12-10-2020

VYING FOR CLASSES, 3

RESIDENT REVIEWS, 2

BU GIGS TO GO BIGGER, 7

SANTA IS REAL, 11

Spring registration left more students out of luck than usual.

Local Bostonians survived a semester of students in the city.

The student-run Instagram marketplace will become an app.

He exists, but not quite in the way we expect.

CE LE B RATIN G

THURSDAY, DEC. 10, 2020

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THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY

YEAR L. VOLUME XCIX. ISSUE V

Faculty, students say BU’s hybrid classes don’t work Kate Sandage Daily Free Press Staff

AMANDA SCHNEIDER | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

ILLUSTRATION BY HANNAH YOSHINAGA | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

For those having difficulties during remote learning, the morality of cheating on online exams is far from black-and-white.

Online resources facilitate cheating in remote exams Angela Yang Daily Free Press Staff When Gus Betts-O’Rourke received a mass email from his professor announcing the entirety of his class’s second midterm had been posted to the online tutoring service Chegg, he wasn’t too surprised.

For the College of Engineering sophomore and his peers, the incident felt like a repeat of another Chegg scandal that occurred in the Spring after Boston University first pivoted to remote learning.

“After so many people got in trouble last semester for using Chegg and

other services, why do people keep doing it?” Betts-O’Rourke said. “But it’s expected that something like that is going to happen when you have online tests.”

His professor, Selim Ünlü, had discovered the unauthorized posting over Thanksgiving break. Ünlü said his first reaction was disappointment, likening the situation to betrayal in a romantic relationship.

“You think you have a good connection with the students, and you trust them,” Ünlü said. “And they cheat on you.” Ünlü’s exam was open-note and open-textbook, and students had up to 110 minutes to finish the test once they began working.

“The only thing I told them is don’t get help from other people, do not get help online,” Ünlü said. “I think that’s fair.”

Betts-O’Rourke said he felt the exam was “very, very fair,” and that many questions were similar to ones the class reviewed during lecture.

Students at BU generally demonstrate high levels of integrity, Ünlü said, which makes him inclined to trust them enough to walk out of the room during a typical exam. Ünlü said he caught the cheating in his Electric Circuits class accidentally: a colleague teaching the same course alerted him to possible cheatCONTINUED ON PAGE 4

As Boston University’s first-ever hybrid learning experiment comes to a close, students and faculty have seen the successes and failures of Learn from Anywhere. A range of community members expressed thoughts on how the system can improve for the semester to come.

For some faculty members, one positive aspect of LfA was the greater collaboration it fostered among professors — which helped improve the educational experience for students, said Paul Hutchinson, a senior lecturer in the Questrom School of Business.

“I’ve never had so many conversations with faculty colleagues about the art of teaching,” Hutchinson said, “and really thinking through, ‘Why do we do this?’”

After experiencing the high level of student interactivity displayed over Zoom, Hutchinson said, there is no reason to return to in-person large lectures.

Breakout rooms are another benefit of remote learning, he said, because students who were once scattered inside one lecture hall can now be easily broken into small groups for discussion. LfA lectures also foster the ability to host guest speakers from anywhere in the world.

Hutchinson said the issue of academic integrity during online examinations challenged him to

strategize ways he could ask more complex questions that require students to apply skills rather than memorize answers.

“It’s easier to write those lowlevel questions,” Hutchinson said, “but it’s also a lot easier to cheat.”

Hutchinson likened LfA to a new teacher’s first semester: there is a learning curve, he said, so the Spring brings another chance to make tweaks and implement new ideas.

“We’re not rewriting everything from square one,” Hutchinson said.

“We’re refining and honing down what we’ve done. And that’s a huge advantage.”

Robert Buchwaldt, a research assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, said he has also discovered creative solutions to problems presented by LfA. Buchwaldt taught a hybrid class of in-person and remote students, so the question he faced concerns how to make class engaging for both parties.

He said he installed a multi-camera setup inside lab spaces, and asked remote students to use household materials in experiments.

“I try to be as creative as possible,” Buchwaldt said. “[There’s] nothing more boring than sitting, actually, at home … and watching other people do things. I think it’s really, really hard for everybody.”

But managing both the in-person and digital components of his class simultaneously has been difficult, Buchwaldt said, adding that BU CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Cold weather, ‘COVID fatigue’ to blame for rising cases Aaron Velasco Daily Free Press Staff An approaching winter and increasing leniency among residents in holding each other to public health guidelines have contributed to Massachusetts’ recent uptick in COVID-19 cases, according to experts.

Daily cases have increased dramatically since the summer, when Massachusetts reported fewer than 500 cases most days.

The Commonwealth reported 5,675 cases and 89 deaths Wednesday, according to the state’s Department of Public Health, with an average positivity rate of 5.86 percent in the last seven days.

Informal social interactions are the driving force behind growing case numbers statewide, said Philip Landrigan, director of Boston College’s global public health program.

“Whenever there’s a gathering … if there’s somebody there who’s shedding the virus and who’s not masked and who’s not at a distance from other people,” Landrigan said, “then there’s a risk that infected person will pass the virus to other people and propagate the epidemic.”

Those celebrating winter holidays

should avoid parties and large gatherings, he said. More people are gathering indoors because of cold weather, Landrigan added, making the virus more likely to spread.

He said the Commonwealth has done a “reasonable job” in its COVID-19 response, but that the state and its residents should remain cautious because the winter months tend to bring holidays and other incentives for people to mingle in groups.

“My strong advice is that people not confuse personal freedom with the unrestricted right to infect other people,” Landrigan said. “To say it more bluntly, people have to behave responsibly.”

Massachusetts will roll back its reopening process starting Sunday in the face of soaring COVID-19 case numbers, which spiked more severely after Thanksgiving.

Returning to Phase Three, Step One, the rollback will mandate mask-wearing at gyms, offices and restaurants, as well as reduce outdoor gatherings from 100 to 50 people and several indoor locations from 50 to 40 percent capacity.

Gov. Charlie Baker said at a press conference Tuesday that cases have CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

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LAURYN ALLEN | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

Cold weather and increasing “COVID fatigue” among residents have contributed to Massachusetts’ rising COVID-19 cases.

2 NEWS

Boston residents say return of college students more bearable than expected

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Despite initial fears, Boston residents are saying the return of students to the city was more manageable than anticipated.

Angela Yang Daily Free Press Staff Streets that stood barren this summer, save for the occasional lone jogger, are now bustling with students.

Restaurants shuttered months ago have filled outdoor tables with college-aged patrons.

As the fall semester concludes at schools across the state, data sourced from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health show a steeper rise in the number of new coronavirus cases per day than the number of new tests given per day.

Yet some Boston residents said the reality of college students’ return beats the catastrophe they had expected.

City Councilor Kenzie Bok of District 8, which encompasses Boston University’s campus, sent a letter to BU and Northeastern University in August expressing her constituents’ concerns that out-of-state students would bring an influx of new cases.

Although her ideal solution was for administrators to not invite students

back to campus at all, Bok said, both universities responded with extensive information about their testing protocols and safety campaigns.

“What’s good about that is they got everybody here without, I think, contributing in a major way to COVID incidents,” Bok said. “I don’t think that would have been true if the schools had not stepped up with the degree of testing resources that they did.”

For 58-year-old Joan Carragher, the sight of students was bittersweet.

Carragher lives in a pocket of Back Bay that borders the South End, and she represents her neighbors as president of the Saint Botolph Neighborhood Association.

“The positive feeling of seeing more people out and about made things feel a little more normal,” Carragher said.

But residents in the district, nestled blocks away from NEU, were initially “very nervous” about the return of students to Boston, she said. Many are around 60 years old, making them particularly vulnerable to severe cases of COVID-19.

When the association reached out

to NEU, however, administrators were receptive to their concerns about potential social gatherings, according to Carragher. She said University officials posted signs around the neighborhood encouraging adherence to public health protocols.

Residents then noticed when NEU suspended 11 freshmen in September for gathering in a room at The Westin Copley Place, where the University is housing some students this year.

Carragher said the “aggressive” disciplinary response demonstrated the school’s commitment to upholding safety standards.

Elliot Laffer, 71, chairs the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, wedged between The Westin and BU student residences.

He said he held strong apprehensions at first about the influx of young people to the city during a pandemic — but has not heard complaints since the semester began.

Laffer and Carragher said their observations throughout the fall have been reassuring, because students consistently wear masks when in public. But what Laffer has seen less of, he said, is proper social distancing.

While Newbury Street — which Laffer called a “barometer” for measuring overall street density across Boston — hasn’t seen the crowds it typically would prepandemic, activity has picked up since students returned.

“There’s some people that have expressed concern because those sidewalks are relatively narrow,” Laffer said. “To be six feet away from people, I think, would require some magical logistics.”

Recalling his own young adulthood, Laffer said he knows the chances students will act irresponsibly are high. He said he will occasionally read about a busted college party in the news.

A major problem that comes with students being back in the city, Bok said, is asymptomatic community spread — which she said has been on the increase and called the Commonwealth’s recent uptick in cases “deeply concerning.”

Laffer also said the rising infection numbers are “terrible,” but he said they showcase how much better Boston schools are faring compared to campuses in the Midwest.

“There, you’re finding huge numbers of cases that you’re not finding around here,” Laffer said.

“And that’s a testament to the plans that schools put together, and a testament to the students following the plans.”

The “robust” testing systems at BU and NEU have assuaged some of the alarm that arose when two of Boston’s largest universities invited students back to campus, said Richard Giordano, 71, director of policy and community planning at the Fenway Community Development Corporation.

