rutgers university—new brunswick … · in october, biden visited rutgers . ... invited to return...
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018RUTGERS UNIVERSITY—NEW BRUNSWICK
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Rutgers announces PayPal CEO as commencement speakerERICA D’COSTA
ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR
Members on the University’s Board of Governors meeting an-nounced Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal, will be Rut-gers—New Brunswick’s 2018 com-mencement speaker.
Schulman, who formerly served on the University’s Board of Trust-ees, will receive an honorary Doc-tor of Humane Letters degree and give a speech to the Class of 2018 on Sunday, May 13 at High Point Solution Stadium in Piscataway.
The long-anticipated announce-ment comes six months after the University asked former Vice Pres-ident Joe Biden to be this year’s graduation speaker.
In October, Biden visited Rutgers during his “It’s On Us” campaign to end sexual assault on college cam-puses. At the end of his speech, Biden told students that he was invited to return to campus as com-mencement speaker, but was not sure if he could make it, as reported by The Daily Targum.
Dory Devlin, University spokes-person, confirmed that Biden was unavailable for graduation in an email on Tuesday.
“Former Vice President Joseph Biden was unable to attend the May 13 commencement ceremony. We are thrilled he came to Rutgers in October to rally students around the It’s On Us campaign aimed at ending sexual assault on college campuses,” she said.
Schulman was chosen to speak at Rutgers as part of a year-long selec-tion process that involved students, faculty and staff, Devlin said.
The official 2018 graduation headliner has a long list of accom-plishments, titles and awards.
According to Business Insider, his journey started at AT&T in 1981 as an assistant to an accountant ex-ecutive. His first paycheck there totaled a modest $208 — he is now worth millions.
He later took on leadership titles at Priceline, American Express, Sprint and notably at Virgin Mobile as the company’s founding CEO, Devlin said.
Schulman — who graduated from New York University’s Stern School of Business is also a board member of Autism Speaks, serves on the World Economic Forum’s Future of the Global Financial Sys-tem taskforce and is an avid mixed martial arts practitioner.
The business executive is no stranger to Rutgers. He served on the Board of Trustees from 2006 to 2012, before joining the University’s Board of Governors from 2008 to 2013. His mother was also an Asso-ciate Dean at the University, accord-ing to NJ Advance Media.
“As PayPal’s leader, Schulman is focused on transforming financial services to make life easier for bil-lions of people around the world,” Devlin said. “With his deep experi-ence in payments and mobile tech-nology, the New Jersey native is guiding PayPal to reimagine how people move and manage money, and how merchants and consumers interact and transact.”
His hefty experiences were rec-ognized by Fortune which crowned him as one of the top 10 CEOs in the world. He was also named one of the top 100 most creative people by Fast Company and was ranked on the 2017 Recode 100 list of people making the biggest impact on busi-ness and technology.
Schulman is the recipient of the 2017 Brennan Legacy Award,
established to honor the Supreme Court justice and his lifelong commitment to “common human dignity,” Devlin said. The Coun-cil for Economic Education also named him as its 2017 Visionary for teaching economic and finan-cial literacy to create a better edu-cated society.
Although the University has paid honorariums thousands of dollars, the leader of PayPal will not be paid for his speech.
Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, president emerita and former CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), will also be present at graduation and will receive an honorary Doctor of Sci-ence degree during the ceremony.
Previous Rutgers—New Bruns-wick commencement speakers include former President Barack Obama, musician Steven Van Zandt and author Toni Morrison.
Rutgers—Newark and Rutgers—Camden announced Queen Latifah
and Anita Hill, respectively, as their commencement speakers.
The Class of 2018 will be one of the most diverse, accomplished and larg-est ever, encompassing students from 40 states and more than 60 countries, according to Rutgers Today.
Courtney McAnuff, vice presi-dent for enrollment management, labeled the class as “one of the most academically talented and diverse groups of students to ever enter the university.”
Dan Schulman, president and CEO of PayPal, is also the founding CEO of Virgin mobile and served on the University’s Board of Trustees between 2006 and 2012. He will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree at this year’s graduation. WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Protest ensues outside U. governors meeting
CHRISTIAN ZAPATA & RYAN STIESI
NEWS EDITOR & ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR
The pool of protesters that oc-cupied the front of Winants Hall yesterday was reminiscent of the crowd that took to Old Queens at the start of this year.
This time, instead of just petition-ing for higher worker pay, the con-sortium of students, teachers and members of the community were also in support of University protect-ed health services and fair contracts for faculty and staff, in addition to an increase in worker minimum wages.
Members from Rutgers Unit-ed Students Against Sweatshops
(USAS), Rutgers American Asso-ciation of Professors-American Federation of Teachers (AAUP-AFT), the American Association of University Professors–Bio-medical and Health Sciences of New Jersey (AAUP-BHSNJ) and Health Professionals and Allied Employees (HPAE), among oth-ers spoke and held flyers in the air before select members en-tered the meeting’s open session at 1:30 p.m.
“We’re here in solidarity … our specific cause is the fight for $15, we want the $15 minimum wage on campus,” said Christopher Protesters from activist organizations on and off campus took to the Board of Governor’s meeting at
Winants Hall yesterday in support of higher minimum wages, fair faculty contracts and non-privatized health care, among other concerns. DECLAN INTINDOLA / PHOTO EDITOR / APRIL 2018 SEE MEETING ON PAGE 4
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Page 2 aPril 11, 2018
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THE 150TH EDITORIAL BOARD
WEDNESDAY 4/11 The The Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities and the Dance Department present “Lecture with Rose Eichenbaum” from 12:30 to 2 p.m. at the Nicholas Music Center on Douglass campus. This event is free and open to the public.
The Department of Food Science presents “What Drives the Changes to our Food Safety Laws” from 11 a.m. to noon at the Food Science and Nutritional Sciences Building East on Cook campus. This event is free and open to the public.
The Center for Counseling, Alcohol and Other Drug Assistance Program and Psychiatric Services presents “Mindfulness Meditation” from noon to 1 p.m. at Rutgers Student Activities Center on the College Avenue campus. This event is free and open to the public.
The Robert Wood Johnson Medical School presents “Neurology Grand Rounds” from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. at the Clinical Academic Building on the College Avenue campus. This event is free and open to the public.
The Dean of Students presents “Rutgers Remembers” from noon to 2 p.m. at Winants Hall on the College Avenue campus. This event is free and open to the public.
THURSDAY 4/12 The Institute for Research on Women presents “Persuasive Speaking and Storytelling for Leadership with Thaler Pekar” from 10:30 a.m. to noon at the Ruth Dill Johnson Crockett Building on Douglass campus. This event requires registration.
