February 2, 2024

The Huntington News February 2, 2024

The independent student newspaper of the Northeastern community

@HuntNewsNU

Photo by Harriet Rovniak Skylar Irving celebrates with the DogHouse after scoring a goal. The crowd cheered after Irving brought home the win for Northeastern with a goal in overtime.

IRVING’S MVP NIGHT LAUNCHES HUSKIES TO BEANPOT VICTORY

Beanpot. The word can send Boston’s college students into a flurry, arguing over whose school is superior and which hockey team is the best. But on Jan. 23 it took on a whole new meaning when women’s hockey took center stage in Boston for the first time in history.

After 44 years rotating between arenas at the four participating schools — Northeastern University, Boston University, Boston College and Harvard University — the 45th women’s Beanpot championship headed to TD Garden, drawing over 10,000 fans for an electric, nail-biting, momentous game.

Tied after 60 minutes of regulation, the game was decided in a three-on-three sudden death overtime, and the Huskies came out victorious 2-1 in their second Beanpot championship win in a row.

“It was awesome winning it last year, but it’s a little bit more rewarding this year when you’re battling a bunch of adversity throughout the season, so just being able to pull together and get this win was huge,” said junior forward Skylar Irving.

A semifinal shutout (Northeastern) and a dramatic shootout (BU) lifted the Huskies and Terriers to the championship game, and TD Garden was in for a dogfight.

In a match fraught with neutral zone turnovers and offensive struggles, both teams stayed determined, playing to the buzzer.

With so much excitement in the air, it was a chippier game than Northeastern usually plays.

The Huskies racked up four penalties across the first two periods, compared to BU’s two, including a rare goalie penalty.

By Amelia Ballingall | Sports Editor However, Northeastern limited the Terriers’ control of the game. power play unit to no more than two shots In the final minute of the frame, Northeaston goal in each penalty, hoisting their secern junior defender Abbey Marohn flicked the ond-ranked penalty kill (.925) with pride. puck to Irving along the boards. Irving cut in Northeastern’s first penalty came just three towards the center and sniped a shot up high minutes into the game with an interference past BU junior goaltender Callie Shanahan, call against senior forward Molly Griffin, and giving Northeastern the 1-0 lead. while the Terriers couldn’t score, they gained “It gave us a good boost, it was huge,” said the offensive edge for the opening minutes of Northeastern head coach Dave Flint. “When the matchup. you score in the last minute of the period, it can BU accumulated a couple high-danger be deflating for the other team … and then we chances but whiffed on the open backdoor. came out and we were clicking in the beginning Meanwhile, the Huskies were unable to get a of the third.” single shot on goal until six minutes into the When the puck dropped in the third period, game. it looked like it was Northeastern’s game. The Although the first period was slow and Huskies again possessed through the beginning relatively even, with Northeastern leading shots of the frame, pouring shot after shot on Shanaon goal at 8-7 after the first 20 minutes, BU han. While neither team had a strong foreshowed up shorthanded. check, the Huskies fell into a rhythm of steady At the end of the period, the Huskies gained passes and strong stickwork, while BU couldn’t their first power play of the night, but BU seem to keep their footing on the ice. held the zone for the first 30 seconds, earning With two-and-a-half minutes to go, the chances of their own before the Huskies turned Terriers opted for the empty net — and it paid it back around. off. With the 6-on-5 advantage, BU sophomore When the second period started, Northeastforward Sydney Healey passed circle to circle to ern made a flurry for the net, dominating the senior forward Catherine Foulem, and Foulem opening minutes of the frame. dished the puck into the far low corner to tie BU then changed the momentum, forcing a the game 1-1 with just 58 seconds remaining. turnover in their offensive zone and drawing Neither team could score in those final seca penalty against the Huskies but missing the onds of regulation, so, for the second time this open net once again. season, the Huskies and the Terriers headed to The teams traded chances back and forth overtime. with BU leading possession, but after the The battle didn’t last long. Northeastern Huskies had to serve a roughing penalty for wasted no time, gaining immediate possession fifth-year goaltender Gwyneth Philips with and scoring just 27 seconds into the additional 4:31 left in the second period, they stole back period.

Off a pass from graduate student forward and captain Megan Carter, fifth-year forward Katy Knoll skated the puck through the neutral zone while Irving raced past BU’s defenders in the slot. One-on-one with Shanahan, Irving went five-hole to win the game for Northeastern 2-1.

“It’s honestly truly amazing just it being here at [TD] Garden,” Irving said. “First off, it’s historic that we were able to play here and all the hard work that has gone into us being able to play at the Garden, so I just think it’s an extra special moment and it’s something I’m gonna definitely treasure for the rest of my life.”

For the second year in a row, 19th all-time and the first time in a major arena, Northeastern won the Beanpot title, earning another year of glory over the city of Boston. Northeastern fifth-year goaltender Gwyneth Philips was granted the Bertagna Award for the second straight time as the tournament’s top netminder, for her stellar kick-saves and grabs that kept BU out of the back of the net. And the Most Valuable Player designation had no contest — for scoring both of Northeastern’s goals in the championship game, her sixth and seventh of the season, Irving was named top dog of the competition.

“I want them to remember how special this moment was and how hard people worked to make this happen,” Flint said. “I often talk to them about past players, alumni, what they went through to get the program to where it is now and afford our women the opportunities that they have today, so those are things that I think are really important takeaways from an event like this.”

CAMPUS

CITY

LIFESTYLE

Read about the charges, hearings and student reactions to outcomes.

Read about Governor Maura Healey’s policies and priorities for 2024.

Read about this beloved independent venue in Cambridge.

Students punished for sit-in

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Middle East promotes community, bonding

Governor Healey: State of the Commonwealth

Photo by Jessica Xing

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Photo by Alexis Algazy

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Photo by Jessica Xing

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February 2, 2024

‘This is pretty serious stuff’: Student advocates for required sustainability classes

By Lily Webber News Staff When Tyler Brogan, a fourth-year environmental and sustainability sciences and economics combined major, took Northeastern’s Economics of Sustainability class, he became worried — worried about what he was learning and worried that others may be oblivious to the same information.

“That class talked about how the economic system we have now negatively affects the environ-

ment and society,” said Brogan, who took the course during his second year. “It was pretty scary to learn all that stuff.”

The course led him to consider the lack of knowledge about sustainability among the Northeastern student body. Last year, Brogan decided to embark on a mission to fundamentally change the Northeastern curriculum by petitioning the school to institute a sustainability class into NUpath, the school’s core curriculum requirements, through the student organization SustaiNUbility.

“I learned a lot of things in that class that I hadn’t learned in my time as an environmental science student, and that made me think ‘Alright, if I’m still learning new stuff from a class like this, how are people who

Photo by Jessica Xing Tyler Brogan poses with a copy of his petition. Brogan began petitioning for a sustainability class to be added to NUpath last year.

are in different majors — say history or business — supposed to learn this information if they are not exposed to it all,’” Brogan said.

Instead of adding the credit to the current required curriculum, Brogan envisions a sustainability credit replacing one of the current NUpath requirements.

“Everyone should have to take a class like this; this is pretty serious stuff,” Brogan said. “Everyone should have to know it.”

The NUpath program is “built around essential, broad-based knowledge and skills” and ”integrated with specific content areas and disciplines,” according to the university’s website.

It’s meant to offer students the flexibility to integrate core learning into their individual educational journeys through 11 course requirements.

Brogan said he spoke to a university vice provost in November 2023 but wasn’t met with the solution he had envisioned.

“They gave a few options that aren’t exactly what I’m looking for, for example, simply just having a speaker series about sustainability [and] a couple others,” Brogan said. “None that I thought would make an impact like [making the credit a part of NUpath] would. Ninety-nine percent of the people who would go to a speaker series, in my opinion, are going to be people who already know and care about learning about the environment, so I don’t think it would have as much of a reach as this will.”

Since creating the petition in April 2023, Brogan’s petition has gained over 900 signatures. He

plans to collect a total of 1,500 to 2,000 signatures, or 10 to 15% of the student body, before presenting it to university administration.

“The hope is that when we get to our signature goal, it will be enough student support to have a conversation with the faculty senate, which is in charge of program requirements,” Brogan said.

He also hopes to work with the Student Government Association, or SGA, on the cause.

“Getting a referendum through to the Student Hub — that is definitely something I am going to pursue,” Brogan said, referring to the yearly voting the SGA holds on select initiatives. “Hopefully that can be, if it gets chosen as one of the questions, a sort of second support in terms of what we’ll have to show student support other than the signatures themselves.”

While some students may be unaware of SustaiNUbility’s petition, they recognize the benefit of a required sustainability credit.

“I think that would be wonderful, I think it would complement the ethics one. I don’t know a lot about the requirements but I think it would complement them very well,” said Shreya Chandran, a second-year chemical engineering and bioengineering combined major. “Some of the NUpaths are kind of questionable. We have a critical thinking-based one and a scientific reasoning one, but those are just semantics.”

Chandran continued, reflecting on the impact of the requirement for STEM, or science, technology, engineering and math students.

“As an engineer, I think it’s very, very essential,” Chandran said. “We do talk about ethics in a lot of our classes, but incorporating sustainability in that would be very useful.”

Linden Burack, a second-year physics major and member of SustaiNUbility, holds strong opinions on the matter.

“I know that gen-eds is a bad word,” Burack said. “A lot of people come to Northeastern because it has a minimal number of gen-eds. That said, this is the biggest issue of our generation and I do truly think it will make a difference for every student who goes through this university to make contact with the issue of climate change at a college level.”

Brogan’s decision to collect exclusively physical signatures poses a challenge during the cold winter months when volunteering students cannot collect signatures outside. To remedy this, Brogan is asking students who wish to support the cause to contact him directly.

In addition, he has been working with professors to advocate for this change by going into classes and briefly pitching his initiative.

“I think Northeastern is a very innovative school where our students are going to do great things beyond college,” Brogan said. “So it’s my hope that if our students take a class like that, and they learn these scary things, there will be some people who are impacted by it and if, say, they go on to be an entrepreneur or to start their own business, they do it more sustainably because they learned from a class like that.”

NU student celebrates last final, graduation, by winning an Emmy for work done on co-op

By James Mills News Correspondent When Mitchell Rusitzky’s first coop came to an end, he could have left his projects halfway finished. Instead, he dropped an anchor and continued working on top of a full course load.

The project was with an animation studio he now works for full-time, which would later go on to win an Emmy for the game “Galactic Catch.”

Rusitzky, who graduated in December 2023 with a Bachelor of Science in business administration — a semester early. The day after his last final, Rusitzky was walking a red carpet in Los Angeles, reeling in an Emmy along with his team at Baobab Studios.

Originally from San Francisco, Rusitzky came to Northeastern in 2020 during the height of the university’s COVID-19 lockdown and took advantage of his forced isolation to develop a knack for online storytelling. Rusitzky gained a large following on X, formerly Twitter, where he acquired the skills to become a digital marketer — all while taking undergraduate classes.

Rusitzky had always been interested in storytelling. When he was gifted his first camera at age 8, he began creating films and later won first place at the 2015 Green Film Festival

in San Francisco.

“I tend to be pretty quiet in person, so I listen a lot more than I talk,” Rusitzky said. “I’m constantly trying to figure out what people want to hear and what resonates with them. I find this really important when there are so many competing voices trying to tell stories online; it becomes clearer how to stand out.”

