Over 300,000 football related concussions occur annually, according to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Quinnipiac University professor, Richard Hanley, has studied football throughout his life after playing in college. He says if the sport was created today, it would be banned in the United States.
“Football is a game with a penalty called unnecessary roughness,” Hanley said. “That implies that the nature of the game has necessary roughness.”
Former football player, Andrew Grinde, felt the roughness of the game by suffering multiple concussions while playing for Yale University. He decided to retire from the game when he heard about the possible effects on the brain, after talking to his older brother who studies neuroscience.
“[Football] takes away excellence from the brain. It’s a simple as that,” Grinde said.
Professor Todd Botto teaches athletic training and sports medicine at Quinnipiac after working as an athletic trainer for the football team at Southern Mississippi University. He says that concussions will never go away from football, because while helmets are ideal for protecting against skull fractures, they cannot stop the brain from hitting the inside of a player’s skull which can happen in a collision that has plenty of force.
However, doctors at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are working on developing helmets that dissipate the forces that players put on one another’s heads. The experts are using crash test dummies to simulate collisions, so that each specific position on the football field has a helmet best suited to the hits they face.
Despite the possibilities of concussions in football, there are still players and coaches that point to the positives of football. Connecticut native and Boston College defensive end, Zach Allen, is projected to be signed in the first round of next year’s National Football League draft, according to a CBS mock draft who placed him at eleventh overall. He says money is not the only benefit of playing the game he loves.
“Football teaches people what it means to be part of a team,” Allen said. “The lessons you learn in football – the camaraderie, I think it’s definitely worth it.”
“I get to play the game I love and also put my family in a good position.” -Zach Allen
While people may have differing viewpoints on whether or not people should play football, Americans are still watching the sport. Through 12 weeks, NFL games are averaging 15.8 million television viewers, a 5% increase from 2017, according to ESPN.
Since 2017, Hamden has been trying to become more sustainable. First, by joining Sustainable CT with 400 other municipalities. With the financial and networking help of Sustainable CT, Hamden will have a set list of action plans in the spring of 2019.
Kathleen Schomaker, Hamden town’s energy efficiency coordinator, said that Hamden is pushing to limit food waste and recycling. There will be a separate bin for soft recyclable like clothing and bedding.
But for now, Hamden is still putting together the list of action to get going next year.
data-animation-override> “We gotta get our ducks in a row first.”
— Kathleen Schomaker
Hamden is looking to be certified in 2019.
For members of Quinnipiac University, the road to sustainability is a long journey. In 2010, the College Sustainability Report Card gave Quinnipiac University a D. The school was graded based on administration, climate change and energy, food and recycling, green building, student involvement, transportation, endowment transparency, investment priorities, and shareholder engagement. Among these criteria, Quinnipiac failed at three, and got the highest grade of B in food and recycling.
Even in 2018, members of the Quinnipiac University can see that the school is not sustainable.
The solutions must start from recognizing the three R’s of recycling: reduce, reuse, and recycle. Once these issues are addressed, awareness is the next first step.
Some of the major issues include recycling, food and plastic waste.
Quinnipiac students are among the most proactive members on this journey to help QU recycle waste.
QU ISA during a food drop trip
Quinnipiac International Student Association (ISA) helps donate food from Quinnipiac main cafeteria to local communities in Hamden.
Quinnipiac Student for Environmental Actions (QU SEA) raises awareness with “Weigh the Waste,” asking students to scrape the left over on their plate as they leave the cafeteria.
Across the United States, many experienced issues while waiting to cast their ballot this past Nov. 6 and in the days following many states experienced recounts.
In the state of Connecticut citizens experienced long lines at polls, students had issues during their registration processes and election officials held recounts for several races in the days following the election.
Quinnipiac senior, Joe Iasso, has been following the news of the many issues that made headlines after this midterm election.
“It made me upset to look nationwide to see the amount of voter suppression that was going on and kind of look at our own town and say, “‘oh my God, it’s happening everywhere, this is a huge problem,’” he said.
This year, Quinnipiac University had an Election Engagement Committee, their goal was to get 200 students to register to vote prior to the midterm election. This committee was spearheaded by Katherine Pezzella, director of campus life for fraternity and sorority life and Luke Ahearn, student government association vice president. As co-chairs they worked together to help increase civic engagement across Quinnipiac’s campus. This mission started as soon as students walked onto campus.
“Early on in the school year…we were doing voter registration because we figured that was the time most students were more likely to get involved with things on campus,” Ahearn said.
Throughout the course of the school year the Election Engagement Committee held different educational events, non-partisan information sessions and election drives on campus. On election day the committee organized transportation to polling locations, giving students the option to register to take a shuttle. In total the committee registered 165 new voters, but not all of them had an easy time at the polls.
The Election Engagement Committee encouraged students to register to vote in their home towns and request an absentee ballot or register to vote in Hamden by filling out a mail in registration form or going online. Registering in Hamden as a college student is not as easy as it sounds.
Pezzella said, “we know that there’s specific rules for college students and the form has to be filled out in a very specific way where they list not only what campus they live on but what their residence room number is, as well as their mailbox number, so there’s a lot of pieces that may be tricky for students.”
She explained that because the mail in registration form has to be filled out in a specific way, there were several forms handed into the committee that were either incomplete or incorrect. When a form was filled out incorrectly, the committee attempted to get in touch with the student who filled it out to make them aware that their registration would not be processed by the registrar.
“Ultimately we still had about 15 students who never came back to finish that form,” Pezzella said. “I know that there were at least 15 students who may have thought that they were registered to vote that ultimately did not have a complete voter registration.”
After hearing of the issues some students faced at the polls election day, Pezzella and Ahearn sent out a survey to the students they had registered looking to identify those who had issues and to receive more information about those issues.
“In the past, Hamden historically has given students trouble in the voter registration process and the voting process,” Ahearn said.
But in the survey they found only one student who filled out their registration form completely and correctly had an issue. That student was Joe Iasso.
Iasso had submitted a registration form to change his address through the registration drive.
“It’s a pretty simple form you just kind of fill out a new voter registration form and check that you’re just changing the address,” Iasso said. “It should be really simple for them to change in the system.”
On election day he drove to his polling location confident he would be able to vote using his new address, but when he went to check in they told him there was no one registered at that address with his name. An election official was able to look up his information and found out that he was still registered as a resident student on Quinnipiac’s Mount Carmel campus.
“I was apparently the only student who had an issue but to me there shouldn’t have been any issue at all,” Iasso said. “I should’ve been able to go in and vote by the correct procedure but my form wasn’t processed.”
Hamden Republican Registrar, Anthony Esposito, said they made sure that every form was processed.
“If you filled out a form…we made sure that we got every single one of those registrations in before election day,” Esposito said.
Iasso said this is not the first time he has had an issue with Hamden’s voting registration system. During his freshman year, Iasso held a registration drive for Hamden’s mayoral election with other members of the Student Government Association. Like the registration drive held this past election, they had Quinnipiac students fill out the paper mail in registration forms. Iasso said that he went with the SGA president to drop off the registration forms to the registrar’s office. When they got there they handed the forms to Esposito who said he could not process all of them.
“[He] gave us back like 20 that he said were not filled out correctly,” Iasso said.
