The Spectrum Vol. 65 No. 54

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT PUBL ICAT ION OF THE UN IVERS I TY AT BUFFALO , S INCE 1950

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2016UBSPECTRUM.COM VOLUME 65 NO. 54

THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT PUBL ICAT ION OF THE UN IVERS I TY AT BUFFALO , S INCE 1950

TOM DINKIEDITOR IN CHIEF

Law professor Makau Mutua has been on leave from UB for nearly a year and recently took a job in Washington D.C., yet the univer-sity is still paying the former law school dean his full salary – a salary that nears $300,000.

Mutua is working as a human rights advis-er for World Bank, an international fi nancial institution that provides loans to developing countries. Such consultants in Washington, D.C., where Mutua’s Twitter account shows he spends most of his time, make an aver-age salary of $90,000.

World Bank would not confi rm if Mutua made such a salary or his exact position, but on his social media accounts he calls him-self a World Bank human rights adviser.

Mutua did not respond to Spectrum emails requesting an interview for this story.

According to SUNY policy, the university president has to approve outside income for a faculty member earning salary while on sab-batical. The president also can choose to low-er the faculty member’s salary if that member receives outside income while on leave.

That did not occur in Mutua’s case. UB offi cials say this is because Mutua is

on a special kind of leave, known as Title F leave, which doesn’t require faculty mem-bers to get approval for outside earnings.

President Satish Tripathi, and all SUNY university presidents, can grant employees Title F leave with full salary, reduced salary

or no salary. UB offi cials confi rmed Mutua is being paid full salary.

As part of the Title F application, the professor must explain the value of the work the professor will do for the university. The Spectrum requested Mutua’s Title F appli-cation early Tuesday morning, but UB offi -cials could not produce it by press time.

Mutua, having recently stepped down as dean, taught one class in the spring of 2015 and was on leave for the fall of 2015. Still, UB paid him a salary equal to that of what he made as a dean. He made $292,443 in 2015, according to SeeThroughNY, which compiles salaries of New York state employees. He had a base sala-ry of $255,500 and the rest was bonuses.

World Bank’s human resources depart-ment said it cannot provide compensation related information, but Glassdoor, a web-site that allows employees to anonymously review and post salary information of large companies, reports that the average salary of a World Bank consultant in Washington D.C. is approximately $90,000.

A World Bank human resources represen-tative did, however, confi rm that all consul-tant positions are paid and short-term appoint-ments, meaning not permanent, only as of June 2015. Mutua is scheduled to teach law school classes at UB this fall, according to a professor in the law school. The law school has yet to re-lease its fall 2016 course offerings to students.

Mutua announced his position as a “con-sultant” at World Bank on Facebook in Oc-tober, but later specifi ed his position as a human rights adviser.

The law school has reduced its size in re-cent years. The school announced in March of 2014 that it planned to shrink its incom-ing class from 200-225 students to few-er than 200 and to reduce its faculty from 48 to 40. Although the school has a total of 51 full-time faculty members employed, only 27 were teaching classes last fall – exactly half the amount that were teaching fi ve years prior.

According to the UB Law School budget from the 2014-15 school year, $19.6 million of the school’s $23 million in expenditures went to-ward salaries and fringe benefi ts for employees.

Mutua receiving full salary despite being away from the school and taking on out-side work is troubling beyond just the for-mer dean’s individual case, a professor in the law school said. The professor said it rais-es questions about how UB regulates pay of faculty once they downgrade in positions.

Mutua resigned as dean of the UB Law School in December of 2014 amid a lengthy legal battle with a former professor who claims Mutua wrongfully terminated him and committed perjury in the legal proceedings.

The case has wound its way through court and included testimony from law faculty professors. In December, a U.S. magistrate

judge recommended dismissal of the case to U.S. District Judge Richard Arcara, who will make the fi nal decision. Jeffrey Mal-kan, the former law professor suing Mutua, said Arcara listened to his and Mutua’s law-yers’ arguments on Feb. 18 and he expects Arcara to make a fi nal decision within three months. He said Mutua did not show up to the arguments.

QUENTIN HAYNES SENIOR SPORTS EDITOR

With 45 seconds left in the Mid-American Conference Championships heavyweight fi -nal, Buffalo freshman Jake Gunning had a chance to claim his fi rst conference champi-onship and advance to the NCAA Tourna-ment in New York City.

In his way was Northern Iowa’s Blaize Cabell, the top ranked heavyweight in the MAC and the wrestler who just a few weeks prior defeated Gunning in a regular season match.

This time, the stakes were higher, as the winner would get an opportunity to become a national champion, while the loser would face a few sleepless nights holding out hope for an at-large bid and potentially an offsea-son wondering what could have been.

Just one mistake cost Gunning the match. Cabell caught Gunning with his hands down to transition from an escape to a takedown.

Even though Gunning added one more point near the end of the match, it was too much to overcome.

But Gunning knows adversity. He knows losing.

Five years before he was a takedown away from the NCAA Championships, Gunning was just looking to win a single match. He was a high school freshman who wasn’t on any college’s radar and had just completed a winless season. How winless? 0-23 winless.

