March 2023 - Tech edition

LIFESTYLE, 10

BU Students question University transparency in addressing mental health concerns on campus

By SANGMIN SONG Campus Co-Editor

TW: The following article contains graphic content and mentions of suicide.

Following the death of a 33-year-old Cambridge man who jumped from the 26th floor of 33 Harry Agganis Way on Feb. 15, Boston University students have questioned if BU has honored its commitment to provide adequate mental health resources and support on campus.

Residents of StuVi II received an email about the incident from Residence Life the day after it took place.

Since then, all BU students have received two emails — one from the Chief Health Office and one from Student Health Services (SHS). In the emails, BU offered services from representatives in Behavioral Medicine and Crisis Counseling and the University Chaplains Office to speak to StuVi II residents in need of support.

Tami Gordon, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, said the University’s two email responses after the incident at StuVi II were not enough.

“It [the emails] feels very much like the bare minimum and anything above that is more performative,” Gordon said. “It’s good to have it but sometimes it feels like it’s there because they feel like it should be there, rather than there’s a need from the students.”

Gordon said they wished the original email sent to StuVi II residents was also sent to other BU students, as everyone on campus is involved in the BU community.

“Even though we don’t live [in StuVi II], there’s still community on campus who will be affected by issues with security, issues with mental health and issues with suicide,” Gordon said.

In 2021, BU students shared similar disappointments about the way the University handled an incident at 10 Buick St.

On Sept. 27, 2021, a fire at StuVi I caused residents to evacuate the building for around three hours. The University has still not released an official announcement or statement about the incident.

At the time of the incident and in the weeks following, many BU students said they received little information about the situation, some saying the University exhibited a lack of transparency regarding the circumstances of the evacuation.

Back in 2021, Ayanna Moise, a CAS graduate who was a senior at the time, recounted her experience in an interview with

The Daily Free Press. Moise said she was passing by StuVi I when police arrived.

“I did have a feeling that it was a real thing, I didn’t think it was a [fire] drill,” she said. “I could see the [police] cars on the left side of StuVi I, towards the Charles River … next thing you know we get a text [from our friend] that there’s a detective and cops going inside.”

Also in 2021, CAS graduate Angel Estrada said she saw former Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore at the scene. Estrada said investigators told students an “incident” on the seventh floor of StuVi I’s east tower had caused sprinklers to go off. Moise added Elmore was telling students the evacuation was a “precaution.”

“I figured it was really serious when I saw Dean Elmore come up,” Estrada said.

BU spokesperson Colin Riley wrote in an email in 2021 that there was, “a fire in a room on the east side of the building,” which was confirmed in a report by the Boston Fire Department.

Estrada said that soon after the incident, her friend was told by a facility worker that there was more to the story than just a fire alarm.

“I was told that there was a suicide attempt with some sort of carbon monoxide or propane in their room, and it just set off the alarms. I know that there was some injury because there were ambulances, and there was a stretcher,” Estrada said.

Boston EMS arrived on scene, and the student was transported

to a local hospital with no observable burns from the fire, according to the BFD Report. The report corroborated the alleged suicide attempt.

A student in Questrom School of Business and resident of StuVi I was a junior back in 2021. The student, who asked to remain anonymous at the time of the incident, said they were left concerned and confused after the incident. The student said they did not receive any alert about an evacuation.

The anonymous student added they were told by Residence Life staff not to spread rumors.

“It sounded like they were trying to keep the situation very hush-hush,” the anonymous student said.

Amanda Geist, a CAS graduate and senior in 2021, said BU can and should do better with providing more support for students, saying “something needs to be said for how unhappy students are here.”

“They should be making a statement about high suicide rates and acknowledge what happened without disclosing details,” she said. “We can’t just pretend that people aren’t unhappy, because that’s how these things continue.”

Kara Cattani, director of Behavioral Medicine at BU, wrote in an email that SHS “mobilized” to provide outreach to students who were connected to the February 2023 StuVi II incident.

“We provided a combination of crisis intervention counseling (professional one on one

counseling) and less formal opportunities to gather peers and make space for concerns to be shared,” Cattani wrote. “We also organized and had a half day presence, on site at StuVi II, to provide psychoeducation and information about counseling/ support resources.”

Cattani wrote that Behavioral Medicine is working closely with the Dean of Students Office (DOS) and that DOS is trying to come up with ways to improve BU systems to better support students.

“We are definitely still checking in on how students are doing after the traumatic incident in StuVi II,” Cattani wrote.

Emma Lutz, a junior in CAS, said the University should have alerted the BU community with official information about what happened at Stuvi II before everyone started spreading rumors and assumptions that were not based on “real, solid information.”

“When BU did finally say something about it, [there was already] time for rumors to start,” Lutz said. “By the time [BU] actually sent an email … all it says is ‘in light of an incident’ and it’s just ‘here are your links again.’”

Lutz added the links felt “distant” and that she would prefer “an established office on campus” where students can reach out for help anytime.

“Those places exist, but I don’t necessarily think that they are helpful,” Lutz said. “At their core, all colleges are businesses,

and so they will try and cover things up like this in order to get students to come.”

Lutz said she believes the current SHS system, which requires patients to send a message and book an appointment on Patient Connect, does not provide immediate aid for those in a mental health crisis.

Lutz said she thinks the University’s response to the incident felt like a way for administrators to “check off a box” to appease students.

“This is a Band-Aid on a bullet hole,” Lutz said.

Anne Gehrenbeck-Shim, a lecturer in the BU Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, said death impacts people in different ways.

“I know that there was obviously counseling support and so forth available at the school, but I think it impacts people in different ways, either those visual images that someone’s carrying with them, or if it reminds them of other losses or other significant deaths,” Gehrenbeck-Shim said.

Gehrenbeck-Shim said she believes it is important to have “some sort of acknowledgment” about the incident.

Lutz said she believes that the mental health crisis is not just a BU problem, and said she hopes the University becomes more transparent about incidents that happen on campus.

“[BU should] be proactive about the problem,” she said. “Make it loud and clear to your students that services are actually there and will help you.”

Gehrenbeck-Shim added that anyone who is experiencing mental health struggles should not feel afraid to speak up.

“What I always try to remind people about is that there are supports available, and hopefully no one has to suffer alone,” she said. “Just by letting somebody know that you care about them, that can oftentimes be such a vital first step.”

If you or a loved one are experiencing suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255. You can find a list of additional resources at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/ resources.

Members of the BU community can also make an appointment with Student Health Services through Patient Connect, call their 24-hour line (617-353-3569) for mental health emergencies or get tips on addressing challenges at https://www.bu.edu/shs/ behavioral-medicine/behavioralresources/.

Madhri Yehiya, chairwoman of the Board of Directors and Fall 2021 Campus Editor, contributed to the reporting of this article.

ANDREW BURKE-STEVENSON | DFP STAFF Boston University’s Student Village II dormitory, 33 Harry Agganis Way. Students questioned if BU has honored its commitment to providing adequate mental health resources and support on campus.

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MyBU ready for its initial launch, set to gradually replace ‘outdated’ Student Link

BY CATERINA TOMASSINI Staff Writer

MyBU, a new platform to help Boston University students navigate their student accounts, will launch on March 6, replacing the homepage of BU’s current student portal, Student Link. The entire Student Link will be fully updated in summer 2024.

BU Students use the Student Link system to access their class schedules, pay bills, register for classes, view their grades and more. It was created in the 90s as a replacement for a telephone system. Student Information Systems has been trying to replace the Student Link for 12 years. Tracy Schroeder, vice president and chief data officer at BU Information Services and Technology, wrote in an email that MyBU aims to provide students with a “friendly, convenient experience” when accessing online tools and resources.

“The main pro of the old system was that it worked reliably on a large scale and supported many complex processes,” Schroeder wrote. “It was built to fit BU like a glove, but the glove fit 20 years ago and couldn’t be altered at the pace of change today.”

Schroeder wrote that the March launch of MyBU is the only “first view” students will see of BU’s work to replace current student information systems.

MyBU is projected to be fully completed by the summer of 2024, according to the BU student information systems renewal program team. Until 2024, MyBU will gradually replace Student Link’s pages and

functions following the academic calendar to not interrupt student life.

Marylou O’Donnell-Rundlett, associate vice president of Student Information Systems, said BU wants to provide students with a better student portal without disrupting use of the current one.

“In the fall, we will start with admissions and financial aid… and then in the spring, we’ll move on to registration,” O’DonnellRundlett said. “We’re very much following the student life cycle and bringing up the pieces of the system as we go along to make it as smooth as possible.”

Alexandra Bellerose, director of communications of BU enrollment services, said she thinks slowly introducing

students to MyBU will give them time to become familiar with the new system.

