In an Election night matchup against in-state rival James Madison, the Old Dominion men’s soccer team secured a significant victory with a 1-0 outcome, highlighted by a 64th-minute goal from Timothy Ennin. This triumphant performance in the regular season finale not only enhances the Monarchs’ standing in the Royal Rivalry but also guarantees their advancement into the Sun Belt playoffs, concluding the season with a conference record of 3-5-1 and an overall record of 7-7-2.

During the first half, the Monarchs faced a formidable defense from the Dukes, yet they maintained pressure on the opposing backline and goalkeeper. The JMU goalkeeper recorded four saves in the initial 45 minutes, compared to two saves made by ODU, which included a couple of attempts from the eventual goal scorer, Ennin.

Following halftime, the Monarchs continued to assert their presence, leading 7-5 in shots on goal, mirroring the first half where they had an advantage of 8-6. This persistence yielded results when freshman Micah Wayland executed a swift throw-in, directing the ball to the experienced Ennin, who favored himself at the edge of the penalty area.

An error by the Dukes’ defensive line allowed Ennin to maneuver past the defense, forcing the goalkeeper off his line in an attempt to intercept the shot. Ennin skillfully adjusted the ball onto his right foot and flicked it into the net in the 64th minute.

The Hartford, Connecticut native celebrated this pivotal moment with a remarkable handspring followed by a backflip. Ennin later had an additional opportunity to score in the 70th minute, but his attempt narrowly missed the target.

The Monarchs’ defense remained resolute as the Dukes attempted three corner kicks within the final ten minutes, all of which failed to yield any results. With five saves from goalkeeper Michael Statham and a collective team effort characterized by the ability to withstand pressure, the Monarchs successfully achieved a 1-0 victory and secured a postseason berth as the eighth seed.

This performance at the season’s conclusion, with three wins out of the last four matches, demonstrates significant improvement and a turnaround from the previous season, which culminated in a seven-game losing streak.

Both Head Coach Tenant McVea and Ennin had praise for the squad as McVea commented, “I’m super proud of the guys tonight and the way we finished the regular season. They’ve been resilient and worked hard.”

Ennin added on in a similar vein stating, “Things hadn’t been going our way. We’ve had some unlucky results, losing to Marshall and West Virginia by a goal was tough. But we’ve got a hell of a heart to bounce back toward the end of the season. It was just grit and hard work, loving each other and battling all over the field.”

The Monarchs have secured a postseason berth and will travel to Huntington, West Virginia. They’ll first meet Marshall to begin the Sun Belt tournament. Head Coach McVea expresses confidence in their ability to at least engage in a competitive match and to build upon their commendable performance during the regular season. He hopes this trip will provide an opportunity to achieve the desired outcome in their subsequent encounter.

Boston University students gathered at the Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground and Warren Towers to watch the 2024 Presidential Election results.

Stephanie Santos/The Cougar

Textbooks are the most widely used formats for studying in classes. While some in-class lectures include instructors guiding students to learn a new topic with presentation slides, there can still be a requirement to read textbooks.

Instructors not only have the responsibility to choose the pages for their students to read but also provide more learning materials like videos or even journal articles. 

UH also provides the Cougar Textbook Access Program to reduce the costs of textbooks per semester, by offering a fixed price of 299 plus 24.67 dollars of sales tax during a regular academic session.

However, some students express frustration reading textbooks due to several reasons like there is too much information given and not enough time to finish reading. 

Some even argue that not all students have the same attention spans or reading speeds. 

“I usually have an understanding of the subject,” said public relations junior Guadalupe Cortes. “But because I don’t have time, even to go over at least a couple of pages just to give me an idea on the topic, I do have trouble recalling the content.” 

In one of Cortes’ classes, she must read 30 pages on average from different textbooks every week to learn a new topic in her Introduction to Mexican American Studies class.

After reading, students must make a discussion post assignment based on what they learned and later do a peer review of another student’s response, making it time consuming. 

“Currently, I don’t have time to go over the textbook as it’s right at the most challenging part of my semester where I am being assigned to do major assignments, balancing my activities and having tests,” Cortes said. “I would rather use my time to go through the textbook and use it on my exam reviews.” 

In the same class, there are optional videos included that teach certain topics as well. 

For Cortes, she has a better learning experience watching the videos because she can understand more and retain the information better than reading in the textbooks. 

She relies on the textbook when assignments ask her to cite information from them. 

A piece of advice shared with college students is that they can skim through pages and find keywords, but this technique not work out for a lot of them. 

Attention and reading spans differ for each student. The overwhelming amount of information caused students to stress over what they must recall from their textbooks. 