So it wasn’t surprising that just days af-ter his devastating loss in the MAC fi nal on March 6, Gunning was looking at the expe-rience positively and talking about what he’ll do next season.

“My coaches thought it was the best match I’ve ever wrestled,” he said. “It hurt for sure, but I’m going to do everything I can to get right back there, in that moment next year. And next time, I want to be the

MARLEE TUSKESSENIOR NEWS EDITOR

When Solomon Jackson introduced himself in his Art in the Everyday class, he said he was “sweet like a Georgia peach,” and smiled, according to Warren Quigley.

The one thing Quigley, an art professor who taught the class, remembers about Jack-son was the football player’s bright smile.

On Tuesday, UB’s Department of Art held a memorial in Jackson’s honor, one week after the university announced his death. Jackson, who was a studio art major, died on the night of Feb. 29 after suffering a medical emergency during a team condition-ing session on Feb. 22. He was 20 years old.

Those who attended were asked to talk

about their memories of Jackson. Attend-ees also had the chance to write their memo-ries on signs that the art department plans to send to Jackson’s parents in Stone Mountain, Georgia, along with a video of the event.

Lisa Hewitt was Jackson’s academic ad-viser and said she saw him the day be-fore his medical emergency to discuss his schedule. She described Jackson as “love-ly” and “respectful.”

“I used to tell him [he’s] good for my self-esteem because he used to address me as ‘miss.’ When a woman gets to a certain age you go from miss to ma’am overnight and he would always call me miss,” Hewitt said.

Many spoke about Jackson’s drive as a student. Hewitt said he always made sure he was on track to graduate, even with his

“extensive” football schedule. She, and oth-ers who attended, spoke about how Jack-son broke the college athlete stereotype.

“His academics were really his primary concern where there’s this misconception with athletes that it’s their athletic endeav-ors that are more important than their ac-ademics but not with him,” Hewitt said.

Kathy Cheng met Jackson in a class they had together. She said he was a sensitive person and always kind to her. Cheng, a sophomore accounting major, said the class was at night and she was afraid to walk to her car by herself.

ubspectrum.com fb.com/ubspectrum @ubspectrum

KAINAN GUO, THE SPECTRUMLisa Hewitt, Solomon Jackson’s academic adviser, speaks about Jackson during the

Department of Art’s memorial to him on Tuesday.

Paying tributeMembers of the art department remember

Solomon Jackson

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

RASHAAD HOLLEY, THE SPECTRUMJake Gunning stands in the wrestling room in Alumni Arena. Gunning said he hopes to be a part of the wrestling program’s turnaround from laughingstocks to championship contenders.

UB still paying Mutua full salary despite his new jobEx-law school dean not subject to reduced salary

COURTESY OF UB NEWS CENTER, DOUGLAS LEVERE

Makau Mutua has been on leave from UB for more than a year but is still receiving a

salary close to $300,000 including bonuses.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

CONTINUED ON PAGE 4

THE TRANSFORMATION From winless high school season to point away from NCAA Championships, Jake Gunning is transforming UB wrestling

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“Solomon sensed that and would walk me home so I would feel safe,” Cheng said.

Cheng said they developed a friendship during the class and although they didn’t speak as much after the semester, she still remembers him as a good friend.

Another student who spoke at the event said she was in shock after hear-ing about his death. She said she’s heard of students dying in the past, but it was heartbreaking to now know one. She told the group Jackson was a “multifacet-ed character” who wasn’t “just a football player,” or “wasn’t just a student.”

Art professor Joan Linder taught Jack-

son in her Advanced Figure Drawing class. She said she still has a drawing Jack-son did for an assignment.

Linder said she held the picture – which is of Jackson’s roommate playing video games – after she heard he died. She said what a “joy” it was to have an art student who was also a football player.

Hewitt said she is still very broken up about his death, but she knows Jackson is in a better place.

“It’s a great, great loss to all of us,” Hewitt said. “I hope all of his dreams are coming true in heaven.”

email: [email protected]

Paying tribute

KAINAN GUO, THE SPECTRUM

An attendee at the UB Department of Art’s memorial for Solomon Jackson writes a message on a photo of him. The department will send the photos and messages to Jackson’s parents.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Mutua’s seven-year tenure as dean divided some of the school, as faculty attempted to hold a vote of no confi dence in him in 2010. Then President John Simpson and then Pro-vost Tripathi dismissed the attempt, according to emails obtained by The Spectrum in 2013.

SUNY Board of Trustees’ regulations allow 11 kinds of leaves for employees, including sick leaves, holiday leaves, vacation leaves and dis-ability leaves. Title F leave – Mutua’s designat-ed leave – is specifi ed simply as “other leaves.”

Title F’s language is much less strict than sabbatical leave.

Among UB law school faculty, Mutua was widely believed to be on Title E sabbatical leave, which requires the university presi-dent to approve the “fellowships, grant-in-aid, or earned income to assist in accom-plishing the purposes of their leaves” of employees. It also gives the president the power to adjust the employee’s sabbatical leave salary to refl ect such income.

