WOOF ISSUE 14

THE CHEAP NUTRITIOUS Spotlight on Dorchester’s affordable grocery store

MERRY LITTLE COCKTAILS Winter drinks for your cold nights in

FOOD TRUCKS

The story behind NU’s weekly visitors

TITLE IX ABROAD

Know your rights when you travel abroad

07 PRESIDENT

Liam Synan

EDITOR IN CHIEF Shelby Sih

ASSISTANT EDITOR Meredith Fisher

CREATIVE DIRECTORS

McKenna Curtis & Kelley Schneider

MARKETING DIRECTORS

Sami Bartlett & Ashley Thon

WEBMASTER

Katie Williams

ASSISTANT ONLINE EDITOR Matthew Woolsey

SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR Jordan Mandell

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SECTION EDITORS

Katherine Friend, Zoe Gregoric, Christie Macomber & Maxim Tamarov

WRITERS

Alex Frandsen, Lautaro Grinspan, Leila Habib, Alex Kaneshiro, Jordan Mandell, Emma Paquette, Pamela Stravitz, Maxim Tamarov, Aryana Tiberii & Matthew Woolsey

DESIGNERS

Brian Ambadjes, Erin Borst, Alex Dittrich, Xochitl Lozano, Marissa Rodakis, Madeline Seraphin, Kim Timbone, Tia Thompson & Laura Zuk

PHOTOGRAPHERS

Meredith Fisher, Jena Goldman, Yashi Gudka, Leila Habib, Pranav Nayak, Justine Newman, Lori Nsimpasi, Kelley Schneider & Wyatt Warrell Cover Photography by Meredith Fisher

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CONTENTS FRONT

04 Food Trucks 06 Dining Hall to Kitchen Transitions

ENTERTAINMENT

07 Social Media and Body Image 08 Playing the Feminist

COVER STORY

10 The Cheap Nutritious

LIFESTYLE

12 Women in the Weight Room 14 Have Yourself a Merry Little Cocktail

WE’RE NORTHEASTERN’S STUDENT-RUN LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE. LIKE WHAT YOU SEE? EMAIL US • NUWOOF@GMAIL.COM VISIT OUR SITE • WOOF-MAG.COM

FOCUS

16 Knowing Northeastern’s Safety 17 Great Expectations 18 Title IX Abroad

4 • Front

Written by Matthew Woolsey // Photos by Jena Goldman Why does food prepared in a modified Chevrolet Step-Van have customers lining up like shoppers on Black Friday? The simple answer is that trucks like The Chicken & Rice Guys and Zinneken’s are serving up delicious Middle Eastern cuisine and fluffy Belgian Waffles.

Some customers may be driven in by the wonderful smells, but that’s not all it takes.

“When you are going to a food truck that you may not know, having something on the menu that’s approachable and sort of familiar is good,” said Damien Yee, the senior business manager of The Chicken & Rice Guys.

A hot, fresh waffle is appetizing to many Americans, but after traveling across the United States, Nhon Ma and Bertrand Lempkowicz realized that no one was offering an authentic Belgian waffle. With that in mind, as well as a 90-pound waffle iron and “a complex combination of different criteria such as the texture … taste and … aroma,” Zinneken’s was born.

The entrepreneurial spirit behind these trucks has created not only a new way to get food to customers, but also a way for customers to get their hands on entirely new foods. Both companies have both a traditional brick and mortar restaurant and a collection of trucks. The Chicken & Rice Guys, for instance, have four trucks and recently opened a store on Bedford Street.

The addition of a traditional store helps them to expand their brand, giving them their own, stationary space to continue to grow into.

“The brick and mortars are more of a place to our own… we were sharing a kitchen before with multiple other businesses, so this gives us the opportunity to grow even faster,” said Yee. Zinneken’s took a reverse approach to their growth. When they started five years ago,

the food truck scene in Boston was limited, leaving a traditional storefront in Harvard Square as the only realistic option. “After three successful years in business … and a new and growing Bostonian food truck program in place, we felt the need to jump on this opportunity,” said Ma. The addition of a Zinneken’s food truck not only provided a new point of sale, but also helped push the Zinneken’s brand across the Charles into Boston. “The food truck is a huge marketing opportunity for the fixed location as we gain tremendous brand exposure by simply having the truck driving in the busy streets of Boston,” said Ma. The Chicken & Rice Guys have also expanded their brand, but on a charitable front. Yee, who is the president of The Chicken & Rice Guys Foundation, said that the company’s founders, Ian So and Jaemin Lee, place high importance on giving “back to the community and those less fortunate.”

Through the foundation, The Chicken & Rice Guys have partnered with charities like Women’s Lunch Place and BUILD Boston.

When all is said and done, what might matter most to Northeastern students waiting at Opera Place is what they should order.

At Chicken & Rice Guys, Yee recommended sticking to a classic. “The first time I went to Chicken and Rice, I had the combo with the creamy garlic white sauce and the medium hot sauce, and that’s still pretty much my go-to.” Ma also suggested sticking with an original: “Despite the fact that our most popular waffle is ‘The Sin’ [a waffle topped with Nutella and Banana], I would definitely recommend you to try the ‘Zinneken’s waffle’, which is a waffle topped with Belgian speculoos cookie butter spread, dark Belgian chocolate and house-made whipped cream.”

SCHEDULE

Weekly Food Truck Schedule for the corner of Opera Place and Huntington Avenue

sunday lunch

Teri-Yummy

dinner

Teri-Yummy

monday lunch

dinner

Bon Me Food Lakay Zinneken’s Waffles

The Chicken and Rice Guys

tuesday lunch

dinner

Meng’s Kitchen Wow Barbeque The Chicken and Rice Guys Teri-Yummy

wednesday lunch

dinner

Meng’s Kitchen Wow Barbeque

The Chicken and Rice Guys Teri-Yummy

thursday lunch dinner

Meng’s Kitchen

Meng’s Kitchen Wow Barbeque

friday lunch

dinner

KimKim Barbeque Savory Food Truck Frozen Hoagies Dragon Roll

saturday lunch

dinner

WOOF MAGAZINE • winter 2015

Meng’s Kitchen Teri-Yummy Meng’s Kitchen Teri-Yummy

Section Name • 5

The first time I went to Chicken and Rice, I had the combo with the creamy garlic white sauce and the medium hot sauce, and that’s still pretty much my go-to.

season 20XX • WOOF MAGAZINE

6 • Front

Dining Hall to Kitchen Transitions

Written by Leila Habib // Photos by Lori Nsimpasi

Not even the stir-fry from Stetson West or the sushi from International Village can keep underclassmen from groaning, “Ugh, I wish I had a kitchen.”

