COVID-19 testing enforcement

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

Thursday, Oct. 29, 2020 • Volume 74, Issue 9

Admin strengthens COVID-19 testing enforcement Andrew Brinker Beacon Staff

More than eight weeks into the fall semester, Emerson administrators are cracking down on the weekly coronavirus testing requirement for students taking hybrid classes.

A new automatic testing compliance system, meant to streamline enforcement, began systematically barring students from campus if more than seven days elapse since their last negative test was administered. Emails to community members under the new system

threaten to suspend students from in-person learning for the duration of the fall semester if they do not comply with the weekly requirement. (Students are routinely tested at Tufts Medical Center near campus, after which their tests are processed at the Broad Institute.)

The sudden increase in testing enforcement, announced Oct. 25 by “COVID Lead” and Assistant Vice President for Campus Life Erik Muurisepp, comes with the backdrop of steadily rising COVID-19 case numbers in Massachusetts. Daily new infections topped 1,000 cases five days in

a row this week for the first time since mid-May, and college administrators are now ramping up messaging around face masks and social distancing protocols.

Before Oct. 25, college administrators enforced the testing requirement manually, Muurisepp said in an interview.

He said he and his colleague would go through students’ testing data periodically and send emails to those who were not in compliance.

Now, students receive an email on the seventh day since their last test was administered, alerting them that their campus access will be shut off if they are not tested within the next business day. “[Automatic testing enforcement] was something that we were working towards,” Muurisepp said. “To be able to create systems to manually or automatically check [compliance], versus me and my colleagues running those lists periodically and reaching out to all those students, giving them a 24 hour window Testing, Pg. 3

‘What is a platform if you’re not using it for some type of good beyond yourself?’

Austin Hand

Lizzie Heintz Beacon Staff

26

Shawna Konieczny Beacon Staff

Sophomore Austin Hand used his half a million TikTok followers to help establish TikTokers For Biden, an account rallying young voters behind Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. “What is a platform if you’re not using it for some type of good beyond just yourself and your own personal growth?” Hand asked.

Best known for his TikToks and butterfly hair clips, Hand is using TikTok to campaign for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Through TikTokers for Biden (@tiktokforbiden), Hand and 350 other TikTok users are rallying young people to vote as the 2020 presidential election rapidly approaches.

“TikTok is a pretty good representation of Gen Z in general,” Hand said. “Gen Z, as a whole, has historically been underestimated in terms of the impact that we have.”

Social networking app TikTok has become a worldwide phenomenon in just two years of existence, with their monthly active users growing from 50 million in January 2018 to nearly 700 million as of July 2020. The app uses an algorithm to filter recommended content to viewers and has evolved into a space where influencers, entertainers, fanbases, and advocates come together and share videos, not unlike the extinct short-form video-sharing application Vine.

Fellow TikToker Aiden Kohn-Murphy (@politcaljew), a friend of Hand’s who had previously asked for his help with another campaign, reached out to Hand again about helping him establish a new, politically-motivated TikTok account. Kohn-Murphy introduced TikTokers for Biden on Oct. 7.

Hand (@austincantdrive) is one of two Emerson students involved with the account. Anania Williams also creates content for the account along with running his own account (@anania00), which has 1.5 million followers and features humor and social commentary. Williams declined a request for an interview.

Hand said he acts as content creator for the account as well as a group leader, managing a group of TikTokers and organizing content.

“I’m mostly involved behind the scenes, to be completely honest,” Hand said. “I have a few cameo things and a couple videos on the main account. And then I have a video on my account promoting [@ tiktokforbiden]. But other than that, I have a leadership position.”

The account not only promotes Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, but it also brings Biden, Pg. 6

Ann E. Matica

.08%

Beacon Staff

positivity rate INSIDE THIS EDITION

Coaches attract talent despite recruiting limitations Pg. 8

Students rally for political engagement with @tiktokforbiden

ECAPS grapple with virus’ mental health effects

positive COVID-19 tests

New virtual admissions seeks to attract students Pg. 3 Editorial: Make Election Day an academic holiday Pg. 4 Voting should translate from the screen to the polls Pg. 5 Emerson Pub Club publishes two new manuscripts Pg. 7

@berkeleybeacon // @beaconupdate

Courtesy Ana Salas

‘For Americans, it’s hard, but for [international students]... where do we stand if something happens to us?’

At Emerson Counseling and Psychological Services, the mental toll of the pandemic on students has become abundantly clear.

Statistics provided by Kyle Rundles, a staff psychologist and outreach coordinator at ECAPS, indicate that 30 percent of the 256 students who have visited ECAPS this semester reported seeking services due to COVID-19.

Furthermore, 65.6 percent of students who have visited ECAPS this semester said the pandemic negatively affected their mental health.

These statistics mirror national trends. Several studies, including one by the Journal of Medical Internet Research, have noted a significant uptick in stress and anxiety in college students during the pandemic, due to social, economic, and health concerns.

This fall, ECAPS included a new question on their patient intake form, asking students if they are seeking services due to COVID-19.

“Almost everyone checks boxes in that list,” Rundles said in an interview.

Students can choose to check 14 different boxes when signing up for services, each related to parts of their lives that may have been negatively affected by the pandemic, like academics, finances, loneliness or isolation, relationships, and health concerns for oneself or others.

“Some of the main symptoms we are noticing is a struggle with motivation and focus,” Rundles said. “Anxiety is up which has to do with all the uncertainty.”

Those trends have led ECAPS to increase its online resources outside of counseling, Rundles said. The office now provides different student populations and faculty and staff at the college with more tips and resource sheets on their website. They also post mental health self-care videos on its YouTube channel.

ECAPS transitioned all of their individual and group therapy sessions online last spring and provides urgent care to students who are having mental health emergencies.

Kelly Sou, the president of Hidden Lantern, an organization that focuses on students using art to express their experiences with mental health, said that this semester, Hidden Lantern ECAPS, Pg. 2

News

The Berkeley Beacon

October 29, 2020

2

‘Plagues and pandemics’ course a reality check for students Dana Gerber Beacon Staff

For 60 students this semester, the raging pandemic is more than a force disrupting daily lives and the world economy—it’s homework.

Those students are enrolled in Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies professor Nancy Allen’s “Plagues and Pandemics” class, a course dedicated to studying the history of infectious disease. Students in both online and hybrid sections of the course have in the past studied SARS, Ebola, the 1918 flu pandemic, and HIV/AIDS, as well as the underlying science of disease transmission.

“We go through a lot of different pandemics and talk about what were the lessons learned and what worked and what didn’t because that’s what we do in the public health community,” Allen said.

Allen, a public health expert with a masters in public health from Tufts University and more than 20 years of experience in the field, launched the class in 2017. Now, she’s added a new module to the course: COVID-19.

Many course topics relate directly to some of the experiences students underwent this year, like quarantining and social distancing. Allen also teaches the nuts and bolts of a health crisis, like the terminology epidemiologists use and the data visualization of an outbreak.

To adapt to current events, Allen supplements the course material with COVID-related information.

She typically uses the same case studies every semester to explore epidemiological data; this semester, she had students look at epidemiological data for COVID-19.

Despite the course material’s

Allen’s course took a new meaning this semester. Courtesy Nancy Allen fresh relevance, Allen said the class has not been dramatically changed, thanks in part to the many nonCOVID focuses of the course.

