The VanCougar Volume 33 Issue 5

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

The VanCougar, a student-run newsmagazine, informs and engages the WSU Vancouver community while practicing the highest standards of timely, ethical journalism.

The VanCougar welcomes letters and commentary from members of the WSU Vancouver community on current issues. Letters must include the author’s full name, contact information and WSU affiliation — year and major for students, department for faculty and staff, degree and year graduated for alumni. The VanCougar does not publish anonymous letters. Send letters and commentary to van.vc.editor@wsu.edu. Once received, letters become property of The VanCougar and are subject to editing for length, clarity and style.

The VanCougar is a source of honest, factual information. If you see an error, we want to address it. Please contact the editor-inchief at van.vc.editor@wsu.edu for corrections.

Rep.-Elect Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington’s 3rd Congressional District. Photo courtesy of Perez’s media team.

Dungeons and Dragons guidebooks on display at the Autumn Harvest Festival. (Josalyn Ortiz/The VanCougar)

Students gather around Getta Gyro, a Greek gyro food truck serving free gyros on campus during the Autumn Harvest Festival. (Josalyn Ortiz/The VanCougar)

Photo courtesy of Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s media team.

U.S. REP.-ELECT MARIE

PEREZ GLUESENKAMP

Sawyer Tuttle | Copy Editor

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez received national attention for her mid term election victory in Washington’s 3rd Congressional District after an uphill battle against Republican Joe Kent. National polls, such as FiveThirtyEight, said that she had a two percent chance of winning the race. In an exclusive interview with The VanCougar, Gluesenkamp Perez recalled the nail biting election cycle, discussed skyrocketing university tuition, shared her vision for the future of District 3 and more.

Q: What was running through your mind as the final votes were being counted and before the race was declared?

A: I have one of the best, or I will say the best, electoral statistician on my team, Phil Gardner, and I had a lot of confidence in his anal ysis of where numbers needed to be. So coming out of the primary, Phil did a lot of analysis and figured out what numbers we needed to reach in each county to win. And so Tuesday night, when the first results came in, and we exceeded all those goal numbers — I was elated. Because we do vote by mail elections, it was never going to be like a binary we won we lost scenario. So it’s just this sort of suspended thrill, you know? So there’s sort of the analytic side of it, where you’re like, ‘this is really working,’ and then there’s the kind of emotional side where, ‘holy moly, what an incredible honor.’

You’re working, working, working, you don’t know if it’s going to pay off, you don’t know if things are gonna work out the way you think, you don’t know if you’re reading the room right, if you’re reading the community right. And there’s a lot of self-doubt … and so, election night was really exciting, but it wasn’t until I think it was Thursday night when we knew with a high degree of certainty that we were out of the weeds and that we were really going to be able to make it.

Q: Nearly half the district voted for Joe Kent. What specifical ly will you be doing to build relationships with and represent Washingtonians who voted for Joe Kent?

A: I think that I actually share a lot of values with a lot of people who voted for Joe. They wanted change in Congress, they want a gov ernment that is accountable to the people, they want to know that people are fighting to ensure their kids have the same opportunities they had and that there’s a level playing field. And so it’s not that I need to change who I am or what I’m doing. I think it’s just staying focused on the common denominator of what makes a country work, and what makes the government work, and not getting drawn into any of the political drama, just staying focused on making the machine of government work better for people.

Q:

students, especially university students, get involved with the government? What does that mean and look like?

A: Everybody should be running to be a PCO, a precinct commit tee officer. So often, there are precincts that don’t have committee officers. I think those are like the foot soldiers of democracy. Those are the people that show up and make sure that the party leadership reflects the values of the district and that we are electing strong, orga nized people to party governments. So I think everybody should ab solutely find out if where you live has a PCO, and if it doesn’t, strong ly consider making time in your life for that. I think the other thing is, ... we’ve been sold this model of, if you want to go into government, you should get a law degree, or you should become a doctor, or you should figure out a way to get rich and I think that’s an outdated model. … I think it’s doing what you’re good at, what you’re passion ate about and serving your community. Then consider running for office, but no one’s going to give you permission to run for office, you have to make the decision that you’re going to do it, and you can’t do it by yourself. You have to have lived a life that was in service to your community and then, in my experience, your community will help you out. So many people worked so hard to get me elected.

Q: Courts have issued blocks to the federal student loan debt re lief program. What impacts do you feel this will have on students with student loans?

