Fall 2021 Issue 2

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

“COVID Lead” takes on new role

Thursday, September 9, 2021 • Volume 75, Issue 2

Visa policy reversal brings relief Rule change would have limited international students time in US Camilo Fonseca Beacon Staff

“COVID Lead” Erik Muurisepp. Alec Klusza / Beacon Archives

@berkeleybeacon // @beaconupdate

Much of Emerson’s international student community is breathing a sigh of relief after a Trump administration rule that would have limited the amount of time international students could spend in the United States was withdrawn earlier this summer.

Proposed by the Department of Homeland Security last year, the rule was formally rescinded by Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on July 6. Had it been implemented, it would

have replaced the existing policy for international students, which allows F-1 visa holders to stay for the duration of their studies; instead, period of admission of two-to-four years, effectively limiting any academic extensions students might seek.

“Some students would only have been given a two-year admission to the U.S.,” said International Student Affairs. “They would tend it—a type of application that is [typically] pending for over a year. It wasn’t a realistic prospect for students. It was mean-spirited, antions for international students—which made up 13 percent of Emerson’s population last year—the college took a strong stance against

Frankie Rowley

its implementation. As part of the 30-day public comment period that follows most federal proposals, OISA formally lodged a letter of complaint, arguing that the rule would limit dents in “greater danger of falling out of legal status.”

“There was enormous opposition,” Popa said. “The comments submitted by Emerson, as well as by individual students, pointed out some obvious reasons why this was an inappropriate rule. It really would have been crippling to the academic research and clinical populations in the U.S.” The college’s formal letter to DHS joined a wave of outcries from across the country, inAttorney General Maura Healy. In total, the government received over 32,000 comments Visas, Pg. 2

Beacon Staff

Erik Muurisepp received a promotion from assistant vice president to associate vice president of campus life on Sept. 4—marking a more visible role at the college for the man who helped direct Emerson’s COVID-19 response through the thick of the pandemic just as the college sees an increase in positive COVID-19 tests.

Muurisepp, who has served as Emerson’s “COVID Lead” since 2020, was promoted to his new position as students enter a new, in-person semester, despite the rise of positive tests among largely vaccinated community members. Despite the turmoil, Muurisepp continues to look towards the future of the college while the coronavirus pandemic continues to cast shadows over campus life—using his platform to promote confidence in vaccinations and testing compliance.

“My new role is just the continued management of our campus life areas, housing, conduct, staff engagement, orientation programs—and some more crisis planning,” he said in an interview with The Beacon.

Muurisepp’s responsibilities, he said, are essentially similar to those he held in his former position.

He remains confident in the college’s decision to roll back pandemic restrictions for a largely in-person semester, stating that widespread vaccinations—96 percent of Emerson students, faculty, and staff are fully vaccinated—have made the in-person experience feasible.

“We are committed to our academic program,” he said. “We believe it is important for us to be able to do it in person for the fall semester. We know there are risks, but we also believe—as we’ve sat with this [issue] and spoken with other institutions— that we have rounded the corner of learning to live with the virus.”

Since fall testing began on Aug. 23, Emerson has seen a total of 25 positive COVID-19 tests, a stark rise from the nine reported this time last year. While Muurisepp declined to disclose information regarding individual or group cases, he did suggest that a sizable portion of the 25 positives have been breakthrough cases—vaccinated community members contracting COVID-19. Nevertheless, Muurisepp has stated in past interviews that breakthrough cases “were expected.”

These cases come as the college works to rebuild the “Emerson bubble,” a campus-wide effort to Muurisepp, Pg. 3

Clockwise: Michelle Wu, Kim Janey, Annissa Essaibi George, Andrea Campbell, and John Barros. Courtesy

New class takes students behind the scenes of the race for mayor Bailey Allen Beacon Staff Ahead of Boston’s mayoral election on Nov. 2, Emerson is offering a new course, which is dedicated to the intricacies of this fall’s campaigning and candidates, and allows students

to get hands-on experience through internships

As part of the course, each student will be assigned to work on a campaign of one of the

The course, CC-371, is titled “Topics in Politics, Leadership, and Social Advocacy: The Final Stretch: The Boston Mayoral Election.”

Taught by communication studies professor Aaron Agulnek, the eight-person class meets every Friday morning, with occasional Wednes-

Janey, City Councilors Andrea Campbell, Annissa Essaibi George, Michelle Wu, and Boston’s former economic development chief John Barros. They are required to spend 15 hours per week on their respective campaigns.

Class, Pg. 2

ArtsEmerson hosts first event since March 2020 Mariyam Quaisar Beacon Staff

an open house in the Cutler Majestic Theatre on Wednesday—aimed to reintroduce the public to theater and encourage them to get excited about this year’s slate of productions.

“Our vision is to use the theater to connect communities more deeply to themselves and to each other, so everything we put on stage is a prompt to conversations around diversity,” David Howse, ArtsEmerson’s executive director, said. to shut down at the start of the pandemic, venues like the Cutler Majestic Theatre have been closed for well over a year. The open house is a chance for many to re-

day meetings.

Agulnek, aside from being an Emerson professor, is the founder and CEO of 27 South Strategies, a Boston-based government relations

and anticipate those which are upcoming. For senior stage production and management major Mia Tivony, Wednesday’s event was no exception.

“This event is a welcome back to theater and a welcome home to theater makers,” Tivony said. “It’s saying ‘We can do this again, and thank God we can!’”

Alum Malia Lazu ‘99 was visiting the theater and reminiscing on the many years she spent there watching ArtsEmerson productions.

“It just always feels good to walk in here,” Lazu said. “We have so many beautiful theaters in Boston, especially ArtsEmerson has so many. You just forget the ornateness and the time that it was built, and that Boston was around during the heyday of theater.”

Lazu encouraged Emerson students to attend ArtsEmerson shows because of their entertaining and exciting atmosphere.

Art, Pg. 6

25

positive COVID-19 tests

.24% positivity rate

10,000+ tests completed

INSIDE THIS EDITION Sign ups rise for orgnizations Pg. 2 Man convicted for hit-and run Pg. 3 Op-ed: The job market has unfair standards Pg. 4 Editorial: Cut the first year class some slack Pg. 5 Alum creates Lion King parody Pg. 7 Ultimate Frisbee team gears up for new season Pg. 8

News

The Berkeley Beacon

September 9, 2021

2

Organization fair sees in-person recruitment return for first time in over a year Gabriel Borges & Jonathan Yao Beacon Correspondents

Venues around Emerson, including the Little Building and Piano Row, livened up on Friday afternoon as an in-person “org fair” got undera half. Student organizations were assigned tables in each venue—all lined up next to each other with a small space in between.

Students could be seen close together and passing by each organization’s table an image that would have been unthinkable just a year ago. to be held in person since January 2020 after the fall 2020 and spring 2021 iterations were both held entirely online, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Touted as a way for

on-campus organizations to engage new members, several students credited this year’s in-person event with an increase in recruits.

“Having so many people

around and being able to feed off everybody’s energy, it’s really nice,” said Josey Finn, a senior visual and media arts major and president of Newman, a service-based club for Catholic students. “[It’s great] having a whole community around—not just you sitting by yourself on Zoom.”

For many organizations, the past year of online-only operations was a hard pill to swallow.

