November 11, 2021

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VOLUME 140, ISSUE 8 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2021

STUDENT RESEARCHERS, POSTDOCS RALLY AGAINST UNION BUSTING The march led by Student Researchers United-UAW sheds light on the organization’s ongoing fight for union recognition

BY JENNIFER MA campus@theaggie.org On Oct. 28, student researchers and postdocs congregated on the corner of 2nd and A St. and marched to Mrak Hall to demand that the UC recognize Student Researchers UnitedUAW (SRU-UAW). This push for unionization began in May 2021, with over 12,000 student researchers submitting authorization cards to form the union.

According to those at the rally, the protest is a culmination of frustrations with financial instability, a lack of healthcare, longer work hours and no protection against discrimination and harassment.

The California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) verified the right of all members of SRU-UAW to be recognized, but the UC stated that it is only willing to only recognize approximately 11,000 student researchers. The UC argues that student researchers funded by fellowships and training grants do not share a community of interest with other student researchers. The union refutes that all of the student researchers should enjoy the same rights because the work is the same.

“UC’s position is nothing new,” Aarthi Sekar, a sixth-year in the Integrative Genetics and Genomics Graduate Group, said. “They’ve spent 30-plus years trying to manipulate the law to avoid recognizing as many academic workers as employees as they can get away with.”

PERB clarified that the UC did not have the option to partially recognize SRU-UAW; the only options were to recognize the union in full or provide reasons for denial. This resulted in a complete denial of recognition from the university.

According to Maeve Parasol, a second-year international relations major, the actions of the system regarding workers’ rights are inconsistent with its stated values.

“The UC system says they’re so progressive and tries to be this beacon of a school yet they’re union busting at the same time,” Parasol said.

Veronica Suarez, a doctorate level two student from the Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, echoed Parasol’s statement about UC Davis.

“The university is hypocritical,” Suarez said.

“They have all these slogans around like ‘You matter,’ ‘We care about you,’ ‘We are inclusive and diverse,’ but it seems to me that not saying anything is already denying that we are here and that we are important.”

Katie Porter, the U.S. Representative from California’s 45th congressional district, authored a letter addressed to UC President Michael Drake asking him to recognize SRU-UAW immediately and in its entirety. This letter was signed by 30 representatives, the majority of California’s congressional delegation, and substantiated that student researchers are a major reason why the UC received $3.7 billion in federal research contracts and grant revenue in 2020.

Ryan King, the associate director of media relations for the UC Office of the President (UCOP), provided a statement for UCOP regarding student researchers and union representation.

“We support our employees’ right to union representation,” the statement reads. “UC is in ongoing discussions with the United Auto Workers (UAW) and the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) regarding the final composition of this new bargaining unit.

According to the statement, the university recognizes that graduate student researchers

Researchers/postdoc joint rally as a follow-up to the lecturer protests. (Quinn Spooner / Aggie) who are hired to work under the direction of the university should be a part of the new bargaining unit.

“However, there are differences in perspectives between UC and the UAW regarding other individuals included in the petition who are not University employees as defined by the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act,” the statement reads. “We hope to resolve this matter in a timely fashion so that good-faith negotiations on the terms and conditions of employment with this new bargaining unit can commence.”

On Nov. 2, student researchers at UC Davis

held an election, where they selected strike committee members. These members will decide if a strike is necessary and when it will be held, granted two-thirds of student researchers also authorize it. The actual SRU strike authorization vote began on Nov. 10 and will continue through Nov. 19. “[Student researchers] are the ones who produce by far the most monetary research value for the university,” Adriana Postema, a first-year Ph.D. student in geology, said. “As a result, it gives us a lot of strike power.”

YOLO COUNTY AND YOLO COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION HOST TOWN HALL ON YOUTH VACCINES Approval for vaccines for children ages 5-11 could come through as early as Nov. 4

BY RACHEL SHEY city@theaggie.org KATHERINE FRANKS / AGGIE

On Nov. 1, Yolo County Public Health Officer Aimee Sisson gave information on COVID-19 vaccines for children 5-11 during an online town hall event held on Zoom and Facebook Live, hosted by Yolo County and Yolo County Office of Education (YCOE). Sisson gave context explaining why it’s important for children to be vaccinated, as well as answered questions from audience members regarding the vaccine for children.

“Our case rate for Yolo County is starting to rise,” Sisson said. “This is not the place in

the pandemic where any of us wanted to be.

We all thought our case rate would be coming down once vaccines became available, that our economy could reopen, that everything could go back to normal sooner than it has. Unfortunately we’ve seen an uptick in our case rate over the last two weeks.”

Part of this uptick is attributed to a rising case rate in children ages zero to 17, Sisson said.

Adults 18 to 64 are experiencing declining case rates, as are adults 65 and older.

“We broke that down further in the child population and found that the case rate is increasing for all groups but is actually highest among children six to 11,” Sisson said. “This is good news when we think about the fact that we’re about to have a vaccine for children in this age group.”

Some attendees wondered about whether it was truly necessary for children to receive the vaccine. Since children are less likely than adults to die from or experience severe symptoms of COVID-19, they were wondering why the vaccine is beneficial, considering its possible side effects. Sisson explained that children can still die from COVID-19.

“Although deaths from COVID-19 are rare among children, we do see children dying from COVID-19,” Sisson cautioned. “Across the

United States, during the pandemic, 791 children ages zero to 17 have died from COVID-19, and 172 of these were between the ages of five and 11.”

Other severe diseases can arise from COVID-19 infection in children, according to Sisson, including “the possibility of multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children of MISC. This is a severe inflammatory disease that occurs two to six weeks after infection with COVID-19, and 60% to 70% of children who are affected

by MISC end up needing hospitalization in the intensive care unit. Over 5000 cases of MISC have occurred in our children across the United States to date.”

Some children are also affected by “long COVID-19,” Sisson explained.

“A large study of children in the U.K. found that approximately 8% of children continue to have symptoms more than three months after their initial diagnosis,” Sisson said.

According to a press release from Pfizer and BioNTech, the vaccine has 90.7% efficacy in children five to 11.

“The antibody responses in the participants given 10 µg doses were comparable to those recorded in a previous Pfizer-BioNTech study in people 16 to 25 years of age immunized with 30 µg doses,” the press release reads. “The 10 µg

dose was carefully selected as the preferred dose for safety, tolerability and immunogenicity in children 5 to 11 years of age.”

Three out of the seven steps necessary to get the vaccine to Yolo County schoolchildren have been completed, according to Sisson.

“Pfizer has applied for emergency-use authorization for the FDA, it was recommended for emergency-use authorization, and the FDA issued an emergency-use authorization,” Sisson said. “We’re now waiting for the CDC to recommend the vaccine. We expect this approval to come through by the end of this week, potentially as early as November 4.”

The Yolo County press release concerning the event states that the COVID-19 vaccine will be one of the mandated vaccinations required for school.

“On October 1, Governor Gavin Newsom announced California would become the first state to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of vaccinations required for school,” the press release reads. “Implementation of the vaccine mandate would not occur until the vaccines receive full FDA approval, which is not expected soon.”

NEW ITALIAN RESTAURANT AND MARKETPLACE TO OPEN IN BISTRO 33’S FORMER LOCATION Davis native Micheal Gaylen hopes to maintain the location’s history while creating a brand-new dining experience

BY JALAN TEHRANIFAR features@theaggie.org Many people believe that part of Davis’s charm is the history of the town that has been passed on from generation to generation.

One of Davis’ historical properties, dating back to 1938, is now being passed to a new generation.

Old Davis City Hall, located at 226 F Street, once served as all of the City of Davis’ administrative offices. According to davisdowntown.com, it housed Davis’ primary Fire Department until 1966, when the Police Department replaced it. In 2003, Old City Hall was refurbished and remodeled into a restaurant called Bistro 33, which has been shut down since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and announced its permanent closure in June 2021.

The recent closure of Bistro 33 has been a disappointment to many Davis residents, particularly fans of its “Mojito Night” tradition. The restaurant released a statement regarding their shutdown on June 19, 2021, which said that due to the COVID-19 pandemic and not coming to terms on a lease with the new owner of the land, the restaurant would not be reopening.

In recent good news for Davis foodies, a new Italian restaurant and marketplace will take the place of Bistro 33, set to open in June 2022.

The new restaurant, Mamma, will be a new kind of dining experience for downtown Davis, according to co-owner Michael Gaylen. The side of the property facing F Street will be a graband-go cafe and the side facing 3rd Street will be a sit-down style restaurant. Gaylen said that the existing patio will have two separate lounges with seating and incorporate Tuscan-style lighting and edible gardens.

Gaylen first began working in the restaurant industry as a high school student here in Davis, where he grew up. He was a dishwasher at Tokyo Restaurant and then served as a bartender at Captain California, both of which have now closed.

He then moved to Napa and began working as a card-carrying general manager at Italian restaurant Don Giovanni for 11 years.

After climbing the ranks of the restaurant industry, Gaylen was

offered an opening general manager position by the Morimoto groups. According to Gaylen, this position was an incredible opportunity.

“It changed dining in downtown Napa,” Gaylen said. “It was an amazing thing to be a part of that really put my career kind of on the map.”

Gaylen went on to serve as Morimoto’s west-coast director of operations, during which he opened seven restaurants in seven years.

With the knowledge he gained through these experiences, he opened his own restaurant in South Napa, NapaSport Steakhouse, in 2018. Recently, he opened a second restaurant in Napa, Ace and Vine, which is an Asian restaurant cardroom.

Gaylen said that in the process of opening his restaurants, there have been some bumps in the road, but that luckily, a chef he used to work with, Arnaud Drouvillé, helped him sort through them.

“While I was running NapaSport, we had had the wrong chefs in place for a long time, and things were kind of hard for us,” Gaylen said. “Right before COVID, in January 2020, a chef from my past rolled through town.”

Gaylen reconnected with Arnaud Drouvillé, with whom he coowned a restaurant called Mojimoto in Bangkok, Thailand. Gaylen saw Drouville’s visit to Napa as a sign to ask him for help.

While the pair were working together at NapaSport Steakhouse and Ace and Vine, Drouvillé asked Gaylen an interesting question.

“We sat here fixing my restaurant, NapaSport, and we worked on the Asian restaurant together, and then in that process, he turned to me one day and he asked me, ‘Why do pizzas cost $27 in America?’” Gaylen said.

Drouvillé told Gaylen that making a pizza costs $1, and a high-quality pizza could be made for under $10. Drouvillé then began making pizzas and pastas for Gaylen, which Gaylen credits for the idea for an entirely new Italian restaurant concept.

When someone from Davis reached out to Gaylen via social media informing him that the Bistro 33 lot was up for grabs, he decided the time was right to pursue this new project.

“What we want to do — [what] the chef wants to do — is something where everything is about $20 and under,” Gaylen said.

Bistro 33’s old location. (Quinn Spooner / Aggie) “Pizzas, pastas, appetizers, salads [...] creating this huge grab-andgo cafe on one side of that property, where everything would be accessible to high school kids, college kids, to families. Everything would be super affordable with a super high level of quality.”

Gaylen said that they want to create not only a restaurant but also a visual and aesthetic experience. They hope to use the patio on the Old City Hall Davis property to create a garden that allows people to use their senses during their dining experience.

“We’d love to inspire people, inspire the youth and create a very unique environment for Davis,” Gaylen said. “I think it’s more than a restaurant [...] We’re looking to be a spot where people can come and enjoy a really high-quality dining experience at a very affordable price, in a very warm, welcoming environment.”

Gaylen said that as a Davis native, it is important to him not to change the structure of the building, and to keep the spot rich with the history from his childhood, and that of other Davis locals.

“We love it the way it is,” Gaylen said. “That’s a historical landmark for Davis [...] I spent a night in a jail cell there as a high school kid. That building has history, that town is dear to my heart [...] For me, it’s a chance to come home.”

2 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2021

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

STUDENTS LOSE MONEY TO EMAIL, PHONE SCAMS CLAIMING TO BE PROFESSORS, ICE Multiple widespread fraud campaigns have led the UC Davis Police Department to issue crime alerts urging students to stay vigilant

BY KATHLEEN QUINN campus@theaggie.org On Oct. 19, the UC Davis Police Department (UCDPD) issued a fraud warning to students to be on the look-out for emails that appear to be professors offering jobs. For the students who responded, scammers would claim that they needed to purchase computer equipment which led to a request for money in the form of gift cards or Zelle transfers.

Sterling Beauchamp, a third-year transfer student in applied mathematics, said he was contacted about a research assistant position in August by one of these scammers pretending to be a well-known psychology professor. “[The email] was offering some absurd amount of money, like a $500 a week, work from home type of deal,” Beauchamp said. “My first red flag was the professor [they] were claiming to be wasn’t using their UC Davis email.”

Joseph Farrow, the chief of police at UCDPD, said the scammers will use familiar names of professors as a way of enticing students into responding.

UC Davis keeps a log of the scams on its “phishbowl” page.

Within the month of October, 17 phishing emails were confirmed.

“The fake job scam is nothing new,” Cheryl Washington, the chief information security officer at UC Davis, said via email. “In the past month, our adversaries have escalated the volume of job scam email campaigns dramatically.”

Beauchamp said that after an initial text with the phone number provided in the email, he was referred to a secondary number.

“They wanted me to go down to Walmart to check the price of a printer, and I said ‘Yeah, I’ll definitely go and do that for you, just send me the standard paperwork,’” Beauchamp said. “They weren’t able to produce paperwork, so I said, ‘Hey, I’ll see you around, you guys are wasting my time.’”

Washington said that they see around 15-20 job scam campaigns each day.

“Sometimes the message claims to be a UC Davis professor,”

Washington said via email. “Other times they pose as external parties offering jobs or internships. Whichever tactic is successful then gets repeated multiple times.”

With the job scam in particular, Farrow is aware of three reports submitted to the department, including one where a student reported that they had lost $400.

Washington said that she is aware of 10 cases in the last month where students reported that they lost money.

