You made it to the end of another year of college, and now you are faced with the gauntlet of tests and presentations.

To help you get through those tedious objectives, here is a playlist to both inspire you to not procrastinate — because we know you are — and to get you hyped to take on those tests and head into summer.

editor@thedailycougar.com

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“Finals playlist: Make it to Summer” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

Fiona Sinha/The Cougar

Buffalo Bayou is one of Houston’s many historic sites, and it serves as a border between the Second and Fifth Wards. The nonprofit Buffalo Bayou Partnership focuses on one 10-mile section — out of the 52-mile long waterway — that flows from Shepherd Drive to the Port of Houston Turning Basin.

UH graphic design students created temporary art installations that reflect the cultural and industrial nature of those neighborhoods for the Partnership’s Saturday event called “Encounter.”

Its purpose was to “bring these neighborhoods to the bayou,” and gather the community’s thoughts on how to bring the neighborhoods together, said Buffalo Bayou Partnership President Anne Olson. “Now they’re disconnected, so one goal is to preserve the legacy of those two neighborhoods.”

Graphic design associate professor Fiona McGettigan introduced the opportunity for UH design seniors to build installations along the bayou. “(McGettigan) was looking for a project for her students and also does graphic design work for Buffalo Bayou Partnership,” Olson said.

Planning for the “Encounter” project started in December 2017. The students had to present their projects at an exhibition at Sunset Coffee Building in one of the would-be locations: Allen’s Landing. After the presentation, they started construction on their installations.

The installations are strung along the bayou, starting at Allen’s Landing on Commerce Street in Downtown. There are five more points thereafter east of Downtown, stretching down to Yolanda Black Navarro Buffalo Bend Nature Park.

Many of the installations have stencils along the wharfs of the bayou in addition to interactive pieces. One of the stencils was at the North York Boat Launch. As visitors enjoyed zydeco music, free Saint Arnold’s beer and food truck fare, they could see the words “Crossing horizons” spelled on the wharf. The new mural is the work of graphic design senior Isabella Serimontrikul.

“It’s kind of a poetic narrative about crossing horizons that talks about connecting Fifth and Second Ward in this community recreational space that they’re trying to make,” Serimontrikul said.

Her interactive was an entire map of Buffalo Bayou and the other five points. “On that map we marked Houston neighborhoods, the boat launches along the bayou and the nine access points to the bayou in that area,” said Serimontrikul.

The first location at Allen’s Landing has more historic roots than the others. The landing is considered the first port of Houston and where the city started. The location features a crash course in all the other points in the route, represented through boxes designed by graphic design seniors Nadia Tran, Bruce Chao, Jon Inthavong, Julio Aguirre, UH design graduate Jose Chavero Rivera.

“You can read about their history, you can learn about what the site’s about, and you can also engage with it by writing your response to what you want to see in the Buffalo Bayou,” Tran said.

Tran said she and other students have worked on projects like this one in the past, but they never came to fruition.

“We’ve done other community projects before that didn’t happen, but this one is really interesting because we can see it in real life, and people from the community can interact with it,” Tran said.

After doing this project, Tran said she hopes to do more community-based projects that have to deal will social awareness once she graduates.

This project offers a chance for the Buffalo Bayou Partnership to have dialogue with the community. Three of the installations — at Yolanda Black Navarro, Japhet Creek, and the Gravel Silos — are still posted along the bayou.

“At this event, we’re at out sites and engaging the community in different ways,” Serimontrikul said. “We just want people to come out and have fun and tell us what they want Buffalo Bayou Partnership to put in these park spaces.”

North York Boat Launch is one of the points represented alongside the Buffalo Bayou for the Encounter project. “Crossing Horizons” represents the connecting of the Second and Fifth Ward communities, which lay on either side of the bayou. | Dana C. Jones/The Cougar

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article the installation did not include all of the designers of Allen’s Landing installation along with Nadia Tran. We regret the error.

features@thedailycougar.com

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“Graphic design project aims to ‘cross horizons’ between Second, Fifth Wards” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

Iconic church that Dr. Martin Luther King spoke at — Wheeler Avenue Baptst Church — will be expanding onto the Frenchy’s location in May of this year for growing congregation. | Dana C. Jones/The Cougar

A historic Third Ward church — Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church — is expanding.

The church has been a Third Ward staple since its inception in 1962 by 13 Texas Southern University students, a part of the Baptist Student Union that is still active today. Over the years, their congregation has grown and needs more space.

