Rylee Seavers | Broadcast ReporterThe Sexual Identity Forum (SIF) was created on 2011 as a place for LGBT students at Baylor to find community and meet like-minded individuals. Dallas sophomore and President of SIF, Alexander Patterson said many LGBT students often feel like they are alone, but that this couldn’t be further from the truth. “There are so many other people who have the same thoughts, feeling, religion, belief, whatever as you and it just is a way of helping you find other people, find community, find friends and have that great Baylor experience that we want every student to…
Author: Rylee Seavers
By Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter I am a germophobe. Ask any one of my friends. I always have hand wipes or hand sanitizer with me, I will not eat without washing my hands, and the first thing I do when I get home is make a trip to the sink. Seriously. I am not quite at the level of Jack Nicholson’s character in “As Good as it Gets,” but anyone who knows me will tell you I am serious when it comes to my wet wipes. I realize this is probably extreme in the opinions of many, but there…
I was in Cincinnati with my family two weeks ago. It was early in the morning and we were leaving the hotel for the day. My dad asked a member of the hotel staff a question and she struggled to answer in broken English. I realized that some of the words she was saying registered in my head. She was speaking Russian. I spoke to her as best I could while my family stood around me, totally lost in the sounds of a foreign tongue as I said what they couldn’t in this woman’s native language. I don’t claim to…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast ReporterThree members of the Baylor community have found a new way to celebrate Women’s History Month and highlight the contributions of the women of Waco history. Dr. Lisa Shaver, director of Baylor’s women’s and gender studies and associate professor of English, said there have been many influential women in Waco, but they are often not acknowledged. “Often, women’s history is excluded when you talk about towns or universities or our country, and so this is an opportunity for us to highlight women’s contributions to the development of Waco,” Shaver said. “And also, at the same time,…
By Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter Beta Theta Pi marked mathematical Pi Day with pie eating and baking contests on Fountain Mall. Participants in the pie eating contest had five minutes to eat their pies without using their hands. The winner of the pie baking contest was determined by a panel of three judges: basketball super fan and Port Orchard, Wash. senior Hayden Johnson, baseball head coach Steve Rodriguez and first gentelman Brad Livingstone. Cuero senior Sam Rojas, organizer of the event, said all proceeds from the event would go to benefit Beta Theta Pi’s philanthropy, Mission Waco. “The idea…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter Dr. Brian Garner, associate professor of mechanical engineering, is breaking new ground at the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative (BRIC) with the invention of the Mechanical Horse Simulator. “It’s a stationary apparatus, but it has a moving seat and the seat recreates the complex, three-dimensional motion pattern that a horse generates when it’s walking,” Garner said. The machine is the product of 11 years of work. It was inspired by horse therapy and Garner said the project began by studying the movement patterns of horses in 2007. “I began by just projecting those motions on…
By Rylee Seavers | Broadcast ReporterAll the best books I have ever read are ones I have chosen, not ones that I was told to read for a class. This isn’t to say that books assigned in class are always bad, but I think too many students judge reading as a whole by the books we have to read for class. Reading is a wonderful thing that can teach you so much about the world, other cultures and people who lived thousands of years ago or who live thousands of miles away. But it seems like the books we are…
By Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter The Baylor Law school hosted its 13th annual People’s Law School today. The People’s Law School is an opportunity for residents to gain a better understanding of the law from experts. Attendees were able to sit in on three sessions which covered topics like sexual harassment in the workplace, landlord-tenant laws, family law and consumer law. Organizer of the People’s Law School and professor of law, Patricia Wilson said there are sessions held in other areas of the state and that the Texas Bar Association recommended that a People’s Law School be set up…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast ReporterA feminist club is currently going through Baylor’s student activities charter process, but in the meantime, members of the organization are devoting their time and energy to advocate for more baby-changing facilities in Baylor’s public restrooms. Feminist club president Adrienne Kruse said she was first made aware of the lack of facilities when talking to San Diego senior, Trenton Reyes who found it hard to find changing facilities on campus when his girlfriend and one-month old son came to visit him. “She’d come over to campus when I’d be getting out of classes, so we would…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast ReporterBaylor has launched a new podcast, called Baylor Connections, which will introduce the Waco community to Baylor professors and highlight some of the work going on within the university. The podcast began in January with President Linda Livingstone as the first guest. She will be featured on Baylor Connections every month. Derek Smith, senior marketing and communications specialist, announcer for McLane Stadium and Ferrell Center and host of Baylor Connections, said the podcast provides a great opportunity for the community to hear from experts and researchers about relevant issues. “We can take a topic and really…
