Category: Quinnipiac

Quinnipiac students received an email late Monday on how the university is handling the coronavirus outbreak. 

Students studying in Italy were forced to return home, as the partner institutions have suspended the programs. They’re required to stay in their home for a minimum of 14 days to prevent spreading the virus. 

“Our partner institutions in Italy have suspended their programs and/or are offering the remainder of their coursework online,” Interim Provost and Executive Vice President Jennifer Brown said. “As a result, students studying in Italy are returning to the United States and are required to return home, not to campus, and remain at home for a minimum of 14 days as a self-quarantine.”

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a  “Level 3” advisory recommending that people avoid all nonessential travel.

Other universities including Fairfield University, Sacred Heart University and the University of New Haven have pulled their students out of study abroad programs. 

Quinnipiac, however, is not making any changes to other study abroad programs scheduled for later this year. Quinnipiac junior Ryan Breitzka has already made plans to study abroad this summer. 

“I’m going abroad to the Czech Republic over the summer in Prague for now, unless told otherwise by the program people,” Breitzka said. “I am concerned if the surrounding areas are contaminated by the time I get to Prague, and I’m talking with my advisor to go over a plan B because this is nearly the last time for me to go abroad. As of right now to travel, I feel relatively safe.”

Students traveling within the United States are also concerned about the risks. 

“I have an internship set up for this summer in Los Angeles, and it’s something that I have been looking forward to since my first semester,” junior Julianna Coscia said. “The program in Los Angeles was one of the reasons why I chose to come to Quinnipiac.” 

The university has established a coronavirus task force with various members of the university and medical professionals. 

A new web page was created including regular updates from the members of the task force. It was also announced that the group will be meeting with state and federal health officials over spring break. 

According to Donald G. McNeil, a science and health reporter for the New York Times, making a vaccine will take around a year. 

The CDC is recommending washing your hands often, and to stay away from people who are coughing or sneezing. 

Thirteen states have confirmed cases of the coronavirus with over 90,000 worldwide. 

There are currently no confirmed cases of the coronavirus in Connecticut.

May 18 will be the two year anniversary of the partnership between People’s United Bank and Quinnipiac University, announced back in 2018. Since then, Quinnipiac and People’s have presented a variety of opportunities to connect entrepreneur students with bank executives. 

“It’s been two years almost, and [this relationship] has wildly exceeded our expectations in terms of the collaboration and the partnership,” Jeff Tengel, president of People’s United Bank said. 

On Wednesday afternoon, Tengel spoke in the Lender School of Business to bankers and students alike. He was one of several speakers in the weekly People’s United Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship Spring Speaker series, running from February to April.

“[The Speaker series] is probably less important than some of the other things we do that are maybe more personal, like the mentor-mentee thing we just did, which is a chance for [students] to talk one on one with a bunch of executives,” Tengel said. 

Students were given the opportunity to have a discussion with professionals working in the field.  

Last September, People’s United Center invited students to pitch their business ideas for monetary prizes to help get their entrepreneurship ideas off the ground. The center awarded $5,000 in cash prizes to three Quinnipiac students with the best pitches. 

“We had 60 Quinnipiac students participate in that pitch competition…People’s played a very instrumental role in that,” Fred McKinney, director of People’s United Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship said. 

“I think any way that we can get out and interact with the students, it’s gonna be a good thing,” Tengel said. “And so I think as we go forward, it’s going to be more of the same. I don’t see any reason why that would change.”

The next guest speaker for the People’s Speaker series will be Will Ginsberg, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, held on March 18.

Connecticut state archaeologist Nick Bellantoni believes the human remains found in Ridgefield, Connecticut last fall are likely the remains of Revolutionary War soldiers. At a presentation given in Quinnipiac University’s Center for Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences on Monday, Bellantoni discussed the remains, which were discovered in a cellar. 

“The thing I should preface right off the bat is I don’t have a lot of conclusions to give you,” Bellantoni said. “It’s probably going to take a good year to get a handle on what we have.” 

