You follow a sports game, but you don’t have a television. It was there.
For over a century, AM/FM radio was the primary method for listening to audio content. People across the world got their news updates, sports games and favorite music from various local radio stations.
In 2004, however, the game was changed for good. Adam Curry and Dave Winer, who were both working in different capacities for MTV, discovered a way to download radio broadcasts onto an iPod Touch.
The software was called iPodder, and it changed the way people consume audio content forever.
Much like Curry and Winer, Quinnipiac University pivoted to podcasting in the spring of 2019. The university announced that it would be closing WQUN, the AM station owned by the university, in favor of opening a podcasting center in the School of Communications.
According to School of Communications Dean Chris Roush, the Quinnipiac Podcast Center will be located in Room 150, at the end of the hallway in the School of Communications. Roush said that the school hopes to have it ready by the end of the semester.
School of Communications Dean Chris Roush is pushing for more podcasting at QU.
The fallout in the Hamden community was intense, with some citizens going as far as creating a petition opposing the move. That said, teaching the student body the skills that come with podcasting makes a lot of fiscal sense.
Podcasting continues to grow and reach new heights, both in amount of listeners and amount of money being made through advertisements. As mentioned in Infinite Dial’s 2019 report about online media consumption, podcasting is the only audio source to see growth over each of the last three years. The number of people that have listened to a podcast has grown from 19 million in 2017, all the way to 2019 in 2019.
Breaking down the numbers a bit further, 70 percent of people are familiar with a podcast, a total that has grown consistently from the 22 percent that were familiar with podcasting in 2006.
What’s more, the percentage of people that have ever listened to a podcast eclipsed the fifty-percent threshold for the first time in 2019, clocking in a 51 percent.
In total, 17 million more people are aware of podcasting from 2018 to 2019, and there are 20 million more people that have ever listened to a podcast.
Students that have experience in podcasting are excited about the move, and are quick to encourage the School of Communications to continue on this path.
“I think podcasting is the new wave,” Quinnipiac senior Avery Zaretsky said. “Students who want to have a voice, you can go into a podcast studio, you can put a microphone in front of you, and people will listen.”
Quinnipiac senior Avery Zaretsky believes students should be taught podcasting.
Not only are the listener numbers continuing to grow, but ad revenue sales from podcasting continue to grow with it.
A study published by the Interactive Advertising Bureau that podcasting brought in $479 million in 2018. The radio industry saw a decline in revenue every year from 2006 through 2010. Though it saw an increase in 2010, that was attributed to the money made from digital media.
Simply put, podcasting and internet audio are integral to the radio industry being profitable.
But, if podcasting is so successful, what makes a podcast either succeed or fail?
The first pillar to creating a successful podcast is monitoring the length of each episode. A study from podcast hosting service Omny Studios published data showing the percentage of an episode that consumers listen to, broken down by length of episode.
“Our attention span is getting shorter and shorter, rather than longer and longer,” Dr. Norbert Herzog, host of Medical Discovery News, said. “So I think a two-minute snippet is a good idea.”
Dr. Norbert Herzog believes shorter episodes are the way to go in podcasting.
Once you settle on right length of each episode, then the real planning and creativity begins. Audio consumers aren’t just looking for the same product week after week, show after show. People choose to listen to podcasts for their creativity and unique subject matter.
That puts the onus on content creators and producers to create podcasts that provide a service, and bring entertainment and information that the general public wants to consume.
Nina B. Clarke, a former producer with WTNH and MSNBC, transitioned to the podcast genre more than a year ago. After spending years in the newsroom, she decided that there needed to be more “good news” spread around the world.
“I knew there was a niche,” Clarke said. “That was something I was seeking, and my friends were seeking too, so I knew that would work for me.”
Nina B. Clarke spreads the good news on her podcast.
Clarke launched Nina’s Got Good Newsin the summer of 2018, and has produced more than 50 episodes of the podcast since that time.
CBS senior NHL writer Pete Blackburn also hosts a podcast, called Brunch. In a similar fashion to Clarke, Blackburn found his own niche with his podcast, and learned quickly that each podcast needs to provide something different to keep their listeners hooked.
“It either has to be entertaining or informative,” Blackburn said. “You need to provide something to your audience up front.”
Pete Blackburn aims to entertain and inform on his podcast, Brunch.
While having a host, or in Brunch’s case two hosts, that provide insight and charisma about the topic is important, one can’t overlook the value of having guests. Bringing in another voice, especially an expert or someone related to the topic of the episode, brings in a whole extra group of listeners in to consume your content.
“There’s a whole lot of value in guests in terms of driving an audience,” Blackburn said. “Somebody who sees that someone who they like is on a podcast that they wouldn’t listen to otherwise, they might tune in.”
Podcasting continues to grow as a means of consuming audio content. While the decision to shut down WQUN still looms large over Quinnipiac and Hamden as a whole, the decision to pivot to podcasting falls in line with a larger, national trend.
Teaching students the skills involved with podcasting has a great deal of value, and may put Quinnipiac journalism students ahead of the curve when it comes to getting jobs in the audio field in 2019.
The new trend, urbex, has people finding joy in exploring abandoned treasures left forgotten by society.
By Taylor Sniffen
Sweat was dripping from the three students’ brow as they waded through the woods in search of the remnants to a decrepit train station. As they pushed through the final clump of bushes, they fell into a clearing and found a 300 foot tall rusty light tower. One of the explorers immediately started to climb and as she scaled the ladder it began to creak and sway. The higher she got the more it moved, but despite the dilapidated state of the tower she continued to climb. When she finally reached the top her view was spectacular. Everyone there was completely entranced by the abandoned world around them, and the group stayed silent as they admired the forgotten treasure.
These three urban explorers from Quinnipiac University, Emma Shipton, Amelia Griffin and Josh Sprague climbed through the old abandoned Cedar Hills rail yard. It was once one of the largest rail yards on the east coast but now it has rotted away and become the perfect place for urban explorers to investigate. While many people find it strange that someone would risk their own safety to look at what most people see as condemned, their story isn’t uncommon.
“I like to learn about different things.” Sprague said. “There’s definitely an area of curiosity that leads me into wanting to go into these buildings.”
The exact definition according to Google is, “a person who explores man-made structures as a pastime, especially in areas not generally open to the public.” They want to know what’s inside a decaying building and the rush of adrenaline that comes with exploration is very popular among many people. This large network of people who spend their free time going into these abandoned places, call themselves urban explorers.
Brendan Hurley, a senior film major at Quinnipiac, has been exploring abandoned places for years.
“You’re going because you appreciate the history,” Hurley said. “You’re not looking for a place to do sketchy things … when we go in, we take pictures of everything, like we’ll find really cool things from the 1920s and 1910s cause some of these places are that old and just seeing this history in such a decrepit state and being able to preserve it then, like in its current state forever is fascinating.”
But what else drives these people to go into these buildings? Why do they seem to look past the health and safety risks each time they go exploring?
“I am so curious and I just want to learn,” Shipton said. “There is so much we don’t know and I’ve got so much time, I just want to see what I can, and somebody left something in there for us to find.”
A 360 image of the left side of Holy Land U.S.A. in Waterbury. It shows a completely ruined temple and other small cracked structures.
The Dangers
Some of the biggest safety issues that come with these decaying buildings are their structural integrity and hazardous environmental issues.
“I understand the allure that people have for these things, but some of them are pretty dangerous,” said Quinnipiac Civil Engineering Professor John Greenleaf. “I’ve seen walls collapse, because the mortar is no good between the stones that holds the stones together. Floors could cave in, so people could experience falls. Things like termites, eat the wood and the steel will rust and then decay.”
The U.S. Fire Administration has also listed many other structural issues that come with vacant and abandoned buildings. A few of these things include trip hazards lying on the floor, standing water in the basement, hazardous waste that’s been left behind and criminal activity which can further damage the building.
One example of crime creating a large issue is at Holy Land U.S.A. in Waterbury. This old rotting catholic theme park had been shut down since 1984 and closed off to the public since 2011. Just this past year was it finally opened back up to the public. News outlets over the years have detailed rapes, murders and vandalisms that took place on the property.
“When we were here last year it was closed you couldn’t even come up here,” said Donna Brady, a long time resident of Waterbury and frequent visitor to Holy Land when she was young. “Somebody had told me there was a possible rape and I knew there was a lot of riff-raff and destruction so they closed it.”
On the other hand, a less dangerous but still detrimental issue is that most of the buildings were built before or in the 1950s, meaning there is a high probability they were made with lead paint. Over time the paint rots off the walls and becomes lead dust, which can easily seep into the ground and make the water toxic for people to drink.
“Many factories built around that time and before were also built along waterways,” said Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Courtney McGinnis. “This means that as the building decays rain, snow melt etc. carries the chemicals into the waterway which is in close proximity.”
She also explained that asbestos, which is a mineral that can cause lung diseases like mesothelioma or more commonly known as lung cancer, can become a huge issue when buildings decay.
“It has contaminated soil, water and air,” McGinnis said. “Asbestos was used very often in building materials, for example cement pipes as they erode and water passes through them contaminates the drinking water.”
Many explorers also stress the dangers to newcomers to warn them that it’s not the easiest hobby to get started in.
“It is an extremely dangerous thing to do and not always legal,” Rich Gugs, a veteran urban explorer from Connecticut said. “I try to seek permission before I go anywhere whenever possible, and although I have not gotten hurt myself I have seen and heard of a lot of people being hurt over the years, we even lost a local Urban Explorer about 2 years ago in a tragic accident. She had slipped and fell down into a storm drain and was tragically killed.”
But possible beams collapsing, floors giving out, and toxic inhalants doesn’t stop most avid urban explorers. The past pushes them to continue to explore.
