April 17, 2019

April 17, 2019

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Volume XCIX

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Est. 1929

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www.sjuhawknews.com

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The Student Newspaper of Saint Joseph’s University

RACIAL BIAS INCIDENTS REPORTED IN DORMS AGAIN

PHOTO BY MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

ANA FAGUY ’19 Editor in Chief Two racial bias incidents were reported in first-year residence halls on March 31 and April 4, according to St. Joe’s Office of Public Safety.

At about 11 p.m. on April 4, David Andrews ’22 was in his room in Sourin Residence Center when he heard loud music playing in the suite next to his. White students who live in the adjacent suite were singing the N-word in a song, he said, and minutes later, the students were using the N-word in casual conversation.

“I banged on the wall [knocking three times] and said, ‘Yo, watch your mouth.

Don’t say that,’ Andrews said. “They then replied ‘No, n----r.’”

Andrews said he left the room to find a witness. After consulting with a suitemate, Andrews got his RA. Andrews said he FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

@SJUHAWKNEWS

repeated the same knocking on the wall twice so his RA could hear what the students were saying through the wall.

“I then bang on the wall again three more times, and the suite adjacent to us then replies, ‘Yo, this n----r’s banging on our wall three times. It must be important,’” Andrews said.

Andrews’ RA verified that Andrews reported the incident to him. Andrews’ RA confirmed he was told that Andrews has heard the students say the N-word a number of times before.

Andrews’ case, which is currently under investigation after the RA facilitated reporting of the incident, will go through the judicial process through the Office of Community Standards.

This process includes a preliminary meeting, a three-person panel hearing and an outcome meeting, according to Cary Anderson, Ed.D., associate provost and vice president of Student Life.

Two of the four white first-year male students documented as being in the adjacent suite the night of the incident are student-athletes.

“The University is currently investigating the allegation,” Director of Athletics Jill Bodensteiner, J.D., said in an email to The Hawk. “The Department of Athletics is not responsible for or even involved in such investigations (and nor should we be); therefore, I am currently awaiting the conclusion of the investigation. Regardless of the outcome, we have and will continue to educate our student-athletes and facilitate dialogue about the unacceptable use of racially insensitive and offensive language.”

According to Bodensteiner, it is important that athletic administrators and coaches not get involved in allegations of misconduct.

“Every university employs professionals who are trained to provide support,

investigate, adjudicate and implement outcomes,” Bodensteiner said in a follow-up email. “Those people are not and should not be in Athletics. If someone does approach me alleging misconduct by a student-athlete, I will immediately refer them to the appropriate university reporting mechanism and will also report it myself.”

Andrews said casual use of racial slurs by white students is something he has been hearing since September through the thin walls of Sourin, but this is the first time he reported it.

“I was scared to come out, I was scared to speak up,” Andrews said. “I’m not sure

if the school was accepting, or was going to be on my side, or would even trust what I’m saying. Me versus 78% white, the odds are not in my favor.” ains.”

SEE PG. 2

To read more from the "Confronting Racism" series see pages:

07

Confronting white friends about cultural appropriation

10

Affinity groups crucial for college experience

15

Fans taunt first all-black starting five

News 2

April 17, 2019

A collection of college newspaper headlines concerning student and faculty use of racial slurs within the 2018-2019 academic year. GRAPHIC: KELLY SMITH ’19/THE HAWK

Racial bias incidents reported in dorms again FROM PG. 1 The morning after the April 4 incident, Andrews went to see Natalie Walker Brown, director for Student Inclusion and Diversity.

“I told [Walker Brown] this had been going on, but I just never actually spoke up about it like that, never told Public Safety, the RAs,” Andrews said. “Just always kept it to myself.”

After the mishandling of a racial bias incident as reported by The Hawk last semester, University President Mark C. Reed, Ed.D., sent out an email on Dec. 10 outlining action steps the university was taking to respond to concerns students raised during an open forum and a subsequent Board of Trustees protest. One of those steps was retaining “an independent, third-party consultant to review our current Community Standards process and make recommendations, based in best practice, about this process going forward.”

According to an April 9 email from Reed, the revised Community Standards process now includes all bias cases being heard by a three-person panel, rather than a single hearing officer. The university has obtained a third-party consultant to re-

view the Community Standards process.

“The University responds to reports of bias by providing support to those who are affected by the act of bias while concurrently investigating and ultimately adjudicating the matter by using the Community Standards Board,” Mary Elaine Perry, Ed.D., Title IX coordinator, said in an email to The Hawk. “The University cannot comment on specific incidents, but we categorically denounce bias related conduct.”

As was the case with Andrews for many months, not all students choose to report incidents of bias they experience.

During her first semester at St. Joe’s, Azizat Osinaike ’22 said she was called the N-word three times, but she never reported the incidents.

“I think they [white students] see it as not a big deal because black people have associated with the word, as in try to change the meaning of the word,” Osinaike said. “Because so many rappers, majority of black rappers, have been using the N-word, they think, ‘Oh, cause it’s in a song, I can say it.’ You wouldn’t want me to say something disrespectful about your race, your identities, so then you shouldn’t say something disrespectful. Even if it’s just in a song, you shouldn’t say that at all. Period.”

But for Andrews, this incident was a continuation of racial ignorance he saw last semester.

“I would then come back to my suite after [last semester’s] meetings and hear the suite adjacent to me talking about it, saying, ‘Yo, them n---as really think something’s going to be done? Them n---as really think the school’s going to be on their side?’” Andrews said.

Andrews said he wishes he had spoken up before the April 4 incident.

“After this going on the first semester, and me finally speaking up about it now, I’m just mad at myself for not saying anything sooner,” Andrews said. “Throughout this whole school year, I’ve been called derogatory names, just been pointed at, laughed at, anything, all for the color of my skin.”

Four days before Andrews reported his incident of bias, another bias incident was reported in Villiger Residence Center.

Kai Amen-Ra ’22 was walking down the hallway to his Villiger room when a white male student walking in the other direction said, “You’re a bitch-ass n---a.”

For Amen-Ra, this was the first time he had been called a racial slur.

“I can’t let this slide because it’s not right,” Amen-Ra said. “It’s not right for

somebody to say anything that’s racist.”

Like Andrews, Amen-Ra also confided in Walker-Brown.

“I feel like I could go to her about anything I might have on campus because I knew her prior to coming to St. Joe’s,” Amen-Ra said.

Amen-Ra met with Bill Bordak, director of Community Standards, to discuss the incident, on April 8. At the meeting, Bordak informed Amen-Ra that the white student involved in the situation had since withdrawn from St. Joe’s. The student was also previously a student-athlete, but was not a student-athlete at the time of the bias incident.

Bordak did not respond to an April 11 email from The Hawk requesting information.

According to Amen-Ra, Bordak said if the student decided to come back to St. Joe’s Amen-Ra would have the option to participate in a meeting with the student.

“If it was the other way around, like if it was me saying something like that to [the student], I feel that, by the situation I’m in and the color that I am, I feel like they would definitely kick me out immediately,” Amen-Ra said.

News

The Hawk Newspaper

April 17, 2019

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Center for International Programs moves to LaFarge ELAINA WALL ’21 Special to The Hawk The Center for International Programs (CIP) has moved locations from 183 City Ave. to Suite 10 in LaFarge Residence Center.

According to the center’s website, the CIP provides services for students interested in studying abroad, either for a full semester program or a summer program.

Thomas Kesaris, director of the CIP, said he was informed that the center would be moving about a month beforehand.

“It was a university decision,” Kesaris said. “We were advised that we would be moving, which works out better for us because we are closer to the students.”

Cary Anderson, Ed.D., vice president for Student Life and associate provost, said there were two advantages to moving the CIP. “The university is looking to consolidate office space, so [the move] takes [the CIP] out of a space where there is more capacity,” Anderson said. “And it moves them closer to the heart of campus.”

Kelly Gregg, assistant director for semester abroad and health and safety, said

The Center for International Programs’ new space in LaFarge. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

the new location is more accessible to students on campus and is more convenient for students to come into the office when they have to complete study abroad pre-departure requirements.

“Students usually only come to the of-

fice if they have to for advising meetings or to drop off checks and various forms,” Gregg said. “Now it’s easier for them to find us.”

Thomas Shoemaker ’21, who has a workstudy position in the office, said he believes

that the move is more beneficial for students.

“I certainly like that it’s in the center of campus,” Shoemaker said. “That works better for a lot of students.”

The CIP staff members have sent out an announcement to let people know that the office has moved.

“We’ve communicated directly with all the study abroad applicants, as well as the faculty who are working with us for this year’s programs,” Kesaris said.

The CIP hosted an open house on April 10 to let all students, faculty and staff have an opportunity to take a tour of the new office.

“We are happy to show off the space to others,” Gregg said. “But it’s still a work in progress as we just finished moving in.”

Although, the center has only been in LaFarge for about a month, Kesaris said he believes the CIP has a positive feeling about the move.

“I think the initial indications are that we are pretty happy with the space,” Kesaris said.

Alex Mark ’20 contributed to this story.

Graduate students launch Swap Day

Sharing resources with the campus community ANGELIQUE FRAZIER ’20 Hawk Staff Five graduate students held the first Swap Day in The Perch on April 11, allowing members of the St. Joe’s community to bring household items they don’t use anymore to exchange for something they need.

The idea began as a class project for five Organization Development and Leadership (ODL) graduate students in Strategic Leadership, a course taught by visiting professor Kathleen Garrett, Ph.D. “Swap Day is a way to recycle goods from students who are leaving each semester,” Garrett said. “They end up with a lot of stuff that can go to good use.”

The graduate students decided to help members of the St. Joe’s community share their unwanted items with each other. While many members of the community donated their items to the students to be shared with others, many students came to Swap Day to get items they need.

The group partnered with the international students group on campus and called for participants to bring books, small household items, clothing, non-perishable food and new or unopened hygiene products. In turn, the participants could take an item they needed as part of the swap day.

The classmates worked with Garrett, who said she consulted with them throughout the semester as they were designing their program.

“They started with finding a passion, because the whole idea is that leaders lead from passion,” Garrett said. “They’re a very diverse group of students and their passion was around diversity.”

Katherine Cartagena, who is now studying part time in the ODL program, said the group came up with the idea of having an event that would be mainly targeted to the diverse population at St. Joe’s, but also open to everyone. After the event, the items that they had left were given to an organization that works with immigrants and refugees.

“We had to come up with a passion that will unify us and all of us had something in common, which was helping diversity or immigrants or families,” Cartagena said.

“We wanted to start with St. Joe’s first, with

Robin Robinson M.S. ’20 and Abdullah Alajmi M.S. ’20, two of the five graduate students who organized Swap Day. PHOTO: DIMETRI WILLIAMS ’19/THE HAWK

our community first, and then what we have left we’re going to share with people—with an organization that works with immigrants and refugees.”

