04.28.2017

TRINITONIAN THE GRADUATION ISSUE

2017 Volume 114 Issue 26

April 26

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017

Photo of the week

• NEWS

Staff editor-in-chief: Julia Elmore managing editor: Alexandra Uri business manager: Shivali Kansagra ad directors: Lauren Harris & Christina Moore news editor: Jeffery Sullivan campus pulse editor: Emily Elliott arts & entertainment editor: Dylan Wagner sports editor: Markham Sigler opinion editor: Julia Poage photo editor: Miguel Webber graphic editor: Tyler Herron layout editor: Katie Groke web editor: Alexander Motter circulation director: Maddie Kennedy

reporters: Kathleen Creedon, Daniel Conrad, Shelby Devore, Elise Hester, Kaylie King, Haley McFadden, Philip McKeon, Claire Nakayama, Elizabeth Sanchez, Julia Weis columnists: Alejandro Cardona, Mia Garza, Sarah Haley, Joy Lazarus, Gabriel Levine, Michael Miller, Alexander Perkowski, Jacob Rossitter, Callum Squires, Nabeeha Virani copy editors: Soleil Gaffner, Nicholas Smetzer, Emlynn Smith cartoonist: Michael Miller photographers: Noah Davidson, Claudia Garcia, Henry Pratt, Osvaldo Veloz business staff: Sarah McIntyre & Krushi Patel advertising staff: Aroosi Ajani, Melissa Chura, Rebecca Derby, Isla Stewart adviser: Katharine Martin

BRIEFS TUPD 04/24/2017 6:54 p.m.

Location: Verna McLean Residence Hall Offenses Against the Person: Assault Compiled by Jeffery Sullivan

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Senior LISA SOUTHWICK serves the ball during one of her doubleheader matches last weekend. photo by OSVALDO VELOZ

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NEWS • APRIL 28, 2017 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

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Pet hall to close $5 after one year CHEESEBURGER The discontinuation comes amid mixed reviews of the successes and failures of the trial period

BY MONTY McKEON

SPECIAL

NEWS REPORTER

Trinity’s Pet Hall project is discontinuing at the end of this semester. Wanda Olson, associate director of Residential Life, considers the Pet Hall program a success, despite its discontinuation.

“I would consider the existence of the pet hall in South [Hall] this past year a success,” Olson said. “As a pilot program, the numbers of students participating were small. That helped our office monitor and assess the program during its first year. We received positive feedback from students. They enjoyed it and felt comforted by having their family pet with them on campus,” Despite this success, students like Morgan Block, a sophomore currently living in the hall, expressed complaints.

“There’s so many problems with South in general, and I guess in their minds they figured it’s not the best dorm, so let’s put pets in here so that they can’t mess it up,” Block said. “I feel like they weren’t thinking about the pets in that way. My cat ended up getting sick in South. These are domesticated animals required to weigh under 30 pounds, so the immune system of an animal is significantly less strong,” Block’s cat suffered from acute kidney failure, possibly due to toxins in his dorm room environment.

“My cat got sick one day last semester, and the vet didn’t know what was wrong, but I took him home for the break and he got better and was fine. I brought him back this semester and in February he started losing a lot of weight and stopped eating. After two days of me trying to get him to eat, I took him to the vet and he was hospitalized immediately.

They ran a bunch of tests and determined that he had kidney failure. So they said that they were going to treat him, and if he responded,

that meant that it was acute and caused by something in the environment. So he does respond, and they determined that it was acute and after running through a bunch of different factors that could have caused it seemed that most likely it was the mold present in the room. It was the environment, and that’s concerning to me,” Block said.

Block believes her cat’s health problems were a direct result of the conditions of living in South.

“My room leaks. The windows themselves leak, and everytime it rains water comes in. I assumed that after such a rigorous process to get into the pet hall, they would provide an environment safe for animals. The windowsills are legitimately rusted through and you can see the mold in the rust, and the carpet smells from all the water. Cats lick things, and when those toxins build up in their immune systems it can make them sick,” Block said.

First year Christian Correll had expressed interest in living in the pet hall but has since decided against it.

“I was really interested in living there as a sophomore, but after hearing all of this I think maybe it’s for the best. I think I’ll hold out till I’m a junior and wait for City Vista,” Correll said.

The pet hall is being discontinued not for the challenges associated with running it, but because other campus changes prevent its future growth.

“There were faculty and staff that had concerns for the well-being of the pets, and that was a challenge, but this year with the acquisition of City Vista, we felt that we couldn’t devote adequate time to grow the Pet Hall program.​The hall will return to business as usual, though single rooms in South Hall were offered for the fall. Unfortunately, those who lived in the pet hall this year will not be able to keep their pets on campus,” Olson said.

MEGAN BLOCK’s cat JASPER became sick while living in one of the pet hall rooms. photo by MORGAN BLOCK

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NEWS

SGA schedules crucial USO budget meeting

Lack of quorum leads to impeachment plans, student-led petitions, new safety mechanism

BY JEFFREY SULLIVAN

NEWS EDITOR

The Student Government Association (SGA) approved the spirit of Greek Council’s budget after President Nick Santulli vetoed the Senate’s decision to deny last week. No other business was conducted during three scheduled meetings due to an unexpected lack of senatorial quorum.

All University Student Organization’s (USO) budgets were left unconsidered as a result of the absences. A final SGA meeting was scheduled at end of Monday’s meetings for 3:30 p.m. on Friday, April 25 in the Waxahachie room.

SGA requires eight voting senators in order to achieve a meeting’s quorum, and seven out of the 14 were absent — three with excused absences. Several minutes into the first of Monday’s SGA meetings, after it was apparent that quorum was not met, the cabinet broke normal discussion to read aloud an email they received from a group named the “Tiger Four.”

The senators in the group insinuated that they would not attend the meeting due to academic constraints and a commitment to representing the entire student body. The Trinitonian reached out to SGA representatives for the email and were unable to obtain it.

“Senator Alex Perkowski, senator Manfred Wendt, senator Juan Levanos and senator Travis Fulkerson were clearly involved with this and discussed not showing up beforehand,” said first-year senator Ty Tinker. “What these senators have done is unmistakably collusive and is a poor decision on their part. It’s

SGA’s cabinet deliberates with senators in a room filled with Greek life members photo by Osvaldo Veloz

disappointing.”

Approximately 60 fraternity and sorority members, wearing their respective jerseys, sat in rows around SGA’s table as they discussed how to proceed with the USO budget deliberations before the ostensible last meeting of the semester ended without a decision.

The cabinet and senators nervously noted the potential externalities of ending the year without SGA having doled out any of their share of the student involvement fee to USOs. “After the email was read there was deliberation over how voting was going to occur because voting could not occur without a quorum,” said junior communication major Madison Sawyer, who attended Monday’s first meeting. “[The Tiger Four] weren’t going to come so that they could represent the ‘other’ 75 percent of campus. The senators brought up the fact that if [the Tiger Four] weren’t going to take their positions seriously and be there for the rest of campus should they really be senators? At the end of the first SGA meeting they had decided that impeachment would be the best option in order to properly address all campus organizations and budgets that need to be covered for this year.”

SGA scheduled two more meetings for the same night. One occurred behind closed doors

and the other allowed public attendance at 7:30 p.m. If senators are absent from three SGA meetings without valid excuses they are subject to impeachment by the association.

No senator absent from the first meeting attended the second or third.

“The three-meeting plan was definitely something that was conceived in the moment,” said Nick Santulli, SGA president.

“I don’t think we expected to be so surprised.

I think in the aftermath of that everyone was trying hard to adapt and to adapt quickly. I think the three-meeting plan was a creative but ultimately short-sighted vision for getting the funding approved. The idea was that if we impeach those senators they wouldn’t be factored into quorum and then we could approve the funding then and there.”

The cabinet and senators did not move to impeach during the third meeting.

Instead, they scheduled the Friday meeting and established a safety mechanism for automatically approving the budgets of all the USOs if SGA is unable to establish a quorum in the final meeting. The safety mechanism has no basis on the SGA constitution.

“In my opinion, it’s unlikely, if not nearly impossible, that it will actually happen,” said Joseph Khalaf, SGA vice president. “We have

all information leading to believe that there will be quorum on Friday, and even if that doesn’t happen we’re working on solutions, like electronic voting, that don’t require quorum.

These have been used in the past. Our main priority at this point is getting funding to USOs before the end of the semester.”

Despite the low possibility of being deployed, the safety mechanism would have noticeable effects on future funding requests.

“In terms of financial position it would not be good,” Khalaf said. “Obviously we might be overfunding USOs. Based on rough calculations that would leave $0 for registered student organizations.”

While senators refrained from advancing on their three-meeting impeachment plan, another impeachment route is circulating amongst Greek life members. 250 students have signed a petition to begin impeachment process for senators Luevanos, Fulkerson and Wendt. Alex Perkowski is also indicated on the petition, but resigned from SGA this week.

“Removal from SGA office is a two-step process,” Khalaf wrote. “The first step of this process may be substituted by the submission of a petition signed by 250 students. After the petition is completed, the senate automatically has to vote on the removal of the officeholder.

To be removed, a two-thirds vote of the senate is still required.”

Throughout this week cabinet members and senators have sought to assure the campus that SGA will achieve quorum on Friday. It is SGA’s last opportunity to deliberate on USO budgets.

“With a little bit of discussion, we realized we need to vote on the USO funding,” Tinker said.

“It’s the last day of the semester and so that will happen. USO funding for all USOs, including Greek Council, will be voted on for sure.”

SGA meetings are open to the public.

Students are encouraged to attend.

NEWS • APRIL 28, 2017 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

Inquiry into Phi Sigma Chi yields two violations Greek Council works with organization to remedy infractions

BY JEFFREY SULLIVAN

NEWS EDITOR

Phi Sigma Chi was placed under investigation for potential hazing violations in March.

Greek Council handled the inquiry which yielded two violations.

“After our information collection process it was determined that the fraternity was responsible for violation of the orientation calendar policy of fraternity and sorority life and a violation of the anti-hazing agreement for fraternity and sorority life,” said Jeremy Allen, assistant director for fraternity & sorority life. “It doesn’t mean that they were found responsible of hazing, it just means that they were found responsible of violating that agreement. So, two violations for which the organization was found responsible. And then we have kind of the action plan and the next steps that came out of those findings”.

Allen discussed what Greek Council and the organization were doing to remedy the infractions. Action steps have been planned that will hopefully translate to meaningful measures for change.

“The fraternity was responsible for a violation of the orientation calendar policy and a violation of the anti-hazing agreement.”

“So the steps primarily are focused on the orientation process for next year, more alumni involvement, more guaranteed time off for new members, certain events might have to be on campus,” Allen said. “Really just a full review of the orientation events and how they can best be held to communicate values and history and all that to new members. Primarily focused on the orientation activities in the next year. In that process some of those action steps will start as soon as June. others will occur in the fall. Some of them will be implemented in the spring during orientation”.

Allen also emphasized the collaborative nature in which the steps were made. There were talks between Greek Council and Phi Sigma Chi about making lasting alterations.

“I think that this was a collaborative approach that didn’t happen in the past,” Allen said. “This is something we’ve identified as being really important. So as much as we can work with organizations to help identify meaningful next steps and impactful way to make real tangible change, that’s what we want to do as student involvement. It’s going to be much more effective than just handing down imposed sanctions. That’s not really doing members or future members much good if they don’t agree with the approach. I am happy that it felt collaborative. I think the organization would agree.”

THE ‘17-’18 TRINITONIAN

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6 School slow to confirm signs of first years’ unusually low performance

WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017 •

Students struggling CLASS OF 2020 FIRST-YEAR

ACADEMIC STANDINGS

BY DANIEL CONRAD

NEWS REPORTER

Amid rumors of an unusual number of Class of 2020 students at risk of academic probation and dismissal, university officials were unable to fulfill requests for comprehensive data on student performance during their first semesters at Trinity by press time.

According to the university’s website for the latest Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP), nearly one third of first years receive deficient grades: “40 percent of those deficient grades are a [sic] ‘F’” The document, written on December 20 and 21 of 2016, notes that more than six percent of Trinity first years earned a GPA under 2.0 after their first semester. It cites data from the National Survey of Student Engagement: “Trinity scores below our peer and peeraspirant institutions in first-year advising in virtually all survey items.”

“There has been an increase in struggling firstyear students this year,” said John Hermann, associate professor of political science and chairman of the QEP, titled Starting Strong: Intentional Strategies for Improving First-Year Student Success at Trinity University. “I have the exact data, but….” He trailed off, having previously explained that he wasn’t at liberty to share specific information.

“Our goal with the [First Year Experience] was to really make sure that every firstyear student, right away [once] they got on campus, had an intensive writing, reading, and analytical thinking experience,” says Tim

graphic by TYLER HERRON

O’Sullivan, interim associate vice president for academic affairs. “We want to make sure we’re giving students the support to be successful in those classes, and I’m confident that we have been.”

When asked whether the office of institutional research could comment on how many students are in good academic standing as opposed to being on academic probation or facing academic dismissal, Diane Saphire, vice president for information resources and administrative affairs and director of institutional research, directed the Trinitonian to the registrar.

“We don’t have that data, we don’t produce that data,” Saphire said. “We have retention rates, we have graduation rates, we have test scores in the [university data] factbook. … We update that annually.” The registrar did not respond before press time.

As the Trinitonian reported last week, the QEP

is in its development stage. Subcommittees meet regularly to form strategies to accomplish the QEP’s goal of enhancing first years’ performance and acclimation to the workload of higher education.

“When you come to a rigorous academic university like Trinity and you’ve been a very highly successful high school student, … the expectations here — if you’re not prepared and don’t have the strategies — can really be a shock to your system,” said Stacy Davidson, director of academic support and chair of the QEP’s academic support subcommittee. “It’s not that it has anything to do with ability.

It has to do with, ‘What skills do I have to navigate the increased level of difficulty that I’m experiencing? Am I a good manager of my time? Am I a good reader and do I take good notes? Do I know study strategies to help me understand the material?’ That’s where I see students struggle the most.”

NEWS

Davidson was eager to suggest ways for Trinity students to improve their work, whether they’re struggling or want to turn a good job into a great job.

“Advisers are a resource, faculty are resources, the counseling center is a resource — all those things matter,” Davidson said. “I don’t want it to appear that I’m the only person on campus that can help students. There’s a lot of support for students on campus.”

Hermann believes that common teaching methods are in need of readjustment.

“Student success will only go so far because it assumes that the student is the only one — and this is very controversial — that needs to be rehabilitated. But maybe students are learning a little differently,” Hermann said.

“So maybe we need to investigate pedagogical tools that will address these learning changes.

I certainly hope the changes made will make an enduring change for Trinity on how we approach students. Especially I would love it to be a student-centered approach.”

O’Sullivan explains that the QEP will move into its five-year implementation stage once if it is accepted by an accrediting team in February 2018.

“It’s about things like strengthening the workshop that advisers go through, figuring out how we can better fit their needs,” O’Sullivan said. “We’re also looking at the academic support resources part of the QEP, things like ‘How do we strengthen the tutoring programs?’ There’s been discussion of how to make sure that students and faculty are more aware of the many resources that are available on campus, and how we measure that.”

Students looking for advice, academic coaching, tutoring and other forms of aid are encouraged to engage with the Student Success Center, which encompasses counseling services, health services, wellness services, the writing center and other campus services.

NEWS • APRIL 28, 2017 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

7

Endangered spider species inhabit recent Trinity property purchase

The university will focus on preserving the species in future developmental plans

BY KATHLEEN CREEDON

NEWS REPORTER

At the end of last month, Trinity purchased 9.2 acres of land on which there are three karstic features, caves. Known scientifically as Cicurina baronia, the Robber Baron Cave Meshweavers are an endangered species found only in two locations in Bexar county, including the Oblate property.

When Trinity first became interested in purchasing the property, it was covered in hazardous waste. The spiders were first discovered when the previous owners, the Oblate brothers, began to remove the toxic soil from the surface.