“I’d say it’s definitely more so the adventure aspect,” Shipton said. “With this one school I went in you’d find these old textbooks and you could go through them and see kids notes and stuff like that. So kind of like seeing what it’s like and seeing what gets left behind.”
Another 360 image depicting the entrance and front of Holy Land U.S.A. If you look closely you can see a manger locked up in a cage in the front.
The Newest Trend
Over the last 10 years the want to explore abandoned places and venture into the unknown, has become an extremely popular trend.
After searching urbex on google trends, the results show that the number of searchers has been on a steady incline since 2004 and that out of the top five subregions that search the term Connecticut is number four. Subreddits, which are forums specifically dedicated to specific topics on the social news website Reddit, show that the terms urbex and urban exploration have anywhere between 11.5 thousand and 964 thousand followers on each channel.
These large groups of people that have created the name “urban explorers” for themselves, spend their free time going from one abandoned treasure to the next. While they’re there they take photos and videos, find little pieces of history, and try to uncover the mysteries of the past.
For Sprague, exploring to understand history is his favorite part.
“The most interesting part for me, is looking for artifacts of what it used to be, because now it’s obviously this old beat down building, but then just to kind of look for hints of something that might have happened in the building before, cause like you kind of see that contrast of like, oh yeah this is just an old decrepit building, but it used to be something else,” Sprague said.
The urbex community, as they call themselves, has created blogs and Facebook groups, where some have close to 1,600 members. With in these platforms people can post pictures, videos and interesting facts about the places their exploring. Examples of these sites are Abandoned CT and Damned Connecticut and some of the facebook groups for this area are Abandoned Tri State and Abandoned Connecticut.
Gugs is also a frequent sharer on Abandoned Connecticut and his own personal YouTube page, as well as an advocate for the hobby. He said he loves being able to connect with so many different people from so many different places.
“I really like the communities because not only do I get to share my locations with other enthusiasts, but I can see locations from around the world without even leaving my house,” Gugs said.
The members in each can network and message each other to learn more about abandoned places near them.
“There are communities of people that don’t post the locations to anything,” Hurley said, “because no one ever posts a location. If you want to find out where a picture was taken, you have to get in touch with the person who took it directly … and that’s what makes it almost a community in itself too because the way you find everything is by who you talk to.”
In the 360 image above you can see the top of the hill and all of Waterbury surrounding Holy Land. The camera was set up in the middle of a crumbling sanctuary, and the image also captures the damage the structure has withstood over the years from unwanted trespassers, like the graffiti.
Darmon Richter, a popular travel writer and photographer and frequent urbexer wrote about location posting on his blog.
Richter writes, “Some visitors are less ethical in their interactions than others are – and so greater visibility means a higher chance of places getting trashed and looted.”
He also discusses other important rules the urbex community tries to uphold.
You’ll likely have come across the popular mantra, “take only pictures, leave only footprints,” said Richter, “I believe the catchphrase was originated by the administration of national parks in the US, or something like that. Anyway, it has been frequently adopted by urban explorers, some of whom will identify these as the core words defining the implicit codes of engagement with abandoned, disused or restricted urban spaces.
When the rules are broken the user is typically tossed from the group and no longer allowed to share there, but the system isn’t perfect. People still share locations, steal from the sites and ruin large abandoned relics because they abuse the area, instead of just admiring it.
Many examples of photographers not respecting the rules and sport of urbexing can be seen all over the internet.
Photography Blogger Steve Cullen writes on Fstoppers about one such case, saying, “An unidentified photographer made headlines when a fire broke out on the SS Point Reyes shipwreck in California. The boat is a local landmark and a favorite destination for photographers. One too many photographers it would seem. The fire on the abandoned vessel was apparently caused when embers from a wool spinning photography session ignited the stern’s dry wood a day or so afterward.”
This kind of callousness forces the explorers to have to find new abandoned hideaways and the cycle continues. The urban explorers find new abandoned places, enjoy them for as long as they can until they become too unsafe and they move on to discover the next one.
“I guess I just love everything abandoned I really don’t have an absolute favorite,” Gug said. “As long as it’s something historic, something from the past or a window into our past then I love it and I love to explore every inch of it”
The final 360 image was taken at the top of the hill past the original Catholic themed attraction on the opposite side of the hill. The two different areas with crosses shows, the new massive steel cross with LED light that was very recently created and the three white crosses are where the original crosses were first placed.
Nestled on the edge of a suburban neighborhood, sits an old-barn-turned self-proclaimed “Community Media Center.” Wallingford Public Access Association, or WPAA for short, is one of many public access television stations in the state, but getting from the drafting board to on TV screens requires helping hands that aren’t always available.
Susan Huizenga, the Executive Director of WPAA-TV, often works 10-hour days and is for most of the day, the only person at the station throughout the week. She’s in charge of all scheduling, the stations’ social media, overseeing studio shows, and just about anything else that’s needed on a day to day basis.
“I’m still here,” Huizenga laughs as the sun begins to set on a quiet Tuesday. “Most of the time I’m the only one here, but people will stop by with donations and what not or ask if they can do their own show at ‘X’ time.”
The Quinnipiac University men’s and women’s soccer teams are brimming with international talent.
It’s all about the art of recruiting.
Coaches must win the international recruiting game off the field before they can hope to win the game on the field.
Eric Da Costa and Dave Clarke have 35 years of head coaching experience between them at Quinnipiac. Both coaches have globalized their recruiting tactics to remain competitive- and keep their jobs at the NCAA Division I school.
There’s comfort in your routine, job security, staff camaraderie and of course- the privilege to see all parts of the world on recruiting trips.
The global recruiting trips may seem glamorous from the outside, but Da Costa and Clarke see this as work, not tourism, and they spent much of their time shuttling between airports, soccer fields and hotels.
“I’ve seen airports, soccer fields, taxis, hotels, that’s about it. I haven’t really seen anything cool. I’ve been to France and I haven’t even seen the Eiffel Tower,” said Da Costa, coach of the men’s team at Quinnipiac.
“I’ve seen airports, soccer fields, taxis, hotels, that’s about it. I haven’t really seen anything cool. I’ve been to France and I haven’t even seen the Eiffel Tower.”
– Eric Da Costa
It all comes to fruition when foreign recruits show off the technique and habits they inherited from the philosophies of their home country. Some might call it special to watch international players blend their technique and precision with the physical prowess of their American counterparts.
In essence, that is a building block of college soccer.
But the journey to bring those talented athletes to Hamden is a sacrifice of time, effort and willpower.
And months on end of chasing one talent can lead you in another direction in an instant.
“I could find a player tomorrow and I could end up flying over there [to another country] Monday, meet with them Tuesday and fly back Wednesday,” said Clarke, coach of the women’s team at Quinnipiac.
When it comes to international recruiting, all American schools, specifically those at the mid major level, need to excel in all facets of selling a player on their school.
Da Costa and Clarke both outlined their versions of a “Quinnipiac recruit prototype”, but it cannot be a one-way street.
Whether it be strictly for soccer or an opportunity to live out the proverbial “American Dream,” every potential recruit has a story for wanting to bring their athletic career to the United States.
Conor McCoy, an Irish center back on the men’s soccer team, saw both of those features as the reason to take the first flight to New England.
Conor McCoy (4) is featured on the cover of a men’s soccer media guide
“The whole dream of football and study, I think that was the real selling point,” said McCoy. “Both coaches [Eric Da Costa and Graciano Britto] sold it really well and this school is really great. I really wanted to get a degree out of it as well. I didn’t want to just finish playing football and whatever age and not have any future opportunities.”
International students can be sold on the quick train ride to Boston or New York City. They can be wooed by the impeccable facilities provided by the athletic department or the structured academic programs in place at the school.
But that potential student-athlete has to have the mentality they are putting everything on the line to be in Hamden.
“I want someone who wants to be at Quinnipiac, not because its an opportunity to play soccer or there’s a potential scholarship, or it’s an opportunity to come to the United States,” Da Costa said. “That means nothing to me. I want someone who wants to be at Quinnipiac University for all the right reasons. They want to play for me, they want to be a part of this program. They want to help continue to grow and help us continue to win.”
Midfielder Simon Hillinger spent time at the top youth levels in Germany. He’s featured for RB Leipzig, one of the best youth setups in Germany. When he started the recruiting process, Hillinger wanted to go somewhere where he would be known as a key player. As a young kid looking to travel across the world for four years, there is nothing wrong with that.
After a sea of meetings and contact from coaches, Hillinger knew what he wanted to go.
And it was waiting for him the whole time.
“I really felt like the coaches wanted me here,” Hillinger said. “Compared to other coaches I talked to, I always felt like the second choice. But with Brito and Da Costa I felt right away that they really wanted me and really me in their program.”
The quality is there to be signed in the men’s and women’s game. But in the case of the international player, the human element constantly trumps all else.
As Clarke puts it, you don’t need to instruct them on what they’ve been doing their whole lives. Once the player feels they belong in your program, it’s all about getting the foreign players acclimated as quickly as possible.
“You’re not teaching them about the game. They’ve got to learn U.S. culture, Quinnipiac culture, the MAAC and the physicality,” said Clarke. “But their soccer IQ is already in place. It allows us to play a different type of game.”
“You’re not teaching them about the game. They’ve got to learn U.S. culture, Quinnipiac culture, the MAAC and the physicality.”
– Dave Clarke
Rosie Weaver had aspirations of playing soccer in the United States ever since she was fifteen years old. The dream did not seem real until last November. Through an agency she paid over 700 pounds for, Weaver made herself available and eventually made the switch to Quinnipiac from storied club Birmingham City in England.
The freshman forward has enjoyed her time in Connecticut so far, but as Clarke alluded to, there are adaptations foreign players have to make to succeed at the college level.
