SGA and the Tech administration have selected NOVID, created by Dr. Po-Shen Loh of Carnegie Mellon University, as a recommended contact tracing app for the Institute’s community.

Contact tracing is a methodology to limit the spread of a disease by alerting people that are in close proximity to or have been in contact with an infected person. Loh’s background is in graph theory but started work on NOVID after realizing that he could apply his expertise in graph theory to the problem of controlling the spread of COVID-19. 

Loh was previously awarded a Hertz fellowship to fund his research. As part of the program, Hertz fellows make a non-binding moral agreement to aid the United States in the case of a national emergency. Loh felt that developing the idea that later became NOVID was his obligation under this moral agreement.

NOVID offers two critical innovations in the area of contact tracing: it provides an early warning system that alerts users if someone infected with COVID-19 is becoming physically close; and it does not use any personally identifiable information to provide contact tracing services. The application has no registration process, and it doesn’t use the GPS services on users’ mobile phones. 

The app instead uses Bluetooth and high-frequency sounds to detect other users and receive information about their exposure levels. The app scans for other mobile phones running NOVID via Bluetooth, and once it has found another NOVID user, sends high-frequency sound pulses (out of the range of human hearing) to detect the distance between the phones. This methodology allows NOVID to measure distances with extreme accuracy, much more than other contact tracing apps which use GPS to measure distances. 

All data processing happens locally on the user’s device. No audio is uploaded to NOVID’s servers; the audio isn’t even saved onto the users’ phone. Once the distance between the two phones running NOVID is processed, it is uploaded to the servers, which maintain the complex network of interactions between NOVID users. On the servers, users are represented with completely anonymous identifiers assigned to each device running the app.

NOVID has received some criticism in the Tech community for being closed-source. Many contact tracing applications are open-source, which means that their source code is open for anyone to inspect or even copy and modify. The open-source model helps inspire confidence in the application’s developers, making it harder for them to add insecure or privacy-invading code to the applications. The NOVID team, however, has decided to keep the source code for NOVID proprietary in order to preserve the security of potential users. 

Loh has received numerous offers from companies to purchase his technology for repackaging into their own contact tracing offerings. In Loh’s view, many of these applications would violate users’ right to privacy and anonymity. He notes: “I don’t want to live in [a] world where somehow all of the employers strongly encourage you to install something which [lets] you know exactly who is who.” 

Tech is playing a critical role in the application’s adoption. GTRI is auditing NOVID’s source code – whenever a new version of the app is ready to be published, the NOVID team sends the source code to GTRI, where it is inspected for security and privacy issues. 

Cy Heffley, the SGA Joint Vice President of IT, urges students who are skeptical of the app’s privacy protections to “seriously consider the cost and benefit of using the application.” To members of the community who have installed the application, he says: “Thank you. You’re doing a great service. Please continue using it.”

What a strange journey this has been. A year ago I was abroad in Ireland and England, drinking in art, history, culture and a lot of espresso. Shortly thereafter, I packed up and moved across the country for my graduate school program. The fall and early spring semesters were trying and difficult, but my time at Tech ended rather abruptly along with my life in Atlanta.

Maybe you have heard, but the world is currently engulfed in a pandemic that has radically upended our lives and behaviors. Georgia is a COVID-19 hotspot, and America has tragically experienced over 130,000 deaths in a few short months. Even more upsetting, public leaders at every level have been fumbling, failing and causing undue harm to real people’s lives. My grandmother has been unable to see her family in person in months, but going out in public and following the news shows people openly flouting the guidelines — an act that can only be described as selfish.

Normalcy has been absent across America in all but one way: racial injustice. Even when everything grinds to a halt, oppression, inequities, disparities and literal killings persist.

Think about that for a second. I do not have words that can accurately articulate just how inhumane that is. We, as a country, cannot boast freedom when we do not afford that to our own people, neighbors and friends.

At times, the state of the world does get to me, overwhelmed with feelings of dread and depression. I feel irate at the endless slew of injustices, angry at all of the selfish people who refuse to wear masks and saddened by my inability to visit loved ones in a normal capacity.

All of this has made my last few months at the Technique seem trivial. My literal job has been to write, plan and edit entertainment articles — a frivolous endeavor that reveals a great deal of privilege.

Yet, my overarching experience of both the last 12 months and the last few offers some clarity in my life.

For one, having outlets for entertainment and creativity might seem trivial, but they are not trivial to me. Before and during the pandemic, the few hours a week that I would focus on movies, music and television for the Technique were vital to maintaining my mental well-being and happiness.

Second, there is an ever-growing need for more people to fight, advocate and act in search of equality, justice and public welfare. I have already tried to practice this in my day-to-day life, studies and career, but we collectively need to adopt an urgency and recognition that words and actions truly do matter. Although your voice and vote might seem small, you personally hold the power to make other people’s lives better on a daily basis through your work, politics and personal life.

