This Thursday, at the fifth annual TEDxVirginiaTech, 10 individuals will step onto the stage of the Moss Arts Center.

While these speakers will have the opportunity to revel in the spotlight, there will be many overlooked heroes backstage and in the audi-torium who, unknown to the audience, are carrying the event on their shoulders.

TEDx is a local, inde-pendent ver sion of Technology, Entertainment, Design (TED), a non-profit organization that allows individuals to propose “ideas worth spreading” by giving talks and presenta-tions. Organizations inter-ested in hosting their own TEDx events must apply for licenses, as there are various rules and stipulations that TED enforces.

In November 2012, Virginia Tech’s Center for

Instructional Development and Educational Research (CIDER) hosted the first TEDx event at the university. Danielle Lusk, the associate director for CIDER and chair of the TEDxVirginiaTech committee, explained the reasoning behind the center’s decision to implement the event.

“There are so many wonderful things going on around campus and so many people who are doing inter-esting things,” Lusk said.

“There really wasn’t a great venue for people … to share these wonderful things that they’re doing and (have) an audience to reach out (to).”

E a c h y e a r , TEDxVirginiaTech chooses a different theme around which to base the event — this year the theme is “Spark.”

The lineup of speakers “(fits) our theme ‘Spark’ in that they’ve sparked passion

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ctlifestylesWOMEN RUN MOSS ARTS“Women’s Work: Our Stories” until Nov. 17.

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VIRGINIA TECH FACES ACC CHALLENGEACC remains best conference in college basketball.

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COLLEGIATETIMESAn independent, student-run newspaper serving the Virginia Tech community since 1903

112th YEAR, ISSUE 194 November 10, 2016collegiatetimes.com

Montgomery

County: Blue

in a sea of red

TEDxVirginiaTech is more than speakers in a spotlight

If your Facebook feed on Wednesday was full of Hillary Clinton supporters bemoaning the state of the country and Donald Trump supporters celebrating, you already know the news.

The next president of the United States will be Donald Trump.

The New York Times currently tallies Trump with 279 electoral votes and Clinton with 218. Races in New Hampshire, Minnesota and Arizona remain too close to call. Clinton leads by a little over 500 votes in New Hampshire with 96 percent of precincts reporting.

However, Clinton has a slight lead in the popular vote. Currently, she has received 47.7 percent of the 118,469,039 votes cast, leading Trump by a fifth of a percentage point.

Hillary Clinton did win Virginia. With all but 11 of 2,560 precincts reporting, Clinton received 49.46 percent of the vote. Trump won 44.72 percent of the vote. Third-party candi-dates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein received 2.99 percent and 0.7 percent of the vote, respectively. Independent candidate Evan McMullin received 1.36 percent.

Montgomery County was the only county in southwest Virginia outside of the City of Roanoke that was won by Clinton. She received 46.52 percent of the vote compared to Trump’s 45.22 percent.

On campus, many voters voted for Clinton as well. Precinct E-3 in

As the first floor of Squires Student Center began to fill with students, the crowd parted to reveal a crisply cut, navy blue suit hugging a man with true political tenacity. He pulled back the chair at a table by Au Bon Pain, seemingly unaware of his status as the youngest member of the Blacksburg Town Council. Sometimes called the council’s resident millennial by other council members, he seems at home in his valuable role in the community.

In several interviews with the Collegiate Times, Michael Sutphin relayed a message to all people in the Blacksburg area: small town politics

can most certainly benefit from an approachable, culturally attuned, younger-generation official.

“I am just your typical 32-year-old gay elected official in southwest Virginia who’s trying to learn how to play the ukulele while going to rezoning hearings,” Sutphin said.

Raised with a mother who was a math- and science-teaching local political activist and a father who helped design nuclear submarines with defense contractors, Sutphin had the pedigree to become a Blacksburg Town Council member at age 27 with a continually renewing interest in state nonprofit organizations.

Despite the unwavering faith

that Sutphin put in academics at a young age, he faced high school social stigmas, namely for his sexual orientation after he came out to his best friend at 15 years old.

“There has been a lot of social change since then, but things weren’t quite the same in high school, and I lost a large group of my friends. Even though I did really well in high school academically, it was definitely a struggle socially being the only openly gay male in high school,” Sutphin said. “I was very glad when I came to college that I could find a community and sense of place here (at Virginia Tech). That’s how I overcame it.”

see ELECTION / page 4

see TEDX / page 3

Sevent e en mont hs ago, Donald Trump announced his bid for presidency. Today, he

has won it. It is with incredible apprehension and distress that we as a staff hope to bring voice to the concerns of our community. The feel ing on campus Wednesday morning was one of anxiety and disbelief, as this is a result that will profoundly shape our community and our nation in the following months.

Montgomery County has frequently voted Democrat in general elections including choosing Obama in 2008, Gov. McAullife in 2013 and Sen. Mark Warner in the 2014 midterms. This general election was no different. Montgomery County was an island of blue in a sea of red. And in this election overall, millennials overwhelmingly threw their support to Hillary Clinton, not only here in Virginia, but across the nation.

Understanding the gravity of Tuesday’s results, several depar tment advisors and professors throughout the university have reached out to students offering support and resources as we struggle to come together, to understand one another and to feel that we are valued.

Donald Trump is nothing if not unpredictable. It is perhaps this quality that is most trou-bling. He has ignited a following that gave voice to the frustration of middle-class Americans, but has conversely engulfed many Americans in fear. That fear stems from uncertainty about a man who has repeatedly shown a misunderstanding and dismissal of minorities, who has suggested that the court overrule the same-sex marriage prec-edent, that “Black Lives Matter” is a hate group and who attempted to normalize comments about sexual assault.

When Americans cast their

our views[editorial]

Positivity crucial in moving forward

ZACK WAJSGRAS / COLLEGIATE TIMES

Donald Trump speaks to an audience inside the Berglund Center in Roanoke during a campaign event where he spoke about the need to restore jobs to the coal mining industry in southwest Virginia, among other issues, Sept. 24, 2016.

It’s Trump’s AmericaHillary Clinton’s narrow win in Virginia was not enough to break Donald Trump’s rural firewall.

MATT JONESassistant news editor

Not your average Appalachian politician

MICHAELSUTPHIN see OFFICE / page 4

Virginia Tech graduate Michael Sutphin is redefi ning public service as a member of Blacksburg’s Town Council.

