San Diego State University – Angelica Wallingford

Students dig archaeology professor

It began as a childhood experience cracking open shale on the side of a mountain in Monterey that started a lifelong love affair with history.

“I was mesmerized that evidence of the past could be found hidden in the ground around us,” Seth Mallios, longtime San Diego State anthropology and archaeology professor said. “That delight has never left me and led me to the fields of archaeology, anthropology and history.”

His students, who cite his immense passion for uncovering things and his interesting perspective on the past, see him as an inspirational figure. Amethyst Sanchez, an anthropology and sociology major, credits him and their many chats to changing her perspective and giving her the drive to achieve her goals.

“Without him, I probably would only have minored in anthropology, which is now the field I want to spend my life working in,” Sanchez said. “I would have missed out on so many incredible opportunities to do actual anthropological work before even earning my degree.”

Long before he called SDSU his home, Mallios’ career as an anthropologist started in Virginia, where he taught the introductory anthropology and the Jamestown Field School in Historical Archaeology courses at the University of Alabama. After his move to San Diego, he noticed the stark contrast between the ways regional history was looked at between the two cities.

“I also know that seeing different areas of the country where, in some places, the past is revered and you would never think of developing over a cemetery,” Mallios said. “You can’t go into a grocery store without someone telling you that they are a descendant of John Smith or Pocahontas and then coming out here and it being just the opposite.”

His first major project in San Diego was a gravestone project where he discovered many of the graveyards were intentionally paved over for freeways, buildings and roads.

“I wasn’t expecting too many surprises and the joke was on me because 75 percent of San Diego’s cemeteries have been developed over and I had just come from Jamestown,” Mallios said. “Everybody there is so into talking about the past, thinking about the past.”

In the classroom, Mallios’ passion for history is passed on to his students. One of his fundamental teaching philosophies is that students need hands on experience in the field to really understand what excavating is like in the real world, compared to the glamorized version of it that appears on TV.

“Dr. Mallios lets the students go through every process of a dig,” Shannon Farnsworth, an anthropology and history major, said. “We measured the units, we dug the dirt, we screened the dirt, we mapped the walls of our unit, we filled out the paperwork, we took soil samples and we were able to experience a real dig.”

Recently Mallios was named official university curator, a title he takes just as serious as his studies or excavations.

“It is rewarding to see the university formally acknowledge the importance of its own history and culture,” he said. “I believe that these distinctive aspects should be celebrated and preserved, and this position allows me to do that.”

Jamie Lennox, an associate professor of anthropology and one of Mallios’ former students, is the current interim director of SDSU’s collections management program and has assisted him with numerous projects over the years.

One of the major projects was co-authoring the five-volume book set titled “Let It Rock!” which was a retrospective of all the live events hosted at SDSU.

“It’s a very meticulous process – you cast a wide net and literally go through everything very slowly and carefully,” Lennox said. “You take copious amounts of notes, as you frequently will need to revisit something or retrace your steps.”

Together with Lennox, Mallios has preserved artifacts from SDSU’s colorful past including multiple WPA mementos such as benches, plaques and murals — some of which are preserved in the campus library.

“These clues to an earlier time when the campus was much smaller, when there was no city around it,” Mallios said. “That gets to a deeper understanding of not only San Diego State’s place in the community, but the hundreds of thousands of people that experienced it here on campus.”

Mallios sees SDSU’s history as more of a grey area than just black and white. He cites well known places on campus like Hepner Hall as examples of how buildings that have been seen as divisive have underlying meanings like the Muslim influence on the construction of SDSU’s iconic hall.

“I never knew about the history of SDSU,” Farnsworth said. “In class we read his book ‘Hail Montezuma’ and then went on a scavenger hunt to some of the historical places on campus. It makes me really proud to go here and I feel more connected to the school and my fellow classmates.”

Mallios’ current passion project is working on a book on the history of Nate Harrison, San Diego’s first permanent African American resident and frontiersman. He brought four of his students with him to excavate on Palomar Mountain during spring break to uncover new artifacts about Harrison and explore San Diego’s history back when it was known as the “Selma of the south.”

He hopes his book will be slated for release at the end of 2019.

After all these years, Mallios says he still gets the same feeling when he discovers something new – the same one he feels when uncovering new things at the Nate Harrison site and the gravestones he explored when he first moved to San Diego.

“There is the thrill of finding something that has been lost or forgotten,” Mallios said. “The contentment of seeing how this missing piece helps make sense of the chaos of today’s world.”

Originally published in the Daily Aztec in April 2018.

New Spider-Man video game impresses

Coming off the massive hits at the box office, the folks at Marvel decided to dust off the controller and team up with Insomniac Games and Sony PlayStation to revisit the world of gaming. What could have been an insufferable, generic superhero gaming experience was made into an immersive, nearly flawless game that’s sure to be the textbook superhero game for years to come.

