The Hofstra Chronicle, January 31, 2023

THE HOFSTRA CHRONICLE

KEEPING THE HOFSTRA COMMUNITY INFORMED SINCE 1935

Leave Ozempic for those who need it most

media, also bringing slim figures to the forefront. As the cycle goes, diet fads are back in full swing, and they are more dangerous than ever. It’s vital to the physical and mental health of all that we extinguish this before it gets out of hand.

Potential casino at Nassau Coliseum

year,” said Ron Reese, senior vice president of Las Vegas Sands.

beneficial for the underfunded schools and public services in those areas.

By Makenzie Hurt ASSISTANT OPINION EDITOR

During the ‘90s, supermodels were all the rage. Names such as Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford and the most memorable, Kate Moss – who inadvertently popularized the dangerous trend of “heroin chic” – come to mind. These women came to fame by maintaining slim figures and being known as society’s it girls. The term “it girl” is being used all over social

The newest diet trend caters to the rich, which is why so many celebrities and influencers are being accused of misusing the drug Semaglutide, or its better-known brand name Ozempic. The brand’s website claims that the injectable drug is used “along with diet and exercise to improve blood sugar in adults with Type 2 diabetes” and “to reduce the risk of major cardiovascular events such as heart attack, stroke or death.”

CONTINUED ON A12

Hofstra to host 13th presidential conference

ment, Public Policy and International Affairs and the Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency.

Throughout the conference, there will be concurrent scholarly panels and plenary sessions on significant topics within the Obama presidency such as the passage of the Affordable Care Act, communication to policy making and foreign policy.

By Madeline Armstrong NEWS EDITOR

Las Vegas Sands has proposed a potential casino resort at the Nassau Coliseum. Previously the home arena of the New York Islanders, it now sits empty since the NHL team relocated. “That site sits there and it loses money every day of the

“What we’ve proposed for the Coliseum is an integrated resort that would feature hotel rooms, restaurants, both fine dining and casual, bars and entertainment areas, a 5,000 feet live performance venue, a world class spa and a variety of other amenities.”

The resort would bring a significant amount of money to the area, increasing tax revenue for the surrounding communities of the Coliseum: Uniondale and Hempstead. This could be

“As a region, we need to explore new revenue generating ideas,” said John Durso, president of the Long Island Federation of Labor. “The state is handing us that opportunity. The Sands have committed to deliver quality jobs, tax revenue and a reason for young people to stay on Long Island. We must not miss this opportunity to deliver for our region.”

The resort will also pose as an opportunity for students in the surrounding area to be employed after graduation.

“You can start in the resort industry at an entry level and end

CONTINUED ON A2

Wear it with Pride: The legacy of Nick Colleluori

program heal.

By Megan Naftali NEWS EDITOR

Hofstra University is set to host the 13th presidential conference from April 19, to April 23, on Barack Obama’s presidency. The conference is hosted by the Cultural Center, the Peter S. Kalikow School of Govern-

On the first day of the conference, a keynote will be given by the Joseph G. Astman Distinguished Conference Scholar: Melissa Harris-Perry, the Maya Angelou presidential chair in the department of politics and international affairs, the department

By Andrew Fantuccio SPORTS EDITOR

Seth Tierney was hired as head coach of the Hofstra men’s lacrosse team in 2006 and was prepared to build a championship program. However, he wasn’t prepared to help the

Just five months into his tenure, before he could lead Hofstra from the sidelines, Tierney had to lead his team out of the darkness after his player Nick Colleluori passed away following a 14-month battle with diffuse large B-cell non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age of 21.

Standing in front of a packed church in Nick’s hometown of Ridley, Pennsylvania, Tierney, who had only known Nick for a

short time, delivered a eulogy to an audience that had known him his entire life.

“Why Nick?” asked Tierney. “Why did God recruit him? The only logical answer is that he is putting together a team of honest, courageous, unselfish and relentless players, and as we all know, Nick fit that build to a tee. The one thing that God will be pleasantly surprised with is that he isn’t just getting a player because he just landed the captain of his team.”

Before stepping down from the altar, Tierney promised those in attendance that grim day that their son, brother, friend and teammate would not be forgotten.

The Barack Obama Conference is set to take place from April 19 to April 23.

With the renewal of the term “it girl,” diet fads are back in full swing.

The Nassau Coliseum is the leading contender for a Las Vegas Sands casino resort.

Head coach Seth Tierney helped Hofstra’s lacrosse program heal with renewed vigor after the loss of a teammate.

Photo courtesy of HEADstrong Foundation

Photo courtesy of Laura Trujillo-Jenks / FacultyFocus

Photo courtesy of Antony-22

Photo courtesy of Pete Souza

Poser speaks out against a casino at the Coliseum

aid money.

“If those are fears, [then the] university should be prepared to help students and not try to ban anything that has the potential for a negative,” said Zach Morris, a senior drama major. He emphasizes that if Hofstra is concerned about students’ vulnerability to addiction, they should invest more in their mental health and counseling services.

Although Poser expressed a number of concerns and stated that Hofstra is against a casino at the Nassau Coliseum, students do not seem to be concerned.

up at the executive level years later because it isn’t just a job, it’s a career opportunity,” said David Paterson, former New York governor and a graduate of Hofstra Law School.

Additionally, Las Vegas Sands will be partnering with Nassau Community College to start a training program for students interested in working at the resort.

“The creation of a new industry with thousands of jobs in multiple sectors is a tremendous opportunity not only for our students but for the diverse populations we serve as a community college,” said Maria Conzatti, president of Nassau Community College. “Enhancing our curriculum with training programs, mentorship and internship opportunities in conjunction with an industry leader like Sands, provides an opportunity for adult students, career changers and all community members to be placed on successful career paths.”

Reese said that a similar project took place in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The Bethlehem steel mill that provided jobs for the majority of residents closed down, causing their community to suffer. However, Las Vegas Sands built a resort casino in 2009 in place of the abandoned mill.

“It revitalized that area, and Mayor Callahan spoke to that. I think the people of Bethlehem would speak fairly strongly that it did not impact their quality of

life in a way that was detrimental,” Reese said. “It brought jobs. It brought the opportunity for other people to be a part of it.”

Although a resort casino at the Nassau Coliseum may be financially beneficial for the community, Susan Poser, president of Hofstra University, has spoken outwardly against a casino within the vicinity of the university.

“Hofstra and the Hofstra board are against it,” Poser said. She wrote articles in Newsday and the Long Island Advocate stating her reasons for being against the casino. She said that after the publication, she received a lot of positive feedback from Hofstra alumni and the Hofstra board of trustees.

“A casino would be a shot in the arm,” Poser said. She raised concerns about the effects a casino could have on young people, the increased traffic and the potential for the casino to fail in coming years.

“There are so many students in the neighborhood,” Poser said. “That demonstrates a certain lack of care in the community.”

She is worried that students old enough to engage in gambling could develop addictions and antisocial behaviors such as crime and prostitution.

“That money is off the backs of people who oftentimes can’t afford to be gambling,” Poser said, saying that she fears a casino could create the possibility of students losing their financial

to make it family-friendly, there were things for all members of the family to do to the point that less than 40% of the people were going into the casinos, they were actually going to the other activities there.”

“I don’t think it necessarily reflects everyone’s feelings about it,” Morris said. “I’m not going to die going to the casino.”

“I don’t know any 21-yearold who would gamble all their money away,” said Julianna Kantor, a senior drama major.

Paterson said that some of the concerns about the mental and social effects of a casino come from outdated stereotypes

According to Reese, the casino would take up less than 10% of the proposed resort. However, Poser said that she thinks the property has the potential to grow as something that builds local businesses. The proposed resort casino will be high-end, and Poser believes that it would be more beneficial for the Coliseum to be turned into something that would serve the surrounding college population and low-income communities.

Paterson cited Jake’s 58, a resort casino and hotel in Islandia, as an example of how a casino may not negatively affect the community.

“They’ve been there for about seven or eight years now, and the police in Nassau and Suffolk have said that there’s been no increase in crime, no increase

propagated in the ‘50s and ‘60s that portray casinos as hubs for drugs, addictions and crime.

“All of that got changed in the early days by the Sands which was actually a convention company at the time, when they realized that they weren’t producing enough money to bring to conventions the services that they wanted, so they opened a casino company that inevitably became hotels,” Paterson said. “By doing that, they were able

of this antisocial activity that was supposed to be happening and no incidents of addiction [correlated] to the placement of Jake’s.”

The proposed Las Vegas Sands resort casino still needs to be approved, but with many differing opinions about the potential positive and negative effects of having a casino at the Nassau Coliseum, it remains unclear what the Coliseum will become.

A

of what the potential Las Vegas Sands casino resort would look like at the Nassau Coliseum.

The potential Las Vegas Sands casino resort would include a casino, hotel, restaurants, entertainment venues and spas.

Photo courtesy of Las Vegas Sands

Photo courtesy of Las Vegas Sands

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Photo courtesy of Hofstra University

Eleven fire alarms in Bill of Rights sets off students

Isabella LoBue, Nell Stultz and Jasmine Sellars

Hofstra University students living in Bill of Rights Hall experienced 11 fire alarms during the fall 2022 semester. Many of the alarms had been activated at night or early in the morning, leading to a growing discontent among students residing in the residence hall, who cited poor sleep and trouble focusing in class as a result of the disruptions.

The alarms were not fire drills and had been due to students’ actions, according to an email sent on Nov. 3, 2022, to residents by Doreen Dacilas, the residence director of Bill of Rights Hall.

William Sollins, the fire/life safety officer at Hofstra University, said that most of the activations had been accidental and were due to hair care products, excessive steam from the showers or burnt popcorn. The activations primarily were in different areas of the building – only one room set off the alarm twice.

“Only one emergency evacuation drill is scheduled per semester for our area,” the email sent by Dacilas read in part.

“All other events were the fire alarm actually being set off due to various behaviors and actions taking place within our hall.”

Sollins said it was common for there to be more alarms during the fall semester as students settled into their residence halls, but the number in Bill of Rights Hall that semester was “above average.”

The fire alarms have been fully equipped and functioning as expected in the past three years, as recorded in Hofstra’s Annual Security and Fire Safety Report.

“The system gets checked quarterly,” Sollins said. “It’s passed all tests in the last few years.”

The alarm activations being accidental didn’t make them any less disruptive to students who live in the building. Some started preparing in anticipation of a fire alarm going off.

“If the fire alarm goes off, I’m not in the right state of mind, so I’ve been keeping my wallet and keys in an accessible part of the room,” said Yasmin Cardoso, a senior comparative literature and Japanese double major. “I also keep my backpack packed and my phone fully charged just in case it happens during the day.”

Other students became almost unphased due to the frequency of alarms.