Title F does not require faculty to get any prior presidential approval before accept-ing outside income, nor does it specify that a president can lower the employees’ salary based on how much money the employee makes outside the university.

It does, however, require the university to report employees receiving any pay while on Title F leave to the SUNY chancellor. The Spectrum could not ascertain by press time if UB made such a report for Mutua.

State employees on Title F leave are re-quired to use the time to accept assignments of limited durations with other universities, government agencies, foreign nations, pri-vate foundations, corporations and similar agencies, as “a faculty member, expert, con-sultant or in a similar capacity, or for oth-er appropriate purposes consistent with the needs and interests of the university.”

Mutua earned little outside income during his time as law school dean, according to his fi -nancial disclosure statements. Mutua reported

no outside income of more than $1,000 from 2009-2012 and none from 2013-2014. In 2012, he reported making outside income of $5,00-$20,000 for legal consulting for the American Bar Association. The Spectrum obtained these documents through the New York State Joint Commission on Public Ethics. Documents for 2015 disclosures were not available.

Mutua regularly wrote and still writes politi-cal columns for Kenyan newspapers and news outlets such as the Daily Nation and The Stan-dard Digital. He also regularly gave speeches as a keynote speaker for different human rights conferences during his time as dean.

He has not claimed any salaries or sti-pends associated with this work, which may be volunteer.

A UB law professor said Mutua has not been on campus this academic year while on leave. The professor said Mutua has not been teaching or participating in department or administrative services such as commit-tees, faculty meetings, student extracurricu-lar activities, on-campus law school events or giving presentations to students or facul-ty about his outside work.

Mutua’s Twitter account, which has nearly 100,000 followers, indicates he lives primar-ily in the D.C. area and documents his trav-els, to places including Rome, Italy and his native Kenya, during his time on leave.

He last tweeted a photo of himself in Buffalo in October.

Mutua regularly traveled off campus dur-ing his seven years as dean as well, accord-ing to his travel vouchers from 2009-14, which The Spectrum obtained via a Freedom of Information Law request.

Mutua was particularly active traveling in 2014, when he spent roughly 60 days travel-ing to places as close as New York City and as far as Denmark and several African countries. Most of Mutua’s trips as dean were speaking engagements at human rights conferences, as he is a well-known human rights speaker.



UB still paying Mutua full salary despite his new job

The views expressed – both written and graphic – in the Feedback, Opinion and Perspectives sections of The Spectrum do not necessarily refl ect the views of the

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THE SPECTRUM

Editorial BoardEditorial Board

Wednesday, March 9, 2016Volume 65 Number 53

Circulation 4,000

333OPINION Wednesday, March 9, 2016

THE SPECTRUM

EDITOR IN CHIEFTom Dinki

MANAGING EDITORS

Alyssa McClureGabriela Julia

COPY EDITORS

Renée StaplesSaqib Hossain

NEWS EDITORS

Marlee Tuskes, SeniorAshley InkumsahEvan Schneider

Hannah Stein, Asst.

FEATURES EDITORSTori Roseman, Senior

Tomas OlivierJohn Jacobs, Asst.

ARTS EDITORSBrian Windschitl, SeniorKenneth Kashif Thomas

Luke Hueskin, Asst.Max Kalnitz, Asst.

SPORTS EDITORSJordan Grossman, Co-seniorQuentin Haynes, Co-senior

PHOTO EDITORSKainan Guo, Senior

Yusong ShiAngela Barca

.CARTOONISTS

Joshua Bodah

Michael Perlman

CREATIVE DIRECTORSPierce Strudler

Anthony Khoury, Asst.

Professional Staff

OFFICE ADMINISTRATORHelene Polley

ADVERTISING MANAGERSNicole DominguezLee Stoeckel, Asst.Evan Meenan Asst.

ADVERTISING DESIGNERDerek Hosken

MONEY

TA

LK

KENNETH KASHIF THOMASARTS EDITOR

If you’ve been paying atten-tion to world economic or bank-ing trends, you would have no-ticed that some countries – such as those in the European Union and China – have been implementing negative interest rate policies.

At fi rst thought you may not un-derstand what they are, but when you think about it, it comes off as ridiculous – but there is a method to the madness.

As you might have surmised, a negative interest rate is an inter-est rate in which you, as a fi nancial consumer, are not only not mak-ing money on your accounts but also paying to put money into said accounts. This is the policy that many countries – who have not been afforded the speedy recov-ery that the United States had after

the recession – have been adopt-ing to avoid further economic tur-moil.

While it does cost money to put money into banks, this means that those that borrow money get paid to do so.

Now, before you go out and try to get a loan, these negative interest rates have become prominent in fi -nancial markets – but unfortunately not at your local bank branch.

This policy is meant to increase the circulation of currency in the market. When individuals hold money without spending it, the economy as a whole becomes stag-nant and everyone suffers.

When money isn’t circulat-ing, economic growth falls, which would cause a slow end to the fi -nancial markets around the globe.

