The Quinnipiac University Student Government Association announced the complete 2018-2019 executive board Monday, four days after initially announcing grievances were filed resulting in an investigation that halted the announcement of the SGA president, vice president and vice president of finance.
In an email addressed to the Quinnipiac community, SGA Vice President for Public Relations Victoria Johnson said the grievances filed on election day were based on allegations of potential voter influence. In the consequent investigation SGA found the grievances unjustified.
“The combination of the grievance process, appeal proceedings, and an in-depth investigation of actual votes cast has now allowed the Election Committee to verify mathematically, without question, that the outcome of each position under review could not have been impacted by any potential influence,” Johnson said.
It’s still unclear who filed the grievances, though Johnson said the grievances can be filed anonymously.
The recently announced executive board positions are as follows:
April is sexual assault awareness month. With the rise of the #MeToo movement and the number of high profile people accused of sexual misconduct, experts at Quinnipiac University feel a shift in awareness.
“(The faculty) have talked about feeling like there is a little bit of a wave and a push toward addressing and talking about these issues and acknowledging them and trying to change culture,” Courtney McKenna, the director of student affairs at QU, said.
But according to women’s studies professor Melissa Kaplan, the push is not enough.
“Women aren’t equal yet,” Kaplan said. “When women will feel equal is when women no longer fear rape.”
As the director of student affairs, McKenna sees herself as the overseer of the “care team,” which helps students who have concerns including those related to rape and sexual assault. She also organizes the online prevention programs students take at the beginning of their freshman year as well as all the sexual assault events on campus.
She said her trick to juggling so many responsibilities is to not go it alone.
“The goal is to find students and organizations and offices and programs on campus who are equally as interested in the topic and engage those folks to do the programs,” McKenna said. “Do events to bring awareness in the ways that make sense to their members.”
However, according to Kaplan, those events have a narrow audience and they are largely optional.
“When you make things that are optional you’re most likely going to be speaking to students who have been survivors or victims or know somebody who has,” Kaplans said. “Predominantly it’s only going to be students, or students that are told to go because of the courses that they are taking.”
McKenna agrees.
She said many classes in the college of arts and sciences like health science, psychology and sociology have higher participation in sexual assault awareness events. But more recently she has tried to expand that audience.
“I think some of the ways we need to move forward is looking at like, the school of business,” McKenna said. “Statistically it’s the school that has the most amount of men so we (need to) look statistically at those who may need to make sure they are aware of expectations, policies, how they can play a role to shift culture.”
The role of men in sexual assault awareness and feminism is something that Kaplan teaches in her women’s studies classes. She also feels like it’s not always talked about in the right way.
“Even the structure of consent is problematic because it is positioning women as kind of the gatekeeper, and puts the responsibility on women to say no. Rather than putting the responsibility on men to read women,” Kaplan said.
From McKenna’s point of view the issue of consent is one of the biggest issues surrounding sexual assault because many students coming to college don’t have any education about it before they move in.
“We have have sex ed, but we don’t have consensual sex ed. We don’t have ‘how do you talk about what you want from a partner’ and ‘how do you know when you should engage in activities and when you shouldn’t’ and ‘what is a healthy dating relationship?’” she said.
One way the student affairs office can get information about the knowledge and behaviors of the incoming freshmen is through the AlcoholEdu and Haven programs. These are short online courses required by all students at the beginning of their freshman year.
“We have good data that shows even if some folks are just clicking through it and think its stupid that there is an increase in knowledge from before someone takes it and after someone takes it,” McKenna said. “We get good static data about each incoming class.”
For example, McKenna said she can find out that 30 percent of students in an incoming class are what would be considered binge drinkers before even coming to college, or that 15 percent have experienced some sort of sexual assault.
Through the company that puts out AlcoholEdu and Haven, the student affairs office is looking to roll out smaller, ongoing courses. McKenna said they wouldn’t be the “heavy lift” one that freshmen do, but it will give the office more data about the change over time.
According to Kaplan, this is essential because “we have to put pressure on everyone to end this kind of violence and this epidemic.”
