The Quinnipiac Chronicle, Volume 92, Issue 11

NOVEMBER 17, 2021 • VOLUME 92 • ISSUE 11

The official student newspaper of Quinnipiac University since 1929

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Mapping out IndigenousArtshistory & Life p.6-7

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NEWS P.3: ECO-FRIENDLY CAMPUS

QU Sustainability Committee begins its path to establish a enivronmentally green campus through a food waste audit

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OPINION P.4: THE CHRISTMAS DEBATE Writers Connor Youngberg and Jack Spiegel discuss the correct time to start celebrating the holidays

ALEX BAYER/CHRONICLE

SPORTS P. 10: GRADUATE TRANSFERS From Dylan St. Cyr to Oliver Chau, the men’s ice hockey team is getting contributions from its five new graduate transfers

Students hope COVID cases subside amid uptick

By MELINA KHAN Associate News Editor

Following Halloween and Bobcat Weekend, Quinnipiac University identified 30 new COVID-19 cases in a span of seven days, the largest increase of the semester. Community members say the spike is concerning, especially as the end of the semester nears.

Quinnipiac has seen a low number of infections this semester, with an average of about five cases per week. Over the last two weeks, there has been an average of 28 cases per week.

Unvaccinated students are the only students required to undergo weekly testing. Hill said there are around 350-400 unvaccinated students who engage in these tests, but that throughout the semester, there have only been a few positive cases identified within this cohort.

Ahead of Halloween weekend, the university urged students, via email, to follow safety protocols, as the holiday sparked a rise in infections last year and led to a campus-wide quarantine.

Senior Medical Adviser Dr. David Hill said it is likely last week’s rise in cases are a direct result of Halloween celebrations.

“It just seems likely, when you’re going along and you’re having two or three or four cases a week everything seems to be going well, and then we know that this is a big party weekend … it just seems to make sense, because nothing else

has changed in our community,” Hill said.

Alissa Defelice, a junior behavioral neuroscience major, said she wasn’t surprised by the rise in cases considering what happened last year.

“It was the same as when we got sent home last year after Halloween, so I wasn’t expecting anything different,” Defelice said.

To avoid potentially contracting COVID-19, Defelice said she chose to stay home on Halloween.

“I knew (a rise in cases) was gonna happen again,” Defelice said. “And New Haven was so crowded anyway, there was no point in going out (because) I expected the cases.”

Katie Costello, a first-year law in society major, also emphasized the risk of going off-campus.

“When you go to the clubs, no one’s wearing a mask, so I figured that was what (the rise in cases is) from,” Costello said. “It’s not necessarily the university’s fault for that at least.”

Toad’s Place, a popular New Haven club patronized by Quinnipiac students, was one local establishment impacted by Halloween weekend. Police shut it down during a Halloween-themed party Oct. 27, after a barricade containing the line of people waiting to enter collapsed, as reported by Yale Daily News. A club employee told Yale Daily News he estimated more than 2,000 people were on the premises at the time.

Despite students increasingly going off campus on the weekends, Costello said it is not something the university should be concerned with.

“I feel like students are going to do what they’re going to do, and the university should be focused on what happens here on campus,” Costello said.

Like Costello, first-year health sciences major Sophia Stamos said she has seen many people not masking, especially on campus.

“I think that students were kind of laying back with the rules (with) wearing masks and stuff,” Stamos said.

“And I’ve seen even (in the Student Center) people not wearing their masks.”

Stamos said more should be done to ensure students are properly masking, especially in classes.

“People should say stuff about it, to tell people (to) put their masks on or put them above their nose,” Stamos said. ”Professors should do a better job of doing that or just students should know to wear a mask.”

Costello also said the rise in cases is concerning because of the potential impact on classes.

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“It does worry me in the sense that I don’t want campus to close at all, especially right before finals or anything,” Costello said. “So I feel like the university should just be promoting students’ agency and being safe and taking part See COVID UPTICK Page 2

2| News

MEET THE EDITORS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Michael Sicoli MANAGING EDITORS Emily Flamme Toyloy Brown III CREATIVE DIRECTOR Connor Lawless NEWS EDITORS Nicole McIsaac Chatwan Mongkol ASSOCIATE NEWS EDITOR Melina Khan OPINION EDITOR Xavier Cullen ARTS & LIFE EDITOR Ashley Pelletier ASSOCIATE ARTS & LIFE EDITORS David Matos Neha Seenarine SPORTS EDITOR Riley Millette ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR Peter Piekarski PODCAST PRODUCER Brendan Samson COPY EDITOR Katie Langley ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR Daniel Passapera

The Quinnipiac Chronicle

Dinner, games and conversation: SGA’s Ask Away draws student input

By AMANDA UNDARI Contributing Writer

Students had the opportunity to discuss topics including parking, inclusion and multicultural club budgets on Nov. 11, at the Student Government Association’s annual Ask Away event.

The event was facilitated as an open forum, and the main theme was inclusion on campus. There were over 24 tables, each with a packet of thought-provoking questions meant to fuel conversation.

“Ask Away has been used as a way for students to come together and have candid conversations about topics they don’t really talk about in their day-to-day lives,” said Jeremy Gustafson, SGA vice president for diversity and inclusion.

However, Genesis Paulino, a sophomore sociology major, said she had mixed feelings on the impact of the event.

“I came here and didn’t know what to expect, but when I sat down it didn’t really feel like the environment to discuss important matters,” Paulino said. “It felt like board games and food.”

Paulino said the event’s atmosphere did not match its intended purpose.

“If they want free food and prizes they should come, not if they want answers,” Paulino said.

Emily Diaz, a sophomore political science major, said she was eager to have conversations about diversity, since that was the theme of the event. However, she did not get to talk about it.

“I don’t feel like the event was effective at all,” Diaz said. “I was at a table of (Student Programming Board) students only, they were more focused on the event coming to an end and complaining about attending the event.

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November 17, 2021

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SGA Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Jeremy Gustafson faciltated the organization’s Ask Away event.

PEYTON MCKENZIE/CHRONICLE

SGA gave students various games to play during Ask Away while having conversations.

We did not have any discussion about on-campus concerns.”

Other students, like Kathrina Alteus, a sophomore behavioral neuroscience major, said she enjoyed what the event had to offer.

“It was a good experience to meet new students and have nice free food and play games with my friends,” Alteus said. “It gives students the opportunity to do something outside of academics.”

The tables each had at least one SGA representative along with the attendees. Gustafson said this helped ensure productive conversation.

“We have individual facilitators, ranging from one to three at each table, who are SGA members that have gone through training and know how to work through those difficult conversations,” Gustafson said.

SGA also offered games like Uno and Jenga to give attendees an activity to do while they were having their conversations.

Provost Debra Liebowitz also attended the event and said Ask Away was an opportunity for her to connect and receive direct input from students.

“At my table, even though we had Sorry and Jenga, we never even got to a game because we were having such vibrant conversations,” Liebowitz said.

The discussions at Liebowitz’s table were more focused on conversation topics SGA provided, such as diversity and inclusion, parking and Quinnipiac’s goals as a university.

“We talked about lots of issues that were on the sheet, but a lot of other things too,”

Liebowitz said. “We ended up having a conversation about people’s experiences of being back on ground and adjusting and what that meant in the classroom and on campus life.”

Gustafson said events like these give the SGA a better understanding of what the student body needs.

“We’re so used to the classroom setting where the professor lectures from a powerpoint, but that doesn’t necessarily accomplish learning and actively learning,” Gustafson said. “These round-table discussions encourage and foster a better sense of community, education and knowledge.”

SGA supplied students with free food from Eli’s on Whitney and raffle prizes ranging from a flat screen television to a Nintendo Switch for students who attended.

Gustafson emphasized how important it is to create environments that are conducive to learning through productive conversation.

“It’s peers educating peers, and I think at a higher education institute we need to really look at how we view education,” Gustafson said. “Education has to be in all spaces including events that we host.”

At the end of the night, Alteus said the students who attended Ask Away were able to facilitate conversation respectfully.

“I think they did good because they were trying really hard not to offend anyone and they were working on including everyone in the conversation even if they didn’t really have much to say,” Alteus said.

Hill: ‘COVID is still with us’ COVID UPTICK from cover in safe behaviors rather than cracking down on every single policy ever. I think students are generally smart about it.”

Hill said the university will look to increase its messaging to students and continue enforcing safety protocols to keep positive case numbers low.

“COVID is still with us, and despite COVID being generally a mild illness in younger or vaccinated individuals it’s still not a reason to let down one’s guard,” Hill said. “That’s the message, not a punitive message, but just to really raise the awareness that we want to continue the life that we’ve enjoyed this fall and we want to continue it up to Christmas.”

With the upcoming Thanksgiving break, Hill also emphasized the need to practice safety protocols when students are home in order to remain healthy when returning on campus.

“My recommendation is that you practice over the Thanksgiving break the same kinds of preventive measures that we’re stressing, it’s that, particularly in high density social situations

indoors that you wear masks,” Hill said.

First-year finance major Shawn D’Aversa said students having a week at home could be a positive thing for the rate of infections on campus.

“With break coming up, I feel like in some ways, that’s good, because it’ll reduce numbers on campus, but people can come back with the virus as well,” D’Aversa said.

To ensure a safe return to campus after Thanksgiving break, Hill said the university will hold its weekly testing for unvaccinated students on the Monday and Tuesday after Thanksgiving, as opposed to its normal Tuesday and Wednesday schedule.