Using these unorthodox policies also increases infl ation – which is kept at a steady two percent by central banks around the world, according to the Federal Reserve.

On the fl ip side, is can be a dou-ble-edged sword because in rare cases infl ation can get out of hand and lead to hyperinfl ation.

The last large-scale case of hy-perinfl ation occurred in Ger-

many after World War I. During this time it was cheaper to burn le-gal tender instead of actually buy-ing fi rewood and loaves of bread cost thousands of dollars. This was also a primary factor for Hitler and the Nazi Party rising to power.

Negative interest rates are an interesting solution to a growing global problem.

Although, if the United States’ central bank – the Federal Re-serve – implemented such a poli-cy, it wouldn’t go over too well. As the U.S. dollar is a benchmark cur-rency and already the most traded currency in the world, a policy like that would see capital fl ight on a never-before-seen level.

Capital fl ight is when currency re-serves of a central bank are depleted, which can also lead to hyperinfl ation.

For smaller countries whose currencies are not heavily traded, negative infl ation policies could be benefi cial for their economies – but the policy must be used as with a surgeon’s touch because the wrong move could be disastrous.


The negative interest rate trend

Why some countries are taking to negative interest rates

Many are calling Peeple, an app newly released in North America, “Yelp for people.” Users can post character reviews of other peo-ple, judging them and writing a de-scription of their personality.

If you sign up for the app, you’re subjecting yourself to be reviewed by your peers, your enemies and quite literally anyone who has ever known you. These reviews can be posted to your own account with your permission so that people can look at your profi le and see what others think about you.

A lot of changes were made to the app before it was brought to North America. You can’t post about someone who doesn’t have a profi le and you can’t make a pro-fi le for someone else. Accounts can be deleted at any time so if you’re sick of the service, it’s easy to step away from it. These mea-sures were taken to improve the experience and prevent bullying, but completely ignore the larger is-sue with creating an app like this.

Though the app has been amended, there is still the “truth license” that will come out in April. For a price, the user can buy this and see every single review that they’ve ever received –pub-lic or not. This means that even if someone wrote something about you out of spite or anger, you can still see it. This will only exacer-bate any issues that could arise.

The app is advertised toward mothers to get a second opinion on coaches or those who go out on a date to get another perspective on that guy or girl. It’s advertised to adults, but it’s likely the main group of people who would go out of their way to sign up for this app would be college students and worse, high school students. Those

without the maturity to judge pro-fessionals on their service or even just people on their characteristics could easily use the app as a tool to cyberbully others. It can be diffi cult to resist the temptation to down-load the app and see what others say about you, especially for those still in high school.

The app may have had good in-tentions and it still can be used in this way for those who have un-professional titles – coaches, bab-

ysitters, dates – but it’s too easy for people to use incorrectly or in a dangerous manner. It facilitates the expression of mean comments about an ex or someone you see from high school you don’t like. It’s too simple to let curiosity get the best of you and check what others are saying about you.

The temptation to use the app incorrectly is so strong that it’s hard to see how it can be used in a productive manner.

Peeple has seen at least some suc-cess overseas – otherwise it wouldn’t be expanding to North America. There is hope that it would be used the way it was originally intended to be, which could really lead to bet-ter services and a better understand-ing of the people around us. But this and the next generation’s attachment to technology could turn it into a dangerous tool.


‘Yelp’ for peopleNew app a hotspot for bullies, judgment despite changes

ILLUSTRATION BY JOSHUA BODAH

SPORTS44Wednesday, March 9, 2016THE SPECTRUM

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one celebrating.” Gunning wants to be the best in the his-

tory of UB wrestling, a program whose own head coach said is trying to come out of a “dark age.”

Gunning doesn’t hesitate when asked about leaving a legacy at UB. He wants to leave Buffalo in a better place than when he arrived. A few MAC and NCAA champion-ships wouldn’t hurt either.

He’s a part of what could be viewed as a slow and steady program turnaround at Buf-falo. After two winless seasons in confer-ence play and a NCAA-sanctioned postsea-son ban, the Bulls recorded their fi rst 10-win season since 2004 and won a conference meet for the fi rst time more than three calen-dar years. Gunning led the Bulls with 12 dual meet victories, including fi ve in MAC play.

And his head coach thinks there’s still more room for him to grow.

“Jake’s still a baby, I think people forget that,” said head coach John Stutzman. “He’s still getting stronger … He can wrestle a bit better. He’s on pace to do what he’s here to do and that’s win a national championship.”

The hard work began to pay off for Gun-

ning’s teammates during the MAC Champi-onships, when three Bulls – freshman Bry-an Lantry and sophomores Colt Cotten and Joe Ariola – earned bids for the NCAA Championships.

Gunning did not receive an at-large bid for heavyweights, with the honor going to Eastern Michigan’s Gage Hutchison, who fi nished in fourth place in the MAC Cham-pionships. Gunning would’ve been the fourth heavyweight in the history of the program to earn a bid. Now, he looks to use this as motivation.