“I would definitely stress and freak out if I had to read a textbook and complete quizzes,” said mechanical engineering junior Oscar Portillo. “It’s definitely an issue with my attention span since I lose interest really quickly.”  

A lot of extraneous information that isn’t covered in class is present in the textbook which won’t be covered in tests. Students find it mostly a waste of their time and causes extra stress, said electrical engineering senior Carlos Rincon. 

Portillo and Rincon wished that instructors could make changes so that it can be easier to rely on textbooks like giving summaries from them in classes or outline important parts for reading. 

For them, they had math, science and engineering classes where textbooks were reliable but felt they could be read optionally if they wanted to know more information. 

At UH, addressing students’ situations as feedback towards instructors can help academic learning like for Diana Pino, who is an instructor in one of the Introduction to Mexican American Studies classes. 

“There may have been a small number who have mentioned it in past course evaluations, but it has not been a recurring theme,” Pino said. “I do pay particular attention to the course evaluation question that asks students how the course compares to others they have taken in terms of the amount of work.” 

Pino provides videos and slides to reinforce her weekly modules like docu-series, YouTube videos and PowerPoint presentations that can be viewed on Canvas. 

“I appreciate the feedback and take it into consideration,” Pino said. “I know not all students feel comfortable providing feedback in person, so I always make it a point to carve out time in class at the end of the semester to allow students to complete the faculty evaluations while I step out of the room.”

news@thedailycougar.com

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“‘I would definitely stress out’: Students demand for more interactive form of teaching” was originally posted on The Cougar

In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the conservative political action committee (PAC), Citizens United, in the landmark Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC) case. The group argued that restrictions on promoting and funding a film critical of then-presidential nominee Hillary Clinton violated their constitutional right to free speech.

The Court based its decision on extending First Amendment protections to corporate political spending. The rationale focused primarily on freedom of speech, but the broader consequences are devastating for American democracy.

Regardless of the validity of this logic, the ruling opened the floodgates for unlimited corporate political spending. This effectively shifted power away from individual voters and into the hands of wealthy corporations and special interests. Nearly 15 years later, this decision allowing corporations unlimited election spending has had drastic consequences.

This issue is larger than Donald Trump or Kamala Harris and their affiliate parties. Citizens United v. FEC remains the single most prominent and dangerous threat to American democracy and its stakeholders. 

Follow the Money 

Citizens United effectively accomplished two things — more money in politics and diminished accountability regarding its place of origin. This money was delivered by the hands of super PACs or in the form of dark money.

Super PACs, a phenomenon that did not exist prior to the court ruling, are similar to PACs in the sense that their primary goal is to influence elections. The main difference is super PACs can receive unlimited amounts of money from donors.

Unlike PACs, which are far more regulated, super PACs have unrivaled power in raising money to promote the candidate of their choosing, including dark money, which refers to large sums of money which cannot be traced to a specific donor.

In the 2020 election, over 2,200 super PACs spent over $2 billion interfering with elections. The top two super PACs, one conservative and the other liberal, spent over $200 million dollars each.

In 2012, only two years after the landmark court case, super PACs spent $600 million. It’s clear that this issue will only continue to worsen. In the 2022 midterms, 21 families spent more than 3.7 million individual donors. It was the landmark case that made this possible.

Elections in 2024 

The election this November will be historical for many reasons, one of which is regarding the impact of outside expenditures. Dark money expenditures towards endorsing candidates are reaching an all-time high.

This issue is non-partisan, with both presidential candidates receiving absurd sums of money from individual donors. Both Harris and Trump are backed by super PACs funding their campaigns.

Future Forward USA is one of the super PACs backing Harris, raising over $350 million. Make America Great Again Inc. has put more than $300 million behind Trump. Despite being labeled super PACs, these organizations receive funding from millions of donors, not just billionaires.

This election has also had its fair share of billionaires calling the shots. Bill Gates donated $50 million to the Harris campaign. Elon Musk alone donated $75 million in support of Trump, along with other large mega-donors. Musk has also found himself in legal trouble regarding his $1 million lottery for registered voters.

These large sum donations undermine the will of the American people and are perfectly legal due to the Citizens United court case.

Know Your Enemy 

No one party exploits money to get their way, nor is there a winner. Either way, it’s American citizens who lose. Money in politics has existed as long as politics has. Studies show that candidates with the most money tend to win more often. Citizens United has only made this issue worse, likening the United States to an oligarchy. The average person is quickly losing their ability to influence politics.

As individual donors continue to be unburdened with less regulation, they only become more powerful in the political scene. When these donors happen to be extremely wealthy, the chances of their influence benefitting the common individual only decrease.

Republicans and Democrats tend to agree on this issue. Now more than ever, it is crucial for constituents of both parties to come together and resolve this issue.

