Nov. 20, 2019

Nov. 20, 2019

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Volume C

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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

Delaney Watson ’22 checks the blood pressure of a parish member at Victory Harvest Fellowship in West Philadelphia during a health screening on Nov. 17. PHOTO: LUKE MALANGA ’20/THE HAWK

Institute of Clinical Bioethics provides healthcare for immigrants JACKIE COLLINS ’21 Copy Editor Every third Sunday of the month, African immigrants head to the church hall of Victory Harvest Fellowship in West Philadelphia for health screenings.

Members of the Hispanic immigrant community do the same on the fourth Sunday of every month at St. Francis De Sales Catholic Church in West Philadelphia.

The “Mercy Health Promoter Program” provides health screenings for Philadelphia’s immigrant communities. The screenings are part of a collaboration between St. Joe’s Institute of Clinical Bioethics (ICB), Mercy Catholic Medical Center (MCMC) and local church communities. Attendees of the promoter program are then encouraged to visit medical professionals at MCMC if their health screenings indicate they need proper medical attention.

Peter Clark, Ph.D., S.J., director of the ICB, said due to the generosity of Joseph DiAngelo ’70, Ed.D., dean of the Haub School of Business (HSB), the program now has an account at MCMC, which covers bloodwork, diabetes and hypertension medicine, and one X-ray for each immigrant who visits.

“We beg, borrow and steal to be quite honest with you,” Clark said. “We literally go out and seek donors. And the hospital provides all the free medical care if they are referred to the hospital.”

The promoter program is intended to be self-sustainable, Aloysius Ochasi, Ph.D., assistant director of academics and consultations of ICB, said. Members of Victory Harvest Fellowship apply and are trained to be community health promoters, so that FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIA

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around every two years the ICB can move on to implement the model at another church in the Philadelphia area.

“We pick members of the community, who [immigrants] are very comfortable with, to be part of the program,” Ochasi said.

Community health promoters are educated on the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which protects health data integrity, confidentiality and availability.

“It gives [immigrants] a sense of assurance that whatever they tell [the community health promoters] doesn’t get out into

the streets,” Ochasi said. “We want to make sure the community health promoters have some sense of dignity to respect them.”

Clark said it is necessary for this healthcare program to be based in a church setting because the majority of parishioners that they treat are undocumented, and they are worried that if they visit a hospital, they will be identified and ultimately deported.

“They feel more comfortable and safe in a church,” Clark said. “But also the problem is, who’s paying [for them to visit the hospitals]? They don’t have the money.”

MCMC found a need to kickstart this

program with the ICB in 2010, when they saw that uninsured, undocumented African immigrants were frequently visiting their emergency rooms with end-stage renal diseases, more commonly known as chronic kidney failure.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit organization that focuses on national health issues, in 2017 more than 45% of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. were uninsured.

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A medical student from Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine checks the glucose levels of a parish member. PHOTO: LUKE MALANGA ’20/THE HAWK

FEATURES

OPINIONS

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Discussing ties between Aramark and the prison industrial complex

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St. Joe’s community discusses favorite Thanksgiving side dishes

SPORTS

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Campus Recreation sees boom in intramural participation

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Nov. 20, 2019

News

The Hawk Newspaper

Latinx students experience racism on campus RACHEL DURANTE ’22 Special to The Hawk Every afternoon during the school week, Laura Fuentes Pou ’21 and her friends gather in Campion Food Court, mostly to catch up about their day. Sometimes they meet in the library too.

Because Fuentes Pou and her friends are all from Spanish-speaking regions like Panama and Puerto Rico, their conversations are in Spanish.

Once, when Fuentes Pou was leaving the library, someone used a racial slur, commenting on how loud the students were.

Fuentes Pou, who is from San Juan, Puerto Rico, said it’s not the first time she has heard that slur on campus. But usually people don’t say it to her face.

“People have the decency to do it in their own personal groups,” Fuentes Pou said. “Usually they don’t say it to us.”

Fuentes Pou said she and other students who identify as Hispanic/Latinx face microaggressions connected to their race on a daily basis, inside and outside the classroom.

She said the university’s attention to the bigger, more public acts of racism misses the point.

“This happens every day,” Fuentes Pou said, “like literally every day. I know that the incidents are very big but that doesn’t mean it is the only thing that has happened.”

On the St. Joe’s website, diversity numbers are only offered for first-year students.

For the class of 2023, 8.9% of first-year students identify as Hispanic/Latinx.

When asked about the number of Latinx students in St. Joe’s total population, Wadell Ridley, interim chief inclusion and diversity officer, pointed to the website of the National Center for Education Statis-

tics (NCES). According to the NCES page, which was last updated in the fall of 2018, 7% of the undergraduate student population at St. Joe’s is Hispanic/Latinx.

Camila Hernández ’20 spent the first six years of her life in the U.S. Her dad is Venezuelan, and her mom is Colombian.

After leaving the U.S. as a child, she has lived in Spain with her mother.

“Something is terribly wrong if our campus culture provides a safe zone for racist rhetoric while minorities do not feel

stand your accent, please go to the board and write what you are saying.'” De Araujo said. “Another professor freshman year, I raised my hand to ask what a word was on the board, and he was like, ‘I knew you were gonna ask what it means but I’m not gonna tell you.’ It was for a quiz, and he said that in front of everyone. It’s just little things, but they are still very embarrassing.”

De Araujo also described an incident in another class.

“We all had to write essays about a

“Something is terribly wrong if our campus culture provides a safe zone for racist rhetoric while minorities do not feel safe to simply exist.” -Camila Hernández ’20 safe to simply exist,” Hernández said.

Hernández said she expected more inclusivity from her college experience in the U.S. “You look around campus, and it’s very segregated,” Hernández said. “I know all my friends are Hispanic, I have one American friend, and she’s black. You see a lot of black students together and then everyone else just doing their own thing.

When I started college, I thought I was going to have more of a diverse experience.”

Laura De Araujo ’20, who is from Panama City, Panama, said students and faculty frequently comment on her English skills or the color of her skin, deeming her “too white” to be Latinx. Some students seem surprised she can speak English so well. Some professors assume she cannot.

“A professor was like, 'I don’t under-

country, and I wanted to choose Panama and the professor didn’t let me,” De Araujo said. “And then I wanted Brazil or something in my continent, and the professor didn’t let me. I chose Syria, and then I went to the class with my paper, and everyone else [had chosen] the U.S.” For many of the Latinx students interviewed by The Hawk, racism is a new experience here at St. Joe’s. It wasn’t something they dealt with in their home countries.

“There isn’t much racism at all, so what we would see would be from the United States like the news, Twitter, Facebook, and all that,” Fuentes Pou said of her experiences in Puerto Rico. “We just got told to be careful. We don’t come from a place where it’s normal.”

De Araujo also never experienced racism in Panama City.

“I never experienced racism until I got here,” De Araujo said. “It’s gotten worse with the whole Trump thing. I never grew up knowing what racism was.”

De Araujo said President Donald Trump is responsible for a lot of the negative rhetoric about and toward immigrants in the U.S. “The way he speaks creates this hate environment, makes things worse,” De Araujo said. “I don’t hate him. I think he does have the right to kick illegal immigrants out, but that also affects the immigrants that are legal.”

Both De Araujo and Hernández said the Nov. 4 University Forum held to address racism on campus was not enough.

“When you’re bringing together the people that are not racist, that’s not going to effect change,” Hernández said. “An idea would be to implement a mandatory class discussion on racism, once a year or once a semester, in lieu of regular class time. We must remember that racism is taught and, therefore, can be untaught.”

De Araujo said any discussion needs to involve students who experience racism on a daily basis.

“I just feel like this problem isn’t going to be fixed with a forum,” De Araujo said.

“There’s way more than that. And having a bunch of American students discuss this is not going to help because they don’t experience it at all.”

Hernández added she is disappointed that some of her peers at St. Joe’s are engaging in racist behavior.

“To see a younger generation still with the same ongoing issues, for one, it’s very disheartening,” Hernández said. “And honestly, if you’re racist in 2019, you just suck. I don’t get it. I just don’t understand.”

Students target Public Safety officers with racial slurs CARLY CALHOUN ’21 Assistant News Editor CARA SMITH ’21 News Editor Within the past month, two racial bias incidents directed at Public Safety officers have been reported.

According to an email from University President Mark C. Reed, Ed.D., a small group of male students yelled the n-word at a black female Public Safety officer on the morning of Oct. 24. The students were identified and suspended until their community standards hearing.

Seven days later on Oct. 31, another black Public Safety officer was called the n-word by an unidentified driver while waiting to exit the Campion Student Center parking lot, according to an email from the Bias Activity Review Group.

Arthur Grover, director of Public Safety and Security and member of the Bias Activity Review Group, said the incidents go against the culture of the St. Joe’s community.

“The recent incidents where officers have been targeted with racial epithets have been hurtful for many in the department, and I have seen people feel that they are not appreciated and marginalized in some ways,” Grover said.

When asked if The Hawk could interview Public Safety officers, Grover said he would prefer The Hawk didn’t reach out to Public safety officers at this time because “[They] are here all day and all night working around the clock to keep this place safe.”

Taylor Stokes ’22, secretary for inclusion and equity on University Student Senate (USS), said prior to the second incident, she asked a Public Safety officer about the

first incident on her way home from work.

“While I was talking to him he said this wasn’t the first time this happened,” Stokes said. “He said he’d been working here for 10 years and this is nothing new.”

When asked if the recent incidents have been part of a pattern of abuse of Public Safety officers, Grover said no.

“I’ve been here almost four years and this is the first time an officer has been abused in this way,” Grover said.

Grover condemned the racist incidents,

versity. If you look close it’s all around.”

Isis Gill-Reid ’20, vice president of Black Student Union (BSU), said if students said the n-word to someone on the street they “would be knocked out.”

“That’s the difference, you’re at a university here, be respectful of you peers and of people in power—or people that may not have so much power but are in power here like Public Safety for example," Gill-Reid said. "If they were off duty what would have happened?”

Escort services are the main "touch points" between students and Public Safety officers on campus, according to Grover. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

which he said can be linked to a current nationwide cultural trend.

“I think what’s going on societally in our country, and maybe even in the world, is giving rise to more of this type of vitriolic rhetoric, which is just horrible,” Grover said.

“You don’t just see it at Saint Joseph’s Uni-

Stokes said the individuals responsible for the first incident had to have known the history behind the word.

“They know that word can take black people to a certain place, which is the reason why they did it,” Stokes said. “They acted like cowards. I think if they had to go and

say it to somebody’s face they would definitely re-think saying the n-word to them.”

Zoe Welsh ’22, president of Bridging the Gap, said when she spoke with Public Safety officers after the first incident they said they have experienced racist incidents before.

“It happens all the time,” Welsh said.

“That incident, how sad it is, has brought to light a larger issue with how we treat our staff on this campus who serve us.”

Grover said in response to the incidents, he has made counseling services available to Public Safety officers.

“It’s important to get it out there and let people know what’s happening, and then remind them that you appreciate what they do and how they do it,” Grover said. “That’s what I make it my business to do and have and will continue to do.”

David Hudak ’21, public safety chair on USS, said he will be meeting with Grover later this week to discuss how to facilitate better interactions between students and Public Safety officers. Currently, Hudak said they are continuing the “Coffee With Cops” events where students have the chance to talk to Public Safety officers.

“It is now just about our students in general and trying to get people more educated and aware,” Hudak said.

Grover said that despite the racist incidents against Public Safety officers, there are “thousands of touchpoints [but] two incidents.”

