As the podcast studio keeps jumping around from building to building on the Mount Carmel Campus of Quinnipiac University, a new hire was announced that put a name to the person who will be running the said studio.
The new podcast center director is David DesRoches and he comes to Quinnipiac from Connecticut NPR where he worked as an education reporter.
Photo of David DesRoches
“I’m naturally a creative person,” DesRoches said. “[In] journalism you don’t really have an outlet of opportunity to be creative, but you’re drawn to the facts.”
DesRoches said he is excited about building the podcast program from the ground up and he looks forward to enlisting the help of the Quinnipiac community, especially the students.
And Quinnipiac students, though they are excited about the new studio, have some expectations of the new space on campus and of its new director.
“[I want] an inclusive space,” senior Leah Lavin said. “I think we see a lot with these editing labs, the mac labs and the library and we think of it as only for [communication] students, but everyone likes to podcast.”
On top of serving the students and the university with the podcast studio, DesRoches said he wants to go further and give a voice to Hamden and the surrounding areas.
“I just really want to be a resource for the university and also for the community,” DesRoches said. “Part of what I want to do is do content that bridges the university with the area that expresses the values that we share.”
About a week and a half ago, a harrowing incident occurred right on the doorstep of Quinnipiac University. A Quinnipiac student told the Hamden Police Department that she was sexually assaulted on November 9. The incident occurred on the intersections of Mount Carmel Ave and New Road.
The student told police that the incident occurred as she was walking along the road around 11 p.m., when two white males in their 20s asked if she wanted a ride. She said that upon entering the vehicle, one of the males sexually assaulted her.
Quinnipiac’s Chief of Public Safety, Edgar Rodriguez, issued a detailed statement last week to the Quinnipiac student body on the issue that described some of the details.
Edgar Rodriguez sent this email to the Quinnipiac University community
Despite the incident, Quinnipiac students don’t seem too concerned about their safety levels when on or around campus.
“I feel like this area is pretty safe,” QU student Kyle Carbutt said. “But I’m sure it’s safer to live on campus.”
“You’ve got security gates, and… well, it’s a campus,” Carbutt added with a chuckle.
Other students seemed perplexed by the victim’s decision to get in the car in the first place.
“I was a little shocked,” student Caroline King said. “I also thought it was very interesting that she got into a stranger’s car to begin with.”
Though the assault is a serious issue, it’s not the only trouble that the Hamden area has seen recently, as there was a shooting in Hamden the following Monday.
Carbutt, though, still believes that the area is safe to live in.
“I know Hamden is a big town,” Carbutt said. “But I feel like our area – the Quinnipiac area – is pretty tight and pretty safe, I would say.”
When you’re coming down the home stretch of your victory lap, you might as well have a little fun with it.
That’s the mindset of many Quinnipiac University seniors, who are being offered a “Senior Experience” by the school.
Quinnipiac is organizing a night at the Foxwoods Casino and a boat cruise around Boston for members of the school’s senior class.
“I’m really excited about it,” Bethany Novak. “Going to Foxwoods… I’ve never been there before.”
Not all seniors are as enthused about the event, however.
“As of now, I’m not planning on signing up,” senior John Tamarez said. “I think (the experience) should be a full week after finals, like it was before.”
Following last week’s raw chicken incident, Chartwells Dining Services came under heavy fire from the Quinnipiac student body – so much so that a Town Hall meeting was arranged to address the issues.
Last Wednesday, Quinnipiac’s Student Government Association organized a Town Hall-type event in Quinnipiac University’s Echlin Center, in order to allow students to express their questions and concerns to QU Dining representatives.
Some complaints included the sourcing of the food, the inspection process of the products, and the price of certain items.
Chuck Couture, the Regional District Manager of QU Dining, weighed in on the matter.
“We’re always looking at better ways to be more sustainable,” Couture said. “Our ask is [to] bring it to our attention.”
On November 10, tragedy struck the Connecticut and NCAA community as a whole.
Southern Connecticut State gymnast Melanie Coleman died last Sunday due to complications from a serious injury she had suffered in practice on Thursday, November 8.
Coleman injured herself when she fell during a routine exercise on the uneven bars during practice, according to SCSU spokesman Ken Sweeten.
Coleman’s family said in a statement: “We are confident that her spirit, laughter, and humor will live on through the ones who loved her most, as well as through the gift of life to those who needed it most through organ donation.”
This week on QNN, a look at student safety on and off campus. Plus, QU students share their concerns with Chartwells in a town hall meeting, and big changes are coming to “senior sendoff.” Those stories and more are in this week’s QNN newscast!
Caitlin Houston is a 34-year-old Connecticut micro-influencer running the lifestyle and family blog Caitlin Houston Blog, posting about things like mom life, gift guides and clothing.
“There’s a lot of people who don’t understand what a blogger is and what a blogger does,” Houston said.
Houston works 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. like many people her age, but she said a lot of people don’t think blogging is a “real job.”
“They don’t understand it,” Houston said. “The second I say I’m a blogger or influencer, somebody thinks I’m just out there talking about something I was paid to talk about.”