“It’s hard getting used to training every day and having two matches a week,” Weaver said. “I only had to play one match a week at home.”
Although Weaver was an accomplished student in England who took ‘A’ level courses, the rigorous nature of a health sciences major is not a friendly match with a grueling training schedule.
“Academics are a lot heavier than I thought they would be. University in England is more about going out and dealing with your work second.”
For Henry Weigand, a center back from Germany, his goal of coming to the United States was to round out raw facets of his game and develop into a player who could feature in the top levels of his home nation.
The former u19 Bundesliga player is already seeing the benefits of coming to play for Da Costa on the pitch, as Weigand has led all outfield players in minutes. Away from the Quinnipiac Soccer & Lacrosse Stadium, he’s enjoyed the change of pace from his home country.
“It’s beautiful, it’s different. In Germany you have your campus and you have your buildings there and then you have your city, with the other side of the city,” said Weigand. “Students live on campus, they don’t live in one part of the city. It’s nice, everything is close.”
When it comes to Quinnipiac and the culture both teams are trying to develop, winning matters. And talent matters to that more than anything else.
On that same thought, talent in this sport is sprinkled in every country all over the world. But what does that player value most in life? How does that player battle with their backs against the wall? Answers to questions phrased like this usually give Da Costa his answer.
“I like guys who have had to face some type of adversity in their life…the guys who have a unique story and have faced some adversity and have had some challenges, whether it may be loss of a parent or a divorce or whatever it is, those kids I can really relate to and they have a little bit more to give… those are really the type of people we want,” said Da Costa.
Players from across the planet fit in seamlessly with Quinnipiac for a multitude of reasons. That all starts from the beginning.
Before soccer comes into play, Raya Al-Wasti of International Student Services at Quinnipiac makes sure every athlete is ready off the field before they arrive in Hamden.
Raya Al-Wasti works out of this office space in the Center for Communications and Engineering
She is the point of contact for future Bobcats, but explains once players are settled, they tend to build relationships with their team from the start.
“When they come to school, you feel like they know exactly what to do because the coaches are so good,” Al-Wasti said. “Sometimes the contact between them and I will be through the coaches. We don’t have time with a lot of the training they have. If I need them to come to our office, I will reach out to the coaches.”
When push comes to shove, none of those steps can take place without the time taken from the start.
Sleepless nights sifting through hours of film.
Countless hours away from their families each year to recruit the best men and women that want to wear the blue and gold.
This all goes on behind the scenes. Results are mostly measured by the public based on what happens inside the spray painted white lines. Sacrifices are made when winning is everything.
But for Da Costa, recruiting is more than that. It matters more than the results. When the culture is in place, a family environment is cultivated.
“You walk into a brotherhood and a family and those comforts make it easy for you to play and perform,” said Da Costa. “That’s the hard part, that’s where we’re really fortunate to have so many guys that are able to help these guys make that adjustment.”
Discovering the steps involved in creating a dish that goes beyond the recipe
By Alexis Guerra
You’re sitting at a table in a restaurant. Your stomach is growling. You’ve had a long day at work. And you have just enough energy left to chow down on your food. That is, when it finally arrives. For the past several minutes you’ve been teased by platters of burgers, sandwiches, drafts of beer, you name it. Finally, the server pushes open the heavy double doors of the kitchen, with a tray in hand. You lock eyes, hoping that one of those white plates contains your next meal. To your satisfaction, they set the plate of steaming hot wings right under your nose.
Dig in.
Side Street Grille has been in business since 1996.
We’ve followed the journey from waiting to receiving your meal, but what happened before that and what separates the good from the bad in the restaurant industry?
If you were to pose these questions to Hamden’s Side Street Grille owner Dave DeNicola, he’d tell you it takes time and massive amounts of preparation.
Why the salt marsh sparrow is going extinct, and how rising seas and climate change are sealing its fate.
The salt marsh sparrow, a song bird found in coastal marshes from Maine to Virginia, is losing about 9% of its population each year. Sea level rise and a transforming environment are predicted to seal the bird’s grim fate. The sparrow is projected to join the likes of the dodo bird and passenger pigeon within the next 51 years. Photo courtesy of Patrick Comins, Executive Director, The Connecticut Audubon Society.
As sea levels continue to rise, conservationists work hard to ensure the future of Connecticut’s 98-plus miles of coastal marshes.
Connecticut’s coastal marshes help protect communities from ravaging storms and battering waves, and many species, including the salt marsh sparrow, call them home.
To safeguard marshes Sacred Heart University has positioned large Swiss-cheese-like concrete balls in front of a section of a marsh at Stratford Point, where Audubon Connecticut now manages them. Scientists call them reef balls, and they reduce the impact of slapping waves.
A scientist who helps manage the site says salt marshes and their inhabitants are better off thanks to the hollow concrete orbs.
Above: The reef balls at Stratford Point in 2014 compared to 2017. Over the three-year course there’s a noticeable increase in reef balls. In 2017, the marsh behind the balls appears to be more lush.
“There’s some hope for salt marshes, and salt marsh sparrows. Instead of killing a marsh, we actually grew one,” said Genevieve Nuttall, conservation programs associate at Audubon Connecticut.
A conservation project started by Sacred Heart University and managed by Audubon Connecticut involves concrete spheres called reef balls in front of a portion of the marsh at Stratford Point to protect it. Photo courtesy of Genevieve Nuttall.
Reef balls provide moderate optimism for Nuttall, but the researcher leading the charge on salt marsh sparrow research says current conservation projects may not be enough for salt marsh sparrows that nest in these salt marshes.
“It’s positive that people are starting to pay even a little bit of attention and try to experiment, but given that these birds have as little as 20 years, not 50 or 60 years, it’s just not clear we can solve the problem fast enough to be able to prevent the extinction,” said Dr. Chris Elphick, an ornithologist at the University of Connecticut.
Due to more frequent nest flooding the salt marsh sparrow, which nests exclusively in salt marshes on the Atlantic coastline from Maine to Virginia, is predicted to join the likes of the dodo bird and passenger pigeon within the next 51 years.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology currently lists the sparrow as a priority bird, and sea level rise fueled by climate change is drowning it out of existence.
> “Our model suggests somewhere around the middle of this century we expect this species to go extinct,” said Elphick, “It could be as early as the 2030s, or it could be as late as the 2060s. ”
— Elphick
Population Decline
Elphick says that if we started 20 years ago, maybe the outlook for salt marsh sparrows would be better.
His data projects somewhere between the 2030s and 2060s the point of no return will be reached, meaning that nest flooding will occur every two weeks. Two weeks is too frequent for the nests and their delicate contents. Though this critical point hasn’t been reached yet, scientists are seeing the destruction taking place.
A former student of Elphick’s has witnessed the population decline.
“I’ve worked on marshes where in 2007 I could go out and capture 50 salt marsh sparrows in a day very easily,” said Jennifer Walsh, a researcher with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “I’d return to the same marshes in 2015-2016 and maybe see four birds on the whole marsh.”
Populations are dying fast.
Elphick says 75% of the global population of salt marsh sparrows has disappeared since the 1990s. That’s roughly 9% of the population dying every year.
“If you can assume that the rate of decline continues, that suggests that the species is on a very rapid trajectory towards extinction,” said Elphick.
Nesting
Sea level rise is making it difficult for the species to nest successfully.
Their nesting territory is in the high marsh and they build their nests right above the high tide line in the grass. Walsh says looking down into the opening of her 12-ounce coffee cup reminds her of looking into a sparrow’s nest.
The rapidly disappearing salt marsh sparrow nests in the tall grasses of coastal salt marshes. Walsh says looking down into the opening of her 12-ounce coffee cup reminds her of looking into a sparrow’s nest. Elphick says the sparrow is a unique songbird because the fathers are promiscuous, and nests often contain eggs from multiple fathers. Unlike other song birds, the fathers do not protect the nesting territory. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
High marsh areas are used to flooding occurring about every 28 days.
“Salt marsh sparrows have a nesting cycle that’s about 26-27 days long,” said Walsh.
But tides are getting too high.
“Historically this (26-27 days) has been enough to get them through these high tides, but tides are getting higher due to sea level rise, and we’re having these more unpredictable storms, and the frequency and duration of storms is cutting into their nesting cycle and making it harder for them to fledge offspring.”
Where the species is adapted to living is no longer safe.
“Basically the places that are safe within these marshes that these birds have evolved to be able to use are becoming less and less safe even though they are specialized and are able to identify these good spots, these spots are getting worse, and worse, and worse,” said Elphick.
The tides are changing too fast.
> “If they had thousands of years to evolve new habitat selection behaviors, then they could probably handle the changes, but these changes are happening too fast. The population is already so small that the likelihood they could evolve to those changes on a reasonable timeline is very, very, very low.”
— Elphick
Photos courtesy of Patrick Comins.
Rising Water
Sea level rise shows no signs of stopping.
Data from NASA shows sea levels rising at 3.3 millimeters a year. If rise continues at this rate, then 100 years from now water levels will be over a foot higher, and this will mean more devastating high tides. Levels a foot higher are impactful for coastal locations like Miami, New York City, Bridgeport and New Haven.
The city of New Haven is one of the cities in Connecticut that’s expected to be affected by sea level rise. Nasa data suggests rise at 3.3 millimeters a year. In 100 years a foot of water will be encroaching on New Haven and coastal cities across the globe.
Connecticut’s communities are already taking on water.
“All of our coastal towns, not only in this state, but across the Atlantic seaboard are realizing that the sea is rising, their infrastructure is getting flooded on a much more constant manner, and during high tides a lot of roads are underwater where 20 years ago they weren’t,” said Min Huang, a migratory bird program leader at the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection.
