The Breeze
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february 3, 2022 VOL. 100 NO.18 BREEZEJMU.ORG
Police gather on the campus of Bridgewater College in the aftermath of Tuesday’s shooting that took the lives of Campus Police Officer John Painter and Campus Safety Officer J.J. Jefferson. Matt Young / The Breeze
TRAGEDY AT BRIDGEWATER
By JAKE CONLEY The Breeze
At 1:24 p.m., from the Bridgewater College Twitter account: “Reports of active shooter on campus. Shelter in place.” At 1:25 p.m.: “This is not a drill. More info to follow.” Reginald Patterson was sitting in a communications class when he heard the pops. The Bridgewater College student wouldn’t recognize them as gunshots until several moments later, when two or three more rang out. It was then that he and the other students in his class “barricaded the door, hit the ground and just waited.” There was an active shooter on their campus, right behind the next building over. Kai Bowman, a senior, was standing outside the library, walking from where he’d just grabbed lunch. He heard the shots ring out behind Memorial Hall and, within moments, students were running toward him, screaming to get inside and that there was a shooter. Bowman’s first call after running into
the closest building he could find was to his roommate to make sure he was OK. His second call was to his mother and brothers in Waynesboro, Virginia. “Why here, why now?” Bowman said. “It just doesn’t make sense … We’re all basically family here, so I just can’t wrap my head around about why someone would do this.” Tuesday, Feb. 1, a man walked onto Bridgewater’s campus at approximately 1:20 p.m., just behind Memorial Hall — Patterson’s class was in Flory Hall, right next door. The gunman fatally shot Campus Security Officer J.J. Jefferson and Campus Police Officer John Painter. Thirty minutes later, the suspected gunman was in custody. By 3:30 p.m., the campus was near silent, with only the sound of a helicopter flying overhead occasionally breaking the stillness. Police tape had already been put up, forming a large ring around Flory and Memorial halls. Officers stood at every entrance to campus, waving cars in and out, and several dozen were gathered in front of Flory Hall, talking quietly. Outside of the officers, the campus
grounds were barren, silent. Alexander Wyatt Campbell, 27, was arrested and detained as the suspected gunman at 1:55 p.m. Campbell faces two counts of felony capital murder, one felony murder count and one count of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. As of Tuesday night, Campbell was being held without bond at the Rockingham County Jail. The investigation is being conducted by the Virginia State Police (VSP) Bureau of Investigations at the Culpeper County field office. At a press conference the night of the shooting, VSP spokeswoman Corinne Geller said the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) are assisting the VSP with the investigation. The VSP wouldn’t comment on whether Campbell is or was a student at Bridgewater College. Now-removed athletic rosters showed Campbell as having previously been a member of Bridgewater College’s track team, reported by the Daily News-Record. Geller also refused to comment on whether Campbell had been previously known to campus police at the press conference.
Harrisonburg/Rockingham General District Court records show that Campbell was previously charged in 2017 with entering a structure with the intention to commit assault and battery or other crimes. The charge was amended to a misdemeanor of trespassing after having been forbidden. The Daily News-Record reported that the structure was the Kline Campus Center on Bridgewater’s campus. A group of students were let out of Flory Hall, where they were in a history class and where Patterson was also in class, by police. The students said their first reaction was one of uncertainty — was it real, was someone shooting, what should they do, where should they go? Just a minute prior, they’d been about to take a quiz. “Once the alarm came through, I think, everybody was stopped; nobody really knew what to do,” one of the students said. “We just turned off the lights, closed the door and everybody just got really quiet.” see BRIDGEWATER, page 4
Thursday, February 3, 2022
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Letter from the editor
The Breeze stands with Bridgewater College in the face of Tuesday's shooting
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here are no words for what happened at Bridgewater College other than that it was an absolute tragedy. On Feb. 1, a gunman walked onto the Bridgewater campus. To prevent an even greater atrocity, two individuals gave their lives to protect the rest of the community — Campus Police Officer John Painter and Campus Security Officer J.J. Jefferson. The two men, Bridgewater College President David Bushman said, were best friends. Painter was Jefferson’s best man in his wedding. We at The Breeze, and we as a JMU community, grieve alongside our friends, colleagues and neighbors in the Bridgewater community.
In a previous Letter from the Editor, which I wrote following an attempted drive-by shooting involving several JMU students, I attempted to answer the question of how we as journalists approach coverage of traumatic events. One of the hypotheticals I offered, and didn’t give an answer for, is how we would cover a school shooting. Now, we face that question for real — something we never expected to face. Nothing they teach you in journalism school can ever prepare you for facing these horrors when they’re realized and are no longer hypotheticals. The only answer we have is to lead with facts and to write with compassion. Our job as journalists is often to be dispassionate, to focus on nothing but
factual evidence and to push all else out of our writing. That’s a hard thing to do when what you’re called to cover hits so, so close to home. We are journalists, but we’re also students. School shootings, something we’ve been trained to deal with throughout our academic lives, make no sense and have no logic. They're one of those things that hit painfully close to home. The best we can do is offer our compassion and our platform to those impacted and let our reporting be driven and told by their voices, not ours. Our words are chosen with the intent to communicate the facts of the situation at hand while also honoring the memory of officers Painter and
Jefferson and respecting the pain of our community members who have been impacted. It is the voices of the Bridgewater community that should be uplifted in this moment, and that's what we at The Breeze are striving to do. While journalism is a craft based in facts, that doesn’t mean we have to choose to be dispassionate. For me and the rest of the staff of The Breeze, we choose compassion. To our friends in Bridgewater, and to our Dukes here impacted by the shooting, we stand with you in this moment of horror. We’re not two different schools today, but we're one community who stands together, arms linked, hand in hand.
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‘Senseless’ ‘tragic’ ‘heartbreaking’ Alexander Wyatt Campbell is facing two counts of felony capital murder, one felony murder count and one count of use of a firearm in the commission of a felony. Matt Young / The Breeze
Local community grieves in aftermath of Bridgewater College shooting
Thursday, February 3, 2022
from BRIDGEWATER, page 1
The students agreed that their first instinct after the initial shock was to text their families, saying “I love you.” One student’s mother texted her back, saying “Take him down”; another’s father said, “Fight.” The shooting happened about 15 minutes before the end of the students’ class period. With their proximity to the location, just behind their building and where they would’ve been walking out of class, the timing underscored the danger, they said. “We would’ve been dead,” one of the students said. Geller said at the press conference that the VSP has chosen to not yet release the type of gun used by the gunman. Campbell, Geller said, was treated for a non-life-threatening gunshot wound at the Rockingham Memorial Hospital before being transported to the Rockingham County Jail for holding. Investigators are still attempting to determine whether the gunshot wound was inflicted by Painter or by Campbell himself, Geller said at the press conference. Jefferson wouldn’t have been issued a sidearm, Geller said, and would’ve been unarmed at the time of the shooting; campus police officer Painter would’ve been armed. No other officers who responded to the incident, Geller said, discharged their weapons. Geller said weapons related to the gunman
were discovered as a result of an on- and off-campus investigation, but she wouldn’t comment on how many weapons were found. Geller said at the press conference that she wasn’t aware of whether Campbell had appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of his arrest. The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported Wednesday that Campbell’s mother said Campbell had a history of mental illness. No motive for the shooting has been released by the VSP. Bridgewater College is a private liberal arts college about seven miles from Harrisonburg. The school has approximately 1,500 full-time students enrolled, according to its website. Bridgewater was recently named the safest college in Virginia and ranked in the top-25 safest colleges in the country by SafeAtLast, a safety assessment company. As one student let out of Flory Hall said, “You don’t really expect it from the safest college in America.” Part of that reputation comes from the campus police officers, who Bridgewater College students say are an “integral part of [their] student life.” “Everywhere you turn you can see them, either in the streets or in academic buildings or even in the dining halls, just sitting down and having lunch with us,” Bowman said. “They’re always there, whether for an emergency or just to have someone to talk to.” Bridgewater College President David
Bushman said officers Painter and Jefferson were inseparably close friends, forming a “dynamic duo” — Painter was Jefferson’s best man in his wedding, Bushman said. According to a statement posted to Bridgewater College’s website from Bushman, the officers were “beloved by students, faculty and staff.” Bushman said at the press conference that the two officers were “very well known to students” and were “always seen together.” “We send our condolences, our prayers, our very hearts to J.J. and John’s families,” Bushman said at the press conference. “Words will never be enough to express our sadness and our grief. Please know that we are here for you, and we’re all grieving with you.” Bushman, who delivered a somber statement at the press conference, opened his statement by saying, “No college president ever wants to be standing in a room like this, on a night like this.” Jonathan Alger, JMU’s president, provided the following statement to The Breeze: “In these moments of profound grief and uncertainty, we stand together as colleagues, neighbors and friends. We have reached out to our counterparts at Bridgewater College and are prepared to support the Bridgewater community in whatever ways we can, while also supporting one another in our JMU community as well. At such moments of crisis and tragedy, it is more important than ever that we come together, share and
embrace our common humanity, and lift one another up.” And in an email to the JMU student body, Alger wrote the following: “We are shocked and saddened by the tragedy that took place on the campus of Bridgewater College, our neighboring institution with whom we work closely and share many friendships … In these moments of grief and uncertainty, we, as senior leaders at JMU, are here to support each of you in whatever ways we can … We are extremely grateful for the individuals in public safety who work to keep our campus safe and are forever appreciative of their efforts.” The email listed out several resources available to students, including a crisis text line and self-help resources available through JMU’s Counseling Center. In a since-rescinded statement to The Breeze, JMU’s student government association (SGA) said the following: “As the James Madison University Student Government Association, we ask the JMU and Harrisonburg community to come together to support Bridgewater College and Community in this time of great tragedy. It is incumbent upon the community and its members to come forward to offer any and all support we can, and rally behind those who need it most. As students of JMU, members of SGA, but first and foremost as friends, family, and peers, we extend our deepest sympathies and sentiments to those affected.
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JMU lit up Wilson Hall in Bridgewater College colors — crimson and gold — Wednesday, Feb. 2. Matt Young / The Breeze
“Why here, why now? It just doesn’t make sense … We’re all basically family here, so I just can’t wrap my head around about why someone would do this.” Kai Bowman
Senior at Bridgewater College just because of the people here,” Bowman said. “Whoever this was obviously did not include themselves as a part of this Bridgewater family, and it’s definitely going to send ripples for a long time after this.” Nearly every student, and Bushman himself, repeatedly used the term “family” to describe the Bridgewater College community. “What happened here today is senseless and tragic; it’s heartbreaking,” Bushman said at the press conference. “The entire community at Bridgewater College is a family, and that will be our greatest strength in the days and weeks to come.” If Bushman sees students on campus in the coming days, Bushman said, “I’ll tell them that I’m thinking about them, that we should take care of each other, that we lost somebody very close to ourselves, very close to our family.” CONTACT Jake Conley at breezeeditor@ gmail.com. For more coverage of JMU and Harrisonburg news, follow the news desk on Twitter @BreezeNewsJMU.
