Three Muslim college students were fatally shot at their apartment near the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill campus Tues., Feb. 10. Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; Yusor Mohammad, 21; and Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19, were pronounced dead at the scene. Although a police spokesperson said that the shooting was product of an ongoing parking dispute, the event has sparked a discussion about Islamophobia across the country.

The UC Davis Muslim Student Association organized a vigil Wednesday night in which several hundred students and members of the community attended on the Quad.

Additionally, Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi sent out an email Wednesday night in which she condemned the crime.

“No matter what the motive for these murders turns out to be, we understand from recent events at UC Davis and the ugly attacks through social media on some of our own Muslim students, that Islamophobia is extremely hurtful and must not be tolerated,” she said in her email.

Regardless of the circumstances of this tragedy, it is important to acknowledge that Islamophobia is a severely overlooked problem on our campus and greater community in general. We should work to maintain the inclusivity on our campus and to be mindful of the diversity of our student body and the right to feel safe at all times. We would like to reiterate that there is no place for hate on this campus, and we offer our deepest condolences to the family and friends of these victims.

Graphic by Jennifer Wu

Two weeks ago, The Aggie ran an article (“The UCD Files: Not a Sports School?”) that was deeply disappointing.  The columnist poses and answers the question “Given a choice between being good at sports and bad at sports, should we be good at sports?”  In doing so, he reduces the controversy surrounding collegiate athletics to nothing.  What needs to be addressed are the costs of being a big-time sports school.

The first cost is declining academic standards. Since Chancellor Katehi began pushing for a bigger sports program, the SAT scores and high school GPAs of entering student athletes have declined substantially compared to non-athletes. That report, by UC Davis’s Institutional Analysis Student Research and Information, also notes that the percentage of athletes admitted by exception spiked to 11 percent in 2010 and 15 percent in 2011 (data only extends through 2013). I want my degree to mean something when I graduate and that won’t happen if we have the reputation of University of North Carolina or if the NCAA extends its investigation of academic misconduct to us. This doesn’t just apply to non-athletes; it applies to athletes as well. Our student-athletes are students first, and the primary responsibility of this university is to prepare them for successful careers, not use their names, images and likeness to profit from their athletic achievements.

The second cost is increased sexual assault.  When big-time sports are prevalent and “high school phenoms” are “way cooler than us,” it creates a mentality in football and men’s basketball that they can take what they want – even when that means other people.  It’s not a coincidence that large NCAA football (i.e., Vanderbilt, Naval Academy, Montana) and basketball (i.e., Oregon) teams are constantly under investigation for sexual assault, that Blue Mountain State was produced or that the NCAA was pressured to issue a handbook on how to handle sexual assault. Less important, but still significant, is that UC Davis provides a unique ability to befriend D1 athletes and see them as your equals.  Big-time athletics removes that.

The third cost is the opportunity cost. Big-time athletics requires paying teams to train and travel, and paying coaches large salaries and bonuses for performance.  Despite the NCAA (“The Empirical Effects of Collegiate Athletics: An Interim Report”) finding that there is no correlation between spending more on athletics and winning more and that increasing coach salaries has no correlation with winning or increased revenue, according to UC Davis’ EADA reports, ICA’s expenses have continuously climbed since UC Davis moved to D1. Students contribute $18 million annually to ICA’s budget, and the question of whether this allocation is the best use of student fees must be considered.

In short, students should not look at our basketball team’s ESPN games and tout that they want more without carefully considering that those games come at a high cost to our athletes, our students and our school.

Graphic by Jennifer Wu

It’s now the middle of February and the city of Davis has had less than 10 days of rain this month. This fact is both troubling and sad. Our water supplies are running low. Most of the state – 82 percent to be exact – is considered to be in extreme drought. What does this mean for the state’s water future? How does California’s water drought affect the entire nation? And what does a drought mean with respect to our future as individuals? The general answer to solve the drought problem is implementation on all types of scales, from small-scale water use in houses all the way up to reducing agricultural and industrial waste.

The California drought initially put a toll on state and local governments to allocate more time and money to water resource projects. However, these investments are lagging, and the money and time allocated by the respective governments aren’t enough to fight the increasing shortage of water. One main problem is the water infrastructure. Take for example, the Los Angeles Sunset Blvd rupture this past July. Over 29 million gallons of water were wasted due to outdated and non-maintained infrastructure.