Second-year nursing major Jessica Soucy longed for a kitchen her freshman year. “I was always getting sick at the dining hall,” she said.

“The food was greasy, unhealthy and not what I wanted.”

Second-year marketing major Amina Azmat lived in White Hall, which had a communal kitchen her freshman year. “I would cook in the kitchen once every week or once every two weeks, but it wasn’t a kitchen in my room, so I didn’t use it as much as I could have,” she said.

While Azmat now has her own kitchen in Willis Hall, having the kitchen available in White Hall didn’t influence her kitchen use as much as going home for the summer did. “What impacted the transition was going home and being used to having a kitchen and moving back sophomore year and having a kitchen,” Azmat said. “Utilize your kitchen while you’re at home during summer break, and try new things to get comfortable in the kitchen,” she advised.

Soucy, who now lives in an apartment with a kitchen in West Village A, agreed that preparation for having a kitchen should start in the summer. “I would suggest people coordinate with their roommates over the summer and make a list of what they will need,” she said. “Set boundaries with your roommates in the beginning of the semester as to what the roommates can and cannot use. This goes with food too.”

Azmat and her roommates have boundaries in place like Soucy advised. “My roommates and I have a few shared items ... but we buy all our own groceries and have separate cabinet and fridge space,” she said. “We buy cleaning items ... in bulk off of Amazon because it’s cheaper and more convenient, and we all brought different things for the kitchen in terms of pots, pans, et cetera, and we use those communally.”

Soucy also stressed the importance of sharing cleaning responsibilities with your roommates. “With cleaning, you have to set up a system. One week you clean, the next week one roommate cleans, and you just have it going like that so the work’s divided between all of you,” she explained.

Azmat and her roommates have a similar system in place. “Sunday is our deep cleaning day. We rotate on who cleans the kitchen, but we all do our own dishes. After one of us cooks, we wipe down the counter and the oven,” she said.

Azmat and Soucy cook the majority of their meals, as they don’t have meal plans. “I cook breakfast every morning, and I always make dinner, and I usually make lunch beforehand to eat during class,” Azmat said.

Still, cooking every day calls for good time management skills. “You have to find the time to go grocery shopping, carry it all the way back, unload and make that part of your weekly schedule.” Azmat said.

“It takes about an hour or two every day to make all my meals, and grocery shopping takes two hours out of the week, but it’s worth it,” she continued.

Soucy also gathers easily prepared food to use when she is running low on time. “In the beginning of the semester, I stocked the freezer with chicken and hamburgers ... I also made six Crock-Pot meals,” she shared. “If I knew I was going to be really busy the next day, I could throw a Crock-Pot meal on and not have to worry about cooking.”

Having a kitchen doesn’t limit students to only eating at home, however. “If I ever want to eat at Rebecca’s or in Curry, I can just pay for it, and it’s still cheaper than using a meal swipe,” Azmat said.

Despite the benefits of having a kitchen, Azmat misses the convenience of the dining hall. “When I was super hungry, I could just go and have food readily available,” she said. “Now, I could want to eat lasagna, but there’s no way I’m going to make that for myself because that’s a lot of work and a lot of time, and if I’m hungry, I don’t want to wait an hour to eat.”

Still, Azmat appreciates having a kitchen because it allows her to share meals with friends in her own space. “When everybody comes over for dinner, you bond over cooking together,” she said. “You can sit, eat, relax and talk without worrying about everything that’s going on around you, and people aren’t getting up to go get more food every five minutes, so I think it brings us closer. It’s just a more fun way to have dinner together.”

Tips for Transitioning Start preparing for having a kitchen in the summer.

Get comfortable cooking if you’re visiting home and coordinate with your roommates to figure out who’s bringing what.

WOOF MAGAZINE • winter 2015

Set boundaries with your roommates in the beginning of the semester with what they can and cannot use – including food.

Share cleaning responsibilities with your roommates. Setup some kind of system so that you always know whose turn it is to clean.

Keep your freezer and cabinets stocked with easy-to-prepare foods, and freeze larger portions of leftovers to thaw on those busy nights. Crockpots meals are great for this.

Invite friends over to cook and eat together –it’s a great way to bond and spend an evening together!

It’s a system based on social approval, likes and dislikes, validation in views, success in followers ... it’s perfectly orchestrated judgment.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Arts & Entertainment • 7

BODY IMAGE

Written by Alex Kaneshiro // Photos by Justine Newman

We’ve entered an era in which Millennials and Generation Z teenagers are practically attached to their cell phones, and their lives can be shared and judged with the push of a button. Since the rise of Myspace and Facebook in 2003 and 2004, social media has taken off and become a pervasive aspect of most teenagers lives. On the surface, social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are used as a tool to connect with friends, family and even celebrities. At the same time, some wonder if social media is bringing the younger generation of America a little too close to their peers for comfort.

According to author Catherine Clifford in a recent Entrepreneur article, the repercussions of social media on females, who are generally more active on these platforms, can differ from their male counterparts. Clifford believes that social media can facilitate competition about who can have the “best” physical appearance between young women. Although users may get instant gratification from each like they receive on a photo, they can just as easily be discouraged by a supermodel’s latest Facebook or Instagram campaign — or by receiving less likes than they had wanted.

Amanda Enayati, author of “Facebook: The Encyclopedia of Beauty,” said that before the rise of social media, “we would pass images [of celebrities] on billboards, watch them on TV, flip through them in magazines, but we weren’t sitting around staring at them for hours every day. Because of social networks, the field of competition has expanded dramatically. Now you’re competing with the best pictures of every girl you know.” Just as social media connects us with celebrities and peers, it quickly allows us to assess how we stack up against others. “It is as if somewhere along the line, Facebook became the encyclopedia of beauty and status and comparisons,” said Amanda Coleman, a college student who had “quit” Facebook and recounted her experience to Enayati.

This constant need to see how one measures up to others creates a vicious cycle of men and women constantly trying to appear more beautiful than one another, eventually leading to the standards of beauty being virtually unattainable. One could say that the rise of Instagram in 2010 has artificially expedited this rise of beauty standards.

“Instagram-famous” teenager Essena O’Neill claims that social media is not authentic. “It’s purely contrived images and edited clips ranked against each other,” said O’Neill in an article published by TIME. “It’s a system based on social approval, likes and dislikes, validation in views, success in followers … it’s perfectly orchestrated judgment. With over 50,000 followers on Instagram, O’Neill is seen as a social media benchmark for beauty standards, with each of her photos getting roughly 15,000 likes. As social media celebrities like O’Neill post on Instagram with the intent of conveying an image of perfection, one might wonder how this affects an unassuming teenager who does not immediately consider the synthetic construction that happens on the back end of each flawless picture he or she stumbles upon.

