April 17, 2015

The

G atepost

People of the Book: Part 3 Muslim students advocate for space, group Page 17

Framingham State University’s independent student newspaper since 1932 volume

83 • number 22

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Administration to reduce part-time faculty

By Kaila Braley Editor-in-Chief

By Joe Kourieh Associate Editor

By Spencer Harry Staff Writer

As of February 2015, FSU has been ordered by the Commonwealth Employment Relations Board to come into “immediate compliance” with a contractual obligation re-

garding its percentage of part-time faculty members.

The University, along with its sister institutions in the state university system, is obligated to ensure that no more than 15 percent of faculty in any single department containing six or more professors are part time (also known as visiting lecturers), as per the contract negotiated and agreed upon by its union representatives.

This contract is renegotiated every three years, with the 15 percent rule having gone into effect almost three decades ago.

Psychology Professor Robert Donohue, the president of the Framingham chapter of the union (the Massachusetts State College Association), said the union supports the language in the contract dictating the 15 percent rule, as “it serves the mission of the university,

and the students.”

The 15 percent rule was first incorporated into the contract in April 1987, but included certain “exemptions” for some departments, as well as for part-time faculty filling in for those on sabbatical.

In March 2002, the union filed a consolidated grievance against the system of colleges after finding that 14 departments across the five - SEE UNION page 5

Lauren Piandes/The Gatepost

Molly Buckley and Norman Paul Dubois share a moment on stage while rehearsing Little Shop of Horrors.

FSU to offer genderinclusive housing this fall

Real women have curves

Gender-inclusive housing will be introduced for the first time during the 2015-16 academic year in Larned, Horace Mann, and Linsley Halls, as well as the North Hall suites, according to FSU’s room selection guidelines.

This marks the first time FSU will officially implement gender-inclusive housing - residency that isn’t based on “biological sex. It’s inclusive of all gender identities,” according to Glenn Cochran, director of residence life and student conduct.

Cochran said FSU administrators

I slipped on my electric-blue heels that were once just crisp white fabric before my acrylic paint got a hold of them, and Velcroed my baby pink onesie that my mom hand-sewed for me. I fastened my curly black wig with a few bobby pinks and applied my “Gentlemen Prefer Pink” lip color. I was Katy Perry.

I left the house with my husband (Russell Brand, of course) at just the right time to arrive fashionably late to the evening’s event. It may have just been a high school Halloween party,

By Mark Wardland Editorial Staff

Album Review: Kendrick Lamar 19

used feedback they received from students to determine the level of student interest in this type of housing.

To apply, students need only select their preference for gender-inclusive housing on their residency application, and then contact Laurie Carr, housing assignment coordinator, in Residence Life.

Cochran said FSU began examining similar housing programs at dozens of state schools last year, and administrators eventually determined FSU needed to move in this direction.

He said once students sign up for - SEE HOUSING page 7

Students endure body shaming of all types

By Corin Cook Interim Assistant Arts & Features Editor

Inside

Baseball wins four, drops four 26

Profile: Zachary Bernard 16

and my “husband” may have just been my friend Anna, but we did a fairly convincing job of playing the part.

It was the Halloween of 2010 and my senior year of high school. Anna and I felt gratified as we received copious compliments for our creativity and authenticity. I was carefree and confident the whole night.

Until I read it: “It’s just too bad you don’t have her body.”

A male friend had felt the need to text me later that night to tell me that my costume was great, other than the - SEE BODY SHAMING page 12

More parking for commuters 8

News

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Editorial Board 2014-2015 Editor-in-Chief Kaila Braley

Gatepost Interview

April 17, 2015

Chris Abrams

Visiting lecturer in the art department

Associate Editors Joe Kourieh

Michael B. Murphy

James M. Sheridan Jr. News Editor

Alexandra Gomes Assistant Editors Julia Sarcinelli Mark Strom

Tanya Ström Arts & Features Editors Avarie Cook

Sara Silvestro Assistant Editors Scott Calzolaio Kristen Pinto

Cesareo Contreras Interim Assistant Editor Corin Cook

Sports Editor Michael Ferris

Opinions Editor Mark Wadland

Photos Editors Melina Bourdeau

Danielle Vecchione Brad Leuchte Jeff Poole

Web Editor Jill Chenevert

Design Editor Brittany Cormier

Staff Writers Haley Alexson

Robert Alvarez Danielle Butler Amelia Foley

Cameron Grieves Robert Jones

Phil McMullin

Jennifer Ostojski Steven Santoro

Staff Photographers Jennifer Wang

Lauren Piandes Advisor

Dr. Desmond McCarthy Assistant Advisors Elizabeth Banks Kelly Wolfe

By Julia Sarcinelli Assistant News Editor

What is your educational background and work history?

I was an undergrad at Harvard.

I went through Harvard’s visual and environmental studies program, but I started out as a physics major, so I have a little bit of science and math background, which I think I’ve carried over into my artistic practice. I consider myself a sculptor by trade now. I am someone who really likes to make things and design things, and I learned a little more about doing that at Massachusetts College of Art, where I got my MFA.

many things that I was interested in - making things, and in the sciences, and in math, but also in history and all of these other things.

It really felt like, for me, that artmaking was the place where it really came together in a way that was satisfying.

What is your work history?

I’ve been teaching for about 11 years. I’m an adjunct instructor.

I primarily taught over this past 11 years at Brandeis, but for the

What do you work in?

I do a couple of different kinds of work. One of the things I really like to make is drawing machines. … I see it as kind of cool in that there’s a, “Gee, whiz,” factor to them, but they’re also cool in that they kind of ask some questions about what exactly constitutes art-making, kind of who’s responsible. And I think it’s particularly relevant now that we’re talking about artificial intelligence and all this kind of stuff, but for me, they’re just kind of cool machines.

And I also make some more traditional sculpture that’s based on - I have two kids so they’re getting into the same thing - but it’s based on science fiction. I’m making all these things that are sort of science fictional forms and kind of going back to my childhood obsession with Star Wars, Star Trek and all that stuff. So it’s not directly related, but it’s influenced by, so it’s interesting.

What influenced you to become an artist?

I was someone who was raised in an environment where my parents were very much of the mind in that you went through college and then you got a job. So they had the sort of mindset that you go into some professional degree or maybe into academia or something like that. But when I was an undergrad, I just felt like the education and the track just didn’t fit me anymore because I had so

Brad Leuchte/The Gatepost

past couple semesters, I’ve been teaching here at Framingham, and last semester I taught a 3-D design course. Right now, I’m teaching an Intro to Studio Art course, and in the fall I’ll be back to teach an Intro to Digital Tools course.

What do you like about working at Framingham State?

That’s pretty easy. First of all, I think that there are really great students here, and in some ways, students who come from backgrounds that are closer to my own, which is like working class backgrounds, and so in some ways it feels like the choices about majors and things like that feel a little closer to my own experience. I really like this department a lot. I like my colleagues here. I think we’ve got a pretty energetic department that’s really pushing students. I like a lot of the work

that I’ve seen coming out of this department already, and I really like the students that I’ve encountered so far in my classes. … I feel there’s a lot more access to education out here than there is in a lot of private institutions.

What would your students be surprised to know about you?

Well, I don’t know if they’d be surprised about that much because I tell them an a lot about my personal life during my class. I don’t know - I kind of just study. I like to read, I like to play video games and I also like to play games with my kids. We have a playstation at home, and we play Lego Marvel Superheroes every Friday night, so there’s that. I think maybe the most surprising thing may be to just sort of reveal to them that in the end, we’re not all that different. I like to hang out with my friends and do a lot of the same things that they do. It’s just that I’ve also, over the past several years, figured out a little bit more about what I want to do - not everything, but a little bit more about what I want to do and, so as a result, I like to think that I’ve gotten good at balancing all those different things.

What would you consider some of your greatest accomplishments?

I’d say the biggest one - and this is something that I talk to people about all the time - is that being an artist is not easy, and there’s a lot of failures along the way. There’s a lot of times when - like with this solo show a little while ago, I was really hoping to get a review in a newspaper, magazine - something like that - and it just didn’t happen. I got a lot of positive responses from people that came to see the show, and from fellow artists, but it just felt like I failed in some way. I talked to people and they reminded me that, “Dude, you’re still an artist somehow and you’re making it work somehow,” and so that feels like a huge accomplishment in itself, to be able to chase that.

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News

April 17, 2015

3

By Kaila Braley Editor-in-Chief

FSU hosted two Accepted Students’ Days on March 28 and April 11, where potential incoming students met faculty and current students, took tours of residence halls, ate in the dining hall and explored club fairs.

About 560 accepted students visited campus over the two weekends, according to Associate Dean of Admissions and Director of Undergraduate Admissions Shayna Eddy.

Academic departments gave presentations to potential students to discuss what their programs entail and encourage them to decide to attend FSU. Colleen Scroth, a student intern in the SILD office said at the first Accepted Students’ Day, that the club fair was going “really, really well,” and that she was able to talk to incoming students about clubs that weren’t able to make it to the fair.

Potential FSU student Ashley Nistendirk said she is really interested in the history program at FSU, and said she might want to “check out cheerleading.”

Her mother, Robin Gelbwachs, attended FSU for a year in 1999, and said she had a blast.

“I want to come back and finish my degree!” she said.

Potential students wrote why they are interested in coming to FSU and placed their pieces of papers in the jar, pictured top right.

One piece of paper read, “I love FSU because everyone holds the door for you! - Chivalry is not dead!”

ACCEPTED STUDENTS’ DAY

Photos by Brad Leuchte/The Gatepost

Potential incoming students and their families were greeted by clubs and sports teams during the Accepted Students’ Days. Kevin Regan, a potential student from North Attleboro High School, said, “I definitely like the campus a lot. I just get a good feeling.”

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News

april 17, 2015

Framingham State remembers for One Boston Day

By Julia Sarcinelli Assistant News Editor

In honor of the second anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, there was a moment of silence at Framingham State at 2:49 p.m. on Wednesday, April 15.

In an email sent by President F. Javier Cevallos that morning, he said Framingham State will be joining the town of Framingham and the rest of the Commonwealth in participating in “One Boston Day,” during which the state will honor and remember the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing victims.

In a video posted to the official One Boston Day website, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said this day will be for giving back to the community through acts of kindness and community service, along with, “taking something tragic and turning it into a very positive thing.”

Dean of Students Melinda Stoops sees One Boston Day as an opportunity to remember victims and to recognize those impacted by the bombings, while also providing an “opportunity to talk and heal in some ways, too.”

Stoops ran the Boston Marathon before, and her first race was after the 9/11 attacks. She said, “Safety was heightened, but there was no reason to believe or to question our safety.” After the bombings, that feeling changed.

She added she is glad the bombings diminished marathon participation and the “wonderful” charity work being continued by the volunteers and runners whom she feels are even more committed now.

Cevallos said the moment of silence will be an annual event, and he hoped that it allowed for “a moment of reflection” on the campus for everyone “to think, to remember and to heal.”

He added he wants to do more in the

upcoming years for One Boston Day, such as have a plan for students who want to come together for the moment of silence.

“Certainly, having Heather speak at the commencement this year is going to be very interesting, and it will give us an opportunity to learn from her experience and to see what we can do next year building up on her visit,” said Cevallos of Heather Abbott, a Boston Marathon bombing survivor who will be the commencement speaker for this year’s undergraduate commencement ceremonies on May 17.

Alumna of FSU Nicole Dygon is running the Boston Marathon this year.

“I’m not a very athletic individual - I lack coordination and walk into things constantly,” said Dygon who went on to say she wanted to run the Boston Marathon after the bombings and was inspired by the quote, “‘I run for those who can’t.’

“I wanted to run for all those runners who didn’t get a chance to finish the race that day, and for everyone who was affected by the bombings. It took me two years, but I’m finally running it.”

Dygon is running for the Ally Foundation, which is founded in honor of Ally Zapp, who was murdered by a repeat sex offender. “As a female and higher education professional, this cause is near and dear to my heart.”

Ava Craft, a senior, was at the finish line during the bombings. “It was weird because we didn’t know what was happening. Everyone was just running away. It was kind of scary.”

Other students on campus believe remembering the victims of the bombings is important. Callie Wilhelmi, a junior, remembered driving back to Framingham State with emergency vehicles everywhere. She said, “It’s important to remember the victims’ lives.”

Brad Leuchte/The Gatepost

FSU flew the American and State flags at half-staff on Wednesday to remember those who died two years ago during the Boston Marathon.

One Boston Day hopes to show and add to the strong sense of community during and after the marathon bombings. Junior James Gagnon said, “It was a very tragic day, and so unexpect-

ed. But I think it just shows how our community came together instantly, and I think it’s good to remember just how fast everyone came to help.”

Brad Leuchte/The Gatepost

april 17, 2015

UNION - Continued from page 1

schools were in violation. Two of these were at Framingham State.

At this point, the union put the issue on hold to allow the schools to resolve the problem. However, in January 2006, it found that the number of departments in violation throughout the system (now with seven institutions) had increased to 29. Five of these were at Framingham.

By the academic year 2013-14, with the 15 percent rule still active, the total number of violating departments in the system had increased to 63. Ten of these were at Framingham.

By this point, the Department of Labor Relations had investigated the issue, taken testimony from the union and university representatives and ordered the Board of Higher Education to bring the institutions into compliance. The BHE appealed this ruling to the CERB in February of this year, but lost, and was ordered to comply immediately with the 15 percent rule.

Donohue said the process has been “very tense,” with “hard feelings” between the union and management of the institutions.

“Management set this path,” he said, referring to the State College Council of Presidents. “They’re the ones who decided to go to this very expensive legal process rather than complying with what they had agreed to, repeatedly.”

He said that although it was management’s right to appeal, they developed no “contingency plan” in case they lost, leading to the current situation.

Donohue explained that the union has consistently supported the 15 percent rule due to the likelihood that it would create more better-paying jobs with benefits, as opposed to simply creating more jobs overall.

Additionally, he cited the duties that full-time faculty perform - specifically student advising and committee work - as crucial to ensuring student success, and said that although the union is also working toward securing better rights for part-time faculty, full-time faculty remain essential.

Vice President of the Framingham union chapter Virginia Rutter, a professor of sociology, said parttime faculty are “not empowered” or “supported” in their ability to mentor and guide students effectively due to their lack of benefits.

“That’s why we’re committed to the 15 percent decision,” she said.

