The Cougars fell just short 88-83 after three overtime periods on the road against East Carolina. | Sean Thomas/The Cougar

The Houston women’s basketball team narrowly fell to East Carolina 88-83 in a triple-overtime thriller on the road on Wednesday.

East Carolina took the early lead, scoring the first three field goals of the game.

The Cougars eventually found their rhythm in the final minutes of the first period, orchestrating a run that gave them the lead as the quarter neared its end. 

UH was able to grow its lead to five points before East Carolina finished the period with a layup to lead 16-13 at the end of the first.

In the second quarter, UH held onto its lead but was not able to extend it.

Both squads exchanged scores before East Carolina found its rhythm and evened the score 25-25.

Neither side was able to pull away in the second period as UH held a slim 34-30 lead at halftime.

Senior forward Bria Patterson led the Cougars in first half scoring with eleven points. Graduate student forward Tatyana Hill controlled the boards with a team-high five rebounds in the first half.

Still led by Patterson, UH took control in the third quarter. 

En route to expanding its lead to as high as 14 points, UH saw Patterson and redshirt senior Britney Onyeje as their lone scorers in the third period with nine and eight points respectively.

In the final two minutes of the third period, East Carolina put together a 7-0 run to see it trail UH by seven points.

Entering the final period of regulation, the Cougars looked poised to hold onto their lead. Propelled by Patterson and Hill, UH went on an 8-0 run to take a 59-47 lead.

The Cougars, though, went cold down the stretch.

Over the course of the final six minutes of regulation, East Carolina ate away at the UH lead, culminating a game-tying pair of free throws with 17 seconds remaining that set the game at 62-62 as time expired.

In overtime, Patterson and Onyeje led the way for UH, though the Cougars were trailing by two with just seven seconds remaining before a layup ensured their survival for another period.

The second overtime was also tight through five minutes.

Hill went to the free throw line with 24 seconds remaining and the Cougars trailing 80-79. Missing the first attempt, the Cougars missed an opportunity to potentially seal the game in their favor and settled for a third overtime.

The third overtime had little contest between the squads as East Carolina pulled away to lead by seven points.

A last-second layup from UH tightened the deficit to five points, but the Cougars did not have enough time left to further capitalize, and UH fell 88-83 in a triple-overtime thriller.

sports@thedailycougar.com

—
“UH women’s basketball falls in triple overtime at East Carolina” was originally posted on The Cougar

Reach Tri Duong at photo@collegian.com or on Twitter @TheRoamingLight.

Utah has a history of racism during sports events. Following the recent news of students in the stands being racist towards athletes during a basketball game at Roy High School, I looked into other similar incidents in Utah.

Racism happens at all levels of Utah sports. Utah Jazz fans have a racist reputation, the most well-known incident involving Russell Westbrook, a Utah Jazz player. In 2019, he stood up to a fan who hurled racist remarks at him during a game. Not only was he fined $25,000 by the NBA after the exchange, but he was also sued by the alleged racist fans for $100 million, though the lawsuit was later dismissed by a judge.

And last August, Rachel Richardson, a volleyball player at Duke University, reported that fans had yelled racial slurs at her from the stands at Brigham Young University. She wrote that “officials and BYU coaching staff were made aware of the incident during the game, but failed to take the necessary steps to stop the unacceptable behavior.” Soon after, soccer players from USC spoke up about a similar situation that happened last year, also at BYU.

The lack of consequences for racist fans and tendency for people to deny allegations of racism occurring at sports events in Utah is unacceptable. It indicates Utahns’ indifference towards the recurring negative experiences of athletes of color.

School administrators typically have no problem ejecting people from sports games. In Jan. 2020, Laval Stephens, a Black junior varsity basketball player, was treated cruelly by authorities during his team’s game. He was watching the game on the opposing side of the stands with other teammates when a school administrator asked him to leave. As he was walking to his team’s side of the gym, a Utah County Sheriff’s department deputy claimed the player was trespassing. He pushed Stephens outside the building and handcuffed him.

This is a clear example of an athlete experiencing racism, but this time, the person experiencing racism was kicked out of the game. If officials can do this, they should logically have no problem kicking out racist fans. But racism is not taken as seriously as it should be, and biased officials choose who merits removal from games.