Quinnipiac University students, staff and faculty gathered in the recreational center this morning for their largest event for community service, the Big Event.
Around 1600 participants and 200 teams spread out to over 100 sites throughout Connecticut and helped out in any way possible. Participants volunteered at specific locations including private residences, the Hamden Youth Center, senior living centers, and the New Haven Green.
“They will do anything the site needs them to do whether it’s walking dogs, painting or an outside clean up,” co-director Katie Wilcox-Smith said.
Wilcox-Smith said students were excited and ready to get out in the community as they started filling the recreational center at 8 a.m. for check-in. It’s an event that brings the whole Quinnipiac community together.
“It’s civic engagement and I think it’s really important to do community service and it’s a great way for the community to come together,” Wilcox-Smith added.
Participants headed out to various locations around 9:30 a.m. and provided their services until 1 p.m. One team, Quinnipiac sorority Delta Delta Delta, volunteered at the Southington Sloper YMCA and moved picnic tables and picked up garbage.
“It’s nice to help them because they need to get ready for the upcoming April break for the kids,” senior Jessica Ciccarella said.
After the participants finished, they headed back to the recreational center to close out the day.
Updated Sunday at 6:17 p.m.
Wilcox-Smith is hoping next year is bigger and better than ever as its their 10th annual Big Event.
Members of the Quinnipiac community taking their seats for the opening ceremony of the Big Event.
Students prepare to span out and volunteer at the Big Event.
QU President John Lahey speaks to students before they head out.
Boomer welcomes in Bobcats to the opening ceremony of the Big Event.
HQ Press writer Mary Rose Bevins poses with Boomer.
Quinnipiac student Zurama Rodriquez gets ready to head out to volunteer.
Courtesy of Anna Castro
Members of the Quinnipiac fraternity Zeta Beta Tau working on gardens in New Haven.
Courtesy of Ryan Marcis
Zeta Beta Tau brothers raking leaves in a New Haven garden.
Courtesy of Ryan Marcis
More Zeta Beta Tau fraternity brothers cleaning up the grounds in a New Haven garden.
Click through the photos to view the slideshow of students out volunteering during the Big Event.
With 39 days left until commencement, graduating students were able to secure tickets for their loved ones on April 3 at noon. The process of receiving decent seats is known to be a competitive process and sometimes stressful, but some students in particular were not expecting all the technical difficulties that arose.
The Commencement ticketing servers are experiencing technical issues this afternoon. We apologize for the inconvenience. Our vendor is aware of the situation and is working on a solution. We will continue to monitor the issue and notify you when it has been resolved.
Hey @QuinnipiacU is there a particular reason why you have the ticket portal for 6 different graduations go live at the same time? It’s slowing down the system and students aren’t getting tickets to their own graduation #OneLastScrewover#ThnksFrThMmrs
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook co-founder and CEO, will testify next week before the United States Senate following allegations of misconduct with Facebook user data.
The allegations stem from ongoing speculations involving Aleksandr Kogan, a researcher from the University of Cambridge, who was willingly given access to Facebook data via a personality app he created. Ultimately, Kogan harvested data from over a million Facebook users and then gave it to Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm, which was said to have used it to influence both Brexit and the 2016 United States presidential election.
Quinnipiac University assistant professor of software engineering, Stefan Christov, said that it remains unclear if Cambridge Analytica had permission to use the data and instead that it’s likely Kogan wasn’t permitted to release the data to a private company. However, Christov noted that this didn’t stop Cambridge Analytica from using it.
Graphic by Thamar Bailey
“Once they had the data they could run all types of algorithms to do all kinds of analysis to figure out the characteristics of a user based on what’s in their data,” Christov said. “I read that [Cambridge Analytica] had a bunch of categories and then they tried to categorise the users. And then if you have a user in this kind of category then if you show them this kind of ad you could potentially influence their political activity.”
Lisa Burns, Quinnipiac chair and associate professor of media studies, said this method is called targeted advertising. The practice is meant to target those who are most likely to support the cause or candidate, or those who are undecided but “have the potential to sway,” according to Burns.
Burns explained the method is common, though notes social media ads are a bit different.