“I teach the same thing, but I add COVID,” she said. “We talk much more about airborne transmission versus respiratory droplets than I used to. I spent a lot of time talking about the social factors as it relates to people’s pre-existing conditions and parties and things like that.”

Allen decided to limit how much the class discusses COVID-19 directly, as it can be an emotionally taxing topic for students—and herself—as they live through the pandemic. Some assignments have been scrapped completely. In previous semesters, Allen gave students an assignment to envision what actions they would take as governor of a city if a flu became a pandemic, but this semester, she said, it’s “far too real.”

Allen used to do regular updates on what the news was saying about the pandemic, but it has been a month since her last update.

“Students didn’t sign up for COVID-19 class,” she said. “I have days where I don’t want to talk about it.”

When she taught the class in the spring, Allen began to look at the progress of the coronavirus in February but didn’t bring it up to students.

It was only in March, when case numbers began to pick up speed, that she started to warn students about its potential.

“I was in denial myself,” she said.

“I had too much faith in the system holding, and the system has not held.”

Junior Anne Rinaldi, who is taking the hybrid class to fulfill her science requirement, said the relevance of the material can be eerie at times.

“It’s hard to escape it, but for plagues and pandemics, pandemics are the whole focus of the class, so it’s definitely surreal in a way,” she said. “I probably had heard the word quarantine like once or twice before COVID happened, but it’s definitely weird to see other instances in history where quarantine was a thing being used.”

Michael Hospodarsky, who is taking the class online from Chicago, said that while the class isn’t “COVID central,” much of the information from previous disease outbreaks is still applicable.

“With each pandemic that we talked about, there’s just different conversations about what did and didn’t work,” he said. “That really makes things interesting when comparing this class to current events, because you are kind of noticing those patterns in history.”

He said that one of the most jarring examples from the class of what not to do during a public health crisis was about Philadelphia during the 1918 flu pandemic when they refused to shut down the city and instead held a parade that turned into a superspreader event.

“They had to dig mass graves,” he said. “It’s just baffling how we have that evidence available to us, and we still don’t put that into practice today.”

Hospodarsky added there was one lecture about the missteps of the

Trump administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, such as delayed testing. He said this information has been eye-opening.

“My anxiety has increased after taking this class because I found out there’s so much that I didn’t realize was done incorrectly,” he said. “This class is very upsetting when it comes to the idea that humanity is good.

You want to believe that humanity is good, but then you see the real world through this class, and you’re like, wow, I didn’t realize we were so shitty at just being good people.”

Hospodarsky said he now understands concepts like the R0 of a disease, which is the expected number of cases directly caused by one case in a population where all individuals are susceptible to infection.

“There are a lot of words that still get thrown around in the news that people just don’t understand,” he said. “Taking this class is making it easier to know what the CDC and other news channels are asking us to do.”

The most daunting challenge of this semester, Allen said, has been to try to keep politics out of the science course. In semesters past, she has shown clips of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a practice she said now feels like it carries a different connotation.

“Something that has felt so normal to me—showing videos of Dr. Fauci in class—feels like a political activity now, and it shouldn’t,” she said. “I think that’s where I’m getting stuck, is that I’m teaching a science class, and I’m really determined to just teach it the way I’ve always taught it, to try to normalize it. But these are not normal times.” dana_gerber@emerson.edu

As pandemic drags on, students struggle with mental health Cont. from Pg. 1 opened up their meetings to students who want a place to talk about mental health.

On average there are six students who come to their virtual meetings every two weeks. The majority of those attendees, Sou said, are first-year students.

“COVID-19 has greatly affected this country,” Hidden Lantern’s Outreach Director Wrolanyo Mensah said.

“As youth, at the time of our lives we are supposed to be our most carefree, we have been forced to mature to save lives. This, of course, has taken a large mental toll on us. I feel like a lot of students feel isolated, lonely, and hopeless because of this situation.”

Sou added that faculty, staff, and students should be empathetic to others during these difficult times. Rundles said 51.1 percent of students who went to ECAPS this semester said they have felt unmotivated or unfocused due to COVID-19.

“Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes is very important,” Sou said.

“For the professors, I hope that they can be cognizant that people have lives outside of their classes, and that people sometimes do need to skip a class even if it doesn’t have to do with their physical health, it’s for their mental health.”

Students have expressed struggles with finding connections during the pandemic and have often reported feelings of isolation, Rundles said. Of students who have gone to ECAPS this

semester, 58.6 percent said COVID-19 has made them feel lonely or isolated.

Some students in isolation experience feelings of guilt around contracting the virus as well as increased COVID-related anxiety, Rundles said.

While the majority of students who visit ECAPS reported worsened mental health due to COVID-19, the overall number of students visiting ECAPS has decreased by 32 percent since previous semesters. Rundles said college counseling centers throughout the country have reported similar trends.

Students studying remotely in select states or internationally are not able to access counseling services from Emerson because of licensing laws that prohibit Massachusetts therapists from seeing certain outside patients. This may be one of the reasons why fewer students have visited ECAPS this semester, Rundles said.

“I feel like it has to do with a lot of remote learners,” Rundles said. “The folks at ECAPS are licensed in Massachusetts, although there has been some leniency in specific states about that.”

ECAPS has had to work on a stateby-state basis to determine what states have lifted licensing laws or offer temporary license applications for counselors to virtually meet with students.

Rundles said ECAPS can not disclose which states they have met with students in due to patient confidentiality. Students studying remotely in another country have not been able to meet with ECAPS counselors.

To boost access, ECAPS has a therapist referral service for remote students

who are in need of counseling, which pairs those students with therapists located in their state or country.

Students of color, international students, student athletes, freshmen, and seniors are vulnerable groups that may be most negatively impacted by the mental stresses of the pandemic, Rundles said.

Ana Salas, a senior communication studies major originally from Venezuela, said that not being able to return home due to travel restrictions has taken a toll on her mental state. In December, it will be one year since Salas has seen her family.

Salas said she often thinks about what would happen to the status of her student visa if she were to contract COVID-19 and not be able to finish the semester. International students must apply for an F-1 visa to attend college in the United States and are required to enroll full-time for the duration of their studies. Not being able to attend school for a long period of time could mean those students may have to apply for an extension on their visa or risk being sent home.

“For an American, it’s hard, but for [international students], since we’re in a weird ground where we do have legal status and everything but we’re definitely not Americans and we don’t have the benefits that Americans have,” Salas said. “I understand that’s completely normal. But in the era of a pandemic, where do we stand if something happens to us?”

Out of the students who have visited ECAPS so far this semester, 55.9

The ECAPS office in the Union Bank Building. Diana Bravo Beacon Staff percent reported missing experiences or opportunities due to the pandemic. Student athletes, in particular, have seen their lives uprooted by COVID-19. Amanda Benavente, captain of the women’s soccer team and a senior Business of Creative Enterprises major, said she found out the soccer season would be canceled in July.

“It was just so sad to think about something you have done for your whole life competitively ending,” she said. “Having the last year taken away from you is super hard, because [I] helped build this program to what it is and [I] helped be a part of something great and for [me] not to be able to get [my] closing chapter was just a hard pill to swallow.”