Bellerose said BU students were able to attend drop-in sessions throughout the fall 2022 semester to make suggestions and incorporate ideas for the new platform.

“This was done with a lot of student feedback,” she said. “We had a group of student testers actually come in and use the website and make suggestions and feedback and incorporate their ideas on what are the things that they use most or things that they have pain points at the University.”

The project to replace Student Link began in 2017, according to Schroeder, who wrote that the new website’s data center,

Governor Healey releases tax relief plan to lower Massachusetts cost of living

Some BU Students shared their opinions about the new MyBU Portal and the old Student Link website.

Kaahini Jain, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said although the current Student Link looks old, it is still functional.

“I don’t think [MyBU will] make that much of a difference.

It’s just the front page,” Jain said. “I’m excited to see what it looks like.”

Dana Mansori, a freshman in CAS, said she struggles to use the current Student Link system.

“[The current Student Link] is really hard to manage your way through and find the right thing,” Mansori said. “I find myself looking up how to get to a certain specific page because it’s really hard to get there from the main homepage.”

Mansori said she hopes MyBU will be easier to navigate than Student Link.

hardware, operating system and database will be completely different from the original system.

“For now, when you click from a MyBU page into a function like registration, you will go back in time to the relevant Student Link page,” Schroeder wrote.

“In March of next year, that will change, and your MyBU portal experience will also become more personalized.”

Interim Dean of Students

Jason Campbell-Foster sent an email to the BU community on Wednesday, writing that the project is aligned with the University’s priorities to, “use digital technologies to engage with students, support learning across colleges and operate more effectively and efficiently.”

“[MyBU] needs to be much easier and much more user friendly,” she said.

Jonah Dickson, a junior in the College of Communication, said that he doesn’t mind the current system, but has a difficult time navigating the tabs on Student Link.

“It just looks a little old and looks a little out of date to me,” Dickson said. “Sometimes it’s kind of hard to know where things are and just get around it.”

Bellerose said she is open to receiving student feedback about MyBU when it launches next week.

“We’re excited to see how students use this,” she said. “Overall, we’re just really enthusiastic about the response so far and excited to see how this evolves.”

City of Boston plans to install electric vehicle charging stations for every neighborhood

As part of the city of Boston’s Zero Emission Vehicle plan, electric vehicle charging stations will be posted in every neighborhood by this year, with charging stations to be installed in Allston, Dorchester, Hyde Park and Roslindale, according to a Boston Transportation Department spokesperson.

Boston’s Zero Emissions Road Map, rolled out in 2020 under then-Mayor Marty Walsh, laid out several goals including “widespread adoption of electrification,” “affordable, convenient access to charging infrastructure for all residents,” and to “electrify the municipal fleet.”

“Making charging accessible is sort of a huge part of the net that we have to crack to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector,” Anna Vanderspek, electric vehicle program director at the Green Energy Consumers Alliance, said.

BY ANNA RUBENSTEIN Staff Writer

Governor Maura Healey and Lieutenant Governor Kimberley Driscoll released a $742 million tax relief package to the Commonwealth on Feb. 27.

The package is the most recent iteration in an effort by Healey to make living in Massachusetts more affordable for all.

The new package will be implemented for Fiscal Year 2024, which will begin on April 1, 2023. Healey’s Child and Family Tax Credit, reforms of the short-term capital gains and estate taxes and an increase in rent deduction are highlights of the new measure.

Healey said the tax decisions were made for families, college graduates, seniors and more, expressing that it is a response aimed at decreasing the day-today struggles of residents.

“We’re filing this tax relief package for each of them,” Healey said in the statement released by her office. “This proposal centers affordability, competitiveness and equity each step of the way, delivering relief to those who need it most and making reforms that will attract and retain more businesses and residents to our great state.”

Driscoll noted the economic repercussions that come with having an unaffordable state, one that was one of the “most moved from” last year, according to CBS News. “If people can’t afford to

live and work here, we’re not going to be able to maintain our economic edge,” Driscoll said in the press release. “Our tax relief package will put more money back in the pockets of those who need it most while also making key reforms in areas where we are an outlier among other states.”

Healey’s Child and Family Tax Benefit will provide families $600 credit per their dependents. Children under 13, people with disabilities and seniors age 65 and older are all considered as dependents.

“That’s real money for ordinary people,” Phineas Baxandall, the policy director at Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, said. “It’s a really well-done policy.”

However, Baxandall said other aspects of the package will be less helpful to the majority of Massachusetts residents. He highlighted the cuts to the estate tax and short-term capital gains taxes as reforms that will only benefit high-income residents.

“It seems like on one hand, there’s these tax changes which are very well targeted to where it’s most needed,” Baxandall said. “On the other hand, there’s some quite large tax benefits which seem to be targeted where they’re needed the least.”

The package proposes a reduction of the short-term capital gains tax from 12% to 5% and an elimination of the estate tax for all estates valued up to $3 million with a credit of up to $182,000. Massachusetts

has been a major outlier in regard to the estate tax, being one of 12 states that still have one with the lowest exemption in the nation, tied with Oregon.

Christopher Carlozzi, the state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, said the estate tax reform is meaningful for small businesses.

“It makes Massachusetts a little more competitive. I’m not going to say that it’s the solution for everything, it’s an incremental step,” Carlozzi said. “We would certainly like to see the tax go away, like the majority of states … but I think it is a step in the right direction and something that businesses can celebrate.”

Carlozzi said this measure should be seen as just a step, and there are other types of tax reforms that should take place going forward.

“We shouldn’t stop here with tax reform,” Carlozzi said. “We should look at things like our income tax, we should look at our sales tax, and really start to examine how we can be more competitive.”

Another aspect of the package is the doubling of the Senior Circuit Breaker Credit from $1,200 to $2,400, a benefit that would help low-income seniors stay in their homes.

“[This is] important to help older adults and their families achieve financial security and facilitate their ability to age in their own homes and communities,” Elizabeth

Connell, the executive director for the Massachusetts Councils on Aging, said. “This is a big thing for older adults, so we’re very, very excited about it.”

In recent years, Massachusetts has been among the worst states in the nation for elder economic security, according to a 2019 study by University of Massachusetts, Boston. Connell said especially after the pandemic, older adults bore the brunt of its effects by being most at risk of illness.

“Many of your older adults in various communities are the fabric that underlies that network in that community, because they’ve been there,” Connell said. “Passing these measures will really help many seniors to remain in their homes and maintain those essential, lifelong connections they built

in their communities.”

James Repetti, a professor at Boston College Law School specializing in tax laws, said that overall he thinks the new package is beneficial.

“I think that [Healey] has really done a great job … threading the needle between trying to ensure that we have revenue that can fund our social programs, and at the same time trying to make the state more attractive to potential employers,” Repetti said.

Baxandall said budgets are important particularly in a state where voters have called on lawmakers to make them more equal.

“Politicians can talk a lot … but budgets are where they express the real weight of their choices,” Baxandall said.

Massachusetts implements training program to regulate

firearm inspection

BY EMILIA WISNIEWSKI City Editor

gun violence and believes anything to strengthen those laws is “a good thing.”

“I would say we have a robust department of laws related to how new concealers operate, how people are able to obtain a license or obtain a gun,”

and environmental policy and planning professor at Tufts University, added.

According to a BTD spokesperson, the city hopes to have “EV charging stations or EV car share options within a 10-minute walk of every household in Boston by 2030” and is currently adding EV charging stations to municipal lots.

Hollander said in Boston, where having a car isn’t necessary to get around, the city has to be more “invested” in the infrastructure of bike paths, sidewalks and EV charging stations.

Hollander said most people charge their electric vehicles at home, but things might be more “complicated” for someone living in an apartment who may need to rely on a public charger station.

BY CASEY CHOUNG Managing Co-Editor HALEY

Ideally, public transportation would take care of all problems, though , people who need cars should have the option to go electric, Vanderspek said.

However, the lack of access to charging is “holding a bunch of people back.”

“There’s a lot of places in Boston where there’s very limited parking, so in garages, alleys, that’s where the city can provide more funding for those types of charging stations,”

Justin Hollander, an urban

To ease the cost of installation, the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities offers “make ready” EV programs, which cover the cost to bring electricity to a station and EBS rebates which reduce the cost to install the actual station, according to Vanderspek.

This support was “at a scale that we hadn’t seen before,” Vanderspek said. “The statelevel stuff takes care of one more barrier that people in Boston are facing if they want to build out chargers.”

Hollander said expanding the charging station network poses an “interesting policy conundrum.”

He said electricity in potential

locations is already in place and requires only a small investment in order to activate.

“Think of all the gas stations in the city,” Hollander said.