“As horrible as those incidents are, there are thousands and thousands of people that we touch in a semester in ways that we know are appreciated,” Grover said. “People often say thanks. And we appreciate it.”

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Nov. 20, 2019

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Institute of Clinical Bioethics provides healthcare for immigrants The Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal law that ensures public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay, allowed the undocumented immigrants who visited the MCMC emergency room to be stabilized, with the federal government covering the fees. Clark said this process was not beneficial to those who came in with end-stage renal diseases, however.

“The problem is to stabilize end-stage renal disease, [you] have to dialyze, and once you start dialysis you can’t stop,” Clark said.

“So who’s paying [for dialysis]? Obamacare will not cover the undocumented.”

According to Pew Research Center, Philadelphia has about 50,000 unauthorized immigrants, meaning approximately one in four foreign-born residents in the city is undocumented.

Clark said before the promoter program, the hospital was losing money when treating undocumented immigrants with end-stage renal disease. “[At one point] they were paying for

10 undocumented African immigrants full freight for dialysis,” Clark said. “The question I posed to them was, ‘If you continue to do this and take in 15 more of these patients, will you put the hospital in financial jeopardy?’ And the answer was yes. We needed to do something.

So proactively, we created this program.”

At the monthly screenings at local churches, tabling stations are set up for blood pressure, glucose and pulse oximetry testing, along with eye and dental clinics. Many people head to the screenings at the conclusion of church services.

St. Joe’s students, including biology majors, those from the Net Impact club and the pre-dental society Delta Delta Sigma, volunteer at the promoter program, along with students from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine and some of Clark’s 150 medical residents at Mercy Health System of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

Clark said St. Joe’s volunteers are quite literally executing the Jesuit principles they are taught in the classroom.

“One of the great Jesuit ideals is taking care

Francisco López-Font ’18 trains St. Joe’s volunteers on how to measure blood pressure and heart rate.

PHOTO: LUKE MALANGA ’20/THE HAWK

of the most vulnerable in society,” Clark said. “I can’t imagine anybody who is more vulnerable than the undocumented. Here [they] are treating those with dignity and respect.”

Letecia Zoeza, parishioner of Victory Harvest Fellowship and Liberia-native, frequents the blood pressure and glucose testing stations at the conclusion of Mass. She said she was especially happy with the free flu shots the promoter program was offering last month.

“Sometimes the jobs that I apply for, the first thing they ask is if I got the flu shot,” Zoeza said. “And we are supposed to pay for the flu shot. But this is free, so that [is] one of the good things I appreciate here because some [parishioners] don’t even have medical insurance.”

Zoe Hoag ’23, public health member for Net Impact, works at the babybox station at the promoter program, where she records how many prenatal vitamins and children’s vitamins she is distributing.

“If we see a pregnant woman or someone who just had a baby, we can give out a box that is basically a firm flat mattress, and that helps the baby from not having SIDS,” Hoag said. “Some of the bio kids are doing a study on that right now, so I’m helping them with data collection, and in general, Mercy wants to see, ‘Ok, is this working?’ We check in every couple of months.”

The ICB and MCMC have found that many undocumented African immigrants who attend the promoter program suffer from hypertension, while a majority of the undocumented Hispanic immigrants suffer from diabetes. But they weren’t able to solidify this observation because they were not properly storing the information, according to Justin Stout ’19, graduate assistant at the Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Center for Business Ethics.

“In the past, we did not have a proper identification system for our members,” Stout said. “Someone would come in, and we would give them a randomly generated identification code. We were unable to do anything with that information so we weren’t able to actually track the care.”

Stout noticed when he volunteered at the promoter program as an undergraduate, the method of data collection was erroneous. They weren’t able to track patients in a longitudinal way and make conclusions over any trends of hypertension or diabetes that they were seeing.

Stout said the reason they collected data this way was because they didn’t want the undocumented immigrants to fear that this information was going to be used against them.

He decided to reach out to St. Joe’s student Net Impact club and see if they had any ideas on how to protect their identity while also collecting tangible data.

Taking on a lofty goal, Ryan Williamson ’21, data analysis project manager at the Arrupe Center and Net Impact member, created a data warehousing system to accurately collect and analyze the data. They now use Microsoft Access to log the “patient profiles.”

“The patient ID system is whether they are male or female and their birth date so that it’s anonymous,” Williamson said. “But the part that wasn’t here previously was that now it is holding previous data records. Now we are able to show them, ‘This was your blood pressure in January, and this was your blood pressure in February.’”

Clark said with the undocumented immigrants nervous with sharing any form of information, giving a detail as small as their birth date was a struggle.

“We had to really convince them,” Clark said. “I’m not sure how many gave their correct birthdays to be honest with you. They’re terrified of any identification.”

However, Stout said he has confidence that the undocumented immigrants won’t stop attending the promoter program now that they ask for this small piece of information because they have built relationships with these community members.

“We kind of built a reputation with these communities, and we are definitely here to help with these services we provide,” Stout said. “We have to trust our community members in the way they trust us.”

Student groups hold discussions about inclusion and diversity EMILY GRAHAM ’20 Managing Editor The Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) hosted an open discussion about the St. Joe’s Campus Climate Study on Nov. 13.

During the first part of the meeting, data was presented from the Campus Climate Study, a survey sent out to students, faculty and staff in 2017 with questions about inclusion, diversity and equity on campus. This anonymous survey asked respondents questions about their experiences on topics such as sexual assault, racism and LGBTQIA+ inclusion.

Kelsey Welsh ’22, co-director of campus relations for WLI and facilitator of the discussion, said WLI hosted this event in response to the University Forum, the administration’s response to recent racial bias incidents on campus.

“Everyone was under the premise that the University Forum would be more like BSU’s [Black Student Union's] forum last year where everyone had the free chance to speak,” Welsh said. “[The University Forum] was more like an assembly. I wanted to create that space where everyone could have that platform to speak and be comfortable.”

The “Making a More Inclusive SJU” event was co-hosted by the African-Caribbean Student Association, Bridging the Gap, Black Student Union (BSU), Latino Student Association and University Student Senate (USS).

After the presentation, Welsh opened the meeting for anyone to share their thoughts and experiences related to these topics, as well as ideas for solutions to cam-

pus climate problems.

Silvino Alexander ’22 said during the discussion that one way to improve inclusion and diversity on campus would be to provide direct information to students about racial bias incidents. Alexander suggested this communication be in the form of a “student network” rather than coming from the administration.

“I’m a student of color and if I feel uncomfortable, I’m not going to continue my time here, so if we really want diversity on campus, we need to make a place where people feel comfortable to not only go here, but stay here,” Alexander said.

Destiny Little ’23 also emphasized the importance of students communicating by speaking up when they hear others saying microaggressions that create an unwelcoming campus climate.

“I really think you should be able to hold your friends accountable and also yourself accountable,” Little said. “You can’t claim that you are an ally but don’t act on it.”

To further promote the idea of accountability, Julia McQuade ’20, vice president of USS, said she hopes to actualize the USS action plan they wrote after the Climate Study to promote inclusion and diversity on campus. “[The action plan is] a really good start to voice general concerns,” McQuade said. “We know we need to continue conversations, we know we need to hold each other accountable, we know we need to have more events and educational opportunities.”

McQuade said USS wants to promote students’ interests by creating concrete plans.

However, McQuade said they will need the support of the university to put those ideas into action.

“I think there’s a power in putting your money where your mouth is,” McQuade said.

“So if the university really does prioritize this, how are they supporting the groups that are fighting for it and how are they taking some of that burden off of those groups onto the university on other people on allies and supporting them that way?”

For Welsh, the responsibility to improve campus climate now lies with the students.

“We need university mandated action which is absolutely true, but they’re not going to know exactly what to do and how to do it if we don’t take action first and hold them accountable,” Welsh said. “It does start with us. If they’re just making decisions on our behalf without our voices being heard, what is that?”

Cara Smith ’21 contributed to this story.

Members of the St. Joe's community ranked their comfortability on campus. GRAPHIC COURTESY OF ST. JOE'S CAMPUS CLIMATE STUDY.

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News

The Hawk Newspaper

Nov. 20, 2019

ThinkFest cultivates discussions about Philadelphia’s future LUKE MALANGA ’20 Editor in Chief Thought leaders from across the city gathered on Nov. 14 to discuss how Philadelphia can build a better future as part of Philadelphia Magazine’s ThinkFest 2019.

St. Joe’s was a sponsored the event, along with Bank of America, SEPTA, PECO, West Chester University and The Study at University City. St. Joe’s sponsorship is part of a larger, multi-channeled brand reputation and marketing initiative with Philadelphia Magazine, according to Marie Williams, chief marketing and communications officer at St. Joe’s.

Attendees were told to imagine the year 2039 when Philadelphia might be known as America’s greatest city. “How did we get there?” they were asked.

While the speakers discussed a range of topics from climate change to cuisine, a major theme that stood out was the need to tackle inequality in the city by reducing poverty and increasing educational opportunities.

Williams said St. Joe’s plays a role in the future of Philadelphia by contributing to the economic development of both Philadelphia and Montgomery counties.

“More importantly, our graduates go out into the city’s communities and workforce,” Williams said in an email to The

Hawk. “Our role is to educate future leaders who are agile, innovative and whose broad perspectives will contribute to Philadelphia’s success in a myriad of ways.”

Shaily Menon, Ph.D., dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, who attended the event, said one of her goals since coming to Philadelphia and St. Joe’s three years ago has been “putting [St. Joe’s] in the middle of the conversation about Philadelphia.”

Menon explained how educational organizations, medical organizations and religious organizations are the “anchor institutions” in any city and particularly prevalent in Philadelphia.

“We need meds, eds and religious organizations to keep a community together, to offer alternative pathways for careers and things like that,” Menon said.

“St. Joe’s, as one of the important higher education institutions in Philadelphia, should be part of this conversation in improving this city.”

Philadelphia is one of the most diverse cities in the U.S., but Philadelphia’s poverty rate was 24.5% in 2018, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That is the highest poverty rate of the 10 largest U.S. cities.

Philadelphia city council member elect, Katherine Gilmore Richardson, emphasized that one of her main priorities is decreasing poverty which she associates

St. Joe's sponsored a "Study Break Lounge" at ThinkFest. PHOTOS: LUKE MALANGA ’20/THE HAWK

with crime rates and lack of educational opportunities within the city.

“Philadelphia is really soaring to new heights, but we’re leaving too many people behind,” Richardson said. “Today in Philadelphia, the number one predictor of your life expectancy is the zip code where you live, and I don’t think any of us should be satisfied with that statistic.”

Katherine Richardson (left) and Jamie Gauthier discuss being elected as city councilwomen.

Christine Knapp, sustainability office director for the city of Philadelphia, spoke at the event about the tie between equity and climate change, explaining how low income communities are disproportionately hotter by as much as 22 degrees.

“The work of climate change is the work of equity,” Knapp said. “We will not be successful in becoming this climate thriving city if we don’t bring every person along in that conversation.”

Menon, citing St. Joe’s mission said she believes the university has a particular responsibility to play a role in tackling issues of inequality in the city. She also highlighted how topics such as climate change should be at the forefront of St. Joe’s efforts.

“As a university, and then as a Jesuit university, that just further underscores all of those things, social justice, equity in the city,” Menon said. “Like they said, climate change is an equity problem. It’s a social justice problem.”

Menon said in 2039 she hopes to see St. Joe’s build upon its core principles, expanding faculty expertise, hiring more leaders of color and cultivating the student passion for service, while at the same time meeting the modern needs of society. She noted that at certain moments in its history, St. Joe’s has been on the “leading edge.”