Third, social support networks are of the utmost importance. As is often the case, my best friends in Atlanta were often not the ones I expected. I joined the Technique to simply write movie reviews — a hobby of mine — and found myself thrilled with the community and friends that brought. My roommates, Boon and Powell, became incredible friends that I hope to keep for a lifetime, despite having met them through Facebook. Most importantly, though, my family and few best friends were truly essential to maintaining sanity during my time at Tech and my quarantine life, and I could not have gotten here without them.

To put it altogether, my strange year at Tech and the Technique has revealed that I need people and outlets to propel me forward as I attempt to make our world a better place.

What a strange journey this has been. A year ago I was abroad in Ireland and England, drinking in art, history, culture and a lot of espresso. Shortly thereafter, I packed up and moved across the country for my graduate school program. The fall and early spring semesters were trying and difficult, but my time at Tech ended rather abruptly along with my life in Atlanta.

Maybe you have heard, but the world is currently engulfed in a pandemic that has radically upended our lives and behaviors. Georgia is a COVID-19 hotspot, and America has tragically experienced over 130,000 deaths in a few short months. Even more upsetting, public leaders at every level have been fumbling, failing and causing undue harm to real people’s lives. My grandmother has been unable to see her family in person in months, but going out in public and following the news shows people openly flouting the guidelines — an act that can only be described as selfish.

Normalcy has been absent across America in all but one way: racial injustice. Even when everything grinds to a halt, oppression, inequities, disparities and literal killings persist.

Think about that for a second. I do not have words that can accurately articulate just how inhumane that is. We, as a country, cannot boast freedom when we do not afford that to our own people, neighbors and friends.

At times, the state of the world does get to me, overwhelmed with feelings of dread and depression. I feel irate at the endless slew of injustices, angry at all of the selfish people who refuse to wear masks and saddened by my inability to visit loved ones in a normal capacity.

All of this has made my last few months at the Technique seem trivial. My literal job has been to write, plan and edit entertainment articles — a frivolous endeavor that reveals a great deal of privilege.

Yet, my overarching experience of both the last 12 months and the last few offers some clarity in my life.

For one, having outlets for entertainment and creativity might seem trivial, but they are not trivial to me. Before and during the pandemic, the few hours a week that I would focus on movies, music and television for the Technique were vital to maintaining my mental well-being and happiness.

Second, there is an ever-growing need for more people to fight, advocate and act in search of equality, justice and public welfare. I have already tried to practice this in my day-to-day life, studies and career, but we collectively need to adopt an urgency and recognition that words and actions truly do matter. Although your voice and vote might seem small, you personally hold the power to make other people’s lives better on a daily basis through your work, politics and personal life.

Third, social support networks are of the utmost importance. As is often the case, my best friends in Atlanta were often not the ones I expected. I joined the Technique to simply write movie reviews — a hobby of mine — and found myself thrilled with the community and friends that brought. My roommates, Boon and Powell, became incredible friends that I hope to keep for a lifetime, despite having met them through Facebook. Most importantly, though, my family and few best friends were truly essential to maintaining sanity during my time at Tech and my quarantine life, and I could not have gotten here without them.

To put it altogether, my strange year at Tech and the Technique has revealed that I need people and outlets to propel me forward as I attempt to make our world a better place.

We have a school spirit problem at Tech. This is not the first time people have talked about it, but it is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, and I have wanted to write about it for some time. We can see our spirit problem everywhere: in the empty stands in the student section after halftime at football games; in the muttered remarks about how much homework we have to do this weekend and how we hate Tech for burdening us like this; in the similarity that we all draw between Tech and prison when we celebrate “getting out” instead of “graduating.” Not everyone is like this, but I know that I have had these attitudes many times in my years here. From my experience, the vast majority of students here have a fundamentally negative attitude towards Tech, and thus have low school spirit.

Why does Tech have these issues? First of all, Tech is a difficult school. There is no denying that Tech is an academically rigorous place, with standards that are much higher than many other schools. Our students are already high achievers by the time they arrive in Atlanta. We all spent four years in high school challenging ourselves just to be able to get in. Once we arrive, however, we realize that we are really just at the base camp of the real mountain we have to climb. 

Tech’s challenges are enough to turn anyone sour, and this results in memories of our time at Tech being tainted with pain. In my own experience, this sourness has resulted in some strong cognitive dissonance: this pain is self-inflicted after all, so what does my choosing to come here say about me? I suspect that many of my fellow Jackets have felt similar doubts over the years. All of this negativity surrounding our experiences and feelings leads to having low school spirit. Why would we take pride in a place that seems to exist simply to burden us? 