Benavente said that because this fall is her last semester before graduating, the cancellation left her feeling lost for the first time in her life.

“A lot of athletes just don’t know what they should do right now,” she said. “I feel like my whole life, I’ve always had a plan for myself, I’m someone who likes to make a plan for things and make sure that I am doing the right

steps or the right things to be in that place in the future, and this completely upended everything I ever planned for my life. My whole future basically is unknown right now.”

Rundles said it is important to normalize difficulties of COVID-19, and she encouraged students to take social media and news breaks. She also recommended students create self-care plans for the semester. Rundles added that she encourages students to check in with their friends about their mental health and be good allies.

“Shift your thought to foster flexibility,” Rundles said. “We are all facing something none of us have faced in our lifetime.”

This article was shortened for print, read the full story in berkeleybeacon.com

ann_matica@emerson.edu ECAPS offers a variety of mental health services to students, including group counseling, individual counseling, and urgent care services. Students seeking help can contact them at (617) 824-8595 or counceling_center@emerson.edu.

The Berkeley Beacon

October 29, 2020

3

Virtual tours and open houses The COVID-era prospective student experience Mark Emmons

Beacon Correspondent

In a typical year, the fall and winter months bring prospective Emerson students, eager to tour the college’s flagship campus, to downtown Boston. For some, it’s their first time in the city. For all, it’s a crucial piece of the college decision making process—sometimes the motivating factor behind students’ final decision.

In the era of COVID-19, prospective students must rely on a new, entirely virtual admissions process to determine where they want to spend their collegiate years.

Emerson’s Admissions & Aid Office has been forced to take many of their typical programs online, like information sessions, campus tours, and open houses, to conform to social distancing and travel restrictions. They’ve also introduced a digital “walk-in” help desk to answer questions from potential future students and their families.

“Our goal, certainly as an institution and admissions office, was to adapt quickly and find ways to connect with students and families,” Director of Admissions Michael Lynch said. “Keeping in mind the health and safety of the Emerson community and prospective students and families as well.”

In a regular semester, students and parents would be led on a tour of campus by student guides. After a more general trip through campus, they might be split into smaller groups and led through spaces they may frequent in their major, like film studios or performance spaces.

Current first-year students said 2019 campus tours showed them what their freshman experience on campus might look and feel like.

“It was validating, and I was already excited to come but it made me more excited,” Nicholas Wong, a first-year visual and media arts student said.

“I learned a lot more, by seeing everything and being told about what I was able to do as a freshman at Emerson, more than at other places, so I think it played a big part in [choosing to come here],” first-year Zachary Bennett, also a visual and media arts major, said.

Now, tours are conducted virtually via Zoom.

“Once they’re in the Zoom environment, we have two student tour guides that will take them through campus virtually,” Lynch said.

“They’ll describe the student experience, show pictures of facilities, and

answer questions that students and families may have. So it’s a similar construction of the experience other than it’s been converted to a virtual environment.”

While virtual tours are not nearly as immersive as an in-person visit, an upside of the virtual admissions process, Lynch said, is the access it brings to students who may not have been able to visit campus in a normal semester.

“It does provide students that otherwise may not have had the opportunity to travel to campus to see it firsthand,” he said. “By doing these activities and events certainly with a higher frequency than we would normally do, it gives those students that normally wouldn’t be able to do that an opportunity to engage with the community on a more significant level than they might otherwise be able to do without those virtual components.”

Admissions typically hosts a fall open house, where students and their families can visit campus and learn about life at Emerson. With restrictions for outsiders coming to campus this semester, it’s been adapted to a week-long virtual event.

“The idea behind it was to not give students Zoom fatigue by havng tem on Zoom with Emerson all day on a Saturday,” Lynch said.

By expanding the open house to a weeklong event, the program has become a series of information sessions designed to let students pick and choose the meetings they’d like to attend.

“The goal of spreading it over the course of a week was to give students more opportunities to find sessions that fit with their schedule, but to still expose them to many of the same experiences that they would’ve had on campus,” Lynch said.

The college designed each online program to be functionally identical to its in-person equivalent, a process that started when campus shut down in March, Lynch said.

“We realize that virtual options of anything we’ve done in person in the past won’t fully replace that feeling of a face-to-face connection you get being on campus versus a virtual environment,” he said. “But of course our goal is to recreate that experience in a virtual environment as much as we can to ensure that the students can learn about Emerson—the key thing being doing so in a safe and responsible manner, in terms of our community as well as our potential students and their families.” mark_emmons@emerson.edu

The Visitor Center on Boyslton Street. Tomás González Beacon Staff

Future of ELA spring semester still unclear

L.A. County accounts for a third of California’s COVID-19 cases

All classes at ELA were held remotely during the fall semester. Beacon Archives

Hailey Johnson Beacon Correspondent The fate of Emerson’s Los Angeles program for the spring semester remains in flux, as LA County officials have yet to approve the college’s plan to reopen the Hollywood campus.

Since March, LA County has reported more than 290,000 coronavirus cases, accounting for 33% of California’s total 904,280 cases.

Though the state is approaching the $1 million case mark, the daily infection rate for LA County is beginning to decline, according to the city’s Department of Public Health.

Some of the heavier safety restrictions that have been in place for months are set to be lifted starting this week—this includes the return of tattoo shops and batting cages, but not the reopening of schools.

In September, the college announced that the LA campus would not open for the fall semester and classes would be conducted fully remotely because of rising coronavirus cases. The only students currently living on the LA campus are resident

assistants who had been hired prior to the shift to remote learning.

The upcoming spring semester could once again be conducted remotely, or allow students to return back to campus, depending on guidance from the city, Timothy Chang, associate dean of students and chief operations officer of the program, said.

“LA County will let us know what the plan is by mid-to-late November if we’re able to open in January,” Chang said in a phone interview.

“It’s really going to be touch-and-go because it’ll be the flu season, and we don’t know how it’s going to affect the infection rate.”

He also noted that cold weather, holidays, and travel back-and-forth could have an effect on the campus reopening as well.

“They’re all three big unknowns, and they don’t play in our favor,” he said.

If the campus is opened to students for the spring semester, ELA will follow a similar testing protocol to what is already in place on the Boston campus. That testing would be conducted on campus, as there is no medical center in close enough

proximity to the campus to support Emerson’s testing needs, Chang said.

The campus would also be de-densified, with residence halls limited to 122 students instead of 217. This decrease in on-campus housing means students will have the option to live off-campus, which is a first for the program in its 34-year history.

“We don’t usually let students live off-campus, but this year, because of the reduced density, they’ll be able to live off-campus,” Chang said.

The college also plans on housing some students in local hotels at discounted rates due to the limited number of beds in the residence halls, an email to ELA students announced Friday. For students who plan to attend the program in the spring and wish to study remotely, internship courses will also be offered online.

Currently, there are no plans to cancel the program.

“I want to make it clear that we will have an LA semester,” Chang said. “It is just a matter of what way we will deliver the content.” hailey_johnson@emerson.edu

COVID-19 testing enformement automated as Mass. cases rise Cont. from Pg. 1 to go get tested.”

Once a student is barred from campus, they cannot reenter campus buildings until they receive a negative test result, the email from Muurisepp announcing the new enforcement process said.