Esposito explained that a way college students can try to avoid issues with registration is to go online. Misspelling or even the change of a letter makes a difference in whether or not a registrar can legally process a registration form.
“Going online, doing something that students do a thousand times a day it’s entering in the computer address, the form comes up and you just fill it out and when you’re all done putting all the data in you confirm it and send it and it comes here electronically,” Esposito explained.
While this is true for students who are from Connecticut, when students from out of state complete their online registration form, the last step brings them to a confirmation page with their personal information filled out. There is a note at the bottom that instructs students to print out this page and either mail it into the towns registrar office or the secretary of state.
A screenshot of the note that is on the last step of the online registration form that out of state students will see.
If students choose to click the above “Email” option, they are sent an email with instructions that say, “You are not officially registered to vote until this application is approved. Please print your completed registration (see attached), sign and date the application and deliver it by mail or in person to the Town of Hamden registrar of voters office.”
Despite what Esposito said, the form for out of state students is not sent to the registrar’s office electronically. Instead, students’ personal information is filled out electronically into the mail in registration form—the same form that many students typically write into during Quinnipiac’s registration drives.
We reached out to Esposito for comment regarding this but he did not get back to us in time for publication.
Esposito also acknowledges the stigma Quinnipiac students have for voting in Hamden.
“We get that all the time because you know [Hamden residents] say, “they’re not here, they don’t know the local issues,” Esposito said. “They’re going to vote for mayor, they’re gonna vote for legislative council, they don’t know what’s going on but they’re gonna vote anyhow, that’s not fair.”
It is a federal law that gives students the right to choose where they’d like to exercise their right to vote—in their home state or the state of their college. While Esposito believes that students should have this right to choose, he believes restrictions should be placed on students who choose to vote in the state of their college. He thinks the idea of a restriction may satisfy the residents who feel this way.
“I think that students, because they’re really temporary residents, that the offices that they should be allowed to vote for are not the typically local offices but the statewide offices—governor, president, state senator, congressperson,” Esposito said.
He agrees with the residents who believe that college students do not pay close enough attention to the local state senate and state house of representative races—who the candidates are and what issues they are running on.
“If they’re local things, you’re voting for what? What are you gonna vote because your parents say that you should vote and you’ve always voted?” Esposito asked.
Esposito said that he knows voting is one of the most important rights you can exercise as an American citizen. But he believes that citizens should not just vote to vote, they should vote to make an impact.
“If voting is such a great privilege then it should have meaning, then the privilege should reflect that,” he said. “If you’re going to vote, vote for what and how does your vote impact the total vote.”
Student voting was not the only issue in the greater New Haven area. In the state of Connecticut, there were many recounts that continued weeks after the election.
Jorge Cabrera, Hamden resident and Democratic candidate ran against incumbent Republican, George Logan in the 17th District State Senate Race. The result of this race was flipped after a major recount.
“I didn’t like the direction that our state was going in and didn’t [feel] that our state senator was doing good enough bringing resources back to our district, so that’s why I decided to get involved,” Cabrera said.
Going into election day, Cabrera said that his campaign team felt good.
“We had been endorsed by President Barack Obama, we had a lot of supporters, there was a lot of energy and excitement,” he said.
That night Cabrera returned to headquarters with his campaign team and waited for the returns to come in, with the race being so close they realized that they would not know the results until the morning.
“We sent everyone home and thanked them for support,” Cabrera said.
When Cabrera woke up the next morning he found out that he was declared the winner of the race. He began to receive congratulatory phone calls and began preparing for his transition into office with a strategy meeting with the Senate Democratic caucus. But the meeting was interrupted when Cabrera was informed by attorneys that there had been a problem in the counting of votes in Ansonia, one of the towns that vote in the 17th District State Senate race, and there would be a mandatory recount.
The towns that vote in the 17th District include: Ansonia, Beacon Falls, Bethany, Derby, parts of Hamden, Naugatuck and Woodbridge.
“It was confusion; I was asking myself some questions. You know, what exactly is happening?” Cabrera said.
He explained that most of the confusion stemmed from the various different explanations they were given for the recount. One explanation they got was that one of the machines broke down in the middle of the day and that officials at the polling location took the ballots out of the broken machine and fed them through another machine. This giving the impression that the machine counted those ballots twice.
Cabrera was also told that, “absentee ballots were fed into a machine and may have been counted over two hundred times, which we also couldn’t wrap our heads around.”
After the recount it was concluded that it was a scrivener’s error, meaning someone wrote down the wrong number. They then put the wrong number into the computer system.
In the initial reporting, the error, “went from two to 234,” Cabrera said.
When the recount began, Cabrera and his campaign team held a rally.
“The purpose behind the rally was to put a spotlight on the recount process to make sure that the folks that were doing the recount understood that we were demanding that every single vote be counted adequately,” he said. “The integrity of our political system and the integrity of the outcome of this election was critical.”
The recount reversed the original results, with Logan narrowly winning the seat with 50.1% of the votes and Cabrera with 49.9%
Cabrera said, “people often say your vote really matters, in my race it really did.”
We reached out to George Logan, 17th district state senator and the Ansonia registrar’s office and they did not get back to us in time for publication.
Voting issues plagued the U.S. in this midterm election. The question now is how can we move on? And how can we prevent these issues from happening again in 2020?
After a human error reversed the result of his race, Cabrera said he’s been looking into preventing these issues in the future.
“I’ve been talking to other legislatures about possible legislation for more oversight and accountability,” Cabrera said.
He has questions about what kind of training and experience the people who run our elections and polling locations have.
“We have a strong tradition in Connecticut of local rule and local authority over our election process which I think is important,” Cabrera said. “But I think we need to balance that to make sure these kinds of mistakes don’t happen.”
Esposito believes many of these errors, especially the human ones, happen because of the shifts many of these election officials work on election day.
“There’s a lot of reading and recording and you’re asking people who have already put in a 15 hour day to do the recording,” Esposito said. “There could be an opportunity for error at any place.”
He said the long lines in Connecticut for some polling locations are unavoidable because of election day registration. Connecticut is one of fifteen states that offer election day registration which gives citizens the opportunity to register and then vote on election day. Esposito only knows of one town in Connecticut that was able to successfully execute election day registration without a long line. He believes this was because of their staffing, resources and set up.
“We had as many people as we could working here in the office taking on all the people,” Esposito said. “Yet at 7:00 p.m. I had to go out into the hallway and tell people if you’re not standing at the counter with a ballot in your hand at 8:00 p.m. you’ll have to go home, because that’s the law.”
A picture at Hamden’s election day registration polling location with a line of people waiting.
Iasso plans on meeting with a member of the secretary of state’s staff in the near future in hopes to discuss an easier voter registration process for out of state students.
“I would hope that the state would try to find some way to implement a college student system for voting in their town[s], we have so many schools in Connecticut aside from Quinnipiac,” he said. “I hope to be able to make change for all of those college students.”
An outside view of Quinnipiac’s Peoples United Center. Photo Courtesy: Meriden Record-Journal
When you arrive at a house and walk up towards the front door, what is the first thing you see?
Typically it’s a front porch of some kind, leading up to the door. It’s the first impression you get of the place.
