A support service coordinator will be on site full time.

Aside from the transition from the pandemic, Davis Community Meals and Housing has set its sights on the future.

The organization has been in the process of building a new project. Pride outlined the group’s plans for an older building that has been in the works for years.

Davis Community Meals and Housing has operated a site at 1111 H Street since 1994. It has served as a daily resource center and as living quarters. Over the last few years, the group has been raising money to rebuild the site and include 18 apartment units, according to Pride.

“We managed to get the approval from the city, get a building permit, and it’s kind of right now about 50-60% complete,” Pride said. “And it’s supposed to open for occupancy probably by about September/October this year.”

The BMC Study suggested the importance of shelters and volunteers during the pandemic. The study emphasized that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach that can be taken when handling the situation of homelessness and COVID-19.

The authors of the BMC study (Rodriguez, Lahey, MacNeil, Martinez, Teo and Ruiz) concluded that, “Community-based organizations, including homeless shelters, are uniquely qualified to inform, and should be included in planning efforts for, pandemic response.”

GOVERNOR NEWSOM PROPOSES GAS REBATE Proposal comes while the U.S. is inflicting economic sanctions against Russia

Gas prices at the Arco on Russell Blvd on March 31, 2022. (Kayla Bruckman / Aggie).

BY SOFIA BIREN city@theaggie.org The repercussions of global sanctions against Russia, due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, is affecting local economies. Most notably, the national average price of gas has peaked for the first time since 2008 at $4.33. In California, the price of gas has risen to an average of $5.28.

Sanctions against Russia are not the only factor that is influencing the rise in gas prices.

The pandemic has also influenced the increase of gas prices vis-à-vis the decrease in demand of gasoline at the beginning of the pandemic.

When the pandemic first hit the U.S., demand for gasoline decreased, thus barrels of oil for a short period of time valued less than $0. In turn, oil production decreased dramatically to match consumer demand, and when Americans began driving again, production levels have not reached pre-pandemic levels although driving has.

To combat this, California Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed a plan that would help offset the financial burden felt by Californians. In a press release published on March 23, Newsom’s Office stated that “Registered vehicle owners in California will be eligible for at least $400 per vehicle, totaling $9 billion in direct payments to millions of Californians.”

The plan proposed by Governor Newsom is estimated to cost a total of $11 billion, with nine billion dollars of that budget being allocated to gas rebate. The other two billion dollars is proposed to go toward “relief for free public transportation for three months, pausing a portion of the sales tax rate on diesel, and suspending the inflationary adjustment on gas and diesel excise tax,” according to the press release.

However, although some Californians see the benefits of Newsom’s proposed plan, they question its social and environmental impacts.

If passed the plan would disperse the rebate universally regardless of income. This would mean that anyone with a registered car would receive the rebate, including the wealthiest residents.

Abby Ortgea, a second-year psychology and human development major, is reluctant about the way the money is planned to be dispersed.

“Newsom should alter his plan to make it more equitable,” Ortega said. “The majority of people who need financial relief are not the people who can afford cars. The state should disperse the money to Californians regardless of vehicle ownership status, that way it would benefit the people who need it most.”

Others are also concerned about the environmental impacts of this plan. In 2018,

California passed Senate Bill 100, which is aimed to completely end carbon emissions by 2045. Kyla Standard, a second-year psychology major, says that Newsom’s bill is a step back from California’s 2018 commitment to clean energy.

“The bill only plans to give a small portion of the budget to promote clean energy,” Standard said. “Instead of incentivizing driving through covering the cost of gas they could invest that money into rebates for electric vehicles or climate research.”

Other states such as Georgia and Connecticut are taking measures to achieve the same means, however these states are trying to offset the economic burden in their states by temporarily decreasing or temporarily waiving the gas tax in their state.

The taxon gasoline is used primarily to fund projects that would increase the efficiency of the nation’s roads. Primarily, this is done by maintaining the roads and highways in that state, and through other smaller projects. California has the highest gasoline tax in the country at $0.51 per gallon.

Newsom’s proposed plan is different compared to that of other states because it is aimed at giving people a rebate as opposed to partially or fully waiving the tax on gasoline.

Regardless, the plan comes as a relief to UC

Davis students. Some students who do have cars say that the $400 rebate would help ease the financial burdens many of them already face.

“I try to not use my car as much as I did last quarter because it would really be difficult for me to get as much gas as I did before,” Ortega said. “I feel like the rebate will definitely help students.”

Mark Soto, a second-year mechanical engineering major, says that during spring break he noticed the difference in the price of gas. He says that while on a road trip, he not only saw the overall increase in the price of gas, but he also saw the difference in gas at different stations.

“We drove to a small town in Southern California, and the gas cost around $5.50,” Soto said. “Then a few miles down there was another gas station selling gas for around $6.50.”

Some say Newsom’s plan is complex by design and was written by him and his administration to bring relief to Californians. If passed, the plan will bring relief to millions of California residents, and some UC Davis students are excited to see what impact will have on them.

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022 | 3

RACE FOR YOLO COUNTY DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE HEATS UP Incumbent Jeff Reisig challenged by candidate Cynthia Rodriguez

CHRISTINA LIU / AGGIE

BY RACHEL SHEY city@theaggie.org The Yolo County primary election race is on June 7. Voters will be choosing two county supervisor seats, the sheriff and the district attorney’s seat. The current district attorney, Jeff Reisig, is campaigning for re-election against Cynthia Rodriguez, president of the West Yolo Democratic Club and an attorney of 40 years.

Rodriguez is campaigning on a slogan of “Safety

and Equal Justice.”

“My vision is that we are a community office,” Rodriguez said. “Our community should feel welcome to come to our office and tell us about their concerns about crime and safety in the county, so that we have a real place for people’s voices to be heard, so that we have a place that victims and families and community

‘BREAK THE CYCLE OF GENERATIONAL POVERTY’: YOLO COUNTY BEGINS ALLOCATING BASIC INCOME TO FAMILIES IN POVERTY As part of project YOBI, families living in poverty and people experiencing homelessness have begun receiving monthly checks from Yolo County

BY CHRIS PONCE city@theaggie.org

The 2020 Census revealed that 28.4% of the people from Yolo County have an income below 150% of the poverty level. The poverty rate in Yolo County is at 20.9%, according to a 2022 press release. Experts and researchers from UC Davis have weighed in on the rising crisis of poverty in Yolo County, emphasizing the need for county action.

Dr. Catherine Brinkley, a faculty member of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences and member of UC Davis Center for Regional Change, weighed in on Yolo’s County’s poverty numbers in regards to the rest of California’s.

“This is critical in California because the Central Valley of California has some of the Nation’s most entrenched poverty levels,” Brinkley said. “Deeper than Appalachia, which is kind of the bench mark of poverty. So if Yolo County, the county with the third highest poverty rate in California, can demonstrate an impact, then there is real hope.”

Jacob Hibel, the co-director for UC Davis’ Center for Poverty & Inequality Research, made a statement via email on the need to address the poverty crisis.

“Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, Yolo County families were struggling economically, with about 1 in 5 households being below the poverty threshold, which is nearly the highest level of any county in California (https://www. ppic.org/publication/poverty-in-california/),” Hibel said via email. “Poverty hurts us all – not just those individuals who are directly experiencing financial hardship -- and in that respect, the need to address poverty (and child poverty in particular) is more urgent here in Yolo County than just about anywhere in our state.”

On April 1, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors began sending out monthly income to families in need to address the poverty crisis in the county. The pilot project titled Yolo County Basic Income (YOBI) will oversee monthly checks of $1,200 to $1,500 sent out to families in need. Nolan Sullivan, the Yolo County health and human services agency interim director who has helped run the pilot project, highlighted the differences between YOBI and Universal Basic Income (UBI).

“We’re calling ours more of a TBI,” Sullivan said. “It’s a super targeted basic income pilot.”

While Sullivan referenced the importance of UBI, he said it is important to understand how YOBI differs in its specificity.

“It’s not just like randomly distributing wealth amongst a group of people,” Sullivan said.

“We are laser focused on one particular group in Yolo County and really trying to break the rule of generational poverty for some of our most at risk families and youth in Yolo County.”

YOBI will be available for people experiencing homelessness and families on CalWORKS with children under the age of six. The county will determine the amount of money allocated by looking at every individual family’s income and allocating them enough income (on top of the CalWORKS Grant) to put them one dollar above the California Poverty Measure according to Sullivan. The 54 families that fit this criteria have already been identified and have begun receiving monthly payments.

UC Davis will be evaluating studies on the YOBI pilot program in order to determine the long term effects it will have on the county.

Some fields that the study will monitor include early childhood development, scalability, stress, education and career attainment, spending trend data, financial literacy and health outcomes, according to Sullivan. Brinkley, who will be heading this study, spoke on the cost-benefit effects this YOBI will have.

“Basic income is just another opportunity to give cash to families, particularly low income families who are facing a whole bunch of different stressors,” Brinkley said. “A lot of the social service programs can be cumbersome for families because you have to re-apply for [them].

A guaranteed program gives these families the flexibility to make different decisions about where they buy food, how they buy food, staying housed [and] childcare.”

Brinkley also responded to criticism that is often made about UBI and direct relief.

“The big fear with programs like this is that families won’t know how to spend the money or they will spend it irresponsibly,” Brinkley said.

“That has just not formed out in the studies that have been put out.”

The YOBI Pilot Project is making attempts to bring the poorest families in Yolo County out of poverty over a projected two year duration.

Yolo County Supervisor Don Saylor spoke and discussed a timeline of the project and its goals for the future of the county.

“We’ve got the program set up to last until March of 2024,” Saylor said. “So it’s two years of getting the folks to the point where they’re just above the poverty line. So it’s really quite interesting commentary that with Public Assistance Programs people remain in poverty, and in fact it’s so challenging for them to get out of that situation. Because of anything they do, let’s say they seek employment, they find a job [and] if they get paid just a little bit more they lose their benefits. What we’re trying to do is break the cycle of generational poverty by giving people this two year window of relief.”

members can come to share with us what they want done on their behalf.”

One of the major issues of the campaign is mental health. Rodriguez placed a focus on doing “positive things” for the community instead of doing things in “anger or to get back at someone.”

Both she and Reisig mentioned approaching the issues that face the district attorney’s office with science-based evidence.

“We try to find the root cause of the criminality,” Reisig said. “What is it that is driving this person to commit a crime? If it is mental illness, then there’s an assessment done by professionals that confirms that.”

Reisig emphasized that the district attorney’s job is not to treat mental illness but to divert people to the appropriate location.

“We partner with Health and Human Services, and they are the expert,” Reisig said.

“The district attorney is the chief law enforcement officer.”

Rodriguez believes that Reisig isn’t doing enough and is only “paying lip service” to mental health. She stated that the mental health court is not serving nearly enough people, and pointed out that a year in prison is more expensive to taxpayers than a robust mental health program.

“All people with mental health issues who become involved with the criminal court should be steered towards mental health services,” Rodriguez said. “The DA has a mental health court which only serves 32 people every year and a half to two years. This does not make a dent in the thousands of people with mental health issues who come to his court. Instead he forces

CHRISTINA LIU / AGGIE

pleas, takes this very small number, and says he can’t afford to do more, but as we all know, a budget is a statement of priorities, and he has not prioritized services to mental health.”

Reisig disagreed with Rodriguez’s statements, saying that they were merely campaign rhetoric.