During one occurrence last February, officials did enforce removal for racist behavior. Two Salem Hills high school students were escorted out of a basketball game after making racial taunts toward players. Yet a similar incident occurred at a Salem Hills soccer game half a year later.

For every case of reported racism in sports games, there are some who refuse to believe it or demand further evidence. A month after the BYU volleyball match, BYU concluded that there was no proof, apologized to the accused fan and removed the ban they had previously placed on them.

Commenters on the KSL story about the Salem Hills soccer incident invoke the term “innocent until proven guilty.” Others use the BYU incident as proof of false allegations that will surely be “debunked.” A lack of clear evidence does not mean the racism did not happen.

Racism isn’t rare in Utah, and it’s dangerous to deny that. As of 2022, 77.2% of the Utah population is white, compared to the 1.5% made up of Black people. Despite these numbers, Utah police shoot at minorities at alarmingly high rates. In Davis School District, “serious and widespread” racial harassment went ignored for years. Furthermore, it’s no secret that the LDS church, Utah’s dominant religion, has racism embedded in its very doctrine. Thus, it’s unsurprising to see racism at BYU, a private LDS university.

The sportsmanship policies of the NCAA and UHSAA do not make room for such racism. The University of Utah has similar fan behavior guidelines. Whether the bias is based in religious beliefs or not, the guidelines must always be enforced. When officials are made aware of racism, it is crucial that they act immediately to identify and remove the racist attendees. If current officials will not enforce this, they should be replaced. Other fans in the stands can easily find out who the offenders are and should pay attention, alerting officials or security when needed.

On Monday, Feb. 13, KUTV released an article outlining the conclusion of the investigation after the recent incident at Roy High School. The district imposed a ban on taunts and animal sounds from the crowd, moved the student section farther away in the stands and increased the number of staff for monitoring. This is a good example of action being taken, although it was not reported that the students were identified or disciplined in any way.

The amount of racism that we have seen in the past year in Utah sports events alone is disgusting. This news from Roy High School is no different. Athletes should be able to focus on their sport without being barraged with racism.

c.jarvis@dailyutahchronicle.com

@carolinegjarvis

Gov. Tim Walz signed the CROWN Act, which prohibits racial discrimination based on natural hair texture and hairstyles, into law Feb. 1.

Minnesota is now one of the 20 U.S. states where the CROWN Act, formally called the Creating a Respectful Open World for Natural Hair Act, is a law

“Black people in Minnesota, and across the country, deserve to show up as their full, beautiful selves, without the fear of hair discrimination,” said Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in a press release after the bill was signed.

Bill provides “an equal standpoint”

Bula Wayessa, an African American and African Studies professor at the University of Minnesota who specializes in social identity and archaeology, said he believes Black people should feel they can fully embrace all aspects of their identity.

“The matter of human dignity and acceptance regardless of what you look like is liberating,” Wayessa said. “[Hair] is a language through which they express themselves.”

In Ethiopia, ethnic groups have their own specific hairstyles, according to Wayessa. By hairstyles alone, one can identify a person’s background and which social group or subgroup they belong to, he said.

Wayessa said hair has cultural value because it marks an individual’s identity by defining who they are and their interaction with their communities.

The Black Student Union (BSU) is a student organization at the University that strives to embrace Blackness in all its forms and create an equitable and safe environment for all students, according to its website.

Kristina Yeboah, director of community engagement for the BSU, said she thinks the act will help remove the stigma surrounding Black hair.

Yeboah said Black hair is often stereotyped as unkempt or dirty. She said she believes that now, discrimination against Black hair textures or hairstyles will not be perpetuated.

“We get marginalized for our hair,” Yeboah said. “This gives Black individuals an equal standpoint.”

Event encourages attendees to “Rock Your Crown”

The “Rock Your Crown Past Present and Creative” event at the City of Minneapolis Public Service Building will celebrate both the recent passage of the CROWN Act and Black History Month.

The event was originally scheduled for Thursday but has been postponed to an undetermined date due to weather conditions.