The Ecology and Evolution Graduate Program presents “Dr. Katie Malcolm - ‘Do prescribed burns affect the soil ecology of the NJ Pinelands?’” from 4 to 5 p.m. at the Marine Sciences Building on Cook campus. This event is free and open to the public.
The Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research presents “Policy Approaches to Improving Access to Treatment for Opioid Addiction: Strategies and Potential Pitfalls” from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research on the College Avenue campus. This event is free and open to the public.
The Daily Targum promptly corrects all errors of substance. If you have a comment or question about the fairness or accuracy of a story, send an email to [email protected].
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UNIVERSITYApril 11, 2018 pAge 3
Professor works to build device that tests water pH using drones EMRE UGURLU
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
The first integrated glider platform and sensor system that samples the pH of water has been created at Rutgers.
Grace Saba, a professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, is using drone technology to study ocean acidi-fication which will soon lead to a commercially available glider pH sensor suite.
This drone is tasked with mea-suring pH throughout its water column, it has the ability to cut through water, dive and climb vertical speeds of 20 cam per sec-ond in a saw tooth pattern. It can collect high data density and full water column coverage leading to an accurate measurement of the water’s pH, Saba said.
Saba explained that the drone uses Slocum Webb gliders which were developed and construct-ed by Teledyne Webb research. The drone can reach as far as 1.5 meters, collecting data all at the same time, which is crucial to the research of ocean acidification.
Saba is involved in the Mid-At-lantic Regional Association Coastal Ocean Observation Sys-tem and is the co-coordinator of the Mid-Atlantic Coastal Acidifi-cation Network.
“Through all of these endeav-ors, it has become very clear that there is a great need for technolo-gies that can better monitor acid-ification in our local waters to in-crease understanding of it in our region … The success of this proj-ect ensures that this sensor could be integrated into any glider used by anyone around the world and thus would make great strides in the development of a real-time n a t i o n a l / g l o b -al coastal ocean acidification mon-itoring network,” she said about the drone project.
The main focus of the project is to create a technology that bet-ter monitors water acidification. This is essential because seawater
absorbs excess carbon dioxide, which causes an excess amount of chemical reactions, and lowers the pH of water, making it more acidic, she said.
Acidification can lead to the
destruction of many habitats and risks the lives of organisms who use the carbonate ions de-stroyed by excess carbon diox-ide, Saba said.
Along with drones, Saba has also worked on other projects in the past.
“In the past, my research ap-proach has been primarily ex-perimental through laboratory
or field experiments. Just these past few years I have started this glider-focused project, as well as another to ‘fish with robots’ that used a glider equipped with an
acoustic sensor to determine zoo-plankton and fish abundance and distribution in the western Ross Sea, Antarctica,” she said.
Saba has been a member of the Rutgers University Center for
Ocean Observing Leadership (RU COOL) since 2010 where she cul-tivated her passion for the field.
She said it has been challeng-ing to begin using these new
approaches, particularly devel-oping new sensors and learning how to use them and she de-pends on a strong technical team to assist in the operation of these new projects.
“The best part about it is watching our undergraduate and graduate students master the glider-related technology and complex data analysis required,” Saba said.
The creation of this drone will allow scientists to better un-derstand and manage essential habitats in the future. The data produced from the drone will also allow the community to identify high risk regions and populations of commercially important spe-cies that are prone to the effects of reduced pH.
Saba traced her interest in ocean-ography back to her childhood.
“I grew up on a farm in Kansas, well away from the ocean. But I was always outside, particularly fascinated by the crawdads and the tadpoles in the creek behind the barn. My mom bought me Jacques Cousteau’s ‘The Ocean World’ when I was eight, and that marked the beginning of what I’ve now become,” she said.
Saba is primarily focused on how marine animals, such as plankton and fish, interact with their environment. Her goal is to better understand climate vari-ability and how long-term change can affect food webs.
The completion of the pH sen-sor’s integration into the drone will be completed by early May.
Saba said that with all the work she juggles, balancing her life with the hefty research she con-ducts can be challenging.
“Well, it’s not easy and of-ten times I feel I’m not balanc-ing as well as I should. But I’m surrounded by a team of sup-portive family,
especially my husband who is also a scientist and knows that our works comes in waves. We are the very definition of a good tag team,” she said.
“Through all of these endeavors, it has become very clear that there is a great need for technologies that can better monitor acidification in our local waters to increase understanding of it in our region …”
GRACE SABAProfessor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences
Grace Saba, a professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences, is working with drone technology to develop a sensor system that tests the pH levels in water, which, when too acidic, disrupt environmental homeostasis. RUTGERS.EDU
Saba’s experiments have taken her to the Western Ross Sea in Antarctica, where she used a glider equipped with acoustic sensor to measure zoo plankton and fish abundance and distribution. AUVAC.ORG
Page 4 aPril 11, 2018
Better bus systems are en route, due in part to student concernsANTONIO RODRIGUEZ
CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Although Rutgers University cultivates a diverse student body with a wide range of backgrounds and opinions, there is a single is-sue with the power to unify stu-dents, alumni and faculty alike — the University bus service.
Getting up close and personal with other students is a daily affair for many, an occurance seasoned students are all too familiar with.
“Looking back, in the four years I’ve been here, I don’t feel like the buses have gotten any bet-ter. I don’t feel like they’ve gotten worse either. They’re just some-thing we all have to deal with,” said Michael Laganella, a School of Arts and Sciences senior.
While the perception of a stag-nant bus service may be common, there have been several efforts in recent years to improve the system. Some changes are the direct result of complaints from the community, such as the recent change to start regular campus bus service at 6 a.m. instead of 7 a.m. to accommo-date riders who need to get to work earlier in the day, said John Karako-glou, manager of the Department of Transportation Services (DOTS).
High traffic hours are prob-lematic for students that rely on buses to get to class, with larger time gaps between arrivals and no guarantee of boarding overcrowd-ed buses following a class break.
The bus service strives to meet the needs of all students during peak hours by substantially in-creasing the amount of vehicles in operation, with 47 buses on 11 routes, Karakoglou said.
But even with the full fleet of buses deployed, getting around campus can be a daunting task. For students that want to avoid the bus system, the BikeRU ini-tiative allows for the use of per-sonal or rented bicycles.DOTS has recently updated maps of bicycle routes for each campus, according to the BikeRU website.
The recent additions of bike and bus lanes on College Avenue is the University’s latest effort to alleviate traffic congestion.
Prior to the change, surveyed students “indicated that they would use bikes more often to get around but have been con-cerned about congestion and safety issues,” according to an article published in Rutgers To-day in January 2017.
“I haven’t used a bike at all since they made the change. I didn’t use them before either. I’d honestly rather just deal with the bus,” said Joseph Fish-er, a School of Arts and Scienc-es senior.