“After so many alarms, you start knowing that there’s no real emergency, so you kind of just give up. You get tempted to stay in the room,” said Sybil Eklof, a senior history and political science double major.

Mitchell Schare, a clinical psychology professor at Hofstra, affirmed these responses from students.

“The problem is [the alarms] become an annoyance rather than meaningful for the average person, but then we have people who are much more highly anxious than others,” Schare said. “How do they know when the alarms are important versus not important? They might even become more stressed out by that. People like that might not want to live in the dorms anymore.”

Resident assistants in Bill of Rights Hall received complaints from students but are at a loss for how to help.

“I wish I could be more helpful. Residents come to me asking if I know why they’re happening or if I can do anything to stop it. I don’t really have the power to stop it or investigate what’s happening,” said a resident assistant who requested anonymity. “If you’re

not on duty, we’re just regular residents. We’re sleeping or in the shower when they go off, and we get annoyed too. And then we still have to go downstairs like everyone else.”

Along with heightened anxiety and irritability, students who live in Bill of Rights Hall experienced deprivation and disruption of their sleep.

“It’s woken me up quite a few times when I’m trying to sleep in after working,” said Alexandra Kline, a junior English major with a concentration in creative writing. She is a resident safety representative on campus who typically works an overnight shift.

Schare, who also works with the Phobia and Trauma Clinic at Hofstra University’s Joan and Arnold Saltzman Community Services Center, emphasized how the disruption of sleep can impact students’ wellbeing.

“One of the things we’ve learned about working with traumatized people is we oftentimes have to work with their sleep habits first,” Schare said. “Without sufficient sleep, people become more agitated or anxious. It’s not really fair [to the students], it is upsetting and it’s not always easy to fall back asleep after this event.”

All students interviewed said that they have considered moving to another residence hall.

“If I were to spend another year at Hofstra, there’s no way I could choose Bill of Rights again. It’s close to the Student Center, but so is Alliance,” Eklof said. “It’s definitely a deal breaker for me to have to worry about the alarms.”

Photo courtesy of Maria Valdez

Students exit Bill of Rights Hall during a fire alarm activation on Dec. 10, 2022.

Students not satisfied with Hofstra’s gender inclusive dorms

By Neil Warsaw

The Hofstra University Office of Residence Life doubled the number of dorms allocated for gender-inclusive housing to fulfill the demand from students in the fall 2022 semester. The program started in Constitution Hall and now includes Enterprise and Estabrook Halls, all with gender-inclusive rooms on the 14th floors.

“Each year I saw a doubling or more from the previous year of students who are incoming first year students who were interested, so we were getting to the point where we were running out of spaces,” said Russ Smith, director of residential education.

The dorms are assigned to students upon specific request and have single stall lockable restrooms on the floors, according to Smith.

“It is really important for me to have a gender-neutral bathroom accessible,” said Giulian Romano, a freshman writing studies major.

The gender-inclusive housing also has the only rooms on campus where students of differing biological sex can live in the same room. This takes the form of four rooms that fit up to four people each, making up 16 of the 28 spaces for students to live, with the rest of the housing being rooms for a single person.

Despite expansions, some students still have issues living on these floors.

“The 14th floor is the only floor that doesn’t have elevator access,” said Valerie Dure, a sophomore history major. “One of my friends hurt his knees freshman year, and so he had to leave because he couldn’t physically walk to his dorm anymore.”

Accessibility is not something that the Office of Residence Life has had to consider, according to Smith.

“We have never received a request from a student that is

Public Safety Briefs

Compiled by Megan Naftali

looking to have an accessible space,” Smith said. “Should that ever occur, I think that would alter the way in which we offer those communities and the places we offer them.”

Moving to a more accessible space would also mean forgoing the single-stall restrooms, which is important for many of the residents.

“It’s a lose-lose,” said Skylar Homan, a computer science and mathematics major.

Another issue students have is the ability for cisgender students to freely move into the gender-inclusive dorms. While the space has not and will never be exclusionary to people of any gender, the ability for any student to move into the space can be a problem for the students who need the space the most.

“I need to make sure that I’m living with people who understand my experience and who are respectful and don’t make me feel unsafe,” Romano said, who had a problem when cisgender people moved into his room, leading him and his roommate to move out of gender-inclusive housing. “Being able to choose who I share my space with and knowing that we have this sense of community was important, and that wasn’t really paid attention to while I was on the 14th floor.”

The Office of Residence Life asserts that if students do not wish to have this occur, residents should find more students to live in their rooms.

Outside of this issue, the gender-inclusive floors have been able to provide a safe space for those who are able to live there, and the expansion of housing allocated has only allowed more students to reside in a space where they feel accepted.

Key

PS - Public Safety

CS - Community Standards

NCPD - Nassau County Police Department

On Dec. 23, at 9:17 p.m., the fire alarm in Jamestown House was activated due to a water flow problem. The fire alarm sounded, and the building was evacuated. PS, Plant and the Uniondale Fire Department responded. The situation was corrected, and the fire alarm was reset.

On Dec. 26, at 11 a.m., the head contractor at the east campus construction site reported to PS that they discovered that the lock on the northeast fence had been cut. Police assistance was declined, and an investigation into the matter is being conducted.

On Jan. 4, at 2:57 p.m., the fire alarm in Adams Hall was activated due to an odor. The fire alarm sounded, and the building was evacuated. PS, Plant and the Uniondale Fire Department responded. The situation was corrected, and the fire alarm was reset.

On Jan. 9, at 10:34 p.m., the fire alarm in the Graduate Residence Hall was activated due to a candle. The fire alarm sounded, and the building was evacuated. PS, Plant and the Uniondale Fire Department responded. The situation was corrected, and the fire alarm was reset.

On Jan. 11, at 6:45 p.m., the fire alarm in Amsterdam House was activated due to the sprinkler system. The fire alarm sounded, and the building was evacuated. PS, Plant and the Uniondale Fire Department responded. The situation was corrected, and the fire alarm was reset.

On Jan. 12, at 2:54 p.m., the fire alarm in the School of Medicine was activated due to burnt popcorn. The fire alarm sounded, and the building was evacuated. PS, Plant and the Uniondale Fire Department responded. The situation was corrected, and the fire alarm was reset.

On Jan. 19, at 2:20 p.m., a student reported to PS that he witnessed an unidentified male and female involved in a verbal and possibly physical dispute. The altercation occurred on campus near parking lot one. The two unidentified people entered a vehicle and left the scene. The NCPD responded for informational purposes only.

On Jan. 21, at 5:46 a.m., the fire alarm in Jamestown House was activated due to water flow issues. The fire alarm sounded, and the

building was evacuated. PS, Plant and the Uniondale Fire Department responded. The situation was corrected, and the fire alarm was reset.

On Jan. 22, at 8:31 a.m., the fire alarm in Gittleson Hall activated due to a motor that burned out. The fire alarm sounded, and the building was evacuated. PS, Plant and the Uniondale Fire Department responded. The situation was corrected, and the fire alarm was reset.

On Jan. 23, at 1:33 p.m., a student reported to PS that upon returning to their vehicle parked in the Colonial Square West parking lot, they discovered that the window seal on the right passenger side of the car was out of place. No other damage was found, and police assistance was declined.

On Jan. 24, at 1 p.m., the fire alarm in Norwich House was activated due to burnt food. The fire alarm sounded, and the building was evacuated. PS, Plant and the Uniondale Fire Department responded. The situation was corrected, and the fire alarm was reset.

Alexis Friedman / The Hofstra Chronicle

By Julian Rocha FEATURES EDITOR

There are many reasons to despise traveling through Penn Station. There is extremely limited seating available for travelers, the station can be crowded and difficult to navigate at times and if there’s a Knicks or Rangers home game, rowdy sports fans practically flood the corridors. However, Magnolia Bakery is a decadent oasis in the sea of chaotic travelers. Located in the Moynihan Train Hall, it sticks out with its inviting glass walls and bright, cheerful lights. Fans of “Sex and the City,” “The Devil Wears Prada” and “Spin City” might recognize the Magnolia Bakery name, as it has been mentioned in a variety of different shows and movies.

During my first time at Magnolia Bakery, I had no idea what to expect. A train station was one of the last places I expected to find a quality slice of cake, so I was very skeptical when I walked in. Immediately upon entering, the assortment of cupcakes caught my eye, each with a neat swirl of pastel frosting on top.

Those in search of breakfast instead of dessert can also find

Chron Critiques: Magnolia Bakery

what they need, as Magnolia Bakery opens at 7 a.m. everyday, with muffins and hot drinks such as tea and coffee elsewhere on the menu.

The service was impeccable; I never once felt rushed by the employees, even though they were moving at breakneck speed to put sweets in the hands of patrons. Most of the employees appeared to be college-aged, but they operated with the professionalism of customer service veterans.

When I am ordering dessert, I tend to stick to the simplest option on the menu, which, in this case was a slice of vanilla cake with buttercream frosting. As with many of the other items in the bakery, a lavender-colored smear of frosting adorned the slice, nicely contrasting the light, fluffy cake base. It is a much more sophisticated taste than a traditional birthday cake, as it is much more dense and filling.

Magnolia Bakery is a convenient spot to grab a sweet dessert or a cup of coffee during a commute or a jaunt around the city. Mere steps from the LIRR, it’s a must for anyone with a sweet tooth.

“However, Magnolia Bakery is a decadent oasis in the sea of chaotic travelers. Located in the Moynihan Train Hall, it sticks out with its inviting glass walls and bright, cheerful lights.”

Julian Rocha / The Hofstra Chronicle

By Zoe Casselman ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR

For my entire life, almost every room of my house has been adorned with wall-to-wall bookshelves. As I’ve gotten older, the shelves have overflowed with books, pooling onto tables, floors or wherever else has space. Some of the older shelves dip in the middle, showing the weight they’ve continued to gain over the years. To some, this plethora of books may seem excessive, but to my mother, and now myself, any slight opening is just room for another good book.

My mother has always been a literature fanatic, working hard to curate an extensive collection of novels and publications from all genres. When I was younger and began to similarly digest books at an increasingly rapid pace, she was there as I finished each one to give me new suggestions and recommendations. She took the time to guide me around the house to find my next read in accordance

Personal Essay: Books

with what seemed like her own personal, indecipherable library system, and every time, I ended the tour with a different book in my hand.

It’s no surprise that I adopted a similar fondness for books after watching my mother read. There was, and still is, not a single day I don’t see her constantly reading. Rain or shine, she sits on the front porch, engrossed in whatever has her momentary attention. Now, at the rate my mother devours books, rather than swapping out hard copies every time she completes one, she totes an e-reader around with her wherever she goes. She actually owns two, but since she always has one turned on and in hand, whenever one of them runs out of battery, she plugs it in and swaps to the other, so she doesn’t have to wait and stop reading while it charges.

