Grace Manthey – HQ Press

Lahey’s legacy: The good, the bad and the expensive

By Grace Manthey

John Lahey is Quinnipiac University’s longest standing president. In 2014 he was the second-highest paid in the country, making over $3.7 million a year, according to an article from Business Insider.

However in a few short weeks the reign of Lahey will end and Judy Olian will take over. As the university’s first female president, Olian will be making history.

But Lahey already has. For the last 31 years Lahey has expanded the physical campus and increased the population. But he’s also dealt with the consequences of that growth.

When the university hired Lahey as president in 1987, Russia was still called the Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan was president. Walk Like an Egyptian was the number one song.

And the quad on Quinnipiac’s main campus didn’t even exist. According to an article from Quinnipiac Magazine, Lahey was the one who first envisioned the current “quad.” Prior to 1987 it actually resembled more of an “L,” with just the library and a classroom building to the left.

Lahey and his team of architects built and renovated nearly 10 buildings amongst the three different campuses:

1989: Echlin Center

1993: Lender School of Business with the Ed McMahon Communications Center

1995: School of Law (now the Center for Communications and Engineering)

2000: renovated the Library, the Student Center and Buckman Theaters

2007: The York Hill arena

2007: North Haven campus

2009: York Hill residence halls dorms

2013: Frank H. Netter M.D. School of Medicine

Slide the white line back and forth to see changes from QU in 1991 to QU in 2017. Notice that while the school had built Echlin by 1991, it hadn’t built Center for Communications and Engineering, and it has also expanded the dorms since then. Also, York Hill was still just a hill back in ’91.

But all this expansion came as a result of the growing enrollment. The university needed somewhere to put the students they were admitting.

The graph above shows growth rates for Quinnipiac and Hamden over 30 years, according to Hamden’s website, the Quinnipiac registrar and Quinnipiac’s annual reports, which are on file in the library (photos of select pages are available here). In all but seven of those years, QU’s growth rate exceeded Hamden’s. The school’s enrollment dropped only one year, but Hamden’s population dropped or stayed virtually the same about half of the three decades.

And although reasons for an increase in enrollment aren’t definite, some peaks in growth rates happened around the same time as university expansions.

For example, according to Quinnipiac Magazine, the university opened the law school in 1995. The next year there was a small spike in enrollment rate.

Also, after President Lahey’s 2006 agreement with the town of Hamden to offer housing for all students on campus, the University saw its first negative growth rate in years in 2007.

Quinnipiac had not yet built the York Hill dorms; the expansion had only been approved in 2006. By the time the dorms were finished in 2010, the university had the highest growth rate in a decade.

However, with this growth came tension, as more young adults opted to live in off-campus housing in the surrounding town.

And in recent years, students having parties in off-campus housing have caused some conflicts between the town of Hamden and Quinnipiac. Although the university does offer housing for students for all four years, President Lahey said it’s unrealistic to expect all students to choose that option.

“If we’d built 500 more beds, more students would have come on campus, but there would still be the 20 percent who wouldn’t. It wouldn’t solve the problem, and we’d have hundreds of empty beds,” said Lahey in an interview with the Hartford Courant in 2015.

Since 2015 total enrollment has increased by close to 1,000 students. To keep the peace with the town, QU plans to expand housing. On March 27, the Hamden Planning and Zoning Commission approved Quinnipiac’s plan to build senior housing on York Hill, including over 200 more beds.

But it’s only a few problem houses a year that hurt the university’s relationship with the town. During the most recent school year eight noise complaints came from homes that had permits to rent to students, according to records from the Hamden Police Department (there may be landlords that rent to students without permits).

However there were close to 300 noise complaints over the same amount of time, spread across the entire town.

The black icons are addresses of noise complaints filed with the Hamden Police Department. The purple dots are addresses that have permits to rent to students. It should be noted that there may be some homes that do not have a permit to rent to student, but students may still live in some of the homes that are close to the Quinnipiac campus.

So despite the growth of Quinnipiac during the Lahey years, his tenure hasn’t been perfect. In 2015 Lahey attended an off campus party during “May Weekend,” a notorious party weekend at QU.

In an attempt to “be humorous” with the students, Lahey celebrated their May Weekend party, and his remarks enraged some Hamden residents and Quinnipiac alums.