At face value, “Spider-Man” feels like just another chapter in the epic of Peter Parker’s life. Donning his signature blue and red suit, you weave through the streets of New York stopping villains and saving civilians from harm.

What the player gets is an immersive experience that just doesn’t compete with any one of the myriad of “Spider-Man” games, or even films, that have been released over the past two decades.

Where this games succeeds the most, and what most of the games and films in the series failed to do, was capture the essence of what it is to be Spider-Man. It takes off the proverbial spider mask and shows the iconic superhero for who he truly is: a guy trying to balance his life out and do the right thing. On one hand he’s a tough crime fighter taking down New York’s criminal elite; on the other he’s dealing with things that everyone struggles with: love, family, career and mortality.

The game starts with your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, equipped with his signature sassy comebacks and a popular social media account, taking selfies at death-defying heights and mingling with the people of New York, all while keeping the city safe. His day job is working as an assistant for Dr. Otto Octavius, a scientist experiencing a fall from grace due to immense jealousy and guilt from his former friendship with Mayor Norman Osborn.

Other well-known characters from the franchise’s past include Peter’s beloved aunt May, former-Daily-Bugle-editor-turned-conspiracy-theorist-radio-host J. Jonah Jameson and Parker’s love interest Mary Jane Watson, who’s a reporter with a penchant for getting caught in Spider-Man’s web of enemies.

The boss fights are something to behold. They don’t feel like a series of standard ones from past video games. It feels like an actual fight, not a series of code that reacts to a particular attack. While the first major boss fight, featuring an angry and charging Kingpin, was a generic combat tutorial at best, the rest bring an atypical experience, which highlights the game’s fluid combat system.

The momentum doesn’t stop when you move from the fan favorite villains to common street criminals. The way the player moves from villain to villain is an excellent exhibition of flawless fluidity that the game captures so well. This style of combat feels more at home in “Spider-Man” than it did in another stellar superhero gaming classic, “Arkham Knight.” While Batman is just as idolized as Spider-Man, the parkour laced combat moves feel more at home with Spidey than they do with the Dark Knight.

The inclusion of Mr. Negative is a welcome surprise and interesting turn from the usual selection of Spider-Man’s cavalcade of villains. In this incarnation, Mr. Negative, AKA Martin Li, is aiming to take over Kingpin’s territory and using the deadly Devil’s Breath virus to do it. While our web-slinging hero stops him, the effects the virus leaves has consequences felt throughout the rest of the game concluding with an epic rooftop fight against Spider-Man’s mentor-turned-madman Otto Octavius, now known as Doctor Octopus.

Aside from the main missions, sleuthing with MJ and the next incarnation of Spidey, Miles Morales provides a refreshing break from beating up bad guys. Another high point is stripping off the iconic spider suit and playing as Peter Parker, the scientist. The mini games include gene splicing, chemical arrangement and circuit puzzles that range from absurdly easy to so difficult you’re practically close to throwing your controller across the room.

Where the game falls flat, is when it comes to innovating the open-world format. “Spider-Man” utilizes age-old tropes and while they are familiar to anyone who has played any open-world game, they become repetitive fast. The side missions could become monotonous after a while, but they don’t take away from the overall enjoyment of the game.

However, while the open world doesn’t provide any groundbreaking features, it’s the perfect medium to highlight the stellar web-swinging. It’s your main mode of transportation and it’s the best way to navigate from mission to mission around the vast landscape and tall buildings.

Despite its few shortcomings, “Spider-Man” succeeds in providing an in-depth story which immerses the player in every aspect of Peter Parker’s world.. With the fluid combat system, multitude of mission and stellar graphics, this game is well worth picking up the controller for a few hours and swinging through the city.

Originally published in the Daily Aztec in September 2018.

Grammy-winning musician Bill Yeager leads SDSU jazz studies through experience

The generic phrase “be prepared for anything” is often met with a sigh and eye roll from those who hear it. In the case of San Diego State’s Director of Jazz Studies Bill Yeager, it’s the advice he credits for his success as an award-winning musician and a lifelong educator.

Yeager started at SDSU in 1985 after founding and running the Los Angeles Jazz Workshop for 10 years. In just a few short years, he accepted a full-time position and has led the jazz studies program to be one of the most prestigious in the country, including an upcoming trip to Montenegro for Jazz Appreciation Week slated for next semester.

Justin Joyce, an SDSU graduate student and drummer in the jazz ensemble led by Yeager, cites his passion as a driving force behind his students succeeding in the field.

“His constant desire for his students’ success is very apparent,” Joyce said. “There (are) too many ways he’s influenced my life, but every one of them ultimately has improved my sense of awareness, work ethic and enjoyment of life and how music is one of life’s necessities.”

Yeager’s journey to becoming SDSU’s director of jazz studies wasn’t a rocky road filled with bumps and dips; but rather, a winding path of unexpected twists and turns.