“We’re not afraid of disruption and of innovation,” Menon said. “It goes back to our founders. St. Ignatius of Loyola and the Jesuits were pioneers. They were innovators and educations. So it’s part of our DNA to do that.”

Department of Public Safety reports (Nov. 8-Nov.14) Nov. 8 Public Safety was notified by a St. Joe’s student regarding juveniles looking in vehicles in the Mandeville Hall parking lot.

Public Safety officers responded to the area, but were unable to locate the individuals.

Public Safety officers remained in the area.

Nov. 10 Public Safety responded to a fire alarm in McShain Hall. Public Safety officer responded. Preliminary investigation revealed the alarm was activated by a student cooking. Alarm was reset.

Public Safety responded to a fire alarm at Lannon Hall. A Public Safety officer responded. Preliminary investigation revealed the alarm was activated by steam from a shower. Alarm was reset.

Nov. 14 Public Safety was notified by Residence Life of students smoking marijuana in a room in Sourin Hall. Public Safety officers along with Residence Life responded and met with the students who admitted smoking marijuana. Community Standards was notified.

DRUG RELATED INCIDENTS ALCOHOL RELATED INCIDENTS

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Opinions

The Hawk Newspaper

Nov. 20, 2019

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Setting a precedent for action

Encouraging discussion about campus climate

Editor in Chief Luke Malanga ’20 Managing Editor Emily Graham ’20 Copy Chief Kaila Mundell-Hill ’20 Faculty Adviser Shenid Bhayroo Contributing Adviser Jenny Spinner Senior Editor Charley Rekstis ’20 Digital Managing Editor Alex Hargrave ’20 Copy Editor Angelique Frazier ’20 Copy Editor Jackie Collins ’21 News Editor Cara Smith ’21 Assistant News Editor Carly Calhoun ’21 Opinions Editor Devin Yingling ’22 Assistant Opinions Editor Hadassah Colbert ’20 Features Editor Kaitlyn Patterson ’20 Assistant Features Editor Zach Dobinson ’22 Sports Editor Sam Britt ’20 Assistant Sports Editor Ryan Mulligan ’21 Assistant Sports Editor Matt DeLeo ’20

Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) hosted their monthly meeting on Nov. 14 to discuss the correlation between the recent university sponsored forum and the Campus Climate Study that was conducted in 2017. The event was co-sponsored by the African-Caribbean Student Association, Bridging the Gap, Black Student Union and University Student Senate.

The meeting highlighted how there has always been social tension on campus towards all minority groups, as revealed by the climate study. The presentation was followed with an open group discussion focusing on action steps the St. Joe’s community can take in order to make this a more inclusive environment.

Our campus needs more open discussions about creating a diverse and inclusive environment. Although the climate study is accessible on the St. Joe’s website, the President’s Council on Inclusion and Diversity, which is in charge of turning the study into action, “is on hold as the University is conducting a search for the Associate Provost for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The Associate Provost for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion will be chair [sic] the council,” according to the St. Joe’s inclusion and diversity website.

So, while the administration has taken incomplete steps towards social equality, the students who co-sponsored and hosted the conversation this past week have taken a tremendous first step in the right direction of progress.

First, we applaud these diversity groups

who came together last week on their efforts to make sure a genuine and thoughtful conversation takes place. For real change to happen, conversations surrounding social inequality need to be in the form of a true forum or discussion. All voices should be heard and respected by all those involved.

We also commend the efforts to address all inequalities on campus. It is well known by now that racism is prevalent on campus.

However, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia and non-black racism must be included in the conversation. The information provided in the study highlights important issues on all fronts that are not frequently recognized by this community nor the administration.

The discussion last week aimed to cover all of the bases regarding social inequalities.

With this, we further urge students to recognize the different ways in which injustices affect the community here at all levels.

The administration has just begun to address the issues of inequality on campus, and is slowly working to compile their findings into action; their efforts are currently on hold. Therefore, it is important for us as the larger campus community to make an effort to take what the climate study has given us and create an environment that fosters genuine open conversations and takes effective action steps towards inclusion and diversity.

On this note, we first ask the student body to peruse at least part of the extensive climate study to understand the basic attitudes of the community reported in the study. One point mentioned during the WLI

Letter to the Editor I would like to express my frustration after reading James McCloskey’s column “Free tickets will hurt men’s basketball.” I understand this is an opinion piece, but this article is full of logical fallacies. Even the title of the article includes the hasty generalization fallacy. Most significantly however, this article uses irresponsible comparisons used to justify faulty claims.

McCloskey’s claim is that because SJU Athletics have made student tickets free, that is “[the] department’s way of saying this team is not worth paying to watch.” This claim is fallacious. McCloskey opens his article with the irresponsible and oversimplified assertion that SJU Athletics does not believe the men’s basketball team is worth paying for, solely basing this accusation on the fact that student tickets are

now free. Nowhere in his article does he consider any reasoning behind the department’s decision or that free student admission could mean anything else.

I would urge McCloskey to look beyond the men’s basketball team to the other prominent parts of the game day experience. Free admission benefits the hardworking members of the cheerleading team, the dance team and pep band who practice far too hard only to have their peers not show up to games because it is too expensive. I would suggest that McCloskey talk to students who regularly attend games—it is not just about going to watch basketball. It’s about the whole game day experience, not motivated by the basketball teams conference standing.

discussion was the call for students to make change within their own lives. Arming yourself with basic information and understanding the social environment on campus is an important first step.

Second, the notion of allyship was frequently discussed. Becoming an ally is a crucial step for everyone to take in order to support all marginalized communities.

People of color, women and the LBGTQIA+ community all deserve the respect and support of others. Being an ally also means taking the necessary action steps to confront injustices in your individual life and to be aware of the overall social climate.

WLI and partnering diversity groups have set a precedent for meaningful open discussions surrounding campus climate and have made sure the university climate study does not get pushed under the rug during the search for a new associate provost for diversity, equity and inclusion.

We ask the larger campus community to follow this lead and sustain conversation and action that promote equality for all on this campus.

—The Editorial Board This week’s Editorial Board is comprised of the Editor in Chief, Digital Managing Editor, Photo Editor, Sports Editor, Assistant Opinions Editor, Assistant News Editor, Copy Editor, Online Editor, News Editor amd Senior Editor. This editorial reflects the views of the Board and not the entire Hawk staff.

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

To add to his ludicrous claim, he justifies his statement by comparing it to the fact that the women’s team has had free student admission for years and no one shows up. This is an absurd, negligent and extremely disrespectful comparison given that free tickets have nothing to do with the low attendance at women’s basketball games and everything to do with the fact that women’s sports are historically and continuously undervalued in American society. Using the women’s basketball team’s low attendance to back his already fallacious argument is unfair and unprofessional. I would ask that McCloskey be more mindful of making these inconsiderate comparisons in the future.

—Karleigh Lopez ’20

Special Projects Editor Nick Karpinski ’21 Photo Editor Mitchell Shields ’22 Online Editor Alex Mark ’20 Social Media Manager Natalie Drum ’20 Assistant Social Media Manager Julia Koerwer ’23 Business Manager Angela DiMarco ’22 Assistant Business Manager Collin Messenger ’22 Distribution Manager Gavin O'Reilly ’20

WATERMELON SUGAR Harry Styles was the first hot last week in anticipation his SNL performance, and he shall remain the #1 hot again this week. His newest release, “Watermelon Sugar,” absolutely slaps. As if our 2012 heartthrob couldn’t get any more amazing, he managed to do so and we are simply living for it.

A LOVELY DAY FOR TOM HANKS As if we didn’t need another reason to adore the lovable, kind and iconic Tom Hanks, he will be playing Mr. Rogers in the new film “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” That right there is some seriously wholesome content, and you better believe The Hawk staff will be in theatres Nov. 22 front row to watch Hanks take the silver screen.

BRB, I’M FINISHING THIS EPISODE OF THAT’S SO RAVEN For $7 a month, you can get a plethora of all things Disney with Disney+. If you haven’t already spent an incredible amount of time rewatching “Wizards of Waverly Place” or “Hannah Montana,” you need to do so ASAP. I have more to say on the matter, but I’m currently watching “Princess and the Frog” so Hot or Not will have to wait.

TWO DAYS TOO MANY St. Joe’s students need not buy any early plane tickets home for Thanksgiving, because if you haven’t heard, Thanksgiving break starts on Tuesday rather than this coming Friday. Penn State, University of Delaware, and other big schools get to head home for the holidays this Friday and we have to stay for a bit longer. Luckily, Villanova is stuck in the same boat, so take that.

“NO” BIRDS In a 17-10 upset last Sunday, Nov. 17, the Eagles lost to the Patriots on our home turf. And that is that on that, let’s not talk about it anymore.

The past is in the past. Let’s keep our heads up, Wentz-adelphia. We are doing our best.

DO YOU SMELL THAT? As the leaves fall, so do the ginkgo berries: those orange spheres all over City Avenue with a stench so bad it could burn off your eyebrows. If you have to walk down City to get to West campus, just take the shuttle instead to avoid the rank smell of the ginkgos. (And you’ll be safe, unless you find the mush of a stray gingko on the shoe of another shuttle rider).

6 Nov. 20, 2019

Opinions

The Hawk Newspaper

Mourning the “White Monster”on campus Finding an on-campus alternative caffeine fix

KARLEIGH LOPEZ ’20 Columnist Nothing has ever tested my will and disordered my soul more than when St. Joe’s switched from Coca-Cola to Pepsi products.

I remember a much simpler, happier time: freshman year. My roommate and I lugging large steel water bottles into Campion Dining Hall and making a beeline to the back corner soda machine to drain the supply from the single faucet of Dr. Pepper on campus.

Or spending miserably long hours in the library with the only emancipation being the cathartic walk to the P.O.D. to use the last of my DB money to buy a bottled Dunkin’ iced coffee.

And yet, the fond memories I cherish are paired with the single greatest loss I have experienced to date: the unexpected eradication of the Monster Zero Ultra, known as the “White Monster” from refrigerators and vending machines across campus. This zero-calorie energy drink shaped who I am as a student.

The “White Monster” dared to go where no other caffeinated beverage could go, and did it all without tasting like battery acid and armpits.

I am still in mourning. It is my firm belief that the moment St. Joe’s switched beverage vendors, the integrity of the university spiraled into vacuity, and correspondingly, so did my sanity.

With my favorite caffeinated drink no longer within arm’s reach, I have spent the following years resorting to the coffee shop

chains on campus for a beverage that could contend.

The campus Starbucks and Dunkin’ have a cult following among our student

walking distance of a college campus.

However, where Dunkin’ loses me is in their inconsistency. The City Avenue Dunkin’ is home to some coffee horror stories.

ILLUSTRATION: KAITLYN PATTERSON ’20/THE HAWK

body. They appeal to familiarity and consistency—making them an easy choice for frantic, sleep deprived, deadline bound college students.

Though I frequent both regularly, of the two, Starbucks is the clear winner. Despite almost never being able to find an outlet or redeem reward points, the coffee is strong and the seasonal cups are adorable—which is enough to keep me coming back.

I have the utmost respect for anyone who dares to be a coffee provider within

I would venture to say that most people would like to be served their coffee in the cup. Yet, on two separate occasions during the momentous exchange of my prized liquid stimulant, my iced coffee violently escaped from the broken cup.

Thus, leaving my sleeves saturated and my hands tacky with flavor syrup. I would have chalked this up as a mistake, one faulty cup. But after telling my story to friends, several people mentioned that it has happened to them too. A coffeegate scandal

might be brewing.

Of all the chains however, Einstein’s is far superior.