Now when you think of a college or university, what is the first thing you think of? Many people might say something related to what they have seen on TV or heard in the media. It is common that it’s something about an institution’s athletic programs.
That’s because athletics often act as the front porch to an institution.
“Any news is great news when Quinnipiac is in the media as it gets our name out there,” Cody Carr (‘18) said. “Since graduation, there have been people that ask me where I went to school. When I say ‘Quinnipiac University, it’s down in Connecticut,’ they respond with one of two things: men’s hockey or the polling institute. If that’s what we are known for, that’s what we are known for. But at least we are known for something.”
A small, private university in rural Connecticut, Quinnipiac uses its successful athletic department as a captivating front porch.
And Quinnipiac athletics has a lot more going for it.
The Big Picture
Particularly at the division I level, a successful athletic department can be at the core of a multi-million dollar industry. There are many factors at play, but frequently athletics serve as that front porch, or first introduction for someone, to a college or university.
“Brand awareness,” Quinnipiac’s vice president for admissions and financial aid Greg Eichhorn said. “That’s the biggest thing (athletics) do for us.”
Greg Eichhorn
Vice president for admissions and financial aid
He says logo and name identification, or at the very least recognition, can go a long way.
Quinnipiac’s athletic programs compete at the division I level across 21 varsity sports, in a variety of conferences. The men’s and women’s hockey teams compete in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC), the field hockey team in the Big East Conference, the rugby team in the National Intercollegiate Rugby Association (NIRA), the acrobatics and tumbling team in the National Collegiate Acrobatics and Tumbling Association (NCATA) and the remainder of the sports (basketball, soccer, baseball, etc.) in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC).
With the exception of the ECAC and the Big East, Quinnipiac teams compete in mid-major conferences. This has an effect on the strategic plan of an institution from an athletics standpoint.
Recruiting
Recruiting student-athletes is a competitive process. Trying to attract a skilled athlete to your college or university is sometimes beyond what you can control. Whatever one school is doing to get a commitment, it is likely another school is doing the same or better.
But when you sit back and look at Quinnipiac’s recruiting, it is interesting to see whom it is competing with on the recruiting trail. And that differs based on sport.
For example, Quinnipiac women’s basketball has been consistently better than its MAAC opponents for years now. Three league titles in four seasons, and three NCAA tournament wins, the success is at its pinnacle. As much as you can credit great coaching and outside influences, ultimately it comes down to the players on the court. Quinnipiac simply has more talent than other MAAC programs, and that is because of an entirely different recruiting pool.
“I don’t think we went up against a lot of MAAC schools in the past few recruiting cycles,” women’s basketball head coach Tricia Fabbri said. “For our 2019 class it was pretty far-reaching in terms of where they were looking. There was no common thread in terms of competitors that we continue to see. I think we just know the type of player first and foremost that is going to help us get better within the system.”
Tricia Fabbri on the sidelines of Quinnipiac women’s basketball NCAA tournament game against UConn in 2018. Photo Courtesy: Liz Flynn/ Quinnipiac Bobcats Sports Network
Quinnipiac is recruiting players that other MAAC schools can’t even come close to landing. And that is because Quinnipiac has the success and pedigree to show for it.
“The stability of the coaching staff is key because the transfer rate is so high, and (recruits) see real stability in the staff and specifically the head coach that is committed,” Fabbri said. “I think the real vision of what we are doing here, and that we can continue to compete and have success at the highest level. It’s those young ladies that want those challenges and not go to a program that has been there, done that before. But instead come to a program that continues to aspire to do that is a real draw.”
And of course Quinnipiac has the amenities as well.
The newly named Peoples United Center is a state-of-the-art, 185,000 square-foot facility located on the York Hill campus. The $52 million dollar building opened in 2007, formerly known as the TD Bank Sports Center, and still remains a clear recruitment tool for not only potential student-athletes but the fans as well.
“I’ve had season tickets since the first year they were available,” Tracey Sweeney, mother of three Quinnipiac alumni said. “Our daughter was a student there at the time, and both our boys played hockey and we liked the game of hockey so why not go to hockey in your own backyard. Look at where they’ve come from. The following is great and the facility is great.”
And that feeling rings true for just about anyone involved with the athletic facility, including its employees.
“Quinnipiac does a great job involving the local community in events,” Carr, who used to work in the TD Bank Sports Center box office as an account representative, said. “Whether that is recognizing season ticket holders or holding youth nights at games throughout the season, they have it all.”
Scholarships
According to the NCAA, 59% of athletes at the division I level receive athletics aid. That is, multiyear cost-of-attendance athletic scholarships. There are also academic scholarships that student-athletes can get, identical to the aid any other student at a college or university could receive.
“It is very different by sport and it is very different here than it would be at the biggest name institutions,” Eichhorn said. “Student athletes do qualify for merit-based assistance on an academic level if they qualify for it. However in many cases the NCAA standards are higher than institutional. So sometimes it has to be reduced for NCAA reasons.”
‘Sports of emphasis’ at Quinnipiac, also known as ‘tier I’ sports, are those that receive full funding, to the NCAA maximum, in many facets (scholarships, coaches, travel, uniforms, etc.) Prior to a 2009 Title IX lawsuit against the University, Quinnipiac had four ‘tier I’ sports: men’s and women’s ice hockey and men’s and women’s basketball.
Now following, due in part to a required consent decree issued by the federal courts, Quinnipiac has upped its number of ‘tier I’ sports to eight.
These teams include men’s and women’s hockey and basketball, as well as field hockey, women’s soccer, and men’s and women’s lacrosse.
“There are other sports that are not among that list of sports of emphasis that may not get the funding at the maximum level that the NCAA permits simple because of reality,” Rich Hanley, Quinnipiac’s NCAA faculty representative and associate professor of journalism said. “It is a wish that every sport was funded to the NCAA maximum, but a school of our size would find it financially perilous to sustain that practice. It’s just quite frankly impossible to do.”
At Quinnipiac, there are both scholarship athletes as well as non-scholarship athletes, and under that broader umbrella falls walk-ons (students who try-out and make a team). However each team is able to assign its scholarship money in the best way it sees fit.
One option is to use what is called equivalency scholarships, in which coaches give partial scholarships to multiple players. The other option is called head count scholarships, where all offers are ‘full ride’ scholarships.
According to scholarshipstats.com, a site dedicated to breaking down NCAA scholarship rules and regulations, the current athletics scholarship maximums as allowed by the NCAA are as follows:
According to this site, however, basketball is the only head count sport that is also a ‘tier I’ team at Quinnipiac. In other words, aside from basketball being all ‘full ride’ scholarships, the other tier I sports are equivalency, where money can be allocated in different portions to different student-athletes.
Finances
Bottom line, athletics can be big moneymakers (and also huge investments) for universities; particularly ones that are NCAA contenders year in and year out, and especially those with huge media and television deals.
Yet Quinnipiac doesn’t necessarily fall into that boat.
Remember back to that list of Quinnipiac sports and their respective conferences?
If you didn’t notice, there was no mention of a football team. And if you know about the college football landscape, you would know there is no such thing as MAAC football. So where is Quinnipiac football?
Nonexistent.
In its 89-year history, Quinnipiac has not had a football team. Football is one of the largest moneymakers for colleges and universities in terms of athletics, yet Quinnipiac operates without one.