That email was the first community-wide communication related to testing enforcement policies since Emerson released its “Back to Campus Guide” in July. The guide says not complying with the weekly requirement may result in a student’s access to campus being limited or a suspension for “at least the full academic year.”

The enforcement system is the second coronavirus testing policy shifted to an automated process in recent weeks. The COVID-19 dashboard update system switched to an automatic process on Oct. 13 after a Beacon investigation uncovered a string of inaccuracies in testing data appearing on the dashboard under the original manual update process.

Before automated enforcement began this week, the manual process held students accountable to the test-

ing requirement sporadically. Several students who went over a week without getting testing told The Beacon they skirted the requirement with no consequence.

In September, one Beacon reporter went 16 days before receiving an email from Emerson’s “COVID Operations Team” informing them they were not in compliance with the weekly requirement. They were tested the day they received the email and were never locked out of campus.

When asked about students who have gone more than two weeks without a test, Muurisepp said those students are few and far between.

“There are certainly always exceptions,” he said. “There’s people that have either not been able to [be tested every week] for medical reasons and there’s folks that have not been on campus. So there are certainly those unique situations. But no one that I’m aware of has deliberately not adhered. Of course, we’ve heard from students that have reported [someone not complying with the testing requirement]. If they hear that, and they know that is happening, that is something we hope folks would take the initiative to share...with the appropriate parties.”

The college currently has no process for ensuring community members are not being tested more than the weekly requirement, Muurisepp said. Another Beacon reporter was tested every day for one week in September without receiving any communication from the college.

“Obviously, we can’t have students testing every single day,” Muurisepp said. “One, science doesn’t really support that. Testing every day is not something that gets you anything really, besides knowing if you’re positive or not. But testing is a small piece of the overall. It’s a supply issue as well. There are only a finite number of tests that we have purchased from [the Broad Institute].”

Emerson’s weekly testing program is a key component of the college’s hybrid reopening plan, and administrators are now focused on getting through the next four weeks with low infection rates and case numbers before students are sent home, he said.

“We’re 30 days away…and I believe we’re gonna make it,” he said.

“We’re going to be able to still come together and follow all the guidelines and the guidance.” andrew_brinker@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

October 29, 2020

4

Opinion Make Election Day an academic holiday once and for all

If students had Election Day off, they could use that time to volunteer in polling places or voter protection hotlines.

Lizzie Heintz Beacon Staff

Editorial A week from Election Day, the country stands more fractured and divided. With experts anticipating a voter-turnout tsunami and young people already reporting record breaking voting numbers, Americans are nearing a historic election with potentially life-altering implications.

Although many people, young voters especially, are turning out more than ever this year, the importance of Election Day itself is often overlooked. Too many Americans go about Election Day as if it’s just another Tuesday, and it doesn’t help that the day itself doesn’t receive the kind of treatment and recognition that could potentially increase

voter awareness.

At a college that supposedly prides itself on progressivism and political engagement, it’s absurd that students, staff and faculty do not get Election Day off.

Administrators have sent emails and launched campaigns for months that are intended to make it easier to vote. They streamline voter registration and speak on the importance of civil service, of choosing your candidate, of participating in democracy. But without declaring Election Day an academic holiday, those efforts are largely performative.

Sure, hundreds of Emerson students have presumably voted absentee this year. A Knight Foundation poll of 4,000 college students found that over half plan to vote absentee or through mail-in voting. That

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means their ballots have already been signed, sealed and delivered, cast away in mailboxes and transferred hand-to-hand to students’ home states. But political engagement does not end with a stamped ballot or even at a polling place.

With Election Day off, students could volunteer at polling places in and around Boston. There, they could take the place of mostly older workers who have toiled for years and are now adversely threatened by the enduring effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. They could help out voter protection hotlines.

They could distribute “I Voted” stickers, drop by campaign events and push others to vote. Journalism and political communications students could get out in the field and experience Election Day in real

time, as opposed to taking in curated network feeds from the echochamber confines of the classroom.

The National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement reported that, in 2018, 44.8% of Emerson students voted either absentee or in-person on Election Day, and just over 81% of eligible students were registered to vote. Having Election Day off could even support more students to have more time to vote and participate in this fundamentally important civic process.

Voting is more than the bubble you fill in picking one candidate over the other. It’s an experience.

It’s a tenet of democracy that is intrinsically tied to the way our government functions and the way we live. And none of us can fully grasp its importance if on the day that decides the fate of our country, we are tied up in classes, homework, organization meetings and jobs that have nothing to do with the history being made inches from our computer screens.

This also isn’t just any election, but one that has incredibly important ramifications on the international community. Key issues such as the environment, immigration, LGBTQIA+ rights and our nation’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic are on the ballot and it is the obligation of Emerson students to vote for their fellow international peers who do not get a voice in an election that will invariably affect their ability to learn and grow in this country.

Having Election Day off is even more essential for the college’s non-student population—the faculty and staff members who call Massachusetts home and are more likely to vote in person. The last thing they should be dealing with next Tuesday is making their shift on time or teaching a class. Not when the ballot they cast could affect the future of their health care,reproductive rights, immigration status, social security benefits, livelihood and life.

President M. Lee Pelton announced in an Oct. 22 email that the college would give staff a paid half-day off on Election Day in response to the national non-partisan

movement A Day for Democracy.

But a half-day isn’t enough considering the difficult circumstances under the pandemic. Early voting at Fenway Park and other polling locations across the city had voters waiting for over an hour. On Election Day in 2016, the voting lines in Boston were notoriously busy.

Now the college has a responsibility to observe Election Day as an academic holiday to provide ample time for all community members to vote, volunteer at polling places or engage in other civic activities.

It’s not like Emerson is alone in their policy. Most major higher education institutions in Boston— Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Northeastern and UMass Boston, for example—do not consider Election Day an academic holiday.

Some offer limited paid time off for employees and encourage professors to be flexible with students’ scheduling needs that day. Still, that’s not enough.

A number of universities across the country have bowed to their communities’ pushes for Election Day off. Schools like George Washington University and University of Utah listened to advocates and now will not hold classes that day. And throngs of local students are fighting for the initiative.

Even with Election Day so close, it’s not too late to make the change.

Other colleges have declared holidays and cancelled classes on short notice—see Harvard with Juneteenth this summer or Northeastern when they declared a day of reflection for victims of police brutality.

Administrators, you can make the change. The question simply is whether or not you will.

To the college: You can’t just keep telling us that voting is important. You have to show us you believe that.

This editorial was written by the Beacon’s editor-in-chief, managing editors, and opinion editors. The opinions expressed by the Editorial Board do not impact the paper’s coverage.

President Pelton wants YOU to vote Joseph Ploscowe

The Berkeley Beacon

October 29, 2020

5

Bring the online push for democracy to the polls Sabine Waldeck

Beacon Correspondent Many people highly anticipate Election Day. Each and every voter sits staring at their TV screen, hoping they did enough for their candidate to win.

This election is no different, and it carries even more weight and importance than previous ones. On November 4th, we as a nation will find out if these past four years were a fluke occurrence or if Americans will continue to vote for and stand alongside hatred and bigotry.

Gen Z and millennials are taking to social media this election to post about the importance of voting. You are probably now seeing an increase in the amount of Instagram stories about the upcoming presidential election.

