Paramount quarantine housing problems

Thursday, Feb. 25, 2021 • Volume 74, Issue 18

Emerson College’s student newspaper since 1947 • berkeleybeacon.com

@berkeleybeacon // @beaconupdate

‘Paramount—you do not want to be there’

The Office of Title IX and Equity Access. / Beacon Archives

Final Title IX reccomendations present minimal changes Katie Redefer Beacon Staff

Paramount Building in snow. Zhuoli Zhang / Beacon Staff Black mold in Paramount shower. / Courtesy Katie Broderick

Miscommunications abound in on-campus quarantine housing Dana Gerber Beacon Staff

Several students who spent time in Emerson’s quarantine housing during the spring semester have reported inconsistent protocol communication, faulty facilities, and meager food provisions— painting a picture of the college’s quarantine experience as one of profound institutional abandonment.

Approximately 110 students have been relegated to the Paramount residence hall this semester. The residence is reserved for students in isolation (who are known or reasonably known to be infected) and quarantine (who may have been exposed to the virus). Many of the students sequestered in Paramount—some battling COVID-19 symptoms—repeatedly lacked vital information only the college could provide, like release dates, laundry, and trash pick-up schedules. In other cases, they were volleyed from department to department in search of answers, lacking a streamlined process.

When first-year theatre and performance major Katie Broderick got the call that she tested positive for COVID-19 on Feb. 11, she texted everybody she considered a close contact. First-years Lily McCormick, Nathalie Calvillo, and Alaina Reyes, three of her close contacts, waited for calls from the college. They never came.

“Our assumption was we’re going to hear from contact tracers, so for the first few hours we were like, ‘Let’s hold tight, we should get calls any second now,’” Calvillo said. “When that didn’t happen, we decided to email and reach out and tell them.”

Calvillo was the last one to arrive in Paramount that day, following a dark walk in the freezing cold at 8 p.m. It wasn’t until the next day that the college reached out to them.

“We didn’t get calls from Emerson until the next morning,” Calvillo said.

“They called us and said, ‘Did you know that you have been in contact with somebody who tested positive?’ And, I said,

‘Yeah. I’m in isolation.’”

The time elapsed between Broderick’s positive test and the call from Emerson was worrisome, Calvillo said.

“It’s in human nature to wait until Emerson does something and reaches out to you, because they’re in charge of us—we were supposed to trust them,” she said.

“You would think that they would handle it. That’s where the risk is: We’re not getting contacted until too late.”

Close contacts—who have the potential to drive virus transmission—are contacted depending on what time of day the positive test is identified, Jim Hoppe, vice president and dean for campus life, said.

“While time is still very important, the most important piece is that everyone is still following all those other protocols, so masking, distancing, and all of that,” Muurisepp said. “The focus is on the positive case. Those contacts certainly are a close second to that. But within the sixto-eight hour period of time is the ideal” Paramount, Pg. 2

and the Last Dragon” as figuring out how to coordinate to make things happen for the effects department. She described the department as the spot where the film’s “literal magic” is created— this means any work not relating to a character, set or prop.

“Since it is 3D, and the effects are so complex, it’s a lot of working with other departments and really getting things figured out in terms of problem solving,” Soorholtz said. “Everyday, it’s a different issue, complication or puzzle to be figured out, and that’s where we come in.”

Soorholtz talked about the collaborative effort that goes into making an animation film.

“Animation is like one giant group project. Everyone kinda has their own little edition of things; everyone has a say in their own way and it adds onto the department,” Soorholtz said. “We always say that each department keeps

adding on more and more beauty, complexity and depth to the movie as it goes, and it’s something that I don’t think people realize before they step into the industry is how much it’s not just one person sitting at their desk making a whole movie.”

“Raya and the Last Dragon” is Soorholtz’s first Disney credit, which she said she’s thrilled about. She explained that although working on this film was a fun task, it also proved to be an obstacle with working from home because of the pandemic.

“This movie specifically, especially with work from home, it provided a lot of challenges that we did not see coming,” Soorholtz said. “Somehow, we really didn’t skip a beat. We transitioned to work from home immediately thanks to our incredible tech team who really moved heaven and earth to make sure everyone was able to work from home.”

Raya, Pg. 7

Emerson alum animates new Disney movie Karissa Schaefer Beacon Staff

Walt Disney Animation Studios’ “Raya and the Last Dragon” takes viewers on an epic journey through the eyes of lone warrior, Raya, as she tracks down the last dragon to help her stop an evil force threatening her homeworld.

Viewers can watch the fantastical world of Kumandra, one that Emerson graduate Kathryn “Ryn” Soorholtz ‘16 helped produce, after the film’s release date on Mar. 5.

The film, directed by Carlos Lopez Estrada and Don Hall, is coming to select theaters as well as Disney+ with Premier Access for $29.99. Tickets are available for preorder on sites such as Fandango. The animated film has a star-studded cast including Kelly Marie Tran, Awkwafina, Sandra Oh and Benedict Wong, among others.

Soorholtz spoke in a phone interview about her experience working as a production coordinator for the film’s effects animation department. The marketing communications alum credits Emerson for getting her foot into the door of the animation world. In fact, the Emerson Mafia Facebook page was where Soorholtz got her first animation job for the TV show, “Bojack Horseman,” created

by Raphael Bob-Waksberg.

“Emerson helped prepare me by really giving me a good network of people to talk to and find my way out in Los Angeles,” Soorholtz said. “Other than that, just kind of giving me some major skills in terms of being able to connect with people, work with people on projects. It was really important stuff I couldn’t have gotten at another school.”

Soorholtz described her job on “Raya

President M. Lee Pelton accepted the Presidential Working Group’s final draft of recommendations for Emerson’s Title IX processes on Tuesday—a draft that is notably similar to earlier versions that faced harsh criticism from students and faculty.

Now that Pelton has reviewed and accepted the group’s report, a Standing Committee formed out of the final report will work to address the remaining suggestions from the PWG and formally implement them into the college’s Title IX policy.

The afternoon email comes on the heels of the PWG sending their finalized report to Pelton in mid-December, following a period for public comment and a community forum webinar the same month. The final report is also largely similar to the first draft released in April 2020, which was met with strong rebukes from students and faculty.

At the Dec. 4 public webinar, the PWG took questions from community members related to their second draft released in November, which took a step away from the more actionable suggestions within their first draft of the report from April of 2020. Questions raised at the December webinar revolved around lack of Title IX guidance for student organizations, and how Pelton’s planned departure from the college at the end of the spring could affect the PWG’s report.

While the second draft was influenced by community feedback to the first draft, there were no significant changes made to the finalized PWG report released this week, even after the public comment period in December.

Working Group Co-Chair Jan Roberts-Breslin reaffirmed the similarities of the second draft to the final report in an interview with The Beacon, saying the community feedback on the second draft did not have a substantial impact on the final recommendations sent to Pelton.

“I didn’t feel like the community meeting or reopening the report to online feedback resulted in a lot of substantive changes,” Roberts-Breslin said. “The feedback tended to be more in terms of people emphasizing things they wanted the [PWG] to keep working on, not specific critiques to what we were recommending.”

Pelton created the PWG in September 2019 to review the college’s Title IX policy after a list of more than a dozen students accused of sexual misconduct appeared outside of the Little Building. A first draft was released by April 2020, highly criticized by student activist group Students Supporting Survivors for lack of coherent changes proposed and extended timelines, among other grievances.

The first draft was followed by an updated second draft in November, maintaining much of the previously contested points with minor adjustments, like the suggestion to move the Title IX Office out of the Social Justice Center.

Nine months have passed between the release of the original draft in April 2020 and the final report released this week.

In Tuesday’s email, Pelton shared administrative measures that have already taken place in alignment with the PWG’s findings and recommendations—yet many of these changes have been in the works for months, long before Pelton received a final report from the PWG. Several of the changes mentioned in Pelton’s email were already included in the new Power-Based Interpersonal Violence policy released in August 2020, such as expansion of informal resolutions and setting precise timeframes for Title IX investigations.

Roberts-Breslin said many of the recommendations from the PWG corresponded with efforts of other departments like the Title IX Office, which led to the overlap with recommendations in the report and changes mentioned in Pelton’s email.

“The recommendations of the working group kind of dovetail with work that is going on, and has been going on, on the part of Title IX and other departments,” she said. “Things were evolving at the same time toward what basically, in its essence, seems like the same goal.”

The PWG was dissolved after Pelton accepted their final report in December, Roberts-Breslin said. The final report creates a Standing Committee, which would be tasked with improving cross-departmental communication during Title IX proceedings, as well as implementing other suggestions from the final PWG report.

Pelton’s email said the Standing Committee should meet within the month to begin discussing suggestions from the PWG that have not yet been addressed.

Title IX, Pg. 3

144

positive COVID-19 tests

.18%

positivity rate Ryn Soorholtz ‘16 / Courtesy Ryn Soorholtz

*Accumulated from 2020-2021 school year

INSIDE THIS EDITION Emerson senior runs for vacant State House seat Pg. 3 Editorial: MA’s failed vaccine distribution Pg. 4 Alum publishes Emerson based young adult novel Pg. 6 Review: Student band Sunsetta’s new EP Pg. 7 Women’s lacrosse hails four new team captains Pg. 8

News

The Berkeley Beacon

February 25, 2021

2

Students apprehensive to another semester of hybrid learning

Frankie Rowley, Ann E. Matica, Alec Klusza, Camilo Fonseca Beacon Staff

The college’s plan to extend “flex” learning, a mix of virtual and in-person classes, into the fall 2021 semester was met with a mix of approval and disappointment from Emerson community members.

