Quinnipiac – Page 4

The lack of female representation in economics and how it is affecting the field

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By: Rachel Borntrager

The feminist movement and other social advancements have contributed to women entering fields that have been traditionally male-dominated. Despite this, women continue to be consistently outnumbered by men within the field of economics.

Since the 1980s, female representation within economics at the undergraduate level has hovered around 30 percent.

This podcast attempts to investigate the reasons behind this gender imbalance by interviewing a variety of people in the field, including students, professors and professionals.

Read the full story below.

Despite the fact that economists pride themselves on avoiding, or fixing, inefficiency, they fail to observe a potential inefficiency directly within their field. According to a 2016 study conducted by the NCES, National Center for Education Statistics, economics majors are 70 percent male. At a higher level, 85 percent of full-time economic professors are male, The Economist reported.

There are multiple theories as to why women shy away from the field of economics. One of those theories is that women, on average, do not have as much of a natural aptitude towards math as men.

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Both Donn Johnson and Linda Fisher, Quinnipiac University professors of economics, have not experienced proof of this within their classes.

“In my classes it’s not like I see a discrepancy in math skills between our female students and our male students,” Fisher said.

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“I don’t buy into the old stereotypes about math because the women that I have in classes are just as good, if not better, of students — and sometimes, disproportionately, (they are) the top of my class,” Donn Johnson, chair of the economics department at Quinnipiac, said.

Within the past few decades, other quantitative subjects have seen increases in female representation.

Accounting, a major that used to be primarily male, is now more than 50 percent female. Economics, however, has experienced a plateau in terms of the amount of females entering the field.

After a minor increase in the 1990s, female representation has remained nearly the same within the field, the New York Times reported.

Since then, female representation at a colligate level has consistently hovered around 30 percent. This lack of representation also fails to take into account approximately 270,000 more females than males receiving bachelor’s degrees nationally, the Digest of Education Statistics reported.

With this considered, the inequality within the field of economics is even more drastic.

“So a lot of people think economics is just about making money and that appeals more strongly, it seems, to men than women, but, economics is about a lot more than that and people just don’t know it,” Linda Fisher said.

Fisher is not the only one that attributes the imbalance within economics to a lack of understanding of the subject. Londyn Zografakis, a senior economics major at Quinnipiac, agrees.

“People, especially females, don’t understand what economics is and when I say economics is my major I always get the question, ‘what is that?’ They are not able to see that you can help people knowing these theories,” Zografakis said.

This lack of understanding could be a result of the misconception that economics is a business discipline. In 2015, Quinnipiac moved economics from the School of Business to the College of Arts and Sciences. Many colleges are now making that switch because economics is nationally recognized as a social science.

Fiona Scott Morton, the Theodore Nierenberg Professor of Economics at the Yale University, believes that the debate-heavy nature of the field of economics is a potential factor that contributes to the imbalance.

“In economics, the way research works is you write a paper and you take it on tour, you visit different departments and you go to conferences and you present it orally and they ask you questions and you have to defend everything in your paper,” Scott Morton said. She then added that this expectation of economists does not fit into the societal boundaries that often restrict women today.

“In our society, it is really hard to be an assertive female because women are supposed to be nice and so being assertive and nice at the same time is a lot harder—men can be assertive and be jerks and nobody cares,” Scott Morton said. Scott Morton also served as the Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Economics at the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Gender discrimination, sexual harassment, and the wage gap are arguments that seem to arise whenever there is an obvious gender imbalance in any field. However, most women that were interviewed have not experienced blatant discrimination, but many, like Zografakis, did say that they have been treated differently based on gender.

“Prior to this one male getting to know me, he just assumed that I was an airhead and I wasn’t given a fair chance to show that I was smart,” Zografakis said.

As a young female economist, Scott Morton also experienced similar treatment.

“I would go to seminars and ask a question and the speaker would kind of blow past my question […] and five minutes would go by and an older man would raise his hand and ask another version of the exact same question and get a long, detailed, and thoughtful answer from the speaker,” Scott Morton said.

Groups for female economists have emerged within the past few decades to combat the imbalance and make women feel more comfortable as a minority in the field. One group that is recognized nationally is CSWEP, the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, which was founded in 1972 by the American Economics Association. Judy Chevalier, who will chair the committee in January, discussed her plans for the future of the group.

“I think the low representation of women in the undergraduate major is actually something I am really concerned about and something I want to work on in my term as CSWEP chair,” Judy Chevalier, who was also a former co-editor of the American Economic Review, said.

Although the reason why women shy away from economics remains a mystery, economists have proposed a few ways to attract women into the field.

“We can teach our intro classes, our big classes, and our micro classes with women instructors, so that it is abundantly clear to all the women sitting there that you can do this and this is a women’s profession,” Scott Morton said.

“I think if more women understood that we could use economics to change the world, then we would draw more women into the field,” Fisher said.

Although there is no explicit way to know whether the gender imbalance is negatively affecting the field of economics, a 2013 survey of American economists showed that women were more likely than men to support higher minimum wages, regulations, and redistribution (“Women and economics”). This survey demonstrates that women, on average, have different opinions than men.

“If we had more women economists submitting essays regarding certain public policies that affect women the most, maybe women wouldn’t be such a minority in so many different areas,” Jessica Hernandez, staff assistant for US State Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, said.

Many parts of the gender imbalance within economics remain ambiguous, such as the causes and effects of that imbalance. However, it is clear that the female voice, and opinions, could potentially be overpowered if the imbalance persists.