“What it will take in order to reduce reliance on part-time faculty is to hire more full-time and tenure-track faculty members. That seems pretty clear.”

According to data provided by Executive Vice President Dale Hamel, the number of full-time faculty has increased by six percent since 2011, while the number of

News

part-time professors has increased by 9.7 percent. The number of students increased by 1.7 percent, which Hamel emphasized is much lower than the increase in faculty.

The total number of courses has not significantly increased in relation to the increase in faculty, he said, because more “release time” - such as sabbatical, research time and allowance for extracurricular program development - was allotted to faculty.

Hamel said the rapid increase in part-time faculty, in comparison to full-time, is due to “changes in the hiring process.

“We’ve got many more people involved in that process who are new,” he said. “I don’t think there was a complete understanding about what actions in one individual area impacted the overall budget that had been put in place.”

Though Hamel said the departments and their academic deans had “good intentions” when making hiring decisions, aiming to expand their programs and quickly replace departing faculty, the increase in part-time faculty has been larger than necessary.

“We kind of caused a significant portion of the 15 percent issue by the fact that while we were more than meeting the increase in enrollment through new full-time faculty, we went significantly over in terms of visiting lecturer positions,” Hamel said.

According to Provost and Academic Vice President Linda VadenGoad, the school has had a hiring plan in place for years which took into account the 15 percent rule.

This includes hiring five new fulltime faculty members per year, as well as “converting” some parttime into full-time positions.

The current plan is set to run through 2019, and there was initially no intention to amend it. This past week, however, according to Vaden-Goad, the administration decided that two more full-time temporary positions would be allocated to the departments most in need.

Part-time faculty members such as Christopher Abrams (who is finishing his second semester teaching in the art and music department) expressed concern about the University’s obligation to lower its number of part-timers.

“It cuts back on some of the opportunities for someone like me,” he said, adding, “Beyond next semester, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Abrams described the uncertainty of his position’s security as “the plight of adjuncts [part-time faculty],” and said he “would jump at the opportunity to be a full-timer.”

Math department visiting lecturer Joseph Caruso said, “Personally, I’m at a stage of my life that if they said, ‘We really don’t have any classes for you to teach,’ I’d say, ‘OK,’ and ride into the sunset.

... If they said, ‘We’re not going to have you teach these courses,’ I’m just going to say, ‘Well, it’s been nice knowing you. I’m just going to move on.’ No hard feelings or anything. I’ve had a great time being here.”

Donohue said he understood this concern by visiting lecturers, as he was in the same position earlier in his career.

“I know what it’s like to work contract to contract - I know what it’s like to have the prospect of losing your income,” he said. “That is a bad situation, and there’s nothing I can say that will make that a better situation for those individuals. The union doesn’t have the option of deciding what parts of the contract are enforced and which are not.”

A large number of faculty have expressed concern that the enforcement of the 15 percent rule will result in an increased number of students in classes.

Though Vaden-Goad emphasized that seating cap maximums will remain the same as they have been for years - 35 students for 100- and 200-level courses, 25 for 300-level and 20 for 400-level - she said many of the exemptions which allowed certain courses to lower their caps were abandoned once immediate compliance with the 15 percent rule was ordered.

Sociology Department Chair Benjamin Alberti confirmed that a letter was written by four department chairs and signed by 13 others, then delivered to Vaden-Goad after the course cap exemptions were put aside. Although he declined to release the letter to The Gatepost, he said that “the target of the letter was the threatened eradication of course cap exemptions in general.”

Only two department chairs did not sign the letter.

Alberti said that the involved chairs “wanted to signal to the administration how pleased we were with the fact that they were sticking to the 15 percent VL cap, and at the same time to encourage them to not make any potentially rash decisions about course caps as a consequence of that decision.

“We know the administration also supports student preparation,” he said, “so we wanted to let them know what our views were on the new course caps and how we felt it might impact student education.”

Vaden-Goad, who also declined to release the letter, said she received it while working out a set of possible plans to comply with the 15 percent rule. The first one offered no exemptions whatsoever to enrollment caps, while the second offered one exemption to each affected department.

She described how she took the letter into account, saying, “I believe in the importance of faculty voice in governance.”

After meeting with Donohue and Christopher J. O’Donnell, the

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MSCA president, FSU administrators received the union’s official endorsement of the second plan on April 3.

On April 15, Vaden-Goad met with the department chairs to discuss the way FSU would work toward compliance. She said she wished she had spoken with them earlier in the process, but that she wanted to wait until she knew what decisions would be made before making a statement.

She added that the academic deans were in frequent contact with the department heads to answer questions and discuss concerns in that interim.

The Gatepost contacted most department chairs, and did not hear back from the majority before publication of this article. Some declined to comment.

Vaden-Goad said, “Having to pull away from some of the exclusions was necessary in order to be compliant” with the 15 percent rule.

She said FSU’s cap sizes are “not unusual,” and small in comparison to those at universities nationwide.

Mathematics Department Chair Robert Page said he thinks larger class sizes will be “less effective.”

Page said all students are required to take a math course, and if the students who struggle with math are unable to receive the extra attention they need, it might inhibit them from graduating on time.

He added, “In my experience, a math course at the college level goes from being manageable to more than I would like, somewhere between twenty and twenty-five, so it’s not a huge issue, but it’s definitely more than we would like to be in the classroom.”

“It’s going to hurt some students,” he said.

Academic Dean of Arts and Humanities Marc Cote said the reduced number of visiting lecturers has also stymied the hopes of faculty to expand departments and experiment with the courses offered.

“We aren’t able to meet the needs of the extra classes that they were hoping to offer,” he said. “It’s making it a little difficult to test out some classes. … There’s issues where you can’t experiment as much without visiting lecturers.”

Cote called the use of part-time and temporary full-time faculty for new courses “an opportunity to grow without necessarily committing a tenure-track faculty to it.”

Although variety of courses will decrease according to Cote, VadenGoad said the administration still aims “to make sure that we’re offering the students exciting opportunities.

“We believe we have been doing so,” she said. “We’ve been working to invigorate the curriculum, and everyone has enjoyed that, and profited from that. And we’re still doing that, but we’re going to do it more carefully now.”

News

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april 17, 2015

Seniors told to ‘remember where they came from’

By Alexandra Gomes News Editor

FSU administrators held the annual senior investiture for the Class of 2015 this past Monday in DPAC, beginning the 34-day countdown to graduation.

The ceremony recognizes the academic achievement of seniors, as well as their upcoming graduation. It is a chance for seniors to wear their academic attire for the first time.

President F. Javier Cevallos said, “We have about 34 days and 20 minutes before we are doing this formally and officially. That will go very, very fast.”

Cevallos said the point of this event was for seniors to take a moment to reflect on what they have accomplished. He urged them to enjoy it.

Former student Josiah Curtis, an associate at Fragomen, Del Rey, Berrisen & Lowoey; LLP, gave the investiture address. He shared a quote with the seniors that has stuck with him since he saw it: “When you get there, remember where you came from.”

Curtis said he could take away five points from the phrase. The first is to be modest and compassionate toward coworkers and peers.

Curtis said when he first started his job, he was asked to write a memo. He wrote what he thought was “the greatest memo ever written.” However, he ended up spelling his boss’ name wrong. Now that he is an associate, and reviews the work of other people, he gets frustrated by the same kind of mistakes.

He said it’s important to remember “you were once that person.”

HOUSING - Continued from page 1

housing, Residence Life staff should know roughly how many students prefer gender-inclusive housing, but until then, he will not know how successful this program will be.

Cochran said he would like to see this housing option available in every residence hall, but above all, he wants to meet the needs and preferences of students, so the development of this program will be assessed on a case-bycase basis according to the housing requests of each student.

The second point is “when you look back, it gives you a sense of accomplishment.”

Curtis said he hasn’t reached where he is going yet, but there are times when he reflects on the major milestones in his life, and how they relates to where he is going.

Curtis told seniors “this is one of those times” for them.

The third point is to be proud of where you came from. Curtis said

change,” and now works in a corporate law firm, although he does a lot of pro-bono work.

The fifth point is to give back.

Curtis said, “When you reach a point where you can give back to Framingham, just remember what it gave to you.”

Dean of Students Melinda Stoops asked the seniors how it felt to be wearing their academic attire for the first time, to which the crowd re-

Alexabdra Gomes/The Gatepost

Class of ‘15 donned cap and gown for first time at Senior Investiture Ceremony. he struggled working in a field that is “hyper-concerned with your academic pedigree.”

He said he is now proud that he has proven people who go to a public school can perform at the same level as those from ivy-league schools.

The fourth point is to remember what drives you.

Curtis said he went to law school “with the idea of pursuing societal

sponded, “Good!”

She promised the seniors, “When we have rehearsal before commencement, we will show you what to do with your hoods.”

Carla Mungovan, the class of 2015 vice president, said that during her time at FSU she has been “unconditionally accepted” by her professors and peers.

“Framingham State has been a

positioned” to work individually with students who prefer this housing option, and to manage this program well.

He added that if FSU were much bigger, more staff would likely be required to meet students’ housing preferences.

Kim Dexter, director of equal opportunity, title IX and ADA compliance, said while she believes FSU could have benefitted from this program in the past, she is “thrilled we’re going to have this [gender-inclusive housing] in the fall.”

She said she believes gender-inclu-

der binary - the idea that all people are either male or female. She added that it gives students a choice to live with whomever they choose - a freedom they did not previously have here, but would have anywhere outside a college campus, according to Dexter.

She said she does not foresee any significant problems with this housing arrangement. Any time people live together, there is a potential for conflict. According to Dexter, while some schools are still struggling to establish this accommodation, it has been “very

“[Gender-inclusive housing] promotes our dedication to inclusive excellence.”

- Kim Dexter, director of equal opportunity, title IX and ADA compliance He said Residence Life staff does not want to limit this type of housing to a defined space, and will pay attention to feedback they receive from students as they register for housing next year.

Due to the small size of the school, Cochran said he believes FSU is “well-

sive housing will benefit this community by challenging hetero-normative beliefs about sexuality. One of these beliefs is that if two students of different genders live together, a sexual interaction between them will inevitably occur, according to Dexter.

This program also challenges gen-

successfully implemented” in schools across the country.

Students will not be asked to disclose their reasons for selecting gender-inclusive housing, which is critical to creating an inclusive environment on campus, according to Dexter.

Peirce Hall, for example, houses

place where I’ve truly been allowed to grow and develop. … Not only was I provided support for my decisions, I was also safely and carefully pushed.”

Mungovan congratulated her classmates for “making it this far” and urged them to make their remaining time here count.

Dr. Sandra Rahman, chair of the business department, was chosen to be the ceremony’s faculty speaker.

She said she has been impressed by how the seniors have “successfully dealt with life’s events” while attending school.

“Life is not easy. You have overcome many challenges to get to where you are today. You were not deterred by the bumps in the road.”

She added, “We are confident that you will all make this world a better place.”

Seniors Molly Buckley and Victoria Dost opened the ceremony by singing the National Anthem, and closed it by singing “Live to the Truth”, FSU’s alma mater.

Kenechi Izuchi, a senior, said the speeches were well written and the ceremony “was a really good representation of how we all feel.”

Senior Catie Andris said the singers were “radical” and “very talented.”

Senior James Mckeon said he had never heard Cevallos speak before and “he was really great.”

He added, “It was a nice ceremony, for getting us to stop and think about what we have done.”

Tara Hollions, a senior, said the ceremony made her excited for graduation. “I’m doing a countdown now. … 34 days, I’m ready.”

only female residents, but if this program were implemented in that hall, it would become a multi-gender residence hall, she said. So, in that instance, FSU would lose its only allwomen residence hall. Still, Dexter said she would like to see this program “as widely available as possible.”

This program “promotes our dedication to inclusive excellence,” Dexter said. Inclusive excellence means incorporating diversity, inclusion and fairness into all parts of the University.

Some students expressed support for this program.

Senior Nicole Burdick said, “I think it’s a great idea.”

Junior Heather Howard said, “I think anyone should be able to live with whoever they want, as we’re definitely paying enough.”

Junior Karley Newton said, “I think it could definitely benefit students who don’t identify as their biological gender, and make the housing process way more inclusive in that regard. It’s really a good thing. It makes sense, too, actually, because everyone is over 18, so we should be able to choose who we live with, regardless of gender. We’re all adults.”

april 17, 2015

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The Gatepost Editorial

To create a more perfect union

The Department of Labor Relations ruled that the state universities must be in compliance with the portion of the faculty contract which states departments of six faculty members or more must be made up of less than 15 percent of part-time faculty.

When this ruling was appealed by the Board of Higher Education in February, the appeal was denied, and Commonwealth Employment Relations Board ruled that the universities must immediately become compliant.

This language has been in the contract since 1987, and union members have been working on receiving a ruling that enforces this language since 2002.

This may initially appear to be a victory for the union and for most faculty members, as it seems as though this decision might force the administrators at the state universities to create more full-time faculty positions for part-time faculty or for new potential employees.

Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case.

Weeks after the final fall schedules were released, state universities, including FSU, are now scrambling to become as close to compliancy as possible for the fall semester - by any means necessary, it seems, other than hiring more full-time faculty.

Hiring more full-time faculty: The obvious solution According to Executive Vice President Dale Hamel, FSU has been implementing a hiring plan that has increased fulltime faculty at a growth rate which exceeds that of the student population. The hiring plan has only been slightly amended, even though FSU has more departments over the 15 percent for part-time faculty than any year before.

Some faculty who support the union in pushing for this part of the contract to be enforced have said FSU needs to be putting the money where it’s most needed - and ultimately, the number one function of a school is providing a valuable education to its student body.

You’d be hard pressed to find a student who believes there are too many faculty members on this campus. In fact, students are often drawn to FSU because of its impressively low student-to-faculty ratio.

So if we want to keep the culture of FSU the way it is now, with small classes and enough faculty to grow departments and expand curriculum, then we can’t be significantly cutting back on the number of faculty.

But rather than simply adding more full-time faculty positions, more positions could be converted from part-time to full-time. A part-time position would no longer exist, so that could be subtracted from the percentage of part-time faculty, while a new full-time position would be created, adding to the percentage of full-time faculty - making the equation doubly effective.

Additionally, this would allow for professors who have already shown themselves to be essential members of this campus to have a role as full-time professors who can perform academic advising and committee work.

This tactic to reach compliance, though the most obvious and most direct, seems to be the least likely to happen based on responses from administrators.

