From Oct. 13-21, the annual public art festival Elevate offers contemporary art and cultural events throughout south downtown. Four curators,Allie Bashuk, Monica Campana, Mark DiNatale and Pastiche Lumumba, bring the theme of “Microcosm” to life by featuring over 200 artists that explore social, racial, and economic issues at the community level and within the greater world. The schedule of free events and exhibits can be found at http://www.elevateatlart.com/schedule/. The Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs organizes the program, and the Technique had the opportunity to speak with the Office’s Public Art Program Manager, Dorian McDuffie. 

Technique: How was the theme of Microcosm chosen for this year’s Elevate?

McDuffie: The curators came up with the theme. They were looking at how what is happening in south downtown Atlanta is a microcosm of what’s happening in Atlanta as a whole and also in this country. Because south downtown was untapped, not pretty to look at, and attention has been brought to it because we’ve been doing Elevate in and around south downtown Atlanta, arts organizations start to move in there. When you look at gentrification, which is really what the Microcosm theme is about, it starts with the artists moving in first and make the place a hip place to be, and then it kind of grows from there, and the big real estate folks move in and see the potential, and then it ends up being a place that nobody can afford anymore. The artists can’t afford it, the people who were there when the artists moved in (because there were already people there when the artists moved in), they can’t afford it anymore, and that’s kind of how gentrification happens in this city and around the country.

Technique: Elevate has grown from being Art Above Underground and the South Broad Mural Project. Is it year round now?

McDuffie: Yes, we are going to do year round programming. Now, it’s not going to look this this year round because I don’t think too many people want to attend a street party in December, but I want to do some educational opportunities for artists and maybe even arts organizations. I want to help teach maybe studio artists how to become public artists, and maybe we grow that and give them some opportunities to do some contemporary public art, and [they] grow into being a public artist as well as a studio artist.

Technique: All the events are free, and that comes from a combination of sponsorships and funding from the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. Why has the Board chosen to fund this event?

McDuffie: As a municipality, we can apply for funding for Fulton County for any of our events, and they look at our proposal along with several others in the region and decided that this was a worthy event. The City of Atlanta has a history of putting on really good solid events, and this is another one of them.

Technique: Along the lines of dealing with the theme of gentrification, how have the local residents been engaged in the planning and future of Elevate?

McDuffie: I’m really glad you asked me that. One of the events as you can see on Thursday is the 404 Dinner. It is an invitation-only event because one of the curators … Monica Campana, who is the co-founder and director of Living Walls, had this vision to have a dinner that invited the residents of south downtown all in that area, people who work down there and have a stake in it – the council people, different commissioners, all those kind of folks – to sit down at a dinner and have conversation about what they want their neighborhood to look like. These are voices that will be heard and at the table when these major decisions are being made. Monica has had weekly community meetings, pulling together everything about this dinner: from what they want on the table, to what kind of questions they want to ask, what music do they want to hear, who do they want there with them. She took a lot of time and energy pulling together south downtown to make sure that they are fully represented in this effort.

Technique: What do you see as Atlanta’s biggest challenge and the role of the Office of Cultural Affairs in addressing it?

McDuffie: I’m from the northeast, and I’m used to old cities and established cultural activities, right? So I grew up going to Broadway and to the ballet and to the symphony and the opera and all that great stuff. And it’s just a mainstay. This city is a younger city, which is great because it gives more people the opportunity to be a part of its development, but what it lacks I think and what we’re working towards is some cultural stability and some things that you absolutely know are going to happen here all the time. And in addition to that, because that can lead to the other thing about the northeast: it’s hard to break into those areas, if you’ve got new and brilliant ideas, because there are all these kind of mainstays. But I would like to know that my city absolutely has an opera, and our opera has gone to Cobb County. There are certain things that we should make sure that we always have here culturally.

There are populations that have got to be reached and engaged in this cultural development that the city is embarking on. And it needs to go beyond the hip hop crowd: it needs to include them, but it needs to include everyone else too. We have a huge immigrant population here, and you’ve got to reach out to them. We have a show during elevate at Gallery 72, which is one of the City of Atlanta’s galleries, that has a photography show that has women from the immigrant population that are showing photographs of what it’s like to be new to this country, what immigration feels like to them. We always kind of look at it from the majority view, but let’s look at it from their view. I like that we’re doing that.