Fenway CDC had sent a joint letter in the summer — in collaboration with other neighborhood associations — to several Boston universities expressing residents’ fears about students, Giordano said. In response, he said, the schools reiterated their campus COVID-19 testing programs and behavioral expectations for students.

Massachusetts became something of a poster child for the country this summer in its handling of the coronavirus, as evidenced by its low positivity rate compared to other states. At its lowest dip from midJune to mid-July, newly reported

cases rarely surpassed 300 in one day, according to MDPH data compiled

by The Daily Free Press.

Since October, however, this data has documented the buildup of a second spike within the Commonwealth.

Still, as universities continue to produce positive cases, Giordano said he is surprised they have managed to survive until this point: no school in Boston has found its situation dire enough to announce another campus closure.

“I did expect that there would be bigger problems,” Giordano said. “So in one respect, it’s better than what I had anticipated.”

He said as the fall semester finishes without a major change in course, his next concern centers on any schools that are currently remote but have ambitions for a spring reopening now that other institutions’ trial runs appear successful.

Smaller liberal arts colleges, for example, will likely be unable to replicate the testing capacity of large universities such as BU and NEU, Giordano said, and will have to seek partnership with an external testing provider to accommodate their students.

In addition to the potential for more students returning next semester, Bok said she has seen a push among many schools to bring more staff back to campus, including those who can carry out their work remotely.

But what schools can do in the spring to help keep cases low, she said, is to extend their testing resources to surrounding communities — a demand she had previously made this summer at a protest against BU’s reopening.

“It’ll be safer for classes, and for everything that a university does, if our communities are safer,” Bok said.

“Testing will help us get there.”

Still, regardless of how wellequipped universities appear to be in subduing potential outbreaks, Bok and local residents said no amount of preparation can guarantee success, and that schools should base their next steps on the ever-evolving state of public health — especially after Thanksgiving.

“This is all a gigantic public health experiment,” Giordano said.

“If things start to go wrong, the question is, how quickly can it all be contained?”

BU community suggests alterations to LfA HYBRID, FROM PAGE 1 should opt to dedicate itself to one medium in lieu of a hybrid. Managing technology issues during class, he said, would be easier if all students were online.

If LfA persists, Buchwaldt said, the University should invest in improving its technology. He said the design of Zoom, for example, works better for business than educational settings.

“It needs to be developed a little bit more into detail if it goes into the future,” Buchwaldt said. “If it’s just one more semester, I think we can handle it.”

Managing two multimodal cohorts at the same time has, too, been a challenge for CAS senior lecturer Molly Monet-Viera.

Like Buchwaldt, Monet-Viera said she would prefer the hybrid model focus on providing all-in-person and all-remote classes, rather than classes that try to offer both.

“My biggest concern is the split attention,” Monet-Viera said.

“Inevitably, you end up giving more

attention to one cohort or another.”

Monet-Viera added she hopes the University would be willing to grant instructors more leniency should they wish to teach remotely.

It’s a request faculty had advocated for throughout the summer, without much success.

“The No. 1 thing that would be really great is if the administration gave faculty the flexibility to decide what’s best for their class,” MonetViera said, “as opposed to forcing us to teach the way that they’ve decided is best.”

CAS junior Srushti Dhoke said in her experience, professors have been less flexible in regard to academics this semester compared to last Spring.

She said professors are assigning more work to students, despite the pandemic conditions and students’ home situations being similar to last semester’s.

Dhoke studied remotely from India this Fall, which she said caused some technical difficulties for her.

However, she said she is grateful LfA allows asynchronous learning, especially because of her time zone

difference of more than 10 hours.

“I was trying to attend all the classes synchronously in the beginning, but then a bunch of stuff happened, and so I got really behind,” Dhoke said. “Recordings are a huge,

“The No. 1 thing that would be really great is if the administration gave faculty the flexibility to decide what’s best for their class.” huge help.”

CAS junior David Hou, who lives in California, is behind Boston by three hours. Although the time difference is not as severe for him as for international students, he said the issue has still made him feel

“detached” from school.

Hou said professors should adopt more asynchronous policies to help students living in different time zones.

“I know students who are literally living nocturnal lives,” Hou said. “If you took a student who is learning from Eastern Time in Boston, versus someone who’s learning from Shanghai that’s 13 hours away, you’ll see a difference in their academic performance.”

Some students taking classes in person have also experienced unique obstacles this semester.

Danae Gaytan, a sophomore in CAS, said her in-person classes did not live up to her expectations: scarcely anyone has shown up to the classroom despite more students having expressed interest.

For one of her classes, she said she was one of only two students attending in person.

“I think students need to be more honest,” Gaytan said. “If they say they’re going to attend class in person, attend class in person.”

Jason Prentice, a senior lecturer

in CAS, said he thinks attendance dips have more to do with the awkwardness of being taught alongside another group of students who aren’t in the room.

He said many of the issues brought on by LfA were “foreseeable,” as he has openly criticized the plan since early June.

Prentice said LfA is more of a plan for BU to retain revenue than a plan for effective teaching, because faculty were not involved in the decision- making process.

“If it were a plan for teaching, you would expect that plan to be developed, at least to a significant degree, by faculty,” Prentice said.

“This was a one-size-fits-all plan, handed down to the faculty.”

The lack of consultation with instructors during the development of LfA has contributed to the defects students and faculty have found within this pilot program, he said.

“I think it’s really damaged the fabric of Boston University,” Prentice said. “It’s damaged the relationship between a lot of faculty and staff, indeed, with the administration.”

NEWS 3

Students find Spring 2021 class registration more competitive than previous semesters Claire Williams Daily Free Press Staff While course registration depends largely on luck, some Boston University deans said factors such as canceled Study Abroad programming and shifts to the registration schedule might be partially to blame for classes filling up earlier this round.

Registration for the 2021 Spring semester took place Nov. 28 for juniors and seniors, and Nov. 29 for sophomores and freshmen. Typically, registration is split into two weekends, with juniors and seniors two weeks ahead of sophomores and freshmen.

For this round, as usual, each student was assigned a random registration time based on the last digit of their BU ID number, with start times ranging from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

College of Communication Dean Mariette DiChristina wrote in an email holding registration entirely in one weekend decreased the potential for BU to make adjustments to course offerings before the next registration session.

DiChristina said in an earlier phone call another factor that contributed to a spike in competition for class seats was the increase in enrollment from students who would have studied abroad for the Spring — an opportunity that was canceled in October.

“Each of these students is making individual choices, and you can predict a lot of it but you can’t predict it perfectly,” DiChristina said. “This year, I would say, we have a little bit more to do to make it right for all the students so they get what they need.”

Course offerings are based on the predicted popularity of each course and the patterns of student interest over time, DiChristina said, which can sometimes be inaccurate — like

it has been this year.

When waiting lists for courses accrue enough students, new sections will be added to specific courses, DiChristina said. Changes in the number of sections offered for specific courses will be communicated to the student body through COM’s departments and advisers.

“We’re lucky we work in a very adaptable field,” DiChristina said.

“That’s what we’re trying to do now to make sure that everything works for the students.”

University Registrar Christine Paal wrote in an email BU’s colleges are being “very careful” in adhering to enrollment capacities. She added she does not know of any courses that will increase their class size for the Spring.

Joseph Bizup, an associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, wrote in an email that predicting demand for CAS courses has also been more difficult in the wake of Learn from Anywhere.

Where possible, additional seats and sections are being made available in CAS for courses to meet demand, Bizup wrote.

“Our priority is to ensure that students can enroll in the classes they need to take to fulfill their degree requirements,” Bizup wrote. “Some students might not be able to get into all of their top-choice classes, but that’s true in every semester.”

Despite this, Bizup wrote, CAS is exploring options to offer students more choices going forward.

“We understand how important it is for students to be able to choose from a wide array of classes,” Bizup wrote, “and we’re working to offer as many options as we can.”

Bizup wrote it is improbable to add an extensive amount of seats to remote-only classes because one professor can only handle so many students before the quality of education in the course must be compromised

ILLUSTRATION BY HANNAH YOSHINAGA | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

The course planner on the BU Student Link website. Students found Spring registration especially competitive this year.

as a whole. But, he wrote, CAS is working to do so when it can.

The best way for students to handle not getting into the classes they intended to enroll in — especially ones required for their degree — is to communicate with their major adviser, Bizup wrote.

“CAS Advising is eager to work with any CAS student to help that student work out the best possible schedule,” he wrote.

Anastasia Eremina, a junior in CAS, wrote in an email she had mixed feelings on the registration process for next semester. While she successfully registered for one class she wanted, she did not get the professor she’d hoped for in another course.

“Registration was everything that I feared it to be — unfair,” Eremina wrote.

Her late registration time made the process emotionally taxing, she added.

“I almost cried when I saw the classes I wanted were already filled,” Eremina wrote, “looooong before

I even had the chance to open the search tool.”

Eremina wrote abiding by a “first come, first serve” procedure is unfair because relying on arbitrary luck means some students will always be put at a disadvantage when trying to register.

“I think the whole system shows how blatantly BU administration does not care about its students — in addition to introducing a useless gen ed program with 26 units,” Eremina wrote, referencing the BU Hub, “it seems everything has been done to make the path to graduation harder for students.”

CAS junior Caitlin Meyer said getting the classes she wanted for her degree and Hub requirements took “quite a lot of effort” during this year’s registration process.

Meyer said her class year was the first to encounter the Hub, meaning she and many of her peers had already taken certain courses before they were assigned Hub credits.

She said she was then told she could not retroactively apply Hub

credits to classes she had already taken, despite them now having Hub units attached to them.