“One of the things she keeps repeating is that the programs have barely helped anybody,” Reisig said. “It’s an opinion, and it’s an incendiary statement, and it ignores the fact that we’ve helped hundreds of people through the mental health diversion program, thousands of people through our restorative justice diversion programs, that have really robust community engagement, and then our addiction intervention courts, which are dealing with people who are seriously addicted.”

One of the more divisive events that has occurred in the course of the campaigns so far has been an accusation from Reisig that Rodriguez accepted donations from child molesters, according to an article in the Davis Vanguard.

Rodriguez said that the accusation was irrelevant to the important issues of the campaign.

“I thought that was a remark meant to distract,” Rodriguez said. “It wasn’t about the issues of the campaign, the issues of the campaign have been public safety and the ability of people to live in Yolo County with freedom from fear or danger, and the ability of the county to deal with the issues of drug and alcohol abuse, mental health issues, crime, homelessness.”

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

4 | THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022

VIRTUAL INFORMATION SESSIONS HELD

BY YOLO COUNTY ALLOW INDIVIDUALS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT APPRENTICESHIP OPPORTUNITIES Apprenticeships are focused on building trades and construction industries KELLIE LU / AGGIE

BY SHRADDHA JHINGAN city@theaggie.org

In a press release published on Feb. 28, Yolo County announced that people searching for jobs would have the opportunity to participate in Virtual Information Sessions, which would expose them to training for the building trade and construction industry.

There were two information sessions. The first was on March 8, and the second was held the following week on March 16.

The orientation course covers a variety of topics, according to the press release. These range from introduction to the industry to skills needed to excel in the role.

“The general orientation course includes construction industry structure and the construction process; orientation to apprenticeship; tools of the various trades; the safe handling of both hand and power tools; and industry standards of work responsibility and craft excellence,” the press release reads.

The apprenticeship program uses what is known as the Multi-Craft Core Curriculum (MC3). MC3 was created under “California Workforce Development Board’s High Road Construction Careers” and funded by Senate Bill 1 (SB1).

The description of the event further describes what SB1 is, stating that it is “a statewide initiative that puts dollars to work to advance careers in the building and construction trades as a reliable pathway to the middle class for disadvantaged Californians via multi-craft pre-apprenticeship training.”

Brian Peabody from Plumbers and Pipefitters Local Union 286 explained in a webinar that, in the field of construction, no previous experience is needed.

“I had a little bit of construction experience coming in, but the MC3 program is kind of designed to show folks that don’t really know a whole lot about the apprenticeship programs that are available to them,” Peabody said in the webinar.

By participating in the curriculum, people will gain more exposure to and learn about various fields. Peabody also highlighted this in the webinar. “[...] It’ll give you an opportunity to look at each of the different trades that have an apprenticeship program and kind of decide for yourself which one interests you the most,” Peabody said in the program.

Additionally, the course is the result of a collaboration between various organizations. These include the Yolo County Health and Human Services Agency Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, People Working Together, California Workforce Development Board, Highlands Community Charter School, SacramentoSierra’s Building & Construction Trades Council and Yolo County

Workforce Innovation Board.

In Yolo County, besides the Virtual Information sessions, there are also other opportunities and resources for jobseekers to gain skills and to help them with their job search. These include, but are not limited to organizations such as Yolo Employment Services and YoloWorks!, alongside events such as career fairs.

For example, recently the Yolo County Health and Human Services Agency, Yolo County Workforce Innovation Board, the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) and Yoloworks! hosted a Virtual Career Fair to enable jobseekers to learn more about different opportunities in eight programs at CDPH, according to a press release from Yolo County.

“Job seekers can learn about entry level to senior level career opportunities, chat with staff from multiple CDPH programs, and get questions about the State of California’s hiring process

answered by CDPH recruitment team,” the press release reads.

“Participating CDPH programs are General Administration & Operations, Emergency Preparedness, Research and Data, Medical Professionals (Physicians & Nurses), Scientific Career Fields, Information Technology, and Administration of Public Health Programs.”

Ultimately, the apprenticeship program and other such programs will help connect more people to more jobs while allowing them the opportunity to explore different careers. In a TED Talk, Plastics industry Vice President and General Manager Matt Poischbeg described the benefits of apprenticeships.

“We can close the skills gap; we can support our economy,” Poischbeg said. “Apprenticeships can become the backbone of the middle class in America.”

UC DAVIS STUDENT FARM HOSTS FARMSTAND GRAND OPENING The Farmstand will be open every Monday this quarter

Farmlands on UC Davis Property. (Claire Dipenbrock / Aggie)

BY ISABELLA KRZESNIAK campus@theaggie.org

The UC Davis Student Farm held its Farmstand grand opening on April 4 from 12 4 p.m. at Extension Center Drive. The farmer’s market-style event offered fresh produce, tea tastings, educational demonstrations and live music. The Farmstand will be open from 12 - 3 p.m. every Monday at the same location during school sessions.

The Farmstand is primarily organized by members of the Market Garden, an academic program under the Agricultural Sustainability Institute. It intends to foster community engagement and provide an educational experience for students, according to Emma Torbert, the Student Farm and Market Garden manager.

“Coming out of the pandemic, we really

wanted to have more engagement with the community and to have more connection with the Student Farm,” Torbert said.

Earlier this school year, the Farmstand was limited to members of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, a subscription service that provides prepackaged produce to UC Davis students and faculty.

This subscription program lacked community interaction, according to Kelly Weihrauch, a third-year environmental science major and a lead student farmer.

“It never felt that personal,” Weihrauch said.

“It didn’t feel like I had a connection with the CSA members.”

Now, the Student Farm also offers produce to the public at the Farmstand, where shoppers can choose the items they want. Weihrauch said that this reduces food waste.

“A lot of the time, we would get emails saying, ‘I didn’t use all of my produce’ or ‘My fennel has been sitting here for weeks,’” Weihrauch said.

“Now, people can pick what they want and leave what they want, so that way we can donate the rest of the produce [...] or keep it for later use in our coolers.”

Much of the produce from the Student Farm is donated to programs like Fruit and Veggie Up! and Fresh Focus.

The transition from creating and selling prepackaged baskets to hosting a farmstand was a process of trial and error, according to Weihrauch.

“People weren’t used to coming and picking out their own produce,” Weihrauch said.

Sarai Acosta, a lead student farmer and second-year graduate student studying international agricultural development, helped organize the tea tasting table at the Farmstand grand opening. Acosta, who has studied international trade policy, believes buying local produce has far-reaching benefits.

“In Central America, there are a lot of studies around people not being able to eat the corn that

they grow themselves,” Acosta said. “They have to buy imported corn from the United States.

So, by diversifying your diet and being OK with changing what you eat based on the season, you ironically end up helping people from all over the world.”

Mateo Alliende, a third-year environmental policy major and a lead student farmer, tabled for the grand opening at the Memorial Union.

The Student Farm teaches the community about sustainable agriculture through hands-on experience, according to Alliende.

“How to do agriculture in a sustainable and community-based way is [a] really cool goal to have, and it’s a big part of the UC Davis experience,” Alliende said.

Weihrauch hopes that the event raised awareness about the farm. “[The farm] is tucked away in this tiny little corner of campus,” Weihrauch said. “We want to bring people to the student farm and show them how much there is to enjoy with fresh produce.”

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022 | 5

OPINION

THE UC MUST COMMUNICATE HEALTH INSURANCE CHANGES WITH ITS EMPLOYEES Lack of coverage of essential medications causes undue stress for employees and students On Jan. 1, pharmaceutical coverage for UC employees and retirees on Anthem Blue Cross PPO insurance plans switched.

Previously covered by Anthem IngenioRx, the plans’ pharmaceutical and medical benefits were decoupled and pharmaceutical benefits were taken over by Navitus Health Solutions. This switch — which was not effectively communicated to impacted employees until March — has left some with essential medications or care no longer covered.

While it is not uncommon for employer health insurance to change medical and pharmaceutical benefit providers, this specific mishandling of such a change points to larger problems people face dealing with the health insurance industry. Jonathan Eisen, a UC Davis professor affected by the switch, explained that because his preferred insulin brand was no longer covered through Navitus, he might have been forced to pay between $8,000 and $10,000 a year for essential medication if he did not go through the laborious process of requesting, and obtaining, an exemption.

Navitus does cover some insulin brands, but the change left Eisen with two options: change brands, which would require learning an entirely new insulin delivery method and dealing with possible side effects of adapting to new medication, or jump through hoops spending hours on the phone and filling out tons of paperwork to apply for, and maybe get, an exemption that would grant him coverage of his current medication.

This points to a larger issue many patients face when their healthcare changes. After dealing with discomfort or physical illness, going through the process of identifying a diagnosis, finding a treatment plan that helps manage that diagnosis and health insurance that pays for some of it, patients may then find themselves scrambling just to maintain that regimen when their employer changes health insurance providers or their health insurance provider changes its coverage.

Putting this burden on UC employees without proper notification and transparency is not okay. Eisen, like many affected employees, did not receive notice of the pharmaceutical benefit manager change’s impact on the coverage of his medication, which took effect on Jan. 1, until March.

As the pharmaceutical benefit company, Navitus is responsible for communicating with its new members about their coverage, but it is still the UC’s responsibility to look out for its employees by holding Navitus accountable and ensuring that all necessary information is sent to impacted individuals in a timely manner.

Given that many have speculated that the switch was done to save the university system money, the UC has a responsibility to be

communicative and transparent to ensure a smooth transition for changes that affect its employees.

Navitus states on its website that it offers cost-effective alternatives and generic brands in order to keep costs low, but some UC employees say that this is at the expense of their ease and quality of care.

Unlike employees, UC Davis students who have healthcare through the university are not given multiple plan options. All students are eligible for one insurance plan: an Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield preferred provider organization (PPO) plan called UC SHIP. Some students have reported that through this coverage, they are unable to acquire their preferred insulin, or have struggled to have a high enough percentage of their medications or care covered to afford it.

Though UC SHIP was not affected by the switch to Navitus, many students responded to a Twitter thread Eisen had posted of his experience, bringing to light that both students and employees face problems with their respective insurance plans through the UC. Obviously, these patients’ struggles are not the fault of the UC alone. Some medications, like insulin, are egregiously expensive because both manufacturers and pharmaceutical benefit managers know that individuals need to purchase them regardless of the cost. A vial of insulin can be roughly $300 — 30,000% more than the original $1 patent price. If the insulin patients’ need is not covered by their insurance, some may not be able to afford critical medication.

It also goes without saying that the health insurance system itself is confusing to navigate. The process of finding out your benefits, understanding deductibles and copays, managing co-insurance, getting referred for out of network coverage and then filing for refunds for that coverage can be a lot. For patients like Eisen, who do need to get an exemption for their medication to be covered by their insurance, scheduling an appointment to see a doctor to write to the insurance company detailing the necessity of this exemption and then waiting for that exemption to be approved or denied can take months due to long wait times. In these months, costs can add up and the stress of potentially not getting an exemption and being responsible for those costs can be devastating.