My director Camille Russell Love has been a huge catalyst in making sure that populations that don’t normally feel heard or are underemployed in the arts get employed. Now, we have standards, and you can’t just say “oh, I’m an artist” and get a job; we have really high standards here. But she has been key in making sure that everybody has an equal shot of getting their work seen, of getting on the stage at the Jazz Festival. She has gone into every single public school in Atlanta, and every single child in this city gets to go to a cultural event, and that’s her doing and her doing alone. So the city has lots of cultural needs, and our leadership needs to continue to make sure that it’s a priority and that the Office of Cultural Affairs is at every table. When they’re doing city planning, like when they’re over in Vine City deciding what that’s going to look like because the new stadium is there, somebody from the cultural community needs to be at that table.

Technique: What event are you most looking forward to personally?

McDuffie: First of all, I do want to mention the curators … We are working with Monica Campana from Living Walls, Allie Bashuk from Goat Farm, Mark DiNatale from Goat Farm, and Pastiche Lumumba who is an artist and an arts activist … I am exceedingly proud of them and impressed by their work ethic, their creativity, their stick-to-it-ive-ness, their tenacity. I cannot say enough about how they go about getting the cultural work done around this city. Monica and her Living Walls initiative have transformed this city, and there is no other way to put that- she has just transformed this city. The Goat Farm, the organization that two of the other curators are with, is another transformational organization in this city. And Pastiche Lumumba has a really great voice out there. So all the events that I’m going to mention, I’m looking forward to because of them and their vision.

That being said, what we did bring to this event is our collaboration with the French consulate. Noé Soulier is going to do a dance on Saturday the 15th at 5pm at the MLK Federal Building, which is right on Forsyth Street, and we’re doing it on that plaza there. He is a dancer from France who is not just a dancer: he is a philosopher, and his philosophy comes through the dance. I cannot wait to see that. That’s going to be magical.

The other thing I’m looking forward to is what I mentioned before, and that’s the 404 dinner, so I won’t go into that too much longer. I’m looking forward to the act of the 404 dinner because there’s going to be some performance art included in the dinner. I’m also looking forward to the aftermath of the dinner because they’re going to collect the info that is discussed at each table and make that the collective voice of downtown. I’m looking forward to see where that goes. And then there are all these great panels, like “Who Will Survive in Atlanta?” That’s kind of looking at the whole gentrification thing. There’s a workshop that C4 Atlanta is doing where they help citizens act out what gentrification feels like to everybody … There are two bike rides …

We have a 100 percussion musical performance in the Laz parking garage, so imagine the acoustics in the basement of a parking garage, 100 people drumming. I hope I like that; I want to really like that. I could say amazing things about a ton of stuff. We have the Truth Booth that’s coming around, it’s traveling around the country. It is a blow up booth that you walk in to, and there’s video equipment in there, and you say what your truth is. What I’m hoping is that it becomes another voice, we can collect those videos, and that becomes another voice of what came out of this experience …

Danielle Deadwyler, I’m a big fan of her acting. She’s doing a performance that travels from Metropolitan Parkway all the way down to Broad Street to look at a bunch of stuff about women’s issues. Atlanta has these strip clubs, we’re known for all the sex trafficking, so she’s really delving in and looking at what the psyche behind looking at women’s bodies does to people and does to them.

Technique: What is an event that you would suggest for students who want to get their feet wet with Atlanta culture?

McDuffie: Come to the block party. It’s going to be so much fun. Friday night at 6 o’clock it starts, it’ll still be light out … if you’re students of age, there will be a bar there, they can start partying. It’s going to go until 11 … The block party is going to have Soul Food Cypher, Bae, Black Girl Magic, and Bosco. These are the top DJs around town, and then Soul Food Cypher is a rapper …

The Jane Jacobs walking tour would be great to get to know the history of the city that you’re in. The gay population, well everybody, will love Southern Fried Queer Pride. It’s a bunch of fun. That’s at Eyedrum gallery at 11 o’clock on Saturday night. Actually, Saturday night at Eyedrum is going to be a blast, Saturday the 15th at Eyedrum. It starts with the Bent Frequency musical performance in the basement of Laz parking lot, which is underneath Eyedrum, and then you can emerge from there and Jortsfest starts in the gallery at 7:30, Elysia Crampton performs at 9:30, Southern Fried Queer Pride is at 11. So that’s going to be a fun night.

There’s another bike tour on Sunday. The “Aesthetics of Trap” panel is on Sunday at 4 o’clock. The following week, the “Talk Back” with the curators or the “Artist Talk” would be great, particularly for arts students. They could hear how this thing happened and get feedback from the artists on what it was like to work with us. This is actually a great time for us, too, to get critical feedback.

