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Charger Bulletin The official student newspaper of the University of New Haven since 1938. Volume 95, Issue 14 | January 29, 2014 | West Haven, CT
A New App to Help Student Renters
CAMPUS Over 550 local students visited UNH for Class at the Court. Student-athletes acted as campus guides with the kids throughout the day.
By JACKIE HENNESSEY
UNH TODAY COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS WRITER/EDITOR
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SEE PAGE 5
OPINION What did you do over break? Watch Netflix? Earn money at a part-time job? See if you can relate to Opinion Editor Elissa Sanci’s list of seven things SEE PAGE 6 How do you feel about gun control laws in light of recent tragedies? Read how one student believes teachers should be equipped with guns in classrooms to protect their students. SEE PAGE 7
SPORTS The Super Bowl is fast approaching. Read Taylor Hauck’s game predictions for the ultimate game of the football season. SEE PAGE 12
ENTERTAINMENT
Leadership Day Speaker Urges Students to Overcome Challenges
By SAMANTHA MATHEWSON
ASSISTANT EDITOR SMATH3@UNH.NEWHAVEN.EDU
–––––––––––––––––––––––––– The University of New Haven is home to 4,607 undergraduate students and 1,778 graduate students. More than 70 percent of undergraduate students live on campus or in University-sponsored housing, so the other 30 percent of undergraduates, in addition to graduates, are forced to live elsewhere. Aside from the students who commute from home, the out-ofstate and international students have to factor in rent to their list of college expenses. For these firsttime home-renters, it may be hard to determine what is a good deal when paying rent. Zoe Chaves a recent Brown University graduate, class of 2013,
is working on a web tool called Splitwise that will help students living off-campus. “Splitwise is a website and mobile app that helps roommates and friends keep track of shared expenses and IOUs. It was developed in 2011 by our co-founders Jon Bittner, Ryan Laughlin, Marshall Weir. There are now two employees too, myself, Zoe Chaves, and Caleb Oller. I came on board six months ago,” said Chaves. When using Splitwise, students are prompted to plug in a zip code. The website or app will then tell the user the average rent per bedroom in that area, by apartment size (studio, one-bed, etc.). It then calculates how much money student renters could expect to save by taking on a roommate or two versus living alone, and shows how many of each type of apartment is available in the respective
PHOTO PROVIDED BY SPLITWISE.COM
zip code. “I think the tool will be useful to University of New Haven students who are moving off-campus and trying to figure out how many roommates to get to stick to a budget, or negotiate a lower rent price with landlords. It will also be useful to seniors and recent grads who are relocating to new cities and trying to get set up (I have data for every U.S. zip code not just ones near universities),” said Chaves. Splitwise is not a stand-alone app, meaning that the average rent tool works through the app, and Splitwise was made because, “we got a really great data set from our friends over at RentMetrics,” explained Chaves. RentMetrics has over two-million apartment prices from across the country matched to number
See APP page 2
2014 brings a lot of new movies to the big screen, and Film Editor Scott Iwaniec highlights some must-sees.
SEE PAGE 13 The Grammys had more performances than it did awards. Read Music Editor Ashley Winward’s top ten best and worst of the night.
SEE PAGE 15 PHOTO PROVIDED BY SAMANTHA HIGGINS
Students (left to right) Samantha Higgins, Ashley Wemmell and Bronte Torres Pagan
Prato, Take Two
Read what UNH’s Tuscany Campus has been up to this week in the newest installment of Postcards from Prato
By SAMANTHA HIGGINS
STAFF WRITER SHIGG2@UNH.NEWHAVEN.EDU
–––––––––––––––––––––––––– It is day eight already! After having our flight out of JFK delayed for almost two hours because of all the snow, and barely having any time between flights when we landed in Germany, we arrived bright and early on Jan. 22, to start our semester in Prato! The staff greeted us with Univer-
sity of New Haven signs, and we took a group photo in the Florence airport. We were all split up depending on where we were housing and got on buses to our new apartments for the next 15 weeks. It is almost impossible to even believe I am finally here after weeks of counting down the days. The housing is beautiful, the landlord is extremely nice (well, everyone I have met so far is extremely nice) and the food thus far is beyond words. Orientation the
first few days helped me get the lay of the land, but I am still extremely weary that I will be getting lost, seeing as I have no sense of direction. But they gave us half a dozen maps to help us, so I guess I will just have to look like a tourist sometimes in order to find my way around. I have already taken over 100 pictures… in less than a week, but not a single one of them does any justice to what I see on a daily See PRATO page 3
As Shane Michael Taylor (aka Michael Matzkevich ’05, ’06) arrived on campus and settled into his resident hall his first year on campus, he worried: what would people say as he rolled down the hall in his wheelchair? Would he make friends? Would they understand what he had to say? Could he find a place for himself here? Then, with a knock on the door, in walked Marquis Bell ’08, a resident assistant, who greeted him with a loud and friendly “Wasssuuuup?” Bell stayed a while, talking and cracking jokes, and Taylor’s worries started to fade. UNH, he thought, was a place where he could be who he was – a guy who had cerebral palsy and little use of his arms and legs, who typed with his nose—as he described, “like a pecking chicken”—and a guy with big dreams. Last week, Taylor, a country music artist, motivational speaker and manager and chief engineer of the music production company Platinum Horse Productions, returned to campus to give the keynote address at Leadership Day 2014. More than 185 student leaders turned out. He shared insights into why overcoming challenges can make a person a more empathetic, inclusive and galvanizing leader. His personal assistant, Zachary Boetcher, spoke on his behalf. Taylor encouraged each person in the room to do what Marquis Bell did that very first day – reach out and be the kind of positive person “who nourishes others and unleashes the hero in you and in them.” He urged students to find healthy ways to push aside their own negative thoughts when they are trying to achieve a goal. He said he has had to work hard to banish “negative self-talk” and to replace doubts with thoughts such as, “I will be able to do this.” “Rejection turns me on,” Taylor said, to big laughs and hearty applause from the audience. He urged students to use the rejections they experience in life to forge a new path forward and to help others do the same. “How do you become a more resilient student and teach yourself to lead?” he asked. “Great leaders lead others through adversity.” Boetcher said it was “an honor and a privilege to be his voice. Watching him type every word of his presentation, using his nose – everything about him is inspiring.” See LEADERSHIP page 2
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