“Victims, however, are oftentimes embarrassed to come forward, so we suspect there may be more,” Washington said via email. “We strongly encourage victims to contact the campus information security office.”

The California Aggie obtained a screenshot of the email sent to Beauchamp. In the email, it requested his full name, a working phone number and his year of study and provided a 747 area code phone number to reply to for further information.

Even after not moving forward with the job offer, Beauchamp said that the scammers kept contacting him.

“They texted me again recently trying to get me to sign up for something,” Beauchamp said.

Another ongoing campaign which Farrow refers to as the “ICE scam” resulted in the loss of approximately 240,000 Chinese Yuan, which translates to over $37,000 for one student.

“Phone calls to your personal phone that claim to be some government authority, like the IRS or ICE, have resulted in UC Davis students losing thousands of dollars out of fear of being jailed or deported,” Washington said via email.

Under the Services for International Students and Scholars website, there are resources international students can use to help identify suspicious phone calls or emails as well as information on how to contact the police.

“They’ll play off the fact that you have to have a visa, and you’re subject to all the immigration laws and that sort of thing,” Farrow said. “It will basically say something like, ‘Your visa is expiring or your visa is no good, your visa is going to be withheld. You need to immediately leave the country, but I can help you — and you want me to help you.’”

CHRISTINA LIU / AGGIE One tactic UC Davis has used to curb these types of attacks is the use of Duo for dual authentication.

“As we are seeing, one compromised account has a critical negative impact on the campus community at large,” Washington said via email. “Duo is in place to protect you as a member of the community as much as protecting your individual computing account.”

Some scammers have found creative ways to avoid detection by the university’s automatic fraud detection system — submitting their requests to smaller groups of students.

“In general, be very wary of any email message that directs you not to use your campus email account for communicating,” Washington said via email. “The hackers know very well that this will bypass all the UC Davis email security controls.”

Farrow said he is aware that sometimes people can be afraid to contact the police, but this is an area that they can be helpful.

“We could just help people, we don’t even need to know their name,” Farrow said. “They can just call us up and say, ‘Hey can I play this thing for you? What do you think?’ We could save people a lot of pain.”

SORORITY GOVERNANCE PERPETUATES ‘OLD-FASHIONED’ PRACTICES, ACCORDING TO SOME UC DAVIS SORORITY MEMBERS Four UC Davis sorority women believe the Greek system must reform unequal social expectations for sorority and fraternity members

BY LYRA FARRELL features@theaggie.org

AMY YU / AGGIE Since 1902, the National Panhellenic Conference (NPC) has been the governing body that oversees 26 sororities across the U.S. and Canada, including chapters of nine sororities at UC Davis, providing them with guidelines for upholding certain social and academic standards. Since 1975, the NPC has enacted a “policy of alcohol-free and illegal substance-free facilities for all housed chapters,” meaning that any sorority guided by the NPC cannot host or hold events that serve alcohol.

The equivalent umbrella organization for fraternities, the Interfraternity Council (IFC), on the other hand, doesn’t have such a rule. Some UC Davis sorority members, like student A, who requested to remain anonymous to prevent retribution from her panhellenic chapter or its members, explained why this discrepancy between the Greek system’s rules frustrates her.

“None of us like it and none of us enjoy it, I just think some of us more intensely recognize that it’s sexist and it’s wrong,” student

A said.

Student B, a second UC Davis sorority member who also requested anonymity, also to prevent retribution from her panhellenic chapter or its members, pointed out that the rule put in place by the NPC showcases the different standards women and men are judged by, both in and out of Greek life.

“I feel like sometimes we have to try harder to better our image because as women, I feel like we’re generally put into boxes,” student B said.

Student B said that — at least in her experience — the stereotyping of sorority women seems to be an inevitable part of Greek life. She said that from what she’s seen in her Greek community, though both the fraternity and sorority systems come with stereotypes, additional, sexist stereotypes seem to be put on the sorority women.

“Men are allowed to drink and party [...] and still be [seen as] smart, where I feel like [with] women in organizations like this, people put us into a box,” student B said. “So if we’re going to be put into a box, I don’t want to be put into a box of an idiot girl who doesn’t care about anything except drinking and hooking up with frat boys.”

According to student C, a third sorority member who requested anonymity for the purpose of preventing retribution from her panhellenic chapter or its members, apart from social stigma, there are often very real consequences disobeying NPC’s sobriety rule. During formal recruitment, sorority women are expected to observe a “dry period,” during which members are not allowed to drink alcohol or generally attend parties where it is served. Student C explained that this rule can cause division among the panhellenic community, and that it does not apply to fraternity chapters.

“It was encouraged for sorority members to report girls in other sororities if they saw them at parties, and if they reported you [...], your sorority would be fined and in turn your sorority would fine you, but in frats, [there’s] none of this,” student C said.

“The discrepancy there is honestly astounding and when you really start to think about it, it’s so messed up.”

In student B’s experience, there are also major differences between fraternities’ and sororities’ “recruitment” processes.

Student B explained that a fairly widely-established guideline that panhellenic chapters adhere to is to not discuss the “three Bs” (which student B names as: booze, boys and bibles), during the sorority recruitment process. She clarified that though this is not an official guideline, but more of an unofficial rule, she has been personally instructed to follow it and each Greek Life member who spoke for this article also reported that it is enforced in their sororities. Student B believes that this guideline diminishes the intelligence and values of sorority women.

“They don’t trust us enough to be able to talk about [those things] and still be smart, educated, active members of the community,” Student B said.

Student A believes that the recruitment process for sororities should involve more open communication surrounding topics that pertain greatly to the safety of sorority women, yet are restricted.

“It’s so uncomfortable the things we’re not allowed to talk about,” student A said. “We’re young women [...] and we’re a lot more open than we used to be, and we’re trying to be a lot more sex-positive. Our sorority’s philanthropy is sexual violence awareness, and a huge part of sexual awareness is understanding sexuality in general. We still aren’t allowed to talk about our sex lives with our friends, we’re not allowed to talk about alcohol.”

Student D, another anonymous sorority member who requested anonymity to prevent retribution from her panhellenic chapter or its members, added that in addition to the existing stigma around discussing alcohol and fraternities, sorority members who do choose to drink have to be careful about drinking at fraternities. She expressed that she and others often feel uneasy about accepting drinks at fraternity houses, as they cannot know for sure what is in them.

GREEKDRINKINGCULTURE on 9

ASUCD HELD QUARTERLY TOWN HALL, UNIT DIRECTORS PROVIDED UPDATES ON OCT. 28 SR #11, SR #8, SB #19 and SB #20 passed at the senate meeting

BY GABY SAINZ-MEDINA campus@theaggie.org

AGGIE FILE Vice President Juliana Martinez Hernandez called the quarterly Town Hall meeting to order at 6:15 p.m. She then recited the UC Davis Land Acknowledgement.

At the Town Hall, ASUCD senate answered questions coming from students attending the meeting both in person and online through the senate box.

A question that was discussed in great detail came from an audience member that shared about their friend being quarantined despite negative COVID-19 tests and not receiving the resources that were promised.

Senators responded to this by bringing up a meeting they had with the Academic Senate, requesting that teachers no longer use attendance-based grading this quarter.

“The response from the Academic Senate was that they can only have the best practices; they cannot force professors to do anything,” Gabriela Tsudik, the chairperson of the Academic Affairs Commission, said. “Hopefully this can change [in] the future, but for right now that’s all we have from the Academic Senate.”

After a few more questions regarding what senators are currently working on, a break was called until the senate meeting began.

The senate meeting was called to order at 8:32 p.m.

Aparna Manoj, the Mental Health Initiative (MHI) unit director, was the first to present a quarterly report, expressing that everything in the unit is running smoothly aside from a lack of office space.

“It really is something that I am passionate [about] that you all have the space, given that we made you a unit, and you all have gone through the trouble of expanding and showing that development to this table that you are capable of sustaining yourselves as a unit,” Senate President Pro Tempore Kabir Sahni said.

The Campus Center for the Environment proceeded. Assistant Unit Director Karl Zalhass explained that the center is currently working on hiring and getting its teams together.

The Library Committee Chairperson Dhanya Indraganti presented how they are aiming to provide gender-inclusive products in the library bathrooms and are going to begin posting vacancies in order to expand the committee’s staff.

“Given that you were confirmed during one of the meetings this quarter and the fact that you’ve accomplished even this much work with three committee members is super commendable,” Sahni said.

The AggieMentors Committee, which was created during the pandemic to support first-year and transfer students during their

academic transition, currently has around 80 mentor-mentee pairs and those in charge of the committee are confident in how this goal is being accomplished.

During the public announcements portion of the meeting, Sahni announced that the ASUCD Scholarship application is open and is due on Nov. 17. Additionally, the senate encouraged students to submit nominees for the Volunteer Award, along with the Champagne Award.

The candidate that was to be confirmed as the chairperson of the Elections Committee during the meeting presented late.

After much deliberation, the confirmation of the nominee failed unanimously.

“The elections are an extremely important part of the ASUCD democracy that we hold here for the students, and I’m not sure if I would be willing to put the trust of said elections in the hands of someone who is unable to communicate effectively,” Senator Aidan Kato said.

SR #11 was the emergency resolution introduced by Senator Harris Razaqi, which aims to recognize ADHD Acceptance Month and the struggles students with ADHD face. Because October was ADHD Acceptance Month, Razaqi felt it was necessary to present it immediately. The resolution was passed unanimously.

SB #19 calls for funding in order to educate UC students about threats to reproductive freedoms. The bill passed unanimously.

SR #8 is directed at ASUC at UC Berkeley and asks the organization to change its name, as it represents the associated students at UC Berkeley rather than the entire UC system. The resolution passed unanimously.

SB #20 proposed to disband the Committee on Committees, which had the power to fill vacancies in existing committees at UC Davis, and was passed unanimously.

Martinez Hernandez adjourned the meeting at 11:42 p.m.

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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2021 | 3

UC DAVIS COMMUNITY GRIEVES THE LOSS OF COMPOST, ONE OF THE FAMOUS FELINES WHO CALLED THE CAMPUS HOME Students and staff share their experiences and memories of Compost and other campus cats

BY MAYA SHYDLOWSKI features@theaggie.org Over the weekend of Oct. 23, UC Davis lost Compost, one of the beloved felines that has brought comfort and happiness to many students. Compost, who lived at the Student Farm on campus, died at the age of 13 as a result of various medical conditions, according to an Instagram post from the Student Farm. She was brought to the veterinary medical center on campus because of an ongoing problem, but died there after cancerous cells were found in her lungs.

The Student Farm announced Compost’s death and presented a memoir of her life via Instagram. According to the post, she was born behind the shop at the Student Farm and was known for her friendly nature.

According to the post, “a small number of Student Farmers lovingly buried Compost before the rains came in a bed of cardoon leaves and flowers under a tree near the picnic tables.”

Compost is said to have supported both student mental health and farm management during her life on the Student Farm. She was loved by everyone who visited the farm, except for the small rodents whose population she kept under control. She was often seen laying in the sun on the picnic tables next to the Ecological Garden, where students often gather between classes or work.

Julia Shreiber is the coordinator of the Ecological Garden at the Student Farm and helped take care of Compost. She shared why Compost was so important to so many staff and students.

“I think she just had a sort of very calm, sweet presence that reminded folks to slow down and look around and enjoy the sunshine,” Shreiber said. “I think she helped a lot of folks to let go of stress and be in the moment with her there in the garden.”

Shreiber said Compost would greet the staff and students every morning when they got to work and often jump up into their laps.

Many students have this same memory of the friendly black feline, including Adam Maiale, who is a fourth-year sustainable agriculture and food systems and Spanish double major and former intern at the Student Farm.

“I loved sitting down at the tables at the Eco Garden, and Compost would just come and lay down in front of me,” Maiale said. “I miss giving Compost belly rubs.”

Compost, like the other cats on campus, provided students and staff with emotional support and a break from the busyness of their lives.

Luckily, Compost is not the only cat to call UC Davis home. Multiple cats have been spotted roaming around near buildings and taking in food and attention whenever they can. While not

Cheeto, a campus cat that resides by the Physics building. (Quinn Spooner / Aggie) everyone can have a pet in college, everyone can visit the friendly cats that reside around campus.

They are technically feral cats, though they are taken care of by both students and faculty.

One student who knows these cats well is Tina Sorenson, a fifth-year art studio and computer engineering double major, who is doing a photography project on feral cats in Davis. She said that she chose to make cats the focus of her project both because of how much she misses her own cat and because of how much happiness the cats of Davis bring people.

“I wanted to do a more lighthearted, positive project because I feel like sometimes we all sort of need a break from the things around us,” Sorenson said.

Sorenson has collected photos of at least three cats on campus, including Cheeto, who is most likely to be found by the physics building. Cheeto

has become something of a legend around there, as the first floor northeast hallway was recently named “Cheeto Way” in his honor. He was even featured in an article in The Sacramento Bee after a sign went up by the physics building warning students to stop feeding him.

“He has become far too overweight for his health, please do not feed him — no matter how much he begs! And he will beg. Because he knows we are suckers!” the sign reads.

Cheeto had gained a bit of weight but has returned to a relatively healthy size since the sign was posted.

However, Cheeto is not the only cat attracted to the physics department. A large, grey cat called Big Grey lived there before Cheeto, but was adopted. There are also currently two other cats who visit the physics building: Allie and Charcoal. They are far more shy and do not

interact with students as much as Cheeto, but they are fed and taken care of by faculty in the physics department as well.

Cheeto, originally known as Tangelo, was discovered with another cat named Clementine, who now resides at the Art MFA studios on campus.

Other cats Sorenson has taken pictures of include Coco of Veihmeyer Hall and Newspaper, who lives by Voorhies Hall.

“I think it brings more people together because when I was taking photos of Cheeto, some other students came by and wanted to take photos of him,” Sorenson said. “They were telling me about other cats they’d seen. So it seems like when it comes to cute animals, people are very happy to share their stories about them.”