Since vaccinated students are not required to be tested weekly this semester, Hill said there are two major ways the university identifies cases of COVID-19 in addition to the testing of unvaccinated students.

Vaccinated students with symptoms of illness are tested at Student Health Services. Students can also get tested off-campus if they choose, and if they are positive for COVID-19, are required to submit their test results via Student Health Services.

Hill said sometimes outside testing facilities or the Quinnipiack Valley Health District will notify the university of positive student cases, but it is important for students to submit their results to the university on their own as Student Health Services may not “consistently hear from outside testing facilities.”

Despite a change in testing policies this semester, isolation protocols for those infected with COVID-19 remains similar to last semester. These individuals are required to isolate, but their vaccinated close contacts do not need to be quarantined. Hill said Quinnipiac officials also conduct contact tracing for infected students.

D’Aversa said that this spike ultimately comes down to individual student actions.

“People don’t always obey the rules, and people don’t always take the smartest course of action, but I feel like there’s a lot of responsibility on our students,” D’Aversa said. “And so far overall, despite it not being perfect, our students have done a good job, and they’ve kept numbers low. So I think it’s more from an individual responsibility standpoint than anything else.”

November 17, 2021

The Quinnipiac Chronicle

News |3

Sustainability Committee pursues a more eco-friendly campus

By KRYSTAL MILLER AND AMANDA UNDARI

After Quinnipiac University released its sustainability plan in October 2020, the Sustainability Committee worked to implement new ways to make the university environmentally friendly.

Quinnipiac inspected how the Café Q dining hall deals with food waste by conducting a food audit in the Carl Hansen Student Center on Nov. 12. Abbey Massaro, environmental specialist from the Center for EcoTechnology, attended to assess what ways the university can improve its use of food waste.

“The biggest goal is to divert material from the trash to save natural resources and essentially take what is our waste and give it a higher and

better use, and that will help save the university money,” Massaro said.

The food waste collected could go to multiple sources, such as feeding animals, creating nutrient rich soil or helping people in the Hamden community, Massaro explained.

“There’s other ways we can divert food from the trash by developing a food donation plan, feeding the local food insecure community with surplus food and ingredients and collecting our scraps separately from the trash,” Massaro said.

Massaro highlighted the ways in which the pandemic affected food waste and why it’s important to be aware of those effects.

“I think customer ordering habits have really been sporadic around the pandemic,” Massaro

DANIEL PASSAPERA/ QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY

Abbey Massaro from the Center for EcoTechnology toured Café Q to examine food waste on campus.

said. “It’s hard to predict who is going to be at a meal or an event, so that leads to surplus food which is why we’re here today to have that plan in place when surplus food occurs.”

The report for the audit will come out early December, and the data collected will be used in the Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System, or STARS, evaluation of Quinnipiac’s sustainability.

STARS is a sustainability framework designed for universities that uses data to evaluate what practices need to be improved or altered on campuses. There’s a long list of categories, ranging from greenhouse gas emissions to the universities’ curriculum, all of which can affect the sustainability rating.

Gillian Sawyer, member of the Quinnipiac Sustainability Committee and a Yale University graduate environmental management student is working to implement the STARS method at Quinnipiac.

“My role has been collecting the data to get Quinnipiac formally certified by this national framework, which will give us legitimacy as a university working on sustainability, and it also helps us see where we’re missing initiatives,” Sawyer said.

At the conclusion of the food waste audit, Sawyer said she was optimistic about Quinnipiac’s path to becoming sustainable.

“It’s sort of an obvious first step, and it seems to me like the food waste ties into recycling and composting, I think it’s really promising,” Sawyer said. “I think Quinnipiac has a lot of potential.”

Currently, Quinnipiac is focused on ensuring sustainability in the upgrades to the recreation and wellness center, according to the university’s website.

“It will be an environmentally responsible building designed to the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold certifica-

tion from the U.S. Green Building Council,” the website states.

Sam Edwards, the co-chair of the Sustainability Committee and associate professor of legal studies, described how the renovations would help save energy in the building.

The center will have a green roof, solar panels, a highly energy efficient design, designs around indoor air quality and electrical vehicle charging, Edwards said.

The Sustainability Committee aims to teach students about sustainability while also accomplishing its initiatives. The food audit was a way to get students involved as well as faculty in the learning process.

“This is an example of our ‘learning, living, leading’ approach to sustainability by the university,” Edwards said. “Students get to learn about ways to become more sustainable through improvements in our living environment helping the university become a leader in sustainability.”

Starting this fall, Quinnipiac began offering a bachelor of science in environmental science, a bachelor of arts in sustainability and environmental policy and a bachelor of arts — co-major, which is a double degree — in environmental studies.

“Another example is the commitment to the education piece, so learning is a big part of our plan and the fact that the university created two new majors and a co-major started this year, that’s huge,” Edwards said.

Massaro said being able to communicate, speak out about problems on campus and stay involved with online updates are key parts in improving the sustainability at Quinnipiac.

“I’m hoping in the future, there will be better communication with facilities staff and around these other initiatives, I think right now you can be more mindful about your waste when you’re approaching a waste station,” Massaro said.

Students can tackle housing insecurity, advocates say

By JACKLYN PELLEGRINO Staff Writer

Quinnipiac University’s Community Action Project partnered with Hands On Hartford Nov. 11, for its annual event “Faces of the Homeless” to raise awareness and educate attendees on how to get involved either by packing bags of food or reaching out to the local government.

Community Action Project is the largest service organization at Quinnipiac and is divided into five sections, including hunger and homelessness. Hands On Hartford is a nonprofit organization that serves low-income residents by donating food, providing housing and raising awareness about the homelessness crisis.

Andrea, a participant who wished to keep her last name anonymous, shared her story during the event. Andrea is a divorced mother who did “field work” in her community.

She later became “house insecure” because her rent and expenses were much higher than what she was getting paid. She described what living in a homeless shelter was like.

“I was kicked out of two different shelters because I chose to go and speak about what was happening, which was inadequate maintenance,” Andrea said. “The places were not being kept up in terms of being clean, the building sometimes had rodents, there was mold in the building and carpets, the food had little nutritional value, and the (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) system didn’t work so when you had 96-degree weather you would still have heat coming out instead of air.”

Andrea said she didn’t want to lose what made her who she was and what her mother instilled in her.

“I was proud to be a child that my mother was proud of,” Andrea said. “I was a good person in terms of making good decisions, working hard, being honest and sticking to our faith. I did not want to lie and say I had a drug addiction or I had domestic violence so I could get housing.”

Homelessness in Connecticut

2,905 people experiencing homelessness any given day

4,772 students experiencing homelessness during the school year

177 people experiencing chronic homelessness

Data estimates from 2020 report of United States Interagency Council for Homelessness

Joe, who wished to keep his last name anonymous, also spoke at the event. He got injured on the job and said he “fell through the cracks in the system.” He wasn’t eligible for worker’s compensation or unemployment.

“I couldn’t collect unemployment because when I was terminated and hurt, they said it was a worker’s compensation case,” Joe said. “Worker’s compensation said it was an unemployment case, so I had no income coming in for six months.”

Joe had to sell his car and live on the Berlin turnpike for six weeks until he “got intervention” from Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s office.

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“If I hadn’t called them, I probably wouldn’t have been housed,” Joe said.

“That’s what got me into doing this, advocating and speaking out about all the red tape that you have to go through, it’s quite a process and it’s very frustrating sometimes.”

Maggie Goldberg, a sophomore in the athletic training and doctor of physical therapy 4+3 program, and April Alver, a junior in the entry level master’s physician assistant program, are the co-chairs of the Hunger and Homelessness chapter of the CAP. “(Hands On Hartford) asked if we had any criteria or specific speakers that we

wanted that we had in the past but since we’re new co-chairs, we just said ‘whoever you give us that you think will be great we’ll love,’” Goldberg said.

Goldberg said the goal of the event was to educate people that don’t “understand what it’s economically like to live in the area.” The event also touched on how college students can make an impact.

“I would say that college students do hold a lot of power,” Andrea said. “There are many different ways you can help whether it’s packing a bag of food, writing a letter to your senator or volunteering at an agency that serves food.”

Joe said not to be afraid to reach out to senators and local governments through email and hand-written letters.

“I think college students, especially at this point in time in the world, have the greatest challenge and the greatest opportunity to be able to bring forth change, to be actively involved,” Joe said. “I think young people have the power to change the world, I truly believe that.”

Jennifer Marino, a sophomore health science studies major, attended the event and said that she learned how different the speakers’ stories were compared to homelessness stereotypes.

“When people think ‘homeless,’ they think of people without jobs with nowhere to go,” Marino said. “What the speakers made clear was that the majority of these people, especially those in Hartford, have jobs and work hard. The problem is (the) lack of affordable housing for these people.”

Marino said what she found inspiring was how relatable the speakers made their experiences.

“Both speakers made it very clear that the homeless people are almost always blacklisted from society,” Marino said. “One of the speakers told us to recognize the humanity in everyone in this world, and I think that was one of the most crucial points.”

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November 17, 2021

Opinion

Is it too early for Christmas festivities?

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Christmas joy can come early

BY CONNOR YOUNGBERG Contributing Writer

Around this time every year, families and friends argue about when Christmas festivities should officially begin.

For me, the Christmas season starts whenever you want it to, whether it’s in October or the Friday after Thanksgiving.