“Before the Alamo Dome was built, that was the site of Alamo Iron Works, and when that was demolished, the dirt from that property was moved, and some people ended up buying the dirt or were given the dirt, and that dirt was used on the property to fill it in.

When we were doing environmental looks at it, we asked that the owners scrape it off,” said Sharon Schweitzer, assistant vice president for external relations.

During the excavation of the hazardous waste, three karst features were discovered, although only one contained the endangered spiders. The cave was located where a building once was.

“The previous owners were working with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine if the karst features had been damaged by the hazardous materials in any way or if there was anything we needed to investigate before closing them up. The service approved closing up two of the features since there was no discovery in those. The third one, they put a protective concrete cap on, so the previous owner could monitor the karst feature but secure it,” said Gordon Bohmfalk, the director of campus planning and sustainability.

Once the spiders were discovered, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service created a

From one News Editor to another

biological advising team that will study the area and make recommendations on how to best preserve the species. David Ribble, a professor in the biology department, is part of this advising team.

“They called me because I know as much about the ecology of the hill country as anybody locally. The team gets together and discusses the best ways to preserve and, ideally, not just preserve, but institute things that will improve the chances that the species can do well and get off the endangered species list,” Ribble said.

The caves are made of karst limestone, which has many cracks. The first cave the spiders were found in is the Robber Baron Cave on Nacogdoches Road and runs all the way to the Quarry.

“The spiders live underground their whole lives. There’s no sunlight or anything like that that typically drives photosynthesis; rather, the carbon they get from external sources, and it’s that resource that then serves as the beginning of all these endangered species that live in there. It’s this unique ecosystem that’s beneath us that we don’t fully understand,” Ribble said.

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Not only is the purchase a good opportunity for Trinity to expand physically in the future, but it is also a great opportunity for faculty and students on campus to do research.

“As a biologist, it’s really interesting because, I suspect, a lot of these spiders are living underneath us in these rocks, all around us, but we know so little about it. We can monitor and learn from them in our biology classes. I think by extension there will be spinoff for student involvement,” Ribble said.

Although the purchase and the prospect of study is exciting, the university intends to make best use of this land by carefully deciding how to develop it best. The decision to purchase was a chance for Trinity to take advantage of what is the only undeveloped land of that size in the area.

“It’s a wonderful opportunity for the university to have this property, to have some flexibility in the future, but the university has a number of projects on the campus property that will be addressed long before we do anything with the Oblate property — the renovation of Chapman [Center] and Halsell [Center], those are important projects to the university, and starting to prioritize the elements within the recently completed campus master plan.”

The Oblate property where some of the endangered, and apparently nearly eyeless, spiders reside

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will not negatively affect the species. The university will remain aware of the affects development will have on the spiders when creating plans for the property.

“It all depends on what we want to do with the property, and that’s something we’re not sure of. Whatever we do will be done with the knowledge of where the cave is, keeping our distance,” Bohmfalk said.

The university will keep in mind the effects of different types of waste, runoff and pollution to protect the species as best they can in the future.

“What we need to do, what Trinity needs to do and what Trinity is committed to do is that we don’t do anything on the property that would result in runoff running down into those caves, off the streets, off any parking, things like that,” Ribble said.

Now that the university owns the property, it will monitor the area before any plans are made and will continue to do so afterwards.

“The university is really aware and wants to be sensitive to the environmental, historical and residential contexts of the site. The university wants to be an example of a good steward of its resources and a good steward of the environment, and that extends to endangered species,” Schweitzer said.

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017 •

HEY! I’m the guy behind most of the original graphics and Trinitonian ads you see!

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Changes to transgender policies coming to campus soon Committee organized to revise and expand current transgender policies at Trinity

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NEWS

A committee of Trinity faculty, students and staff have been drafting policies concerning the accommodation of transgender students on campus over the past school year.

The initiatives began last fall at the request of Danny Anderson, president of the university.

The policies cover multiple issues, including housing, athletics, student life, bathroom access, changing records to preferred names and accessibility to resources.

“The committee … is working on a number of things,” said Richard Reams, associate director of Counseling Services and head of the committee. “This includes a clear statement about housing-related policy and procedures. Around athletics . . . participation and access to participation for trans students is well under way, and we’ve developed a comprehensive statement for the university about inclusion for trans students. We’re working on a statement regarding access to bathroom use and we’re in the process of having the single-user restrooms reassigned to indicate all-user restrooms.”

“A lot of schools are developing these policies and it’s something Trinity should be doing” Many of the policies are still works in progress, but the committee hopes that they will be in place by the fall of 2017.

“The idea is that it is sort of rolling in a way,” said Andrew Kania, associate professor of philosophy and committee member. “Some of the other changes just take longer, in terms of if it actually has to become university policy, or if it has to go through levels of the administration. Since it came from the top, I think it will happen as quickly as these things can.”

A few of these policies, such as school records, may require more time than others.

“Some of us will be getting together after graduation to figure out how to change records for chosen names,” Reams said.

“We’ve been really limited in terms of class rosters, for example, by the software system that we use at the university. It’s about to get an upgrade from its provider that is going to permit students to specify their chosen name.

We’re waiting to see what exactly it’s going to look like, but that’s coming.”

Amy Stone, associate professor of sociology and anthropology, is also on the committee to help shape policy. Her experience working with a transgender support group on campus alongside Reams and Counseling Services has allowed her to hear about the issues concerning transgender students firsthand.

“A lot of schools are developing these

policies and it’s something Trinity should be doing,” Stone said. “At the moment, it’s sort of a case-by-case basis, people who know where to go and who to ask for things get those accommodations, but I think it should be more transparent about what the university policies are. This university is pretty accommodating, especially around residential life and whatnot, so it would be really good if students knew that and knew where to find information about it.”

Part of the committee’s plan to make policies more accessible is to set up a web page listing important information for students.

“My ultimate vision is that this summer we develop a web page that is a comprehensive, one-stop location for policy and procedures, restroom locations, educational information, resources and so forth,” Reams said.

Trinity’s decision to include all-user restrooms came before Texas passed a bill requiring all persons to use the bathroom matching the gender on their birth certificates while in public schools or government buildings. However, as a private institution, Trinity does not fall under this bill.

“The bathroom bills are a sex panic,” Stone said. “It’s something that’s only loosely based on an actual problem. Many states and cities and schools have had trans-positive laws about bathrooms for decades and there have been no problems. To have a solid policy, I think, is reassuring for students and it fits more where the actual problems are, which is that, for many trans people, it is hard for them to find bathrooms they can safely use.”

Tim O’Sullivan, interim associate vice president for academic affairs and Trinity’s Title IX coordinator, worked with the committee to ensure that the policies are nondiscriminatory. O’Sullivan clarified what this means for Trinity University after the Trump administration rescinded the Dear Colleague letter of 2016 that included guidelines to accommodate transgender students.

“As I understand it, Title IX in 2015 clarified that discrimination based on gender identity qualified as sex discrimination,” O’Sullivan said. “The only thing that has changed with the ‘Dear Colleague’ letter of 2017 is that the [Office for Civil Rights] issued … was specifically rescinding the Dear Colleague letter of 2016 that specified that all institutions that receive federal funding had to allow students to use bathrooms consistent with their gender identity.”

“So, transgender rights are still recognized

by Title IX, but they’ve pulled back that one piece of it, which is the bathrooms,” O’Sullivan said. “If you think about it, all that means is that they don’t require universities that receive federal funding to provide those bathrooms for students. They don’t say the opposite, which is that you are forbidden to do so, which is why we’re going ahead with this policy.”

The adjustments to Trinity’s transgender policies will be just one example of the inclusiveness the university hopes to foster.

“It’s certainly needed,” Reams said. “To be able to have all of this in place and clear, including for prospective students, is going to be a great step forward.”

...

Opinion

COMMENTARY Have an opinion? Want others to hear it? For a chance to be featured as a guest columnist, please submit your article to trinitonian@trinity.edu by Monday night to be in Thursday’s issue of the paper.

EDITORIAL

Seniors, you don’t belong here anymore Back in August, our first issue welcomed the incoming first years with a simple but important statement: You Belong Here.

Perhaps those first years have stumbled across those three words stenciled onto the sidewalks. Perhaps they have realized that they are true. Perhaps they’re still looking for the reason they belong at Trinity.

Before long, those first years will look up and four years will have come and gone in what felt like the blink of an eye. They will be amazed by how quickly time passed, but also by how much they learned, grew and experienced during their time at Trinity.

Seniors know the feeling. A lot has changed since you arrived back in August 2013. CSI was still under construction. There was no

Freshii. There were writing workshops and first-year seminars, rather than FYEs. Students anonymously posted on Trinity Crushes and Trinity Confessions. The 2016 election was not on anyone’s radar. Friendships developed and fizzled out, soon to be replaced by new ones. Majors were changed, some multiple times. Many people quit the sports that brought them to Trinity in the first place. You developed new interests. You learned what you were good at. You explored opportunities you never even dreamed of. You met some of the most intelligent, thought-provoking and caring professors. You found your passions, your people, your reason for belonging here.

But now, four years older, four years wiser and equipped with the relationships, skills

and knowledge you’ve acquired during your time at Trinity, you no longer belong here. You are ready for new adventures, challenges and opportunities. Thinking about leaving this familiar environment may seem overwhelming and intimidating, but it should also be exciting and hopeful. You’ve done it! You’ve reached the point of knowing and experiencing enough to be ready for more responsibility.

You don’t belong here anymore. You’ve checked all the boxes on your common curriculum list, from science to sports, media to math, classics to computers and beyond.

Outside of the classroom, you’ve held jobs and internships, attended parties, explored San Antonio and learned to cook. You did

what you came to do. You worked hard. You grew up. You had a great time doing it. As hard as it is to think about leaving the place you’ve come to know as home during such a transformative phase in your life, you know that you must move on. You belong in a place where you can take all that your Trinity experience has provided you with and use it to make a positive impact on society. You belong in your dream job. You belong in grad school. You belong wherever your path may lead after you walk across the stage on May 13. Go forth with confidence and an open mind and soon enough, your passions, skills and Trinity education will lead you to where you belong.

Why I resigned from SGA president student government responds to conflict

BY SAMY ABDALLAH

GUEST COLUMNIST

Disclaimer: I was a senator for three years and have recently resigned as of last week. I resigned from SGA as the most experienced senator for personal reasons as well as the debacle that has become the Greek Council vote. I think that President Santulli is a fantastic human being and I am very close friends with him — that’s not going to change because of this article. Regardless, after the events of the SGA meeting that occurred on April 24, I have to give my two cents.

First, to the senators who were intentionally absent to prevent a quorum, I disagree with your method but choose to defend it. As senators, you are allotted three unexcused absences from SGA meetings each semester. So even though there may have been political collusion, if you still had absences to give up, that is fair use.

People are acting as if this is immature and even unheard of. Realistically though, this happens all of the time in the realm of U.S. politics. In 2008, Democrats in Wisconsin refrained from attending a vote on the state budget, postponing the vote because quorum was not met. They received a lot of flak from the opposing side, but they also received praise from their constituents for making a symbolic statement. This is precisely what happened at the SGA meeting on Monday.

These senators exercised their right to miss meeting, which caused quorum to not be met, and they arguably made a powerful statement.

Even though I may not have done the same, your actions are valid and effective. You stood up for what you believed in, albeit in your own symbolic and slightly annoying way.

Now I want to address President Santulli.

When I served under you, I saw great and commanding leadership in you. A president who pushed for excellence. I still believe that, but after this meeting, I see some troubling grabs at power.

First, yes, even though it is annoying that four senators willfully did not show up at meeting, there is no need to adjourn and start three different meetings so that they would have three unexcused absences, leaving them vulnerable for impeachment on those grounds. That, I believe, is a gross misuse of power. Moreover, it is just petty. You are essentially punishing senators for standing by their convictions and for making a statement that is symbolic rather than overt speech. Why have you taken this issue to heart?

Has it been the barrage of emails from the vocal minority? Are you going to be the champion of Greek Council because of a slight conflict of interest that your significant other is one of the

Greek Council co-chairs, or because you honestly believe the voices of the majority were wrong?

Another issue with this meeting is in regards to your procedural use of your veto. The use of a retroactive veto is concerning. Veto power may not be outlined in the Constitution, but the precedent you set by retroactively vetoing a vote that passed with a majority will haunt SGA. The administration now seems like it lacks a stance, and will flip-flop whenever there is mounting external (or internal) pressure. All subsequent votes will not carry the same weight that they had before. There will always be the lingering fear of “what if President Santulli just vetoes this at next meeting? Two meetings from now? In a month?”

The action of voting has lost some of its integrity and purpose.

The actual content of your campus-wide email regarding the veto also takes away power from the people. You said, “I invoked my power to veto and overturned the Senate’s denial of the concept of Greek Council’s 2017 funding proposal. By default, the concept of the budget was approved.”

That is not the case. The vote was vetoed, but it does not automatically switch. If a student put forth a funding request for a new laptop and the spirit was denied by the senate, a veto by the SGA president does not mean that the spirit automatically reverses and the student gets his new laptop. President Santulli, you are taking the power away from the voting body that is the senate, and it is frankly appalling. This logic is frightening. What if the opposite was the case?

Say a USO’s concept was approved by the senate then vetoed by President (or tyrant?) Santulli. By his logic, that USO would get zero funding as an operating budget whatsoever. No USO should feel safe now.

Finally, I am disheartened by SGA and my fellow classmates. It is sad that it took an issue about funding Greek Council, a body that oversees only 25 percent of the student body, to garner the attention that should always follow SGA. The student body should pay attention to SGA, look into the initiatives of their senators and push for excellence within SGA because that is what they deserve. On the flip side, SGA can only do so much if the student body is apathetic.

We, or should I say they, cannot help you if you do not become active participants as well. So, in closing, to SGA, its senators, president and vice president and cabinet: you need to do better. To the student body: you need to try harder.

Samy Abdallah is a junior history major with a minor in African American studies.

BY NICK SANTULLI

GUEST COLUMNIST

The Senate meeting on Monday was a major disappointment — I think everyone on this campus can agree with that. On behalf of Student Government Association, I would like to apologize for the humiliating display and absence of productive funding decisions. However, despite these undeniable mishaps, I left the Waxahachie room feeling cautiously optimistic, thanks to the resilience displayed by the senators and cabinet officers in attendance. These individuals were posed an unprecedented challenge, but they joined together to forge a clear path forward through brainstorming, deliberation and compromise.

I think the actions we took as a senate deserve defense, so I would like to take this opportunity to address the student body in response to questions and concerns that were raised.

To begin, some senators were legitimately

These individuals were posed an unprecedented challenge, but they joined together to forge a clear path forward through brainstorming, deliberation and compromise. concerned that the choice of the Tiger Four to collectively skip meeting could have far-reaching ramifications. Because we were unable to achieve quorum, the senate could not conduct official business at a time when it was scheduled to vote on funding for every USO. Since the Tiger Four valued blocking the potential Greek Council re-vote over every other request, funding for many other groups was placed at risk, including SPB, TDC and TUVAC. Moreover, the Tiger Four declined to notify the cabinet in advance, denying us the opportunity to develop a contingency plan.

Next, there was the “impeachment by absence” plan, a well-intentioned but ultimately short-

sighted proposal that the senate declined to actually execute. This plan was designed to attain quorum under extraordinary circumstances. It called for the senate to impeach the Tiger Four through our attendance policy, which restricts officeholders to three unexcused absences. As noted in our constitution, as president, I am able to call and dismiss meetings. The proposal sought for me to schedule three meetings in the same night and, when none of the Four showed, for the senate to move towards impeachment. However, after deliberation, the senate and the cabinet recognized it was a hastily-drafted proposal that did not represent our values. This plan never came to fruition. Later, we discovered that a group of students created a petition to impeach the suspected Tiger Four Senators. As of Tuesday evening, it had already surpassed the threshold that constitutionally mandates SGA to hold impeachment proceedings. If any senators are impeached, it will be a result of a student-created petition, not the “impeachment by absence” plan.

