Abigail Semple wins SGA Election

The Berkeley Beacon

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

Thursday April 11, 2019 • Volume 72, Issue 25

SGA voter turnout increases by 230 percent

Diana Bravo, Beacon Staff In the highest voter turnout since 2009, 875 students voted in the Student Government Association elections on April 3 and April 4 for 19 different positions.

Voter turnout increased by more than 200 percent compared to the 265 votes in the spring 2018 election. Five percent of the undergraduate student population voted in the spring 2019 elections.

Current Executive Treasurer Ian Mandt attributed the spike in voter turnout to the joint ballot with Voice Your Choice, which also saw an increase in turnout compared to the 500 students who voted in the earlier Voice Your Choice election.

Voice Your Choice allocated $75,000 to the Mary Burrill Diversity Scholarship and $25,000 to the General Scholarship Fund based on the students’ votes.

SGA began conducting online elections in 2004, and since then, the highest voter turnout occurred in 2009 when 1,036 students cast their vote.

Junior Raz Moayed, the current executive vice president, ran and won unopposed for executive president, and said she hopes to make SGA a larger part of student life and to continue the work of the current Executive Board.

“This is a dream, of course, and I’m very honored— and I have a lot of ideas and plans to keep this momentum SGA has going,” Moayed said in an interview.

Marketing Communications Senator Will Palauskas beat Communications Studies Senator Annie Noel in the race for executive vice president.

See turnout, page 3

Senior attacker sets new program record with 81st career goal

By Lara Hill • p. 8

Senior Jared Brush (No. 23) scored his 81st career goal in a 17-3 loss to Clark University on April 6. • Alexa Schapiro / Beacon Staff

Trailing write-in candidate secures SGA executive treasurer

EAGLE organizes first Vogue Kiki Ball to celebrate LGBTQ+ community

Chris Van Buskirk, Beacon Staff Junior Abigail Semple will assume the Student Government Association executive treasurer position for the 2019–20 academic year after sophomore Joseph Davidi and freshman Brady Baca both declined the job.

Davidi and Baca’s deferral of the position puts Semple in control of nearly $1 million in student organization funding and ties up a race marked by constant uncertainty. Davidi and Baca, the only two balloted candidates for SGA executive treasurer, dropped out of the race a week before students cast their votes. SGA bylaws indicate that if the winner declines the job, the position goes to the person with the next highest vote count.

Current Executive Treasurer Ian Mandt said he never thought he would see a campaign for treasurer as surreal as this one. Mandt, who graduates this semester, said he hopes the enthusiasm transfers to future SGA races.

“Every couple of days there would be a different number of candidates, and now the ballots have been tallied [and] the person who was elected turned it down,” he said in an interview.

“In the four years that I’ve been here, I haven’t seen that, and looking back to past elections I haven’t seen something similar … so, it’s surprising.”

See treasury, page 3

Melanie Curry, Beacon Staff

Emerson Chuang Stage to debut Chinese theater

By Katiana Hoefle • p. 6

Alison Qu (front left), Tony Wang (back left), and Michael Wang (right) will preform on April 20.

Xinyi Tu / Beacon Staff

OPINION

Letting my superstitions go for good

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Members of the Emerson community are gearing up to strut the catwalk, dress in drag, and perform dances with condoms to compete for cash prizes at Emerson’s first ever Vogue Kiki Ball on April 26.

Junior Christopher Henderson-West, president of Emerson’s Advancement Group for Love and Expression, started planning the ball with voguing instructor London Lewis and EAGLE’s Haus of Emerson committee in March.

The Vogue Kiki Ball is an open competition with members from houses in the Kiki scene, Lewis said. The competition includes categories such as voguing, realness, and runway, according to EAGLE’s Facebook page. Henderson-West said Emerson students can also compete.

Voguing includes five different elements displayed in whichever performance the competitor chooses: catwalk, hand performance, floor work, dips and spins, and “duck walk,” or walking in a squatting position. Realness depends on how the performer can act and pass as straight, Lewis said.

See EAGLE, page 7

LIVING ARTS

Pelton dines at students' apartment

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April 11, 2019

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Presidential candidate Andrew Yang campaigns on Boston Common

Dana Gerber, Beacon Staff Andrew Yang, a fringe Democratic candidate for the 2020 presidential election, called for universal basic income—providing $1,000 a month to every American over the age of 18—at a campaign rally on Boston Common on April 10.

As Yang’s first stop on his “Humanity First” tour, he focused on economic reforms to offer a solution to rapid automation, or the replacement of human jobs by machine counterparts.

Yang’s website details over 80 other policy proposals he plans to run on, such as reducing student loan burdens, lowering the voting age to 16, and making the NCAA pay student athletes.

Yang hails from New York and most recently founded Venture For America, an organization that helps entrepreneurs create jobs in cities like Baltimore, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland, according to his website.

Yang garnered 1 percent of Democrats’ support in Massachusetts according to an April 7 poll from of 371 individuals by the Emerson College Polling Society. The same poll showed Bernie Sanders leading the Democratic pool in Massachusetts with 26 percent of the vote.

“If you’re out here tonight, you’ve probably heard that there’s an Asian man running for president who wants to give everybody $1,000 a month,” Yang said during the rally. “All three of those things are correct.”

Hundreds of spectators gathered around the Parkman Bandstand in 48-degree weather holding posters with slogans “Not Left or Right but Forward” and “Welcome to Math-Achusetts,” referencing Yang’s tendency to focus on numbers in his arguments.

Sophomore Antonio Camasmie attended the rally after hearing about Yang from a friend in January and listening to podcasts, such as The Joe Rogan Experience, featuring the presidential candidate.

“He’s a super transparent candidate,” Camasmie said in a phone interview. “Everything he wants to do is super clear, and he’s very vocal about it.”

Yang’s humanity-first policy platform focuses on alleviating the effects of automation on various manufacturing and retail jobs, according to his website. Yang acknowledged during the rally that many of his supporters come from varying political backgrounds, including some who voted for Donald Trump in 2016.

“We got so desperate we just elected a narcissist reality TV star,” he said. “The opposite of Donald Trump is an Asian man who likes math.”

The crowd included mostly college students and young adults—a testament to Yang’s younger demographic that he gained through the use of memes and social media.

“I think that millennials have been hungry

for someone to try and actually improve their lives and undo some of the damages that have been done over the last number of years,” Yang said in an interview after the rally. “[Millennials] see in my candidacy a set of proposals and policies that are actually centered around the world they live in.”

Christine Donohue is one of the lead organizers of a group of supporters called the Massachusetts Yang Gang and spoke at the rally.

Donohue said she often votes Republican but views Yang as the most qualified candidate running in either party.

“He was so genuine when I saw him speak,” Donohue said in an interview. “He’s going to fix things in a way that they stay fixed, and he’s also very open to hearing other ideas. If a year into UBI, it’s not working out the way he thought it would work out, he’s going to say, ‘It’s not—let’s sit down and figure this out.’”