Before becoming the marketing manager at Baobab Studios, Rusitzky began working for them as a consultant through his co-op at Concept Labs, formerly Concept Art House, a multi-faceted digital agency. At this company, he was assigned to a project at Baobab Studios, which was creating a media franchise titled “Momoguro: Legends of Uno.” Once his co-op at Concept Labs concluded, Rusitzky continued working for Baobab Studios full-time while maintaining a full course load at Northeastern.

Baobab Studios is now a 10-time Emmy-winning animation studio creating original stories for cutting-edge platforms and expanding franchises across media. Originally founded in 2015 and based in the San Francisco Bay Area, the studio has a small, dedicated team with leadership tenures at companies including Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks and Zynga.

The animation studio has also written and produced films starring notable actors such as John Legend, Daisy Ridley, Jennifer Hudson, Diego Luna, Ali Wong, Oprah Winfrey, Glenn Close and Edward Norton.

Most recently, Baobab Studios received Emmy nominations for the 2023 Children’s and Family Outstanding Interactive Media category for two creations — “Momoguro: Legends of Uno” and “Galactic Catch,” both of which Rusitzky was a marketing producer on.

“Galactic Catch” is a virtual reality fishing game playable on the Meta Quest. The setting is based on a fantasy world across various galaxies, where players tackle different quests and level up fishing gear to save the players’ “friends” Mac & Cheez.

To be nominated for an Emmy, Rusitzky and his team had to submit a short video compilation of their project to a panel of judges within the Emmy committee to be considered.

“The night before the deadline, some of us were up until 3 a.m.,” Rusitzky said. “I’m so glad I have such a great team because I had a group project for class due around that time, too.”

After submitting the video, the team made it to the next panel of interviews and attended an in-person pitch.

“It was nerve-wracking going to

New York City to pitch the judges for the Emmy,” Rusitzky said. “Everyone was shocked at how young I was.”

Once Rusitzky found himself at the Los Angeles Westin Bonaventure on the red carpet at the Children’s & Family Creative Arts Emmys Dec. 16, he described it as “overwhelming” with “cameras going off and publicists coaxing groups around.”

Hours later, he and his team found themselves on stage after being announced as the winners of the Outstanding Interactive Media category.

As the CEO of Baobab Studios, Maureen Fan described in a 2021 interview on YouTube how the studio was born and given a fighting chance against the animation giants because the novelty of virtual reality leveled the playing field. As the studio continues evolving at the intersection of entertainment and technology, Rusitzky plans to be part of the team, gearing up for the next adventure.

“We’ll get to announce more

exciting projects soon — Baobab has a powerhouse team and a unique approach to releasing new stories that will take them far,” Rusitzky said. “We recently launched both Web3 and Roblox games and have other projects on whole different mediums coming out this year.”

Photo courtesy Alex Tinsman Mitchell Rusitzky poses for a photo while holding his Emmy at the Children’s & Family Creative Arts Emmys Dec. 16. The 2023 alum, along with his team at BaoBab Studios, earned an Emmy in the Outstanding Interactive Media category for the game “Galactic Catch.”

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3 students placed on deferred suspension following Huskies for a Free Palestine sit-in

By Emily Spatz & Laura Emde Campus Editor & News Staff All three students charged with violations of the Code of Student Conduct after a Huskies for a Free Palestine sit-in Dec. 1 were found responsible in their hearings with the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution and have been placed on deferred suspension, The News confirmed with charged students Jan. 30.

According to one of the charged students, who asked to remain anonymous due to fear of further retaliation, they were notified about the results of their hearing via email Jan. 26.

The students were all charged with four violations, which were disorderly conduct, noncompliance, noise and violation of university policies.

The first student confirmed to The News they were found responsible for each charge except for noise. A second student said they were found responsible for each charge but failure to comply. The third student declined to speak to The News.

According to the first student, three meetings were held between all of the charged students and the hearing administrator. The first hearing was held Jan. 10 and the third hearing, which was called because “new information” was acquired, was held Jan. 19, the student said. The News could not confirm the date of the second hearing.

The three students received deferred suspensions until the end of the spring 2024 semester, which the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution, or OSCCR, de-

fines as “the highest level of warning issued by the University.” The first student also said they would have to write “essays” by March 1 detailing what happened, why the students’ actions were wrong and why the policies they were accused of violating are in place. The second student said all three of the charged students received the same punishment.

“Northeastern takes all violations of its Code of Student Conduct seriously and enforces all policies uniformly and irrespective of student group affiliations,” said Renata Nyul, vice president for communications at the university, in an email statement to The News. “The university does not comment on specific conduct cases.”

When a student is on deferred suspension, they are allowed to take classes, live in residence halls and participate in university events.

However, they are barred from holding leadership positions in clubs and may be “limited in their ability to attend University programs, including those outside the country.”

The OSCCR website also states that deferred suspension is a warning “to remind the student that should any other incident occur, more severe sanctions may result.”

According to the first charged student, three different Northeastern University Police Department, or NUPD, officers spoke against the students at the hearings. The student said the NUPD officers considered them a “leader” at the Huskies for a Free Palestine, or HFP, sit-in because they were “facilitating communication” between officers and sit-in participants.

According to the second charged student, who said they gave a speech, read poetry and led chants at the sitin, the NUPD report which charged them with conduct violations included language saying the student was “aggressive” and “enraged.”

“Despite the admission of admin and police in their report that the demonstration was entirely peaceful, the NUPD report used racist language to describe my participation in chants as ‘aggressive,’ ‘enraged’ and that they were ‘afraid’ to talk to me,” the student told The News.

The first charged student said at the hearing, officers said the charged students didn’t comply because they didn’t vacate the sit-in area, located on the second floor of the Curry Student Center, when asked.

“I’m very frustrated because it feels like this is hearsay and they’re just trying to pin this on somebody,” the first student said in an interview with The News. “I feel like none of my witness statements were considered. I feel like whatever the dean and deputy said was more valued than my voice.”

The first student said they felt the charges were “exaggerated.” Officers at the hearings referred to them as a self-identified student leader, even though the student said they did not make that distinction, the student told The News.

“I think the university is trying to silence students at the moment and intimidate us through threatening sanctions and through this process,” they said. “But by pinning three students who actually weren’t even organizers, instead of all 200 that

were doing the same things — it’s all just to distract and instill fear.”

The outcome of the hearings was also announced in a post on HFP’s Instagram page Jan. 30. The post said one of the charged students was a volunteer “cornered” by administrators at the rally and another was a police liaison who did not participate in sit-in activities.

“After over a month of disciplinary procedure, students charged for participating in our December 1st sit-in received notice that they are now essentially on probation- prohibited from holding EBoard positions and threatened with suspension or expulsion if the university once again fabricates reasons to charge them,” the Instagram post stated, emphasizing HFP’s belief that the university was singling out the three students out of more than 200 that attended the sit-in.

Sit-in participants were first notified of potential disciplinary action Dec. 13, according to a Dec. 16 HFP Instagram post. The group held an “emergency rally” against

cialist at EAI. “The entire higher education industry was taken by storm of, ‘This is going to end education as we know it,’” Lim said. “Our goal during that event was to demystify some of the things that were swirling around at the time [and] really bring home the technology and what it can and can’t do.”

Questions about the new technology quickly focused in on the ways and frequency it could be used. Ultimately, Northeastern left professors to decide the role of AI in their classrooms.

“As an institution, Northeastern aims to preserve faculty autonomy and agency in deciding what constitutes appropriate use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their disciplines and courses,” a position statement published by the Office of the Provost in August 2023 reads.

To media innovation and technology professor John Wihbey, AI is an opportunity for his students to gain experience with technology used in professional journalism, namely an image-generation AI dubbed “Midjourney.”

“We’re using [Midjourney] as part of an exploratory unit to think about how we can become better prompt engineers, how we can evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of AI-generated visual media,” Wihbey said. “I think reframing [AI] as a potential

learning tool, something that can be harnessed to enhance and amplify learning, is a great thing.”

Kelly Garneau, a teaching professor and director of Northeastern’s First-Year Writing Program, chaired the program’s ChatGPT and Generative AI Working Group. She said the group started last spring as “a way for [faculty] to think through what the new technologies were going to mean for [their] pedagogy.”

“Writing has always been shaped by the tools we use to do it since the beginning. I think there are some ways in which, especially for students at the brainstorming stage when [they] are playing with ideas, [AI] can create this conversational backand-forth discussion where it can be generative of ideas,” she said. “[But] you don’t want to use it to replace the uncomfortable space that you might be in coming up with things on your own. Students tend to want to outsource what they don’t view as valuable. So thinking about the value of the work that we do and making that value clear, I think, is vital.”

Though some professors have found ways to incorporate AI into their coursework, a clear issue with the accessibility of tools such as ChatGPT is that it provides students with shortcuts in their class assignments. As a teaching assistant in a data science class, Sarah Popeck,

a second-year data science and economics combined major, said she catches many students who have possibly used AI. “[AI] can be a really great resource,” Popeck said. “The problem is when people are using it as a substitute for learning because then they’re just falling behind when they use it on the first assignment. Then, the second assignment. And then they’re gonna say, ‘Oh, I’m going to actually try and do this for myself,’ but AI and ChatGPT have done their entire homework from there on out.”

Last semester, Barney reported 10 cases involving 18 students to the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution, or OSCCR, for cheating, he said.

In prior semesters, Barney said he would report zero cases with one incident every couple of years.

“I understand the argument, ‘Well, it’s like having a calculator. You expect me to do my long division by hand?

There’s a calculator, why shouldn’t I use it?’” Barney said.

“And the answer is, ‘I’m trying to teach you something, and you’re not learning it. If you aren’t doing the reading, you aren’t learning it if you aren’t doing the writing yourself.

Whether or not it would be acceptable to do that in industry is irrelevant if it’s preventing you from learning what I want you to learn.’”

the disciplinary hearings Jan. 10 on Krentzman Quad. At the rally, NUPD officers requested to see students’ IDs, however, not all students complied.

In the Instagram post announcing the outcome of the hearings, HFP said they will be marching with the Boston Coalition for Palestine Feb. 4 at 1 p.m. at Roxbury Crossing to call on Northeastern to drop the disciplinary actions against the three students and to divest from military-industrial companies supplying weapons to Israel.

“At the end of the day, I think what should be centered is divestment. I feel like [the university] is trying to use these trials and punitive measures to distract and take away attention from the momentum [of the movement],” the first student said. “They’re essentially trying to repress students and make them fearful of having the right to free speech and of having the right to political expression.”

Photo by Jessica Xing Students sit around a scroll at the Dec. 1 sit-in on the second floor of Curry Student Center.

Created or generated?: The debate over use of AI comes to Northeastern classrooms

By Zoe MacDiarmid News Staff

Game design professor Chris Barney was used to scrutinizing his students’ assignment submissions. He used Canvas’ built-in plagiarism checker and occasionally checked manually for telltale signs of plagiarism. But in the past year and a half, Barney has had to inspect assignments with even more scrutiny given everyone’s new classmate: artificial intelligence.

On Nov. 30, 2022, OpenAI launched the Chat Generative Pretrained Transformer, or ChatGPT. Since its creation, the use of artificial intelligence, or AI, has become a heated and ongoing debate in the context of education.

Originally, the company marketed ChatGPT as a tool that could be used for coding and generating basic paragraphs in response to prompts.

However, concerns over students potentially using the technology to cheat on class assignments quickly took hold alongside a nationwide discourse surrounding the rapidly evolving landscape of AI. Northeastern’s Institute for Experiential AI, or EAI, held a seminar shortly after OpenAI launched ChatGPT to address how the tool could shape education, said Kevin Lim, a business development spe-

Barney’s new cheating detection process involves running assignments through five AI technology detectors.