A: It’s still being adjudicated, so we don’t know yet how student loan debt relief will be played out. When I think about student loan debt … it honestly feels a little bit short-sighted to focus overly much on just the student loan debt itself and not to be thinking about, why is school so expensive now? … Because we can solve the discrete problem of an individual’s debt or one group of people’s debt. But if we don’t solve the overarching problem, we’re not really making that much progress. And so there are some bills, [like] the Accountabili ty and Transparency Act, … that require colleges that get Pell grants to divulge how much they’re spending on marketing and if they’re spending too much on marketing, they lose their Pell Grants. … Some of these colleges that just take students knowing that their students will never graduate or that the degrees won’t lead to an actual career. … [There are bills that require] more accountability for them and so I think that’s … a place that I’d like to spend more energy.

problem,’ or ‘we just need to consume less.’ … But I think it’s important that we are pragmatic … people are going to keep having kids, they just are, and we’re not going to have a government policy that changes that.

Q: What do you believe to be your “superpower”?

A: I really like people. I like listening to them, I think that there are so many smart people in the world. All these people know things I don’t know, and figuring out a way to have a government that’s more repre sentative of more kinds of intelligence is really important.

Q: What needs to be done regarding the ongoing crisis of school, university and other public area shootings across the country?

A: It is heinous. I think there are at least two things going on. One of them is, more people are hopeless and angry, and violent. I think that is clear. And I think there’s like a lot of reasons for that, a lack of hope for the future or lack of a sense of opportunity. Those are sort of things that have been coming down the pipe for the last 20 to 40 years. I think more ways to make a respectable living and live your life, can stop a lot of the events. That’s long-term cultural work that needs to happen, and that’s not purely, or even primarily, government work and policy work. We can point to policies that have made it harder or easi er to live a life where you have hope and mental well-being, but I think it is also undeniable that guns help facilitate this problem. So, one of the things that I really believe in is increasing the age at which people can purchase what are known as assault weapons, from 18 to 21. There just is data that brains are just not as mature. It’s harder to make the right call. It’s easier to get into trouble.

Q: We are going into uncertain times in the nation economically. What economic development do we need to be focusing on in this region specifically?

Q: Do

a climate crisis? If so, how exactly are you prioritizing environmental protection?

A: Unquestionably, we are in a climate crisis. It’s so interesting to me, a human lives 90 years, 100 years and so our horizon of what nor mal time is, is so different than like geologic time or climate time. But if you talk to the oldest people in Stevenson, they will tell you that when they were little kids, people would drive across the Columbia River every winter when it was frozen before there was a bridge. So like when we look at that, it is undeniable that there is real change. In the Northwest, it’s very interesting because we really are leaders in clean energy and I think we need to continue to be pushing on that. I actually think that we need to be investing more in renewable energy, like nuclear research. I think there are a lot of people that have this idea that, ‘oh, we just need to have less kids and that’ll solve the

A: Definitely more support for career and technical education. I think there are a lot of jobs and infrastructure in the trades that are fami ly-wage jobs. There are jobs that don’t require you typically to take on $100,000 worth of debt to start earning money. There are jobs that can’t be off-shored like a lot of admin and computer programming and white collar jobs can be and will be. So, I think when we think about the long-term positioning of the state, it makes sense to focus on those jobs that can’t be off-shored. We have one of the most ports of any congressional district in the country, so it makes sense for us to be a hub and continue to develop our ports and import-export. ... Absolutely [focusing on] career tech, trades, work. One of the things that really irks me is the shift we’ve seen over the past 10 to 20 years, away from paper and cardboard and glass to plastic … I think that we have a historic advantage in being leaders in paper and cardboard and we should be pushing for policies that keep those industries strong and rebuild them.

Q: You magically have the whole afternoon, with no auto shop or political responsibilities. What are you going to do?

A: I’m going hiking, there are a couple of trails around here. I’d love to get some mushroom hunting in. That was what I did before, and I would love to be doing some more hiking.

How can

you believe we are in

Twenty-eight digital technology and culture seniors are working on reconstructing the narrative mystery game “Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse,” under the guidance of Creative Media and Digital Culture pro gram director Dene Grigar, as their senior capstone. Students from different fields and specialties, such as programmers, videographers, social media managers and designers, all work together on this collaborative project to bring the game to life.

Grigar selects projects based on the skills of that semester’s cohort. This semester’s seminar shows the moving parts needed to bring such an ambitious proj ect to life. Currently, students in the senior seminar are divided into five teams to work on reconstructing the game in various coding languages.

The original version of “Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse,” by John McDaid, came with two music cassettes that had to be played separately, as well as a letter and short story that were used to solve the mystery, in addition to playing the game. According to Grigar, the game has a cult following.

