COVID Spike

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

Thursday, April 8, 2021 • Volume 74, Issue 24

@berkeleybeacon // @beaconupdate

COVID-19 positives surge, campus life restricted Week brings 36 new positive tests

Spring athletics temporarily suspended

Dana Gerber, Charlie McKenna, Ann E. Matica, Camilo Fonseca, & Bailey Allen

Christopher Williams

Beacon Staff

Beacon Staff

Emerson canceled all in-person student activities beginning at 5 p.m. for at least the next seven days on Wednesday, the result of an unprecedented spike in positive COVID-19 tests among community members in the past week.

Classes will continue to be held in-person, but all indoor and outdoor student activities, including athletics and student organization meetings, will be on hold until April 14, the email from Assistant Vice President for Campus Life and “COVD Lead” Erik Muurisepp said. All film production on and off-campus has also been canceled for the next week, Visual and Media Arts Chair Christina Kotz-Cornejo announced Thursday night.

All on-campus space capacities, aside from classrooms and dorms, have been set at one for the next week, an email from Student Engagement and Leadership Director Jason Meier said.

The decisions were made in consultation with the Boston Public Health Commission and Tufts Medical Center, Muurisepp wrote.

Emerson has reported 36 positives over the past week out of 7,112 tests administered, a positivity rate of .51 percent. As of Wednesday afternoon, 24 students are in on-campus isolation and 38 students are in on-campus quarantine, the highest figures seen over both the fall and spring COVID, Pg. 3

All athletics games and practices are canceled for at least the next week, as Emerson imposes new restrictions to limit the number of positive COVID-19 tests on campus, college officials announced in a Wednesday afternoon email.

“All in-person student activities and gatherings, including athletics, whether they are indoors or outdoors, will be prohibited for at least the next seven days, effective 5:00 p.m., Wednesday, April 7 through the end of the day Wednesday, April 14,” Assistant Vice President for Campus Life and “COVID Lead” Erik Muurisepp said in the email.

Muurisepp’s email marks the second consecutive week that all sports activities have been canceled following a spike in positive coronavirus tests on campus. The college canceled all games and practices last Friday after seven positive tests—a number which has now more than quintupled—were reported on campus. An unnamed member of an athletics team said the spread began with members of the women’s basketball team and affected other teams.

Muurisepp’s email accounts for the possibility that the new on-campus regulations will have to be extended if the number of Athletics, Pg. 8

Fall 2020

Spring 2021

Graphics Diti Kohli

ECPD ‘Autism Speaks’ posts trigger harsh backlash Dana Gerber Beacon Staff Content Warning: This article discusses harmful and ableist stereotypes against autistic people, violence against autistic people and disabled people, and includes harmful and ableist photographs posted by the Emerson College Police Department about autistic people.

The Emerson College Police Department is facing backlash from members of the Emerson community for two social media posts made on April 2, known by the United Nations as “World Autism Awareness Day,” which some say perpetuated harmful stereotypes about people on the autism spectrum.

The posts—which have since been deleted from Instagram and Twitter without a public apology—featured a video of a flashing blue police siren with the hashtags “#AutismAwarenessDay” and “#LightItUpBlue,” as well as the ECPD emblem against a background of rainbow puzzle pieces. Both puzzle pieces and “Light It Up Blue” are symbols associated with the organization Autism Speaks, and otherwise condemned by many autistc people as stigmatizing and harmful.

More than 60 disability rights organizations have condemned Autism Speaks for their harm to and exploitation of the autistic community. The organization spends just a fraction of a percent of its budget on “family service grants,” which fund services for autistic people and their families, and has only one autistic person out of 30 individuals on their board of directors, according to the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, abbreviated as ASAN, a nonprofit run by and for autistic people to advocate for disability rights.

Autism Speaks has also called autism spectrum disorder—a developmental disability that impacts social interaction, behavior, and communication—a “disease,” a designation advocates say is false and produces stigma against autistic people. Historically, Autism Speaks has promoted research about the cause and prevention of autism rather than quality of life, and perpetrated the idea that autism needed to be “cured” through biomedical research, according to ASAN. (The word “cure” was removed from Autism Speaks’ mission statement in 2016.)

“The puzzle piece and blue as symbols being used as support for the autistic community—they don’t understand how really harmful that is,” Zach Swasta ’20, who is on the autism spectrum and co-founded Access: Student Disability Union at Emerson, said in an interview with The Beacon.

Harper McKenzie, current president of Access, declined to comment to The Beacon.

ECPD Chief Robert Smith said the department removed the posts in response to community feedback.

“The ECPD posted images to highlight Autism Awareness Day in support of community members who are on the autism spectrum or who have family members, friends, and loved ones who are autistic,” he wrote in a statement to The Beacon. “After receiving feedback from our community about the concern that these symbols can cause, we removed them from our social media accounts. We apologize for causing harm to any members of the community.”

The puzzle piece as a symbol for autism—which some organizations have re ECPD, Pg. 3

Robert Colby started at the college in 2018. / Courtesy Emerson College

Robert Colby, performing arts chair, dies at 70 Camilo Fonseca Beacon Staff After 44 years at Emerson, students and colleagues fondly recalled Robert Colby as a committed theatre practitioner, a trusted mentor, and by many, a valued friend.

The longtime faculty member served as chair of Emerson’s performing arts department from 2018 until his death from pancreatic cancer early Monday morn-

ing, at the age of 70. Colby taught courses in theater education, theater for young audiences, and directing for undergraduate and graduate students alike.

The news of his death spurred an outpouring of grief on social media, as those who knew him paid tribute to their late instructor. One post on the Emerson Mafia, a Facebook group of alumni and current students, garnered 45 comments and over 200 reactions.

“There’s just page after page after

INSIDE THIS EDITION

Access unveils accessibility demands for admin Pg. 2 New individually-designed major to replace IDIP Pg. 3

FSL orgs reimagine PVIV policy Pg. 7 Bye, sister: Send James Charles to prison edition Pg. 7

Editorial: Pandemic isn’t over. Student-athlete quarantine diaries from Paramount Pg. 8 Yet. Pg. 4

page of tributes to him from students,” Assistant Professor Bethany Nelson said.

“Again, and again, you hear the same thing: ‘He made me the teacher I am today,’ ‘He changed my life,’ ‘He made me a different person,’ That would be the legacy he wanted to leave. The legacy left for young people in classrooms, that’s where his heart lay.”

Nelson, who succeeded Colby as director of the theatre education graduate program, attended Emerson as an undergraduate student in 1979 where she first met Colby—who was then a 28-year old instructor fresh out of Eastern Michigan University.

“I’ve known him for 42 years—and of those, we were close friends for about 35 of them,” Nelson said.

Lecturing alongside Colby for much of his time at Emerson, Nelson experienced his commitment to the field of theater education first hand. “Bob,” as he was called by faculty and students, rose from adjunct professor to tenured instructor to faculty union president to an administrator during his tenure at the college. In the process, his teaching earned him numerous accolades.

Despite his recognition within the Emerson community and beyond, Colby never grew complacent, Nelson said.

Colby, Pg. 6

203

positive COVID-19 tests

.18%

positivity rate *Accumulated from 2020-2021 school year

News

The Berkeley Beacon

April 8, 2021

2

Student Disability Union debuts Advocacy Project The demands intend to increase accessibility across the college

Dana Gerber & Charlie McKenna Beacon Staff

Demands in the Action Plan for Disability Equity are divided into nine sections—ranging from the implementation of educational and training programs on disability for community members, to incorporating accessibility-informed policies into the classroom—and include a request for a college response by May 9.

“Our community has been systematically left in the dark, marginalized and undersupported,” the introduction to the action plan said. “We know that inequality is not unique to Emerson; systemic ableism has long run rampant in our global society. However, the responsibility of rooting out ableism falls upon every person and institution. That is one of the reasons why we are calling upon Emerson College to do more and to do better for its disabled students and community members.”

Access is a student organization dedicated to building community among disabled Emerson students and advocating for accessibility and disability justice, visibility, and acceptance. The group, the first disability advocacy organization on campus, was created in November 2019 and became affiliated with the Student Government Association in November 2020. The Advocacy Project is the culmination of their “entire year and a half history,” according to a Tuesday email from Access’s president, senior Harper McKenzie.

Access declined to comment to The Beacon for this story.

Since the Advocacy Project was released, several other advocacy-based student organizations—including Protesting Oppression with Education Reform and Flawless Brown—have stood in solidarity with the plan by reposting or sharing related graphics on social media with the hashtag #AccessAtEmerson.

On Wednesday, Access launched an email campaign on their Instagram, urging community members to send a pre-written email to Emerson administrators and Board of Trustees members expressing their support for the project and the action plan.

“The plan is a starting point,” the letter states. “While long, the list of actions is not complete or comprehensive because the needs of our community will change over time, but moreover because there will never be a checklist to solving ableism. Anti-ableism work requires a communal, continuous effort that can be invigorated by listening to disabled voices and by taking action to fulfill their needs. We hope that Emerson will put forth a commitment to that effort now and throughout the future.”

New Position Access calls for the institution of a new upper-level administrator position to “oversee the work of making Emerson more accessible and equitable for disabled students and community members.”

This administrator—who they say should work closely with Student Accessibility Services, the Social Justice Center, and Intercultural Student Affairs—should be disabled and have an “extensive background in disability and social justice.”

This individual would not handle fulfilling students’ accessibility requests, which the demand states should remain under the purview of SAS. Training The list of demands also asks forthe implementation of mandatory and comprehensive educational and training programs on disability justice, anti-ableism, and accessibility for all Emerson students, staff, and faculty. The demand says these programs should be tailored

The action plans includes a request for a college response by May 9. Zhuoli Zhang / Beacon Staff by department—for example, training for staff at the Center for Health and Wellness should focus on treating disabled patients—and they recommend customizing training to specific groups of students, like transfer or international students.

They add that these trainings should not be “the sole burden of Student Accessibility Services or disabled students” and should be “inclusive, accessible, and intersectional.”

Access also highlighted the heightened need of specific groups—including faculty, resident assistants, and dining workers—to undergo training.

