New writers will work to reflect the great diversity of ideas at UC Davis
Welcome back to school, Aggies. It’s a new year and the challenges facing this country are profound. You may have asked yourself: what can I do to make a difference?
The opinion desk will be working as hard as ever to make sure this paper fairly represents the great diversity of thought that makes this campus and community unique.
We’re going to be pushing harder to find columns written by guest authors, and we need your help. If you or a group you represent are passionate about a particular topic, especially in the news, email opinion@theaggie.org to submit an op-ed or a letter for consideration. If you would like to write a weekly column for the Aggie, please let us know and we’ll send you an application.
Let’s make sure the college newspaper remains democratic, essentially local and as refreshing to read as ever. Make sure you’re part of the conversation.
Tamanna Ahluwalia
Coming off a successful Fall Quarter column on the persistence of gun violence in America, second-year neurobiology, physiology and behavior major Tamanna Ahluwalia will be turning her attention these next ten weeks to the seemingly intractable issue of poverty in America. Paying special attention to how individuals contribute and react to destitute conditions, Tamanna hopes to better understand the underlying reasons for poverty. Columns on boredom and existentialism will help show the power of American materialism and its stark relationship to life at the bottom.
Sid Bagga
Could increases in tuition actually benefit students? What does ASUCD really do to represent the students it serves? Why do conservatives on today’s campuses seem more amenable to firebrand right-wingers than before? These are among the questions Sid Bagga, a second-year economics major, hopes to answer in his column this quarter. At a time when the political and social divisions in our society are hyper-magnified on college campuses, Bagga aims to look at the issues in a way that’s opinionated but not blindly partisan — holding all sides accountable.
Taryn DeOilers
After spending Fall Quarter exploring the intersections of the sciences and the humanities, second-year comparative literature and political science double major Taryn DeOilers will return to the opinion desk as an associate editor and part-time columnist. She plans on writing in response to newsworthy events in the culture, both nationally and locally — with an eye for the issues that will affect UC Davis students and the community.
Olivia Luchini
If you think first-year students should be versed in meme culture, you’ve got a friend in Olivia Luchini, a second-year English and political science double major who believes there should be an entire seminar on the subject. She’ll explore doping by Picnic Day dachshunds and terrorizing turkeys. A stand-up comic from Fresno, California, Luchini has her eyes set on writing for Saturday Night Live — the less-funny version of the daily shenanigans Aggie humorists get themselves into.
Parker Nevin
If you’re looking for the odd, off-brand humor that turns students into piles of dust and TAPS into a colonial power, look no further than Parker Nevin, a second-year computational cognitive science major. Nevin is a member of Birdstrike Theatre, an on-campus improvisational comedy troupe, which will come in handy when he needs to come up with an excuse on the fly as to why the Aggie’s humor desk just isn’t that funny.
Written by: Eli Flesch — ekflesch@ucdavis.edu
