Oct. 7, 2019

Oct. 9, 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

O’Pake renovations still years out

Students work out in O’Pake RecreationCenter on a Monday night. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

After the university’s latest master plan was released last spring, community members began buzzing about what they welcomed as a much needed upgrade to campus: renovations to the O’Pake Recreation Center.

Kevin Kane, assistant vice president of Facilities Operations, said renovations to O’Pake are still in the planning stage, with design plans being considered. Most current students will not see any major improvements to the facility during their time at St. Joe’s.

“Best case estimate for construction to start would be next winter, and we expect construction to last approximately two years,” Kane said.

The speed of the process depends largely on Lower Merion Township approvals, Kane said.

“The hardest to get approved are the building permits,” Kane said. “Any approvals go through the board of commissioners for Lower Merion. Hard to quantify the length of the process. A couple months are budgeted for approvals, but it could be dragged out depending on approvals.”

Still, O’Pake is further along in the process than the other master plan projects, said Tim McGuriman, associate vice

president of Administrative Services.

As reported in the March 9 issue of The Hawk, highlights of the master plan include moving Campion Student Center to where LaFarge Residence Center and Sourin Residence Center are currently located, tearing down those residence halls and updating O’Pake.

“There are certain things we’ve been able to kind of move along a little more aggressively than others,” McGuriman said.

“The exact timeframe of when exactly things are going to happen isn’t as clearly defined, but there’s certainly some things that are sooner rather than later.”

O’Pake has been slated for renovations at least since 2008, according to Campus Recreation staff. In 2008, the university acquired what was then Episcopal Academy’s property, renamed it the James J. Maguire ’58 Campus and moved a number of university operations across City Avenue into that space.

“We took over what was a high school gym, and the plan at the time was to come in and do some major renovations,” said Corey Shannon, director of Campus Recreation. “Unfortunately, 2008 was when the economy was tanking, and the administration said, alright, let’s hold off on that.

So we basically got some paint and some carpeting, but we’ve been essentially using

the same space since.”

Shannon said “pretty much everything is being put on hold” right now until plans for the renovations are finalized.

“We don’t want to commit to spending a lot of money to do some things when we know there’s going to be a major renovation in, could be, a year, whenever it is, I don’t know,” Shannon said. “Obviously if there are safety concerns, they’re addressed. We handle those things and facilities has been good about that but, for instance, I’d like to replace some backboards out in the gym, or the bleachers. If it’s something that doesn’t present an immediate hazard, then we’re probably going to have to hold off on that until the bigger renovation.”

Space is definitely a priority for Shannon.

“Our biggest challenge is the fitness center,” Shannon said. “The space, it’s just not big enough, so that’s my A1 request for if and when we get the renovations. In the meantime, I’ve requested to replace backboards, bleacher enhancements, sound system, that I’m now hopeful will be included in the major renovation. Unfortunately, things are not happening necessarily as quickly as we would all like.”

Collin Cavanaugh ’20, who visits O’Pake about five times a week, finds the facilities lacking.

“It’s very poor, I would say similar to a

high school, not even a nice high school,” Cavanaugh said. “It needs a lot of work, and over all, the student body is not happy,” Lauren Bello ’21 started a change.org petition, Operation O’Pake, currently standing at 583 signatures. Bello’s goal for the petition was to get the administration’s attention to everyone’s frustrations about the gym’s condition.

“So many other schools, they actively are trying to improve their facilities for the student body because it is the gym, they should want their students to be active, to be healthy, and they should want a good environment to be in,” Bello said.

“It should be a priority for the school because the students should be a priority.

The school should care because the students care.”

Bello still waits for changes to be solidified.

“If they would put a concrete date in place and actually actively work on it, I think that would make a difference,” Bello said.

Cavanaugh, however, has given up on waiting for changes, but he said he hopes something will be done soon for future students.

“As a senior, I’ve been waiting for four years, so I’ve already been able to make do with what we have, but for younger classes, I think this is just another reason not to attend this school,” Cavanaugh said.

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Bag checks increase in residence halls

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Offensive costumes to avoid this Halloween

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Oct. 9, 2019

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News

Random bag checks increase in residence halls OLIVIA ROBINSON ’22 Special to The Hawk While random bag checks are a regular part of safety protocol in residence halls, many returning residents have noticed an increase in checks this semester.

A number of desk attendants interviewed by The Hawk confirmed they have been encouraged to check more bags this semester and to follow more closely the procedure in place.

One desk attendant, who requested that her name not be used for fear of losing her job, said she thinks the directive is linked to safety.

“I think it’s just to ensure the safety because so many things have been happening all over campuses that they are encouraging security in every school to do more bag checks, to do more walking, to do more everything,” the attendant said. “It’s just basically to ensure the safety of everyone.”

According to the University's Student Handbook, desk staff have the right to inspect bags and deny entrance to a building if a resident or guest refuses.

“We have a program that enlists a random bag check procedure that changes each month,” explained Arthur Grover, director of Public Safety & Security, “and that bag check procedure that changes each month instructs the desk attendant to check every fifth, seventh, eighth, ninth, student, so it becomes routinized, not singling anyone out.”

Grover added this system of checking bags helps to deter bias.

Grover said the 90 desk attendants that the university employs are contracted out through Allied Universal, a security com-

The number of random bag checks is increasing in all St. Joe’s residence halls.

PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

pany, which is responsible for making sure the policies are enforced. Their supervisor is William Kovar, who said through Grover that the current bag check policy has been in place for about 10 years.

When bag checks are executed, desk attendants are searching for items that are not allowed in the residence halls, Grover said.

“Alcoholic beverages, narcotics, drugs, weapons, things that you wouldn’t want in your living space, and I wouldn’t want in my living space,” Grover said. “And I’m sure the parents of our students wouldn’t want that either. So, that’s what we seek to do.”

Grover said the number one contraband item confiscated in bag checks is alcohol.

“I was a young person, too,” Grover said. “I understand that. We have our rules and regulations. A lot of that is confiscated.

We have a procedure at Public Safety headquarters. We put it on a property receipt, we dispose of it, destroy it, pour it down, with a witness, down the drain.”

Jessica Moran-Buckridge, director of Residence Life, said in an email there is no “one-size-fits-all” penalty for students who are caught attempting to bring in a prohibited item.

“Typically, if a desk attendant becomes aware of a policy violation found during a bag check (or any other time as well), they would work with Public Safety to make an incident report,” Moran-Buckridge said. “Incident reports involving residential students are shared with Residence Life and are referred to Community Standards for any needed follow up.”

Moran-Buckridge said she does not have

data “readily available” regarding how many bag check violations occur every semester.

Moran-Buckridge reiterated that, per university policy, everyone who lives in a residence hall, and any of their guests, are subject to bag checks. But not all residents have noticed an increase in checks, and not all desk attendants whom The Hawk interviewed knew what the policy was regarding the rotating number of bag checks.

Many residents in Merion Gardens, a residence hall that houses sophomores, juniors and seniors, said they rarely see bag checks.

“I haven’t seen bag checks here,” said Amber Weedon ’22, a resident of Merion Gardens. “Last year I lived in Sourin and got bag checked a lot. This year I’ve never been bag checked. I heard about a lot of bag checks in Lannon, but never here.”

When asked about the frequency of bag checks in residence halls this semester, Moran-Buckridge said that while Public Safety and Residence Life are “partners” in enforcing the bag check policy, Residence Life does not oversee the desk attendants in this regard.

“Though we in Residence Life work very collaboratively with the desk attendants, we do not supervise them directly,” Moran-Buckridge aid. “Everyday supervision and procedure directives come from their supervision line.”

That line leads to Grover, who said enforcement is key to a safe living environment.

“To me, that is important space to protect, if not the most important space to protect on our campus,” Grover said. “Why is that? Because that’s where our resident students, live, study, sleep and reside.”

St. Joe’s declining enrollment reflects national trends ALEX HARGRAVE ’20 Digital Managing Editor St. Joe’s failed to meet its target enrollment of 1,150 first-year students this year, which reflects a growing nationwide trend of decreasing enrollment in colleges and universities.

The class of 2023 currently consists of 1,103 students, 47 students short of its target. Enrollment is fluid from May 1 until the official count is completed in early October, according to Karen Pellegrino, vice president for enrollment management.

“We always lose a few students during the first weeks of the semester for a variety of reasons—health issues, financial concerns, etc.,” Pellegrino said in an email to The Hawk.

The university’s target enrollment is set by the university’s executive committee, according to Maureen Mathis, director of undergraduate admissions.

Pellegrino said limiting a class to 1,150 students is ideal for being more selective in the admissions process. The university’s acceptance rate was over 85% five years ago, almost 10 percentage points higher than this year’s 76.3%.

“Students are attracted to the most selective schools,” Pellegrino said. “We’ve seen an increase in the academic quality of our students as measured by things like their GPA in high school and the quality of the program they’re taking.”

The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Research Center is a non-profit organization that collects enrollment and degree data from 3,600 colleges and universities.

The NSC Research Center reported a 2.6% drop in enrollment for Pennsylvania colleges and universities from spring 2018 to spring 2019, according to Mikyung Ryu, director of research publications at the NSC

Research Center.

Ryu said the drop can be attributed to a lower high school graduation rate nationwide.

“People are not having babies at the same rate, and the immigration population is not growing at the same pace,” Ryu said.

“It’s multiple factors combined.”

According to both Ryu and Pellegrino, while the population of 18 year olds is declining nationally, that decline is most significant in the northeast and midwest, and in Pennsylvania, in particular.

The fact that the majority of St. Joe’s students come from Pennsylvania and New Jersey complicates the university’s recruiting efforts.

“It certainly makes us somewhat vulnerable,” Pellegrino said. “Having so many students from two of the states that are going to experience the most significant demographic declines in the next 10 years, we’d like to see more diversity in our student body in terms of where students are coming from.”

Not meeting target enrollment goals ultimately affects an institution’s bottom line, Ryu said.

“No matter what type of institutions they are, the enrollment is one of the major revenue sources,” Ryu said. “So when enrollments are not growing, when they are declining, you can expect it will have a major impact on institutions financially. But in our data, it is beyond our capacity to pinpoint exactly to what extent that would have been affected financially.”

For Pellegrino, the admissions team is determined to “work harder” next year.

“At this point, we didn’t reach our enrollment target, but that means we also saved some money in terms of financial aid, so there’s some give and take in the budget,” Pellegrino said. “We’re not going to abandon our goal because we do feel that’s the right size for us to be.”

Prospective parents and students listen to Maureen Mathis, director of undergraduate admissions, speak at the spring 2019 open house. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

Pellegrino said efforts to meet the enrollment goal next year include focusing on recruiting throughout New England, Washington D.C., Maryland and Virginia as well as diversifying the school’s population racially and socioeconomically.

The St. Joe’s admissions team also works closely with marketing and communications to recruit potential students who are diverse in their geographic, socioeconomic and racial backgrounds, Pellegrino said.

Part of these recruitment efforts includes a university-wide rebrand, beginning with a website redesign that launched on Oct. 7. According to St. Joe’s Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Marie Williams, the website is being used as a platform to recruit potential students by highlighting student experiences and successes.

“With lower income demographics and

the practicality of an education, we need to keep hammering home the great storytelling with those outcomes,” Williams said. “We do have those outcomes. They exist here.”

But Williams said liberal arts institutions present a marketing challenge.

“The liberal arts have been under attack for a while,” Williams said. “Gen Z is the generation coming up, and while all the research suggests they have a lot in common with millennials, [their] hyperfocus on financial stability was something that came up a lot in the research.”

Pellegrino said St. Joe’s is confronting these challenges “head on.”

“These are challenging times for admission offices, but St. Joe’s as an institution is really well positioned to tackle those,” Pellegrino said.

News

The Hawk Newspaper

Oct. 9, 2019

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SJU Health Director brings Stop the Bleed campaign to campus SOPHIE SHIELDS ’22 Special to The Hawk Eileen Bevilacqua, R.N. director of the Student Health Center, wants as many people as possible on campus to be prepared in the event of a life-threatening bleeding emergency, like a mass shooting.

Bevilacqua attended a conference several months ago where she learned about the Stop the Bleed campaign, a national awareness campaign implemented in October 2015 under the Obama administration. Its purpose is to train bystanders to assist in bleeding emergencies, helping them become the “beginning of the trauma care chain of survival,” according to BleedingControl.org, a website sponsored by the American College of Surgeons.

