Fall 2021 first edition

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

Thursday, September 2, 2021 • Volume 75, Issue 1

THE NEW NORMAL

@berkeleybeacon // @beaconupdate

College reports 14 positive COVID tests amid statewide surge Charlie McKenna & Camilo Fonseca Beacon Staff

Despite the vaccine mandate for community members, Emerson has reported 14 positive COVID-19 tests in just over a week since the start of fall semester testing, according to the college’s dashboard.

The string of positives come as individuals return to the Boston campus from across the world, and in the midst of a resurgence in the pandemic brought on by the Delta variant. The positives include two reported on Wednesday and four on Tuesday; also on Wednesday, three community members were reported to be in on-campus isolation and one was in on-campus quarantine.

Because Emerson has required students, staff, and faculty to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the positive tests racked up thus far are most likely “breakthrough” cases—which have be-

come more common due to the variant.

“We were anticipating having positives,” said Assistant Vice President for Campus Life Erik Muurisepp, who serves as the college’s “COVID Lead.”

“Some folks would look at that number and say, ‘Oh, wow, that’s a lot,’ and certainly, we’d love zero. But it’s still within our planning and anticipation for the semester, so [the college has] no worries at this time.”

Since the start of the fall testing cycle on Aug. 23, Tufts Medical Center has processed 5,584 tests, with a positivity rate of 0.25 percent. After the first full week of testing last fall, when the pandemic in Massachusetts hit its lowest point before the availability of vaccines—the positivity rate sat at 0.12 percent.

Emerson will mandate masking in all on-campus spaces until “at least” Sept.

17, when the college plans to shift to a COVID, Pg. 3

Afghan royalty, class of 2004, reflects on country’s legacy after US withdrawal

Photo Beacon Archives

Photo Beacon Archives

Photo Beacon Archives

Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff

Both returning students and incoming first-years were confronted with a campus that looked stunningly similar to the one they left behind in March 2020, even as the pandemic becomes a growing threat. Many students told The Beacon that the college’s remaining COVID-19 restrictions have bolstered their confidence in the school’s ability to curb cases, despite the presence of the Delta variant which has ignited a resurgence in the pandemic.

“Everyone’s getting tested weekly, and on top of that, most people are vaccinated,” said Marcel Truong-Chun, a senior visual and media arts production major. “I don’t want to say ‘overkill,’ but, it seems like it would be very hard for something [like major community spread] to slip through.”

Emerson is set to relax many of the remaining pandemic-era restrictions on campus life—including a mask mandate—on Sept. 17. In the meantime, students reported that the community vaccination mandate—as well as the vaccination levels in Massachusetts, over 65% fully inoculated—have helped to ease fears of community transmission Return, Pg. 3

Students look forward to normalcy Bailey Allen, Nicole Belcastro, Payton Cavanaugh, Abigail Lee Beacon Staff & Beacon Correspondents

As students moved into campus for the fall term, they returned to a bustling campus with minimized social distancing restrictions—a far cry from the Emerson many experienced over the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

172 Tremont art installation honors indigenous peoples INSIDE THIS EDITION Camilo Fonseca Beacon Staff

Like many of her Emerson peers, Alia Seraj ‘04 has witnessed the United States’ intervention in Afghanistan for nearly all her adult life. Yet her connection to the faroff Central Asian country is stronger and deeper than the war—and it belies generations of royalty and ruin.

“American and Afghan, I always called myself a ‘Half-ghan,’” Seraj said. “It’s such a big part of my history and my family and my personality.”

Seraj’s father, the late Prince Abdul Ali Seraj, was part of a storied family whose ranks included kings, emirs, and shahs. A grandson of Habibullah Khan, who ruled Afghanistan in the early 20th century, the elder Seraj witnessed the removal of the monarchy in a 1973 coup. Four years later, the Soviet Union invaded the country with the goal of establishing a communist regime—with the prince and his family fleeing to the United States.

“My mom was forbidden from leaving the country, my dad was on a hit list,” Seraj said. “They got out

Courtesy Alia Seraj of the country into Pakistan, and from there they flew to America— with not much more than $500 and the clothes on their back.”

Ten years later, while Seraj was in elementary school, the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan; the country’s moniker, the “graveyard of empires,” rang true as the U.S.S.R. collapsed two years later.

In their wake, a group of Islamic fundamentalists—once funded by the U.S.—took power in the country.

As Seraj prepared to go off to college—eventually settling on Emerson’s marketing communications program—the Taliban was implementing a strict, conservative version of Sharia law. Her family could only watch from afar as Afghanistan’s new rulers instituted archaic punishments, restricting women’s rights, and, in a fateful turn, harboring terrorist groups such as al-Qaida.

“It’s gone from tentative hope, to a lot of hope, to frustration, to devastation,” Seraj said of her family’s perspective on her ancestral home.

“That is really what’s marked the time since that day in September, sitting in the Little Building at Emerson.”

Princess, Pg. 3

Former professor pleads guiltyPg. 2 First-years excited for in-person semester Pg. 3 Letter: Reflecting on a year of turmoil Pg. 4 How safe is this semester?

Pg. 5 New art installation in 172 Tremont. Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff

Mariyam Quaisar Beacon Staff Students entering 172 Tremont this semester will be greeted by a new 13foot piece of art, installed in July, that intends to signify the importance of inclusivity and equity through brightly colored statements and graphics.

The piece contains a variety of bright colors and shades, ranging from purple to blue to yellow to red. The different colors take up the border of the piece, with welcoming and encouraging terms.

In the middle, there is a large purple box with a two-paragraph statement honoring the ancestral land that 172 Tremont resides on and its past residents, the Massachusetts people, and celebrating

the unique identities home to Emerson, respectively.

Student Engagement and Leadership Director Jason Meier helped spearhead the creation of the art and establishing its purpose. He said administrators decided it was important to place the installation in the building to create an inviting and comfortable space for the Emerson community.

“We simply recognize how important it is, as space makers and community builders on our campus, to acknowledge everyone and to make sure that we are always striving to make sure people feel included, and that they have a place to call Art, Pg. 3

Alum opens sustainable bridal store Pg. 7 Athletes return to fall sports Pg. 8

14

positive COVID-19 tests

.25% positivity rate

News

The Berkeley Beacon

September 2, 2021

2

‘I feel relief that he will not be able to harm anyone else’

Victims of former Performing Arts Professor speak out Frankie Rowley Beacon Staff

For the victims of former Emerson professor, Jefferson Fietek, his arrest was a bittersweet moment.

They expressed relief seeing their childhood abuser locked behind bars, away from harming any other students, but for some, an urge to keep fighting until everyone who dismissed their allegations and aided Fietek in his avoidance of prison sees their day in court.

“I feel relief that he will not be able to harm anyone else and that this plea agreement doesn’t settle anything,” Zander Danielson Selle, the first of Fietek’s victims to come forward, said. “It doesn’t settle any civil suits and it also doesn’t settle any future charges of assault for people that have not

spoken up yet...It doesn’t get him out of any future charges, so that makes me very happy.”

“There are other people that enabled his behavior,” they continued. “It’s been really hard to try to hold them accountable because we were still having this conversation [of] ‘Is Jefferson a pedophile?’

Now I think we’re done having that, we can hold other people accountable.”

From 2006 to 2019, Fietek, a performing arts professor at Emerson for two years, engaged in a series of sexual relationships with at least five of his students — all of whom were under the age of 18, and were as young as 15.

Danielson Selle said they met Fietek in 2006, but it was in 2009 that the “sexual abuse and rape” first began.

“I came forward and pointed out these things at the end of 2009 and it was promptly covered up,” Danielson Selle said. “He was still around in my life [after that], but I was no longer involved in the theater program, so I was abruptly no longer friends with any of my friends.”