“I want to be great,” Gunning said. “Tak-ing that step and going to New York City is something I wanted, but I have to take this for what it is and keep going. This is certain-ly motivation for me. I have made strides from the fi rst time I took the mat to now, so now the next step is to push myself to even greater things. This moment is certainly mo-tivation for me.” Humble beginnings

As a freshman in high school, Gunning’s parents wanted him to play basketball, but as a husky teenager, Gunning recognized wrestling was his future. Knowing there was a vacancy in the Bethlehem Liberty High

School wresting team’s heavyweight divi-sion, he went into the head coach’s offi ce and secured a spot on the varsity squad.

It was evident Gunning had little wres-tling experience.

“I lost every match,” Gunning said. “Ev-ery match.”

He fi nished that year with a winless 0-23 record. Twenty of which ended up with Gunning getting pinned.

He said he was clearly overmatched every time. His father, Jeffrey Gunning, was ready for his son to say that wrestling wasn’t for him.

Jeffrey heard from friends that an inex-perienced high school wrestler would get “killed” every time on the mat. He wanted his son to play different sports.

But wrestling was Gunning’s passion. He wasn’t ready to leave the sport he loved.

Gunning remembers losing and how much he hated it. The wide-eyed freshman didn’t get discouraged at the sight of a loss. Rather, he ended his poor freshman season with what he described as a “fi re in his bel-ly” to get better.

But it was going to take time and effort. Ask Bethlehem Liberty wrestling coach Jody Karam about his former star. He said for someone who had no experience with the sport, he had never seen someone so com-mitted. Gunning would transfer what he learned from tape into the weight room, and from the weight room onto the mat.

“It was eerie to see the way Jake took the sport,” Karam said. “He had a passion for it, more than you would imagine from someone who just got into the sport … That’s the dif-ference between someone who wants to be good and someone who wants to be great.”

Gunning had an “unquenchable thirst” to know the game. There weren’t many 220-pound wrestlers with agility and quick-ness like he had. Karam was the fi rst to see that potential. Building the natural

The fi rst was continuing to develop his body.

The heavyweight division, at least for Karam, is an important division in terms of personnel. While other, smaller wrestlers worked on different technical aspects of

the sport, it was the heavyweights who were more weight-orientated. A heavyweight works on gaining healthy weight, eating cor-rectly and sticking to a continuous weight-training program.

Karam had a specifi c program for the heavy-weights. The fi rst step: 6:30 a.m. workouts.

“[Karam] showed me to work on the body and just how important it is,” Gunning said. “Putting on good weight, cutting and eating healthy. I had to put on good weight and continue to work on my body in order to reach my full potential.”

The second step was to get Gunning out of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Granted, Pennsylvania is a touted state in terms of high school wrestling, but Karam wanted Gunning to explore elite wrestling around the country.

Jeffrey didn’t know much about wrestling. All he knew was his son had a passion for it and talent. It was up to Karam to make the wrestling decisions.

Karam and Jeffrey worked on a plan to get Gunning out of state while keeping him around wrestling 24/7, like taking him to camps and meets. Karam said he want-ed Gunning to “see different levels of the sport,” and recommended “a well-rounded experience after his freshman season.”

Gunning attended nearly every wres-tling event in an eight-hour radius from his hometown between his freshman and soph-omore years of high school.

Gunning was then allowed to attend wres-tling camps – the third and fi nal step in Karam’s plan.

Gunning attended two camps. The fi rst was a wrestling camp at the University of Iowa – an elite school known for its wrestling program and development. Gunning went for their two-week intensive camp, something he now credits for his “hard-nosed style.”

It was at that camp where he fi nally learned how to become a wrestler.

“He just came back more disciplined,” Jeffrey said. “I thought when he came back from Iowa, he seemed to be taking that step forward off the fi eld … Whatever hap-pened at Iowa, it certainly helped him im-prove as a wrestler.”

THE TRANSFORMATION

RASHAAD HOLLEY, THE SPECTRUM

Gunning won 12 dual meet matches and came one point away from winning the MAC heavyweight title.


CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

55FEATURES Wednesday, March 9, 2016THE SPECTRUM

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JOHN JACOBSASST. FEATURES EDITOR

Connor Mack is a senior aerospace engi-neering major, but he doesn’t spend his free time building model bridges out of balsa wood or solving Rubik’s cubes, unlike what some may expect from him.

Mack spends his free time writing poems, which he performs at UB Speaks.

“People think it’s weird until they hear it,” Mack said. “The stereotype for engineers doesn’t include writing poems.”

UB Speaks is a poetry club that meets every other Sunday in Baldy 110 at 3 p.m. The meet-ings are workshops where writers come and ex-press their thoughts about different topics.

Mack said he enjoys writing poems be-cause it allows him to be creative, which is something he doesn’t get to do often as an engineering student. UB Speaks gives him an outlet to explore this creativity.

“We welcome all kinds of poetry or just poetry lovers,” said Tom Dreitlein, a junior communication and English major who is also the secretary and workshop coordina-tor of the club. “You don’t have to write po-etry to appreciate it.”

The workshops are geared toward those who want to create poetry, but even those who don’t write poetry might be able to fi nd a place in this club.