Sea level rise is flooding towns, diminishing salt marshes, and expected to cost Connecticut a pretty penny.
According to SeaLevelRise.org, “There are already over 7,000 properties at risk from frequent tidal flooding in Connecticut. The state is planning over $2 billion in sea level rise solutions, which include restoration projects, catastrophic flood prevention, and building seawalls.”
With sea level rise, coastal wetlands across Connecticut and the U.S. are disappearing.
If Connecticut and other areas lose their coastal marshes, they lose the benefits that come with them.
The Value of Marshes
With dwindling wetlands Walsh says we lose important biodiversity and natural storm barriers.
“I think preserving salt marsh habitats should speak to everyone because salt marshes provide barriers from coastal storms, and it’s been shown that places with active and healthy salt marsh ecosystems have saved millions, and millions of dollars,” said Walsh.
Lost coastal marshes means communities inland lose a natural barrier from clobbering storms and thumping waves.
“If you think of salt marshes as a buffer, the storm will hit the marsh instead of the house, which will help prevent an insurance crisis,” said Nuttall.
On top of that, Nuttall says marshes are responsible for absorbing and storing greenhouse gases.
Less marshland results in less protection, and storms hit local communities harder, causing millions more in damage.
Mass Extinction
We’re not just losing marshes though. According to scientists, fading coastal wetlands, and the extinction of the salt marsh sparrow are emblematic of a larger issue: climate change and the degradation of Earth’s ecosystems.
Elphick says the salt marsh sparrow is the proverbial “canary in the coal mine.”
“Humans are decimating wildlife habitats across the globe right now and whether people want to believe it or not, we’re going through the greatest mass extinction in human history,” said Huang of the Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection.
There have been a number of mass extinction events throughout geological time. Elphick says that since humans have been on the earth, we’re now facing the fastest rate of extinction across species since the death of the dinosaurs.
“The current number of species that have been lost is nothing like as severe as those previous mass extinctions, but the rate at which species are starting to go extinct, or predicted to go extinct in the next century or so is equivalent to during those mass extinction events,” said Elphick.
This has big implications for humans.
> “If the animals can’t live here, then ultimately the humans won’t be able to live here either. Again, humans are really just animals as well.”
— Huang
Current climate change and extinction trends boil down to toxic human activities.
“The fundamental problem is that we’re very massively changing the climate on the planet, and if we don’t get serious about doing something, then it will not just affect the sparrow, it’s going to affect hundreds of different species of birds and other things, as well as having very serious repercussions for people,” said Elphick.
A plastic spoon among seashells and seaweed on a beach at Lighthouse Point Park, New Haven, Connecticut. Humans are changing the natural environment by putting things into it that are not meant to be there. A couple examples are trash, and gaseous emissions.
Where Humans Fit In
Scientists agree, humans are destroying the environment. The things is that humans have the ability to change this. Elphick says the the planet hasn’t reached the point of no return yet, but it will if people don’t take action.
Scientists say if you want to help, reduce your individual carbon footprint, get involved in your community, and vote for politicians that prioritize the environment. To preserve marsh life, a video by Coastal Resilience says to ask your congress members to support natural and coastal infrastructure projects, and to support the expansion of the Coastal Barrier Resources Act.
Humans play a major role in helping fight against climate change and destruction of the environment. Actions such as reducing individual carbon output can help in combating climate change. Made with Pablo.
Researchers say the sparrow likely can’t be saved.
“A single species like a sparrow is not terribly important,” said Elphick, “The trouble is we’re taking this attitude with hundreds of species, if not millions of species. That continuous erosion of biodiversity does have repercussions on how the ecosystem works, and it impoverishes the variety of life on the planet, and has aesthetic, ethical, as well as economic consequences for us.”
Humans are degrading the environment, and wiping species off the face of the earth. People alive and soon to be alive will no longer be able to see some of the precious wildlife that exists now.
> “One way to think about it is if you took one Van Gogh and burned it, would that really change anyone’s life? Probably not, but it would be one less bit of beauty in the world and one less thing of interest in the world.”
It’s an interesting paradox – Earth’s population is growing exponentially, currently estimated at some 7.7 billion people. Why then, does it seem like the world is only getting smaller?
Although it’s on a much smaller scale, the Quinnipiac Bobcats are an interesting example of this phenomenon.
Quinnipiac University is a small private institution in Hamden, Connecticut. Most of the students who attend the school are from the American Northeast, and approximately 97 percent of the student body comes from somewhere within the United States.
However, it’s on the athletic fields where Quinnipiac’s commitment to international recruitment really shines.
In their never-ending search for team success, the coaches of Quinnipiac’s 21 Division-I teams have reached out overseas. International recruitment is a growing part of the collegiate athletics industry, and it’s something that has become a distinct part of the Quinnipiac Bobcat identity.
How do you think an athlete gets recruited? It seems simple enough – a coach finds potential student-athletes, talks to them, watches them play and maybe offers them a scholarship.
That’s not the case for many of Quinnipiac’s international recruits.
Meet Queenie Lai. A junior from Hong Kong, Lai could almost describe her recruitment process as “reverse recruiting.” Lai was an exceptional golfer back home, but wanted a new challenge on the links at a more competitive level. After an admittedly-late start to the recruitment process, Lai took it upon herself to achieve her goal of playing U.S. collegiate golf.
“I had to play in the States for a whole summer of tournaments, state-to-state,” Lai said. “And, I had to contact at least 50 schools and the coaches and introduce myself and ask if they were interested in recruiting me. Eventually, I landed on Quinnipiac and the coach I have right now. He was one of the nicest, and that meant a lot to me.
“I had to do most of the work.”
It’s certainly a much different story than the common assumption of university-paid travel, lavish dinners and unlimited budgets. However, Lai is not the only Quinnipiac athlete with an unconventional recruitment story.
> “I had to do most of the work.”
— Queenie Lai on recruiting
Courtesy: Quinnipiac Athletics
Bianca Strubbe was at a crossroads. After playing field hockey in her native Poland for 14 years, Strubbe needed a break. She traveled to the United States, settling in West Hartford as an au pair. Her love of field hockey not yet entirely quelled, Strubbe went to a Quinnipiac field hockey game at the suggestion of her host family.
After liking what she saw on the field and in the state-of-the-art facilities, Strubbe decided to bring field hockey back into her life. She played and coached at a local HTC field hockey club team, but never would have found college field hockey if not for a friendly co-worker, who informed her that she’d likely be eligible to play in the NCAA.
“I didn’t know that, to be honest,” Strubbe said. “None of my friends or Polish players know that we are very welcome in the U.S. playing in college. We don’t have any agencies, we don’t have any connection with U.S. colleges, so, to be honest, we don’t know that we have the chance to earn our degree and play field hockey here.”
Now in her second year as a graduate student at Quinnipiac, Strubbe has made a seamless transition. She’s the team’s leading scorer this season, and her English has improved immensely, thanks in part to her choosing journalism for her major.
Although foreign students are often taught English, the field hockey team is careful to keep an international influence around to keep their players comfortable.
“It’s good to have someone who has the same accent as me,” Strubbe said. “We feel comfortable, we don’t feel afraid to talk. It’s good to have international students around you.”
Courtesy: Quinnipiac Athletics
> “We don’t know that we have the chance to earn our degree and play field hockey here.”
— Bianca Strubbe
Quinnipiac women’s ice hockey forward Sarah-Eve Coutu-Godboutdidn’t quite have that same luxury. Although she was one of seven international players on the team her freshman year, all Canadians, she was the only one who predominantly spoke French. Fortunately, head coach Cassandra Turnerdid her best to help Coutu-Godbout adapt.
“Cass knew right off the bat that I couldn’t really speak English, so she was very patient,” Coutu-Godbout said. “She sent me recommendations and books to read to practice my English, as well as helping me with all the stuff I needed to do. For me, that’s exactly what I needed. The integration here in the U.S. was pretty smooth because of the coaches.”
Much like Strubbe, Coutu-Godbout wasn’t initially aware of the opportunity she had to play in the United States, albeit for different reasons.
“In Quebec, they want to maintain all the Quebec players in Canada. It’s kind of against them to go to the U.S.,” Coutu-Godbout said. “So a lot of the teams won’t help you get a spot on a (U.S.) team, so I was pretty much doing it by myself.
“The girls (in America) can be recruited at 13, but in Quebec, it’s another world. They want to keep it away, they don’t want you to come here.”
Even though her peers didn’t want Coutu-Godbout to play college hockey stateside, she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I really enjoy it here,” Coutu-Godbout said. “I think it’s the perfect choice for me, and I’m really happy about it. I never looked back on it.”
> “In Quebec, it’s another world. They want to keep it away, they don’t want you to come here.”
— Sarah-Eve Coutu-Godbout
Courtesy: Quinnipiac Athletics
How much can you learn about someone through a computer screen? According to the coaches at Quinnipiac, quite a bit.
“This generation is a little different,” men’s soccer coach Eric Da Costa said. “Unfortunately, communication is a little bit harder in terms of getting on the phone and having a phone conversation, so we do a lot of Skype, we do a lot of WhatsApp, FaceTime, just trying to get that time with the guys and figure out who they are, what they’re about, what makes them tick, and (if) that fits into what we do here.”
If Da Costa and his coaching staff have the ability to travel overseas to visit a player, they will. More often than not though, the soccer team recruits its players over the internet due to budgetary and travel restrictions.
“We have to be cautious about how we spend our money,” Da Costa said.
According to Da Costa, it’s easier to recruit international soccer players than Americans.
Courtesy: Quinnipiac Athletics
“Recruiting the American kids is actually a lot more difficult for us,” Da Costa said. “They want the glitz, they want the glamour. They know the differences between the institutions in terms of prestige or popularity, so they look their nose down at us.”