Brooke Foucault Welles, an assistant professor in the communication studies department at Northeastern University, has done extensive research on the way that social media shapes human behavior. Foucault Welles’ latest research project studied how Pinterest, a social media platform, idealizes body image for young women. Her studies have found that more than half the photos featured in health posts showed young, slender, white females, which she believes conveys an unrealistic body image on this particular platform.

Foucault Welles noted that social media’s impact on body image has bigger repercussions among females as compared to males. “Culturally today, girls and women are very much valued for the way they look,” Foucault Welles explained. “Boys and men may experience some of these same kinds of dysmorphia or body image issues, but they have other outlets to be successful, like [being] more athletic. There are other things they’re more valued for. I expect the effects [of social media] would be less.”

Because of this, Foucault Welles said that the vast majority of research projects on the topic of social media and body image are female-centric. According to Foucault Welles, the main difference between social media’s impact on females ages 12 to 17 years old versus females ages 18 to early 20s is the degree of body dysmorphia.

When young girls whose bodies are not fully developed are exposed to near-perfect images on social media, it can be detrimental to their sense of self since they feel they must be striving for a body image that is not realistic. This body dysmorphia can manifest in harmful ways through eating disorders, anxiety, depression or other self-esteem issues, which usually begin to show later in teenage and early adulthood years.

“Social media perpetuates negative body image because you’re always exposed to it and [it] is geared towards looking good all the time to get likes,” said second-year marketing major Mia Grossman. “I play into it a lot; I only post good photos of myself.”

Although Foucault Welles and other scholars generally focus their research on females, second-year finance major Quinn Buchan acknowledged the pressure that males can feel as well, although she noted that this may be to a different extent. “Social media makes everyone hyper-aware about their body, and for people who are selfconscious it can be very intimidating. Growing up with social media has definitely made me more aware of my body and physique, but I’m not obsessively particular about the pictures I post on Facebook or Instagram,” he said.

Ultimately, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest allow users to pick and choose how they want to be perceived. In doing so, the content on these different mediums may become somewhat artificial, insidiously altering the presumably authentic nature of these platforms. winter 2015 • WOOF MAGAZINE

8 • Arts & Entertainment

Hollywood’s Growing Role in the Feminist Movement Written by Emma Paquette In recent years, a new wave has swept across the world of entertainment, taking a oncecontroversial label — feminism — and making it more trendy.

Feminism is defined as advocacy for equal rights across genders, but it has been tainted by associations with more militant practices.

“Historically, it’s been stigmatized and negatively portrayed,” said Isabel Irizarry, a second-year psychology major and member of the all-female a cappella group Pitch, Please.

“But the more popular and trendy it gets, the more people want to back it.”

In September of 2014, Emma Watson spoke at the UN about her new campaign, HeForShe, with the mission to, as she put it, “galvanize as many men and boys as possible to be advocates for gender equality.” Watson stressed that gender equality is not just a woman’s issue and that instead, feminism is a term that everyone should embrace.

One such male who has embraced feminism is actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who has selfidentified as a feminist for several years. In an August 2014 interview with The Daily Beast, he explained his position. “If everyone has a fair chance to be what they want to be and do what they want to do, it’s better for everyone,” he said.

Beyoncé, meanwhile, released the song “Flawless,” which contains an clip from WOOF MAGAZINE • winter 2015

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk, “We should all be feminists.”

As more and more celebrities begin to talk about feminism and add to the growing discussion in Hollywood, the movement continues to gain traction and become more mainstream.

“A lot of people find feminism because they reblog a Beyoncé gif on Tumblr where she’s standing in front of the feminist banner,” said Alix Getreu, third-year psychology major and president of the Feminist Student Organization (FSO). “And then maybe they get more into it.”

Since its founding in 2012, Pitch, Please has taken pride in being an all-female group and has sought to support women’s rights.

Following Beyoncé’s example, their set for last year’s Boston Sings competition incorporated Adichie’s speech. The group placed second and received a special award for “Strongest Message” for their focus on feminism and gender stereotyping.

Helen Sharma, fourth-year international affairs and anthropology major, who is the communications director of FSO, has noticed a shift over the last few years. When she joined FSO her first year, it was five people talking in a basement. Now it has grown enormously, providing a safe space for discussions and a vehicle for campaigns to help women and political minorities. But

Sharma doesn’t entirely credit the growth of feminism to celebrities.

“I think a lot of it is due to the tireless work of activists, feminists and social justice crusaders over the last fifty years,” she said. “I think that we spend a lot of time crediting that rise to celebrities. I mean, I love Beyoncé … that said I don’t think that just because Beyoncé woke up one morning and said ‘I’m a feminist,’ I don’t think that changed the nature of feminism in this world. I think it was a long and gradual push and then finally a person in the social eye said ‘Oh hey, me too.’”

Additionally, feminism in Hollywood has oftentimes been critiqued as “white” feminism that ignores the intersections of racism, transphobia, homophobia and related issues.

Casey Matsumoto, president of Pitch, Please and third-year communications major, commented, “The media, a lot of times, doesn’t portray political minorities in a realistic way.” She pointed to Viola Davis as an example as an intersectional feminist, citing her passionate Emmy speech about opportunities for black women after her historic win for Best Actress in a Drama.

Often one of the most powerful drivers of public discourse arises when a starlet makes a controversial statement pertaining to feminism.

“People are having more conversations when [celebrities] say something inappropriate,” said

Getreu, pointing to Lena Dunham’s claim that catcalls make her feel sexy. Online commentary pointed out that Dunham, a white woman, has a statistically smaller chance of catcalls being followed by violence while people of color, trans women or non-binary individuals are at a higher risk.

Dunham’s feminist newsletter, Lenny Letter, recently published an essay by Jennifer Lawrence about pay inequality, written in response to a reveal of the large difference between actor paychecks on “American Hustle.” Equal work for equal pay is a main crusade of the current feminist movement, so many took notice of the piece.

However, Lawrence speaks from a position of incredible privilege. Pay inequality is an issue often oversimplified by the well-known 78 cents to the dollar statistic.

This ignores that Black women make only 63 cents to the white man’s dollar and Hispanic women only 44, according to a 2015 report by the American Association of University Women.