It is clear that the bus remains a popular choice for a sizeable por-tion of the student body.
Therefore, the quality of the service has a high influence on the success of students. To
ensure that this success contin-ues, students are encouraged to voice any concerns they have, Karakoglou said.
The sheer scale of the bus ser-vice at a university with a student population as large as Rutgers means that there is a high volume of complaints received. The most common concern from the com-munity centers around the inac-
curacies of bus arrival predictions on the official Rutgers app, Kara-koglou said. These complaints have also factored into future plans to improve the buses.
“We are in the process of add-ing passenger counters, Wi-Fi and a new tracking app to all the bus-es,” he said.
If a student would like to voice concern over any aspect of the
service, they can email DOTS di-rectly or call the dispatch line at 848-932-7817. The DOTS website displays further contact infor-mation, with different channels available depending on the na-ture of the issue.
“All complaints are reviewed by either myself or my staff and we involve the bus company to rectify any problems” Karakoglou said.
The Department of Transportation Services (DOTS) ensures that student complaints are taken into account when finding new improvements to the University’s bus system, such as improved location services that will soon be added. THE DAILY TARGUM / FEBRUARY 2016
MEETINGRutgers first-year applications are up 9.3 percent this year
CONTINUED FROM FRONT
DiStasio, a School of Arts and Sciences senior.
He said there has been talk that the funds used to increase worker minimum wage to $11 last year. These funds are not coming from the presidential fund, but are in-stead being squeezed out of other departments, as reported by The Daily Targum.
Either way, he said $11 an hour is not a living wage, and contest-ed that student and adult workers need higher pay.
DiStasio is one of 12 students who were charged with disorder-ly conduct during a protest that occurred at the Board of Trustees meeting at the end of last semes-ter, the Targum reported.
He said that the group was charged by the Rutgers Universi-ty Police Department (RUPD) but not the New Brunswick Police Department (NBPD).
“It’s surprising because we’re a university that’s built on the con-cept of being revolutionary and pushing for the greater good, and when I did that … in a peaceful protest at the Board of Trustees meeting, the University pressed charges against me,” he said.
On the topic of teacher nego-tiations, Jerald Isseks, a School of Graduate Studies student and teacher assistant, said AAUP-AFT is in the preliminary stages of its bargaining process with the University, but is wary that the
process will drag on. Contracts are supposed to be finalized over the summer.
“Our membership is at like 60 percent capacity right now which is the biggest its ever been, it went up from like 20 percent to like 60 percent in the last three years, so hopefully that’s a little bit of a message to them that we mean business,” he said.
OPEN SESSION COMMENCES In his opening remarks, Univer-
sity President Robert L. Barchi spoke on a semester of happen-ings at Rutgers.
Barchi commented on the Uni-versity’s meeting with Gov. Phil Murphy (D-N.J.) to create an en-vironment for the transfer of new technology and intellectual ideas on behalf of New Jersey, Rutgers and private contractors. The va-cant lot known as “The Hub” in Downtown New Brunswick re-mains empty for the time being as plans are drafted.
He commented on former Sec-retary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech at Rutgers and said, “it was a great turnout and I think that was something that had good par-ticipation by all sides in a very civil conversation, just showing how it can be done here at Rutgers.”
Barchi mentioned two students groups that won the Hult prize regional competition earlier this semester and Chelsie Riche, a School of Arts and Sciences alum-na, who was awarded the Gates Cambridge Scholarship.
With Dance Marathon fresh out from this weekend, Barchi commended the efforts of the University’s undergraduates, fraternities and sororities in rais-ing more than $1 million for the Embrace Kids Foundation for the second year in a row.
He also praised the five Rut-gers—Camden students who saved an elderly man from a burn-ing fire earlier this year, as report-ed by the Targum.
RUTGERS APPLICATION STATISTICS
Barchi said that the total ad-missions applications to the Uni-versity were up by approximately 9.3 percent, with 7.3 percent at Rutgers—New Brunswick. Out of state domestic applications are up by approximately 18 percent year after year.
Admitted students who have announced they are coming to Rutgers is up by approximate-ly 7.6 percent from last year, he said.
Rutgers—Camden noted a 50 percent increase on Admit Com-ings from last year, and last year
saw the same increase from the year before that, Barchi said.
LABOR RELATIONSThe University’s labor relations
unit handles labor negotiations, contract administration, policy administration and also oversees employment equity, said Vivian Fernández, the senior vice pres-ident for Human Resources and Organizational Effectiveness. The department also deals with inves-tigations regarding sexual harass-ment, unlawful harassment or dis-crimination, workplace violence and other matters.
“In that area, we actually con-ducted over 180 investigations and during that same period of time reduced the turnaround pe-riod for those investigations from 102 days to 60 days … we also resolve 140 informal complaints
that didn’t rise to the level of an investigation but did require our intervention,” Fernández said.
UNRESTRICTED RESERVESBarchi recapitulated the Uni-
versity’s stance on its unrestricted funds and clarified misconcep-tions surrounding what Rutgers can and cannot do with the money.
In a presentation, Kathy Det-tloff, vice president of Financial Planning and Budgeting at Rut-gers, explained Rutgers’ financial situation.
The University reported that its unrestricted net funds in the fiscal year 2017 were $784 million.
“These funds are committed for critical University needs,” she said.
This includes funding financial aid, academic initiatives, unfore-seen events and other necessities, Dettloff said.
The University is required to maintain a certain amount of re-serve funding in order to maintain its position among other Big Ten schools. In comparison, it cur-rently ranks low among its peers, Dettloff said.
What this means for Rutgers is that it is financially challenged due to its limited liquidity — how easily the University’s assets can be sold or bought without affecting their price — which could lead to high-er borrowing costs and increasing pressure on tuition rates, she said.
On a color-coordinated chart, Dettloff outlined the University’s unrestricted funds and operating expenses and suggested that in order for Rutgers to maintain a constant ratio between these two numbers, its Board of Governors must target an operating mar-gin — how much profit Rutgers makes after paying its expenses — of 1-to-1.5 percent as expenses continue to rise.
Kathy Dettloff, vice president of Financial Planning and Budgeting, explains unrestricted funds and their use for critical University needs. DECLAN INTINDOLA / PHOTO EDITOR / APRIL 2018
OPINIONS Page 6
Voting rights in U.S. historically troubling
W e have time and again taken two steps forward and one step back in regard to civil liberties and voting rights, and we must recognize that we are currently in a phase of regres-
sion. As a nation we must dig in our heels, assert our values, resist the forces of hate and bigotry and push forward.
Although wounded and scarred, the war for a more just and free nation and the ratification of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-Fourth and Twenty-Sixth Amendments to the Constitution, among other factors, brought new promises of liberty and democracy. But promises not carved in stone are promises written in sand.