“Radio stations and newspapers have always sold ads based on audience demographics and psychographics,” Burns said. “One of the differences is that social media sites like Facebook have so much more data on their users, especially when it comes to their personal likes and dislikes. This allows companies or campaigns to target audiences even more directly.”
It’s this element of user data combined with privacy that may create legal consequences. According to Quinnipiac assistant media studies professor Kearston Wesner, the potential legal backlash is “complicated and massive.”
Since the story broke, various lawsuits have been filed by both users and investors ranging from privacy violations, unfair competition to securities fraud, Wesner said. Some estimate Facebook’s stock market value has decreased by $50 billion, according to Wesner.
Furthermore, in 2011 Facebook entered an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission in which Facebook said they would safeguard the privacy of its users. According to Wesner, the agreement came after the FTC filed a complaint against Facebook claiming that the company failed to disclose to users that third parties had access to their private information.
Now the FTC is suggesting that Facebook breached its 2011 agreement after the incident with Cambridge Analytica. Wesner said that at one point Cambridge Analytica told Facebook it destroyed the user data obtained from Kogan. So the FTC is also questioning whether Facebook did a sufficient job in assuring the data was actually deleted, because it turns out it wasn’t, said Wesner.
In the wake of these questions and suggested violations, Zuckerberg agreed to testify in front of various senate committees.
“This will give Congress the opportunity to ask questions about exactly how Facebook was dealing with people’s private information,” Wesner said. “Facebook has been accused of being vague on this front for ages.”
Zuckerberg will go before Congress in a joint hearing on April 10.
A recreational marijuana bill made it out of the committee stage for the first time ever. According to the Hartford Courant, the next phase of the bill calls for state agency officials to create a plan to legalize and regulate cannabis. The bill will also create substance abuse treatment, prevention, education and awareness programs, according to the Courant.
Josh Elliott, democratic representative of the 88th District and advocate for recreational marijuana, sees this bill as a last chance after last year’s failed bill.
“Making movement on anything is really gratifying,” Elliott said. “So we had four bills this year and three of the four have died in committee. This was the last chance we had of actually moving this idea forward.”
While there are various views on the issue, Elliott is confident that this bill will force people in positions of power to take a stand on the issue.
“What I would like to see is people on record,” Elliott said. “‘Do you or do you not support it?’ because there are a lot of people up there that kind of want to play both sides of the fence and when you actually have to press the button you can’t really play both sides anymore.”
Elliott, a Quinnipiac University alum, said that his support for this bill is more than just the economic benefit.
“For me it comes back to who have these laws (been) disproportionately affecting for the past 60, 80 years? And it’s the black and brown community (and) that’s highly problematic,” Elliott said.
The completed plan for legislation is due Oct. 1, according to the Courant.
The Quinnipiac University Student Government Association executive board election announcements came to a halt Wednesday night when SGA announced that the executive board results were under review.
Graphic by Thamar Bailey
SGA Vice President for Public Relations Victoria Johnson announced the winners of each class’s respective president, vice president and representatives. However, she failed to announce the executive president, vice president, and vice president of Finance.
There were multiple grievances that were filed, but Johnson said the organization would not be releasing any more details until the appeals are filed and “properly dealt with.”
Based on the grievances forms found on the SGA Do You QU site, a grievance is a formal complaint based on a violation personally witnessed during the course of campaigning in accordance with section four of the SGA election policy.
According to the policy, a grievance could include: campaigning outside of permitted areas, executive board candidates spending more than $250 on their campaign, accepting donations and defacing or destroying campaign materials by another candidate or his or her supporters.
It’s unclear who filed the grievances, though Johnson said they can be anonymous.
Johnson did not specify when the executive positions will be announced.
It seems that the influence of video games grows more prevalent every day, even to a point where it might cause concerns.
This idea is evident with the recent success of player-versus-player games, Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. These two games have found massive appeal amongst people around the country. According to pcgames.com, both games have reached a combined total of 6.5 million reoccurring players.
“I play PUBG when I should be doing work, and I’m in college,” said Chris Brachlow, a senior international business major at Quinnipiac University.