“I deeply regret having made these remarks, for which I sincerely apologize. I have already personally conveyed this apology to Interim Mayor Jim Pascarella and renewed my commitment to work with him and town officials to resolve these long standing student housing issues in the immediate future,” Lahey said in a statement in 2015.

But just in time for his retirement, Lahey seems to be easing tensions.

In a 2017 press conference, Lahey presented Hamden Mayor Curt Leng with a $1.4 million check. The money will support the arts and culture programs in Hamden, according to Leng.

“Quinnipiac and the town are on better footing right now than we have been in a very long time, and that is a great benefit to the university and to the town,” Leng said at the press conference.

Perhaps the goal of mending university-town relations is the reason for the increase in tuition. While the average student doesn’t pay the current full tuition of over $60,000, according to annual reports, the amount has increased by over 200 percent over the last three decades.

Adjusted for inflation, in 1988 the average student paid almost $12,000. The most recent year available showed that an average student pays about $40,000.

And the university’s revenue increase isn’t just from tuition. Between 1988 and 2017 revenue from everything but tuition (including gifts, grants, and investment returns) increased nearly 400 percent, after adjusting for inflation.

But the distribution of that money hasn’t changed much over the years. The biggest difference in the expense data over the past 30 years was in student aid and scholarships, and sponsored research.

In 1988 less than a quarter of Quinnipiac’s expenses went to student aid and scholarships, but by 2017 it was close to a third. By increasing student aid, the university can increase enrollment and give opportunities for students who may not have been able to afford Quinnipiac’s hefty tuition.

While Lahey’s departure has left students wondering how life at Quinnipiac will change under a new president, Lahey has his own plans.

He plans to spend the colder months in Florida with his wife, Judy. But Lahey does plan to come back and teach a philosophy or logic course in spring of 2019, according to an interview with The Chronicle.

“I hope, I’m leaving Quinnipiac as someone who doesn’t take themself any more seriously than they have to and appreciates the people around them,” Lahey said.

New dean shows promise for future nurses

By Grace Manthey

Lisa O’Connor will be the new dean for the School of Nursing at Quinnipiac University, according to a press release from Executive Vice President and Provost Mark Thompson.

In her 15 years at QU, O’Connor has built a large resume. After becoming an assistant professor in 2003, she then became director and chair of the undergraduate nursing programs and finally the associate dean of the School of Nursing in 2015, according to Thompson.

She has also served on multiple committees and attended several conferences both at Quinnipiac and around the state.

However, O’Conner is more than just her resume. O’Conner is a reference point for her advisees and takes an interest in her students, according to junior nursing major Nina Surabian.

“She is very organized, but most importantly she puts the students and their futures above everything. She has everyone’s best intention in mind and is truly selfless,” Surabian said.

Surabian recently found out she was accepted for a full time position in the intensive care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston this summer. She said O’Connor helped her through the entire application process.

“She took time out of her busy schedule to meet with me multiple times throughout the year as well as following up with me through email. She also provided a reference for me for my job application,” Surabian said.

O’Connor’s position will officially switch over on July 1 following Jean Lange’s retirement, who served as dean since Quinnipiac founded the School of Nursing in 2011.

From acai bowls to baked potatoes: how food trucks came to campus

By Grace Manthey

As a freshman in Quinnipiac University’s Student Government Association, Camilla Abreu noticed one of the biggest complaints from students was the food on campus.

Then a professor told her about a food truck festival he went to every year and Abreu formed an idea: Get food trucks on campus.

But it wasn’t easy at first.

“It was a lot harder than you think because they need a permit to get on campus and they need to sign all these documents and they need to go through so many people on campus to make sure that they have all the right documents and stuff like that,” Abreu said.

And it wasn’t just the paperwork that was a pain. Abreu said sometimes if the weather wasn’t nice the trucks wouldn’t show up.

“It’s not just like, a thing you can just drop by and do, because at some schools it is like that … But here, like it’s more regulated with public safety and everything,” she said.

Once the food truck owner knew the effort Abreu and her fellow students were putting in to get the food trucks on campus, they became a lot more reliable.

“(The food truck owners) realized that we went out of our way to let people know that they’re coming on campus and that they’re here for the students, and students are expecting them at a certain time. They realized that it was like a bigger, more serious thing,” Abreu said.