While feminism’s growth among starlets has been good for drawing attention to the movement, it has issues. For anyone wanting to delve into feminism, Hollywood cannot be only source of information and inspiration.

“I think that privileged white women in Hollywood standing up as feminist icons is a great feminist starter kit,” Sharma concluded. “But that’s not what feminism looks like, that’s not what social justice looks like, that’s not what activism looks like and at the end of the day, for me, you can’t be a feminist unless you talk the talk and walk the walk.”

Hollywood cannot stand as the only source of information and inspiration.

winter 2015 • WOOF MAGAZINE

10 • Cover Story

The Cheap nutritious Written by Maxim Tamarov // Photos by Meredith Fisher

Walk through the aisles of Daily Table — Dorchester’s recently opened, nonprofit community food market — and you’ll see produce that look like they belong in a Dali painting. There are carrots, which are either enormous and baton-shaped or small and green-bean-shaped; giant acorn-shaped turnips and vegetables that are unidentifiable without a tag; plump eggplants shaped like pumpkins and elongated eggplants shaped like wide vines. In the kitchen, there is a shrine to a deformed eggplant which seems to have a Cyrano nose and has painted-on red cracks for eyes. His name is Sir Egglington. He is 40 years old in eggplant years (which is three days) and he is still good to eat. But for now he is a mascot for the volunteer cooks.

In addition to abnormally-shaped produce, you’ll also find fat-free yogurt and Swiss cheese close to their sell-by dates; canned vegetables sold two for $1 and Perdue chicken drumsticks for 99 cents a pound.

You’ll see prepared meals of beef pot roast with brown rice for $2.99, Jamaican ital stew for $1.49 and kale mozzarella flatbread for $1.99. And amidst this parody of the modernday food shopping experience, you’ll likely wonder, “How is this possible?”

When Doug Rauch set out on his quixotic mission to end hunger in America, he encountered a fact that put a knife to his original idea of redistributing day-old bread to the economically challenged: hunger in America isn’t a shortage of calories — it’s a shortage of nutrition.

WOOF MAGAZINE • winter 2015

Here are a few things to understand: sell-by dates don’t concern the customer and have nothing to do with expiration, and vegetables taste the same and are just as nutritious whether or not they look like the vegetables you’re accustomed to on TV. America has a serious problem regarding wasting food and a serious lack of affordable nutrition. These facts are the foundation of Daily Table.

According to Annika Nielsen, a postgraduate fellow at Daily Table and a recent Harvard graduate, a large amount of food goes to waste at grocery stores because only the most “beautiful” fruits and vegetables are displayed.

The rest are thrown away.

This is where Daily Table comes in. It receives the food that more traditional grocery stores won’t use and then sells that food at much lower rates than others, allowing for affordable, nutritious food options in a traditionally low-income neighborhood.

Given the unconventional nature of the food sold, patrons may have been conflicted at first, but they have since gotten past the appearance of the food. Helen McBride, one such patron, explained that the shape and appearance of her groceries are not important as long as they are fresh. McBride’s shopping habits have not changed since she discovered Daily Table via a tip from her friend, but she appreciates the price and the fact that the store is walking distance from her Dorchester house.

For Stanley Perryman, a fellow Dorchester resident, Daily Table’s location along the 23 bus line was enticing enough for him to, “give it a shot.” Unlike McBride, Perryman was not accustomed to eating healthy. But he has been learning to embrace it because it’s “good food” and “it beats McDonald’s.”

“I still have a slice of pizza every now and then,” Perryman admitted as he sipped an aptly named banana peach apple smoothie blueberry yogurt, “but I’m eating healthier, so I can’t complain. It’s worth it.”

Cover Story • 11

“ONE CANNOT THINK WELL, LOVE WELL, SLEEP WELL, IF ONE HAS NOT DINED WELL.” -- VIRGINIA WOOLF, A ROOM OF ONE’S OWN

Daily Table employee Thomas Flint is also on board the healthy eating train. A native of Roxbury, he has been adapting his eating habits ever since he joined the team, “edging,” as he called it, towards a healthier diet — although what drew him to the store was not the food but the people. A self-identified “community person,” Flint was excited to help address the inner-city problems of healthy eating and affordable food.

Interestingly, Daily Table has tried to avoid the health food vibe. According to Nielsen, a “health” focus might have scared away customers. Instead, the store relies on price to attract shoppers, and the nutritional benefit is framed as a side effect of shopping there.

While Daily Table may be at the mercy of companies that choose to donate to it, the store discriminates against food that is not high in nutritional value. In fact, Rauch has had to turn away offers of truckloads of excess Girl Scout cookies. Cookies, he claimed, are not what the community needs: “There’s already plenty of sugar and fat and sodium in the community. That’s not what we’re there for.”

The bottom line, according to Rauch, is that American should not have 49 million people suffering from various diet-based health issues simply because they can’t afford to eat decent food. “At the same time,” he said, “we can’t be generating so much greenhouse gas and wasting resources from food that is perfectly healthy and delicious and wholesome that’s just not being consumed — that’s being wasted.”

The model of Daily Table allows the organization to increase access while reducing waste. Much of the food donated to Daily Table is excess inventory from local farms and wholesalers. Flint is one of the guys who goes out in the Daily Table truck to pick up the food, which can be in anywhere from New Hampshire to Wachusett, MA. Often, organizations donate directly. Daily Table has a strong relationship with the Boston Area

Gleaners, a nonprofit that goes to local farms after harvest to collect whatever is left over. It delivers truckloads of food to Daily Table every Tuesday.

Nielsen proudly showed the stacks of boxes that line the wall at the back of the store.

There were volunteers at work sorting the donations and deciding what will be on display that day.

Stores donate food on a case-by-case basis, depending on how much they have left over.

There are also companies interested in the mission who donate regularly, such as Cedar’s Mediterranean and Stonyfield.

“If they have yogurt that’s two weeks before the code sell-by date, they can’t distribute it at grocery stores,” explained Nielsen. It’s a riskaverse approach that companies employ for a myriad of reasons. “The thing is, the dates really don’t mean much,” Neilsen said. “They’re not an indication of when [the product] expires.”

Sell-by and best-by codes are, at most, signifiers of peak freshness, Neilson explained.

Usually the dates are meant more for the seller than the buyer, but most Americans are uninformed on the matter and become nervous about eating food past either date.

According to a study conducted by the Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic (which Nielsen contributed to), called “The Dating Game: How Confusing Food Date Labels Lead to Food Waste in America,” consumers can’t rely on dates on food to consistently have the same meaning because, “the lack of binding federal standards, and the resultant state and local variability in date labeling rules, has led to a proliferation of diverse and inconsistent date labeling practices in the food industry.”