College of Arts and Science students may not have much to brag about when compared to the nationally ranked Haub School of Business, but at least we can say we have a whole bagel shop just paces away from our classrooms.

I can’t even begin to estimate how many of my “bathroom” breaks ended with me returning to my lecture with a vanilla latte and chocolate chip bagel.

Einstein’s regular coffee is up to par with other chains, but I can attribute the completion of numerous assignments to their lattes. Though around the same price as a latte from Starbucks, it is arguably far better in taste. And sweeter too, if that’s as important to you as it is to me—I like my coffee to fundamentally taste like an entirely different drink.

Even sweeter, the people who work there are always friendly. So much so, I wasn’t even angry when instead of skim milk in my latte, I was handed a cup with 2 ounces of espresso and 14 ounces of half and half. A very heavy drink concoction, especially for 9 a.m. But my love for Einstein’s transcends one little mistake—I even drank some of it. (However I caution you, do not order this).

My time at St. Joe’s is almost over and I have yet to order from the new Saxby’s.

Still, I am not optimistic that anything, even vanilla lattes from Einstein’s, will ever truly have my heart like the “White Monster.”

Someday I hope this campus will be blessed with them again, but until then, you can find me at the off-campus Speedway gas station happily spending four dollars on one single Monster.

Racism lies within our institutions The problem with supporting Aramark CATHERINE MOFFET ’22 Columnist In a Race and Ethics class here taught by Becki Scola, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of political science, one of our assignments was to watch “13th,” a documentary by Ava DuVernay analyzing the 13th Amendment and the rise of mass incarceration in the U. S. At one point, the documentary discusses companies that have affiliations with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC ), a legal council designed to create laws such as providing a bigger budget to businesses working in the prison system. One of the companies that has affiliations with ALEC is Aramark.

Aramark is a food service provider based in Philadelphia, and it is responsible for the food served in Campion Dining Hall at St. Joe’s. “13th” mentions how there were maggots found in the food Aramark served to prisoners in various prisons across the U.S. in 2016. This unveils a darker truth that is conveniently hidden

on St. Joe’s campus.

Why would we give money to a corporation that treats prisoners, who are mostly people of color, as if they are not human? What does that say about how we prioritize the people of color on campus?

Discovering the horrible treatment of prisoners in general coupled with the low-quality food they receive makes me think about the St. Joe’s campus. We give

money to a company with a shaky reputation about the treatment of people, then the magis we hold near and dear to our hearts does not mean anything.

The purpose of the Jesuit mission is to be a person with and for others. I know some of the students on this campus are willing to live out this mission for every person here, since a sizeable chunk of the student body attended the recent Univer-

“Being with and for others does not always mean interacting with and being kind to people here, it also means standing in solidarity with companies that prioritize the basic human decency that everyone, including people in prison, deserves” money to Aramark so they can provide food to this student body, but the company doesn’t use that money to improve the quality of the food served in prisons.

While we do not have maggots in our food, and the Campion food can be decent at times, that does not change the fact that we support a company that treats people like they are far from human. If we give

sity Forum on diversity, equity and inclusion and understand the importance of treating all people with respect.

But I am worried that some people in our administration are not ready to make that full-fledged change. Being with and for others does not always mean interacting with and being kind to people here, it also means standing in solidarity with

companies that prioritize the basic human decency that everyone, including people in prison, deserves.

I am not suggesting that we burn down the structures of this institution.

I am writing this to inform people that while words matter, action unveils a deeper meaning into who we are as humans and as an institution.

We need to come together to let the administration know that they should not be supporting a company that practices unfair treatment to prisoners through the food they serve. We need to mobilize: tweet, email and inform the administration of the hidden injustice residing on campus.

I understand not everyone, particularly freshman and other students who rely on the dining hall, cannot just boycott it altogether, but we need to make noise about this.

In order to eliminate the problem of racial bias on campus, we have to do more than just implement policies, have tough conversations about race, and eliminate the use of the n-word. We have to eliminate companies and providers that do not align with Jesuit ideals.

Opinions

The Hawk Newspaper

Nov. 20, 2019

7

Untouchable

Why can musicians get away with abuse?

HADASSAH COLBERT ’20 Assistant Opinions Editor James Brown, John Lennon, XXXTentacion, Ike Turner, Dr. Dre, Tupac Shakur, Elvis Presley and R. Kelly. What do all these people have in common? Musical merits for sure, but the answer I am looking for is they are all abusers, yet few people care because their music “bangs.”

Some of the names are hard hitters and super disappointing because I loved their music. However, after finding out about the abusive behavior of these artists, the music just doesn’t sound the same to me. I grew up listening to James Brown and while he participated in the civil rights movement, he beat his wife.

In his daughter’s memoir, “Cold Sweat: My Father James Brown and Me,” she said the sound of her father throwing her mother up against the walls was “like thunder rolling through the house. After that, the house would go completely quiet. The sound of silence was the worst because that's when Deanna and I would wonder if our mother were alive or dead and if we would be next.”

I am also a big Beatles fan, so to hear that John Lennon himself admitted to beating his significant others and that his son Julian has spoken about the abuse he faced from his father is a mar on the legacy of the band.

He was also obsessively controlling over his second wife, Yoko Ono, forcing her to

do everything with him including using the bathroom. In one of her accounts of the relationship, Ono states that she was relieved when Lennon started an affair with his assistant, May Pang, because it meant she was under less surveillance.

R. Kelly also put out hits that were apparently good enough to make people forget his inappropriate interactions with young girls. He married singer Aaliyah when she was 15 and he was 27 after a long period of the two denying that they had any roman-

“Not supporting an artist’s work is the only way society can show that their behavior is not okay and will not be tolerated.” tic connection. R. Kelly also had sex with countless other underaged girls, and in the documentary “Surviving R. Kelly,” people who were close to him talk about how he used to stake out high schools on the prowl for young girls.

The same goes for Elvis Presley. No one seemed to blink twice when he started dating Priscilla Presley when she was 14 and he was 24.

The fact people are willing to overlook that these artists and many more have destroyed people’s lives just because they’re musicians

says something about the human psyche.

Oftentimes these victims are out of sight and thus out of mind, so it’s easier to forget when you do not have a face or a real person to match to allegations. When a face, a name and a testimony is involved, it’s harder to erase in your mind.

As long as these people continue to produce hits, no one cares what they do. I can’t imagine being a victim of abuse and everywhere I look someone is praising my abuser.

I honestly believe that circumstance would cause me to lose my mind.

It aggravates me when people say we should be able to separate a person from their work. Not supporting an artist’s work is the only way society can show that their behavior is not okay and will not be tolerated. People continue to put money in the pockets of abusers because they think the abuser makes good music is an excuse to continue supporting these people. This is an excuse that I will never understand.

This is just another manifestation of patriarchal values. Whenever these women come forward it is always, “Oh another woman trying to bring down or destroy another successful man” instead of holding these monstrous people accountable for their detestable actions.

This kind of attitude sends a message to these men that their social position and occupation have made them immune to justice. This needs to be changed. The victims in these situations should matter more than hit records.

Time to support the Dreamers Why now is the time for Congress to act PATRICK ADAMS ’23 Columnist The U.S. is a country of immigrants. While that phrase might sound like a nice aphorism, it’s also a reality. The Pew Research Center reported in June that over 40 million of those in the U.S. are foreign born, with immigrants representing almost every country in the world.

Yet this is not to say immigration to the U.S. is easy, or even logical at all. The demand to immigrate to the U.S. amidst a confusing system has unfortunately led to a large number of immigrants who have come here illegally. The Department of Homeland Security estimates that there are around 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country in part because of the way our immigration system is structured.

It would seem then that the Trump administration’s plan to end previous Immigration reform would be a bad thing, but actually Congress ought to take this opportunity to turn DACA into law instead of relying on a past executive order.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) is a program that temporarily allowed children who came to the U.S. before age 16 to live and work here without the fear of deportation. These children, Dreamers, under DACA first lost their status in March of 2018 after Donald Trump’s administration announced a gradual end to the program.

The administration allowed for DACA re-

newals in 2018, so in reality many won’t face deportation until March 2020.

Yet, the Trump administration has already faced numerous legal challenges over ending DACA, with one currently being argued in the Supreme Court right now.

The legal question up for debate in Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California is fairly cut and dry. Ian Millhiser of Vox outlines what the case boils down to: “Did the [Trump] administration provide in a pair of memos an adequate explanation for ending the DACA program?” He explains, “There is actually little question that the administration could end DACA if it wanted to; the question is whether this administration took the correct procedural steps to do so.”

The Supreme Court case will likely end in a 5-4 split, but even in the event of a temporary victory, the Trump administration will be able to end DACA again under a different rationale.

President Barack Obama said back when he announced the program, “Now, let’s be clear-this is not amnesty, this is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship.

It’s not a permanent fix. This is a temporary stopgap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people.”

DACA was never meant to last forever, especially considering any president does not have the power to reform immigration laws without Congress.

Both Obama and Trump have understood DACA to be a temporary measure. Obama

signed the executive order only because Congress, in typical fashion, did nothing.

Obama furthered, “Precisely because this is temporary, Congress needs to act.

There is still time for Congress to pass the DREAM Act this year, because these kids deserve to plan their lives in more than twoyear increments.” Needless to say, that never happened. The Dreamers were left dreaming for Congress to do something as the act stalled in the Senate, never to be passed.

Trump also cited Congress’s responsibility to act when he ended the program, saying in his 2017 address: “I am not going to just cut DACA off, but rather provide a window of opportunity for Congress to finally act.”

At the end of the day, it does not matter if DACA is unconstitutional. The president has the authority to create and override executive orders at will. This president alone can’t just turn temporary solutions into permanent fixes. What matters now for the Dreamers is if Congress is ready and willing to act to create a permanent solution.

By enacting DACA into law through the DREAM Act, Congress could make at least one small step to reforming the immigration system. The roughly 700,000 people who would qualify to become citizens all don’t have criminal records, came here as children and have lived here for years.

If anyone deserves a pathway to citizenship, it’s children of undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for most, if not all, of their lives. The least this current Congress can do is to finally take action to help the Dreamers instead of relying on whatever the incumbent president wants.

TODD ERKIS Columnist ANNA LUBOMIRSKI ’21 Columnist Is the Robinhood investment app a good way to purchase stocks?

-Alex K. ’20, risk management and insurance major Erkis: Robinhood is popular with students since it’s easy to use and has no minimum investment. You can transfer money to your Robinhood account and easily purchase stocks, options, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) and cryptocurrency.

An ETF can own many types of assets and conveniently trades on a stock exchange.

The flexibility of ETF investments means it is very important to read the prospectus before investing so you know what you are purchasing. The prospectus is the legal document that contains information about the ETF including what it will invest in, who is managing the ETF and the expenses paid by the underlying fund to the people managing the ETF. These expenses decrease your return on the ETF. ETFs can be a low-cost investment, but it normally will have higher expenses than a similar mutual fund sold by an investment company like Vanguard, TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab Corporation and Fidelity Investments. A mutual fund is an asset where an investment manager invests the money deposited in the fund for the benefit of the investors.

Robinhood does not have the option to purchase mutual funds using the app. However, you can purchase some ETFs run by the major investment companies using Robinhood.

As we discussed in a previous column, it is better to start with more than just one or two stocks because the price of one or two stocks can go up or down quite a bit; this is called volatility. Owning many stocks is called diversification, which is a good thing when investing. For example, an ETF that owns all of the stocks in the S&P 500 Index is diversified, so it should go up and down by much less than just a few stocks.

Robinhood’s customer service is not as expansive as what is offered by the major investment companies. It is really more of a self-service choice. For example, there is not currently an option to speak with a customer service representative if you need assistance.