But while the structural issues within the healthcare system are not easy to address, and neither individuals nor the UC can be expected to do so unilaterally, the university system can and should do more to provide the best support they can for employees and students. Students should have multiple plan options to choose

FACE REVEAL

BY SEANNE JAVIER sajavier@ucdavis.edu

THE

C ALIFORNIA A GGIE

EDITO RIA L B OA RD ANJINI VENUGOPAL Editor-in-Chief MARGO ROSENBAUM Managing Editor SOPHIE DEWEES Campus News Editor MADELEINE PAYNE City News Editor EDEN WINNIFORD Opinion Editor KATIE DEBENEDETTI Features Editor ALLIE BAILEY Arts & Culture Editor OMAR NAVARRO Sports Editor MICHELLE WONG Science & Tech Editor

KATHLEEN QUINN New Media Manager BENJAMIN CHENG Photo Director KATHERINE FRANKS Design Director JOELLE TAHTA Layout Director ANNE THISELTON-DYER Copy Chief SABINE LLOYD Copy Chief DARSHAN SHIVAKUMAR Website Manager ANTHONY NGUYEN Social Media Manager JOSHUA GAZZANIGA Distribution Manager JENNA HEATH Marketing Manager JELENA LAPUZ Outreach Director LAURIE PEDERSON Business Development Manager

from to address their differing health care needs and the university system must clearly and transparently communicate with their employees and students about their health insurance options and prioritize providing them with stable, quality care.

WHO WON THE MLB LOCKOUT? Why Major League Baseball was almost canceled this year

AMY YU/ AGGIE

BY ALEX MOTAWI almotawi@ucdavis.edu

Whenever someone says something like “You don’t look like what I expected,” I never know how to take it. It’s a super neutral remark, but I can’t help but wonder if they mean it as a compliment or not. This cartoon is just a little play on that thought.

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

Baseball is America’s sport. The country has been running the bases since 1846 and has spread the sport all across the world. It has been integrated into many cultures, which have created their own rich baseball histories. The pinnacle of baseball achievement in the U.S. is winning the World Series by being the best team in Major League Baseball (MLB), the primary league in the U.S. since 1876. Old-time baseball stars like Babe Ruth and Ted Williams are some of the most famous people in the U.S. Let’s be honest — lots of people today (including me) know more about them than even presidents from the same period. In my eyes, one of the only things as deeply ingrained into American culture as baseball and the MLB is capitalism.

This winter, when those two societal mainstays collided in the form of the lockout, who won?

Some quick context to get us rolling: The players and their union make what’s called a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the MLB (team owners and commissioner).

The CBA is essentially the league’s constitution; it covers the rules of the game, both on and off the diamond. But unlike a governmental constitution, it expires every few years and has to be renegotiated, which happened last winter.

Since 1993, every time the CBA has reached the verge of expiring, the parties have reorganized the pact to accommodate the changing times. But this year, the two parties were so strongly divided that the owners and the players couldn’t reach a labor agreement, so the players effectively were put on strike almost all winter, and the MLB “locked them out” of playing games.

The disagreements between the two parties came down almost entirely to compensation (i.e. capitalism). The MLB has been extremely profitable, with a majority of the profit going straight into the coffers of team owners instead of the players. Player salaries have been going down for the last few years even as league profits have increased, and the lockout began because players were negotiating for better compensation. During the lockout, most of the communication and

bargaining between the groups was about trying to raise the salary for the players, specifically the younger players on rookie contracts.

The lockout played out like the Cold War. The sides couldn’t come to an agreement with threats constantly looming, even though both sides would lose if they couldn’t reach an accord.

Thankfully, they did reach an agreement and were able to avoid more cancellations, but who won? And who caved?

As a current fan and someone who loves to cheer for unions taking what they deserve from greedy employers, I think the players got scammed. I believe the MLB was in a position of power from the start, as the billionaire owners could afford to skip games while the players (with a previous minimum salary of $570,500 a year which was changed to $700,000 as part of the agreement) can’t afford to spend the prime of their careers without getting paid.

Let’s look at the final voting totals. The MLB presented the final deal to the union first, and once the players agreed to it, the owners ratified it unanimously with a vote of 30-0. On the union side, it was accepted with a 26-4 vote by the players and a 0-8 vote by the executive subcommittee responsible for the union’s side of the negotiation. The players caved in and wanted to play, even though the people they paid to advise them all voted against the proposition.

Can I blame them? No. It’s their money, not mine, and they did get better treatment than they were receiving previously. Could they have gotten closer to the amount they deserved if they held out longer? Probably.

I’m super excited to watch baseball this season, but the lockout and monetary dispute that almost ruined the season are going to be in the back of my mind — as well as some regret that the billionaire owners have won yet again.

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, APRIL 7, 2022

ARTS & CULTURE

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

IMMERSE YOURSELF IN JIM HENSON’S MAGICAL WORLDS “The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited” at the Contemporary Jewish Museum is everything any fan of his work could ask for (and more)

BY ANGIE CUMMINGS arts@theaggie.org The Contemporary Jewish Museum (CJM) in San Francisco exalts Jim Henson’s various fantastic and vibrantly colored puppetpopulated worlds in their current exhibition, “The Jim Henson Exhibition: Imagination Unlimited,” on view now through Aug. 14. The show is a part of a traveling exhibition made by the Museum of the Moving Image that has been put on across the country for over four years now — the CJM being the penultimate stop along the national tour.

At first look, the exhibit just seems to be a comprehensive chronology of Henson’s life and career, from his humble beginnings as a cartoonist in high school and college, and through his incredibly successful career as a puppeteer and filmmaker.

Once you are within the technicolor walls of this exhibition, it is abundantly clear that Henson and the legacy he set was so much more than an amalgamation of psychedelic felt animals, monsters and aliens. As Head Curator Heidi Rabben puts it, “[Henson] went into the space of television and saw how to make it successful and was really innovative, but he retained an element of artistry that he really continued to push.”

Whether your main interest in visiting this show is simply seeing some of Henson’s most famous puppets in person, checking out the early sketches for these iconic characters or learning how Kermit was able to ride a bike, you will come out the other end of the exhibit having a new (or renewed) appreciation for Henson’s bright and joyful story of success. Henson is what seems to be a rare case in the world of Hollywood and commercial entertainment — there is no point in his career that he lost sight of the reasons why he began in the first place. At his core he was an experimental artist, always pushing what was possible in television through his puppets and later much more sophisticated animatronics.

While the CJM often features varied contemporary artists regardless of their faith, “[Henson] is the first major pop culture figure that is not Jewish that we have ever presented at the museum,” Rabben said. As is noted on the museum website and introductory wall of the exhibition, there really is no question about why this show belongs in the CJM. “It’s actually not about Jewish identity, it’s about the values that are more important and the ways in which those continue to transcend and live on,” Rabben said.

From the educational and social topics tackled on Sesame Street to help children learn and grow in enjoyable ways, to the visually and temperamentally diverse ensemble that makes up The Muppets, “Henson shared characters and stories that represent diverse identities and abilities, allowing people of all backgrounds to see themselves reflected on screen,” as the main title wall of the exhibition states, making it crystal clear as to why his creations have been (and continue to be) adored by fans of all walks of life for over 50 years.

A second part to the show, titled “Jim Henson: Making

Jim Henson and his iconic creation Kermit the Frog, in front of a mural by Coulter Watt. Kermit the Frog © Disney/Muppets. (The Jim Henson Company/Museum of the Moving Image / Courtesy, Photo by John E. Barrett) a Difference,” functions as a perfect complement to the main exhibition, created entirely by the curatorial team at the CJM. In a smaller room on the same floor as “Imagination Unlimited” there is a continuous screening of selected clips, episodes and films by Henson and his team that especially highlight how his legacy aligns so well with the museum’s core values. With just the large projection screen and cushioned benches in the center of the beautifully designed room, it is a great way to unwind and reflect after going through the exuberant main show.

At his core, Henson was a creative force with no fear of what was new or different: “that element of play and experimentation that was with him from such a young age, and that is such a credit

to how successful he was,” Rabben said. Although Henson’s life was sadly cut short at the age of 53, so many of his creations live on, both in the hearts of his fans and on screen.

From learning to count with Elmo, or singing along with Kermit, to entering the magical worlds of “Labyrinth” (1986) and “Dark Crystal” (1982), Henson has been the man behind so many favorite childhood characters — all of them imbued with his joyful and creative vision of the world.

Considering Henson’s innovative and inclusive forms of entertainment and his place in pop culture, Rabben reflected on the artist’s life: “He already has such an incredible legacy that continues, had he lived long what else would he have done?”

‘FROM MOMENT TO MOVEMENT’: ART AND PROTEST The Manetti Shrem Museum’s new installation challenges dominant power structures through video art

BY JACOB ANDERSON arts@theaggie.org Album: “Day Trip” by Pat Metheny (2008) One of the better entries in his discography, “Day Trip” is Pat Metheny at his most evocative. Here, Metheny’s guitar jazz is bustling and intricate while creating a casual atmosphere suggestive of sprawling cities and warm days. The best tracks, like the opener, “Son of Thirteen,” feel as if lunch hour in San Francisco were rendered in musical form. The sound is lush and ever-changing, and the album is definitely one of several high-water marks in the career of a classic jazz guitarist.

Kota Ezawa, National Anthem, 2018. Video projection with sound (1:38 min.). Collection of Pamela and Richard Kramlich. © Kota Ezawa. (The Kramlich Collection / Courtesy)

BY SIERRA JIMENEZ arts@theaggie.org “Why here, why now? Why Davis, why this moment?”

These are questions that Susie Kantor, the curator of the Manetti Shrem exhibition “From Moment to Movement,” asked herself in the summer of 2021 when considering what the museum’s next art installation should highlight.

Wanting to curate an exhibition that spoke to the current social and political moment, she chose to focus on protest. “[This exhibition] shows the relevance of art and the power of art and artists,” she said.

A six piece exhibition with works drawn from the Bay Area-based Kramlich Collection, taking real world events to display moments of protest and resistance around the globe through video art.

“From Moment to Movement: Picturing Protest in the Kramlich Collection” is on display at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art from Jan. 27 to June 19.

Located on campus for students, faculty and community members alike to enjoy, this exhibition utilizes UC Davis professors and students to help create this beautifully-executed, collaborative installation.

Kantor worked closely from start to finish with the exhibition design team, composed of UC Davis undergraduate design students —

Ama Benkuo Bonsu (‘20), Marcus Dubois (‘20), Jen Piccinio (‘21), Alejandra Valladares-Alvarez (‘20), Zoey Ward (‘21), Jovita Lois Wattimena (‘21) and Genevieve C Zanaska (‘21) — supervised by Brett Snyder, an associate professor of design at UC Davis.

These students not only helped design the complicated layout and display of the videobased exhibition, but also designed the opening title piece, catching the attention of viewers from the first step into the exhibit.

The student’s colorful sign which changes from “FROM MOMENT” to “TO MOVEMENT” depending on where the viewer stands, suggests a glimpse of hope that there can be change despite the taxing content.

This exhibition is particularly unique because of its video-based art installations rather than traditional two-dimensional artwork. This sensory experience allows the viewers to fully immerse themselves into the artwork and into these representations of real life moments of resistance.

Through video, a medium so relevant in our everyday lives — especially for students and younger generations — “we hope [the video art] is something that students would connect to” on a different level of familiarity, Kantor said.

“Video art allows you to live with [the art] in a different way.”

MOMENTTOMOVEMENT on 9

TV Show: “Mad Men” (2007) “Mad Men” deserves recognition for achieving the rare status of “show longer than six seasons that remains good the whole way through.” That’s not an easy feat, especially when you consider that not a single member of the cast gets a lackluster arc over the show’s seven seasons. The show charts the changing mores of 1960s America through the lives of employees at an advertising agency, with pivotal moments in history that the passage of time is felt in every level of the show.

