THENORTHERNLIGHT.ORG TUESDAY, AUG. 25, 2020
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Students can succeed in college during the pandemic.
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Hitbox Impressions — Divinity: Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition.
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FEATURES
THENORTHERNLIGHT.ORG TUESDAY, AUG. 25, 2020
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Students can succeed in college during the pandemic By Christina Swayney features1@thenorthernlight.org
The fall semester is now upon UAA students, with classes mostly being online. The future may seem unclear with the current COVID-19 pandemic, but this semester at UAA is planned strategically to make the college experience as positive and comfortable for students as possible. UAA made the decision early on to have a smooth transition for students, faculty and staff to have most fall classes online. Eighty percent of classes this semester will be held via distance learning. Students will learn using Blackboard, emails and Zoom lectures. Courses in person will have safety precautions. Students can practice social distancing, while not feeling so isolated. Contact through social media is encouraged, as is texting, Zoom sessions and even a simple phone call. Talking to instructors throughout the semester may also help students succeed and humanize the online-learning experience. It is also stressed by UAA Chancellor Cathy Sandeen that the semester curriculum will be just as challenging and enriching as classes in person. “We will still provide the same quality education and the ability for students to complete their degree. You are only going to set yourself up for success if you continue your education. Don’t stop now. This is just college during COVID. We can do it,” said Chancellor Sandeen. The Municipality of Anchorage released a mandate that aims to curb the spread of COVID-19 on August 3 by limiting gatherings of people to 15. To accommodate this at UAA, classes in person will have no more than 15 people, including the instructor. Groups of students in classes will meet at different times and masks will be required in class at all times, unless students or staff have a medical condition that may prevent them from wearing a mask, in which case Disability and Support Services at UAA should be contacted for accommodations. Employees can contact Human Resources for accommodations and guidance for mask exceptions. The Mask Policy for UAA and all University of Alaska campuses requires anyone on cam-
pus to wear a mask or face shield. UAA has implemented this policy per The Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, Anchorage Emergency Orders and supports the university’s operational plan for phases A through C. If a surge in cases occurs in Anchorage and the Municipality decides to release a stricter safety mandate, in-person classes may be moved online or deferred to a safer time. The CDC states that the purpose of wearing face masks is to help stop the spread of COVID-19. Face masks help prevent the user from spreading the virus via respiratory droplets and effectiveness is increased if more people wear masks. Mask enforcement, according to UAA mask policy is as follows: “Whenever possible, concerns about face coverings should be respectfully addressed at the time such concerns arise by informing the individual about this policy and/ or Anchorage Emergency Orders and encouraging compliance in a courteous and considerate manner.”. Most buildings at UAA will also not be accessible to students for safety. Designated classrooms, restrooms, the UAA/ APU Consortium Library and Student Union will remain available. Students will also need Wolfcards, which is also a student I.D., to have access to these buildings. The cards will work like key cards to the entrance doors. Wolfcards can be obtained at the University Center Cashiering Office or the Consortium Library. Parking passes will not be enforced but restricted parking, such as fire lanes and maintenance spots remain prohibited. The Campus Bookstore is also temporarily closed and orders are exclusively online. Because not all regularly used amenities and facilities won’t be available to students this fall, $7.51 per credit hour was refunded to students’ accounts. Some buildings at UAA will be closed for the semester, such as The UAA Sports Complex and other buildings require key access, only accessible by request to an instructor, the building manager or with the UPD. Students who require access to The Spine should contact Disability Support Services for ADA accommodation. All buildings and rooms
GRAPHIC BY MICHAELINE COLLINS
used by students and staff will be thoroughly cleaned and sanitized daily and hand sanitizing stations will be placed at the main entrances of all facilities and in busy common areas throughout campus. Sanitation wipe stanchions will also be placed at various locations throughout the campus. On-campus living will also be very different this semester, with only 123 students in occupancy so far to keep social distancing standards. Each student in residence will have their own room and bathroom. Communal spaces such as study halls and eating areas will be closed. Meals will be in a grab-and-go style, with breakfast and lunch being cold meals and dinner a hot meal. The check-in process for housing has also changed and a more detailed description can be found on the UAA site under Move in Fall 2020. Testing for COVID-19 will be available to students at Gorsuch Commons and by contacting the Student Health and Counseling Center or SHCC. Students living on campus will meet with SHCC representatives during check-in to fill out a declaration form that allows On-Campus Living to track compliance with the testing policy and keep students healthy and safe.