The games, both released in 2017, require the player to survive in a combat zone against 99 other people. While each game has their differences, such as Fortnite’s building mechanic and PUBG’s use of vehicles, the end goal is still the same for both games. This result is something that people who frequently play the games admire.
At the same time, the games also have their issues.
With the release of Fortnite for mobile devices, as well as the upcoming public mobile release of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, people are growing concerned that these apps are becoming a distraction to people in educational institutions of all levels.
“It’s addicting,” said Steele Brogdon, a junior at Seawanhaka High School in Floral Park, New York.
When asked if people in his school play the game, Brogdon said that “tons of them” do.
“Once you start playing it, you just don’t stop,” Brogdon added.
Elena Bertozzi, a Quinnipiac game design and development professor, believes that the distraction these students may have from the game could be fixed by removing cell phone use from class rooms.
“I know that having students on their phones during class is incredibly distracting, which is why I send people out of the room if I see them doing it,” said Bertozzi. “I think it is harder for high schools to deal with this problem. I think the only solution is to not allow cell phone use during class.”
With the concerns of distracted students becoming more common, EPIC Games, the developer of Fortnite has responded to the matter. The company placed a message on the mobile version of the game’s loading screen, which specifically reads, “Mr. Hillman says stop playing in class.”
This was done after the company heard a teacher’s plea to have the company create a message to his students after they were getting distracted in his classroom.
With this message now in the mobile version of Fortnite it is yet to be seen if the public release of the mobile version of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds will follow suit.
Jorge Cabrera has lived in Connecticut his entire life. During his childhood, his father worked long hours in a factory and often took on a second job to support his family.
Cabrera and his wife Rebecca graduated from Quinnipiac University in 1998 when the tuition was just $27 thousand a year. It has more than doubled since then.
Now as a father of two, Cabrera is running for State Senate in the 17th District as a Democrat. He hopes to win the seat over Republican George Logan to update the struggling Connecticut economy.
Scott McLean, Quinnipiac political science chairperson and associate political science professor, remembers Cabrera as a “politically aware and socially engaged student.”
As a student, McLean said that Cabrera, who was elected as the SGA president his junior year, helped to improve the political science program as a whole and understood the importance of political involvement in his peers.
McLean also remembers Cabrera working to help the non-academic working staff on campus.
Cabrera with wife Rebecca and their twin boys Gabe and Jorgie.
“He was always advocating on behalf of the staff on campus,” McLean said. “And he did have an impact on students who picked up on that advocacy after he graduated.”
Cabrera’s mission is to bring more opportunities to hardworking people across Connecticut.
“In Connecticut there was a time, when my parents were raising me, where it was assumed that the harder you work the luckier you get,” Cabrera said. “It seems like that story is less common now.”
With a degree in political science and hands-on experience in student government, Cabrera went to work as a legislative aid for the first female Speaker of the House after graduation in 1998.
After starting a family, Cabrera and his wife experienced similar challenges to what he had seen his parents face.
“We struggled to make ends meet too. I had to get a second job,” Cabrera said. “My wife is a school teacher, she had to put in extra hours working summer school to make extra money for us.”
Cabrera is motivated by his life experiences to secure a Senate seat for the 17th district, made up of the town of Hamden (where he has lived for 13 years), Woodbridge, Ansonia, Derby, Beacon Falls, Bethany and Naugatuck.
“We need to invest more in Connecticut,” said Cabrera. He feels that the only way to give back to the state’s working class is by jumpstarting the quality of the state’s institutions.
His plan for improvement begins with Connecticut’s children, specifically the state’s public schools.
“We need to fully fund our public schools. We haven’t been doing that,” said Cabrera. “The quality of your public schools can attract businesses and also is a big reason why people make a decision to move somewhere.”
Next up for Cabrera is infrastructure.
“Our bridges, our roads, our rails, they have been neglected for a long time,” Cabrera said. “Connecting all of our communities is vital for attracting businesses who want to come here.”
Improving these facets of the state, Cabrera believes, will stimulate Connecticut’s economy and offer more jobs for people joining the workforce, which he feels has been becoming increasingly more limited.
