The Daily Texan 2021-04-27

‘we’re winning

next year’ DT VOLUME 121, ISSUE 63 TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021

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07

The Texas volleyball team fell short in the championship, but made the University proud.

News

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05

Burnt Orange Bluegrass provides live music and community to UT students.

Sports

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Life&Arts

08

The Daily Texan takes a look back on the work Senate completed during a year of pandemic.

RESEARCH

UT to use NASA telescope for new projects

By Kiernan McCormick @KiernanMcCormi4

Assoc. Design Editor Megan Fletcher

Illustration Coordinator Abriella Corker

News Editor Lauren Girgis

04

UT should adopt and implement a new registration program to ease student stress.

Senior Sports Writers Matthew Boncosky, Taylor Hawthorne

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Editorial Illustrator Charlie Hyman

Opinion

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DT

Contents:

TOMORROW April 28

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UT astronomy professors, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students will work on projects using NASA’s forthcoming James Webb Space Telescope, which will be the most powerful telescope in space, during its first year.

The telescope is scheduled to launch Oct. 31 and will be operational by mid-2022, according to the McDonald Observatory’s website. The telescope’s development began in 1996, and according to NASA’s website, will be “the premier observatory of the next decade.” UT astronomers will collectively have about 500 hours of telescope time. They will work on two projects: COSMOS-Webb and the Webb Deep Extragalactic Exploratory Public Survey.

The goal of COSMOS-Webb, led by astronomy assistant professor’s Caitlin Casey of UT and Jeyhan Kartaltepe of the Rochester Institute of Technology, is to study the history of the universe in its first billion years, Casey said.

“We wanted to go both deep — seeing some of the most distant galaxies at the edge of the universe — but also wide,” Casey said. “We wanted to cover an area larger than the size of the moon in the sky.”

Casey said half the leadership of the COSMOS-Webb team is based at UT. The project is anticipated to find around one million galaxies, which will be studied by the team. She said the team will use facilities at UT’s McDonald Observatory to compare data with images gathered from the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment.

Steven Finkelstein, an UT associate astronomy professor, Casey Papovich, an astronomy

copyright m. bagley, s. finkelstein, c. casey; esa/c. carreau, and reproduced with permission

Two telescopes, WDEEP and COSMOS-Webb, will look at different widths and depths of the universe.

professor from Texas A&M University, and Nor Pirzkal, an astronomer from the Space Telescope Science Institute, will lead the Web Deep Survey. Finkelstein said the survey is designed to deeply observe a point in the sky to discover some of the earliest galaxies formed.

Finkelstein said that while both COSMOS-Webb and the survey are trying to study distant galaxies, they differ in the strategies they’ll use. “(The survey is) looking for the faintest, earliest galaxies,” Finkelstein said.

“COSMOS-Webb is looking for sort of the most massive galaxies at that time in the universe.”

Micaela Bagley, a postdoctoral fellow working in Finkelstein’s research group, said UT’s main role in the survey will be to work with the project’s data and analyze it. “(UT will) be involved at the level of cleaning and processing data, but also really interpreting the

data and drawing scientific conclusions from it,” Bagley

said. “We bring a lot of expertise which is very exciting.”

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NEWS

LAUREN GIRGIS

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News Editor | @THEDAILYTEXAN TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021

STATE

Students talk insulin price bill A bill filed in the Texas legislature would cap insulin out-of-pocket costs at $50 per month.

By Lauren Abel @laurena0324

bill filed in the Texas House of Representatives would place a price limit on monthly insulin copays for people with diabetes.

Rep. James Talarico, D-Round Rock, filed a bill which will cap the out-of-pocket costs for insulin and some supplies at $50 a month if passed. Talarico, who was diagnosed with diabetes in 2018, said he has struggled ever since to pay the high prices of insulin.

Insulin production prices have remained relatively stable, costing anywhere from about $2 to $3 to produce, but retail rates have risen. In 1999, one vial of insulin lispro cost $21. In 2019, that price had risen by over 1000% to $332, according to the Mayo Clinic.

The amount of insulin needed for each individual depends on factors such as insulin resistance, weight and physical activity.

