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Cardinal Points Issue 7 Fall 2024

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FRIDAY, OCT. 25

WHAT’S INSIDE:

FALL 2024 | ISSUE 7

A&C

SPORTS

OPINION

Every drop counts when it comes to giving blood

Runner explores great ADK outdoors

Contemplating the American Dream

Hall houses shrine to late boy band star BY ROMITA CHAKRABORTY Contributor

ALEKSANDRA SIDOROVA/Cardinal Points

(Left to right) McKenna Kaleta, Maddie Lehman, Rachel LaMar and Sasha Baker host Late Night for the Planet on the stage of Olive Ridley’s on Oct. 9.

Late Night for the Planet hosts mayoral candidates BY ALEKSANDRA SIDOROVA News + Managing Editor

Students became more in tune with Plattsburgh’s mayoral elections as they invited candidates Wendell Hughes and Don Kasprzak to the stage of Olive Ridley’s on Oct. 9. The monthly student-hosted game show Late Night for the Planet interviewed Kasprzak, Republi-

can candidate who served as mayor of Plattsburgh from 2006 to 2014, and Democrat Hughes, a lifelong Plattsburgh resident. Platforming an election marked a drastic departure from typical Late Night for the Planet shows as student hosts Sasha Baker and McKenna Kaleta know them. “I’m really glad that more people got to be informed on the candidates and their positions,” Baker

said. “I also just enjoyed speaking to the politicians themselves. It was a really cool experience, getting to know them and go through the process of interviewing them. … It’s something I’ve never done before.” The show included personal interviews with the candidates and games that encouraged audience participation.

Liam Payne, former member of the best-selling boy band One Direction, unexpectedly died at 31 on Oct. 16 by falling from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires, Argentina — leaving millions of fans worldwide in shock and mourning. SUNY Plattsburgh holds a special connection to One Direction, as it served as a filming location for the band’s music video “Gotta Be You,” a track from their 2011 debut album “Up All Night.” In the wake of Payne’s passing, students at the university created a shrine at the steps of Champlain Valley Hall, one of the prominent spots featured in the video, to honor his memory. Sophia Cortese, a first-year history major in the adolescent education program, heard the news surrounded by her friends on the cheerleading team. “We all held hands and said a prayer together for him,” Cortese said. Across campus, many students have expressed their sorrow, sharing how One Direction’s music shaped their teenage years. Katie Kearny, a sophomore and transfer student majoring in marketing, has been a fan of One Direction since she was 7 years old.

LATE > 3

via Wikimedia Commons

1D > 3 Liam Payne in 2023.

Student group encourages peers to vote BY ALEKSANDRA SIDOROVA News + Managing Editor

Three students who make up the group Plattsburgh Votes are entering the final stretch of their voter education work. There is just a week and a half left to cast a ballot — and one day to register. The students — senior political science majors Angelina Livingston and Nadia Potts and junior computer science major Iskita Gurung — spend hours tabling in the Angell College Center and Feinberg Library as well as presenting in classrooms. “There’s been a lot of rhetoric that voting

doesn’t matter and that there’s a lot of stark differences between candidates, and that makes people want to be outside of politics instead of getting involved with it,” Livingston said. “We’ve just been trying to be nonpartisan and trying to bring it back to the fact that this isn’t about Kamala Harris or Donald Trump — there’s so much more to it.” Gurung, Livingston and Potts’ work is an internship with the college, and professors Daniel Lake and Ben Medeiros serve as their supervisors. The group connects students with voter registration resources, brings to the Board of Elections any

forms students completed on-site and helps students identify what is at stake in the election. After the voter registration period ends Oct. 26, the group will shift its focus to educating students on their choices. An important item on the ballot in New York state is Proposal 1, Livingston said. If the proposal passes, it would amend the state constitution to protect against discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, age, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation and pregnancy. ALEKSANDRA SIDOROVA/Cardinal Points

VOTES > 3

Angelina Livingston tables at Feinberg Library. The materials on the table include resources on voter registration and candidates’ values.

Admin serves food, sews bandanas after hours BY GRANT TERWILLIGER Staff Writer

Marco Ayala-Perez isn’t just a Student Health and Counseling Center administrator, but a chef on a monthly cooking show on WCAX Channel 3, a dog shelter volunteer and a creator of bandanas for dogs in need of adoption. Ayala-Perez has been working in the media industry for more than 17 years. He went to Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas in Mexico, where he is originally from, and graduated with a degree in communication sciences. AyalaProvided by Marco Ayala-Perez Perez started his career as a radio Financial administrator Marco Ayala-Perez hugs DJ and began getting interested in video editing, eventually leading Nico, one of his pugs.

him to TV work for the University of Vermont Extension in 2005. The show he works for is called Across the Fence and early on, he worked as the assistant to the producer. A lot of the time in that position, he would create the food that was shown on screen during the program. “Eventually, what ended up happening is the producer wanted to take less responsibility, so some of that started shifting towards me,” Ayala-Perez said. “So I was hosting the cooking show with other people. That was our structure.” During COVID-19, everything changed: Ayala-Perez was not able to go into the studio anymore and began running the cooking show at home by himself. Amidst

the pandemic he decided to make a major change in his life but still have a connection with media and cooking. “I decided to make a change in careers, so I moved to Plattsburgh, New York, and I started working for the COVID vaccination site, which then led me here to SUNY, where I was coordinating the isolation and quarantine program,” Ayala-Perez said. “I still wanted to keep a link to, sort of, my creative life. … When I moved over here to Plattsburgh, I was asked to still do a cooking show.” When the isolation and quarantine program ended, Ayala-Perez started working for the Student Health and Counseling Center. ADMIN > 2


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