Another layer to this debate is the extent to which professors should incorporate AI into their courses, which would ultimately depend on their department and the subject they teach, Garneau said.

The Writing Program’s AI working group developed a statement saying they “do not support instructor use of AI content generators in the assessment of student learning,” adding that they believe “active engagement” with students’ writing is at the core of communities built in classrooms.

“Is it no longer necessary for students to understand a textbook if, when they need to exhibit the knowledge in that textbook, they can just ask an AI to do it,” Barney said. “I feel like having an internal comprehension of material is always going to matter. And having artists and writers with the ability to produce prose and art that is meaningful matters. … [We need to] have rules around what is a reasonable way to use AI, and currently, we don’t. It’s a real concern for me both as a human and as a professor. And I don’t think we have good answers at this point.”

Editor’s Note: Sarah Popeck currently serves as a staff writer for The News.

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N.U.in students to get GPA, grades on transcript to replace pass/fail system

By Amy Simon News Correspondent Since the start of Northeastern’s N.U.in program over a decade and a half ago, students sent abroad for their first semester of college would receive a separate GPA for their classes at their affiliated universities and would not receive their Northeastern GPA until completing their second semester at the university’s Boston campus.

But last semester, the university announced that the grades students received while studying abroad would be reflected in their GPA and on academic transcripts at Northeastern. The change garnered mixed reactions from students, some of whom viewed the study abroad experience as a time to focus on exploring their respective locations and not worrying about grades. Others said the new system could boost their undergraduate GPA, making applying for jobs and pursuing further education easier.

The previous pass/fail system had been a point of contention for students for years, especially amid changes to the N.U.in program implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even when N.U.in students stayed in Boston due to pandemic restrictions and took the same classes as those admitted into the regular university program, students were graded with the pass/fail system typically used at study abroad locations.

In 2020, a petition to change the system created by a fall 2020 N.U.in admit received over 300 signatures. Despite this, the N.U.in program kept the same grading system until fall 2023, when students were notified after committing to the program that the grades they received while studying abroad would be reflected in their GPA and on academic transcripts.

The university did not answer questions from The News about why they decided to change the grading system or whether student input had any weight in the decision.

Traditionally, transfer credits at universities do not impact GPAs at the new school when students transfer from one college to another.

Many students responded positively to this change, saying that transforming the grading system to reflect N.U.in students’ grades during their time abroad allowed them to push themselves academically.

“I think making the classes pass/ fail would make the classes a lot easier,” said Vinay Pillai, a first-year computer science major who participated in N.U.in Madrid in fall 2023. “I like how since it was GPA-based, we were forced to pay attention in classes, and

we couldn’t just slack off.”

For other students, this change felt sudden. Students participating in the fall 2023 program said they weren’t notified until after committing to the program and finalizing their classes, leaving them to feel unprepared.

“Why change it for the year [if] you already told [us it] was going to be pass or fail?” said Austin Grimaldi, a first-year journalism and media and screen studies combined major who participated in N.U.in Ireland in fall 2023. “Do it for the next year and tell them it’s not going to be pass/fail.”

A significant aspect of the N.U.in study abroad program is what the university calls “experiential learning.” Rather than solely learning

from classes, students grow through their experiences of traveling around their location, meeting local people and adapting to cultural changes.

Some students felt the new grading system would have limited them in these experiences.

“If you are abroad, you should enjoy your time more and not study as much as you should when you are focused on GPA,” said Joshua Lee, a second-year business administration major who participated in N.U.in Rome in fall 2022.

Other students who partici-

pated in N.U.in prior to the fall 2023 semester also had conflicting thoughts about the change. While many felt upset the switch was not implemented during their semester, others felt grateful that they did not have to spend as much time studying and could instead focus on other activities, such as traveling to different cities and visiting landmarks.

In N.U.in Rome, students had classes Monday through Thursday, giving them a three-day weekend to explore the city and travel.

“When I realized that the classes were just pass or fail and my GPA technically starts from the beginning once I got to Boston, that was a real game changer because I took in the experience of N.U.in a lot better,” said Victoria Caspare, a third-year business administration major who participated in

N.U.in Rome in fall 2022. “We definitely had that global experience of being able to go to different cities and countries throughout our three-day weekends. I think that if I didn’t know that my GPA [would start in] Boston, I wouldn’t have also grasped the opportunity that the N.U.in program gave when I was there.”

With the previous pass/fail system, students said they also had more time to meet peers in the same

cohort and location they were in.

“I studied at John Cabot University with 200 other Northeastern students, and I knew all 200 Northeastern students,” Caspare said. “​​I definitely took on more opportunities. I think anyone would do that just because you’re not strictly focused on your work, but rather taking in that you’re in a foreign country for four months, and you’re trying to enjoy yourself and meet new people.”

Even after Northeastern implemented the grading change, several students felt the format of their N.U.in-affiliated universities was still centered around a pass/fail system.

When submitting an assignment that was purely writing or presentation-based, students said there was little-to-no cushion between receiving a passing or failing mark.

“It was basically pass or fail because the courses I

took were either like you get an A or you get an F,” Grimaldi said.

Additionally, the grading system at several participating N.U.in partner universities differs greatly from schools in the United States. At the University College Dublin in Ireland, an A+ ranges from 80 to 100, an A ranges from 70 to 79 and an A- ranges from 65 to 69.

“What’s considered an A or a B [in Ireland] is much different from America,” Grimaldi said. “You can have grades either inflated or deflated

because of how the local grading system works. We would have students give their all on an assignment, and they would get a B, and the professor would be like, ‘I just don’t give out A’s.’ And that’s not fair. That was frustrating for a lot of students I knew in the program.”

Aside from getting used to the different grading systems, many students also found themselves adjusting to different learning styles at the affiliated universities.

“I think my classes were a lot easier; they were not very hard,” Pillai said. “In Spain, there weren’t a lot of assignments. They just taught us, and then we had our midterms and our finals. There weren’t any assignments, quizzes or tests. It was definitely less of a time commitment, but it also meant that the midterms and the finals were weighted significantly. ” In addition to the different studying habits some acquired during the N.U.in program, many students had to pick up unrelated classes that didn’t satisfy their NUPath requirements, including a location-specific required culture class. While students said many of these classes tended to be easier, it forced them to reconsider their plans for future courses and semesters.

“Northeastern didn’t want us to take computer science classes [in Spain] because they wanted us to learn computer science [in Boston,] so I was taking relatively easier classes over there,” Pillai said.

Despite the new grading change, students who participated in the program agreed it was an enriching and fulfilling experience.

“I had fun,” Grimaldi said. “The actual program itself was well-run, and I appreciated the advisors we had. I thought it was a very unique way to start off my college experience.”

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MA minimum wage remains stagnant in 2024, coalition advocates for future

By Marta Hill Editor-at-Large

For the first time in five years, Massachusetts’ minimum wage did not rise at the start of the new year. It stayed constant at $15 an hour.

This year marks the end of the gradual increase signed into law in 2018 by then-Gov. Charlie Baker. The next push for advocates is raising the minimum wage to $20 per hour.

Raise Up Massachusetts, a coalition of groups devoted to making the state a better place for working people, has been at the forefront of the fight to raise the minimum wage for years.

“The coalition first came together in 2013 and one of our first campaigns was raising the minimum wage, which at that point was $8 in 2013 and hadn’t been raised since George W. Bush was president,” said Andrew Farnitano, a spokesperson for the coalition.

A series of increases over about a decade brought the Massachusetts minimum wage to $15 in 2023. Those increases marked huge wins for minimum wage workers and advocates — and, Farnitano said, didn’t come with the downsides opponents expected.

“In the past, Massachusetts has been a leader on the minimum wage — we were one of the first states to move

towards $15 an hour,” Farnitano said.

“We’ve seen positive impacts when we passed the $15 minimum wage.

Opponents warned that it would mean massive job loss, businesses failing, the state’s economy falling apart. And instead what we saw is the lowest unemployment rate ever recorded.”

Massachusetts no longer has the highest minimum wage in New England — Connecticut surpassed the commonwealth this year with a minimum wage of $15.69 an hour.

Following Massachusetts are Maine at $14.15 an hour, Rhode Island at $14 an hour and Vermont at $13.67 an hour. New Hampshire, the only state

Graphic by Jethro R. Lee

besides the commonwealth to not see an increase in 2024, has a minimum wage of $7.25.

“What we’ve seen over the past few years is the cost of living in Massachusetts has increased faster than the minimum wage has increased. Due to the rise in inflation, the rising housing costs means that $15 today is not what it was in 2018 when this law was passed,” Farnitano said.

In part because of increasing housing prices and inflation, many believe the minimum wage needs to continue to rise.

“I think, pretty obviously, that it should be higher because then people who are working can get to an income that is livable for themselves,” said Shahinaz Geneid, a fourth-year doctoral candidate at Northeastern’s School of Law. As a student, limits on work-study funding add a level of complication for Geneid and her peers. When a student is allocated work-study money, there is a cap on what they can earn in a year.

The minimum wage comes into play, Geneid said, because low wages force many students to balance multiple jobs at once.

According to an estimate by the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a single person needs to earn $22.59 per hour to cover the necessities in the Greater Boston area.

“I think probably everyone in the [GENU-UAW] union is really supportive of the minimum wage increasing,” Geneid said, referring to Northeastern’s graduate student worker union, of which she is a member.

State Sen. Jason Lewis, who represents the 5th Middlesex District,

is the presenter on a bill to raise the minimum wage incrementally over the next five years. It was referred to the committee on Labor and Workforce Development in February 2023. There is a similar bill in the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

“Increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour has had a tremendously positive impact on hundreds of thousands of working individuals and families in the commonwealth who have seen their take-home pay increase and improve their standard of living. However, due to high inflation, the buying power of $15 has been significantly eroded,” Lewis said in a statement to The News. “This is why we need to start phasing in another increase to the minimum wage in Massachusetts.”

The pending legislation indexes the minimum wage to inflation like some other states.

An increase in the minimum wage to $20 would impact almost 1 million workers, according to the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center. Nearly 23% of working parents would be affected and only 8% of those who would get a raise are teenagers.

Raising the minimum wage also has the potential to help local businesses, Farnitano said, because it puts money back into the local economy.

“We’ve seen that the minimum wage increase leads to job growth, leads to more employment and because people are working people are earning more money and they’re spending it in their community,” Farnitano said. “It’s not going to corporate profits or offshore bank accounts. It’s staying in our communities and making them stronger.”

State of the Commonwealth: Governor Healey shares priorities for Massachusetts

By Alexis Algazy Deputy City Editor Despite the icy roads and below freezing temperatures, the House Chambers at the Massachusetts State House were filled with politicians and residents gathered to hear Governor Maura Healey’s first State of the Commonwealth Address Jan. 17. Healey introduced Massachusetts residents to the people behind her policies and discussed her work to improve accessible education and her efforts to alleviate transportation issues.

Healey spoke about her prioritization of both higher and early education, evidenced by her August 2023 launch of MassReconnect, a program allowing those 25 years and older to attend community college for free, and the recent “Gateway to Pre-K” agenda, a program that seeks in part to invest in universal pre-K access for Massachusetts’ fouryear olds of select communities.

Healey shared a story about Danita Mends, a working mother from Roxbury who was unable to afford college tuition and was in attendance at the address. MassReconnect allowed Mends to pursue her education free of cost.

“Thanks to MassReconnect, student enrollment in public higher education

grew last fall for the first time in 10 years,” Healey said.