Abdullah Alajmi M.S. ’20, one of the five graduate students who organized the event, is an international student from Saudi Arabia. Alajmi said he knows students who move out of their apartment and just leave their items behind.

“We coordinated with some students from our country to bring their stuff,” Alajmi said. “And [at] the end of the semester many students will leave the country and [go] back to my country after [they] finish the program, and they have a lot of stuff.”

Robin Robinson M.S. ’20, who also worked on the class project, said her team observed that students are often asked to help people outside of the St. Joe’s community and they decided that they could help people at St. Joe’s.

“There’s always a need for something,” Robinson said. “We know that there’s food disparities in all the college campuses all over the country even with people not having places to live. We wanted to be able to have an opportunity to give back to each other.”

Sociology major Daja Walker ’19 said she attended Swap Day because it was an opportunity for St. Joe’s students who have limited resources to find something that they need.

“A lot of times, especially at large universities like this that do cost a lot of money, there’s a segment of students who are underprivileged and don’t have a lot of things back home or here with them,” Walker said.

“They go unnoticed and we don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about how there are poor college students at these expensive universities who are struggling to get by.”

Isis Gill-Reid ’20, marketing major and

vice president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, said having this event would be a great way for organizations to better themselves and give back to the community.

“I think it’s a great way to get organizations to partner and do some community service,” Gill-Reid said.

Robinson said it’s not just for the students, and whoever needs something should take it.

“You know, there’s so much individualism, there’s not enough community,” Robinson said. “And that’s where we’re trying to build into this community. We all say that we’re a family but how are we truly showing that?”

Cartagena said the group is open to partner with anybody on campus, and she hopes to run the event again in the future.

“We want to do it every year or every semester if we can because we think it’s a cool thing,” Cartagena said. “We’re sharing with one another.”

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The Hawk Newspaper

April 17, 2019

News

Allegations against Spring Concert headliner resurface

Sean Kingston performs at the St. Joe's 2019 Spring Concert on April 10. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

ALEX HARGRAVE ’20 Lifestyle Editor CHARLEY REKSTIS ’20 Managing Editor The Spring Concert Committee alearned of a 2012 allegation of sexual assault against Sean Kingston a few days before the April 10 concert. They decided not to cancel unless students showed concern.

Kingston’s performance was canceled at the University of Connecticut on April 11 after students voiced their concerns to the UConn Student Union Board of Governors (SUBOG). He is also being protested at Fordham University ahead of his performance there on April 27.

“If the students wanted it canceled [we would’ve canceled],” said Beth Hagovsky, Ed.D., director of Student Leadership and Activities. “Our office really tries to make sure our efforts are student driven. I want students to be the ones that raise awareness around issues and concerns and making sure that administration knows what their desires and expectations are at St. Joe’s.”

Morgan Gares ’19, co-chair of the St. Joe’s 2019 Spring Concert committee, said she and her co-chair Taylor Geiger ’21 were informed

by Hagovsky days before the concert of the allegation against Kingston and the protest at Fordham, but they didn’t cancel because the university community did not speak out.

“If the campus did have negative thoughts, we would’ve shut [Kingston’s performance] down,” Gares said. “We want to make sure that our artists don’t misrepresent our university’s mission.”

According to entertainment website TMZ, a woman who met Kingston in 2010 in a Seattle hotel room after a meet and greet filed criminal charges against him, alleging that she was forced into having sex with Kingston, his bodyguard and a band member. Kingston responded saying the sex was consensual. Police eventually dropped charges against Kingston, who settled with the woman after she filed civil charges against him in 2012.

The Hawk reached out to Kingston’s public relation representative for a comment. The representative had not yet responded at time of publication. w News of the allegation against Kingston resurfaced in a 2017 article in The Spectator, Seattle University’s student newspaper, which ran a story about a student who brought the allegations to the

attention of organizers of the university’s Quadstock Music Festival.

Seattle University’s 2017 Student Events and Activities Council (SEAC) Quadstock co-chairs released a statement that read: “It is the mission of SEAC to uphold the university’s values and provide excellent, creative, inclusive, educational and diverse programming to the student body. We decided that we could not meet these standards in light of the allegations against Kingston.” Seattle University then cancelled Kingston’s appearance.

The UConn organizing committee cancelled Kingston’s appearance the day of his scheduled appearance at its UCONNIC music festival, according to UConn’s newspaper The Daily Campus.

The UConn Student Union Board of Governors (SUBOG) provided a statement to The Hawk: “SUBOG would like to acknowledge the students who voiced their opinions about this selection, and to assure them that the organization is sorry to have disappointed you. We pride ourselves on offering events ‘for students, by students,’ and are committed to learning from this experience as we move forward.”

Students at Fordham became aware of the allegation against Kingston through the

Seattle University letter.

Emily Mueller, a sophomore at Fordham, and part of a newly created group, Students Against Sean, gave a speech on April 10 at the Student Life Council meeting, which features student life groups, University Student Government (USG) representatives and select university deans. The following day, Mueller gave a similar speech to the USG. Mueller, along with four other sophomore women at Fordham, sent a letter to the Office for Student Involvement and Campus Activities Board stating they did not want Kingston performing at their Spring Weekend, taking place April 26-28.

“Indeed, as a fellow Jesuit university, Seattle University strives to uphold the very same values as Fordham,” the letter stated. “As Fordham students, we have been taught to uphold the values of equity, diversity, and social justice. Continuing to support Kingston stands at odds with these values.”

Katelynn Kwiat ’20 went to the Spring Concert at St. Joe’s and said she wasn’t sure if she would have gone if she knew about the allegation before.

“I think they should’ve [issued a statement],” Kwiat said. “I think they would’ve cleared the air, and I don’t think it would’ve hurt anything, other than ticket sales. I would’ve appreciated if they were straight up with us.”

According to Gares, St. Joe’s uses an agency called Concert Ideas that communicates with the artist and the university.

Megan Azzalina, assistant director of Student Leadership and Activities, said the vetting process for the headliner is “intense,” and involves conversation with Concert Ideas and a “ton of Google searches.”

“We even contact other schools who brought the performer to get feedback from them,” Azzalina said. “These are all things we will continue doing, but this is a really good example of how we can always improve.”

Gares said she apologizes on behalf of the Spring Concert committee for bringing Kingston to campus.

“If Taylor and I knew about this, we would’ve never put him on the survey, and if the school knew about it, because the school approves everybody, they would’ve never [approved him],” Gares said. “It’s good for the university because now we know that we have to do more research on future artists.”

Kingston is currently still set to perform for his college tour “Made in Jamaica” at State University of New York Oneonta, Ohio University, Bucknell University, Fordham University, Assumption College and Ursinus College.

Department of Public Safety reports (April 5 - April 9) April 5 Public Safety was notified of unknown person(s) writing graffiti on a student’s door in Moore Hall. Residence Life notified.

Community Standards notified. Incident under investigation.

Public Safety was notified regarding students attempting to sneak alcohol inside the Pennbrook Hall. Alcohol was confiscated by Public Safety. Residence Life was notified. Community Standards was notified.

Public Safety was notified by a St. Joe’s student in regards to person(s) unknown removing property from her room located in Villiger Residence Center. Residence Life notified. Community Standards notified. Incident under investigation.

April 7

April 8

Public Safety was notified by a St. Joe’s student in regards to person(s) unknown removing property from her room located in Villiger Residence Center. Residence Life notified. Community Standards notified. Incident under investigation.

Public Safety was notified by a St. Joe’s student in regards to person(s) unknown removing property from her room located in Villiger Residence Center. Residence Life notified. Community Standards notified.

Incident under investigation.

Public Safety was notified of a suspicious person near the driveway of Barbelin Hall.

Public Safety officers, along with Philadelphia Police responded and escorted the person off campus without incident.

Public Safety was notified of a fire alarm inside the Morris Quad Townhouses. Public Safety officers responded. Preliminary investigation revealed the alarm was activated by a student cooking. Alarm was reset.

April 9 Public Safety was notified of person(s) unknown writing graffiti in an elevator inside the Ashwood Apartments. Residence Life notified. Community Standards notified. Incident under investigation.

ALCOHOL RELATED INCIDENTS

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On campus

0

Off campus

DRUG RELATED INCIDENTS

0

On campus

0

Off campus

Call Public Safety:

610-660-1111

Opinions

April 17, 2019

The Hawk Newspaper

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A second chance for reform Proactivity needed for racial bias incidents Editor in Chief Ana Faguy ’19 Managing Editor Charley Rekstis ’20 Copy Chief Emily Graham ’20 Faculty Adviser Shenid Bhayroo Contributing Adviser Jenny Spinner Consulting Editor Dominique Joe ’19 Copy Editor Paige Santiago ’19 Copy Editor Kaila Mundell-Hill ’20 News Editor Erin Breen ’19 Assistant News Editor Alex Mark ’20 Assistant News Editor Alysa Bainbridge ’21 Editorial Page Editor Annie Clark ’19 Assistant Opinions Editor Devin Yingling ’22 Lifestyle Editor Alex Hargrave ’20 Assistant Lifestyle Editor Natalie Drum ’20 Assistant Lifestyle Editor Cara Smith ’21 Sports Editor Nick Karpinski ’21

The allegations of two other racial slur incidents happening on our campus, as reported in this week’s issue of The Hawk, should not shock anyone.

Stories shared by students at last semester’s “When Will It Stop?” forum hosted by the Black Student Union showed that the incident involving a racial slur left on the dorm room door of two first-year women was far from isolated.

With this most recent incident comes the opportunity for real reflection instead of short-term condemnation and temporary discussion.

The ongoing efforts to address racism at St. Joe’s are incomplete without the knowledge that no policy change could ever fully rid our campus of racist attitudes. Even students who believe they are not racist can hold implicit bias, resulting in a possible indifference to the N-word, directed in separate incidences over the past two weeks at two black first-year students.

Our primary approach to addressing all racist incidents must be proactive rather than reactive, reducing the racist attitudes that cause them so that we may intentionally create a safer environment for students of color.

Let’s be clear: the N-word cannot be spoken by anyone who is not black. It is a word fraught with hundreds of years of oppression, dating back to slavery.

The power of what to do with the word belongs to the black community alone. Even if the word appears in contexts that are apparently innocuous, such as a song or a TV show, it cannot be repeated by anyone who is not black.

It’s a simple concept. Yet the N-word is used freely time and time again on college campuses. The cycle goes like this: a white student, for whatever reason, believes that they are free to use the N-word. When the student’s use of the term is publicized, they are condemned, students pledge to have in-

tentional discussions, administrators promise policy change, and then another, similar incident happens, and it begins again.