“My advice to you is to be prepared for any and all opportunities that are offered to you in life,” Yeager said at SDSU’s 2017 Professional Studies and Fine Arts commencement ceremony. “You don’t always end up doing exactly what you think you will be doing for your life’s work.”

His resume reads like that of a seasoned studio musician rather than an educator. The lifelong trombonist has played in bands for Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, and has been featured on recordings for Ray Charles, various organizations and record companies. He’s also received multiple Grammy nominations, including a win for a record he did with Charles.

Yeager, 66, says it all started in elementary school when he had to pick out an instrument to learn. He started out wanting to play drums as his first choice and the trumpet as his second, but a savvy sales associate convinced him otherwise.

“I think the guy at the music store wanted to sell a trombone and he said that my lips were too big for the trumpet, which, of course, is absurd,” he said. “It was this guy who’s just trying to see a certain product, but that’s how I picked trombone.”

His love of jazz, however, didn’t come until high school. Yeager was a natural at playing classical music, but jazz became an obstacle for him. His high school band director would play him jazz records and have him pay close attention to their characteristics.

“Jazz has come hard for me,” Yeager said. “It was something that I had to really work at. Maybe that’s why I think I’m a good teacher in the jazz area, because I had to really work on it. It didn’t come as natural to me as playing sonatas and concertos.”

After getting acquainted with his new instrument, Yeager took to music like a fish takes to water. According to him, it was music that helped him go from a straight-C student to getting A’s throughout his academic career and creating a positive chance that has stayed with him all his life.

“I got C’s in everything except music and physical education,” Yeager recalls. “Music gave me self-confidence where I didn’t have any.”

Upon graduating high school in 1970, Yeager enrolled in the University of North Texas, which, at the time, had the largest music department and the most prestigious jazz program in the country. He completed his bachelor’s degree in ’74 and his masters of music in ’76, with an emphasis on performance and a minor in conducting and jazz.

While still an undergrad, he started getting jobs in recording studios in Dallas, which at the time was known as the “jingle capital,” Yeager said.

“The studios were run by alumni of the University of Texas, and that’s how I got my foot in the door,” he said. “I’d travel 30 minutes to and from Denton to Dallas for sessions, it helped me tremendously as a musician.”

Prior to founding the Los Angeles Jazz Workshop in ’79, Yeager became the director of instrumental music at Grove School of Music, founded by jazz pianist Dick Grove, whom he was introduced to when Grove did a clinic at the University of Texas. He received the job while playing in a night band conducted by Alf Clausen, best known for his composition work on “The Simpsons.”

“(Clausen) was getting so busy that he didn’t really have time to conduct that band anymore,” Yeager said. “So, Dick (Grove) came to me and said, ‘We’d like you to be the director of the band.’”

Eventually, being the conductor of a jazz band was only one of a multitude of responsibilities he had at the Grove School. Yeager became the conductor of two other bands, founded the Professional Instrumental Music Program and became an instructor.

However, two years into his time at the Grove School, he and Grove had a major disagreement involving repertoire that led them to part ways.

“He would have 30 people write a television excerpt based on, let’s say, ‘Frère Jacques,’ and so, here are my guys paying money to be in this band and they would come to a rehearsal and we’d play 30 versions of ‘Frère Jacques,’” Yeager recalled. “And it was like, you know it’s not fair. That’s not what they came here for. So, we basically had a parting of the ways, and I knew I was right.”

Yeager founded the Los Angeles Jazz Workshop in 1979 so jazz musicians could have the opportunity to showcase their skills rather than play “30 different” TV jingles. In a remarkable move, all 30 musicians from the Grove School moved to Yeager’s rival institution which helped his new endeavor start off with a bang.

Before he knew it, Yeager’s workshop grew at an exponential rate to include instruction in composition and arranging, led by some of the best musicians in Los Angeles.

“I had a complete full band, the very first day,” he said. “And then that grew into two bands, then three. Eventually I had five full 18-piece big bands. That essence of having that number one Grove band 100 percent leave and come with me made it to where I could pay the rent.”

In the meantime, Yeager took up piloting a small plane that once belonged to a dear friend in Los Angeles who suffered a stroke and could not fly alone. During his final years at the Los Angeles Jazz Workshop, he was hired as an instructor at SDSU, commuting back and forth from Los Angeles to San Diego in his Cessna 172 airplane before securing his tenure and settling in Cardiff-By-The-Sea.

“I have become very attached to my SDSU students and totally committed to San Diego State University,” Yeager said in the commencement speech. “The SDSU Jazz Studies program has flourished into becoming one of the best in the country.”

Yeager’s last statement rings true. He has led the Jazz Studies program to a multitude of awards and numerous performances with great jazz musicians such as pianist Matt Hall and students from his Los Angeles Jazz Workshop and Grove School days.

After knowing him for the past six years, Joyce looks back fondly about how Yeager has gone the extra mile, providing more than just instruction to his students.