The purpose of the event is for attendees to learn to embrace and care for their natural locks, according to Donald Brown, a member of the Minneapolis Black Employee Network and an organizer for the event. The event offers insight into natural hair, such as its history and different styles that it can be put into.

“Rock Your Crown is going to be putting more emphasis around us African Americans. We understand the historical component of our hair, and where it comes from, where it’s rooted from,” Brown said. “Your hair is considered as your crown, your glory, so no matter how or what type of hairstyle you have, we want you to come and rock that crown.”

Brown also stated the impact that he hopes the Rock Your Crown event will leave on those that decide to attend.

“We continue to get stronger,” Brown said. “In spite of all of the negativity that may be going on, we want to make sure that we spotlight the province of things that are going on within the African American community as well as our African American people.”

2022 was a year of movies about movies: “Scream,” “X,” “Nope,” “Babylon,” and Stephen Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans.” Spielberg has been one of the foremost names in film since the mid 1970s, gifting audiences with cultural landmarks like “Jaws,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” and “Jurassic Park.” Having cemented his reputation as one of the greats, he offers up a commentary on his symbiotic relationship to cinema.

“Movies are dreams that you never forget,” promises Michelle Williams as Mitzi Fabelman in the film’s trailer. But the film is only partially a nostalgic tribute to the love of filmmaking. More than that, it’s a drama about a complex, fractured, sometimes larger-than-life family.

The main character is Sammy Fabelman, a character inspired by and partially representative of Spielberg himself, portrayed by Gabriel LaBelle. Paul Dano and Michelle Williams are suitably charismatic and slightly grandiose as Burt and Mitzi, the loving but divided parents. Perhaps the most surprising casting is Seth Rogen, best known for raunchy comedies like “Superbad,” who plays family friend Bennie in a grounded and tangible performance.

Bennie’s constant presence in the daily routines of the household is just one of the ways the Fabelman family is always a few degrees separated from the American ideal. Theirs is the only house on the street with a menorah in the window instead of Christmas lights. As a pianist, Mitzi rejects the typical housewife duty of washing dishes to keep her hands in ideal condition; thus, every family meal ends with paper tableware folded inside a tablecloth and tossed into the garbage.

In the Fabelmans’ house, the values of logic and emotion are on opposing sides of a conflict that will ultimately prove insurmountable. Sammy Fabelman, like his mother, is governed by the necessity and catharsis of creating art. His gift for cinema proves to be a blessing and a curse when he unwittingly captures on film a family secret that chips away at his parents’ relationship. The ability of art to change the course of our lives is the key takeaway of “The Fablemans”. In his first experience wielding the camera, a young Sammy crashes a toy train set to recreate and come to terms with a frightening movie scene. Other times, Sammy makes art to show the world his perspective; still other times to reveal the truth or attempt to change it.

These are the powers of art and filmmaking, Spielberg reminds us, and though he’s not the only filmmaker to do so this year, there is an irresistible enchantment to his take on the material. The slightly elevated performances pay homage to the idea of movies as dreams or fantasies; meanwhile, the tightly-written script grounds the film and delivers the thesis. Yes, cinema is a kind of magic, but it is tangible too, and its ability to create new realities is palpably felt, reverberating through “The Fabelmans.”

Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars.

Every time McKenna Hofschild comes up the floor, her opponents know she’s going to give the play her all — and that’s exactly how she wants it.

“I just want to be the person who comes out on the court every day and (who) people look at and say, ‘She’s going to bring it,’ every time,” Hofschild said. “I’m going to come and give everything I’ve got. We might win, we might lose, but I’m going to give my heart every single time I step on the floor.”

Typically, the star guard spends less than three minutes on the bench each game, averaging a whopping 37.1 minutes on the court. As she closes out her 2022-23 campaign, Hofschild’s outstanding season has gained her considerable national attention.

“I think just how she’s handling the whole year, with the attention she’s getting from opponents, is incredible. She’s all about making the right play. The balance that she’s playing with is ridiculously good right now.” -Ryun Williams, Rams women’s basketball head coach

One of the awards she’s been named a semifinalist for, the Becky Hammon Mid-Major Player of the Year award, is named in honor of the legendary Colorado State University guard whose retired number now hangs in the rafters in Moby Arena.