A college basketball player’s perspective: My thoughts on racism, kneeling

By Aaron Robinson

Part 1

October 2018 — 50 years since U.S. sprinters John Carlos and Tommie Smith took a historic stand on the medal podium in Mexico City for the whole world to see.

At the 1968 Summer Olympics, after winning gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter race, Smith and Carlos called it a “Human Rights Salute,” advocating for equal rights and representation in society as their white counterparts.

The International Olympic Committee expelled Smith and Carlos from the rest of the games and banned them from the Olympic Village.

The irony of the situation is that Avery Brundage, the president of the IOC, was also IOC president at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin where many athletes gave a Nazi salute as they passed German chancellor Adolf Hitler throughout the Games.

No suspensions.

No punishments.

Brundage said the salute was a national symbol at the time, that it was acceptable, but yet Carlos’ and Smith’s action was not.

Even knowing in 1968 that the salute supported the genocide of millions of Jewish people, Brundage determined that the fists of two black men merited suspension.

Fast forward to today’s climate in which Colin Kaepernick, a former starting quarterback who led his team all the way to the Super Bowl five years ago, is out of a job after kneeling during the national anthem before games.

Princeton Protest.png — College athletes and the anthem

Find out the hurdles athletes face when pursuing activism.

Why is he out of a job?

It has nothing to do with his talent as a quarterback that’s for sure. It is because he took a stand. It is because he decided to speak out against an issue that, for some, isn’t even an actual issue.

As a black athlete, I am here to tell you — racial inequality in American is a real issue.

In an interview with NFL.com in 2016, Kaepernick said, “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”

But of course, rather than admitting that police brutality was the root of the issue and facing it and addressing it, many people changed the narrative.

They tried to make it about the flag. They tried to say that Kaepernick showed disrespect toward the flag and American armed forces for not standing for the anthem.

Colin Kaepernick takes a knee during the national anthem alongside his teammates during the 2016 NFL season. Kaepernick began his protest during the preseason in protest of police brutality and racial injustices against African Americans. (Flickr)

Kaepernick actually sat down with a member of the military before he began to kneel to discuss ways that he could protest without being disrespectful to those that fight for this country. The solution proposed by the soldier was to kneel. In the military, when a soldier dies or is injured during battle, members of the military keel to show respect to that individual.

From a sports perspective, whenever a player gets injured, everyone takes a knee while that player is down in order to show respect for that individual.

But the message became muddled.

In my opinion, the reason people are so upset is because Kaepernick — as a black athlete — took a stand against something that, quite frankly, the white NFL owners and the many white fans do not understand or experience.

They don’t care that cops get paid leave after killing unarmed black men over and over again.

They don’t care that the cops, if they go to trial, are often acquitted of charges for murder.

They don’t care that a black life is still not seen as equal to a white life in the eyes of many.

As long as nothing comes between them, their money and their entertainment on Sunday afternoons, they’re OK.

Plain and simply, they don’t want to hear from a football player. They want their ballplayers to be silent and content with the fact that he is a millionaire NFL quarterback.

ESPN The Magazine senior writer Howard Bryant said, “They don’t want to hear from us. They want us to be grateful. They want us to be quiet. If you’re not rich then you’re a drain on the society, if you are rich, then what are you complaining about they want you to be grateful. They don’t want to hear from you at all.”

“Us,” of course, being African Americans, “they” being white Americans.

This narrative of the white public wanting black athletes to be silent was never more evident than in February when Fox News’ Laura Ingraham got on the air and suggested that basketball stars Lebron James and Kevin Durant should “shut up and dribble.”

This came directly after a segment aired with James and Durant sitting in the backseat of a car with ESPN anchor Cari Champion, and the three discussed President Donald Trump’s racist remarks.

Rather than address Trump’s racist and divisive comments, Ingraham condemned the athletes for even mentioning it. She then insulted the athletes, joking about their lack of intelligence and poor grammar. She attempted to slight their credibility to speak on politics because they are athletes who, according to her, “get paid 100 million dollars to dribble a ball.”

The idea to “shut up and dribble,” though, is that — as Bryant, who recently published a book called “The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism,” points out — it is ridiculous. Why? Because there has never been a time throughout our long history as a nation that black athletes have not been political.

“If you know your history, it was the white public and the white sports leagues that wanted black players to talk about politics in the first place,” Bryant said. “Who was asking Jesse Owens to get involved in politics against Hitler? It was the white media. Who was asking Jackie Robinson to get involved in politics? It was Branch Rickey and the Dodgers. It was white people asking black players to get involved.”

Jackie Robinson and Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey shake hands after agreeing to a contract back in 1948.

Bryant also went on to talk about other black athletes, such as Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan and O.J. Simpson, who have been criticized because of their lack of activism when it comes to politics and society.

Essentially, if you speak out, they’re mad at you. If you don’t speak out, they’re mad at you.

Bryant said, “They don’t want to hear from us at all. They want us to be silent and succumb to the oppression and the dehumanization of our people. They want us to be OK with our status in America and our lack of representation in society. They want us to accept the fact that there are black bodies in the streets and cops receiving paid leave only to eventually be acquitted of all charges.”

And that is exactly why we black athletes must speak.

We must use our voices to speak out and seek change because if we sit around and wait for the next person to make a change, we will be waiting for a cold day in hell.

Athletes have a voice and a platform that very few others have. It is absolutely essential that we, as black athletes, do not underestimate the power that we have.

We have the opportunity and the responsibility to be active members of our communities and to stand up for things that we believe in.