“Every single one of them could have one of those small adapters to connect to the outlet, and people could charge.”

Mela Miles, director of transit-oriented development at Alternatives for Communities and Environment, said it’s important to have a “universal rollout” to ensure all communities can have access to the chargers.

“Sometimes people want to call those necessities amenities and claim it such that a basic charging station near a person’s home is an amenity. Then, all of the people who already couldn’t afford and have the electric vehicle might block that area,” Miles said. “But if it’s a universal rollout, then everybody gets one.”

Vanderspek said the federal tax credit has helped bring down the price of electric vehicles and also will help people in the used car markets.

“A lot of people buy used

cars,” she said. “By setting a steady upward slope for new cars that’ll help us build up that market for used cars.”

Vanderspek stressed that the next big challenge preventing people from switching to EVs is education.

“Education has to happen because people need to know that there is a phase-out of gaspowered vehicles coming down the pipe,” Miles said. “What they would need to do is advocate, push for more charging stations, [and] to learn.”

The state announced a training program on Feb. 17 to help local licensing authorities comply with federal laws, strengthen firearm inspection and prevent gun trafficking.

The program, called the Firearms Dealer Inspection Training for Law Enforcement, builds on Chapter 140 Section 123 of Massachusetts General Law that mandates annual inspections of firearm dealers. The training’s goal is to educate local authorities with the knowledge of gun dealer processes and procedures, according to a press release.

“This new initiative will provide local authorities with the tools and training required to conduct timely and comprehensive compliance inspections to ensure all dealers meet their legal obligations,”

Governor Maura Healey said in a press release.

The training’s curriculum includes a thorough review of inspection requirements, a guide to suspend or deny a license and how to administer and report violations, as well as how to do other miscellaneous tasks like record keeping and sales, according to the press release.

Organizations from across the Commonwealth — including the Municipal Police Training Committee, the Massachusetts State Police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — developed the training, which 370 police officers have already enrolled in.

Ruth Zakarin, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition to Prevent Gun Violence, said the organization advocates for legislation around

Zakarin said. “Making sure that everyone is in compliance with those laws is very important.”

Jim Wallace, executive director of the Gun Owners’ Action League, said laws and regulations are so confusing that only a “handful” of qualified state workers completely understand them.

“Even with that, we

constantly have debates with each other on what a certain sentence or section means or doesn’t mean or how it’s going to affect somebody,” Wallace said. “Our mantra is ‘don’t be the test case.’”

Adding to the sentiment, Jason Guida, an attorney who specializes in firearm laws and regulation, said statutes in Massachusetts may be too convoluted for the public to understand.

“Inadvertently, I think the fact that they are organizing federal training kind of emphasizes the fact that maybe our laws are too complicated,” Guida

said. “Maybe our laws are too dense and difficult for just the law enforcement to understand, notwithstanding the average person that’s trying to comply with them.”

Guida also said training needs to prioritize teaching compliance to the firearm dealers rather than teaching enforcement measures to police officers and other law authorities.

“There’s disputes as to whether [statutes are] enforceable or not and what they mean and how they mean it and what things you can sell [and] what you can’t sell,” Guida said. “I think there’s

an underlying issue with the way that we approach firearms regulation in Massachusetts.”

Before he started his own law firm, Guida formerly worked as the director for the Massachusetts Firearms Records Bureau. He said he gained insight into how department heads and chiefs from different parts of Massachusetts behave when he reached out to them about gun compliance laws.

“There is an argument to be made that the law should be applied equally across the board, and there should be some sort of standards that everyone is expected to follow,” Guida said.

Both Wallace and Guida said there have been issues in the past regarding who has jurisdiction over local licensing authorities. Wallace said he was told repeatedly by the state that they do not have jurisdiction over local licensing authorities.

“Because we’re the experts and we’re the only stakeholders in this game, I really wish the state would reach out to us before they do anything like this,” Wallace said.

According to the Firearm Mortality by State stats by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Massachusetts has the second lowest rates of gun violence deaths in the country at 3.7%. Hawaii is ranked first with 3.4%.

Even with these statistics, Zakarin said, to completely eliminate the problem requires more than one solution.

“It’s really a very complex issue that requires a complex and multi-layered response,” Zakarin said. “We see our world continuing to agitate Massachusetts for us to really engage in those complex responses.”

ANDREW BURKE-STEVENSON DFP STAFF The current Student Link. The new platform MyBU will replace the home page of the Student Link on March 6.

ALVAREZ-LAUTO DFP STAFF

An electric vehicle charging in a parking lot in Fenway. Boston’s Zero Emission Vehicle plan will install chargers in every neighborhood.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey. Healey and Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll released a $742 million tax relief.

ANDREW BURKE-STEVENSON

BU launches Terrier Creator Program to showcase the BU experience through social media platforms

BY KANINIKA DEY Contributing Writer

Dave McDonald, Boston University’s associate director of social media, said in a world where students are “going to social media first before they even go to a website,” showcasing the BU community and student experience is “really important.”

That’s why BU launched its Terrier Creator program, in which students can get paid to upload videos that “amplify the BU experience,” according to their website.

BU’s official TikTok account published a video encouraging students who love to create videos on Instagram and TikTok to apply to their Terrier Creator Program and “get paid to do something they love to do.”

McDonald said he hopes the program will highlight “all the aspects of the BU experience,” on social media — from student life to research to dining to the in-classroom experience.

“I think it’s really important just to showcase that through the lens of the students,” McDonald said.

McDonald said that while creators will be sent some guidelines for the content, the team wants creators to have their own voice.

BU’s current social media

presence includes ‘Terrier Takeovers,’ posted on Tuesdays, where a student logs a day in their life while answering questions on Instagram’s story feature.

Irene Kim, a senior in the College of Communication said that not only does this program benefit BU in highlighting their program, but it allows students to “add to their resume.”

“This is something that [students] can do to build on their skill set,” Kim said. “And

the program will require them to answer questions about their interests, the clubs that they are a part of, aspects of their life that make their BU experience unique and what makes them stand out as a content creator.

McDonald said students will be paid per video they produce for the program, which serves as an “incentive” to join the program.

Siddharth Valecha, a secondyear graduate student in the Metropolitan College who has previously created content for BU’s Instagram and TikTok accounts, said that people “don’t understand the importance of marketing in every aspect of life.”

BU freshman works to bring networking into the next generation with ‘OintTag’

BY AMANDA BRYNN BIRBARA Contributing Writer

Even in the digital age, networking can be challenging, especially for students. In a fast-paced world, students need to move and make connections quickly. Josh Mayer, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, has a solution.

Mayer is changing the way that people network with his invention, the OintTag — “an acronym for Open In New Tab,” Mayer said.

coaching and access to events,” Mayer said. “You can learn more about building a business, and getting funding and everything, all the tools you need to make those decisions.”

This summer, Mayer was also accepted into the Summer Accelerator, a program out of BUild Lab and Innovate@BU. The program provides a $10,000 stipend to participants, according to the Innovate@BU website.

then also, it’s just a great way for BU to expand its social media presence and just basically make more content.”

Kim, who herself has 487,900 followers on TikTok, is also involved in selecting students for the program, which includes looking for students who are passionate, hardworking, organized and experienced.

“Social media is such a big part of our world nowadays,” Kim said. “And so BU’s social media presence is super important,

especially because that’s how a lot of people communicate.”

As the program initially launches with a small group of students selected from over 40 applicants, McDonald said that they are looking to start with a range of students with different cultural backgrounds and majors.

“We really want to highlight a diverse range of students at BU,” McDonald said. The form the students have to fill in order to get selected for

SCIENCE

“People don’t understand the power behind storytelling, especially when it’s coming from the person whose story it is,” Valecha said. Valecha also said the program will give students valuable skills such as editing, video recording and voiceover.

To Valecha, the Terrier Creator Program will help set BU apart from other universities in the area and the nation.

“I believe that [the Terrier Creator Program] is just going to help students a lot as well because some people, they might be very shy, or they might think that they don’t have the skills to ever be in front of the camera,” Valecha said.

Sargent professor uses iron deficiency study in new ways

BY MARA MELLITS Associate Science Editor

In the United States, around ten million Americans are iron deficient, and around five million have iron deficiency anemia, according to the National Library of Medicine. In India, however, the number is much larger — 50% of adolescent girls are anemic.

Hagere Yilma, a clinical assistant professor at Boston University’s Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, said social norms in India contribute to iron deficiency.

“There is this common cultural and gender norms practice where women are eating last in their

families,” Yilma said. “What’s left over is not usually the most nutritious or the most iron rich.”

Yilma said iron deficiency anemia is characterized by a low oxygen-carrying capacity for blood cells or, in simple terms, that a person is not getting enough iron in their diet, which could cause them to feel weak and fatigued.