Fall 2021 will be the third semester to follow the “One Emerson Flex Learning” model first developed in Summer 2020, according to a Monday morning email from President M. Lee Pelton.

The move to extend the hybrid plan comes despite predictions from some public health officials that a large portion of the population may be vaccinated by late summer or early fall of this year.

Though the college is preparing to start the semester with hybrid learning still in place, it could potentially transfer to fully in-person classes before or during the semester if guidance from public health and government officials suggests that it is safe, the email stated.

Many community members The Beacon spoke to said they were expecting the college to continue with hybrid learning into the fall semester.

Luke Colombero, a first-year theatre and performance major, said the decision to stay hybrid for the start of the Fall 2021 semester didn’t come as much of a surprise to him.

“It’s honestly safest for us in my

A Visual and Media Arts class under COVID-19 safety restrictions. Zhihao Wu / Beacon Staff opinion,” Colombero said. “Even if we all get vaccinated, there’s still always the risk of a new [strain] of COVID. While it is disappointing, it’s not anything new for us, all the [first years] at least, this is already what we’re acclimated to.”

Qingshi “Rocky” Meng, a first year theatre and performance major, said he was saddened by the decision to start the fall semester under the hybrid model.

“While I was disappointed, it’s kind of expected,” Meng said. “The death toll just passed 500,000. It’s not going to suddenly go downhill.”

Pondering the motivation of the college, some believe monetary incentives played a role in the decision to stay in

hybrid learning.

“Everything the school does is about money,” Bruce Kilstein, a graduate writing, literature, and publishing student and undergraduate professor, said. “[Emerson] said, ‘If we don’t have students on campus, we’ll lose millions of dollars,’ so any kind of model they come up with has to ensure that people are on campus.”

Sophomore visual and media arts major Leon Wenhao echoed Kilstein’s sentiment, saying he felt he was at a disadvantage due to the lesser quality of learning hybrid classes offer.

“Is [the] college doing this flex model as a way to care for us, or is this a way to

have a thing on campus so that they can still collect our tuition check?” Wenhao said. “I’m learning something, but were the things I’ve learned worth $70,000?”

Due to the lack of preparedness for the spring semester and uncertainty surrounding vaccinations, some expressed caution about the decision, saying no one knows what the fall will entail.

“We don’t know how many people will be vaccinated, we don’t know what’s gonna happen with all the variants that are out there,” Kilstein said.

“To achieve herd immunity, you need 80 percent of the population vaccinated, which is not a reality any time soon.”

While some praised Emerson for

its handling of the situation, others expressed distaste. One writing, literature and publishing professor who spoke to The Beacon on the condition of anonymity said the college’s attitude towards the pandemic is counterproductive.

“It feels like they don’t care about what happens to us, or to you all,” he said. “It just sort of seems like they made these decisions independent of what happens on campus and in the city.”

The professor said the paranoia of being infected has affected his well-being, and he hasn’t been able to sleep because of it.

“I can’t really focus on [teaching] when I’m scared of what’s going to happen,” he said. “If I get sick and can’t work, I’m screwed, and my family is screwed. Every time I have to go in, I can’t sleep.”

While some have their doubts about the fall semester, others are optimistic.

Sophomore Kathleen Nolan, a WLP major, said she is hopeful for herd immunity and vaccinations by September, but appreciates the college’s decision to “plan for the worst.”

“Even if we’re hoping for a different outcome, I would rather plan for hybrid and then end up being okay to go back totally in-person than plan to go back totally in-person and end up having to do hybrid,” she said. contact@berkeleybeacon.com

Students in on-campus quarantine, isolation left in the lurch

Cont. from Pg. 1

Broderick, who remained asymptomatic through her isolation, said the Massachusetts COVID Team was the first to inform her she should be released 10 days after her positive test. “[It was] stressful because I wanted to know that I had people in my corner to help me through this, and it didn’t really feel like I did,” Broderick said.

Megan Dodge, the college’s COVID Healthcare Coordinator, said Emerson communicates with Massachusetts’ Contact Tracing Collaborative and the Boston Public Health Commission daily.

“They do their own outreach, their own contact tracing and report up throughout state organizations from there,” Dodge said.

The state completes outreach independently from the college, which some students said led to confusion when information didn’t align. Dodge said the state used to contact students on the 10th day of quarantine or isolation to notify them they could be released, whereas the college released students on the 11th day of quarantine or isolation.

“The CTC has now committed to calling everybody on day 11 to try to reduce some of that confusion,” Dodge said.

Courtesy Max Internoscia Max Internoscia, a junior VMA major, tested positive for the virus and went into isolation on Jan. 28. The state called him on Feb. 5, 11 days after the onset of his symptoms, to okay his release. He then had to notify the college of the state’s approval himself before he was released.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to tell the college that—I thought the state tells the college that,” he said. “If I didn’t send that letter … to the Center for Health and Wellness, I don’t think I would have gotten out that day.”

Dillan Lincoln, who tested positive while he was in quarantine for being a

close contact, said the MA Covid Team called often to ask about his symptoms during his 12-day stay in Paramount—a stark contrast from the college’s dearth of outreach.

“It was better communication than the damn school,” he said. “They actually called and checked up on us.”

One of the primary frustrations, students said, was not knowing who to turn to when a question or issue arose, as their cases were managed by several separate college departments. In order to get an urgent question answered, students had to call the Emerson College Police Department to be connected to the Residence Director on duty. Most on-campus residence halls have a designated RD, rather than the rotating “on duty” system in Paramount.

Internoscia said communication was fractured, as he continually was “tossed around from department to department.”

When Broderick needed an urgent question answered, she called the personal phone number of Resident Director Ashley Gravina, who she said then got “mad” at her for calling.

Release dates—a beacon of hope for many students as they tick off their days of solitude—were a common area of confusion. Internoscia said his release date was changed multiple times by the Center for Health and Wellness before he was told that matter was under the purview of contact tracers, who fall under a different department.

“I was not told when I was going to leave until halfway through, and I had to hound people for calls—and the thing is I didn’t know who to call,” he said. “I was pretty much an emotional wreck, being in there for the first five days, not knowing when the fuck I was going to leave.”

Lincoln also experienced limbo with his release date. After a miscommunication regarding the date of his symptom onset, his release was erroneously pushed back by five days.

Emerson, Tufts Medical Center, and the state’s Contact Tracing Collaborative coordinate to determine a date based on onset of symptoms or date of exposure, Muurisepp said.

Some students encountered broken or unsafe environments in Paramount itself, navigating potentially dangerous spaces as they handled their symptoms and highstress situation. Nearing the end of Internoscia’s isolation period, his toilet broke.

Not wanting to switch rooms close to his release, he reported the issue to Anglade.

Days after Internoscia checked out, Broderick had to leave the same room after three days when the toilet broke again. The college moved her to the adjacent room, where she noticed what appeared to be black mold on the ceiling of the shower. A day and a half later, she switched rooms again.

“If I had actually had respiratory problems, and like I was actually really sick with COVID, that would have just been horrible,” she said.

Anglade says facilities members periodically walk through each space to ensure everything is functional.

“Just like sometimes in your residence hall, every now and then, something doesn’t work,” she said.

Courtesy Nathalie Calvillo Due to the non-centralized process of managing quarantined students at the college, students said essential services continually fell through the cracks. While in isolation, many of Broderick’s questions and concerns went unaddressed.

“All of our trash stunk up all of our rooms,” she said. “They told us they would email us when we could put our trash outside but then they never did.

I took the lead and I put my first bag of trash outside because I was like, ‘I can’t handle this anymore.’”

Calvillo said laundry was also difficult to coordinate. The college alerted her on Tuesday Feb. 16 that she could do her laundry on Monday Feb. 1. They later clarified the error.

Moving into Paramount on a weekend, Lincoln said, posed a unique set of problems—and proved even less conducive for communication.

“It was just really bad timing because we moved in … and I had a few questions and a few of my roommates were struggling and they had a lot of questions as well, and they were just not very

great at getting back to us,” Lincoln said.

“Whenever they’re not there, they’re not there.”

Dodge said as of last week, students in quarantine and isolation housing started receiving one or more daily calls from college contact tracers. Prior to this, Muurisepp said there was regular outreach from contact tracers, state contact tracers, and OHRE staff “as needed.”

The process of releasing students has also proven riddled with inconsistencies.

Calvillo was released on Feb. 19, which she believes was triggered by receiving another negative test result. Reyes, however, was not released until the next day, even though they all had the same exposure date.

“Once I got my negative and they told me that I can leave, then that raises the question of like, ‘Wait, if you’re leaving then what about the rest of us?’” Calvillo said. “I was kind of scared to ask any questions at that point.”

In the introductory Zoom meeting, college officials told students who were close contacts they would need to be retested in order to be released.