Campus Police Officer John Painter and Campus Security Officer J.J. Jefferson were fatally shot by the gunman. Courtesy of the Bridgewater College Instagram
Thursday, February 3, 2022
“Our time in college is intended to be filled with secure opportunities for growth, learning, and camaraderie, but as students alike we empathize deeply with our peers who have had their safety violated. No student, faculty, or staff member should ever have to fear for their lives going to class or to work, and the fact that this turned to reality for those at our neighboring institution is heartbreaking. “We are thankful for the selfless acts of local law enforcement and public safety officials, and their commitment to the safety of Harrisonburg, Bridgewater, and Rockingham County. “While we all may call different campuses our home, we come together today as one student body, grieving for the lives lost and with those forever affected. We stand together in support of our community and to honor John Painter and J.J. Jefferson, both of whom lost their lives to protect others.” Despite the shooting, Bowman still thinks of his college as a place he can call safe, as a place where he finds family. “I think the campus still is a safe place
Year of reflection JMU community reflects on anniversary of professor’s death
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By ASHLYN CAMPBELL The Breeze
Thursday, February 3, 2022
Terry Beitzel’s colleagues and friends say he was the quintessential professor. He was brilliant but absent-minded, someone whose office was a mess. He’d wear a jacket with classic elbow pads in his office with the brown couch and National Public Radio playing in the background, letting anyone plop down in his office to talk about his work. Beitzel was a justice studies professor at JMU, director of the Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence and an active member of the Advisory Council of JMU’s Center for Civic Engagement. Beitzel worked at JMU for 14 years. Beitzel died one year ago, Jan. 29, 2021, from complications due to COVID-19. According to his obituary, he’s survived by his wife, Sylvia Whitney Beitzel; his daughter, Myra Whitney Beitzel; his mother, Naomi Maust Beitzel; his mother-in-law, Tomasa Whitney Robledo; his brother, Gary Lynn Beitzel and sister-in-law, Dawn Sines Beitzel; his brother-in-law, Robert F. Whitney and wife, Vilma HernÁndez; his nieces, Terah Beitzel Crawford and husband, Eric Crawford, Markell O’Faolean-Fickes and husband, Jason Fickes, Jade O’FaoleanFrushour and husband, Kenneth Frushour; his nephew, Max Lynn Beitzel and wife, Nina Glisan Beitzel, Edgar G. Whitney, and Robert T. Whitney; his grandnieces, Kennedy, Isla and Rory O’Faolean-Fickes,
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and Allie Beitzel; and his grandnephews, Asher and Sawyer Crawford, and Syrus O’Faolean-Frushour. Now, a year after his death and with COVID-19 continuing to surge, the JMU and Harrisonburg communities are still grappling with the loss. “We’re a small department, we knew each other and, for us, we have a loss that’s tied to the pandemic in our own house,” Taimi Castle, the current director of the Gandhi Center and a professor, said. Beitzel taught at Bridgewater College and Eastern Mennonite University in the peace and justice program before coming to JMU in 2007, where he remained until his death. Castle started working with Beitzel when they both arrived at JMU as faculty of the justice studies department. “My favorite memories of him were all the conversations that we had off campus because we were friends outside of work,” Castle said. “He could literally talk to anyone about anything. There was not a subject that he couldn’t talk about or know something about and carry on a conversation.” Peggy Plass, academic unit head and professor for justice studies, said Beitzel was involved in Harrisonburg as well, creating conversations and relationships everywhere he went. “He was not someone who was stuck in the academic silo,” Plass said. Charles Martorana, a member of the advisory council for the Gandhi Center, said his fondest memories with Beitzel were
when the two would meet over coffee and discuss the Center and restorative justice. Martorana said Beitzel’s death is a great loss, both in the local community and worldwide. Martorana said that once, while he was taking a walk at JMU, Beitzel pulled beside him in his car and mentioned that he was on his way to give a talk outside the country. “The thing that struck me is he didn’t drive off, he stayed there and we had a very long chat,” Martorana said. “That was Terry, he loved to engage … He was endearing, engaging, kind, compassionate — someone that you want to just hang around with and have a cup of coffee.” Beitzel’s Ph.D. was in conflict analysis and conflict resolution, and he authored several works exploring topics like approaches to furthering justice, the role of nonviolence, responsibility and civic engagement. Plass said Beitzel exemplified the Gandhi Center’s values. “There could be a picture of Terry in the dictionary next to [the word] peace,” Plass said. Castle said with Beitzel’s absence in the community comes a reminder of the deadliness of COVID-19. “His whole life was about community,” Castle said. “We’re still in a public health crisis, we’re still in the pandemic. I would just want people to remember that simple things like wearing a mask is because we’re a part of the same community and we’re doing that for one another.” Evan Munsey, a senior who worked with
Beitzel in the Gandhi Center, said he’s proud of where the center is now. “It’s still kind of sad because every time I go into the Gandhi Center, it feels like he should be there, but he isn’t,” Munsey said. “We’re slowly picking up the pieces, getting there and moving on with the work that the Gandhi Center wants to do, and I think he would be really proud about that.” Plass and Munsey both said it was clear how much Beitzel cared about his family. Munsey said Beitzel would talk about his family regularly and could tell that he was proud of them. “He was so crazy about his daughter,” Plass said. “He would bring in the little stories that she had written and he was blown away, and he’d be like, ‘You have to read this, she’s so smart.’” Castle said Beitzel was a committed teacher, but he was also dedicated to being a student for life. Plass and Castle said his legacy is shown through the Gandhi Center and that he’s a “spiritual companion” for faculty in justice studies. “We have his academic center; that’s always going to be his legacy regardless of the programming over the years,” Castle said. “But, I also think that we are his legacy … His ideas about humanity live in us.” CONTACT Ashlyn Campbell at breezenews@ gmail.com. For more coverage of JMU and Harrisonburg news, follow the news desk on Twitter @BreezeNewsJMU.
Terry Beitzel’s Ph.D. was in conflict analysis and conflict resolution, and he authored several works exploring topics like approaches to furthering justice, the role of nonviolence, responsibility and civic engagement. Courtesy of the JMU Center for Civic Engagement
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COVID-19 overseas The semester-long study abroad programs during the spring are in London, England; Florence, Italy; Salamanca, Spain and Antwerp, Belgium. Breeze file photo
Study abroad programs continue during pandemic By KASEY TRAPUZZANO contributing writer
Despite surges in the Omicron variant around the world, JMU is operating four semester-long study abroad programs during the spring 2022 semester and four-weeklong programs over spring break in March. The semester-long programs are in London, England; Florence, Italy; Salamanca, Spain and Antwerp, Belgium.
Katie Sensabaugh, interim director of study abroad, said in an email to The Breeze that 76 students are studying abroad in the semesterlong programs, and 43 students are scheduled to study abroad during the spring break. During the spring 2020 semester, pre-lockdown, 99 students studied abroad in the semester-long programs, while 49 students studied abroad over spring break. While each program is abroad this semester, Sensabaugh said JMU is closely monitoring COVID-19 developments and
locations despite there being no requirement. JMU also mandates its students to wear masks in the hallways of the flats they’re living in, just like if they were back on campus in a dorm. “We’re basically following JMU protocol,” Rippon said. Unlike previous years, Rippon said students participating in study abroad aren’t allowed to bring guests in their flats at any time. Prior to COVID-19, students weren’t allowed to have guests stay overnight. Rippon also said the students have a specific quarantine flat where they quarantine for five days if they test positive at any point during the semester. In regard to testing, Rippon said JMU’s students are required to get tested every Wednesday; if someone tests positive, they have to attend class via Zoom. Rippon said she’s nervous about testing positive because she “[doesn’t] want to miss out.” Like in past programs, students who are a part of the Semester in London program take weekend trips to European locations. Usually the destinations include Scotland; Oxford, England; Bath, England; and Paris. However, Rippon said the group won’t be traveling to Paris this semester due to the pandemic and that they’ll only be taking weekend trips to cities in the U.K. “[JMU is] trying to preserve the program, but it is different,” Rippon said. Charlie McIntyre, a sophomore finance major, is scheduled to study abroad in the Semester in Antwerp program during the fall 2022 semester — a program that’s exclusively for business students who are in College of Business (COB) 300. McIntyre explained that although he knows his study abroad program will be altered because of the pandemic, he’s hoping COVID19 will be less of a problem next semester — that way, it won’t have an outsized effect on the Semester in Antwerp program. McIntyre, who was unsure about studying abroad during a pandemic, said he had friends who went abroad during the fall 2021 semester, which ultimately helped him make his decision. “It still looked like they had a blast and did a lot of normal things that represented a normal study abroad experience,” McIntyre said. “That kind of eased my worries about not getting the full experience.” CONTACT Kasey Trapuzzano at trapuzkm@ dukes.jmu.edu. For more coverage of JMU and Harrisonburg news, follow the news desk on Twitter @BreezeNewsJMU.
Thursday, February 3, 2022
guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and others in international education, including other colleges and universities, study abroad provider organizations like The Education Abroad Board and CEA and national and international education abroad associations like the Association of International Educators. Although no programs have yet been canceled or delayed this semester, Sensabaugh said JMU’s biggest challenge is making sure students and faculty have the required COVID19 vaccinations and testing done within the timeframe for international flights as required by the destination country. ”On [JMU’s] side, we have required all study abroad students to be fully vaccinated,” Sensabaugh said. “Once abroad, each program is bound to the policies and guidelines of their host country. These policies include maskwearing, COVID-testing requirements, social distancing and isolation and quarantine requirements.” This semester, Adrianna Rippon, a junior media arts and design (SMAD) and marketing double major, is a part of the Semester in London program and said there are 16 students, including her, studying abroad in London. Rippon said that although she was excited to study abroad, she tried not to get her hopes up in case of plans the pandemic might have altered. “My biggest worry was that [the program] was going to be canceled, so I didn’t let myself get too excited until it was really happening,” Rippon said. Before leaving the U.S., Rippon had to be fully vaccinated — including boosters — and take a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) COVID-19 test. Additionally, Rippon had to book a COVID-19 test in London for the day she arrived and couldn’t get on her flight without proof of a booked test, per U.K. guidelines. Rippon said the academic part of her study abroad program isn’t much different than it was for students pre-pandemic. Rippon is enrolled in five classes and takes two classes per day, Monday through Thursday. Each class is a five-hour block that begins with 90-minute lectures and finishes with outings to museums and other cultural attractions. However, what’s different about the study abroad program now is the rules and guidelines Rippon and her fellow classmates have to follow — put in place by both JMU and the U.K. Rippon said JMU requires students to wear masks while in the classroom, but she’s been choosing to wear a mask inside of public
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Stier presented examples of memorial projects and commemorative events during his speech in Wilson Hall. Cambria Lee / The Breeze
In remembrance
Professor and author discusses Holocaust commemoration
Thursday, February 3, 2022
By KINGSTON THOMAS The Breeze
Jan. 27 marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day. On Jan. 31, Oren Steir gave his talk, “The Stakes of Holocaust Commemoration: Some Lessons For the 21st Century” in the Wilson Hall Auditorium. In an introduction by Heather Coltman, provost and senior vice president of academic affairs, she said this time of remembrance is a “solemn, heartfelt, painful time.” Stier spoke about the importance of commemoration, as well as the consequences of “public memory.” He began with current events the U.S. commemorates, such as the terrorist attacks on 9/11. “What is at stake with any kind of public memorial activity?” Stier said. “Why does commemoration even matter? How and what do we remember? Who does the remembering? What do we do if there are competing memories of an event? A key characteristic of social public memory is that it’s always contested.” Stier said he wanted to present the audience with battles over memory in both the past and present. He selected examples of memorial projects that anticipate conflicts and have embedded within them something he called a “memorial dramatic friction” that he argued would allow for memorialization to emerge more vividly and vigorously. As an example, he spoke about the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia, which was a Confederate monument. After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, the site became a “vibrant” site of protest until the monument was dismantled in September 2021, Stier said. “The stakes of commemoration were very much on display in Richmond that year,” Stier said. He said the biggest consequence of
commemoration is collective amnesia, or He spoke on early Holocaust commemoration societal forgetfulness, citing the case of Emmett efforts such as a New York City Jewish Protest Till, a 14-year-old African American boy who in July 1942 in Madison Square Garden, then was murdered by a mob in 1955. Stier said that contrasted it to an American Nazi Rally in the what most people recall leaves out that Till was same location three years prior. tortured in a barn before his death — a barn that “The same site can be used for radically to this day remains different forms of unmarked. commemoration,” Stier also Stier said. touche d on the Stier also touched Charlottesville on a monument “Unite the Right” built in the ruins of rally, where white the Warsaw Ghetto supremacists in 1948 — the fifth marched through anniversary of the the streets shouting uprising — calling it racist and antia “stage for some of s e m i t i c s l o ga n s the most important while brandishing Holocaust Nazi imagery. commemorations.” “Public memory In Stier’s words, of the Holocaust “the earliest and of other difficult commemoration histories is a highceremonies in the stakes competition post war displaced for attention, person camps resources and the set the tone and very meaning of the form for most of past for people in the worldwide the presence,” Stier ceremonies to said. “Charlottesville Jennifer Weiss follow.” reminds us that we Stier also spoke cannot and should Senior art history major and president about taking selfies not dis entangle of the Holocaust Planning Committee at commemorative apparently disparate sites. Pawel Sawicki, varieties of 20th the director of the century racism.” Auschwitz Museum Media Office, said not to Stier focused on what he calls “memorial demean all forms of self photography, as many activism,” a construct between politics, theater, times visitors indicate with captions and their media, history and society. He said what links demeanor that they’re aware of the gravity of all forms of activism is their performativity and the memorial and wish to simply add their own the ways they enact memory. commemoration. However, Stier said, many
“I was very excited about the fact that a speaker was chosen to discuss the subject of anti-semitism and Holocaust remembrance, especially during such polarizing times.”