“I am constantly meeting people on the campaign trail who have college degrees and are still living at home with their parents because they can’t find a good paying job with their degree,” Cabrera said. “That narrative wasn’t as common when I was growing up and even when I got out of school. If you got a degree somewhere you were pretty much assured a job somewhere.”
College is the third pillar of Cabrera’s plan. He wants to make it more affordable and eliminate student debt. For those that are not interested in college, Cabrera feels that the state’s trade school needs improvement as well.
“Many people I run across want to be a plumber, or a pipe fitter, or a carpenter, or a steel worker. Jobs that are good paying middle-class jobs with the right training programs,” Cabrera said. “We need to do more to invest in those programs and apprenticeship programs, because those (are) sorely needed.”
Cabrera’s mission is shared by many young politicians in Connecticut, that hope to see changes in the state with their involvement. The last election for the Hamden Democratic Committee alone brought 26 new members.
“The energy that young people bring, and the passion, is vital.A lot of the issues we have to solve directly impact college students and younger people,” Cabrera said. “We need to make sure that young people have a voice at the table.”
But young people can only have that voice if they get involved, said Cabrera.
“When you graduate, be aware of what’s going on and speak up. In our country that’s always the way it’s been. When young people get involved things change,” said Cabrera. “College grads and young people are more powerful than they realize, and their voices are powerful too.”
The election for state senate will take place on Nov. 6.
Most basements are dead places, where things deemed too valuable to throw out but not worth enough to keep in easy reach are stored, but not this basement-style room. It teems with 20 vibrant television screens connected to Nintendo WII video game machines. The sounds of characters from the game Mario Super Smash Bros. mix vibrantly with the often shrill voices of young people expressing surprise, frustration and the other emotions that accompany esports.
In Wallingford, Connecticut, every Thursday night the organization Hall of Gaming (HoG), hosts a Mario Super Smash Bros. event, called the “Hall of Gaming Melee Weekly.” According to Hall of Gaming employee Sean Thomas O’Connor, the weekly melee tournaments are the biggest of their kind in Connecticut.
Hall of Gaming’s Melee Weekly is held every Thursday night at 150 Center Street Wallingford, Connecticut.
“So you pay five dollars for the venue as a thank you to the owner for letting us use this space, and then five dollars to enter the singles bracket, and then I calculate all that money. Then I pay out to the top three,” said O’Connor, who is also a student at Quinnipiac University in nearby Hamden, Connecticut.
O’Conner notes that there is a range in the amount of money winners take home.
“You can walk out of here with anywhere from $50, to I’ve seen people walk out of here with $500,” said O’Connor. “Big or small we always have a good time here at HoG. We’re kind of like a tight-knit family in that sense.”
The Hall of Gaming snack bar with Hall of gaming employee and QU student Sean Thomas O’Connor
Mario Super Smash Bros. Melee was released on the Nintendo Gamecube back in 2001.
So what is “esports” anyway? Well, basically “esports” is what has developed out of playing video games on a competitive level. It has turned the competitive playing of video games into a sport. Playing esports can be done on an individual level, but mostly it’s played through teams.
Free streaming services like Twitch and YouTube allow anyone with a Wi-Fi connection to watch various esports tournaments and matches. These internet services give gamers the opportunity to watch their favorite esports athletes, mostly for free.
Esports is a rapidly growing industry around the world and according to Newzoo, an esports market research firm. The esports industry is expected to have a worldwide audience of over 557 million people by 2021. In Connecticut, esports programs and teams have made their way into high schools across the state, a prime example is the esports team in the New London Public Schools.
this chart shows the current as well as projected worldwide esports audience Size
Tyler Schrodt, the founder and CEO of the Electronic Gaming Federation, said that esports have changed into something more important than the original goal. Esports isn’t just a game, he says, but it can also give players a community that they can’t find elsewhere.
“It’s evolved beyond just the idea of people playing against each other in video games, into something that really makes a real impact for a lot of people,” Schrodt said.