During her speech, Healey announced Literacy Launch, a program that will make reading materials available with the goal of increasing literacy across the commonwealth. Healey called for Massachusetts to triumph in education with the exclamation “We are going to be first in literacy, too.”

“It was inspiring to [hear] someone as impactful as [Healey] make such an inspirational statement,” Yiannis Asikis, a 17-year old from Boston University Academy who previously interned at the State House, told The News.

One of Healey’s most notable accomplishments over the past year was the $1 billion tax cut signed into law Oct. 4, 2023. It was Massachusetts’ first tax cut in over two decades.

Healey spoke about her own mother, who raised five children alone, and, according to Healey, would have benefited from this tax cut.

“You’ll see the savings when you file your returns in April,” Healey said.

Over the past year, Healey said she strived to work for the people of Massachusetts. She highlighted the administration’s work standing up for reproductive rights, developing a new hate crimes unit in the State Police and

implementing the Work and Family Mobility Act. “This is what our work is supposed to be about,” Healey said. “Bringing help and hope to those we serve.”

Although she listed an array of accomplishments, the governor recognized the continued challenges Massachusetts residents face on a daily basis.

“Costs are too high for housing and childcare,” Healey said. “Our schools are the best, but not for every student.

Congested roads and slow trains steal our time and our joy. It’s frustrating.”

Looking ahead to the coming year, Healey pledged to prioritize these daily dissatisfactions and push for affordability.

Healey drew the House Chambers’ attention to Massachusetts residents Abelardo Corona, Gabriela Amezcua and their two children from Haverhill. The state’s housing programs aided the couple in purchasing their first home, a feat that was previously unattainable for them.

“The Affordable Homes Act will create thousands of opportunities just like theirs,” Healey said. The governor faced the Joint Committee on Housing Jan. 18 to testify on this act.

Another frequent frustration of Massachusetts residents is transporta-

tion. Healey cited her administration’s efforts to gain both state and federal funding for transportation, as well as the appointment of Phillip Eng as MBTA general manager in hopes of fixing the T. “Look, we still have a long way to go. I know that,” Healey said. “I want to thank T riders for your patience as the work continues. We are committed to making your commutes better.”

M. Faisal Khan, director of religious affairs and imam at the Islamic Center of Boston in Wayland, was among the

benediction speakers. After the program, he told The News that he agrees with Healey’s efforts toward more efficient transportation. “My kids ride on the Red Line and it’s always taking forever,” Khan said.

Healey reflected on her achievements from her first year in office while recognizing the work that lies ahead.

“Behind every decision we make is a person — a student, a family, a small business owner, a senior,” Healey said. “That’s who our work is for.”

Photo by Alexis Algazy Healey greets attendees on the House floor. Healey shared stories about Boston residents who were helped by accomplishments like the MassReconnect program and the proposed Affordable Homes Act.

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February 2, 2024

ICE SKATING PIRATES ENTHRA RINK WITH CREA

By Margot Murphy |

Photo by Margot Murphy The crowd bundles up and excitedly watches the show while clapping, dancing and singing along to each routine. Heavy winds and snow chilled the temperature, but nevertheless, about 70 New Englanders stood in the cold weather.

Swashbuckling pirates, enchanting mermaids and adventurous ice skating routines — featuring famed Olympics silver medalist Nancy Kerrigan — entertained Bostonians Jan. 14 during the Pirates of the Fenway Skating Show. Visitors enjoyed the free show at The Rink at 401 Park, which Joy Skate Productions sponsored.

Along with Kerrigan, the show included elite competitive ice skaters and professional performers from well-known shows and organizations such as Disney on Ice, Brownbody and “Dancing on Ice.” Each of the skaters choreographed and prepared a song for the spectacle, practicing for weeks in advance, with some flying in from different states.

“[Pirates of the Fenway performers] have been coming in where I practice, and I see them with their props and costumes and it’s so much fun,” Kerrigan said. “It’s nice to have that support and excitement to see people get excited to go do something I love.”

Pirates of the Fenway consisted of over 10 engaging routines, each with a different character and song.

A few highlighted performances were

by Ryan Dunk, a former competitive figure skater who performed to “California Gurls” by Katy Perry, and Chelsea Ridley, a past Disney on Ice professional skater known as the “Hip Hop Ice Queen,” who skated to a remixed version of “Baby Shark.”

“I choreographed the routine, be-

Photo by Margot Murphy As the final solo act, Kerrigan performs to “The Skye Boat Song” by Bear McCreary. Kerrigan also hosted the show, introducing the performers, welcoming the crowd and conducting the closing remarks.

Photo by Margot Murphy Kerrigan closes the show by introducing each skater, thanking Joy Skate Productions for sponsoring the performers and allowing the audience to cheer for and thank the performers. Joy Skate Productions hosted numerous shows in the past like Disco on Ice and weekly workshops such as Ice Flow.

Ashlee Wright, a competitive ice sk Mermaid” while dressed as Ariel. H nostalgia for the adults.

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ALL AUDIENCE AT 401 PARK ICE ATIVE ROUTINES Photo by Margot Murphy

| Photo Staff

cause I’m the Hip Hop Ice Queen, and normally I try to bring the hip-hop style and culture onto the ice,” Ridley said. “I think I was able to do that, and I hope the people that came out enjoyed it.”

Kerrigan was the final act of the show and performed to “The Skye Boat Song”

by Bear McCreary, showcasing her expertise and everlasting joy for the sport.

“Anytime you can get into a character it’s just a little more fun,” Kerrigan said.

Throughout the show, the audience danced, laughed and cheered for each performance, finding solace in the skill of the skaters despite the harsh winds and flurries of snow.

“We don’t stop to announce anybody during the show because we like to keep it rolling and keep the audience

engaged,” said Elin Schran, the founder of Joy Skate Productions. “It was so thrilling to find out that people were brave and hearty New Englanders and give us the energy we need to do this performance.”

After the final bows, attendees who had previously booked skating time at the rink had the chance to skate with the performers and Kerrigan.

Many performers got to greet friends and family, with compliments being shared amongst them.

“I think after the pandemic when we were so isolated, I just am never going to take for granted again what it means to be connected and to share time and experiences with other people,” Schran said.

Liv Duckworth, dressed as a siren, skates to “MILK OF THE SIREN”

by Melanie Martinez, creating a haunting and mysterious character performance. Each participating skater had the creative freedom to choreograph and pick their own characters and songs.

Photo by Margot Murphy Dunk captivates the audience with his charm and disco-like moves as he performs to “California Gurls” by Katy Perry. He became a crowd favorite when he dropped his sunglasses and successfully retrieved them in character.

Photo by Margot Murphy kater, gracefully glides across the rink to “Part of Your World” from “The Little Her choreography connected with younger members of the audience and evoked

Photo by Margot Murphy Samm Pearsall’s Penelope the Parrot costume glitters from head-to-toe with sequins and foam feathers to resemble a red macaw. Her flamboyant costume and sassy movements made the crowd laugh at the entertaining dance.

We deliver!

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February 2, 2024

Review: The morbid, prescient existence living within and beyond ‘The Zone of Interest’

By Ian Dartley News Correspondent For the past decade, film director and screenwriter Jonathan Glazer has refined his newest film, “The Zone of Interest,” to be “a warning,” not a history lesson.

Following Glazer’s critically acclaimed feature “Under the Skin,” “The Zone of Interest” takes place in the middle of the Holocaust, following the infamous Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), the longest-serving Nazi commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and his family — most notably his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller).

Holocaust cinema often swims in its bigness. Films such as “Schindler’s List” and “Life is Beautiful” understand the magnitude of the subject matter and embrace it with shimmering scores, haunting imagery and grandiose climaxes. Quite often, these heartfelt films have themes of family strife, complicity in genocide and national loyalty.

“The Zone of Interest” discards the grandeur of those themes and bottles what sound designer Johnnie Burn calls “two different films” into a chilling amalgamation of what the Holocaust looked and sounded like.

One experience is the visual world — the Höss home and the life Rudolf strives to build for his family — and the other is the audial soundscape. Throughout the movie, as Rudolf struggles with a looming promotion that will result in the upheaval of his family, the guttural and stomach-churning noises of the Holocaust surround the timid home and penetrate every scene.

The Höss family’s peaceful existence next to Auschwitz forces the audience to bear witness to the banality of evil. The architects of The Final Solution and concentration camps may not have been as over-the-top as depicted in other Holocaust media.

They were not always screaming, shooting, killing and presenting all of their evil ways on the shiniest of silver platters for everyone to see and hear.

Oftentimes, the despotic nature of the Nazis manifested in silence.

Höss mulls over human incinerators as if he were selecting a new oven for his house. Hedwig picks out clothes from Jewish inmates of the camp and poses in an opulent fur coat in front of her mirror before trying on makeup, all while emotionlessly taking in the sounds of prisoners being shot and beaten outside of her window.

As she shows her infant their garden, she grows emotional at the prospect of uprooting her family and reminisces with her husband about a lovely couple they met at a spa in Italy. Hedwig’s character is unsettlingly charming and, at times, relatable.

Her subsequent outbursts at her husband and their Polish servants are turbulent microcosms of the inner hatred Nazis harbored.

Hüller’s two-faced performance personifies the German image of the Nazis in the early 1940s — and that’s where Glazer’s subtle historical storytelling shines. While much of the German population knew what was happening, some were not aware of the full scope of the exterminations within concentration camp walls. When Hedwig’s mother comes to visit, Auschwitz infects her with its poison. She coughs from the smokestacks, is awoken from the explosions and ultimately flees in the night in response to the horrors.

Beyond the banality of evil, “The Zone of Interest” offers a window into another terrifying concept: What if we are more like these people than we think? Glazer posits that the film is more about the present day than it is the past. Throughout the runtime of “The Zone of Interest,” it may

seem difficult to distill that message through the yelps from drowning prisoners and the remorseless barking of guard dogs; however, tuning out the background noise and honing in on the mundanity of the Höss family’s routines and their ambitions clears the smoke around that theme.

That imposed introspection grows painfully long as the voyeurism forced by faraway camera angles sets in. Stylistically, “The Zone of Interest” is ripe with a visual defiance to violence and a removed omnipresence. Wide-angle shots of the Höss’ movements feel akin to that of a multi-monitored security room — always watching, yet consistently too far away to soak in the evil.

For all of the directorial prowess Glazer flexes in this 106-minute soiree that focuses on the most gut-wrenching era of history, the narrative occasionally feels a bit too slow to match its thematic and technical splendor. While drawn-out shots of the Höss family walking past Auschwitz’s smoke-belching chimneys and conversations peppered with not-so-faraway gunshots are initially wince-inducing, the drab nature of their life can feel a little too one-note.

Still, the boldness of the sound design and a hair-raising score from

Glazer’s longtime collaborator Mica Levi embodies the unfathomable wickedness that permeated throughout World War II-era Germany.

These, coupled with a plot centered around family values that are so disturbingly relatable, force the viewers to ask themselves, “Are we really that different from these monsters?”

As the distance between the Holocaust and the present day grows, it becomes increasingly important to explore new methods of scrutinizing the horrid conditions and personalities of that time — and to further extrapolate and contextualize them across the modern world to ensure such atrocities are understood and never repeated.

Glazer intended for “The Zone of Interest” to examine the complacency of such families like the Höss’ within “the present tense.” At the end of the film, jolting transitions between the past and present metaphorically send the audience away from this world.