cases cross the line. To close, Stier said that the memorial performance he showed brought the contemporary individual in close contact with the events and people being commemorated, to which they would have very little relationship. “ I t h i n k 21 s t c e n t u r y H o l o c a u s t commemoration could use many more individual enactments supported by memorial environments that are legible and convey some aspect of the real dramas they were built to commemorate,” Stier said. “Otherwise, the generations born long after will eventually find no access points at all to a past they find increasingly distant.” Senior art history major Jennifer Weiss, the president of the Holocaust Planning Committee, said the committee spent a semester planning for the seminar. When it came to Stier’s speech, Weiss said it was impactful to hear someone speak on Holocaust remembrance, especially at JMU, as a Jewish leader. “I was very excited about the fact that a speaker was chosen to discuss the subject of anti-semitism and Holocaust remembrance,” Weiss said, “especially during such polarizing times.” Weiss also said that as an art history major, Stier’s speech means a great deal to her because she learned about how art has impacted how society memorializes history and events through art and monuments. “Memorial events are remembering a time and a place in the past, and in doing so, you bring issues to the present in more light,” Weiss said. CONTACT Kingston Thomas at thoma2ks@ dukes.jmu.edu. For more coverage of JMU and Harrisonburg news, follow the news desk on Twitter @BreezeNewsJMU.
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NEWS
This week's key takeaways from SGA senate SGA senate tables approval of publishing COVID-19 Attendance Statement
The Student Government Association (SGA) senate voted to table the approval of publishing its COVID-19 Attendance Statement, a statement written by SGA and the Leadership Team (LT) to JMU Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Heather Coltman and JMU senior administration. The document states that “despite the university’s public position advising students who have tested positive for COVID-19 to follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines, the university has decided to allow professors the discretion to choose whether to accommodate students.” Because of this, the document states, many students have faced academic punishments from some professors for missing classes due to a positive COVID-19 test. SGA said it believes the university is forcing students to choose between protecting public health and their own academic success. SGA said it's reached out to multiple members of senior administration trying to correct this policy but has been “continuously dismissed and misled” — which led to the drafting of the statement. Danny Gaffin, elections commissioner of SGA, said he reached out to Coltman on Jan. 30 after the statement was written but never received a response. Gaffin and Andre Mas, finance liaison of SGA, said they agree the statement needs to be sent but not in the way it’s currently worded because it comes off as “angry” and “accusatory.” Gaffin and Mas both said they believe the statement written as is has the potential to hurt the relationship SGA has with the provost. Emily Butters, speaker of the SGA senate and one of the contributing writers of the statement, said she hasn’t seen the Office of the Provost “fight for students.” Carson Sullivan, COVID-19 ad hoc chair of SGA, agreed with Butters and said he believes requiring mandatory attendance shows the “lack of empathy [JMU] faculty has for the student body.” “The times I’ve met with the Vice Provost Dr. Rudy Molina, and the emails I’ve exchanged with not only him but also Tim Miller and other members of the administration, really have proved to be absolutely fruitless in what we’re trying to accomplish,” Sullivan said. “It’s really hard to get anything done when the administration consistently digs its heels in.”
SGA senate approves American Sign Language (ASL) Bill of Opinion The SGA senate voted unanimously to pass the ASL Bill of Opinion, which demands the expansion and inclusion of ASL at JMU. The bill urges university administration to adopt ASL as a language offered by the
department of Foreign Languages, Literatures and Cultures. Additionally, the bill urges increases to the sections of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) 420 and 421, expansion of the “curriculum of ASL courses offered in order to accept ASL as a foreign language requirement for the Bachelor of Arts degree at JMU” and for JMU to “engage in more inclusive hiring practices with heavy consideration of those from the deaf community for faculty and staff positions.” The bill said U.Va. and George Mason University offer ASL as a minor, while the University of Mary Washington, Old Dominion and Radford offer significantly more ASL courses than JMU. SGA will send the bill to Coltman, all current members of the Virginia House of Delegates, all current members of the Virginia Senate, JMU Faculty Senate and members of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.
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SGA senate approves Young Life College contingency funds
The SGA senate voted to pass senate resolution 23, which granted Young Life College (YLC), a Christian organization on campus, a $3,000 contingency fund from the SGA 2021 contingency funds. The funds will go toward members of YLC who can’t afford the organization’s annual spring break vacation to Panama City Beach, Florida, on their own — a $469 trip that includes the price of lodging, transportation and some of the meals. Lou Chiccehitto, JMU college director at YLC, and Nate Hazen, a senator of SGA and member of YLC, said members of YLC shouldn’t miss out on the “life-changing experience” just because they or their families can’t afford it. “Our hope is that we can offer need-based funding for students if they need it because a lot of people can’t afford a trip for spring break,” Chiccehitto said.
SGA senate approves MadiTHON program grant
The SGA senate voted unanimously to pass resolution 24, which granted MadiTHON a $6,995 program grant. This came from the SGA 2021 program grant to go toward the annual 12-hour dance marathon that raises money for the University of Virginia’s Children’s Network Hospital. The funds will help with event expenses — including $2,800 on food, $600 on transportation and $3,595 on event supplies like T-shirts, crewnecks, fanny packs and prize packs for the day of MadiTHON. “MadiTHON not only brings students together on campus for this great cause, but it directly funds children’s medical care,” Joey Shortts, spokesperson for MadiTHON, said. CONTACT Kasey Trapuzzano at trapuzkm@ dukes.jmu.edu. For more coverage of JMU and Harrisonburg news, follow the news desk on Twitter @BreezeNewsJMU.
Thursday, February 3, 2022
SGA senate granted Young Life College (YLC) and MadiTHON funding at this week's meeting. Kasey Trapuzzano / contributing photographer
OPINION EDITOR Jacob Carter
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EMAIL breezeopinion@gmail.com
@Breeze_Opinion
Spread thin
Want to praise someone or get something off your chest? Darts & Pats is the place to do it. Submit your own at breezejmu.org.
A “staying-in-touch” pat to The Breeze for delivering copies that can be picked up by alumni who don’t live in Harrisonburg at various locations including Cinnamon Bear, Valley Fitness and Martin’s. From a Madison College graduate.
A “what-am-I-supposedto-do” dart to Panera for not offering lids and straws. From someone who got a frozen coffee with whipped cream and a dome lid. A “watch-the-clock” dart to my professor who kept us five minutes after class was supposed to end. From someone who missed the bus. A “Joe-Shiesty” pat to Joe Burrow for leading America’s team to the Super Bowl.
Thursday, February 3, 2022
From a bandwagon Cincinnati Bengals fan.
Editorial Policies The Breeze 1598 S. Main Street Harrisonburg, VA 22801
According to JMU’s updated Stop the Spread policy, professors don’t have to provide accommodations for students out with COVID-19. Photos by Matt Young / The Breeze
JMU’s updated Stop the Spread policy motivates sick students to break quarantine
MIA HAZELDINE-ROSS | mia’s ideas JMU students are back on campus again this semester despite a rise in the Omicron variant nationwide. This new variant may seem less severe, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) theorizes that it will spread more quickly than older, more severe variants. On college campuses, this could mean a rise in cases, and as such, more students forced into quarantine. That is, of course, if students opt to test for the virus at all. JMU has removed any requirements that professors make special accommodations for those isolating with COVID-19, meaning that those with a positive test result could face serious academic consequences. JMU’s Stop the Spread policy motivates symptomatic students to avoid getting tested in the first place and attend class instead, spreading the virus to their colleagues and forcing other students to do the same. This issue was addressed at a Student Government Association (SGA) meeting on Feb. 1, wherein the SGA stated their belief that the university is forcing students to choose between protecting public health and their own academic success. Even a week away from classes without accommodations means missed assignments, lectures and exams. While that might not be a big deal to some, it could mean failing grades for many. Accommodations for students don’t always have to mean virtually attending class, especially as not all subjects are suited for virtual delivery. Instead, professors should consider posting their lectures online, keeping Canvas pages up-to-date and providing supplemental readings and videos for those isolating with COVID-19. These extra materials, while particularly beneficial to those out with COVID-19, could support the learning process of nonquarantining students, too. Mark Rooker, professor of art, metals and jewelry, found that moving to a hybrid
The Breeze welcomes and encourages readers to voice their opinions through letters and guest columns. Letters must be no longer than 250 words. Guest columns must be no more than 650 words.
Time spent away from classes without accommodations means missed assignments, lectures and exams.
format forced him to shift some of the focus away from the specific techniques to other aspects of the course. As a result, he saw that while the students’ technical abilities suffered, their designs were much better. “[Online learning] can be as effective or more effective for certain things,” Rooker said. Prioritizing student-professor communication is essential during a pandemic, whether that means setting up online meetings with students out sick or checking emails regularly. Professors have the responsibility to make sure a student knows exactly how to go about keeping up with class while quarantining. Of course, not all of the responsibility should fall on professors, but JMU’s new policy unfairly puts all of the burden on students who are already dealing with the other burdens of quarantine, such as delivering the bad news to those they’ve been in contact with before testing positive or figuring out how to get food without risking exposure. “I think that students and faculty have
to be realistic in what can be done online,” Kristi Shackelford, chief communications officer of academic affairs, said. “If part of your art history class is attending the exhibit … It does not mean the student ought to be penalized. The first thing the student should always do is reach out to their instructor. No one knows more about the class than the instructor. The vast, vast majority are going to be willing to work with students during [COVID-19] or not.” However, if a student isn’t getting adequate support from their professor, Shackelford suggests seeking out the department head or talking with an adviser about the issue. Regardless of the motivation behind the update to JMU’s Stop the Spread policy, the university should rethink this decision if they truly want to stop the spread of COVID-19.
The Breeze reserves the right to edit submissions for length, grammar and if material is libelous, factually inaccurate or unclear. The Breeze assumes the rights to any published work. Opinions expressed in this page, with the exception of editorials, are not necessarily those of The Breeze or its staff.
Letters and guest columns should be submitted in print or via e-mail and must include name, phone number, major/year if author is a current student (or year of graduation), professional title (if applicable) and place of residence if author is not a JMU student.
CONTACT Mia Hazeldine-Ross at hazeldmg@dukes.jmu.edu. For more editorials regarding the JMU and Harrisonburg communities, follow the opinion desk on Instagram and Twitter @Breeze_Opinion.
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OPINION
DOUBLE
TAKE
Life in the
Metaverse Meta verse
Metaverse will revolutionize the way we learn
EMMA SELI | compromising controversy
NICK LAU | laud and proud
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CONTACT Nick Lau at launa@dukes.jmu. edu. For more editorials regarding the JMU and Harrisonburg communities, follow the opinion desk on Instagram and Twitter @Breeze_Opinion.