Sam Hinton, a junior writing, literature, and publishing major and the co-vice president of Emerson Esports, said she’d been with the club long enough to see its activity die

down a little as a result of the pandemic.

“Being virtual did affect it a little bit,” she said. “People were not as active doing things. I think

the pandemic brought everyone down.”

Sophomore communications sciences and disorders major Elena Plousadis echoed Hinton’s sentiment. Vice president of Emerson’s chapter of the National Student Speech Hearing Language Association, Plousadis said her organization struggled to recruit members due to a lack of interest in what had become an online-only organization.

“Last year was a challenge,” she said.

Despite their struggles, Plousadis said Zoom meetings had helped them connect to members

of the Emerson community that would have proved more inaccessible with only in-person sessions. we were able to meet with a lot of grad students,” Plousadis said. sual and media arts major, said the rollback of restrictions and the

in-person experience of the fair has caused him to be more excited about looking to get involved with.

“If we were online, a lot of people would want to stay inside and do things in their own room and not really focus on the outside and what’s going on,” he said. “They are trying to put themselves out more, because people might just be unaware and they might not have the word on the street they had last year.”

Leonard Zhang, a sophomore communication studies major, shared Burke’s excitement. He said that the perceived normalcy of the fair, even in the continued pandemic, was one of the main factors driving him to get involved with Emerson organizations.

“When you go to college, [organizations and connections are] something you imagine you are supposed to have,” he said. “You meet different kinds of people. [Now,] everyone can do what they are particularly good at.”

Student Engagement and Leadership, which organized the in-person event, also plans to host a virtual fair on Sept. 10 for students who couldn’t make it to Friday’s event. contact@berkeleybeacon.com

DHS withdraws rule change for international students Cont. from Pg. 1

during the 30-day period— with 99 percent of them in opposition to the change, according to the Federal Register.

A significant factor in the overturning of the proposal, Popa said, was the reactions of international students.

“We held info sessions for students—sort of an advocacy toolkit where we told them how to speak up against the rule, how to contact their senators about certain pieces, et cetera,” she said. “We reached out to student leaders and the international student population, just saying, ‘This will affect you really poorly if it goes through; we’re hopeful it will blow over, but we really need to take action to make sure this doesn’t go through.’”

For international students like sophomore Nicole Abrate, the proposed rule brought yet another worrying development in an academic year already dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There was a lot of pressure, like [the sense that] you need to get everything done in four years,” she said. “You don’t really feel wanted, because it’s like you need to leave as soon as possible.”

The reversal, Abrate said, not only lifted a weight off the shoulders of international students, but also gave Emerson’s international engagement programs the chance to thrive again after a year curtailed by travel restrictions and xenophobia.

“I would say you feel more accepted now—I can see there are way more international students than last semester,” Abrate said. “Honestly, it feels way better.”

Yankel Gelman, a sophomore visual and media arts major from Mexico, remembered hearing about the proposal when OISA first publicized it last year. Given the challenges already faced by international students, he said he’d been

OISA Director Andrea Popa. Hongyu Liu / Beacon Staff

pessimistic about the process, even as he recognized that it might not come to fruition.

“It’s already a pretty hard process just getting a visa and staying here,” he said. “I wasn’t necessarily fazed by it as much; it just sounded like a vague threat. If it had become more real, I would have been a bit more worried then—but there’s so much anti-immigration sentiment thrown around that it’s kind of hard to take everything seriously.”

Nevertheless, Gelman said he was relieved when he heard that the Biden administration had reversed the policy. sure not going to happen is obviously a very nice thing,” he said.

The Biden administration’s

rescindment of the policy is welcomed by international students like Gelman, who said he is still “figuring out” his plans after his four years at Emerson, “If I could just naturally get a job here, or become a citizen somewhat quickly, that’d be my plan,” he said. “But because it is so complicated, I have to navigate that and see, ‘What’s the best option?’ Whether it’s just going back to Mexico, or trying to find my way here to continue with graduate school or something.”

Abrate agreed with Gelman, saying that the lack of a fixed visa window is encouraging for her plans to extend her stay in the U.S. “I just added another major,” she said, having added writing,

literature, and publishing to her original journalism portfolio. “I would like to do more things after finishing my studies at Emerson—and if possible, I would like to continue to study in the United States, because I’ve really liked my experience here so far. The fact that [the old policy] allows me to stay longer is good.”

The decision to reject the proposal, Popa said, was significant even if many students didn’t immediately feel any significant changes to their own status.

“Even if some students didn’t quite understand what was going on, it’s kind of a really big deal,” she said. “‘Duration of status’ is a protection that international students rely on, whether they know it or

not. As in the weeds as it was, it was important to speak up against it. We’re really pleased that it’s been resolved in the correct way, giving students the appropriate flexibility to study and change their minds and to take a longer time, without needing government intervention.”

Frankie Rowley contributed reporting to this story.

camilo_fonseca@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

September 9, 2021

3

Holbrook man found guilty for hit-and-run death of Emerson student Frankie Rowley Beacon Staff

A 27-year-old Holbrook man was convicted last month of the fatal hit and run accident in Braintree that killed Emerson junior Lucas Flint in

Darrell W. Young Jr. was sentenced to three to four years in prison, and one year of probation, on Aug. 19 after a judge found him guilty of motor vehicle homicide by negligent operation. He faced charges of motor vehicle homicide while liquor, negligently leaving the

Flint, a visual and media arts student, was hit by Darrell W. Young Jr., who he walked home from his job at the Laugh Boston Comedy Club shortly before 1 a.m. He was rushed to a hospital, where he died three days later. sought six to eight years of jail time with three years of subsequent prodefense attorney, asked for two years of jail time with one year of service.

After his passing, the college named an annual scholarship after Flint and dedicated the WERS call center to him.

He was remembered as a kind-hearted, dedicated student by those who knew him following his death.

Dana Gerber / Beacon Staff

Emerson reports 4 new positive COVID-19 tests Frankie Rowley

Flint grew up in East Bridgewater, Ma./ Courtsey Susan Flint

Emerson reported four new positive COVID-19 tests on Wednesday, raising the college’s cumulative positive tests to 25.

The four positive tests come from 2,030 tests administered on Tuesday, a positivity rate of 0.24 percent. No tests were administered on Monday due to the Labor Day holiday.

Five community members were reported to be in on-campus isolation and zero community members were reported to be in on-campus quarantine.

The college has been observing an uptick in positive COVID-19 tests since the onset of the fall semester. Within the

Flint died in the hospital on Dec. 18 / Courtsey Susan Flint

scene of a personal injury and death, and driving an uninsured motor vehicle but was only found guilty of the homicide, said David Traub, a spokesman for the Norfolk District Attor-

Beacon Staff

frankie_rowley@emerson.edu

positives reported this time last year.

The increase corresponds with a

Class gives students hands-on campaign experience Cont. from Pg. 1 “It’s really neat to be on the inside,” Agulnek said. “You see things out there in the press, you hear what your friends or family are talking about, but being in the room is really exciting.

I’m so eager to help provide that opportunity to the students.”

Aside from volunteering, students will hear from guest speakers, such as Bill Forry, editor and publisher of The Dorchester Reporter, and discuss the progress of the election in general.

“I’m really excited to have [Forry] come in and talk about how a journalist covers an election,” Agulnek said. “[He’ll talk about] what goes into the endorsement process and who their main points of contact are, really digging in with him, it will be really exciting.”

Agulnek said the course will also cover the growing effect of social media on politics and campaigning.

“Social media plays a really huge role in campaigns right now,” Agulnek said. “That’s one of these things that no matter what we end up doing in our careers, having a handle on social media is just incredibly important. It allows candidates to express themselves, helps us get to know them personally—they each use it in different ways.”

After the impending preliminary election on Sept. 14, which will narAgulnek said the dynamic of the course will change to emphasize the general election on Nov. 2, in order to keep students engaged.

“Right after the preliminary elecwho were with the campaigns who

“Emerson’s proximity to Boston’s political centers makes his course a special experience for interested students.” didn’t make it into the top two to then stick with [the two contenders] through Election Day,” he said.

“Then, after the election, I was going to bring in somebody who has been involved in transitions of the winning campaign.”

Inspired by a course he took as a law school student at Boston University—the Legislative Internship Clinic—Agulnek said teaching this course during the election was an opportunity he couldn’t refuse.

The mayoral race will see a woman or a person of color become the full-time mayor of Boston for the

by City Councilor Michelle Wu, who who took up the city’s top post after Martin J. Walsh’s departure to Washington to serve as Secretary of Labor.

“It doesn’t happen all the time where there’s an open seat for the Agulnek said Emerson’s proximity to Boston’s political centers makes his course a special experience for interested students.

“I thought it’d be a great opportunity for Emerson, which is in the heart of Boston politics,—a block away from the State House, about two blocks away from City Hall—to continue to engage itself in the civic life of Boston,” he said. “There’s really no better way than getting involved in politics.”

There are seven seats still available for CC-371 and Agulnek encourages any students interested to contact him directly. class,” he said. “I know that the dethe campaigns are really excited about getting college students involved and I predict that this is one of those classes that will stick with the students moving forward.” bailey_allen@emerson.edu

rise in coronavirus cases both locally and nationally; Massachusetts reported 10,142 new cases in the seven-day same period, the state’s death toll rose by 51.

Vaccinations have also slowed considerably in Massachusetts, with just over 66 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 51,042 new vaccinations, bringing the state’s total to 9,260,014 residents who have received shots.

The college’s dashboard is typically updated daily Monday through Friday.

weekly and then daily updates. Tabs for hospitalizations and the number of “invalid” results received by community members have since been removed from the dashboard after testing began last year. Invalid results are typically a result of user error and require re-testing.

Administrators said last summer that the decision to remove hospitalizations was part of an effort to increase transparency, as the college was concerned it could not accurately track the metric.

Invalid results were deemed “not valuable” data by “COVID Lead” Erik Muurisepp.

The dashboard is not updated on weekends because Emerson’s testing site at Tufts Medical Center is closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

the college opted for weekly updates before eventually shifting to twice

frankie_rowley@emerson.edu

Muurisepp confident in Emerson bubble

Cont. from Pg. 1

recreate a COVID-safe environment spanning the duration of the first month of the fall semester.

The effort is set to end on Sept.

17—a date that grows ever closer. Muurisepp, for his part, also remains noncommittal on whether the college will go ahead with its original plan to lift remaining COVID-19 restrictions—including its mask mandate—on that date.

“We’re keeping an eye on the cases in the city—certainly within Emerson,” he said. “As you can see in the dashboard, we continue to have a few cases pop up here and there. I really don’t have a crystal ball to see what the 17th will look like. We’ll get communication out prior to the 17th, for sure.”

In developing this year’s OneEmerson policy, Muurisepp has already worked to restructure the college’s COVID policy in a more effective manner. As part of this, the college opted to discard its previous system of linking the symptom tracker—a questionnaire on the Emerson app where community members are required to fill to help track symptoms of COVID-19—to campus access.

Now, students may access campus buildings without having completed the tracker—though it is still officially “required” to be filled out.

“We looked at all the data from last year and the return on it was not huge,” Muurisepp said. “We certainly know that tracking is im-

portant, especially this year, but more so is testing and vaccines.

When we looked at all of the safety measures together, testing compliance is really going to be the most important thing. That’s where we really put all our efforts.”

With the pandemic still an ever-present concern, Muurisepp noted that the college continues to provide quarantine housing for the 2021-22 academic year. However, due to the fact that the Paramount Center is in use as a residence hall, Emerson will be using vacant rooms in each building that have been set aside as quarantine housing.

“They are spaces that can safely house people, have a private bath, private space, and all of that,” Muurisepp said.

As positive tests rise, Muurisepp added that there is an alternative quarantine housing plan in place, should the college surpass 20 community members in need of on-campus isolation or quarantine.

“There’s always the possibility that we may need more, but hopefully we don’t,” he said. “We do have some contingency plans and alternatives if we needed to get there. Hopefully, we don’t need to.”

frankie_rowley@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

September 9, 2021

4

Opinion

The job market for students has unrealistc expectations Shannon Garrido Beacon Staff For young people everywhere, looking for employment after graduation competition, little work experience, a pandemic and the recession it caused, recent graduates or even current students to navigate the job market. However, what’s more concerning is the new phenomenon brought forward to current students, where they feel forced to have job experience before graduatheir degree no longer checks out.

If you’re a recent graduate, your new degree should serve as evidence that you’ve acquired the skills necessary for an entry-level job in your chosen ers said experience in the workplace young people. Moreover, if you are a college student you are more than likeacademic schedule, which wouldn’t be counterproductive if these companies weren’t looking for interns that come with at least a year of work experience.

Many internships in journalism require students have newsroom experience — except in their eyes, working at your student paper isn’t enough. You have to have managed to land an in-

ternship or entry-level position while toiling away as a full-time student and likely balancing a position at your student paper.

The dichotomy is almost funny, you need work experience to get a job, but you need a job to get work experience.

This hiring pattern has real effects on current students and graduates. The unemployment rate for young college graduates exceeds that of the general population, and about 41 percent of recent college graduates are underemployed. This means that college graduates are working in jobs that don’t require a college degree, according to new data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

It’s almost absurd when you consider that college students often pay more than $100,000 for four years of education that are supposed to help them land a job in a job market that giving out their labor for free.

Not to mention that in an economic climate where young people in America were already facing higher levels of unemployment, COVID-19 only added to that stress. Unemployment rates of young workers between the to 24.4 percent from spring 2019 to spring 2020. Meanwhile, unemploy-

ment for their counterparts ages 25 percent.

Luke Pardue, an economist at payroll er, “hiring rates typically for this cohort of workers typically spike in May and June as new graduates accept jobs after graduation, but in 2021 we have seen employment growth remain low through these past two months.”

During times like these, it seems almost cruel to expect college students applying for mostly unpaid internships to also have the required work experience. These internships are made to be that bridge in which students gain experience before graduation. If we make them unreachable for students without these experiences, they are left in a state of limbo.

Personally, I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. One part of me me some form of steady income. The other part of me wants to focus on my career by getting an internship that will also take up most of my time and not pay me, but possibly help me in future career opportunities. However, this is not an isolated feeling, seeing that the job market makes it seem impossible to get ahead.

There is also an argument to be made that unpaid internships are immoral and should not exist, since companies are essentially exploiting students for their skills and labor. Moreover, according to the Atlantic, they also single out lower-income people who simply can’t afford to take unpaid internships and miss out on these career stepping stones.

However, it doesn’t make sense to turn away students and recent gradu-

Illustration Lucia Thorne ates who are more than likely paying millions of dollars to learn the skills necessary from entry-level jobs. Jobs that are made to give them the expericial ladder. It should not be impossible resume. shannon_garrido@emerson.edu

Haiti’s current climate is not for you to dismiss Shannon Garrido Beacon Staff It seems like with everything happening in Haiti, the media has been searching for single incidents that could explain away the nation’s current climate. On Wednesday, July 7, former Haitian President Jovenel Moïse was assassinated by unknown operatives, and his wife, Martine Moïse was seriously wounded. Sadly, this is only a fraction of the long list of issues that loom over Haitians today.

From severe poverty, widespread deforestation, and protracted political instability in a country already living in such unfortunate conditions, some might be asking themselves, who is to blame for the current state of Haiti?

I would suggest that it’s pointless to single out one party; however, I will say that as a Dominican, it’s becoming increasingly more disturbing to read about Haiti as an almost isolated when discussing the recent assassination with my American peers. They are not always aware of the role that the United States and other countries have played in draining Haiti of their resources. I am also disappointed with my fellow Dominicans who cannot with their neighbors. They have often categorized Haitian people as simply home.

The power dynamics that had led to such disarray should be known. It is not only irresponsible but dishonest to profess that the reason why Haiti is in its current state is due to its own misjudgments. It should not end in a “well, they are the poorest country in the West,” because there is a much larger conversation to be had. It should boil your blood to hear imperialist nations describe Haiti as a lost cause.

Western media and the United Nations take it upon themselves to write off this assassination as another tragic event that they will attempt to “stabilize” for Haiti. This is the same rhetoric that they have used in the past—ignoring a long history of foreign interventions, like the thirteen diseases, violence, and no results.

These interventions can be used to clearly pinpoint why Haiti is in a political and economic position than it is in today. whatever capital they made went back to the French government as “compensation” for revenue lost from slavery. Compensation that ended up becoming 150 million francs, French currency at the time, equivalent to ten times Haiti’s annual budget. This debt took 122 years to pay off and has since contributed to the country’s Unfortunately, it does not end there.

Although the formerly enslaved people of Saint-Domingue proclaimed independence from France, for the longest time it was not fully respected by its powerful neighbor, the United States.

In fact, the U.S. did not recognize Haiti as a state until a good 60 years after it gained its independence.

However, since its inception, the U.S. spent decades trying to gain control of Haiti’s ports and customs houses but was met with resistance, according to Aljazeera.

In 1914, U.S. Marines were able to force their way to the Haitian National Bank, where they seized $500,000 and transported it to New York. The U.S. occupied the nation for nearly 20 years where they continued to treat the country as their own personal playground. During this period the U.S. government imposed racial segregation, restricted freedom of the press, and indulged in violence against Haitians.

Even after its occupation the United States subsequently backed the threedecade-long dictatorship of François Duvalier. The U.S. provided money, weapons, and troops to sustain the regime, even after human rights abuses were well known.

The question still remains, why has establish a democracy even after the U.S. occupation?

States promoted “free-market policies” by eliminating safeguards for Haitian agriculture and the private government enterprises and services. The results have led to mass poverty and the slowly dug grave for the country’s

Former President of Haiti Jovenel Moïse Courtesy government and infrastructure. All conditions have contributed immensely to the economic, political, and human costs of the 2010 and 2021 democratically elect their president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1990, but he was deposed in a coup, in which a CIA-trained and funded intelligence agency had participated.

This might all sound like a very condensed history lesson with no point; however, it’s crucial that we understand that there is almost no period within Haiti’s history as a nation where it was allowed true economic and political autonomy. If we are to truly help the Haitian people, we need to start by treating the country through a mixture of reparations and respect.

We need to understand that the world let this happen to Haiti, largely because of the studied indifference of the U.S. government. For instance, shortly after Duvalier’s son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, returned to Haiti from © 2021 The Berkeley Beacon. All rights reserved.

The Beacon is published weekly.

Anything submitted to the Beacon becomes the sole property of the newspaper. No part of the publication may be reproduced by any means without the express written permission of the editor.

exile in 2011, then-Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and her staff made it clear that any prosecution was a matter solely for the Haitian government to handle. The people of Haiti were once again met with the harsh reality that the international community has little interest in their affairs unless it serves their own interests.

The U.S. had no problem aligning itself with Duvalier’s son when he proclaimed himself “anti-communo problem looking the other way as hundreds of political prisoners were held in a network of prisons known as the “triangle of death.” There was little uproar from the “land of the free” when Duvalier’s government repeatedly closed independent newspapers and radio stations, whilst simultaneously beating, torturing, incarcerating, and exiling Journalists.

It’s no surprise that once Duvalier made his return, the U.S. wiped its hands clean.

If we fast forward to the present day, although it is still unclear who hired the former president’s assassins and why, according to Reuters there are already clues that point to Colombian mercenaries, a U.S.-based security company, and various opponents of Moïse in the country. Elections are planned for September and many Haitian activists have called for transparent and fair elections—without foreign intervention.

During this time, the media as well as members of the international community should refrain from promoting the idea that Haitians are “unable” to rule themselves and that what is happening within the country is the result of naive domestic corruption and unruliness.

Let’s not view these events as inevitable chaos and understand the huge role that intervention has systematically played to rob Haiti of its freedoms and democracy. shannon_garrido@emerson.edu

Editor-in-Chief

Tyler Foy (Sports)

Managing Editors Lucia Thorne (Content) Hongyu Liu (Multimedia) Campbell Parrish (Operations)

Advisor Jerry Lanson

Section Editors Camilo Fonseca (News) Mariyam Quaisar (Living Arts) Shannon Garrido (Opinion)

berkeleybeacon.com contact@berkeleybeacon.com

The Berkeley Beacon

September 9, 2021

5

The spark of a climate revolution Margarita Ivanova Beacon Staff Over the course of the past 20 years, Chevron Corporation, the second largest oil company in America, has spent billions of dollars trying to silence those who have opposed them and their practices.

Steven Donziger is the environmental lawyer who led the largest environmental case in history against Chevron, notably for dumping over 16 billion gallons of oil into the Ecuadorian Amazon.

According to over 100 expert company- formerly known as Texaco- poisoned the land and water that 30,000 Ecuadorians depended on for survival. This had led to the cancerous deaths of over 2,000 natives.

Chevron should be paying for their heinous crimes against these communities, while individuals like Donziger should be recognized for the legal justice within their work.

Accountability and recognition are key factors when it comes to bringing forth change.

Has Chevron paid these natives back? No, but they have spent billions of dollars in an effort to silence Donziger. Further, they have forced him under house arrest for the past 2 years..

On August 12, after nearly 2 years under house arrest, in a trial without Donziger guilty of bribery and fraud.

Chevron at the time, ordered Donziger to overturn all evidence.

When the environmental lawyer refused to do so, he was charged with six counts of criminal contempt (equal to a misdemeanor charge). If Donziger had complied with the order it would have put all of his clients at risk.

For choosing to protect his clients he was placed under house arrest while awaiting a verdict for the contempt case, something completely unprecedented.

“I never thought a house arrest would happen,” Donziger said. “It didn’t even really occur to me since this had never happened before in American history to a lawyer on a misdemeanor. Once it happened I was shocked. I thought it would only last a few days until I got a lawyer to petition the court.”

The longest sentence for his crime

11-year-old activist Avery Tsai. / Courtesy Margarita Ivanova was 90 days. This ongoing house arrest has lasted 760 days. judge and picked the private prosecutors who would oversee Donziger’s contempt case. This included District Judge Loretta Preska, who has served on the advisory board of the Federalist Society, to which Chevron has ed at the time were members of a law the past.

Donziger and his team are appealing the guilty verdict. This process has gained support and attention throughout congress and the rest of the world.

This call for justice has been echoed through Donziger’s team, advocacy groups, celebrities like Susan Serandon and Roger Waters, and members of Congress. Xander Tilliou, a senior VMA student at Emerson, has worked closely with Donziger as his assistant through-

ed that his seven day work week schedule has led him to developing a close relationship working with Donziger.

“We have gotten incredibly close and tencing date in October approaches,” Tillou said. “I view him both as a mentor and a colleague, which is a pretty special relationship.”

Tillou has spent average workdays helping to create tweets for Donziger’s twitter page. It has compiled over 79k followers and has helped toorganize rallies.

The most recent protests unfolded on August 6th which marked his two year anniversary being on house arrest. Citiwell as other countries like Israel and Canada, joined the rallies in solidarity with Steven.

Tillou led the protest in Copley Square in Boston, which he described as a great, yet disheartening experience.

“Getting people’s attention and bringing them in to learn more felt really good,” Tillou said. “But it’s also a crazy thing when you see a lot of people that will just walk the other way.

A lot of people don’t like to engage or think about these things because it’s so far from them—because we’re in the comfort and safety of this completely different part of the world.”

However, Donziger says the rallies were a very encouraging and emotional experience, but it is important to know what they are really representing.

“It is a mistake to think that it was all on my behalf. It goes way beyond me and it affects everyone who does this work,” Donziger said. “It even affects the very nature of our society, and I think that’s why we’re seeing a tremendous outpour of support. Because I’ve become a symbol of something very dangerous for the United States of America, which is corporate control and corporate silencing of advocacy in such a way that accelerates the destruction of the planet.”

Before being put on his pre-trial probation, Donziger originally travelled to Ecuador in the 1990’s to investigate the ing about them through a mutual friend from law school. When he arrived, it was beyond comprehension.

“It was an apocalyptic nightmare,” Donziger said in an interview with The Beacon. “The worst part was that it was not an accidental spill. It was the product of a deliberate operational design engineered by Texaco. The whole system was designed to pollute so that Texaco and its shareholders could save two to three bucks a barrel, at the cost of poisoning an entire area and rainforest.”

The moment he saw the pools of oil, he knew he couldn’t turn his back. He this 20 year battle for justice. Developing both personal and professional relationships was a large part of this com“The leadership of the communities was vital,” Donziger said. “This wasn’t a lawyer driven lawsuit; it was a community based one, and my role was to honor my service to them and not control the lawsuit.”

He explained that his role was also to try and empower the communities to use the law in a productive way, to right the horrors that had been done to them.”

As Donziger and his team battledChevron’s lawyers, they peeled away at the layers of corruption within the case. who sold their morals to a corporate company.

“There are a lot of Chevron lawyers who I think have sold their ethics for money to defend a major human rights violator,” Donziger said. “As for the Ecuadorians working for Chevron, they are

who are having their cultures destroyed by the pollution. It’s these civilizations that are threatened with extinction. A lot of these lawyers are engaged in corrupt practices, thinking they can get away with it because they get paid to do it by Chevron. I saw it with my own eyes.”

In 2011, Donziger and his team won a $9.5 billion judgment against Chevron to hold the oil company accountable for their actions. But what has the company paid back to the people of Ecuador? Not a dollar’s worth.

What Chevron has done instead is pay over 2,000 lawyers in an effort to take down Donziger and his team. This had led to Donziger being placed on house arrest in 2019 with the help of a corrupt judicial system, ultimately controlled by a masked oil giant.

Donziger said some days on house arcult part about this entire case is having his freedom stripped away.

“It is the lack of freedom,” Donziger said. “I can’t leave. I can’t work. I can’t think straight. I can’t be a father. I can’t be a husband. I can’t plan the future.

Nothing is normal. Everything in your life gets assumed to be the work of trying to end it.”

Tillou stated that the constant support stemming from the public is the key to the Free Donziger movement.

“It’s very multifaceted what gets him out of bed in the morning, but seeing tributes to it,” Tillou said.

Throughout his probation, Donziger has friends in Ecuador who have died from cancer—indigenous people who he was not given the chance to say goodbye to. These are a few out of the thousands of others who have died from the contamination.

“If I could [say one thing to them] was not in vain, and we end up collecting the judgment so those under threat can lead normal, healthy, and Donziger said.

Donziger is the spark of hope that has ignited a climate revolution— one that has the potential to set a precedent for the fossil fuel industry, as well as address the corporate control within the judicial system.

The people of Ecuador have not been paid any money back, of the $9.5 billion owed, and it is time that we hold Chevron accountable.

To learn more, donate, and contribute to the movement, visit DonzigerDefense.com, follow @SDonziger on Twitter and StevenDonziger on Instagram. margarita_ivanova@emerson.edu

First-years need time to reacclimate after year and a half of isolation Editorial have learned to live with the “new normal” as a result of the pandemic. Our past year and a half Clorox wipes, socially distanced classrooms, and masks. However, we upperclassmen should consider ourselves lucky as we only have had to pivot our plans for a handful of months while the class of 2025 has had it worse.

First-year students have been virtually online for the entirety of this pandemic. All thrown into a completely new academic and living environment with the expectawrong expectation for the class of 2025.

The class of 2025 is in a unique position, which has placed them at essential to cut them the necessary slack they need to thrive at Emerson. While the sophomore class missed out on their end of senior year activities, prom, or a normal

robbed of the traditional workload and in-person instruction that prepared the rest of us for college.

First-year students’ last memories of high school were made online on Zoom calls or a handful of in person classes. It’s safe to say that online classes don’t typically have the same learning environment or outcome that in person classes would.

Now, they’re dealing with the stresses of a packed academic schedule, learning to live in a new years went from online socializing schedules with in-person events.

It’s mentally draining to try to do everything at once, and that is what Emerson is expecting students to do. This really makes us wonder how Emerson should accommodate them. year theater education and performance major these past three weeks

have been kind of touch and go.

On one side Rogers said that coming back to fully in person and COVID restrictions like masks don’t really affect the in-person experience. However, she still cannot gage how this year is going to go for her.

“During orientation week, everyone was super pepped and it seemed we were all desperate to make friends,” says Rogers.

Unlike the class of 2024, this year’s orientation was mainly all in-person with a handful of Zoom options where students could meet new people, get to know each other and the campus that surrounds them. In-person orientation was a relief for staff and students that some normalcy is coming back to Boston.

Rogers went on to say that even though she considers herself an introvert because COVID has made so many of us much more anti-social, and that she has been trying to make an effort to join in on the “pep” herself.

Students moving out of a dorm. / Beacon Archives But it’s important to ask ourselves if we are putting too much pressure ly normal with what is going on around them. After having the tail end of their high school education entirely sure what the COVID guidelines are before coming to campus and how they will change based on the state of the world.

The state of the world is ever changing and it’s creating an abundance of anxiety around students and teenagers. A poll that was done by the C.S Mott’s Children’s Hospital which is apart of the University of Michigan. With one of the polls co-directors Gary L. Freed, M.D., M.P.H stating: “3 in 4 parents say

COVID-19 has had a negative impact on their teens being able to interact with friends.” and other mental health issues in response to the pandemic and the isolation that was needed to get son college should make an effort and make sure they really are doing okay.

The class of 2025 got thrown into the deep end and it’s foolish to think that they wouldn’t struggle more with the college transition then other classes. contact@berkeleybeacon.com

The Berkeley Beacon

September 9, 2021

6

Living Arts

Jacqueline Novak’s one woman stand-up show is back: ‘To me, the blowjob as a concept is kind of just really fascinating’

myself to an audience… it’s easier than improv,” Novak said.

“I feel like early on, I kind of just treated [stand-up] like I treated creative writing,” she continued. “When I started, every word was accounted for.

There was no improvisation basically, I was too afraid.”

Blowjobs became the theme of Novak’s comedy after she realized that it was easier to focus on one overarching topic rather than being bound to a specific theme.

“To me, the blowjob as a concept is kind of just really fascinating,” Novak said.

Novak’s tour manager is Emma

“I completely

Novak performing during her one women stand-up show. / Courtsey Jacqueline Novak

Campbell Parish Beacon Staff

After the pandemic forced the cancelation of her previous tour, Jacqueline Novak’s “Get on Your Knees” tour is back, bringing much-needed laughs and giggles about a surprising topic— blowjobs.

Her one woman stand-up show will be held in the Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts from Sept. 7-19, and is sponsored by the Emerson Colonial Theatre. “Get on Your Knees” will visit five cities this year, and Novak will perform 13 shows in Boston

alone.

Novak first heard about standup comedy from an improv troupe while she was studying at Georgetown University. Upon discovering an interest in using comedy as a medium for self-expression, Novak began attending open mics. This was the catalyst that forced her on mission to get over the many self-conscious elements surrounding stand-up comedy.

“I kind of quickly realized that even though stand-up sounded like the scariest thing in the world, it might be easier for me to just communicate from

fell in love with the show, and with the woman at the center of the show.”

Emma Nigut

Nigut, an Emerson College alum-

ni who graduated in 2019 with a theatre and performance degree.

While at Emerson, Nigut intended to go into acting, but her plans changed when she decided to move to New York in order to pursue that dream.

“There’s something so inspiring about seeing so many people working off of their own ideas, completely living this life driven by their thoughts and what they want to create versus waiting to be [created],” Nigut said. “I made a big pivot, and I am really grateful that I did.”

Nigut randomly applied for a summer comedy internship at the Cher-

ry Lane Theatre in New York City, and on her first day she wound up working on Novak’s show. At the time, Nigut was just a production assistant but quickly fell in love with the show and worked her way up.

“I completely fell in love with the show, and with the woman at the center of the show, and just worked so hard and tried to stick around as much as I could,” Nigut said. “That’s how I started working on the show as I was a random, fourth or fifth intern on the project.”

Alexandra Schwartz of The New Yorker wrote a review on Novak’s show, describing the depth which could be found in Novak’s comedy.

“Her comedy is an overthinker’s delight, and a reminder that a woman’s humor can cut as deeply as her rage,” said Schwartz.

Nigut said Novak has served as an inspiration for her as she embarks upon a career in theater. “[Jacqueline’s] just the most hyper-

active, scholar-level, brilliant mind up there with her attention on specific

subjects that you wondered about your entire life,” Nigut said. “I felt such deep gratitude for her selecting [blowjobs]].

She’s teaching her audiences the act it-

self is what it is. But, the way that we think about it, and the way that we

talk about it, it’s been so dictated and imprisoned by other people’s ideas about it without our like consciousness.”

The first time Nigut saw Novak perform “Get on Your Knees,” her mind was blown.

“I felt like a groupie that sees a band for one performance in their small town [and] suddenly their

Novak performing/ Courtsey Jacqueline Novak

world is flipped upside down,” she said.

Novak created the discount code “EMERSON25” for Emerson students to get $25 tickets to her show. When entering the theater, audience members will have to show either their physical vaccination card or a photo. campbell_parish@emerson.edu

ArtsEmerson hosts an open house, their first event

Cont. from Pg. 1

“ArtsEmerson is trying to change the culture of theater,” she said.

“When I came to watch a play at the Paramount, it was a play that had a lot of music, and we were snapping and dancing and having a good time in the theater.”

In addition to providing a space for nostalgia and reflection with the open house, ArtsEmerson also hoped to relieve the apprehension and fear that has now become associated with large spaces, like theaters, during the pandemic.

“Very early on into the pandemic, we decided we wanted to find a way to let people ease back into theater,” said Kevin Bacerra, ArtsEmerson’s creative producer. “We wanted to create an event which made space for people to reflect about the past year and their hesitations, but also had this edge of hope and excitement that we finally get to take advantage of these

assets again.”

“It’s about building a bridge,” Howse said. “It’s about going back into these spaces which we’ve been told are unsafe and creating an opportunity for people to slowly reorient themselves. This is also a bridge to preparing these people for our upcoming events which will resume in person in November.”

To help people feel more comfortable while attending upcoming in-person performances, ArtsEmerson adopted several new protocols to help keep the audience safe and protected from the virus.

“We have a number of safety protocols which are in place, and we are constantly adhering to science and the guidelines of public health officials,” Howse said.

“Masks will be mandatory, we’ll have contactless ticketing, the theaters are cleaned regularly, and we have state-of-the-art ventilation

“Arts

Emerson is trying to change the culture of theater.” systems. We’re going to be learning as we go and making adjustments as we go.”

Audience members are likely to remain cautious when determining whether or not they will flock

to shows with the frequency they once did, despite theaters being given the go-ahead to reopen months

ago.

“I recently went to an event and they made you show your vaccina-

tion card,” Lazu said. “There were like 200 people there and because of needing to show a vaccination card, I did feel safer. Here, if it was smaller and every other seat, I might feel more comfortable.”

Howse and Bacerra said they hoped that the open house would allow potential audience members to remember the importance of theater, and encourage them to be a part of what makes it so special.

“All of the shows are free to students, so it’s really a part of campus which enriches the student experience,” Howse said. “We love to see more students coming in not only to experience the shows, but also to tell us what that experience was and help us grow with them.”

Lazu emphasized the importance of theater within a community, especially ArtsEmerson’s role as a creative production company.

“If they take everything else away from us, we can still do theater,” Lazu said. “It’s one of the few mediums that we can do for each other, we can’t let it die because the culture of it is really stuffy, and I think ArtsEmerson is really trying to change that.”

After having gotten the chance to explore the gorgeous theater that we call our campus, I can personally say that I am very excited to come to know this experience as one of my own. I am looking forward to reintroducing it not as a risk or a danger, but as an important and unique part of my new, non-pandemic life at Emerson.

mariyam_quaisar@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

September 9, 2021

7

Emerson alum creates daily newsletter

Alum Ricky Downes III writes and performs his own Lion King parody

Downes III performing the Lion King. / Courtsey Ricky Downes III

Karissa Schaefer Beacon Staff

Anum Hussain with her daily newsletter “Below to Fold”. / Courtsey

Karissa Schaefer Beacon Staff

In 2020, Anum Hussain ‘13 launched Below the Fold, a free daily newsletter determined to catch stories

that fall in between the cracks of mainstream media outlets. Below the Fold aims to do just as the name suggests — making news that gets stashed below the fold of a newspaper easily accessible.

Hussain, the newsletter’s chief executive and co-founder, transitioned from journalism to digital marketing during her time at Emerson, beginning a five-year marketing career after graduating. Using her knowledge and previous love for working in media, she decided to combine the two careers with Below the Fold.

“I really missed media,” Hussain said. “But I wanted to think about it now through this lens of marketing, about how you deliver the right content to the right customer at the right time.”

After her time at Emerson, Hussain attended MIT to get her Masters of Business Administration, where she got the idea for Below the Fold. At the start, Below the Fold was a company that sought to help users find information in news quickly with the help of artificial intelligence. The newsletter was a weekly product at the time, and consumers kept asking for more, Hussain said.

“That’s what made us decide that we should send a newsletter to help people discover these stories,” Hussain said. “It started as a weekly thing on Fridays. We saw that people really wanted more so we started to shift twice a week and people were asking for more, so we switched it to three times a week. We’re now a daily, fully operated content business.”

The newsletter completely transformed and became the daily product that subscribers know and love after users told the company their favorite aspect of the

product was finding news stories they hadn’t seen elsewhere.

“It really came from the voice of our users who were using our tech product and were struggling to keep up with news, and now we have a number of readers who tell us they subscribe to a number of major newsletters, newspapers, and the stories that we send them are ones they’re not seeing at any

“Below

the Fold sweeps up missing stories that are just as important.”

Anum Hussain of these sources,” Hussain said.

As stories on publications like The New York Times usually dominate news headlines on any given week or day, Below the Fold sweeps

up missing stories that are just as important—whether that’s regarding world news, the environment, technology, and more, Hussain said.

“We studied the landscape of news today and found it’s really hard to know what’s happening in your world beyond the trending headlines,” Hussain said.

“Now that we are in this fully digital atmosphere, Below the Fold does the job of digging up

those hidden stories and helping you see stuff past what that front page is.”

The Below the Fold team goes through a multitude of news sites and mobile apps, scanning for stories that don’t make the front page on mainstream news outlets. All of Below the Fold’s revenue comes from dedicated sponsors, Hussain said.

“We look at everything across the board, similar to other news companies. Our main differentiator is finding ‘below the fold’ stories,” Hussain said.

Hussain and her co-founder, Vivian Diep, met at MIT. The pair runs the newsletter full time as a two-person team, with help from interns and contractors.

The newsletter is built during pitch meetings on Mondays, where members of the team explain how the stories fit in Below the Fold.

“At the pitch meeting, we bring stories that we think are worthy for Below the Fold that haven’t been talked about, and have everyone on our team voice why they think that story is a great one for our audience,” Hussain said.

Hussain said their selection process takes “news wellness” into consideration, a term they coined for mental health and news consumption. Each newsletter has a temperature gauge at the top, informing the reader of the edition’s news wellness. Interns help research the positive, neutral and negative balance of stories, then Hussain and Diep write and edit drafts for each edition.

“News wellness is all about how you stay informed while balancing

your mental wellbeing,” Hussain said. “That’s something we really care about as more people are stressed from the news, as more and more people are tuning out the news because of its impact on your health. Every pitch meeting, we look at what is our balance of negative, neutral, and positive stories so throughout the week we’re giving you a mix.” karissa_schaefer@emerson.edu

“The Lion King but it’s Just One Guy” began when Ricky Downes III ‘15 was a junior at Emerson—now, the production, a one man show, is free to stream on YouTube after it completed a successful run in New York City before the onset of the pandemic.

Downes, who graduated as a visual media arts and animation major, combined his love for the classic Disney film and his passion for character acting to put a new spin on an old favorite.

“It was really just born out of the fact that I love The Lion King,” Downes said. “As a kid I watched it all the time. It started as a little joke that I could probably do a one man show of it, but eventually I just thought ‘let’s build some puppets, let’s do a crazy thing, let’s be silly!’ It was a big hit at Emerson, so I guess it worked out.”

He said he aimed to not only have fun himself, but also to inspire laughter and silliness in his audience, which is exactly what he did.

“Julie Taymor, who created The Lion King on Broadway, said the last thing she wanted to do was bring a cartoon to life,” Downes said. “She wanted to take the text of The Lion King and adapt it into theater. My goal was the exact opposite—I just wanted to make a cartoon come to life.”

Though the script is unchanged from the original movie, Downes worked to ensure that his production had a unique spin and was reminiscent of his own fun-loving personality.

“Writing the remake was a lot about adding in a lot of jokes and improvisation, just little tweaks which added more wackiness to the original script,” Downes said. “The real humor comes from the impressions of some characters, and others who are just completely different from the original.”

With the help of fellow alum Gene Meyer ‘14, a stage hand and technical assistant for the show, Downes put on a production which captivated the attention of his fellow Emerson classmates and peers.

“With the show, everything is so out there that we didn’t know how it was going to be received,” Meyer said.

“I remember the day of, [Downes] filled the whole theater up and it went really, really well. It was a

great performance, especially for the fact that it was a one man show with only stuffed animals as props. People loved it.”

The duo wound up putting on several performances in the Cabaret theatre before closing the curtain on the show in 2013.

The show’s new re-emergence as a fully functioning New York City production can be credited to the 2019 live action remake of The Lion King.

Downes rented out the People’s Improv Theater, an iconic venue which hosts many stand-up and improv shows, and was able to improve the show with the new space and equipment available to him.

“When the live action remake was coming out, I thought it would be a good idea to revisit this idea and adapt it,” Downes said. “We created some different sequences, touched up the staging, fiddled with the puppets.

The biggest thing that we revisited is that I created a lot of new animations.

‘I Just Can’t Wait To Be King’ became a big animated sequence, and, for ‘Hakuna Matata,’ I projected sing-

alongs so the audience could engage with me as I performed, and they actually did, which was very fun!”

When compared to the original performance of the show, Downes has taken on a more technical aspect and added advanced animation. Downes took charge of building an audience to fill the theater, something he had always accomplished.

“One thing that really helped with the marketing aspect was that Disney was putting out a ton of advertisements for their live action remake, and our show was the same opening weekend as that,” said Downes. “I just parodied all of their promotionals and kind of hopped on the success of the Disney remake to promote our own show. It was very useful and definitely kept the buzz of our show going.”

As a result of his innovative marketing strategies, the show was a hit once more; it had attracted the attention of comedians and comedy lovers across New York City.

“I didn’t know how a New York audience was going to take this, but once again, the theater filled up and I was amazed by the fact that it was actually received even better than before,” Meyer said, who again worked as a stagehand on the production. “It got bigger laughs this time around than it even did at Emerson, which was really awesome to see.”

Due to the show’s success, the theater invited Downes back for an encore performance, which once again, attracted a full house. While the pandemic put a stop to any further performances of the show, Downes recently uploaded the edited footage to his YouTube account, which proved to be a difficult task.

“I’ve done a lot of video work before, but this was definitely the hardest editing job I’ve had so far,” Downes said. “We filmed both the summer show and the encore show, but we ended up needing to merge the two and that editing process took all of July and August.”

Even despite the complexity of the writing, producing, and editing processes, Downes is proud of the piece of art he created and is satisfied with the success that it had garnered in its run as a New York City performance.

“I could not be happier with the initial success of the show and was so happy that the New York comedy scene embraced it with such open arms,” Downes said. “The most rewarding part of all of this was definitely the laughs.”

In transitioning from an Emerson production to an independent one, Downes encourages current students to take advantage of the resources available to them while they can.

“If there’s any Emersonians who want to make their art, just do not forget the fact that you can get everything at Emerson for free!”

Downes said. “Renting out an actual theater in New York City compared to just filling out a form at Emerson is, you know, kaching, kaching.”

Even despite his success as an independent comedian, Downes recalls the many lessons and skills he learned at Emerson. The lessons have helped him make a name for himself in the performance industry today.

“Emerson taught me the importance of marketing and promotion, and creating a community of collaborators who can help you when you need it. It’s really just about creating a space where creative people can all feel welcome and know that their opinion is valued,” Downes said.

“When you do that, the final product is bound to be a success.” karissa_schaefer@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

Sports

September 9, 2021

8

Fun-loving ultimate frisbee team set to return to comptetion

The Emerson Skunks at practice. Murphy Robey / Beacon Correspondent

The Emerson Skunks at practice. Elaina Bolanos / Beacon Correspondent

Tyler Foy

Beacon Staff The emphatically fun and inclusive Emerson Skunks, the college’s ultimate frisbee team, are once again preparNortheast Mixed Regionals Division B championship they won in 2019.

On Sept. 3, the Skunks were present at Emerson’s in-person organization fair in the Bobbi Brown and Steven Plofker Gym. After two hours of potential recruits signing interest forms, the team mage of the year.

President and co-captain Jared Merhigh. About 40 players—with 60 percent of them being new to the team—atthat isn’t even the full numberamount that could potentially perform with the team.

Vice President and co-captain Audrey Cai said she was astounded by the numberamount of players that came out.

With such a large crop, the team was forced to adjust their plans.

“I was really surprised about how many people came out,” Cai said in a phone interview. “I’ve never seen that in my entire time at Emerson. With so many people, we kind of had to divide people into groups based on skill level and everything, and we had to scrim-

The Skunks pride themselves on being an open community and welcoming to all skill levels. After the stunningly

fun. Everybody knows their role and when it’s time to work hard.”

To assemble this community, the

nament is in early October at the Lemony Fresh Fall Classic located in Rhode Island.

COVID-19 restrictions halted the team’s competitions for the 2020-21 cult — but with in-person competition returning, the Skunks are excited to compete once again.

“Most of the kids last year weren’t able to scrimmage because of social dis-

having group dinners at the dining hall.

“We have team dinners at the DH focus on the fundamentals.

“I would say about half the kids have never played ultimate before,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s always a little skills aren’t quite there. But look back in two weeks from now and a lot of them are going to improve tenfold in the next two weeks.”

The Skunks pride themselves on being able to forge a community amongst the team, Vice President and co-captain Jamie Leuchs-Curtis said.

“One of our main values is promoting an uplifting atmosphere,” Leuchs-Curtis said. “We try to cheer players on with every small accomplishment and keep it positive. Hopefully, that’ll encourage new players and make them feel welcome in our community.”

Junior Ben Aliber praised the team’s ability to take their roles seriously, but keep a positive, uplifting atmosphere for all members. That community is part of what prompted him to return for a second year on the Sskunks.

“I feel like there’s inclusivity,” Aliber said. “There’s a lot of respect everyone has for each other. Everyone here takes practice seriously, even though there are times where we can goof off and have

bring people to the tournament, based on attendance turnout.”

Last time the Skunks had the opportunity to compete they proved they were capable of competing with the best teams around — defeating division one Providence College at the Northeast Mixed Regionals championships in 2019.

Despite their prior success, the Skunks aren’t focused on winning at all costs — instead, they feel the joyful environment they create that keeps students mobile is the most important thing they offer the Emerson community.

“We aren’t always about winning,”

COVID to have everyone meet up is break up into groups and mix it up at the DH and have everyone go and sit with new kids so they can meet.”

On top of the team dinners, players have been getting familiar with one anpractice. Leuchs-Curtis said he has been impressed with the ability for new recruits and veterans to mix. selves and among the returning players that they were starting to have conversations with,” he said.

The Skunks, unlike a traditional sports team, aren’t strict about practice and are accommodating to players who have to miss a session. That policy has led to new players organizing amongst “ I’m actually very surprised because a lot of the newcomers are taking a lot of initiative with ultimate like they’re already making plans,” she said.

The team was able to host limited practices throughout the 2020-2021 school year but are excited to return to -

The Emerson Skunks at practice. Elaina Bolanos / Beacon Correspondent

Elaina Bolanos / Beacon Correspondent

hadn’t really played that much ultimate just in general. Everyone’s really excited to get out there and play other schools, go to tournaments outside of Massachusetts, and get the full experience of the sport.”

Tournaments are one of the ways that the team has bonded in the past, and are a key component to grasping the ultimate frisbee experience, Leuchs-Chris said. Leuchs-Curtis said that it is a key component to grasping the ultimate frisbee experience.

“It’ll be really exciting to play formal games with these new players,” Leuchs-Curtis said. “Having a year of COVID with these new players, they didn’t really get the full experience. I’m really excited to go to tournaments and introduce so many people to playing ultimate and to the community that we have.” with the Skunks unable to compete, making his impending debut in competition that much more exciting.

“I’m really excited because it’s a bonding experience to be able to travel with this great group of people and get the experience,” Aliber said. “I’m also really excited for the tournaments because it’s, you know, a time just to let loose, have fun but also you know to play ultimate which is what we’re training here.”

With such a large roster, the team will not be able to take all members to tournaments, forcing the Skunks to implement a new system to select who gets the chance to attend.

“We can’t take 50 kids to a tournament,” she said. “That would be unrealistic but we’ve been talking about it, we’re gonna take attendance this semester. We have four practices a week and we are making sure people come to at least two. We’re going to see if we can

and I think that having some sort of physical activity in college can be a really great way to spend your time.

Sophomore Henry Cheney said he plans to join the Skunks this semester after playing ultimate frisbee in high school. He agreed with the team’s mindset that community is more important than winning.

“I mean it’s competitive, but there’s spirit of the game,” Cheney said before

Elaina Bolanos / Beacon Correspondent

practice. “Everyone calls their own fouls and along with the regular score of the game, there’s also a spirit score that both teams give each other. It tells who made the game a lot of fun, those that were good winners or good losers.”

Cai said there is a lot of enthusiasm about getting to compete, but she feels her mentality might have to change before the games begin.

“I’m extremely excited that tournaments are back again,” she said. “I come from a more competitive background.

But since I am Captain right now I gotta tune that mindset down a little, and make myself go into the mindset of loving everyone on my team, and what I need to make sure is that everyone is enjoying themselves while enjoying ultimate.”

As the team looks forward to the tournaments later this season, Merriprepared as possible in their time along with concentrating on building that family atmosphere the team is known for.

“Our biggest goal is just to get everyone up to speed on all of our offenses and defenses that we run,” he said. “But I would say more than that, it’s really just making sure that we build the community that we had, pre-COVID.” tyler_foy@emerson.edu