The study explains the arbitrariness of sell-by codes and their propagation of food waste.

“Not one in 100 Americans understand [date codes],” said an exasperated Rauch. “They will instantly not trust you. They will think there’s something wrong with the food.”

Although Rauch advocates for increased understanding of date codes, he ultimately concedes that the fight for educating the American people on the arbitrariness of date codes is not his. Even so, both he and Nielsen remain optimistic for others to pick up the battle and begin to create a paradigm shift.

“I’m hoping it can get to the point where if we did sell things past the date,” Nielsen said, “it wouldn’t be such a dramatic, controversial thing.”

Although Daily Table doesn’t currently keep food past the sell-by date, this does not mean that their food goes to waste.

“We have other agencies we deal with: Food for Free, Community Serving [and] Greater Boston Food Bank,” Rauch said. The agencies pick up Daily Table’s excess food and redistribute (or re-redistribute) it. “We don’t want to go around and collect all the food that would have gone to waste and then have it go to waste in our store. That wouldn’t make much sense.”

You can get more information about Daily Table on their website (dailytable.org) or by visiting the store itself on 450 Washington St, Dorchester Center, MA 02124.

winter 2015 • WOOF MAGAZINE

12 • Lifestyle

WOMEN IN THE WEIG H T ROOM

The gender gap in Marino’s weight room

WOOF MAGAZINE • winter 2015

Lifestyle • 13

“

The room is dominated by sleeveless tees and testosterone, an unofficial boys’ club perched penthouse-like on the top floor of Marino

”

Written by Alex Frandsen // Photos by Wyatt Warrell and Kelley Schneider

T

he Marino Center’s weight room radiates masculinity. Hulk-like men grunt and squint as they will their bench press bars up for one more rep. Sweat falls from foreheads and dots the rubber mats on the floor. Bicep curls are done in front of the wall-towall mirror so that weightlifters can admire their handiwork in real time.

If there are any women, they are the vast minority.

Theoretically, the weight room is a genderless space. It’s meant for anyone who wants to pack on muscle, burn off stress or release endorphins. But for many women at Northeastern, this is not the reality.

The room is dominated by sleeveless tees and testosterone, an unofficial boys’ club perched on the top floor of Marino.

“It’s just a lot of dudes bro-ing out,” quipped fourth-year law student Amanda Bradley. Keila Sheetz, a fourth-year biochemistry major, described it as “a lot of sweat and muscles and men.”

This bro-dominance at gyms is not restrained to Northeastern, either.

Even though women make up roughly half of the gym population nationally, only 20 percent use weights at the recommended rates of at least two times per week.

Some of that figure can be chalked up to a simple lack of knowledge about the benefits of weightlifting, according to health website SparkPeople, but it is also undoubtedly due to the feeling that women don’t belong.

Sarah Konstantino, fifth-year marketing and management major, is one of the leaders of a female-only weightlifting class at Marino called Women of Iron. She said that often when a female lifter walks into the weight room, the immediate thought is, “Oh ... there are only men in here.” And fairly frequently, she has felt pressure from men to wrap up a workout so they can use the equipment. “If I’m on a machine, a guy will stand near me and wait. They ask me when I’m going to be done instead of the guy next to me,” said Konstantino.

Her co-leader of Women of Iron, second-year physical therapy major Aisling Dennehy, echoed this sentiment. “I’ve honestly felt pretty intimidated in the weight room,” she said. “That’s part of the reason why I don’t go in there very much. The only reason I ever really go in there is for the [Women of Iron] workout.”

This intimidation has created an environment where even when women do want to lift weights, they often have trouble finding someone

to help them get familiar with the equipment (Since men dominate the weight room population, it is far more likely for a male to know a possible mentor and feel more comfortable in the weight room.) This stunts most aspiring weightlifters before they can even lace up their sneakers. Establishing a weightlifting routine simply has a different level of difficulty than just hopping on a treadmill (and while Marino does have many female personal trainers, women should not have to dip into their wallets to find a weightlifting mentor).

“Everywhere else in the gym you can do your thing and it doesn’t really affect other people,” said Sheetz. “But in the weight room, if you’re doing something wrong it could affect someone’s ability to get a rack.

Your workout is more connected to other people’s workouts; you have to know the etiquette.” Sheetz managed to break through this obstacle thanks to a friend who showed her the ropes. “It’s definitely good to have a way in,” said Sheetz.

Women of Iron was created with that goal in mind: to familiarize women and give them a “way in” to the weight room. According to Dennehy, the program – while very new – has already made a tangible impact. “Definitely for the girls who come to our workouts, it has given them confidence to come into the weight room,” she said.

If Marino’s weight room is to become a place of relative gender equality, programs like this are a solid place to start. However, creating lasting change will be more difficult than creating a few women’s workout groups. Making the weight room a more welcoming environment requires societal change, something not easily attained or even imminently possible. Perhaps the fastest way to begin creating this shift is a heightened awareness of the issue and encouragement amongst both genders for a more welcoming space.

“There should be reassurance from women, but also from men,” said Konstantino. “Why are [men] giving me a hard time for being in here?

Don’t [they] appreciate women taking care of themselves?”

If momentum builds to get more women in to the weight room, a positive chain reaction could very well form. “The more women that go in, the more women that will go in [in the future],” said Dennehy.

winter 2015 • WOOF MAGAZINE

14 • Lifestyle

Oatmeal Cookie Shooters

Have Yourself a Merry Little Cocktail Winter Drinks for Your Cold Nights In Commentary by Jordan Mandell // Photos by Yashi Gudka

Whether you’re new to the harsh winters that Boston brings or a seasoned Northerner, once the cold and snow hits, it becomes increasingly difficult to rally friends to head out on a Friday or Saturday night to head out. With the prospect of many more nights spent inside, we at Woof took it upon ourselves to pilot some winter drinks, judging each based on preparations, taste and Instagram-worthy looks. Here, I offer my notso-coherent thoughts on four libations to get you through the next few months.

WOOF MAGAZINE • winter 2015

ookie

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Lifestyle • 15

Candy Cane Cocktail via Martha Stewart

1 candy cane 2 oz strawberry vodka 4 dashes white creme de menthe 2 ½ oz cranberry juice (Makes one drink)

via About.com

PREP: The candy cane rim still haunts me. Making the first glass was fun and easy; the second one, not so much. The remaining crumbles had became soggy and gummy, making them unable to stick to the rim. This drink gets a solid 0 for being so frustrating to garnish. Also, cleaning congealed candy canes from martini glasses and plates was negative fun. So in reality, this cocktail gets a score of negative 43 for prep.

