The University of Minnesota’s College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) and Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) are working together for the next three years to research how to improve student experiences in the district.

The collaboration is intended to improve reading, literacy, mathematics and school climate among students at MPS. After the partnership began in November, leaders held sessions on reading and math to discuss challenges teachers face in the classroom and potential strategies for improving these areas.

The partnership will also recruit and develop teachers and school leaders, including teachers of color, in the spring.

Leaders of the partnership said the collaboration was in the works for sometime. While there were temporary partnerships between the University and MPS in recent years, this is the first long-term, multiyear project to be developed, CEHD Dean Michael Rodriguez said.

“It seems really natural to have a more intentional partnership,” Rodriguez said.

The University will share their findings on educational topics and strategies with educators in Minneapolis through the partnership. Through the collaboration with MPS, researchers will have the opportunity to apply their knowledge to real-life challenges impacting educators and students.

The Minneapolis Foundation is providing financial assistance and coordination to support the work of the partnership.

“We brought them together and said, ‘How do we take advantage of the incredible knowledge of these two institutions and work out this arrangement?’” Minneapolis Foundation President and CEO R.T. Rybak said.

The partnership currently focuses on improving literacy by providing tutors and supporting reading instruction from teachers. Research projects such as the Path to Reading Excellence in School Sites (PRESS) and the Minnesota Reading Corps study strategies to help improve these areas.

“One of the things that the University of Minnesota has that we don’t necessarily have the capability of doing is people whose passion is to research things that we’re interested in doing,” said Eric Moore, MPS senior accountability, research and equity officer.
One of the main focuses of the partnership is implementation science, which aims to apply research findings and solutions in the classroom to all students, rather than only select groups.
“What we’ve now done is take that incredible knowledge of how to implement good ideas of scale from the University and put it directly in the hands of those teachers and school leaders and administrators of Minneapolis Public Schools,” Rybak said.
Moore said he is excited about devoting time to formal research and practice sessions to collaborate with CEHD professors, Rodriguez and staff and faculty from the district.
“Having the time to come together and talk about what we’re working on relative to what the University of Minnesota is working on forms those really nice points of alignment,” Moore said.
Rybak said he hopes discoveries from the partnership on teaching and learning strategies can be translated to school districts throughout the state in the future.
“We don’t see this as a one-and-done partnership,” Rybak said. “We see this as a breakthrough deepening our relationships that’s going to pay off in many ways over many years.”
This partnership may allow CEHD students involved in the research to work for MPS in the future, according to Moore.
“I do think it’s going to make a significant difference on the way we do our work here in the district,” Moore said. “I think it’s going to make a difference in how University professors have access, as well as hopefully the way they think about their research in terms of changing things for the better and the school districts that they work with.”

During fall semester of 2021, multiple incidents occurred on our campus where Black students, and people who were not students, experienced racist attacks in ways that justifiably angered the community. In ways that we have seen before, and sadly are no longer surprising or unexpected. The fact that these incidents occurred on our campus was something that was kept quiet for months on the institution’s behalf, and the community at large only became aware once those impacted by such violence protested against the institution’s silence. Once the community became aware and began to mobilize, the institution was no longer able to be silent, but their response was even more disappointing. Their response was so disappointing, that we read it with even less hope for a campus free from racist violence than we had during their time of abdication.

One aspect of their response, in particular, is something incredibly important to note as we understand the failure to address such issues. As their statement says, “Both incidents were reported to University Police on Dec. 19, 2021, and the agency is now actively investigating the issue.” The problem lies within this exact trust that they have for policing — as if policing has been a reliable way to address racist violence instead of assisting in it. The problem lies within their exact trust of internal university processes when such internal processes have only been a detriment to students. How are we being told that we must trust that the very system that failed us will be the system to heal us?