Residents should have two negative COVID-19 tests presented at check-in with a representative of SHCC. More details about testing can be found on the UAA site under Move in Fall 2020. If a resident suspects they have COVID-19 symptoms, test positive for COVID-19 or may have been exposed to someone who may have COVID-19, they should contact SHCC immediately. If the health center is closed, the onduty Resident Advisor of the area should be notified. Applications for student housing are now closed, but students can be added to a waitlist by accessing their housing page on UA Online. All in-person campus events have been canceled. The Fall Athletic Competition has been suspended until at least Nov. 30. Volleyball and crosscountry competitions are put on hold until the spring semester and more information will be made available as the semester progresses. Instead, online events are offered, such as Virtual Campus Kick-Off on Aug. 22, Disney Bingo on Aug. 27, Virtual Family Feud on Sept. 10, and many more. Events can be found on The UAA Student Activities and Commuter Programs Facebook page and the Virtual Engagement Opportuni-
ties page on the UAA website. Bruce Schultz, the Vice-Chancellor of UAA, encourages students to reach out to their peers and take advantage of any help the university system can provide if it’s needed. “It’s important for students to be connected to other students and stay on track with assignments. Students can also take advantage of all the virtual student services that are available,” Schultz said. For students or staff who may be facing a difficult time, The Student Health and Counseling Center is available through appointment by calling the center at 907786-4040 or email at uaa_studenthealth@uaa. alaska.edu. They offer physical and mental health services for students. The center is closed for walk-in visits, but Appointments may be available virtually through telehealth. There are many avenues of mental health support for students as well. The UAA Department of Psychology operates the Psychological Services Center and also offers services to students. Feelings of isolation can be prevalent not only during a pandemic but in Alaskan winter as well. The best way to cope is to communicate with others. Students may struggle and worry about finances
during such an uncertain time. Vice-Chancellor Schultz suggests contacting UAA Financial Aid for assistance. “We are here to help but we won’t know students need help unless they ask,” Schultz said. Financial help for students is also available through COVID relief funds. UAA has already given students $2.7 million using the Cares Act in the spring of 2020 and some in the fall as well. Additional funding will be made available to students from The State of Alaska, the UAA President’s Office and possible additional funds from the federal government. For more details about the fall semester, visit College During COVID on UAA online. More information for living on campus can be found at Move in Fall 2020 on UAA online. For health and mental services contact The Student Health and Counseling Center at UAA by calling 907-7864040 or emailing them at uaa_studenthealth@uaa. alaska.edu.
FEATURES
THENORTHERNLIGHT.ORG TUESDAY, AUG. 25, 2020
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Fact-checking can help Americans find political truth By Christina Swayney features1@thenorthernlight.org
Fact or fiction, the internet is rich with information right at one’s fingertips. This bounty of knowledge also harbors false information that can mislead. Checking the validity of sources may be an extra hassle but is well worth it. With the presidential election coming up in November, now may be one of the most important elections in recent history. The United States exists in an era of division and unrest amid a COVID-19 pandemic that has affected every aspect of daily life. Knowing about who one is voting for is an important resource for all Americans. Politifact is a site where voters can research their candidates in full detail. This 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning resource is where voters can see the policies of candidates and fact-check claims about them. FactCheck.org is also a great resource for checking facts about politicians and a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. According to their mission statement, they “are a nonpartisan, nonprofit consumer advocate” for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. “We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding, according to their mission statement” Open Secrets is a data-driven site that analyzes federal campaign contributions, lobbying data and analysis of money in
GRAPHIC BY MICHAELINE COLLINS
politics. The phrase often used, ‘follow the money,’ hints at unethical practices. Open Secrets investigates how money is spent in politics and by whom. Memes that have images meant to appeal to the emotion of the viewer, combined with sensationalist wording can cause a tornado of false information due to reactions and re-sharing on social media. Snopes has a section dedicated to
debunking memes and is also a resource for fact-checking in general since 1994. Their fact check process is transparent and methodical. Viral Spiral is a part of FactCheck.org where readers can look into the validity of current and past claims. The site provides information in the form of a user question and answers, usually relating to whatever rumor is swirling around on the
internet. There are also videos debunking claims and using archives to search past claims. FlackCheck.org looks at false advertisements, science and health claims. Claims such as tobacco not being harmful, COVID-19 false information and detecting Patterns of Deception are explained. The site is easy to navigate and also features popular YouTube videos that support false claims that are then debunked. Media literacy skills are helpful to be knowledgeable and savvy in today’s world of false, biased and misleading information. It is a set of skills that are now being taught in schools. There are many free resources online for self-learning. A place to start is The National Association for Media Literacy Education, or NAMLE. Media literacy teaches that just because something is on the internet, doesn’t mean it’s true and focuses on the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication, according to NAMLE. For more information about political fact-checking, visit Politifact, FactCheck. org and Open Secrets. General factchecking can be done at Snopes, Viral Spiral, FlackCheck.org and NPR Fact Check. To learn more about media literacy, visit The National Association for Media Literacy Education website.