However, if the remains are from soldiers, this is considered a major find. The remains were found in situ, or in place, meaning they hadn’t been disturbed prior to the archaeological research. According to Bellatoni, this is very rare.

“It will put revolutionary Connecticut on the map,” he said. 

The discovery began as a police case. On Nov. 25, 2019, construction workers were renovating a basement in Ridgefield, Connecticut when they found some bones underground. The workers called the police, who then called the medical examiner’s forensic anthropologist.  Once the anthropologist discovered just how old the bones were, the state archaeologist was brought in.

“The law in the state of Connecticut is that whenever bones are 50 years old or more, the state archaeologist is notified,” Bellantoni said. 

Bellantoni knew there had been a Revolutionary War battle in Ridgefield with some dead from both sides of the conflict buried in the town. He’d looked for remains in the past, but never found anything. 

Bellatoni hoped the finding was Revolutionary War soldiers, but he didn’t have the highest hopes at first. Farming families often buried their dead near their homes, so the bones could be linked back to that.

However, when he got to the site, Bellantoni found soldiers were most likely buried there. He said the remains were from strong men between the ages of 25 and 35. 

Then came the most important piece of evidence.

“We started to find buttons,” Bellantoni said. “These buttons were a strong indication that the remains weren’t from farmers..In the colonial period, clothing was expensive. You didn’t bury someone with something so valuable that could be passed down to brothers and sisters.” 

However, Bellatoni still had his doubts.

“One of the things we have not found yet in the field is trauma,” he said. “If the remains are from soldiers, they would have been killed by some sort of trauma.” 

Dr. Eddy Rosenblatt, a radiology consultant for Quinnipiac University, validated that nothing found on the bones can be considered trauma. 

“We can come up with all kinds of exciting speculation that this guy took a headshot and that’s why he’s buried,” Rosenblatt said. “However, more likely it has to do with the burial.”

Still, Bellantoni believes the remains are from Revolutionary War soldiers. 

“I’m still calling it a hypothesis, but really I’m struggling to come up with another explanation for three healthy guys together on a battlefield,” he said.

Bellantoni also mentioned Quinnipiac’s effort in this investigation. 

“Quinnipiac has been so helpful with the diagnostic imaging of those remains,” he said. “This is only the latest of a number of collaborations we’ve had. The collaboration has been so marvelous.”

Bellantoni and his team will continue to analyze the remains. The bones were not allowed to be photographed at the presentation.

Quinnipiac celebrated Black History Month on Tuesday night, with a dinner that featured Connecticut Supreme Court Chief Justice, Richard A. Robinson.

Robinson, who is Connecticut’s first black Chief Justice, spoke in front of over 200 people at the event about the amazing changes that have occurred throughout his life as it relates to racism. However, he acknowledged that there is still an extremely long way to go.

“I think these kinds of events are very important,” Robinson said. “We need to have dialogues about race, history, ethnicity, and culture. These are conversations that aren’t going on enough in our country.”

Robinson believes that this event sets a great tone for the university, but would like to see more diversity at next year’s event. Afterward, many students and professors spoke one-on-one with Robinson.

“I don’t think people expressed any concerns that were unexpected,” Robinson said. “People are concerned about what’s going on today, but mainly people came up to me and said that they were glad to have been there for the conversations that took place that night.”

Quinnipiac’s vice president for equity and inclusion, Don Sawyer, joined Chief Justice Robinson on stage at the dinner. Sawyer believes that this event is an important part of promoting inclusivity at Quinnipiac.

“When we talk about inclusive excellence, we want to make people from different cultures feel welcome on campus,” Sawyer said. “This event aimed to do just that.”

Although Quinnipiac has previously honored Black History Month with public speakers, this is the first time it has been celebrated with the dinner format. Although he considers it a successful event, he acknowledged that one event doesn’t create the change that is needed. He elaborated on some of the other ways in which Quinnipiac tries to promote diversity and inclusion.

