Meeting framed around Stephon Clark Remembrance Week preceding Picnic Day in relation to police de-escalation

On April 13, Students for a Democratic Society held a third meeting with administration in conjunction with other student organizations. The meeting discussed the targeting of Black students by police in relation to the recent Sacramento police shooting of Stephon Clark.

Stephon Clark Remembrance Week, organized by the Black Leadership Council, Black Lives Matter Sacramento and the Pan Afro Student Organization, was held from April 9 to 12 and included events from the Black Student Union, including a die-in on the Quad to visually draw attention to police violence.

The officers who shot an unarmed Clark 20 times in his grandmother’s backyard and muted their body-camera 16 times have returned to work. Students in attendance related Clark’s killing to the militarization of UC Davis police and their own lack of body-camera usage. One example of this violent militarization, according to attendees, was the Picnic Day five.

The “Picnic Day 5” refers to a group of five individuals of color who were engaged in a brawl with undercover police officers on Picnic Day in 2017. The police officers have been accused of engaging with the individuals in an provocatory and aggressive way.

Students framed the meeting’s narrative around addressing how UC Davis administration can work to de-escalate police presence and at the very least around communities of color. This includes the removal of weapons on campus and increased training.

Meeting attendees from the student groups BSU, SDS, Student Workers Ending Racial Violence and other organizations held a printed itinerary with goals and an outline of topics to address, titled “Update on Student Needs.”

First-year sociology major AJ Ballesteros, the current leader of SDS, talked about the basis for the meetings with administration.

“These meetings with the administration organized monthly are […] to address student concerns, primarily with marginalized communities, to make sure that the administration of the UC is being held accountable to these communities,” Ballesteros said.

Ballesteros said the BSU came up with the list of needs through collaboration with Students for Justice in Palestine, the Muslim Student Association, El Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlán, SWERV and the Davis College Democrats.

Everyone in the room then read the needs. The largest focus was working on police de-escalation, increased mental health and cultural competency training and de-weaponization on campus. Students argued that a higher education institution does not need officers with guns, and this does not prevent violence but adds to it.

Demands on the sheet related to police de-escalation included adding the establishment of a police-free zone on campus, the removal of officers from Picnic Day and encouraging UC Davis to make a statement about the Picnic Day 5. Another need that many attendees spoke about was the removal of police from residence halls, especially floors that house African American students. Ballesteros acknowledged how these are needs asked by one marginalized group on campus and that there are many others with their own specific and individualized needs.

Students said that police targeting students of color over other white students can reconfirm statistics of police profiling.

According to “an analysis of the available FBI data,” it was found “that U.S. police kill black people at disproportionate rates.” The analysis discovered that “Black people accounted for 31 percent of police killing victims in 2012, even though they made up just 13 percent of the U.S. population.” And a study conducted by the University of Chicago found that violence against civilians by police officers is “an extremely or very serious problem according to nearly three-quarters of blacks,”  but “less than 20 percent of whites.”

Student attendees also said police officers are not trained to handle people going through mental crises, which could result in escalated outcomes. Amara Miller, a Ph.D. student in sociology, said that when she was an RA, an individual tried to jump out of the window due to a suicidal mental health crisis. Miller’s coworker had to talk that person out of the window, a task far beyond the job requirements of an RA.

“It is not the job of RA’s to be mental health professionals, and it’s also not the job of police to be mental health professionals,” Miller said. “They do not have the skills to talk people out of those situations.”

Attendees discussed increasing mental health funding and bolstering Community Advising Network counselors who are culturally trained. Students found cutting initiatives like the Mind Spa unacceptable, especially without administrative notification.

Miller said that administration should demand police officers be trained in cultural competency, mental health and de-escalation skills, which could address institutional racism.

“How are you hiring them?” Miller asked. “What training are you requiring them to have? What actions are they being asking to do on Picnic Day and how does that impact black and brown bodies?

Kelechi Ohiri, a third-year organizational studies major and a student assistant to the chancellor, spoke about the intense racial targeting she has experienced as a black woman.