Members of the Miami Heat wear hoodies in support of Trayvon Martin after he was gunned down by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer.

Part 2

I think the majority of African Americans agree that things in this country right now, from a race relations point of view, are far from ideal.

Millions of people support Kaepernick on his stance against police brutality. You hear the conversations among athletes. You see the tweets.

Yet, the number of people who are sitting and watching in silence far outnumbers the amount of people who are actually taking a knee, or protesting — myself being one of them.

I am probably one of the most “woke” pro-black people you will find, but I haven’t taken a knee yet. And to be honest, unless something drastic changes, I don’t know if I will this season either.

Why not?

Because I am a Division I college basketball player and I have seen what has happened to professional athletes who have spoken out. I watched Colin Kaepernick get exiled from the NFL. I watched all-pro safety Eric Reid suffer the same fate until just a few weeks ago when he was finally signed after a two-year hiatus. Carlos and Smith served as an example. Muhammed Ali was stripped of his title because he spoke out against the Vietnam War and refused to serve.

The lesson is this: Black athletes who speak out against issues like this get destroyed.

If I were to speak out, who is to say that my scholarship will not be taken away? Who says that my coaches don’t take away my playing time? Who says I do not get expelled from school?

All of these fears are very real for black athletes and these fears are magnified for college athletes.

Professional athletes such as Kaepernick and Reid had the opportunity to make millions of dollars prior to them ever taking a knee. They were set for life regardless of what the outcome of their protest was.

I am a broke college student who comes from nothing, so I have literally everything to lose in this situation. If I lose this scholarship, I lose everything that I have ever fought for in my entire life.

Blue and gold… and green

By Ana Grosso

College is a place of innovation, thought development and self-awareness, making it the perfect environment to educate students to fight back against climate change. But often, students’ day-to-day priorities overshadow our environmental consciousness. With the constant on-the-go lifestyle and busy schedules, student waste goes overlooked and sustainability takes a back seat.

Erin LeDrew, senior sociology major and vice president of Students for Environmental Action (SEA), set out on a mission to see just how conducive to waste the college lifestyle can be. LeDrew’s experiment, called “A Week Without Waste,” attempted to reduce the amount of paper and plastic that college students rely so heavily upon.

“I would say the biggest challenge was, especially living on York last year, they don’t have anything reusable,” LeDrew said.

Quinnipiac University’s York Hill campus only has plastic and paper forms of dish and silverware, “So, if I was reusing anything, I was bringing it from my dorm,” she said. “I definitely got looks. It was definitely a stigma like, ‘what are you doing?!’ but there was literally no other option.”

Even on the university’s Mount Carmel campus, LeDrew had limited options. She could not eat from the sushi or noodle bar as those items only come in plastic, she couldn’t grab any items to go or eat any snacks that came in packaging, or even eat anything that required toppings. The cafe independently packages everything from ketchup to cream cheese and peanut butter to maple syrup. Additionally, whenever LeDrew went to order hot or freshly-made food, she had to remember to ask the server to put it on a ceramic plate instead of the default paper one.

LeDrew brought reusable silverware and dishware with her to campus every day to eliminate single-use plastic waste. “It was so hard when I was busy because there’s no compostable takeaway containers, they’re all plastic,” LeDrew recalled. “I remember running between classes and meetings and unless I could sit down and eat, I wasn’t eating anything unless it was an apple or a banana.”

LeDrew found Coffee, tea, and water the easiest to consume waste-free in the cafe because she brought her own reusable coffee mug and water bottle. However, smoothies, iced coffee and most juices were not feasible because they only came in single-use plastic.

This is an example of two people’s waste from just a quick snack in the café. Multiply this by 7,361 undergraduate students, and those living on campus eat at least three meals per day.

Colleges witness significant spikes in their solid waste at the end of the school year as well, according to Connecticut’s Department of Energy & Environmental Protection.

There are other aspects of the university outside of food waste that challenge just how sustainable this campus is.

Hundreds of students live within just two or three miles of each other, yet the university’s north parking lot is filled to capacity every school day.

“Nobody uses the shuttles and I just wish that people would carpool more, even just going into town or grocery shopping,” LeDrew said. Obviously, students’ schedules do not match up perfectly, but even the minor inconvenience of coming to campus a little early or staying a little later is enough to deter students from carpooling or taking the shuttle.

“Also, why wouldn’t you want to save on gas?!” LeDrew added.

This attitude of indifference perpetuates the lack of sustainability at Quinnipiac, and creates a stigma around environmental consciousness.

“I honestly think that Quinnipiac as a whole is extremely wasteful in most ways,” LeDrew said. “Just for example, I heard a girl complaining about how the default on printers is double-sided. She likes when they’re printed single-sided and doesn’t want to have to choose the option to print single sided.”

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A company called Resonate LLC. conducted a Campus Culture Report in 2014. In the report, the company wrote, “We sometimes heard students characterized as uninformed and unengaged. A related perception that we heard is that the student body generally suffers from an attitude of entitlement.”

The combination of student loftiness and poor encouragement lead to a deadly cycle of indifference towards the environment.

“I feel like people really just don’t care here,” Jen Zurek, sophomore nursing major said.

63.7 percent of Quinnipiac students agreed that most students are not really concerned about sustainability issues, according to Resonate.