“It’s very cool. Just to be mentioned with her is such an honor,” Hofschild said. “To know what she means to this program and this university, it’s really humbling.”

Hammon rewrote the team’s record books during her time in Fort Collins from 1995-99. To this day, she remains at the top of almost every scoring record, including the top four spots in the category for total points in a season.

“I think it adds a different level to (the award),” head coach Ryun Williams said. “(Hammon) is arguably the greatest player to ever play here.”

Today, Hofschild has begun to write her name in the record books in her own way. Her 557 points scored in the 2021-22 season placed her seventh on the list for total points in a season, but she has made the biggest splash with her assist numbers.

She became the only player in CSU women’s basketball history to record over 200 assists in a season during the 2021-22 campaign, earning the record for most assists in a season. In the same season, she also set the team record for most assists in a single game, recording an astonishing 17 assists in the Jan. 19, 2022, game against Utah State University.

“I think you see a young lady that’s focused on just winning that game and doing whatever it takes,” Williams said. “Some nights she’s really scored it, (but) some nights it’s been more about distributing. Each game has a life of its own, and she’s really good at adjusting to that.”

Hofschild, eager to always credit her teammates, is grateful to those around her for putting her in the position to be able to contribute beyond scoring.

“Everyone around me has elevated my game,” Hofschild said. “I think being here has really helped put me in this position now where I’m on those lists. Being here has put me in such a good spot, both on and off the court.”

This season, Hofschild is averaging 21.2 points and 7.3 assists per game, leading the Mountain West Conference comfortably in both stats. She is the only player averaging above 20 points per game in the conference, and she has nearly three more assists per game than second place’s average of 4.7.

The only player who comes close to Hofschild’s point average is University of Nevada, Las Vegas center Desi-Rae Young, who was also named a Mid-Major Player of the Year semifinalist. Young, who is averaging 18.1 points a game, also leads the conference in rebounds with 10.3 per game. 

“(Young) is a great player, and I think when you play against really good players, you want to elevate yourself,” Hofschild said. “I think we probably push each other when we have that matchup.”

This was certainly true for Hofschild, who exploded for a season-high 37 points in a 91-88 overtime loss against Young’s UNLV squad Dec. 31, 2022. 

However, with all of the positive attention comes defensive attention from opponents. As Hofschild has progressed through her career at CSU, she has increasingly faced physical defense from teams looking to rattle her.

“I think just how she’s handling the whole year, with the attention she’s getting from opponents, is incredible,” Williams said. “She’s all about making the right play. The balance that she’s playing with is ridiculously good right now.”

While Hofschild is used to getting rattled, she has made the adjustment to deal with the scrappiness that comes from facing physical defenses.

“It’s definitely something that I’ve had to kind of learn to overcome and deal with and mentally just be stronger when it comes to that type of play,” Hofschild said. “Each year I’ve had to take on more of a leadership role and be able to be mentally strong.”

Beyond being named a Mid-Major Player of the Year semifinalist, she was also named a Top 10 candidate for the season’s Nancy Lieberman Award, which recognizes the nation’s top collegiate point guard in women’s basketball. She has also received the title of Mountain West Player of the Week three times this season, most recently on Feb. 6.

“I think my favorite part of getting Player of the Week is that most of the time it’s because we got two wins that week,” Hofschild said. “I think getting those two wins feels even better than Player of the Week.”

Ultimately though, beyond the team’s success, Hofschild has her eyes on the award named after the Colorado State great.

“My personal goal? I want to be Player of the Year,” Hofschild said. “I don’t know if it’ll happen, but I think that would be a huge accomplishment for me.”

Reach Kaden Porter at sports@collegian.com or on Twitter @kqporter5.

The University of Utah has agreed to pay a settlement of $5 million, pending legislative approval, to the parents of Zhifan Dong for failing to recognize she was in danger before being killed by her boyfriend in Feb. 2022.

The university said in a statement that the financial agreement will not come out of funds from student tuition. The agreement also includes a commitment to establish a memorial on campus in Dong’s memory. 