“If my class that I took this Fall gathered the new Hub credit next Spring or maybe even a year later, I personally think we should be able to apply those credits,” Meyer said.

“It would make a lot less competition among the students trying to complete the Hub.” Meyer said she feels she should not have to worry about attaining Hub credits her senior year and wishes she could focus on her major instead.

“They made it very difficult for my grade, and I would say probably current sophomores as well, to actually get all of the credits,” Meyer said.

Grant Murray, a freshman in the Questrom School of Business, said his registration was “extremely stressful” because of his late registration time and the design of Student Link.

“The website doesn’t really help because it’s just really hard to navigate,” Murray said. “The stress builds up.”

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LAURYN ALLEN | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

As the holiday season approaches, public health experts are warning residents to stay vigilant in their adherence to COVID-19 protocols, especially because winter weather makes indoor spread more likely.

Coronavirus infections rise as holidays approach CASE SPIKE, FROM PAGE 1 trended upward since Thanksgiving, increasing the demand for limited hospital beds and health care professionals.

COVID-19 hospitalizations have risen by about 150 percent over the last four weeks, according to Baker.

Fewer than 10 percent of adult inpatient beds are now available at 11 of Massachusetts’ hospitals, he added.

“The days of most people doing most of the right things are probably not enough,” Baker said. “We’re asking everyone to join us to step up their vigilance every day, in every setting: work, home, school, everywhere.”

Sarah Forrester, assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, said “COVID fatigue” has also factored into the uptick.

“It’s easier to pretend it doesn’t exist so that they continue to live their

lives the way they want to live them,” Forrester said. “It’s somewhat understandable, but it is also problematic.”

Adults must take the responsibility to prevent their children and teenagers from going out recklessly with friends, Forrester said, while colleges should have known beforehand students would propel community spread.

Even when social distancing, Forrester said, indoor activities with those outside one’s household are

risky.

She said “mixed messages” from the federal government about the severity of the virus have exacerbated health concerns as well.

Residents will have to wait to see if Baker’s new restrictions will help curb the infection rate, Forrester said.

“What Charlie Baker did [Tuesday] was a good step to roll back the reopening,” Forrester said. “I’m not sure if he rolled it back far enough.”

The coronavirus spreads easily

through interstate travel, she said, because states have varying degrees of restrictions in place. In the wake of this, she said, stronger government restrictions may be the only way to get the virus under control.

“I recognize the balance between shutting everything down being problematic for business,” Forrester said.

“But it’s also going to be problematic if everyone’s afraid to come to your business because their friends are all dead.”

4 NEWS

Households across Boston to find light in pandemic-era Hanukkah festivities Taylor Brokesh Daily Free Press Staff A pandemic can’t stamp out the Jewish festival of lights. Community organizations in Boston are prepared for virtual celebrations of Hanukkah, which begins Thursday evening.

Boston cultural group Jewish Arts Collaborative is hosting four festive, interactive events to celebrate, said Ariella Honig, its director of communications and marketing.

In past years, JArts hosted a cooking event, “Beyond Bubbie’s Kitchen,” during which local chefs present their takes on classic Jewish cuisine, Honig said. This year, it is partnering with local caterers and restaurants — including Blackbird Doughnuts, Catering by Andrew and Mamaleh’s Delicatessen — to bring festive meals to the community.

The group is also hosting its Brighter Connected art showcase, which includes eight window installations throughout Boston neighborhoods that reflect both the city’s communities and its Hanukkah spirit, Honig said.

“There’s a window in Dorchester at the Bowdoin Street Health Center,” Honig said. “That artist worked with student artists from Artists for Humanity and with the Bowdoin Street Health Center workers, so that work is a representation of those two communities coming together.”

The displays are designed to al-

low for social distancing and are best viewed at night when they are lit up, Honig added. Other locations include the Boston Cyberarts Gallery, the Freedom House and the Museum of Fine Arts.

JArts has also created an augmented reality app, “JArts Gallery,” which allows users to interact with art from around the world.

“There’s tons of different animations and stories and ways to interact,” Honig said. “If you don’t want to leave your home and you want a different way to celebrate Hanukkah, that’s a pretty cool way.”

Meanwhile, children looking to celebrate can attend virtual storytell-

ing and sing-along sessions in PJ Library at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Boston, according to its website. Families can learn how to bake menorah-shaped challah during one of the center’s virtual events Dec. 17.

This year’s virtual edition of “Hanukkah: The Festival of Lights,” hosted by JArts and the MFA, included a performance by composer Hankus Netsky and his band Ashkenaz Rising!, storytelling and a virtual candle lighting, as well as a performance by Boston Dance Theater, Honig said. It was streamed on the MFA’s website, YouTube and on Facebook Wednesday evening.

On the first day of celebrations, Mamaleh’s Delicatessen in Cambridge and Lamplighter Brewing Company are hosting a Hanukkah Beer Dinner. Participants can pre-order and pick up a four-course meal Thursday at the brewery, then join a video call to follow along with the meal preparation.

The menu includes potato latkes, veal schnitzel, candied citrus and olive oil cake, all paired with Lamplighter Brewing Co. beer.

Michael Weingarten, a board member at the Boston Synagogue, said households can still celebrate the holiday traditionally despite the pandemic.

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PHOTO COURTESY ROANOKE COLLEGE VIA FLICKR

Jewish community organizations in Boston are preparing for virtual Hanukkah celebrations, which will begin on Thursday.

“The major celebration is lighting a menorah each night for eight nights … and it’s traditional to eat fried foods like latkes or sufganiyot, which is a kind of donut without a hole, and that has always been done at home as opposed to in a synagogue,” Weingarten said. “In that sense, not much has changed.”

Weingarten said his synagogue is deciding whether it will hold a virtual movie screening or virtual concert in the place of its annual party — a typical Hanukkah-week event among synagogues.

Rabbi Mayer Zarchi, executive director of Chabad Boston, said staying healthy is more important than the urge to celebrate.

“It’s critical that we, in my opinion from the Jewish tradition, abide by all of the provisions and guidances of our medical professionals,” Zarchi said, “and maintain social distancing until it’s safe to gather in numbers.”

Chabad will host a concert and communal candle-lighting through Zoom, where families will light their menorahs alongside — albeit virtually — other local households.

Zarchi added that Hanukkah’s central theme of “light and hope” is especially relevant in current times.

“Never give up. Never give in.

Even in the most sensitive moments in your life when you feel that all hope is lost, you have that light,” Zarchi said. “That’s why we kindle the lights of the menorah, especially when it gets dark … so that we can create light out of darkness.”

Concerns over cheating develop new nuances CHEATING, FROM PAGE 1 ing on a different section’s exam, held weeks after Ünlü’s, prompting him to search for his own questions online.

He found the full test posted to Chegg within the eight to 10 hours the test was available for download and submission.

BU can collaborate with Chegg’s Honor Code Policy desk, as demonstrated last semester, to reveal details about these postings. Additional circumstantial evidence then allows professors to build cases against the most likely perpetrators, even if they had used false identities online.

Breadcrumbs are always left behind, Ünlü said. Two of the solutions posted to Chegg, for example, were inaccurate by chance, and students who submitted these solutions thus reveal themselves to have copied from the online resource.

In his Nov. 29 email to students, Ünlü urged the perpetrators to reveal themselves to him before they are found out by the University, in which case their penalty would rise in severity.

In a followup email the next day, he announced to the class two students were identified, and that the investigation now extends to the first midterm. Ünlü said he plans to meet with both students who admitted to cheating and those who didn’t — but were caught by the University — to discuss disciplinary measures.

For first-time offenders who don’t dispute their violation, Ünlü said he is willing to recommend a grade reduction to their dean’s office, which will handle the case. Possible penalties, however, include expulsion and revocation of a student’s degree.

Although Ünlü wrote in his initial email he will have to modify the course’s final exam if the cheating issue is not fully resolved, he said he does not believe this will happen. To add new restrictions during tests, he

said, would unfairly burden his students.

“A couple of bad apples is going to ruin it for everyone,” Ünlü said.

“Making strict arrangements such as having proctors monitoring every student on a webcam during the exams, effectively looking over their shoulders, will not help those that have exam anxiety.”

Rather than reformat his testing procedures, Ünlü said he hopes to convince his students not to cheat.

Engineers must abide by a code of ethics, he said, and many architectural disasters have resulted from those who failed to follow these codes.

“If you cheat when you are working as an engineer,” Ünlü said, “you may do real harm and may even cost lives, eventually.”

To one computer engineering sophomore who requested anonymity, prohibiting online resources during exams does not seem realistic to what the field would require. She said her classes consistently taught her to seek answers online when working in a professional setting.

“To expect students to be tested on knowledge that we’re supposed to apply in the industry without the resources that we’d have in the industry,” she said, “seems so unreasonable and just so ineffective that I can see why a lot of students are quote-unquote cheating.’”

She said, however, posting exam answers to Chegg is different and should not be tolerated, because students who submit these solutions are simply representing someone else’s work as their own.

But if a student discovers information online that helps them reach their answer, she said she believes there is no reason to bar them from using it, as long as they cite their sources and genuinely learn.

Many of her professors have turned to open-note exams, the student said, which has helped alleviate her test-taking stress — but learning class material from home has proved

difficult regardless of these accommodations.

Her logic design class requires students to work with field-programmable gate arrays. Though she purchased one of her own, she said the board didn’t match up to the FPGAs at BU. “The FPGA is very expensive, and unless you have the exact one used in the lab at school,” she said, “it is very difficult to write code and test what you have to test in a timely manner.”

