Check out some of best photos from Giving Day 2021

Peace Corps

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despite their financial situation.

One of her favorite memories was of the very first McDonald’s opening in Romania.

“The first McDonald’s in Romania actually opened while I was there, and so it was a big day. [The family was] like, ‘We’re going to McDonald’s today!’’ said Sarris.

“So, we all ventured out, and the little boy was all excited. It was like this shining beacon, if you can imagine ‘America’ in the middle of this newly emerging country that wasn’t sure what it was going to be as a democracy, but they’re really trying to embrace and figure out the identity between the West and who they are.

“It was the most spotless, beautiful McDonald’s I had ever seen-- you had to wait in line to get in, and there’s people washing all the windows and they opened the door for you and everyone was walking down the middle like, ‘Whoa!’ It was just a great experience for me to really tie that together and realize what I was a part of, and how this is pretty remarkable,” she said.

Another favorite memory of Sarris’ was her helping hand in one of the programs that Peace Corps Volunteers had set up prior to her arrival. The group that was before Sarris had created Camp GLOW, a summer camp for young girls whose mission was, “Girls Leading Our World.” This camp was established to address the self-esteem issues Peace Corps English teachers had noticed in the classroom amongst the girls. It was extremely successful in its infancy, and one of the volunteers that had created this program decided to stay for the following summer and to bring it to other interested teachers.

“So we did Camp GLOW again, and we created some materials, and we had Romanian teachers there, and we were thinking, ‘This would be really cool if this stayed, if Camp GLOW was a thing in Romania when we left,’” said Sarris.

“Well, now if you look up ‘Camp GLOW’ it’s in 60 countries all over the world, and it’s been adapted for boys and girls. It’s really amazing the power of what a network like the Peace Corps can do. You want to leave something with the teachers you’d been working with too,” she added.

As mentioned before, Sarris is now a current graduate student in the Springfield College Coverdell Fellowship. Through the fellowship, Sarris was even able to partake in a studyabroad program, which brought her right back to where she had begun: Romania.

“One of the organizations I worked with in Romania when I was there [initially] was Outward Bound, which is an experiential education program… they were really just starting out and they got some seed money. So I helped them write grants, and they were trying to buy a little piece of land,” recalled Sarris.

“So we took this group... to Outward Bound Romania, 25 years after I had been there, and they have an International Youth Center. It was really amazing, and I feel like for me this tie-in of the Peace Corps, Springfield College, and the way the Springfield College Social Work program works, and being able to go back to Romania-- it was kind of like this magical opportunity for me,” said Sarris.

If there is one thing that is constant through many volunteer’s experiences, it’s the fact that they recognize they are able to see a side of the country they serve in that regular tourists and vacationers do not.

Bishop said, “I think you’re there for so long, it’s not just like superficial travel-- you get to go to all the small towns, and see other volunteers and their communities, and you really get to marinate more in the culture than most travel experiences.”

Nicholson was in agreement, stating, “There’s no way to really understand a country, or visit a country, and be as in-depth. I’ve studied abroad, I’ve traveled pretty extensively, but now I feel like whenever I go someplace, I know I’m just scratching the surface.

“There’s really no way, without spending a significant amount of time, to really see past that initial cultural-- you know, like, ‘The food’s different, the language is different,’ there’s way more aspects to culture that you understand and you learn as a Peace Corps volunteer,” he added.

If you are interested in becoming Springfield College’s Peace Corps Campus Ambassador or a Volunteer, please reach out to Randi Dermo by email at rdermo@peacecorps.gov to get started.

Randi Dermo with students at her cheer camp in Ecuador. (Photo Courtesy of Randi Dermo)

Gender inclusive housing

Springfield College continues to shift towards making the campus a more welcoming and comfortable environment for all.

By Collin Atwood @collinatwood17

Students at Springfield College are gearing up for housing selections for the 2021-2022 school year. In years past, students would have to pick other students of the same gender to live with. This academic year was the first year that gender inclusive housing was an option for students and will remain an option in the coming years.

Starting last year, gender inclusive housing was an option for students living in the townhouses, senior suites and living center. Allison Gagne, the Assistant Director of Housing and Residence Life said, “The biggest reason is definitely to support our LGBTQ community members and make sure they feel safe and have housing options that are affirmative of their identity.”

Springfield College felt that students should be allowed to make their own decisions in regards to who they live with.

In the 2021 fall semester the college will be expanding its number of gender inclusive buildings. “We’re extending that to traditional mid-year halls for this year,” Gagne said. International, Alumni, Lakeside and Abbey Hall will all be gender inclusive in the upcoming fall semester.

This is a step in the right direction for the college, which plans to have gender inclusive housing in every hall. This plan has been in motion for two years and it all started with graduate housing.