With the freedom to vote and the aid of an extended arm of govern-ment, African Americans registered, mobilized and voted for represen-tation. Once starved by political inequality, African Americans took to the ballot to claim their seat at the table. During the Reconstruction Era, 16 African Americans served in the United States Congress, more than 600 African Americans were elected to state legislatures and hun-dreds held local offices throughout the South.
White America, still clinging to a corroding superiority complex and crippling bigotry, looked upon this unsettling sight of freedom and re-sponded by mobilizing hate and suppression.
Promises of freedom resulted in the exchange of chains for jail cells and promises of the rights of citizenship resulted in political disen-franchisement, voting discrimination and brutality. Again, pillars of injustice upon which this nation was lifted up casted a shadow upon the ideas of democracy and freedom left broken and bloodied upon the ground.
In 1965, the Voting Rights Act, a monumental legislation protecting freedom, ensuring liberty and prohibiting racial discrimination in vot-ing, was passed. Yet, African Americans and other marginalized peo-ples still find themselves victims of broken promises.
Following the 2010 election, state legislatures nationwide enacted harsh restrictions on registration and stringent photo ID requirements
making it more difficult to vote. These measures have a dispropor-tionately negative impact on African Americans and persons of color. Racial gerrymandering has also turned back the clocks, disenfranchis-ing people of color and stealing their right to representation. From the 1960s to the 1980s, districts needed to be more than 50, sometimes 65 percent, African American for their favored candidate to win an elec-tion. Today that percentage fluctuates around 40 percent.
In 2013, Shelby v. Holder lifted pre-approval, allowing states to en-act voting restrictions targeting nonwhite voters. The blood left in the streets of Alabama in the 1960s had soaked into the soil to be forgotten and ignored.
The Institute for Policy Studies, in a report recognizing the need for a reengagement of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign, noted “More than 50 years after the Voting Rights Act, peo-ple of color still face a broad range of attacks on their voting rights, including racist gerrymandering and redistricting, felony disenfran-chisement and a variety of laws designed to make it harder to vote.”
According to a study done by the University of California, San Diego, voter ID laws doubled the turnout gap between whites and Latinos.
The conjuring of the voter fraud specter is a political tool to further disenfranchise minorities and profile minorities as felons who cheat the system. In a comprehensive study of 1 billion ballots, only 31 indi-vidual cases of voter fraud were determined.
James Baldwin wrote, “... however painful it may be for us to change, not to change will be fatal.”
With every passing day, the weight of injustice bears down on the foundation of this country and adds one more crack. We can mend our injured values and heal our fractured and divided nation. Our stagna-tion in our progression will be fatal to our democracy.
Luke Hinrichs is a School of Arts and Sciences first-year majoring in political science and economics. His column, “Unveiling the Truth,“ runs on alternate Wednesdays.
The Daily Targum’s editorials represent the views of the majority of the 150th editorial board. Columns, cartoons and letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Targum Publishing Company or its staff.
aPril 11, 2018
UNIVERSAL UCLICK
UNVEILING THE TRUTH
LUKE HINRICHS
“The conjuring of the voter fraud specter is a political tool to further disenfranchise minorities and profile minorities as felons
who cheat the system.”
EDITORIAL
Even at Rutgers, knowledge is power
T he importance of knowledge in relation to power is a recurring theme in the history of our world. Considering the increasingly
digital and technologically-dominated age we live in, knowledge of a people is seemingly becoming easier and easier for those in power to acquire. With knowl-edge of a people’s actions, an authority or elite not only has an increased influence over them, but can learn how they might effectively stay in power and stamp out uprisings of sorts.
The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, was questioned in a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees yesterday in the wake of the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal. Cambridge Analytica is company that specializes in data-driven campaigns and marketing and is hired to help busi-nesses and politicians. They apparently acquired data on up to 87 mil-lion Facebook users, which was likely used for some campaigning purposes. Interest-ingly on Cambridge Analytica’s Political homepage, one of the first things it says is, “We find your voters and move them to action. CA Political has redefined the relation-ship between data and campaigns. By knowing your electorate better, you can achieve greater influence while lowering overall costs.” The campaign brands of President Donald J. Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-T.X.) and Ben Carson are all included directly underneath the aforementioned quote. This brings up interesting questions, especially ethical questions, with regard to the way we want our electoral system to work — if politicians can tailor their campaign to pander toward groups and win votes, does that not seemingly defeat the purpose of campaigning based on genuine ideas and goals? In general, though, this scandal shows that there is at least some truth in the fact that knowledge helps people attain and maintain power.
The relationship between knowledge and power is not necessarily much different here at Rutgers. In Au-gust of 2016, the University adopted Rutgers Connect,
which is a system modeled on Microsoft Office 365. One of the main features of Rutgers Connect is the subsequent merging of the University’s departmental email systems into a single cloud-based system — something Rutgers faculty have been rather skeptical of. Some faculty worries are related to the fact that, as it turns out, through Office 365 administrators have the ability to capture and surveil the emails of anyone on the server, as well as other information. This is not to say that the University had any sort of nefarious or sinister intentions in adopting Rutgers Connect, but it is interesting to think about the power that the admin-istration acquires through its implementation.
By having access to the emails and other actions of Rutgers students and faculty, the administration has the ability to do things like more effectively investi-gate sexual assaults, harassment or other sorts of mis-
conduct. Addition-ally, they might be able to prevent cy-ber crimes against University affiliates. But knowing the administration may be peeking over our
shoulders can have other unforeseen negative conse-quences. With regard to academia, it could conceiv-ably chill academic debate. Faculty may watch what they say more closely, especially when it is about Old Queens — which is troubling because any subject of an authority should be able to question and criticize that authority without feeling the need to be cautious.
If the connection between knowledge and power can be shown even with regard to our own University’s administration, it seems to be worth at least thinking about. Allowing the administration to acquire more power may in turn make us more secure — kind of like putting our shoes and bags through the X-ray in an airport — but whether we are more secure in giving up our privacy also depends on the nature of the people who end up acquiring that information. We just have to hope those we elect have good intentions, since they may very well be running campaigns based on the pop-ular prejudices they compiled from our internet data.
Administration has ability to view your school emails
“... knowing the administration may be peeking over our shoulders can have other
unforeseen negative consequences.”
April 11, 2018 OpiniOns pAge 7
YOUR VOICE The Daily Targum welcomes submissions from all readers. Due to space limitations, letters to the editor must not exceed 500 words. Guest columns and commentaries should be between 700 and 850 words. All authors must include name, phone number, class year and college affiliation or department to be considered for publication. Anonymous letters will not be considered. All submissions are subject to editing for length and clarity. A submission does not guarantee publication. Please submit via email to [email protected] by 4 p.m. to be considered for the following day’s publication.