While learning remotely, she also cannot access research laboratories, school computers and manufacturing facilities. Subject-specific tutoring centers, she added, cannot operate as effectively now as they did pre-pandemic.

“The reason I chose [BU] was because of the resources, and now they’re not being provided to me,” she said. “My grades are suffering as a result.”

Because of these factors, the student said, professors should act from a place of empathy. She said they should consider asking — after penalizing a student — why they felt compelled to cheat, then work with them to address the root of the problem.

“Very few people go into an exam and say, ‘I’m just going to cheat. I’m just going to do it because I want to,’” she said. “People want to know information. They want to prove that they have the skills to pass the class and to succeed and to graduate.”

While Ünlü’s Electric Circuits course typically hosts sophomores, engineering professor Irving Bigio is teaching a course this semester taken primarily by seniors and graduate students. He said cheating is less of a concern in his class.

Because the course is a specialized elective, the answers to its test questions are harder to answer through services such as Chegg, he said. Like Ünlü’s, Bigio’s exams are open-note and open-book.

“I tell them, I almost don’t care if

you do a web search to find an answer to the problem,” Bigio said. “But I prefer you not do so, because you’re likely to be misled and you’re likely to not do as well as if you simply put your mind to using what you learned in the class.”

Bigio said he alters his exam problems every semester to prevent answers from surfacing on the internet, but the process is “very” time-consuming.

“It’s a lot of time and effort to come up with good exam problems that are sufficiently challenging,” Bigio said, “and yet not so hard as to be unfair: something that a good proportion of them can actually do it, if they actually prepared for the exam.”

The subject matter in a 200-level course such as Ünlü’s, however, is “quite simple,” which Ünlü said makes it difficult to change exam questions.

Some students have criticized professors for not modifying their exams each term, but Ünlü said he and his colleagues have been putting in more work than before classes turned remote. Aside from recording and uploading asynchronous content, he said, he also experimented with new exam formats to accommodate remote students.

“One of the comments that I’ve noticed on Reddit was, ‘Oh, the faculty don’t care and are lazy. They’re recycling their past exams with no changes,’” Ünlü said. “I resent that comment. Faculty are working hard … to cope with challenges of Learn from Anywhere.”

Betts-O’Rourke said he has seen similar comments on Reddit expressing students might be cheating because professors are creating unnecessarily difficult exams.

“I kind of see that as an issue if we’re going to blame the faculty for something that’s really a student problem,” Betts-O’Rourke said.

“That seems like just trying to avoid blame and trying to deflect responsibility in a way that isn’t fair to the

faculty who’s trying their hardest.”

Another student who requested anonymity, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she has cheated on multiple exams this semester.

She said the morality of cheating has become less black-and-white in the wake of new challenges both students and faculty face this year, but that everyone must become more understanding of each other.

“As a student, I feel like we are attacking teachers way too harshly,” she said. “Just as students are experiencing this for the first time, so are teachers.”

What instructors should keep in mind, she said, is that students who have never suffered from mental health issues before are now more prone to depression — a condition she has lived with throughout her life.

“I know what it’s like to not be able to get into bed, to not be motivated, to not do any of that,” she said.

“I’ve learned to deal with that while still being functional, but not everybody has that ability.”

Students with learning styles that don’t adapt well to remote work also struggle under LfA, she said. While some study best through reading a textbook, others rely on hands-on learning.

The student said BU students who depend on scholarships to stay in school — like herself — become more likely to cheat because, regardless of these challenges, they must keep their grades above a threshold.

However, she said, cheating should be less tolerable in some subjects than others. She said students planning to work in medicine or law, for example, would ultimately hurt others if they cheated in exams. But much of the time, she added, cheating affects the student alone.

“The fact that a choice that I’m making that’s only going to harm myself can get me kicked out in some instances kind of is crazy to me,” the student said. “People are literally just trying to survive.”

GAMES 5

CROSSWORD

ACROSS

DOWN

1. Old stories 5. Anagram of “Space” 10. Backside 14. Cain’s brother 15. Anagram of “Talon” 16. Brother of Jacob 17. Embroidery 19. Tanks 20. Papa 21. Turf 22. Gowns 23. Pettifogger 25. A yellowish brown color 27. Which person?

28. Prevaricated 31. A Canadian winter hat 34. Pup 35. Actress Lupino 36. Astringent 37. Muse of love poetry 38. “Smallest” particle 39. Ribonucleic acid 40. Eyeglasses 41. Verse 42. Salary payment 44. Female deer 45. Streamlined 46. Search haphazardly 50. Homeric epic 52. A kind of macaw 54. Shade tree 55. Purges 56. Self-centered 58. Poems 59. Yields 60. 3 times 3 61. Prying 62. Utilizers 63. French for “Head”

1. Territories 2. A religion based on sorcery 3. Slender 4. A late time of life 5. Record player 6. Cringe 7. Again 8. Budgies 9. Antlered animal 10. Annul 11. Usefulness 12. Spouse 13. Kitty-cat 18. Wood shaping machine 22. Coarse file 24. Travelled through water 26. Angel’s headwear 28. Hit hard 29. Biblical kingdom 30. Matron 31. Canvas 32. Forearm bone 33. Adjacent to docks 34. Ruins 37. Type of sword 38. Throat-clearing sound 40. Outbuilding 41. Ancient empire 43. Stylish 44. Coercion 46. Formula 1 driver 47. Eagle’s nest 48. Gleam 49. Master of ceremonies 50. Weightlifters pump this 51. Adriatic resort 53. Was a passenger 56. Euro forerunner 57. Explosive

QUIZ: Which FreeP section are you?

If you answered mostly F: you’re Opinion!

If you answered mostly C: you’re Podcast!

You love the aesthetically pleasing and like to seek adventure, especially in the outdoors.

Your curiosity leads you to explore a wide range of interests, from entertainment to business to science.

If you answered mostly F: you’re Photo!

If you answered mostly B: you’re Features!

You work hard and are brimming with ambition, but you maybe need to learn to relax every once in a while.

Though you’re carefree and fun, you find comfort in expressing yourself through a creative outlet.

If you answered mostly E: you’re News!

If you answered mostly A: you’re Blog!

ANSWERS

INTERROBANG

You know what you stand for and aren’t afraid to amplify those beliefs through wellinformed arguments.

Which font best embodies your personality?

A) Comic Sans B) Helvetica C) Courier D) Collegiate E) Times New Roman F) Wingdings G) Arial

You probably don’t hate your voice, and you tend to be an effective speaker who thrives in social situations.

What food or drink are you likely to have by your side?

A) home-baked bread B) new holiday drinks C) HelloFresh groceries D) hot dog E) coffee F) avocado toast G) pineappled pizza

What’s your favorite streaming service?

A) Disney+ B) Netflix C) Spotify D) ESPN+ E) Cable F) HBO Max G) Peacock

If you ended with no winner: you’re exactly what we need!

What would you rather do on a weekend?

A) decorate your room B) browse Newbury Street C) call a friend D) attend a hockey game E) catch up on work F) check out an MFA gallery G) rant on Reddit

Where on campus do you like to work?

A) COM lawn B) Pavement C) in a classroom D) Charles River Esplanade E) the GSU F) Bay State Road G) the HTC

If you answered mostly D: you’re Sports!

Which BU alum are you dying to meet?

A) Gretchen Geraghty B) Safdie brothers C) Alex Cooper D) Charlie McAvoy E) Steve Kornacki F) Pete Souza G) AOC

How do you cope when you’re upset?

A) jot down a rant B) binge a TV show C) ask someone for advice D) exercise and sweat it out E) hold your feelings in F) go on a walk G) tweet about it

Got an idea for a section you’d like to see created at the FreeP? Shoot us an email and help us innovate.

What can you be found doing in your free time?

A) journaling B) listening to music C) finding new podcasts D) tossing a frisbee E) taking a nap F) bird watching G) reading a book

Which animal do you relate to most?

A) cat B) chameleon C) parrot D) Boston Terrier E) rooster F) mantis shrimp G) dog

You have tons of school spirit and love keeping up with your teams, collegiate and professional alike.

QUESTIONS

We’ve seen many of our peers solely through Zoom for the past semester.

We here at the ole Daily Free Press want to know — what would BU groups set as their Zoom background?

Artoo: red carpet

CGS: London

ENG: themselves paying attention

Sargent: research lab

CAS: camera off

COM: no background, just tapestry

SHA: tropical beach

CFA: outdated meme

FreeP: the FreeP office :(

6 PHOTO

A wintry Boston maintains holiday cheer

THALIA LAUZON | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

Snowfall covers Boston’s skyline, leaving only the Citgo sign in sight.

SHANNON DAMIANO | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

A Boston baseball cap rests on a fence covered in snow.

LAURYN ALLEN | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

The Boston Public Garden’s “Make Way for Ducklings” statues wear sweaters for the winter season.

THALIA LAUZON | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

LAURYN ALLEN | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

Snowy trees line both sides of Storrow Drive.

Two women take a walk through the Boston Common to admire decorations put up for the holiday season.

FEATURES 7

COMMUNITY

BU Gigs to transform into app this winter Cameron Morsberger Daily Free Press Staff A digital marketplace has burgeoned under @bu_gigs, an Instagram account circulating offers and requests from Boston University students on anything from housing to clothing to services. The account also posts BU course advice and runs polls on student opinion.

But on Feb. 4, the account will move off the platform. Since launching last fall, @bu_gigs has gained more than 7,000 followers and posted nearly 5,500 times, but creator Kaluwe Muntanga said he is hoping its audience will download an app he is currently developing to replace the Instagram page.