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Indifference is also fueled by convenience and vice versa. Quinnipiac’s staff works tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure an efficient and enjoyable college experience for the students. The rugs and floors are spotless, but there is never a sign of anyone polishing them. The facilities department cleans every student’s bathroom who lives on main campus before they even wake up in the morning. When disposing of dishes in the cafeteria, students simply place all of their dirty dishes, trash, food, and recyclables onto a speedy conveyor belt that whisks away the mess just as quickly as it was created.

But, is environmental consciousness being sacrificed for the sake of efficiency and student service?

“It’s easier to grab plastic water bottles you can just throw out and plastic utensils you don’t have to walk to the conveyor belt for,” LeDrew said, explaining possible reasoning for such environmental indifference.

The grass on the quad is always perfectly groomed, yet one hardly ever sees a lawn mower. In fact, when you look at Quinnipiac’s sprawling Mount Carmel campus, one of the first things you’ll notice is that it looks quite green. Ironically, that “green” look ends up doing more harm than good for the environment because of the water waste and pesticide runoff.

A running joke among students is that no matter what time of year, the grass on the quad is always green. LeDrew heard students lamenting over the fact that the university’s sprinkler system was on during the intense rain storm on Sept. 25 in which Hamden saw seven inches of rain in just one hour.

However, the university actually labels its York Hill campus as the “green” one.

At the summit of York Hill looms 25 cylindrical wind turbines that dominate the grassy mound. However, even on the windiest of days, only one or two rotate ambitiously. Students on campus often wonder what their purpose is.

“Those things have to be broken,” senior Katie Herrick said. “I literally haven’t heard anyone mention them or their purpose since I’ve been here.”

There’s a reason why.

“At the moment, the wind turbines on York Hill are decorations,” said engineering professor John Reap. “Mechanical and electrical problems rendered them incapable of producing power some time ago, and to my knowledge, the university does not have a plan to repair, replace or reconfigure them.”

According to The Quinnipiac Chronicle, “The reason the wind turbines have been almost entirely non-functional since they began to fail is because the manufacturer, Windspire, went bankrupt.”

“Anyone can see for themselves, if you look at the wind turbines on York Hill, they’re never moving,” 3+1 public relations major Leah Lavin said.

The sprawling 250-acre campus was completed in 2010. Reap said that the wind turbines had not been working since before he arrived at the university in 2012. The turbines were originally designed to generate just over 32,600 kilowatt hours per year. That would be roughly enough power to light almost 450 light bulbs for one month.

Other efforts on York’s campus include 1,232 photovoltaic solar panels on the roof of the Crescent Residence Hall. The panels convert energy from the sun to electricity and generate about 250,000 kilowatt hours per year.

“There is so much more room for solar panels not only on York Hill, but all over campus,” Lavin said.

Reap believes that the solar system on York Hill feeds the university’s electrical grid.

Despite those steps, the campus’ cafeteria still uses single-use silverware and dishware.

Resonate LLC.’s report noted that “(t)he QU student body is viewed, by students and faculty alike, as intelligent, but generally unaware of and unengaged with sustainability… We heard several examples of students being unwilling to perform small feats of conservation, such as turning off lights when leaving a room (because ‘I pay $50,000 to go here, so I can leave the lights on if I want.’)”

“People don’t realize that they have an effect on everything,” LeDrew said. “Especially if you’re someone who’s constantly buying way more than you can eat, or just buying plastic water bottles every single day just to get rid of your meal plan.”

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Mandatory meal plan is another factor that prompts wastefulness on the university level. “I think that people have no concept of what they’re wasting because a lot of people have $600 left and will just buy whatever they want,” LeDrew said.

Resonate’s Campus Culture Report also stated that, “Students expressed views about fellow students saying, “They don’t recycle at all,” and “In the dining hall, they throw everything away.”

Lavin also noticed that, “The trash cans are not only overflowing with stuff that could have been reusable, but also food that could have been donated or put into a compost system which would be really helpful for our environment.”

Quinnipiac has not drawn much attention to the campus culture reports.

Political science professor Sean Duffy said, “As with many ‘studies,’ this one seems to have lived primarily on a shelf somewhere – it’s never really guided any action on the part of QU.”

Even at a local level, Resonate LLC. noted in its Sustainability-Focused Curriculum Report that, “Other benchmarking metrics show that QU lags behind a majority of the Peers/Aspirants in broad-based sustainability performance recognition, as well as involvement in industry organizations. We note, however, that the Peers/Aspirants have among them some very high performers with respect to sustainability.”

LeDrew would be one of those performers. She interns at the Albert Schweitzer Institute in the

Food Systems & Sustainability division, and is working to change people’s mindsets towards waste. “It’s such a disconnect for people,” she said.

“The Albert Schweitzer institute is a huge advocator for environmentalism on campus, and it’s very much overlooked. Not many people know what it does at all actually,” Lavin remarked. Duffy is the executive director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute and hopes to create an official space there specifically for environmentalism.

One of the things LeDrew is working on at the institute is a hierarchy with food waste. “The idea behind the hierarchy on campus is that the first priority with excess food is donation. The next option is composting or reusing, and disposing is the absolute last resort,” she said. She is also hoping to put a large scale on the wall of the café to make students more aware of the effect their waste has.

LeDrew is not alone in hoping that these efforts come to fruition. Reap chairs the university’s sustainability committee, which has roughly 24 faculty members, but welcomes students as well. At the bi-semester meetings, the members discuss green opportunities across campus such as local farmers markets, the greenhouse on the North Haven campus and composting opportunities on Main Campus.