“They were talking about, for active shooters, sometimes 10, 20, 50 people are shot, and then they call 911,” Bevilacqua recounted. “How long is it going to take for an ambulance to get there and how you can bleed out in two minutes and die. There are all these bystanders that are there that don’t know that to do to help somebody until EMS can get there.”

For Bevilacqua, Stop the Bleed training could help save lives, and she is looking to offer that training to anyone at St. Joe’s who is interested.

“I can teach everybody what to do in the event of a shooter, after it’s safe,” Bevilacqua said, “what to do in the event of a mass shooting, how to stop the bleed, how to treat somebody who has a gunshot wound while waiting for the medics to get there.”

So far, Bevilacqua’s budget has allowed her to purchase two of the cheapest emergency kits available at $69 each. Some kits cost over $600.

“The personal control kit has in it a tourniquet, gloves, quickclot—which is something you can put into a bleeding wound and it

clots it—and some dressings,” Bevilacqua explained. “It also has a marker on there because if you put a tourniquet on somebody’s arm or leg you need to document what time the tourniquet was applied.”

Bevilacqua’s goal is to purchase additional kits to put next to the 20 automated external defibrillators (AEDs), medical devices used in cardiac emergencies, that are already located on campus.

Free Stop the Bleed trainings are offered all over the country, including in the Philadelphia area. Einstein Healthcare Network has a Stop the Bleed program as does Main Line Health. Penn Medicine is also part of the campaign, hosting its first event for 250 school nurses in 2016 at Lincoln Financial Field.

John Gallagher R.N., trauma program manager for Penn Medicine’s division of traumatology, surgical critical care and emergency surgery, said the training makes sense for large spaces like universities, and it is crucial for organizations to “invest in the right type of equipment.”

“It is important to have this equipment available and the training available so that any bystander that might happen to be there can jump into action,” Gallagher said. “We often think of these events with terrorist activities or car accidents, but they can be very simple things. We have had people on our own campuses that have cut their hands on bottles or glasses or using tools and just ending up with a bleeding wound that requires more than a bandaid, that requires pressure, maybe packing, maybe a tourniquet.”

Nene Okunna, Ph.D., assistant professor of interdisciplinary health services, noted that the Stop the Bleed Campaign is “gaining traction nationwide,” including at universities. She said it is a good idea for people to know how to assist in bleeding emergencies but any training

Bevilacqua was able to purchase two of these emergency kits.

PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

should include basic first aid as well as how to perform CPR. “A similar campaign on SJU would create the awareness of uncontrolled bleeding and teach students the skills to assist anyone in need,” Okunna said in an email to The Hawk.

“However, I would recommend that this program be comprehensive, teaching first aid skills rather than focus solely on stopping traumatic bleeding.”

Sally Kuykendall, Ph.D., professor of interdisciplinary health services, said she has reservations about the Stop the Bleed Campaign.

“I believe that the Stop the Bleed campaign organizers are capitalizing on public fear and may inadvertently normalize school attacks,” said Kuykendall in an email to The Hawk. “I apologize to your generation and young people across the nation that we prioritize gun ownership over your physical and emotional safety in school and community.”

Kuykendall said from a public health perspective, prevention is a better way to address “man-made disasters” like mass shootings.

“This can be achieved by reaching out

to individuals who are struggling or isolated, providing quality mental health services, creating safe spaces for all students (inclusion), reducing day to day aggression (be kind) and modeling of cura personalis and social justice by faculty, staff and administrators,” Kuykendall said.

Kuykendall said she recommends Red Cross training instead, which covers multiple types of injuries.

Last week at St. Joe’s, Bevilacqua held a class for about 25 pre-med, pre-dental and interdisciplinary health services majors in the Alpha Epsilon Delta Honor Society.

Bevilacqua said she would like to hold more classes like that one.

“This is such an important topic that I am going to pursue giving talks, teaching anybody that wants to [know] how to treat somebody that’s a victim of a mass shooting,” Bevilacqua said. “The more people that know, the higher the chance of survival. This is something that I just believe strongly in, so I am happy to promote this to whomever would like to learn.”

Amazon rainforest fires LILY STEELE ’22 Special to The Hawk What is happening in the Amazon rainforest?

The Amazon rainforest in Brazil is burning at a speed of three football fields per minute. The rainforest covers an area of 2,124,000 square miles and has been burning since 2018. This year, the fires have grown worse.

“The rate of destruction is increasing,” said Tracy Devine Guzmán, Ph.D., associate professor of Latin American studies at the University of Miami and the author of “Native and National in Brazil: Indigeneity After Independence.”

The Amazon rainforest is the largest tropical rainforest in the world. Its ecosystem is, “a vital component of the global carbon cycle, and it sequesters carbon dioxide in its organisms and soil,” said Clint Springer, Ph.D., associate professor of biology and director of environmental science and sustainability studies at St. Joe’s.

Why is this happening?

Experts cite several reasons for the devastation, but the primary one has to do with cattle farmers. Farmers have purposefully set fire to the forest to clear the land for agricultural purposes.

“The Brazilian Amazon has largely been a consequence of cattle farmers who

have been clearing land so that their cattle can graze,” said Devine Guzmán, who added that the cleared land is also used to grow soy to feed the cattle.

Is this a political issue?

Brazil leads the world in beef exports, and Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro supports the beef industry and its contributions to Brazil’s economy.

On Aug. 23, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted: “Just spoke with President @JairBolsonaro of Brazil. Our future Trade prospects are very exciting and our relationship is strong, perhaps stronger than ever before. I told him if the United States can help with the Amazon Rainforest fires, we stand ready to assist!”

But Bolsonaro has rejected any help that has been offered towards reducing the forest fires. He has said the Amazon is “his” and, in an address to the UN General Assembly last month, he dismissed data supporting the destruction as false.

How do the fires affect us locally?

Even though the Amazon rainforest is 3,108 miles from Philadelphia, there are long-term ramifications of such loss of forest, Springer said. Additionally, the disaster will affect Philadelphia and the entire East Coast “through rising temperatures, more

intense rain events, mega-storms like Sandy, and coastal flooding and erosion through sea level rise” according to Springer.

“This removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere buffers the carbon dioxide emissions that the world continues to pour into the atmosphere,” Springer said.

Brian Forster, Ph.D., GEP science lab coordinator and chemical hygiene officer, connected the burning of the Amazon forest to climate change.

“Deforestation can also cause changes in precipitation patterns and the water cycle in the area,” Forster said.

Springer said the effects of this disaster will be felt most profoundly by current students.

“Anyone under the age of 50 will feel the consequences of climate change and environmental degradation,” Springer said.

“And anyone under the age of 30 will feel them more intensely and likely have to modify how they live in response to it.”

What can we do to help?

There are many ways that the average citizen can help alleviate the problem of global warming, all three experts said. One solution is connected to our diets, Devine said.

“One of the things that an ordinary student can do if they don’t want to be a vegetarian or a vegan, is limit their meat

consumption,” Devine Guzmán said. “That decreases the demand for cattle and the negative impact that the cattle have on the environment including methane production and the pollution of rivers and other kinds of precious water resources.”

Springer offered additional ways for students to help.

“Students can limit their personal environmental impact by driving less, eating less meat, buying local produce, purchasing energy from renewable sources like wind and solar, and advocating for the environment and the poor and marginalized around the world who are being even more intensely impacted by climate change,” Springer said.

Another way people can make a difference is through their vote, Springer said.

“Voting for leaders who see this as a threat to our economy and security are sorely needed,” Springer said.

Springer also mentioned ways St. Joe’s can address the problem as an institution.

“Things like going carbon neutral, banning the sale of single use plastic water bottles on campus, and also supporting research, educational, and outreach endeavors that work to solve this global crisis are extremely important as we collectively live out our Jesuit and Catholic identity,” Springer said.

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News

The Hawk Newspaper

Oct. 9, 2019

Reauthorized Autism CARES Act fouses on lifetime support CHARLEY REKSTIS ’20 Senior Editor The Autism Collaboration, Accountability, Research, Education, and Support (CARES) Act of 2019 was signed into law by President Donald Trump on Sept. 30.

The current Autism CARES Act is a reauthorization of the Autism CARES Act of 2014. The new act extends funding for five more years and authorizes $1.8 billion for autism research and programs to be divided between Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).

Joe McCleery, Ph.D., executive director of academic programs at the Kinney Center for Autism Education and Support, said a significant part of the funding will focus on the transition from adolescence to adulthood for people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a main research focus of the Kinney Center.

“A lot of their life is spent in adulthood the majority of their life, so the more independent we can make them the longer their life will be, the reduced cost it will be on society,” McCleery said.

Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey’s 4th

district and Rep. Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania’s 18th District of co-authored the bill.

According to the CDC’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) study, New Jersey has the highest ASD prevalence out of the 11 ADDM sites that were in the study. One in 45 children were diagnosed with ASD. McCleery said many student scholars at the Kinney Center are from New Jersey and Pennsylvania so it is important that they bring the knowledge they gained from Kinney back home.

“We are training students who are going into all kinds of fields and those students are going back to their home areas,” McCleery said.

According to the CDC, the number of ASD diagnoses have increased from one in 150 to one in 110 from 2007 to 2009. In 2012, when the ASPIRE program at the Kinney Center launched, the rate of people with ASD was one in 88.

Currently, the number of people diagnosed with ASD is one in 59 according to the CDC’s ADDM. Abby Jayroe, M.B.A., director of operations of the Kinney Center, said more funding is important to support the increasing amount of people diagnosed with autism.

“Just knowing ways to provide tools to these individuals to be successful in life is super important,” Jayroe said.

Although the Kinney Center is not directly affected by the funding from the new law becuase they do not receive federal funding, there are still some changes that indirectly affect the Kinney Center, including the larger focus on the lifespan of those with autism instead of focusing on children with autism, according to Angus Murray, M.S., executive director of the Kinney Center.

“I think the needs don’t fall off once people turn into adults,” Murray said.

“They still have the same issues, the same problems that arise, and if we want these folks to be happy and successful members of society we have to be able to support them during their lifetime.”

Smith recognizes that it is important that focus still be put on adults as well as children who have autism because it is a lifelong neurological disorder.

“All children grow up and become adults, and children with autism then lose their education services,” Smith said in a press release. “The Autism CARES Act recognizes that and ensures that the federal government continues to help hundreds of thousands of parents by funding re-

search and support programs and sharing best practices.”

Maggie Wallace ’20, a case manager for the Kinney Center sports program, is working towards becoming a board certified assistant behavior analyst and plans to continue to work with individuals on the spectrum after graduation.

Wallace agrees that the reauthorization is important because without the continuous support of the bill and the research it has provided, there wouldn’t be as good of an understanding of ASD as there currently is.

“Without this law it wouldn’t really be possible to understand all of what autism is and the various behaviors and interventions that can be used,” Wallace said. “Without the Autism CARES act it would be concerning as to whether or not information would then be passed along.”

Murray believes the reauthorization of the bill will leave a big impact on the Kinney Center.

“The more funding there is for the programs the more folks we can serve, the better we can serve them,” Murray said. “Even if these breakthroughs and changes happen somewhere else, we can then see what they’re doin, learn from them and bring that here to the Kinney Center.”

The Autism CARES Act was previously known as the Combating Autism Act. This is the evolution of the Act over the 13 years. GRAPHIC: MITCHELL SHIELDS/THE HAWK

Department of Public Safety reports (Sept. 26 - Oct. 5) Sept. 26 Public Safety was notified by a St. Joe’s student in regards to person(s) unknown removing currency, credit cards and headphones from their personal vehicle which was parked in Hawks’ Landing. Philadelphia Police notified and responded. Incident under investigation.

Public Safety confiscated a quantity of alcohol from a stairwell inside Pennbrook Hall. Residence Life was notified. Community Standards was notified.

Sept. 27 Public Safety was notified by a St. Joe’s student in regards to person(s) unknown removing a catalytic converter from their personal vehicle which was parked in the 2500 block of Cardinal Avenue. Incident under investigation.

Public Safety confiscated a quantity of al-

cohol from a St. Joe’s student inside the lobby of Pennbrook Hall. Residence Life was notified. Community Standards was notified.

due to unknown means. Alarm was reset.

Public Safety confiscated a quantity of alcohol from a St. Joe’s student inside the lobby of the LaFarge Residence Center. Residence Life was notified. Community Standards was notified.