League of Legends, made by publisher Riot Games, is the most popular esports game. It has more 100 million monthly active users, or MAU, according to research firm SuperData. MAU is a key figure used to measure the popularity of digital applications and games. In the MOBA game League of Legends each team has to work together using strategy to destroy what’s known in the game as a nexus in the center of each team’s base. Last year’s League of Legends World Championship had a nearly $5 million prize pool.
Arguably the most successful esports athlete Lee Sang-hyeok, also known as “Faker” has earned over $900,000 in prize money playing League of Legends. It has been rumored that “Faker” was offered a $2.5 million per year contract extension to resign with his team SK Telecom T1, after they won their third League of Legends World Championship.
Dota 2, made by publisher Valve Software, is another popular MOBA esports game that has more than 12 million monthly active users, according to SuperData The Dota 2 World Championship boasts one of the biggest prize pools for an esports tournament, with nearly a $24 million prize pool.
Statistics show how much money the esports industry is making, how many people watch esports and how valuable the esports industry will be in the future, according to a Morgan Stanley report titled “Have eSports Hit the Majors?”
“Esports is on track to be a $1.5 billion industry by 2020 as it emulates the business models of major league sports, complete with sponsorships, advertising, media rights, ticket sales and merchandise,” according to the Morgan Stanley report.The report’s statistics show that the esports industry was worth approximately $700 million in 2017.
“In 2017, esports attracted an audience of more than 380 million, 20 percent increase from the year prior,” according to Newzoo, an esports market research firm, cited in the Morgan Stanley report.
this chart analyzes the number of global online esports viewers vs. us sporting event tv viewers
Vince Nairn, managing editor of DBLTAPESPORTS, a media company focused on the coverage of esports using a combination of fan generated media with traditional sports journalism elements said, “Video games have always been popular and as technology has advanced and as kids today have lived their entire lives in the digital age (and a growing one at that), that interest has gone beyond just playing games with the handful of friends who live on your block.”
Nairn went on to explain, “We have a giant mass of people in the 13-24 age range. That demographic is the most desirable for advertisers because it’s huge.” He went on, “So you have this giant mass of young people and a lot of people interested in trying to reach them, and that’s why you’ve seen so much investment and sponsorship from non-endemics. Everybody wants a part of esports because it’s young and it’s trending up.”
Professional sports teams have started to get in on the esports action as well. For example, several of the world’s biggest soccer clubs have started to sign their own EA Sports FIFA esports athletes.
In 2016 English Premier League Club Manchester City signed Kieran Brown, also known as “Kez,” to be Manchester City’s official esports FIFA pro. Since Manchester City’s first FIFA pro mostly played on the XBOX, in December 2017 Manchester City signed a second FIFA pro, Marcus Jorgensen, also known as “ExpectSporting,” becoming Manchester City’s dedicated PlayStation 4 FIFA pro.
Marcus “ExpectSporting” Jorgensen Manchester City’s EA Sports FIFA pro. Image via his Twitter @Marcuzo45
Blizzard Entertainment, creators of the First-Person-Shooter game Overwatch, this year introduced the first season of The Overwatch League, which Blizzard intends to run like a traditional sports league. The inaugural season of The Overwatch League features 12 teams from all over the world including New York, Houston, Philadelphia, Boston, Seoul, London, Shanghai, and two teams in Los Angeles.
The Overwatch League Logo. Picture Via The Overwatch League
The first Overwatch League season will take place in Los Angeles, with plans for home and away games in the future. Each of the 12 teams in the Overwatch League paid $20 million for a franchise spot and some of the owners of the Overwatch League teams include traditional sports team owners like New England Patriots Owner Robert Kraft, who owns the Boston Overwatch League team, and Mets COO Jeff Wilpon, who owns the New York Overwatch League team. With no revenue sharing until 2021 other prospective owners will have to wait and see if owning an Overwatch League team is a profitable venture.
The Logos of All 12 Teams in The Overwatch League. Picture Via The Overwatch League
When asked if traditional sports teams will continue to invest in esports, Nairn said that, “In the short term, definitely. I expect more of that to continue in the short term.” But Nairn isn’t sure that the investment in esports will continue in the long term, “So much money has gone into esports, and not a ton of those investors have gotten money back out of it, at least to this point. That’s going to need to change for people to continue to think their investments are worthwhile.”