“We have four worship experiences every Sunday, and that’s not sustainable,” said Rev. Alexander Johnson, an associate pastor at the church. “The membership of the church has continued to experience growth. To accommodate the growth, we are building a larger sanctuary.”

Wheeler Avenue Baptist has partnered with another Third Ward icon — Frenchy’s, a drive-thru restaurant almost as old as the church — that plans to move locations in May. As Frenchy’s was planning its move, it entered into an agreement with the church.

Dating back to when both Wheeler Avenue Baptist and Frenchy’s where both young, the two original owners, Rev. William A. Lawson and Percy Creuzot, respectively, engaged in a gentlemen’s agreement. Since then, both neighborhood institutions expanded — Wheeler Avenue into a black historic hub with thousands of congregants, and Frenchy’s into a franchised fried chicken restaurant with dozens of locations.

“As (Frenchy’s) opens their new flagship location, we engaged in a land swap,” Johnson said.

To secure Frenchy’s original location, Wheeler Avenue purchased the land under the restaurant’s upcoming location on Scott Street and Alabama Street and swapped it with the parcel adjacent to the church.

It is only a two to three-minute walk between the old Frenchy’s and Wheeler Avenue.

The expansion will be used as a sanctuary for “worship experiences,” which are the church’s Sunday services.

The new Frenchy’s will remain in the Third Ward, staying relatively close to the original location. From the current location of Frenchy’s at 3919 Scott St., it is a seven-minute walk to its relocation.

Some Houstonians, like former UH student Ashton Watts, are sad to see it go but are glad that the property will be obtained by another black entity. Watt’s first time going to Frenchy’s was with his grandmother, a then-Third Ward resident, when he was 8 years old.

“We passed by the KFC, and I said ‘I thought we were getting chicken,’ and (my grandmother) said, ‘Boy, we are getting chicken,’” Watts said.

Pictured is the meal that Ashton Watts ordered during his first visit at Frenchy’s. A two piece with fries, biscuit, and strawberry soda. | Dana C. Jones/The Cougar

Watts had a two-piece mini meal with fries, a biscuit and strawberry soda.

“I think it’s unfortunate that they are choosing to move, especially because it means so much to the neighborhood and our culture in general,” said Houstonian and current Third Ward resident Bené Vincent. “It’s more than a staple. It’s a sense of home.”

For congregants of Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, the expansion is looking to alleviate the church’s overflow.

Frenchy’s will be moving this spring, so UH students better get their last original taste before it’s not within walking distance anymore. “I hope the food will be the same because that’s always been the best Frenchy’s,” said Vincent.

For the community, everyone will just have to travel a few extra blocks.

“No pun intended, but Church’s ain’t giving us Frenchy’s,” Watts said.

Frenchy’s representatives were unable to comment before publication. 

features@thedailycougar.com

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“Overflowing Third Ward church partners with Frenchy’s to expand” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

Fiona Sinha/The Cougar

The definitions of race, ethnicity and everything in between are often misunderstood, particularly the idea of being black.

Black is often used — in the United States — to describe Americans of African ancestry. This is accurate, but only in part because it leaves out large groups of the population.

People of African ancestry who live in different regions of the world, namely and South and Central America, the Caribbean, America, and — of course — Africa, make up the collective black diaspora.

This concept, which describes the diffusion of all people of African heritage across the world, may be new or confusing to some. Nationality often trumps heritage in mainstream conversations of identity, but the term pertains only to the place where someone is born, not their ethnic background.

Merriam-Webster defines race as “any one of the groups that human beings can be divided into based on shared distinctive physical traits.” In the context of the black diaspora, that physical trait is skin color.

A lot of scholars agree that race is made man-made concept first mainly introduced around American slavery with the transatlantic slave trade. Most of these slaves came from western Africa. The Caribbean islands and South America lie in the path of slave trade to America from Africa, so it makes sense that there are black people in this part of the world.

How they got here

The African people were dispersed through different parts of the world mainly through slavery. The transatlantic slave trade alone was responsible for the transport of more than 12.5 to 13 million slaves.

“European enslavement transported people out of Africa and created a black presence in the world buy doing so,” said Keith McCall, a Rice University doctoral candidate in history, with a concentration in slave history. 

In America, the first introduction to slavery from the transatlantic slave trade usually begins with the mention of slaves from west Africa being shipped to America in 1619. But as early as 1446, Portugal began erecting slaving forts on the African coast. In the 1530s, Portugal began colonizing Brazil and sent slaves to the territory.