I do want to add one thing about Elevate, so that people are clear on the history of Elevate. My predecessor, who was my former boss, Eddie Granderson was the arts program manager here for I don’t know how many years, if it’s not 20 it’s very close to 20. He conceived of Elevate in 2010, and he wanted it to do exactly what it’s doing- and that is, bring light to parts of this city that don’t have any light shining on them. There’s no reason why a downtown area of a major city should be void of life. And that’s what happens here. So he wanted to bring the city back to life, and he conceived of Elevate to do that. He brought on a curator named Courtney Hammond, who is amazing and did great things to create the Elevate brand for four years, so 2011 through 2014, I guess it’s 5 years she curated Elevate. And then Fahamu Pecou did it last year. We had artists submit proposals for this year, and chose the ones we did. I just want to be very clear about who thought of Elevate, and it was Eddie Granderson.

For international students and students with strong ties to their ethnicities, coming to Tech can prove to be quite the shock. The new culture and traditions, coupled with academics and a new social life, can prove challenging and daunting. However, there are many student organizations here on campus that serve to provide a familiar and supportive community for various international  groups and ethnicities.

Among these is the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE), which serves to create a welcoming Hispanic community, encourage academic growth and performance and also allow for professional goals to be met. However, upon closer inspection, the society provides so much more for both its members and for
the community.

The society’s president, Juan Tovar, sees SHPE first and foremost as a means for “empowering anyone to desire to embrace and experience the Hispanic community and culture.”

The mission was not always this inclusive and welcoming, however. The society, its executive board and its board of directors have worked tirelessly to change the outlook of the society from one that is perceived as a clique to a family on campus.

“It used to be like a tight little niche, not very inclusive, not representative of the community,” Tovar said. “We’ve really pushed to be more accepting of anyone who wants to experience the Hispanic community and culture.”

This work started with the society’s leadership by changing the way they perceive their mission.

“I wanted to make sure that the board of the directors and the people who help to accomplish our goals are appreciated, but also understand what we need to do,” Tovar said. “We need to go out in the community and meet with our members. We need to show people that we can speak English, but still love the Hispanic culture and community.”

Through this came a change in the society’s atmosphere, making it more exciting and enjoyable. This has also led to many other changes represented in the growth of SHPE, both in membership and strength of community.

“This year as president I’ve seen the organization shift. It was a huge deal my freshman year when we reached 200 members. A huge deal! Last year were had about 330!” Tovar exclaimed.

Growth in student involvement in SHPE has led to a greater ability uphold the society’s five pillars: academics, chapter development, leadership development, professional development and community service. By supporting professional development through national SHPE career fairs, chapter development through the Professional Experience Program and community outreach through working with local high school SHPE chapters, the society is better realizing its mission of creating a community.

“You know, all of the great things that I’ve experienced while here at Tech, none of that would have happened without the sense of family that SHPE creates,” Tovar said. “That no doubt is the biggest thing. I’ve grown with my friends through SHPE, met people through SPHE. It’s a great way to build a community of togetherness.”

Having left his mark and set the course for SHPE, Tovar wants to see these trends of acceptance and embracement of the Hispanic culture stay on course.

“I want to see the shift towards acceptance and involvement continue. I want to see SHPE continue to be the backbone for the Hispanic community. If you are Hispanic and you are here, I want you to be able to count on SHPE for anything you need. We’re brothers, we’re sisters, we’re a family,” Tovar said.

SHPE has worked to redefine itself so that its mission is embodied in the society’s outlook, activities and members. It is evident in the change in the SHPE community that the society has done just that. As a result, their leadership has created an inclusive, productive, professional and supportive organization for Tech’s large Hispanic community.

The Technique recently sat down with Casie Connolly, president of Omicron Delta Kappa (ODK), about her leadership role. The fourth-year CE from Mobile, Ala., is a peer leader and is also in the running for Ms. GT.

Technique: Can you give a general overview of ODK?

Connolly: We are a national leadership society, so we have a national structure that oversees who we are, our core vision and our values. But here at Tech, we have a circle — that’s what we call our chapters. Our circle has about 40 people who are focused on creating initiatives on campus and improving campus as a whole.

Here at Georgia Tech, our ODK is kind of unique. Whereas the national structure is more about getting cool people together to be in an honors society, here at Tech we want to take that group and do things to improve campus.

We take in different people from all over campus. We have five different pillars that we pull from:  athletics, scholarship, campus involvement, performing arts and journalism. We try to get people from all different aspects of campus.

Technique: Has your recruitment process ended?

Connolly: We’re currently in the middle of it. This past week, we finished our first round of interviews. But be on the lookout … for the application next year. We recruit every year in the fall. You have to be a junior in academic standing to apply.

Technique: Can you speak more on some of the initiatives that you and your team have implemented?