Grigar said that the game could not be translated from one system’s code to another because it runs on a software called Story Space, owned by a company in Massachusetts.

“The publisher gave us permission to reconstruct this, and so did the author. The editor said, ‘we want this back out on the market but we don’t want you to be using Story Space; we want it on an open web environment so that anyone can play it for free,’” Gri gar said.

Madiera Vath, the leader of the 3D and multimedia animation team for the senior seminar, said that all the students within the program refer to their abilities as “superpowers.” Vath’s strength lies in multimedia and 3D animation and her team is currently in the composition stage of the trailer for “Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse.”

“We started like a little creative agency. The design team sits together, the game [development] team sits together, the [user experience and user interface] people sit together, the motion graphics people, the design people. … It is very collaborative,” Grigar said.

Shawyan Tabari | Reporter

Last year, the senior seminar published a project titled “King of Space” based on the original game from 1991. The game was initially released on a 3.5-inch floppy disk and is available on the internet for free with new artwork, minigames, complex gameplay and interactive environments. The DTC major resides under the Creative Media and Digital Culture program, which has a 90% job placement rate for students, according to Grigar.

The CMDC Studios, WSU Vancouver’s on-campus game development studio, works with students and alumni to produce these games. CMDC Studios is helping the senior seminar reconstruct “Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse.” The program has collaborated with Portland Indie Game Squad several times, notably on “Hallowtide,” “Dead Air,” “Huli” and their newest game, “Ramen Rush.” The CMDC Studios team has an abundance of accolades and partners across the region and is helping the senior seminar with the game reconstruction this semester.

Those who participate in CMDC’s programs and CMDC Studios see a bright future ahead as they continue to develop new projects and prepare students for the workforce post-graduation.

Students working during the CMDC senior seminar. (Josalyn Ortiz/The VanCougar)

“The publisher gave us permission to reconstruct [Uncle Buddy’s Phantom Funhouse], and so did the author. The editor said ‘ ... we want it on an open web environment so that anyone can play it for free,’” -Dene Grigar

Vintage iMac on campus. (Rowan Segura/The VanCougar)

Orcs and elves and D&D club brings fantasy to WSU Vancouver

Just eight weeks after its creation, WSU Vancouver’s Dun geons and Dragons club has accumulated over 50 members, with goals of expanding even further and sharing the fantastical role playing game with as many people as possible.

Dungeons and Dragons, created in 1974, is a tabletop game based on role play, where chance, dice rolls and the player’s imagination set the stakes of this multi-layered experience.

Players create multi-dimensional characters and generate complex background stories for each per sona. Participants can choose from a number of “races” — such as human, elf or half-dragon — and a number of “classes” — such as fighter, ranger or warlock — to lay the foundation for their character’s origins and goals.

Giovanni Scarpelli, junior management information systems major, is the president of the Dungeons and Dragons club and also the Dungeon Master. The Dungeon Master’s job is to or chestrate the game, creating and maintaining a narrative and a world for the newly created characters to embark into. Scarpel li created the Dungeons and Dragons club because he said he saw nowhere else for students to engage in this tabletop game with each other.

“Because of [shows] like ‘Riverdale’ and ‘Stranger Things,’ peo ple have kind of taken more notice of [Dungeons and Dragons]. I think that there’s also a very large number of people that like to play things like that, but they don’t really have a space to be able to play it. I just wanted to provide that for people,” Scarpelli said.

His most recent efforts to make the club more accessible for students is by making official Dungeons and Dragons books available to every student.

“One of the main enemies of D&D is scheduling, so I wanted to combat that by making all of the books that our club has available to everyone,” Scarpelli said.

Ryan Hoffman is the club’s vice president and a junior pur suing a degree in electrical engineering. He is a long-time Dun geons and Dragons veteran, having played consistently over the last ten years. Hoffman described how intimidating it can be for new people to get involved and play with a group for the first time, recalling some of his own experiences.

“I’ve been running games for, I don’t know, probably eight to ten years now. And my players consistently laugh at some of the ridiculous voices I do ... I used to get embarrassed about it, but not anymore because I realized that you know everybody’s laughing, everybody’s having a good time.” Hoffman said.

In addition, Hoffman 3D prints everything from customized character models, to enemies and terrain — all of which bring the game that much more to life.

“It’s not necessarily vital to have miniatures and things like that but it is certainly helpful. And I’ve never met somebody that says that it was bad to have miniatures. Everybody always seems to enjoy them. So, it just kind of adds another level of enjoyment to the game,” Hoffman said.