The metaverse has become big tech’s newest obsession. It’s a form of technology that may appear to be deeply confusing and practically unreal and, in truth, it kind of is. The metaverse is just as abstract an idea today as the internet was decades ago, and once again, tech and gaming companies can’t stop talking about it. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerburg even rebranded his company, and while it frankly feels strange, it’s ultimately a genius move on Zuckerburg’s part. Tech giants advertise the metaverse with the utmost optimism, but according to The New York Times, many are relatively hesitant toward this abstract and mysterious form of technology. Just as the internet and social media have given rise to great controversy, the metaverse will introduce its own set of issues. It’s difficult to explain the metaverse in simple terms. It’s much easier to compare it to existing technology. While the world has yet to experience the metaverse as a whole, there are current forms of technology that could be considered the building blocks of the complex metaverse, according to WIRED. For example, something that has become quite popular and relatively accessible in recent years: virtual reality (VR) headsets. VR provides immersive online experiences through video games, where people can interact with other users thousands of miles away and enter virtual marketplaces to buy and sell goods just from their living rooms. While this technology appears to be “metaversal,” it’s nowhere near as immersive and extensive as the metaverse is advertised to be. Companies like Epic Games, Microsoft and Meta, previously known as Facebook, have been releasing videos of what the metaverse might look like. That said, no one knows exactly how it will work and what it will look like — and some, specifically Meta’s video, include depictions of holograms. Clearly, this technology is far from being implemented into society. The metaverse isn’t yet tangible. It’s simply the idea of a futuristic and immersive form of technology. Social media and gaming platforms already harbor many forms of harassment, bullying and hate speech. While companies may attempt to censor such forms of speech, it’s ultimately impossible to censor every horrible thing that’s said on the internet. There are countless incidents on the internet where bullying and harassment
have led to real-world consequences, as shown on the Megan Meier Foundation website. Some have even led to suicide. So why would the metaverse be any different? In an interview with The New York Times, Oculus user Chanelle Siggens explained an incident that happened to her while playing her favorite VR game Population One. While waiting for her game to start, another online player simulated groping and ejaculating onto her avatar. “When something bad happens, when someone comes up and gropes you, your mind is tricking you into thinking it’s happening in the real world … With the full metaverse, it’s going to be so much more intense,” Siggens said. If these incidents are already occurring in the early stages of the metaverse, it’s hard to imagine the horrible things that could happen down the road as technology becomes more immersive. The metaverse could potentially be a whole new platform for predators to use to harass and abuse children and others who use VR technology. According to the Financial Times, even employees at Meta have expressed their concerns over the potentially harmful consequences of the technology. Andrew Bosworth, an executive at Meta, put forth his anxieties over the developing technology in a company memo, which was seen by the Financial Times. Bosworth explained in the memo that controlling how users interact with each other “at any meaningful scale is practically impossible” and that it could pose “an existential threat” to users and Meta alike. Nate Moonis, a junior, explained his thoughts on the metaverse, including what he considers are the upsides and downsides of the technology. “You’d be able to join a ‘real’ conference room and have a meeting with people from all over the world … [but] it’s impossible for the metaverse to be usable everywhere, so it excludes a lot of people and will only further remove them from society,” said Moonis. “Also, whoever comes out with the technology first has the chance to monopolize the entire industry and kind of take over life as we know it.” Monopolization of the metaverse, like most current industries, is a strong possibility. Zuckerburg has already taken a step down that path by rebranding his company to the name “Meta.” The company will always be directly associated with the metaverse regardless of the scale of their affiliation. As the creation of the metaverse progresses, tech giants who lead the race will gain an enormous amount of power and influence. It’s impossible to ignore the potential dark sides of the metaverse with harassment, bullying, assault and monopolization on the table. So, while the metaverse is growing in popularity and is sparking the imagination of people and companies all over the world, its potentially harmful consequences must be taken into consideration. CONTACT Emma Seli at seliek@dukes.jmu. edu. For more editorials regarding the JMU and Harrisonburg communities, follow the opinion desk on Instagram and Twitter @Breeze_Opinion.
Thursday February 3, 2022
”I think technological progress and reinvention and revolution in thinking is good and necessary in our overall evolution, and I very much enjoy the peaks into meta-existence we’ve had so far,” Hokanson said. Hokanson completed her master’s degree entirely online, so she believes the idea of a totally online virtual education has already been established, and all that’s needed is the technology to take the next step. As an interactive design professor within the school of media arts and design, her example is proof that some areas of study can work well using virtual lessons. However, Hokanson said she believes that a deeper connection always comes from inperson learning. “The inherent benefit of teaching interactive design content online versus in person is more experience with the online platform,” Hokanson said. “That comes at a cost, though, as collaborative work tends to be less organic. I believe this is a learned skill, and the more you practice collaborating virtually, the better you become at it … And it is difficult to get an entire group or class of students to reach the same immersion with material when each is coming to the experience in their own individual spaces.” T h e metaverse will also likely change how some students enjoy their free time. According to NBC, about 70% of college students occasionally ee ze play video games. With the implementation of the metaverse, these numbers are likely to rise. The typical video game experience could evolve into immersive, real-world events that prove to be even more captivating than normal video games. Some may doubt the prospect of the metaverse becoming prevalent in society, but the investments that have already been made tell a different story. A virtual yacht called the “Metaflower” was sold for $650,000, a staggering price for a boat made out of bytes. With advancements in technology happening nearly everyday, it’s hard to dismiss the metaverse as just a phase in society’s never-ending quest for evolution and optimization. We may be far off from the metaverse being a ubiquitous form of technology, but we’re certainly closer than we’ve ever been before. In any case, the metaverse is coming, and it’ll alter the typical online experience — for better or worse. Jaco
The early days of the internet drastically changed our way of life, almost to an immeasurable amount. Libraries used to be our main source of information, and phone calls were one of the only ways to communicate. As times have changed, the internet has enabled us to do things we never thought imaginable beforehand. The same will happen when the metaverse becomes prevalent. Explaining the metaverse is comparable to explaining the internet to someone in the 1960s. According to TIME, it’s a form of communication that will essentially be a new reality that humans can access via virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR). Right now, people socialize and communicate by going to websites on their computer or phone, but the metaverse offers a multidimensional experience where people can do an infinite amount of things. Instead of viewing content from a screen, people can immerse themselves in the digital content. This means, for example, instead of searching for pictures of vacation spots, people can be there “in person” digitally and figure out if they’d like to physically go there. This will provide many new possibilities for students and their education. A big change that could potentially be implemented is the use of the metaverse to teach classes. Since the beginning of the pandemic, virtual lessons have become more normalized and even more enjoyed by students than in-person classes, according to a study done by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. With a good internet connection, it’s as simple as turning on your laptop and logging onto a video-calling app. However, learning from a screen is neither beneficial nor stimulating enough for many students. “I prefer in-person classes because they motivate me to study more and get started on my projects earlier,” sophomore Will Schmidt said. Implementing the metaverse into schooling could allow the option of virtual learning that is akin to that of a physical, in-person class from your own home, allowing students to get the feel of an actual classroom without necessarily having to be there. Surprisingly, something similar to this is already happening. VR Chat is one of the first attempts at having an immersive, online social setting via VR. Launched in 2017, the application has a multitude of features, including the ability to socialize, attend events, take classes, create art, play games, perform for large crowds and explore virtual environments. With this level of in-depth design, holding educational classes in the virtual world doesn’t seem that far off. The app already has the features required to hold an actual class. Students can see each other, communicate clearly and move around a virtual environment to aid in their education. JMU professor Shelly Hokanson acknowledges the possibility of the metaverse becoming a part of our daily lives.
Metaverse leaves risk for cyberbullying and harassment
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OPINION Jacob Carte
r/T he
Br e
e ez
Cold front concern Recent snowstorms prove impact of climate change WILL FRASIER | contributing writer
Thursday February 3, 2022
The total snowfall accumulation in January sits at 16.95 inches. Typically, the January average sits at a mere 6.8 inches. Cambria Lee / The Breeze
From the scorching wildfires in Australia and California to the crippling destructive power of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, it’s become abundantly clear that devastating extreme weather events are here to stay. The effects these events have on infrastructure, local economies and peoples’ livelihoods make it imperative that we strive to more adequately prepare and to address their root causes. The catalyst of these natural disasters are frequently attributed to global warming as a result of climate change. Despite this, there’s been a startling influx of extreme winter weather over the past few years, oftentimes in places that are further South and unaccustomed to frequent winter weather. Many have cited this as an argument against the existence of climate change, largely due to the fact that it would seem to be antithetical to the global warming phenomena. However, this view is far from reality. The fact is that the increasing numbers of extreme wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes and snow storms are a direct result of climate change, global warming and the subsequent melting of the polar ice caps. While this may seem backward or nonsensical, there are valid scientific explanations for these strange occurrences. The winter snowstorm that struck Texas in February 2021 not only killed 57 people but led to its entire power grid being mere “seconds or minutes away from catastrophic failure and a complete blackout,” according to CNN. In a state like Texas, known for its warm, arid climate and lack of snowfall, this represents extreme deviation from the norm. So how is climate change responsible for the frigid temperatures and the disastrous effects on infrastructure? As the arctic continues to warm at a rapid pace, melting the polar ice caps, cold air has been sucked up into the jet stream and directed South toward areas that don’t typically receive such low temperatures or wintery conditions. This has ultimately led to dangerous icy conditions, winter snowstorms in climate zones that receive minimal snow, frigid temperatures and subsequent infrastructure collapses in places where winterization
has never before been necessary. Another example is the recent snowstorms that have struck Tennessee, where the winter season snow average had already been exceeded by the third week of January. Even in Harrisonburg, the effects of climate change can be seen. The total snowfall accumulation in January was 16.95 inches of snow. Typically, the January average sits at a mere 6.8 inches. JMU’s climate policy identifies the threat that climate change poses to the Harrisonburg community: “The impact of human activity on the pace of climate change is well supported scientifically and thus, ought to drive coordinated efforts by communities, industries and nations to mitigate impact and slow the rate of change.” Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe said the effects of climate change can influence both extreme heat and cold in conjunction with abnormal weather events. This is evident in Harrisonburg and Virginia as a whole, leading to a high rate of unusual weather conditions. “I moved to Virginia Beach from South Africa when I was 9 and saw snow for the first time in my life that year,” junior Rainer Getzschmann said. “I remember when we had that first snow storm, everyone in the area was surprised because it had been a while since we had significant snow in our area. Then, for the next 10 years, we had a snow storm almost every winter while also having some of the hottest summers on record.” As the U.S. continues to suffer frigid snowstorms and disastrous infrastructure failures, one may ask: Will the weather ever return to normal? The answer will likely be no unless significant strides are made across the country and the whole world to address the scourge of climate change. If we don’t, we can expect much of the same. As made evident by Rainer’s statement, as well as the recent Texas, Tennessee and Harrisonburg snowstorms, extreme winter weather is here to stay and will likely worsen as the climate continues to change. So much for global “warming.” CONTACT Will Frasier at frasiewd@dukes. jmu.edu. For more editorials regarding the JMU and Harrisonburg communities, follow the opinion desk on Instagram and Twitter @Breeze_Opinion.
BUSINESS EDITOR Filip De Mott
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EMAIL breezembr@gmail.com
@BreezeMBR
BIKE BOOM
How the bike industry navigated bumpy pandemic woes By SARAH ECCLESTON The Madison Business Review
A customer hurried into Rocktown Bicycles in Harrisonburg. “That’s the right one,” he said. “I’ll take it!” Without delay, he picked up the bike and bought it. It was a $3,500 full suspension mountain bike that the customer had gone to several shops to find, finally driving more than an hour to Rocktown Bicycles, known as the “bicycle capital of the Shenandoah valley.” During the first few months of COVID-19, the demand for bicycles skyrocketed. In 2020, the global market for bicycles reached $29.2 billion, whereas in 2019 — before the pandemic — it was at $20.28 billion. But despite this surge in value, it hasn’t been a smooth ride for the bicycle industry. Bike sellers struggled to meet
the increased demand for bikes due to the supply chain shortages during the pandemic. Bike sellers are still struggling to find bicycles and their parts. “Parents and kids at home during shutdowns suddenly had time to, and needed to, get out,’’ Brad Donze, a sales associate at Shenandoah Bicycle Company, said. “There really wasn’t much else to do.” Kevin Rogers, the store’s general manager, said even now there’s been an increase in business, despite the pandemic, because of the dramatic increase of bike ridership that COVID-19 has brought. According to a report by the Outdoor Foundation, in 2019, 48.8 million participated in biking and in 2020 ridership increased by almost 4 million. “There’s still an increase [because] there’s more people riding,” Rogers said. Nationwide, another contributing factor
could be the decrease in bikeshare systems — terminals that offer paid or free bikes for public use — with such sites closing due to COVID-19. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of bikeshare systems decreased from 103 to 66 from 2019-21. While more and more people wanted bikes, there was less and less supply, and finding bicycles and their parts became an issue. Pre-pandemic, Donze said there wasn’t even a question as to where they’d get bikes and their components: “Availability was always there.” All the bike store had to do was order with no searching or waiting required. Now, Donze said, management has to constantly watch for alerts about new
CONTACT the Madison Business Review @breezembr@gmail.com. Sarah is a media arts and design major.