What the University fails to understand is that policing was established precisely to assist and protect the very violence which we are protesting against. Policing in America, from the very beginning of its roots, was established to protect a nation and ideology that promoted the kinds of attacks we witnessed on our campus fall semester. Police were in fact the very reason why so many social justice movements were so bloody. Police were the reason the state was allowed to murder and criminalize those who fought against racism and classism. Police were the reason why a woman who reported to them 20+ times was murdered on our very campus. This reality is contrary to the idea that police simply exist to protect polite society and keep it polite. An idea that many in our higher education environments continue to blindly believe when evidence in front of their eyes proves otherwise.

University president Taylor Randall, someone whose appointment I was critical of in campus media at the beginning of fall semester, said in his follow-up statement “improve education and training, and identify recommendations for making meaningful change” as actionable initiatives being taken on the institution’s part. What Randall and the rest of the University’s senior leadership fail to realize is that it doesn’t matter how many new workshops they introduce and how many town halls they host. None of this matters if the institution is not willing to make material changes in the lives of students who continuously face racist, patriarchal, transphobic and xenophobic violence under their watch. The University’s police are obsolete, the University’s internal processes are obsolete, repeating activists’ buzzwords in public statements is obsolete and new training doesn’t change these realities. It is time for the institution to abolish the police department, and their internal agencies that allowed for this to happen, in order to reallocate every last one of their funds to networks, organizations and basic necessities that will truly ensure our safety and inclusivity.

— Ermiya Fanaeian, University of Utah student

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The post Letter: University Police Are Obsolete in Incidents of Racist Violence appeared first on The Daily Utah Chronicle.

Senior center Josh Carlton had 20 points in the Cougars 80-47 win over Texas State Wednesday night at the Fertitta Center. | Steven Paultanis/The Cougar

No. 13 Houston blew by Texas State University in a 80-47 win Wednesday night at Fertitta Center and secured win No. 11 on the young season.

The game got off to a scary start for the short-handed Cougars as sophomore guard Jamal Shead limped off court just a minute and a half in and freshman guard Ramon Walker Jr. had to check-in. Shead returned to the game minutes later.

Junior guard Marcus Sasser got going early, knocking down a pair of 3-pointers to put the Cougars up 15-8 early in the first half.

UH took the momentum and ran with it.

The Cougars quickly went on a 14-2 run to take a commanding 29-10 lead by the 7:21 mark in the first half. Sasser had nine points already off three 3-pointers.

UH knocked down seven of its first 12 threes and shot 58 percent as a team during the first half.

Offensive domination that included nine made three-pointers put UH up 45-22 at the half led by senior center’s Josh Carlton 14 points, four rebounds and blocked shot.

The Bobcats came out of the halftime break with a sense of urgency as they hit their first four shots in the second half to get the lead back under 20, but it was a back and forth battle and the Cougars got going again quick.

A made three-pointer from senior guard Kyler Edwards and a slam from Carlton quickly sparked another big run for the Cougars. UH went on to score 17 unanswered points and pushed the lead to 36 points with under ten minutes to play in the second half.

The dry spell for Texas State lasted seven and a half minutes before senior guard Mason Harrell knocked down a jumper to end the Bobcats scoring drought.

The lead eventually grew as large as 41 and the Cougars found themselves at the receiving end of a runaway victory over the Bobcats.

Carlton led the team in both scoring and rebounding with 20 points and five boards in the contest.

Shead notched a double-double with 12 points and 10 assists on the night.

Sasser scored 13 points.

sports@thedailycougar.com

—
“No. 13 UH rolls past Texas State” was originally posted on The Cougar

How a safety car turned Formula 1 upside down

Rick Dikeman/Creative Commons

Photo by Rick Dikeman under CC-BY-SA-3.0-US

“I’m just speechless, Lewis,” said Mercedes engineer Peter Bonnington over the team radio, just moments after driver Lewis Hamilton saw his eighth potential world title snatched away from him by Red Bull driver Max Verstappen at the last lap. “Absolutely speechless.”

Mercedes epitomized what many fans felt during the historic Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, a Formula One racing event. With both drivers heading into the finale tied at 369.5 points apiece, the message was simple: Win the race, become the champion. Yet despite the spectacles and recent interest surrounding motor racing, the ending left it grappling with its very identity as a sport versus a piece of entertainment.

