“If you could have any superpower, what would it be?” While watching the most recent episode of “My Hero Academia” –– an anime about a high school breeding the next class of super heroes –– I asked myself this question.
As a college student, diet becomes our last concern. The word “vegetable” becomes as dead as Vine (R.I.P.) and the options for food on campus aren’t the healthiest, nor the tastiest.
In Defense of Clarity On Friday, at President Tripathi’s State of the University Address, members of the Living Stipend Movement silently stood and held signs reading: “Living Stipend?” “Are Poverty Wages Excellent?” “Is 34th Competitive?” and, of course, “UB works because we do.” In the otherwise well-written article covering the event, UB reporters mistakenly wrote that teaching assistants receive an average stipend of $38,000 for the nine-month academic year. The reporters’ confusion is more than understandable. UB administration has been less than clear in regards to TAs’ actual funding.
On Monday, Oct. 1, the UB Living Stipend Movement attempted to attend a supposedly public meeting of the UB Council to ask why graduate and teaching assistants at UB do not earn a living wage. They were largely barred from the meeting under the false pretense that allowing them in would violate university fire code. After, members of the Council meekly trotted out a back exit, shielded from the horrors of criticism and questions from less affluent folk by a locked door and a UB police officer.
Have you ever crashed a networking event on campus just because you saw a lavish refreshment table or attended a club meeting you had no interest in because it had pizza? Have you ever considered donating blood just for the free chips and cookies? If so, you are not alone. I, too, am a broke and hungry college student. So, for one whole week, I tried to survive entirely on free food.
Of all the promises President Donald Trump made on the campaign trail, he has followed through on his promise of higher trade protectionism in the U.S.
Dear Editor: I wanted to take the opportunity to comment on the September 24 letter to The Spectrum by Professor Jim Holstun regarding University at Buffalo Foundation unrestricted funds. Professor Holstun correctly notes that UBF Consolidated Financial Statements for FY '17 report unrestricted funds of $277 million. However, UB cannot "spend those funds on anything it wants" as Professor Holstun states in his letter.
When my long-term relationship ended last summer, I did the most rational thing I could think of –– I moved over an hour away and got a cat. In my defense, I was going to move to Buffalo from Rochester anyway for school. The cat just happened to be an extra bonus.
Brett Kavanaugh’s hearing is supposed to be about his sexual assault allegations, but instead it feels entirely politically driven. We at The Spectrum are upset with how Kavanaugh’s hearing has panned out. Many of us stand behind the women who have come forward, and many also feel as if the nomination and the hearing are politically charged moves by both parties. We believe students should care about issues like this, regardless of political leaning.
When you’re meeting new people on campus, they typically ask you what your major is. It’s not an uncommon question, and it’s certainly not one that should stress you out.
At a recent work meeting, we somehow got on the topic of accents and a co-worker said: “God I hate how people speak in Buffalo, it’s like a drill straight to the ear.” Now wait just a second. Did you just infer that Buffalonians have an accent? This was bizarre to me. Growing up in Buffalo, everyone on my street and in my school basically talked the same way. I knew the Long Island accent; the New England accent; Southern accents; all the stereotypical ones you see on TV. But a Buffalo accent? Never heard of it.
It’s a tough job being a Bills fan. We went to the Super Bowl four years in a row –– 1990 to 1993 –– and lost four Super Bowls in a row. We’ve had seven coaches in the last nine years, failed to make the playoffs for 17 and invested in numerous failed “franchise” quarterbacks.
Students should care about where student money goes, regardless of the purchase date. In today’s issue of The Spectrum, we reported on the Faculty Student Association’s 1964 land investment. FSA, now heading Campus Dining & Shops, purchased the land with student money, and sold the land in 1987, making a profit of $589,000.
Lebron James going to L.A., who cares? The new Labatt House, you call that news? Ryan Fitzpatrick’s fashion sense, does it matter? All of that is second fiddle now that UB is finally good at Division I football. The Bills aren’t the only team putting programs in the obituary. Now Tyree Jackson and company are hitting the field and ripping hearts out from other teams.
Dear Editor: During the last year, the whole UB community has become aware that we have a graduate stipend problem. After deducting UB’s sky-high mandatory fees, some graduate assistants (TAs, RAs, GAs) make under $8,000 a year. They average under $13,000. This is unconscionable.
For all intensive purposes, cartoons are strictly jokes. A cat chases a mouse and accidentally steps on a rake. A roadrunner drops an anvil on a coyote’s head. A giddy mongoose suspects an incoming real estate bubble so he’s forced to move back into his parents’ burrow in Cincinnati. Although the last scenario isn’t a show yet, cartoons can take on the traits of real life social problems. And what better example of this then “Ed, Edd n’ Eddy.”
Most kids dream of the day they turn 21. In that sense, I am “most kids.” But my 21st birthday won’t be spent out at bars with buddies or forcing myself to drink 35 Bud Lights. Instead, I’ll be counting down the days until I’m locked in a studio with complete strangers for the entire summer. Since I was 11 years old, one of my dreams has been to make it on CBS’ reality show “Big Brother,” and next summer I’m finally old enough to compete.
Before my last two summers, the only manual labor I ever did was watching my dad build things as I smugly stood by him holding his tools. Those were easier times when I could grab myself a kiwi Capri Sun and hold up boards or something, as my dad would make a deck or whatever task his teacher-on-a-summer-break self desired.
This past week Khalil Mack became the highest paid defensive player in NFL history with a six-year deal worth $141 million. If you’re not already aware, Khalil Mack was a student athlete at UB. He became the highest-ever drafted pick for a player from Buffalo and earned the 2016 NFL Defensive Player of the Year award.
Solutions by The State News