Public Safety confiscated a quantity of alcohol from a St. Joe’s student inside the lobby of the LaFarge Residence Center. Residence Life was notified. Community Standards was notified.

Sept. 29 Public Safety was notified of an odor of marijuana coming from a room in the McShain Residence Center. A search of the room by Public Safety and Residence Life revealed no signs of marijuana or drug paraphernalia. Community Standards was notified.

Oct. 1 Public Safety was notified of a fire alarm inside the McShain Residence Center. Public Safety officers responded. Preliminary investigation revealed the alarm was activated

Oct. 3

Public Safety confiscated a quantity of alcohol from a St. Joe’s student inside the lobby of Pennbrook Hall. Residence Life was notified. Community Standards was notified.

Oct. 5 Public Safety was notified of a bias incident regarding person(s) unknown writing offensive graffiti on a student’s door in the LaFarge Residence Center. Title IX Coordinator was notified. Community Standards was notified. Incident under investigation.

ALCOHOL RELATED INCIDENTS

11 0 On campus

Off campus

DRUG RELATED INCIDENTS

2 On campus

2 Off campus

Call Public Safety:

610-660-1111

The Hawk Newspaper

Opinions

Oct. 9, 2019

5

Navigating $1.5 trillion of debt How St. Joe's can help alleviate financial stress 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

According to Time magazine, “Today more than 44 million Americans have outstanding student loan debt, which has become one of the biggest consumer debt categories. All told, student debt in the U.S. now totals more than $1.5 trillion.”

As students at St. Joe’s, it’s fair to assume many of us are contributing quite a bit to this increasing debt deficit. Many of us are paying thousands of dollars to attend school here, and for what we are paying, we expect quite a bit of return on the investment.

With the national trend in decreasing enrollment, St. Joe’s is working to bring in more students with financial need rather than just those who are eligible for academic scholarships.

This goal seems to be a step in the right direction towards highlighting the importance of getting an education regardless of the price tag on the school. However, the price tag is undoubtedly large and getting bigger every year.

In a country that treats higher education like a business and values profit over quality education, it’s no wonder that the student debt crisis has gotten to the point it’s at today. This mindset is typical in the American higher education system; capitalist principles prevail and education somehow loses value to profit margins.

While St. Joe’s is seemingly working towards showing just how much you can get for what you’re paying, students here are still digging themselves into holes of debt in order to attend this university, and they are not always getting the return on what they have put their money into.

Now, many people across the country are not fully willing to subscribe to a “free college” system that mirrors the education systems in places like Europe. That is a completely different subject to tackle, spilling into tax and jurisdiction issues.

Although many of us are probably emphatic supporters of something mirroring a

free higher education system, changing the minds and principles that this country operates on is beyond our pay grade.

However, there are things that schools across the country, St. Joe’s included, could be doing in order to emphasize the value of higher education and combat both the decreasing enrollment levels and the rising student debt deficit.

Financial literacy is one key to doing so. It’s ironic that the institutions putting students in debt should have the responsibility to make sure those students in debt know how to handle it, but it seems as though this is the pragmatic route to take.

Perhaps we should start by offering a required GEP course on financial literacy, helping to prepare first-year students who have decided to attend this university with the money management skills needed to navigate the $1.5 trillion worth of debt (or whatever they are contributing to that number).

Or, the Career Development Center could offer courses of their own, incentivising students with course credits while offering helpful tips and strategies to be as cost-conscious as an undergraduate can be.

Another good resource would be something more personal. Counseling sessions with an assigned financial aid advisor, one similar to an academic advisor, would benefit students who need financial help.

Rather than implementing more group centered lectures and sessions revolving around powerpoints and broad talking points, individual designated financial advisors for each student would put managing finances and student debt in a more personal setting.

While we can support policy changes at the federal level that encourage slight raises in taxes and more support towards financial aid pools to alleviate the aggregate student debt, there is much to do in order to address the problem at hand on this campus.

The immediate issue we face is helping our students who are already enrolled at St. Joe’s or about to enroll to become a #Hawk2024, and one thing this university should be doing to help such students is to encourage a strong foundation in financial literacy.

As individuals, it’s a good idea to encourage changes from policy makers that help to assuage the debt crisis. But at this university, there are students who are drowning in the $1.5 trillion dollar pool as this editorial is being read.

The value of higher education should not be overshadowed by the immense amount of debt and financial pressure students and their parents are forced to accrue. We live in a country where we have the privilege of higher education, yet it’s honestly unreasonable to expect this country and this university to give us the opportunity of free education.

However, if we are going to go into debt over attending school here, this university should subsidize some of our stresses and work to help us navigate the rising levels of debt that so many students struggle with today.

—The Editorial Board

This week’s Editorial Board is comprised of the Editor in Chief, Senior Editor, Managing Editor, Copy Editor, Digital Managing Editor, Photo Editor, News Editor, Assistant News Editor, Features Editor, Assistant Features Editor, Online Editor, Opinions Editor and Assistant Opinions 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.

Assistant Features Editor Zach Dobinson ’22 Sports Editor Sam Britt ’20 Assistant Sports Editor Ryan Mulligan ’21 Assistant Sports Editor Matt DeLeo ’20 Special Projects Editor Nick Karpinski ’21 Photo Editor Mitchell Shields ’22

Corrections The story “Minding my Black Business” in the Nov. 2 issue of The Hawk incorrectly stated that Eron Swan ’20 grew up in a “predominantly black neighborhood in the Upper East Side of New York,” but his childhood was split between predominantly black areas in Philadelphia and Southern Delaware. He later moved to the predominantly white Upper East Side of Manhattan.

The story “Students unable to use preferred name on university documents” in the Nov. 2 issue of The Hawk incorrectly stated that Cara Smith, News Editor is in the class of 2020. She is set to graduate in the class of 2021.

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

Letter to the Editor To the Editor: In regards to The Hawk Newspaper, Sept.

11 Edition, Article: Global Perspectives: Gun Violence and Mass Shootings, p. 4.

While I feel this is a very relevant topic and important to get (global) students’ perspectives, I was disappointed that you chose to print Aakanksha Sanghavi’s (New Zealand) comments verbatim. Even though

the world around us is changing, the SJU editorial staff should have higher standards when it comes to language used/printed in a campus-wide newspaper.

Ask yourself, was it really necessary to print profane language that is inappropriate? Could you not have “xxxxxed it out?”

It would still give readers the same message and not descend to the level of the person being interviewed. Simply stated, it’s not ap-

propriate for the SJU community.

While the topic is “explosive,” the language put in print should not be.

-George P. Sillup, Ph.D. Haub School of Business Faculty

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The Hawk Newspaper

Oct. 9, 2019

Opinions

It’s never too late

Learning the art of time management as a senior

ANGELIQUE FRAIZER ’20 Guest Columnist Being a commuter at St. Joe’s has felt like being in constant motion. I’m always either going somewhere or getting ready to go somewhere.

Oftentimes, when I get up in the morning to leave my house, it feels like I just got home.

When my classes are done for the day, I wish I didn’t have to leave for the night. I have to make strategic decisions about what events I’m willing to be on campus for, and what clubs and activities I’m able to devote my time to.

All of this can be quite exhausting. In my senior year, I’m finally coming to terms with the fact that I still don’t have it all together.

Although I may be a senior, I struggle with time management. While there are many different academic and support resources on our campus, it’s safe to say that not every student that needs help asks for it, including myself.

I often hesitate to use certain resources because of the extra commitment to be on campus in order to take advantage of them, which leads to more stress and more disorganization.

As the years have passed, classes have gotten harder, but I’m also doing more activities than ever before. Any students like myself have no choice but to work hard and maintain a certain GPA in order to keep their scholarships, which can also be stressful.

Commuters can often feel left out of the campus community, so I’ve put together a

list of tips, including some that I have found helpful, that might make things a little easier for commuters when it comes to time management and being successful.

Avoid procrastination.

This can be hard if you’re in the habit of putting things off until the last minute, but if you stick with it, it will get better. Try us-

you’re going to sleep. If you’re struggling to balance classes, activities and homework, eating and sleeping can easily fall to the bottom of your priority list. Using meal and sleep planning apps might be something worth trying.

Use resources on campus.

I often hear faculty and staff suggesting

ILLUSTRATION: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

ing apps that increase your productivity, like a pomodoro timer, which helps to manage your time when performing certain tasks.

Make a list, and focus on sticking to it. Think about how much better you’ll feel after having completed a few items on your to-do list.

Plan everything… including meals.

If you’re like me, you hate thinking about what you’re going to eat and when

to students to use certain resources, but no one can actually make those students go. We are all in charge of our own lives. Use as many of the free resources that are on campus as you can.

Talk to someone.

Making connections can be difficult, especially if you’re an introvert. But if you actually put yourself out there, you might be

pleasantly surprised. Ask a classmate how they manage their time or go to your professor’s office hours; they really do care about you and want you to succeed.

Prioritize the essentials.

When you’re not eating or sleeping enough, it can be hard to function. Use apps to help you remember to put yourself first.

Mute notifications and just sit in silence.

Meditation can also help to clear the mind.

Take a break from social media.

Habits can be hard to break, and when you have some time between classes, it can be easy to fall into the habit of checking social media. This involves a lot of discipline, but the benefits might pay off. Try switching out distracting apps like Twitter and Snapchat for productive apps.

Simple Habit and other meditation apps can help you stop feeling so overwhelmed.

ZenScreen can also help you manage the time you spend on social media.

Find your drive (pun intended).

Getting to campus early or staying later is an extra hassle, but if you find something that you are passionate about, it might just be worth the commitment. Figure out what you care about and focus on devoting your energy to that.

Commuting is hard, but I have been intentionally stepping out of my comfort zone and making an effort to be more involved on campus. Don’t be afraid of failure. If you think you started this year on the wrong foot, you are not alone.

Whether you’re a first-year student struggling to adjust, or a senior like me who still doesn’t have their life together, just remember that it’s not about how you start, it’s about how you finish.

Cultures are not costumes

Why some Halloween costumes are offensive

HADASSAH COLBERT ’20 Assistant Opinions Editor It is not uncommon for me to scroll down my Twitter feed every mid to late October and squint in distaste at my phone screen.

Nine times out of 10, it is because I see Halloween costumes that are culturally insensitive.

Given all of the social strides and awareness being brought to issues via social media and the internet, one would think that education about cultural appropriation would have spread around, but alas this is not true.

Perhaps information has spread and people simply just do not care that they are representing an offensive stereotype or caricature of someone’s culture. However, I am going to give people the benefit of the doubt and explore this topic from the view that most people are just ignorant to their cultural offenses.

Given that Halloween is in two weeks and people will be deciding their costumes, let’s examine some of the more popular culturally insensitive costumes and discuss why you should shy away from them this Halloween season.

First, the Oxford dictionary defines cultural appropriation as “the unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of the customs, practices, ideas, etc. of one people or society by members of another and typically more dominant people or society.”

Now, let us begin with the most recent trendy offensive costume: the sugar skull.

Sugar skulls are an important component of the Mexican holiday of Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, and this tradition has a beautiful history behind it.

The tradition dates back to early Mesoamerican societies who believed in spiritual life after death, and the skulls were offerings to the god of the underworld to assure safe passage into his land. Today, the skulls are put in altars, or “ofrendas,” for deceased loved

nicities, but I know that it is wrong. Research shows that the depiction of Native Americans as mascots and sexualized Pocahontas types lowers the self esteem of young Native kids because it is reflective of the crooked view the broader population has of them.

You cannot dress up like an ethnicity or culture; it’s not a costume when it is someone’s way of life. Especially given the fact that America treats their indigenous people horribly and has erased their visibility, their rights and their voices.

“Given all of the social strides and awareness being brought to issues via social media and the internet, one would think that education about cultural appropriation would have spread around, but alas this is not true.” ones. They are colorful because the culture thinks of death as a celebration and not a sad and depressing transition.

Next on our list is the “Gypsy” costume.

Let us first start out by addressing the fact that the term “Gypsy” is a derogatory one and the correct term is Romani. So, for one, just the title is offensive. Also this costume usually presents a hypersexualized depiction of a Romani woman. This costume is a big “no no” and should come to an end.

An additional popular choice that has lasted through the ages is the “Sexy Indian princess.” I’m not quite sure what it is with costume companies hypersexualizing eth-

“Geishas” are another popular and offensive costume that should not be worn. “Geisha” is a Japanese term that means “person of art,” and they are women who are highly trained in dance, music and entertainment.