“To be honest, I’ve never really thought of him as a professor, he has always shown more guidance and advice to just be considered a professor,” Joyce said. “He’ll tell you directly what you need to hear to help you succeed as a professional.”

Yeager has no plans on retiring just yet. He says he wants “at least another five years” at SDSU. After some reflecting, he harkens back to a modified version of his old saying that he told the 2017 PSFA graduating class: “Be prepared for anything, because nobody knows what can happen.”

Originally published in the Daily Aztec in October 2018.

Schools in PSFA announce new directors

Two schools in the College of Professional Studies and Fine Arts will have new directors for the fall 2018 semester.

Charles Friedrichs and J.D. Hopkins, the current directors of the School of Music and Dance, and the School of Theatre, Television, and Film, will be stepping down from their positions at the end of the semester. The announcement for the director position was announced in November 2017, according to Eric Smigel, a music professor and search committee chair.

Candidates for the director position for both schools will tour the campus throughout March, while final candidate for the School of Theatre, Television and Film is scheduled after spring break.

“The process just takes a while and a faculty position has to be set aside, the dean has her concerns,” Friedrichs said. “She sets aside then they get a committee and they do the advertising and now they are in the process of bringing somebody… for interviews.”

Friedrichs decided to retire a year and a half ago after 42 years of teaching, with the last five of those as the acting director. For Hopkins, his decision to leave the director position at the School of Theatre, Television and Film was due to a strong internal pull towards his loves of teaching and research.

“I’ve had a great experience running the school and working with my colleagues,” Hopkins said. “I think we’ve came out of the recession over the last six years and moved into a really strong position in a lot of measurable ways.”

Hopkins also serves on the hiring committee for the director position of the School of Music and Dance. He said it was decided by PSFA Dean Joyce Gattas that the directors wouldn’t be involved in hiring for their own position, a policy she’s held for a long time.

“There was some discussion on whether or not there would be looking for an internal candidate or doing a national search, and it quickly moved to the direction of national search,” Hopkins said.

Of the roughly 60 applicants for the director position for the School of Music and Dance, Scott Lipscomb from the College Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, John Sposato from the University of Houston and Elizabeth Cooper from the University of Hartford were chosen for on-campus interviews.

The candidates for the School of Theatre, Television and Film are Niyi Coker Jr. from the University of Missouri-St. Louis, Andrew Shea from the University of Texas-Austin and Ann Archbold from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The Dean will make her decision after that (visit) and offers will go out. I wouldn’t venture to speculate on the timeline after that point,” Hopkins said. “We intend to have decisions made by the end of the semester.”

Even with changes to leadership, Director of Jazz Studies Bill Yeager feels optimistic about the future of the School of Music and Dance.

“We have the very best instructors available in all areas and an amazing amount of student talent,” Yeager said. This high level of teaching, combined with outstanding students, ensures a bright future.”

Firedrichs’ last day is acting director will be May 31 while Hopkins is slated to stay on until June. The new directors’ contracts will begin on July 1.

Originally published in the Daily Aztec in April 2018.

Why are new video games still being scrutinized for violence while other mediums aren’t?

Quantic Dream, a gaming developer responsible for hits such as “Heavy Rain” and “Beyond: Two Souls,” released a trailer for its game “Detroit: Become Human” in early December on Playstation’s YouTube channel during Paris Games Week.

It was met with immediate backlash from child advocacy groups stating that abusers will “get off on this stuff” and that it encourages violence within children. However, this is a poor judgment based on theories that don’t make sense.

The gameplay trailer revolves around Kara, an android helper for a man named Todd and his daughter Alice, whom Todd blames for his failed marriage. After an intense scene Alice runs up the stairs. Then the player has two options: intervene or don’t. If the player intervenes then Kara kills the abusive father and saves Alice. If Kara does not, Todd beats Alice to death off-screen and lays her limp body on the bed.

It sounds intense, because it’s supposed to be. The entire point of the trailer, aside from selling the game’s concept, is to show that actions or inactions have consequences. Sitting aside and doing nothing will have a consequence just as much as taking action does. It also shows that doing the right thing does, sometimes involves extreme actions.

According to the Daily Mail, Andy Burrows of the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children said, “Any video game that trivialises or normalises child abuse, neglect or domestic violence for entertainment is unacceptable.”

However, when gaming or other forms of entertainment show violence or other controversial material, they are not trying to normalize it or advocate for it. It’s used as a means of storytelling and plot development.

Of course child abuse is never okay, but just because something is wrong does not mean creators can’t include it in works of art such as video games. If art is supposed to imitate life, then art should imitate all facets of life, not just the bright side of it.

This backlash begs the question — why attack a game when abuse has been seen in various forms of entertainment for years? Vivid depictions of child abuse has been prevalent in TV, movies, books or music videos, yet there is no outcry for change or censorship. In the movies “Jaws” and “It” children are murdered — in “Radio Flyer” kids are severely beaten by their father on multiple occasions.

What makes “Detroit: Become Human” so different? Because it’s interactive?