Presidential candidate Andrew Yang speaks on Boston Common during his first campaign stop.

Daniel Peden / Beacon Staff

 dana_gerber@emerson.edu

Cuba global pathway program canceled due to low enrollment Flora Li, Beacon Staff The college canceled the Cuba Global Pathways Program for the second year in a row—this year’s cancellation was a result of a lack of registered students, a college official said.

The Director of Education Abroad & Domestic Programs David Griffin said in an interview that the college needed at least six students to launch the program to balance the cost of traveling and inviting faculty. The program fee is $5,335 according to college website Only four students registered to go to Cuba for summer 2019.

“We just couldn’t justify running it and sending a faculty member and paying all those expenses for a class that would just have four students,” Griffin said.

Emerson sent two groups of students to Cuba in summer 2016 and 2017. Last year, the college canceled the Cuba program because of a new travel requirement enforced by the Cuban

government forcing the college to report student travel details to the government by early February—the school did not get the visas for students and faculty before the deadline.

Griffin said the reason for the cancellation this year had nothing to do with visa issues.

Visualizing Cuba is a two-week-long program that covers the way artists and filmmakers depict the country in their work and is only available to rising juniors and seniors.

The curriculum includes a four-credit class taught by Jane Shattuc.

Shattuc said she still wants to do the Cuba Global Pathway program, and the college plans to hold it next year. Griffin and Shattuc, along

Emerson Elevator Watch Editors at The Berkeley Beacon decided to catalog all elevator entrapments reported in incident journals and confirmed through eyewitnesses for the 2018-19 academic year. These numbers only detail incidents where individuals were trapped and do not include when an empty elevator broke down.

with Anthony Pinder, the associate vice president of International & Global Engagement, plan to adjust the schedule and the curriculum syllabus in order to attract more students.

Shattuc is currently teaching at Emerson Los Angeles for the spring 2019 semester and does not know about what adjustments will be made yet. Shattuc and Griffin plan on discussing the changes to the program schedule in the summer.

“We are very, very disheartened that we couldn’t do it,” Griffin said. “It’s one of our programs that we are really proud of.”

Angela Piazza, a visual and media arts soph-

"We just couldn't justify running it and sending a faculty member and paying all those expenses for a class that would just have four students," - David Griffin

omore, said she found out she was accepted to the program the day after she submitted her application.

Piazza said she had paid half of the program fee, about $2,667, before the college canceled the program. She is still waiting for her refund, and the Education Abroad and Domestic Programs office provided no specific date of when she will receive it.

“I really like the timing of this program because it’s earlier [than other global pathways] and there is still time for me to do internships … so I was kind of disappointed,” Piazza said.

Editor-in-Chief Maya Gacina did not edit this article due to a conflict of interest

 zhutao_li@emerson.edu

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The Berkeley Beacon

April 11, 2019

news

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SGA Spring 2019 Election Results

Highest voter turnout for SGA elections since 2009 Continued from page 1

Palauskas had 373 votes compared to Noel’s 367,which gave Palauskas a victory by six votes.

Both sophomores ran with similar goals, including increased financial transparency from the college.

Abigail Semple, Emerson Independent Video’s business manager, ran a write-in campaign for executive treasurer and won after the two balloted candidates dropped out of the race.

Semple ran on a platform of streamlining SGA’s reimbursement process and continuing Mandt’s efforts to release partial student organization budgets.

Semple received 86 votes compared to the 383 and 240 votes her competitors Davidi and Baca won respectively, but she won because they both declined the position.

“It’s nice to see people paying attention [and] caring about the race, whether that be multiple people running or people asking questions,” Mandt said. “I would hope that that continues because every position on SGA is important.”

The elections filled all of the departmental senatorial positions, and Moayed and Palauskas said they are both excited to work with a nearly full senate next fall. After the fall 2018 elections, four out of nine departmental senatorial positions were empty.

“It’s just going to be amazing having a full senate and being able to have [SGA members] all across the college,” Palauskas said in an interview.

All 12 proposed constitutional amendments and nine additions passed will go into effect starting in fall 2019. One of the successful amendments opens the possibility for SGA to create new senatorial positions for academic programs that exist outside of any single department such as the Business of Creative Enterprises and upcoming Public Relations majors.

The Class of 2020 Council does not currently have any fall 2019 members, and SGA will hold a runoff election soon.  diana_bravo@emerson.edu

Voter turnout increased 156 percent from the ‘04 to ‘19 spring elections.

Ally Rzesa and Abigail Hadfield / Beacon Staff

Continued from page 1

Palauskas wins SGA VP by 6 votes Stephanie Purifoy, Beacon Staff Sophomore William Palauskas won the Student Government Association executive vice president race against sophomore Annie Noel by six votes, according to the election results released by SGA. Palauskas, the current SGA marketing communications senator, said he plans to focus on working with the college administration to improve their communication with students and make college officials more accessible to the student body by holding public forums. The sophomore said he also wants to improve advertising for the SGA Academic Town Hall—which he helped organize—to encourage more students to participate in dialogue with faculty and administration.

“If we can make every student at Emerson involved in student government, whether they’re just voting or actually holding a position, then that’s when we’ll actually have succeeded,” he said in an interview.

The senator said he plans to spend the final weeks of the school year with junior Raz Moayed, the current vice president and executive president-elect, learning about the job and its responsibilities. Palauskas said he and Moayed intend to combine and develop their ideas for the upcoming academic year over summer break.

“It’s going to be the dream team—I’m so excited,” he said. “Raz and I work so well together and I’m excited to merge that energy together next semester and do some cool stuff.”

Noel, the current communication studies senator, said in a statement to the Beacon that she wants to thank those who voted for her and wishes Palauskas the best of luck in his new po-

Davidi declines treasury position

Sophomore William Palauskas defeated sophomore Annie Noel. • Beacon Archive sition.

“This election was much larger than myself and raising the issues of effective college communication, equity, and financial anxiety will have effects that will last much longer than my role as Vice President would have,” Noel said in her statement. “I will continue to speak truth to power, even if it means forging my own path.

Change will only come when we radically re-examine society’s structures, even a structure as seemingly minuscule as one college’s system.”

Moayed said in a statement to the Beacon that she felt both candidates would have excelled in the vice president role.

“I’ve honestly never felt more confident in the fact that the vice president position was going to go to someone who is more than able to excel at this job,” she said in the statement. “I am simply looking forward to Will being on the executive board because I’ve been trying to make SGA more accessible and more approachable, and Will has been a serious help with that.”  stephanie_purifoy@emerson.edu

The spring 2019 election drew 875 undergraduate votes compared to 265 votes from the spring 2018 election—a 230 percent increase.

Combining the Voice Your Choice initiative and SGA elections into one ballot may have contributed to the increased turnout, Mandt previously told the Beacon.

Davidi secured a landslide victory over both Semple and Baca with 383 votes. Baca drew 240 votes while Semple managed to earn 86.

Following Semple’s 297-vote loss to Davidi, she critiqued the SGA election process for favoring balloted candidates over write-ins.