In defense of part-time faculty: What wasn’t broken No one is questioning the quality of instruction imparted by part-time faculty.

While The Gatepost’s eBoard recognizes that part-time faculty get paid substantially less than their full-time colleagues, without benefits and without the opportunity to invest more time on campus, we also recognize the instrumental function part-time faculty offer the student body.

Some part-timers want to have full-time positions, but many are happy to work part-time at an institution because they may be retired or they might have other jobs in their field of study. Or they may be starting out in academia and are Continued on page 9

Op/Ed

April 17, 2015

More parking spaces should be designated to commuters Parking costs per year vary based on whether one is a resident or a commuter student. It costs residents $500 per year to park, while commuter students pay $50 per year.

FSU does not guarantee parking to commuter students, even though these students - approximately 4,700 - comprise the majority of the student body. Residents have access to the Ram Tram and taxis if they need to go off-campus for jobs, food or for any other reason, but commuters have to travel to and from FSU each day for classes and other commitments. For them, adequate parking space is a necessity each time they travel here.

FSU administrators claim they provide enough parking spaces for commuters via Maple Lot, Maynard Lot and the second Athletic Field, according to the school’s website. However, while it is understandable that FSU does not have the space available for roughly 4,700 commuters to park each day, it means that those who are not allotted a space must either park illegally, in a lot not designated for commuter students or somewhere off campus.

None of these scenarios yield positive results for all parties involved. If a commuter, for example, were to park in someone else’s lot, the student who normally parks in that lot would have to drive around campus looking for another space, thereby eating up valuable time he or she could spend getting to class. The commuter would also waste time if he or she had to park somewhere off campus, potentially arriving late for a lecture or exam.

And if a commuter parked in a lot designated for faculty, staff or residents, then that students would run the risk of his or her vehicle being ticketed or even towed - not a good start to anyone’s day.

Resident students can park in the first Ath-

letic Field lot, Trolley Square lot (located in the same lot as Kugels Deli, across Route 9), Pleasant Street lot or Union Ave. lot. These lots should be reserved for commuter students, as they rely much more heavily on parking spaces than residents.

If one or several of these lots were designated for both commuters and residents, it would alleviate some of the frustration commuters experience when trying to find a parking space on campus.

This way, they would not have to worry about driving around for half an hour every time they make the morning commute to school.

The commuter population on campus will only continue to grow. Focusing more on accommodating these commuters would help a large portion of the student body who do not have the luxury of rolling out of bed and arriving in their classrooms five minutes later.

Brad Leuchte/The Gatepost

Mark Wadland Opinions Editor

Letter to the Editor When I read your article, your thoughts reflected the conversation I had with my uncle on Easter Sunday. We had gone for a walk around the neighborhood, but as we walked by Hannaford’s we were shocked to see so many people shopping! Christmas and Thanksgiving are treated as greater holidays than Easter.

As my uncle said, “These same people spend two months getting ready for Christmas, but only three weeks for Easter.”

In the tradition of Christianity, Easter is even greater than Christmas because without the sacrifice of Christ his birth is meaningless. I am so sorry that you felt no excitement for Easter this year or that Lent was overshadowing the celebration. This makes me sad.

It was never the intention that Lent should take away from Easter, but instead put us in the spirit of it. Lent is a spiritual journey to reflect upon his sacrifice for us, and in turn change parts of our own life for him. This journey leads to Easter,

but one that I have not lived as well as I should.

(I’m still working on that!) But every year, I look forward in eagerness to the Easter Vigil and have never been disappointed. Standing among the church community, I feel anticipation all around and within me. It’s as if Heaven and Earth are holding their breath. This year was no different and I want to share the love from that night with everyone I meet.

Going back to your letter, you’re right to say more work needs to be done to emphasize this.

Classes would help, but we need more volunteers who have the time to make it happen. Hai Ok, the lay minister for the Catholic community, would love to hear your ideas.

Leanne Cyr Class of 2016

The Gatepost welcomes submissions from students, faculty and staff for the Op/Ed page.

Please send submissions under 300 words to gatepost@framingham.edu.

The Gatepost editors reserve the right accept or reject submissions, and to edit spelling and grammar as is deemed necessary.

Op/Ed submissions reflect the opinions of their authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of The Gatepost or its staff.

april 17, 2015 Continued from page 8

desperate for experience that will help them pay their bills and assist them in getting a full-time job.

It seems as though a labor union should be more focused on protecting the workers and fighting for their rights rather than creating a landscape in which their employment is even less secure.

Moreover, part-time faculty members have the potential to contribute the most range, practicality and flexibility to the education of the student body.

Faculty members who have time to devote to their own work in the field can be incredibly valuable to students who are looking for practical and contemporary advice and instruction.

If professors can offer more relevant professional experiences, even if they are not teaching full-time, they may be some of the most valuable faculty members with whom students can be in contact. Having immediate professional contacts in their particular fields will also offer students potential internships or job prospects.

Additionally, having the flexibility to hire visiting lecturers allows for that department to experiment with curriculum and courses offered.

When a department doesn’t have to hire to a full-time professor to try out new classes, it can offer a wider selection of courses to students, a more well-rounded education in which they are being taught by a range of professors and the opportunity to test out the direction it wants to grow before it committing to it.

Ultimately, striking a balance between part-time and full-time faculty is essential to offering students a well-rounded education, but 15 percent for each department seems arbitrary, and not necessarily a good indicator of the quality of an education.

FSU’s plan to be compliant: What can we expect?

FSU’s plan to become compliant will actually decrease the number of courses offered to students and make classes more crowded. This will make scheduling more of a challenge and potentially prevent students from being able to graduate on time.

Who’s at fault?

Even if we wanted to point fingers, we’d end up looking like the Scarecrow from “The Wizard of Oz,” pointing confusedly every which way.

What it ultimately comes down to is the result of these decisions, which is that students are going to have a more difficult time getting into the classes they need and will have less personalized instruction from their professors, who will have a heavier work load.

The ruling is final and the state universities must become compliant with the contract. But in three years, the union will be meeting again to renegotiate the contract. And everyone in the FSU community needs to start thinking about what steps might be taken in that negotiation to create an academic environment which meets the university’s particular needs more closely than this 15 percent rule does.

First, efforts to improve compensation for part-time faculty are essential. The union should be focusing on improving the working conditions for these faculty members rather than making the job market more limited and difficult for them.

Second, the Gatepost eBoard recognizes the reasons for keeping the percentage of part-time faculty low, but the 15 percent rule would be more beneficial if it were not calculated by department, but rather by the overall percentage of faculty at the institution.

This would allow for more flexibility among departments so that the individual needs of each department can be met more effectively while requiring the university to commit to more fulltime faculty.

Third, our administration, and that of other schools, needs to be taking the contracts it enters into seriously. Over the past 10 years, FSU has gotten further away from compliance. If FSU administration had been more focused on the contracts we have, the institution wouldn’t be put a position in which it’s making such drastic measures now.

Finally, and worst of all, the changes in enrollment caps and cutting of courses will ultimately hurt students.

We did not lobby for rulings.

We did not sign any contracts.

We signed up for a quality education, and we expect that agreement to be honored.

Op/Ed

Rolling Stone gathers B.S. Last November, Rolling Stone published a “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA.” The story, which was about an alleged gang rape that took place at a frat party, quickly went viral, attracting “more than 2.7 million views, more than any other feature not about a celebrity that the magazine had ever published,” according to an article in Rolling Stone.

After only one month, several different writers and publications became suspicious of the credibility behind the story. Long parts of narration went unattributed, and the reporter had relied heavily on the victim, ‘Jackie.’

Rolling Stone eventually retracted the article, and the magazine asked Steve Coll, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, to review and investigate the article.

Coll found there were many ways the reporter could have investigated the story further, thus giving it more credibility.

The mistakes the reporter made were easily preventable. A quick call to Jackie’s friends, or a trip to the frat house, could have been the difference between the article being a phenomenal piece of journalism, and the disaster it is now.

The reporter could have contacted Jackie’s friends herself, instead of blindly believing what Jackie had said. The reporter could have contacted members of the fraternity to find out more about the frat party where the alleged rape occurred.

The reporter asked several different people for comments on the rape allegations, including the fraternity’s president and their national executive director. Instead of giving them details

of the story, she was vague about what she was referring to, and did not provide the information the fraternity needed to respond adequately to the allegations. If the reporter had been clear on the case she was referring to, and the details of it, she would have learned that the report the fraternity received on this rape allegation was inconsistent with Jackie’s narration of the incident.

Because the reporter did not follow basic journalistic principles, she did a disservice to herself, to Jackie and to the UVA campus community.

Journalists are here to inform the public.

Moreover, they are here to inform the public accurately. If all journalists reported the same way this Rolling Stone reporter did, the public would be at a great disadvantage. They would be consistently misinformed, and it could cause many issues that otherwise would have been avoided.

The journalistic principles are here for a reason. They are more then just a guide. They are here to make sure journalists do their jobs right, and that the public receives all the information they need. If a reporter can’t follow basic rules of journalism, and cover all of his or her bases, then he or she should not be a reporter.

Alexandra Gomes Editorial Staff

Beware the seasonal pests which literally suck As we escape the icy clutches of winter and enter the warm embrace of spring, the sun breathes life into the slumbering landscape. We welcome the return of flowers (at least until they drop pollen on our cars) and various animals (as long as they don’t run into traffic).

Unfortunately, we must also suffer the reintroduction of various bugs. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but for some reason I’ve always been unusually attractive to all sorts of creepy crawlies.

I don’t know what it is about me that makes bugs defy all evolutionary common sense, but I can’t count the number of times a tiny winged devil has attempted to fly straight up my nose or into my mouth.

While I admit most people aren’t bothered by most bugs, there are two bugs which are not only annoying, but pose actual health hazards. These two parasitic pests spread disease and seem to serve no ecological purpose beyond being eaten by birds: ticks and mosquitos.

They’re most commonly associated with summer and autumn, but I can assure you from personal experience that they are just as active in early spring. In fact, ticks and mosquitos are the main reason I’m reluctant to spend much time outdoors.

So what can you do to protect yourself from these seasonal menaces? The most effective method would be to carry one of those novelty bug zappers shaped like a tennis racket at all times.

Unfortunately, Wal-Mart never has them in stock so we must instead rely on insect repellants. They work well enough for mosquitos,

9

but aren’t quite as effective on ticks (probably because they know they’re actually arachnids).

If a mosquito ignores insect repellant, you can easily get rid of it by whacking it. But ticks are nearly indestructible, even when hit repeatedly with a shoe. I have yet to find any reliable way of tick-disposal besides flushing them down a toilet or lighting them on fire.

So if you find yourself lying on the grass or taking a walk in the woods for an extended period of time, I’d highly recommend checking yourself every so often for ticks. And, as counter-intuitive as it sounds, if you’re in the woods you should wear as much clothing-cover as possible.

It may not be comfortable, but it’s better than finding a tick on your leg without a convenient method of disposal.

Brad Leuchte/The Gatepost

Mark Strom Editorial Staff

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April 17, 2015

ARTS & FEATURES

11

The misconceptions of bodybuilding debunked

By Tanya Ann Ström Editorial Staff

do steroids,” said Astrauckas. “I would have to put on an additional 100 pounds, which is a difficult feat.”

Post-competition depression sets in after a show is over. “You have to be comfortable knowing the day of competition will be the

Seven to 9 a.m. is prime-time at the Framingham State fitness center for a core group dedicated to improving the quality of their lives through physical exercise.

Among these early risers, two athletes draw attention. Their form, their technique and their knowledge attract the attention of those around them.

These two athletes are professional bodybuilders. They are both training for their sport, a niche often misunderstood by observers.

After fourteen days of training with these two athletes - the muscles in my back, shoulders and arms are already more defined.

Knots have nestled beneath my shoulder blades and in muscle tissue, leaving my body sore. The pain is worth it since I have gained increased energy, confidence and strength.

Over the last three weeks I have been able to train with these two, and educate myself about the sport of bodybuilding and the stigmas – both negative and positive – that surround it.

There are separate divisions within competitive bodybuilding. In some of these divisions, scores are determined based on the amount of definition and “level of leanness,” best you will look until you start training said Chelsea Kentel, personal trainer and again,” said Kentel. natural bodybuilder. A natural bodybuilder In the end, it is the competition that makes is someone who does not use steroids. all the hard work worth it. “Ninety percent For women, there are bikini, figure, fitness of people don’t care about what we do,” said and physique divisions said Kentel, who is a Astrauckas. figure competitor.

There is a certain satisfaction “It is like any other sport,” she said. from walking on stage “in front “It is hard to describe why we love it.” of people that appreciate what Chris Astrauckas, a Framingham we have done for 15 to 26 State student and natural bodyweeks. It is your hard work builder, said, “I have participated in and dedication” that makes it soccer, lacrosse, basketball, mixed worth it, he said. martial arts and boxing, and this is the “It is the one time [bodyhardest sport I have ever done.” builders] can go up Astraukas said he does and show off it “for the challenge,” their hard work while Kentel said she without somedoes it because it’s one thinking “fun.” [they] are “Every time you assholes. It is train, you push the one time your boundarpeople are ies. I participate not judgin the sport to ing you” be better than in a negaI was the last tive light, time I compethe added. ed,” she added.

“I go to The sport is the gym and I goal-oriented. “It is do my posing and peohard to define to people what ple look at me all weird. this sport is because there … They ask people are so many different overat the desk, ‘What is all goals,” Astrauckas said. he doing? Why is he Referring to Kentel, he taking off his shirt?’” said, “She is bodybuildAfter winning ing. I am a body builder. his first show, AsOur goals are very diftrauckas brought ferent.” his trophy into the The time needed to gym and, instead prepare for competiof hearing negative tions depends on how comments, people much fat an individual came up to him inhas to lose, said Kentel. terested in the sport “I can be the best and asking questions natural bodybuilder, but such as, “How did I would not be able to you do that?” compete with those who Photo courtesy of facebook.com “People think I sit

in front of the mirror and admire myself when I am looking at what needs to be worked on,” he said. “It is all about progression and development.”

“That is true,” said Kentel, “but for girls, it is different.

Show Chelsea Kentel support this Saturday April 18 for the IFPA Pro Qualifer at Mashpee High School.

Doors open at 8 a.m.

Awards start at 5 p.m.

“People say I am too muscular, not attractive and not feminine enough.”

After the first week of my training with Astrauckas and Kentel, people in the gym started to take notice. Women on treadmills glared, and men between sets stared to try to get a good look at the amount of weight I lifted.