But the reasons as to why may differ depending on who you ask.
“There are all sorts of legends about why we don’t have a football team. One, that has not been documented so it is just myth, is that the person who donated the land did not want us to have a football team so put a restriction in. But there is no evidence of that, it is just lore,” Hanley said.
Rich Hanley
NCAA faculty representative and associate professor of journalism
“But to me the reason is that football is an extraordinarily expensive sport. If you are a relatively new entry in college division I as we are, starting a football team would be a catastrophic mistake because it would cost too much money and too much support in terms of compliance and recruiting but most importantly in terms of facilities. So this university continues to make a wise decision by not adding a football team,” he said.
A small school with no football team, the revenue breakdown is in no way the same as a large university with football as a long lasting tradition. And Quinnipiac being private, it doesn’t have to release its financial information to anyone.
However the Knight Commission, an independent group with a legacy of promoting reforms that support and strengthen the educational mission of college sports, according to its website, has released plenty of data that analyzes division I sports at colleges and universities across the country.
Take a look at this chart of ‘Where the money comes from’ at division I private institutions:
According to an article written by Desmond Connor of the Hartford Courant in July of 2017, Quinnipiac University has a $25 million dollar operating budget for athletics. According to that report and in turn the chart above, Quinnipiac would fall under the second to last column on the right: division I, no football, top half $18-$50 million athletic budgets.
To dissect that further, look at the key on the right. Each section of the cylinder is color coded.
It is clear that a majority of the money from an athletics budget at a division I school with no football comes from within the institution. This should not be a surprise.
But what may catch you off guard is the difference in ‘red’ percentages across the columns. In essence, the first three columns (FBS football schools) receive a majority of their athletics budgets through generated funding (ticket sales, donor contributions, TV agreements, etc.) whereas the remainder of the schools (FCS and non-football schools) fund their athletic budgets through institutional subsidy.
Now have a look at ‘where the money goes’:
This chart is different from the first in that it is generally comparable in percentages across the board.
In other words, division I private institutions spend their money in generally the same places and the same percentages of the total budget (not dollars, because operating budgets vary largely in size).
For example, an FBS school with a $100 million dollar athletics operating budget (second column in from left) may spend 10% of its budget on game expenses and travel (purple), where a school like Quinnipiac in the non-football, $25 million dollar athletics operating budget (second to last on right) would spend 10% of its total budget on game expenses and travel as well. Of course the value of 10% will be different as the budget number is different, but the percentages are the same on average.
So what does this mean?
Essentially, despite the size of a school, its geographic location or even what sports it does and does not have, the spending is proportionally the same across the board. However it is the presence of a football program that affects ‘where the money comes from’ in funding an athletic department’s operating budget.
It takes money to make money, and that is what big time football schools do. But that system just would not work at Quinnipiac.
The Scope
For a small school of nearly 10,000 undergraduate students and not in the direct suburbs of any major city, recognition can be tough to come by. Thus using a successful athletic program to its advantage, Quinnipiac is doing things right.
What is pivotal is buy-in from the top down.
“Quinnipiac values athletics. Our new president has said that publicly on a number of occasions, and her attendance at a number of athletic events shows that she is interested in athletics serving as part of our public presentation to the world,” Hanley said. “It’s a way that binds the community of Quinnipiac into a single nation. It also gives folks outside of Quinnipiac access to our University by attending games and reading and watching our athletes through public media including social media.”
But its success through athletics, such as the women’s basketball teams run to the Sweet 16 in March or the men’s hockey team’s two national championship game appearances in the last six years, that is crucial to name recognition and makes a lasting impact.
It’s these successes that teach people across the country how to spell and pronounce Quinnipiac.
And it’s these successes that shape what Quinnipiac’s front porch looks like from afar.
Note: Quinnipiac athletic director Greg Amodio and senior associate athletic director Billy Mecca did not return requests to be interviewed for this piece.
Tensions between Quinnipiac University and the Town of Hamden have been a persistent theme since the 1980s when the school embarked on a decades-long expansion effort that sent enrollment skyrocketing and clashes between residents, students, and local government.
Quinnipiac University took this huge jump once John Lahey became the President in 1987.
Once the university got bigger and more students joined it created a tension with the town and the college as the town of Hamden was beginning to shift from regular Connecticut town to college town.
Through most of the 2000s, Quinnipiac’s enrollment was between 5,000 and 6,000 undergraduate students. Since that time, the school opened its York Hill Campus in 2007, featuring an athletic center, dorms and a student center less than two miles from its main Mount Carmel Campus.new campus on York Hill, a law school and a campus on North Haven.
The law school was built on the Mount Carmel Campus in the 1990s and moved to the North Haven Campus when that opened with the Frank H. Netter MD Medical School in 2013.
The class that this mostly affects is the senior class. Quinnipiac does not guarantee housing for seniors there are only 40 percent that have guaranteed housing this 40 percent is determined by a randomly generated lottery number that only one person on your group has to have for you to select a room.
Many seniors prefer to live off-campus, in either privately owned homes or in houses owned by Quinnipiac in Hamden neighborhoods. That means more students than ever are living off-campus. This has lead to a increase in the amount of students that are living off campus.
According to the website: www.usnews.com 75 percent of the students at Quinnipiac live on campus and 25 percent of students live off campus
With a growing number of students living in off-campus housing comes common issues that college aged students bring for a small town like Hamden.
Hamden town planner Daniel Kops said “the town does face issues with residents who complain about student behavior in residential neighborhoods.”
One of the most common issues that Hamden faces with student housing is partying and specifically loud noise complaint.
Hamden Police Department
Hamden police said that they had been called a total of 81 times in 2017 and 2018 to address noise complaints or reports of loud parties.
Kops said the most students who live in the community are quiet and fit into the neighborhoods.Some, he added, do not.
“Most students don’t cause behavioral problems but there are some that do and their parties are really disruptive,” Kops said. “There can be trash left everywhere and police called and they can give a bad name to student housing in general.”
Students living on campus have a much different experience as students living off-campus. While on-campus they’re under the jurisdiction of the University and have clear rules and guidelines to follow. If you live off campus students know that there is a certain way you have to conduct yourself so that there won’t be issues with the town and neighbors.
Patrick Brooks a senior who lives off-campus in Hamden said, “If I ever have an event at my house I notify all my neighbors and ensure that they don’t call in a noise complaint. I live in a quiet neighborhood,”
Students living off-campus can also affect the look of the small residential streets in Hamden
“If you have around in some of the residential areas you can see how concentrated it is,” said Kops. “You can see right away where students are living, and it changes the character of the residential neighborhoods since students have a different lifestyle and schedule as a retired couple of a couple with young children (might not).”
Student Housing with multiple cars in driveway
The ever-growing class sizes have created hurdles for both on and off-campus housing.
Residential life is an important part of the Quinnipiac experience, according to university officials. (Note: faculty aren’t involved in residential life; administrators, though, are, and the new president Judy Olien has said that student experience is at the core of her plans.Quinnipiac’s director of residential life, Mark Devilbiss , is responsible for housing. He said his job is to provide the structure for students to enjoy a positive experience while living on-campus or off it, a task made more difficult as the university continues to grow and requires more student beds.