The school spirit that we do display winds up, in most cases, to be a sarcastic way to vent our frustrations. Our songs and cheers (speaking specifically about sports) are all focused on hating that other school in Athens. I hate u(sic)ga probably more than most. I refuse to wear anything red when I have a test as I am convinced that it will bring me bad luck! But our hatred for Georgia doesn’t seem to come from a place of pride in who we are; instead, it seems to come from a lack of self-respect and annoyance at our experiences at Tech.

As an aside, the school spirit I am talking about is not limited to support for our sports teams. I’m talking about pride in our school in general, in a broad sense of joy in being a helluva engineer. This is the school spirit that I try to cultivate in myself and which I see lacking in so many of us, including myself. Without it, we end up where we are now — a surly group of students, counting the days until we are liberated from our prison.

So what can we do about this? Should we care at all? We should! We must care! The change must begin with how we view Tech. The Institute has two parts: its administration, and its students. Administrations come and go, but the students, the student body, you and I — we are the heart of the Institute. We make Tech what it is. The many shortcomings of our administration must drive us to have pride in our school, precisely because we expect more of this Institute. 

At the end of the day, Tech is us. We, the students, are the Institute. If we don’t have pride in ourselves, in the work that we’re doing, in the things we’re accomplishing, we are setting ourselves up for misery and malcontent. We should challenge this by learning more about what has been accomplished at this school. 

Did you know that Georgia Tech was the second southern Power 5 school to start a black quarterback? Did you know that Georgia Tech was the first school in the Deep South to integrate without a court order, and that the movement for integration was led by students? Did you know that Georgia Tech AE students have designed multiple satellites that have been launched into space over the past few years? Did you know that 14 astronauts have graduated from Georgia Tech? I did not know a lot of these facts until I went looking for them. Take some time and read up on these and other accomplishments. 

As a community, we can create new ways of expressing ourselves that are not focused on hating u(sic)ga (although we have to continue to hate them!). We can take more ownership of the atmosphere at sporting events and refuse to bad-mouth our teams even when they are not performing as well as we would like. And we can talk about what we would like the administration to improve without denigrating the Institute as a whole. 

In short, we can realize that Tech is what we, the students, make of it. We can choose to be proud of what we’ve done so far, and strive for better things for future Jackets. We can embody the words of our Alma Mater: “But when the battle seems in vain/Our spirit never falters/We’re ever one in joy and pain/And our union is a lasting bond;/Oh may we be united/Till the victory of life is won!” 

Let’s try to see the Institute as a forge of lasting bonds with each other, and not as a prison from which we’re all trying to escape.

We have a school spirit problem at Tech. This is not the first time people have talked about it, but it is a subject that is near and dear to my heart, and I have wanted to write about it for some time. We can see our spirit problem everywhere: in the empty stands in the student section after halftime at football games; in the muttered remarks about how much homework we have to do this weekend and how we hate Tech for burdening us like this; in the similarity that we all draw between Tech and prison when we celebrate “getting out” instead of “graduating.” Not everyone is like this, but I know that I have had these attitudes many times in my years here. From my experience, the vast majority of students here have a fundamentally negative attitude towards Tech, and thus have low school spirit.

Why does Tech have these issues? First of all, Tech is a difficult school. There is no denying that Tech is an academically rigorous place, with standards that are much higher than many other schools. Our students are already high achievers by the time they arrive in Atlanta. We all spent four years in high school challenging ourselves just to be able to get in. Once we arrive, however, we realize that we are really just at the base camp of the real mountain we have to climb. 

Tech’s challenges are enough to turn anyone sour, and this results in memories of our time at Tech being tainted with pain. In my own experience, this sourness has resulted in some strong cognitive dissonance: this pain is self-inflicted after all, so what does my choosing to come here say about me? I suspect that many of my fellow Jackets have felt similar doubts over the years. All of this negativity surrounding our experiences and feelings leads to having low school spirit. Why would we take pride in a place that seems to exist simply to burden us? 

The school spirit that we do display winds up, in most cases, to be a sarcastic way to vent our frustrations. Our songs and cheers (speaking specifically about sports) are all focused on hating that other school in Athens. I hate u(sic)ga probably more than most. I refuse to wear anything red when I have a test as I am convinced that it will bring me bad luck! But our hatred for Georgia doesn’t seem to come from a place of pride in who we are; instead, it seems to come from a lack of self-respect and annoyance at our experiences at Tech.

As an aside, the school spirit I am talking about is not limited to support for our sports teams. I’m talking about pride in our school in general, in a broad sense of joy in being a helluva engineer. This is the school spirit that I try to cultivate in myself and which I see lacking in so many of us, including myself. Without it, we end up where we are now — a surly group of students, counting the days until we are liberated from our prison.

So what can we do about this? Should we care at all? We should! We must care! The change must begin with how we view Tech. The Institute has two parts: its administration, and its students. Administrations come and go, but the students, the student body, you and I — we are the heart of the Institute. We make Tech what it is. The many shortcomings of our administration must drive us to have pride in our school, precisely because we expect more of this Institute. 