Administration’s Approach to Disability The demands also touched on the inclusion of disabled students on boards and committees, laying out specific guidelines for when and how this “student labor” is appropriate. They ask for the minimal use of student advisory boards, and when they are used, they should be diverse, include disabled students, and financially compensate student members. When selecting student representatives for groups like search committees, Access similarly calls for the inclusion of disabled students.

“One student representative is not sufficient representation of the multiple marginalized identities at Emerson,” the step reads.

When administrators tackle issues of ensuring equity at the college, the demand states, disability should be incorporated. Furthermore, the initiative also calls on intersectionality to be at the forefront of equity efforts, calling the college to execute anti-ableist work in league with other “anti-oppressive” work. This includes addressing the anti-racist demands levied in the ESOC Week of Action spearheaded by the organization POWER in November.

Academic Affairs Access called for administration to take several steps to make the academic experience more accessible, including strides in curriculum, hiring and retention, and the absence policy.

The creation of new courses dealing directly with disability “informed by disability justice frameworks” taught by professors who are disabled “and/or professors with an extensive disability studies background” is among the chief requests. They also demand the incorporation of disability into existing courses in all departments. This academic revamp, the demand said, should take place following “a full anti-ableism/disability inclusion audit of course syllabi.”

The demand also calls for the creation of a college-wide absence policy that allows professors to have agency in deciding class-by-class protocols, with an emphasis on clearly defining “unexcused” and “excused” absences and on leniency offered during challenging socio-political circumstances.

It also states that disabled students should receive more leniency when their

disability is the cause for an absence, and that excused absences should be “demedicalized” by not requiring medical documentation.

Access-Centered Pedagogy The project calls on the college to hold professors responsible for implementing pedagogical practices that center on accessibility. Demands include the abolition of timed exams and assignments, elimination of due dates and deadlines wherever possible, and ensuring all academic materials are accessible to all students.

To make materials more accessible, the project calls for the proliferation of audiobooks, digital screen-reader-accessible PDFs, accurate closed captions on videos and Zoom lectures, and allowing the use of technology in class for all students. Other demands include making all course materials available at the beginning of the semester and the implementation of “access-centered approaches to grading.”

The project also calls on professors to be more understanding of students’ other commitments.

“Making it clear to students that professors know their class isn’t, can’t be, and shouldn’t be the only thing that matters in their lives and that it’s not an insult if they need to prioritize other things, including but not limited to other classes, jobs, extracurriculars, family matters, and personal well-being over a particular class.”

Demands also include discontinuing “overly complex and challenging” ice breakers, providing space for wellbeing check-ins, distributing an accessibility needs questionnaire at the start of every semester, and updating syllabus language. The demands call for syllabi to go “above and beyond” the diversity statement and Student Accessibility Services statement by using language that “encapsulate[s] the approach to access-centered pedagogy utilized in a given course.”

The new part of the syllabus should be “addressed in depth” and “continuously reiterated” throughout the semester, the demands said.

Student Accessibility Services The project’s demands for SAS fall under two categories: “accommodations process[es]” and “communication improvements.” To implement these two demands, Access calls for Emerson to allocate more funding to SAS and approve the department’s request to hire an additional staff member.

To improve accommodation processes, the project calls for a shift to a digital system for accommodation letters, decreasing the need for medical documentation in order to secure accommodations, prioritizing the needs of disabled students, and ensuring students are supported as best as possible via an interactive accommodation process with SAS staff members.

The project also calls for the prioriti-

zation of disabled students’ needs by not withholding any information about the accommodation process and by allowing students full agency over whether or not to disclose their disability.

“Information … should not be withheld for fear of non-disabled students taking advantage of accommodations, the fear of SAS not being able to keep up with accommodations requests, the fear of a student facing stigma or the fear of a disabled student experiencing deviation from the normative college experience due to their accommodations,” the demands read.

“Students should not be told to keep their accommodations a secret or swayed to non-disclosure of their disability; a culture that empowers students to make their own decision about disclosure and equally values disclosure and non-disclosure should be cultivated,” they continue.

To improve communication, Access calls for all professors and students to be “made aware of” the accommodations available as well as how the accommodations system works. The project also calls for increased use of social media to promote SAS and the services it provides, and the inclusion of SAS in college-wide emails.

Other Departments and Offices The project also includes demands for numerous areas of the college, including the Iwasaki Library, the Emerson College Police Department, and Dining Services, among others.

Each department and office listed should “take care to assess how they can support disabled students, improve accessibility, commit to anti-ableism and make their work equitable to disabled members of the Emerson community,” as well as strive to hire and retain disabled staff, the demand said.

For the Iwasaki Library, the project calls for greater access to audiobooks, prioritizing study room booking for disabled students, and creating a study space specifically for disabled students.

Access calls for Emerson Counseling and Psychological Services and the Center for Health and Wellness—soon to be merged into one office—to implement a number of improvements which would allow the offices to work more effectively with disabled students. Improvements include sensory-friendly treatment and therapy, staff members fluent in American Sign Language, staffing and service expansions with an emphasis on providing diagnostic testing, improving health care at Kasteel Well, and the ability to provide excused absences—especially for disabled students.

The project calls for the implementation of a read-aloud program for the Writing and Academic Resource Center, where students can be hired to record themselves reading papers, essays, articles, and other materials when an audio version is not available.

Access called on Informational Technology to ensure all the computers in

on-campus labs have accessible features enabled or readily available and to increase the number of accessibility devices, like hearing aids and noise-canceling headphones, available for reservation at the Media Services Center.

The demands call for the Instructional Technology Group to expand its accessibility education and assistance for professors by giving ITG “whatever resources are necessary.” It is also requested that the standards of digital accessibility used for online classes are applied to all classes.

The organization calls for the abolition of the Emerson College Police Department and for the college to explore alternatives to policing, which would lead to the “eventual abolishment” of the department. The demands also request an apology from the college for the department’s “ableist past” and for ECPD’s recent social media posts in support of Autism Speaks, which disability advocates say is a group that perpetuate harmful stereotypes and stigmatizes people with autism.

Access also appeals for dining services to update its signage, add new seating areas to better accommodate disabled students, and improve food options for students with food allergies and dietary restrictions.

Orientation and Week of Welcome The project calls for “increased accessibility of orientation programming” by making large events more accessible and sensory-friendly, providing an alternative form of information circulation for those who are unable to attend larger events, and for orientation leader meetings to rely less on walking or other inaccessible activities.

The organization also called for SAS and disability advocates to be more involved with programming, presenting, and disseminating information throughout orientation and the week of welcome.

Physical Accessibility Periodic accessibility audits of the downtown Boston campus—as well as a similar evaluation of the Kasteel Well and Emerson Los Angeles campuses— by a third-party to evaluate physically inaccessible features of campus are also among the demands. Access asks that when physically inaccessible locations are brought to the college’s attention, the college makes “swift plans to remedy” the situation. They also ask that when building or renovating, the college ensure accessibility, and that construction sites include ramps and don’t block or obstruct accessible pathways or entrances. Access also calls for enlarged, color-contrasted, and braille signage throughout campus, Access also requests that the college go beyond the requirements mandated through the Americans with Disabilities Act. “ADA requirements are used as a baseline, not a stopping point,” the demand reads. “Strive to make campus accessible by the standards of disabled people, not only the standards of the law.”

Statement on Post-COVID Accessibility In an addendum to the list of dands, Access notes that they expect the college to preserve its pandemic-era accessibility policies even after the pandemic subsides.

“By learning from the way we have widely and quickly implemented accessibility features and programs such as remote learning and a variety of care-based pedagogies, we can continue to ensure accessibility to all members of the Emerson community,” the statement said.

The statement added that the college should develop “proper emergency planning” that considers the needs of disabled people if a crisis-response from the college is ever necessary again. contact@berkeleybeacon.com

The Berkeley Beacon

April 8, 2021

3

COVID-19 positive test surge prompt campus lockdown Cont. from Pg. 1 semesters. On March 30, one community member was in isolation on campus, and three were in quarantine.

Other local universities have not seen a similar explosion in positive tests to Emerson. Northeastern University and Boston University both have seven-day positivity rates well below Emerson’s— sitting at .3 percent and .25 percent, respectively. Nearby Suffolk University has had a positivity rate of .32 percent over the past week. Massachusetts reports a positivity rate of exclusively higher education testing that has remained level at .03 percent since March 23.

The college’s cumulative positivity rate sits at .23 percent—after it fell as low as .19 percent on March 29.

Coronavirus cases in Massachusetts have been on the rise in the past two weeks, topping 2,000 nearly every day since March 26. In the fall, when administrators shut down all non-academic in-person activities after reporting 12 positive tests across two days, cases also rose past 2,000 each day.

“I don’t know how I’m going to go about my day now,” first-year marketing communication major Robert Hansen said. “It’s similar to the state that we were in at the beginning of the semester with the soft quarantine, but that was under very different circumstances.”

On April 1, Muurisepp announced that the initial seven positives from testing on March 31 “seem to be linked and resulted in transmission within a group of people.” On Wednesday, he said not all cases could be attributed to those initial positives and he had seen no evidence of a superspreader event that gave rise to the spread, which an unnamed source with knowledge of the situation said was linked to Emerson’s athletic teams.

“There do seem to be some connections between some cases, and there also

seem to be just general positives from the general community—outside Emerson community exposure,” Muurisepp said in an interview with The Beacon.

Kathleen Nolan, a sophomore writing, literature, and publishing major, said her first reaction to the new restrictions was frustration.

“I have been working really hard with my roommate to follow the rules—we keep our circle very small,” she said.

“We’re both involved in various organizations that have been cut down a lot because of the pandemic, and we’re both missing out on a lot of things and it is frustrating that it’s a small group of people that are ruining it for everyone.”

Muurisepp said these restrictions could continue past April 14 if the number of new positives reported daily doesn’t begin to decrease in the coming days. In a Wednesday evening COVID Q&A on Zoom, Muurisepp said if the situation were to worsen, the college would consider suspending in-person courses for a time, in an attempt to tame the virus’ spread.