“We’re a residential campus,” said Devilbiss. “We expect students to get a lot from being on campus. We believe students can get a lot from living on campus because they can interact with people who are different from them. We also think it can help their communication skills.”
Quinnipiac’s student body and class sizes have grown along side its reputation. The university’s first-year class has grown each year for a decade
“We’ve had to adapt over time to different class sizes,” said Devilbiss. “A couple of years ago, we increased the number of beds that were available for first-year students, and that’s been important.”
Residential life reconfigured dorms for first-year students to fit eight people. That made it possible for all students to live on campus.
The university has also added bunk beds to dorms to increase capacity.
Moreover, Quinnipiac has moved to reduce tensions with the town through other means. Over the past two years, the university has given Hamden $2.9 million to offset municipal costs associated with off-campus student life, according to an article posted in The New Haven Register.According to an article in the “New Haven Register” last year Quinnipiac donated 1.5 million dollars to the town of Hamden and 1.4 million dollars the previous year.
Former president Lahey sought approval from the university’s Board of Trustees to make the payment as a way to build trust with the town and help with its finances. Under state law, non-profit organizations such as Quinnipiac do not pay property taxes, a fact that enrages some residents.
“It’s one tangible way for us to tell the town of Hamden thank you,” said Lahey in the article. “Towns are strapped these days with the state cutting back and elsewhere with pressure not to increase property taxes more than they have to. It’s another way that we can contribute and hopefully show that we’re not only thankful but we’re good corporate citizens in the towns that we’re located.”
Quinnipiac University and Hamden also have some ideas to try and put the students in a more controlled area.
Kops said, “ We are trying to find ways to improve relations and we are exploring the possibility a zone that has apartments and places to eat and stores and this would be attractive to students and it would be walking distance and this way they could be there instead of spread out in the residential areas.”
Even though recent moves to strengthen the relationship between Quinnipiac and Hamden seem to be working, much more work needs to be done address the needs of the university and residents of the town.
The university is planning to build new dorms on its York Hill Campus to help reduce tensions.
Jennah Condon, former Quinnipiac University student, deals with depression and anxiety. In 2016, as a freshman, Condon decided to turn to the counseling services offered on campus.
“I felt like I wasn’t taken seriously and that I was brushed off, which led me to going back to my therapist outside of school,” said Condon.
Now a junior public relations major at Southern Connecticut State University, Condon said she values the importance of mental health awareness in a college setting.
“I also think that there’s such a negative connotation behind mental health awareness which is why people keep it internal a lot of the time. Taking the time to educate students about mental health issues and letting people know it’s normal would help people be more aware,” said Condon.
According to the 2012 AUCCCD Annual Survey, which 400 counseling center directors completed, 21 percent of counseling center students have severe mental health concerns, and another 40 percent have mild mental health concerns.
These surveys only indicate students who actually report to student health services. At a school such as Quinnipiac University, which includes three campuses and over 10,000 students, there are bound to be students who seek counseling on campus or go elsewhere for such services.
Kerry Patton, director of health and wellness, estimates that about 10 percent of the student population, around 1,000 students, seek counseling.
Quinnipiac currently has five full-time counselors, one part time counselor and is in the process of adding another full time position. With 6.5 counselors and roughly 10,000 students, the counselor to student ratio is one for every 1,539 students.
According to Patton, Quinnipiac has plans to hire a counselor for the Athletics Department in the near future.
“It’s just a matter of trying to figure out the timing and when it gets formally approved,” said Patton. “I think we’ll probably be actively recruiting in the spring. I just don’t know when it will actually start. The good news is it really is a top priority.”
Counseling Services provides resources outside of the university for students who need further assistance or have needs that cannot be met with on-campus assistance.
Student Health Services does not know how many students follow through with referrals to outside services.
“We provide individual therapy, we do crisis evaluations and most of the students are benefiting from brief treatment,” said Patton. “We do not have a session limit, so it really is based on the need and the discussion that the counselor and the student have about what is the goal and what they are working on,” said Patton.
According to the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) 2016 Annual Report, there is a wide range in the amount of counseling needed among students. From 2010 to 2016, counseling centers provided 28 percent more “rapid access” service hours per student rather than routine hours in response to growing demand, highlighting the importance of maintaining routine treatment capacity to care for students after the initial counseling appointment.
Quinnipiac’s counseling services include diagnostic evaluation, emergency intervention, individual counseling, consultation to faculty and medical staff, family intervention and referral to off-campus physicians and therapists.
Counselor Adrienne Koenigsberg leads a weekly grief group and a sexual assault support group for Quinnipiac students who want a safe place to talk with others who have experienced similar situations.
The groups are small in size and have around two to seven students in attendance each week.
“It is an open forum for each student to bring up issues they may be having,” said Koenigsberg. “Quinnipiac provides easy access to mental health support services and encourages students to utilize these services.”
Merina Sabatucci, former Quinnipiac student, sought counseling elsewhere during her time at the university.
“I think people and universities brush mental health under the rug because they don’t think it’s really that serious, but it’s a real thing. Kids our age are always dealing with it and they should have a safe place to go at school when they need to,” said Sabatucci.
The only reason Sabatucci, now a junior management major at Southern Connecticut State University, knew that counseling was offered on campus was because of her former roommate, Jennah Condon, who tried Quinnipiac’s counseling services her freshman year.
“It took me a long time to figure out who to go see and where to go for counseling, so making the services more known could make students more aware,” said Condon.
Her counseling appointment at Quinnipiac lasted about 30 minutes. The counselor did not refer her to other services and did not ask to schedule another appointment.
“I think that Quinnipiac could improve their counseling program and also promote mental health awareness by making the fact that counseling services are available more known to students.”
Condon said she encourages a healthy conversation about mental health on college campuses.
“I suffer from depression and there are days where it’s hard to even get out of bed because it physically hurts and most people mistake it for me being lazy. If they were educated about it, they would see it in a totally different light,” said Condon.
Fresh Check Day 2018 on Quinnipiac’s Bobcat Lawn
According to CCMH’s 2016 Annual Report, clients reported a 61 percent frequency of anxiety and 49 percent frequency of depression out of a list of 44 concerns.
The mental health and overall wellbeing of students has become an increased concern at Quinnipiac. For the past four years, Quinnipiac has hosted Fresh Check Day allowing students to check in on their mental health, gain awareness and learn about resources offered on and off campus.
“I think the most important outcome for students is to really understand what are some signs and symptoms of suicide for themselves as well as how to help a friend and to really learn other ways how to manage your own stress and how to get help with various stressors and different types of emotions,” said Patton.
Demands for long term counseling continue to increase as reports of anxiety and depression are students’ top concerns.
“[The amount of counseling] is based on when they meet with the counselor. They are going to evaluate the student and they’re going figure out what’s best, whether they recommend weekly or biweekly sessions really depends on what they’re presented with. We work as an interdisciplinary team to figure out what other individuals can be helpful in their treatment,” said Patton.
Quinnipiac junior nursing major Sara Baylous
encourages better promotion of the services offered to undergraduates and graduates alike.
“I thought that you could only go to the Health Center for short term counseling. I never knew that you could go more than a couple of times. I feel that it would be beneficial for Quinnipiac to promote long term counseling to its students,” said Baylous.