“The way our school does write-in elections, it’s really difficult to win unless you’re running unopposed,” she said in an interview. “If there is somebody that is on the ballot it’s easier to just click than to type someone’s name in.”

Write-in candidates historically face difficulties against balloted candidates in political contests. In the spring 2018 election, senior and current Executive President Jess Guida went up against junior Christopher Henderson-West for the executive presidential race last year. Guida ran a traditional balloted campaign and beat Henderson-West’s write-in candidacy by 41 votes.

Davidi, currently an SGA treasury team member, said he took the weekend after finding out he won to think the position over while working on both the EVVYs Gala and the SGA annual budgetary review process. The sophomore said he may consider working on the treasury team again; however, his future plans do not involve serving in an elected position.

“The final decision came after sitting through most of ABR and realizing that this is not something I can do at the same time with everything else,” he said in an interview. “[Mandt] had mentioned that he used to do a lot of TV stuff, similar to me, and had to pull it back because of treasury … I don’t want to do that.”

Once Semple takes office in the fall, she said

she wants to focus on informing students on how the reimbursement process works.

“I think one of the biggest issues we have with our reimbursement process is it takes a very long time because oftentimes people submit forms and they get put on hold because they weren’t submitted correctly,” she said. “I think that if we’re able to inform more students about how to do it correctly, then that process would become a lot shorter. I think that there are creative ways to solve that problem.”

Semple worked as Emerson Independent Video’s business manager this semester and said she does not foresee any conflicts of interest arising in the future during ABR sessions or when processing appeals.

“I have a lot of affection for EIV—we’re a very large student organization, we’re a very complex student organization,” she said. “There is not a place for favoritism in the SGA position because there are checks and balances, there are faculty advisors that are overseeing the work that you’re doing.”

Semple said she will treat EIV’s appeals and the ABR process in spring 2020 the same as any other organization.

“If anything, I know exactly where EIV hides their ABR bull—,” she said.

At times, the election focused heavily on candidates’ fitness for the position. Two weeks ago, Baca faced repeated criticism of his qualifications for a job that SGA officials described as stressful and paperwork-heavy. When announcing his decision to drop out, the freshman told the Beacon that the role of executive treasurer did not coincide with his wish to address financial equity and economic inequality at the college.

Baca did not respond to repeated requests over the phone for comment at the time of publication.

 c_vanbuskirk@emerson.edu

editorial

The Berkeley Beacon

April 11, 2019

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Combating memories of tragedy with representations of strength Trigger warning: This editorial addresses events that occurred at the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.

At issue: Student involvement in Marathon Monday Our take: Appreciate and honor the marathon Editorials are written solely by Editor-in-Chief Maya Gacina, Managing Editor Monika Davis, Opinion Editor Katie Schmidt, Deputy Opinion Editor Diti Kohli, and Assistant Opinion Editor Ziqi Wang without consultation from other staff members, and does not influence any stories. OpEds reflect the views of only their authors, not The Berkeley Beacon.

On Monday, the city of Boston will host the 123rd Boston Marathon. The marathon is not only the world’s oldest but is regarded as one of the most challenging as well. Participants from all over the world will gather in Hopkinton, Massachusetts on Monday morning to race 26.2 miles to the finish line in Back Bay. The Beacon hopes students will go out and show support for the participants and represent the resilience of the city.

On April 15, 2013, two homemade pressure-cooker bombs set off near the Boston Marathon’s finish line killed three people and injured hundreds.

Eight Emerson students were injured in the attack, the most of any school in the city, according to a 2013 Beacon article.

The entire school went into lockdown after the initial reports of the attack, and the school’s emergency services urged students to stay inside.

During that lockdown, Emerson students Nicholas Reynolds and Chris Dobens created the “Boston Strong” campaign—selling T-shirts with the slogan and raising over $700,000 for One Fund Boston in two weeks. This same strength and ingenuity courses through the veins of students today, and Marathon Monday reminds us of that courage.

That senseless act of domestic terrorism looms over the city and its annual marathon festivities to this day. But in the aftermath of

the attacker or attackers succeed, is to simply resume our normal lives.”

The day of the Boston Marathon shouldn’t simply be a day to have fun. It should also be a day to honor the victims of the bombing and to show our gratitude to the police, first responders, and other community members who were impacted six years ago.

Following the bombing, police presence at the event increases every year––250 liaisons will represent 70 agencies and organizations to conduct safety operations this year.

This year, Emerson freshman Brendan Beauregard will run the marathon to raise money for his older brother, a corporal in the Marine Corps, who was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer in September 2017.

Attending the marathon is important— not only to show support for the runners, but also to recognize what the marathon stands for six years after the bombing. Cheering runners on from the sidelines actually shows Boston’s resiliency and the city’s ability to triumph over tragedy. It demonstrates that fear cannot and will not control us.

On Monday, head down to the finish line in Back Bay or any other part of the marathon route to support the runners. Join the city of Boston in one of the most important holidays of the year that stands for something bigger. And, as always, be safe and have fun.

"Attending the marathon is important­­—not only to show support for the runners, but also to recognize what the marathon stands for six years after the bombing." against the violence that hit the city six years ago.

Ryan Catalani, one of the Beacon’s managing editors during the semester of the bombing, illustrated the attitude of the college and the city following the attack in an op-ed for that week’s issue.

“We must mourn, we must be outraged, we must remember,” Catalani wrote. “But we must not allow ourselves to be defined by fear. The best way to respond to this situation, to not let

If you want to respond to, or share an opinion about, an article in the Beacon, you can write a short letter to the editor. Email it to letters@berkeleybeacon.com.

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the tragedy, Bostonians came together, and their unity in the months that followed continues to serve as a pivotal symbol of strength nationwide.

Those who experienced the attack first-hand and those who live here now stand in solitude

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Editor-in-Chief Maya Gacina

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Editorial Cartoon

by the Editorial Board illustration by Ally Rzesa

Students must navigate yet another maze of scaffolding.

opinion The Berkeley Beacon

April 11, 2019

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The irrationality behind clinging to superstition Diti Kohli Kohli is a freshman journalism major & the Beacon’s deputy opinion editor.

I stood calmly on the moving escalator at the Peoria Civic Center in Illinois. I was a senior in high school competing at the Speech State Championship, where I just finished my second round of competitive speaking. There I replayed my performance—notably not my best—in my head, along with the subtle reactions I observed on the judges’ faces. It was a futile act and simply another mechanism to stress myself out.

Halfway down the escalator, I ranked myself against my competitors and quickly reasoned that I should still make the final round, since I presumably did far better in my first round.

The thought was swift and superficially inconsequential, but I had unwittingly jinxed myself. Suddenly I felt the impulse to knock on wood, a practice rooted in age-old mythology, so I could reverse my premature assumption. To my misfortune, there wasn’t any wood around.

I knocked on doors, tables, and even floors so often at speech competitions that it became a running joke on my team. Some of my teammates even adopted the habit.