Muntanga, a senior at Northeastern University studying computer science, runs the “gigs” account for BU, as well as those of eight other schools both in and out of Boston. He began posting about the upcoming app last week.

On each gig account, Muntanga reposts direct messages on the accounts they were sent to. He is the sole media manager, meaning he spends around three hours per day sharing posts.

Once the app is in operation, Muntanga said, he hopes his workload will lessen.

“I always wanted to make this into an app. Instagram was just a way for me to test out the idea and to see if I was onto something,” Muntanga said.

“I just can’t run those pages. There’s so much. I’m at the point right now where I’m constantly behind on stuff.”

The app, dubbed “Social Call,” is

ILLUSTRATION BY LAURYN ALLEN | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

The BU Gigs instagram account, run by Kaluwe Muntanga, is set to move to a mobile app dubbed “Social Call” in February.

currently developing its database and servers, but Muntanga — who is coding the app himself — said its interface and design are essentially complete. The layout aims to resemble Instagram in visuals and operation.

Muntanga said students using the app will be able to post directly without him being a middleman, which eliminates the wait time before their offer or request appears in the feed.

The app will also allow users to sort requests by categories, which include the main sections found on the Instagram version: request, hustle and offer. @bu_gigs has recently begun posting 24-hour categories as well,

soliciting student responses to a poll or question via Instagram stories and sharing the responses. Muntanga said he hopes to keep that feature to maintain social engagement and keep the app from going “stale.”

The first “gigs” Instagram account, @neu_gigs, was launched Oct. 1 of last year, and the BU-related account followed on Oct. 20. From there, Muntanga created a range of accounts for different universities, all of which will be located on Social Call under school-specific filters.

Because the Instagram algorithm can bury posts and prioritize pages with high follower counts, Muntanga said it wasn’t practical to stay on the

platform.

“I feel as though it’s very hard for you, especially as a student, to get the word out about stuff if you’re not a famous person,” Muntanga said. “[The app is] more focused toward college students. You have your community, you don’t need to follow a mass amount of people … and I think that way, it gives your posts more value.”

Zoë Chirico, a junior in BU’s College of Arts and Sciences, started following @bu_gigs around the time of its launch last year. She occasionally engages with its feed and has posted her own requests on the page.

As a computer science student, Chirico said the account has been a

resource for her to reach other CS majors and discuss homework, but that an app separate from Instagram would likely be more efficient at finding specific posts.

“An actual app for things [can] be a lot more organized, because things kind of get lost since [Muntanga] does post a lot a day,” Chirico said.

“I feel like that’ll really help people trying to buy or sell products.”

Another @bu_gigs follower, College of Fine Arts sophomore Amy Stapenhorst, shared a request for apartment subletters through the Instagram page after she was unsuccessful in reaching people via Facebook and other websites.

While she plans on downloading the app, Stapenhorst said she is concerned about whether the Instagram page’s following will take the time to keep up with a different platform.

“I think that it’ll be nice to have it on a separate app so it’s not crowding out my Instagram feed,” Stapenhorst said. “I’m also worried that it won’t be used by as many people or people won’t check it as often as they do Instagram.”

To incentivise students to download the app, Muntanga said it will be free, but he is considering implementing the condition that people invite one new user to the app each month. The platform will keep track of users by cell phone number when they sign up.

Once the app comes together, @ bu_gigs should operate the same way, Muntanga said — just on its own footing.

“A lot of people say it’s a marketplace,” Muntanga said, “but I’ve always viewed it as an expansion of Instagram.”

ARTS Netflix gears up for holidays with baking specials Molly Farrar Daily Free Press Staff

won’t disappoint in this show, which opens with a round of cupcakes and confections and ends with a final cake showcase.

The holiday season comes with roasted chestnuts, fruitcake, decorated cookies and the like.

All of the judges vote on the remaining two teams in the final round, with winners receiving $10,000 — along with lots of hugs.

Baking during this time is a central tradition, but sometimes, watching others create extravagant pies and cakes is more enjoyable — and easier — than making them oneselff.

In tune with this spirit, Netflix has released holiday-themed seasons of food shows perfect for binging.

“The Great British Baking Show: Holidays” Following the conclusion of the bake-off’s most recent season is the holiday rendition of the popular am-

ateur baking competition. The show brings back a few favorite bakers from previous seasons to participate in competitions occurring over one weekend per episode, each of which ends with a “Star Baker” award.

Unlike previous seasons, no eliminations occur during these holiday competitions.

Each episode features four bakers from previous seasons, two from one season and two from another. Their friendships are palpable on-screen.

The bakers laugh about the stress

they’ve felt in the tent, but take the holiday special to just bake and have fun.

As in the original, the bakers compete in three challenges: signature, technical and showstopper. Aside from beautiful patisserie, the show highlights redemptions and laughable moments among the contestants — but with only two episodes each season, it’s always a short-lived joy.

“Nailed it! Holiday!”

While “Nailed it!” hasn’t released

“Sugar Rush Christmas” Season two of this dessert-themed reality competition was released Nov. 27, just in time for the post-Thanksgiving holiday cheer. “Sugar Rush” is known for its guest judges, and this season doesn’t disappoint.

With Emmy-nominated comedian and show host Nicole Byer livening up the room alongside pastry chef Jacques Torres, audiences will see a group of novice bakers botch nearly every challenge. Still, one person always walks away with the $10,000 prize.

The casual setting — with jokes involving stagehands and memestyle lettering — gives “Nailed it!” a unique atmosphere compared to other feel-good baking shows. The first episode, featuring two-time guest judge and actor Jason Mantzoukas, is aptly named “We’re Scrooged.”

Each episode of “Nailed it! Holiday!” offers two rounds for the three home bakers to win the grand prize.

Competitors must recreate beautiful, professionally decorated desserts for the first round, followed by a complex cake, until a final winner is announced.

Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon judges the first installment of the six-episode season, while actress Abigail Breslin stars in the last.

The fast-paced yet lighthearted show, on which “time is the most important ingredient,” features four duos who compete in creating three rounds of treats.

Time is used as a unique tool on the show — whatever time is left over from the first two challenges can be applied to the final round.

Beautiful and intricate desserts

a new holiday season special this year, its previous seasons on Netflix are just as festive and entertaining.

The show, which features renditions from Spain, Germany, Mexico and France, is never short on content.

ILLUSTRATION BY LAURYN ALLEN | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

As the holiday season approaches, Netflix is rolling out festive seasons of popular food shows for viewers to enjoy at home.

While these three shows grace our screens through streaming-giant Netflix, Hulu’s catalogue includes Food Network’s holiday cooking shows, including two seasons of “Holiday Gingerbread Showdown,” one season of “Christmas Cookie Challenge” and six seasons of “Holiday Baking Championship.”

8 FEATURES

BUSINESS

Executive producer of ‘Dead to Me’ shares personal story behind television success Kyla Denisevich Daily Free Press Staff The Netflix television series “Dead to Me” is two seasons deep, and recently received approval to film a third.

The program’s showrunner — a Boston University alumna — returned virtually to her alma mater Monday to share with students career tips that factored into her success.

Four-time Emmy Award winner Liz Feldman, creator and executive producer of the series, spoke to students via Zoom.

The discussion, hosted by BU’s Alumni and Friends, focused on diversity in the industry as well as how to produce impactful and creative work.

Having made a career for herself in TV, Feldman delved into her experiences with harassment as a woman in the industry. She spoke about the way her writing evolved as she journeyed through difficult periods in her personal life.

“I allowed myself to be vulnerable, to go to some really dark places,” Feldman said during the discussion, “and it was this idea that I couldn’t let go of.”

The concept of “Dead to Me” first struck Feldman out of the blue during a pitch meeting. She said she could tell that the team wanted dark humor, so she began telling the story of a widower at a grief group — the basic premise of the show.

Although her idea was initially rejected, Feldman said she knew she wanted to continue working on the

LAURYN ALLEN | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF

BU alumna Liz Feldman spoke virtually to students on Monday about diversity and creativity in the television industry.

pilot.

Writing from the deep place that cultivated her voice in “Dead to Me,” Feldman said, she recognized that her own vulnerabilities with her adversaries helped cultivate a unique script she related to more than any other project. The death of her cousin and her own struggles with fertility were among the issues that put Feldman in a place of grief, she said.

Before “Dead to Me,” Feldman had worked at children’s TV network Nickelodeon since age 18. She said she realized after leaving the company, where she was the only female writer, that she had to take a break

from writing.

“There were elements that made it a very difficult job and hints of sexual harassment that was happening targeted at me,” Feldman said. “It was discouraging, so I don’t blame myself for having that long pause.”

Haley Zenenberg, a film and television senior in the College of Communication, said she believes the industry is starting to reevaluate its structure and treatment of women, especially in an era encompassing the TIME’S UP organization and #MeToo movement.

“You’re seeing all of this change in Hollywood, where you’re seeing

these women reclaiming their stories and reclaiming their voices,” Zenenberg said in an interview. “Women are starting to be the ones making the decisions.”

When it comes to the LGBTQ+ community, which Feldman is a part of, Zenenberg said “Dead to Me” also showcases a new level of diversity in the entertainment industry by integrating an LGBTQ+ story arc.

“While there aren’t necessarily LGBT plot lines in ‘Dead to Me’ until the second season,” Zenenberg said, “I think that when there is that relationship, it’s way more organic and realistic, because it’s coming

from someone who is in an LGBTQ relationship.”

COM junior Freddie Hassett, also studying film and television, identified changes he said are needed in the profession that would make the field “fundamentally better for society.”