“Last semester we had an open forum on inclusion,” Sawyer said, “where faculty, staff, and students were able to express any concerns that they have on campus, and also the things that were going well.”

Sawyer said that the issues discussed will be compiled and released in a public document in the near future, and mentioned that inclusive excellence is the second pillar in Quinnipiac’s strategic plan. 

Despite Quinnipiac’s efforts to increase inclusivity and diversity on campus, there are still obstacles that need to be hurdled. Sawyer mentioned that some professors shy away from difficult topics in the classroom. 

“Students have mentioned a need for diversity programs where everyone can learn from one another,” Sawyer said, “so I think it’s important for us to create spaces where we can have an intentional dialogue.”

One student who attended the Black History Month dinner is junior Andrew DePass. DePass is the executive chair of Quinnipiac’s multicultural student leadership council, which aims to advocate for minorities and students of color on campus. He is passionate about creating a more inclusive environment at Quinnipiac.

“The overarching theme is that there are instances where people don’t know how to interact with people of certain cultures,” DePass said. “Oftentimes misconceptions and misunderstandings occur. Another thing we feel is that when students try to bring up incidents, oftentimes there is a quieting of those concerns. They aren’t handled as seriously by the administration as we’d like.”

As it relates to the Black History Month dinner, DePass is glad that the event took place and that there were notable people of color honored and in attendance.

“When you are on a campus where the professor doesn’t always look like you, you can start to doubt whether you have a place in a particular career field,” DePass said. “Having the Chief Justice there was very beneficial. I saw lots of students speaking with him afterward, and having interactions that were positive so that we can all continue to persist.”

As it relates to the administration at Quinnipiac, Sawyer is the only person of color on Quinnipiac president Judy Olian’s cabinet. He does not believe that this is concerning, however.

“President Olian understands that our cabinet is not the most diverse, and so we work to diversify the pools of positions that we’re hiring,” Sawyer said. “I think over the next year or so, we might see some shifts.” 

Sawyer added that the university has also made great strides in diversifying staff as it relates to gender, but there is still a long way to go in the journey of creating more overall diversity.

“A vicious, vicious man.” That’s how Tim Malloy, an analyst at the Quinnipiac Poll and former TV reporter, described Jeffrey Epstein at a talk Thursday night in Quinnipiac’s Mt. Carmel auditorium. Malloy talked to a crowd of about 85 people, students and faculty. 

“I know about the ‘how’ of the story of Jeffrey Epstein, but I want to know the why, and the investigative reporting that goes with that,”said Chris Misciagna, a Quinnipiac student.

“I skipped a class to come here,” said Sean Keenan, another Quinnipiac student. “I wanted to go here instead of [class] because this is more intriguing to me.”

Malloy was a TV news reporter in Palm Beach, Florida, in 2005 when Palm Beach police found evidence Epstein sexually assaulted minors. 

“It wasn’t a big story, but it changed,” Malloy said. 

Malloy kept the story in mind even after Epstein was sentenced to 13 months in prison. 

“I had a good police source,” said Malloy, “and he told me, ‘keep your eye on this, cause this guy’s still doing it.’” 

With his source and the leniency of Epstein’s 2008 sentence on his mind, Malloy talked to his friend and neighbor, best-selling author James Patterson. 

“I walked up to him one day and said, ‘you’re a great crime writer, wouldn’t you like to write a nonfiction book?’ And he said yes,” Malloy said. 

Epstein was scared once Patterson got involved. He threatened lawsuits against the authors repeatedly. Malloy said he was scared of what Epstein, a wealthy man, could do. 

“James Patterson would sit me down and say, ‘Tim, they’re not going to kill your dogs. Don’t worry.’ But I was worried.” 

Malloy worked with James Patterson and reporter John Connolly to write the book Filthy Rich about the first criminal case against Jeffrey Epstein. It focused on Epstein’s arrest in 2005, and his deal with prosecutors to spend so little time in prison. The book was published in 2016 to little fanfare, Malloy said. Neither he nor the book were very important in the 2019 arrest of Jeffrey Epstein, according to Malloy. 