Jacob Tighe, who posted about his abuse at Fietek’s hands on Facebook in June 2020, which led to his departure from Emerson and arrest, declined to comment to The Beacon but thanked those who stood by him in the wake of the allegations coming forward.

“I’ll let you all know my thoughts on this later,” he wrote on Facebook. “But really quickly, we did it. All of you helped me put this monster behind bars and I can’t thank you enough.”

Josh Masterton, Fietek’s nephew, said the news of his uncle’s guilty plea was hard to take in because of the closeness he felt to his uncle growing up.

“It’s wonderful that justice is being served, but at the same time that all shouldn’t have ever happened in the first place,” Masterton said in a phone interview with The Beacon. “It’s been really tough, especially considering how close me and my uncle were when I was growing up. I got into acting and theater, he was sort of like my mentor through all that stuff and he taught me skills that I still use today.”

“It really soured it for me honestly but, it’s fine. I’ve made my peace with all that so I’m just glad it’s coming to a close here,” he continued.

Michelle Gaseau, an Emerson spokeswoman, wrote in an email that the college was “aware” of the resolution in Fietek’s case.

“The College did not renew his contract in 2020 and he was prohibited from being on campus,” Gaseau wrote. “We are not aware of any reports of misconduct that occurred while this individual was a faculty member at Emerson.”

A spokesman for Anoka-Hennepin Schools, where Fietek worked before coming to Emerson, said the school could not comment on the guilty plea.

frankie_rowley@emerson.edu

Alia Seraj ‘04 urges Americans not to forget about Afghanistan in the wake of US withdrawal from its longest war

Cont. from Pg. 1

in Afghanistan, even in those moments.”

The 9/11 attacks, perpetrated by the same jihadist group given protection by the Taliban, portended a new American attitude towards the Middle East—and, more particularly, to Seraj’s home.

“What [my father] said to me in that moment, I’ll never forget,” Seraj said. “He’d always raised me to be such a proud Afghan—but he told me that day to forget it. Forget that you’re Afghan today, don’t tell anyone that you’re Afghan today.

It’s too scary. It’s too uncertain.”

“To hear my dad say that, it shattered me,” she added.

However, as the drumbeat for retribution intensified in the aftermath of the attack, the self-described “rebellious” princess did the exact opposite. While then-President George W. Bush prepared to invade Afghanistan, Seraj marched from Copley Square to Harvard Square, in unison with thousands of Boston-area college students, protesting the war.

“My intention was to make sure that whoever we were fighting, whoever we called our enemy, they weren’t Afghans in general— that people understood that Afghans have a rich humanity behind them,” she said. “So I took the microphone from the organizer of the march, and I stood in the middle of Harvard Square. And instead of what my dad told me to do, I said, ‘My name is Alia Seraj, and I am an Afghan.’”

“That was the scariest moment of my life,” she continued. “But I knew at that moment, no matter what happened—if Afghanistan rose or fell—I needed people to understand that the people of Afghanistan and the war in Afghanistan were two very different things.” *** After the U.S. and its allies toppled the Taliban and installed a Western-style democracy in Afghanistan, Seraj hoped that her country had entered a new era.

Though the threat of insurgency remained, her family was able to

Prince Seraj (center) meeting with Afghans in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion and toppling of the Taliban/ courtesy

return for the first time since the 1970s and witness the democratic experiment—Prince Seraj even mounted an abortive bid for the presidency, advocating for a restoration of the country’s traditional tribal structure.

Yet in the past twenty years, in which Afghanistan has oscillated from front page news to background noise, the Taliban was never decisively defeated. After President Joe Biden announced America’s withdrawal from its longest war, they reassumed control over the country with a swiftness that surprised even government officials—ensuring the collapse of the state that Seraj had once seen as a beacon of hope.

“We’ve had a generation of women who thought that their time was now, that they could grow up with the future, pursue higher education and build businesses,” she said. “We are watching that being taken away in a matter of days. It is an entirely helpless feeling.”

With the effective dissolution of the Afghan state overnight comes a mass exodus of refugees seeking to flee the country—many of them fearing violent reprisals from the Taliban after having cooperated with Western militaries or organizations. Before the withdrawal on Aug. 31, the U.S. and its allies were able to evacuate around 120,000 individuals, although The Wall Street Journal reported that

“a majority” of Afghan interpreters and others cleared for U.S. visas had been left behind in the evacuation.

“This is the second time in a single turn of a generation that you have millions of Afghans wanting to leave the country behind, because of foreign powers and the destruction of their homeland,” Seraj said. “What is so heartbreaking now is that we can all bear witness to [this crisis]. In 1978, there were no cameras watching 300,000 people leave Afghanistan in the middle of the night.”

In spite of the intense emotions elicited by the collapse of a dream, Seraj said that she wasn’t wor-

ried about the “partisan” political implications of the withdrawal in the U.S. Instead, she said, the international community should be focused on a singular goal.

“You can talk for hours about everything that went wrong, but it’s really important to not just point a finger at any one person or administration,” she said. “Things have gone wrong and people have been making mistakes for 40-plus years; there is enough blame to go around. So rather than point fingers and continue to make any of this partisan on both sides of the aisle, we need to step up and be accountable for our joint efforts and failures and really turn our focus on how do we now help the most vulnerable people?”

For the thousands of newly-displaced Afghans, Seraj said that the American public had a responsibility to support refugees however possible.

She stressed that people hoping to alleviate the plight of refugees should donate to established, reputable refugee organizations, such as Charity Navigator, Women for Afghan Women, and the International Refugee Assistance Project.

“We don’t want to send money blindly into Afghanistan right now, because we just don’t know where it’s going to go,” she said.

Most important, though, Seraj said that people needed to continue to advocate for Afghans and for Afghanistan.

“Don’t let the news cycle die on this,” she said. “Call your state and local representatives, and government officials. Make sure they understand that we as Americans want to welcome Afghan refugees—especially those who have stood by and served with our armed forces for twenty years, and their families. They are an asset.”

“I’d like to think that my dad and my family who came here and all built businesses and have contributed to society and raised our own families here are proof of the asset of immigration,” Seraj continued. “Especially when you know, otherwise, there is just no future.”

camilo_fonseca@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

September 2, 2021

3

Freshman class settles in after year of upheaval Frankie Rowley Beacon Staff

After a year of canceled proms, delayed graduations, and remote learning, the road to Emerson has been anything but normal for most first year students.

With everything up to the college application process transformed by the pandemic, the incoming Class of 2025 was forced to adapt to a new reality as they considered Emerson. Perhaps as a result of this upheaval, the college’s Office of Undergraduate Admissions reported a drop in overall applications this year. That drop came despite the college extending the regular decision deadline to Feb. 1 from mid-January and holding an extra round of applications for early action and early decision.

“We feel [the pandemic] has the opportunity [for applicants] to rethink their college search process,” Director of Undergraduate Admissions Michael Lynch said in an interview. “We were planning for any number of outcomes— though we would like to see the overall application numbers rebound after the pandemic.”

Yet hundreds of students were able to navigate the complicated, often -daunting application process—even as their own senior years were nearly unrecognizable.

Theatre & performance major Dolly Pickelhaupt described the difficulties looking forward to college with the present so uncertain.

“It’s definitely been hard,” she said. “I don’t know anyone who isn’t going through a rough time over the past year—but I’m a very social person. Not being able to see half of my friend group, knowing that I wouldn’t really get a prom, or [being forced to have]

Jessica Gomez, Class of 2025 / Courtesy of Jessica Gomez a wacky in-person graduation it’s very isolating. I don’t see how it couldn’t have impacted the college application process.”

With traditional high school services constrained—including tutoring, test prep, and college counseling programs—many students, like political communications major Caroline Laran, had to learn to become more self-sufficient during the application process.

