T hu r s day , S e pte m b er 28, 2017
Volume 85
Issue 2
Wireless Network Finally Restored
Fresh Check Day
photo by Joseph Carew
Fresh Check Day was an event designed to raise awarness on the importance of mental health and decreasing the stigma around it. It was sponsored by Counseling Services, Residential Programs and Services, and the Student Government Association. Pick up next week’s issue for more in-depth coverage.
BY COREY MITCHEL-LABRIE STAFF WRITER As the first month of the academic year comes to a close, so should the majority of our internet issues. The inability to connect to the school’s WiFi network wasn’t just difficult for first year students, but for returning students as well. “In the beginning of the year, I couldn’t connect my laptop to the internet at all,” said Hannah Pimenta. “I did manage to connect my phone to the internet, but it kept on going in and out.” “The wireless network is very complex,” Ian Bergeron said, associate dean of the IT Department, which maintains the school’s wired and wireless networks. “It’s comprised of 500 different wireless devices each broadcasting different signals and connecting upwards of 2000 devices at a time.” The first email sent out by the Help Desk was in response to a flood of complaints about network’s connectivity. When network problems cannot be solved internally, the college turns to third party programs. “I went down there during the first
week I was back,” Pimenta said. “I asked what the problem was and they were like ‘Oh, we’re working on it,’ but didn’t really give me a reason as to why.” “When we initially had the network installed, the manufacturing company Extreme Networks came to campus to determine where all the wireless devices should go, how they should be configured, and set up the entire network,” Bergeron said. The Help Desk sent out a second email explaining the situation and warning that some areas would have slow or even no connectivity altogether. A representative from Extreme Networks was called in to inspect the network. “We’ve started to use them for professional services,” Bergeron said. “Like our current situation where we were having major issues that were systemic.” The latest update path from Extreme Networks contained a system bug that hindered connectivity. A final email sent last Monday
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Remembering the late Professor Paul Duquette BY MITCH CHAPMAN FEATURES EDITOR For nearly four decades, students at North Adams State College and later MCLA encountered Paul Duquette in their mathematics and computer science classes. On Saturday, May 27, Duquette passed away at the Springside Rehabilitation and Skilled Care Center, leaving a legacy of colleagues and students behind. “He was truly an amazing and caring man,” Jacklyn Williams, an MCLA graduate member of the Sigma Gamma Phi sorority who asked Duquette to be their sorority adviser in 2007 said. “I always
saw him with a smile on his face and a true interest in us. Not just as a sorority, but as individuals too. He truly cared and didn’t just act as a figurehead so that we could stay in good standings with the college criteria.” Outside of his work as a professor and mentor, Duquette was known for his weekly appearances at Mass MoCA and was very musically-inclined. He could play the trumpet, the fiddle, and the flute, and had a love of contradancing. In fact, while at MCLA, Duquette taught an arts class as part of the Trio program where students learned how to contradance.
“We both were very involved in music,” Jennifer Nault, an MCLA graduate who played with Duquette at Mass MoCA said. “Paul cared more about music and his students than he did himself.” According to Nault, the atmosphere at his Saturday morning MoCA jam sessions was always “friendly and upbeat,” and Duquette was always inviting others to join him in his love of music. “I thought he was a very generous guy who always made time to help anyone who needed it and to talk to anyone. And he loved his dancing,” Senior Lindsey Doucette, who Duquette page 2
photo from Facebook
Duquette could often be found sharing music with friends at MASS MoCA.
College Republicans report flyer vandalism BY HANNAH SNELL STAFF WRITER For the second semester in a row, MCLA College Republicans chapter flyers, which advertised the date and time of the club’s first meeting, have reportedly been “torn down” around campus, according to a statement released by College Republican Chair Kaitlin Wright. The first place Wright said she noticed a flyer had been removed was the first floor of the Amsler Campus Center, on a bulletin board located by the athletic trainer’s office. “I handed both the Political Science Club flyers and the College Republican flyers in at the same time, so they were both stamped and put out by that day,” Wright said. “So I’m assuming places
where there are Political Science Club [flyers] and not College Republican [flyers] are areas that they’ve been taken down.” The second confirmed incident occurred in the Flagg Townhouses’ Greenhouse. “I was doing laundry and I saw it [a College Republicans flyer] there and I was like, ‘oh wow, it’s still there,’ and when I had come back maybe 40 minutes later, it had already been torn down and thrown in the trash,” Wright said. Wright, who posted the flyer image on social media hours before their first meeting on Sept. 18, reported that some students had been posting screenshots of her post, along with comments such as, “‘is this really the school that I go to,’ and, ‘I’m going to transfer.’”
During the club’s first meeting, a couple students suggested that the reason why the posters had been removed was because of its inclusion of a cartoon image of President Donald Trump. According to one, this may have caused students to associate the club with President Trump, who Wright reported the club is not affiliated with. However, Wright noted, last semester the College Republicans still found their posters missing around campus, despite a completely different design. “It was a completely different poster last year, it had multiple presidents on it with party hats saying ‘come to our meeting; it’s the best party on
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