I, however, have not moved on from my love of physical copies, and luckily for me, we have plenty. My mother taught me the incomparable feeling of cracking

open a new book’s fresh spine and smelling the aged paper and glue holding the pages together. Whenever I would start a book, I’d sit in my room for hours consuming every word. Each book pushed me to read more and more, even if there were parts or words I didn’t understand. Whenever that happened, I would approach my mom, holding whatever book I was reading to an open page, pointing to the unfamiliar word or phrase. I would ask her what it meant, and rather than just telling me what she already knew, she’d either silently point to a familiar shelf or tell me, “You know where the dictionary is.”

So, each time I encountered an unknown word, I would pull the enormous dictionary from its home and slowly flip through the pages to find what I was looking for. Eventually, as I grew and began reading more advanced literature, I started keeping a notebook full of these new words, writing each one alongside their

definition just in case I saw them again later. I created my own dictionary of words I liked, found interesting or simply didn’t know before. While now she can’t force me to pick up the dictionary and flip through it, I still take the time to search up every word I don’t recognize and write it down just in case.

In what seems like a natural progression, my instilled adoration for reading has turned into an immense love for writing. Seeing my mother enjoy the written word so much inspired me to begin attempting to create my own stories to entertain her as much as the books she purchased did. At first, I was frustrated that rather than just enjoying what I wrote for her, my mother sat with me

and corrected my writing instead of praising my work. She would walk me through the process of fixing each faulty sentence, misspelled word or incorrect grammatical structure, telling me what I did wrong and how to make it better. Even now I come to her with almost everything I write, specifically requesting her keen eye to find and point out each area I could adjust to make better. To this day, I have never seen someone who loves books and reading as much as my mother does. Without her, I would never have discovered my love for reading and writing, much less end up basing my future around it. So, all I can say is: I’m glad my mom taught me how to read.

Poem: ‘The Moon’

By Zoe Casselman ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR

I look up. It’s dark, And the midnight sky stares back at me The moon’s gaze resolute.

She watches me, The moon, Delivering her messages in phases, Showing me shallow shadows In place of speech

Tonight, She is full. She knows I know this And she challenges me, Bright and greedy, Presenting her completeness

As if it were a prize she had won,

Like she were not Just as empty as I Only a week ago.

This angers me, Her wholeness, The rage bubbling from my body like boiling water, The feeling forcefully expelled from my eyes and landing on my cheeks. Perhaps my tears will dim her glow.

When she returns

To her faint crescent smile, I will be under her, Waiting, Anticipating her empty newness Once again.

“Seeing my mother enjoy the written word so much inspired me to begin attempting to create my own stories to entertain her as much as the books she purchased did.”

Photo courtesy of Alexander Andrews / Unsplash

Photo courtesy of Pickawood / Unsplash

M AN ON THE U NISPAN

What reality show would you like to be on?

By Zoe Casselman and Jessica Levy ASSISTANT FEATURES EDITOR AND SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

@ h O fstra

“I will not wear a leash during Black History Month.”

“I don’t really watch reality TV, but I would be in ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ to watch it all unfold like a fly on the wall and say, ‘Oh wow, she really said that.’”

“I told my friends that we’re not allowed to have premarital eye contact.”

“Hey, I’m not a bitch, I’m your bitch.”

“Why do all boys your age look homeless?”

“Yo, that guy is so hot!”

“I wanna be on ‘The Price is Right’ because I grew up watching that show, so it would be fun.”

“I would go on ‘Wipeout.’ Even just to be starfished and thrown off of a ledge would be fun. I’d just go for the vibes.”

- Isabella Urgiles, sophomore

“He’s a fish!”

“After meeting him, I started believing in God again.”

“This is not a frat house, this is a frat home.”

“This is good because I like to hit people.”

“I’m a profesional ass wiper, basically.”

Spread by Audra Nemirow

- Ryan Demino, junior

- Hailey Eggiman, junior

Julian Rocha / The Hofstra Chronicle

Person 1

Person 2

By Natalie Correa STAFF WRITER

Do you want to make your own pickles without risking botulism? With these quick, ready-to-eat pickled red onions, you can experience the basic thrill of pickled veggies in your own home! You can easily finagle the ingredients with vinegar from Dutch and some salt and sugar packets from campus, leaving only the onion to be found elsewhere.

Chron Cooks ft. Natalie Correa: Pickled Onions

Ingredients:

1 red onion

½ teaspoon of salt

½ teaspoon of sugar

Vinegar (any kind works, but white produces the best color)

Water

Instructions:

1. Slice the red onion into either rings or slivers. Place into the container. (Optional: Rinse in cold water to get rid of some of the spiciness of the raw onion.)

2. Add in the salt and sugar.

3. Pour vinegar about two-thirds of the way of the container for a quicker pickle (to eat within 15 minutes) or halfway for a milder taste (recommended if consuming over a few days).

4. Top the container with water, leaving at least half an inch to an inch of space from the top of the container, depending on the size.

5. Seal the container and shake. Alternatively, stir together if shaking isn’t possible.

6. Let sit for at least 15 minutes before eating. Store up to a week in the fridge in a tightly sealed container. To ensure freshness, only use clean utensils in the jar as you consume them.

Natalie Correa / The Hofstra Chronicle

Snowhere to be seen

Hofstra University’s spring 2023 semester began on Monday, Jan. 30. Students returned to a campus untouched by snow as nearby New York City broke a 50-year record for going this far into winter without measurable snowfall. Despite the lack of precipitation, the university has planned several winter activities to welcome students back to campus.

Spread by Jacob Lewis

Emma Fabilli / The Hofstra Chronicle

Student involvement fair in the Student Center on Wednesday, Feb. 1, from 1-3 p.m.

Ice skating in Pride Park on Thursday, Feb. 2, from 5-9 p.m.

Board game night hosted by HofTop in the Student Center on Thursday, Feb. 2, from 6-10 p.m.

Instant ramen tasting event in the Student Center on Friday, Feb. 3, from 1-2:30 p.m.

Hofstra Opera Theater presents La Clemenza di Tito in the Adams Playhouse on Friday, Feb. 3, at 8 p.m.

Hofstra Men’s Basketball Homecoming Game in the Mack Sports Complex on Saturday, Feb. 4, at 4 p.m.

Courtesy of Hofstra University

Courtesy of Hofstra University Athletics

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Emma Fabilli / The Hofstra Chronicle

Emma Fabilli / The Hofstra Chronicle

Arts And EntErtAinmEnt

VOL. 89 ISSUE 1

By Kat Salmon ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

When “Teen Wolf” premiered in 2011, MTV did not know that the little TV show would develop a huge fanbase. The show, based on the 1985 movie of the same name, ran for six seasons on the network. It followed Scott McCall (Tyler Posey) as he navigated becoming a werewolf with the help of his friends. Now, six years after the show’s conclusion, the creators have released the long-awaited movie, which takes place 15 years after the death of Allison Argent (Crystal Reed), Scott’s first love who died in the show’s third season.

Fans were excited when a movie was announced because there were some unanswered questions at the end of the show that needed to be acknowledged. Unfortunately, some of those questions still have not been answered. The movie was also lacking a major character: there was no appearance of Stiles

Quick Hits ‘Teen Wolf’ returns

(Dylan O’Brien), Scott’s lovable and sarcastic best friend, due to scheduling conflicts.

The movie centers on the return of the Nogitsune, a villain from the show’s third season. He has come back to finish what he started all those years ago when he possessed Stiles and murdered innocent people. Plus, Allison has seemingly returned from the dead, adding to the chaos.

“Teen Wolf: The Movie” really was made for the fans because, while not all of the loose ends were tied, it was nice seeing most of these beloved characters on screen again.

The movie also featured the return of Derek Hale (Tyler Hoechlin), a werewolf who acts as a brother type figure and guide to Scott when he first gets bitten. It was quite baffling to see Derek as a father, but it suits him. Derek will do anything for his son, Eli (Vince Mattis). Eli shows more characteristics of Stiles than the rest of his family, though. It’s funny because Derek and Stiles

had a complicated friendship. Eli even has a fascination with Stiles’ beloved Jeep that has surprisingly not fallen apart yet. He takes it for joyrides around Beacon Hills, despite only being 15. It is never revealed who his mother is, but Eli slightly resembles Kate Argent (Jill Wagner), Allison’s werewolf hunter aunt who had a romantic past with Derek, so maybe he is her son. Hopefully, there will be more “Teen Wolf” installments that will answer this question.

The foreshadowing of Eli leading the new generation of the Pack was also nice to see. He wears Scott’s number on the lacrosse field, hinting at his future as an Alpha.

The most unexpected pairing was Malia (Shelley Hennig) and Parrish (Ryan Kelley) as a couple. Fans get to see the werecoyote and Hell Hound, important people in Scott’s Pack, hooking up at Malia’s garage, Hale Auto. At the end of the show, Malia was with Scott, and they

seemed like such a good match. Malia is the daughter of Peter (Ian Bohen), who was the Alpha that bit Scott. Their relationship made sense. The writers obviously had other ideas in mind but his relationship with Malia should have been explored in the movie. Malia and Parrish just do not make sense together.

A major change from the original show was the use of profanity, but it was utilized well and felt natural. Hearing Derek say, “Parrish, light this fucker up,” was the most in-character line in the whole film.

The movie did leave the audience with some unanswered questions. Will Stiles and Lydia (Holland Roden) get back together? When did Mama McCall (Melissa Ponzio) have time to get her PhD? One can only hope that the writers chose to create more stories in the “Teen Wolf” universe. If you are a fan of the original series, you will definitely have a good time with “Teen Wolf: The Movie.”

Måneskin’s emotional and musical versatility debuts in ‘RUSH!’

By Alexis Friedman EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

The very first beat of Ethan Torchio’s drums on the first track “OWN MY MIND” of Måneskin’s new album “RUSH!” captivates listeners with its seductively dark punk rock tempo, lyrics and sound, making it nearly impossible to not fully feel each and every beat on the highly anticipated third studio album.

Released on Friday, Jan. 20, the Italian rock band’s album title vocalizes the hectic life the group has led during their recent rise to the global spotlight after winning the Eurovision competition in 2021 with their song “Zitti e buoni.”

A major difference between the 17-song track list of “RUSH!” and any of their previous albums is not only more songs than they have had on an album before, but also the frequency of their songs written and sung in English.

Fourteen of the 17 tracks are in English, while only three remain in their native Italian. In Måneskin’s previous albums, which typically featured a

maximum of 12 tracks, over half of the songs were primarily in Italian.

The emotional depth in each of Måneskin’s influx of English songs on “RUSH!” is unparalleled to any of their previous songs sung in English compared to Italian.