After a black screen and siren-like wails blasting through the speakers finally give way to the closing credits, the harrowingly hollow world of Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest” is left to both compartmentalize the Holocaust as it was and exist among the many ongoing genocides in the world today.

That said, the true showstopper is Rapp, as her 11 o’clock number, “World Burn,” left the audience with a collective understanding that if anyone was going to save this movie, it would be her. Rapp starred in the Broadway rendition of “Mean Girls” before joining Max’s “Sex Lives of College Girls,” which she recently departed to pursue her music career full-time.

It is no mystery that Rapp introduced her unique flare to Regina’s nature, especially through personality and fashion. For one, Regina’s first appearance shows a more dominant side of the original Barbie-esque character, played by Rachel McAdams. Instead of pink tops and short skirts, Regina George is in a head-to-toe leather set, with massive black boots and darker makeup to truly reveal the prevalent complexities behind her character.

Regina’s gold and pearl necklace dangles on her neck with a striking “R,” which subtly is replaced with a “C” on Cady’s neck as she later establishes herself as the new queen bee.

The fashion and personal expression of Gen Z are positively and accurately represented throughout the film.

However, there are elements of forced modern lingo that Gen Z itself cannot even understand. The film begins with Damien and Janis recording a video on their phones, and this motif acts as an idle transition between acts throughout the film. From TikToks to text messages to Snapchat stories, the editing attempts to depict a typical high school environment, but its repetition falls short, leading to more confusion rather than relatability.

Where the movie got lost is simple — the screenplay is strikingly similar to the original film, making the

abrupt transitions to songs confusing and unnatural. The release of “Mean Girls” (2004) sparked a cultural reset with references that remain quoted to this day. That said, it is appropriately assumed there is a higher viewer rate of the film, rather than the Broadway musical. Alas, audiences felt a greater connection and familiarity with the former, causing “Mean Girls” (2024) to simply feel repetitive. The iconic lines such as Damien’s depiction of Gretchen, “That’s why her hair is so big — it’s full of secrets,” and, the unforgettable, “She doesn’t even go here,” sparked the most laughter.

Alas, whenever a character bursts into song and dance, the viewer is taken out of the story, sparking laughter for the wrong reasons and causing a comedic story to lose legitimacy. Nonetheless, it is evident who comes from a musical background, à la Rapp and Cravalho.

Both actresses stand out on both the soundtrack and screen due to their equal talent between acting and singing, while others were not gifted with this balance.

For example, Rice’s quirky facial movements and prominent uncomfortability in a new setting made Cady’s struggles all the more believable. However, the moment Rice attempts to hit the high notes of “Stupid With Love” in a monotone voice, it is proven that acting is her forte.

As for the plot, the most recognizable difference between “Mean Girls” (2004) and “Mean Girls” (2024) is Janis Imi’ike — formally Janis Ian — and her representation on a sexual and cultural level. The decision to change Janis’ last name is aimed to honor Cravalho’s Hawaiian heritage but also has a layered meaning of

strength and searching for knowledge.

Similarly, Janis’ sexuality is a topic of consideration as both she and her best friend Damien are confirmed to be queer, allowing for more representation in the LGBTQ+ community. In “Mean Girls” (2004), Regina confuses Janis’ ethnicity, Lebanese, with the false presumption of her sexuality, lesbian. This rumor, made when Janis and Regina were younger, acts as the central divide between them, and later resurfaces when “The Plastics’” burn book is revealed to the school. However, in “Mean Girls” (2024), the plot shifts to recognize the struggles that are part of coming out, as Janis expresses her sexuality to Regina by gifting her a stuffed animal with a rainbow pin — representing the LGBTQ+ flag. This stuffed animal, later seen in Regina’s closet in the childlike music box, spirals into a new nickname for Janis, an obsessed lesbian.

A plot change as relevant as this one acts as a needed change of pace

for the storyline, but also reflects the challenges that come with being a part of an oppressed community.

To break common film stereotypes, Fey takes a nontraditional yet celebrated approach toward Janis’ character by making her sexuality a typical part of her identity, instead of a constant challenge she needs to face. This normalization is necessary for LGBTQ+ people to ensure their sexuality is uplifted and seen as a part of the status quo. Taking this all into consideration, Janis’ character is deep and fluid, but the line, “I am a pyro-les, loud and proud. I will light your backpack on fire if you talk shit about me,” remains the most comical and real statement throughout the whole film.

Nonetheless, to take the words of a moviegoer leaving the theater, “It was cute!” Despite the unsequential and spontaneous musical moments, “Mean Girls” (2024) provides a solid ground of representation and inclusivity based on the original film that lacks diversity — both providing equal forms of familiarity to younger and older.

Review: ‘Mean Girls’ lacks balance between versions, but upholds nostalgia and representation

By Ella Warner News Correspondent To escape the Boston cold, crowds of pink flocked to the AMC Boston Common to endure nearly two hours of singing, dancing and the typical attempt to relate to a predominantly Gen Z audience during Tina Fey’s “Mean Girls” (2024).

In the age of remakes, Fey strayed away from remaking the original “Mean Girls” (2004) and latched on to the Broadway musical — adding a new level of complexity, yet familiarity between the characters and the audience. However, a collective confusion loomed over audience members when Cady (Angourie Rice) broke out into song, causing a joint murmur of, “I had no idea this was a musical.” What sparked the crowd’s surprise was not a lack of marketing, but a lack of musical marketing as critics suggest the appeal for a musical film is rapidly declining.

Nonetheless, the audience is reunited with a naive Cady as she navigates a new school after years of homeschooling with her presumably single mom (Jenna Fischer). Off the bat, the casting between this duo is unbeatable, as Rice is Fischer’s uncanny twin — some suggest a perfect mix of Pam and Jim from “The Office.”

After some trial and error, Cady connects with the art freaks, Janis and Damien (Auli’i Cravalho and Jaquel Spivey, respectively), while also being pulled in an unexpected direction of pomp and popularity.

Here Cady meets “The Plastics”: oblivious Karen Shetty (Avantika Vandanapu) and a new and improved Gretchen Wieners (Bebe Wood), all of whom fall under Regina George’s (Reneé Rapp) reign.

Photo courtesy Paramount Bebe Wood, Reneé Rapp and Avantika Vandanapu (left to right) star as Gretchen Wieners, Regina George and Karen Shetty in “Mean Girls” (2024), respectively. The musical adaptation of the classic 2004 film premiered Jan. 12.

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How The Middle East became one of Boston’s most talked-about music venues

By Henry Bova News Correspondent If one was looking for a night of live music and walked into The Middle East blind, it would be best to expect the unexpected. With a labyrinth of rooms to navigate and a diverse bill of artists each night, its eclecticism jumps out from the moment someone walks in. To Aaron Gray, a talent buyer at The Middle East, that is part of what makes the club so special.

“You could go to any of these rooms and find completely different groups of people in them. That, to me, is a really cool thing,” he said. “You’re watching a hardcore show, you walk through to the upstairs, and there’s an indie rock show. You go downstairs, there’s some big hip-hop show. You go to the other rooms, maybe there’s karaoke in this room and soul dance night in this room. It’s all over the place.”

That visual is likely a familiar one for anyone with knowledge of Boston’s music scene. For nearly 40 years, The Middle East, a famous nightclub and Lebanese restaurant in Cambridge, has been a fixture, offering intimate and often highly energetic shows. What started as just an empty space above the restaurant transformed into a five-room, multi-building cultural institution engulfing the corner of Brookline Street and Massachusetts Avenue.

“Really, we’re five clubs,” Gray said.

“At any given moment, there could be 1,300 people in this building.”

Though it wasn’t always this expansive, The Middle East garnered

a strong reputation among locals and touring musicians around its official inception as a music venue.

In 1987, Nabil and Joseph Sater, the latter of which stepped down from his role at the venue Aug. 28, 2018, after allegations of sexual assault and harassment surfaced against him, began collaborating with Billy Ruane, an oddball Boston music promoter, to book acts after the restaurant closed.

The Saters and Ruane made for an interesting pairing, but one that bred a dynamic environment for live music to flourish.

The Middle East quickly became the spot to be in Cambridge. As Dave Derby, a formerly Boston-based musician, recounted, the community developed rapidly and kept him coming back whether or not he was playing a gig there.

“For a while, I lived around the corner, and it was really the center of everything,” Derby said. “It was like an oasis. Cool, interesting bands, everybody knew each other. The folks who ran the restaurant were super supportive of the music scene, it was just amazing.”

From then on, the club’s reputation outside of Boston began to grow, and it quickly became a marquee spot for any up-and-coming musician who wanted to make their presence felt in Boston. When singer-songwriter and current adjunct professor at New York University Tisch School of the Arts Mike Errico first played The Middle East, he knew it was special.

“The place had a vibe,” he said. “I definitely felt like the first time I got up

there I was like, ‘This is a flag-planting here in Boston.’”

Derby also pointed out how the venue came with its own “built-in crowd,” something which gave it a huge advantage over other venues.

“It always had a crowd,” he said.

“That was the thing I remember telling bands that weren’t from Boston. It’s more like the townie, authentic club compared to some other places.”

The built-in crowd persists today.

Even if people don’t know who’s on the bill, they still show up to get the proper Middle East experience. “They just come here to see what’s going on and get lost in the craziness,” Gray said.

The club’s continued success and survival is particularly triumphant given the state of the live entertainment industry. As an independent venue, The Middle East does not receive the same financial backing from corporations like Live Nation and the Anschutz Entertainment Group, or AEG, that some other clubs in Boston do. With their seemingly endless supply of money and national booking agencies, corporate venues like these across the nation have put a harsh financial strain on independent venues that can’t bring the same money in each night.

With the strong, built-in community supporting it for decades, the club gives back by prominently featuring local artists, something that’s also becoming a casualty as a result of smaller, independent venues dying.

“We give a place for local bands to play,” Gray said. “I mean, there are spots for that, of course, but they’re

dwindling. Brighton Music Hall and The Sinclair aren’t typically going to have a local band showcase of any kind.”

Its independence from major money conglomerates comes with several drawbacks, but it also leads to more freedom when it comes to booking shows.

“Diversity for us is a huge thing,” Gray said. “We’ll take things that other people don’t want to touch at all, and part of that is just wanting to make sure that we’re giving a space to everyone around us.”

This commitment to highlighting local art is such a big reason why The Middle East has stood the test of time, and, in Errico’s opinion, is something

felt by nearly everyone who passes through its doors.

“It just smells like music over time,” Errico said. “That all adds up to a sense of community. You’re part of a continuum of musicians that are coming through. It’s a weird bonding experience when you walk into a room that’s as committed to the art as you are, and The Middle East is one of those places that has it.”

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story neglected to include salient information about one of The Middle East’s founders, Joseph Sater, who was accused of sexual assault and harassment. This story was updated at 8 p.m.

Jan. 28 to include these details.

Photo by Jessica Xing The Middle East stands at 472 Massachusetts Ave. The nightclub has been known to feature different types of bands at the same time with its five rooms.

Column: Can Bethenny Frankel burst the Bravo bubble with calls to unionize?

By Joseph Brant News Staff Every worker needs a union, even if their job is being messy on national television.

Bethenny Frankel, “Skinnygirl” lifestyle mogul, original cast member of “The Real Housewives of New York” and unabashed reality TV pariah, first called for a reality television union on social media in July 2023 as a reaction to SAG-AFTRA’s bid for a more favorable contract. Enlisting the help of big-time Hollywood lawyers and the resources of SAG-AFTRA, Frankel is buckling down for a fight that could change reality TV as we know it. Comparing reality stars to scripted actors, the mogul called on her peers to organize and plan strikes so networks and streaming services recognize the sacrifice and vulnerability required to be a reality television personality.