According to the CIA’s World Fact Book, Brazil has a 43.1 percent mulatto (white and black) and 7.6 black population. This is because more than 4 million Africans were delivered to Brazil to work in coffee fields.

In 1502, Spain shipped African slaves to Hispaniola, which comprises present day Haiti and Dominican Republic.

“The demographic trends that came out of the slave trade were highly differentiated–some places, like Saint Domingue,” McCall said.

Almost 36 thousand African slaves disembarked in Hispaniola between 1501 and 1600 alone, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.

According to the CIA’s World Fact Book, Haiti and Dominican Republic are both overwhelmingly black. Haiti’s population is 95 percent black and 5 percent mulatto. Dominican Republic is more than 70 percent mixed and most of that group is comprised of two subgroups: mestizo/ indio and mulatto.

Indio, according to the CIA World Fact Book, is described as a person from mixed ancestry or one who has a skin color between light and dark. Another 15.8 percent is black.

In 1562 Britain entered the slave trade, shipping slaves from Africa to Hispaniola. By the end of the English slave trade in 1807, Britain had made 12,000 voyages transporting 2.6 million slaves across their territories.

Almost 200 years after some of the earliest records of slave trade, the first 20 black slaves step on American soil in 1619 in Jamestown, Virginia.

The arrival of slaves to North America would soon create one of the most complex parts of the diaspora now that we are over 150 years postbellum. After slavery, the roots to Africa where lost to the new Black Americans that is still prevalent today.

Black Americans still don’t know where in Africa their specific heritage originates. In other parts of the world, like the Caribbean and South and Central America, a cultural identity was prevalent before slavery.

There was no American culture — as created by European settlers — in which African slaves could comfortably participate. The strategy employed by slave owners in the region involved both stripping slaves of their African ties and denying the ability for slaves to assimilate into American culture.

The abolition of slavery began in the 1800s, though it progress differently between regions.

Within the first decade of the 17th Century, slavery was outlawed in modern Haiti and Dominican Republic as a result of the Haitian war in 1801. Great Britain and the United States stopped importing slaves to their respective nations in 1808. Throughout the rest of the 1800s, other countries outlaw slavery and slave results happen in America like Nat Turner in Virginia until then end of slavery in America in 1863 with the Emancipation Proclamation.

(Note: Slavery did not end in Texas until two years later on June 19 1865 which created the Juneteenth holiday.)

After more than 50,000 voyages between participating slave trade countries like Portugal, Spain, Britain, and the United States, more than 11 million slaves landed in different parts of the world across the Atlantic. In 1800 America, blacks made up almost a fifth of the American population. From 1800 1860, the black population went from 1 million to almost 4.5 million.

According to the United States Census Bureau in 2016, black people make up 13.3 percent of the population. That equates to roughly 43.3 million people. This population was grown from only 500,000 slaves imported from Africa. The 13.3 percent does not include people of mixed races and could possibly factor in naturalized citizens.

Systemic similarities in society

When mentioning groups of people in relation to crime and poverty, Black and Latino populations get linked together. The similarity in the societal structure of the diaspora as a whole is prevalent.

One of the easiest disparities you can see is in how punishment of crime is dealt to people who are in the diaspora and those who are European.

According to the NAACP’s Criminal Justice Fact Sheet, the United States makes up 21 percent of the world’s prisoners while only comprising five percent of the world’s population. The percentage of Black and Latino populations incarcerated in the United States is further inflated.

In the same study, African Americans accounted for 34 percent of the 5.8 million people in the correctional population. Together, Blacks and Latinos make up 32 percent of the of the U.S. population, but account for 56 percent of those incarcerated.

People in the Caribbean deal with crime differently than in United States.

“(Jamaican police) don’t have as menacing authority as American cops,” said Shannon Smith, a health communications graduate student at Texas Southern University.

Smith’s parents are from Jamaica, making her a first-generation American.

“My dad was in Caribbean law enforcement [in Kingston] in the 80’s and 90’s,” Smith said. “They mostly focused on scammers, even though there were homicide cases they were working on.”

There are no statistical differences between being a Black American or a black-skinned Caribbean individual with regard to crime.

“They [Americans] look at me and see black and that’s that,” said half-Trinidadian half-Vincie Brooklyn-native Cheral ‘Chay” Byron. “They don’t say ‘oh you must be from the islands.’”

