Colleagues remember Pamela White

ta once again taking over the Charles River in the middle of the month. With October coming to a close, Emerson shifted to a pooled testing model in an attempt to streamline the COVID-19 testing process and save money on testing costs. Meanwhile, students were overwhelmed by the return of in-person midterm exams.

November

November was a historic month for the city of Boston, with Michelle Wu becoming the first woman and first person of color to be elected to the mayoralty. Wu’s wasn’t the only election The Beacon reported on this month, as senior Richard Fucillo became a town councilor in his hometown of Winthrop, Mass. after launching an unsuccessful campaign for state senate earlier in 2021. Alum Jonathan Graziano and his pug Noodle took over the internet this fall, declaring each day a “bones day” or “no bones day” with the intent of telling viewers on TikTok what kind of day they were going to have. Emerson reported a massive increase to its endowment, though administrators cautioned that the finances would have little impact on students’ lives. Fietek, the former professor, was sentenced to 30 years in prison. With virus cases slowly rising again, students at the college’s Kasteel Well campus said they were unfazed by the lockdown imposed by the Netherlands. Mirroring a statewide trend, positive tests at Emerson began ticking up in November, though administrators said they were not concerned.

Courtesy Jiaxin Xu

December

The Associated Press advises against cursing, but being the editor of this paper for a few more hours, I’m making an executive decision to override the stylebook. December was the month where things went to shit. There were glimmers of light—the Institute of Contemporary Arts debuted two new exhibits that prompted thought and examination. Guy Fieri opened a new restaurant on Boylston Street. It finally snowed. But mostly, things were bad. Two Emerson students reported being the victims of an armed robbery in the public garden. Downtown Convenience was robbed at gunpoint. The Omicron variant was detected in the Netherlands, then Massachusetts. Experts said the variant had “global spreader potential.” Amid the fear prompted by the variant, Emerson mandated booster shots ahead of the spring semester. Then, shit hit the fan. Emerson reported 27 new positive tests in one day—as well as 49 active cases among community members, as COVID-19 tore through the community on a level never-before -een. As cases continued to spike—both at Emerson and in Massachusetts—college officials moved the first week of spring semester courses online and implemented a slew of new restrictions for the start of the semester. Eventually, Massachusetts crossed the 1 million case marker. With all of the ups and downs of 2021, here’s hoping 2022 finally brings the normalcy we all crave.

‘A truly lovely person,’ colleagues remember Pamela White, former Title IX & Clery Act coordinator

Frankie Rowley

Beacon Staff

Courtesy Virginia Tech

Associate Vice President Pamela White wrote that she had always dreamed of working in public service. Emerson’s Title IX & Clery Act coordinator, who died on Dec. 29, left behind a legacy of service to students at Emerson and elsewhere.

White began her time at Emerson in 2015, after three years of serving as Virginia Tech’s executive director for equity and access. Working within the Social Justice Center to support those affected by power-based interpersonal violence, she spearheaded several major projects while at the college, most notably the reimagining of training programs for students, faculty, and staff.

“Her expertise and commitment to data-driven, evidence-based best practices in equity in higher education enabled her to center individuals and communities impacted by power-based interpersonal violence,” wrote Ruthanne Madsen, interim supervisor of the SJC and vice president for enrollment management, in the email announcing White’s passing.

Madsen remembered White fondly, saying she had “a smile that could light up a room and a brain that was always working.”

“While a colleague of Pam’s, I had tremendous respect for her talents and her experiences that reached far beyond the legal world,” she wrote in a statement to The Beacon. “She will be missed.”

“Pam was a beloved member of our SJC family, and I will truly miss her sense of humor and the joy she brought to our gatherings,” said Alayne Fiore, the director of operations for SJC.

White was passionate about her role in the Title IX office. In her bio for the Social Justice Center’s website, White wrote that she grew up admiring the likes of Shirley Chisholm, Barbara Jordan, and Yvonne Braithwaure Burke, whose “sheer will to refuse to accept the status quo” motivated her to “keep pressing forward doing this work.”

Sylvia Spears, who oversaw the Title IX office as the college’s former vice president for equity & social justice, remembered White as an “extraordinary woman who was committed to justice and brought that ethic to her work at Emerson.”

“Pam was an extraordinary woman who was committed to justice and brought that ethic to her work at Emerson,” she wrote in a statement by the SJC. “She was a beloved colleague in the SJC who became my good friend.”

Robert Amelio, who served alongside White as the college’s former director of diversity and inclusive excellence at Emerson, called her “kind and gracious.”

“Pam worked hard to listen to everyone and understand their points-ofview in work that was sensitive and challenging,” he said. “Pam had a wonderful laugh and sense of humor which helped her remain calm and objective, and also helped her as she adjusted to life up north. Pam was kind and gracious. A wonderful colleague. A truly lovely person.”

Robert Amelio, former director of diversity and inclusive excellence, did serve as a bias trainer for The Beacon during the 2020-2021 academic year.

frankie_rowley@emerson.edu

In-person classes to return despite rise in cases

Beacon Archives

Cont. from Pg. 1 guidelines, students who have not received their boosters must quarantine in their assigned spaces for five days after exposure to COVID, with the day of exposure serving as day zero. The city of Boston has also taken further steps to curtail the spread of Omicron. On Dec. 20, Mayor Michelle Wu announced a vaccine requirement for all city workers and patrons of city businesses effective Saturday. The city has also implemented a new app called “B Together” to serve as digital verification of vaccination. Muurisepp emphasized the importance of a community-wide effort in the transition to in-person life at Emerson, advising students to remain masked, continue social distancing and communicate with faculty if they are feeling under the weather. “We’re going to have to play it day-by-day,” he said.

