THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018 • VOL. 122, ISS. 42
THESUNFLOWER.COM
WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1896.
BARDO CALLS FOR PUBLIC STUDENT FEES DELIBERATION BY CHANCE SWAIM
BRIAN HAYES/THE SUNFLOWER
Vice President of Student affairs Teri Hall speaks at the SGA meeting on Wednesday about tabling the student fees under an open discussion can take place. Bardo emailed Hall, calling for a deliberation re-do.
An hour before the student senate meeting where the student fees recommendation would ungo a first reading, Wichita State President John Bardo emailed a statement to Vice President for Student Affairs Teri Hall, calling for the Student Fee Committee to “reconvenes and holds its deliberations in public, so that the campus and the community know we are committed to the First Amendment and the freedom of speech required in a first-class university.” The Student Fees Committee — a group of students from the Student Government and university administrators — met Friday behind closed doors, barring reporters from The Sunflower and The Wichita Eagle from entry to the student fee deliberations. Claiming the committee is not subject to the Kansas Open
Meetings Act, university administrators and student government members discussed how to allocate $9,642,314. Monday, The Sunflower wrote about how members of the Student Fees Committee might be retaliating for investigative reporting. That evening, the committee released its recommendations, cutting The Sunflower’s operating funds in half and its request by a nearly two-thirds. Bardo’s full statement was: “The current discussion on Sunflower funding has raised First Amendment questions. I have spoken numerous times about my concern regarding First Amendment censorship at universities, especially involving freedom of speech. The fee committee, I believe, acted within the rules of the Kansas Open Meetings Act, however, there are normally not constitutional questions regarding
fees. At this stage of the student fee process it is a student senate decision. SGA recommends fees to the President. I think that recommendation will have more credibility if the fee committee reconvenes and holds its deliberations in public, so that the campus and community know we are committed to the First Amendment and the freedom of speech required in a first-class university.” Student Senate tabled discussion of the proposal and Hall delivered Bardo’s remarks. Hall said the meeting would take place by the end of next week. Organizations requesting funds will not present their requests again. It’s unclear what committee members will be allowed to consider. Hall made clear this did not mean Bardo was changing the recommendations of the committee.
‘This is our livelihood’
SELENA FAVELA/THE SUNFLOWER
The Santa Fe Room in the RSC was full to the brim with people on Wednesday to hear the first reading of a student fees recommendation. The recommendation was tabled, but many spoke out.
Fees committee recommends $0 for Mikrokosmos literary journal
Automotive engineers speak against potential funding cuts BY RAY STRUNK
BY JENNA FARHAT
The oldest literary journal in Kansas could cease to exist if the Student Fees Committee recommendations pass. The committee recommended that Wichita State’s literary journal, Mikrokosmos, receives no student funds this year. The literary journal, whose first issue was printed in 1958, requested $3,700 for next year. Mikrokosmos Editor-in-Chief Katie Amundsen said during public forum of Wednesday’s student government meeting that she wasn’t surprised by the committee’s recommendation. “Without the support of SGA, it is very likely that Mikro will cease to exist,” Amundsen said. She urged student senators to vote against the cut, saying many students do not understand how important it is for WSU to have a literary journal. “Any reputable higher learning
BRIAN HAYES/THE SUNFLOWER
Aaron Bristow Rodriguez asks Student Senate to read the student services requests submitted to the Student Fees Committee. Senators asked Rodriguez questions that were answered in Mikrokosmos’s student fees request.
