Local law enforcement, Immigration Law Clinic, AB540 and Undocumented Student Center perspectives

A certification of an UndocuAlly training is signified by four butterflies against a green background, similar to the logo of the AB540 and Undocumented Student Center, a circle of interconnected butterfly wings. The addition of this butterfly to the end of a professor’s email, or to the number placard on their office door, can mean more to some students than others. According to Jesica Cuervos, a fourth-year transfer sociology student who is also a community advocate for the AB540 and Undocumented Student Center, the butterfly can help build trust.

“This also helps students who are taking a class […] and they see a professor who has that symbol outside their door, it kinda helps them build that trust because automatically they know that to an extent that professor already has that knowledge and doesn’t have to start from the beginning and explain ‘what is undocumented,’” Cuervos said.

This trust may be difficult to achieve during a moment in which the political climate seems to indicate an increasingly aggressive stance toward the undocumented, immigrants and minorities. Holly Cooper, the co-director of the Immigration Law Clinic at UC Davis, reflected on 20 years of work with detainees.

“We’ve always had this architected system of detention which is a very punitive environment for migrants,” Cooper said. “Some of the dynamics that I have seen change since the outset of the Trump administration are policies toward when a person can be released, and policies toward who should be apprehended. Now it feels like almost everybody is a priority.”

Cooper’s experiences have taught her that while the system of detention, which was a Democratic Party construct and increased militarization of the border, was part and parcel of the Obama administration. Today, amid increasingly aggressive immigration reform rhetoric, deportation does not seem to belong only to migrants with a strictly “criminal” history. Despite a broader definition of deportability, the rhetoric of criminality around migrants could not be more prevalent. Cooper and Yolo County sheriff-coroner and public administrator Sheriff Prieto critique this development.

“When we give credence to this whole terminology of criminality, we’re also giving credence to this whole system architected by racial principles, racist principles,” Cooper said.

Although Cooper is skeptical of the history of the criminal, penal system, Prieto works to move past the rhetoric that drives racist immigration policies and turns instead to constitutional law, human rights and due diligence.

“As the sheriff of Yolo County, my position has been very clear, even before the undocumented issues had become so vogue in our nation,” Prieto said. “I’ve always been a very staunch supporter of human rights, our constitutions, I’ve always been a very firm believer in our undocumented, that there are certain rights that have to be afforded to you […] just by the due diligence of law and court proceedings.”

The March 2018 ICE raid and arrest of 232 individuals in the Bay Area piqued the attention of the federal government and the general public following Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf’s warning to her constituents. Schaaf chose to notify her community of a potentially impending raid, information from an undisclosed source, in order to give individuals time to organize their affairs and prepare for the worst. ICE responded negatively, accusing Shaaf of responsibility for over 800 potential obfuscating undocumented migrants with a criminal history. Of the 232 individuals arrested, approximately 100 have a criminal history. Cooper resists the ease and exceptionalism with which political rhetoric has applied criminality to the undocumented.

“I’ve never been one to sort of run away from having a dialogue, an honest dialogue, about what it means to be an immigrant with a criminal history,” Cooper said.

Sheriff Prieto refers to a deep respect for the legal system to handle criminality as opposed to aggressively targeting the undocumented, whom he sees as scapegoated in our current political moment.

“The Yolo County sheriff’s office does not get involved in participating in any form of ICE raids, nor would we nor will we as long as I’m sheriff,” Prieto said. “We do not make arrests of undocumented individuals in the county, those that we stop, just because they’re undocumented. If somebody commits a very serious crime […] they are held in custody until they have a preliminary or they post bail. That is the due diligence of our constitution and human rights.”

Unfortunately, those arrested in Oakland will likely next be detained, according to Cooper. Once detained, Cooper says that the best chance an individual has to avoid deportation is through assistance of a lawyer, often an unaffordable prospect.

“If someone is detained they only have, like, a 15 percent chance that they will have legal representation,” Cooper said. “The chances are even lower that they’ll have free legal representation. The number one determining factor if someone is going to stay in the United States is whether they have a lawyer.”

The system of detention and deportation is convoluted, rendering those arrested hard-pressed to represent and protect themselves. The Immigration Law Clinic at UC Davis tries to represent all those it can within its resources, although they are limited. The AB540 and Undocumented Student Center, too, offers at least some level of legal services to its members.

