[The Stute] March 15, 2019 (Issue 19, Volume CXVI)

Please stop sending packages for CAPS to the 7th floor Howe.

I mean, didn’t you hear of the grand opening?

Volume CXVI Issue 19

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Hoboken commits to 100% renewable energy by 2030

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SES Curriculum Review Task Force performing self-study of engineering curriculum

by SARAH HOOGENBOOM Staff Writer

In a statement released on February 21, 2019, Mayor Ravi Bhalla announced that the city of Hoboken will begin purchasing 100% clean, nonpolluting renewable electricity for all municipal facilities starting April of 2019. This includes offices and buildings used for the Hoboken local government, such as city hall.

As one of the first municipalities in New Jersey to adopt 100% renewable energy in municipal buildings, Hoboken is taking the first step towards the implementation of the Hoboken Climate Action Plan.

Announced on January 29 at the first State of the City address by Mayor Bhalla, the Climate Action Plan is a green initiative that includes goals to make the entire city of Hoboken net zero by 2030 and carbon neutral by 2050.

Through the implementation of initiatives like electric charging stations, building energy updates, and a community solar program, Hoboken will uphold the United Nations Paris Climate see HOBOKEN· Page 3

by AKASH RANA Staff Writer

cards can also be added for purchases outside of the meal exchange system. After placing an order on their mobile device, users will receive an ETA for their meal pick-up, followed a short time later by a phone notification stating that the order is ready.

Completed orders will have

The Curriculum Review Task Force is conducting a periodic review of the (SES) curriculum, focused on the engineering curriculum.

The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) is responsible for accrediting the engineering programs at Stevens. “ABET requires us to have a process in place to review, and update as appropriate, the curricula and courses of all our engineering programs,” said Keith Sheppard, Chair of the Curriculum Review Task Force. Sheppard noted that this included the core curriculum across all engineering disciplines.

Every six years, ABET conducts an onsite accreditation review to ensure that Stevens is keeping its engineering programs aligned

see TAPINGO· Page 2

see REVIEW · Page 2

Using Tapingo will allow students, faculty, and staff to order remotely from Stevens Dining locations.

Photo by Matthew Cunningham

Stevens Dining to introduce mobile food ordering service Tapingo dering service, Tapingo will allow students, faculty, and staff to remotely order food at all retail locations on campus and have their meals ready upon arrival. “Stevens Dining is committed to the continuous improvement of the guest experience through innovative dining concepts,” explained Sean Hanlon from Stevens Dining. “Stevens is a universi-

by AUDREY DSOUZA Managing Editor

Tapingo (pronounced like flamingo), a free app on both the App Store and Play Store, is set to launch at Colonel John’s, America’s Cup, Red & Gray, and Pierce Cafe when students return from Spring Break. As an online and mobile food or-

ty known for its commitment to groundbreaking innovation and technology; therefore, it seemed fitting that such a tech upgrade to dining services be introduced here.”

Upon downloading and logging into Tapingo with a myStevens account, users will have their meal plan and/or DuckBills integrated into the app for use. Credit or debit

Career Center releases Class of 2018 Career Outcomes

21 students inducted to Beta Gamma Sigma at ceremony

by MARK KRUPINSKI Business Manager

Twelve undergraduate and nine graduate business students were inducted into Beta Gamma Sigma last Monday, March 11, 2019. Beta Gamma Sigma is an international honor society for business programs accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB). This was the third induction ceremony hosted by the Stevens chapter of Beta Gamma Sigma.

The inducted undergrad-

Established 1904

uate students were Kyle Bowes, Georgia Castoro, Samantha Dellis, Michael Di Pentima, Christopher Liu, Laura Murphy, Anad Patel, Mausam Patel, Marissa Payne, Jacob Southren, Lauren Tenzca, and Divya Unnam. The inducted graduate students were Shivakumar Barathi, Xiaohui Huang, Karen Jeanine Johnson, Harsh Kava, Shrey Konnur, Adharsh Raja Jandadai, Mukunth Rajendran, Kendall Speten-Hansen, and Siyan Zhang. All the candidates

by JAKE MILLBURN Staff Writer

ing successes was his collaboration with David Bowie.

Alomar co-wrote Bowie’s first American hit, “Fame,” alongside Bowie and John Lennon, and the team then went on to produce the album Young Americans. Alomar and Robin Clark were both influential in showcasing Bowie’s soul. Clark sang backup for many of his albums, and Bowie returned the favor by praising her first solo album when it debuted.