Thursday February 3, 2022
While bicycle supplies are returning to pre-pandemic levels, backorders and shortages are still commonplace. Photos by Matt Young / The Breeze
products b e c o m i n g available. Bike stores have minutes to order bikes and parts or else they’ll be gone, he said. At any time of the day, Donze said, managers have to drop what they’re doing and order parts as soon as they become available. “When [bikes and bike parts] did start becoming available again, every bike shop in the United States had to sit like vultures through the mode of purchasing and get whatever you can,” Donze said. The scramble for bike parts and the increased demand for bikes caused an increased workload for bike store employees, which is still in effect. “2020 was exhausting because it was just nonstop bike sales,” Kelly Paduch, women’s ambassador of Rocktown Bicycles, said. “It just started getting busier and busier.” Donze said Shenandoah Bicycle Company employees had two to three times more work during their shifts than they had pre-pandemic. Rocktown Bicycles has experienced a similar phenomenon, which has led to exhaustion for Paduch, she said. Paduch didn’t have to work more hours at the store, she said, but within the hours, she had more work on her plate. Although bike sales are becoming more regular, this is still occurring. Both Donze and Paduch said the pandemic’s effects are still being felt. Donze said the Shenandoah Bicycle Company is now normalizing, but there are still things that have been on backorder for months and there’s no indication of when they’ll come in. Some bikes won’t be available for customers who order now until the summer.
CULTURE
EDITORS
Amy Needham & Charlotte Matherly
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EMAIL thebreezeculture@gmail.com
@Breeze_Culture
Inclusion update
DEI leaders reflect on state of diversity, equity and inclusion at JMU By MORGAN VUKNIC The Breeze
Across the board, a mere 14.75% of faculty members are people of color. JMU itself is a primarily white institution (PWI), but the student body is more diverse than the faculty, with 75.1% of students identifying as white compared to the faculty’s 81.04%. Despite these numbers, JMU has installed diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives tailored to create change. In the university’s 2020-21 anti-racist agenda, university leaders recognize that JMU “cannot sustain what we think of as our excellence without authentically embracing inclusivity.” The adoption of this agenda appointed DEI leaders who work with Provost and Senior Vice President for Student Affairs Heather Coltman to specify goals and initiatives within their college or program. Although the creation of these leaders is a relatively new initiative, they’ve made real change.
The role of DEI on campus
Many of these DEI leaders are professors as well — but some of their duties include initiating programs on JMU’s campus that highlight DEI topics, working collaboratively with other DEI leaders, being aware of events happening around campus and changing JMU’s curriculum to be more inclusive. “On most days, I try to look for opportunities to read about DEI,” university studies DEI leader Sarah Cheverton said. “I really take advantage of the opportunities I have and try to understand and learn about the issues.” Cheverton said she thinks it’s important to have someone on campus who’s tasked with paying attention to DEI topics so they can be a “communication conduit” across campus.
It’s an unspoken role, but DEI leaders are tasked with educating themselves on the issues of diversity, equity, inclusion and justice, Cheverton said. She said being in this position has allowed her to deepen her understanding of those topics. “DEI is an opportunity to be more focused and to learn more about concepts, terminology and problems that people face,” Cheverton said. “We have to be aware of events, issues and topics that are circulating around campus.” The DEI director for CHBS, BJ Bryson, said that no matter what she’s doing — whether it’s writing reports, planning or meeting with other leaders — relationship-building is important in her role. “Most people think that change is just going to happen, that we’re going to sit down and set some rules and everyone will be happy, but that’s not how it works,” Bryson said. “These things work best when you develop relationships with people, see what their interests are and encourage them to be inclusive.”
Inclusive initiatives
DEI leaders are tasked with brainstorming future initiatives for their respective college or program. Karina Kline-Gabel, the assistant dean for diversity, equity and inclusion for the College of Arts and Letters (CAL), started Discussions on Diversity in which she virtually interviews community leaders to have informal conversations about DEI. The discussions cover everything from diversity in the Harrisonburg community to curriculum changes within CAL. “What I’ve enjoyed about [Discussions on Diversity] is that everyone has brought their own perspective,” Kline-Gabel said. “In the end, we all want the same thing: a good relationship between students, the university and the community.” Kline-Gabel has also created a student diversity council within CAL that she hopes to expand in
Thursday, February 3, 2022
JMU colleges broken down by white vs. non-white faculty
the future. One of the council’s jobs is to draft recommendations to CAL Dean Robert Aguirre about how to address DEI efforts at the collegiate level. Although she isn’t a member of the CAL student diversity council, student body president Jessani Collier said that when it comes to addressing DEI topics at the college level, students can talk about the uncomfortable subjects. She said there have to be conversations about systemic racism in the classroom and that racist behavior has to be called out as soon as it happens. “The most crucial component to the classroom is the environment that the professor fosters,” Collier said. “When you bring up systemic racism, people are going to get uncomfortable, but it’s a matter of guiding professors to make sure they’re able to foster those conversations in a helpful way.” Kline-Gabel is also bringing the inaugural Somos JMU Latinx Conference to campus next fall with the theme of “collaborations across the Commonwealth.” This theme, Kline-Gabel said, will be represented through bringing Latino members from all across the state to network and share ideas for DEI initiatives. She said she wants to highlight local efforts to make sure Hispanic and Latino communities are being represented. When it comes to diversity efforts in the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences (CHBS), Bryson said her biggest goals are to hire more diverse faculty, incorporate a curriculum that covers DEI topics and create a space where students feel comfortable to give her and other faculty feedback. As of fall 2020, JMU’s College of Health and Behavioral Studies is the least diverse on campus, with non-white faculty members making up only 8.47% of full-time instructional faculty. In some areas of JMU — like the number of diverse faculty and small changes to curriculum — the results of the anti-racism agenda are hard to see. Bryson said that because of this, hiring more diverse faculty is evermore important. She said that in CHBS, there are only three Hispanic professors out of the college’s more than 100 faculty members. This gap in professors of color can be seen in other colleges as well. In the fall 2020 term, out of the College of Business’ 149 faculty members, 31 were people of color; and in CAL, there were 48 people of color out of 266 faculty members. According to the JMU fall 2020 fact book, 1,368 out of 1688, or just over 81% of, full-time instructional faculty are white. This percentage is the same as the 2017-18 findings but a change from the 1989-90 findings, where 95% of the faculty were white. “Curriculum needs to reflect the kinds of communities our students are going to serve,” Bryson said. “With educating students also comes teaching everyone that diverse people are not less and that they bring different perspectives to conversations.”
A way forward JMU’s College of Health and Behavioral Studies is the least diverse, with 8.47% of full-time instructional faculty members identifying as non-white, according to JMU instutional research collected in fall 2020.
As February is Black History Month, Kline-Gabel said commemorative months give
people the chance to reflect on the treatment of people of color in America. She said this month is a time to educate, celebrate and participate in discussions about supporting communities of color. Cheverton agreed, saying that while learning about Black history isn’t only limited to February, Black History Month allows DEI leaders to celebrate and honor achievements made by Black people. “Black History Month provides a unique opportunity for DEI leaders to draw attention from a much broader audience to several important aspects of DEI work,” Cheverton said, “[such as] the lingering systemic inequities and the ways in which our society has been positively shaped and reshaped by the richness of Black culture and heritage.” With the creation of DEI leaders and anti-racism initiatives, Cheverton, Kline-Gable and Bryson agreed that JMU has taken major steps in regard to DEI efforts — but dialogue needs to turn into action, they said. “I think JMU is heading in the right direction with starting these conversations, including students in them and making it very clear that JMU wants to be known for these topics of welcoming different communities,” Kline-Gabel said. “The next step comes with moving these conversations from just conversations to implementation.” Because these diversity leader positions have only been in place for two years, Bryson said it’s hard to say if JMU’s efforts have been successful. “It’s only been two years, so you can’t expect that much out of place, but I can say that I really like what is happening in my college,” Bryson said. “We have more diverse students, and we’ve improved our hiring of faculty and staff. I think there are good efforts happening, but fruitfulness is yet to be seen.” Collier said that along with transparency, JMU needs to make its diversity efforts less performative. For example, she said the university should’ve paid the menorah lighting for Hanukkah more attention instead of letting it be overshadowed by the tree lighting last December. When it comes to JMU’s diversity initiatives being visible, Meg Mulrooney, the senior associate vice provost for academic programs and equity, faculty and curriculum, said it’s often hard to see results of such efforts because the university is a decentralized campus with buildings spread out and departments that keep to themselves. Mulrooney said that in the vice provost’s office, she’s working on strategies to make DEI efforts more transparent. “To expand, we have to learn from and trust each other,” Mulrooney said. Kline-Gabel said one of the most concrete actions JMU has taken is the announcement of a vice president of diversity, equity and inclusion position. She said this position shows JMU’s commitment to creating a welcoming environment, and it shows what type of improvements the school is trying to make. Along with the creation of the student diversity council, Mulrooney said she’s looking to change the general education program. The vice provost’s office, she said, is working with a group of students and faculty to make the program more equitable. “I’m glad to see that JMU is putting people in place and demonstrating sincere effort to raise awareness and create understanding,” Cheverton said. “That way, whatever changes we make can be based on knowledge and perhaps be more sustainable.” CONTACT Morgan Vuknic at vuknicma@ dukes.jmu.edu. For more on the culture, arts and lifestyle of the JMU and Harrisonburg communities, follow the culture desk on Twitter and Instagram @Breeze_Culture.
CULTURE
Black excellence
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Furious Flower Poetry Center looks ahead to Black History Month By AMY NEEDHAM & CHARLOTTE MATHERLY The Breeze
The emergency alert came at 3:29 a.m. Howard University and 12 other historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) closed campus or canceled classes in response to bomb threats on the first day of Black History Month, according to NBC News. JMU student body president Jessani Collier’s response was direct. “I can say that that is unacceptable.” But rather than let the situation overshadow the entire month, Collier hopes this news will spark action for equity and justice. “It’s one thing to complain about something,” Collier said, “but it’s also a different thing to complain about something and then do something about it.” With 26 days of Black History Month remaining, JMU’s Furious Flower Poetry Center is looking ahead. Founder Joanne Gabbin encouraged students to educate themselves and honor Black excellence through spoken and written word.
Celebrating Black excellence
communication, this irreverent energy about and respect for people’s experiences and art.” Carter’s work in the spring 2019 JMU X-Labs “Innovating the Archives” class helped produce a website encompassing an archive of materials relating to the first Furious Flower Poetry Conference. This led to the Center receiving a $2 million grant toward a project to develop “world-class archives” surrounding all of Furious Flower. “That’s like a dream,” Gabbin said. “If I had dreamed any number, it may have been $200,000.” When Black History Month gives way to Women’s History Month in March, Gabbin said Furious Flower plans to bridge the two with the virtual Furious Flower Collegiate Summit from March 3-4, featuring National Book Award Finalist and JMU alumna Amber McBride (’10).