The single “MAMMAMIA” released way back in Oct. 2021, well before knowledge of “RUSH!” was public, hinted at Måneskin’s take on a punk-rock sound. The pre-album release of “GOSSIP,” featuring Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, fully solidified their musical adjustment to a richer, grittier punk sound.

Since the album’s release, critics have been hailing “KOOL KIDS” as sounding more like British punk, which the BBC describes as transforming lead singer Damiano David into an “Italianate version of Johnny Rotten.” David shared with BBC how the band wanted it to be a grittier bar anthem, “so I got drunk on purpose, and I shouted as hard as I can.”

There is not a single song on this album that sounds unattractive. The power of David’s vocals paired with Torchino’s fastest drum rhythms yet, Victoria De Angelis’ powerful bass underlying the entire work and Thomas Raggi’s intense guitar solos, especially in the intro to the power ballad “THE LONELIEST,” makes this album a true masterpiece. While the abrupt transition from the grittiness of “KOOL KIDS” to the softness of “IF NOT FOR YOU” is jarring, the most substantial critique of “RUSH!” is the addition of three singles that have been out cumulatively for more than a year tacked on at the end in chronological order of release

The songs themselves are great, but the organization of them into the tracklist felt like they were a hasty decision to include.

The gritty punk tone present throughout “GASOLINE” hypnotizes listeners to want to rock. The knowledge that the song took inspiration from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and was released as a benefit for the relief efforts of Global Citizens Fund vastly strengthens its musical power and the human connection spawning from it.

“MARK CHAPMAN” is the highlight of the three Italian tracks and has the fastest beats per minute of any of their previous songs. It tells of the profound idolization and obsession Mark David Chapman had with the Beatles, written from the assumed perspective of John Lennon, who died at the hands of Chapman in 1980.

“RUSH!” by Måneskin is yet another work of musical artistry, growing their repertoire from Italian rock to English punk rock and British punk. The album debuted at No. 1 on iTunes charts in over 20 countries and is available for streaming.

Courtesy of Vogue

Courtesy of CNN

Courtesy of People

Good Morning America co-stars Amy Robach and T.J. Holmes are both leaving ABC after a rumored romantic affair.

Netflix’s “The Recruit” has been renewed for Season 2.

Chase Stokes is set to star in the adaptation of Jay Crownover’s “Marked Men” new adult romance series.

Taylor Swift released the music video of “Lavender Haze” on Friday, Jan. 27.

Courtesy of Entertainment Weekly

Alexis Friedman, our editor-in-chief, had the opportunity to meet the band!

Courtesy of People

HBO’s “Succession” will premiere its fourth season on March 26.

Photo courtesy of Looney Tunes Music and More

Are video game adaptations Hollywood’s next goldmine?

By Aidan Judge ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

Trends tend to come and go rather quickly in the short-attention-span world of easily disposable media which we currently live in. The world of film in particular is an arena that is dependent on creating new trends and concepts that must be followed in order to create a modern-day blockbuster. In the 2000s and 2010s, it was the art of the classic film remake, including films like 2018’s “A Star is Born” and 2012’s “Red Dawn,” that garnered the attention of audiences looking for a blast of nostalgia and familiarness when they entered the movie theater. Around the same time, the rise of the superhero film dynasty also brought audiences into theaters, creating unfathomable billion-dollar numbers at the box office, catapulting movie revenue to heights the industry had never seen before. As of late, Hollywood may be serving up a new trend in film creation that

will bring in audiences of similar, or greater, magnitudes – video game adaptations.

On Sunday, Jan. 15, HBO premiered “The Last of Us,” an adaptation of the 2013 video game of the same name, created for the PlayStation 3. The game had seen great success, selling a whopping 1.3 million copies during its first launch week. The HBO series adaptation of the franchise saw similar success; in its first day after release, the series became the second most watched premiere of an HBO series ever, only being surpassed by 2022’s “House of the Dragon.” It seems fans of “The Last of Us” showed up for their favorite game by watching the first episode of

the show (which has stunningly positive reviews across all major outlets), and Hollywood appears to be taking notes.

Before success of shows like

By Jacob Genest

SPECIAL TO THE CHRONICLE

Since the release of his previous two albums, “After Hours” and “Dawn FM,” The Weeknd has taken the Billboard charts by storm, shattered streaming records, earned his fourth diamond-certified song and rocked a record-breaking tour. His latest big accomplishment, you ask? Becoming the world’s number one

most streamed artist on Spotify.

The Weeknd has overthrown Ed Sheeran’s long-held reign of the platform. Not only has The Weeknd claimed the number one spot, but he has also broken the record for the most monthly listeners ever achieved by any artist in Spotify history. At the time of this writing, the superstar is sitting on a whopping 97,135,513 monthly listeners worldwide, just under 20 million more than Ed Sheeran,

“Arcane” (an Emmy-winning animated series based on “League of Legends”), video game adaptations in film and television had been dismissed as unsuccessful. Creators

in Hollywood just didn’t seem to understand how to make a smooth transition from the console to the big screen; in the 1990s and 2000s, franchises like “Mortal Kombat” and “Resident Evil” were adapted into film franchises and were promptly torn to shreds by critics and audiences. However, HBO’s premiere success with “The Last of Us” is seemingly a good omen for video game adaptations. Illumination Entertainment and Universal’s “The Super Mario Bros Movie,” slated for release this spring, boasts a starstudded cast featuring Jack Black, Anya TaylorJoy and Chris Pratt, and it is one of the year’s most anticipated animated releases. Even tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons are being adapted into full-on franchises, with the first “Dungeons and Dragons” film scheduled for release on

March 31.

So, what possibilities are there for the world of video games in film and television? Well, it’s hard to top video games in terms of lore that could be used for a film. Super complex games like “Skyrim” and “Breath of the Wild” seem like perfect candidates for film and television adaptation when put on paper – hundreds of episode ideas and film concepts spring from the deeply detailed components of video games. Another plus is the built in fanbase that video games already possess; as seen with “The Last of Us,” if an adaptation is marketed well and done right, fans will show up for their favorites. It seems like, for the first time, Hollywood is finally reaching into the untapped market of video games in a proper way and setting up the path to success for future franchise adaptations. Keep an eye out – you never know when your favorite console game may turn up on the silver screen.

All hail the king of Spotify

and just below 18 million more than Taylor Swift, who briefly overruled Sheeran following the release of her smash hit record “Midnights” and who currently holds the number two spot behind the Weeknd.

So how did Spotify’s biggest star get to this point? Let’s take a look at some of the icon’s recent headline-grabbing achievements.

The Weeknd’s fourth studio album, “After Hours,” released in 2020 and debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 444,000 album-equivalent units sold in the first week. It would go on to become the longest running number one album on the Billboard Top R&B Albums chart in history at 40 weeks. The album’s hit single, “Blinding Lights,” would become Spotify’s higheststreamed song ever (currently sitting at over 3.3 billion streams) and one of The Weeknd’s four current diamond-certified songs. Although the world of music was flipped upside down by the pandemic, the fact that people

turned to music streaming as one of the most effective ways to maintain their sanity in quarantine worked to The Weeknd’s advantage. TikTok is largely to thank for the artist’s pandemic success.

Following the album’s launch, there came a point in time where you simply could not escape songs like “Blinding Lights” or “Save Your Tears,” another record-breaking “After Hours” hit, while scrolling through the “For You” page. Despite the inability to tour at the time, the star headlined the 2021 Super Bowl Halftime Show, where he was able to give fans a live taste of the songs they’d been holding on to throughout quarantine.

Two years later, The Weeknd showed no plans of slowing down, releasing his fifth studio album, “Dawn FM.” The project charted 24 songs on the Billboard Global 200 chart, setting the record for most entries in a single week by a solo male performer.

With the touring industry nonexistent during the release

of “After Hours,” The Weeknd decided to embark on a combined album tour which he named the “After Hours til Dawn Tour,” as the world began to slowly open up again.

The North American leg of the tour took place this past summer, where The Weeknd broke the record for the highest-grossing show by a Black artist with his So-Fi Stadium show in Los Angeles, raking in over $11 million.

The international leg of the tour is set to begin this upcoming summer. As for his most recent feats helping him to demand the Spotify crown, The Weeknd has reclaimed a top 10 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 with his 2016 single, “Die For You,” and has shared in the chart success of Metro Boomin’s newest hit, “Creepin’,” on which he is featured.

The Weeknd vowed to stop submitting his music for Grammy nomination consideration in 2020.

Photo courtesy of HBO

“The Last of Us” features Bella Ramsey and Pedro Pascal.

Photo courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter

Said’ reminds the people of the power of the press

By Michelle Rabinovich SPORTS EDITOR

Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey did what most journalists only aspire to do – prove that the pen is mightier than the sword. Their article exposing entertainment industry giant Harvey Weinstein’s abuse and sexual misconduct in 2017 made ripples; their exposé was credited as the launching pad for the #MeToo movement, earning Kantor and Twohey a Pulitzer Prize and giving the world “She Said” in book and movie form to chronicle how they worked their way up from hearing a tip on Weinstein to clicking publish.

The opening scene perfectly mirrored the lead of the original article: a young woman looking to succeed in the entertainment business, only to have found its dark underbelly as seen by her running away from a building, mascara messy and clothes barely thrown on, eyes filled with horror.

The writing duo faced a multitude of curveballs, both in their professional and personal spheres.

The movie opened with a heavily

By Mac Sykes

ASSISTANT ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

The nominations for the 95th Oscars were officially announced Tuesday, Jan. 24, with a more diverse lineup than in recent years of the Academy’s history. First on the list for Best Picture is “All Quiet on the Western Front,” the first time in Oscar history a German language film has been nominated for an award outside of the Best Foreign Film category. This nomination is followed by the long-awaited sequel “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which has recently passed over $2 billion at the box office and is currently listed as the sixth highest grossing film of all time.

Rounding out the list is “The Banshees of Inisherin,” the biopic “Elvis,” the widely acclaimed “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the semi-autobiographical “The Fablemans” by renowned filmmaker Steven Spielberg, “Tár,” which also earned Cate

pregnant Twohey, portrayed by Carey Mulligan, interviewing a source and convincing them to go on the record for her investigation into then-President Donald Trump’s sexual misconduct. Later in the film, after the birth of her daughter, she shows signs of postpartum depression, confides in Kantor (Zoe Kazan) about it and asks for advice.

On the flip side, Kantor repeatedly runs into walls while attempting to get confirmed information, truly capturing the essence of the real struggle that journalists worldwide face. Struggling to get sources to go on the record, dealing with threatening phone calls from strangers and

Weinstein’s far-reaching social connections attempting to keep him from consequences did not make this story easy to tell.