Maxing out on weight, my face turned rose colored and my muscles began to shake on the last rep.

I reminded myself that results require work.

Each day of the week is designated to work on a different part

of the body. Walking out of the gym on leg day a fellow student and gym-goer stopped to criticize the recent changes made to my workout. “You have a nice ass, but it would be better if you stopped trying to squat heavy weights, instead do light weight and more reps,” he said, completely ignoring my concept of strong beauty and reinforcing his own chauvinistic ideals.

However, not every comment by an onlooker is negative.

Astrauckas said, “People’s views change from extremely negative to extremely positive. Nobody negatively judges a sprinter when they are working on their time yet, people still judge us.”

“Like when I lift heavy,” said Kentel “and when I pose,” added Astrauckas.

While performing walking lunges with the short straight bar, my muscles began to tighten and I pushed hard for the last 10 steps. That seemed impossible until another student and gym-goer, who had just finished the same exercise with a higher weight, began to clap his hands, saying, “You got this.

Push for it.”

When at the gym, Astrauckas will go out of his way to help people who appear interested, watching his workouts or asking questions about the sport because he wished he “had someone like that” to help him.

“People make judgments because I am a bodybuilder. They think that I must have a power complex or that I need to have control over everything. That drives me crazy,” said Astrauckas.

Kentel said, “It doesn’t bother me because I know I am pursuing my goals.”

Nonetheless, she admitted the only time negative comments affect her is when she goes clothes shopping. “It is the media that envisions women as small, petite and dainty. It comes down to the media and their portrayal of what people should look like.” However, Kentel added, she believes that strong is beautiful.

Some people look at the sport negatively because it is superficial. Basically, what you’re doing is solely improving your physicality, but that is part of the sport and that is how one’s progress in the sport is gaged.

The commitment to the sport is “365 days a year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Astrauckas said.

“Everything you do. Every second of everyday matters.”

“Nobody wants to go to a [bodybuilding] show to look at something that’s attainable,” said Astrauckas. “I wish that was different,” meaning he wishes the sport was less superficial and more about the appreciation of the hard work athletes put in to transform their bodies.

Photo courtesy of facebook.com

12

Body shaming - Continued from page 1

way I looked in it. To be honest, at the time, it didn’t really bother me. It didn’t really bother me several months later when the same friend told me that I wasn’t “a real person” until I weighed at least 100 pounds.

But it must have resonated.

The summer before going to college my goal was to see those exact three digits on the scale, possibly with hopes of gaining acceptance from him or maybe from the new people I would meet at college.

While at the time I did not realize that these comments affected me, I began to a few years later, and these feelings of disapproval are rehashed every time someone tells me “you’re too skinny,” “you don’t look healthy,” “eat a cheeseburger,” etc.

I receive these comments at least weekly, often daily, mostly from strangers. A person can’t help but feel that there must be something wrong with his or her appearance if multiple strangers feel the need to comment on it.

Fat-shaming is an issue in society that receives a lot of attention, but the truth is, body-shaming pervades far beyond overweight targets. Individuals who are not modeled after the perfect archetype of a human body can be subject to judgment - and the issue is, everybody has a different idea of “perfect,” so everybody can be subject to body-shaming.

FSU Psychology professors Phoebe Lin and Devin Burns, both agree that bodyshaming is becoming more broad and widespread.

Burns said he believes body-shaming is becoming less of a gender issue and more equally distributed between men and women.

Lin added, “Women are shamed for not being thin enough. Men are shamed for not being muscular enough or tall enough.”

Both agreed that BMI is a very poor indicator of health.

“It’s kind of ridiculous that we rely on this number of BMI when it’s obviously different frames. A healthy BMI for one person can be very unhealthy for another person,” said Burns.

Burns added that he recently learned from one of his student’s papers that his own BMI indicates that he can be considered anorexic, and if he were to ever be treated, he could not be considered recovered until his BMI increased 1.5 points to 19, which would be difficult for Burns, who said he already eats five full meals a day.

“People think that if you are skinny, you are forcing that upon yourself - that something is wrong with you,” he said.

Professors Lin and Burns said there is even an idea of “diet-shaming” in our society which makes it hard for people who want to be healthy to do it without judgement, even for individuals with medical conditions.

Lin said that when she was in her mid20’s, her doctor told her that her blood sugar levels were too high so she cut back on sugar.

“Everybody would say, ‘Why are you on a diet? You’re fine,’ and I would say, ‘No it’s something else,’ so it’s just very different, the automatic assumptions people make

Arts & Features

based on adjustments in your eating habits or your lifestyle,” she said.

“If you verbalize not being able to eat certain types of food, there can be a lot of public shaming that goes along with it,” said Burns. “Health is often perceived as size and it’s not at all. Health is very difficult to perceive from just looking at someone, yet we make judgements about it all the time.”

Thus is the case with myself. I have a genetic disorder in which my liver overproduces cholesterol at dangerous levels.

Members of my family generations above me who had the disorder unknowingly, died of heart attacks, in some cases, as young as in their 20s.

Standard medicine used to treat high cholesterol has the tendency to negatively impact my liver and heart. Therefore, my treatment instead lies heavily on non-traditional medications, exercise and diet.

People who notice my eating tendencies will suggest I do not need to eat like that, and I need more fat. They tell me I should “have a cheeseburger” instead.

These individuals would likely not suggest that a person with “cholesterol levels of a 400-pound person” as one of my cardiologists refers to it, should eat a cheeseburger.

According to American Dietetic Asso-

Junior Morgan Zabinski, an FSU cross country runner, said, “I constantly receive comments about my body from people who simply assume that I do not eat enough, which is certainly an annoyance. … It is especially frustrating for me because I am a nutrition major, and am fully aware of what I should be eating.”

She said people need to realize that skinny-shaming “can be just as mentally damaging as commenting that someone is too heavy. Weight is a sensitive topic and people should not assume that they know the circumstances behind it.”

Social media and pop culture fuel body insecurities in men and women of all ages.

In a Kardashian-crazed culture, society seems to be enthralled with the idea of large butts and curves.

Professor Lin said, “There’s a pretty robust correlation between media exposure and body dissatisfaction and self-esteem issues that are on the rise, and more applicable to both genders nowadays.”

She cited a study that showed girls as young as five-years-old feeling body dissatisfaction.

The 2011 documentary “Miss Representation” directed by Jennifer Siebel Newsom, which shows the correlation between media

“Health is often perceived as size and it’s not at all. Health is very difficult to perceive from just looking at someone, yet we make judgements about it all the time.”

- Psychology Professor Devin Burns ciation president-elect Sylvia Escott-Stump, RD. on WebMD, “Being a little underweight is not necessarily a problem. … If you are comfortable, able to function and exercise, weighing a little less than your ideal is not a problem, and studies show it is associated with good health outcomes.”

Yet many thin people can recall comments implying that their body weight is unhealthy.

In fall of 2013, Frances Chen, who was a Yale University junior at the time, visited her school’s health center, concerned about a lump in her breast. The lump was benign, but the judgement and ridicule she would receive from the health center for the next several months was malignant.

Since she was 5’2” and 90 pounds, the health center labeled her as anorexic, and forced her to endure weekly urine tests, blood tests, EKGs, and mental health counseling sessions. She was told she could no longer attend school at Yale if she did not gain adequate weight, according to the Huffington Post.

Chen admitted in a blog post that she began binge-eating ice cream, cookies and Cheetos in attempts to gain weight.

“At this rate, I was well on my way to developing an eating disorder before anyone could diagnose the currently nonexistent one,” she wrote.

and body image showed that “53 percent of 13-year-old girls are unhappy with their bodies. That number increases to 78 percent by age 17.”

Newsom also documented that “65 percent of US women and girls report disordered eating behaviors.”

This type of behavior is often the effect of what is seen on TV, in magazines and online, or heard on the radio.

Many feminist groups have been in uproar about the current popular radio hit “All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor.

Many say that Trainor seems to suggest that her curvy body is more favorable than a thin body through lyrics such as “boys like a little more booty” and her reference to size two women as “skinny bitches.”

Activists are worried this song has been praised by many as being a positive influence on young girls while very few seem to notice that it is only a positive message for girls with a certain body type.

In Nicki Minaj’s hit single “Anaconda”, another song glorifying female curves, Minaj bluntly states “fuck the skinny bitches in the club. / Fuck you if you skinny bitches,” even though multiple sources have claimed that Minaj has achieved her curves through plastic surgery.

Social media sites are often a platform for graphics with phrases such as “Real women

April 17, 2015

have curves,” or “Bones are for dogs - meat is for men,” which are not only demeaning towards skinny women, but also objectifying towards all women.

Although junior Seana Carrigan said she is comfortable in her body, she said she constantly receives comments such as “you’re so skinny, tiny, fragile, petite, twig, not enough meat on your bones.”

Senior Olivia Milliken said she has never been body-shamed herself, but has a friend who, she said, is often perceived as anorexic just because she is naturally small framed.

“It really does upset her sometimes,” Milliken said.

For the last three years, junior Elizabeth Whittaker has practiced bodybuilding for fitness competitions. As her weight changes throughout the season, she receives criticism for the way her body looks at different times.

“Friends of mine began to tell me, ‘Don’t gain too much muscle.’ They would say, ‘Ew, why would you ever want to look like that? That is disgusting.’ My family members didn’t understand it either. I was told I was gaining too much muscle and was questioned about every pill or powder I touched,” she said.

However, prior to competitions when she has to diet to lose weight to enhance muscle definition, she said people are always trying to push food on her.

Even as a man, senior Patrick Merrill said he has received body-shaming his whole life for being both pale and thin.

Merrill said he was teased throughout middle school for his pale skin, due mainly to his Irish descent and a history of medical issues.

“It made me very self-conscious and got to the point that I wouldn’t go swimming because I didn’t want to take my shirt off.

It was really upsetting, because I couldn’t change my skin color,” he said.

He said he still receives ridicule for being thin, specifically by his roommates, who are all bodybuilders.

“Whenever they come home from the gym I get teased a little bit. Not enough to be upset, but enough that I refuse to work out with them,” he said.

Merrill is worried about the effects that this sort of teasing can have on young kids.

On a recent trip to visit his family in Chicago, his overweight 11-year-old cousin came home from school crying because kids were making fun of him. He said he did not eat lunch because he didn’t want to gain any more weight.

Merrill said his cousin has now been starting fights in school with kids who make fun of him.

“He went from a happy, good student, to a self-conscious boy who is getting in trouble.

It’s truly a problem that needs to be fixed,” he said.

Both Lin and Burns said they are unsure why people feel the need to body-shame, but that it could be because of the critics’ own insecurities, or an idea that they are do-

April 17, 2015

Arts & Features

Patrick McDonald’s Football Journey

By Spencer Harry Staff Writer

Patrick McDonald, an offensive lineman for the Framingham State Rams’ football team, was an underdog when he started playing the game he excels at today. Through his determination and pure grit, he has risen to become an outstanding talent among college athletes in the country.

McDonald will get a chance to put his football talents to the test at this year’s Globe Bowl in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He will compete against other top college athletes from across the country to try for a position on one of various football teams from around the world that include the European Football League, Canadian Football League and the NFL. “One day I woke up and there was an email from them,” he said. “They said, ‘if you’re interested, come check it out.’

I jumped at the opportunity.”

The Globe Bowl takes place over three days in April. McDonald will participate in non-stop football-related actives for two days, before competing in the Globe Bowl proper, where he will go toe-to-toe with players considered by college scouts to be the best in the United States.

McDonald attributes his invitation less to his own talents and more to the success of his team since he’s been a member.

“I would never say that I’m the best on the team,” he said. “I’m still not the greatest. A lot of it had to do with our notoriety as a team. We’ve won the past three championships - like, the whole thing.”

Earlier in the academic year, a couple of his teammates were chosen to compete at another scouting combine, one that McDonald admitted he was disappointed not to attend.

“I felt like I missed my shot,” he said.

Since this past football season will be his last in college, McDonald is hopeful that he can extend his playing days through this tryout.

Though McDonald is considered a top talent now, he didn’t always have his sights set on football. It wasn’t until high school that he began his football career, and even then, he struggled through it.

“I didn’t start playing football until I was in high school,” McDonald said.

“Most kids have played their whole lives – Pee Wee Football and all that. I was never allowed to. I was always too big. When I got to high school I jumped at the chance to try, and I was awful.”

It’s hard to believe the 6-foot, 4-inch, 280-pound lineman was ever considered too weak to play football. Though he was one of the biggest on the team, he never started a game in his high school career, with his freshman year barely offering him playtime at all.

“I was terrible,” McDonald said. “No matter what I did, I was never strong enough, never fast enough, never anything. I was considered one of the bigger people, but regardless of my size, I just wasn’t strong enough, no matter what I did, but I kept at it. I busted my butt just to be able to play.”

His lack of natural talent was never a deterrent for him. After his freshman

season of high school, he was ready for the next season to begin.

“My second year of playing football, I still wasn’t the greatest,” he said. “I got a few chances to play, which was awesome. I was ecstatic about that. That fueled the fire.”

Even as a junior and senior in high school, he never got the call to start a game. He kept his football aspirations alive, working hard physically in the off season to get ready for football.

“I kept working at it,” he said. “I wrestled for a little while - that got my strength up. My junior and senior year I played a good amount. Even my senior year of high school I wasn’t a starter. I was in the playing rotation, just wasn’t a starter, which sucked. It really got me peeved.”

On his way out of Boston Latin High School, McDonald’s football coach said something that has been stuck in his head to this day, fueling his drive to play the game.

“The last thing my high school coach ever said to me was, ‘Football ain’t for you. Give it up.’ Our family saying has always been ‘Never tell a McDonald they can’t.’ Never tell us we can’t because we never let go of things.”

With this mentality driving him, he went on to play college football for the Rams, though he was not on FSU’s athletic radar like some others coming from high school.

“A lot of the kids on the team were recruited to come play here,” he said.

“They had people calling them, coaches giving them all sorts of stuff. I didn’t have none of that. I didn’t have a highlight tape or anything. I didn’t have anything backing me.”

Framingham State was not on McDonald’s radar when looking at colleg-

Photo courtesy of facebook.com

Through determination and grit Senior Patrick McDonald rose to become one of the Rams’ best players. on the team - nowhere near it. I didn’t start until my sophomore year. It was the first time I’d started a game.”

