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UGA students displeased with seating and ticket issues at Georgia-Notre Dame

9/24/2019

There were 93,246 football fans who bought tickets for the UGA vs Notre Dame game last Saturday at Sanford Stadium. The highly anticipated game, which created major national buzz, ended with a 23-17 Bulldog win.

As reported in The Red & Black, in a postgame press conference, UGA head coach Kirby Smart said UGA fans were “the twelfth man” and “impacted” the game with their thunderous cheers.

Unfortunately, there were quite a few UGA students who had an unsavory experience at the historic game. Some alleged they were removed from the stadium because of a lack of seating in the student sections.

After UGA negotiated a deal with Notre Dame in 2014 to schedule two games, one in South Bend and in Athens, with the proposal of hosting 8,000 Fighting Irish fans in Sanford Stadium, that agreement meant UGA had to prepare 500 extra seats than usual in the visitors seating area.

Therefore the university planned to move one of the student sections in the West End Zone area to make up for the surplus.

Some students believe that UGA athletics oversold tickets and prioritized the experience of higher paying ticket holders and Notre Dame fans over UGA students.

The Red & Black spoke with students who were removed or could not find seating in the stadium and how they felt.

As of press time, UGA officials have yet to respond to requests for comment.

The Red & Black is continuing to report this story.

Caroline Stevens, first-year doctor of pharmacy student from Cumming

After arriving an hour before kick off and not finding seating, Stevens said a police officer grabbed her by the arm and tried to remove her from the stadium.

“This was a big game, and kicking out students to make room for certain fans just because they paid more money for their ticket is incredibly unfair. Overall, Sanford really let me down.”

Darcy Downie, senior advertising major from Statesboro

On gameday, Downie said she immediately noticed the student section was full. She asked the stadium staff where she could sit and was told to “find a gap.” After an hour of searching for seating, she decided to leave.

“This was supposed to be ‘THE game.’ And it is so disheartening to see it plastered all over social media and know that I should’ve been there, and I paid to be there, but what I experienced was so far from what others experienced.”

Jae Choi, senior biological science major from Johns Creek

Choi said she and her friends were not able to find seating in the designated student section and were told to sit in a section crowded by Notre Dame fans who yelled at the students to leave. After the stadium staff told the group they couldn’t help, the students ended up leaving.

“I’ve paid athletic fees for the past four years, I’ve been paying for events just to get kicked out of the game I really wanted to go to. It discourages me to want to have school spirit and go to the other games, it really does affect my view of UGA as a whole.”

Lauren M. Fox, senior landscape architecture from Snellville

Fox said she arrived an hour before kick off expecting to find seating. She asked the stadium staff for help but was told, “leave I guess.”

“I would say the worst part of this entire situation in my opinion is that the University did not place any value in the experience of students on Saturday. It seems impossible to me that the university “accidentally” sold tickets in a designated student section, and left hundreds of students with nowhere to go.”

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UGA Plans to Expand Its Innovation District

9/17/2019

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The next phase of the University of Georgia’s Innovation District is coming along.

As reported in the Athens Banner-Herald, the University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents recently approved the renovation of the Spring Street Building, which will be transformed into a creative space to foster innovation, entrepreneurship, and industry engagement at UGA.

The $4.4 million project is expected to be completed by January 2021 through the support of private donations.

“First and foremost, we are grateful to the chancellor and the Board of Regents for supporting this critical next step in the development of UGA’s Innovation District,” said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. “This exciting project will provide a unique space at the heart of North Campus and downtown Athens, where faculty, students, industry partners and community members can collaborate, innovate and develop solutions to real-world problems.”

Located at the corner of Spring and South streets, which is a block off Broad Street in downtown Athens, the building will have a flexible workspace, conference rooms, and presentation areas to support UGA’s growing number of faculty startup companies. The renovated facility will also provide space and programming to enable students and industry partners to work together on company-based research and development projects.

Last year, UGA ranked first among 193 U.S. institutions for the number of commercial products reaching the market, according to a survey released by the nonprofit AUTM, which tracks technology transfer. In the same survey, UGA ranked fourth for the amount of new intellectual property licenses executed to industry.

“By almost any measure, the innovation ecosystem of the University of Georgia is booming,” said Kyle Tschepikow, special assistant to the president and director for strategy and innovation. “The Spring Street Building, as the next phase of the Innovation District initiative, will enable the institution to accelerate research commercialization, expand industry engagement, and provide rich experiential learning opportunities that prepare our graduates to be successful in the Innovation Age.”

This project will follow the completion of Studio 225, which opened in March 2019 as the first part of the Innovation District initiative. Studio 225, also funded by private donations, supports UGA’s rapidly-growing student-focused entrepreneurship program, which launched with one instructor and 33 undergraduates a few years ago and has transformed into a campus-wide initiative that extends to more than 1,000 students each year and includes a wide range of academic and experiential opportunities.