At the end of the day, Tech is us. We, the students, are the Institute. If we don’t have pride in ourselves, in the work that we’re doing, in the things we’re accomplishing, we are setting ourselves up for misery and malcontent. We should challenge this by learning more about what has been accomplished at this school. 

Did you know that Georgia Tech was the second southern Power 5 school to start a black quarterback? Did you know that Georgia Tech was the first school in the Deep South to integrate without a court order, and that the movement for integration was led by students? Did you know that Georgia Tech AE students have designed multiple satellites that have been launched into space over the past few years? Did you know that 14 astronauts have graduated from Georgia Tech? I did not know a lot of these facts until I went looking for them. Take some time and read up on these and other accomplishments. 

As a community, we can create new ways of expressing ourselves that are not focused on hating u(sic)ga (although we have to continue to hate them!). We can take more ownership of the atmosphere at sporting events and refuse to bad-mouth our teams even when they are not performing as well as we would like. And we can talk about what we would like the administration to improve without denigrating the Institute as a whole. 

In short, we can realize that Tech is what we, the students, make of it. We can choose to be proud of what we’ve done so far, and strive for better things for future Jackets. We can embody the words of our Alma Mater: “But when the battle seems in vain/Our spirit never falters/We’re ever one in joy and pain/And our union is a lasting bond;/Oh may we be united/Till the victory of life is won!” 

Let’s try to see the Institute as a forge of lasting bonds with each other, and not as a prison from which we’re all trying to escape.

Think fast: if you were a kitchen utensil, what would you be? A fork? A spatula? If you were a Starbucks order, what drink would best describe you? What about a dream vacation? 

At some point in recent years, it has become popular to share answers to questions from online personality quizzes, small but telling encapsulations of our identities. We eagerly share shockingly accurate descriptions of self that seem to mysteriously align with our personalities. By saying that I am a tall iced coffee or a backpacking trip through the outdoors, others will supposedly be able to draw conclusions about who I am as a person. 

I can not deny that personally, I gleam a sense of pride from these results (that’s right, a Buzzfeed quiz just told me that if I was a Skittles color, I’d be red!), but I also cannot ignore my desire to dig a little deeper into the mysterious layers of my mind. 

Why do we have an endless obsession with characterizing and comparing ourselves to meaningless elements of pop culture and mundane aspects of life? 

My initial reaction: our emotions and understanding of self are so complicated and boiling ourselves down to something tangible and comparable, like a concrete aspect of pop culture or a set of simple adjectives, allows us to see our personalities in a familiar and less serious context. 

Although I don’t want to face the harsh realities of my insecurities, knowing that I could be compared to Mike Wazowski from “Monsters, Inc.” seems to make this complicated mess of emotions seem a tiny bit clearer. Suddenly, I can find every instance I acted like a tiny green monster with one eye and finally feel a tiny sense of clarity and explanation for my behaviors. 

But perhaps these superficial quizzes are a symptom of deeper societal trends, ones that mask themselves in seemingly more intellectual personality tests. 

Personality assessments are used at an increasing rate in many contexts such as education, career development and college admissions. Unlike simple personality quizzes on social media, these assessments are used for very serious decisions that can determine someone’s life. 

Decades of research into the validity and reliability of personality testing has presented numerous problems, especially when used by employers in the hiring process. There is a low correlation of personality assessments with predicting job performance of future employees and there is a chance that test-takers may manipulate their answers to get desired results. Other factors to take into account are the rigidness of having binary descriptors of personality, potential violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and bias against test-takers of various races, genders, religions and socioeconomic levels not in the white, middle-class male demographic. 

There are enormous differences between a Buzzfeed quiz and empirically derived personality assessments, but the increased reliance on using these results to predict someone’s productivity in a workplace or success in an academic field is a similar trend to my clicking on a quiz about dream vacations. 

Self-identification and comparison of identity is key to so many of our current institutions — how well will we work in a team? Will we succeed at an academically rigorous university? Will our work ethic match potential employers? 

One example of a test widely-used around the world by universities and corporations is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The test was created by mother-daughter team Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers. Technically, neither Briggs nor Myers had any formal training or education in psychology while developing the test. As the test became more popular, it was heavily modified, but the origin of the test is still not scientific and largely reflects the perspective that Briggs first created the test with. 

Among various issues, MBTI has been shown to have unreliable results for people who retake the test at different times. 

This forms the core of my skepticism of personality testing: the quantification of people into a discrete amount of adjectives neglects how personalities change over time and in given environments. 

With all this being said, I do acknowledge that some personality tests are often critical to diagnosing personality disorders. 