“We never really heard from them, so we had to reach out to someone and be like, ‘Hey, when can I go get retested so I can leave?’ And then they’d be like ‘Oh, today,’” McCormick said. “It’s like, if I had never emailed, would you have ever told me?”

When McCormick was released on Feb. 19, she filled out her symptom tracker, where the first question asks if you’ve been exposed to anybody with COVID-19 over the past 14 days. When she answered yes, she was locked out of Little Building. Anglade told her she should have answered no to that question, as that exposure was already on file.

“The only thing you want to do is leave, so when it’s obstacle after obstacle, I was like, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’” McCormick said.

The quality of the twice-a-day food deliveries to students in Paramount has been called into question as well. Some students complained of minimal hot meals or soggy food, but in other cases, the menus turned potentially life-threatening.

Senior Sean Facey, who has a severe tree nut and peanut allergy, received a breakfast and lunch food pack labeled “nut free” when he was in quarantine earlier this month. The pack contained

a breakfast sandwich, lunch sandwich, a salad, Honey Nut Cheerios—all packed in a facility near nuts, leaving Facey unable to eat. He received a replacement pack by 11 a.m., but was unnerved by the oversight.

“How did it get to this point where I had to basically take my dining experience in quarantine into my own hands and reach out to them on my own rather than them actually just taking care of it?”

Courtesy Katie Broderick he said.

Anglade said Dining Services has begun doing Zoom calls with any student in on-campus quarantine or isolation to determine specific needs.

Internoscia said it felt like many of the details of his quarantine were left to himself to manage, often requiring him to repeatedly press the appropriate channels.

“The burden of dealing with my own case was on me completely,” he said.

“I didn’t feel like there was anyone in charge of me. I felt like I was in there on my own recognizance.”

While he said the individuals who helped him were kind and helpful, systemically, the college left much to be desired.

“Everyone’s waiting on someone else for an answer,” he said. “It’s multiple departments in one discussion about COVID, and I don’t think they talk to each other.”

Lincoln said the consequences of his diagnosis were worse than the diagnosis itself.

“Dear Emerson students: You don’t want to get COVID or be a close contact, because you don’t want to be in Paramount,” Lincoln said. “Having the virus sucks, but Paramount—you do not want to be in there.” dana_gerber@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

February 25, 2021

3

Audio cues installed in campus elevators in accessibility push Ann E. Matica Beacon Staff

More than a year after a student filed an accessibility request to install audio cues in on-campus elevators, which would announce the direction the elevator is moving and the floor it is on, Emerson added the cues to the remaining four buildings on campus without them.

The audio cues were installed in the front entrance elevators of the Walker Building, the Tufte Center, the Union Bank Building, the Ansin building, and activated in the Little Building in a project that ran from the first week of December to mid-January.

The elevator company Delta Beckwith installed the audio cues after money from the operations budget was set aside to fund the project, said Duncan Pollock, interim assistant vice president of facilities management and campus services.

Elevator audio cues announce the floor numbers and the direction the elevator is moving in, often with the aim of assisting those with low vision or blindness.

“Elevators really should have [audio cues] in them for those who are visually impaired,” Pollock said. “We put it up as a priority, we found the money to do it, and we were able to get our elevator company to change almost all of them on campus.”

Currently, every building on campus has elevators that are outfitted with audio cues. The two-stop elevator in the dining center and the freight elevators are the only ones not updated.

During the renovations of the Little Building in Fall 2019, audio cues were installed in the elevators but were not activated until this year, Pollock said.

“There wasn’t a reason why they weren’t activated,” he said. “They just didn’t do it when they had redone the elevators.”

Dylan Rossiter, a senior journalism

major, filed the request in Fall 2019, after experiencing difficulty navigating the elevators due to his legal blindness. (Rossiter serves as The Beacon’s current Operations Managing Editor). Rossiter has a rare degenerative eye disease that impairs his vision.

“When I would go into 2B and notice that it’s fully compliant and announces everything and announces what the direction of the elevator is, what floor it’s getting off on, and then to not have that same experience [elsewhere] was really upsetting,” he said. “It actually created quite a bit of anxiety for me when I would go to classes for the first time or get into a packed elevator, particularly because I wouldn’t really be able to push what button, and I wasn’t sure what floor I was getting off at.”

After finding the elevators on campus had inconsistent accessibility, Rossiter contacted Director of Student Accessibility Services Diane Paxton about the need for elevator cues on campus.

“He began requesting it a long time ago,” Paxton said. “I would mention it to Duncan and mention it to my supervisor and say, ‘We need to do this, we need to do this,’ and it wasn’t happening.”

Paxton suggested Rossiter make a formal request in Fall 2019 for the audio cues that she could present to the college’s Accessibility Advisory Board and the facilities management department. The Accessibility Advisory Board is chaired by Vice President for Campus Life Jim Hoppe and is made up of administrators, faculty, and students.

Along with requesting audio cues to be installed in every elevator on campus, Rossiter included requests for increased font size on signage in the Dining Center and greater accessibility throughout dining services for students with disabilities.

Aside from the audio cues, these other requests remain unaddressed.

“They dragged their feet,” Rossiter

said. “It may not be particularly SAS who dragged their feet, because we have to be aware of the … resources that an office with three people simply does not have.

They’re constantly putting out fires as opposed to being proactive and efforting solutions that actually make our campus more accessible.”

SAS currently has three staff members and two graduate assistants who operate the entirety of students’ accessibility in the classroom and on campus.

After filing his request and seeing no changes, Rossiter said he felt discouraged.

“When you submit a request and you go into a meeting with dining services and all of these things are said that are going to happen and nothing ends up happening, or you go in and you file a request about these elevator cues and nothing really happens in a timely fashion, it discourages students from continuing to file, because why waste your time doing that if it’s not going to happen in the first place,” he said.

Paxton and Harper McKenzie, the president of Access, the college’s student disability union, began presenting the need for elevator audio cues to the Accessibility Advisory Board last spring.

While Pollock said that his department made outfitting the elevators with audio cues its “top priority,” it took more than a year after the request was filed to come to fruition.

“The fact is also not lost on me that this request was filed in Fall 2019 and we are only now seeing this happen in Spring 2021, which is deeply, deeply concerning,” Rossiter said. “It’s exhausting and also alienating … you don’t feel like you want to be a part of this community because they haven’t valued what you have said.”

Paxton said the approval for audio cues was delayed due to the pandemic.

“It still took this long because when

Emerson senior mounts State House campaign Camilo Fonseca Beacon Staff

The contest to fill an open seat for the Massachusetts House of Representatives now includes an unusual face in state politics—an Emerson senior.

Richard Fucillo, a 22-year old communications major, is running as an independent candidate for the state legislature’s 19th Suffolk District, held until recently by Rep. Robert DeLeo. A non-traditional candidate, Fucillo said despite appearances, he is uniquely qualified to deal with the issues faced by his constituency.

“There’s a lot of issues that have been around for longer than I have been alive,” he said. “The people in government have done some things, of course—but, at the end of the day, there’s a lot of things that still need to be done, and [right now] they don’t seem like they’re going anywhere.”

Fucillo’s past experience in politics is largely extracurricular; he serves as Class of 2021 Vice President in the Student Government Association, and is the ex-president of the college’s Turning Point USA club.

If elected, he would be the youngest representative currently in the State House.

At the polls on March 30, Fucillo will be listed as an unaffiliated candidate. As an independent, he is looking to become the first non-Democrat to represent the district in half a century.

“In a local election I don’t think party lines always matter,” Makar Kirilov, a senior visual and media arts major and Fucillo’s campaign manager, said. “The truth is, Richard has great connections to this community, and he’s an active member.”

A crowded field of candidates is arrayed against him.

“A lot of these people who Richard is running against are really small-time career politicians,” Kirilov said. “A lot of them are just toeing the party line. That can be appropriate on a national level, but I don’t think that, in local elections, you should necessarily put ideology or polit-

Richard Fucillo stands in front of the State House. Zhuoli Zhang / Beacon Staff

ical beliefs over the day-to-day needs [of your constituents].”

Kirilov said that, in contrast to other candidates funded by party bankrolls and what he called corporate “bribes,” Fucillo’s campaign is largely fueled by private donations. “[Richard] isn’t going to answer to some big political entity somewhere in Washington,” he continued. “He has his private responsibilities to the people who elected him.”

Fucillo centered his platform around issues of particular importance to Winthrop and the surrounding area.

“One of the largest points of the campaign is education funding,” Kirilov said.

“Because rather recently … Richard went through public education in the town of Winthrop. He knows the issues they’re facing.”

Fucillo said high faculty turnover is the primary contributor to the below-average graduation rates in the local school system—87 percent over the last five years, per the Massachusetts Department of Education, as compared to the statewide 89.3 percent.

He has also emphasized the need to address “exorbitant” local costs for water and broadband internet. He believes should both be considered public utilities.

“Internet is no longer a luxury in our society,” he said. “Everybody needs to have access to fast, reliable internet.”

The Emerson senior is campaigning to open Winthrop’s internet market—which his campaign website characterizes as a “Comcast monopoly”—to other provid-

ers, with the aim of attaining a similar service and speed to that of the Boston metropolitan area.

The seat Fucillo is running for has sat vacant since December when DeLeo stepped down to take a teaching position at Northeastern University. DeLeo, the former Speaker of the House, was a major influence on Fucillo.