College reports 14 cases in week of testing

Emerson College’s Testing Center at Tufts Medical Beacon Archives

Cont. from Pg. 1 It remains to be seen whether the spread of the Delta variant will spur any policy change from the college. However, Muurisepp said that college officials have not yet determined what changes will go into effect on Sept. 17.

“In my mind, that’s still a long way aways,” he said. “A lot can happen between now and then. Between this week and next week, we’ll start really assessing that— working with Tufts and the city to see what changes we’ll have to make.”

In the broader city of Boston, Acting Mayor Kim Janey reimposed an indoor mask mandate on Friday. Cases in Massachusetts have skyrocketed over the past several weeks and are reaching over 1,000 new cases a day, after a period earlier in the summer where daily case numbers regularly fell below 100.

Over the seven-day period between Aug. 26 and Sep. 1, the state reported 10,422

new cases, or an average of 1,488 cases each day. In the same period, the death toll rose by 49. Cases reached an individual day high of 1,793 on Aug. 27, after a low of 1,400 on Aug. 26; furthermore, the 4,081 cases reported

on Aug. 30 reflect data collected from Aug. 27-29, as the Department of Public Health does not report new numbers over weekends.

The state reports two COVID-19 positivity rates—one with higher education testing and one without. On Wednesday, the seven-day test positivity rate including higher education testing sat at 2.6 percent. The rate that excludes higher education sat at 3.3 percent when last updated on Aug. 25.

The state also reported 2,941 new hospitalizations over the same period, or an average of 420 a day.

Vaccinations have also slowed considerably in Massachusetts, with just over 65 percent of the population fully inoculated against COVID-19— though the state did reach its goal of fully vaccinating 4.1 million residents on June 22. Over the past week, the Department of Public Health reported 62,474 new vaccinations, bringing the state’s total to 9,208,972 residents who have received shots. contact@berkeleybeacon.com

“We had obstacles like not being able to get that one-on-one personal help in school,” Laran said. “I don’t even really think I talked to my guidance counselor that much until the fall of my senior year, which was really scary.”

Others sought to ignore the effects of the pandemic as much as they could. Brooke Huffman, a journalism major from Missouri, said Emerson’s Common Application offered an optional question centered around COVID—but she

was reluctant to discuss something that had already dominated her senior year.

“I wrote my essay on how writing has personally helped me cope with my anxiety and how I’ve used it as a creative outlet for years,” Huffman said. “I chose not to write about COVID.” Despite this, Huffman said that her decision to apply to Emerson was rooted, in part, in her perception of how the college—and other institutions—were handling the pressures of the pandemic.

“Some schools [were] open to tour, but those were generally the ones that took COVID a little less seriously [than Emerson],” she said. “That wasn’t the kind of school I was interested in looking at.”

Instead of in-person tours, many incoming first-years saw the Boston campus through virtual tours, or stood outside of the storied Boylston Street buildings from afar.

“I did all the virtual tours, I watched YouTube videos of dorm tours, all the cheesy stuff,” Huffman said. “I went on [Emconnect] and looked at all the different organizations offered. I just really wanted to get a good feel for the vibe, and I really liked that it was a much smaller and artsy school compared to some of the other schools I was looking at.”

Jessica Gomez, an incoming journalism student from Pennsylvania, committed to Emerson for softball in April of 2020, after only ever seeing virtual tours and videos sent by a teammate. On a cold day in October, she finally saw Emerson’s campus in person for the first time.

“I got up in October to actually see [the campus],” Gomez said. “I wasn’t allowed inside, I just got

to see the area, walk around the buildings, it was really nice.”

Diagnosed with an auto-immune disease during her senior year of high school, she said the pandemic had her worried about having to manage while being far away from her family.

“I’m glad [I got my diagnosis before] being in college, but it’s kind of scary to take that on my own—and life in general on my own,” she said. “I guess I’m more excited than nervous—they’re one in the same in terms of emotions.

But I think I’ll get the hang of it.”

The Class of 2025 will be the first first-year class since the pandemic began to experience a semblance of the normal, pre-pandemic Emerson. With the vaccination requirement for Emerson community members, many incoming first-years expressed excitement about attending an institution with reasonable levels of protections against the virus.

“The idea that my freshman year we’ll be able to have a slightly more normal experience is great—even if it starts in that weird in-between state,” Huffman said. “Just knowing if I continue to do my part and the people around me do their part, things [will] continue to look up.”

frankie_rowley@emerson.edu

Students return to campus amid Delta variant Cont. from Pg. 1 “I think it’s going pretty well so far,” said Ryan Greene, a junior visual and media arts production major. “It seems like people are kind of understanding, you know, how dangerous it is.”

Students said they were excited to start anew this fall—without the burdens of strict lockdowns, hybrid learning, and social distancing guidelines—and the promise of once again resuming the in-person activities critical to a thriving college experience.

“Last school year felt like everyone was a little hollow on the inside,” said Ronald Kahihikolo, a senior journalism major. “I mean, that’s valid with the pandemic, but I feel like this past week has been really nice. I see a lot more vibrant energy in people’s faces and it’s a lot more encouraging to be on campus.”

This term, students will be attending fully in-person classes for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic—an experience that has been sorely missed by returning upperclassmen like Truong-Chun.

“I did have a production class when COVID started and that was a little bit hard to adapt to,” he said. “I think a lot of people would agree that production classes really weren’t as beneficial as they could be. I’m pretty excited to get back into it.”

Kahihikolo noted that the pandemic restrictions eliminated many opportunities for students to connect in -person, clouding their perception of what the “full” Emerson experience looks like.

“I’m definitely looking forward to getting back into Emerson organizations,” he said. “I didn’t really do a lot of those last semester because there were a lot of restrictions, but now we’re able to be in rooms and do photoshoots and be more proactive with our projects. I’m super

Students cross the Boylston/Tremont intersection. Beacon Archives

excited about that.”

Nevertheless, the increased campus density still provides a cause for concern for many. The easing of restrictions brings some concerns of students becoming remiss and shrugging off the remaining COVID-19 guidelines.

“Now that people are vaccinated, people are going to start going out

more and be more reckless and ignorant,” said Kahihikolo. “That’s where I draw the line with how safe I feel because I don’t know where everyone’s going and what everyone’s doing on a day- to- day basis because we’re all interacting way more.”

contact@berkeleybeacon.com

The Berkeley Beacon

September 2, 2021

4

Opinion

Letter from the Editor: Reflections on a year of turmoil at The Beacon Charlie McKenna Beacon Staff

Dylan Rossiter / Beacon Archives

Almost a year ago this week, The Beacon was rocked by controversy.

Nearly 20 staff members resigned.

The paper faced fury from within its ranks and from the Emerson campus. All of it was deserved — we had screwed up. Royally.

The straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, in this case, was a story awwwte, compounded the issue by not seeking the perspectives of students of color on Emerson’s campus and then not taking concerns raised in the moment as seriously as they could have.

In the months since, we’ve done quite a bit to work on ourselves. We have more to do and more changes are underway. We overhauled our constitution, implementing a new, more democratic selection process for the paper’s leadership, and mandated bias training for all of our staff members. These are small steps, but important ones.

We’ve also formed an advisory board of professional journalists from diverse backgrounds to help look over stories that cover sensitive topics like racism, sexism, homophobia, and more.

But if you’ve been reading The Beacon, you knew all that already.

So what do I have to share?

Well, in the interest of full transparency, not a lot. Our coverage moving forward will have to speak for itself — the stories we choose, the sources we seek out, will have to do the talking for us.

We hope to do so by recognizing where we’ve fallen short in the past — with an audit of our prior coverage. We intend to release the results by the end of this month.

This is an initiative we plan to resume in the coming weeks, and a process we will continue for years to come.

