From pain to purpose: Hamden’s Sue Higgins is waging a war on addiction after the loss of her son

By Ryan Chichester

On May 10, 2016, the life of Hamden resident Sue Higgins changed forever. She received news that she prayed would never come, but always lingered as a harsh possibility, like a dark cloud hovering over her suburban household. No one wants to believe a family member can be lost to drug addiction, but Higgins was faced with that devastating reality when her son Jack passed away at age 23 after a long fight with heroin addiction.

Jack Higgins passed away from an accidental overdose at age 23

Jack Higgins is one of many victims of accidental overdoses as a result of drug addiction, and is part of a number that is growing at an alarming rate in Hamden and other neighboring towns. However, thanks to his determined mother, Jack will never be confined to a statistic. His memory lives on with every bit of light that is shined on his story, now told through his healing parent. Sue Higgins refuses to hide her truth, because there is no shame to that truth. There is only the possibility to help other parents avoid her tragedy, and be spared the excruciating pain she endures every day.

“Shortly after Jack passed, I was seeing a doctor to help me grieve, the same doctor who Jack used to talk to,” Higgins remembered. “The day after Jack passed, he told me to turn my pain into passion, and turn it into something positive. That really stuck with me.”

Higgins’ passion is centered around a determination to get the word out to Hamden residents about the fatal nature of addiction, and how nobody is immune to its effects, regardless of how much they try to avoid it.

“The challenge is getting people to realize that it can happen to you,” Higgins explained. “But it’s everywhere, and kids are dropping like flies.”

The numbers support Higgins’ statement. Drug overdoses claimed just one Hamden resident from January to June of 2015. It has claimed seven in that window of time in 2017, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. The rise of opioid abuse in Connecticut has led many addicts to heroin, a cheaper and more potent drug than what they can find in a prescription bottle. Heroin alone claimed 174 lives in the state of Connecticut in 2016. Based on the numbers so far this year, the projected number of deaths by year’s end is currently 516.

Despite the staggering numbers and reports, Higgins insists there is a deathly silence over Hamden, and a reluctance to spread the word. Why is such a serious and dangerous issue not being addressed more openly?

“People just think it will never happen to them,” Higgins responded.

It happened to Higgins, who faced a crossroads after burying her only son at far too young an age. She wanted no parent to have to feel that pain. So she took her doctor’s advice and decided to do something about it.

Higgins family, left to right. Jack, sister Courtney, Sue and her husband John

Higgins began leading panels and forums throughout Hamden to warn parents and family members of the dangers of addiction, taking meetings into places like Hamden Town Hall and Hamden Middle School. She has met multiple times with Hamden Mayor Curt Leng and Chief of Police Thomas Wydra to help spread the word to kids and their family members. Higgins believes awareness needs to be spread beyond just the suffering addicts.

“It’s a family disease,” Higgins said. “And it can take you down pretty quickly.”

Higgins has gotten to work quickly, picking up the pieces and putting panels together just a year after Jack’s death. Despite her painstaking efforts and honesty, many of her words are falling on deaf ears, or absent ones.

“I personally went and taped informational signs everywhere, and it was on the Facebook page for the town,” Higgins said about a panel she put together at Hamden Middle School. “I would say probably about 75 or 80 people showed up, half of whom were my friends there to support me, the other half were my partner Margerie’s friends. That’s it.”

Despite the disappointing attendance, Higgins organized another panel to speak at Hamden High School shortly after. Once again, she posted signs and sent out notices of the meeting in school progress reports and report cards. There would be a morning session to speak to the kids about the dangers of using, and an evening panel for the parents. Not one parent showed up.

“Getting the attention of other adults has proven to be very challenging,” Higgins said. “Everybody wants to read the paper and see it on the news, but how many people actually want to take the time and listen? I don’t know how else to get people’s attention. In my own experience, people say it’s a disease but don’t understand how easy it is to become addicted.”

Higgins isn’t alone in her fight to open the eyes of the public to what they are reluctant to look at. Hamden resident Maxine Wallace wrote a letter to the editor in the New Haven Register to try and spread the word about Nar-Anon, a private group designed for family members of addicts who are hurting due to the loss of a loved one or the damage caused by a using addict. Like Higgins, Wallace sees a resistance in coming to terms with the true nature of addiction.

“Nobody talks about it,” Wallace said. “It’s such a hidden secret. Nobody knows that your neighbor is going through the same crap that you’re going through. If only people would just talk about it instead of it being a stigma and thinking something is wrong with you.”

Nar-Anon is a private organization that offers help for family members affected by the destruction of addiction

Wallace uses Nar-Anon as a way to help family members achieve the same freedom she experiences in the program. Her husband and brother have both been sober for over a decade, but the freedom she experienced has been through opening up to others and acknowledging her truth. It is a relief that Higgins is able to share through accepting her situation and using it as a vessel to help others, as long as others are open to accepting it.

“I remember when Jack was alive and in school, going into Stop and Shop I wanted to wear a mustache and glasses,” Higgins remembered. “Now I don’t care. There is no stigma. I learned through this experience that every family has something in which they’re a little embarrassed, but some people don’t want to talk about it and others do.”

Higgins can relate to the hesitation for families to open up about their struggles. There has been a stigma of shame wrapped around addiction for years, and getting the conversation started is a difficult task. Higgins empathizes with the fear and embarrassment, but has broken through her own fearful restraints for the greater good.

“I am very open and honest about it,” Higgins said of her grieving journey. “It’s a disservice to Jack to lie about it.”

The strength of Higgins to use the most painful experience of her life for the benefit of others has captivated those around her, particularly those who watch her work tirelessly to do her part to end addiction in Hamden.

“She is a powerful vehicle to the message,” said Ana Gopoian, who is over two decades into sobriety herself and has spoken on two different panels with Higgins. “She lost Jack, and to keep his memory alive, you have to give it a purpose. He didn’t pass in vain.”

The duo of Higgins and Gopoian present multiple perspectives on the effects of addiction, from the pain of family members watching their loved one self-destruct to the addict themselves who can’t stop using, despite the best of intentions. Gopoian believes their struggle can help others avoid their own in the future.

“Experience is where we can change the stigma of addiction,” Gopoian said. “People with these experiences help create smarter people.”

Gopoian has joined Higgins on panels around Hamden, including their appearance at Hopkins school, while Higgins has joined Gopoian on her own program, “The Paraphernalia Project.” The movement is Gopoian’s effort to alert parents and family members of signs to look out for that may tip them off to drug use by their kids.

“The project is meant for adults, teachers and officers,” Gopoian explained. “When parents are knowledgeable of red flags, they can intervene.”

Higgins was eager to jump on board with Gopoian’s project, and echoes her statement on the importance of family knowledge.

“Parents need to be aware of the signs and red flags,” Higgins added. “They need to know what tiny pupils are, and things that are so obvious but you don’t want to see them.”