You may fall on the side of obsessively posting about voting information, or you might be the person getting a little sick of seeing it.

Almost every other Instagram story I see lately from my peers is about voting. Whether it is about how we all have to vote, voting early, information about voting by mail, or the reasons not to re-elect our current president, the general idea boils down to the fact that young people are more actively engaged and interested in voting and the election than ever before.

Young celebrities have also been showing up, trying to engage with their young, eligible-voter audience this year. Most recently, on October 24th,

Selena Gomez held a livestream with actor Timothée Chalamet that showed him waiting outside his polling station in New York City. The two talked about the importance of the youth vote and encouraged their fans to go out and vote as well.

Each generation likes to believe that they are the best generation so far. They will be the ones to change the system, that impacts the world the most. For this election that might just ring true.

According to the Harvard Youth Poll, 63 percent of respondents aged 18–29 indicated they will “definitely be voting,” compared to 47 percent from this time four years ago.

Young voters are important to the continuity of democracy. Young people are told they need to show up to the polls every election. Even with all of this encouragement, studies still show that youth voter turnout is the lowest of any other age group.

Unfortunately, while many young people will say that they plan on voting, the reality is that they could inevitably fall through on their promises once decision day comes. This is a clear vice young people have: we are all talk.

“Fewer than half of Americans 18 to 29 voted in the 2016 presidential election,” wrote Alexandria Symonds of The New York Times. Having such low numbers for the most recent election, which was very sensationalized, is worrisome. With such a large number of people able to take action and have their voices heard, it is really about

them deciding to go out and actually do so.

Millennials, Gen Zers, and younger generations account for 166 million, or 50.7 percent, of the country’s population, according to a 2019 report from the Brookings Institution. The oldest millennials are currently 38 years old, meaning that the outcome of this election really

can be decided by young people.

While being part of Gen Z myself, I personally believe that the youth vote might be more influential than ever before. Being told you may be the group to change history gives Gen Zers and millennials the gas for their egos that takes their fingers off the post button and onto a pen to vote.

What does COVID-19 mean for countries reliant on tourism?

Shannon Garrido

Beacon Correspondent Several countries around the world are highly reliant on tourism for generating foreign exchange, attracting international investments, increasing tax revenue, and providing job opportunities. Many have had to slow down or completely shut down these sectors in order to control the spread of COVID-19.

In May of this year, the United Nations World Tourism Organization estimated that global international tourist arrivals could decrease anywhere from 58 to 78 percent in 2020, leading to a potential loss of $0.9 to 1.2 trillion in international tourism.

Last year, more than 31 million people visited the Caribbean, where tourism is their lifeblood. 53 percent of those people came from the United States.

They contributed $59 billion to the region’s 2019 gross domestic product and account for 50 to 90 percent of the GDP for most countries, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Knowing that tourism is a major contributor to these economies, tourists have an obligation to be wary of the impact they have when traveling to these countries. But clearly, the behavior hasn’t seeped through to many travelers looking to escape to warmer climates during the pandemic. In the travel industry publication Skift, journalist Pam Mandel makes the case that “it’s unethical to require a worker to put herself repeatedly in a highrisk situation” just because someone wants a vacation. Considering how much tourism contributes to the rise in COVID cases for many of these countries, she’s not completely wrong.

So for those still planning on taking

Illustration Joshua Sun

a trip, travel with empathy. If you’re thinking about traveling, ask yourself if what you’re doing is worth the risk.

Think about the people who need to travel out of necessity or in the millions of people who haven’t seen their family members in months because of travel restrictions. Knowing this information, let’s create a new attitude to tourism that respects the lives of those whose sunny beaches we love and enjoy.

This mentality doesn’t just apply to tourists in the Caribbean. Vietnam had no reported infections or deaths between April and July. But over the weekend of July 25, nine cases emerged in the beach town Da Nang, where thousands of tourists were evacuated and at least 81,000 of residents are now in quarantine. This led

to six recorded COVID-19 deaths as of August 3rd.

On July 1, The Bahamas also reopened its borders to international tourism. Just a few weeks later, COVID-19 cases tripled from 50 on July 1 to 174 on July 21. As of August 3, the total has risen to 648 cases.

Many of these spikes in cases are directly linked to opening up borders to tourists, especially U.S. tourists.

As aforementioned, the Caribbean has “a long history of being seen as a playground for visitors from the mainland United States.” Just as well, for a region where tourism contributes to on average 5.5 percent of employment, it’s very difficult for residents to simply avoid tourists who carry the virus. More specifically, this makes it much more difficult to avoid Ameri-

can tourists, even when the U.S. has some of the highest COVID mortality rates amongst affected countries.

Puerto Rico opened their borders to Americans from the mainland on July 15, but they were forced to push back that date after viral videos emerged showing incoming visitors ignoring masks and social distancing rules.

Curaçao is one of the few countries that has reopened its borders to Canada and other nations, but not the U.S. This strategy seems to be working in controlling the spread of the virus. The country oversaw only four active cases on August 3rd.

Because people from the U.S. have created a negative reputation by ignoring health guidelines, many countries are wary of keeping them as visitors.

Canada and Ireland have placed strict

Illustration Joshua Sun

These seemingly activist-like Instagram stories can’t also die after the 24-hour mark, but need to turn into filling in that circle on the ballot, marking actual change and not just the performance of it. sabine_waldeck@emerson.edu lockdown measures and fines for any tourist that refuses to comply. But many countries whose residents rely on tourism don’t have the luxury of finning tourists who benefit from “quarantine loopholes.”

Countries that are highly dependent on tourism, especially small island developing states (SIDS), are much more vulnerable and any shock of such magnitude is difficult to manage.

This calls for tough decisions where developing countries have to risk public health in order to keep their economies afloat.

Many low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) lack the adequate hospital and emergency transportation infrastructure to care for their residents suffering from this deadly pandemic.

According to Brett Walton’s reporting from non-profit organization Circle of Blue, underfunded and neglected clinics frequently see doctors tending to ill patients without minimum protections against disease transmission.

Because of these barriers, COVID-19 disproportionally affects the poor, minorities, and a broad range of vulnerable populations and people with poor access to healthcare who experience COVID-19 related symptoms may delay or even forgo being tested. This causes them to turn to medical care only in advanced stages, resulting in poorer outcomes.

Additionally, the global economic downturn combined with limited international support puts millions of people in LMICs at risk. This lack of adequate control of additional outbreaks has pushed the World Health Organization to increase support to these countries to improve resilience and reduce the health and social impact of future health emergencies.

There is so much doubt that it’s a “risk with almost no reward” situation for those in countries dependent on tourism. With this in mind, let’s practice empathy when we travel, and think about how our actions might impact others. shannon_garrido@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

October 29, 2020

6

Living Arts

HEAT, EAT, REPEAT! Marketing students sell $5 ‘Brownie In A Jar’ in Walker Mariyam Quaisar

Beacon Correspondent After the closure of all campus kitchens due to COVID-19, the convenience of cooking in dorms disappeared. But worry not—a team of five Emerson students found a way to create delicious baked brownies with just a microwave, a Mason jar, and a few ingredients.

Senior Kristen Cawog, juniors Lily Marsh and Olivia Strauss, and sophomores Kayla Fontalvo and Gabriel Simao created a unique venture for professor Lu Ann Reeb’s Entrepreneurship I class, a course exclusively for entrepreneurship minors.

The idea was simple: sell brownies in a jar.

The students found a brownie recipe that does not require eggs for students who live on campus and do not have access to an oven. Most brownie recipes require eggs, which cannot be cooked in a microwave, making this recipe all the more convenient.

In a makeshift stand inside of Walker Building, they sold the $5 Mason jars with the dry ingredients—including flour, sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch, salt, and chocolate chips—inside. Alongside the

jar, they provided the necessary wet ingredients, including a quarter teaspoon of vanilla extract, two tablespoons of vegetable oil, and two tablespoons of water. Customers were instructed to add the separate wet ingredients to the jar and mix well, then microwave it for 60 seconds to create an instant brownie.

Lily Marsh describes the project as “incredibly convenient” for college students whose on campus cooking options are limited.

“We knew that college kids didn’t have easy access to cooking supplies and ingredients, so we wanted to make it an all-in-one product,” she said. “What drew us to the recipe was the fact that it was so easy and so college student-friendly.”

The students were given $10 through the class to create a sustainable venture, Marsh said. The five students used the money to purchase the jars and ingredients.

Once the jars were put together, they began selling them in the Walker Building since a stand was not permitted in the dining hall due to COVID-19 restrictions.

To promote their business, the group created an Instagram account, @e3brownie, on October 15th. In just a few days, the account amassed more than 200 followers.

“As a team, we all really enjoyed

working and posting on social media,” Marsh said. “Since we made it into a business account, it was really cool to see all the analytics of our followers.”

Students had to direct message the Instagram account to sign up for a five-minute time slot where they could purchase the jar. The students’ first batch of 12 jars sold out on their first day, as did their next dozen on the following day.

The team created a Venmo account for the brownie jars, and students sent them money before their pickup time to receive a jar with instructions and ingredients pasted on it.

The team didn’t want to price the brownie in a jar too high. But at the same time, they knew the product was one-of-a-kind and that students would be willing to pay $5 for it.

“We did some research on similar items and settled on $5 because not only do they get their brownie in a jar, but they get the actual jar and the recipe too,” Marsh said.

Simao created a “how to” video and posted it on the Instagram account, where it amassed nearly 400 views. They also hosted a giveaway on Instagram where students could comment on the post, tag two friends, and share the post in

Student entrepreneurs debut $5 microwaveable “Brownie in a Jar”

Courtesy Lily Marsh

order to win two free jars. Approximately 30 students commented on the post.

“It was so fun to see our idea come to life and see how excited Emerson students were about the venture as well,” Marsh said.

Simao said it was exciting to see the giveaway post gain engagement from students. “[It was] so cool because they could see people like comments they were tagged in, and then those people would tag two more people,” Simao said.

The team agreed that they would

keep the business venture going and even pitch in their own money to continue the project. They created a small profit out of the sales, which the team is considering donating to Helping Students Directly, a mutual aid fund that helps low-income students at Emerson afford school and living expenses.

“It was so fun to see our idea come to life and to see how excited Emerson students were about the venture as well,” Marsh said. mariyam_quaisar@emerson.edu

Sophomore joins 350 TikTokers to support Biden

Hand’s TikTok account has garnered more than a half a million followers.

Lizzie Heintz Beacon Staff Cont. from Pg. 1 attention to other topics such as Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ+ rights, climate change, and women’s rights, among others.

Another one of their goals is to get young voters excited about the election. As the Democratic Party has become more divided recently, many young progressive voters aren’t enthused to support Biden, who is often viewed as too moderate. One campaign that reflects this mentality is the Settle for Biden campaign, a grassroots group of former Elizabeth

Warren and Bernie Sanders supporters who reluctantly support the former Vice President.

“This ‘Settle for Biden’ mantra is definitely something that I subscribe to, but at the same time, repeating that is not necessarily the most effective way to get people, especially young people, who may not be enthusiastic to vote,” Hand said. “So @tiktokforbiden is really just working towards getting people enthusiastic to vote. And then once we get past that, then we can begin the real work.”

With 803,000 followers, TikTok-

ers for Biden plans to continue discussing subjects that are relevant to not only America, but the rest of the world. Hand said he wants to use his own platform to promote the issues that matter to him, including the issues highlighted on the TikTokers for Biden account.

“What is a platform if you’re not using it for some type of good beyond just yourself and your own personal growth?” Hand said.

Hand began creating online content at just 14 years old, originally on Vine and then on TikTok in May 2019. When he first joined the app, Hand was part of a group account with some of his friends under the account @bedheadass before creating his own account in March 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic that forced many Americans into quarantine encouraged Hand to start his own TikTok account.

“With the group account, it was a lot of skits and making stuff together,” Hand said. “And because of quarantine, obviously, we couldn’t really do that as much. So I just wanted to have my own account that I could do my own thing on.”

Hand’s personal account, @austincantdrive, has 530,000 followers and 380 videos. Hand’s account gained traction after one of his earlier videos from April got over four million views.

“It was me eating a tangerine [flavored] vitamin C gummy and then I was like, ‘I’ve eaten 600 of these today,’” Hand said. “And then I turned on the tangerine filter and implied that I had turned into [a tangerine].

It was really dumb. I don’t know why it has 1.3 million likes.”

The account’s name was inspired by the fact that Hand actually can’t drive.

“Everyone always thinks that it’s like some hidden meaning or something crazy, but it really is just I don’t have a driver’s license,” Hand said.

He describes his content as observational humor, comparing it to vlog-style videos. Hand said that his videos changed as his account started to gain more viewers.

“I’ll just be out on a bike ride, or walking around, and I’ll see something funny, and then I’ll make a post about it,” Hand said. “It started out mainly as a spam account more than anything else. I was kind of just posting whatever I wanted to. But I think that as I gained more followers, I did start to refine what I was putting out just because now I have an audience.”

Moving from his home in Fort Collins, Colorado back to Emerson’s campus has proven to be both helpful and difficult for Hand’s account.

“Being in Boston, there is a lot of new inspiration,” Hand said. “Just being back at school, specifically, I have a lot less time on my hands to just go out and make videos. I’ve taken a step back, in a way, to adjust. But I do think that being in the city has opened up a whole new environment for me to take inspiration from.”

Hand also uses his account to promote his music. Hand has two

songs available on Spotify and Apple Music, “Tightrope” and “Just Love Me Already,” which were both released in late summer.

“I’ve been singing ever since I was two years old watching Kelly Clarkson on American Idol,” Hand said. “But in terms of making music, I got equipment three years ago, and it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve been making stuff that I’m proud enough to show to an audience.”

In June of this year, TikTok users sabotaged President Trump’s campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma which only filled 6,400 of the available 19,000 seats. This contributed to a larger conversation to ban the app in the United States.

Trump first talked about banning the app in July to protect Americans’ data, citing security concerns over TikTok’s parent company ByteDance being based in Beijing.

However, the app could be saved if it was sold to an American company

by Nov. 14. In September, Trump’s administration approved a deal with the Oracle Corporation and Walmart to establish United Statesbased operations for the app. While the details are still being finalized, TikTok will remain accessible unless a deal isn’t fully established by Trump’s deadline.