By the end of the day, the fact that Hamilton led during the homestretch of the race did not matter. It was a safety car, brought out by Williams driver Nicholas Latifi’s crash, that became the elephant in the circuit. Due to requirements of drivers slowing their speed down, Hamilton’s leading gap closed significantly. Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile, or FIA, director Michael Masi was tasked with two distinct options: either let the 58-lap race finish under a safety car, in which case cars would be allowed to overtake one another, or restart the race for one more, winner-take-all lap.

Masi’s eventual decision was underscored by five simple words he uttered to Mercedes team chief Toto Wolff after the grand prix: “It’s called a motor race.”

Per the director’s approval, normal FIA rules state “any cars that have been lapped by the leader will be required to pass the cars on the lead lap and the safety car.” However, only the five cars that were in between Hamilton and Verstappen were allowed to pass, therefore leaving the two drivers alongside one another during the final laps. Masi then made the decision to restart the race for one lap.

It probably would have been a fair race to the chequered flag. After all, the two best drivers of the year would start evenly, with one last chance to determine the better driver and champion of the 2021 season.

But Hamilton didn’t change his tires.

Tires are broken down into three types: soft, medium and hard. Verstappen, who used soft tires, took a pit stop before the safety car. Mercedes and Hamilton, who used the long-lasting hard tires that wore down gradually, didn’t pit to change in fear of losing their place to Hamilton. When the race restarted, it wasn’t really Verstappen against Hamilton –– it was the Red Bull prodigy and his fresh, higher-grip tires against Hamilton’s worn-down hard tires.

From an entertainment perspective, it makes sense why Masi went the route he did. Ending a winner-take-all race on a safety car is like ending the seventh game of the NBA Finals on a game-winning free throw. It’s also easy to place some blame on Mercedes for not making a pit stop to change tires. Lost in the controversy were arguments over whether the stewards gave Hamilton the benefit of the doubt throughout the race. In the first lap, Hamilton cut a corner to get ahead of Verstappen after the two collided, yet he did not have to give the place back.

Despite the controversy surrounding F1, what isn’t being called into question is the fact that Verstappen is a worthy winner. But the question that will undoubtedly hang over the sport for at least the rest of the offseason is whether the integrity of F1 was ruined by forgoing a strict interpretation of the rules and prioritizing a heart-stopping finish.

Nevertheless, at least Netflix has its drama for the fourth season of “Drive to Survive.”

Ali Fazal covers men’s soccer. Contact him at afazaldailycal.org.

The Daily Californian

Emory University named public health researcher M. Daniele Fallin as the new James W. Curran Dean of Public Health at the Rollins School of Public Health in a Dec. 22 email announcement to students, faculty and staff. She will assume the position on July 1, 2022.

Fallin will succeed current dean James W. Curran, whom the position is named after. Curran announced his departure from the University in April.

Fallin will be the first female dean of Rollins. With her appointment, six of the seven graduate schools at the University will be led by women. 

M. Daniele Fallin is named the new James W. Curran Dean of Public Health at the Rollins School of Public Health. Photo courtesy of Johns Hopkins University

An internationally renowned scholar, Fallin comes from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (Md.) where she serves as chair of the Department of Mental Health and the Sylvia and Harold Halpert Professor and Bloomberg Centennial Professor. 

She also holds joint appointments in the Bloomberg School’s Departments of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine’s Departments of Medicine and Psychiatry. Additionally, she has served as the director of the Wendy Klag Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities since its inception in 2013.

“Her collaborative approach to addressing national trends and issues in the public health world supports Emory’s vision focused on student flourishing, faculty eminence and research excellence,” the announcement reads. 

Fallin’s selection follows an international search co-chaired by Nell Hodgkin Woodruff School of Nursing Dean Linda McCauley and Yerkes National Primate Research Center Director R. Paul Johnson.

“We believe Dr. Fallin’s vision for the future will build upon the amazing success that Dr. Curran has achieved during his tenure to position Rollins as a global leader,” the announcement reads.