THE CITY OF DAVIS CONTINUES TO DEMONSTRATE COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABILITY AND THE ENVIRONMENT Public Works Department launches Green Gardening webinar series, and city commissions meet to draft policies for tree planting and solar panel installation

BY LEVI GOLDSTEIN city@theaggie.org This past week in Davis, sustainability efforts were on the front line at City Hall. On Oct. 20, the Public Works Utilities and Operations Department held the first workshop of the Virtual Green Gardening webinar series.

The second workshop was hosted on Oct. 27 by Dawn Calciano, a conservation coordinator at the utilities and operations department. The workshop educated Davis citizens about how to landscape a sustainable yard by choosing the right plants and caring for them adequately.

“We encourage people to have that knowledge,” Calciano said.

“Here’s how to properly water both young trees and more mature trees, how much water do they really need, how do I select trees that are appropriate for my property so that I’m not having to potentially remove the tree in the future.”

Calciano also shared Davis irrigation and watering policies.

Beginning Nov. 1, new sprinkler/spray irrigation watering restrictions were implemented by the city council. Until Feb. 28, 2022, odd-numbered addresses can only water Tuesdays

and Saturdays, and even-numbered addresses can only water Wednesdays and Sundays. Citizens can use AquaHawk to track their water usage and monitor their property’s irrigation system.

Don Shor, the owner of the Redwood Barn Nursery and board member of Tree Davis, understands firsthand the benefits of sustainable landscaping. He has been gardening since he was ten years old, and he opened the Redwood Barn plant nursery in 1981 after graduating from UC Davis with a plant science degree.

“The process of gardening is the process of setting goals, planning for something and implementing it with a distinct payoff,” Shor said. “You have all that excitement, that enthusiasm, the planning, the knowledge, the process and then you have this reward.”

Shor is an active educator. He’s a writer for a newspaper column at the Davis Vanguard, he hosts a gardening radio show on KDRT 95.7 and has built a comprehensive website with plant knowledge and advice for beginner to advanced gardeners. He emphasizes the importance of choosing plants for your yard or garden that are

Sustainability work done by City Council, who are planting trees in parking lots and solar carports. (Quinn Spooner / Aggie)

local and suitable for the climate, and encourages people to do their research before planting.

Tree Davis, a local non-profit organization, partnered with the Public Works Utilities and Operations Department on Nov. 3, for the third workshop in the Green Gardening webinar series. The presentation included information on why maintaining a healthy urban forest is important and outlined rules for planting trees in an urban environment. There has already been a noticeable impact of environmental education and outreach.

“We see this overtime behavioral change,” Calciano said.

“During the last drought, we saw, statewide, a shift in how people perceive water conservation in general. We’ve seen reductions in water usage. We’ve seen an increase in the amount of waste that is converted from the landfill that is either going into organics or that is being recycled.”

Also, on Oct. 27, a 2x2 committee consisting of two members from the Tree Commission and two members from the Natural Resources Commission met with “visiting expert” Rowan Beckensten, a Senior Project Engineer at solar developer Silicone Ranch, to discuss the benefits and trade-offs of trees and solar carports in Davis parking lots.

The 2x2 subcommittee was created to draft new policies and revise Chapter 37 of the City’s Tree Ordinance. Assistant City Manager Ashley Feeney commented that the previous policies are no longer adequate, for they don’t account for new technologies that are emerging in the development industry.

Beckensten informed the committee that even a 2-3% energy output loss caused by shading from trees would be of economic concern to the developer. Trees need to be removed in order to install solar carports in shaded parking lots. Multiple developing companies have already attempted to do this, a controversial issue in City Hall as well as among Davis residents.

Thus arises a problem that the 2x2 committee is working to solve. John Johnston, the Chair of the Natural Resources Commission, hopes that the updated policies will outline new design standards for parking lots that recognize the benefits of both trees and solar panels.

Alan Hirsch, a retired public transit worker who calls himself “The Lorax,” considers caring for and fighting for trees the purpose of his life. Not only does he feel appreciation for trees, he also feels a responsibility toward the environment.

“As Americans, we have the original sin of a carbon footprint,” Hirsch said. “The question is, what do we do to redeem ourselves from that?”

Despite being a self-proclaimed advocate for trees, Hirsch also believes that a compromise between trees and solar panels is the most favorable outcome.

“Solar panels do things that trees don’t do, and trees do things that solar panels don’t do,” Hirsch said.

Hirsch has been very vocal at City Hall commission meetings, he said.

“Some days I’m outraged,” he said. “But we are moving ahead.

Everybody listens and is respectful, and that’s worth a lot.”

4 | THURSDAY, NOVMEBER 11, 2021

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

OCTOBER STORM SETS NEW RECORDS FOR SINGLE-DAY RAINFALL AFTER YEARS-LONG DRY SPELL Climate change and drought concerns persist despite record-breaking precipitation

BY YAN YAN HUSTIS HAYES city@theaggie.org On Oct. 24, Sacramento received a total of 5.44 inches of rain.

This marks the largest 24-hour precipitation in over 100 years, breaking the previous record established in 1880. The weekend of rain also provided the North Sierra half the amount of rain in just one weekend than the entire region has received over the entire last year.

While it is tempting to view the rainfall as a turning point in California’s ongoing drought emergency, it follows an extremely dry period beginning in 2019. Associate professor of climate change impacts, Erwan Monier, warned that we should not expect the rain to continue into the winter season.

“We expect these coming months/year to continue to be drier than usual—the 2019-2021 period has been extremely dry,” Monier said via email. “The recent precipitation is an anomaly and should not be seen as the beginning of a wet year.”

The rainfall on the weekend of Oct. 23 was an extreme event, but one that we should expect to see more of. With climate change, extreme events such as these will become increasingly common in the coming years, according to Monier.

“We don’t necessarily expect substantial changes in the total amount of annual precipitation in California, but we expect the rainy season to shorten, meaning we expect more intense precipitation when it falls,” Monier said via email. “Similarly, we expect a longer dry season, meaning Fall and Spring will experience less precipitation.”

In addition to more extreme floods and droughts, California should expect increased heat waves, major snowpack loss and increases in wildfire severity. Climate change has created conditions in which environmental events tend to become more extreme, according to Monier.

“Essentially, we expect increases in both flooding and droughts, however counterintuitive it may be,” Monier said via email.

“Think: when it rains it pours, and when it’s dry it’s extremely dry.

Climate change has been and will continue to intensify these two extremes.”

Fifth year computer science major Stephanie Do was glad for the rain after the dry conditions of the past years, but also noted how quickly the rain subsided.

“I definitely think the rain is super good because of this drought we’ve been having,” Do said. “It’s so weird because Sunday was so rainy, but then it was normal the next days.”

With an increase in wildfires, drought conditions and record breaking heat waves to name just a few extreme events, the past

Rainbow over Tercero Residence Halls. (Maddie Payne / Aggie) three years have been especially difficult and unpredictable. Do explained that the coronavirus pandemic changed her outlook.

“It’s crazy because you obviously never know what’s going to be next,” Do said. “With everything that’s happened, the most pressing issue is COVID. That has really messed up my perspective.”

In addition to her concerns about the drought, Do explained that the wildfires are also a primary issue.

“I feel like all of my social media there’s been at least one person who’s been affected by the fires,” Do said. “The past couple of years we’ve seen how climate change has affected our experiences especially with the fire[s].”

Like Monier, faculty professor and cooperative extension specialist in water resources, Samuel Sandoval Solis, stressed that the recent rain does not mean the end of California’s water problems.

“This rain is not breaking the drought,” Sandoval Solis said. “It is a good start and it replenished the deficit in moisture in Northern California but we are by no means in a position to replenish two years of below normal conditions.”

Sandoval Solis emphasized that fighting climate change and

ARTICLE 26 BACKPACK FROM UC DAVIS ALLOWS STUDENTS TO SAFELY STORE ACADEMIC RESOURCES Backpack aims to provide refugee students and those from areas of conflict a secure location to store information and documents

BY SIMRAN KALKAT features@theaggie.org Many students at UC Davis may take access to school as well as education materials and documents for granted, but for refugee and atrisk students, accessing schoolwork can be a challenge.

Article 26 Backpack, commonly referred to as Backpack, is a free cloud-based universal and secure tool for uploading and storing important educational materials and documents created at UC Davis. Students can use Backpack to upload their CVs, resumés, cover letters and other important education-related documents.

Backpack is also available in six languages (English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Dari and Farsi), which makes it especially helpful for international students.

Michaela Krulee, a fourth-year political science-public service and economics major as well as a lead intern at Article 26 Backpack, describes the various teams and projects Backpack operates.

“Article 26 Backpack was created in 2016, as a way to help Syrian students and young people who had fled the war to protect their important educational and career documents, allowing them to connect, or reconnect, with universities, employers or scholarship agencies wherever they were,” Krulee said via email.

The Backpack team has been hosting workshops and information sessions to enroll students, particularly those with a need for Backpack. They partner with various organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to connect with students and individuals all over the world and enroll refugees and displaced peoples in Backpack.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan this summer, the Backpack team was ready to respond to the crisis. Kiana Alirezaie, a fourthyear international relations major and an intern on Backpack’s Afghanistan team, worked closely on this new effort.

“When the Taliban took over, that was a big thing for us,” Alirezaie said. “We did a lot of translation work. I speak Farsi [and] my team lead spoke Dari which is what Afghans speak, so we did a lot of translating materials and documents.”

Alirezaie and the team spent a lot of the late summer of 2021 reaching out to Afghan organizations and getting active on social media to raise awareness about Backpack and reach Afghan students and refugees who needed a safe place to store their educational materials.

Getting these students access to Backpack was an important step in helping to make sure their documents and materials could remain secure during a tumultuous period in their lives.

During the Taliban’s takeover, Alirezaie said that she noticed a surge of students who signed up for Backpack.

The Backpack team is currently reaching

out to and working with other organizations around the world to make Backpack accessible to students in other nations.

“We are incredibly excited to be partnering with a Rwandan-based NGO called Kepler in order to enroll Burundian and Congolese refugees and other displaced people in Backpack,” Krulee said. “This collaboration was made possible through support from the Mastercard Foundation.”

As the lead intern at Backpack, Krulee oversees the ongoing projects and supports the various teams at Backpack.

“We currently have teams working in Rwanda, Hong Kong, Burma, Colombia, Afghanistan, the Arab World and most recently domestically in California with AB 540/DACA holders,” Krulee said.

The Mochila team at Backpack works with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and AB 540 students. Sarahi Nunez, a fourth-year international relations and Spanish double major as well as an intern on the Mochila team, discussed the importance of the Backpack, particularly for DACA students, and what drew her to work with Backpack.

“When Dr. Watenpaugh proposed the idea of having a team specifically for undocumented students, I knew I had to get involved because I have close family members that are undocumented and are students,” Nunez said via email. “At the moment we are working on information gathering, building materials and making connections to expand Backpack to DACA and AB540 students for their use.”

After talking with a cousin who is a DACA student, Nunez said that she realized the importance of a tool like Backpack for other undocumented students who were worried about the safety of important files, not just for school, but also for renewing their DACA status. “[DACA and AB540 students need to protect their] proof of residency, documents for applications like citizenship applications, marriage petitions, photos, etc,” Nunez said.

“There are various applications to use Backpack for undocumented students and we hope to have workshops and materials to inform students who want to learn more.”

Although the intended purpose and focus of Backpack is to assist refugee students and students from areas of conflict, Backpack is open for all to use.

“Students at UC Davis should know that Backpack is not just for refugee or displaced students—it is for everyone,” Krulee said. “We have made it our mission to enroll every single person in Backpack so that we can destigmatize what it means to be a refugee, promote digital dignity and make the tool accessible to all.”

Students can follow Backpack’s social media accounts @thearticle26backpack on Instagram and @a26backpack on Twitter to keep up with the program and get more information on how to enroll.

mitigating its effects are not easy fixes.

“Modifying legislation and making a change takes time, takes time for us to figure out how to take showers, it takes effort and a change of mindset,” Sandoval Solis said. “We need to start thinking about how to cut down our water use” It is important that individuals recognize the small ways in which they can use water smarter, rather than looking to the rainy season to alleviate the stress from California’s drought. Sandoval Solis encouraged people to try and reduce their carbon footprint as best they can.

“Support local agriculture by buy[ing] local,” Sandoval Solis said. “Take shorter showers, use the dishwasher and maintain drought resistant landscapes. Your decisions will make a difference.”

The changing and increasingly extreme weather conditions that are worsened by climate change are not natural nor are they unique to California. Sandoval Solis explained that because of this it is important that we all do our part to combat climate change “These [extreme weather] events happen once in a lifetime, not once in a decade,” Sandoval Solis said. “It is not normal. We easily forget that we’re in a drought, but no one can pull out.”

KATHERINE FRANKS / AGGIE

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2021 | 5

EDITORIAL EFFORT FROM ASUCD, STUDENTS IS NEEDED TO INCREASE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT Individuals already involved with ASUCD should actively encourage voting and promote awareness

THE

C ALIFORNIA A GGIE

ED ITO RIAL B OARD 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

Since Monday, undergraduate students have had the opportunity to vote in the ASUCD fall election on three measures and for candidates running for Senate, international and transfer student representatives and external affairs vice president. If you are reading this before noon on Nov. 11 and you haven’t already, we encourage you to log in to https://elections.ucdavis.edu and vote. Check out our endorsements below.

As of writing this, the Editorial Board expects to see yet another election with unsurprisingly low turnout. In the 2021 ASUCD spring election, fewer than 2,000 students voted for Senate candidates; to put that into some perspective, there are over 30,000 undergraduate students, all of whom are allowed to vote, making voter turnout for the Senate race under 6%. The 2020 ASUCD fall election had a similar turnout.