Hamden, Connecticut and cities throughout the United States are in the midst of a deadly epidemic when it comes to heroin and opioids, and concerned citizens like Higgins are fighting hard to make others aware of the warning signs of drug use before it’s too late. An added danger with heroin use has been the recent introduction of fentanyl, a powerful opioid that is normally used in a patch to apply to the body to manage pain. However, heroin is now being laced with fentanyl for added potency, and leading to deadly results.

According to the Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner, there was one overdose death in Connecticut in 2012 in which heroin and fentanyl was in the victim’s system. Given the current pace of related deaths this year, 2017 is projected to end with 354 deaths within Connecticut as a result of this lethal mixture.

Many parents who have lost children to overdoses due to laced heroin have been calling for heavier sentences for the dealers who distribute those drugs. Higgins wasn’t pleased with the outcome of the case that involved the loss of her son, but other factors interfered with Jack’s dealer getting a harsher sentence.

“The kid who sold the drugs to my son got 18 months in jail,” Higgins says. “Is that enough? No, but in this case my son had other drugs in his system and it couldn’t be proven which one killed him.”

It was reported that Jack Higgins had heroin, cocaine and Xanax (or alprazolam) in his system on the day of his untimely death. It’s hard to prove the other drugs were mixed in with whatever heroin he purchased, so his dealer was sentenced to a time in jail that seemed to be more of a slap in the wrist than a punishment fitting of the crime, according to Higgins.

“I feel like whoever is dealing drugs needs to have maybe a mandatory sentence,” Higgins said. “It’s too light. There was just something in the paper yesterday about a couple dealers in Hamden who were out on a $10,000 and $20,000 bond. Any drug dealer worth their weight in salt is going to have that much money under their bed.”

Helping Higgins through the court proceedings after Jack’s death was Ines Cenatiempo, victim-witness coordinator for the Connecticut Department of Justice. Cenatiempo has worked with countless families looking for justice in the past, but the Higgins family had a lasting impact on her.

“Ms. Higgins and her husband were wonderful to work with,” Cenatiempo said. “I wish I did not have to meet them under such tragic circumstances, but despite the loss of their son, they were both passionate about being involved in outreach and awareness concerning the opioid crisis. I admire them for the courage it takes to keep going, and to speak out about this epidemic.”

Cenatiempo runs panels of her own which seek to shine a light on the horrors that addiction wreaks on families, and has hosted one in Hamden. She asked Higgins to speak for her group, but it came at a time that Higgins was not ready to speak about her tragedy in public. Cenatiempo hosts such panels not just because it is part of her job description, but she also is a primary witness to the alarming trend that is happening around her.

“I have worked on almost every overdose case our office has prosecuted, which is over 100 cases,” Cenatiempo said. “The past two years have seen a dramatic increase in these types of cases.”

As the fatalities continue to rise, the battle in Hamden rages on for Higgins. Despite a lack of attendance at her previous panels, she still continues to hold these types of meetings . As she struggles to find a niche that will attract parents to learn about this fatal issue, she continues to work to give herself a sense of helpful purpose.

“I just don’t want it to be my identity,” Higgins says. “I don’t want to be seen as that woman who lost her son. I want to be the woman that lost her son and is fighting really hard to raise awareness and wake people up.”

Painting of Jack Higgins, which is displayed in the Higgins household to keep his memory alive

Jack’s memory is everywhere in the Higgins household. His friends still come to visit regularly and check on the family. His pictures are littered about the house, bringing a warm smile to Higgins’ face every time she walks by. She remembers the good times with her son, but is also reminded of his painful truth. She stumbled across 10 bags of heroin while retrieving something from Jack’s room just weeks ago, now almost a year and a half since his passing. The reminders are not a reason to be ashamed. For Higgins, it is a reason to emerge from the shadows of addiction and spread the word so it doesn’t have to devastate another Hamden family.

The untold reality: trials and tribulations of QU’s international students

By Beverly Wakiaga

Parking and shuttles. These are some of the things that unite Quinnipiac students. Even international students. Yes, even parking. You would think that someone who traveled thousands of miles from home would not be as concerned with where they can park their car as a freshman. Most don’t because they are focused on one thing, the American experience.

America is the end all be all for those who live outside the country. If you can make it here, you have made it in life. Many want to go but very few actually make it here. Due to the political, economic, military and cultural clout America wields over the rest of the world, most of the narrative surrounding the country revolves around the American dream and American heroism. On top of that, American pop culture is more or less world culture. Movies like “Pitch Perfect,” TV shows such as “How I Met Your Mother” and “Friends,” inform the opinion of many people in other countries on what American life is like.

“You know how in shows like ‘Friends’ or ‘How I Met Your Mother,’ they live in an apartment that’s really pretty?” asked Nhung An, a Quinnipiac junior from Vietnam. “I wanted those things, and I liked that people looked different and not the same, like in Vietnam.”

There are 1,043,839 international students enrolled in American schools. Here at Quinnipiac, international students make up 3 percent of the Quinnipiac student body. According to Abbie O’Neil, specialist for student engagement, there are between 200-250 international students at Quinnipiac during any given semester.

Student population at Quinnipiac
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There are different types of international students. There are those who are studying abroad for a semester, those who are new to studying in the US, and those who went to high school in America and are now in university. Before they arrived, some of their biggest fears had to do with making friends, finding food they liked, not fitting in, gun laws, being able to communicate and actually getting into the country.

“My biggest fear was a new environment,” explained Jiseok Hyun, a senior from South Korea. Hyun first came to America with his mother in 2008.

“I’m just restarting my life here. I didn’t have anything when my mum and I came here,” he said, “we only came with a backpack… I was just afraid of whatever was going to be in front of me.”

Once they get here, international students face a different reality. There is an even stronger language barrier than what some expected. There is culture shock to food, social cues and everyday things that they never dealt with in their country. On top of that, if they are a person of color, they face the added pressure of racial stereotypes, ignorance and microaggressions that are never really talked about outside of the context of slavery, the Civil Rights Movement and social media. If most American students don’t know the scope of under-representation and discrimination that students of color have historically faced, many international students are even more unaware of the history of America.

On February 2017, the Hechinger Report published, ‘Explaining America’s segregated history to international students and staying the course,’ by Daniel Gifford, a term assistant professor at George Mason University. In the article, he mentions “college students who have been brought up in the American education system at least have a baseline understanding of segregation and the myth of ‘separate but equal’ from which to begin that conversation.”

“I’d have wanted to know a little bit about the social life here and the culture,” explained Warren Webb, a computer information systems major from Jamaica. “I didn’t really take that too much into consideration because I was thinking, ‘I’m just going to school.’”

On top of learning new cultural cues and historical contexts, international students are susceptible to discrimination. In a 2005 study that examined the international student experience of racism and discrimination, Jenny Lee, a professor of educational policy studies and practice at the University of Arizona, established a new term for the discrimination international students face: neo-racism. The term refers to a form of racism that justifies discrimination on the basis of cultural difference or national origin rather than by physical characteristics alone and appeals to “natural” tendencies to preserve group cultural identity.