The post Emory selects Johns Hopkins chair as dean of Rollins School of Public Health appeared first on The Emory Wheel.

Former USC junior quarterback Kedon Slovis is transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, according to a Players’ Tribune article and post on his Instagram account. He has two more years of college football eligibility. 

In his 3 seasons as a Trojan, ​​Slovis threw for 7,576 total yards — the seventh-highest all-time in USC history. His 58 career touchdowns are also tied for the fifth-highest all-time.

Slovis entered the transfer portal on Dec. 13 after playing only nine games in the 2021 season, throwing for 2,153 yards, 11 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. After throwing for 3,502 yards in 12 games his freshman season, Slovis combined for 4,074 yards in 15 total games his sophomore and junior season.

“I thought we would continue that success throughout my career. But football is kind of like life — you can’t control everything,” Slovis wrote in a Players’ Tribune article. “Whether it’s injuries, or having to navigate a season with COVID and so many unknowns … some things you just don’t plan for. And everything didn’t go as I planned during the rest of my time at USC.” 

The junior quarterback split time with sophomore quarterback Jaxson Dart as the year progressed before missing the rest of the season with a leg injury. 

A three-star prospect, Slovis was sprung onto the scene when 5-star quarterback JT Daniels tore his ACL in the first game of the 2019 season. 

He threw for 377 yards in his first career start — breaking a record for most passing yards by a freshman in their first start. While Dart broke the record for most passing yards in a debut with 391 against Washington State in September when Slovis was hurt early, Slovis still holds the record for most passing yards in a first start.

During the 2019 season, Slovis also became the first USC quarterback to throw for over 500 yards in the Trojans’ victory against crosstown rivals UCLA. He also had over 400 passing yards in four of the final five games of the regular season, including three straight exceeding 400. Slovis threw for 30 touchdowns on a 71.9% completion percentage. 

That level of passing didn’t translate to his sophomore season in 2020, however. Slovis didn’t throw for more than 400 yards in 6 games and had a completion percentage of 67%.

His junior season got off to a bumpy start. He threw for 256 yards, the fourth-lowest total in his college career, against San Jose State in his first game. Then, he had 223 yards the next game against Stanford — the lowest total of his career in a full start. He finished the season with a leg injury that forced him to miss the final three games. 

Slovis joins Max Browne as former USC quarterbacks to transfer to Pitt. Browne did so in 2016 as a graduate transfer.  

“USC will always be a special place to me,” Slovis wrote. 

The post Kedon Slovis announces transfer destination appeared first on Daily Trojan.

UC Berkeley faces surge in COVID-19 cases

Aasha Turner/Staff

COVID-19 has been spreading through campus ever since students returned from the academic holiday in November. However, since the end of Thanksgiving break, there has been a significant increase in positive cases.

According to the UC Berkeley Coronavirus Dashboard, there have been 143 cases since Nov. 28, as of press time.

Of all of the groups recorded, undergraduate students have the most cases of anyone else on campus, according to the dashboard. The dashboard also demonstrates undergraduates have had the highest case rate since mid-August, when students returned to campus.

It is still uncertain whether the rise in cases — in addition to occurring because students return from a variety of places — are caused by the omicron strain, known to be highly contagious. As the tests on campus do not test for which particular strain it is, there is little information on this, according to ASUC Academic Affairs Vice President James Weichert.

UC President Michael Drake issued a letter to every UC chancellor in response to the rising omicron variant. In the letter, he urged the chancellors to design and implement a plan to return to campus in spring.

“This plan should incorporate a test, sequester, and retest model as described in the UC Health Coordinating Committee’s guidance for returning students,” Drake said in the letter. “This may require campuses to begin the term using remote instruction in order to allow students to complete an appropriate testing protocol as they return to campus.”

Drake also stated the length of his suggested remote instruction varies from the different campuses and their individual situations.

While campus does not intend to change its spring instruction method, plans are subject to change depending on local public health data.

Students also have the ability to help themselves from the virus. Weichert urged students to do their part to stay safe.