Voter turnout peaked in ASUCD’s 2020 winter election, in which 35.82% of students — over 10,000 undergraduates — voted on the Basic Needs and Services Referendum. During that election, ASUCD employees and volunteers were everywhere, calling out from the MU patio, tabling in the CoHo and writing on whiteboards in lecture halls. The visibility of this effort clearly paid off with the referendum passing, yet even with record turnout, fewer than half of all students cast a ballot.

Low voter turnout in ASUCD is a major problem. An effective student government requires that the students it serves are active, informed participants. If over 90% of students are either unaware of the elections or apathetic toward voting, fewer than 10% of students are choosing the elected officials who represent all students.

ASUCD employs over 1,000 students, which means that if each student employee voted and told three other students to vote, the number of voters would be more than double that of the two most recent elections. But to even do that, students not as closely tied to ASUCD first need to be aware of what ASUCD is.

Increasing this awareness is a two-way street: Students need to care more and put in the work to learn more, but ASUCD needs to prompt that with more intentional and directed outreach. Both this year and in the past, multiple candidates running for Senate and other executive positions have told the Editorial Board that a lack of transparency and communication is the biggest issue ASUCD faces. We agree.

These same candidates have cited social media as a possible solution for increasing communication and transparency, but students already uninvolved with the association are unlikely to pay attention to or care about posts from an Instagram account they may not even follow. Investing time and resources into overdue publicity is necessary — tabling at the MU, making announcements in classrooms and hanging more prominent posters would be a good start. The effort that was put into increasing voter turnout for the winter 2020 election, when the Basic Needs and Services Referendum was on the ballot, should be repeated every election.

ASUCD isn’t just the student government — units, such as the CoHo, Pantry and Unitrans, are core components of what makes ASUCD what it is. These are all services students use on a daily basis, and they should know that the senators they vote for — or don’t vote for — make decisions about the budgets of these units. They should also know the roles of the executive and judicial branches of ASUCD — what does it actually mean to be ASUCD president?

Some of the candidates in this quarter’s elections proposed holding events to publicize what ASUCD is and how students can get involved. The Editorial Board hopes that, if elected, these candidates work to implement this initiative. Additionally, for ASUCD to represent all students, especially those who aren’t interested in being involved, they should also hold and promote events intended to share information with the student body at large.

In an article in The California Aggie from 2009, a reporter wrote that “many students may find ASUCD difficult to penetrate, seeing it more as a clique or private club than a service,” a sentiment some students likely still share. In setting tangible goals for increasing students’ knowledge of ASUCD’s operations and making the association feel less exclusive, ASUCD can not only garner feedback from the students they serve but also welcome different perspectives.

ASUCD is for and by students. That doesn’t mean that all 30,000 students should have the ASUCD bylaws memorized and be ready to quote the constitution, but students should feel agency in making their voices heard through providing feedback and voting.

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 KESHAV AGRAWAL Website Manager ANTHONY NGUYEN Social Media Manager JOSHUA GAZZANIGA Distribution Manager JENNA HEATH Marketing Manager JELENA LAPUZ Outreach Director LAURIE PEDERSON Business Development Manager

ASUCD FALL ELECTION ENDORSEMENTS: CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING The Editorial Board endorses five candidates for ASUCD senate and one for each of the non-senatorial positions in this election ASUCD Fall Elections began today on Monday, Nov. 8, with seven senate candidates running for six available seats, two candidates running for external affairs vice president (EAVP), one candidate running for transfer student representative and one candidate running for international student representative. The Editorial Board interviewed all of the candidates running for senate, the uncontested candidates running for international and transfer student representatives and one of the two candidates running for EAVP. Senate Endorsements: Kelechi Orji — BASED The Editorial Board was greatly impressed with second-year neurobiology, physiology and behavior (NPB) major Kelechi Orji’s commitment to representing and supporting marginalized communities on campus. As an international student from Nigeria, Orji, if elected, plans to address problems that he feels members of the communities he is part of face, such as finding health insurance and housing as well as the issue of policing on campus. The Editorial Board believes he could be a strong voice on many of these issues. Orji also has experience working on committees and commissions that are directly related to other parts of his platform including the Environmental Protection and Policy Commission and the Student Health and Wellness Committee. His goals to create a more sustainable campus and push for better mental health services are commendable.

Radhika Gawde — Independent Second-year political science major Radhika Gawde is extremely well-versed in the inner workings of ASUCD. As the chairperson of the Internal Affairs Commission, she has gained a breadth of knowledge about the association and has developed the skills required for leadership and advocacy as a senator. Her platforms for academic accommodations, particularly menstrual accommodations, reform of the Equitable Access program and a referendum on student fees are admirable. She outlined specific goals for her time as a senator if elected, and the Editorial Board hopes that her legislative experience will allow her to accomplish many of these goals.

Sofia Saraj — BASED Sofia Saraj, a second-year NPB and linguistics double major, has extensive experience in advocacy work. She started her own company, founded a social media platform to promote

conversations between activists and worked with the Rice Project, to name a few. Her work is admirable and exhibits her ability to complete long-term, activism-based projects. The Editorial Board believes this experience will allow Saraj to effectively promote sustainability, improve student outreach and support underrepresented communities should she be elected as a senator.

Dennis Liang — BASED Fourth-year history and economics double major Dennis Liang’s plans to advocate for recorded lectures and higher wages for student employees make him a compelling candidate.

These elements of his platform are issues that the Editorial Board feels are extremely pressing, and the Board hopes that Liang’s experience as the vice academic director of the Student Advocate’s Office will allow him to skillfully work to combat them if elected. Liang demonstrated a strong understanding of ASUCD in his interview, and the Board believes this knowledge as well as his experience will enable him to advocate for students and follow through with his platforms, should he be selected for a senatorial position.

ideas make her a compelling candidate and will enable her to skillfully continue in this position if selected.

Transfer Student Representative:

International Student Representative:

The current Transfer Student Representative and a fourth-year political science major Tariq Azim aims to continue advocating for transfer students through combating stigma surrounding transferring from community college and promoting equal opportunities for transfer students. Through his work thus far in the position and his specific plans to support transfer students, the Editorial Board feels that Azim demonstrated the skills necessary to continue in this position.

Keven Zhou — Independent Second-year managerial economics major Keven Zhou is the interim international student representative, and the Editorial Board feels he will bring thoughtfulness and skill to this position if elected. Zhou hopes to continue his work collaborating with the International Center to promote greater international student representation on campus. The Board believes his experience advocating for LGBTQ+ rights in China and his personal experience as an international student at UC Davis will allow him to expertly do so.

Tariq Azim — Independent

Disclaimer: The Editorial Board can endorse up to six senate candidates and one candidate each for external affairs vice president, transfer student representative and international student representative. The Board also retains the right to not endorse any candidates for these positions.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ONLINE ON NOV. 8.

Gaius Ilupeju — Independent The Editorial Board believes that first-year political science major Gaius Ilupeju will be able to effectively advocate for first years and bring issues that concern them to the senate table if elected. The Board was particularly impressed with his plan to collaborate with the Pantry to create mobile options for students who may be unable to easily access its services and felt that he exhibited adequate knowledge of ASUCD despite being relatively new to campus. His experience with community advocacy and student government will, the Board feels, allow him to successfully fulfill his goals.

External Affairs Vice President: Shruti Adusumilli — Independent Shruti Adusumilli, a third-year political science and computer science double major and the current EAVP, has many ongoing projects that the Editorial Board believes can benefit the student body. If elected to continue in this position, Adusumilli will advocate for election day to be a non-instructional holiday, work to create a survey regarding academic accommodations for students and push for a requirement that syllabi and course evaluations are made available before students register for classes — an idea that the Editorial Board strongly believes would be valuable for students.

The Board feels that Adusumilli’s knowledge and

Scan this QR code to vote in the ASUCD fall 2021 elections.

6 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2021

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

OPINION DO THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS HAVE THEIR ACE OF THE FUTURE? Will Logan Webb continue to pitch like an all-star going into next season?

BY ALEX MOTAWI almotawi@ucdavis.edu

KATHERINE FRANKS/AGGIE SF Giants pitcher Logan Webb had a 2021 season worth remembering. As a 24-year-old coming into the 2021 season, most people would’ve pegged his season as a success if he so much as anchored himself in the San Francisco rotation, but he blew expectations away.

Webb pitched to the tune of a 5.47 ERA during the COVID-

shortened 2020 season and turned from a hopeful innings-eater into the late-season ace of the MLB-best, 107-win Giants. And then he still had the gas to shut down a top offense in the playoffs — twice. How’s that for a breakout season?

The Giants as a whole crushed preseason predictions across the board and gave the world a magnificent five-game series against the Dodgers, which would’ve been impossible if Webb hadn’t pitched for over 14 innings of one-run ball across two dominant starts.

The Giants as a franchise are awash with impressive postseason results from their ace pitchers, and Webb’s string of starts firmly entrenched him in the ranks of Giants postseason greats with pitchers like Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner. However, the Giants did end the season with a first-round playoff exit and need to retool for next season, where Webb will be an integral part. Will the Giants be able to rely on Webb next season, and is he their ace of the future?

While prospect reports generally get thrown out the window once a player first sees quality time in the majors, it’s worth noting that when Webb lost prospect status in 2020, he was viewed as a four or five starter based on the predicted efficacy of his slider and changeup and had just developed a cutter. It was enough to get him to the majors, but the pitch package wasn’t cutting it against the top level of hitters, since his sky-high 5.47 ERA and peripherals weren’t much better.

Going into his breakout season, he drastically changed his offerings to great results. The small change he made from 2020 was changing with the frequency of his off-speed offerings. He started throwing his knockout slider more compared to his changeup, especially to right-handed batters. His huge change was greatly cutting down on his four-seamers, effectively replacing it with his sinker as his main offering. These changes turned him from a below-average pitcher into an ace for at least the 2021 season.

Webb’s four-seam fastball was an average pitch at best, but his sinker was one of the best pitches in the MLB this season. It stood out because his sinker tunnels with his changeup and the fact that the pitch drops over eight inches above average, dumbfounding batters at the plate. In addition, having two plus off-speed offerings in both his slider and his changeup allows him to mix up batters and be effective against both lefties and righties, which is great for his MLB future. The other big change in 2021 Logan Webb is enhanced control. His BB/9 fell almost two batters (from 3.98 to 2.18), so if he can sustain the lower walk rate, he will be set up well for another great season.

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.

SFGIANTS on 9

HUMOR

IS IT JUST ME OR DOES ONE OF THE EGGHEADS LOOK SLIGHTLY ANGRIER THAN USUAL? They’re definitely hatching a plan

BY ANNABEL MARSHALL almarshall@ucdavis.edu I know I said I would write an article about the Eggheads looking threatening and behaving in disturbing ways. However, I have changed my mind of my own volition and not under threat by any third party. What follows is my personal statement.

The Mrak Egghead did not frown at me last Monday, as I reported to campus police. I was lying and I apologize for fabricating information. The Eggheads do not draw power from human touch. Feel free to keep touching them. In fact, I read something that said it’s good for your hands, so you should probably do that.

I also apologize for my behavior when a student shouted, “Blink twice if they’re holding you hostage.” I attempted a poorly executed wink and my actions were misconstrued. I am not being held hostage. None of the Eggheads have rolled furiously toward me like a log in Donkey Kong.

I have never been forcefully imbued with all of civilization’s knowledge and transported to a six-dimensional plane. If you saw

CHRISTINA LIU/AGGIE Disclaimer: (This article is humor and/or satire, and it’s content is purely fictional. The story and or names of “sources” are fictionalized.)

me glowing and floating in the Quad last Tuesday, no you didn’t.

I also read that someone posted a “humor” article suggesting that the Eggheads receive Botox and various other cosmetic procedures. I think it is outrageous that the beauty standards of today dare insult a godly power that should be worshiped by lowly undergraduates. Even if an Egghead had opened its mouth and engulfed me into a surprisingly moist void, that would not change the injustice of this matter.

I have no information on the mysterious deaths of key political leaders of the organization known as “Egghead Truthers.” If it were me, I wouldn’t go looking for their bodies. Also, there is no court-admissable evidence that the Bookhead is connected to John Lennon’s assassination.

Hopefully, thE students of this coLlege will realize it is simPly hysteria That Has driven thEse unabashedlY insAne rumors about bronze sTatuEs coMing to life in the obscuritY of night and me Feeding them bobA and me being yelled at about not staMping my rewards card and crying loudly outsIde of the LibrarY. Also, the Stargazer requests that someone scratch their left ear.

You didn’t hear it from me.

UC DAVIS SWITCHES TO NEW PARKING APP, TURNING EVERY PARKING LOT INTO A USED CAR LOT “All cars are 50% off! Even the ones that still have owners”

BY IAN COSNER iacosner@ucdavis.edu

IAN COSNER/AGGIE Disclaimer: (This article is humor and/or satire, and it’s content is purely fictional. The story and or names of “sources” are fictionalized.)

SILVER LININGS

BY SEANNE JAVIER sajavier@ucdavis.edu Disclaimer: (This cartoon is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and names of “sources” are fictionalized.)

Parking has always been a nightmare, but what better way to usher in an already confusing and difficult transition into inperson school than to completely rehaul the parking system!

Last year, UC Davis planned on ending its school parking pass system in exchange for a new partnership with ParkMobile, a parking app that allows students to pay for parking through their phone. As horrendous as that sounds, luckily there was a miscommunication and Davis accidentally donated all the parking lots to Pickle Larry’s Crazy Car Carnival, a used car lot whose owner planned on donating their own land to the university.

So what does that mean for the average begrudging student that has to wake up an hour earlier, waste money on gas and parking and deal with traffic because of in-person school? Well fret not, because all the possible problems that would’ve happened with the ParkMobile app, such as: A 69% increase in fares for students and staff; a buggy app that can’t differentiate between the parking lot and Putah Creek; an array of signs on campus that are both pointless and not pointless due to the app not registering the difference between teacher and student parking and requiring you to do the thing it should be designed to do itself.