Houston explains influencing as, “Giving people knowledge about an item or a brand or topic and hoping that they take your opinion as worth more than just an opinion.”
She uses many social media platforms to promote her blogs and communicate with her audience.
Houston uses Instagram to spread knowledge about a product or brand. She also uses it to share pictures of her family and form relationships with people.
“So when I do talk about something, they take my word honestly and they believe what I’m saying is organic,” Houston said.
Facebook is Houston’s most active platform.
“I have a large audience on Facebook that doesn’t use Instagram,” Houston said.
For every blog post Houston writes, she also creates a graphic with text and posts it to Pinterest with key words.
“I do it with the hopes that they will click that pin which will ultimately take them to my blog and keep them there for a while,” Houston said.
Houston’s goals aren’t just numbers on social media. One goal was to create a presence in her community.
She loves it when people reach out to her, like one woman who wrote, “I love your blog” and “you helped me through this part of motherhood.”
Houston talking on a panel about influencing along with other Connecticut influencers.
Through blogging, Houston’s connected with people outside her community.
“I have friends probably all over the country,” Houston said. “People that I talk about daily, talk to daily.”
Houston and her friends run lifestyle blogs, but influencers don’t all have to focus on the same subject.
Some influencers focus on very specific niche-interests.
Marissa Mullen is 26-year-old living in Brooklyn, New York. The Connecticut native left her job as a house band coordinator for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to pursue her passion…for cheese.
“I am a “Cheese Plate Influencer” as they say online,” Mullen said.
As a micro influencer, Mullen is a one-person band. She creates content for three separate Instagram accounts.
@ThatCheesePlate shares her full cheese plate creations. @CheeseByNumbers show’s swipe by swipe directions on how to create each cheese plate and @ThatCheeseClass shows boards created at her workshops.
But Mullen doesn’t just run an Instagram accounts, she runs a business.
“Some days I’m busy working with clients to create content, which means crafting and photographing four cheese plates in a day,” Mullen said.
As the only employee to her company, she spends days answering emails, handling invoices and booking events. Her most recent project is her upcoming cookbook, “That Cheese Plate Will Change Your Life.”
But it’s not just family blogs or things like cheese.
Video gamers can also have a career in influencing. They share their content when they post videos to either their social media or YouTube channel. Videos game influencers are unique because they take you through an experience.
“Facebook, Twitter, they don’t allow for the sharing of the experience itself,” David A. Tomczyk, professor of Professor of Entrepreneurship & Strategy at Quinnipiac University, said.
The video itself is a solo experience and the social interaction happens before and after.
Houston and Mullen are a part of a large group of micro and macro-influencers, world-wide.
“Influencers are considered to be thought leaders,” Professor Mary Dunn of Quinnipiac University’s school of communications, said.
Dunn teaches a class called “Strategies of Social Media,” and her research includes influencers. Dunn said that people don’t realize how much production goes into being an influencer.
“It’s beyond a job, it’s a whole industry,” Dunn said.
This “industry” is made up of macro and micro-influencers. Macro influencers often have over a million followers. Micro influencers have a couple thousand followers.
John Powers, who teaches a course called “Social Media in the Digital Age” at Quinnipiac University said, “It’s a natural way to do what you love to do.”
Before social media influencers starting popping up, brands used well-known celebrities to endorse their products or brands. Today, it is more common for a macro influencer to partner with brands.
“LeBron James wore them, so I have to get them, has turned,” Powers said.
MuseFind is a influencer marketing platform. Its data shows that 92 percent of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertisement or traditional celebrity endorsement.
Powers said, he sees that average people with a large following were more trusted by the public then celebrities.
In the late 2000s, American model and reality television star Kendall Jenner endorsed Proactive, a skin care brand. In 2017, she endorsed Pepsi. This shows how she went from a small product to a worldwide brand.
From the outside looking in, this can still look like a glamorous career, but it’s much more complex on the production side than anyone realizes.
Micro-influencers may work independently, while macro-influencers work with their team to produce content.
“Many of what we call macro-influencers, who have over a million followers, but aren’t considered cultural celebrities, those accounts that are posting so regularly often have teams behind them,” Dunn said.
These teams are forming a number of careers for people.
“There are actually supportive creative careers within the industry of influencing,” Dunn said.
Amanda Perelli is an editorial fellow at Business Insider covering YouTubers and influencers. She said both smaller and larger businesses are only growing in popularity.
“I think people think right now that the industry is very saturated, but I would say it’s only going to get bigger,” Perelli says.
In 2019, spending on influencer marketing will…
Parelli said a lot of brands still don’t practice influencer marketing. She thinks that once more brands use this type of marketing they’ll see the success of influencer marketing versus celebrity endorsements or television advertisements.
Powers said the success of “great content” comes from being active on multiple platforms.
The research firm, eMarketer, found that on average, people will spend 3 hours and 43 minutes each day on their smartphones, feature phones and tablets this year. That’s 8 more minutes than they’ll spend watching TV.