Perhaps these initiatives inspired the university to further their sustainability efforts. Quinnipiac is offering environmental studies as an independent major this year, and Anna Ciacciarella is taking full advantage. She is a sophomore English & environmental studies double major and on Oct. 3-7, she and fellow sophomore Sabrina Escobar attended the Society for Environmental Journalists conference in Flint, MI.

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At the conference, Ciacciarella and Escobar learned how to bring issues of social justice as well as wastefulness to light at a local level. “I think people here feel like they don’t need to care about the environment because it’s not directly impacting them. If they were in a community such as Flint, Michigan, they would be feeling the effects, and they would realize they have to make a difference,” Ciacciarella said. “A lot of students go for the window shopping of environmentalism… but the way we’re going to get things done is with the students realizing we have to make true change, not just change at face value.”

If the university continues to engage students in sustainability efforts, perhaps that would in turn inspire students to engage other students.

Quinnipiac to be a tobacco-free school in 2019, according to President Olian

On November 15, 2018, President Judy Olian announced that Quinnipiac will become a tobacco-free university starting on Jan. 1, 2019. In an email sent to students, Olian said that tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, will be banned.

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Both the Mount Carmel and York Hill campuses are following suit after the North Haven campus, which became tobacco free in 2012. The Quinnipiac North Haven campus received the CEO Cancer Gold Standard accreditation from the CEO Roundtable on Cancer.

“It’s important for students to take into consideration what they are putting in their bodies (so) Quinnipiac deciding to push this to other campuses besides North Haven is great,” said Cassandra Reyes, an Occupational Therapy student. “Why not really take care of the students by making a huge health decision like this?”

This new policy prohibits the use of all tobacco products on campuses from regular cigarettes, to hookah-smoking products. Students on campus use a variety of smoke products that, according to experts, have negative effects on the body.

These negative effects can have deadly repercussions. Tobacco use is the “single largest preventable cause of death and disease in the United States,” according to the CDC. Nearly a half-million people die a year from smoking cigarettes and 41,000 die from secondhand smoke.

“Honestly, I hate the smell of cigarettes or any kind of smoking. I grew up watching my uncle gradually get very sick because of his smoking addiction and he lost his life to it,” said Andres Baez, sophomore. “When I see people my age walking around campus smoking so much it disgusts me and saddens me at the same time.”

According to the American Cancer Society, “Cancer-causing agents (carcinogens) in tobacco smoke damage important genes that control the growth of cells, which causes them to grow abnormally or to reproduce too rapidly. More than 70 such cancer-causing chemicals have been identified in cigarette smoke to date.

“The research is unequivocal on the deleterious health consequences of smoking and nicotine products,” Olian said in the email. “We have an obligation to all members of our community to support a healthy learning, working and social environment for our students, faculty, staff and visitors.”

The U.S Department of Health & Human Services conducted research approximating that 2.6 million high school and college students were currently tobacco users in 2017. This figure, however, is much smaller in proportion to adolescent tobacco use forty years ago. Only one in 25 teens smoked tobacco products in 2017.

But considering the smaller, yet still-living presence of college students smoking in the 21st century, not everyone is on-board with the new policy.

“President Olian made a strong decision. I vape all the time, that’s a way for me to destress myself. I know the harm it has to my body, but that’s the thing, it’s my body. I understand the betterment as a whole, but this is just a bit annoying,” said Quinnipiac freshman, Leo Thomas.

Although the decision to become a tobacco free university stirred-up different opinions from students and faculty, the main goal of implementing this new policy is to assist students, faculty and staff while quitting smoking. Ultimately, this will assist in creating a healthier community at Quinnipiac University.

Mass shootings are affecting communities coast to coast

By Paige Meyer

“It was very much the spot of my town and is a very laid back, happy environment to hang out, dance, party and just let loose with your friends,” Quinnipiac University freshman and Thousand Oaks resident Lauryn Yarnall said.

“Everyone around my age absolutely loves Borderline,” she added.

The Borderline Bar and Grill located in Thousand Oaks, California was known as a popular spot for nearby colleges. On Wednesday, the bar was hosting line-dancing lessons for college students ages 18 and up when gunfire stunned the crowd. A night filled with celebration quickly turned to a night of heartbreak.

“I just felt so bad for those kids. The shooter totally knew Wednesday nights were a big night for Borderline,” Daniel Madnick, Borderline regular and Thousand Oaks resident, said.

“It had to be very planned out at least that is what I think because Wednesdays are a huge draw for young kids,” he said.

At about 11:20 p.m., a veteran of the U.S. Marines tossed a smoke bomb and began to open fire. The shooter was a machine gunner in the Marine Corps and has had recent run-ins with the law. In April, officers had to respond to an incident reported at his mother’s home, where he lives.

“My brother was supposed to go to the bar that night and at the very last minute his friend bailed and he didn’t go, he very well could have been there last night and not have made it like the rest of them,” Madnick said.

As bullets flew, terrified patrons and community members fled the scene as fast as possible. According to the Los Angeles Times, the shooter was found dead on the scene and is suspected to have committed suicide, but due to the amount of blood in the Borderline Bar, it is unclear to whether he took his own life or was shot down by officials.

“There are always big bouncers who throw out drunk kids but none that are ready to take on smoke bombs and a gun. I have only seen police activity maybe once at that bar and I go all the time. For the most part it is a very secluded little spot and I can see why he targeted it,” Madnick said.

Sometimes the security at bars, clubs and events can only do so much.

“There are times where I walk into an environment and can smell the tension in the air and I just can tell that something is going to happen,” said Jared Allen, a protection specialist, high profiled celebrity bodyguard and Connecticut club security guard.