Baylor students and Waco residents celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday by participating in events throughout the community. Zeta Phi Beta sorority and Phi Beta Sigma fraternity hosted their annual march at the Waco Suspension Bridge and wreath laying ceremony at Martin Luther King Jr. Park. Attendees walked across the suspension bridge, singing “We Shall Overcome” and gathered to hear community members speak prior to the wreath laying ceremony. “It’s a time for us to energize people, get people involved in the work of social justice in Waco,” said Dr. Peaches Henry, president of the Waco NAACP and…
By Rylee Seavers | Broadcast ReporterLanguage classes are often viewed only as a requirement we have to complete to graduate. Baylor’s potential changes to the core curriculum for the College of Arts and Sciences would reduce the language requirement to three semesters. Many students may see this as a good change or more time that could be better spent taking major-specific classes, but I think this would be a loss for students. We live in a large country that is part of an even larger world, in which 7,099 known languages are spoken, according to Ethnologue by SIL International. Seventy-nine…
By Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter As intimidation from abroad clutters the news, many Americans are increasingly fearful of foreign threats to the United States. According to a recent NBC News and SurveyMonkey poll, North Korea is the most feared threat to national security among Americans, followed by ISIS and Russia, respectively. The survey, which comprises responses from 5,047 adults across the nation with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percent, reveals that 54 percent of respondents said North Korea poses the “greatest immediate threat to the United States.” Nineteen percent of respondents said ISIS poses the…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter Baylor students are bringing Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music to life with Early Music Ensembles. “Early Music Ensembles are chamber music groups that delve into history in music and we learn about the scores, the handwritten scores,[and] the early printed scores, so those are sometimes works of art in themselves,” said Jann Cosart, associate professor of music and director of the Early Music Ensembles. “We learn how to read that language and then, we don’t just study about the history, we make it come alive.” Cosart founded Early Music Ensembles 16 years ago when she…
By Rylee Seavers | Broadcast ReporterMy name is Rylee and I am a caffeineaholic. I love coffee. Hearing my Keurig brewing liquid gold every morning can pull me out of bed, even if the sun hasn’t risen yet. I used to start every morning with a mug of black coffee and follow that up with at least one, sometimes two or three, more coffees throughout the day. As the saying goes, everything in moderation, but the problem is I had sped right past moderation straight into full-on caffeine dependency. My solution to the headaches and afternoon crashes that come with…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter Dr. David Jack, professor of mechanical engineering, has been working on a portable scanning device for nine years which has the potential to change the airline industry. “The device we’ve created uses a high frequency ultrasound to look inside the composite structure to basically build you a 3-D microstructure of what the layup is,” Jack said. In short, the scanning device will help to ensure that repairs and modifications to a plane do not affect the existing structure. Current scans for composite structures can only magnify the structure to about an eighth of an inch.…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter Some Baylor Bears are already getting into the Christmas spirit. Baylor Student Union hosted a Make-and-Take Sundown Session on Saturday for students to make their own Christmas ornaments. “We know that we’re entering into the holiday season. Of course, Thanksgiving is coming up and then Christmas, and because we know Christmas on 5th is coming a little bit closer, just with the break, we decided it was a perfect time to start getting into the spirit,” said Jordy Dickey, assistant director of the Student Union. Students enjoyed hot chocolate and apple cider from Common Grounds…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter Poet Tony Connor was born in 1930 and grew up in Manchester, England. He began writing poetry when he was only 13 years old, after first being exposed to it at his local library. “What I noticed is at the back of the library, the dark shelves where hardly anybody ever went and I started to explore these shelves and found that these were full of poetry books,” Connor said. Connor said he left school at 14 years old and did not attend college. He said this was a good thing because he was not…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter How many hours a day do you spend on your smartphone? Baylor marketing professor Dr. James Roberts’ book “Too Much of a Good Thing: Are You Addicted to Your Smartphone?” can help you determine if your smartphone habits indicate addiction. “It’s eerily close to, the way we analyze an addiction to technology as we would any everyday type of addiction to cigarettes, drugs or alcohol,” Roberts said. After studying the smartphone habit of Baylor students, Roberts found that women use their phones about ten hours per day and men seven and a half. Smartphone use…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter Baylor professor emeritus of political science Dr. William Mitchell recently released a book detailing five trips made by a group of Baylor faculty members to Iraq during operation Iraqi Freedom. The book, titled “Baylor in Northern Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom,” details the objectives of the trips made between 2003 and 2007. “The book actually is an effort to document every single thing, almost everything, we did over those five year periods,” Mitchell