“In general all students from UC Davis have access to legal resources for them and their family member,” Cuervos said. “Usually students feel confident and comfortable in that setting if they’re making an appointment and coming into the center and talking to a fellow that would also take into account […] even the mistrust that many students and general community members have with talking to lawyers and being in that space.”

Alongside a legal fellow, students of all types of documentation can seek counsel, at the very least. Aside from practical legal aid, the center manifests a space and ethos of community. Previous to 2014, the center was constantly reorganizing, transforming and struggled to present a clear message. Today, it is growing and is able to provide resources and support without constantly teaching people what it means to be undocumented.

“Through our center we offer a lot of different ways for students to get help, whether it’s financially or mentally or just finding a home away from home,” Cuervos said. “Each individual student doesn’t represent the story of everyone, and for that same reason it’s harder to understand the struggles and the amount of stress and the amount of emotional and mental stability that students have to control and deal with on a daily basis.”

Despite the fact that Davis is a sanctuary city and Sheriff Prieto pledges to never cooperate with an ICE raid in the county, members of the UC Davis community and beyond still fear the unknown. Whether for themselves or others, recent events spark fears.

“Especially now with the political climate I think everything is in a tension and you just don’t know what is going to happen and the reality is so not sharp for many of the students who identify as undocumented,” Cuervos said. “That’s another fear that students face […] the student might not be undocumented at all but the parents might be, or a sibling might be.”

Those who want to protect and support the undocumented community at UC Davis and Yolo County at large can sign up to become an UndocuAlly with AB540 and Undocumented Students Center.

Written by: Stella Sappington — features@theaggie.org

Performing groups struggle to find practice space amid inconvenient construction

Construction on the ARC began in mid-2017 and will continue through 2019. Avid users of the ARC can testify that construction has been an inconvenience to students; it limits the space of the gym, condensing the weight room on the basketball courts and limiting aspects of the ARC such as volleyball courts, racquetball courts and dance rooms.

Allie Young, a fourth-year clinical nutrition major, is a choreographer and captain of MK Modern, a dance group on campus. Young noted her frustration with the construction on campus and the implications it has in scheduling and planning practices for her dance group.

“One of the things that makes it really difficult [to practice in a studio] is that the ARC closes earlier now and the Pavilion side is closed by 11:30,” Young said.

MK Modern previously practiced in the Pavilion, utilizing the open space and mirrors better structured for dance teams. With the construction making the Pavilion an inconvenient option for dance groups, these organizations are forced to be creative in finding new space to practice. For MK Modern, the Hutchison parking garage makes an adequate practice space.

“Since our practices usually go from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. and sometimes later, it’s really difficult to start practice in the Pavilion and move outside,” Young said. “Now we kind of just do the whole practice outside, which is why we practice in the parking structure.”

But Young noted that while the parking structure is an option for the dance group to practice at, it isn’t a space intended for performers, which is clear during practices. She notes specifically that the lack of mirrors makes it difficult for MK Modern to learn new routines and reflect on their dances.

“It makes it really hard for us to learn pieces and get an idea of where we really are just because there are no mirrors to watch ourselves and check ourselves,” Young said. “Now it’s really a reliance on the choreographer or the director who are watching the piece to help clean up the choreography.”

Performing groups come to the general consensus that the school doesn’t provide enough support or respect to performance groups, especially highlighted during the construction of the ARC.

“It feels like the school doesn’t really care or respect its registered student organizations, even though we all put a lot of time and effort into our sets in order to perform and compete outside of Davis, representing UC Davis,” Young said. “The Pavilion closes earlier, which means a lot of dance teams are forced to practice outside. The problem is that when we do practice in the parking structure, the police will often come by and kick us out. So in the end, it feels like we can’t practice anywhere on campus.”

Annie Altura, a fourth-year food science major, is a member of the Cleftomaniacs, an acapella group on campus. She notes that the hunt to book rooms may be somewhat easier for her group than for other performance art groups like MK Modern, as they aren’t as limited in their search for a practice space of a specific size. However, Altura admits that the UC Davis administration does give them challenges in booking these practice spaces.

“It is a little challenging, I don’t think we’ve ever gotten helped with regard to booking rooms,” Altura said. “We’ve been trying to book rooms for auditions, and there’s usually a cap of four hours a week, and a raise in price from $10 to $32 per reservation. We would have to request extra hours in order to book more rooms. It’s tricky to find rooms with good sound because that’s not exactly something administration would know.”