“Mad Men” is most famous, though, for its iconic protagonist Don Draper, whose mysterious mien slowly recedes to reveal the self-destructive tendencies engendered by early 20th-century America — a development that mimics the identification and abandonment of failing tradition that the 1960s are known for. Few other shows can claim the quality of writing found in “Mad Men,” with other comparable prestige dramas like “Breaking Bad” and “The Sopranos” floundering for stretches.

Most of the credit probably belongs to showrunner Matthew Weiner, whose brilliantly structured pilot sets up much of the show’s arc from its first moments.

Movie: “Sexy Beast” dir. Jonathan Glazer (2000) Jonathan Glazer’s debut feature was a far cry from the film he is most known for nowadays, 2013’s “Under the Skin,” which was a vexing, unpleasant and partially improvised film notorious for its depiction of Scarlett Johansson as a man-murdering alien. While less bewildering than that film, “Sexy Beast” still manages to transform the well-worn heist movie into something almost unrecognizable. It follows a retired safe-cracker, Gal, who is importuned by his old boss into doing one more job. The film has a familiar enough plot, but Ben Kingsley’s performance as said boss elevates the film into something of interest: He’s socially unaware, grating, violent and a proper whirlwind whose impending presence elicits an almost physical despair in Gal and company. The film largely deals with the building antagonism between Gal and his boss — it’s basically a heist movie where the heist is an afterthought, almost irrelevant compared to the complex personalities involved. It’s thrilling and leagues better than “Under the Skin,” in my humble opinion.

Book: “The Master of Go” by Yasunari Kawabata (1951) Definitive representative of the Japanese postwar novel and Nobel-prize winner Yasunari Kawabata called “The Master of Go” his greatest work: a meaningful statement on its own, but magnified by the degree to which the book separates itself from the meticulous, spiritual novels that compose the rest of his bestknown works. “The Master of Go” is a semi-fictional account of the final game between Go master Honinbo Shūsai and challenger Minoru Kitani prior to the former’s death — a marathon showdown that lasted almost half a year. Interlaced between diagrams of the board and Kawabata’s discussions of strategy with others in attendance are the histories and thoughts of the players, who are both aware that this will probably be the final, defining game of the master’s career. The game itself is of course fascinating, but it serves mostly as a form through which the master’s stoic, melancholic beauty is demonstrated. At the core of the novel is the sweetness of decline, one life determined and finally ended by a tradition that stretches thousands of years into the past.

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022 | 7

COMMENTARY: THE ONGOING, AWRY ADAPTATION OF ‘AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER’ Netflix neglects to fulfill its promises of improved inclusivity efforts with the live-action cast of “Avatar: The Last Airbender”

BY SUN YIE arts@theaggie.org Nickelodeon’s “Avatar: The Last Airbender” (AtLA) is an acclaimed and beloved show that became popular in part due to its incorporation of multiculturalism. The show is centered around a team of “benders” — people who can manipulate the four elements of earth, fire, wind and water — who use their powers to stop the aggressive, imperialistic fire nation from its barbaric conquest of neighboring countries and tribes.

When Netflix announced in 2018 that it was going to produce a live-action adaptation of this show with the creative oversight of Bryan Konietzko and Martin DiMartino, the original show creators, fans began to look forward to this show, anticipating a much more diverse cast that reflected the show’s multiculturalism in a way that M. Shyamalan’s “The Last Airbender” failed to accomplish.

However, fans were soon met with Konietzko and DiMartino’s announcement in 2020 that they would be departing from Netflix’s creative team. Though the creators didn’t elaborate further upon their reason to separate from the large production company, DiMartino pointed to irreconcilable “creative differences” as their main source of conflict. “Netflix’s live-action has the potential to be good… but… it will not be what Bryan and I had envisioned or intended to make,” DiMartino claimed in a Tumblr post addressed to eager AtLA fans.

Since this announcement, other news outlets, such as FandomWire, have claimed to have dug deeper into the cited creative differences by speaking exclusively to sources within Netflix and have since revealed a few reasons for the creators’ departures — one of which concerned issues about cast diversity.

Reportedly, Netflix had wanted to extend their casting process to include white people — an idea that was met with vitriol by Konietzko and DiMartino, who had promised their fans an alldiverse cast to accurately reflect and honor the assortment of Asian cultures that inspired the show’s origins, especially since the last live-action adaptation of the beloved show had whitewashed the characters and erased the cultural influences of the story.

Despite the public break up between Netflix and the original

Avatar the Last Airbender Logo. (Courtesy of Nickelodeon Animation Studios) AtLA show creators a few years ago, the new casting list of characters that the production company released a year ago seemed to respect the original creators’ intent in producing a diverse team composed of ethnic minorities.

When asked about his vision, Albert Kim, AtLA’s showrunner, claimed that his casting decision process was influenced by his desire to portray Asian and Indigenous characters as real people, especially since there was still little media representation of the two minority groups. He claimed to have pushed for “authenticity to the story… and the cultural influences” in the casting process.

However, it has since come to light that Ian Ousley, the actor who plays Sokka, an Indigenous character hailing from the Southern Water Tribe, has lied about his Cherokee heritage.

Though his management listed him as an actor from the Cherokee tribe, fans have discovered that he is not affiliated with any of the governmentally recognized Cherokee tribes. A Google search also identifies Ian Ousley as Caucasian, further dismantling this narrative that both Ousley and his management have pushed forth about his ethnic heritage.

Though both fans and the Cherokee Phoenix have reached out to Netflix and have demanded a deeper background check on Ian Ousley’s heritage, their requests have gone unanswered, leaving AtLA fans questioning the credibility of their promise of inclusivity a year ago, in which they claimed they were “committed in… inspiring change within [their] industries - so more people can feel seen, heard, and supported.”

REVIEW: AVRIL LAVIGNE’S ‘LOVE SUX’ AND THE POP-PUNK PROBLEM What does it mean to say that the pop-punk princess has returned?

BY CORALIE LOON arts@theaggie.org It’s the year 2002: Mount Nyiragongo Volcano erupts, a new type of black hole is discovered and — clearly most important of all — Avril Lavigne’s debut single “Complicated” hits the streets along with its accompanying album, “Let Go” (2002).

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is about Lavigne that makes her so iconic — besides being a central emblem of pop-punk music in the early 2000s, her presence in the public spotlight led to her becoming a fashion icon for grunge and skater-girl styles. Whether or not any of these facts interest you, you have still likely bobbed your head to a radio broadcast of “Complicated,” and for many of us, her early songs remain poignant and nostalgic touchstones of musical eras within our lives.

Her latest album “Love Sux” (2022) was released on Jan. 25 of this year, serving as a reminder of the pop-punk icon of my generation’s early years. Many have viewed her newest album as a return to her roots. But what does it mean for the pop-punk princess to be back?

In my opinion, what makes Lavigne iconic was always her ability to explore different dimensions of music. Even the label “pop-punk” can be limiting; Lavigne herself has rejected the term “punk” to describe her music. “You can’t label people, give them a word and say ‘this is what you are,’” she said in a MIX iT interview.

Lavigne’s older work — consisting of the period between “Let Go” and “Under My Skin” (2004) — combined electric guitar and punk elements with the more easy-going vocals and acoustics of early 2000s pop. Then came “The Best Damn Thing” in 2007, which paired an exaggeration of sassy lyrics in songs like “Girlfriend” and “The Best Damn Thing” with the album cover, characterized by a pink and black palette.

This clash between “bubblegum pop” and more traditional pop-punk eventually sided more with the pop side in her newer albums,particularly “Goodbye Lullaby” (2011) and “Head Above Water” (2019). The sappy and often slow pop, griddled with piano and acoustic guitar, led some to retract the title of “pop-punk princess,” such as

a Spinditty article that claimed “she’s completely changed her sound.” The contrast between this era of Lavigne and the edgy pizzazz of “Love Sux” was enough to warrant The Guardian’s vibe check of her newest album: “Party like it’s 2002.”

But is there a cost to devaluing her newest work to a simple “throwback” whose value lies only in its subjective nostalgia? Is “Love Sux” really just a modern version of “Let Go”?

I would argue that this mentality strives to separate the artist from the artwork, or else to suggest that Lavigne has somehow returned to her old self or, even more problematically, to her “true self,” suggesting that a prominent era of her existence as an artist was somehow fraudulent.

To dismiss one era of Lavigne in favor of another compromises the idea of an artist’s journey. In an article by Nancy Hillis, she suggests that artists “move through developmental cycles much like the stages of human development.” In a continuous stage of evolution, “Love Sux” is nothing like a new version of “Let Go,” because Lavigne is fundamentally a different person than she was in 2002.

More than a throwback to a specific era, “Love Sux” is a culmination of everything Lavigne has explored between then and now.

The snappy lyrics of “Bite Me” are reminiscent of “Girlfriend”-era songs, while the fast-paced electric guitar in “Bois Lie” takes me back to heavily punk-inspired “Sk8er Boi.” Even “Avalanche” and “Dare to Love Me” seem to give a shoutout to her more mainstream pop moments in “Head Above Water” (although with a good extra dose of electric guitar).

All in all, “Love Sux” is a bold collection of songs that takes elements of Lavigne’s older music to new (but also nostalgic) heights, once again showing us that she has not forgotten her artistic journey. Reliant on many moments of her past, “Love Sux” is both a time capsule of musical growth and an example of a new moment in Avril Lavigne’s career.

So, party like it’s 2022!

Avril Lavigne performing in 2014. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

8 | THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

SUDOKU Enter digits from 1 to 9 into the blank spaces.

Every row, column and 3x3 square must contain each digit. Each Sudoku has a unique solution that can be reached logically without guessing.

Answer to previous puzzle 03/31/22

reduce. reuse. recycle.

The aggie CROSSWORD Answer to previous puzzle 03/31/22

Scan this QR code to subscribe to The California Aggie’s Newsletter!

9 | THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

HEALTHINSURANCE2 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Increasing debts for student’s durable medical equipment Other graduate students said they have faced similar challenges with getting their medications and medical equipment covered.

Kelsey Brewer, a Ph.D. candidate in the soils and biogeochemistry graduate group, has type 1 diabetes and is hypoglycemic resistant, meaning he does not experience physical indicators when he has low blood sugar. As a result, he is reliant on a continuous glucose monitor, which he said the university does not substantially cover.

Brewer commented on Eisen’s Twitter thread, saying that his student insurance has not covered his insulin for over two years, nor his continuous glucose monitor. Brewer graduated with a B.S. in plant sciences from UC Davis in 2016 and said he has seen declines in the quality of student health insurance. He used to be on Novolog, which stopped being covered for him about three and a half years ago.

Now, Brewer is on Lantus insulin, which the student health insurance covers, and a generic form of Novolog insulin, he said. Lantus is a suboptimal form of insulin for him, and he has a “substantial copay” of about $150 out of pocket every month, he says.

Since April 2021, Brewer says he has accumulated $8,500 in medical debt for his continuous glucose monitor, which is considered a durable medical device and is not fully covered by his insurance.

“By the time I finish my program, I will be lucky if I don’t have $12,000 in medical debt, and the only reason I stayed is because I see the finish line and I need this degree to lift myself out

of poverty,” Brewer said.

Brewer said he had to advocate for himself to qualify for the continuous glucose monitor. “​​I had an incident when I was camping in which I almost died from low blood sugar and it was like a huge wake-up call,” he said. “That was really the only thing that got me qualified, which is very frustrating.”