Scarpelli and Hoffman share ambitions to make the Dun geons and Dragons club the biggest student organization. Part of their efforts included participating in the Autumn Harvest Festival — dressing up as charac ters while hosting games, displaying their miniature figures and sharing their guide books.

“D&D club is a place that I want any one and everyone to be able to come in and hang out — it’s a place where people can get together and play any of those kinds of games and just have a good time and sling spells,” Scarpelli said.

Aaron Pyles | Reporter

and dragons, oh my!

Elementary education major Emily Rangel dressed as a druid named Ofana, at the Autumn Harvest Festival. (Josalyn Ortiz/The VanCougar)

Accounting major Ryan Wood dressed as a viking at the Autumn Harvest Festival. (Josalyn Ortiz/The VanCougar)

Getta Gyro serving free gyros to students on campus at the Autumn Harvest Festival. (Josalyn Ortiz/The VanCougar)

Norman Helgason | Reporter

The Associated Students of WSU Vancouver gathered nearly 400 signatures on a petition to host food trucks on campus, in an effort to expand the availability of food on campus. However, infrastructure problems and financial constraints make this task no easy feat.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the WSU Vancouver caf eteria provided students with freshly prepared meals. The post-pandemic Crave Cafe mainly serves packed lunches and frozen foods, leaving students with no fresh cooked food op tions on campus.

ASWSUV senator Noah Guerrero said the student govern ment began to look for new food sources after students raised their concerns about the new cafeteria and its conditions.

“Just the fact that a student couldn’t get a hot meal, [that] the best thing you could get is ramen out of a microwave, that just wasn’t really acceptable to us,” Guerrero said.

In early October, the student government released a petition gauging student interest in food trucks. Guerrero said that Mex ican and Mediterranean food were the top two requested types of food trucks. According to Guerrero, the petition implies a high-level of student interest in food trucks and can be used as an incentive for food truck owners.

“We had [roughly] 365 names, and that was over a course of two days. … We can take that data and go to the food trucks with it and say, ‘hey, we’ve got almost 400 names in two days. That’s a lot of names, there’s potential for a lot of money for you,’” Guerrero said.

Moses Meraz, a senior DTC student, said food trucks will pos itively impact campus life, as the current cafeteria does not offer a variety of food that caters to everyones’ unique tastes.

“A lot of people [could] expand their views … I know some people are closed off to certain things, but you know, trying something new is a pretty good mindset to have,” Meraz said. “People share an interest in food, so people could talk and may be make new friends.”

According to Guerrero, Facilities Services and school staff have given ASWSUV approval to bring food trucks to campus, with some limitations. Facilities Services will require that the food trucks are self-sustainable and that they remain parked in a set of fixed locations whenever on campus.

“We mostly have the go-ahead. We have a couple of restric tions, like the locations of where we can put the food trucks are pretty fixed on exactly where they can park it. They haven’t given us the okay for providing power or water, which is one of the reasons why we’ve heavily leaned into food trucks rather than food stands,” Guerrero said.

In an email to The VanCougar, Bill Hooper, associate vice chancellor for facilities services, said self-supporting food trucks are much easier to bring to campus and would garner more support from the university.

“If a food truck was self-supporting and didn’t need utility connections for water, sewer and electricity it may simplify the discussion to, ‘where could it be parked and is that an acceptable location?’ Approval by campus leadership would still be needed, but it’s a much simpler discussion,” Hooper said.

With three parking spaces approved by facilities services, all that is left for ASWSUV is to find willing food trucks to serve students on a schedule. According to Guerrero, sourcing food trucks is a difficult process, as serving food on a public campus has restrictions. Specifically, getting food trucks in Portland to WSU Vancouver would require business owners to possess a Washington state business license.

“Portland is famously known for their food trucks. There’s hun dreds of them … The moment you step into Washington, 90% of those food trucks go away because they don’t have a Wash ington business license,” Guerrero said. “We blazed through a lot of the initial process of getting permission from the school and facility operations, but finding a food truck that fits the needs of students has been really hard to find.”

According to senior DTC student Isatou Dumbuya, food trucks offer a diverse array of food to campus and are a conve nient solution for students relying on public transportation to reach campus.

“I think the food trucks can [bring] a different variety, like Med iterranean, Mexican, Hispanic and African foods. … We need some diverse food,” Dumbuya said. “It will be more convenient for me and a lot of students, especially students who don’t have any vehicles to get food between classes.”

A food truck served free gyros to students at the Autumn Har vest Festival last month, and as the planning phase continues, ASWSUV is aiming for food trucks to begin serving students as soon as the spring semester of 2023.