Senior Mikaela Canning and junior Tyler Culp were in charge of booking the food trucks for the Wake The Giant concert. They said sometimes getting in contact with the owners is hard, but if they don’t hear from them after a time, they look for another truck.

And luckily for students, at some events they don’t even have to pay the trucks for the food. It’s called a “buyout.” SPB gives the food truck owners an estimate of how many people will be at the event, then the food truck owners tell SPB members how much to pay.

According to Culp, for Wake The Giant, “we bought out 150 (potatoes from the Spuds truck) for this previous concert and were given a set amount that we had pay for it.” Once the truck ran out of the 150 potatoes, they stopped selling.

And while the logistics can be kind of complicated, Canning said one of her favorite food trucks is, in fact, the Spuds truck.

“He’s always so happy to work for us if he’s available and if he’s busy he’ll do his best to fit us in, he’s also very personable. He also works with his dad who is also just as great,” Canning said.

Even though Abreu she’s not in SGA anymore, as a senior she sees the growth of her hard work.

“It was such a struggle, like calling 50 food truck places and only having like, three actually wanting to come on campus. It’s really cool that now it’s a thing that happens all the time.”

Professor gives students a chance to produce a documentary in South Africa

By Grace Manthey

Film professor Liam O’Brien has an opportunity for students who don’t want to stay in the cold New England weather over winter break.

It’s a documentary production class that features a trip to South Africa. The trip will take place Dec. 29 to Jan. 18.

The class can count as FTM 355 for film students or COM 340, students can use as a UC credit.

Interested students should attend an information session on April 18 from 3 to 4:30 p.m. in CCE 250 or they can schedule appointment.

A $1,500 deposit is due to the Quinnipiac Office of International Education by Sept. 7.

For more information contact O’Brien at lobrien@quinnipiac.edu.

Wake The Giant concert proves to be successful

Updated Sunday, April 15 to clarify Michael Ruta’s position.

By Grace Manthey

The 2018 Wake The Giant concert series was a success, despite some confusion with the ticketing process.

According to Michael Ruta, the director of publicity for the Student Programming Board, the original rule was if a student’s ticket didn’t match the name on their Q Card then they would have to to go the ticket office to get it changed.

After a while, those taking the tickets nixed that rule, but according to Ruta it wasn’t communicated very well to the long line outside.

However, once everyone got inside the concert was relatively smooth. Daya performed first, her more popular songs including “Hide Away” and “Sit Still, Look Pretty.” Then at around 9:30 p.m. Khalid arrived on stage wearing a Quinnipiac jersey with “Khalid” printed on the back. His backup dancers followed suit in bobcat t-shirts later in the show.

Senior Week committee releases housing forms

By Grace Manthey

It’s spring, and graduation ceremonies are fast approaching. At Quinnipiac University that means Senior Week is coming up even faster.

The Senior Week committee sent out an email Friday morning reminding students to attend a mandatory information session. The committee will remove any student who does not attend a session without a refund.

SENIORS!!! We are ready for you to attend one of our MANDATORY info sessions. You will be removed from the list if you do not attend ONE of these. See you there!

A post shared by QU SENIOR WEEK 2018 (@quseniorweek) on Mar 28, 2018 at 2:14pm PDT

The email also provided a link for the housing form. Seniors will be staying one night at Mohegan Sun Casino and one night in the freshman suite residence halls.

Only one person from each group is required to submit the form and must select a group of either two, four or eight people to stay with. Since the suites house a total of eight people the Senior Week committee will put any remaining groups of two or four together randomly.

Housing requests are due by 11:45 p.m. on April 24, 2018. For more information email SeniorWeek@qu.edu.

ALDI grand opening provides more grocery competition in Hamden

By Grace Manthey and Thamar Bailey

Where Hamden community members used to find a seasonal Halloween store, they will now find an up in coming supermarket. Aldi opened its doors for the first time on Thursday, April 12 on Dixwell Avenue, marking the company’s 26th location in Connecticut.

The first 100 customers received a golden envelope with a gift card.

Hamden resident and Quinnipiac University alumnus Paula Santagata wasn’t one of the first 100 customers. However, having been to Aldi stores in both Wallingford and East Haven, she was excited to have the store closer to home.