“I think we chipped away at it,” he said. “I did not bust him and put him in prison. The Miami Herald got him. I’m one of many people who chased him. The magic in this is I was lucky enough to be friends with a famous author who said, ‘I’m not scared of this guy, let’s write the book.’”

Malloy left local TV news nine years ago. After 9/11, he went to Iraq and Afghanistan 14 times. Malloy said he was friends with John Lahey, president of Quinnipiac at the time. Lahey asked Malloy to come work at the Quinnipiac Poll as an analyst. Malloy wanted to get out of the news business, so it was the perfect time. “I kept a hand in the news business though,” he said.

Malloy said the new book has 50 more pages. He said the publisher’s lawyers aren’t as concerned about libel now, and so much of what he wanted to publish originally can now come out. He expects more information will be discovered about Epstein.

“The damn story is not over,” said Malloy.

Quinnipiac University is in the process of opening a new podcast studio. The idea to create a studio started after professor Ben Bogardus created a podcast, according to David DesRoches, the newly hired director of community programming. 

“Ben Bogardus had done a podcast about hunger and Hamden previously,” said DesRoches. “As sort of a way to show what kind of work the school could be doing if they produce podcasts.”

DesRoches wants the studio to be a hosting site for podcasts and a place to support students, not just where podcasts are recorded.

“I can get a computer and I can push record and I can make a podcast,” said DesRoches. “But if you want a program that’s taken seriously and has high quality you need to think.”

DesRoches was hired by Quinnipiac to help unite all the potential podcasts under one service. 

“I was hired to sort of create a program around podcasting and figure out how we could approach podcasting as a system instead of little pieces operating independently like I think a lot of universities are,” DesRoches said. 

DesRoches doesn’t want Quinnipiac’s podcasts to be like any other school. 

“People are sort of podcasting on their own with no sort of guidance and just sort of figuring it out, to various levels of success and of quality,” DesRoches said.

DesRoches believes uniting everything under one platform would improve the overall quality.

A big component of the podcast studio for DesRoches will be allowing students to use the studio without much oversight. 

“I don’t want to restrict people,” DesRoches said. “We’ll let them use the studio. They just wouldn’t necessarily get direct support from me, but the studio is available for people who want a podcast.”

Quinnipiac has already been producing podcasts, which are now under the wing of the podcast program.

“We have been working with the athletics podcast, which has already been publishing for a while,” DesRoches said. “We’re migrating that into the new platform.” 

The platform also hosts Bogardus’ podcast on hunger in Hamden. DesRoches says there are ideas for new podcasts, including a podcast on developments in medicine, a podcast looking at wellness without a euro-centric worldview and a podcast on polling by the Quinnipiac Poll.

Tom Conley-Wilson, a student and producer of podcasts, said the studio has worked well so far. 

“I’m a producer for the show,” he said. “It was tentatively named QCast. We’re actually rebranding and naming it TruQ. It’s gonna be a podcast centered around issues in the Hamden and New Haven area.”

Conley-Wilson said the studio hasn’t started officially making new podcasts yet but has made some shows as trials.

“We’ve done two test shows so far,” he said, “and they both went really well. We’re just interviewing prospective students just to kind of get a feel for it. Our first actual recording is gonna be this week with President Judy Olian. That’s gonna be our inaugural episode.”

There is also an effort to expand the scope of podcasting to the community as a whole. DesRoches knows the podcast station can not replace WQUN. 

“I don’t think you can,” DesRoches said. “I think it was a special thing that they did. But what I hope to do is build upon some other things that they were doing and sort of offer some of those similar services like news in a podcasting format.” 

DesRoches and the podcast program are currently in the process of reaching out to the mayor of Hamden and the first selectman of North Haven to meet with Quinnipiac President Judy Olian to discuss podcasts. It is a goal of DesRoches to reach out to the community as he leads the podcast program. 

“It’s a big part of what I want to do,” DesRoches said. “Content that reflects the values that we share as a university and community.”