Once coaches have a good experience with a player from a certain area, they are more likely to revisit that region in future recruiting. Take Quinnipiac field hockey, for example. Head coach Becca Main has presided over the program for all 25 years of its existence, and has designated “pockets” of international talent. The team likes to focus its recruiting efforts in areas like South Africa, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain, where several successful players have come from before.
Field hockey is uniquely positioned for international recruiting, compared to some of Quinnipiac’s other sports. According to Main, international players are the preferred recruits for the program due to their added experience.
“(International recruits) have almost 10 years on an American student – they’ve been playing 10 years longer,” Main said. “In general, most Americans have been playing 4-6 years, max. … You get (an international) coming in, they’ve got 16 years (of experience). They’re just better at playing the sport.”
With all of the different languages and cultures on the team, Main tries to make sure that each international player has at least one other teammate who speaks their language. It could be hard to mesh all these different pieces together, but creative thinking from the coaching staff makes it all fit.
“I think the best thing about our international players is that, the ‘groupthink mentality’ – we don’t have that anymore,” Main said. “We have the ability to think outside the box.”
Courtesy: Quinnipiac Athletics
Athletic recruitment is one thing, but these are still “student”-athletes. The players must fit into Quinnipiac’s academic profile, and the admissions department gives very clear outlines to the coaches about what requirements each student-athlete needs to be accepted into Quinnipiac, from English language scores to academic grades.
Andrew Antone, director of international recruitment and admissions at Quinnipiac, says that once the students get to Quinnipiac, the school has several resources to help international students adapt.
“We have a global partners program where students are mentored by upperclassmen, and say, ‘OK, this is how you make the transition,’” Antone said. “We have global education, where they can be with other students. We have an international student orientation, which I think is a big help for them.”
To continue to attract international students, the university has initiated a new “Strategic Plan” that emphasizes globalization among the steps toward becoming the university of the future. Antone believes that the strategic plan will help make Quinnipiac even more appealing to international students.
“Especially with the new strategic plan, I think you’re going to see that number (of international students) grow, given what we’re offering,” Antone said. “The way that we’re looking forward … I think what the strategic plan does is force us to look within and change some of the policies and the way we do things to enhance everyone else’s experiences.”
In all, there are about 70 international student-athletes from more than 20 countries. That may not sound like a lot with Quinnipiac’s student population of over 10,000 and a core of student-athletes almost 500 deep.
To the international players though, it’s not about the numbers. It’s about the experience – an experience that has made Quinnipiac athletics more diverse, and more talented.
“I feel like I’m experiencing the same college experience as other people,” Lai said. “I wouldn’t say it’s any different than how they’re experiencing it.”
Quinnipiac isn’t as well-known as some other Division-I programs. None of the 10 international students interviewed said they knew anything about Quinnipiac before they were first recruited. Once they hear about all the school has to offer them, it’s hard to say no.
“We’ve closed those gaps with this (soccer) facility, obviously our institution, our campus,” Da Costa said. “At the end of the day, an international kid and his family want to go to a place where they’re cared about. They want to go to a place where they can study and play at two high levels. They want to go to a place where they can feel safe – and enjoy.
An unassuming brick building lies in the shadows of Town Hall on Dixwell Avenue. Weeds grow from sidewalk cracks. Construction noise provides a background soundtrack. Inside the building, books — yes, books still exist — fill wooden shelves as people loiter with an unspoken to read a newspaper or assemble a puzzle. Children entertain themselves with toys and books while surrounded by brightly painted animals.
Photo by Marissa Davis
That’s a typical scene in the Miller Memorial Library in Hamden, Connecticut. It’s the main branch of the three libraries in a town of 61,000 people.
The library is named in honor of inventor and businessman, Willis E. Miller. Miller died in 1904 and his widow bequeathed the library to the town. It originally opened its doors in 1952, but has been renovated several times since.
The HPL is centered upon the Miller Memorial Library and two other branches. The two branches are the Brundage Community Branch on Circular Avenue and the Whitneyville Branch on Carleton Street.
But that centerpiece library named in honor of Miller is falling apart according to library officials.
“I’ve been here for seven years and so when I got here I had to take stock of the physical condition of the library,” library director Marian Amodeo said. “Technically we should have a new building.”
Annual reports in 2013 and 2014 point to the main library’s deterioration and problems with the branch libraries.
In 2013, the report noted issues with the phone system and spotty Wi-Fi service.
Photo by Marissa Davis
The 2014 annual report is apocalyptic.
“The exteriors of all three Hamden library buildings are in dire need of repair and attention,” the report stated. “The branch libraries need paint and other repairs to the buildings, and the grounds are an embarrassment. The main library needs power-washing of the bricks, landscaping and other repairs.”
The report revealed that the Miller Library lacked working fire alarms.
The 2017 report furnished equally bad news.
“The poor condition of the buildings and the grounds of both branches is stunning,” the report stated. “Painting, both interior and exterior, landscaping, cleaning, ceiling tile replacement, lighting, carpeting, furniture replacement, driveway and parking lot resurfacing, security and more is needed at both locations.”
The most recent annual report speaks to frustrations with the lack of movement in implementing repairs to both buildings.
Even with its structural challenges, the HPL continues to operate and produce programs for children and families.
“We moved every single thing around in the library in order to make a larger space for the children’s department,” Amodeo said. “This is a town of 60,000 people and the space allotted for children was minuscule so we just tripled the size of the children’s room and made an early learning center.”
Photo by Marissa Davis
Every kindergartner and fourth-grader living in Hamden visit the library for a story-based program and library cards. And the HPL now runs the Hamden Public Schools’ summer reading program.
HPL offers numerous free programs families, according to Marcy Goldman, head of Children’s Services.
“Throughout the year, September through May, we have weekly story time sessions,” Goldman said. “They run for five weeks at a time we do different age groups so that they’re age appropriate and we can incorporate what we are supposed to incorporate into a story time.”
But the library offers more than just story time for children.
“We also have STEM play for preschoolers, so I have lots of different things I buy from Lakeshore that are STEM-related but they’re good for young kids,” Goldman said. “So one of them for instance is a fairy-tale kit. So it’s the three little pigs and they have to practice with the sticks and the blocks that they give them, building the house that’s gonna be the strongest.”
HPL also offers convenient activities for the transient families that reside in Hamden.
“We have playgroups too that are just very casual,” Goldman said. “A lot of parents like that, there’s a lot of people in this community that come to the library that are new to town. We find that there’s a lot of transient people, they come here because their husband or wife is doing their residency at Yale, so they live here for that amount of time and then they move. Those people use the library a lot.”
Funding from the Friends of the Library has been a huge help in getting the HPL children’s department off the ground.
Photo by Marissa Davis
“Then we have fun programs,” Goldman said. “People that we hire once in a while, a lot of the programs we try to do on our own at low cost but when we have larger performers that cost say three hundred or four hundred dollars to come in and do a magic show or something that money we get from the friends of the library so everything here is always free. We don’t charge for anything.”
The library sought to target teens under a special program and even deployed a librarian to that task. But resources really needed to be focused on adult programming after years without that service.
Photo by Marissa Davis
“When I got here the staff didn’t do any adult programming,” Amodeo said. “There used to be a really vibrant friends’ group but they don’t really exist anymore. We all started to do programming and that’s just off the charts in terms of adult lifelong learning problems, cultural series, movies, those kinds of things.”
Hamden’s increasingly diverse population is prompting the library to respond. World Language teachers at the Hamden Public Schools asked the library to get families more involved in programming.
“A few weeks back we had our third world language night where we opened the library just to this group and they come in and we work with the teachers and there’s dinner and activities for the children,” Amodeo said. “We couldn’t be more happy about that because we feel we are working hand in hand to try to acclimate new residents in town.”
Photo by Marissa Davis
As the library director, Amodeo reports to the mayor, Curt Leng and to the five-member library board. The board offers some funding for programs through donations to help fill budgetary gaps. The board funded the purchase of computers to equip a lab where two librarians can offer classes on how to use the machines to the public.
Councilwoman Lauren Garrett is one official who can vouch for the library’s importance in a digital age.
“Personally I feel that libraries need to stay around,” Garret said. “My grandfather for instance, I’m pretty sure he graduated from high school, but he went off into the military, came back, had a family. Never really got much of an education beyond that and he read all the time. He was one of the smartest guys I knew, just because he was so well read. That exists in our society. You’ll find really intelligent people and it’s all because of the library.”
A new website is helping to modernize the library, according to Jessica Dans, the head of technical services.
“I did try to make our website very bright and colorful and inviting,” Dans said. “The thing people say when they come in is how nice the staff is, it’s such a friendly place, they feel so comfortable here. We kind of wanted the website to reflect that. It was a little stuffier before so we wanted something fun.”
“People have to keep in mind that the library isn’t just a bricks and mortar place, it’s a virtual place too,” Amodeo said. “A resident could come in, get a library card, and then never have to come back in here again because they then have access with their cards to thousands of e-books, all or most of our online resources, online magazines.”
The HPL used to be a stand-alone library, but Amodeo was able to bring it into a consortium of libraries rejuvenated the library.
“Because we’re together with other libraries I encouraged my staff to start to sit on different committees, go to workshops and roundtables,” Amodeo said.
Funding problems, however, persist.
“I’ve worked in a variety of different libraries and some had no issues at all with funding,” Amodeo said. “So we were able to be on the cutting edge all the time. And this is not that type of library. It’s just not. You don’t get the funding. So the things I’m telling you we’re doing have already been done by other libraries but for us it’s huge.”
A new challenge emerged last year as budgets went under the ax.