“The prices are very good and it’s clean and it’s a good competition,” Santagata said.

Santagata’s husband Tony also appreciated the addition of another store for competition. He said it helps keep the prices down so people can, “make a living.”

“You’ve gotta live within your means and this works for us. Nobody walks in my house hungry and leaves the same way. So these stores work and I’m happy, I’ve still got money in my pocket,” he said.

Aldi is involved in sustainability initiatives, so they encourage customers to bring their own bags or buy reusable bags upon checkout.

The store is open every day 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Sexual assault awareness month programming pushing for change

By Grace Manthey

April is sexual assault awareness month. With the rise of the #MeToo movement and the number of high profile people accused of sexual misconduct, experts at Quinnipiac University feel a shift in awareness.

“(The faculty) have talked about feeling like there is a little bit of a wave and a push toward addressing and talking about these issues and acknowledging them and trying to change culture,” Courtney McKenna, the director of student affairs at QU, said.

But according to women’s studies professor Melissa Kaplan, the push is not enough.

“Women aren’t equal yet,” Kaplan said. “When women will feel equal is when women no longer fear rape.”

As the director of student affairs, McKenna sees herself as the overseer of the “care team,” which helps students who have concerns including those related to rape and sexual assault. She also organizes the online prevention programs students take at the beginning of their freshman year as well as all the sexual assault events on campus.

She said her trick to juggling so many responsibilities is to not go it alone.

“The goal is to find students and organizations and offices and programs on campus who are equally as interested in the topic and engage those folks to do the programs,” McKenna said. “Do events to bring awareness in the ways that make sense to their members.”

However, according to Kaplan, those events have a narrow audience and they are largely optional.

“When you make things that are optional you’re most likely going to be speaking to students who have been survivors or victims or know somebody who has,” Kaplans said. “Predominantly it’s only going to be students, or students that are told to go because of the courses that they are taking.”

McKenna agrees.

She said many classes in the college of arts and sciences like health science, psychology and sociology have higher participation in sexual assault awareness events. But more recently she has tried to expand that audience.

“I think some of the ways we need to move forward is looking at like, the school of business,” McKenna said. “Statistically it’s the school that has the most amount of men so we (need to) look statistically at those who may need to make sure they are aware of expectations, policies, how they can play a role to shift culture.”

The role of men in sexual assault awareness and feminism is something that Kaplan teaches in her women’s studies classes. She also feels like it’s not always talked about in the right way.

“Even the structure of consent is problematic because it is positioning women as kind of the gatekeeper, and puts the responsibility on women to say no. Rather than putting the responsibility on men to read women,” Kaplan said.

From McKenna’s point of view the issue of consent is one of the biggest issues surrounding sexual assault because many students coming to college don’t have any education about it before they move in.

Embed from Getty Images

“We have have sex ed, but we don’t have consensual sex ed. We don’t have ‘how do you talk about what you want from a partner’ and ‘how do you know when you should engage in activities and when you shouldn’t’ and ‘what is a healthy dating relationship?’” she said.

One way the student affairs office can get information about the knowledge and behaviors of the incoming freshmen is through the AlcoholEdu and Haven programs. These are short online courses required by all students at the beginning of their freshman year.

“We have good data that shows even if some folks are just clicking through it and think its stupid that there is an increase in knowledge from before someone takes it and after someone takes it,” McKenna said. “We get good static data about each incoming class.”

For example, McKenna said she can find out that 30 percent of students in an incoming class are what would be considered binge drinkers before even coming to college, or that 15 percent have experienced some sort of sexual assault.

Through the company that puts out AlcoholEdu and Haven, the student affairs office is looking to roll out smaller, ongoing courses. McKenna said they wouldn’t be the “heavy lift” one that freshmen do, but it will give the office more data about the change over time.

According to Kaplan, this is essential because “we have to put pressure on everyone to end this kind of violence and this epidemic.”

Click here for more information about sexual assault awareness campus events.

A culture of abuse: How to avoid it before it’s too late

By Grace Manthey

Note: this article was updated on April 9 to clarify Sara MacDonough’s comments.

When Nicole Connery signed with Quinnipiac’s women’s ice hockey team for the 2012 season she didn’t know the suffering she would endure for the next three years.

Coaches from her hometown of Newmarket, Ontario, warned her when she told them where she was going. They told her they had heard things.