institution has a literary journal,” Amundsen said, including Butler Community College. “Without Mikro, our graduate program will be much less enticing for prospective students in all disciplines.” Amundsen pointed out that graduate students teach the majority of English composition classes at WSU, which is a required class for all undergraduate students. “It’s obvious that you’d want qualified, high-quality instructors as the first point of contact for first year students in all major.” Amundsen said publishing is not limited to English students, and that the literary journal presents
opportunities for art and design students, who help with the design aspect of the journal. Aaron Bristow-Rodriguez, poetry editor of Mikrokosmos, said the journal has requested less funding throughout the years to align with budget cuts. Last year, the literary journal sought $4,200 in student fees and ended up receiving $2,000, compared to fiscal years 2014 and 2015 when the journal received $5,500 in student fees. “We are working with these budget cuts,” Bristow-Rodriguez said. “We are looking at options to save money in order to continue to print this magazine. “
Two automotive engineering student organizations are facing potential funding cuts. The Formula Team and BAJA, both affiliated with the Society of Automotive Engineers, were set to see their funds cut in half under the original budget recommendations released Monday. The Formula Team, a group of students who design, build, and race a small race-car for competitions, requested $70,000 in funding. The committee recommended $33,033, a nearly 53 percent cut. The group received $66,066 each of the last five years. BAJA is a group that designs and builds a small all-terrain vehicle for competition. “We go over big hills and break things,” Ryan Lynch, captain of BAJA, said during Wednesday’s student senate meeting. The group would face more than a 47 percent cut under Monday’s budget recommendation. They requested $14,250. The committee recommended $7,500. Representatives from both groups said the recommended funding cuts
would be devastating to the groups’ futures. Formula Team Captain Harrison Luginbill-Ruder and BAJA Treasurer Colton Brennan joined lynch in appearing in front of the student senate Wednesday to speak against the recommended cuts. “Is it not the goal of the university to promote student involvement and experiential learning?” LuginbillRuder said. Brennan said the recommended funds would not be enough to buy parts. The engine alone would take up nearly two-thirds of the funding, he said. BAJA has experienced some difficulty over the last couple years. Car crashes and lack of access to manufacturing have prevented the group from competing. The group is preparing to compete next year, after recently moving into the Experiential Engineering Building. Lynch said he felt the group had “made the longest stride in BAJA history” until he saw the recommended funding cut. “This is our livelihood,” Lynch said. “I don’t know what I can do with my future if politics outweighs students.”
INSIDE
SCREENED LUCID DREAMS
TABITHA TRIES OUT
LUCKY NUMBER SEVEN
‘Little Women’ comes to campus in musical form this week.
‘Annihilation’ is bold, bizarre and worth a watch.
Tabitha Brown tries out for U.S. National Team.
The Shockers look for a seventh straight win against UCF.
CULTURE • PAGE 2
CULTURE • PAGE 4
CULTURE • PAGE 4
SPORTS • PAGE 4
LITTLE WOMEN SING
COMMUNITY VOICES
2 | THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
FROM
Shelby Rowell
Students, faculty, and fellow senators, I stand before you all as a member of the Educational Opportunity Fund Committee, and the Student Fees Committee. I am writing to openly and plainly discuss the process of the deliberations, and the decisions made during these deliberations. Over the period of two weeks, these committees heard many requests for funding from many deserving departments, organizations, and scholarship funds on campus. Every single one of these organizations, departments, and scholarship funds are deserving of the full funding amount they requested. I cannot stress enough how many wonderful and meaningful programs we have on campus that at their core, serve students so well. Throughout these presentations, the only thing racing through my mind was, how can we cut these programs, and there must be a way to save them all. When we got to the final deliberation, however, I found out very quickly that there is no way to fund them fully to the extent they deserve without dramatically increasing student fees. So herein lies the predicament of student fees, do you cut programs to keep the fees low, or do you raise the fees to fund the programs sufficiently? As a committee, we felt we had an obligation to keep student fees low, capping our budget at a one percent increase. With that in mind, we went through every single item and deliberated. These deliberations were at times very contentious, but ultimately, we made each decision as a group, no matter how painful it was at times to come to a consensus. As a committee, we made these decisions, and as a committee, we must take responsibility for the budget we propose and the reaction of the student body to said decision. That being said, I believe it is our duty as senators to listen to the will of the students. If the students believe that the committee has made a mistake in their proposal, you have an obligation as a senator to uphold the will of the students. If the students believe their needs are being met by this proposal, then again, you have the obligation to uphold the will of the student body. We as a senate are not meant to be rigid; we move with the will of the students. Our work directly impacts students’ lives. It is our job