“Almost everything is racial. Even when it’s not, it kind of is,” said Priceless Wilkie. “I’m used to the first thing people seeing about me is that I’m either female or my first identity being Nigerian. When I came to America, that wasn’t it. As soon as you leave the airport, the first identity suddenly becomes black, and it affects the way people relate to you.”

Wilkie is a senior diagnostic imaging major, she lives both in the UK and Nigeria. According to her, she had probably faced microaggressions and racism before but not as overtly as in America. One incident that stands out in her mind was the summer before her junior year at Quinnipiac when she was taking extra courses. She was living with a girl who said she spoke ‘good English’ for an African when they first met. She would also leave the room or make faces when Wilkie was cooking. At first, Wilkie thought she was simply imagining a bias toward her or a problem but it all came to a head when she made the typical college student meal: pasta and sauce.

Before and after she cooks, Wilkie likes to clean the stove. She distinctly remembers cleaning the stove on that day. Her roommate came back and asked her to clean the stove because there was “red stuff” on it and Wilkie was the only one who ate “red stuff.” The “red stuff” was the result of a mess a different roommate had made. Since they were allegedly clearing the air, the girl mentioned to Wilkie that she did not like the smell of cut-up onions in the pantry. Wilkie tried to explain to her that she had grown up putting onions in the pantry. She responded with, “I know you’re not from here, but around here, in America, we put our onions in the fridge.”

“I remember going to my room and actually having a panic attack because this was the first time that someone had been so visibly racist to me,” Wilkie said.

It is likely that many international students have faced similar problems but simply don’t know where or who to go to after such incidents. Schools offer international student orientation, but it is jam-packed into two days and they touch on everything from visa information to getting accustomed to life on campus. Even Helen Dong, a sophomore from China who went to high school in America, has faced moments of discrimination, but she points out that she would know where to go while other international students may not know or want to go and report and or talk about the incident. The Department of Cultural and Global Engagement tries to let as many students as possible know that they are a resource for them, but there are always some that fall through the cracks. It has various programs and ways of reaching out to international students to let them know they are not alone during times of difficulty.

“We try and reach out when natural disasters happen to students to let them know that if they need something [we’re here],” O’Neill explained, “We catch a few that way – by reaching out at certain times of the year – and we get students that come in that are experiencing one thing or another. But, I try and catch it if the student doesn’t come to us.”

But, is it enough?

International students are on the fence about it. Some feel as though they are doing as much as they can while others feel the department and the school can do more and do better. The complaints against Quinnipiac range from simply not putting enough effort on programs such as Global Living to not doing enough to prepare international students for the outside world. As graduation draws near for students like Wilkie, she feels that the school can provide more information sessions and advice for students who want to work in the US by putting them in touch with companies that are willing to sponsor visas. This issue was one that came up during the recent campus climate survey Quinnpiac students took during the 2016-2017 academic year.

“I know the people in DCGE try to, they really try,” An said. “The rest of the school, though, is not really trying. For me, a lot of my friends have left the school and they were all international students. They come here, but they don’t want to stay so I think [the school] can do something about that.”

Following the results of the racial climate study, Provost Mark Thompson sat down with a portion of international students to find out their thoughts and what they would like from him. Most of their requests were similar to those of domestic students but catered to the needs of international students. For instance, if an international student went to high school here and got a car during their time, they would either have to sell the car or find a parking garage and pay exorbitant fees to keep the car there for their freshman year. Students would also like an option similar to the shuttles that transport students home for Thanksgiving. When an international student is preparing for their arrival and does not have transportation to the school, they are offered a shuttle ride from JFK in New York to Quinnipiac. Some international students would like that as an option for the rest of their time here and not only for when they first arrive here.

“They sell you dreams to come here. They make it seem like it’s this huge community of international students like it’s an established community, and then you get here and as soon as orientation is done…that’s it,” said Wilkie.

Like other minority groups on campus, international students would like to see themselves represented in the faculty and material taught in their classes. International students not only add to the diversity on campus, but also contribute significantly to the economics of the school: In the 2015-2016 academic year, international students contributed $10.9 million to Quinnipiac. This effect is not only evident in the school but also in the state and the nation as a whole. A NAFSA: Association of International Educators study found that in 2015-2016 international students contributed $32.8 billion and 400,000 jobs to the US economy. In Connecticut, there were 13,564 international students and they contributed $518.3 million.

For a number of international students, their concern is not how much they contribute in terms of diversity and economy. It’s about the recent election of President Trump and the changes he will bring to visa requirements for international students.

It’s not easy getting a visa to come to America and even when you do get the visa, there is the fear that you can easily get kicked out or be denied entry. When Nhung An first came to America as a 16-year-old, her biggest fear was whether she would be let into the country. Even for those who are already here and are getting ready to graduate, they must think of whether they will be able to find a company that is willing to sponsor their stay in America once they are out of school.

“[The current political climate] is not really friendly to international students because of the H1B stuff,” explained Xinyu Xu, a senior from China. “I remember when I went to the career fair… the first rejection they gave me is they don’t sponsor for H1B.”

Some issues are far beyond the scope of Quinnipiac and the Department of Cultural and Global Engagement. For instance, the recent visa bans the Trump administration has been trying to put into effect and this past October both the United States and Turkey mutually decided to suspend visa services between the two countries. There is only so much that the school can do and for now, they will be focusing their efforts on dealing with parking, housing for all students and the issues brought up during the campus climate survey.

“They sell you dreams of equality and when you get here…there’s no equality. They sell you dreams that everyone who gets here makes it,” Wilkie said, before laughing and adding, “When you get here you realize not everyone who gets here makes it. They sell you this thing that all figures are equal, that as long as you put in the work, you’re going to get it. That’s not true.”

Title IX’s effects on sports in southern Connecticut 45 years later

By Conor Roche

Quinnipiac volleyball player Jamie Termotto is one of nearly 200,000 female collegiate student-athletes in the country today.

Termotto’s athletic career would not have been possible had she been born in the 1960s or earlier. In the 1971-72 academic year, roughly 30,000 women competed in intercollegiate athletics. Title IX changed that even though the federal legislation that created it doesn’t even mention sports.

Title IX was created to ensure that any institution that receives financial assistance from the federal government must give opportunities to all sexes. And, as the last 45 years have gone by, more and more girls have participated in high school sports, like Termotto.

When Title IX was implemented in 1972, it had nothing to do with sports. But, luckily for Termotto, there has been a correlation between the two, and she is thankful for that.

“Sports has been a huge part of my life since I was little and just having the opportunity to participate equally has been really important, too,” Termotto said. “…My grandma works for a university at home, and I started watching volleyball when I was five-years-old. She would take me to the games and just seeing strong women go out there and perform inspired me to do the same. And I have a bunch of strong women in my life that have enforced it and told me to do whatever I wanted.”

The 2016-17 academic year showed the largest one-year increase in girls participation in 16 years as 75,971 more girls participated in sports than the year prior, according to the annual high school sports participation survey conducted by the State High School Associations.