For the time being, however, in-person classes will continue due to no transmission detected in a classroom setting, Muurisepp said.

“As academics is our primary initiative here at the college, keeping those is a goal of ours. Certainly, that would be the last resort,” he said.

Nolan said the continuance of in-person classes is confusing to her from a safety perspective.

“I hope that this week is like a wakeup call for people,” she said. “I’m a little confused because they say we can still have class. But classes are indoors with the most people I’m surrounded with all week. I just find it a little confusing that they’re like, ‘You can’t sit in groups of four, but you can attend your 30 person in-person class in a Walker classroom.’”

Muurisepp also said there have been

no “in-depth conversations” regarding sending students home altogether, and that, too, would be a “super last resort.”

Evan Taylor, a first-year theatre and performance major, said this last resort doesn’t appear so far off.

“Why aren’t we just going home at this point?” he said. “There’s so little time in the semester. it seems like a lot of things to sacrifice in order to preserve a very small amount of time here.”

Others are disappointed by the stringent restrictions so close to the end of the term.

“I’m pretty disappointed that I’m taking two production classes so now I don’t get two final films,” sophomore visual and media arts major Truman Segal said.

“That kind of sucks. But I guess it makes sense. Maybe. I don’t know why in-person classes are still happening.”

The 26 positives reported last week marked the single highest total reported over the course of any week of testing across either semester. Now, the college is on pace to once again set a new record, with 12 positives recorded across the first two days of testing this week.

“Seeing the numbers on the COVID dashboard is probably very concerning to a lot of people, as they should be, and hopefully it makes people not want to go out and not want to travel,” Nolan said.

“But I also think it’s poor timing, because people have been doing those things, and now they gave us like five hours notice for a complete lockdown.”

Taylor said the new restrictions might prove counterintuitive.

“People are gonna be worn out and tired and upset from not being able to see anybody tired of being alone,” Taylor said. “It’s going to cause them to go outside seeing the park and socialize more— more so than they were before.”

In recent weeks, the college has loosened certain pandemic-era restrictions, like raising room capacities in some

Advocates condemn ECPD posts as promoting ableist ideas

Emerson’s Ansin Building on Tremont Street. Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff Cont. from Pg. 1 placed with a rainbow infinity sign— has been associated with negative connotations, including “incompleteness, imperfection, and oddity,” according to a 2017 study in Autism, an international peer-reviewed journal published by the National Autistic Society.

“There’s the subtle undertext [that] people with autism aren’t quite complete,” Zoe Ann, a creative writing senior who believes they may have autism but has never received a formal diagnosis, said.

“Light It Up Blue,” also a slogan and campaign popularized by Autism Speaks, carries connotations of grief and implies that autism is a disability that only affects males because of the color, according to the blog Learn From Autistics.

“The fact that you’re flashing something in someone’s face can be seen as disrespectful to autistic people,” Swasta said.

“A lot of people on the spectrum are flash sensitive.”

ASAN also shifted from “Autism Awareness Month” to “Autism Acceptance Month” in 2011. This represented a move away from “language that presents autism as a threat to be countered with vigilance,” ASAN wrote, to instead promote the idea that “autistic people belong—that we deserve welcoming communities, inclusive schools and workplaces, and equal opportunities.”

“Everyone knows we exist,” Swasta said. “We need to accept that we are a part of society.”

The relationship between law enforcement and autistic people—particularly autistic people of color—is fraught with brutality, violence, and murder, according to Spectrum News, which covers autism news and research. Psychologist Tasha Oswald, founder and director of Open Doors Therapy, a therapy group that serves teens and adults on the spectrum or otherwise neurodiverse, said much of this violence is due to police misunderstanding autistic behavior, like fidgeting, as “non-compliant.”

“Many people with autism have sensory sensitivities,” Oswald wrote on her website. “So, if they were stopped by a cop, sirens, raised voices or megaphones, and bright flashing lights could possibly overwhelm their sensory system. This could also lead to a variety of behaviors that could be misinterpreted as a threat by police officers. And again, this could have violent or deadly repercussions.”

Competence training for police officers on how to interact with people on the spectrum varies significantly by department, Spectrum News noted. ECPD mentions nothing of such training on their website.

“Police violence or use of force against autistic people is also not an uncommon thing, so I don’t imagine that visual is going to feel celebratory to much of that

community,” said visual and media arts senior Mia Stegner, who is not autistic but who commented on ECPD’s posts before they were deleted.

Stegner said ECPD’s social media silence on other social movements, like Black Lives Matter, is telling.

“If a college, particularly a college campus police department, is going to use Twitter to show support for a social movement or for groups of students, and they leave out students of color, for example, that says something about your willingness to respond to cultural moments and actually support the student body that you’re supposed to be looking out for,” she said. “It just felt very performative and trivializing and insensitive.”

ECPD issued a public apology in February for intermittently displaying a “Thin Blue Line” flag—a common symbol of Blue Lives Matter, a loose, pro-police counter movement to Black Lives Matter—as a screensaver on one of their office’s computers. This apology came in response to a demand issued during the from #ESOCWeekofAction—a campaign spearheaded by on-campus activist organization Protesting Oppression with Education Reform.

“Doing a little more research into the community that you’re trying to support or the cause would be good,” Stegner said. “I can’t imagine that they put too much effort into it if they weren’t able to discover some of these potential harmful aspects of it on their own.”

Swasta said elevating the voices of autsitic people is paramount to appropriate messaging and advocacy.

“They just need to literally open their ears and just listen to the actual autistic people,” he said. “To continue to use a symbol created by these people is basically to ignore the voices of the people you’re supposed to be showing support for.” dana_gerber@emerson.edu

Emerson’s testing center at Tufts Medical Center. Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff on-campus spaces and allowing its spring sports teams to compete in the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference’s season.

“I was a little worried when Emerson said that they were going to loosen restrictions—and there’s a reason that we haven’t had that many cases, because of the restrictions,” Nolan said.

Due to the limited movement allowed on campus, students will only be able to access grab-and-go food options, barring all student dining within the Dining Center. The Fitness Center will remain closed for the next seven days beginning at 5 p.m. today. 172 Tremont Street will remain open to individual student reservations, but will not allow any group meetings to occur. Additionally, the Iwasaki Library will remain open for students who wish to study socially distanced, or reserve study spaces.

All student travel is also prohibited effective immediately until April 14.

On-campus students may only leave their residence halls to attend in-person classes, visit the library, go to reserved study spaces, pick up food, attend jobs, get a COVID-19 test, or seek medical care.

Tufts Medical Center will remain open to students who are required to continue maintaining their twice-weekly

testing schedule. The email says students must continue to complete their daily symptom tracker even while movement around campus will be limited for the next week.

As a result of the increased spread, faculty are asked to ensure all desks in classrooms are socially-distanced and all small group work be shifted online.

“If classrooms are being reset, one, we need that not to happen,” Muurisepp said.

“And if they are being reset, we want to hear from students right away so we can follow up with that … we have had some of those reports. Luckily we have not seen anything of those reports in terms of transmission or potential spread.”

Murisepp added that these new policies apply regardless of whether or not community members are vaccinated.

“The College will continue to monitor the situation on-campus closely in the coming days and will inform you immediately of any additional measures that need to be taken,” the email said.

In a Wednesday evening COVID Q&A, Muurisepp called the events of the past week a “blip” and said Emerson has had a “really tremendous year.” contact@berkeleybeacon.com

New Interdisciplinary Studies major to replace IDIP Alec Klusza Beacon Staff

The newly created Interdisciplinary Studies major is set to supplant the Individually Designed Interdisciplinary Program in the Marlboro Institute beginning this fall, according to a college official.

The new IDS program is distinct from the IDIP major, which was also housed within the Marlboro Institute of Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies. The IDIP major allowed students to create a self-designed major by “combining courses from two or more academic departments, or a department and the Institute, around a well-defined area of interest” during their sophomore year, according to the college’s website.

Conversely, the revamped IDS major allows students to design a program “around a coherent idea or set of questions” with a combination of liberal arts, professional, and studies courses, and culminates in a year-long senior capstone project.

About 20 to 25 incoming students are expected to enter the program for the fall semester—an increase from the 14 students who enrolled in the major in fall 2020 when the program was created— Dean of the Malboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies Amy Ansell said.

The design for the major was based on the former Marlboro College’s distinctive educational approach of self-designed learning and student-led inquiry, Ansell said, and incorporates more faculty oversight and structure than was available in the IDIP major. At Marlboro College, which finalized its merger with Emerson in July, students pursued “fields of study” that allowed students to take a variety of classes, as opposed to traditional majors.

The 55 Marlboro College students who transferred to the college this year were placed into the IDIP major, Ansell

said. The 14 first-year students currently enrolled in the IDS major had no relation to Marlboro, Ansell added, and as of next year, any Emerson student can transfer into the IDS program as well.

The IDS major was built to attract first year students to the college, Ansell said.

“Once we knew we were positioning this major to bring in new first-year students, we worked with faculty and with admissions and with enrollment to position it in the right way to attract new first-year students,” Ansell said. “So that’s where we retitled it as the Marlboro Interdisciplinary Studies major.”

Each student in the IDS program represents a single major, Ansell said. IDS majors are required to take a first-year seminar course, and then begin more project-based group learning as sophomores and juniors.

“All students are together in the senior year doing a capstone project that integrates the different fields into one culminating project,” Ansell said. “It’s not so [many] students working together on similar ideas. It’s more individual students working with a kind of interdisciplinary and project-based, student-led approach to education, working together with similarly oriented students.”

The major was devised to support students who want freedom over their educational curriculum, but sought more guidance than was available in the typical IDIP major.

“It’s really a revised IDIP to provide more structure of faculty support, and more rigor with a capstone and support courses that thread through the student experience so there’s a seminar each year,” Ansell said.