I’m sadly bound to my myriad of superstitions. Not only do I knock on wood, but I refrain from doing any laundry on Thursdays, and walking over people when they’re laying down—from my mother’s advice. Less strictly, I appreciate lucky pennies and the astrological sun signs’ influence over people’s lives. And I stay away from experiences that imitate tales surrounding ladders, mirrors, black cats, and unlucky numbers.

These quirky practices largely started as jokes in my life. Originally, I did not have to rely on them as consequential actions that would affect outcomes in reality, but eventually they evolved into irreversible habits that calmed my anxieties. And they even became normalized in

Too often I find myself crediting superstitions as the reason behind a missed opportunity or a particular result. • Illustration by Ally Rzesa / Beacon Staff my friends and family’s eyes. I noticed this in particular with my brother, who used to point fingers and ridicule my eccentricities. But now, he barely blinks an eye when I pound a fist on a wooden table.

As superstition continues to pervade my life and presumably the lives of others as well, I realize it’s time to step out of the habit. Too often I find myself crediting superstitions as the reason behind a missed opportunity or a particular result. Sometimes, these activities become copouts to forgive my unfounded confidence in myself, like at the speech championship, or an excuses for when things didn’t go my way.

I’m not alone in my fear that a greater influence could touch down on my life in odd ways if I don’t partake in a tradition like knocking

on wood. The Los Angeles Times reported that about half of Americans hold superstitious beliefs. In the same article, Michael Shermer, the executive director of the Skeptics Society, explained that normal people are usually ones to believe superstitions, not fools or kooks as some might expect.

“Most believers in miracles, monsters, and mysteries are not hoaxers, flimflam artists, or lunatics. Most are normal people whose normal thinking has gone wrong in some way,” Shermer said.

To no surprise, we adopt these superstitions from our families and our cultures. Susan Bell, assistant director of communications at the University of Southern California, said in her essay that the close entanglement of culture and

religion globally explains why the majority of superstitions find their origins in religious texts and practices. Triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13, originates in Biblical tradition, witchcraft, and the lunar calendar.

The cultural foundation of superstition further proves why we shouldn’t believe these signs and practices. Americans fear Friday the 13th, Cubans fear Tuesday the 13th, and in Thailand, all Fridays are observed as “days of happiness.” These endless incongruities in global superstitions make me repeatedly question my steadfast loyalty to my beliefs.

For me, superstitious beliefs dripped down in my family’s generational culture, and my trust in authority subconsciously pushed me to believe them. I scoffed at my mom for leaving the laundry untouched on Thursdays at home, and now I despise myself for thinking twice before reaching for the detergent each Thursday.

Millions of individuals could benefit from holding themselves more accountable for the occurrences in their lives. No longer should we default to our accepted views on superstitions— our choice to prioritize the workings of black magic, broken mirrors, and jinxes are innately childish and ignorant in their foundations.

The world is endlessly inexplicable. In reality, who am I to know what happens, why it happens, and at what time it happens?

Superstitions, regardless of where we learn to believe them, provide a convenient crutch to lean on in times of uncertainty.

Most things that happen in my life are cause and effect—one or a few actions lead to certain results. And I’m almost sure knocking on wood isn’t going to change what happens. Maybe it’s time other believers lean into that conclusion, too.

 diti_kohli@emerson.edu

Don't leave international students guessing on Tax Day Ziqi Wang Wang is a sophomore journalism major & the Beacon’s assistant opinion editor.

About a month before Tax Day last year, I received an email from the Office of International Student Affairs. “DO NOT REPLY TO THIS EMAIL” was the first line, highlighted in bright yellow. A short paragraph at the end of the email stated that students should not contact OISA for tax-filing information. Instead, they could refer to a two-page document attached to the email, which provided links to the Internal Revenue Service website that detailed how to file federal taxes, linked to the Massachusetts government website for state taxes, and provided addresses to free tax legal clinics.

Upon my arrival to the States, I knew nothing about the different tax forms for federal and state taxes, or that international students who have no income while in college still have to fill out form 8843, an informational statement required by the government for certain nonresident “aliens.”

Most foreign students like me come to the U.S. with no prior experience reporting taxes.

Filing taxes is an obligation and an absolute requirement for international students if they plan to stay in the U.S. and keep their student visa, known as an F-1 visa. If students with an F-1 visa don’t file their tax returns, they could get their visa revoked, which could mean a permanent bar from the country or the inability to receive a U.S. visa for years. International students could also encounter difficulties when applying for a green card, a permit allowing a non-U.S. citizen to live and work permanently in the country, since an F-1 visa only allows students to work in on-campus jobs. Moreover, interest and penalties accrue if an international student does not file their taxes on time.

With all of these risks surrounding taxes, I feel that Emerson does not provide enough help and services for international students filing their taxes.

Because OISA only sends out this single email each year to international students, some of my friends still don’t see the importance and necessity in reporting taxes, so they disregard this email. For those with no prior knowledge of the unique tax system in the U.S., education

Upon my arrival to the States, I knew nothing about the different tax forms for federal and state taxes. • Illustration by Ally Rzesa on tax responsibility and basic knowledge of the different forms should be a requirement for them, and the school should help them to better understand. If Emerson aims to increase its number of international students, the college needs to better accommodate critical issues like taxes for those students.

This year, Emerson’s tax information email explained why OISA cannot provide students with help when filing taxes. “Tax advising is a complex area of U.S. law separate from immigration law,” the email read. “As such, Emerson College and the Office of International Student Affairs are not authorized to provide direct advising on any individual tax questions.”

Emerson’s tax information email this year also included more resources to IRS websites and legal tax offices. But I still found it hard to understand the process based on the email alone.

I began working at the front desk of the journalism department this year, so I now have more forms to fill out to file my taxes correctly due to my taxable income. I printed out all of

the forms and the corresponding instructions by following the instructions provided by OISA in an email from early February, but I didn’t understand half the information in the forms.

I didn’t know what deductibles and taxable refunds were, plus the instructions themselves spanned 25 pages.

In China, my home country, there are no tax forms to fill out for us to report taxes.

Most companies collect information from their employees, calculate their taxation, and deduct taxes directly from paychecks. Here the government deducts taxes from people’s income based on their general tax bracket, and then receive returns based on the specific information they filed about their personal income. But in China, the specific amount is already deducted to begin with.

The Emerson website also provides very few resources concerning tax filing information.

I believe it’s important to send out a taxation reminder and a guide to international students well before Tax Day—as the college does—but it’s also equally important to have such detailed

information readily available online year-round.

The Boston University website includes a detailed tab called U.S. Tax Information, under the Employment and Internships webpage. The page contains almost all of the resources one would need for tax reporting and is available year-round. Although OISA also provides a tax-filing webpage for international students, it includes no direct links to the IRS or websites directing students to online resources, and only lists physical places to get tax forms, even though students can locate all of the forms online.

This year, under the advice of my boss at the journalism department, I filed my taxes online using a free program called H&R Block.