According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics, black men have a higher incarceration percent than white men in 2016 by about two points, even though the black population is smaller by comparison.

Outside of shear numbers of incarceration — which deal with all types of crimes — rate of arrests for similar crimes are disproportionate.

In New York City, 86 percent of marijuana arrests were of Black and Latinos, despite these groups making up only 51 percent of the population between 2014 and 2016, according to drugpolicy.org. In the same study, 30 years of marijuana charges an average of 67 percent where between Black and Latino arrests and White and other arrests.

Of the 61,040 marijuana-related arrests between 2014 and 2016 in New York City, 52,730 were of Black and Latino people.

Other circumstances like poverty show disparity of Black and Latino people as well.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture Economic Research Service, Black and Hispanic races are first and third, respectively, in highest poverty in both non-metro and metro areas.

Culture mixing

Culture is probably the most noticeable similarity and difference you can spot across the black diaspora. You can see it in music, food and physical traits.

Smith was born in America, but she stayed close to her roots.

“I didn’t really assimilate to American culture, I had a different lifestyle,” Smith. “But I do see things slowly changing.”

Smith has had people ask her to do a Jamaican accent. This was not to prove her culture but more so just to hear it. Smith does see herself proving herself to people when she goes back to Jamaica.

“I still bathe with a bucket in America,” Smith said.

President of UH’s African Student Union Nhyira Addai is from Ghana. The sophomore marketing student noted that hospitality and optimism are big commonalities between Black Americans and Africans.

“We give love, even though we’ve been through so much,” Addai said.

Byron remembers the first time she saw a Black American person who was not Caribbean.

Being from Brooklyn, New York City has such a large representation of the entire black diaspora throughout the boroughs.

“You know that you can just be regular black,” Byron said. “You might not be able to talk about (Caribbean) culture even though they (other New Yorkers) are around it they didn’t grow up that way.”

The black community as a whole also deals with colorism, the idea that someone may be superior or receive privileges because of the hue of their skin even though they are of the same race or ethnic background.

Victor Blanco is a fourth-year psychology student of half-Cuban and half-Black ethnicity at the University of Virginia. He sees the effects of colorism in his personal life.

“There are situations where I feel like I don’t fit into either (group),” Blanco said. “I try to join with a black group and it’s ‘No, he’s Hispanic,’ and you try to join with a Latino group, and it’s ‘No, he’s black.’”

Each person interviewed for this story identifies as Black along with their other cultural roots, whether it be African, Caribbean or Hispanic. Each can identify an instance when they realized the similarity in the duality.

In the beginning of the interview, Smith identified herself as Black, not Jamaican. Brooklyn-native Byron saw the similarities in music with artists using reggaetón sounds in modern rap. And Blanco saw it as early as grade school every time his hair changed.

“My hair now that it’s short people will guess that I’m Hispanic,” Blanco said. “When I grow it out, it goes into an afro, so people will guess that I’m mixed.”

The diaspora is a wide-ranging idea with cultural and historical relevance. Now, the nuances of race and ethnicity are entering into mainstream discussion, but some still confuse others’ identities.

“One joke I got constantly is, my last name is Blanco, meaning white. People would say, ‘Your last name means white, but you’re not white,’” Blanco said, chuckling.

features@thedailycougar.com

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“Cultural misunderstandings often stem from Black diaspora” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

Sonny Singh/The Cougar

Neighborhoods with black and brown culture tend to be targets of gentrification, the process of transforming lower-income, typically minority neighborhoods into whiter, more expensive areas.

Not the kind of gentrification that gives residents access to grocery stores, rehabilitation and recreation centers, but the kind that affects housing, turning quaint generational homes into modern style architecture.

In the Third Ward, a neighborhood rich with culture and well-known within and outside the city, is a predominately black neighborhood whose physical identity is changing.

But the construction of townhomes by outsiders isn’t occurring throughout the interior of the neighborhood. They are mostly on the perimeter of the Third Ward, acting as a wall, entrapping the community from the outside.

The Third Ward — in blue in the graphic above— is smaller than many think, spanning only 1,654 acres and surrounded by major highways — located south of Interstate 45, east of Hwy. 288 north of Southmore Boulevard, and west of Spur 5.

Many Houstonians prefer to live inside the I-610 Loop because of the proximity to popular attractions, venues, and, of course, jobs, driving up rent prices in the hottest areas. The Third Ward is inside that loop.