With TikTok here to stay for the time being, Hand can continue to create content and stay involved with @tiktokforbiden as it pushes to promote TikTok users to vote in the days counting down to Nov. 3. shawna_konieczny@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

October 29, 2020

7

Adam Griswold ‘10 on his new musical

‘Quirewood’

Shawna Koniecnzy Beacon Staff

Courtesy Katie Lacadie (above) and Clarah Grossman (below)

Pub Club to publish two students’ ebooks

One is set in medieval times; another a love story in reverse Karissa Schaefer Beacon Staff

Come December, Emerson students will be able to read about a medieval woman who fights societal constraints in the name of friendship and a love story in reverse—each written by fellow students handpicked by the college’s Pub Club.

The Undergraduate Students for Publishing chose those two student manuscripts, one historical fiction and one romance, last week as part of their annual manuscript competition.

Both stories—Seat of the Soul by senior creative writing major Clarah Grossman and To Help and to Heal by senior writing, literature, and publishing major Katie Lacadie—will be released as e-books on Dec. 10.

Pub Club, an organization that teaches students about the various aspects of the publishing industry, holds a physical book launch at the end of each term. But this year they will hold a virtual release. The organization hopes to eventually deliver the authors and their families copies of their books.

Senior co-presidents Nicole Turner and Thomas Garback will publish Seat of the Soul and To Help and to Heal, respectively.

“We hope to be able to deliver the same level of enthusiasm to our readers and to continue keeping our members in the loop as we go through this very interesting semester,” Garback said. “Things are going well so far, and we’re really optimistic about the launch.”

The initial vote is done by the executive board, followed by a second round of voting within the entire club. Once chosen, the authors have full say in choosing their book cover designs. Wilde Press, the club’s imprint they house, has its own internal team of designers that make a selection of covers from which the authors choose their favorite.

“We have two really great authors who have been involved with Pub Club in the past, so they are familiar with the process,” Turner said.

“We’re very involved with the authors and their opinions on how their books get published.”

Lacadie’s story, To Help and to Heal, is a historical fiction piece that explores the complicated relationship between a prince and a girl named Mabel, who comes from a lower social class.

“It’s a story about their friendship and how they deal with the societal constraints of people saying that he shouldn’t be friends with somebody who is below him,” Lacadie said.

Seat of the Soul, a romance piece, is about a couple and three different stages of their relationship before and after high school. The story is told backwards, chronologically, so it begins with their five year high school reunion and ends with the beginning of their relationship.

“The theme is about connection, and about those people that you meet that you know are going to impact your life in some way,” Grossman said.

Lacadie and Grossman both submitted their stories last semester but were rejected at first.

“I originally submitted the manuscript last spring for consideration and it was rejected,” Grossman said. “I made revisions over the summer and resubmitted it for this fall.”

Turner and Garback said they received less submissions than normal this year. Last year, they had over a dozen, but this year there were half as much.

Last week, Pub Club organized “author night,” a meeting where Turner said they focused on the authors and getting to know them.

“We sit down with the authors and the whole club and we get to talk about what their process was like, what inspires them, and any preferences they have for design and marketing,” Turner said. “We have a good basic knowledge about our authors and their submissions going into publishing it and being aware of the full context behind that submission, which is a really cool experience.”

Lacadie explained how the author’s night worked over Zoom, as it nor-

mally is held in person.

“Everybody asks questions about the authors and how they wrote their story,” Lacadie said. “Then we break off into groups and have the authors go to each group and talk to marketing, design, and editorial teams. But we couldn’t do that because of the pandemic so we had to do it through Zoom as one big group and it was a little awkward, but it worked fine.”

In the past, Lacadie worked on the substantive editorial team for Pub Club. This semester, she said the switch to an author’s lens was a little “strange,” but she is honored to have her piece chosen this semester.

Lacadie said the editors gave her suggestions on how they thought she could improve her manuscript, but ultimately, she has the final say.

“The substantive editorial team had its own Zoom session with me [October 16] and they asked me questions about what my view of the story is and how I want the theme to be going,” Lacadie said. “I have two weeks to go through their suggestions. I don’t have to choose everything that they gave me, but I think I might because they gave me a lot of really good ideas.”

Now that her manuscript has been chosen, Grossman said she will begin revising Seat of the Soul based on feedback from a letter to the author from Pub Club’s editorial team.

“Now that it’s accepted in the actual process, I’ve been sent an author letter with the edits from the editorial team and I’m currently revising those,” Grossman said. “From there, we’ll go towards copyediting and into design.”

They are also planning on sending out PDF files and Google Drive links to their mailing list. Turner said she thinks the two stories will help take reader’s minds off of the chaotic state the world is in right now.

“They’re both very light reads,” Turner said. “They’ll provide a really nice distraction from the stresses that are going on in life right now. We hope we can put those books out and put a smile on everyone’s faces.” karissa_schaefer@emerson.edu

Filmmaker and alum Adam Griswold ‘10 spent years thinking about producing a musical, but he has now made his mark on the theatre world with the release of Quirewood! The Musical, now available on Amazon Prime.

The musical is inspired by life in mental institutions based on the experiences of co-writer Hannah Heckman-McKenna. Kadence, the main character, is a patient in Quirewood Psychiatric Clinic who suffers from bipolar disorder. Along with her fellow institutionalized friends, she must navigate the changes in therapeutic practices brought about by the hiring of Dr. Jackson, the new lead psychiatrist.

Since graduating a decade ago, Griswold has written and directed several independent films such as Space People, Space People 2, and Suburban Spies, but Quirewood! is his first musical.

Griswold spoke to The Beacon about his experiences at Emerson and his work with Quirewood! The Musical. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Q. What was the inspiration behind Quirewood! The Musical?

A. It was about four years ago. I had been doing independent films for a number of years. I was on set of one project where a couple of friends and I started talking about musicals and we thought, “We should do a musical.” Between us, we knew people who could sing. We knew someone who could compose music. It was early 2017, the four of us, [including] myself, Hannah Heckman-McKenna, Rivengurl Hart, and Bryan Thomas Niedermyer talked in a Facebook chat about what kind of musical we could do. And then Han-

of years ago when I was still in college, I wrote a screenplay for a musical, and it was just so much fun to write lyrics for songs to move the story forward.

But it was something that initially was way too difficult to do. So almost a decade later, I finally had experience making films and met people who could compose music and sing and make that happen.

Q. What was your favorite part about working on Quirewood! The Musical?

A. It’s really just the whole process of seeing it come together. That is what I enjoy the most about all the films I do—just seeing it start from just an idea and then become something you can actually watch that comes out really well.

Q. Were there any difficulties that you faced?

A. From the whole musical aspect of it and the fact that none of us had ever done anything like that before.

We weren’t really prepared for how much work it was gonna be, especially how long it was gonna take. I think we went into it thinking it would maybe take a little over a year. And it took two and a half. Just recording the initial tracks for the music was almost like an entire production under itself.

It took over a year to get the actual music. It was a bigger effort than anyone anticipated. It had a pretty big cast, so trying to get all those people on set at once would always be a struggle too.