These grievances are all relics of the past, because under the reign of Pickle Larry, you no longer need to worry about parking fees, lettered zones or tickets. The Crazy Carnival allows all students and staff to park wherever they like on campus completely free of charge! The only catch is that if your car is in any school parking lot, Pickle Larry is legally allowed to sell your car for profit.

That’s right, folks — the Car Carnival has come back with a vengeance, looking to stake a profit off of your barely functional 2000 Pontiac Aztek. Cars are being sold for dirt cheap, no matter the condition, because the second they leave the lot, Pickle Larry no longer has the rights to your car. And while Larry is the kind of person that’s always been known for his preposterous prices, this time the panicked, perplexed pawnman has found himself in quite the pernicious pickle.

“I’ve always prided myself as being a common, sensible man,” Larry said. “I’m just a normal down-to-earth guy, like everyone else. I put on my pickle suit one leg at a time. A true dealer of the people, you could say.”

PARKMOBILE on 9

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

ARTS & CULTURE

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2021 | 7

LIZZO WAS ‘GOOD AS HELL’ IN AN UNMATCHED SET AT OUTSIDE LANDS 2021 The body-positive feminist pop star left a 200,000 person crowd screaming for more Queen energy on Halloweekend

BY ANGIE CUMMINGS arts@theaggie.org The acclaimed singer, songwriter, rapper and flutist Lizzo dominated the stage Halloween weekend as Saturday’s headliner for Outside Lands 2021. Her skintight neon green leotard only accentuated her girl boss energy as she paraded around the stage, animating her 200,000 fans in the crowd.

Never a dull moment, she began her set with her new single, “Rumors” feat. Cardi B, followed

by classic fan favorites such as “Good as Hell,” “Boys” and “Truth Hurts,” which she revealed was her personal favorite on stage.

“I have been touring since 2012, and San Francisco has consistently shown me love for nearly a decade,” she told the audience.

Lizzo, who made her debut at Outside Lands in 2018, told the crowd that she had previously performed at the 2 p.m. slot, and now she is headlining the festival, reminding her fans that anything is possible. Utterly grateful, she put so much heart and soul into her performance that

she shed tears of joy, causing the audience to do the same.

She took multiple pauses in her set to sit and talk directly to her fans. She preached selflove and self-growth, having the audience repeat positive manifestations such as, “I love you, you are beautiful and you can do anything.”

LIZZOOSL on 9 Lizzo headlining at Outside Lands in 2021.

(Pooja Bale / The Daily Californian)

EMILY MARIKO IS INFLUENCING MANY TO ADOPT A MORE BALANCED APPROACH TO HEALTHY LIVING The TikToker’s aesthetically pleasing videos inspire good eating and self care, but her lifestyle may not be as attainable as it appears

BY CLARA FISCHER arts@theaggie.org

AMY YU / AGGIE

We live in the age of the influencer — there’s one everywhere you look, from the Met Gala red carpet to the couch of any relevant talk show host — but how did our celebrity culture get so diluted?

Being deemed “famous” used to hold a certain weight in society. Celebrities were put on an almost untouchable pedestal, and it seemed absolutely out of reach for “normal” people to get

even a taste of their acclaim. However, it seems like anyone has the ability to become a household name overnight as long as the algorithm is on their side.

It is thought that influencers can be dated back to the Middle Ages. There have always been people with more reach on others, who could start certain societal trends or influence the zeitgeist.

But there’s no denying that the boom of social media in the 2010s completely changed the game. All of a sudden, people had the ability

to accumulate a huge following in an insanely short amount of time.

One of the earliest examples of the modern social media influencer is Caroline Calloway. As one of the first people to create Instagram posts that were actually vulnerable (as opposed to an oversaturated picture of some palm trees with the hashtag #vacaymode), she paved the way for the oversharing culture of social media. She also was one of the first to be sponsored on the app.

SELFCAREACCESS on 9

GROVERHAUS: THE FUNNIEST HOUSEBUILDING DISASTER TO EVER BE LOST ONLINE “Drywall (load-bearing)”

BY JACOB ANDERSON arts@theaggie.org In the realm of terrifying and arcane lore deep within the internet’s maw, the name “Groverhaus” turns heads among even the most steely-eyed of our digital veterans.

When anonymous users post photos of the lumpy, asymmetric house from within Microsoft Flight Simulator or Google Earth, with its illogically placed and mismatching windows, the double doors set strangely high without attendant steps, these learned users engage in a sort of silent worship for the house: it’s a symbol, an avatar of sorts for the months of heckling glee that once rang out on the Something Awful forums and, according to some, will never come again.

A moderator on the Something Awful forums by the username “grover” first introduced the world to his creation in a 2006 thread detailing how he had built a large extension to their house, comprising “a new kitchen, 2-car garage, workshop area, 3 bedrooms, a bathroom and a living room,” which grover, an electrical engineer by trade, had opted to construct completely on his own (with the notable exception of its concrete and siding).

Users lauded the initial posts in light of grover’s ambition, however it would be only pages before users took notice of the peculiarities in the construction: grover had insulated the stairs, built two incomprehensibly staggered garages right next to one another, posted pictures containing a section of plastic siding which had been obviously scorched off by a grill placed no more than two feet away and a diagram in which a section of the house is hilariously labeled “drywall (load-bearing),” all of which cued users into the incoming disaster of the house’s completion. Interested readers should check out the relevant pictures, as words do them no justice.

One exactly child-sized window is accidentally designed to double as a surface by which children tumbling down the stairs might fall half a story to the swampy, low-grade dirt on which the house was built and into which the extension would eventually sink, detaching from the rest of the house to the nude glee of thousands of Something Awful users. A house loaded with illogical windows and “load bearing” drywall was perhaps destined to sink into the earth in a place actually named the Great Dismal Swamp.

Hidden among this collection of hideous, hilarious tidbits is the specious claim that grover, upon inviting a house inspector to examine the house only for him to of course deem it completely unsafe, decided to become credentialed as an inspector so he could approve his own monstrous creation. This, in tandem with the myriad other poor decisions involved in the erection of the Groverhaus, speak to something in the character

Groverhaus. (eBaum’s World / Courtesy)

of grover bred from unfettered self-confidence and a paradoxical laziness which appears almost designed (far better than the ‘haus itself ) to bring about this monument to myopia.

And so the denizens of Something Awful laughed, and they laughed, to the quiet displeasure of grover himself. In keeping with his status as moderator, though, he eventually decided that enough was enough: the thread was edited, pictures removed, and now those willing to take the deep journey into the net to find the original threads will find only remnants, contextless posts and broken image links, like the last ghosts of some great dining hall, once absorbed in interminable laughter, lingering only to say that something funny had once happened here.

Given how vociferous voices claiming that things posted online remain forever have become, the erasure of the original Groverhaus materials stands as an odd counterexample. Despite the thread’s legacy, in just fifteen years most of its original content has been lost. If these many claims regarding the indelibility of online things were true, how could such a legendary piece of internet history be exempt? In their absence is a handful of Twitter threads recounting the events with only fragmentary evidence, which, once again, appear to be more interested in asserting the fact that something funny had once happened than correctly accounting what that funny thing was.

Groverhaus’ position is interesting in that while the story isn’t properly preserved, neither is it gone, lost forever in a mess of archives and oftrepeated half-truths. It’s frozen in a halfway state, where rich glimmers of truth and history can be seen, but they remain joined to others long gone.

In this sense, it could be seen as a warning to those using the internet today of what happens when archival goes under-prioritized, and of the fact that, even in small ways, things worth preserving continue to happen, even online.

To conclude, here are a few choice grover quotes, retrieved from that fractured thread: “Also at this stage, we discovered that the 100’ fiberglass tape measure that I used to square off the foundation stretched about ¾” over 50’ and had f ’ed up our foundation pins, making the one wall of our house 1.5” shorter than the other, [sic] and overall screwing up my perfect plans.”

(Woe to grover’s perfect plans.)

“These walls do give a little- [sic] if you slam a door real hard, you can see if [sic] vibrate a bit.

But I’m sure you have interior walls like that in Europe, too?” (Much of Europe, if you are unaware, has walls made of stone — far sturdier than your typical American house.)

BY ANGIE CUMMINGS arts@theaggie.org Movie: “Chicago” dir. by Rob Marshall (2002) This recommendation is a bit of a personal one, and this powerful, musical 1920s period piece is one of my childhood favorites (although it’s not a film specifically meant for children). “Chicago’’ was originally a Broadway musical, and this 2002 film adaptation with its star-studded cast was, in my eyes, an instant classic — not to mention, it won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2003.

With Renee Zellweger, Catherine-Zeta Jones, Richard Gere, John C O’Reilly and Queen Latifa leading the many lively musical numbers throughout the film, you will begin to yearn for the wild and exciting (and crime-filled) times of prohibitionera Chicago jazz clubs. This movie never gets old because once you’ve memorized all the lyrics and ad-libs throughout the film, it is the perfect sing-along whether you’re watching it alone in your room or with a group of friends. This movie is the perfect example of the great film genre of “women who do wrong and yet we are all on their side” because in all honesty, he had it coming (a reference to the classic song “Cell Block Tango”). Bonus: the soundtrack stands alone as a masterpiece that you can listen to anytime on most major streaming platforms.

TV Show: “Kath & Kim” (2002-2007) Need a new sitcom that will crack you up despite not fully understanding much of the dialogue? “Kath & Kim” is the show from Down Under that you need in your life. With four seasons of this dysfunctional, suburban mother-daughter duo, you are sure to have a good time. The show functions as an easy chance to fully develop your authentic Australian accent, especially if you rewatch your favorite episodes over and over again as I have done. You’ll never get tired of the little things Kath and Kim do, no matter how many times you watch the show, and I can almost guarantee that anyone you introduce it to will enjoy it just as much (this theory has been tested on friends and family members of all ages and senses of humor). Once you get past their incredibly thick accents, perfectly permed and highlighted hair and admirably flashy appearances, you have two utterly hilarious characters with some pretty questionable ideas. Every episode is available for you to binge or moderately consume on Netflix, and I would recommend you prioritize starting “Kath & Kim” over all else.

Radio Show: Series 2 “Cillian Murphy’s Limited Edition” on BBC Radio 6 If you’ve recently been in a bit of a music rut like me, this easily accessible radio show is a great push in the right direction. Who knew that a 45-year-old, classically trained Irish actor would have such an eclectic music taste to share with the world? Definitely not me. After listening to a total of four hours of his show, I gained a new appreciation for musical genres I previously didn’t pay any mind to, as well as for a smooth Irish accent. Not only does Murphy provide middleaged man classic music suggestions like “Modern Love” by David Bowie and profess his love for the Beatles and the Velvet Underground, but he shares songs by amazing contemporary artists he has found through some incredibly niche sources. One of my top songs from the whole show, “Silly Games” (1979) by Janet Kay, came out of a contemporary British film called “Lover’s Rock” (which is now at the top of my watchlist). The show is full of hidden gems like this one and, to put it plainly, could impress even the snobbiest of your indie/underground music listening friends. I’ve always had a bit of a hard time discovering new kinds of music and artists on my own and I think this show, led by my new favorite Irishman, was a great introduction into the brilliance of music radio shows. You can listen to each episode of Murphy’s show on the BBC Sounds app for free. Pro tip: It’s a great thing to listen to as you stand in the 10-mile-long covid testing line at the ARC. Book: “Green Girl” by Kate Zambreno (2011) Categorized as psychological fiction, “Green Girl” is a quick read that follows protagonist Ruth through what some might consider a relatively mundane experience of being lost as an American in her early 20s in London, grieving the recent loss of her mother and a complicated breakup. This novel is reminiscent of a stream of consciousness, giving a glimpse into Ruth’s psyche by an unnamed narrator, who could be an older Ruth reflecting or even her mother watching over her from beyond. Ruth has shaped some semblance of a ‘self ’ through pop culture, idolizing models and actresses and just generally everything in the world that tells young women who they are. As you read the book, it is so easy to just pity Ruth and her extremely contradictory mix of self-absorption and self-hatred, but it’s also clear that in some way or another we’ve all been a green girl. This concept comes directly out of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and has been explored by many, most notably being the show “Girls,” whose characters have been pegged as just as narcissistic and self-destructive as we watch Ruth become. Not to get too annoying, but it is quite a generally-accepted experience in late-stage capitalism to have a slight existential crisis in the face of the heavily marketed, branded and rigid ideas of womanhood we are faced with. While I’ve previously been criticized by those who know me for only really reading sad and bleak or even nihilistic books, I still assert that this particular book can give so much to anyone who reads it (even if it’s just knowing a new sad story about a sad girl and her toxic thoughts).

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GREEKDRINKCULTURE

FANSATTENDANCE

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2 “If I’m going to a party, I can’t trust any of the alcohol at the frat so at that point I feel like it’s not even worth it,” student D said.

“They’ve developed such a negative reputation especially surrounding sexual abuse and alcohol that sorority women pre-game to avoid [the possibility of ] being drugged.”

According to student D, there are some ways in which the sobriety rule makes it easier for fraternities to raise money for their philanthropies.

“We raise around $10 to $15,000 per charity event,” student D said. “We still are raising a lot of money, but I know for a fact that frats have an easier time. Where a sorority might do a weeklong event to raise this amount of money, a frat could host two parties, $5 each admittance, and raise a similar amount of money.”

Student A said that she believes the governance of sororities is based on a problematic and outdated view of feminism.

“It’s not very inclusive of women of different experiences, women who have less money,” student A said. “It still is very much a feminism that is only for women who behave.”

Changing the way that sororities operate is a large and daunting undertaking, which would mostly require work at the level of the university,

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 according to student A. “Yes, we report back to the bigger chapter, but they’re not spying on us at all times — our board on campus enforces these things that are so backwards and so old-fashioned,” student A said. “It’s something that we could change but it feels so hopeless because it requires finding a girl in every sorority who’s like us [...] and getting them on the board and making sure women like that keep getting re-elected.”

Though changing these long-standing policies is a difficult undertaking, Student C believes that the first step chapters can take is calling out the antiquated systems that inform Greek communities.