The largest age group in the Greater Third Ward is 18-64 years old, and that group grew 12 percent between 2000 and 2015. That group encompasses the median age for first-time home buyers, 35, according to the Texas Association of Realtors.

Rising home prices

Gentrification is highly visible through the proximity from the brand-new townhomes to older traditional houses and a modern style of architecture.

Paired with gentrified homes lining the perimeter of the Third Ward, the minimalist and blocky design of the town homes can resemble a gate or barrier.

The parts of the Third Ward that aren’t lined with gentrified housing are lined by highways. A technique that has been used to segregate impoverished neighborhoods from affluent ones since the increased use of highways in the 1960s.

The implementation of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 made the 41,000-mile interstate network possible. Racial factors came into play when the states went to build these highways, explaining why the Third Ward neighborhood is surrounded by interstates.

Chair of the Housing Advocacy of the NAACP, Belinda Everette, has launched initiatives to try to combat gentrification through community education, retention and investment.

“You cannot find affordable housing in Third Ward; it doesn’t exist,” Everette said. “If you wanted to buy a house at the price point of ($125,000 to $175,000), the only thing you’re going to get is raw land.”

According to the Homes and Rentals website for Houston, there are two listings for raw land in the Third Ward: one for $87,000 and another for $99,000 dollars, both on Elgin Street.

Upon buying the land, you would then have to spend another one to two hundred thousand dollars to develop it.

Generational displacement

Historically, cities with black mayors contained a high population of black residents. The New York Times reported that Washington D.C. and Chicago mayors Marion Barry in 1979 and Harold Washington in 1983, respectively, both oversaw high black populations during their time as mayor.

At the time in Chicago, the black population was 40 percent. It has now decreased to 29 percent.

When Barry died in 2014, D.C. had lost its title as the “Chocolate City.” In fact, it’s becoming “more vanilla,” according to an NPR report in 2011, decreasing from a peak of 71 percent in 1970 to 53 percent in 2009.

Now, D.C. has a black population of 46 percent, according to the 2016 Census, and the main cause is the growing price of housing.

In the last 20 years, Houston has had two black mayors: Lee Brown from 1998 to 2004 and current mayor Sylvester Turner. According to the city’s website, the black population dropped 12 percent from 79 to 67 percent between 2000 and 2015.

Even with a black mayor, the black population in the Third Ward has declined, and there has been no reported growth since Turner took office.

Houston has little room for it to be anywhere near a “chocolate city” because of the high diversity and multi-ethnic population, but the black population has also declined in its historically black neighborhoods like the Third Ward. A primary reason is the same as what’s happening in D.C. — housing prices are on the rise.

Everette has seen gentrification once before in her hometown of Chicago.

“It starts politically, in city planning,” Everette said. “In Chicago, the entire lakefront on the South Side of Chicago in the ’50s and ’60s were dedicated to public housing.”

Lakefront housing in Chicago was made for the poor. Now, it has become deluxe housing for the wealthy, forcing the area’s original tenants out with increased prices. A similar problem is becoming apparent the Third Ward.

The Third Ward neighborhood is now seeing displacement due to rising property taxes. When modern high rises are placed next to quaint older homes, it raises the property tax on all the property near the new construction. The lower income residents who were there first are often left with no choice but to move because they can no longer afford their property taxes.

The displacement of these lower income residents frees up more space for the older homes to be demolished, meaning more space for costlier high rises.

Eventually, this practice changes the face of the community and leads to complete gentrification.

Everette considers community involvement and improvement means to prevent further gentrification.

“If there is a true definition of good gentrification it would have to involve the community and the municipality or the county,” Everette said. “There [needs to be] collaboration.”  

features@thedailycougar.com

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“Gentrification to entrap Third Ward neighborhood on perimeter” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

Graduate student in economics Cameron Barrett threw his hands up after the SGA Election Commission announced he will be SGA president for the 55th Administration. | Dana C. Jones/The Cougar

Graduate student in economics Cameron Barrett won a runoff election for SGA President with 54.49 percent of the vote, the SGA Election Commission announced at noon Thursday. Barrett and his running mate, corporate communications junior Davis Darusman, lead the Student Unite party.

Barrett and his senators were gathered behind the podium where the Associate Election Commissioner for Marketing Anna Purcell announced the results. Current SGA President Winni Zhang, who lost the runoff, was watching from the second floor of the Student Center North with other members of her party, Spirit RED. 