“Two years ago, we started with graduate housing and then we started with the suites last year. This coming year will be traditional mid-year and then the following academic year we’ll roll this into first year halls and then the whole campus will have gender inclusive housing options,” Gagne said.

The goal is for everyone in the LGBTQ community to feel completely safe on the Springfield College campus.

In the traditional mid-year halls, about half of the wings will be gender inclusive. The college recognizes that not all students are comfortable sharing a wing with the opposite gender, so they will still have the option to be in a single gender wing.

If a student chooses to live in the gender inclusive wing, but does not feel comfortable sharing a bathroom with a student of the opposite gender, that student is more than welcome to use the bathroom in the single gender wing.

Having gender inclusive housing will be a learning experience for the campus community. Knowledge on the topic is vital to making this work.

“It’s certainly going to mean a lot of education for our community about living in a gender inclusive environment and that it remains safe for everyone, what the behavioral expectations are and things like that,” Gagne said.

For any questions regarding housing options visit the Housing and Residence Life Office or email reslife@springfieldcollege.edu.

Fitness

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known versus less original and much more known.”

Noé has always known that he much rather preferred the lifting and conditioning aspect of sports. He expressed how weightlifting has had a lasting impact on him as a person.

“Weightlifting is a part of my identity and the fiber of who I am.”

Noé wants to be the individual that stands beside his athletes and watches them grow stronger. He knows that it is no longer about him in the weight room, it is about the athletes that he coaches and leads in Iron Sports.

Being a leader is an important role in anyone’s life. Without a mentor, teacher, or coach, how would athletes advance mentally and physically with no guidance? Athletes need these individuals in order to grow and flourish into the best version of themselves.

Back for more

The men’s volleyball team was the last Springfield team to play an in-person competition when they swept Lasell on the road on March 12, 2020. They will be the first in 2021.

____ By Joe ArrudA ____ @joearruda9

On March 12, 2020, the collegiate sports world came to a screeching halt. Student-athletes were just being released from their afternoon classes, some leaving the dining hall after a mid-afternoon meal, others may have been taking a nap or hanging out with friends in their dorms. Then came 3:00 p.m. The NEWMAC conference suspended spring sports play. It was before anyone really knew the extent that the Coronavirus would affect the country – before the death toll climbed over an astronomical half million. There was still an inkling of hope for the men’s volleyball team, as they are not affiliated with a conference. Student-athletes reported to team meetings where they were made aware of the news – some of them realizing they had already played in their final collegiate game. Then, just after 4 p.m., the NCAA squandered that idea with a press release which cancelled all spring seasons. Men’s volleyball head coach, Charlie Sullivan, was driving home after his team meeting, still with the thought in mind that his team would return to competition. That was until one of his players called him. “Coach, ESPN just announced that all spring sports are cancelled.” Campus was somber, the most depressing atmosphere Alden Street had likely ever seen with students on campus – a feeling that became normal once students were sent home just a few days later for the remainder of the semester. Springfield men’s volleyball, ranked No. 1 in the nation, was 19-2 with only six matches to go before the NCAA tournament. They were favorites to return the national championship trophy to the Blake Arena showcases for the 12th time in program history. Now, over a year since their last match, the Springfield men’s volleyball team will prepare to raise the net in Blake Arena on Saturday, March 13. They were the last Springfield team to compete in an in-person environment in 2020, and they will be the first in 2021. The process which preceded the 10-game schedule that was produced was a long, challenging one. Beginning at some point around December, the team had been exploring opportunities which led to this point. “It’s been challenging for sure. It’s just human nature to want to know what’s going on and not having any idea what was going to happen was very uncomfortable,

Johjan Mussa Robles encourages the 2020 men’s volleyball team from the sideline. (Joe Arruda/The Student) but we just kind of try to own every moment as best we can,” Sullivan said. Practices began in small pods for four weeks once students returned to campus at the end of January and eventually were able to become more competitive, including ‘6v6’ – a sort of intersquad game. With nine new names on the roster – six firstyears and three transfers – the lack of team gatherings has threatened one of the Pride’s invaluable strengths. In any normal year, the team would travel to California for a few matches and a bonding experience over the school break in January. “The most difficult thing is that without being able to socially gather, any social cohesion hasn’t really formed. We usually start out by going to California and the most important thing is they get to know each other really well and get a lot of time to bond as a family,” Sullivan said. “That policy driven separation with our team has affected our team in terms of our cohesiveness.” The team enters the 2021 season ranked first in the nation in the Di-

Brennen Brandow winds up for a kill against SUNY New Paltz in the 2020 season. (Joe Arruda/The Student)

vision III NCAA/AVCA coaches poll. This marks the fifth time in the last six seasons where the Pride have entered the year as the top-ranked team in the country and the 70th straight poll in the top two.