Somehow the West translated that into prostitute and has been presenting costumes that reflect this misconception.

If you’re still wearing black face in 2019, yikes. However, there are a few other culturally insensitive or appropriative things in regards to black people that should not be worn as a costume. A “Rasta man” is not a costume.

Rastafarianism is a religion, a way of life and a culture that deserves respect and should not

be degraded to a Jamaican flag colored cap with dreadlocks hanging out of it.

Anything depicting a “sheikh” a “snake charmer” or strapping a bomb to your chest with a turban on your head should be avoided at all costs. This is disrespectful to many Middle Eastern ethnicities and disrespectful to the Muslim faith.

Bollywood stars should also be left out of your costume lineup. While Bollywood is popular globally, parading around in traditional Indian garments and bindis is unacceptable.

For a lot of the costumes mentioned, they are only one facet of a culture, a trope, and they narrow the world view of diverse cultures to one specific thing. Some of the other examples of appropriation are stealing beautiful traditions and popularizing them, but giving the source no credit and ignoring the meaningful histories behind them.

Moreover, hypersexualizing peoples’ cultures is disgusting. It trains peoples’ minds to view people from certain cultures a certain way and strips them of respect. Hypersexualizing Native women with these costumes is especially dangerous since Native women experience the highest rates of sexual violence out of any ethnic group in the United States.

There is more to cultural appropriation than just Halloween costumes. However, I hope that this serves as a helpful guide on how to not be a jerk this Halloween.

If you are interested in learning more about the ins and outs of cultural appropriation join the Black Student Union Oct. 9 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. in Forum Theatre.

Opinions

The Hawk Newspaper

Oct. 9, 2019

7

The Gang writes for The Hawk

Why “cancel culture” doesn’t apply to “It’s Always Sunny” FAITH COWELL ’22 Columnist Since its creation 14 years ago, the sitcom “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” has brought both glory and disgrace to our city. The premise seems harmless: two twins, Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and Dee (Kaitlin Olson), their dad Frank (the almighty Danny DeVito), their two friends Mac (Rob McElhenney) and Charlie (Charlie Day) run an unsuccessful bar in South Philly called Paddy’s Pub. The Gang, as they’re called, attempts to navigate adult life, find love and tend to their bar over 14 seasons, as season 14 premiered on Sept. 25th. However, it is far from an innocent sitcom about friends in Philly.

The show has had a politically incorrect history since the beginning. Its very first episode is titled, “The Gang Gets Racist,” in which Charlie says the N-word, and then dates a black woman to prove that he isn’t racist. In another episode, Mac does blackface, and later in the show there’s a sign on the bar that says “speak American.”

Up until season 12, Mac’s internal homophobia and struggle to come out of the closet was a running gag. The Gang repeatedly uses transphobic slurs to refer to Mac’s transgender girlfriend, Carmen. Dennis, who is probably a serial killer, got tricked into hooking up with a girl in high school and consistently talks about women as if they’re pieces of meat.

Dee seduced a priest into leaving the priesthood to help with one of their money-making schemes, and on more than one occasion pretended to be mentally disabled to get welfare money so she and Dennis could buy drugs. And Frank and

Charlie are, well, Frank and Charlie.

So why hasn’t the show suffered from being so outright backwards and offensive?

Because that’s literally the entire point of the show. The Gang consists of horrible, irredeemable people. And that’s why it’s funny.

McElhenney, Day, Howerton and the other writers aren’t endorsing the ideas portrayed in the show, they’re calling attention to the fact that offensive people like this actually

given year,” said McElhenney in an interview with Rolling Stone.

“We’re certainly not lauding characters for their homophobia or misogyny or casual racism, [...] it’s the complete opposite, we’re degrading our own characters for holding some of those views.”

McElhenney also mentioned the offensive, derogatory language used in some of the earlier seasons, saying that at “certain times,

ILLUSTRATION: KAITLYN PATTERSON ’20/THE HAWK

exist and do so in a way that has been consistently funny for 14 years.

Where else can I laugh at people with a blatant misunderstanding of voting and the entire American democracy system like in “The Gang Runs for Office,” (other than in the White House)? Where else can I get a good, long chuckle out of a grown man kidnapping a little person because he thinks he’s a leprechaun (“Charlie Catches a Leprechaun”)?

The characters don’t say the punchline— they are the punchline. And they’ve managed to stay relevant through three presidential terms. Every season presents new episodes that are still funny and bring up “the same discussions that people are having in any

certain terminology we were using, [...] we didn’t realize at the time was derogatory or inflammatory,” and addressed how they’ve retroactively tried to right those wrongs.

McElhenney, the creator of the show, is an alumnus of Philly’s own St. Joe’s Preparatory School, and it’s clear that he’s from the area. On the show, The Gang has mentioned Fairmount Park, our own backyard, as well as the Strawberry Mansion Bridge and other West Philly landmarks.

VisitPhilly.com has an entire page dedicated to spots in the city that The Gang has visited or that have been featured in the show.

The show has poked fun at how Philly fans really do “get blasted” at Phillies games, and

McElhenney Olson, and DeVito all attended the Eagles’ legendary Super Bowl LII victory, and victory parade down Broad Street.

The show has brought yet another funny aspect to our infamously crappy city, and has done so in the best way possible. Cancel culture, boycotting a person (or in this case a show) due to offensive behavior and/or comments, won’t have any effect on “It’s Always Sunny,” because true fans understands that the characters and plotline in the show are supposed to be awful.

You aren’t supposed to root for The Gang, and you aren’t supposed to want The Gang to be happy (although you might, after a few episodes). It’d be easy to say that fans are just so used to the show’s lopsided jokes that they can overlook The Gang’s awful tendencies, but that’d be incorrect too.

The show seems to gain viewers every season, and I swear I see more Paddy’s Pub shirts and stickers on campus every month (I’m literally wearing a Paddy’s Pub shirt as I write this). I have also coerced my roommates into watching a few episodes with me, and now they’re completely hooked.

It’s practically a personality test—if you watch “It’s Always Sunny,” you have a sense of humor that’s worthwhile. You don’t like “It’s Always Sunny” because you ignore its racist, homophobic, insensitive characters and their jokes. You like it because you know that the racist, homophobic, insensitive characters are the whole joke. And the joke is funny.

So “It’s Always Sunny” will prevail against cancel culture and continue being relevant, silly and unfailingly funny, and my roommates and I (along with the other viewers) will continue to laugh at the abject awfulness of The Gang.

The dangers of climate change denial

Why accurate information is so important PATRICK ADAMS ’23 Guest Columnist When we look at the climate change situation in the news it can be easy to get lost in the haze. In lieu of the United Nations Climate Action Summit having recently wrapped up on Sept. 23, I’d like to take this opportunity to discuss some dangers of climate change denial and give a brief overview of the facts behind climate change.

According to NASA, throughout the past 800,000 years, levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have not exceeded 300 parts per million in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Then, in the 1950s, we surpassed that number for the first time. Now, in 2019, we are above 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), reported on Feb. 6 of this year that 2018 was the fourth hottest year on record. Turns out, the past four years are also the top four hottest years on record.

However, some parts of the globe need to stay cool. The melting of land based ice sheets across the globe has lead to global average sea levels rising by eight inches in the last century. Scarily, recent data suggests that rises in sea level are only accelerating.

The public is trending towards more climate concern, with Pew Research finding this year that 44% of U.S. adults believe deal-

ing with global climate change should be a top priority for the president and Congress.

Our president, for one, agrees with the apathetic minority. He has previously called climate change a hoax, before walking his statement back on “60 Minutes” in 2018, saying, “I don’t think there’s a hoax. I do think there’s probably a difference. But I don’t know that it’s man-made.”

That’s also not true. Climate change is definitely man made and we humans should

ing faster than at any point in the history of modern civilization, primarily as a result of human activities.”

It seems like even the Trump administration — or at least the federal agencies under his administration —don’t deny the reality of anthropogenic climate change until it is politically convenient.

Climate change shouldn’t be a partisan issue, but it still becomes one. Yet you can’t really blame Trump for being politically

“Climate change won’t disappear if we don’t acknowledge that it happens. That’s why it’s so important that we all stay informed and inform others about the science behind climate change.” do something about it.

Trump of all people should know this.

His White House released the Fourth National Climate Assessment in November of 2018.

With names like NASA, NOAA, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the cover, it’s a wonder why Trump didn’t give it a closer read. In fact, it’s mandated by law by the Global Change Research Act of 1990, that the President is informed on climate issues by this very report.

Trump would not need to read for very long to find out what the report says. It opens with, “Earth’s climate is now chang-

charged when his opponent, Hillary Clinton, said things like this on the campaign trail: “I’m the only candidate which has a policy about how to bring economic opportunity using clean renewable energy as the key into coal country, because we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.”

While these soundbites from Clinton might have helped Trump’s campaign ForeignPolicy.com reported on the consequences of treating climate change as a partisan issue on July 31, 2019, and the website explains, “Rod Schoonover, an analyst with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence

and Research, resigned in protest this month [July 2019] after the White House blocked his prepared testimony before a congressional intelligence panel on the national security implications of climate change.”

This rejection of science and censorship of the truth should not be happening. We, the youngest generation, have the most to lose when it comes to climate change. That’s why I want to address my peers with actual knowledge around climate change instead of just political talking points.

Climate change won’t disappear if we don’t acknowledge that it happens That’s why it’s so important that we all stay informed and inform others about the science behind climate change.

We can all disagree on details, but denying the evidence of global climate change is not productive for anyone. Trump has every right to be a climate change skeptic if he wants to be, but he can’t be a denier.

If the president wants to argue for the merits of putting the economy before the climate or balancing the two together, he should do that and only that.

If we are all going to tackle the massive global issue that is climate change, we first need to be approaching it with the same common understanding of facts.

We cannot have a real debate in this country by denying reality. People can certainly argue that we cannot or should not do anything to stop climate change, but denying scientific reality accomplishes nothing.

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Oct. 9, 2019

Opinions

The Hawk Newspaper

Forever 21 and the fall of fast fashion A case for the shift to thrift shopping DEVIN YINGLING ’22 Opinions Editor Prominent fast fashion retailer Forever 21 stated that it would file for bankruptcy on Sept. 29.

The company will “cease operations in 40 countries, including Canada and Japan, as part of a Chapter 11 filing. It will close up to 178 stores in the United States and up to 350 overall …. it would continue to operate its website and hundreds of stores in the United States, where it is a major tenant for mall owners, as well as stores in Mexico and Latin America.”

This announcement puts Forever 21 with other major retailers such as Sears, Claire’s and Payless in the “bankruptcy club,” which many have speculated shows a shift in consumer tastes and purchasing habits.

What I have observed to be a major cause for the decline in popularity towards fast fashion retailers are the unethical means these retailers use to produce their clothing.

The exploitation of cheap labor for increased output and higher profit margins has proved itself to be a highly unethical and unsustainable business model that has caused detriment to thousands of workers and to the environment.

A popular alternative to fast fashion and a rising trend among younger people is thrift shopping. The youth are increasingly spending their money on clothes from places like Goodwill, Clothes Mentor or The Salvation Army.

I frequently donate my old or unworn clothes to the Goodwill in my area and then spend a decent amount of time shopping around afterwards for jeans, t-shirts and any sweatshirt that looks comfortable

enough to wear to my 9 a.m. class.

Thrifting is just one great way to live a bit more sustainably, and yet I saw a tweet recently that bashes the practice and, quite honestly, it struck a nerve for me: “Unpopular opinion: If you can afford to buy new clothes every month you shouldn’t be going to thrift stores when there are peo-

need to replace your wardrobe monthly (see: “Minimalism” on Netflix).

Second, shopping at places like Goodwill is both a smart move for those looking to save a penny where they can, and it encourages ethical purchasing practices by reusing old clothes rather than throwing them away.

Moreover, considering Goodwill runs

ILLUSTRATION: ANISSA WILSON ’20/THE HAWK

ple who genuinely need those clothes you buy for aesthetic.”

This Twitter user is correct on one thing: her opinion is undoubtedly unpopular.

First, purchasing clothes every month seems excessively unreasonable. Not only does it feed into capitalist greed, but it encourages consumerist practices that contribute to the increasing amounts of clothing waste. Whether or not you shop at a thrift store or H&M, you probably don’t

on donations, there is a continuous supply of clothes coming into the store. If someone is not in immediate financial trouble and is just looking for places in their life to save some money, their purchase of a t-shirt or two will not take away from those in dire need.