That’s right, I will blast Mariah Carey and Michael Bublé and watch seasonal classics like “Polar Express,” “Home Alone” and “Christmas Vacation” on my TV from early November through late December.

Now, I don’t mean to knock Thanksgiving. It’s an amazing holiday and a great way to spend time with family. I even have my own Thanksgiving traditions that I look forward to every year, especially watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade with my family.

However, Thanksgiving lacks both music and movies to get into the holiday spirit. There’s only so many times you can watch “A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving” before you want to put on “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

A beautiful thing about Christmas is the countless number of carols, songs, movies and shows there are about the holiday. The Hallmark channel shows Christmas movies starting as early as October — and for good reason. It is never too early to get in the holiday spirit.

Every year my parents watch the Hallmark channel’s corny Christmas movies weeks before Thanksgiving starts. I used to think they were crazy for not waiting until after the Thanksgiving festivities, but it’s not so crazy when you think about it.

That Christmas joy is contagious and even those campy Hallmark movies have the ability to spread joy to viewers well before the Christmas season “officially” starts. I know for sure that by December, people like my parents will be filled with joy and happiness, while some of the people who waited until after Thanksgiving will be acting like Scrooge’s all season long.

I used to wait until after Thanksgiving to get into the Christmas spirit, but now as a college student, the early part of December becomes a time where I am scrambling to get projects done and preparing for major exams.

With schoolwork taking up most of the time leading up to Christmas, I find that the holiday always comes and goes quickly without me being able to fully enjoy it. Now that I do not force myself to wait for Thanksgiving to be over, I am able to get into my joyous Christmas mood well ahead of time.

The holiday season is a time where everyone should be filled with happiness, joy and love, not stress. Christmas music and movies give you that feeling of holiday spirit and just makes you happier overall.

I don’t think it should matter if that happy holiday spirit starts before Thanksgiving or not. After all, Thanksgiving is still a part of the holiday season.

You should get your friends and family together and watch “Rudolph the RedNosed Reindeer,” and start listening to your favorite Christmas playlist on Spotify before Thanksgiving if you embrace the holiday spirit early this year.

Thanksgiving deserves its month

BY JACK SPIEGEL Staff Writer

As a kid, when I went out trick-or-treating, I walked up to houses on Oct. 31, and — to my confusion — heard Christmas music playing in their living rooms. Not only had Turkey Day not arrived, but Halloween hadn’t even finished yet.

Although it has no holiday music, Thanksgiving deserves ample attention. It’s a time when families across the U.S. rejoice in comradery, delicious food and the holiday spirit.

Comparing Thanksgiving to Christmas is like comparing apples to oranges. They each serve their individual purposes and aren’t meant to be combined. Let the turkey have the recognition it deserves!

Much to my dismay, my local radio station, KOSI 101.1 in Denver, Colorado, starts playing Christmas music at the beginning of November. I would turn on the car to Bobby Helms’ famous guitar riff and immediately turn off the radio for the remainder of the car ride, knowing that I will be hearing different versions of “Jingle Bell Rock” for the next two months straight.

While it is never too early to get in the holiday spirit, it is always too early to be playing Christmas music during the month of November. By the time Christmas actually rolls around, I have heard so many Christmas songs that I need a year-long detox from Frank Sinatra and Brenda Lee. Although there are few things as calming and soothing as Michael Bublé’s voice, I

don’t need him to tell me that it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas on Nov. 1, while there are still leaves on a majority of trees.

There is a certain sentimental feeling walking into stores on Black Friday and hearing Dean Martin and Mariah Carey’s songs play over the speakers. I hear those songs knowing that I just have to make it through three more weeks of school and then there are two weeks of pure bliss. Skiing, hot chocolate, spending time with family and friends, singing and dancing to the sights and sounds of the Christmas season are the joys of winter break.

If the Christmas season spans itself over four different holidays, what happens to the exclusivity that comes with Christmas? What happens to the feeling of falling asleep halfway through your Christmas movie marathon on Dec. 24, when you’ve already watched the same movies four times this year?

In the words of Andy Williams, Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year for so many families around the world. Let Santa and his reindeer have their month of fame, and give other holidays some breathing room from being suffocated by Christmas festivities.

The holiday season is an important part to the end of the year, but Christmas music does not belong in the month of November. And yes, Connor did make me listen to Bublé’s Christmas album while writing this.

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November 17, 2021

Opinion|5

Opinion

It’s not easy being green

The pressure of perfection as an environmentalist is a lot to handle

BY ANYA GRONDALSKI Podcast Host

I’ve never experienced more gatekeeping than I have during my journey as an environmentalist.

The more I make a name for myself at Quinnipiac University, the more people find out that I am a vegan. I wear the badge proudly and advocate for it any chance I get.

My close friends also know that, beyond my diet, I try to create minimal waste. I use toothpaste tablets, a bamboo toothbrush, vegan toiletries and a reusable water bottle, yet it still never feels like enough.

Imagine if every time you chose to eat a beef burger, another meat eater was criticizing you for not having turkey instead; that you had to feel guilty every time you decided to nourish your body.

In 2020, I joined the Vegan New England Facebook group, hoping to learn about new restaurants to try or recipes I hadn’t thought of before. Instead, I’ve seen bullying and volatile words exchanged between strangers who both identify as part of the same community because one is “less” vegan than the other.

If you choose to not eat meat, you get praised in these spaces. But if you purchase a plant-based option from an establishment

that also serves meat, you get criticized for spending your dollar the wrong way.

Where I see inclusivity in spaces where everyone has an option they can enjoy, others see assisted murder. There are also whole food or raw vegans, astonished by the audacity to pay someone else to cook for you when you should be growing, harvesting and cooking your own meals from home instead of spending a dollar on the harmful, capitalistic supply. And don’t even get me started on the honey debate.

According to Live Kindly, vegan food sales are growing twice as fast as overall sales, with a total plant-based market value of $7 billion in 2021. Shouldn’t we be celebrating statistics like this instead of telling a low-income 26-year-old that she doesn’t count as a vegan because she misread a label and ate something with milk?

Point being, for a community of people which brands itself on compassion, acceptance and care, most environmentalists treat others who aren’t up to their more extreme standards as worse than a criminal. It’s as if they redirect the violence average people place upon the torture and murder of animals to other people, even if those people all share the same end goal.

This reality has translated to personal feelings of guilt and shame.

I’ve noticed more and more that if I talk to a fellow vegan or vegetarian about my favorite food, if my answer isn’t baked tempeh or steamed tofu, there is a split second, a quick pang, of passed judgement. How dare I love greasy dairy-free mac and cheese so much.

My dietary experiences are such a small factor in this issue.

I claim wellness as a passion. But how dare I only go to the gym a few times a week and occasionally practice yoga.

I claim environmental justice, yet I have not attended a climate rally. The petitions I have signed, and the social media posts I make are nothing compared to what a true activist should be doing.

I claim to be educated, yet I still get around by driving a car instead of biking or walking.

And even though I claim sustainability, I am wrong for occasionally using paper plates or plastic utensils, despite the fact the vast majority of the time, I eat from reusable plates made of wheat and with metal utensils.

In 2021, we’ve seen our fill of divisiveness.

The 2020 election left a chilling effect on our

A ticket to tragedy

nation, and it’s scary to try to find community.

So why are we wasting energy, anger and spirituality on hating fellow environmentalists for not meeting false standards? There’s no rule book on how to save the Earth as an individual.

There’s no chief of staff.

It’s just you, me and our metal straws.

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Travis Scott’s Astroworld festival highlights concert-going dangers

BY NICOLE MCISAAC News Editor

Ten people, 10 families, were changed forever by the deadly Travis Scott Astroworld music festival Nov. 5, at NRG Park in Houston, Texas. And why?

Squished crowds, drugs and alcohol, loud music, a post-quarantine push and lack of proper concert management are to blame.

Despite any kind of reasoning behind this catastrophe, those 10 people between the ages of 9 and 27 will never get to return home to their families, never fulfill their lives’ journeys — and that number could increase. The rest of the 50,000 people in the crowd are left injured and scarred for life. This also left society in shambles, wondering how an incident like this could take place.

As the events unraveled, social media flooded with videos from inside the concert, many of which left a chill running down my spine as I continued to scroll through various threads and posts. I kept thinking to myself, “Why is the concert still going on?”

Why did Astroworld continue to rage on as people were crushed to death and thousands begged for help?

No one should ever lose their life at a concert, and artists have a responsibility to make sure danger does not interfere with the experience of attending a festival such as Astroworld. This tragedy changed my entire outlook on concerts.

As a concert enthusiast, I cannot imagine being in that packed crowd and feeling the way those people did that night, helpless, left to die, wondering if they will ever make it home.

After seeing how the events at this festival unfolded, I can no longer confidently say I am comfortable stepping into that kind of setting again. The “what if” factor that will always ruin any kind of enjoyment that comes from attending in-person concerts again.

As people in the crowd screamed and begged Scott to stop the concert, he continued to perform for over 40 minutes. And that’s what makes it worse.When he actually decided to call for security, the damage was already done and lives had already been lost.

While some people defend him arguing that he had no idea what was happening, there’s evidence that reveals that he could see into the crowd. At one point during the concert, he playfully shouted out people swinging on trees in the back. He urged management to “turn the lights on” and encouraged the crowd “to make some noise” for the people in the trees.