“I have never been more profiled in my life than on Picnic Day,” Ohiri said. “There are [police] everywhere.”

Another student talked about seeing around 40 officers in front of a black fraternity throwing a party.

“If black folks are having a party, they’re at the house,” Ohiri said. ”That’s not really a UCPD as much as a Davis PD issue, but there should be a message to the Davis PD saying, ‘OK, our students are here with their family and friends.’ The aggression that gets shown by police officers on Picnic Day is very concerning.”

Ohiri mentioned how an overarching issue is the institutionally racist and micro-aggressive policies and lack of cultural training for police officers. According to Ohiri, administration needs to look at what the purpose of a university police department is at a public learning institution meant to prop up marginalized communities, not target them.

Students in attendance also discussed redistributing funds in order to restructure policing, citing a community in Colorado that has been helped by replacing the police force with social workers. Replacing officers with social workers was a need listed.

Students talked about how a bare minimum would be a restriction on undercover police. According to one student, it is not just Picnic Day that contains undercover officers, alleging they saw a plain-clothes police officer at the recent Mental Health Town Hall last quarter.

Ballesteros asked everyone on the table what students can do in working with administration to de-escalate police presence, a presence that students of color say has largely been on them. Sheri Atkinson, the executive director of Community Resource and Retention Centers, admitted “Davis City Police” have long been accused of targeting Black students and other students of colors.

According to a student at the meeting, it can be triggering for students of color to see white students intoxicated and acting raucous on Picnic Day avoiding any consequences.

The end of the meeting pertained to the last Regents meeting and revisited topics discussed in the second meeting with administration, where SDS advocated for university-paid busing of students to UC Regents meetings.

Mayra Llamas, the interim executive director of the Community Resource and Retention Centers, said that, by the end of the process, only one student attended the Regents meeting. This student received university-sponsored travel, hotel and food. SDS members wanted further explanation as to why more students who signed up didn’t go.

Students then asked how administration reached out to marginalized students centers about going to Regents meeting. As was mentioned at previous events, some SDS members and other campus group members revisited goals of sending out campus-wide emails. Atkinson and Llamas said that only the Chancellor’s office and a few others have access to campus-wide emails.

Written by: Aaron Liss — campus@theaggie.org

Author states plans to reintroduce amendment in future

Nick Flores, an English and political science double major and former ASUCD Internal Affairs Commission chair, and Rahi Suryawanshi, a fourth-year international relations major and former ASUCD senator, co-authored a constitutional amendment shifting from two legislative ASUCD elections to one and modifying senators’ constituencies.

The amendment, referred to as Constitutional Amendment #2, was conceived by Flores and supported by Suryawanshi as a response to the continuous lack of voter turnout from students to legislative and executive elections and disproportional institutional memory. It was recently withdrawn from consideration.

“The Winter 2018 ASUCD General Election saw under 10% voter turnout, and the Fall

2017 ASUCD General Election saw under 5% voter turnout,” the amendment reads. “Given historical turnout figures and lack of widespread engagement and representation in ASUCD, this Amendment seeks to engage with historically underrepresented students and increase voter turnout.”

The amendment would reform the elections process so that only a singular general election would be held the seventh week of Winter Quarter to elect 16 senators to the table instead of the current 12. The increase in number of senators comes from a decrease in at large senators — senators who currently represent the entire undergraduate student body — and the creation of collegiate and special interest senators.

As the amendment reads now, four senators would be elected on behalf of the College of Letters and Sciences, three for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, one for the College of Biological Sciences and one for the College of Engineering. Flores referred to a majority of ASUCD senators within the College of Letters and Sciences.

“Forcing slate leaders to recruit outside of those spheres, outside of traditional ASUCD spheres — into the College of Engineering, the College of Ag — will bring people who aren’t really in the conversation traditionally into the ASUCD conversation,” Flores said.

Special interest senators would be designated to represent transfer students and international students with one senator each.

Flores said the number of collegiate and special interest senators would be open to deliberation and the present numbers in the amendment “aren’t set in stone.”

