Garrett Amill – HQ Press

Quinnipiac cuts pay for faculty and staff

Pay cuts for faculty and staff at Quinnipiac University are another effect of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an email sent by QU president Judy Olian, she announced that the university will be cutting all faculty and staff members’ pay.

“Because of the unprecedented magnitude of the impact,” Olian wrote in the email, “we will need to make budget cutbacks, and even sacrifices.”

Employees earning less than $50,000 a year will see a 3 percent reduction, while those earning more than $50,000 a year will see a 5 percent reduction. The reduction in pay is currently set to only apply through June 30, 2020.

The university management committee, which includes Olian and five vice presidents, are taking larger pay cuts. Vice President for Public Relations John Morgan, himself not a member of the management committee, would not disclose the extent of those cuts.

Olian wrote that the pay cuts are due to additional expenses caused by COVID-19, lost revenue from canceled events, and uncertainty over future enrollment numbers.

Other universities and colleges in Connecticut are making similar decisions. In an email to faculty, staff and students, University of New Haven president Steven Kaplan announced pay cuts. These cuts were in $50,000 intervals.

Employees, “will have the first $50,000 reduced by 3 percent; the next $50,000 reduced by 5 percent; the third $50,000 reduced by 7 percent; and all earnings beyond $150,000 reduced by 9 percent,” Kaplan wrote. His email did not include a scheduled end date to the pay cuts.

Professors at QU have mostly accepted the pay cuts.

“I’m not actually too upset by them,” David Tomczyk, an associate professor of entrepreneurship & strategy, said. “I knew QU would need to ‘tighten its belt’ to accommodate the changes and loss of revenue. That’s understandable and expected. The fact that it affected pay was always a possibility, and I’ve seen other companies have to do similar things during this time.”

Students are somewhat concerned with the effect faculty pay cuts will have.

“On the one hand it doesn’t seem fair,” Greta Stroebel, a fourth-year Quinnipiac student, said, “because teachers are still expected to teach and from home over video chat with likely a bunch of distractions so it’s probably really hard. But on the other hand these are crazy times and people gotta move money around.”

Students, administration, faculty and staff all agreed that they saw these changes as temporary.

“This also isn’t an on-going thing,” said Tomczyk. “It’s for this year, and next year we should be back to normal.”

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Quinnipiac shuts down campus amid coronavirus fears

Following several universities and colleges across the nation, Quinnipiac University will not allow students to return to campus after spring break in an attempt to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The university canceled all classes for Monday, March 16 and Tuesday, March 17, and will move the rest of the semester’s classes online.

“The choices we are making place protecting the health of the entire Quinnipiac community, and supporting the continued academic work of our students, above all else,” Quinnipiac President Judy Olian wrote in an email to students sent Sunday evening. “The majority of faculty and staff will be working remotely and will continue to perform their job functions from home.”

The decision to move classes to an online format was made on March 10, with the university adding two extra days to spring break to ease the transition. Initially students were told they could return to campus housing on March 22. Officials reversed that decision Sunday, announcing that all university housing will close March 18, requiring all students to leave by then. This includes the York Hill campus, as well as all QU-owned houses.

“We will provide information at a later date on when and how student belongings can be retrieved,” Olian wrote.

Classes will be held online using the Zoom software. All events on campus are cancelled, including sporting events. The university promised some amount of refunds to students, but didn’t elaborate.

“We expect to be able to provide some level of refund for housing and meal plans for those graduating,” Olian wrote. “For students not yet graduating, the credit would be applied against next year’s costs.”

At least one student was distraught by the closure.

“I feel like I’m being robbed of the final defining moments of my college life,” Edward Maher, a senior at Quinnipiac, said. “Not by the school, but just by life. And frankly, I feel like that’s more upsetting”

Read the full message from Olian below, and for more information check out the university’s COVID-19 site:

Dear Quinnipiac Family,

We’re all living through an unprecedented time that continues to change on a daily – often hourly – basis. There’s no doubt that our lives have been upended for a while. That’s been very hard for many, including our students who come to Quinnipiac not just to learn, but to connect, compete, grow and lead. Through this time, the choices we are making place protecting the health of the entire Quinnipiac community, and supporting the continued academic work of our students, above all else.