Alexis Ferrara, a senior occupational therapy major at Qui
nnipiac,
believes that the university should inform students as soon as they begin their academic career.
“I feel like for freshman especially, they should be made aware of the resources at Quinnipiac by their Resident Assistants, in First Year Seminar and should have the information and hours emailed to them,” said Ferrara
To contact Counseling Services, email counseling@qu.edu, call 203-582-8680 or schedule an appointment through MyQ.
Quinnipiac University, in Hamden Connecticut, claims to be committed to “building one of the most environmentally friendly campuses in America,” according to its 2018-19 Student Handbook. But, the private institution still has a long way to go–with more steps taken back than forward from the university.
Debt in America has reached an all time high of $1.5 trillion, forcing people to put their lives on hold. Of course, the more known debt is credit card debt but what is the real underlying reason for this crippling debt in our economy? Student loans.
There are more than 44 million Americans with student loan debt, owing a total amount of about $1.5 trillion. Americans owe almost $600 billion dollars more in student debt than in credit card debt.
Quinnipiac University marketing professor Maxim Polonsky says that this debt is due to students being uninformed about student debt while picking the school that they want.
“It is unfortunate that student are in this situation. A lot of students don’t know what they are signing up for,” Polonsky said. “So, there can be a lot more blame put on the consumer for not knowing what they are signing up for. Students are financially illiterate and they think it can just be dealt with tomorrow.”
There are many different types of loans that students can apply for if they are looking at a school that is out of their financial reach. Yet, of course these loans come with interest rates which can seriously change the amount expected to pay after graduation.
Last July, the Federal Board of Education decided to increase the interest rate on federal student loans from 4.45 to 5.05 percent this year.
To put this in perspective, say a student owes an average student debt of $30,000 after graduation. This debt will become an extra $3,195 instead of $2,800. To calculate your loans, click here.
Interest rates are rising because the Federal Reserve has been increasing interest rates on the Federal Funds rate. This influences the interest rates on other major loan indexes, especially Treasury rates and the LIBOR index. The interest rates on most private student loans are based on the 1-month and 3-month LIBOR indexes.
Federal student loans come in many forms to fit different needs.
These loans consist of:
Financial guru Mark Kantrotwitz, a writer for Private Student Loans, said, “Since we are in a rising interest rate environment, you can expect the interest rates on student loans to continue increasing by about 0.5 to 0.75 percent per year.”
Federal education loans increase their interest rates once a year — on July 1 — based on the last 10-year Treasury Note auction in May. Private student loans, on the other hand, can change their interest rates as frequently as monthly.
Private Student Loans.guru provides unbiased and objective information about private student loans. Private student loans are offered by private lenders such as Citizens Bank, College Ave, LendKey, Sallie Mae. Private student loans can be fixed or variable.
Students are well educated about needing to take loans out for college but the concept of interest rates usually flies under the radar. Students are delaying life decisions such as purchasing a house or car, furthering their education and getting married.
Although this is a huge struggle for most graduates there are ways to reduce this financial burden. Sofi is an online loan company that offers student loan refinancing options to students suffering from debt.
“We found over 60 percent of respondents reported that student loan debt is one of the top two financial concerns in their lives. While student loans are clearly a stressor for millennials, there’s a way to prevent them from causing students so much anxiety,” said a Sofi representative.
The loaning company holds events such as cocktail parties, cooking classes and yoga classes to help their clients feel more comfortable speaking out and connecting with others suffering from student loan debt. Sofi is the leading student loan provider refinancing over 250,000 people and has spent $18 billion in refinanced student loans.
Graduates can also qualify for student loan deductions through taxes but these deductions come with limitations. Loans can only be deducted if they were loaned from a qualified source, such as federal loans and private loan lenders. It is possible to deduct interest on student loans even if you don’t itemize your deductions.
This is helpful especially since grads are unlikely to own a house right away.
Offered to all is Public Student Loan Forgiveness. The program offers full student loan forgiveness to anyone who works in the public sector, which includes non-profit employees, Peace Corps volunteers, public school teachers and staff. The Pay as you Earn forgiveness program allows those struggling with student debt to make 240 payments of $65.92 a month. Once those 240 payments are complete, the rest of the debt will be forgiven.
Golden Financial services, a debt settlement company warns that, “thousands of qualified consumers won’t be getting student loan forgiveness on the public service program even though they believe they will because they forget to submit the form for it.”
The company blames this on the Department of Education and loan services for not clearly disclosing this to students. The application for student loan debt consolidation is here.
Working with a student loan attorney can be a serious next step when suffering with student debt. An attorney can help a grad navigate the complicated world of student debt and shed light on the concept of fixing it. They can help grads get out of default and on to a better repayment plan.
Student debt attorney Kevin McCarthy says he has seen an exponential growth of graduates coming for help.
“Most people come to us when they are living off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, not being able to help themselves whatsoever. Credit card debt allows people to to go bankrupt while student loan debt has to be paid off. This is causing a lot of pain for families and isn’t allowing people to live a better life,” he said.
An attorney can provide guidance regarding your legal rights and options, represent your interests by negotiating with your student loan holder, help you resolve defaults and apply for a discharge, and handle credit disputes. Attorneys can only help if the loans are from a private student loan lender. They cannot help if the student loans are federal.
Being well educated about loans and their interest rates can allow avoidance of crippling debt. Families struggling to understand student loans can hire a college funding adviser to help them work through the finances.
Central Mass college funding advisor Dave Landry said, “Many families feel overwhelmed with the college financial aid system. In my view, the system can also be unfair – especially if you make mistakes while navigating through the process.”
These advisers will stay with you throughout your time at school and help assist applying for loans to find ones that fit you best.
Although student loan debt sounds intimidating to most, it is also considered “good debt” because of its importance. Without an education, people struggle to increase their income opportunities. A recent study from Georgetown University found that those with a college education earn over $1 million in earnings in a lifetime compare to those without an education.
Although a college education is crucial to living a better life, it has also been damaging not only those in debt, but also the economy. Attending school is beneficial, but students need to be more aware of their financial abilities when attending school.
Polonsky noted it is possible to deal with this debt when keeping on top of it.
data-animation-override> “It is possible for people to live in this developed economy which allows people the basic level of survival to create debt. That’s the beauty of capitalist economy. The blame is on college here. College is very expensive and causes a very debatable proposition. The idea that a $60,000 private college is going to lead you to a better degree then a $30,000 public school is just a marketing technique used by the university.”
Student loan debt will always be an issue, and will worsen with the rise of interest rates. Students aren’t surprised about this debt until they are exposed to it after graduation.
Wake up, lift, go to class, attend practice, study, eat, sleep. Rinse and repeat.
That’s the hectic lifestyle of a college student-athlete. These rigorous schedules leave limited time for socializing, alone time, or extracurricular activities. The pressure to excel at everything and be everywhere for teammates, family and friends can serve as the perfect storm of conditions leading to mental health problems.
According to the NCAA, 30 percent of student-athletes self-report that they are consistently overwhelmed. The head coach of the Quinnipiac University women’s soccer team, Dave Clarke, said he sees the psychological impact on over scheduled and overwhelmed athletes all the time.