Students can finish semester strong by following few steps
H ere, I shall list the five most mind-blowing steps on how to effectively handle the semester
as it draws to a close. Actually, it is more like nearing the conclusion of a bad book with a defeated acceptance that many loose ends and plot holes remain. But who cares? The weather is supposed to be phenomenal this weekend and you should spend your well-deserved fun in the long-awaited heat.
With that, please follow this trust-worthy guide to a sparkling finish of the school year.
First: Procrastinate. Or, if you are like me, procrastinate upon your procrastination. Meta-procrastination. It is almost god-like, really. You keep WebAssign open on your computer and have your notebooks, pencil and calculator splayed out on your bed. This evokes the convincing illusion that you are legitimately working on Calc II when in real-ity you are looking up 24/7 lofi beats on an-other tab while checking Snapchat on your phone while doing essentially anything that is not Calc II. I do not mean to brag, but I am pretty good at it. Netflix is too tempting. To be fair, even Oscar Wilde could not resist temptation, and he is one of the greatest, sassiest figures in English literature. So that is saying something. Just ignore the fact that he worked hard regardless to proactively
market his work and respond to criticism. It is hypocritical and invalidates procrastina-tion — the worst thing that can ever happen to a student in this day and age.
Second: Waste time on the buses. While we just listen to music and awkwardly avoid accidental eye contact with strangers, some people are getting down all their notes on their laptops and notebooks. How very of-fensive of them. And that is just the lucky seated people. Even standing passengers somehow manage to type essays on Goo-gle Docs or draft e-mails to their profes-
sors via cellphone. It is some kind of mag-ical, physical and mental balancing act. Of course, it is not like you should, you know, try to figure out how to balance your own time instead of spending it complaining about your friends in other schools whose farthest walk to class last 5 minutes. Per-sonally, I struggle to remain awake on the bus, let alone hold my drink upright. For-get about standing. I am too busy laughing at memes about standing behind the white line. Guess I should not even bother trying.
Third: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. It is a term taught in Communications, in which you do something, expect a certain
outcome and the result winds up as you predicted. For example, you set a goal to start sleeping at least a little bit earlier than 3 a.m. You tell yourself there is no way you will actually do that. With that subcon-scious assumption, you stay up until 3 a.m. yet again the next day, fulfilling your own prophecy. It is sort of like the comfort of pessimism — the “optimism” of pessimism — when you expect nothing good to hap-pen, you are never truly disappointed, and when something good does happen, it is a pleasant surprise. This can be summed up
by a conversation I overheard while refill-ing my bottle at a water fountain: “There’s just this huge difference between what I do and what I want to do.” In my interpreta-tion, well … maybe that difference is you?
Fourth: After a whole day of doing ab-solutely nothing, take a nice long nap. This activity can be applied to a variety of situations. After an entire day of eat-ing, you could of course eat another wrap from Woody’s. Have to use up those meal swipes, right? Or, after a very productive “Game of Thrones” binge-watching session — oh wait, one more episode! Sleep, food and Netflix are beautiful, there is just not
enough to go around. So when you do not have them, simply daydream about them. Better yet, I would refer you to the first step. Or you can just blame everything on the pesky preschoolers who are gracious-ly assigned nap time but never care. They even have the audacity to protest, throw tantrums, complain. They should just give us their nap time so we can delay our as-signments even further, as if we do not do the first step enough already.
Fifth: The absolute best method: skip class. You regain approximately an entire hour, sometimes even 3, of your life lost to scrawling notes and trying to wrap your mind around your professor’s lecture. You know that feeling when you pay attention to your own wandering attention in order to retain your attention but in the process you lose your attention? It is an endless, in-furiating cycle. Here is my tidbit: just do not come to class at all. After all, 300 students in a class is too little to ask for help from, and millions of students across the world are doing the same thing.
Follow my advice and I guarantee a great year. If that does not happen, you get no money back. Have a great year, Scarlet Knights!
Sruti Bezawada is a Rutgers Business School first-year double majoring in mar-keting and communications and minoring in Japanese. Her column, “Traipse the Fine Line,” runs on alternate Wednesdays.
“Procrastinate. Or, if you are like me, procrastinate upon your procrastination. Meta-procrastination. It is almost god-like ...”
TRAIPSE THE FINE LINESRUTI BEZAWADA
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April 11, 2018pAge 8
In her podcast “Unqualified,” funny girl Anna Faris plays therapist as she gives her best advice to fans and listeners, often with the help of other comedians and actors. TWITTER
JORDAN LEVYCORRESPONDENT
Podcasts are a growing field of entertainment, with topics rang-ing from politics to cooking to entrepreneurship and music. For those who like to laugh, there’s an incredibly diverse amount of podcasts to check out. If you want a little more humor in your day, here are some options to get you started with comedy podcasts.
ANNA FARIS IS UNQUALIFIED Anna Faris has carved a special
place in the mind of millennials for her recurring role of Cindy Camp-bell in the Scary Movie films. However, her roles don’t really seem to qualify her to give advice and she seems to agree. Unquali-fied is a freeform advice podcast that’s completely self-aware about the fact that Faris may be the last person who should deal said ad-vice. Complete with guests like Jimmy Kimmel and Aubrey Pla-
za, Faris haphazardly attempts to help people with problems that they should really ask someone else about. Hilarity ensues.
THE READ Kid Fury and Crissle are ruth-
less comedians and podcasters. The duo run through anything on their pop culture radar for that week and incisively cut into any-one. If you’re looking for a hilar-ious gossip column, they will ful-fill all your needs. Weekly listener letters raise questions about race, relationships, love and more. The pair idolize the worlds of TV and film and they’ll pull out a “Golden Girls” reference to help describe just about any situation. The eponymous main segment is the two finding someone or some-thing to “read,” which usually results in enraged (yet hysteri-cal) rants. Kid Fury and Crissle are the vibrant sources of humor needed to digest all of the mess of pop culture.
HANNIBAL BURESS: HANDSOME RAMBLER
Comedian/actor extraordinaire Hannibal Buress is known for his nonchalant insights. That spirit spreads to his podcast “Handsome Rambler.” The name is accurate as the show is incredibly freeform, with Burress and his guests going on stream-of-consciousness rants about just about anything. The ep-isodes range from incredibly ener-getic to lethargic, but they’re all in-credibly unique. One strange perk of the program is Buress’s sporad-ic habit of breaking into song. It’s as off-kilter as his approach, but great guests like Tom Segura and Vic Mensa help Buress create one of a kind episodes.