The proposal was announced Tuesday as a joint resolution filed by the Utah State Legislature to approve the settlement. Any settlement agreement that legally binds an action to be taken from a state entity, including universities, has to be voted on by lawmakers, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

In a statement from the U and the parents of Dong, the university wrote the resolution is expected to be voted on in the legislature the coming days. The proposal has already been approved by Gov. Spencer Cox. 

The settlement will require any members of the Dong family to release the university of any from all grievances, complaints, claims or costs related to Zhifan Dong or any other matter.

U President Taylor Randall said in the statement that the campus continues to mourn the death of Dong, pledging the university will “remain diligent, continue to improve, and advance the health and well-being of our students.”

“Today’s settlement demonstrates our seriousness in honoring Zhifan Dong and reaffirming our commitment to the ongoing work of addressing all aspects of student safety,” Randall said.

Dong’s parents, Junfang Shen and Mingsheng Dong, issued their own statement, translated from Chinese to English, Tuesday night.

“One year ago, we lost our sweet daughter, Zhifan Dong, and continue to miss her every day,” they wrote. “A beautiful and capable young woman, she was tragically separated from us eternally in an instant.”  

Dong’s parents also expressed that they’re grateful for this important step toward justice for their daughter. 

“It is our hope that Zhifan will be remembered and that her memory will inspire others to help prevent intimate partner violence and save lives on campus and in all our communities,” they wrote. “We hope she will inspire other victims to seek help and to leave their abusers.”

In the settlement, the university recognized the mistakes it made in handling Dong’s safety concerns. 

“The University acknowledges shortcomings in its response of its housing and residential education team to the complex situation that resulted in Zhifan Dong’s death and acknowledges the terrible loss that the Dong Family has suffered,” it stated.

Dong, who was a 19-year-old international student, was killed when her boyfriend, Haoyu Wang injected her with a fatal dose of drugs in a motel in downtown Salt Lake on Feb. 1. Wang is currently incarcerated, awaiting trial on murder charges in the case.

Both Dong and her roommate spoke to U housing about concerns of safety. They told housing that Dong’s boyfriend hit her after she broke up with him and that she was scared about what he would do next, including possible self-harm.

Bailey McGartland, one of Dong’s roommates at the time, said she helped Dong file many domestic violence and wellness-check-related reports, according to previous reporting from The Chronicle. Campus police weren’t called until nearly a month after Dong’s first report. She died three days after that.

Documents released by the U last July showed that housing employees failed to recognize clear signs of intimate partner violence. This continued even after Dong told them she had gotten a protective order against Wang, who lived in the same dorm building, one floor up.

Since then, the U has taken disciplinary action against three housing employees and two have resigned. 

In the statement from Dong’s parents, they expressed it’s still hard to accept that their daughter really has left this world.

“When we shed tears and choked up over the pictures of our daughter, her lovely smiling face and familiar voice replayed in our minds over and over again,” they wrote. “We know that she has never gone far, and she is in our hearts.”

a.christiansen@dailyutahchronicle.com

@Andrewwriter01

I’ve always wondered why Americans put pork in everything. Bacon’s too fatty and greasy. Pork chops literally taste like rotten chicken. And pepperoni only serve as mini edible bowls on top of pizza that accumulate oil. 

I was told from a young age to avoid pork like the plague. I never really knew why — just that my family was Muslim and Muslims don’t eat pork. It made me feel cool and unique at times. My friends would have to order cheese pizza for me at sleepovers. Teachers would have to check during lunchtime to make sure that the sandwiches didn’t have any bacon in them. None of my classmates had a perversion to such an American staple, and I honestly liked the attention of having some real culture in comparison to the community around me.

In reality, I’ve never been a religious person. I’ve watched my babaanne, my dad’s mom, pray countless times on her rug. I would even try to mimic her as a child. It was more of a fun game to me, standing up, sitting down, bending into child’s pose, standing again. I had the same attitude towards Ramadan as well. How long could I go without eating or drinking? I never made it too far, but I would watch in admiration as my baba did so effortlessly day after day for a month.

Interestingly, I come from quite the dichotomy of belief systems. My mom, born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, is an atheist to the core. She can’t take religion seriously if her life depended on it. My dad, on the other hand, is from Antalya, Turkey, and is pretty dedicated to Allah. He used to go to camii — mosque — every Friday (the Muslim holy day) when I was younger. His parents have both completed their pilgrimage to Mecca. My babaanne and dede pray five times a day, every day. My babaanne wears a başörtü — head covering. Both grandparents read the Quran every day. This was my normal, at least whenever I traveled to Turkey to visit family.