Enacting change
Gabbin is part of President Jonathan Alger’s Task Force on Racial Equity and hopes to integrate diversity, equity and inclusion into the campus without just giving “lip service” to the cause. As recommendations — like ensuring BIPOC students have access to scholarships and programs — are given to the administration, she said she’s optimistic about their work. “What I have viewed is a lot of sincerity, a
lot of earnestness and hard work around these issues,” Gabbin said. Collier said she hopes the Black community will be “honored respectfully” and that JMU’s task forces have a responsibility to create concrete change rather than perpetual discussion. “There’s a line between this, but it’s really important to cross from dialogue where we’re aware [and] create a conversation about it but also be respectful and also productive,” Collier said. If recommendations are implemented, Gabbin said they’ll result in a “significant change” in Black culture at JMU. But Gabbin wants critics to know that change takes time. “I’m sure that many people are a little concerned about the time it takes to get something from idea into action or into practice, but it took a long time to make those things as bad as they are,” Gabbin said. “It’s gonna take a while to make them better.” CONTACT Amy Needham and Charlotte Matherly at thebreezeculture@gmail.com. For more on the culture, arts and lifestyle of the JMU and Harrisonburg communities, follow the culture desk on Twitter and Instagram @Breeze_Culture.
Joanne Gabbin is the founder of the Furious Flower Poetry Center, the first academic center for Black poetry in the U.S. Cambria Lee / The Breeze
Thursday, February 3, 2022
Now more than ever, Gabbin said, it’s essential to recognize the Black experience. “If we look very closely at what’s happening in this country, you find that African American poets are leading the other writers in this country in terms of the number of prizes, the number of awards,” Gabbin said. “It was very important to me to have our students, when they say they are getting good education, to make sure that the education is complete.” When Gabbin came to JMU in 1985, she found that Black intellectuals weren’t often invited to share their knowledge on campus. Noticing a “hunger” for diversity, Gabbin got to work. “I found that my [honors] students, and by extension my other students, had very little exposure to Black excellence,” Gabbin said. “There was a pretty homogenous kind of approach to culture.” Gabbin held her first Furious Flower Poetry Conference featuring Black poets, novelists and scholars in 1994. This conference grew into the Furious Flower Poetry Center in 2004 and continues to operate as the first ever academic center for Black poetry in the U.S. “It is especially important in this time when there are forces out there trying to curtail the kinds of information that we get to read about and learn about,” Gabbin said. “It stands as a marker of significance for me because it shows how desperately we need to have freedom in terms of what we are able to learn.” Senior Jordanne Alexander said Black History Month should motivate students to take advantage of Furious Flower’s events. She said the Center is a “well of knowledge,” not only for poetry but for the whole Black experience. “This is a great time now to start getting more involved with different poets and listen to what
they have to say — listening to their work and engaging with it when you can,” Alexander said. Alexander is the inaugural Carmen R. Gillespie fellow, which honors the JMU Women of Color organization founder and poet’s commitment to teaching Black poetry and culture. The Center is known more around the world than locally, Gabbin said, so Alexander is working to expand campus-wide awareness. “I think that more people need to know about the Center because it’s a great well of knowledge for … not even just Black poetry, just like the Black experience in general,” Alexander said. During the pandemic, the Center adapted its outreach by streaming virtual poetry readings on Facebook Live, which increased viewership “tenfold,” Gabbin said. On Feb. 16, the Center will welcome Virginia Tech associate professor of creative writing Khadijah Queen for its first in-person reading in two years. Graduate English student Jessica Carter (’10) said reading and listening to Black poetry helps shape non-Black students’ understanding of Black history. She said it gives a personal, more complete picture of Black culture that historical archives may not provide. “I’m really excited for this opportunity, both at the intersection of Black History Month and at a time when people can start gathering again — maybe,” Carter said. “It’s just this
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CULTURE
K-pop and lock
Moong Crew strikes a pose at JMU
Thursday, February 3, 2022
By JAKE DODOHARA The Breeze
Sophomore Kendall Carnegie walks into JMU’s University Recreation Center (UREC) with a Bluetooth speaker, ready to blast Korean pop music. Once a week, Carnegie meets with Moong Crew, the dance team she founded last year. After meeting in the UREC lobby, Moong Crew’s members reconvene in a group exercise room and begin their practice. Watching themselves dance in a large mirror, their shoes sharply squeak on the floor, wet from the snow they walked through earlier that day. They sing along to the song of the routine they’re learning, perfectly reciting lyrics that are in Korean — a language none of them speak. JMU is home to several dance teams that typically focus on conceiving and performing original choreography. Moong Crew, on the other hand, defines itself as a “K-pop cover dance team,” forgoing original dances to record videos of themselves performing choreography originated by Korean pop performers. K-pop has gained notoriety in Western culture within the past 10 years. Korean groups like BTS and BLACKPINK have established themselves as household names worldwide through their catchy, upbeat music and flashy music videos. Even more notorious are K-pop’s fervent fans. Known for their fierce dedication, K-pop fans defend the groups against naysayers on social media and ensure their favorite groups chart on the American Billboard Hot 100 by mass-streaming their songs. Although K-pop fans are seemingly inescapable online, finding fellow K-pop fans in real life can be intimidating, Carnegie said. “I had been thinking about it my freshman year,” Carnegie said of her initial apprehension toward launching a K-pop dance team. Although Carnegie previously curated an Instagram account dedicated to solo covers of K-pop dances, assembling a team in a new environment was daunting. “I just didn’t get the courage because I thought nobody at JMU likes K-pop or maybe everybody thinks it’s weird,” Carnegie said. Last fall, Carnegie said she felt spontaneous and promoted auditions for the then-nameless group on Instagram. She requested that auditioners learn the choreography to several K-pop songs: “LALISA” by Lisa, “I Can’t Stop Me” by Twice and “Candy” by Baekyun. Vini Tran, a freshman, heard about the auditions through a friend. Tran became a K-pop fan in 2015 after being introduced to BTS and EXO, eventually picking up some Korean vocabulary. A few days after auditioning, Tran and four initial other members were accepted into the group out of the seven auditioners. Sophomore Angelina Nguyen said the group bonded quickly, happy to find a community that not only knew about K-pop’s music and choreography but could discuss K-pop memes
and scandals. “It’s given me a chance to appreciate myself and love myself even more, and it’s given me a sense of creativity,” Tran said. “K-pop is like a spark; that’s the best way I can explain it.” After her induction into the group, Tran used her familiarity with the Korean language to conceive a name for the fledgling dance crew. She pitched “Moong Crew,” a reference toward the Korean sound of a dog barking — an ode to JMU’s mascot: the Duke Dog. Although everyone on the budding team possessed a raw passion for dance, working together for the first time proved to be challenging, Tran said. At their first rehearsal, the crew assembled to learn an entire dance together. As the practice continued, disagreements pertaining to different movements, placement and stylistic details arose. Wanting to make the most out of their time, Tran said, Moong Crew modified their rehearsal process. K-pop musicians often record and post videos of themselves performing their choreography in rehearsal studios. Moong Crew uses this to their advantage and assigns each member a specific part and timestamp to learn before their next practice. Moong Crew members then flip these videos and slow down the footage’s speed, mimicking the performers’ movements as though it were a tutorial. “We mainly come to practice to make sure our spacing is correct,” Tran said, regarding Moong Crew’s current rehearsal process. At their latest meeting Jan. 28, the crew convened in a group exercise room in UREC to run through their latest assigned dance. Crouching down to the ground, they performed frog-inspired choreography to K-pop song “Naughty Boy” by PENTAGON, equipped with an umbrella and a frog hat. Nguyen, the team’s manager, sat directly in front of them and simultaneously played the original music video on a laptop to check their accuracy. Even for the first collective runthrough of the choreography, the crew danced precisely in sync. The group’s efforts go beyond simply learning the choreography. Moong Crew records recreations of each song’s music video and posts them on the affiliated YouTube channel. “The filming thing is quite new to us,” Nguyen, who’s also in charge of the video production process, said. “We do full runs, and we do the camera work and then we’ll do pieces of parts where we think we can get a better shot.” To prepare for filming, Moong Crew members coordinate their outfits to match the original K-pop video’s aesthetic. Then, they scout a location, often opting for outdoor areas on campus that provide optimal lighting like the Atlantic Union Bank Center parking lot or King Hall. Freshman and Moong Crew member Erica Jegels said performing in outdoor locations can often lead to tricky situations while performing. Jegels, who joined the group after conducting a research project on K-pop dance style, said the
The name “Moong Crew” is a reference to the Korean sound of a dog barking and to JMU’s mascot, Duke Dog. Matt Young / The Breeze
crew experienced difficulties filming a cover for “Hey Mama” by EXO. “We create the best memories when we were filming,” Jegels said. “[Performing outdoors] was crazy because there were people walking by, and everyone was getting nervous, and then the Starships started getting in the freaking camera.” Although the members of Moong Crew bond over their adulation for everything K-pop, others may be wary to delve into the controversial world of K-pop fandom. Fans are known to harass people online who don’t enjoy certain groups, sometimes even doxxing people — publishing a target’s private information such as addresses and phone numbers online — as they see fit. Zoe McDowell, a sophomore Moong Crew member, said most people are cynical toward K-pop fans. “There is that negative stereotype of, ‘Oh, they’re crazy or toxic or whatever,’” McDowell said. “But I think in reality, the amount of fans
that are actually like that is really small … In reality, it’s like me, Vini [and] Angelina. We’re normal.” Going forward, the group hopes to meet with other K-pop cover groups — Carnegie has compiled a list of over 30 cover groups in Northern Virginia. They’re also focusing on expanding their membership, even toward those who may not be familiar with K-pop. “We’re always looking for new people to dance with us, to help us out,” Tran said. “Everyone’s welcome to join whether you’re a student, whether you’re faculty. No matter your gender or sexuality or anything. Everyone’s welcome.” CONTACT Jake Dodohara at dodohajh@ dukes.jmu.edu. For more on the culture, arts and lifestyle of the JMU and Harrisonburg communities, follow the culture desk on Twitter and Instagram @Breeze_Culture.
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N E K C I O H B C M O C H C I W D SAN ™
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CULTURE
Creative crises
ze Amy Needham / The Bree
JMU musicians evolve methods amid pandemic
By HALEY THOMAS contributing writer
COVID-19 upended the music industry by collapsing live performances and confining creators to their homes. Pollstar, a trade publication that tracks live music event attendance, reported the total lost revenue for the live events industry at more than $30 billion throughout 2020. But musicians at JMU are adapting to the ongoing crisis.
Driving on
Jon Furson (’21) is the singer, lyricist and producer for local band Sunday Evening Drive, a group that pumps out disco synth-pop dance music. Furson said he struggled to accept that the world was shutting down. “I think what really upset me was it was my senior year of college and a lot of bigger bands had left town at that point,” Furson said. “It was basically going to be [Sunday Evening Drive’s] time to shine. But then we lost that, and I think we lost the moment we had going, which was really depressing.” As the pandemic raged through the U.S., it zapped Furson’s creativity. “I honestly didn’t get much done at the beginning of the pandemic,” Furson said. “It was hard writing uplifting dance music when everything was so sad.” Furson said his creative slump lasted until February 2021 when he and his bandmate Forrest Matters decided to devote every minute of their free time to songwriting. The pandemic taught him the importance of collaboration, he said. Sunday Evening Drive performed live for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic in August 2021 at the DC9 Nightclub in Washington, D.C. In an Instagram post on Sunday Evening Drive’s account announcing the show, the band wrote, “Can’t wait to dance with you all again,” followed by a heart emoji. “More to come very very soon.” Sunday Evening Drive delivered on that promise, returning to Harrisonburg for their first home show in over a year and a half at Taylor Down Under to play dozens of songs they’d never performed live. Furson said the band’s performances since the pandemic have been “very special.” They’ll be performing in Harrisonburg at the Golden Pony on Feb. 17 for their next hometown show.