Third, my decision to invoke the veto has been a concern for some students. Here’s the context: at meeting, it was obvious that the Greek Council issue would not be resolved. Rather than allowing a minority of members to halt funding for Greek Council with less than a week left in the school year, I found it in the best interest of the senators, Greek Council and student body for the proposal’s concept to be approved, so that the senate could decide how to fund the organization. I sought to make this process as fair as possible to all parties involved. During the meeting, there was a question raised about the veto automatically negating the denial, and Chief of Staff Maria Protić asked all cabinet members and advisors to provide informal testimony. All but one confirmed that during an earlier cabinet and advisor meeting, the veto of a denied concept was agreed to result in an approval.

It was interpreted in this manner to avoid the proposal being caught in a “limbo,” where it would be neither approved nor denied.

I hope this column provides context for Monday’s events. While the last few weeks have been fastpaced and difficult, we are nearing the elusive end of this deliberative process. On Friday, the senate will vote on USO funding and announce decisions shortly thereafter. Thanks to the student body for your continued support, understanding and engagement and to the Trinitonian for allowing me to share my perspective with the student body.

Good luck to everyone with final exams, papers and other business — let’s finish strong.

Nick Santulli is a junior political science and economics double major.

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017 •

OPINION

Exploring the mechanisms of the mind

The last vivid memory I have is from 10 months ago, last summer, when I was doing an internship in Boston. Everything since then, an GABRIEL LEVINE entire school year, OPINION COLUMNIST feels comparatively muted, muffled and grey. This isn’t due to some undiagnosed neurological condition. It’s because last summer was the last time I wasn’t procrastinating on something. Since then, for 10 months, there’s always been some assignment or obligation that I’ve been putting off, and that knowledge has left a fog over nearly a year of memories.

I doubt that my experience is unique, and I think it can be reasonably generalized to the student body at large. Over six semesters it’s been far more common for me to see students working at night than during the day and to see students cramming for tests instead of preparing steadily in advance. I suspect that most office hours are unattended until the day before major assignments are due and that most optional problem sets remain unstarted.

For a minority of students, this state of affairs

is a result of a legitimate overload of work and responsibilities, but I think that most students, including myself, simply have no excuse beyond poor work habits and procrastination.

It’s bizarre that this is the case. We don’t deliberately spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and take on tens of thousands in debt so that we can waste time during the day and then deprive ourselves of sleep to catch up at night.

None of this is to say I haven’t, and that other Trinity students don’t, learn a great deal in spite of poor study habits, but it does suggest that we’re not making the most of our time and we know it.

It’s important, then, to ask why. Why do we behave in ways that we know are not in our best interests? To answer this question, consider that one point of a liberal arts education is to nurture the spirit of rational thought and the other is to facilitate personal growth and to better understand oneself after four years. To achieve the latter and answer the initial question, I think that it’s necessary to turn the former inward, to rationally examine one’s own mind and attempt to divine how it functions.

This approach has a parallel in chemistry.

Chemists make a big deal of understanding the mechanisms by which reactions proceed, the stepby-step changes in the positions and interactions of atoms as molecular identities change. With an

understanding of a reaction mechanism, chemists can better optimize the desired chemical reaction and better predict how different reactions with different starting materials will proceed.

I’ve found applying this mechanistic approach to understanding my own thought processes to be useful. It’s calming and fascinating to sit back and try to understand exactly what logical pathways my brain follows when I’m procrastinating or engaging in a bad habit. For example, I discovered that when confronted with a large project, my brain warps my perception of time such that wasting half an hour on Twitter seems inconsequential by comparison with the perceived mountainous length of the assignment. As another example, I’ve observed how my mind justifies habits like nail-biting in terms of the immediate physical satisfaction while ignoring the known negative consequences.

It’s unlikely that these revelations are new to the world of psychological and neurological research but there is something to be said for discovering these mental mechanisms individually and not through a TED talk. It’s about the process of interrogation and detached analysis of the self, in the same way that solving a problem from personal knowledge is better than adapting a similar answer from the textbook because it requires full internal understanding.

In the process of navigating my brain and

recognizing inconsistencies and hypocrisies in the context of procrastination, I came to recognize the strange, qualitative feeling of my brain’s irrational mechanisms that operate independent of conscious reasoning. I then noticed that feeling elsewhere, such as in a quickness to moral indignation in political debates or in a readiness to judge others.

This sudden awareness became a new habit, a good habit of catching myself in the act of bad patterns of thinking. Not only is this habit good, it is liberating and euphoric, like shaking off an uncomfortable sleep and waking up to a bright new day.

This new self-awareness hasn’t been an immediate cure for procrastination or any other bad habits. I’m still writing this article two days late.

However, it has helped and it feels like the start of a continuing self-investigation and mindfulness that will be worth exploring over the months of summer. This self-exploration can, I think, lead to a refinement of thought such that the next academic year will be vivid and unshrouded by excessive procrastination and irrational thinking.

I’d encourage everyone to start the difficult process of mental self-examination. You won’t be disappointed where it takes you.

Gabriel Levine is a junior chemistry major.

Arts & E In today’s world, “arts” and “entertainment” are separate entities. The Trinitonian is a college newspaper and we allow the two to share a section, but even here MARKHAM SIGLER there is a difference GUEST COLUMNIST drawn.

I definitely haven’t drawn this distinction in the past — if you’re not an “artist” or an “entertainer,” chances are you either don’t care, or you’re not sharp enough to notice (me). A friend pointed the difference out to me the other day, and it struck me as unimportant. But I thought about it later and it made more sense.

If you play your schedule right and major in the liberal arts, second semester senior year can be a relatively thought-free time.

I wondered if this is a distinction that’s always been present in leisure-heavy societies. Most (first-world) countries today, with sophisticated media outlets like CNN and Fox News, are probably forced to make a practical division between “art” and “entertainment” at some point, even if they don’t want to — capitalistic expansion is built into the global economy. For the countries that don’t distinguish the concepts in their media, they’ll at least have two words distinguishing the two concepts.

Big questions: Is this distinction something born recently, perhaps sometime during the 20th century?

Or, has it been around for a decent while? Clearly, nowadays they are different things. In addition to the aforementioned conceptions of “Entertainment” the Trinitonian pushed this year, you could make the argument the Marvel movies, the latest Dude Perfect video on YouTube and “Family Guy” should be considered “Entertainment” and not “Arts.” Some people call these productions by another strange, if not somewhat pretentious, name that gets tossed around every so often: low art.

Looking into the past even briefly, “entertainment” as a separate production seems to be not all that new.

You could consider the Roman gladiators a form of entertainment, although entertainers today are millionaires, not slaves or prisoners (unless you are a cynic).

The Chinese often partook in drunk poetry/ song-writing contests during pre-medieval times — probably not something you’d consider “art” in the conventional sense, especially when you realize most of the content detailed either the splendor of eternal drunkenness or the shameless fantasies of elite males who envisioned the entire female gender as vessels that existed solely for their exploitation. continued on PAGE 24

OPINION • APRIL 28, 2017 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

Thank How to stay irreligious you, seniors

BY ALEXANDER JACOBS

GUEST COLUMNIST

This time last year I was asked to say a few parting w o r d s for the graduating ALEXANDRA URI Trinitonian GUEST COLUMNIST seniors. At that point, I had only been working as a section editor for about five weeks, and I felt like I barely knew any of these people.

I’m pretty sure I wrote something like, “Good luck in the real world.” That was it, just one short sentence.

This year I’m still at a loss for words for our graduating seniors, but it’s not because I don’t know any of them. It’s because I don’t have the words to express all that they’ve contributed to the Trinitonian, to campus and to so many individual’s lives.

Thank you, seniors. Thank you for countless hours in the newsroom listening to horrible music and eating way too much junk food. Thank for letting me create a Spotify playlist to drive all of us into insanity. Thank you for making the long nights bearable with jokes, stories and some really bad dancing. Thank you for tolerating my really weird obsession with Old Gregg.

Thank you for even encouraging the obsession with a poem about Old Gregg.

Thank you for being a shoulder to cry on when things got tough.

Thank you for listening to endless rants about how the world really isn’t fair. Thank you for always being able to put aside differences when it really matters. Thank you for becoming more than just coworkers and becoming our friends.

Thank you for all of the sacrifices you’ve made for the newspaper.

Thank you for covering the hard stories. Thank you for raising difficult questions and starting awkward conversations. Thank you for staying up later than any sane person should in order to get the job done. Thank you for understanding that certain people had to stay even later.

Thank you for supporting almost every ridiculous idea that we’ve had this semester. Thank you for having more than your fair share of ridiculous ideas this year. Thank you for encouraging us to always push ourselves as individuals and as a team.

There are a million other things we could thank you for seniors; more things than we could ever fit into 32 pages. Best of luck out there and know that we, the younger folks, will never forget you.

Alexandra Uri is a junior political science major with a minor in philosophy.

I spent many years doubting Christianity. I thought that human beings are nothing but a bunch of cells and that there is no specific purpose in life. So when I found out that there was evidence that God existed, and more specifically, that he came to this earth when our calendar was set to 0 A.D., I was quite shocked and actually relieved. It means we really do have intrinsic value and that we really will survive our bodily deaths.

So if your goal is to stay atheist or to not become a Christian, I have some advice for you. Here is how you don’t fall into the trap I did.

1. Do not look at the evidence for the existence of God. This one is crucial. In order for Christianity to be true, God would have to exist. So whatever you do, do not do research on the cosmological argument or the argument from design or anything like that.

Because it may be enough to make you change your mind about there being a creator of the universe, and we wouldn’t want that to happen would we?

2. Do not, do not, do not look at the historical evidence for the resurrection of Christ. If you do this with an open mind, I guarantee you, this one will get you. The evidence for the resurrection is so strong, and so mind-blowingly stubborn, that this one has taken many people into the cult. For example, there was a movie recently released about the atheist turned Christian, Lee Strobel, who couldn’t disprove the resurrection so he decided to become a Christian. This one will get you, so don’t go near it.

3. Stay away from neardeath experiences (NDE).

NDEs basically prove that our consciousness continues after death. For example, studies have shown that the majority of blind people who have NDEs can recall what was happening

around them as well as reference relative coloring (the nurse’s hair was the same color as the wall, etc.). There are many accounts of people accurately describing things in places where their body isn’t (conversations in the waiting room, descriptions of a random shoe on a window sill three stories above the hospital bed). This one simply leaves no room for naturalistic explanation, so keep your distance.

4. Do not read the Gospels. The New Testament is so well-written.

If you read the Gospels with an open mind, you just might have yourself thinking, “This obviously isn’t fiction!” The person of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospel of John is so alluring and loving, that you need to stay away or at least make up your mind before you encounter him in these grecoroman biographies.

5. Do not meet a nice Christian.

Christians can actually, surprisingly, be nice people. Before I came to belief,

11

I deliberately painted Christians as intolerant jerks who wanted to brainwash me. So when I actually met some who were some of the nicest people I have ever met, I became uneasy. Do not fall into this trap.

6. Do not study the evidence for miracles. Do not look at eucharistic miracles, do not look at the miracle at Fatima, etc.

Some of these are so obviously supernatural that you will be believing in no time if you study them. So don’t.

7. Do not challenge your beliefs.

In summary, whatever your beliefs are, God forbid Catholic Christianity, refuse to have your beliefs challenged. Bury your head in the sand and be apathetic to the evidence for God and the historical case for Jesus. If you can manage to do this, you’ll be in the clear.

Alexander Jacobs is an undeclared first year.

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017 •

OPINION

Go get ‘em, Tigers: advice from alums

BY AARON DELWICHE

You’ve got this.

I would like to use my final column to speak directly to Trinity’s graduating seniors.

It makes sense that many of you are feeling a bit anxious.

For the past four years, you have traveled a pathway marked by clear signposts and deadlines. Professors, coaches, work-study supervisors, bosses and parents have told you where to be, what to do and when to do it. Attend class. Study for the test. Collect the data. Present your findings. Pitch the business. Debug the app. Practice for the game. Prep for the debate tournament.

Rehearse for the big show. Read. Write.

Revise. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Deadlines and grades are stressful, but the prospect of these signposts disappearing is terrifying in its own way.

You don’t know exactly how your life will change. All you know for sure is that things will be much different.

This fear of the unknown is compounded by a panicked script which

goes something like this: “What if I don’t get a job right away?

What if I don’t get accepted to graduate school? What if the economy tanks again? Where will I live? Will I be on the street? How does this adulting thing work? Am I really supposed to pay first month’s rent and last month’s rent? Do I need health insurance? Do I get some sort of coverage from my parents’ plan through Obamacare — Um, is that still a thing? Aaaaaaaaagh.”

Take a deep breath. Relax. You are going to be OK. You don’t need to take my word for it.

Through the magic of Facebook (a.k.a. “social media for the olds”), I asked Trinity alumni to share their advice for young people on the brink of graduation.

This is what they told me.

1. Give yourself a break.

“Try not to get too hung up on the opportunities that other people are getting,” said Lyndsey Aguilar, class of 2012. “You may not have a job or school program lined up, and others might. You may feel antsy, inferior or discouraged, but you are YOU and that’s OK. There is

This is probably going to be a bit of a cliche, but I really don’t know how else CALLUM SQUIRES to go about OPINION COLUMNIST w r i t i n g my last Trinitonian column as a student opinion columnist. Please excuse this obvious self-indulgence, but know that every single word I wrote here is from the heart.

I wrote my first article on January 29, 2014. I actually trawled back through my sent emails to find it and re-read it before I began to write this.

It was called “A Love Letter to Texas.”

It’s funny to me because so much has changed in my life in the three and a bit years that have passed, yet some things remain the same. I still don’t understand the Texan (and American) gun obsession, why you guys spell words like “authorise” with a “Z” rather than an “S” and why everyone

here seems to be afraid of cold weather.

But Trinity has been, and will always be, a second home for me. So please excuse me as I thank those who have made this time so special for me.

Thank you to Lydia Duncombe and K-Mart, without whom I wouldn’t ever have started writing for the Trinitonian and I definitely wouldn’t still be doing so today. Thank you also to Rachel, Alicia, Faith, Luke and all the other wonderful editors and staff who’ve put up with me. Apologies to every copy editor who’ve had to read my ramblings and try to understand them. My word choice, cadence and grammar is apparently very different at times to the writers who were schooled in America. Thanks to everyone who told me, “I read your column in your accent.” Trust me, I was just flattered that anyone was willing to read what I wrote. And thank you to whoever is reading this right now. There really aren’t that many hours in the day. I appreciate you spending some of your time on my words.

Thank you to the entire Trinity soccer program. From Coach McGinlay, to

FACULTY CONTRIBUTOR

not one cookie-cutter path for everyone to take.”

Carlos Anchondo from the class of 2014 echoes this sentiment. “Try not to measure yourself against your fellow Trinity graduates,” he advised. “Be happy for their successes and confident in the degree that you’ve earned.”

“Take it easy on yourself,” said Lauren Madrid, class of 2005. “Remember that no one thing defines you — not your job, degree, hobbies, where you live ... None of these things defines who you are.”

Elizabeth Story, class of 2004, reminded you to catch your breath. “I always think back to that time between graduation and my first job wishing I had a longer break,” she wrote. “I’ve been working ever since. Gross. That would have been a great time to pause, reflect and get ready for the transition.”

2. Open yourself up to an unpredictable future, even if you make mistakes along the way.

Even if the future is scary, keep an open mind. “Be open to opportunities and don’t be so restrictive in your job search,” said Cameron Meyer, class of

2009. “Go out and see the world,” said Kellie Benn, class of 2012. “Don’t get stuck in one corner of it. There’s so much out there if you just open yourself up to the possibilities … Things have a way of working out.”