“Last year we received a $30,000 budget cut in February to our materials and that just messed us up completely,” Amodeo said. “And then for this fiscal year they didn’t reinstate a lot of that money. So our material budget was decimated. That’s huge.”
The library’s budget is set by the mayor and Legislative Council.
“What happens is in January each department head creates their own budget request,” Amodeo said. “Then in February you go and sit with the mayor and the finance director and you justify, you argue, for your request. Then after you leave the mayor does his thing…so he cuts. And then in March his budget goes to council.”
Jody Clouse, a council member, said budgets are tight in large measure to commitments to pensions.
“Hamden has been in a difficult position largely due to the lack of funding pensions in previous administrations,” Clouse said. “Added to that strain, Hamden takes a big hit when it comes to education funding from the state which again was cut drastically last year. The current council does its best to make headway on funding the pension, as well as doing our best to make sure our schools and essential services are adequately funded. All this while trying to keep the mill rate as low as we can. Unfortunately that leaves very little wiggle room.”
Amodeo said that the library budget might be around $240,000 for the fiscal year. That money goes toward all of the library materials–books, newspapers, magazines, all audio and visual materials and all online resources for the three branches of the library. Each librarian is then assigned a different section or media and are given a part of the budget.
“For example, I have religion so they give me, let’s say, $1,000,” Amodeo said. “So I do my purchasing based on professional journal reviews and patron requests et cetera. I do my purchasing through the year, so you have a full year. You have four quarters to do that.”
In February of last year, Leng took $30,000 from the HPL materials budget.
“That $30,000 was a pot of money that we were all going to use for our spring purchasing,” Amodeo said. “And then they just took it away. … It was devastating.”
This year the library is working with less than $200,000 as a budget. Amodeo requested a larger budget for the next fiscal year, but will not find out the allotted budget until May 15.
“We have a small friend’s group right now and they run a used bookstore down in the lower level and they give every penny of what they earn to us,” Amodeo said. “That’s how we were able to do most of our programming.”
The HPL system is more than just a place to find books for the community. The libraries are an important resource as well.
“It’s the one place in any town that allows free access to every kind of information source, available to all people, to all residents, no matter what their age, their race, their affiliations, anything. They’re welcome here,” Amodeo said.
The future of the HPL system is dependent on the budget offered to them by the town.
“I would absolutely love to see a robust HPL system that is able to offer programming, services and resources for all ages of the community as well as promoting and celebrating the diversity of our town,” Clouse said. “I think they are doing an outstanding job of offering these things within their limited budget. But in an ideal world, they’d be able to do much more.”
With support from the community it can be shown to town officials that the HPL is an important and valued resource for Hamden residents. HPL strives to better itself in the coming years but is held back due do budget cuts and a lack of resources.
Only time will tell what the future has in store for the HPL.
It has been 10 years since the editors ofThe Quinnipiac Chronicle stepped down from their positions to form the student-run off-campus newspaper,The Quad News. It has been 10 years since student journalists took it upon themselves to develop their own media outlet after they believed university administration was denying their first amendment rights and censoring their work.
It has been 10 years and yet, nobody seems to remember.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” Quinnipiac 2010 graduate and one of the founding members of The Quad News, Matt Andrew said.
In 2008, the returning editor in chief, editors and applicants for editorial board positions handed an empty manilla envelope to their advisor, announcing their resignation from The Chronicle, the official student-run newspaper at Quinnipiac University.
“In the end, at the end of 2008, we all resigned,” Andrew said. “We handed them an empty manilla envelope and said ‘We’ll see you later.’”
The Quad News was an off-campus, student-run independent publication created in 2008 by frustrated members of the university paper. Following a decision made by the university to take control of the on-campus paper, The Chronicle, by selecting editors going forward and constraining the publication of content, the staff realized they had had enough. Tired and disappointed by the university policy they believed was censoring their content, they disbanded to create their own publication.
This crisis began in 2006 when the paper published on its website and front page an article regarding an incident with two Quinnipiac basketball players. After the story appeared, the university imposed a new policy that prohibited the paper from posting material online until the print edition had been published. Things proceeded normally, until a year later, just before the start of the fall semester, an incident on campus got the attention of student journalists.
“Somebody on our staff had heard about somebody writing on a freshman’s dorm who was African American, all of these racial slurs on her door,” Jason Braff, the Editor in Chief of The Chronicle at the time, said. “We investigated, we found out more information, we ended up speaking with the student who had the racial slurs written on her door, we contacted the Hamden Police Department, we were reaching out to everybody putting this story together. We felt like it was a very important story and the students should know about it and people outside of the campus should be aware of it too.”
The story was newsworthy, but The Chronicle could not publish it online.
So, Braff, in his first semester at the helm of the paper, had to make a decision: Should the piece be published although it would break university policy, or should the editors shelve it until the publication of the first issue? The editors thought a way to get the story out, without breaking the policy, would be to publish a single sheet with the article and distribute it on campus. But before they could do that, they heard from then-President John Lahey who persuaded them to wait by offering them an exclusive interview.
In order to avoid any conflicts with the administration, The Chronicle editors chose to save the story for the first issue, which was scheduled for Sept. 12.
“In the 24 hours news cycle, even back then, there wasn’t really Twitter or Instagram or anything – we wanted to publish it online,” Andrew said. “And the school wanted to basically read the article and kind of have oversight over it, before it was published online, kind of limiting first amendment rights. They kind of wanted control over the information that was being disseminated rather than letting the students act as journalists and kind of provide that information.”
Quinnipiac University is a private institution. Unlike public universities, students give up certain rights when agreeing to attend the private school of their choice. Student journalists deal with the specifics of these rights daily in their reporting.
Private institutions face many challenges compared to public universities when it comes to accessing sources within the administration.
Current chair of the journalism department Margarita Diaz was the faculty advisor to The Chronicle at the time these policies were put in place by the administration.
“They understood that they [student journalists] were not doing public relations and their job was to cover what was going on on campus, and that sometimes that would reflect negatively on the university. And the university had a lot of trouble with that,” Diaz said. “They would not call it this, but it was about prior review. It was about being able to look at what the paper had and prepare a response if necessary before the outside media got wind of it.”
In a December 2007 statement, the faculty of the Quinnipiac University School of Communications voiced their opinions to the administration regarding student media policies and the changes the university administration was trying to enact.
“Basic First Amendment values are a focus in all of what we teach,” the statement said. “Therefore, the faculty of the School of Communications considers any attempts to restrict the access of student journalists to administrative sources and attempts to control the manner in which student media may disseminate information as threats to the basic principle of free expression and contrary to the mission of the School.”
In response,Vice President for Public Affairs Lynn Bushnell emailed the school a reiteration of the policy manual and what was expected of both faculty and student journalists in four bullets:
Scanned email courtesy of Margarita Diaz
No media outlet is to be contacted or responded without prior consent to John Morgan or Lynn Bushnell. This includes WQAQ, Q-30 and The Chronicle.
Student media can no longer be viewed as internal owing to the ability of external media to access these stories immediately. What appears in the student Chronicle likely will be picked up by the New Haven Register and other media outlets. The media considers ALL administrators to be representatives of the University, speaking on behalf of the university.
While this policy also applies to faculty, it is understood that faculty have the ability to speak to media without specifically representing the University. However, faculty should exercise caution in presenting their views on University-related matters by clearly stating that they do not represent the university.
Members of the division of athletics (coaches, administrators) should work through the office of athletic communications in regard to media contact. That office is responsible for contacting me directly in any special or sensitive circumstances prior to responding to media queries.
The email ended with Bushnell noting that the policy is ‘routine,’ but must be re-stated due to recent examples where the rules had not been followed.
In the spring semester of 2008, the university administration created a media task force to review student media policies. After it completed its work, the task force recommended a change of policy: Chronicle editors would now be selected by the university deans.
The result: a staff-less newspaper and a group of journalists determined to create uncensored news by becoming self-sustaining and independent.
“I remember sitting in the School of Communications and all of us were there, I think Margarita Diaz was there, and we were just like ‘This is the start of something new,’” Andrew said. “We were literally just throwing out names, a business plan and coming up with everything. It was a really cool moment for us to all come together, and we all had each others’ backs.
“We were kinda like family, we were friends. Nobody wanted to let each other down and we all just kind of came together in solidarity and decided this is what’s best. In the end, that was what was best.”
And thus, The Quad News was born.
Essentially establishing their own business, the founding members of The Quad News created their own bank account, outsourced for their own website, recruited people for positions such as a business manager and web designer and, themselves, went door-to-door gathering advertisements from local businesses. The students became completely self-made. Through their efforts selling merchandise and fundraising they were able to successfully create and run the independent paper.
“We had a whole web staff, we had a business group, we met every single week as a group and then throughout the week as editors meeting with writers and publishing stories,” Andrew said. “Instead of a weekly publish, we were publishing three times a week like Monday, Wednesday Friday or something like that. We were all in on it.”
The Quad News staff faced many obstacles in their five-year existence at Quinnipiac. Members were unable to formally recruit writers in and out of the classroom per university restriction and could not table as an outside business.
“We were doing outreach again to classrooms and Mark Thompson [Executive Vice President and Provost] said we couldn’t do that and sent us an email,” Andrew said. “The three of us, we went to his office and had this whole meeting like ‘Listen, we are students, we want to reach out to the students. We’re just trying to garner our attention for the Quad News,’ and he was just like, ‘No, you can’t do that.’ So I asked him, ‘Where in the handbook does it say we can’t do this?’ and he couldn’t give an answer.
“They hated that we were going to classrooms and, from their perspective, wasting other students’ time. We literally tried to pay the school, as paying students, with money that we raised through advertisements with the Quad News, we tried to pay for a table in the Student Center as an outside vendor and they wouldn’t grant us that as the Quad News.”