But under many other contexts, I’ve begun to feel frustrated at this endless pursuit to effectively “sort” ourselves. There are so many other productive ways for self-reflection, such as journaling and counseling. I refuse to believe that a twenty-minute personality strengths assessment is the best way to help me develop as a leader. Real experiences, feedback from others and honest reflections lead to discoveries about the self. 

So looking back, what did I gain from clicking on the Buzzfeed quiz that began my descent into personality testing hatred? For one, I learned that I am, undeniably, a vibrant and wonderful red Skittle. 

More importantly, I have begun to see that to solve this desire of understanding the human mind, it can not be supplemented by inaccurate personality inventories that look at one moment in someone’s life. The complete and true answer to the question “Who am I?” can only be found after a lifetime of experiences, relationships and memories. 

Think fast: if you were a kitchen utensil, what would you be? A fork? A spatula? If you were a Starbucks order, what drink would best describe you? What about a dream vacation? 

At some point in recent years, it has become popular to share answers to questions from online personality quizzes, small but telling encapsulations of our identities. We eagerly share shockingly accurate descriptions of self that seem to mysteriously align with our personalities. By saying that I am a tall iced coffee or a backpacking trip through the outdoors, others will supposedly be able to draw conclusions about who I am as a person. 

I can not deny that personally, I gleam a sense of pride from these results (that’s right, a Buzzfeed quiz just told me that if I was a Skittles color, I’d be red!), but I also cannot ignore my desire to dig a little deeper into the mysterious layers of my mind. 

Why do we have an endless obsession with characterizing and comparing ourselves to meaningless elements of pop culture and mundane aspects of life? 

My initial reaction: our emotions and understanding of self are so complicated and boiling ourselves down to something tangible and comparable, like a concrete aspect of pop culture or a set of simple adjectives, allows us to see our personalities in a familiar and less serious context. 

Although I don’t want to face the harsh realities of my insecurities, knowing that I could be compared to Mike Wazowski from “Monsters, Inc.” seems to make this complicated mess of emotions seem a tiny bit clearer. Suddenly, I can find every instance I acted like a tiny green monster with one eye and finally feel a tiny sense of clarity and explanation for my behaviors. 

But perhaps these superficial quizzes are a symptom of deeper societal trends, ones that mask themselves in seemingly more intellectual personality tests. 

Personality assessments are used at an increasing rate in many contexts such as education, career development and college admissions. Unlike simple personality quizzes on social media, these assessments are used for very serious decisions that can determine someone’s life. 

Decades of research into the validity and reliability of personality testing has presented numerous problems, especially when used by employers in the hiring process. There is a low correlation of personality assessments with predicting job performance of future employees and there is a chance that test-takers may manipulate their answers to get desired results. Other factors to take into account are the rigidness of having binary descriptors of personality, potential violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and bias against test-takers of various races, genders, religions and socioeconomic levels not in the white, middle-class male demographic. 

There are enormous differences between a Buzzfeed quiz and empirically derived personality assessments, but the increased reliance on using these results to predict someone’s productivity in a workplace or success in an academic field is a similar trend to my clicking on a quiz about dream vacations. 

Self-identification and comparison of identity is key to so many of our current institutions — how well will we work in a team? Will we succeed at an academically rigorous university? Will our work ethic match potential employers? 

One example of a test widely-used around the world by universities and corporations is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The test was created by mother-daughter team Katharine Briggs and Isabel Myers. Technically, neither Briggs nor Myers had any formal training or education in psychology while developing the test. As the test became more popular, it was heavily modified, but the origin of the test is still not scientific and largely reflects the perspective that Briggs first created the test with. 

Among various issues, MBTI has been shown to have unreliable results for people who retake the test at different times. 

This forms the core of my skepticism of personality testing: the quantification of people into a discrete amount of adjectives neglects how personalities change over time and in given environments. 

With all this being said, I do acknowledge that some personality tests are often critical to diagnosing personality disorders. 

But under many other contexts, I’ve begun to feel frustrated at this endless pursuit to effectively “sort” ourselves. There are so many other productive ways for self-reflection, such as journaling and counseling. I refuse to believe that a twenty-minute personality strengths assessment is the best way to help me develop as a leader. Real experiences, feedback from others and honest reflections lead to discoveries about the self. 

So looking back, what did I gain from clicking on the Buzzfeed quiz that began my descent into personality testing hatred? For one, I learned that I am, undeniably, a vibrant and wonderful red Skittle. 

More importantly, I have begun to see that to solve this desire of understanding the human mind, it can not be supplemented by inaccurate personality inventories that look at one moment in someone’s life. The complete and true answer to the question “Who am I?” can only be found after a lifetime of experiences, relationships and memories. 

Inspired partly by her own mental health journey, Avery Timmons, third-year NEUR, created the “You Are More” project to sell apparel in order to promote awareness and raise donation money for mental health organizations. 