“The film and TV industry has been, for decades and decades, so heavily dominated by straight white men, and their stories constantly being told,” Hassett said in an interview. “There’s still a lot of work that needs to be done, but I think finally, we’re hearing stories from a much more diverse crowd.”

Both Hassett and Zenenberg said the kind of inspiration that allows the creation of authentic stories like “Dead to Me” must come from personal lived experiences.

Beyond honing one’s writing skills, Feldman said she believes manifestation — envisioning one’s goals and achievements — must come into the creative process.

Her advice to students struggling with completing scripts or finding motivation is to simply “power through” it, to be vulnerable in their writing and to set personal deadlines.

“I’m very motivated by fear. And for me, I don’t have a choice. I have to write a season three,” Feldman said. “I have a proverbial gun to my head.”

For any piece of work, Feldman said, trusting one’s instincts in the process is key to navigating the field, as well as to bolstering a sense of self. “[There’s] a lot of self-trust that needs to happen, which can be really challenging,” Feldman said. “You just have to jump and know that you’re your own parachute.”

SCIENCE Professors innovate through new techniques, roles to adapt to Learn from Anywhere semester Madeline Humphrey Daily Free Press Staff While college campuses would normally be bustling during the fall, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything from the way students communicate to the way they learn.

At Boston University, that’s no different — but each department had found its own techniques to adjust based on its educational needs.

This semester’s speaker series on Learn from Anywhere invited faculty to discuss the ways BU has adapted to a remote learning environment.

The most recent installment held Friday, “Managing the LfA Experience Part 2,” was a followup to an October discussion.

The talks, co-hosted by Digital Learning and Innovation and The Center for Teaching and Learning, focused on changes to the University’s academic environment as a result of its new hybrid modality.

The Center’s director, Deborah Breen, wrote in an email that each of the six speakers were specifically chosen from varied

colleges within BU to present a full picture of the LfA curriculum.

“We try to find speakers from diverse backgrounds, representing different disciplines and approaches, and from across BU’s campuses,” Breen wrote. “There was a good crosssection of people and approaches represented and they had quite different teaching and learning stories to tell.”

Binyomin Abrams, master lecturer of chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, began the talk by sharing his experiences with a new lab environment and, in turn, new learning assistant lab surrogates — who attend labs in person to substitute for the students who cannot — to simulate the lab experience.

Virtual students will direct the learning assistant, a student who has already taken the chemistry course, to complete their lab experiments.

Remote students must give exact instructions, Abrams said, because LAs are the ones technically doing the lab.

This lab technique has produced satisfactory test results, Abrams said, and has received positive reviews from students

themselves.

“Both cohorts, in-person and remote, score equivalently according to all assessment metrics we’ve used,” Abrams said. “Maybe the most exciting part is that the remote students report an unexpectedly high level of community engagement and satisfaction with their experience.”

“The remote students report an unexpectedly high level of community engagement and satisfaction with their experience.”

Abrams said remote students are succeeding thanks to the LAs, who are all taking a pedagogy course in the Wheelock College of Education and Human Development.

Because of this, he said, LAs are attentive to exact instructions

and can ask important questions as they conduct the labs.

Associate Dean for Digital Learning and Innovation Karen Jacobs was the moderator for the talk. Jacobs said such discussions can be useful during this time for faculty as well as students.

“I love that BU has taken the lead on providing resources to faculty, and students are attending also,” Jacobs said in an interview.

“It’s great to give faculty a platform to share creative and innovative things that they’ve been doing.”

Panelists said some of these LfA innovations include a School of Medicine seminar series where students can meet with faculty to better engage with the school, and the Hebrew department beginning each class with “gamebased learning” to test students’ language proficiency.

School of Hospitality Administration assistant professor Sean Jung spoke during the panel about the process with which his department catered LfA to hospitality students’ specific needs.

He said hospitality students typically enjoy working with groups instead of individual work, for example, so applications

included incorporating breakout rooms and encouraging them to leave their cameras on during class.

In an interview, Jung said he believes because LfA is so new, it is important to converse about the way it is impacting BU’s curriculum during its full first semester of operation.

“Everybody has new ideas at this point, so it’s great to communicate with other departments to see how they are actually doing their LfA models,” Jung said. “I definitely think that there is a lot of things to learn from each of the departments.”

Faculty and students alike can benefit from attending the talks, Jung said, because students can offer feedback and faculty can take those comments to improve their curriculums.

He said the LfA model cannot work without collaboration from both of these major cohorts within the BU community.

“Having more students to come and also do some presentations really helps the faculty members to know exactly what the students are thinking,” Jung said. “We can actually have a feedback back-and-forth with each other to improve each other.”

OPINION 9

FINAL WORD A letter from the editor Angela Yang Editor-in-Chief I sent in my application to The Daily Free Press the May before my freshman year at Boston University even began. I knew what I wanted to spend my four years doing, but I didn’t expect that after just three semesters, I would already be saying goodbye.

Home, for me, is our basement underneath the cookie store at the heart of Commonwealth Avenue. I’ve slept in there, curled up in a onesie on my desk, after long nights with my managing editor Sarah by my side — albeit virtually.

See, I was always tempted to call this little nook the place where our newspaper comes to life. But I’ve learned this semester that’s simply not true. If the FreeP’s first full semester of remote work has taught us anything, it’s that a publication’s capabilities aren’t bound by the walls of a newsroom.

Our staff has demonstrated resilience beyond what I could have dared ask of them during a pandemic that has uprooted so many lives. They showed up day after day, whether it be on Zoom or Slack, and worked from across the country to document an era of unprecedented changes at BU and in Boston.

My editorial board stepped into their roles more than seven months ago and began breaking news immediately to keep up with the whirlwind of new developments that came as soon as classes ended in the Spring.

Summer break didn’t quite exist for us: we end our term having published 1,024 stories over the equivalent of two semesters.

But it wasn’t just us. College papers across the country proved this year just how much our communities need the information we provide. When historians ask how higher education navigated contentious endeavors to reopen in the midst of a full-blown public health crisis, they will turn to the digital archives laid down by student reporters.

From the emergence of BU’s hybrid learning model and on-campus COVID-19 testing program to the consequences Learn from Anywhere would impose on professors and graduate students, we spent the summer capturing each nuance. In June, we posed students’ questions to President Robert Brown himself.

Along with the University’s reopening inevitably came controversies, such as a dean’s request that professors selfcensor language about the pandemic and inconsistencies surrounding whether faculty would be notified if a student in their class tested positive for the coronavirus.

2020 was also the year of a renewed nationwide civil rights movement. We covered nights of Black Lives Matter protests in Boston through the summer and fall, all while documenting the City’s reopening

progress.

And, we had the honor of chronicling the most historic presidential election in our young lifetimes, including the day Boston erupted in celebration when the president-elect was finally called after days of anticipation.

When I took the helm of the FreeP at 18 years old, I knew it would be the toughest journey of my life. I was right.

Despite my many run-ins with BU officials who pushed back against what we published, one line from an email I wrote captures our journalism best: “If we have given off the impression that we’re unfair to the University, we likely have also given off the impression that we’re unfair to all its critics.”

Fair

reporting means we cater to no one and nothing but the truth, and especially in a time when everybody has so much at stake, we have strived relentlessly to paint the fullest picture possible through our storytelling.

To my fellow editors — Sarah, Melissa, Allie, Cammy, Colbi, Max, Amber, Lauryn, Justin — it is your diligence that’s helped us succeed in doing so. While I am certain we have not been perfect in ensuring no perspective has slipped through the cracks, I also earnestly believe we have carried out our duty well.

We, like all our peers, have had so much ripped away from us. You all deserved to experience those late nights laughing in the newsroom while stress-eating from a mountain of snacks piled atop the center table in our

basement. Instead, you were forced to edit for hours alone in your rooms, listening to nothing but the taps of your fingers on laptop keys.

You never knew the in-person traditions we were supposed to share as an eboard, never familiarized yourself with the tales behind those goofy artifacts laying around the office. I mourn what we’ve lost, yet I can’t help but celebrate the bonds we have built despite the odds.

Though some of us have never physically met, our impassioned Zoom discussions and hysterical Slack jokes have facilitated lifelong friendships regardless. I will miss you guys so dearly, and I can’t wait for the day we all gather for the first time to share real hugs.

It has been a privilege to serve the school and city I love as editor-in-chief of this proudly independent paper — and I mean that literally. This is an unpaid, 40–50-hourper-week gig for a full semester. No matter how dedicated a student is to our craft, anyone who must work part-time jobs to support themselves in college are at an inherent disadvantage.

Journalism is a field that tends to be inaccessible from the start. Too often, it extracts our labor for grossly inadequate compensation. As students, we are “paid” in experience. But some of us can’t afford to spare the grueling hours it takes to really benefit from that in the first place.

Student editors deserve to get paid. This is not only fair, but would open eboard seats to an array of valuable perspectives that have been pushed out for far too long. It would improve our journalism by helping us better represent the wider student body.

The problem remains, however, that the FreeP is quite broke. Our board of directors has made progress toward the launch of a stipend program, which would be a first step toward real compensation for our editors, and fundraising for it will begin in the Spring.

So, if you appreciate independent local journalism, I urge you to donate — if not to us, then to another newspaper that serves your community.

Like many local papers today, the FreeP needs your support. Student journalists need your support.

Only then can we continue bringing essential information to the fore.

Fall 2020 Editor-in-Chief The Daily Free Press

GRAPHIC BY ALEXIA NIZHNY

10 OPINION

EDITORIAL Newsrooms are essential to culture of journalism

CARTOON BY VANESSA BARTLETT

A journalist’s life is always fast-paced, with breaking news and briefs galore. The global pandemic has not slowed us down, but has, if anything, given us more fuel to keep the public informed.