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to work with them, and actively hear their concerns and address them. I am a firm believer in the fact that we can create a budget proposal that fits their needs while making sure we are being as mindful and responsible as possible while increasing student fees. I urge you all to leave your biases at the door and listen to the students, as I intend to do during this process. We have been elected and appointed to put students first, a noble oath that we all must follow. As Wednesday’s meeting progresses, keep that in your mind, as the Student Fees and Educational Opportunity Funds processes progress, keep that in your mind. I trust this legislative body will make the best decision for our constituents and for the university as a whole. —Shelby Rowell is a Liberal Arts and Sciences Senator for Student Government, and also a member of the Educational Opportunity Fund Committee, Student Fees Committee Member
FROM
Paul Brink My name is Paul Brink. I am a graduate of Wichita State University, and I served in Student Government Association for the 2015-2016 school year. During that time, I served as an At-Large Senator, Chief Election Commissioner, and on the Budget and Finance and Student Fees Committees. As you may remember from that year, the budget to be allocated by the Student Fees Committee was greatly reduced from previous years, and there was no reserve left to utilize. As a result of that, we were forced to make cuts to the organizations funded by Student Fees, something that none of us wanted to do. Although it was a difficult position, our committee made choices based on minimizing the loss of services to students. One of the choices we made was to cut the budget of The Sunflower from the traditional budget of $158,000 annually down to $105,000 for the following fiscal year. This decision was not made based on the value provided by The Sunflower to students, but instead based on the ability of The Sunflower to continue providing the same level of services by utilizing their reserves. This was intended to be a temporary reduction for one fiscal
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year only, and to restore funding to the necessary level of $158,000 the following year. This was also intended to shield more vulnerable organizations that did not have the ability to absorb a cut of this magnitude over that fiscal year. These intentions were made perfectly clear to everyone on the Senate at that time. Since 2016, there have been tremendous changes not only to the university administrators that sit on the Student Fees Committee, but also to the students that are voting members of that committee. As a result of this, the original intention of a temporary funding cut for The Sunflower has been lost. The Student Fees Committee recommended budget for Fiscal Year 2019 includes only $55,000 for The Sunflower, which is simply not enough for our student newspaper to continue operations. In 2016, I inspected the budget and operating documents from The Sunflower when they presented and officially requested funding. I am very well aware that The Sunflower requires their full budget of $158,000 to continue to function at the level to which we have become accustomed. A cut of this magnitude will serve to destroy The Sunflower as we know it. I can only speculate as to the motivations behind this decrease in recommended funding. I know that with in-person credit hours continuing to decrease, and many students replacing that with more online classes, the Student Fees budget continues to be strained. Certainly the members of the Student Fees Committee had many difficult choices to make, as we did in 2016. However, it is abundantly clear that the members of the Student Fees Committee in 2018 did not make the same considerations as the 2016 committee. As stewards of this budget, there is an obligation to ensure that organizations are provided with the tools needed to serve the student body, as it is possible. This recommended budget does not consider the very real value that The Sunflower provides to the students at Wichita State University, let alone its important role in academics for communications or journalism majors. I am no longer a student at WSU, but as an alum I am deeply troubled by this. I would like to urge the Senate to exert their powers of oversight over the Student Fees Committee, and vote against this
COMMUNITY VOICES
Thank you. proposed budget. If the Senate rejects this proposed budget, it can go back into deliberations by the Student Fees Committee, which can recommend a new budget proposal at a later date. —Paul Brink is a graduate of Wichita State University
FROM
Julie Nolte For years, liberal arts and science students have been on the back-burner. With all this talk of “innovation” it seems as if mainly engineering students and business students are the only ones reaping the benefits. What about us? What about the Elliott School? It should not come as a surprise with the way the world views students with art or communication degrees, that we, the communication majors, are seen as less. We are assumed to be less intelligent than our counterparts and that we are not a goal driven and took the “easy route” when deciding to work towards a degree in communication. The world is continuing to see us in this light, yet the administration is not doing anything to benefit this
FROM
Mariah Perkins
To fellow students, Student Government Association, and members of the Student Fees Committee—