TASTE: The taste completely redeems this drink from its frustrating beginnings. Minty, sweet and refreshing, this drink is a lighter option that still holds some good alcoholic strength. That heavy afterburn was probably entirely my own doing and not due to a flawed recipe.

INSTA-WORTHY LOOKS: Gorgeous. I highly recommend garnishing with a little hook from a candy cane. Posting a picture of this drink is guaranteed to get you 40 new followers, so long as you give it the right hashtag. We recommend using #mixology.

2

Oatmeal Cookie Shooter via About.com

¾ oz butterscotch schnapps ¾ oz Bailey’s Irish cream Splash of Jagermeister Splash of cinnamon schnapps (Makes one shooter)

3

Mistletoe Martini

PREP: Have you ever tried to find plain cranberry tea? Not cranberry green tea, not cranberry chamomile tea – just plain cranberry tea. Spoiler alert: it’s near impossible. We settled for “Back on Tract,” an anti-UTI cranberry tea. We’re very healthy. Once we had all the ingredients compiled, it was a breeze to make, so A+ on that front. We have to talk about the name, though. What about this says “mistletoe?” There is nothing that resembles mistletoe in this drink. I don’t get it. And I’m pretty sure if I held this drink above a cute boy’s head to try to get him to kiss me (like one does with MISTLETOE), I would spill it all over him and he would be mad and I would be embarrassed. So the name gets an F. TASTE: This was like juice, which isn’t very surprising considering the mixer to alcohol ratio is very high in favor of mixer. And there’s quite a bit of added sugar. This was my fourth drink of the night, so I can’t remember specifics. I do remember that it was good. Really good.

INSTA-WORTHY LOOKS: This was nowhere near as pretty as the candy cane cocktail, but not as boring as some of the others. It’s a toss-up; this drink might be Instagram-worthy depending on your angle and creativity with it. Its aesthetic appeal might have been due to the fact that my editor arranged three of them in a pyramid for a photo.

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PREP: Out-of-this-world simple. Or so I thought. I was stressed, I was playing hostess, my cocktail dress was ridiculously uncomfortable. I messed up. The liquor store did not have cinnamon schnapps. We decided leftover Fireball from the cinnamon whiskey cider would suffice. After all, it was only a splash, right? In my bartending frenzy, I grabbed the peppermint schnapps bottle instead of the Fireball. My bad.

TASTE: In a weirdly fortunate turn of events, no one even noticed my major mix-up. In fact, this shot was very well-received, and I felt like the hottest bartender on this side of the Charles. It was a bit sweet for my taste, as I’m used to shooting back the equivalent of rubbing alcohol (here’s looking at you, Rubinoff). Still, I could take this shot over and over again.

INSTA-WORTHY LOOKS: This is not a show-stopper in terms of beauty, so if you want to get fancy make sure to add the cinnamon around the shot glass. It’ll add a nice kick to your drink and transform its otherwise bland appearance to a banner-worthy shot.

2 oz vodka 2 oz orange juice 3 oz chilled cranberry tea ¾ oz lemon juice 3 tsp sugar (Makes one drink)

Slow Cooker CranberryOrange Mulled Wine via Kitchen Treaty

1 750-mL bottle Merlot 2 cups orange juice 1 cup frozen whole cranberries ⅓ cup sugar, and more to taste 1 medium orange 2 tbsp whole cloves 2 3-inch cinnamon sticks ½ cup brandy Extra cinnamon sticks and orange slices for garnish (Makes six drinks)

PREP: Have you ever tried to stab an orange with whole cloves? I have wounds from those buggers. Other than that little hiccup, this was a cinch. But then again, every slow cooker recipe is a cinch. So it gets a 100% for easy prepping, but it also doesn’t even need a score for prep since it’s expected to be easy.

TASTE: What’s better than wine? Wine with spices and more alcohol mixed in. Also, as with the cinnamon whiskey cider, the orange slice garnish gives you a mid-drink snack as an extra bonus. This drink was fire. Perfect for warming yourself up with hot, alcoholic goodness.

INSTA-WORTHY LOOKS: Garnishing this drink with an orange slice and a cinnamon stick in a cute mug or mason jar would easily get you a cult following of wannabe-foodies looking for their next drink-porn high. winter 2015 • WOOF MAGAZINE

16 • Focus

KNOWING NORTHEASTERN’S SAFETY Written by Pamela Stravitz // Photos by Pranav Nayak After reading an NU ALERT safety text message about a recent shooting near campus, first-year biochemistry major Sam LaRussa bolted from his Honors class in West Village back to his home in IV to get his camera.

“I’m not from the city, so anything vaguely interesting is cause for some notice,” he said.

“My first instinct is to grab a camera.”

Some students, like LaRussa, are stirred by the danger that can come with living on an urban campus. Others are more nonchalant, finding the violence unnoteworthy, and some find it bothersome.

“Let’s just say that in my 15 years in Cleveland, I never lived within two blocks of a shooting and now that I’ve been here two months, it’s happened twice,” said first-year journalism major Mack Hogan. “Probably has more to do with population density than anything.”

However, Northeastern students are not the only ones with a heightened awareness of the violence around campus. Parents and family members often feel the strain of leaving their children in an area with more crime than back home.

“My aunt called me once after there had been an alert about a girl who was attacked while she was on a run at 5 a.m.,” said Lila Selle, a thirdyear art major. “My mom and dad are definitely more wary of me living here than they would be on campus, but the longer time I spend here, the more comfortable I think we all feel about it.”

Eventually, NUPD alert texts lose some of their dramatic effect as students become more accustomed to the urban environment and perhaps come to realize some of the stereotypes regarding certain areas aren’t necessarily true.

“I’ll just be like, ‘yeah low-key, there was a shooting where I live and I’m being safe,’” said third-year Kathryn Walter about talking to her WOOF MAGAZINE • winter 2015

parents. “I don’t want to freak them out so we just don’t talk about it much, or if we do, we talk about not walking around alone and stuff.”

Officer John Sweeney from NUPD’s Crime Prevention Unit commented about the department’s recent additions to their force. “I don’t think there’s a need for extra officers, but there is a need for specialized ones,” Sweeney said.

Currently there are more than 65 police officers and over 20 public safety officers.

“There’s really no violent crime on campus,” Sweeney said, though he later amended himself to specify that sexual assault was not factored into his statement.