Head coach Thomas Kelly said that McDonald was not the best player when he first started for the Rams. It was McDonald’s commitment that cemented his spot with the team.

“He didn’t play very much as a freshman [and] didn’t play very much as a sophomore. But he just worked as hard as he could to try to transform himself

“Our family saying has always been never tell a McDonald they can’t. Never tell us we can’t because we never let things go .”

- Senior Patrick McDonald

es to attend after high school. College was always on his mind, but he needed to find the right financial option for him and his family.

“My family was struggling pretty hard,” McDonald said. “When it came to college, there was no question that they wanted me to go; that I wanted to go. We buckled down, started looking for the best option.”

McDonald’s attendance at FSU was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. During his tour of the school, he caught the eye of one of the Ram’s staff members.

“The offensive coordinator saw me walking around the gym. He looks at me he says, ‘Hey do you play football?

Why don’t you come out, why don’t you try out.’ They needed some people for the team. That was it - I started playing here.”

McDonald’s college football career began much like his high school one with him struggling to find playing time against players who had more natural ability for the game. “Freshman year it was the same thing. I wasn’t the greatest

13

into a football player. His resiliency alone and his fortitude … you got to respect a guy like that.”

McDonald’s powerful work ethic extended past the gridiron. While he gave football everything he had, it was far from his only commitment in his life.

“Get the pay check, hand it over to mom and dad,” McDonald said. “Tuition, the mortgage was always due. I was working over 40 hours a week with four classes, full-time students, and playing football. That was the big joke.

[My teammates] didn’t know how I did it. They said, ‘Do you sleep?’ I’ll sleep when I’m dead; I got stuff to do. I’ve done that ever since sophomore year.”

Pat said it was his best friend and teammate Jerry Etienne who really pushed him to become a better football player, and still pushes him every day at the gym to stay in football shape.

“Together, we came up with a hybrid workout plan that would leave [us] speechless by the end,” Etienne said.

“We would spend the off season training together and readying ourselves for the upcoming season, one season at a time.

I began tailoring my workout geared toward the bodybuilding mentality to put on size and grow while Patrick trained to become a better athlete.”

Etienne, a defensive lineman, said he never had the chance to play with McDonald during games. During practice, however, Etienne said they liked to compete against each other.

“We played on opposite sides of the ball - him offense and me defense,” Etienne said. “Every day, the natural competitive sides of our personas would come out to prove who was the best at what they did.”

With determination and undying effort, McDonald rose to become one of the Rams’ starting offensive linemen in his junior year. Though he is among a select few to have a chance at professional football, he still does not consider himself one of the most talented on the team.

“It has a lot to do with effort,” McDonald said. “I may not be the fastest and I may not be the strongest, but if you put me out there, I can guarantee that I’m going to try my hardest. Every single time, I’ll give you 110 percent.

I think that’s what separates the good players from the ones who aren’t so great.”

Though only about 1.6 percent of college football players go pro, according to the NCAA, Etienne thinks that McDonald can make it if he really wants it.

“I truly believe that Pat can make it as far as he sets his mind to. The mind is the battleground - if your mind can perceive it, you can achieve [it]. He has the size, the capability and the motive, so now it all comes down to the execution.”

“I’m hoping the best for him,” said Coach Kelley. “Chase your dream as long as you can. Chase your dream because guess what, your football career is going to end some day. Don’t have any regrets.”

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Arts & Features

april 17, 2015

Jeff Poole/The Gatepost

Jeff Poole/The Gatepost

Lauren Piandes/The Gatepost

Jeff Poole/The Gatepost

Lauren Piandes/The Gatepost

The Hilltop Players present thier Spring musical “Little Shop of Horrors” on Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7 in DPAC.

Jeff Poole/The Gatepost

April 17, 2015

By Corin Cook Staff Writer

Arts & Features

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From sketchpad to skin

She didn’t remember it hurting this much.

During her first tattoo, she nearly fell asleep to the incessant buzz of the inkfilled needle on her shoulder blade.

The first two hours of her second tattoo felt just the same. A familiar feeling of cat claws digging into the skin - something her face and scalp had already grown accustomed to from many nights of her cat sharing her pillow.

The pain started somewhere during the third hour as the needle retraced areas of skin that it had already turned into a raw sore. This went on for about an hour. She arched her back in discomfort and began to sweat – trying to maintain complete stillness, despite the pain being inflicted on her. But more painful than the needle scraping her skin was this agonizing stillness she had to maintain. Three and a half hours of it.

The calming Jamaican music helped put her at ease until the playlist began to replay for the fourth time. Pure monotony. It must be the way a blank page in a sketchbook feels when it endures hours of precision and delicacy – except more so. In art, you can make mistakes, erase, paint over and fix them. There cannot be mistakes in tattooing. Everything must be exact, precise - the art is permanent.

The art being etched into the customer’s thigh on this particular day was that of tattoo artist, Natalia Zanco. The client had given her a sketch a week before of what she wanted for a tattoo, and Zanco customized it, transforming it from a mere idea, into art.

The piece is a hamsa – a traditional hand with an eye in the middle used as a symbol of protection in many societies throughout history. It is still used as a shared symbol among several religions

– a unifying symbol of groups who are otherwise divided.

Inside the hamsa are many detailed symbols, each of which has personal meaning to the client, such as a lotus, a mountain, the wheel of dharma, symbols of the four elements, an Om symbol and a few music measures of “Ocean”

by John Butler Trio.

Zanco worked intently for those three and a half hours, transferring these details to skin, without any breaks or signs of tiring except for her two quick gulps of coconut water during needle changes.

She did not talk during the process despite a few occasional check-ins.

“You doing okay, baby?”

Zanco has been a tattoo artist for seven years at Route 9 Tattoo in Framingham, Massachusetts – and she takes both her job and her art very seriously.

She grew up in Poland and attended art school there, knowing it would prepare her for any artistic career she decided to pursue.

Zanco said her favorite part of the profession is “the creative part.”

“It’s amazing. I love my job,” she said.

She said life as a tattoo artist has no downfalls “because you have doing your artwork, which is very amazing because a lot of people even ask for your art, so it’s very complimentary, and then you do it on the skin which is forever, until you die - until your body dies.”

Zanco dedicates her life to her career.

It is her lifestyle.

“You don’t have life - I mean, this is your life. This is the life,” she said.

“You cannot drink. You cannot abuse yourself. You’ve got to be 100 percent all the time and you’ve got to be healthy because it’s a lot of working with your back and your neck. … So if this is not your passion, then it’s going to be hard.

Photo courtesy of Corin Cook

There has to be passion. There has to be obsession, almost.”

Being a tattoo artist is a serious, involved commitment – but so is being the tattooed.

Matthew Groehl, 25, of Uxbridge, was also present during those three and a half hours watching his girlfriend get tattooed. “[She] handled it well,” he said. “[She] has a high pain threshold.”

Groehl understands the important commitment that accompanies a tattoo – he, himself, has nine.

“You have to consider all of the things that a tattoo may be perceived as to other people,” he said.

One of his nine tattoos are the Greek letters Alpha and Omega, “taken from a passage of the Bible where God references himself as the Alpha and the Omega – the beginning and the end,” he said.

This tattoo has often been mistaken

for a tattoo representing a fraternity, something he “was not a part of,” and “would not want to be a part of,” he said.

“I have always had a distaste for Greek life, but especially with the negative media coverage they [fraternities] have been getting as of late. I wouldn’t want to be mistaken for a member of one,” he said.

Groehl said he hopes his girlfriend will never regret her new tattoo and suspects she won’t. “[She] put a lot of hard work and thought into designing it,” he said.

When Zanco is finished, she wipes off excess ink, applies A+D ointment, and wraps the leg in plastic wrap.

I look down - there it is. Right there on my leg, permanently. Those three and a half hours, which seemed like an eternity, were actually a quite miniscule segment of time in comparison to how long the piece of art will last - forever.

Inspect the tech with Cesareo Contreras: Some apps you should check out

By Cesareo Contreras Asst. Arts & Features Editor

Let’s face it, a large part of our communication with the world is through the use of mobile applications - posting a status to Facebook, composing a funny tweet, or liking someone’s vacation pictures on Instagram. We are an appdriven society. Yet there are so many functional and great apps people aren’t aware of that could make these tools so much more enjoyable and make owning a smartphone more valuable. While there are many to choose from, here are some apps I think everyone should check out: Relay for Reddit /Alien Blue Reddit is the “front page of the internet” and I’m sure I’m not the only one that is on this website all the time. The primary way I check out the site is by using one of the best-designed and functional Reddit clients on Android, Relay for Reddit by developer DBrady. Using Google’s Material Design language guidelines, this app feels native to the platform and makes perusing through Reddit a joy. Unfortunately, this is an Android-only app, but Alien Blue on iOS is actually Reddit’s official client, so for iOS users Alien Blue will provide

a first-rate experience. Windows Phone users should check Readit for Windows Phone, by Message Across Studios, which is also pretty good. Alien Blue and Relay have free apps and pro versions, but Readit only has a paid app for $1.99.

Alien Blue PRO can be bought for $1.99 and Relay for Reddit (Pro) for $2.99.

Android, Windows Phone and Amazon devices, this app makes saving and scanning documents and class notes simple.

Just take a picture of the document you want to save, crop the image, apply the black and white filter, and presto, you have a saved quality image for later viewing. There is a premium version which cost $1.99 without ads, and they also have a optional subscription service for $4.99 a month or $49.99 a year, which gives extra features like more cloud space and auto-upload to cloud storage sites like Google Drive Melina Bourdeau/The Gatepost and OneDrive.

CamScanner Do you ever wish you could put all your notes on your phone to have them all organized for later viewing?

Do you ever wish you could scan documents without having to go to an actual scanning machine? If you answered yes to both or one of those questions, well, CamScanner by Intsig Information Co., Ltd. might be what you are looking for. Available for free on iOS,

Pocket Casts Podcasts are great, and if you aren’t listening to them you are seriously missing out. Whether it’s comedy, television shows or cars, there’s a podcast about

almost anything. One of the best ways to listen to these streams is through the podcast app, Pocket Casts by Shifty Jelly. Although, it is pretty expensive at $3.99, this app is arguably the most beautiful podcast app on both Google Play and the App store and is chockfull of features. Some of those features include cross-platform sync, the ability to cache podcasts for offline use, and Chromecast support.

Crossy Road Crossy Road, developed by Hipster Whale and published by Yodo1 Games, has been compared to the arcade classic Frogger and is a blast to play. Essentially, you start the game as a rooster trying to cross busy roads with many cars, trains and river streams. The goal of the game is to try and take as many steps as possible before either drowning in a river, getting hit by a car or by not moving fast enough. The game stays interesting by introducing unlockable characters, and there are dozens of them including an Android robot, a ghost and a zombie.

The game is free on Google Play, the App Store and the Amazon App Store.

Arts & Features

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April 17, 2015

Student Profile: Zachary Benard

By Avarie Cook Arts & Features Editor

Oftentimes, being at college can feel like being stuck on an island, unable to get free and live the life you want. The actual feeling of having to survive the life of a college student is often unexplainable.

Junior Zachary Benard released a book - available on Amazon - of 25 poems titled “The Lost Islander” on Tuesday, April 14 describing that feeling through a narrative about a man stuck on an island wishing he could be reunited with the woman he loves.

“I feel like this is where I belong, but at the same time I don’t wanna be here,” Benard said reluctantly.

He wrote the book with the intention of having the island be a metaphor for school. The protagonist of the book is not prepared to be on the island because it forces him to be removed from the rest of the world, where he wants to experience new things in different places.

Although Benard sees himself in the main character of “The Lost Islander,” he hopes that the character can resonate with the audience.

To express the feelings of despair, uncertainty, and longing in the main character, Benard uses a variety of descriptions of the island’s scenery, giving the reader the feeling that they are trapped in a melancholy paradise. The protagonist also experiences mental mirages of the woman he yearns to see again.

“I felt like I was trapped because this is what I had to go through before I got to see her again,” Benard said. “So I had to persevere through everything that’s on the island and then make my way off it to see her.”

“The book is kind of like jumping into something you’re not ready for, but you’ve kinda committed to,” Benard said. “Liz [his girlfriend] and I entered into a long-distance relationship and I would see her every seven or eight weeks.”

He admits that he was the one to bring up the topic when the time came for her to go back to school in Chicago.

Benard described this experience as challenging because he has never been through it before.

He compared it to the protagonist being afraid of jumping in the water due to not being accustomed to

sailing through it, along with his inability to swim.

In Benard’s favorite poem of the book, “By the Moon,” he writes, “I fear this water while it welcomes me.” The main character is frequently staring into the water, contemplating the idea that the water is his unforgiving enemy that fascinates him at the same time.

“Although I am fascinated with nature, I kind of present it in a bad light,” Benard said. “In the book, it takes a mystical turn. I’m personifying the water, but in reality it does not care for anything.

I’m afraid of it, but if I fall in, it’s going to welcome me with open arms.”

The protagonist describes the water as, “An unforgiving entity that will swallow me whole.” Benard said he calls the water “unforgiving” because once you’re in it it doesn’t help you.

“You have to fend for yourself as an individual while you’re out in the water,” Benard said.

“There’s nothing that’s going to help you swim, you have to learn on your own.”

Benard shares the main character’s fear of water due to his own lack of swimming skills.

There are poems throughout the book, such as “The Ebb,” that seem to journal the man’s idle

Photo courtesy of Zachary Benard

Newly published author, Zachary Benard plans on pursuing film production, while continuing to explore the world of poetry. usually don’t get so depressed about life,” Benard said. “And he’s basically recalling on past memories, so he’s seeing stuff that reminds him of her. He’s sees people who can come and go as they please and are happy with

“You have to fend for yourself as an individual while you’re out in the water.

There’s nothing that’s going to help you swim. You have to learn on your own.”

- Junior Zachary Benard thoughts about being alone on the island. Benard said these were put in to express the character’s loneliness and how his thoughts consume him while he is stuck there.

“When you’re with people, you

someone they love, and he can’t get that right now.”

Benard conceived the idea of “The Lost Islander” during the fall of his sophomore year, intending it to be an EP of about five or

six songs.

“I wanted something to write about to kind of console myself,” he said.

He ended up proposing it to his friend and editor-in-chief of ThatLitSite, Jayme Karales, as a book, asking him if it were something that would be published by their independent press, ThatLitPress.

“I ran it by him and said, ‘Would this be something that you think could get published?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, absolutely,’” Benard said.