Trout and Atwood of SHCS said that glucose monitors are covered as durable medical equipment at 80% after a deductible is met under UC SHIP. Trout and Atwood said that Anthem is the medical benefits provider for UC SHIP and covers durable medical equipment needs.

In Brewer’s experience, he said that UC SHIP has not covered his continuous glucose monitor at 80% and has not offered him any help in getting it covered. Between January to March 2021, Brewer said he ordered his continuous glucose monitor directly from Dexcom, the manufacturer of continuous glucose monitors.

Dexcom has since outsourced to Edgepark, which bills the monitor as a durable medical equipment device instead of a prescription, which has resulted in Brewer’s medical bill spiking, he said. When Brewer went through Dexcom, they billed his insurance as a prescription, which has a different coverage under UC SHIP. With in-network durable medical equipment, Brewer said, the UC will pay 80% after a $100 deductible, but when it is out of network then the UC only pays 60% after a $200 deductible.

Further, out-of-network durable medical equipment has an “out of pocket maximum” of $6,000 per benefit year. Brewer said this means that he has to pay up to $6,000 per year before

UC SHIP would cover 100% of his durable medical equipment.

“It honestly brings me to tears; it’s really sad,” he said. “I tried to work with the insurance at UC Davis […] I tried to work with Edgepark and Dexcom to bill it as a prescription rather than a durable medical equipment device, and nobody does anything about it.”

Brewer said he is not sure if Dexcom was considered in-network with UC SHIP, but his out-of-pocket expenses were much lower for those initial three months in 2021. Dexcom was contacted for comment by The Aggie but had not responded as of April 5.

Dexcom used to act as a pharmacy, but now they do not process their own orders. The company’s website states: “Dexcom is no longer processing or fulfilling Dexcom [continuous glucose monitor] orders directly online. If you’re in need of immediate supplies, please order through your assigned medical supplier or pharmacy.”

Trout said she cannot confirm any student claims history because that is protected health information, but she provided insight into the durable medical equipment coverage process.

She said that supplies for people with diabetes fall under durable medical equipment in the UC SHIP benefit plan but there is also coverage for these items as a prescription under OptumRx. Coverage will depend on whether students purchase supplies from a durable medical distributor or a pharmacy.

For durable medical equipment, she said the best coverage in-network is 80%.

“They can shop for the supplier or pharmacy

SENATE

DAVISWOMEN

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 10

Member of the public Stephen Fujimoto said that he was concerned that SB #68 and SB #69 were postponed due to strong student concern on the issue regarding the portion of student fees that fund Athletics. He asked for clarification on why these bills were not visited at the meeting.

“If this passes through IAC, it is more likely that [the administration and ASUCD] will recognize its legitimacy,” IAC Chairperson Kabir Sahni said.

Sahni stated that the process of ballot voting on fee changes needs to be rewritten due to poor language and unclear processes, but that takes

time and needs support from IAC. Chairperson Sahni discussed his struggles with the Election Committee due to scheduling conflicts and asked for this issue to be placed on the agenda for next week.

Isabelle Poux, the previous ASUCD controller, quit her position. Current Vice Controller Sabrina Zahid is filling the role as interim controller. ASUCD is in the process of hiring a new controller, and the vacancy is posted according to Gawde.

The meeting was adjourned by Martinez Hernandez at 9:15 p.m.

WELCOME2026 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 “There’s definitely a place for everyone to fit in, and you definitely find your group,” Heller said. “I know high school can be really small, but Davis is really big, and within it you can find your community and a lot of similar people with similar interests who will make it feel a lot smaller.”

Cynthia Fernandez, a molecular, cellular and integrative physiology (MCIP) graduate student, agreed that building a community in Davis is super important freshman year.

“Try to enjoy your first few quarters here,

and make some friends, and just definitely get comfortable with the campus,” she said.

“Definitely dive into your academia, and it’s really important to establish a support system here in Davis, especially if you’re not from the area. Just get involved with many clubs and activities, which obviously will help with making friends and establishing that support system too.

Also, take advantage of the resources they have here on campus, because it really will help you if you’re lost in any way.”

READ FULL STORY ONLINE

Sze is writing “Climate Justice as Freedom,” a book that discusses climate justice as a freedom struggle. She hopes that this book will be a way to educate others on climate justice movements and motivate people to get involved in the climate justice movement. She has previously written “Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger”, in which she discusses what she calls “non-naive, radical hope,” which she feels is necessary when facing these complicated issues.

“What I want to do through my writing is to cultivate that culture of non-naive radicalism,” Sze said. “We have to be radical, we have to be hopeful, we have to believe that change is possible. We have a lot of information, but where do we go from knowing that these problems exist to motivating people to do something about it — not to just be overwhelmed.”

Sze said that a lot of the women in the environmental justice movement, as well as those bringing awareness to Asian American communities are role models for her.

“Environmental justice is a feminist movement,” Sze said. “The fight for environmental justice is led by women. There’s so much work to be done, and these movements and these women have been working for their whole lives. All I can do is try to contribute and support and build. That’s all that I want to do for the rest of my life.”

ASTRONAUTLETTUCE

MOMENTTOMOVEMENT

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6 Although all six pieces in the installation are video works, the artists all use the medium “wildly different[ly],” Kantor said. The different viewer experiences mirror the ways in which “we receive media and how we understand events.”

There is a recommended viewing order of each piece through the installation, starting with Dara Birnbaum’s “Tiananmen Square: BreakIn Transmission,” (1988-90). This five-channel video installation with four channels of audio leads the viewer to an active role in experiencing this grandiose piece.

The sound of the Taiwanese students singing “The Wound of History” immerses the viewer as if they were in Tiananmen Square, Beijing in solidarity with the students.

With snippets of real news clips from the student-led protests, the video and sound are overlapped, with some synchronicity from a hidden surveillance camera, picking certain footage to display on a larger monitor, representative of how and what we intake from media.

The exhibition text, written by Kantor, points out, “in this work, Dara Birnbaum zeroes in on the way that the media plays a crucial role in our understanding of the event… the installation mimics the haphazard and creative ways that information was transmitted in the moment: through television footage, audio clips and even fax machines.”

On a much smaller monitor, Mikhael Subotzky’s “CCTV” (2010) displays a singlechannel silent video of unedited police footage from Johannesburg, South Africa in 2009 and 2010. Subotzky left the videos unaltered except for deliberately timing the ending so that all suspects look directly into the camera all at once — as if they were all being examined by the viewer.

Stated in the exhibition text, “By turning the subjects’ gazes back on the viewer, Subotzky underscores the way that surveillance practices are used for social control and how these tactics are normalized.”

As you turn the corner of the exhibition, UC Davis professor and established artist, Shiva Ahmadi’s newest animation, “Marooned” (2021), visualizes the impacts of former president Former President Donald Trump’s 2016 Muslim ban through the digitalization of 5,172 rich watercolor paintings.

“This film is an allegory of the labor and determination required to immigrate to a new country and the setbacks so many immigrants face, challenging the myth of the United States as a path to a better life,” as stated in the exhibition text.

Additionally, Ahmadi’s personal correspondence on the exhibition text states, “My practice examines the intersection of religion and politics through storytelling… I was inspired to create Marooned after seeing an image of a young child watching cartoons from behind a table during the bombing of Gaza, a reminder of my own childhood.”

Continuing into the darkest section of the exhibition, the red room of Nalini Malani’s “Unity in Diversity” (2003) lures the audience into the cozy environment to create the

Julie Sze — American studies professor and founding director of the Environmental Justice Project Julie Sze, a professor of American Studies at UC Davis for 19 years as well as an environmental justice researcher and the founding director of the Environmental Justice Project for UC Davis’ Institute for the Environment, said that her interest in environmental justice was spurred by an undergraduate course she took at UC Berkeley on race, poverty and the environment.

“I was so angry when I learned about everything that I didn’t learn before,” Sze said.

“I’m angry at racism and I’m angry at the killing of Indigenous people and I’m angry at the exploitation of the land. What motivates me is to know that we have to be outraged, but we can’t be nihilistic. [...] I try to understand how people feel and understand my own feelings about the state of the world and go someplace else within.”

The Environmental Justice Project builds partnerships with Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) communities, industry leaders, local government and multidisciplinary researchers to inform public policy and prepare students to conduct research and address environmental justice.

Using this strong passion as motivation, Professor Sze has been researching in the field of environmental justice for many years. Currently,

they like best, but always be sure to ask if they are in-network to get the best coverage,” Trout said via email.

Trout said there are other Dexcom suppliers that are in-network for UC SHIP, such as Bedard Pharmacy, which she said she called and confirmed that they are in-network with the Anthem PPO plan, which is UC SHIP’s plan.

For pharmacy, the highest copay a student might have for a 30-day supply is $40. If the continuous glucose monitor can be found at either a durable medical equipment supplier or a pharmacy, Trout said she recommends purchasing continuous glucose monitors through a supplier that is in-network and bills as durable medical equipment if the price is less than $200.

“I would encourage any student that finds their diabetic supplies are suddenly out-ofnetwork to contact us for help in switching to an in-network supplier or pharmacy,” Trout said via email.

physical illusion of being in a middle-class postindependence Indian home.

This single-channel video projection is supported with ornate living-room style components such as black and white framed photographs of Gandhi, furniture and lights.

Made as a response to the riots in the province of Gujarat, India in 2002, “Malani points to how the reality of democracy often fails to live up to hard-won principles,” stated in the exhibition’s description.

When you thought the exhibition couldn’t get any darker, the viewer walks blindly into Theaster Gates’ “Dance of Malaga” (2019) — a single-channel larger than life projection with six solid wooden stools fixated in their respective spaces.

This large-scale video art is overwhelming; the content is difficult to watch yet beautifully executed. Meant to illustrate a possible future of what could have been from the small island of Malaga in Maine in the 19th century, Gates utilizes various elements of dance, music, commercials, home videos, historical texts and scenes from the 1959 film “Imitation of Life,” to represent a world void of systemic racism.

“That’s the reason why making art is my political and social platform, and my spiritual and emotional platform…I want my protest to be in the labor of my artistic practice,” stated Gates in the accompanying exhibition text.

Probably the most recognizable gesture of protest for modern Americans is Kota Ezawa’s “National Anthem” 2018 — a single-channel video composed of digitized water colors that represents the monumental kneel of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, during the 2016 NFL season.

With an instrumental version of “The Star Spangled Banner” playing in the background of the muted visuals, Ezawa spotlights the gravity of communal protests without comment.

“As a sports fan, I understood the civic courage that the players displayed in that moment, risking their careers for the benefit of a social cause. It highlighted the connection between patriotism and protest — or that protest can be a form of patriotism,” stated Ezawa in a personal correspondence displayed in the exhibition text.

“From Moment to Movement” is a challenging yet authentic exhibition, drawing attention to the social inequalities, racism and failures of democracy around the globe.

The images presented in the film art elicit an emotional response from the viewers.

“I think there are a lot of different ways that exhibitions and artwork can make us feel and make us react,” Kantor said.

Kantor hopes that this exhibition will help bring a glimmer of hope to students and other viewers amidst current socio-political distress.

Working with art has helped shape the way Kantor views and appreciates the world, and she hopes this exhibit will influence viewers in similar ways. With a campus that is heavily researchbased, Kantor emphasizes the significance of the arts, and that they are “just as important” in our understanding of the world.