“Who wins an SGA election — it doesn’t matter what your name is or what background you come from,” Barrett said in a speech to his supporters. “The reason why we won is because all of you worked the hardest and all of you were the best team.”  

Last week, Barrett, Zhang and four other candidates were on the ballot for the first vote for SGA president. In that initial round of voting, Barrett earned 33.32 percent of the vote and Zhang garnered 26.33 percent, the Election Commissioner Chase Cummins announced on Friday.

More than 1,000 fewer students voted in the runoff than last week’s election. In the runoff, votes were split with 1,450 and 1,211 between Barrett and Zhang respectively.

Once Purcell announced the results, Barrett, Darusman, Student Unite senators and their supporters erupted in cheers.

“When I first came to UH, I had three things in mind: get good grades, get a degree, and get the hell out,” Darusman said in an interview after Barrett’s speech. Instead, he got involved on campus his freshman year with the Student Program Board.

After the speech, Barrett headed straight to work tutoring at the Athletics/Alumni Center. In an interview, he said he had no expectations heading into the results announcement.

“I was incredibly nervous and just ready to die honestly,” Barrett said.

Barrett said that in the weeks leading up to his inauguration, he plans to focus on writing new bylaws for the SGA Constitution, something he focused on heavily as a graduate-at-large senator.

He said members of Students Unite campaigned until 1:30 a.m. Thursday in an attempt to leave “everything on the table.”

“Winni’s no slouch when it comes to campaigning,” Barrett said.

Winni Zhang could not be reached for comment.

news@thedailycougar.com

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“Barrett defeats Zhang for SGA president in runoff election” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

SGA presidential candidate Cameron Barrett and the Students Unite party after the election results huddled together. | Dana C. Jones/The Cougar

The 2018 Student Government Association election results were announced at noon Friday in the Student Center North.

To win the SGA presidency, you need to have 50 plus one percent of the votes. This did not happen, resulting in a runoff.

Students Unite candidate Cameron Barrett and Incumbent President Winni Zhang of Spirit RED had the most votes with 33.32 and 26.33 percent, respectively, of 3,734 votes. 

Students Unite candidates swept the Senate, securing 25 seats. Spirit RED candidates claimed six.

Incumbent President Winni Zhang next to 2016 SGA president Shane Smith after the election results came in. | Dana C. Jones/The Cougar

After the runoff was announced, Barrett and his party went outside to regroup and plan for the runoff.

Students Unite presidential candidate Cameron Barrett giving an emotional speech to his team after the initial SGA elections results. | Dana C. Jones/The Cougar

This election received 3,734 votes, 64 more than last year’s 3,670. The other presidential candidates Christopher Caldwell, Andrew McCollum, Vishaal Kuruvanka and Chris Yellowe had 21.64, 9.72, 8.36 and 0.64 percent of the vote, respectively.

The runoff election will take place on Get Involved from March 6 to 7, and the final results will be announced at noon on March 8.

news@thedailycougar.com

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“SGA election goes to runoff, Students Unite sweeps Senate” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

SGA presidential candidates in midst of the debate with incumbent Winni Zhang at the podium. | Thomas Dwyer/The Cougar

Presidential candidates for the 54th Administration of the Student Government Administration squared off on issues including parking, non-traditional student representation and campus safety during the SGA Presidential Debate on Feb. 22 in the Student Center South Ballroom.

The debate was structured into three rounds and moderated by The Cougar’s Editor in Chief, Emily Burleson, and Assistant News Editor, Michael Slaten, who has covered SGA for the past semester. The rounds featured candidate-specific questions, followed by random questions drawn from a bowl and then audience questions on Twitter.

Incumbent Winni Zhang was debating for the Spirit RED party, Cameron Barrett for Students Unite, Christopher Caldwell for the Impact Party, Vishaal Kuruvanka for Element Red, Alexander McCollum with Reform UH and Chris Yellowe with Coognited.

The debate commenced with Barrett receiving the first question. He was asked about his previous involvement with SGA and how his actions in fixing SGA bylaws did not match his party’s platform on textbooks and safety.

Caldwell was asked to expand on his platforms. He highlighted essential provisions students need from the University.

“You should never go without a place to stay or a place to eat,” Caldwell said.

Kuruvanka was asked how he expected to make the campus safer, as he stated in a recent interview.

“One of the major things would be more funding for UHPD,” Kuruvanka said.