“But I was like, a lot of coaches yell,” Connery remembered.

Rick Seeley was Connery’s coach at Quinnipiac until her junior year when the university fired him in April 2015 for verbal and physical abuse of his players. But according to student surveys originally reported by Q30 Television, students had been reporting incidents since 2009.

“It could have been avoided earlier if our surveys were read and understood,” Connery said. “It’s the only thing I don’t understand of how those things were swept under the rug. I’ll never understand that.”

Every student athlete fills out a survey at the end of his or her season. After Connery’s first year she said she wrote long and honest answers detailing the abuse. But after a while she figured no one seemed to be listening.

In her first survey, Connery described an incident where Seeley had the team run from the Mount Carmel campus to York Hill at 5 a.m. Afterward they had practice without an athletic trainer and a player tore a ligament in her knee.

After her sophomore year, Connery said since she didn’t feel like administrators were listening to the surveys. She just wrote that Seeley, “probably shouldn’t aim a slapshot at a player that did something wrong in practice.”

A more public incident at an NCAA tournament loss against Harvard sparked the end of the abuse.

Seeley not only started swearing at his players, but also grabbed one by the facemask. Another coach had to pull Seeley off of the player.

“Not only did we all see the incident but my parents, other parents, parents on the other team, and players on the other team saw this incident and was horrified,” said one player in her anonymous survey.

Former athletic director Jack McDonald, who was at Quinnipiac during the Seeley scandal, declined to comment on the incident.

The university hired Sarah Fraser in 2016, so she wasn’t around for Seeley’s firing. However, as the deputy director of athletics she is now one of the administrators who reads the athlete surveys.

Fraser is also the senior women administrator at Quinnipiac, a role designed to promote women within the school, according to the NCAA.

She said the student athlete surveys are anonymous because they allow student athletes to feel more comfortable being honest. While she said she feels strongly that they should stay that way, she also thinks the anonymity makes it hard for administrators to pinpoint problems.

“The challenge is not being able to follow up with somebody to get additional detail or verify how true something may be,” said Fraser.

This challenge may be part of why physical, verbal and emotional abuse is widespread in high-level sport – and why it’s been traditionally ignored. Players say that the culture demands that athletes tough it out for fear of retaliation or being seen as weak. So they don’t usually speak up. This leads to a communication barrier between athletes and coaches that can leave abusive behavior hiding in plain sight.

In fact, nearly half of all current or former athletes have experienced some negative interaction with a coach, whether they felt like the coach was picking on them, or crossed a line, according to an online survey of 62 current or former high school and college athletes in the U.S.

It’s a decades-long problem that has recently gotten the spotlight because players are starting to speak out.

Earlier this year, a Michigan court sentenced former USA Gymnastics (USAG) team doctor Larry Nassar on sexual assault charges. The statements from the hundreds of girls and women Nassar abused exposed the true abusive culture of USAG’s desire to win more medals. Meanwhile, a book published back in 1995 explained the abusive culture of elite gymnastics, yet the governing body did nothing until gymnasts started speaking up.

But most athletes do not speak up, according to the online survey. One anonymous respondent said, “we are taught to put our heads down and deal with it.” Many ignored negative interactions with their coaches. But that has consequences.

A study from 2008 found that emotional abuse, rather than verbal or physical, had the most negative effect on the well being of 14 elite, retired swimmers. The study defined emotional abuse as “sustained and repeated patterns of contact-free harmful interactions between an athlete and caregiver (coach) that resulted in emotional upset of the athlete.”

Quinnipiac fired Seeley for verbal and physical abuse, but the surveys also show signs of emotional abuse.

“He even told a member of the team that she was in fact nothing to this team and that she was worthless,” said one student athlete in a 2013 survey. “He told a girl … when she was ready to quit that if she goes home all she will be is a waitress and that she will have no life.”

The study also found emotional abuse was the least studied form of abuse, especially in athletics. But it’s one of the most common.

In another 2004 study, all interviewed athletes said their coach had abused them in some way. This resulted in them feeling worthless, lacking self confidence, depressed, humiliated or fearful.

The study went on to point out that these feelings lead to a “lack of belief in their own ability to perform,” which ultimately ends up making them play worse.