Just last week at American University (AU), a video surfaced of a first-year student using the N-word, describing how he is free to use language how he sees fit. The video comes on the heels of a 2017 incident in which bananas were found strung up by rope on trees like nooses on AU’s. The incident was later determined to have targeted Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the first sorority established for black women.

One of the past two weeks’ alleged racial slur incidents involves white students who, like the American University student, continued to use the N-word even after it was expressed to them that the word was offensive.

This mindset that nothing is untouchable for white people, including racial slurs, is part of what makes it so hard to address racism anywhere, even at a place as small and insulated as a college campus.

When students arrive at college as 18-year-olds, they often bring with them a hard-to-change set of beliefs instilled in them by their parents and peers. Anti-racist education, while not an end-all, be-all solution, should be part of every first-year experience, from orientation to first year seminars.

A Jan. 17 email from University President Mark. C. Reed, Ed.D., promised “changes and enhancements” to the First-Year Experience program. The most recent update on promised policy and program changes sent to the St. Joe’s community on April 9 did not mention any changes to First-Year Experience.

College is a time when students expand their worldviews, and are challenged to think differently by their classes and by conversations with new friends and classmates. The university must take an active approach in fostering anti-racist learning through curriculum and program development, starting with first-year students’ orientation.

Beyond that, this most recent racist incident must mark a change in how the administration adjudicates the usage of racial slurs on campus.

In the racial slur incident last semester, the student responsible was only required to issue a verbal apology. The newest allegations of racial slurs directed toward students of color provide an opportunity to send a clear message that racist language has no place on our campus, and that there will be real consequences for students responsible for using that language against students of color.

For those students who still insist on using racial slurs in a way that is intentionally malicious, warnings, reflection papers and apologies are insufficient consequences. In such cases, reactive approaches are warranted.

Pushback to the administration’s handling of last semester’s racial slur incident came largely from students and faculty, demonstrating a clear need for improvement in how the administration handles these types of allegations. Revising the adjudication process to include a three-person panel instead of a single hearing officer is a step in the right direction.

But it is not enough if the students involved in these past two alleged racial slur incidents are found responsible and the consequences do not match the severity of what they are accused of doing.

Let’s get it right this time.

—The Editorial Board This week’s Editorial Board is comprised of the Editor in Chief, Opinions Editor, Assistant Opinions Editor, Managing Editor, Editorial Page Editor, Copy Chief, Lifestyle Editor, Assistant Lifestyle Editor and Photo Editor.

The Hawk welcomes Letters to the Editor, typically no more than 300 words. They can be emailed to hawk.editorial@gmail.com.

Corrections In the April 10 issue of The Hawk, the Sports article “St. Joe’s cheer wins Nationals for first time in program history” incorrectly stated that St. Joe’s senior cheerleaders Nikki Kennedy and Rose Walton were captains on the 2018-19 team.

Assistant Sports Editor Sam Britt ’20 Assistant Sports Editor Ryan Mulligan ’21 Creative Director Kelly Smith ’19 Photo Editor Mitchell Shields ’22 Social Media Manager Erin Castellano ’20 Assistant Social Media Manager Angela DiMarco ’22 Business Manager Tom Trullinger ’21 Distribution Manager Addie Guyer ’19 Assistant Distribution Manager Gavin O’Reilly ’20

FLOWERS IN BLOOM In case you haven’t been on Snapchat and Instagram, you’ve definitely seen the beautiful flowers all over campus. The tree in front of the Science Center? Gorgeous. The flowers outside of the library?

A perfect pop of color to brighten your day. Take some time this semester and enjoy the flowers while they are here.

APRIL SHOWERS BRING MAY...FLOODS TO VILLIGER? So it happened again, another first year dorm has been flooded. This time instead of LaFarge Residence Center’s sprinkler system, it was the washers in Villiger Residence Center. We aren’t sure what the first year students are up to, or how many of them were washing their comforters, but hopefully the biblical flooding can stop.

'YUNK STREET FOOD FESTIVAL Manayunk, food and sunshine. What more could we ask for? The Manayunk Food Festival on Sunday was a perfect combination of all of these things, and we already can’t wait for the next one.

PENNBROOK LOST POWER FOR 48 HOURS Pennbrook Hall lost all power on April 12, with the power turning back on Saturday afternoon on April 13. And while the university was smart in getting a backup generator for the building, students were still in the dark for several hours.

FOUR-DAY WEEK We are all very thankful for the four-day weeks coming up. Time to use the extra day to catch up on sleep and hopefully start watching some new Netflix shows with our down time instead of hitting the books.

ALLERGY SZN Yes, we just raved about spring in almost all of the hots. But, nevertheless, allergies persist. So yes, go enjoy the flowers and warmth outside, but make sure you pack some Allegra in your bag.

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April 17, 2019

Opinions

The Hawk Newspaper

The silver lining of uncertainty Looking ahead after graduation KELLY SMITH ’19 Columnist Thinking about what comes after college can often be difficult because it brings about uncertainty, something not all of us are used to since we’ve been living in the comfort of the classroom for quite a few years.

Four years after we made our college decision, the current process of applying for a full-time job feels like deja-vu. This time around, there is no equivalent to a May 1 decision day—instead, it’s the rest of our lives.

Social media is flooded with obligatory job announcements with congratulatory comments and well wishes from friends and family. For those that are still in the middle of the job hunt, watching the success of your peers is sometimes a bitter pill to swallow.

I see a lot of my friends starting off on the right foot with their applications and then feeling discouraged when they don’t get the job. It’s hard to get back up again when you’ve put in your heart and soul into something. I know, I’ve been there. and Trying not to take

rejection to heart is difficult.

I think a lot of us want validation from the world, especially when we’ve worked so hard to get to a stable place during our four years of college. It’s taken me awhile to come to terms with what it means to “get” a job.

The phrase “getting” a job implies that it’s somehow given rather than earned. To “earn”

think to ourselves, “Am I doing enough?”

“What makes me different than that person?”

“What can they do that I can’t?”

It’s easier said than done, but comparing our journey to someone else’s is only going to hinder progress rather than encourage it.

Whether or not you’re comparing your success to someone else's, sometimes com-

Resumes, portfolios, cover letters, applications, LinkedIn invitations, networking events, button up shirts, emails and interviews: the recipe for success is the same as failure or rejection. something, you have to work for it, and if it doesn’t work out the first time, you have to take a step back and reassess what you’re doing to get there.

Resumes, portfolios, cover letters, applications, LinkedIn invitations, networking events, button up shirts, emails and interviews: the recipe for success is the same as failure or rejection. More often than not, we

paring our own current endeavors to past experiences is even more detrimental to finding satisfaction. After all, comparison is the greatest thief of joy.

Every day, we hear stories about people going to their first 9 to 5 job with wide eyes and high hopes for the future only to end up losing themselves in the mundanity of their own routine.

Someone could come across as happy and successful because of the way they present themselves or how much money they make. But, beneath the surface, the person who appears to have everything is longing for so much more.

Taking this into consideration, it comes as no surprise that well-known entrepreneurs and celebrities become philanthropists or get involved in side projects. A career might pay the bills and provide their families with a comfortable lifestyle, but taking on a small business or working with a non-profit is what brings them the most joy.

Letting go of the inhibitions that are in the way may just be imperative for figuring out what many people haven’t already discovered about themselves.

Pursuing a passion project or consistent hobby might be the key in balancing work and personal life. Whether it’s a love for making art, running marathons or learning an instrument, the saying “if you do something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life” isn’t exclusive to a career.

As cliche as it sounds, taking the time to cultivate something outside of work is just as important, if not more rewarding.

The issues tied to popular dating apps “Ghosting” in LGBTQ romantic spaces PAUL AMMONS ’20 Guest Columnist Imagine you clicked with a kindred individual, someone with whom you find common interests and your conversations flow effortlessly.

You begin a connection with this person and open a vulnerable part of yourself, which is unusual for you. There is comfort in this relationship, a possibility to relax around them in a way that is different than even your best friends.

You continue chatting, getting to know them and leaning into the feelings of euphoria while deepening your relationship with this individual. Plans are made to meet, and for once you let yourself bask in the newfound prospect of someone.

And then, they stop responding to your messages. They leave you hanging on the other line, checking your phone and waiting to hear from them just one more time.

Sound familiar? This abrupt exit, commonly known as “ghosting,” unfortunately rings true as a familiar experience for those who frequent dating apps. This is the reality of ghosting: an unanswered question, the artificial end to what could have been an amazing friendship or relationship.

However, “ghosting” hurts others more than expected. As a gay man, ghosting has become a staple of my interactions with other gay men on dating apps like Grindr or Tinder.

Most recently, I was ghosted by a potential prospect about a week ago.

After investing myself into my relationship with this man and conversing for about a week, I felt comfortable enough to ask him out on date. Unfortunately, he must have felt differently and decided to leave me hanging on the other line. While this discomfort

differs from the humiliation of being stood up (another pain with which I am familiar), there still lies the stinging feeling that you were left behind.

My experiences reflect the overarching issues I face when fitting into the LGBTQ community and forming lasting secure relationships with other men of similar sexual orientation. Specifically, finding spaces con-

simply another half-assed one liner.

And while marches may provide at times a positive environment to seek out companionship, the sheer number of bodies at these events tends to overwhelm even the most extroverted of people.

Which then leads us into a cycle of online conversations facilitated by our favorite dating apps. To nail down a conversation

ILLUSTRATION: OLIVIA HEISTERKAMP ’19/THE HAWK

ducive to private one-on-one conversations proves to be the most difficult task.

Typically, designated queer spaces are found online through apps or online forums, or local bars where alcohol blurs the line between an intentional conversation or

that's more than one line, we defer to our “tried-and-true” apps to seek out those conversations. What you will find is many people who truly separate online interactions from real life conversations.

To match with someone or find sim-

ilar interests on a profile obviously means we will hit it off with that individual. This is how relationships online are viewed, as a formula which if done right will lead to long-lasting relationship.

However, intimacy and efficiency mix like oil and water. Relationships take time to grow and flourish, a concept which these apps have rejected and replaced with a swipe system that hinges on a half-hearted want to experience another physically.

Dating app fatigue may feel familiar to a practicing heterosexual who uses apps like Tinder simply to pass time while they are bored in class.

Yet for many in the LGBTQ community, these settings are one of the primary means to meet others who can empathize with their lived experiences. And when even this setting is sexualized, where are we meant to go to find a kindred spirit who enjoys similar interests?

Our individual sexualities grant us infinite possibilities to create durable connections with each other. What rankles me is the overwhelming sexualization of queer spaces to the point where it feels inescapable.

In virtual spaces where authentic conversations are already rare and there is a degree of separation between the people talking, this sexualization places unnecessary tension on users who truly want to experience an authentic conversation.