I asked my parents at one point why they didn’t push religion on to me like many other parents do. My mom responded that she didn’t think it was fair to force me to believe one thing or another. She explained that they did their best to raise me with Muslim-ish beliefs (basically just no pork and one prayer in Arabic), but that ultimately they wanted me to make my own decision as to what I wanted to pursue. I subsequently pursued atheism. 

I am forever grateful to my parents for allowing me autonomy in terms of religious beliefs. Too many times I witness children indoctrinated into a belief system at such a young age that they never know anything different. 

However, there is one issue that has arisen because of the way I was raised. I still value my differences in the face of a nation that is so heavily ruled by Christianity (there is no separation of church and state, contrary to what some politicians may want you to believe), but there are some things that, even as someone who doesn’t claim to be Muslim, I still find myself diverting from.

A perfect example is pork. 

Pork still makes me nervous. Eating pork is haram — a sin — in Islam, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get that out of my head. I inherently don’t believe in Hell or Heaven (even if I did, I know where I’m going for sure), but I have such a negative perception of pork, that even the accidental taste of it makes me recoil. I feel anxious if I consume it.

It does make some situations awkward: “Why don’t you eat pork?” and the following assumptions and ignorance makes me question the intelligence of my fellow Americans at times. Bacon donuts in my eyes are a disgrace to the culinary arts. I’ve never had a BLT. And don’t get me started on how many times I’ve ordered a baked potato or potato skins and have had to sit there, tirelessly picking off the bacon bits. 

This is why I tell people I’m culturally Muslim. Turkish dishes don’t have pork in them; I’ve never had to come across it at home or when visiting family. Similarly, if I ever had believed in a god at one point or another, it was most definitely Allah and not the white, blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus that Christians praise. 

It’s an interesting caught-in-the-middle situation for sure, but I honestly don’t think I’d have it any other way. My beliefs, however, don’t change the fact that bacon is just gross.

The post Culturally Muslim in a Christian society  appeared first on Daily Trojan.

On Feb. 16, 2023, the Barry Arts Museum hosted “Coffee and Contemporary Art,” featuring ODU professor Brittney Harris performing her one-woman show, The Intersection: the Sandra Bland Project, and scenes from her devised play, “Tag: You’re It!” 

The stage set-up was minimal. There was a single theater cube with a brown paper bag, a trash bag, and a baby blanket on top of it with Skittles scattered around its base. Harris was dressed in an orange ensemble not unlike a prison uniform. The reasoning for this became apparent once she introduced her show to the audience.

Harris described The Intersection: the Sandra Bland Project as being devised after she saw countless headlines of violence against people of color during the rise of the Black Lives Matter Movement. She wanted to use artistic expression as a form of activism to communicate the trauma from simply reading these headlines. 

In her introduction, Harris highlighted the project’s namesake: Sandra Bland. Bland was a Black woman found hanged in a jail cell after her arrest at a traffic stop three days prior. The Intersection is named after the place where she was arrested and the concept of the intersection of race and gender in oppression and activism. Harris framed her show as a conversation with the trope of the unbreakable Black woman, with the point of view character a cross between herself and Bland.

“To me, Sandra was a mirror,” Harris said.

Harris delivered her performance with raw and moving emotion, from her pained  voice in her opening lines to her frantic prayers to “cast out the devil,” until the character reached her breaking point and lamented the world’s expectation for her to be strong: “Tears are a sign of weakness, but they are my release.” 

“There is this perception that women are deemed too emotional and unstable if they shed tears, but in fact to release the pain is a lot braver than to carry it,” Harris later elaborated. “I hope that audiences take away that it is OK to not be perfect. That there is not one way to be a short quote ‘strong woman’ in that each of us are flawed but also can be flawless in our truths.”