Also, the “only the strong survive/no pain, no gain” attitude is a myth according to Celia Brackenridge, the director of the Centre for Youth Sport and Athlete Welfare at Brunel University in West London.

“This attitude reflects institutional intolerance for maltreating athletes and overlooks the longer term harm that can result for ‘tough’ training and coaching regimes,” said Brackenridge in a 2010 keynote address at the “How Safe is Your Sport” conference.

Sara MacDonough, Quinnipiac University athletic trainer and mental health liaison said she couldn’t comment on the women’s ice hockey incident. But in general she thinks communication could be a way to foster a good relationship between athletes and coaches.

“If you can talk it out and understand where people are coming from and understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, then no one abuses their power and we can keep that check and balance in place,” she said.

According to former student athlete Connery, communication wasn’t always a solution for her. While her friends would go to other staff members to “let it out and cry,” Connery said she had no one she felt like she could trust. She said Seeley gave the impression that if anyone talked it would get back to him and they would be punished.

“For me it was hard because I never let myself flush out those feelings, what I had was just bottled up,” Connery said. “It’s not good for your health and you end up numb. Communication was just non-existent for me.”

Kelly Frassinelli, the field hockey coach and senior woman administrator at Southern Connecticut State University, said every school handles the role a little differently.

At Southern, Frassinelli’s role as SWA can include sitting down with athletes and talking with them about athletic, academic or social problems. As the field hockey coach she has regular meetings with her players to check in. However, in addition to communication on the athlete’s end, coaches must have a strong moral compass, Frassinelli said.

“I guess for me with all the stuff that’s going on in the world I just, I’ve never tolerated that. I’ve never felt that you know that in a role of power … you should ever take advantage of that role,” Frassinelli said.

She continued and said it might be easy to get lost in a moment, but that coaches have to remember there is life after sport.

“You have to stick by knowing that these are individuals you’re trying to make better people so that when they leave here, they might not be an Olympic athlete, but they’re going to be a good person,” she said.

Frassinelli recognizes that conversations between athletes and coaches will not always be pleasant, like after a game when a player has made a mistake.

“That’s where we encourage them to come talk to us,” she said. “And I know it’s hard for them sometimes but we’re going to give the honest answer whether you like the answer or not. But we’re going to try to communicate it.”

The line between being a tough coach and an abusive one is sometimes blurry, according to Frassinelli. Avoiding it totally may be impossible, but the important part is the way potentially abusive behavior is managed, she said. Coaches, athletes and administrations must build enough trust to do that.

“I think about how often is there oversight, how often are athletic directors or even associate ADs watching the interactions that are happening with their coaching staff and their student athletes just to check, just to make sure,” Frassinelli said.

Fraser, Quinnipiac’s SWA, said she believes administrator involvement is vital to understanding the cultures of the programs they oversee.

“I think the role is knowing enough about the programs you’re reading about going into the survey, so that most of what is said isn’t a surprise,” she said. “So if you’re doing your job [as an administrator] there shouldn’t be too many things there that you had no idea about because you’re close enough to the coaches, you’re close enough to the student athletes, you’re close enough to the program from just being around.”

However, Quinnipiac counselor Mary Pellitteri believes trust may be the wrong word to use when trying to avoid abusive behavior.

“Take trust and throw it right out the window,”Pellitteri said. “That’s a word that is way overused in my opinion because it’s something that has to be earned.”

Pellitteri said athletes need to not only get to know their coaches, but also get over the possible embarrassment of speaking up if they feel wronged.

“We feel like, ‘oh don’t be such a fuddy duddy’ or whatever, and that’s when it gets more and more uncomfortable,” she said. “So I think it’s more about trusting yourself to be able to stand up for things.”

However, as an athlete who has witnessed this behavior, Connery believes athletes sticking up for themselves can be a double-edged sword.

“They’re a wuss if they [admit it bothers them] and then people pull the whole ‘if you’re at a high level, if you’re a D1 athlete you need to be able to handle this,’” she said.

NCAA surveys mirror Connery’s thoughts.

In the most recent Growth, Opportunities, Aspirations and Learning of Students in college or GOALS survey, about half of female respondents said they were “very comfortable” going to their captains with team problems. The percentage increased from freshmen to seniors.