Connolly: Way back when, we were a part of building and funding the first Student Center. That was an initiative that we took on where we used kind of rudimentary means, like bake sales and donation drives. This was back in the ‘50s or ‘60s. ODK is really proud of that, putting a physical building on campus: the Student Center. Now that it’s undergoing renovations, we’re really excited to watch the way it evolves.

Most recently, we’ve been passionate about mental health on campus and how to improve that. About two years ago, we had a circle conversation about mental health, the current state of mental health and what we could do to improve it.

From there, several ODK members broke out and created the Mental Health Think Tank, which was a series of conversations with faculty, administration, and students to talk about mental health and how to make changes. From that mental health think tank, they reported up to the president, up to Dean Stein, and that mental health think tank was also instrumental in becoming the chartered student organization that is the Mental Health Student Coalition. That currently functions on its own apart from ODK.

Technique: What sort of initiatives are you looking to pursue this year or in the future?

Connolly: Yes! I’m actually really excited for this, though it’s still a work in progress, as a lot of our members are really busy. I’m really excited about this; it’s something that has been my dream. I want to put a playground on campus. If you’ve had a bad day, go swing. If you’ve had a great day, go and enjoy the swings. We’re working with Dr. Suzy Herrington — she works with campus wellness, the Arts Department and capital spacing, planning and management. We’re hoping that they will let us put a playground on campus. And we’re also trying to find funding right now.

There are a lot of pieces still working, but that’s something I’m very excited about.

A lot of the other things we’re currently working on do also revolve around mental health, but we’re also looking to improve our relationship with our faculty members here. We have a set of faculty members who are honorary members of ODK. We think that they can help us when we’re trying to improve faculty-student relations across campus.

Technique: What do you find lacking in current student-faculty relationships that you’d like to improve?

Connolly: The main thing that we’re finding with faculty-student relations is that a lot of students don’t feel personally invested in by their respective faculty. It’s a big contrast from high school, where the class sizes are smaller and it’s easier to feel that personal attention. I know that if I did poorly on a test, I could go to my teacher, he would explain to me exactly what I did wrong and how I could remedy it in the future. And they were always available.

Of course, professors have a lot of other things that they’re doing. They’re researching, they have office hours for multiple different classes, and they have lives outside of the school. Often, students, if they don’t take a lot of personal initiative, like going to office hours even when it’s inconvenient or going early or staying late after class, they feel like they don’t have the individual attention.

That’s something we’re hoping to improve by talking to faculty. I feel like they might be a little removed from what it’s like to be a college student. They’ve been in a college setting for a long time, but the path of college students
has changed.

We also want to make sure faculty are upholding the same standards as students. We’re all held to an honor code, and faculty also have a set of agreements they must adhere to. For example, if your faculty member goes out of town for four weeks and then they give you a test the day they come back, that’s not cool. That’s not okay. So we want to make sure students are equipped to know when their faculty are not necessarily abiding by the same code that we all need to abide by in order for everyone here to survive and do well here
at Tech.

Technique: Can you walk readers through ODK’s hierarchy and process?

Connolly: Right, so I’m president this year — somehow they allowed me to be in charge, which is nice. Really I’m just a servant. We have a structure, but everyone really considers themselves as equal members. We have four officers: president, vice president, secretary and treasurer. We have wa larger executive board, which is nine or ten positions that function as heads for the various things that we do.

For instance, one of the largest events that we hold is the Georgia Tech Leadership Conference (GTLC) each year in the spring. We have two people in charge of planning GTLC. We have people in charge of the ODK Opinion every week. We have another person in charge of our initiatives. There are another two people in charge of bringing the ODK Opinion to life. They consider, “Is this a feasible initiative that we could take on?” and pull across resources on campus to see who could possibly help take it on. We have a faculty relations chair and a corporate relations chair as well, and that completes the executive structure. Everyone else is a general member.

Technique: What are some of the goals of the GTLC?

Connolly: GTLC is really cool. It’s basically a way for us to bring in really great speakers to show people leadership. We are a leadership honor society after all, so we want to build leaders on campus from freshman all the way up to seniors. GTLC is a way for us to model the ODK Opinion on a larger scale. We have conversations with different faculty members or different people from outside of campus. They come in and lead case studies, lectures and in general help explore what leadership is and what it means for different aspects of life.

Technique: How do you come up with the topics for your ODK opinions?

Connolly: It depends. Sometimes we’re very proactive, and we have something planned weeks in advance. Other times we’re very reactive. We can change our topic if something happens on campus; it doesn’t have to be totally planned. Like last year, when there was lots of racial tension on campus, our next ODK Opinion addressed that.

We do try and take on really big topics. Sometimes they’re intangible. Last week we talked about the Zero Suicide Initiative. The week before that, we talked about safe spaces on campus.