This often happens: the level of danger is perceived as higher than the reality, creating panic in those unaccustomed to a city crime rate. This doesn’t mean students should ignore the crime around campus, but rather to be more aware of the actual numbers.

“THE LEVEL OF DANGER IS PERCEIVED AS HIGHER THAN THE REALITY, CREATING PANIC IN THOSE UNACCUSTOMED TO A CITY CRIME RATE.” According to the 2015-2016 Annual Crime Report released by NUPD, in 2014 there were 14 forcible sex offenses, one aggravated assault, 12 burglaries and zero instances of killings, robberies and arsons. While these numbers only include cases that were reported, they still reflect a relatively low crime rate for an urban campus.

Regardless of numbers, NU should still be working to improve the level of security on

campus. Some of these measures are even being done by Northeastern students themselves.

“I am still scared walking home from the library,” said Abigael Titcomb, a third-year mechanical engineering major with a minor in entrepreneurship. “It’s dark and sometimes we forget that we are still in the middle of a city.”

Titcomb felt there wasn’t enough being done to address campus safety, so she founded a safety mobile app called Knightly.

Knightly is a safety network made up of a mobile application and a Bluetooth-enabled safety clip. If students are walking home and feel uncomfortable, they can slide the trigger on the clip and designated friends will be sent a text letting them know they are feeling nervous. The app is still in its startup phase, but Titcomb hopes to one day see this device in the hands of every incoming student. Her vision is to partner with NUPD so they get a notice every time someone slides the trigger, alerting them of feeling uncomfortable or in danger.

NU is also taking its own measures to provide safety resources to students. NUPD offers services such as RedEye, which takes students back to their dorms or apartments after late-night studying at Snell Library.

According to the NUPD website, “RedEye is provided from dusk to dawn for those students who reside within one and a half miles of the center of campus,” which officer Sweeney said was positioned near Snell Library.

Along with apps and officers to help students feel safer around campus, students can educate themselves on the areas surrounding campus, deciding for themselves what they feel is safe, independent of stereotypes.

Great Expectations

Focus • 17

How students manage the many demands of NU Written by Aryana Tiberii // Photos by Leila Habib

Managing the responsibilities of life at Northeastern can be difficult. Classes are demanding, co-op searches can feel endless, and many feel a compulsion to be involved. It may seem like there isn’t enough time in the day to enjoy much of anything besides the walls of the library during a study session.

“At Northeastern, you could be doing something all the time if you wanted,” said recent graduate Kayla Yates (’15).

Northeastern provides many opportunities on and off campus to be involved in activities ranging from athletics to major-related clubs and community service. All of these opportunities can contribute to the pressure students feel to be actively involved. “I think that there’s probably this universally shared sentiment that in order to be competitive for a ‘good co-op’ you need to be involved in a lot and do a lot,” Yates explained.

At a career-oriented university, it can be easy to get wrapped up in what everyone around you is doing. Graduate student Meredith Berg recalls feeling this pressure in her major when she was an undergraduate.

“I remember my first [writing] clip … and I was like, ‘How am I going to get my first clip published, and will I be proud of it?’ I felt like if you didn’t have those, you weren’t doing anything,” she said.

Some students at Northeastern feel that it’s necessary to perfect their resumes as soon as they get to college. “A lot of people feel like they need to have a plan and this level of stress can start really early in school,” said Yates. While this is common among most

college students, it seems even more prevalent at Northeastern, where students are held to a high standard of achievement that they will hopefully be able to display to potential co-op employers.

“It felt narrow and hyper-competitive,” said Abbey Yacoe said about her two years at Northeastern. At the start of 2015, Yacoe left Northeastern and now does freelance work while running her own online gallery and artist platform, Radiozoa.

Yet time away from the confines of a college campus did not decrease her hustle. “I have what’s called ‘the fear’,” said Yacoe, “which causes me to work about twice as many hours as I did in college.”

With all the running around that Northeastern students do, personal health can sometimes be put on the back-burner. Bad eating habits, less exercise and lack of a social life can all contribute to a decrease in mental and physical health.

“I don’t have enough energy sometimes, and I feel like there isn’t enough time in the day,” said Yates. “My prescription for a long day is a lot of coffee, which I know isn’t really healthy.”

Sabrina Woods, an associate director at Northeastern’s Career Services, integrates mindfulness practices in her counseling sessions in order to combat the stresses of co-op. Woods offers an integrative workshop, Holistic Approaches to Your Job and Coop Search, where she teaches a “creative approach to being stronger in interviews through mindful principles.” She agreed that “there is an added stressor for Northeastern students in that every time they’re in class, they can’t just focus on classwork.”

Woods advises students who are feeling stress or pressure to understand that “you don’t have to meditate for an hour to feel the benefits.” Instead, she said, “You can take deep breaths for mindful moments, or walk slowly to class and focus on something calming like the leaves on the trees.” She strongly advocates for these kinds of mindfulness practices to be more thoughtful and calm.

Will Ardron (’15) incorporates similar practices into his lifestyle to alleviate some of the pressure and stress that he feels.

“Every morning I mostly do yoga and practice

pranayama — deep breathing — at random parts of the day,” he said.

While the university offers services such as meditation, yoga and mental health counseling to provide support for a stressful lifestyle, not all students are able to use these resources.

Kate Frisher (’15), who now works at Health Care for All, said that University Health & Counseling Services (UHCS) “doesn’t have the capacity to meet the high demand for mental health services, so a lot of students have to wait weeks for an appointment.” She added that “if you have external insurance (i.e. not NU’s plan) they won’t even offer you counseling services — just referrals.”

Ardron also wondered if the “increasing obsession with credibility from employers” is really that necessary. “The pressure from the job market and how it makes students feel is very real,” he said. “At Northeastern, and most competitive universities, students feel the need to keep their results high and their stress levels low.” For many students, as Ardron pointed out, it just isn’t possible to have it all under control.

Berg, as a working student and especially as a mother of two, said, “I always like to remember a phrase my grandmother has always said: ‘All you can do is the best you can do.’ If I can go to bed at night knowing I worked my butt off and got some stuff done in one day, my kids were fed and clean — I moved one tiny inch closer to my goals, I am happy.”

winter 2015 • WOOF MAGAZINE

18 • Focus

What to Know Before Leaving the Country Written by Lautaro Grinspan WOOF MAGAZINE • winter 2015

It’s not too far-fetched to venture (or hope) that Title IX is now understood better than ever.