To “ghost” an individual means more than the end of another conversation.

It represents the splintering of a connection between two individuals who live in a society where genuine conversations around sexual orientation are impeded by countercultural forces. We as a community need to learn to craft spaces welcoming to the variety of lived queer experiences.

And yet, will I still hold out hope that I’ll meet someone on Grindr? Ask me in a week, and we shall see.

Opinions 7

April 17, 2019

Confronting your white friends Jordyn Woods and issues with cultural appropriation JAULIE CANTAVE ’22 Guest Columnist I’m sure many of you St. Joe’s students are sick of all the articles about racism and injustice, but that’s just too bad because here is another one. This one may even hit home in a way you couldn’t have imagined.

It’s good to have friends from many different backgrounds, and it’s alright to seek to understand and to participate in cultures other than your own. But this is a slippery slope.

We can look to current pop culture and see this very clearly, especially in the case of Jordyn Woods and the Kardashian family.

Everyone has been talking about Woods and the mess that is Khloe Kardashian’s relationship with Tristan Thompson, and I would like to stir the pot a little more.

Woods was supposedly like a sister to Khloe, a part of the family, but the entire Kardashian “klan,” disposed of her because of rumors and speculation.

I remember a time when Kylie Kardashian and some of her sisters stole designs from creators of color, and Woods didn’t say or do anything. When the Kardashian sisters were called out for their appropriation, Woods supported them. Woods has been through every scandal, sucking up to the Kardashians for fame and social acceptance.

But when the fire came raining down on her, the black community openly embraced Woods and defended her against the Kardashians’ psychotic fans. I was right along with

them at first. Then I thought on it.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with Woods, as a black woman, for having a white best friend. What is wrong is allowing your friend to literally profit off of your culture.

What is wrong is allowing your friend to participate in your culture when they do not fully understand it or care about the community that created it.

Too often, white people are involved in black culture for profit, mockery or simply fun, but when it comes to supporting black businesses, black institutions, black activism or even just black people, the support is heavily lacking.

But you’re not racist, you have black friends.

Woods was great in her role, but that is all it was, a role. Many white people have black friends and they couldn’t care less about them.

Black friends seem to be expendable and profitable because of pop culture.

Any kind of pop culture you can think of has been influenced by black people. Style, music, slang and so many other aspects of American mainstream culture derive from black culture.

Simultaneously though, black Americans are some of the most disenfranchised and disregarded individuals in this country. Our communities are under-resourced, our schools are broken down, our quality of life is drastically different compared to our white counterparts, but they don’t know about this. What they do know is every lyric to every popular rap song.

Moreover, you cannot claim ignorance in 2019.

How could Woods not understand that her white best friend was gaining public attention because of her lack of judgment and appropriation?

These are people who interact with social media constantly for a living. Woods and Kylie Jenner saw the outrage. They both saw the articles and the YouTube videos and the Twitter threads. They both knew what Kylie’s actions meant and did nothing.

Similarly, when you are with your white friends and they are appropriating, mocking and disrespecting your people, what is your excuse?

Now, I have to acknowledge that these conversations are hard. Black people should not have to feel like we need to educate white people all of the time. White people do need to educate themselves, but these are your friends (supposedly).

If I see my friend doing something that is wrong or something that could potentially hurt someone, I am morally obligated to say something to them. If these are people you care about, if these are people you have created a bond with, you should feel comfortable enough to have a serious talk with them. If you don’t, then maybe you need to ask yourself why.

Or maybe you don’t feel comfortable talking with them because you also don’t care.

Maybe Woods didn’t feel entitled or willing to speak up because she wanted to assimilate. She wanted to be accepted. She didn’t want to be “that” black person.

There are some black people who also participate in dehumanizing other black people

ILLUSTRATION: OLIVIA HEISTERKAMP ’19/ THE HAWK

solely to be accepted into white spaces. They will let their white friends use the N-word, they will give them box braids, they will invite them to the “cookout,” because they want to be received by white people. It sucks feeling like “the other” all of the time, I get that.

However, I don’t understand being someone I’m not just to have a white friend because, as stated before, Woods was kicked to the curb as soon as the Kardashians were done with her.

Why would I change myself or allow my people to be degraded just to have friends?

Granted, the Kardashians exposed Woods to many privileges. Maybe your white friends have done the same for you, but where is your integrity?

Racial isolation at St. Joe’s Prioritizing comfort for students of color is necessary DOMINIQUE JOE ’19 Opinions Editor There is no way to fully and completely articulate the isolation that I have felt over the four years I have been at St. Joe’s.

Racially speaking, it has been a hard four years where I’ve dealt with a lot of learning and unlearning in regards to race.

I came to St. Joe’s with a pretty muddy sense of self regarding my race. Of course, I look very black, but up until stepping foot on campus I wasn’t preoccupied with my race. I was never confronted consistently by the stark difference between me and my classmates.

I’ve always gone to predominantly white schools, and beyond the vague microaggressions in relation to my appearance, I never really thought about race. St. Joe’s changed that.

My growing social consciousness was inevitable in college and directly intersected with my almost revelatory coming-to-Jesus moment, that St. Joe’s is really white.

I have never been to a school that exuded such whiteness and privilege. Don’t get me wrong, prior to this I went to private school in Washington, D.C. so I have seen it first hand, not to say that I am either wealthy or privileged. (I feel like I have to disclose that.) But I had never felt socially isolated before.

I feel that way at St. Joe’s. And this isn’t an

indictment completely of the university, but the majority of white students that go here come from areas where race and racism is only talked about in the context of American slavery, the genocide of American Indians and the Chinese Exclusion Act, if that.

So I would say a majority of St. Joe’s students aren’t equipped with the racial intuitiveness that one might cultivate at a school that is more racially diverse or a school whose mission is to expose students to inclusion and

I say that I’ve spent the past four years isolated from a community that I’ve wanted to be a part of based solely on the fact that I might be the only one that looks like me in a room. With that in mind, no white person in that room has the racial acumen to acknowledge the fact that I’m the only black face in the room.

It isn’t even this kind of passive racial ignorance that students of color, black students and specifically myself have to deal with; there is active racial ignorance as well.

St. Joe’s is an environment that cultivates a feeling of racial isolation, and I’m not the only person of color that feels this way. diversity in intentional ways.

This isn’t to say that the majority of students at St. Joe’s are racist. By no means do I want to label a majority of the university in that way, but I do want to label them as racially ignorant, and this goes for certain faculty and staff members as well.

There seems to be no intentionality on the part of St. Joe’s at the present moment to be the inclusive and diverse space that it claims to be. It fosters a racially self-isolating culture because many students, faculty and staff refuse to have conversations about race, and thus do not learn how to practice racial understanding.

I’ve spoken about this before, but it shouldn’t be a surprise to white students when

My first semester at St. Joe’s, I took an education course. We were learning about how to teach in schools in different areas. We talked about how race and ethnicity play into social dynamics in the classroom. All fair and genuinely correct. That was until we talked about code switching.

My professor turns to me, the only black person in the room, and asks me if I speak Ebonics. Now besides the fact that “Ebonics” is an outdated term to refer to African American Vernacular English (AAVE), it is also a portmanteau of ebony and phonics. It was a racially ignorant comment that a 17-year-old Dominique was not even remotely equipped to answer.

I had never felt so small in my life. I felt as though I was being totally and completely singled out, which I was, and it hurt.

To have a professor turn to you and basically insinuate that because you are black, you can speak “Ebonics,” or there is a presumption that you should. This is especially hurtful because of the stigma surrounding “Ebonics.”

Everyone in the room, student wise, knew that this professor made a serious and egregious faux pas, but the professor continued on with the lesson nonetheless.

This professor didn’t know the kind of discomfort they had placed on me in that moment, and from that moment forward, I’ve felt nothing but isolation.

St. Joe’s is an environment that cultivates a feeling of racial isolation, and I’m not the only person of color that feels this way.

This isn’t a simple problem, and it doesn’t have a simple solution. A multitude of steps have to be taken before St. Joe’s can feel comfortable for all students of color.

I think the first thing though, before anything else can be done, has to be an intentional effort to chip away at racial ignorance through mandatory training on diversity, or even a General Education Program (GEP) course that is tailored solely to the discussion of race.

These suggestions may sound familiar as though they have been made before, but that’s because they have. Until these suggestions are met with actual consideration and implementation, nothing will change.

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April 17, 2019

Opinions

The Hawk Newspaper

Cheerleading is a sport, champions or not A perspective on the sexist perception of female athletes KARLEIGH LOPEZ ’20 Columnist On April 5, the SJU Cheer Team made history, being the first team to win a national cheerleading championship for St. Joe’s.

Over the past five years, St. Joe’s Cheer has placed in both second and third place, but this year, we finished first, beating thirteen other teams in our division.

However, for myself and several others on the team, our triumph sparked a much deeper fulfilment within us—the unbridled approval of our peers that many of us had been waiting for.

Having been a cheerleader for a large part of my life, I have grown fatigued of tirelessly defending the status of cheerleading as a sport.

Though I am not entirely proud to admit it, a lot of what motivated me this season was the fantasy of winning a national title and finally receiving recognition that cheerleaders are constantly deprived of.

Even as I fell to my knees in rapture when we were announced as the winners on the final day of competing, a sense of relief overwhelmed me—I now had a reason to justify to myself and to the world that cheerleading warranted respect.

I find it incredibly hard to imagine in any other sport that the first thoughts of the victorious athlete center around the opinions of others. But as I held the trophy in my hands,

surrounded by my teammates, coaches and parents, I was rudely confronted by the problem that even I was a part of: it should not take winning a national title for athletes to garner the respect we deserve.

I have been a part of several other sports teams throughout my life and I can confidently say that the absence of respect and praise is not unique to cheerleading. The foundation of the issue is the rhetoric typically used when discussing women’s sports.

Strong and talented women are consistently undervalued if they are not easily cat-

Conversely, if you’re not one of the few who is idolized for your abilities, your endless work is outshined, simply because of your gender or the stereotypes surrounding your sport.

Female sports teams and athletes are also frequently pitted against each other in ways that men’s teams and male athletes are not.

This year for the men’s basketball Atlantic 10 Tournament, the cheerleading team, the dance team, the pep band and a handful of students all shared the bus ride to Brooklyn. Since there is limited space on the court,

Strong and talented women are consistently undervalued if they are not easily categorical—female athletes are either highly fetishized as super human exceptions to the female kind or dismissed as just a girl with a hobby. egorical—female athletes are either highly fetishized as super human exceptions to the female kind or dismissed as just a girl with a hobby.