These performing organizations attempt to find creative solutions in order to continue their practices and prepare for upcoming competitions and showcases, but emphasize the difficulty in doing so due to the school administration. Hau-Ping Ting, a third-year biochemical engineering major, recalls difficult experiences finding practice spaces for her dance group due to interference from school representatives.

“We got kicked out [during practice] a few times, especially now that the ARC is under construction,” Ting said. “We tried to practice at the racquetball court once but they made us leave. They told us that it was intended for other sports, even though we reserved the court and there wasn’t any other space we could use to practice.”

Additionally, amid the large expansion and construction of the ARC, there was little to no renovation planned to foster growth or support for the performing arts.

“If you see the ARC under construction there’s nothing that really gears towards dance,” Ting said. “The dance studio on the second floor is still open, and it’s just really old. Renovation and expansion is probably needed, but it’s not happening right now.”

Members of these organizations advocate for change and note solutions that UC Davis’ administration can adopt in order to better respect the time and efforts of the performing arts groups on campus.

“I would suggest allowing us to reserve practice spaces more often, more than just two days for two hours,” Young said. “[They could also] allow us to reserve more practice spaces — so not just the Pavilion or dance studio, but also Freeborn Hall or the dance studio in Hickey Gym.”

Written by: Alyssa Hada — features@theaggie.org

PA education, career reality, job mobility

The physician assistant position is a relatively recent profession in healthcare that has become a rapidly growing entity. PAs make patient care more accessible, particularly in primary care with a constant shortage of doctors. The PA profession has also gained traction as a future career path for undergraduates at UC Davis.

The American Academy of Physician Assistants shares the history of the genesis of the PA profession on its website. The PA was a product of a lack of primary care providers and the fast-track training of doctors that took place during WWII. Inspired by this, the first class of PAs was put together in 1965, and soon the new concept gained acceptance and recognition as a creative solution to the shortage of physicians. Today physician assistants have accreditation standards, a national certification process and standardized examination.

Dr. Jeffrey M. Pearl, a cardiac surgeon by training, and the director of the physician assistant program at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis, dedicates his time to educating the next generation of PAs because he finds them to be a key part of the healthcare team.

“[PAs are] the primary people that assist in the operating room in several specialties, including the one I was in, which was cardiac surgery,” Pearl said. “They […] really are right there with the surgeon doing everything. They also take care of the patients post-operatively. As I was getting further in my career and starting to teach more, I felt I had a good understanding of what the PA role is — I understand their value — so that’s why I want to get involved with educating the next generation of them.”

The PA role helps buffer some of the constant shortage of physicians by expediting the medical education into a program of about 27 months, and requiring no following internship or residency — the PA is allowed to begin practice immediately, one of the main points of difference between the PA and MD. It is important to note, however, that PA applicants often must have 1,000 to 3,000 clinical hours in order to even apply. This displays a reversal of the general timelines between the PA and MD education systems, wherein the MD training involves more years of education after undergraduate, and experience accumulation comes much later.

“The biggest difference between a physician assistant and a medical doctor in terms of the clinical practice, is that a physician assistant doesn’t practice independently,” Pearl said. “They do need a supervising physician. Now that can mean a lot of things. Typically if it’s in a surgical practice, they will be in the OR with the surgeon, but they may open or close before the surgeon is there. They may be seeing patients, putting in lines, taking out lines […] without [the doctor], but they can’t go do an operation on their own.”

However, this doesn’t mean that the PAs are completely bound by their supervising physician with no independence or space to work with patients on their own. For instance, as Pearl explained, in urgent care or in office practices, PAs can practice without the physician on-site. They have an arrangement with the physician who will audit a certain number of their charts, which decreases as the PA gains experience. Therefore, as Pearl expressed, trust and mutual communication is key in the PA-physician relationship. Although the PA education is shorter, Pearl expressed that PAs are still able to perform 80 percent of what a physician can and must absorb similar amounts of rigorous academic material.

“A lot of people have this conception that when they first get a PA instead of a doctor, they’re like, ‘you’re not a doctor,’ but I feel like that’s now being transitioned out,” said Nerisa Yokoyama, a second-year neurobiology, physiology and behavior major and pre-PA student. “Being a PA should be just as respected as a doctor.”

Yokoyama shadowed an emergency department PA, and found that the PA was able to help many emergency patients get care sooner than they would have if they had all been waiting to see only a doctor; wait times can generally run from four to eight hours.