We continue to strive to diversify our staff and coverage. Already gone are the days when white men dominated The Beacon’s ranks (I am the only white man on the editorial board and none of the paper’s section editors are white men.)

Unlike my predecessors — I’m relatively new to The Beacon. I became a full-time staff member in February 2020 and had been in our newsroom three times before Fall 2020.

The Beacon I know has worked hard to improve itself and to try and reach corners of the community we hadn’t before. I’ve seen Diti Kohli and Katie Redefer, the two

editors before me, agonize over decisions and work hard to make The Beacon a better, more hospitable place. All I can hope to do is follow in their footsteps.

Can The Beacon be a better place than it is right now? Absolutely. Am I going to fix every single one of the problems this paper faces? Absolutely not. But I’m going to try my best.

I want to once again extend an apology to all of those that The Beacon has harmed in the past — you deserved better from your student newspaper. Though for those of you who we’ve hurt I do hope you’ll give this staff a chance to change your minds about this paper — I believe they will do some really incredible work.

charles_mckenna@emerson.edu

Tuition strike urges Emerson to redistribute funds Shannon Garrido Beacon Staff

As many Emerson students might be aware, at the beginning of March it was announced that tuition will increase for all undergraduate students for the second consecutive year.

While already battling financial uncertainty during a pandemic, students must now make even bigger sacrifices just to stay in school.

Recently, the administration released the Fall 2021 residential meal plans, where students are no longer allowed to use their card for anything other than dining provided by the school. This means no El Jefes, Garbanzo, or Tatte with prepaid board bucks.

Although in the grand scheme of things, losing our board bucks is insignificant when discussing tuition and the massive increases students have been subject to — 56.37 percent in the last decade, The Beacon reported. It’s still important to discuss what conversations this starts and why we should be having them. We need Emerson to take their students’ financial security seriously, and this new online protest brought about a few interesting key points on where to start.

This new rule ignited a second wave of students on social media attempting to form a strike protesting tuition increase amidst this new development. Rising sophomore Priscilla Beltran started a link tree on Instagram where students can sign a petition, share their thoughts, and join other meetings to discuss what to do next.

During the first meeting, the main talking points surrounded the student body’s present demands. These include an itemized list of how funds have been distributed throughout Emerson, a demand for locked-in tuition and the formation of a student union, and finally, more financial aid for international students.

As an international student myself, I can appreciate the inclusion of this last request. I constantly have to fill out different forms and applications for grants, loans, or scholarships where the institution that knows I am Dominican and has full access to my financial situation still needs me to explain why I need the aid.

One key distinction in the experiences of international students is the varying income levels in different countries. However, what really forms this distinction is how income varies from annual income per capita. In the U.S., it’s $33,000 versus in the Dominican Republic, where I live, it’s $7,000, so obviously tuition carries more weight for those of us from outside the U.S. Another interesting request brought up during this meeting was the “itemized list of where the money is going and accountability for that money.”

It seems unrealistic for the College to provide said list, of course, however, I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to know.

Because Emerson College is a non-profit college, a lot of the money that would go into the community they live in, can be written off. Emerson has a 501(c)(3) tax exempt status, which according to ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit newsroom, allows for federal tax exemption of nonprofit organizations. This allows for the exception of federal income tax where donors can claim their contributions to the organization on their annual tax returns.

In addition, only ten of the executives listed on Emersons Tax filing make more than 200,000 dollars as their total salary. Knowing all this, Emerson college is still 66 percent more expensive than the national average tuition for a private non-profit four-year college, according to CollegeCalc.org.

Needless to say, where our money goes and how much of it plays into tax deductions and exorbitant salaries

can play into the argument that tuition should be redistributed and/or transparent.

Especially since, as stated in a previous Beacon article, only 9.4 percent of need-based financial aid at Emerson was fully met, even though 63.3 percent of students applied for financial aid for the 2020-21 school year. Approximately 52 percent of students took out loans averaging $12,481 a year, adding up to $49,924 over four years, according to College Factual. The average Emerson student’s level of debt is close to the average salary of students who graduate with a bachelor’s degree — about $46,600 a year.

So how is tuition increase justified?

During the pandemic, it was said to accommodate testing and social distancing measures. During that same year, according to a previous interview by The Beacon, the College also filed two permits to renovate Little Building for cafes and bakeries, and those projects were valued at $1 million each.

How is it that our university could accommodate these unnecessary additions to campus, no matter how good the food is, and advocate that tuition increase is for COVID-19 prevention?

It seems naive or like a pipe dream for anyone who is used to the decadent greed that is private education in the United States to ask when

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Diana Bravo/Beacon Staff and where their money goes. Yet, we cannot deny that the more tuition increases, the more it seems impossible to justify.

It might also seem silly for a movement on such a heavy topic to arise because we can no longer use board bucks for an eight-dollar burrito, however, the question still stands, is tuition increase justified?

If so, why is it that our university cannot provide us with an actual explanation? Why is it that for a school where 63.3 percent of students apply for need-based financial aid, less than Editor-in-Chief Charlie McKenna Managing Editors Lucia Thorne (Content) Hongyu Liu (Multimedia) Campbell Parrish (Operations) Section Editors Camilo Fonseca (News) Mariyam Quaisar (Living Arts) Shannon Garrido (Opinion) Tyler Foy (Sports)

10 percent have those needs fully met?

If Emerson wants to continue in their efforts to make their campus inclusive, they need to bear the financial burden.

This is not to disregard the fact that if students want this to change, there should be a much bigger outcry than just petitions and Zoom meetings. The student body has monetary power and it should be no surprise that, if used properly, that power can actually do something.

shannon_garrido@emerson.edu Advisor Jerry Lanson

(617) 824–8687 berkeleybeacon.com contact@berkeleybeacon.com shannon_garrido@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

September 2, 2021

5

U.S. media falls short on coverage of Palestine Margarita Ivanova Beacon Staff Calling family is something that the average person sees as routine, not an emotionally grueling task. You talk about your day, maybe complain a bit about the traffic or how you didn’t get enough sugar in your coffee this morning. In general, most of the people reading this have the opportunity to live a stable, comfortable life. But that’s not a reality for many Palestinians.

For the people in Palestine, there is no sense of routine, and for 26-year-old Duaa Abdulla, there is no consistent comfort when it comes to calling her family in Gaza, especially during wartime.

This inherent destitution is something that mainstream media outlets fail to exhibit, especially in the U.S. Many of us don’t really see what the average day looks like for an individual from Palestine.

The Gaza Strip and the West Bank are Palestinian territories that have been controlled by Israel since 1967. Constant war and rising political tensions make visiting Gaza an extremely difficult and unreliable journey, according to Abdulla, whose parents moved to the United States in the 90’s before she was born.

“The last time I visited was about 10 years ago,” she said in an interview.

“Gaza is landlocked and there are very strict parameters, so it’s not like you even have the easy option to travel illegally by sea.”

Evenwhen Gaza is open and considered ‘safe,’ the round trip isn’t a simple one, Abdulla explains.

Many run the risk of getting stuck in Gaza for weeks—even months, and there is no airport in the landlocked region. The typical route coming from the U.S. consists of taking a 13hour flight to Cairo, Egypt, hopping on a seven-hour taxi ride from there to Gaza, and then waiting in line for hours outside of the border.

These normalized restrictions are something that Western media has also failed to depict.

The U.S. press, including The Washington Post, does not devote resources to covering the fact that East Jerusalem is under the supervision of the Israeli military, which controls movement with barricades and road

checkpoints.

Because of these obstacles, the trip is a risk that can lead to grief and displacement.

“I have friends who have gotten stuck [in Gaza] there for months because of wars, and that’s something that I really couldn’t risk doing because of the education I was getting in America,” Abdulla, who attended Rutgers University, said.