This year’s survey also showed a 1,056 percent increase in girls participation from the 1971-1972 academic year, the last academic year before Title IX became law. In that year, there were 294,015 girls participated in sports. This past academic year had 3.4 million girls participated in sports.

NFHS Executive Director Bob Gardner knows the importance that Title IX played in this increase.

“As we celebrate the 45th anniversary of Title IX this year, this report on girls participation numbers underscores the significance of that important decision in 1972,” Gardner said in a press release. “It is great to see an ever-increasing number of girls taking advantage of that opportunity to compete in high school sports.”

In that final year before Title IX, girls consisted of 7.4 percent of high school athletes. In 2016-17, they made up 42.7 percent of high school athletes.

Phillip Cunningham, who is a professor at Quinnipiac University and is the co-director of the school’s sports studies minor, says that Title IX and girls’ growing interest in sports both played a significant role in the increase in number of female high school athletes.

“I think the stigma about women and girls playing sports has largely gone away,” Cunningham said. “I know far more female athletes than ever before. I think about people I grew up with and how stigmatized it was for them to play sports. Now 20, 30 years later their children play sports with no qualms whatsoever.”

Number of girls playing high school sports
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https://infogram.com/number-of-girls-playing-high-school-sports-1gq3plndvw06m1g

In Connecticut, where 50,350 girls played sports in 2016-17, girls made up 45.5 percent of high school athletes.

The most popular girls’ sport in Connecticut is soccer. Brian Matthews, whose daughter plays soccer for Cheshire High School, said that the United States women’s soccer team is a reason why girls get into the game.

Cheshire is a suburban, middle class town in southern Connecticut with a population of nearly 30,000. Some 89 percent of the population is white.

“You go to [the United States women’s soccer] games and it’s all young people,” Matthews said. “It’s all young people. It’s all girls that are looking up to these women. They’re huge role models, for sure. You go to a men’s game and yeah there’s some kids there and stuff, but it’s not the same atmosphere. And I think [women’s players] know it. If you watch any interviews with them, they know that they’re role models for girls that are getting into soccer.

percentages
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At Hamden High School, there are actually more girls programs than boys programs. Hamden offers 13 teams for girls and only 11 teams for boys even though 52 percent of the student body is made up of boys.

Hamden is a town west of Cheshire, but is more urban with minorities making up roughly 32 percent of its 60,000 population.

Hamden High School Athletic Director Tom Dyer, who is in his fifth year in the position, has seen the nationwide trend come into effect in his athletics programs too.

“You see spikes generally in certain sports like girl’s lacrosse where the numbers are starting to go up,” Dyer said. “Certain sports like softball the numbers are going down. That’s not just at Hamden High, that’s across the state. Maybe in the northeast that is happening a lot. Every sport goes through its ebb and flows. You have a decreased number of kids coming out for football…We have a bunch of kids going out for track.”

Even though Dyer says that the school does its best to make sure it’s balanced, the handbook for Hamden athletics doesn’t have any mentions of Title IX.

“I…I took some of the handbook actually from other handbooks,” Dyer said. “I haven’t seen any handbooks that mention title IX. It’s no disregard to the law. It’s something I’m firmly aware of and firmly support. We just…it’s covers some already. To list everything, it could be 150 pages that book.”

But, if anyone does have any Title IX issues with Hamden athletics, Dyer wants to know about them.

“We don’t list Title IX, but if there’s issues or concerns they could most certainly come talk to me,” Dyer said. “Any parent or student-athlete could talk at any time.”

Adrian Wood is the State Title IX Coordinator for Connecticut. As the state’s Title IX coordinator, Wood assists those in local districts with the investigation of Title IX complaints and how to handle Title IX complaints. He said he doesn’t believe that it’s easy to tell if there’s a Title IX issue when it comes to sports. He also recommends that if you do have a Title IX complaint, file it to your district’s coordinator.

“There’s a variety of different things when you’re looking at sports,” Wood said. “You could be looking to determine whether or not there’s gender equity in regards to the sport offerings. For example, are you offering the same number of sports for males that you are females. You also have to look at it from the standpoint of facilities and make sure that the facilities are equitable.”

The calculation of compliance is more complicated than it seems, according to Wood.

“You have to look at all of the sport offerings to make a determination if that are an equal amount of sport offering for those individuals or those not an equal amount of sport offerings,” Wood said. “You have to look at the aggregate of the sport offerings to determine whether or not there’s some disproportionality to the types of offerings.”

Dyer is also the head coach of the varsity football team at Hamden High and that may lead to questions as to whether the team receives special treatment. But he wants to let everyone in the athletics department know he’s not giving preferential treatment, as his football team was the last team in the department to get new uniforms.

“The biggest thing is having transparency with your coaches, your student athletes and things like that and making sure that everyone has what they need,” Dyer said. “That’s the thing, if I’m sitting there as a football coach and bought everything for my football team but the girls soccer team didn’t have everything thing they needed, that’d be an issue. And we work very hard at making sure our coaches and student athletes get what they request and what they need to be successful.”

Quinnipiac University has had a troubled history with Title IX.

The Quinnipiac volleyball team was at the center of a Title IX lawsuit when the school announced it would cut the program in 2009

In 2009, the university cut its women’s volleyball team, along with the men’s golf team and the men’s indoor and outdoor track teams amid the financial downturn. The volleyball team’s head coach, Robin Sparks, and several players filed a Title IX lawsuit against the school, claiming that the school had failed to have an equal number of sports teams in proportion to the number of females on campus. The American Civil Liberties Union supported the lawsuit. The suit also asserted that the school had failed to provide equal scholarships, facilities and equipment among other elements to its female teams in relation to its male teams.

“Title IX protects a student’s university activities including athletics, academic, campus and residential life programs and all aspects of employment,” Terri Johnson, Quinnipiac’s Title IX coordinator, said in an email interview. “In athletics, this includes equitable allocation of athletic participation opportunities, scholarships and benefits.”

Johnson also listed what Title IX requires schools to provide in terms of equitable benefits to male and female athletes. This list includes equipment (supplies and uniforms), scheduling of games and practice times, transportation and travel, access to coaching and tutoring and assignment and compensation of coaches.

The list also includes equitable medical and training services, publicity and sports information, recruiting costs and support services.

After hearing testimony in the case, U.S. District Court Judge Stefan Underhill ruled Quinnipiac violated Title IX because it sought to use competitive cheer as an instrument to move roster numbers in line with the university’s student body gender ratio.

Quinnipiac has roughly twice as many female students than male students, meaning that there must be twice as many women’s programs than men’s programs in the athletic department.

After four years of legal battles, the sides reached a settlement approved by the judge in April 2013 called the Consent Decree. The details of the settlement included an increased amount of scholarships for six women’s teams, additional coaches for women’s cross country and track and field and increased salaries for coaches of women’s teams that are no less than the median salaries of the coaches of the same sport in its conference.