The story behind the project was influenced in part by Timmons’ experiences with post-traumatic stress disorder freshman year and the help she received during that time. 

“In my first year at Tech, I was definitely going through a rough patch in school and struggling a lot with my mental health. Not only was I lacking confidence academically, but I was going through some post-traumatic stress disorder,” said Timmons. 

“During that time I was actually blessed to have many resources at Tech that offered me free counseling and supported me as I was trying to get better. Along with my amazing Tech friends who supported me by having mass sleepovers or sitting in the back of the class with me in case I had a panic attack.” 

Another early inspiration for the project was the story of a friend who also struggled with mental health issues and the financial concerns that surrounded getting professional help. 

“Fast forward to my second year and I am back home for December break. I was meeting with a friend to catch up about life and some of the events from that past year had been brought up, so we were talking about mental health and going to therapy. They broke down to me about their financial concerns with paying for medical bills and college; this is what inspired me,” said Timmons. 

Timmons was originally motivated to help in a different way. While pulling 40 hours a week at her Starbucks job over the winter break, she planned to put money away in savings in order to write a check and give the money she saved to her friend in need. This plan fell through though, as another friend warned her the family may not take the money, and reminded her she had her own student loans to worry about. 

She eventually figured out another way to help not only her friend, but many others as well through creating the “You Are More” project.

“This leads us to where it all comes together in lovely quarantine. I was frankly doing great in quarantine — it was the break I needed. But by the second month, that wave of loneliness and lack of human interaction was really getting to me and I fell back into the mental health spiral I had experienced over a year ago. I started using resources like Lyra that Starbucks was providing and started coming out of my sadness. This made me think about how lucky I was to have these resources and I started researching what resources are there for low income individuals who may be in need,” said Timmons. 

At first, Timmons was mostly interested in how families and individuals covered the medical costs after suicide attempts. 

“I found out that in most cases those costs fall hard on those individuals and families, especially if insurance will not cover the costs associated with the suicide attempt. The fact that individuals already struggling with mental health concerns had to bear the burden of financial crisis flipped a switch in me and I started planning out the site,” said Timmons. 

The website she created not only hosts an online shop of designs created by herself and others, but it also features organized lists of free or low cost mental health resources, as well as a “BlackMentalHealthMatters” tab that lists educational resources and ways to support the Black Lives Matter movement. 

The first few designs on the website were created during Mental Health Awareness Month in May. Among these first designs is the “You Are More” shirt, which represents the name and message of the project that came to Timmons one day when she was out on a run. 

“It was near that part of the run where I was actually about to start walking and I kept thinking ‘you can run more; you are more’ and it was like an “Ah-ha” moment. I am surprised that it’s not already a movement because I have heard the saying “You are Enough” but I wanted to represent something all encompassing. You Are More is supposed to say that no matter how you or someone else may feel about a single characteristic or story of yourself, you are more than that,” said Timmons. 

Timmons, who prints the shirts herself, encourages other designers to contribute to the project. Nehemiah Wilson, third-year CM, created the “don’t lose hope” design. 

“I created the original design during the peak of the craziness going on in the world, from the seriousness of COVID-19, to the recent murderings of Black brothers and sisters, to not seeing my girlfriend for months. All of this and more is represented by the skull,” said Wilson. 

“Despite the hopelessness plaguing the world, I have a perspective of the world through my relationship with Jesus that helps me keep hope alive. This is represented by the diamonds that light the eyes of the skull. This piece is a reminder to keep my eyes open and to let the hope of Jesus light my world.”

Proceeds made from Wilson’s designs are donated to Campaign Zero, an organization committed to ending police brutality through policy solutions. 

“In one realm, the project is financially supporting the movement to end systemic oppression through the work of Campaign Zero. As a Black male, the work that they are doing is incredibly important in securing a future that is safe for me and my Black brothers and sisters,” said Wilson. 

Wilson and Timmons, who have both served as resident advisors (RA) in on-campus housing, also commented on the state of mental health on Tech’s campus. 

“Unfortunately the state of mental health on Tech’s campus is horrid, evident through several heartbreaking instances of students taking their lives,” Wilson said. “I believe students at Tech find a large part of their identity in their academic achievement. We’ve spent the majority of our lives building confidence in our academic ability, and for many people (including myself), Tech was the first time that confidence was broken into pieces. When this happens, a large part of people’s identities crumble, which can take a toll on mental health.”

Timmons expressed the importance of talking to others when experiencing mental health issues.

“As a RA, I really want to get this across that you can and should talk to people about mental health. You are not only helping yourself but you are letting that person you tell know that you are open to talking about mental health and making a safe open space for people to feel comfortable discussing all those thoughts that may be building up in their head,” said Timmons.