ALY DE ANGELUSnews staff writer

see EDITORIAL / page 2

The university’s fi fth annual speaker showcase relies on an army of producers and directors to put on an event nine months in the making.

HANNA KIRYLUKnews staff writer

KAILA NATHANIEL / COLLEGIATE TIMES

Pablo Tarazaga, assistant professor of mechanical

engineering, practices his TEDx talk, “It Takes a Smart

Village,” on the future of smart infrastructure, Nov. 4, 2016.

EXTRAPOINTTHE

@collegiatetimes

collegiatetimes.com/opinion

COURTESY OF JENNA PARKER

Sometimes, technology can feel like a relationship. You work hard to keep up with the latest changes in technology, and it evolves. When it comes to self-driving cars, the sacrifice can be even higher. You give in total trust to the top-notch driving assistant autopilot in your new Tesla Model S, but you would pay the price of being able to trust yourself behind the wheel.

This relationship is unhealthy. It offers conve-nience for a fee. If the fee was not as high as your well-being, then perhaps we would be more concerned about our privacy. The price is hard to swallow, but the stakes are high. Whether you like the cost or not, we are all already subject to it, we are in the era of being watched.

To live in 2016 means to cede our privacy one way or the other. For example, if you ever walk down the street in Orlando and see a Clear Channel banner, chances are you have already been recorded by the high-tech cameras behind the big banner, and your information is used for target advertising without you even recognizing it.

The cameras can commu-nicate with some cellphone networks and gain infor-mation not only about your preferences or data habits, but about your location.

The same idea of gath-ering as much information as possible elevates and applies to autonomous cars, namely vehicles like Uber’s autonomous fleet in Pittsburgh, Google’s self-driving car and Apple’s Project Titan. What is different, perhaps, is the way that cameras on futur-istic cars operate.

For autonomous cars to work, there will be an ocean of data f looding into cameras and sensors. The car will use an ultra-accurate GPS system that will help it keep track of its precise location, where it is going, and be able to keep track and log all kinds of data along the way — the streets, the patrons and even the riders. Apparently, we will have no idea if we are being tracked and targeted at all.

That bittersweet future is becoming reality, as Ford and Volvo already plan to mass produce fully auton-omous cars in the next five years. Raja Chatila, a robotics expert and former president of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, implied the tech-nology is like mobile closed-circuit television that will log every person it scans. “It’s another way to observe people and to know about their habits,” he said.

The price of conve-nience is surveillance. By appealing to the conve-nience of autonomous cars, tech companies can further control the average consumers. In other words,

these data may be fed to whatever tech giant powers are thirsty to grow their businesses.

Clear Channel, for example, ascertains this new kind of observing customers is a valuable asset to advertisers. It is also a huge potential market for sponsored content, just like the first five links of your Google search. But the autonomous system will take it to another level.

Let’s say you’re off to work. The first thing you will ever need is some coffee. The car suggests you drive to Peet’s Coffee. Then, as you drive through the neighborhood, it suggests you do your dry cleaning at Suds. The same sugges-tions are offered for your lunch, and your car might suggest a specific restaurant by studying your text messages. Your car seems to become your new soulmate. Sounds spotless and abso-lutely ideal, right? Well, not quite. The car takes you to Peet’s because it is spon-sored content, even though it might not be the closest coffee shop to your office. Same goes for Suds dry cleaning.

Aut onomous ca r s b e c o m e eve r yo n e’s vulnerable spot if we allow them too much control over our lives. The car will know where your home is, where you work, when to drop off your kid and at what location. If the database is hacked, chances are your data will be exposed to the world at everyone else’s fingertips. Although you have been told many times that your data is securely encrypted and will never be hacked, you can never know. A Duke University/CFO

Magazine Global Business Outlook Survey released in 2015 reports more than 80 percent of U.S. companies have been successfully hacked.

Privacy issues overlay, as driverless cars will not be able to function without a black box. Similar to its brother on planes, a black box in a car is initially used to assist police inves-tigation in the case of acci-dents. However, the box logs your entire itinerary, your talking, even your in-car activities via an inside camera. This alone makes each and every car a mobile mine for hackers and intruders.

One solution is to have an opt-out option. As suggested by experts, some car manufacturers might even make opt-in a requirement to use the service. Another solution is to code all input data to have the same output. That way, no individual is different from the rest, better known as differential privacy. Aaron Roth, a University of Pennsylvania computer science professor, has written in his book entitled “Algorithmic Foundation of Differential Privacy” that, “Differential privacy lets you gain insights from large datasets, but with a mathematical proof that no one can learn about a single individual.” The concept is promising, yet, we need time to verify its validity.

We all have to come down to this simple decision. Would you rather be watched or watch yourself behind the wheel?

There is a well-known stigma against students

taking a gap year, but recently the number of students who have chosen to take time off has increased. Because of this, the thought of a taking a gap year is beginning to sound more positive as the various opportunities available have expanded as well.

For those students who are unsure about what they want to pursue in college or have an interest in traveling and volun-teering, a gap year would be beneficial for them. In that year, they can learn what they are passionate about or what their interests are. They can gain new maturity to help guide them later in college or graduate education. It will also allow them to cut back on coursework and save a whole lot of money from tuition bills.

According to the Journal of Educational Psychology, taking time off may help students become more motivated to complete a degree when returning home.

M a l i a O b a m a’s announcement of taking a gap year before attending Ha r va rd Un iversit y caused a lot of media attention because of how unusual taking a gap year is viewed to be. However, according to the study abroad organizat ion CIEE, Harvard University has observed a 33 percent increase in its number of incoming students taking a gap year.

Gap yea rs of fer students experience they will value and appreciate. Taking time off leads to increased maturity, self-awareness and global awareness. If a student is offered the luxury to take a gap year, they should take that chance.

Typically, in gap years students help others through volunteering or working, but it is also a time to improve oneself by learning new skills and seeking out valuable

experiences. Even if a student already knows what he or she want to pursue in college, a gap year can allow them to focus on that certain interest and get involved in that area as a resume builder.