“I actually think there’s so much more you can do than a doctor when you’re a PA, because PAs don’t have to be stuck in one specialty,” Yokoyama said. “Once you’re certified as a PA, you can work as a PA in the [emergency department], you can do family care, you can do surgery, you can do kind of whatever  — and as soon as you don’t feel that’s right for you and you lose interest — you can move somewhere else and that’s perfectly fine.”

The Pre-Physician Assistant Club at UC Davis was founded to help support and guide undergraduates who have an interest in learning about the PA path by providing them with guest speakers, mentors and creating events such as CPR clinics. Stevie Lamb, the club’s president and a fourth-year NPB major, began her career at UC Davis as a pre-med student. After exploring other niches in health care, Lamb has decided to follow the PA pathway, particularly because of its fluidity between specialities.

“I think it’s a really special profession that lot of people aren’t aware of,” Lamb said. “When I started Davis, I wanted to go to medical school, but then I started to research more into different opportunities that are available. [The PA profession] really inspires me because you get to work with underserved communities and […] I always like to challenge myself and do new things […] so I kind of like the flexibility to keep learning.”

A general trend currently taking place in health care is the shift toward an interprofessional and team-based approach. For instance, in a hospital ICU setting, as Pearl explained, a surgeon, ICU physician, a nurse practitioner, PA, nutritionist and perhaps even a child life specialist in the case of children’s hospitals, may all come together to take care of that patient. This trend extends to outpatient settings as well, such as in a sports medicine clinic where another provider, such as a physical therapist, may join the care team.

“[Teamwork] does a few things,” Pearl said. “It improves communication, it improves efficiency of patient care, and it just improves the patient care. They get things done quicker and there’s more collaboration. We have a shortage of physicians […] but we don’t have a shortage of people needing primary care. So the PA is really filling this vital role of being able to get access to care for thousands and thousands of patients who would otherwise not be able to see a doctor. And the PAs are doing probably just as good or better than a lot of doctors seeing these primary care people. That teamwork is very critical. You have to trust each other and communicate in order to do that. ”

Written by: Sahiti Vemula — features@theaggie.org

A look at how students grade (or degrade) instructors

At the end of every quarter, many students take the opportunity to complete course evaluations, either on paper or online, but how their responses are actually used may be a mystery to many students.

In 2013, UC Davis launched the online Academic Course Evaluation system, to which most departments have now switched from the paper evaluation forms.

Scott Kirkland is the application architect for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Dean’s Office programming team. The Online Course Evaluations system was one of the projects of the development team he manages, which writes custom applications for UC Davis.

Kirkland discussed how the majority of departments on campus have opted to make the switch from paper to online course evaluations.

“Even though the system is completely optional, most academic departments are using the online system, well over 75 percent of all campus and med center departments, and a higher percentage than that of core campus departments,” Kirkland said. “Occasionally we’ll see a department where every professor except for one uses the system, and that’s ok too.”

Professors who choose this option miss out on the efficiency of the online system and create extra work that could be done effortlessly online rather than being transcribed by hand.

Kirkland explained how the responses from students are passed to the instructors, noting the information that individual professors and TAs have access to.

“Professors and TAs are treated similarly in online evaluations,” Kirkland said. “They can see the responses to any course-level question and then only the person-level questions that apply to them. So a TA cannot see what someone said about a professor and visa-versa. Basically it’s some nice bar charts of how students responded to each question asked, plus the text responses if applicable.”
Tracy Lade, the chief administrative officer and department manager for the Department of Physics, explained that the default for her department is to use the online evaluations, but that some instructors still opt to use paper evaluations.

“The decision to switch to online evaluations was driven by convenience for the students in the courses and by staff workload,” Lade said. “Processing online evaluations for high enrollment classes is more efficient.”

Anya Gibson, an administrator for the history, economics and East Asian studies programs, explained why the economics department chose to switch to the online system while the history department opted to continue using the paper forms.

“From a staff standpoint, the economics department wanted to move because it would save funds and people hours needed to get the hard copies of the evaluations, print them, and get the envelopes and pencils,” Gibson said. “It costs much less online, but the history department just isn’t sold on it.”

Adam Getchell, the director of information technology for the Computing Resources Unit for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Dean’s Office, said that some professors worry about lower response rates if evaluations are moved online.

“The perception remains that online surveys get less response rate than paper ones,” Getchell said. “Strategies such as extra credit or early viewing of grades have been proposed, but to date we are not allowed by the Academic Senate to provide these types of incentives for completing evaluations.”