Alomar served as Bowie’s musical director for 30 years, and Bowie remained Alomar’s and Clark’s friend for life.

The event was filled with an excited energy as people rev-

The Class of 2018 Career Outcomes is a document published by Stevens which details the experiences of the graduating class within six months of graduation. The statistics in this document are used as one of the primary metrics of the success of the university as a whole; it reflects both the prestige of the degree and the endeavors of the Career Center. “The outcomes report is published each year to provide information to the university community about the success of our graduates and to be sure that prospective students and parents have this information when they are evaluating which university to attend,” describes Lynn Insley, Executive Director of the Career Center. For example, the report boasts that the highest accepted salary of 2018 graduates with bachelor’s degrees was $125,000.

96% of the class of 2018 reached an outcome other than “unemployed” within six months. Stevens was ranked as 7th in the nation

see LECTURE · Page 3

see CAREER· Page 2

Carlos Alomar and Robin Clark discuss the soulfulness of David Bowie Photo Courtesy of Connor Durkin

Soulful night at Stevens for CAL’s latest lecture

see INDUCTION · Page 3

by ABIGAIL MEOLA Staff Writer

Late in the evening last Saturday, the lights lowered in DeBaun Auditorium on a full crowd of Stevens students, staff, alumni, and members of the Hoboken community.

The College of Arts and Letters’ Dean Kelland Thomas took the stage and announced the theme of the night: “The Soulfulness of David Bowie.”

The talk would go on to feature stories from what Dean Thomas called our “hometown team”: Distinguished Artist in Residence Carlos Alomar, his equally-acclaimed wife, Robin Clark, and mediator and music journalist

Samantha Dellis and Laura Murphy are about to be inducted to Beta Gamma Sigma. They were two of the twenty one students inducted this year.

Photo Courtesy of Joseph Arney

Christian John Wikane. The night was filled with inspiring stories, laughter, and, above all, the magic of David Bowie.

Carlos Alomar came to Stevens after an extensive career that began at the age of 16.

He now heads the Sound Synthesis Research Center at Stevens where, in his words, he just tries “to blow kids’ minds every day.” His accolades continue; he played guitar on Mark Ronson’s “Uptown Funk,” served as the RCA house guitarist as a 22-yearold, and worked with many ubiquitous artists (James Brown, Alicia Keys, Chuck Berry, Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, and The Bee Gees, to name a few).

But perhaps one of his defin-

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News REVIEW

Continued from front page

with ABET’s target educational outcomes. “These objectives and outcomes are also required to be reviewed periodically with our stakeholders,” said Sheppard.

Sheppard leads this Curriculum Review Task Force. “The Task Force has been taking input from our stakeholders, is benchmarking other schools, and [is] considering the landscape of how engineering and science education is evolving,” said Sheppard.

Based upon these recom-

TAPINGO

Continued from front page

a yellow ticket attached with the buyer’s name and order number listed, and can be retrieved at labeled pick-up areas near the current cashier stations at retail locations.

“The estimated time for an order to be ready is shown to users in real time for each location prior to ordering. This

CAREER

Continued from front page

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for “Best Career Placement”

by The Princeton Review and 14th for “Mid-Career Pay” and 16th for “Early Career Pay” by PayScale, placing it alongside universities like MIT, CalTech, Stanford, and Harvey Mudd.

The range of pay varies widely; the lowest accepted salary was in Biomedical Engineering at $40,000, while the highest was in Computer Science/Cy-

Friday, March 15, 2019 • Page 2

mendations, Stevens will align programs to meet the needs of major employers of Stevens graduates.

However, this is not the only way programs are reviewed. “Each engineering program at Stevens has their own external advisory board, as does the School of Engineering & Science, and these boards are a key resource to provide input to the review of objectives and outcomes as well as how they are met by the curricula,” said Sheppard.

Once school-wide curricula changes are proposed, they are then reviewed by an institution-wide cur-

riculum committee.

At this level, information

about pacts

constantly changing ETA is based on an algorithm made up of several factors, including the amount of orders in a given location’s queue and the varying preparation times required to complete the assortment of orders in that queue,” said Hanlon. This shift to online ordering during heavier meal times is predicted to streamline the order process for meal exchanges and potentially cut current wait times in

half.