Just this past year, there was a 14,000 person waitlist to leave Gaza and the West Bank. Which begs the question, why are people trying to leave these Palestinian territories, and why are protests happening worldwide?

Israel has controlled Palestine for over 60 years, and it started as a war for power over land occupied by Palestinians, according to Aljazeera.

The most recent war between the two territories broke out on May 6, and officially ended when a cease-fire was put in place on May 21.

However, a cease-fire didn’t put an end to the violence. On August

Courtesy Margarita Ivanova 7— Israel launched another attack on Gaza. Not only has the ceasefire allowed the insidious airstrikes aimed at Gaza to continue, but it has also done nothing to rebuild the lives destroyed in Palestine.

Every day, Abdulla’s family witnesses and hears cries for help as rockets recklessly hurtle towards civilian homes.

“During wars, they are always telling me things like ‘please forgive us if we pass away during the war.

We are really scared, please keep us in your prayers,’” Abdulla said.

“They will send me pictures of what’s going on outside of their windows and videos of rockets falling from the sky.”

Here she is also referring to the home demolition practice, which is another example of tactics Israel has used to limit Palestinian freedom of speech, as well as a way to settle into Palestinian territory.

This is information that is mostly obtained through middle eastern sources like Abdulla; as there has

been litle coverage done by Western Media on the latest bombings.

Mainstream articles depict both sides as constant aggressors, rather than talking about how Israel has impeded on innocent civilian freedoms.

As a result of the death of her uncle in 2014 and the ongoing conflict, Abdulla’s family has developed a growing numbness to the effects of death.

“They’ve become so used to watching people die in front of them,” Abdulla said. “I have a six-year-old cousin who was scared and sobbing because she was so afraid during this war. This is her first war, so it’s normal for her to react that way.”

Abdulla’s six-year-old cousin is one of many children who have been mentally tortured during these wars.

“It is important for people to know that these kids are being hit the hardest during these times,” Abdulla said.

“Most of the time, students can’t set realistic goals and look forward to finding jobs one day,” Abdulla continued.

Abdulla says that the younger generations are still continuing to grow in population, despite the increase in mental illness.

“Gaza has one of the highest rates of inhabitants under the age of 18, so it’s very foretelling that the generations are still constantly growing,” she says.

Moreover, since traditional media has prevented these stories from being heard, younger generations have amplified the voices of those struggling. Young adults have proven to be some of the most prominent advocates when it comes to spreading awareness across the world. Movements like “Free Palestine” have made their mark on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube.

Fatima Ismail, a 16-year-old high school student from New Jersey, is one of these leaders. Since the start of the movement, she has continuously posted on social media and organized events with her friends. On June 4, she teamed up with three others to protest in Princeton, where over 250 people attended the two-hour march, including Abdulla.

“We all contacted speakers and organizations to join us,” Ismail said in an interview minutes after a protest.

“All of my parents, siblings,

Is this year truly COVID safe?

Shannon Garrido Beacon Staff

If you would have asked me in mid-June whether I thought removing the mask mandate and relieving some social distancing measures was a sign that things could finally revert back to normal at Emerson College, I would have probably said yes. With Emerson requiring both students and staff to be fully vaccinated it seems like the close to ideal conditions to go back to full in-person classes as well. But of course, like everything surrounding COVID, it seems like a new issue (or variant) is constantly on the horizon making it harder to see us ever going back to normal.

The more time passes, it seems that in order to keep people safe there is very little Emerson can do for now that doesn’t involve a strict mask mandate and social distancing measures. However the biggest COVID-19 concern this semester should be the lack of knowledge on vaccinated and unvaccinated students, faculty, and staff.

With Massachusetts spiking from a seven-day average of 100 cases in mid-June to 1,775 as of August 31st, staying safe should

Illustration Lucia Thorne still be a very real priority for Emerson students and staff. However, while breakthrough cases are being reported most new cases are in the unvaccinated and the highly infectious delta variant causing breakthrough numbers in even vaccinated individuals.

On Wednesday, Sep 1st a report from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health stated that 620 patients with confirmed

coronavirus cases were hospitalized in the state , of which 169 were reported to be in an intensive care unit. Even Emerson has already seen 14 new positive tests and official move-in ended on August 29th.

So although the death toll is still significantly low, cases and deaths from COVID-19 are expected to rise in many states, including Massachusetts, as

the nation struggles to grapple with the highly contagious delta variant, according to modeling projections from the University of Washington and another from a team of Massachusetts scientists reported by The Boston Globe.

Now while I believe Emerson Administrators made the right choice by mandating vaccinations on campus and reinstating the mask mandate, it is still up in

and friends also came to support.

Our main goal is to let people know that although there was a ceasefire, Palestine is still not free and we must still protest and fight for their rights because people are still dying.”

“People need to keep posting on social media because this is not just a trend,” she continued. “In the beginning, everyone was posting on Instagram stories, Snapchat stories, Facebook, and Twitter, but now that the trend is drifting, people have stopped sharing the news.”

These are voices that we should be following. They are voices that are constantly living through heartbreak as their own people suffer. Western media has twisted and skewed a one-sided dominance into a two-sided story. Not to mention that this lack of reporting also stems from the close relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

This isn’t the first time we have seen the two countries neglecting the public’s interest due to their political relationship. Look at the Stuxnet 2010 cyberattacks on Iran for example.

Ismail reminds us that the United States has continued to fund Israel throughout these wars, and so much of the media in the U.S. remains biased when it comes to showing what’s really going on in Palestine.

“Since the U.S. supports Israel, they don’t allow Palestinians to share their perspective on mainstream media outlets,” Ismail said. “They don’t allow them to have a voice. Houses are being bombed every single day.

Kids are getting rubber bullets, a mosque in Palestine was bombed while people were praying.”

Maya Ahmed, a 16-year-old youth organizer, says that coming out to protests is a great experience, but that there are also other ways to contribute to awareness.

“Protesting [is great … [but] protesting isn’t enough,” Ahmed said. ”You have to donate to organizations to actually make an impact. Spreading the word alone can do so much.

There are many people that are very uneducated about this topic, so it’s important that there are more people like us to spread the news.”

Text PALESTINE to 844-9911510 to learn more about how you can help. margarita_ivanova@emerson.edu

the air what is in store for those who have a religious or medical vaccination exemption and how that will contribute to the spread of the Delta variant. After all, we still have no way of knowing how many Emerson students and staff are actually fully vaccinated.

This means that it is impossible to truly know who could potentially spread the Delta variant to vaccinated students and staff regardless of how small the number is.

We cannot speak for all students or staff who have very little wiggle room in terms of whether or not they get the vaccine, but regardless this vaccine is not a cure. With the Delta variant on the horizon and this ease in social distancing measures there is a big possibility that without a nationwide mask mandate that could prevent roughly 1,300 deaths in Massachusetts by Dec. 1, we would have to revert back to stricter regulations.

Nevertheless, if you are part of the large majority that is vaccinated while they are somewhat less protective against delta, they are still highly effective at preventing people from getting severely ill and in some cases dying.

shannon_garrido@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

September 2, 2021

6

Living Arts

The dining hall is back to normal, and I can’t believe it Mariyam Quaisar Beacon Staff

With Emerson returning to an in-person semester this fall, many pre-pandemic practices have made their triumphant return — including the dining hall, which sent my jaw straight to the floor.

“Everything across campus, except for classrooms, is back to full capacity and full operations, and the dining center is one of those so we can get back to as typical operations as possible,” said Assistant Vice President for Campus Life and “COVID Lead” Erik Muurisepp.

The dining experience is significantly changing the social atmosphere on campus and the pandemic is seeming to look like a distant memory.