“It’s really hard to make that change especially since the easiest thing to do is just to be a sheep and follow the crowd and be like, ‘It sucks but it’s fine, it’s whatever,’” student C said.

“But it’s not fine, it’s not okay, and to be able to recognize that is the first step.”

In student B’s opinion, the reputation of sorority women shouldn’t be impugned simply because they want to drink alcohol.

“You should be able to have fun on the weekends and that’s okay,” Student B said. “It doesn’t make you any less of a student or any less of a ‘respectable young lady.’”

SFGIANTS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6 The drastic change in Webb’s pitch mix and his increase in control feels like enough evidence to conclude that Webb as a pitcher has greatly improved, but I would be hesitant to grant him ace status for next season. While Giants fans are probably familiar with the concept of regression and the fact that it doesn’t always happen, being an elite pitcher in the MLB isn’t easy.

While his peripherals suggest that he wasn’t especially lucky or anything this season, other MLB teams will have had a year to try and figure out the new Logan Webb. He will also be pressured to perform like an ace, especially if the Giants lose the other integral parts of their 2021 pitching core. It’s also important to note that Webb pitched a career-high in innings this season, so there is a possibility the

increased wear-and-tear on his arm will build up, especially considering he only pitched 54 innings in the 2020 COVID-shortened season.

In the end, Logan Webb used this magnificent season to establish himself as a budding star on a team looking to win the World Series over the next few seasons and had a season and playoff performance that will be remembered for many seasons to come.

Replicating a season like this would be a dream scenario and an achievement way too lofty to expect in 2022, but there is no reason to think the young upcomer can’t catapult into stardom over the next few seasons.

All data used in the piece is courtesy of Fangraphs as well as Baseball Savant.

PARKMOBILE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6 When the Aggie asked if he meant “dealer for the people,” Larry responded, “Oh no, no no no. I’m a dealer of the people. I take the cars of other people and sell them. Sometimes even with their consent.”

While the situation may not be ideal for most non-pickle students, UC Davis has stated the Car Carnival will have full reign of the parking lots until the school can scrounge

up enough money from unnecessary stuff like janitors, stop signs and UC Davis Health medical services to buy back the land. So, while we embrace the Car Carnival, make sure to keep an eye out for any plotting pickles planning to pilfer your Porsche. Whether losing your car is worth free parking is up to you, but hey, at least you don’t have to download an app.

LIZZOOSL CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7 Lizzo, known for her body- and selfpositivity, was backed by an all Black female dance crew and band. Her dancers defied the idealized body image normalized in popular culture as they confidently strutted across the stage in their neon pink pleather jumpsuits.

The admired popstar enthusiastically danced her heart out, twerking and making her curves known and loved by the screaming crowd.

Dancing along to the TikTok famous song from the popular children’s show, “The Backyardigans,” “Into the Thick of It,” Lizzo substituted the juvenile song lyrics to her own explicit, “I am a thicker b*tch,” further affirming her body positivity.

An avid TikTok enthusiast, Lizzo commemorated the moment by having the crowd participate in her own rendition of the “Food Dance” TikTok that she posted Sunday, Nov. 1 with the caption, “THIS IS THE RECORD FOR THE MOST PEOPLE TO EVER DO A SINGLE TIKTOK TREND— TO MY 200,000 NEW BESTIES.. TAG URSELF IF U WERE THERE.” Lizzo personified popular culture last weekend as she dressed up in multiple extravagant costumes for this spooky season.

Appearing at a Spotify concert in Los Angeles Friday Oct. 29, she dressed as Baby Yoda from the Star Wars franchise TV series, “The Mandalorian,” in which she joked with the crowd at Outside Lands that she still had traces of green on her butt — which, in fact, she did.

Incorporating the famed Netflix series “Squid Game,” Lizzo and her girls dressed up in appropriate costumes from the drama to perform Michael Jackson’s 1982 Halloween hit, “Thriller,” in her set. The dancers emerged as masked henchmen to the series’ theme music while Lizzo took stage as the robotic female doll, flawlessly executing the iconic “Thriller” dance.

Ending her set with a proper encore — satisfying the crowd’s ferver for Lizzo’s fire — she revealed herself once more on stage with her bestie, “Sasha flute.” Lizzo electrified the audience with a musical interlude of her song “Juice” from her 2019 album, “Cuz I Love You.” The crowd sang along to her final bang, ecstatic from Lizzo’s vibrant energy as fireworks concluded the night.

Lizzo gave an unforgettable headlining show not only through her continuous positivity and enthusiasm, but also for her evident appreciation for her fans and music. Even as a top chart artist, Lizzo remained humble while performing. By taking time on stage to soak in the glory of the night, this was not an experience she took for granted despite her substantial fame.

Her inclusion of a Black female band and back-up dancers along with her empowering female-centric music brought people together from all walks of life this Halloween weekend.

Reflected through the diversity of her fanbase in the crowd, Lizzo is a staple artist for and with the people.

SELFCAREACCESS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7 It’s worth mentioning that Calloway even went so far as to write a book through Instagram posts, but when she finally secured an actual book deal for just shy of $500,000, she didn’t follow through with it because she felt it was disingenuous.

Calloway and others of her time opened the door for a stream of well-known Internet personas to follow in their footsteps. These influencers existed in every corner of the internet and varied in popularity. From the YouTubers with 10s of millions of subscribers (i.e. David Dobrik, Bethany Mota, Pewdiepie, etc.) to the mega-famous TikTokers of today that amass hundreds of millions of followers (Charlie D’Amelio was the first to crack this barrier on the app), they created a new, immensely lucrative online business model.

Social media has become so saturated that having 10,000 followers on Instagram now constitutes the user as a “nano-influencer”.

As a result, social media has created jobs with the potential to make an immense amount of money. Teenagers and young adults on these apps are earning millions of dollars a year in a career that requires little to no schooling.

The argument could also be made that the predecessors of our modern influencers were the socialites and reality TV stars of the early

2000s (think Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Kim Kardashian, Snookie and their circles).

When they first broke onto the scene, many of these women were surrounded by a whirlwind of controversy. The public did not know what to make of someone like Kim Kardashian — she didn’t seem to possess any of the qualities that would typically propel someone into stardom, like a talent for singing or acting, yet she still had American pop culture wrapped around her finger.

America’s obsession with the KardashianJenners is the perfect analogy for the public’s general view on influencers. They exist in an interesting space in modern pop culture. People love to hate them, and the more controversy they are surrounded in, the more attention, fame and money will be thrown at them.

That’s why social media has evolved into a materialistic, competitive space, where influencers compete to see who can pull off the most outlandish controversies and be the one trending on Twitter the next day.

Who knows how celebrity culture will evolve next? With the possibility of any internet user going viral, Hollywood’s elite status will likely continue to wither away in the years to come.

I know some schools make students pay for their tickets, and it’s really nice that Davis makes it free. It made it a lot easier for me to persuade my friends to join me in watching games.

Q: That’s great news, thank you so much for your tips! Is there anything else you want to say?

A: On Nov. 20, we play against Sacramento State, our rival, and it’s gonna be a big game, and a great game to start off if you want to get to join the football scene. If you have time, be sure to grab some tickets and go watch the game!

With the game against Sacramento State coming up around the corner, now’s the time for

students interested in watching the games and joining other Aggies in cheering to get ready to grab some tickets.

Games now typically go for around 3 to 4 hours, and arriving a little over an hour before, according to Householder, pretty much guarantees you to get the best seats since it’s around when the gates open. However, being there 15-20 minutes earlier should suffice for good seats. The football stadium, UC Davis Health Stadium, is near Tercero, within walking distance. After over a year of quarantine because of COVID, now’s the time to immerse in the awesome college experience again, and go watch your first, or one of many, Aggie football games and other sporting events.

WBBPREVIEW21 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 Those veterans include the likes of 2021 Big West Player of the Year Cierra Hall at the forward position, star center Stobbart, guard Evanne Turner and power forward Kayla Konrad. Additionally, the Aggies have a new generation of players who are talented with a bright future ahead. They are learning from veterans who won the conference championship with a berth to the NCAA tournament.

Hall, who won Player of the Year in the Big West Conference, averaged 14.6 points and 6.8 rebounds last season while making the All-Big West first team and earning the MVP award in the conference tournament.

Stobbart, last season’s defensive player of the year, averaged 10.1 ppg, 8.2 rpg and 2.68 blocks per game, earning her place in the AllBig West first team, all-tournament team and all-defensive team.

Turner, a key player on offense, averaged 11.7 ppg and 3.7 rpg last season. Turner is a fantastic finisher at the rim and dangerous from behind the three-point line. Her relentless scoring abilities helped Davis secure the conference title last year. Turner earned a place in the Big West all-tournament team during the 2021 season. As for Konrad, her efforts earned her a place among the Big West all-defensive team, averaging 9.6 ppg and 4.0 rpg.

These veteran players are the foundation of the team who rose to prominence by leading the Aggies to a conference championship and an NCAA tournament berth again. These are the type of players who can change the culture of an entire program with their leadership, hard work and love for the game. The legacy that they’ll leave behind will enrich the basketball program in Davis for years to come.

“I think they have players like [Cierra] Hall and Kayla Konrad and Sage Stobbart to look to say, ‘Hey, this is how we do things in our program,’” Gross said in reference to the new players on the team.

“We’ve been successful because we come to practice with a great attitude, ready to work hard everyday,” Gross said on the importance of her veteran players giving back to the game of basketball by sharing their knowledge and elements of their game to the younger prospects on the team. “It’s fun to see those older players grab a younger player at practice and explain something and show them something, and so I think that’s what culture is about. It’s about leaving a legacy for the younger ones, and we have a really great group of veterans that’s doing that.”

A recent poll that involved votes from the media and coaches around the Big West Conference picked the Aggies to finish atop of the standings by the end of the season.

These expectations can produce pressure, but championship teams thrive off pressure and always find ways to win.

The women’s basketball team has a tough road ahead as they embark on their quest to repeat as back-to-back champions. They open the regular season non-conference schedule on Nov. 9 against Academy of Art in Davis, then host Saint Mary’s on Nov. 13. The Aggies follow up with their first road game of the season on Nov. 18 as they take on San Francisco.

Subsequently, Davis will travel to the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento to play against their crosstown rival, Sacramento State Hornets on

Nov. 23.

The team will go back home to host Weber State at the University Credit Union Center and then get to measure their talent as they travel to Oregon to take on the Ducks on Dec. 1.On Dec. 4, Washington State rolls into town to play Davis at the University Credit Union Center.

The last three opponents before UCD plays against their Big West counterparts are against Stanislaus State in Davis Dec. 13, at Stanford on Dec. 15, and finally against Gonzaga on Dec. 19.

“That’s why we scheduled those games because we have a veteran group. We are excited about the potential of this group but you need games like that to see where you’re at and to test yourself, and we have a team that is not going to back down from anybody. We’re going to be ready to compete no matter if that’s a conference opponent or if it’s a top 10 team on their home court,” Gross said regarding the schedule.

The schedule will then transition against Big West opponents as UC Davis faces UC Riverside (Dec. 28) to open conference play.

Hawaii makes the long road trip to play the reigning champions at the University Credit Union Center (Jan. 1). UC Davis will then travel to play against UC Irvine (Jan. 6) and UC San Diego (Jan. 8) before coming back home to host CSU Bakersfield (Jan. 13), Cal Poly (Jan. 15), UC Santa Barbara (Jan. 20) and finally CSU Northridge (Jan. 22).

Following the four consecutive home games, they will travel to Fullerton, Calif., to take on CSU Fullerton (Jan. 27) and Long Beach State (Jan. 29). UC Riverside then comes into town (Feb. 1), and following that game, Davis travels to play Hawaii (Feb. 3). The team comes home to host two consecutive home games against UC San Diego (Feb. 10) and UC Irvine (Feb. 12), but then the schedule gets rocky as the Aggies will be on the road for four consecutive games against Cal Poly (Feb. 17), CSU Bakersfield (Feb. 19), CSU Northridge (Feb. 24) and UC Santa Barbara (Feb. 26). Finally, UC Davis hosts the last two games to close out the season against Long Beach State (Mar. 3) and Cal State Fullerton (Mar. 5).

Gross was hopeful and optimistic against the level of opposition they face this season with her veteran players providing valuable experience, great work ethic and championship pedigree within the locker room. Gross takes pride in her team’s preparation during practices with players testing each other in an effort to get the best out of one another.

“As a group, we just want to push each other everyday to be our best and if we can do that in practice, then we’re preparing ourselves as best we can to get better everyday and also to be in a position at the end of March where we have a chance to win another championship,” Gross said.

Gross enters the 11th season as the head coach of the Aggies women’s basketball team.

With Gross at the helm, UC Davis has been perennial favorites to make a deep run in the postseason. Gross’ success has translated onto her players as Davis has won five straight regular season championships.

“That’s why I love coaching this team because it’s a group that really has no fear and is ready when we tip,” Gross said.

UCDMBB2021 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12 They return home on Jan. 27 to play Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State, before they return to the road again on Feb. 1 to face UC Riverside once again. On Feb. 5, they host Hawaii, and the following week make a trip to Southern California to visit UC San Diego and UC Irvine for the second time. Although they do have a lot of away games early in conference play, that will eventually turn for the better for UC Davis, as they will have a four-game homestand between Feb. 17-26 in a crucial part of the season, playing Cal Poly, CSU Bakersfield, UC Santa Barbara and CSUN in the final home games of the year. To finish off the regular season, they once again travel to Southern California and play Long Beach State on March 3 and their final game will be March 5 against Cal State Fullerton.

“This is a talented group,” Les said. “It’s a group that we feel is very deep, and I think our fans are going to love watching this team and watching them grow. Our expectation is come March, we are going to be in the hunt for a Big West title.”

With only three upperclassmen on the roster, the team will be very young as Les mentioned.