A c c o r d i n g t o the Amer ican Gap Association, universities have listed that students who have taken gap years have higher GPAs, more engagement in campus activities and are more likely to graduate within four years. This source also listed that 60 percent of graduates who have taken a gap year said that their experience set them on their current career paths or confirmed their choices of majors/careers.

Traveling to another country offers a whole new cultura l expe-rience. Obtaining a job or volunteer position will allow one to gain valuable skills such as learning new languages, interacting with different people and understanding a new lifestyle away from the typical school schedule.

Life moves by so fast; there is never enough time to think and breathe. In a year of taking a break, one can develop life skills, understand global issues, learn new ways to communicate with others and deal with facing challenges.

We have been taught through our years in education to follow a certain set of rules, and it has been uncommon for young people to think for themselves and decide independently what they want. Time in school goes by so fast that there is never enough time to figure out alter-native options that are not considered the norm, and students should disregard the stigma and take control of how they spend their time.

ballots Tuesday, voting for Donald Trump came with a certain amount of risk. Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump failed to stand up for marginalized groups, and a vote for him would jeop-ardize their perception of acceptance and security.

In the past months, we have had a choice. We could either fight tooth and nail every day for decency, mindfulness and understanding on both sides, or we could be dismissive, mocking or unengaged. Too many of us chose the latter, but so many of us did not. As we move forward in the following months, we have to take a closer look at the way that we speak to and about others, the way we think about them and the way we generalize them.

We are not in this situ-ation because all 47 percent of Americans who voted for Trump are racist,

sexist or anti-LGBT, but rather because some of these people felt unrepre-sented or misunderstood, and Donald Trump was the only one who seemed to listen. For some, it was either out of anger, fear or desperation that these Americans took the risk for a man with such clear bias, a decision that has already caused so much fear and confusion, and further deepened the political schism between us.

We may not be able to control his movement for the next four years, but we can control our own. We can be cham-pions of kindness. We can volunteer for causes, not just candidates, that enthuse us. We can stand up for what’s right and what’s fair every single day, and we must, if we are going to keep the ideals of this country alive.

Th is nat ion was founded on unalienable rights. In 1776, it was

not understood that those rights applied to all people, regardless of gender, race, religion or political ideology. Today we do, but we aren’t all showing it. Our right to speak out and be heard does not depend on another person’s valuation of our beliefs. Disagreeing with Donald Trump’s supporters should be a calling to reach out to them, to understand them. Instead, many have chosen to belittle them. Addit iona l ly, Tr ump supporters failed to give weight to Donald Trump’s comments on race, women or Muslims, despite the tangible fear and unease that those comments have caused among those groups. This lack of understanding from both sides is pulling us away from uniting as a people under our government.

This entire election season has been filled with the public entertaining a false dichotomy on nearly

every single issue. We were either Black Lives Matter or “Blue Lives Matter.” We were either for guns or mocking those who were. We either endorsed the Affordable Care Act or attacked it.

From immigration to the economy, the public picked a side and believed that once the lines were laid out, whoever laid on the other side wasn’t worth a damn. If we are to move together, forward, as a country, then we must break this ideology. We must see both sides of each issue and come to the center. We can’t just expect to be given every-thing we want; we have to bargain and be willing to concede. Going forward, we must ask ourselves, do we care more about defending our own beliefs or seeing the world we live in with a relentless pursuit of clarity and fairness?

Smart technology comes at a cost

Stigma around taking a gap year is shortsighted

column

column

NGUYEN PHAN• regular columnist

• junior/multimedia journalism

COLLEGIATE TIMES EDITORIAL STAFF

AINY AKHTAR• regular columnist

• freshman/neuroscience

opinionPAGE 2 November 10, 2016 editor@collegiatetimes.comcollegiatetimes.com

EDITORIAL: Attitudes, feelings help put Tuesday’s results in contextfrom page 1

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There is a stigma associated with taking a

gap year that overlooks the benefi ts of gaining

valuable and unique experiences during time off.

“The price of

convenience is

surveillance.

By appealing to

convenience,

companies

can further

control average

consumers.”

In order for technology to continue to advance, we must sacrifi ce our privacy. As we move

forward, we must allow ourselves to always be watched in order to inform technologies.

In order to help students track down their lost items, the Student Engagement and Campus Life (SECL) at Virginia Tech introduced Crowdfind, a crowdsourced lost-and-found system. The new system has been active since the beginning of the fall 2016 semester.

Crowdfind, originally known as Crowdfynd, was founded in 2012. The software allows its clients to post all lost-and-found items to a website, and then gives users the ability to search for their items online. Through the process, users can look at images and see if they can find a match with their particular item. Once they find their lost item, they can put a claim on it.

In order to prevent false claims, users are required to provide more descriptive information about the items that they are claiming.

According to Corey Benjamin, vice president for the strategic partnerships department at Crowdfind, users are required to create an

account in order to claim their items. The account can be used to track the user’s claim history and to get in touch with the user.

“We do things like track IP addresses. We make sure that if somebody has multiple claims, that there is an under-standing as to why. So maybe they are just frantic when they say all of these, all 10 of these iPhones are mine because they don’t know which one really is, or maybe they are trying to shop,” Benjamin said. “If they are trying to shop, then we escalate that to a one-on-one phone call with the indi-vidual … We’ve only had one instance of shopping, and that individual was found out very quickly.”

According to Benjamin, Crowfind’s client base ranges from schools, tourist attrac-tions, music festivals and professional sports stadiums to government organizations like some police departments. Crowdfind also works with universities such as Virginia Tech, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Old Dominion University and the College of William and Mary.

“What we do is we take the lost-and-found process, and we make it on demand and mobile first, that you don’t have to worry about any broken processes,” Benjamin said. “Everything that you do right now, how you live your life on your phone — we think that lost and found should fit very cleanly into that process, and we’ve done that with our clients.”

“You can check here, and there is a chance that it will show up here.”

Virginia Tech started working with Crowdfind in February 2016. The system was officially activated in July. According to Spencer Stidd, assistant director of opera-tions at SECL, SECL was having a hard time managing lost-and-found items before it started working with Crowdfind. Virginia Tech discovered Crowdfind through the Association of College Unions International (ACUI), which partners with different companies to try to improve college communities.