Burleson noted that it is not a power of the SGA president to reallocate University funds between departments.

One of McCollum’s controversial ideas is to eliminate the stipends of the SGA president and other executive branch members. Since — according to University policy — he cannot deny the stipend, he amended that he would “donate it to other organizations.”

In an interview with The Cougar, Yellowe spoke to his stats as a commuter student and said he didn’t feel he had his voice heard on campus. He reiterated this sentiment during the debate, and said his priority would be “actually reflecting what the student body wants.”

Recent news regarding Zhang’s administration has concentrated on the five bills, whose impact largely would have been focused within the organization, she vetoed during her tenure. Zhang responded by saying, “Internal bills are not necessary to bring about change with students.”

Round two

Round two was comprised of questions drawn for each candidate at random from a bowl on the moderation desk. Topics ranged from nontraditional students, platform break-down and the recent Parkland, Florida, shooting.

Caldwell’s question concerned the population of non-traditional students at UH. With the majority of the candidates falling below the University’s median age of 23, Caldwell admitted that he can’t always relate to and know what those students want.

“The first thing that you have to do is reach out to them,” Caldwell said.

Barrett was asked to identify inconsistencies of the other candidates’ platforms.

“I think one of the big problems in the SGA is that people take credit for things that they can’t do, and do things that they didn’t do,” Barrett said.

Round three

The last set of questions was asked from Twitter using the hashtag #SGAdebate18.

One of the questions selected by the moderators asked what candidates would do to find a place for Muslim students to pray on campus. Outside of the Bruce Religion Center, Muslim students don’t have a permanent place to pray.

They briefly had the basement of the Quads, but that is no longer an option as demolition on the Quads commenced last week.

“We need to have devoted Muslim prayer spaces in all buildings,” Kuruvanka said.

Candidates like Caldwell emphasized the necessity of having a student body president — and candidates, for that matter — who have experience and student advocacy at UH, regardless of SGA involvement.

Barrett disagreed, saying that any student should have the right to run if they so choose.

“Just because any student can do it, doesn’t mean every student should do it,” Caldwell said.

In the closing remarks, the candidates had their last chance to push for their campaigns. Zhang used her incumbency and her party history, Barrett used his self-proclaimed “breadth and width of understanding,” and Caldwell used the “working man’s college” moniker, as their backing for votes.

The SGA election will take place on Get Involved from Feb. 27 to March 1. 

features@thedailcougar.com

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“Here’s what you missed at the SGA Presidential Debate” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

SGA presidential candidate Chris Yellowe. | Courtesy of Chris Yellowe

Newcomer Chris Yellowe is looking to change engagement and participation both inside and outside SGA.

Yellowe is of the newly formed Coognited party. The party’s motto, “Coog ideas matter,” suggests some of its main policies, like more student voting throughout the year. Yellowe said he roots his party in the will of the students. It relies on both student involvement and what the students want, and he is willing to completely change his initial platforms to reflect the campus climate.

The political science junior is a transfer student from Arizona State University. Originally from Katy, he transferred back home to UH after taking almost two years off from school.

“I went to Arizona because I wanted to see what another state would be like,” Yellowe said.

After graduating, he wants to use his political science degree to go to law school. “I think you need a higher degree to distinguish yourself,” Yellowe said. He is thinking of going into corporate law to represent and help people.

Having never held a formal position in SGA — not from a lack of trying — Yellowe believes the SGA president’s platform can help set out the goals he has for the campus.

His main goal is to have the student body be more involved in SGA elections and the entire organization. In the 2017 elections, 3,670 students voted out of the 45,364 that were enrolled, resulting in only 8 percent of students voting.

“More people just need to know about SGA,” he said.

Yellowe has a goal to have 60 percent of the University have SGA selected on their GetInvolved page. That way, they will be up to date and aware of what SGA is doing. He thinks all candidates should have this goal.

As a student outside of SGA, Yellowe says that he has had problems having his “ideas and concerns heard and expressed” on campus. As a commuter during his first semester, he feels that commuters “don’t feel like they can tap into the University.”

Through his time here at UH, he noted his best memories have been from the people he’s met. “This guy I met, his parents are from Haiti,” Yellowe said. “Normally I wouldn’t talk to him, without UH being so diverse.” He now feels that the differences are trivial because of the commonality that everyone here shares of being a Cougar.

Yellowe stays up on current events and believes that will help if he becomes president. Being aware of national topics allows him to be sensitive to the student body and the social climate at any given time.