“The bottom line is if you haven’t gotten your booster, get your booster shot if you’re eligible,” Weichert said. “Then you can look forward to a spring semester that we want it to be. But we have to go through all steps to ensure that that is a possibility.”

Contact Diego Lapayese-Calderón at dlapayesecalderon@dailycal.org, and follow him on Twitter at @diego_lapayese.

The Daily Californian

UH forward Tatyana Hill finished one rebound shy of a double-double as she recorded 15 points and nine rebounds in the Cougars win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Tuesday afternoon. | Esther Umoh/The Cougar

The Houston women’s basketball team won its fourth-straight game as it cruised past Texas A&M-Corpus Christi 78-51 at home on Tuesday.

Senior forward Tatyana Hill had herself a day and led the charge on both ends of the court as she finished one rebound shy of a double-double as she recorded 15 points and nine rebounds before fouling out late in the fourth quarter.

The Cougars jumped out the gate with a quick 6-2 lead before the Islanders rode an 8-0 run to lead 10-6 midway through the first quarter.

The lead would not last long for the Islanders, as the Cougars would close out the first quarter with a 17-2 run to lead 23-12 heading into the second quarter.

Eight players got on the scoresheet for the Cougars in the first quarter, as junior forward Bria Patterson led with six points.

A slow start to the second quarter resulted in a low scoring period for both teams, as the Cougars outscored the Islanders 7-6 in just over five minutes of play.

Nearing the end of the quarter, the Cougars jumped out to a late 11-3 run to lead 41-21 at the half.

Patterson led all scorers at the half with 10 points while Hill gathered nine points and seven rebounds.

At the start of the third quarter, the Islanders found some momentum and opened the half with an 8-2 run to force a Cougars timeout and cut the deficit to 14 points at 43-29.

UH broke a 3:12 scoreless run and found its way back into the game, closing out the third quarter on a 7-0 run to lead 56-35 for its second 20-point lead of the game.

Hill led all scorers at the end of the third quarter with 11 points.

In the fourth quarter, the Cougars’ maintained their distance from the Islanders as graduate guard Eryka Sidney stepped into the game and hit two-consecutive 3-pointers to boost the Cougars’ lead at 68-44 and end all hopes for an Islanders comeback.

Patterson finished the game with 10 points and one rebound as all players for UH recorded at least one point in the game.

Graduate guard Julia Blackshell-Fair finished the game with four points, four rebounds and eight assists.

sports@thedailycougar.com

—
“Hill’s near double-double powers UH past Texas A&M-CC” was originally posted on The Cougar

Lana Del Rey’s newest album “Blue Banisters,” released Oct. 22, comes fresh on the heels of her March release “Chemtrails Over the Country Club.” Perhaps that is why the album feels so rushed and unpolished. 

On “Banisters,” Del Rey leans into a more relaxed, raw vocal style than much of her earlier work, as if reclaiming the atonality of her infamous Saturday Night Live performance of “Blue Jeans.” This new style acts to her detriment on “Black Bathing Suit,” but I grew to like it on other tracks like “Blue Banisters” and “Dealer.” On “Thunder,” Del Rey perfects this more authentic, emotional sound with a confrontational country twang that addresses the listener in a more direct way than her typical detached croons. 

The most successful songs on the album were released as singles and stand more or less independently of each other. “Wildflower Wildfire” features Del Rey showing off a rich contrast between the husky velvet of her low murmurs and the dizzying shimmer of her upper range. Meanwhile, the album’s titular track manages to sound like Kate Bush’s “Running Up that Hill” played at half speed, while still packing an incredible emotional force maintained by the floating ambient synths pierced by razor-sharp vocals

Still, outside of a few breakout tracks, the production as a whole feels rushed. Tracks like “Nectar of the Gods” sound like her early unreleased demos, such as “On Our Way” with intense voice breaks and unpolished guitars. Unusually for Del Rey, “Blue Banisters” isn’t sonically cohesive or thematically consistent. 

