Column

The role that race plays in learning I’m a first-generation college student, and this spring I will finally graduate from Davis. While it certainly hasn’t been an easy road to get where I am, it has been a memorable journey. Against all the odds that I’ve had to overcome in my life, I’ve never been […]

Climate change threatens global coffee supplies Americans disagree on a lot of things — politics, musical tastes, sports teams, appropriate places for tattoos. But we pretty much agree on one thing: coffee, good. A study conducted by the National Coffee Association USA found that 62 percent of the 3,000 people surveyed in 2017 were daily […]

A questionable study setup should not be allowed to dictate character education Grit is education’s newest buzzword — and when discussing it a few weeks ago, I was unaware that it’s the field’s latest bandwagon. Angela Lee Duckworth, an academic and psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania, coined the term almost a decade ago. But […]

We should not pin blame solely on powerful men but also on the society that made them. Content Warning: This story contains references to sexual harassment and assault.    “It was 30 minutes of me getting up and moving and him following and sticking his fingers down my throat again. It was really repetitive. It […]

How racial identity is based on cultural upbringing, not physical appearance What does it mean to be Latino? Are there certain requirements that need to be met for someone to be considered a “real” Latino? Does one need to speak Spanish fluently or be native born to be considered Hispanic? Are children with Hispanic origins […]

And if there were such a thing, it’d be bad for the environment If you kayak up the Mokelumne River from Lodi Lake, you will pass a section near the railroad trestle which is like a village. There are tents of transients and vagrants. You will see laundry lines, bicycles and a dog tied to […]

Interesting stories are out there — but this process isn’t one of them If there’s one question that perfectly condensed the presidency of Donald Trump into a nutshell, it would be this: why? Head-scratching blunders, including the infamous “covfefe” tweet, are mixed with more pressing concerns like name-calling that increasingly erode the president’s credibility. In […]

It’s self-defeating and disadvantageous — but we still count on it every time It’s midterms week and grade curving is at the forefront of many students’ minds. It’s common after a difficult exam to hear the sigh of a spent student and their silent (or maybe noisy) plea to the grade gods: “I hope there’s […]

In the era of #MeToo, the defense of the “artistic genius” no longer suffices It’s been over 20 years since Woody Allen was accused by Dylan Farrow, his then-seven-year-old adopted daughter, of sexual abuse. Although Allen was never charged and has vehemently rejected the notion that he molested her, Farrow, now 32, has penned several […]

Menstruation continues to be a taboo topic — yet it’s central to women’s lives We’ve all heard of “the little red friend,” “shark week,” “lady business” — but why do we shy away from properly addressing menstruation? After all, it occurs in approximately half of the world’s population. Despite our forward-thinking, incredibly liberal era, few […]

How Hollywood has repeatedly circulated the same stereotypes and clichés Movies are brilliant inventions, but because they tend to be depictions of reality, we as spectators also believe that they’re reflections of everyday life and people. For example, in the 1940s and ‘50s, when Hollywood directors first made films about Mexican people, they used stereotypes […]

It’s time to ban road salt and make better anti-icing alternatives Deer like salt. I found this out during my last trip to Yosemite after a deer ran across the road and forced the person driving to tap the brakes. We slowed at every bend in the road after that, and we were surprised to […]