Technique: Have certain topics ever gridlocked your discussions?

Connolly: That’s a really interesting question. I always see the opinion pieces in the Technique, and you guys come to a consensus on an issue. But there’s always the caveat, like “this reflects the majority opinion of the Technique.” And it’s sort of like that.

I strongly believe that we should all have different opinions. That’s okay, it’s okay to have those differing opinions. When we write up the ODK Opinion, we actually have a majority and a minority opinion. Sometimes it’s a 50-50 split. I can’t think of anything that’s really gridlocked us though.

Sometimes things will get heated, usually when we discuss racial issues or the Greek system. Often we’re able to come to a pretty good consensus. There’s always at least one thing we all agree on.

For example, when we talked about having a physical, designated safe space on campus. Our majority opinion agreed that no, we did not really need a designated physical place. The minority opinion disagreed, believing that was something we probably should have.

However, all of us could agree that the biggest thing was that people should just simply not be jerks. You need to be a good human being; that’s how you can actually make a safe space on campus. We usually agree on what the issue specifically is but not always on the way to address it. We don’t always agree on the way that we want to take things.

Technique: How do you de-escalate these situations if they become heated?

Connolly: We haven’t run into that issue so much this semester yet. The biggest thing that we all usually do … we all kind of realize what’s happening.  We all kind of step back. Like “Guys, come on. Let’s all take a chill pill for a second and think about this again. Where did we start from? What was the basis for this conversation? Where did we want to go with this?” Often things get heated when you’re just complaining. When you’re just saying, “This stinks, so does this. This really also stinks,” that’s not a fruitful conversation. Complaining for an hour is the opposite of what I want the ODK Opinion to be. It needs to be targeted. Understanding these emotions first and then trying to change things usually directs our conversation to a productive place, rather than people just yapping at each other.

I also personally make an effort to make sure that people who may usually be talked over also get the chance to speak. We have people who are super extraverted — they have their opinions and want to say them. I’m not that way; I like to hold back in a conversation. Sometimes I’ll call people out when I see that they haven’t spoken. And sometimes members will still have several things to say, which I understand, but it’s important to hear someone else’s opinion. Otherwise that’s how it can turn from the ODK Opinion to the “Oh just kidding, that’s just me” Opinion, not our circle’s opinion. … We usually de-escalate by making the discussion less complaining, more productive.

We want ODK to be at the service of the school. If people need something or they have a question about something we want them to come to us. We’re not this be-all, end-all, do-anything organization, but we do want to be at the service of others. So if there’s something that you think ODK can help you with, I want people to feel comfortable reaching out to me or another member they may know.

Technique: What if students don’t know an ODK member? What’s the next best way to get your attention?

Connolly: Well, we have a website, odk.gatech.edu. Our officer emails are listed there, and we have a Facebook page which people can message us on. This is another thing that we’ve really wanted to take on. We want to know what the issues are. We’re limited, and we realize we’re limited in our scope because we are leaders and we really want to reach out to people who might not be connected.

I have a heart for those who are … on the periphery, you might say. They go to class, they go back to their dorm, that’s it. I interact with them as a PL, but it would be better to interact with them through this body of leaders.

Early science fiction predicted we would one day be able to wear our technology. With inventions like the Apple Watch and Oculus Rift, wearable technology is on the rise.

Tech has a Wearable Computing Center with 15 different faculty members. The research of wearable computing combines specialists from computer science, electrical engineering, augmented reality, textiles, fashion and more.

The Wearable Computing Center recently put on a five panel exhibition in collaboration with the Museum of Design Atlanta (MODA) called On You: Wearing Technology. The MODA exhibit, on display until January 2017, features many examples of wearable technology including the PIXI dress and Mi.Mu gloves.

Located in the Midtown Arts District just across the street from the Woodruff Arts Center, MODA seeks to educate people in understanding and appreciating design in terms of both creativity and functionality. MODA holds events for people of all ages and interests, from Minecraft for Adults, to LEGO and Local Brew.

MODA also caters to a younger crowd, with weekend classes, field trips, an after school program and outreach. Future exhibitions at MODA include The Future of Food and Designing a Playful City. College students can get reduced price tickets with a valid student ID.

The PIXI dress is customizable with programmable LEDs to let the user choose what colors and lights the dress is. Mi.Mu gloves were demonstrated by musician Imogen Heap at a TED Global conference. The goal is to use the gloves to control music instead of being behind a computer or sound board. This is more intuitive and more performer-friendly.

The expert panel series concluded on Sept. 29 with their discussion on fashion and wearable technology.