ITSTHEREAL ItsTheReal is a hybrid podcast,
melding the worlds of comedy and Hip-Hop. Comedian brothers Eric and Jeff Rosenthal invite var-ious guests from the world of rap and engage in casual, very funny interviews. Mac Miller, Jerrod Carmichael, and Flatbush Zom-bies are just a few of the guests from the show. The best aspect of the show is that they don’t only interview rappers. The Rosenthal Brothers talk to music executives,
engineers, journalists, A&Rs and basically anyone connected to the music industry.
THE CHAMPS WITH NEAL BRENNAN + MOSHE KASHER
Although this podcast ended, Chappelle Show co-creator Neal Brennan and comedian Moshe Kasher ran “The Champs” from 2011 to 2016. With the goal of discussing
“stupid things in a stupid way,” the comedians gathered a legendary group of guests, truly an all-star line-up. Arsenio Hall, Chris Rock, Charlie Murphy, Jordan Peele and more are just some of the many guests. While in its prime, “The Champs” was a place for all the funniest people to go and crack jokes. The podcast was a breeding ground for laughs, one that shouldn’t be missed.
GEORGETTE STILLMANSTAFF WRITER
My first encounter with “Ready Player One” was when it came up as an ad I couldn’t skip on You-Tube. As I was watching it, I did not even really know what I had just seen. My overall impression was it was as if last year’s “Juman-ji” and James Cameron’s “Avatar” had a weird love-child starring the teenage Scott Summers. The film took place in a virtual world and the characters were just a bunch of avatars, so we did not even get to see the actual people.
Now playing at RU Cinema, “Ready Player One” was actually
a pretty entertaining movie. The plot was a little out there — peo-ple play this video game chal-lenge that the deceased creator made up to take master control of the game and a company is try-ing to eradicate them inside the game as well as in real life — but it had heart.
It had a whole family aspect to it with the main character Wade learning that the virtual reality known as OA-SIS meant something more to a whole community of people than
just a break from life. I do still think that an established corpora-tion was still trying to take down a bunch of kids playing video games for control over the virtual
universe. There are people whose jobs are literally to just decipher the clues in the challenge and there is even a designated “war
room” for employees to enter OASIS. That concept, if it were explained out of context of the rest of the film, would have think-ing that the creator was a little
nuts. Although, in the world that the story takes place in it fits. It’s the year 2045, so technol-ogy in the future is insanely ad-vanced, right?
My opinion? “Ready Player One” is a fun movie for the youthful spirit. The love story, the need to es-cape reality, video games and
pop culture all come together to tell a tale that is guaranteed to make audiences laugh and feel real emotions while induc-ing some feelings of nostalgia, whether that nostalgia is the desire to play video games as a kid again or the remembrance of some of the older hits that the Easter Eggs originate from.
It also drives the importance of unplugging every once in a while to experience real life, which is something that is an issue today. While we are constantly glued to our screens and lock ourselves in our own worlds with headphones, it is important to be present if we are to live life’s best moments.
‘Ready Player One’ tells sci-fi story with youthful spirit
Funny podcasts that offer comedic therapy
“(Ready Player One) also drives the importance of unplugging every once in a while to experience real
life, which is something that is an issue today.”
Happy Birthday: Look for alternative ways to deal with personal finances, health and contracts. Know who and what you are up against and show no mercy when it comes to hanging on to what belongs to you. Your strength and courage will be remembered and respected. Personal gains will be yours if you remain calm and handle situations with diplomacy. Your numbers are 9, 13, 17, 27, 33, 39, 48.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Keep life simple. Now is not the time to overreact, especially when dealing with a partner or someone you are working alongside. Limit how much you let others know about you and your personal life to avoid interfer-ence. 4 stars
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You can make personal changes, but do so secretively. Avoiding interference will make it easier to accomplish what you set out to do. An opportunity to re-connect with someone from your past will prove to be enlightening. 2 stars
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): You’ll be tempted to make a change, but do so only if you are physically up for the challenge. Taking care of your health as well as your emotional state of mind will make a difference to how much you can achieve. 5 stars
CANCER (June 21-July 22): Don’t let temptation get to you. If some-one is unpredictable, keep your distance, or you may end up being the one who has to clean up an emo-tional mess. Know your strengths and your weaknesses before taking a risk. 3 stars
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): A financial change looks promising. Go over pertinent personal papers and adjust documents, contracts or your tax return to ensure you get what you deserve. A career change or promo-tion will boost your income and your standard of living. 3 stars
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Grav-itate toward people you find inter-esting and you’ll be able to expand your mind. Your perspective regard-ing how you live or what you pursue in the future will change, offering unique options that will inspire you to try something new. 3 stars
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Strive to be insightful. Don’t take anything or anyone for granted or allow others to take advantage of you. Set ground rules and be willing to negotiate and compromise when necessary. Focus on better health and less stress. 3 stars
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Offer something unique to someone special. A better understanding of the direc-tion you plan to take in life will help you build a better relationship with someone who matters to you. Be will-ing to step up and make a vow. 5 stars
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Don’t make decisions based on emo-tions. You can’t count on outsiders to give you good advice. If someone tries to meddle in your affairs, walk away. Take your time, use your intel-ligence and make a move only when you are ready. 2 stars
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Your emotions will fluctuate if you take part in an event that will bring you in contact with people from your past. Proceed with caution and re-frain from letting temptation lead to an impulsive act that you will live to regret. 3 stars
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): You’ll find interesting opportunities, but before you take a leap of faith, think about the expense and what’s entailed to reach your goal. Taking baby steps will help you make prog-ress and avoid unnecessary mishaps. Don’t overreact or overdo. 3 stars
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Don’t let anxiety lead to making an impul-sive move without giving enough credence to the consequences. Try-ing to help someone may be a kind gesture, but before you jeopardize your reputation, find out exactly what it will take on your part. 3 stars
Horoscopes Eugenia Last
DIVERSIONS Page 9aPril 11, 2018
©2018 By Eugenia Last distributed by Universal Uclick
Pearls Before Swine Stephan Pastis
Non Sequitur Wiley
Lio Mark Tatulli
Over The Hedge T. Lewis and M. Fry
Yesterday’s
Solution
ACROSS
1 Border
5 Cafeteria item
9 “Proto” suffix
14 Apollo launcher
15 Healthy-looking
16 Pineapple place
17 Being protective of
20 Punter’s moneymaker
21 Populous continent
22 Approach abruptly
23 Construct
25 Tighten up a lawn
27 Valentine trim
30 Mag publisher’s goal
35 General vicinity
38 Voice in a quartet
40 Chevy truck name
41 Shipping specialist
44 Intergalactic traveler
45 Type of sword
46 Bruce and Stan
47 Adapts for a new audience
49 Lacking rain
51 Words with “date”
53 Behavior principle
57 Schwarzenegger film
61 Prejudice
64 Eventful period
65 Butcher offerings
68 Abhorred
69 Off the coast
70 “Enterprise” trip
71 Fails to cite
72 Santa in a mall, e.g.
73 Finds sum thing
DOWN
1 Right or obtuse thing
2 Jack on “24”
3 Accepted practice
4 Seasoned sailor
5 That go-with
6 Indian princess
7 Pond growth
8 Vote or cheer
9 First warm blanket?
10 Like the church flock
11 A.D.’s A
12 Unwanted lip
13 Leather on a diamond
18 Statistician’s need
19 Old World plum type
24 Attacked like a hawk
26 Some small aircraft
28 Common passer
29 Like child one of five
31 Bald baby
32 Child-on-a-ride cry
33 The finest rating
34 Tennis do-overs
35 Way out there
36 It’s acted out
37 Three-voweled lake
39 Service award
42 Cordial flavorings
43 “___ whiz!”