While the two women were

potential victims as possible, traveling all the way to the West Coast and the United Kingdom in hopes of at least one person going on the record to inspire all the others.

working toward the same goal, their characters could not have been more starkly contrasted. Kantor is the one who went to interview as many

Twohey, on the other hand, showed that fierce, New Yorker-esque “I-owe-younothing” attitude. In a scene where she, Kantor and their editor went out to a bar for lunch, some guy hit on them relentlessly, and after telling him to leave twice, Twohey hit the table and yelled, “Fuck you, get the fuck out of here!” When she apologized to her colleagues, Kantor grinned and told her not to.

No doubt that other aspiring jour-

The nominees are...

Blanchett her fifth nomination for Best Actress, the surprisingly nominated “Top Gun: Maverick” and the overlooked “Triangle of Sadness” and “Women Talking.”

The list presents a diverse mix of pieces, including genres such as drama, coming of age, absurdist, anti-war epic, action and science fiction, in comparison to past years which has tended to focus solely on drama.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” collected the most nominations this year, with a total of 11. Other pending awards fall in the Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Original Screenplay, Original Song and Score, Best Costume Design and Editing categories.

“All Quiet on the Western Front” followed closely behind,

with a total of nine nominations, ranging from Best Adapted Screenplay, Best International

nalists watched this movie and felt a sense of pride at the end of the film. The suspense was palpable when one of Kantor’s sources returned her call and said that she was willing to go on the record about her traumatic experiences. After letting this story nearly consume her and Twohey, and fact-checking and verifying every little detail, everyone told them that having someone’s name to attach to their article was the final piece of the puzzle. Twohey’s inspirational line to skeptical sources is one of the best in the movie: “I can’t change what happened to you in the past, but together we may be able to use your experience to help protect other people.”

At the end of the day, after their article went live in the Wall Street Journal, over 80 other women came forward to talk about Weinstein’s misconduct. All of that hard work culminated in a 23-year prison sentence for the disgraced producer, effective Feb. 2020.

“She Said” served as a powerful reminder of the power of journalism: the ability to uncover dirty secrets for the betterment of society.

Feature for Germany, Best Original Score, Sound, Production Design and Visual Effects, in addition to its Best Picture nomination. Surprisingly, the film did not receive a nomination for best directing despite being highly praised for such by various outlets and reviewers since its release.

Lady Gaga received a nomination for her song in “Top Gun:

Maverick,” “Hold My Hand,” her third in the Best Original Song category. Other songs nominated in this category included “Applause” from “Tell It Like a Woman” – music and lyrics by Diane Warren, “Lift Me Up” from “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” – music by Tems, Rihanna, Ryan Coogler and Ludwig Göransson, “Naatu Naatu” from “RRR” – music by M. M. Keeravani and “This Is a Life” from “Everything Everywhere All at Once” – Music by Ryan Lott, David Byrne and Mitski.

Interestingly enough, the hit singer songwriter Taylor Swift, riding off the success of her newest album “Midnights” and set to debut on her “Eras” tour in the coming weeks, received no nomination for her song “Carolina” despite its popularity

and the accolades she received from other major associations this award season, most recently at the Golden Globes. The song was from the polarizing film “Where the Crawdads Sing,” with many critics claiming her song was one of the only redeeming qualities of the film itself.

Despite the unique mix of genres, the Academy has continued to be scrutinized for its lack of diversity toward the actual nominees themselves, with the majority being white – a growing trend that has led many to boycott the Oscars in the past few years. Jimmy Kimmel will return to host the Oscars for a third time, following the controversial decision for no one to host the past two years, resulting in the lowest recorded viewership in the Academy’s history. We will just have to see how the Oscars play out on March 25, and wait to see if the Academy will change its nomination practices and presentation in years to come. For a full list of nominees, visit the Academy’s website.

‘She

The nominations were revealed in an article published by Variety.

Photo courtesy of Readers Digest

“She Said” is available to stream on Peacock.

Photo courtesy of iMDB

George Santos, a rising star of the Republican Party

By Lincoln Anniballi

Not long after George Santos was elected to represent New York’s 3rd Congressional District, he was exposed as a pathological liar. Santos lied about everything, from his education and career to his mother’s death due to 9/11 (she was in Brazil in 2001) and his grandparents’ persecution in the Holocaust (there is no evidence of this). In New York and across the country, Americans lambasted the congressman-elect to step down before his inauguration. Even the Nassau County GOP called for his resignation.

After his lies were exposed, Santos was accused of skirting campaign finance laws, leading to complaints with the Federal Election Commission and New York state.

While Santos has made a national name for himself as a liar and con man, will any of this really matter to an electorate that

has the memory of a goldfish?

In politics, name recognition is everything and George Santos has it. When Republicans in the 3rd District go to vote in 2024, will they even care about Santos’ “exaggerations?”

In a party that has openly embraced using lies and misinformation to win, it seems hard to believe that Santos won’t have a bright future in the GOP. The radical right, including representatives like Marjorie Taylor Greene, have promoted baseless conspiracy theories claiming mass shootings were faked, Jewish space lasers lit forest fires and 9/11 was an inside job (that may or may not have killed Santos’ mom). Greene isn’t alone in Congress; Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy reportedly said, “I will never leave that woman ... I will always take care of her.”

Beyond the GOP, our entire political culture has been built on deception and corruption.

Members on both sides perform in front of the cameras and do little behind closed doors. Democrats and Republicans make hoards each year by pseudo insider trading, and both take billions of undisclosed dollars in shady donations each election cycle. Our representatives have put their ambitions ahead of their constituents and tricked U.S. citizens in the process. The difference between George Santos and the average representative is that he lied before he was elected – the others have more patience and lie while in office.

In the current state of polarization, a Republican would rather have the lying George Santos as their representative than a “radical-leftist” from the Democratic party. Partisans have vilified anyone who doesn’t embrace the party banner. Voters have been told not to question the status quo out of fear it will lead to the victory of the “awful” opposition.

When Joe Biden made his first run for president in 1988, he was compelled to drop out after it was revealed he had plagiarized a speech by a British politician, lied about his success in university and falsely claimed to have written law review articles about Roe v. Wade. Throughout his 2020 campaign, Biden made ludicrous statements like when he claimed he was arrested in South Africa for opposing apartheid. Biden’s career of lies led him to become, as the New York Times termed it, the “Storyteller in Chief.”

Even if George Santos doesn’t become president in 30 years, he’ll have a bright future in politics. Republicans haven’t signaled they’ll dissociate with the representative; in fact, they have assigned him to committees – a privilege Greene was stripped of.

If Santos plays his cards right and embraces the establishment, the Republican Party will

surely fund his re-election in the swing district. If his voters make the right decision and boot him, he can seamlessly slide into the private sector. Lobbies, think tanks and media networks clamor for ex-representatives with big names, no matter how disgraced.

George Santos is now one of the few representatives that has national recognition. Americans don’t trust most of Congress, and in a party that openly embraces lies, Santos is in with a fitting crowd. The new representative speaks to Mark Twain’s timeless remark, “Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”

Lincoln Anniballi is a sophomore politcal science major. He can be found on Twitter @LincMass.

Leave Ozempic for those that need it most

CONTINUED FROM A1

For adults with Type 2 diabetes, their pancreas makes insulin, but their cells cannot process it correctly, causing blood sugar levels to rise.

Adults who are overweight or obese have higher chances of developing Type 2 diabetes, hence why many are prescribed Ozempic by doctors. In fact, it is potentially lifesaving for those with heart conditions.

The drug is specifically used to treat diabetes, yet wealthy celebrities are being accused of abusing the drug in order to lose weight and conform to the revival of thin frames being “in style.” This is causing a shortage of the drug, and people who need it for medical reasons are having a hard time getting it.

It’s problematic that body shapes are considered “trends,”

but this is just another cycle that has been repeating itself for decades. In the 1920s, women were expected to have androgynous, thin figures that represented the freeness of the ‘20s; only 10 years later, they were expected to resemble Marilyn Monroe. Brands began marketing weight-gaining drugs, writing, “Don’t let them call you SKINNY ... Ask for amazing Wate-On.” The use of potentially harmful weight gain or loss drugs is not something new, which is why it’s shocking that this is a problem currently being dealt with.

There is no hard evidence that celebrities are using Ozempic, but Kim Kardashian’s Met Gala controversy sparked the debate. She publicly stated that she lost 16 pounds in three weeks to fit into Marilyn Monroe’s iconic “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dress, leading to

questions as to whether she lost the weight in a healthy way.

Actress Mindy Kaling, best known for her work in the NBC sitcom “The Office,” recently posted pictures on Instagram that prompted comments about her weight loss. There have been rumors on social media that Kaling has hosted Ozempic parties, but this is not proven.

Elon Musk posted on his Twitter account that he lost weight by “Fasting + Ozempic/Wegovy + No tasty food near me.” Wegovy is another drug prescribed specifically for overweight adults, but not those with Type 2 diabetes. There is no definitive proof that this is how he lost his weight or if it was just a throwaway comment, but it still promotes weight loss through the use of over-the-counter drugs.

Whether or not celebrities are really using Ozempic, it’s

now giving ideas to middle-upper-class individuals who wish to lose weight themselves.

Because it has been called a “miracle cure” for weight loss, a worldwide Ozempic shortage has resulted. One dose of the drug costs around $1,000 retail price, and it is recommended to be used for a minimum of four weeks.

The side effects include severe nausea, stomach pain, diarrhea and, in extreme cases, damage to organs like the kidneys and pancreas. Not only that, but Type 2 diabetics are warned that Ozempic may cause dangerously low blood sugar. If individuals with high blood sugar are warned of blood sugar drops, those who are taking Ozempic only for weight loss and not in relation to diabetes are at an even greater risk.

There are methods to lose

weight in a healthy way that do not put oneself or others in danger. Taking Ozempic can pose serious risks to one’s health while reducing availability to those who truly need it – people with Type 2 diabetes. There are drugs made for adults who are overweight – such as Wegovy, yet they also come with risks.

The bottom line is that if you want to lose weight, do it in a healthy way; making yourself feel good should be the goal.

Makenzie Hurt is a sophomore English major with a concentration in literature and a journalism minor. She is also the assistant opinion editor. You can find her on Instagram @makenziehurt.

The views and opinions expressed in the Opinion section are those of the authors. They are not an endorsement of the views of The Chronicle or its staff. The Chronicle does not discriminate based on the opinions of the authors.

Graphic by Ethan Albin / The Hofstra Chronicle

Stick with your fitness goals this new year

By Ethan Albin

As the new year begins, one thing is certain: the gym is filled with plenty of New Year’s resolutioners looking to better themselves this year. This is a common resolution, but one that is often met with skepticism and doubt; studies done by Healthline show that a majority of such resolutions go unresolved.

This is caused by a plethora of things, including scheduling conflicts, lack of motivation or knowledge of exercise, laziness, fear of embarrassment and few immediate results. However, sticking to a new habit of exercising can be extraordinarily helpful in the long term.

