Bye for Now!

Student reporters listen to TPR reporter Paul Flahive during class
(photo by Josie Liu)

Dear readers,

As of Friday, May 24, the last story of the spring 2019 season of The Roar was published.

The Roar will hibernate until its next season, spring 2020. Big shout out to the following student reporters for their hard and great work of producing stories for The Roar, and please don't forget to check out their story behind stories on our podcast: Jackson Beach, Makenna Bentley, Jillian Cready, Erin Crooks, Luke Dias, Sophie Dwyer, Alexandra Gereda-Gordon, Colton Hawkins, William Hinman, Abigail Holland, Kadarius Lee, Samuel McWhorter, Ian Nielsen, Meredith Peckham, Nick Smetzer, Miranda Smith, Matthew Thomas, Mark Tindall, and Isabella Weston.

Thank you very much for all the support! See you next season!

Stumberg Winners Gear Up for Their Summer Adventure

By Matt Thomas and Mark Tindall

In March, five student entrepreneur teams from Trinity each won a $5,000 prize in the first round of the Stumberg Venture Competition. That is not the end of the story, but the beginning of a new adventure.

With the $5000 seed money, the five teams will stay on Trinity campus over the summer to participate in the Accelerator Program, working 40-hour weeks with pay of $10 per hour (in addition to the prize money). Each team has a unique business idea, for-profit or non-profit, which they hope to further materialize through the summer program.

Conservative Students Striving to Have a Voice on Campus

The homepage of The Tower

By Will Hinman

In 2017, Manfred and Jonah Wendt, then Trinity sophomores, distributed flyers advertising an upcoming talk by conservative filmmaker, Dinesh D’Souza. Taking issue with D’Souza’s provocative conservative ideology being put on display at Trinity, some students collected the flyers and appended them to the Wendts’ dorm door with a variety of handwritten additions. The notes ran the gamut from politely critical to simply rude. Taking the notes as harassment, the Wendt brothers filed a complaint with Trinity University Police.

Receiving coverage in not only the Trinitonian, but also the SA Current, the Rivard Report, and even the far-right outlet, Breitbart, this incident was one of the most public examples of the disparate political views on Trinity’s campus.

Trinity Female Athletes Dominating Male-Dominated Sports

By Abby Holland and Makenna Bentley

Victoria Trabysh, junior psychology major from Amarillo, Texas, found a passion for boxing after her senior year of high school. She found inspiration in her favorite professional female boxers Ava Knight, Mikaela Mayer and Claressa Shields, and dreamed of one day becoming a boxer like them.

“A lot of people think of combat sports, boxing in particular, as violent, but I don't see it as that at all,” says Trabysh. “I see it as a way to express yourself. In a lot of ways it gives me confidence.”

Trabysh has a rigorous training schedule. Going to the gym five to six times a week and training one to two hours each day. She is typically one of the few females to box at her Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) gym and does so with pride. “As hard as it is being one of the only girls, it also kind of motivates me,” she says.

Student Research Bringing Attention to Campus Accessibility

The path leading to the only entrance to the Coates Library.
Click here to view 360 degree photos (photos by Nick Smetzer).

By Nick Smetzer

As summer approaches, plans are being made to renovate portions of Trinity's upper and lower campus. While standard updates to older buildings may be welcome, students, faculty and staff at Trinity have been making a particular effort to improve campus accessibility.

Graduating senior Cathy Terrace, majoring anthropology, has spent her last year at Trinity studying the campus’ history with accessibility, and has noted several areas that pose particular challenges to students.

“Students with mobility impairments who can’t take stairs, for example, are denied easy access to a lot of areas on campus,” said Terrace. An example is the Storch building. "You have to physically leave the building if you leave either half of the basement floor of Storch.”

Latin Jazz Series Showcasing Unique Sound of San Antonio

By Miranda Smith

In the past three months, the Latin Jazz Brunch Series has provided a stimulating experience to both its musicians and listeners.

The event is sponsored by San Antonio’s jazz radio station KRTU based at Trinity University and is coordinate by Henry Brun, a KRTU radio show host.

Brun, 58, was first captivated by jazz while living in Puerto Rico as a boy. He began professionally performing jazz at 11. Since then, he has played around the world, and has performed with his award-winning band for nearly 30 years. For the past 10 years, he has also hosted a Sunday afternoon radio show on KRTU called "the Latin Jazz Brunch."

TEDxTrinityUniversity Strives To Bring Conversations about Knowledge

By Luke Dias

Last school year, Rohan Walawalkar, currently a junior majoring in pre-med anthropology, founded TEDxTrinityUniversity, as a way to keep Trinity students interested in learning broader knowledge.