Specifically referring to CJ’s as an example, Hanlon said, “By eliminating the process of students waiting to input their orders on one of the two kiosks, then taking the receipt to get a buzzer, then waiting for that buzzer to ring, we’ll ideally eliminate 3-5 minutes in just that routine alone. Currently, students may spend ~10 minutes traveling to a retail location and then anoth-

er ~10 minutes waiting to receive and swipe for their meal used in the exchange. Tapingo should effectively reduce that current 20+ minute process in half.” The official launch date for Tapingo is set for Monday, March 25, after students return from Spring Break; however, the app is currently live as part of a ‘soft launch’ where it can be used today at Colonel John’s, in both Sonos and Grill Nation sections.

bersecurity at $125,000. The average accepted salary was $71,400. The highest average accepted salary was in Computer Science/Cybersecurity at $86,300. The lowest was in Civil/Environmental/Naval Engineering at $65,200.

Overall, the engineering degrees had 96% placement.

71% of graduates reported employment, while 20% reported enrolling in graduate school.

The rest were split between travel and military service.

The engineering major with

the lowest finalized outcome percentage was Engineering Management, at 90%, while the two with the highest were Electrical Engineering and the combined Civil, Environmental, and Naval department, both at 100%. The highest percentage of those enrolled in graduate school is 38%, from Biomedical Engineering.

The Career Center is highly satisfied with these numbers and seeks to maintain current percentages more than anything else. At 96%, Stevens

excels amongst its peer institutions; RPI has 84% placement, Northeastern has 92%, and WPI has 93%. Insley explains, “We are focused on maintaining our incredible 96% outcomes rate, as it’s one of the highest in the nation. Our team is also always developing relationships with new employers to facilitate connections between students and employment opportunities… We are always striving to support every student as they seek employment or graduate school.”

cross-school imare emphasized.

CSA Dim Sum After Dark

Corrections & Clarifications

Top: A member of CSA hands food to a server to distribute to attendees.

Left: Students enjoying the food at Dim Sum After Dark.

Photos courtesy of Jon Brown

For corrections and clarifications in any of our issues, please email eboard@thestute.com

Disclaimer All opinions, stories and editorials reflect the views of their respective author(s). The Stute reserves the right to edit all letters and articles submitted for publication for clarity and factual accuracy, or not publish them.

No part of The Stute may be reproduced in any form, in whole or in part, without the written consent of the Editor-inChief. Cited references of The Stute are permitted.

The Schaefer School of Science and Engineering is currently undergoing a selfstudy of the engineering curriculum.

Photo by Alex Murtagh

The Chinese Student Association (CSA) hosted Dimsum After Dark on Tuesday, March 12th at 9PM. Similar to a resturant, At the event, servers gave attendees Dimsum food including shrimp rice rolls, turnip cake, shrimp dumplings, siumai (pork dumplings), chicken feet, sesame balls, and egg tarts. “We didn’t expect [this] amount of people [to attend the event],” said Catlin Uang, the PR Chair for CSA.

Copyright © 2019 The Stute

Pie Luke and Eric!

Alpha Phi Omega (APO) hosted Pie Luke and Eric last Monday from 6:30PM to 7:30PM on Palmer Lawn. The event was hosted to raise proceeds for APO Ball. The event raised 104 dollars. SITTV will be releasing a compilation of the pieing of both Luke Langner and Eric Londres in the near future.

Top: Julia Martin admires her attempt at pieing Eric Londres.

Right: Koby Garcia simultaneously pies both Luke Langner and Eric Londres.

Bottom: Emily Kovelesky slams a pie into Luke Lagner’s face.

Photos by Wei Zheng

News

Friday, March 15, 2019 • Page 3

Perspectives

Jessica Driscoll

by MARK KRUPINSKI Business Manager

“[I want] to emphasize to the Stevens community that we can’t look into something unless we know about it,” said Jessica Driscoll.

Jessica Driscoll was recently elected Chair of the Honor Board. Her goal is to focus on improving the positive outreach to the student body and perception of the organization by both students and administration. She wants students to acknowledge the work the board does as well as have others understand what being a member of the Honor Board entails.

“I think it was really my experience as Outreach Chair that kinda alerted me to how our events got low attendance and how the rest of the campus saw the Honor Board,” said Driscoll on why she ran for Chair. At Stevens, the Honor Board does not have a positive image.

Students typically see the Honor Board as an organization that only catches people for cheating. However, the Honor System accomplishes a lot more, “[The Honor System] protects you from professors singling you out and being able to just make a final call on a grade,” said

LECTURE

Continued from front page

eled in Clark’s and Alomar’s pearls of wisdom. In addition, Wikane had compiled a list of thought-provoking questions and a PowerPoint filled with old photos and video clips.

One of the crowd’s favorites was a clip of the band performing “Stay.” Alomar was flaunting a purple jumpsuit and jamming in perfect symbiosis with the rest of the band. Off to the side, Bowie watched in fascination with the largest grin. He took in the

INDUCTION Continued from front page

were inducted by Brian Rothschild, the chapter advisor.

Membership in Beta Gamma Sigma is limited to individuals who have completed at least half of their required coursework and are in the top 10% of their undergraduate class or the top 20% of their graduate class. According to Rothschild, the GPA requirement is typically above a 3.75.

Chapters of Beta Gamma Sigma are limited to business schools that are accredited by the AACSB. Less than 5% of business schools worldwide are accredited by the AACSB. “One of the first benefits is that there are well over 200,000 active members,” said Rothschild. Members of Beta Gamma Sigma are

HOBOKEN Continued from front page

Agreement goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Aimed at reducing the dependency on fossil fuels, combating pollution, creating new jobs, and ensuring all citizens access to affordable energy solutions, the project is part of the Sierra Club’s Mayors for 100% Clean Energy campaign.

With this campaign, the Sierra Club is creating a community of mayors across the nation to further educate about, and transition cities

Driscoll. In fact, more students report Honor System violations than professors.

Thus, Driscoll believes that students should be proud of the Honor System and should not take it for granted.

As Chair, Driscoll hopes to improve the board’s positive outreach. “I don’t know why the Honor Board doesn’t do review sessions for exams; let’s help [people] not cheat,” said Driscoll. During her time as Outreach Chair, she established “Beat the Board,” an orientation event where freshmen could play volleyball with the Honor Board. In the future, she is looking into bringing therapy animals to campus during finals, and has plans to compile a drive of useful resources for classes at Stevens.

Driscoll believes that part of the issue is that the student body doesn’t understand what being an Honor Board member entails. Honor Board members investigating a case hold about two to three meetings per week with professors, accused students, and witnesses. In addition, when preparing for a hearing, Honor Board members need to create an evidence packet to present to the jury. “There’s a lot of protocol to follow and it has to be followed to a T because we hold our our-

selves accountable internally as well,” said Driscoll. “It’s more towards an administrative job than a student organization.”

Not only do students not understand what being an Honor Board member entails, but neither does the administration.

According to Driscoll, administration does not comprehend the required time commitment — especially when it comes to the amount of meetings they need to schedule. As evidence, she refers to the removal of priority registration for members. “I don’t think that [removing priority registration] should’ve happened. We were made aware ahead of time, but there was nothing [that] we really could do; we were not asked for our input in that decision,” said Driscoll.

However, the Honor Board is working to increase faculty engagement and “buy-in” with the system. Earlier this semester, they increased the threshold for faculty adjudication from assignments worth less than 13% of the final grade to any assignment.

While the Honor Board had a large amount of cases, the load was not main the reason for the change; instead, it was to increase professor buy-in for the Honor System.

“The [professors] who want

to be able to pursue an outcome will be able to do so now,” said Driscoll.

Driscoll believes that professors understand the Honor System, but they still need to be educated about its uses.

“There’s not supposed to be any loophole class that flies under the radar; every class is supposed to fall under the Honor System,” said Driscoll.

She holds that supporting the Honor System allows classes to have an accurate grade distribution. Instead of an assignment being biased due to undeserved perfect or extremely high scores ruining the curve, a professor can accurately curve an assignment if it was difficult.

This allows classes to have a normal grade distribution, which benefits students.

“Stevens is a structured school,” said Driscoll. She reflected from personal experience and her time on the Honor Board to draw this conclusion. “From my time on the board, I’ve seen that there are a lot rigid or, like, more firm, structured types of policies in place that might inhibit outcomes favorable to students,” said Driscoll. As examples, she noted that students have difficulties understanding major selection and reading the course catalog.

Ultimately, Driscoll em-

phasized that the Honor System is student-run, and should not be taken for

granted. Students should have pride and actively take part in the Honor System.

pure poetry of the band playing. The crowd cheered along as Alomar soloed. Then, as Bowie began to sing, the time capsule illusion was broken

by Alomar and Clark sitting in front of the screen, joyfully singing along in real time.

Though the night had an air of nostalgia, Clark noted that their relationship with Bowie was not always easy. During her first performance with the band as a backup singer, Clark recalled that people in the crowd brought tomatoes to throw at her and the other vocalists. “They just were not used to the soul sound yet,”

she remarked, before quickly adding, “But Bowie made sure we had a place.” It was his overwhelmingly positive acceptance of the sound, along with some enthusiastic fans, that helped her launch her own solo career while ushering Bowie into his soulful age.

Some of these loyal fans that Clark spoke of were in the crowd. In the first row sat the “Sigma Kids,” a group of devoted Bowie fans who camped outside the studio during the production of Young Americans at Sigma Sound in Philadelphia. Alomar recounted that these

people were such a respected part of their production process that Bowie bought them food and allowed them to critique the album when it was finished. They brought a unique perspective that was embraced by the room.

So what does Bowie have to do with Stevens?

In the words of Alomar: “The soulfulness of David Bowie is a wonderful example for students to understand that passion is what wakes you up in the morning and passion is that which will not let you go to sleep at night.”

Bowie and Alomar shared

that passion, and he hopes that his students will as well.

One alum of the Music and Technology program, Andy Waldron ’17, felt this sentiment through his own experiences as a David Bowie fan and former student of Alomar’s. “It is completely surreal to hear about all [Alomar] has done,” said Waldron, “to see the incredible things that he did to produce all of my favorite albums, and then to think back to when he listened to one of my songs and said, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty good.’”

Dean Thomas felt the event was a triumphant success and

hopes that the Dean’s Lecture Series will continue with such acclaim. “It is my strong hope that our students realize how lucky we are to have such a talented and distinguished artist here on campus,” he said.

So what is the soul of David Bowie? To Alomar, it is vulnerability and yearning.

These things can be found in Bowie’s music, his characters, and his relationships with others. To finish out the night, Alomar wished that “this once in a lifetime chance to get an inside look at this collaboration will inspire our students to follow their dreams.”

able to attend conferences and network with members from other chapters. Additionally, students can join an alumni chapter. These chapters bring in guest speakers and host networking events.

“Our students have the double advantage. There is an alumni group in Jersey and an alumni group in New York City. They can become a part of both,” said Rothschild.

At Stevens, Beta Gamma Sigma is fairly new, having existed since the 2015-2016 academic year. The current e-board of Beta Gamma Sigma is trying to grow the presence of the organization. “We’re trying to grow the name,” said Michael Patti, Vice President of Student Development.

In the past, Beta Gamma Sigma has hosted a program called “Making Cents,” in which members of Beta Gam-

ma Sigma worked with Hoboken High School students to help teach financial literacy.

Last semester, Beta Gamma Sigma hosted an internship panel, which allowed students to ask questions about obtaining an internship, including interview help and resume guidance. Near finals this semester, the organization plans to host Bagels with BGS. At the event, students will be able to relax and enjoy a bagel while speaking to someone from Beta Gamma Sigma. “We want to make our presence known on campus,” said Michael Patti, Vice President of Student Development.

In the future, Patti hopes that Beta Gamma Sigma becomes an established name on campus and that students will strive to join the honor society. “We really want to see people trying to push and

once they’re in, really growing and teaching future students to be [at] the highest profes-

sional standard,” said Patti.

Anyone interested in Beta Gamma Sigma, even if

they are not a business major, are welcome to reach out to the organization.

to, clean renewable energy.

At this time, over 200 mayors have taken the pledge.

Affordability is a driving factor for renewable energy, since it is projected to decrease energy costs.

“The city will pay less than 11 cents per kWh,” states the City of Hoboken website, which is approximately 1 cent per kWh hour less than the price of Hoboken’s largest current energy provider, Public Service Electric and Gas Company.

Once all of Hoboken reaches 100% renewable, 72% of the energy will be renewable energy sourced from outside

of the state of New Jersey and 28% will be from New Jersey. Energy will be produced in Hoboken through the use of photo-voltaic cells, but solar energy can only satisfy a fraction of the demand that is necessary to power the entire city. Therefore, outside sources such as Aggressive Energy LLC are still necessary.

Although Stevens is a major part of the Hoboken community, Stevens is currently not committing to a 100% renewable pledge. However, Bob Maffia, Stevens’ Vice President for Facilities and Campus Operations, expresses excitement and

“applauds the City of Hoboken and Mayor Ravi Bhalla for making this decision.”

Stevens Facilities and Campus Operations is exploring options regarding the purchase and use of renewable energy as well as reducing energy consumption levels.

There is currently an LED replacement study being performed on campus to find the most economical locations to replace the current fluorescent lights with LED lights, along with occupancy or vacancy sensors. The preliminary results of this study are scheduled to be released in the next few months.

All lights on campus will not be changed to LED due to the reasoning that many buildings on campus are under construction or are scheduled to be under renovation in the near future, but all new renovation projects will include LED lighting and occupancy sensors, which will automatically turn lights on or off based on motion sensing.

“We will continue to focus on using fewer kilowatt hours on campus,” Maffia states. Seen in the combination of initiatives such as LED replacement study and sensors that will turn off lights when not in use,

Stevens is prioritizing creating habits for conserving energy and implementing energy saving techniques.

Currently, Stevens does participate in sustainability initiatives such as electric cars for facilities and the use of energy efficient heating and cooling strategies.

Since January, the City of Hoboken has already implemented similar initiatives and has upgraded municipal buildings to include LED energy efficient lighting and high efficiency heating and cooling systems, saving taxpayers approximately $100,000 per year.

Jessica Driscoll was recently elected chair of the Honor Board.

Photo courtesy of Jessica Driscoll

Brian Rothschild, chapter advisor of the Stevens Beta Gamma Sigma chapter, lead the induction ceremony.

Photo courtesy of Joseph Arney

Features

Friday, March 15, 2019 • Page 4

Behind the Archives Appreciating the work of the Archives and Special Collections department

Above: Colonel John Stevens III built the country’s first locomotive and ran it around a circular track on “The Green” in Hoboken, N.J. He called it “The Steam Wagon” and visitors to Villa Stevens had to batten down their beaver or tuck in their skirts and ride behind the snorting beast.

“John Stevens Pleasure Railway,” in Stevens Digital Collections, Item #577, http://librarycollections.stevens.edu/items/ show/577 (accessed March 14, 2019).

Special thanks to Linda Beninghove, Leah Loscutoff, and Ted Houghtaling for their assistance with this piece.

Edwin A. Stevens. Paintings of Castle Stevens. All of these things

by Matthew Cunningham have value, and yes, all have stoOn the first floor of the Samuel ries. See that boxed samurai mask C. Williams Library, sitting on two over there? That, too, has a story. vintage chairs at the back of the Every picture, every paper, every Mary Stuart Stevens Baird room, artifact — everything, it seems — two staff members looked at each is charged with meaning and is other with excitement as they told essential to the larger narrative stories about Stevens’ history. of Stevens. These artifacts tell “We just met with this alum- us as much about this universinus who had the most interest- ty as they tell us about ourselves. ing stories,” said the female staff the meaning member, letting out a slight gig- Finding gle. “I want to be exactly like him.”

Understanding the stories of all “You know, I found a series of documents that were very fas- of these artifacts wasn’t always as cinating,” said the male staff easy as it is now. It wasn’t until six member, before beginning an years ago that a dedicated job was impassioned monologue about formed to sift through the chaos a member of the Stevens fami- of archives, find some clarity, and ly. His red, curly hair bounced provide order and access to the out of his purple beanie as he historic artifacts of Stevens. This regaled the room with his story. job is often called an “archivist,” They continued to diverge a person tasked with assessing, from one story to the next. When processing, preserving, and mainasked about artifacts in the room, taining control of records and arit sparked a new conversation, chives that have long-term value.

Before the archivist position a new story, that revealed more about the university, its peo- was formed, most artifacts were ple, and its culture. Describing largely left uncatalogued, undocuthe items in the room couldn’t mented. If a researcher or student be done simply. These artifacts, came into the library and requestscattered around the room in ed access to Stevens’ old artifacts, the Library, were indispensable a staff member handled these into the story of Stevens, so their quiries and assisted people as best stories couldn’t be condensed. as they could. Libraries, including Some of the room’s items seem Stevens’, didn’t always have a prolike they might not matter, but fessional staff member dedicated don’t be mistaken. Ornamental to archives; it just wasn’t the norm.

But now, the practice of library peacocks. Tea cups. A portrait of

science has become so advanced that specialized training is needed for people who hope to work with and preserve archives. This form of specialized training requires a master’s degree in library science and often includes a concentration in archives and records management. This advancement in academia, and this new focus and appreciation of archives and records at Stevens, has led to the creation of a permanent archivist position and establishment of the Archives and Special Collections department within the Library.

Leah Loscutoff, six years ago, was chosen to serve as the first Head of Archives and Special Collections. “When I first interviewed here, I was intrigued with the variety of collections and the challenges I would face to bring it all together and gain intellectual control of the department,” she said. She thought the university’s history was fascinating, as most of it had yet to be fully processed or understood. “The archival collections had been more hidden since most had needed to still be processed, which involves arranging and describing the materials to provide access.”

Her first task as head archivist was to create a catalog system, a project to identify and document every item in the archives of Stevens — a project that had been mostly neglected for years since no person had the training to

commit to such a task. It required careful evaluation of each item and tedious labor. When presented with a new object or set of papers, she had to ask, what is this object? When was it acquired?

Who created it? How does it fit into the story of Stevens? Or at least, how does it relate to science, technology, or New Jersey?

And the big question: Why does this object even matter? It is the job of an archivist to process the raw materials of archives and determine their importance.

“That’s what we do on a daily basis,” she said. “We’re not making this stuff up as we go along. It requires training and experience.

We’ve gotten better at collecting and understanding our history.”

What are “Archives” and “Special Collections”?

As the name of her department suggests, Loscutoff oversees two unique aspects of historic materials — one being archives, and the other, special collections.

“The two shouldn’t be confused,” she emphasized. Archives refers mainly to archives of the university. This includes the obvious stuff, like every issue of The Stute since 1904, yearbooks, and pictures documenting life at Stevens. It also includes oral histories, university publications, audiovisual materials, faculty papers, even recordings of commencements.

Features “We just got records from James McClellan,” Loscutoff added. McClellan is a retired history professor who worked in the College of Arts and Letters.

“He was here for forty years.

These records provide an amazing snapshot of history at CAL.” The scope of archives does extend beyond Stevens, though.

History of science and technology in the New Jersey area is preserved, as is artifacts from the Stevens family. “We have a good relationship with them.”

Special collections refers primarily to materials that are unusually rare. At Stevens, special collections include Babylonian cuneiform clay tablets (purchased in 1902 by former Stevens President Alexander Humphreys); rare books, prints, and facsimiles about Leonardo da Vinci; the personal and work-related correspondence of Frederick Winslow Taylor; and the Stevens Family Collection.

Rooms dedicated to da Vinci and Taylor are toured regularly by first-year students, researchers, and people fascinated by the works of these men. “We also have a group from Australia that visits us pretty frequently, almost every summer,” Loscutoff said.

“We also do school tours of our collections,” she added. A recent school group came to the Library to learn about Alexander Calder, a world-renown artist, and Stevens alum. “The kids sat in the Great Hall and drew the mobile in the library.”

“Order matters,” Loscutoff stressed. Take, for example, a folder of meeting minutes for the Student Government Association (SGA). If the SGA donated a folder of minutes, the order in which the papers are organized might make complete sense to the creator; these papers might have been sorted chronologically. But if Loscutoff receives this new acquisition of meeting minutes, she might not know that these are chronologically sorted. Better to preserve the order of an acquisition than disturb it.

One floor up, in a large wing with several open shelves of books, is the reading room.

In it are copies of every Stute, books published by faculty, and other Stevens media. On one shelf is a collection of senior reports published in the early 1900s. Each report is several hundred pages thick, bounded, and well-preserved. One book, however, is clearly more weathered than others. “This is Alexander Calder’s senior report.”

“He wrote about ‘Stationary Steam Turbines,’ and on one of the front pages of the report, you’ll notice that he ‘pledged his honor as a gentleman.’”

Voices from Castle Point

All these documents protected by locked doors and temperature-controlled rooms don’t tell the complete story of Stevens history, though, no matter how ideal that would be. Think about media nowadays. It can tell only a select few stories per day or Cabinets and cabinets and week, and the other stories go cabinets of artifacts undocumented and tend to be forgotten. “We already know we Tucked away in a room on the have a lot of gaps,” said Loscutnorth end of the second floor of off. “We do not have a complete the Library is the location of collection.” Most historians and many of the archives. Stacked archivists acknowledge this isin rows of cabinets are boxes of sue and seek ways to address different artifacts — pictures of and correct it. “That’s why we the Holland Tunnel construc- started recording oral histories.” tion, a box with “Khoda” sharpOral histories require archiied on the side, handwritten let- vists — and more specifically, ters sent by President Alexander Loscutoff — to meet with indiHumphreys. “There’s still plen- viduals who attended or worked ty of work to be done in here,” at Stevens. She asks alumni and Loscutoff said. “This is where former faculty to tell stories that we come in our free time.” wouldn’t have otherwise been When a new artifact is ac- told in print. These stories required by Stevens, it’s coded veal more about the attitudes with a unique identifier, called and emotions felt by individuan “accession number.” Along als in certain time periods. It with this identifier is other in- also allows people whose stories formation like the name of the were precluded from the arperson who gave the artifact, chives to share more about their when the artifact was acquired, experiences here at Stevens. and a description of what it is.