Harvard researchers found that “people who followed the minimum guidelines for physical activity – 150-300 minutes per week of moderate-intensity activity, or 75-150 minutes per week of vigorous-intensity activity – reduced their risk of early death by as much as 21%.”

Scheduling conflicts or “little

By Makenzie Hurt

It used to be common for people to pass down clothing or jewelry to their younger family members. Consider the gold necklace that your grandmother gave you or the coat that your father wore in the eighties. Sure, you can try to pass those things down to your future children, but ever-changing trends and the rise of fast fashion mean that current clothing is not crafted to withstand more than a few months.

All of these pieces end up in landfills, since they typically tarnish too quickly to even be donated, only contributing to global pollution. It’s obvious that fast fashion is leading our environment in a poor direction, especially when compared to the craftsmanship of past generations.

It’s common to blame companies like Shein for the

to no time” are common excuses used to justify not sticking to one’s resolution. The thought is that working out takes an inordinate amount of time, and many who work a nine-to-five claim there’s no time that works for them. Whether the issue truly lies in time management or being able to take an easy way out of one’s resolution isn’t clear, but Healthline studies show that weightlifting exercises can be effective with only “45-60 minute sessions” while cardio or calisthenics only need “30-60 minutes” to be effective.

So, with merely an hour of time needed for an productive workout, it isn’t an unrealistic goal. Granted, a nine-to-five is quite a grueling schedule, with most of the day being filled with work, but there’s always a way to exercise. Whether it be bodyweight calisthenics such as push-ups, jumping jacks or situps or a weightlifting regimen in a private or commercial gym, there’s always an option. There are upward of 2,000 Planet Fit-

ness locations across the country, which means there should be a commercial gym that charges as little as $10 a month and is open all day somewhere nearby. As Hofstra students, we have an on-campus gym that is open from 7:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. It’s truly in your hands to take the initiative to go, which is where the lack of motivation starts to appear.

Everybody has their own reasons for choosing a fitnessbased resolution, whether it’s to become healthier, gain muscle or strength or for appearances. Whatever the reason, one should always remember their motivation for setting these goals in the first place. People tend to have trouble getting into exerciserelated habits because it takes effort to begin.

You must battle laziness and get out of bed of your own volition, take yourself to the gym and then find a way to stay focused on the exercise at hand. All of this may seem

daunting, but those within the industry have discovered ways to approach it. Sharon Zarabi, a personal trainer and registered dietician in New York, has found that setting SMART goals helps her clients. In an interview with Healthline, she stated, “[SMART goals are] specific, they’re measurable, they’re attainable, they’re relevant and they’re timely. In other words, set clear, specific goals – e.g. visit the gym for 30 minutes three times a week – that are actually realistic and not so farfetched.”

By setting simple yet achievable goals one should be able to motivate themselves to complete them. The feeling after achieving one of these goals is second to none; it’s so fulfilling knowing you’ve mustered the strength and courage to complete your own physical feat.

Lastly, many newcomers claim they don’t know what to do at the gym. To that I say, there are plenty of places to look. The app store has plenty

of apps developed to specifically teach users new exercises and explain each area they target.

There are fitness influencers on social media such as JPGCOACHING, Max Taylor and Analis Cruz, as well as plenty of others, who post about what they do for their workouts with videos and instructions. Commercial gyms such as LA Fitness and Lifetime Fitness offer professional training from certified personal trainers at a cost. No matter what price range you’re working with, there are always options for educating yourself on how to exercise.

Stick with the exercise. There are plenty of ways to stay on track, and it’s all on you to do them. Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Don’t leave your resolution unresolved; reject the statistics.

to last

fast fashion problem, yet they aren’t the only culprits. Just because their prices are low doesn’t mean that Shein and similar companies are wholly responsible for poor-quality clothing that’s worn a few times and then tossed out. Even high-end companies that charge hundreds of dollars for their clothing outsource labor and materials at low costs in order to spend as little as possible and increase profits.

Take Urban Outfitters as an example. During my time working there, I discovered that nearly all the clothes tarnished easily and were made from synthetic fibers like polyamide and polyester. Brands typically choose synthetic fibers as they are much cheaper compared to natural fibers such as cotton and silk. Clothes were also cycled out regularly. I knew that if I liked a piece of clothing, I had to buy it quickly,

otherwise it’d be gone and replaced with something new by my next shift.

The database Good On You rates fashion companies based on general sustainability, including their impact on the planet, people and animals.

Urban Outfitters is rated “not good enough” as “none of its supply chain is certified by labour standards which ensure worker health and safety, living wages or other labour rights.” The less companies pay their workers, the more money they are able to bring in. The Garment Worker Center writes, “Approximately 85% of garment workers do not earn the minimum wage and are instead paid a piece rate of between 2-6 cents per piece. Most garment workers work 60-70 hour weeks.” If you factor in the cost of material to make one satin dress at Urban Outfitters, then consider the possibility

that the garment worker who made it was paid six cents, the brand would still be making upwards of $100 on one dress alone.

Designer brands such as Dior and Louis Vuitton have been around for decades, yet they are not affordable for the average American. However, they seem to be some of the only products that withstand the test of time. Not only is it not feasible for the average American to shop for designer brands, but these brands are also not always beneficial to the environment, many of them earning a “not good enough” rating from Good On You.

Inflation is leading most consumers to opt for inexpensive clothing brands like Shein, which certainly will not last more than a few months before they go out of style or begin to fall apart. Items that are made to last are more expensive, so it

isn’t the consumer’s fault that they are choosing the less expensive option. However, both the environment and laborers suffer because of this.

I recommend taking into consideration whether a piece will last you more than a year, if it can be styled to fit many trends and if the brand is sustainable. In fact, asking yourself, “Can I pass this down to my future children or younger family members?” is a good guideline in terms of shopping sustainably. Hofstra students may find that thrifting locally is not only less expensive than going to our local Roosevelt Field Mall but also provides long-lasting, unique pieces.

This wasn’t my mom’s: Fashion that isn’t made

The views and opinions expressed in the Opinion section are those of the authors. They are not an endorsement of the views of The Chronicle or its staff. The Chronicle does not discriminate based on the opinions of the authors.

Ethan Albin is a sophomore journalism major and the opinion editor. Find him on Instagram @ethanalb.

Makenzie Hurt is a sophomore English major with a concentration in literature and the assistant opinion editor. You can find her on Instagram @makenziehurt.

By Marisa Dambach STAFF WRITER

Pride struggles continue with loss to Drexel

scored 10.

“I’m proud of how hard the team played tonight, said Hofstra head coach Danielle Santos Atkinson. “We had a slow start in the beginning, and for the rest of the game, we really got after it. From an effort standpoint, there were possessions there defensively that we gave up some really easy buckets that made it tough. Offensively, we had some great opportunities – some layups that we missed right there at the basket.”

The Hofstra Pride women’s basketball team suffered its third straight Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) loss to the Drexel University Dragons, 69-57, on Friday, Jan. 28, at the John A. Daskalakis Athletic Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Pride is now 8-11 overall and 2-6 in conference play.

In the loss, Sorelle Ineza led the team with 12 points and six rebounds. Alarice Gooden followed closely behind with 11 points and Rosi Nicholson

To start the first quarter, Drexel came out the gates firing as they outscored the Pride by nine points. Ineza sunk the first bucket of the game, followed by a 13-2 run for Drexel. The Dragons dominated in the paint while the Pride struggled to have a solid offensive run. A jumper by Gooden decreased the deficit to seven. Gooden finished out the quarter for the Pride with a jumper and two made free throws to finish the quarter behind, 22-13.

The Pride picked up the pace in the second quarter, as Brandy Thomas and Ineza knocked down early jumpers. The Dragons responded with an 8-2 run, though a basket by Hofstra’s Zyheima Swint helped slow the Dragons temporarily. Nicholson scored a 3-pointer and a layup to try and keep the Dragons within a safe distance, but Chloe Hodges closed the half strong with a layup for the Dragons, going up 36-24. Hofstra found their footing on the offensive end as Thomas, Swint and Nicholson all made much needed jumpers, bringing the deficit to seven. After points by Grace O’Neill and Maura Hendrixson for the Dragons, Ineza bounced back with one of her own in the paint, and Emma Von Essen made her first two points of the night.

Ineza added one more point in the quarter with one made free throw, but Drexel still held a comfortable lead on the game, up 51-38 going into the final quarter.

Von Essen kicked off the final quarter with a shot that jumpstarted an 11-7 run for the Pride. Gooden played a big role, accounting for five of the 11 points with a two-pointer and three made free throws.

Following the drive, Nicholson sunk a 3-pointer, and Fargo did the same but those were the final points for the Pride, as they fell 69-57 against Drexel.

The Pride finished shooting 45.1% from the paint and 38.5% from beyond the arc.

“That slow start in the beginning hurt us,” Atkinson said. “Coming out in the third

quarter, we had eight turnovers in that quarter alone, but we shot 60%. In [the third quarter], if we can get up and have more opportunities at the basket, that’s going to give us a better opportunity on scoring.”

The Pride returns home to the David S. Mack Sports and Exhibition Complex on Sunday, Jan. 29, at 2 p.m. in CAA competition against the Hampton University Pirates.

Hofstra wrestling falls short at conference foe Navy

By Frank DiCalogero ASSISSTANT SPORTS EDITOR

DelViscio in the 125-pound weight class. It was a tough outing for Moon, as DelViscio controlled the match throughout, winning by fall after 4:19, to take an early 6-0 lead for the Midshipmen.

The Hofstra Pride wrestling team looked to get back to its winning ways on Saturday, Jan. 28, in Eastern Intercollegiate Wrestling Association (EIWA) action, on the road against the United States Naval Academy (Navy) Midshipmen. The Pride, however, could not rebound from an early 15-0 deficit, ultimately losing to Navy by an overall score of 21-12.

The opening match of the day pitted Hofstra’s Jacob Moon against Navy’s Dayton

Navy continued its strong start in the 133-pound matchup, where the No. 31 Brendan Ferretti defeated Hofstra’s Chase Liardi by decision in a close 1-0 match, with Navy going up 9-0 overall. No. 30 Josh Koderhandt held off Hofstra’s Justin Hoyle in a 10-6 decision at 141-pounds, extending Navy’s lead to 12.

At 149-pounds, the Pride’s Michael Leandrou lost a hardfought matchup against Navy’s Kaemen Smith, falling in a 10-5 decision. Down 15-0, the Pride desperately needed to get on the board, and they did just that, with Joe McGinty defeating Devon Deem by an 8-3 decision in the 157-pound matchup. The victory cut the Pride’s deficit to 15-3.