The RANI project, short for Reduction in Anemia through Normative Innovation, was wrapped in 2021 and designed to lower that number of anemic women in India. Yilma said she worked on the RANI project with a team at The George Washington University.

“What we were seeing was there were gender and social

norms as well as other sorts of psychological and environmental factors that are determining whether or not somebody’s doing this very easy behavior of taking a pill or eating enough iron-rich foods,” Yilma said.

Yilma said the iron supplement pill is something she’d call a “really cool medical innovation” because it lessened the impacts of food insecurity.

“Trying to eradicate poverty is a big task, but you could take these supplements when you can’t afford or have access to iron-rich foods,” Yilma said.

Despite a global promotion by the World Health Organization, Yilma said many people are not taking iron supplements, including pregnant women

who are “very much at risk for anemia.”

Yilma said one of the many reasons why iron deficiency is so high in many parts of India is because many women are vegetarian, which limits the amount of iron they’re taking in.

In part due to these cultural norms that make women’s daily lives “characterized by so much work from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep,” Yilma said many women don’t even know they’re iron deficient.

To create change, the RANI project had to develop a “multicomponent intervention” in the form of monthly community meetings.

Women learned about what causes anemia, and at the end of each session, women volunteered to get their hemoglobin tested to check their anemia levels. The levels were then color coded.

“You could see, just by looking at the colors, how much anemia was in your community,” Yilma said.

And, she said, the project was a success — including among women of marginalized caste groups.

“That’s really hard to do and that doesn’t always happen because these marginalized caste groups don’t usually have the same access to healthcare or social support because of prejudice and discrimination in our social and structural systems,” Yilma said.

Even though discriminating against caste is illegal, she said it still occurs.

“Some people are born into higher caste groups where they might have a little bit more privilege in society, maybe people revere them a little bit more,” Yilma said. “And some

OintTag, a small circular sticker that goes on your phone case, makes it possible to share a link with a person without them opening their phone or typing out a link to a certain website or app. All it takes is one tap. An OintTag can be individualized and set up on the Oint website to personalize the link that is sent to other phones.

The OintTag uses a technology called Near Field Communication, the same mechanism as Apple Pay and Google Pay, which allows the chip inside the sticker to share information, but Mayer said “the way you use the tag is my software.”

With the product already developed, Mayer now works with a team of advisors at the BUild Lab to further the growth of OintTag. From the Innovation Pathway at the lab, Mayer has received about $2000 of funding and other benefits.

“On that pathway, you can get money for each stage that you’re at, and then you also get mentor

Mayer said through the program he will live at Boston University over the summer and take part in a 10-week intensive program.

“I think I’m at the stage where I could really start taking it seriously,” Mayer said.

Mayer started working on the OintTag during his senior year of high school and brought them to Boston University where he sold them to his new friends. Through his connections at BU, Mayer has been able to pitch OintTag to companies for investment and to events to sell his product in bulk.

“It’s just really surprising the rooms that I’ve been in just because of the BUild Lab,” Mayer said.

Diya Gandhi, a sophomore in the College of General Studies, lives in the same dorm as Mayer. Gandhi said she remembers when she met Mayer.

“He was just showing me his OintTag and he was like, ‘Tap this, watch what happens,’ Gandhi said. “I was like, ‘Oh, no way! You should start selling those.’”

people are born into lower caste groups where they’re marginalized.”

Now at BU, Yilma, joined by undergraduate students, continues to analyze the project in two different ways.

Maisie Bradley, a senior in SAR, is working independently and with Yilma to understand the psychological and social factors that are impacting whether or not women decide to take the iron folic acid supplements.

“It’s really kind of fun and really academically interesting to try to figure out what are the real-life causes for the things that we’re seeing in the data,” Bradley said.

Yi-Hsi Huang, a sophomore in SAR, is also working with Yilma. Huang analyzes data, focusing on the Risk Perception Attitude framework.

The RPA framework has two components. The risk perception component measures a person’s awareness of their own health risks, while the efficacy component measures how much an individual perceives the prevention measures as effective.

“In our case, that would be on whether the individual believes that taking iron supplements would be an accessible and effective solution,” Huang said. This means that Huang compares iron supplement intake before and after the intervention to see whether or not there is a correlation.

“For a lot of parts of the world, we take it for granted that, as long as you’re eating enough iron, it’s not something you have to worry about,” Yilma said. “But in many parts of the world, people are faced with food insecurity. So getting enough iron is harder to do than you would think.”

Gandhi said she recommended Mayer change the price for the OintTag from $5 to $10 “because people will pay more.”

“Honestly, he’s like one of the reasons I switched my major,” said Gandhi, who now plans on transferring from CGS to CAS to study computer science. She said watching Mayer pursue his passion “shows [her] to try things and it’s inspirational.”

Mayer was able to show his friends the potential for OintTag at the BUild Lab’s Pitch & Pizza event where he won first place and crowd favorite for his one-

ARTS

minute pitch with OintTag. Since then, Mayer brought his friends together to help him sell his product at this year’s IDEA Con, which took place on Feb. 11.

Leilani Hoffmann, a freshman in the CAS and a friend of Mayer, volunteered at IDEA Con to help sell OintTags. She said “it was really exciting,” and the group sold a lot of OintTags.

“Being able to experience that alongside him and our other friends, it was really cool because we all got really excited about the idea,” Hoffmann said. “Now I feel like I can look for something

of my own to be passionate about and find meaning and purpose in pursuing something.”

With plans to work at BU over the summer on OintTag, Mayer continues to meet with possible investors and wants to develop an understanding of customer needs.

Mayer said his work is “a double-edged sword” to stay motivated, but to also not “put a lot of pressure on yourself.”

“But at the end of the day, this is what I enjoy doing, and so if I’m getting paid to do something I enjoy doing, that’s the dream,” said Mayer.

Stand-up comic Sam Morril heads to The Wilbur next weekend

BY JOHN MANIACE Staff Writer

“This career is weird,” Sam Morril, the stand-up comic headlining the Wilbur Theater next weekend, said. “You do it forever, and then out of nowhere it feels like you get a pop.”

The last time Morril was in town, he was performing at a local comedy club. Now, he said, he’s excited to take that next step up in a city he holds near and dear to his heart.

“It’s pretty wild to be doing that many shows in that historic venue.”

The Wilbur Theater is located in the Theatre District of Boston, an area Morril said he and his family are familiar with.

“My dad grew up going there. So [when I said] ‘The Wilbur’ to my dad, he was like, ‘Damn. The Wilbur,” Morril said. “It carried weight.”

“The tour has been … the best year professionally in my life for sure,” Morril said. Despite being an avid New York sports fan, Morril said “a city is more than a sports rivalry.”

“Boston culture is great. I love it,” he said. “My family, we go to Cheers every Black Friday. By the way, you don’t need more food the day after Thanksgiving, but we did it. It was a tradition because you know, we all loved ‘Cheers’ growing up.”

Opening for Morril is his

friend and fellow comedian Gary Vider. He is also joined by his tour manager and James Webb, who directed Sam’s last special, “Same Time Tomorrow,” which is currently streaming on Netflix.

“Same Time Tomorrow,” was filmed in Chicago at “The Den,” which Morril said was a “really cool spot” where he taped seven shows. Taping all those shows, Morril said, was “iconic.”

“It’s a lot of money,” he said.

“It’s a lot of time, it’s a lot of editing. You make life harder on an editor.”

As a “comic that doesn’t really take time off,” Morill also co-hosts the podcast “Games with Names,” with former NFL wide receiver Julian Edelman. Morril said they just finished their first season at 26 episodes, which featured guests like Boston legends David Ortiz, Paul Pierce and Zdeno Chára.

“We Might be Drunk,” another podcast hosted by Morril, alongside fellow comedian and longtime friend Mark Normand, started over the pandemic. The producer then built a bar in a studio.

Since then, the two have not looked back.

“We would just Zoom and have a drink and talk,” Morril said. “I was like, maybe this is the show … The premise of the show is your drinking buddies.

At a certain point in life, you get older, and you don’t really have

every night to drink together anymore, you have to make the one night count.”

Unlike other podcasts, Morril said, he doesn’t find himself burnt out after taping.

“We really do have fun together. We leave [taping] a lot in a good mood,” he said. “That might be the alcohol.”

Avery Lender, president of the BU Stand-Up club, saw Morril perform two summers ago at the Westside Comedy Club in New York where she works. She said he is “rising up” and “destroying the deadpan style of humor.”

“It’s really cool to see how his career has kind of blown up,” Lender said.

Lender said she grew up watching Comedy Central and has known Morril for years now.