The website has only been up and running for a month, but it has already raised a thousand dollars. Proceeds so far have been donated to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and USA Cares among other organizations. Timmons hopes that the project will destigmatize mental health issues and encourage others to talk openly about their experiences. 

“I have talked to many people who bought shirts and we discussed mental health and that is what I love about the project. That with a shirt people will ask you about it or the design and it can start a conversation about mental health which is what I think we need more of in the world. It needs to be less taboo to talk about mental health, it’s not bad, it is HUMAN. Like a cold or even coronavirus, it’s possible for anyone to get it and yes there are precautions but we should not shame someone, we should seek to help them and make them feel better,” said Timmons.

To learn more about the “You Are More” project, please visit https://www.you-are-more.org/

As the Tech community continues to adjust to classes, work, research and other activities virtually, one member of the Tech community is bringing in new ideas to support students, staff and faculty. 

Tegra Myanna (they/them/theirs) began working as the director of the LGBTQIA Resource Center on May 11 and since then, has been developing virtual resources and planning for the future. Before starting at Tech, Myanna worked on other college campuses for about a decade. After graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for both their undergraduate and graduate degrees, Myanna was offered a position as a hall director at Carleton College, a private liberal arts college in Northfield, Minn.

“The position that I had had collateral assignments, and so I did a year as the academic skills coach for students and so I helped students, did time management workshops, study skill workshops,” said Myanna. 

After their second year, Myanna was offered another assignment with the Gender and Sexuality Center to serve as the LGBT advisor and was eventually offered the assistant director position of the center.

“The Gender and Sexuality Center differs a little bit from the work that I do now, in that it was holistic sexuality,” said Myanna. “We were the Women’s Resource Center, the LGBT Center, we did sexual violence prevention, healthy relationships workshops and work, and then also survivor support.”

After four years, Myanna began working at Macalester College, a private liberal arts college in St. Paul, Minn. and served as the assistant director of the Lealtad-Suzuki Center, which focuses on multicultural education. While at Macalester, Myanna ran LGBT initiatives and oversaw intentional living spaces for Indigneous students, students of color, and transgender and non-binary students.

“We have two intentional living spaces based on identity, and then I also oversaw a dialogue program that had 15 different dialogue groups around either a certain identity or the intersections of identity,” said Myanna.

Now at Tech, Myanna already has numerous ideas for possible projects in the future, such as an LGBTQIA+ based mentorship program.

“I think that they provide a really great avenue for support for students who are figuring out identity or kind of wondering how to navigate their identity in a specific career or major field,” said Myanna.

Another area of interest for Myanna is strengthening contact with the graduate student community and evaluating graduate needs.

Myanna will also be working to continue support for women, Black and Latinx students, both through partnerships with Greek and Black student organizations, as well as work with the Institute Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to support students at these intersections of identity. 

Focusing on the present, Myanna’s start at Tech during online campus operations has posed numerous challenges.

“It’s been really challenging to try and connect with students and to hear what their experiences at Tech have been or what they would like me to focus on or for the center to focus on,” said Myanna.

Myanna believes being new to the Tech community may create some temporary challenges in meeting the student body.

“I also am not an established person in our presence in the Tech community, and so I think that barrier for students to reach out to me if they don’t have a specific ask or have a specific need, I think it’s probably pretty high,” said Myanna, who hopes over time, this will change. 

Myanna points out that there may also be some benefits to using technology as a means of communication. 

“I think in some ways, it’s about reaching a wider range of students and it allows us to do that,” said Myanna. “In LGBT work, I think it also allows us to maybe reach students who wouldn’t want to physically show up in our space.”

Communicating virtually allows for more anonymity.

“I can join in a BlueJeans call and not have my video shown,” said Myanna. “I can go into a BlueJeans call and maybe change my name to like a nickname that’s not as noticeable as to who I am. I think that there are ways that we can create virtual spaces that feel maybe a little bit comfortable for those who maybe aren’t out on campus, maybe don’t even know if they fully want to be part of the queer community or if that’s how they identify.”

Additionally, Myanna points out that virtual communication helps to lessen the chances of passing or contracting the COVID-19 virus. For now, the LGBTQIA Resource Center is providing online resources for students to use until on-campus operations resume. Both Myanna and Camilla Brewer, the LGBTQIA Resource Center’s coordinator, offer weekly office hours in which students or staff can drop in and have a conversation. Besides office hours, Myanna and Brewer hosted two town halls to engage with the community. 

“The town halls … are opportunities for me to meet the larger Tech community, and so we’re going to do one for faculty and staff and one for students,” said Myanna.

The student town halls will took place on June 23, the faculty and staff meeting was on June 16.

“The student one will be a chance for both Camilla and I to introduce ourselves, in case there are students who join in on the town hall, either out of curiosity or interest, maybe they’re new to Tech, maybe they’re new to an LGBT identity and so they haven’t interacted with the center much, … sharing a little bit about who we are, sharing about our office and the resources and programming that we have planned for the fall,” said Myanna.