I received an email weeks later saying both of my federal and Massachusetts returns are being accepted. However, I still don’t feel comfortable because the website autofills the necessary tax forms after I report my information, and I can’t tell which forms are actually getting sent to the IRS. I also still have questions and doubts about how taxation really works, despite doing a lot of research on my own. Without the proper information on the school website, students must seek help online or schedule an appointment with legal offices off campus, which inconveniences students and consumes their time. But sometimes it’s hard to find reliable information, since official explanations on the IRS website are full of jargon and other websites lack legitimacy.

I know OISA staff members try their best to support international students through this difficult process, considering their office is based on immigration-advising. However, as more international students attend Emerson, the school must find better ways to help them understand taxes. Failing to fulfill tax obligations may cause serious consequences.

And under the current political environment that makes it difficult to obtain a U.S. visa, the school should do everything it can to prevent students from encountering bigger problems with the U.S. government once they’re here.

 ziqi_wang@emerson.edu

living arts

The Berkeley Beacon

April 11, 2019

6

Students host President Pelton for dinner cook-off

Kyle Bray, Beacon Staff When juniors Patrick Westervelt and Simon Olartestudied at the Kasteel Well campus in the Netherlands together last year, they jokingly debated about who could cook better. Westervelt said he and Olarte often spoke of a hypothetical cook-off, judged by none other than President M. Lee Pelton.

Little did they know that the following spring, they would find themselves eating dinner with the college’s president in their Beacon Hill apartment.

“It was just very surreal having him come into the apartment and seeing him after we had hyped this up for a month and a half,” Westervelt said. “We had been joking about it for over a year. It was just the culmination of so many jokes and references, to see it come together felt good.”

A little less than two months ago, Westervelt

reached out to Pelton via email detailing the fantasy cook-off. Olarte said he did not realize that Westervelt felt serious about contacting Pelton.

“I thought he was totally joking and that even if he does send it, the odds we get a response were probably so low because he’s a busy guy,” Olarte said.

Westervelt said Pelton responded within a day and agreed to judge the cook-off. Though the nature of the request seemed rare, Pelton said he attended similar events with students in the past. Westervelt said Pelton’s agreement to judge the cook-off did not shock him.

“I thought there was a decent chance of it but I didn’t think it was a sure thing by any means,” Westervelt said. “I told Simon and he had a pretty nuclear reaction.”

Olarte said he put off practicing his cooking skills until Pelton responded, but then he tried to call off the event.

“I was like, ‘How can I get out of this because

Juniors Patrick Westervelt (left) and Simon Olarte (right) cooked dinner for President M. Lee Pelton. • Courtesy of Kris Theorin

I don’t know how to cook,’” Olarte said. “I tried to go to [Westervelt] and be like, ‘Hey can we not make it a cook-off? Instead just make it a dinner or I’ll make the dessert or something,’ because, you know, I can’t cook.”

Olarte said he then spent his spring break mastering a few dishes in preparation.

In the hours leading up to the cook-off, both Westervelt and Olarte felt unsure if Pelton was even coming for dinner, as they had not heard from the college president since they arranged the date after Pelton’s first response a month and a half prior. It wasn’t until Pelton’s secretary called to confirm the time half an hour before the dinner that they knew he was coming.

“I was the only one who fully believed he was going to come,” Westervelt said.

For dinner, Westervelt prepared steak, asparagus, and potatoes—something he said he practiced for a while. Olarte served Pelton a dish that represented his Colombian background—a soup called ajiaco with potatoes, chicken, and corn.

When it came to the food quality, Pelton said Olarte’s soup tasted incredible and Westervelt’s steak and asparagus impressed him.

“It was spectacular,” Pelton said in an interview. “[Westervelt] and [Olarte] had gone to great ends to make a very special dinner. Everything I ate was terrific.”

While the event started as a competition, Westervelt said Pelton never declared a formal winner.

“We went into this with a competition mindset and then as soon as Pelton came in he never mentioned the competition aspect of it and we never brought it up,” Westervelt said.

Olarte said it did not feel right to bring up the competition once the meal started.

“It felt kind of weird to be like, ‘Okay which dish do you like more?’ and making it really competitive,” Olarte said. “He’s such a sweet guy and he was nice to talk to that having him pick a favorite just felt wrong. We dropped it and were like, ‘Whatever, I think we both won because we got Lee Pelton in our apartment.’”

Westervelt and Olarte’s roommates, Kris The-

orin and junior Sydney Wild, joined them at the table with Pelton after he insisted they stay for the meal, Westervelt said. Aside from the dinner, the group drank wine that Pelton brought and talked about a wide range of topics, from what the students liked about Emerson to Beacon Hill. “[Pelton] was very familiar with [Beacon Hill] and he gave us a bunch of interesting facts about people who had lived there,” Westervelt said.

Pelton said his favorite part of dinner was the conversation.

“I think it took a while for [them] to relax, which I expected, but once everyone was relaxed we just had a great conversation,” Pelton said. “I got to know them and they got to know me.”

Both Westervelt and Olarte said the dinner changed the way they saw the college president.

“He’s this figure of authority, the president of your school, you’d think you’d feel that kind of authority,” Olarte said. “We didn’t though. He’s just a chill dude who just happens to live down the block.”

Pelton said his main motivation behind accepting the invite was to show students his personality, which he likened to the creation of his own Instagram account in late 2018. He posted a photo on his account with Westervelt and Olarte on the night of the dinner.

“I think it’s important for students to recognize my humanity,” Pelton said. “I think it’s important for students and for me to be seen as fully human and not just president. I think of myself as just a regular guy.”

While he said it would not be feasible to eat dinner with every student due to his busy schedule, Pelton encouraged others to reach out with similar requests.

“I welcome the opportunities for students, faculty, and staff to get a glimpse of me on a very personal level and to understand who I am and what I value and how I spend my time,” Pelton said.  kyle_bray@emerson.edu

Emerson Chuang Stage founders hope to break cultural barriers Katiana Hoefle, Beacon Correspondent Every day for the past four months, 27 Chinese students at Emerson spent several hours working to create their own student-run play, If I were not me.

Junior Alison Qu, graduate student Qianru Wang, and graduate student Shuyu Zheng created the Emerson Chuang Stage last semester and will hold their first show on April 20 at 8 p.m. in the Greene Theater. Qu and Zheng will act in the play while Wang directs.

Many universities and colleges in Boston have Chinese student theater groups according to Qu. Theater groups such as Red Star Theater at Boston University include up to 200 students, all seeking a space to do what they love in their native language, Mandarin. The founders Qu, Wang, and Zheng decided Emerson students needed a similar program.

“Chuang” in Mandarin means to create or to try, Wang said. She said the group chose this name because they felt it fit with their mission and Emerson’s creative environment. Qu said they hope to give Americans a chance to pronounce Chinese names because they often seem afraid of mispronouncing them.

“I wanted to encourage people to pronounce the names and tell them, ‘You’re speaking Chinese and you got it,’” Qu said.

The process of creating Emerson Chuang Stage began last semester when the trio held auditions for the five roles in their play.