The lawsuit also called for $5 million in upgrades for facilities used by the school’s women’s teams. It also required that the school provide a superior practice and competition facility dedicated to the field hockey team, which opened in August 2017. Prior to the construction of the stadium, the field hockey team shared a field with the men’s and women’s lacrosse teams. The university constructed a second stadium next to the field hockey facility to host men’s and women’s soccer and men’s and women’s lacrosse teams. A second stadium was also built simultaneously next to the field hockey stadium for the men’s and women’s soccer teams and the men’s and women’s lacrosse teams.

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The settlement also states that the school must build an indoor track and field facility for practice and competition events that meets the NCAA’s standards for hosting indoor meets. As of October 2017, plans for the field house have yet to be approved.

The resolution of the lawsuit saved the women’s volleyball team, which continued to play after the coach at the time filed the lawsuit.

The school’s athletic department declined to comment on the story, but released the Consent Decree and Class Notice documents, which are public records.

The Quinnipiac student population has roughly twice as many women than men, meaning that the school must have twice as many women’s teams than men’s teams. And it does, as there are 14 women’s programs and seven men’s programs.

Cunningham believes that this case shows how some schools may value men’s programs more than women’s programs.

Men’s and women’s teams at Quinnipiac
Infogram

“I think one of the things that’s happening everywhere is that there’s still an overemphasis on the success of men’s sports,” Cunningham said. “It’s not so much a problem [at Quinnipiac] but if you look at larger universities, Title IX issues always bump up, hence first against football programs. And it forces universities to mitigate those two things.”

Quinnipiac faced some more controversy in 2016 when the school’s president, John L. Lahey, distributed a letter to the university community for congratulating the men’s ice hockey team for making it to the NCAA National Championship Game, even though the team lost. When the women’s rugby team won the national championship in November 2015, Lahey was silent.

Cunningham believes that this is an example of the school failing to promote the success of the women’s teams.

“One of the chief complaints for our women athletes that I think still remains is that we don’t communicate very well what they’re doing,” Cunningham said. “There’s still that imbalance even here. So, I think as the opportunities increase here and we provide them with facilities and the like, we still need to pay them a lot more attention. We need to broadcast their success. We have really strong teams here.”

After Charlottesville, what’s next for Quinnipiac?

A look into diversity, free speech and issues in between

By Ayah Galal

Devastating. Horrific. Shocking. These are some of the words members of the Quinnipiac community used to describe their reaction to the series of events that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia over the summer.

Hundreds of white nationalists gathered on the University of Virginia campus to protest the removal of a confederate statue on Friday, Aug. 11. They held torches and chanted slogans like “Jews will not replace us” and “blood and soil.”

“I was actually really shocked,” said Mazel Genfi, president of the Quinnipiac chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). “It was a moment of disbelief but then not surprised actually. I guess the country that we live in people actually feel comfortable to do things like that.”

By the next morning, counter protesters clashed with protesters and events took a violent turn. A white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters and killed 32-year-old Heather Heyer, who lived in Charlottesville.

The series of events drew widespread attention across the nation and sparked conversation about America’s current racial climate.

Some activists, pundits and universities responded to the incident quickly, saying more conversations about white supremacy, racism and xenophobia need to occur.

Others argued universities should prioritize safety over freedom of expression. Racist incidents have certainly marred Quinnipiac over the years. It has been nearly three months now since the events in Charlottesville. How did Quinnipiac respond? Are conversations on race still happening? Should the university be doing more to address race relations?

Quinnipiac responds

Ten days after the Charlottesville incident, Quinnipiac Vice President and Provost Dr. Mark Thompson sent a memo to the university community.

In the email sent out on Aug. 21, he wrote, “The violence, hatred, bigotry and intolerance demonstrated by white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups in Charlottesville have no place in our world and certainly have no place within our university community. Acts of violence and hatred run counter to our values as a community, and each one of us has a responsibility to ensure that these despicable types of behavior do not occur here.”

He added that students will have the opportunity to participate in social justice and inclusion-related events throughout the year to deepen their “understanding and ability to learn from one another about various aspects of the world in which we live.”

A few days later Quinnipiac President John Lahey addressed the addressed the class of 2021. Each year Lahey welcomes the incoming freshman class during “Welcome Weekend” right before the semester starts. While President Lahey tends to avoid politics during his speeches and statements, this time it was different. He was quick to condemn the hatred and bigotry that was present in Charlottesville.

*President Lahey discusses Charlottesville during an interview with Q30 Television*

“I must say in light of recent events in Charlottesville it saddens me that in 2017 we still have to publicly and unequivocally condemn and state so clearly how unacceptable the views of white supremacists, Ku Klux Klan, neo-nazis [are]. Those views are simply not welcome here on the Quinnipiac campus,” President Lahey said to the freshman class. “Any behavior associated with any of these despicable kinds of beliefs and activities will not be tolerated on this campus.”

While President Lahey doesn’t consider what he said to be political, many were taken back by how direct and passionate his response was. In an interview with Q30 Television in September, President Lahey said he was “a little surprised by the reaction.” He thinks it’s because of the extent to which he discussed the incident and believes his address was “well-received.”

As students and faculty began settling in for the new semester, the Quinnipiac Center for Religion held an event titled “A Conversation on Charlottesville” on Sept. 5. The event was intended be an open forum for members of the Quinnipiac community to discuss their feelings and reactions to Charlottesville.

The incident especially hit home for Executive Director of University Religious Life Father Jordan Lenaghan. Lenaghan was a former Catholic chaplain at the University of Virginia.

“When I saw images, when I saw media coverage, when I saw news reports, when I saw photographs of places where I hung out with students, where I had worked, it hit me on a very visceral level,” Lenaghan, who helped organize the event said. “I have a job that involves words and I didn’t have words for what I saw.”

Breaking down President Trump’s response

During difficult times, presidents of the United States traditionally try to unite the nation. But at a moment where many Americans already felt divided, President Trump’s words did little to bring together the nation.

At a press conference in Trump Tower shortly after the incident, President Trump said, “I think there is blame on both sides.” Many at Quinnipiac were frustrated that he compared the violence perpetuated by white supremacists with the violence committed by counter protesters.

“I honestly believe President Trump is an absolute idiot,” Genfi said. “For him to say that says a lot about who he is and what he represents – which is basically white supremacy whether he likes it or not.”

But others at Quinnipiac did not consider his response problematic.

“He should have prefaced what he said by saying white supremacists have no place in this country,” Jeremy Wiss, President of the Quinnipiac College Republicans said. “But at the same time, both sides displayed some sort of hatred and violence; both sides showed the bad side of humanity.”

Wiss is Jewish and said the incident hit home because his great-grandparents fled persecution in Germany and Poland. While he says the situation was upsetting, Wiss believes Confederate statues should stay up so that history is not erased.

*Jeremy Wiss, President of Quinnipiac College Republicans*

“I can see why they continue to perpetuate issues because it is a big deal,” Wiss said.

Is hate speech free speech?

The national conversation surrounding freedom of speech intensified after white nationalists chanted slogans like “white lives matter” and “you will not replace us,” at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.