Resale stores like Clothes Mentor are just as beneficial for those looking to budget and reduce their levels of individual waste: the store purchases lightly worn or

unworn clothes from people looking to get rid of some garments, and then resells those clothing items for a significantly cheaper price.

Fast fashion contributes an immense amount to textile overproduction in the world, and thrift stores give people a place to donate clothes to those who need it and want it for both economic and environmental reasons.

They provide a place for people to shop to both reduce their individual waste to support the environment, and budget in a sector of individual life that benefits the greater good.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I personally shop at Goodwill and Clothes Mentor far more frequently than I do at places like Forever 21 and H&M. Yes, I still have items in my closet that come from these fast fashion retailers, but I have been consciously working to purchase less from retailers with a disreputable environmental track record.

Being in college leaves me with a small amount of money to use for “treat yourself ” clothing items, like a comfy brand new $50 sweater. So, I like to go thrift shopping. It’s cheaper than most brandname, unethical retail stores, it’s better for the environment and it’s fun to do with friends on the weekend.

In light of Forever 21 filing for bankruptcy, I encourage you to think about how your wardrobe affects the environment. Thrift stores are just as cheap as fast-fashion retailers, but they provide an eco-friendly alternative.

Instead of hating on those looking to budget and reduce their carbon footprint, maybe focus that energy on criticizing policy makers and industrial juggernauts who are the real root cause of environmental degradation.

Racism persists through language The dangers in linguistic gatekeeping LIZZY FRANCIOSA ’22 Guest Columnist The last area in which racism will be able to exist is in language. For example, there is discrimination toward those with non-white names. Whether it be applying for jobs, or applying to buy a house, it's the unfortunate reality that the person at the other end of the transaction is more likely to accept a “Joseph” above a “José."

Part of the reason why this is the case is because language is not seen as something related to race. What I mean to say is that the notion that there is only one way to speak English, and only one “correct” form of English, is seen as a standard for a certain group of people.

These people, I’ll call them “snobs” for the sake of simplicity, reduce English dialects to “improper English.”

In reality, it doesn’t take much thought to find fault in this way of thinking. American and British English differ greatly, but both countries seem to recognize that there’s no point in disproving the other’s dialect.

I would argue, though, that this armistice is the result of both nations being Western and predominantly white. Other

English dialects and cultures are not given the same respect by snobs; their way of speaking English is viewed as improper, or incorrect. Such an attitude is not only pretentious, but dangerous.

People are largely discriminated against because of their language and verbal expression. This is especially disadvantageous to immigrants for whom English is a second

most prominent example in the United States. Despite what white language snobs believe, AAVE has set grammatical rules that are obeyed by speakers.

Some of the rules AAVE shares in common with Romance languages or African languages. When black Americans who speak in AAVE are perceived as uneducated, it is immensely discriminatory.

“We should be mindful of the history behind our language and dialects, as language is a key part of every people’s culture and ought to be respected. This is especially true for speakers of English, a language with a majority of its speakers having the language as their second, third or fourth.” language; if they began learning English after the age of 18, it is all but certain they will speak their new language with an accent for the rest of their lives.

This accent marks them as a “foreigner” to xenophobes across the country and could prevent them from finding jobs in their new home.

In addition to foreign accents, dialects rooted in America for centuries are also subject to discrimination. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the

We could, of course, get into the dichotomous position to AAVE, in how accents from European countries are often seen as attractive or cute while accents from countries that are not predominantly white are labeled as “uneducated,” but that requires much more time.

I’m not saying we should write our contracts or scholarly essays in the same way we write our tweets. There is a usefulness in writing standard English, namely to reach the broadest audience possible.

However, we should be mindful of the history behind our language and dialects, as language is a key part of every people’s culture and ought to be respected. This is especially true for speakers of English, a language with a majority of its speakers having the language as their second, third or fourth.

Native English speakers are a minority in the English speaking world; who are we to dictate what is correct and incorrect in what is, effectively, linguistic gatekeeping?

In our interconnected world that seems to shrink each year, we should be celebrating all forms of communication that let us talk to people that we never would’ve met decades ago.

The ultimate goal of language, after all, is to understand and be understood.

Snobs who pretend dialects like AAVE are incomprehensible are only lying to themselves, are refusing to try and understand difference, or are simply using a person of color’s dialect as an excuse to discriminate against them.

Until we eliminate the myth that standard English is the one acceptable English, racial bigots and language snobs will continue to use language as a means to further their prejudice.

Features

The Hawk Newspaper

Oct 9, 2019

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APEX begins new chapter with new coordinator EMILY GRAHAM ’20 Managing Editor A new campus minister, Catherine Kirwan-Avila, A.C.J., has taken on the role of Appalachian Experience (APEX) coordinator this year, a role that had previously been held by the same person for 14 years.

Kirwan-Avila, known as Sr. Catherine around campus, came across the position after returning from studying theology and Ignatian spirituality in Spain. As part of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus congregation, she said St. Joe’s aligned with her own values and beliefs.

“To be able to be in an Ignatian and Jesuit school is something that I thought was a perfect fit,” Kirwan-Avila said. “Campus ministry was something new for me but also something that felt like a fit with a lot of different pieces.”

Although Kirwan-Avila said she had never worked as a campus minister, her time with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps and Habitat for Humanity has given her foundational experience to take on APEX. “I know firsthand the impact that an immersion experience and service work in general can have,” Kirwan-Avila said. “They were experiences for me that were super formative. [I have] a deep appreciation for what that can be and what one can discover about themselves, about the world, about community, about solidarity in service through those experiences.”

Kirwan-Avila said her time as APEX coordinator so far has been a learning experience. She said she has received plenty of support from other campus ministers, as well as AJ Simon ’17, coordinator of gradu-

Kirwan-Avila hopes to put her own spin on the classic St. Joe’s trip. PHOTO: LUKE MALANGA ’20/THE HAWK

ate and extended studies, who was an APEX coordinator as an undergraduate and has been involved in the logistics and planning of APEX this year.

“We have a very good team, both an APEX team and a campus ministry team, and so with that there’s a lot of support,” Kirwan-Avila said.

Kirwan-Avila said she is grateful to have the help of everyone involved, especially the four student coordinators, Jess Arnold ’20, Anne Donnelly ’20, Michael Olsakowski ’20 and Regina Dongilli ’20.

The student coordinators said they were surprised by the announcement that Matt Fullmer, former director of APEX, took on a new role in the university as associate director for community relations in the Kinney Center.

“We were all caught off guard, and we all grew pretty close to Matt being leaders last year, but at the same time we’re super happy for him and the opportunity that presented itself to him this year,” Arnold said. “But it’s a new chapter in APEX and I think we’re all embracing that and making it our own this year.”

The new coordinator is not the only change to the program this year. Kirwan-Avila and the student coordinators have worked to adjust the timeline. Sign-ups for the trip are on Oct. 22, around the same time they usually are. In the past, the reveal event, in which participants learn their site locations and group leaders, occurred in November. Now, the event has been pushed back to January.

“One of the things that we’ve been doing is dedicating this entire first semester to leader

formation, which feels like a huge opportunity to really get to dedicate lots of time and energy to that community of 36 leaders,” Kirwan-Avila said. “The second semester will be dedicated 100 percent to the site specific groups, do some education on the appalachian region and on what it is that they’ll be doing there.”

According to Arnold, this change is meant to create more of a “holistic APEX community,” rather than simply 18 individual groups.

This goal will involve two APEX community events in the fall to allow participants to get to know each other and all the leaders before breaking off into their site groups.

The student coordinators said they are hopeful that this change will be positive for the program.

“There was an opening for change with Fullmer [leaving],” Olsakowski said. “We all put our heads together and thought of a way to not only help the program, but how to change it to affect its longevity for the positive.”

While Kirwan-Avila said she has brought her own style to the program, she has been trying to maintain the work Fullmer did to make the program what is is.

“I really want to make sure that all the good that’s been built up has been maintained and flourishes,” Kirwan-Avila said.

While preserving the program is important, the student coordinators said they are excited about the opportunity for change.

“The way we were looking at it was that Matt Fullmer gave 14 years to the program, and we’re thinking about what could happen in the next 14 years with Sister Catherine,” Donnelly said.

Art club aims to make art more prominent on Hawk Hill CHARLEY REKSTIS ’20 Senior Editor After hearing feedback from students about the lack of freedom of expression and art on campus, Jayne Baran ’22 and Abby Stefanski ’22 decided to take matters into their own hands by creating a new art club.

The new club will bring more awareness of art to St. Joe’s and allow students to find their creative side.

“We want to broaden the artistic community at St Joe’s,” Baran said. “In all honesty it’s pretty much non-existent.. We want to make things a little bit weirder. Things aren’t weird enough around here.”

Baran is a double major in art and communications. She said she knew coming to St. Joe’s to study art was going to be difficult, but she didn’t want to give up just because of the adversity.

After talking to her friends about transferring, Baran came up with a new plan.

“They said, ‘You could go to Temple and hang out with all the kids that ride their skateboards down Broad Street, or you could stay here and change the culture,’” Baran said. “I think that’s what we want to do. We want to change the art culture.”

As a psychology major, Stefanski doesn’t have a complete academic focus on art. She instead uses art to be as a way to understand what is going on in someone’s head and sees it as therapeutic.

For Stefanski, this club is a chance for her to be involved in art and practice what she finds interesting without declaring a major in it.

The revamped art club aims to make St. Joe’s more artistic. PHOTO: DANIEL REMISHEVSKY ’23/THE HAWK

“I don’t want to take a lot of art classes and immerse myself in art,” Stefanski said.

“Having a club to make that a possibility for students like me is great. Even students who don’t have confidence in art and what they create, having a safe space without judgement and boundaries.”

Both Baran and Stefanski found that art was not getting the recognition it deserves on Hawk Hill so this club was a way to give it the acknowledgement it deserves.

“It’s not like we are in Kentucky,” Baran said. “We are in Philadelphia. There’s so much art and culture all around us and I want to see more of that here.”

They hope the new club will be a way for students to express themselves through

art but also be able to learn more about art around them.

“You can learn so much from art by creating your own pieces,” Stefanski said. “When it’s completed, you can look at your work and see yourself in a whole different way because you have never expressed yourself in that sense. Through art you can find so much understanding in things.”

Baran agrees that this is a prominent time for people trying to find themselves, and the new art club can be a way of figuring out who they are.

“So much artistic creation and endeavors is about identity,” Baran said. “I feel like at this point in our lives in college when everyone is trying to find themselves, art is a great form

to focus on yourself and interactions with the community around you.”

One of the faculty advisors for the newly founded club, Martha Easton, Ph.D., assistant professor of art history, is new to St. Joe’s this fall in addition to the creation of the art history major. Before, there only existed an art history minor.

“Before I came there was only one full time art history professor and I am now the second,” Easton said. “It’s a great time to be here because the department is growing and the program is growing in terms of art history.”

Easton thinks this new club will bring more awareness to the art program at St. Joe’s and show people that there is more to the program than they would think.

“For people that aren’t aware of what’s happening in art and art history now that there’s going to be a student group, they are going to be able to spread the word,” Easton said. “Hopefully having an art club to bring more public attention so the student body will help people realize that there is this whole world going on at Saint Joseph’s that they weren’t aware of before.”

This art club is not the first to exist, but both Baran and Stefanski have hope that this will be the last time it has to be recreated on St. Joe’s campus.

“Having a creative foundation is great,” Baran said. “It’s not like we are making some weird club, it’s something that should have been here. It feels like it’s our responsibility to bring it back.”

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The Hawk Newspaper

Oct. 9, 2019

Features

Tenaya Darlington, M.F.A, always thought she’d be a fiction writer growing up. Little did she know that one day she’d be known as Madame Fromage, her cheesey alter ego. PHOTO: DANIEL REMISHEVSKY ’23/THE HAWK

A hunk of cheese and a whole lot of love St. Joe's professor turned her love of cheese into her life's work ZACH DOBINSON ’22 Assistant Features Editor Tenaya Darlington, M.F.A., associate professor of English, never thought her world would revolve around a ball of cheese. However, what was once a childhood appreciation has become her life’s passion.

“I grew up eating a cheese board every Sunday,” Darlington said. “Cheese was a big part of my life as a kid.”