For those who are interested in perform-ing, UB Speaks also offers a poetry slam performance group.

“The general label that is now applied to slam poetry is basically performance poet-ry,” Mack said. “What makes that different from normal poetry is you use your body and the way you’re speaking to amplify your

words. Performance pieces are generally a little more raw and a little more emotional [than conventional written poetry].”

UB Speaks recently went to a slam compe-tition at SUNY Buffalo State on Feb. 26. They competed with students from the Roches-ter Institute of Technology, Buffalo State and SUNY Fredonia in front of a crowd of about 300 and took home fi rst place.

Unlike some competitions where the judges are predetermined experts, the judg-es for slam competitions are random mem-bers of the audience.

“They might have never been to a poet-ry slam before, they might have never read a poem, it doesn’t matter,” Dreitlein said. “That’s kind of the beauty of poetry slam. They score from zero to 10 with points. And then the highest and lowest score are

dropped. The highest score a team could get, which is unheard of, is 140.”

Danielle Johnson, a sophomore theater and performance major and president of UB Speaks, explained that each slam team is al-lowed four performance slots. Those slots last three minutes each with a grace period of 10 seconds and can be fi lled by either individual or solo performances. The judges in the audi-ence grade each performance separately.

Judges are supposed to be impartial but that doesn’t always happen.

“We went to a slam and my cousin was [picked to be] a judge and she judged every-one badly except me, but didn’t understand she was judging my team badly,” Johnson said.

Regardless of how slam competitions are scored, some might think getting up in front of a group of people to perform a poem

might be an easier thing to do than perform-ing a speech or acting. But Johnson, who has spent most of her life in front of other peo-ple through her theater career, disagrees.

“Theater – it’s my heart but it’s not my soul,” Johnson said. “When I go up there and I do poetry, I wrote that poem. And most of my poems are about situations that I’ve been in, that I care about, you know. So you’re put-ting your heart out on the poem. With slam poetry you’re getting judged – literally.”

Not everyone who participates in UB Speaks has to participate in the slam com-petitions. Whether it’s slam poetry or a dif-ferent form, UB Speaks offers students an opportunity to learn more about the art and practice their skills.


COURTESY OF DANIELLE JOHNSON

(From L to R) UB Speaks members Jeffrey Creed, Connor Mack, Danielle Johnson and Tom Dreitlein pose after winning fi rst place at a slam poetry competition at SUNY Buffalo State.

UB Speaks offers students a chance to engage in

multiple forms of poetry

Slammin’ on the mic and paper

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His second camp was close to home – the Edinboro Heavyweight Camp, in Edinboro, Pennsylvania.

Karam cited a change in his confi dence as a key factor that helped him from his fresh-man to his sophomore year. But for Gun-ning, that summer experience allowed him to become more invested in the sport. He always liked the sport. It took that summer for him to love it.

“I just went down to Iowa, went to the heavyweight camp and fell in love with the style,” Gunning said. “It’s the same style that Stutzman preaches.”

Gunning went 0-23 as a freshman, but he was able to transform his technique to a point where he fi nished his senior year with a 40-5 record. He fi nished third overall in the Pennsylvania state qualifi er that year, placed in a national tournament and fi nished as a top-15 overall wrestler in the state. Building a Bull

Stutzman remembers the fi rst time he saw Gunning as a high school wrestler. Stutzman’s then recruiting coordinator, Quincy Osborn, brought in some tapes on the burly heavyweight from Pennsylvania.

The tapes only included Gunning’s fresh-man year highlights.

“I was watching, waiting to see something and he kept getting pinned.” Stutzman said.

“I started watching him and saw the next tape, where he got pinned again. It contin-ued for a couple tapes, to be honest.”

Stutzman heard promising things about his prospect, but the freshman tape didn’t do him justice. Once Stutzman got a hold of the rest of his high school tapes, disappoint-ment turned into intrigue as he watched Gunning’s sophomore tapes, which turned into elation as he watched his junior tapes. Stutzman found his future heavyweight.

And there wasn’t much competition either. “I remember talking with a fellow wrestler

about Buffalo,” Gunning said. “I knew he was interested there and their former head coach at the time had some interest in me. He end-ed up not committing here, but I was talking to the coaches and I started to get comfortable with the idea of being at Buffalo.”

Stutzman asked Gunning to make an offi -cial visit at UB. Gunning came in on a Tues-day. He ended up committing on a Thursday – the same day Stutzman’s son Paxton was born.

Gunning was offi cially a Bull, but he had to wait before his fi rst offi cial match.

The Bulls were hit with an NCAA post-season ban during Gunning’s true freshman year for low Academic Progress Rate scores, meaning Buffalo could not participate in the MAC Championships or the NCAA Cham-pionships. So Stutzman decided to redshirt several incoming players, including Gunning.

The Bulls coach admits he doesn’t like redshirting players, but he realized he could have four years of control over a talented incoming freshman class.

“Wrestlers should be getting 30-40 match-es in, should be working out and putting on good weight and work in the classroom,” Stutzman said. “I thought Jake was some-one who came in right away and properly used the redshirt to his advantage.”