But is hate speech actually protected under the First Amendment? The answer is yes.

“A lot of people think that hate speech is given no First Amendment protection,” Kearston Wesner, assistant professor of media studies said.

*Kearston Wesner teaching a Communications Law and Policy course*

Political speech especially enjoys careful protection under the First Amendment. Hate speech is difficult to define and banning speech because some view it as hate speech would be unconstitutional.

“If we start going around banning speech we dislike, usually what happens is the law that we build … tends to be applied in a broader sense against the people we were initially hoping to protect,” Wesner, who teaches Communications Law and Policy, said.

There is an exception, however. If hate speech contains incitement – an imminent threat of violence – that speech is not protected by the First Amendment.

Additionally, private universities can restrict speech. For example, Quinnipiac could choose to not allow controversial speakers like Milo Yiannopoulos or Richard Spencer on campus.

“Private universities can build their own rules and they can restrict speech how they want to,” Wesner added.

While the chances of extremely controversial speakers coming to Quinnipiac are not high, Wesner said, “It gets a lot greyer how much the university could get in and restrict that [speech] because it has a lot to do with whether it’s a university sponsored organization or an independent organization.”

When asked how Quinnipiac would respond if a student organization on campus wanted to bring a controversial speaker like Richard Spencer or Milo Yiannopoulos to speak, administration did not answer.

Confronting hate

Even before the Charlottesville incident in August, students and faculty have often discussed concerns related to race and diversity at Quinnipiac.

*A racially insensitive Snapchat taken by a former Quinnipiac student*

In September 2016, a Quinnipiac student posted a racially insensitive photograph and caption mocking the Black Lives Matter movement to Snapchat. The photograph went viral and sparked outrage not just at Quinnipiac, but in other parts of the country as well after large outlets like the New York Daily News picked up the story.

Other incidents such as swastika graffiti, caricatures of of people’s racial identity and use of derogatory terms have plagued Quinnipiac. Student Affairs takes these incidents seriously and has an established a “Bias, Harassment and Discrimination Policy” in the Quinnipiac Undergraduate Student Handbook.

“I would say the majority of the incidents hands down are in the first-year areas without a doubt,” Megan Buda, Director of Student Conduct said. “Traditionally if a student is found responsible for a violation of our bias-related policy there’s some form of removal, whether that’s from housing or separation from the institution.”

*The Bias, Harassment and Discrimination Policy in the Undergraduate Student Handbook*

The most common type of bias-related incident at Quinnipiac is offensive graffiti, Buda added. While displaying a Confederate flag is not a policy violation, Student Affairs understands that such a display could offend some people on campus, and tries to have constructive conversations with students who choose to do so.

Hate crimes are defined differently from bias-related incidents and the standard for a hate crime is higher since it’s defined criminally.

*Screenshot of the Quinnipiac Annual Security report*

According to Quinnipiac’s Annual Security Report, there were two hate crimes in 2016, three hate crimes in 2015 and four hate crimes in 2014. The report does not specify the nature of the incidents.

In June 2017, the Connecticut state legislature passed one of the strongest hate-crime bills in the nation. Punishment for hate crimes in the state once was a misdemeanor but the new law treats hate crimes as a felony.

While the Ku Klux Klan has had a presence within the state of Connecticut, the threat of its extreme beliefs is not high, according to Andy Friedland, Assistant Regional Director for the Connecticut Anti-Defamation League.

“Often these days we’ll see an individual print-off flyers from the KKK website, leading people to think there is an active branch of the Klan in their town, which is not true in the state of Connecticut today,” Friedland said.

What is Quinnipiac doing to address race relations on campus?

Especially after the Snapchat incident at Quinnipiac, departments ranging from Student Affairs to Cultural and Global Engagement have been organizing discussions, lectures and even Netflix series screenings to address topics related to race and diversity.

Quinnipiac Chief Diversity Officer Diane Ariza says that race-related incidents like Charlottesville have stirred up a lot of conversation.

“I think that’s healthy because it’s making us not too comfortable of where we’re at in the world,” Ariza said.

In September 2013 the Inclusion, Multiculturalism, and Globalism in Education (IMaGinE) strategic plan was created to help Quinnipiac become “a more inclusive, multicultural and diverse campus community.”

*Some IMaGinE events planned for the Fall semester*

Ariza, along with the help of the IMaGinE Advisory Board, organizes events that foster discussion of diversity in the Quinnipiac community. Events include “A Place at the Table” and “Circle of Perspectives” discussions.

A Place at the Table is a dialogue series that seeks to recreate an after-dinner atmosphere to encourage informal conversations about issues related to social justice and current events. Circle of Perspectives is a series of nonpartisan group discussions involving critical thinking about diversity and social inequalities.

“I think educating is what we’ve decided our department has decided to do with the social issues,” Ariza said.

Student Affairs is also taking a similar approach. Megan Buda and Mark DeVilbiss, co-chairs of the Student Affairs Diversity and Inclusion Committee, say the committee is dedicated to celebrating diversity and facilitating conversations on race and inclusion. The committee has representation from the Department of Cultural and Global Engagement, Residential Life, Counseling Services, Student Government Association Religious Life and Community Service.

The Diversity and Inclusion Committee started hosting screenings of episodes from the Netflix series “Dear White People,” followed by a discussion.

*Dates Student Affairs is screening episodes of “Dear White People”*

“It fueled a very thorough discussion of everything, from what it means to be white to what it means to be a person of color on a white campus,” Buda said.

The committee plans to show more episodes of the series during the semester in hopes of facilitating more conversations.

“We want to be able to help people understand and know how to talk about issues of inclusion and diversity, whether that’s religious or racial or ethnic,” Director of Residential Life Mark DeVilbiss said. “I’m proud to be part of the efforts that are happening campus-wide whether it’s in the classroom or something DCGE is doing, or any group on campus.”

Dr. Thompson also announced plans for establishing a new curriculum with more diversity-related courses. Two intercultural responsibility and citizenship courses will be mandatory for future students.

*Opening ceremony of the multicultural suite in the Carl Hansen Student Center*

Last semester, the Multicultural Suite – a space for culture and identity based organizations – opened in the Carl Hansen Student Center.

Quinnipiac is also hosting a one-day conference on social justice and civic engagement titled “Creating Space: Solidarity, Dialogue, Social Justice, Opportunity.” Director of Community Service Vincent Contrucci says the purpose of the conference is to provide students from across New England with a space for dialogue surrounding social justice related issues.

Additionally, 21 percent of the current freshman class identify as students of color, which makes the first-year class the most diverse in Quinnipiac history.

What still needs to be done

Last semester, the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost and the Department of Cultural and Global Engagement engaged MRW Consulting Group International LLC to help with an assessment of Quinnipiac’s campus climate and help the university identify ways to improve the attitudes, standards and behaviors of the university community.