The fact that he asked the crowd to make some noise while individuals laid on the ground screaming as loud as they physically can. There is no excuse that he was unaware of the events that were unfolding right in front of his eyes. None.

In a TikTok posted by @dieghtx30, the user recorded their experience at Astroworld, portraying the panic in people’s faces, screams throughout the crowd and bodies being trampled on. Someone in the video even stated, “Somebody’s dying, somebody is gonna die,” while Scott just continued with his performance.

There should have been preventive measures taken to prevent this disaster from happening. Scott and the rest of the management team could have been more mindful of the state of the crowd, and they unfortunately acted too late. The outcome of this situation is now in their hands.

I have always been a huge fan of Scott, listening to every song and album on repeat.

However, after this instance, the skip button will be the only action I take when one of his songs plays on my phone.

And really, it’s a shame. I used to love to blast his songs, especially ones from the “Astroworld” album itself. I followed along his family journey with Kylie Jenner, daughter Stormi Webster and their soon-to-be child on the way.

His artistry was admirable, but now his character speaks for itself.

After the concert, Scott attended a party at Dave & Busters hosted by surprise performer Drake. Scott allegedly did not know of the deaths or anything that occured at the concert, according to NBC News. Once alerted of the situation, Scott apparently left the party and went home.

Although I acknowledge the fact that he did not stay and live up the night, I feel that he couldn’t have just discovered the situation at that moment.

Later, he took to social media, posting an Instagram story to address the tragedy that happened at his music festival. While watching the video, Scott continuously rubbed his head over and over in an unusual way. It felt

PHOTO BY ENJOY THE SHOW/FLICKR

Rapper Travis Scott engages with his fans during a 2017 concert.

like a staged and unemotional task that he needed to do to save his reputation.

He then posted a statement on Twitter stating, “I’m absolutely devastated by what took place last night. My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld festival.”

If he was actually so distraught by the turn of events, why did he keep singing song after song? Why did he continue to sing as unconscious individuals were pulled out of the deadly sea of the crowd? Based on the video of him spotting the people hanging from trees, I believe he in fact did have some understanding that something was awry.

It’s awful. It is sickening to watch and mortifying to know the loud music playing is what someone was hearing as it could have been the last minutes of their life.

Concert organizing company Scoremore released a statement on Twitter saying that all Astroworld attendees will receive a full refund, and they “are working on ways to support attendees, the families of victims, and staff.”

Scott and the organizers behind the event need to be held accountable for this, and need to do more for the individuals who were directly impacted by this festival.

This is not an incident to simply brush off and forget as time permits. This should be a reminder of how dangerous concerts can be.

Looking back into The Who’s 1979 concert at Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati, Ohio, 11 people were killed and eight were severely injured after a stampede of fans flooded through the arena’s doors to get into the concert.

While events at concerts like this have happened before, Astroworld needs to be a wake-up call for not only performing artists but for regular concert attendees as well.

For anyone defending Scott, the narrative should not simply revolve around him, despite the responsibility he has. The real focus here is the individuals who did not make it home that night, the kids who hugged their parents goodbye, not knowing it would be their last time.

6|Arts and Life

The Quinnipiac Chronicle

November 17, 2021

Arts & Life SIX HOURS TO FIT IN CENTURIES OF INDIGENEITY

The Albert Schweitzer Institute hosted its annual Indigeneity Initiative Teach-In

By ASHLEY PELLETIER, DAVID MATOS and NEHA SEENARINE

We all know the classic story of the first Thanksgiving — loads of noble Englishmen arrived in America a long time ago and held a peaceful feast with the local Indigenous community. The version of the first Thanksgiving most of us are familiar with fails to include the Indigenous peoples’ point of view, a recurring theme within American education.

Quinnipiac University’s Albert Schweitzer Institute held its second day-long Indigeneity Initiative Teach-In on Nov. 9, in the Carl Hansen Student Center Piazza from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The event started discussions with students, faculty and staff on Quinnipiac’s Indigenous roots, the impact of colonization, the untold perspectives of Indigenous communities and many of the speaker’s personal stories. “(Indigenous) peoples have been marginalized and peoples have been erased from the histories of the places that they've inhabited for a very, very long time,” said Sean Duffy, executive director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute and professor of political science. “That's somewhat the focus of our initiative here on campus is to try to embrace that fact and try to reverse that fact.”

For Americans, Thanksgiving is a joyous occasion to indulge an abundance of home-cooked foods with their loved ones. The four-century-old tradition is meant to mimic the first feast between the pilgrims of Plymouth and members of the Wampanoag tribe. Households across the nation pull up a chair with limited knowledge on the historical event’s real-life impact on Indigenous nations.

Christina Dickerson, assistant professor of history, started the day with a retelling of the first Thanksgiving through the lens of the Indigenous people and examined how we can collectively transform our misguided perception of Indigenous history.

“You should rethink (the first Thanksgiving) by recognizing what it meant and means for Indigenous nations,” Dickerson said. “For them, it's the beginning of this English colonization process. It's the beginning of being displaced, suffering from all these types of diseases, losing their lands (and) losing their ability to live as they want to on their own land.”

Dickerson encouraged guests to visit the Akomawt Educational Initiative website, watch the PBS documentary, “We Shall Remain: After the Mayflower,” pick up the books “If You Lived During the Plimoth Thanksgiving” by Chris Newell and “The Name of War: King Philip’s War and the Origins of American Identity” by Jill Lepore, to further learn more about indigeneity and the troubling history of the first Thanksgiving.

J.T. Torres, assistant professor of English and director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, spoke next on the concept of “decolonizing a university” versus “the decolonizing university.”

Torres said all universities are essentially a colonial institution because they operate through an assemblage of colonial inventions. Decolonizing a university directly confronts and critiques the colonial structure and assemblage of power within any teaching institution such as the grading system or attendance policy.

Incorporating diverse and modern ideals within colonial technologies is one way to decolonize a university and allow for more freedom to its student body.

Torres used the example of allowing his students to write in any language that they feel comfortable with in his classroom. This allowance still uses the format of a teacher allocating a writing assignment, but it flips the narrative as it allows the students to write in their preferred language.

“When we decolonize the university, we're still operating within some of these relationships with power — such as having someone to allow you to speak and write and think the way that you know how to speak it,” Torres said.

The decolonizing university, on the other hand, completely transforms colonial technologies with the intent of liberation rather than simply improving upon them.

“This is all about flipping the script,” Torres said. “Not just becoming really good at the script, not just critiquing and trashing the scripts, but also how we make use of the script.”

The first student speaker of the day, Kiara Tantaquidgeon, founder and former president of the Indigenous Student Union, discussed indigenizing education, what it means to her and her journey at Quinnipiac.

Tantaquidgeon, a senior health science studies major, had planned to

change schools after her first year at Quinnipiac due to the university not having as big an Indigenous presence.

“I wanted to go to a school where I could be a part of such a community and have a support system designed for Indigenous students,” Tantaquidgeon said.

“As well as a connection to my culture and history.”

Tantaquidgeon decided to continue her education at Quinnipiac but with the plan of building a Indigenous community and converting Quinnipiac into a more inclusive institution.

“I personally could not wait to transfer and go somewhere that had all that I desired,” Tantaquidgeon said.“But something did not feel right about leaving. I thought, ‘what if there are other students like me who long for this community?’”

To conclude the morning’s events, the Student Government Association spoke about the Legend of the Bobcat, its appropriated origin and whether or not it should be revised or replaced completely.

“We’re having larger-scale conversations with the Indigenous community about the Legend of the Bobcat,” said Jeremy Gustafson, a senior economics and political science double major and the SGA vice president for inclusion. “And see how we can transform it and rewrite it to make it not cultural appropriation and to foster a better sense of community.”

However, it is important to note that indigeneity is not exclusive to the Americas. Associate professor of history Nita Verma Prasad discussed how Western colonization impacted the status of Muslim people in India.

She started her presentation by showing the discrimination that the 200 million Muslims in India are currently facing at the hands of Hindu-nationalist groups. Then, she went back in time to show how it came to that.

Muslim people initially came to the subcontinent around 700 A.D. They created kingdoms of great power, including the Mughal Empire of the 1500s A.D. Through the hundreds of years of living sideby-side with the Indigenous Hindu people, the religions started to fuse as Muslim leaders took characteristics of different religions and applied them to their own.

“Centuries of cultural assimilation and absorption meant that the Mughals’ version of Islam took on an Indian, even Hindu, flavor and adopted local, native characteristics,” Prasad said. “By the 1500s … you literally could go to any Hindu temple or Muslim mosque in India and there would be two prayer books sitting up on the dais.”

When the British colonized India in the 1800s, the Muslims who came to the subcontinent over a thousand years prior had become indigenized, but as time went on and society became rigid with identity, they became outsiders once again.

“We live in a world with really rigid dividing lines,” Prasad said. “You’re either an outsider or an insider. You’re a native or you’re an immigrant. In India, you’re a Hindu or a Muslim … We neatly pigeonhole them into discrete compartments.”

Prasad created the presentation to rewrite the narrative of the “Muslim boogeyman” that British colonizers and Hindu nationalists created to discriminate against Muslims.

Following Prasad, Jennifer Dauphinais, assistant teaching professor of education, told the story of the Métis people of Canada through her lived experience.

While doing genealogical research, Dauphinais found that several of her ancestors were Métis — mixed race — people who were marked as “savage” or “illiterate” in the Canadian census. She traced her line all the way to Jean Nicolet, a French

November 17, 2021

The Quinnipiac Chronicle

Arts and Life|7

DESIGN BY CONNOR LAWLESS

explorer known to be the first European to step foot in Wisconsin.