That is why today we have come to this very difficult decision: Students will not return to campus after the extended spring break, and the remainder of the spring semester will be delivered online. University housing will be closed for the remainder of the spring semester with the exception of special cases that need accommodation. Taking this action now is – without a doubt – in the best interest of our students’ health, the health of our faculty and staff, and of our local communities. It is also consistent with the recommendations and urging of government officials all around us to safeguard communities and to try and slow the continued spread of this virus.

Here is some additional information on what this decision means for our university community:

All university housing is closed.
- Students are not permitted to return to any of the campuses at this time. We will provide information at a later date on when and how student belongings can be retrieved from the residence halls and other buildings.
- Students currently living in university housing must leave by 9 p.m. on Wednesday, March 18.
- Students with extraordinary circumstances who need access to, or to remain in, university housing must submit a special housing request for consideration. All requests must be submitted by noon on Monday, March 16, to conditionalrequests@qu.edu.
- All university housing will remain locked to safeguard students’ belongings.
We are transitioning to online delivery of all classes for the remainder of the semester.
- Online classes begin Wednesday, March 18.
- Faculty members responsible for each course are providing further details and instructions to students via Blackboard and university email.
- The university’s libraries will be closed, but the libraries are accessible online for students’ remote use of their resources. Content can be accessed via MyQ at: go.qu.edu/libraryresources
- Health Sciences and nursing students can continue with their clinicals and fieldwork as long as the clinical agencies/hospitals/sites will continue to support them. The university will evaluate this on a daily basis. In the event that students are not able to continue with clinical practical experiences, their program leaders will work with them to personalize a plan and to ensure that students’ clinical experiences meet requisite criteria.
The university remains open; however, most services will be provided virtually as we ensure the continuity of academics and university operations.
- The majority of faculty and staff will be working remotely and will continue to perform their job functions from home.
- Some student employment, including work study and graduate assistantships, may continue if the job can be performed remotely. Students should contact their supervisors for more details. There may be additional student employment opportunities that can be completed remotely; contact nathan.petropoulos@qu.edu in Student Employment for details.
- The university’s fitness centers are closed for the remainder of the semester.
University Events
- All university events, including admissions tours and info sessions, have been cancelled until further notice.
- All spring collegiate and club athletic programs have been cancelled.
- It is too early to make any decisions about our commencement ceremonies in May.
Credits/Refunds
- We expect to be able to provide some level of refund for housing and meal plans for those graduating; for students not yet graduating, the credit would be applied against next year’s costs.
- We have been focused on the health and education of our students and have not yet resolved the financial impact of this crisis. We will provide further details in the coming weeks.
Information and Resources
- Website – regular updates are being posted online at www.qu.edu/COVID19
- Frequently Asked Questions – we have addressed many common questions in an FAQ we have published online
- Online Support Center – if you have any urgent questions remaining, please send an email to COVID19SupportCenter@qu.edu and a representative of our university will personally respond (please include a phone number in case we need to call you).

As our national leaders and health experts have all indicated, we need to ‘flatten the curve.’ While the virus cannot be stopped as of yet, we each can do our part to slow its spread so that our health care systems can catch up and cope with the scale of the outbreak. So for now, this is what we must do.

For all our current Bobcats, I share your sense of loss as we go through this experience – loss of time with friends, faculty and staff mentors, academic and athletic competitions, team activities, and social gatherings – that were abruptly taken from your lives. Your QU family will be examining whether, and how, we can offer any parts of those experiences later, even in the summer, especially for seniors. But right now, our focus is on everyone’s health.

Be well, take care of yourselves, and take care of each other.

State archaeologist presents possible Revolutionary War remains at QU

Audience members watch on as archaeologist Nick Bellatoni presents his findings. Courtesy: Garrett Amill

Connecticut state archaeologist Nick Bellantoni believes the human remains found in Ridgefield, Connecticut last fall are likely the remains of Revolutionary War soldiers. At a presentation given in Quinnipiac University’s Center for Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences on Monday, Bellantoni discussed the remains, which were discovered in a cellar.

“The thing I should preface right off the bat is I don’t have a lot of conclusions to give you,” Bellantoni said. “It’s probably going to take a good year to get a handle on what we have.”

However, if the remains are from soldiers, this is considered a major find. The remains were found in situ, or in place, meaning they hadn’t been disturbed prior to the archaeological research. According to Bellatoni, this is very rare.

“It will put revolutionary Connecticut on the map,” he said.

The discovery began as a police case. On Nov. 25, 2019, construction workers were renovating a basement in Ridgefield, Connecticut when they found some bones underground. The workers called the police, who then called the medical examiner’s forensic anthropologist. Once the anthropologist discovered just how old the bones were, the state archaeologist was brought in.