*A representative from MRW Consulting Group discusses findings from the campus climate study during a university town hall.*

MRW held focus groups with 134 students over the course of the Spring 2017 semester. The firm interviewed 15 affinity groups including the Quinnipiac NAACP, Latino Cultural Society, Gender Sexuality Alliance and Greek Life. The consulting firm compiled a 51-page report and found areas where Quinnipiac can improve its campus climate, as well as suggestions on how to do so.

Thompson organized a town hall-style event in the Mount Carmel Auditorium on Oct. 3 during which MRW Consulting Group shared the findings from the campus climate study, suggested courses of action and answered questions from the audience.

The report acknowledged the progress the university has been making, but also pointed out areas where there could be more improvement.

The study found that many students felt that more could be done to recruit higher numbers of faculty, staff and students of color. The study also found that it would be helpful to train faculty members to be more comfortable having difficult conversations they may need to have with students.

Many minorities in the focus groups described how uncomfortable they are when asked to represent an entire group in classes. The study also found that Quinnipiac can improve the campus climate by increasing the number of minority Greek organizations on campus.

The firm also suggested that Quinnipiac should “leverage campus commitment by getting everyone involved in solutions.” Many students from the focus groups also emphasized the need to integrate diversity, inclusion and multiculturalism into the core curriculum.

Quinnipiac administrators recognize lots of work needs to be done and they plan to continue to facilitating conversations on diversity and race in an effort to make Quinnipiac more inclusive.

But some students think more can be done to address race relations on campus and make minorities feel more comfortable at Quinnipiac.

“In my honest opinion, I do see that they’re trying, but not trying hard enough,” said Genfi, the QU NAACP president. “I feel like if they were trying hard enough, certain things wouldn’t have happened.”

She believes the university is taking the right steps, but that Quinnipiac should be more proactive. Genfi also thinks that students at Quinnipiac are becoming more comfortable discussing race than they were four years ago.

“People are more open to being educated and stepping out of that Quinnipiac bubble, whereas four years ago that would have never had happened,” Genfi added.

Ready… or not?

A look into Connecticut’s hurricane preparedness

By Jenelle Cadigan

The 2017 Atlantic hurricane season has already proven to be extremely active and extremely dangerous. So far this year there have been 15 storms, 10 hurricanes and six major hurricanes (category 3 or stronger). These weather systems have resulted in more than 400 deaths, and more than $188 billion in damages. Connecticut has been spared the worst, but there is still a month to go in the season.

Connecticut's coastline (photo via Google Earth) — *Connecticut’s coastline (photo via Google Earth)*

On October 29, 2012, Hurricane Sandy tested the limits of Connecticut’s emergency preparedness programs. According to the National Weather Service, Sandy was a “worse-case scenario for storm surge for coastal regions.” By the time Sandy got to New Jersey, it was downgraded to a post-tropical cyclone, but the storm surge hit Connecticut right at high tide, causing massive amounts of flooding.

The Tropical Cyclone Report created by the National Hurricane Center reports that there was storm surge over nine feet in New Haven, resulting in floodwaters as high as six feet above ground level. Approximately 3,000 homes were damaged, and the state sustained more than $300 million in damages.

Five years later, is the state of Connecticut ready for another hurricane… or not?

Rick Fontana, Deputy Director of Emergency Operations - New Haven — *Rick Fontana, Deputy Director of Emergency Operations – New Haven*

“Our biggest fear in the city of New Haven is a hurricane,” says Rick Fontana, Deputy Director of Emergency Operations in New Haven. “It’s number one. It really is. We’re on the coast, and I think we’re pretty resilient, but when storm surge hits … that becomes a very significant issue.”

In the event of a hurricane, Fontana would work to develop strategies that will lessen the impact of a storm, plan and prepare for different types of storms, and help with the response to and recovery from a storm.

Fontana also serves as one of five regional coordinators in the state for emergency management. His job there is to communicate with the 30 towns in Connecticut’s Region 2 throughout an emergency, and relay information up to the state coordinators.

Quinnipiac’s Plan for Emergencies

Quinnipiac University, located in Hamden, Connecticut, falls under Region 2. Edgar Rodriguez is the chief of Public Safety and is also co-captain of the emergency management team at Quinnipiac. The team is made up of about a dozen members from various university departments, including public safety, facilities, health services, and academics. Rodriguez says the team has extensive plans when it comes to storms.

“We’ve come up with an emergency evacuation plan and we talk about if there’s a hurricane or a storm coming, what are we doing, how are we preparing for it,” Rodriguez says, adding that although the plans haven’t been approved by the state, they are still important to have.

When a storm comes, those plans get put into action.

The team begins a 24-hour-to-landfall. Members track the storm, gather information from the state and submit that information to Quinnipiac President John Lahey and Provost Mark Thompson, who ultimately decide whether students should stay at school or be sent home.

Once that decision is made, the emergency management team starts prepping all departments for landfall. Quinnipiac’s emergency management team only goes through the regional coordinators for assistance if it’s a minor, isolated emergency – such as power outages on one specific campus. In the case of an event as major as a hurricane, the protocol is to bypass the region and work directly with the state.

“The rule of thumb is every town or city should be able to sustain themselves for 72 hours,” Rodriguez says, explaining that Quinnipiac acts as its own sort of town for those 72 hours after landfall, with the emergency management team in charge. “Then after that, you start getting assistance from the state. But the entire time that’s happening, you’re communicating back and forth with the state.”

All the information goes up to the state emergency operations center in Hartford, is organized and then is sent out to the public.

“Every hour [the state is] sending us an update on the storm and we take that update and send it to everybody,” says Rodriguez. He feels that this system of organizing the information is a good way to keep consistency and keep everybody on the same page at a time when there could be a lot going on at once.

A building-Block Approach

Dan McElhinney, federal preparedness coordinator and national preparedness division director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), explains that everyone takes a building-block approach for providing and receiving assistance after 72 hours.

“At some point [the town] may have to bring in mutual aid from surrounding communities,” McElhinney says. “When the mutual aid has been exhausted, they’ll ask for county level assistance, then they go to the state … then the state will declare a state of emergency. The governor then gets special powers to extend additional dollars to direct other state agencies to assist the local community. When the state no longer has the capacity, the governor will ask the president for an emergency or major disaster declaration. That’s when FEMA gets involved.”

FEMA's regions (photo via FEMA.gov) — *FEMA’s regions (photo via FEMA.gov)*

FEMA is divided into 10 regions, and McElhinney is in charge of FEMA Region 1, which includes all New England states. He says although FEMA can respond in numbers that would outweigh the state help 100-to-1, they are there to support, not to supplant.

“Basically under the Stafford Act, we pretty much have tasking authority over all the agencies and departments to assist the state in response and recovery,” McElhinney says. “We provide a lot of technical assistance, but we are not there to take over.”

Mandatory training

Not only does FEMA provide assistance in the aftermath, but it also provides training services. According to the Quinnipiac website, those who are on the emergency management team have to complete FEMA’s National Incident Management System training. This training is similar to the statewide Emergency Preparedness and Planning Initiative training exercises.