“I absolutely love the student interest that’s been involved in this. When we were hosting the table for this, all we had to do was say ‘food trucks’ and 10 students would turn their heads and say ‘wait, what?’ There’s a wonderful interest in it. Some of these students had feedback, what they liked or didn’t like about the cafeteria … I think that’s really important. It shows that not only is it an interest to students, but that it can be really valuable in the future for growing our community,” Guerrero said. “There’s no community that exists that doesn’t have food as some sort of basis.”

December Astrology: The

signs as soup

Aquarius (Jan 20-Feb 18) Sausage potato

Pisces (Feb 19-March 20) Cheddar broccoli

Aries (March 21-April 19) Split pea

Taurus (April 20-May 20) Beef lentil

Gemini (May 21-June 20) Chicken ‘n’ dumpling

Cancer (June 21-July 22) Turkey vegetable

Leo (July 23-Aug 22) Buffalo chicken chili

Virgo (Aug 23-Sept 22) White bean

Libra (Sept 23-Oct 22) Spinach and tortellini

Scorpio (Oct 23-Nov 21) French onion

Sagittarius (Nov 22-Dec 21)

Butternut squash

Olivia Eldredge | Editor-in-chief

What does it truly feel like to be incomprehensibly alone? Is anyone ever really alone? Searching for meaning and nav igating this life alongside other people certainly comes with challenges. Music has always been a fantastic aid in the cir cumnavigation of humanity, and artists like singer-songwriter Natalie Mering use the art of song to convey loneliness as a collective state, as one of her newest songs “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody” suggests. On Nov. 18, Mering, also known as Weyes Blood, released her fifth album titled “And in the Dark ness, Hearts Aglow,” a follow-up to her 2019 record “Titanic Rising.” In this new album, Mering is deeply personal and ex plores love, connection amidst the chaos of the world and loneliness in a widening sea of equally lonely people. For those searching for music with elegantly orchestrated instru mentals and beautiful lyricism, “And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow” provides listeners with a roughly 46-minute medita tive journey. Using gentle rhythms, various forlorn tonal tran sitions, alto harmonies and plenty of soft guitar strings, this re cord uses experimental instrumentals that combine rock and classical music to create melodically organized chamber-ba roque pop. Mering’s overall sound is also similar to ‘70s fusion genres and psychedelic rock; fans of Simon & Garfunkel, the Carpenters and Joni Mitchell will find solace in Weyes Blood’s discography. Her music feels familiar as she stays true to the modern era of music.

Her lead single “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody” opens the album with a slow orchestral introduction that backdrops lyr ics describing Mering feeling alone at a party, “Sitting at this party / Wondering if anyone knows me / Really sees who I am / Oh, it’s been so long since I felt really known.” She pon ders how to find purpose and connection in the world with out losing sense of one’s own identity by pretending to be someone they are not, “We’ve all become strangers / Even to ourselves.” Mering comes to the conclusion at the end of the song that “Yes, we all bleed the same way” — everyone feels the same, as everyone is floating through an expanding and unknown universe together. Later on the album, Mering creates a sense of clarity, growth and change, attributing this to her own personal development after emerging from a state of darkness to light — hence her heart becoming aglow as the album’s namesake conveys. Ultimately, Mering uses this album to explore multiple aspects of the human condition — love, conflict, birth, death and even morality. After streaming “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody” from beginning to end, listeners will emerge with a new perspective on life and the meaning of loneliness, as Mering reminds us all in her last track “A Given Thing” that love is everywhere, “Oh, it’s a given thing /

everlasting.”

Cover of Weyes Blood’s new album, “And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow.”

MON. 5

Free Flu Shot Clinic

11 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Classroom Building room 160, appointments are encouraged, drop-ins available. Call 360-5469238 to schedule.

Wrap Up for the Holidays: DIY Gift Making

12:30 - 2:30 p.m

Firstenburg Student Commons, Room 105

Snowshoeing Day Hike

8 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Sign up at the Rec Office, located in the Annex, to participate. For more information, contact van.osirec@ wsu.edu or 360-546-9532.

Re-Imagined Radio, “A Radio Christmas Sampler Vol. II”

1 - 2 p.m. Listen on KXRW-FM and KXRY-FM

Re-Imagined Radio, “A Radio Christmas Carol”

7 - 9 p.m.

Kiggins Theatre, 1011 Main Street, Vancouver, WA 98660

For more information: https://www. vancouver.wsu.edu/event/re-imagined-radio-radio-christmas-carol

Christmas Day First Day of Spring Semester

Winter break: Dec. 19 - Jan. 6