There is limited information about enrollment at the moment, Ansell said, though more information about the application process will become available when officials finalize details. alec_klusza@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

April 8, 2021

4

Opinion

Emerson’s testing site at Tufts Medical Center. Maximo Aguilar Lawlor / Beacon Staff

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, but the pandemic isn’t over yet Editorial Pandemic fatigue is rife around the globe after enduring more than a year of sacrifice and isolation. In the past year, we’ve been forced to give up parts of our lives as college students that we previously took for granted—sitting at a bar with friends, visiting our family over holiday breaks, traveling, and studying abroad at Kasteel Well—and day by day, the weight of what we’ve had to give up grows heavier, as does the desire to return to normalcy.

It’s safe to say that most of us are anxiously awaiting the pandemic’s end and it’s understandable that people are becoming antsy. And that end could finally be right around the corner. 171 million vaccines have been distributed thus far,

according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and President Biden expects all adults to be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine by April 19.

The vaccines have the ability to end this pandemic, for good—but only if we can effectively mitigate spread in the meantime.

Despite the fact that nearly 1 in 4 adults in the U.S. are now vaccinated, cases have still been steadily rising. In the past two weeks, cases have jumped 14 percent across the country. Thirty-seven percent of Massachusetts residents have received at least one dose, yet there has been a 15 percent increase in cases throughout the state within the past 14 days. This trend is concerning and can be partly explained by a newfound relaxed attitude toward the virus

as vaccinations roll out.

Here on our own campus last week, we saw the biggest spike in positive COVID-19 tests to date over both the fall and spring semesters. By April 3, there were 26 positive tests reported for the week—with 22 of them across just three days. Needless to say, now is not the time to go to that party.

Vaccines are available to the general public starting on April 19, and some students have already been vaccinated due to medical conditions or their jobs.

But continued spikes like this could lead to serious setbacks. The Emerson student body is capable of containing the spread, and has done so fairly successfully throughout the past school year.

With the light at the end of the tunnel in sight, now is not the time to slip up and

let our guard down.

CDC Director Rochelle Wolensky confirmed Wednesday that the B.1.1.7 variant first discovered in the United Kingdom has become the dominant variant of the virus in the U.S. B.1.1.7 is believed to be both more transmissible and more deadly than the variants of the virus that first circulated in the U.S. more than a year ago. Massachusetts now also has the most cases of the P.1 variant first discovered in Brazil. That variant spreads more quickly than other variants but scientists are unsure if it is more deadly or if it could reinfect those who have already been infected with the virus. With these variants posing serious risk of reigniting the pandemic, now is not the time to throw a party with your friends, especially with the COVID-19 vaccines becoming available to the general public in just 10 short days.

It’s obvious that most, if not all, of us don’t want to see another lockdown like we did this time last year. According to the World Health Organization, the percent of a vaccinated population needed to begin inducing herd immunity is not known. So for now, all we can do is try to effectively curb spread and get vaccinated, then hope the virus will die out. If we let our guards down and begin returning to old habits before it’s safe, then we will be in a much worse place from where we started a year ago. For the vaccine to do its job, we have to give it a chance to work.

It’s easy to see the consequences of slipping into unsafe practices, as states like Texas rapidly reverse health protocols and mask mandates. Perhaps the biggest contributors to rising cases are lifted restrictions on capacity in businesses and restaurants. Just because some state officials are making these unsafe decisions does not make it medically sound to return to normal. Here in Massachusetts, restaurants are now open to full-capacity seating, despite the CDC maintaining that indoor dining remains a

high-risk activity.

Everyone is over this doomsday reality that we’ve been living for the past year, but unfortunately, this is just the current environment we live in. We are more than fed up with this doom-andgloom reality, but sadly, that is the world we currently live in. There is reason for hope, though; epidemiologists The Beacon spoke to in March project that “things can get pretty much back to normal by the fall.” But this does not mean the work of eradication can fall solely on the shots we will all, with any luck, be getting in our arms very soon. We can’t give this virus any wiggle room. The burden of responsibility falls on the vaccinated, as well as the vaccine.

We desperately need a return to normal—to get back the months of life experience we lost, to protect the most vulnerable members of our community, and to allow the industries and businesses we love to thrive. We deserve the parties, the Tam, and the privilege to be recklessly young. And we are so close, it’s in sight—there is so much to look forward to in a post-COVID world. But to do that, we have to do the work not to go backwards.

Stay home, if you can. Stay masked.

Stay safe. The end is near.

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-inchief, 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

Fear-mongering in the media has spiraled out of control Shannon Garrido Beacon Staff

On March 25, NPR published “Few Facts, Millions Of Clicks: Fear Mongering Vaccine Stories Go Viral Online.” In the story, NPR analysts point out that while the odds of dying after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine are virtually nonexistent, articles connecting vaccines to death have been some of the most highly engaged online content in the past year.

With social media becoming a primary source of information for millions, fearmongering, or deliberately arousing public fear to gain readers, is becoming a trend among some reporters. Fearmongering in the media feeds into the conspiracy theories that grip American society today, and have for decades past.

A recent example of fearmongering in the media is a CNBC article titled “CDC to investigate death of Nebraska man who received Covid vaccine dose.” It was later proven that this man’s death was unrelated to the COVID-19 vaccine, and the only connection the article cites is the proximity of the vaccine dose and the man’s time of death.

This kind of reporting is redundant—it’s a fallacy of false dilemma, in which a fake problem is created, assuming that all consequences or premises are true. In this instance, there is no evidence suggesting the COVID-19 vaccine can cause death in its recipients.

As of late, it seems that conspiracy theorists have vehemently inserted themselves in government and political discourse. From COVID-19 to the 2020 election, there are one

too many elected officials that, despite their access to expert judgment, believe proven falsehoods. Journalists reported heavily on these claims spouted by former President Trump, bringing more attention to factually inaccurate information.

It’s frustrating trying to report with good faith while many sectors of the media continuously give a spotlight to conspiracy theories, feeding into fearmongering. The reason for this, in many cases, is because these stories have a tendency to become sensationalized. Yet as stated by The Sociological Quarterly, “when fear is the prevailing framework for looking at social issues, then other competing frames and discourses lose out.”

An example of this is Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right, QAnon supporter serving as the U.S. representative for Georgia’s 14th congressional district. (For those who are blissfully unaware, QAnon is a farright movement based on the conspiracy that the government is controlled

by Democratic elitists, among other disproven beliefs.)

Greene recently championed the “Fire Fauci” online campaign and introduced legislation on April 1, that would reduce Dr. Anthony Fauci’s salary to $0. The legislation implies that Dr. Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has provided Americans ‘contradictory advice’ in his COVID-19 response. According to the Washington Post, because news like this is so shocking, there has been a spike in stories regarding Greene’s outrageous messages and further sensationalization of these dangerous claims, but not enough explaining why she is wrong.

A good example of the dangers of fearmongering in the media is the 2003 Iraq war. According to Howard Kurtz, American journalist and former writer for The Washington Post, on CNN, there were more than 140 front-page stories in the early 2000s that focused on rhetoric against Iraq—meanwhile, pieces questioning the evidence or rationale for the war were frequently buried or minimized.

With the rise of conspiracy theories becoming relevant, especially related to COVID-19, some journalists who focus on these topics present baseless arguments for the sake of appeasing a certain audience.

For example, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s reporting system has not detected patterns linking any deaths directly to vaccines. Yet according to the NPR study, the top 20 vaccine-related stories shared every day this year, disproportionately focused on people who died shortly after receiving the vaccine. On some day’s like Jan. 16 and 17, 25% or more of the top vaccine stories on social media were about a person who died after being vaccinated, the NPR study said.

According to the CDC, of the 167 million people in the U.S. who have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine as of April 5, 2,794 people (less than 0.00167%) died soon afterward. Roughly 8,000 people in the U.S. die every day, whether they’ve received a vaccine or not. So as more people get vaccinated, more people will continue to die from unrelated causes. Making a conspiracy out of these deaths because they loosely connect to a relevant subject like the COVID vaccine is irresponsible and dishonest.

Once you feed into a conspiracy

Illustration Lucia Thorne

theory, it’s only a matter of time before that claim spirals out of control.

Take the theory that 9/11 was ‘an inside job,’ in which some alleged that government officials may have known about the attacks of September 11, 2001, in advance. Message boards, like the one that helped jumpstart QAnon, were able to attach themselves to that theory and other anti-vaccine theories in order to spread their own theories.

Conspiracies are a slippery slope.

However, it’s one thing to engage in fearmongering by spreading conspiracy theories on a Facebook message board, and another to give them more coverage on prominent news platforms.

According to the World Health Organization, the percent of a vaccinated population needed to qualify for COVID-19 herd immunity, is not currently known—although Dr. Fauci

estimated that we need between 75% to 85% of the population vaccinated for herd immunity. When 10% of Americans believe vaccines can cause autism and 30% plan to not get the COVID vaccine, it’s easy to imagine this vaccine hesitancy could stagger the movement towards a COVIDfree future.

Journalists need to cover evidence-based news related to COVID-19 above writing headlines that stoke unnecessary fear of a vaccine intended to save millions of lives. Journalists are civil servants, meant to inform and, at times, assist the greater good. During this pandemic, the world desperately needs the media to do its job—with the intent to inform, not just to drive clicks. shannon_garrido@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

April 8, 2021

5

Minnesota’s assault overturn shows the justice system is going backwards Mariyam Quaisar Beacon Staff

TW: This article contains graphic mentions of sexual harassment, assault, and abuse.

Through recent Instagram posts, I found out the state of Minnesota does not fairly investigate a sexual assault case if the victim was voluntarily intoxicated. I was repulsed by this fact.

The Minnesota Supreme Court overturned Francios Momolu Khalil’s conviction for a third-degree criminal sexual conduct charge and granted him a retrial because the victim was voluntarily intoxicated at the time of the assault. The final decision to order a new trial for Khalil was made on Mar. 24, 2021, four years after the actual incident.

Unfortunately, rules surrounding sexual assault laws and misconduct are similarly applied in about 40 other states. The majority of the United States does not explicitly prohibit nonconsensual sex if the victim is voluntarily intoxicated.