And so he did. Gunning continued to learn the game at the college level. The red-shirt year relieved him of the pressure he would have felt had he been thrown into a collegiate match fresh out of high school.

“Having that extra time to wrestle with-out all of the pressure of knowing it count-ed gave me time to work on different things on the mat,” Gunning said. “By the time that year was over, I knew I was ready.” Gunning’s legacy

Ask Jake Gunning about his toughest loss on the mat and he’ll reply that they all hurt. The hurt only grew stronger as he became a better wrestler and he knew what he was ac-tually doing.

He lost a match to a wrestler from Stan-ford University over the summer that would have given him an opportunity to wrestle for Team USA in Brazil. He’d never been more upset about losing a match. He fi nally learned the wrestler mentality.

He hates losing and he makes it clear. But Gunning also makes it clear that he can beat every wrestler he goes against. Karam be-lieves that Gunning’s greatest loss “hasn’t yet to come,” but he also has a great future.

Gunning was one of Stutzman’s best under-classmen this season. No small accomplish-ment considering Buffalo had freshmen like formerly ranked 125-pounder Kyle Akins and NCAA Championships-bound Bryan Lantry.

And the performance Gunning and his teammates displayed during the MAC Champi-onships was step one in accomplishing the goal Stutzman laid out for his team earlier in the sea-son: be great and create your own legacy.

“I don’t want them to be a part of some-thing, I want them to be a part of some-thing great,” Stutzman said.

All losses hurt, but after the loss to Northern Iowa’s Cabell in the heavyweight fi nal, Gunning called the loss “heartbreak-ing.” It was the moment he wanted to be in since he found the love of wrestling be-tween his freshman and sophomore years of high school.

But the heartbreak was needed, just the way his 0-23 season was needed as a fresh-man in high school. Gunning wants to make next season his season.

It starts with an offseason that he says, “won’t be like the others.”

“I plan on training harder than ever,” Gun-ning said. “I’m going to work harder than ever with the goal of being the best heavyweight in the country and standing on the podium.”

Sunday’s loss was Gunning’s fi rst brush with greatness on the collegiate level, and based on his progression over the last fi ve years and the motivation he has to become the greatest heavyweight in the country next year, it may not be his last.


THE TRANSFORMATION CONTINUED FROM PAGE 4

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88 SPORTSWednesday, March 9, 2016THE SPECTRUM

QUENTIN HAYNESSENIOR SPORTS EDITOR

Respect all, fear none.It’s been the Buffalo women’s basketball

team’s mantra, from its head coach Felisha Legette-Jack, to its star player junior guard Joanna Smith, to the redshirt players who haven’t even seen the court yet.

It holds true around this time of the year especially, when Buffalo enters Quick-

en Loans Arena as an overwhelming under-dog to get past top-seeded Ohio (24-5, 16-2 MAC) in the MAC Tournament Quarterfi nals – let alone take home the conference title.

But if any MAC team should have con-fi dence to take down the Bobcats, it might just be Buffalo. After all, its the only the MAC team to have beaten Ohio this season.

“We don’t fear no one,” Smith said. “It’s tough to defeat somebody three times, but we believe in ourselves, and that’s what we’ll

need in order to beat them. They’re a tough team, but we can’t go into the game worry-ing about that. We have to be active on de-fense and continue to play our game. That’s all we can do at this point.”

No. 8 seed Buffalo defeated No. 9 seed Bowling Green (10-18, 6-12) in a fi rst round campus-site matchup on Monday to ad-vance to the quarterfi nals against the Bob-cats on Wednesday in Cleveland, Ohio.

Ohio has been arguably the best team in the conference throughout the entire season – until it plays Buffalo.

In the two regular season matchups, the Bulls used their defense to stifl e Ohio’s offense, hold-ing the Bobcats to less than 60 points in both matchups, including just 43 points in the two team’s fi rst matchup on Feb. 3.

“We’re going to go into that game with the same mindset – survive and advance,” said junior guard Stephanie Reid. “We have to play our game and if we do, we should be in position to move on to the next round.”

The Bobcats are the best team in con-ference with just two MAC losses all sea-son and rank second in the conference with an average of 72.9 points per game. While Buffalo touts a strong backcourt tandem, the Bobcats have two great guards of their own, as Kiyanna Black was named to the All-MAC fi rst team and her backcourt mate, guard Quiera Lampkins, was named MAC Defensive Player of the Year.

The Bulls may be just as hot.

Buffalo is winners of its last two games. After a fi ve-game losing streak during con-ference play, the Bulls closed out the season winners of fi ve of their last six games.

“We’re going to play our game, we’re go-ing to operate our system and do the best we can out there,” Legette-Jack said. “They’re the best in the conference, but again, we re-spect all, but fear nobody.”

If the Bulls are going to advance in the MAC Tournament, the defense is going to be what carries them. Buffalo is currently the highest-ranked defense in the MAC. It allowed 58.6 points per game over the season and 50.3 points over its last six games of the year, in-cluding a 70-58 victory over Ohio on Feb. 27.