Frenchmen like Nicolet would marry Indigenous women and have children with them to “integrate rather than dominate” the Indigenous population. At the same time, residential schools across Canada tortured and killed Indigenous children, hoping to, as Gen. Richard H. Pratt put it, “kill the Indian and save the man.”

“I believe the story I shared today highlights a hairline of how we got here,” Dauphinais said. “These colonial narratives paint a romantic picture of conquerors, and at the same time erase the women who carried the generations and this work.”

By addressing the colonial narrative that students are often presented in schools, Dauphinais hopes to begin changing the story at the source by educating future teachers.

“We know that our K-12 curriculum is not accurate, nor thorough,” Dauphinais said. “It’s biased, it’s Eurocentric, it’s white … We’ve really got a huge project there with critical curriculum studies and discourse analysis.”

Vice President for Equity, Inclusion and Leadership Development and associate professor of sociology Donald Sawyer addressed his search for answers in his genealogy, and how he found something he never knew about.

Sawyer always identified as African American and traced his ancestors to a plantation in South Carolina, where their names were not recorded, halting his search in that branch of his family history.

“I couldn’t go any further because there were no names being associated with the people that were owned at that time,” Sawyer said. “It’s like slave one, slave two, slave three and slave four were my ancestors, but I have no connection to them because their history was cut off at that point in time.”

However, Sawyer felt like his father did not fall under that umbrella. When searching through his genealogy, he found that his father descended from the Shinnecock Tribe of Long Island. When he saw portraits of Shinnecock people taken by someone on Long Island, he knew that’s where his family traced back to.

“It clicked for me because I saw my grandmother's and my father's, my great grandmother's face in the people that he captured in his photos,” Sawyer said.

Much like the history of his ancestors in South Carolina, Sawyer’s Shinnecock ancestry was erased by census-takers who did not care about the nuances of the AfroIndigenous identity, leaving him to discover it in adulthood.

Sawyer’s family’s experience exemplifies the haze that white documentarians have created over the histories of both Black and Indigenous people.

Moving from the Shinnecock people to indigenity in East Haven, Connecticut, anthropology associate professor Julia Giblin shared that there’s more Indigenous land in the state than we are familiar with.

She presented a case study from the Burwell-Karako excavations in East Haven, Connecticut. The site contains 273,441 artifacts. It is a multicomponent site from the Middle Archaic through the late Woodland periods (about 3000 B.C. to 200 B.C.). Burwell is located north of the New Haven reservation and other important places to Quinnipiac.

In the past, amateur archaeologists only focused on the artistic aspect of artifacts rather than the cultural meaning. Their motive was to profit from the objects displayed.

“You know, trying to get new beautiful points for using their collections, (there was) a market incentive,” Giblin said. “There's really a lack of methodology a lot of times.”

Archaeologists in Connecticut today are working to make commitments to build stronger relationships with Indigenous communities by helping identify and resettle historic documents.

Political science assistant professor Marcos Scauso presented “Settling the United States: Epistemic Politics in the Institutionalization of Othering,” at the next event.

His general concern was “How do epistemic notions relate, in the institutional history of the United States, to the construction of ‘Latin America” as an ‘other’?”

“One side is to recreate and reinforce the archive which I think it's a lot of the work that has been done so far of rebuilding the histories that colonialism has erased,” Scauso said.

Scauso spoke on the questionable and all-reality foundation of life: God. Often taken as a starting point for people’s motives, beliefs and actions, God may be universally bounded but it has a boundary — applicable to everything else through othering.

“There's no authority because there's no connection to God,” Scauso said. “Therefore, there is emptiness … and finally any alternative of resistance becomes a form of an element and every

different kind of project of resistance and enactments and way of life becomes a threat to civilization.”

However, there is a spectrum of disputes about who knows the truth. Scauso explained that people have to set boundaries for themselves, whether it is separating yourself from validation of reality or validation spiritually.

Director of Global Learning Erin Sabato shared the importance of community-driven Indigenous learning. Sabato went to Guatemala where she met a local woman who taught her about the roots of the country.

“It was honestly one of the most poignant moments of my life and had set the foundation for my career,” Sabato said. “In Guatemala, I learned about the significance of language and how she asked me to translate specific words in a certain way, the verb chart. For example, ‘to struggle’ instead of ‘fight’ because of the (connotation of the) latter.”

Sabato explained that people can spend a long time studying, but they will never get the real value without traveling.

“We spent a lot of time learning about the history of what we call one model,” Sabato said. “It's imperative that students understand the local context of the locations they travel to. When discussing the itinerary for the program with you there I asked if we could have speakers come and present about the history of the country to the students.”

ISU President Gabriella Colello finished the event with “Indigeneity & Institutions: Global & Local Lessons from Moana Nui.” She surveyed the audience on how many people traveled to Hawaii or attended a lūʻau-themed party. Colello then questioned if they knew the cultural context behind it.

Colello danced professionally where she performed at children’s birthday parties or participated in dance companies. However, she noticed that she was hypersexualized when performing at events.

“I can remember quite a few times when I showed up to kids birthday parties thinking I was going to be dancing for a bunch of five-year-old girls, and it was a gathering of grown men upset that I was not a sex worker,” Colello said. “I realized what I was in the eyes of the people around when I walked in that identity so that kind of led me to ask certain questions. I always wish that at some point in school people would talk about Pacific Islanders.”

Colello took relevant coursework at Quinnipiac such as “Political Theory” and “International Relations” to understand different types of globalization. However, she felt there was still something missing.

The university lacked educational opportunities so Colello took matters into her own hands, creating a Pacific Island studies course.

“I'm actually designing a course in Pacific studies with the hope that it will be included as an elective,” Colello said. “... I had the experiences I had as a Pacific Islander in Connecticut, and I have a lot of peers in Connecticut without those experiences.”

The day-long Indigeneity Initiative Teach-In closed with remarks from ISU. It emphasized the change it wanted to see from Quinnipiac to provide a more inclusive environment for Indigenous students.

8|Arts and Life

The Quinnipiac Chronicle

November 17, 2021

BUILDING A COMMUNITY

The founder of the Quinnipiac Indigenous Student Union leaves her legacy

By KATIE LANGLEY Copy Editor

“Inclusive excellence” are two often-cited words listed in Quinnipiac University’s diversity and inclusion initiative that speak louder than any pamphlet stock photo of smiling, diverse students.

It’s a great idea on the surface, but when you dig deeper, it is obvious that the university lacks diversity, with 21% of the class of 2024 identifying as underrepresented minorities.

For students like Kiara Tantaquidgeon, a senior health science studies major, “inclusive excellence” is all too often an empty promise.

Tantaquidgeon “couldn't believe” that a program didn’t exist for indigenous students when she came to Quinnipiac.

Coming from an Indigenous background as a member of the Mohegan Tribe, the last thing Tantaquidgeon wanted to do was attend a university without a space for Indigenous students.

“I grew up very close to my reservation and very close to the family I had on the reservation,” Tantaquidgeon said. “And I knew that (an Indigenous community) was something I wanted, because it was something I had at home, and I was already really scared about the whole transition.”

However, unforeseen family issues led Tantaquidgeon to stay close to home for college and attend Quinnipiac. Though the university shares a name with the Quinnipiac Tribe of southern Connecticut, there was little visible Indigenous representation on campus.

Tantaquidgeon, who had grown up learning about the Quinnipiac people, said this disappointed her during her first year.

“I kind of just went under the radar and tried to get through the year because I had it all set up to transfer,” Tantaquidgeon said.

Cornell University almost became Tantaquidgeon’s home away from home after her first year at Quinnipiac, thanks to the numerous student organizations for Indigenous students.

That all changed when she got some life-changing advice from her academic advisor, who asked her, “would you rather be a small fish in a big pond, or a big fish in a small pond?”

“I thought about that and then decided to stay,” Tantaquidgeon said. “But under the condition that I was going to do work, relating to … having an Indigenous community on campus.”

As a sophomore, Tantaquidgeon gave a speech at her first teach-in about being an Indigenous student in a primarily white institution, and she did not stop there.

“I was educating a community, and I didn't have a community,” Tantaquidgeon said. “... I was like, should I start making a community?”

So, she made her own space.

The Indigenous Student Union, which Tantaquidgeon lovingly refers to as her “baby,” has existed as an informal group since fall 2019, but the university only officially chartered it in fall 2021.

Tantaquidgeon, who has been the organization’s president since its conception, worked tirelessly for this recognition, drafting constitution after constitution over a six-month period and devoting countless hours to securing university approval.

Prior to being an organization recognized by the university, ISU relied on funding from the Multicultural Student Leadership Council in the interim, which meant it couldn’t have events that required substantial funding, such as holding giveaways and hosting speakers, that can attract new members.

“It was really hard on me both mentally and academically.

I got a 2.8 GPA is where I started. And that is not like me,” Tantaquidgeon said. “A lot of times where I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. This isn't worth it.”

But with a university-recognized organization under her belt, Tantaquidgeon said she's changed her perspective. “(ISU) has grown into something that I never imagined it being,” Tantaquidgeon said. “It's so much bigger than I ever thought it was going to be and so much more well-known and recognized and appreciated in the Quinnipiac community than I could even have hoped for.”