“History will record that the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision is one of the worst decisions ever made by a Supreme Court in the history of our country,” Bernie Sanders said.

The court case remains the one true enemy plaguing American politics today.

The Future

As the 2024 election cycle approaches, the uncertainty of the victor seems nearly irrelevant in comparison to this issue. So long as democracy is sold to the highest bidder, it can hardly be defined as such.

The answer lies right in front of us, with states like New York attempting to take necessary steps to combat the court case decision. Citizens United v. FEC remains a significant barrier that makes it nearly impossible for common individuals to influence policy.

For democracy to survive and function the way it was intended, money must be removed from politics.

m.timpa@dailyutahchronicle.com

@timpa.chronicle

The post Opinion: Citizens United v. FEC Remains the Hidden Threat first appeared on The Daily Utah Chronicle.

After defeating 80+ other universities across the US in a 48-hour National Pre-Sale competition for the Up & Up Festival, UO won a performance from producer and house artist Matroda. Sponsored by Monster Energy, Up & Up empowers students to rally college communities and win their music festivals featuring headlining EDM artists for campuses nationwide. Started in 2016, Up & Up uses crowdsourcing by students to build demand in hopes of bringing a headliner to their college town. Over the past eight years, Up & Up has successfully hosted 43 college festivals with 23 different headliners.

In the Up & Up crew, student ambassadors are responsible for building excitement and spreading the word about which headliner will hopefully come to the University of Oregon. The team consists of three student campus directors and a total of 16 student ambassadors who work two seasons, fall and spring, to execute promotions, public relations and coordination of the event. Mia Caldwell, a senior at UO and the student campus operations and events director, has been a part of Up & Up for four seasons. She joined Up & Up during her sophomore year at Oregon after falling in love with DJing as a COVID-19 hobby.

The Up & Up works as a team, and the ambassadors are split up according to their different skills, Caldwell said. The student ambassador team is split into three sections — the Greek life relations team employs students who are either social chairs or VPs of their sorority or fraternity, the socials team handles tasks like posting on social media, making graphics and connecting the team to other accounts like Eugene Nest, The Freshman Class Page, Red Cup and Barstool, and the events team, lead by Caldwell, oversees events.

Thanks to the hard work of the student ambassadors, Matroda came to Eugene and delivered an energetic and dynamic set with European flair. The Croatian-born house artist is on a massive tour across the US and stopped in Eugene to put on a show before playing three more consecutive shows in Brooklyn, Boston and Las Vegas. Matroda secured the 25th spot on Tracklist1001’s prestigious chart, after achieving multiple Beatport #1 hits and amassing over one million monthly listeners on Spotify.

The Up & Up team was able to add Matroda to the list of headliners that have come through Eugene, along with TroyBoi, Chris Lorenzo, Dr. Fresch and Disco Lines. Starting from scratch in the Fall of 2019 and growing to almost 4,000 followers this past season, the Up & Up brand has grown substantially on the UO campus thanks to the UO student ambassadors.

The team allows students to meet people in the music industry and connect with those passionate in the field of music. “You never know what to expect. Being backstage, getting to work so closely with an artist and letting our local DJs perform for all their friends is just so exciting,” Caldwell said. “There’s never a sad face in the crowd.”

For these ambassadors, it has been a way to connect with music, meet headliner DJs and make a memorable experience for their friends and other students that will outlive their time here at the university.

Some of my fellow Americans actively want my minority friends out of the country, my girl friends dead, my queer friends converted, my education stunted. I used to hold Republican voters to a higher standard, but evidently, I can’t anymore. 

My cousin, Amanda, died from the flu when she was 4 years old, before I was even born. Because of this, my entire family has been very involved in efforts to raise awareness about the danger of Influenza and encouraging people to get vaccinated. We are all committed to getting our annual flu shot. This […]

On Oct. 24, the University of Oregon Career Center hosted its Fall Career and Internship Expo from noon to 4 p.m. in the Erb Memorial Union Ballroom. There was also a preview workshop held from 11:15 a.m. to noon. 

The UO Career Center hosts the event once per term. Students of various years and majors came to the event and 73 employers attended. Employers set up tables in the ballroom with information about their organization and to speak with students. Students were encouraged to bring their resumes to the event with them.

“Employers come to campus because they want to recruit students for internships or jobs, or sometimes they’re just here to tell them about their industry or what they do,” Paul Timmins, executive director of the UO Career Center, said. “It’s a place both for students who are job searching or looking for an internship right now, or for people that are learning about careers and wanting to explore possible options.”

The 73 employers that attended the event came from various industries, including but not limited to Amica Mutual Insurance Company, Edustaff and the Portland Police Bureau. 