Stellar athletes like Ronda Rousey, Venus Williams and Serena Williams are often praised for their athletic abilities in a way that undermines them both as individuals and as professionals. I can easily recall students in my high school with Rousey as their wallpapers, amazed that someone “so hot” could be an example of exceptional athleticism.

both the cheer and dance teams had to select only a small number from each team to represent St. Joe’s at the tournament.

While boarding the bus, a male St. Joe’s student, feeling brazen and justified, turned to a member of the dance team to ask where the rest of their team was, to which she politely explained the limited court space for the spirit squads. This student then confidently and loudly exclaimed, “Well that’s stupid, dance team is way better, we’d rather just have you and no cheerleaders.”

While it initially took me a while to get over the anger, this one student’s ignorance is a perfect emblem for the bigger issue.

In no parallel scenario would the same sentence be spoken about two men’s sports teams. It is only when speaking about the “inferior gender” do people feel comfortable and vindicated to make comparisons which are not apples to apples.

Just as you would not compare Michael Phelps with Michael Jordan, each a remarkable athlete from two vastly different sports, you should not feel compelled to assert that the cheerleading and dance are one in the same.

Each sport brings something unique to the game day experience, in addition to both teams now holding national titles.

I am slowly learning to accept the ignorance of my peers because in the end, the only thing that should matter is the way my teammates and I work together to strive for bigger achievements.

National championship or not, I will always feel endlessly indebted to the St. Joe’s cheerleading program for making me a better athlete and role model than I ever thought I could be. The title we have won is only the beginning.

All the athletes before me who were a part of St. Joe’s cheerleading have invested a part of themselves into this program that helped us bring home the trophy this year.

I can only hope, for the cheerleading alumni, for myself and for future St. Joe’s cheerleaders that this victory will be the first of many, and the start of a new way of viewing the sport that is so close to all our hearts.

A prediction for the Buttigieg campaign Assessing Mayor Pete’s future in big-league politics BRENDAN KILEY ’19 Columnist Believe it or not, we are all going to have to learn how to pronounce this guy’s last name.

Pete Buttigieg (pronounced boot-edge-edge) is the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and he is running for president of the United States.

Normally if a man is leaving South Bend for Washington, D.C. it is to play for the Redskins. Surprisingly though, the mayor of the fourth biggest city in Indiana is making a splash in Democratic politics.

Looking at his resume now, it is clear why Buttigieg is a rising star. He left South Bend to attend Harvard University, and then the University of Oxford as a Rhodes scholar. He is also a veteran of the Naval Reserve who served in Afghanistan in 2014.

His biography is one of those meritocratic checklists fitting of a man with grand ambitions. He just has not quite reached the great heights he may have hoped for yet. His only attempt at state office as state treasurer of Indiana was a bad loss as was his attempt to head the Democratic National Committee in 2017.

Being the mayor of any city is an important job, but it is clear Buttigieg’s ambitions go beyond South Bend. One thing he will not be is governor. The state whose last governor was Mike Pence is unlikely to make a progressive Democrat their next one.

Buttigieg has seemed stuck, with his next logical steps blocked off by geography and demography. So why not skip a few steps and run for president? This may look like a delusion of grandeur, but so far, his results are impressive.

According to a Monmouth University poll published on April 11, Buttigieg is in third place for public approval in Iowa behind Sen.

Bernie Sanders and former VP Joe Biden, with growing support among young voters. His appeal goes beyond his LinkedIn page.

He can ably articulate a progressive agen-

camps. He joked, “I do not approve of their politics, but I kind of approve of their chicken.” While funny, this line could just as easily come off as offensive. What helps is the hint of

ILLUSTRATION: OLIVIA HEISTERKAMP ’19/THE HAWK

da, but he engages with people who disagree with him without alienating them. This strategy will be crucial with voters who do not like Donald Trump’s style of governance, but are not on board with everything Democrats are providing on the contrary.

One of the funnier interactions Buttigieg has had on the campaign trail thus far was his comments on Chick-fil-A, whose leadership is stridently against gay marriage and in the past has funded dangerous “conversion therapy”

self-deprecation to the joke. After all, Buttigieg is gay and the first openly gay politician running for president.

In a presidential race where it is better to be a cold sore than President Trump, Buttigieg is relying on biography and personality to set himself apart. He is a polite, earnest, mild-mannered man from the Midwest. Trump is a loud, brash, arrogant man from Queens.

Trump is an older man whose “bone

spurs” kept him out of Vietnam. Buttigieg is a young man who willingly served in the Middle East. Trump is a thrice married adulterer, Buttigieg married to a man he met on the app Hinge (very millennial). The dichotomies can go on all day, and that is something Buttigieg can capitalize on.

However, biography and personality cannot be all a presidential candidate has, and this is where Buttigieg falls into the familiar trappings.

A politics of mood is popular, and Trump connected with a certain mood more than he ever made substantive policy proposals.

It would be wrong to say Buttigieg is as weak on policy as Trump is. But while candidates like Elizabeth Warren are making policy the bedrock of their campaign, Buttigieg is not.

This lack of big-league experience will likely hold Buttigieg back, but this presidential campaign will be an undeniable step forward for him. He will not end up in the West Wing, but he will not end up back in South Bend either.

If an older or more coastal candidate ends up at the top of the ticket, Buttigieg will be on a vice-presidential shortlist. If not the vice-presidential slot, he would be in any Democratic cabinet or a frontrunner for 2024. There’s a lot to win in losing.

Second-tier presidential candidates come and go faster than we can remember them. In 2012 alone, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann and Pennsylvania’s own Rick Santorum all had their moment in the sun, but they never had staying power.

This Buttigieg boomlet suggests there is something more than a television contract with MSNBC. So remember, it is pronounced Boot-edge-edge, because there will come a time where he cannot just be called Mayor Pete.

Lifestyle

The Hawk Newspaper

April 17, 2019

9

Fresh faces take the stage

First year students make up half of "The Burial at Thebes" cast NATALIE DRUM ’20 Assistant Lifestyle Editor The SJU Theatre Company finished their performance of “The Burial at Thebes,” a version of Sophocles’ “Antigone” written by Seamus Heaney, on April 14.

Half of the play’s cast, including one of the lead roles, were comprised of first year students.

According to SJU Theatre Company Artistic Director Laura Pattillo, Ph.D., assistant professor of English, casting the best performers possible is more important than age and experience.

“This audition pool just happened to have a lot of very strong first year students

in it,” Pattillo said.

According to Patillo, seniority is not a factor in casting for the play.

“The way to win a role is to show potential at the initial audition and then show me what I need to see at callbacks, no matter who you are,” Pattillo said. “If you are the best casting choice for the role, I don’t care what your major is or whether you are a senior, a junior, a sophomore, a freshman, a grad student or a part-time student.”

Mattie Yoncha ’20, who played the lead role Antigone, said there was a need for new actors considering many students decided to perform in “Beauty and the Beast” instead.

“We lost two seniors who were con-

Mattie Yoncha ’20 and Ryenn Hayes ’22 perform in “The Burial of Thebes” PHOTOS: KERRY MCINTYRE

The opening scene of the spring play, The Burial at Thebes.

sistent in the plays [and] ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was such a big cast,” Yoncha said.

Additionally, Yoncha explained once auditions end and people are casted, some realize they cannot move forward with the play. This happened with one of the play’s lead roles, Creon.

Ryenn Hayes ’22 was originally cast in the chorus, but due to an unforeseen drop from the original person cast to play Creon, she auditioned.

Hayes said she was honored to have been chosen by Pattillo to play the lead role.

“It was a good introduction to the theatre company,” Hayes said. “It is always exciting being on stage, and I will definitely continue on with the student theatre company as well as the plays.”

Yoncha said she was thrilled to have new faces join her on stage, especially since she has usually been among the younger students in the productions.

“I have always been the underclassman, and there have always been more upperclassmen than underclassmen,” Yoncha said.

According to Yoncha, “The Burial at Thebes” was a good opportunity for a new cast member’s first play because it is short and has no intermission.

Yoncha also noted “The Burial at Thebes” is good for someone starting out because of the large amount of dialogue in the play. She said it pushes everyone to try their hardest when memorizing their lines.

“The one thing I will say about the SJU Theatre Company, especially with my experience in the plays, is that it’s a very welcoming community,” Yoncha said. “We are very much there to build each other up, not tear each other down.”

Relying on more experienced students like Yoncha for support enabled Hayes to flourish and see her potential within the SJU Theatre Company.

“I definitely had a growth experience through the show because the cast gave me a place,” Hayes said. “The older cast members welcoming me, being nice and always offering to help if I needed it with lines and such. They definitely gave me somewhere I felt I belonged.”

A look across the pond

Irish author speaks on the art of fiction writing MICHELLE MCCANN ’20 Special to The Hawk Award-winning Irish novelist Mike McCormack did a reading of his 2016 novel, “Solar Bones,” on April 10 in the North Lounge in Campion Student Center.

“Solar Bones” follows protagonist Marcus Conway, a civil engineer, as he reflects on the difficulties of navigating life as a husband, father and citizen of County Mayo in Ireland. McCormack read two excerpts from the novel, one of which describes Marcus’ relationship with his father and coping with his sudden death. The novel is composed of a single sentence written in the form of prose.

“One of the ways that my book is of its culture and against its culture at the same time is the recurring theme of the father in my work,” McCormack said.“There’s probably a good reason for that. I lost my father when I was 18.”

The publisher of “Solar Bones,” Tramp Press, had a complete understanding of the novel and had faith that readers would react positively to it. Tramp Press, launched

by Sarah Davis-Goff and Lisa Coen in 2014, is an independent publisher in Dublin, Ireland.

The novel has since won multiple awards, including an International Dublin Literary Award in 2018.

“I did not think that people would still be talking about it and referencing to it af-

ter almost three years,” McCormack said.

Powell compared McCormack’s work to that of Irish novelist James Joyce, from the late 19th to early 20th centuries.

“I don’t think it’s a secret that there is a Joycean influence there, but Joyce is the kind of influence that every Irish writer wrestles with as a father figure of Irish literature,” Powell said.“Mike is doing something new and something different.”

McCormack said during the reading that he wanted to explore the experimental nature of writing fiction while depicting real events in Northern Ireland.

“Literature is the license to go forth and experiment,” McCormack said.“I’d like to think that artistic intent was in part of my project because I see it as an absolutely essential aspect of what it means to be Irish.”

In the Q&A portion of the event, McCormack said that one of his focuses for the novel was the idea of the citizen and political citizenship in literature.

“Some things you don’t question,” McCormack said. “They just pull and steer your pen toward certain things, and one of them is politics.”

In the last few minutes of the session, McCormack gave advice to those with a passion for creative writing.

“Learn to read as a writer,” McCormack said. “If you find yourself reading a book and you find yourself struck with awe and enthusiasm and envy, the wrong thing is to continue on. The right thing is to go back

and see how it is built and put together.”