Qu said the upcoming performance of If I were not me is about two best friends who wrestle with the societal pressure of choosing between family, friends, love, and dreams. Famous Chinese screenwriter, Shen Zhou, wrote the original play 10 years ago.

Qu said the group resonated with the story because it highlights the struggles Chinese students face in their own lives such as their parents’ control on them and the differences between coming from a privileged country and from a disadvantaged background.

“I’m from a small town where you definitely have to work harder to get into better cities or have better jobs,” Qu said. “The name If I were

not me means if I did not have such a family, parents, and relationships, if I could do anything I want, could I make better choices?”

Over the 2018 winter break, the trio worked on editing their script to make the play more current and relative to their communities’ experiences.

Emerson Chuang Stage welcomes students from all schools. Their lead actor, senior Michael Wang, attends Boston University and majors in finance.

“We have a very busy schedule and we pretty much practice every single day,” Michael Wang said. “Every weekend and three times per week.”

Student Engagement and Leadership does not yet recognize Emerson Chuang Stage and Qu said the group had to ask Performing Arts faculty member Magda Romanska to sponsor them so they could reserve rehearsal spaces.

Despite the obstacles, Qu said the Emerson Performing Arts Department greatly supported the organization.

“Every time we just storm in there and they are so kind to us,” Qu said.

Qu said the play will be performed in Mandarin as it is the commonly spoken language of all of the students in the group, but they hope English speakers won’t lose interest in watching it.

“Sometimes I wonder if our production will really be accepted or understood by American audiences,” Wang said.

As the play’s literary editor, Qu explained the storyline scene by scene for the audience in the program and designed signs that she will post outside the theater to give more context of the play.

A bilingual discussion with the audience and the cast will follow the show. While the play will not include subtitles because of the lack of equipment, Qu believes that the performance will act as an interesting opportunity for English speakers to focus on the art itself rather than trying to understand every word of the script.

Qu said offering the production to both American and Chinese audiences will generate interesting conversations because of the cultural and theatrical differences between both groups.

(Left to right) Junior Alison Qu, graduate student Qianru Wang, and graduate student Shuyu Zheng created the Emerson Chuang Stage last semester and will hold their first show on April 20 at 8 p.m. in the Greene Theater. • Xinyi Tu / Beacon Staff Wang believes that Chinese theater focuses more on the storyline while American theater focuses on the relationships between the actors and the space.

When telling her American friends about the storyline of the play and how one of the main characters cheats on his fiancé, Qu said they weren’t shocked. She said that’s because audiences typically witness more dramatic plots in American media, but cheating can be seen as grave wrongdoing to Chinese audiences.

Qu said Emerson Chuang Stage encourages all Mandarin-speaking Emerson students with a passion for Chinese theater to join the production, regardless of their major. As for the audience, she hopes anyone interested in watching something different or learning about Chinese culture will attend.

“Just ask questions!” Qu said. “There are two cultures, but the barrier is in ourselves.”  katiana_hoefle@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

April 11, 2019

living arts

7

Juniors feature creative artwork in self-produced rk.zine Juliet Norman, Beacon Correspondent Juniors Emilie Krone and Liza Rogulina toyed with the idea of producing their own publication since meeting in freshman year during an Introduction to College Writing class.

The pair sat on the idea for two-and-a-half years but finally decided to start working on the “zine” this spring after feeling motivated by support from their friends and figuring out how to fit the production into their schedule.

“We’d have craft days where we used to just make collages and art for hours during freshman year, so I think our zine stemmed from that,” Krone said in an interview.

Krone said a zine is typically produced by a self-publisher, as opposed to a typical magazine printed by a company. She said she introduced Rogulina to zine publications for the first time when Krone decided to use them as the subject for one of their class essays.

From there, they began exploring the concept and eventually committed to officially starting their publication over winter break in 2018.

“I feel like a zine isn’t the same as a magazine in that a magazine is a lot more formal,” Krone said. “A magazine would typically be more censored. It’s up to us what we want to put in it.”

The publication, appropriately titled “rk. zine”—after each creator’s last name initial —showcases all mediums of artistic talent, ranging from photography to satirical writing, Rogulina said.

“We just mesh really well, I think,” Krone said. “I don’t think I’ve ever turned in a piece of writing for a fiction class that I haven’t made [Rogulina] read and vice versa.”

Rogulina said it took them three weeks to create the first issue. She and Krone released their 18-page first edition in February on Issuu, a free online platform that makes publications electronically accessible. The publication is also available on the rk.zine website where they also offer the option to submit content. Rogulina and Krone already published two issues and are taking submissions for the third issue.

The pair honed their editing and publication skills while working on the Kasteel Well literary magazine Black Swan last year in the Nether-

lands. Rogulina and Krone also serve as art director and assistant living editor respectively on the Your Mag editorial board.

“We wanted to do something ourselves apart from publications that already exist,” Rogulina said. “We wanted an opportunity to practice our skills like copyediting and design. We also just wanted to have fun and have something cute that we could make together.”

Rogulina and Krone live off campus together and primarily work on the zine from their couch at home.

“It’s completely different trying to create something on your own from the ground up with very little outside help,” Rogulina said. “If I don’t know how to do something on [Adobe] InDesign, I have to figure it out.“ Krone and Rogulina also included their own work in the zine. Rogulina, a visual and media arts major, contributes her own colorful graphics in every issue. Krone, a creative writing major, included her poetry in the last two issues

and copy-edits the zine before publication.

They started advertising for submissions at the beginning of the semester on the zine’s social media accounts and through word-of-mouth.

So far, Krone said submissions have mainly come from friends. Their other two roommates, juniors Haley Cohen and Erin Nolan, are frequent contributors.

“I’ve been really surprised about how many people post about it or share it on their Instagram,” Krone said. “I get texts all the time from people saying, ‘Hey, I met this really cool person and I told them they should submit to your zine!’”

Cohen submitted a non-fiction piece, “‘Choose Your Own Adventure,” that was featured in rk.’s latest issue. “[Rogulina and Krone are] both so talented, and they both wanted to do it for so long,” Cohen said. “I know that it was kind of a dream of theirs. Both editions so far have looked super awesome.”

Juniors Emilie Krone (left) and Liza Rogulina (right) started their own zine over winter break.

Thomas Bloxham / Beacon Correspondent

Although Emerson students contribute to rk., the zine is not exclusive to Emerson students. The second issue includes submissions from artists across the U.S. and even England.

Rogulina said they have no intention to make rk. Emerson-affiliated.

“We don’t want funding from the school because we don’t want it taken from our hands after we graduate,” Rogulina said.

For now, the zine is entirely online, Krone said. They hope to expand the publication to print but don’t have the resources to do so yet. If the zine generates enough support in the future, Krone and Rogulina would be open to starting a GoFundMe to raise funds, Krone said.

Krone said rk. is open to all types of creative content. There aren’t specific guidelines for submitted pieces. Krone said they’re currently looking for astrology-related work, book or restaurant reviews, and screenwriting.