The most successful songs on the album were released as singles and stand more or less independently. “Wildflower Wildfire” features Del Rey showing off a rich contrast between the husky velvet of her low murmurs and the dizzying shimmer of her upper range. Meanwhile, the album’s titular track manages to sound like Kate Bush’s “Running Up that Hill” played at half speed, while still packing an incredible emotional force maintained by the floating ambient synths pierced by razor-sharp vocals.  

Other tracks are less successful, however. On the slapdash saccharine production “Beautiful,” Lana asks tough questions fundamental to the nature of the human experience: “What if someone had asked Picasso not to be sad/ Never known who he was or the man he’d become/ There would be no blue period.” She delivers these lyrics in the same intensely punctuated rhythm as Reese Witherspoon’s recitation of the first cardinal rule of perm maintenance in her role as Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde” (2001), to a far less satisfying result. “Black Bathing Suit” with its frank discussion of her aging body being scrutinized the press had the potential to be the spiritual successor to 2012’s “Blue Jeans,” the music video of which featured a moderately pornographic Del Rey wearing a notably white bathing suit. Instead, it failed to integrate its multiple complex emotional narratives, isolating them with generic Del Rey imagery “Swisher Sweet, magazines” and jarring pacing. 

Of course, when one listens to Del Rey, they do so not for her lyrical mastery or technical ]perfection but for her incredible capacity to cultivate an immersive atmosphere. In her 2012 song “Gods and Monsters,” she quotes Walt Whitman, saying “life imitates art,” and she has embraced theatricality throughout her career. In the 2012 music video for “Ride,” she blatantly confesses a (dubiously authentic) coming-of-age backstory of riding through the American west, saying she and her biker daddies desired nothing more “than to make our lives into a work of art.” 

After nearly a decade, Del Rey has mastered the craft of inviting her listeners to experience a sort of catharsis through aesthetic detachment from the mundanity of daily life. For all its shortcomings, “Blue Banisters” excels at this. Lyrics like “You named your daughter lilac heaven after your iPhone 11/ Crypto forever screams your stupid boyfriend/ Fuck you Kevin” in “Sweet Carolina” are hardly timeless or profound. Still, Del Rey pairs these temporal lyrics with an invitation for her audience to evade “the blues” by escaping into her music: “If you’re stressed out just know you can dance to your song ‘cus we got you/ If you got the blues, baby blues/ Just know this is your song/ It’ll live on and on, way past me and you.” In that sense, this album is an unquestionable success, and “Blue Banisters” will doubtless be embraced by Lana Del Rey’s devoted fanbase not in spite of, but because of its unpolished theatrical melodrama and its corresponding capacity for dramatic escapism.

The post ‘Blue Banisters’: Another textbook Lana album appeared first on The Emory Wheel.

UC permits campuses to begin spring term remotely

Sunny Shen/File

With omicron having become the dominant COVID-19 variant, the UC Office of the President, or UCOP, has given campuses the option to begin their spring terms remotely. 

UC San Diego, UC Riverside and UC Irvine — which are all on the quarter system — have already announced plans to make the first two weeks of instruction virtual. UC Berkeley, however, does not intend on changing its plans, according to campus spokesperson Janet Gilmore.

“At this point our spring semester plans have not changed,” Gilmore said in an email. “The UC Berkeley Public Health Committee and University Health Services continue to monitor closely the case trends and the evolving data and science around variants, like (Omicron).”

UCOP has also called upon individual UC campuses to develop plans for a safe return that involve a “test, sequester, and retest model,” according to a message released Tuesday by UC President Michael Drake. Meanwhile, campuses have been instructed to remain vigilant in enforcing masking and mitigating larger in-person gatherings. 

The UC has also mandated that everyone receive a booster shot, if eligible. 

“The evidence is clear that receiving a booster is essential to protecting yourself and those around you from Omicron and other variants,” Drake said in the message. “Therefore, I am also asking each of you to communicate the critical importance of boosters to your campus community, especially at this stage of the pandemic.” 

Check back for updates. 

Mallika Seshadri is the managing editor. Contact her at managing@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter at @SeshadriMallika.

The Daily Californian