“He represented our district for a long time, and he brought a lot of money to Winthrop,” Fucillo said. “He did a fantastic job providing for our community, and I hope to fill those shoes the best I can when elected.”

Only one independent has won election to the House in the past decade, Rep. Susannah Whipps of Athol.

Fucillo hopes his candidacy can make younger people show up to the polls in force.

“One of my goals is to really hit social media hard and target people my age, and around five years older, three years younger,” the 22-year-old said. “If you can get them out to vote, that’s a huge voter base that is going to put a dent in this election.”

In the 2018 midterm elections, only 34 percent of Massachusetts voters aged 1824 showed up to the polls.

“The thing that I pride myself most on is the fact that I’m a student,” he said. “I have the ability to learn as I go. Obviously a lot of this has been a learning curve, but I’m willing to admit [what] I don’t know and sit down with people who do.” camilo_fonseca@emerson edu

An elevator in Emerson College. Zhihao Wu / Beacon Staff COVID hit [and] so many other things had to be managed that it didn’t stay on the front burner as much as it should have,” Paxton said.

The push for audio cues was brought up again during an Accessibility Advisory Board meeting in October 2020 and was approved to be implemented over the winter break.

“We very much appreciated the students stepping in and advocating and helping us advocate for that new level of access that benefits everyone in the community,” Paxton said.

Rossiter said he continues to feel frustrated with the lack of action from the administration to create a more accessible campus for Emerson community members.

“Every time it’s gotten better it’s only because students have complained about it and to that end, it’s always taken far longer than it should,” he said. “It definitely makes me feel like I’m not valued or my concerns are not valued.”

The installation of audio cues follows a history of students on campus pushing for a more accessible campus. Last spring, a push button was installed at the Walker Building entrance on Boylston Street after Access advocated for it.

Access did not reply to The Beacon’s request for comment.

Pollock said his department will also outfit every elevator on campus with braille. The completion date for this has yet to be determined, according to Pollock.

“Everyone should have equal access to all the buildings,” Pollock said. “We have done a lot over the past few years and we will continue to address some of these things as we go along.”

Rossiter said the responsibility of Emerson’s campus accessibility should not fall to students. “[Emerson] shouldn’t be burdening students with making our campus more accessible,” Rossiter said. “We should hire somebody whose literal job is to make the campus more accessible. That deep-seated ableism we can’t really correct in a semester, we can’t correct in a year but there are actionable steps that can be taken to create a more accessible community that is simple stuff like audio cues in an elevator or push buttons or increased font signage. These things aren’t hard. ” Rossiter, who rarely participates in the editorial process, did not have any input on the content of this story,

Cont. from Pg. 1

with the General Counsel.

PWG Co-Chair Amy Ansell said the membership of the Standing Committee is meant to bring various department leaders who interact with Title IX together on a regular basis to increase cross-departmental trust through steps like monthly meetings.

“The Standing Committee’s membership is precisely to bring together those staff who are directly involved in the day-to-day, weekto-week work,” Ansell said.

Roberts-Breslin emphasized the Standing Committee will not work with individual Title IX cases, but with policy and departmental communication. Individual Title IX cases are to be addressed by the Title IX Office within the Social Justice Center.

In Pelton’s email, there was no mention of the previous suggestion to potentially move the Title IX Office out of the Social Justice Center due to an “appearance of partiality” because of the SJC’s survivor-focused approach to reports of PBIV. This was one of the PWG’s most contested suggestions, as students and faculty expressed they’d never heard concerns about the location of the Title IX Office impacting handling of PBIV reports.

In the final report, the PWG eased their suggestion to move the Title IX Office out of the SJC. They maintained the perceived bias could present issues, stating there “may be a time in the future” when the move would be appropriate.

Pelton’s email said the Standing Committee should plan to send a community-wide update on their work by the end of the spring semester.

ann_matica@emerson.edu

Pelton accepts Title IX recommendations

Unlike the PWG, the Standing Committee will have the authority to enact changes suggested by the PWG to Title IX policy.

“It’s so common in institutions and organizations that there are communication gaps between different departments and different parts of the organization,” Roberts-Breslin said. “That’s largely what we want the Standing Committee to be able to address, to make sure that there’s more communication and more transparency.”

The final PWG report also follows the release of new Department of Education Title IX guidelines in May 2020, which prompted Emerson to release their new Power-Based Interpersonal Violence policy in August. Authorized by former Secretary of Education Betsy Devos, the federal changes overturned Obama-era policies aimed at increasing protections for those who report sexual misconduct.

Federal Title IX policy is expected to take a dramatic shift again under the Biden administration, which has condemned Devos’ education policies in the past. The Standing Committee is also tasked with addressing shifts that may come to federal Title IX policy under the Biden administration, according to Pelton’s email.

The Standing Committee’s membership will differ from that of the PWG, although some PWG members overlap, like Roberts-Breslin and Assistant Vice President for Student Success Sharon Duffy. The Standing Committee will be made up of the Title IX Team and Liaisons formed by the new PBIV policy, along with the Healing & Advocacy Collective and consultation

kathryn_redefer@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

February 25, 2021

4

Opinion

Gov. Charlie Baker puts a mask on. / Courtesy State House News Service

Editorial: Massachusetts must improve its COVID-19 vaccine distribution Editorial After a year filled with tragedy, the possibility for a return to a normal, pre-pandemic life lies almost entirely in the hands of vaccines for COVID-19.

Yet as the coronavirus death toll climbs higher every day, vaccine distribution across the nation crawls by at a pain-stakingly slow pace.

Massachusetts lags behind in COVID-19 vaccinations by a long shot. The Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center gave the state an “F”

grade for their vaccine distribution on Feb. 9, ranking them 42nd in the nation. The Boston Globe reported earlier this month that the COVID-19 vaccine launch across the state has suffered due to “supply shortages, unused doses, and vexing technical complexity.” Just last week, the state’s new vaccination signup website, aimed at adults over the age of 65 or those with underlying medical conditions, crashed for more than two hours after its launch and the 60,000 new appointments filled up almost instantly.

These shortcomings are unaccept-

able for any state, let alone Massachusetts, which is home to approximately 6.9 million people. This website crash also happened after the state reportedly streamlined the site and added an emergency sign up phone hotline for those unable to access the internet. If there are this many issues just to sign up for the vaccine, how long could it take to reach herd immunity?

For a state with one of the highest college student populations in the country (there are more than 40 colleges and universities in Boston alone), this

is unacceptable. Given that the 18-24 age range often has the highest rate of COVID-19 infection, there is a major risk of infecting more vulnerable community members. Think about all the Boston residents who come in close contact with college students on a daily basis, especially the large majority of Emerson students who hail from highly infected states like California, Florida, New York, and New Jersey.

Meanwhile, the more contagious variant of the virus first discovered in the United Kingdom entered the state just a few weeks ago. These issues with rollout are unacceptable given the dire circumstances, and the state must expedite vaccine distribution.

On top of a higher contagion and slow vaccine rollout, COVID-19 kills Black people at more than double the rate of white people nationwide. In Massachusetts alone the COVID-19 case rate is more than three times higher for Latinx residents and two times higher for Black residents. Despite these concerning numbers, state vaccination data shows that for the first doses, white residents have received 13 times more doses than Black residents and 16 times more doses than Latinx residents.

Not only is this unacceptable, but it contradicts what was stated by top health administrators on Baker’s vaccine advisory group, which urged that those closest to the disease need to be closest to the vaccine. If BIPOC communities are affected significantly more by the spread of COVID, why are they being left out of vaccine distribution? Effective vaccine distribution is critical for reducing the death toll in communities of color.

The Massachusetts vaccine report card also ranked the state as 48th in the country for COVID death rates. Massachusetts cannot afford to let this virus

spread any faster, and it doesn’t help that vaccination appointments are difficult to book. One million more Massachusetts residents are now eligible for Phase 2 vaccinations, but with the state’s limited supply of vaccines, it could take months before they are given their doses. The longer it takes to distribute the vaccine, the more people die in the process.

Governor Baker needs to begin making preparations to distribute the vaccine at colleges to their campus community as soon as possible, and that cannot happen until the problems at hand are addressed.

The Center for Health and Wellness staff and Emerson College Police Department officers have already received the vaccine under phase one. Still, the college cannot move forward with vaccinations for students, professors, and other faculty until Massachusetts gets their vaccine distribution under control for those in high-risk communities first.

Once the state catches up, Emerson must make distributing the vaccine their top priority.

The Berkeley Beacon Editorial Board is the voice of the student newspaper that looks to serve the Emerson College community with thoughtful insight into ongoings and occurrences affecting their everyday lives. The board’s positions are determined by its members. The board consists of the editor-in-chief, managing editors, and opinion editors. The opinions expressed by the Editorial Board do not impact the paper’s coverage. You can respond to a position brought forward

by The Beacon Editorial Board in the form of a Letter to The Editor by email: Letters@BerkeleyBeacon.com. contact@berkeleybeacon.com

NEWS Without spring break, students fear burnout Alec Klusza Beacon Staff

As the college nears its would-be spring break, some students worry about the mental and academic burnout that might accompany more than three consecutive months of classes.