Antisemitic behavior was ‘sarcastic moment,’ professor says

Cont. from Pg. 1

McNeil, for his part, maintained that no one in the class “raised any issue” at the time. He said he was disappointed by the reaction on social media, where the incident quickly garnered attention among Emerson community members.

Jordana Meltzer, a junior theatre education and performance major, who is the president of Hillel—the Jewish organization on campus—expressed her distress over the incident, which was publicized just weeks after a Hillel poster was defaced with antisemitic graffiti.

“I was pretty disgusted and shocked,” Meltzer said. “I hope that [the administration] can actually figure out what happened and go through the whole case without dropping it because putting it in the priority and taking whatever steps further to see what needs to be done [is important].”

Meltzer said the administration’s next step should be to educate students, faculty, and staff through a more comprehensive bias training that highlights antisemitism in great detail.

McNeil stressed that the accusations of antisemitism did not reflect him as a person.

“My father was a bomber pilot in World War II,” he said. “I mean, he was bombing the hell out of the Nazis. So, you know, there’s no antisemitic behavior on my part, I don’t think. I mean, my wife is Jewish.”

Aaron Baseman, another Jewish firstyear visual and media arts major in McNeil’s class, said although the event indeed took place, it was taken out of context.

“What really unnerved me about the situation was the way it was contextualized online,” Baseman said. “It was contextualized in a very different way—one that seems largely discriminatory online, when it was surrounded by a hefty amount of very anti-fascist, anti-Hitler context. He was talking about a photographer who was sort of persecuted by the Nazis.”

Baseman took issue with the instinctive reactions by commenters on Instagram that immediately villanized McNeil.

“There are certain elements of him being out of touch and maybe making some lightly impolite remarks, but I would never call them intentionally hateful or discriminatory,” Baseman continued.

The professor also garnered support from two professors in the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts, who wrote a Letter to the Editor arguing that the college’s reaction to the incident was premature, and rooted in an “appetite for moral outrage” rather than “a higher sense of reasoned deliberation.”

“It created an atmosphere of prejudgment, and I don’t think that that was [Interim President Bill Gilligan’s] intention,” said Sam Binkley, one of the authors of the letter, in an interview with The Beacon.

Binkley commended Gilligan for responding promptly to the report of harm and pursuing a full investigation, clarifying that his issue was not with the anonymous student’s use of social media, but the hasty acceptance of the context set forth by the Instagram post.

“This is someone who made a mistake, someone who owes an apology, but he gets it,” Binkley added. “He’s willing to offer that apology.”

McNeil will take a hiatus from teaching for at least the spring 2022 semester, a decision he said was made “with the college” to allow time for the investigation to be conducted.

When asked what he would have done differently, McNeil said he would “avoid that type of humor.”

Peggy Shukur, the deputy regional director of Anti-Defamation League New England, said incidents like this one raised questions of intent versus impact.

“I appreciate that this professor didn’t intend anything offensive to people, but the impact of using a Nazi symbol on Jewish students and probably many more who have been victims, or who have had family members that were victims of the Nazis—that’s really what we should center here,” Shukur said.

“With all due respect to the role of humor in the classroom, this particular area of Nazis, swastikas, and those sorts of symbols are so deeply serious and impactful to so many communities that we really ask that people be thoughtful before making light of them,” she continued.

College spokesperson Michelle Gaseau declined to comment to The Beacon, citing an ongoing investigation into the matter.

Although Swayze said McNeil’s behavior was offensive at times—noting that the professor once used the “r-slur,” referring to people with intellectual disabilities, to jokingly describe his computer—they added that they did not feel McNeil meant harm.

“I don’t think that Brian is a completely malicious, awful person,” Swayze said. “He definitely showed his age and the level of ignorance that comes along with being in the older generation— thinking that you can say things and then get away with it.”

Payton Cavanaugh contributed reporting.

Bailey Allen, deputy enterprise editor of The Beacon and secretary of Hillel did not interview Hillel President Jordana Meltzer for this article due to a conflict of interest.

contact@berkeleybeacon.com

New eatery to offer soups, sandwiches in 2B

Cont. from Pg. 1 “At the beginning of the fall [2021] semester, we knew we were going to have it offline,” said Jordan Mackenzie, who serves as the college’s customer experience coordinator. “It’s typical for us, at the end of an academic semester, to consider how the year went and student feedback. Then we make changes to keep things fresh and introduce new ideas and concepts to adjust to the needs of the campus.” The concept originated with student feedback, with many students saying they missed the “deli” that used to be part of Emerson’s Dining Center. Instead of restoring the deli as a dining hall station, the college opted to commit to the idea of a full establishment. “We were able to do it in a full capacity style,” Mackenzie said. “[Instead of] doing grab-and-go sandwiches at the dining center, we can focus on traditional menus with a full deli focus, which is pretty cool for that concept.” The location will offer a traditional “New York-style” deli menu—submarine sandwiches, sides, soups, desserts—and will accept meal swipes, as well as dining plan payments like Board Bucks, and EC Cash. Students will be able to use meal swipes on select items, such as one traditional sub, a bag of chips, a pickle, a cookie, and a fountain drink. Other items offered at the deli include bottled beverages, various salads, and daily soup and dessert options. Like the Lion’s Den, Backstage Deli will be open on weekdays only, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.