The notion that video games encourage violence is a fallacy that has been disproven time and time again. A person simply picking up a controller and playing a violent game does not make them violent. Just because a character in the game can go and beat up random pedestrians in “Grand Theft Auto” doesn’t mean the player is going to do the same in the future. Or just like watching “Beauty and the Beast” will not make anyone want to have an intimate relationship with a humanoid beast.

Some claim abusers will be “getting off” on material like this, but abusers are abusers. No number of pixelated frames or game scenarios are going to change the fact that they are scum that prey on people. It’s not going to make them change in either direction. On the other hand, a switch is not going to automatically turn on in a normal person’s head to make them become a sociopathic violent monster.

While no one wants to see children get harmed or abused, child abuse appearing in a work of fiction is not going to make the problem worse nor is it going to turn a legion of gamers into awful human beings. On a grander scale, “Detroit: Become Human” illustrates what anyone with any common sense knows, actions have consequences and we need to be able to live with the decision we make — no matter how horrible it might be.

Originally published in the Daily Aztec in January 2018.

GAMING REVIEW: ‘Sonic Forces’ brings a new twist to an old classic

Following the events of the 16-bit masterpiece “Sonic Mania,” SEGA and Sonic Team have bounced back from a slew of epic 3D failures with “Sonic Forces,” a fun, action packed, multi-console platformer that is one of the best Sonic the Hedgehog games that has been released in recent years.

The plot of “Sonic Forces” sounds like it comes straight from a Sonic fanboy’s fanfiction. After a plethora of attempts the hilariously evil Dr. Eggman has finally taken over the world and it’s up to the resistance, led surprisingly by Knuckles, everyone’s favorite endangered echidna, to stop them and bring peace to the world. Sounds like a somewhat typical “Sonic” game right?

Not necessarily.

The one element “Forces” brings that is unlike other games in the franchise is that Sonic and pals are helped out by a very unusual and unexpected character–you.

The introduction to the player’s custom character, aptly named the Rookie, is rather interesting. After playing through the first level of the game Sonic is captured by Dr. Eggman and his ruthless regime of antagonists from games past, along with new resident bad guy Infinite. Resident tech geek Miles “Tails” Prower tells the rest of the resistance that a new member is joining and that’s when the player is taken to the customization screen.

Adding “you” as the third playable character was a bit of a hit-and-miss. While it’s great that SEGA added this element to the game, at times it feels as if it’s just playing as an off-brand third-world knockoff of Sonic blasting through stages with various accessories. The accessories, called “Wispons,” can make the original character overpowered, which takes the Rookie and turns them into the overpowered MVP of the entire game.

Along with the same ragtag group of fan favorites of games past in the resistance, Classic Sonic comes from his dimension to aid them in their hour of need. For most of the game users play as Classic Sonic, Modern Sonic and the Rookie and face-off against villains that include Zavok from “Sonic Lost World,” masked newcomer Infinite, and perhaps the most unsuccessfully hilarious video game villain of all time, Dr. Eggman.

Then we get to what was one of the biggest teases in the game that sort of delivers: Shadow the Hedgehog. What makes Shadow such a great character, especially in “Forces,” is that players actually get a backstory. The free downloadable content, titled “Episode Shadow,” acts as a prequel for “Forces,” letting the “you” play through three stages of storyline that adds some context to the game.

Ironically, “Episode Shadow” actually provides players with more of a challenge than “Forces” does. Even though the downloadable content is somewhat harder to play than the main game, it’s really fun, especially since this is the first time in several years that the fan favorite has been a playable character in a “Sonic” game.

A highlight of the game is that players get an introduction to “Forces” main antagonist, Infinite, and see what became of Shadow’s closest, albeit reluctant, comrades Rouge the Bat and robot E-123 Omega.

One of the biggest flaws of “Forces” is that there is no epic Shadow vs. Sonic boss fight. Instead players get Shadow defeating a clone of himself that Dr. Eggman created to aid in his world domination. It’s not the worst thing in the world but if SEGA and Sonic Team were going to tease this battle-for-the-ages boss fight then they should have delivered.

The levels are gorgeous to look at. The vibrantly colored Green Hill Zone that was once filled with flora and fauna is now reduced to sand dunes and crumbling structures, which was a nice break from the norm. However, after playing title after title with Green Hill Zone as the first level, it’s time for a shake up from the usual nostalgia and have something a little different to kick off the game.

Most of the stages, including the beautifully designed Metropolis, flow seamlessly from the standard Sonic 2D side scrolling to 3D without making the transition awkward.

Initially, the gameplay is relatively short if players just doing the bare minimum of simply completing the game. However, the addition of SOS missions, daily missions and the thrill of getting trophies, or achievements on XBOX and PC, makes “Forces” prime for long-term replayability, especially after players complete the main storyline.

Completing daily missions is also a great way to get more accessories to deck out one’s custom character to give them more power-ups and generally make them look as cool as possible.