“So that gave me more of a reason to work on it because I knew that this was definitely something that I could turn into a bigger project.”

Benard is also a contributing editor of ThatLitSite, but writing is not the main focus for his future.

He plans on pursuing a career in film production, preferably writing and directing his own films.

He believes it would be hard to make a living off of writing poetry books. However, he admits that this will not be his last.

“I’ve actually started working on another,” Benard said. “I want this to be a continuous thing. I feel like my writing will develop more and more as I get older and I want to be able to show that.”

Benard said his second book will follow the theme of his fascination with nature and personifying it.

Arts & Features

April 17, 2015

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People of the book Muslim students advocate for prayer center, student group

This ARticle is the third and final part of a series examining religion and students of faith at Framingham State university.

Kaila Braley/The Gatepost

Pictured above is the room in O’Connor Hall, G26, which will be developed into the Interfaith Prayer Center.

By Kaila Braley Editor-in-Chief

O’Connor Hall, a building where many students sleep and study and where many faculty hold office hours, will now also be the place where community members can reserve space to pray.

Senior Rita Punjabi is a Muslim commuter student who had a difficult time finding a private place on campus to pray, which her religion requires her to do five times a day.

Punjabi would try to find empty classrooms or corners to have a private moment, but she would often be interrupted.

“We had to always look around for hidden spots where we could do our thing without being disturbed, and it never really happened. We could find a spot, but it’s always somebody walking by, or it’s dirty, or distracting,” she said.

While she said she hasn’t felt discrimination or judgement from other students on campus because of her religion, she also doesn’t often talk about

religion with her peers. Punjabi said when she attended Bunker Hill Community College, before transferring to FSU three years ago, she noticed that the student body was more diverse and interested in asking others about their culture.

Here, she said, students don’t seem to ask questions of those around them.

her to Assistant Dean of Students David Baldwin, who directed her back to Najjar.

Eventually, Punjabi went to speak with Director of the Mulitcultural Center Kathy Martinez, who recommended she contact President F. Javier Cevallos with her request, who, Punjabi said, was very receptive and interested

dleston.

Thanks to Punjabi’s request, FSU’s Interfaith Prayer Center is in the process of being designed. As of now, the room, G26, appears to be quite literally a blank slate - a small square room with white walls, exposed piping, one table, two chairs and a bench. Punjabi provided some rugs that students can spread on the ground if they choose to.

“Our religion is very simple. We believe in simplicity and modesty.

We don’t need anything really, other than a carpet, because it makes it clean, and hopefully a shoe rack where we can leave our shoes, because we pray without shoes,” she said.

Punjabi wasn’t able to attend one of the developmental meetings for the prayer center, but she does have some hopes and concerns for the center.

Her biggest concern as of now is that students may have a hard time finding the center or might not come across it easily. She said she would love for the

“In Islam, we call them the people of the book - that’s the Muslims, the Jews and the Christians, as we all have that one book, like the Torah, the Bible and the Qu’ran that is sort of a guide for our religions. So we have a lot of similar beliefs in those religions.

“We aren’t as different as people think.”

- Freshman Dana Lobad Punjabi spoke with Dean of Graduate Studies Yaser Najjar about the struggle to find a place to pray, and he suggested the idea of a room dedicated for prayer. She then spoke to Dean of Students Melinda Stoops, who directed

in her idea.

Punjabi requested a space to pray at the end of last semester, and the room should be available for use by the end of the year, according to Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Sean Hud-

- Continued on page 18

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Arts & Features

April 17, 2015

People of the book - Continued from page 18

center to be relocated to the McCarthy Center, so it could be a place where students could easily get away for quiet reflection or a moment of prayer.

She was also concerned that the part of the building in which the center is located is locked at six p.m., which might make it difficult for students to be able to pray at the times of the day in which they would need to.

One of the students on the committee deciding what the center will include is junior Nuzaiba Hader.

“I’m not a devout Muslim,” Hader said, adding that she cares a lot about equal rights for any group of people, and advocating for resources specifically for Islamic people. “Here, I’m really involved in stuff that’s geared toward that, and in that is the Interfaith Center.”

Hader approached Huddleston to ask to be part of the committee that would help decide what resources to include in the center.

“What I want to do is not just have an interfaith center, like have a room and that’s it,” she said. “I want to make sure all the resources are provided. So for the Muslim faith, there’s the foot wash room. I want to learn more about Hinduism, Buddhism. I want to have scriptures, books. Just to make it a lively place, because for some people, this will be a place they will go to every day.”

Hader lived in Pakistan and then UAE until 2001, when her family moved to America. No one in her family knew how to speak English, so she and her siblings learned English in school, but her parents took longer to become fluent.

She said food and clothing were the biggest culture shocks she observed after moving to America. “My aunt gave me all of the fattiest foods you could be introduced to,” she said.

Hader wore a shalwar kameez at home, the traditional clothing from Pakistan. As she and her family members around her age grew up, their clothes began to become more Americanized. It was still important to remain modest, she said.

When she is celebrating a holiday or going to the mosque, however, she still wears traditional clothes. Hader said in the clothes she wears at school, she feels more comfortable and more like herself, but when she wears traditional clothes or a hijab, she feels more pressure to make sure she represents her faith and culture respectfully.

Hader said she doesn’t wear a hijab because she doesn’t practice Islam faithfully enough to honor what the hijab represents.

Hader said she considers herself Muslim, but doesn’t practice her religion as much as she used to growing up. Hader commuted her freshman year, and still frequently went to the mosque with her family, but since living at college, she has moved away

from the rituals she previously undertook with her family at home.

“As you grow older, you figure yourself out. You find your own identity,” she said.

This movement away from practic-

one, so I thought, ‘I’ll start one,’” Lobad said.

Lobad began by contacting Martinez from the Multicultural Center to get a sense of how many students on campus are Muslim and might be interested in

country, in the 1990s. Islamic traditions informed how her parents raised her. In fact, she attended an Islamic school until fifth grade, when she transferred to public school.

She preferred public school, Lobad said, “just because personally, I’m more of a liberal person, so when you learn about Islam in other schools, it’s the teachers pushing their opinions onto you, and I would come home every day with questions.”

She said the teachings she learned at school often didn’t line up with those of her parents, so it was easier for her to learn religious traditions and beliefs through her parents while she attended public school. She added, however, that she did enjoy being able to share the same religious holidays and experiences with her classmates.

“But it was nice. Like during Ramadan - the month when we fast - everyone was fasting with you. So it was easy,” she added. The students in the school would also pray together on Fridays, which is the Islamic holy day.

One of Lobad’s favorite Islamic traditions is one of two holidays Muslims celebrate each year. This one, Hajj, celebrates the end of the pilgrimage to Mecca. The pilgrimage is a rite of passage that Muslims are meant to complete at least once in their life, if they have the means.

“Everyone goes to the mosque in the morning, and we pray together.

And then you spend just hours at the mosque, hanging out with people,” she said.

She said she loves how the atmosphere is happy, open-hearted and celebratory, even with those in her community whom she does not know well.

Lobad also likes when people ask her about her religion. “It’s a huge part of my life. It’s a lifestyle, so I do like talkPhoto courtesty of Nuzaiba Hader ing about it to people. They get curious. I don’t get offended when they ask Nuzaiba Hader wearing traditional clothing. Hader is an advocate for questions.” equal rights, especially for the Islamic faith. She requested to be part At FSU, Lobad hasn’t experienced discrimination based on her religion. of the committee to develop the Interfaith Prayer Center.

She doesn’t wear a hijab, except at her mosque, which, she said, means people ing Islam came as a shock to her fam- joining such a group. don’t immediately recognize she is ily, who requested she speak with a reMartinez knew a few Muslim stu- Muslim. ligious scholar about the Qu’ran. dents, but not many. Lobad found out She does recognize that there are She said that while she doesn’t con- from SILD that she needed at least misconceptions about Islam in general, sider herself devout, she does look to eight students interested in order to including that the hijab is a symbol of the Islamic teachings and principles start the group. oppression for women. “It’s up to the her family raised her with to help her Lobad approached a few students she woman. … It’s a personal thing.” make moral decisions and base how knew who were Muslim who said they Lobad said it’s important to recogshe lives her life. would join such a group. One senior nize that Islam is not very different “I guess since I’m in touch with my Lobad approached said she had been from the other major monotheistic relifamily a lot, I talk to my mother almost looking for a place to pray on campus, gions. “We all have one God - the same every day - I think it keeps me ground- and would love the opportunity to have God, ultimately,” she said. ed,” she said. a student group.

“In Islam, we call them the people of Dana Lobad, a freshman, commutes Just recently, Lobad met another the book - that’s the Muslims, the Jews to FSU and, like Punjabi, has struggled Muslim student who she knows is in- and the Christians, as we all have that to find a place on campus to pray dur- terested in the student group, but they one book, like the Torah, the Bible and ing the day. don’t know whether they will be able the Qu’ran that is sort of a guide for our She said that was why, in the first to find enough people who are inter- religions. So we have a lot of similar few weeks of this academic year, she ested by the deadline for creating clubs beliefs in those religions. initiated discussions to start an Islamic next year. She is still trying to recruit “We aren’t as different as people student group on campus. participants. think.”

“Framingham was one of the only Lobad’s parents moved to America colleges I applied to that didn’t have from Quait, which is a largely Muslim

April 17, 2015

Arts & Features

Album Review:

19

Kendrick Lamar “To Pimp a Butterfly”

By Danielle Butler Staff Writer

After a month of listening and replaying “To Pimp a Butterfly,” the complexity of its content and nature continue to unravel, as the album holds on to its own unique status in the string of great music so far released in 2015.

On March 16, Kendrick Lamar debuted his second commercial studio album, “To Pimp a Butterfly” released a week early from its expected date.

Lamar gives an unapologetic recount of his black experience in America, from start to fame.

Lamar has created a poignant and detailed continuation of his life story from where he left off in 2012 when he released his acclaimed album, “Good Kid M.a.a.d City.”

In November, he released the thirteenth single on the album, “Blacker The Berry,” which came as a surprise after an album filled with party tracks and radio hits.

A heavy, fast paced song which does addresses the contradictory nature of existing amongst institutional and internalized racism, gang-banging, police murders, being black and loving yourself in this country. All themes Lamar tackles.

Lamar reveals his past throughout the rest of the album through which, he comments on America, and its po-

tential future.

Boris Gardener sings, “Every nigga is star” as the first words of the album in the opening track, “Wesleys Theory.” As this song, goes on, we see Lamar’s journey through the new money he’s receiving for his talents, Hollywood’s reactions to him and other celebrated black people like himself.

The lesson Lamar caught from all of this - if you are Black with money, watch out. They’ll “Wesley Snipe yo ass before thirty five.”

In an interview with MTV, Lamar discussed “Wesley’s theory,” his favorite track, saying, “it talks about something we weren’t taught in school, when we get this money.” He said he believes that the American education system did not prepare black children on how to gain financial success because that was never a part of the plan.

“King Kunta” comes in funky as it wants to be. “I am a king, no matter what you call me,” said Lamar, in the same interview. He went on to describe the song as “simplistic, in a boastful way ... [while] also having a sense of integrity behind it.”

He sees himself as a descendent of kings, and therefore he views himself as one. An Afrocentric belief to say the least, but Kendrick discussed in the interview that his recent trips to South Africa in particular, inspired visions for songs on the album.

“I remember you was conflicted, misusing your influence,” Lamar repeats throughout the album.

Lamar expresses his “survivors guilt” in the song “u,” while accepting his success and giving listeners a glimpse into the weight of that guilt.

“Nothing was as vulnerable as that record,” Lamar reflected in the same interview. He said this song explored “going through change and accepting change. That’s the hardest thing for man.”

Literally screaming and aching in the song, to represent this internal struggle.

“The overall theme, for me, personally for this album is leadership,” explained Lamar.

Right in the gut of this album, as listeners are trying to see where Kendrick is headed with all of this, all they hear is “ALLS MY LIFE I HADS TO FIGHT, NIGGA!” with the energy catching the listener.

“Alright” storms through like a parade, reminding listeners exactly that, “we gon be alright”.

However, Lamar explains, “It’s not just the positive energy that speaks.

It’s the negative too, the evil.”

Lamar takes a spiritual approach to his own life and his music. However, the messages are applicable to all audiences.

He may not discuss it all or have the answers, but he covers a lot in a

timely manner, considering the fragile state of American color lines today.

To close the album, Lamar incorporates a previously unreleased interview with Tupac Shakur, in which he talked to the legend about our current state in America.

Shakur felt as though we were headed into an explosive time, where as he put it, “next time it’s a riot, it’s gonna be a bloodshed, like Nat Turner in 1831.”

As Lamar sees it, “The only hope we kind of have left is music and vibrations.”

He then tells Shakur a story. A story of a caterpillar and a butterfly, of growth, of being cocooned, trapped, and shedding those layers, but taking with you the knowledge of the dark and the light.

“Finally free, the butterfly sheds light on situations that the caterpillar never considered, ending the internal struggle,” Lamar says. “Although the butterfly and caterpillar are completely different, they are one and the same.”

“To Pimp a Butterfly” takes from gospel, jazz, rap and hip-hop, as well as all different genres of music. It also draws from prominent themes in culture and history, and is a personal story we can only continue to watch and understand as Lamar allows us.

Graphic by Danielle Butler/The Gatepost

20

April 17, 2015

Body shaming

- Continued from page 15

ing a favor to those whom they are ridiculing.

“Some people try to mask it as a health concern,” said Lin. During the last week of February, the FSU SEALS (Support, Education, Action, Leadership, Strength) held a “Love Your Body Week” in correspondence with National Eating Disorders Awareness Week.

The event included two interactive tables about body image and eating disorders.

The “LOVE YOUR SELFIE” station provided large sticky notes for students to complete the sentence “I am beautiful be-

cause…” The pictures will be made into a large collage that will hang in the Health Center. A mason jar filled with Hershey Kisses and encouraging phrases was also raffled off.

Co-leader of the SEALS and nurse practitioner at the Wellness Education Office of the FSU Health Center Pamela Lehmberg said, “The students respond very positively to Love Your Body week.”

She said it is difficult to overcome body image issues with the prevalence of “advertisements describing products that can fix, tighten, improve, slim down, make sexy

and beautiful, anti-aging,” in society.

Junior Jackie Diehl said that people should be educated about the negative effects of body-shaming.