“He leaves a lot of room for the audience to sort of think and feel however they want. Despite him giving them nothing,” said Rohan Sharma, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Renee Walden, a freshman in CAS, said Morril’s social commentary in his jokes is a good use of the platform. The commentary is “necessary to keep society on its toes,” Walden said.

Sam Morril will be performing at the Wilbur Theater from March 10-12, and although the first two days are sold out, tickets are still available for March 12.

Considering the tiresome nature of the entertainment industry, getting a Netflix special, while cool — as Morill remarked — was more of a well-deserved reward than an

exciting shock.

“When you get stuff in comedy, you’re rarely jumping for joy,” he said. “You’re more like, ‘Yeah, motherf*cker, it’s about time.’”

ANDREW BURKE-STEVENSON DFP STAFF

The Terrier Creator Program website. BU launched the Terrier Creator program, encouraging students who love to create videos on Instagram and TikTok to get paid while doing what they love.

ANDREW BURKE-STEVENSON DFP STAFF Boston University freshman Josh Mayer poses for a portrait. Mayer invented the OintTag, which sticks on the back of a phone to send a personalized link to other phones.

GALLERY

Hundreds gather for Ukraine 365 Days of Defending Freedom rally

BY DAILY FREE PRESS PHOTOGRAPHERS

A rally attendee adjusts their megaphone while wearing a signed Ukrainian flag. ANDREW BURKE-STEVENSON DFP STAFF

A participant covers her face with a Ukrainian flag. ZIYU (JULIAN) ZHU | DFP STAFF

Two volunteers in the crowd wearing the Ukrainian flag. HUI-EN LIN DFP STAFF A protestor’s sign reads, “We stand with Ukraine.” HUI-EN LIN DFP STAFF

Nick Zozula, president of the Ukrainian American Youth Association of Boston. ISABELLA OLAND DFP STAFF

A protestor holds up a sign that reads, “Stop Russia.” HUI-EN LIN | DFP STAFF Two protestors hold up a sign that reads, “Stand with Ukraine.” RUIHAN YANG DFP STAFF A participant chants at Ukraine 365 Days of Defending Freedom Rally in front of Trinity Church on Feb. 24. ZIYU (JULIAN) ZHU | DFP STAFF

A participant uses a megaphone at the Ukraine 365 Days of Defending Freedom Rally in front of Trinity Church. ZIYU (JULIAN) ZHU | DFP STAFF

Volunteers held signs with messages about what has happened every day since the war began. ISABELLA OLAND | DFP STAFF

A protestor’s sign reads, “Russia’s war in Ukraine is a genocide.” ISABELLA OLAND DFP STAFF

The participants rally in Copley Square, in front of the Trinity Church. HUI-EN LIN | DFP STAFF A protestor holds up a sign that reads, “Stand with Ukraine.” HUI-EN LIN DFP STAFF

COLUMNS

Money Matters:

AI is the future

“art,” with Midjourney user Jason Allen winning the Colorado State Fair’s annual art competition with an AI-generated work, and online art communities banning AI-use outright.

All this makes it sound like AI is a fairly recent development, but that’s not true.

We’ve had a couple of other interesting AI experiments in the past.

For instance, Deepmind’s AlphaGo AI played the traditional game of Go, which has cennovemdecillion (10360) possible moves, as compared to Chess’ novemtrigintillion (10123.). AlphaGo made headlines when it beat arguably the world’s best Go player Lee Sedol 1-4 in a best of five match, a defeat that pushed Lee into retirement.

Since last December, I don’t think I’ve gone a single day without hearing someone talk about artificial intelligence.

Much like how Google and Band-Aid became part of our everyday vocabulary, my friends’ immediate reaction to a difficult problem in a class’ problem set has become, “just ChatGPT it.”

For a program that launched just three months ago, that’s impressive.

It took Google years to become popular enough that people were telling each other to go “Google” something.

It’s no wonder the platform’s already entered our vernacular, considering what it’s already achieved. I’m sure you’ve heard the numbers — ChatGPT broke records for fastest-growing consumer application, with 100 million active users just two months after launch.

It’s not just ChatGPT. Development of AI in visual-creative applications has also boomed in recent years.

Products like Dall-E, Stable Diffusion and Midjourney, among others, have caused huge debates about what can qualify as

There have also been major breakthroughs with Microsoft’s own machine-learning chatbot, Tay, which made headlines when Twitter denizens turned it into a misogynistic and racist neo-Nazi.

Still, nothing from the past has quite made waves like 2022 and 2023’s deluge of new AI tools.

Ostensibly absent from the news, is augmented and virtual reality — which may play a big role in our futures.

It’s abundantly clear that an AR/VR future is at least a decade away. The world’s leading VR minds haven’t even been able to fix the motion sickness issue yet, let alone make a mass-marketable product.

AI tools like ChatGPT are something that can be developed behind closed doors without the need for first-adopters willing to shell out thousands of dollars for hardware that will eventually become obsolete like with VR.

Programmers can spend a couple years building and honing their machine-learning AI models, testing internally or with “research previews,” and get a functioning product right into the hands of consumers

with little to no hitches. OpenAI worked on development of the AI model behind ChatGPT since 2018, only releasing a preview in 2022 to widespread acclaim.

Already, catching Google sleeping at the wheel, Microsoft has struck a deal with OpenAI to put ChatGPT functionality into the Bing search engine for users to have a more conversational experience while browsing the internet.

AI has been slowly growing in popularity in recent years. Your phone uses artificial intelligence to figure out when it should lower its screen’s brightness. Your AirPods tell you and can automatically lower the volume of your music if it’s too loud. Your computer decides how sunlight should look in your 3D games. It is AI technology that

EDITORIAL

Honey, I extended the kids’ screen time

This past week, TikTok announced that kids under 18 will have a default one-hour screen time limit placed on their accounts.

As young adults who grew up during the birth of the digital age, we partially applaud the decision — knowing how social media can corrupt mental health and corrode relationships. TikTok is especially pervasive, with millions and millions of young kids exposed to the depths of human depravity on an app typically known for its dance trends.

Also as young adults who grew up during the birth of the digital age, we can’t help but laugh. How many kids actually use their own birthday when creating TikTok or Snapchat accounts? We all remember being 14 years old in 2017, yet born in 1992 on Instagram.

TikTok’s recent screen-time decision reflects a broader pattern within digital spaces, as tech conglomerates — largely due to public and even political pressure — meekly attempt to slow kids’ descent into endless social media scrolling.

But it’s starting to feel like too little, too late.

We’ve all seen silent, glass-eyed babies watching iPads in their high chairs, their faces lit up by the glowing screens.

We’ve seen toddlers use their chubby, grubby fingers to endlessly tug down on their tablet screens, prompting constant refreshes to flood their feed with new, loud and ever-more-obnoxious videos.

Elementary school kids no longer write their names on the inside front covers of ancient, dogeared textbooks — they use impersonal E-books instead.

Middle-school kids are hardly kids at all anymore — instead, they regularly FaceTune themselves into identical, glossy caricatures, digitally erasing the adolescent normalcy of braces or bumpy foreheads.

And kids our age, those in high school

and college, are in-between. Most of us had relatively normal childhoods, full of boredom, creativity, muddy feet and thick books that we could hold in our hands. But we also grew up in the early, unfiltered days of social media, and know firsthand the obscurity of deep-fried memes, the viciousness of anonymous commenters and the intricacies of online do’s and don’ts.

Although most of us miss the simplicity of our offline childhoods — the same wild, sun-dappled childhoods that billions of kids had throughout history — and lament the fickle cruelty of social media, we still find ourselves stuck in a digital trap.

The nauseating mundanity of doomscrolling and constant exposure to blue light now comprise much of our days. We compare our lives to the carefully curated feeds of “that girl” and can’t eat lunch unless we’re mindlessly binge-watching shows we’ve seen a hundred times.

There’s just a dullness to the world now, a muted sheen deadening all that was once simple, good and exciting.

The rich smell of an old book, stargazing on a warm summer night, imaginative art borne from boredom, knocking on a neighbor’s backdoor and asking them to come play: there might come a day when these are nothing but foreign, esoteric memories, especially as metaverses and virtual reality become more and more feasible.

This is not to say that all of social media is bad or world-ruining. In many ways, social media is a microcosm of humanity at large: people connect with long-lost friends, make passionate pleas for change, help each other after disasters, laugh at inside jokes, express vicious hate towards strangers and work together for causes both good and bad.

To lay blanket judgment on social media would be the same as judging all of human

reads through your résumé, tells you the weather and tells you what shows it thinks you’ll enjoy.

But until now, we haven’t had conversational AI at this level of sophistication. It’s altering the game and opening eyes. There’s no denying it — the next frontier of tech is in AI.