If you would like better customer service and a more expansive choice of investments, then one of the major investment companies might be a better choice than Robinhood.

Lubomirski: I think part of what makes this app attractive to college students is the idea that an app seems more convenient and more relaxed, or less intimidating than the major investment firms. However, convenience should not be the reason for choosing any app over a firm such as Charles Schwab or Vanguard. In deciding whether to use Robinhood or not, I found that major investment firms also provide apps that function similarly to the Robinhood app. Robinhood is easier to get started but this benefit is offset by the lower quality of customer service and fewer investment options.

Nothing stated in this column should be considered investment advice or an offering of securities. Stock investing has risk and you should do your own research before investing. If you have a question that you would like answered, please send them to hawk.editorial@gmail.com

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Nov. 20, 2019

Opinions

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It’s not just about getting distracted A conversation about living with ADHD ROBERT HERRICK ’21 Guest Columnist While I’m overjoyed that the conversation about mental illness is one that we’re having in society and on campus, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is not often discussed on the same level as other mental illnesses. It is substantially worse than just being easily distracted and it can be crushing in many aspects of life.

ADHD and its effects are far underestimated—we need to work to destigmatize it from the myriad of stereotypes and outright false assumptions associated with it.

People without ADHD realize it can be hard to pay attention, but the extent to which this inattentiveness can make life difficult is unnoticed.

Conversation, even about interesting subjects or with people who are close to us, can still be a battle to focus. Creating plans becomes increasingly difficult as indecision and poor time management are staples of ADHD.

For me, something as easy as responding to texts can take a lot of emotional and intellectual energy and time.

Getting dressed is the longest part of my morning; having to make decisions about what to wear before taking medicine takes forever.

Larger areas of life are also a struggle. We often feel discouraged to do things that require long mental effort, like going to classes, doing homework, reading and driving. Rou-

brought on by ADHD has made it much more difficult to treat. However my PTSD has become less intense after my ADHD was better treated.

While the symptoms and effects of ADHD are often unknown to the public, its medicines are household names. Ritalin and Adderall can help someone with ADHD function like someone with a neurotypical brain.

However, these drugs are easy targets for controversy in the media due to their

“So, to the world without ADHD, remember us.

Remember us when we talk about mental health, and take our disorder as seriously as it deserves.” tines and necessary tasks become strenuous.

ADHD’s effects on emotion are often unrecognized as well. Emotional dysregulation has almost always been a symptom of ADHD, but the diagnostic protocol moved to emphasize inattention, and emotional dysregulation was removed from the official diagnosis. This dysregulation can aggravate other mental illnesses, like anxiety or depression.

I also have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and the emotional intensity

prevalence, potency and misuses by those without an attention disorder. Increasingly, people fret over the overdiagnosis of ADHD and are rejecting medication options for their children and themselves.

The stigmas around ADHD medication dehumanize and delegitimize a vulnerable group of us.

Stigma goes beyond the medicine, and makes those with ADHD feel stupid, lessthan and lazy. Many people even wrongfully assume that ADHD could be ceased

just through better habits.

“Try Google Calendar!” “Have you used sticky notes?” “Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do and just push through the distraction.”

Useful tools? Yes. A cure? No. The truth is, ADHD affects not only children, but adults too—4.4% of the U.S. population in fact. The other truth is that treatment exists, and we are not as useless as the world sometimes stereotypes us to be.

So, to the world without ADHD, remember us. Remember us when we talk about mental health, and take our disorder as seriously as it deserves. Do not assume we’re useless, or that we are not listening when we’re talking and there’s a TV on in the background that our eyes wander towards.

And to my fellow ADHD friends, forgive and affirm yourself. It’s okay to make mistakes, to be distracted or to have a moment of not being productive. You are not the sum of your mistakes. You are not only valuable when you are medicated.

There is hope for you. You are heard and understood, regardless of how serious ADHD can be.

Speaking of meme culture...

The beauty in what constitutes humor nowadays DEVIN YINGLING ’22 Opinions Editor There was a little boy sitting on the street. A man, Noah Centineo, approached this little boy and said, “It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. It matters what you do with what you’ve done...for others.” That little boy grew up to be St. Ignatius of Loyola, hence our Jesuit mission of being “with and for others.”

If you didn’t understand that opening line, that’s honestly kind of the point. If at first glance, you don’t fully understand the content of a meme or a tweet, then you simply do not understand the joke. Memes and online humor have evolved into a whole new level, requiring a certain level of intuitive understanding to grasp why they are funny.

The opening of this piece mirrors the typical layout of meme discourse nowadays, and while humor and memes used to be more straightforward, that has since evolved—such is life.

Meme culture used to be simply a handful of poorly made graphics or grainy photos with bold Impact font statements. They were merely captions on photos, and they made immediate sense.

For example, the viral image of Bad Luck Brian, a nerdy high school boy with

a scrappy haircut, plaid sweater vest and a mouthful of braces, was one of the most popular. The first line on the photo would read “Parents surprise him with concert tickets,” and the following punchline would then read “Nickelback.”

While 9-year-old me just busted a gut laughing at this Nickelback jab, 19-year-old me just cringed at how this used to be considered a joke. The threshold for what constitutes a joke has significantly fallen: the bar is basically on the floor at this point.

Not only that, but while low-bar memes and humor have become significantly more common, meme trends have cycled in and out faster and faster each day. Over the past few weeks, several meme trends have come and gone.

Some personal favorites include the following. First, the literal two second video of a Bratz doll going, “EWWWW.” with captions such as “Emma Watson reading her initials be like,” is a classic.

Or perhaps this trend: “if I were richard nixon I would simply not do the watergate scandal” (@goodbeanalt) or “if I were an NBA player I would simply shoot the ball into the basket and not miss” (@jodieegrace).

Let’s not forget about this classic, as demonstrated by the following: “communication majors be like I have a conversation due Thursday” (@clairesonn), “english majors be like furthermore” (ItsLumberzach) and “undecided majors be like damn” (@AJ_Jerimiah).

While these are only three of my favorite recent trends, there are countless more circling around Twitter. Each meme trend has about a solid two days of glory before being cycled out for yet another joke that literally makes no sense.

Yet, this is the beauty in online humor now. Not only are there more things to laugh about due to the higher volume and faster pace of tweets and jokes, the fact that the simplest things in life can be made into a joke is something to be happy about.

People truly bond over these jokes, both online and in person. The ambiguous and

ILLUSTRATIONS: KAITLYN PATTERSON ’20/THE HAWK

confusing punchlines (if you can even call them that anymore) bring young people (sorry boomers) together in ways I cannot yet understand.

In an era of fast paced news and a seemingly higher propensity to consume negative news, finding humor in little things is a heartening aspect of this media landscape.

Twitter memes honestly make no sense.

Someone who has not grown up in this landscape of humor and rather grew up with the Seinfeld observational method of standup

would simply not understand these tweets.

And sometimes, even I don’t understand the most obscure of jokes.

But they are undoubtedly funny if you have a worthwhile sense of humor. They are low effort jokes that appeal to what may seem like an audience with an expectation for humor that is on the floor. But that is precisely the beauty of online humor, and it’s just flat out funny.

Features

The Hawk Newspaper

Nov. 20, 2019

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The f-word is Feminism — a history of the controversy JACKIE COLLINS ’21 Copy Editor The f-word is feminism, at least it is in Radiant Bloom Productions’, “The F-word,” a show that celebrates the diversity of women and the many conflicting beliefs about feminism.

The Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) held a showing of “The F-Word” on Nov. 14 in The Perch. Kelsey Welsh ’22, co-director of campus relations for WLI, said this event was important for the club to host because a lot of people at St. Joe’s come from backgrounds where they never had to talk about feminism prior to college.

“Classes [at St. Joe’s] don’t talk about how feminism has developed over time and what it actually means,” Welsh said. “Coming to a campus like St. Joe’s that is so homogenous, where everyone comes from the same type of background, introducing these types of ideas is very important to just open up people’s minds.”

The five female cast members of “The F-Word,” start the show by defining feminism as, “The advocacy of women’s rights on the basis of the equality of different sexes.”

They then transition to acting out the history of American feminism through storytelling, chronologically moving from the first wave of feminism, which focused on gaining the right to vote throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to the current fourth wave of feminism, which focuses on sexual harrassment, body shaming and rape culture.

The cast frequently broke out into empowering songs such as “Respect” by Aretha Franklin and “Rise Up” by Andra Day. “I think the amount of content they covered was amazing,” Welsh said. “The amount

Radiant Bloom Productions told the story of feminism in the U.S. PHOTO: RAVEN SMITH ’20/THE HAWK

of engagement with the audience was also amazing to see.”

“The F-Word” allowed for an interactive exercise at the conclusion of the show, where the cast held a Q&A session. Audience members wrote down any lingering questions about feminism they had on sticky notes, and submitted them anonymously for the cast to answer.

“This particular type of event is important because it mixes up the usual lecture and brings this conversation in a different format, so that people who haven’t engaged in this conversation prior can feel more comfortable,” said Imani Briscoe, program specialist for inclusion and diversity experiential programming (IDEP). “Just coming into the space and learning something [is important].”

Maria Johnson ’21, attendee of “The F-Word” showing, said this event offered a safe space for education for the St. Joe’s community to enter in to.

“It gave people a forum to educate them-

selves without feeling that they are being judged,” Johnson said. “If they were ignorant about a specific topic, they could come and sit here and listen and they didn’t even have to ask any questions.”

WLI collaborated with the English department, the Center for Inclusion and Diversity (CID), the gender studies department, the Dean’s Leadership Program (DLP) and the Title IX coordinator to hold this event. Welsh said many programs were involved because each has a feminist lens they can look through to find importance in the event.

“The range of content that they covered, it really pulls together so many different areas,” Welsh said. “DLP [was involved] because so many different women leaders throughout history were mentioned [in the show], and it showed that there is no one right way to be a leader. And CID [was involved] because over time feminism has filled in women of color and people of different intersectionalities into that fold.”

With feminism comes controversy. Johnson said she believes this movement is such a controversial topic because the earlier movement had a lot to do with white feminism, which focused on the struggles of white women without addressing distinct forms of oppression faced by ethnic minority women and women lacking other privileges.

“It comes from the idea that there were for a long time very separate identities that people identified as that were united by feminism but that weren’t really connecting together,” Johnson said. “Particularly, when feminism started in the 1800s, it was very segmented and this has kind of carried due to the other things like racism and discrimination of people with disabilities and discrimination of people who are not neurotypical.”

Welsh said “The F-Word” really drove home the message that, with the fourth wave focusing on inclusivity and intersectionality, there are now different definitions and types of feminism that have strayed away from its once discriminatory and exclusive foundation.

“This is really important, especially in this day and age, when identity is such a fluid, nonconforming thing,” Welsh said. “I think that’s the basis for a lot of conflict, but it also gives a very beautiful opportunity for it to grow and be more encapsulating of different people.”

Johnson said given the recent racial bias incidents that have occurred on campus this semester, events like these should be more frequent.

“I really hope [WLI] has more events like this, not necessarily having to do with feminism, but events like this where people can come and educate themselves are really important,” Johnson said.

Finding your niche with on-campus podcasts EMMA BRENNER ’20 Special to The Hawk Gone are the days of simply listening to music while going through the mundane activities of our everyday lives. And frankly, sometimes exclusively listening to music can become boring.

This is just one of several reasons why the headphones of 67 million users as of 2017 constantly switch from their favorite tunes to the voices of people telling stories, of experts sharing what they know, of interviewers asking our most burning questions. Podcasts have taken the media world by storm, as a way to make those otherwise routine moments of our day a little more interesting.