“We modified regular wild lettuce to produce the fusion protein PTH-Fc by inserting this gene into the lettuce,” Yates said. “The lettuce now, because it’s transgenic, produces [the fusion protein] in every cell of the plant.”

Yates went on to explain what exactly a “fusion protein” like PTH-Fc is.

“Essentially it’s two parts of two proteins,” Yates said. “The first is a part of the human parathyroid hormone, and we linked that to a part of a human antibody protein.”

According to Karen McDonald, a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at UC Davis, fusion proteins like PTH-Fc serve multiple purposes, including making the protein more stable when it’s produced in the plant and when it enters the bloodstream, as well as making the drug easier to purify from plant extracts.

So, with this purpose and functionality in mind, why lettuce?

“As far as transgenic plants are concerned, lettuce has never been a great platform,” said Somen Nandi, an adjunct professor in the UC Davis Department of Chemical Engineering and one of the researchers on the project.

“But they are currently growing lettuce in the International Space Station, so this way we don’t have to reinvent the wheel because transgenic lettuce doesn’t necessarily have to grow any way different. That’s why we’re piggybacking off of a known thing that astronauts are familiar with.”

According to Yates, the researchers are hopeful that astronauts can acquire PTHFc orally by simply eating the lettuce, so the dynamic of how lettuce grows is another benefit of using the plant.

“Lettuce, as soon as it emerges from the soil, it’s edible,” Yates said. “You don’t have to wait for it to grow a fruit or something like that. Most of the plant, when it’s younger like that, is edible.”

Astronauts dosing themselves with the drug by eating lettuce leaves is the ideal scenario, but if that doesn’t end up working, there’s a plan B: extracting and purifying the drug from the plants.

“Plan B would be that we would grind up the lettuce and extract our fusion protein,” McDonald said. “Then we could take it through the traditional chromatography and filtration steps that occur here on Earth — small scale, of course.”

Even if eating the lettuce directly doesn’t

work, purifying the drug from transgenic lettuce still provides a variety of benefits as a solution, according to the press release. For one, a mission to Mars could take several years, and growing food apart from prepackaged meals can be good for the mental health of astronauts.

“It gives a lot of morale boosters or psychological boosters if the astronauts see the green growing and they can use that as a food,” Nandi said.

Looking forward, research may move toward evaluating how much of the drug the plants can produce, which leaves contain the most product and the best time to harvest the leaves, as well as experimenting with growing other crops like tomatoes, rice and potatoes in low-resource space conditions.

Nandi explained that while their research is focused on the goal of space travel, the information they learn about resource utilization in low-resource conditions could be used to help solve problems on Earth as well.

According to Nandi, if medicinal drugs like PTH-Fc can be shown to successfully enter the bloodstream through consumption, other forms of transgenic crops could potentially be developed to carry other medicines. Seeds from these crops could then be sent to low-resource countries to be grown, distributed and eaten.

McDonald elaborated on the broader applicability of biological solutions.

“Obviously, Mars is the extreme in lowresource environments,” McDonald said. “But using plants is a really valuable approach even on Earth, because many parts of the world are very proficient at growing plants, and it doesn’t necessarily require a very highly trained workforce.”

As NASA prepares to send people to the moon again, potentially in 2024, and to Mars, potentially in the 2030s, Yates said that various groups in CUBES are also working on other biological solutions to the challenges astronauts who undergo long spaceflights face.

“It’s not just lettuce on its own,” Yates said.

“It’s other plants, it’s microbes, it’s all sorts of really cool things. I think that you’re going to need biological solutions, and particularly those based on plants, in order to eliminate or mitigate a lot of the serious challenges that humans are going to face in deep space.”

10 | THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THE SHEEP MOWERS MAKE THEIR DEBUT ON UC DAVIS’ MAIN CAMPUS THIS SPRING Sheep, used as natural lawn mowers, return to campus in the hopes of lowering students’ stress and boosting morale

Sheep graze grass near UC Davis Silo. (Claire Dipenbrock / Aggie)

BY MAYA SHYDLOWSKI features@theaggie.org At 10:30 a.m. on Wednesday, March 30, 25 freshly sheared sheep rushed the grassy mounds in between the Chemistry Annex and Bainer Hall on campus — where they will take on their next natural lawn mowing task.

Haven Kiers, an assistant professor of landscape architecture, is leading a project that studies how grazing sheep can improve a landscape ecosystem as well as the well-being of the humans that interact with that land and the sheep. The project, called “Sheepmowers,” has been in progress at the university for about a year, but this is the first time that the sheep are stationed on the main UC Davis campus.

Last year, the sheep were located in a field between Old Davis road and Arboretum Drive, by the Environmental Horticulture building.

They weren’t very easy to stumble upon, unless you happened to be walking by the somewhat remote part of campus. But on the morning of March 30, students lined up with their phones to take photos and videos of the sheep arriving at the pen that they will graze for three days in a row every three to four weeks until the end of spring quarter. Sidled up next to the Silo, the new location is visible for students coming out of

class and visitors touring the main campus alike.

Kiers is excited about the implications of being so centrally located, since the project aims to use sheep as mechanisms of a multifunctional landscape, which includes their effect on the people who see them.

“We want to understand how to create landscapes that do more than just look pretty,” Kiers said. “We’re interested in this concept of urban grazing because it reduces operational costs and hopefully improves sustainability. The part that we’re going to look at more this quarter is if the sheep help make people happier — if they help reduce stress and anxiety.”

The team invites students and other passersby to enjoy the presence of the sheep in lawn chairs set up around the sheep’s fence. The chairs are a part of a program by the campus planning and environmental stewardship department called “Chair Share,” which invites students to sit, relax and enjoy nature on campus. These chairs can also be found in locations around the arboretum.

As the sheepmowing team began this project, they developed activities that would aid in the accomplishment of their goal to improve wellbeing and lower stress of community members.

Last year, they hosted events like watercolor painting, knitting and felting with the sheep’s wool, that took place next to the sheep’s pen. This year, they hope to host similar events, which will be announced on their website and on Instagram.

Lucy Yuan, a fourth-year landscape architecture major, is a student shepherd with the project and spends the grazing days at the sheep pen. She is in charge of keeping track of the number of people who visit the sheep and surveying people’s responses to the sheep. Her senior thesis focuses on the benefits of sheep in urban areas.

“I’m studying more the overall effects of bringing sheep into urban spaces,” Yuan said.

“Right now, this is specifically on UC Davis’s campus, but what would it be like if you brought sheep onto other campuses or other public places?”

Included in her project is a guide detailing the process that the sheepmowing team went through to get the sheep on campus, their research goals, sheep management and the challenges that came with the project. Yuan is also focusing on explaining all the benefits of sheep in urban areas, including lawn mowing and the impact on humans.

“I think sheep [seem] pretty easy to handle because they spook easily,” Yuan said. “Everyone seems to think that it’s super fun and easy at the end of the day to get them back into the trailer, but the black-faced sheep are especially gregarious. Matt Hayes, the sheep manager, knows which ones are the troublemakers who try to run away.”

The 25 sheep that graze the chemistry mounds are typically the same every day, with a few exceptions. Of the 25, most are black-faced breeds, though the project utilizes four different sheep breeds — dorset, hampshire, suffolk and southdown. All of these breeds are bred for their meat, as opposed to other sheep breeds that are raised for their wool. There’s even one completely black sheep, which is Yuan’s favorite of the flock because of his big personality.

“He has a twin that’s a female,” Yuan said.

“He was going to be sent off to auction for his meat, but he kept escaping. Every time [the sheep managers] tried to load him up, they thought he was the sister, and didn’t load him into the trailer to be sent off. He avoided it so many times that they decided to keep him here.”

Yuan is not the only student to enjoy spending time with the sheep. Jasmine Marquez is a fourth-year animal science major who has

worked with campus sheep before.

“I just love seeing them,” Marquez said. “It’s kind of cool that everyone’s just here together watching the sheep. The sheep facilities are outside the [main campus], so most people don’t really get to see them, but when they bring them here, you get to watch what they do.”

Abigail Segal is a third-year animal science major who has already been out to visit the sheep multiple times this week. When asked if she thinks the sheep have the potential to lower stress levels in students who interact with them, she said she definitely thought so.

“Oh, I think 100%, as long as you’re an animal person,” Segal said. “And they’re right on campus. Even though sheep don’t particularly like to be pet, it’s still fun to just watch them.”

Segal used to visit the sheep last year when they were located closer to the edge of campus, and she said she thinks the project is a great idea.

“I think this is a really smart project,” Segal said. “I know in Orange County, they did this with goats. It’s cheap labor — you don’t have to pay for people to landscape and use machinery.

You just have animals.”

This is certainly not the first instance of using forage animals for urban grazing, as Segal described. Previously, sheep have been used in various public spaces in Paris to maintain grass growth in a more eco-friendly manner than traditional machinery. Since 2014, West Sacramento has utilized the help of goats to munch on excess vegetation for fire prevention.

This year, they’ve brought in 400 goats.

Using these forage animals not only reduces the fossil fuel energy required for grass and vegetation maintenance, but they also provide a source of organic fertilizer through their waste.

Many vineyards and orchards use sheep and goats to graze cover crops that are grown between their vines and trees. Kiers mentioned that they can be used to graze between solar panels too because the small animals are able to walk beneath and around the narrow spaces.

Kiers also noted that the wool from the sheep’s stomach, which is typically too low quality to be used in production, can be used as a soil amendment. The wool can be incorporated into soil as a way to increase water retention because of its ability to absorb liquids.

“We’ve definitely learned that we’re not going to replace lawn mowers, but this is something different,” Kiers said. “With all of the other factors that the sheep are contributing, there’s a lot of potential for many places.”

THE AGGIE RECOGNIZES INFLUENTIAL WOMEN IN THE UC DAVIS COMMUNITY Three women share their proudest career moments, inspiration and hopes for future generations

BY ALINA ISSAKHANIAN features@theaggie.org In honor of Women’s History Month which ended on April 1, The California Aggie interviewed a few of the many women who have attended UC Davis and gone on to make great impacts in their careers and personal lives. Beth Rose Middleton Manning, Andrea Gaytan and Julie Sze discuss their accomplishments, current projects and offer wisdom to young women everywhere.

Beth Rose Middleton Manning — Native American studies professor and associate director of climate and environmental justice for UC Davis’s Institute of the Environment As an undergraduate student at UC Davis from 1997 to 2001, Beth Rose Middleton Manning studied nature and culture and explored her interests in the environment, landscape stewardship and the connections between communities and cultures. After graduating in 2001, Middleton Manning went to work for the Sierra Institute for Community Environment in Taylorsville, CA. She earned a Ph.D. in environmental science policy and management at UC Berkeley in 2008 and completed her post doctorate in environmental policy and management at UC Davis in 2010.

Since then, she has been a faculty member in the Native American studies department at UC Davis.

Middleton Manning said that her passion for the environment and justice as well as her background encouraged her current focus on native environmental policy, activism, coloniality of power, indigeneity, community development, political ecology and participatory methodology.

“I grew up in a rural area of the central Sierra,” Middleton Manning said. “I grew up without electricity. My father’s family is Afro Caribbean and my mother’s family is Eastern European Jews. They actually met at a big-time California native event, but neither of them are Native Americans. They moved to the Sierra foothills, which is where I grew up. I spent a lot of time outside, and I was also one of the very few people of color in that area, so I think both those experiences of really feeling close to the environment and also being aware of racism pushed me toward my current focus.”