This panel was moderated by Clint Zeagler. Zeagler has a B.S. in Industrial Design with a minor in textiles manufacturing from  Tech and received his M.A. in fashion design from Domus Academy in Italy. He is also the Program Manager for the Wearable Computing Center.

One of the panelists, Susan Spencer commented on the definition of fashion.

“Everybody wears clothes, and it’s our primary means of expression outside of our language. When we hit puberty, it’s exactly what we’re all crazy about. It’s what we wear, to say who we are and who we belong to and what we want to be,” Spencer said.

Spencer is the founder and product manager for Valentina, an open source software project to create garment patterns using parametric design.

“With fashion tech, with all these new things with circuitry and electronics being worked into our clothing we can express ourselves in ways we’ve never even thought about before. There’s a huge opportunity here for us to make wearable clothing not just a fashion statement but also to integrate it to a certain point in our everyday world that it expresses who we are,” Spencer said.

Another panelist, Lucy Dunne, Ph.D, explains how significant an impact technology has had on the fashion industry.

“It’s almost as if we’ve been conversing with each other for the whole of human history, and now somebody’s introducing something like humor,” Dunne said. “We have words, and so humor is expressed through the words that we already understand, but we’ve never had humor before.”

Dunne works in wearable technology, smart clothing and apparel design at the University
of Minnesota.

“It’s such a seismic change in what we’re able to express, it’s like a whole new facet to what we can express. And specifically I think I see that in the kind of non-verbal dynamics that we can achieve through technology,” Dunne said.

The Wearable Computing Center at Tech focuses on transitioning wearable technology from the research stage to a viable consumer product.

With homecoming rapidly approaching, teams are feverishly working to make sure that all preparations are in place for a week of Tech spirit. But the competing teams are not the only ones working hard to get ready for homecoming. SCPC, particularly those in the homecoming committee, have been working long hours to put on a week of festivities and traditions.

Heading the activity is SCPC Homecoming Committee Chair, Kaleigh Watters. She, along with 18 other committee members and campus organizations have been working since the fall of last year to ensure that this year’s festivities are the best yet.

“We start evaluating previous events, planning improvements for recurring event, and brainstorming new events as early as November. By spring, we’re deciding the theme and launching the Logo Contest,” Watters said.

To many, homecoming events are a hallowed tradition, but that does not stop the team from taking a close look at each event from previous years, making improvements where necessary.

“We talked through each event, and our team was optimistic that even those events that did not run as smoothly as they could have were worth improving,” says Watters of the careful planning that goes into deciding how best to improve events while keeping Tech’s beloved traditions intact.

“There is a sense of tradition and nostalgia that lies with all of our decisions,” Watters continued. “However, these decisions that go on behind the scenes are seldom as straightforward as the end result may have it seem.

“Often there is much debate and discussion that goes into even the smallest of details. Everything, from the theme for this year to the shirt colors that we offered, was characterized by agonizing debate and heartbreak from a few members. We spent almost an entire meeting deciding between Sage and Monterey Sage for a shirt option, which is both somewhat exhilarating and frustrating.

“Next comes putting the plan into action. Information about events is distributed across campus and the arduous task of coordinating so many different organizations and resources begins. People, ranging from administration, to student organizations, to even the entire student body, are  involved in this process.

“Trying to receive information from, communicate with and inform so many people with varying affiliations with Tech is an incredibly time-consuming and meticulous task,” Watters said.

“All of this effort, however, is never in vain. The light at the end of the tunnel that is Homecoming, keeps the committee and all involved steaming ahead throughout the process.

“I, personally, can’t wait to see all of my team’s hard work turn into something that serves as a bonding and memorable experience for the entire Tech community. Knowing that I got to play a part in people humiliating themselves in Powderpuff Cheer, potentially feeling sick from eating mini-powdered doughnuts as quickly as they can, or being distracted during class as they try to decipher our ridiculous clues in Scavenger Hunt is a humbling experience that few can claim,” Watters said.

  As the organizer, Watters feels particularly gratified once everything begins to come together and the end result is finally realized.

“Seeing students, whether on my committee or signing up for Application Day, who care about this tradition makes it all seem worth it. Getting to be a part of an annual shift, a true change of pace for most people on campus, is something that I’m sure I won’t grasp until after it’s all over. It feels pretty cool to get to be a part of it though,” Watters said.

So this Homecoming week, as you and your team forge ahead to victory amidst the fun and jubilation that the festivities of the celebration bring, take a second to appreciate the hard work that was put in to ensure that the scavenger hunt clues are frustratingly hard, that school spirit is forged and, most importantly, that the Tech community comes together to celebrate all that homecoming is.