“Essentially it allows students access to the lost and found so that they can quickly

and easily identify their lost items. Get online, they can just go on to the campus’ website; search through the lost and found items themselves; identify their lost item, which immediately releases anxiety, ‘cause when people lose items, especially, you know, some-thing like maybe a computer or a phone or a wallet. Those are really important items. They (have) a lot of personal infor-mation on them,” said Sean Sutton, account manager for Virginia Tech at Crowdfind.

According to Benjamin, Virginia Tech is one of the first universities to partner with them. Benjamin also said that Virginia Tech is running the software without SECL’s help.

Stidd said that since Virginia Tech is a state agency, it has to follow specific rules on how to handle lost items.

“When an item comes into our lost and found, it automat-ically kind of becomes state property, and we are obligated to hold those items for 120 days if nobody claims them,” Stidd said. “So if nobody claims them, then we send them to the Virginia Tech surplus ware-house. But there are some items that we end up donating, so like clothing items, bags, water bottles.”

Stidd believed that the SECL and Crowdfind system need more attention on campus in order to help more students and faculty members here at Tech.

“We believe it’s a good service. It’s getting some good traction for us right now, but I don’t know if everybody is fully aware of it yet,” Stidd said. “So from time to time, like if you lose something like else around campus. You can check here, and there is a chance that it will show up here.”

A cold front moved through our area on Wednesday

night, bringing with it a 20 percent chance of rain.

The remainder of the week will feel like fall, with the cold front cooling off the high for Thursday and keeping it in the upper 50s with sunny skies.

On Thursday, the low will drop into the mid-30s, so break out the winter jackets as you head out. A high-pressure system moves into the area over-night Thursday bringing gusty winds out of the northwest for Friday. These cooler winds from the northwest will keep the clouds out of our area and the high temperature in the lower 60s with colder wind chills.

On Friday night, we will see the lows dip down into the mid-30s as the Hokies prepare for their home

football game on Saturday.As the cooler weather

settles in Saturday, we will have a high temperature in the lower 50s with sunny skies. Later in the day on Saturday, our tempera-tures will be in the upper 40s with sunny skies for kick-off against Georgia Tech.

We will see the temper-ature gradually cool throughout the game, with temperatures expected in the upper 30s for your journey home after the game. Our lows will drop into the upper 20s on Saturday night, so plan on bringing your heavy jackets if you plan to be outside after the game.

As we move into Sunday, we will see the tempera-tures warm back into the upper 50s with sunny skies and a low in the mid-30s.

F o l l o w @HOK I EwxWatch on Twitter for any updates!

November 10, 2016 PAGE 3editor@collegiatetimes.com collegiatetimes.com

TEDX: Undergraduate tasked with set design opts for electric theme

New online lost-and-found system hopes to be the last place you look

Cultural Centers promote pipeline awareness, action

In recent weeks, protests aimed at stopping the construction of the 1,170-mile Dakota Access Pipeline have swelled. Hundreds of demon-strators have been arrested, and the Oceti Sakowin Camp in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, has drawn thousands more protesters, including Native Americans, environmental activists and celebrities.

On Monday, Nov. 7, Virginia Tech’s Intercultural Engagement Center hosted a Meeting of the Minds to discuss this issue and the ways students can learn more or try to get involved.

“The intent for the Meeting of the Minds is to be an open discussion where students and faculty can talk about intersec-tional, timely and culturally relevant topics,” said Kristen Houston, assistant director for the Multicultural Center (MCC).

“This is the second in a new series of Meeting of the Minds on Mondays in the MCC. The first topic we discussed last month was exploring queer and trans identities through art. At the next Meeting of the Minds on Dec. 5, we’re going to be talking about cultural appropriation,” Huston said. “The Dakota Access Pipeline is actually a topic we picked for this series about three months ago, but obviously a lot has transitioned in the past couple months, so I think we’re going to have a really fruitful, poten-tially emotional conversation.”

The pipeline is being protested because members of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe see the pipeline as both an envi-ronmental and cultural threat to its homeland. The tribe says an oil spill would perma-nently contaminate the reser-vation’s water supply and that construction of the pipeline would destroy sacred sites where many of its ancestors are

buried.A. M. Stapp, a fourth-year

Ph.D. student in sociology and American Indian studies, acted as one of the moderators for this week’s Meeting of the Minds.

“It’s important that we situate this issue within a historical context because obviously this country is what we would call a settler-colonial society. Indigenous peoples are native to this land and settlers came here and introduced a different way of being,” Stapp said. “A pipeline that’s running through indig-enous reservations is repre-sentative of a western way of thinking and being, whereas we are destructive to the envi-ronment, whereby we consume the environment for industrial society and to sustain our way of being, and in the process, we push indigenous people out of the way. This has been going on for 500 years.”

One point that was stressed throughout the discussion was the need for active involvement by the Virginia Tech community. Kathleen Martin, a member of United Students Against Sweatshops, spoke about ways in which her orga-nization hopes to bring about change.

“We made a banner that we’re encouraging people to sign with messages for the protesters. We’re also taking donations and sending these things to them as a way to show our support and solidarity,” Martin said. “With issues like this, you can help in big ways like by standing on the front line, but it’s also important to help in little ways. That’s what we’re trying to do now.”

For more information about Meeting of the Minds events, visit the Intercultural Engagement Center’s website at http://www.iec.vt.edu.

towards advocacy (about) different subjects,” Lusk said.

W h i l e t h e TEDxVirginiaTech committee aims to share the ideas and discoveries of Virginia Tech community members, it is not an easy event to plan.

“People might be surprised at the amount of work that goes into the event,” Lusk said. “There are certainly the big picture items, but there are also a lot of minor details.”

Preparations for this year’s TEDx began in mid-February, when the committee met and reviewed nominations for speakers. Anyone in the Virginia Tech community can nominate him or herself or be nominated by somebody else — the potential speaker does not have to be a student or employee of the university.

This year, the lineup of speakers consists of one community member, two students, two alumni, and five faculty and staff members.

“(The speakers) are all from very diverse backgrounds and have very different experi-ences and great stories to share and great research that they are doing,” Lusk said.

Since the 10 speakers have

been chosen, members of the TEDxVirginiaTech committee have been working with them in the months leading up to this week.

“The speakers come to several rehearsals, and we hear them give their talks and help guide them,” said Steven Mackay, the director of communications for the College of Science and a member of the TEDx committee.