“While providing security I have been sliced, shot at, had bottles broken over my head, and attacked. This only comes once in a blue moon,” Allen said.

After the Sandy Hook shooting back in 2012, there have been 1,895 mass shootings affecting people and communities around the world.

Below are some of the hotspots in Hamden where many Quinnipiac students spend their free time. The fear of a possible invasion is setting in close to campus for many students.

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“I didn’t go out in Hamden or New Haven this weekend and I tried to convince my friends not to go out either. It was too soon for me and it is still too soon for me. Unfortunately, it is very unlikely that I will be able to go to a club or bar again without thinking of the shooting and considering the possibility that I could die,” Yarnall said.

Yarnall set up a vigil on the Quinnipiac University Quad to honor the lost lives in the Thousand Oaks shooting. She set up 12 candles with the name of each victim on them in front of the student center on Quinnipiac’s main campus.

“I set up the vigil for a lot of reasons,” Yarnall stated. “The main one was to help me feel not so useless, all the way on the East Coast. I’ve wanted nothing more than to go home and be with my family and stand with them to help my community.”

Quinnipiac students hold ‘Bridge The Gap’ event on campus

By Aaron Robinson

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.”

This quote was one of the focal points of the “Bridge the Gap” discussion that took place on the evening of Thursday, Oct 26 in the Mount Carmel Auditorium at Quinnipiac University.

The discussion was sponsored by the latin sorority Chi Upsilon Sigma and co-sponsored by the latin fraternity Lambda Theta Phi as well as Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity inc.

It was the second annual “Bridge the Gap” discussion. The inaugural event last year was heavily attended, but not this year. This time, there were just over 20 people in attendance.

“I think people fear the unknown. I think people might hear bridge the gap and think it is going to be an attack on them when in fact it is the opposite,” said Destiny Dejesus, who sponsored the event as a member of of Chi Upsilon Sigma. Sophomore psychology major Darian Duah agreed.

“It seems like not many people on this campus want to learn different things about how to bring the community closer,” he said.

This sentiment is one that is felt by many minority students on campus. Many feel as though they are the only ones who care about issues such as inclusion and multiculturalism, and those values aren’t shared by many of their peers on campus.

“Not many people feel like they want to be more informed on other cultures and have the conversation at all,” said Stanley Jean Bart Jr., a sophomore health science major. “Whether it is time or just general preference of not wanting to seek out knowledge, I guess that’s why they didn’t come.”

Even though the event was not heavily attended, there is still a motivation to continue to have these events at Quinnipiac.

“I think events like this are always important on campuses like this one. Especially where us minority students are in the vast minority, so I think that the more we can talk about these challenging topics the better,” said Andrew Robinson, another event co-sponsor.

As far as solutions go, many students feel that there is only one way to improve race relations and interactions on campus.

“You got to be different,” said Duchaine Augusta, a junior marketing major. “You got to get out of your comfort zone and talk to somebody that you have never seen before and just start a conversation.”

This idea of getting out of your comfort zone was a recurring theme at the event. The hope is that students from all races will be able to reach out to each other and interact within the same social space without a fear of how they will be perceived.

“Bridge the Gap” organizers, sponsors and attendees again look to Dr. King’s words and implore their peers to “get out of the narrow confines of individualistic concerns” to broaden social circles and create dialogue between students of color and white students.

Interactive map: View the lack of sidewalks surrounding Quinnipiac’s main campus

By Amanda Perelli

The roads leading up to and surrounding Quinnipiac University’s main campus are lacking sidewalks. On Sept. 18 a Quinnipiac student was injured in a hit-and-run on Whitney Ave., which prompted HQ Press to investigate the safety of walking along these roads.

With a variety of bars and places for students to go, like Andale Mexican Restaurant, Odie’s Place, and Side Street Bar & Grill, there is an inconsistency of safe walking paths around them.

Click the interactive map below to watch GOPRO clips taken along the streets surrounding main campus.

The clean up: How Hamden’s cleaning up the damage after Tuesday’s storm

By Shane Dennehy and Amanda Perelli

As quickly as the rain came down last week, it left– at least for most areas in Hamden. But some Quinnipiac University students and residents are still dealing with the aftermath of damage from Tuesday’s storm.

Hamden was struck with the highest amount of rainfall in Connecticut on Tuesday Sept. 25 at 8.5 inches, according to Hamden Town Engineer Mark Austin.

“That [rain was] highly, highly unusual, that much that quickly,” Austin said. “All the water came up very, very quickly but it also went away very quickly which, unlike say the Carolinas right now where they had so much water that stayed. Because it came down so fast, the systems had a very hard time trying to handle it when it initially came down.”

The town received quite a few calls on Tuesday, said Austin, and had over 60 road closures due to flooding. Hamden Police Department and Fire Department took care of the closures while the engineering department has been doing basic clean-ups around the area since.

“Our engineering department is in the process and will be over the next week or two of inspecting some of our local bridges to make sure that there weren’t any damage to those areas and receiving calls about sinkholes and other things that may have come up from the storm itself,” Austin said.

Quinnipiac students also experienced damage from the rain storm on Tuesday afternoon.

Chris Sour, a senior finance major at Quinnipiac, had to deal with two leaks in his off-campus house.

“I was on the top floor of my house and [leak] went from my room to my roommates room below me to even flooding the basement,” Sour said.

Sour had a leak through his ceiling and his window because his gutters were clogged. Sour’s landlord said he would come the next day to clean the gutters but he did not and the leak happened again the next day.

