The Heights
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FM riday , M, arch 2020 onday April13, 1, 2019
Boston Councilperson Offers Help to Students Moving Out By Lauren Wittenmyer Copy Editor And Julia Remick Asst. Metro Editor Boston City Councilor Liz Breadon encouraged Boston College, Boston University, and Harvard University students to call her office in order to assist them in petitioning their universities to stay on campus. BC and Harvard have asked students to vacate their dorms to help prevent further spread of the coronavirus. “With parts of @Harvard @BostonCollege & @BU_Tweets residing in my district, students make up a fair share of our neighborhood,” said Breadon in a tweet
on Wednesday. “For those impacted by the loss of dorm housing give my office a call at 617-6353113. Or email @ liz.breadon@boston.gov #Allston #BrightonMA #bospoli” The councilor’s office is working to ensure that all information about the universities’ decisions have been made clear to the students being affected and other community members, primarily through the use of social media, said Breadon’s chief of staff, Lee Nave. “So our goal is to get the information out as best as possible through social media,” Nave said. “And from there, we’ve been working in coordination with three different offices, counsel media, BOC, as well as Essaibi-
George, and just creating sort of a list of different information and resources that we can give to students who inquire.” While Nave said that the councilor’s office would be doing its best to keep students informed during this transition period, he also emphasized the role the universities must play in this process as well. “We’re pretty much like the last line of defense because the universities themselves have to be the ones who take care of their young folks, their students,” Nave said. “But there have been community members who’ve reached out to us expressing the desire to help out.” Boston College is allowing students to apply to remain on campus if they have extenuating circumstances that would make
returning home a challenge, or a University obligation. Nave said the councilor’s office is working with the universities to understand what meets this criteria. “We’ve had a few folks who are part of LGBT community who mentioned that BC apparently wasn’t determining that as an extreme reason to stay,” Nave said. “And so we reached out to BC and they said that they are taking it under consideration as something that they feel could be something that allows a young person to stay on campus.” Nave said that BU has been receptive to working with the councilor’s office to solve the issues of housing. “BC has answered our questions when we asked, but Harvard and the other uni-
versities haven’t reached out to the council at all,” said Nave. “They haven’t shared information with us directly so, you know, we have a lot of constituents that live in our neighborhood and we just want to have the ability to give them as much information as possible.” Nave stressed that the councilor’s office would be readily available to assist students in this challenging time. “I would definitely say, you know, reach out to your universities and get a full understanding of what they’re currently doing, like what services they’re currently offering,” Nave said. “And from there, if they aren’t meeting your housing demands for whatever reason just reach out to our office, if you live in the Allston-Brighton area.” n
Professors, Others Sign Up to Help in Move-Out By Owen Fahy Special Projects Editor
Maggie Dipatri / Heights Editor
Students Struggle During Move-Out By Jack Miller Heights Senior Staff In the 24 hours following Wednesday’s announcement, Boston College students attempting to navigate travel and storage plans grew frustrated with the University’s schedule for moving all students off campus. Shortly after the initial announcement, Vice President for Student Affairs Joy Moore emailed the student body with instructions to move out as soon as possible, with the latest possible departure at 9 p.m. Sunday. At the forefront of some students’ worries are the logistics of finding storage, especially for those who cannot rely on Piece by Piece Movers, a summer storage company that picks up storage boxes directly from students’ dorms. Although convenient for students planning on returning at the beginning of the fall semester, many students who planned to work near campus over the summer or study abroad in the fall said they needed to find storage elsewhere because they would need their possessions stored for an irregular amount of time. BC will provide students with 125 movers to help students pack up, free of charge, as well as 25,000 boxes for moveout, according to an email Executive Vice President Michael Lochhead sent the student body on Thursday. The four-day time frame also forced many families to make last-minute arrangements for work and travel, according to several students who lived outside of driving distance from campus. Thirty-
seven percent of undergraduates come from outside the Northeast, according to the 2019-2020 Fact Book. “I’m thankful that I’m so close and that I can move out and my parents can come pick me up, but it’s so sad for all of the people that aren’t close … and whose parents can’t take off work and come pick them up,” said Jade Keene, a student from Maine and Lynch ’22. “We should have been given more than four days.” Some students facing uncertainty about travel took particular aim at the University’s four-day schedule. Multiple noted that many other local colleges had provided a more relaxed timeframe: Of Massachusetts schools that asked students to vacate campus for the rest of the semester, only Holy Cross provided less time, with three days. Harvard University gave students five days to leave; Tufts University, six; MIT, seven; and Amherst College, nine. Christina Park, CSON ’22, and Laura Edinger, MCAS ’20, both said that their families happened to be unable to come to BC when the news broke. Park’s parents are in Australia, and Edinger’s entire extended family is on vacation in Hawaii. Both said that they plan on relying on friends for help getting home or finding a temporary place to stay. On top of navigating the logistics of transportation and storage, some students voiced anxiety about inadvertently carrying the virus back to their families, especially older or seriously ill relatives. Elderly people and those with pre-existing medical conditions appear to be more vulnerable to severe cases
of coronavirus, according to the World Health Organization. “If there was coronavirus hidden among some of the students here, we would be endangering other students by forcing them on airplanes that are potentially compromised or sending them back to their hometowns that are compromised,” said Eden Dalton, a student whose father was recently diagnosed with asthma and MCAS ’22. “But now you have a fear of being a carrier and exposing people that you love and care about because you are forced to go home.” Others face the opposite problem: anxiety that returning home brings a greater risk of infection than staying. Multiple students from Washington, New York, and California—which lead the country in confirmed cases—questioned whether they would even be permitted to return home. Kate Peaquin, MCAS ’20, cited her concern that President Donald Trump would ban domestic flights into Seattle, which she lives just outside of. Trump suggested the possibility of such a restriction on Thursday. “It’s just really stressful because you’re doing this all on your own,” Peaquin said. “I’ll have to find another city, and [my parents] will have to drive, and that’s really stressful to deal with as well. I don’t feel safer by going back because it’s the same situation there. “It feels like BC doesn’t care about our safety,” Peaquin continued. “They just care about not being to blame for anything.” n