Mackay has focused much of his time on helping the speakers develop their presentations, in addition to managing publicity for the event. He gives feedback to the speakers, offering advice about the organization and structure of their presenta-tions, their word choice and placement of pauses, and the audio and visual effects they choose to include.

“All of the decisions are theirs, but (the committee) helps guide them,” Mackay said.

While the committee invests a significant amount of time in assisting the speakers, it also accounts for the stage design.

This year, Professor of Scenic and Properties Design Randy Ward asked Stefnie Cerny to undertake the role of set designer for the

TEDxVirginiaTech event. Cerny is a junior studying studio art and theatre arts design who cites Ward as one of her mentors. She is the only undergraduate student working on the TEDx event preparations.

“I am in charge of the overall look of the event — everything besides lights,” Cerny said.

After being told the theme of the event, the first thing Cerny thought of was the “spark” of a brain neuron. She sketched various ideas and layouts before coming to a final decision on the design.

“I found this really cool mesh fabric that looks like the different pathways in the brain,” Cerny said.

In addition to the fabric, Cerny’s design includes 20 Edison lightbulbs and several lead fishing weights which will hang from the rafters and be wrapped in tinfoil. Her vision is for these objects to emit twin-kling sparks one after another that will fill the space behind the speakers as they present their talks.

“The most important aspect (of behind the scenes prepa-ration) is creating an envi-ronment that is as interesting as the people who will be talking,” Cerny said.

To manifest her ideas into reality, Cerny had to catalog the materials she needed so the committee could order them online. She cut the mesh fabric and the wood for the battens that will hold it up and developed a ground plan with measurements for the workers at the Moss Arts Center to follow. These workers will spend the days leading up to TEDx preparing the audi-torium and setting into motion the plans that Cerny and the rest of the committee have been developing over the past few months.

“(The Moss Arts Center goes) out of (its) way to make sure this event goes above and

beyond our expectations,” Lusk said.

In addition to helping the speakers prepare and designing the stage picture, there are a variety of other tasks that the TEDxVirginiaTech committee members must accomplish before their event can take place. They must design programs, create a script for the host, organize performance groups and publicize the event, among other responsibilities.

And of course, things will be no less eventful during the event on Thursday. While the speakers take turns presenting their talks, the backstage area will be a hub of activity. Two speakers in waiting will be receiving their micro-phones, multiple people will be working various computers, camera crews will be in the auditorium filming the event, production hands will be on standby should a piece of equipment fail to operate — the list goes on.

“There’s a lot of people backstage that folks may not know are back there,” Lusk said.

Despite the extensive work involved to put these speakers on stage, Mackay believes that it will all be worth it in the end.

“These are people who are doing amazing things for not just Virginia Tech, but also for the world … and to hear their stories,” Mackay said. “It gives me hope for humanity.”

TEDxVirginiaTech’s “Spark” event will take place at the Moss Arts Center on Thursday, Nov. 10 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Doors will open at 5:30 p.m. Tickets cost $10 for students and $20 for the general public. They are available for purchase at tedxvirginiatech.com and, depending on avail-ability, can be purchased at the box office prior to the event.

Crowdfi nd, a newly introduced electronically crowdsourced lost-and-found system, allows users

to view a digital catalog of lost items. The system also tracks past claims to prevent fraud.

@CollegiateTimes

MIKE LIUnews staff writer

IZZY ROSSInews staff writer

from page 1

@CollegiateTimes

@hanna_kiryluk

ANNA FRIESEN / COLLEGIATE TIMES

Each item lost in Squires is logged into Crowdfi nd, a website that organizes the lost items to make fi nding them easier.

The Intercultural Engagement Center held a

meeting Monday to discuss the Dakota Access

Pipeline and the controversy surrounding it.

IZZY ROSSI / COLLEGIATE TIMES

At Meeting of the Minds event in the Squires Intercultural Engagement Center, students discuss ways they can raise awareness for the Dakota Access Pipeline protests, Nov. 7, 2016.

JESSICA SUGGS• weather correspondent

• @HOKIEwxWATCH

KAILA NATHANIEL / COLLEGIATE TIMES

Mike Bowers, assistant professor of neuroscience, practices his TEDx talk, “What Can The Rat Tell Us About Language and Communication Disorders?”

PAGE 4 November 10, 2016 editor@collegiatetimes.comcollegiatetimes.com

study break

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Y G Y S T G A R W N F Y E I L P G A

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U V A E K K O I E E X O O L K B W N

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E C X V N I E M Q G J S R H E M V O

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Opening Soon!

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Opening November 17

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(across from Corning)

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OFFICE: Sutphin’s public service commitment dates to high school

Although high school presented challenges, Sutphin saw some first hints of greatness as he ventured into the world of politics on his mother’s coattails. Lobbying in the Virginia General Assembly was very rewarding for Sutphin’s mother and showed Sutphin an entirely new world accessible to him.

“She basically was a disgruntled patient (who) changed the laws about how insurance companies treat patients,” Sutphin said. His mother took part in the campaign to create the Patient’s Bill of Rights in Virginia. “She took me with her when I had a day off of school and I would see her speaking before state senate subcommittee meetings or talking with legislators, so I learned that politicians weren’t just people that you saw on TV.”

Winded by the process of college applications, Sutphin soon found a school that would allow him to explore the world of computer science in addition to his passion for insti-tuting local change — Virginia Tech. It was not until halfway through his course of study that journalism demanded his attention and completely revo-lutionized his career, leading to his current job as the public relations coordinator for Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine.

Many people would be content with one job that contests to their desired profession, but for Sutphin the task was not enough to settle his overactive ambition. His resume of local involvement includes years of LGBT advocacy on campus and covering the local government

beat for the Collegiate Times.Through perseverance,

Sutphin gained the public’s support for a job usually held by someone much beyond his years — membership on Blacksburg’s Town Council.

“I lost originally when I ran in 2009. There were 10 people running, and it was right after a Wal-mart controversy. What I really learned is not only that there is a kind of unknown element, but I also learned to be more strategic with how I was canvassing and reaching out to people,” Sutphin said, attributing the high number of candidates to a proposal to build a Walmart in Blacksburg that generated widespread backlash. “In the election that I won in 2011, I went specifi-cally to neighborhoods that had a high voter turnout and that I had performed well in the previous election.”