Both teams continued to trade

match victories for the rest of the day. First, Val Park of Navy prevailed over Hofstra’s Matt Rogers via decision in the 165-pound contest, extending the Midshipmen’s advantage to 18-3. The Pride followed the match loss with a victory by Ross McFarland at 174-pounds over Sammy Starr, and Hofstra’s No. 24 Jacob Ferreira defeated ranked foe, No. 32 David Key by a 10-5 decision.

Going into the final two matches, the Midshipmen led the Pride 18-9. No. 30 Trey Rogers continued Hofstra’s hot streak by prevailing over Jake Lucas in the 197-pound bout, winning by a 6-3 decision. The win was Rogers’ fifth consecutive this season.

In the heavyweight matchup, at 285 pounds, No. 20 Grady Griess capped off the successful day with a commanding 6-0 decision over Zachary Knighton-Ward, as the Midshipmen took home the 2112 EIWA victory.

With the loss, Hofstra

dropped to 2-4 overall and 1-4 in conference play. Navy improved to 2-5 overall and evened their conference record at 1-1.

The Pride returns home on Friday, Feb. 3, where they take on the George Mason University

Patriots. The matchups will kick off at 6 p.m. at the David S. Mack Physical Education Center.

Hofstra has now lost three straight games.

Photo courtesy of Evan Bernstein / Hofstra Athletics

Trey Rogers remained undefeated with a win in the 197-pound weight class.

Photo courtesy of Evan Bernstein / Hofstra Athletics

Hofstra defeats No. 18 Charleston in massive upset

By Dylan Brett STAFF WRITER

won 20 in a row, it says a lot about our program,” Claxton said. “Tremendous team effort from all our guys.”

Charleston entered Saturday having won 20 straight games and appeared to be firmly in control of the Colonial Athletic Association. Following the upset victory for Hofstra, the race for the conference is now anyone’s to win.

Jaquan Carlos added 17 and 15, respectively.

“Estrada carried us in the first half, but Tyler picked up right where he left off. Dubar carried us for a bit, and then JC finished them off,” Claxton said.

In what was truly a monumental day for the Hofstra men’s basketball team, head coach Speedy Claxton and the Pride snapped the nation’s longest winning streak. Hofstra earned their first win over a ranked opponent in 406 days with a heart-pounding 85-81 final score over the 18th-ranked College of Charleston Cougars on Saturday, Jan. 28.

“To come in here and beat a nationally ranked team that has

The Pride received doubledigit scoring outputs from four players and recorded assists on nearly half of their made field goals.

Fresh off a career-high 40-point performance on Thursday, Aaron Estrada played arguably the most complete game of his Hofstra career with 25 points, seven rebounds and six assists in the win. Although he scored just two points in the second half, Estrada had plenty of help from his teammates, as Darlinstone Dubar poured in 18 points, while Tyler Thomas and

The Cougars were paced by Ante Brzovic, who tallied 18 points and eight rebounds while shooting 54% from the field. Charleston’s inability to hit open looks was ultimately their undoing, as their notoriously potent 3-point barrage went ice cold, shooting an abysmal 16% from beyond the arc. Charleston’s starters shot a combined 3-27 from 3-point range in the loss, their worst 3-point output of the season by a wide margin.

Charleston’s win streak wasn’t the only streak to end on Saturday, as the Cougars entered the contest with a flawless 13-0 record on their home court.

TD Arena in Charleston, South Carolina, was packed with a

sellout crowd of 5,109, but Hofstra was simply unfazed by the noise.

“We can beat anybody, anywhere,” Claxton said. “We knew it was going to be a hostile environment, but these kids live for this. I knew they were gonna be ready.”

Hofstra has broken the conference wide open with Saturday’s win and has moved within one game of first place in the standings. The Pride now holds a 15-8 overall record,

including an 8-2 mark in conference play. Claxton was ecstatic about the direction his team appears to be heading, as he offered a message to the rest of the country after Saturday’s marquee win.

“In the words of my man Deion Sanders, we’re coming.”

Hofstra hands Hampton victory as turnovers doom Pride

By Michelle Rabinovich SPORTS EDITOR

Thomas led Hofstra with 20 points, 13 of which came in the first half.

“We know [Thomas] can score; that’s not a question for us,” Atkinson said. “She had 10 rebounds, which was great.”

As great as Thomas’ scoring contributions were, they weren’t enough to nullify the Pride’s struggles when came to handling the ball.

Despite leading going into halftime, the Hofstra women’s basketball team extended their losing streak to four on Sunday, Jan. 29, at the hands of the Hampton University Pirates. The 74-55 loss brought the team’s overall record to 8-12 and 2-7 in conference.

“Going into halftime, those third and fourth quarters, we just didn’t play hard enough,” said Hofstra head coach Danielle Santos Atkinson. “We didn’t play hard enough, and we didn’t play with enough energy.”

Graduate student Brandy

“We turned the ball over 30 times,” Atkinson said. “Second half [Hampton] picked up their pressure, and we turned the ball over.”

That proved to be Hofstra’s Achilles heel, as Thomas committed 10 of the day’s 29 turnovers, off which Hampton scored 25 points.

Atkinson stayed assured that this game was not the end-allbe-all, as there is still plenty of regular season play to go for the Pride.

“We’ve got to stay connected as a team; there’s a lot of basketball left,” Atkinson said. “Once we get into that part of the season, we’ve got to step up and be ready to go. With

that, we’ve got to decide what we want the second half to look like. We’ve got to make a decision: what we’re willing to give, what we’re willing to sacrifice, to lay it on the line to make sure we finish how we want to finish.”

If the Pride are going to do that, Atkinson says they have to simplify their game.

“We got to play harder; we overcomplicate the game,” Atkinson said. “The game

can be simple, but you overcomplicate it when you start playing outside yourself and start doing things that you don’t do on a daily basis. When you’re doing all of those things, not playing as hard as you can, then it looks like 30 turnovers.”

Hofstra’s next appearance will come on the road against the Monmouth University Hawks. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 3.

Saturday’s win over Charleston was the program’s third over a ranked team. Pride program history.

Photo courtesy of Evan Bernstein / Hofstra Athletics

The Pride is averaging 20.8 turnovers per game this season.

Photo courtesy of Neil Miller / Hofstra Athletics

Warren William is The Pride’s not-so-secret weapon

By Aaron Diaz STAFF WRITER

For the men’s basketball team this season, Aaron Estrada, Tyler Thomas and Jaquon Carlos have taken the charge as the Pride’s offense. However, every team needs a big man to rely on in the paint. Forward Warren Williams has met that responsibility.

Coming from his hometown of Kingston, Jamaica, Williams contributed his first four years of basketball with the Manhattan College Jaspers in Riverdale, New York. During his tenure, he racked up 1,004 points in 60 starts and a career-high 27 points on March 9, 2019. The seasoned veteran joined the Pride as a forward and graduate student.

After seeing many looks from the starting position for the Jaspers, Williams had to learn as the “freshman” of the Pride, spending most of his time on the bench. Williams did not step onto the court until Nov. 25, 2022, against the Middle Tennessee University Blue Raiders, five games after the season opener against the Princeton University Tigers on Nov. 7. He finished with six points, two rebounds and two steals. After learning the game one way for four years, it was hard for Williams to adjust the Pride’s style of play.

“In his first couple of games, you could see that he was rusty,” said Hofstra men’s basketball head coach Speedy Claxton. “He couldn’t find his touch around the basket and was constantly getting into foul trouble, so the game had to slow down for him.”

But after a couple of games under his belt, he cracked his first double-digit performance with 12 points and three rebounds on December 11, under the bright lights of the Barclays Center in the loss against the University of Massachusetts Minutemen.

After that, Williams started to find his stride in the paint, each

performance more consistent than the last. The game where Williams really cemented his game was on the last day of 2022 against the North Carolina A&T State University Aggies.

He demonstrated a brilliant match with another 11 points and eight rebounds, including a monstrous dunk, his most memorable play this season.

“Although we lost to A&T State to a buzzer-beater; that fastbreak dunk – that was a good dunk,” Williams said. “I’ve got to get me some more of those.”

Since then, Williams has been the bully no one wants to face in the paint. In his last seven games, he has dealt an impressive 10.8 points per game behind a season-high 18-point game against the Monmouth University Hawks. But for Williams, both those games

In any player’s first year with the team, it’s reasonable to think that such a statement coming from the head coach would boost a player’s confidence. Williams, however, wants to remain consistent, regardless of the comment.

“I think it was a really good compliment,” Williams said. “I think he just sees the work, which translates to the floor. I just got to keep working, that’s it.”

Williams’ development under the rim has been one the Pride has needed, with most of their game coming from beyond the 3-point line. However, as it may seem, assistant coach Tom Parotta isn’t surprised about Williams’ recent spark of play from the paint.

“The biggest thing about Warren is that he works so hard,

Warren knows where his bread is to his butter. He knows he’s a throwback guy who can catch it into the post, score with either

to start him because of the way he picked up so many fouls,” Claxton said. “So it would be better for him to come off the bench in case he picks up too many fouls.”

Parotta credited Williams for even being considered for that position in his first year. But he feels that Williams and Nelson Boachie-Yiadom, the other forward on the team, balance each other out for the job.

came out as wins, which is what matters most.

“I was just taking what the offense gave me and following the coaching plan,” Williams said. “It was just my night that night, and hopefully, it can be like that almost every night. But if we get the win, that’s all that matters.”

His 17-point performance against the University of Delaware Fightin’ Blue Hens was the subject of a post-game press conference. In addition, Claxton spoke about Williams’ recent performances.

“He’s been tremendous,” Claxton said. “I would say he’s the best big we have had since I’ve been here. He’s alone down there, and we will keep going to him whenever he’s in the game. He changes the game when he comes in for us.”

so nobody’s surprised about his development,” Parotta said. “There’s not a day I remember where he didn’t come in and give 100%.”

With today’s basketball overshadowing earlier play styles, most teams rely on perimeter shooting, with 3-pointers making up most of their shots. Most teams play without a big man and have straight shooters to supply the team with points. Williams’ shot obviously isn’t his entire game, but his power and dominance in the paint make him the secret weapon that Hofstra has in their plethora of players.

“These days, big guys want to gravitate toward the perimeter. Big guys are inclined and want to shoot [3-pointers],” Parotta said. “You want big guys to handle the basketball, and

hand and has perfect feet. So when you have a guy like that in this day in age, it speaks volumes.”

While Williams holds the authority of the preliminary big man on the Pride, one has to consider the question: is there any consideration to put Williams in the starting lineup? Williams sees it as an opportunity for the team to have a sixth-man mentality.

“You must have a sixthman-of-the-year mentality,” Williams said. “But besides that, it doesn’t matter as long as we win.”

Claxton had the same mindset when asked whether any conversation took place for Williams to start in the games.