Players to Watch

Bolstered by their legendary head coach in Sullivan who is entering his 23rd season, the team has only gotten stronger since its impressive run in 2020. Johjan Mussa Robles was the lone senior on the 2020 roster and when the season was cancelled the libero from Caguas, Puerto Rico posted a heartfelt message on his Instagram. “As reality sinks in, I have to face the fact that my journey on Alden St. and in Blake Arena is over. My last year couldn’t have ended any worse,” the caption read. “Thank you Springfield for giving me some of my best friends and for giving me memories I will cherish forever. (....) Last week I played my last game wearing THE jersey and I didn’t even know it. Although the future is unknown, I really hope it’s not the last time I get to play the sport that gave me purpose.” That was on March 17. On July 24, it turned out that his final sentiment would come true. He posted, “I guess my journey on Alden ST. is NOT over!” Mussa Robles was among the many with their future up in the air after receiving his diploma in the mail. “My original plan was to get out of school, work for a year or two and then go back to school. Then, obviously Covid happened – I already said bye, I already said bye to the coaches, the team was not expecting me to come back. A couple weeks later, I’m like, ‘What am I doing?’ I didn’t have plans, no job lined up, Covid kind of froze everything down. I’m like, ‘There’s nothing stopping me from going back to school now,’” he said. “All summer it was a big roller coaster. I’m good where I am now,” he said with a wide smile stretched across his face. Mussa Robles, who was a Second Team All-American in 2019, holds a role on the team as a leader not just on the court, but on the sidelines and beyond. This year’s team has piled up its collective share of accolades. Most notable are the hitting tandem in Brennen Brandow and Jarrett Anderson. Brandow, a junior, was named the 2020 TeamSnap/AVCA Men’s Volleyball Division III National Player of the Year and was an AVCA Division III All-America First Team honoree in his sophomore campaign. As a freshman, Brandow earned AVCA Newcomer of the Year recognition and was a Second Team All-American. Anderson, his sophomore counterpart, was named a First Team All-American and the AVCA Newcomer of the Year in 2020. Mussa Robles, Brandow and Anderson are just a few of the shining stars on the Springfield roster which includes a senior All-American transfer from Stevenson University in Nate Reynolds.

Outlook

The fire power is there, but the shot at another national championship is still to be determined. Springfield is waiting on the NCAA survey of Div. III schools that sponsor NCAA men’s volleyball to learn if there will be a national championship tournament, or not. 70 percent of schools that have a program must be participating in a season. Through the year of uncertainty, the goals of the men’s volleyball program have stood strong. For a program that wins so often, the goal isn’t so. “Our goal is not to win, our goal is to always play at championship level. If we do win, that’s basically a cherry on top,” Mussa Robles said. “That’s why it hurt so much last year because we were close to getting to that potential – we were seeing it, we were going to get there, we knew we were going to get there.” Sullivan added, “We’re not on a mission for wins and losses this year, we’re on a mission to do it right. To do it right by the guys and just give them an opportunity.” Though Blake Arena will be holding true to its 50-person Covid capacity, the energy from a team that hasn’t played in over a year will certainly be there. Saturday, March 13 will be the first in-person athletic competition on the campus since the men’s basketball team hosted the beginnings of its national tournament that went unfinished. “We just appreciate and we are thankful that we are back on the court, that we just want to play good volleyball and have fun, but also hoping that there is a national championship to finish unfinished business,” Mussa Robles said. “We’re ready to go, we’re just hungry – hungry to keep going.”

Painting her story

Heidi Schuman, a junior on the women’s tennis team, has found her passion in the art form and developed an incredible talent.

___ By Lucas Van DeVenter ___ @Lucasvd_26

(Photo Courtesy of Heidi Schuman)