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Hitbox Impressions — Divinity: Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition By John Novotny arts@thenorthernlight.org
GRAPHIC BY MICHAELINE COLLINS SCREENSHOT COURTESY OF IGDB.COM
There are usually opportunities for ranged characters to take advantage of high ground during combat to gain stat bonuses.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a massive, sprawling adventure but be prepared to spend a significant chunk of time managing your inventory and doing busy work. Developer: Larian Studios Initial release date: Sept. 14, 2017 Platforms: Windows PC [played], Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch Price: Varies slightly by platform, $44.99 on Windows PC Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a computer role-playing game, or CRPG, which basically just means that it uses a top-down camera perspective and you can click a place on the ground to move the character. Like any RPG, players are going to be doing four main things: exploring, conversing, fighting and looting. It’s a tried and true formula that’s lasted decades. Another thing to note is that RPGs are notoriously long. Some games, like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, can take over 100
hours to beat. Divinity: Original Sin 2 is no different. The definitive edition of Divinity: Original Sin 2 released in August 2018 as a free update that added an easy story mode, dialogue changes and new fights. A complete list of changes can be found in a Neoseeker article. Most importantly, the definitive edition added a new companion character with Sir Lora, a talking squirrel of the Knights of Drey who rides an undead skeleton cat. He seemed to think that a giant acorn would destroy the world and is duty-bound to prevent it from happening. Divinity: Original Sin 2 is more like what I imagine a pen and paper Dungeons & Dragons game to be. I’ve never actually played Dungeons & Dragons, but I think I know the basics. Divinity: Original Sin 2 is no different, a basic story is set up about saving the world and being the chosen one, the player meets characters in a
central hub area to accept quests and then engages in turn-based combat encounters that reward the player with increasingly powerful weapons and armor. There’s nothing surprising about Divinity: Original Sin 2 aside from some occasional wacky hijinks, but even then it’s what one would expect from playing Dungeons & Dragons with friends. The comparison to Dungeons & Dragons is especially apt because there is a Gamemaster Mode that allows players to create their own custom campaigns. When creating a character, players can choose between six preset origin stories or create a custom character and fill in their backstory themselves. Origin characters that were not chosen can be recruited as companions to make a party of four. Most of the origin story characters are fairly standard, such as a mercenary on a mission to assassinate an important leader and a dwarven pirate captain.
The only character of note is Fane, a member of a missing race of people called the eternals. Fane is searching for clues as to what might have happened to them. Being an eternal comes with a few funny caveats such as poison healing them and having to hide their face so other people don’t freak out at their skeleton-like appearance. His blasé attitude toward anything that happens around him provides a few chuckles every now and then. The ship he’s sailing on is sinking? Oh well, he just has to wait until he reaches the floor of the ocean and then walk to land. Fane also has an immense amount of knowledge about the history of the world. Players hungry to absorb every bit of lore would be wise to have Fane along for the journey. However, whenever he would go off about some king that had been dead for 200 years, I had flashbacks to boring history classes. I just wanted to get to the fighting and
sweet loot. Speaking of loot, a great way to get stuff for free is to steal it. This turns out to be incredibly easy in Divinity: Original Sin 2. Just have one of your characters initiate a conversation with a merchant and have another character sneak behind them and steal whatever you want. How much you can steal from a person is determined by a character’s thievery skill. Every time you put a skill point in thievery after leveling up, you can steal items that are worth more. By hour 50 I could steal anything I could ever possibly want from anyone, assuming I could hide from other non-player characters. Another legally grey area for acquiring vast sums of riches is by looting every box and container you come across. This lengthy and painstaking process takes forever and will have you squinting at the screen wondering if you can loot a linen sack tucked away behind some barrels. Enemies killed
in combat will also drop some items. If that all sounds like a good time, then you won’t have any regrets buying Divinity: Original Sin 2. If you’re still on the fence, I can only add that as someone who is not well versed with this specific subgenre of RPG, I mostly enjoyed the 50 hours I played of Divinity: Original Sin 2 when I had an abundance of free time and nothing else to occupy myself with. I can’t say that I would’ve taken Divinity: Original Sin 2 over a Fallout or Horizon Zero Dawn (if the PC release actually went smoothly), but it certainly held my attention for a time. That’s a low bar, but I really think that for the right person, Divinity: Original Sin 2 could be game of the year material.
SCREENSHOT COURTESY OF JOHN NOVOTNY
The player can take advantage of elemental surfaces during combat such as electrifying pools of blood using certain skills.
OPINION
THENORTHERNLIGHT.ORG TUESDAY, AUG. 25, 2020
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Free games provide the opportunity to expand your gaming horizons By John Novotny arts@thenorthernlight.org
The subreddit r/GameDeals on Reddit features posts about, surprise, deals on video games. Usually it’s just a typical sale for 25% off a five-year-old game, but occasionally you can find games that are being given away for free. The most regular giveaway that people can expect are the free games on the Epic Games Store every week. Epic, the creators of the popular battle royale game Fortnite, have their own virtual store where people can buy various video games. The Epic Games Store gives away multiple free games every week, ranging from popular best-sellers such as Grand Theft Auto V to indies like A Short Hike. Since the Epic Games Store launched in December 2018, Epic has given away over $2,000 worth of free games according to PCGamesN. All people need to claim the games every week is to create an Epic account, download the launcher and click a few buttons. I’m not the type of person to complain that I have too many game launchers, but even I’m starting to take notice that I have an entire folder dedicated to them on my desktop and have downloaded a program specifically to sort through all the games I own across them. At this point though, what harm is one more going to do? I get free games every week from it, so who cares? Say what you will about the lacking feature set of the Epic Games Launcher, an extremely valid criticism, but being
able to play games outside my bubble gives me an opportunity to expand my gaming horizons. I definitely wouldn’t have bought the 4X turn-based strategy game, Sid Meier’s Civilization VI. Now I own it and that’s something. I have it downloaded but haven’t played it yet, but I could and that’s the point. At the very least, the free Epic Store games give me something to look forward to every week. The Dark Souls-inspired shooter Remnant: From the Ashes was given away earlier this month and dodgerolling away from bosses and learning about the game’s surprisingly interesting universe has been good fun. It’s worth noting that on the Epic Games Store FAQ, it’s specified that at least one free game will be given away every week throughout 2020. There has been no confirmation that it will continue beyond this year, although one can hope. Itch.io, a website for indie developers to sell their games also pops up often on r/GameDeals with free game giveaways. These games are way smaller in scope than anything the Epic Games Store offers but it’s good to see what the some of the people just making games in their free time are up to. If you’re just looking for a good deal on a game, isthereanydeal.com is a far better place to look. The website lists prices for a game across multiple different virtual storefronts. A wishlist feature is also available to keep track of deals on multiple games if an account is created.
PHOTO COURTESY OF VLAD GORSHKOV ON UNSPLASH
REPORTS
THENORTHERNLIGHT.ORG TUESDAY, AUG. 25, 2020
UPD report: August 17-24
Total calls for service: 282 • • • • • •
August 17: Theft at the Alaska Airlines Center. August 18: Threatening Behavior at the Eugene Short Hall. Disorderly Conduct at the University Center. August 19: Theft at the Conoco Phillips Integrated Science Building. August 20: Disorderly Conduct at the University Center. August 21: Process Service - Protective Order. at the Providence Hospital Parking Lot.
All information is provided by the University of Alaska Anchorage Police Department.
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Arts & Entertainment Editor John Novotny arts@thenorthernlight.org
Executive Editor Gabby Vance (806) 437-8805 editor@thenorthernlight.org
News Reporter Daisy Carter news2@thenorthernlight.org
Managing Editor Mary Ryan content@thenorthernlight.org Layout Editor / Graphic Designer Michaeline Collins media@thenorthernlight.org Features Reporter Christina Swayney features1@thenorthernlight.org
Multimedia Editor Lillie Younkins multimedia@thenorthernlight.org Media Adviser Paola Banchero Administrative Adviser Zac Clark
The Northern Light is hiring! See our job listings at careers.alaska.edu.
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