“Often what I see happening is that people come in excited during their first semester,” Walawalkar said. "But as the semester goes on, they start losing sight of the bigger picture.” TEDxTrinityUniveristy thus became one of the many international branches of TEDx talks. 

TEDx is an offshoot of TED Conferences, the famous media organization that hosts various speeches covering a variety of topics, including science, politics, culture, and art. Unlike TED Conferences, TEDx events are hosted independently by anyone who applies for a license and agrees to follow certain guidelines.

Esports Gaining Traction at Trinity

By Jackson Beach

It’s a busy Friday in April in the CSI cube. Whirring drills, clanging metal and other miscellaneous sounds of construction pierce the air as engineering students work on various projects. Will Ballengee and Ben Gonzalez stand by patiently with various controllers and cables in hand. They are waiting for the engineering students to clear out the space so they can start playing video games.

Ballengee, a junior studying engineering science, is the president of the Trinity University Gaming Club (TUG). Gonzalez, a junior anthropology major, is the vice president. The two have reserved this space for a “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” tournament, the sixth in a series of tournaments held biweekly by the club.

Other members of the club and competitors in the event — around 20 people in total — start to trickle in, and everybody lends a helping hand in setting up. In a matter of minutes, they transform the cube into an esports hub.

Bettering Sexual Health or Mangling Morals: Debates Over Sexual Health Education on Campus

A flyer for the Clothesline Project in March

By Jillian Cready and Sophie Dwyer

On March 21, approximately 200 t-shirts were hung across the Coates Espionage. Each shirt carried a survivor’s story of sexual assault. These shirts were for the Clothesline Project, an event held by The Coalition for Sexual Justice, a Trinity student organization.

The event stirred quite some controversy on campus. Supporters lauded the opportunity of giving voice to the survivors and getting people’s attention to the problem of sexual assault on campus. Opponents, particularly Greek organizations and athletic teams, opposed the allegations of their members involving in some of these assault cases. One student was surprised the school allowed such a public, outspoken event about assault and abuse.

The Clothesline Project was but one of the latest sexual health initiatives at Trinity, and the controversy surrounding it testifies the contentious nature of sexual health education. As Trinity University progresses their attempts to address the issue of sexual health through various programs in recent years, it is debatable whether the public awareness of these efforts has also progressed, or whether these efforts have served to create an uncomfortable space for students.

Trinity's New Challenge: Helping First-year Students Start Strong

Click here for an interactive timeline of the Starting Strong Initiative
(created by Sam McWhorter)

By Sam McWhorter and Erin Crooks

In just three months, the incoming freshmen class will begin their college career at Trinity, and the university is hoping to start the Class of 2023 off on a stronger foot with the newly implemented Starting Strong Initiative.

The initiative traces back to early 2016 and Dr. John R. Hermann, professor of political science, who was responsible for writing the initial proposal.

In April 2016, the plan was chosen as the new QEP, or Quality Enhancement Plan, as part of the re-accreditation process, and Hermann chaired the initiative through its planning stages. By June 2016, the planning officially began, as the newly christened “Development Team” received funding from the Office of the President.

After Much Debate, Chick-fil-A Likely to Leave Trinity

Click here for an interactive map

By KaDarius Lee, Meredith Peckham and Isabelle Weston

The spring semester of 2019 has been marked with the debate of whether or not to remove Chick-fil-A from Revolve.

Revolve is one of the dining options in the Coates University Center. Food served at Revolve changes every day, including Luciano's, Panda Express, and Which Wich.

In fall 2018, Chick-fil-A became one of the options at Revolve. It was chosen to be included through a student survey. In other words, the majority of the Trinity’s student body voted to have Chick-fil-A as part of Revolve.

Trinity Steps Up Efforts Toward A More Diverse Campus

By Alex Gereda-Gordon

Arianna Siddiqui, a sophomore who is a Muslim, still remembers an episode happening just two weeks after she started at Trinity. A fellow student asked her how she could be part of "a religion filled with child rapists." Siddiqui was very upset and frustrated by such an anti-Muslim comment.

Along with Siddiqui, other students and staff are aware of the many challenges facing minorities on campus. Many believe that Trinity could do better at creating a more positive, diverse campus.

Cathy Terrace: Calling for A More Accessible Campus Design

By Nick Smetzer

Trinity’s brick-red campus, though may be easy on the eyes, is not very easy on the legs.

Few know this as well as senior anthropology major Cathy Terrace, who, for the last year, has been conducting research on the history of Trinity’s architecture, as well as issues of accessibility.