The mechanics of the games are straightforward: complete the stages, 37 total, as fast as one possibly can, pick up rings along the way and defeat the enemies. It’s that simple.

Taking one’s time with stages is fine if the player is new to the series or are obsessively trying to 100 percent the game, but it’s a Sonic the Hedgehog game—the objective is to complete the stage as fast as possible.

His theme song has the lyrics “fastest thing alive” for a reason. An awesome bonus is that depending on how fast one completes a stage, they get ranked with players from all around the world to see how they stack up to other fans playing the game.

Another difference from other titles in the series is that the rings, which are normally used to help players not die during stages, are used as a means to boost one’s score as well as serve the function of not losing a life.

What that means is there is technically no system for how many lives you have with this game and that there is no “game over.” Players can technically can keep playing a stage until they beat it or gather all of the bonuses, although it will affect one’s ending score in a negative light and turn what would have been an S-rank to a C-rank in just a matter of seconds.

Each level has recommended Wispons, items that correspond to various colorful alien power-up from “Sonic Colors,” to use for that particular stage. Its basic function is to help the player find an alternate route, collect rings and other non-essential items. However, even though the Wispons are there for the players use, they are not essential to complete the stage.

Although the game is really fun, it can be heavily automated and repetitive at times. At its core “Sonic Forces” is just like any other “Sonic” game.

Players finish stages, beat down bad guys, collect rings and, spoiler alert, defeat the “A for effort” antagonist Dr. Eggman and Infinite to save what remains of the world from complete destruction. There is also the issue of the stages being really short. There are certain stages where players can really get sucked in, only for it to end a few short moments later.

The boss fights are also hit and miss. With the exception of Zavok and Infinite boss fights the rest of them, particularly the ones with Dr. Eggman, feel somewhat repetitive and like players are rehashing a boss fight from a previous game rather than providing the gamers with a new experience. Then there’s also the issue of not fighting fan favorite villains like Chaos from “Sonic Adventure” or Shadow, which was heavily teased before the game’s release.

Despite “Forces” being just another “Sonic” game, it’s a really entertaining and enjoyable experience that both hardcore Sonic fans and non-Sonic fans would appreciate.

Is it perfect? No, far from it, but it does give players hours upon hours of mind numbing enjoyment that Sonic Team has been lacking with previous titles.

The story, gameplay, soundtrack and characters provide gamers with a visually dynamic and amusing experience that can extend way beyond the main storyline and provide gamers with endless hours of fun.

Originally published in The Daily Aztec in November 2017.

SDSU Jazz Ensemble honors late alumnus who left behind $750,000 endowment

The San Diego State Jazz Ensemble dedicated its Nov. 7 concert to late alumnus Pitt Warner after it was announced in late October that the longtime jazz musician left a $750,000 endowment to the Jazz Studies program at the School of Music and Dance.

The Pitt and Virginia Warner Jazz Studies Endowment will support the Jazz Studies program and its students by providing funds that include scholarships, travel, equipment, conference and musical festival attendance, music commissions, music purchases, guests artists and clinicians, according to Director of Jazz Studies Bill Yeager.

Warner, who died in 2016, was a renowned jazz drummer who not only played on SDSU’s jazz ensemble for many years, but also performed with many other bands, including local Latin jazz group The Bordermen.

Jazz ensemble drummer and SDSU graduate student Justin Joyce became acquainted with Warner through the Jazz Studies program and said he said he thinks that Warner’s gift was an amazing contribution to the music department because of massive funding cuts that arts programs have taken in recent years.

“The music departments are folding, like all the way ,going down to elementary school and it resonates coming up to the top too,” Joyce said. “I mean, it’s like (the business college) would get something like $3 million and us, we’ll get like $28,000… So it’s a great thing that he left it to us.”

Warner also left behind equipment for jazz students, including two complete drum sets and multi-track recording equipment worth over $100,000, Yeager said.

“He left so much gear for us, and , as a drummer, I’m very thankful, but as a musician I’m even more thankful,” Joyce said. “He was a great guy, a great musician.”

Music entrepreneurship and business freshman Derrick Kennedy Martin Jr. said he thinks that the endowment will give great opportunities for music students, especially when it comes to the possibility of traveling and experiencing different musical styles and cultures.

“It provides us with opportunities that we wouldn’t otherwise be able to have as jazz students,” Martin Jr. said. “(The endowment) has the potential to provide us with different countries to be able to play with where you get different styles of music and styles of people and it’s just a great cultural experience from all types of musicians and people.”

Along with Warner’s endowment, the Jazz Studies also has Eugene and Barbara Bowman Endowment Fund, worth $150,000, which was awarded to the department two years ago.

The endowment was Warner’s second gift to the university. After his wife Virginia, an SDSU alumna with a degree in English, died in 2012 he gave a donation for the Pitt and Virginia Warner Suite in the Department of English and Comparative Literature.