The college canceled spring break in October to dissuade students from traveling and potentially exacerbating positive COVID-19 tests on-campus and in the city, as well as a way to subvert disruptions on campus caused by a mandatory quarantine period after students return.

The college converted the week-long break, normally scheduled for early March, into a series of long weekends integrated into each month.

The cancelation comes as a turbulent interruption for some students, who say they planned to use the time off for much-needed rest and money-making opportunities. Some mental health experts also say breaks are important for students’ well-being.

First year Theatre and Performance major Kwezi Shongwe said the lack of spring break may cause her to burn out and decrease the quality of her work.

“It’s very upsetting,” Shongwe said.

“You’ll be all dried out by the end because it’s all going to be work, work, work, and the breaks always give you time to regroup yourself. Last semester I was online, so I also didn’t really have a holiday, and there was a point where, after midterms, I was completely tired—I was so exhausted.”

Students and faculty could use the break as an opportunity to take time off academic work and care for their mental health, said Kyle Rundles, associate director of counseling services. Without

this time, they may feel a strain on their mental health.

Last semester, 65.6 percent of students who visited Emerson Counseling and Psychological Services this year reported the pandemic has negatively impacted their mental health, according to Rundles.

“We’re seeing a lot more anxiety, distraction, or difficulty concentrating— things like that seem to be increasing for everyone over the pandemic,” Rundles said.

Tristan Homewood, a junior visual and media arts major, said he lost the chance to work a part-time job at home in Connecticut over the break.

“I was supposed to work through spring break,” Homewood said. “Because I struggle with paying tuition, I was really depending on that.”

College officials say the cancellation was necessary for the health and safety of the community.

“While mindful of the impact on both students and faculty, the calendar committee considered the health and safety of the campus and decided to have a long weekend in each month rather than the potential for a longer break where travel could occur,” wrote Michaele Whelan, provost and vice president for academic affairs, in an emailed statement to The Beacon.

While Whelan said an extra day off was added to each month of the Spring 2021 academic calendar. Monday, March 12 is the only additional, non-holiday day off added to the calendar; the semester’s other long weekends, including Presidents’ and Patriots Days, were observed in previous years. The semester started a week later than it has in previous years to accommodate the lack of a break.

Research from the American Psychological Association suggests that,

Students walking along Boylston Street. Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff

generally, taking breaks—like setting aside vacation time—from both work and recreation helps “restore energy in the short term and prevent burnout in the long term.” Studies from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation—a nonprofit organization funding mental health research—show people who take vacation time away from work are less stressed and are more productive.

Other students feel the cancelation comes as a necessity to prevent a wider outbreak on-campus as positive tests continue to rise. In the fall semester, the positive test total sat at 60 over the fourmonth testing period. In the spring, the college surpassed that milestone within weeks, with 80 positive tests as of Feb. 24, giving the spring semester a .31 percent positivity rate—compared to the .18 percent positivity rate in the fall semester.

Travel, epidemiologists say, can further drive the virus’s spread.

“I know there are people at the school who would go to places that aren’t as safe as Boston or wouldn’t follow the precautions,” Caitlin Conners, a sophomore communication science and disorders major, said. “We’ve gotten to the point in this pandemic that people start taking it less seriously because they are over it, which I don’t think is right.”

Other colleges in Boston have also slashed their spring breaks. Tufts University canceled its spring break outright and replaced it with a long weekend in March, and Boston University added “wellness days” off on March 18 and 31.

Suffolk University will have a “mid-semester-break-day” in March, and Northeastern University canceled their break but did not add any extra days off.

First year Business of Creative Enterprises major Harry Robinson, said he feels grateful the college has not canceled the semester completely amid the rising

positives on-campus.

“I’m just glad that I get the chance to be here,” Robinson said. “I’m glad I’m not sitting in my room in South Carolina right now.”

In the absence of the break, Rundles reiterated students should work to set aside time for their own mental health and self-care.

“Any time we’re not reserving some time to take care of our mental health, that does eventually pile up to have negative impacts,” Rundles said. “Planning out your schedule ahead of time so that if you do have to do some work that you can schedule it while also reserving time for care for your mental health [is important].

Besides those days off, really optimizing time off in any day—making sure selfcare is scheduled in your regular days as possible and your regular week.” alec_klusza@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

February 25, 2021

5

Trump should have been convicted. Here’s why.

Shannon Garrido Beacon Staff

Most of us can agree that the Senate’s vote on Feb. 13 to acquit Trump of inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol attack was more than disappointing. Not just because we want to put ‘Trump talk’ to rest, but because the crimes he committed demonstrate that he is a danger to the American people.

Much to my frustration, the arguments made by congressional Republicans for Trump’s acquittal have nothing to do with whether he is guilty and everything to do with procedural and ancillary issues. It demonstrates their prioritization of re-election and maintaining conservative loyalty, even if that means turning a blind eye to Trump’s violent influences.

House impeachment managers, following the Senate vote to acquit Trump, held a press conference on Capitol Hill, where Democratic impeachment manager Jamie Raskin said, “This is about protecting a Republic and articulating and defining the standards of presidential conduct. And if you want this to be a standard for totally appropriate presidential conduct going forward, be my guest.”

Raskin has the right idea. Trump committed crimes as president that cannot be dealt with in a criminal court. Yet, Trump’s lawyers argued that it was unconstitutional to convict him because it violated the first amendment, also pointing to the fact that he no longer holds public office.

For the case of violating the first amendment, it should be noted that public officials who are impeached for their speech are not immediately thrown in jail because it would violate said amendment. Instead, they are removed from office or disqualified from ever holding office to reinforce the idea that a president’s voice matters. The argument that this impeachment violated the first amendment is a fallacy overall. Both Alex-

Courtsey Ted Eytan / Wikicommons ander Hamilton and James Madison spoke more broadly of impeachable offenses as violations of public trust, noting that Congress could rightly oust a president for inciting violence. Although it is very difficult to establish if someone has crossed the line of speech subject to criminal prosecution, this point stands: Government officials can be impeached and removed for speech that is not criminal.

The first amendment protects citizens against criminal and civil sanctions, but it doesn’t protect government officials against impeachment and conviction.

Enforcement officers like the DOC and Attorney General Karl Racine were unable to convict Trump because he never “explicitly” called for an insurrection.

How is telling an audience of loyal supporters on the day Congress was slated to certify the election, “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” not a coded message for violence?

We know that even Republicans who ultimately voted for acquittal spent weeks lobbying Congress members to vote in support of Trump’s impeachment, one member of Congress alleging that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell “wants Trump gone.” But for too many Republicans in Congress, Trump’s impeachment was just a political question weighing on the future of their party. The Washington Post predicted on Jan. 22 that even if Sen. McConnell were to vote to convict him, he’d immediately be hit with “a tsunami of rage from the right.”

It’s misleading and false, in any case, to view Trump’s Jan. 6 speech to Capital rioters as an isolated incident. It was part of the course of conduct that led to an attempted insurrection.

Trump’s lawyers, David Schoen and Bruce Castor Jr., also argued that the proceedings are unconstitutional because Trump no longer holds office. There are many reasons why this reasoning is

flawed, and why ultimately the Senate did vote to try Trump despite his term having ended in January.

Stephen Vladeck, a constitutional law expert and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, told CBS that another section of the Constitution— Article I, Section Three, Clause Seven—contemplates that the Senate can do two different things when an official is impeached. They can be removed from office, and they can be disqualified from holding future office.

He said, “The expiration of President Trump’s term renders one of those moot, but not both of them.” Vladeck wrote in a New York Times op-ed that a public official can’t simply avoid the move to disqualify them from holding future office by resigning. The Senate has also traditionally separated a vote to convict an official on impeachment charges from a vote to bar them from holding future office.

However, only three U.S. presidents

(including Trump) have ever been impeached, and none of them were convicted by the Senate. The two-thirds majority needed for Senate conviction has proven to be a difficult barrier in America’s partisan political landscape. From a historical perspective, it is unlikely for an official to be barred from office without prior conviction. No U.S. president has ever been barred from office, but three federal judges have following their Senate convictions.

Section three of the 14th amendment lays out a different path to bar Trump from office, but without the two-thirds majority required for conviction. The provision states that no person can hold public office after engaging in “insurrection or rebellion against the United States.” Only a simple majority of both congressional chambers is needed to invoke this penalty—it was even used in 1919 to block an elected House Representative from assuming his seat after opposing U.S. intervention in WWI. This matters not for the sake of revenge, but because the mere possibility of Trump being barred from office is critical to the future of America. Trump incited a coup on the Capitol as the sitting president. He is a danger to the American people and they must be the priority, not protecting Trump from the consequences of his actions— especially if he deserves it.

This acquittal doesn’t mean Trump will never face criminal charges for other skeletons in his closet. But the insurrection on Jan. 6 was more than just a criminal offense: it was a threat to elected officials, public safety, and democracy. That is why this should have been resolved on the Senate floor. Now, there seems to be an open-door policy for future presidents who wish to stoke fear and chaos. A door that leads them to believe they can attempt to overturn elections with violence, and walk away unscathed.

shannon_garrido@emerson.edu

Creating art is not limited to just artists Jialin Xu

Beacon Correspondent When I was a child, I dreamed of becoming a painter. But I became discouraged after my mom told me I didn’t have the talent to be a painter, and that the term ‘artist’ could never apply to me. Ever since then, the question of how to be an artist has lingered in my mind.

