Arts & Life
FAFSA Question 58 Robin Bridges
the hours the mobile food pantry will be open. They are borrowing a back conference room near the women’s resource and student rights and responsibility center of the B building. All in the hope to be able to help all of the students they can. The present goal is to not turn away anyone who asks for it. The long-term goal is to find not only a permanent space for the currently mobile pantry on the main campus but to eventually expand to the other NEIU campuses. Moreno has already received words of support from directors at the El Centro campus. So far the biggest items on their wish list are toiletries and diapers.
Photo by Robin Bridges
The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, also known as FAFSA, asks a lot of questions about student demographics. Questions 51-58 of that form are the questions determining a student’s dependency status: Dependent or independent. It also determines a student’s homeless status also known as “unaccompanied homeless youth.” Question 58 most importantly reads, “Is Student an Unaccompanied Homeless Youth as Determined by Director of Homeless Youth Center?” According to 2013 FASFA data homeless college students are numbered at around 46,000 nationwide. These students are insecure of resources. This means that they are unsure about where their next meal or other resources will come from. Resources include food, shower, place to sleep and study and so many more. The problem with this question is it mainly applies to those under 21. Many homeless college students go unreported or under reported. “We know our students don’t fall into the typical 18-24 demographic,” says director of the Student Advocacy department, Luvia Moreno. With such a wide variety of students, the department of Student Advocacy aims to meet a wide variety of needs. Last spring NEIU set up a new department concerning student affairs, the Student Advocacy department. The NEIU student advocacy department began its first
ever food drive. The food drive will supply a student pantry to service these and many other students. Although hunger and homelessness are primary concerns for the initiative, the needed resources go far beyond food. “It’s only natural and necessary that we open a food pantry for students,” said Moreno. Resources include things like shampoo, conditioner, soap, diapers, feminine hygiene and other basic needs. The NEIU mobile food pantry is the first program through the department that will focus completely on students who are either food or resource insecure. The program began collecting food for this mobile pantry at the beginning of April. Placing collection bins in different social centers around the school. The hope is that students will fill the bins with everything from canned food and boxed goods to shampoo and diapers. With the first wave of collection ending with the semester, “There’s always fear that no one will show up because they’re embarrassed, they don’t want anyone to know their situation” said Moreno, an NEIU alum. “I am prepared to face that students won’t show up. I’m hoping to change that stigma of hunger. Anyone can go through this at any point in their life. No matter how much education we receive, no matter how well off our family can be, who knows.” Once the donation period is complete to launch a website to let students and faculty know
Where can you drop off your donations?
- Student Leadership Development Office (Lower level of E building) - The Angelina Pedroso Center (B-159) - The Learning Support Center (4th Floor of the Library) - The Project Success and Proyecto Pa’Lante Office (LWH 4029) - The Student Disability Services Office (D-104) - Student Affairs Office (3rd floor of C-building)
The Food Pantry serves the needs of NEIU’s most vulnerable students, and provides for them a service living up to the school’s creed.
There’s Strings in My Jewel Box: Photo by Pablo Medina
Kontras String Quartet
Traditional, classical and popular music was blended with virtuosic skill at the Jewel Box Series in the recital hall.
Pablo Medina The sounds of Mozart, Luigi Boccherini accompanied the American and Japanese folk songs during the performance of the Kontras String Quartet. The quartet consisted of Dmitri Pogorelov and Francois Henkins on violin, Ai Ishida on viola
and Jean Hatmaker on cello. Their performance touched upon many international expressions of music, from traditional popular music parodies of 20th century American tunes to the classical music of Italy and Austria, ending on the traditional folk songs of Japan. The choice of the set list exemplifies the background of the string
quartet: each member is from a different part of the world. Henkins, a South African native, banded Pogorelov, Russian-born, Hatmaker, from the land of Illinois, and Ishida, born in Tokyo, Japan, into a formidable string quartet during their tenures in the Chicago Civic Orchestra. Accompanying the performance was Dr. Rose Sperrazza, founder and artistic director of the Chicago Clarinet Ensemble. She performed alongside the Quartet during Mozart’s quintet in A major for clarinet and strings. Sperrazza spoke of the decision behind the Mozart piece. “It’s one of the chamber music pieces in the clarinet repertoires that is the most important,” she said. “Mozart is a very prolific composer, and his piece lasted through the centu-
ries…and I never got to perform that before, so that’s why I chose it.” Sperrazza expressed her meeting with the quartet before the performance, “It was friendly, and really easy to work with. Normally, in the first meeting, everybody’s a little bit more nervous, because we’re just meeting each other for the first time, but we got along well.” Along with Sperrazza, Dr. Brian Torosian, an applied guitar instructor, accompanied the Kontras String Quartet as well, playing “Fandango”, a guitar quintet in D major by Luigi Boccherini. “I performed with a string quartet before, and you’re not going to believe it, it was the same piece! It’s rhythmic and vibrant, you can even improvise with it a
bit. It’s become a staple in the repertoire for the guitar,” Torosian said. Torosian met the String Quartet simultaneously with Sperrazza. “I teamed my rehearsal with them along with Sperrazza’s, so she met them in the morning, and I met them in the afternoon. We rehearsed for two hours, and it was really fun,” he said. Torosian also noted the expression of the quartet’s technique, “As we played it, I realized we were all articulating exactly the same,” he stated. “The facility of the quartet was quite technical and expressive.” Henkins spoke of the influence to the quartet in performing over the years, “Our greatest influence in performing is the history of the music that we are playing.”