“The law in the state of Connecticut is that whenever bones are 50 years old or more, the state archaeologist is notified,” Bellantoni said.

Bellantoni knew there had been a Revolutionary War battle in Ridgefield with some dead from both sides of the conflict buried in the town. He’d looked for remains in the past, but never found anything.

Bellatoni hoped the finding was Revolutionary War soldiers, but he didn’t have the highest hopes at first. Farming families often buried their dead near their homes, so the bones could be linked back to that.

However, when he got to the site, Bellantoni found soldiers were most likely buried there. He said the remains were from strong men between the ages of 25 and 35.

Then came the most important piece of evidence.

Nick Bellantoni and Eddy Rosenblatt conversing before the presentation. The two studied the same remains, and came to similar conclusions. Courtesy: Garret Amill

“We started to find buttons,” Bellantoni said. “These buttons were a strong indication that the remains weren’t from farmers..In the colonial period, clothing was expensive. You didn’t bury someone with something so valuable that could be passed down to brothers and sisters.”

However, Bellatoni still had his doubts.

“One of the things we have not found yet in the field is trauma,” he said. “If the remains are from soldiers, they would have been killed by some sort of trauma.”

Dr. Eddy Rosenblatt, a radiology consultant for Quinnipiac University, validated that nothing found on the bones can be considered trauma.

“We can come up with all kinds of exciting speculation that this guy took a headshot and that’s why he’s buried,” Rosenblatt said. “However, more likely it has to do with the burial.”

Still, Bellantoni believes the remains are from Revolutionary War soldiers.

“I’m still calling it a hypothesis, but really I’m struggling to come up with another explanation for three healthy guys together on a battlefield,” he said.

Bellantoni also mentioned Quinnipiac’s effort in this investigation.

“Quinnipiac has been so helpful with the diagnostic imaging of those remains,” he said. “This is only the latest of a number of collaborations we’ve had. The collaboration has been so marvelous.”

Bellantoni and his team will continue to analyze the remains. The bones were not allowed to be photographed at the presentation.

The Epstein story reaches Quinnipiac’s campus

Tim Malloy spoke on Epstein, having just played news clips on the story. He then answered questions from Quinnipiac students and faculty.

“A vicious, vicious man.” That’s how Tim Malloy, an analyst at the Quinnipiac Poll and former TV reporter, described Jeffrey Epstein at a talk Thursday night in Quinnipiac’s Mt. Carmel auditorium. Malloy talked to a crowd of about 85 people, students and faculty.

“I know about the ‘how’ of the story of Jeffrey Epstein, but I want to know the why, and the investigative reporting that goes with that,”said Chris Misciagna, a Quinnipiac student.

“I skipped a class to come here,” said Sean Keenan, another Quinnipiac student. “I wanted to go here instead of [class] because this is more intriguing to me.”

Malloy was a TV news reporter in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2005 when Palm Beach police found evidence Epstein sexually assaulted minors.

“It wasn’t a big story, but it changed,” Malloy said.

Malloy kept the story in mind even after Epstein was sentenced to 13 months in prison.

“I had a good police source,” said Malloy, “and he told me, ‘keep your eye on this, cause this guy’s still doing it.’”

With his source and the leniency of Epstein’s 2008 sentence on his mind, Malloy talked to his friend and neighbor, best-selling author James Patterson.

“I walked up to him one day and said, ‘you’re a great crime writer, wouldn’t you like to write a nonfiction book?’ And he said yes,” Malloy said.

Epstein was scared once Patterson got involved. He threatened lawsuits against the authors repeatedly. Malloy said he was scared of what Epstein, a wealthy man, could do.

“James Patterson would sit me down and say, ‘Tim, they’re not going to kill your dogs. Don’t worry.’ But I was worried.”

Malloy worked with James Patterson and reporter John Connolly to write the book Filthy Rich about the first criminal case against Jeffrey Epstein. It focused on Epstein’s arrest in 2005, and his deal with prosecutors to spend so little time in prison. The book was published in 2016 to little fanfare, Malloy said. Neither he nor the book were very important in the 2019 arrest of Jeffrey Epstein, according to Malloy.

The crowd at the event, consisting of more than just students. Free pizza was provided by Quinnipiac University, as well as a raffle.