Originally published in The Daily Aztec in November 2017.

Friends of SDSU launches drive to put SDSU West on 2018 ballot

Friends of SDSU, a group dedicated to a ballot initiative for the creation of a new west campus for San Diego State on the current site of SDCCU Stadium, began its signature gathering efforts Oct. 21, the day of the university’s homecoming football game.

The group hopes to get the SDSU West Campus Research Center, Stadium and River Park Initiative on the November 2018 ballot. The initiative would allow for the sale of much of the SDCCU Stadium site to SDSU, freeing the university to build a satellite campus in Mission Valley that could potentially include student housing, research and technology facilities, a river park and a new multi-use stadium.

The choice to start signature gathering during the culmination of San Diego State’s homecoming festivities wasn’t a deliberate one, but rather one of serendipitous timing, said SDSU West spokesman Fred Pierce.

“It coordinated perfectly with our schedule,” Pierce said. “We had a 21-day notice period where when we published the initiative, we had to actually print it in the newspaper. And it just so happened that when we looked at the schedule, 21 days ending up on homecoming was perfect timing.”

For the initiative to appear on the 2018 ballot — alongside the rival SoccerCity plan — it needs to receive more than 71,000 signatures from San Diego residents by the end of December. The group anticipates a healthy level of support, especially from alumni.

“One in seven college graduates in San Diego attended SDSU,” Friends of SDSU steering committee member Gina Champion-Cain said in an Oct. 20 press release. “We’re hoping to see these proud alumni at the game and convert their support of the university into a signature for its future.”

The group had booths set up at various places around SDCCU Stadium before Saturday’s football game, staffed with dozens of signature gatherers and flyers about the initiative for uninformed or interested voters.

One signature gatherer, Stephanie Mercy, said she believes San Diego needs a sports team and could see SDSU West as a viable option, but that she’ll hold out until both the initiatives are released for San Diegans to make the final decision.

“At this time I don’t know, let’s see both proposals and make a decision on Election Day,” Mercy said. “It’s a way of giving us choice and I’m all about choice.”

However, the stadium is just the beginning. Pierce said SDSU is landlocked, and that expansion would not only bring more potential students to San Diego State, but more innovation in research, technology and business.

“We need room for growth for new students, we need growth for research activities, technology transfers and business incubation,” Pierce said. “We also need a new football stadium. It’s been threatened that they are going to tear down Qualcomm and the stadium that the opponent initiative, SoccerCity, has proposed doesn’t work.”

Pierce cited the large stadium attendance from this season as a prime example why he believes SoccerCity’s stadium plan isn’t a viable option. SoccerCity’s stadium only allows for 30,000 seats, less than half of the over 70,000-seat current stadium.

The stadium seems to be the turning point for potential voters. Longtime SDSU football and Major League Soccer fan Jose Flores said he is leaning toward SDSU West but wants to hold out to see stadium renderings before making a final decision.

“Being a fan of both (SDSU football and Major League Soccer) I’m kind of torn,” Flores said. “It seems like SDSU West would have the bigger stadium and it could cater to both sports but I would love to see what the designers come up with before making my mind up.”

Along with SDCCU Stadium, signature-gathering efforts also launched at different locations around the city, with nearly 75 signature gatherers available to share information with voters, Friends of SDSU said.

Originally Published in The Daily Aztec in October 2017.

SDSU professor receives grant for autism research

San Diego State assistant professor of special education Jessica Suhrheinrich was named a co-recipient of a $1.4 million grant from the Institute of Educational Science for research on education strategies for students with autism spectrum disorder.

Suhrheinrich and her colleagues at UC Davis’ Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders, which include Aubyn Stahmer, Patty Schetter and other affiliated researchers, applied for the project in August 2016. They were informed in late spring that the project would be funded and received the funding in September.

“Collaboration across departments or institutions can often lead to new ideas and innovation,” Suhrheinrich said. “My UC Davis colleague, Aubyn Stahmer, has expertise in ASD and research and community partnerships to increase use of evidence-based practice.”

The three-year grant will utilize an online survey methodology across the state that will allow them to gather data from participants including school district administrators, teachers and principals. The data will include information about student outcomes such as how students are included in the educational environment, student behavioral data and information on the types of training that teachers receive.

Suhrheinrich and her colleagues will also examine a collaboration of various statewide disability organizations called the California Autism Professional Training and Information Network, or CAPTAIN.

“One of the bigger goals of this project is if we can identify what’s effective about interagency collaboration within the state of California and the CAPTAIN collaborative,” Suhrheinrich said. “Then it would allow us a protocol or some standards for replication in other states or across other types of disability needs.”

Suhrheinrich said her interest in autism research started when she was a psychology student at Earlham College, where she worked clinically with a family who had a son who was diagnosed with autism. She worked with several other children through college and eventually taught elementary school for a couple of years. It wasn’t until she started looking toward grad school that she wanted to bring her experiences together.