For the next few years, Sutphin learned to mitigate concerns of his fellow neighbors, approving requests for construction when needed and promoting statewide movements. But no training would be able to prepare him for the inevitable occasional small blunders to be made during town meetings, proving that politicians are susceptible to human error too.

“When we were having a meeting about The Retreat (at Blacksburg), there was a motion that had been made that I didn’t agree with, and I started speaking. I was like, ‘Well, I can’t vote for that because that’s a bad idea,’ and that counted as a second on the motion,” Sutphin said, referring to a council meeting last year to discuss allowing the construction of the new complex. “Apparently, there is a rule in Robert’s Rules of Order that if you start talking

that counts as the second, and no one had ever told me this rule before.”

Beyond the world of the Town Council, Sutphin’s days begin with driving a perpetually broken Nissan Versa to work and ends some-where between his personal display of modernized IKEA furniture and the traditional loot you would assume his college roommate might have gathered thrifting. Relaxing in the comfort of his own home, Sutphin says he often pulls out his ukulele and plays the classic tune of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” a personal favorite. Other pop culture favorites include a leisurely read of Toni Morrison’s “Jazz” and re-watching “Edward Scissorhands,” which he refers to as a “dark fairytale.”

If Sutphin cannot be found running back and forth from meetings, staked out at his three-bedroom humble abode or working at the veterinary school, then you may find him on social media. In the months leading up to the election, he has been discussing his values as a Democrat and supporter of Hillary Clinton.

Shortly after electoral votes were finalized on Wednesday morning, Sutphin tweeted “This is truly awful,” accom-panied with a link to the Associated Press website that announced Donald Trump’s presidential victory. As a core believer in Hillary Clinton from the start, Sutphin said that the FBI investigation had no impact on his loyalty to her and neither did the lack of popular opponents in this year’s debates.

“The Town Council is nonpartisan — we don’t run in a primary with a party or anything like that, but I’m happy to say I am a Democrat,”

Sutphin said. “I am disap-pointed and surprised by the results of the election. I closely follow polls and FiveThirtyEight.com and was astounded by the outcome.”

In the face of national confusion, Sutphin hopes to see the people of Blacksburg and Virginia Tech seek solace in their friends, family members and others around them.

“Elections have a tendency to magnify differences between candidates, but I am hoping that there is a way for us to move forward,” Sutphin said. “Anytime you lose an election you need to have a conversation about what went wrong and why you lost. I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about this in the months and years to come.”

For Sutphin, the main concern of the election’s outcome is the people of Blacksburg, Virginia.

“The Town of Blacksburg is affected by federal regulation and receives federal money in certain areas, such as transpor-tation,” Sutphin said. “During his campaign, Donald Trump was fairly vague on policy details, so it’s too early to tell what sort of impact his admin-istration will have on local government.

“Regardless of who sits in the Oval Office, the Town of Blacksburg will continue to be an open and welcoming place where people care about their community and support one another no matter who they are, who they love or where they came from.”

ELECTIONS: Griffi th retains Virginia’s ninth district seat

Montgomery County, which is one of the polling locat ions located in Squires Student Center and the precinct for some on- ca mpus s t udent s, voted solidly for Clinton. Out of 1,766 votes cast, 61.21 percent selected the Democratic candidate on the ballot. Trump received 28.82 percent in the precinct, and Johnson received 7.3 percent. Four teen people cast ballots for Stein, and 18 were cast for McMullin.

However, the presi-dential race was not the only thing on the ballot in Montgomery County. Republ ica n Morga n Griffith handily defeated Democrat Derek Kitts and Independent Janice Boyd for the ninth district seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Griffith received 68.59 percent of

the vote, with Kitts and Boyd receiving only 28.31 and 2.92 percent of the vote, respectively.

Two amendments to the constitution of Virginia were also on the ballot. The first amendment, which would have made Virginia a r ight-to-work state according to its consti-tution, was defeated with 53.62 percent of voters voting against it. The second amendment, which involved tax exemptions for the surviving spouses of first responders killed in the line of duty, won with 79.59 percent of the vote.

Full Virginia results can be found from the Virginia Department of elections at results.elections.virginia.gov/vaelections/2016%20November%20General/Site/Presidential.html.

from page 1

@jones_mattryan

ILLUSTRATION BY ANDREA PAPPAS

from page 1

@CollegiateTimes

November 10, 2016 PAGE 5editor@collegiatetimes.com collegiatetimes.com

Women dominate Moss Arts Center this November

Beginning on Oct. 21 and continuing until Nov. 17, the Moss Arts Center has been presenting a series of work dedicated to exploring female identity. The series “Women’s Work: Our Stories” is based off of exhibitions created by woman artists.

According to the Moss Arts Center website, the series is a collection of “informal talks, performances, and work-shops that share and explore conceptions of the many roles of women and their bodies in personal and professional life.”

The last two events will be held in Moss itself. The first performance and workshop will be hosted by Claire Constantikes on Nov. 5. The dance artist from Blacksburg titles her event, “Hands, Knees, Elbow Crease.” The performance will take place on the stairs of the Grand Lobby and will be held at 6 p.m free of charge.

The second event, taking place on Nov. 17, will be hosted by interactive artist, writer and speaker Colleen Phelon Hall. She is a recipient of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) Muse Award. Her interactive talk, “The Sandwich Generation,” will focus on the role of “care-giver” in today’s society, bringing to light the chal-lenges women face raising children.

According to the Moss Arts Center website, “Her 2013 TEDxRVA talk, ‘The Permission Slip,’ outlines her call for women to actively

participate in self-care through the ritual writing of permission slips. Hall hopes to bring women to the table of creation by gathering their input and making artwork that reflects their feedback.”

Hall’s interactive talk will take place in the Moss Arts Center at 4:30 p.m. free of charge, and both future events are available for everyone to attend.

Although the events as a part of this series will end on Nov. 17, the artwork included in this exhibit will be on display until Nov. 28 and Dec. 10 after the end of the series.

In the Francis T. Eck Exhibition Corridor is a series of work created by Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, which

is inspired by the black female body and colonial images of West African women. This exhibit will no longer be available after Nov. 28.