For biochemistry junior Matthew Kenny,

one vial of his insulin lasts one to two weeks and costs nearly $300 before insurance.

Nearly a decade ago, when doctors first diagnosed him with diabetes, a vial cost $100 before insurance.

For some college students, paying for insulin on top of education costs can become unmanageable and leads to insulin rationing, Kenny said.

“It’s not something I can skip out on, and a lot of people talk about (rationing) it in pretty dire circumstances, but I think for me, … it probably wouldn’t take more than 48 hours without (insulin) for me to slip into a coma,” Kenny said.

Without supplementary insulin, diabetes can cause a rapid rise or crash in blood sugar which can lead to complications such as cardiovascular disease, nerve damage, eye damage and ketoacidosis, among other health issues.

“I’m very fortunate that my insurance covers a pretty substantial amount of that to where I get it down to about $475 for that same three months,” Kenny said. “Which is still kind of crazy, because $500 in Austin can be like 50% of a month’s rent.”

megan fletcher

/ the daily texan staff

Alongside the costs of lifesaving insulin therapy, diabetic individuals also require other devices and supplies to maintain their health, such as insulin pens, syringes and pumps, blood sugar meters, and ketone test strips.

According to the American Diabetes Association, people with diagnosed diabetes end up with an average of $16,752 in medical expenses per year, of which about $9,601 is related to diabetes.

“I had friends, especially with COVID when the pandemic got started, who lost their jobs,” Kenny said. “They were also full-time students, lost their jobs, and it

was like, ‘Okay, I don’t know when the next time I’m going to be able to afford insulin is.’”

Talarico’s HB40 provides no assistance to diabetic people without insurance.

However, Talarico said he is also a co-author for HB18, which will provide prescription drugs to those without insurance at a discounted rate.

“I’m super excited that he’s using this platform to get this legislation out there and make a difference for people like me and my friends who don’t want to have to choose between eating a meal or living until next week,” Kenny said.

E M I LY C A L D W E L L

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Editor-In-Chief | @TEXANOPINION TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021

COLUMN

OPINION

registration needs to BE SIMPLIFIED UT should implement a new registration program that simplifes the process for students. munications manager for the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost, said in an email if students are frustrated by any of UT’s services, they are welcome to use Texas One Stop and Ask Bevo as resources.

“The launch of Texas One Stop, Ask Bevo and other online resources are part of the strategic updates we have been making to bring upgraded technology to our students,” Harrison said. “Future updates to our student systems are being planned and reviewed across the institution.”

By Ezra Gomez Columnist

ith the end of the semester finally in sight, UT students are currently scrambling to register for classes.

Each year, students face the same rush to simultaneously reload a page at a certain time while typing in a plethora of complicated unique numbers in hopes that by the time they finish typing, their next class won’t already be taken.

The University of Texas needs to adopt a new registration program, such as the Enterprise Information Systems enrollment service used at Texas A&M that requires one button to register an entire class.

UT’s registration system is time-consuming and extraordinarily stressful. Because of how easy it is to type incorrect numbers or fill in classes in the wrong order, these mistakes could mess up a student’s entire upcoming semester, and in some extreme cases, graduation dates. Additionally, students with dyslexia or other learning disabilities, such as myself, often find the unique numbers portion of the process unnecessarily difficult.

Government freshman Melina Olivas has already experienced full classes, last choice professors and genuine stress over her registration.

“It feels like a free-for-all and nobody knows what’s happening,” Olivas said. “Since it

Since it takes longer because we have to put in the unique numbers and stuff, sometimes all the courses that I need are taken.” riya anand

takes longer because we have to put in the unique numbers and stuff, sometimes all the courses that I need are taken, and the only classes that will fulfill that credit are only open to certain majors. It’s like, ‘Oh, well I need this, but it took too long to make a list of all of the unique numbers that I wanted.’”

However, registration is not nearly as difficult at some colleges as it is at UT. Brittany Stair,

LEGALESE | Opinions expressed in The Daily Texan are those of the editor, the Editorial Board or the writer of the article. They are not necessarily those of the UT administration, the Board of Regents or the Texas Student Media Board of Operating Trustees.