Growing up, Darlington and her brother André, co-author of their book “The New Cocktail Hour: The Essential Guide to Handcrafted Drinks,” lived in a traditional Swiss household in Cleveland, Ohio. Instead of Christmas dinner, her family had fondue parties. For Thanksgiving, they would have raclette, a traditional Swiss dish, instead of turkey. Cheese played an integral part in Darlington’s developing identity.

“We cooked together as a family every night,” Darlington said. “We had people over probably every weekend. It was just this household that was full of food loving souls. I grew up with all these Swiss mountain cheese traditions, and it was just a part of who we were.”

Today, Darlington has written her own book about cheese, co-authored cookbooks with her brother, hosts a biannual Cheese Ball fundraiser in Philadelphia and runs a popular blog, “Madame Fromage”, centered on her love of cheese. On top of that, she teaches a food writing course at St. Joe’s.

This year, Madame Fromage celebrates its 10th birthday. The blog came about during a journalism class Darlington attended where an employee at the Philadelphia In-

quirer suggested that if someone wanted to really break into journalism, that someone should start a blog.

“Basically, I set up Madame Fromage to get a Ph.D. in cheese,” Darlington said.

However, the idea of a blog originally didn’t seem like a viable option for Darlington.

Having previously been paid for writing in the food section of a newspaper in Madison, Wisconsin Darlington felt that blogging would be essentially free writing.

“I thought to myself, ‘You know what, before I negate this bit of advice from the Philadelphia Inquirer, I should start a blog to understand what it’s all about,’” Darlington said.

What Darlington originally thought of as free writing eventually led to job offers from popular cheese vendors in Philadelphia, such as Di Bruno Bros., a high quality food retailer in the Italian Market on 9th Street. In 2013 Darlington published “Di Bruno Bros. House of Cheese: A guide to Wedges, Recipes, and Pairing,” a cheese pairing book only mentioning cheeses offered at Di Bruno Bros.

Tommy Amorim, store manager of the Italian Market location, felt that collaborating with Darlington was the best possible choice because of her deep appreciation of cheese.

“Her passion for cheese was endless, so it made sense for us to pair with her to make that happen,” Amorim said.

Opportunities to write books for businesses was something Darlington never thought she’d be doing after starting Madame Fromage, especially since the blog was only a couple of years old at the time of publication of “House of Cheese.”

“I never imagined that the cheese makers would, say, discover themselves on [my] site and then write to me or that the owner of Di

Bruno Brothers would call me up and offer me a job,” Darlington said. “I kept the blog going because I just kept meeting more and more interesting people and getting more and more interesting opportunities through it.”

In September, cheese took Darlington to a conference and festival in northern Italy where she discovered that “The New Cocktail Hour” was chosen to be a part of actress Jennifer Lawrence’s wedding registry. When Darlington discovered that the Hollywood star chose her book to be on the registry, she said a former student of her’s said, “expect the Oprah Effect.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” Darlington said. “I told some French chefs who were standing next to me and they were like, ‘who?’ It wasn’t until I got back to the United States that stuff really started flooding my inbox.”

“The New Cocktail Hour” is the first installment of a “cocktail trilogy” Darlington and her brother have written regarding cocktail pairings. The siblings have also written “Booze and Vinyl: A Spirited Guide to Great Music and Mixed Drinks,” a vinyl record and cocktail pairing book, and “Movie Night Menus: Dinner and Drink Recipes Inspired by the Films We Love,” a book that pairs cocktails with classic movies. What made “The New Cocktail Hour” different from its predecessors is that it allows the reader to “drink their way through cocktail history.”

“To me, that’s what’s interesting about the cocktail,” Darlington said. “It had so many cultural moments. It’s very much a book that educates people and also shows them how to have a good time.”

For Darlington, food is all about enjoying the moment. This is something she teaches in her classes. Kevin Duncan ’20, who is current-

ly enrolled in Darlington’s food writing class, explained that Darlington engages her students to think deeper about their day-to-day interactions with food.

“We all deal with and need food every day,” Duncan said. “[In the class] we dive into our relationship with food and the general relationships with food that people have.”

From the beginning of the semester, Darlington was made sure that her students feel comfortable when having serious discussions about food.

Shannon Scimecca ’20, another student in Darlington’s food writing class, said she sees the class as a brief getaway from her college schedule.

“The first day of class she was like, ‘My name is Tenaya, rhymes with papaya,’” Scimecca said. “She even is like, ‘If you’re stressed out about classes, this is an hour for you to just breathe and relax and talk about food.’ It’s like a class vacation.”

From Darlington’s point of view, food writing is more than just saying something tastes amazing and delicious. It’s about being able to say why the sweetness of candy corn is different from the sweetness of jelly beans and how no two salts taste the same. Like most of her recent work, Darlington’s passion for being able to define her taste buds and palette emerged from her love of cheese.

“It was all these quirky little cheeses with unbelievably funky looking rinds and I just wanted to know more about them,” Darlington said. “I just really started to appreciate how a fine cheese and well-made cheese took you to the moon.”

Features

The Hawk Newspaper

Netflix show creates controversy RACHEL DURANTE ’22 Special to the Hawk At the end of the summer, Netflix released the third season of its original show, “13 Reasons Why,” based on a young adult novel of the same name, which tells the story of Hannah Baker and the 13 reasons why she thinks she should kill herself.

When the first season, which debuted in 2017, concluded with a graphic depiction of Hannah committing suicide, mental health professionals involved in suicide prevention criticized the show.

Greg Nicholls, Ph.D., director of Counseling and Psychological Services, agreed with the criticism that it was a mistake to show that scene.

“The method of suicide should not be made evident in such a TV show that so many young people are watching,” Nicholls said. “Vulnerable teenagers may be prone to mimic or copy that method.”

In fact, there was a nearly 30% increase in suicides among young Americans aged 10-17 in the month following the show’s debut, according to a study published earlier this year in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

The outcry prompted the show’s producers to recreate the final scene and make it less graphic.

Caroline Vita ’21 read the book in eighth grade and then watched the show when it came out. She said she was shocked by how graphic the show was and worried viewers would think Baker’s suicide was okay because they had seen it on TV. “I was in high school when the first season came out, and we had an incident at my school after the show came out be-

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Abbey Road Rewind:

Inspired by the Beatles KAITLYN PATTERSON ’20 Features Editor

Tape 1 Side A

GRAPHIC: KAITLYN PATTERSON ’20/THE HAWK

cause of that,” Vita said. “I think that was a good move taking it out for younger people wanting to watch it.”

Victor Schwartz, M.D., chief medical officer at ​The Jed Foundation​, a nonprofit organization dedicated to suicide preventtion, said the producers made the right call to change the scene. ​“We would have preferred that the scene not appear in the original version of the show, but are pleased that the producers made this change, even if after the fact, since some viewers might go back to the earlier seasons and watch or rewatch,” Schwartz said in an email to The Hawk.

The second season, released in 2018, opens with the show’s actors talking to the viewers about the importance of getting help if they need it. The show also has a companion website which offers phone numbers to call or text in case of an emergency.

Lesley Reyes ’22, who watched the first

season of the show, said she never visited the website but the show prompted her to do her own research on mental health.

“My sister struggles with depression, and she’s only 12,” Reyes said.

The third season of the show starts with an introductory video as well. As with the second season, the storyline is no longer about Baker’s suicide but addresses other topics like rape, drug addiction, school shootings and immigration.

Vita said she thinks the introductory messages from the cast offer a consistent message for viewers.

“I think they are trying to continue the message, like if you need help, make sure you get it,” Vita said.

If you or someone you know may be at risk of suicide, call CAPS (610-660-1090), Student Outreach and Support (610-6601149) or the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255).

An event from the heart, for the heart CASEY WOOD ’23 Special to the Hawk The Cardinal Foley Campus Center was full of laughter on Oct. 3 as St. Joe’s sorority, Alpha Phi, hosted their annual “Laugh Your Heart Out” improv show. Alpha Phi and SJU Improv partnered together for another year of not only comedy, but also raising awareness for women’s cardiac care.

According to the Alpha Phi Foundation, “advancing women’s lives through the power of philanthropy” is their mission.

One of the key pillars is the improvement of women’s heart health. During the Laugh Your Heart Out event, Alpha Phi raised money and awareness for women’s cardiac care in support of this mission.

Carly Clemente ’21, a member of Alpha Phi, said she was thrilled to have SJU Improv collaborate with Alpha Phi for another year.

“It’s always so fun and entertaining to have them come out and support our cause with us,” Clemente said.

The show began with a game where the SJU Improv members had to create poems made from a word the audience shouted out. The performers came up with a poem on the spot.

The audience continued to laugh as the improv members moved to the next game called, “Props.” In this game, the participating members had to not only set the scene using a word from the audience, but to use the large letters of Alpha Phi as their props to tell the stories.

Clemente expressed that this game was by far her favorite game the SJU Improv members performed.

“I liked the game they played using our

Oct. 9, 2019

Recently, “Abbey Road,” the 11th and final studio album by the Beatles, celebrated its 50th anniversary. The album was rereleased on Sept. 27 and has since returned to the top of the charts for the first time since its original release 50 years ago. Since its original release in 1969, countless musicians have been inspired by the iconic album and the tracks on it.

In the spirit of this revival, here are some tunes to weave into your next listen of “Abbey Road.”

“Crazy On You” by Heart To start things off, we have this electrifying song by Heart. In an interview with The Believer, Nancy Wilson, one of the band’s vocalists, said she and her sister Ann heard a call to become rock stars when they watched the Beatles on television as children. Now, decades later we are blessed to have the band we know as Heart. This song has so many levels and some intense guitar riffs to rock out to while you’re sitting in a traffic jam.

“Soldier Boys and Jesus Freaks” by Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds A song with a title like this invites plenty of questions. “Soldier Boy and Jesus Freaks” takes the listener on a journey from start to finish. With an upbeat tone, this tune will keep your foot tapping throughout its entirety.

“Jardin Du Luxembourg” by The GOASTT (The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger) Slowing it down with this song, we’re bringing in a sense of nostalgia. If this song feels eerily familiar, it’s because Sean Ono Lennon, son of the late John Lennon, is the voice behind it. This song emulates the masterful melodies that often appear in the Beatles songs we all know and love.

“Do You Realize??” by The Flaming Lips This upbeat tune pairs well with a relaxing walk in nature with the browning leaves falling to your feet. The jolly tune is backed up by some funky sounds, similar to some of the wonderful weirdness that appears in some of the Beatles earlier works.

SJU Improv did a skit involving Alpha Phi’s greek letters. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

Alpha Phi letters the best because it was fast paced and really funny,” Clemente said.

Along with games like these, there was a Q & A activity, where members were asked a question given by an audience member and they had to answer it with the persona of a made up character. The characters included a young girl from north New Jersey with a strong accent, a highly nervous teenager with stage fright and a “cool mom” named Leslie.

Chelsea Smith ’20, SJU Improv member, expressed what a privilege it is to be performing for an audience to support a great cause.

“Anytime we get people to laugh is a success,” Smith said. “We are happy to help out.”

Sophia Terry ’20, a member of Alpha Phi and vice president of community relations, worked long hours for the show to take place.

Her responsibilities included booking the venue, making sure the sisters could attend, confirming with SJU Improv, handing out flyers and cooking the hot dogs While this was challenging, Terry said it was all worth it to support an important cause.

The Laugh Your Heart Out improv show is not the only event Alpha Phi holds to raise awareness and support for this foundation.

“Our Red Dress Gala is coming up in Novembert,” Terry said. “We host more events and fundraise. In the Spring, we have “‘ Alpha Phifa. ’” Alpha Phifa is a soccer tournament hosted by the sisters of Alpha Phi. The members of Alpha Phi encourage students to support and raise awareness for women’s cardiac care. To learn more visit the following website: LYHO.givesmart.com.

“She’s Long Gone by the Black Keys” This song is a perfect testament to how modern music has been influenced

by Abbey Road and the Beatles in general. With stellar guitar riffs, this Black Keys tune is the perfect way to blend modern music with classic rock.

“Stand On It by Bruce Springsteen ” To round out this list, here’s an early tune from Bruce Springsteen, better known as “the Boss.” While talking to Rolling Stone, Springsteen revealed that the Beatles inspired his music career. This song will keep you moving all the way back into the 1980s.

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Features

The Hawk Newspaper

Oct. 9, 2019

St. Joe’s seniors cancel trip to Punta Cana Fear of violence prompts students to back out SARAH MORRISON ’20 Special to the Hawk At the end of last semester, Abby Goldbach ’20 began planning a spring break trip that she hoped would be a fun-filled last hurrah for her and her other senior friends at St. Joe’s.