“Outside of masks being required as folks are navigating the dining center and the changes internally of the dining center, in terms of being served food and prepackaged sandwiches, we have kept that in place,” Muurisepp said. “Those are the COVID protocols in addition to cleaning and sanitizing.”

As a sophomore, my first-year din-

ing experience consisted of takeout boxes, a black lunch bag, and one-person-per-table seating. A coffee maker and waffle maker seemed like a foreign concept, until now. My editor had to explain what “Center Stage” was.

Upon walking into the dining hall on Saturday, Aug. 28, my jaw fell to the floor. Now, takeout boxes are optional—there are cups, plates, metal utensils, and bowls; there are burgers everyday and there’s sea salt caramel gelato. There’s people everywhere— sitting in booths or high rise chairs, walking around to talk to friends, and putting hot sauce on their eggs. Dining has completely transformed.

Sophomores did not get the opportunity to experience the real Emerson during the 2020-21 school year. With rules changing on a whim and COVID still being unpredictable, it was difficult to be a real college student.

Last year, I found the dining hall to be a drag and tried to go there as little as possible. This year, I look forward to seeing what cuisine I want to try.

I look forward to drinking water out of real glass cups. For me, because of the dining hall’s atmosphere, even the food didn’t taste too delicious. Today,

Courtesy Mariyam Quaisar

“I can’t get enough, to the point where I send my parents a picture of my food everyday.” that same food tastes incredible and I can’t get enough, to the point where I send my parents a picture of my food everyday.

Sophomore Sara Kates said she was worried about not being able to spend board bucks at local restaurants.

“I was honestly scared because I didn’t know what I would eat this year,” Kates said. “I got so used to eating at Blaze, Tatte, and Jefe’s whenever I didn’t want to go to the DH, but now I love going to the DH. It’s a completely different experience.”

As pre-pandemic practices come back to Emerson, the campus feels more welcoming and comfortable to Sophomore Gina Foley.

“Last year it was so deserted,” Foley said. “There were never any people and you’d have to go back to your dorm and eat. Now, half the fun is being able to sit in a booth and eat with your friends while watching all the people who are coming and going.”

Sophomore Olivienne Redding said the campus experience so far this fall has been lightyears better than her first year.

“It was easy to get homesick last year,” Redding said. “Being in your dorm most of the time, having to eat in there and do school there was tough. I’m so grateful the dining hall is back to normal, it makes it easier to be away from home when you can eat

Beacon Archives

Beacon Archives with friends and experience college in a different, more fun way.”

While Emerson is home to 14 positive COVID-19 tests since Fall 2021 testing began, the cases have no link to regular dining.

“That’s the importance of contact tracing to identify where potential cases come from and any potential exposures, but we have not seen any trends or themes based on the cases we’ve seen so far,” Muusirepp said.

The dining staff is well equipped in keeping the dining hall a safe and com-

fortable area for students and staff.

“Additional cleaning is happening around the stations, dining staff in general certainly all have the proper training and understanding of cleaning and sanitizing,” Muusirepp said.

“They’re testing like everyone else.

We continue to monitor so if we see concerning trends we’ll certainly address those, but we’re hoping to keep it open as is.” mariyam_quaisar@emerson.edu

Vibrant installation honors indigenous peoples

Cont. from Pg. 1

their own and a place to be comfortable,” Meier said.

Josh Hamlin, the director of the Campus Center, said he was the first sponsor and initiator for the artwork. Hamlin reached out to Leonie Bradbury, the senior artist in residence at Emerson and professor in the Visual and Media Arts department, who has a connection with Public Art Think Tank, to get the project started. SEAL has worked with Bradbury in the past for similar murals in Piano Row’s quiet lounge and the Student Performance Center.

Meier helped draft the words and worked with a local artist to evolve the graphics until the final product was just as the team wanted it to be.

“We thought it would be really cool to share a statement that recognizes our land, the land of the Massachusetts people that was stolen from them, and respect that,” Meier said. “In talking through it, it dawned on us very quickly that we could create something vibrant and bright and

exciting. We wanted to make something that is memorable and vibrant and truly welcoming of our community.”

The statements are the main aspect of the art as they encompass its theme of inclusivity and honoring the Indigenous people.

“The words are common but they’re also very important,” he said. “[The words are] heard a lot but they’re not always this upfront. The language is something that we reviewed very closely with Intercultural Student Affairs to make sure that we were covering and hitting all the right points, but also making sure that we were concise in how we say it.”

The team also approached several Emerson organizations to contribute to the statement.

“We reached out to every single group that had an office in 172, including the Student Government Association, The Beacon, Emerson Independent Video, EVVYs, Intercultural Student Affairs, Spiritual Life were all included and had the ability to help us write this,” Meier

said.

The two-paragraph statement, along with the surrounding phrases and terms, creates a welcoming and comfortable environment.

“When we drafted the statement, we wanted to pull out words and themes, things like ‘celebrate’ and ‘legacy’ and ‘identity’ and ‘respect’ and ‘honor,’” Meier said. “We wanted to make sure that people saw those values. We included words like ‘you matter’ and ‘you are welcome,’ because we really want anyone who sets foot into 172 to know that this is their space and that they belong there.”

The team communicated via Zoom and Slack, not allowing the pandemic to hinder their creative process.

“We’ve been operating quite well virtually, it was really easy to get people together and to be able to work together so [the pandemic] was never a challenge,” Meier said. “We drafted and proofed all virtually, and then we worked with the college to get the artist to come in to install it.”

While it took about an hour to put up the final piece, the entire process, including design, finding an artist, and crafting the statement took about a month.

“We wanted it to be right and we wanted it to be something that we were proud of,” Meier said. “We were really thinking it through, scrutinizing every word, and making sure that we felt good about which took a little longer. And then it took a while for us to get comfortable with the colors and the patterns and how it all played out, and so there were quite a few drafts.”

The vibrant and eye-catching colors of the art are based on the secondary color palette for Emerson. This consists of hues like blue, purple, green, and orange, paired with pink and magenta.

The art has received positive and emotional feedback, Hamlin said. “[Students] think it’s very colorful and vibrant but we’ve seen some emotional responses of people like putting their hand

up against the wall and being very appreciative of it and what it represents,” Hamlin said. “This is exactly what we were hoping for, that people would feel that the art is something that they can connect with.”

The team behind the installation worked closely with Intercultural Student Affairs to craft the art’s acknowledgements paragraph.

“We worked really closely with Intercultural Student Affairs, and they have a lot of resources that we were familiar with and looked into,” Hamlin said. “For example, there’s one [book] that tells you exactly which of the Indigenous tribes lived in these areas and what their territories were, and so we were able to see who was here and who was not.”

SEAL has worked around several campus spaces filling them with heartfelt, welcoming, and inclusive art.

“This was just the next step in that process to make sure we hit all of our spaces in different ways,” Hamlin said. mariyam_quaisar@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

September 2, 2021

7

Alum opens sustainable bridal store in Newton Mariyam Quaisar Beacon Staff

Emerson Los Angeles campus. / Beacon Archives

Emerson Los Angeles boasts a successful summer semester Frankie Rowley Beacon Staff

After over a year of vacant halls, classrooms, and dorms, Emerson Los Angeles finally opened its doors to a small group of students for the 2021 summer semester.

The summer semester marked the first of its kind for ELA, ushering in 24 students to participate in classes or in the Emtern summer internship program. The semester lasted from May until July, marking the first time students had stepped foot on campus since March of 2020 due to closure throughout the past academic year as the pandemic ravaged LA County.

“Normally we have seniors here on campus, [but this] summer we had younger students, which was a little bit of an adjustment for us,” said Associate Dean of Students and Chief Operations Officer for the ELA program Timothy Chang.