In addition to the possibility of lower response rates with online forms, faculty may worry that their scores may be artificially lowered. Gibson disputes this, citing studies that are also mentioned on one of ACE’s information pages.

“Studies have been completed at several UCs showing that scores do not change even if fewer students respond,” Gibson said.

Regarding the actual questions asked on the evaluations themselves, UC Davis as a whole has two required questions, but the faculty of each department also decides additional questions they would like to include on the evaluation.

Many students may be curious how the information they provide through course evaluations is used and who has access to it. Does only the instructor read them, or are criticisms and negative trends monitored by the department? Does the information provided actually lead to change?

“Each department is allow to choose their permissions, but almost every department just has one or two staff members who control setting up and releasing evaluations,” Kirkland said.

Lade, along with people from the economics and geology departments, discussed the process of reviewing and analyzing the course evaluations.

“Student evaluations of faculty and lecturers are used during their periodic advancement review or during the reappointment process in the case of a temporary lecturer,” Lade said. “TA evaluations are monitored and they inform future TA appointments.”

Lade spoke about the importance of properly handling criticisms and negative trends about instructors.

“Negative feedback is taken seriously and is addressed in a way that’s appropriate to the situation,” Lade said. “Perhaps a mentoring conversation is indicated, or perhaps referral to the Center for Educational Effectiveness to take advantage of their services would be helpful. In the case of a temporary lecturer, the matter would be addressed in the review and reappointment process. Persistently low student evaluations may result in non-reappointment.”

The online system is designed to ensure that responses remain confidential. Kirkland also made it clear that responses from students are in no way adjusted or moderated. Departments do take care to distinguish between unjustified negative comments and valid criticisms of an instructor’s behavior or teaching style that should be addressed.

“The instructor sees everything that was said for them and about them, so a student could say whatever they want, even something profane,” said Mandy Hanou, an advisor for the department of earth and planetary sciences and the manager of course evaluations for geology. “That goes straight to the instructors, and they know what their students are saying about them.”

If there is a concern then, the department chairs are notified. Giovanni Peri, the chair of the economics department, explained how the department usually deals with negative evaluation of instructors and the role that this student-provided information plays in a professor’s merit evaluation, which occurs every two years.

“Faculties are evaluated on research, teaching and service,” Peri said. “Student evaluations are considered important (but not the only) inputs in evaluating the teaching of a professor.”
While some negative evaluations typically do not cause alarm, patterns and trends are monitored.
“A pattern of not good evaluation in one course, which point out at a concern which seems legitimate (lack of attention to students’ need, neglect of preparation, sloppy classes) are looked at very carefully,” Peri said.

As a department chair, Peri may talk with the professor to determine if specific circumstances led to negative performance evaluations in certain classes. Chairs also make a plan with the professor for how to fix the problem.

“If the problem persists there may be consequences, including the possibility of not obtaining a merit promotion,” Peri said. “It needs to be a pervasive and well-established problem and persistent with the professor to get to consequences. My experience is that evaluations which are not good are enough of an alarm bell for a professor to focus and figure out what is not working and improve.”
The hard work that went into developing the online system facilitates a faster turnover time, which is also useful since not as much time passes between the teaching of the course and the reception of the results.

“We haven’t gotten a ton of feedback from professors, I think most of them just sort of ‘get it’ and wonder why we didn’t have it on campus earlier,” Kirkland said. “They really like being able to see evaluations days after finals are over instead of months later.”

One of the unexpected benefits of the system has been that students can easily access course evaluations via their mobile devices.

“Over one third of all website views are from mobile devices, which were pretty novel back when this system was written, and I’m glad we spent the time to support them well,” Kirkland said.
There have still been some minor unexpected snags along the way.

“On the technical side, I didn’t anticipate the difficulty of dealing with 40,000-plus students all hitting your website during a limited time window,” Kirkland said. “We have auto scaling platforms now setup so as demand ramps up, our pool of available servers automatically grows to handle the load.”
Kirkland added that one of the best aspects of the online system is that it is oriented toward privacy, anonymity and student expression.

“There is absolutely no link between a student and their responses, and there is no data that connects a given response with the time, location, browser, etc., so evaluations can be completely truthful and anonymous, just like they should be,” Kirkland said.

Written by: Benjamin Porter— features@theaggie.org