Perhaps as a result of the highly publicized string of sexual harassment cases that continue to plague college campuses across the US, public consciousness has begun to understand Title IX for what it actually is: not just a law giving women’s sports teams equal footing to men’s, but also a mandate banning sexual harassment and sexual assault in all universities receiving federal funding.

For students that go abroad during their time in college ( at Northeastern, that’s about 2,700 huskies each year), might have an additional Title IX-related question to ask: Do students receive the same legally enforceable protection from sexual harassment abroad as they do on campus?

The answer to that important question, as the NU Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion (OIDI) explains, is yes.

“As with all resources and policies, Title IX provisions and resources apply to all Northeastern students regardless of their location,” said the OIDI’s Title IX Coordinator, Mary Ann Phillips. “Students participating in global experiential learning programs may report any concern, question or need for assistance to the appropriate university official on-site or in Boston, may it be a faculty leader, co-op coordinator, Title IX coordinator or NUPD personnel.”

Phillips’ assertion is comforting to hear, especially when considering that students might be more likely to encounter sexual harassment abroad, where social and cultural norms are unfamiliar. A 2013 study published in the journal “Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice and Policy” shows that female undergraduates experience a “significantly increased risk” of rape and other forms of sexual assault while studying abroad.

Students might have the same Title IX rights abroad as they do on campus, but are they aware of those rights when boarding the plane?

Again, Phillips replied affirmatively: “All students embarking on a domestic or global experiential learning program are provided with information about available university resources.”

Brian Gibson, Director of the Global Experience Office (GEO), helped explain how students might be getting that information.

“I’ve been in Northeastern for a year and a half,” Gibson said. “Since I’ve been here, we’ve had a sexual harassment module, a very clear protocol that we follow.”

The module lets students know what is “permissible and what isn’t”

Focus • 19 and spells out their Title IX rights, which “cover students everywhere during Northeastern-sponsored activities,” Gibson explained. Students get acquainted with the module during their freshman orientation, and then again in the GEO-organized pre-departure orientations they must attend before traveling. “[Title IX] is too narrowly understood,” said Gibson. “It actually covers much more than people think it does.”

Despite the university’s efforts, conversations with student travelers show there is still a significant information gap to overcome when dealing with Title IX. Both third-year Courtney Chowaniec, who completed a Dialogue in Argentina and is now studying abroad in Spain, and fourthyear Kenneth Rodriguez, whose international credentials include a Dialogue in India and a semester spent studying abroad in Australia, reported they were never talked to before leaving the country about either Title IX or sexual harassment issues.

Fourth-year Ana Tarbetsky completed an international co-op in Australia last semester. ” I had no idea Title IX applied abroad,” she said. “[It] was not mentioned in the predeparture orientation. The only thing that was mentioned in the presentation regarding any kind of sexual behaviors abroad is that even the cute boys with accents have STDs.” Having recently returned from an international co-op in China, where she also completed a Dialogue in the past, fourth-year Caroline Fried said she “didn’t know” Title IX covered both her programs. During her predeparture orientation, she said that “harassment was brought up under the umbrella of street harassment, but sexual harassment wasn’t really brought up as its own topic.” She added: “I think it’s very important to cover Title IX before students travel … I feel that it would have been handy to fully understand its implications before going abroad.”

Few students have amassed as many miles traveled as fourth-year Kara Morgan. In anticipation of the many programs she has pursued, which include three Dialogues and two international co-ops, she attended at least three pre-departure orientations. While Morgan says sexual harassment was discussed at every instance, Title IX was only explicitly brought up once. She echoed Fried’s call for increasing awareness about Title IX rights pre-departure.

“I think it is very important for [GEO] to educate students on Title IX and sexual harassment abroad,” Morgan said. “Part of the female traveling experience, at least for me, has been adjusting to different cultural norms and attitudes towards women (sometimes more progressive than in the United States; often less progressive). It is easy for a female student to feel powerless if they are confronted by sexual harassment or gender discrimination while outside of the US, and it’s important for NU and GEO to let students know that there are options and a support system in place for them.”

When told about the student testimonies, Gibson identified two courses of action to take. “We are going to make sure that it’s emphasized early on during that [freshman] orientation that Title IX is institution-specific and not territory-specific,” he said. “For what I control, [the GEO predeparture orientations], we can reinforce that same message.”

Interestingly, pre-departure orientation sessions are not destinationspecific. As such, a student headed to Latin America would receive the same information as a student headed to East Asia, even though they would encounter very different cultures while completing their programs (and might need more customized preparation when it comes to an issue like sexual harassment).

Although Gibson said that the pre-departure orientations are “nuanced in that we acknowledge the differences between the cultures.” He explained that “they are not meant to

replace the [three] program-specific meetings” (which only students who will be participating in Dialogues have to attend).

As such, Dialogues’ faculty leaders also share part of the responsibility to educate students on Title IX and sexual harassment matters. The faculty leaders learn about these issues in orientations that they have to attend predeparture, during which Title IX is discussed at length.

Professor Auroop Ganguly, as a two-time faculty leader for the India: Climate Change Science and Policy Dialogue, understands the importance of addressing Title IX matters with his students, especially in anticipation of the program’s visit to Delhi, where violence against women is a real concern. Yet Ganguly admitted this is still a conversation he finds challenging to have.

“I would not want to make the students unduly worried or get overwhelmed with negative stereotypes. I would want them to put things in context. Yet, safety issues are paramount, and in addition, the truth is the truth, however unpleasant,” he said. “This is indeed a difficult conversation to have and I for one am always looking for guidance in this regard.”

Looking forward, GEO is planning to convey the information from pre-departure orientation sessions in a different way.

Instead of attending big, in-person meetings, students would be required to complete an online module, where information about all facets of life abroad – including sexual harassment – would be presented along with short quizzes to make sure the material is understood.

“This would ensure that the students pay attention and they can do it on their own time,” said Gibson. The online modules are currently close to being beta-tested and ideally will be ready by fall of 2016.

For now, students should remember that every single Title IX right they have on campus applies to any university program they are a part of, no matter the location. If any issue arises during their time abroad, they can reach out to OIDI, GEO staff, their co-op adviser and even NUPD (whomever they speak with will be bound by the same rules of confidentiality and they will all be required to report the complaint).

Thorough investigations that are fair to all parties involved can and will be carried out from a distance.

“The letter of the law is about keeping students safe,” said Gibson.

“There’s been a history in higher education about not taking concerns seriously and we want to make sure we’re better than that.”

The only thing that was mentioned ... was that even the cute boys with accents have STDs.

NORTHEASTERN’S LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE DOESN’T END HERE. WWW.WOOF-MAG.COM