Artist Amy Cutler’s work is on display in the Miles C. Horton Jr. Gallery. Her work revolves around “the many absurdities and chal-lenges that often charac-terize women’s lives — their prescribed roles, their fears and their dreams — while also presenting a fictional utopia of strong and self-reliant women,” according to the Moss Arts Center website. Her exhibit will no longer be available after Dec. 10.

Lynn Hershman Leeson will also be exhibiting her work in the Ruth C. Horton

Gallery. Though known for previously focusing on gender identity in her work, Leeson’s new pieces focus on the human and cyber world rela-tionship. This will be closed after Dec. 10 as well.

Earlier events that took place last month, such as “Women’s Work: Our Stories,” included a talk put on by Christine Labuski, an assistant professor for Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. She is also director of Gender, Bodies and Technology (GBT), “an inter-disciplinary initiative origi-nating with the Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) Program at VT” as stated on the Facebook page.

Her talk pertained to GBT’s plan and artist Lynn Hershman Leeson’s work.

In addition to Labuski’s talk was a dance performance put on by dance artist Rachel Rugh, titled “Duet for Woman and Breast Pump.” Rugh conducted the performance as a contribution to the rela-tionship between a nursing mother and her breast pump. In other words, the dance was performed all while she was connected to a breast pump herself.

Exhibit ions Program Manager Meggin Hicklin explained that she organized the series in hopes of opening the issues of women’s identity as dialogue to the public. She said the artwork was used

“as a starting point” for the program.

“(There is) more to viewing and experiencing art than looking at it,” Hicklin said.

The two most recent events occurred on Nov. 5. Artist and creative instructor Alyssa Holland Short hosted a community art-making event revolving around the image of a mermaid tail. The event encouraged creativity among parents and their younger children, accompanied by a reading led by Short.

She read her poem “A Landlocked Mermaid’s Tail” and explained that the inspi-ration came from giving birth to her daughter, who is now one-year old. Short described the mermaid tail as being a “passport into her creative life.”

The other event on Nov. 5 was a talk put on by Phyllis Newbill, Associate for Outreach and Engagement at the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology. Her discussion pertained to women’s identity regarding wardrobe, touching on the transition of “maternity clothes to uniform to T-shirts.”

The specifics of each event can be found on the VT calendar page. Everything offered through the Moss Arts Center for the “Women’s Work: Our Stories” is free of admission. Visit the exhibi-tions before they are moved and no longer available to the public.

GRETCHEN KERNBACHlifestyles staff writer

JUN YU / COLLEGIATE TIMES

Seduction, Reach and Biological Clock, respectively, in the Ruth C. Horton Gallery of Moss Arts Center, Nov. 9, 2016. The three black and white photographs are part of the Phantom Limb series by Lynn Hershman Leeson.

Think back to a night when things quickly esca-lated out of control. Looking back, you should have gotten stitches, been checked for a concussion — typical of some college students after a weekend out.

A lt e r na t ively, you r roommate or someone in class picked up an illness like a cold or respiratory infection, influenza, strep throat, mono-nucleosis (otherwise known as mono), or even scabies and bedbugs. Now, of course, you have it too ... so now what?

In my experience, college students go to the doctor for one of two reasons — the first being the increased spread of illness on college campuses, and the second being due to some extreme (and hopefully worthwhile) party habits.

Despite when or why, however, the conclusion is usually simple — you need to go see a doctor, STAT. Because some of us rely solely on our primary care physicians back in our home-towns, Blacksburg and Virginia Tech are able to cater to urgent care needs based on when and where you need it.

Velocity Care/Carilion Clinic

This urgent care center is located off Turner Street at 215 Gilbert St. behind the McDonalds and Substation II. You can walk in between the generous hours of 7 a.m. and 12 a.m., seven days a week.

Mondays are usually its busiest — I had a two-hour wait before being seen by a doctor, compared to a Sunday when I was the only patient there. The reason behind this is that it usually gets its flood of weekend injuries.

Customer service is friendly and accommodating

the moment you walk in, the receptionist always happily greets you, and paperwork is given immediately. Michelle Napoli, M.D., is the doctor I’ve personally seen and can recommend.

No appointment is required, and prescriptions are sent out to a pharmacy of the patient’s choice. Co-pay is out of pocket and depends on your insurance (my co-pay was a mere $20), and most insurances are accepted. To get more information on the VelocityCare Clinic and get a full list of what it treats, call its number at 540-961-8040 or visit its website.

Schiffert Health CenterOf course, we all know

Schiffert — we also all know the wait that accompanies getting an appointment there. Around this time of year, students typically must call 540-231-6444 or go to the online student health portal one to two days in advance in order to secure a spot there.

In my experience, most time spent at Schiffert involves the waiting room — this also depends on the time of year you go. The advan-tages of Schiffert include the convenience for those who live on campus (it’s located on 895 Washington St.), as

well as the fact that prescrip-tions can be brought in and prescribed on site.

Additionally, there’s no initial out-of-pocket fee, although a $25 missed appointment fee applies. Keep in mind that the Immunizat ion History Form is required for an appointment, which can be found here. Hours are from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Fridays and 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturdays. More infor-mation can be found here.

CVS Minute ClinicOn days when you’re

making the trip to Walmart or you’re coming back from a night in Radford, CVS Minute Clinic can help. Although the nearest clinic to Virginia Tech’s campus is in Christiansburg (550 North Franklin St.), the drive is said to be worth the efficiency of getting in and out (hence the name).

Most insurances are accepted, and charges are based on the number of symptoms or conditions being accommodated. Like any urgent care clinic, it offers a variety of urgent (but non-emergency) services.

The advantage of CVS’s Minute Clinic is that many people send their prescrip-tions here anyways, or are stopping by for quick errands. With a clinic available, there’s no need to make the extra trip to the doctor.

Hours are 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Sundays. For ques-tions and more information, call 540-381-1153 or visit its website.

@CollegiateTimes

CARLY BROADWAYlifestyles staff writer

@CollegiateTimes

“Looking back,

you probably

should have

gotten stitches,

been checked for

a concussion —

typical of some

college students

after a weekend

out.”

collegiatetimes.com/lifestyle

lifestyle“Women’s Work: Our Stories,” a series of artwork by all female artists dedicated to exploring the female identity will be on campus until Nov. 17.