“They can absolutely score the basketball, but we can defend the basketball,” Legette-Jack said.

After a strong start to the season, the Bulls dipped at the beginning of conference play, before a strong return to what they were in the beginning of the season. Legette-Jack said that she takes the blame for the team’s “light” defensive efforts, but is proud to see them get back where they were.

The Bulls will play Ohio in Quicken Loans Arena on Wednesday at noon.

“My hope is that we go out to Cleveland and stay long enough,” Legette-Jack said, “so the world can see how lucky I am to have this team and these players.”


Third time’s the charmMAC TOURNAMENT PREVIEW

Bulls look to shock top-seeded Ohio for third time this season

JORDAN GROSSMANSENIOR SPORTS EDITOR

The last time the Buffalo men’s basketball team was in Cleveland, it was cutting down nets celebrating a trip to the big dance.

One year later, the Bulls say they don’t feel pressure to repeat as Mid-American Confer-ence champions.

“It’s our building,” said senior guard Jar-ryn Skeete about the Quicken Loans Are-na, where the MAC Tournament is hosted. “We’re defending champions, right? I think it’s a pressure on everybody else.”

The No. 3 seed Bulls (17-14, 10-8 MAC) will play No. 11 seed Miami Ohio (13-19, 6-12 MAC) in the quarterfi nals of the MAC Tournament in Cleveland, Ohio Thursday. Last season, Buffalo won the conference tournament as a No. 2 seed to advance to its fi rst-ever NCAA Tournament.

And so far, the seeding has not mattered in the tournament. Both No. 6 seed Ball State and No. 5 seed Kent State were upset in their fi rst round on-campus games.

“Look at the four teams that are sitting at home right now, not going to Cleveland,” said head coach Nate Oats following the team’s fi nal practice on Tuesday afternoon. “Anybody can beat anybody come March. I think we can make a run.”

Oats said his team is ready to go and is much more prepared for Miami Ohio than it was in the previous matchup. The Red-Hawks defeated the Bulls 67-59 in Buffa-lo’s fi nal home game and Senior Night on March 1. It was the only time other than its loss at Duke that the Bulls have failed to score more than 60 points in a game.

Oats admitted the team took too many three-pointers during the previous matchup in an effort to avoid Miami Ohio’s zone de-fense. Buffalo chucked up 31 three-point at-

tempts and only made 10. “We weren’t mentally ready to come into

that game,” said junior wing Blake Hamil-ton. “We had three good practices and we’re ready to go.”

Buffalo’s biggest problem will be facing the zone defense and the RedHawk offense that is predicated on setting up plays and slowing the game down.

The Bulls have been known as a fast-paced team and Oats admits the team does not like playing a team that attempts to slow the game down. He said the team will not settle for three-pointers and will have his players drive to the rim more.

Skeete thinks this will be effective be-cause of the mismatches some of the Buffa-lo guards create.

“They’re afraid to guard us man to man,” Skeete said. “We have to take that to our ad-vantage and exploit mismatches.”

A main source of mismatching is Hamil-ton, a wing that has done a little bit of every-

thing this season. At 6-foot-5, he can shoot, pass and rebound with effi ciency while driv-ing to the basket with the right matchup.

Oats said Hamilton is heating up at the right time. Hamilton has been Buffalo’s best player during the second half of the sea-son. He’s averaged more than 20 points per game in his last fi ve regular season match-ups and put up a team-high 20 points and 13 rebounds in Buffalo’s last game against the RedHawks.

Oats also believes the rest of the team is heating up at the right time.

Junior wing Willie Conner, who was re-cently named to the MAC All-Defensive Team, has been “playing his best basketball all year,” All-MAC Third Team sophomore guard Lamonte Bearden is “coming around” and freshman center Ikenna Smart is past his mental lapses and is expected to start,

according to Oats.Oats plans on putting his best players on the

court. He said there is no more time for ex-perimenting with different personnel and try-ing to boost confi dence levels of his team. He said it’s “do or die” at this point in the season – especially against a team that presented Buffa-lo with its latest loss of the season.

“[Miami Ohio] embarrassed us last time we were out here on Senior Night,” Oats said. “I hope it’s fresh in their minds. I would hope it’s some added motivation to come with a little better sense of urgency on Thursday than the last time they played here.”

Tipoff for Buffalo’s matchup against the RedHawks will be at roughly 9 p.m. Thurs-day.


Looking for a repeatBuffalo looks to

leave Cleveland as winners again

ANGELA BARCA, THE SPECTRUM The Bulls celebrate their play-in game victory over Bowling Green in Alumni Arena Monday

night. Buffalo will head to Cleveland, Ohio looking to upset top-seeded Ohio for the third time this season.

ANGELA BARCA, THE SPECTRUM

Senior guard Jarryn Skeete drives to the basket during a 71-69 loss to Toledo on Feb. 9. Buffalo will face Miami Ohio in the MAC Tournament Quarterfi nals looking to repeat as

conference champions.

The Spectrum Vol. 65 No. 54

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