A&M student and communications freshman, said her experience with A&M registration has been nothing but easy and at times, fun.

“We have a thing called a registration worksheet where we can take classes and then add them to a sample schedule that we want,” Stair said. “Once your registration worksheet is approved by an adviser, you can just click (to) add on all of the classes at once

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/ the daily texan staff

on your registration worksheet to register.”

And that’s it. Before registration, you fill out a registration worksheet, it’s approved by an adviser, and then you click one button per class at a designated time and it’s done with. No unique numbers, no refresh page, no lists of classes you might need if your unique number took you too long.

Kathleen Harrison, the com-

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MELINA OLIVAS government freshman

While gathering student input is important, it is up to UT to frequently review how it conducts registration. Because registration is a massive stressor that often collides with a busy part of the semester and can put students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage, UT must adopt a better system.

Gomez is a journalism freshman from Lewisville, Texas.

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LIFE&ARTS

A I S L I N G AY E R S

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Life&Arts Editor | @TEXANARTS TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021

MUSIC

Bluegrass: burnt orange edition Burnt Orange Bluegrass, a band founded by UT students, plays live music to keep the tradition alive.

By Dina Barrish @BarrishDina

rom the foot of the Martin Luther King Jr. statue, eight student musicians holding their respective instruments spotted another student holding a viola case. They didn’t know who she was, but that didn’t stop them from inviting her to play songs with them.

“She was like, ‘Oh, I guess,’” said biology junior Andrew Wagner. “We (all) just started laughing, … it’s literally that informal. I love how inclusive we are, how accepting to anybody (we are).”

Wagner is a guitarist for Burnt Orange Bluegrass, the only student bluegrass band at UT. Along with other students, he performs at various gigs and fills campus with the sounds of guitars, fiddles and banjos. Founded as an official UT organization in 2015, Burnt Orange Bluegrass plays a range of live music — anything from modern covers to classic bluegrass hits.

“Bluegrass music is country or folk music on steroids,” Wagner said.

“Getting up and playing in front of a crowd is not the easiest thing to do. …

It gives us this sense of community and friendship. Music is the one thing that ties us all together. … It’s a way for us to express ourselves.”

On April 17, Burnt Orange Bluegrass competed in UT’s annual campuswide talent show, Texas Revue. The audience voted the band “crowd favorite.”

“Practicing enough makes perfect, but it’s not about that,” said Chris Chreek, a vocalist, guitarist and radio-television-film sophomore. “This group’s not about that either. It’s just about having fun, kicking back, letting loose.”

Chreek said no one in Burnt Orange Bluegrass had ever played bluegrass music before joining. They each learned through participating in the band’s “jams,” which are live concerts every Friday from 4-6 p.m on the East Mall.

“It’s all about listening to everyone, watching what everyone’s doing, and then it becomes just crazy natural,” Creek said. “It’s just that type of music where anything goes. … It’s welcoming, it’s familiar.”

By the end of his first jam, Wagner said he didn’t want to stop.

“I do so many extracurriculars, … but playing music is an escape from

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Students from Burnt Orange Bluegrass play their instruments in front of the Martin Luther King Jr. statue on campus.

all that,” Wagner said. “When everything’s been on Zoom for the past year, going to campus and being able to play music in person with other people, it’s just awesome.”

Radio-television-film freshman Travis Flippo said he started in Burnt Orange Bluegrass as a guitarist, but the other band members encouraged him to pick up the mandolin. Now, Flippo said he plays mandolin solos and also sings lead or harmony parts.

“I was overwhelmed by (the band’s) positive energy,” Flippo said. “All the guys are really excited to be there, and that kind of attitude is really, really welcome in a musician’s environment because a lot of people can be very negative. Music is the beginning and the end for us.”

Because bluegrass’ roots date back to the 1600’s, Flippo said he loves being able to play bluegrass with peers his own age and keep the tradition alive.

“The titans of bluegrass are either old, dead or both,” Flippo said. “Bluegrass is something that will make you smile and make you toe tap, something that can bring people joy and contribute a lot to their lives.”