An inspiring motto from German artist Joseph Beuys says that “EVERYONE is an artist.” This leads me to think that the prerequisite for being an artist is not acquiring professional artistic techniques, but rather adopting an open mindset— one that is willing to observe and explore your inner world and the world around you.

I would encourage everyone to be an artist, despite the fact that few of them chose the path professionally. For myself, the two underlying factors that I believe hinder people’s artistic development is a lack of support from others and low self-esteem.

In the book The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron wrote that “one of our chief needs as a creative being is support.” Support from family and friends can really help them figure out what they are capable of, especially for people who just take a peek into the artistic world.

Unfortunately, it often seems like only some are in an encouraging environment, whilst the majority of people simply just give up on their creative dreams. Consequently, most people have no idea that

they are artists as they carry on with their day-to-day lives.

A lack of support will eventually result in self-doubt, and worse, feeling too intimidated to act on creative desires. Artist mentor Renee Phillips wrote on her website that many of the most talented artists she’s mentored fail to “see their positive qualities and achievements from an objective perspective,” while also being quick to point out their own weaknesses.

This is unsurprising to me, because artists are some of the most insecure groups of people I’ve known.

They usually feel unsure about their work and ask themselves: “Am I good enough? Is this what I really want to create?”

Even the greatest artists in the world were not an exception. After commissioning the Sistine Chapel ceiling painting, Michelangelo wrote his friends a letter where he expresses his self-doubt as a painter: “My painting is dead. Defend it for me, Giovanni, protect my honor. I am not in the right place—I am not a painter.” Acknowledging that self-questioning happens to everyone and it is a normal part of human nature can make artists feel less alone.

However, developing strategies to overcome these obstacles is the key to growing self-esteem as an artist.

My first suggestion would be to avoid sharp criticism too early, but rather build up self-confidence first. Even as an adult, I still can feel my inner yearning for a creative path, despite being discouraged by my family. Recently, I

Illustration Lucia Thorne / Beacon Staff

started to paint again without telling anyone else. At first, I was simply drawing for myself, but eventually I ended up with a piece that

‘You can become anything you desire— but only if you’re willing to dream.’

I was satisfied with, and shared it with close friends who I knew would give me positive feedback.

Another piece of advice would be not to compare yourself to the experts in your field, but to your-

self from yesterday. Take a look at your past work to remind yourself of how much you have improved.

Once you can get a taste of what changes you can make by practicing, it will be your motivation to keep improving your current work.

In book The Artist’s Way, Cameron states that “judging your early artistic effort is artist abuse.”

Self-criticism can interfere with your creativity and blind you from your artistic achievements. You have to accept the imperfections in your work in order for it to ever feel ‘perfect.’

I am aware that my work has lots of room for improvement, but I am proud of myself for starting after being discouraged in my youth.

I hear many people complain because they feel it is too late to get started. It might sound cliche, but it is never too late to start making art. After you invest your time,

you’ll see the reward of your hard work.

In the Outliers: The Story of Success, author Malcolm Gladwell states that mastering a certain skill is all a matter of time. After 10,000 hours of dedicated work, anyone can become an expert in their area of interest. Even though you might be a bit older when you reach a level of expertise in a certain field, you will gain nothing if you don’t try.

Next time someone tells you that “not everyone can be an artist,” you should ignore them, knowing that they have a shallow understanding of what it means to be an artist. To achieve an artist’s goal, you have to first be bold enough to dream about it, and then take action. Remember, you can become anything you desire—but only if you’re willing to dream. jialin_xu@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

February 25, 2021

6

Living Arts

Alum sets debut novel, ‘Fresh,’ at Emerson campus

Margot Wood ‘08, author of “Fresh.” / Courtesy Margot Wood

Shawna Konieczny Beacon Staff

Margot Wood ‘08 spent years working in the publishing industry after graduation, and now her debut novel set at Emerson College, Fresh, is set to be published in August.

Wood’s new novel, which is a retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma, will be available in hardcover and ebook starting Aug. 3, 2021. Fresh is described as “a hilarious and vulnerable coming-of-age story about the thrilling new experiences–– and missteps––of a girl’s freshman year of college,” on Wood’s website. The publisher of the book is Abrams Books, the same company that published the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books by Jeff Kinney and the Splintered series by A.G. Howard.

The book follows the story of Elliot McHugh as she starts her college experience at Emerson. Living in the Little Building, Elliot tries to figure out what she wants to do with her life while also discovering what she likes—in bed.

Part of Elliot’s journey is declaring a major. Wood, a marketing communications major, knew she had to justify making Elliot undeclared thanks to the rarity of undecided majors at Emerson.

“There is a part where she explains why she still chose to go to Emerson versus going to Ohio State without an idea of what she wanted to do,” Wood said.

“She knew she wanted to work in media

of some kind. She loves books, TV, movies, all this stuff. She just didn’t know.”

Wood said she knew the publishing industry well and made connections with many authors, but never saw herself writing a book.

Aside from a few writing classes at Emerson, Wood had no writing experience.

“Whenever people were asking me if I wanted to write a book, I was like, ‘No, I’m not gonna write,’” Wood said. “I’m a reader. I’m a professional reader. I’m a professional book marketer.”

However, after getting married and losing her father all in the same year, Wood said she experienced a shift in her life that drove her to want to write.

“I suddenly felt this sense of urgency [and] need to put my mark on the world,” Wood said. “Before I hadn’t really ever felt that drive to leave a legacy. But then watching my dad die, who was an extremely healthy person, and knowing that...he always wanted to be remembered for things. Suddenly, once that happened, I was like, ‘I gotta write. I gotta write a book. I gotta do it.’”

Working in publishing was also something Wood didn’t see coming.

Originally enrolling at Emerson for theater, she quickly changed to marketing communications. Wood said if she had Emerson’s current array of majors, she would have majored in business of creative enterprises.

Finishing her senior year off at Emerson’s Los Angeles program, Wood was

set to have a marketing internship for It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Unfortunately because of the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike, Wood became an intern at Ford Models as an administrative assistant.

Although her plan was to stay in L.A. after finishing her internship, Wood instead moved back to her hometown of Cincinnati, OH. “Because I ended up in this awful, awful internship [and] had no interest in the modeling industry, I was so bored for those six months that I was in L.A.,” Wood said. “I was miserable.”

Knowing L.A. wasn’t the right place for her, Wood decided to go visit New York City where her old college friend and now husband, Sean Willis ‘08, lived.

After Willis showed her around the city, she decided to move there in the summer of 2009.

“I quit my job in the middle of a recession, and just moved to New York with no plan, no job,” Wood said. “My very first job in New York was at this tech startup that did custom consumer fan platforms.”

The startup, which has since been sold to another company, led Wood to help Penguin Random House run their young adult book community at the time, Random Buzzers. This is where she was first exposed to young adult literature.

“I was given this community to manage and the first thing that you want to do when you’re a community manager is obviously immerse yourself into the community,” Wood said. “I ended up reading The Hunger Games, and I was like, ‘Oh, shit. This is so good,’ and I flew through the entire series. Read all of Divergent, read all of Lauren Oliver, read all of everything I could get my hands on. That was when I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I found my thing.’”

After discovering this new passion, Wood went to work for HarperCollins Publishing Company to start up their young adult community, Epic Reads.

Wood worked at Epic Reads for five and a half years, saying it was the best job she ever had.

“It was really, really amazing,” Wood said. “That’s when I got to meet, the second day on the job, I met Veronica Roth and her agent. Insurgent had just

come out and she was signing a bunch of stock, and so I just sat in the room with her and hung out with her while she was signing stock. We ended up becoming really good friends. We’re still really good friends today.”

Wood later ended up signing with Divergent author Veronica Roth’s agent, Joanna Volpe, when she finally started writing Fresh. Before she signed with Volpe, Wood talked to another agent who she said was anything but encouraging.

“I pitched him this idea that I had, and he was like, ‘nobody will ever buy this because it’s about girls discovering their sexuality in college, nobody’s gonna buy this, nor is any publisher going to know what to do with it,’” Wood said.

“That really sidelined me for… like two years.”

Eventually, she found Volpe, who thought Wood’s idea was worth publishing. Wood started working on her new book around the same time she left Epic Reads in 2017. While working on her novel, Wood rediscovered a letter she

Book cover for Margot Wood’s novel, “Fresh.” / Courtesy Margot Wood

wrote to her younger sister that inspired her.

“I wrote this letter to my little sister and was like, ‘Here’s every single mistake that I made. I don’t know what you’re going to learn from this, but here’s all the dumb shit I did that you shouldn’t do,’” Wood said. “When I was trying to come up with something to write, I found the letter again. I reread it and I was like, ‘Oh, there is something to this.’”

Wood said she wanted to break the mold in young adult literature. She noted how many young adult books are focused on high school and the loss of virginity, and she wanted to go beyond that.

“For some reason in YA publishing, after you graduate high school, you’re no longer a young adult,” Wood said. “Why is it that you start your freshman year of college pretty much the same age that you were when you were a senior in high school, why is it that you’re suddenly no longer a [young] adult, according to publishing?”