“I like how our team is going. But he is a starter. I was scared

“It’s never really come up, quite honestly,” Parotta said. “But I think it relishes his role coming in. The difference between Nelson and Warren are drastic. Warren is more physical and punishes people in the post, whereas Nelson is the exact opposite. He can dissect people and is an excellent passer. So between the two of them, it really doesn’t matter because that’s one hell of a two-headed monster.”

As the season is winding down to their final eight games. Claxton looks to keep the status quo for Williams before heading to the Colonial Athletic Association playoffs.

“I like the way our team is going, so it’s gonna stay status quo from here on out,” Claxton said. “And the most significant thing for us is if he stays out of foul trouble. If he does that, the more he’s gonna play, because when he’s on the court, he changes our team drastically.”

“The biggest thing about Warren is that he works so hard, so nobody’s surprised about his development. There’s not a day I remember where he didn’t come in and give 100%.”

Williams scored a season-high 18 points on Wednesday, Jan. 11, against Monmouth.

Photo courtesy of Lee S. Weissman/ Hofstra Athletics

Hofstra dance team dominates on national stage

said that this routine in particular taught them “how to really engage with our crowd to make it feel like they were sitting in the Mack Arena.”

By Alexis Friedman EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

On Sunday, Jan. 15, the Hofstra University dance team earned their 10th-ever national championship after placing first in the Division I Game Day at the Universal Dance Association (UDA) College Nationals at Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.

In each of the past three years, Hofstra had placed second at the UDA Nationals in the game day routine. This year, though, the national stage belonged to the Pride.

“One of my favorite routines I’ve ever done is the game day routine we did this year,” said junior Isabella LoBue. “As a team, we knew we had to level up from last year, so this year we went in with a different fire for that routine.”

The routine was choreographed by Dani Eustice and April Gallagher and featured the Pride’s fight song,

chant, sideline and performance routines back-to-back. From the moment the team heard the music, they fell in love, because the two-minute routine felt like a party on stage, allowing the team to show their “versatility in hip hop and how we excel”

The best part of the game day routine for head coach Kelly Olsen-Leon, who was on the Hofstra dance team from 1999 to 2003 and began coaching them directly after, was the opportunity to watch her team have fun and enjoy what they were doing on the UDA Nationals stage. OlsenLeon doesn’t measure her team’s success by the number of trophies they win but by the amount of fun they have competing for them.

“I love seeing them come off the floor feeling proud of what they did and being proud of the

learned they’d be continuing on to the finals round of Division I Game Day, the entire team “was just freaking out,” said freshman Emma Velleca. Then, finding out they took home first prize made the UDA Nationals stage truly feel like the happiest place on Earth.

“The fact that we won it in my senior year and as our 10th title just means a lot to me,” Marinelli said.

Even after this year’s UDA Nationals, the team is already starting to prepare for next year’s competition by learning what they can do better. You don’t win 10 national championships without preparing extensively for competitions. Over the winter intersession, the team practiced

Luckily, the Pride entered both competitions with experience, having previously won multiple national titles in Pom.

“Typically, we are defending a Pom title and are really well known for Hofstra Pom,” LoBue said. “Getting to finally be in the Pom routine made me feel like I’ve finally made it as a member of the Hofstra team.”

The Hofstra dance team ranked second in the nation for their Pom routine, choreographed by Dan Sapp. The choreography was intense, with countless flips, splits and jumps, leaving the team hipover-head for the majority of the routine. The routine showcased the Pride’s athleticism, power and confidence in the Pom style.

“I miss it already and wish I could do it right now,” Velleca said.

For the jazz category, the team’s performance was in the lyrical style, which many of the dancers grew up learning but don’t have the opportunity to perform while competing for a college dance team.

“Every year the routines are great,” Olsen-Leon said. “This year there was something about the three of them being so different, and the team excelling at each. As a coach, that was the best part to watch.”

in the rest of the dance, LoBue said.

Senior Gabriella Marinelli

hard work they put in to get them to that point,” Olsen-Leon said. “I want to make it not only about winning but about building the whole person and developing everyone to be ready to excel in the real world.”

LoBue felt like the team was able to do exactly that.

“We were really proud of what we put out there,” LoBue said. “Coming home from nationals this year, regardless of placements, we were really proud.”

When the Pride

tirelessly in the Fitness Center for 14 days straight from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.

“Fourteen days might seem like a lot of time, but when you look at a dance, there are so many counts that go into it that you need to make sure that everyone is on point with, so many skills that we have to perfect,” Marinelli said. “The Hofstra University dance team is known for the amount and difficulty of the skills within the routine, so we have to make sure that every single one of us in the routine is set and solid with it.”

The Hofstra University dance team competed in two other major categories at UDA Nationals: Pom and Jazz.

Each year, the Hofstra dance team selects a hashtag to represent their motto for the season. Given that this year’s motto was #EarnIt, it’s safe to say the team followed their mantra to the tee.

“I think this team in particular, the 2022 to 2023 team, is a very special team,” LoBue said. “We’re the team that was able to make history for Hofstra by earning a championship in a whole new category that we’ve never won before. We’re the dream team.”

The Pride practice extensively throughout the year in preparation for the UDA competition.

“We’re the team that was able to make history for Hofstra by earning a championship in a whole new category that we’ve never won before. We’re the dream team.”

The Hofstra dance team has won 10 national championships.

Photo courtesy of the Hofstra dance team

Photo courtesy of the Hofstra dance team

Wear it with Pride: The legacy of Nick Colleluori

CONTINUED FROM

“The Hofstra Pride will be relentless in everything they do this year, and forever in honor of Nick,” Tierney said. In the immediate aftermath, Tierney and the Hofstra lacrosse program gave the remainder of Nick’s scholarship to his younger brother Michael, a sophomore on the team at the time. But what would they do with Nick’s legacy?

That question hung in the air for a few years. In similar circumstances, other teams have retired the jersey number of a player who was lost too soon. However, Tierney and the Colleluori family felt that doing so wouldn’t have been enough in the case of Nick. Instead, every year, one Hofstra men’s lacrosse player that carries the same relentless attitude as Nick is selected to wear his No. 27, the same number on the jersey he was buried in.

“Everything that we discussed was about was keeping Nick’s spirit alive,” Tierney said. “A jersey gets retired, and then nothing really happens. It just made sense to us to have guys in the future remember him by handing out No. 27 every year to someone that reminds us of him.”

Wearing No. 27 is more prestigious than being a team captain, according to Tierney, and isn’t just given out. The Hofstra head coach requires any player interested to text him and explain why they’re deserving of carrying Colleluori’s torch before he and the coaching staff put it to a vote, with assistant coach John Gorman getting two votes as a former teammate of Nick.

“I tell guys to really think about it,” Tierney said. “The ‘why’ should be rather lengthy. They should do their homework because we don’t want just anybody wearing 27.”

That wasn’t exactly the case when it came to Adam Swarsen,

though. As a freshman on the team at the time, Swarsen was in the room when the Pride first learned of Nick’s diagnosis in what was a “quiet and intense” setting. Entering his fifth season in 2010, Swarsen was an easy choice to be the first player to wear the No. 27 for Hofstra since Nick’s passing.

“Adam had a competitive edge; his ‘compete’ level was higher than everyone else,” Tierney said. “He was a nasty human when he stepped on the field, and Nick had that to him. He didn’t care what your size was. Adam, being the first one to wear 27, just set the bar really high.”

“I was shocked when they asked me,” Swarsen said. “I never thought anyone would wear that number again.”

Thirteen players have now donned the No. 27 and form an exclusive fraternity of the best men that have ever suited up for the Hofstra men’s lacrosse team. This season, graduate defenseman Corey Kale will carry the legacy of Nick

being.

“Corey is one of the hardest working guys we have on our team,” said graduate defenseman Tim Hegarty, who wore No. 27 a year ago. “He’s a great friend and a great teammate. He’s a guy that will come off the field from two back-to-back defensive possessions after giving it all he has, and he’s practically throwing up on the sideline,

Shuart Stadium back in October. Although the two only spoke for a brief moment, Michael walked away certain that his brother’s legacy was in the right hands.

“Corey emulates a lot of the same traits as Nick,” Michael said. “First and foremost, he’s a great teammate, which is what Nick was all about, whether it be as a teammate in sports or a teammate in life.”

HEADstrong holds multiple

filled with lime green t-shirts inside Tierney’s office.

“Every year, we grow a little bit more,” Michael said. “That’s what we set out to do. I’m sure Nick would obviously be proud, but I don’t think he or any of us ever realized how big it would get.”

While Nick was going through treatment, Hofstra had an unprecedented season going 17-2 en route to a second overall national ranking and an appearance in the NCAA National Tournament. After that season, the team received a letter.

Colleluori on his back every game.

“It’s such an incredible honor,” Kale said. “It’s the epitome of what we want to represent here at Hofstra. Everybody wants to be like Nick, and it’s just such an honor to wear this number and represent him.”

In 46 games across his five years at Hofstra, Kale has only scored eight goals and totaled just 20 shots. However, he wasn’t awarded the No. 27 for his abilities as a lacrosse player but for his qualities as a human

then he’s ready to go instantly. It’s just his mentality. He’s a perfect example of what it means to be relentless.”

Kale had the opportunity to meet Nick’s brother Michael, who is now the vice president of the HEADstrong Foundation – a charity started in honor of Nick that provides financial, residential and emotional support to those affected by cancer – at the annual exhibition lacrosse tournament known as the HEADstrong Foundation Nick Colleluori Classic at

Colleluori Classics all around the country each year, raising money to provide a multitude of services. One of these services is offering complimentary lodging to cancer patients that travel to Philadelphia for treatment in one of several homes known as “Nick’s House.”

Since 2007, the HEADstrong Foundation has made a profound impact by raising $24 million to help more than 22 thousand patients and families affected by cancer, a long way from starting out as a few cardboard boxes

“Seeing the game being played and seeing my family, my boys, my team, woke me up,” wrote Nick Colleluori. “I realized where I need to be and who I need to be with. I need Hofstra, I need the Pride and most of all, I need to be with my true friends. You guys are my pulse, and as long as you keep beating, I’m still alive!”

Nick Colleluori passed away on November 28, 2006, in his father’s arms while his brother Michael felt his heart take its final beat. But, although Nick Colleluori is no longer here to watch the Hofstra Pride continue to beat, the Hofstra Pride has allowed his legacy to live on.

“Everything we discussed was about keeping Nick’s spirit alive. A jersey gets retired, and then nothing really happens. It just made sense to us to have guys in the future remember him by handing out No. 27 every year to someone that reminds us of him.”

Photo courtesy of Hofstra Athletics

Corey Kale will be the 13th player to wear No. 27 in honor of Nick Colleluori

THE HOFSTRA CHRONICLE

January 31, 2023

C hu C ktown S tru C k D own

Hofstra upsets No. 18 College of Charleston to cap off big weekend for the Pride