*Map of Hurricane Maria on the monitor in the New Haven EOC*

“The state of Connecticut has gotten very aggressive on keeping everyone prepared,” Rodriguez says. “Every year in October or November we do a drill. It’s mandatory for every town and every city through the state of Connecticut and the last few years have been some type of a hurricane.”

During the two-day statewide drill, state officials provide updates as if there were a real hurricane approaching. The state sends out maps of the storm and asks participants to respond to ongoing situations.

“You just lost all power in your town, what are you doing? You’ve got multiple trees that are down, what are you doing? Are you opening up a shelter? How are you transporting people? How much help do you have? Is the fire department on standby? And you have to keep reporting back and forth,” Rodriguez says.

Emergency operations center - New Haven — *Emergency operations center – New Haven*

The exercises are meant to be intense, but they’re also meant to replicate a real-life situation so that if and when a hurricane does hit, everyone is prepared. And apparently, you can never be too prepared.

“When a hurricane strikes, people kind of become complacent and never think it’s going to be as bad as it is. We’ve been fortunate, but … our departments on the preparedness level always scale one level higher than we normally would,” says Fontana. “We’re always prepared but we always prepare above and beyond because it’s easier for us to scale back than it is to scale up in the middle of a crisis.”

The training drills are mandatory for cities and towns that want to receive grant money in order to build resiliency in places along the shorelines or rebuild after a weather event occurs.

coastal resiliency and innovative thinking

Giovanni Zinn, city engineer - New Haven (photo via Yale.edu) — *Giovanni Zinn, city engineer – New Haven (photo via Yale.edu)*

Giovanni Zinn, an engineer for the City of New Haven, explains why that grant money is so important.

“There’s a lot more land now and it’s low lying land,” he says. “In the large storms we face two major threats: coastal storm surge, where water is piling up in the harbor and coming up the rivers, and large rain events of six, seven, eight, nine, 10 inches in a short period of time. Where does the water go? When you get both at the same time, you have a particularly bad problem. And there’s no getting around the laws of physics. There are certain situations where you can’t drain the city.”

Zinn says that coastal protection methods — seawalls, living shorelines and storm surge barriers that are employed in some areas of the state — are “extremely expensive” and put financial pressure on local communities. He also said he thinks that those preventative measures are “not really a priority” and the long-term thinking tends to be put on the back burner.

But Guilford town planner George Kral says that hard infrastructure like a seawall is actually discouraged by the state of Connecticut.

“The view is that it doesn’t really solve the problem, it just pushes the problem from one place to another,” Kral says, adding that if anything, the goal is to implement green infrastructure instead.

Towns like Guilford have already completed major projects to raise the lowest-lying roads above flood level, as part of the town’s coastal resiliency plan. According to the plan, “coastal resilience is the ability to resist, absorb, recover from, or adapt to coastal hazards such as sea level rise, increased flooding, and more frequent and intense storm surges.” Kral says the plan has two goals: to educate the public on the the importance of coastal resilience, and to suggest actions local governments could take to make themselves more resilient.

And Guilford isn’t the only place thinking about preventative measures.

*David Kooris, Director of the Rebuild by Design and National Disaster Resilience programs (photo via CT.gov)*

David Kooris, the Director of the Rebuild By Design and National Disaster Resilience programs for the state Department of Housing, says that after Hurricane Sandy, the federal government reserved about a billion dollars in relief funding to be “competitively awarded to places that demonstrated a new way of recovery that better positioned them to be more resilient for future disasters.”

In 2012, the state of Connecticut had already received $160 million in federal disaster relief money, and was looking for more from the department of housing’s two competitions.

“Teams worked over the course of a few months and put together a proposal to the department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and to a jury of architects and urban planners to compete for portions of the discretionary funds,” Kooris says about the international Rebuild by Design program. “Seven out of the 10 were awarded funding – the largest being lower Manhattan at $330 million, and the smallest being Bridgeport and the State of Connecticut with $10 million.”

Based on the success of that first program, Kooris says HUD took another chunk of the Sandy money and created a new competition — this time at the national level — which became the National Disaster Resilience program. There were 68 eligible government entities (states, cities and counties) that could enter the competition, and 13 were awarded funding at the end – Connecticut coming in 9th place with $54 million.

Kooris says the purpose of competitively divvying the money up was to “move beyond the standard recovery funding through HUD and FEMA, which more than anything else is just rebuilding.” The programs forced cities and towns to work on disaster prevention, rather than disaster recovery.

“Rarely you get the type of project that is new infrastructure – not repairing what was damaged – and do so in a way that explicitly addresses social and economic vulnerabilities in addition to environmental vulnerabilities,” Kooris says.

Connecticut’s plan involved combining “grey and green approaches” as Kooris puts it, by using “traditional, hard engineered solutions combined with natural solutions that mimic the functions of the environment.” He says that the state is planning to raise roads, build berms and add other green infrastructure to mitigate flooding in Bridgeport, in addition to pinpointing other coastal locations with the greatest number of critical facilities — power plants, roads, hospitals, wastewater treatment — and putting the majority of the investments into protecting those places.

where connecticut stands now

Since Sandy, officials have had five years to revise and strengthen emergency weather response plans.

“We have developed an emergency operation plan that’s worked on on a daily basis,” Fontana says. “Our primary goals … are preparing our residents, making sure that they’re prepared for any type of a disaster and making sure our infrastructure is protected.”

If another hurricane hit tomorrow, there are mixed feelings on whether Connecticut would be ready.

“If it were some kind of extreme storm like a category 5, that is a whole ‘nother ball game. The impact would be severe,” Kral says about the town of Guilford. “Hopefully we’ve done a little better job in terms of planning, but that remains to be seen I guess. If we had 50 inches of rain, we’d have a lot of problems.”

Kooris acknowledges there are still some things that need to be worked on, but for the most part, he says he is “confident that we have implemented targeted infrastructure projects … that reduce risk from future storms.”

As far as Quinnipiac goes, Rodriguez admits “you’re never going to be 100 percent” prepared, but he is confident that the annual mandatory state training has everyone as prepared as they can be to respond.

And in New Haven, Fontana recognizes that a category 3 hurricane “would be devastation to the entire coast” but he is confident in his department, which he says “works every day” and “works hard.”

Mayor Harp announces New Haven homes and businesses can get 15% off flood ins. due to FEMA community rating @cityofnewhaven @MayorHarp pic.twitter.com/YE3RqnDmSy

— NewHaven Engineering (@NewHavenEng) September 26, 2017

“We prepare all the time. We plan all the time. We don’t respond all the time, and we don’t recover all the time, but we’re confident that we have the necessary strategies in place to handle a hurricane,” Fontana says.

Adding to his confidence is the fact that FEMA recently awarded the city of New Haven a class 7 rating for flood preparedness and recovery – the highest rating available. Having this rating allows homes in the designated 100-year flood zone to get a 15 percent discount on flood insurance. “So I think that puts it in a nutshell.”

The most important thing through it all? Keeping the lines of communication open, Fontana says, at all times.

“Consistent, timely, good information. I always say, ‘Be first, be right.’”

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