According to the trial, third-degree crim-

to be under the influence of alcohol, either administered by herself or without her agreement, and the other saying the victim had to be administered alcohol without their knowledge. Upon hearing the first definition, the jury found Khalil guilty of two counts of first-degree criminal sexual misconduct and two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Khalil proceeded to challenge the jury’s decision—saying in his appeal the definition provided of mentally incapacitated was incorrect. In its decision, the appeals court declared the district court gave the wrong definition to the jury, writing that since Khalil did not have reason to know that the victim was involuntarily incapacitated, he does not qualify for third-degree criminal sexual misconduct.

Despite the State’s several arguments against Khalil’s appeal, regarding the linguistics of the statutes, the Minnesota Supreme Court unanimously decided that the State did not have enough evidence to prove Khalil guilty. It was instead decided that, under current law, Khalil’s actions would not be considered a felony because of the victim’s voluntary consumption of

Illustration Lucia Thorne

inal sexual misconduct consists of “sexual penetration with another person when the actor knows or has reason to know that the complainant is ‘mentally incapacitated’.”

In this case, the State declared Khalil cannot be charged with this third-degree conduct because there is no evidence that he knew the victim was under the influence of alcohol. The victim was not considered to be “mentally incapacitated” because she chose to get drunk the night of the assault.

The night of May 14, 2017, the victim ingested five shots of vodka and one pill of a prescription drug. She was denied entry to a local Minneapolis bar when Khalil and two other men approached her and her friend with a party invite. Upon arrival at the house, there was no party and the victim “immediately laid down on the living room couch and soon fell asleep.” She had blacked out and woke up a little later to find Khalil raping her. “She said ‘No, I don’t want to,’ to which he replied, ‘But you’re so hot and you turn me on.’” The victim then lost consciousness again and woke up around 8 a.m. to find “her shorts around her ankles.” The victim had a rape kit done on May 18, 2017 and reported the incident to the Minneapolse police the same day.

Upon investigation, Khalil was charged with “one count of third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a mentally incapacitated or physically helpless complainant.”

The jury asked for clarification on the phrase “mentally incapacitated,” to which the district court provided two definitions—one of which said the victim needs

alcohol, and he will instead be charged with fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct—“a gross misdemeanor for a first time offense.”

The district court’s “definition error” reversed the jury’s initial decision and granted Khalil a new trial, the decision written

by Justice Paul Thissen said. If convicted with fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct, Khalil could face up to one year in prison and a fine of up to $3,000. In comparison, the third-degree charge would have sent him to prison for 15 years with a fine of up to $30,000.

The interpretations of the laws of sexual conduct point towards victim-blaming. The basis around Khalil’s retrial is surrounding the victim’s voluntary intoxication, rather than the clear facts of what was done to her.

Thankfully, the Minnesota House of Representatives is considering a bill that would alter the language of the current statutes so it is a felony to have sex with someone who is too intoxicated to provide consent, regardless of the consumption of alcohol or drugs being voluntary or not.

A case like this makes me ask: is our country going backwards with its means of justice and protection for sexual assault victims?

One of the earliest sets of written laws, The Code of Hammurabi, which dates back to 1780 B.C., defines rape as property damage against a virgin woman’s father. However, if the victim was a married woman, then she would be considered an adulteress, not a victim of sexual assault.

She’d then get punished, and, throughout

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Managing Editors Charlie McKenna (Content) Madison E. Goldberg (Content) Maximo Aguilar Lawlor (Multimedia) Dylan Rossiter (Operations) Section Editors Dana Gerber (News) Mariyam Quaisar (Living Arts) Juliet Norman (Opinion) Christopher Williams (Sports) Hongyu Liu (Photo) Advisor Rachel Layne

the whole process, nobody would care about the attacker.

In early American colonies, during the late 1800s, the legal age of consent rose from 10 to 14, depending on the state. According to The Arkansas Journal of Social Change and Public Service, women of color, specifically African American women, were frequently sexually abused, but excluded from rape laws until 1861 when they were able to finally file rape charges against white men. About a century later, there was significant progress with rape laws. In 1975, defendants were no longer able to present the victim’s past sexual activity as evidence, motivating more victims to report sex crimes without fear of humiliation. Marital rape was exempt from numerous laws, until it was successfully considered a crime in all 50 states in 1993.

Despite all this positive progress the United States has seen over the past two centuries, there seems to be a standstill in modern day as assailants such as Khalil are not properly punished. Sexual assault has been consistently making headlines, as our former president shamelessly makes repulsive comments about women and the #MeToo movement continues to gain traction. It is great to see women standing up for themselves and reporting their stories, however, it is upsetting to see most of them not get the justice they deserve.

Today in the United States, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, every 73 seconds an American is sexually assaulted, and one out of every six American women is the victim of attempted or completed rape.

Through the #MeToo movement, there have been hundreds of sexual assault allegations against powerful men, but only a few have faced consequences. Producer Harvey Weinstein was convicted, followed by five more men who faced charges and seven who were convicted. Out of hundreds. The majority of these disgusting men solely lost their jobs. How is that justice?

How is that compensation for what those victims endured? Sexual assault is not only revolting but also a crime, and those committing this act are criminals—treat them the way they deserve—with jail time.

The #MeToo movement did lead to some systemic change. We have seen several alterations within state laws, where states are banning nondisclosure agreements that cover sexual harassment, introducing protection for more workers (specifically for independent contractors, not just employees), and Congress has reformed aspects of the process for reporting sexual harassment by eliminating the mandatory three-month waiting period to report. Some survivors are also receiving financial compensation—but is that enough? Well, we can see exactly how that was not enough in Minnesota. Khalil was granted a retrial because of an unjust interpretation of the law. Changing laws for the better and implementing those laws are very different—our country needs to learn how to do both.

As laws continue to be interpreted in such a heinous manner, forcing victims to repeatedly share their traumatizing experiences as defendants continue to find loopholes, women will become more and more hesitant with reporting such crimes. As a society, we must work on providing a safe platform for sexual assault victims to share their stories, not for them to be humiliated and have to debate their way to justice. mariyam_quaisar@emerson.edu

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Courtesy Lucia Thorne

Bad movies can be good, too Lucia Throne Beacon Staff

As we all start slowly returning to sitting in front of the big screen, a once-wide selection of movie showings is lacking as a result of the pandemic. We can either see screenings of classics or movies of our choice, depending on how much one is willing to spend. The alternative option is seeing new movies produced during the pandemic and hoping for the best.

While I’m sure most of us are looking to see an Oscar-worthy film after being out of theaters for so long, even a cheesy movie can be a good experience.

Going to the movies is always something I’ve loved doing since childhood, but the pandemic brought the movie-going experience to a screeching halt. I’m from a town just outside of Los Angeles, so movie theaters weren’t open when I was at home over winter break (they just opened up again at the end of March of 2021).

Since Boston movie theaters have started showing movies again (AMC Boston Common has $5 movies on Tuesdays), I’ve been going on a lot of movie dates lately–and I personally find seeing any movie to be fun at this point. So far, I’ve seen Raya and the Last Dragon, Chaos Walking, and The Courier since returning to the theater.

As someone who loves historical thrillers, The Courier was definitely my favorite. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, the film follows British businessman Greville Wynne in assisting the CIA and MI6 in obtaining information about the Soviets’ nuclear intentions in Cuba during the Cold War. The cast is amazing, the set and costume designs are beautiful, and I was on the edge of my seat for the entirety of the film.

Raya and the Last Dragon was an incredible movie as well. After their world of Kumandra is threatened

by Druun, monsters that were held off by the ancient dragon stone, Raya must find a way to fight the Druun and restore peace. The animation is absolutely stunning, the characters are so loveable, and it is a wonderful story.

However, Chaos Walking, starring Tom Holland and Daisy Ridley, was something else. I don’t know what was worse, the overused concept of Earth becoming uninhabitable and humans needing to find a new planet, or the idea that there is a colony of men who haven’t seen women before. I remember sitting in the theater with my girlfriend, turning to each other in disbelief at how bad certain dialogue and plot points were and laughing until I gave myself an asthma attack.

With The Courier, I was able to satisfy my want for a historical biopic feature film. With Raya and the Last Dragon, I was able to feel like a kid again. And with Chaos Walking, I was able to laugh my ass off and tear up from how hysterically awful the movie became as time went on.

Even though these films couldn’t be more different, I enjoyed them all the same. Going to the movies is fun no matter what film is playing on the screen. Take the Star Wars films for example.

Episodes IV-VI are great, they have good dialogue, good acting, and a good plot. But Episodes I-III are a little lacking in those areas, to say the least. However, as a huge Star Wars fan, I’m not going to skip over the prequels just because they’re not incredible works of art. I love to see Luke destroy the Death Star just as much as I like to laugh at the “I hate sand” speech and watch Yoda do backflips in CGI. Movies don’t need to be cinematic masterpieces to be entertaining, and even if it is a masterpiece, it might not be enjoyable for everyone. They can be the most beautiful film you’ve ever seen or they can be so bad you cry laughing. Either way, you’re making memories with loved ones. I crave to feel the same way I did seeing Avengers: Endgame on opening night, but seeing a cheesy film with only 10 other people in the theater is good enough for me. lucia_thorne@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

April 8, 2021

6

Living Arts How COVID-19 changed the student film landscape Margarita Ivanova

Beacon Correspondent Visual media arts majors involved in creative projects outside of school have had numerous opportunities taken away from them during the pandemic. Despite this setback, many students still managed to continue to shine in an effort to creatively express themselves through BFA productions and short films.

Matched, directed by junior VMA Marc Morales, is a 15-minute production about a college student who goes through a bad breakup, and decides to join a dating app. He starts swiping, only to later find himself trapped within the app. The short film follows Jonathan meeting with different matches.

Morales is bringing this Bachelor of Fine Arts project to life with the help of cast, crew, and staff members, including Josey Finn, also a junior visual media arts major, who was brought to the team last spring as an executive producer.

Morales’ initial idea for the project sparked while swiping on Tinder for one of his friends on their account.

“I thought it was so odd how we make snap judgments of people we’ve never met based on things like how close they are to their friends, or how they’re holding their dog,” Morales said. “It’s an objectification that we encourage.”