“Fat-shaming is awful. It causes eating disorders and stuff like that, but so does skinny-shaming. It causes binge-eating disorders,” she said.

Sophomore Elyse Corbett considers herself successful in overcoming the negative effects of body- shaming. She said she was shamed as a child for being overweight to the point that it was mentally scarring.

“Luckily, I’ve gotten over that with the

help from family and friends, and just being happy with who I am,” she said, “but I feel like not many people are that lucky - like the mental scarring stays with them.”

She said she still suffers on occasion but the support from people doing the opposite of body-shaming helps.

“I don’t think anybody has the right to say, ‘you’re too skinny, you’re too fat, you’re too tall, you’re too short, too pale, too tan,’” Corbett said. “If they’re happy with who they are, let them be.”

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Interested in journalism and human interest stories?

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April 17, 2015

Arts & Features

21

Campus Conversations What is the meaning of life?

“To love others.”

By Amelia Foley & Brad Leuchte

“To have fun.”

- Katie Moreau, junior

-Matthew Nagel, junior

“To meet good people, have a good time and at the end of the day be happy.”

“To be kind.”

- Emily Crocker, junior

-Lorenzo Giovanella, sophomore

“Enjoying everything that you do.”

“Not to be mean to people and have fun. ” - Hannah Reinhart, sophomore

- Collen O’Connor, senior

Edited by Timothy E. Parker April 17, 2015 SHREDS OF EVIDENCE By Rob Lee ACROSS 1 5 10 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 23 24 25 28 30 31 33 36 40 41

42 43 44

Farm yield Black tea from India Schooner part Lamp type Piggish types State openly Seemingly forever ___ del Sol Domesticated Future co-defendants Like barely cooked eggs Lubricated No man is one, to Donne Cameo stone Bisque morsel Subway handhold A mammal has three Sucking it up Dash abbr.

They’re crossed in Olympic competition Creole pod Kind of check Loosey in “Chicken Little”

46 49 51 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

One place to be lost Seize illegally Kin of polls It doesn’t qualify as a duet Some soft drink options Reed in a pit One way to stand by Decree “___ we forget ...”

Some whiskeys Office stations Ogles

DOWN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 21

Bit of thunder Muffin head?

“Your turn” Deli order, sometimes Climb Like much testimony Cream puff Nay sayer Not easy to get along with Reeves/Fishburne film (with “The”) Be of use to WWI battle site Material for many jackets Mother Teresa was one

Last issue’s solutions:

22 25 26 27 28 29 31 32 33 34 35 37 38 39 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 52 53 54 55 56

Aquatic rodent Nuclear weapon, for short Berth place Bedmaker’s strip?

Rocks worth something Apprehend Proofreader’s mark, sometimes Not just any Caribous’ cousins A ___ pittance “Don’t go!”

High land Feds’ document producer Way out of a contract Onetime Indian soldiers Hosts’ handfuls Food scrap Buzzing Not on time Photographer’s request Wrinkly fruits Buss Decorated, as a cake Central point Comply with One teaspoon, often Adjusts, as a clock

22

Ads

April 17, 2015

April 17, 2015

23

Sports

NBA PLAYOFFS 1. Atlanta Hawks Record - 60-22 Coach – Mike Budenholzer (98-66) PPG – 102.5 PPG Allowed – 97.1 Leading Scorer – Paul Millsap (16.8 PPG)

2. Cleveland Cavaliers

Record – 53-29 Coach – David Blatt (53-29) PPG – 103.1 PPG Allowed – 98.7 Leading Scorer – LeBron James (25.3 PPG)

3. Chicago Bulls Record – 50-32 Coach – Tom Thibodeau (394-255) PPG – 100.8 PPG Allowed – 97.8 Leading Scorer – Jimmy Butler (20.0 PPG)

4. Toronto Raptors Record – 49-33 Coach – Dwane Casey (207-227) PPG – 104.1 PPG Allowed – 100.9 Leading Scorer – DeMar DeRozan (20.1 PPG)

1. Golden State Warriors Record – 67-15 Coach – Steve Kerr (67-15) PPG – 110.0 PPG Allowed – 99.9 Leading Scorer – Stephen Curry (23.9 PPG)

2. Houston Rockets Record – 56-26 Coach – Kevin McHale (406-228) PPG – 103.9 PPG Allowed – 100.5 Leading Scorer – James Harden (27.4 PPG)

3. Los Angeles Clippers Record – 56 -26 Coach – Doc Rivers (700-524) PPG – 106.7 PPG Allowed – 100.1 Leading Scorer – Blake Griffin (21.9 PPG)

4. Portland Trail Blazers Record – 51-31 Coach – Terry Stotts (253-276) PPG – 102.8 PPG Allowed – 98.6 Leading Scorer – LaMarcus Aldridge (23.4)

EAST

Brooklyn @ Atlanta – April 19 Brooklyn @ Atlanta – April 22 Atlanta @ Brooklyn – April 25 Atlanta @ Brooklyn – April 27 Brooklyn @ Atlanta – April 29 (if nec.)

Atlanta @ Brooklyn – May 1 (if nec.)

Brooklyn @ Atlanta – May 3 (if nec.)

Boston @ Cleveland – April 19 Boston @ Cleveland – April 21 Cleveland @ Boston – April 23 Cleveland @ Boston – April 26 Boston @ Cleveland – April 28 (if nec.)

Cleveland @ Boston – April 30 (if nec.)

Boston @ Cleveland – May 2 (if nec.)

Milwaukee @ Chicago – April 18 Milwaukee @ Chicago – April 20 Chicago @ Milwaukee – April 23 Chicago @ Milwaukee – April 25 Milwaukee @ Chicago – April 27 (if nec.)

Chicago @ Milwaukee – April 30 (if nec.)

Milwaukee @ Chicago – May 2 (if nec.)

Washington @ Toronto – April 18 Washington @ Toronto – April 21 Toronto @ Washington – April 24 Toronto @ Washington – April 26 Washington @ Toronto – TBD (if nec.)

Toronto @ Washington – TBD (if nec.)

Washington @ Toronto – TBD (if nec.)

WEST

New Orleans @ Golden State – April 18 New Orleans @ Golden State – April 20 Golden State @ New Orleans – April 23 Golden State @ New Orleans – April 25 New Orleans @ Golden Stae – April 28 (if nec.)

Golden State @ New Orleans – May 1 (if nec.)

New Orleans @ Golden State – May 3 (if nec.)

Dallas @ Houston – April 18 Dallas @ Houston – April 21 Houston @ Dallas – April 24 Houston @ Dallas – April 26 Dallas @ Houston – April 28 (if nec.)

Houston @ Dallas – April 30 (if nec.)

Dallas @ Houston – May 2 (if nec.)

San Antonio @ Los Angeles – April 19 San Antonio @ Los Angeles – April 22 Los Angeles @ San Antonio – April 24 Los Angeles @ San Antonio – April 26 San Antonio @ Los Angeles – April 28 (if nec.)

Los Angeles @ San Antonio – April 30 (if nec.)

San Antonio @ Los Angeles – May 2 (if nec.)

Portland @ Memphis – April 19 Portland @ Memphis – April 22 Memphis @ Portland – April 25 Memphis @ Portland – April 27 Portland @ Memphis – April 29 (if nec.)

Memphis @ Portland – May 1 (if nec.)

Portland @ Memphis – May 3 (if nec.)

8. Brooklyn Nets Record – 37-45 Coach – Lionel Hollins (497-252) PPG – 98.0 PPG Allowed – 100.9 Leading Scorer – Brook Lopez (17.2 PPG)

7. Boston Celtics Record – 40-42 Coach – Brad Stevens (65-99) PPG – 101.4 PPG Allowed – 101.2 Leading Scorer – Isaiah Thomas (19.0 PPG)

6. Milwaukee Bucks Record – 41-41 Coach – Jason Kidd (85-79) PPG – 97.8 PPG Allowed – 97.4 Leading Scorer – Michael Carter-Williams (14.6 PPG)

5. Washington Wizards Record – 46-36 Coach – Randy Wittman (237-365) PPG – 98.5 PPG Allowed – 97.8 Lead Scorer – John Wall (17.6 PPG)

8. New Orleans Pelicans Record – 45-37 Coach – Monty Williams (173-221) PPG – 99.4 PPG Allowed – 98.6 Leading Scorer – Anthony Davis (24.3 PPG)

7. Dallas Mavericks Record – 50-32 Coach – Rick Carlisle (1050-619) PPG – 105.2 PPG Allowed – 102.3 Leading Scorer – Monta Ellis (18.9)

6. San Antonio Spurs Record – 55-27 Coach – Gregg Popovich (1022-470) PPG – 103.2 PPG Allowed – 97.0 Leading Scorer – Kawhi Leonard (16.5 PPG)

5. Memphis Grizzlies Record – 55-27 Coach – David Joerger (105-59) PPG – 98.3 PPG Allowed – 95.1 Leading Scorer – Marc Gasol (17.4 PPG) Photos Courtesy of Creative Commons

Sports

24

Ferr or Foul?

The best that never will be

Jeff Poole/The Gatepost

By Michael Ferris Sports Editor

Aaron Hernandez’s sentence was handed down Wednesday – life in prison without parole.

The ironic part of it all is that this might not even be the worst of the punishment.

NFL Insider Adam Schefter tweeted after the sentencing that Hernandez will likely be able to hear the cheers of Gillette Stadium from the prison yard on Sundays as MCI Cedar Junction, located in Walpole, Mass., is only a mile and a half from Gillette.

So while Hernandez will most likely never be a free man again, pending appeal, maybe the cruelest part of his time will be hearing Patriots fans roar and wondering what could have been.

What could have been had the

tight end, who was emerging as elite, not been connected to the shooting of a man’s face in Miami, a double homicide in Boston or Odin Lloyd?

This path of delinquency all started when Hernandez was playing at the University of Florida and ran into trouble at a local bar in Gainesville, the location of the university, for engaging in a fight.

Should we all have known that he was destined for something like this then?

In 2007, the then 17 year old Hernandez allegedly consumed a few drinks in a Gainesville restaurant, neglected paying the bill and struck an employee in the side of the face when being ushered out of the establishment. This incident was later settled out of court.

Then in 2012, a double murder in the South End of Boston left Daniel de Abreu and Safiro Furtado dead. The pending investigation ended with Hernandez being indicted on murder charges.

The year 2013 was a particularly violent year for Hernandez. Earlier in the year, he had a lawsuit filed against him for shooting his friend, Alexander Bradley, in the face, following a disagreement they had at a Miami nightclub.

As if all of these incidents weren’t bad enough, the legal troubles continued and ultimately peaked when Hernandez was charged with first-degree murder in the case of Odin Lloyd.

The sky was the limit for this athletically-gifted tight end. Stronger than cornerbacks, but quicker than linebackers, Hernandez was a matchup problem for every team in the league especially

when paired with the similar body of Rob Gronkowski.

Patriots fans have to wonder how many Lombardi Trophies this tandem might have brought back to Foxborough had Hernandez not decided a life of crime was more appealing to him.

How is it that someone who stood 6-foot-2, weighed 245 pounds and still could run a 4.64 40-yard dash decided that guns and murders were more significant than touchdowns and Super Bowl trophies?

With Hernandez’s incarceration, I can only hope that players like Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, who were involved in domestic vi-

April 17, 2015

olence cases, and Johnny Manziel, who has recently been to rehab, can use this as an eye-opener and understand just how lucky and superb they are.

Aaron Hernandez is one of the most-talented tight ends to come out of college in recent memory but instead of showing everyone what he is capable of and entertaining fans with his unbelievable skill, Hernandez’s talent will go to waste in a jail cell, never to be put on display again.

Photo Courtesy of Creative Commons

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Meetings Mondays and Thursdays at 6:30 p.m. in Room 410 of the McCarthy Center

Sports

APRIL 17, 2015

The kid from Arlington, The man from South Bend

25

Pat Connaughton ready to take on life as professional baseball player

By Steven Santoro Staff Writer

Patrick Connaughton is a young man that has many different titles.

He’s the 2011 Massachusetts High School Player of the Year, he’s going to be a college graduate in May, he’s a member of the 2015 All-Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) basketball team and he’s a professional baseball player for the Baltimore Orioles. But above all else, Connaughton will tell you that he is just a kid from Arlington and people will tell you that he’s one of the best leaders you will ever meet. With his college career officially ending and his professional about to begin, it’s time to see how Connaughton came to the national stage.

Connaughton stands at 6-foot-5 and weighs 212 pounds. He played quarterback in high school and was able to play baseball and basketball at Notre Dame - something that is extremely rare for someone who plays at a Division I college. He is a small forward in basketball and a starting pitcher for the Fighting Irish. Connaughton has a deadly 3-point shot and a 97 miles per hour fast ball. He became a full-time starter for both teams by his sophomore year. When comparing the two sports, Connaughton has a great passion for both but is a far superior baseball player. In the 2014 Major League Baseball (MLB) Draft, he was selected in the fourth round by the Baltimore Orioles and is the ninth-rated prospect in the entire organization.

Here’s the interesting fact that not many people know about Connaughton and what makes him different from the average 22-year old.

To start off, he informed all MLB teams before the draft that he would be returning to school for his senior year to play basketball. Before announcing that decision he was expected to be a first round pick and

Photo courtesy of Jordanspiethgolf.com

Photo Courtesy of University of Notre Dame Photo Center

Pat Connaughton intently looks on in a Sweet Sixteen game against Wichita State in which he scored 16 points and secured 10 rebounds. sign a deal for over a million dollars. Instead, he settled for a deal worth $450,000 with the Baltimore Orioles. Connaughton had two main reasons for giving up half a million dollars. First, he wanted to help his teammate and best friend in need, Jerian Grant. Grant and Connaughton are the same age and went to Notre Dame at the same time. Grant was by far the Irish’s best player, averaging 19 points per game, however, he was sidelined for the second half of the year due to academic suspension.

Connaughton wanted to stay and help out his best friend get his act togeth-

er. One year later, during their senior season, Grant was reinstated and became a First Team All-American and a Wooden Award Finalist. Grant is also expected to be a lottery pick in the upcoming NBA draft. The second reason Connaughton returned was because his work wasn’t done in basketball.