“That really piqued my interest in autism spectrum disorder and how I could learn more about the experience of individuals with autism and their families and how I could work toward really making a difference in the way their base provided,” Suhrheinrich said.

SDSU Special Education Professor Bonnie Kraemer, one of Suhrheinrich’s colleagues, said she has been involved with autism research for 15 years and was the recipient of a number of both foundation and federal grants.

“I hope that it increases the use of evidence-based practices in all schools,” Kraemer said. “All of the work has had been shown to be effective in clinical settings.”

Pamela Starr, director of Student Disability Services, says that SDSU works with each student with an autism spectrum disorder individually to ensure that each student gets what they need to have a “level playing field and access to their education.”

She said that just because one method worked for one individual with ASD, it won’t necessarily work for others and that each individual has their own specific needs. General accommodations can range from have a note taker present in class to possibly providing a smaller audience for presentations

“Another opportunity would be to empower the individual with ASD to educate others about some of the characteristics of their ASD, to assist in destigmatizing some of the characteristics and your behaviors which others may not understand,” Starr said.

Suhrheinrich said she believes that a factor in gaining the federal funding came, in part, to autism being considered a public health concern. This is because there is not much known about the disability including what causes it, how to treat it, how it affects the individual and how different services can respond in comprehensive ways.

Suhrheinrich said one of the bigger goals of the project is to see what is effective about interagency collaborations within California and the CAPTAIN collaborative and hopefully apply it nationwide.

“It would allow us a protocol or some standards for replication in other states or across other types of disability needs,” Suhrheinrich said. “So, not just focused on autism or not just in the state of California but that perhaps this model of interagency collaboration to increase the use of evidence-based practices could be used more broadly.”

Originally published in The Daily Aztec in October 2017.

Alumnus gives back to SDSU with tutoring business

Inside an overcrowded Love Library students sit, study, cram and stress for their upcoming tests and quizzes. In the case of 27-year-old San Diego State University alumnus John Glick-Scroggins, the hustle and bustle of studying for classes became a growing business venture that took its shape from years of helping his fellow peers with the very same issues.

Glick-Scroggins, a Bay area transplant and 2014 SDSU graduate, started tutoring his classmates at age 16. However, he didn’t actually seriously start thinking of tutoring as an actual business until he began tutoring his friends in college. After working for various tutoring companies and seeing the way both students and tutors interacted, he officially started contracting with tutors and opened MathWizJohn’s Tutoring the year of his graduation.

“I was able to see how beneficial one-on-one learning was not only for a student’s grade, but also for their academic and self confidence,” Glick-Scroggins said. “I quickly noticed certain inefficiencies in their programs that, when fixed, could allow for a better dual-sided approach to both learning environments for students and the stability and standard for the role of a tutor.”

Glick-Scroggins’ passion for helping others reach their potential is evident. He beams with pride when he talks about how he and his team of tutors work with students of all backgrounds, including students with developmental and special needs, and how everything is specialized to that student’s individual need.

“I’ve always just been intrigued in finding a way to give to everybody else the fulfillment that I found in my studies,” Glick-Scroggins said.

He says his tutors, who total about 100, are put through a rigorous interviewing process before being hired.

“The value of the organization lies in the value of the tutors,” Glick-Scroggins said.

Christopher Williams, who has been a tutor with MathWizJohn’s Tutoring for one year, completed his undergraduate degree in applied mathematics and economics at UC Merced, has a masters of science in economics and finance from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics and is currently working on a master of applied statistics through an online program at Pennsylvania State University.

“I have had a lot of good students who are excited to learn, mostly they just need to build up their confidence,” Williams said. “I had two students who went from petrified and failing the previous semester to (getting) As and Bs and (being) confident the next.”

SDSU sophomore Jenn Schwager has been using John’s tutoring service since last year and specifically sought out MathWizJohn’s Tutoring because she said it was “tailor-made” for the student client. She said the price, availability of one-on-one sessions and tutors in specialized subjects were all appealing factors for her.

“Here at San Diego State, our prices range from $40-$50 an hour,” Glick-Scroggins said. “This is where I built my home, my original nest, and at San Diego State I’ve always committed to not raising the prices here.”

One of the other areas that MathWizJohn’s Tutoring covers is test prep. SDSU business administration senior Rebecca Reiner said that while learning in large lecture classes is doable, it’s often difficult to get professors’ attention to ask questions and get clarification.

“John was able to work with us in a small group, which was very beneficial for me,” Reiner said about the test prep services. “I was able to learn the concepts and understand it to my best ability during class, and then when I was at tutoring I would be able to specifically ask for help on certain topics.”

Glick-Scroggins says that he owes this passion for helping students from his own experiences growing up in an environment that nurtured his talent for mathematics and at the end of the day, he hopes that he can instill the same self-confidence in the students he and his tutors help and be a positive educational influence in their lives.

Originally published in The Daily Aztec in September 2017.