“I found many problems with the proposed amendment,” said Rodney Tompkins, a second-year psychology major and the ASUCD Elections Committee interim chair, via email. “It would further complicate the coming year and cause more problems than it attempts to solve. Would current sitting senators be forced to resign before terming out? What would result from all future senators terming out at once, since there would be no guarantee of anyone with prior institutional knowledge remaining on the table?”

The amendment’s initial presentation to the Senate table was scheduled for March 8 but was unable to go under review as that Senate meeting was cancelled for failing to meet quorum after the Senate’s prior Town Hall public forum on the same date.

Prior to its withdrawal, Suryawanshi termed out of office, leaving both authors absent.  According to an email from Senate pro tempore Jake Sedgley, a third-year economics and environmental policy analysis and planning double major via, the amendment was tabled until representation for it could be provided by the authors at a subsequent Senate meeting.

Flores’ conception of the amendment was carried out under ASUCD’s previous table and executive. He marked his unfamiliarity with the newly elected table and his own absence from UC Davis for a year as reason to withdraw the amendment from consideration until his return to campus in Fall Quarter 2018.

“I don’t feel the current Senate or exec are tenured or experienced enough to debate and consider these crucial and nuanced organizational overhauls that require advanced legislative literacy and an extensive understanding of ASUCD’s current operations and structure, as these reforms can potentially and fundamentally shift how ASUCD interacts within its own branches and with students,” Flores said. “I plan to reintroduce the bill when I return to Davis in order to ensure that it is given fair and transparent consideration.”

Constitutional Amendment #2, if enacted, would shift the legislative makeup of UC Davis student government for the first time since the criteria for 12 senators was implemented in 1996. Flores compared Davis’ student government to that of other UCs, citing UC Berkeley’s senate of solely at large senators, elected in one election per year and a table of 20 individuals.

“This is not going to happen overnight,” Flores said. “And this isn’t the end-all be-all bill that’s going to cure ASUCD low voter turnout, low engagement, low transparency. But I think this is a step in the right direction.”

Written by: Elizabeth Mercado — campus@theaggie.org

Professors Pelo, Rosen, Venkatesan will receive grants for creative work

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation named three UC Davis faculty members as Guggenheim fellows on April 5. Associate professor of music Mika Pelo, professor of art Annabeth Rosen and associate professor of religious studies and comparative literature Archana Venkatesan are three of 175 scholars who were selected out of a pool of nearly 3,000 candidates.

The Guggenheim Fellowship is a grant given to fellows for a six to twelve month period. It is designed to offer fellows a period of unrestricted creative freedom so that they may pursue a project in their field. The fellowship is awarded to individuals who have made exceptional contributions in the fields of creative arts, humanities, natural sciences or social sciences. One must apply to be considered for a fellowship, and only citizens and permanent residents of the United States, Canada, Latin America and the Caribbean are permitted to enter the contest.

Mika Pelo is a composer who teaches music composition at UC Davis. He received a fellowship in the category of creative arts in honor of his work in the field of composition.

Pelo earned a doctorate in composition from Columbia University and also holds several other degrees in music from five institutions of higher education in Europe. Pelo has been commissioned to compose music for the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Swedish Arts Council and the Prague Moderne, among other ensembles.

The composer draws inspiration from French spectral composition, which involves using technology to visualize the spectra of sound in order to determine the timbre of acoustic or synthetic music.

“Spectral music is much more sensual [than modern music] in a way,” Pelo said. “It’s not afraid of being beautiful. For me, when I heard it, it provided me with a kind of, ‘Okay, this is where I belong.’”

Music from other countries similarly influences Pelo’s artistic inspiration. Pelo himself is from Sweden, so Scandinavian music, specifically lyricism, shapes his compositions.

“You’ll find a lot of folk music influences in classical music in Sweden,” Pelo said. “That’s what I was brought up with, and that’s still influencing me.”

Currently, Pelo is working on a composition for an orchestra in Latvia and making preparations for his project as a Guggenheim fellow: writing an opera. This task is of an immense scale with many complexities and components to visualize and create, so Pelo is unsure of how long it might take to complete the entire project.