With the race for dominance in the AI language model already creating a whole new verb, can already see myself waking up in the morning and asking my Jarvisesque personal AI assistant to tell me the weather, play some music, clean up the house and go shopping for groceries to cook me some dinner when I get back from work. And God, am I excited.

society. It’s impossible to do so fairly or meaningfully.

In the same way, TikTok placing a screen-time limit for teenagers really doesn’t make sense. Besides all the kids who will just ignore the new rule, think of those who find freedom and community virtually or who have been saved by seeing people like them thrive across the internet.

Like it or not, the digital age is alive and well. To succeed — or even exist — in today’s world, digital literacy is essential. Living an anarcho-primitivist fantasy is just that: a fantasy.

We hate to be basic — an adjective akin to a slur on Twitter and TikTok — but it really does seem like balance is key. We need to make social media exist for us, not

the other way around. If we strengthen our culture’s connection to the natural world, kids might grow up to care about trees and oceans, instead of strangers videoing themselves playing Fortnite.

If we become content with quiet and stillness, we might naturally have reason to forget about the chaotic box in our pocket. If our society becomes more communal and less individualistic, perhaps we’d finally stop feeling so at odds with each other, so overwhelmed, so alone. Perhaps our screen time would naturally diminish, without surface-level corporate interventions.

Perhaps we’d be ready to live in the real world again.

5.

1. Public Open Nights are held most Wednesday evenings at the Observatory

3. The Boston University transports students to different places

4. This tech company makes watches, computers, iPhones and more

6. The primary learning management system at Boston University

7. Publication exploring Boston University's pioneering research

8. Ben & Jerry's is a popular client for this Lab

9. Video conferencing platform

12. In 1877, this BU alum became the first woman to earn a doctorate in the United States

(Last Name Only)

Jaeyoung Choi Columnist

ILLUSTRATION BY YVONNE TANG

ILLUSTRATION BY CHLOE PATEL

Spring into fitness with the Nike Run Club App

BY AMBER MORRIS Contributing Writer

Spring is just around the corner, and I am flooded with motivation to be outside. I like to begin the spring season with a goal. Mine is to keep running. I have been competitively running cross country and track for seven years. Through running, I have learned how to properly set goals.

Four years ago, as a high school student, I was looking for a way to track my goals and runs without the expense of buying a watch. After trying out a myriad of different applications on my iPhone, the one that stuck with me was the Nike Run Club App.

As a freshman in college, I have moved on from competitive running to long runs on the Charles River Esplanade. Whether my goal is to run any distance at a leisurely pace, or to run under a certain time, I progress towards that goal while using the Nike

Run Club App. From the moment my sneakers hit the pavement, I am ready to go.

The app tracks a variety of data while I am on a run. I frequently check my pace on the app while I am running in order to keep my miles consistent because I tend to go too fast in the beginning. The more consistent my mile splits are, the more miles I am able to run.

In addition to pace, the app tracks my distance and elevation, allowing me to input a specific mileage goal or run for any distance while tracking my location.

With this data, the app is able to give verbal feedback marking when I have completed each mile, what my average mile pace is and when I have reached the halfway point of my run.

Most importantly, the app motivates users by offering 266 guided runs and additional training plans such as the “Get

Started Collection,” “Speed Runs,” “5K Training Plan” and many more. The training plans allow a user to ease into running and work up to a personal goal.

Running is more of an individual sport. As I track my runs through the app, I am able to compete with myself to reach my goals. The app offers a tab where you can add friends and keep track of each other’s runs and accomplishments.

A beautiful place to run in Boston is the Charles River Esplanade. The Esplanade stretches three miles, while the entirety of the Charles River path stretches 22 miles. There is plenty of room for exploration and long runs.

Running is a huge part of my life as a college student. It releases endorphins, permitting the body to feel at ease and make space for a clear head in the quick pace of the city.

Running is versatile. It is

Men’s basketball suffers overtime loss to Army, season ends in Patriot League Quarterfinals

BY BRENDAN GALVIN Staff Writer

The Boston University men’s basketball team fell to the United States Military Academy 71-69 in overtime of the Patriot League Conference Quarterfinals.

not necessary to have a gym membership in order to run, and is an activity that can be done anywhere, anytime.

The Nike Run Club App is a free tool to add motivation and balance into a daily routine.

There is endless room for self growth and achieving personal

Settling the debate — Apple Music or Spotify?

no apparent difference in music streaming, quantity or quality on the surface.

What is the difference between Apple Music and Spotify?

Spotify has more than double paying users as Apple Music, and a reasonable explanation could be the fact they have over 5 million podcasts. A celebrated algorithm and variable coverage helped Spotify to attract beyond just music lovers.

Apple Music focuses on music

— features like Dolby Atmos, lossless audio, and even Apple Music Sing allow me to explore tracks in different ways. But sometimes, these features are so integrated that they shine less than the names.

business growth.

The consequences are campaigns like year-end reports, Only You messages and Listening Personality types.

This engages you and me in concert — a conversation starter, an ice-breaking topic and a bonding opportunity. The shared experience is handy for any social purpose.

Playlists are the same way.

You can follow friends on these platforms to keep up with their music trends and collaborate on playlists. It’s no different from social media. A streaming app can also be a communication tool where music is the language.

goals when it comes to running. It is important to never underestimate the power of consistency. There won’t be new personal bests each time, and goals won’t always be reached easily. What matters is getting out onto the trail and continuing strides to reach a particular goal.

you can share your favorite Drake song with your friends, but only in titles and not direct links. You can still show your techno playlist to your friends, but in screenshots, not apps.

What I see is an invisible community building upon an app.

“So, do you use Apple Music or Spotify?”

From what I learned, most people choose under the influence of others, family or friends. Like a chain reaction, new users follow the existing users to match their listening experience. Campaigns and playlists reinforce exclusive participation in a platform.

Graduate student guard Jonas Harper and graduate student forward and guard Walter Whyte were unable to convert on two separate occasions against Army (17-15, 10-8 Patriot League,) eliminating the Terriers (15-17, 8-10 PL) from the Patriot League playoffs.

First, Whyte missed a midrange turnaround jumper as time expired in regulation with the game tied at 59. After a back-andforth overtime, Harper missed a potential game-tying 3-pointer from the corner and the Terriers were forced to foul, eventually running out of time.

The Terriers avoided both a disastrous first half and a lead from Army that would be too much to handle after the Black Knights took an early 14-4 lead. However, with a 3-pointer from Harper and Whyte, BU went on an 8-0 run to keep the team within reach.

Freshman guard Coleton Benson had the team’s first nine points in the first two minutes of the game, connecting on two 3-pointers and going 3-3 from the foul line.

“Benson came in and he was

on fire to start,” BU head coach Joe Jones said. “[Army] jumped on us pretty good.”

Junior guard Jalen Rucker found the bottom of the net for the Black Knights all night, totaling 32 points on 11-21 shooting, including 2-6 from deep. Rucker scored at least 20 points in all three games against the Terriers this season.

Rucker, who played 43 out of the 45 minutes in the game, also had all 12 points for Army in the overtime period. Rucker even hit the game-tying shot with 25 seconds left in regulation.

“When the ball found him on that shot, I knew it was going in,” said Jones. “He makes big shots, that’s just who he is as a player. Big time.”

Another deciding factor in the game was the team totals from the free-throw line. Army shot 21-26 from the stripe, while the Terriers only shot 2-7. BU made up the free-throw difference with points off the bench. The Terriers had 21 points off the bench, while Army only had one.

Junior guard and forward Anthony Morales had nine points, while senior guard Ethan BrittainWatts and sophomore forward Malcolm Chimezie each totaled five.

The Terriers gave up a sevenpoint run with just over two minutes left in the game. One 3-pointer, a layup and a free throw in the final two minutes

of regulation from Army set up a heated overtime in which the Black Knights shot 6-7 from the free-throw line.

“They just made a few more plays than we did,” Jones said.

“We struggled to score down the stretch. It’s a tough one.”

As the season ends, Jones reflected on a season full of ups and downs.

“You’re emotional right now, especially with guys that you’ve

coached for so long and been such a big part of your life,” he said. “Guys like [Tynen] and [Harper] and [Whyte], those guys gave us a chance to get into this game and have a chance to get to the semifinals.”

The season ends bitterly for the Terriers, just as it did last season, when the Terriers lost to the United States Naval Academy in overtime.

“We were one possession away

from getting to the semis last year. We were one possession away from getting to the [semifinals] again,” Jones said. Yet, Jones is still proud of his team, despite the first-round loss. “They came in every day with the right attitude,” he said.