Typically, ELA hosts a large number of seniors hoping to establish themselves in LA before graduation, Chang said. However, the summer term brought in a new wave of students, a mix of lower and upperclassmen which allowed Chang and the ELA team to adapt to a younger population.

“Seniors are like ‘I’m here to get my career started,’ but the summer kids were like ‘I want to dip my toes into that pool’ but were doing more fun career-related things,” he said.

Jillian Kay, a junior journalism major, said finally making it to California after months of uncertainty was a surreal feeling.

“A month before, we didn’t even know if we’d be able to go,” she said.

“When it finally became a reality, it was just like, ‘Wow, this is happening.’

There were only 24 of us on campus, so it felt kind of empty—but it was a nice empty. It’s weird to think that we were the first ones back since the pandemic started because it almost didn’t feel like that.”

Kay, who interned at DC3 Music Group, said her time in LA was spent visiting famous sights, attending award shows, and even flying to Las Vegas as a part of her internship to film an Illenium concert. She also got to cover the MTV Music Awards and the Black Entertainment Television Awards for a WEBN summer package along with

Charlie McKenna / Beacon Staff some of her peers.

“I had a bucket list that had about 25 things on it,” she said. “By the end of the summer, I went back and looked at my list and went, ‘Wow, I did at least three-fourths of this list.’”

“Those were experiences I didn’t even think were going to happen because of the pandemic— they were just really happy coincidences,” Kay continued.

Kay was accompanied by two fellow ELA students to the BET awards, Ashley Blanco—a senior business of creative enterprises major, and Serge Ganthier—a senior communications major.

“We didn’t eat for about 11 hours,” Kay said, laughing. “When we finally got into the Microsoft Theater, Ashley goes, ‘Okay, I have my phone, let’s whip it out—we’re [going to film a live shot]’ and I was like, ‘What? I’m starving but we’ll do it,’ because as a reporter you have to have that tenacity and courageousness because there were people all around.”

The smaller population on the Hollywood campus allowed them to become closer to their peers, Blanco said.

“Because there were such a small amount of students, everyone just connected really well together,” she said.

“Those nights I won’t forget, especially [those] by the fire.”

Blanco completed an executive training series created by Sean “P Diddy” Combs and held two internships— one being at the production company created by Dave Chappell’s producer, and said her time at ELA was both a valuable experience and a welcomed vacation.

“In the beginning, it was more like a vacation for me just because my in-

ternships had a delayed start,” she said.

“I had the opportunity to explore the city, go skydiving, go to Malibu and all these fun activities that I wouldn’t have gotten if it was springtime, where it’s ‘go, go, go.’”

“LA taught me what I do like and what I don’t like, especially when it comes to career,” Blanco continued.

Though the vacation period didn’t last for long, Blanco managed to use her time at ELA as a period of self-discovery, which included skydiving out of a plane on her 21st birthday to overcome her anxiety.

“The gift I wanted to give myself was [to overcome] my anxiety and my fear of heights,” She said. “I wanted to use that as an analogy like if I could jump out of a plane, I can do anything.”

While the summer program was a time for internships, classes, and new experiences, it served as a test run for ELA’s fall term according to Chang.

“We wanted to get the chance to ramp up for a full campus,” Chang said. “It gave us the chance to test COVID-19 practices.

We needed to figure out how to do testing on our own, so having students gave us the opportunity to see what’s the best time, best method, and what’s the most effective and efficient way.”

Kay said her time at ELA gave her a renewed sense of confidence and excitement.

“I learned so much this summer about the production industry—how that all works, the behind the scenes and networking,” Kay said. “It’s not really about what you know, it’s about who you know; taking that into the fall semester, I definitely have a new sense of confidence in my career and my networking skills.” frankie_rowley@emerson.edu

While planning for her own wedding in 2018, alum Molly Swarttz ‘13 realized that weddings can also be eco-friendly, and after years of planning opened her own sustainable bridal store in June, making it Newton’s first ethically focused bridal store.

“The nature of bridal isn’t inherently sustainable, but there are choices we can make along the way to prioritize ethically made and sustainably sourced things for our wedding and for our wedding dresses,” Swarttz said.

Through the process of opening Glo Bridal, Swarttz conducted months of research to understand the various aspects of sustainable clothing.

“In the bridal world, there are two pieces that make a designer or a piece sustainable,” Swarttz said. “The first piece is a designer’s practices. Who’s actually making the dress? How are they treating the workers? Is it experienced labor, fair wages, and good conditions? It is also about a bride’s own shopping habits, focusing on investment or longevity, when purchasing or when consuming.”

While exploring how she wanted her store to enter sustainable fashion, Swarttz decided on several factors.

She decided it was critical to work with designers across North America, due to their efficient work, access to materials, and easier shipping.

“I spent a lot of time doing research, finding other sustainable bridal stores around the country, seeing who they were partnering with, and asking the designers what their priorities are,” Swarttz said. “I want to make sure that the designers I’m working with have the same morals as I do, and it tends to be inherent to their brands.

More and more designers are realizing this is important to them and to people who are buying from them.”

A prominent feature of Glo Bridal is custom dresses, which designers make sustainably for each bride, to their unique specifications, if that is what they desire.

“Glo designers only create pieces when they are ordered, there’s no excess inventory and nothing is wasted,” Swarttz said. “They design the garments with patterns that create less waste, they’ll create the lining of the dresses from scraps, they’ll purchase fabrics from ethically focused places.”

There are also “pre-loved” dresses available for brides in the store, reinforcing eco-friendly fashion.

“We carry an inventory of used or sampled dresses,” Swarttz said. “You can buy a bunch of stuff off the rack that have been worn once and dry cleaned, or that designers don’t need anymore.”

However, purchasing from brands that are sustainable and follow eco-friendly practices is very expensive, which is why many people resort to fast fashion, Swartzz said.

“It’s definitely a larger problem in the industry because if it was more widely accepted to make all of these sustainable choices, the price points in the markets would adjust,” Swarttz said. “When not everybody is making those choices, for the ones who are it’s obviously going to be at a higher cost until it’s more widely accepted across the entire fashion industry, including bridal.”

Glo’s designers found a way to keep their dresses within the price range that a lot of average dresses range from, even though it is a higher price point, she said. Dresses at Glo Bridal range from $2,000 to $4,000, and

average dresses range from $1,500 to $4,000.

Swarttz graduated from Emerson with a marketing degree and spent the last decade working in tech at marketing software companies before launching Glo Bridal. Her Emerson education has come in handy in the years after graduation, she said.

“My marketing classes were all focused on collaboration, creating presentations, visuals, and branding, and that has been essential as I’ve been figuring all this out,” Swarttz said.

Emerson’s immersive educational practices also left a huge mark on Swarttz’s career.

“Knowing all the tools and the tech stuff that you need to run an online business was all from Emerson putting a lot of focus on getting out there and actually interning and working and getting hands-on experience while being at school,” she said. “I always loved how much focus Emerson put on real-world experience and I’ve used it every single day since.”

Swarttz made a lot of friends and connections during her time at Emerson who have significantly helped and supported her during the process of opening Glo, specifically in terms of

“I want to get the message out that you can embrace sustainablility when you are planning a wedding.” marketing, promoting, and design.

“It takes a village and luckily mine is very, very talented,” Swarttz said.

While planning Glo’s logistics and launch, Swarttz held some fear about opening the store, but the pandemic pushed her to just do it.

“How do you actually know when it’s time to make something that you’ve been thinking about for so long a reality?” Swartzz said. “The pandemic was really hard on so many people and there were pieces of that that got me to the point that made me realize that now did feel like a good time to embrace this and figure it out.”

Glo Bridal is currently a side job for Swarttz, who still works remotely at a software company, however, she intends to make Glo a full-time job as the store continues to take off.

“I want to get the message out that you can embrace sustainability when you are planning your wedding, and you don’t have to sacrifice your personal style or your fashion sense to get something that you can feel good about,” she said.