How to battle the Hokie Plague on a college budget

It’s that time of the year where students are contracting illnesses left and

right – fi nd out which clinic offers the best care without draining your wallet.

The Atlantic Coast Conference is once again looking like it is the best conference in basketball with five teams represented in the preseason AP top 25 rankings. The Virginia Tech men’s basketball team ranks just outside of the top 25 and received 18 votes to be ranked. Other ACC universities l ike Florida State, Miami, NC State and Notre Dame also gained preseason votes, but sit outside of the initial rankings.

The Duke Blue Devils begin the season at the number one spot. After a mediocre season by Duke’s standards, coach Krzyzewski added a top five recruiting class which includes the top prospect in the country, Harry Giles. Along with the new addi-tions, Wooden Award All-American Grayson Allen is returning for his junior season. Krzyzewski’s squad is heavily favored to win the ACC and is a shoo-in to make the NCAA tournament. The Hokies face the No. 1 ranked team in the nation on New Year’s Eve.

State rival U.Va. opens the season at the No. 8 spot and is coming off a trip to the Elite Eight, where they were defeated by Syracuse. The University of Virginia lost to North Carolina in the ACC Championship

a season ago and will be without leading scorer Malcolm Brogdon. The Cavaliers will have trouble finding someone to fill the role of go-to scorer and will likely rely on freshman Kyle Guy to provide offense. The Hokies have a home and an away matchup against their conference rivals and were able to defeat U.Va. the last time the teams played in Cassell Coliseum.

It is impossible to ignore North Carolina basketball when speaking of the ACC. The Tar Heels lost in heart-breaking fashion against Villanova in the National Championship last year, but return five of their seven top scorers from last season. Roy Williams also added another top recruiting class and expects freshman Tony Bradley to make an impact immediately. Tech will face UNC in Chapel Hill which looks to be one of the Hokies toughest road matchups of the season.

Louisville may be the most interesting team in the ACC after last year’s self-imposed postseason ban that kept them from partic-ipating in the conference and NCAA tournaments despite being a top ranked team and being fourth in the ACC standings. While the Cardinals lost seniors Damion Lee and Trey Lewis, they return key sophomores, who are looking to make up for their postseason absence. Coach Rick Pitino has

always been able to lead young teams deep into the conference playoffs, and this year could be more of the same. The Hokies head down to Kentucky to play the Cardinals near the end of the regular season, which could have a big impact on the conference playoff picture.

In order for Buzz Williams’ team to get its first bid to the NCAA tournament since 2007, the Hokies must compete in the ACC. It is always a subject of debate when March comes around about how many bids each conference should receive. North Carolina, Virginia, Duke, Louisvil le and Miami look to be almost guaranteed a spot in the tournament. Seven ACC teams made it into the Big Dance last season and five of those teams finished in the top five spots in the ACC (Louisville had a self-imposed postseason ban).

Virginia Tech will most likely be competing with Notre Dame, Pittsburgh, Syracuse, Florida State and NC State for a spot in the tournament. Winning the regular season matchups against those schools would go a long way in helping convince the tournament committee that the Hokies are ready for their tour-nament return.

PAGE 6 November 10, 2016 editor@collegiatetimes.comcollegiatetimes.com

collegiatetimes.com/sports

sportsACC remains toughest conference in college hoops

Hokie volleyball’s win this past weekend signifies its first since October, prompting the question of why the drought of success was so long.

Head coach Chris Riley often blames the team’s lack of momentum and “running out of steam” as reasons why it can’t close out most matches with a W. This is viable reasoning after looking at the team’s scores from each game. The Hokies usually hang tight with their opponents from across the country, from those that are unranked and seem to be similar matchups, to ones like No. 8 ranked University of North Carolina, who they took to four tight games. The consternation comes from Tech’s inability to hold its lead and clinch victories.

On paper, one would see milestones like outside hitter Lindsey Owens’ rankings in the NCAA in kills per set and total kills for the season and think that offense must not be the issue, that defense is holding the team back. But then one might also see that libero Carol Raffety, who represents the defensive line for Virginia Tech, is ranked in digs per set as well as total digs for the season. This is where confusion sets in and many start to scratch their heads. A team with hitters like Amanda McKinzie, who is about to set a program record for achieving over 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs for here career, and Owens should be dominating, right?

Un for t unately, ou r old tee-ball and soccer coaches were right. There is no “I” in team. And this rings true especially in college athletics. Although

McKinzie and Owens are standout players for the Hokies, they are not the only two on the court, and hitters aren’t the only ones who make the plays. The Hokies this season have been lacking in their blocking abilities, often creating big holes and allowing their opponents to hit around them before they readjust. This is a critical component in the game, as blocking can soften the blow of a solid hit for the defense or stop the ball from even coming to the other side altogether. But it is a part where the Hokies are lacking, as they average about five team blocks per match, while highly ranked schools like Stanford or Utah are accomplishing 11 team blocks per match. It’s not about what the Hokies are doing, but rather but they are not.

It doesn’t help, however, that Virginia Tech’s usual starting setter, Rhegan Mitchell, was injured so early in the season, as well as a power middle hitter and blocker Ashley Battle. These are key players for the Hokies that were definitely missing throughout the season, but once more, there is no “I” in team.

If the Hokies want to start winning again, they need to start focusing more on team exercises, rather than indi-vidual skill building. It is great to have players that can deliver a solid kill or make a great dig, but without the rest of the team moving in cohesion with one another, neither of those things matter. If they want to stay in the W column and overcome their last few ACC oppo-nents, the Hokies need to start working together more and stop relying on a few players to get them through a game.

Last season, seven ACC teams made the NCAA tournament. Tech will have to fi ght for a spot this year, as the conference is as strong as ever.

@CTSportsTalk

DAVID KELSEYsports staff writer

FILE 2016

Virginia Tech forward Zach LeDay (32) dunks over Princeton guard Amir Bell (5) during the NIT game in Cassell, March 16, 2016.

Tech volleyball relies too heavily on the individualLooking only at individual successes, one might think that Virginia Tech

volleyball was in the middle of a winning season. This is not the case.

MADELINE THOMPSONsports staff writer

@CTSportsTalk

AHMED MUSTAFA / COLLEGIATE TIMES

Amanda McKinzie (10) celebrates after scoring against the Cavs, Friday, Sept. 30, 2016, at Cassell.