To fill that void, Wood decided to write Fresh, which she described as a comedy first and a romance second.

“All of the sex scenes in my book are all in the service of comedy,” Wood said.

“Except for the one where it’s more of the romantic scene, but even then, that’s the one where you don’t actually get to see it, because it’s private.”

As she began writing Fresh, the protagonist came to remind Wood of characters like Emma Woodhouse from Jane Austen’s Emma and Cher Horowitz from Clueless, inspiring her to write a queer retelling of the Jane Austen classic.

“I specifically requested a copy of the official description not have ‘queer’ in it because as a marketing person, it’s odd when we don’t ever describe romance novels between cis hetero couples as being a straight romance,” Wood said. “But we do this thing where we’re like, it’s a queer romance if it’s gay.”

Wood said that Gayle Forman, the author of If I Stay, described the book as being like champagne bubbles. While her novel is meant to be fun and “fizzy,” it does cover issues such as crushing student debt and sexual assault on college campuses.

Wood said she has no plans for a sequel right now, but she would like to start focusing on writing more. In the spring, Wood plans on switching from her fulltime job at Oni Press in Portland as the Director of Sales and Marketing to working part-time to make more time to write.

As the world awaits the release of Fresh in August, Wood encourages students to read more books. Fresh can be pre-ordered on sites such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon. shawna_konieczny@emerson.edu

Students set out to discover Emerson’s ‘Hidden Gems’ online Margarita Ivanova

Beacon Correspondent Three students recently came together to create “Hidden Gems of Emerson,” an online human interest platform that aims to highlight fellow creative Emersonians. The group shares video interviews and articles about their endeavors, ranging from podcasts to poetry.

The Instagram account, run by sophomore journalism major Brynn O’Connor, launched in October.

O’Connor and her two friends, sophomore Jenna Triest, another journalism major, and sophomore Molly Weinrib, a writing, literature, and publishing major, teamed up with one goal: to interview Emerson students and share their creative projects and inspirations with the community.

The trio talked about logistics for months before finalizing their ideas and creating the platform people see today.

“We were talking about it for a long time trying to figure out when to start and how we wanted it to be done,” Weinrib said. “There were a

lot of ideas that were shot down and brought up.”

O’Connor said the group debated the name “Hidden Gems” for a while.

After the page was up and running, the team began their interview

‘They teamed up with one goal: to interview Emerson students and share their creative projects’ documenting series.

“We reached out to a few close friends and people we thought would have good stories for our first couple

of interviews,” O’Connor said, “Our first interviewee was Wesley Days, and if you know him or watch his interview, he is a man of performance.”

Days, a sophomore journalism student, runs an EVVY award winning podcast called “The Dark Side.”

During his interview with Hidden Gems, he credited hard work and perseverance for his success.

“The biggest thing for me is hard work because it has the ability to drive anything,” Days also said in his interview with The Beacon.

Hidden Gems encourages Emerson students to nominate their peers to share their stories through a submission form process linked in their Instagram bio.

“This is so we can get a feel for who we will be talking to instead of interviewing completely blindsided,” Triest said.

Another hidden gem the team interviewed is Will Percarpio, a friend of the founders. The sophomore WLP student from New York discussed his love for poetry.

“I’m a writer, a Pisces, and a WLP student,” Percarpio said. “I write to relieve any stress. I am someone who

Founders of “Hidden Gems of Emerson.” / Courtesy Brynn O’Connor

believes in creative expression of any kind to not only better yourself, but those around you.”

Hidden Gems chooses interviewees to get to know the Emerson community as a whole.

“We never specified whether it had to be students or not. We would even interview dining hall workers if they were willing to reach out,” Triest said.

The team interviews one person per week, and each team member has a different role throughout the process. O’Connor runs the social media, conducts the interviews, and writes the stories. Triest is in charge of the camerawork, videography, and

editing. Weinrib creates all of the designs, including the logos, the website layout, as well as editing. This process allows the team to efficiently interview and write articles while maintaining a consistent schedule.

“Any time I’m not doing work for school, my mind is on Hidden Gems.

I’m always thinking [about] what we need to do next or who we need to interview,” O’Connor said.

Hidden Gems of Emerson encourages students to reach out and get involved. The team’s instagram is @hiddengemsofemerson, where they post updates and upcoming opportunities. margarita_ivanova@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

February 25, 2021

7

Student band Sunsetta drops new danceinducing EP, ‘Green Line to Harvard Ave’

Album cover of Sunsetta’s new EP “Green Line to Harvard Ave.” / Courtesy Sunsetta

Mariyam Quaisar Beacon Staff

Emerson’s very own student band Sunsetta dropped their new EP on Feb. 19 titled “Green Line to Harvard Ave,” and I immediately downloaded every song.

Sunsetta is made up of four stu-

dents with a passion for indie rock.

Before the release of their newest EP, they released four singles, one of which—“Waste of Time”— was included in “Green Line to Harvard Ave.” The EP is short and spicy with five songs that last just around 15 minutes. It evokes a mix of melancholy and “I’m a badass” emo-

tions as well as making you want to dance. I highly recommend that any Emerson student give it a listen.

The first song, “Just Say Goodbye,” begins with a “let’s try that again” and then a whispered “one, two, three, go,” leading into a simple acoustic guitar and soft singing, giving the audience a feel of what the song’s about. The music quickly picks up in this classic “love hurts” vibe that makes you want to bob your head and play the guitar along with them.

The catchy lyrics paired with tambourine, percussion and guitar made me want to get up and start dancing around my dorm. The beat picks up and slows down smoothly, to keep you on your toes. I loved the conversation behind the instruments near the end and even listened really closely to understand what they were saying (although I couldn’t quite make it out). Sunsetta successfully created another singalong banger, perfect for windows down driving around the city or your hometown.

I added “Waste of Time” to my music library within the first 30 seconds of listening. It holds a soft melody to start, but quickly picks up into a “sway your body” type of song. The guitar at the beginning evoked a certain emotion within me, where I instantly knew this song would strike a chord in my heart— no pun intended. The lyrics of the

song were very relatable and most likely will be for anybody who has let someone repeatedly walk over them because of incomprehensible feelings. Like when he says, “I let you hurt me over and over just to be with you one day.” Yet another singalong I am eternally grateful for.

“Nasty” creates a completely different mood compared to the first two songs. Sunsetta goes from “I’m sad; I miss you” to “fuck you” real quick with this entry. The chorus lyric, “yeah it’s not my fucking fault that you nasty,” is a straight mood and definitely appreciated.

I listened to “Nasty” right after “Waste of Time” and genuinely said “yes Sunsetta, you’re right; he is nasty; thank you.” And then there was a guitar solo, so I did indeed stand up and start acting as if I was playing the guitar. The way the instruments blend together with the vocals gave me goosebumps throughout the entire EP. And yeah, you guessed it—“Nasty” would be classified as another “roll the windows down and go crazy” sing-along.

“Diss Your Fear” brought out emotions in me I didn’t even know existed. I was jumping up and down in my room playing air guitar with zero shame. The song is a drastic change from the others with its lean towards rock, as compared to the indie rock vibe of earlier tracks. The heavy guitar

and drums make the song more demanding than a simple swaying.

More like you could break your neck from the aggressive head-bobbing rather than the more gentle swaying of “Just Say Goodbye.” The guitar solo made me envy their immense talent, due to my lack of musical ability.

“Size Me Up” begins with a unique instrumental that starts slow and then speeds up, without getting too loud. The guitar abruptly stops, and the singing begins. And then there it is—the blend of guitar and drums that go crazy. This song specifically kept me on my toes as it ranged from slow to fast and slow again. And, you guessed it, I did play air guitar AND air drums while listening to this one which definitely challenged my coordination skills. The vocals and instruments together had a great build up of sound—then the song abruptly ended. There was music, and then there wasn’t, which I loved. Sunsetta showed who was in control with that move.

“Green Line to Harvard Ave” made me switch emotions about a million times within the span of 15 minutes, which is powerful to say the least. Sunsetta, I am patiently waiting for more music.

From one music-loving Emersonian to another, thank you. mariyam_quaisar@emerson.edu

‘Ryn’ Soorholtz ‘16 serves as production coordinator on ‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ Cont. from Pg. 1 Soorholtz worked closely with the character animation department. She expressed how great of a group she was surrounded by and how passionate everyone was, even throughout the challenges.

With an exclusive pre-screening link, I sat down and watched the movie on my friend’s projector. In a spoiler-free review, I can say this is a charming film for audiences of any age to watch, whether it’s with family or friends.

The film took from Disney predecessors like “Tangled,” “Frozen” and “Moana,” which feature a strong female princess—with an animal sidekick—who puts on an invisible hero cape in order to save their home or an important person in their life.

This is a typical formula for Disney movies, and even though it’s predictable, the format does the job considering Disney is a multi-billion dollar company.

Immediately, the film’s soundtrack caught my attention. Throughout the film, the music never let me down. It greatly supported the film’s outstand-

ing animated visuals, and added to the immersion. The music is composed

by James Newton Howard. This is his fourth Disney film score, and there’s also a song called “Lead the Way”

by Jhene Aiko, written for the trailer and end credits. The soundtrack just brings the magical aesthetic of the film to life in an audible way.