Goldbach had been the only junior on a senior spring break trip to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico the Dominican Republic last year, and she wanted to share that experience again as a senior.

“It’s the last spring break you get before everyone goes into the working world, and it’s nice to be with your grade and friends,” Goldbach said.

When Goldbach polled her classmates, the most popular choice was Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic. By the end of May, about 90 students had put down $10 deposits to secure a spot on the trip.

As they locked in their spots, the story of Tammy Lawrence-Daley, 51, from Delaware, made the news. In late May, Lawrence-Daley began speaking publicly about a January incident at an all-inclusive resort in Punta Cana where she said she was beaten for eight hours in an unlocked maintenance room. Lawrence-Daley survived the attack and sued the resort.

Nobody has been charged with the crime.

While Goldbach was busy planning the trip, other stories made the news involving tourists suffering from severe illness and, in some cases, death during their stays at hotels and resorts in the Dominican Republic. As this information was getting out to the public, some of the students on Goldbach’s trip began pulling out, forfeiting their $10 deposits.

Goldbach’s trip her junior year had been run through JusCollege, a company that provides college travel experiences through exclusive packages. The students last year paid $1,799 each for seven nights in Cabo. JusCollege was supposed to organize this year’s trip too.

Travel companies like JusCollege and XtremeTrips, which cater to college students, book all-inclusive stays through agencies that allow students to make monthly payments rather than pay for a trip upfront. Last year’s group from St. Joe’s paid in installments of $300 or less.

Goldbach and friends visited Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for last year's spring break trip. PHOTO COURTESY OF: ABBY GOLDBACH ’20

Garrett Majam, the representative from JusCollege who was helping Goldbach plan the trip, said St. Joe’s students were not the only group to ask to switch their trips to different destinations.

“I personally had three other campuses that were deposited for [Punta Cana], but I switched them to [another destination] for no extra fee,” Majam said in an email. “Company wide, we have switched out over 10 campuses from [Punta Cana] to Cancun or to Cabo.”

Finding a new destination for Goldbach’s trip has proved tricky. She is now trying to recruit students for a trip to Miami, again using JusCollege. Although the travel company isn’t offering trips to Miami this year, Majam added he was will-

Dominican Republic

ing to do a custom trip to Miami for the St. Joe’s students.

Miami has received an influx of tourists due to the incidents in Punta Cana and the destruction caused by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas. As a result, prices in Miami have skyrocketed.

Goldbach said JusCollege gave her a quote of $1,800 per person to Miami. Although it was the same price as the Cabo trip the previous year, the Cabo package included transportation, flight costs, concerts and unlimited food and drinks.

“There are no ‘all-inclusive’ resorts in the continental U.S.,” Majam said. “If students want true ‘all-inclusives,’ then they need to travel out of the country.

Marion Lambert, owner of Senior Ex-

Punta Cana

GRAPHIC BY: KAITLYN PATTERSON ’20/THE HAWK

cursions, a travel agency based in Wildwood, New Jersey, that specializes in group tours, books trips for travelers to Punta Cana and other popular Caribbean destinations.

Lambert acknowledged that “people will steer clear for a while.” But that also means Punta Cana is more affordable. When a country relies so heavily on tourism, it will try to draw the tourists back in by dropping the prices, Lambert said, making the country more appealing for travelers.

But this isn’t enough to persuade some St. Joe’s students.

Tatum Pappas ’20, who was in charge of helping to recruit fellow students for Goldbach’s trip, forfeited her deposit not long after the incidents at the resorts came to light.

“We didn’t feel comfortable going, and we knew our parents wouldn’t let us go to Punta Cana,” Pappas said.

Jeff Hoffner ’20 also pulled out of the trip. He said he was skeptical of the whole venture anyway.

“It seemed to me to be a little too good to be true,” Hoffner said. “It seemed very Fyre festival-esque,” referring to the 2017 fraudulent luxury music festival that was supposed to take place in the Bahamas and that scammed thousands of people out of hundreds and thousands of dollars.

A number of the seniors who originally planned to go on Goldbach’s trip are striking out on their own, booking their Miami flights and hotels despite the spike in prices.

Sabrina Grandrimo ’20 and her friends had been debating among Punta Cana, Miami and South Padre Island. They ultimately decided on Miami.

“It’s going to be safer,” Grandrimo said.

Lambert said the key to traveling abroad for spring break is to go with care.

“I would tell my children that they can go [to the Dominican Republic],” Lambert said. “You just have to be smart wherever you go.”

Sports

The Hawk Newspaper

Oct. 9, 2019

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St. Joe’s puts ban on betting on university athletic events RYAN MULLIGAN ’21 Assistant Sports Editor St. Joe’s released their interim policy on sports wagering within the university community on Sept. 24, which, along with mandates on student athletes that fall in line with the NCAA’s policy, bars students from betting on St. Joe’s athletic events.

In addition to reinforcing the NCAA ban on athletes and members of the athletic department staff placing a wager at any level on any sport that the NCAA sponsors, the most significant restrictions fell outside of athletics.

“Saint Joseph’s University is an institution built on community, in which we encourage all members to support one other in achieving personal, academic and spiritual growth,” the policy states. “Allowing Saint Joseph’s University students, faculty, staff, contractors and members of the Board of Trustees to gamble on the performance of University student-athletes or staff members runs contrary to the sense of community that is so critical to the University.”

This policy comes less than a year after the first legal sports bet was placed in Pennsylvania in November 2018. The state of Pennsylvania legalized sports gambling just six months after the Supreme Court ruling that gave states the power to authorize and regulate sports gambling.

In fact, the three states that border the Philadelphia area and states where St. Joe’s draws a majority of students from were at the forefront of the movement. Pennsylva-

nia, Delaware and New Jersey were among the first 11 states to legalize sports betting.

New Jersey brought the case to the Supreme Court, while Delaware was the first state to officially legalize sports betting. All of this factored in to the decision to create a policy applicable to the entire St. Joe’s community.

“When the Supreme Court struck down that law, then states began to be able to make their own decisions Director of Athletics Jill Bodensteiner, J.D., said. “It was really those state laws that made us say, ‘We should probably look at a broader policy that doesn’t just involve student athletes and the athletic department staff.”

While there has long been NCAA mandates on gambling, these regulations only applied to student athletes and until a year ago, gambling on sporting events was illegal.

Bodensteiner, in collaboration with Provost Cheryl McConnell, Ph.D., Chief Human Resources Officer Zenobia Hargust and Vice President and Associate Provost of Student Life, Cary Anderson, Ed.D., felt it was necessary to localize the policy to St. Joe’s and all of its students.

“We wanted to be really clear, since sports wagering is already legal in all three of those states if you’re 21,” Bodensteiner said.

“We just thought it was important to make people aware, if you engage in it when you’re 19, or you engage in it in an illegal way that it can potentially be a problem for our community. So we wanted to get out in front of it, we wanted to tell our student athletes that we have expectations of everybody.”

According to Anderson, any betting will be

Online betting was first introduced in Pennsylvania in May 2019. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS '22/ THE HAWK

treated as a violation of community standards. Any student that breaks this rule will go through the same community standards review process as they would if they had violated the drug and alcohol policy. However there are no specific, predetermined consequences.

“We want this to be educational, not punitive,” Anderson said.

Jeff Deverensky, Ph.D., chair of the department of educational and counselling psychology at McGill University, has written extensively on the potential effects of sports wagering for the NCAA. He said gambling is different than drug or alcohol abuse.

“I have a book that I wrote and it is subtitled ‘Gambling: The Hidden Addiction’,” Deverensky said. “You can’t smell it on someone’s breath and you can’t see it in their eyes.”

Derevensky said releasing a policy was a step in the right direction.

“If you look at school policies around

things like drugs, alcohol and gambling, most schools have a drug and alcohol policy, yet there’s relatively few schools that actually have a gambling policy,” Derevensky said.

Admittedly, detecting gambling is one of the challenges administrators will face.

Anderson said that as of now, they are relying on the honor system and word of mouth.

Bodensteiner said that they will “enforce it when it comes to our attention.”

For Anderson, the most important part of the new policy is that it upholds the values of St. Joe’s “What we really want to do is to underscore our own values as a university,” Anderson said. “[Gambling is] not who we are as an institution.”

St. Joe’s will be extending the discussion on sports gambling to the student body in an open forum in The Perch on Oct. 22.

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St. Joe's athletics weighs options on switching sponsors PAT TADDEI ’22 Special to The Hawk As the university’s athletic contract with Nike nears its end in August 2020, the department of athletics is weighing a shift in sponsorship with a final decision to come in the next two weeks.

“The department of athletics has many loyal corporate and individual sponsors, including Nike and its partner BSN Sports,” said Jill Bodensteiner J.D., director of athletics. “The current agreement with Nike and BSN is nearing the end of its term, and so the Department of Athletics is conducting its due diligence with respect to the future of our footwear and apparel partner.”

This summer, representatives from three companies, Nike, Adidas and Under Armour, arrived at St. Joe’s to present bids to the university outlining why they should be the Hawks’ next sponsor, Bodensteiner said. They followed up a week later with official proposals.

“All three major companies bid, which was awesome because that is not always the case, even with football schools,” Bodensteiner said.

The meetings involved 2.5-hour presentations from representatives explaining why St. Joe’s should choose them for their athletic sponsorship. They also participated in a Q&A with Bodensteiner, her executive team, and coaches. Bodensteiner shared with The Hawk a document that explains the eight criteria the university is looking for in a new sponsor: customer service, performance and quality, image, partnership, brand, financial, scope and fair labor.

Bodensteiner said she will make the final decision alongside University President Mark C. Reed, Ed.D. John Lord, Ph.D., professor emeritus

of sports marketing, said the area of college sponsorships has “grown dramatically” in the last 20 to 25 years, “like every other aspect of sports marketing.”

“Everything is just so much bigger,” Lord said. “The money is bigger.”

For the colleges, the benefits of sponsorship can be wide-ranging. Along with getting apparel, equipment and gear for their college athletic programs, Lord said the sponsorship also supports the performance of the players and coaches.

“But there’s also you’re wearing the colors, you’re wearing the brand marks, you’re wearing the names and that’s a key part of marketing the institution, extending your brand,” Lord said. “You’re engaging your fans, connecting with them. You’re establishing a strong image.”

Chris Rini ’21, co-president of the sports marketing club at St. Joe’s, said being part of that brand comes with rules for athletes.

“Student athletes will have to be more careful about what brands they wear and purchase not only at SJU but in general,” Rini said.

Some student-athletes are hesitant about possibly no longer sporting the Nike swoosh on their uniforms. It would be hard for junior Maggie Moyer, a long sprinter for the women’s track & field team, to switch from Nike.

“I’m pretty biased for Nike for running gear, especially for running shoes,” Moyer said.

Senior Kyle Smith, a pitcher for the baseball team, also prefers Nike apparel and equipment, but said he would be willing to switch brands if it meant more perks for the team.

“If we have more money, we could take advantages such as traveling to tournaments we were not able to during past seasons,” Smith said.

The athletic department will take into account the opinions of coaches in their final decision.

PHOTOS: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22 and LUKE MALANGA ’20/THE HAWK

Men's Cross Country turns to senior leader CHRIS KLINE ’23 Special to The Hawk Senior Antonio Amaral faced adversity throughout his first three years at St. Joe’s, battling injuries that slowed his speed and spirit, only to come back running harder and faster. This hard work paid off as Amaral earned a bronze medal at the Delaware Invitational team title, coming in first among all Hawks.

The start to Amaral’s career on Hawk Hill was a rocky one. He said he couldn’t run in the winter of his first two years because of a stress reaction, putting him in a boot.

Once he was able to rehabilitate and recover from these setbacks, Amaral said he’s only improved as a runner.

“I had a big jump,” Amaral said. “I think I PR’d [personal record] a little over two minutes in my 5k alone. I just used that and stayed patient and kept progressing with all my times each race.”

According to sophomore runner George Steinhoff, a teammate, Amaral handled his setback well.

“I saw him be very persistent in the way he took care of himself ” Steinhoff said. “That’s always really difficult because it’s real easy to lose fitness when you’re in that position.

For Head Coach Mike Glavin, seeing athletes overcome strife is pretty normal.

“You really have to want to stay in sport, to find out you’re not gonna start at the top,” Glavin said. “And if you get hurt, you gotta start all over again. Antonio has weathered that well and now we get to see him reap the benefits.”