I am a graduate student, graduate teaching assistant, and non-fiction editor of Mikrokosmos literary journal. With the risk of important funding being cut and without adequate graduate student representation on SGA, it is important that you hear my voice. Unfortunately, I will be unable to attend the public forums both Feb. 28 and March 7. I point out this inability to attend, as the irony is not lost on me. First of all, I will not be able to attend Feb. 28 because of obligations to a job that I need in order to supplement my stipend as a GTA. Secondly, I will be absent from public forum next week as I will be at a national writing conference (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) promoting our literary journal and graduate creative writing program. Basically, I will not be able to confront SGA’s proposed budget cuts because of my commitment to this school and its student body. Mikroskosmos asked for $3, 710, a mere .04% of the overall budget. It doesn’t take much to keep us afloat. It doesn’t take much to create a high quality journal. It doesn’t take much to create something that draws students from all over the country to attend WSU (I, myself, hailing from Michigan). Mikrokosmos is set to release its 64th issue by the end of this year to a national audience. We will be
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FROM
James Houston Bales
I was editor of The Sunflower when it celebrated its centennial in 1996. My team and I spent weeks researching the newspaper’s history and its coverage of the university over those 100 years. Many things changed from 1896 to 1996, but The Sunflower was always a consistent voice for students and the greater WSU community. Twenty-two years later I fear The Sunflower faces what may be the greatest threat to its future.
Seven years ago, I graduated from Wichita State. Since graduating, I have moved twice to attend two other schools, but I have never stopped reading The Sunflower. Why? Because The Sunflower’s excellent coverage of Wichita State is unmatched anywhere else. Regardless of your field of study, good teachers emphasize the ability to examine ideas from multiple sides, to see the pros and the cons of
I am a graduate student and a teaching and research assistant at Wichita State. I also wrote for The Sunflower for two years while
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FROM
Drew Colcher
pursuing my bachelors degree. I am distressed, to say the least, that the Student Government Association would have the audacity to suggest such severe cuts to what has become a WSU institution and a respectable journalistic forum for student writers and university-related issues. In my opinion, no university can consider itself a serious academic institution without taking writing and journalism seriously. While there is constant action and readily available funding for everything from Innovation Campus construction projects, to Starbucks coffee shops and a formula 1 racing team, journalism and the liberal arts continue to be targeted by the administration, and consequently are struggling to remain afloat. We also inhabit an era of misinformation and questionable news sources. It would seem that not only the university specifically, but our society as a whole, would benefit from a focus on the methods and ethics of journalism and composition. The Sunflower has recently improved its reputation in this regard, and begun publishing hard-hitting investigative journalism that takes the administration to task. Most of us who are concerned about the student newspaper have a hard time not seeing a connection between the frequent criticism of WSU’s questionable administrative decisions, and the proposed cuts to The Sunflower’s budget. Coupled with the egregiously redacted documents provided to The Sunflower by WSU’s legal team, the secrecy surrounding the meeting where these budget cuts were devised (as well as the secrecy surrounding most of the changes happening on campus) and the simultaneous decision to cut 100 percent of the literary journal Mikrokosmos’ funding (a pittance of $2,000 annually), this whole process seems like punitive action against the liberal arts and journalistic integrity. These cuts feel political. They feel unethical. They feel like retaliation. Even if they are driven by purely fiscal motives, they are unnecessary and damaging to the university. The Shocker community and Wichita as a whole stands behind The Sunflower and finds these proposals absolutely unacceptable. —Drew Colcher is a graduate student at Wichita State University, Former Sunflower reporter
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any position. This is not easy to do when dealing with large, lucrative ideas like the Innovation Campus. Many people are so enamored with what such ideas could be that they forget to evaluate the potential negative impact of those ideas. Without The Sunflower’s coverage of the Innovation Campus, nobody would be examining the potential negatives of the Innovation Campus in the public eye. And as someone who loves Wichita State but was removed by distance for a long time, I greatly appreciate this work. The impulse to give back to any institution that formed you is strong. Any alumnus is a potential future donor. If I decide to give back to Wichita State like I would like to one day, I want to know my gift will not be squandered, and to that end, I would like to know the nature of the people handling that money. The Sunflower is one of the few media institutions willing to examine the Wichita State administration. Even if the administration were doing a perfect job, this examination is a vital service that is difficult to perform, and The Sunflower does it admirably. I also love The Sunflower’s coverage of Wichita State sports. Even compared to The Eagle, The Sunflower is top-notch when covering basketball, and your coverage of other sports is equally excellent. The Sunflower has a tradition of creating excellent sportswriters and bringing a valuable perspective to such a staid field. I may not be a Wichita State student anymore, but I still read The Sunflower. Frankly, I am appalled to see this cowardly attack against this paper, clearly meant to silence young journalists simply doing their jobs. So I will say this directly: student government, you must fully fund The Sunflower. Far more than just a student paper, The Sunflower is a valuable community resource, and a diminished Sunflower diminishes Wichita as a whole. —James Houston Bales is a graduate of Wichita State University.