There comes a time when we must stand up and say, “No, no more.” The time might be abolition of institutional slavery, extermination in 1930s Germany, legalized segregation in the American South, sectarian violence in Northern Ireland, or most relevant today — misogyny.

It is time to stand up and say, “No, no more.”

Simply, it is unacceptable for a candidate for President of the United States to speak such disgusting, despicable and hateful words about women. It is not acceptable to dismiss such language as “locker room talk.” It is not appropriate for a candidate to espouse actions that are clearly illegal assault and then justify those deeds as permissible because one is a “star.”

In the mid-19th century many people of faith rejected that slavery was tolerable. In pre-war Germany some people fled, some people spoke up against fascism and making scapegoats of a class of citizens, and many paid for this heroic stand with their lives. In the American South in which I grew up, good people began to realize that “it has always been this way” was no longer a justifiable  reason for institutional racism. Many of those people were shunned and suffered for their views which we now take as enlightened. In late 1990s Northern Ireland, after yet another senseless bombing, people on both sides concluded that the violence and systemic discrimination must end.

Today we are living in a crucial time of history, just like those in which we now wonder if our families were on the right side of history.

This is no longer a political issue, but an issue of human rights. Basic human rights. And men and women of good will must stand up.

Tech is such a better place than it was when I studied in the late ‘60s. There is higher quality and a vastly better reputation and ranking than those days.

But the main difference is the greatly increased presence of women in campus life, leadership roles and character. We are moving rapidly to the point of parity in the undergraduate
student body, paralleling the real world.

We must stand together with these women and reject with vigor the acceptance of any sense of a culture that dismisses illegality and incivility as “locker room banter.”

I encourage men in our society, and particularly the Tech family, to stand up and say “No, no more.” This is not a time to remain on the sidelines and shrug saying that this is just politics. It has gone far beyond that point.

We need to be on the right side of history. Now. It is the right thing to do.

It is 5 in the morning on a Tuesday, and where am I? Flash back to this summer, and most likely I was in a data closet on campus upgrading some network equipment. I had the opportunity over the summer to work with the OIT Network Services team, and my experiences taught me a lot about how much of an impact coworkers have on how much you really get out of a job.

Coming into an environment where I am the only non-professional staff member was a bit daunting to me. Everyone else in the department had been doing the work for years, and then there was me, who had barely touched anything made by Cisco — switches or otherwise. Sure, I had some networking experience, but if you asked me what a VPC was or what the difference was between a single and multimode fiber cable, I would have had quite a deer-in-headlights look. In many work environments, the new guy coming in without a lot of job-specific experience (read: me) is often left behind. Thankfully that was not the case this summer.

From the get-go, my coworkers were nothing short of amazing. Within my first week, my boss had already brought me up to speed with the nuances of the department and invited me to meetings to get briefed on upcoming projects. I was immediately immersed in opportunities to work on projects and start learning the world of Cisco. They made me feel right at home as another member of the team. Sometimes it was something small like asking if I wanted to come to lunch (Chicken Thursday!) or making themselves available if I had a question. Other times it was something more adventurous like asking me to tag along for an upgrade and help configure some new equipment. No matter what it was, they were always there for me and ready to give me something else to learn.

So why does all of this matter? An opportunity is presented for both sides when someone, such as myself, is in the position that I was in. It is the coworkers who make all the difference between a positive and productive work environment and a negative, unsatisfactory experience. For me, it was my coworkers and the passion they showed for their work that made me feel like I should do the same. Just the opposite can be said as well; if your coworkers and bosses do not show any genuine interest or care in their work, why should you?

If you are ever in the position to be that superior or coworker that the new guy looks to for help, take advantage of the opportunity and spend time to get to know them. It helps your and the team’s image and makes the new guy feel welcome. Show them your passion for what you do. If you are the new guy, spend time getting a feel for the environment. Getting to know your coworkers can be more useful than you would think.

Whether providing tidbits of knowledge (like where the good bathrooms are), taking you out to lunch or just being friendly and saying “Good Morning!” to you in the hall, coworkers can make all the difference in a work environment. It may not seem like much, but sometimes it is the little things that make a workplace truly special.

The most wonderful time of the year is quickly approaching as October winds down and marks the threshold for social acceptance of Christmas countdowns. After the first couple of hectic weeks following Thanksgiving, it is break time for us all — time to enjoy spending with family and kicking back and relaxing.

It may be difficult, but imagine a world where the Christmas season is not the norm — some weird convoluted America in which people work, go to school and take tests on Christmas Day. Instead of having a break for family holidays and religious observance, you have to figure out a way to balance those two while also incorporating the daily work-load into your holiday. The point is that this is not imaginary; there are quite a few of us at Tech who live this world.