The Matched team is set to begin filming in the first week of April. As they prepare for production, they have to ensure COVID-19 protocols

are being followed. Morales said that the COVID guidelines have put many restrictions on the production, but it forces everyone to have to think outside of the box.

“We try to have discussions about what we’d love to do, while also trying to keep it realistic given the circumstances,” Morales said. “It’s more of a matter of trying to make the best film we can now rather than trying to idealize.”

Filming is not only an opportunity for the actors and crew, but it’s also a learning experience for first-years and beginners in the film world.

“We’ve been good about the confines of COVID,” Finn said. “Of course, I would like to bring on five assistant producers and have a full team and have people we can teach.

It’s a great opportunity to learn, but when there is a limited crew and you can’t do in-person calls, in-person casting, or rehearsals, you can’t bring on as many people, so everyone on set has to already know what they’re doing.”

Morales said that limited roles and equipment mean that the crew has to collaborate through trust.

“We aren’t able to touch the same equipment and help each other, so it gets very tricky,” Morales said. “This teaches you to really have trust in the people you’re working with.”

Finn said that it’s nice to have a smaller team because they are able to work more directly with one another and develop those close on-set relationships. The team has the bare minimum number of members on set at a

time, with people cycling in and out to limit the number of people in one space.

Finn is also a gaffer, which is the team’s lighting manager and designer, and has to fill several roles at once because the number of team members is limited to eight.

“Having less people on set is a blessing and a curse,” Finn said. “At times last year, some sets had way too many hands and it was chaotic because there were people sitting around and people trying to find things to do. Now we all have to wear multiple hats, and fill multiple roles because we can only have so many people on set.”

This also includes having the proper COVID-19 protections for everyone, like masks and face shields.

“We have face shields and masks for the crew, and the actors have masks when we aren’t shooting,” Morales said. “As soon as we get the shot, everyone puts their masks right back on.”

For Matched, there are four different spaces where shooting is set to take place—an apartment, restaurants, and a park in Harvard Square.

With limited locations, more set designing is required, which in turn means a bigger budget.

So far, the team has successfully fundraised over $2,000 through the link in their Instagram, @matched. bfa. The donations are helping the team obtain protective equipment like face shields, as well as fund the set designs.

Adapting to change is something that actors and actresses have also had to adjust to during the age of COVID. First-year communications major Sabrina Carr is starring in the one-woman short film, But I Made Cake.

The on-campus student production is directed by first-year student Julia Cross. The film is about a girl who gets very emotionally invested in relationships with men and uses them for validation. When she doesn’t get

Students working on a film set in 2018. / Courtesy Ashley Zipperman what she wants, the pink scenes are soon filled with gore.

For Carr, learning how to apply special effects makeup was one of the many other roles she had to take on as an actress.

“During the filming process, I had to do all of my own makeup and effects because of the COVID restrictions,” Carr said. “I was learning how to do it on Zoom with other makeup artists.”

Carr described the filming process as long and tiring. Some scenes had to be filmed six to seven times to get multiple angles for each shot, because the number of cameras was limited.

The filming spanned three days in a friend’s apartment towards the end of March, with each day lasting almost 12 hours for Carr.

“After each day I would just come back to the dorm exhausted and fall asleep after standing under the hot lights for hours,” Carr said. “That’s part of being an actress and I love it.”

Filming was not the only aspect Carr loved about the process. The team also did a promotional photoshoot for their Instagram, @butimadecake_film.

In the posts, Carr is covered in blood

while also costumed in her pink, girly clothes. She is also pictured wearing her mask for safety during the shoot.

The only time she was able to take off the mask was while filming.

“I think I’m pretty lucky to be able to film without a mask,” Carr said. “A big part of acting is showing facial expressions, and especially in this film because there isn’t a lot of dialogue since it’s a one person cast.”

Deniz Akurek, a freshman visual media arts major, also said that wearing masks makes the film less personal. Akurek has created four projects throughout his first year, which can be found on his YouTube channel @Denizakyurek. The filmmaker says that he looks forward to increasing crew numbers and a decrease in masks once the pandemic is over.

“What I’m most excited for is city films without people wearing masks on the streets,” Akurek said. “Boston is a beautiful city and we can’t show that because even now if the actor isn’t wearing a mask, everyone else in the back of the film is and it looks like a COVID film.” margarita_ivanova@emerson.edu

Late performing arts chair leaves behing legacy of empathy Cont. from Pg. 1 “He was driven by the idea that there was always more to do—that his job was to make the world a better place, and there was no point at which you go, ‘I’ve done enough,’” she said. “There was always the next thing that he could contribute to, to make positive change in the world.”

When Colby expressed to her that he felt he hadn’t done enough, Nelson estimated the number of students he had personally directed or mentored over the course of his near-half-century at Emerson.

“Not counting the audiences that saw his [own] work or the people his students impacted, he personally impacted 3,500 educators and artists that he sent out into the world,” Nelson said. “That’s an astounding fingerprint.”

In addition to his administrative and

academic duties, Colby also directed various productions for Emerson Stage. Keenly aware of social justice issues, he pushed for a theater beyond the canon—one that reflected the divisions of color, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomics that he saw in society.

To this end, Colby brought in a diverse selection of material, often relying on marginalized voices from different countries, races, and creeds. According to former student KT Grindeland ‘16, he practiced gender-inclusive and color-conscious casting “before there were words for it.”

“It’s not like he just taught about equity,” Nelson added. “His whole life was about equity. His understandings of race equity and class equity were very deep, and informed virtually every word that came out of his mouth.”

“He used to say teaching is a political act; what you choose to bring to your students determines what they’ll take from

it,” she continued. “His push was always to produce the society we wanted to see; that was the focus of his teaching.”

Colby’s social awareness was central to his teaching, even for areas like Theatre for Young Audiences—productions that, according to former student Ally MacLean ‘19, are too often dismissed as “childish” or “unserious” theater.

“There’s always a slight stigma that it’s only for little kids, that you’re not going to get much out of the experience if you’re an adult going to see it or participating in any way,” MacLean said. “Bob took that idea and completely flipped it on its head. He made sure there was always something for everybody to learn.”

Colby’s storied career in theater education spans multiple generations, said Grindeland, who graduated as an acting and theatre education major.

“I was affected by his work before I even came to Emerson, because one of my

Robert Colby, 1951-2021, was the Performing Arts Department Chair. / Beacon Archives

teachers in the theater department was taught by him,” Grindeland said. “It’s the reason I went to theater school—for a lot of people, that’s why.”

Colby’s reputation—one of passion, empathy, and good humor—was by that point well established, Grindeland said.

They recalled one episode from their senior year, a final act of desperation to act in “a Bob Colby show” before they left Emerson.

“I pretended I could play the harmonica because it was a society that needed actors that [could play] music—I can’t, but I put it on my list,” Grindeland said. “He called me in for a call back and had me play. I did so bad—really bad. And he just laughed and cast me anyway.”

Colby’s vote of confidence came at a crucial point in their senior year, Grindeland said, and helped push them to commit to acting as a career. Yet it is the experience of acting under the “legendary” director that Grindeland remembers most fondly.

“I’ve been working professionally for five years now. I’ve done regional tours, I’ve done national tours. I’ve done shows at big playhouses,” they said. “Playing Lucy the Dog for him was the most joy I have ever felt on stage to this day. That’s just the type of space he built.”

More than anything else, Grindeland said, Colby’s personality was what shone through his interactions with his students—many of whom would go on to become theater educators in their own right.

“He just wanted to be kind and generous and as good as he could be,” Grindeland said. “When you see that coming from a teacher who’s teaching you how to teach, you bring that to the kids you end up teaching.”

Nelson said Colby’s personality was

itself paradoxical, blending his strong political sensibilities with a Midwestern kindness and consideration. For students like MacLean, the first impression of him was that of a shy, introverted “little Ohio gentleman.”

“My favorite moment in any semester was the first time he’d swear,” Nelson said.

“The students would just be muttering to each other, ‘Oh my God.’ It was always fun to watch. He was a direct, quiet, profane, passionate, human—and when that came out, you could see the students embrace him even more.”

Colby’s empathy for students was evident outside of the classroom, even for those students whom he never instructed directly. Christopher Streat, an undergraduate theater and performance major, was burdened with student debt in the fall of 2018. His attempts to graduate early were stymied by the performing arts administration on a credit hour technicality—until what he described as Colby’s “organic and spontaneous” intervention. “[Colby] walks into the room and says, ‘Come to my office, let’s talk it through,’” Streat said. “I told him how the other faculty were pissed; they were telling me no and I was pushing back pretty hard. He says, ‘Give me a second,’ and goes into the other room. I don’t know what he said to them, what kind of magic he had. But they all walked out all of a sudden and he said, ‘Merry Christmas, you’ve graduated from Emerson College.’”

“He was a very busy man,” Grindeland said. “But he made space for everyone and made you feel special. The idea that there’s a Bob-sized hole in the world feels really wrong—because he was such a one-off person. I don’t think there camilo_foncesa@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

April 8, 2021

7

Emerson fraternities and sororities begin institutional reimagining

Kappa Gamma Chi spring 2020 new member education class. / Courtesy Lindsey Broder

Frankie Rowley Beacon Staff

Emerson’s Fraternity and Sorority Life organizations are facing an internal reckoning as they seek to “reimagine” themselves to make recruitment processes more inclusive, hold themselves accountable for past misconduct, and foster a more equitable environment for members.

All presidents, vice presidents, new member educators, social chairs, recruitment chairs, and philanthropy chairs of Emerson’s nine chapters attended an annual summit on Jan. 23.

At the summit, they addressed a wide range of issues, including racial discrimination, power-based interpersonal violence, Title IX sexual discrimination policy, and unprofessional conduct. The event resulted in some organizations implementing a slew of alterations to their structures, such as payment plans

for dues and the creation of a “diversity chapter.”

Jenna Coviello, Student Engagement and Leadership program coordinator, said conversations about PBIV, accessibility, and inclusivity along with other issues discussed during the summit, have happened in past semesterly “expectation” meetings, in which guidelines in regards to the hazing policy, recruitment week, and selection are set.