Q. Do you have a favorite memory from Emerson?

A. It was probably when I did the Los Angeles program, I did a summer program there. Getting away from Boston was fun because I live in the Boston area. Still do. I grew up here, so just getting away from that was really exciting for that period. It made me more optimistic and excited about

Courtesy Adam Griswold

nah mentioned that she had had experiences when she was younger in and out of mental hospitals. And we were all kind of thinking, “Yeah, there was something we could do with that as far as making a musical.”

Q. What do you hope the musical does in regards to the stigma surrounding mental health issues?

A. I learned more about these mental health issues than I had known before.

I start recognizing things in myself and other people that raise awareness for mental health issues, and that there are systems that are broken and that is something that people don’t necessarily think of. A lot of people will still just throw around terms like, “Oh, this person must be mentally ill” and don’t really think most people who deal with mental illness are just innocent people who are really struggling and dealing with a system that is sometimes abusive to them.

Q. Why did you feel that you needed to be a part of a project like this?

A. I did like musical theatre in high school, and I enjoyed parts of it, but didn’t enjoy other parts. But a number

the possibilities of what I can do in the future.

Q. What is there a specific moment in time where you decided you wanted to be a filmmaker?

A. I look back and I can remember being in elementary school and just imagining movies in my head. Like my brother and I, we would play with toys and stuff, and then I’d imagine it as a movie, just cinematic, with camera angles and music. Then, once I got to middle school and high school, I would occasionally be assigned projects to go make a video. It’s just always how it’s been.

Q. What advice would you give to young filmmakers?

A. When people would give me advice, I’d always be frustrated by people who would try to act like, “Oh, there’s one way of doing things. This is the only way you’ll get anything done.” I think you need to find what works for you because everyone’s different. Every project is different. shawna_koniecnzy@emerson.edu

The Berkeley Beacon

Sports

October 29, 2020

8

Coaches get creative to tackle pandemic-era recruiting

‘[Recruits] have been more eager to commit and want to get a commit from us as a coaching staff.’

- Phil McElroy, Softball Head Coach

Coach Gould and the women’s basketball team during a timeout. Beacon Archive

Chris Williams Beacon Staff

In a typical year of recruiting for Emerson sports teams, prospective student athletes visit the campus, meet with coaches, watch a team game, and even stay in dorms overnight with a player. But during the pandemic, coaches have turned to nontraditional efforts to attract potential players.

The majority of recruiting is now done online, with a few showcases and games popping up for coaches to attend with social distancing guidelines in states that are not considered high risk. Recruits are unable to enter college buildings, so the in-person extent of the recruiting process is limited to walks down Boylston Street and nearby areas of Boston.

“It has been much more phone and Zoom-heavy, and more virtual visits online,” men’s lacrosse head coach Matt Colombini said in an interview.

“We have done some socially-distanced visits to the exterior of campus, walking around the Common, showing off Boston, but obviously with where we are with our rules, we wouldn’t bring anyone into a building.”

The majority of recruiting is done online, with a few events popping up

for coaches to attend. ”There ended up being a lot of events this summer, and there were limited attendance rules depending on location,” Colombini said. “We got more film than we’ve ever gotten in terms of full games and recruit booklets and kind of everything you get in person.”

Emerson instructed coaches to not bring prospective student athletes into campus buildings while showing them around campus. With this limitation in place, the softball team has found innovative ways to safely introduce recruits to campus facilities.

“What we’re doing is sometimes meeting student athletes on the Common,” said softball head coach Phil McElroy. “I am pointing to a building, and then we have a current player on a camera to show the prospect what’s going on in the building and what it looks like.”

McElroy said some high school teams are creating a more immersive recruiting experience by live streaming their games and scheduling Zoom calls after coaches watch them.

“It’s been more work than it was before because you could see the player and then talk to them right after the game,” said McElroy.

Baseball head coach Nick Vennochi believes the virtual tours have been beneficial for prospective players.

“The virtual tour that the school’s done on Zoom is really well done, and I think a lot of our recruits really appreciated that,” said Vennochi in an interview. “Obviously, a lot of the guys can’t get here, so it’s going to be a weird year, but hopefully we’re giving them enough of a touchpoint on campus even if they can’t see us in person.”

Junior women’s soccer forward Grace Cosgrove said overnight visits and meeting team members in person are crucial deciding factors for student athletes considering the college.

“Actually coming to the school and seeing the school for myself and not just pictures online was probably the most important part of my recruiting process,” said Cosgrove in an interview. “I didn’t really know the specifics of what I really wanted in a school, so actually visiting and coming on campus, meeting the team, being with the players, being in the city, and kind of just experiencing life as if I was a student is what sold me on coming here.”

Although his overnight visit played an integral role in his decision to attend Emerson, first year men’s basketball point guard and shooting guard, Trevor Arico, believes recruits will still be able to experience everything Emerson has to offer.

“It’s crazy to think about how

much of that stuff a [first year] coming in next year wouldn’t be able to do now,” said Arico in an interview. “At the same time, I know our coaches and players are such great guys and great people, and they will find a way to show off the school because it is a great school and you can figure that out whether you come into the building or not.”

Without the ability to meet team members in person, the softball team hopes to host a Zoom call and give potential recruits whatever insight into being an Emerson student they can.

“We’re actually setting up an evening coming up for a couple of hours where we’re going to invite people to a Zoom call where we’ll have our current players and kind of walk them through what a day in the life of an Emerson athlete is,” said McElroy.

Ironically, prospective student athletes have actually felt the urge to commit early to their respective programs. “[Recruits] have been more eager to commit and want to get a commit out of us as a coaching staff,” said McElroy. “Part of that is just because they haven’t seen as many coaches at their games.”

Vennochi said the baseball team has taken advantage of the extra time

to recruit prospective players, since the pandemic moved them off of the field in March.

“We as a staff have taken advantage of the extra time we have had to recruit because we were home at a time when we probably wouldn’t have been in March and April when we would be focused on our season,” said Vennochi. “We got a lot of our early conversations with guys.”

Colombini, despite everything, is confident the 2021 recruiting class is the best the lacrosse team has had in his time at the college.

“This has been the best class in terms of volume, talent, geographical diversity, kind of the whole deal,” said Colombini. “Maybe it’s a coincidence, or maybe we just kind of got lucky and did it the right way or figured something out, but I’m really excited about this group and what they can bring.”

McElroy is excited about the talent he’s been able to find in his upcoming recruiting class.

“I think it can be one of our best classes,” said McElroy. “Division III [schools] can do a little bit more than some of the other schools right now, so I feel like we’re getting some Division I talent that are looking at Emerson.” christopher_williams@emerson.edu

Incident Journal

The Emerson College Police Department provides the Incident Journal to The Beacon every week. Beacon staff edit the Incident Journal for style and clarity, but not for content.

Monday, October 19 ECPD and Boston Fire investigated a fire alarm in the Little Building. The cause of the alarm was determined to be burnt food that a student was cooking.

Two students reported being fol-

lowed by an unknown person while walking in the city and riding the MBTA. ECPD is working on trying to identify a suspect.

Tuesday, October 20 A student was caught using another

student’s College ID to enter the Little Building. The matter was given to Community Standards.

Wednesday, October 21 An unknown person entered the Union Bank building and harrassed the

security officer before leaving.

Saturday, October 24 ECPD assisted the drivers involved in a motor vehicle accident that occurred outside of the Little Building— no injuries were reported.