One of The Quad News’ first meetings. Jason Braff stands in red (right). Photo courtesy of Margarita Diaz
As if recruiting wasn’t difficult enough, Quad News staff editors and members, such as Jennifer Swift, were not allowed to meet or reserve rooms on campus.
“Being a student at a university where I’m paying to go to school but still feeling like an outsider, has to get outside press access to events and you can’t recruit on-campus,” Swift said. “We couldn’t reserve a room on campus for a meeting and it was like – for what? You’re a journalism school, how are you not going to let us do this?”
While many members of the paper expressed this same anger about being treated as if they were not students of the university, Bushnell defends that the university has the right to deny a non-affiliated organization the use of school property.
“I think administration generally has a right and responsibility, if it’s not a sanctioned club or organization, that we do have the right to limit their use of the property, of the facilities and I think that holds true today,” Bushnell said. “It’s always a gray area when it’s a non-sanctioned organization, but it’s comprised of students.”
Throughout it all, and to this day, members of the journalism department, of which only Richard Hanley, Margarita Diaz and Karin Schwanbeck still remain as current faculty, stayed firm in their decision.
“This idea that the students were somehow doing irresponsible journalism that was somehow going to place the university in a position of legal vulnerability is entirely false,” Diaz said. “And I have no problem saying that, but this is the line, and I think they still think it is.”
Looking back, Bushnell notes that, at the time, the administration did not fully understand the influence the Internet was going to have on journalism. If a similar situation occurred today, she isn’t sure the university would respond the same way.
“We were probably shortsighted in understanding what online publishing was going to mean in reality,” Bushnell said. “The best hindsight is 20/20. If we had to do it over again, would we take those same steps? I think probably not. That’s easy to say now 11 years down the road where everything is on our phone and we expect instant information.”
Although The Chronicle, as well as any student media outlet on campus, are now allowed to publish material online at any time on any day of the week, the concept of going through the Office of Public Affairs office is nothing new to the university.
“I have always, pretty much, been the point of contact for probably since then [2008], if not before then,” Associate Vice President for Public Relations John Morgan said. “I have always been the person that all media has to contact and that includes all external media too. That means if they want to come on campus they need to work with our office.”
Quinnipiac’s Student Media Information Manual states that in order for students to speak with or interview university administration/staff, students are required to contact Morgan prior to contacting the employee. This is also mandatory for athletes, coaches or administrators.
Screenshot from Student Media Information Manual.
This concept of being granted ‘permission’ to speak with an administrator rather than directly going to that person for a response brings in the debate of true journalism versus public relations.
“Any organization does not allow you to just come in and talk to their employees,” Morgan said. “Organizations have a spokesperson and obviously I can’t be expected to know every higher education topic from top to bottom, that’s why we have departments and we work with them, you call us, I put you in touch with that person, you’re getting an authentic answer. I’m not sitting with them going over bullet points as to how we want to position it unless it’s something critical, but the run of the mill stuff they just rely on their own expertise to share that information.”
While it may be ‘required’ to contact Morgan before speaking with an administrator now, this was not always the case.
“Before the racial incident, student journalists could contact any administrator directly,” Diaz said. “The policy was changed by administration to be able to monitor the student journalists. The issue is simply that they realized students were doing real journalism and they had to be ready to respond.”
College Recruiter defines Public Relations as working to improve and monitor a client’s branding. Journalism, on the other hand, is defined as being ‘beholden to the truth,’ not to the image and opinions of clients. The line between the two has been one students have been fearful to cross at Quinnipiac.
Although Morgan does assist students by directing students to the right person to contact, he has also prevented them from contacting or interviewing an administrator if he does not deem it necessary or appropriate. In the nature of public relations, he is protecting the university, but when it comes to journalism, he is blocking students from what could be a crucial side of the story.
“We find that student media, as part of the learning process, is inclined to make a lot of mistakes,” Bushnell said in a recent interview. “Things blow up in people’s faces because of hearsay or rumors. That’s why some people will only respond in writing and some people won’t even respond at all.
“I think that it’s important to recognize that as journalists in training, you have responsibilities too. Just because you’ve heard something repeated over and over and over again doesn’t make it true.”
Contacting the public relations department is a known requirement before speaking with certain university members, yet there are cases in which a student either purposefully or by accident have broken this unspoken rule. In these cases, it is understood that ‘consequences’ are to follow.
“I’ve never actually said the word consequences,” said Associate Director of Campus Life David McGraw, who advises all of the student organizations on campus, including student media. “I do not know of any black and white punishment that you would get. It’s probably the biggest question of what the actual consequences would be that, at least for me, no one has told me, ‘If they do this, this is what will happen.’”
As the rumored ‘consequences’ loomed over students 10 years ago, the same threat, if you will, still stands now. For McGraw, such punishment would depend on the importance of the topic being covered and the extent that it was taken to.
“Being a private institution, I will say the university, in theory, does hold that power still that I could get a phone call that says, ‘We will not fund The Chronicle anymore,'” McGraw said. “This day and age with first amendment and all that kind of stuff, I do think the university would definitely take a different stance on it. We also have a new president who I think would probably approach the issues that happened 10 years ago differently than our previous president did.”
With similar guidelines still intact 10 years later, the question arises of: Were the efforts of The Quad News all for naught?
Andrew, the former Quad News managing editor and later editor in chief, recognizes that the emotions that fueled the founding editors may not be present among the current student body.
Ten years later, the editors of The Quad News have moved on from their days at QU. Where are they now?
“In the end it’s hard to duplicate that passion in other people if they didn’t experience it like you did. It’s hard to get students to want to be involved in general,” he said. “To get them to support something that’s not sanctioned by the university is even harder.”
A topic not taught or discussed in classrooms or among student media, the memory of The Quad News and their fight for the journalistic integrity of Quinnipiac has become just that: a memory.
“They did something different and it was just swept under the rug, like it’s off the grid, nobody knows about it,” said Logan Reardon, a current journalism student previously involved in The Chronicle. “I feel like we should know more about that.”
In a survey of 22 Quinnipiac communications students, 14 responded that they had never heard of The Quad News. Eighteen responded they believed there to still be censorship going on at Quinnipiac.
Some of the original members of The Quad News. Featured sitting in front Brendan Rimetz (left) and Matt Andrew (right). Photo courtesy of Margarita Diaz.
A decade later, Andrew hopes that, despite the fact that The Quad News failed to outlast those who restrained them, hindered their progress and denied their rights, that the mindset of what it means to take action rather than shy away lives on in the paper’s wake.
“I was always fired up,” Andrew said. “I was so passionate about the Quad News that I would do anything to make it survive and make it successful, within reason. But it was something I truly believed in and I would go a great lengths to make sure that it was going to be successful.
“Nobody else was doing the Quad News. We were like ‘This is something we’re going to do, we’re not going to back down, we’re not just going to get pushed around. We’re going to do something great and that we truly believe in and we’re not going to give up on it.’”
Quinnipiac clinches yet another MAAC championship.
As the buzzer sounds, head coach Tricia Fabbri eagerly storms the court with her team, making sure she hugs each and every person she can find.
Her family – who, from the 25th row in a mostly empty arena, berated the referees endlessly throughout the game – comes down and gets their chance at a hug. A long embrace between the family, tears inching down some faces, and then it’s back to business.
The next day, she’s in her office preparing for the NCAA Tournament.
Fabbri and her five seniors celebrate the 2019 MAAC title. (Photo by Morgan Tencza)
Fairfield University to Quinnipiac University.
It’s a short, 30-minute drive north on I-95.
For the last 32 years, Tricia Fabbri’s life has been defined by those two schools. And for the last 25, the 30-minute drive has been a staple of her daily life.
It all began in 1987, when a 5-foot-11 forward from Delran Township, New Jersey was a freshman on the Fairfield women’s basketball team. Tricia Fabbri – then Tricia Sacca – was a bruiser on the court, tallying 1,622 career points and 1,037 rebounds – both ranking her among the program’s top five.
That fall, though, Tricia found something that she didn’t go to Connecticut expecting to find.
Paul Fabbri graduated from Fairfield in 1987 – just a few months before Tricia arrived – and stayed at the university as a part-timer in the sports information department. He worked with the women’s basketball team during Tricia’s freshman year.
After three All-MAAC First-Team selections, Tricia stayed with the Stags as an assistant coach until 1995, when she saw an opening at Quinnipiac College – a Division II school in nearby Hamden.
“I thought, ‘Hey, I’m ready to become a head coach at 26,’” Tricia said. “I knew a couple people at the University of New Haven who made some calls to (then-Quinnipiac AD) Burt Kahn. I’m still convinced (I was hired because) Burt had two golden labs, and when I went into his office for the interview they were very happy to see me, I was unfazed and we had a good conversation.”
That was a monumental year for the young couple. Tricia and Paul got married in 1995, and both started new jobs that summer – new jobs that each of them still hold 24 years later.
Tricia went to Quinnipiac, while Paul started teaching and coaching baseball at Ridgefield High School, as the couple resided – and still does – in Stratford, a town neighboring Fairfield.
Quinnipiac wasn’t an ideal landing spot for Tricia. It was a lowly Division II program coming off back-to-back 4-22 seasons and it hired a new athletic director – Jack McDonald – soon after Tricia was hired.
“If you have aspirations to be a head coach, you have to start somewhere,” Paul said. “Quinnipiac was in the area and it offered a great opportunity for her just to start and have her own program.
“I think you have to take a risk, but never did I think it would become what it’s become.”
Tricia inherited the program and won 15 games in her first three seasons. Despite the on-court struggles, McDonald and then-Quinnipiac president John Lahey were determined to elevate the university to Division I.