Tantaquidgeon said the best part about being chartered is the validation of all the group’s hard work.

“Now that we have this title, we can actually be a group of people who can call Quinnipiac home, and also find home within our own Indigenous community,” Tantaquidgeon said.

For the founder of ISU, it has been a long journey, culminating in where she is today: on the cusp of graduation in December with a strong group of advocates behind her to follow in her footsteps.

These students, who will inherit Tantaquidgeon’s project, said goodbye to her Wednesday, Nov. 10, during her Farewell to ISU event.

“The legacy Kiara is leaving behind is a big one,” David Rosenbaum, a sophomore history major and the secretary of the organization, said. “However, I can say with confidence that it’s one we are prepared and ready to follow.”

Rosenbaum compared Tantaquidgeon to a “founding father,” saying that it will be difficult to live up to her influence.

“We (the ISU e-board) have to remember that we are all different people who bring different things to this beautiful and diverse organization,” Rosenbaum said.

CRANDALL YOPP/QUINNIPIAC UNIVERSITY

Kiara Tantaquidgeon signs off as president of Indigenous Student Union.

When it comes to the future, Tantaquidgeon shared her hopes for the organization— an ISU that is even more involved in the university and the community as a whole.

The ISU began forming alliances across the state, working closely with the Native American and Indigenous Students Association at the University of Connecticut.

Tantaquidgeon said that she hopes the organization draws on larger Indigenous student groups at other universities, such as Cornell and Yale University, and creates a space for Indigenous students. The group also hopes to advocate for the addition of an Indigenous studies minor to Quinnipiac and change the fictitious and culturally-appropriative “Legend of the Bobcat.”

“I hope that more native students will feel comfortable coming here, but I think even the small group of people that we have now are going to be capable of really helping push forward this big change that needs to happen,” Tantaquidgeon said.

DIWALI LIGHTS UP QU INNIPIAC

By WILLIAM GAVIN Staff Writer

Students walked through flowery streamers into the bright Burt Kahn gymnasium to join Quinnipiac University’s South Asian Society in celebrating Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, on Nov. 12.

Once through the streamers, people were met with the smell of sweet desserts and chicken tikka, colorful ornaments hanging on the walls and loud laughter. In the background, Bollywood music played from Indian singer Sonu Nigam’s best hits, from “Suraj Hua Maddham” to “You are my Soniya.”

Diwali comes from the Sanskrit word “deepavali,” which means “row of clay lamps.” The celebrations focus on the Hindu god Rama’s victory over evil and return from 14 years of exile.

“We basically celebrate with our loved ones,” said Megha Patel, vice president of the SAS and a junior accounting major. “It's the festival of lights. You celebrate with a bunch of food, decorations (and) performances that we're going to have later.”

The SAS had been planning Diwali since August in order to get the decorations, food, clothing and arts and crafts ready.

“We've had decorations ordered three or four weeks in advance; we had to get the food orders in a couple of weeks ago,” said Kripa Patel, president of SAS and a junior health science studies major. “Then we got here two hours prior to the event to set up. So a lot of planning that goes behind this event, it's our biggest event of the semester.”

In between bites of gulab jamun, a sweet milk-based dessert, and samosas, students crafted small lamps called diyas, which are typically made out of clay and hold candles, as well as other small crafts.

Diwali was a learning experience for some students such as Jadalise Santiago, a sophomore nursing major, who came to support and bond with her roommate.

“This is the first time, I think we've had real Indian food and it was actually a really good experience, like the samosas and stuff,” Santiago said. “And I love the painting. (My roommate) taught us about how special (diyas) are, and how

WILLIAM GAVIN/CHRONICLE

One way the South Asian Society celebrates Diwali is by dancing to classic Bollywood hits. they represent holding candles and are a part of her culture.” the food as a “10/10” and praised how prepared the SAS was After most of the students finished eating and began to for the event. unwind, members of the SAS joined together to perform Irsa Awan, former Muslim Student Association president choreographed dances in traditional clothing. and current graduate student in the biomedical sciences The first dance featured four women dancing alone, but program, spoke about how she has more freedom to enjoy in unison with each other, as they twirled, bowed and threw these events as a graduate student. their hands into the air. The next two dances saw both men “I was really involved with the MSA, and I know we're and women dancing together, combining traditional hand friends with South Asian Society as well,” Awan said. “So gestures with energetic and practiced movements. my friends are here, like everyone (is) here basically, I get As the night began to end, students reflected on the event, to support them and see how it is now. I don’t need to go to and gave it gold star recommendations. Corey Windham, a as many events, it’s nice.” senior graphic and interactive design major, complimented

November 17, 2021

The Quinnipiac Chronicle

Arts and Life|9

Make the most of college every day

By MICHAEL SICOLI Editor-in-Chief

Where were you a year ago?

Not a single person wants to remember how difficult the last year and a half was for them, but try to think back. I know I was struggling, upset that my college experience was not all that I wanted it to be. I know I put on more weight in the fall after dropping much of it over summer’s quarantine — which bothered me. I definitely remember the different yellow, orange and red alert statuses as COVID-19 crawled like a spider over Quinnipiac University.

All of that bothered the heck out of me. It was miserable, but a year later, perspective is beginning to set in.

Last year, Quinnipiac still offered hybrid classes.

Students still walked across the Quad. Roommates still hung around, flipping book pages while tossing a ping pong ball simultaneously. It wasn’t what college was sold as, but it was something.

Now, it becomes more evident than ever that the pandemic fortified our inner strength. With Thanksgiving on the horizon, perspective is something that every Quinnipiac student should consider.

Take masks, for example. I wrote an opinion article over the summer about how I believed mandated masks were unnecessary when the COVID-19 vaccine was required for every student.

I stand by that point, but I’ve come to realize that complaining about the little things is not a productive way to manage your emotions amid a stressful college lifestyle.

After all, students have enough on their plate — easing it feels like scooping water out of the ocean with a toy bucket.

With this new state of mind, I challenge you to think beyond yourself. When your day starts to spiral, realize these should be the best days of your life.

There may be better days ahead, but college is a wealth of individualism, freedom and growth. Rarely will the three ever coincide again more than they will right here and now. You owe

it to yourself to make each day better than the last.

As a notoriously pessimistic person, not everything will break my way. It’s a growing point, but I’ve come to the realization that my mistakes and screw-ups should not ruin my day or week. Avoiding spiraling is an important way to keep yourself afloat.

It’s not easy to take a step back when something goes wrong, particularly with big decisions or projects that took a lot of investment. But again, capitalizing on the college years means putting the bad moments in the rearview mirror. After talking to my older brother, who graduated from Rochester Institute of Technology a few years back, he shared some wisdom only an older sibling could pass down.

These days of freedom — surrounded by friends — they are, in a way, numbered. Experiencing all you can and living to the fullest is the best way to make that expensive tuition worth it.

If you are struggling, seek help.

The counselors at Quinnipiac can be a good resource, of which you can find contacts on the university website. But don’t let the daily, nitty-gritty grind lead you to bury your head in a pillow for the night. You have people to see, memories to make and experiences to conquer.

ILLUSTRATION BY CONNOR LAWLESS

So as we Bobcats head into Thanksgiving break, breaking bread and eating turkey over the dinner table, be thankful.

Recognize how far you have come and appreciate every step you have along the way.

SILK SONIC'S DEBUT, A TOUGH LISTEN FRONT TO BACK

By MICHAEL LAROCCA Staff Writer

Ladies and gentlemen, I will say this as respectfully as I can.

If you are here looking for the album of the year, keep looking.

Eight months and seven days after the release of their hit single “Leave the Door Open,” R&B stars Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak graced the world with their highly anticipated debut album as a duo titled “An Evening With Silk Sonic” on Nov. 12.

The music world waited patiently for new music from both artists. Mars’ most recent album “24K Magic” is nearing its fifth birthday after it was released in November 2016, and Paak has not released anything since his last album “Ventura” came out in April 2019. With that much time passed, expectations were high for their collaboration.

PHOTO BY MERLIJN HOEK VIA FLICKR

Anderson .Paak first worked with Bruno Mars during the studio sessions for his 2019 album 'Ventura.'

Personally, I cannot say for sure whether the album metthose expectations.

That does not mean I did not enjoy the album. Mars and Paak’s ability to harness the sound of 1970s soul led to them creating the most sonically unique album of 2021.

However, during my first listen, I was met with a collection of songs that came across as an absolute enigma.

After hearing the album’s three singles, “Leave the Door Open,” “Skate” and “Smokin Out The Window,” I was expecting the whole thing to sound just like them.

These three are the quintessential Silk Sonic experience.

They all use Paak and Mars to their fullest potential, exude the upbeat nature of soul and are laser focused on the album’s theme of the trials and tribulations that come with searching for love in the modern age.

While each moment of the tracklist is great, my instincts are begging me to ignore the buzz of this LP being labeled album of the year months before it was even released.

Instead of the whole project sounding as good as its singles, the other songs felt extremely different on the first and subsequent listens. Songs like “After Last Night” and “Blast Off” left me with sonic and tonal whiplash when they succeeded “Fly As Me” and “Skate,” respectively. When an extremely slow and somber song comes on immediately after one that is very happy and upbeat, it can only leave the listener confused and rushing to adjust their headspace.

The mad scramble the listener needs to catch up to the mood of each track is only exacerbated by the whole project’s length.