Over time, the Innovation District initiative will include an integrated set of facilities, programs and services designed to inspire innovation, entrepreneurship, industry collaboration and experiential learning, making the university a more powerful driver of economic development locally and across Georgia.

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UGA Researchers Work to Improve Research on Cancer, Influenza with Glycoscience Project

9/10/2019

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University of Georgia researchers are leading a team of scientists that developed an informatics portal, GlyGen, to bring “disparate information together in a unified way, reducing the learning curve for those new to glycoscience,” according to a UGA news release.

Glycans, or complex sugars, cover cells and function in biological processes such as interacting with other cells and fighting pathogens, according to the release. They can mediate cell division to slow down the spread of tumor development with cancer.

As reported in The Red & Black, UGA biochemistry and molecular biology professor William York, a co-principal investigator on the project, said the partnership is challenging because researchers need to understand multiple disciplines so they can examine the role of glycans in human health.

“We’re integrating different types of multidisciplinary information that’s stored in different places and making it available to scientists in ways that allow them to understand the relationships that exist,” said York, a member of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center within the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

Raja Mazumder, co-principal investigator and associate professor of biochemistry and molecular medicine at George Washington University’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences, is leading the data-integration team.

As part of a partnership with GW, GlyGen is funded with a $10 million grant from the National Institutes of Health.

The project, which has been operating for two years, will continue for another three years, according to the release.

“This is a good place to start,” York said. “There are no other glycan and glycoscience resources out there that are as integrated.”

Experts in biology or biochemistry still face a “learning curve,” when approaching glycoscience, York said.

“You can’t be an expert in just one area and understand glycoscience,” York said. “You have to have a really multidisciplinary viewpoint.”
The database looks to aggregate data from different sources to create “a unified language.”
“For example, there’s the English language, and then there’s Shakespeare,” he said. “Having the English language is a wonderful, amazing thing. But Shakespeare is another layer on top, and it gets us to something a little more profound.”

York said glycans play a role in several biological processes.

“All organisms have glycans, and if you get rid of them, you have an organism that’s sick or can’t live,” York said.

When studying cancer, examining glycan structures in healthy or diseased cells can show researchers what biological mechanisms cause cancer spread.

Glycans can also be used to study influenza. When a new strain of flu appears, or a strain “jumps species,” like with avian flu to humans, molecules that recognize and process glycans change.

According to York, the potential for studying glycoscience is “incredibly huge,” particularly in research on cancer, infectious diseases and development and nutrition.

“We are not going to solve these problems with GlyGen, but our tools and information resources will help scientists develop specific hypotheses in these areas,” York said.

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Relay for Life seeks stronger family connection within its club this year

9/3/2019

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The University of Georgia has hundreds of clubs available for any student’s interests and one of its largest clubs is Relay for Life, an organization which benefits the American Cancer Society through fundraisers and several events. This national organization also assists with funding cancer research and helping families and patients, through activities including driving patients to treatments and distributing food.

As reported in The Red & Black, in a large club like this students can feel lost and like their efforts are not going anywhere. That is why this year the Relay for Life’s executive team decided to restructure its club to allow students to have a real purpose in the club.

The club is working to show students that aside from raising money, it builds a family and bands together to help others and helps to form personal connections with those they help.

“We really want to create that community environment, because obviously we do fundraise, but we’re also here to build a community around cancer and people who have struggled with it,” executive director Tess Barrett, a senior advertising major from Whitehouse Station, New Jersey, said.

Barrett said she got involved with Relay in high school and continued to participate at UGA because she wanted to find an organization where she would meet people and do something important. Barrett wants to help other students find this same purpose here.

In previous years, Relay had numerous committees and subcommittees under directors, however, those involved believed that some roles were not necessary which lead students to feel like they weren’t doing anything in the club.

Now they will have eight committees, four of which will be family committees and the other four being sub-family committees.

The family committees will have a little more than 20 people and there is a development, marketing, fundraising and production family committee. The sub-family committees, which are smaller, will be more focused. For example, there will be a freshman development sub-family committee designated for specifically helping freshmen.

Relay’s biggest goal this year is to be more intentional. The directors want their members to feel like they have a special role in the club outside of helping to raise money.
“We had a lot of events last year,” development director Gracelyn Thrash, a junior human development and family sciences major from Marietta, Georgia, said. “We’ll repeat our popular ones, like the 5K and the downtown pub crawl, but we want to be intentional with other events so that we can raise the most amount of money possible, but also so that people enjoy them.”

Barrett and Thrash both said they want to foster a real family sense. While they know Relay must raise money to fight cancer, they also want to push their connection and community more than anything.

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UGA students displeased with seating and ticket issues at Georgia-Notre Dame

UGA Plans to Expand Its Innovation District

UGA Researchers Work to Improve Research on Cancer, Influenza with Glycoscience Project

Relay for Life seeks stronger family connection within its club this year

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