Patricia Darcy ’19, an English major, said that McCormack was attending their Bestsellers and Literary Marketplace graduate course following the event to speak more on the novel.

“The class read the book prior to him coming so we can talk about it, ask questions, see the production aspect of it and the story behind it,” Darcy said.

As an English major with an interest in creative writing, Brittany Baronski ’19, also enrolled in the class, was looking forward to having more time with McCormack.

“I like to get that kind of insight,” Baronski said. “You don’t really get that every day from a real author.”

Powell later said that she found a desire to bring Irish writers to campus through her Irish literature courses each semester.

“There are so many students of Irish descent,” Powell said. “Students who care about where they come from and want to learn all about it. So, just being able to bring Irish writers here is such an amazing opportunity for the students, and it’s something that I’d like to do more of. This is just the beginning.”

Mike McCormack speaking about his novel, “Solar Bones” PHOTO: CHARLEY REKSTIS ’20/THE HAWK

Lifestyle

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April 17, 2019

Affinity groups essential to college experience ALEX HARGRAVE ’20 Lifestyle Editor Black students attending St. Joe’s in the early 1970s created a student group called the Black Awareness Society (BAS), partly as a response to the growing civil rights movement.

Mike Bantom ’73 was an early member of the BAS. An All-American in the 1972-1973 men’s basketball season, he said black students wanted to assert their identity and wanted their voices to be heard.

“It was a time when our culture, our music, everything was screaming black awareness, black pride,” said Bantom, now executive vice president of league operations and head of basketball development for the NBA. “We wanted to be part of that.”

The BAS is an example of an affinity group, similar to other subgroups on colleges campuses, that allow people to have a sense of their uniqueness and their anonymity, according to Sarah Willie-LeBreton, Ph.D., professor of sociology and provost at Swarthmore College. “[Affinity] groups allow people to remind each other they’re not homogenous themselves,” Willie-LeBreton said. “Even these affinity groups are pretty diverse within them, but they help folks in them to remind each other that there is diversity among them. All black students on campus are not alike, all Latinx students are not alike, all Asian students are not alike.”

Affinity groups that are part of St. Joe’s Office of Inclusion and Diversity include the Black Student Union (BSU), the Asian Student Association (ASA), the Caribbean Student Association (CSA), the Latino Student Association (LSA), SJU Pride, SJU Naturals, Higher Destination Choir, the International Student Association and Bridging the Gap (BTG). These groups are not exclusively for

students of color, but they provide safe spaces for students who share an identity, in this case a marginalized identity.

According St. Joe’s office of Student Leadership and Activities, there are 90 registered student organizations on campus, including sororities and fraternities.

On a campus where almost 80% of students self-identify as white, there is a need for spaces for students of color, said Natalie Walker Brown, M.S., director for Student Inclusion and Diversity.

“The importance comes from the desire to be part of something, to be part of a community, to connect with other people that may be coming from similar backgrounds, speak the same languages, have similar life experiences,” Walker Brown said. “A lot of times, majority groups don’t necessarily see those things. They don’t understand sometimes what it’s like to go your entire day and never see someone that looks like you.”

Willie-LeBreton said racism remains a serious problem in the U.S., and the affinity groups today, a direct outgrowth of the groups from the 1970s, fulfill the same critical need.

“It’s hard for some dominant group members to understand that while the civil rights movement and different liberation movements that it inspired were successful, they were not complete,” Willie-LeBreton said. “The intransigence of structural racism remains with us to such a dramatic degree that it is frightening.”

Bantom said people within St. Joe’s community questioned the need for the BAS when it was established.

“There was a lot of subtle pushback about us,” Bantom said. “‘Why do we have to have a Black Student Union?’ like we were separating ourselves from the larger society there. But you have to ignore that because the reality is that racism does still exist, whether its conscious or unconscious.”

Black Awareness Society photographed in the 1971 Greatonian yearbook. Bantom is pictured in the second row, third from the left. PHOTO COURTESY OF SJU ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

Ckyam Saint-Cyr ’19, president and founder of the CSA, said she started the organization on campus to provide a space where she and other Caribbean students can express themselves.

“I like being Caribbean, and I like celebrating being Caribbean,” Saint-Cyr said.

“Coming here, I knew it was predominately white and that I was going to need that space. I can relate to other people who are Caribbean, and I knew I wasn’t going to find a lot of people here who are like that.”

Willie-LeBreton said affinity groups do programming for the larger campus so other members of the campus community are able to see and appreciate the heterogeneity of each of those subgroups.

“There’s a difference between having time for people who identify with the group to have the space to be in conversation with each other and often supporting each other,” Willie-LeBreton said. “But then there’s a different role they play in terms of offering programming for the larger community that invites dominant group members and anybody else in. I think those two roles are really important, and both of those should be lifted up and celebrated.”

Fatmata Sakho ’21, a member of CSA, said the group brings people together with its annual fashion show and the Taste of the World event in which the CSA participates with other student organizations.

“It’s important to have clubs and organizations like this where people are going to be aware of different cultural things like food, clothing or languages,” Sakho said. “It is a way for all of us to be accepting of each other.”

Willie-LeBreton said these organizations are not only a support system for

minority students on campus, but they are crucial to make it through the college experience in a lot of cases.

“If you don’t have that group and the only people who are reflecting back to you a sense of reality are people who have very different experiences from yours and are members of the dominant group, then you and they together can begin to have a warped sense of social reality,” Willie-LeBreton said.

Jane Ingram ’20, co-president of the BSU, said she joined BSU after having a conversation with the organization’s leadership about being black at St. Joe’s during her first year.

“I wanted to connect with the black community more because I feel like I was kind of closed off at the time,” Ingram said. “BSU really allowed me to open up about my culture, where I come from, the family history I have.”

Izabelle Valentin ’20, president of the LSA, said she joined the LSA to connect with other students who identify as Latinx.

“Coming into this campus, I was fortunate enough to have met other Latinx people who lived in my suite, but I know that’s not the case for everyone,” Valentin said. “I wanted to be part of something which allows other individuals who identify as Latinx to come together in a space that they feel comfortable in and welcomed in.”

Ingram said the BSU not only aims to make the campus community more comfortable with black culture in their programming, but they also take initiative in creating a more inclusive and diverse campus environment.

“The past year, we’ve had a lot of things going on on campus, and I think BSU has really tried their best to be at the forefront of it and guide the community to a place of peace and prosperity,” Ingram said.

Members of the Latino Student Association PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

Members of the Black Student Union PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

Members of the Caribbean Student Association PHOTO: ROSE BARRETT ’20/THE HAWK

Lifestyle

The Hawk Newspaper

April 17, 2019

11

SJU Irish Dance holds second annual showcase

Hip-Hop Hawks help fundraise for Irish Dance uniforms NATALIE DRUM ’20 Assistant Lifestyle Editor A packed crowd watched the SJU Irish Dance club and the Hip Hop Hawks perform together at the second annual SJU Irish Dance showcase on April 12 in the Perch. The two on-campus dance clubs alternated performances, ending the night with a collaborative dance that included every member of both teams.

The purpose of the showcase was not only to entertain but also to raise funds for the SJU Irish Dance Club, an organization started by the co-presidents, Stephanie Crispell ’20 and Delaney Coppola ’20, during their first year, at St. Joe’s.

“We noticed there was an Irish culture club, but it was not as active on campus,” Coppola said. “We wanted something that we were involved in and had been doing since first grade.”

Both Crispell and Coppola danced competitively against each other before attending St. Joe’s and wanted to continue their passion of dance.

“In the beginning we started smaller, doing nursing home performances or small performances at St. Joe’s,” Crispell said.

“Last year and this year our performances have really taken off.”

With 17 consistent members, the club’s growth has taken them to perform in many different competitive environments.

“We do an intercollegiate irish dance competition in the fall at Villanova University with a whole bunch of other schools that have irish dance clubs,” Crispell said.

“Most of them have really nice embroidered traditional skirts.”

According to Coppola, the Villanova Irish Dance Team and other organizations who participate in the competition have been around for a lot longer than SJU Irish Dance Club.

Hip Hop Hawks and Irish Dance Club performers finish their showcase. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

“They have the funding and the connections, so we are just trying to get to that same level funding wise and presentation wise while we dance,” Coppola said.

The event was a fundraiser for SJU Irish Dance Club to pay for embroidered skirts, but the showcase also allowed the Hip Hop Hawks to show off their talents.

“We think it is really cool, the different styles blending together,” said Alex Vlahovic ’22, a member of the Hip Hop Hawks.

The Hip Hop Hawks was started by Taylor ’20 and Jordan Sweeney ’21 in 2018 according to the Radio 1851 MC, Nicholas Senatore ’19.

“They wanted to spread their love for dance all around campus,” Senatore said.

“Their goal was to create an open, inclusive and fun space for dancers but also people who just want to learn.”

Crispell wanted to include the Hip Hop Hawks.

“We knew they had not really done a ton of performances,” Crispell said. “We thought it would be fun to use both of the dance clubs on campus and kind of bring some traditional Irish dance and hip hop together.”

Kally Pachuta ’22, a member of the Hip Hop Hawks, said she was excited to help SJU Irish Dance fundraise.

“We like being able to be a part of it so that they can bring in more people to help them raise money,” Pachuta said.

Kelly Flynn ’20, a member of the Irish dance team, said that the group will continue to fundraise through bake sales and other methods.

Flynn said, being able to wear a uniform during performances would add to their overall presentation and performance.

“A lot of traditional Irish dancers have certain dresses and skirts that they wear,” Flynn said. “So just to be more traditional in our club and showcase uniformity rather than just having a black dress.”

Live from Hawk Hill, it's St. Joe's Live

New comedy club looks to take improv comedy to a new level ANNIE MACKERT ’21 Hawk Staff When it comes to clubs on campus, Ryan McDonnell ’20 and Chris Kenkelen ’20 noticed a need for more comedy.

McDonnell and Kenkelen are both members of SJU Improv, which inspired them to create a club solely dedicated to scripted comedy, called St. Joe’s Live.

“There really isn’t a comedy club at St. Joe’s,” Kenkelen said. “There are a lot of people [interested in comedy], I notice when a lot of people try out for improv. I think, ‘Wow, that person is so funny, but improv is not their thing. If they had a written thing, they would be so funny.’”

McDonnell and Kenkelen said they will hold auditions to select their comedy team.

According to Kenkelen, students who audition will do a script reading, followed by 30 seconds of improv. From there, they will hold a callback where students will have 24 hours to prepare a script.

The variety of scripted and unscripted comedy allows comedians who are not interested in improv to have a place on campus, according to McDonnell.