“That’ll give us a chance to be successful in the future. The young guys got a chance to see how you conduct yourself as a basketball player here at BU.”

A look into BU Athletics’ collaboration with WHOOP

BY RACHEL ZHONG

Contributing

Writer

The rivalry between Apple Music and Spotify ran on for a long time. The end of the year is a battlefield. Spotify Wrapped occupies almost all my Instagram stories; the rest is Apple Music Replay. Somewhere along the way, listeners involuntarily fall into a category named under the

music app. The market has tagged these trademarks on every one of their users. For five dollars, would you subscribe to Apple Music or Spotify?

On the basis, most Apple Music and Spotify’s monthly subscriptions are parallel — Student, Individual and Family. Besides a dollar more on Apple Music, the two services mark

Technical issues are fixable, but what about human factors?

Customer loyalty, a common theme discussed in communication and marketing, describes an ongoing and positive relationship between customers and the business, driving continuous purchases and participation. This idea is essential to subscription service providers like Apple Music and Spotify because it is a stake in

Similar to social media, the connection in music became demanding as services turned mobile, and on a higher level.

With that, the interaction also increases — the desire to find someone who also enjoys Playboi Carti or Tyler, the Creator.

Listeners of mainstream artists are less bothered, but fans of the smaller niche could really make use of this interaction.

But these interpersonal connections have a premise — the same music platform. Sure,

Headphones vs. earbuds: Price and practicality

BY ISABELLA LAPRIORE

Contributing Writer

From college students to professional athletes to gymgoers, different people with different lives utilize different technology to listen to their music.

With the market of headphones and earbuds constantly growing, the options seem endless. Each new launch seems to have more impressive features than the last.

As overwhelming as it may seem to find the ones that best fit your lifestyle, it all depends on two factors — price and practicality.

Apple’s in-ear headphones are one of the most loved and nostalgic forms of this technology.

These wired headphones, launched in September 2008, had new revolutionary features for the time — like the volume rocker attached to the wires.

These headphones may not be the flashiest or most modern, but they have gotten the job done for years. Though, it is frustrating to untangle the wires.

As an alternative to AirPods, in-ear headphones may be more reliable for some. AirPods require charging to use them, which can

be time-consuming. Sometimes AirPods die mid-day if not charged. Such a mood killer. One of the most popular features of modern headphones and earbuds is noise cancellation. And tuning people out is a fair reason to spend more on a piece of technology.

Brands like Apple, Bose and Beats offer noise-canceling headphones ranging from $149 to $549.

Over-the-ear headphones are a bit pricier when it comes to noise-canceling technology, but all three companies have also revolutionized the technology to include earbuds.

The Beats Studio Buds, comparable to Bose’s QuietComfort Earbuds and Apple’s AirPods Pro, offer the option to adjust the noise cancellation of the earbuds.

Apple’s original AirPods do not offer an adjustable feature or noise-canceling. When it comes to over-theear headphones, like Bose’s QuietComfort model, Beats’ Studio3 and Apple’s AirPods Max, noise cancelation is just one of the cutting-edge technologies offered. With designs meant to fit comfortably around ears of

all shapes and sizes, over-theear headphones are practical for many. From studying to working out, some prefer the size and fit of larger headphones as opposed to earbuds. AirPods lack practicality when it comes to working out considering movement may

shake the earbuds from one’s ear. For studying, the noise canceling adjustment and ability to block out surrounding sounds is the key feature that makes the AirPods Max an easy choice for many.

The three most popular forms of technology used to listen to music, wired earbuds,

I thought of the question as selective exposure — the tendency to find like-minded people. In this case, it would be Apple Music users or Spotify users, and people who are consistent with your preference. The music industry has a tradition of labeling fans, even with nicknames; BTS call their fans ARMY, and Charli XCX calls her fans Charli’s Angels. But when do we start to label each other by the music streaming service they use?

BY BRENDAN NORDSTOM Managing Co-Editor

The Citgo sign. A North Star for the lost BU student. A backdrop for historic Fenway Park. An icon of Kenmore Square. However, in the fall of 2021, the red LEDs flashing through the Boston night sky had a new neighbor: five letters on top of One Kenmore Square. This caused many to wonder: What is WHOOP?

Boston University Athletics helped answer that question, announcing a partnership on Nov. 1, 2022 with Whoop Unite, offering the brand’s wearable technology and holistic-health program to student-athletes.

“The WHOOP Unite partnership with BU Athletics is hyper-focused on the student-athletes, empowering them to be the best version of themselves, both in their sport and in the classroom,” a WHOOP spokesperson wrote in an email.

Just over four months into the program, many athletic trainers, such as Jordan Ulrich, BU’s assistant strength and conditioning coach, are crunching numbers in Microsoft Excel. WHOOP’s weekly reports collect data on recovery, sleep performance, total sleep hours, resting heart rate, heart rate variability and daily practice and game strain.

while keeping their data private, and level two shares the data with strength coaches and athletic trainers, Ulrich said.

Ulrich said one of his teams, the women’s basketball team, was initially skeptical, with 10 of 12 athletes opting into WHOOP and only a few participating in level two. Ulrich had to reassure the athletes that the information shared with the athletic staff does not include specific information.

10 players now share their data.

“It doesn’t tell me X athlete went to bed at 2 a.m. on a Saturday.

That’s not our business,” Ulrich said. “It took the athletes buying into [the idea] that this is going to help them, and there is no punishment that can come from sharing the data.”

BU joins other athletic programs in partnership with the company, including Florida State University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Tennessee and BU’s Green Line neighbor Boston College.

Tennessee’s athletic department became the first to offer the Strap 3.0 to its entire athletic program in 2020.

is important to changing habits.

performance.”

mental health and more.

wireless earbuds and over-theear headphones, all have pros and cons. Newer features like noise-canceling are practical for many but not all.Whether you are team wired headphones or team AirPods Max, music-listening technology is crucial to many aspects of our lives.

“We’ve been able to dictate ‘maybe today in practice we should back up a little bit’ or ‘we’re in a really good spot where we can push it a little bit harder,’” Ulrich said. “It’s definitely benefited everyone from individual athletes to myself, strength and conditioning and athletic training, all the way up to the coaches.”

Boston University athletes were given the choice to opt into the WHOOP program with one of two levels. Level one allows athletes to participate in WHOOP

Greg Adamson, the associate director of Olympic sports performance at the University of Tennessee, said the visibility of the program’s metrics has helped better prepare Tennessee’s athletes.

“We talk about a holistic approach to taking care of today’s student-athlete,” Adamson said.

“Having something that allows you to know whether or not you’re getting the right amount of sleep … or proper nutrition and hydration is helping you prepare for those rigors of the next day.”

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, wearable technology such as the Fitbit, started to gain traction. Adamson said the evolution of this technology and the impact of these measurements

“I don’t think anybody saw, a decade later, the importance or validity of numbers such as heart rate variability and what that says about your stress level,” he said.

“If I can’t measure how stressed I am, I may not really know how to manage that stress.”

WHOOP emphasizes the importance of sleep through the technology available in its band, tracking sleep down to the minute and determining how much sleep the wearer needs, according to the website.

Christopher Kline, associate professor in the Department of Health and Human Development at the University of Pittsburgh, said quality sleep for studentathletes is “absolutely essential if they want to achieve optimum

“Educating athletes on the importance of sleep and getting them to pay attention to optimizing their sleep could play significant benefits in terms of their athletic performance, but also even their academic performance,” Kline said.

Sleep is also key for improving mental health, with a “bidirectional” relationship to both stress and anxiety, Kline said.

Cue the WHOOP Journal — a way for people to track different behaviors as a way to “become more mindful of their habits,” according to the WHOOP StudentAthlete Holistic Wellness ebook.

The Journal allows athletes to monitor their recovery, sleep, nutrition, medication, lifestyle,

“Hopefully [the journal] can kind of influence them and make them more aware of all their feelings and stress and what they’re going through on a dayto-day basis,” Ulrich said.

Ultimately, the habits studentathletes build through WHOOP are not just to improve habits now, but to create lasting healthier life choices.

“Long term [it’s important to] not just better habits while you’re a student-athlete, but better habits 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 years from now,” Adamson said. “Whether they’re a mom, dad, CEO, wife, husband, brother, sister, they’re operating at a higher level of understanding that with each habit they develop … it’s gonna have a ripple effect on the next thing.”

ILLUSTRATION BY HALEY ALVAREZ-LAUTO

The WHOOP sign on 545 Commonwealth Ave. Boston University Athletics recently announced a partnership with WHOOP Unite.

SYDNEY ROTH DFP STAFF

DANNY DOLAN DFP STAFF Boston University senior forward Nevin Zink shoots a layup during a Feb. game. BU fell to Army 71-69 in overtime of the Patriot League Quarterfinals.