Last year, during his junior season, the Irish finished 15-17. As the team’s sole captain, Connaughton wanted to finish his collegiate career on a good note and leave the Irish basketball program in a better place than when he arrived. Under the senior leader-

MASTERS RESULTS

1. Jordan Spieth -18 T2. Phil Mickelson -14 T2. Justin Rose -14 4. Rory McIlroy -12 5. Hideki Matsuyama -11 T6. Paul Casey -9 T6. Ian Poulter -9 T6. Dustin Johnson -9 T9. Hunter Mahan -8 T9. Zach Johnson -8

ship of Connaughton and Grant, they led the team to a 32-6 record, an ACC Championship and an Elite Eight appearance. After the Fighting Irish suffered a 68-66 defeat at the hands of the undefeated Kentucky Wildcats in the Elite Eight, Coach Mike Brey praised his senior captain. Brey said he hasn’t coached a player with more leadership and heart than Connaughton. While Connaughton’s collegiate career may be ending, his professional career is just beginning.

T9. Charley Hoffman -8 T12. Rickie Fowler -6 T12. Ryan Moore -6 T12. Bill Haas -6 T12. Kevin Na -6 T12. Kevin Streelman -6 T17. Sergio Garcia -5 T17. Tiger Woods -5 T19. Henrik Stenson -4 T19. Louis Oosthuizen -4

Sports

26

Around the Horn

April 17, 2015

BASEBALL

By Robert Alvarez Staff Writer

On Saturday April 11, Framingham State and Westfield State played a doubleheader with both teams splitting the day with a win each.

In the first game, The Owls jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the first inning on RBI singles by Danny DiMatteo and Connor Sheridan.

The Owls’ offense followed that up with a run in the second and third to

Framingham State (13-8)

3-7

On Saturday April 11, Framingham State and Westfield State played a doubleheader with both teams splitting the day with a win each.

In the first game, The Owls jumped out to an early 3-0 lead in the first inning on RBI singles by Danny DiMatteo and Connor Sheridan.

The Owls’ offense followed that up with a run in the second and third to

Framingham State (14-8)

(14-9)

Framingham State (17-11)

Westfield

attempt to first base.

Southern Maine took control of the game in innings six and seven by scoring six runs over those two frames and pushed the score to 12-6.

Gerard and John Gill each drove in a run in the eighth inning but it would be the closest the Rams would get as Southern Maine kept the deficit at four and won the game 12-8.

Dillon Corliss took the loss for the Rams going 5.1 innings while allowing seven runs, three earned on eight hits.

Andrew Richards received the victory for Southern Maine pitching in four innings of relief while striking out seven and allowing just two runs on five hits.

8 - 12

The Framingham State Rams found themselves on the losing end of a 19-8 offensive attack by Amherst College on Thursday afternoon.

Rams starter Monroe pitched his shortest outing of the season, getting hit hard as he allowed eight runs with six of them earned in just two innings of work and taking the loss.

Brendan McDonough and Tevin Moore did not fare much better in relief of Monroe, as they allowed ten more earned runs over 3.2 innings. Five Rams total saw action on the mound as Daniel Moran, McIsaac and Brian Quinn made scoreless appearances in innings seven through nine.

Westfield

rough up Rams starter Mike Andrews, who lasted just 4.2 innings while allowing seven runs, six earned on nine hits.

In a 12-3 defeat, the Rams only offense came from Ivan Colon and Matt Gerard, who each hit solo homeruns. Owls starter Justin Thompson picked up the win on the mound, pitching six innings and allowing three runs on nine hits.

12 - 3

The University of Southern Maine fended off Framingham State on Sunday, winning 12-8 in a back-and-forth affair.

The action started early as Southern Maine batted around the order plating five runs in the first inning capped off by a three-run homer by Jake Welch.

The Rams responded in the fourth inning thanks to a three-run homer by Colon cutting the deficit to 5-3.

Thomas Zarro of Southern Maine got his team a run back in the bottom half of the fourth with a solo home run.

The Rams rallied back in the sixth inning to tie the game at six a piece with Kevin Driscoll driving in a run and Colon scoring from third base on a wild pickoff

Framingham State

rough up Rams starter Mike Andrews, who lasted just 4.2 innings while allowing seven runs, six earned on nine hits.

In a 7-3 defeat, the Rams only offense came from Ivan Colon and Matt Gerard, who each hit solo homeruns. Owls starter Justin Thompson picked up the win on the mound, pitching six innings and allowing three runs on nine hits.

Southern Maine

Leading the Amherst offensive onslaught was Yanni Thanopoulous who had six RBIs while Andrew Vandini homered and drove in four RBIs. Amherst’s offense pounded out their 18 runs on 19 hits while scoring two or more runs in five of the nine innings played.

John Cook earned the win for Amherst, pitching five and a third innings while allowing eight earned runs on fourteen hits.

In the defeat, Mainini, Colon and Pallazola hit home runs for the Rams with Mainini and Driscoll driving in two RBI’s each.

8 - 19

Framingham State defeated Fisher College in a close game on Monday afternoon.

The game was scoreless until the fifth inning when the Rams’ offense put four runs on the board beginning with a throwing error by the Falcons catcher on a double steal attempt that allowed Jake Wardwell to score the first run. Gerard followed the mistake up with a two-run home run and an RBI double by Derosier.

In the seventh inning, Derosier got his second RBI of the day with

Framingham State (15-9)

(15-10)

Framingham State (16-10)

(17-10)

Salem State

saw two runners in scoring position.

Derosier’s first inning RBI single scoring Driscoll, followed by Derosier hitting his MASCAC leading sixth home run of the season was all Kirby needed as the Rams earned the doubleheader split with a 2-0 victory.

2-0

The Framingham State Rams had their rally caps out in full force on Wednesday, coming back from a 4-1 deficit in the eighth inning to score five runs in a come from behind victory over UMass Dartmouth.

Falling behind 4-0 after the first four innings, Gill hit an RBI double scoring Colon to get the Rams on the board in the bottom half of the fourth.

In the eighth inning, the Rams had two runners reach base knocking UMass Dartmouth starter Matt Russell out of the game with one

Fisher

ing out six. Rams starter Andrews took the hard luck loss allowing just one run on seven hits while also pitching the full seven innings.

A fielder’s choice that scored Salem State Viking Richard Fecteau proved to be the only difference maker in the game as Salem State took the opening 1-0 victory.

0-1

The second game of the doubleheader also featured a pitcher’s duel, but this time it was led by Rams starter Kirby.

Kirby pitched a complete seven innings while striking out eight hitters along with working out of a bases loaded jam with a strikeout that

Framingham State

UMASS Amherst

5-3

Framingham State and Salem State draw even in a pitching dominated doubleheader on Tuesday.

In the first game, Salem State starting pitcher Mike Richardson threw a complete game, seven inning no-hitter against the Rams’ offense.

Richardson allowed just one Ram to reach base on a walk while strik-

Framingham State

a single by scoring Driscoll and putting the Rams up 5-0.

The Falcons made the game interesting late by scoring three runs over the seventh and eighth innings to cut their deficit to 5-3, but Rams starting pitcher Christopher Monroe held strong over seven innings of work while allowing just one earned run on six hits to earn the victory.

Chris Riga pitched a scoreless ninth inning to earn the save and preserve the 5-3 win for the Rams.

Salem State

out. Colon walked to load the bases for Pallazola, who cleared the bases with a three-run double to knot the game at four all. Gill singled allowing Pallazola to score, giving the Rams their first lead of the game.

Riga pitched a scoreless ninth inning for the save to preserve the comeback 5-4 win. Rams starter Kevin Connelly pitched seven innings allowing four earned runs on seven hits but did not factor into the decision as Matt McIsaac earned the victory pitching two thirds of an inning in relief of Connelly.

5-4

UMASS Dartmouth

27

Sports

April 17, 2015

SOFTBALL

By Robert Jones Staff Writer

The Lady Rams dropped a pair of games to MASCAC opponent Westfield State on Saturday, April 11.

In the first game of the day, Framingham lost 5-3.

The Rams gave the ball to starting pitcher Nastasha Arseneau. Despite taking the loss in the circle, Arseneau gave the Rams six strong innings and notched four strikeouts.

Framingham scored first in the contest when they put three runs on the board in the top of the third, behind a two-RBI triple from Dayna Marchant and an RBI single from Tiffanie Marsh.

Framingham State (8-13)

3-5

Framingham’s offense was again kept in check in the second game, as they were outscored 6-2.

Westfield was given its second consecutive complete game from its pitching staff. Starter Julia Sullivan went seven innings, allowing two runs on three hits.

Both teams traded two scoreless innings to start the game before Westfield would break the silence in the bottom of the third.

A ground ball with the bases loaded led to a would-be fielder’s choice and an eventual second throwing error, allowing three runs to be plated.

The fourth inning saw three more runs scored by Westfield. Back-to-back RBIs

Framingham State (8-14)

Westfield answered in the bottom of the inning, scoring its first run of the game on an RBI double to left center.

The Owls would tack on two more in the next inning, thanks to an RBI single and a wild pitch.

The winning runs were scored in the bottom of the fifth, when a single to centerfield scored two more Westfield base runners.

Base running was a key component to the Westfield victory, as they were able to move runners along by swiping four bags in as many tries.

Westfield State

from the middle of the lineup scored the first two runs and a wild pitch brought home the third.

Scoreless fifth and sixth innings gave way in the top of the seventh, when Framingham would mount a late-inning comeback.

Megan Downing worked a walk with the bases loaded to bring home Marsh.

The next batter, Danielle Bellieveau, picked up an RBI when her ground out to second base scored pinch runner Casey Fanning, who pinch ran earlier in the inning.

The comeback would prove not enough, as Westfield pitching was able to regain control and complete the sweep.

2-6

Westfield State

WOMEN’s LACROSSE

By Tanya Ström Editorial Staff

Framingham was snubbed by Fitchburg State on April 14, losing 14-11.

Reilly put Framingham on the board with back-to-back goals to make the lead 2-0 in the first five minutes of the half.

Reilly scored a game-high eight goals, racking up 46 on the season.

The Rams were able to hold their own in the first half at 7-4, dominating ground ball coverage and outshooting the Falcons 15-10 in the first.

The teams traded goals throughout the game, however the Falcons took flight in the opening of the second half, scoring three unanswered goals.

Framingham State (7-4)

Tied at 8-8 with 19 minutes left in the second, the Rams couldn’t keep up with Fitchburg’s stick skills.

Goalie Cericola had difficultly defending the crease, saving eight of 22 shots.

Framingham earned 10 free position shots but only capitalized on four, while allowing Fitchburg to score on six of seven.

The Falcons went off in the last 12 minutes of the game, scoring four unanswered goals.

FSU was not able to stop the Falcons from flying away with the win.

11 - 14

Fitchburg State

The Rams were able to bounce back three days later, taking a pair of games from Salem State.

Framingham jumped on top early and never looked back on its way to a 4-1 victory.

Kylie Boyle got the Rams on the board in the bottom of the first, when her three-run homerun scored Marsh and Marchant. The homerun was Boyle’s second of the season.

The Rams would add to their lead in the fourth inning, when a Marsh double plated Anna Dziok. Dziok reached earlier in the inning on a two-

Framingham State (9-14)

4-1

The Rams completed their sweep of the doubleheader with a 4-2 win in the nightcap.

Marsh was given the nod as the starting pitcher for the Rams and went five innings allowing just a single unearned run. Salem managed only four hits.

Salem did score first, however, when a sacrifice fly brought a runner home in the top of the third.

The Rams would charge back two innings later, when a Bridget McGrail single scored Marsh and Marchant.

The two teams traded a scoreless fifth, before the scoring picked back

Framingham State (10-14)

(7-2)

Framingham State (7-3)

Salem State

Becker dominated draw control throughout the first half but was unable to keep up with the Rams’ impeccable offense.

Although FSU had more opportunities for free position shots, nine, to Becker’s seven. FSU was only able to score two goals whereas Becker gained three.

Goalie Alysha Cericola had difficulties keeping the crease clear letting in seven of 13 shots.

Becker gave up a total of 18 turnovers, which allowed the Rams more time with the ball.

15 - 7

The Rams dipped to 7-3 in the season when the team fell short against Worcester State College, losing 14-10.

Stephanie Leonard led the Rams with four goals and two assists.

Reilly added three points; Jessica Graham added a pair of goals and freshman Cassella tossed in one.

Worcester started the game off hot, scoring within the first 30 seconds. However, the Rams would answer back with three unrequited goals courtesy of Leonard, Reilly and Cassella giving the Rams their largest lead of the game, three.

Salem State

up in the sixth.

Salem led things off in the top of the inning, scoring their second run of the game on yet another sacrifice fly.

The tie would not last long, though, as the Rams regained the lead behind the bat of Boyle.

Adding to her hot start, Boyle delivered on a two-run homerun to left field. The homer was her second of the day and third of the season.

Framingham brought in Arseneau to seal the deal in the late innings and she was able to escape with the win, tossing two innings and giving up one run, while striking out a pair.

4-2

The Lady Rams secured their fifth win this season, beating Becker College 13-7 on April 9.

Framingham sprinted to a quick 3-0 lead in the first five minutes.

In the non-conference game, Zoe Reilly paced the Rams with six goals while Morghan Cassella accounted for three.

Framingham outscored Becker 10-6 in the first half and ran away with the win in the second 5-1.

FSU had three times the number of shots on goal than Becker and outshot the Hawks 31-19. However, Becker held an edge over ground ball recovery.

Framingham State

out single.

Salem State scored its only run in the top of the seventh on a solo homerun to left field.

Despite the homerun, Framingham was given another stellar performance from Arseneau in the circle.

In her seven innings, she gave up only six hits, while notching nine strikeouts and walking none.

Framingham won nearly every offensive category, recording more hits, RBIs, and walks, while striking out less than its opponent.

Becker

Tied at 7-7 with just over seven minutes remaining in the first half, Framingham was not able to keep up as the Lancers closed the half with a 3-0 run to take a 10-7 lead into the half.

The Rams fought hard, rendering three yellow cards throughout the game.

In the second half, as FSU attacker Leonard took aim on the net with an assist by Mallory Fredricks sending one past the 8-meter arc tallying the Rams’ final goal of the evening but they were unable to recover from the deficit made in the first half.

10 - 14

Worcester State

April 17, 2015

28

Photos by Danielle Vecchione/ The Gatepost

H A P P Y In celebration for Framingham State mascot Sam the Ram, students gathered in the Forum on Thursday at noon for a festive lunch.

For Sam’s birthday, students celebrated by making stuffed animals, indulging in a candy bar and listening to Toranto acapella group Eh440.

B I R T H D A Y !