As an avid fan of short albums, this one missed the mark when it came to song amount. While I was not expecting an album as beefy as “Donda,” the 31-minute runtime with only eight fulllength songs feels way too short for the type of impact that Paak and Mars wanted the album to have. One or two more songs would have helped the LP hit that sweet spot that it desperately needed and deserved.

The album’s main bright spot comes from its sixth track, “Put On A Smile.” The song itself is as close to perfect as you’ll get from this album. Mars’ vocals on the chorus brings listeners back to his peak days as a performer, and Paak’s tone of voice during his verses perfectly fit the somber mood the song is going for. This track is definitely the magnum opus the album needed if it wanted to have a chance at being unquestionably great.

After hours of tearing my mind apart attempting to form a concrete opinion for myself about this album, I finally found one. Each and every song on this LP is excellent, but it just is not a great album. “An Evening With Silk Sonic” is a collection of songs that you can add to your playlist and find enjoyment out of, but should rarely be listened to front to back.

I came into this album wanting it to be far and away the best album released in a year full of classics, but I just cannot call it that.

PHOTO BY BROTHERS LE VIA FLICKR

Bruno Mars has not released an album since 2016's '24K Magic.'

Paak and Mars’ debut piece lives and dies by its modern fusion of funk and soul. With its tracks being great on their own, their placements next to each other only seem to accentuate their flaws instead of adding depth to their positives. The fact that there were only eight full-length songs as well left them with very little room for error. It is difficult to say how I will feel about this album in a month or even a week, but for now, this is where my opinion stands. Go listen to “Life of The Party” by Kanye West and André 3000 first.

3/5 1977 Monte Carlos

The Quinnipiac Chronicle

10|Sports

Scores & Schedule

November 17, 2021

Graduated, but not done The men’s ice hockey team’s graduate transfers are exceeding expectations

Friday 11/12

WXC 15th of 36 @ NCAA Regional Championships MXC 29th of 35 @ NCAA Regional Championships MBB won 103-52 vs. Western New England WIH won 3-1 @ Princeton MIH won 5-3 vs. Arizona State

Saturday 11/13

VB won 3-0 @ Manhattan WBB won 79-50 @ CCSU WIH lost 1-0 vs. Princeton MIH won 5-2 vs. Arizona State

Sunday 11/14 VB lost 3-2 @ Iona

Monday 11/15

MBB won 76-68 vs. Holy Cross

ALEX BAYER/CHRONICLE

Graduate student forward Oliver Chau celebrates after scoring his second of three goals against Arizona State on Saturday.

NOV. 12

NOV. 12

CONNOR LAWLESS/CHRONICLE

PEYTON MCKENZIE/CHRONICLE

Upcoming Thursday 11/18 WBB @ Army 6 p.m.

Friday 11/19

VB MAAC Championships 1 p.m.

WIH @ Cornell 3 p.m.

MIH vs. Clarkson 7 p.m.

Saturday 11/20

MXC ECAC Championships 10 a.m.

WXC NCAA Championship 10 a.m.

MBB vs. CCSU 1 p.m.

VB MAAC Championships 1 p.m.

WIH @ Colgate 3 p.m.

WBB vs. Indiana 4 p.m.

MIH vs. St. Lawrence 7 p.m.

Sunday 11/21

VB MAAC Championships 1 p.m.

Monday 11/22

WBB @ George Washington 5 p.m.

Tuesday 11/23

MBB @ New Hampshire

By BENJAMIN YEARGIN Staff Writer

Imagine devoting yourself to one team, building relationships and creating a legacy, but then it ends after four years. After you graduate, something still lingers inside of you: a burning love and passion for the sport that’s been with you since childhood.

You decide to play more hockey and become a graduate student.

No. 5 Quinnipiac welcomed five new graduate student players this year: forward Oliver Chau, goaltender Dylan St. Cyr and defenders Brendan Less, Griffin Mendel and Tony Stillwell.

Stillwell and Less transferred to Quinnipiac from within ECAC Hockey, where they represented Brown and Dartmouth, respectively. Chau transferred from UMass, St. Cyr from Notre Dame and Mendel from Denver.

Adapting to Quinnipiac has been easy for the graduate students as they came to campus in the summer and had some of the upperclassmen mentor them.

“The community has been accepting of us … the returning guys on the team have helped us through getting settled with classes and housing,” Chau said.

Chau had an illustrious career at UMass, totaling 84 points on 28 goals and 56 assists in 134 games. His playstyle at UMass mirrors that of former Quinnipiac star forward Odeen Tufto, who loved to disperse the puck. That playstyle was most evident in Chau’s senior season when he amassed 22 assists in 29 games played.

So far in the 2021-22 season, Chau has tallied nine points on five goals and four assists, recently earning a hat trick against Arizona State on Nov. 13.

While at Quinnipiac, Chau hopes that the Bobcat faithful sees that he makes the game fun and energetic with his style of play.

“I just try and make plays with the puck … and fans like goals so hopefully (I) get a couple of those too,” Chau said.

Chau was the only offensive player to transfer into Quinnipiac this year, with the rest being defenders and a goaltender. Mendel, Stillwell and Less came to replace key defenders Logan Britt, who transferred to Sacred Heart, and Peter DiLiberatore, who signed an entry-level contract with the Vegas Golden Knights.

St. Cyr’s presence combined with sophomore goaltender Yaniv Perets will replace the astronomical gap left by goaltender Keith Petruzzelli, who was the 2021 ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Year and was named to the 2021 ECAC Hockey First Team.

Stillwell spent the past four seasons with fellow ECAC Hockey team Brown where he consistently earned double-digit points as a defenseman and got his body in shooting lanes, tallying 16 blocked shots in 2019-20, which he can bring to the Bobcats.

Less came to the Bobcats from Dartmouth where he was an ironhorse, playing in over 30 games two out of his three seasons as a Big Green. None of the Ivy League athletic

teams played last year due to COVID-19, so Less hadn’t played a regulation college hockey game for close to a year and a half. Assimilating to Quinnipiac hockey has been easy for Less as he’s spent a lot of time with the team.

“Practicing with the team itself, I wasn’t really able to do that at all last year, so getting here early in the summer definitely helped … being around the team and taking it one day at a time helped,” Less said.

The final two graduate students, Mendel and St. Cyr, transferred from distant parts of the U.S. Prior to arriving in Hamden, Mendel played four seasons with the Denver Pioneers where he put together quite the resume. He earned associate captain honors, played in 134 games and tallied 20 points.

Mendel also took home the Keith Magnuson Best Defensive Player Award in 2019-20 and 2020-21, an accolade given to the Denver Pioneers’ best defender every year.

Transitioning from the NCHC to the ECAC Hockey has not been much different hockey-wise for Mendel, but the travel has impacted him.

“I’m used to playing two games at home or two games away against the same place and the same team and we flew everywhere,” Mendel said. “… I’m not really used to bussing, especially day-of bussing so it’s a little different.”

Mendel has played in every game for the Bobcats so far, most frequently appearing on the second line alongside junior defender Jayden Lee. He has been and should continue to be a defensive anchor for Quinnipiac, providing a foundation for which the rest of the team can thrive upon. Having already amassed 10 blocked shots and 17 shots, he’s clearly making an impact.

Finally, St. Cyr played his first four collegiate hockey seasons for Notre Dame. In his senior season, he started in 22 of the 29 games the Fighting Irish played, and he put up a 2.44 goals against average, .921 save percentage and three shutouts.

St. Cyr is smaller than most college goaltenders — he stands at 5 feet, 8 inches and 167 lbs, while the average NCAA goalie is at least 6 feet tall. He compensates for his lack of size by being more active and agile in the net compared to other goaltenders, constantly pouncing on loose pucks with the reflexes of a cat. St. Cyr frequently plays with the puck, making stretch passes after collecting opposing dump-ins.

Regardless of where each graduate student Bobcat comes from, they all want to win not only for themselves, but for the spectators too.

“Fans like to win, so that’s obviously the ultimate goal, to win,” Chau said.

Quinnipiac sits at 9-1-2 (2-0-0 ECAC Hockey), looking to reach double-digit wins as it faces Clarkson on Friday, Nov. 19, at the People’s United Center at 7 p.m.

November 17, 2021

The Quinnipiac Chronicle

Sports|11

DeWees: ‘There is never really a personal goal’ 2020 MAAC Player of the Year’s selfless character brought her to QU, and the results have followed

By KEITH SAVAGE Staff Writer

MAAC Player of the Year, All-MAAC First Team, 2019 conference champion and more. What more can Bobcats senior guard Mackenzie DeWees achieve?

“There is never really a personal goal as in scoring or rebounding. It is all about winning as a team, losing as a team,” DeWees said. “ … As long as I am contributing to the team and being an asset to us, it is all about winning the MAAC tournament.”

The 5-foot-9 Westminster, Maryland native has been an all-around great player in her three years with Quinnipiac University. As talented of a player as she is, her character was a key reason for what attracted DeWees to head coach Tricia Fabbri.

Fabbri said she specifically recruits players like DeWees, who she loves being around because they have an incredible attitude.

“Mackenzie has been that (hard working) when she was younger, and that progress has led all the way to where we are today talking about the reigning player of the year of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference,” Fabbri said.

DeWees said that Fabbri is a mother figure to her, which is often said by the coach’s players.

“I’m a coach’s kid, I played for my mom in high school and I see (Fabbri) as a mom and an impeccable coach,” DeWees said.