Our reporting has, of course, evolved over the last nine months. Here at The Daily Free Press, and publications around the world, we have gone fully digital. We no longer pack our office while working late at night or badger people on the sidewalk for interviews.

Journalism has always been a profession quick on its feet and ready to adapt, but that does not come without a price.

The Tribune Publishing Company told The Hartford Courant Guild Friday its newsroom would close indefinitely. Editor-in-chief Andrew Julien wrote in an email to Courant Guild staff that the decision was made because the current economy and public health crisis has placed a strain on the financial logistics of keeping a newsroom.

Julien wrote, “It won’t change the essence of what we do: Delivering the high-impact journalism readers have come to expect from the Courant and crafting creative solutions that meet the needs of our advertising partners.”

Julien is correct in saying the essence of the paper’s job won’t change. But, the Courant team is missing out on a vital space for its reporters.

The culture of journalism once relied so heavily on the newsroom. In every television show or movie about journalists, reporters are running around, yelling frantically and working hard to get their stories out for the day. This environment is one of the most integral parts of the job.

Newsrooms are a collaborative space where journalists can bounce ideas off of their fellow staff members and editors to gain different perspectives on articles, which helps defend their writing from bias and tired narratives.

For FreeP reporters, the newsroom has always been our safe haven. One of the main reasons editors make the time commitment to work for this paper is because of the memories and friendships we would expect to make in the

We allowed three editors in the office at a time — wearing masks, disinfecting surfaces and social distancing — but often, we would just stay out. Everyone is afraid of making someone else uncomfortable with their presence.

Despite our inability to congregate in a common space, we have discovered we do not need a newsroom to successfully report the news.

And for many small publications, this is the

One of the main reasons editors make the time commitment to work for this paper is because of the memories and friendships we would expect to make. office.

That experience has been taken away from us, and we are now forced to finish every task in our dormitories. Our roommates sit across the room while we interview government officials, pitch ideas at budget meetings and edit stories for eight hours a night.

We have had to prioritize the safety of our writers. We no longer send them out for inperson interviews when we can avoid it, and they can no longer come to the office to work.

norm. They either didn’t have a newsroom to begin with, or may be shutting down because of increased financial burdens. We would rather cut the newsroom than the paper as a whole.

But, the loss of this industry’s physical foundation comes at a cost.

We cannot throw newsrooms to the wind, and we shouldn’t let hedge-fund companies undermine the necessity of these establishments.

The quality of reporting is undoubtedly impacted by these losses. Without a shared

physical space, reporters can’t yell across the room about a problem, fact check or misplaced comma. At the FreeP, we must now communicate mostly via Google Docs comments and Slack messages, reminded of how much more effectively previous editors learned through in-person interaction.

Our ability to improve our writing and reporting has been hampered. When everything’s remote, it’s easier for an editor to simply fix a mistake they see rather than message a writer to hop on the document and correct it themselves. In a field like this, we are always on a time crunch, and our desire to be efficient keeps us from properly communicating with one another.

Newsrooms also serve as a hub of history.

Archives of past editions line the walls or, in the FreeP’s case, stack the floors. A plethora of resources — including printers, editing software and desktop computers — can all be found in one place. Especially for college reporters, not having those resources can limit your work.

We now burden our home environments with our journalistic work, which only exacerbates our already-notorious inability to balance our personal and professional lives.

Working from home does bring a sense of convenience we typically wouldn’t have, but the culture of journalism ultimately depends on a newsroom. We cannot lose out on that in the long run, and major corporations should not be so quick to discount the importance of our offices.

The chaotic energy, the hustle and bustle, the first drafts of history — these all belong in the newsroom, and so do we.

EDITORIAL BOARD Angela Yang, Editor-in-Chief Melissa Ellin, Campus Editor

Allison Pirog, City Editor

Maxwell Bevington, Sports Editor Lauryn Allen, Photo Editor

Sarah Readdean, Managing Editor Cameron Morsberger, Features Editor

Colbi Edmonds, Opinion Editor

Amber Bhatnagar, Blog Editor

Justin Tang, Podcast Editor

OPINION 11

COLUMNS Minority Report:

Santa Claus exists, just not in the way children might think

Lincoln Currie Columnist Every Christmas season, consumerism envelopes America and throws everyone into a shopping frenzy. Perhaps the most famous mascot for the American-consumerist Christmas is not Jesus Christ, but Santa Claus.

Santa Claus is rooted in Christian tradition and comes from Saint Nicholas, a bishop from an area that was once ancient Greece and is now Turkey. Saint Nicholas is known as the patron saint of children.

This religious aspect of Santa Claus is what makes it so easy to tie him to the legend we tell children. But these historical facts are mere details that expand his legend — details that are not part of many people’s understanding of the American version of Santa Claus.

Many American children grow up believing Santa Claus is a jolly fat man in a red suit who rides around on Christmas Eve delivering pres-

ents to all the good girls and boys. Many movies have centered around him or featured him, “Miracle on 34th Street,” “Elf” and “The Polar Express” being just a few.

But once you get older, who cares about this childhood figure? He doesn’t really exist anyway, right?

I anticipate those who say Santa Claus does not exist would ask me to prove his existence as it is told in the legend — with the big red suit, reindeer, etc. I cannot do this because Santa Claus does not corporally exist. However, I would attribute to him a phenomenon just as impressive — if not more — than one man who can deliver presents to millions every year.

What if something caused Americans to spend more than 1 trillion dollars every year?

What if that event happened every year?

That event exists in America, and it’s called Christmas.

But spending and gift giving are not the only activities of value that come from the holiday season. As it turns out, Santa Claus is a great job creator. Each year during the December holidays, U.S. companies hire hundreds of thousands of seasonal workers to assist with the increase in shopping.

During the Christmas season, everybody wins. People give and receive gifts, businesses get a dependable bump in sales and more workers are hired.

But what does any of this have to do with Santa Claus? Couldn’t the Christmas season in America be just fine without him? After all, the holiday is not celebrating his birthday.

So much of the American marketing of

GRAPHIC BY JUN LI

Christmas revolves around Santa Claus. Trying to tell a person about an American Christmas without mentioning the jolly old elf would be an incomplete description by anyone’s measure.

He is on Coca-Cola advertisements, in Christmas movies, at shopping malls, on wrapping paper, in Christmas songs and more. For about one month every year, Santa becomes omnipresent. The Santa Claus denier must answer this: if, for an entire month, a man is in your ears, on your lips and in your sight, how non-existent is he?

As a collective, we make Santa Claus exist.

Every time you go out and buy a Christmas gift for a loved one and say it’s “from Santa,” you are acting in his place. If you are a parent who eats the cookies and drinks the milk your kids

“left for Santa Claus,” you have acted in his stead. You have kept the saint alive.

Some may think telling children Santa exists is lying, but I do not think so. The idea that Santa Claus exists by proxy is too advanced for most 6 year olds.

As with most complicated concepts, they are best left explained to children in a simple manner and then expanded on later. And even if continuing the Santa Claus legend were something other than the truth, who is any one of us to deny a child the hope and joy Santa Claus brings?

The Christmas season is perhaps the one time of the year we act a little nicer to each other. Using collective action to keep Santa Claus alive is the least we can do.

Sincerely, Ally:

How much can a man pay to own your time? Not enough.

Alexia Nizhny Columnist Two weeks ago, I was on a mission to propel myself into online stardom. I had discovered a website, E-Pal, that essentially gives people a platform to sell their time. The women who participate on this website are casually known as e-girls, and the men are known as e-boys.

The premise was simple: choose a video game, set a price and get “ordered” by strangers around the world who want to play with you.

E-Pal takes a 10-percent commission fee and a 25-cent withdrawal fee, but the rest of the money goes straight to your PayPal. As a college student with far too much free time on my hands, the website sounded attractive — I would get paid to play video games. So, I set up my account, chose a pretty selfie for my profile picture and began my e-girl journey.

I did not expect to climb the E-Pal ladder so quickly. In my first week on the website, I reached the highest rank of e-girl, E-Star 2, had four regulars who ordered me often and was getting three or four new order requests daily.

I placed third in “Popular Rookies” and was in the top 5 percent of earners on the site.

However, as the week came to a close, I quickly started realizing that maybe e-girlhood wasn’t for me. Putting a price on playing League of Legends actualized my greatest insecurity with men — feeling like I owe them even if they make me uncomfortable. With a dollar sign behind my time, it became hard to make

the distinction between male entitlement and completing a service.

Feminist philospher Kate Manne explored how male entitlement upholds patriarchy in her book “Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women.”

Manne explained in an interview with The New Yorker that her book focuses on answering the question: “What are these patriarchal norms and expectations, especially in superficially more egalitarian contexts, like America today?”

She found the root of this issue to be the problematic, internalized power hierarchy that makes men feel as though women have a responsibility to fulfill their needs.

As Manne puts it, “A lot of these norms and expectations take the form of what men are deemed to be entitled to and what women are held to be obligated to give to them.”

Although I typically try to be aware of internalized misogyny in my everyday life, on E-Pal, the line was blurred. These men weren’t simply entitled by an abstract understanding of patriarchy, they were entitled by something more tangible: money. After all, I was being paid for a service. So I was left wondering, how much of myself do I owe these men?

Last week, I was playing a game of League with my friends. After blowing them off for a couple of days to fulfill orders, I had finally found some time to play for fun. When the round ended, I checked my E-Pal notifications and noticed a regular of mine — who we’ll call Lloyd — had left me a passive aggressive message demanding a refund.