“I was always the kid who was better with a script than when I was thinking off the top of my head, so I can only imagine that there are other people out there like me,” McDonnell said. “We just wanted to start a club with other people who are passionate about comedy and want to improve their writing.”

McDonnell and Kenkelen said they

have always had a love for making people laugh, and their biggest comedic inspirations come from Saturday Night Live (SNL), including John Mulaney and Pete Davidson. They said St. Joe’s Live is modeled after SNL and the sketches on the show.

Once McDonnell and Kenkelen build a comedy team, they plan to practice once or twice per week, writing and blocking

Founders Chris Kenkelen ’20 and Ryan McDonnell ’20 PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

scripts. Starting next semester, they hope to put on two to three shows each semester.

“We are trying to go beyond the standard of live performance,” McDonnell said.

McDonnell said St. Joe’s Live is planning to work with the film department to film sketches, as well as the music department for jazz musicians that will play between sketches, SNL style.

Matt Homiak ’20 is also a member of the improv club who is auditioning for St. Joe’s Live.

“Seeing [McDonnell and Kenkelen] perform on stage, I knew the guys were hilarious and had crazy good chemistry, so the club would have a very relaxed atmosphere with a, ‘We’ll see what happens’ inspiration,” Homiak said. “I’m a big SNL fan to begin with, plus I’ve wanted practice writing comedy for a long time.”

McDonnell and Kenkelen said they know what they are looking for in members of their comedy troupe.

“Creativity is huge, if they are able to come up with a weird funny idea for a script,” Kenkelen said. “Having an idea of what is funny and what isn’t, delivering things with comedic timing. We’re looking for skills like that.”

12

The Hawk Newspaper

April 17, 2019

Lifestyle

Ending fast fashion

Mindful Misfits promotes responsible consumerism on campus

Ryan Scanlan ’20 and Jeff Hunt ’20 sell their donations to St. Joe's students outside Wolfington Hall. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

CARA SMITH ’21 Assistant Lifestyle Editor Mindful Misfits is a clothing donation and retail group run by five St. Joe’s students that encourages buyers to contribute consciously and consume responsibly within their community.The Mindful Misfits' team consists of Chelsea Costa ’21, Jeff Hunt ’20, Ryan Scanlan ’20, Madison Auer ’20 and Mark Bernstiel ’20.

Currently, Mindful Misfits accepts clothing donations from St. Joe’s students and sells the items at weekly pop-up shops on Tuesdays during free period and Wednesdays from 2-4 p.m. outside of Wolfington Hall. The proceeds from each sale are distributed into three categories: 40% goes to a nonprofit, 30% goes back to the donor and 30% goes to Mindful Misfits to cover overhead costs.

Costa said that she was motivated to help create the clothing organization when she started researching the fashion industry.

“The fashion industry is the second leading cause of pollution in the envi-

ronment,” Costa said. “Eighty percent of clothes, especially in women’s closets, are wasted and thrown out every year.”

Hunt said the group also aims to combat throw-away culture by offering consumers an alternative to inexpensive low quality clothing.

“What we are doing is trying to support more ethical companies and that their clothing will last a lifetime,” Hunt said.

“Not just your lifetime, but for the person you are sharing it with [after it is donated].”

In addition to promoting environmentally friendly clothing practices, Costa said Mindful Misfits donates a significant amount of their proceeds to charity.

Hub of Hope, a nonprofit that provides relief centers in Philadelphia, and Sunday Suppers, a nonprofit that helps families in Philadelphia afford and attain nutritious diets, receive Mindful Misfits’ donations.

All clothing that is not sold within two months of donation will be distributed to the Hub of Hope relief centers.

“We wanted to keep [the donations] focused in Philly and [donate to] small nonprofits that really needed the financial

Crossword: Commencement Across 3. A common phrase people say to graduates.

5. An honors program for dedicated students.

7. What a diploma signifies.

8. Most of the audience that at tends graduation.

9. What students seek after graduation 10. A common gesture that occurs when students accept their diploma.

11. The place where students accept their diploma Down 1. What students wear to graduation 2. A college bachelor’s degree 3. The ceremony of graduation 4. The piece of paper graduates receive 6. Something that is typically shed on graduation day

support,” Costa said. “We want the charity to be the focus of our mission.”

In addition to promoting responsible consumerism and giving back to the community, Scanlan said the distribution of the profits were created with their consumers in mind.

“We want it to be accessible for our customers, so we try to be fair with our prices, and we are negotiable too,” Scanlan said.

“But also [we set prices] so that we can make enough of a profit to make difference.”

David Steingard Ph.D., associate professor of management and leadership, ethics and organizational sustainability, said Mindful Misfits gives members of the St. Joe’s community a convenient way to participate in responsible consumerism. “[Mindful Misfits] changes it from a disposable, irresponsible, non-cradle-tograve system to something that is circular, that disjoints the circular economy and other ideas of sustainability that should permeate the entire campus climate,” Steingard said.

The founders said they are hesitant to label Mindful Misfits as a nonprofit or a

student group and assign official roles to members because they are unsure of what the group will look like in the future.

According to Hunt, Mindful Misfits’ short-term goals are to expand their popup shops to different locations within Philadelphia and extend their community outreach, which could be as early as this summer.

“I could see us opening up in Center City or maybe on Penn’s campus if there is traffic for that,” Hunt said. “If we have extra money from profit that we keep, I [want] to make food and bring it along with the excess donations to the streets of Philly.”

While the group is looking to expand beyond St. Joe's campus, Sophie Escario ’21, a customer from the pop-up sale, said Mindful Misfits has a special place on campus.

“There is something really cool about reusing other students’ clothes,” Escario said. “I feel that we have a really good community feel on campus, and now we are all coming together and taking part in something and sharing literally our clothes.”

Sports

The Hawk Newspaper

April 17, 2019

13

Kimble smart to transfer out of St. Joe's basketball program JAMES MCCLOSKEY JR. ’20 Hawk Staff I did not forsee Lamarr Kimble, former St. Joe’s redshirt junior guard, leaving Hawk Hill to play for the University of Louisville, a program 672 miles away.

I expected Kimble to either remain a Hawk, be recruited by Temple University or transfer to the University of Connecticut to play under Head Coach Dan Hurley, a former Atlantic 10 Conference head coach for the University of Rhode Island.

Since Kimble’s official announcement to move to Louisville as a graduate transfer on April 11, I have taken a look at what this move means for Kimble, for the Cardinals and for the Hawks.

Kimble is joining a Cardinal roster that’s positioned to thrive next season.

With a 20-14 record in the 2018-2019 season, including a sixth-place finish in the Atlantic Coast Conference with wins against the University of North Carolina and Virginia Tech, the Cardinals are prepared to compete next season.

The addition of Kimble provides them depth, allowing the Cardinals to make a push for the NCAA Tournament, which they have

made six times since 2009, winning in 2013.

Kimble has reached the NCAA Tournament only once in his four years playing for the Hawks, which came after capturing the A-10 Championship in 2016.

Kimble wants to win, and he wants to compete. Spending his final year of eligibility with St. Joe’s, a team that is rebuilding and currently only has six current players likely to return, would be foolish.

Kimble, much like redshirt forward Char-

the reins, bringing Cardinal basketball back to what it used to be a winning program.

The addition of Kimble is one of the first major moves Mack has garnered since he became the head coach in 2018. The quick recruitment and signing of Kimble shows that Mack is ready to compete.

So what does this mean for the Hawks?

They have officially lost one of the key players of the past four seasons. A three-year captain of the team, Kimble was a leader on

These comments made by students throughout Hawk Hill are full of ignorance and an inability to realize that there are opportunities for studentathletes outside of our campus. lie Brown, who recently entered his name to the 2019 NBA Draft, has been significantly overlooked by NBA scouts as a result of the Hawks’ poor play.

For the Cardinals, Kimble could be the last piece they need to once again be relevant in the ACC. The last two seasons were off years for Louisville, with a sixth place finish in the ACC in the 2018-2019 season and eighth place in the 2017-2018 season.

After the fallout between the NCAA and Rick Pitino, former Cardinals head coach, current Head Coach Chris Mack has taken

the court, in the locker room and in the St. Joe’s community.

Since the announcement, I have heard students across campus talking about Kimble.

“Kimble has been hurt every season anyway, what’s the difference if he is here or not?” "Kimble isn’t even good.” “He isn’t even going to play at Louisville.” “Why would he transfer there?” And my favorite, “Bynum is ready to take over anyway.”

These comments made by students throughout Hawk Hill are full of ignorance and an inability to realize that there are op-

portunities for student-athletes outside of our campus.

While Kimble has had his fair share of injuries over the past four seasons, he has also been a key contributor to the Hawks during his time on the court.

During the 2016 A-10 Championship, he played 18.1 minutes per game off the bench and was named to the Atlantic-10 All-Rookie Team.

Kimble led the Hawks in scoring in the 2016-2017 season and was second in scoring to Brown this past season. Throughout his career with the Hawks, Kimble scored 958 points and notched 258 assists. Kimble is an elite player by Hawk standards.

Kimble is likely to get significant playing time with the Cardinals and the possibility of starting. The Cardinals need a strong-minded team leader on the court with experience to act as a floor general.

Kimble provides that.

The Hawks must find a way to fill the void Kimble will be leaving behind.

Head Coach Billy Lange has a tough few weeks ahead of him as he begins recruiting transfer players and unsigned high school prospects. During his search, a replacement for Kimble must be at the forefront.

14

The Hawk Newspaper

April 17, 2019

Sports

St. Joe's women's lacrosse celebrates Senior Day COLLIN MESSENGER ’22 Hawk Staff Shortly after the St. Joe’s women’s lacrosse team won 19-7 over La Salle University at home on April 14, the Hawks began a Senior Day tribute, honoring all senior Hawk players on the team.

Senior attacks Francesca Donato and Rebecca Lane, senior midfielders Sinead Brierley and Hayley Sabol and senior defender Ally Beck were all honored.

Head Coach Alex Kahoe said this occasion inspired the team to leave everything they had on the field.

“It was a special experience with it being the seniors’ last time to play on Sweeney Field,” Kahoe said. “I think there was a little extra spark in the air, a little extra fight, in terms of [the team] having the seniors’ backs.”

According to Sabol, the sentimental day began when the team surprised the seniors before the game, decorating the locker room.

“It didn’t really sink in until we first walked into the locker room and saw that all of our teammates decorated it,” Sabol said.

“During the game, it really hit home that it was going to be our last time on Sweeney when our coach told us at halftime that there

Sinead Brierley has started every game for the Hawks this season. PHOTOS: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/ THE HAWK

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were 30 minutes left. I think that’s when we really kicked it into high gear and left it all out there.”