Frankel is completely right. Reality TV show hosts like Andy Cohen are eligible for SAG-AFTRA membership, but reality stars are written out of the script, even though near-complete access to their lives, careers, marriages, families and trauma is considered a reasonable part of the deal. Frankel also railed against the network’s use of

non-disclosure agreements claiming that instead of discouraging stars from leaking plotlines and scandals before they air on the show, they are used to prevent the cast and crew from speaking out against the poor conditions they work under. When workers’ personal lives become their capital, is there anyone better suited to represent them than themselves?

At a luncheon hosted by original “New York” cast member Jill Zarrin, longtime “Atlanta” Housewife Cynthia Bailey was one of the many Bravo stars interviewed by The Daily Beast, sharing her hopes for Frankel’s goal to earn residual payments for reality cast members.

“I definitely think, especially as someone who’s been on a reality show for 11 years, to not be able to at least get residuals, because all that stuff helps with our health insurance, I never thought that was really fair,” Bailey told The Daily Beast. “For our likeness, to just be used [until] the end of time and not be compensated?”

Not all Housewives think alike, though. At the same luncheon, Countess Luann de Lesseps, a fellow original “New York” star, expressed that it would be great to have a union, but that reality stars are too easily replaced by networks for the movement to gain any real traction.

“I would love to have a union, but it’s never going to happen. …

Because if we do a picketing line, [the network’s] gonna be like, ‘Bye! We’ve got the next younger, brighter, hotter star than you,’” de Lesseps told The Daily Beast. “You can’t unionize reality, because it’s too easy to get other people.”

The situation became even more complicated in August with the publication of an explosive Vanity Fair article reporting that Leah McSweeney, a brief cast member of “New York” who held a controversial tenure on “Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip,” accused Bravo of enabling her alcoholism and causing her severe emotional trauma by discouraging her from attending her grandmother’s funeral. McSweeney’s allegations underscored the need for employee protection in an industry that thrives off of its stars destroying themselves.

Bravo has also received heavy criticism for its continued support of stars caught in racist scandals, as written in the Vanity Fair article. In the Bravo-verse, there only seems to be a “time-out” period for racists.

During the tumultuous final season of the original franchise of “New York,” Ramona Singer was accused of making racist remarks and using

slurs in the presence of Black crew members and castmate Eboni K. Williams. Past problematic comments by multiple cast members contributed to the cancellation of the original series and the network’s eventual rebrand of the franchise with an all-new cast, although it continues to platform Singer through the “Real Housewives: Ultimate Girls Trip” franchise — the show’s fourth season began Dec. 14, 2023, and Singer is one of six starring housewives. But in the wake of the Vanity Fair article, BravoCon dropped Singer from the event. A few weeks later, in a surprising turn of events, Singer attended the premiere party of “Ultimate Girls Trip,” although Bravo denies inviting her. Despite controlling the final cut, Bravo can’t seem to get its story straight.

Frankel originally supported Vanity Fair’s reporting, expressing relief that the public was finally talking about the issues she’d been trying to get under national scrutiny. However, in a recent podcast episode with actress and former “Beverly Hills” star Denise Richards, Frankel walked back her support of the article and agreed with Richards’ tepid reaction to the supposedly “groundbreaking” exposé. The mogul has continued to be a vocal critic of Andy Cohen, who she claims

has made fortunes off the backs of the Housewives, and has dismissed claims of racism within the network, going so far as to say Cohen “likely despises” her on Rob Lowe’s podcast. Frankel has not shied away from playing the martyr, refusing to acknowledge the fact that she made her millions off of the same shows and stereotypes about women that Cohen did. Frankel later walked back her position on her podcast, claiming that she “has no personal vendetta” against the TV host and finds him “charming,” despite her disparaging remarks.

Being a Housewife comes at a steep price, and that’s not just referring to the wardrobe required.

With “Salt Lake City” wrapping up with a viral finale and explosive reunions, “Beverly Hills” careening towards a chaotic finish and the sensational “Vanderpump Rules” returning later this month, Bravo shows no signs of slowing down.

An exorbitantly wealthy person turning the details of their personal life into their profession would be enough to make Karl Marx turn over in his grave, but, in his own words, “Revolutions are the locomotives of history,” and although she may not know the details of the finer things, Frankel has claimed the role of lead engineer.

OPINION

Page 10

EDITORIAL BOARD

Op-ed: Financial literacy at NU

Editor-in-Chief

Eli Curwin

Managing Editor

Ananya Kulkarni Olivia Becraft Editor-at-Large

Marta Hill Campus

Emily Spatz Juliette Piovoso Val O’Neill City

Alyssa Fell Alexis Algazy Sports

Amelia Ballingall Sofia Garrett Lifestyle

Jake Guldin Kristina DaPonte Laura Emde Opinion

Galiah Abbud Rachana Madhav Projects

Alexa Coultoff Kathryn Manning Photo

Jessica Xing Darin Zullo Elizabeth Scholl Design

Angelica Jorio Liza Sheehy Multimedia

Annika Sunkara Jethro R. Lee Social Media

Kevin Gallagher Kate Armanini Copy Chief

Christina McCabe Web Manager

Arielle Rabinovich

BUSINESS

Business Manager

Ananya Chaudhari Advertising Manager

Emily Liu

Photo by Jessica Xing You might believe that today’s inflation rates are high, but in comparison, college expenses have increased even more dramatically. In the United States, the current student loan borrowing system has led many college students to resort to monumental loans, leaving them under pressure to figure out how to repay these debts in a timely manner. This burden is reflected in the total student debt in the United States. By the end of 2022, the total student debt of university students in the U.S. had accumulated to more than $1.6 trillion.

In exploring low-income students’ lives at Northeastern, The News previously reported that students had to work multiple jobs to sustain their living on campus. A critical issue highlighted in the article is students’ lack of financial literacy, especially evident when they navigate complex scholarship applications like the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, form. Even with the given financial aid resources

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available on Northeastern’s website, there remains a need for thorough financial education to help students from diverse backgrounds increase their understanding of how to deal with money. This education includes, but is not limited to, understanding eligibility — informing students if they are eligible to take advantage of the resources provided by the university and what the application process looks like.

Northeastern has been actively giving out financial aid and will continue doing so this year. Although the university has resources in financial aid and work opportunities for students, there is a lack of attention on financial literacy education by the school. One of the few pieces of information available online is about a financial literacy workshop taught by an alum in 2018. This gap in financial literacy education at Northeastern leads to an important question: Does the university truly value all aspects of student success?

If the university cares about its students’ success, why neglect such a crucial aspect of their education? Having adequate knowledge of personal finance is extremely valuable for students. In a survey conducted by FINRA Foundation in 2021, it was revealed that about one-third of Americans have “too much debt.” This statistic underscores the broader issue of financial literacy among Americans, highlighting the need for universities to address this gap in education. The need for financial education is showcased by the research of Carly Urban, an economics professor at Montana State University, which shows that “high school

financial instruction ‘overwhelmingly’ improves credit scores.”

Charlie Bergman at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has extensive experience as a financial instructor and was set to lead a group of about 20 St. John’s freshmen in an eight-week program that covers the fundamentals of financial literacy. On the other hand, Northeastern’s practice of offering finance-related courses primarily through its business school effectively excludes students from other fields of study. This raises an important issue: regardless of major, students should have access to essential life skills. The need for financial literacy goes beyond academic majors because students will all have to face personal and professional financial decisions.

Several universities in Massachusetts have adopted successful models for financial literacy education, which Northeastern could consider implementing to benefit its entire student body. These proven strategies could provide valuable insights to Northeastern’s current strategy. How have other institutions successfully integrated these crucial life skills into their curriculums?

At University of Massachusetts Boston, up to 100 participants may enroll in a free money experience financial education course, tackling everything from the basics of budgeting to the complexities of taxes and retirement.

The primary goal of these courses is to benefit students and ensures accessibility to all resources.

Northeastern’s commitment to student success through its competency-based curriculum, NUpath

that is designed to assess students’ future success, regardless of their chosen field of study. Why not apply this existing framework to promote financial literacy? Northeastern should be adding one-credit financial literacy courses similar to the introductory major courses and co-op development courses, which are free of charge. This strategy would not only open up access to essential financial knowledge but also serve as a valuable resource for all students, whether they receive financial aid or pay full tuition.

Of course, the implementation of new courses into the existing curriculum will be difficult and take effort.

Students will have to adjust their schedules or postpone their graduation term without disturbing their primary academic focus. Merely offering an introductory financial literacy course might only get them through school — real-world financial complexities are more than handling financial aid and managing daily expense budgets.

While difficult, it is possible to make the course topics more far-reaching.

One example of this is Babson College.

The Babson Financial Literacy Project aims to educate college students, high schoolers, nonprofits and companies through interactive workshops that cover specifics from managing credits to buying and leasing a car. That’s the kind of comprehensive, real-world approach we need.

addition, students have heavy financial burdens, especially in cities like Boston, where daily expenses are 50% higher than the national average.

These stressors also clarify the prevalence of mental health conditions among university students, which have doubled from 2013 to 2021. With depression rates rising by 135% and anxiety rates by 110%, individuals are driven toward substance abuse as a coping mechanism.

Consequently, universities have been responding to the growing mental health crisis. Northeastern’s UHCS offers walk-in hours and Find@ Northeastern service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week over the phone. Despite these efforts, Northeastern tends to overlook the aspect of addiction in its health services — support groups are available for grieving students, international students or sexual trauma survivors, yet nothing for recovering addicts. The Health and Wellness Center has no social media post history related to awareness of addiction, and its website states that they “reinforce healthy choices and encourage responsible decision-making regarding the use of alcohol and other drugs” — accentuating the notion that being an addict is caused by irresponsible choices.

Addiction Center, a web guide providing information for individuals grappling with substance use disorders, voices that “Those who are enrolled in a full-time college program are twice as likely to abuse drugs and alcohol than those who don’t attend college.” Still, universities, including Northeastern, opt for punitive measures instead of a policy focused on assistance and

non-judgmental treatment. This is already the norm for other diseases, so how is addiction any different?

Addiction is a brain disease. A student should not be ashamed to ask for help — they should be proud to be brave enough to tackle addiction. A student does not have to be partying every night or failing classes in order to become an addict. They just need to take one pill or one drink to trigger the onset of the disease, which is why it is paramount to treat addiction as a medical condition that deserves the same attention, awareness and action as other conditions.

Breaking taboos and raising awareness must be the first stride in solving such a health crisis. Students need to be encouraged to seek out help both outside of and on campus. For example, incorporating addiction awareness into student orientation and educating the student body on signs of addiction and contacts for support services will lower the silence on addiction and lead to proactive solutions. In addition, prioritizing healthy coping mechanisms is equally crucial.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) has a proven track record of dealing with alcohol abuse and other types of addiction. Establishing a weekly AA meeting on campus would be a great opportunity to let students know that resources are available.

While campus police play a dual role in law enforcement and community service, it is crucial to recognize the potential dangers of treating drug-using students solely as criminals. Approaching the issue with a punitive mindset may exacerbate the problem, hindering the path to rehabilitation and support.

By incorporating campus police into awareness campaigns and providing them with educational tools on handling addicted students, we could open avenues for a more comprehensive approach. It means not seeing drug-related issues only as legal violations, but as a complex health challenge that requires understanding and empathy. The police can be part of a holistic solution, fostering long-term positive results.