Middelton Manning attributes her passion for her work to her love of the land and of people, as well as her desire to address hidden injustices in our communities and environment.

She said that she works to promote and positively impact the health and healing of human beings, landscapes and waterscapes.

Middleton Manning teaches NAS 165, Keepers of the Flame, a course in the Native American studies department that focuses on cultural burning as a land care technique, land stewardship and land restoration strategies practiced around the world by Indigenous peoples — specifically those that were subject to colonial suppression and oppression. With her class, she meets with native tribes to learn more about their practices using fire, their restoration of plants and soil, their preservation and work tending gardens and other traditions that help

create a connection between communities and the environment.

“I love being out, hands on the land with people and learning from one another and finding that shared space of connection that’s rooted in caring for our places and caring for our communities,” Middleton Manning said.

“And at the same time, I’m really aware of the injustices that have led to the exclusion of people from being able to care for their homelands, so a lot of my work is geared toward looking at land rematriation and repatriation for this bringing back this type of traditional stewardship that can be done and in a way that includes broader community members also.”

Middleton Manning’s book “Trust in the Land” also focuses on conservation easements and land trust structures to improve access, stewardship and protection of culturally important places by Native people and how people can use these cultivation tools for cultural conservation and justice goals.

“I always just hope that my work is useful in bringing parties together to see where they have common ground, to accomplish something that’s healthy for communities and the environment,” Middleton Manning said.

Currently, Middleton Manning is working on a dam removal project called Removing Dams and Restoring Tribal Homelands Without One. This initiative specifically focuses on tribal leadership and its role in dam removals that have been supported by the Open rivers Fund and the resources legacy farm. She hopes that through her work and writing, she can help get water back in some of the many watersheds that have been dewatered for hydro development.

Middleton Manning is also working with the Environmental Health Sciences Center and faculty in Environmental Engineering on the Yurok tribe environmental program. This project studies contaminants in the Klamath river and its tributaries in Oregon, examining the water and soils in the old timber processing sites within the Yurok reservation to assess the water quality and potentially dangerous contaminants that have been allowed to enter the water stream.

“This project to me is really focused on responding to a need identified by the community and supporting tribal health,” Middleton Manning said. “I like the idea of bringing resources we have at the university to help analyze [an] ordinarily not necessarily accessible [process]. I am excited about this project because I am able to assist in responding to a question in the community, and then a native nation will use that information to advocate for and support community health.”

In addition to being a leader in her career, Middleton Manning is also a mother, and hopes that, in the future, more resources will be available for mothers who work in all fields to help them balance these roles. She looks back on all of her female role models, her mother, her grandmother, women in academia, as well as the native women she works with every day and appreciates them for their advice, encouragement, support, and inspiration.

CHRISTINA LIU / AGGIE “Sometimes you can’t do it all — you can’t be publishing all the time and also be the best parent and also serve on budget committees and be the best mentor,” Middleton Manning said.

“Many of us really push ourselves really hard to be perfectionists, and you kind of have to give yourself that grace [...] Just be aware of that ebb and flow of what you can do, because I think there’s a lot of pressure to be the best in all areas — research, teaching service, collaborations, parenting. You have to find that balance, knowing that you can’t always be the best in all the areas. There’s just one of you.”

Andrea Gaytan — founding director of AB540 and Undocumented Students Center at UC Davis Andrea Gaytan is the Dean of the Davis Center of Sacramento City College and the founding director of the AB540 and Undocumented Student Center at UC Davis.

Gaytan graduated from UC Davis in 1992 with a master’s degree in sociology. In 2009, she returned to UC Davis to serve as the assistant director of the Cross Cultural Center, founding the undocomunted students center on campus in 2013. She credited the political change happening on state and federal levels at that time, as well as strong student leadership on campus, for helping make that happen.

“That was a really exciting time to see students working toward defining goals and talking to other campus constituencies and really advocating to create a center dedicated to serving undocumented students,” Gaytan said. “There were exciting things happening on a state and national level as well around that time with the implementation of the California Dream Act and the rollout of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive order. Those two things sort of dovetail with the student advocacy for a center on our campus. [...] It was really an opportune time for that advocacy.”

Gaytan explained that when setting up the undocumented students center, also called the AB540 and Undocumented Students Center, she wanted to create a space where those who utilized

the center could feel at home on campus and have all the resources they may need. She said that the students were her biggest motivation throughout the center creation process.

“It was really important for me to be quiet and listen and to really include students in decision-making processes about what the center should be, and how we would operate,” Gaytan said. “I tried my best to honor that and to make space for students to design the center to be the space they wanted it to be.”

Gaytan said that serving as the Director of the AB540 and Undocumented Students Center has been her proudest moment in her career.

“I think being able to present and share the information of how the center was created, the sorts of programs that we were able to offer,” Gaytan said. “Also being able to co-present with our students. [...] That was really exciting to be able to share that experience alongside students and to see them presenting on their own about the work that they’ve been doing based on the programs we created. It was also just knowing that the work that we did at the center has a lifechanging impact for students.”

Gaytan currently works with UC Davis and Sacramento City College on the California volunteer service grants project. She said that this project will connect students to volunteer opportunities with different nonprofit and public agencies in the sustainability, basic needs and K-12 education sectors. For their work, students would receive living stipends. Gaytan said that working on this project feels like a culminating moment in her career.

“There’s also a large percentage of AB540 students that are taken into account for this as well,” Gaytan said. “That feels very full circle for me, in terms of continuing to support and advocate for the AB540 undocumented student community and provide continued professional development opportunities, as well as supporting our local communities in Sacramento and Yolo counties. We’re in the planning phase right now, but implementation will start in the fall quarter.”

DAVISWOMEN on 9

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022 | 11

SCIENCE AND TECH UC DAVIS HEALTH ADOPTS PORTABLE MRI SYSTEM FOR TIMELY ASSESSMENT, DIAGNOSIS OF PATIENTS Swoop Portable MRI system is the first FDA approved portable MRI device that can be driven to the patient bedside for quick MRI scans

BY BRANDON NGUYEN science@theaggie.org

UC Davis Health clinician helps align Hyperfine’s Swoop to patient bedside. (UC Davis Health) This past month was National Brain Trauma Awareness Month, recognizing the unique life-changing narratives of patients who have undergone brain injuries and the need for support for these individuals. Fortunately, UC Davis Health has adopted a new portable magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system that can quickly scan a patient for any major health concerns or brain trauma to help health providers make timely critical decisions.

The Swoop Portable MRI system, created

by Hyperfine based in Connecticut, is the first portable MRI device nationally cleared by the Food and Drug Administration, and UC Davis Health is the first to adopt this machine in Northern California.

Dr. Matthew Bobinski, the chair of Clinical Operations and chief of the Division of Radiology at UC Davis Medical Center, described how Swoop has changed hospital operations, especially for very sick patients.

“Instead of this old paradigm where the patient is brought to the scanner in a hospital setting for our inpatient clinic, bringing them from one floor to another part of the wing of the hospital, we bring this scanner to their room,” Bobinski said. “Often, you would say there’s no need for this kind of reverse in roles, but in this case, the target patient population involves very sick patients in the ICU. These patients are connected to multiple devices and monitors, and as such, their transportation becomes logistically very difficult.”

Transportation of a patient can be not only difficult, but dangerous. According to Bobinski, 40% of patients with brain injuries experience complications during transport to the fixed MRI scanner room. Moving a patient requires four different health providers tending to the patient and the patient’s tubes, devices and monitors while moving between floors in a hospital setting, and in a busy hospital, transportation can put the

patient at higher risk for adverse outcomes.

Dr. Jennifer Chang, a neuroradiologist and assistant professor in the department of radiology at UC Davis Medical Center, described what the Swoop Portable MRI system looks like.

“The Swoop is a very compact machine, and it has less magnet strength compared to the fixed MRI which has a strength of 1.5 Teslas or 3 Teslas depending on which room we use,” Chang said. “But Swoop is really incredibly powerful in terms of its usage and just attaches sort at the end of the patient’s bed and comes on like a magneto helmet on the patient’s head.”

Dr. Elizabeth Morris, the chair of radiology at UC Davis Health, further described the ease of use with regards to Swoop in a hospital setting.

“What’s exciting about this product is that you can literally drive it to a patient’s bedside, plug it into a standard wall outlet, control it with an iPad and get images of the patient’s brain in minutes,” Morris said. “This reduces the time it takes to make a diagnosis and is less stressful on the patient.”

The ability to make a quick diagnosis is key to Swoop’s revolutionizing technology, and Bobinski added on with some insight into how this portable MRI system will impact the future of healthcare.

“With time, I presume relatively quickly, these scanners will provide much better quality and they will be also approved for not only

the brain but also the cervical spine,” Bobinski said. “I would like to make it very clear that it will never be the replacement of the fixed MRI system as Swoops does not image the little details but only the major details needed for a quick assessment. This also has an additional benefit of improving our workflow by opening up time slots for patients who really need the fixed MRI scan, such as children with brain tumors and so on, improving our ability to provide timely care to our sick patients in a timely fashion.”

The saying “time is brain,” which refers to the rapid degeneration of brain tissue during a stroke, is especially relevant in providing urgent care to patients who need it, and Chang abides by this saying in emphasizing the importance of the distribution of health resources in a timely fashion.

“UC Davis is like the county hospital, so we get a lot of the patients who don’t have insurance, and we have to take them all,” Chang said. “We have to figure out who actually needs acute care. Swoop can really be used as a tool to filter out very acute things that are going on in the emergency department and then triage those patients more appropriately, so that either people can get seen more in a timely fashion, or people will be sent to an outpatient setting if it’s not an acute injury.”

PEA PLANT PRODUCT SHOWS PROMISE FOR PARKINSON’S DISEASE TREATMENT UC Davis researchers partnered a synthetic drug with a new plant product to reduce neuroinflammation

BY MONICA MANMADKAR science@theaggie.org Kurarinone, a plant product derived from a pea plant, was combined with an enzyme inhibitor to create a method to alleviate neuroinflammation in Parkinson’s disease. Partnered with researchers at the Dalian Medical University in China, a team of UC Davis researchers at professor Bruce Hammock’s Laboratory published their findings in a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Around six years ago, Hammock’s team discovered that the inhibition of an enzyme called soluble epoxide hydrolase through kurarinone could potentially be beneficial to Parkinson’s disease, as it helps reduce neuroinflammation.

“We found [that the enzyme] controlled a branch of the arachidonate cascade, where aspirin and Advil work, and it increases pain and inflammation,” Hammock said. “So when we inhibit this enzyme it controls pain and inflammation.”

After their discovery, the team pursued this finding by developing a synthetic drug through a Davis biotechnology company, Eicosis. In addition, they found a natural inhibitor of

AMY YU / AGGIE the targeted enzyme from plant metabolites from plants around the world.

“The breakthrough for this project has been a collaboration with Professor Cheng-Peng Sun in China,” said Dr. Christophe Morisseau, an associate research scientist in the Department

of Entomology.]. “[Sun], an expert in natural products from traditional Chinese Medicine, got the idea to test a chemical from a plant used in Chinese medicine to treat inflammation-related diseases.”

Based on previous research, the natural compound which is derived from the dried root of Sophora Flavescens, a shrubby sophora plant, is known to reduce inflammation. The researchers knew that decreasing neuroinflammation is necessary to reduce the advancement of Parkinson’s disease.