For a smaller setting, the Resource Center offers monthly Netflix Watch Parties in which students can watch a movie and have a dialogue in a chat box alongside. 

“The Netflix Parties will be fully open to anyone in the Tech community,” said Myanna. “We’re obviously centering LGBT students in the LGBT experience in the films that we choose, but anyone who wants to stop in and watch a film together can.”

For more chances to connect with students and staff, the Resource Center hosts Virtual Queer Dessert Hours.

“There’s one every other week through the summer, and they all center a different area of queer community,” said Myanna, who explains they are used as an in-house community building activity. 

To commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Pride and the Stonewall Riots, the LGBTQIA Resource Center will be hosting a Queer Liberation Art Crawl.

“We are asking anyone in the Tech community, so this is students, faculty, staff, alum, to create some piece of art, it can be a video, it can be a drawing, it can be a poem, anything that you want, any type of expression you want, that represents what queer liberation means to you,” said Myanna.

Participants can share their artwork on Instagram or Facebook, tag the LGBTQIA Resource Center and it will be featured on the LGBTQIA Resource Center’s page on June 29. 

Finally, several workshops will be offered this summer, including a discussion on topics such as LGBTQIA Self Care and Queerness and Fatness. Moving forward, Myanna and staff at the LGBTQIA Resource Center are working to determine how in-person activities can safely be held. 

“Something we’re trying to figure out is, is there a way to do this in-person that still abides by whatever kind of policies or practices are in place when we return to campus?” said Myanna, who points out that large events such as the welcome back reception could be challenging to host. 

Although the future may be uncertain, Myanna emphasizes that no matter what, they hope to connect with the entire Tech community.

“If a student as an individual or a group that they’re a part of feels like, they just want to learn more, maybe they have a question that they don’t know exactly who to ask of, or if they’re looking for a collaboration, either programmatically or through a training, feel free to reach out,” said Myanna. “I’m really interested in getting to know the Tech community and Tech students and the work that students are doing because I hear that it’s really incredible.”
To learn more about the virtual resources available to the Tech community, dates and links can be found at lgbtqia.gatech.edu/virtual-resources.

Editor’s Note: This is a developing story and this article will be updated as new information is available. 

On Saturday, June 27, around 12:30 p.m., Atlanta residents took to social media to report sudden water outages around the city. Students living on and around Tech’s campus also experienced water shortages and significantly lowered water pressure. 

About an hour later at 1:22 p.m., the city of Atlanta released a tweet on their account @CityofAtlanta containing a graphic reporting that the Department of Watershed Management (DWM) was investigating a 36 inch water main break on Tech’s campus. The main break, which was located at the intersection of Ferst Drive NW and Hemphill Avenue NW is a likely cause for the widespread water outages around Atlanta. 

In a press release from the DWM it was stated that the water main break on Tech’s west campus “… interrupted service at the Hemphill Electric Pumping Station. The Hemphill service area may experience low or no water pressure.” 

Katie Carlson, a third-year CM major currently residing in Home Park, a student-populated neighborhood just north of Tech’s campus, noticed an issue with the water pressure earlier today. 

“I went to turn on the water in my kitchen and noticed the water pressure was a lot lower than normal. Even with the knob all the way up, it was coming out at about 50%,” said Carlson. 

After checking the water tank in her house and finding nothing wrong, Carlson turned to a community GroupMe chat to see if others were having the same issues. 

“A short while later the bathroom sink also had low water pressure, and at this point the pressure was at about 25% and I was concerned so I reached out to my Home Park friends,” said Carlson.

Carlson and friends then walked from Home Park to the site of the main break to see what was going on. 

“We walked there from Tenth Street, and Hemphill was closed off and police officers were directing traffic and talking to one another … the water wasn’t gushing when we got there, in fact there was a little mini whirlpool in the middle, so it looked like they were trying to drain it,” said Carlson. 

There hasn’t been an official assessment of the damage the water may have caused to parts of Tech’s campus, but the water from the break seemed to have significantly spread to areas around the scene. 

“The water flooded all the way to the Burger Bowl bleachers,” said Carlson. “The water also definitely spread into the construction area where the old police department was.”

Much of the city, including Tech’s campus and the areas surrounding, including off-campus student apartments, are currently on a boil water advisory. A GTENS alert was sent out to the Tech community a few minutes after 4:30 p.m., alerting students of the water main break and advisory. 

The GTENS alert advised those who have experienced water issues to either boil their water or rely on bottled water for drinking and brushing their teeth until the advisory is over. At 5 p.m. the Midtown Publix, one of the closest grocery stores to campus, confirmed that they were running low on bottled water, leaving affected students who received the alert late in search of water to use indefinitely until the DWM is cleared to lift the advisory.