However, when asked how comfortable they were talking to coaches about team problems, a higher percentage of student athletes selected “somewhat comfortable” or “somewhat uncomfortable.”

When asked how comfortable they would be talking with administrators about problems on a team, over half were “somewhat uncomfortable” or “very uncomfortable” across all years.

It was Connery’s captain, Morgan Fritz-Ward who faced discomfort and requested a meeting with administration. She and her team decided they were not going to let any more athletes suffer from their coach’s behaviors.

And once Seeley was gone, Connery, in her senior season found her love for hockey again.

“The coaches let me be a little more like, free, the way that I am,” said Connery. “And all the love poured in again.”

While the new head ice hockey coach and assistant under Seeley, Cassandra Turner, was not someone the players felt like they could go to in their time of suffering, Connery found a way to enjoy her senior season.

“In order for you to do better you have to forgive,” Connery said. “She’s very good at communicating with people … She’s very good at understanding people’s minds. I trusted that she could do well, could teach us well, could be a good coach and everything.”

MacDonough, the Quinnipiac trainer and mental health liaison, said that it’s important for coaches to have a healthy line of communication between them and their athletes and to not let too many personal feelings get in the way.

“We have a duty to check those behaviors, check our emotions at the door. If our student athlete isn’t performing well I do think that we have to hold them accountable and say ‘hey you’re slipping, what’s going on,’” she said.

So while student athletes can sometimes feel like no one is listening, experts say there is a way of managing problems between athletes and coaches. Abuse in women’s sports can be avoided with communication, accountability, respect and self esteem.

From Connery’s point of view, “you’ve gotta really value yourself … and know what you deserve and the kind of way you should be treated … put that value up higher.”

Reporter’s note: In the interest of full disclosure, Grace Manthey is a student athlete at Quinnipiac on the Acrobatics and Tumbling team.

International Women’s Day Teach-In inspires forgotten stories and controversial ideas

Quinnipiac philosophy professor Anat Biletzki spoke at the International Women's Day Teach-In," which she helped organize. — Quinnipiac philosophy professor Anat Biletzki spoke at the International Women’s Day Teach-In,” which she helped organize.

By Grace Manthey

Snow may have postponed the International Women’s Day Teach-In by a few weeks, but that didn’t stop the speakers from embracing the “Silence Breakers” theme in the Quinnipiac Piazza on Thursday, March 29.

The goal for the event was “to elicit a discussion about those who have taken active measures and public stances to disrupt a culture of silence,” according to the organizing committee.

Linda Lindroth, a part time professor at QU, and one of the 16 speakers at the event, talked about racism and sexism in the fashion industry. She showed photos of clothing and ads that reflected racist and sexist sentiments. In one instance, Lindroth showed a photo of a t-shirt that a clothing company sold that read, “It’s not rape, it’s a snuggle with a struggle.” She showed another image of boots for sale online that make swastikas with its footprints.

Lindroth also discussed H&M, a popular clothing chain, that has $4.8 billion in unsold merchandise. Lindroth advised people to try shopping at consignment stores and nonprofits to help with waste and unfair working environments in the fashion industry.

Sixteen speakers spoke at Quinnipiac's International Women's Day Teach-In. — Sixteen speakers spoke at Quinnipiac’s International Women’s Day Teach-In.

While some topics were clearly controversial, some controversial discussions came from less controversial topics. Communications professor Ewa Callahan’s presentation about the forgotten history of Polish female journalists during the solidarity movement sparked a debate about abortion.

At the end of her presentation Callahan talked about the problems still facing women in Poland, including abortion rights. When a member of the audience tried to debate more about the issue, organizer Anat Biletzki cut it short, trying to stay on time.

But the event wasn’t all negative. Lindroth talked about how polo shirt company Lacoste, who is famous for their alligator logo, put a series of endangered animals on their shirts to help with the environmental issue.

Economics professor Linda Fisher talked about ways women can close the wage gap “regardless if there is discrimination or not.” Specifically, she talked about negotiating wages, something she said women are less likely to do than men.

Biletzki, who is a philosophy professor at Quinnipiac, seemed to be happy with the turnout and the support from Quinnipiac organizations.

The first teach-in, Biletzki said, had an audience of “maybe one,” and now with seeing how many women were at the forefront of the March For Our Lives rallies across the nation, she feels like “progress has been made.”