48 AK, once
50 Relaxation’s partner
52 Handle irresponsibly
54 “So I ___!”
55 Put out, angrily
56 Whiskey containers
57 Returned sound
58 Paper purchase unit
59 Prefix with “trust”
60 Editor’s decision
62 Thing on a to-do list
63 “... and make it fast!”
66 Common pet
67 “In around then” inits.
Yesterday’s Solution
Universal Crossword
Page 10 aPril 11, 2018
Rutgers will hold final practice of spring on Thursday before Saturday’s game
PRACTICES
CONTINUED FROM BACK
Wide receivers coach Lester Erb is making the transition to coaching the receivers this season after coaching the running back unit last year. YOUTUBE
Making that transition so easy for Erb are talents such as sophomore Bo Melton and red-shirt freshman Shameen Jones at his disposal.
Jones redshirted last year but has impressed so far during the spring and Melton saw some ac-tion as a true freshman and showed his d e e p - t h r e a t ability — a con-tinuing trend in practices.
“The thing about Bo is that he’s play-ing with con-fidence right now,” Erb said. “When you play with c o n f i d e n c e , you can just go out and play instead of think-ing all of the time. He’s really stepped up his game here in the spring and we just have to keep moving him forward to make sure he’s keeping on himself to get better every day and he’s do-ing that.”
Last year, Melton caught four passes for 83 yards, but the Mays Landing native played in all 12 games and tallied more than half of his total yardage on the sea-
son on one catch, his first ever catch, for 48 yards against Mor-gan State.
The 5-foot-11 inch, 185-pound-er fits the bill as Grant’s replace-ment. Grant was the same height and actually weighed 15 pounds less than Melton.
But it’s not about just replac-ing Grant, he said. If the Knights
want to accom-plish what they are trying to a c c o m p l i s h , it’s about add-ing depth to the position — something Melton already sees happening.
“Last year, we were hurt and didn’t have much depth. We had Janarion and a lot of others
hurt, so we were going through a lot of injuries,” Melton said. “This year, we have depth. People are working hard and getting better, and once people are working hard as a group, it looks good.”
On the defensive side of the ball, first-year cornerbacks coach and pass game coordina-tor Cory Robinson, who spent the previous year at Temple, is excited in the team and the
“I’ve played a lot of football, and now that I’m
older I have guys under me now that look up
to me. I have to lead by example 24/7.”
ISAIAH WHARTONSenior Cornerback
tools he has at cornerback.Those tools include players
such as senior Isaiah Wharton and junior Damon Hayes.
“It’s been a pleasure this spring to work with the corners. It’s a really talented group,” Robinson said. “Looking at that group as an outsider, I really saw those guys do some good things and the coaches have
done a great job developing them and recruiting. I joked to people that my job was to come in and not mess anything up, since it was already pretty good. So I’m just trying to enhance, trying to help these guys take it to the next level.”
And with the help of the vet-erans like Wharton and Hayes spearheading the group, taking it
to the next level shouldn’t prove too difficult.
“I’ve played a lot of football, and now that I’m older I have guys un-der me now that look up to me. I have to lead by example 24/7,” Wharton said.
For updates on the Rutgers foot-ball team, follow @TargumSports on Twitter.
April 11, 2018 pAge 11
Knights can get within 1 win of last year’s total with more than 20 games left
GAME
CONTINUED FROM BACK
Junior catcher Nick Matera had five RBI’s and 2 home runs, junior third baseman Carmen Sclafani had three hits and 3 runs, sophomore second base-man Kevin Welsh scored 4 runs and senior pitcher John O’Reil-ly got the win on the mound. All four players are still on the Banks, and they’re all still mak-ing an impact.
Matera for example had five hits, 2 home runs and six RBI’s in this past weekend’s series against La Salle. He outlined what he and the rest of the team need to do in order to replicate that success today.
“We’ll try to jump on them early and score some runs,” he said. “Defense will do the job and so will pitching, and we’ll put pressure on them right from the get-go.”
The Knights have struggled in midweek games this season, as they are currently 2-2 in games on Tuesday or Wednesday.
While the team has got-ten long, qual-ity starts from O’Reilly and freshman Harry Rut-kowski during most weekends, the starting pitching during the week hasn’t been that durable.
In the team’s four midweek games, the starting pitcher has pitched more than four innings once, and no starter has pitched more than five innings. Two of the games saw the starter go for two and 2.1 innings.
Lafayette had an 8-44 record last season and opened up its 2018 campaign by losing 4 of its first 5 games. The team stabilized after that, but is now on a similar path that it was on near the start of the season, having lost 6 of its last 7.
Still, Litterio knows not to take the Leopards lightly, es-pecially after Saturday’s game against another weak opponent in La Salle.
The Explorers had a worse record heading into that game than Lafayette does now, and yet won a 1-0 pitching battle. Both players and coaches gave credit to La Salle’s pitching for keeping them off-balance, but Litterio knows that adjustments must be made in order to avoid a repeat of that today.
“We got to go into the Fred Hill Complex and work on our hit-ting,” he said. “We got to work on outside fastballs and being able to drive them instead of taking them for strikes.”
Like Rutgers, the Leopards have three players batting over .300. Luke Robinson leads Lafayette with a .337 average, and John Marti and
Trey Durrah are not far be-hind, batting .330 and .306, respectively.
R o b i n s o n and Marti both have more hits than any Knight (34 and 35) with Rutgers’ leader, junior o u t f i e l d e r
Luke Bowerbank, with 33. Mar-ti also has more RBI’s than any Knight, his 22 narrowly edging out freshman left fielder Mike Nyizstor’s 21.
With more Big Ten games on the horizon after the non-confer-ence games, the team is ready to come out firing on all cylinders, especially on offense.
“We’re going to come out and swing the bats,” Litterio said. “Midweek games you got to put up some runs to win them.”
For updates on the Rutgers base-ball team, follow @TargumSports on Twitter.