Wendy Rigby, class of 1983, a bioscience and medicine reporter for Texas Public Radio, noted that “Jobs you never dream of will open opportunities you never imagined.” This is a good thing, because “... each experience weaves together into a tapestry of knowledge that will serve you for the rest of your life.”

“Don’t worry about making mistakes,” said Amy McGee, class of 1992. “If you don’t make mistakes, you are playing life too safely.”

3. You are ready to do this.

Elizabeth Story, class of 2004, reminded you that Trinity sets you up for success.

“You’ve got the theory and the technical practice in your arsenal. You have peers, faculty and alumni to lean on for support and networking. You’re young and you’re hungry, and that counts. The world is your oyster. Go for it.”

Believe in yourself and recognize your

talents, but don’t get a swelled head. Be humble. As McGee pointed out, “You’ve been told up until now how special you are,” but, “the people in the workforce will not treat you differently than anyone else and it’s a bit of a shock.””

“You’ve learned a lot at Trinity that your peers who went elsewhere (and will compete against you for jobs and promotions) did not have the opportunity to learn… Trinity gave you superpowers of which you are not yet aware. But they will come through soon enough and you will be rewarded,” said Daren Brabham, class of 2004.

So, when you walk across the stage in Laurie Auditorium in two weeks, remember that you are not the first — and certainly not the last — Trinity graduate terrified of what lies ahead. You will, though, have an army of maroonclad supporters cheering you on and picking you up. You can do this.

Aaron Delwiche is a professor of communication.

Thank you to faculty, staff and peers Coach Cartee and never forgetting the incredibly influential Coach C.H. Farmer, along with every single teammate I’ve had, you’ve all made my dreams come true. I was never supposed to play collegiate soccer. I was just some kid from London who wanted to play the game I love. The professionalism in this program is quite incredible. This extends to the whole athletic department as well.

From AD Bob King, to Josh, Justin, Stacey, Bri, Aly — for all her work with SAAC — and the legend that is James Hill. Thank you all. I love Trinity Athletics and will always be proud to have represented you.

Thank you to every professor I’ve had at Trinity. I can genuinely say I don’t think I’ve had a bad semester my entire time here and the professors are a large part of that. I don’t wish to single anyone out, but I’d be amiss if I didn’t at least refer to a few by name: Dr. Swope, Dr. Sullivan, Dr. Morais and last but not least Dr. Tingle. I owe you all a debt of gratitude. And I dare not forget Dr. Burr who somehow got me through Statistics for Management

and Economics with a C. He truly is a modern hero.

Thank you to the entire Admissions department, led by Eric Maloof, for welcoming me into the office as both a colleague, an intern and a friend.

I’ve loved every minute working with you. Melissa Flowers, Wanda Olson and Residential Life were amazing to me throughout my junior year as a resident mentor and have continued to keep me in their family to this day.

Thank you for the opportunity to have an incredible hall.

My Witt-Winn First Squad from last year, you guys were a dream to work with. You’re all gems, each and every one of you. My first-year hallmates, especially Davis my roommate, and my RM Nick helped me settle here with ease. For that, I will always be grateful. To my senior housemates, thanks for putting up with me, and sorry that I don’t crack eggs like you want me to. To everyone I’ve been able to get to know, through classes, parties or just bumping into you around campus, thank you. These have been the best four years of my life.

And lastly, President Danny Anderson, Jeremy Allen, Dean Tuttle, Rachel Boaz, Kindel Hollis and Seth Asbury. I can’t thank you enough for your words at the Student Leadership Awards last month. They meant more to me than I can fully explain.

I could’ve written another 250 names, but I know for a fact you’ve all got better things to do than read a two-page long list. Thank you to my parents for allowing me to have this wonderful opportunity. To everyone I’ve had the pleasure of meeting here, whether we spoke, hugged, trained together, studied together, partied together or just shared a smile in passing. From the bottom of my heart. Thank you. If you ever need anything in London, let me know.

Stay in touch. Once a Tiger, always a Tiger.

Callum Squires is a German studies major with a sports management minor.

THANK YOU FOR AN ENTERTAINING YEAR! This year, Pulse reporters had the pleasure of writing articles about the unique individuals that make up the Trinity community. Thank you for providing tips about individuals, interviewing with us about your projects and reading about what your peers and teachers are up to.

Pulse

Where are Campus Publications alumni now?

Trinity graduates reflect on the opportunities and experiences they had in school

BY CLAIRE NAKAYAMA

PULSE REPORTER

As the spring semester comes to its end, graduation is right around the corner. Several former members of Campus Publications are going to move on to the next stages of their lives. The possibilities of where they could end up seem endless, but by looking into the paths previous graduates have taken, they may receive some guidance.

Tommie Ethington graduated in 2013 with a degree in communication. She is currently the editor at “Southwest: The Magazine.”

Before this, however, Ethington took a few months off and taught English to students in Nicaragua.

After coming back, Ethington went to work at the McNay Art Museum.

“My boss at the McNay was a Trinity alumna as well. I worked there for a year and a half and went to work for a company called Pace Communication, and was hired

by Dean Tuttle’s wife. All of my connections at Trinity have been valuable and I continue to rely on that network,” Ethington said.

In May of 2014, Rachel Puckett graduated from Trinity and majored in English. After graduation, Puckett also took a short break from looking for jobs and ended up working in a mentoring program.

“I currently work for Michigan State University, and I’m working in their non-profit outreach. I work on several grant-funded programs, mostly to do with mentoring and mentoring programs,” Puckett said.

Alessa Hutter, who received degrees in English and communication, is now an associate editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in Austin.

“I work on the English Language Learner team, developing content for humanities programs. I got my job in a round-about kind of way.

It was mostly about networking, but I also went to New York City the summer after graduation and attended the Columbia Publishing Course for seven weeks. It’s a fasttrack “masters” for people interested in the publishing industry,” Hutter said. “After that, I spent five months working for Disney World in Orlando. Then I got a big-girl job. But I would say all of those experiences got me there.”

Other alumni have found more opportunities at Trinity; Mason Walker graduated in 2015 with an English degree.

“I’m currently wrapping up a twoyear term of service with the Trinity University College Advising Corps

(TUCAC). In this position, myself and other Trinity graduates work with low-income, minority, firstgeneration high school students to help them find, apply to and afford the college that’s right for them,” Walker said.

Carlos Anchondo majored in communication and international studies with a concentration in European studies; he returned to work in the marketing and communications department.

“Trinity coursework was challenging, yet engaging, and taught me to make connections across a wide variety of disciplines. Trinity also allowed me to learn outside the classroom, and I particularly enjoyed an academic faculty-led trip to Cuba in winter 2013-14.” Anchondo said.

While these graduates look back on their time at Trinity fondly, they also think about what they could have done differently.

“The dream job that you have in mind for what you want to do may not be the first job you get out of college. I think it’s important to think about jobs more in the way of the skills you can acquire versus the job title or the area that the job is in, because it takes time to get where you want to go. It’s more about looking for ways to improve yourself and finding jobs that match those skill sets,” Ethington said.

Anchondo also encourages rethinking his approach to finding potential post-grad jobs.

“I wish I had known not to rush into the first job you’re offered after graduation. Take your time. Weigh your options and keep searching if the initial opportunities you’re presented with don’t seem quite right,” Anchondo said.

Others say to take advantage of the many opportunities Trinity has to offer its students.

“I wish I’d never taken my Trinity education for granted,” Walker said.

“Sometimes, the workload seemed like a burden, but looking back, working with such knowledgeable people on such important knowledge seems like such a blessing that I don’t know why I ever complained.”

Trinity has played a huge role in shaping its alumni into the people that they are today.

“I am grateful for the mentorship of faculty, for the resources the University provides and for the exposure to so many topics I didn’t know much or anything about as I did when I was a high school student,” Anchondo said.

“My time at Trinity taught me how to have constructive, productive conversations with people. Of all the things I learned at Trinity, that skill has proved to be the most valuable, especially in today’s political and social climate. Having meaningful and respectful conversations is a vital part of living in a democratic society, and I don’t think I would have learned that on any other college campus,” Hutter said.

TOP: TOMMIE ETHINGTON poses with several issues of the Trinitonian for her senior pictures. Ethington was the editor-in-chief of the Trinitonian from 2012 - 2013.

BOTTOM: ALESSA HUTTER, left, poses with DOMINIQUE DAVIS, right, after receiving the 2015 Mirage yearbooks; Davis served as editorin-chief while Hutter was managing editor of the yearbook.

Top photo by KRISTIN ASHLEY Bottom photo provided by ALESSA HUTTER

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017 •

PULSE

PRIDE hosts new fundraiser

All proceeds will go towards helping the club reach a budget goal, while remaining money will be donated

BY KAYLIE KING PULSE REPORTER

JULIA PALMER, left, gets her face painted with a rainbow by ALEXIS JARRETT, right, during PRIDE’s Only Love Project event in February. photo provided by ANDREA ACEVEDO

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PRIDE (Promoting Respect, Inclusiveness, Diversity and Equality), Trinity University’s LGBT+ organization, is going to be hosting Queer Voices: A Music, Poetry, and Film Showcase, a fundraiser to raise money for themselves and for an LGBT+ youth center.

“The reason that we came up with this event was because PRIDE itself is a little short on funds, so we were thinking of ways that we could have a fundraiser that was also going to have a fun event for everyone,” said Andrea Acevedo, a junior communication major and president of PRIDE. “So we’re trying to raise a little bit of money to make that up for PRIDE, but anything that we have that’s over the amount that we need will be donated to an LGBT+ youth center.”

This is the first event of its kind for PRIDE, at least in the past few years.

“We’ve had speakers and parties and social events, but we’ve never done a fundraiser,” Acevedo said. “We’ve helped out with the drag show, but that’s mostly Zeta Chi; we’ve never done our own fundraiser.”

The fundraiser will feature musical performances and poetry readings, followed by a movie showing.

“It’s very like, queer talent, whether it’s in the subject of the works or the people. I don’t feel like there’s been an event like this where it’s showcasing queer talent,” Acevedo said.

Abigail Wharton, sophomore art and psychology double major and secretary of PRIDE, looks forward to the unique event.

“It’s kind of a non-traditional thing. Usually at the beginning and end of the year we get together with a S’mores night and somebody will bring a guitar and start singing, and we decided to do something grander with it,” Wharton said. “We’re all very talented somehow; we should do something cool with that. I’m looking forward to seeing my friends do their thing in front of other people.”

The film that is going to be shown following the poetry and music showcase was made by Robyn Wheelock, who has enjoyed seeing PRIDE evolve since she first came to Trinity.

“I think PRIDE definitely improved. When I was an underclassman, there weren’t that many events. Now that Andy [Acevedo] is in charge and we have a wider net of leadership instead of just one or two people who are trying to do things, it’s a much more productive and fun club to be in,” Wheelock said.

After the music and poetry showcase, the film “The Aventhrope” is going to be shown in Stieren Theater.

“The film is about these two girls, Luna and Stelle, who are in a relationship, and Luna is a monster hunter,” Wheelock said. “When Stelle is mysteriously attacked, Luna becomes increasingly obsessed with hunting down the creature that she believes attacked her girlfriend.”

Wheelock wants the film to speak for itself and be open to interpretation.

“The movie deals with the concept of monsters and where we look when we are scared and where we try to place blame. It also deals with issues of communication and how we speak to each other, how we use our voices and how we listen to the voices around us.”

The event will take place on Sunday, April 30th at 5:30 p.m. in the Ruth Taylor Courtyard, followed by the film screening.

Donations are not required for admittance.

PULSE • APRIL 28, 2017 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

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Spurs fans anticipate change

Mirage Editor-in-Chief reflects on making changes while going to Trinity

Students who cheer for San Antonio’s basketball team discuss their enthusiasm during upcoming playoffs

Before my fourth year at Trinity, I always felt like I was walking past those red brick buildings with an infinite span of time ahead of me. I never could see what was at the end of the sidewalk as I walked through campus toward my dorm, but I knew where I’d eventually end up. I’d usually be talking with professors who somehow always had time for us, working diligently on projects that I loved or laughing comfortably with close friends in a cramped dorm room. By junior year, I felt like I knew what the world was like and that college had brought all of the change it could.

After studying abroad in the spring of my junior year, senior year felt like a steep step off the familiar path.

People and Trinity had changed after one semester, and I didn’t get to experience the change with them as it happened. Before studying abroad, I think that I had hoped that Trinity would be the same glowing world I would ever know, and I guess that was okay for a short time. After coming back, I questioned

BY LEAH WOEHR PULSE INTERN

Playoffs season is in full swing for the San Antonio Spurs, and fans could not be more excited. It’s no secret that Spurs pride is interlaced throughout the city and especially at Trinity. How can you miss the giant white truck with the Spurs logo that’s always parked in the Mabee parking lot? Or the huge “Go Spurs Go!” banner on the San Antonio Water Systems Building? During playoffs season, Spurs pride is certainly amplified throughout San Antonio.

“When there’s playoffs, it feels like the whole community is united in a way. You’ll see a lot more trucks with Spurs stuff sticking out of the back. You’ll see people with little window flags on their car. You’ll see a billboard or two,” says Dillon Akins, first-year student and San Antonio native.

Playoff season also brings out many different emotions among its impassioned fans.

“If there’s a big loss, people act differently.

I was in a summer class the year that they lost to the Heat in the finals and everyone couldn’t even do work in the class. The teacher definitely had to rouse everyone’s spirits,” said Tony Ramirez, a first-year student and San Antonio native.

With the Spurs’ consistency, fans get even more excited about how well their team will do in the playoffs.

“Everyone looks for ‘How far are we going to get? Can we make it all the way? Are we going to win?’ and it amps up everything, which is funny, because the city is so enthusiastic already,” said Mary Feit, a junior political science and communication double major.

Akins remembers when the Spurs won their last championship over the Miami Heat after losing to them the previous year.

“My brother and I went down to Downtown San Antonio on the night of the championship when everyone was celebrating and it was the weirdest thing, because I saw all these people that I’d never met before and we all just felt like we were all friends. I’ve never been a part of that big of a joyous group that was that friendly with each other and that connected.

It was really crazy to be part of that.”

Some fans feel that the team is an integral part of this city’s culture.

“They’re the one sports team here that’s a major sports team, but it’s also the culture that they have. Tim Duncan was a really good influence and that influence still goes on with the team, so I think that has something to do with it. You see some other NBA teams with questionable stars,” Ramirez said.

While many fans started watching games when they were young, others became fans later in life.

“I’m from Houston, actually, and people are always like, ‘How can you go against your home team?’ It was really funny, because my first game was the Spurs versus the Rockets. I caught onto the energy in the stadium, but it’s hard not to. There’s a hype video before [The Spurs] go onto the court and I was like ‘Oh my gosh!’”

As for this year’s playoffs, these three fans as well as the rest of the Spurs family can’t wait to see how the Spurs are going to do this year.

“There’s a lot of really good teams, so that’s definitely scary. But I think our team has built themselves up. I like the people we have on the bench and on the starting lineup right now,” Ramirez said.

BY KATY FREEMAN SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR

my place at Trinity and the institution itself.

The bubble didn’t feel like a security blanket anymore, rather a claustrophobic room growing smaller each day. I worried that there was no more to learn, to love or to accomplish, and I had great difficulty adapting to the unfamiliar.

However, [these actions] have made me feel that change has purpose, meaningful purpose.

But the world is full of all kinds of things.

Not all are good, not all are bad and not all have been discovered yet. Change will

inevitably knock on your door, but we’ll always have certain people and values that are constant in our lives.

Some time during the past four years, I gained two pieces of advice: one from a friend and one from a family member. The first: to create the kind of change you want to see in the world and live your life the way you want others to. The second: to help yourself and help others. I realize that this advice may not seem intuitive in helping people cope with change. And unfortunately, these actions don’t award immediate gratification. However, they have made me feel that change has purpose, meaningful purpose.