The team celebrated their seniors with the same energy they exuded on the field after the game, according to Sabol. She said that being honored alongside her teammates, family and friends was a truly special experience.

“It was a bittersweet moment,” Sabol said. “I was very thankful that my whole family could be here and I had my second family, my team, here with me as well, so it was a very emotional moment."

Brierley echoed Sabol’s sentiment, saying the atmosphere reflected the support she has felt over her four-year collegiate career.

“It was amazing, and I cannot thank [our family, friends, and fans] enough,” Brierley said. “They have been there with us through every up and down, every moment for the past four years, pushing me and the team to always give it my all.”

Brierley also said it was a surreal moment to look back on her achievement as an athlete at St. Joe’s.

“Today when I heard my name being called, it all hit me at once,” Brierley said. “I just realized that all my hard work paid off, and it’s an unreal feeling, because being a Division I athlete is not an easy feat.”

Reflecting on Senior Day in light of these past four years, Kahoe said this group of five seniors has set a new standard for St. Joe’s women’s lacrosse.

“I have loved seeing this group of seniors

Hayley Sabol was named a captain for the 2019 season.

grow and develop,” Kahoe said. “They have really helped establish the foundation for the program. As we continue to take the program to the next level, that Atlantic 10 Championship, this class specifically has really helped make a difference in helping push the team in that direction.”

This senior group netted three 7-2 regular season conference record years, and three third place finishes in the A-10 Tournament over the past three years. Kahoe said they deserved being honored for these achievements.

“They all came in and were willing to work hard and really trust us as a staff,” Kahoe said. “They gave it their all, putting their heart and hustle out there at all times.”

Sports 15

April 17, 2019

The 1975-76 Hawks team finished with a record of 10-16. PHOTO COURTESY OF SJU ATHLETICS

Fans’ banner mocks first all-black starting five in 1976 NICK KARPINSKI ’21 Sports Editor At a St. Joe’s men’s basketball game in early 1976, fans in the La Salle University student section rolled out a white banner a foot and a half wide. The banner, which stretched across the student section from end to end, read “Black Hawks.”

Michael Thomas ’78, the starting small forward for the Hawks, remembered how the word “Black,” written in black, seemed to emphasize the color of St. Joe’s starting lineup: the men were all black.

“Back in the 1970s, it was wide open,” Thomas said. “You would say what you wanted to say, and people would just take it. You couldn’t roll out a banner like that today, talking about someone’s nationality or background.”

Thomas was one of five players from the 1975-76 season who made up the university’s first all-black starting lineup.

Former Head Coach Harry Booth put forward a starting five that season that consisted of Thomas, Willie Taylor, Zane Major ’79, Norman Black ’79 and Ed Benson ’77.

Twelve games into the season, on Jan. 18, 1976, this starting five faced Big 5 rival, La Salle at The Palestra. St. Joe’s wound up beating La Salle 86-75.

In December 1964, five months after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, the Boston Celtics played the first all-black starting lineup in NBA history against the Milwaukee Hawks. The Celtics won 97-84.

Two years later, in 1966, NCAA men’s basketball featured its first all-black starting lineup. Texas Western College, now known as the University of Texas at El Paso, started five black players against an all-white University of Kentucky team. Texas Western beat the University of Kentucky 72-65 in the NCAA championship game.

The Texas Western players received death threats for playing in the game, leading the team’s head coach to cut all the phones off in their hotel rooms, according to a March 17, 2016 Associated Press story commemorating the 50th anniversary of the game.

Jamal Ratchford, Ph.D., an assistant professor of history at Colorado College

who studies the role of black athletes in sports and has written extensively on the topic, said the passing of the Civil Rights Act didn’t necessarily make life easier for black athletes.

“It was a serious and divisive issue,” Ratchford said. “Many southern schools did not want their teams to play at home or on the road against teams with black athletes.”

Benson, the St. Joe’s starting center during the 1975-76 season, said banners like the one unfurled by La Salle students were common in Big 5 play at the time. Benson recalled another banner, during a separate Big 5 game, that proclaimed “[Michael] Thomas is a burnt English muffin.”

“Back then there were no boundaries to quotes [on banners],” Thomas said. “You had to laugh and shake it off.”

Benson said the banners were supposed to be reviewed by both opposing head coaches before being displayed at games.

“The student body was responsible for these banners, and they were supposed to be scrutinized by both head coaches,” Benson said.

Benson said some fans weren’t used to black players representing their school.

“Fans stated that this wasn’t the traditional St. Joe’s basketball way,” Benson said.

“People weren’t used to seeing five black players on the court for St. Joe’s. Ninety-five percent of the time it was fine, but there was that 5% of people that expressed their concerns about what they value as traditional St. Joe’s basketball.”

Thomas agreed that fans weren’t accustomed to seeing black players dominate the court for St. Joe’s.

“By completely flipping the switch, the whole dynamic changes,” Thomas said. “It was a big change to see five African Americans on the court at one time.”

But Benson said ultimately, whether it

was a comment or banner from the stands, the team had to learn to dismiss it.

“We had a very small amount of people of color within the student body,” Benson said. “The students didn’t have that understanding to be aware of others. When you reflect upon that today, you would hope not to see it. You would hope that people would be more sensitive, understanding why you wouldn’t do something like that.”

No matter the reaction from fans at the time, Thomas acknowledged that being part of the first all-black starting lineup in the Big 5 was a significant moment in university history.

“It was a great thing because nothing bonds people together more than sports,” Thomas said. “We were trendsetters, and this is something that we brought forward.

We’re proud of that.”

The “Black Hawks” banner was held in the La Salle student section at The Palestra 44 years ago. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

16

April 17, 2019

The Hawk Newspaper

Sports

Fighting sexism in sports finds roots at St. Joe's RYAN MULLIGAN ’21 Assistant Sports Editor In the past two weeks, there have been two events in the basketball world that facilitated national discussion about the role of women in sports. More specifically, women coaching in both the college ranks and in the NBA. The Philadelphia 76ers promoted Lindsey Harding from her role as a scout, making her the first female assistant coach in franchise history on April 9. This move filled the position previously held by St. Joe’s men’s basketball Head Coach Billy Lange. Harding is the second full-time assistant coach in the NBA after Becky Hammon of the San Antonio Spurs.

In the following week, St. Joe’s alumna and University of Notre Dame women’s basketball Head Coach Muffet McGraw ’77 made comments that went viral regarding the gender gap in not only sports, but the world beyond during her team’s Final Four appearance.

“We don’t have enough female role models, we don’t have enough visible female leaders, we don’t have enough women in power,” McGraw said during her press conference on April 4. “Girls are socialized to know that when they come out, gender roles are already set. Men run the world, men have the power. When these girls are coming out, who are they looking up to to tell them that’s not the way it has to be? Where better to do that than in sports?”

McGraw’s monologue advocating for gender equality has become symbolic on a national level, as she related sexism in athletics to gender discrimination happening politically and historically. She spoke about the Equal Rights Amendment, how it was proposed in 1967 and still has not passed.

McGraw then pointed out that women only hold 23% of the House of Representatives and 25% of the Senate. She then circled her argument back to athletics, claiming it could be a starting point for improvement.

Jill Bodensteiner, J.D., director of athletics, who became a close friend of McGraw’s during their time at Notre Dame, said she was not surprised McGraw has risen to the forefront of the discussion surrounding gender roles.

“Those are the exact same conversations we would have on a regular basis,” Bodensteiner said. “I was proud in a couple of ways. One that she was a Saint Joseph’s alum, and two that she’s using her platform in a very productive way and is okay with people disagreeing with her.”

Bodensteiner said she too feels a certain obligation to help advance women in the

world of athletics, using her status as one of 39 female athletic directors on the Division I level. She has hosted career nights for student athletes at St. Joe’s, where a career in coaching is emphasized. She is also traveling to Atlanta in May to do a professional development seminar for women’s basketball coaches.

“I do feel responsible, and I hope that it’s not just because it’s the right thing to do because I’m a woman,” Bodensteiner said.

“I can’t for the life of me figure out why we have this narrative that men can coach women and women can’t coach men. That’s really distressing to me.”

Bodensteiner said one way to change that perspective is to grow the pipeline of female candidates, beginning with student athletes.

“At the end of the day, [McGraw’s] statement came back to student athletes, which is exactly what I’m all about,” Bodensteiner said. “So it comes back to what are we teaching these young women and how could we be using athletics to teach and develop them?”

St. Joe’s women’s basketball Head Coach Cindy Griffin ’91 has seen many of her former players go on to become coaches. Her coaching tree has grown during her 17year tenure at St. Joe’s to have former players coaching at University of Connecticut, Northeastern University, University of Vermont, Drexel University and Loyola University.

“It’s a testament to how we run our program,” Griffin said. “It’s run like a family, and we say coaching is a way to give back to the sport that has given us so much.”

Assistant women’s basketball coach and St. Joe's Athletic Hall of Famer Susan Lavin, who has been an assistant under Griffin for 15 years, said Griffin was instrumental in getting her into the coaching world. Griffin gave her the opportunity to continue playing professionally overseas while also being an assistant at St. Joe’s.

“It was the best of both worlds,” Lavin said. “[Griffin] really helped me learn the game from a coaching perspective and she’s someone who listens to everyone’s voice.

According to Griffin, the athletic community is trending closer to equality.

“The Sixers hired Lindsey Harding.

That’s a step in the right direction,” Griffin said. “There’s a lot of men coaching men, you don’t see a lot of women coaching men, but you’re starting to see it, which is great.”

Lavin, who was a teammate of Hammon on the New York Liberty, agreed that great strides have been made in just the last decade alone.

“Becky [Hammon] was already a coach

Muffet McGraw played basketball at St. Joe’s from 1974-1977. PHOTO COURTESY OF SJU ATHLETICS

on the floor when I played with her, and Lindsay Harding is a great hire,” Lavin said.

“When I began coaching, women coaching men was unfathomable.”

Bodensteiner said sexism is inherent in our culture and a systemic problem that will take time to fix.

“The very root our society is sexist,” Bodensteiner said. “There are assumptions made about what women can and can’t do, the objectification of women. I think young boys and girls grow up thinking that men should be in the position of power. The number of sexist comments that I’ve gotten since I’ve been in

this job is absolutely mind boggling.”

Although the NBA has seen women take on a roll in coaching, with Hammon in 2014 and now Harding, the first two fulltime female assistant coaches, Division I men’s basketball has yet to see a woman on the sidelines.

However, Bodensteiner admitted that during her search for the new men’s basketball coach, there was one woman in her top 10 candidates.

“There was consideration of a female for the men’s basketball job, and you can probably guess who that was,” Bodensteiner said.

Women’s basketball Head Coach Cindy Griffin has the most wins for women’s coaches at St. Joe’s. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK