January 19, 2024

The Huntington News January 19, 2024

The independent student newspaper of the Northeastern community

@HuntNewsNU

DOZENS PROTEST DISCIPLINARY CHARGES AGAINST STUDENTS

By Quillan Anderson & Emily Spatz | News Correspondent and Campus Editor

Dozens gathered in front of Ell Hall Jan. 11 to protest Northeastern’s disciplinary hearings for three students involved in a controversial sit-in last month, where students condemned the university’s “complicity” in what they called “Israeli genocide of Palestinians.”

The demonstration, which Huskies for a Free Palestine, or HFP, announced Jan. 10 in an Instagram post as an “emergency rally,” took place the same day as the hearings, according to the post. Though it was unclear when or where the hearings were held, the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution, which executes and oversees disciplinary hearings, is located in Ell Hall.

“We’re here today because Northeastern is wrongfully charging students for simply their First Amendment right — freedom of speech,” said an attendee of the rally, who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns.

Attendees spread throughout Krentzman Quad from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., waving Palestinian flags and holding signs that read “Stand against genocide,” “End Israeli apartheid” and “Gaza lives,” among other slogans.

Though the rally was largely silent, attendees occasionally engaged in chants such as “Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel’s crimes” and “You can suspend us, but you can’t suspend the movement.”

The rally had a large police presence from the Northeastern University Police Department, or NUPD, who asked for participants’ IDs repeatedly throughout the demonstration. Assistant Vice Chancellor of Student Life Maura Mahoney was also present and asked students for IDs, including those who joined the protest throughout its duration.

An NUPD officer told The News they were checking IDs to “confirm it’s the Northeastern community on campus.” Some protesters provided their IDs, while others refused. “[I’m worried about] safety and

The demonstration also drew the attention of several people donning Israeli and U.S. flags, who observed from nearby.

The protest was in response to disciplinary actions against three students the university said broke the Code of Student Conduct during a Dec. 1 sit-in that garnered national attention and sparked criticism from Jewish students.

Students at the sit-in, which was also organized by HFP and met with police presence from the NUPD, expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people and called on the university to publicly demand an immediate ceasefire and divest from companies that produce weapons being sent to Israel.

HEARINGS, on Page 2

possible retaliation because we are here fighting against charges that were brought upon protesters like us for the most non-antisemitic words you could possibly say,” the aforementioned attendee told The News.

“It’s a bit worrisome, and that’s why we are wearing masks, and that’s why it’s good to go with people so you’re not just here by yourself, but I don’t think it’s scary enough to stop me from coming.”

Police officers told the protesters several times throughout the demonstration they had received several complaints from professors that the protest was disrupting their classes.

Chants continued after the warnings.

Photos by Quillan Anderson Students rally outside Ell Hall Jan. 11. The group protested Northeastern’s disciplinary charges against students involved in a Dec. 1 sit-in organized by Huskies for a Free Palestine.

Naloxone lacks accessibility despite approval

By Annika Geiben Lynn News Correspondent The Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, authorized a 4-milligram naloxone hydrochloride nasal spray for over-the-counter sales, or OTC, in March. This was in an effort to reduce overdose deaths primarily caused by illicit drugs. However, those in the medical field shared the need for increased accessibility to the life-saving nasal spray for it to have a widespread impact in Boston.

Naloxone rapidly reverses the effects of opioid overdose and was

previously only accessible by prescription. Still, even with removing the prescription requirement, experts say naloxone isn’t getting into the hands of the people who need it most.

“We haven’t seen or heard a massive uptick in people accessing [naloxone],” said Gracie Rolfe, a senior project manager at Health Resources in Action, or HRiA, a non-profit organization focused on public health consulting in the Boston area.

Overdose deaths have continued to steadily increase each year

nationwide. In 2022, drug overdose claimed more than 109,000 lives in the United States. Boston hit a record high of 2,359 opioid-related deaths in 2022, a 2.5% increase from the year before. Fentanyl accounts for the most drug-related deaths in the country; the substance was detected in 93% of individuals who experienced fatal overdoses in Massachusetts last year.

“Overdoses increased exponentially in the last few years. That’s in large part due to fentanyl entering the drug supply, which is far, far deadlier than heroin,” said Katelyn McCreedy, a population health sciences doctoral

student and research lead at the Action Lab at the Center for Health Policy and Law at Northeastern.

McCreedy said the COVID-19 pandemic likely led to a combination of factors making overdoses more deadly. Increased social isolation resulted in people administering drugs alone without someone there to help if an overdose occurred. Heightened stress and restricted access to harm reduction resources and treatment were also contributing factors.

Since the effort to make naloxone OTC began, not much has

changed for unhoused people in the state, McCreedy said. Various roadblocks stand in the way, including the cost.

“The approval of naloxone overthe-counter isn’t really something that’s going to have a significant impact in terms of getting Narcan to the people who are most in need.

About one in four people experiencing homelessness die of a drug overdose in Massachusetts. The barrier to getting it was never just that you needed a prescription, but primarily the cost,” McCreedy said.

NARCAN, on Page 4

CITY

LIFESTYLE

SPORTS

Read about Wu’s accomplishments and city plans for 2024.

Read about The News’ top movies, televison shows and albums released in 2023.

Read about how NU earned a championship spot at TD Garden.

Mayor Wu’s State of the City address

PAGE 5

Women’s hockey wins Beanpot semifnals

Lifestyle Wrapped: Pop culture in 2023

Photo by Annika Sunkara

PAGES 6-7

Photo by Marta Hill

PAGE 12

Photo by Harriet Rovniak

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January 19, 2024

3 charged with code of NUPD student conduct violaCRIME LOG tions after HFP sit-in MONDAY, NOV. 27 Compiled by Christina McCabe

th

08:24am 05:55pm

A caller reported a raccoon on the eighth floor of the Renaissance Park Garage. The area was checked.

A caller reported a food delivery stolen from Willis Hall.

A report was filed.

TUESDAY, NOV. 28th 01:19pm 03:51pm

A caller reported graffiti in the SquashBusters Center sauna. A report was filed.

A caller reported a suspicious package in EXP. The area was checked.

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 29th 07:58am 04:43pm

A caller reported an individual went behind the counter of the Dunkin’ in Hayden Hall after hours and attempted to make food. A report was filed.

A caller reported a roommate dispute in LightView. A report was filed.

MONDAY, DEC. 4th 12:10pm 04:30pm

A caller reported a vehicle idling in Public Alley 807.

Officers recovered a stolen vehicle. The individual was identified. The individual will be summoned to court.

A caller reported an ongoing roommate dispute in Davenport B. A report was filed.

TUESDAY, DEC. 5th 06:21pm 09:21pm

A caller reported two individuals arguing in Marino Recreation Center. The individuals were sent on their way.

A caller reported a small kitchen fire in Davenport B. The fire was extinguished with minimal damage and no injuries. A report was filed.

HEARINGS, from front “We are here today for a sit-in to honor and to sit in solidarity with Palestinian people who are experiencing genocide in Gaza,” said a speaker at the sit-in, who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns. “We want to sit collectively as a community at Northeastern and hold space to say that we care and to say that we will not be silenced by the administration or opposition.”

Among the signage spread throughout the sit-in area was a large poster hanging off the second floor of Curry Student Center that read “globalize the Intifada,” a slogan referring to historical Palestinian uprisings against Israel which is commonly used at pro-Palestine demonstrations to show support for Palestinian resistance to what protestors say is Israeli occupation.

After the university released a statement Oct. 10 condemning Hamas’ attacks on Israel, students in support of Palestine have decried what they say is the statement’s failure to address the role Israel has played in the oppression of Palestinians. Many also say they’ve felt a lack of support for Palestinian, Muslim and Arab students since the war’s outbreak.

“I am frustrated, disappointed and appalled that our university did not offer more support for Palestinian, Arab and Muslim students, especially at times when Islamophobia is at its highest,” said another speaker at the sit-in, who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns.

Another speaker emphasized the university’s “complicity” in the conflict because of its research partnerships with companies like Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and General Dynamics — some of the United States’ top weapons contractors.

The speaker also criticized the university’s lack of transparency concerning how its $1.54 billion endowment is allocated, saying this makes it harder to ascertain how much support the university is giving these companies.

“Northeastern has explicit ties with

war profiteering companies that are creating the weapons and the bombs that are currently raining down in Gaza and Palestine,” said the speaker, who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, said. “Northeastern, by maintaining friendly ties with these companies, is directly responsible for blowing up children.”

Two floors above the sit-in, these same chants could be heard by attendees of Northeastern Chabad’s last Shabbat dinner of the semester, a weekly, religiously-significant event celebrating the Sabbath. Attendees of the dinner who spoke to The News said they felt the sit-in was “targeted” toward Jewish students and that they were emotionally distressed by language at the sit-in they perceived to be “hate speech.”

Tali Peretz, a business administration major who graduated in December 2023, said she had to walk past the sit-in to get to the Shabbat dinner, which was being held on the third floor of Curry. She said that though she did not feel physically threatened, seeing the “globalize the Intifada” poster was “emotionally unsettling” and “harmful.”

“The Intifada poster was very emotionally devastating,” said Peretz, who has family in Israel. “My father’s been in an Intifada and has seen terror attacks happen firsthand — it was hard to see, especially since I wasn’t walking towards a pro-Israel event, just a Jewish religious practice.”

Peretz attended a prayer event, also held in Curry, about two hours before the 7 p.m. dinner. She said the prayers were disrupted by distant sounds of people “screaming” “from the river to the sea” and “calling for Intifada.”

StandWithUs, an “international nonprofit Israel education organization,” according to its website, posted a video of the sit-in to its Instagram page, which has a following of over 1 million people. The organization called protesters “pro-Hamas” in the caption of the post and condemned the protester’s posters calling for an Intifada.

“Northeastern’s administration was present, but took no action to shut

down the demonstration,” StandWithUs wrote. “Jewish students were met with chants from the pro-Hamas students calling for the murder of their people.”

On Dec. 11, Northeastern Global News, or NGN, a university-run news outlet, published an article addressing “frequently asked questions” regarding the university’s responses to campus demonstrations regarding the war. In the article, the university stated that “several” of HFP’s leaders “did not comply with clear direction from NUPD and Student Life staff ” and are now facing disciplinary action consistent with the Code of Student Conduct.

“By threatening sanctions for participating in peaceful acts of solidarity with Palestine, Northeastern is attempting to punish students for calling attention to its complicity in genocide,” a Dec. 16 post on HFP’s Instagram page read, calling the charges brought against students “arbitrary” and “unjust” and stating that the university is “bowing to Zionist pressure.”

The organization reiterated the same sentiments in its Jan. 10 post announcing the emergency rally, saying the hearings were “intimidation tactics” by the university.

“We cannot let Northeastern get away with its blatant retaliation against students fighting for an end to the genocide in Gaza,” the post read.

In addition to protesting disciplinary charges against students, attendees at the Jan. 11 rally said they were disappointed in what they called the “silencing” of Palestinian voices and the school’s partnership with military-industrial companies that supply weapons to Israel.

“I regret every single amount of money that I’ve given to this school in the name of tuition,” a fifth-year student who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns. “After I graduate I am severing every tie with this school. I am going to hang my head in shame every time someone asks me where I went to school. I will never speak about this school with pride. Never.”

THURSDAY, DEC. 7th 06:16am 08:00pm

A caller reported a bicycle tire stolen from SquashBusters.

A report was filed.

A caller reported a swastika drawn in dust on their vehicle in the Columbus Garage. A report was filed.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 20th 10:26am 12:47pm

A caller reported suspicious activity at 39 Dalton St. Services rendered.

A caller reported an individual on the ground in the Columbus Garage. Officers responded and were assaulted by the individual. The individual will be summoned to court.

Photo by Quillan Anderson Students hold signs in support of Palestine at a protest Jan. 11. The demonstration was organized by HFP as an “emergency rally.”

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January 19, 2024

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NU files plan for 23-story building, increasing beds, cutting academic space

By Sonel Cutler News Staff A new project document submitted Dec. 18 to the Boston Planning and Development Agency, or BPDA, reveals updated details of Northeastern’s plan to construct a 23-story student residential building at 840 Columbus Ave. over the next five years.

The proposed amendment to the university’s 2013 Institutional Master Plan drastically increases the number of beds the building will have, jumping from the 810 proposed in 2021 to 1,370 — a 69% increase — while also announcing a plan to remove 500 beds from residence halls located in Fenway, a net increase of 870 bedspaces.

Initially proposed in 2019, the project is set to cost an estimated $289 million and open to students in the fall of 2028, according to the document. It would be built on a property adjacent to Renaissance Park that is currently functioning as a parking lot. The proposal, which bears many similarities to Northeastern’s

LightView residence hall, has faced years of opposition and must be approved by the BPDA, the city authority responsible for managing and approving housing and commercial developments, before any construction takes place.

According to the filing, the residential section of 840 Columbus Ave. will include 345 units with a combination of four-bedroom apartments and some studios, geared towards third-, fourth- and fifth-year students. The aim, the document reads, is to “appeal to Northeastern upper-class students, while also fulfilling Northeastern’s commitment to reduce the impact that its students have on available housing stock in nearby neighborhoods.”

Building amenities and a dedicated second-floor student space would include a social lounge, fitness center, academic success center, multipurpose room, bicycle room and laundry room.

The updated amendment nixes the academic space included in the 2021 building plan, changing

a proposed “five-story podium of teaching and learning” to a “community-focused ground floor” with 4,000 square feet of retail space open to the community. The revised ground level would instead be geared toward residents of the surrounding neighborhood — the result of months spent incorporating feedback from “conversations with community stakeholders/ organizations” since the initial plan was filed — and will also feature “economic development space [and] a flexible floor plan for meetings and events,” according to the document.

There will not be any increase in university enrollment as a result of the additional 870 bedspaces, according to the amendment. Currently, Northeastern enrolls approximately 22,153 undergraduate students, the document reads, but the number of students on the Boston campus typically fluctuates between 16,000 and 17,000 due to “the dynamic elements of co-op, study abroad and other student activities.”

Over the last several years, the university has endeavored to increase the number of bed spaces to accommodate a growing student population — first by leasing the Midtown Hotel in 2020, then by converting hundreds of single rooms into doubles and double rooms into triples in International Village and East Village in fall 2022. In April, the university also filed plans to permanently convert hundreds of rooms at the Sheraton Boston Hotel into student residence halls. Plans to break ground on 840 Columbus Ave. have stalled for several years, and the project has not yet received BPDA approval.

The current project at 840 Columbus Ave. would contribute to the City of Boston’s “Housing a Changing City: Boston 2030” housing plan — introduced in 2014 by former Mayor Marty Walsh — which set a goal of adding 18,500 new student beds on university campuses by 2030 to alleviate the “enormous pressure” of educational institutions on the city’s housing market.

Since its initial proposal, construction of a residence hall at 840 Columbus Ave. has been opposed by many residents, who say the luxury building will further perpetuate gentrification in Roxbury. Over 100 people submitted statements of opposition during the project’s first public comment period from February to April 2021. The public comment period for the proposed amendment reopened Dec. 18, 2023 and will close Jan. 19.

The proposed amendment emphasizes that the 453,800-squarefoot building will be economically beneficial to the community and offer a significant upgrade to current student housing options.

“The Current Project provides an attractive, consolidated, and more operationally manageable alternative to the several buildings within the University’s student housing portfolio that are considered outdated, many of which are apartment buildings and rooming houses that were converted for student housing 40 to 50 years ago,” the proposed amendment reads.

Northeastern celebrates life and legacy of MLK Jr. through community conversation

By Lily Webber News Staff On the afternoon of Jan. 11, the Northeastern community gathered to reflect and celebrate the life and legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. during the university’s annual commemoration of King with an event titled “A Tribute to the Dream.”

Lively chatter encompassed the top floor of East Village as faculty and students congregated for the event, which took place at 3 p.m. on the 17th floor of the building and was live-streamed to the university’s global campuses.

Posters presenting information on the Embrace Memorial, a statue in Boston Common that was unveiled last January, and Charlotte Mathews-Nelson, the program coordinator for the School of Law’s Center for Law, Equity and Race, stood at the entrance of the room. Music from Black artists, as well as songs that historically commemorate peace, love and justice, reverberated through the space.

This year’s event featured a discussion with President and CEO of Embrace Boston Imari K. Paris Jeffries moderated by Northeastern’s Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Richard Harris. The conversation emphasized the mission and vision of Embrace Boston, a local organization that aims to “dismantle structural racism” through transforming arts, culture and public policy and is behind the “Embrace” statue, according to its website.

Shaleeca Joseph, a senior at the John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics and Science in Roxbury, gave two musical performances, and Mathews-Nelson was honored for 45 years of service at the university.

Gregory Hollis, a graduate student in Northeastern’s physician assistant

program, emceed the event, which began with a piano performance from Joseph. Following her piece, Jeffries and Harris began their discussion, emphasizing the potential that Boston’s young population has for expanding inclusivity efforts, as well as the development and reception of The Embrace memorial.

“We really need to do a better job as a city welcoming folks when they come to the city, especially as the fourth-largest college town — 375,000 people come to Massachusetts to learn,” Jeffries said, speaking on the importance of the university as an institution of education.

Jeffries continued by discussing the notion that collegiate institutions hold power in terms of shaping adaptable and open minds.

“Institutions like Northeastern matter, and I think we are in an important place,” Jeffries said. “The Kings, both Martin and Coretta as we know, met as college students … the university is the hub of learning, it is the hub of democracy in our society.”

Praising the efforts of Northeastern, Harris noted the university’s emphasis on global inclusion in the educational experience.

“We know the legacy of Northeastern University, [which was founded in] 1898, focused on supporting and providing opportunities and access for the immigrant community,” Harris said. “Many institutions wouldn’t accept them, didn’t see them as valued in terms of what the opportunity meant for higher education.”

The conversation continued with recognition of The Embrace and the importance of memorials.

“We are in the moment where we need to build more monuments based on love,” Jeffries said. “More

rituals built on love, more moments where we can share love.”

Jeffries dove into the symbolism of and the community involvement in creating The Embrace, noting the project was a “community process.”

Embrace Boston held 25 community meetings to discuss possible ideas for the monument, Jeffries said, with 126 people submitting full proposals.

Five final designs were selected, and accessible voting stations were set up across the city in public libraries, Boston City Hall and select post offices.

Jeffries emphasized the inclusivity efforts taken by those creating The Embrace, recognizing the statue as the “most accessible monument in the country.”

This accessibility includes access to several language translations, as well as scale modeling for those who are visually impaired.

In addition to inclusivity for those with difficulties accessing the memorial, Jeffries emphasized the desire to include those who worked behind the scenes in the Civil Rights Movement in its development as well. This culminated in the creation of the base of the memorial, known as the 1965 Freedom Plaza, which displays the names of 69 activists from 1950 to 1975.

“Hidden figures who did the work and didn’t get the credit, [who] literally held us together, and Mrs. King was both an essential worker and a hidden figure,” Jeffries said. “And how dare we not include her in a monument to honor the King family legacy… I personally have never seen Dr. King speak live, but I have seen Mrs. King speak live, I have seen Mrs. King in person, and so the King legacy, like many of us, was through Mrs. King.”

Additionally, a video highlighting the work of Martin Luther King

Photo by Val O’Neill Richard Harris (left) and Imari K. Paris Jeffries (right) moderate a community discussion during “A Tribute to the Dream.” The discussion emphasized the power and influence that collegiate institutions like Northeastern have on improving inclusivity.

Fellow and Northeastern mechanical engineering graduate student Isaiah Simpson segued into MathewsNelson’s recognition.

First-year media and screen studies and journalism combined major Jaela Eaton introduced Mathews-Nelson, who described her as a “fierce leader and advocate of civil rights, grounded in the core tenets of the NAACP.” Mathews-Nelson is approaching 45 years of being involved at Northeastern, during which she impacted the community as an undergraduate student and in various leadership positions. Throughout her time with the school, Mathews-Nelson has served as president of Northeastern’s Black Faculty and Staff Association and has worked on the Commission on the Status of Women at Northeastern and the Affirmative Action Council.

Outside of Northeastern, she served on the Greater Boston Civil Rights Coalition, the Governor’s Task

Force on Hate Crimes and the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee on Youth and Urban Violence.

“I’m not always speechless, and also very emotional, but I’ve just been listening to how I’ve been so fortunate, perhaps by design, to do what was put in my hands to do,” Mathews-Nelson said. “Coming from a family of 11 children and a deep, deep segregated South, I just marvel at how I have been so blessed.”

Mathews-Nelson concluded her acceptance by saying she was humbled by the recognition and hoped it served as a reminder “especially to the young people in the room” that they can “do this if [they have] a heart and a soul and a mind of service.”

The event closed with an original piano piece from Joseph, followed by remarks from Northeastern President Joseph E. Aoun. Aoun reflected on Northeastern’s effort to honor King’s legacy through inclusivity efforts.

“Radical inclusion, let’s work on it all together,” Aoun said.

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January 19, 2024

FDA approved naloxone to be over-thecounter, but its effects are yet to be felt NARCAN, from front The shelf price of Narcan, the leading naloxone brand, is $45 for two doses. Narcan can be found nationwide at CVS, Walgreens, Walmart and Rite Aid, but it remains unaffordable to those in need.

RiVive, a lower-cost alternative manufactured by a harm-reduction nonprofit pharmaceutical company, Harm Reduction Therapeutics Inc., is $36 for two doses.

“If you happen to be opioid dependent and perhaps unhoused, but you absolutely need to get a certain amount of your daily dose of opioids — if you have $45, it’s going to your opioid addiction to maintain that addiction.

You’re not going to have it to run to the CVS,” said Mark Gottlieb, the executive director of the Public Health Advocacy Institute at Northeastern University School of Law. Naloxone becoming OTC is just a small piece of the larger harm-reduction strategy needed to tackle the complex public health issue of substance use disorder.

There remains a lack of employment, mental health support and housing options, according to Brandon Craig, a doctoral student and instructor of criminology and criminal

justice at Northeastern University.

“Housing is something that everyone needs at a basic level, and it’s often not something that’s guaranteed. If you don’t have stable housing, it’s very difficult to go through substance use treatment and obtain other healthcare,” Craig said.

Craig said there needs to be a substantial change in support and outreach for those struggling with opioid addiction.

“I do think that in terms of reducing harm for people who continue to use opioids, Narcan definitely will be helpful. But in terms of the long term overall, I think there’s still a lot of systemic change that needs to happen, particularly in access to substance treatment programs,” Craig said.

Gottlieb said he urges for a widespread education program on the administration of naloxone.

“I don’t believe that most of the population has any clue that this is an option for them now. This is a relatively new policy. I think a broad education program is needed so that people know that it’s available and how to use it, because it’s not that hard to use, but you do need some instruction,” Gottlieb said.

The City of Boston offers a

training program on the administration of naloxone. Each year, about 10,000 individuals participate in this basic training.

“For us and for most harm reduction groups, the goal is not to completely stop illicit drug use. The goal is to help mitigate the harms associated with drug use,” McCreedy said.

Rolfe said that she sees a need for strategic change to address the opioid crisis.

“In the past, [the approach] was police, incarceration and criminalization. We have so much data now that this doesn’t solve public health issues,” she said.

Drug use is a complex and stigmatized issue that still requires research and empathy for progress to be made, Gottlieb said.

“There is so much work to do in this area that it’s almost overwhelming, but we have the medication. We have the ability to provide medical care to these folks and to provide mental health services,” Gottlieb said.

“It’s just whether we have the will as a society to provide them that will ultimately determine the morbidity and mortality associated with substance use disorder and related mental health issues.”

Photo courtesy Annika Geiben Lynn Placeholder cards for Narcan sit on a shelf in CVS. Customers could not directly purchase the medication and had to ask for it at the pharmacy counter.

Massachusetts jury duty has students choosing between civil service and education

By Gitana Savage News Correspondent In Massachusetts, there are only four requirements for a person to be eligible for jury duty: They must be a United States citizen, a legal adult, “a resident of or live in Massachusetts for more than 50% of the year” and be able to “speak and understand English well enough to be able to participate in a trial.”

Especially in Boston, where the college population is so high, these broad parameters leave many students qualified for jury duty, and that eligibility can have implications on the jury duty process.

A juror can be called to serve on a trial that can span as long as several weeks or as short as one day, making jury duty particularly challenging for full-time college students.

Sarah Popeck, a second-year data science and economics combined major at Northeastern University, received her summons the week of Jan. 7 and is summoned for April 17. With trials being held on weekdays, her summons directly interferes with her classes and final exams — a hurdle for many college students.

“I intend on pushing it back,” Popeck said. “It would basically be an absolute hindrance to my education if I were to serve my civic duty and go on a jury, so I pushed it to sometime in December when I know I’ll be here because I don’t

have full-time residence here.”

Cameran Ko, a fourth-year business administration and economics combined major at Northeastern, was summoned for a trial in May 2023, a time when she would no longer be in the Boston area.

In her home state of New Jersey she was able to delay her jury duty without a future date specified because she is a full-time student, however, in Massachusetts, she was required to reschedule her jury date. Ko appeared for jury selection this September and was released after eight hours.

“I personally don’t think it’s fair that out-of-state students can be required to serve,” Ko said.

“Especially because I was able to get out of jury duty in New Jersey, I kind of expected the same thing from Massachusetts. I had to miss a lot of my classes that day and obviously professors are very understanding, but it was a very frustrating and annoying process because I’m not from here.”

However, despite the inconvenience jury duty can cause full-time college students, many law professionals actually view their participation in the jury as a major benefit.

Patrick Garrity, an associate criminal defense attorney at Brad Bailey Law, a Massachusetts-based firm, explained the ways in which college-aged participation diversifies the jury.

“I used to work for another

attorney in the past and I helped out with three murder trials,” Garrity said. “And with Boston being such a college town, that gives a lot of diversity in terms of the students who are being summoned because people are coming here from all walks of life and all parts of the world.”

Additionally, in the summertime, when many out-of-state students leave the city and return home, the jury duty selection process can sometimes be hindered.

“Students are here in giant swaths,” Garrity said. “They come during the school year and when they leave and we have a summer trial, the pool for diversity may be lower because students just aren’t around.”

Matthew Peterson, owner of Matthew Peterson Law, also emphasizes the importance of college-aged participants in the jury duty process.

“I think that this system itself is very educational and participating in jury duty will be very educational to students,” Peterson said. “You can learn a lot in the courtroom. You’re getting an education on the way your government functions. Not to mention, we’re losing out on your perspective if all the smart conscientious people didn’t participate in the jury system, then they’re not able to be making decisions.”

However, Peterson acknowledges the strain jury duty can put on

a college student’s education and the challenges missing multiple classes can present.

“Any time I’ve seen a potential juror who’s in college there’s always this question of ‘Well can they afford to miss another class?’ and a lot of times they end up being excused because they can’t really afford to miss class,” Peterson said.

Missing one or more days of school can cause immense disruption to the lives of students, like Popeck and Ko, who participate in jury duty.

Peterson ultimately implores col-

lege-aged students to consider the value of participating in jury duty.

“The jury system is really the purest form of direct democracy; it’s a place where you can participate in the government directly and that’s unique,” Peterson said. “It’s one of the only places where an individual person can actually check the government’s power directly.”

Editor’s note: Cameran Ko previously served as Advertising Manager of The News and Sarah Popeck currently serves as a staff writer.

Graphic by Angelica Jorio

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Highlights from Wu’s State of the City

By Ryan Treible News Correspondent Amidst the grandeur of MGM Music Hall, Mayor Michelle Wu delivered her second annual “State of the City’’ address Jan. 9, highlighting issues surrounding housing, education and quality of life in Boston.

However, the beginning of Wu’s address could be described as nothing short of chaotic.

Following her entrance onto the stage, the mayor began her speech, but the arrival of pro-Palestinian protesters upon both ends of the upper balcony level interrupted her.

Brandishing large banners that read “Boston complicit with genocide” and incessantly calling for a “ceasefire now,” they not only upstaged but depicted a disconnect between the mayor and the group of city youth present.

The disruptive start to Wu’s address presented a sharp contrast to the collective and inclusive messages conveyed by her chosen guest speakers. For instance, Rabbi Elaine Zecher from congregation Temple Israel of Boston spoke unto the “dignity of our differences.”

“Our synergistic cooperation makes us only as good and powerful and strong as the sum of our individual parts,” Zecher said.

However, shortly after the removal of the protesters, the mayor’s speech was brought back on track. Wu highlighted various achievements of the previous year, such as the landmark five-year contract negotiated this past December with the Boston Police Department, the appointment of a Boston-based representative on the MBTA board of directors and increased efforts to transform and modernize the city’s transportation and educational systems.

“The state of our city is strong,” the mayor said. “Not because the challenges that remain are simple or small, but because they are big, and they matter, and we are rising to meet them. And that starts with housing, because home is the place where everything starts.”

Among promises to continue her “comprehensive rezoning” endeavors, Wu set a lofty goal of identifying possible sites for the construction of 3,000 additional units of public housing within the decade. Additionally, she pledged to introduce net-zero

carbon zoning requirements for new constructions, part of a larger mission to make Boston a “green and growing city.”

Coupled with talk of a greener city, the mayor pledged to restore Franklin Park, aiming to realize its complete potential as a community anchor.

Drawing from her own childhood memories of exploring cultural scenes with her mother, the mayor announced that on the first two Sundays of each month, Boston Public School, or BPS, students and their families could enjoy free access to various cultural landmarks around the city, including museums, the New England Aquarium and even the reimagined Franklin Park.

Some, however, harbored reservations over Wu’s policies. David Higgins, a Dorchester resident and regular attendee of State of the City addresses for over 20 years, said he would rate her performance in office thus far as “maybe a 6.5 or a seven.”

He expressed doubt that many of the mayor’s proposals surrounding the modernization of classrooms and curriculum for BPS students would manifest in the form of meaningful and effective legislation.

Photo by Annika Sunkara Mayor Michelle Wu speaks to members of the press. Wu delivered her second annual State of the City address Jan. 9 at MGM Music Hall.

“I’m excited and interested to hear what she has to say on the schools [BPS Policy], but for as long as I’ve been in the country, this city’s schools have been a mess,” Higgins said. “And I know it’s a tough job.

I just don’t know how well she is handling it all as a rookie.”

Regardless of any reservations held

by Higgins, attendees’ thunderous

applause and standing ovation at the conclusion of Wu’s speech underscored a shared hope for the future of the city.

“Home is all the little points of light that give tomorrow its glow.

It’s the place — and the people — you refuse to give up on,” Wu said.

“Thank you, to all of you, for making Boston our home.”

Rats make themselves at home. When will the City of Boston evict them?

By Alexis Algazy Deputy City Editor Rats run rampant through the streets of Boston. This pest problem is not new, but Boston residents continue to grow frustrated.

Orkin’s “2023 Most Rat-Infested Cities” list ranked Boston as the thirteenth rattiest city in the country.

Now, former president of the Boston City Council, Edward “Ed” Flynn, is trying to make a difference. Flynn is working to establish a standalone pest control department in the city’s government.

“My major focus is working with the mayor’s office to establish this stand-alone city department.

I think that’s crucial in ensuring that one department coordinates all pest control issues across the city,” he said. “Right now we have many different departments that deal with city pest control, I’m pushing the city government to move forward in [a standalone department] direction, this is going to be a priority of mine for 2024.”

But as the City of Boston grapples with the introduced department’s implementation, Boston residents continue to struggle taking on rodents themselves.

Graphic by Joshua Lustig Rats run rampant through the streets of Boston. This pest problem is not new, but Boston residents continue to grow frustrated.

Payton McAlice, a 2023 Northeastern graduate and former Mission Hill resident, faced a rat problem during his time in the neighborhood.

“As fall became winter, we started seeing our food being very clearly eaten by rats, we could hear scurrying in the night,” he said.

McAlice explained that the situation escalated as the rats got more comfortable, eventually showing themselves during the daytime. His landlord did not take action — in fact, McAlice said, the landlord blamed the problem on the residents’ cleanliness.

“I think it’s definitely a Boston issue, I don’t know what the city is actively doing to try to address it,” McAlice said. “I think the solution probably comes down to making landlords more accountable for keeping their places pest-free.”

Aware of this sentiment, Flynn is looking to tackle this problem from a holistic angle.

“Something we need to do is educate landlords, educate the public on the proper way of taking out trash,” Flynn said in an interview with The News. “It’s not as easy as saying, ‘take out your garbage and put it on the street,’ there has to be a systematic way to do that.”

For Flynn’s desired standalone pest control department to come to fruition, he requires Mayor Michelle Wu’s approval and for the budget to adapt for the department.

The Boston City Council worked to address the issue throughout 2023.

Flynn and Councilors Liz Breadon and Gabriela “Gigi” Coletta sponsored an order for a hearing about pest control Jan. 11.

The order, Docket #0144, discusses the rise in Boston’s rodent activity and how the issue impacts public health and residents’ quality of life.

The order states that “it is important that the city has measures in place to adequately deal with the increase in rodent activities, including increases in inspections, public awareness campaigns and public outreach.”

Some Boston residents agree with Flynn’s take on the rodent problem: tackling it with city resources.

Megan Moffat, a fourth-year behavioral neuroscience major at Northeastern University and current Mission Hill resident, said rats have been confidently wandering throughout her apartment and neighborhood at-large. Moffat said the issue is bigger than singular landlords and tenants.

“At this point, I think it’s the City of Boston’s responsibility. The landlords can only do so much,” she said.

Flynn’s plan takes inspiration from New York City, which has taken action against its rat problems under the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, with a focus on public education. The City of New York’s website reports that its anti-rat efforts were concentrated on managing trash to keep the rodents from their main food source. In April, New York City appointed Kathleen Corradi as the first citywide director of rodent mitigation, a job many refer to as the “rat czar.” Corradi was tasked with coordinating between the numerous government agencies and expanding education on the issue to the public.

Boston’s surrounding cities and towns have also taken steps to combat rodent problems. The Town of Brookline has a Rodent Action Plan which works in part with Berger Food Safety Consulting on pest control inspections in food establishments. The Brookline Department of Health also works with Modern Pest Control to monitor rodent activity in the town.

Somerville created a Rodent Control Program with comprehensive public education about prevention and services in the city. Somerville also offers free residential rodent control assistance, where city health inspectors visit the property and, upon evidence of rodents, recommend measures that owners and tenants must agree to take. In exchange for owner and tenant action, the city provides abatement services.

Boston’s rodent response is currently spread across a multitude of departments, including Boston Inspectional Services. John Ulrich, assistant commissioner of environmental services, and his department are an enforcement division of Boston Inspectional Services, tasked with the job of enforcing the State Sanitation Code.

“The homeowner or property owner are responsible for the mitigation of rodent activity on their property. That’s where the enforcement of the sanitary code comes in,” Ulrich said in an interview with The News.

When Ulrich’s team issues violations to private properties, the homeowner is responsible for addressing the problem, often in the form of hiring an exterminator.

“Rodents need food, water and shelter, that’s the golden triangle of rodent activity,” Ulrich said. “Food is the main driver of it. In the city, trash is really the number one food source.”

Similar to Flynn’s emphasis on educating the public about proper trash storage, Ulrich stresses the intelligence of rats and the importance of trash storage.

“They’re just really well adapted to humans. They’re intelligent, they adapt quickly to changes in the environment and we provide them,” Ulrich said. “When you live in a city that’s dense, that creates a lot of trash, it’s making sure that trash is stored properly and that we’re reducing the food source.”

While city officials and employees begin efforts to mitigate the rat issue, Boston residents want their frustrations to be heard. The service Boston 311, or 311, provides a partial solution. When a resident spots a rodent they can call the telephone number to connect with constituent service representatives for non-emergency services, providing Bostonians with a platform to file their complaints.

There were over 3,900 rodent-related complaints in 2023.

Ulrich’s team responds to the 311 rodent complaints.

“311 is the best tool to communicate with city services and definitely the best tool to communicate with this division. We need folks to report rodent activity when they see it,” Ulrich said.

While the city works to further education on ways to reduce rats, residents’ patience dwindles as rats scamper through their kitchens and neighborhoods. City officials attempt to create a sense of community and teamwork in efforts toward a solution.

“This is a public health emergency attacking every neighborhood in Boston,” Flynn said. “It’s about all of us working together to improve the quality of life in public health for all residents. Boston works best when we work together.”

LIFESTYLE

Page 6

January 19, 2024

THE NEWS PRESENTS ‘LIFES WRAPPED 2023’

By Jake Guldin, Kristina DaPonte & Laura Emde | Lifestyle Editor and Deputy Lifestyle Editors

Throughout 2023, contributors of The News’ Lifestyle section commented on the latest trends overtaking social media, covered live events ranging from concerts to celebrity-driven conversations and, of course, penned thoughtful critiques of the latest films, television shows and albums. With that in mind, and 2023 firmly in the rearview, the Lifestyle editors asked The News staff to send in their favorite films, TV shows and music albums of the year.

Here are the top responses, as well as a recommendation in each category from Lifestyle editors Jake, Kristina and Laura.

Warning: Spoilers ahead.

Best film of 2023: “Barbie”

On July 21, 2023, two movies, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” were released, earning widespread acclaim and generating massive ticket sales. Though both films garnered support from The News’ staff, it was Greta Gerwig’s gorgeously crafted, cleverly written “Barbie” that ultimately prevailed — and for good reason. The Warner Bros.’ release follows Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) as she ventures into the real world alongside Ken (Ryan Gosling) after Weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) tells her that her life in Barbieland has gone awry due to the negative thoughts and feelings of whoever is playing with her in “real life.” Featuring faithful recreations of iconic Barbie playsets and outfits, the film is a visual treat, allowing viewers to see their favorite childhood toys on the grandest scale imaginable. That said, there is more to “Barbie” than its illustrious visuals. It does an excellent job commenting on feminism and toxic masculinity in an accessible manner — something exemplified by a monologue delivered by Gloria (America Ferrera), a Mattel employee who assists Barbie in the film. All this and more culminate in an endlessly rewatchable blockbuster that, beyond being unlike anything released in recent memory, is one of the year’s very best.

Kristina’s pick: “Poor Things” Director Yorgos Lanthimos, known for delivering the award-winning black comedy films “The Lobster” and “The

Laura’s pick: “Bottoms” Want a girl to fall in love with you? Just start a fight club at your local high school. In the teen comedy “Bottoms,” best friends Josie (Ayo Edebiri) and PJ (Rachel Sennott) — or the “ugly, untalented gays” — lightly tap quarterback Jeff (Nicholas Galitzine) with a car, leading to rumors that they physically fought him using techniques they supposedly acquired while in juvie. The two girls, both having crushes on popular cheerleaders and taking advantage of what the rumor mill has spun, decide to start a fight club at their school in hopes of winning them over. Following a series of comedic schemes and betrayals, the fight club puts its newfound skills to use, defeating its rival school’s football team after realizing that its players intend to seriously harm Jeff. Depicting the desire for acceptance many young LGBTQ+ people harbor and featuring hilariously absurd moments, “Bottoms” forges new ground in a genre typically reserved for straight people.

Honorable mentions: “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes,” “Oppenheimer” Best TV series of 2023: “Succession”

Nothing dominated the TV landscape in 2023 quite like the final installment of HBO’s crown jewel “Succession,” and rightfully so. Creator Jesse Armstrong’s fourth season once again pits three of the four Roy siblings — Kendall (Jeremy Strong), Roman (Kieran Culkin) and Shiv (Sarah Snook) — against each other as they vie for control of the family media empire, Waystar RoyCo. The stakes become higher than ever when Logan (Brian Cox), the Roy family patriarch and head of the company, unexpectedly dies in the third episode. With his death happening so early in the season, the Roys and Waystar’s other employees, especially Shiv’s husband Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen), spend the remaining episodes picking up the pieces — and occasionally stabbing each other with them. Despite Logan’s absence for most of the season, the episodes that revolve around him (“Connor’s Wedding” for his death and “Church and State” for his funeral) are the best of the season, showcasing the cast’s strongest work of the show. Overall, “Succession” proved to be at its best when the actual matter of succession became the main storyline.

Jake’s pick: “The Bear” In the second season of Hulu’s “The Bear,” Carmy Berzatto

(Jeremy Allen White), Sydney Adamu (Ayo Edeberi), Richie Jerimovich (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) and the rest of the gang face personal and professional struggles while pursuing the seemingly impossible: opening a high-end restaurant from the remnants of The Original Beef of Chicagoland in a mere three months. As with the show’s first season, the real standout of the show is its clever writing, courtesy of creator Christopher Storer and writer-producer Joanna Calo, amongst others, which features expletive-laden dialogue and tense situations that are sure to make audiences squirm.

Unlike the initial batch of episodes, though, each one tends to spotlight a specific character. “Forks,” for example, concerns Richie almost exclusively, while “Honeydew” primarily follows employee Marcus Brooks (Lionel Boyce), allowing viewers to better understand their motivations, shortcomings and innermost dilemmas. Moreover, in addition to its superb main cast (particularly White), the latest season features plenty of stellar turns from an impressive roster of guest stars — Jamie Lee Curtis, Olivia Colman, Will Poulter and more. Simply put, the second season of “The Bear” is not to be missed.

Kristina’s pick: “The Other Two” The original plot of “The Other Two,” a product of former “Saturday Night Live” writers, followed adult siblings Cary (Drew Tarver) and Brooke (Heléne Yorke) Dubek living in the shadow of their 13-year-old brother Chase (Case Walker), a Jacob Sartorius-type pop idol who goes viral overnight.

The final season, however, is a fully developed satirical comedy that boldly takes on show business, pop culture and the entertainment industry as a whole. Tarver, Yorke and Ken Marino, playing Chase’s dim-witted manager Streeter, do some of their best comedic work this season, while Molly Shannon, the Dubek matriarch, reaches new emotional depths. The strength of the show’s third season also appears in the form of many surprising guest stars, including Lukas Gage, Ben Platt and Simu Liu. During its three-season run, “The Other Two” never failed to be one of the most original comedies on TV, and, with its quirkiness and out-of-the-box storylines, it may be on par with “30 Rock,” “Arrested Development” and “Community” as one of the greats.

Laura’s pick: “The Last of Us” Adapted from the video game of the same name, HBO’s post-apocalyptic drama “The Last of Us” follows Joel Miller (Pedro Pascal), a smuggler hardened by the death of his daughter. He traverses west from Boston with Ellie Williams (Bella Ramsey), a 14-year-old girl who is immune to the fungal infection that decimated society, in the hopes of finding a cure after millions of “Infected” transformed into zombie-like creatures. During their journey, Joel comes to care for Ellie like a daughter and is ultimately forced to decide between saving the world or saving his own world. With incredibly strong and emotional performances from Emmy nominees Pascal and Ramsey and an immensely talented supporting cast (many of whom also received nominations) — as well as a misunderstanding of Massachusetts’ geography — “The Last of Us” is a testament to the power that love can have over someone’s choices.

Honorable mentions: “The Golden Bachelor,” “Daisy Jones & The Six,” “Heartstopper” Best album of 2023: “Unreal Unearth” by Hozier

Graphics by Emma Liu

Jake’s pick: “Past Lives” No list of the greatest films of 2023 is complete without a mention of Celine Song’s intimate debut feature, “Past Lives.”

Set over the course of 24 years, it follows the relationship between Nora (Greta Lee), a New York-based playwright who emigrated from South Korea as a young girl, and Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), the childhood sweetheart she left behind.

This emotionally devastating romantic drama thrives on Song’s delicate direction. The shots she constructs, for instance, though striking, never draw attention to themselves; they sufficiently absorb the viewer, reducing the proximity between them and the contents of the film itself. Further bolstering the A24 film are the performances of Lee, Yoo and John Magaro, who portrays Arthur, Nora’s husband. With Song’s direction, each actor plays their respective character with a high degree of restraint, effectively conveying how they’re feeling with subtle glances and shifts in posture alone.

Suffice it to say, “Past Lives” is a must-watch movie — one that’s bound to resonate throughout this lifetime and the next.

Favourite,” comes back better than ever with “Poor Things.”

Emma Stone delivers a brilliant performance as Bella Baxter, a Victorian woman reanimated by mad scientist Godwin (Willem Dafoe), who she pointedly calls “God.” When Bella runs off with the posh and corrupt lawyer Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), she commences a whirlwind adventure around Europe, where she becomes enlightened on both the pleasures and harsh realities of the outside world. At first, Bella is simply enamored by sex, dancing and pastries, but as her development progresses, she becomes interested in philosophy and feminism, wishing to free her mind and body from masculine controls. It’s a whimsical journey watching Bella go from guarded lab rat to liberated intellectual, and the plot’s richness, paired with striking cinematography and a dissonant, quirky score, is the cherry on top of this mustsee movie.

January 19, 2024

STYLE

LIFESTYLE

Review: ‘Saltburn’ lacks the undeniable allure of its titular estate

By Jake Guldin Lifestyle Editor Hozier’s debut single, “Take Me to Church,” reached the top five of the Billboard charts in 2014, and the Irish folk singer has yet to lose momentum. His third studio album, “Unreal Unearth,” released Aug. 18, follows a narrative structure, unlike his first two records. The album is inspired

by Dante Alighieri’s poem “Inferno,” taking listeners through the nine circles of hell. Some songs reflect on Hozier’s cultural experiences, such as “Butchered Tongue,” which touches upon violence inflicted on the Irish by the British and the attempted erasure of the Gaelic language in the late 1700s. Earlier in the album, on “De Selby (Part 1),” Hozier reclaims his native language, singing the final verse of the song in Gaelic. Through powerful storytelling, drawing from stories of the past and his experiences, Hozier delivers a strong and thought-provoking third album.

Jake’s pick: “Something To Give Each Other” by Troye Sivan With “Something To Give Each Other,” Australian singer-songwriter Troye Sivan has delivered a 32-minute collection of irresistible and unabashedly queer pop tunes.

Throughout his third album, Sivan deftly conveys various aspects of the gay experience, highlighting its many highs and lows. “Rush,” for instance, illustrates the joy and pleasure of tearing up a crowded, sweaty dance floor with an attractive stranger through a catchy chorus and an infectious house beat. Conversely, Sivan tackles the anguish of pining after a straight man who, at best, would be interested in just sexual experimentation on the synth-pop track “One of Your Girls,” singing, “Give me a call if you ever get lonely / I’ll be like one of your girls or your homies / Say what you want, and I’ll keep it a secret / You got the key to my heart, and I need it,” during the chorus. The two aforementioned songs, along with “Got Me Started,” all spawned music videos sporting some of the year’s best choreography.

Kristina’s pick: “GUTS” by Olivia Rodrigo In 2021, Disney Channel actress-turned-singer Olivia Rodrigo broke the internet with her first studio album, “SOUR.” For many, it would be hard to follow up on that type of viral success — but not for Rodrigo, who remains the people’s pop princess two years later. “GUTS” is Rodrigo at her most introspective, looking back on relationships with exes, old friends and the standards she has had to live up to in the entertainment industry. In a strong pivot from her debut album, Rodrigo infuses “GUTS” with many punk-rock influences, making this album one that is chockfull of headbangers, from “all-american bitch” to “ballad of a homeschooled girl.” There is a balance, however, with delicately-produced, slow ballads, as “the grudge” and “teenage dream” come out on top as some of the most powerful. Rodrigo’s ability to create an album that is equally devastating and lively reaffirms her talent as a songwriter and artist.

Laura’s pick: “the record” by boygenius Over four years after the release of its eponymous EP, indie supergroup boygenius — consisting of Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus — came together again for its first full-length studio album, “the record.” The trio has received widespread critical acclaim for its second collaboration, receiving six Grammy nominations, top spots on album of the year roundups and a recommendation from Barack Obama (though Dacus wasn’t very happy about it).

The album explores themes of friendship and platonic love, most present in tracks “True Blue” and “We’re In Love,” with beautiful lyricism demonstrating what the trio’s relationship means to them. With a variety of sounds, from rock songs like “$20” to emotional ballads like “Letter To An Old Poet” — the latter of which interpolates “Me & My Dog” from the band’s first EP — the debut studio album from boygenius offers something for all listeners to enjoy.

Honorable mentions: “1989 (Taylor’s Version)” by Taylor Swift, “Did You Know That There’s a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd” by Lana Del Rey, “The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We” by Mitski

Page 7

For an Academy Award-winning screenwriter, Emerald Fennell sure doesn’t know how to pen a compelling third act.

Three years after the ending of “Promising Young Woman” left a bad taste in some viewers’ mouths, the British filmmaker has returned with her sophomore feature “Saltburn,” a well-acted and technically marvelous film woefully undercut by a muddled, poorly-paced screenplay.

Set in the late 2000s, the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer release follows Oliver Quick (Barry Keoghan), a brilliant and seemingly impoverished young man who soon becomes obsessed with the affluent and effortlessly cool Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi) while studying at Oxford University. When Oliver reveals his desire to go anywhere but home for the summer holiday, Felix insists he stay with him and his family at their lavish abode, dubbed “Saltburn.”

What follows is a series of twists and turns that, though frequently provocative — an audience isn’t ordinarily subjected to footage of someone licking seminal fluid from a draining bathtub or performing oral sex on a menstruating woman, after all — never truly satisfy, serving instead as brief, cringe-inducing episodes that quickly fade from memory.

These moments — which, beyond altering the trajectory of the narrative and characters’ arcs, rarely leave an impact or feel earned — make it difficult to discern what Fennell’s going for. What starts as a homoerotic thriller à la “The Talented Mr. Ripley” soon morphs into a thinly veiled “eat the rich” black comedy before ending as an odd condemnation of the middle

class — a cautionary tale for the elites about the supposed dangers of welcoming less fortunate individuals into their lives.

Given how convoluted Fennell’s story is, it comes as no surprise that becoming invested in it is a near impossibility, resulting in a plodding film that viewers are likely to grow tired of — especially after the death of a key character during Oliver’s lavish birthday bash at Saltburn when the two-hour runtime becomes impossible to ignore.

That said, Fennell’s script isn’t all bad.

Her dialogue, for instance, is quite witty, culminating in several laugh-out-loud exchanges. One particularly riotous conversation sees Oliver and Elspeth Catton (Rosamund Pike), Felix’s prim-and-proper mother, discuss the latter’s experimentation with women while in college.

“I was a lesbian for a while, you know, but it was all a bit too wet for me in the end,” Elspeth says. “Men are so lovely and dry.” Lines such as these, however, are only as good as those uttering them.

Fortunately, the movie’s cast — particularly Keoghan, Elordi and Pike — are all excellent, elevating Fennell’s largely baffling picture from unbearable to entertaining enough.

Keoghan, renowned for playing socially inept weirdos in “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” and “The Banshees of Inisherin,” amongst others, excels as Oliver, fully exhibiting the character’s deranged psyche, especially in the film’s final moments, which feature full-frontal nudity — a sign of just how committed he was to the role.

Elordi, who is slowly but surely erasing “The Kissing Booth” movies from audiences’ collective memory thanks to his turns here and in Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” sells Felix’s irresistibility, radiating

charm and sex appeal throughout.

Finally, Pike — who, alongside Keoghan, earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance — is absolutely hysterical as Elspeth, delivering lines with a deadpan disposition and feigning empathy for those around her, such as “Poor Dear” Pamela (Carey Mulligan), another guest at the estate who has long overstayed her welcome.

Further bolstering “Saltburn” are the contributions of “La La Land” cinematographer Linus Sandgren. He ensures that even when the film itself lulls (which is unfortunately often), there is something worth watching, capturing the sprawling estate’s ornate details in stunning long takes, the contours of characters’ faces in sumptuously lit close-ups and Oliver’s duplicity through shots taking advantage of mirrors and other reflective surfaces.

However, the decision to use a 1.33:1 aspect ratio is somewhat suspect. Though it does convey how constricting of an environment Saltburn is, with everyone trapped inside a tight, square frame, it simultaneously obfuscates much of the estate’s grandeur. With this in mind, the adoption of a wider aspect ratio — or perhaps a fluctuation between the existing one and something more rectangular — could have been beneficial.

Enjoyment of the movie, then, is predominantly predicated on the willingness to forgive Fennell’s uneven screenplay.

For those bookmarking fancam edits of Elordi and Keoghan — from this film or their other work — across social media, this task is an easy one to surmount, making the actress-turned-director’s latest outing one worthy of multiple viewings.

For everyone else, though, a single trip to “Saltburn” will likely do.

LIFESTYLE

Page 8

January 19, 2024

Column: With Meredith Grey gone, whose ‘Anatomy’ is it now?

By Lawrence Brown News Correspondent Since its debut in 2005, the immensely popular series “Grey’s Anatomy” has captured the hearts of millennials and Generation Z. “Grey’s Anatomy,” an 18-year-long medical drama that has won over seven dozen awards, began with the original cast of Ellen Pompeo, Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, T.R. Knight, Chandra Wilson, James Pickens, Jr., Isaiah Washington and Patrick Dempsey. The show catapulted many of the cast’s careers.

However, only Wilson and Pickens remain going into the next season.

As the show enters its 20th season this spring, it has become clear that “Grey’s Anatomy” has overstayed its welcome in the spotlight.

The series has had six showrunners over its 18-year run: creator Shonda Rhimes, Krista Vernoff, Tony Phelan, Joan Rater, Stacy McKee and William Harper. Vernoff held the position on two separate occasions, returning seven years after holding the post the first time.

Meredith Grey (Pompeo), the show’s titular character, has faced various life-threatening scenarios including drowning, a bomb threat, a hospital shooting, a plane crash, a violent patient attack and a near-fatal case of COVID-19. After several years of expressing her desire to move on to new acting challenges, Pompeo left the series in its 19th season. With the show’s iconic star gone and viewership dropping steadily over the years, what incentive is there for people to keep watching?

Meredith began the show as a surgical intern at the fictional Seattle Grace Hospital, where she rose through the ranks to become a resident, attending general surgeon, board director, director of residency and, finally, chief of general surgery.

Some of the most distressing episodes included the 16th and 17th episodes of the second season, “It’s the End of the World” and “As We Know It,” respectively. A patient arrives at Seattle Grace with an undetonated bomb in his body and a young paramedic has her hand wrapped around it. Eventually, when she removes her hand, Meredith places her own hand on the bomb to keep it in place. The first episode of the two-parter served as the lead-out program for the 2006 Super Bowl. The 37.88 million U.S. viewers were on the edge of their seats, waiting to see what would happen with the bomb and whether Meredith would die.

These episodes, along with many others, were suspenseful and entertaining with their stellar acting and precise storylines, prompting emotional reactions from viewers. Despite the impact the show has made and its sentimental moments, the scripts have gotten bland, making it boring due to the show’s reuse of storylines.

The 17th season, which aired during the COVID-19 pandemic, sparked concern about dull and repetitive plots. Meredith’s diagnosis with COVID-19 was central to the season, with each episode showing her confined to a hospital bed.

Vernoff, the head writer at the time, injected some excitement into the pandemic narrative. Her

Graphics by Marta Hill

Jan. 21 & Jan. 28 IceFlow Yoga on Ice Reset for the week ahead and focus on mindfulness at this skating yoga class.

Photo courtesy ABC Ellen Pompeo, star of “Grey’s Anatomy,” recently departed the series. It has been steadily declining in viewership and acclaim for years. approach took an extreme turn, introducing a motif where a bedridden Meredith would experience dreams featuring deceased characters. In many television shows, such as “ER,” “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Criminal Minds,” the reappearance of past characters often signifies that a show is approaching its conclusion.

Nevertheless, despite this common expectation, “Grey’s Anatomy” finds itself on the brink of a historic 20th season three years later.

In Pompeo’s final season, Meredith — who had been through multiple near-death circumstances at this point — exits the show by simply jetting off to Boston. There is no perfect last episode for a character who survived a bomb, a hospital shooting, a plane crash and COVID-19. Pompeo and Meredith alike deserved better endings to their stories.

The upcoming season, which begins airing new episodes in March,

asks a critical question about what viewers might expect in “Grey’s Anatomy’s” first season without its namesake. The previous season’s inclusion of five new surgical interns brought a new element to the show. However, it feels as though the nostalgia that is meant to emotionally provoke the audience is overshadowed by its cliche writing and the forced, rushed development of the new characters.

The five original surgical interns from the first episode are strikingly similar to the newly introduced characters. This cliche strategy is a typical manner of restarting a show that has been on the air for years. “Glee” and “The Good Wife” are other examples of shows with finales featuring the rebirth of older characters.

It seems as though there is no hope the show will see more unique storylines and any plans the producers and writers have or will make for a series finale already feel ruined.

Northeastern students gifted memories from Spotify Wrapped

By Maya Das News Correspondent As the year came to a close, teens, adults, music lovers and, generally, anyone with a Spotify account eagerly anticipated the unveiling of their musical journey in 2023 — Spotify Wrapped. Spotify Wrapped has become a cultural phenomenon in this generation, but what is it about this annual tradition that captivates users so deeply?

Is it the anticipation behind seeing unexpected top artists and songs?

Perhaps the comfort of being able to reflect on personal growth over the

Graphic by Angelica Jorio

year? Regardless, Spotify Wrapped has entranced many students at Northeastern University.

Spotify Wrapped is not just a compilation of songs — it is a mirror reflecting listeners’ experiences, growth and emotions of the past year. Users can take a top song and reflect on what that time looked like for them, maybe taking them back to summer or a past breakup they haven’t given a second thought to until now. Whatever the scenario may be, humans naturally associate a song or tune with the emotion felt while listening to it. By looking back at certain songs, Spotify users can reflect on how much they have grown since that time. This is the case for Jeremie Ng, a second-year criminal justice and political science combined major.

“I am able to look at my top songs and remember the latenight drives during summer, all-nighter study sessions in the library and even moments of solitude,” Ng said. “I like it because it acts as a journal of my year.”

For many of the app’s users,

Calendar compiled by Kristina DaPonte & Laura Emde

the allure of Spotify Wrapped also lies in the element of surprise. With students bombarded with final exams and homework, the shared anticipation and eagerness can almost recharge students’ batteries, bringing some rejuvenation back into their lives during such a stressful time.

Madeleine Attar, a second-year business administration major, said that “listening to music already helps me to decompress after a stressful day, but being given the opportunity to listen and remember specific memories of the past year, I can appreciate this dreadful time a little more.”

The communal aspect of Spotify Wrapped is another factor that makes it a cherished concept in the Northeastern community. In the days following the release, social media platforms are swamped with excitement as students share their results.

“It is a bonding experience. For me, I found most of my friends through our shared love of Latin music,” said Arianna Moncayo, a second-year architecture major. “You not only get to see what your friends have been listening to all year, but you may even get to discover new music through them.”

Having the opportunity to discover new friends who share one’s top artist

creates a sense of comfort. Music, in this sense, becomes an influential bridge connecting people who might not have found a common interest otherwise. Not only does the unveiling of the results create a range of reactions, but the shared reactions and experiences of exploring one’s musical year can spark a sense of belonging within an environment that can, at times, feel quite lonely.

Ultimately, Spotify Wrapped transforms its role as a mere feature on a streaming service into a cultural phenomenon that symbolizes the shared soundtrack of a generation.

The bonds and memories forged through Spotify Wrapped extend well beyond the digital realm and create a shared narrative that echoes through campus corridors, dorm rooms and social gatherings.

During this time, we are reminded that, even though college might be a scary place with a lot of new people, through the language of music, young adults can connect and grow with other individuals who share the same experiences.

Regardless of the situation, Spotify Wrapped has completely changed how students connect, creating a shared appreciation for the music and artistry that has shaped the year.

10 a.m. - 11 a.m., 401 Park Dr., Free (registration required).

Monday, Jan. 22 Silent Book Club & Write Night Join Trident Booksellers & Cafe for an evening of silent reading and writing time.

7:00 p.m. - 9:00 p.m., 338 Newbury St., Free.

Jan. 26 - Jan. 28 Taste of Chocolate Festival Indulge in various chocolate desserts from many Harvard Square businesses and retailers.

Jan. 26 at 1 p.m. - Jan. 28 at 2 p.m., 40 Brattle St., Free.

Saturday, Jan. 27 Winter Birding at Castle Island Put on your puffiest coat and search for wintering birds, from loons to Snowy Owls.

8 a.m. - 10 a.m., 2080 William J Day Blvd., South Boston, Free (registration required).

Tuesday, Jan. 30 NEC Philharmonia + Hugh Wolff: Wennäkoski, Bartók, Mendelssohn’s Enjoy a free concert from the New England Conservatory that highlights three composers.

7:30 p.m., 290 Huntington Ave., Free (ticket required).

SPORTS

January 19, 2024

Page 9

Northeastern splits series with Vermont as Beanpot tournament approaches

By Esha Minhas News Staff On Jan. 12, Northeastern (7-11-2, 2-10-0 HE) faced a heartbreaking 5-4 loss against the University of Vermont (10-9-1, 4-5-1 HE). The narrow loss fueled the fire for their match on Jan. 13, which the Huskies won 3-1.

Vermont got the first touch of the puck on Jan. 12, but the Huskies quickly swept it into Vermont’s zone, with early shots coming from junior forwards Justin Hryckowian and Matt Choupani.

Nothing was able to hit the net until the sixth minute of play. Hryckowian made a short pass to senior forward Alex Campbell from behind Vermont’s net. Campbell made a quick move to pass Vermont freshman defenseman Ramsey and make his eleventh goal of the season.

The early goal should have swelled Northeastern’s momentum, but

Vermont quickly shut it down.

After four missed shots from the Catamounts, the fifth found the back of the net. As graduate student defenseman Pito Walton entered the neutral zone in the twelfth minute, Catamounts graduate student forward Ryan Miotto forced a turnover. One-on-one with Miotto, Northeastern freshman goaltender Cameron Whitehead could not make the save as Vermont tied it up at one apiece.

Northeastern gained a two-minute power play opportunity in the thirteenth minute after Vermont freshman forward Daniel Sambuco was called for cross-checking. However, the Huskies did not capitalize on the opportunity, only getting two shots off.

As Northeastern’s power play ended, Campbell was sent to the box for interference. Vermont’s two-minute power play began, but similarly, it

Photo by Sofia Sawchuk Graduate student forward Liam Walsh prepares for a face-off. The Huskies maintained strong possession of the puck in their second match against Vermont on Saturday.

could not make anything of it. However, just a few seconds after the end of the advantage, freshman forward Dylan Hryckowian was called for tripping, handing Vermont another power play. In the last few seconds of Vermont’s five-on-four advantage, and with just 1.1 seconds left in the period, Catamounts sophomore defenseman Ralfs Bergmanis took a deep shot from near center ice. It was deflected to junior forward Andrei Buyalsky, who made a quick shot from the right faceoff circle. Vermont closed out the first period with a 2-1 lead.

In the second frame, the teams went back and forth on the ice, getting decent looks at the net, but Whitehead and Vermont senior goalie Gabe Carriere held their own.

With less than two minutes left in the period, Northeastern sophomore defenseman Vinny Borgesi made a perfect cross-ice pass to sophomore defenseman Jackson Dorrington, who shot it past Carriere. The goal lit up Husky fans in the DogHouse and the game tied up at two entering the final period.

Northeastern opened the third with heavy pressure, taking nine consecutive shots. However, in the sixth minute of the frame, the Catamounts stole the puck, and sophomore forward Massimo Lombardi made his way down the ice to Northeastern’s net.

Left one-on-one, Whitehead could not make the save. The Catamounts took the lead 3-2.

After reclaiming the lead, it was full speed ahead for the Catamounts.

Only seven seconds later, Vermont hit the net again. Assisted by sophomore forward Jens Richards from behind the net, Miotto took the one-timer shot to extend Vermont’s lead to 4-2.

Northeastern head coach Jerry Keefe then switched Whitehead at net for graduate student goaltender Connor Hopkins, but Northeastern continued to crumble. Bergmanis stole the puck from behind Vermont’s net, took it down the ice and passed to Lombardi, who scored his second goal — and the Catamounts’ third — in just 68 seconds.

With less than three minutes left on the clock, Borgesi passed the puck across the ice to sophomore forward Cam Lund, who swiped it into the net from behind the goal line, squeezing it past Carriere. Vermont’s lead was trimmed to two.

On top of the goal, Miotto was called for slashing, giving Northeastern another two-minute power play.

But one minute later, Northeastern was called for delay of game, bringing it to four-on-four. Another Vermont player, Richards, was taken off the ice 10 seconds later for tripping. Keefe pulled Hopkins to give the Huskies a five-on-three advantage, and they capitalized. Borgesi passed the puck to Lund, who smashed it in, getting his second goal of the night. It was a one-goal game with only just over a minute left.

Unfortunately, the Huskies could not pull off the comeback, and the final score stayed 5-4.

On Jan. 13, despite Hopkins finishing the game for Northeastern, Keefe put in his usual starting goalie, Whitehead. Neither side could get anything going early on, but Whitehead proved why he is Keefe’s go-to, making huge saves for the Huskies.

While no one could score in the first period, Vermont controlled the game’s pace. The Huskies took only five shots on goal compared to the Catamounts’ 15. The puck stayed in

Northeastern’s zone for most of the period, and when the Huskies got the puck, they were slow to transition.

Northeastern came into the second period with newfound energy, which carried through in the score. In the third minute of the frame, Borgesi passed the puck behind him to Choupani, who shot through two Vermont players and found the net. The Huskies took the lead 1-0.

A minute and a half later, D. Hryckowian extended the lead for Northeastern. Sophomore forward Jack Williams, behind the net, freed the puck from under two Vermont players and passed it to Lund in the corner. Lund passed to Dylan Hryckowian, who got a clear shot off and into the net, extending the lead to 2-0.

Vermont finally got on the board in the third minute of the third period.

Richards passed the puck behind the Huskies’ net to Spitserov, who shot toward Whitehead. His initial shot was blocked, but he skated into the crease and scored on his own rebound.

With a minute left in the game, Vermont’s interim head coach Steve Wiedler pulled Carriere to make it a six-on-five game. But Wiedler would soon regret it. With nine seconds left, Justin Hryckowian stole the puck and passed to Northeastern senior forward Gunnarwolfe Fontaine, who had a wide-open path and net in front of him. The empty-net goal made the final score 3-1 in favor of the Huskies.

Northeastern has five more games to improve their transitions and puck control until the most anticipated time of season: Beanpot, which starts Feb. 5. On Jan. 20, the Huskies are back at Matthews Arena to play University of Massachusetts Amherst (12-6-3, 5-4-2 HE) at 4 p.m.

Inaugural Beanpot pingpong tournament brings rival hockey teams together for shared cause

By Amelia Ballingall & Sofia Garrett | Sports Editor and Deputy Sports Editor Since its founding in 1952, the annual Beanpot tournament, a college hockey competition between local rivals Northeastern University, Boston University, Boston College and Harvard University, has been well-loved by the city of Boston.

However, the four competing men’s hockey teams faced off in a different kind of competition Jan. 8 — a pingpong tournament — each with an additional player on their roster: their Team IMPACT matches. Josh Bello (BC), Logan Gatto (BU), Simon Valencia-Devin (Northeastern) and Parker Watson (Harvard) will cheer on their teams from the sidelines at TD Garden come February, but the night of Jan. 8, they played enthusiastically alongside their teammates with a pingpong paddle in hand.

Ten-year-old Simon became an honorary teammate of the Northeastern men’s hockey team in 2021 and is now a fan-favorite among the Husky community. Receiving a kidney transplant when he was just one year old, Simon has defied the odds with his optimistic, positive energy

toward life. Connected through Team IMPACT, a non-profit organization matching children with disability and illness to college sports teams, Simon is supported by not only his family, but over 25 Division I hockey players. From coaching the Northeastern hockey players in pingpong to celebrating on the ice with the team after its 2023 Beanpot win, every interaction is significant for Simon and relatives.

“It’s just those little bits of fun that he gets to have, because you never know,” said Simon’s mother, Maria Valencia-Devin. “Being transplanted means [being] immunocompromised. So any little something could really escalate so we have to live really carefully. So times like this, it’s a party, other kids are here, the team is here, it’s like a gift for sure.”

The children at the tournament have been diagnosed with illnesses and conditions from kidney disorders to epilepsy to leukemia, and although each Team IMPACT child’s experience is different, events like these give them all a place to feel included and seen.

“We really try to create environments where the child feels supported, mom and dad feel supported and siblings feel supported, but in a comfortable way,” said Team IMPACT Executive Director Ryan Irwin. “They’re just one of the guys here. They’re not the kid who’s on Team IMPACT. They’re just out there with the guys, and nobody is giving them extra attention. That’s the hope. We want to normalize what they’re going through.”

These events are valuable for the collegiate athletes as well, bringing together teammates and competitors to support a common goal.

“What we provide for student athletes is huge moments in perspective of what’s really important in life, because most student athletes spend a majority of their life focused on sport,” Irwin said. “They meet a kid like Simon, who has gone through a lot of adversity in his life, and he’s more optimistic than a lot of these guys after a bad practice or a tough test. They realize they’re fortunate and lucky.”

Although Team IMPACT pairs teams with their matches, it’s up to

the athletes and staff to continue to put in effort — and it’s something they’re excited to do. The pingpong tournament was the brainchild of BU Director of Hockey Operations Doug Friedman, who saw an opportunity to bring together all four Beanpot schools outside of the hockey games.

At the event, the children darted around the space playing pingpong, threw bags for cornhole, tried out the batting cages and spent time with their teammates.

“It’s awesome. We’ve only had Simon with us for a couple years now, and we just keep doing more and more things,” said Northeastern senior forward Gunnarwolfe Fontaine. “It’s unreal having these four Beanpot schools together like this celebrating a great thing.”

After each team played six games, a winner was declared. Boston University took home the title of the first-ever Beanpot pingpong tournament champion, and its victory was greeted with an enthusiastic “Go, BU!” from their match, Logan.

In just a few short weeks, the four teams’ matches and their families will have a front-row seat to cheer

on their teams and watch the 71st annual Beanpot tournament unfold.

It’s a meaningful experience for each and every one of them and comes with excitement in so many different ways.

“Listening to the national anthem, seeing everyone put their hands over their hearts, it’s so emotional for [Simon],” Valencia-Devin said.

“So he’s actually practicing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ to get ready for Beanpot.”

The Beanpot tournament will kick off Feb. 5 at TD Garden, and this year, each team will sport the Team IMPACT logo on their helmets to support the program and have a little bit of their match’s spirit with them out on the ice.

“If you know a kid who has a serious illness or disability, or somebody in the neighborhood or a coworker, let them know what we do because they’re able to help get those kids support,” Irwin said.

“It’s a free program. It’s easy to sign up, takes about two minutes, and our staff will reach out to learn more about what that child is going through.”

OPINION

Page 10 The Huntington News EDITORIAL BOARD

Op-ed: The imperative of tension

Editor-in-Chief

Eli Curwin

Managing Editor

Ananya Kulkarni Olivia Becraft Editor-at-Large

Marta Hill Campus

Emily Spatz Juliette Piovoso Val O’Neill City

Alyssa Fell Alexis Algazy Sports

Amelia Ballingall Sofia Garrett Lifestyle

Jake Guldin Kristina DaPonte Laura Emde Opinion

Galiah Abbud Rachana Madhav Projects

Alexa Coultoff Kathryn Manning Photo

Jessica Xing Darin Zullo Elizabeth Scholl Design

Angelica Jorio Liza Sheehy Multimedia

Annika Sunkara Jethro R. Lee Social Media

Kevin Gallagher Kate Armanini Copy Chief

Christina McCabe Web Manager

Arielle Rabinovich

BUSINESS

Business Manager

Ananya Chaudhari

Photo by Jessica Xing As a result of Boston universities failing to acknowledge the ongoing violence occurring in Gaza, students have found themselves in a time of political and ideological tension. As many of my peers have pointed out, college administrations have resorted to promoting the idea “that we bridge the fissures that have weakened our sense of community” while failing to acknowledge much else.

In an email message to the Harvard University community, the university’s Interim President Alan Garber said the Harvard student body must learn from its differences “in a climate of inclusion and a spirit of mutual respect.” While I agree that we learn from our very differences, I denounce Garber’s choice to willfully overlook the necessity of wartime tension. This tension is precisely when we develop well-justified evaluations of what happens in the world around us. A time in which we not only learn how the world is but come to know how we think it should

Emily Liu

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS Bill Mitchell, Carlene Hempel, Dan Zedek, Gal Tziperman Lotan, Laurel Leff, Lincoln McKie, Mark Gooley, Meredith O’Brien, Zolan Kanno-Youngs Opinions expressed in The Huntington News through letters to the editor, cartoons and columns are not necessarily those of The News staff or the Board of Directors. Northeastern University students conduct all operations involved in the production of this publication.

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be — and that is almost never easy.

However, I am firstly hesitant to use the word “wartime,” as labeling the violence in Gaza as a “war” may not fully capture its asymmetric nature. For individuals living in Gaza and Israel, the relentless attacks can be perceived as acts of terror rather than a conventional war, as they face the abusive power of military forces. Thus, I use the term “wartime” as a reminder of the period of tension that has inevitably resulted from the indescribable loss of lives.

Having recognized this period of tension we have found ourselves in, it is obvious and necessary for students, along with the rest of the world, to feel uneasy. It is a time in which we must face international disputes, find solidarity within communities and ultimately maintain and establish democracy.

Students at universities rightfully feel a moral duty to stay informed about the ongoing conflict. This sense of obligation emerges for a variety of reasons, such as newfound independence, exposure to current events and confrontation with different perspectives that happens when a student attends college. In addition, many students recognize that the universities they attend bear significant stakes in global conflicts because of their universities’ contributions to organizations, encouraging them to evaluate the impact of such contributions.

To fulfill this obligation, students commit themselves to actively fostering intellectual development, but this is only made possible by an equal commitment from the university. Thus,

the duty of universities extends beyond merely promising unity and inclusivity.

It encompasses an active engagement, not just curated statements for public image, with the complexities of global issues — especially when they claim to be a global university.

Northeastern initiated a speaker series for individuals to express opinions on the ongoing conflict. While commendable, this effort calls for a continuation of resources, time and funding dedicated to handling such discussions — which hasn’t happened since their initial speaker series.

Furthermore, I acknowledge that Garber, along with other university leaders, likely has concerns about the well-being of students because of the ongoing violence on college campuses — however, I am frustrated when these concerns are only extrapolated by the torpor of “seeking ways to learn from our differences.”

The genocide at the hands of the Israeli government — the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks already recognized by universities — cannot simply go unmentioned because university leaders feel as if the most important lesson is that we can put a Band-Aid on students’ bruises and ignore Gazan gashes.

Ultimately, it is human to feel tense, especially when the leaders of our universities choose only to address “peace” and not war. But if we are incessant on learning, then the only way to do so is to acknowledge the reason and consequent function of this tension.

The prevailing tension within universities is not merely an incidental

discomfort but, in line with sociologist Lewis Coser’s analysis, a distinct social function of wartime: a catalyst for introspection, collective mobilization and the imperative reassessment of societal norms and structures.

Conflict only becomes dysfunctional within social structures of deficient intolerance, where the inflexibility of these structures poses a more significant threat than the tension itself. In socially inflexible structures, the greater threat lies in the tendency to turn a blind eye. This not only hampers adaptability, but can actively impede growth, potentially leading to a reversal of societal progress. Thus, the inflexibility of universities underscores a glaring contradiction and questions the sincerity of commitment to our education.

By acknowledging and dealing with this tension, we push ourselves to learn from the situation and come to be angered that our universities choose not to care for the voices of those suffering. Regardless of the pursuit of knowledge, it is a matter of human life: selecting the comfort of peace becomes an illusory luxury, as universities cannot ethically choose tranquility while war and its devastating consequences persist.

deeds. While pro-Israel students raise money and pen encouraging letters to an army currently slaughtering more children than in nearly any other modern conflict, Palestinians and their allies on college campuses must endure doxxing, intimidation, arrest and violence just to be afforded the right to speak.

When those who refuse to take a clear moral stance speak of “nuance,” they are not sincerely asking for an examination of the history of the conflict.

For if they did, how could they not speak of the near-endless humiliation and injustice suffered by Palestinians at the hands of Israel long before a single shot in this war was fired? Have they nothing to say about the checkpoints that divide families and the constant threat of expulsion from one’s home at gunpoint by Kahanist settlers? Where were the oh-so-sophisticated eyes when Gazans were subjected to a crushing blockade in 2007 that turned their land into an open-air prison?

For these individuals, “complicated” refers to their own sympathies with the Israeli war machine, not any preoccupation with facts. It is only when the chickens come home to roost, when Israelis are victims of a fraction of the violence they’ve meted out for decades, that they can truly find their voice to condemn. Hamas “redefines evil,” the IDF, at best, must merely exercise some restraint.

This is not just a matter of free speech where Palestinians must simply be afforded the same rights to expression as Zionists. There is no moral equivalence between those who raise their voice to speak against Israel’s genocide and those who enthusiastically cheer for its continuation. The Palestinian aspiration for freedom for all their people — yes, from the river to the sea — should not be negotiable.

As the past two months have shown, the regime that slaughters Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and the Green Line is the same; it is for that reason that it must fall in all of those places.

For the Palestinians in Gaza, the current bombardment, though the most deadly, is merely the latest in a long history of aggressions which Israeli politicians have casually referred to as “mowing the grass.” Forcibly expelled at gunpoint from their villages surrounding the territory in the 1948 Nakba, the majority of Gazans are refugees. Yet even though 2 million individuals were packed into 140 square meters of territory, Gaza has exemplified the concept of “sumud,” steadfastness, resisting Israel’s efforts to exterminate the Palestinian national struggle. It was from Gaza that the first intifada was born, shattering the racist myth prominent at the time that Palestinians were happier under colonial occupation. It was from Gaza that Palestinian youth gathered in the thousands in the “Great March of Return,” facing indiscriminate violence, but never faltering.

Since Oct. 7, over 21,000 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed. Nearly 1.8 million Palestinians have been forced from their homes amidst Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza.

Of the Palestinians dead, over 8,200 are children. Disease spreads rapidly, and Israeli forces have laid siege to hospitals while desperately spinning excuses and justifications for transparent war crimes. Every day, there are new atrocities in what some still deny is genocide and ethnic cleansing. Journalists and intellectuals are explicitly targeted to silence the light they shine on the world.

Women and children are mercilessly executed in the schools they seek shelter in. Palestinian men are rounded up,

stripped and tortured. Israeli bulldozers have reportedly crushed Palestinians to their bones and destroyed cemeteries.

How much longer must these atrocities persist before those caught up in the fervor of war will acknowledge that they are supporting one of the greatest crimes of the 21st century?

If these horrors sicken you, know that they are directly aided by the United States, which offers unqualified diplomatic and military support for what Israeli leaders are openly proclaiming to be the annihilation of the Palestinian people. Our government is more than complicit; it is an active collaborator. Yet American discourse remains fixated on the battle of words and college campuses, distracted by the manufactured controversy of whose denunciation of the current horror goes too far.

A ceasefire, something nearly the entire international community has called for, is the bare minimum; it is nothing more than the cessation of the slaughter unfolding. A return to the status quo, where Palestinians suffer quietly, is untenable and would merely be what Martin Luther King Jr. described as a “negative peace,” which is not justice. The state of Israel must be held accountable for its crimes against humanity and should be treated as the pariah state that it has proven itself to be. Palestinians are not children of a lesser God. They deserve more than simply life; they deserve and demand liberation.

Galiah Abbud is a second-year journalism major and opinion editor of The News. She can be reached at abbud.g@ northeastern.edu Editor’s Note: This op-ed has been adapted for print. To see the full version visit our website.

Op-ed: No, Palestine is not complicated

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January 19, 2024

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When Americans talk about Palestine, one word quickly arises: “complicated.” That word, and its closely related cousin “nuance,” seem to be the only words most are capable of using on an issue that is decidedly neither of those things. It is even more surprising to hear the word spoken at universities, where students and faculty supposedly pursue truth and moral clarity. In classrooms where the secrets of our anatomy are learned and laboratories where life-saving medicine is developed, many things are “complicated.” The morality of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and nearly a century of dispossession is not one of them.

And yet, this is the characterization that Northeastern and other universities in Boston have chosen to promote regarding the recent events in Palestine.

“We realize that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict ignites strong views on all sides. As an academic institution, we welcome peaceful dialogue and debate that is inclusive of all viewpoints,” Northeastern leaders wrote in an Oct. 10 statement.

But while they feign impartiality, the university’s investments and suppression of Palestinian voices make crystal clear their support for Israel’s barbaric

Noah Colbert is a fourth-year mathematics and political science major. He can be reached at colbert.n@northeastern.edu Editor’s Note: This op-ed has been adapted for print. To see the full version visit our website.

OPINION

January 19, 2024

Page 11

Op-ed: What Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre meant to Israel and the Jewish community

Photo by Jessica Xing Known as one of the heaviest sleepers around, I miraculously jolted awake Oct. 7 at 8 a.m. to a flurry of buzzes on my phone. My eyes darted from i24NEWS, an Israeli-based international news channel, to the Times of Israel and finally WhatsApp. Chats with my family and gap-year friends flooded with concerned text messages: “Liat, check the news!” “Have you heard what happened?” I felt a sinking feeling in my chest and immediately knew this was not the typical Hamas rocket strike from Gaza into Israel.

Since I could remember, my mom cooked dinner every night with the Israeli news channel blaring on the TV, often reporting on the consistent Hamas rockets fired into Israel before 2006. I knew, achingly, this time was different.

My head was still foggy with dreams, and I struggled to make sense of the news that was flooding my mind. An attack? No, swarms of terrorists dismantling the border. Sderot, Be’eri, Kfar Aza, all the peaceful, agricultural kibbutzim I had visited along the border of Gaza. Families there, murdered in their homes? I hoped the loving people living at the border who welcomed me into their homes with open arms were not among them.

Merciless terror at the Supernova music festival? Please don’t tell me my cousins were there. My heart and my brain were fighting between denial and logic. Hoping I was still asleep and this was just a cruel nightmare, I checked the news. Nothing could have prepared me for the headlines staring back at me: Blood. Rape. Mutilation.

Bodies. Death.

As all the hairs on my body stood, I almost wished I had not looked. Without hesitation, I called my mother. The fear in her voice when she picked up the phone was enough for me to understand the severity of this massacre.

Even in 2022, when I was stuck hiding in Dizengoff Mall for seven hours because of a terrorist attack down the street, my mother didn’t sound as panicked as when I called that morning. At 8:30 a.m., I knew this massacre did not compare. And now, today, I know that never in the history of Israel has violence to this atrocious degree been inflicted upon innocent Israelis.

What shocked me the most was how none of my Jewish or Israeli friends were given the time or space to grieve.

Not even 24 hours after the harrowing attack, people were already pointing fingers, questioning who was to blame.

Later in the day of Oct. 7, I managed to leave my apartment and eat at a cafe when I overheard a conversation about the Israeli government. While its criticism is necessary like any other government, I was baffled to hear how these people were unable to acknowl-

edge that, regardless of politics, innocent people were savagely murdered a few hours ago. Then, on Instagram, I saw a close friend of mine, who has celebrated numerous Jewish holidays in my own home, posting that Israelis are colonizers, Israelis are colonizers, thereby denying our indigeneity to our homeland. What bothers me is not their prejudiced beliefs. Rather it is their inability to ask me how I am doing and if my family is safe.

There was nowhere I felt I could freely express my identity without being attacked. My grief isn’t allowed because my grief is political. I didn’t choose this reality, but I will not sit in silence as I witness attempts to justify the inhumane torture my fellow Israelis endured.

People question why I stand with Israel: a country I call home. A country in which my parents had lived most of their lives. A country in which my family and friends have lived their whole lives. This is the land my grandparents fled Morocco for, living in tents in the desert for nearly a decade during Israel’s establishment. I don’t want my country to cease to exist. If Israel disappears, then so does part of my identity.

Why is my identity and its legitimacy being questioned at the hands of politics and propaganda? I have seen Hamas propaganda, such as photos of children from the Syrian Civil War, AI generated photos and staged videosphotos of children from the Syrian Civil War, AI generated photos and staged videos of this war.

People believe these fake displays of violence, yet they refuse to believe the mounds of evidence showing how Hamas raped Israeli victims on the basis that the proof is untrustworthy since Israel is the source. It concerns me how easily people will immediately trust and believe the claims of Hamas and how quickly they will question (at best) or outright deny the claims of Israel. I hear people chant “from the river to the sea,” a slogan that calls for the erasure of the Jewish people and of Israel from the map. This pains me to hear because Hamas has instilled psychological and physical trauma into Israelis and Jews from that slogan alone, and those who chant it tend to justify this psychological harassment by denying our trauma. Anyone in support of a two-state solution knows that there is no reality in which Jewish people and Palestinian people do not both exist in this land. We both have historic ties to this land, and neither group is leaving.

On campus, I walk in fear that I may be attacked as I have seen happen to students at Harvard, UMass Amherst and others. Last semester, I had to email my professors on two separate occasions that I felt unsafe to come to class because students were chanting these calls for genocide of Jewish people outside of my dorm.

Another time, I was studying in the Boston Public Library when protesters began to chant “intifada revolution” out of fear for my safety, I did not leave the library until the mob had dispersed.

As an American Israeli Jew, my identity might only be politics to some people, but it is my life, my lived experience and my existence. Every day, I feel myself fighting to be a voice heard — a voice listened to. Nowadays,

I feel as though I shout, “My Jewish life matters!” into a broken microphone to an audience that just came to listen to the person speaking after me.

I have digested so much information since Oct. 7. As someone who has been studying Jewish history my entire life and Middle Eastern geopolitics for the past six years, today, I find the most worrisome claims in the depths of any Jewish Zionist’s comments section on Instagram. Most of the information I read there is simply utter delusion from rewritten, non-factual history. For instance, I have seen people use falsified maps of Judea and Samaria to defend their views of Israel as a colonizer state. Some even justified the belief that Jewish statehood should cease to exist by quoting a speech from Osama Bin Laden. In fact, I never understood why people have such a problem with Zionism, which, in my view, is the core of the modern Jewish identity. The belief that Jewish people have the right to self-determine in their ancestral homeland: Eretz Yisrael, the biblical name of Israel. What part of that definition makes people so angry? Is it the “Jewish people” part?

Or “self-determination?” “Ancestral homeland?”

What bothers me is how acceptable it has become to tokenize Jewish people. Suddenly, our sole responsibility is to validate our Jewish identity to the world. When people redefine Zionism and Jewish history to fit their antisemitic narrative, we are forced to prove our native ties to our homeland, while the facts are woven deep into the soil. Are 4,000 years of Jewish history in Judea and Samaria not enough to prove our indigeneity? In Israel, archaeology, ancient artifacts, the millennia of war and persecution are carved into our land and displayed in our museums. Even during my study abroad experience, I was reminded of our persecution while staring at the Arch of Titus, a monument celebrating the conquests of the Roman Empire and, consequently, Jewish persecution.

The diaspora displaced the Jewish people to countries all over the world. My mother’s ancestors created a new life in Morocco and worked hard to assimilate and progress.