However, she said the summit intensified the need to address institutional issues.

“Fraternity and Sorority Life was very much founded by straight white men, who were coming from a certain background,” Coviello said. “It’s very elitist, very exclusive. We really wanted to understand the system that we’re working within and how we can start dismantling that system.”

Coviello highlighted the reevaluation of the recruitment process discussed during the summit.

“Why do you select members this way? How are you reaching members?

What are some barriers that could be in place that are preventing potential members from being able to join your organization?” she said. “Looking at the bare bones of FSL and how we might be representing ourselves more exclusively than inclusively.”

The changes follow several incidents within specific chapters. Last summer, the Phi Alpha Tau fraternity faced a slew of backlash surrounding accusations of sexual misconduct made against former member Jackson C. Davis. Davis, who was an active member of Tau during his time at Emerson, was accused of multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, with a known history of violent and inappropriate sexual behavior. Davis was suspended and later fired from his job at NowThis following the accusations.

Lindsey Broder, a sophomore visual and media arts production major and president of Kappa Gamma Chi,

said her sorority found new ways to acknowledge their past following the conversations held at the summit. Kappa Gamma Chi and Phi Alpha Tau terminated their long-standing alliance in 2018.

“We had our history night during recruitment week,” Broder said. ”For Kappa, [we participated and maintained] a structure where Kappas were not only harmed as individuals, but Kappa as an organization was harmed. The structure we maintained with [Tau], trying to separate from FSL and continue to participate in hazing under the radar, just ended up hurting Kappas.”

The history night “served as a disclaimer” to potential members during recruitment week, Broder said. Among the changes to the sorority is the institution of a “safety sister,” filled by sophomore VMA major Therese Labordo, who will act as a liaison between Kappa and the Healing and Advocacy Collective. Labordo serves as a confidential source for sisters and will work with sisters individually on issues if they do not want to formally report them.

Broder said an emphasis was also put on reevaluating the organization’s approach to finances. They have begun allowing sisters to pay dues through a newly created Kappa Gamma Chi cash app account instead of just cash or check. Broder added that treasurer Macy Martinez set up payment plans for sisters as well.

“By creating those opportunities for financial assistance, we’re definitely living up to [the] inclusivity standard that we’re setting for ourselves,” Broder said.

Kappa also looked at its approach to professionalism and altered the scope of “professional dress” to be more inclusive, said Broder. ”Professionalism, as a concept, was created by white men who did not want to see anyone else in the workplace; women and people of color are expected to funnel themselves through this idea of professionalism that was only designed for white straight men,” she said.

“Everything from clothing to how you

speak in an office or professional setting, all of these expectations come with a history, a prejudice that we don’t really know or are educated about.”

The summit also inspired changes in other chapters, like Sigma Pi Theta.

Sigma President Clarah Grossman, a senior creative writing major, said the sorority is looking into implementing a bias training program. She also pointed to a “sisterhood agreement,” which will lay out the ethical standards of the sorority and promote accountability.

“We’re … just laying out more ethical, basic things we don’t have written down,” Grossman said. “We’re doing that to help keep sisters accountable for their actions.”

Grossman also said the sorority held a “diversity chapter” meeting with SEAL Director Jason Meier. “[Meier] has us examine our own traditions and presentation to see ways in which we might be portraying ourselves in one light rather than a diverse one,” Grossman wrote in an emailed statement. “It really gave everyone the chance to break down what diversity meant to them, and it really gave POC sisters the space to speak up about their experiences in Sigma and at Emerson.

From there, we worked together as a sorority to come up with an agreement as well as basic steps we are implementing to further represent diversity in Sigma and FSL.” Coviello said the new image of FSL at Emerson is still in its infancy, but she is confident it will have a place for everyone who wants to participate.

“No matter what socio-economic background you’re coming from, what race you are, or sexuality or anything, you [should] feel you can have a place in a chapter and you can find friendships and community within that chapter,” Coviello said. “[We should ensure] we’re not running into instances where we are excluding people, and someone feels excluded they’re not welcomed in an FSL space.” frankie_rowley@emerson.edu

Bye Sister, the James Charles needs to be in prison edition

James Charles. Courtesy Getty Images

Kaitlyn Fehr Beacon Staff

TW: This article contains mentions of sexual harassment, pedophilia, and grooming.

In 2021, YouTube will seemingly never know peace, and it’s time for beauty community superstar James Charles to face the music for allegedly grooming and sexually harassing several young boys and men. And yes, you read that right, several.

Charles rose to fame in 2016, after his high school senior photos went viral for his stellar makeup and bright highlight. It was later revealed that Charles had edited the pictures, and that a ring light was not the cause of the highlight, as he had originally claimed.

Soon after, Charles became the young darling of the YouTube beauty community, and today has around 25 million subscribers on YouTube. Even from the beginning, apart from the ring light debacle, controversy followed him.

In 2017, Charles posted a now-deleted tweet that reads, “‘I can’t believe we’re going to Africa today omg what if we get Ebola?’ ‘James we’re fine we

could’ve gotten it at chipotle last year.’”

Rightfully so, fans called out Charles for the racist joke. After his plane landed in South Africa, he issued a notes app apology where he acknowledged his privilege as a white male.

The next scandal Charles faced was in 2019 when he made a comment in a video about how he wasn’t “fully gay” since “there’s also been trans guys in the past, too, that [he] was really, really into for a moment in time.”

Charles faced backlash from the LGBTQ+ community for the transphobic remark, and he issued an apology to Twitter claiming he should have chosen his words better.

The final scandal unrelated to grooming is ironic, as it involves Charles pretending to pose for a mugshot. In April 2020, across TikTok and Twitter, influencers and audiences alike were applying makeup and posing for fake mugshots. In many of the TikToks, the creators created a story for the mugshot, but when Charles posted his now-deleted version to Instagram, he simply said nothing.

Fans reacted negatively to the post, claiming that it trivialized domestic abuse. Charles reacted to the controversy by tweeting “only I could lazily smudge on some purple eyeshadow and fake blood to recreate a dumb tik tok trend and have it twisted into an actual scandal lol.” His response shows how Charles seems to view getting ‘canceled’ as something to laugh about.

This scandal stands out more now in 2021, as James Charles could very well have a real mugshot in the coming months for his alleged crimes.

But first, we have to backtrack to Summer of 2019, when fellow beauty guru Tati Westbrook, close friend and mentor of James Charles, uploaded a now-deleted video titled “Bye Sister,”, launching the wave of cancellations and callouts that would come to be known as “Drammageddon 2.”

In “Bye Sister,” Westbrook discusses how Charles posted an ad during Coachella for Sugar Bear Hair, the

direct competitor to her hair vitamin brand, Halo Beauty. This event, and betrayal, made Westbrook reconsider her friendship with Charles, and look at past events in a new light.

One of the many incidents that Westbrook discusses involves a waiter named Sam Cooke and how Charles made inappropriate advances on him at Westbrook’s birthday dinner.

After this video, Cooke initially came forward backing Westbrook’s story, saying that Charles forced him, a 19-year-old straight man, into uncomfortable sexual situations. Later, Cooke came out and admitted that everything was a lie, and that he felt pressured by his friends and family to make a video villainizing James Charles. However, fans were not convinced by this admission, as Cooke honestly looks scared in the video. Many believed that he recanted the story because of a possible cease-and-desist from Charles and his lawyers.

Another beauty guru, Jeffree Star (controversial in his own right), came forward after Westbrook’s video and said that Charles had been banned from his home for being a predator.

Star continued to smear Charles’ name even a year later in 2020, claiming on a podcast that he has a voice memo from an alleged victim of Charles explaining his story. The voice memo and the victim have never been made public, and as Star seems to thrive on drama, it’s somewhat hard to believe him.

Back in 2019 soon after Westbrook’s video, a 20-year-old man named Gage Gomez came forward about a situation that happened during the same fateful Coachella weekend. Gomez alleged that Charles knew he was straight, but continued to pressure him into sexual situations. Charles posted a notes app explanation to Twitter, claiming that everything that happened between him and Gomez was consensual.

For a brief period of time, Charles experienced relative peace, until February 2021 when 16-year-old Isaiyah

posted a video to TikTok alleging that Charles had an inappropriate relationship with him. Isaiyah included screenshots of their conversation and claimed that Charles sent him unsolicited nude images and sexually explicit messages, even after finding out Isaiyah’s real age.

Later that same day, Charles posted a notes app apology once again, where he admits to “flirting” with a minor, but victim-blames Isaiyah for lying about his age. Charles’ defense is that Isaiyah reached out to him first as an excited fan, and that after finding out he wasn’t really 18, as he claimed, he removed him from his Snapchat. Charles states that in the future he will “ask to see the ID or passport of every guy [he has] a conversation with.”

First of all, the burden of proof is on the adult, and in a court of law, Charles claiming he simply didn’t know that Isaiyah was underage would hold no weight.

Second, as someone who is the same age as Charles—21–there is no way I would ever be able to see an 18-yearold as anything other than a child.

Third, as a celebrity, if someone comes to you immediately professing that they are a huge fan, wouldn’t you see something wrong with taking advantage of that power imbalance and pressuring someone into a sexual situation?

Isaiyah’s confession unleashed a tidal wave of accusations, and to date, around 16 different men have come forward with stories, 10 of whom are underage. The youngest of these alleged victims is 14. If I sat here and discussed all of these accusations, we would be here forever. Instead, I leave you with the @defnoodles Twitter thread that breaks down every allegation.

On April Fool’s Day, amid the wave of accusations, Charles uploaded a video titled “holding myself accountable.”

In the video, Charles addresses two of the victims, and admits that if he looked into the victim’s social media presence he would have known they were minors.

Charles explains that he was so “reckless” in checking the ages of these victims because he is desperate to be in a relationship. Desperation is not an excuse for grooming and pedophilia.

James, if you really want to hold yourself accountable for these actions, Google the directions to your nearest police station and turn yourself in. You can’t “hold yourself accountable” for pedophilia and grooming.