Part of the major success of podcasts in recent times is that there is something for everyone. Podcasts give people the chance to embrace their quirks. There is no need to conform; whatever you want is out there waiting for you to press play.

“One of the good outcomes of the internet was one that I don’t think people saw coming,” said Steven Hammer, assistant professor of communication studies. It opened the door and made niche things possible and popular.”

Hammer specializes in audio production in the communication studies department.

He incorporates podcast production into many of his classes and has offered a course that solely focuses on creating podcasts from start to finish.

“My favorite podcasts are super dorky, they’re like a subsection of sports science dedicated to ultra marathoning,” Hammer said.

“It’s super specific, and that would never work on radio, because there aren’t enough people in a local market to support that.”

Not only are podcasts accessible for listeners, but for anyone who wants to produce one of their own. There are a few boxes that need to be checked before a podcast can take flight, according to Hammer.

“First you have to have ethos,” Hammer said. “Or you have to just be super entertaining or funny or good at talking in a way that’s interesting to listen to, which is a hard skill. Then it takes the form of writing—I’ll have [students] first write a script, and then you have to write it for your voice. And that’s really hard.”

After discovering the ethos and writing in your own voice comes hitting record and editing after. Hammer said these are all basic components of a successful podcast.

Jeff Martin, managing editor and producer of the marketing communications department, said the creation of his podcast “Good to Know” means more than just talking into a microphone. Martin originally created “Good to Know” as a way for faculty members to share their stories and expertise on their specific field. Martin made each episode focus on a topic pertinent to the time of year, and found a faculty member who could delve more into the topic.

He said using a podcast to execute this concept would not only be the most interesting approach, but the most fun.

“It was born out of the idea that we could feature headier topics without having to write long, complicated essays about them,” Martin

Justin Penik ’20 hosts two shows a week during the NFL season. PHOTO: ALEX HARGRAVE ’20/THE HAWK

said. “I think you can passively listen to podcasts, but I don’t think you could passively read something and pick up the topic as well.”

Martin compiles every episode, which usually run about 20 minutes, completely by himself. And while the formatting of the podcast has shifted, the goal has remained the same: learning something interesting to share with a larger audience.

“If you can spend your drive to work learning something interesting that you can share with your friends, I think that’s a good use of everyone’s time,” Martin said.

Students have also turned to podcasting to express their interests. One of them is Justin Penik ’20.

Penik has been producing his podcast, “Bleeding Blue,” since June 2018. The show explores New York Giants football, something

Penik is passionate about.

“I felt that I legitimately had something I wanted to say and could see myself building those communities on my own,” Penik said.

“Taking aspects of community and what we’ve learned from St. Joe’s, bringing it to social media and podcasts is definitely something I wanted, and it’s going pretty well so far.”

While “Bleeding Blue,” is fostered by two people, Penik and David Powis ’18, Penik is a completely self-taught podcast producer, using Google and Youtube to understand the inner workings of his craft.

First and foremost, Penik said podcasters need to give listeners a reason why they should click on the show.

“Creating that content and being versatile in what you can do,” Penik said, “then the podcast will follow, and all the rest will follow, too.”

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Features

The Hawk Newspaper

Nov. 20, 2019

“Cornbread stuffing. My mom

used to make it, she made the best. And three cheese bacon mac and cheese. I do most of the cooking.

I will not divulge [the recipe] until I die. I am the cook.”

“Corn casserole, because my parents are from Iowa and I am from Indiana!”

— Thomas Walter, Public Safety officer

— Jill Bodensteiner, J.D. director of athletics

Hawks fly home LUCY HIGGINS ’20 Hawk Staff

W

“Dressing with cranberry sauce. It’s yummy, warm.

When my mom makes it, it’s on point. It tastes like home because no one makes it like my mom makes it.”

hile turkey often takes the spotlight in the traditional Thanksgiving table spread, for many people, it’s the side dishes that make the meal complete.

Turkeys have been stuffed with goodness since as far back as the Roman period, but other Thanksgiving sides are rooted in American history, just not the earliest Thanksgiving celebration in the early 17th century, according to Jeff Hyson, Ph.D., assistant professor of history.

“That meal probably featured almost none of what we consider the ‘classic’ Thanksgiving foods,

but more likely included corn, squash and beans, the core foods of the local Wampanoag Indians who'd been essential to the Pilgrims’ survival, along with deer and fish,” Hyson said.

“No potatoes because they hadn’t been introduced to North America yet. No pies because wheat had yet to be widely cultivated in the New World.”

The whole Thanksgiving turkey-dinner tradition didn’t really take hold until the mid-19th century. Mashed potatoes gained attention in 1863 after President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving an official American holiday. American writer and editor Sarah Josepha Hale campaigned tirelessly for the declaration and popularized her recipes for Thanksgiving sides. Some historians credit Hale with making mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie a holiday staple.

University President Mark C. Reed, Ed.D., said he is a fan of turkey, along with traditional sides, including mashed potatoes,

— Zoë Welsh ’22 “I always serve the same thing for

“My mom makes broccoli casserole.

It’s my favorite. There's Ritz crackers for breading on top. It's really good.”

— Celia Hegarty ’21

‘cheesegiving:’ a round of runny Epoisses (a stinky French cheese washed in brandy) with pears, walnuts, onion jam, toasted baguette rounds and a bottle of white Burgundy. I bring the cheese to room temperature so that it's nice and soft, then we scoop at it all day while we are cooking. To me, this is a perfect Thanksgiving cheese because it tastes meaty and oniony, which is exactly what you want while you're hanging around the kitchen.

Plus, the strong smell of Epoisses is masked by the smell of turkey and baking spices!”

— Tenaya Darlington, professor of English and author of Madame Fromage blog

Features

The Hawk Newspaper

Nov. 20, 2019

11

“Mashed potatoes with butter. It goes

“Yellow rice with gandules. It’s very specific to my Latino/Hispanic culture.

When I go home, I can always count on there being rice. What else am I going to mix everything into?

with everything. My cousin is a really good cook, so I love everything she makes.”

Kelly Richter ’20

My mom is cooking all day. It starts from the night before, when the turkey is being seasoned with sazon, adobo, pepper and garlic and put in the oven.”

Carla Rodriguez ’20

for Thanksgiving stuffing and gravy.

“Mixing all four together tastes great,” Reed said in an email to The Hawk.

Robert Respes, a product delivery driver for Provisions on Demand (P.O.D), Einstein Bros. Bagels and Starbucks, also is a mixer.

“I always put candied yams and collard greens together,” Respes said.

While mashed potatoes and gravy are regarded as Thanksgiving staples through the U.S., their popularity varies from region to region. In the Northeast, squash is the most popular side dish, according to a 2015 poll from FiveThirtyEight, a popular poll analysis blog. In the South, macaroni and cheese and cornbread are favorites, according to the poll. In the Midwest, it’s green bean casserole and rolls. In most of the West, it’s salad.

In the spirit of the American melting pot, favorite sides also reflect the varied cultures of

“My favorite side dishes would be dessert. We have the Spanish flan. It's made out of eggs, condensed milk, evaporating milk and vanilla extract. The texture is really, really nice. It's not difficult to break apart. It’s nice and smooth. And then another dessert dish would be arroz con leche. It’s rice with condensed milk and they just boil it until it has this spicy texture. It’s also really good. It knocks you out cold.”

Christopher Perez ’19

America seated around the table. Dishes such as yellow rice with gandules, arroz con leche, dressing and candied yams with pineapple are among the many additions to the Thanksgiving traditions celebrated by members of the St. Joe’s community.

Christopher Perez ’19 is Dominican and enjoys the pastelon, a dish similar to lasagna, served at his family’s Thanksgiving.

“It’s made out of plantains, beef, cheddar cheese, olive oil, bell peppers, garlic, cilantro and red onions,” said Perez, who added that in addition to turkey, there’s always a succulent pig at the feast.

Here’s a look at some other favorites sides that members of the St. Joe’s community are looking forward to enjoying at their Thanksgiving celebrations.

“In my high carb days, I really enjoyed candied yams, because of the ways in which food tells us about our cultures.

“My sister-in-law’s string bean

casserole. I love green beans and I love the French onion toppings on my casserole.”

Michael Dougherty, Public Safety officer

My other made it and taught me, and it combines so much of the diversity of America. My mother is of Cape Verdean descent, so she adds pineapples, orange juice, maple syrup and apples to the recipe to speak to her island roots. The recipe also has a layer of marshmallows on the top, which surprised my wife's family, who are black Americans as well, when I made it for them. They loved it, but they see the marshmallows and the name as white American. They call it sweet potato casserole.

So, in sum, one dish tells us about the diversity of black communities in America, and by extension the complexity of American culture.”

Brian Yates, Ph.D., associate professor of history

12

The Hawk Newspaper

Nov. 20, 2019

Have a holly, jolly...Thanksgiving?

CAROLINA GONZALEZ '20 Hawk Staff Shortly after people stuff their Halloween costumes in the backs of their closets and take down their spooky decorations, one of the most pressing debates that plagues society arises: when to turn on the Christmas tunes.

Nara Finkelstein ’22 feels that once the calendar reads Nov. 1, it’s time to start playing her favorite holiday tunes.

“Once Halloween passes, it means that Christmas is just around the corner,” Finkelstein said. “November is the ‘get ready for Christmas’ month, so spirits have to be raised and ready for what’s coming.”

For people like Mary Kate McNaught ’20, snow on the ground marks when it’s time to start playing Christmas music.

“It doesn’t match the weather,” McNaught said. “I think Christmas music should start being played once it starts snowing.”

Christmas music as we know it today was popularized in the 1940s, with artists such as Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby producing iconic holiday favorites, such as “Let it Snow!

Let It Snow! Let It Snow!” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” respectively.

In the last decade, though, an influx of new, modern Christmas songs paired with covers of various classics sung by some of the biggest names in music, have taken over the airwaves and streaming services sometimes as early as Nov. 1.

Catherine Hughes, Ph.D., historical musicologist and visiting assistant professor of music at, said it’s important to differentiate between liturgical music and commercial music. Traditional liturgical Christmas music isn’t generally played in religious spaces before Dec. 25, she said.

On the contrary, the more commercial music, encompassing Christmas and other holidays such as Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, begins to be celebrated earlier as a way to gear up for the religious holidays.

Features

Thankful for this playlist KAITLYN PATTERSON ’20 Features Editor The holiday s eason i s quickly approaching, and it might be hard to slow down as the semester dwindles to its final w eeks. W hile you struggle to get through those last few classes and assignments before break, listen to these songs to get you in the Thanksgiving spirit and remind you that through the thick and thin, there is always something to be grateful for. As you make your journey home to family, friends and good food, hopefully these songs will put your mind at ease.

GRAPHIC: KAITLYN PATTERSON ’20 / THE HAWK

“If you’re trying to sell stuff for people to buy and start celebrating the liturgical season, you’re going to have to push that deep back into November,” Hughes said.

The retail aspect is a big influence, Hughes said.

“Part of it, of course, is selling as much as possible for as long as possible,” Hughes said.

“If you think about where Christmas music is heard, it’s heard on the radio and in stores. So, if you play it in stores and present a bunch of Christmas stuff, then people will perhaps be more inclined to buy.”

Many retail outlets begin getting into the holiday spirit long before Thanksgiving. On St. Joe’s campus, Starbucks sells holiday-themed drinks and cups, but doesn’t pipe corresponding music over its speakers. The Saxby’s playlist depends on which student happens to be running the music.

For students like Daniel Trout ’20, listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving just feels wrong.