Nonprofit, for-profit businesses and government organizations were in attendance, as well as charitable organizations such as the Peace Corps. 

“Some people leave with good job leads, but it’s really just a good opportunity to practice talking with an employer and getting used to what it takes to do that,” Timmins said. 

According to Timmins, approximately 750 students attend the Expo each term, and many of the attendees are juniors and seniors, but all years are encouraged to attend.

“We have some employers that are coming to continue sharing the word about their organization, so even though you’re a first-year student or a sophomore, they want you to be thinking about them when you’re a junior or a senior,” Timmins said. 

Isaac Webb is a freshman who attended the Expo to explore potential future careers after graduation. 

“I’m mainly just here to kind of see what jobs are out there after my college experience,” Webb said. “My main thing is [to] get myself out there [and] see what careers I might possibly be interested in and learn what careers I could go into.” 

Hanna Wales is a senior who attended the Expo and said she is hoping to “look for a career.” 

“I’m hoping to gain insight on where to get jobs and look into my future and invest in it,” Wales said. “I really looked into my resume, made sure it was all up to my standard and I really wanted to make sure I was prepared.” 

Aidan Routzon is another senior who attended the Expo. Routzon is a business administration major with a concentration in operations and business analytics, and an ethics minor.

“I was messaging with one of the recruiters on LinkedIn, and I have been for the past couple of months. Multiple companies I had been in contact with said they were going to be here,” Routzon said. “It felt like a good networking opportunity, and to kind of get an idea of what I maybe want to do next year. I updated my resume and went through a practice elevator pitch, you know, talking to yourself, that kind of thing.” 

The next Career Center event, BizCareers in Outdoor, Apparel and Sustainability, is scheduled for Nov. 7 in Lillis Hall.

Eman Ghacham/The Cougar

Uncomfortable encounters with individuals who do not attend UH have raised concerns about harassment, hate speech and campus safety.

Recently, non-UH attendees have roamed around campus aimed toward populated areas to offer students free healthcare or to preach about their religious beliefs. As harmless as it might seem, students have reported feeling uncomfortable with these interactions and at times, even pressured. 

These issues started as a simple nuisance but became a concern when one of the free healthcare solicitors was arrested in front of Absurd Chicken located in the Retail Auxiliary Dining Center after engaging with students. Although UHPD did not respond to The Cougar’s request for comment, UHPD’s daily crime log shows that an individual was arrested for suspicious activity on Oct. 14, 2024, at the RAD center with a warrant arrest. 

“I don’t really care about the preachers because you can just ignore them, and they provide a bit of entertainment on a dull day,” said computer science senior Richard Denton. “But I do mind people who approach you and sell to you. You have freedom of speech, but you shouldn’t have the freedom to approach me and borderline harass me.”

Though it is not certain if the free healthcare offered by these solicitors is fraud, students have had unsettling encounters with these individuals. 

There are various solicitors of different ages and backgrounds that offer students these services, however, they ask for confidential information such as social security numbers and credit card information. This could cause an issue due to the number of students on campus who are unaware of what personal details they should share. 

“I personally think sellers should be banned, as it’s considered solicitation,” Denton said. “There’s plenty of public places where solicitors aren’t allowed, so why are they allowed at a public university filled with gullible young adults?”

A man holds a sign on campus condemning several groups and actions on Oct. 18, 2024. | Gauraangi Gupta/The Cougar

Preachers on campus have caused mixed feelings for UH students. Though most don’t mind the act of preaching religious beliefs on campus, the real issue is the message that is being spread. 

Most preachers hold up a sign with a list of phrases or groups that should be condemned, some of them including Hinduism, Atheism, LGBTQ+ individuals, abortion and several others, that raise concerns about hate speech on campus.

“I have been uncomfortable by the preachers on campus where many times I am simply trying to enjoy my break outside, and it is interrupted by someone preaching hateful rhetoric,” said public history graduate Claire Ceck. “Having grown up evangelical and still wanting to call myself a Christian, this type of preaching makes me want to distance myself from the title of being a Christian.”

The preachers’ theology is hateful to anyone who is not a straight white cis man which can be exhausting, Ceck said.

“There should be consequences for invasive questions. Even though UH is a public institution, it should not be treated as public property,” said Ceck. “Freedom of speech means the government cannot punish them, however, students and faculty can ask that they leave.”

If students ever feel threatened or are followed by an individual on campus, contact UHPD by phone or text at 713-743-3333.

news@thedailycougar.com

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“Students raise concern against non-UH preachers, sellers on campus” was originally posted on The Cougar

If you are an NFL trade deadline enthusiast, this year has treated you well. The annual buzz around this time of year resulted in important pieces moving around.