|3
After SGA said The Sunflower’s ad section wasn’t putting in efforts to sell ads, Sunflower readers bought classifieds to show their support
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featuring work from alumni of the creative writing and art programs, current students, and faculty. This Thursday we will be hosting an open mic open to not only the WSU community, but all of Wichita. Our interests and reach are clearly widespread. Not only that, but we are the oldest literary journal in Kansas—our first issue was printed in 1958. Eliminating funding for Mikrokosmos is essentially eliminating a piece of Wichita State University’s history. —Mariah Perkins is a graduate student at Wichita State University, Non-fiction Editor of Mikrokosmos
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sector of students. Thankfully, we have amazing faculty that helps us find opportunities in the community and also one other place, The Sunflower. The Sunflower is a fantastic opportunity for students. It allows them to gain valuable skills and work experience that will be very beneficial for their future career. It works to be a source of information for the entire community and is the oldest student organization on this campus. With all that being said, a committee wants to cut their funding in half? Actually, more than half. I don’t know about you, but I bet this extremity of a funding cut, which inedibility takes away opportunity for the students, would never happen to the precious engineering students. —Julie Nolte is a senior studying integrated marketing communications through the Elliott School of Communication.
I urge student government representatives to quit playing politics with student fee allocations. Slashing the budget of The Sunflower by half is doing a serious disservice to the very students you are supposed to represent. Each and every student benefits from The Sunflower’s coverage of the WSU community. An independent student publication has the freedom to ask the tough questions, give a voice to the minority, and spark conversation and debate. This doesn’t always please the powers-that-be, but it’s crucial for a healthy democracy. The type of independent, investigative journalism your peers at The Sunflower are producing takes resources. For decades SGA understood the value of that service (even when coverage of student government or the administration wasn’t very favorable) and voted to fund The Sunflower at reasonable levels. Consider also your fellow students who depend on The Sunflower for invaluable experience in the journalism field. I was employed by The New York Times shortly after graduating not because of the classes on my transcript but because I had the opportunity to put that coursework into real practice at The Sunflower. Demonstrated experience is a must for graduating seniors looking for employment in the competitive media space — perhaps even more so today than when I graduated in 1996. Student government: Don’t diminish the critical voice WSU students have had in The Sunflower for 122 years. Speak up for your peers. Vote to fully fund your independent, student-run, Sunflower. —Jean Wegerer-Bertematti, Former Editor of The Sunflower
THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
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SPORTS & CULTURE
4 | THURSDAY, MARCH 1, 2018
Brown to try out for U.S. National Team this weekend BY ALIYAH FUNSCHELLE
Tabitha Brown, a junior outside hitter for The Shockers, travels to Colorado this weekend to try out for the U.S. National Volleyball Team. The tryouts take place March 2-4 and will be held at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Brown is one of 230 athletes from 90 different colleges from across the country. The athletes are competing for spots on both the U.S. Women’s National Team and the U.S. Collegiate National Team program. Brown is one of 60 outside hitters that are trying out, along with 49 middles, 48 liberos, 43 setters and 30 opposites. In her junior season, Brown hit .268 with 385 kills, 10 assists, five service aces, 201 digs, seven solo blocks and 48 block assists. Brown was named an honorable mention AVCA All-American, honorable mention All-American by Volleyball Magazine and Prep Volleyball, first team all-conference, honorable mention all-region, and was named to the all-tournament team at the LUV Invitationa in the 2017 season. A press release from Wichita State Athletics stated how the tryouts are ran and what being on the team entails: The tryout will involve four sessions with three waves per session. Friday’s first session goes from 2-8 p.m. MT, while Saturday’s sessions are at 8 a.m. (focus on serve/receive