“It’s always been there, but it’s become more and more of an openly discussed topic,” he said. “It’s not like all of a sudden there’s more players or people being diagnosed with mental health problems, but it’s just more acceptable to talk about and discuss.”
Clarke, who has an educational background and has taught special education courses at Quinnipiac, said that there’s only so much he can do for a player who is struggling mentally. However, he makes sure there is always someone around his team who has the ability to identify and treat his athletes.
“You notice differences in moods, but I’m not qualified to pinpoint anything in particular,” Clarke said. “We do have people on staff who are more trained in that area, so I think there are people who are constantly looking out for red flags – whether that’s observational, on social media or their behaviors.”
Becky Carlson, the head coach of the three-time national champion women’s rugby team at Quinnipiac, takes discussing mental health issues with her team seriously to ensure their comfort in disclosing whether or not they’re struggling.
However, she doesn’t necessarily see the same initiative from other coaches at the university.
“I always ask, ‘Do we just talk about this more than everybody else?’ I just don’t hear about it from other teams,” Carlson said. “But it’s not a thing that coaches want to share because I think they feel like that means they’re failing if they do talk about the fact that they have a kid who’s struggling.”
Carlson has observed the benefits of an open dialogue about mental health, and that’s why she favors collaboration with her colleagues about it.
“Then I would know that I’m not by myself,” Carlson said. “I know that there are athletes on other teams that are struggling for a fact, but nobody talks about it. Addressing it in a group setting would be fine, but a team is only as responsive as a coach is willing to follow up on it.”
The NCAA reports that just 73 percent of student-athletes believe their coach cares about their well-being. That means 27 percent of student-athletes aren’t getting the support they need from a person they are seeing nearly every day.
“The role has evolved so much from being a coach to being so many more things now,” Carlson said. “I have kids that would rather come in my office to talk rather than go over to the counseling center and talk. They want to talk to people they can trust and that they’re around all the time.”
An athlete at Quinnipiac who did not want to be identified, said coaches often fail to realize that there may be more than a physical issue with an athlete.
“We’re human. Mental health issues affect more than just our performance; they affect our day to day lives and our ability to function,” the student-athlete said. “It’s very important that the coaches understand that the players might be dealing with something and that needs to be taken into account at all times.”
Carlson said the protocol for self-reporting mental illness makes it difficult for players to understand why coaches may not be aware or even know how to handle such conditions. She wants to do what she’s taught and told to do, but without giving her players the cold shoulder and coming across unsupportive or not understanding.
“Their protocol is to pick up the phone and let someone know,” she said. “If someone comes to me with a major issue, the last thing I’m going to do is pick up the phone and turn my back on them. You can’t actually create solutions for what the athletes are dealing with if you don’t know what they’re dealing with. And the people that create the rules and training don’t deal with the athletes directly, so you’re missing a crucial piece.”
Clarke pointed to the importance of familiarity with an athlete when that athlete exhibits unusual behavior that may suggest a mental health issue is emerging.
“Ultimately, they want to trust somebody,” he said. “A lot of the time they just want someone to listen to them. But it comes to a point where it’s not my area of expertise and when a player needs help, guidance and input, they need it from a professional.”
When it comes time for that professional help, Quinnipiac relies on mental health experts who are able to assist athletes.
Kerry Patton, Executive Director of Health and Wellness, is a licensed therapist who also oversees the counseling center at the university. She has noted some trends amongst student-athletes seeking help for mental health issues.
“Transitioning as a freshman, transitioning as a Division I athlete, and our athletes are also from all over the world so managing the stress and emotions they may be feeling with the change in their culture or environment,” Patton said. “I think it’s an extremely challenging job that they have to balance being a student-athlete and managing their personal needs, academic rigors and their travelling.”
Anxiety is a mental disorder that is not only becoming more prevalent in society in general, but also among college athletes. According to the NCAA, data from national surveys show that more than 30 percent of student-athletes have experienced overwhelming anxiety.
Patton said she thinks much of that is related to the pressure to perform.
“Some of the athletes’ anxiety is coming from their performance or because they’re coming from being number one on their team for so many years and then they come here and they’re with everyone else who is top notch,” she said.
That is why she is working diligently with the university to create a position for a counselor who works solely with the athletic department. That way, the players can get advice from a therapist with expertise in handling the types of situations that student-athletes go through.
“We are in very deep discussions about hopefully having someone just for athletics, like a sports psychologist, and someone who has the experience working with student-athletes because they do have some different needs,” Patton said. “I think more student athletes might utilize that if they know it’s just for them.”
This personalized treatment option aims to give coaches and players confidence in knowing that a trained therapist is available to discuss issues that are specific to athletes.
But there is still work to do beyond hiring a therapist.
“I think it’s just continuing education and trying to stay ahead of the times,” Clarke said. “And that’s not just with mental health, that’s also strength and conditioning and technology. You want to be progressive and know how to approach certain situations. Maybe there’s a trigger there with the sport – the expectation, the relationship – you just don’t know. So the more we continuously get educated on that then we’re doing the right thing.”
Ending the stigma around mental health is something that is talked about often, but Carlson wants to see it put into action.
“It comes down to societal expectations and athletes have always been raised and told to suck it up because they’re here to play a sport,” she said. “We’re looking it as more of a whole and how you play on the field also has a major correlation with how you’re doing off the field.”
Another student-athlete who did not want to be identified said the pressure to be strong is intense, but the ability to be honest and comfortable in sharing concerns would be useful.
“It’s overcoming that stigma and being able to come out as a student-athlete and say ‘I’m dealing with a mental health issue and I need help,’” the athlete said. “And that’s the challenge that we face.”
Both Clarke and Carlson said they see social media as a driver of mental health issues because of the elevated expectations these applications generate to present perfection.
“It’s no different than we see in everyday life where people talk about what they post on social media – the great cars, nice houses and vacations. If you don’t post that, is your life worthwhile?” Clarke said. “It’s the same with sports. Very rarely do we see people posting about bad performances, losses, goals given up or sitting on the bench. We never see a sticker that says ‘My daughter is a B student and I’m proud of her!’ It’s always honor student or A student. So there’s a perception of what a good player is based on social media versus the reality of actually performing on the field.”
Physical requirements aside, one in four student-athletes report being exhausted from the mental demands of their sport. A less judgmental and a more relaxed competitive space outside of social media for athletes to find release is imperative.
“It’s easier to not talk about it,” Carlson said. “I think mental health has to do with ego, too. It’s very hard to admit that you have a problem or are struggling with something. We work really hard to create an atmosphere that we’re all in this together.”
The term selfie is defined as a photograph that is taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media. All over the world, the word ‘selfie’ does not just stand for an image. It is embedded in the mind that this single image acts as an expression of thought and identity. The emphasis on media in today’s society has added additional pressures to this generation based off of the need for approval.
Rebecca Kauten, who holds a doctorate in psychology, said narcissism plays a key role in selfie proliferation. ”From the narcissism lens, I would suggest that people take (and post) “selfies” to garner positive feedback that bolsters their ego.”
What used to be a fun photo technique has transformed individuals to constantly seek approval and strip them from their personal identity. “99 percent of the time, people do not post the unflattering outtakes and only share those that will lead to positive feedback and admiration from peers,” Kauten said.