C A R T E R YAT E S

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Sports Editor | @TEXANSPORTS TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021

BASEBALL

SPORTS

antico finds groove

The redshirt senior has improved his hitting since breaking a slump as Texas soars.

By Amsal Madhani @amsal_madhani

christina peebles

/ the daily texan staff

ike Antico is used to enduring ups and downs in a season as the most experienced player on the Texas baseball team, but this season’s turnaround felt a little more satisfying.

“Baseball is a crazy sport,” Antico said after a win against Abilene Christian on April 18. “There’s a lot of ups and downs and you’ve got to try and stay even throughout.”

Antico, a redshirt senior and transfer from St. John’s University, started his Texas career with one hit in three games at the 2021 State Farm College Baseball Showdown in Arlington, Texas. The Longhorns lost all three games to top-ranked opponents, but while Texas rebounded as the season continued, Antico found himself in a prolonged slump. Through March 27, Antico was batting .200 at the plate and had more strikeouts than RBI. “I expect a lot out of myself,” Antico said. “I came here to do as good as I can and when you’re not playing at your full potential, it’s tough.”

It wasn’t until April 9 when the Longhorns faced Kansas State that Antico hit his stride in a Texas uniform. He went on a tear, scoring one run on four hits and hitting two key doubles that led to a Longhorn victory.

While April 9 was indeed Antico’s coming out party, his ascension at the plate started March 27 when his batting average bottomed out at the lowest it

had been all season.

Since March 27, Antico is hitting .297 from the plate with only eight strikeouts and 19 RBI. As Antico’s personal performance has increased, so has the entire team’s. The Longhorns are 17–3 since March 27 compared to 16–6 before.

“As you guys can see, (head coach David Pierce) has stuck with me,” Antico said. “I was never really worried about losing the spot (in the batting order) or whatever, I just show up everyday and put in the work and I trust that the rest will take care of itself.”

Antico’s experience throughout his career at St. John’s played a big part in his extraordinary turnaround at the plate this season. Because he was familiar with slumps from his extensive collegiate career, Antico calmly took his time and continued to work on his craft so he could turn his season around. As a result, both he and the Longhorns as a whole have flourished.

“I’ve been through this before,” Antico said. “My last full year of college baseball in my junior year, you look back and it says he hit .380 or whatever, but what you don’t see is that I was hitting .180 throughout the first month and a half.”

With just 13 games left on the regular season schedule, including one final road trip to Fort Worth, Texas, Antico said he and his teammates will continue to put the necessary time into practice so they can finish the year out strong.

“This lineup and this team shows up every day and gets after it,” Antico said.

“Once we get out on that field, we compete and the game comes easier when you put all that time in.”

SPORTS

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TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021

VOLLEYBALL

Texas volleyball makes University proud through perseverance, advocacy in unusual season

By Maya Martinez @mayamartinezatx

A 3-1 loss to Kentucky in the NCAA Division I Women’s Volleyball Tournament on Saturday night was the tragic end to an extraordinary season for Texas, but the Longhorns handled the defeat with the same grace as they did the several years’ worth of adversity they faced in a single 29-game season.

After compiling a perfect 14–0 record in the fall portion of their season, Texas, as well as the rest of Division I volleyball, was forced to take an extended three-month break due to the COVID-19 pandemic before resuming the regular season in late February. Limited and inconsistent practices during the hiatus from organized competition threatened to derail the hard work the Longhorns had already put in, head coach Jerritt Elliott said.

“I think our first practice was 40 minutes, and then it was 45 minutes, and then back down to 30 minutes,” Elliott said in a press conference on April 23. “We had to kind of work our way up to get ourselves in a position where we’re healthy enough so we didn’t have any injuries with these amazing athletes.”

Persevering through a global pandemic to obtain the best possible results on the court is hard enough, but this year’s Texas squad also decided to fully dedicate itself to the fight for racial equality and social justice.

The Longhorns donned shirts with “Black Lives Matter” across their chests during warmups and postgame interviews throughout the season and even came together to publish a team video on Sept. 10 acknowledging and calling for help to end systemic racism.

Through their work as advocates for racial equality and their positive demeanor on the court, the Texas volleyball team is providing an example for the entire country, Elliott said.