High School esports In Connecticut and The Electronic Gaming Federation
Organizations like the Electronic Gaming Federation (EGF) have partnered with various gaming clubs in high schools in Connecticut to help create an esports league for Connecticut high schools. The EGF also helped Connecticut’s high school esports league become an official partner with Connecticut’s state high school sports organization known as CASCIAC.
The EGF was created in 2013 and according to its founder and CEO Tyler Schrodt, EGF’s goal is, “to do what the NCAA does for traditional sports, but apply it to esports.”
The EGF oversees both a high school and a collegiate esports league and according to Schrodt, the EGF wants its league to have a similar kind of professionalism that traditional sports organizations like the NCAA have. According to Schrodt, the EGF also works with various high schools across the country to help them build their esports programs.
The EGF Logo. Picture Via The EGF Website
“We (The EGF) also spend a lot of time working with individual schools to build their programs from the ground up,” Schrodt said. “We spend a lot of time helping to educate staff. We help them figure out what their program is going to look like, establish their goals and assist them up to the point of helping them design their facilities.”
The EGF also does all of its own event production and broadcasts. They even have their own esports broadcast training program that educates people interested in producing and commentating in the esports world and about what it takes to get a job.
According to Schrodt, the EGF often faces knowledge gap challenges when it helps high schools create esports teams and programs. The EGF helps explain what esports are, to students, parents, teachers and administrators who are unsure of what it is. The EGF also helps set realistic goals for the high school esports programs, as well as helps them reach those goals. EGF is working on expanding to other states besides Connecticut, but has yet to identify the states. The main tool that EGF has used to promote its services is through word of mouth.
“We put a lot of effort into enabling our members to talk completely about what they’re doing with their programs and how we as EGF can help new programs find their feet in esports,” Schrodt said. “Beyond that, we generate as much content as we can and make sure that we’re visible at conferences and wherever else students or administrators might have an opportunity to interact with us.”
One of the school districts in Connecticut where EGF helped develop an esports program is the New London Public School District. Clint Kennedy, who holds a doctorate degree and is the director of Innovation Technology for the New London Public Schools, decided to start a gaming club for the New London Public Schools after he saw a few of his students playing League of Legends during their free time.
After Kennedy started playing League of Legends with his students, Kennedy realized that games followed a pattern common to all technological developments. It required collaboration, research and critical thinking. During the first year of New London’s gaming club, about 80 high school students showed up for every gaming club meeting. This led Kennedy to approach the New London Public School administration about starting an esports team.
After an inconsistent first season for New London’s esports team, the students of New London and Kennedy decided that they wanted to start an esports league for Eastern Connecticut. While earning his doctorate at UConn one of his professors connected him with a guy named Andrew Cutter who worked at EGF and is currently the Operations Architect for EGF. In the summer before the 2016-2017 school year, Kennedy worked side by side with EGF and 15 high school students from Eastern Connecticut for eight days over the summer to create all the rules, marketing strategies and the ins and outs of the Eastern Connecticut esports League.
“EGF did some pro bono work to really help guide us in the creation of the league,” Kennedy said. “EGF also recommended that we open it up (the league) to the entire state.” EGF helped assist Kennedy and his students at New London as they pitched the idea of making their esports an official recognized student activity by the CASCIAC. “Once CASCIAC blessed it EGF became the official organizing body of the league.”
The New London esports program is not funded by the school system. Instead, it raises money on its own with tournaments and other events. The program does its own fundraising and they have monthly tournaments The Friday night fights tournament is among the most popular,, with funds raised through a $5 or whatever gamers can afford, admissions fee and the sale of food and beverages.
Collegiate esports
Esports has also started to make waves at the collegiate level with over 50 schools having their own varsity esports programs. Robert Morris University Illinois located in Chicago, was the first school to offer a partial scholarship for esports athletes for their League of Legends team back in 2014.