A way to stay aware of oneself and reduce the many stressors that come along in life is by taking into perspective the amazing art influences that are around us every day. A junior artist at Springfield College stands by this notion through her burning passion for art. Heidi Schuman is a junior in the studio art program with minors in web design, art therapy and marketing. During her time on Alden Street, she has had a lasting impression on people with her art tendencies. She has lended a hand to assist with The Springfield Student’s design of a logo for a story on the ‘True Colors’ series which promoted a platform for the LGBTQ+ athletic community on the Springfield athletics social media outlets. She also designed a revamped ‘For the Record’ logo, a series from The Student which highlights the LGBTQ+ experience on campus. Artwork can uncover a sense of creativity that someone might not have thought they had. In addition, art can be displayed in many ways and forms. Schuman, a member of the women’s tennis team, is a true believer that everyone has a creative mind when you really think about it. Whatever hobby or passion a person has, it can be expressed in an art form. Even playing a sport can be looked at as an art influence with the emotions that go into it. It can be conveyed by what you see and how you feel as well. “I feel like art is kind of underappreciated and especially now, it’s not really a big digitized thing. It’s something that you touch and hold and so I think it’s cool. I think we need more of that,” she said. Schuman has been selling her art and has been doing commissions since high school. She began to find a passion for it a few years ago when she opened herself to a new interest she held in art and design. “I have always loved doing art ever since I was little. I think I started to take it seriously in high school. My junior year I did advanced placement studio art so I had to make a portfolio that was 24 pieces in the year, that’s when I started making a lot of art and building my own style,” she said. Schuman soon found her place in art and design. At one point, art was all she used and depended on for a while when she was grappling with the difficulties of mental health. She used art to help her cope and the more she worked with art, the more she hit her stride with the skills and developments needed to push her talents further. “I had to be hospitalized for mental health issues and in the hospital I stayed at, I stayed there for seven weeks and they had an art therapy group. We would spend an hour doing whatever art we wanted and that was the best part of my day. I did a few individual sessions too. It really helped with what I was struggling with,” She said. Even though it was a fight to get through the strain of mental health, Schuman was able to find the light at the end of the tunnel. Now, she is finding her success doing media design and graphic design art through Adobe programming. As of now, she does not want to give up this demanding engrossment she has found for herself. Schuman wants to keep at it as much as she can. “Last semester I got into design. I started taking design classes

with Ruth West, the head of the media and digital design services, and I love her. She is such a great professor and I have started taking as many classes as I can with her and I’m getting into the Adobe suite and doing digital art,” Schuman added. Professor West speaks highly of Schuman as she was creating a piece of artwork every day in the month of February. The work is continuously reflected to show her hard work and creative spirit. “Heidi is a very talented artist, who is a consistent, hard-working team player in my classes. I know this is not very thought-provoking, but what else do you say about such a nice person. I have enjoyed having her in my classes,” West said. Previously, Schuman has only been a painter or drawer; the more traditional art style and the style she was most comfortable with; however, with her newly found interest in digital design, she has begun to blend the two to make an amazing masterpiece. What she creates builds character and reflects her devotion to the effort she puts into it. With her incredible sense of art, comes the confidence she gets from her peers, her friends and her family. Schuman acknowledges that without the amazing support from them, then what she does now could be hard to accomplish with the same end result in her work. The source of support she finds starts with her family. Her parents and her brother constantly look to encourage her to keep working at it. Her younger brother, Eric, is proud of the way she is invested with art and acknowledges what it means to her. He sees incredible results in the artwork she does for him also. “She is always working on a project whether it’s painting someone’s shoes, the walls on our house, a phone case, or pretty much anything else you can think of. I have a pair of her shoes and get compliments for them all the time. She is very talented and the end product is always amazing,” her brother said. Not only does her family show support for all the accomplishments and projects Schuman has done, but also her closest friends at Springfield College get a look at how talented she is. She finds a way to use art that she makes to help others feel better too. Caitlin Ryan, a student at Springfield exclaimed, “I consider Heidi my best friend and I truly support her work so much as an artist. I even had her paint the door to my room in a flower mural and I have a painting of hers hanging up on my wall. It’s so amazing to see how passionate she is about her art and how she really can express herself through it.” Schuman’s teammate on the Springfield Pride tennis team, Veronica Fulgieri, also realizes that the work Schuman puts into her artwork displays a wonderful picture of who she is as a person. The artwork is done with precision and close attention to detail. “I don’t see modern art in the way that most people do, but Heidi changed that opinion for me. When I look at her art, I can see the beauty in it. She seems to put a piece of herself in the artwork in very subtle ways. It could be the subject matter or even the colors. It could be that I just know Heidi, so I automatically see her in it. Her art tells her story,” Fulgieri said. Using these words of encouragement and taking advantage of the abundance of support, Schuman continues to do her work of art. She is very aware of the attention to detail in her artwork and works hard at what gives her passion in her life. “Definitely my peers and my friends. That’s kind of where I get confidence from also. Like if no one wants your art, I’d still do it for me, but it’s nicer when you get good feedback and people that reposts your stuff and recommend you to other people, so that’s definitely a big motivation to keep doing what I’m doing,” Schuman admitted. Looking into the future, Schuman hopes that any career she finds, she can try to utilize her art skills to implement them to her job. Art is what makes her and she wouldn’t change that for the world. “Right now, I’m going toward marketing and once I get into that, I really want to try to find a way to incorporate art to my job or do graphic design. But even if I don’t end up doing a job that’s necessarily art related, I think I’ll always have that as my hobby,” Schuman said. There comes a time when a sudden interest helps to fill the void and gives students a way to keep moving forward. Art is one element that can help people in many different ways and can even change a person’s life for the better.

Heidi Schuman’s art. (Photos Courtesy of Heidi Schuman)