I still have a ways to go when it comes to fulfilling this advice, but these statements ground me because their value remains constant as things change. As I walk past those red brick buildings one last time, I will be leaving so many great things behind here.

But I will always have those great things, in my heart and mind, and I expect that more have yet to come.

Katy Freeman will be graduating with a double major in communication and art.

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017 •

PULSE

Record number of students register for summer study abroad programs

Participants will be traveling to several continents and taking classes that fulfill numerous requirements

BY JULIA WEIS PULSE REPORTER

Over 170 Trinity students are preparing to study abroad or do research in a foreign country this summer. This is a new record for the Center for International Engagement which is excited to send off so many students to new places around the world, from Japan, to Germany and to Costa Rica.

Andre Martinez, a study abroad advisor in the Center for International Engagement, attributes the increase in students attending to a variety of reasons.

“We have created exciting new programs for our students, the Costa Rica Ecology Program, the Trinity Taiwan Summer School Program, etc, which give Trinity students more options

in places to live, learn and study abroad in for a summer. Also, the faculty we have teaching abroad are excellent so we are very proud to have the faculty we have teach abroad for us this summer. We’ve also this past year increased our marketing efforts to get the word out about our programs and for study abroad in general. If students know what options they have then they are more likely to choose to study abroad,” Martinez said.

For some students studying abroad this summer, it will be their first time going out of the country and far away from home. Junior marketing major Hannah Ventola looks forward to seeing Shanghai, China.

“I’m a little bit nervous, but I am excited to experience a new culture. I think it’s going to be good, since I’ll be going with a big group of people and professors will be there and everything. If I were to go by myself, I would probably be very scared, but I think it’s going to be a fun time and that I’ll learn a lot,” Ventola said.

Ventola is thankful that her study abroad location has a high percentage of citizens who speak English.

“I’m probably the most scared about the language barrier or getting lost, but from what we’ve heard, a lot of people in China want to talk to you in English, so that’s comforting to know,” Ventola said.

The Center for International Engagement continues to ensure the safety of students is put before all else, especially with the growing concern over global conflicts.

“The health and safety of our students is top priority. Usually, when things happen around the world for good or bad it draws attention to ‘other places’ which sparks an interest in people. For example, after September 11, 2001, I thought that my study abroad program at my former institution would be done for, but to my surprise we had record numbers. There are many reasons, but I believe it is because students were more aware of the world and maybe decided to see more of it. Students are still going to Paris, even after the attack. The same goes for Nice and other cities around the world. Most people living in the U.S. would not think twice about going to Orlando or San Bernardino. It is true for international locations,” Martinez said.

Paige Johnson, a sophomore political science major, feels that her upcoming trip to Berlin, Germany will help her learn more about issues facing the world today.

“Learning about another culture is such an essential part of a liberal arts education. The Global City Berlin program focuses on the strains of immigration and how Germany has dealt with these tensions in the past. America is not facing these globalized issues alone and it is our responsibility to understand them from someone else’s perspective,” Johnson said.

Whether learning about global politics or improving language skills, there are many reasons to spend some time abroad.

“If I were to name the top three reasons, it would be, one, to experience another culture; a program in summer is great, but a semester abroad is even better. There are not many opportunities to spend three to five months in another country so being able to take the opportunity with Trinity to study abroad is, in a way, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Two: students can take courses that they would not normally take while at Trinity or to do an internship in a foreign country. Afterall, how often is a course on the Māori people of New Zealand offered at Trinity? It also doesn’t have to be so completely different. Even standard intro courses are taught with another frame in mind abroad. Three: Learning another language makes you think differently, to be more creative and to think analytically.

I believe language is important and I hope all students decide to take a language course abroad if possible. Where better to learn another language than in the country where it is being spoken?” Martinez said.

No matter where the destination, these Trinity students are sure to be exposed to new situations.

Austin Gieselman, a sophomore computer science major, is one of the students going to Kobe, Japan this summer.

“I’m a computer science major, so while the classes don’t directly apply, I saw this as the opportunity of my life to go and live somewhere in a completely foreign country to challenge myself to do something new. I was also encouraged by Dr. Nishikawa to go; he kind of sought me out and encouraged me to come. The previous summer was the first Japan program that Trinity had done, and that was actually led by Dr. Myers, and so a lot of my friends in my major had gone and loved it. I’m most excited to just try something new.

We’re living in homestays, which is really cool.

It’s going to completely immerse us in the culture,” Gieselman said.

Eleanor O’Shei, a sophomore political science and history double major, also believes study abroad is essential in this day and age.

“I think that people should go abroad because it is easy to fear what we don’t know.

Particularly in the modern geopolitical climate, fear mongering can dominate our treatment and judgement of human beings. By interacting with individuals from other walks of life, we can start to understand that we’re not dealing with refugees, illegal immigrant or extremists. We are dealing with human beings,” O’Shei said.

Martinez advises students to contact the Study Abroad office for more information about the possibilities of studying abroad in the future.

“My job is to give students as much info as possible, layout the pros and cons, to review their degree audit with them to see where study abroad fits in for summer, semester or even academic year. Sometimes we have students who meet with us thinking that they cannot go abroad for a number of reasons and after we look over their degree plan, then they often find out the study abroad is going to happen after all. The most important thing is that they meet with us as soon as possible,” Martinez said.

ADVERTISEMENT• APRIL 28, 2017 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

SENIOR W EE

17

K 2017

Wednesday May 10th

Last Great Reception Friday, April 28th Great Hall 3:00 - 4: 30pm

pm 5:00 - 6:00 pm & Casino 4:00 - 7:00Party Tower Climb Tower Climb & Casino Party

Murchison Tower

Murchison Lawn

(Laurie Gallery if rain).

7:00 - 10:00 pm Storch Lawn

Twilight at Trinity (Mabee Hall if rain).

10:30am-12pm COMMENCEMENT! GRADUATION! Laurie Auditorium

10:30 am - 12:00 pm

Saturday May 13th Thursday May 11th

Senior Week events are sponsored by the Senior Year Experience Committee and the Trinity University Student Ambassadors

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017 •

PULSE

Professor and student promote a policy to make San Antonio a more diverse city

Simran Jeet Singh and Benjamin Collinger conducted over 100 interviews in their fellowship

BY ELIZABETH SANCHEZ PULSE REPORTER

“How welcoming is San Antonio of Religious Diversity?” This is one question that Benjamin Collinger, Trinity University sophomore, international studies and history major and Simran Jeet Singh, assistant professor of religion, included in the 30 interviews they conducted over the summer of 2016 with religious leaders of San Antonio’s diverse religious communities.

Singh and Collinger conducted these interviews to explore one of the most pressing issues in San Antonio: the diversity and inclusion of local religious communities in San Antonio. These issues are outlined in their report: “Developing a Religious

Diversity Profile of San Antonio,” which was made possible by the Mellon Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship from Trinity University.

The report provides the research that Collinger and Singh conducted over the summer of 2016, which includes the current inclusion and diversity of inter-faith communities in San Antonio’s governance.

One of the main objectives of the report is to motivate community members and public figures to consider taking a proactive approach to creating a more inclusive, diverse city.

Collinger and Singh present in the details of the report that there are numerous diverse religious groups within San Antonio who feel that the City’s large Latinx population may hinder equal public representation in the community.

“Based on what we’ve found so far in our research, it’s pretty clear to us that a lot of work needs to be done to bring in communities that have been marginalized otherwise and don’t feel welcome in spaces where religion and religious issues are being discussed,” Singh said. “So one of the first steps, I think, is

acknowledging the problem and then creating more opportunities for these communities to be empowered and lifted up.”

According to the report, different religious community stakeholders’ responded to the question, “How welcoming is San Antonio of religious diversity?” with unexpected answers.

When asked this question, on a scale from 1-10, a number Muslims had the lowest average response even after agreeing that San Antonio’s large Latinx population creates cultural awareness.

The report takes into special consideration the representation of both Muslim and LGBTQ communities in inter-faith community groups as well as their inclusion in public events. According to Singh, these two groups are often hesitant to reach out for help from public authorities as they’ve experienced bigotry, racism or discrimination due to the nation’s current political climate. In order to gather the necessary information on these two community groups to prove the underlying issue of discrimination, the process took time and trust.

“It’s really all just about building

relationships with people. It was built off of existing relationships and gaining the trust of people who we’re working with. It helps that they opened up to us about their experiences and how there are certain situations where they don’t trust authorities because authorities on a local, state and national level don’t always have their backs,” Singh said. “Sometimes they don’t come forward when they experience discrimination.”

In-person interviews, as well 102 survey responses from stakeholders belonging to various backgrounds and faith communities, have helped Collinger and Singh to collect relevant information to create this project.

“These interviews lead us to figure out the ways the activism that the inter-faith community does [that] can be channeled into government action,” Collinger said.

This report provides its readers with the project’s goals of achieving a more inclusive governance in San Antonio. Singh and Collinger hope to gain the support from influential public figures.

“Another goal of ours is that by bringing attention to these issues and by showing that these are real problems in San Antonio that our political leaders will take them seriously and recognize that this is something that they ought to be focusing their attention on,” Singh said.

Collinger and Singh voice in the report that there are many steps they must take in order to achieve the project’s goal of religious diversity and inclusion in San Antonio.

“There’s a lot of work to be done in regards to making San Antonio a more diverse and more inclusive city,” Singh said. “The first step in anything is to understand what the situation is before you start proposing any type of solutions. We are just starting that process and we know it’s early in terms of just collecting any information.”

Ann Helmke, San Antonio’s FaithBased Community Liaison, has provided additional support for this project by raising community awareness. She has played a major role in communicating to both interfaith communities and the general public as well as facilitating public events. In addition, she hopes that her actions may facilitate the necessary change to meet the objectives of this inclusion project.

“What I already know is that this report has already informed leadership of all kinds in San Antonio and raised the conversation,” Helmke said, “And my hope is, is that will continue, that this report won’t get shelved somewhere.”

Helmke’s hope to educate and to include diversity amongst the city’s inter-faith communities, aligns with the project’s goal to make the city of San Antonio a more diverse and inclusive governance. Helmke notes that technology is the catalyst that may propel this movement forward.

“About half of this initiative is trying to develop the technology where we can connect to each other faster, that we can connect the resources faster, and the information, and how we can even connect individually or students into it,” Helmke said.

As stated by Helmke, community participation and collaboration are essential to making progress, and with the support of San Antonio’s communities, progress is possible.

Ultimately, Collinger and Singh’s project aims to bring communities together to eventually change the way in which faith is represented in San Antonio.

“We think there’s a lot of people doing great work in the inter-faith community and those opinions and the people who do that work should be a little bit more included in governance in San Antonio,” Collinger said.

More information on the report can be found by accessing Singh and Collinger’s indepth report on Trinity University’s Mellon Initiative in the Arts & Humanities website.

PULSE • APRIL 28, 2017 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

Senior embraces leaving Trinity for new adventures

BY FAITH BYRNE SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR

Trying to sum up four years of your life at such an amazing school like Trinity is almost impossible.

It feels like ages ago that I first walked onto this campus, a terrified first year, my stuff disappearing from my car as I was ushered excitedly to my first ever college dorm room.

I knew no one, had no idea what I wanted to major in, and didn’t have a clue about what the next four years of my life would entail.

I now have my own apartment, an amazing group of friends who I love dearly, am graduating with two different majors, am excited about the future, but deeply saddened by the prospect of having to leave this great campus. Trinity has become my home, my safe space. If it weren’t for this campus, I would not have found my weird love of anthropology, would not have flourished in the communication department, would not have made friends who are stuck with me for the rest of their lives; basically I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

There have been many lows, where I was so stressed and exhausted that I thought I couldn’t make it through one more essay or final exam, but there have been many more highs, where I felt loved and inspired, from my friends, my classes, and my professors. While almost every professor I have had during my time at Trinity has inspired me in some way, I would like to thank two professors in particular for guiding and helping me through this crazy journey called college.

Trinity will always hold a special place in my heart as one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life.

Thank you Dr. Delwiche for putting up with my incessant emails, always high stress levels, and being a constant source of encouragement from the very beginning.

Thank you also to Dr. Mathews, for letting me literally cry on your shoulder in particularly hard times, helping me get through the hardest and yet most rewarding class I have ever taken during my time at Trinity, and for reaffirming my beliefs that being weird is always a good thing, especially in the world of anthropology. I could not have chosen better departments and professors to surround myself with, and I am truly the person I am today because of the wonderful professors in both the Communication and Anthropology departments.

I will be incredibly sad to end my time here at Trinity, but I look forward to the rest of my life that lies ahead. Trinity will always hold a special place in my heart as one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. So goodbye Trinity, and hello to whatever else lies ahead for me in the future.

Faith Byrne will be graduating with degrees in anthropology and communication.

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THANKS FROM THE SPRING ’17 STAFF!

Heineken Ad brings people together

“Silence of the Lambs” director dies

The new beer ad brings a tear to one’s eye in its efforts to show how people of differing opinions can still get along.

Jonathan Demme, director of the critically and commercially acclaimed film which also won one of the rare and coveted “Big Five” Oscars, passed away this week.

AE &

Senior art show draws “hm”s, snooty sniffs Trinity’s senior art majors presented their exhibition, “This is All I Can Remember,” on April 20. Nine seniors showcased DYLAN WAGNER work in the show, A&E EDITOR well-attended by students, faculty and art aficionados from all walks of life.

Henry Householder, one of the artists whose work appeared in the show, felt that the exhibition went extremely well, citing support from both his peers and faculty.

“We were a very diverse group in terms of our personalities, but especially in terms of our artwork,” Householder said after the show closed for the day. “To see everyone’s work in the gallery after working to create a cohesive and thoroughly developed show was very rewarding.”

Brittney Blaylock, Anthoula Christodoulou, Katy Freeman, Jordan High, Joy Lazarus, Hannah Mathy, Michael Miller (previous writer for the Trinitonian) and

Chloe Walker all presented work at the show for a striking variety of styles and artistic choices. Preparations for the exhibit were evident weeks in advance of the show, with students working hard to both finish pieces and prepare the more practical preliminary aspects that go into the complex process of putting on a final exhibition.

Mediums ranged from wood blocks to plaster, Miller’s atmospheric “garbage paintings” to Jordan High’s copper-wood fusion sculptures. According to Householder, “[this] year was a little different in that there were only nine of us. Because of that, each of us had a bit more space to work with in the gallery.”

This is critical in the Dicke-Smith gallery area, which has limited space regardless of the number of showcasing artists.

“That extra space allowed for us to, on average anyway, showcase a greater number of pieces. It helped to better communicate the ideas and techniques that make up each of our bodies of work,” Householder said.

The space allowed for smooth transition between artist and piece for the visitors, who could walk seamlessly between each

collection of art while being exposed to each artist’s unique aesthetic style, but the venue was packed on opening day with fawning aficionados.

The relatively low number of artists changed the entire dynamic of show, according to Householder.

“As far as capstone-type projects go, the Senior Show took a particularly collaborative route. The opportunity to work on something personal or interesting is an important step to developing as a person. The lead-up to the show involves watching your peers’ processes unfold in close proximity to you.”

The senior show is an important capstone for art majors and allows the broader Trinity community to experience what the students have to show after developing their skills, styles and artistic sensibilities after four years of hard work.

“Art is expression, and being near people who are trying to be as creative as possible has been an eye-opening and introspective experience for all of us,” Householder said.

The show remains open until May 13 in the Dicke-Smith building.

The Artists Themselves

--Brittney Blaylock --Anthoula Christodoulou --Katy Freeman --Jordan High --Joy Lazarus --Hannah Mathy --Michael “Drop-theMikey” Miller --Chloe Walker

YouTube got probs? Navigating that book-lending place JACOB ROSSITTER A&E WRITER

Despite its wild popularity, it’s often easy to forget how young a medium Youtube is. The website was officially launched on February 14, 2005. Around this time, youtube as well as other websites such as Newgrounds and Jibjab were a breeding ground for all kinds of bizarre videos. From the surreal to the obscene to the downright baffling, the nature of what was being made at the time was an unprecedented renaissance for independent creators. As time went on, we as a society grew to better understand how to navigate this strange new landscape.