“My personal thing is that I don’t play it until after Thanksgiving,” said Trout. “That’s my favorite holiday, so playing Christmas music before feels like it’s taking away from it.”

Maddie Michelini ’20 said she also wants to savor Thanksgiving first.

“It feels as if [they’re] ignoring Thanksgiving,” Michelini said. “Thanksgiving is still a holiday, separate from Christmas, and should be respected.”

But for Nate Fioravante ’22, listening to Christmas music beginning in November goes along with the prevalence of holiday-themed items.

“It just feels right,” Fioravante said.

“Everywhere you go, there’s just Christmas stuff around.”

Crossword: Thanksgiving

“Furr” by Blitzen Trapper To start things off, Blitzen Trapper takes us through the bittersweet process of growing up and reconnecting to your roots. Listen to this song to relax your mind and realize that although we’re growing up, each stage of life has its beauty.

“Take Your Time” by Vance Joy With finals s wiftly ap proaching, Va nce Joy reminds us that it’s important to reconnect with the simpler things and take the time to appreciate what truly matters in life. As you make your journey home, listen to this song to get in that mindset.

“Harvest Moon” by Lord Huron With a blend of the past and present, this cover by Lord Huron pairs well with awkward conversations with distant family members that you haven’t seen in awhile. As they begin to ask you those dreaded questions like, “What are you doing with you life?” or “Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend?” get into the groove with this tune and boogie yourself away from the situation.

“Rivers and Roads” by The Head and the Heart Going back to the theme of growing up, The Head a nd t he Heart reminds us t hat no matter how much time or distance is between you and the ones you love, you can always go back home to find them. As each of us is on a journey to figure o ut t he r est o f o ur l ives, despite our age, it’s always good to remember that sometimes the simplicity of home is the only thing we need.

“The World As I See It by Jason Mraz In a world with a lot of terrible things that fill our screens, Jason Mraz takes us on a musical journey through the wonderful things that the world we live in has to offer. Although there are a lot of difficult th ings we wi ll al l have to go through in our lives, the easiest by far is loving each other, which is an important thing to remember this Thanksgiving as you may go home to family members who have different opinions than you.

Across 1. After eating Thanksgiving dinner, many people venture out into the retail world on this day for the busiest shopping day of the year.

3. Fried, baked or mashed, this vegetable is a staple at most Thanksgiving feasts.

6. Seeing these people during the holidays is usually the best or the worst part about going home.

7. Whether you’re watching family and friends play this sport outside or your favorite team is on TV, _____ has become a Thanksgiving tradition.

9. Pumpkin, apple and pecan are all popular flavors of this delicious treat.

11. A creamy casserole topped with onion strings might be enough to make someone eat their _____ _____.

Down 2. Many people do not enjoy the sweetness of the ________ sauce with their Thanksgiving meals.

4. This holiday favorite is usually made of dried breadcrumbs, celery and a variety of spices.

5. In the early morning hours of Thanksgiving, gather around the television to watch the ______ that goes through the streets of New York City.

8. This star of the show on Thanksgiving usually takes all day to cook.

10. If the feast on your plate is looking a little dry or your mashed potatoes need a little extra flavor, add some _____ to the mix.

“Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros Last but not least, this classic tune reminds us that home isn’t necessarily limited to our childhood bedroom or the home cooked meal that your mom used to make. It’s spending time with those who you love most.

Scan this QR code to listen to the playlist on Spotify:

Sports

The Hawk Newspaper

Nov. 20, 2019

13

Gaelic football team prepares new players in fall MATT DELEO ’20 Assistant Sports Editor St. Joe’s gaelic football team wrapped up their fall training session on Nov. 10. Their goal this season is to build the prevalence of the sport on campus and in the area.

According to junior Curtis Tokach, team vice president, the fall season is for the new players to learn the game and build relationships with teammates.

“Our goal is always to grow the sport both at St. Joe’s and at other universities,” Tokach said. “Most of our new players have never played before, and we love introducing new players to the game.”

The team lost a large amount of graduating seniors last year, according to junior Adam Werner, team president.

“We expect to fight hard and win our share of games,” Werner said. “The new crop of kids are extremely athletic and we can improve by utilizing our speed and agility against other teams.”

Head Coach Brendan Feeney said the team has been successful in the past and hopes it continues.

“Our team is full of many players new to the sport, so it’s a process to get better gradually,” Feeney said.

Tokach said he thinks the team can improve on their fitness levels in order to make up for their lack of experience. Last spring, the team finished fourth at the end of the year tournament.

“This year our team is extremely athletic,” Tokach said. “We are able to dominate games by being faster, stronger, and more durable than our opponents.”

Werner said he also thinks athleticism and speed is a strength of this team.

The team finished last season fourth in their conference. PHOTO COURTESY OF SJU GAELIC FOOTBALL

Tokach said team chemistry is also a very important part of the squad.

“This trust in teammates allows us to focus less on a few specific standout players and more on the team playing together as a whole,” Tokach said.

The team looks to improve their skills and grow stronger. Many of the players are underclassmen, according to Werner.

“Everyone on the team are genuinely friends and can lean on each other on and off the field,” Werner said. “We all have a passion for a game that most of us would never expect.”

Tokach said he is excited about the team’s culture as he believes it’s certainly one of the strongest that he has ever seen.

“For me personally, most of my best

friends here at SJU are a part of this club, which I believe really shows how important this club can be to a student’s experience at St. Joe’s,” Tokach said. “These lasting relationships along with the strong team oriented dynamics that are present truly separate this club from any other.”

Feeney said his team prides itself on fitness, being quick, and smart decision making.

“We like to play an in your face, fast break style that puts teams on their heels,” Feeney said “I like to think strong leadership and consistent hard work our team puts in sets us apart.”

Tokach said he wants the team to feel inclusive.

“Everyone knows that they are valued on this team and that there is always some

way that they can contribute,” Tokach said.

Gaelic football is certainly not the easiest sport to pick up, but it is incredibly rewarding, according to Tokach. He said he wants to encourage students to not be shy, to come to their practices, talk to the players and see for themselves what the club is all about.

“The sport is a great opportunity to learn something new, meet new people and get a good workout in,” Tokach said.

Werner said he wants to grow the sport beyond other universities in Philadelphia.

“Gaelic football is slowly growing in America, and I believe we are respecting Philadelphia well,” Werner said. “We look to expand and teach local schools in Philadelphia about the game.”

Melia honored amidst intercontinental transition RYAN MULLIGAN ’21 Assistant Sports Editor In her first week of North American collegiate basketball, Claire Melia was named the Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Week.

The native of Monasterevin, Ireland currently leads the Hawks in both points and rebounds. Her college debut saw a 23 point performance against Colombia University, and followed that up with a 17 point, nine rebound outing in a Big 5 matchup against Temple University.

“It didn’t necessarily surprise me because we knew she was going to do her thing and do well, but [leading the team in points], that’s amazing,” said Sarah Fairbanks ’16, director of women’s basketball operations.

Melia was already acquainted with Fairbanks prior to her joining of the Hawks. Fairbanks, who played professionally in Ireland, squared off with Melia in Ireland’s Super League, the country’s highest professional league.

“She was tough, very tough,” Fairbanks said. “Her team was tough, and that’s exactly the way she plays. She was only 16 or 17 at the time, but you can tell she’s played with older people earlier than some of us have growing up here in America.”

Melia said playing at a high level in Ireland against American talent, like Fairbanks, helped her hit the ground running when she arrived at St. Joe’s.

“It’s different than in Ireland,” Melia said. “It’s more physical and obviously there’s

a lot more talent here. But I’ve played against Americans when they come to Ireland to play, so at least there’s some experience there.”

Melia said the transition hasn’t come without any some major adjustments however. There was no basketball court in Melia’s town growing up, and she hadn’t lifted until she arrived on Hawk Hill.

“To be training for three hours each day is a big change,” Melia said. “Having a practice gym and the lifting and training facilities, it’s all helped me make that transition.”

Another aspect that has helped ease Melia’s switch to American basketball is her teammate, Lula Roig, who also came to the other side of the Atlantic Ocean from Spain prior to her freshman year of college.

“We definitely do [have a connection],” Roig said. “One day she came to me and said ‘I love playing with you’ and I said ‘I love playing with you too’. It’s great.”

Roig agreed that the physicality of the American game is one of the most important aspects of the game to get used to when coming from Europe. However, both Roig and Fairbanks pointed to one intangible that is immediately evident when watching Melia play.

“She is very smart with the ball and she brings composure," Roig said. "You know when you give her the ball you can trust her.”

Fairbanks noticed the same poise.

“She’s brought a certain composure, and a certain calmness,” Fairbanks said. “That kind of upperclassmen mentality is good for us because we are so young.”

Despite the composure Melia shows in game, Roig knows how difficult it can be to come to a new country and adapt.

“At the beginning it can be hard [to make the transition],” Roig said. “But once

the season starts it gets so much better. I tell her whenever she wants, she has me. I’ve been through the same process, but I think she’s doing really good right now.”

Melia captained Ireland to their first ever Division A promotion with a silver medal at the U-18 European Championships. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/ THE HAWK

14 Nov. 20, 2019

Sports

The Hawk Newspaper

Sports columns

The missing piece for the Hawks JAMES MCCLOSKEY JR. ’20 Columnist The St. Joe’s men’s basketball team has started the season with two wins and two losses. A record of 2-2 is significantly better than how many presumed the Hawks would start the season. Much has been learned from these first four games. Some thoughts have been confirmed, others disproven.

As I stated prior to the opening of the 2019-20 season, the Hawks will not be walked over this season. Frankly, with the 96-87 win over the University of Connecticut Huskies on Nov. 13, the Hawks could have started the season 4-0.

Through each of these four games, the Hawks showed their inexperience. This is not surprising. The Hawks are a young team.

We knew this going into the season.

What we have learned are this team has two glaring holes which can both be rectified prior to the start of Atlantic 10 conference play on Jan. 2.: an inability to finish halves and the omittance of a true big man and defensive anchor.

In the Nov. 10 game versus Old Dominion University, the Hawks led 38-34 at the end of the first half. They played an incredible half. Moving the ball, hitting shots and playing lockdown defense. The Hawks final lead of the game came when the score was 41-40. Three minutes into the second half.

A team that dominated the first half of basketball could barely keep up in the sec-

ond. Why? It seems the strategy of coach Billy Lange this season is for the Hawks to run up the score as high as possible to stretch the lead out before they get too tired halfway through the second half. In one regard, this strategy is plausible: if we can score 100 points per game, we have a great chance to go undefeated.

The downside is when the Hawks have a less than stellar shooting night. The Hawks shot 7-for-31 (22%) from 2-point range against the Monarchs. A similar fate was suffered against the Loyola University Chicago Wolves. The Hawks fell apart in the second half once again. With a 54-52 lead with 15:35 left in the game, the Hawks gave up an 8-0 run followed later by another 8-0 run. Scoring droughts will destroy the Hawks this season.

The problem? The Hawks are exhausted by the second half. The starters are either playing 25-plus minutes each game or getting into foul trouble and needing to sit for extended periods of time, like junior forward Lorenzo Edwards has been forced to do so against the Monarchs, Huskies and Wolves.

The Hawks need a true big man that can be the anchor on the defensive end, providing players like Edwards and redshirt junior guard Ryan Daly the ability to take a moment to breathe on defense rather than continuously covering the wings and the lane.

Six foot 10 inch junior forward Anthony Longpré has been ruled out for the first four games of the season due to illness. For the past two seasons, Longpré was unable to be the defensive anchor that the Hawks needed.