This past Wednesday was Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, which occurs shortly after the Jewish New Year’s. Yom Kippur is analogous to Christmas in the sense that it is one of Judaism’s most important religious holidays. Many Jews who do not observe other customs will typically still observe Yom Kippur — much like Christmas — by fasting and attending services. Yom Kippur is our time to be with family and should not be filled with mundane work.

Yet Tech has instituted a new policy this year that many others and I were unbeknownst to. According to this new policy, students must inform their professors within the first two weeks of the semester about any absences due to religious holidays to avoid academic penalties. This policy differs from the previous policy, which put the deadline at ten days before
the absence.

This new policy is ridiculous, primarily because if the religious observance were Christmas there would be no doubt that the student would be allowed an excused absence without any sort of penalty. A policy that forced students to ask off for Christmas would be considered so out of line and laughed at.

However, for students of faiths other than Christianity, enjoying a similar privilege is simply not presented as an option. We have to plan our religious observances around the school’s schedule. Maybe if we are lucky enough we will have a teacher that observes the same religion and we can catch some sort of break, literally.

The other main reason why this new policy is ridiculous is because there is no perceivable reason why there would be a great deal of difference between notice being given ten days in advance or two months in advance. What benefit would the teacher receive from hearing the news of an absence so much farther in advance rather than what would seem to have been a reasonable amount of time? To me, the requirements of the new rule pose a disadvantage to those who do not celebrate the holiday that just happens to be that of the majority. To me,
this does not at all seem like a Tech move.

It may be a minor policy change, but there is no reason to have this policy, and the only outcome is a greater disadvantage for a diverse student
population.

In a school dominated by calculus, lab write-ups and computer code, finding a creative outlet can often be difficult. Students who had access to art classes, instruments and dance in high school can suddenly find themselves at a loss as to how to create things. In addition, the infamous Tech workload makes finding time for hobbies like music or sculpting extremely difficult. Oftentimes these former passions fall by the wayside as homework piles up and just getting enough sleep becomes a challenge.

Scientific studies show, however, that creating art (whether visual, auditory or any other kind) can lead to drastically better mental health. It can promote a sense of positivity, increase confidence due to accomplishment, foster healthy relationships, and stimulate deeper engagement. On an unscientific level, creating things just feels good, which is one of the reasons why children are drawn
to coloring so early, and why many care facilities for the elderly have frequent opportunities for making art.

If art is so important, how can students wrapped up in the day-to-day struggle of just staying afloat ensure that they are letting out enough of their creative juices? Tech has several opportunities. If painting or sculpting is one’s passion, Paper & Clay is located on the third floor of the student center, roughly directly above the salad bar at the food court, and provides easy access to materials.

The CRC offers dance classes for those students who may be interested in dancing, and there are many different styles of dance team that are listed on OrgSync (Tech’s platform for matching with the perfect club or clubs). Joining one of these provides not only a creative outlet, but also much-needed exercise that can release hormones that lead to greater productivity and higher levels of happiness. In a way, taking some time off to join a dance team will improve productivity instead of taking away from it.

Although creating music can be difficult for students not in the band or orchestra, Under the Couch has space for students interested in forming their own group, and there are practice rooms for rent in the Couch building on West campus. The Ferst Center and DramaTech also have practice pianos that are open to the public and only used infrequently. In addition, admirers of music (and arts of all kind) can obtain discounted student tickets at the Ferst Center box office.

For writers or fans of writing, Tech even has a lesser-known poetry club that meets semi-regularly. For more information on guest poets and getting involved, see the poetry corner near the Skiles garden. If prose is more appealing, Tech also has a book club that can be found on OrgSync.

Even more technologically-focused artists can find creative outlet in the Invention Studio, by participating in invention competitions, or by using the major-specific workshops located around campus. Aerospace engineers even have a new studio in Weber for building their latest ideas.

Despite the many opportunities, Tech’s art scene still leaves much to be desired. Practice rooms are scarce and not free for all students, and Paper & Clay is only a small facility not capable of handling heavy traffic. The poetry and book clubs, while present, do not have a large following, despite the many students interested in the literary arts.

On a campus of stressed-out, mentally taxed students, the atmosphere of the arts is sadly lacking. The good news, however, is that starting a club is a fairly simple process with which SGA can assist. So if one’s passion is for saxophones, start a saxophone club. If writing vampire historical fiction seems like the best creative outlet, start a club and call it Bonaparte’s Bloodthirsty Bards.

Whatever that passion may be, finding an outlet is the best way to both maintain one’s mental health and promote a more artistic atmosphere on Tech’s campus.