A dream realized
Planning ahead
Zach Benson (’19) began performing at 12 years old and developed a passion for music production in college. “I’ve never really stopped making music,” Benson said. “It feels very integral to who I am as a person. I think if I were to ever stop, it would be like losing an arm or something.” Benson said live performance is his favorite aspect of being a musician, so isolation proved detrimental to his musicianship at first. His creativity weaned, and he said he felt stuck — he needed to focus entirely on songwriting to regain motivation. “I had just moved to Brooklyn when [COVID19] hit,” Benson said. “There was a period where we all thought things would go back to normal in two weeks, but that turned into four months, which turned into a year. It was so defeating.” Benson released his album, “hopeless, romantic.” on Oct. 16, 2020. He said it felt strange to release an album without having performances to look forward to, but it forced him to write from an honest, raw perspective. Benson said his passion for music had grown exponentially by the time he was able to perform again. “I had my full setlist mapped out and planned for five or six months before I got the first show because I was so anxious to perform again,” Benson said. “It was so out-of-body but so cathartic and fun.” Benson said he’s currently planning a “huge string of shows” in March and April. He’ll be sharing the stage with Sunday Evening Drive at The Golden Pony in Harrisonburg on Feb. 17. Despite the shift in the music industry and world as a whole, these JMU musicians continue to channel their creativity and look forward to a time when we can hopefully return to what “normal” used to be. “What’s changed the most for me since [the pandemic] is that I feel so purposeful now,” Benson said. “When I’m on the stage, I want that to be meaningful for everyone there. There’s always a silver lining.” CONTACT Haley Thomas at thoma3hn@ dukes.jmu.edu. For more on the culture, arts and lifestyle of the JMU and Harrisonburg communities, follow the culture desk on Twitter and Instagram @Breeze_Culture.
JMU musicians, like alumnus Nick Adams, have shifted their creative processes as live performances have waned. Jake Conley / The Breeze
Thursday, February 3, 2022
Ian Logan, another musician based at JMU and a fifth-year music industry minor, takes influence from numerous artists, ranging from Mumford & Sons to Mac Miller. He said his resulting melodies are “hard to explain, but there’s something for everyone.” Logan has amassed nearly 5,000 Spotify listeners and 445,000 streams from January 2020 to December 2021. “I’m not much on performing live, so thankfully the pandemic didn’t really affect me in that aspect,” Logan said. “Since I prefer to make music in the comfort of my room with one close friend as my sound engineer, the pandemic was actually a good thing for my music.” Logan took two songwriting classes while in isolation that yielded an eight-song album, titled “Finally Found Peace.” He said the pandemic helped him realize that he wants to pursue music as a career.
Logan’s new single, “Garden Maiden,” was released Jan. 28. The song marks a return to his roots — an indie-folk sound comparable to George Ezra and The Lumineers. Luca Moroianu, a sophomore music industry major, said it took time for the pandemic to fuel his creativity. “I had already been experiencing a fear of diving into my art and passion for songwriting while growing up and transitioning into my early adulthood,” Moroianu said. “I struggled to create consistently, and the pandemic only exacerbated that.” Moroianu said only one thing helped him find inspiration again: “Listening to music, all kinds of it. I really focused on finding my niche within music, and it took a while to separate and work through my emotions in my writing about [the pandemic] and this crazy period in our lives.” One year into the pandemic, Moroianu’s mindset had changed completely. He said he’s more aware of what’s important to him as a musician and less afraid of expressing himself through his art.
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SPORTS
EDITORS Savannah Reger & Madison Hricik
EMAIL breezesports@gmail.com
@TheBreezeSports
Swing through the competition Kendall Turner relies on her family for competitive growth with JMU women's golf Photos submitted by Scott Turner
Thursday, February 3, 2022
By GRANT JOHNSON The Breeze
It’s game point outside the Turner household. For the first time in 15-year-old Kendall Turner’s life, dethroning her older brother on the driveway basketball court is within reach. Kendall, six inches shorter than her fiveyears-elder brother Jared Turner, needed forethought to get around Jared and put an end to her hardwood misery. “Every time I try to go in for a layup, he'll just smack the ball into the street,” Kendall said. “I had to figure out, okay, now I’ve got to try to hit, like, a fadeaway jump shot … because I couldn't stand losing to him.” Her shot went in. Jared didn’t hear the end of it. “Mom, dad, guess what?” Kendall recalls yelling as she sprinted into the house in jubilation. “I finally beat him.” Jared would then try to change the rules or come up with an excuse to extend the game, Kendall jokingly said. But what emerged from these clashes was a breeding ground for competitiveness at her Chesapeake, Virginia, home. “I've often said I like to watch basketball,” Scott Turner, Kendall and Jared’s father, said, “but some of the best basketball games I've ever watched are in my driveway between Kendall and her older brother.” The Jared-Kendall rivalry didn’t begin
or end with this result. It involved pushing then somebody else is working harder and each other for who could take out the trash will beat them and that becoming great the fastest. It infiltrated other sports, like at anything doesn’t happen overnight. table tennis, where Kendall built a piece of Kendall said he “pushed us like there [was] wood to practice so that when Jared came no tomorrow.” home later, she was ready to roll. That mindset found its way onto the “Anything her brother did, or does, she golf course well before Kendall arrived wants to do better,” Scott said. “She wanted at JMU — the now redshirt sophomore to know, ‘What did Jared do when he was 8 and reigning CAA individual champion years old? Because I'm going to do better golfer gave both basketball and golf much than him when I'm 8 years old.’” attention growing up. Scott and Rachael Turner — Kendall and Dave Williams Jr., Kendall's swing coach Jared’s mother — were for over 10 years, said raised with similar balancing golf lessons values: Everything around her basketball is earned, nothing is schedule was never an given, as Rachael put issue; the student and it. Scott grew up on a teacher could even meet farm in Pennsylvania once a week in the winter selling fertilizer, while under a covered and Rachael’s father was heated driving range. He in the Navy and Jared said his main responsibility was an Eagle Scout. in coaching Kendall was “All we ever knew helping her find her swing, was work,” Scott said. then teaching her to Kendall has manage and tinker with it. internalized this During Kendall’s senior mantra, Scott said. year at Great Bridge High Another catalyst of School, her golf coach, Kendall’s mentality, Scott Dekker, said Kendall her AAU basketball played a full 18 holes of golf coach, Ken Boyd, just to practice following drilled into his a shortened, nine-hole players’ heads that if tournament, which she they’re not working A young Turner eyes the course. won. hard all the time, Dekker said it was 102
degrees outside. “I've been [at Great Bridge High School] five years, and she's probably the easiest kid I've ever had,” Dekker said. “I didn't have to push her to work hard.” On the basketball court, Kendall was turning heads in high school gyms before she was even in ninth grade. Mickey Irving, thenGreat Bridge’s varsity women’s basketball coach and later Kendall’s golf coach from her freshman-junior years, said he already knew Kendall was coming up the ranks as a seventh grader. Irving went to high school with her uncle and knew Rachael for many years. When Kendall was in eighth grade, Irving invited her to his varsity basketball practice. She took the high schoolers to school. “She was the best player on the floor,” Irving said. “I actually stopped practice and told all the varsity players that they're getting shown up by a 4-foot-nothing eighth grader.” Irving has coached right fielder Michael Cuddyer, who won the NL batting title with the Colorado Rockies in 2013, as well as multiple girls who went onto play college basketball on the same team Kendall washed. There were also three future-college golfers on Kendall’s Great Bridge team as a freshman. “I’ve coached for a long time — well over 20 years — and she's right up at the top of the list,” Irving said. “She is just one of the best athletes I've been around.” see FAMILY DRIVES SUCCESS, page 21
SPORTS
A sunny day in Harrisonburg
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JMU joins Sun Belt Conference for 2022, first school to have immediate FBS schedule since 1997
By SAVANNAH REGER & MADISON HRICIK The Breeze
JMU Athletic Director Jeff Bourne took a breath as he sat at a table in the Atlantic Union Bank Center’s media room. Instead of standing and shaking Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill’s hand at the last joint press conference, Bourne was sitting next to his longtime friend. On Gill’s other side was JMU football head coach Curt Cignetti, who switched out his typical JMU polo with a suit and tie. Bourne looked into the eyes of the local media, the outlets that joined through Zoom and the faces of fans who joined the live stream. He let out that breath, looked up and smiled as Gill finished his opening comments. “Once JMU accepted our invitation, they were in our family,” Gill said. “We were going to do anything in our power to be helpful to them.” JMU Athletics announced Wednesday that it’s joining the Sun Belt Conference (SBC) beginning July 1, 2022, instead of the original date of July 1, 2023. The Dukes will also play a full FBS schedule next season — the first time in 25 years a team moving from the FCS to the FBS has done so.
What will JMU football’s schedule look like next season? With an early entrance confirmed, the next question was scheduling. How did Bourne and Cignetti pull together a full FBS schedule in JMU’s first FBS season? Who will the Dukes host? Where will JMU travel to? Middle Tennessee was the key to each answer. The Blue Raiders were in need of another football team on their schedule after Missouri canceled its contract to play them in October.
JMU was missing one home game to reach full FBS status, and with MTSU having an opening, Bourne took it. “This offered us a tremendous opportunity,” Bourne said. “Without it, we would have spent easily two- to two-and-ahalf times the resources that it would have taken in this guarantee in order to have a football season at home next year.” MTSU will receive $1.5 million for the schedule change — $800,000 from Missouri in a buyout and $700,000 from JMU to come to Harrisonburg. In addition, it’s a one-way contract — there’s no home-and-home or future series. Bourne said it was an “FBStype” payment, but it achieved what he wanted for the Dukes. “We posted the guarantee of about $700,000, which is a large guarantee more aligned with what you see in scheduling FBS teams,” Bourne said. “That’s something that we will be working in the future as we schedule; we’ll look at home and away with most of our programs.” Cignetti and his roster now have six confirmed home games this upcoming season — MTSU, Norfolk State and four Sun Belt matchups. The full Sun Belt slate, including away games, will be released March 1. The only confirmed away game currently is against the ACC’s Louisville. JMU has never played the Cardinals, but it’s the beginning of a list of ACC opponents over the next five years. The head coach said it’s an exciting timebut that there’s still a lot of work to do. JMU not only is adapting to a new set of foes but having to play against better competition every week. In addition, JMU is projected to have approximately 85 scholarships on the roster next season. It’s a lot for Cignetti to process, but he said the Dukes are ready to take on the challenge.
“We sort of anticipated this happening, doing it in one year,” Cignetti said. “It’s created a lot of work, but it’s going to be a great long-term move for the institution, from the athletic department, football program and the Sun Belt Conference. It’s a great marriage — one strong brand to two strong brands coming together.” Even with achieving full FBS status, JMU is still ineligible for bowls and the Sun Belt Championship until at least the 2023-24 season. Bourne said JMU plans to petition for a one-year transition over the summer.
How did JMU football schedule a whole FBS load? It wasn’t easy for JMU to put together a full FBS schedule, Bourne said. The athletic director added that, in this case, being a successful program worked against JMU and that most FBS teams have their schedule ready four to five years in advance. JMU had to put one together in less than nine months. “Everybody’s already committed; they already have their full slate of games,” Bourne said. “You have to find teams that are either transitioning or for some reason have taken a dramatic change in their scheduling philosophy.” Because of this problem, Bourne said JMU Athletics made decisions regarding other previously scheduled programs in order to benefit the university. Heading into the fall, JMU scheduled Weber State — the second game of a home-and-home series — but Bourne said the program dropped that game so it could schedule MTSU. “Honestly we didn’t want one of those years earlier, trying to transition with FCS and FBS,” Bourne said. “We’re going to be playing FBS teams almost every week. We will keep an FCS team on our schedule, and part of what we’re looking at now going forward is which teams we decide aren’t good fits for us.” Aside from MTSU and Norfolk State, JMU has a full Sun Belt schedule. Gill said there will most likely be east and west divisions, which keeps JMU aligned with former teams that transitioned from the FCS to FBS — Coastal Carolina, Appalachian State, Georgia
State, Georgia Southern and, eventually, Marshall and Old Dominion. Gill added that the other three schools transitioning to the conference — Marshall, Old Dominion and Southern Mississippi — are still on track to enter in 2023.