ART STUDENTS PERFORM MUSICAL TWIST OF ‘LITTLE WOMEN’
and individual work) and 2 p.m. (middle-centered and out-of-system focus). The final session on Sunday begins at 7:30 a.m. MT with tournament style play, along with 16-18 athletes selected by the U.S. Women’s National Team staff to participate in a “USA” training session. The Sunday session wraps up at 10:30 a.m. MT. All sessions minus the USA training session on Sunday morning will be streamed live and available for free by clicking here. USA Volleyball will use #USAVtryout as the event hashtag for photos, notes, quotes and stories posted to its social media platforms Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram under the handle @ usavolleyball. Selected athletes for the U.S. Women’s National Team may begin their training in Anaheim, California, as early as the spring of 2018, or when an athlete’s scholastic or professional club season has concluded. The U.S. Collegiate National Team program has three competition options: U.S. Women’s Collegiate National Team – May 20-31, CNT Asia (International) U.S. Women’s Collegiate National Team – July 4-15, CNT Europe (International) U.S. Women’s Collegiate National Team – June 22-July 1, CNT-Detroit, Michigan (Domestic) Selections for the U.S. Collegiate National Teams will be made by the end of March.
SELENA FAVELA/THE SUNFLOWER
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(Top) Krystin Skidmore playing the role of Aunt March and Xan Mattek as the role of Jo March, dance across stage while singing in the musical “Little Women”. (Left) Lexy Witcher, Karen Blackmon, Xan Mattek, and Julia Pottinger portray the March sisters in the musical “Little Women”. (Above) Sisters Jo and Beth March, played by Xan Mattek and Karen Blackmon, fly a kite during the musical “Little Women”. Little Women will be performed at 7:30 p.m. from Thursday, March 1 through Saturday, March 3 and on Sunday, March 4, at 2 p.m. in Wilner Auditorium.
Shockers looking for 7th-straight win to keep American title hopes alive BY ALIYAH FUNSCHELLE
COURTESY
A scene from ‘annihilation.’
‘Annihilation’ is bold, bizarre Watching “Annihilation” is akin to lucid dreaming — existing in a state of awareness in which, deep down, you know you are unconscious. The latest film from Alex Garland (“Ex Machina,” “Sunshine”) is enveloped in a hallucinogenic haze, a sci-fi fever dream in which the limits of reality are pushed against, prodded and tested. What results is a film that beautifully asks a lot of very tough questions without giving a lot of very definitive answers. It is a puzzle of a movie, one that demands patience, but in time reveals itself in all of its strange and terrible beauty to the viewer. “Annihilation” follows Lena (Natalie Portman), a professor of Biology at John Hopkins, whose husband Kane (Oscar Issac) returns from a clandestine mission changed. “Annihilation” traces an arc as she discovers that her husband wasn’t overseas, but instead inside the “Shimmer.” The Shimmer (aptly named, for it looks like a soap bubble about to burst—complete with the holographic multicolor swirl one usually finds on an oil slick) is the residue from an asteroid crashing into the Earth three years ago; an alien dome that mutates and changes everything inside of it, including those who enter. Lena volunteers for the next ongoing mission to go inside the Shimmer, backed up by Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, and Gina Rodguriez. This is a very talented group of actresses whose previous films already display their considerable talents, but “Annihilation” has them operating on a much more subdued level, with only the occasional outburst of outright emotion. Chalk this up to their professions (psychologist, physicist, and paramedic respectfully) they all attempt to operate within a clinical and reserved capacity. However, you can imagine this all disintegrates once they enter that alien zone. What follows from this intriguing premise is a film that is slow yet subtly terrifying, unfolding itself slowly like a deformed flower. Sick, yet beautiful. The environment inside the Shimmer is two steps removed from reality, close enough to recognize, but far enough away to be considered alien. Flora and fauna alike have changed almost beyond recognition, and Garland does a good job at revealing this world to the viewer through the considerable use of lens flare and disorienting