“There are so many moving parts to it,” Pelo said. “It’s not just the music, it’s the drama of it, it’s the staging, and it’s very expensive to do.”

Pelo’s opera will include several modern and traditional operatic elements and music. Similarly to how he uses computers to assist his music composition, he intends to integrate technology into his proposed opera.

“There are so many possibilities these days with using big screens to project stuff — maybe dream sequences could be projected on screens,” Pelo said. “You can involve electronic music as well, it doesn’t just have to be traditional instruments.”

Although other writers and composers have incorporated modern music and technology into their operas, Pelo is focused on making the simultaneous existence of classic and modern components as seamless as possible.

“Very often, it comes off as quite gimmicky, and I would like to try to make it feel integrated,” Pelo said. “I think in a successful opera, all of these things are integrated.”

Rosen, a co-chair of the Department of Art and History at UC Davis, was honored by the Guggenheim Foundation for her ceramic sculptures. Her art has been shown across the country. Most notably, some of her pieces are currently on display in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In 1992, Rosen was named a Pew Fellow, and in 2016, Rosen was honored as a fellow by United States Artists, a Chicago-based philanthropic organization that supports American artists.

The artist’s sculptures are very intricate, and many of her pieces center around combining small, often unrelated objects into larger structures.

“I make my own found objects, and then pack them together to make shapes, to make sense of disparate things,” Rosen said. “Even with disparate things, things that don’t have logic or belong together, sometimes their sheer proximity makes a kind of logic because you comprehend and see them in the same field of vision.”

Rosen noted that as an artist, she draws from new wells of inspiration every day, and that it can be challenging for her as an artist to constantly find unique sources of inspiration for her work.

“You know what you did yesterday and you kind of know what you’re working on today but you can’t say, ‘That worked yesterday, so I’ll do it again,’” Rosen said.

Rosen intends to use her fellowship not for an upcoming project or proposed creation, but to find inspiration and knowledge abroad. She will be traveling to Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and other parts of Asia to learn more about Asian art. Rosen may also hold a lecture or art show while abroad.

“I’ve had a long term interest in certain Chinese artists who I’d like to talk to,” Rosen said. “I may go once, I may go twice, I don’t quite know yet.”

Venkatesan is an author, researcher, translator and associate professor at UC Davis. She earned her Ph.D. in South Asian studies, which is closely related to her current research interests into South Indian literary texts.

Most specifically, Venkatesan translates and researches texts in the Tamil language. Her interest in this language stems from her undergraduate study at UC Berkeley, where she took a life-altering class on Tamil literature and translation.

“It was like a whole world just exploded in front of me,” Venkatesan said. “I had no idea that there was poetry and there was literature and drama and all of these kinds of things. It just changed my life.”

Venkatesan has devoted nearly 10 years to her research into the Adhyayana Utsavam, or the Festival of Recitation. The 20-day festival revolves around the recitation of verses from a revered poem in Tamil as well as a dramatic and complex visual performance of the text.

“I started this project interested in one temple, but this temple is actually embedded in a network of other temples,” Venkatesan said. “It’s taken me ten years to actually understand what’s happening in this festival, like what is going on.”

She described the festival as exciting and intoxicating to experience. Even after having attended the festival for 10 years, she believes there is still more to learn about the festival itself as well as its implications and effects on its audience. Her research details several components of the festival, delving past the literal form of the poem and into the meaning of the poem itself.

“There are some very deep patterns that reveal themselves, sort of very complex ritual things,” Venkatesan said. “The poetry has all these dimensions, so it’s poetry that is visualized; it’s poetry that is shown through the ornamentation of deities, it’s poetry that’s used to transform space — just by reciting this poetry, this ordinary space is transformed into Heaven for that duration.”

Venkatesan intends to use her Guggenheim Fellowship to continue her research on the festival. The grant will support her annual observation of the ceremony.

Written by: Jacqueline Moore — campus@theaggie.org