When I asked him where his sudden tone shift came from, he explained he was hurt that I didn’t play with him first.

At the time, I felt a confusing mixture of discomfort and guilt. In my head, I knew something was off about Lloyd’s aggressive behavior, but I had quickly justified his reaction with his wallet. I had to fulfill his orders first, right?

That’s what he’s paying for, right?

Manne calls what I experienced with Lloyd “himpathy.” In her book, she defines this phenomenon as extending “disproportionate or

inappropriate sympathy … to a male perpetrator over his similarly or less privileged female targets or victims.”

Lloyd was dangling his money over my head and manipulating me into feeling sorry for not prioritizing him over my friends. It was an abuse of power that I fell for.

So, I apologized. He forgave me and I played a game with him for free to make up for it. The next day when he put in his order, I decided to tell him in advance I wasn’t interested in accepting the offer at the moment. I wasn’t quite sure how my schedule would pan out, and I didn’t want a repeat of what had happened the day before.

So, Lloyd messaged me, promising he wasn’t going to order from me ever again. Once again, he dangled his wallet over my head, but this time, I didn’t take the bait. I ignored him for several hours only to check back and find an expensive order from Lloyd in my inbox.

That’s when I realized, if he couldn’t scare me into playing with him — by threatening to not give me money — through “himpathy,” he was going to try to buy me by outbidding his competition. Either way, it stemmed from him feeling like he was most deserving of my time.

In her New Yorker interview, Manne explained that the obligation men feel entitled to takes form in more ways than just sex.

“More insidiously,” Manne said, the obligation men desire finds itself in “things like love and care and attention and affection, as well as honoring their claims to knowledge and power.”

As an e-girl, men felt entitled to my time.

My experience on E-Pal revealed to me the site was a small-scale patriarchal ecosystem I was actively contributing to. Justifying the misogyny I faced with the money I was making was my attempt to self-sooth.

After all, no one wants to feel taken advantage of. But the reality is, putting a price on your time — especially as a woman — makes you more vulnerable to perpetuating male entitlement.

Of course, the reality is E-Pal and websites like it are an additional source of income that can be necessary for some people. I’m lucky enough to be able to stop using it at my convenience. But, if you choose to participate, it’s important to be conscious of the implications.

Which is to say, before you put a price tag on yourself, make sure you know your worth.

GRAPHIC BY ALEXIA NIZHNY

Sports Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020

BU women’s basketball senior guides team to bounce back after abrupt end to season Maxwell Bevington Daily Free Press Staff As the coronavirus began sweeping the United States in early March and cancellations of athletic competitions started trickling in, the Boston University women’s basketball team was hoping to just finish out their season.

On March 12, the Terriers were scheduled to face Lehigh University in the Patriot League Tournament semifinals. BU was able to have a shoot-around and had expected to play the game, but head coach Marisa Moseley then gathered her team to announce the tournament had been canceled, causing an abrupt end to the season.

One of several Terriers who had the rug pulled out from under them at that moment was then-junior guard Tenisha Pressley, who said the cancellation sent shockwaves throughout the team.

“It was just a very surreal moment,” Pressley said. “You looked around the faces and everybody just had a stone face like it didn’t really just happen.”

Pressley, a New Jersey native now in her senior year, was then forced to concoct new ways of staying in shape while away from the team, which included team workouts on Zoom and practicing outdoors instead of in a

gym.

“We had some challenges that we had to do,” Pressley said. “[We] broke down into teams and [saw] who could get the most points, do the most reps or run the fastest time.”

While the team was away from each other, Pressley took time to guide the incoming freshmen and advise them on balancing classes with team responsibilities.

“We’re trying to stay positive and encourage [freshmen] that it’s not like this all the time, and it won’t be like this forever.”

“Me and another one of the seniors, we talked with the two freshmen that we had, especially over the summer,” Pressley said, “just trying to get them prepared for what to expect in college with not only the practice schedule but a schooling schedule.”

Off the court, Pressley is majoring in health science in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.

She was named to the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll for winter and spring athletes after earning a 3.75 GPA last Spring.

Pressley, who is studying to become a nurse anesthetist, said the pandemic has motivated her to work harder as she looks to head into the medical field.

“Right now, the entire medical field, they’re not getting much rest.

They’re working tirelessly, day and night, to get us through this pandemic,” Pressley said. “It made me look at nursing in a different light and just appreciate it more.”

Moseley said she admires medical workers, and that Pressley fits the profile for a career in health care.

“I think anyone who is in that field is a rock star,” Moseley said.

“Tenisha is definitely a team person, really unselfish … It does not surprise me that [nursing] will be her line of work.”

Pressley will be able to take the court for her senior season: the Patriot League announced a 16-game, conference-only schedule on Nov. 9 after months of waiting.

With last season’s unexpectedly abrupt end, Pressley said this campaign is dedicated to last year’s seniors.

“We felt for our seniors, Nia [Irving], Vanessa [Edgehill],” Pressley said, “because that’s not the way that you want to go out.”

As BU nears the tip off of an unprecedented season on Jan. 2, the squad will rely on its seniors, including Pressley, to guide them.

Moseley said she has been impressed by how the seniors have handled the situation, and has noticed they are committed to improving the program as a whole.

“I think they’ve done a great job of taking each day one day at a time,” Moseley said. “We want to make sure that they leave the program better than they found it.”

Pressley said she and other seniors have been trying to inspire the younger players to persevere through current circumstances and to keep team morale up.

“We’re trying to stay positive and encourage them that it’s not like this all the time,” Pressley said, “and it

won’t be like this forever.”

As graduation approaches, Pressley said is undergoing the application process for nursing school, where she aims to continue her educational and professional pursuits after moving on from BU.

The 2-3 Zone:

Most anticipated events of upcoming NBA season

Sean Golonka Sports Columnist The “2” The start of the National Basketball Association season is now only a couple weeks away — a reality that feels absolutely ridiculous to write in early December. But with the first half of the schedule releasing late last week, my excitement is once again at a high.

There are a few select games and

moments I am particularly anxious to see. And while I could very well just break down all the Christmas games for this list, I’ll lump the NBA’s Christmas slate into just one event I am incredibly excited to follow this season.

Kyrie Irving might actually play in the TD Garden, and the Kevin Durant versus Jayson Tatum matchup is sure to bring fireworks.

The current face of the league, LeBron James, facing off against the league’s future, Luka Dončić, will be a must-watch bout.

And the Los Angeles Clippers versus Denver Nuggets game just has all sorts of fun angles.

Will we see Jamal Murray play like he did in the bubble? Will we see the Clippers from the first four games of the conference semifinals, or the last three? Which of these two teams is a legitimate No. 2 in the Western Conference?

The NBA’s Christmas games will be a load of fun and will hopefully

THURSDAY, DEC. 1

FRIDAY, DEC. 11

NFL continues season with Thursday Night Football matchup featuring New England Patriots and Los Angeles Rams

College basketball carries on with wide array of games starting 1:30 p.m.

provide a bit more clarity about the league’s murky contender landscape.

Fortunately, we’ll still get plenty of eye-popping basketball before Christmas. The first two days of the season, Dec. 22 and Dec. 23, are filled with great games. And the opening game I’m most excited for is the Dallas Mavericks and Phoenix Suns matchup.

Dončić has the opportunity to really set the tone for a season in which he’ll be vying for MVP. Even disregarding any sort of outside context about what Dončić represents for the league and the game, the Mavericks star is pure magic on the court. And everyone should be watching him.

On the other side of the court, we’ll get to see Chris Paul make his Suns debut. Don’t forget: Paul will be helping out a team that won eight consecutive games in the bubble when we last saw them.

Considering Chris Paul and Devin Booker are leading a squad with Deandre Ayton in the middle — and

The “3” The NBA can be frustrating at times. Not counting NBA television games, the New Orleans Pelicans have 14 national TV games while the Atlanta Hawks have just one. I understand the league is really pushing Zion Williamson as one of its leading stars, but that dichotomy makes no sense.

Williamson has played 24 career games. And even though Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball can be exciting on the court, the rest of the roster isn’t all that compelling.

On the other hand, the Hawks are led by one of the best and most dynamic scorers in the league: Trae Young.

John Collins can be an electric three-level scorer. Kevin Huerter, De’Andre Hunter and Cam Reddish are all young players with some level

of intrigue in their game.

Atlanta also added a talented scorer in Danilo Gallinari, and they’ve improved with the additions of Kris Dunn and Rajon Rondo. The Hawks deserve more national TV games, so I’ll definitely be watching when they play the Mavericks on ESPN in February.

The last couple games I can’t wait for are ultimately about star power and key matchups.

The Golden State Warriors will meet the Portland Trail Blazers on New Year’s Day, and hopefully we’ll get to watch Damian Lillard and Stephen Curry exchange 40-foot shot after 40-foot shot all game long.

Then, on Feb. 18, LeBron James and Kevin Durant will meet for the first time since Christmas Day of 2018. The last time they met before that was in the NBA Finals.

These two are legends, and the best of the best. I can’t wait to see them meet, especially with Durant on a new squad.

SATURDAY, DEC. 12

SUNDAY, DEC. 13

MONDAY, DEC. 14

College football begins to wrap up regular season, but without classic rivalry matchup between UMich and Ohio State

NBA preseason games continue starting 5 p.m. with Orlando Magic against the Atlanta Hawks

Cleveland Browns face division rival Baltimore Ravens on Monday Night Football at 8:15 p.m.

BOTTOM LINE

bunches of talent on the wings — the Suns will be one of the most fun teams to watch all season.