Glavin said he makes sure his athletes are training to the best of their ability and that every athlete’s workouts are personalized.

“I can train one guy and he’s running this many miles and I train a different guy the same amount of miles and he gets hurt,” Glavin said. “You have to find that place. He [Antonio] has grown so much to understand

his body and expand his ability from that.”

Graduate student Tommy Higley ’19, the men’s team captain, knows Amaral well, having run several seasons together.

“He’s a really positive person and brings all the energy to practice,” Higley said. “Definitely the guy you want to work out with.”

Carrying this strong energy and dedica-

tion, Amaral and the rest of his team look forward to competing in important races that are approaching.

“I think we’re really gonna roll with it,” Amaral said. “We’re ready for this next championship season to start and use this momentum to roll right into conferences.”

The Hawks placed third through seventh in the Delaware Invitational 8k, led by Amaral’s time of 27:09.8. PHOTO: LESLIE QUAN ’22/THE HAWK

Sports

The Hawk Newspaper

Oct. 9, 2019

15

PAY FOR PLAY? Paying student athletes is both the right and fair thing to do

Paying student athletes is bad news for college sports

SAM BRITT ’20 Sports Editor

MATT MIKESIC ’21 Special to The Hawk

In the wake of California passing a bill to allow student athletes to make money off of their likeness through things like endorsements, other states have rushed to the drawing board to draft their own bills. Some, like New York, would even require athletic departments to distribute 15% of their revenue among their athletes.

California was the first chink in the NCAA’s armor. No longer will they be able to hold an iron grasp on the earnings of college athletes. Unfortunately, they will now have to allow for a portion of their athletes to to make real money from playing sports Oh, the horror. Can we even imagine a world where the purity of collegiate athletics is tarnished with, ew, money?

In the real world, all of this change has been long overdue.

Ever since the decision to qualify college athletes as ‘amateurs’ in 1955, student athletes have been getting the short end of the stick as far as compensation was concerned. It is interesting to note that the only reason the NCAA called them "amateurs" was to avoid paying worker's compensation to the widow of a Fort Lewis A&M football player who died on the field.

One of the points used against the idea of paying college athletes is it ruins the idea of playing for the love of the game.

Former college football star and current ESPN pundit Tim Tebow pointed this out a couple weeks ago on Twitter, saying he wouldn’t have taken any money in college because he only needed the reward of playing and representing the University of Florida.

First off, it is not mutually exclusive. People can get paid to do something and still love what they do. That isn’t some weird anomaly. Secondly, if this was the case, why would anyone need to get paid for anything? We should all be going to work and paying our bills with the love we have for our employers and the pride we feel doing labor for them. Yay! Go corporations!

Lastly, college sports aren’t pure. There is plenty of dirty money getting into the pockets of almost every big time recruit in the country. If anything, the NCAA’s strict policing of this issue has created this underground black market of shadow agents and bag men. A prohibition on wages has caused this bootlegging industry to become integral in the success of big time college programs, like University of Southern California football or University of Kansas basketball.

This goes on to the next point opposing college athletes getting paid, that it would give larger schools with deeper pockets a recruiting advantage. Well, duh. But how is that any different from the world we live in now, where Duke University can recruit the top three players in their class and University of Alabama has a consistent stream of NFL ready talent coming in?

Finally, the argument for paying players is simple. It’s fair.

Let’s look at an example that is close to home. Former St. Joe’s star Charlie Brown signed a contract with the Atlanta Hawks over the summer. During his time at St. Joe’s, he was undoubtedly one of the main draws for our basketball team. People nationally recognize St. Joe’s because of seeing our team on T.V. Imagine if Charlie Brown, instead of being one of the best players in the Atlantic 10 last year, tore his knee three games into the season. He wouldn’t have gotten that pro contract last summer. Depending on his recovery, he may have never gotten a contract to play basketball anywhere ever. So while St. Joe’s counts the ticket sales made over Brown’s career, he lost out on potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars, just because he decided to play in Michael J. Hagan ’85 Arena.

And that is just a guy who signed a contract. Big time college stars stand to lose millions of dollars every time they step on the court while also providing their colleges and the NCAA a huge portion of their yearly revenue.

How is that fair?

On Sept. 16, New York Sen. Kevin Parker proposed a bill that would allow college athletes to sell the right to their names, images and likenesses to advertisers. This bill would be revolutionary in the way that it would make New York the first state to require colleges to pay the athletes that compete for them directly.

Parker has also added an amendment to his bill that would require university athletic departments to evenly distribute 15% of all annual revenue generated by athletics to all student athletes who compete for the school. Parker took inspiration from California’s Fair Pay to Play Act that was signed into law on Sept. 30, which allows student athletes to make money from their image and likeness.

While the movement to get college athletes paid has gained a large amount of support, from the likes of LeBron James and Bernie Sanders, there are still some components of the issue that need to be addressed and clarified.

For one thing, demanding that college athletic departments would distort the line between being an amateur athlete and a professional one. College athletes would no longer be competing for the love of the sport, but rather chasing a paycheck.

One glaring issue with requiring school athletic departments to compensate athletes is the question of how will each individual sports program raise the money to pay its athletes? The answer is they can’t.

Anybody can go on Google and look up how much money is generated by big name powerhouse schools in each major sport and see that most programs generate tens of millions of dollars.

It is easy for most people to think that all of this money goes into the pockets of the executives at these big name programs, but this just simply is not the case.

Many people fail to take into account the costs that go into maintaining and running a team as big as the University of Alabama football team for example. Stadiums have to be maintained, coaching and training staff have to be paid, travel accommodations have to be financed and so on. There are a multitude of expenses that go into running a college athletic program, and most of the revenue generated has to go back into keeping the program up and running.

Something else to consider is that not all college sports programs generate the necessary revenue to keep them functioning.

To keep Alabama as an example, I would be willing to bet that some of the revenue generated by bigger programs such as football goes into running smaller programs like rowing and golf.

While I used Alabama as an example of a Division I football program that turns a profit, the fact of the matter is that the majority of Division I athletic programs do not turn a profit, and the NCAA has publicized the earnings of many major Division I programs.

Take St. Joe's for example, when Director of Athletics Jill Bodensteiner took over, the athletic department spent $21 million dollars and made $4 million dollars in revenue.

Allowing colleges to pay athletes directly would also give powerhouse programs an unfair advantage in recruiting.

The schools with the most lucrative sports programs would be able to easily lure the biggest name recruits to play for them, solely based off of the prospect of being able to pay the athlete more than any other school. Making it easier for the biggest schools to get the best recruits would create a static environment where the best schools stay on top and other schools have virtually no chance of ever competing with them.

Considering that this issue is gaining traction and entering the national spotlight, I encourage you to do some research yourself and look deeper into the numbers behind your favorite college football or basketball team.

Dake's Drug Store

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Sports

The Hawk Newspaper

Cheer Team receives National Championship rings CARLY RYBINSKI ’21 Special to The Hawk Each of the 21 members of the St. Joe’s cheer team received a national championship ring in a ceremony held in Michael J. Hagan ’85 Arena on Oct 6.

The St. Joe’s team triumphed over 12 other cheer teams to win first place in the Intermediate All-Girls Division I category of the National Cheerleading Association College National Championship held in Daytona, Florida in April this year.

“Winning a National Champion is a pretty cool feeling honestly, it gives you more respect on campus,” said senior base Madeline Bridges. “It’s a prideful feeling.”

The rings are engraved with “National Champions.”

PHOTO: LESLIE QUAN ’22/THE HAWK

Former base on the team, Rose Walton ’19, said the team got to the national competition because team members had more and more practices and became a tight-knit group.

“We were seeing more of each other, and the atmosphere was super casual,” Walton said. “I think that just allowed us to get closer as a team and we were able to overcome any obstacles that came our way.”

Going to nationals is the highlight of the season according to Head Coach Lauren Hanos, who said she is grateful for support from St. Joe’s athletics to travel to Daytona Beach for the event each year.

“The experience is always great,” Hanos said. “There are thousands of cheerleaders there from all over the country. We wanted to come off the floor knowing we did everything we could to perform and show the judges what we were capable of doing.”

According to Bridges, before the national competition the team came together and concluded it was time to win after having placed second in the previous two years.

“We felt like it was really our time so we had to put all of our skills together and really come together as a team and manifest it in our minds first before we even got there [that] this is our year, we’re winning [year] three,” Bridges said.

Preparation for nationals consisted of conditioning, practice and team bonding.

To be on the team, prospective cheerleaders have to complete a series of jumps, tumbles and be able to perform a dance in front of the coaches.

Sophomore backspot Christina Dominick said these practices helped bring the

Members of the 2018-2019 cheer team show off their rings. PHOTO COURTESY OF: KATIE TEELING ’15

team closer together.

“The team had a close bond this year and I think that’s why we went all out when it came down to the last dance,” Dominick said.

According to Walton, Kennesaw State University and the University of Maine both beat the St. Joe’s cheer team in previous years.

“This year it was like we knew they were going to be the two strongest opponents,” Walton said. “It [was] really important to us to be able to shape our routine so we knew that it was going to be better than theirs, and if we performed it well enough then we knew we would win.”

Walton said competing in nationals as a club team can be very costly, since each member of the team has to pay for the ex-

penses that the budget and sponsors do not cover, including items like uniforms and travel expenses. Walton said that last year it cost about $1,200 per cheerleader to compete.

The cheer team raises money for their trips to competitions through sponsorships and funding from St. Joe’s department of athletics. Director of Athletics Jill Bodensteiner said she values what the cheer team brings to Hawk Hill.

“I am extremely proud of the cheerleading program,” Bodensteiner said. “Few people know about the competitive side and the level of competition. But I’m extremely proud of the coaches and the students. They worked extremely hard and this couldn’t be more exciting for them and for us as an athletic program. It was well deserved.”

Water polo remains undefeated after senior night MATT DELEO ’20 Assistant Sports Editor St. Joe’s water polo beat Lehigh University 12-6 on their senior night on Oct. 3.

The team now has a record of 5-0 and leads the Men's Collegiate Mid-Atlantic Men Club Division B. Senior Jake Smith said they have gotten better and grown a lot since his first year.

He swam in high school and wanted to do something different, so he decided to join the water polo team.

Smith’s first year St. Joe's finished in fourth place at the championship tournament.

They finished the past two seasons in second place and have grown in size from around 15 to 30 members this season.

Senior Ricky Bauer said his first year the team had about three people in the stands, and he is impressed by how far the club has grown.

“As club athletes, sometimes we feel as if we don’t get recognized for all of our hard work,” Bauer said. “Emotion wise, I had a big smile on my face the whole night. It was a great experience.”

Senior Dan Trout said he is honored to be part of the team and challenges his fellow seniors to remember the role they played to build the team to 30.

“I urged the team to look around and take in the sight of the filled stands and their teammates surrounding them,” Trout said.

Smith said one of his goals is to see the club become more well-known around campus, which he believes the team has done a good job of so far this year.

“The main goal I have for the team this year is to come in first place at championships,” Smith said. “It would be the first time the club has ever done it.”

Trout transferred from Wagner College, where he played water polo, after his

Senior Jake Smith attempts a pass to another teammate. PHOTO: MITCHELL SHIELDS ’22/THE HAWK

first year and joined St. Joe’s team in his sophomore year.

“I feel blessed to have ended up at SJU” Trout said. “Blessed to have been a captain of this team and blessed for the family we have built that will survive long after we are gone.”

Trout described how the team’s success has been predictable given the hard work they put in.

“The culture around the team is to strive to be the best in the league but doing it in a way that brings dignity to our team and SJU,” Trout said.

Trout said he thinks the team is special, not only because of the talent in the pool, but the quality of the individuals. The team has a range of people who have never played or even swam before.

“The best part about our team is that everyone has a role to play in our championship aspirations,” Trout said. “Everyone is an equally important part of the team that makes this engine run.”

Trout said he will continue to be the best leader he can and believes in his team.

“We will go undefeated this year,” Trout

said. “I told [the team] I would choose them over any other group in the league. I trust my teammates and they trust me.”

Smith said he is sad to leave but knows the underclass students will be able to keep it going. He said the team bonds well with a strong work ethic.

“Outside of practice, I would say the team has a big family feel to it which helps out a lot,” Smith said. “Some of the teams we have played clearly don’t have that family feeling and it shows during the games.