“I think they are role models, and this country has a lot of problems right now,” Elliott said following the championship game. “I told them one of my favorite quotes is one of my last

copyright ncaa, and reproduced with permission Sophomore middle blocker Molly Phillips and redshirt sophomore middle blocker Asjia O’Neal rise up to block Kentucky’s spike in the NCAA Championship Game on April 24 in Omaha, Nebraska.

words from my mom: ‘Good people love people.’ And that’s what I feel this group is.”

Logan Eggleston, a junior outside hitter and Second Team All-American, became the face of the team through her contributions off the court as a member of The Eyes of Texas History Committee and her excellent performance in the postseason. Eggleston said she had one of the toughest volleyball seasons she’s gone

through, but she learned more about herself and the game in the process than she ever could have otherwise.

“It’s been nine months that we’ve been just grinding,” Eggleston said after the April 24 loss. “It’s been draining, but it’s been fulfilling. Every single day I feel so tired at the end of the day, but I also feel like I’ve grown so much.”

Despite just wrapping up their most grueling year in recent memory, the team will have less time to rest and

recover due to the three-month gap in their season. At the time when the Longhorns deserve the maximum amount of rest, they will receive a fraction of it.

That’s perfectly fine with Eggleston, however. Mere minutes after the loss to Kentucky, the senior spoke about her desire to get back to work.

“I want to practice again right now, there’s so much unfinished business I feel like, and there’s just so many ways that we can keep improving,”

Eggleston said.

While Eggleston and her teammates are proud of what they accomplished during the most unusual season of their lives, they know they have unfinished business once they get back after it in a few months.

“We’re winning (it all) next year. That’s how we’re all feeling,” Eggleston said. “I think we do have, again, so much to be proud of, but we’re coming back stronger next year.”

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TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

Senate executives look back on progress during pandemic

By Sheryl Lawrence @sheryl_adelle

The Senate of College Councils, one of the three legislative student organizations at UT, advocates for equal opportunities in the classroom and improvements to the quality of academics. Over the 2020-21 academic year, Senate advocated for COVID-19 pass/fail and helped connect student organizers with University administration.

The Daily Texan spoke to Senate President Alcess Nonot and Vice President Isaac James about their progress over the 2020-2021 school year.

“I learned a lot of important lessons about how priorities have to shift to better serve the interests of the students that we’re representing in events like a crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic,” James said.

COVID-19 Pass/Fail

In partnership with Student Government, Senate held a Universitywide survey on student well-being. After analyzing the

results, the legislative student organizations passed a joint resolution and presented arguments to the Faculty Council, which voted for students to have unlimited pass/fail classes. UT President Jay Hartzell later announced students are allowed to pass/fail three total classes from the fall and spring semesters.

At an April 8 general assembly, Senate passed a resolution that called to increase the limit of COVID-19 pass/ fail exceptions from three to six due to Winter Storm Uri. The resolution passed through the Student Government assembly but has not been introduced in the Graduate Student Assembly. The student petition received over 3,000 signatures before it closed.

“8 Demands for Transformative Change”

Senate, along with other student organizations, created “8 Demands for Transformative Change” to address systemic racism at UT. “The eight demands (weren’t)

To pretend we can sit here and know everything there is to know … is just not right.”

ISAAC JAMES

vice president

julius shieh / the daily texan staff Alcess Nonot and Isaac James, former president and vice president of UT Senate, reflect on a year of service. They are succeeded by Steven Ding and Suseth Muñoz.

something that came out of just Senate,” Nonot said. “I think the reason why it was so impactful is because it involved a lot of people who have already been organizing on campus.”

The University has addressed some of the demands, including renaming the Robert Lee Moore Hall to the Physics, Math and Astronomy Building. This change had been in the works since 2019. One of the eight demands included removing “The Eyes of Texas” as the alma mater, a demand that students have continued to advocate for over the past year.

In July 2020, Hartzell said the University acknowledges the origins of “The Eyes of Texas,” but will keep the song. In March 2021, the University released a report by The Eyes of Texas History Committee, which said the song was written in a “racist setting,” but is not “overtly racist.” The Longhorn Band will be required to play “The Eyes of Texas” starting in the fall of 2022, according to previous reporting by The Daily Texan.