The lack of addiction awareness and resources is a problem that persists in Northeastern classrooms, with health science majors voicing concerns about limited materials and classes provided on the topic. The limited comprehensive education on addiction leaves aspiring healthcare professionals without the essential tools to effectively navigate this issue in their future careers. Therefore, the implementation of mandatory classes tailored for students majoring in health-related disciplines will empower them with a deeper understanding of addiction and address substance abuse within university campuses.

Addiction is not a distant issue, but a pressing concern fostered by the stressful college environment. Universities must shoulder the responsibility of saving lives through proactive support measures. Colleges should come together with specialized organizations, students, parents, professors and law enforcement to reduce addiction in their students. In the words of Matthew Perry, “Addiction is far too powerful for anyone to defeat alone. But together, one day at a time, we can beat it down.”

Tim Zhao is a third-year political science and international affairs combined major. He can be reached at zhao. shengh@northeastern.edu.

Op-ed: Stigma of substance abuse

Annah Chaya, Benjamin Churney, Emily Chung, Erin Fine, Esha Minhas, Ethan Wayne, Gitana Savage, Izzy Harris, Joseph Brant, Julia Yohe, Kathryn Naughton, Lauren Salemo, Lily Webber, Sarah Popeck, Sonel Cutler, Zoe MacDiarmid

Ali Caudle, Ananya Kulkarni, Emma Liu, Jessica Xing, Mandy Hui, Marta Hill,

February 2, 2024

Photo by Jessica Xing Around 21 million Americans suffer from an addiction and, contrary to popular belief, it is also treatable. Yet only a mere 10% will seek treatment. To address this, we must dispel prevailing misconceptions, notably that drug addiction and alcoholism are choices, despite the American Medical Association’s recognition of addiction as a medical disease in 1987.

Addiction does not discriminate; it affects people with or without a family history of abuse and takes down people from poor backgrounds, to professional executives and famous celebrities.

Understanding that addiction is not a choice but a neurobiological condition, essentially a brain disease, is key to saving people.

At a staggering 39%, 18 to 25 year olds are the population with the highest drug use, and most of them are college students. That number is explained by the fact that college students are constantly grappling with a myriad of stressors, such as relocation from their hometowns and academic pressure. In

Derek Telep is a master’s student in criminology and criminal justice. He can be reached at telep.d@northeastern.edu.

OPINION

February 2, 2024

Page 11

Op-ed: Co-op class does not prepare students for transitions between classes, employment

Photo by Darin Zullo A majority of Northeastern students opt to become full-time employees for six months during their education by way of participating in the university’s co-op program. Students get a taste of being the adults they aspire to be by having a job in the field they are actively working toward being a part of.

For most, there are no classes to attend during the day, no assignments to turn in and no exams to worry over, giving students a sense of independence that is never quite achieved during a semester of classes.

In Northeastern’s Professional Development for Co-op class, we are taught how to make ourselves appealing to employers on paper and perform well in an interview. While the co-op class is an excellent resource for teaching practical skills that prepare students for applying to a new job, it doesn’t prepare students for the cyclical

emotions that can be felt through the multiple transitions between co-op and classes. You are well-prepared on how to be a good employee, but you are ill-prepared for how co-op affects your social well-being.

Co-op can feel incredibly isolating, even if one is content with their job and doesn’t have class assignments impeding on their free time. If you are not on campus, you can’t see your friends throughout the day or have lunch with them between classes. If you are scheduled early in the morning, you don’t get to stay out with friends as late as you used to. While on co-op, there’s a nagging feeling that you are always missing something, or that you are not as close with friends since you are not with them as frequently or for as long as you used to be.

In addition, it’s difficult to integrate yourself into a well-established team of employees at your job, especially in the first few weeks. It feels as though you’re on the outside since your coworkers have preexisting friendships and people that they automatically turn to when they need help with a task. In the beginning, you feel different from your coworkers because you are just a temporary addition to their team.

Going on co-op changes the dynamics of who you are around most often, who you talk to and the conversations you have. Changing the nature of one’s social interactions so abruptly and severely has a significant impact on an individual’s mental health, and I don’t think it’s talked about enough in regard to the transition to a co-op.

Furthermore, despite the co-op cycle being a quick-moving six months, burnout can still occur. Mayo Clinic, a leading non-profit health organization, defines burnout as “a type of stress related to work,” causing one to become “worn out physically or emotionally.” Having completed a full cycle in a clinical setting, I can attest to the burnout that comes from handling a variety of patients with different needs and being on your feet all day. I can assure you that it does not only happen to healthcare workers either. Regardless of the fact that students on co-ops are temporary employees and may not have the same title as their coworkers, they are still given a level of responsibility that can result in burnout.

Burnout from any source of stress in the workplace, in turn, affects the social well-being of students. After a long and busy day with patients, I’d often find myself uninterested in meeting up with friends since I felt so drained. It can become very easy to resort to a quiet and relaxed Friday night by yourself despite the feeling of isolation.

I strongly believe that co-op classes should teach students how to recognize burnout and prepare them with strategies to mitigate it for the betterment of student mental health. Just like many of the other skills taught in the co-op class, burnout mitigation strategies can be used throughout the rest of one’s professional life. At this early stage in its students’ professional lives, it is crucial that Northeastern instills in them that mental wellness should not be sacrificed for professional success.

Northeastern prides itself on building professionals through the co-op program, but making successful professionals means preparing them for unfavorable aspects of working a full-time job.

The other shift that happens is the return back to classes once your six months of employment are over. In any case, the hardest part of being in classes again is that you almost forget how to be a student. The freedom of no assignments and exams comes to a harsh and jarring end. You have to juggle multiple classes throughout the day and week, in addition to the assignments now filling your free time, as opposed to your one job.

When you start a co-op, there are teams and systems in place to train you for success and help you get your footing and the confidence necessary to succeed. But when you return to classes, there is no one to help you remember what worked well for you as a student. The responsibility of being a good student remains on the students themselves, but I believe the administration has a vacancy in the resources available to help facilitate that after co-op. For example, required meetings with academic advisers after finishing a co-op could help students feel more confident in their return to classes.

Co-op cycles are just as they sound: cyclical. Northeastern students rotate in and out of being full-time students and full-time employees and have to deal with the emotional stress of those changes. While Northeastern does what

it believes is best to prepare students ahead of their first co-op, it doesn’t inform students on the most realistic difficulties that co-op can bring upon them. Northeastern also fails to support students beyond the completion of their first co-op. Students always have access to their co-op coordinator and academic advisor by way of email if they are struggling or have questions. But without prior knowledge of the strain that comes with co-op transitions, students might feel as though they are the only ones dealing with these issues and will be deterred from reaching out for help.

This is especially true if they don’t know where to find the resources that could aid them in relieving their stress.

Thus, co-op education courses have to be expanded to include guidance on how to balance one’s social life, burnout and how to be successful upon returning to classes. This is not to scare students, but to let them know they aren’t alone if they find themselves grappling with any of these issues. An overwhelming majority of students at Northeastern experience being on co-op for the first time, and every one of us deserves to feel supported as we make the most of that experience. Students will come out of co-op as stronger professionals if they have the skills to balance their personal wellness and their career, which is what Northeastern should strive for its students to achieve.

Kara Orsini is a third-year health science major on the pre-med track. She can be reached at orsini.k@northeastern.edu

Op-ed: A queer love letter to EXP bathrooms

Photo by Elizabeth Scholl Northeastern’s new research center, EXP, is full of sleek new spaces and high-tech quirks — a giant neon-lit robotics room, study spaces, automated curtains and the Makerspace. However, the most exciting feature for me and the other queer people in my life are the gender-neutral bathrooms.

Before the news had spread like hot gossip through the queer community, I had a few minutes before class to explore EXP for the first time. I quickly noticed the gender-neutral bathroom on the second floor. I wondered: Was there a single gendered bathroom in the building? I scoured the complex for almost an hour, taking stock of every public restroom I could find. While I succeeded in putting the security guards on edge, I failed to find one.

Instead, most floors have a large, communal gender-neutral bathroom.

Toward the entrance, each has two rows of sinks and a free tampon and

pad dispenser. Just past that are two rows of stalls complete with sleek gray floor-to-ceiling wall-to-wall panels — without even the tiniest gap between them — for each of the toilets and urinals. What’s more, across from every communal bathroom is a pairing of lactation rooms and single-user bathrooms similar to what you would find in a house, some with showers.

The bathrooms are a gift for everyone who likes some solitude when they go, but for individuals outside the gender binary, it is a radical step forward, allowing them to feel comfortable and welcome in the public space.

Public restrooms weren’t the only places unrepresented genders felt unwelcomed as women entered the workforce toward the end of the 19th century. Men had segregated almost all aspects of public life: Libraries, schools and gyms.

(I’m looking at you, “M” in YMCA.) Now, only the segregated public restroom remains. It is vestigial of a time when social conservatives segregated spaces under the excuse that women were weaker and needed to be “protected” — especially from Black men.

They echo the same argument today, but now they say cis women need to be “protected” from trans women.

Under the trans bathroom cultural war, the practical reason bathrooms have remained gender-segregated is painfully mundane: Plumbing codes often require buildings to have a certain number of men’s and women’s bathrooms, inadvertently preventing builders from replacing traditional bathrooms with gender-neutral facilities.

Until 2017, gender-neutral bathrooms counted toward the minimum number of bathrooms needed in the building in Massachusetts but not the minimum number of men’s or women’s facilities; the old code implies EXP has zero available bathrooms for both men and women. These complicated rules also often lead to more men’s facilities — since urinals require less space — hence the notoriously frustrating “women’s bathroom line.”

While spending time in Northeastern’s LGBTQA Resource Center, my peers told me about the struggles of navigating a world of gendered bathrooms. Before the center unveiled its own brand-new gender-neutral bathroom this past fall, the only gender-neutral bathroom in Curry Student Center was located in the back corner of the top floor. While some students who identify outside of the gender binary would make the walk (or sprint) up to the fourth floor, others submitted to the discomfort of the gendered bathrooms.

The problem extends far beyond Northeastern: “For my last job … there was a women’s bathroom literally right next to our office, and I’m not going to hike three floors down to the other side of the building in order to use a bathroom that I feel safe in,” said Mim Merchant, a fourth-year human services and sociology major who is nonbinary.

With only gender-neutral bathrooms, it removes any question about the equity of the bathrooms — between gendered and non-gendered. This approach also creates a safe haven for people who are questioning their gender identity or

aren’t out yet, which is often an all-consuming experience with fear and anxiety that seeps through all aspects of life.

“It’s really nice, especially for queer people and especially for queer people who aren’t out to their families,” said Luka Romero, a first-year biochemistry major who is genderqueer. “Because then it’s not seen as ‘Oh, what are you doing?’ It’s just, that’s the only option.”

At the end of the day, a clean bathroom with privacy is nice for everyone — regardless of political ideologies or opinions on LGBTQ+ issues. It’s the perspective Northeastern seems to be going with: If you simply make bathrooms that are pleasant and private for everyone, you don’t need to make a public announcement about how your new accommodations benefit specific groups or identities — which is destined

to upset some people and threaten the comfort and safety that the bathrooms were designed to create.

“As someone who very much wants gender-neutral bathrooms whenever possible, I think that quietly shifting toward that is a very good way to do it,” said Daniel Valentine, a nonbinary first-year cyber security major. “If you … make a whole announcement about it, there’s a good chance you’re going to get attention from people who are just there to cause trouble.”

In the higher-education space, where universities often offer little more than lip service for marginalized groups, it’s a welcome counterexample.