After a ten minute break, the seven cast members of “Tag: You’re It!” took the stage. “Tag: You’re It!” was a devised play directed by Brittney Harris and starring seven actors: Joseph Castro, Amanda Chaussi, Mya Correa, Jamia Gordy, Nyaira Jones, Reicse Owen, and Adrian Rivera. During  rehearsals in the Fall 2022 semester, these actors worked with Harris to create the play, which was initially inspired by different perceptions of the word “tag,” such as the children’s game, the act of tagging a wall, or a social media hashtag. 

While most of the cast of “Tag: You’re It!” began to fight over a blank canvas and cans of spray paint, Jamia Gordy invited the audience to “take a field trip” to the patio of the Barry Arts Museum. The cast spread the canvas on the ground, using rocks to keep the wind from blowing it away, and launched into their snippet of the play.

“This is MY turf … marked by me, for me,” they proudly proclaimed as they tag the canvas.

Afterward, they invited various audience members to spray symbols onto the canvas. I was tagged in by Reicse Owen; I tagged a blank space of the cloth with a yellow star. Audience members used other colors to draw different shapes: hearts, words, X’s, and even a cat face.

According to Harris, she and the cast chose to perform that part of “Tag: You’re It!” because of the audience engagement.

“There is something very powerful about the dynamic between artists sharing space and a common canvas, and I wanted to present an opportunity to highlight everyone’s perspective,” she said.

The event closed with Harris introducing the cast members of “Tag: You’re It!” and thanking the audience for their participation as everyone basked in a well-deserved round of applause.

“I would say the overall goal of our platform was changing SGA for the better,” Joshua Martin said. | Anh Le/The Cougar

With Student Government Association elections approaching, President Joshua Martin gives an overview of the 59th administration’s accomplishments and goals that he wishes to achieve if re-elected. 

Although SGA has faced several debates during meetings that target campus issues and various changes to election rules, Martin remains optimistic about the upcoming election and raising student engagement. 

“I would say the overall goal of our platform was changing SGA for the better,” Martin said.  “Because SGA really had a negative persona around it, and it was really kind of our goal to kind of fix that and put us back on a positive track.”

Martin shared some of SGA’s accomplishments with their initiatives, including passing its sexual assault policy changes that raise awareness and combat misconduct. He also highlighted his main goal if reelected to push the Cougar Job Connection initiative to work with every college and department to get students adequate corporate job opportunities and expose students to better-paying careers. 

“ I think that connecting our students to job opportunities, is something that would really be a great service to them,” Martin said. “And by meeting with the deans of every single college by working with the Mayor’s Office of Education in the higher Houston Youth Program, I think that we can really kind of bridge the gap between the students who don’t know what they want to do after college.”

Another initiative Martin stated that his cabinet wishes to work on is a textbook affordability program that centers around Cougar Textbook Access Program to educate students on resources that they have available to them. Alongside that, Martin stressed focusing on safety and mental health.

 “More recently with some of the unfortunate events that have happened this week, we really want to focus on mental health and safety first agenda,” Martin said. “Whether that’s when that’s going to have to deal with going into the caps office working with them. Setting up trainings with different university organizations so that we can get them involved with that.”

When asked if there is anything that his administration would do differently, Martin expressed that his cabinet has stayed productive throughout.

“Honestly we were kind of a go-with-the-flow organization,” Martin said. “So I think there could have been a little more structure with how some of the things ran, and I think that also gives me an advantage going into potentially a second term because I’ve seen what works, I’ve seen what doesn’t work and I think that we can put that together to ultimately move forward.”

 Martin said that his advantage in this election comes from being experienced with the workings of the University. He shared that this has allowed him to point his senators in the right direction to make their initiatives happen, and accommodate them in the best way he knows how. 

Heading into the 60th administration election, Martin stated that he is proud of what SGA has been able to do with its projects. He brought to light registering “over 2,000 students to vote” and accomplishments members of his administration have made such as Speaker of the Senate Aryana Azizi partnering with Favor to expand students’ access to contraceptives. 

 “We’ve done a lot of great things and a lot of great individual accomplishments, that by bringing them back for another year, until ultimately going to put us on the path to success and continue to move our university forward,” Martin said.

news@thedailycougar.com

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“Meet the candidates: Incumbent SGA President Joshua Martin reflects on 59th administration, looks ahead” was originally posted on The Cougar