In the video, Charles also acknowledges that it looks like he is actively seeking out younger people, and claims that’s not true. However, a recently resurfaced clip from Logan Paul’s podcast shows Charles saying he simply doesn’t find older men attractive, and that he would willingly date an 18-yearold.

So far, Charles has not been dropped by any of his sponsors or the brands he works with, such as Morphe, Sephora, and Chipotle. The only true consequence he has faced so far is being removed from the second season of his YouTube show “Instant Influencer.”

For someone like me who’s been on the internet for a long time, the most disheartening part of this situation is seeing Charles’ young fans defend him.

It reminds me of when I was young, and defended people like Shane Dawson and Onision, and so many band members accused of sexual assault.

These young kids are being conditioned to think that lying about your age makes you responsible for getting groomed. Not only that, but they are watching James Charles face no consequences for his actions, and they’re learning that grooming is fine, as long as someone posts a half-assed apology on Twitter.

I look back at the people I defended, and I’m ashamed, but proud to have unlearned what defending those predators taught me. I can only hope that one day these young fans realize and unlearn what James Charles has taught them. kaitlyn_fehr@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

Sports

April 8, 2021

8

Student-athlete in quarantine day four: the day I thought I lost my sense of smell

Ríos and his stuffed penguin Melvin in quarantine. José Ríos / Beacon Staff

José Ríos

Beacon Staff Tuesday was day four of my isolation, or, as I like to call it, just a full week before I am scheduled to leave Paramount.

I was sent to Paramount for isolation on Saturday after testing positive. Emerson broke the news to me in an email after their calls failed to reach me because of my foreign phone number. Not really the news you want to wake up to, but I was quick to pack my bags and contact my friends and family with the news.

This serves as a reminder to everyone that has checked in on me, and also the contact tracers, that I am feeling okay and that my temperature is normal and stable. This also is the first day I attended an online class, which forced me to wake up early for the first time since I arrived

at Paramount on Saturday. Before anyone asks, early for me is 11 a.m., and by waking up later, it’s less time I have to be conscious throughout the day in isolation.

Over the past few days I had a minor sore throat and mild muscle aches in my legs and arms. Even though my COVID-19 symptoms aren’t getting worse, I still have to deal with a small amount of fatigue throughout the day, forcing me to constantly lay down instead of pacing around my standalone double.

On top of that, my final practices on the men’s soccer team and senior night were canceled by the college due to a rise in positive COVID-19 tests on campus.

That was not the news you want to hear when you are locked in your room 24/7, but I have tried to find the positives in the experience.

Senior night is definitely my biggest

loss this semester. Sure, the loss of my last few sessions on the field with the team after four years is gut-wrenching, but this semester has been start-stop since the beginning, so that kind of became the norm.

Still, the loss of one last chance to step onto Rotch in an official practice, to bid farewell to the team and to all the memories I made over these years, is a hard pill to swallow.

Regardless, the past year taught me to adapt and to consider how I can still be there for the team, even if it’s not on the field. As hard as it is to lose those moments in goal, I know that years from now, I won’t be focused on the four or six hours I missed of practice; I will focus on the success I had on the team.

Little by little, I have been trying to stay active with the aforementioned pacing, stretching routines, or just some light bodyweight exercises like squats. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I spend a good amount of my day either in the gym or staying active—needless to say, that has been a big part of my life since I arrived at Emerson as a student-athlete. Even when I first got the positive test result, my plan was to stay in shape and do little workouts every day; what I did not expect was fatigue.

The body fatigue has been frustrating.

Even if I stretch or do squats, I can only do it for so long before I have to take breaks. For someone who was working out multiple times a day previously, to be exhausted after 10 reps is a fall from grace.

Regardless, the mindset has changed to resting and finding the little ways I can mentally push myself while still working

The exterior of Paramount on Washingon St. / Courtesy Jakob Menendez to full recovery from the virus. I have focused on staying active but also resting my body.

There were two big events today that made day four of isolation a bit more entertaining than most. First was the return of the UEFA Champions League and the chance to watch some competitive soccer.

I was finally able to focus my undivided attention on a game, and while it wasn’t the best game, watching Liverpool FC lose will always bring me joy.

The second event of the day was when I thought I lost my sense of smell. I decid-

ed to smell my new hand soap, which is essentially unscented. Afterwards, three minutes of panic ensued in which I attempted to smell all the items I have in my room, leading me to almost inhale high volumes of Hungarian smoked paprika, which I was able to smell.

Despite this and the other symptoms and news of loss of my final practice sessions, I am currently doing fine and looking forward to finally getting back on the field—and outside of Paramount. jose_rios@emerson.edu

Column: It was great to be back in Fenway Park Emerson cancels mally an extremely crowded concourse and have so much room to spread out. Concessions and bathroom lines, that are typically dreadfully long, were manageable. The prices on the other hand were out of control—a single hot dog cost $6.50.

For a cold day, the team store had gloves in stock that were an outrageous $25.00 per pair.

As I arrived at my seats, they were locked up with zip ties to restrict fans from sitting in unauthorized seats. One of the staffers came down and cut the zip ties, and then it was finally time to watch some baseball.

Though I’ve been to Fenway somewhere in the double-digits, this experience will stand out to me.

Red Sox fans are very committed to their team, and despite slumps or terrible weather, there are typically at least 20,000 fans supporting in the ballpark.

As of now, Fenway is only allowing 4,500 fans into their stadiums—12 percent capacity.

It is pretty standard for all ballparks to be under 30 percent capacity with the exception of the Texas Rangers, which are allowing full capacity. The Rangers had over 38,000 in attendance this past Monday. When I looked around and saw seat after seat empty at Fenway, it felt very off-putting.

That uneasiness truly hit me when the crowd attempted to start the wave. When I glanced off to the outfield, I saw the most broken and depressing wave I’ve ever seen at a baseball game. Every heckle was heard, “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” was extremely quiet, and the energy of the ballpark was unspirited. The only thing that felt normal was the collective sing-along of “Sweet Caroline.” This dead noise could also be a metaphor for the whole series as the Red Sox got swept by the Orioles.

I’m glad that I ended up going to the best game of the series with the Red Sox losing the second game 4-2. In the bottom of the ninth inning, the crowd had exploded with energy when the Sox had two men on base with zero outs. Unfortunately, they ended the inning scoreless.

The final score never really mattered to me—I was just happy to be able to get out there and watch professional baseball again. I will be returning back to Fenway one more time before the end of the semester, as the world hopefully starts to look a little more normal.

TD Garden is hosting in-person sporting events for the first time since 2020.

Tyler Foy ticket buyers to fill out a symptom checker Beacon Staff through the MLB Ballpark App to be allowed into the stadium. Upon arrival to the park, howBefore Saturday, “Play Ball!” was an ex- ever, I was never questioned if I had filled out pression I hadn’t heard in Fenway Park since the survey.

Fans were required to wear their face masks game two of the 2018 World Series. My return to Fenway Park on Saturday also marked the at all times unless they were drinking or eating, first in-person baseball game I’ve been to since along with only being allowed to eat at their the Milwaukee Brewers played the Miami ticketed seats.

Baseball has a lot of hecklers, and I noticed Marlins at Marlin Park on Sep. 11, 2019.

When Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker that most fans around the park would take their announced a limited number of fans would be masks down, or off completely, to yell towards allowed at Fenway Park to begin the Boston the field. I’m a very active fan at baseball Red Sox’s 2021 campaign, I was all over it. I games too, but I kept both my masks on the hopped on StubHub and purchased tickets—af- entire game while losing my voice from all the ter a brief hiccup. Tickets are only available in cheering.

I sat right behind home plate, and as a retwos or fours, so I called my close friend and we decided to attend the Red Sox’s second game of sult, could be seen on the New England Sports Network broadcast for almost every pitch of the season against the Baltimore Orioles.

Personally, I fear live sporting events could the game. Red Sox staff would walk down the be a super spreader of COVID-19. There ar- aisles in between innings to check if viewers en’t any testing requirements prior to a game were wearing their masks, but it felt like every at Fenway. The San Francisco Giants, New other section didn’t seem to have this treatment.

York Mets, and New York Yankees are the only I occasionally felt unsafe because fans around teams currently requiring proof of either a nega- me would tear down their masks when they tive test or vaccination before attending a game. knew the staff wasn’t looking.

It was refreshing to walk into what is nor- tyler_foy@emerson.edu The Red Sox official website instructs all

seasons for seven days as COVID-19 positive tests rise Cont. from Pg. 1

people testing positive does not slow down—in which case the ban on athletic activity would likely continue.

The college reported 36 positive COVID-19 tests over the past week, the highest number between the fall and spring semesters. As of Wednesday night, 24 students are in isolation and 34 students are in quarantine—all on campus. Emerson does not include the number of students in off campus isolation or quarantine in its COVID-19 dashboard.

The announcement comes two days after the college canceled all seasons for non-competing sports at the recommendation of the Boston Public Health Commision. Athletic Director Patricia Nicol attributed BPHC’s recommendation to the rise in positive COVID-19 test results on campus and throughout the city.

It also comes one day after the women’s lacrosse game against Springfield College scheduled for April 10 was canceled “due to COVID-19 protocols,”—the second consecutive women’s lacrosse game to be canceled for such reasons. It is unclear whether members of either team tested positive for the coronavirus, and the statement did not outline which COVID-19 protocols led to the cancellation.

The teams impacted by the cancellation are baseball, men’s lacrosse, women’s lacrosse, and softball. The baseball and softball teams have a scheduled bye week this weekend, so their game schedules are not affected by the decision—only their practices are canceled. Both teams will play Worcester Polytechnic Institute in doubleheaders on April 17.

The men’s lacrosse team was scheduled to host Springfield at Rotch Field on Saturday, but its next game will now be at Babson College on April 17. Women’s lacrosse will host Babson that same day.

It is unclear whether the canceled games will be rescheduled later in the season.

Students will be permitted to leave their residences to participate in individual outdoor exercise as long as it is socially distanced, according to the statement. christopher_williams@emerson.edu