Noah Haggerty is a fourth-year applied physics major. He can be reached at haggerty.no@northeastern.edu.

Photo by Lawrence Brown A standard sink counter inside an EXP bathroom. Along with providing private, clean bathrooms, EXP’s design made it more comfortable for students questioning or outside of the gender binary.

SPORTS

Page 12

February 2, 2024

Women’s hockey is making history again

By Elli Einset News Correspondent Northeastern won the 45th annual Women’s Beanpot championshipJan. 23, and this year’s victory was especially monumental. The Huskies became the first women’s hockey team to lift the Beanpot trophy in TD Garden.

TD Garden is the largest sports arena here in New England and is home to the Boston Bruins and Boston Celtics.

The Women’s Beanpot tournament had never been held at the Garden prior, though the men’s teams have played there since the rink opened in 1995.

Before the Garden opened, the men’s hockey teams played in the Boston Garden, while before this year, the women’s championship game rotated between the arenas of the four participating teams: Northeastern, Boston University, Harvard University and Boston College.

The Men’s Beanpot began in 1952, while the Women’s started in 1979.

Women’s hockey received pushback when it first began, even at amateur

levels — it was not supported by the population at large and faced significant criticism from the media, according to Women’s Hockey Life.

During World War II, men’s games were broadcast on the radio to “boost morale,” but women’s games were never on the air or in newspapers.

Despite the setbacks, women’s hockey has continued to persevere and flourish.

Women’s sports have increased in popularity over this past decade, with the success of the United States women’s national soccer team, the triumphs of female gymnasts such as Simone Biles and the achievements of women’s tennis, with the women’s singles final of the US Open gaining 1 million more views than the men’s championship game.

Now, women’s hockey is having its turn in the spotlight.

The 2023 inaugural season of the Professional Women’s Hockey League, or PWHL, debuted to record viewership numbers. New York’s win in the league’s first-ever game received over 2.9 million views, including 1.1 million

tuning in about halfway through the second period, according to Female Athlete News, or FAN. At the Montreal versus Minnesota game at Xcel Energy Center in Minnesota, 13,316 fans watched in person.

The Professional Women’s Hockey League debuted its first season in January after the first draft was held Sept. 18, 2023. The league consists of six teams across the United States and Canada, who play 24 games in a season.

This league has propelled women’s hockey’s accessibility, allowing girls to see hockey as a sport they can also play.

The ability to watch women’s hockey is also becoming easier and easier, especially with the partnerships PWHL has with New England Sports Network, or NESN, and the livestreams on YouTube.

“PHWL league has a YouTube stream,” said Katy Knoll, a fifth-year forward on the Northeastern women’s hockey team. “Regardless of if they are on the major networks now … I could watch my friends on any of the six teams any night I want to.”

Statistically, the previous women’s hockey league, Premier Hockey Federation, or PHF, had substantially lower numbers than the PWHL is currently collecting.

The PHF’s semifinals and finals averaged about 100,000 viewers on NBCSN, according to FAN. The first shutout in the league was in front of a sold-out crowd of 2,537.

The Women’s Beanpot’s relocation to TD Garden is another opportunity to bring more attention to the female empowerment side of the sport.

Knoll and sophomore forward Mia Langlois, who grew up playing on boys hockey teams until eighth grade, emphasized the importance of the opportunity.

“I think it will kind of send a message to everyone, ‘Yeah we are just as good, just as valuable as the guys are,” Langlois said. “[Women’s hockey] has taken great strides and a lot more people are paying attention and appreciating the skill and pace of the women’s game,” Knoll said.

The Women’s Beanpot debut game

at TD Garden also drew many alumni from Northeastern’s women’s hockey.

Lindsay Berman, the Huskies’ assistant coach and a former player for Northeastern, emphasized the excitement among alumni players who never thought playing at the Garden was possible. They are the backbone that made this historic event possible, she said.

“It doesn’t happen without the 44 years with this tournament happening on these campuses, and the people who really pushed for this to happen,” Berman said of the move to TD Garden.

The Women’s Beanpot final in TD Garden is “unreal,” Knoll said. She also stated prior to the game that it would be an emotional match-up, regardless of score, but at the end of the day, it is still a game and they are still competing for the trophy.

“It’s cool that this group of girls is here, and we are all making history together,” Langlois said. “Any team, any staff member, any coach of the four teams involved in this, we are all making history no matter who it is.”

more efficiently. But Whitehead and the Northeastern defense were having one of their best games yet, and 5-on5, the Terriers could not score.

In the 14th minute of the period, junior captain and center Justin Hryckowian was called for holding.

The Terriers, with their first 5-on-4 advantage of the game, were able to even up the score. With 50 seconds left in the power play, sophomore forward Quinn Hutson swept the puck from behind the Huskies’ net to sophomore defenseman Lane Hutson, who was on the left side of the BU attack zone.

Hutson passed to freshman forward Macklin Celebrini near center ice.

Celebrini took a swing, and the puck flew past the Huskies’ defense and over Whitehead, tying the score at 1-1.

Northeastern had its first power play with just a minute left in the second period. Quinn Hutson was sent to the box for hooking, but as the second half of the penalty time trickled into the start of the third period, the Huskies could not reclaim the lead.

However, just 15 seconds after the initial power play ended, the Huskies were handed another one when graduate student defenseman Case McCarthy was put in the box for hooking.

As the power play clock ticked down, Husky senior left wing Gunnarwolfe Fontaine passed to sophomore center Jack Williams. Williams took a shot from the left faceoff circle, and it flew past Caron’s side and into the net.

William’s 12th goal of the season put the Huskies back on top 2-1.

Four minutes into the final period, penalties on Walsh for embellishment and Celebrini for interference made it a 4-on-4 game, but neither team could capitalize.

In the ninth minute of the period, sophomore defenseman Vinny Borgesi maneuvered his way around Terriers to slide the puck left to sophomore defender Jackson Dorrington. The left side of the ice seemed to be Northeastern’s lucky spot as Dorrington, unguarded, took a swing, and it found the back of the net. The

Huskies extended their lead to 3-1 with 11 minutes to play.

The Terriers, while visibly frustrated, did not let the pressure get to them. One minute after Dorrington’s goal, Quinn Hutson scored one of his own. Sophomore forward Ryan Greene took a shot from the wall but missed it wide. The puck slid right to Lane Hutson, who scooped it up and made a quick pass to Quinn Hutson, who was right in front of the net.

Quinn Hutson jammed the puck past Whitehead and Williams. Just like that, BU was back in it, making it a one-goal game.

In the next nine minutes, both teams secured a power play. In the 15th minute, junior defenseman Ty Gallagher was penalized for hooking, and in the 16th minute, Whitehead was called for tripping on a save he made. The power plays overlapped and made it a 4-on-4 game.

However, the Huskies held their own, much due to the key saves from Whitehead, and maintained the lead.

It was at the end of the 19th minute when the Terriers miraculously evened it up. BU head coach Jay Pandolfo pulled Caron to give the Terriers an extra attacker advantage in the final few moments of the period. Celebrini took a shot from the back of the BU attack zone, and although Whitehead made the save, the puck bounced off his leg and right into reach of Greene. Greene slammed the puck in, and his efforts made it a tie game, 3-3.

Neither team could finish it off in regulation.

Tied at 3, Matthews Arena was headed to overtime.

Three-on-three, Boston University dominated possession of the puck during the first half of overtime. The Huskies could not get the puck into their attack zone, but Whitehead and the defense kept Northeastern alive, blocking Terrier shots left and right.

In the third minute, referees called BU for having too many players on the ice. Pandolfo tried to fight the controversial call, but the Huskies now had a huge opportunity: a 4-on-3 advantage.

Northeastern maintained possession for the first time in overtime.

With just five seconds left in the power play, Dylan Hryckowian finished the game. Fontaine took a shot and Hryckowian tipped it in from in the crease. With Hryckowian’s game winner, the Huskies handed the Terriers their third straight loss and the Huskies their third consecutive win. “[The goal] felt great,” Dylan Hryckowian said. “It was a great atmosphere and a really special night and it was great to get the win.”

The Jan. 30 victory showed that when the Huskies play together, they win. Head coach Jerry Keefe discussed finding the team’s identity, and he and the Huskies believe they have finally found it.

“I like how the team’s gotten into an identity now,” Keefe said. “We know how we have to

play to have success so that’s the biggest key for us right now is just sticking to that identity we’ve been building on.”

At the beginning of the season, injuries riddled the team, including captain Justin Hryckowian. It forced the younger players to step into the limelight and make plays. Dylan Hryckowian’s overtime game-winner and Whitehead’s 38 saves, on par with his season high, displayed the amount of young talent on the roster. “[Whitehead] was outstanding. He’s been great for us. He gives us a chance every night,” Keefe said. “He got hit in the head on [a] goal, then got a penalty called against him on a save. But he composed himself and was good all night for us.”

Throughout the season, the team has struggled to capitalize on power plays with a conversion rate of .241. Tonight, they had two power play goals.

“Last week, we broke it down and did a lot more video and focused on the power play,” Borgesi said. “I thought we did a great job tonight. I thought we capitalized on our chances.”

During this season, Northeastern has lost three out of four overtime games.

“We’ve been on the wrong side of [overtime] games a lot this year,” Keefe said. “For us to find a way at the end and get a huge win was awesome.

Great for the group.”

The Huskies are back at Matthews Feb. 2 to play No. 6/5 University of Maine (16-4-2, 8-3-1 HE) and Feb. 5, Northeastern takes on Harvard University (4-12-3, 4-7-3 HE) in the first round of the Beanpot.

NU wins in overtime against No. 3 BU

By Esha Minhas News Staff

After sweeping Merrimack College and moving up two spots in the Hockey East rankings over the weekend, the Northeastern men’s hockey team continued its momentum in a 4-3 overtime win over its rivals, No. 3 Boston University (16-7-1, 11-4-1 HE) at Matthews Arena Jan. 30.

The Terriers were ready to bounce back after two back-to-back hard losses against No. 1 Boston College. The previous meeting between the teams went to overtime on BU’s turf, and the Terriers won 4-3. Northeastern’s last win against BU was during the 2023 Beanpot Semifinals, where the Huskies took the victory 3-1.

The teams went back and forth during the opening of the first period.

Despite being the underdog in the match, Northeastern forced BU to keep pace with them. The Huskies kept the puck in their offensive zone, and freshman right wing Dylan Hryckowian took two early near-miss shots.

The Terriers opened the game sloppy, missing passes and could not hold the puck in their attack zone.

With just over four minutes left in the first period and the score locked up at 0-0, a faceoff in BU’s zone led to a Huskies goal. BU graduate student forward Sam Stevens won the faceoff, but Northeastern graduate student center Liam Walsh battled for the puck and slid it to graduate student defenseman Matthew Staudacher. Staudacher took a swing from the wall and the puck flew past junior goaltender Mathieu Caron and into the net. Staudacher’s second goal of the season put Northeastern on top 1-0.

The key to Northeastern’s ability to keep the Terriers from finding the net was freshman goaltender Cameron Whitehead. Throughout the season, Whitehead has become an essential aspect of Husky victories. In the first 20 minutes of the game, Whitehead had nine saves, several of which came one-on-one on breakaways.

As the second period began, BU turned around its offense and was able to keep the puck in its attack zone

Photo by Sofia Sawchuk Dylan Hryckowian (left) races Terriers skater Nick Zabaneh for the puck. Hryckowian scored the game-winning goal in overtime to defeat Boston University 4-3 Jan. 30.