“We’ll try to jump on them early and score
some runs.”
NICK MATERAJunior Catcher
Head coach Joe Litterio will lead Rutgers into a midweek game, something that seems to keep the Knights fresh for their series play. CASEY AMBROSIO / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER / MARCH 2018
GYMNASTICS LEVINE WILL NOT RETURN NEXT SEASON
Rutgers dismisses head coachROBERT SANCHEZ
SPORTS EDITOR
On Tuesday, the Rutgers Athlet-ic Department announced Rutgers gymnastics head coach Louis Levine will not be returning next year.
“Rutgers is deeply appreciative of coach Levine’s many years of dedicated service and commit-ment to the success of our stu-dent-athletes. After careful consid-eration, however, a decision was made to seek new leadership,” said athletic director Pat Hobbs, according to scarletknights.com.
A former member of the University of Michigan’s vault team, Levine took over the Scar-let Knight reigns after the 2011 season, replacing longtime head coach Chrystal Chollet-Norton, who retired after 25 seasons.
It was an uneven road under Levine’s seven years at the helm. During the first three seasons, Rutgers consistently improved, tallying scores of 193.850, 193.925 and 195.275 at the East-ern Atlantic Gymnastics League (EAGL) Championships.
In 2013, the Knights even set a new program record with their 195.975 performance on Senior Day. Their 194.740 Regional Qual-ifying Score (RQS) was also the best in program history.
But things started going south after Rutgers joined the Big Ten Conference in 2015. In his fourth year as head coach, Levine led Rut-gers to a last-place finish in the Big Ten Championships with a 193.125 total score — the team’s lowest total since the second week of the season.
In 2016, Levine and the Knights bounced back with four first-place finishes over the course of the season and a ninth-place finish at the Big Ten Championships with their 194.775 — a stark improve-ment from the season prior which earned Levine a two-year exten-sion through 2018.
A year later, Rutgers regressed a bit, coming in first place just once in a meet at the Rutgers Ath-letic Center (RAC). At the Big Ten Championships hosted inside the RAC, the Knights had the home-field advantage but squandered that golden opportunity, finishing in ninth for the second consecu-tive year totaling a 194.700.
Picking things up this year, Rut-gers had a nearly identical season as 2017, failing to reach a score of 195 or higher and finishing in first place one time, once again at the RAC.
The Knights fared no better at the Big Ten Championships, coming in ninth place for a third straight year with a subtly worse score than the year before of 194.400, seemingly reaching a plateau.
And although seniors Libby Groden and Makenzey Shank and freshman Belle Huang qual-ified individually for the NCAA Regionals hosted at Penn State this Saturday, it wasn’t enough for Levine to keep his job.
For now, assistant coach Anne Meade will take over as the interim head coach until Hobbs finds a replacement, a job search that will begin immediately and be national in size.
For updates on the Rutgers gym-nastics team, follow @TargumSports on Twitter.
Head coach Louis Levine will not return to Rutgers next season at the helm of the gymnastics team — it was announced on Tuesday afternoon. JEFFREY GOMEZ / FEBRUARY 2018
TWITTER: @TargumSports
WEBSITE: DailyTargum.com/section/sports
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We’re going to come out and swing the bats. Midweek games you got to put
up some runs to win them.”
— Baseball head coach Joe LitterioSPORTSWEDNESDAY, APRIL 11, 2018 ONLINE AT DAILYTARGUM.COMRUTGERS UNIVERSITY—NEW BRUNSWICK
EXTRA POINT KNIGHTS SCHEDULE
BASEBALL RUTGERS-LAFAYETTE, TODAY, 3:30 P.M.
FOOTBALL ROBINSON, ERB TAKE OVER NEW POSITIONS FOR RUTGERS
Fresh faces lead Knights in spring practices
RU set for midweek game with Lafayette
SEE PRACTICES ON PAGE 10
SEE GAME ON PAGE 11Junior right fielder Luke Bowerbank leads Rutgers in hits this season with 33. Bowerbank is hitting .334 this season, the second highest batting average on the team. CASEY AMBROSIO / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER / MARCH 2018
Sophomore wide receiver Bo Melton and the rest of the receiving unit have come out in spring practice with an attitude, understanding they will need to improve greatly if the team wants to succeed. DECLAN INTINDOLA / PHOTO EDITOR / NOVEMBER 2017
KIERAN MULLINS,sophomore attacker on the men’s lacrosse team, was named to the USILA Team of the Week on Tuesday. Mullins was recognized for his 8-goal performance on Sunday in No. 8 Rutgers’ 16-8 win over then-No. 18 Michigan.
SOFTBALL
at Michigan
Friday, 6 p.m.,Ann Arbor, Mich.
JORDAN FARBOWITZCORRESPONDENT
Prior to the Rutgers baseball team’s se-ries with La Salle this past weekend, it had only played the Explorers once. But now it gets to play a team that it has a lot more history with.
The Scarlet Knights (17-11, 4-2) host Lafayette (12-19, 2-7) this afternoon for the last of four straight non-confer-ence games. The two teams have quite a history, as they have played each other 168 times.
The storied rivalry goes back to the 1870s, and among the many players involved was current head coach Joe Litterio, who played for Rutgers in the early 1990s.
“We know them well and they know us well,” he said.
History has been on the Knights’ side in matchups with the Leopards, as they hold an 85-81-2 edge in the series and have won 33 of the last 34 matchups. Most recently, Rutgers defeated Lafayette 28-4 last year, setting a program record for most runs scored in a single game.
While some key playmakers from that historic blowout have since graduated, many familiar faces remain.
ROBERT SANCHEZSPORTS EDITOR
The Rutgers football team finished day 12 of spring practices on Tuesday and are now one step closer to the Scarlet-White game on Saturday.
More than three quarters of the way through, the Scarlet Knights have begun to hone in on the skill positions, especially the receiving core — one that will be without Janarion Grant who has since graduated.
But at the helm this year will be Lester Erb who is in his second year at Rutgers but his first at wide receiver. Erb is hoping he can bring the same energy and spark at the wide receiver position as he did last year with the running backs.
“I’ve coached receivers before,” he said, according to scarletknights.com. “The great thing about coaching the skill positions, especially at this level, is that the mentality is the same. The position is dif ferent, but you’re still coaching 18-22 year olds. You’re still going to hold them to the same standards regardless of what position you’re in. The transition has really been easy.”
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WOMEN’S TRACKAND FIELD
Tennessee Relays
Tomorrow, All Day,Knoxville, Tenn.
BASEBALL
vs. Lafayette
Today, 3:30 p.m.,Bainton Field
WOMEN’SLACROSSE
vs. Michigan
Tomorrow, 7 p.m.,Piscataway, N.J.
NBA SCORES