Over the course of three years and now heading into her fourth, DeWees has completely changed her game throughout her time with the team. She said she always knew that she was a great player but just had to build confidence, and credits her former teammates like Jen Fay, who is now an assistant coach for the team, and former Quinnipiac guard Edel Thornton for acting as mentors to her.

“She always had the toughness piece but physically, she is a specimen out there now,” Fay said.

Fay also loved to see the improvement that DeWees has had mentally. She is excited to see the confidence that DeWees will have going into the season.

In the 2020-21 season, DeWees had her best collegiate

season. The most improved part of her game has been her shooting. In her sophomore season, she averaged 8.7 points per game on 35.9% field goal percentage and shot only 20% from the 3-point range. She increased her scoring to 13 points per game on 50% shooting from the court and 36% from three.

Another part of DeWees’ game that’s improved is rebounding. In 2020-21, the guard averaged the second most rebounds on the team with 7.7 per game.

“I just want to win, and I think those little things are so important to the overall game,” DeWees said.

After an amazing junior season, DeWees was awarded MAAC Player of the Year. When the team was getting ready to leave for the 2020-21 MAAC tournament, Fabbri announced that forward Mikala Morris won MAAC Defensive Player of the Year. She then looked over at DeCONNOR LAWLESS/CHRONICLE (2020) Wees and animatedly announced that Mackenzie DeWees averaged 13 points per game as a part of her outstanding she won MAAC Player of the Year.

“I was so excited that all the junior season. hard work in the offseason had reguard said she started to play back to full speed in late Sepally paid off and all the lifts, grueling hours of blood, sweat tember and now feels like she is back to full health. and tears have gone into something,” DeWees said.

DeWees has one personal goal for the season: to end her The Bobcats entered the MAAC tournament last year as career with another MAAC championship like how she did the No. 2 seed but were upset in the first round to No. 7 seed her first year as a Bobcat.

Rider. This season, the team was named No. 1 in the MAAC “She is a two-way player, I can not stress that enough,” Preseason Coaches’ Poll. In DeWees’ first year with Quin- Fabbri said. “She does not take a play off and she is unselfnipiac, the team won the conference but she says that is not ish and plays the game on both sides of the ball. She is a enough. But this offseason was a bit different for her. complete player.”

In July, DeWees got surgery completed on her knee. The

Halcovage: ‘(Dunleavy is) one of the best basketball minds I’ve been around’ BAKER DUNLEAVY from Page 12 Halcovage said Dunleavy’s strengths are his abilities to communicate and build relationships.

“One of the best basketball minds I’ve been around in terms of how he thought the game,” Halcovage said. “He also was really good at just communicating and making sure that players could understand his message in a way that got across very quickly … but it’s really about the relationships and being great with the players, and I think he was tremendous with that in his time (at Villanova).”

At Quinnipiac, Dunleavy has cultivated relationships with players, one being with sophomore wing Tymu Chenery. Last season, Dunleavy worked individually with Chenery on the mechanics of his jump shot, helping him gain confidence in it throughout the year. This kind of one-onone work is not typical of head coaches, Chenery said.

Outside of shooting help, Chenery recalled the times when he had individual success last season and Dunleavy helped him keep his performances in perspective. “(Coach said) ‘You haven’t done anything yet, you’re not where you want to be,’” Chenery said. “I feel like that stood out to me because you know a lot of people, a lot of coaches can just try to build your ego … but I think he did the exact opposite.”

Halcovage explained how Dunleavy also has “a great way of knowing the pulse of the room and being able to keep things light when he needs to.” One moment that exemplifies Dunleavy’s lightness happened last year during a team practice in a live drill. “(He) drives right by (junior wing) Brendan (McGuire), fake pass to the corner and then lays it up,” said Tyrese Williams, a senior guard. “And I’m like, ‘Yo, wait hold on, that was kind of tight.’ It was just so hilarious just see the way he moved, the way he walked after the play. It was just like he had so much swag doing it. It was one of those moments, like he made something so serious look so hilarious.”

This moment doesn’t only live in the players’ memories.

Video evidence exists.

“I think, actually, it was just thrown in the group chat, honestly, like two, three weeks ago,” Williams said. “We recently just bring it up because it’s just so funny.”

Having a balance of humor and gravitas is necessary at times to be an effective coach. Prior to entering the coaching ranks, he was a part of the no-nonsense corporate world, working at investment management company Merrill in New York City.

Dunleavy’s background in sales directly assisted him in his ability to recruit.

“He kept it straightforward, he’s very convincing,” sophomore guard Luis Kortright said about being recruited by Dunleavy. “He kept it ‘real-er’ than most of the coaches that I was talking to.”

The most important way Dunleavy’s time on Wall Street aided his coaching ability was through the adversity he faced.

“Number one, I was completely inexperienced, unqualified and green,” Dunleavy said. “So it really put me in a position to struggle, which is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.”

The Bobcats have struggled to win more than they lose in three of the four years Dunleavy has coached the team. But there is a possibility that these struggles might be a thing of the past. Although the team was ranked No. 9 out of 11 MAAC teams in the MAAC Preseason Coaches’ Poll, the Bobcats have impressed so far.

In the season opener against No. 21 Maryland, the Bobcats only lost by 14 — covering the +22.5-point spread — and outscored the Terrapins 44-42 in the second half. In its next game, the Bobcats blew out Division III opponent Western New England by a Division I era program-record 51 points. Most recently, Quinnipiac defeated Holy Cross 76-68, having five players score in double figures.

While the start to Dunleavy’s fifth season has been strong, Quinnipiac is far from proving that it can seriously compete in the MAAC and declare the rebuild phase over.

In Wright’s fifth season, he led Hofstra to a 22-10 record.

Then, in his next two seasons, Hofstra won consecutive conference championships before Wright left for Villanova.

Although it’s unreasonable to expect Dunleavy to have the same ascent as his former coach did in year five, his season is off to a good start. Will this be the year Dunleavy begins to live up to the “superstar” potential Wright saw in him? Regardless of what happens, Dunleavy will keep the same attitude.

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The men’s basketball team has started the 2021-22 season 2-1.

12|Sports

The Quinnipiac Chronicle

November 17, 2021

Sports @QUCHRONSPORTS

CONNOR LAWLESS/CHRONICLE

Villanova, Wall Street and culture Why QU men’s basketball head coach Baker Dunleavy is entrusted with a team that needs to be ‘built back up’

By TOYLOY BROWN III Managing Editor

Winning sports programs do not appear out of thin air.

They are developed behind closed doors and nurtured over time. The Quinnipiac men’s basketball team has aspirations of becoming a winning program, and head coach Baker Dunleavy is tasked with turning this hope into a reality.

Dunleavy played at Villanova from 2004-06 and started his head coaching career at Quinnipiac during the 2017-18 season after being on the coaching staff at his alma mater.

Going into his fifth year as a Bobcat, he only has a single winning season, 16-15 in 2018-19. Last year during the pandemic-shortened season, the Bobcats finished 9-13 and lost in the first round of the MAAC tournament to eventual conference champion Iona.

Dunleavy’s record through four years stands at 52-64.

Do you know who had an eerily similar first four seasons as a coach? Dunleavy’s former head coach and 2021 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Jay Wright. The renowned coach was 50-63 through four years at Hofstra University.

“Number one, I don’t think either of us would be advertising that,” Dunleavy said, chuckling before responding. “I think Hofstra was, as well as Quinnipiac, both jobs that needed to be built back up and so that’s reflected in what happens the first few years. But we want to win every game and we’re not a program that’s proud of that, that winning percentage.”

The process of going from a developing team to a contending one is not quick nor easy for most coaches. Creating a winner takes talent, as well as — every coach’s favorite word — culture.

“If you give coaches a platform to talk about the word ‘culture,’ they could go on for hours,” Dunleavy said. “The biggest thing for us is when we talk about attitude, which is the main word we use in our program. It’s really about response. When things are going against us, we have the best response of anybody in our league and anybody we’ll play against.”

Graduate student forward Jacob Rigoni, the Bobcats’ 2016, his final year as a coach in the program. leading scorer from last year with 11.8 points per game, “He excelled at every role and was a guy that nobody was surstarted his career at Quinnipiac the same year Dunleavy be- prised that he transcended through the ranks as quickly as he did,” gan coaching. He’s been familiar with Dunleavy’s philoso- said George Halcovage, Villanova’s current associate head coach. phy of staying even-keeled from day one. “(He) embodied everything coach Wright would want someone to “That’s the foundation of this program,” Rigoni said. “When (do) in the roles he was given.” plays don’t go our way, we come together and regroup and we make the next play, and we know that’s the most important one.

See BAKER DUNLEAVY Page 11 So, I think he’s done a great job instilling that, and guys really bought into that idea.”

The culture Dunleavy is building with the Bobcats is one that he derived from his time with the Wildcats.

“For me, that is something that I learned from coach Wright as far as attitude, and all the things that go along with it,” Dunleavy said. “I was very careful when I came here to Quinnipiac, and our staff got started, not to just mimic but to do the things … that I believe in wholeheartedly and … our players at this level could execute.”

When Dunleavy was with Villanova, Wright named him director of basketball operations in 2010, promoted Dunleavy to assistant coach in 2012 and elevated him to associate head coach in 2013.

He helped the Wildcats win SIDELINE PHOTOS FOR VILLANOVA ATHLETICS a national championship in Baker Dunleavy (left) was associate head coach at Villanova under Hall of Fame coach Jay Wright (right).