More importantly, advertisers started to take notice and to recognize the potential the internet, particularly Youtube, had for reaching a huge audience.

This is where Google came into play.

In 2006, The tech mammoth purchased Youtube for an estimated 1.65 Billion dollars. A year later, the “YouTube partner program” was launched. For the first time, the prospect of earning money or even making a living was an incentive for creators to produce content for the website. In 2007 alone, the amount of bandwidth Youtube consumed was equal to the entire internet in 2000. With the sheer number of eyeballs that the website attracts every day, it makes sense that advertisers would be more than happy to utilize Unfortunately, in the eyes of advertisers, Youtube’s greatest strength happens to also be its greatest weakness.

Although under the control of Google, compared to traditional media industries like television and radio, youtube is very much the wild west.

Take Felix Kjellberg. That name may sound unfamiliar, but more likely than not you may know him by his username“PewDiePie”. As of writing this article, Felix has close to 55 million subscribers, making him the highest profile on the website by a landslide. That name may also sound familiar if you pay attention to publications such as The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Wired, or The Independent. These media sites, as well as

a plethora of others, ran a series of stories in which they accused the Swedish youtube creator of not only making racist and anti semitic jokes, but in many cases went as far as to accuse him of being a “neo nazi”.

While public opinion of the youtube star took a turn for the worst for many people, there was just as big of a backlash against the media’s coverage of Felix. Defenders of Felix claimed that not only were the jokes in question taken out of context, The Wall Street Journal in particular was accused of doctoring Pewdiepie’s videos in question on their website.

So why is this story significant? The debacle surrounding PewdiePie was in many ways the spark that ignited a much larger fire.

A movement, started largely by Wall Street Journal writer Jack Nicas, pressured brands to remove their ads from the website. We are now in the midst of the largest advertiser boycott Youtube has yet experienced.

A number of giant advertisements have pulled their ads from the website, and that list continues to grow. AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon, Starbucks, and Walmart are just a handful of over 50 advertisers who have pulled support from the website. Google is expected to experience a loss in revenue of at least 750 million dollars. Countless channels, small and large, have come forth and reported that their videos are earning a fraction of the ad revenue that they once did. In addition, videos that are marked as “not advertisement friendly”, are whitelisted completely, earning no revenue. The main problem with this is that the guidelines that dictate whether a video is advertiser friendly are so vague. According to Google’s support page, Content that is considered inappropriate for advertising includes among other stipulations “Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown”. With content creators earning a fraction of what they once made, many people fear for the end of youtube. Whether or not this happens, it’s certainly a valid response to have.

During finals, the library becomes the most popular spot on campus.

Because of the high density of students at the library, crazy NABEEHA VIRANI things are bound A&E WRITER to happen. Here are some tips on how to deal with the weird sights and high-stress atmosphere of the library during finals week.

There are two types of people in the library during finals: the newbies and the regulars.

Newbies consist of those who haven’t stepped foot into the library all semester and who are now trying to be productive. The regulars then have to fight to find places that are usually open. It turns into a battle of whocan-get-to-the-open-table? the quickest. To secure a decent study spot, get to the library early or always be on the lookout for a spot that you want.

Along with the influx of students, there’s also food everywhere. Trash cans are packed with McDonald’s wrappers, Chipotle bowls and coffee cups. The line for Eco Grounds is about 30 students deep. The library reeks of leftovers and fast food, which permeates through the air and ends up engulfing students so that they smell like dumpsters.

To avoid turning into a walking trash can, wear clean clothes and carry some hand sanitizer with you.

People also don’t care about what they look like. Students are dressed in pajamas or whatever clothes they can find without having to waste their time doing laundry.

Sometimes it seems that people just thrown on dirty laundry they’ve sprayed with perfume.

If this is something that hits too close to home, please do your laundry. Not only will it benefit your immediate environment, it will also help you feel like you’re not homeless and lack complete control of your whole life.

Students also have pillows or blankets with them either because they get cold or just need some comfort and protection from the evils of exams and research papers. Because students are pretty much camping out in the library until they get kicked out, there’s always those people who end up napping in the weirdest positions and places.

If this sounds like someone you know, or if this is something you can relate to, just keep in mind that people are going to take pictures of you in fetal position on a small chair on the first floor and post them onto social media.

On the way to the library, there’s always those people who are extra in their belief that the magic stones will actually bring them good luck. You can catch those people hugging the stones, climbing on top of them and even studying by them during the day.

Others are more subtle and will pat or hit the stones while they’re walking by. If you are superstitious, go ahead and hug the stones, but just know that people are going to judge you despite the fact that it’s finals week and

“Take deep breaths.

You all will probably be okay” anything and everything goes.

Occasionally, someone will have a breakdown and start crying. In these types of situations, it’s best to ignore this person because they’ll get over it.

If you are on the verge of crying and breaking down, do it quickly to get it out of your system because you’re just wasting time that could be spent studying.

Whether or not you end up at the library during finals, these sights will occur all over campus. It’s best to keep in mind that pain and stress are temporary and that grades are forever. Take deep breaths. You all will probably be okay.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT • APRIL 28, 2017 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

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To all who made this paper possible, thank you

BY JULIA ELMORE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Three and a half years ago, I wrote my first Trinitonian article. Three editorial staffs, 78 issues, two years of late nights and three different jobs later, I am writing my last.

This year has been the hardest, most stressful and busiest of my life; it has also been the most special, full of learning opportunities and personal growth. I could fill an entire newspaper reflecting on my four years at Trinity and thanking the dozens of individuals who have made this experience so formative and fulfilling. But, since space is limited, I want to dedicate my final Trinitonian column to my staff. Each and every person I have had the chance to work with this year has made the hours of planning, late nights and last-minute ordeals 100 percent worth it.

I have to start by thanking Katharine Martin for the immeasurable contributions you have made to my Trinity experience, especially this year. Thank you for giving me the confidence to apply for this job in the first place. I never would have done so on my own. I will never forget the night you called me to offer me the position and how unsure I was when I accepted it. But with your guidance, advice and willingness to always listen to my concerns, you have helped me grow as a writer, editor and leader. I cannot even begin to express how

Top moments of the year Saturday Night Live got good again...

... at the expense of all of our sanity and safety.

Moonlight won Best Picture at the Oscars...

... Hollywood still released some pretty racist films.

We got to see fresh, young talent in music, film and television...

... we lost so many talented artists this year.

much this job has taught me and am forever grateful for all I’ve learned and experienced under your guidance.

Grace Frye, who was by my side as I started this adventure. Thank you for bringing your passion and expertise for journalism and design to this year’s paper. Thank you for letting me take the lead, even at times when I know it was hard for you (and your ENTJ tendencies) to back down. Thank you for listening to my rants at all hours of the night. You have truly become one of my closest friends this year.

Alex Uri. Though I was worried when Grace left, I could not be more thankful for the opportunity I have had to work with you. I am constantly inspired by your passion for this job and can truly say that I have seen so much growth in you as a writer, editor and leader over this past year. 4:30 a.m. does not look good on either of us, but these late nights are memories that I will cherish forever. You are going to do a great job next year and I am so proud of all that you have achieved and become.

Section editors. Thank each and every one of you for the unique traits you bring to our team.

Jeff Sullivan, thank you for the diligence and passion you bring to each and every story you write. Thank you for stepping up to this role mid-year and for being an invested member of this team. Emily Elliott, it has been a pleasure to work closely with you for two years. You took over the Pulse section and made it 10

times better. Thank you for always making me laugh. Markham Sigler, thank you for accepting a job you did not want and working hard to make the most of it. Thank you for the thoughtful columns and the level-headedness you bring to our staff. Dylan Wagner, thank you for supplying endless and obnoxious memes that truly make our Wednesday nights fun and memorable. Thank you for working so hard to improve the A&E section this year and for always being willing to learn. Julia Poage, thank you for your laughter and charm. I truly admire you for so many reasons and have loved getting to know you and work with you; you have done an amazing job. Miguel Webber, thank you for your patience, flexibility and adaptability. I have truly enjoyed getting to know you better this year, and the fruit photo shoot was a memorable highlight of this year.

Tyler Herron and Katie Groke, you two have been so flexible and the epitome of what it means to be selfless team players. Tyler, you have designed beautiful covers and graphics this year, I am so glad that you joined our team.

Katie, the front page is the face of the paper, and you have done an amazing job making it look perfect each week. Alex Motter, thank you for your persistence and for your grace in dealing with adversity. Soleil Gaffner, Nick Smetzer and Emlynn Smith, thank you each for your attention, perseverance and flexibility each week. You have all been eager to go above

and beyond the requirements of your job and I truly appreciate it. Soleil, you have proven to be a great leader and I have loved getting to work with you for an entire year. Nick, your sense of humor has constantly brightened the newsroom, and you are a talented writer whose work I thoroughly enjoy. Emlynn, we were worried that you might not be weird enough to work here at first, but your wit and sometimes-concerning jokes have proven us wrong and I am grateful for your presence in the newsroom.

Each and every reporter, columnist and photographer. Thank you all for taking this journey with me. I am sure it was evident that I had no idea what I was doing at first. Thank you for your patience and your hard work week in and week out. You have taught me more than you know. It has been a pleasure to be a part of and I have loved getting to know and work with each and every one of you.

I look forward to the amazing things the 2017-2018 staff will do and have utmost confidence that they will take what this year’s team did and make it even better. Thank you for carrying this institution forward and for all the hard work that has already gone into preparing for next year. I look forward to reading the Trinitonian in the future and I promise that being a part of this team will be one of the best choices you’ll make during your time at Trinity.

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017 •

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Margaret Farris 2017

Recognition for Exemplary Service Campus Publications

Alejandro Cardona – one year of service, Trinitonian Julia Elmore – four years of service, Trinitonian Katy Freeman – four years of service, Mirage Claudia Garcia – two years of service, Trinitonian Mia Garza – two years of service, Trinitonian Katie Groke – one year of service, Trinitonian Lauren Harris – two years of service, Trinitonian Joy Lazarus – two years of service, Trinitonian Jordan Leeper – two years of service, Trinitonian; one year of service, Mirage Michael Miller – two years of service, Trinitonian Christina Moore – three years of service, Trinitonian Krushi Patel – three years of service, Trinitonian Markham Sigler – two years of service, Trinitonian Callum Squires – four years of service, Trinitonian Jeffrey Sullivan – two years of service, Trinitonian Dzung Vu – one year of service, Campus Publications Dylan Wagner – two years of service, Trinitonian Miguel Webber – four years of service, Trinitonian

Coates University Center

Caitlin Heller – Student Worker

Education

Brittney Blaylock – Incoming MAT/TEACH Michael Carroll – Incoming MAT/SME/TEACH Jessica Cortez – Outstanding Senior in Education/Incoming MAT/TEACH Katie Cribb – Incoming MAT/TEACH Claudia Garcia – Incoming MAT/TEACH Kiley Haftorson – Incoming MAT/TEACH Ana Paez – Incoming MAT/TEACH Beverly Chatfield – Incoming MAT/TEACH Claire Crossnoe – Incoming MAT/SME/TEACH Brian Goll – Incoming MAT/TEACH Josh Ingram – Incoming MAT/TEACH Jacob McMillan – Incoming MAT/TEACH Yvette Muniz – Incoming MAT/SME/TEACH/Upward Bound Anthony Sanchez – Incoming MAT Sarah Smith – Incoming MAT/SME/TEACH Anna Thill – Incoming MAT/TEACH Chloe Walker – Incoming MAT/SME/TEACH Miguel Webber – Incoming MAT/TEACH Susan Lo – Incoming MAT/TEACH Mariana Lopez Levi – Incoming MAT/TEACH Daniel Stephen – Incoming MAT/TEACH

Student Ambassadors

Kyle Argueta – three years of service Alliyah Espinoza – two years of service Benjamin Gomez – three years of service Brenna Hill – three years of service Andrea Lee – three years of service Adam Saunders – one year of service Jay Stracke – three years of service Lizza Vallejo – two years of service

Information Technology Services

Mark Atkins – Valuable Member ITS USS Team James Clark – Valuable Member ITS AT Team Jeffrey Darrah – Valuable Member ITS USS Team Torre Davis – Valuable Member ITS AT Team Juan De Bleser – Valuable Member ITS Helpdesk Team Grace Fix – Valuable Member ITS AT Team James Godfrey – Valuable Member ITS Helpdesk Team Arsenio Gonzalez – Valuable Member ITS AT Team Luis Hurtado – Valuable Member ITS AT Team Mariana Lopez Levi – Valuable Member ITS USS Team Subrat Mahapatra – Valuable Member ITS Helpdesk Team Cynthia Malekia – Valuable Member ITS Office Team Dylan McGee – Valuable Member ITS AT Team Kylie Moden – Valuable Member ITS USS Team Adam Press – Valuable Member ITS AT Team Jacob Pursell – Valuable Member ITS AT Team Javan Stalls – Valuable Member ITS AT Team Nicholas Toffoletto – Valuable Member ITS USS Team Francisco Vasquez – Valuable Member ITS AT Team

Library

Annette Tombo – five years of exemplary service Anne Ferguson – four years of exemplary service Molly Field – four years of exemplary service Chinyere Stallworth – four years of exemplary service Maria Celeste – three years of exemplary service Dylan Wagner – three years of exemplary service Iris Baughman – two years of exemplary service Reann Esparza – two years of exemplary service Phillip Lopez – one year of exemplary service Sam Simoneau – one year of exemplary service

Sport Managment

Sarah Farrell – Outstanding Senior in Sport Management Tyler Caldwell – Captain of the Green Team Samuel Freitag – Warm. Balanced. Optimist.

Katie Glomb – A Quiet Leader. Creative.

Hilary Hoffman – London, FLAME, All-Star.

Joshua Ingram – I Can Solve that Problem.

Adam Saunders – Thoughtful. Can do. Servant Leader.

Abigail Sheppard – London. Australia. “Look Right!”

William Black – Never Met a Job I Can’t Tackle Kathryn Castillon – Grad School, Here I Come.

Robert Kellerman – Poised. Thinker. Trustworthy.

Elizabeth Southwick – Brilliant. Funny. “Data? I got that!”

Sarah Thornton – “I’ll break that ticket sales record!”

Jorge Villamarin Rodriguez – Passionate. Unafraid. Fun-loving.

Leah Wildman – London. Legacy. Lives a values-based life.

Student Involvement

Andrea Lee – Student Activity Mentor Rachel Wolpert – Student Activity Mentor

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Departments and organizations recognize these graduating seniors for their contributions to the Trinity community. Before retiring in 2009, Margaret Farris worked in Student Affairs for 26 years.