said. “It wasn’t just going to Iraq, it involved everything about Iraq in terms of doing book drives here at Baylor, going…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter Art appreciation in real life can be very different from what students learn in the classroom. Baylor professor of art, Winter Rusiloski said looking at a work of art can be mechanical and quick, but truly seeing it requires more engagement with the piece. “I don’t think you’ve really seen it until you’ve spent time looking closer, looking at the detail and, like I said, reading it,” she said. The Martin Museum of Art is featuring an exhibit by Danville Chadbourne, a Texas-based artist who first began his work with clay, according to the exhibit…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter Dr. Brian Marks has been playing piano for half a century. As a child, he often watched his mother play. “When I was a little boy, I used to sit underneath the grand piano and listen to her practice, so that’s where I first developed my love of it,” Marks said. When Marks was in college, he tried to study other subjects like linguistics and business, but said he kept coming back to music. Marks and Dr. Mike Jacobson, Baylor professor of Saxophone, were nominated for a Grammy a few years ago for their recording…
By Rylee Seavers | Broadcast ReporterBefore coming to Baylor, I had a very “cookie cutter” view of what college would be like. I expected to find my friends right away, and that we would spend our spare time together at a coffee shop talking about our exciting lives, just like in a sitcom. But this idea wasn’t just based on Friends, I was told time and time again that I would make so many friends and connect with so many people right away that shared my interests. However, the reality was much different. I did meet many people in those…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter The Baylor Jazz Ensemble, comprised of 19 student musicians and one vocalist, performed on Tuesday night in Jones Concert Hall. “Jazz Ensemble is a group of students from all disciplines across the university, mostly music students, but we have non-music majors as well, who just love getting together and playing the American art form of jazz,” said Alex Parker, director of jazz studies at Baylor. Parker said students audition for the ensemble during the summer and the best musicians are chosen to be a part of the group. Every person in jazz ensemble is also…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter Artists of all kinds shared their talents with the community at the annual Waco Cultural Arts Fest this weekend. The festival showcased poetry, science, dance, films and local artists on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. “I volunteer because I have a really busy life and it’s a great way for me to just get connected with Waco and all the great culture that’s around that I don’t get to enjoy that often,” said Sophia Gardner, a volunteer. “It just makes me really happy to forget about all the stressful stuff in my life right now and…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter The mass shooting in Las Vegas that occurred late Sunday night has made an impact on people across the nation and even some at Baylor. Las Vegas junior, Emmie Weddell was born and raised in Las Vegas and said when she woke up to the news on Monday, her heart dropped. “When it’s at your home, it’s a lot more personal,” Weddell said. “And it’s devastating when it happens anywhere, but you feel the effects cut more deeply when it happens somewhere you have seen and somewhere you have been to people that you know…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter Learning to grocery shop can be difficult when you first move into an apartment, especially when it comes to buying produce and meat. Andrew Garcia, produce manager, and Chris Pitts, market manager at H-E-B on Valley Mills Drive, shared their tips on picking items at the grocery store. Avocado Garcia said not to squeeze an avocado to test if it’s ripe. “Once you’ve squeezed that avocado, when it ripens, it’s going to have a black scar where your thumbprint is,” Garcia said. Instead, he said to look for one with a shiny, brown skin…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter The Baylor Swing Dancing Society had their annual workshop on Friday and Saturday to teach the basic moves for the Lindy Hop. The Lindy Hop is a classic 1930’s American dance that is the basis for modern hip-hop dance, said James Otto, Swing Dance Society president. “Sometimes I need a break from math and business and when I’m able to come here and do something physical, just kind of let loose, relax, that’s a great way for me to get away from it all,” Otto said. Most the members of the swing dance society had…
By Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter A study by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine has found a connection between lack of sleep in young adults and binge watching. The study defined binge watching as “watching multiple consecutive episodes of the same television show in one sitting on a screen, be it a television, laptop, computer or tablet computer screen.” Dr. Michael Scullin, assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor, said the blue light emitted by screens makes our brain think the sun is rising, therefore making us feel more awake regardless of the time of day. The study…
Rylee Seavers | Broadcast Reporter A Deferred Action for Child Arrivals (DACA) clinic will be held at Baylor’s Law School on Tuesday, September 26. The clinic follows Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ announcement that DACA will be ending. Those with DACA cards that expire between September 5, 2017 and March 5, 2018 can apply to renew for two more years, but it must be done by October 5. Laura Hernandez, professor of law at Baylor Law School, said DACA does not give individuals legal status to be in the United States, but prevents deportation among card holders. “Most DACA card holders…