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MATTHEW GARNER FILM CRITIC
camerawork. The soundtrack lingers just above the surface, dropping into something otherworldly when the action begins to ramp up or another twisted and strange image asserts itself on screen. This movie relishes in its aesthetic, a cross between something visually pleasing and just slightly off-center, like a Venus fly-trap. Also featuring one of the most nightmarish monsters to grace the silver screen in years, Garland’s command of the aesthetic really establishes the tone of the world he’s created. However, this world is complex, and the preparation required for setting up these pieces for the viewer is somewhat elaborate. The first act features dialogue that is somewhat clunky and laden with the heavy work of exposition and establishing motivation. For every paradoxically pretty and strange image Garland crafts, there seems to be a piece of dialogue waiting to undercut its full effect. Furthermore, this movie also takes its time in creating its mouse trap, and it isn’t until they fully enter the Shimmer do things really start to come together. “Annihilation” is a bizarre film, and one that probably requires repeat viewings to glean all the information from it. The last twenty minutes are some of the strangest and boldest I’ve seen in a science-fiction film in quite some time. There’s an audacity to the film-making on display here that is divisive but admirable, and the few people who see this film in theaters will no doubt have many questions and not a lot of answers to show for it. But, despite all this, there’s an intelligent core at the center of this film — a steady hand keeping the whole process in motion. And while the end product is unusual, it is also confident and assured and a dense piece of science-fiction storytelling worth seeking.
No. 11 Wichita State has the opportunity to clinch their own share of The American’s regular-season title if they can make it through the week perfectly. The Shockers’ fight for the title is tiring for the players and the coaches, but Head Coach Gregg Marshall said the excitement of this time of year tops the fatigue. “If we win the two games, we get a No. 1 seed (in the conference tournament) in our first year. It’s exciting, it’s fun, it’s challenging as heck,” Marshall said. “All players and all coaches right now are tired, but the excitement, the exhilaration of this time of year trumps all of that.” Marshall thinks whoever wins the regular-season should be the team to represent the conference in the NCAA Tournament. “I think it’s the most difficult, in fact, and should be more rewarded, honestly,” Marshall said. “I’ve always said a regular season champion should be the one to represent the league in the NCAA Tournament . . . I think that the two to two-and-a half months should be valued greater than a three or four day tournament.”
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Wichita State guard Samajae Haynes-Jones dribbles around UCF guard Dayon Griffin Wednesday night in Koch Arena.
Thursday is just the second meeting between the two teams, with their first being a 19-point Shocker win in Wichita earlier this year. The Knights were selected to finish third in The American’s preseason poll, but the team has suffered from three key players being injured. Tacko Fall’s season-ending injury occurred just before the first game in Wichita. UCF’s seven-foot-six center was averaging 11.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.9 blocks per game for The Knights. The Knights’ guard B.J. Taylor also was out with an injury but returned Jan. 16 after missing 16 games due to a foot injury. Taylor was a preseason first team all-conference selection. With absences from those
primary players, UCF has gone 8-8 in The American. Wichita State is on track to setting American conference records for three categories: scoring offense (84.2), rebounding offense (40.8) and assists per game (18.9). Not only are the Shockers on pace to setting new records, they also lead The American in rebound margin (+10.2), field goal percentage (.483), assist-to-turnover ratio (1.6), defensive rebound percentage (.772) and three-pointers per game (9.5). If the Shockers win on Thursday, they are guaranteed a finish no worse than a tie for second place. WSU has finished first or second in all of their last eight conference seasons. Tipoff is at 6 p.m. and will be broadcasted on ESPN.