But, with the return of stars like Manjon (15.6 points and 3.3 assists a game last year), 2020-21 All-Big West Conference Second Team selection Elijah Pepper (14.7 points and 5 rebounds a game) and 2021 Big West Conference AllAcademic Team selection Caleb Fuller (10.3 points and 3.4 rebounds a game including a 30-point game last season), the core of the group will be set and has major experience. Not only that, but they expect big contributions from Christian Anigwe, who did not play last season until mid-December due to NCAA transfer policies that were later updated but provided great minutes when the team wanted to run a smaller lineup.

“I think [the fans] are going to get to know a lot of the new guys,” Manjon said. “We got

Christian Anigwe, our big man; I think he’s going to surprise a lot of people. I think Aggie fans should look forward to seeing Christian play. Obviously Elijah Pepper, who’s a bucket.

Ade [Adebayo] is a guy you also have to watch out for. He’s a crazy defender and has blocks.

Caleb Fuller, you guys know him, great scorer.

We got a transfer from Nevada, Kane Milling, who’s a sniper from the three-point range. We got a lot of pieces that are going to be really good this year.”

As Manjon mentioned, contributions will come from those he named as well as everyone on the team. Coach Les has shown in the past that he does not fear playing younger players if need be, so throughout the season, it will be interesting to see how he maneuvers the rotation.

As for Manjon, he hopes to enhance not only his on-court success but off-court as well.

“I think the biggest thing for me this year is being a leader on and off the court,” Manjon said. “That leadership [role] is something that has been passed down to me [since] my freshman year. My [second year] it was a little bit wacky because of how weird the year was but now I think I’m ready to step into that role and lead the team to win some games this year.”

Overall, the Aggies have entered the season focused and reenergized, as they hope to get back to the NCAA Tournament like they did in 2017. Having gotten one step closer last year, UC Davis is projected in third in the Big West preseason media poll. The non-conference games will be a good test for the team, but the return of a more normal schedule could be what the Aggies needed as they look to go dancing one more time.

“We’re thinking, get to March Madness and win games,” Manjon said. “That’s the goal right now. The goal is to get better everyday and win one game at a time, but the ultimate goal is to get to March Madness and win games. I think this group can definitely win a lot of games.”

10 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2021

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

SCIENCE AND TECH RESEARCH CONDUCTED BY UC DAVIS CENTER FOR MIND AND BRAIN ILLUSTRATES HOW NEWLY LEARNED WORDS ARE REMEMBERED BY TODDLERS Magnetic resonance imaging used to observe hippocampal and anterior medial temporal lobe activation

BY AARYA GUPTA science@theaggie.org UC Davis researchers from the Center of Mind and Brain recently explored how newly learned words are remembered by toddlers, according to a paper published in Current Biology.

“This is a study that examines how toddlers learn new words,” a professor of psychology at UC Davis Simona Ghetti said. “Because we are interested in both inducing some sort of learning about words and looking at the neural mechanisms that support this ability in early childhood, we created a laboratory situation where 2-year-olds could come in and experience new words associated with objects they have never seen before.”

The study followed 38 toddlers, between the ages of 25 to 32 months, as they engaged in two different tasks where they remembered newly learned words. Specifically, toddlers were taught pseudowords that were associated with “novel objects and puppets,” according to the paper.

Ghetti explains that there are two main reasons for selecting this age group.

“First, during this period, we know toddlers learn many words,” Ghetti said. “It is a period when we hypothesize that the structures — like the hippocampus, which are important for memory — would be more functional. Therefore, it is a period that is right to both examine the function of the structure and examine [its] relation with the behavior, word-learning, which is so important at this time.”

Additionally, researchers collected functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, data while these now-learned pseudowords and new pseudowords were played when the toddlers were asleep.

Hippocampal activity was recorded because it is foundational in forming relational memories, which Ghetti described to be when different aspects of an experience are put together in a representation that captures the richness of that experience.

“The hippocampus has been considered for decades a very important structure for forming and retaining associations,” Ghetti said. “[Like] what we looked at in the study, the association between [a] new word and what it refers to. Because the hippocampus is so foundational for forming relational memories, we thought that it would be particularly important to examine its role in word learning.”

Christine Wu Nordahl, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at UC Davis School of Medicine, contributed to the development of methods used to scan the toddlers’ brains during their sleep.

While Nordahl and her team of UC Davis researchers weren’t the first to conduct such scans, they have had a high success rate with this and past projects.

“At 88 percent, our success rate has been higher than most sites, likely because we are able to work so closely with the families,” Nordahl said via email. “Since 2006, we’ve scanned over 450 toddlers during natural sleep, many at multiple time points, allowing us to track their brain development as they grow up.”

Nordahl collaborated with UC Davis Health’s Imaging Research Center to modify scanning environments to increase comfort and decrease how intimidating magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, machines can appear to be.

CHRISTINA LIU / AGGIE

“We would plan the session around their usual bedtimes and the parents could get up on the MRI bed with their children to snuggle or read them books to help fall asleep,” Nordahl said via email. “Sometimes we would have children fall asleep in the car on the way over to the Imaging Center and simply carry them into the scanner and place them on the bed directly, already asleep. We let the parents stay in the room with their child the whole time and we would also stay in the room watching the child during the scan in case they woke up. If they did wake up, we would be able to stop everything right away.”

This process was critical for their study.

“Scanning during natural sleep allows us to examine brain structure and function during this critical window of development,” Nordahl said via email. “If a child this age needed an MRI scan for clinical purposes, they would usually undergo general anesthesia in order to remain still enough to get a picture of their brain. But for research, general anesthesia is not allowable because of the increased risk.”

Graduate student Lindsey Mooney was one of the UC Davis students involved in this research.

“I [...] really enjoy being a part of work that is actively pursuing answers to unanswered questions about child development,”

Mooney said.

Mooney said her responsibilities included project design, data collection and data analysis.

“Getting small children to fall asleep and stay asleep in the scanner is challenging, but that makes the data and results so much more exciting and rewarding,” Mooney said.

Overall, this research examines the brain mechanisms associated with memory, particularly in early stages.

“We can show that even very young children have quite sophisticated memory processes that they can put into service to form memories that are quite complex like words or events about their lives.”

Ghetti expands that several auxiliary questions can be asked from this research.

“We can now ask even more precise questions about the nature and retention of memory in young children,” Ghetti said. “We might have some new insight in how children form vocabulary.

Communicating and speaking is so foundational for children’s capacity to interact with loved ones, the world and to learn. We can contribute to understanding how that happens.”

UC DAVIS COMPREHENSIVE STROKE CENTER RECEIVES STROKE QUALITY ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FROM THE AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION UC Davis health professionals adhere to Get With The Guidelines-Stroke to provide high-quality patient stroke care

BY BRANDON NGUYEN science@theaggie.org CHRISTINA LIU / AGGIE

Stroke is the No. 5 cause of death and leading cause of disability in the U.S., according to the American Heart Association. On average, an individual in the U.S. suffers a stroke every 40 seconds, and nearly 795,000 people suffer a new or recurrent stroke each year. Caused by blood clots (ischemic stroke) or blood vessel ruptures (hemorrhagic stroke), strokes result in brain cell death in areas where oxygen is no longer being delivered by the bloodstream.

Recently, the UC Davis Comprehensive Stroke Center was recognized by the American Heart Association as a recipient of the American Heart Gold Plus Get With The Guidelines-Stroke Quality Achievement Award. Developed by health professionals due to the alarming numbers that strokes present, Get With The

Guidelines-Stroke is an in-hospital program that optimizes stroke care by promoting institutions to adopt the latest research-based technology and abide by the most recent scientific treatment guidelines.

Dr. Kwan Ng, the director of vascular neurology and the UC Davis Comprehensive Stroke Center, expresses gratitude on the behalf of the medical center for the award and recognition by the American Heart Association.

“UC Davis Health is honored to be recognized by the American Heart Association for our dedication to helping our patients have the best possible chance of survival and recovery after a stroke,” Ng said. “Get With The Guidelines-Stroke makes it easier for our

teams to put proven knowledge and guidelines to work on a daily basis to improve outcomes for stroke patients.”

Dr. Alan Yee, a stroke neurologist at the UC Davis Medical Center, provides further insight into what the award means to the stroke team aside from its remarkable patient care.

“I think the award really signifies the high impact and high quality treatment that our medical center can provide both locally and even regionally to this area of California and in the U.S.,” Yee said. “The award highlights the cross collaboration and communication between departments, which I really think is a unique aspect of our center. We value each other’s input and expertise and how we can best care for each individual patient.”

The exceptional teamwork and open-mindedness to adapt to a patient’s needs deemed the UC Davis Comprehensive Stroke Center all-the-more deserving of the award for stroke care. To Yee, the award stresses the importance of successfully applying what is learned to what is practiced in the real world, and that requires, more often than not, the help among team members with their knowledge and input.

Alexandra Schrick, one of the four clinical stroke coordinators at the UC Davis Stroke Comprehensive Center, explains what distinguishes UC Davis from other medical centers and hospitals.

“We have a very robust program here where clinical stroke coordinators are here almost 24-7 to help coordinate the care for these patients from when they arrive to the emergency department or via ambulance all the way through their care here,” Schrick said.

“We service the majority of northern California, so we’re basically a hub for a large area, [...] and so our program is growing every single year. We have relationships with a lot of different hospitals in the area, including very far rural areas where we get patients flown to us. And I think that’s very unique to UC Davis.”

Recalling a memorable patient he recently had a check-in with, Yee opens up about how his patient’s journey under his guidance and adherence to the Get With The Guidelines-Stroke has been rewarding and sentimental.

“This young patient had had a very unusual cause of stroke, and it was due to what we call a blood vessel dissection that occurred in the person’s neck,” Yee said. “And this was right when I started here about four and a half years ago and seeing how the emergency department and the residents that I work with addressed her needs urgently, we treated her for acute stroke management very quickly.

She’s now functionally normal, and I think that made me very happy to see that what we do makes a big difference in a person’s life, and irrespective of age, seeing the individual walk back into my office really meant a lot to me.”

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2021 | 11

MARINE MAMMAL DISEASE OUTBREAK ORIGINATED ON LAND A recent study led in part by the SeaDoc Society brought to light the link between marine, terrestrial and environmental health

BY SONORA SLATER science@theaggie.org Cryptococcus gattii, or C. gattii, is a pathogen that causes a fungal disease that can infect dogs, cats, llamas, parrots, humans and more — and in hindsight, marine mammals might have been the ones to give us the first clue to the danger it posed.

In the early 2000s, this fungus infected hundreds of animals and people in British Columbia and Washington, and killed several dolphins and porpoises. On Oct. 22, a study that focused on C. gattii in marine mammals was published in the journal Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, led by a team of scientists from Canada and the Pacific Northwest, including those at the SeaDoc Society, a donor-funded program of the UC Davis Karen C. Drayer Wildlife Health Center.

According to a recent press release, the study explores “how human-caused changes on land can affect aquatic animals,” specifically in the case of C. gattii. The scientists assembled and then analyzed data that had been collected since the late 1990s by veterinarians, microbiologists, marine mammal biologists and marine mammal stranding responders, sequencing the history of the outbreak in marine mammals and investigating the implications.

Sarah Teman, a research assistant with the SeaDoc Society and the lead author of the paper, explained why although data on C. gattii has been collected for decades, the paper was just researched and written now.

“In order to characterize an outbreak, you need a lot of data,” Teman said. “We couldn’t just see this one case and say there’s an outbreak — so only over time after seeing these cases, especially in the early 2000s, were we able to say, okay, something did happen.”

According to Teman, the pathogen is typically found in tropical and subtropical forests, so when it was found in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest, it triggered the SeaDoc Society and its collaborators to look at the data and study the disease.

C. gattii live in soil and tree dwellings, and can cause disease when inhaled through environmental exposure. Teman described some previous studies investigating how humancaused activities may increase the risk of exposure for both people and animals.

“It’s likely that human-caused activities on land that can disrupt soil like construction or logging can actually aerosolize the fungus spores and cause them to be inhaled by people and animals, which is how the infection starts,”

A stranded and deceased harbor porpoise photographed and studied by Dr. Stephanie Norman, a wildlife veterinarian and epidemiologist with MarineMed. (Dr. Stephanie Norman) Teman said.

After the spores are aerosolized, they may settle on the sea surface, allowing them to be inhaled by marine mammals when they surface to breathe.

According to Teman, part of what supports this idea of how marine mammals became infected was that, using statistical methods, they found that animals who died from C. gattii were most likely to be found near terrestrial hotspots.

“Even though this disease originated on land, it was still able to spill over to marine mammals, which is quite concerning,” Teman said.

Steven Raverty, a veterinary pathologist for the British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture, Foods and Fisheries who worked on the study, described some of the possible explanations for how C. gattii may have appeared in British Columbia.

“One of the triggers might have been climate change — an increase in ambient temperatures,” Raverty said. “It could’ve been lying dormant in the soil, not causing any problems until a temperature threshold was crossed. An alternate

hypothesis we’re thinking of is that the pathogen could’ve been carried across the ocean and deposited along coastal mountains with the rain.”

According to Teman, a veterinary pathologist identified the first probable case of C. gattii in a porpoise in the Pacific Northwest in 1997, two years before the identification of the first human case in the same region in 1999. Because of this, she believes that marine mammals can be “sentinels” for ecological health issues. “[A] sentinel [is] an individual or a species that can alert us to potential issues or problems that are happening in the environment — it just shows us that marine mammals might alert us to problems that even we could face,” Teman said.

“It’s not an isolated thing, just them or just us, it’s all so interconnected.”

“Studying marine mammals is good for the environment and good for people, and this ties into the greater One Health initiative that SeaDoc Society and UC Davis promote, which recognizes that the health of people, the environment [and] wildlife are all interconnected,” Teman said.

Brad Hanson, an ecologist at the Northwest

Fisheries Science Center for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, expanded on this concept.

“Marine mammals are [an] important component of the marine ecosystems,” Hanson said via email. “Understanding their ecological role as well as their health is important to understanding and assessing ecosystem function and health, particularly for systems that [are] heavily urbanized like the Salish Sea. In this case there was a clear tie between the terrestrial and marine environments.”