Longpré has not seen any game action yet this year due to illness.

PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/ THE HAWK

He has the opportunity to redeem himself this season upon his return.

Longpré tends to enjoy shooting 3-pointers and playing on the arch more often than in the box. Similarly, on defense, he has been easily pulled out of the lane. That cannot happen this season.

Lange must develop Longpré into the true big man the Hawks need this season.

Once the Hawks enter A-10 play, the lane will be busy with big men from Saint Louis

University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst this season and they will dominate the Hawks if Longpré cannot step up.

The ball is now in Lange’s court to develop players into the mold needed to fit the team just as he was able to do with the Philadelphia 76ers. The opportunity to show why we hired you is on you now, coach Lange.

Develop this team to win.

COLLEGE BASKETBALL DOOMSDAY CLOCK APPROACHING MIDNIGHT SAM BRITT ’20 Sports Editor Tick. Tock.

The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic measurement of how close humanity is from complete destruction. It is measured in minutes as they approach a proverbial midnight, a nice wording for the end of human life.

This summer, LaMelo Ball and R.J. Hampton, ranked number 21 and 5 respectively on ESPN’s Top 100 high school basketball prospects, decided to spurn collegiate basketball and take their talents to the National Basketball League (NBL) in New Zealand.

Tick. Tock.

For Ball, this decision was made out of necessity. He most likely lost his eligibility to play in the NCAA after both taking on a shoe endorsement with Big Baller Brand, a basketball apparel company owned by his braggadocious father Lavar, and playing professionally in Lithuania during high school.

Hampton, however, did not have these barriers to playing college basketball. He was heralded as the second best point guard in this year’s high school freshmen class. He had offers from Duke University, Kansas University, the University of Kentucky and the University of Memphis, all schools that entered this season ranked within the top 15 in the nation.

The college basketball world was Hampton’s oyster and he chose to toss it back into the sea. He could have been a national star, leading one of the premiere blue bloods to another chance at glory in March. His face could have been on ESPN, CBS and NBC every time his team stepped on the court.

He chose New Zealand.

Tick. Tock.

Potentially, this could be the beginning of the end of college basketball as we know it. For almost the entirety of the past century, the NCAA has held a monopoly on the top talent in the U.S. If teenage athletes wanted to go pro, they would have to go to college. It was the only league that would get scouted and give players the necessary exposure needed to make the jump to the pros.

Hampton knew all of this and chose to go to New Zealand because he felt it was the most efficient way to prepare for the National Basketball Association (NBA). He would be able to prove himself, not against his peers, but against professionals at a level that wasn’t available to him in the U.S. On top of all that, he could get paid to play basketball.

Crazy idea, right?

Tick. Tock.

The NCAA hears it, a faint ticking just out of earshot. It is approaching, faster every day, an all-out college basketball apocalypse.

Why would a teenager want to play in college, where they have to take a full course schedule on top of being a full-time athlete

for no money when they can go somewhere else, get paid and be better prepared for the NBA? Couple that with the NBA actively pursuing the termination of the “oneand-done” rule, requiring players to be at least a year out of high school before being draft eligible, shows that the NCAA is on its dying breaths.

In the near future, there is a good chance high level high school prospects won’t be flocking to Power Five schools, they’ll be traveling overseas. The minute hand keeps ticking closer and closer to midnight.

Tick. Tock.

The duo of Ball and Hampton have shown other potential phenoms that the NCAA isn’t the only route.

They’ve blazed a trail that others will hopefully trek down.

There are plenty of paths that make just as much sense from a basketball standpoint as the NCAA, while also delivering fair pay and the ability to make money off their likenesses to talented athletes. This era where college basketball is a collection of the best young talent in U.S. might be coming to an end.

GRAPHIC: RYAN MULLIGAN ’21/THE HAWK

What will college basketball look like when the ash settles? Who will the NCAA turn to when their golden geese fly away and can get fair compensation for their abilities?

Will it be the end of collegiate basketball as we know it? A complete destruction of the aura surrounding one of collegiate sport’s most nationally recognized institutions?

Hey, in the immortal words of the rock band R.E.M.: “It is the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.”

Sports

The Hawk Newspaper

Nov. 20, 2019

15

Intramurals see spike in participation following restructure SOPHIE SHIELDS ’22 Special to The Hawk The number of students involved in intramural sports at St. Joe’s nearly doubled this fall after a year of declining participation.

Flag football and volleyball, the two fall intramural sports that Campus Recreation offers, had 126 participants last fall. This fall, 220 athletes are involved in the two sports.

Alex Kissinger, recreation coordinator for Campus Recreation, said she made a deliberate attempt to revamp the program this year and better advertise it to encourage more participation.

“My thought process is, the more people that play this season, if they enjoyed it, then they’ll tell more people for the next season,” said Kissinger, who added that students can join intramurals as a “free agent” or with an already established team.

Nick Palermo ’22, a two-year participant in flag football, said he has noticed Campus Recreation’s efforts.

“Even just last year compared to this year, there’s just been so much more attention given to it, and it’s such an improvement,” Palermo said.

Last season, Palermo said he had to seek out intramural information by searching the Campus Recreation website. This year, there were advertisements on Instagram, on flyers in the residence halls and on the digital monitors in Campion Student Center.

Palermo said one upshot of more attention to the program is that his team has had

Mike Scanlon ’21 carries the ball in an intramural flag football game.

PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

more opportunity to play.

“Last year my team only had two games and one forefeit, and this year we’ve got to play five games, and there’s also playoffs and the refs are better trained,” Palermo said.

Teams this year play a minimum of five games, then compete in playoffs against fellow St. Joe’s teams. The winner will go on to compete in the Philadelphia City 6 on Nov. 23, playing against Villanova University, La Salle University, Temple University, Drexel University and University of Pennsylvania for the flag football city championship.

Intramural volleyball, like flag football, has games every Sunday afternoon. Volleyball teams play a minimum of seven games.

At the end of the season, playoffs will be held against other St. Joe’s teams. The St. Joe’ champion will play against the other Philadelphia City 6 teams on Dec. 7 for the volleyball city championship.

Alex Sorensen ’20, an RA, is a member of an intramural volleyball team with other RAs. “It’s super fun, and it’s just a great sport to be collaborative in,” Sorensen said. “It

helps build your relationships more.”

Kissinger said part of her motivation for increasing participation in intramural sports comes from her experience as a student at Temple, where she participated in intramural women’s indoor and outdoor soccer, co-rec and women’s football, co-rec and women’s softball, women’s dodgeball and co-rec floor hockey. She also worked in Temple’s Intramural Department.

“I just thought it was really fun, so the more people that know about it [at St. Joe’s], obviously the better it’ll be and more competitive,” Kissinger said.

Temple currently offers four fall intramural sports, including flag football, outdoor soccer, volleyball and three levels of basketball. Other area schools also currently offer a wider variety of fall intramural sports than St. Joe’s. At Villanova, students can choose from five intramural sports. At LaSalle, they can choose from three.

Kissinger said she aims to grow St. Joe’s program, adding participants and teams and recruiting more women by offering sports just for them. Depending on student interest and space, she would like to add soccer, floor hockey and dodgeball in the future.

“Instead of just having men’s and corec, I hope women get more involved too because it is a good opportunity for women to meet friends and just stay active as well,” Kissinger said. “Hopefully this time next year we’ll see growth in participants.”

16

Nov. 20, 2019

The Hawk Newspaper

Hawks' season comes to an end

Sports

Field hockey falls in the first round of the NCAA Tournament

Freshman Luca Scheuten drives the ball down the field during their season ending game against the University of Maryland. PHOTO COURTESY OF TOM CONNELLY

SAM BRITT ’20 Sports Editor The St. Joe’s field hockey team saw a season in which they finished 14th in the National Field Hockey Coaches Association (NFHCA) Coach’s Poll come to an end on Nov. 15 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament against the University of Maryland (UMD).

Despite the final score, 4-0, Head Coach Lynn Farquhar felt the Hawks and Terrapins played an even game. St. Joe’s even out cornered UMD, a team who has been to the NCAA Tournament Finals the past two seasons, but it was the team from College Park that capitalized on their chances.

“It was solid, solid hockey,” Farquhar said. “After the first goal there wasn’t a change in emotion, but after the second one you could see a tempo change and Maryland fed off of that. We definitely had our moments though. It was there, but in tournament time if you capitalize, the momentum shifts. Maryland is a good program and they fed off of it.”

For the third year in a row, St. Joe’s fell in their first game of the NCAA Tournament. Despite this year having a similar result, Farquhar said the team showed a lot of progress.

“There was a new type of confidence going into tournament time,” Farquhar said.

“It was really cool to see the team, their eyes during the game. They were locked in and focused. It was a huge step for our program and I hope we can keep that moving forward.”

For junior forward Jordan Olenginski, the end of this season was tough because it was her last game with the senior class.

“This year was a tough one for me because I had been playing with the senior class for all three of my years here,” Olenginski said. “I think more than the outcomes, we will remember the memories we make with each other both on and off the field.”

The field hockey team’s senior class is one of the most decorated athletic classes in St. Joe’s history, compiling three consecutive national tournament appearances, three consecutive conference championships, a career record of 68-17 and numerous personal awards.

Despite all of that, what stands out most about the group to Farquhar is a decision they made in regards to their senior day.

“I scheduled [University of] Michigan on their senior day and I asked them if that was OK and they said yes and were excited for it,” Farquhar said. “You don’t always have a big group who is so keen for trial. Your senior game is one of those memorable moments and they wanted to face a team they lost to the year before. I think that is mature and speaks on the drive of the group.”

Olenginski acknowledges that her class and the younger classes have big shoes to fill. She feels confident that they have the ability to do so and is thankful for the senior class that led the way this year.

“There is a lot of passion in the class that is leaving,” Olenginski said. “My class and the classes below me will do a good job of carrying that forward. We have to work to keep the culture we have been building the past three years because we have been successful.

Remembering that we are playing for something greater than ourselves and keeping that in mind during the everyday grind.”

The Hawks are losing nine players, a group that includes the reigning Atlantic 10 Offensive and Defensive Players of the Year. Farquhar hopes the underclassmen can learn from the attitude the senior class brought on a day to day basis.

“They really bought into team,” Farquhar said. “They brought and strengthened their own personalities to emphasize team.

We have some incredibly passionate players who drive with their intensity. There are others who learn the game and use their voice.

We had others who could step back and guide. The biggest asset is they all learned to be themselves and give to a group and that is something our younger hopefully absorbed and will carry on.”

For Olenginski, the continued success of the program is a testament to the work the team puts in on and off the field.

“It attests to how hard we work,” Olenginski said. “When I committed to the program we were like 60th in the country or something like that. So to watch this program shape into what it is now, it is really cool to be a part of making history.”

Senior back Kathrin Bentz said the team’s success can be boiled down to their basic belief system.

“I think it just shows what this program is all about,” Bentz said. “When we got here, we focused on our basics, which is I.P.A.; which means intentioned positive actions, team first and 100% effort. Our goal is to be a Hawk and that means to be greater. Being able to repeat this three years in a row shows it isn’t a one year thing, this program is moving and developing.”

Farquhar said she thinks even though the continued success of the program breeds lofty expectations, the team will be able to turn that pressure into a positive.

“Every year we have grown and there has been a different level of standards and expectations,” Farquhar said. “That is fair.

Will it be pressure? I think in any environment where you understand your potential, It will bring good pressure. It brings a certain intensity and confidence, some people might call it pressure, but all that it means is you have to perform in the moment.”

Field Hockey was the first team in school history to win three straight conference titles. PHOTO COURTESY OF TOM CONNELLY