[The Stute] November 8, 2019 (Issue 9, CXXIV)

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Volume CXVII Issue 10

November 8, 2019

Established 1904

Audience members watched the candidates debating with each other this past Wednesday in EAS 222. Photo by Elina Tuder.

Don’t know how to vote? Consult the stars.

BY MATTHEW CUNNINGHAM Here’s one way to explain the weirdness of this year’s presidential election for the Student Government Association: Mercury is in retrograde.

Yes, the first planet of our solar system, whose mesmerizing trail in the sky has haunted astrology circles as far back as the mid-18th century, could be to blame for any unusual phenomena happening in the universe.

No evidence exists to suggest that Mercury’s planetary orbit could interfere with human life and playground presidencies, but that doesn’t stop an increasing number of Americans from looking to the stars for guidance. According to a recent National Science Foundation survey, 44% of 18- to 24-year-olds say that astrology is somewhat or very “scientific,” and this documented rise in occultism is affecting politics.

Back in March 2019, when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shared her birth time with a self-described psychic and astrologer, Arthur Lipp-Bonewits, who in turn shared her birth chart with what can only be described as Astrology Twitter, mainstream media went wild. Outlets from The Cut to Vox to Allure speculated what Ocasio-Cortez’s astrological chart could tell us about her fitness for political office.

“AOC’s Aries Moon indicates that she’s emotionally fed by a certain amount of independence, self-determination, and spontaneity,” concluded Allure’s Jeanna Kadlec.

“But that independence always finds a way home.” Meanwhile, Lipp-Bonewits told The Cut’s Madeleine Aggeler that the stars predicted that Ocasio-Cortez’s “career in politics is likely to last the rest of her life.”

Ocasio-Cortez’s decision to share her birth time is an unprecedented move for a political figure. Hillary Clinton has famously avoided the question, sparking years of debate among astrologers.

But now, there is no need to speculate over the birth charts of the 2019 SGA presidential candidates. Each candidate has voluntarily offered continued on page 2

SGA presidential candidates debate at recent forum

BY ALEKSANDAR DIMOSKI This Wednesday, the Student Government Association (SGA) held their annual Presidential Debate between the candidates for President and Vice President of Operations (VPO). The tickets running for office include Samanta Molla and Adrian Castellanos, Brandon Seidman and Simon Pepa, and E.J. Hannah and Jason Buckman.

Hosted in EAS 222, the room was filled with various campaigners and supporters. Hannah and Buckman supporters populated the far end of the room, carrying two large cutouts of their heads.

Seidman sported a ‘Hannah &

Buckman’ sticker on his iPad, and Pepa relaxed before the debate by playing with a piece of silly putty. SITTV recorded and live-streamed the event for those who could not come in person, and the entire debate can be found on their YouTube channel.

Each ticket had 3 minutes for opening statements, 2 minutes to respond to the questions prepared prior to the debate, and 1 minute for rebuttals and for audience questions. The audience could submit questions by writing their thoughts on an index card which was then given to the moderators. Each set of candidates cycled through responding first to the ques-

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tions to ensure fairness.

The debate began at 9:20 p.m. and covered a variety of issues on campus, including mental health services for students, more transparency and communication between the SGA, the student body, and the administration, construction, sustainability, and more.

Mental health was a frequent topic of discussion.

The lack of an update on President Farvardin’s Mental Health Task Force, which was supposed to be released in October, and, according to Seidman, the “horror stories” he’s heard about Counseling continued on page 2

David Dodd announces retirement

The legacy of David Dodd

BY LIAM MCMURTRY On Monday, November 4, it was officially announced that Dr. David Dodd, our longtime Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer, would be retiring.

His retirement will go into full effect at the end of 2019.

Since 2012, Dr. David Dodd has served our school in his dual role as both our first Vice President for Information Technology and our first Chief Information Officer.

When he first joined Stevens, he brought with him 30 years of industry experience in IT and academics. Previously, he served as the Vice President for Information Resources and Chief Information Officer of Xavier University, Vice Chancellor for IT and CIO at the University of South Carolina Upstate, and the Executive Director of IT at University of North Carolina Wilmington.

His education also speaks volumes. He holds a B.A. from West Virginia University, a M.A. from SUNY Binghamtom, and a Ph.D. in Higher Education Administration from Ohio University, with a specialization in the use of structured and unstructured information in decision support.

During his years in academia, he has achieved numerous awards for his vision and leadership in building strong IT frameworks in higher education. For his work at Xavier University, he achieved the Best Website in the Nation award from the Web Marketing Association in 2006. Moreover, he received the Grand Gold Award from the Council for the Achievement and Support of Education in 2009.

When he first came to Stevens, hopes were high, with President Farvardin even going

On Monday, November 4, Stevens students, faculty, and staff received a campus-wide email. David Dodd, the school’s Vice President of Information Technology and Chief Information Officer (CIO), will retire from Stevens at the end of 2019. President Nariman Farvardin touched upon several of Dodd’s contributions in the announcement.

During Dodd’s 7-year tenure at Stevens, the school modernized its technology infrastructure; adopted new programs such as the Virtual Learning Environment, Workday, and Office 365; and fought through a debilitating, advanced, campus-wide ransomware attack.

Not mentioned in the announcement, though, is what many consider to be Dodd’s greatest legacy: The trail of people who have departed from Stevens since he became CIO in 2012.

“He will often say that he was brought here to ‘clean house,’” said Suo. “So many people have left under him. So many more than under the last [CIO]s.”

Ahab verified these claims before adding, “If he did not like you, he would ice you out until it was just impossible for you to do your job. He would make it impossible for people to stay. So they would leave or be fired.”

A third source, Libra, worked with IT for almost a year, then “followed several colleagues out the door because it was simply not a healthy work environment.”

continued on page 2

continued on page 4

BY DAKOTA VAN DEURSEN

Hoboken elects local positions City Council, School Board, and Municipal Questions voted on by Hoboken residents

BY DIVYA UNNAM

The Stevens Dramatic Society will perform Murder on the Orient Express this weekend. Photo by Jeff Vock.

Stevens Dramatic Society presents Murder on the Orient Express

BY MARYIA SPIRYADONAVA “The story you are about to witness is one of romance and tragedy, primal murder, and the urge for revenge,” the audience is told as they are greeted by one of the main characters, detective Hercule Poirot (played by freshman Phuc Bui).

Even before the curtains open, the audience knows to not trust anything that they see. Poirot tells the audience, “From the beginning, it was an odyssey of deception and trickery,” and this feeling of mystery is felt throughout the play. The introduction from Poirot causes the audience to be hooked on every single word coming from the stage.

Set on a historical, luxury train, Murder on the Orient Express is the latest playbill addition to the Stevens Dramatic Society (SDS) collection.

A murder mystery set on a train, this play has something for everyone — drama, revenge, mystery, laughs, costumes, and intricate set designs.

Since the entire play takes place on a train meant to represent the epitome of luxury and class, the SDS crew had to get creative with projecting a feeling of luxury within a small, tight space on a stage. Scenic Designer Gabriella Poska said that she took inspiration from the original Orient Express train, explaining, “I wanted

the audience to feel the tight atmosphere of a train that is so prevalent in the storyline of this show, while also giving the cast enough room to act and become their characters.”

It was important that the stage included both a dining car and sleeping compartments while being confined and claustrophobic. This resulted in large moving components of the set that allowed for smooth transitions between scenes.

“We have doors that come out from behind and go across the stage to centralize the scene.

They are essential to the plot and overall feel of the show,” explained Poska. continued on page 4

News - page 2 Chinese now offered

Pulse page - 5 Deep brain stimulation

News - page 3 Campus murals approved

Opinion - page 6 Pulse

News - page 4 Line item funding

Opinion - page 7 Mind of a Freshman

Hoboken City Council midterm elections were held this past Tuesday, November 5.

Polls were open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.

There are six seats on the City Council representing each of the six wards in Hoboken.

Each ward is defined by the neighborhoods and streets within the city. The candidates who ran in the elections this year were: Michael DeFusco and Migdalia Pagan-Milano in the First Ward; Tiffanie Fisher and Nora Martínez DeBenedetto in the Second Ward; Ronald Bautista and Michael Russo in the Third Ward; Ruben Ramos, Jr. and Lisa Sprengle in the Fourth Ward; Phil Cohen, Timothy Crowell, and Nicola Maganuco in the Fifth Ward; and Cristin Cricco-Powell, Jennifer Giattino, and Frank Rosner in the Sixth Ward.

All incumbent council members reran for another term except Fifth Ward’s Peter Cunningham. Ravi Bhalla, the Mayor of Hoboken, backed a slate of five of the candidates, all first time runners: Cohen, Cricco-Powell, Sprengle, DeBenedetto, and Pagan-Milano.

The outcome of the midterm elections was: DeFusco in the First Ward, Fisher in the Second Ward, Russo in the Third Ward, Ramos, Jr., in the Fourth Ward, Cohen in the

Opinion - page 9 Campus Conservative Sports - page 10 Fencing

Fifth Ward, and Giattino in the Sixth Ward.

While all but one of the five candidates Bhalla backed lost, he relayed his pride at the efforts of the candidates saying, “They were, and are, passionate advocates for Hoboken… It’s not easy running against incumbents, not ever having ran for office before, but it’s a testament to their love for our city and civic engagement that Nora and Cristin literally came up a handful of votes short in their races. I know each of them will stay involved and we are lucky to have them as residents of the City we all love and call home.

And I know Phil will do an incredible job for Hoboken’s Fifth Ward on the Council.”

Bhalla also congratulated the winners and anticipates “working constructively with each of them over the next two years to make Hoboken an even better place to live.”

Several of the candidates made statements on the elections, congratulating candidates and sharing their sentiments on serving the City of Hoboken. Giattino for the Sixth Ward (of which Stevens is a part), looks forward to continuing her work with the council. “I’m truly humbled by the outpouring of support from the 6th ward. When the polls closed, we had a clear majoricontinued on page 3

November 8, 2019

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News THE STUTE VOLUME CXVII - ISSUE 10 STAFF BOX EXECUTIVE BOARD EDITOR-IN-CHIEF............................................AUDREY D’SOUZA BUSINESS MANAGER......................................MARK KRUPINSKI MANAGING EDITOR.......................MATTHEW CUNNINGHAM LAYOUT EDITOR...............................................NATALIE TODARO OUTREACH CHAIR...........................................ANDREW KINNEY EDITORIAL BOARD COPY EDITOR............................................ANGELINA ZACCARIA HEAD PHOTOGRAPHER..............................COLE YARBROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR..........................ELINA TUDER SCIENCE EDITOR......................................DYLAN JAMES MOON SPORTS EDITOR..............................................TREVOR DAMEIKA WEBMASTER........................................................JOANA FARDAD SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR.........................SERIK CZARNECKI STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS ALEKSANDAR DIMOSKI ALEX MURTAGH CHARLES ZWICKER BRANDON SEIDMAN CHRISTIAN BONAVITA CAMILLE SIMON-AL-ARAJI DAKOTA VAN DEURSEN DANIEL KANG DIVYA UNNAM ERIC S. LONDRES LEIGHA TIERNEY GREGORY KANE INDIA ROEMLEIN JEFF VOCK JULIA WIERZBICKI

JOHN HORGAN MATHEW GREEN MONIKA GESLAK OLIVIA SHANAHAN PETER WHITE RACHEL STERN SIMON PEPA

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STAR SIGNS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 The Stute their astrological data, which has been assessed by a team of political astrologers to determine their fitness for office. Below is a condensed feature of each candidate’s astrological report.

Sam Molla and Adrian Castellanos Sam Molla — a London-born Gemini — can adapt quickly to new situations and generally gains plenty of friends and social contacts, her Sun sign reveals. “She is an opportunist,” said our team of political astrologers about her Sun sign. “She can express herself easily and tends to learn quickly. She is welcoming and gentle.

She likes travel and intellectual work.”

Molla’s Moon sign — a predictor of what she is really like when by herself — is Aquarius, which means she breathes new life into everything she does.

She is a lifetime student of human nature, the stars say, and loves to analyze the finest details of what people do. “She is modern, original, inventive, non-conformist, and is likely to bring new life to everything she does,” astrologers said.

Astrological charts remind that an Aquarius Moon sign can be eccentric with sharp mood swings and has a complex love life. “She may waste energy by taking on too many things,” birth charts say, and “she lacks persistence in achieving set goals.”

Adrian Castellanos, her running mate, has a Moon sign that finds security in the little things in life (Libra). He has a very good memory and loves to read scientific or medical stud-

DEBATE

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 and Psychological Services (CAPS), demonstrate the students’ frustrations and hopes in regards to how the school can better handle its mental health services.

Buckman claimed that a lot of ideas need to be discussed, and that students should be comfortable and able to talk with faculty about mental health. To improve conditions, they plan on having faculty take mandatory mental health training modules as well as making Stevens a more comfortable environment by adding a garden, a mural, and more in order to keep the campus aesthetically pleasing in face of the ongoing construction.

Molla hopes to increase communication between the SGA and administration in order to keep track of their efforts on improving conditions.

They also hope to work with CAPS to continue to improve their capabilities, add mental health modules on canvas, as well as adding and preserving more green spaces on campus as the school moves forward with construction.

Another topic that arose frequently was transparency. Throughout the debate, all candidates made it clear that additional communication between the administration, the SGA, and the student body is a necessity.

Molla claims that the ad-

Star signs of SGA Presidential and Vice Presidential Candidates

ies. Sometimes, though, his Moon sign makes him “quick to become annoyed, upset, worried,” our astrological reports say.

From what is seen with the stars, this larger-than-life ticket will set high-reaching goals and work diligently to achieve them.

E.J. Hannah and Jason Buckman E.J. Hannah, born in the early morning of December 24, has been in the Senate of the Student Government since he enrolled at Stevens. His Sun sign, which reveals his ego and identity, suggests that he is honest, reserved, circumspect, honorable, and strong-willed.

“Quietly ambitious within the realms of the possible, he likes and takes on responsibility,” said an astrological assessment.

“He can work in the social domain.”

Hannah’s Sagittarius Moon sign indicates that he likes to throw himself into the unknown and is willing to take risks. “He is agile, tough, and enthusiastic,” said the political astrologers.

The stars warn, though, that from Hannah’s Moon sign, his tendency to do whatever it takes could mean “risking everything to achieve his goal.”

He could possibly be too audacious, bold, and rebellious.

His running mate Jason Buckman shares a Moon sign with Hannah, which suggests that this Sagittarius-Moon-duo might be willing to explore and test new, bold ideas. Unlike Hannah, Buckman’s Sun sign — Leo — is the most dominant, spontaneously creative, and extrovert of all the zodiacal characters. His interest in all of life’s offerings occasionally makes him non-committal, so he could jump from one commitment to another rapidly.

It is apparent from astrological readings that this duo works well with each other and has a high potential for success.

Brandon Siedmann and Simon Pepa Brandon Seidman was an early morning birth in mid-November, making him a natural Scorpio Sun sign. Seidman’s Sun sign means that he exudes

“They’re not in the slightest intimidated by anybody or anything,” our astrological team said. “Confrontations are not a problem. In fact, talk to any Scorpio about their lives, and you’ll probably be in awe at all they’ve gone through.”

Seidman’s charisma, according to his Moon sign (Pisces), is marked by his imaginative, sharp insights. “He is impressionable, with an abundant imagination,” the stars say. “He is gentle, warm, humorous, artistic.”

It should be noted that while Seidman has a large imagination, it can often get him in trouble. “His unhealthy imagination might lead to disastrous outcomes,” our team said. Constantly burdened by a cacophony of demonic voices in his head, Seidman can sometimes lose focus and become easily distracted.

Simon Pepa, his running mate whose Moon sign is Libra, is sociable and popular.

He has good judgment and is intelligent and reasonable.

Unfortunately, the stars reveal that he has instability in loving relationships and may give too much weight to the views of others and to public opinion, which could challenge him in his role as Vice President of Operations.

Overall, this team can work well together to achieve ambitious goals.

All personality readings were generated by a group of astrologists, and The Stute reminds its readers that astrology is not a legitimate form of science.

ministration has not been as transparent as they could be, citing the lack of communication on the Mental Health Task Force update. Castellanos thinks that administrators are usually willing to sit down and talk with students, but students don’t currently feel like they are able to reach out to the administrators, and the SGA has to bridge this gap.

Seidman had a more positive perspective on teaching professors, since they are typically available for office hours and easy to contact, but considers it very difficult to communicate with other administrators. He cited the relatively recent discovery that Peer Leaders had not been paid for their work as revealed by a previous article in The Stute, and was shocked by the lack of communication both within and outside of the administration on this issue. Pepa also stated that the administration usually does things and then tells students after.

Hannah and Buckman discussed the lack of transparency in regards to IT in the aftermath of the ransomware attack, and would hope that the administration would keep the student body more updated with how the recovery process is going, such as the steps that are being taken to set up permanent WiFi. They also hope to improve transparency within the SGA, since the SGA acts as a chan-

nel of communication between the student body and the administration, and hope to improve communication between the administration and the student body directly.

Below are candidate responses to one of the many questions posed at the debate.

The full video can be seen on the SITTV YouTube channel, and voters are encouraged to view the debate there to get more information on each ticket and their platform.

What is the most important issue on campus, and how would you work to solve it?

Hannah: We think the most important issue surrounding our community right now is mental health…

Our university has extremely high credit requirements, and to balance that with our other commitments makes it very challenging… It isn’t very fair to have a classroom where something like mental health isn’t supported and expect Stevens to say that they are in support of it.

Buckman: One thing that we want to do is improve campus culture, whether it’s painting murals under the bleachers on the columns, so when students are walking to class they have something nice to look at, or improving lawn furniture, making places for students to hang out around campus.

Molla: Most issues that we have now revolve around health and wellness and

around academics, and they kind of go hand-in-hand, they very much intersect in terms of how one affects the other.

We want to be able to build the academic program here at Stevens so that you feel confident in knowing that you are in a great physical, mental, and emotional state to be able to pursue your degree and know that there’s value to it.– Castellanos: And to add to that, other things that we often overlook that pertain to mental health, things like housing that people struggle with at Stevens… the lack of dining options, things like that, in the long run, they do add up, and those are things that we want to work to change.– Seidman: I’d say just about everything is our problem at Stevens currently. Our registering was crazy… Canvas is currently down, construction all over campus, I’ve heard of people almost getting hit by the… shuttles and having shuttle problems in the last couple days. I’d pretty much say if you could name a single part of our school, we would probably have a problem with it.

Pepa: And also, part of it is the SGA… I would guarantee that a majority of people in this room [have] not talked to their senator, or almost anyone in the SGA whatsoever.

Seidman: Not your classic people running, but we’re gonna do stuff.

DODD

role in helping modernize our school by developing a successful grant proposal that resulted in a $7.25 million grant from the State of New Jersey to overhaul our fiber optic network, roll out a campus-wide wireless network, and transitioned to a modern voice over IP system.

More recently, Dr. David Dodd carried out the monumental task of recovering from the vicious malware attack earlier this year. While there is still progress to be made in the recovery effort, Stevens was able to open for Fall 2019 classes on time despite the attack occurring only three weeks prior.

According to the announcement by the school, Dr. David Dodd will be retiring in order to move back down to North Carolina in order to care for his elderly parents and spend more time with his family. Moreover, the Stevens administration will soon be conducting a search for his replacement.

SAM MOLLA Gemini

BRANDON SIEDMAN Scorpio

E.J. HANNAH Capricorn

ADRIAN CASTELLANOS Sagittarius

SIMON PEPA Sagittarius

JASON BUCKMAN Leo

Chinese offered as a foreign language for the first time at Stevens next semester

BY MARK KRUPINSKI Spoken by over 1 billion people in the world, is over 3,000 years old, one of six official languages of the United Nations, and one of the fastest growing languages in terms of number of speakers in the world — All of these fun facts describe the newest language offered within the Foreign Language Program here at Stevens: Chinese.

Next semester (Spring 2019), Beginner Chinese I (LCH-101) will be offered for the first time at Stevens.

The course is a first semester introduction course in Chinese and has one section which will be offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3:30 p.m. to 4:45p.m. and currently does not have a professor. Chinese is the third language offered at Stevens, following Spanish and French.

“Chinese 101 is truly a new launch and our third official language offered at Stevens. We are excited to see the program grow and hope this new course will be a great success,” said Zachary Balog, Foreign Lan-

physical energy and courage, strong passions, and especially strong sexual powers.

guages Coordinator. Adding Chinese as a Foreign Language is a part of the initiative to expand the Foreign Languages program here at Stevens.

Additionally, this initiative includes out-of-class events such as language salons and films. “As far as expanding the program, we also host one larger event every fall as part of International Education Month. This year, the Foreign Languages Program will be hosting a Paella Night on November 7th at 7 p.m. in McClean 119. All are welcome,” said Balog.

In the future, Balog hopes to expand course selections in the Foreign Languages program. “We hope to add an advanced level Spanish course, maybe a French one as well.

These courses would target literature and culture, paving the way for deeper analysis of some of the classics.

We hope to offer more challenging language classes for students with advanced levels in Spanish and French,” said Balog. Currently, there is “nothing to report” on a fourth language being offered.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 so far to say in a 2012 nj.com article that “over the next decade, Stevens will building an international reputation for its technology-centric educational programs and David will be a critical element of our success.”

Throughout his time at Stevens, our Division of Information Technology has developed by leaps and bounds. According to the Stevens website, Dr. David Dodd “led a transformation to achieve a level of organizational excellence for the division.” Under his leadership, Stevens launched the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), became a Workday Student Design Partner Program, and implemented a state-of-the-art Data Center. Additionally, Stevens has transitioned to using Canvas, Office 365, Zoom, Duo Multi-factor authentication system, and Workday HCM. Dr. Dodd played a pivotal

November 8, 2019

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News On-campus STI testing cancelled

BY CHARLES ZWICKER The Stevens Torch Alliance intended to hold free rapid STI testing on October 31 in partnership with Hudson Pride, but the event was cancelled due to the lack of necessary legal precautions. The cancellation and administration’s response frustrated students who were working to bring these tests to campus.

“Although I understand the need to have legal precautions taken, I did not like the way that Stevens handled the situation personally,” said Adrian Castellanos, sophomore SGA Senator and Secretary of Torch. As Secretary, Castellanos was personally involved in bringing STI testing to campus.

“Stevens needs to have this at this point. I’m very tired of being told to use resources in Hoboken if I pay to go to Stevens,” added Castellanos.

“If there are proper channels to go about this, that’s fine but I think it should be more well known to student leaders what Stevens needs,” said Julia Martin, President of Torch. “I was informed that a contract could take months to be made, which I think is a shame because these free services should be more accessible to students.”

According to Sara Klein, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs, “Student organizations cannot bring medical providers to campus without approval.” As a result, the event was cancelled.

“Stevens must ensure that those contracted to provide this service meet specific requirements to ensure accuracy, safety, and follow-up care,” said Klein.

Despite their disappointment with the outcome, Castellanos is still hopeful that STI testing will happen on campus. Stevens administration contacted Torch “to get contact info for Hudson Pride to begin to establish a relationship which was great and I did appreciate.” In the meantime, Torch is planning a field trip to visit Hoboken Family Planning, circumventing Stevens’ restrictions by hosting the event off-campus.

Jason Chlus, SGA President, stated, “I have been told that STI testing is wanted by everyone (students and admin) on campus.” Both Chlus and Klein stated that Stevens has been unable to find an organization that will meet Stevens’ legal requirements and accept liability for these tests, but that Stevens is still searching for such an organization. “When this org or hospital is found then we theoretically should be able to have it on campus,” according to Chlus.

Until then, Stevens is urging students to instead have STI testing done in one of the “many medical facilities close to campus in Hoboken” and to visit Student Health Services in the Pond House for a referral.

ELECTIONS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 ty of the votes. Which is quite significant considering that we were facing off against two challengers. And while I believe it is important for all of the remaining ballots to be counted, both the vote by mail and provisional ballots, I know how hard everyone worked to get us here.

That, to me is a victory. And, I am looking forward to continuing to serve the people of the 6th Ward.”

Cricco-Powell shared her thoughts on the new experience. “I’m proud that as firsttime candidate, I was just 87 votes short in a race against an 8-year incumbent. Running for office is tough work, but getting off the sidelines is worth, regardless of result. And I am proud to have run.” She advocated for participation in the polls, expressing that she hopes “more people step up across our country to do the same, and I hope more people recognize that their vote matters, and they should use it. Turnout is shockingly low all over the US.” DeFusco felt his win reflected that “downtown wants to continue bringing indepen-

dent leadership, new energy and new ideas to City Hall.

We’ve stood up to the entire political machine and proved that we will not be sold out to special interest, pro-development PACs or politicians who are only in this for themselves.”

He congratulated the efforts of the first-time candidates and asserted that “over the next two years, I’m committed to working with the Mayor to keep pushing Hoboken forward and making it better every day, but I also demand that he respects the legislative process.”

Also included on the election ballots were two Municipal Questions. These Questions were related to the Municipal Open Space Trust Fund, which provides input to the Council on projects related to recreation, open space, and historic preservation. Hoboken Girl claims the Questions relate to the City of Hoboken’s plan to acquire Union Dry Dock and turn it into a maintenance and ferry refueling station. The intent behind including the municipals questions on the ballot is to help the City of Hoboken consider the next steps that should be taken regarding the acquisition of the Union Dry Dock.

The Stevens network is once again preventing access to several categories of websites, including ‘questionable’ sites such as 4chan.org, ‘abused-drugs’ sites such as leafly.com, and ‘extremism’ sites such as BestGore. com. There are also several websites that do not have an identified category but which still are not reachable from the campus network, including the website of Victoria’s Secret and “gay dating site” Adam4Adam.

Some websites that seemingly fit the blocked categories are not blocked, such as Cakeboy Magazine.

These websites were previously blocked by the Skyline Wi-Fi network after its creation. The blocks were removed after The Stute reached out to the Ste-

The first Municipal Question asked residents, “Shall the Trust Fund be amended so that a minimum of 75% of the amount raised by the Trust Fund be utilized for the acquisition or development of lands for recreation and conservation purposes, and for the payment of debt service on indebtedness issued or incurred by the City of

Hoboken for these purposes?”

The second municipal question asked, “Shall the Trust Fund rate be increased from $0.02 to $0.03 per $100.00 of the assessed value of real property, and add historic preservation as an eligible purpose?”

The outcomes for both Municipal Questions were overwhelmingly “Yes.” The

city can now increase the usable amount of the Open Space Trust Fund to more than the 75% that is currently permitted, and the City of Hoboken is allowed to purchase the Union Dry Dock with these funds.

This also allows the Open Space Trust Fund to expand significantly and include funds for historic preservation.

Murals under the DeBaun Athletic Field bleachers are coming

BY NATALIE TODARO Red columns, stairs, slabs of concrete, green turf, and fences. Can you picture where you are? How about the street that runs parallel to DeBaun Athletic Complex, under the bleachers? Also known as that weird street that nobody knows the name of (it’s actually called Field House Road).

But whether you walk from an upper campus dorm or through the 8th street parking lot to get to your classes, you’ve probably walked down this street at some point during your time at Stevens.

Get ready for a future of colorful walks down Field House Road, because on October 10 an SGA initiative to have student painted murals along the pathway was approved.

The initiative was proposed in the Fall 2018 semester by Elina Tuder, current member of the Campus Life Committee (CLC) and Senator of the Student Government Association (SGA).

Tuder and Jon Darlak, former Chair of CLC, sought to increase the amount of student artwork on campus. In order to make sure there was student interest outside of members of the SGA, a small survey consisting of about 40 people was conducted that asked if they would like to see more student artwork

on campus, what kind, and where. Tuder reports, “Several students said they wanted to see murals, and one person suggested to do something under the bleachers.”

E.J. Hannah, present Chair of CLC, comments, “Our campus is undergoing significant construction, making students feel boxed in […] While our time on this campus is significant, it’s also very temporary.

The large projects to improve our community are defining our institution for decades to come.”

Once it was clear that murals under the bleachers were of interest to many students, Tuder and former SGA Senator Isabella Biesty wrote a proposal to submit to the Office of Student Life that explained their initiative and motives. At the end of the Fall 2018 semester, the proposal was sent back to Tuder and Biesty to be rewritten and reconstructed with more details containing specifics and indepth descriptions. Over the winter intersession and into the Spring 2019 semester, Tuder reworked the proposal with the help of Hannah, and resubmitted it to the Office of Student Life.

Several administrators, including Sara Klein, Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs, and Bob Maffia, Vice President of Facilities

Pornographic, ‘questionable’ websites once again banned on campus

BY ERIC LONDRES

Graphic courtesy of Aleksandar Dimoski.

vens Division of Information Technology for comment regarding them.

On the pre-hack ‘Stevens’ Wi-Fi network and on the current network since mid-September, students were given the freedom to explore the deepest, darkest realms the internet has to offer.

As The Stute previously reported, many blocked websites are not known to be vectors for malware. Websites such as Victoria’s Secret provide legitimate services to students — it is unclear why students are being disallowed to view websites such as these.

In response to The Stute‘s previous article, Director of Public Relations Thania Benios said that the post-hack website blocks were “a temporary measure only in order to get secured operations up

and running.” It is unclear why the blocks were reinstated, as no announcement has been made clarifying this, and Benios’ remarks seem to directly contradict the ongoing block status. Benios and other members of the Stevens administration have not responded to The Stute‘s requests for comment.

Several students have expressed misgivings about the return of the website bans. One student noted that several of the discovered blocked websites seem to specifically inconvenience women and members of the LGBTQ community. Another student reiterated concerns from September about the negative impact this will have on university research, as researchers will now once again have to travel off-campus to cite community resources such as Leafly.

Hi join the stute we’re fun and welcoming :)

and Campus Operations, had to bring the proposal to President Farvardin and his cabinet to garner approval. Klein explains, “I approved this proposal […] after working with many administrators across campus involved with different aspects of the decision.” On October 10, Tuder received an email from Klein stating that the murals were approved.

The SGA and the Office of Student Life assures that they both will not be attempting to influence what the murals will specifically depict; students will have the opportunity to submit individual or group applications on DuckLink, proposing their ideas.

Students will need to submit a sketch or rendering of their design, including dimensions and supplies needed. However, CLC will purchase all the supplies that students request. This initiative of allowing students outside of the SGA to participate through applications coincides with the CLC’s motive to have more student artwork displayed on campus in a way that is more visible to the entire student body. Klein expresses, “I hope that students will feel proud to display their artwork on campus, and that the designs will bring vibrancy to the area behind Schaefer Athletic Center.”

Murals will be painted along the red columns and sides of the staircases.

Photos courtesy of Natalie Todaro.

November 8, 2019

4

News Students march on Howe to demand a media network…almost

BY Andrew Kinney Students almost organized a march on Howe this week after a joke very quickly spiraled into a real movement.

It all started when a brother of Theta Xi (completely of his own volition, not with the fraternity’s official approval) made a wooden sign exclaiming “88 days without WiFi” and posted it on the lawn of the fraternity’s house.

Then, someone made a flyer advocating for a march on Howe to demand the return of media network. A few other brothers then went around to the other houses to see if they too would build a sign, but word spread so fast that people had already heard about the movement by the time they reached the last few houses. All

SDS

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 This resulted in a very technically-challenging set.

“We have four crew members in dress working scene transitions in front of the curtain and six crew members behind the curtain,” commented Producer Mathieu Nagle. The complicated scene transitions are worth it. With the moving doors, movie-like music, and light work, SDS creates the feeling of a train traveling through beautiful landscapes, and once the lights go back up to normal and the music is stopped, the audience is transported to a different part of the train.

The moving set wasn’t the only complex factor. Most of the actors had to not only work on developing their characters but also learn accents. “I’ve never actually had to do an ac-

of a sudden, talks of the march had made their way to most of the slack work spaces on campus, the GroupMe chats of the various class years, and even the Instagram accounts which broadcast Stevens based memes. The original organizers said they were surprised by how quickly the idea spread, stressing that it started as nothing but a joke.

As almost all readers should remember, Stevens was crippled by a widespread cyber attack this past August which brought down countless computers and virtual services on campus. One of the casualties was the old Stevens WiFi network, which was very quickly replaces with the Skyline network currently being used to write this article, and its sister

network Stevens Media, which was not restored until Thursday of this week. Stevens Media is important because it lets students use WiFi on certain devices that cannot connect to the traditional network, most prominently gaming consoles. As an anonymous student working in IT explained; “The significance of Stevens Media is the process of MAC registration. Every network enabled device has a Media Access Control address which is hard-coded on it so it never changes. There used to be a link on myStevens for students to MAC register their devices but evidently that’s not an option at the moment. IT employees are still able to MAC register devices on the network which is how most offices have network

cent in a show before, so having to not only learn my lines but also how to say them accurately in a Minnesotan accent was definitely a fun challenge,” remarked Carissa Greene, who plays Helen Hubbard. Greene enjoyed playing Helen because it was a challenge to play a character so different from who she is offstage.

SDS is excited about how much the show has to offer.

Greene said, “It’s a really fun adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel for people who may already know the story and a compelling mystery for those who don’t already know the ending.”

Not only is it a compelling mystery, but it is also fastpaced. Everyone and everything is constantly in motion, delivering surprises around every corner. Murder on the Orient Express is one of the most

technologically difficult and ambitious shows that SDS has produced in recent years.

“Audiences should be excited to see the intricate tech work that our team of designers has been working tirelessly on and the dynamic characters that our actors have devoted themselves to,” proudly stated Nagle.

“This show has more dramatic moments than most of the shows we’ve done recently, while also having moments where we get to stay true to our comedic roots,” Greene explained.

So if you think you can figure out who is the murderer amongst the complex characters and set design, come watch Murder on the Orient Express.

Showtimes are tonight, Friday, November 8, at 8 p.m. and Saturday, November 9, at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.

Photos by Jeff Vock.

LEGACY

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Libra added that Dodd “fostered a community of con-

stant stress which encouraged ‘narc-ing’ each other out. Solutions flowed up the chain of command … almost as fast as blame fell down

it.”

Suo, Ahab, and Libra all asked that their names be changed for security reasons.

* The above list was generated, excerpted, and adapted by Suo, Ahab, and Libra. It is chronological, though incomplete. All information was redundantly verified by additional sources, including, but not limited to, Stevens.edu, TeamDynamix.com, and LinkedIn.com.

printers back online. This capability is pretty much ready to be used by everyone but it’s my belief that there’s a number of security concerns that are still withholding IT from releasing this to the whole community. Most of these security decisions for the past few months have been mostly made by the Stevens Emergency Response Team.”

Without the Stevens Media network, the only other straightforward way to connect these devices would be to use Ethernet cables, but the entire wired network of Stevens was also down for the past few months. The organizer of the march, who chose to remain anonymous, explained that this left students with nothing but convoluted options for connect-

ing their consoles, such as hosting a mobile hotspot on their phones, or remotely using the WiFi chips in their laptops. Obviously none of these solutions were ideal, and most of them stopped working after a few weeks regardless. All things considered, gaming consoles and associated devices were practically unusable for the 88 days Stevens Media was gone.

On Thursday, however, Stevens Media and the wired network both returned to full working order, with the sign reading 90 days at that point. The organizers didn’t want to take full credit for the return, admitting that they couldn’t possibly know what was going on internally in IT or when they had originally been planning on bringing back the network, but

that it would be an incredible coincidence if the timeline wasn’t at least sped up a bit by talks about the march. They were not, however, sure if the march was actually canceled now that the network had returned, stating that it could still happen to protest the return of site blocking that also occurred on Thursday. They concluded by saying “if there’s one thing to take away from this whole thing, it shows that as Stevens students, even when you’re just walking to class or going to get something to eat, you still are the face of the school, and that can be used for good or bad. If you get arrested its obviously bad, but if you stand up and say we don’t have WiFi then you just might spark positive change.”

SGA to change line item funding policy for sports

BY Aleksandar Dimoski The Student Government Association (SGA) has recently been renovating the system by which club sports are receiving funding. The current system grants Director of Campus Recreation John Maurizi a predetermined amount of money determined by historical need, which he then distributes, whereas the new system will be more heavily regulated by the SGA. Line funding is a system by which the SGA assigns money out of the Student Activity Fund (SAF) to a group of organizations based on historical data. Club sports received a total of $72,000 for this fall semester, which was then distributed to partially cover costs for needed expenses such as buses, equipment, or coaches.

The portion of the funds that is not covered by line item funding from the SGA is funded by members through their membership fees.

According to E.J. Hannah, who is spearheading the project along with Elena Malova and Mark Krupinski, “At the start of this year, this committee set out to pursue transparency and gain understanding in how significant each line item of the SGA is. Around this same time, John Maurizi, head of Campus Recreation, reached out to us with a concern of how much funding was going towards club sports.

As we came to the club sports line item, it became evident that the

current system struggled to provide transparency, as well as fairly and consistently regulate funds between each sport.”

Future SGA policy will revolve around the distribution of funds to clubs in relation to what portion of the funding comes from line item funding and what portion comes from membership fees.

In a meeting with sport club presidents on Tuesday, October 28, Malova and Hannah explored options for the new system. The meeting made progress in determining early values for these figures, as well as allowing people to raise concerns and ideas about the policy as it is being developed.

There are currently no actual figures for what portion of the funding will be coming from what source, as the policy is still under development.

The policymakers hope to continue to work with club sports presidents as they make progress in order to ensure that the transition is a safe and stable one for the organizations involved. “We’ve started to receive numbers from club sports teams and are playing around with them to ensure that the arbitrary percentages we threw around won’t put us in the red relative to the current system.”

For emergency funding, club sports can apply for additional funding throughout the semester in the same way that other Registered Student Organizations (RSOs) would. Sports teams will

also have to apply for DuckLink registration, and will be able to manage their budget through the website. The DuckLink organization page will allow teams to see their previous budgets, request funding, and more. This is to help these organizations have better transparency with regards to their funding by making these statistics easily accessible to the SGA. According to Hannah, “Having club sports operate through DuckLink assures unity. We want the platform to be a one stop shop for everything related to student clubs and organizations. It would make tracking student engagement simpler with the ability to track rosters. On top of that, DuckLink can be used for mass communication with the team and store forms that the teams need to complete for legalities.”

However, some aspects of funding policy will remain unchanged. P-card usage for teams will remain the same. This is because the P-card has a certain limit imposed on it by the bank handling these transactions, something that the SGA has no control over. Like in previous years, additional funds will be rolled back, in order to prevent additional unnecessary spending.

Payment plans for items such as buses and coaches needed by these organizations will also remain unchanged by this policy.

This policy change has not yet been approved by the SGA, but will be voted on by the Senate when the policy is completed.

November 8, 2019

5

News Stevens students built a robot to extract water on Mars

BY Camille Simon-Al-Araji This past June, Stevens students James Furrer, Arjun Krishna, Nicholas Sorrentino, Jonathan Bobkov, Ann Collins, and Dana Roe participated in NASA’s RASC-AL (Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts Academic Linkage), a collegiate aerospace design competition. Held at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, this year’s theme was titled 2019 Special Edition: Moon to Mars Ice & Prospecting Challenge. Each team competed to develop technologies to mine for water on the Moon and Mars.

James Furrer, one of the teammates who graduated this past May, now works for New Era Converting Machinery as a controls engineer. Being one of the last to join the senior design team, his friend and fellow classmate (and now co-worker at New Era Converting Machinery) Jonathan Bobkov approached him about the project.

In order to come up with a solution to extract ice water from the moon and Mars, the team had to break down the problem into three main parts: 1) getting through the dirt and rock layers, 2) melting the ice, and 3) pumping the water out.

Requiring strategy, several design iterations, and testing, the team looked at past competitions to see what worked and what didn’t. Finally, they decided to design a robot, DEIMOS (Drill-based Extraction of Ice-water and Martian Overburden System), that would utilize a 1.5-inch diameter drill bit attached to a rotary hammer. This was the most effective way to get through harder materials such as cement and limestone; other teams that participated in the competition had used normal drills that were not able to penetrate through the hard layers of material.

Their strategy was to use the hammer drill to bore through the meters of material into the ice below. Once a borehole (a narrow shaft bored in the ground) to the ice was drilled out, a heated extraction tube (a heater cartridge in the tip of a copper pipe) with a pump was lowered into the borehole.

This melted the ice into water, which could then be pumped out. They also allowed hot water to be pumped back into the borehole to further increase their melt rate. From there, the dirty water/clay mix was sent to a gravity sand filter to purify.

Though their final result was successful, the team ran into obstacles throughout the project. Griffith Laboratory held all the

needed equipment, but space was limited, and it was difficult to access equipment. The ABS Engineering Center does not permit loud noise, which is difficult to avoid when using a rotary hammer drill.

In terms of the robot itself, the team had some parts machined for them by Protolabs, a rapid manufacturing company.

“Some [parts] were sent back to us missing holes and features which we had to fix.

Other times, it was our miscalculations that made certain parts that came back unusable,” said teammate Arjun Krishna, now a Mechanical Engineering graduate student with a concentration in Robotics & Control.

“Finalizing the design took some time as we had several hard choices to make regarding how many drills we would use, how many extractors, the kind of drill bit, and even the logistics of using the machines on campus.

Working with five other motivated individuals can also be stressful at times, but over the course of the project the team became like a type of family,” Krishna said.

When applying to enter the NASA RASC-AL competition, the team was one of 30 schools vying for 10 competition slots. As a rookie team, Stevens was unsure of its chances. But it was chosen to move forward, receiving a $10,000 stipend from NASA in two installments to build the robot. The two-day onsite competition began on June 5th at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia.

“I was very nervous about our final result the day before we left; we were testing our rig before we left and we had gotten our drill bit stuck in our testing material. We ended up having to cut away the test material in order to get our drill bit out. This was at 11 PM the night before we had to drive down to Virginia,” said Furrer.

By the end of the competition, however, it was clear that the team had done well. Judging began before they arrived; the team’s reports, midpoint reviews, video submissions, and final technical paper were all taken into account in the final scoring of the competition. During the competition, they were judged for the amount of water collected, whether the water was collected autonomously or not, how clean the water was, their analysis of the overburden layers (the material that lies above an area) they drilled through, as well as a short poster presentation.

“We were able to drill through the overburden rather quickly; we were the second team to begin extracting water behind

The NASA RASC-AL competition at NASA’s Langley Research Center.

Photo courtesy of James Furrer.

(Left to right) James Furrer EE ‘19, Jonathan Bobkov ME ‘19, Dana Roe ME ‘19, Nicholas Sorrentino ME ‘19, Ann Collins ME ‘19 and Arjun Krishna ME ‘19

The team’s robot, DEIMOS. Photo courtesy of James Furrer.

MIT, and we ended up having the cleanest water and the best ‘digital core’ — our analysis of what materials we were drilling through — in the competition,” Furrer said. The senior design team placed second behind West Virginia University. MIT received honorable mention.

“The competition was a lot of fun,” said Krishna. “We got to tour the NASA Facility and met a lot of amazing people.

The other teams there were really friendly, and it was very cool to see how other teams chose to solve the same problem.”

With both NASA and SpaceX planning visits to the Moon and Mars in the near future, this project is extremely important in determining whether or not extracting water from the planet is possible.

“At the beginning of the competition, one of the judges told everyone that NASA was watching these designs and that ‘a part or several parts of [our] design may end up on an actual Mars mission in the future,’” said Krishna. Fellow teammate and Stevens graduate Nicholas Sorrentino, who works as a product design engineer at Lincoln Electric, emphasized that “if humans want

Understanding the unpredictable with deep brain stimulation

BY Olivia Shanahan There is a time in every human being’s life when they realize that certain things are just out of their control. Some may view this as frustrating, whereas others may be relieved. For most, physical health is not seen as something out of their control. You can have the right diet, exercise a few times a week, drink enough water, and sleep the recommended eight hours.

If you’re doing all of that, or at least something close, you are probably in generally good health.

I say something close because it seems pretty unlikely that any Stevens student is doing all of that during midterms. Of course, there are wonderful apps that can help you plan your life out to fit all of your activities while still managing school. Once it’s in Google Calendar, it has to happen, right?

Unfortunately, we all know that planning does not always work. Whether it be missing the shuttle on the way to campus or hearing bad news on the day of

a big interview, there are times when it is clear that life is unpredictable and not always in our control. There are many diseases that make that truth very evident, specifically Parkinson’s disease.

These with Parkinson’s disease experience progressive degeneration of brain nerve cells.

This robs them of dopamine, a powerful neurotransmitter that affects motor control, happiness levels, and other executive functions. The onset is often gradual, commonly starting with a faint tremor before progressing into delayed movements, rigid muscles, the loss of automatic actions, and difficulties with speech. It is currently incurable, but there are promising methods of managing symptoms.

Deep Brain Stimulation, known as DBS, to name one, can increase the affected person’s quality of life. Biomedical engineering professor Dr. George McConnell and his team here at Stevens are dedicated to using DBS in the most effective way possible.

McConnell obtained both his

bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University before attending Georgia Institute of Technology for his Ph.D. in Bioengineering.

Sticking close to his roots, he and his team have collaborated with Duke University researchers on the work, learning about memory in humans and other animals to try to understand why DBS works in the way it does.

In the eponymously named lab, Dr. McConnell is currently focusing on rodent brains and targeting small regions to create techniques clinicians can use on humans.

DBS had never been effective for treating problems with gait or posture, and by determining those selective points of the brain, this could revolutionize the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and other neurological disorders. Scientific developments such as these have given scientists the knowledge and technical prowess to influence the outcome and symptoms of diseases that would have otherwise run their course unobstructed.

to explore space, or even colonize Mars, then a water extraction system is hypercritical. Water is not only needed for life to exist but is also the most plentiful source of fuel.

It would be a large stepping stone in the right direction to explore our solar system.”

The project allowed both Sorrentino and Furrer to develop new skills outside a classroom setting. “I respect all of the book learning and controlled experiments we do, but I value the ability for students who haven’t built anything to go at a fresh problem with no guidance. It really makes you think and design things. You learn what works and what doesn’t,” said Sorrentino.

For Krishna, the project helped him develop and advance new skills while furthering his career goals. “I’ve always loved building things since middle school. In high school, I was on the robotics team for four years and captain during my fourth year.

Those four years doing FIRST Robotics really cemented the idea of going into engineering in my head. This competition reminded me of the time I had in high school building and testing robots late at night when everyone had gone home for the day.

It’s my goal to one day work at NASA and, having done this competition, I feel like I have my foot in the door for the future.”

When offering advice to other aspiring engineers, both Krishna and Furrer agreed on surrounding yourself with others that have similar life goals. “Find an idea or project that you’re willing to put all your weight behind. Ask yourself, if you come across a roadblock in your project or idea, would you turn around or keep going? Just as important, surround yourself with people who feel the same way,” said Furrer.

“My advice would be to stay focused on what you want to achieve and to surround yourself with people who are passionate about the same things you are. You’ll never know what connections you might make so it is always important to get to know people in the field you are interested in,” said Krishna.

Sorrentino added, “Go into it with all you have. Design and build as much as you can, and hang in there when ideas don’t work out. Problems will arise that no one saw coming. You have to be able to adapt on the fly and not let failure slow you down.”

no science section

science section

YOU reading the science section

YOU WRITING for the science section

By Natalie Todaro

November 8, 2019

6

Campus Pulse

Craig Ambrosio

“I don’t know, it begins with an H.”

Hamza Mustafa

Tyler Wright

“I only know one person, E.J. Hannah” “EJ Hannah, Jason Buckman, Adrian Castellanos.”

ROVING REPORTER Who is running for SGA President/Vice President?

Travis Dengler

“I don’t even remotely know.”

Ash Nagy “No one.”

Brandon Truong

“One person, E.J. Hannah.”

Sudoku SGA Vote Debate Sam Brandon President

VPO Simon EJ Election Jason Adrian

November 8, 2019

7

Opinion THE STUTE EDITORIAL

Empowering differences This past Tuesday, I attended the Women of Color luncheon for the very first time. It was such a lovely event that I kind of felt sad there were only a few students there.

I had such a great experience meeting other women with varied paths in life that work at Stevens. The ladies there identified as “few, but mighty” which resonated with me a lot.

During my time at Stevens, I have been lucky to meet so many people with so many different backgrounds and life experiences. As a person of color, my life is fundamentally different than those of many others at Stevens, whether I like it or not. These days, I find myself reflecting over the various cultural differences between me and the people I interact with.

Both of my parents immigrated here from India in the 90’s, my dad being a software developer, and my mom an office assistant. Degrees like hers don’t really transfer over in America, so she has worked in retail for over 15 years. I was born here, in America, and grew up in a primarily Caucasian neighborhood in New Jersey. I only had a few Indian friends, and am actually Cath-

olic — why my name is “American”.

I love discussing my identity because it has a huge impact on my perspective in life. In general, I believe that people are shaped by their environment at least to some degree, and it’s on them whether to accept or reject that. When removed from your element or begin to work in diverse teams, you become aware of differences in thought and life experiences that you wouldn’t have realized before.

Let me give some examples. The other day, I met a freshman who was talking about the most stereotypical freshman conversation topic — Taylor ham or pork roll? I said Taylor ham, which was the wrong answer, because she reacted passionately and detailed her past experiences eating the New Jersey staple growing up.

I wasn’t willing to argue, because before coming to Stevens I had never heard of this meat, egg, and cheese sandwich. Apparently, I didn’t grow up in New Jersey. But this is something I’ve always known.

My parents never went to get deli sandwiches on the weekends, we’d go out to get samosa chaats and bhelpuri, that is, if we went out at all.

Another conversation I had recently was about Thanksgiving.

As long as I can remember, I have never celebrated Thanksgiving. The first time I had a “real” Thanksgiving dinner was last year thanks to Theta Phi. I have nothing against the holiday, but from what I understand it’s about reuniting with your family, regardless of how far away they are.

When you don’t have family, it’s just another Thursday. Back in elementary school whenever teachers and classmates asked me what I ate, I always lied and said default Thanksgiving foods just because it was easier than explaining that I didn’t really celebrate it and then having to get weird looks. Thanksgiving to me has always been early Black Friday and I don’t think will be celebrated until I have kids or something and my family gets bigger than four people that see each other all the time.

When you are “different”, and conscious of those differences, you’re able to look at the world with a broader lens. When other people are different, you empathize with them because you too have been the “different” one at some point. I would even say if you

MIND OF A FRESHMAN

The problem with “acceptance” on campus

BY JULIA WIERZBICKI FRESHMAN

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING Recently, I’ve been seeing some interesting tendencies happening on campus that I’d like to bring to people’s attention. We’re largely proclaimed as an open and accepting school, and for the most part I believe that’s true.

But there’s a flaw in our acceptance policy (and honestly, in society’s acceptance policy) that’s recently really been bothering me. And once I read last week’s “Letter to the Editor,” I thought it was time to speak on it.

I think pretty much everyone can agree that total acceptance is society’s goal. We want everyone to feel included, loved, and accepted by all.

The problem is, however, that more

often than we realize, literally everything we do is closing out someone.

Whether it’s holding an ice-cream night that someone who’s dairy-free can’t attend or holding a sexual orientation/gender-specific event, someone is going to be left out. But that’s not a bad thing. Life is full of exclusions and although that’s not something we can (or even should) fix, we need to make ourselves aware of it. This is especially true when it comes to how we should think of acceptance on campus.

I saw something really interesting online the other day that I think speaks to this perfectly. I was reading an article about how women should love and accept their bodies no matter what size they are when not two scrolls later, I saw an article about a woman who wasn’t happy with her body and went on a diet/training routine to fix it. Both articles had a slew of negative comments. On the body positivity post, they were talking about how women who were overweight or malnourished shouldn’t be happy with their bodies and should try to get healthier. On the transformation post, people were talking about how she was promoting a negative body-image and how you can only be happy if you have the perfect body. So, which one is it — should we accept our body the way it is or want to improve it? There’s not a clear answer,

and I think that’s what bothers a lot of people when it comes to acceptance.

On campus, we’re getting exposed to all sorts of messages. There are conflicting religions, societies, clubs, and even ways of life that we’re just not used to. We’re supposed to be “accepting” of everyone, but sometimes that isn’t so black-and-white. Life is more complicated than that, and to be honest, I don’t think acceptance is always the answer.

I think the answer should be “respect.”

Even though we don’t agree on everything, as long as we respect each other’s opinions and identify them as being as valid as our own, that’s how we can truly be accepting. Whether you’re liberal, conservative, prolife, pro-choice, or whatever topic is up for debate, it’s not important. All of it is contributing to an enriching college atmosphere that allows us to express ourselves for who we truly are and what we believe in. If you see a sign about an activity you don’t like or something you don’t agree with, just don’t go to the event. If you see something you do like, then attend and show your support. It’s that simple. Campus acceptance doesn’t come from shunning people who believe something other than you — it comes from a place of true, unqualified respect. And that’s something I think all of us can work towards.

SENIORITIS

Hannah and Buckman top the SGA presidential candidate power rankings

BY MARK KRUPINSKI SENIOR

COMPUTATIONAL SCIENCE Last week, I interviewed all the presidential candidates, then wrote a three page, 6,000 word feature in The Stute. These indepth interviews, combined with my previous SGA experience, gives me a good pulse on a successful SGA candidate — and only one ticket stands out to me as leading the student body successfully: E.J. Hannah and Jason Buckman.

I’m going to discount everyone’s political speak. Almost anyone can talk about empowerment, or ideals — and make it sound good. The SGA works in limited capacity. Hannah and Buckman’s platform is grounded in realities: their platform does

not have unattainable, lofty goals.

Almost every initiative not related to clubs needs to be approved by some members of administration. While I firmly hold that the student government shouldn’t blindly follow the administration’s ideals, almost every item on their platform is feasible, as it either is in progress or will be in progress shortly. Something will actually be done to improve the student experience here at Stevens — something that will make a tangible impact on every student on campus. They have already begun conversations on campus artwork, as well as a Stevens bike rental program and public transportation discounts.

Hannah and Buckman provided all of these solutions to student problems to improve the student experience. They will realistically accomplish all of this during their term.

Additionally, their past experiences prove that these efforts will not fall f lat. Hannah has successfully reserved gym time for women, coordinated the purchase of furniture for the Babbio Patio, helped push for the creation of a Campus Garden, and successfully hosted a “Week of Kindness” to improve campus culture. Buckman has successfully worked to restructure BIO 281:

Biology and Biotechnology to integrate a closer relationship between students and faculty, and provided Stevens students with resources to pursue housing outside the Office of Residence Life. Out of any set of candidates, they have the strongest track record of improving the undergraduate student experience here at Stevens. Why not have a President and Vice President who will actually change your experience for the better at Stevens? Why not have ones that have proven that they will?

Looking at the debate, I appreciated the snippy comments from Adrian. Some comments were ok, but others were not even targeted at one of his opponents. Yikes.

Other highlights of the debate included Seidman and Pepa pledging their honor and the “totally not staged” responses from every candidate for the salad question.

However, each of the candidates at the debate, for the most part, spoke political speak or just a restated their viewpoints that were already addressed within the Stute interviews, with even more factual inaccuracies, too many inaccuracies to take the time to thoroughly fact check — not even ⅓ of them.

Be sure to vote for E.J. Hannah and Jason Buckman at stevens.edu/vote!

have never been in a situation where your experiences and opinions are “unpopular”, you’re actually at a loss.

You’d probably be uncomfortable in situations interacting with people different from you, and might even unintentionally discriminate against people who are different than you.

While I could view being a woman and being a person of color a disadvantage in life that puts obstacles in my road to success, I try to view it as a positive that enables me to have a richer and wider understanding of life. I realized it actually lets me be more accepting of others and trusting of others’ decisions, that they were made with their best judgement at the time.

In the clubs that I lead and the employers I work for, the number one criteria I aim for is making sure the environment enables everyone to feel comfortable being their most authentic selves. If diversity is bringing people of different backgrounds to the table, inclusion is making sure that everyone can voice their ideas and be taken seriously at the table.

So when I confuse Dr.Pepper and root beer again, because I hon-

estly still don’t know the difference, please tell me that it’s okay! What we all assume is conventional wisdom might not actually be conventional wisdom to someone else. If you lash out at someone they might hesitate the next time they don’t know something. People shouldn’t have to conform and hide their differences or lack of experiences; instead, we should be having more conversations and empowering each other to be more vocal and authentic in sharing what we know and what we don’t.

Audrey Dsouza

Editor-in-Chief

SCIENTIFIC CURMUDGEON

When less medicine is more

BY JOHN HORGAN PROFESSOR CAL

For years I have ranted about the flaws of medicine, especially when it comes to mental illness and cancer. But my complaints are mild compared to those of Jacob Stegenga, a philosopher at the University of Cambridge. In Medical Nihilism, published by Oxford University Press, he presents a devastating critique of medicine. Most treatments, he argues, do not work very well, and many do more harm than good. Therefore we should “have little confidence in medical interventions” and resort to them much more sparingly. That’s what Stegenga means by medical nihilism.

Skepticism toward medicine was once widespread, even among physicians.

In 1860, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Dean of Harvard Medical School, wrote that if all medical treatments “could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be all the better for mankind—and all the worse for the fishes.” Such cynicism faded with the advent of anesthesia, antiseptic surgical techniques, vaccines, and truly effective treatments, notably antibiotics for infectious disease and insulin for diabetes.

Stegenga calls antibiotics and insulin “magic bullets,” a phrase coined by physician Paul Ehrlich to describe treatments that target the cause of a disease without disrupting the body’s healthy functions.

Researchers have labored mightily to find more magic bullets, but they remain rare. Most forms of cancer, as well as heart disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorder, lack cures or reliable treatments. Many “widely consumed” medications are “barely effective and have many harmful side effects,” Stegenga writes. Examples include drugs for high cholesterol, hypertension, type-two diabetes, and depression.

Stegenga warns readers not to stop taking prescribed medications without medical supervision. But our health will improve and costs shrink, he contends, if we resort to treatments less often. A 2013 study estimated that more than 400,000 “preventable hospital-caused deaths” occur in the U.S. every year, and

as many as 8 million patients suffer “serious harm.” As Hippocrates once said, “to do nothing is also a good remedy.”

The core of Stegenga’s book is his critique of clinical trials. John Ioannidis, a Stanford statistician who has exposed flaws in the scientific literature and whom Stegenga cites repeatedly, asserted in 2016 that most clinical research “is not useful,” meaning it does not “make a difference for health and disease outcomes.”

He has also pointed out that “conflicts of interest abound” in medical research.

Industry-sponsored trials are far more likely to show benefits than independent investigations, Stegenga writes. Meta-analyses of antidepressants carried out by researchers with industry ties are 22 times less likely to mention negative effectsthan independent analyses. According to another analysis, company-sponsored comparisons of hypertension treatments are 35 times more likely to favor the sponsor’s treatment over alternatives.

Stegenga emphasizes that he is not anti-science or anti-medicine. Quite the contrary. His goal is to improve medicine, aligning it with what rigorous research actually reveals about the pros and cons of treatments. His thesis should not hearten advocates of “alternative” medicine, which has even less empirical standing than the mainstream. He writes: “There is no place I would rather be after a serious accident than in an intensive care unit. For a headache, aspirin; for many infections, antibiotics; for some diabetics, insulin—there are a handful of truly amazing medical intervention, many discovered between seventy and ninety years ago.

However, by most measures of medical consumption—number of patients, number of dollars, number of prescriptions—the most commonly employed interventions, especially those introduced in recent decades, provide compelling warrant for medical nihilism.”

Stegenga acknowledges that “medical nihilism” sounds grim. Some readers might prefer his more upbeat phrase “gentle medicine,” which calls for less emphasis on cures and more on care, including pain management (although the current opioid epidemic shows that even pain management poses risks). But I like “medical nihilism” because it stings. It delivers a much-needed slap across the face of healthcare providers and consumers, a slap we need to rouse us from our acceptance of the abysmal status quo.

If more of us accepted medicine’s limits and acted accordingly, our health would surely improve and our costs plummet.

John Horgan directs the Center for Science Writings at Stevens.

This column is adapted from one originally published on his Scientific American blog, “Cross-check.”

Don’t forget to vote for Student Government Association President and Vice President of Operations! stevens.edu/vote

November 8, 2019

8

Opinion STEVENS SPOON

PASSION FOR FASHION

Craving Korean? Go for Gogi Grill

Fashion’s just a game

BY India Roemlein

STEVENS SPOON Just got off the PATH train?

Revive yourself with some homestyle Korean food at Gogi Grill.

The environment is a quick order, over-the-counter sort of place, with all of the order combinations and prices written on the board. Gogi Grill is like a Korean Chipotle. Customize a bowl, burrito, salad, or some tacos with yummy Korean staples. You can’t go wrong with a bowl with either fried rice or sweet potato (vermicelli) noodles. For an extra dollar, you can get kimchi fried rice, which is literally rice stir-fried with sesame oil kimchi.

If you are going for the cheaper option, just go for the plain rice or sweet potato vermicelli because they are just as good. But if you aren’t in the mood for carbs, you can get lettuce. Then pick from the several proteins, including tofu as a vegetarian option. Top tip if you are picking beef — the beef galbi (short rib) tastes a bit better than the beef bulgogi (ribeye). It’s difficult to only pick four toppings when all of the veggies look good. The vegetable toppings like the julienned carrots, bean sprouts, corn, and squash do not have seasoning on their own, but there is kimchi, butter kimchi (which is kimchi sautéed in butter), cucumber kimchi, and spicy slaw that add different flavors to your dish. If you aren’t the biggest fan of kimchi, opt for the cucumber kimchi topping because the fermented flavor is not as strong. Another good option is cheese, which can cut through the spicy sauce.

Make sure you know which sauce you like because the flavors of the

sauces are delicious but can also be strong. The Korean red pepper sauce is a spicy-sweet sauce, the cilantro-lime sauce tastes more like a dressing than a sauce for your dish, the teriyaki sauce is like a sweet soy sauce, and the katsu sauce tastes like a barbecue sauce. If you feel like treating yourself, for an extra $0.75 you can get a fried egg on top. Other snacks you can get are their fried vegetable dumplings or their Instagrammable kimchi cheese tater tots.

Personally, when I go to Gogi Grill, I’m ready for a bowl full of kimchi and gochujang. Basically everything else in the bowl is there to complement these strong flavors. I prefer noodles over rice in my bowl because noodles add a different texture to the dish, but it depends on what you are in the mood for.

It also just depends on whether you are a noodle or rice person. I honestly would pick any of the proteins, but I have had the shrimp and the short rib so far. For toppings, I usually get both the regular kimchi and the cucumber kimchi, carrots, and corn. I like keeping the flavors of the dish simple. I keep my order as simple as it is to just grab and go from the cafe, especially if you order ahead. I like the clean, chill vibe in the cafe that is good for hanging out or even doing homework.

I pretty much enjoy any place that isn’t a sit-down restaurant for convenience’s sake. The next time you have a craving for some Korean food, stop

by Gogi Grill for some comfort eats.

Disclaimer: This column is a collaboration between The Stute and Spoon University. It will be published both in The Stute and on Spoon’s website, and will be written by different authors week-to-week.

GIRL TALK

Backed into a corner by birth control

BY LEIGHA TIERNEY SOPHOMORE BIOLOGY

In 1960, the first combined oral contraceptive pill was made publicly available in the United States to be marketed as a female contraceptive.

The approval of this medication was revolutionary, as women previously had no way of preventing pregnancy completely on their end without relying on invasive contraceptives such as a diaphragm or IUD. Additionally, the court case Roe v. Wade had not yet occurred, so terminating an unplanned pregnancy was not an option for many women in the United States. The combined oral contraceptive pill (more commonly known as simply “the pill”) suddenly allowed women to take more control of their lives by being able to gain an education and develop a satisfying career with the knowledge that they could plan for a pregnancy if they desired.

The social progress sparked by the advent of the pill has inf luenced all parts of society, from the way we view our education and careers to the way we view our bodies and sexual relations. One key contribution of the pill to women has been the gift of autonomy. The fact that women have the option to ensure their own reproductive safety without having to rely on their sexual partners to put their livelihoods first is a major component of the pill’s appeal. But what options does a woman have when the pill doesn’t fit in their life?

When the medication you trust to give you the autonomy to plan your life the way you want it doesn’t work around your life, it can feel hopeless.

This was my situation freshman year of college. In my case, I had been prescribed oral contraceptives for periods that rendered me helpless with pain and made me miss school because I couldn’t

even walk. A trip to the pediatrician sent me home with a prescription for oral contraceptives to hopefully reduce the pain that had been following me since middle school.

While I had been promised by both my doctor and by society that this seemingly magic pill would cure me of my problems, my reality was a harsh difference from what I was led to believe. During the first month of taking it, gradual mood changes and muscle soreness led to what became the most painful period I had ever had at that point in my life. I was completely blindsided by the fact that something that has improved life for both individuals and society as a whole could somehow make my problems worse.

After research, I found that the pill actually has a variety of side effects. According to Mayo Clinic, common side effects of taking the pill include “breast tenderness, elevated blood pressure, headaches, nausea, and bloating.” While oral contraceptives provide millions of women with opportunities to control their reproductive lives and better control medical problems, what is the next step when the pill makes your existing problems worse? A second visit to my doctor turned up little results beyond suggestions that I should try a different brand of contraceptives.

I was skeptical of a second attempt; the first time I tried them, my period hit during finals and landed me in bed for a whole day when I needed to be studying. Did I have the willpower to try again? What if the next time would be even worse?

At this point in my life, I’ve decided to put the birth control dilemma on hold for the time being. As I search for answers about how to make my periods more manageable, the only answers I get are related to hormonal contraceptives like the pill that exacerbate my problems.

As if my medical problems weren’t bad enough already, I simply don’t have the endurance to put my body through different medications for months on end until I find one that has the possibility of working. Not to mention the fact that the only non-invasive contraceptive option for me has now been eliminated since my body can’t handle the side effects of taking it. When the pill has been upheld as the universal solution for women’s reproductive issues, women who are adversely affected are left to deal with their problems alone and without options.

BY DANIEL KANG JUNIOR

BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING League of Legends and Louis Vuitton. Nike, Playstation, and Xbox. A Bathing Ape and PUBG. Vans and Nintendo. Undefeated and Halo 5. Moschino and The Sims. Unlikely pairings that are taking over the separate but similar worlds of gaming and fashion.

If you think about it, games and fashion both revolve around creative escapism and authentically expressing yourself. Two sides of the same coin. However, gaming has long been a neglected domain of society, resigned to scapegoats for mass shooting incidents and stereotypes of overweight men playing in the basements of their homes. No longer. Women, athletes, and musicians all enjoy the pleasures of gaming, and it looks like this is just getting started.

Gaming is particularly interesting to fashion brands because it provides a new mode of storytelling that can interact with different people and showcases high levels of engagement rarely seen anywhere else. Which is arguably why two of the most popular and prestigious brands in their respective fields teamed up: Louis Vuitton (LV) and League of Legends (LoL).

LV has a storied history of producing suitcases, leather goods, and ready-to-wear since 1854 while LoL is a relative newcomer that was established a decade ago. However, League of Legends is played by 185 million unique people and drew an impressive audience of 99.6 million for its World Championships held in South Korea, exceeding the total number of unique viewers for both the 2018 NBA Finals and 2018 MLB World Series.

For the upcoming Championship Finals in Paris on November 10, LoL and LV will release a special trophy travel case holding the Summoner’s Cup, similar to what LV did for the 2018 World Cup. Women’s Artistic Director Nicolas Ghesquière also designed Prestige skins for two characters, Senna and Qiyana, that are part of True Damage, a hip-hop group that is composed of actual artists. This is

a shift from the past when League designed skins and then created a story to fit them into the universe, whereas now League’s stories set the tone for any visuals going forward. Qiyana’s skin will release the same day while Senna’s will release early next year. The skins will each retail for 1650 RP (Riot Points, named after the company that created the game, Riot Games). For those unfamiliar with the conversion between USD and RP, you can purchase 1380 RP for $10, 3500 RP for $25, and 7200 RP for $50.

Considering the most exclusive skins in the game, called Ultimate Skins, fetch 3250 RP, the LV-designed skins are a little cheaper.

LV will also release a capsule collection of apparel and accessories themed around the game. For this collection, you will need to start saving up now if you want an item because they will be priced similarly to other Louis Vuitton pieces.

This is far from Louis Vuitton’s first collaboration with a game; Final Fantasy XIII’s pinkhaired female lead Lightning was the brand ambassador for the Series 4 Spring and Summer campaign directed by Ghesquière, joining the likes of Jennifer Connelly, Michelle Williams, and Alicia Vikander in modeling for the luxury house. Square Enix also dressed Lightning in Prada menswear for its Spring 2012 campaign despite the fact that Lightning is a female character and without any input from the clothing brand itself. On the men’s side, LV released a 16-bit retro game called Endless Runner referencing Men’s Artistic Director Virgil Abloh’s Fall/Winter 2019 show. This follows on the heels of Gucci adding arcade games to its app and Burberry launching an online video game called B Bounce. Hermès and Fendi have also experimented with games to reach a wider audience. Games are a way to make fashion more accessible without having to spend a lot of money for a particular piece.

They are starting to realize that tapping into this virtual experience can yield real excitement and desire that can be partially fulfilled through a character’s wardrobe.

Much like sports teams, games and e-sports organizations have a lot to gain from the exposure provided by these brands.

Likewise for the brands, players are introduced to them and later on could purchase entire outfits from collections. Nike was one of the first to recognize the appeal for their demographic and released the Air Force 2 Low EA Sports (2003), Air Force 1 Low Playstation (2006, 2009, 2018), Jordan 1 Mid Xbox E3 (2018), and the PG2 Playstation (2018). Although the original Playstation Air Force 1s and Jordan 1 Mids were extremely limited releases, the excitement around

them highlighted the sneaker community’s interest in both shoes and gaming. This year, Nike partnered with NBA 2k20 to kickstart the NBA 2k20 x Nike Gamer Exclusive Program. Players will be given the opportunity to earn up to 10 pairs of virtual unreleased Nike Basketball shoes and then unlock them in real life through the SNKRS app.

This program that combines gaming and sneakers is the first of its kind and we will likely see more companies pursue this model. For the launch of the Jordan 1 Defiant SB NYC to Paris and Jordan 1 Defiant SB LA to Chicago, Nike allowed players of Fortnite to scan a graphic in the game and redeem access to a pair of the coveted sneakers.

Experimenting with augmented reality is something Nike has always done, and this offers something new to consumers while also combating “bots,” which are automated programs that resellers use to snap up limited products. Nike and the entire Chinese professional League of Legends league, Puma and Cloud9, adidas and Lyon EDG and Ninja, Champion and Dignitas, K-Swiss and Immortals, Kappa and Vexed Gaming are a sampling of the efforts by these athletic companies to capture the gaming market.

As more and more athletic brands jump into the fray to stay relevant with celebrity endorsements and collaborations, it is clear that whoever is on top must treat professional gamers the same way they treat other professional athletes.

E-sports and gaming present huge opportunities for communicating with people that would normally not encounter these fashion brands. Compared to older generations, younger consumers are more comfortable with embracing gaming. This open-mindedness regarding these developments can mean it is not as risky for fashion companies to invest in games. Fashion and gaming have a lot to learn from each other, especially in terms of gaining relevancy in pop culture and strengthening ties within the gaming community to the fashion brands that dare to reach out and collaborate on in-game items. Incentivizing players to keep playing games could also be leveraged by brands as a viable strategy to convince players to shop their wares and foster brand loyalty for a long time. Beyond traditional social media channels and advertisements, gaming is just a continuation of these desires to consume other media as evidenced by the success of streaming platforms Twitch and Mixer along with content creators that host videos on those sites.

Considering 2.3 billion people play games every day, the current gaming gold rush will probably continue for years to come with brands just scratching the surface in terms of the potential they can achieve.

PUT YOUR RECORDS ON

This is the year “All I Want for Christmas Is You” reaches #1

BY CHRISTIAN BONAVITA JUNIOR

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING This week, please join me in forgetting Thanksgiving exists and ushering in the holiday season. Especially in recent years, it has become increasingly impossible to mention the holidays without talking about “All I Want for Christmas Is You”

by Mariah Carey. This year, amazingly, is the 25th anniversary of the hit song that still dominates holiday airplay, sales, and streaming every year. Every year, this song becomes completely ubiquitous as the weather gets cold and the days get shorter, and I predict that it will reach #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for the first time on its 25th anniversary, becoming Mariah Carey’s 19th chart topper.

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” has been gaining unprecedented traction on the charts in the past few years. While barred from appearing on the Hot 100 in the 1990s due to a technicality, the song made its first appearances on the chart in the early 2010s, usually peaking in the mid-20s. However, in 2017, the song jumped to #9, and last year, it reached #3 during the week leading up to Christmas. As I write this article, the song sits at #49 on the iTunes charts and it is only November 2n.

For many reasons, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is carrying considerable momentum into this holiday season. Why is this, and can it continue its trajectory into the top spot?

Memes will be a primary reason that “All I Want for Christmas Is You” reaches #1 this year. Over the past few years, several funny videos have helped the song maintain its relevance and transcend other holiday music. For example, just before Christmas 2016, Twitter users shared the video, “All I Want for Christmas Is You But Just The Alto 2 Part,” which has amassed over 40,000 retweets on Twitter and tens of millions of views across all social media platforms. This video is hilarious and has helped Carey’s hit reach a younger generation in an engaging way. In addition, the social media

platform TikTok has helped songs like “Old Town Road” rack up millions of streams and dominate the charts, so if “All I Want for Christmas Is You” goes viral on this new, hugely popular platform (which is not a farfetched idea), it will have an edge it didn’t have in previous years. I can easily foresee “All I Want for Christmas Is You” taking on a new cultural relevance this winter and reaching new heights in streaming numbers.

From being featured in Love Actually to being played in my fluid mechanics recitation on the day after Halloween, “All I Want for Christmas Is You” has become a THE song everyone pays attention to at holiday parties and tree lighting ceremonies, and in 2019, a number of factors point to the song finally hitting #1 for the first time. Mariah Carey’s team clearly knows that it’s time for this milestone, as they released a behind-the-scenes cut of clips from the shooting of the song’s music video this week, and a 25th Anniversary Edition of the album as well. These factors will further increase the song’s chances of reaching the summit, whether or not the help is needed. Keep an eye out for the song as it again pervades public consciousness this year, because it will be very entertaining to see if it finally accomplishes this goal.

November 8, 2019

9

Opinion CAMPUS CONSERVATIVE

CAMPUS LIBERAL

The case for Bernie

BY PETER WHITE FRESHMAN

MECHANICAL ENGINEERING As the decade approaches its finale in less than two months, the nation begins to intensify its selection process for the next leader of the free world. At least we can hope there will be a new leader.

The primary season seems to last forever, but I promise that it is coming to an end, as Iowa will be the first to hold its primary on February 3. It can also be difficult to keep all of the candidates straight.

This combination of complexity and longevity makes the average American understandably tired, so I will try to simplify it here, with a bit of analysis added.

Although there are officially 17 individuals running for the Democratic nomination in 2020, only a few are serious contenders. According to RealClearPolitics many polls out now have the unanimous top three: former VP Joe Biden, Senator Elizabeth Warren, and Senator Bernie Sanders. They are usually in this order, but many polls have them so close that it’s difficult to say who has a clear grip on first. For example, Monmouth puts Biden and Warren at 23% with Bernie at 20% (within the margin of error). A much clearer understanding of the race will reveal itself as February 3, the date of Iowa caucuses, approaches.

Now, a quick summary of the noteworthy candidates outside of the top three. Although these candidates stand almost no chance of winning the nomination, they bring forward important conversations. First is Mayor Pete Buttigieg, solidly in fourth place according to many polls, including Monmouth and The Economist. Mayor Pete, as he is known, opened his campaign as one of the more progressive candidates, putting forward his own plan for a medicare public option, and increased access to education. This early standout would be the

first openly gay president, though his recent flip-flopping has harmed his hopes.

Despite his campaign initially taking a very progressive platform, Buttigieg has since rescinded support for such “far left” policies, as those proposed by Sanders and Warren. Although this policies are still on his official policies page on his campaign’s website, he has recently attacked warren for being radical and calling himself the middle ground, “Sensible” candidate, according to The Washington Post. This is likely due to the fact that the progressive vote is dominated by Warren and Sanders, but it is still a very bad look to change policies so dramatically. He also boasts some of the highest donation totals, despite having few individual donors, according to Opensecrets. org. This is due to massive contributions from corporate interests, specifically in the pharmaceutical industry. The combination of flip-flopping ideals and corrupt interests makes Mayor Pete the biggest disappointment of the primary season. A progressive platform turned status quo by corporate donors will likely lead to the end of his campaign soon.

An interesting conversation brought into the mainstream by this election surrounds Universal Basic Income (UBI), specifically as it is championed by Andrew Yang. According to his campaign website, Yang’s plan, called the Freedom Dividend, seeks to put $1,000 in every American’s pocket monthly, with no strings attached. This idea has been brought up a few times in American history, including support from Ronald Reagan, but this time the American public is listening. The proposal would act as a form of welfare, allowing the poorest citizens a bit more breathing room. The Yang campaign has cited studies of UBI in various regions to demonstrate that this policy effectively decreases poverty and reduces the opportunity gap.

For most of us, $1,000 is not that much, but it can make a world of difference.

Although Yang and his supporters, affectionately nicknamed the Yang Gang, have made headlines rallying behind slogans such as “Math,” his campaign stands little chance of making it much farther; his best poll, Monmouth has him at just 3% nationwide. This does not, however, mean that it has had no impact.

Yang has successfully brought an interesting, progressive policy into mainstream discourse, and I could see him being appointed as the Head of Labor under a Democratic presidency, hope-

fully bringing even more great ideas.

Besides the interesting conversations and possible cabinet positions revolving around each of these candidates, there is almost no doubt that the candidate will either be Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, or Bernie Sanders. So I will now give my opinions on each of them.

First is Joe Biden, the baby boomer, status quo candidate. It has been suggested by numerous online personalities that Biden could actually challenge Trump in a Republican primary. The fact that this joke can even be made illustrates the problem with a Biden presidency. The former Vice President has run his campaign this far as an extension of Obama’s presidency. His main point for why he should be president is that he has the experience. He never talks about his policies, mostly because his only policy ideas revolve around catering to the 1%, but also because he doesn’t really want to change anything. He is the epitome of Boomer culture. He is the embodiment of “back in my day.” He is a nightmare moderate. A Biden presidency would fail to bring about any change — forget about the radical changes required to curb climate change or wealth inequality. Although Biden is in first in most polls, such as those mentioned previously, I believe he will not, and should not, win the nomination. The status quo is a conservative idea which inherently requires the nation to remain stagnant.

I have saved the only two real progressives in the field for last because I believe they are the most important. It is time to forget about Biden, forget about his “electability” as the mainstream media puts it, and focus on desirable change.

One of the two truly progressive candidates is Senator Elizabeth Warren. Warren boasts a similar platform to that of Sanders. She is a supporter of Medicare For All as well as College for All, both of which were proposed by Sanders. These bills, unlike the status quo platform of Biden, are poised to make real change in this country. I have already written about College for All, but all that is really important about both of these bills is that they will effectively decrease the opportunity gap in the United States, reducing racial disparities and hopefully alleviating some cultural prejudice. Basically, these bills achieve what Yang’s Freedom Dividend attempts to,

CONTINUED ONLINE AT THESTUTE.COM

The Friday Observer

BY ERIC S. LONDRES JUNIOR

COMPUTER SCIENCE Throughout most of my adult life, I have sought to dedicate myself to the general pursuit of goodness in my own life and in the lives of the people I associate with. I do not, in broad terms, want to make the world a better place — I am not so naïve to think I could ever be successful in that endeavor. I do, however, wish to see the slice of the world that I inhabit to be the best I could possibly make it. I want to see the people I stand with on my journey towards death respected at all times when they deserve it, corrected at all times when they do not, and at all times made aware that they are not alone in the universe so long as they share the same love for the goodness in it that I do.

The defining struggle of my life has been the quest to give structure to what “goodness” truly means.

Somewhere must exist the line between what is and is not worthy of praise. Unfortunately, the world is far too complex to avoid situations of moral ambiguity, and many times I have looked back on actions which I believe were made in good faith that the universe ultimately judged more harshly. It is the best and only thing that I can do to continuously refine where I mark the line between the goodness I wish to cherish, and the gradients of evil that I wish to coun-

BY ALEX MURTAGH SENIOR

CIVIL ENGINEERING It is no surprise to hear that many Democratic candidates are having to lay off campaign workers or even end their campaigns altogether. The Democratic field at one point had more than 20 notable candidates running for President, but today we are left with about 14 notable candidates. These candidates can be broken down into three tiers based on their polling numbers, fundraising numbers, and overall public recognition. The first tier consists of former Vice President Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, and Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts. The second tier consists of Senator Kamala Harris from California and Mayor Pete Buttigieg from Indiana. The rest of the candidates fall into the third tier where they aren’t raising much money and don’t have anywhere near the polling numbers they need.

So let’s focus on the first tier — VP Biden is still the frontrunner, but not by much. Looking at most polls, Warren and Sanders are closing in on him. However, these three top candidates represent an interesting idea within the Democratic Party. Biden is more of a moderate candidate who still holds onto many traditional Democratic views. On the other hand, both Warren and Sanders are much further to the left than Biden, yet combined, their polling numbers would serve to almost double those of Biden. This shows a significant shift in the Democratic Party and what the majority of its voters are looking for in the nominee. It is surpris-

ing to see Biden still at/near the top given his many gaffes in recent months and the fact that Warren and Sanders are such strong candidates. Currently, all of their campaigns are looking strong and show no signs of slowing in the near future.

Onto the second tier. Both Harris and Buttigieg have begun to struggle in recent weeks. Both campaigns do not have the same level of support or feeling of enthusiasm that they once did. Buttigieg may still be a young, charismatic, big ideas kind of guy, but that doesn’t pay the bills. Just this week, Harris has had to layoff campaign workers and reduce her footprint in a number of key primary states. She is not the only Democratic candidate to feel the pressure of not having enough money to keep going. Many others in the second and third tiers have closed down offices recently and/or laid off campaign staff to keep ongoing.

Finally, the third tier. Many in the third tier are self-funding their campaigns or are relying heavily on social media to get their message out. One good example of this is Representative Tulsi Gabbard from Hawaii. Gabbard has been making a name for herself by breaking from traditional Democratic norms, talking with right-wing news outlets, and even attacking former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

This has helped her to gain traction amongst moderates and even Republicans, but not as much among Democrats. Tulsi will need to continue this broad-based approach if she wants to go on to win in the general election, but she needs to focus on winning her own party over first to become the nominee.

So what is the state of the Democratic primary as of right now? It appears to be filled with a lack of money and enthusiasm (with the exception of a few candidates), and the party appears to be moving further to the left than in the past. If this continues, there is a better chance of Donald Trump being re-elected in 2020.

The Democrats need to be careful. You can’t put old Joe Biden against Trump, and the far-left attitude of the party will drive independent voters away. The party is in for a major awakening (or destruction, really) if it can’t find a good middle-of-the-road candidate. For crying out loud, so many people don’t like this president, but they will continue to see him as the lesser of two evils if the Democrats remain on their current track.

OFF THE PRESS

Love

teract. I know this because I know, more than anything else, that I am probably the farthest anyone could ever be from perfect, while still harboring secret optimism and maintaining an enduring, yet completely unjustified, belief that most people are inherently good. It has made me intensely happy, and in fact has solely provided me with the willpower to continue to pour as much energy as I do into life, that I have managed to find people who share my optimism and my desire see the amount of love in the world increase.

In fact, I have met a few people who so thoroughly believed in the natural kindness of the human spirit that they never once questioned the rules of life as I have, never once sought to disassociate what is worthy of respect and what isn’t. I have met people who, having suffered blow after blow after blow from life, never hesitated to turn around and shake the hand of their assailants.

I have met people who truly felt in their heart the human capacity for love for everyone and everything, and who, if given the chance, would have carried the burdens of the entire world on their shoulders.

One of these people, one of my best friends who I could not possibly have felt anything less than infinite respect for during every moment of time we spent together, suddenly and tragically passed away this week.

He was 22. A thousand lifetimes of introspection and self–improvement could not turn most people into half the man that he was each and every day. I do not believe I could possibly possess the language to express the loss the universe has suffered with his passing, and I certainly would not be worthy of doing so if I could. I do feel allowed, and indeed compelled, however, to offer my interpretation of a universe that would take away the life of someone so infinitely worthy of it.

I can no longer believe that there is any sort of universal justice system. I can no longer believe in

The Democratic field is slowly shrinking

good faith that society, or the world, or whatever, will reward the righteous and punish the damnable. It simply cannot be true. The world is a cruel and cold wasteland, and only the words of a liar could try to tell me that there was any inherent balance within it.

That being said, I am ready and willing to accept a broader moral here. The world is cruel, yes, and it is cold to those of us who still walk within it, yes, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Love can counter the cruelty — I truly believe that it can.

It’s just really, really hard. For those of us who were born doubtful and insecure, it’s one of the hardest things in the universe. I don’t know if I can believe that I could ever put as much love into the world as I have already taken from it.

But I have to try.

For the sake of my friend and everyone else who will never get the chance to write a happy ending to their own story, I have to try. Because if we who still walk the Earth are unwilling to carry the burdens of the world on our shoulders, we are crushing the backs of those who would try if they only had the chance.

I do not believe that I can make the world a better place. It’s too big, too cruel, too cold, and too dark for anything I do to really affect it. But I need to be able to say when my story is over that I could never have written a better one. I need to know when I die that I gave as much love to the world as I possibly could have at every moment. I need to know this not for some higher sense of duty or for the sake of any greater universal structure, but because I truly believe that if I can’t trust at the end that I did the best I could have — if I can’t be happy with the story I will end up writing — then it should have been my death this week too, so at least the universe would be better off.

To you, inhabitant of this cruel and cold world, I ask this: Where is the love that you have brought, and where is the warmth that you will bring?

Local heartthrobs Seidman and Pepa run for SGA Presidency

BY OFF CENTER In a wonderful turn of events that has revived our faith in the electoral system, two students with hearts of gold and jawlines of steel — noted legislator Brandon Seidman and famous statesman Simon Pepa — are currently running for SGA President and Vice President of Operations, respectively. This is truly an amazing opportunity that should inspire any patriotic student to get out and vote for them.

Brandon Seidman was born in rural Staten Island to a destitute family. Having to share only three shoes and five teeth between his twelve-person family growing up, his humble origins belie the fiery spirit of stewardship that burns fiercely within him. When he was just five years old, little baby Seidman produced a 700 page bill that would have reworked the entire American financial system had toddlers been allowed admittance into Congress. As it was, Seidman’s masterwork of financial and political ideas was pinned to the fridge, right next to his crayon drawing of stick-figure George Washington crossing the Delaware. Since then, Seidman has continued to crank out a number of groundbreaking, innovative policies that would fundamentally change our government, and the Senate has continued to ignore his calls. Now, with one eye set on the horizon and another eye focusing on his own version of the Declaration of Independence, Seidman is ready to take the reins of the SGA and lead us to a brighter future.

Simon Pepa, that ruggedly handsome so-and-so, is a force to be reckoned with on both the debate and dance floors.

A seasoned veteran of over 20 military conflicts — including both World Wars, the American Revolution, and the War of the Austrian Succession — Pepa is more than capable of withstanding the blows of governance. Pepa has mastered the art of statesmanship from his time as a young Connecticut senator when he instituted a number of fantastic and inspired bills, each and every one of which is framed in the Hartford Courthouse and constantly fanned with overly large leaves by attendants. Under his vigilant administration,

crime went down by 12,000%, revenue increased by 25,000%, and paintings of small puppies in rain boots skyrocketed to 10,000 times that of pre-Pepa conditions.

No ribbon remained uncut nor baby’s forehead unkissed during Pepa’s tenure, a standard that he will maintain during his time as Vice President.

“Both of these candidates look perfectly suited for the job,” you might say energetically, “I can hardly imagine ever voting for anyone else! And you described them so artfully and with such style! But what are their policies?” To that, we say thank you for noticing the amount of effort we put into our articles, but also that they have a number of policy proposals in the works that they would implement when, not if, they are elected. “We plan to make some big changes,” said Seidman while effortlessly lifting a 150 lb weight with one hand, “I can’t get into all of the details right now, but I’d recommend taking a picture of Howe soon before it’s gone forever.” Pepa, who had been painting a photo-realistic depiction of Seidman’s Herculean physique, agreed. “We have a bunch of new policies to implement,” he said, adding a final stroke of paint that really brought the whole piece together. “The one I’m most excited about is our new Robot Butler Initiative for campus. Essentially, every student will get a small robot…” Our reporter then got lost looking into Pepa’s mesmerizing baby blue eyes and didn’t catch the rest of the statement, but it sounded amazing.

Of course, as the primary media source on campus, the Stute cannot give an official opinion on the candidates for the presidential election. Fortunately, Off the Press has no such obligation to the public, and as such can influence people’s political opinions at will. Therefore, it is with the utmost seriousness that all of us at Off the Press heartily endorse the Seidman-Pepa ticket from the bottom of our collective hearts. If you love your school, your country, or literally anything else, you should definitely vote for them.

Note: The opinions of Off the Press are our own and are not necessarily shared by the Stute, although if they knew the candidates they would agree with us.

10

November 8, 2019

Sports

ON DECK IN SPORTS FRI, NOV 8 MEN’S AND WOMEN’S SWIMMING vs. NYU vs. More New York Invitational 5 PM New York, NY

SAT, NOV 9 WRESTLING Photo courtesy stevensducks.com

Men’s fencing come away with two players that earn medals in the Temple Open

BY TREVOR DAMEIKA The Stevens men’s fencing team opened the 2019-20 season Sunday in the Temple Open.

After two separate pool-play competitions, the fencers were then seeded individually for bracket play based on their performance in the pool play. The final placings were then determined by order of finish in bracket play.

There are three weapons to fencing: épée, saber, and foil. As a result, there are three sections of play. Épée players play other épée players and so forth.

For the men in épée, earning the number seven overall seed in pool play, sophomore Andy Faubert advanced all the way to the bracket play finals with five straight victories, including wins over the number three

overall seed and the number two overall seed.

Faubert started the day a perfect 8-0 in pool play competition. He then earned victories of 15-0, 15-12, 15-5, 15-13 and 15-13 to advance to the finals before eventually falling in the championship match. A fantastic performance from Faubert who brought home the silver medal for the Ducks.

As for freshman Zhonghan Pan, also using Épée, he was just one match away from facing off against Faubert in the bracket finals. He advanced to the semifinal contest with four victories in bracket play in the first collegiate action of his career. Pan was also very successful in pool play, producing a 6-2 overall record.

Faubert won the silver medal and Pan took home bronze. An absolutely amazing performance from both fenc-

ers as they both outperformed over 85 competitors in épée.

Sophomores Wolfe Crouse and Gabe Toltus, both Épée, also earned top-10 finishes, giving the Ducks the most fencers in the top-10 of one weapon of any team in the competition.

Six of the seven foilests in the competition finished inside the top-60 to advance to bracket play. Sophomore Nick Beja led the way for Stevens at foil, going 7-1 in pool play and getting to the round of 32 in the foil competition.

Sophomores Noah Ehrlich and Logan Rechler finished in 28th and 29th place, respectively, and both were able to advance to the round of 32. Rechler finished with a 6-2 overall record in pool play while Ehrlich picked up three victories.

Furthermore, all seven saber competitors for the Ducks were able to finish inside the top 60 to advance to bracket play.

Sophomore Vaughn Rice was fantastic on the day, posting a 10-1 overall record in pool play before moving on to the round of 32 in saber competition.

As sabers, sophomore Matthew Jacobson, junior Juan Amezquita and freshman Dylan Woodward finished in 28th, 29th and 30th place overall for Stevens. In pool play, Jacobson finished 6-5, Amezquita went 7-4 and Woodward produced an 8-3 record as all three fencers were able to advance to the round of 32.

This was their first contest of the season and they have another one next week in the Vassar Invitational this Sunday at 9:00am.

Women’s fencing impresses with all three weapons

BY TREVOR DAMEIKA For the women in their Temple Open, freshman Claire McNeill and sophomore Kiera Barnes both finished in the top10 of their respective weapons to start their season at the Temple Open Saturday.

There are three weapons to fencing: épée, saber, and foil. As a result, there are three sections of play. Épée players play other épée players and so forth.

Mcneill opened her collegiate career in a big way, finishing in 10th place in épée and moving on to the final 16 fencers during bracket play. She was the fourthbest finisher of all fencers among NCAA Division III teams. The rest of the fencers were international players. McNeill closed pool play with a 7-1 record. She then opened bracket play with a pair of 15-9 victories to advance to the final 16 fencers.

Barnes, meanwhile, produced a ninth-place finish at saber and advanced to the third round in bracket play. She finished the

day with seven total victories in the meet. Barnes led the way at saber with a 7-2 record in pool play to earn ninth place.

In bracket competition, Barnes advanced to the final 16 after an opening round bye and a win in the round of 32.

Behind McNeill at épée, senior Teny Odaimi posted a 6-2 record in pool play to grab 20th place and she won her first matchup of bracket play to advance to the round of 32.

In our second weapon competition, Stevens’ foil squad placed all nine fencers in the top-55 in pool play to move on to bracket competition.

Senior Allison Urban-Spillane was the top finisher for the foil team, grabbing a 17th place finish with a 6-2 record in pool play. She then picked up a 15-0 victory in the opening contest of bracket competition before falling in the round of 32.

In her first college competition, freshman Ashley McDermott posted a 5-3 record for a 20th place finish and advanced

vs W&J Invitational 9:45AM Washington, PA

WOMEN’S SOCCER vs Misericordia University MAC Freedom Championship 12 PM Hoboken, NJ

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL vs Eastern University MAC Freedom Championship 4 PM Hoboken, NJ

SUN, NOV 10 WOMEN’S BBALL vs NYU 3 PM New York, NY

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON STEVENS SPORTS VISIT STEVENSDUCKS.COM

CHECK OUT THE DUCKS ON INSTAGRAM! Photo courtesy stevensducks.com

to the second round of bracket competition with a 15-9 victory.

An amazing performance from McDermott, a freshman.

Sophomores Kayleigh Kubit and Sara Persau tied for 22nd place after both picking up five victories on the day in pool play.

They also were able to advance to the round of 32 with opening round wins.

For the third weapon competition, all five sabers for the Ducks finished within the top-50

in the first round of pool play to advance to bracket championship.

With Barnes being the first, junior Chrissy Drobish was the second highest saber finisher for Stevens, producing five victories on the day in pool play to finish in 23rd place. Drobish opened bracket play with a win, but fell in the second round.

The Ducks will return to action in the Vassar Invitational this Sunday, Nov. 10 at 9:00 a.m.

@STEVENSDUCKS #ALLRISE

DUCK COUNTRY SCOREBOARD DATE SAT NOV 2 SAT NOV 2 SAT NOV 2 SAT NOV 2 TUE NOV 5 WED NOV 6 WED NOV 6

TEAM WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL WOMEN’S SOCCER MEN’S SOCCER WOMEN’S SOCCER FIELD HOCKEY MEN’S SOCCER

OPPONENT VASSAR COLLEGE LEBANON VALLEY COLLEGE EASTERN UNIVERSITY EASTERN UNIVERSITY WILKES UNIVERSITY DESALES UNIVERSITY KING’S COLLEGE

SCORE W (3-1) W (3-0) W (5-0) W (1-0) W (2-0) L (1-2) L (1-2)

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