“It was a difficult time,” McDonald said. “She had no full-time assistant coach. She had an office next to the elevator, as big as a closet. The proper support was not there for her. The first three or four years were a real struggle.
“To top it all off, we then dropped on to her, ‘Oh, coach, now you guys are Division I.’ We were playing a Division I schedule with Division III resources.”
Quinnipiac didn’t finish above .500 until Fabbri’s sixth year, but that year was almost her last.
On Dec. 4, 2000, Fabbri nearly left Quinnipiac.
The Quinnipiac Braves (2-2) hosted the Seton Hall Pirates (2-3) at Burt Kahn Court. The Pirates played in the highly-competitive Big East with teams like UConn and Notre Dame, among others. The Braves led by double digits at halftime, but the Pirates stormed back and won in overtime, 63-58.
“The crowd was disappointed – some people chirped some bad things at Trish,” McDonald said. “I go up to my office and I’m shutting down my computer and all of a sudden she walks in. She looks at me – and if the tears weren’t coming down her eyes, they were pretty close.
“She said ‘Jack, I can’t handle this. You deserve better than me. I want to resign.’ And I said ‘Trish, I’m going to pretend you never said that. Get the heck out of my office, go home, have a glass of wine, kiss your husband and hug your kids and we’ll talk on Monday.’ Frankly, that’s sort of the benchmark moment for the program.”
Fabbri (left) was emotional after the 2018 MAAC Championship Game.
Photo by Logan Reardon
Quinnipiac has had just three losing seasons since that day.
Now, the only tears Fabbri cries are after winning MAAC championships.
“That was the best thing for us, we took a great turn after that,” Fabbri said. “Jack saw the big picture and I just couldn’t see it. He saw the program moving, even if it was a step-by-step path. He believed in what I was doing.”
Off the court, the Fabbri’s were young parents. Their daughter Carly was born in April 1996, and sons A.J. and Paul Henry followed shortly after.
“I remember coming to her basketball camps when I was 3 years old,” Carly said. “I always had a ball in my hand. Growing up I was the water girl for the team and my mom would take me on any away trips I could go on. I loved being on the road and the bus with the team.”
While it was cool to have her mom coaching a Division I team, it did have some disadvantages.
Carly Fabbri cuts down the net after winning the 2018 MAAC title.
Photo from Logan Reardon
“(Tricia) missed Carly’s games when she was playing in high school, same thing with Paul Henry and A.J.,” Paul said. “She missed their games because of her responsibilities and it was extremely frustrating for her.”
Sports are everything in that family. Both of Tricia’s older brothers played Division I college football and each of the three children played in high school. They describe the family as a “team dynamic,” as sports dominate their lifestyle.
For Carly, knowing her mom had to miss some of her games was no big deal. She understood. It was the summer’s that hurt the most.
“I think it really hit home the hardest over the summer when she would go on almost two weeks of being on the road at a time and wasn’t home,” Carly said. “That’s when I would miss her the most. When I was off from school and if I wasn’t able to go recruiting with her, she was just gone for a long time and that’s when I got the most sad.”
As the kids grew older, Tricia’s program began to excel.
Now the Bobcats of Quinnipiac University, Fabbri’s squad won at least 10 conference games for six straight years from 2001 through 2006.
Fabbri credited Kim Misiaszek (‘01) and Colleen Klopp (‘01) – two Connecticut recruits from Old Lyme and Southington, respectively – for getting the team so competitive early in the Northeast Conference (NEC).
Still, people didn’t know what Quinnipiac was.
The name is funky and it’s in the middle of nowhere. So, how was Fabbri able to sell her budding program to recruits?
“As much as recruits will say they choose the school for the school, the coach is a very, very big reason why,” Mandy Pennewell (‘09) said. “It’s somebody that you’re going to love, and love to hate sometimes. You have to be able to handle that relationship at a young age where you are getting critiqued and certain things are expected of you.
“It felt like she was the mother of our herd, and you don’t cross that. You knew you had an environment where you were going to be protected, you were going to thrive and she was going to challenge you and hold you accountable.”
Quinnipiac was – and likely always will be – the “other” women’s college basketball program in Connecticut.
“When I was getting recruited, no one knew what Quinnipiac was,” Pennewell said with a laugh. “Honestly, after I committed, I just started saying I was going to school in Connecticut and everybody would think UConn. If you don’t know women’s college basketball you wouldn’t know.”
Quinnipiac lost to UConn in the 2018 NCAA Tournament Second Round, 71-46. (Photo by Morgan Tencza)
Now in 2007 with a growing program, Quinnipiac athletics changed forever – and people started to know the name. The People’s United Center (then the TD Bank Sports Center) opened on Jan. 27, 2007, moving the men’s and women’s basketball and ice hockey programs to the new $52 million arena.
“The building separated us from other mid-major universities,” Fabbri said. “This is just the brilliance of John Lahey. He wanted to continue to nationally build an academic reputation for the university, and he used athletics as the front porch. He saw athletics as a way to bring the university to national prominence.
“But it also brought a big responsibility, because if you build this, you better have success.”
MacGillivray celebrates his fifth and final conference championship as a Quinnipiac assistant coach in 2018.
Photo by Logan Reardon
Quinnipiac played its first full season on York Hill in 2007-08 (25-6, 16-2 NEC), and that coincided with the first postseason berth in program history. The Bobcats hosted future conference foe Iona at the TD Bank Sports Center in the first round of the WNIT on March 18, 2008, but lost, 71-59.
Still, it was another step for the program. Expectations were high as Quinnipiac brought in Mountain MacGillivray as a full-time assistant in 2009.
“When I got there, I said ‘If we don’t have the best roster in the league, we aren’t doing our job, because we’ve got a great school and a great coach and a great campus and a great arena,’” MacGillivray said. “What happened next was kind of inevitable. You just have to work hard and not make mistakes – and Trish rarely made any mistakes when it came to evaluating players and getting the right fits.”
Pennewell, along with Erin Kerner and Brianna Rooney, were some of the “right fits” that MacGillivray described. The trio graduated in 2009 and each made their mark on the program as part of that first postseason team in 2008.
After those three graduated, the program – and the university – took a detour from the progress they were making.
In April 2009, Quinnipiac women’s volleyball coach Robin Lamott Sparks and her players filed a lawsuit against the university. And as Pennewell, Kerner and Rooney left the school, Fabbri was forced to rebuild on the fly while her administration went through the lawsuit.
“(The Title IX case) really was a low point, but Trish did stay focused during it,” McDonald said. “A sign of a good coach is what you can do in adversity more than what you can do in success. She continued to be someone for all the younger women’s coaches to lean on. She was a rock.”
Sparks was a newer coach at Quinnipiac, so she didn’t really establish a relationship with Fabbri before the case.
“I was only there for about a year or two before the Title IX suit,” Sparks said. “And then after that, no one in athletics wanted to talk to me.”
Fabbri spoke on behalf of the basketball program during the case, but the suit didn’t affect her program in any way. In fact, they tried to avoid it all together.
“To a degree, there was separation by distance (because they were on York Hill and the rest of the sports were on main campus),” Fabbri said. “With that separation, I didn’t really know what was going on to be honest with you. No one was really talking about it because it was confidential. We were physically removed from it so I didn’t really get the ins and outs.
“I played a part in the trial, but I just had to answer everything that came and happened with the women’s basketball program. I was resourced and supported very well. It was just basketball, basketball, basketball questions from me so I just answered them.”
Framed QU Chronicle cover in Fabbri’s office after the Bobcats clinched their first NCAA Tournament berth.
Photo by Logan Reardon
While the program was not directly affected by the trial, the team did suffer back-to-back losing seasons in 2009-10 and 2010-11. It’s up for debate whether that was more related to the loss of their three star players or the trial. Coaches and players will say the right thing, but no one will ever truly know.
The case was settled in April 2013, and Quinnipiac agreed to keep all of its current women’s teams, add scholarships and improve facilities for its female athletes, according to a statement issued by the university.
In 2013-14, Fabbri was faced with another challenge. One year after her first NCAA Tournament bid, Quinnipiac jumped from the NEC to the MAAC.
“There was definitely a step up in competition (to the MAAC),” Adily Martucci ‘17 said. “I think there’s always going to be challenges when you are faced with teams you haven’t seen before. We were getting comfortable in the NEC.”
Martucci saw it all during her years. From her freshman year, the last in the NEC and the first in the NCAA Tournament, to her senior year and a Sweet 16 berth, Martucci likes to say she “joined the team at the perfect time.”
Martucci, along with Morgan Manz (‘17) and Carly Fabbri (‘18) (remember the 3-year-old at basketball camp?), helped bring the program to new heights.
Now, the Bobcats have been to three straight NCAA Tournaments and five of the last seven. It’s a dynasty by every definition of the word – there’s no way around it.
So with everything she’s achieved, what keeps Fabbri at Quinnipiac?
“I’ve had the opportunity to go and talk to the perceived bigger and power conferences. That’s been extremely interesting to go and do. But, just like recruiting, when you yourself are going and getting recruited, you find that the grass is never greener.”
Fabbri was a finalist for the Penn State job after last season, according to Blake DuDonis on High Post Hoops. Despite the reports, Fabbri insists she’s not interested in moving on.
“I’m really happy where my feet are and I still can make an impact within this program,” Fabbri said. “We can still achieve what I personally want to achieve. I really believe that second weekend (of the NCAA Tournament) is sitting there and I always like a challenge. It’s extremely difficult, but it’s also doable.”
If that’s the goal, then so be it. Fabbri holds the key to her future.
If she wants to use that key to make the drive north up I-95 for another 25 years, Quinnipiac will be better off.
But she’s earned the right to make that decision – whether she stays for life, or leaves tomorrow.