“I think we chipped away at it,” he said. “I did not bust him and put him in prison. The Miami Herald got him. I’m one of many people who chased him. The magic in this is I was lucky enough to be friends with a famous author who said, ‘I’m not scared of this guy, let’s write the book.’”

Malloy left local TV news nine years ago. After 9/11, he went to Iraq and Afghanistan 14 times. Malloy said he was friends with John Lahey, president of Quinnipiac at the time. Lahey asked Malloy to come work at the Quinnipiac Poll as an analyst. Malloy wanted to get out of the news business, so it was the perfect time. “I kept a hand in the news business though,” he said.

Malloy said the new book has 50 more pages. He said the publisher’s lawyers aren’t as concerned about libel now, and so much of what he wanted to publish originally can now come out. He expects more information will be discovered about Epstein.

“The damn story is not over,” said Malloy.

Coronavirus outbreak has QU ‘strongly urging’ students studying in Italy to return home

Fear of the Coronavirus rises following outbreak in Northern Italy

By Garrett Amill with additional reporting by Peter O’Neill

Following the outbreak of the coronavirus in Northern Italy, Quinnipiac University officials have strongly urged students studying abroad there to return home.

In a letter sent by Jennifer Brown, interim provost and executive vice president, and Mark Tortora, associate director of education abroad programs, to QU students studying in Italy sent Wednesday, Feb. 26, 3:33 p.m., QU urged students to return and complete the semester at home through online courses.

The letter also said that students who returned would be required to stay off of campus for two weeks.

Several other universities are pulling their students out of study abroad programs, including Connecticut’s Fairfield University, Sacred Heart University and the University of New Haven.

Tortora worked through Tuesday night researching and discussing options, as well as talking with parents, according to Quinnipiac’s Department of Cultural and Global Engagement.

Sydney Reynolds is a Quinnipiac sophomore Media Studies major studying in Rome this semester through API, a partner program.

“(Infections aren’t) in Rome, but someone said, ‘It’s best to be aware, not anxious,’” she said via Zoom Wednesday morning.

“I’m trying to not to freak myself out,” she said, adding that a trip to Tuscany for the weekend of Feb. 29 has been canceled. “All the study abroad students are so on edge. It’s the only thing we talk about.”

Reynolds, 19, said she takes a tram to campus each day and “lots of people” are wearing masks in an effort to avoid contracting the virus, however, she does not want to return home.

“I’ve invested a lot of money studying abroad — not just tuition… but I’ve also spent a lot of money on plane tickets, hotels, buses. I’d lose so much money if I got sent home,” Reynolds said.

She said her parents plan to join her in Europe in two weeks for spring break, but those plans are in question as they were to travel to Venice, which is locked down to prevent the spread of the virus.

“I have no idea if we can do that, now,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds said she plans to stay in Italy after hearing QU’s warning. “I discussed it with my parents,” she said via email after receiving Quinnipiac’s letter. “If it comes to Rome and starts getting bigger, I will probably leave. Would rather be home than be quarantined.”

The Centers for Disease Control issued a “Level 2” advisory to “exercise increased caution,” it Italy, as it had been prior to the cluster of coronavirus cases in Northern Italy. The CDC does not recommend canceling or postponing travel to Italy, the advisory said.

A representative of Quinnipiac’s Department of Cultural and Global Engagement is unsure at this time how many Quinnipiac students are based in Italy, but Tortola, who was unavailable, knows.

Tortora sent an email on Feb. 23 advising students in Italy to be vigilant and review CDC updates before traveling anywhere.

As of Feb. 26, the World Health Organization reports 322 cases of coronavirus in Italy. 11 people have died. These numbers are rising.

QU prepares to launch new podcast studio under direction of former WNPR employee

“I was hired to sort of create a program around podcasting and figure out how we could approach podcasting as a system instead of little pieces operating independently, like I think a lot of universities are,” DesRoches said.

Quinnipiac University is in the process of opening a new podcast studio. The idea to create a studio started after professor Ben Bogardus created a podcast, according to David DesRoches, the newly hired director of community programming.

“Ben Bogardus had done a podcast about hunger and Hamden previously,” said DesRoches. “As sort of a way to show what kind of work the school could be doing if they produce podcasts.”

DesRoches wants the studio to be a hosting site for podcasts and a place to support students, not just where podcasts are recorded.

“I can get a computer and I can push record and I can make a podcast,” said DesRoches. “But if you want a program that’s taken seriously and has high quality you need to think.”