Teman emphasized how much of the success of the study relied on its collaborative nature, which united 15 co-authors, 12 institutions and two countries.

“Science is so much better when you have so many different brains from different backgrounds and disciplines working on it,” Teman said.

“Especially with UC Davis being such a multidisciplinary research powerhouse, and working with all of these amazing institutions, that’s what really made this project exceptional.”

DR. BRYAN ENDERLE DISCUSSES BELIEVING BOTH IN GOD AND IN SCIENCE IN TEDXSTYLE TALK In an interview after his talk, Dr. Enderle explains how religion and science are separate entities and illustrates how neither seeks to explain the other

BY MONICA MANMADKAR science@theaggie.org Can scientists believe in God? Quite often, the stereotype is to believe that good scientists cannot be people of faith. However, during a TEDx-style talk on Oct. 8, chemistry lecturer Bryan Enderle explained how belief in God and the supernatural is not exclusive to people of faith and hence is not conflicting with science either.

Enderle said he has always believed in God and that becoming a scientist did not change that about him. He always assumed that science and theology didn’t have to be disconnected and would be better thought of as a whole. Since college, he has believed in God, so putting his profession and his faith together just made sense.

Enderle was quick to note that although he believes science and faith correspond with each other, they don’t prove each other.

“They each answer different questions that together provide a more holistic picture of our universe,” Enderle said.

CHRISTINA LIU / AGGIE

If one is asking how something works and about the mechanics behind it, then science would be the answer, according to Enderle.

Though he believes some religious writings could attempt to answer these questions, he says that he doesn’t believe that is their purpose. Religion and theology are “how do we, as humans, interact with the divine, and what does that mean,” Enderle said.

For example, one of the main ways that Enderle illustrates how science and theology can cause different viewpoints is through a sunset.

Drawing a sunset on the board during the talk, Enderle asked his students to describe the picture in one word. Beautiful, serene, peaceful and happy were just some of the words students used.

However, Enderle explained how when he sees a sunset, he thinks of the electrons in the sun, nuclear fusion and the rays coming through the Earth’s atmosphere and warming the Earth.

Enderle continued on to say that neither of the two approaches to describing the sunset was wrong, they just had unique perspectives.

Relating back to theology and science, Enderle stated there is no need for science to prove faith since one’s spiritual self is different from their scientific self.

“Just because I have a description of meaning about my universe does not mean that I can’t have a scientific description of my universe,” Enderle said.

Several students expressed being surprised to hear how religion and science are different entities. Ryan Jain, a first-year neurobiology, physiology and behavior major, described his thoughts on the talk.

“It was pretty interesting when he talked about the difference between science and faith, how science cannot be evidence to faith and faith cannot be a way to describe science,” Jain said.

Additionally, Sriansh Pasumarthi, a first-year cognitive science student, reflected on what he took from the lecture.

“The talk was very informative and allowed me to learn more about Dr. Enderle’s perspective on science and faith, which caused me to rethink my definitions of science and faith,” Pasumarthi said.

Enderle emphasized that his understanding of our reality is two-part, taking into account both the philosophical and scientific perspectives.

He also said that in his time learning more about theology and science, he learned to compartmentalize less and understand that there is more to one’s belief, and he hopes that whatever one’s theological beliefs are that they are commensurable with their views on science.

12 | THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2021

THE CALIFORNIA AGGIE

SPORTS RETURN TO IN-PERSON ACTIVITIES ALSO MARKS THE RETURN TO LIVE SPORTING EVENTS The Aggie talks to avid UC Davis fan about post-COVID games so far, with advice for newcomers and those interested With the majority of people vaccinated, UC Davis has recently transitioned back into in-person teaching and alongside it, many sports events and competitions have come back into full action.

With the returning students, including freshmen and sophomores who have never or rarely been to campus or had a chance to watch any of the games due to COVID-19 shutting down professional and college sports altogether, now is the perfect time to watch a variety of sports.

Alex Householder, a fourth-year Managerial Economics major at UC Davis and avid UC Davis sports fan, accepted a request for an interview regarding his thoughts and recommendations for returning students on the topic of sport events coming back, especially football events. Householder wanted to express his warm welcome to old and new students alike who have an interest in getting to know the football scene but haven’t had a chance or don’t know how, he said.

BY JUSTIN YU-HSUN CHU sports@theaggie.org

Q: Alex, would you like to start us off with an introduction?

A: I’m a fourth-year Managerial Economics major, and a big, I mean BIG sports fan. I watch pretty much everything ranging from college sports to the national leagues — NBA, NFL, MLB you name it. UFC as well!

UC Davis running back Allonzo Gilliam (34) reaches the endzone for a touchdown against Cal Poly. The UC Davis football team won its third game of the season against Cal Poly 48-24 and improve to a record of 3-4. The game was held at the UC Davis Health Stadium in Davis, Calif on October 12, 2019. (Aggie File)

Q: That’s awesome, I assume that means you’ve watched many of the Aggies’ games, right?

A: I’ve either been to, or watched on television, every single football game that UC Davis has had since I was a freshman here.

This season, so far, they are doing really good, save that one bad game against Idaho. I think they should be able to make a pretty

deep run into the playoffs too. My first game back was on Sept. 18, Dixie State versus UC Davis.

Q: How would you describe the influences or impacts the pandemic has had on the sports scene for you as a fan?

A: Honestly, it sucked.There weren’t any games at all, and I couldn’t do anything. I was super excited when this season finally launched around August, because there were really no full capacity games before it, and I couldn’t wait to see a game in person again.

Q: There are many students that are new to the Aggies, or even new to football, that have joined us this year. Do you have any advice or recommendations for them on how to get to know the game or enjoy it?

A: Oh for starters, definitely just go to games and learn about the rules if you can beforehand. You can either go with your roommates, friends or simply go there and talk to people sitting beside you! During my first week of my freshman year there was a homecoming game, and it was one of the best experiences, bonding with new friends and cheering on the school team together.

Q: Tell us more! Are there any tips, precautions or things that students should know about before going to the games?

A: Most importantly is the fact that students do not have to pay for the tickets to the games at UC Davis. Yeah, for free. Before the pandemic, they used to hand out tickets at the MU the week before the game, but now they have a website and a promo code that allows students to get all the tickets for free.

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UC DAVIS WOMEN’S UC DAVIS MEN’S BASKETBALL LOOKS BASKETBALL 2021-22 SEASON PREVIEW TO REPEAT AS BIG After last years rollercoaster season, the Aggies WEST CHAMPIONS hope the return to some normalcy sparks a The Aggies defeated Cal State East Bay in the opening exhibition of the season and now look to get rolling in non-conference play

BY MARLON ROLON sports@theaggie.org

Women’s Basketball team in Action. (Aggie File) UC Davis’ Bria Shine and Sage Stobbart combined for 31 points to lead the Aggies past Cal State East Bay, 62-53 in an exhibition to open the season. It was the first time that fans were in attendance at the University Credit Union Center in Davis since the 2019-20 season.

“I think today kind of gave us some liveliness to the gym because last year, obviously we were lacking that, and it was super nice to just have some fans back in here and have some extra noise other than just our team,” Stobbart said after the game.

The Aggies were off to a slow start trailing 22 to 18 during the first quarter. After a long offseason Davis seemed to be out of rhythm as they were missing shots going 6-17 in field goal attempts, shooting 35% in the first quarter.

Having five new players on the team for the Aggies is going to take some time for the players to mesh together as it was evident during the opening quarter.

“I think we’re still getting in the swing of things and just learning how to play with each other and with new players, but I think as a team, just getting stops on defense and limiting our turnovers is going to be key for us, and then we’re a really strong offensive team,” Stobbart said. “We have a lot of skill on our team and we just need to utilize all of our weapons.”

During the second quarter, the Pioneers from East Bay awakened a sleeping giant. UC Davis outscored East Bay 22-4 and shot 53% from the paint while shooting 40% from the three-point line. Additionally, UC Davis bullied the Pioneers on defense, as the reigning defensive player of the year Stobbart had three blocks inside the paint.

Her defensive presence in the paint held East Bay to just four points in the entire second quarter.

The third quarter was more competitive with the Pioneers being aggressive, although UCD managed to outscore them heading into the fourth quarter.

UC Davis head coach Jennifer Gross pulled out her starters in the fourth quarter and provided playing experience to the freshmen on the team. For that reason, Cal State East Bay took advantage of the inexperience of the new freshmen players for the Aggies. However, their effort wasn’t enough as the Aggies came out victorious.

“We were really excited,” Gross said. “I think it was kind of a mix of a little bit of nervousness, a few jitters but more than anything just really looking forward to getting back to competing

again.”

Three players finished in double figures for Davis with Shine leading the way with 17 points, Stobbart adding 14 points and Evanne Turner finishing with 12 points.

East Bay’s Mina Turner finished with a game high 22 points, the only player on the team to finish with double figures, but her outstanding effort wasn’t enough against the defending champions.

The journey to repeat begins Winning the Big West Championship in 2020 and making an appearance in the NCAA tournament, the UC Davis women’s basketball team is favored to repeat as they look to claim their sixth straight regular season title in the Big West Conference and go back to the NCAA Tournament.

“We’ve always strived to get better every year, and having those accomplishments in the previous years just shows us how good we can be, and every year we’re just trying to get better and achieve those things again and again but improve while we’re doing it,” Stobbart said.

This season will be the first with fans in attendance since 2019-20, as the pandemic peaked during that time, barring fans from games. The once-empty arenas became stagnant during games, especially without the energy of the crowd that once electrified players. Surely, playing in front of fans was a surreal experience.

“Just the energy from the crowd, just seeing familiar faces, seeing people that really care about our team and have really missed being here — there’s nothing like that,” Gross said. “It’s going to be awesome so I hope the excitement for this team grows and grows, and we continue to get more people in here and provide more energy for this group.”

As the University Credit Union Center prepares for fans to fill the seats in the arena, the fans are in for a treat with the current roster. The Aggies have veteran star players who are expected to carry the load down the stretch as they prepare for a deep run.

special season

BY OMAR NAVARRO sports@theaggie.org When the UC Davis men’s basketball team was forced to pause basketball activity due to local county guidelines in early December 2020, no one around the team knew what was next. Not only could they not play, but they also couldn’t practice as a team or do any team activities. All that was left was wait, see and hope that the pandemic got better in the county.

They eventually returned to action after seven long weeks, and strung together some wins— six of their last seven regular season games to be exact—that ultimately led them to the Big West Tournament, where they would fall to the No. 1 seed UC Santa Barbara. Nonetheless, with the UC Davis campus reopened and classes once again in person, the team welcomes a breath of some kind of normalcy again.

“It’s definitely good to have school kind of regular again,” second-year and two-time Big West All-Second team selection Ezra Manjon said. “It feels good to see everybody on campus and be in in-person class. It feels like a normal college year again.”

Not only do students feel relieved to be back, but it has re-energized the team as well.

“It’s awesome. This is such a great place and so vibrant when the students are back so it’s great to have that,” head coach Jim Les, who is entering his 11th season at the helm, said. “There are still some protocols in place which is great because it keeps everyone safe, but to have everyone back and moving toward close to normal is a great feeling.”

As mentioned, protocols are still in place, but having the ability to return has given the team something they didn’t have last year—a normal offseason. They could train together, build chemistry and play as a team rather than previously, before last season, when they worked out individually.

“A normal offseason for us was huge,” Les said. “We were able to have our normal summer, our normal preseason, whereas last year, we didn’t have any of that. In fact, our preseason [last year] we were out at the Dairy Courts, working out one-on-one with gloves and masks on. So, it’s nice to have that behind us and have a normal offseason so we could grow, work and continue to prepare for the upcoming season, so [I’m] excited about that and how hard this group has worked.”

After losing in the Big West Tournament semifinal last year and finishing the season at 108, the Aggies commence their non-conference

play in Logan, Utah against Utah State before they have their home opener against Eastern Washington on Nov. 12. This will mark the first time UC Davis will play a home game with fans in the arena since March 2020, something that the team was missing last year.

“Can’t wait just to have some energy and enthusiasm from our students, the band, from our fans, season ticket holders and fans of our program,” Les said. “Can’t wait. [Last season] you really had to self-motivate. That wasn’t always easy, but [the team] rallied around each other, cheered for each other. We made up for the loss, but thank goodness we don’t have to do that this year.”

To continue their tough tests before Big West Conference play, they travel to Pepperdine on Nov. 17, then take on Causeway rival Sacramento St. on Nov. 23 at the Golden 1 Center, home of the Sacramento Kings. “[The team] is super excited,” Manjon said about the team’s energy. “I think it’s going to go really well. Our team is looking really nice right now. Our last scrimmage we did really well, so I’m really confident about this team.”

After the Causeway Classic, the team will begin a non-conference homestand against Academy of Arts (Nov. 28), Pacific University (Dec. 1) and UC Merced (Dec. 4) before they face arguably their biggest test of the nonconference games at Oregon State.

The Beavers won the Pac-12 Tournament last year and made a run in the NCAA Tournament before they lost in the Elite Eight. Although they are missing some pieces from last year, traveling to Corvallis will not be an easy task.

On Dec. 19 they take a trip down the I-5 to Stockton, where they will play Pacific once again before closing out non conference play on Dec. 22 against the University of Portland.

To limit travel last season, Big West Conference play consisted of doubleheaders against the same team. This time around, it is not the case, so when the Aggies open up conference play against UC Riverside on Dec. 28, they will have to travel to Hawaii just two days later. For the first games of winter quarter, UC Davis hosts the Big West favorite UC Irvine in an early season clash. They then play UC San Diego on a Saturday afternoon game on Jan. 8, before they begin a road trip to visit CSU Bakersfield, Cal Poly, CSUN and UC Santa Barbara between Jan. 13-22.

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The UC Davis Men’s Basketball team in action at the Pavilion against CSU Fullerton on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2020. (Benjamin Cheng / Aggie)