Their perseverance and ambition to survive as Jews in a country that didn’t accept their identity used to be incomprehensible to me. Why would you want to live in a country knowing your neighbors hate you for an identity you cannot change? When the pogroms came to their city, it took looking death in the eye to convince my great-grandparents to gather their children, a few of their belongings and leave — abandoning their home in Casablanca before these mobs had the chance to take my family’s life. This was the fate for more than 850,000 Jewish people living in Arab countries at the time.

To this day, we do not know either of my grandparents’ birthdays. They don’t talk about their childhoods either. It is something we know not to ask about.

Since Oct. 7, those I once considered close friends won’t accept my Jewish heritage. My friends ignored and shunned me for an identity that I was born with. Instead of checking up on me during the most tragic time of my life, they were texting in our

group chat about their Halloween costumes. These are friends who met some of my Israeli family members, yet proceeded to post antisemitic conspiracies about Israel before even asking me if my family was safe or if I was okay. I have considered abandoning my life in the U.S. and moving to Israel, where I feel safe to be Jewish and Zionist. However, I am beginning to see why my ancestors fought so hard to stay in the country they built themselves into. The United States is my country just as much as Israel. I formed my entire being here. Not only was I raised here, but my immigrant parents did even more than bend themselves backward for us to live a high quality of life here. I will not let other people’s ignorance toward my Jewish identity hold so much power over me, such that they dictate whether I leave the U.S., the very country I was born and raised in.

In the wake of constant gaslighting, non-Jewish people attempt to tell me what is and isn’t discrimination against my identity. I am exhausted, and I can’t take much more of the fight for my right to exist. No other nation has been unequivocally denied the right to exist other than the sole Jewish nation.

People keep telling me that I am on the wrong “side” of this conflict. Side?

For some, this conflict is a matter of being on the “right side of history.”

For me, this conflict is a matter of life or death for my family and friends in Israel. On Oct. 7, their security, sanity and well-being, at any level of the word, were thrown out of a 100-story building, splattering on the floor with such force that nothing can wash off the stains of trauma the massacre left on Israeli society.

I will never forget the words Northeastern’s Hillel Israeli fellow, Liron Raphael, tragically said during our vigil on Oct. 10: “There will be an Israel before Oct. 7 and an Israel after Oct. 7.”

Hamas’ charter distinctly states that its violence is toward the Jewish people. Not Zionists, not Israelis and not the Israeli government. Hamas has also stated that it would repeat Oct. 7 “a second, a third and a fourth time.” They said Oct. 7 was just a “dress rehearsal.” How does this not concern the world about what this means for the future of the Jewish people?

Please know that I am not here to compare the traumas of Israelis and Palestinians. The plight of the Palestinian people nauseates me as much as the suffering of my people does. We need to legitimize each other’s history and affliction if we want to live a peaceful future in the land we are both indigenous to.

However, I am here to stand as a symbol to my Jewish friends. This is an incredibly isolating time to be a diaspora Jew, but you are not alone.

Your Jewish community is here for you as it has been for millennia. If you feel silenced and alone, I invite you to Hillel or Chabad’s Shabbat dinners. We gather each Friday, and there will be plenty of smiles to welcome you.

And finally, since I am tokenized as a Jew, forced to explain and justify every aspect of more than 4,000 years of history and persecution, I will use my Jewish voice to clearly explain what antisemitism is: Making false generalizations with derogatory language about the Jewish

people and even using the term Zionist instead of Jew in such claims is antisemitic. “Genocidal baby-killers.”

“Zionist pigs.” “White supremacist colonizers.” These are terms my Jewish friends and I have been called on our campus. No matter the verbiage, these offensive terms use antisemitic conspiracy theories and stereotypes to baselessly target the Jewish people and question our right to exist — the blood libel, the fascist Jew, the communist Jew, the capitalist Jew, just to name a few — to baselessly target the Jewish people and question our right to exist.

Historically, a symptom of antisemitism involves scapegoating the Jewish people. That is, blaming the Jewish people for injustice instead of confronting the root of the problem, which would typically be a country’s leader, institutions or even natural disasters. A recent example of this would be when Jewish people were blamed for causing the spread of COVID-19 or for profiting off its vaccines.

Blaming solely the Jewish people for the injustices Palestinians experience under Hamas’ rule in Gaza is antisemitic. The root of Gazan suffering stems from its corrupt government, Hamas. Although Hamas targets Jewish people, it takes no regard for its Palestinian civilians either. Hamas has stolen the money and resources acquired through international funds to improve the lives of Gazans to strengthen its terror capabilities.

Further, Hamas weaponizes the Gazan people to achieve Jewish extinction from the land of Israel while its leaders hide underground or in luxury hotels in Qatar. Evidently, Hamas is not the solution for Palestinian liberation.

Attacking a Jewish person for being a Zionist is antisemitic. In the simplest terms, Zionism is the right of the Jewish people to be a people. Anti-Zionism denies Jewish people the right to a legitimate statehood. The anti-Zionist agenda is against decolonization, which seeks to prevent indigenous people from returning to their native land. Anti-Zionism declares an imperialist ideology: to colonize the Jewish peoples’ land yet again, to get rid of the only modern Jewish state and to support this idea while existing in a privileged, post-colonial world.

We must acknowledge that this holy land deserves peace between the people living in it; a two-state solution would provide both people with the statehood we all require. Every day, we sit in immense privilege: the comfort of our own homes, secure with our families, at the cost of the hundreds of years of colonization that stripped natives off their land.

Somehow, still, anti-Zionists have the audacity to declare that indigenous people, the Jewish people, are not allowed to exist in their native land.

This denial is a double standard and is antisemitic.

As Klara Firestone, the daughter of Holocaust survivors who were recently victims of antisemitic vandalism, said, “Hate me for something I did, not for who I am because I can’t change that.”

Liat is a second-year international business major with a concentration in accounting and advisory. They can be reached at weiss.lia@northeastern.edu.

SPORTS

Page 12

January 19, 2024

Huskies headed to TD Garden: Northeastern defends one-goal lead to defeat Harvard

By Amelia Ballingall Sports Editor In the 45th Women’s Beanpot semifinals, Northeastern (14-9-1, 8-7-1 HE) owned the night.

The Huskies traveled to Harvard’s Bright-Landry Hockey Center Tuesday night for the competition, bringing a crowd of friends, family and fans, who dominated the atmosphere with cheers for the away team. The support bolstered the Huskies to a 1-0 win over Harvard (3-15-1, 1-11-1 ECAC), and, while the score was tight, Northeastern greatly outplayed the Crimson the entire 60 minutes. “[I’m] really proud of the group [for] how we banded together and held on to a one-nothing lead,” said graduate student defender and captain Megan Carter. “It’s going to be really important for us down the stretch to be able to do that and manage games like that.”

The Huskies were faster and fiercer than the Crimson. Harvard’s transitions, in rare moments of possession, were sloppy, making it easy for Northeastern to intercept their neutral zone passes and turn over the puck. Meanwhile, the Husky passed cleanly across the ice, pushing into Harvard’s zone with a strong forecheck and using their agility to maintain control.

Six minutes into the game, a body checking penalty on Huskies junior defender Tory Mariano gave Harvard its first attempt on Northeastern’s net. However, playing against the second-ranked penalty kill unit in the country is no easy feat, and fifthyear goaltender Gwyneth Philips shut down each of the Crimson’s limited attempts.

Halfway through the period, the Huskies got their own chance with the man-advantage. Sophomore forward Mia Langlois earned a near-breakaway, but Harvard sophomore defender Kate Kasica hooked her from behind and secured a oneway ticket to the penalty box.

In between the pipes, Harvard junior goaltender Alex Pellicci couldn’t catch a break. The Huskies were fierce, and while the Crimson were able to clear the puck

rather consistently midway through the two-minute minor, Northeastern found another way in.

With three seconds left on the power play, Mariano fired in a shot from the point. On the doorstep, junior forward Taze Thompson, a transfer from Harvard, sliced the puck down past Pellicci to give Northeastern the 1-0 lead.

As the period wound down, Harvard grew frustrated. The team could hardly get control of the puck, much less get a quality shot. Scuffles began to break out in the crease, and Northeastern fifth-year forward Katy Knoll seemed to take the brunt of it.

In the first period, Harvard notched just four shots, and its game didn’t get any better. Northeastern kept the Crimson’s shots-on-goal total in the single digits, with another four in the second and a measly one direct shot in the final frame for a collective nine attempts.

“Harvard is a very good team and they got some chances on us, but I thought we were locked down and really stuck to our systems,” Carter said. “That’s been an area of emphasis for us over the last few games, so to pull that together in this game was really important.”

Meanwhile, Northeastern blasted its way through 39 shots.

Pellicci kept Harvard in the game, making stellar saves and putting up a wall against Northeastern’s offense to maintain just a one-goal difference.

“It could’ve been a four- or five-nothing game, I think, if their goalie wasn’t really good tonight,” said Northeastern head coach Dave Flint.

Harvard tried to get on top early in the second period, breaking out into Northeastern’s zone, but the Huskies won all the board battles and the Crimson couldn’t get around Northeastern’s defense.

However, they held up their own back end well when Northeastern got a second power play opportunity.

Although sophomore forward Avery Anderson had drawn the penalty and delayed it with some deking and dancing with the puck until Northeastern could get a shot off, once the two-minute count-

THIS WEEK

IN SPORTS Scores compiled by Amelia Ballingall Graphic by Angelica Jorio

Men’s Hockey vs. UVM

4 5 Saturday, January 12

vs. UVM

3 1 Sunday, January 13 Photo by Harriet Rovniak Paws watches the Women’s Beanpot semifinals through plexiglass. down began, Harvard fought back.

The Crimson gained some zone time despite their skater-deficit, weakening the Huskies’ advantage. Unlike the first power play, Northeastern couldn’t make a single shot, and Harvard’s .619 penalty kill — the worst in the NCAA — shined a little brighter.

In the final few minutes of the second period, Harvard turned up the jets. Three of the Crimson’s four shots in the period came in those final two minutes, as they circled like sharks around the Huskies’ net.

Despite Harvard’s rallying cry at the close of the middle frame, when the final period started, it was clearly Northeastern’s game. The Huskies couldn’t find the right angle to extend their lead despite their relentless attempts.

Northeastern saw another strong power play, even skimming the post on a shot from sophomore defender Jules Constantinople, but the Crimson’s PK unit tightened up to take the pressure off of Pellicci. Harvard’s defense took 30 blocks throughout the game, nearly the same amount Pellicci did.

With just a few minutes left in the game, Northeastern was bearing down on Harvard’s net, desperately seeking a second goal. Pellicci looked back and forth between the bench and the ice, waiting for the moment she’d be pulled in favor of the extra attacker.

Pellicci was finally able to leave the net with less than two minutes left on the clock, but her rest was short-lived. The Huskies were seeking the empty net, gaining zone time as

they fought for it, and Harvard was forced to clear the puck.

With an impending defensive-zone faceoff, Pellicci returned, and the Crimson struggled to get out of their zone.

In the final 10 seconds, they made a last-ditch effort to put the sixth skater on the ice, but it was too late.

Northeastern was victorious.

Some of Northeastern’s younger skaters stepped up in the semifinal matchup. The third line of Langlois, sophomore Lily Brazis and freshman Ella Blackmore nearly lit the lamp quite a few times, with Blackmore tallying half of the line’s 12 shots.

“They’re just creating,” Flint said.

“I think they want to score some more goals, but those will come.

They’re getting a lot of good chances and good looks at the net and I think the biggest part is they’ve been better defensively and that’s why we’ve given them more responsibilities.”

The women’s hockey team will head to TD Garden Jan. 23 for the first time in Beanpot history to play Boston University (9-10-3, 7-8-1 HE) in the championship. The Terriers defeated the tournament-favorite Boston College Eagles (12-7-3, 113-3 HE) in an upset win, taking the shootout victory after holding a 3-3 tie through two overtime periods.

“We may have beat [BU] three times, but it really doesn’t matter when we play them next week,” Carter said. “Everyone is going to bring their A-game and we could see a totally different hockey team … but it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Northeastern will seek to earn its second-straight Beanpot title when the puck drops at 8 p.m.

Women’s Hockey at Maine

0 1 Friday, January 12

at Maine

1 1 Saturday, January 13

Beanpot Semifinals: Harvard

1 0 Tuesday, January 16

Women’s Basketball vs. Hofstra

66 53 Sunday, January 14

Men’s Basketball vs. Towson

67 59 Saturday, January 13

at North Carolina A&T

65 62 Thursday, January 18 Photo by Harriet Rovniak Megan Carter faces Harvard players at the Women’s Beanpot semifinals. Taze Thompson scored the winning goal in the first period for the Huskies.