Robert Morris University Illinois esports Team Logo. Photo Via Robert Morris University’s esports Team Twitter @RMUesports
Lebanon Valley College (LVC), located in Annville, Pennsylvania, started its collegiate esports program last December. According to Director of esports Operations, David Shapiro, LVC treats its esports athletes and teams the same way they treat their traditional athletes and teams.
“At LVC we look at esports as a varsity sport,” Shapiro said. “Our esports athletes are a part of our athletic department, they have specific meeting times, specific measurements they have to meet, training schedules, coaches. We really treat it as an athletic organization and we maintain it as a full varsity level team.”
LVC has a Hearthstone, Overwatch, League of Legends, and Rocket League esports team. According to Shapiro, Lebanon Valley’s esports athletes practice Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for about two-three hours when they aren’t competing. When they are competing they only practice for about one-two hours on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Even though LVC plans to start offering partial esports scholarships in the fall of 2019, Shapiro believes divisions similar to how the NCAA has DI, DII and DIII will form after esports scholarships become more prevalent.
“I think what will end up happening as more colleges and universities join esports on the varsity level and colleges see an opportunity to offer scholarships or incentivize coming to play there, it will kind of like NCAA, it will create divisions,” Shapiro said. “Those divisions will be those who offer full rides and those who don’t. We play Boise State (a school with over 22,000 students compared to LVC’s 1,700 students) and I’m not sure if we will in the future.”
Mark Deppe the Acting Director of UC Irvine’s esports program believes that esports scholarships haven’t had that big of an impact on collegiate esports yet.
“There are only a few schools that have esports program scholarships for League of Legends or Overwatch that are good,” Deppe said. “Schools that were historically good at esports, and I would count UCI in that group, are still good at esports. Last year when Maryville won the national title for League of Legends, it was the first time a scholarship team had won the national title. In Overwatch, we were the only scholarship team that was in the finals and we ended up losing to a non-scholarship team.”
Maryville University won the college title for League of Legends in 2017
Professional, high school and collegiate esports are on the way up the and the future of esports looks very bright, but there are still some important questions for esports going forward. Mark Deppe, Acting Director of UC Irvine, raises one of the biggest questions going forward for esports, how long the current popular esports games will last.
“I’m not gonna promise that League of Legends and Overwatch and the games of today are going to be around 20 years from now,” Deppe said. “I think things will change and evolve faster, that’s just the world we live in now. Esports will be the new frontier of competition, I don’t think we are going to be playing football forever, and all the sports that we are playing right now forever, and I think esports will be in a good position to kind of take over that space in our hearts and minds.”
Shapiro, said that he believes more schools will start to have more varsity esports programs in the near future and that esports will become as commercially popular as traditional sports.
“In the next five years most colleges will have a varsity level esports program or will be in position to create one,” Shapiro said. “I think that major networks will air esports on TV seasonally, if not always. The market will continue to grow, we will one day see a Super Bowl commercial with Alienware or ASUS or Samsung or somebody that has two or three of the major players or teams in it. It’s not going away it’s only going to grow.”
When asked about the future of esports, Vince Nairn, managing editor of DBLTAPESPORTS said, “Whether that growth is sustainable or not? That’s the question that everybody is trying to answer. But the growth to this point has been undeniable.”
“I don’t think esports will ever fully be mainstream. And that’s OK. It can have its functional niche in the gaming and entertainment world, and a lot of people can be successful,” Nairn said.
Nairn went on, “But I don’t think esports needs to be seen as a traditional sport, or esports athletes being considered “real” athletes. That’s a debate going on in the industry right now about that, and it’s just pointless to me. Esports athletes are the best in the world in their profession, just as the NBA players are the best in the world at their profession and the top musical artists are the best in the world at their profession. It doesn’t matter how they’re classified, or if people believe they’re “athletes” or not.”
The rise of esports is evident in the number of participants and the growing list of schools that are fielding teams. Its future looks bright, as the buy in and financial investment from the established sports world continues to grow. It appears to be making a successful transition from the fringes of the sports world, to the sports mainstream. The development of both high school and college programs will only help in this transition.