Taylor Pitts, a senior physical therapy major had to stay at a friends house because there was nowhere for her to park due to her driveway being flooded.

“I had to stay at a friends because there was nowhere for me to park my car once I got home,” Pitts said.

Pitts’ landlord spent the whole next day cleaning her basement and fixing her washer and dryer as well as her water heater and furnace.

As well as responding to drainage issues and about six phone calls for sinkholes, the department expects to see minor erosion around bridges.

“So far, so good on [the bridges], most of them seemed to fair pretty well – the ones we’ve looked at,” Austin said.

He believes there will be some minor erosion around the bridges, drainage issues and alot of sweeping and debris pick up.

“Nothing we normally don’t deal with, this is just all at once,” Austin said.

If you need to report damage you can contact Hamden Public Works at 203-287-2600, Hamden Engineering 203-287-7040, or go online to hamden.com and use their online reporting program SEECLICKFIX (seeclickfix.com) where your complaint will immediately be dispatched to the department with your concern.

A glimpse at how sexual harassment allegations are handled at Quinnipiac

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By: Sierra Goodwill

Students at Quinnipiac University may have noticed a tweet issued by the school’s verified account on Thursday morning in light of sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, the accuser, testified on Sept. 27, which propelled Quinnipiac to be proactive and send a message to the university community.

“Although we want students to be engaged and informed citizens, we understand the topics discussed can be triggering for survivors of sexual assault,” part of the tweet read.

The university went on to provide contact information for counseling services on campus

The Kavanaugh confirmation hearings have raised sensitive topics. Although we want students to be engaged and informed citizens, we understand the topics discussed can be triggering for survivors of sexual assault. Counselors are available: counseling@qu.edu or 203-582-8680.

— Quinnipiac University (@QuinnipiacU) September 27, 2018

With the immense amount of reports and coverage of sexual harassment as of late, Megan Buda, Quinnipiac’s Director of Student Conduct, believes it’s important to outline the school’s process of dealing with sexual harassment allegations brought forward by students.

“Any employee at the university, minus the clergy, the counseling center or the health center staff, has the responsibility to report up if anyone reports any violation of the Title IX policy on campus,” Buda said.

Once an incident has been reported, the process outlined below ensues.

The outline of the formal process Quinnipiac University follows for a Title IX violation.

The entire process is supposed to take up to 60 days. However, Buda admits that sometimes it can be longer due to lack of information or other factors.

She notes that the length of the process is one reason why students are more hesitant to come forward.

“What I have seen, especially in the spring semester last year, is complainants coming forward and saying ‘I don’t want a formal process, I just don’t want the same thing to happen to someone else,’” Buda said. “The most common request I received last semester was, ‘Can you just keep a name of someone who’s doing things we don’t like?’ No, we can’t just keep a running list, but there are certain matters we can handle informally with an informal resolution.”

That informal resolution can include, but isn’t limited to, no contact orders and/or relocation of housing assignments.

Resident assistants are also mandated reporters, meaning they are required to report any Title IX violation they are aware of. Senior Vanessa Harris, who has been an RA for two years, has had to utilize this system more than once.

“As an RA for freshman, unfortunately I had a lot of sexual assault related issues with my residents,” Harris said. “There were two of them who actually came to me and said ‘this happened to me.’ But in other instances, because they know that I’m a mandated reporter and that I will tell, they’ll say “hypothetically, if this happened…” And it’s obvious that it did happen. But with that, there’s nothing you can do.”

Once the RA passes along the information to his or her direct boss, they are no longer given any information about the investigation in order to keep the situation as private as possible.

“It can be challenging for us because unless our resident tells us, it’s like you tell the RhD then you go back to your room and that’s it,” Harris said.

there's a lot happening on campus that we aren't notified about because we are a private university. It really changed my outlook on everything..jpg

This has an enormous effect on Harris, since she decided to become an RA in hopes of assisting the Quinnipiac community and helping her residents cope with any issues they may have. She didn’t realize just how many issues she’d come across.

“Before I was an RA, I looked at Quinnipiac and didn’t really think that anything was happening on campus,” she said. “Then as an RA, it’s like wow, there’s a lot that’s happening on campus that we aren’t notified about because we are a private university. It changed my outlook on everything, really.

However, Harris greatly values the fact that her residents trust her enough to tell her about something as serious as sexual assault or harassment allegations.

“I realize how challenging it is for them to come forward and why a lot of them don’t want to,” she said. “They’re ridiculed in the media, like Dr. Ford is right now, and that’s just not something you want to sit around a table and chat about all night. Overall, it’s been rewarding because I know I was able to do my job and I’m thankful I can help them.”

When coming forward with a Title IX related concern, Quinnipiac also gives students the opportunity to report the incident to the Hamden Police Department, but it is not required. Buda notes that the way the university conducts the investigation can be quite different than the way the police do.

“The police have a different threshold than we do,” she said. “It may take them longer to do an investigation than it may take us to do an investigation. But, we’re able to provide different accommodations that the police may not be able to. Likewise, we have a lower threshold to hold someone responsible because we don’t call them guilty since it’s not a court of law.”

Buda said she doesn’t think the number of sexual harassment cases at Quinnipiac are any higher than the national average. There were two formally reported rapes on campus in 2016, four in 2015 and five in 2014.

These numbers do not include informal reports and/or other Title IX and sexual harassment cases other than the act of rape.

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Harris knows that statistics aren’t always an accurate representation of how many students have actually experienced sexual harassment because it is not an easy thing to tell someone about.