Since releasing the demands, Senate has also passed legislation for individual demands, which include changing the requirement for classes to fulfill the Cultural Diversity Flag requirement and continuing to use a test-optional admission policy.

Gender Inclusivity

In fall 2020, the legislative student organizations passed a joint resolution supporting the addition of an “X” gender marker in UT databases. In spring 2020, the organizations passed another joint resolution that supported adding an optional pronoun field in the UT directory. Senate implemented a fall 2019 resolution this semester by creating a map of gender-inclusive bathrooms on campus.

Collaboration with non-legislative organizations

This year, James and Nonot said they provided a space

for student organizers to speak directly with University administration through the President’s Student Advisory Committee, which is a group of students that consults with the president regarding important student issues.

James said Senate worked with multiple student organizers this year to help with their agendas, including the Interpersonal Violence Prevention Coalition, those involved in the Return the Remains campaign, international students when they were facing uncertainty with enrollment last summer and undocumented students.

“We don’t know everything, and so we would rather be deferring policy issues to students who have been working on them for so long,” Nonot said. “To pretend we can sit here and know everything there is to know … is just not right, and something that LSOs shouldn’t be doing.”

NEWS

LIFE&ARTS

9

TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021

FOOD

Places to eat for iftar in Austin this Ramadan

By Hanaa Irfan @Hanaabun

With a sweet and wrinkly date in hand, a Muslim student counts down the seconds until they can finally break their day-long fast. After abstaining from food and water from sunrise to sunset, millions of Muslims across the country sit down to enjoy a meal known as iftar, filled with delicious food, good friends and engaging conversation.

Many Muslims follow a halal diet, which means the meat is blessed by the slaughterman and requires an incision on the neck of the animal to cut the jugular vein. The practice is meant to be less painful for the animal, and it produces tender meat that stays fresh longer.

For Longhorns participating in Ramadan this year and looking for some delicious halal food, The Daily Texan has compiled a list of five halal restaurants near or on campus.

1. Food Trucks near campus

If you need to pick up a quick bite before iftar, check out one

of the halal food trucks close to campus.

To satisfy those late night cravings, Abu Omar is a great option. The food truck conveniently located on the intersection of Guadalupe and 28th Street offers Mediterranean-style street food and sandwiches until 3 a.m.

For those who crave Southern comfort food but struggle to find halal options, Longhorn Chicken & Waffles on the corner of Rio Grande and 26th Street offers chicken and waffles, wings, and sandwiches.

“Longhorn Chicken was always a really great option because they were so close by and would sometimes donate part of their profits to nonprofit organizations,” UT alumna Safa Zia said.

2. Kismet Cafe

Located on 41st Street, Kismet Cafe provides the Austin community with Greek and Middle Eastern food ranging from meze to falafel.

Rated as one of the best Middle Eastern cuisines in Austin, the menu offers large, affordable meals.

kenny jones

/ the daily texan staff

Halal Bros on Guadalupe Street on April 26, 2021 which serves halal food. Many Muslims follow a halal diet, which means the meat is blessed by the slaughterman and requires an incision on the neck of the animal to cut the jugular vein.

“Definitely check out the chicken zinger wrap and the jalapeno sauce,” Zia said.

“All my friends rave about those two dishes!”

3. Biryani Pot

Biryani Pot describes itself as a traditional Hyderabadi food house.

With a massive 95-item a la carte menu, it is certainly worth the drive down Mopac.

The restaurant specializes in Hyderabadi Dum Biryani, a spicy rice dish native to many South Asian cultures. They also offer other traditional iftar dishes, such as crunchy samosas, spicy chicken tikka and, of course, biryani.

4. Arpeggio Grill

Established in 2005, Arpeggio Grill is family owned and operated. The restaurant aspires to highlight the art of authentic Mediterranean food through high quality halal meats and

fresh produce.

The menu boasts a variety of sandwiches, burgers, chicken wings and kebabs. Arpeggio Grill is best known for their pizza, and many Muslims frequent the restaurant to finally enjoy meat toppings.