Residential Life

Pooja Bollampally – Exceptional, Genuine, Inspiring, Ambitious, Talented Austin Brown – Dedicated, Organized, Motivated, Humble, Talented Amanda Cantu – Friendly, Supportive, Welcoming, Genuine, Leader Anthoula Christodoulou – Warm, Passionate, Courageous, Inspiring, Humanitarian Josh Cook – Humble, Dedicated, Accountable, Trustworthy, Intelligent Katie Funderburg – Bright, Loyal, Trustworthy, Ambitious, Leader Ann Hilborn – Motivated, Responsible, Charismatic, Authentic, Kind Brad Hood – Brave, Ambitious, Humorous, Leader, Friend Josh Ingram – Humble, Passionate, Dedicated, Authentic, Drake Maria Jaramillo – Remarkable, Inspiring, Ambitious, Focused, Compassionate Tyler Johnson – Authentic, Charismatic, Compassionate, Determined, Witty Mariana Lopez Levi – Kind, Go-getter, Beatboxer, Melodious, Selfless Dylan McGee – Mr. Congeniality, Fast pitch, Kind heart Dana McLaughlin – Will definitely change the world Jake McMillen – Leader, Intellectually Curious, Entrepreneurial, Optimistic William Mobley – Friendly, Amazing Baker, Bright, Responsible, Intellectual Adam Saunders – Strong Quiet Leader; Constant Smile Madison Schwarzer – Motivated, Caring, Encouraging, Focused, Passionate Nina Tao – Servant Leader, Animal Lover, Ultimate Crafter Alyssa Tayrien – Role Model, Authentic, Ambitious, Brilliant, Kind Nicole Woods – Sweet and Sassy; Pink and Green Eliza Wright – Bright, Ambitious, Loyal, Determined, Responsible Lindsey Yazbek – Compassionate, Driven, Funny, Thoughtful, Recycler Megan Zirkle – Kind, Genuine, Selfless, Inspiring, Motivated

Student Programming Board

Benji Gomez – King of Extravagant Events Caitlin Heller – Keeper of Membership Rewards Devina Kumar – Queen of Tradition Events Christina Moore – Graphic Designer Extraordinaire Nina Tao – Super Accountant Carolyn Young – Madam Director

Student Government Association

Amulya Cherala – Communications Chair Alyssa Cuda – Senator Chris Garcia – Legislative Relations Nicole Gardini – Senator Brian Goll – Senator Benjamin Gomez – Senator Brenna Hill – President Kyle Knutsen – Senator Nina Tao – Treasurer Stephen Thai – Senator Lizza Vallejo – Secretary Rachel Wolpert – Senator

Trinitonian Serving Trinity University Since 1902

says thank you!

to our readers to departments and organizations that supported us with advertising to Sharon Curry for the use of her golf cart to our faculty contributors: Robert Blystone, Aaron Delwiche, Mark Lewis, Megan Plenge, David Rando, Simran Jeet Singh to the Board of Campus Publications: Cat Garza, Sasha Faust, Joseph Khalaf, Clint Schroeder, Shage Zhang Susie Gonzalez, Dania Abreu-Torres, Patrick Keating to the Department of Communication, especially Jennifer Henderson & Melissa McMullen to the Commons staff for feeding us late at night to Sharon Jones Schweitzer, Anh-Viet Dinh, Jeanna Balreira, Michelle Bartonico, Dean Tuttle to our interns to all campus newsmakers to the Mirage staff for sharing space with us to Student Involvement and the SAMS

and anyone else we should have mentioned

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017 •

A&E CONTINUED FROM PAGE 12

So while the amount of entertainment we digest has probably increased relative to the amount of art we digest, it is probably not a completely new industry in and of itself. In other words, humans have always perceived “arts” and “entertainment” as separate productions to a certain extent.

Granted, most people would have no qualms with the idea that “the arts” are a more rewarding experience than “entertainment.” Donald Trump may be an exception to that rule. But even those of us that’d disagree with Trump would assert that there’s a “healthy” amount of “entertainment” the individual could, and maybe should, consume. I’m not sure they’re wrong, but that’s not the most interesting question. That would be this: What makes “the arts” and “entertainment” different?

I’ll choose five examples of things that we consider part of “the arts” and five things that are “entertainment” from our more recent, cultural history. “The arts” — a ballet, the paintings from last week’s senior art show, a Flannery O’Connor short story (literature, for the sake of this

discussion, is part of “the arts”), any one of Radiohead’s albums and Beethoven’s fifth. “Entertainment” – a “Family Guy” episode, a “Friends” episode, “The Hangover,” magazines that qualify as “light reading,” and late night television (SNL, Jimmy Fallon).

Based on the examples I gave, I’d argue a couple things about their difference.

“Entertainment” works to mock/mirror human fantasies for the sake of an audience’s pleasure, while “the arts” searches for the deeper meaning behind these primitive, usually appetitive fantasies, for the sake of “meaning.”

I understand this may be interpreted as a platitudinous definition of “the arts.”

But if this is to be considered clichéd, and therefore, an idea that has lost its significance due to its overuse, than, for your sake, I’d argue there is either no such thing as “the arts” or “the arts” is the same thing as “entertainment,” in which case there is essentially no such thing as the traditional conception of “the arts,” only things that once seemed to seek deeper meaning that we know now does not exist (enter, the increase in our consumption of “entertainment” relative to “the arts” previously brought up).

If that’s what you think, you’re all set for “Brave New World.” (That’s a shameless

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

exaggeration. But seriously, think about the implications of your presumption that the “the Arts” should die.)

The four television shows I mentioned as a part of “Entertainment” (sometimes simultaneously) mirror/mock society. The late David Foster Wallace might argue that they’re all culprits of utilizing postmodern irony, a sort of nihilistic irony that doesn’t attempt to redirect the audience to a better

“In other words, humans have always perceived ‘arts’ and ‘entertainment’ as separate” way, but ridicules mankind’s inherent pain and suffering for no reason other than to make the audience laugh, and to feel warm and cozy and superior to the people being mocked for subscribing to the bourgeoisie, conventional concept of a supernatural world/a world with abstract value (“Family Guy”’s tired satire of religion, “South Park”’s involuted self-parody in the series’ finale, “Friends”’ comedic portrayal of

emptiness in urbanity). “Entertainment,” at least in these cases, is purely a valueless enterprise. No one turns to it to learn, grow, change or think. It’s usually about self-flattery or an intoxicating escape.

“The Arts” chases the age-old sensation of a true, invisible beauty that connects humanity for the sake of something greater than itself. This leads me to the second thing I notice about “the Arts” and “Entertainment.” “The Arts,” in its other-centeredness, is not concerned with your opinion. Michelangelo’s sculpture of David is significant regardless of whether or not I like it, or get it, or admire it when/if I ever see it. “Entertainment” dies without the approval of the masses (News flash: We’re the masses!). Reality shows get canned, “American Idol” contestants booted and so on. Art is art even if many people do not remember it. Can you same the same about “Entertainment?”

I’m not sure whether or not these assessments I’ve made are right. They’re one side of a complex, interesting discussion that I’ll admit frames “Entertainment” in a negative way. But it’s something to contemplate. Don’t feel too bad about the concept of contemplation either, even if pop culture (Entertainment’s metropolis) doesn’t paint it in the best way. That’s what they’re supposed to do.

Traverse the terror Follow the fear.

There’s something amazingly hubristic about giving life advice as a twenty-two year old, but that’s my two cents. My options were to write a sappy retrospective of my days at Trinity, or to try to condense what I’ve gained from these four years. I chose the latter.

Looking back at my time at Trinity, that’s the best advice I can give: follow the fear. It’s an old mantra of improvisational theater, meant to get fearful beginners away from the back wall, and forward onto center stage it’s a mantra of play, of courage, and embracing risk. I realized that it had been my life motto all along, but I didn’t quite know it.

I used to think I had no fears.

Whenever people asked me what my biggest fear was, I said “nothing.” Naturally, as I grew older, I realized I had a number of fears, but was simply too proud to admit it to myself. I didn’t dislike playing sports, I was afraid of them. I didn’t dislike dancing, I was terrified of it.

It was proof of my human imperfection, which, being a snowflake, I could not bear.

At some point I stopped trying to be fearless. It might have happened when I had my first panic attack. I remember laughing. It felt horrible, but I laughed. I laughed because I noticed that I felt like I was dying.

But it was only fear. It was irrational, and all I realized fear alone could not kill me.

It was an empowering thought: no matter how bad life gets, I could always count on the fact that the fear was fictive. So I learned to follow the fear. The goal became to put myself in as much danger as I could, and see if I could get out of it.

Try it sometime. Say yes to that thing you’re terrified of. Lie your way into a job you’re not qualified for and see if you can wing it. Move to a different city and just see what happens.

The Beginning of History APR.

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The end of the year is a time to let nostalgia fill your head and heart with sentimental memories of the beginning of your history. In sports, this looks like anniversaries of moments that, when they occurred, seemed typical if not mundane, yet somehow have achieved an almost transcendental status in modern collective culture. Usually it has to do with location. Over 100 years ago, in 2012, Hugh Bradley of the Boston Red Sox hit the first home run Fenway Park ever bore witness to.

Arguably the most well-known stadium in the world, the spirit of Fenway allows Bradley to persist in our minds, not because of what he did, but where he was when he did it.

Sports

Senior TREVOR GRIFFIN fires in a pitch during this past Saturday’s game vs. Austin College.

photo by OZVALDO VELOZ

Tigers hope to ride winning streak to SCAC title

BY HALEY McFADDEN

SPORTS REPORTER

As the 2016 National Division III Champions, all eyes were on them to see how far they would go after losing many of their top players to graduation. Lately, the team has been experiencing a winning streak, boding well for the rest of their regular and post-season.

At the beginning of the season, the team seemed to be off to a rocky start, losing the majority of their Feburary games.

However, in the later season, the team has been far more relaxed and natural, and it has shown. The team has won all but three of their games this month, with all of their losses being by only one run. Their most recent win was a 14-0 sweep against Hardin-Simmons University, where the team came out incredibly strong, with five runs in the first inning, with three Tigers, Rafe Chaumette, Parker Cormack and Joey Pecoraro, getting two-run hits for the team. Much of this recent success can be attributed to the growing confidence that naturally comes with repeated game experience. This is a very exciting development for the defending National Champions.

“At the beginning of the year, I think everyone was just trying to do too much,” said first-year left-handed pitcher James Nittoli. “Now we are more relaxed and focused on doing our job. Hitters are having good at bats, seeing the ball well and barreling up to the ball. Pitchers are coming in throwing strikes and executing pitches.”

“Naturally, any team is excited when they win five straight games. Especially when you score 72 runs in five games. I think this gives the team a lot of confidence going into the conference tournament. The team is really starting to mesh well and play as a together working together,” said senior righthanded pitcher Dylan McGee. One of the Tiger’s most recent success was against rival National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics school Our Lady of the Lake University, where the Tigers’ offense showed just how strong it had become over the season, with 19 hits, leading to a 18-8 win. The game started off with the Tigers having a scoreless first inning, but they quickly came back with a five-run second inning, and the four-run third, with Chaumette making a three-run double in the fourth to continue the lead. OLLU tried to catch up in the fifth, but Trinity would not allow them to get even close. In the seventh inning the game was over when Mason Meredith hit a solo home run. This game not only was an exciting win on Trinity’s home field, but really showcased how well the men had developed into their individual roles, and gave hope that they would be able to use this strength to go far post-season.

“Lately everyone has just been doing their individual job and getting out and competing to get wins,” said first-year righthanded pitcher Mark Tindall. “Everyone really wants to make it all the way, but we just need to take the rest of the season one game at a time, and we should keep seeing success.”

The SCAC tournament has already kicked off for the baseball team, and the Tigers are looking strong thus far. Recently the team beat Austin College in three separate games, with the most notable being the first, where senior Dylan McGee led the team by pitching a no-hitter, the Tigers’ first since 2015.

The offense got 22 hits, getting them to a 19-0 victory. The first inning was kicked off with a home run by Scott Walters, which set the tone for the rest of the Tiger-dominated game.

The team faced off against Austin College two more times that weekend, beating them both, 10-6 and 11-7 respectively.

This upcoming weekend the Tigers will face off against Texas Lutheran University in Grand Prairie in the final game of the SCAC tournament. TLU is arguably the team’s biggest competition in SCAC, with the team having lost to them three times early in the year. However, with the streak of recent success combined with more than enough motivation to bring it home strong, the team is optimistic going into the game, and hopes to bring home the trophy again.

“We have talked about the development of this team all year long, how a dog pile on the field after the SCAC Championship would be arguably the best dog pile in Trinity history. This young team faced adversity in the beginning of the season, and now 39 games later, we are really playing well,” McGee said.

“Having a lot of fun and just playing for each other is why we have been successful lately. We just need to stay relaxed and enjoy the competition.”

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017 •

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Regretfully they tell us, but firmly they compel us to say goodbye to you.

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodnight.

I hate to go and leave this pretty sight.

Thanks to our readers for a fantastic ‘16-’17 at the Trinitonian!

catch ya on the flip side!

enjoy your summer!

Thanks for reading!

Jan. ‘17

Apr. ‘17

we’ll be back FALL ‘17!

SPORTS • APRIL 28, 2017 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

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Introducing next year’s sports editor

BY JULIA WEIS

PULSE REPORTER Hi there! I thought I’d introduce myself since you’ll be seeing a lot more of me in this section next year. My name is Julia and I’m going to be the sports editor for the Trinitonian starting in the fall. I’m really excited about taking over this section and I want to tell anyone out there who’s listening about all of the fun things you can expect from me. But first, here’s a bit of an introduction to me.

I’m a sophomore communication major minoring in Chinese and business. I live in Portland, Oregon, but I’m originally from Sweden and Germany, so I speak three languages fluently. I absolutely love dogs, ABBA and working at the Trinitonian! I’m not currently an athlete, but I’ve had a few short-lived athletic careers in soccer and basketball, all around the middle school era. I did also swim competitively for several years, but my swim career came to an abrupt end in high school with a pool-side accident involving stitches in my chin, but that’s a story for another day. Nowadays, I enjoy running and working out at the gym.

The Trinitonian, or perhaps journalism in general, is something I’m incredibly passionate about. I’m really excited to get the chance to do something meaningful that hopefully will positively impact athletes all across campus.

Now to get down to it: I have lots of ideas for ways to spice up this section next year.

Something I’m very passionate about is being closely connected to all of the sports teams and athletic staff, so that we never miss anything there is to celebrate. On that same noat, I want to ensure all sports are equally covered, because there are so many teams and athletes that we have to be proud of. I won’t bore you too much, but I’m already getting excited about the colorcoded calendar I have in mind for keeping track of every team’s games, meets and matches.

Something else I would like to see in this section is the incorporation of more infographics and design to attract the reader’s eye. I’ve seen lots of creative designs on Pinterest that I definitely think are achievable. Just some small things like a table featuring the upcoming sports events that week are on my to-do list. I anticipate working closely with the graphics editor to make this

happen throughout the year.

As for content, I see a wider variety of stories than what we traditionally have had. I want to see more feature spotlights and investigative stories. I think lots of students have questions about the world of student athletes at a Division III school and the inner workings of the athletic departments. In addition to looking more into that, I think more stories involving sports psychology and sports analytics could be interesting for readers. I also want to encourage more guest columnists, specifically any coaches or athletic staff that have insight on how they think sports seasons are going or about Trinity sports in general. I think that readers can expect to see a ratio of about 80 percent Trinity sports, 20 percent national or outside sports. I know that our readers and our reporters sometimes want to read and write about non-Trinity sports, and so that’s going to be important to cover too, but I want to make sure we focus on our student-athletes here.

This concludes my preview of next year’s sports section. I hope you’re looking forward to it as much as I am! See you next year, Tigers.

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017 •

Swim coach John Ryan retires

BY SHELBY DeVORE

SPORTS REPORTER

After 25 years of dedication to the Trinity swim team, head coach John Ryan announced his retirement.

Ryan started his career at Trinity in the fall of 1992, which marked the first year of the varsity NCAA swim and dive team for the Tigers. Before coming to Trinity, he was the head coach at Wesleyan University from 1986 to 1992.

“One thing that John brings to the table that will be missed is his wealth of knowledge about the sport and the swimming community,” said Coach Scott Trompeter. “It seems like every potential swimmer who walks through the door John can connect with them about their hometown teams and probably knows their coach on a personal level.”

Not only has he lead the women’s team to win 17 out of 19 SCAC Swimming and Diving Championships, he has lead them to win 14 years in a row. He has also lead the men’s team to win 10 championships since 1999. Also during his time, he helped lead seven men and four women to win SCAC Swimmers of the Year awards.

Ryan’s coaching abilities have not gone unnoticed during his time at Trinity. He has received the Coach of the Year 13 times.

“I’m going to miss JR’s humor in motivating us,” first-year Jacob Hurrell-Zitelman. “To give you an idea of what that

entails: he once gave the distance team a copy of a Sports Illustrated cover that showed a child Chinese martial artist practicing, and he said, ‘I want you to have the focus of this young Chinese boy when you swim.’ Needless to say, we all swam very focused that day.”