When trying to solve the drought problem one might look at the past California drought crisis. The last big drought in California occurred from the late ’80s into the early ’90s (however, the current drought is much more severe). Southern California agencies paid over $10 billion to specifically combat the effects of the drought. Obviously, without that capital, the situation would have been much more troubling. Currently, California is combatting the drought problem by pumping more groundwater. Unfortunately, this is not a permanent situation — groundwater wells will dry up as surface water is less frequent. So this solution is not the best.

So how does the California drought affect the rest of the United States? The answer here is agriculture. About half of the United States’ fruits and vegetables come from California. In 2014, California lost over $1 billion in agricutlural revenue. Over 15,000 jobs were lost in the process. This affects both the national economy as well as the national food source.

The best way to combat the drought is to implement change across the entire spectrum of water use. Policy needs to be implemented on a national scale to limit large-scale and industrial use of water. Agricultural industries need laws which limit their water use without limiting production.  Also, on a smaller scale, individual houses and commercial districts must be frugal about their water use. The best solution is the implementation of a widespread philosophy — one that grounds the importance of water use within all individuals. Once we realize how important our water is, only then we can start combatting the drought on a large scale.

BRENT LUND can be contacted at brlund@ucdavis.edu.

Graphic by CA Aggie Graphic Design Team

Photo by CA Aggie Photo Team

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The Academy Awards are this Sunday. So print out your predictions sheet, place your bets and go over to your favorite aunt’s house for four hours of regulated praise of Hollywood’s most notable, white (literally, every nominated actor and actress is white), and recently overlooked actors and directors. You have seen all the nominees for best picture, right? Birdman, Boyhood, Whiplash, American Sniper, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Selma, The Imitation Game and The Theory of Everything? Oh, come on now.

You really haven’t seen them all?

Oh. Maybe next year.

There is such a pressure to intellectually watch and comment on the Oscars. We feel as if we’ve wasted the entire year on binge watching “Gilmore Girls” on Netflix and rewatching old Disney Channel movies. We have to make up for our immaturity. We’re adults now — we watch the Oscars for the content rather than on who is dressed best. These nominations are thrust upon us in early January and are constantly nagging at us to get on it, watch these movies, have an opinion. As my aunt calls it, this is known as “the Oscar Push.”

We’re college students — why would we do this to ourselves? It’s midterm season (constantly) and we put another deadline on ourselves, as if we get off on being stressed. This year, so far, I’ve only seen three movies that are nominated. Three! This time last year I had already immersed myself in film critique and culture, and had already put myself on a pedestal for maybe almost being done. I love my movies, I love putting deadlines on myself, but stepping away from this time of year and taking my mental and physical health into account shows that no, I can’t take the time out to see Theory of Everything just yet with my two papers, quiz, and midterm on the horizon.

But that won’t stop me from trying. I’ve seen The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, and Birdman, all of which are works of art on their own and in different ways. Budapest was beautifully imagined and translated a story of wealth and justice into the minds of viewers with fantastical chase scenes and characters. Imitation brought to light a previously shrouded element of the winning of World War II with amazing acting and adapted plotline. Birdman took the glory of fame into its barest bones through magical realism, where a man struggles with mental illness, family concerns and reliving the glory days, all through two hours of what was edited to seem as one whole shot.

I am in no way a credible movie critic, I have no authority over what is a good film or not to the Academy and I am not able to influence the panel of privileged Hollywoodites to pick my favorite. And so I will not tell you which movie I find to be worthy of 2015’s Best Picture.

Despite its faults, I love this game. The anticipation, the suspense and the bragging rights I get after watching all the nominees make all the stress worth it. As someone who has way too high of expectations for myself, I can’t get enough. I love reasons to stress myself out. It’s exciting to see your favorite movie crew get what it deserves and be especially grateful in their acceptance speech as you cry at home. I’ll admit it, I haven’t seen all the nominees this year yet. I still have five days — that’s like a movie a day! I’ve done more. Last year I watched Wolf of Wall Street half an hour before the Oscars started. I’m a pro.

Though the Oscars should have little credibility in claiming what is a good or bad movie, I still love the built-in challenge it gives me every winter. The event is exciting, gives me a real purpose in life, and I get to spend my free time watching movies for a “purpose” rather than just to procrastinate. I have to distract myself from reality somehow, right?

Let me know, seriously, what you think of this year’s Best Picture Nominees! My family is tired of hearing it. Contact me on Twitter @emdefaz10 or by email at endefazio@ucdavis.edu.

Graphic by CA Aggie Graphic Design Team

Photo by CA Aggie Photo Team