DesRoches was hired by Quinnipiac to help unite all the potential podcasts under one service.

“I was hired to sort of create a program around podcasting and figure out how we could approach podcasting as a system instead of little pieces operating independently like I think a lot of universities are,” DesRoches said.

DesRoches doesn’t want Quinnipiac’s podcasts to be like any other school.

“People are sort of podcasting on their own with no sort of guidance and just sort of figuring it out, to various levels of success and of quality,” DesRoches said.

David DesRoches and students meet to discuss the studio and run through a sample podcast.

DesRoches believes uniting everything under one platform would improve the overall quality.

A big component of the podcast studio for DesRoches will be allowing students to use the studio without much oversight.

“I don’t want to restrict people,” DesRoches said. “We’ll let them use the studio. They just wouldn’t necessarily get direct support from me, but the studio is available for people who want a podcast.”

Quinnipiac has already been producing podcasts, which are now under the wing of the podcast program.

“We have been working with the athletics podcast, which has already been publishing for a while,” DesRoches said. “We’re migrating that into the new platform.”

The platform also hosts Bogardus’ podcast on hunger in Hamden. DesRoches says there are ideas for new podcasts, including a podcast on developments in medicine, a podcast looking at wellness without a euro-centric worldview and a podcast on polling by the Quinnipiac Poll.

Tom Conley-Wilson, a student and producer of podcasts, said the studio has worked well so far.

“I’m a producer for the show,” he said. “It was tentatively named QCast. We’re actually rebranding and naming it TruQ. It’s gonna be a podcast centered around issues in the Hamden and New Haven area.”

Conley-Wilson said the studio hasn’t started officially making new podcasts yet but has made some shows as trials.

“We’ve done two test shows so far,” he said, “and they both went really well. We’re just interviewing prospective students just to kind of get a feel for it. Our first actual recording is gonna be this week with President Judy Olian. That’s gonna be our inaugural episode.”

There is also an effort to expand the scope of podcasting to the community as a whole. DesRoches knows the podcast station can not replace WQUN.

“I don’t think you can,” DesRoches said. “I think it was a special thing that they did. But what I hope to do is build upon some other things that they were doing and sort of offer some of those similar services like news in a podcasting format.”

DesRoches and the podcast program are currently in the process of reaching out to the mayor of Hamden and the first selectman of North Haven to meet with Quinnipiac President Judy Olian to discuss podcasts. It is a goal of DesRoches to reach out to the community as he leads the podcast program.

“It’s a big part of what I want to do,” DesRoches said. “Content that reflects the values that we share as a university and community.”

The studio has a computer desk for controlling the podcast shows, as well as cameras linked to each microphone.

New Haven police launch new program for drug users

The New Haven Police Department launched a new program earlier this month to protect drug users leaving incarceration. This program includes the introduction of harm reduction kits for people leaving jail after drug arrests.

Needles are included in the harm reduction kits. Clean, unused needles reduce the risk of harm to users. Courtesy: Garrett Amill

The kits will contain clean needles, pipes, water and information on drug treatment centers. Police say the harm reduction kits allow people who use illegal drugs to use them in a safer manner. The hope with the introduction of these kits is to reduce the risk of injury or death.

Robert Lawlor, a former police officer now working with the Federal High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program (HIDTA), helped with the development of the program in New Haven.

“In a lot of these cases, they don’t have the equipment they need to use safely,”Lawlor said. “In a lot of these cases, they’ll use dirty needles, dirty water…stuff that’s unsafe and unsanitary, and leads to a whole host of health problems and dangers, not only for them, but for the community at large.”

The idea for the kits came from harm reduction expert Mark Jenkins in Hartford. He approached New Haven Police Chief Otoniel Reyes with the idea. According to Lawlor, Reyes and the officers in the detention facility liked it.

“He was very, very supportive of the idea,” Lawlor said. “They understood there was a need for it.”

According to the Connecticut Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, New Haven saw 39 accidental deaths in 2018 where opiates were to blame. The introduction of harm reduction kits is one attempt to reduce that number going forward.

Jenkins, along with the Yale Clinical and Community Research’s syringe service program and the police department helped decide what to put in the harm reduction kits.

The New Haven Police Department began piloting the unique program in February.

“We don’t believe it’s done anywhere else in the country,” Lawlor said. “We weren’t really looking to start a new craze, we just recognized a gap in services.”