Krone and Rogulina recently decided to start enforcing a theme for each issue, starting with the third issue, which will be “growth.”

“I think it can be represented like springtime and flowers or emotional growth,” Rogulina said. “It has a lot of connotations.”

Rogulina says they plan on introducing new elements to the zine in the next issue that they haven’t tried before, such as including editorials and photoshoots. She said they want their publication to push past the stereotype that zines have to be “artsy” or “serious.”

“I would publish a comedic piece and a sad piece in the same issue,” Rogulina said. “That’s the whole point of a zine. It doesn’t have to be anything.”

Krone and Rogulina plan to continue working on rk. throughout the summer, the first time they’ll be apart since starting the zine.

Krone lives in California and Rogulina lives in Connecticut, where they will each respectively spend their summer breaks.

“We just want people to write or make whatever type of art they want,” Krone said. “We don’t want to push people in one direction. We just want to see what people have to share and lift that up and give it a platform.”  juliet_norman@emerson.edu

Vogue, strut, and duck walk: EAGLE hosts first Vogue Kiki Ball Continued from page 1 Lewis said that, in LGBTQ+ culture, there is a “ballroom scene”—a place for the community to perform and compete in various competitive categories such as runway or best dressed. Within the ballroom scene, there is the Kiki scene and the main scene. The main scene is extravagant and competitive while the Kiki scene is more welcoming and targeted to younger people.

Within these two scenes are houses comprised of people identifying as LGBTQ+, known as “members” looking for a second home or a family. Houses resemble college Greek life, where members of the LGBTQ+ community must participate in an initiation process to join a house, Lewis said. He said the process depends on each house and each member who is initiated. “[The Vogue Kiki Ball] is an event and an opportunity for people from Boston and Emerson to come together,” Lewis said. “[At the Vogue Kiki Ball] the school is coming into [Boston’s LGBTQ+] culture, and we’re coming into Emerson’s culture.”

The Vogue Kiki Ball will begin at 6 p.m. and the competition at 8 p.m. in the Bobbi Brown and Steven Plofker Gym on Friday, April 26. The cost of entry is $5 for students with an Emerson ID and $10 for non-Emerson students. Half the proceeds will go to the Emerson Office of Student Success’ Student Assistance Fund while the other half will go toward Boston GLASS, an organization dedicated to helping LGBTQ+ youth of color. The Student Assistance Fund helps Emerson students pay for transportation, food, and textbooks.

Lewis, a vogue instructor and member of House Mulan, one of the houses within the Kiki scene, said he originally reached out to Henderson-West for help with his fashion brand but ended up talking about creating the Vogue Kiki Ball together.

Henderson-West created the Haus of Emerson committee last October to celebrate and acknowledge queer and transgender people of color and their culture.

“I wanted to do something that brought more voice and served as a learning experience to people about ballroom culture,” Hender-

EAGLE hosted the Haus of Emerson Ball last semester and will host the Vogue Kiki Ball on April 26. • Cullen Granzen / Beacon Archives son-West said. “So, I created the Haus of Emerson experience.”

Henderson-West said nine people will judge the competition, and the winner of each competitive category will receive a cash prize. The amounts of the cash prizes vary depending on each category and ranges from $50 to $500, Henderson-West said. The judges include Sharon Duffy, the assistant vice president of student affairs, and members from houses such as House Mulan, House Gabanna, House Versace, House MCM, House Old Navy, House Pinklady, House Marciano, and House Emerson. He said EAGLE’s budget and donations will pay for the prizes.

Lewis said more than 200 members from nine or more houses will attend and perform at the Vogue Kiki Ball. He said members are coming from different states and countries such as France and Germany to compete.

EAGLE will hold vogue workshops every

Sunday until the ball from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. in a Paramount studio for students to learn about how balls work and how to compete. EAGLE changes the location of the studio every week and publishes the location on its Facebook page.

The next vogue workshop is on Sunday, April 14 in Paramount Studio 3.

Senior Caterina Aragon, a member of EAGLE, said she is excited to compete against professionals.

“This is the first time that we are going to be having a whole community of people involved in this culture come in and have it be a realistic Kiki ball,” Aragon said. “To have a Kiki ball at Emerson is wild, and to be surrounded by people who have been doing this as a profession is amazing.”

Lewis said members of a house typically choose which category and which style they want to perform during the preparation hours.

Aragon said she thinks students assume the

Vogue Kiki Ball is similar to RuPaul’s Drag Race because students do not fully grasp ballroom culture and its history in the LGBTQ+ community. She said students should attend EAGLE’s vogue workshops to understand the Vogue Kiki Ball before attending or competing.

“A drag race is different compared to a Kiki ball,” Aragon said. “The histories are different; they’re related but different.”

Lewis said by creating the Vogue Kiki Ball, he hopes that Boston will start to become a creative space for the LGBTQ+ community.

“A lot of people go to New York because it is a mecca ballroom,” Lewis said. “Now, Boston needs to claim their territory and also needs to be like, ‘Hey, you guys are not the only ones out there who can throw big and extravagant balls.’”

 melanie_curry@emerson.edu

sports

The Berkeley Beacon

April 11, 2019

8

RECENT RESULTS MEN’S TENNIS : Emerson 5 — Springfield 4, April 10 WOMEN’S LACROSSE : Mt. Holyoke 21 — Emerson 3, April 10 BASEBALL : Emerson 5 — Clark 2, April 9 WOMEN’S TENNIS : Emerson 8— Smith 1 April 6

Senior lacrosse player achieves new career and program milestone Lara Hill, Beacon Staff Senior attacker Jared Brush of the men’s lacrosse team broke the program record for career goals in a game against Clark University on April 6 when he reached a career 81 goals and surpassed the previous record of 80 held by Nicholas Kitsos ‘16.

“It’s really cool to be able to accomplish something here at Emerson,” Brush said in an interview. “I’m sure that [the record] will be broken in a few years with all of the talent we have, but it’s nice to show that I have done something with this team.”

Brush played baseball for three years before trying lacrosse for the first time in fifth grade. He said he decided to try lacrosse because he wanted a change of pace, and after playing his first season, Brush liked how unique lacrosse was compared to baseball.

“I loved how different it was than any other sport I had played before,” Brush said. “I enjoyed the style of the game way more. It was the perfect sport to play in the spring and summer.”

After fifth grade, Brush continued to play lacrosse with the Grosse Pointe South Public School System in Michigan. In middle school, he joined the Men’s Elite Club Team with 313 Lacrosse in Detroit. He said competing in tournaments allowed him to develop close friendships with his teammates.

“I loved playing in tournaments with the team,” Brush said. “There were so many memories we made playing in the games but also in the hotels we stayed at. Making memories with my good friends was always a fun time.”

Former men’s lacrosse head coach Dan Gold scouted Brush during a tournament in summer 2014 and reached out to Brush on lacrosserecruits.com, a popular lacrosse

Senior Jared Brush ranks eighth on the NEWMAC scorers list with 24 goals so far this season.