Shortly after Ryan’s announcement about his retirement, athletic director Bob King announced that assistant coach Scott Trompeter will move up and take over the program.

Trompeter has coached at Trinity for two years and before that, he was a graduate assistant coach at Incarnate Word University.

Trompeter was a member of the 2005 to 2009 University of Texas swim team prior to coaching. The team seems to be excited for Trompeter’s new role and is looking forward to the new adventures they will have with him.

“I am looking forward to Scott being our new head coach because he is motivational and dedicated to improving the team,” said junior Meg Chase. “He’s also really sassy, and that’s pretty entertaining.”

Trinity is thankful for the time and the work Ryan put into the program. Needless to say, the program would not be where it is today without him.

“John has done a wonderful job building and developing this program into an extremely successful one,” Trompeter said. “I am excited to help continue the success of the Trinity Tigers and carry out his tradition of excellence.”

SPORTS

Upcoming Sports Schedule Baseball, Apr. 28 vs. Texas Lutheran University Softball, Apr. 28 vs. Centenary College Men’s/Women’s Tennis, Apr. 28-30, SCAC championship Men’s/Women’s Track and Field, Apr. 28-29, SCAC championship

Everything from player profiles to game day reporting. Take your passion to the next level, bring your love for the game to the forefront with the Trinitonian.

Positions open now.

Contact trinitonian@trinity.edu for more.

SPORTS • APRIL 28, 2017 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

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Trinity athletics entering the postseason Track and field, tennis and golf preparing for SCAC playoffs, reflecting on the ups and downs of seasons

BY SHELBY DeVORE

SPORTS REPORTER

Track and Field The track and field team’s season began back in January in Houston. The team had about a meet per week all the way back to the first week of March. The members of the team have been breaking personal records all throughout the season. In their latest meet, the teams traveled to Azusa, California where more than five members beat their personal records.

“Conference is going to be extremely competitive and one of our tougher meets in recent years, but if we perform to our capabilities then we should end up on top for both the women’s and men’s teams,” said senior Adam Saunders.

The men’s track and field teams has won the SCAC championship four consecutive years and the women’s team has won it for two.

“Our conference is very competitive in track and field and it is going to be a tough fight on both the men’s and women’s sides to get the win, but based on the performances I’ve seen all season, I believe that we can make it happen,” said junior Molly McCullough. “I’m really proud of the dedication the entire track and field team has showed, practicing extra hours in the heat, waking up early to get in multiple workouts a day and cheering on the team in every race and event.”

The meet starts Friday and continues on to Saturday. The 10,000-meter finals and 3,000-steeplechase finals will be the only track events on Friday. The javelin, pole vault, triple jump, and hammer trials will also take place Friday. Every other event will be on Saturday.

Tennis The men’s and women’s tennis teams started their spring season back in February and have traveled and competed against schools from all over. The teams competed all throughout the fall and ended the season with the Intercollegiate Tennis Association regional tournament.

Sophomore Wilson Lambreth and junior Matt Tyler won the double title. The women’s team placed second overall.

Both teams played against three SCAC teams for the first time this season on April 21 and 22.

They first played Southwestern University and both walked away with a team win. The men won 7-2 and the women won 8-1. On Saturday they both defeated Colorado College 9-0 and in the afternoon, they both defeated Austin College 8-1.

“The season has been going great for the team,” said senior Liza Southwick. “We just had a long stretch of no matches and got back into things with three wins this past weekend, so that was really encouraging for all of us. Each girl is just so special and I am thankful for the opportunity to play alongside of them. We love playing for each other so we are excited to see what we can do.”

Both teams are the first seed of the tournament and get a bye for their first game. The women’s team will play on Saturday, April 29 at 9 a.m. against the winner of the Schreiner University and Austin College match on Friday. The men’s team will play on Saturday at 2 p.m. against the winner of Schreiner and Colorado College.

“I feel very confident about going into conference. We have put in a lot of hard work over the last couple months, and it will hopefully pay off,” said first-year Jordan Pitts.

Golf The men’s and women’s golf teams have been battling against topped ranked teams all season.

Both men and women started off their spring season at Comanche Trace in Kerrville, Texas.

The men’s team placed third and the women’s placed fourth.

“The season has had its ups and downs but I think we’ve definitely played well for the most part this spring, we had a good showing at Comanche Trace and at the West Cup [Golf Tournament], and even though we played mediocre at conference, we still only finished second,” said senior Redmond Lyons.

Both teams played their last tournament before conference at Berry Creek in Georgetown, Texas. Both did not play the way they had hoped but used it as a reminder to keep working and practicing.

The teams played conference April 24 and 25. The men’s team placed second and had four members make the All-SCAC team. Lyons and senior Will Street tied for third, receiving All-SCAC first team. First-year Max Mitchell and senior Trevor Warner received All-SCAC second team. The women’s team placed first for the second year in a row. Junior Shelby DeVore and sophomore Elizabeth McGillivray tied for third, receiving All-SCAC first team and junior Taylor Moser and senior Christine Campbell received All-SCAC second team.

“I was super excited to go to conference,” McGillivray said. “We worked really hard this season and had some ups and downs in tournaments, but I’m really happy with how we played in our final tournament.”

ELENA WILSON photo by OZVALDO VELOZ

CONGRATULATIONS, 2017 GRADUATES! Katie Groke

Grace Horn

Andy Leeds

Hilary Hoffman

Alyson Tukan

Congratulations, Katie!

We’re proud of you.

Congratulations, Grace!

Congrats!

Congratulations, Hilary! Job well done.

In honor of your hard work, drive, and compassion.

-Mom, Dad, Nick, Andy, and Dave

-All of your family

-Barry & Sharon Horn

Sean Watson

Taylor West

Congratulations on your graduation!

Congrats from all your family!

-From all your family

-Gary and Cathy West

-Dennis Hoffman

Daniel Mulholland We are very proud of you and excited for your future.

We love you!

Jeffrey Williams Sullivan Congratulations!

-Mari & Jeff Sullivan

-Mom, Dad, Thomas, and Nathan

Briahna Loraine Yarberry Congratulations! What an accomplishment. I know you will do great things. We can thank God and Trinity for your scholarship that enabled you to attend and graduate with a major in Neuroscience, minors in German and Chemistry.

I love you!

-Janel M. Yarberry

Rachel Shepherd

Heidi Krause

Congratulations, Rachel!

Well done! Thanks to Dr. Hunsicker-Wang and the faculty of the Chemistry Department for their leadership and guidance over the past 4 years.

We are so proud of all you have achieved during your four years at Trinity.

Wishing you continued success on the road ahead!

-Donna & David Shepherd

-Lynn Morstead & Christopher Krause

Parent Giving & Engagement

-Lester & Therese Tukan

Allison Mackender Congrats!

-Darin & Jennifer Mackender

Alex Andrea Holler

Katherine Wilks

Congrats on your awesome academic performance and your upcoming graduation!

Congratulations!

-Richard & Sharon Wilks

-Mom & Dad

Joy Lazarus & Jay Stracke Way to slay your internships! You both will have great koala-fications...

-Annual Giving Team

Faith Byrne We are both so very proud of you young lady. Your drive, your determination, your focus to achieve your goals leave us both in awe. The future belongs to you and we know you will grasp it with both hands. We will always be there to love and support you. Always.

-David Byrne & Arda van Dongen

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WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM • APRIL 28, 2017 •

SPORTS

Beginning of the end Did I college right?

BY JOY LAZARUS

SENIOR COLUMN

The problem with writing columns for the last two years and being a sentimental and nostalgic person is that I’ve learned to relish in the excess goo of life. Thus, it’s hard to express a farewell that is devoid of sentiment.

There are too many ways to say goodbye to too many faces. For now, please don’t look here for wisdom. Instead, I’d like to replay the sounds on campus that have made my “Trinity Experience” memorable.

First, there’s this street that’s usually blocked off in between the track and the baseball field, which runs parallel to the Bell Center. It takes about a minute and a half to walk from the top of the street to the bottom. The walk is nice for more reasons than one. When I walk from the top of the area (that is, beside the pool) to the bottom, where the tennis courts are, I can hear pure athleticism take flight: splashes as a swimmer dives into the pool, the clack of a ball against a baseball bat, the sleek noise of rubber on court as basketball practice is in full swing, the effortless swoosh of a tennis ball against a racket. I’m made privy to an athletic world that was never my own besides attending brief expositions of friend’s games.

More sounds across campus come to mind.

The Trinity Tower bell chiming every 15 minutes, with louder chimes at the 30-minute indicators. Dainty bells gives a melodious sense of time, an audible reminder of where I am and what time it is, how much time has passed and so forth. This is nice.

Beside the tower is the beloved jewel of campus, Miller fountain, which proudly spurts water (and occasionally a windward mist that creates a sheath students walk through). The sound of rushing water is a Trinity staple. I’ve seen rainbows refracted through the droplets on a sunny day. It’s peaceful and calming, honest even — inviting thoughtful conversation in Adirondack chairs.

I’ve felt the water’s cold reality during birthday celebrations as well — doing a victory lap

around the entire circumference as friends loudly encouraged the behavior. I assume this water’s temperature is similar to the slow stream that rushes from Northrup to the nape of Stadium Drive, dancing down each step.

The slam of dorm doors is forever ingrained in my mind as well. For example, in Lightner, where the slam echoes throughout the hall.

The same is true of Herndon and Prassel, when a loud clack against the hinge is routine as I run in and out of my room, on to the next task with no end in sight (as is common for any Trinity student.)

More, quicker noises: The double click of an unbolted door in the art studios, revealing one of eight fellow art majors, at any time of the day. The swish and churn of the campus washing machines, the random cursing of students who have to use the ones that never work. A clink of plates in Mabee, utensils being dropped into the sanitization bin. Yolanda telling us to have a good day. ESPN on the televisions. The rise and fall of easy conversation, forbidden laughter in the library, the elevator’s toll, random fake emergency alerts across campus.

My phone vibrating from receiving a LeeRoy email at 12 a.m., every school day, for the last four years.

My friend’s voices that I’m so accustomed to hearing in my ear; their voices filling up different spaces over the course of time: Coates, the library, the art studio, my dorm or a friend’s apartment. Running across someone on campus, or running into someone on campus, or just hurriedly trying to make it to class and listening to the birds chirp and the water flow and the simple feeling of my feet landing in familiar territory.

Those sounds are better than any song I’ve heard. They had nothing to do with me — and there’s really nothing special about them besides the recognizable monotony — but I like how natural the ordinary began to feel. As I look into my next todays, I’ll dream of the old ones, the older days, because those have been my best yet.

BY KATIE GROKE

SENIOR COLUMN

I ask myself this question fairly frequently.

Did I college right? Periodically I see other people and wonder if things would have been better if I had tried it their way. Should I have joined a sorority? Should I have joined more clubs? Played more IMs? Gone on more O-Rec trips?

My days have mostly been school, work, track, repeat. Of course there are friends and meals thrown in, you don’t want to meet me when I’m hungry and I apologize to anyone who may have been hurt by hungry Katie, aka Patrice (she’s kinda a bitch). Within my circle I like to think that I have a few really good friendships rather than a ton of okay friendships. I’m fairly confident that people thought Elizabeth McEnrue and I were lesbian lovers for a period of time. If that is what it looks like to have a really great friendship, that’s fine with me. The number of late night dance breaks and TV watching seasons were pretty great, even if we didn’t really deserve them with the amount of work we didn’t get done.

Those of you that know me know that I don’t really like going out and I reach my people “I don’t know that well” limit pretty quickly. A good Friday night in my mind is staying home, eating pizza, drinking beer and watching an obscene amount of “Grey’s Anatomy.” I can count on one hand how many parties I went to this year and I am perfectly happy with that. Sure there were a few parties over the years that I did get a little silly at, but being the rule follower that I am I waited until after I was 21 before I truly let loose. Noting back to that small group of friends, those were the ones to be silly with. Those people were the ones I could look to for more than just a night out. Those were the people I could go to when my dog died or when I bombed a test or when I was freaking out about being injured during my final track season. Those were the people that knew there was more to a friendship

than the crazy nights out and I will always be thankful for them.

At work I got to interact with all kinds of people. Sure, being in the athletic training room, they were all athletes, but each person had their own story. It was a diverse hodgepodge of people that were passionate about their sport. Wednesday I had my last shift in there and I’m not gonna lie I went to the bathroom and cried for a little bit afterward. I made some of my best friends in there, I met my boyfriend there, learned about life and medicine and working with all kinds of people there. It was one of the most beautiful experiences I had at Trinity even if I was lifting really heavy water jugs and taping up sweaty football and tennis players (can confirm tennis is the stinkiest sport, but they are all amazing so it’s okay). I grew as a person there and I wouldn’t have traded my 6 a.m. training shift for the world. Well, I may (and did) trade them for sleep every once in awhile, because the only thing worse than Patrice is sleepy-Katie.

How I went through school was different from the Hollywood ideal, if anything I was the nerd you saw in the background of library scenes. It was different even from a lot of my best friends who were involved in social clubs or were a part of other kinds groups. I focused on the individual experiences and friendships rather than group experiences. From what I have observed that is not the most popular college socializing style, but it worked for me.

I don’t think there is a right way to college. I hope that my chain of consciousness telling of my experience at Trinity can help benefit you in some way. I don’t have any sage advice for any underclassmen looking to learn something from this article, sorry. The best I can say is this: if things are working for you, great. If not, find what makes you unhappy and eliminate it. If there is something that makes you happy, keep doing it. Life is short and college is even shorter. Do what makes you you and makes you happy and don’t worry about what other people are doing.

SPORTS • APRIL 28, 2017 • WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM

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Seniors share their favorite memories

BY ELISE HESTER

PULSE REPORTER

“One time in Cali, I went out an emergency exit and got our entire team yelled at, but it was okay because it was funny.”

— Hillary Hoffman, softball “Racing after being injured for several years was painful, but much less painful than not being able to compete.”

— Ben Willey, cross country, track and field “One of my favorite memories from diving at Trinity is creating a slip and slide off the five and seven meter platform at the Palo Alto pool in San Antonio with the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps team after we finished competing against them.”

— Mollie Patzke, diving “Trinity Athletics has been the biggest, most influential and most important part of my time at Trinity. I’ve loved every single minute. From ‘Deja Vu’ with TUVB [the Trinity volleyball team] over Southwestern, to the excitement of baseball winning the national championship, from Quin to Marc, from Seth to Bob, every moment and every human I’ve met has been special.

However, my first goal for the Trinity men’s soccer team will always stick in my mind. The eruption of the crowd and the support I received from my friends, peers and teammates is something I will remember for the rest of my life. Thank you to the entire Trinity Athletics community for the love, support and opportunities you’ve given me.”

— Callum Squires, men’s soccer

“When Cole Brewer got decleated freshman year at University of Mary Hardin-Baylor.”

— Zachary Allen, football “Be yourself. Not everyone is going to like you and that’s okay.

Just enjoy your DQ, jacuzzi, some Beyonce music and laugh with your roommate on golf trips.”

— Hanna Niner, women’s golf “Sweaty and emotional.”

— Brigitte Taylor, women’s soccer “My favorite memory was my senior night where I got to be on the poster to hype up the game and walk out with my family prior to the game. During the game I hit two three’s and had a reverse layup, but my favorite part of the game was when I walked off the court for the final time I went and kissed the logo in the middle of the court.”

— Josh Ingram, men’s basketball “Jerheme Urban: best athlete on the team.”

— Joseph Staggs, football “Even on my worst days, going to practice made everything instantly better. The cross country team had an amazing way of making the biggest worries seem small, while never failing to make me smile. There’s something amazing being surrounded by people who have the same passion as you, especially when it consists of waking up at 6:30 in the morning to run miles on miles every day.”

— Katie Cribb, cross country, track and field

graphic by TYLER HERRON

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