“If I don’t know something, they’ll [Senate] inform me that that’s not the take that the student body wants. Because at the end of the day, I’m representing the student body. My opinion doesn’t matter,” Yellowe said.

He compared the student body to a firm, saying that he, as president, would be responsible for representing thousands of students.

“45,000 students are the same as shareholders or clients,” Yellowe said.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article included a quote regarding financial aid from Chris Yellowe which was included without proper context. We regret the error.

features@thedailycougar.com

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“As president, Yellowe would yield office to will of UH students” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

LetsDoThisHouston has night bike rides that tour the city every weekend. | Marissa Riley/The Cougar

Sitting in the parking lot next to the vegan bakery, Crumbville, on Elgin St., there is a large street-light-yellow box with “3^rd Ward Tours” written on the outside. “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye is playing. Every weekend, the company LetsDoThisHouston engages with the community through one of the first activities you learn in childhood.

LetsDoThisHouston gives tours of the city with rides on bikes with light-up wheels. In May 2015, Prairie View A&M alumnus Alan Moore created his business to encourage the community to both try different activities they wouldn’t typically do on Friday night and find a fun way to get active.

The inception for this idea came organically. Moore decided to use a bike from Houston’s BCycle, which has stations spread out through the city. One of the closest BCycle stations to campus is at Emancipation Park.

“I hopped on a bike, rode around the city, stopped and got something to eat and called my first event Bike and Brunch,” Moore said.

In the yellow box, Moore stores dozens of bikes for his events. They were acquired from a nonprofit called Tour De Hood, also located in the Third Ward, which informs people on living a physically and mentally healthy lifestyle.

“I was able to use my resources, add themes to (the events) and I was able to put them on social media, and people came out to the events,” Moore said.

At PVAMU, Moore earned his degree in social work. One of his goals is for his biking events to actually affect the community. “An upcoming event is the Voter Registration Ride, where we’re encouraging the community to register to vote and have an impact on their surroundings,” Moore said.

Blake Simon, left, and Alan Moore, owner of LetsDoThisHouston, right. | Marissa Riley/The Cougar

Along with his partner Blake Simon, Moore stresses the safety precautions of riding in the street.

Simon and Moore met in college at PVAMU. “Everybody that was in his particular building I became close friends with, so ever since 2007 we’ve been close friends,” Simon said.

Simon patrols the back of the group to pick up anyone who can’t finish the ride or severely crashes. “The objective is to make sure that people don’t get left behind,” Simon said. During the ride, Moore and Simon both stressed two important rules: staying to the right and moving through lights.

Luckily, on this ride, no one fell off their bike. Falls from customers have been minor thus far. The worst fall in the past was from Simon himself.

“Whenever we did a college ride at Prairie View, I didn’t see a bench, ran into it and somersaulted into the air,” Simon said. “A couple of students thought I was dead, but I was alive.”

There are different biking events, clubs and organizations that are happening in Houston, but one thing that separates LetsDoThisHouston from the rest is its music. Most of their events are music-themed, with Bruno Mars, Drake and reggae being used in the past.

Even though this kind of ride is geared toward beginner and new riders, there are cyclists that keep coming back.

Phyllis Kinsey has been riding with LetsDoThisHouston since October and found out about it through a Facebook post through all the digital clutter.

People participate in these night rides for different reasons, but the reoccurring ones are for being active and unique. “I don’t want to do the same thing, going to a club on a Friday night, having a drink,” Kinsey said. “It’s something different and fun to do with a group of friends.”

One thing that is consistent between not only Moore and Simon but also the other riders is the sense of community. “As a business owner myself, I know how critical it is to lend that support,” Simon said.

While riding in a group of 15 people, and taking rides through Discovery Green Midtown and other city sites, everyone is supporting each other and socializing. Sometimes having 100 people come out over the course of the weekend just further pushes their goal of community engagement.

LetsDoThisHouston sell tickets to their rides through Facebook, which links their events through the ticket seller Eventbrite.

“People come to ride and say, ‘oh my God, I thought I was going to die, that car was honking at me and I was just scared out there,’” Moore said. “People’s reactions of being able to achieve something they thought they couldn’t and encouraging people is something that I like and enjoy.”

The bike tour went to Discovery Green and the George R. Brown Convention Center. | Marissa Riley/The Cougar

features@thedailycougar.com

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“Yellow bicycle box opens nostalgia in Houston” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar