Marlboro students, faculty adapt to Emerson after merger, RBG

Thursday, Sept. 23, 2020 • Volume 74, Issue 4

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

@berkeleybeacon // @beaconupdate

Marlboro students, faculty adapt to Emerson after merger Karli Wallace

Beacon Correspondent Sarah-May Schultz’s first visit to the old Marlboro College campus, tucked away in the hills of rural Vermont, came when she was just 38 days old. Eighteen years later, she would call that campus home.

That home, to Schultz and her peers, has become a casualty of the Emerson-Marlboro agreement that was finalized two months ago. The agreement effectively closed Marlboro College, transferring all of its assets and endowment to Emerson while the campus was sold to the nonprofit Democracy Builders.

In the merger’s wake, Schultz, now 19, is coping with a move to bustling downtown Boston. The loss of the Marlboro campus has hit students particularly hard.

That campus, some say, was a part of the fabric of their community.

“I feel like it was a place where sitting at the dining hall felt like you were sitting with family.” Schultz said

Tristan Homewood and Jillian Gillman in the Marlboro cafeteria last year.

Taylor Penney Courtesy

of the Marlboro campus. “When we had visitors, we welcomed them like they were our own. There’s such a sense of place, too. It’s hard to put into words how much we’ve lost in that. You could wander into the woods, and it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. Most of my classes were in an old farmhouse.

There are so many aspects that we appreciate [about Emerson] and there are a lot of people who are trying really hard, but some of those people don’t have a whole lot of power.”

Schultz and her fellow students and faculty absorbed into the Emerson community now feel the absence of Marlboro’s freeform academic study structure that allowed students to design their own major. “[Marlboro] was the first educational environment where I felt I truly belonged, and I feel like a lot of students get that sense of belonging has been stripped from us,” Schultz, a second-year, said. “It’s difficult to finally have what you want and need in Marlboro, Pg. 2

Students see weeks-long textbook shipment delays College official says order process ‘running smoothly’ Alec Klusza Beacon Correspondent

William Blackwell Kinney, Derek Delson, and Maxwell Reid (left to right) gave students 24 hours to write a screenplay in quarantine. Aleiagh Hynds Courtesy

In lieu of first-year orientation, three students create DIY screenplay competition Lucia Thorne

Beacon Correspondent After the pandemic pushed traditional freshman orientation into Zoom, new students Maxwell Reid, Derek Delson, and William Blackwell Kinney decided to put together an orientation activity of their own

for incoming first-year students.

The three students decided to start a screenplay competition where students would write a 10-page screenplay in 24 hours while quarantining during the week of move-in, from Aug. 21 to Aug. 31. The winner and runner ups have yet to be announced but will be posted on the Class of 2024’s Instagram account run by

first-year Qingshi “Rocky” Meng. “l wanted to create my own kind of challenge like [the 48-hour film festival] for the film community as a way to get to know each other and have fun in the same style as a film festival,” said Blackwell Kinney, a Visual Media Arts major from St. Paul, Minn.

Screenplay, Pg. 6

INSIDE THIS EDITION College to suspend non-tuition credits for first-year students next year Pg. 3

Mail-in voting, Pg. 5

Alumni share paranormal experiences on viral Mafia Facebook Pg. 6

The dangerous pitfalls of mail-in voting Pg. 5 Senior volleyball captains say goodbye to final season Pg. 8 Incident Journal Pg. 8

Students have reported significant delays in receiving textbooks, more than three weeks into fall semester classes, after the ordering process was shifted online as a precaution against COVID-19.

Several students have said they are still waiting on textbooks ordered more than three weeks ago, though college officials insist orders are being filled in three to five business days as expected.

Senior Performing Arts major Devin Davis-Lorton ordered their books a week before classes started but has yet to receive them.

“I had somebody that I didn’t know go to the bookstore four different times for me, and every single time he went, they gave him a different story of why they didn’t have my books,” Davis-Lorton said in a Zoom interview. “I tried calling them five to six times. I tried multiple different days. I emailed them, they finally responded to my second email. And there’s no way on their website to

track your reservation.”

The delays come after the college transformed the textbook annex in the alleyway into an on-campus dining space, leaving the bookstore on Boylston St. responsible for processing student book orders. The college transitioned the ordering process online as part of its campus “de-densification” effort.

But Director of Business Services Karen Dickinson, who oversees the bookstore and the textbook annex, maintains that the order process is still running smoothly and that she is unaware of any delays.

“You order [the textbooks], and it takes three to five business days to get onto campus,” Dickinson said. “I do know if you order it at two o’clock in the morning, it will not be on campus for your nine o’clock class.”

Dickinson said that students who are experiencing delays can contact her or the bookstore for information on their order, though Davis-Lorton said the bookstore was unresponsive to their phone calls.

“The only person telling me information about the bookstore was Bookstore, Pg. 2

14 positive COVID-19 tests 16,700+ tests administered at Tufts Medical Center

0.08% positivity rate, more on Pg. 3

News

College backpedals on spring break cancellation

Andrew Brinker, Charlie McKenna, & Dana Gerber Beacon Staff

College administrators walked back earlier statements confirming the cancellation of next semester’s spring break Tuesday after faculty questioned why they were not included in conversations surrounding the schedule.

The reversal, announced in a virtual faculty assembly meeting, comes after what appeared to be a finalized version of the spring calendar was quietly posted on the Emerson website last week, without a spring break. A college spokesperson later confirmed that the break would be cancelled for health and safety reasons.

“In order to ensure the health and wellbeing of our campus community amid the continued pandemic,

and to provide more options to our students as part of the Flex Learning plan (including an expanded Winter Session for 2020-21), Emerson has adjusted the Spring semester for 2021,” a statement from the spokesperson reads. “Like many colleges and universities across the country, Emerson’s Spring semester will not include a Spring Break in March.”

After being pressed by faculty during the meeting as to why they weren’t consulted on the decision, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Michaele Whelan called the schedule a “proposed calendar,” a change now reflected on the college’s website.

Spring break, along with a number of other recognized holidays, are included in the full-time faculty collective bargaining agreement, a legal contract between Emerson College and the full-time faculty union. The contract dictates that full-time faculty

Textbook delays come after annex becomes dining space

The Berkeley Beacon

must be consulted before changes to the schedule relating to those holidays are made.

“In order for them to eliminate the spring break, they have to... have union leadership approve that change,” Chair of Faculty Assembly Heather May said in an interview after the meeting.

May said Academic Affairs may have been unaware of this stipulation before posting the schedule as if it were finalized.

“I do believe that it was simply an oversight by Academic Affairs, but it could have been avoided by just checking in with their faculty leadership,” she said. “To me, that says that they don’t feel that something as important as the calendar needs to be run by the faculty.”

The 10-day break, which usually begins near the end of February, was said to be cancelled to prevent students from traveling and then returning to campus within a short timeframe, Maureen Hurley, director of student transitions and family programs, wrote in a post in the college’s parent Facebook group.

Under the proposed calendar,

classes would begin on Jan. 19, about a week later than the typical semester start date.

May said she will send a survey to all faculty and staff members by the end of the week to solicit their opinions on the schedule.

Whelan said the Calendar Committee, which is composed of faculty and administration and makes recommendations on the academic calendar, also plans to meet next week to discuss the schedule further.

That committee has not met since the summer of 2018.

“This version of the calendar would require faculty union support,” Whelan said in an emailed statement after the meeting. “I think the survey will raise good questions, and the committee will work together to address those.”

The calendar is the first hint at the college’s plans for the spring semester. A college spokesperson said last week that officials are actively planning for the spring semester and will release more details in the coming weeks.

Some faculty members voiced support for the elimination of spring

Cont. Pg. 1 “the guy that I was texting that I met on the Emerson College Slack,” Davis-Lorton said.

Lydia Prendergast, a first-year Creative Writing major, also ordered her books before the start of the semester, though she eventually canceled her order after waiting for more tha three weeks. She said she was given no explanation for the delays.

“Teachers are not really sure what to do,” she said. “People are turning to online sources, but that does not work for me because I can’t read on a computer.”

Prendergrast said she lost patience with the bookstore and found another source for her books.

“I ended up canceling my order and just ordering them on Amazon,”

Prendergast said.

Davis-Lorton said the order delays have left them behind on coursework.

“I had missed so many assignments that I had to make up the week that I got back from quarantine,” Davis-Lorton said. “It was unreal.

I’ve just been doing homework twenty-four-seven because I had to. I really had to catch up.”

Professors encouraged students to borrow a friend’s copy or find an online PDF until their books arrived, but Davis-Lorton said these solutions were unrealistic.

“A professor said to have one of my friends in the class scan copies of the book for me and not only do I not know anyone in the class, but that’s a lot of pages to illegally scan for a student,” Davis-Lorton said.

September 24, 2020

2

break, since it may help to lower COVID-19 transmission brought about by student travel.

Nancy Allen, a professor in the Marlboro Institute, raised concerns about the mental health toll that a semester with no breaks would take on students and faculty. Communication Sciences and Disorders professor Lisa Wisman Weil posed the prospect of “reading days,” or allotted time to study with no scheduled classes, before finals.

The spring calendar will also affect how professors plan their spring semester classes, Allen said.

Boston University and Northeastern University’s calendars both include a spring break in early March.

Other schools, like the University of Florida and the University of Tennessee, have canceled their spring breaks.

“It may very well be exactly the right thing to do—that’s really not the issue,” May said. “The issue is just that we have to follow the procedure as put forth by the college and the union.” contact@berkeleybeacon.com

“Somebody ended up taking pictures of some of the pages, but they were not easy to read.”

High textbook prices make weekslong wait times an additional burden, they said.

“I spent $208 on all of my books, and as someone who’s paying rent and utilities and for food, that’s so much money to not even get the books that I need by the time that I’m supposed to read them by,” Davis-Lorton said.

“I’m calling them today to be like, I do not need this book anymore. But I don’t know if they’ll pick up.”

alec_klusza@emerson.edu

Marlboro community adjusts to life in downtown Boston Cont. from Pg. 1 your life and education, just to have it taken away from you.”

The transition between the two radically different college experiences has been incredibly challenging, Schultz said.

“I’ve had a lot of personal difficulty with the fact that with this new lifestyle change that I’m here, at a school I wouldn’t have gotten into and wouldn’t be able to afford.” Schultz said. “I’ve been asked by a few Emerson students why I came if I didn’t want to be here, and it’s because we didn’t have a choice. And to me, that lack of choice comes from the vast societal shift towards capitalization of education, and not valuing smaller schools.”

Some Marlboro students have reported feeling a sense of apathy from Emerson students.

“There’s this level of apathy that we’ve experienced with some of Emerson’s students,” Schultz said. “That was so discouraging for me, because I haven’t seen that level of apathy since high school. It’s difficult to finally have what you want and need in your life and education, just to have it taken away from you.”

Senior Charlie Hickman, the former Marlboro Head Select-Person— Marlboro’s equivalent of a student body president—said the Emerson community has not made an effort to embrace them and their peers.

“One of the worst things for me personally was having to go through orientation for the millionth time, es-

pecially since I was an RA or a Peer Advisor at Marlboro.” Hickman said.

“To have to go through this process all over again, and be lumped in with the transfer and new students breeds a resounding sense that because we’re Emerson students now, our history at Marlboro doesn’t matter as much anymore.

Emerson’s tuition has also become a concern among former Marlboro students, as Emerson’s tuition rate is more than $20,000 more than Marlboro’s was. Emerson allowed Marlboro students to continue paying Marlboro’s tuition rate unless they transfer out of the Marlboro Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies or leave the Boston campus.

“We fundamentally don’t have the same opportunities that Emerson students have.” Hickman said. “A lot of people aren’t aware, but [Marlboro students] can’t utilize things like Kasteel Wall or the Los Angeles campus because we need our aid more.

Even if we wanted to, it’s just simply out of reach, because then we’d have to pay full tuition just for wanting to have a good education. It’s just upsetting. Students shouldn’t have to limit their interests in college like that.”

Hickman said the sale of the campus to Democracy Builders has further complicated the community’s feelings about the merger. The nonprofit plans to convert the campus to a hybrid model secondary school called “Degrees of Freedom.”

Following the announcement of the sale, Democracy Builders Founder

Seth Andrew was accused of cultivating a racist, sexist environment at his Democracy Prep high schools.

“It feels like Marlboro went out with a whimper, as opposed to a bang,” Hickman said. “That was worsened by the controversy with Democracy Builders, and made speaking at Marlboro’s final commencement feel like speaking into a void.”

Former Marlboro faculty members have hosted two meetings amongst themselves to discuss curriculum changes, address the concerns of students and provide them with guidance, Associate Professor Seth Harter said.

“Different people involved in the merger over the last year have used different terms to characterize it,” Harter said. “But it’s not like Emerson moved to Marlboro. Obviously however much of Marlboro’s people, spirit and academic culture we carry on, it’s kind of up to us to find a niche for that, not the other way around. We didn’t have much leverage to make it otherwise.”

Associate Professor and Director of Curriculum and Administration Amy Vashlishan Murray, who worked closely with Marlboro faculty on making curriculum changes during the merger, said that her department has been aiding Marlboro students so they can complete their educational goals.

“We really have two streams of students from Marlboro,” Murray said.

“We have students from Marlboro that we’re committed to help them finish the work that they began, within our accredited programs. The other

Taylor Penney Courtesy stream is the new stream of incoming students, and considering how their trajectory will be different than if they had been back at Marlboro, and I think we have room for imagining.”

Harter praised Emerson for its handling of the acquisition.

“I guess the remarkable thing for me, going back to last year in November, is how supportive and respectful Emerson has been, given the inequities of scale and security,” Harter said.

“But, I don’t think it had to be that way.”

The merger was met with animosity and anxiety from community members due to the scope of the deal, Harter said.

“The concerns were really wide ranging, mainly due to the existential nature of the process.” Harter said. “I think for some people, as soon as the deal was announced, it was greeted as a death sentence. Other people took a

more optimistic viewpoint to suggest that the parts of Marlboro that we valued are in the community. I think the tension between those two outlooks occupied a lot of our attention. Some people didn’t want to get too invested in the process, mainly because they felt it wasn’t going to last.”

Harter said it has been challenging for faculty to adapt to the larger class sizes and different learning styles of Emerson.

“There was a smaller manifestation of education at Marlboro,” Harter said.

“I taught most of my classes in my office because it had a conference table in it, and we were all barely a foot apart. At most, there were 10 of us in a class. Now, we have come to re-think everything we’ve done- from assignments, emails, everything. We have to do it a different way.” karli_wallace@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

September 24, 2020

3

Charlie McKenna Beacon Staff

College officials temporarily rolled back a decision Tuesday that would have prevented first-year students from earning non-tuition credits for their participation in select student organizations.

Student organization leaders say the policy was introduced at the start of the semester without their knowledge. Administrators swiftly reversed the decision after Women in Motion Marketing Director Emily Cerutti launched a Change.org petition intended to lobby the college into lifting the rule. The petition had garnered 86 signatures in the five days before it was closed.

Cerutti launched the petition after learning of the policy from a firstyear student in Women in Motion’s first general meeting on Sept. 11.

“No organization leaders or clubs were ever told of this decision that was made before school started, so I was not aware of it until Friday,” she said.

The college initially decided to prohibit first-year students from earning non-tuition credits as part of an overhaul of the co-curricular program that has been in the works for several years, Dean of the School of the Arts Robert Sabal, who oversees the co-curricular process, said.

Several on-campus organizations—primarily print, broadcast and filmmaking organizations, including The Beacon—offer a single non-tuition credit each semester for participating members. Students can earn up to four non-tuition credits over the course of their time at the college. Students enroll in the organization as if it were a course in addition to their typical school work.

Cerutti, a second-year student, said she joined student organizations in an effort to meet fellow students, but the non-tuition credit serves as a badge of recognition for students’ work in the organization.

“Gaining that non-tuition credit is sort of like a little gold star,” she said. “You did your part, you came to these clubs, and you get something on your actual transcript saying that you showed up and were dedicated to something.”

Sabal said the college plans to once again prohibit first-year students from gaining non-tuition credits in Fall 2021 when the pandemic has presumably subsided.

“The concerns I’m hearing now, I don’t think we would have heard if it had been a normal semester,” he said. “I don’t think it would’ve affected the signups of students in the co-curricular groups, and I don’t think it would’ve been perceived as a

An Emerson Indepdent Video (EIV) shoot.

Courtesy Wilson Chao

College to remove non tuition credit for first-years in 2021 disincentive.”

The decision to reverse the policy was announced in an email to student organization leaders from Director of Student Engagement and Leadership Jason Meier Tuesday, following the launch of Cerutti’s petition four days before. Cerutti credited student organizations who directly reached out to administrators for the change.

“While this effort was done to better align with academics and does not impact who can be in your organization, we realize it’s having an unintended consequence to engaging with students this year,” Meier wrote in the email.

The college, Sabal said, wanted to encourage first-year students to explore different organizations before making the commitment to register for the academic course attached to the organization.

“What we learned from doing this work is that there are many freshman students who are engaged in multiple student organizations their first-year as a way of exploring particular areas they are interested in and looking for a home in a particular area,” he said. “First-year students should absolutely have an opportunity to get involved in any student organization that they’d like to be involved in.”

Sabal said the college wanted to make a clear distinction between co-curricular courses and extracurricular activities because not all student organizations offer a non-tuition credit for participation.

The changes were part of a planned overhaul of the co-curricular program, intended to alter the

Administration initially eliminated the option last month

co-curricular experience to better resemble 300-level courses, which first-year students can not traditionally enroll in. Sabal said the college plans to have organization advisors craft a syllabus for their co-curricular as well as consider “student learning outcomes” in designing the course.

“What differentiates doing organizational work…from co-curricular work that gets academic credit?” Sabal said. “That’s the question that we were trying to answer, and that’s the question that led us to this particular set of decisions.”

Sabal defended the college’s decision making process and said former Student Government Association officials were involved in ensuring the policy reflected the needs of students.

Cerutti said she believes that revoking the non-tuition credits for first-year students creates an unfair standard.

“It makes them seem as if they’re not dedicated members to a club, as if they don’t get recognition for their work or their time commitment to these organizations,” she said. “I just don’t think it’s fair to tell a freshman they can’t get non-tuition credit because it’s a 300-level course… it’s basically like taking a 300-level course over four semesters.”

Emerson Independent Video Unit Manager Thomas McCorkle, who oversees EIV’s non-tuition credit process, said he was disappointed in

the college’s decision. Students who join EIV can do as much or as little work as they want to, regardless of their class standing, he said.

“Gaining that non-tuition credit is sort of like a little gold star” - Emily Cerutti “It doesn’t exactly matter which grade you’re in that determines how much work you have to do for a non-tuition credit,” he said. “I know some people who are freshmen that are executive producers of shows, and I know maybe like juniors or seniors who could be PAs, grips, or lighting designers. Yet still they’re both able to receive non-tuition credit if they fill out the requirements.”

McCorkle echoed Cerutti in saying that he did not receive advance notice from the college about the new policy.

“We checked back through our

emails, we tried to make sure that we hadn’t missed anything, and I don’t think we did,” he said. “That being said, it was when people started trying to register for the credit online that I started getting emails about it.”

McCorkle said he doesn’t see a benefit in removing the non-tuition credit from first-year students.

“I don’t exactly see how removing non-tuition credit would be an advantageous decision because it’s definitely something that can limit people’s engagement on campus,” he said. “Especially for EIV, we gauge our workshops to be more focused on freshmen because freshmen will sometimes come into the school and we have no idea what skills they’ve learned and what skills they haven’t.”

First-year student Harrison Bates told The Beacon that the prospect of earning college credit for his participation in activities was an additional incentive for him to join.

“When I found out about this, I was excited because if I can do what I really like to do… and actually get some academic credit, that’s an awesome thing,” he said.

Another first-year student, Caroline Reese, described the college’s decision as frustrating.

“I know that if I was putting in time to work on videos in clubs or write articles that [weren’t] part of my schoolwork and not get credit for it… if other people were and I wasn’t, it would be frustrating,” she said.

charles_mckenna@emerson.edu

Dining Center temporarily closed Wednesday after vendors’ positive tests Andrew Brinker & Charlie McKenna Beacon Staff The Dining Center temporarily closed service Wednesday morning after college officials announced three new positive COVID-19 tests among food vendors.

The closure was announced late Tuesday night via an email from “COVID-19 Lead” Erik Muurisepp out of “an abundance of caution.” Several students confirmed that the Dining Center was still open for service Tuesday night, though diners were only permitted to enter the center through the Boylston Place entrance.

Two of the positive tests turned up in Monday’s testing batch, and the college has since performed “another deep clean” of the center in addition to the three other typical cleanings throughout the day, the email confirmed.

One of those individuals frequently works in the Dining Center, while the

other is an employee of the same vendor who is not typically on campus.

The other individual who tested positive was last on campus Friday, Sept. 18 and worked “solely in the Lion’s Den.” That positive test led the college to close the Lion’s Den for the weekend. As of Wednesday night, it remained closed. College officials did not inform students of the closure until an email from Muriseep Tuesday afternoon.

Muurisepp said the college has been in contact with public health officials, and contact tracing efforts did not find any other positive tests relating to that individual.

Muurisepp’s email indicates that vendors are tested weekly and are required to fill out the college’s symptom tracker. The college had not previously informed community members that vendors are required to be tested.

Faculty and staff members were given the option to be tested weekly, but the college has not required it.

As of publication, the college

The Dining Center remained open Tuesday night for dinner before closing Wednesday morning.

Beacon Archives has reported 14 positive tests out of 16,733 that have been administered.

The cumulative positivity rate sits at .08 percent.

In the past, the college has elected not to reveal whether students, faculty or staff accounted for the positive test results announced on the Emerson COVID-19 dashboard. Muurisepp

said the college decided to reveal more details about the positive tests in the name of transparency.

“In an effort to be as transparent with our community as possible, while also maintaining the confidentiality of our testing program, we are writing to share non-identifying information about the positive cases and the mea-

sures we are taking to safeguard the health and wellbeing of our community,” Muurisepp’s email reads.

Muurisepp was not immediately available for comment.

contact@berkeleybeacon.com

The Berkeley Beacon

September 24, 2020

4

Dana Gerber Beacon Staff

Every day for two weeks, Dylan Scott woke up in an empty four-person suite in the Paramount residence hall to the view of sun cast on a brick wall, breakfast waiting in a box outside the door.

Scott is one of at least 15 on-campus students who have entered the college’s designated Washington St. quarantine space for those ill with or exposed to COVID-19.

Scott arrived on campus two weeks early to be an orientation leader. He entered quarantine on Monday, Aug. 24, two days after seeing a friend who later tested positive for COVID-19.

The friend, a Northeastern student, met Scott at the Esplanade to catch up after being apart for six months, since the onset of the pandemic.

The following evening, while Scott and his suitemates were watching “Euphoria” in their Piano Row common room, Scott’s suitemate, Erin Renzi, who had also gone to the Esplanade, received a phone call from her and Scott’s friend, telling them he had tested positive (Renzi is a former Beacon staff member.)

“Honestly, I thought it was a prank,” Scott, a second-year Visual and Media Arts major said in a Zoom interview from quarantine. “It mostly was just complete shock because it was like, ‘How did this happen?’ And then you’re kind of just like, ‘Okay, what are the next steps?’”

That night, Scott and Renzi contacted the Associate Director of Student Transitions and freshman orientation leader David Todd, asking to be tested the next morning. Scott woke up Monday around noon to a call from the Center for Health and Wellness telling him he would have to quarantine for the next two weeks in the Paramount residence hall, even if he tested negative for the virus.

Scott was given 30 minutes to pack two weeks’ worth of supplies into a cart: clothes, pillows, blankets, books, snacks, and his computer and chargers. Soon after, he arrived at his temporary home—a bare four-person suite. One room’s door was locked; the other was his. Renzi moved into a suite directly beside him.

Immediately after their move, he and Renzi went to get tested at Tufts Medical Center. Though he eventually received a negative test result, Scott worried every time he felt anxiety-related shortness of breath, convincing himself he had the virus.

“It was pretty nerve-wracking, coming in here and then having to actually wait for the test, because I had never been in a situation where I was actually concerned that I had it,” Scott said.

That short trip to the testing center would be the last time he would step outside of his new temporary dorm for the next four days. Scott soon settled into a routine. Upon waking up, he picked up a bagged breakfast of eggs, bacon, potatoes, oatmeal, and juice that was left outside of his suite about four hours earlier at 8:30 a.m.

Twice a day, he had to email his temperature and any symptoms to the Center for Health and Wellness. For the week he was in quarantine before classes began, he typically slept until noon.

“I sleep for as long as possible just to kill time,” he said.

When in-person classes began, he contacted his professors to explain his circumstance. One professor forgot to send him a Zoom link to ‘attend’ an in-person class. The other sent a link, but Scott said it was difficult to hear all the students because the class was held in the large Bill Bordy Theater.

As the days went by, he read books, working through George Orwell’s “1984” and Virginia Woolf ’s “To The Lighthouse.” He ate lunch. He committed to watching Paul Thomas Anderson’s entire filmography. He scrolled through TikTok. He sweat through workout videos in the hallway of his suite over Zoom with Renzi. He shopped online for clothes and vinyl records. He hung a sock and a “Pulp Fiction” t-shirt on the otherwise

Dylan Scott in his Paramount quarantine dorm (top); a microwave and refridgerator provided by the college (far right); the heap of snacks Scott compiled from meals (right)

‘There’s really no concept of time in there’ A glimpse into two weeks in on-campus quarantine naked walls for decoration. He ate dinner, and vowed with Renzi to splurge on a nice, sit-down meal when they got out.

A fridge and microwave were waiting in the room when he arrived. Any uneaten snacks went to his closet, where Lay’s potato chips piled up. The snacks he brought dwindled slowly, and he tried to ration four packets of his favorite fruit gummies. He took hour-long showers, willing time to move faster. He would finally crash around midnight, drained from a long day of doing nothing. He slept on his own linens, finding the ones provided rough and scratchy.

“It’s taken a huge toll on my mental health, just being in this room,” Scott said, sitting at the desolate dorm’s nearly-empty desk.

Facetiming his boyfriend and friends helped him connect to the outside world. His parents called him daily to check in, asking him what was new. “Nothing,” he would tell them.

“Absolutely nothing.”

Knowing that Renzi was in the adjacent suite eased Scott’s mind. They tapped on their common wall, sending messages to each other in secret codes.

Hearing her on the phone or walking around was a comfort through the solitude, he said.

“It’s really nice just like having that,

at least, and knowing someone else is there,” he said. “Not that I would wish this experience on anyone, but I’m glad that I have somebody that understands this experience because I don’t feel like I could do it justice trying to explain.”

The one time he left Paramount was to get tested again, four days after his quarantine began, per the direction of the Center for Health and Wellness.

He walked to and from Tufts Medical Center with Renzi, finding out upon return that a Resident Director was supposed to accompany them on the trip. Their tap access was restricted while they were quarantined, so ECPD had to come to let them back into Paramount.

The doors to his suite weren’t locked, Scott said, so the restricted tap access was seemingly the only barrier against leaving the residence hall.

“What is stopping us? Absolutely nothing,” he said. “Technically, you could sneak out, but you would have no way to come back in.”

His second test came back inconclusive, apparently due to a lab error. However, he couldn’t get retested because the Center for Health and Wellness later told him he was never supposed to get a second test to begin with, contradicting their first instruction.

On Sunday, Sept. 6, Scott and Ren-

zi were permitted to return to Piano Row—a full two weeks since they had left. They had to wait for confirmation that the Center for Health and Wellness had received their temperatures before they were allowed to leave. The Center opens at 9 a.m.; they submitted their temperatures at 8:30 a.m.

“If there was a way for us to get out two minutes earlier, we would take it,” he said in an interview on Sept. 15, over a week after emerging from quarantine. “We were so eager to get out of there.”

Carts were left outside their rooms to transport their things back to 150 Boylston St., and they spent most of the day unpacking, doing laundry, and getting resettled. That night, they got dinner from El Jefe’s Taqueria.

But that weekend, they made good on their promise and had a sit-down meal at Fajitas & ’Ritas, a few blocks from campus.

“That was like our little celebration,” he said.

When Scott’s suitemates would tell him what took place in the suite while he was in quarantine, Scott found it disorienting, calling the two-week experience “a blur.”

“It hadn’t felt like we were gone for that long, but also it felt like I hadn’t been back in the suite and seen my friends for months,” he said. “There’s

really no concept of time in there.”

This experience, Scott said, has also changed how he thinks about the pandemic. Scott said his friend who tested positive for COVID-19 rarely left his apartment, and wore a mask every time he did. Despite his friend’s positive test, he remained asymptomatic, and all of his roommates tested negative for the virus.

“This has basically taught me like, no matter how safe you are, you’re still at risk—no matter what,” he said.

“Even if you do everything right, there’s still a chance, which is scary.”

With newfound caution in mind, he said he is now excited to explore Boston more and has plans to go to The Fens and Faneuil Hall.

“I’m so excited to go and I feel like I’m going to appreciate it so much more,” he said. “I wish that I hadn’t spent so much time sitting in my dorm before I was locked up.”

He said he is grateful now even for the small normalities—the minuscule, guaranteed annoyances of everyday student life.

“Paramount feels like ancient history,” he said. “Even when I wake up for my 8 a.m. and have them on Zoom, and I’m like, ‘Ugh,’ I’m like, ‘At least I’m not in Paramount.’” dana_gerber@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

September 24, 2020

5

Opinion Mail-in voting is still not accessible for everyone Jacob Seitz

Beacon Staff This election season, a vast majority of the American population is likely going to vote by mail. The COVID-19 pandemic has upended just about everything in our American way of life, including the way we vote.

Like anything else, voting by mail has become a divisive issue in the American political sphere. Democrats have pushed for it, at times spinning somewhat fantastical narratives about the post office’s ability to carry all the nation’s ballots. Republicans, on the other hand, have started to spin their own narrative about how voting by mail drives up the possibility of voter fraud—an argument they’ve used before that has nearly no basis in fact.

Mail-in voting seems like the future. The idea that no one will have to take time out of their day to go vote— instead casting their ballot from the comfort and safety of their own home—sounds great. And, as Robbie Shinder wrote in a recent Beacon piece, “It’s now easier than ever to vote without heading to the polls.”

I agree with Shinder. It’s easier to vote now than it has been in a long time. But not for everyone—not for young people, for minorities, for really anyone but white, older, middle-class and upper-class Americans.

In Florida’s 2018 election, mail-in ballots submitted by voters between the ages of 18 and 21 were rejected at nine times the rate of their older counterparts. In the same election, non-white voters were two times more likely to have their ballots re-

jected than white voters. In California, more than 100,000 ballots were rejected in this years primary, largely because of a missed deadline. Nationwide, more than 500,000 ballots were rejected in the 2020 primaries.

Ballots can be rejected because of improperly marked boxes, an unverified signature, or no signature at all.

To count in the California primaries, ballots had to be mailed on or before Election Day and be received within three days of the election. Rejected ballots may not affect the presidential election in November (Hillary Clinton took California in 2016 by a 4.3 million vote margin). But they could affect closer house races.

Democrat TJ Cox upset Republican David Valadao to represent California’s 21st Congressional District in 2018 by winning by less than 1,000 votes. Cox and Valadao will face off again this November. Not only do rejected ballots make it harder for some Americans to vote, but it throws the entire election process into turmoil, allowing whichever candidate loses in November to contest the election.

In some states, like California, voters will receive a ballot to their mailing address that they can change by filling out some paperwork and mailing it to their elections office.

This not only requires people to have internet and access to a printer, but with 13.6 million people—or twice the population of Massachusetts— still unemployed, requiring people to pay for postage to vote safely is immoral at best and unconstitutional at worst.

In Ohio, for example, a Republican-controlled budgetary board rejected the Ohio secretary of state’s plan to prepay postage for all of

Jacob Seitz / Beacon Staff Ohio’s absentee ballots. Ohioans will likely have to pay for their own postage this fall, which puts Ohio—and every other state without prepaid postage on their ballots—in possible violation of the 24th Amendment, which abolished poll taxes. Further, the Supreme Court ruled in 1966 that “[a] State’s conditioning of the right to vote on the payment of a fee or tax violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” It is worth noting that courts around the country have ruled against classifying postage as a poll tax, but those were in states that had in-person voting as an option.

Pre-paid return envelopes are the ideal option, but Postmaster General Louis DeJoy recently suggested states use first-class mail to get their ballots counted on time, a measure that would nearly triple the cost of postage for already cash-strapped states.

On top of it all, mail-in voting also requires the voter to have an address to mail a ballot to, presenting an issue for the nation’s nearly 568,000 homeless people. Five states currently use an all-mail voting system: Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and Utah. Utah and Washington requiring an ID or a social security number in order to register to vote in their elections. All five mail-in-only states require an address to mail a ballot to.

Voting for homeless people in Hawaii has already become a trying issue, and voters in Arizona—which has incredibly strict voter ID laws—must request a ballot be mailed to them in order to vote.

Some counties are trying hybrid approaches. Orange County in California rolled out a new initiative this year that placed more than 100 secure drop boxes in the county while shuttering nearly 1,200 polling locations and replacing them with 188 voting

centers, which the county hopes will boost voter turnout. These centers will be open ten days prior to the election, including weekends, and can provide a tailored ballot for any voter residing anywhere in the county. However, first-time voters voting in person in November are still required to show some kind of identification.

Mail-in voting has always been a pipe dream to get more people to the polls. It can alleviate some problems in our current voting system, but it brings with it a whole host of new challenges. As November quickly approaches, it’s important for us to realize that not everyone has the means to participate in our democracy. Voting is a right that should be afforded to all Americans, and accessibility to that supposed right should be something continually fought for. jacob_seitz@emerson.edu

We were never getting the college experience we expected Shannon Garrido

Beacon Correspondent For those of you who spent too much of your childhood obsessing over Legally Blonde and Beverly Hills, 90210, like me, you probably had an inflated image of what college life would be like when you got here.

I imagined sitting in giant auditoriums with eager classmates, listening to lectures from old professors. Movies and books convinced me that everyone I would meet in college would be a genius and that football would be the only sport people cared about.

When I started high school, I liked to imagine the scenes from teen movies where the hall was my runway.

But when that didn’t happen, it wasn’t a huge surprise. I don’t consider myself a “glass half full” kind of gal, so expecting grimmer outcomes than my fantasies suggest is a given.

Still, three weeks into my time as an Emerson student, I’m already taken aback. My expectations for what college life was going to be like could not have been further off from reality, although that’s mostly due to this global pandemic.

I am part of the cohort of first-year students who elected to learn entirely online this semester. It’s a small subsect of the 17 percent of Emerson students who chose the virtual education option this fall semester. Far fetched as my expectations were, none of us pictured freshman year this way, with me logging onto Zoom to attend classes, professors’ office hours, and student organizations’ meetings.

I found myself blaming my inabil-

Jocelyn Yang / Beacon Staff ity to cope with my schedule due to the unpredictability of online classes. Jennifer R. Keup, the director of the National Resource Center of The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, found this is part of the “freshman myth,” a psychological phenomenon where new college students have overly optimistic expectations, which may include maintaining a steady study schedule. Many high school students overestimate their ability to adjust academically to college. Even for the majority of undergrads who don’t drop out their first year, this level of naiveness leads to disenchantment and a detrimental

effect on not only academic performance but also social, personal, and emotional adjustments.

But it’s not just me or the pandemic that are a problem.

Most high schoolers have unrealistic expectations for college. In a normal, pandemic-free, world, 30 percent of college freshmen drop out after their first year, according to College Atlas. Many do so because college doesn’t end up how they expected, leading to academic or social frustrations. Now that the U.S. is battling this pandemic and suffering from one of the worst unemployment rates in history, this number is

bound to increase. It’s no secret that being an active participant in-class activities, clubs and any other college endeavors is much more difficult through a screen.

The glamorized perception of the college experience makes this condensed and socially distanced semester seem so much worse. It makes the rain seem like a hurricane. Although we will miss out on so much, we should also be aware that half of what we saw in “Pitch Perfect” wasn’t real.

It’s almost comical how ingrained these perceptions are to students that we don’t even realize we have them.

Those of us starting college online

will most likely not receive the same kind of orientation, thus might lead to rude awakenings early on. This pandemic has completely changed our “firsts” for college—those initial days of orientation and moving days with our loved ones just aren’t the same.

Most of us who were making the big move across state or international lines were preparing ourselves to leave our homes behind and become more independent. Now it seems that we are not “experiencing” anything.

We are simply stuck at home submitting assignment after assignment.

Early intervention can serve as an important tool to adjust and set realistic views of the college experience.

I suggest that all high school students applying for college should do more than just look up their major. Talk to current college students. The internet is full of resources about the authentic college experience. Prospective students shouldn’t walk in with their eyes closed.

More importantly, remember that this is a chance to take care of yourself. With the changes college brings, there needs to be a balance between working hard and self-care.

First years should take the time to reach out to others in their dorm, join campus organizations, and seek out resources that provide academic or personal support.

College is never what we expect and the sooner we come to terms with this, the easier it becomes to succeed.

And especially this year, it might be wise to keep our expectations lowered at all costs. shannon_garrido@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

September 24, 2020

6

Living Arts Getting ‘ghosted’ at Emerson? It’s more common than you think.

Karissa Shaefer

Beacon Correspondent While working a lighting call on “Follies” in the Cutler Majestic Theatre, Greg Crafts ‘03 remembers being pushed to the edge of the top balcony by a ghost.

“I literally felt a hand in the center of my back shove me in the direction of the edge of the balcony,” Crafts said. “It was terrifying.”

When he later told his friends what happened, they said that ghostly encounters are normal occurrences at the theatre, which was built in 1903. In fact, Crafts is one of dozens of alumni to experience a paranormal encounter on campus.

On Sept. 9, students, professors, and graduates in the Emerson Mafia Facebook page shared their paranormal encounters in different college buildings—from the Cutler Majestic Theatre to Piano Row, Kasteel Well and the Colonial Building.

In a discussion with more than 100 likes and reactions started by Mafia member Olivia Lusk asking users to share their ghost stories, nearly 200 commenters discussed the ghosts that seemingly haunt every corner of campus.

One hotspot for Emerson ghost stories is Piano Row. While Little Building now houses all first-years, Piano Row recently housed new students as well.

In 2015, alumni Megan Raible ‘19 said she was returning from the Max Cafe with two of her suitemates when the elevator door shut in front of them as someone was walking in.

“It was just like a darkish figure

that walked onto the elevator,” Raible said in a phone interview.

When Raible and her roommates pressed the elevator button to go up to their dorms, the same elevator the figure had walked in opened before them. But the person they saw enter moments ago had vanished, Raible said. From that day forward, the same elevator would open every time Raible used the printer during late night hours.

Raible also reflected on her time spent at Kasteel Well, the location of Emerson’s study abroad location in The Netherlands. The heart of the Dutch campus is now a renovated medieval castle from the 14th century, and the space named Sophie’s Lounge within it is named after the castle’s infamous ghost, a teenage girl who allegedly died in the castle in 1816. Raible attributed all of her interactions with ghosts at the Castle to Sophie.

“Everyone just kinda knows there’s this little girl ghost who likes to knock on doors and open the doors to mess with things,” she said.

Sophie is known to be more playful than malicious, said Raible. Similar to other Facebook commenters, she also heard stories of friends’ windows opening during the middle of the night after being left closed.

Senior creative writing major Kyle Eber, president of the pagan and metaphysical student org Emerson Mystic, shared his own experiences “cleaning” people’s on-campus rooms of spirits. To get rid of the negative energy, he would start out by using sage, then later switching to palo santo, which is a wild tree herb used to treat stress and clear out negative

Alumni shared stories of paranormal experiences at the Charlesgate Hotel, a former Emerson dorm.

Stock Photo energy.

The following year, when he lived on the 10th floor of the Colonial building, he himself saw a female figure standing by his bedside on numerous occasions.

“I never felt scared,” Eber said. “It was just generally always a sense of unease, pain, and sadness.”

As head usher for the Cutler Majestic Theatre, he also noted how heavy the energy was on the top balcony.

“You always feel like there’s a pair of eyes on you, and it’s dark too,” Eber explained.

Eber said he heard creaking and sighing while closing up the empty

Paramount theater one night. When he was being trained, he was told by his manager that the third floor girls’ bathroom was haunted. Anytime she locked the bathroom door, all the toilets would flush at the same time, Eber explained.

Yet the first time he had to do it alone, the flushing never occurred.

Some of the stories on the Mafia page reference buildings the college no longer owns, like the Charlesgate Hotel—a spot one Oct. 2019 Emerson Today article called “the most haunted building ever owned by the college.”

Comments referring to the Charlesgate mentioned Ouija boards

being prohibited, seeing a little girl on the third floor, and papers flying across rooms. A Feb.1990 article in FATE magazine also said Ouija boards were allegedly banned from the building, because of “their psychological effects on students due to evil messages.”

With the recent interest in the Mafia post, Emerson Mystic thought it would be good to host a ghost discussion in the future about how to cleanse properly and maintain respect.

“If you have a haunting or have a bad spirit, take a deep breath and not freak out,” he said. karissa_shaefer@emerson.edu

First-year students launch 24hr quarantine film competition Cont. from page 1 While reading about the college’s re-opening plan, the mandatory quarantine period caught Reid’s attention.

He said he saw that as a perfect opportunity to create a screenplay while awaiting his test results.

Reid suggested the idea to Blackwell Kinney, who he met at Emerson’s “Picture Yourself” event in February. Blackwell Kinney then proposed to challenge Delson and his roommate, who the pair met online, to see who could write a better screenplay in 24 hours.

“I was excited about coming to Emerson for the 48 hour film festival, which is not going to happen during COVID,” Blackwell Kinney said during an in-person interview.

This idea reinvigorated the group, so they decided to bring that feeling back to their peers. It then evolved into a competition that would go on to welcome 44 screenplay submissions.

A month before setting foot on campus, Reid, Blackwell Kinney, and Delson consulted each other over FaceTime to figure out the logistics of how the competition would work and who the judge would be.

“There’s so many small things that you don’t think about, especially under the circumstances of COVID and quarantine,” Delson said. “We had to really consider a lot of different things.”

The team debated how many pages should be required from participants, what parameters should be added, and how to ensure safe practices would be followed in regards to public health. But the question of

First-year student Maxwell Reid (middle) thought to write a screenplay during his post-arrival quarantine.

Maxwell Reid Courtesy who would judge the films proved to be more difficult to answer than the others.

After coming to the consensus that they would not judge the competition themselves, Delson reached out to the VMA Department Chair and Professor Cristina Kotz Cornejo to see if any faculty were available to judge.

She said professors were unavailable to judge because they were too busy rebuilding curriculums for the semester, but that they were supportive of the idea.

“When [Delson] contacted me,

he was proposing this challenge that while they’re in quarantine they would work in teams, obviously in their own dorms collaborating, I thought that was a great idea,” Kotz Cornejo said in a phone interview.

“When I told the faculty, they were also like ‘This is a wonderful way for them to get to know each other but also to engage in the filmmaking and screenwriting process.’”

Delson wanted someone with experience to judge the competition, so he reached out to Emerson graduates and was able to recruit alumni

Noah Garfinkel ‘06, Chris Romano ‘00, Jon Rineman ‘05, and Elizabeth Zephyrine McDonough ‘06 to judge the submitted scripts.

Not only did this competition encourage students to create again, but it also relieved some of the anxiety that comes from attending college during a global pandemic. First-year Aaron Razi Baseman said the competition gave him a sense of comfort.

“Writing about times that don’t really involve a pandemic is certainly a nice form of escapism,” Baseman said.

Freshman Magnolia Louis, an Interdisciplinary Studies Major focusing on screenwriting and journalism, was interested in the competition because she saw it as a way to test her abilities early on in her Emerson career.

“I really wanted to see how well I could do under pressure and I also wanted to engage myself with as many Emerson opportunities as possible,” Louis said.

In addition to testing his abilities, first-year Jacob Warman wanted to make up for lost time in quarantine and jump right back into screenwriting.

“I wanted to push myself and see what I can do,” Warman said. “I call myself a filmmaker so I might as well be one.”

And Michael Rivera said the opportunity helped him develop his skills as a screenwriter.

“I learned how to take my ideas and put them on a page, which is something I couldn’t really do before,” Rivera said. “Given the time constraint, given all the factors of the challenge, I was able to actually put it on there because I had that deadline.”

Delson said he is glad he could help students get involved in something creative from the beginning of their time at Emerson.

“It felt great to know that we helped some people get a creative project out that maybe they wouldn’t have gotten out if they didn’t have this challenge,” Delson said.

lucia_thorne@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

September 24, 2020

7

‘Boys State’ docuseries to stream at Emerson Thursday

SPECIAL DISPATCH FROM D.C.

Grace Rispoli

Beacon Correspondent

“Boys State” takes place during the American Legion’s 2018 Texas Boys State, a week-long program that educates high schoolers as they play politicians in a mock government. Released in August by Apple and A24, the film has quickly proved its relevance in the 2020 election year, giving viewers an inside look into the inner workings of the political world.

The filmmakers and several subjects of the docu-series attended press conferences hosted by A24 Films, with those present dissecting the film over Zoom on Sep. 20.

“We wanted to have a conversation about the things we care about just in a different way, and I think the discovery of Boys State and of [the main subjects] was,” said filmmaker Jesse Moss. “They could make us laugh, they could make us cry, they could make us think.”

Boys State can be streamed through Apple TV+ and can be viewed through Emerson College on Thursday, September 24, at 7 p.m.

EST. Following the showing, A24 at Emerson will host a post-screening conversation with partners Emerson College Polling Society to discuss the film.

Held in 49 states, the Boys State program separates attendees into two parties at random: federalists and nationalists. The parties then get to debate their political platforms, pass faux legislation, and nominate candidates for elections. The highest office one could win in the program is governor of Boys State.

The program emphasizes the idea of learning through doing, Moss and fellow filmmaker Amanda McBaine said. While much of the documentary focuses on the run for governor, attendee Ben Feinstein said the whole point of the program is not just to see the results of elections, but to understand why elections are held in the first place.

“The program definitely reaffirms your commitment to democracy and understanding of why we do this,” said Feinstein.

The documentary follows four main subjects through their week at Boys State: Steven Garza, Robert MacDougall, René Otero, and Feinstein. Each is assigned to the Nationalist Party, unlike Feinstein, who is placed in the Federalist Party. Boys State follows MacDougall and Garzas they battle for the party nomination of governor.

Moss said the boys felt more like characters than subjects.

“We’re very fortunate, and I think it’s a compliment when people are like ‘These feel like actors, this feels like a scripted film,’” said Moss. “They’re all real people. This all happened in front of us while we were filming. Nothing was planned in advance.”

While McBaine and Moss had planned on following him for their documentary, they did not expect him to get as far as he did in the campaign for governor, where he received the nomination from his party. Garza is a political, racial, and socioeconomic minority, and his soft spokenness left McBaine unsure if he could command a room like Garza did.

In “Boys State,” Otero—who did not join the Zoom call—said that the conservative atmosphere of Texas Boys State is something all liberals

Courtesy A24 at Emerson need to experience. He said in the documentary that he believes deep down, everyone has a desire for bipartisanship.

“It just reminds me that this country is capable of,” McBaine said. “If people are given a chance, then their voice is heard.”

MacDougall and Garza took different approaches to winning the Nationalist nomination for governor. MacDougall assumed most of his party was very conservative and chose to compromise some of his views, such as his pro-choice stance on women’s reproductive rights, as mentioned in the film.

Garza said his approach was “Running on a very non specific platform of uniting all these Texas Boys State in the time of extreme polarization.”

Garza beat MacDougall in a run off election for the party nominee.

While MacDougall lost, he showed support for Garza not only in the film, but two years later in the press conference.

“Steven [Garza] is someone who actually ran on what he believed in... that ended up showing me that you don’t have to lie to win all the time, you don’t have to be dishonest,” MacDougall said last week. “If you actually have those conversations, take the time, get to know the people around you....you can actually make progress.”

Garza expressed on the call the necessity to sit down and have these conversations across parties as he did during his time at Boys State.

“I wish that more politicians around the country would actually sit down with the opposition, not the enemy,” Garza said. “That way, they’d be able to go home that night and say, ‘You know what, for all the problems we had when we, [fought], we did something good today for the American people.”

Through the four boys and their peers, McBaine and Moss were able to tell a story they think reflects a bigger picture than simply the details of the week-long program.

“It mirrors the politics that we see in our country today and we’ve seen you know the sort of structural conditions that we’re fighting against people whose voices have been denied, been disenfranchised.” Moss said. “...I really think that is the larger struggle of this country.” grace_rispoli@emerson.edu

A SUPREME COURT JUSTICE, FEMINIST, AND ICON REMEMBERED WASHINGTON D.C. — Throngs of mourners gathered outside of the U.S. Supreme Court building Friday to remember the life of longtime Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ginsburg was a prolific champion of women’s rights and served on the nation’s highest court for nearly three decades. She died that evening of complications related to pancreatic cancer. She was 87. This Friday, she will lie in state at the U.S. Capitol.

Stephanie Purifoy / Beacon Staff

The Berkeley Beacon

September 24, 2020

8

Sports

Women’s volleyball seniors reflect on careers cut short by pandemic

Tyler Foy Beacon Correspondent Last fall, the women’s volleyball team shocked the conference. In the two games leading up to their first ever NEWMAC championship game, in their first ever NEWMAC playoff run, they fought back from being two sets down and won as underdogs.

Seniors Albany Alexander and Grace Tepper thought they would get the chance to return to the playoffs this year and capture the team’s first championship. But on Friday, July 17, the New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference unanimously voted to suspend the conference due to the pandemic, ending the two captains’ final seasons.

“I was under the impression that things would go back to normal in the fall, into the normal pattern that they have for the past three years,” Tepper said in an interview with The Beacon.

“But when the summer started to go on, Coach Read would email us frequently, and he said that there were possibilities but was ultimately optimistic like the rest of us were. So to get notice that the NEWMAC or that Emerson had just basically removed itself from possible play was a big shock. I really didn’t expect it.

As the only team members from this year’s graduating class, Tepper and Alexander have been leading a young team on the court and helping the program reach new heights.

In Tepper’s first season, she had 267 kills, 11 assists, 32 aces, 16 blocks and 219 digs. Her 3.18 kills per set ranked sixth in NEWMAC. And in Alexander’s first season, she posted 146 kills, four assists, 59 digs, 43 blocks and two aces. Two seasons later, as juniors, Albany made the NEWMAC Academic All-Conference team for the third straight year, and Tepper became the first player in the program to be named to the NEWMAC First Team All-Conference.

Head coach Ben Read said the girls joined the team with only a small handful of other recruits.

“They were the smallest recruiting class I’ve had at Emerson,” head coach Ben Read said in an interview with the Beacon. “But it’s kind of by design.

We weren’t trying to go ahead and just build that. We are trying to bring people in to make our team bigger. We were trying to bring people in that can impact the program.”

Read said Tepper and Alexander led by example as they pushed the team to achieve more success than the program had ever seen before.

“They lead by example both on and off the court and have helped reshape

our culture,” Read said. “They brought positive attitudes, the kind of fun, easygoing personalities, but the competitive drive they have on the court has been huge. We definitely would not have been able to accomplish what we have, in recent years, mainly last year…without both of them.”

Junior outside hitter Carolyn Vaimoso said having Tepper and Alexander as leaders helped all the players become friends as well as teammates.

“They taught me that it’s not about just being on a team, they really helped the team be best friends and keep a good environment,” Vaimoso said.

“Because if we have an environment that is friendly and loving, then it would definitely help us be better on the court.”

As teammates, Tepper and Alexander said they clicked and complimented each other very well. Off the court, they both were attracted to Emerson because of its reputation as a well-regarded journalism school. In the team, being the only two in their recruitment class brought them close together.

“When it comes to Division III sports, a lot of people play and figure out it isn’t for them,” said Tepper. “For Albany and I, it was always just the two of us in our class. And we’ve literally been through all of it together. So it’s really nice to be a captain alongside her. I just knew it was going to work out really well. And that we would compliment each other in different ways of leadership and different ways of communicating.”

Alexander said that they were able to evenly distribute the responsibilities of the captain role, which made the task easier.

“I was so grateful to be captain with Grace,” Alexander said. “Grace and I really worked together. She is great at being a person that the girls can come to if they have a problem. We actually ended up having a great split of different girls that each of us connected with the best, and we would reach out to check in with their mental health, check in with how they’re feeling about games, struggling with how they’re feeling about practices.”

During her first two seasons with the team, Vaimoso said having Alexander and Tepper helped keep her in the right place mentally on the court.

“A lot of times, I’ll feel like a chicken with its head cut off,” Vaimoso said.

“And like Grace and Albany are the ones that usually find it and place it right back on my body. They’re really good at keeping me and others sane.”

Both seniors’ favorite memories with the team came during last season’s playoff run.

Alexander was battling an ankle injury as the team headed into last sea-

son’s playoffs. The Lions entered the matchup as the No. 6 seed against a No. 3 seeded MIT team that had beaten them in straight sets earlier in the season—and they quickly fell down in the game.

But in what Alexander said was her favorite moment as a member of the Lions, the team battled back and won three straight sets with their backs against the wall, capturing their first playoff victory.

“MIT has always been the team that I really wanted to beat, just because they always have really tall girls on the team,” Alexander said. “[MIT]’s always been the most challenging team, for me personally. I also had a really bad ankle injury and was unsure if I would make it back …in the end, I got to get back on the court and help my team win the game as underdogs.”

Tepper’s favorite moment from her time the team came in the following game, and it came with a milestone.

While the Lions once again fell down two sets to none to Wellesley College in the semifinals, Tepper recorded her 1,000th career kill, shortly before the team did the unthinkable and fought all the way back to advance to their first ever NEWMAC championship.

“An individual moment like that always means more when it plays a bigger role in a team setting,” Tepper said.

“The game was amazing, because we had never made it that far. We were so behind. And we came back to win the last three sets, which looked I mean, basically impossible. We had so much fun doing it and it was my favorite moment at Emerson.”

Although the season is canceled, the team has been meeting over Zoom

Seniors Grace Tepper (top) and Albany Alexander (bottom) rise up for kills last season. Beacon Archives and started team workouts this week.

Tepper is still trying to make an impact on the players around her and keep connections with the team.

When asked to reflect on her time as a Lion she said it’s been an invaluable experience.

“When it comes to playing volleyball at Emerson, it’s definitely been hard, but it’s been so rewarding,” Tepper said. “The people that I’ve met and the experiences that I’ve been through with the team, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

Alexander is set to graduate in December and has opted out of team activities. Although she will not be participating with the other girls this fall,

she said she’s proud of the mark she has left on the team in the past three years.

“I started volleyball later than most girls did, I started in ninth grade, and my dream was to catch up to the other girls that were in my club, but then also to play college. I went after it,” Alexander said. “I wanted to just enjoy my time playing in college, and I feel like I got to do that. I definitely wish I could have had another season, but I feel like I entered a program and left it better than I found it.”

tyler_foy@emerson.edu

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Monday, Sept. 14. A student reported being assaulted while walking near the CVS on Washington Street.

The student was not injured during the assault.

Wednesday, Sept. 16. ECPD issued trespass warnings to two individuals found inside the Union Bank Building earlier in the day.

Thursday, Sept. 17. An officer on patrol found the front door of the Union Bank Building ajar. After officers completed a search of the building, the door was secured and

facilities management were notified for any needed repairs.

Friday, Sept. 18. A staff member reported that a person with no Emerson affiliation posted several profane videos on a College social media account. The videos have since been taken down.

A student reported that an intoxicated person attempted to strike them while walking in front of the AMC Movie Theater. ECPD are working on trying to identify the individual.

The student was not injured.