“Huge percentages of people are spending vast majority of their time on those social networks, that is where information is being shared,” Powers said. “It’s where messages are shared, it’s where brands and people are expressing themselves.”
Social media also gives influencers the ability to network with others in their niche.
“Instagrammers also do a lot of cross promotion with others of similar interest,” Dunn said.
Cross promotion allows influencers to work with other influencers. This can lead to an increase in followers and the opportunity to partner with more brands.
For example, MAC cosmetics isn’t going to come out with a line of hardware tools. So if you’re a beauty blogger endorsing brands, you’re not going to endorse your “favorite” hardware tools.
“If it feels random, the audience is going to think you’re just in it for the money,” said Dunn.
The audience just wants partnerships to make sense.
“Audiences don’t care that they’re doing partnerships,” Dunn said. We’re seeing that consumers are actually excited for these micro influencers, that they’re getting to make some money.”
However, the audience wants to see disclosures when working with a brand.
“You would think it would put off a bunch of people, but instead if you’re upfront about it then the consumers are like OK, I still value your opinion,” said Dunn.
The brand, influencer and audience ideas have to mesh, but the influencers has to practice transparency in order to be successful.
“That full disclosure is a better business practice for the audience who’s the vulnerable population, the influencer who has to manage this relationship and the brand who’s using all this tactically to support the brand,” Dunn said.
A big change has come to some Instagram accounts.
The social network is testing a feature that will no longer show someone’s “likes.” Account holders can see their likes, but their followers won’t know the amount of likes on a picture or video.
In an article on Instagram hiding ‘likes’, Perelli writes, “By promoting products to followers, Instagram has become a huge source of revenue for many social-media influencers and a major part of their online businesses.”
Instagram likes are often used as measurement for brands.
Adam Wescott, a partner at Drm Select Management Group, told Business Insider that, “”For creators, it’s a big change because likes are the number one tool for tracking post engagement. They know within minutes how their content will do based on number of likes.”
Talking to Lifestyle blogger, Caitlin Houston
Houston, the creator of Caitlin Houston Blog, isn’t worried about Instagram’s trial feature.
“Truthfully I feel a sense of relief that they are going to be doing this because I put too much pressure on myself when a picture doesn’t get as many likes as I think it should,” she said.
Houston thinks brands will be able to look at quality and “impressions” instead of quantity. The lifestyle blogger focuses more on her comments than her likes.
“Comments are huge to me and I think more important than likes because people are stopping to engage with the photo,” she said.
Influencers will still be able to make an income from their social media accounts.
“For a lot of people it’s a career because they’re able to make money in so many different ways,” Perelli said.
Wescott told Business Insider that he believes brands will find alternative ways to measure engagement through looking at things like comments, shares, and Instagram stories.
An increase in influencer marketing will also create job growth.
“When mainstream brands and bigger brands start putting money into that, I think it could really become a career for even more people than it already is,” Perelli said.
This week on QNN, we have the results of Hamden’s mayoral election. Plus, new complaints about food on campus, and how Quinnipiac is honoring veterans. Those stories and more are in this week’s QNN newscast!
Quinnipiac Dining parent company, Chartwells, is in hot water.
The reason? Serving something not hot enough.
On Tuesday, Nov. 5, the Instagram account “Quinnipiac Barstool” posted a now-infamous photo of a sandwich, with undercooked chicken peering out from under the bread and lettuce.
Quinnipiac Dining responded hours later, sending an open letter to the Quinnipiac community in response to the chicken, which had been served on Monday, Nov. 4.
As shown in the letter, the dining service explains how their supplier had changed the “product” that Chartwells would be serving, without notifying the cooks or managers of any changes in preparation that would need to be made.
The incident opened up a different conversation around campus, however, as some students are asking for improvements to food quality across the board.
“We pay a lot of money to go to this school,” a Quinnipiac student said in response to the incident. “I don’t understand why they can’t give us decent food.”
“I wanted to have a chicken Caesar sandwich today, but I wasn’t able to do that because it tasted disgusting, and was freezing cold,” another student said of their experience later that week. “That can’t happen.”
On Chartwells company website, they say that their promise is to “To extend our passion, dedication, knowledge and enthusiasm into serving each student delicious and nutritious meals.” They go on to say that they aim “to nourish the bodies, minds and spirits of our students and pave the way for a lifetime of success and well-being.”
The Long Island-native Flynn is heavily involved in the Bobcat community. Flynn currently serves as the Vice President of the Quinnipiac Bobcat Sports Network, as well as the Marketing Director for Q30 Television. She also serves as the secretary for the Chi Omega sorority, and as a photographer for Quinnipiac Athletics.
Photography is more than just a job to Liz Flynn; it’s become a career path. Outside of Quinnipiac, she spent the past two summers as a photography intern for the Brooklyn Cyclones baseball team. She also freelances as a photographer with various media organizations, as well as Quinnipiac Intramurals.
Flynn’s award marks the second Bobcat of the Month to be named by Quinnipiac’s Student Government Association. Sophomore Megan Taylor won the inaugural award in September.