Swarttz wants to make a point to show consumers that sustainably-made clothes are also of good quality and style.

“Sometimes sustainability-made clothes have a bad reputation from a material standpoint and that isn’t the case anymore, you are able to embrace fashion and feel good about it,” she said. mariyam_quaisar@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

Sports

September 2, 2021

8

Emerson students during soccer practice. / courtesy Daniel Toulson

The long-awaited return of fall sports Tyler Foy

Beacon Staff The last conference game any Emerson fall sports team played was on Nov. 9, 2019.

After nearly 22 months for almost all fall sports squads, the teams are preparing for their first season Fall athletes have sat out on the sideline for the longest offseasons of their careers— watching an entire season of their collegiate career without even a glimmer of hope of getting out on the field. Now, with games cleared for this fall, they are excited to return and bring their teams to new heights.

Women’s soccer center-midfielder, Grace Cosgrove, a senior, said the soccer team is excited to get their fall season underway after such a long delay.

“Everyone is super eager to continue playing, working as a team and win some games,” Cosgrove said in a phone interview.

The women’s volleyball team concluded their last season as the runners-up to the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference championship. Junior libero Andrea Mendez, who spent the 2020-21 school year at her home in Puerto Rico, said the return to the court has been rejuvenating.

“It’s very surreal,” Mendez said over the

phone. “To not only meet new people on the court but also just getting back into the rhythm of things.”

Sophomore Maisy Mure, who has never competed for the women’s cross country team, said getting out on the practice field for the first time this fall was a big moment for the team.

“It was the perfect weather,” Mure said in a phone interview. “I think everyone was happy to be back together and excited for the upcoming races.”

Many returning players lost a year of their collegiate athletic career, making this final season that much more meaningful.

“I’m so thankful that [the season] is able to happen because with COVID I know that our seniors last year were unable to get their senior season,” Cosgrove said. “It’s really awesome that I’m able to play and that we’re almost back to normal.”

Senior men’s soccer forward, Will Dean, lost his freshman year to a concussion injury.

Leaving him with just his sophomore season to date. He looks to make the most of his situation.

“The opportunity to try to get the most out of the season,” Dean said over the phone.

“Ideally focusing on the team first and then as a player second. Really push myself as far

as I can go and see where that takes me.”

New head men’s soccer coach Daniel Toulson said the younger players on the team, like sophomores who lost their first season, have created an ambitious climate at practice.

“A lot of those [underclassmen] have come from very good training environments in high school and club,” Toulson said in a phone interview. “I would say the atmosphere on the field is getting really competitive, it is kind of a competition for every spot and then off the field, the team spirit and camaraderie has been at a really high level.”

Despite not performing in her first season, Mure said that she felt comfortable at practice.

“Everyone’s just excited because since we’re all in the same boat we all get along really well which is nice,” she said.

Mendez said all the memories of the women’s volleyball team’s successful 2019 season came rushing back the first time she stepped on the court this fall.

“I’m really pumped for this season, because it feels like the first time,” Mendez said.

“I feel like we have a really good chance of making it really far this year.”

This year’s men’s soccer recruits possess

unique skill for their age and experience level, Toulson said.

“We have seen exciting talent on the team, potentially one of the best groups we’ve had over the last four or five years,” Toulson said.

The women’s soccer team is also brimming with new talent, and Cosgrove believes the recruits will be able to perform at as high a level as their more experienced teammates.

“I’m very confident of everyone’s abilities,” Cosgrove said. “We’re working as a team really well so I’m confident what we can do, and even though [underclassmen] may be younger, they don’t hold themselves any younger, they’re very skillful.”

The experience for teams on the field will be different than the last time they were allowed to compete as the Athletics Department has barred visiting fans from attending games until at least Sept. 17. Only Emerson students, faculty, and staff will be allowed at games.

“It’s a little upsetting,” Mendez said. “I remember my first year my mom and my uncle they came over and it was really nice to have their support. It’s going to be tough this first month, because we don’t have that family support. I bet a lot of the girls would love to have their families there.”

Cosgrove said the women’s soccer team will be ready to make any adjustments throughout the season, as the team just wants to compete.

“Having to wear masks in the locker room and on the bus or not being able to eat on the bus is a totally do-able thing,” she said. “If that’s what needs to be done to play, our whole team is definitely for that.”

Toulson said that the men’s soccer team will be continuing to better their play and to take it game-by-game after such a long delay.

“Our expectations are more relative to the culture of the program and then definable intangible targets,” Toulson said. “Expectations are that we overall continue to develop identities and program. And then we’ll kind of assess every game.”

Mendez said she believes this year’s women’s volleyball squad could outperform the successful 2019 run.

“I think we all kind of radiate positivity this year,” she said. “And our goals are really to win the NEWMAC Championship, and make it to the NCAA.” “This was just the next step in that process to make sure we hit all of our spaces in different ways,” Hamlin said. tyler_foy@emerson.edu

Women’s volleyball recruit hopes to fuel team success Tyler Foy Beacon Staff Freshman women’s volleyball recruit Brooke Maynez is looking to build upon her championship resume as she seeks to help lead the Lions back to the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference championship.

The team claimed their first shot at the NEWMAC championship in 2019.—lost against Babson 3-0 Maynez, a middle blocker from Las Cruces, New Mexico, said she plans to join Emerson’s sports communication program and chose the Lions after weighing her options.

“I made a pros and cons list,” Maynez said in a phone interview. “The media realm of Emerson really stuck out to me because of the notable alumni that come out of Emerson, and how each student is so successful.”

Her father, Alex Maynez, spoke highly of his daughter’s determination.

“She got where she’s at today based off of her love for the game and her dedication,” Alex Maynez said over the phone. “When she got the announcement of acceptance, it was a good day for her. We were happy for her because we knew it was on the top of her list.”

Brooke said she wants to make an impact whenever she gets on the court by being versatile and playing any position the coaches ask of her.

“The goals I had moving forward would be to ultimately just help my team out in any way possible,” Maynez said. “Just be flexible to wherever coach needs me and just perform and do my job.”

Aside from performing on the court, Maynez said she believes her actions off the court are just as important.

“I actually went down for a visit in February and met the whole team,” Maynez said. “Just building that team chemistry, even prior to going to campus [is super important]. If we don’t have chemistry on or off the court, then we’re not gonna succeed.”

Even though the pandemic delayed her season, she never stopped putting in the work. Her club coach, Magali Rodriguez, said Maynez is very focused when she steps onto the court and continues to build on her strengths— blocking chief among them.

“Brooke has always been very receptive to any type of information coaching instructions,” Rodriguez said in a phone interview. “She’s always ready to listen, and ready to improve and I would say that most of our highlights came from those amazing blocks, she was a beast.”

Maynez said she brings more to the volleyball team than her blocking ability.

“I think I’m bringing my leadership skills and my high intensity,” she said.

Maynez goes up for a block./ Courtesy Brooke Maynez

“I always like to play with 110 percent intensity going into the game. I always have a good, positive mindset, even being on the bench cheering on my team.”

Alex Maynez praised his daughter’s ability to come through in the most important moments, when her team needs her the most.

“She always delivers when it’s time to deliver,” he said. “She is able to play

through pressure moments, always wants to be in the game when there’s a key moment.”

Maynez recalled a moment when, with the state championship on the line, Brooke made a key block to swing the game’s momentum.

“Brooke has kept on blocking her and flipped it around to an advantage on our side,” he said.

While they weren’t able to take

home the trophy that year, Maynez’s high school team won it all her senior year.

“We did get that state championship and I’m glad to go out of high school with a bang.”

At Emerson, Brooke Maynez said she is looking forward to continuing tyler_foy@emerson.edu