“It can be really challenging because a lot of the times, as a victim of sexual assault you don’t want to relive that situation,” Harris said. “You don’t really want to rehash who and where and why and how.”

However, Harris says she hopes that the recent #MeToo and #WhyIDidntReport movements inspire women to feel more comfortable and empowered to report any incident they may have endured.

Quinnipiac encourages any member of the university community who is struggling to cope with the after effects of sexual assault, harassment, abuse or any other crisis, to utilize any of the resources listed below.

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Graphics by Taylor Giangregorio

A look into the Quinnipiac Polling Institute

By Mackenzie Campbell

With 40 days until the midterm elections, the director of the nationally respected polling institute at Quinnipiac University gave an inside look into the most critical times during an election period.

Every four years, the United States holds midterm elections, general elections near the midpoint of a president’s four-year term of office.

Federal offices that are up for elections are seats in the United States Congress, and all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives.

While the participation is not very high during the midterms, they can be very important.

Midterms are capable of changing the political landscape and these changes impact the president’s ability to pursue an agenda during the second half of his term.

Source: VOA News Created By: Mackenzie Campbell

Students, faculty, and staff were invited to join in on a conversation on Tuesday afternoon to discuss what the Quinnipiac University Poll can tell voters about the 2018 midterm elections.

Douglas Schwartz, PhD, director of the Quinnipiac University Poll, and Mary Snow, polling analyst and spokesperson for the poll, presented their work to the students.

They shared a behind-the-scenes look into the nationally acclaimed organization and discussed what students can learn from polling data in the upcoming election.

Dr. Douglas Schwartz and Mary Snow speaking to Quinnipiac students.

Mary Snow is a polling analyst that joined the Quinnipiac University Poll in July.

“I first learned about the Quinnipiac poll when I was a reporter at CNN,” said Snow. “Our political unit had strict guidelines about polls that could or could not be used in our reporting.

“Quinnipiac University was on the select trusted list, and while I am no longer reporting I am still interested on why people make the decisions they do when it comes to electing leaders and voting on issues.”

“As you can imagine there is no shortage of topics for us to ask about in these tumultuous times,” Snow said.

After sharing a personal experience with her first poll, Snow summed up her findings. “The moral of the story is that races don’t always fit neatly into a single narrative or a single tweet. They are complicated.”

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Dr. Douglas Schwartz shared his experience of the 2016 presidential election with Quinnipiac students.

“There were several forecasts giving Hillary Clinton high chances of winning, calculating the odds of someone winning an election is not what we do,” said Schwartz. “Polls are considered more of a snapshot in a certain window of time that provides indicators.”

Schwartz believes that another issue is the sheer amount of polls on the scene and who is most reliable. The Washington Post recently reached out to the Quinnipiac University Poll to help determine the reliability of a poll.

Schwartz advises students and the media to look to see how an organization conducts their polls.

“Most surveys conducted online are not scientific. They are based on people who volunteered to participate and therefore the results are not representative to the population, the way a random sample is.”

“While polls are giving indicators, what we can’t know is what will happen between now and November,” said Schwartz. “What headlines may sway opinions but also what the turnout will be and that will be closely watched among you, young voters who are a coveted group for campaigns.”

Schwartz opened the floor to the students and asked why they were motivated to vote in the midterm elections.

“I am motivated to vote [in the midterm elections] because I think that we need change,” said senior Rachel Beaulieu.

Another student added, “I consider voting a civic duty that we all should strive to achieve.” When asked what issue was most important to him going towards the ballet box he said, “I couldn’t tell you an important issue, I am not a one-issue voter.”

In a recent national poll, voters were asked how motivated they were to vote in the 2018 midterm elections.

“Sixty-five percent of the people we polled said that they were extremely motivated to vote in the midterm elections,” said Schwartz.

Some students believed that there are barriers in place that make them unmotivated to register to vote in the midterm elections, such as living in Connecticut and the difficulty registering to vote while at college.

Professor Scott McLean, a political science professor, reminded students that it isn’t too late to register to vote in the midterm elections.

“If you have a cell phone and go to the secretary of state’s website, you can fill out a form on your phone today,” said McLean.

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Mary Snow stressed, “It is so important because it is a referendum on the Trump administration’s policies.”

“One thing that I would convey to all of you is to hold off on any predictions,” said Snow. “Use your best judgement.”

Snow thinks that the midterms are important because it is the first time we’ve seen elections to congress after President Trump was elected.

“What about all of these policies that have been put into place, now you, the voter, has the opportunity to weigh in,” Snow said.

“On of the things that we do to reach young people is we call back at least five times over separate days,” said Schwartz. “Because young people are hard to reach and their opinions matter.”

The Quinnipiac University Poll has a standard question asking if voters support or oppose stricter gun control laws in the country. Their experiment simply changed the language used in the question by changing one simple word, control.

“The word control has a negative connotation,” Schwartz said.

“We found that it was different, that if you ask people about gun control they have a more negative reaction,” Schwartz said. “If you ask them about stricter gun laws it is a more positive reaction.”

“Just one word could affect how people feel about an issue.”

Schwartz stressed that when creating questions for polls it is always a team effort, “No one person can write questions for a survey, we all have our own biases and we do our best to keep them out.”

Whether you follow polls such as Quinnipiac’s, Schwartz reminds students that their votes matter. Across the country, 36 states are holding elections for governor, local politicians matter, making students votes in local elections matter.

“There are different issues in different states,” said Snow. “It is a very complex picture.”