“A child raised practicing sports is raised with values that nothing else can give them: companionship, solidarity and, most importantly, being able to be part of a team,” says Pablo Byrne, a senior from Mexico, and one of the students who meets every Tuesday at the Driscoll Fitness Center to play soccer. Last semester, a group of SFUAD students joined in the Boys and Girls Club of Santa Fe’s soccer league. Now, students—along with players from other schools and the Santa Fe community—transform the court at DFC to a multicultural meeting place each week. “One of the best things about soccer is the union it makes between people. We are from different countries. We are here, together, doing the same thing, at the same time and we all enjoy doing it, which is incredible,” says Victor Rodrigues from Brazil. And soccer, some players say, is the perfect sport to bring people together. “Sometimes, people in my country are really separated because of political reasons,” says Patrick Roessner of Mexico. “But when the World Cup comes, all of Mexico is united, supporting the same team and being happy or sad for the same reason: the victory or the defeat.” But even when people enjoy playing soccer, there are contrary opinions about this phenomenon called soccer: “When your team is playing, it seems like it is the only important thing in the world,” says César Pérez of Mexico, who enjoys the DFC game, but doesn’t have the same level of fanaticism for the game as a whole. “In my country, there are lots of problems in the politics, people being killed in the streets, and poverty. However, none of these things matter when it comes to soccer: people forget about these things and they are happy if...

      On Sept. 21, SFUAD Student Life hosted the first-ever student Olympics. Students participated in a variety of events, including: water balloon toss, volleyball, inflatable obstacle course, basketball, dodge ball, team three-legged race, Sumo wrestling and, of course, a costume contest. Though certainly not a clinic on athletic ability, SFUAD students were up for a fun, sun-soaked day of competition. “I would say that the events were a good mix of fun, and competitive,” said Jakob Anderson, team leader of the 1st place Team Jakob. “It depended on the event, I guess. The Sumo thing got kind of rough.” Student life member Ramiro Leal agreed with Anderson on the event’s success. “This year’s event was most definitely a success,” said Leal. “We always have successful events. That’s not to be taken in a cocky way, but what I meant to say is that even though we might not reach our goal for the specific event, we strive for success within the group, success for learning.” At the end of the day the final count left Team Jakob in first, Super RAs in second, and the Ki-Ki Maow Maows in third. “After a good team effort, it was nice to take home the gold,” said Anderson. “And beating the RAs was of course a big bonus.” Leal was so happy with how the Olympics came together and he hopes that they can bring the event back for the spring semester. Anderson agrees. “[The Olympics] should be a annual...

In this audio-visual piece, SFUAD students discuss their sources of inspiration....

  It was 8:15 p.m. on Sept. 16, and writers—mostly freshmen—were trickling into Benildus 101 for the Student Writers Association(SWA). Junior Adriel Contreras, current co-head of SWA, was drawing the SWA logo on the white board. Senior Katie Johnson, also co-head, was organizing her materials together. It was about five minutes past their starting time when everyone was settled. Johnson apologized to Contreras, and erased his logo in order to write the opening exercise. It’s been four months into Johnson and Contreras’s first year running SWA—a task that not many writers were excited to tackle. “What I didn’t realize was how much work SWA is,” said Contreras. “I’m an RA, I’ve been working in the mail room. It’s been challenging juggling everything.” Johnson asked the group to toss some words at her and the collection of writers were only happy to oblige. Pineapple, golden, obscene, ragamuffin, clout, juggernaut, panarama, and ostracices were some of the choice words among them. After compiling a list of 20 or so words, Johnson instructed the group to write a poem or flash fiction for the next 20 minutes using all or as many of the words that they could. “SWA is good for creative writing students to just be seen on campus. It’s very easy for writers to stay locked up in their room and not be appreciated for their work,” said Johnson in explaining SWA’s unofficial mission statement. “It’s wonderful to use SWA for writers to have an on campus prescence.” Contreras shared that sentiment and continued on the importance of collaboration. “It’s important to have a community of writers to really establish itself,” said Contreras. “When you write, it’s so singular, it’s your own process. It’s important to get other people’s perspectives.” Next, Contreras and Johnson...