How have other schools dealt with the move? Gill said the Sun Belt has a history of new teams coming in and doing well early on. Cignetti said JMU hopes to be the newest on that list. “What I tell [recruits] … We win and win championships off the field,” Cignetti said. “We graduate people, we have a high [Academic Progress Rate], we develop them as people, students and student-athletes” Appalachian State came to the Sun Belt in 2014 after 40 years in the FCS and started out strong. The Mountaineers were 7-5 (6-2 SBC) in the first season of conference play even though they couldn’t play in a bowl the first year. Since then, the team hasn’t lost more than four games in a season and won both of its Sun Belt championship game appearances. Coastal Carolina started out in the Sun Belt in 2017 and went 3-9. The Chanticleers were 5-7 the next two years, but as more FBS level recruits cracked the lineup, the team jumped to 11-1. Coastal Carolina was 11-2 last season and won the program’s first bowl game over Northern Illinois. What can the Dukes learn from the two most recent moves into the Sun Belt? Cignetti said there’s a lot of work to be done, but JMU has a championship mindset and expects the new transfers and recruits to make an immediate impact to the Dukes roster. “I know how our players are going to think,” Cignetti said. “They’re going to go out there next year and expect to win and be successful every time they’re on the field. But based on our previous history and how we’ve lined up against Power 5 teams, I think that we’re in a decent competitive position.” CONTACT Savannah Reger & Madison Hricik at breezesports@gmail.com. For more football coverage, follow the sports desk on Twitter @TheBreezeSports.
Thursday, February 3, 2022
Sun Belt Commissioner Keith Gill said the conference will release football schedules March 1.
Athletic Director Jeff Bourne said the Dukes will compete in the Sun Belt in 2022. Photos by Cambria Lee / The Breeze
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SPORTS Breeze file photo
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Cambria Lee / The Breeze
1,000 and beyond Kiki Jefferson reflects on her journey to 1,000 career points
Thursday, February 3, 2022
By MADISON HRICIK The Breeze
In the Convocation Center, redshirt senior forward Kayla Cooper-Williams (201520), senior guard Kamiah Smalls (2016-20) and freshman guard Kiki Jefferson sat in a cramped media room following a 93-53 win over Longwood to open the 2019-20 season. Smalls and Cooper-Williams engaged in normal conversation, but Jefferson sat quietly. The freshman scored 17 points, nine rebounds and three steals in her collegiate debut. When finally asked a question, she only responded with a few words. Little did JMU Nation know, this Lancaster, Pennsylvania, native would become the new face of JMU women’s basketball and score 1,000 career points in just two and a half years. “It feels great,” Jefferson said postgame against Hofstra. “I wouldn’t have wanted to do it with anyone else with JMU fans here.” Jefferson, now a junior, is a captain and the 32nd player in JMU women’s basketball’s centennial history to reach 1,000 career points. Her 1,000th point came during a 6553 victory over Hofstra on Friday night where she scord 19 on the evening. Despite the pomp and circumstance of it all, head coach Sean O’Regan and Jefferson barely acknowledged the moment when it happened but rather remained focused on the game. “In the locker room, I had told her, ‘My
bad, I didn’t realize you hit your 17 [points],’” O’Regan said. “To her, if we had lost this game and she’d gotten her 1,000, she’d be messed up.” Jefferson’s journey to 1,000 points hasn’t been the simplest path — every year held an obstacle to conquer. During her freshman campaign, the Dukes looked ready to make March Madness, but mere hours from stepping onto the court at the Schar Center in Elon, North Carolina, the conference tournament was canceled. No warning, no make-up game; the season ended at that moment. “COVID was really hard for her,” O’Regan said. “She’s a really social person, and I think it really challenged her her sophomore year.” The next year brought a new arena but no fans and an inconsistent schedule. Jefferson was put into a leadership position as a sophomore, with Smalls, Cooper-Williams and many other members of JMU’s starting lineup graduating after the shut down. JMU Nation recognized Jefferson for her performance during her freshman year and looked forward to what she’d do in her second season. “She’s always bouncy and loves just being out there and playing, giving her all to this game,” Smalls said. “She’s been hyping us up — hyping the crowd up — and it just translates into how we play and how she plays.” Despite being a young leader, Jefferson continued her efforts on and off the court,
leading the Dukes in points (388) and points per game (16.2). JMU made it to the CAA semifinals before falling to Drexel in overtime and, despite the disappointment, she was still confident in her ability. With tears in her eyes, Jefferson sat in a Zoom press conference knowing her season had come to the end. Even though the season was over, O’Regan spoke of how his team left their it all on the court. “That one is a tough pill for me to swallow,” O’Regan said during the press conference. “I thought we gave our whole heart in that game.” Fast forward to Jefferson’s junior year, and there’s excitement in the air as she’s on the court for practice. Running up and down the floor, Jefferson moves with confidence as she dribbles the ball for a scrimmage. But the excitement lasted for only so long. O’Regan said that when the news broke that the Dukes were banned from the CAA tournament, Jefferson had an immediate reaction. She had an emotional reaction to the news, but he said she had a newfound energy at practice the next day. “She was the most crushed out of anybody,” O’Regan said. “I had to have a long chat with her … but I told her after practice, ‘You play like that, nobody’s going to touch you.’” After everything Jefferson’s seen at JMU — the triumphs and tribulations of the last three years — she reached her milestone. “Seeing what I’ve been through is shocking,” Jefferson said. “I think it made not
only me but everybody stronger.” O’Regan said he’s proud of Jefferson for reaching the milestone, and he added a joke about her reaching 2,000 career points. For the junior, however, her goal is to continue leading on and off the court. “[I’m] understanding I’m here for a reason,” Jefferson said. “I know on and off the court, everyone is looking to me.” With the Dukes nearing the end of their season, Jefferson is beginning to look at a new decision — to take her COVID-19 redshirt or continue on. She has time to make the choice, but O’Regan said he hopes to keep her and her leadership around JMU for an extra year. “Watching her develop her game over time has been really fun,” O’Regan said. “She’s just a joy, and I hope I get those next two years with her.” Whatever the decision is in the future, Jefferson dribbled through the paint Jan. 28, pulled up against Hofstra and put two on the board — sealing Jefferson’s place in JMU history. It took 17 points — the same number she scored in her freshman debut — for the full-circle moment. “I expect her to be nothing less than amazing,” Smalls said. “I just want her to keep building her confidence because the more confident you are, the harder it is for people to stop you.” CONTACT Madison Hricik at breezesports@ gmail.com. For more coverage, follow the sports desk on Twitter @TheBreezeSports.
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SPORTS
Family ties drive goal of success Women's golf standout looks for a second consecutive CAA individual title
from page 18
Kendall went on to start as a point guard on Great Bridge’s varsity basketball team as a freshman but, eventually, an injured ankle sapped her 5-foot-3, 120-pound frame — a turning point Scott said was realized during a cold and rainy December car ride home following a weekend golf tournament played directly after a Friday night basketball game. Scott recalled: “She said to me, ‘Dad, I'm not really sure that this basketball thing is going to work out because I really I love golf, and I really want to play in college.’” “She's not a 7-footer, so she had to make that decision,” Irving said. “She made the right choice. It was tough for her, though. I know it was tough.” With a full commitment to golf came accolades upon accolades throughout the rest of Kendall’s time at Great Bridge: two-time Regional Golfer of the Year, Chesapeake Sports Club Golfer of the Year and a Virginia High School State Championship crown. Kendall continued on an upward trajectory during her last two seasons at JMU — spring and fall 2021 — where she finished in the top five three times in 12 tournaments. It’s driven by the same work ethic her parents instilled in her and the same high school habits of refining her craft well before practice starts and after it ends. “Every practice, she's there before us coaches even get there; she's got her drill set up,” JMU women’s golf assistant coach Kendall Ahrens said. “She always has a plan of what she's going to do that day … Whenever the other girls get there, or if
they're there with her, they know, ‘Alright, it's time to get serious and kind of focus up.’” Kendall said that this winter, she’s emphasized neither putting nor driving but rather maintaining and fine-tuning both — “nothing big happened over break,” she said. In the fall, she hit 93.7% of her fairways — less than one missed fairway in 18 holes — and led JMU with a 72.87 scoring average, a number that Rachael said was a goal for Kendall and a 2.34-stroke improvement from her freshman year. This spring, Kendall said her goal is to shoot at least one 72 — a par or better round — at each tournament. “I know it's not going to be handed to me,” Kendall said about repeating as CAA individual champion. “I have a God-given talent, but I still have to work at it ... I also know I'm prepared for every tournament [and] I put in the work before tournaments.” Kendall’s goal-setting is what Rachael said has made her most proud of her daughter, among “a lot of things”: the 3.1 GPA she’s maintained while being a math major and student-athlete and making up her mind to conquer any and all roadblocks, among others. Scott is most proud that his daughter hasn’t changed her ways. He said she’s been the same through everything — working out every day, hitting golf balls every day, prioritizing her academics every day — even through the championship hardware she’s brought home: the persistent, competitive, same Kendall. CONTACT Grant Johnson at breezecopy@ gmail.com. For more women’s golf coverage, follow the sports desk on Twitter @ TheBreezeSports.
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Eastern Mennonite School is looking for host families for one semester
Eastern Mennonite School is looking for one or two families to host two of our international students from South Korea. Both students are female, one is a senior and one is a freshman in high school. They are currently both in a home together. The family they are staying with is expecting their first baby in January! We want this couple to be able to focus on being parents of a newborn (and it’s an EMS policy not to place high school students in a home with very young children). This need will be from January until school ends in early June. Host families get a monthly stipend. Being a host family is a great way to experience cultural exchange and welcome an international student into your home. It is also a great opportunity to develop lifelong friendships and connections, as well as representing your community internationally. Some of the host family responsibilities are to provide a bed/bedroom, meals and transportation to and from school and extracurricular activities as needed. ozcane@easternmennonite.org
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Career Opportunity - Building Codes Combination Inspector
Do you want to work in a team environment where you have an active role in pursuing quick/efficient reviews of plans and inspections? If so, the City of Harrisonburg Community Development Department’s Building Codes Combination Inspector career may be the right fit for you! Find out more/apply online: https://www. harrisonburgva.gov/employment. EOE.
Career Opportunity - Athletic Field Turf Technician
Are you seeking a rewarding career with benefits that isn’t behind a computer for 8 hours a day? If so, apply for the Athletic Field Turf Technician position to work outside while maintaining and improving the City of Harrisonburg’s athletic fields and outdoor athletic facilities: https://www.harrisonburgva. gov/employment. EOE.
Firefighter Career Opportunity
Police Officer (Testing & Employment Opportunities) - *$6,000 HIRING INCENTIVE AVAILABLE TO NEW OFFICERS The City of Harrisonburg is currently accepting applications for individuals interested in joining HPD, which offers a rewarding career plus an excellent benefits package, including enhanced hazardous duty through the Virginia Retirement System (VRS). Find out more/apply online: https://www.harrisonburgva.gov/ employment. EOE.
The City of Harrisonburg is seeking a qualified individual to join the Harrisonburg Fire Department (HFD)! HFD operates in a team environment with a mission to enhance the quality of life for the community by protecting their health, safety and welfare through fire suppression, emergency medical services, prevention and public education. Find out more/apply online at: https://www.harrisonburgva.gov/ employment. EOE.
Part-Time Job Opportunity Customer Service Specialist (YearRound)
Do you want to utilize your customer service skills and abilities to make a difference for citizens and guests visiting City facilities? If so, the City of Harrisonburg’s Parks and Recreation Department’s Customer Service Specialist position may be the right career for you! Find out more/apply online at: https://www.harrisonburgva. gov/employment. EOE.
Full-Time Career Opportunity Wash Bay Attendant
Do you want a career with the City that helps project a friendly image to our citizens/visitors while ensuring a clean and safe vehicle to get them to their destination? If so, apply to become a Wash Bay Attendant with the Department of Public Transportation. Find out more/apply: https://www. harrisonburgva.gov/employment. EOE.
Farm help needed in West Virginia
Reliable farm help needed on a small homestead scale farm in nearby Mathias, Wva permaculture, Biodynamics, and sustainable practices are the guiding philosophies of this farm. It is surrounded by National Forest . Paid positions or volunteer helpers welcome. All serious applications considered Please call 304-897-6280 (leave message).
Full-Time Career Opportunity Bus Operator/Trainer
Are you seeking a career opportunity that allows you to share your driving skills and knowledge to train fellow employees on proper procedures? If so, apply to the City of Harrisonburg Department of Public Transportation’s Bus Operator/Trainer position! Find out more/apply online at: https://www. harrisonburgva.gov/employment. EOE.
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