With further testing, the researchers were able to find that this plant product was able to reduce neuroinflammation in an animal model with Parkinson’s disease. Working with the team from China, Morisseau hopes that their work may lead to an effective therapy against Parkinson’s disease, with either a natural or synthetic compound.

“This involves a lot of money and time to determine that the compound is not toxic and efficient in human and animal models are not the same as people,” Morriseau said.

He continued to state how it is not easy to give medicine to a person suffering from Parkinson’s disease. Hence, with a nature-based product, it could be easier to treat the patient by incorporating the medicine into food or a drink.

GENETICALLY MODIFIED LETTUCE COULD PROTECT ASTRONAUTS’ BONES ON LONG SPACEFLIGHTS The transgenic lettuce contains a fusion protein that can counteract the loss of bone density in microgravity

BY SONORA SLATER science@theaggie.org Our bodies were made to interact with Earth’s gravitational pull. When astronauts take part in long spaceflights and encounter extended microgravity, there are side effects that occur — specifically, loss of bone density.

Human bones are balanced between growth and resorption, or breakdown, which allows the body to react to injury or other outside

factors. Spending time in microgravity disrupts this balance and causes astronauts to lose bone mass. Scientists have tried to solve this problem in several ways, such as by promoting exercise in space, supplementing astronauts with calcium and regularly injecting parathyroid hormone (PTH).

However, each of these methods have their limitations. Exercise isn’t enough to prevent bone loss on its own, calcium does not absorb well into the astronauts’ bodies and injections of any type are difficult in space because of low gravitation.

FEED THE WORLD,

WIN

$25,000 Innovation_Awards_UC_Davis_Print_11.625x5.25_.indd 4

According to a recent press release, researchers at UC Davis in collaboration with the Center for the Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space (CUBES) have developed a new potential solution that avoids the limitations of the past: genetically modified lettuce.

Kevin Yates, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Chemical Engineering at UC Davis and one of the researchers on the project, explained how they made genetically modified lettuce.

ASTRONAUTLETTUCE on 9

22 Y 2 , 2 0 d.

A M E DU awar S ARE ation-

ov ISSION m/inn S U B M wilburellis.co www. at

CHRISTINA LIU / AGGIE

GRAM. RD PRO N AWA IO T A W V ER NO E INNO REGIST E IN TH ICIPAT T R A P TO e for

all. ibl s s e c c v a in ites s f o o d vation Award for a u o i t i r o od ut Inn

ng n ing fo -Ellis . M a k i ld. The Wilbur ches to provid e t s a w a or g f o o d d a growing w novative appro educin in ee

s. R elp f pose p y i e l d ways we can h ersities to pro o r c g vin the univ Impro ome of es and

g ts are jus .S. colle ize, These from U s m top pr a . e tt lation 25,000 u $ p a o studen . p in s w ention g world sal will growin rable m t propo o s n e o b h e 0 h bmits t receive $5,00 that su y a m a m e t s e Th team to four and up

1/10/22 2:45 PM

12 | THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2022

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

SPORTS

BEHIND KENEDI BROWN’S ARM, THE AGGIES’ OFFENSE BLASTS PAST CSU BAKERSFIELD UC Davis rides a five-game win streak after sweeping Bakersfield in three-game series

UC Davis Aggies’ Kenedi Brown throws pitch against CSU Bakersfield. UC Davis Beat CSUB (2-0). (Quinn Spooner / Aggie)

BY MARLON ROLON sports@theaggie.org UC Davis second-year star pitcher Kenedi Brown continues to impress on the mound striking-out 17 batters, a career high, shutting down Cal State Bakersfield in the process of the first game of the double header on Saturday afternoon. The Aggies’ dormant offense reemerged in the fifth inning, scoring five-runs to pull away 8-1 and came from behind in game two, scoring three-runs in the fifth to win 7-4.

“When I feel comfortable on the mound and the defense has my back, I feel like I can throw my best,” Brown said. “That is a big factor, records are meant to be broken so I’m looking to one up myself sooner or later.”

In game one, Brown pitched her 11th complete game of the season. The second-year threw 115 pitches, 85 of which were strikes, allowing one unearned run on just one hit. The star pitcher is ranked first in the conference in ERA and 35th in the country. “[Kenedi Brown] had a great year last year and she had a target on her back coming into this year,” said UC Davis Softball Head Coach Erin Thorpe. “She just went after it today, she just really had a good command over her pitches and her pitches were very successful against her batters.”

The Aggies fell behind at the top of the fifth off an unearned run. Bakersfield’s one run lead did not last, UC Davis let their bats fly on the bottom of the fifth scoring five-runs off six-hits.

“We started off slow, and then we got a couple things rolling and we kept going,” Thorpe said.

Fourth-year shortstop Claudia Kim got the party started with a big hit that singled to left field. The next batter, third-year infielder Alyssa Ito let it fly to left center field as the Aggies were gaining confidence at the plate. Then, second-year Anna Dethlefson loaded up the bases with a power swing that drove the ball down the right side. At this point, the Aggies scored from hits by Sommer Kisling, Sarah Starks and Libbie Mcmahan.

“I think the difference maker was when Claudia Kim came in and started off the rally, and Alyssa Ito came in and got the next hit and I think that’s big from our eight, ninth batters to go in and start an inning like that,” said Thorpe.

The hits didn’t stop there. In the bottom of the sixth, first-year Reese Mattley bombed a pitch to center field near the wall giving her enough time to reach second-base. After Mattley, fourth-year Delaney Diaz hammered a line drive to the left side that brought the speedy Mattley home. As if things couldn’t get any worse for Bakersfield, they did when Dethlefson swung for the fences, blasting the ball out the field into the street, giving UC Davis the lead 8-1 and eventually closed the show.

Game two Second-year pitcher Taylor Fitzgerald started the game on the mound for UC Davis. The second-year pitcher was off to a rough start, allowing two hits, a home run and two runs scored.

Through the first two innings, the Aggies hitting inconsistencies left two runners stranded on base. That is until Dethlefson stepped up to the plate blasting a homer down left center field.

Being down 2-1 in the fourth inning, Fitzgerald found herself in a bit of trouble allowing four hits and two runs and the Roadrunners took a commanding lead 4-1. Mattley and Diaz answered back with a pair of hits and Mattley scored off an error.

After a pitching change made by UC Davis, the ball game changed but not because of the pitching — the change came on the plate. Again the fifth inning proved to be pivotal for the offense. First-year Grace Kilday hit her first career home run to get the offense flowing. It was the same narrative as in the earlier game, the Roadrunners had no answers to stop the runs allowing four hits and three runs. In a game where it looked like Bakersfield was going to run away with it the Aggies stormed back to take the 5-4 lead.

“We’ve been working hard on trying to put more balls in play. I think we’ve been struggling with swinging big and just not putting balls in play,” Thorpe said. “I was really happy with us that we were able to do that today, but still in both games our adjustments came later in the game, and so I think that’s something that we’re focusing on now. We’re putting the ball in play, we’re doing well there, but we want to start making those adjustments to the pitchers earlier in the games.”

The successful pitching continued for UC Davis when secondyear Sara Reineman, who relieved Fitzgerald earlier in the game, did not allow a hit in a crucial sixth inning.

In the bottom of the sixth, however, the Aggies’ Kilday and Dethlefson would hit doubles, scoring two more runs putting the home team up 7-4. Reineman would close the show with her strong pitching effort in the seventh inning, shutting out the batters to end the game earning her second win of the season. She allowed one hit in three-innings.

Game three The next day, Brown pitched her 12th complete game of the season and once again was phenomenal, earning her 10th win of the season. The second-year allowed one hit, coming off a bunt while keeping the Roadrunners scoreless throughout the contest and striking out 12 batters.

UC Davis defeated Bakersfield 2-0 off RBI singles by Nakahara and Kim in the fifth-inning. Bakersfield had no answer at bat against Brown, they resorted to bunting for the most part to try and get on base. After two games the Roadrunners figured their best chance of winning against one of the best pitchers in the conference in Brown, was to bunt instead. It worked to avoid a hitting shut out, but that was the most action the offense could generate. The star pitcher for the Aggies adapted to eventually shut them out from the scoreboard.

With this win UC Davis softball team improves their overall record to 17-16 (5-4) in conference play.

“It really is a roller coaster of a season, we want to keep trending upwards every game we get,” Thorpe said.

Being a very young team with seven freshmen and 10 sophomores, many would think the growing pains during the season would have this team towards the bottom of the standings.

That is not the case, the Aggies are in fifth place in the Big West, one game behind UC San Diego for fourth.

“It’s been really cool to see us moving from [being] nervous to having a little bit more confidence in ourselves and also in understanding the game,” Thorpe said. “When we’re very young you have to learn the speed of play at this level, you have to learn what other teams are capable of doing and really the rules matter at this level.”

“It’s a big learning curve when you get to college, we’re really proud of how our team is really trying to focus and learn and be constant learners through the season and we think that’s going

to help them grow into the game and be competitive quicker,” Thorpe said.

Thorpe’s team looks composed and comfortable around each other and their overall chemistry looks far better than earlier in the season. The amount of positive reinforcement they provide to each other when they do good things on the field looks like they’ve been together for years. Even when mistakes are made, they’re picking each other up and high fiving each other.

The batters are coming alive mid-game, however, one problem that the Aggies struggle with is being consistent at the plate to start games. They leave players stranded on base at times leaving points on the field. As of late though, players like Dethlefson and Mattley have stepped up big offensively to give this team a spark.

Other players have also contributed to their recent success, such as shortstop Kim, Kilday, McMahan, Nakahara, Starks, Diaz, Kisling and Ito have come alive as of late helping this team ride a five-game win streak.

The strength of this team seems to be the pitching, as the Aggies hold a top-two pitcher in the conference. Their rotation includes the likes of starter Brown, Grace Tangen, Mia Hildebrand, Reineman and Fitzgerald who seem to keep UC Davis in the ballgame.

The group is led by Brown who has shown leadership qualities on the mound. The standout pitchers’ confidence on the mound is evident as she seems to get better throughout the game. Over the summer, Brown worked on two new pitches and worked on gaining strength through weight training. Her mid-game adjustments have helped sharpen her skillset.

“It’s helped for sure but also the chemistry between me and all of my teammates has allowed me to be the best pitcher I can be for this team,” Brown said after breaking her previous record in strikeouts.

“I feel like I’ve learned a lot this season. I learned a lot last season because we had a limited amount of girls and it was super small. I feel like I learned how to pick up myself and pick up my teammates when things weren’t going well. I think that has helped everybody know that everything’s going to be okay and have them feel comfortable, so just learning how to lead my team better than I did last year I feel like is a big help.”

A look ahead UC Davis will travel to Riverside on April 8-9, to face the Highlanders for a three-game series, an opponent who is behind them in the standings.

They come back home on April 15-16, to face Cal State Northridge to continue their Big West play.

The Aggies will then take a break from their conference play and will travel to Berkeley to play the Golden Bears on April 19.

On April 22-23, they will go on the road to play UC San Diego. The Aggies then close out the season with nine Big West games against UC Santa Barbara at home (April 29-30), on the road against Cal Poly (May 6-7) and back home against Hawaii (May 13-14).

If UC Davis can take care of business in their upcoming games against Riverside and Northridge, who are behind them in the standings, they’ll be within striking distance to finish near the top of the standings. The Aggies have a favorable schedule to their advantage. However, their last series of the season is against Hawaii, who is tied with Cal State Fullerton for first place.