Social media provides multiple outlets for individuals to post, share, discuss, comment and even “like” their followers respective posts. An informal study that the author, Paige Meyer conducted consisting of 105 individuals between the ages of 18 and 51 said that Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter are the main platforms they use.
Some individuals have no shame in their selfie game.
“If we are being honest, I will get out of bed, put a full face of makeup on and one of my nicest tops paired with pajama pants on a Sunday if I think the lighting is good enough and can get a good selfie to spice up my instagram,” said Rose Piscitelli, a Quinnipiac University senior from East Haven, Conn.
Social media has endless boundaries and is coupled with the power to make or break an individual’s day depending on the pressure they imply on themselves for feedback. What happens is simple: One takes selfie, edits selfie, posts selfie, waits, and repeatedly checks phone for feedback.
Allan Metcalf, author of a book on selfies, said the shot serves as the connective tissue of social life.
“The selfie is so prominently known in this generation because everybody uses it and it enables them to be both introverted and extroverted at the same time, as if by magic. It connects them with the world,” said Metcalf, author of “From Skedaddle to Selfie: Words of the Generations,” a book that documents teen behavior.
Mackenzie Campbell
“I take selfies because they help me to capture my confident moments,” said Mackenzie Campbell when taking the conducted survey.
This constant routine is produced by dopamine. As seen in a recent study posted by the American Marketing Association, whenever one gets a like on social media, dopamine is released within the brain giving a natural “high” which the body craves constantly over time. This conditioned stimulus can be compared to the feeling of a hug, dinner date or even completing a killer workout, thus causing an endless cycle of questioning one’s self, being overly concerned with external opinions and ultimately leading to mental health issues.
Marcus Retegues
“I take selfies to show people where I am and what I am up to. I also share them when I think I look fine. My friends call me the selfie king,” said Marcus Retegues.
Metcalf added, “A selfie fulfilled a need that could not have been previously satisfied except maybe by taking lots of time with photographs.”
Luke Meyer
“I think taking selfies is great because I can remember some of my favorite moments and memories in life. Selfies also make it easier to help people catch up with one another. I take a selfie and send it off so easily,” said Luke Meyer.
The timely fashion in which selfies can be taken make it quick and easy to capture moments in time. On average, 93 million selfies are posted per day and 10 selfies are posted to instagram every 10 seconds. That is over 2,583,333 rolls of film that would be used daily for the purpose of a self taken photo.
In the recent study conducted, out of 105 participants, 39.4 percent of people said the take 1-5 selfies a day, thus including the use of the Snapchat app. 14.4 percent of people said they take 30 or more selfies on the daily.
Let me take a #SELFIE taken to another level.
There is no limit to the type of selfies that have been posted. There are group shots, solo shots, kissy faces, smiling poses – and the list goes on.
Josh Ribeiro
“I am not a huge selfie guy, I take them sometimes with friends and family. I think people over estimate the impact a selfie can cause on someone. People go through crazy lengths to get a good pic,” said Josh Ribeiro.
Jealousy, depression, anxiety, comparison bias, low self-esteem and what’s known as Fear of Missing Out, or FOMO, are all side effects of posting selfies to social media. The selfie acts as a positive way to share moments and capture memories but can ultimately be hurting the individual as a whole.
“If Person A views Person B’s selfie, they may negatively compare themselves to this person,” Kauten said.
“There’s a quote I love: ‘with social media, you tend to compare your “behind the scenes” to the other person’s “highlight reel.’” This type of misperception can lead to all kinds of distorted thoughts based on a strong focus on physical appearance, likes/feedback from others, and social media presence,” said Kauten when asked about the biggest problem with the “selfie.”
Meanings differ among photographs that appear to be similar in composition and intent. Alicia Eler, the author of the book “The Selfie Generation,” believes that the self expressing photo technique can lead to scandalous actions or even danger.
If not monitored and taken responsibly, some individuals are even voluntarily sexualizing themselves for an internet public or in many cases attention.
“We are all sexual beings. The selfie is one mode of self expression, and it may be sexual, ” Eler said.
Selfies can easily erode privacy because in that world, secrecy isn’t part of the calculation.
“Even if you do not add location to your picture, it is geotagged with a location by your phone, who you are with, and what you are doing. Then these posts become searchable within social networks and Google which makes your life more visible and public online,” Eler added.
The locator aspect when posting photos adds to the danger component while posting online. The selfie gives people the option to post images of themselves to social media, which in many cases include the marked location leaving nothing a true secret .
All of that has led to a new vocabulary of destruction. One word that has emerged from the selfie generation is the term Selficide. That refers to a person who is killed while taking a selfie in a dangerous manner.
The addiction of the selfie can cause distraction and harm towards the photographer as well as society. The selfie itself can compel people to take risks they wouldn’t ordinarily consider, bringing out one’s riskiest behavior.
The next best thing
“Everyone’s chasing the next best thing – the coolest selfie and going to extremes to get the most “likes.” As in the “In My Feelings” challenge, people try to keep up and up the ante, just so that they can get recognition and praise”, said Rebecca Kauten.
According to a study conducted by Agam Bansal, Chandan Garg, Abhijith Pakhare, and Samiksha Gupta and published in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, more than 250 people around the world have died taking selfies since 2011. Although snapping the perfect selfie can be an award-winning feeling, can be fatal. The study showed that there were more deaths caused by selfies for men than women. Although women generally take more selfies than men, researchers found that men were more likely to take risks — like standing at the edge of a cliff — to capture any dramatic shot.
The United States leads in death by selfies with a firearm. These tend to occur when individual pose with guns and accidentally trigger them. The results of this study lead to the idea of implementing “No selfie zones” across tourist areas such as bodies of water, mountain peaks and over tall buildings to decrease the incidence of selfie-related deaths. Yes, you heard it right. We are living in a generation where “no selfie zones” have to be implemented.
Selfies are affecting people both positively and negatively in cities across the world. Coming in at the number one hottest spot to take selfies is Makati and Pasig City in the Philippines with 258 selfie takers per every 100,000 with a population of 1,127,684. As for number two, another one of the “selfiest” cities is Manhattan with 202 selfie takers per 100,000 with a population of 1,487,536.
The first known selfie took place in 1839 when an American, Robert Cornelius, produced a photo of himself. Of course, this selfie being a little different than the type of selfie we see scrolling through our feeds today.
Robert Cornelius
An American pioneer in photography who produced a photo of himself, which was recorded as the first self- photograph of a person.
Over the years, the advancement in technology has readily changed the value of a photo. Today, everyone can be a photographer. At the palm of one’s hand, they have a high-megapixel camera lens that allows for front and back facing photos to be taken.
“I interned with the North Shore Navigators this summer and was able to produce, edit and broadcast all of the baseball games with the players. I used my iPhone camera, with a cheap plug-in hand-held microphone and the footage turned out just as clear as any camera could have done,” said Emma Carman, a Quinnipiac University junior from New Hampshire.
As for the future of the selfie, Kauten thinks the trend may stick around. “ If you think about it, we’ve been taking selfies forever – even back when they had to be painted or people sat for portraits. Society will find some other way to measure worth, but the selfie will probably be around forever in some way or another.”