The cast is also incredibly talented. The film’s most notable character, Sisu the last dragon, was especially captivating, mostly thanks to Awkwafina’s enthusiastic performance.

Everytime her character appeared on screen, it made for an enjoyable moment. For a PG-rated movie, it even managed to get a few laughs out of me.

For those people who don’t want a song interrupting their movie every 15 minutes, this film is perfect for them. To my surprise, musical numbers were absent from the film, though I wasn’t complaining.

The two hour film was over before I knew it. The heartwarming storyline brought me back to seeing “Moana” in theaters, which is one of my favorite Disney movies. “Raya and the Last Dragon” is a great ad-

dition to Disney’s roster of princess films.

Without giving any spoilers away, Soorholtz said her favorite part of the film was the scene of a waterfall.

“It’s one of the most beautiful shots I’ve ever seen in a movie, ever,

‘Raya and the Last Dragon’ is a great addition to Disney’s roster of princess films’ and knowing how much work went into that one waterfall,” Soorholtz said. “It took almost a month for one or two shots to be developed and just being able to see it really coming to life, it encapsulated the whole process in such a beautiful way.”

Seeing all the small details come

together, though viewers may not realize it at first glance, made for an amazing moment in Soorholtz’s eyes.

Before ending the interview, I asked Soorholtz for any advice she could give to fellow Emerson students looking to succeed in the film

industry.

“Learn to love collaboration and to really learn how to love group projects in a way,” Soorholtz said.

“It’s a lot of working together and communicating.” karissa_schaefer@emerson.edu

Poster (above) and still (left, below) from “Raya” / Courtesy Walt Disney Pictures

The Berkeley Beacon

Sports

The Worcester Red Sox Fenway Park in the snow / Courtesy Joe Jacobs

Worcester Red Sox to partner with local restaurants Joey Dubois Beacon Staff Dr. Charles Steinberg, Director of Sports Communication and Worcester Red Sox President, built his career around redefining what a ballpark should be.

His work over the years includes experiences with the Baltimore Orioles, San Diego Padres, Boston Red Sox, and Los Angeles

Dodgers. At each step of the way, he prioritized enhancing the fan experience.

In his current role, Steinberg oversaw the move of Boston’s Triple-A affiliate from Pawtucket, R.I. to Worcester, Mass. Now, with the inaugural season just weeks away, the club begins to unveil a crucial part of any ballpark—the food.

The WooSox announced their initial local offerings via a part-

nership with Professional Sports Catering in a statement last week.

The restaurants announced thus far are largely located in the city’s Canal District and further partnerships with establishments in the Main South and Green Island are expected to be announced in the coming months.

“We wanted to resonate with the city of Worcester, which bursts with pride about its restaurant scene,” Dr. Charles Steinberg said

February 25, 2021

8

in a phone interview. “Worcester’s restaurant scene is one of the real attributes of Worcester’s identity.”

The announcement featured the restaurants in the “Line-up of Locals,” placing each establishment at a different spot in the batting order. Highlights include Worcester classics like Coney Island Hot Dogs, Table Talk Pies, and Polar Beverages.

Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Rob Crain played a crucial role in securing the vendors for the “Line-up of Locals.”

He reiterated the importance of getting the best food Worcester has to offer into the stadium.

“Local, local, local, local, local,” Crain said in a phone interview. “(WooSox Chairman) Larry Lucchino has always said the ballpark must look and smell and feel and taste like Worcester. I think we took that edict seriously, and we wanted to make sure the ballpark reflected Worcester, especially in a culinary way.”

Steinberg and Crain hope the “Line-up of Locals” is only the beginning of a healthy relationship

between the team and Worcester’s restaurant scene.

“I don’t think that any of us think this is finished,” Crain said.

“I think we can still grow and create new partnerships.”

“What we did was start with a starting lineup of locals,” Dr. Steinberg said. “Now, a baseball team has a starting lineup of nine ballplayers, but there’s 16 more on the roster, and there’s 25 more at Triple-A. So this starting lineup begins the process, not ends the process.”

The WooSox and PSC also announced they are offering opportunities to Worcester-area charities to raise money by operating the concession stands with volunteers.

The club announced its impending move to Worcester in 2018. With the season just around the corner, reality is beginning to set in for Crain, who has been with the organization since 2015.

“I don’t think words can describe what that’s going to be like,” Crain said. “We just want to get people in there, obviously in the safest manner possible, but we’re pumped. We’ve been working on this forever. In 2018, 2021 seemed [a distant future], and now it’s here. I think we’re all very enthused to be able to do it and start off a new page of Worcester.”

The Worcester Red Sox will begin their inaugural season on the road on April 6 before returning to central Massachusetts for their home opener at Polar Park on April 13.

Dr. Charles Steinberg / Beacon Archives

joseph_dubois@emerson.edu

Women’s Lacrosse announces spring season captains

The 2021 women’s lacrosse captains / Courtesy @emerson_wlax

Jose Rios Beacon Staff The women’s lacrosse team announced juniors Amelia Toscano and Julia Burns and seniors Lily Nelson and Kelli Mark as its captains via Instagram on Feb. 12 for the 2021 season.

For Burns and Toscano this will be their third season for Emerson College and a second full season after last year’s cancellation. Nelson and Mark are entering their fourth and final season with the Lions.

The process was different from past years, as the team voted for captains on a Google Form. The team hasn’t had four captains in

previous years, but head coach Jessie Koffman believes it’s a positive with the way the season is structured.

“One of the good things about having four captains, especially because we’re gonna have to start off the season with our practices being in functional groups, is that two are in each group,” Koffman said in a phone interview. “The way that I split up the captains I feel like one is more vocal and the other one sort of leads by example.”

Koffman also referenced how not all captains lead in the same way, with some being more vocal than others, but she stressed that those different styles of leadership are what give them more solidarity

as a group.

“They all don’t lead by example, but it’s really great, all the different personalities that we have in the four captains and the different ways that they show leadership,” Koffman said. “We’re not all as close as we have been in the past year because you’ve been so separated in our groups and stuff, it’s good to have different personalities and different leadership styles.”

Toscano, a junior defender and one of the two juniors selected for the captaincy, described the feeling of joy once she was informed.

“I was really excited, especially since this year, myself and Julia are juniors and the four of us are all super close as well,” Toscano said in a phone interview. “I can do something we’re all really excited about considering we’re able to lead the team together and in a time when leadership is definitely needed.”

Toscano points to her ability to communicate as a strong aspect of her leadership style, and said leading the team is nothing new to her.

“I just always try to lead by example [and] try to encourage my teammates,” Toscano said. “I just want to continue doing that. And I think now that I’m officially a captain, I’m going to be able to step up more and try to guide everyone through that.”

Burns, the other junior captain, has started all 14 games she has played in for the Lions. She describes herself as a silent leader who speaks through her actions rather than her words.

“I could be a junior or sophomore on the team, and I’m still hustling to get the balls after practice or to move net,” Burns said in a Zoom interview. “Little things here and there, on and off the

field, kind of define me as a leader.

A big part of being a leader, too, is a sense of vulnerability and friendship, and I think people know that they can depend on you or come to you on and off the field.”

Burns appreciated Koffman’s decision to have four captains.

“It’s really nice to have two older people on the team [as captains who] really were seniors, and I think it’s very beneficial actually to have two junior captains,” Burns said. “I think it’s nice for me and Amelia to be able to learn from the seniors.”

Mark is a returning captain, as she was also chosen for the position last year. She has also shown results on the field with 39 goals in her 27 games for the Lions.

As for her leadership style, Mark is focused on leading by example.

“I don’t really like to be the one that’s loud and necessarily having my voice heard, but I like to always go out on the field or in the gym and give it 100 percent,” Mark said. “[I] give off an energy that I know the team can kind of go off of and continue to ride off of. I think actions speak louder than words.”

Nelson has had a long career with Emerson, scoring 10 goals in her three years on the team. She said her selection as a captain appropriately wraps up her career as a Lion.

“It’s been a long road,” Nelson said in a phone interview. “Kelly and I are the only two seniors left from our original [first-year]class on the team, so being named as co-captains together was a really nice moment for us as teammates and also friends.”

Despite the level of commitment and competition the sport demands, NCAA Division III programs don’t offer scholarships to student-athletes. Nelson has always been at the forefront to remind her teammates why they are on the team.

“What will make me a good captain is I’ve always emphasized the importance of making sure that we’re still all having fun with the sports,” Nelson said. “All athletes at our school are playing sports because we really want to be there and we really love it.” jose_rios@emerson.edu

Incident Journal The Emerson College Police Department provides the Incident Journal to The Beacon every week. Beacon staff edit the Incident Journal for style and clarity but not for content.

Tuesday, Feb. 16 ECPD assisted an Emerson Student with a report of stolen property that occurred off-campus earlier in the day. ECPD provided information on identity theft protection steps with the Federal Trade Commission and how to

submit a report with the Boston Police Department.

Thursday Feb. 18 Housing and Residential Education (HRE) staff requested ECPD to secure confiscated drugs and drug paraphernalia for destruction from the Little Building. HRE staff identified the student that owned the contraband and they were referred to Community Standards & Student Conduct for whatever action their office deems appropriate.