A Google Form in which students can request assistance for housing, storage, or transportation has been circulating on campus in the wake of Boston College’s move to online courses and closure of the residential halls. In a separate sheet, community members have been signing up to provide assistance. At the time of publication, 114 people had signed up to provide help. The form was created by BC Law professor Hiba Hafiz with help from other faculty in Faculty for Justice, an informal faculty group committed to fighting injustice on and off campus. “We ended up finding a couple templates that had been developed from community organizing efforts to help students in the Boston area,” Hafiz said. Hafiz said he believes students are unsure where to go for help and that a lack of communication from the University has caused students to rely more heavily on faculty members for help. “I’ve been contacted by four students and am busy coordinating this, probably doing a bit of reorganization in my
“We’re called to be men and women for others. There’s no pats on the back that are deserved for extending a helping hand.” basement first,” Franziska Seraphim, history professor and director of the Asian studies program, said in an email to The Heights. “This was a great idea and I’m glad to help.” Communication professor Michael Serazio reached out to his current students offering assistance, and he signed up on the form to provide help to any BC student. “I had sent an email to all of my classes, all of my students, basically offering the same thing—which is if you need lodging, we have a spare bedroom
… if you need food and things like that,” Serazio said. “I had informally done that with my students that I have right now, so I was really pumped to see that there was an organic, grassroots effort to try to figure out faculty, staff, admin to collectively help out students.” Responses from faculty to students in need of help have been swift, according to Serazio. “I got a call around noon from a
“It’s the right thing to do—we are all about cura personalis at BC.”
student, but I was busy so it rolled to voicemail, and I called back 15 minutes later—it was someone who needed storage but within 15 minutes had already found someone else on the sheet to help out,” Serazio said. Serazio said that one student had contacted him from the sheet and that he was taking students from his classes out to lunch next week. “We’re called to be men and women for others. There’s no pats on the back that are deserved for extending a helping hand, as we’re able (and in my case, fortunate), in the middle of a crisis,” Serazio added in an email to The Heights. “I’ve advised my students to take care of themselves— physically, emotionally, psychologically—and take care of others in the same way and, as best as possible, to keep calm and carry on and to let me know how I can help.” Christine Caswell, a professor and director of undergraduate studies in the communication department, said she made herself available to provide support to students via the Google Form and has been contacted by about five students, who were mainly requesting storage space. “It’s the right thing to do—we are all about cura personalis at BC, and when any unpredictable situation like this occurs so suddenly … it naturally causes anxiety,” Caswell said. “I’m fortunate that I have space in my home, and I am privileged to have the space that I have, so I wanted to pay it forward and help students who are stuck.” n
BC Students Flood Res, Pino’s After Announcement By Kaylie Ramirez Heights Senior Staff Students may pack into Reservoir Wines and Spirits, Mary Ann’s Bar, and Pino’s Pizza on weekends and “Senior Tuesdays,” but Wednesday nights aren’t typically busy for Cleveland Circle businesses. Once the University announced it was closing due to the spread of the novel coronavirus on Wednesday evening, students flocked to the popular locations, creating an unusual surge in business. A line snaked around Reservoir almost immediately after the 5 p.m. announcement, and Mary Ann’s and Pino’s Pizza both experienced high volumes of customers later in the night. Despite the immediate push to meet the sudden spike in demand, the owners of
Reservoir and Pino’s Pizza are mainly concerned about how the Boston College shutdown will impact their businesses in the coming months. “Boston College suspending classes is gonna have a big effect economically in the area,” George Haivanis, the owner of Reservoir, said while restocking Tito’s Vodka. “I personally have been here for 33 years. I guess summer … came twoand-a-half months early.” While Reservoir employees were working hard to replenish the store’s stock, Pino’s was preparing for another night of high demand late Thursday afternoon. Feliciano (Phil) Petruzziello, the owner of Pino’s, expressed distaste with BC’s failure to notify surrounding businesses of the University’s decision to close campus. “They don’t pay attention to the neighbors,” Petruzziello said of the
University. Petruzziello estimates BC students compose roughly 15 percent of Pino’s business and recognizes that going to the restaurant has been a BC tradition for “generations”—the pizzeria first opened in 1964. While discussing the effects of the shutdown, a patron overheard Petruzziello’s interview with The Heights and asked him for a picture. She said her husband, Dan Lynch, frequented Pino’s during his time as a student at BC. Despite being 86 years old, Petruziello is hardly worried about the coronavirus, which the World Health Organization declared a pandemic on Wednesday. “Perhaps because of my age, I’m not worrying as much as a young person. I mean, the war in Europe didn’t kill me,” Petruziello said, referring to World War
II. “All the diseases and all the lack of food, the lack of medicine—I survived. But if this is destiny, you have to go.” Since the announcement, many students have been gathering in large groups in bars, at Mod parties, and even at an impromptu Showdown outside of 2150 Commonwealth Ave.BC has not yet made a decision on plans for Senior Week, and many seniors have begun celebrating the end of their time at BC while still on campus. While shopping at Reservoir, one senior reflected on the situation: “I’m pretty much disregarding most emails from professors—that’s going to be a Monday issue,” said Mike Vaiarella, CSOM ’20. “I’m just trying to maximize time with friends, … trying to really take advantage of every moment we have left. It just feels like it came two months earlier than it was supposed to.” n
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