“It’s really nice that they use halal meat, because they have some really interesting toppings that I never would have gotten to try otherwise,” business freshman Fatima Raja said.

5. Halal Bros

Cherished by Muslims and non-Muslims alike, Halal Bros’ convenient location and reasonable prices are hard to beat.

“Since moving to UT, Halal Bros has definitely become my most frequented halal restaurant,” said Maryam Khan, an international relations and global studies sophomore. “I really love the gyro over rice and the gyro wraps.”

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TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2021

LIFE&ARTS

STUDENT LIFE

Students discuss increases in social anxiety, decreases in pandemic restrictions

By Zoe Tzanis @ZTzanis

Kalisha Jones plans out her day strategically: She goes to lunch and dinner as late as possible to avoid the noise and crowded lines. She aims to get in and out as fast as she can to bypass having any unwanted interactions.

“Even when it comes to doing simple tasks, like going to J2 to get food, I get super nervous,” psychology freshman Jones said. “I find it very hard to feel comfortable around new people and in new social situations.”

The National College Health Assessment estimates that 63% of American college students experience some kind of anxiety, and studies linked a strong association between isolation and increased social anxiety.

After steering clear of in-person gatherings for the past year, students like Jones who struggle in social situations have experienced increased opportunities for self-isolation and have felt their anxieties worsen as a result.

I just cannot interact with people the same way that I used to.”

KALISHA JONES

psychology freshman

“I actually had to start going to therapy because my anxiety has spiked,” Jones said. “I just cannot interact with people the same way that I used to.”

In the future, Jones said she worries how people will perceive her in face-to-face situations, especially when she cannot hide behind a mask.

“I am scared that people will see my facial expressions and think they’re weird,” Jones said. “I’ve gotten used to habits that I’ve built over the past year. I’m scared that people will think that I’m a rude person.”

Timothy Zeddies, a local psychologist and UT alumnus, said the pandemic has been both difficult and comforting for those with social anxiety.

sylvia asuncion-crabb

“(The pandemic) has been a relief, but it has also reinforced the idea that it’s okay to avoid social contact,” Zeddies said. “A lot of people who are in that position are beginning to dread having to be in social situations to a much greater degree.”

Zeddies suggested students who struggle with these issues should try to reframe their negative and fearful thoughts about interactions into terms of “social opportunity.”

“I would encourage students, when they begin to experience fears, to be specific about what it is in particular that they’re afraid of,” Zeddies said. “It’s probably a bit more effective if they were to journal about it.”

Neuroscience freshman Emma Babaian said that, as an introvert, the pandemic has had its upsides.

It’s been that sense of relief.

“COVID has given me the chance to have more energy,” Babaian said. “I haven’t been as over

/ the daily texan staff

whelmed with my surroundings when I’m in class, but at the same time, I feel like I’m missing out.”

With all her interactions occurring virtually, Babaian said she’s able to recompose herself when experiencing nerves and feel self-assured when answering questions.

When returning to in-person classes in the fall, Babaian said she expects it will be harder to avoid unwanted attention.

“If I’m not feeling well, it’s a lot harder to remove myself from those situations,” Babaian said. “I don’t want to have to reassure people that I’m fine while I’m stepping out to take care of myself.”

Despite her fears, Babaian said she hopes to be able to enjoy a somewhat normal school day in the near future.

“I’m really excited to go to class in person,” Babaian said. “Even though it’s hard to interact with people, I still feel like it would be better.”

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Summer 2021 Courses

GET AHEAD THIS SUMMER The university offers summer classes at lower rates in order to support our students’ paths to success and promote continued learning in the community.

Special rate for summer classes.

Specific high-demand courses in summer 2021 will be offered at a discounted rate of $500 (for undergraduate Texas residents) and $2,000 (for undergraduate non-Texas residents).

In addition, summer tuition rates for undergraduate students are 25% off of the 2020-21 long semester rates. Graduate and professional rates are 15% off of the 2020-21 long semester rates. More information can be found at onestop.utexas.edu/summer.

Registration for Summer 2021 is open April 19 – 30

Summer rates may not apply to Option III. Students in Option III programs should check with the program administrator for tuition rate information.