Alexa Schapiro / Beacon Staff recruiting website.

After Gold reached out to Brush in his junior year of high school, Brush toured the campus and the practice field and stayed overnight with one of the players on the team. He said everything Emerson and the city of Boston had to offer helped him decide to attend.

“I loved the idea of being in Boston,” Brush said. “Boston made me feel at home. I also have family near Boston, and the film department

here just seemed like the perfect fit for me.”

Brush said the transition from the larger teams he played on in high school to the small roster at Emerson was challenging.

“The team was very small my freshman year [at Emerson],” Brush said. “We didn’t have many players to substitute in which meant we had a lot of playing time, which was exhausting at some points.”

Brush totals 81 career goals, 96 points, and 69

ground balls. This season alone, Brush obtained 24 goals, 27 points, and 14 ground balls. With his two goals per game average and five games remaining in the regular season, Brush is on track to set a new career record in goals per season, which is currently 28 goals.

Head coach Matthew Colombini said the amount of hard work that Brush puts in shows during practices and games.

“His skills have improved immensely over the past three years,” Colombini said. “He has put in a ton of work in the weight room in order to really get in shape. He has made a huge leap in his strength and conditioning. [Brush] has also matured into a strong leader. He has that perfect balance between serious when we need him to be and making jokes and keeping things light when it’s appropriate.”

Brush said he takes his leadership position very seriously in his second year as a captain.

“Being a good leader for the team has been incredibly important to me,” Brush said. “Being a captain has taught me how to take responsibility and what it takes to be a good leader. I continue to learn how to be the best leader I can be every game and every practice.”

With the final few games remaining in Brush’s time wearing a Lions jersey, he said he will miss his teammates above all else.

“I’m going to miss being in the locker room,” Brush said. “I feel that we have built a good camaraderie over the last four years. I am going to miss hanging out with everyone before and after practice, and I will miss being able to make new memories with them in future seasons.”

The men’s lacrosse team will take on Babson College at Rotch Field on Saturday, April 13 at 4 p.m.  lara_hill@emerson.edu

Alumnus speaks at TEDx Talk about racial bias in sports journalism Aaron J. Miller, Beacon Staff

on the subject because he had been exposed to it through sports media all of his life.

“I took a class and I had to do some kind One of Patrick Ferrucci's earliest memories came at age seven when his father woke him of quantitative study, and I had remembered up in hopes of witnessing the Boston Red Sox that there was this website that I used to go to win their first championship since 1918, but the all the time back in the early 2000s called Fire Joe Morgan, and it basically just made fun of team lost.

"I can still vividly remember how crushed lazy sports writing,” Ferrucci said in a phone everybody was when the Red Sox blew it, interview from Boulder.

Ferrucci said that racial stereotypes Ferrucci '03 said in his TEDx Talk from 2018.

"As a child, and still to this day, sports represents perpetuated by sports journalists create an more than just the game. For many Americans, unequal opportunity for athletes of different it's a way of life, it's something that brings people backgrounds when beginning their athletic careers. together. It's also a $70 billion industry."

“If you think about players, it's that they Last June, Ferrucci spoke about how racial bias in sports journalism affects athletes of probably have limited opportunities. If you're all backgrounds at TEDxMileHigh 2018: a white athlete, for example, you're probably Uncommon in Denver, Colorado. He talked getting moved off athletic positions, even if about how sports journalists use terms such you shouldn't be,” Ferrucci said. “For example, as intelligence, motivation, and physical if I'm a black player who plays quarterback, there's a good chance strength differently that someone's going to depending on the race of "Sports represents more move me to wide receiver the player. or cornerback or running "Journalists and than just the game. For back at some point broadcasters consistently and constantly stereotype many Americans, it's a way because, in their minds, a quarterback should be athletes by race through of life, it's something that white.” their word choices,” Ferrucci used Tom Ferrucci said at the TEDx brings people together."

Brady, the New England conference.

– Pat Ferrucci Patriots’ quarterback, Ferrucci graduated and Cam Newton, the from Emerson with a master’s in journalism and began working as Carolina Panthers’ quarterback, as examples a professional music columnist for the New of how sports journalists racially stereotype Haven Register in 2003. After nine years in athletes.

Ferrucci said journalists and broadcasters the field, he switched to academia and sports journalism because he felt fatigued by his career. never mention Brady’s “natural talent” or “I was starting to think I was a little burnt his “athleticism” but instead mention his out from music writing and 12- or 15-hour “intelligence” or his “effort,” even though he days,” Ferrucci said in an interview. “I think the won six championships and is regarded as one biggest thing I always joke to people is that the of the greatest players in his position in NFL last few years there, I was going to about 300 or history. Ferrucci argued that Brady cannot 320 shows a year, and it started to make it not so succeed without natural talent and athleticism.

Ferrucci said that when sports journalists fun, and I love music.”

Ferrucci, an assistant professor and associate talk about Newton, they mention his “physical chair for graduate studies at the University strength” or his “natural talent” and never use of Colorado Boulder, earned his Ph.D. in the words “intelligent” or “hard-working.”

“That’s the thing with athletes and journalism from the University of Missouri in stereotypes,” Ferrucci said in the TEDx Talk. “If 2013.

He began his research on racial stereotypes you’re white, regardless of the sport, you’re often in sports journalism as a project in his first year talked about in terms of intelligence, or effort, at Missouri. Ferrucci said he began his research or how great of a leader you are. If you’re black,

Pat Ferrucci wrote music columns for nine years before pursuing a Ph.D. in journalism.

Photo courtesy of Pat Ferrucci it’s about physical strength, natural ability, or athleticism. If you’re Latino, maybe you’re fiery.”

Michael K. Park, a sports communication professor at Emerson College, said that racial bias in sports journalism strongly affects athletes and fans.

Park wrote Race, Hegemonic Masculinity, and the “Linpossible!”: An Analysis of Media Representations of Jeremy Lin, an academic research essay published by Sage Publications in 2014. Jeremy Lin is the first American of Taiwanese or Chinese descent to play as a professional athlete in the NBA. In the research essay, Park wrote about how sports journalists and advertisement companies racially stereotyped Lin. Park said racial stereotypes occur because of the unique way every individual is raised and the environment they are taught in.

“You're dealing with journalists and sports writers that are human, and they have a certain background and a certain amount of exposure to life in different cultures, people, and

experiences,” Park said. “I think oftentimes how [sports journalists] write and describe athletes from backgrounds and racial backgrounds from people that are very different from them, it may be subconscious.”

Ferrucci said for sports journalists and fans to understand the effect of their stereotypes, they must think before they speak and acknowledge the stereotypes.

“I think it's just knowing about [racial stereotypes]. It's a conscious decision that we make, and that conscious decision is only affected by if we know that these things are stereotypes,” Ferrucci said. “It's understanding that we tend to just lazily label black athletes as athletic or white athletes as intelligent, and sometimes they are, obviously, but to understand that that stuff happens before we do it, think, ‘Is this exactly what I mean?’”

 aaron_miller@emerson.edu