Joe Jones: 200 wins, countless lives changed

BY LUKE SCOTCHIE Staff Writer

Six seconds remained in the game after Boston University senior forward Patrick Hazel sank his second free throw. The University of Rhode Island Rams scrambled to inbound the ball and tossed it to forward Jonathan Holton, but BU sophomore guard DJ Irving snatched the ball and let the clock run out. The game was over. The Terriers defeated Rhode Island on Nov. 26, 2011.

It was Terriers head coach Joe Jones’ first win with the program, and one he still looks fondly on after 200+ more.

“It was a big win, beating an Atlantic-10 team,” Jones said. “I do remember that game.”

Achieving 200 wins with any program is not easy. It requires unwavering loyalty, demanding commitment and the ability to make tough decisions both on and off the court. Jones has finally reached that milestone, but not without making some difficult sacrifices.

“I’ve missed a ton of weddings because of basketball and the commitments that it takes,” Jones said. “I miss family functions. I miss my kids, my kids’ games at times … everybody knows [coaching] is stressful, but there’s so many things that go on behind the scenes that make it a really challenging job.”

Making genuine human connections with players, shaping them into the best players and best people they can be, reminds Jones why he loves coaching.

“I got a ton of text messages from former players [after the 200th BU win], and that was really cool,” Jones said. “That even felt better than winning 200 games, just getting a text

from a guy like Cedric Hankerson and John Papale and DJ Irving.”

Growing up in an athletic family in New York, sports have always dominated Jones’ life. His athletic journey started with football, playing running back and wide receiver. That changed when his dad put up a basketball hoop in the family backyard.

I just got this feeling that this is something that gets me,” Jones said. “The emotions from that first day having my own team was pretty strong.”

Jones captured that feeling and used it to embark on his soon-to-be career as a college basketball coach. After serving as an assistant coach under the legendary coach Jay Wright at

basketball head coach.

“I was just really looking for the right situation,” Jones said. “I wanted to go somewhere where there was more of a tradition of winning, a history of winning. And man, this job opened up and it couldn’t have been a better fit for me.”

Jones accepted BU’s offer to become its head coach in June 2011.

grown beyond the normal bond of coworkers.

“I love him like a brother,” Wilson said.

Both Wilson and Jones know that it takes more than a mastery of basketball fundamentals to win this many games with one program. Wilson credits this achievement to Jones’ ability to empathize and care for his players as if they were his own family.

“If you care about young people,” Wilson said, “you’re going to connect with [Jones].”

Jones’ players know about his passion for young people from their own experience. Graduate student forward Walter Whyte said he believes that BU’s success can be attributed to Jones’ unwavering devotion to his players, which quickly became a mutual feeling.

“He’d run through a wall for me,” Whyte said. “He knows I’d do the same thing for him.”

What separates Jones from other coaches, Whyte said, is that Jones is more than a coach to his players. To Whyte, he’s a “father figure.”

“Basketball became my passion,” Jones said. “I just loved it … I just played a ton of basketball growing up and was always around the game.”

A similar love for basketball would stir up in Jones’ heart when he was 17 years old, but not as a player. He worked at an overnight sports camp for eight weeks as a counselor and basketball coach.

“The first time I coached a team,

Hofstra University and later Villanova University, Jones spent seven seasons as Columbia University’s head coach before moving to Boston College as an associate head coach in 2010. That last position didn’t satisfy Jones. He yearned to become a head coach again, and he saw an opportunity the following year when Boston University announced that they were looking for a new men’s

200 wins later, he has no plans to leave BU anytime soon.

“When this job opened, it was a nobrainer for me,” Jones said. “This is where I would like to retire.”

His fellow coaches feel the same way. Assistant coach Curtis Wilson, who said he’s known Jones for nearly half his life, joined BU to help the team win games. In their 12 full seasons together, their relationship has

“He’s always been somebody that I can always call and just rely on,” Whyte said. “Having somebody grounded in your corner helps you to just come to practice, come to class, come to everything every day knowing that you got people behind your back.”

Jones has always had his players’ backs, and BU will always have his. He’s already one of the program’s greatest coaches, but he’s an even better role model. He will forever be a Terrier, regardless of how many more games he wins.

“I love this university, man,” Jones said. “Great coaches, great people and to be a part of that means a lot to me.”

Terriers snap 17-game win streak in Turnpike Trophy contest

BY ANNIKA MORRIS Senior Writer

Boston University women’s basketball snapped its 17-0 Patriot League win streak in a 57-53 loss to the College of the Holy Cross on Wednesday.

The Terriers (22-7, 17-1 Patriot League) aimed to finish a series sweep of Holy Cross (21-8, 13-5 PL) but were unable to do so as the Crusaders stifled the potent BU offense.

“I don’t want this game to take away from what we’ve done,” head coach Melissa Graves said. “We’ve broken a lot of records, we’ve secured the one seed, we’ve won the regular season and now we’re back at home, and we have home court advantage for the postseason tournament.”

In addition to taking the Turnpike Trophy home, Holy Cross clinched the second seed in the Patriot League tournament. BU secured the Patriot League regular season championship and the first seed weeks ago.

The Terriers’ win streak looked like it might stay intact when they came out strong in the first quarter. At the end of the first 10 minutes, BU was up 19-10.

Junior forward Caitlin Weimar looked like she might replicate last Wednesday’s 32-point performance after scoring nine points in the first quarter.

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March 3 vs Montana

At the end of the first, Weimar went down with what appeared to be an ankle issue and was slow to get off the court. She returned to play with a newly-taped ankle — in addition to the brace she already had on her other ankle — just over three minutes into the second quarter.

Holy Cross held Weimar to 11 points for the entire game, and she was only able to add two points after the second quarter. However, she still totaled seven rebounds, using her height to her advantage, and stayed on the court for 29 minutes despite her injury.

The Crusaders countered BU’s hot start with a strong second quarter. The Terriers were able to add to their lead early in the stanza, going up 2412. The scoring then flipped as Holy Cross went on to outscore BU 19-11, nearly tying the Terriers going into the half and clearly picking up speed.

Sophomore forward Lindsay Berger was a big factor in the Crusaders’ success. She was the highest-scoring player in the game with 22 total points and a 62.5% success rate from the field, although she had no assists and only one offensive rebound.

BU was able to bounce back in a close, back-and-forth third quarter.

The Crusaders barely outscored the Terriers 17-16. At one point, Holy Cross led by eight points, but BU clawed back to tie the game at 46 by

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March 4 vs Colgate

the end of the quarter.

“At halftime, we just wanted the energy to go up,” Graves said. “The vibe was a little off because of the environment we were playing in. It’s not an easy place to play.”

The noisy Hart Center Arena was packed with Crusaders from other sports, including the football team sitting under one of the nets.

BU was still able to keep the game close. In the final few minutes, they repeatedly fouled the Crusaders to stop the clock and try to win the ball back. With four seconds left and down by two points, senior forward Maren Durant fouled Crusader freshman guard Simone Foreman.

Foreman sank both free throws to ice the game. As a last-ditch effort, Terrier senior guard Sydney Johnson tried to sink a three pointer, but Berger rebounded the ball and held onto it as the final buzzer sounded.

Defense was not BU’s issue. The Terriers held Holy Cross to 57 points, under their season scoring average. Durant stood out on the back end with 10 defensive rebounds out of her 12 total. She blocked three shots and ran up six points to contribute to the offensive effort.

“She made some big plays [going] back to the basket because she had some big blocks,” Graves said. “One of the best things she did — what she always does, and consistently — is

Bottom Line

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March 7 vs Coastal Carolina

rebound the basketball.”

Instead, offense was the main problem plaguing the Terriers. Weimar, the team’s leading scorer, was shut down for most of the game, and the same goes for Johnson, their second-highest season scorer, who was held to only nine points total and 37.5% from the field. The Terriers committed 20 turnovers and Holy Cross capitalized, scoring 17 points on possession changes.

Despite the tough loss, BU is still

looking ahead to tournament play.

“We want to learn from this game and then move on because it’s a new season,” Graves said. “Now it’s survive and advance, it’s win or go home.”

The Terriers get a bye for the first round of the tournament on Saturday and will go on to play the winner of Saturday’s game between Loyola University Maryland and Lafayette College in the quarterfinals on Monday at 6 p.m.

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

March 6 vs TBD

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March 11 vs TBD

Boston University men’s basketball head coach Joe Jones at a Feb. 25 game. Jones recently surpassed 200 wins as head coach at BU.

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Senior guard Sydney Johnson during the game against College of the Holy Cross Feb. 15. The Boston University women’s basketball team was defeated 57-53.

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