“We want to hear those perThis information takes away the spectives of Stevens that don’t guesswork for people who want get told,” Loscutoff reminded. to explore the archives in the fu- “In particular, we don’t have a ture. “You can’t automate a lot lot of documentation of womof this stuff,” she said. “We ask en at Stevens.” The oral history ourselves, how can we prepare project, called “Voices from Casfor the future? Because we’re tle Point,” was originally creatalso looking centuries ahead.” ed to tell the stories of Stevens When flipping through a women that had been neglectset of letters, Loscutoff added ed. Linda Vollkommer-Lynch, that certain materials require the first tenured female faculty extra care. “All of these docu- and first female athletics coach ments are highly acidic, so we (who stills works at Stevens), use acid-free folders to mitigate recorded an oral history, part the delay of destruction.” Once of which is available online. In acquisitions are cataloged and it, she amused listeners with documented, they are nearly memories of growing up in always kept in the same order Hoboken, participating in a facin which they were received. ulty strike, and meeting Frank

Friday, March 15, 2019 • Page 5

Sinatra. Malena Higuera, the university’s first Latin American woman to graduate, spoke for nearly half an hour on immigrating from Cuba to be admitted in Stevens’ first class of women. Alumnus Martha Connolly shared her memories of an infamous campus prank. The oral history project has since expanded to include both men and women, allowing any interested alumni to share their stories.

Selections from Stevens Digital Collections

Disseminating history Along with efforts to fill in gaps of missing history and efforts to document and understand more of the artifacts, a challenge remains to share this history with the Stevens community. “We want to disseminate this history,” said Loscutoff.

“The instagram serves that purpose on a more superficial level.”

In mid-April of last year, an Instagram account @stevensarchives was created to feature interesting finds from the archives. “We try to schedule most of the posts,” said Ted Houghtaling, archivist and Digital Projects Librarian. “Sometimes, though, the posts are spontaneous. If I’m looking through pictures and notice something interesting, I’ll pull out my phone right there and make a post.”

Each week, new photos of former students from the 19th and 20th centuries or of records from the archives appear on the account’s page and are met with dozens, sometimes hundreds, of virtual “likes” from people who follow the account. “Don’t forget to #vote today,” reads one caption posted on 2018 Election Day, underneath a comic picture of Atilla the Duck holding a “Vote!” sign, drawn by Jim Liberatore in the February 18, 1972 issue of The Stute. “#TBT We’re excited to see the recent renovations to Alexander House!

Here’s a shot of what it looked like around the 1910s,” reads another caption, underneath a picture of the Alexander House.

“The response to the page has been good, I think,” said Houghtaling.

For those who don’t have social media, pop-up exhibits have spawned around the library to engage with students. The current pop-up, located next to the Mary Stuart Stevens Baird room in the Grand Hall, is dedicated to the embroidery industry in North Jersey. The glass exhibit include embroidered armed forces patches, an embroidered wedge shoe, and an embroidered woman’s shoe with lace.

“Soon we’re creating a ‘Game of Thrones’ pop-up exhibit,” Loscutoff said with a smile, explaining that they have a collection of swords that they can connect to the popular HBO TV series.

The outreach of the archives, and the continued processing of archiving materials, has brought plenty of attention to the department. “In the past week alone, we’ve had six separate appointments,” said Beninghove, stressing that the level of engagement between the Library and its us-

Colonel John Stevens III was the son of John and Elizabeth Alexander Stevens, born in New York City on June 26, 1749. “Colonel John Stevens,” in Stevens Digital Collections, Item #589, http://librarycollections.stevens.edu/ items/show/589 (accessed March 14, 2019).

In 1929, William D. Hoxie bequeathed $50,000 for the construction of a residence for presidents of Stevens. At the laying of the cornerstone for Hoxie House, President Herbert Hoover sent his congratulations. “Hoxie House,” in Stevens Digital Collections, Item #802, http://librarycollections.stevens.edu/ items/show/802 (accessed March 14, 2019).

The campus of Stevens continues to evolve. In this illustration, the Stevens campus is shown in an earlier state. “Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey,” in Stevens Digital Collections, Item #602, http://librarycollections. stevens.edu/items/show/602 (accessed March 14, 2019).

ers continues to rise and that the Library is thankful for more people utilizing their services. Most people who enjoy the access of archives and arrange these appointments are researchers seeking out information for their projects. But Houghtaling still emphasized that anyone can access the archives, not just people who are working on doctoral-length theses. “Our first priority is to help people, to help with research, to make sure people can access our archives,” he said. “The biggest misconception is that archives are

closed, that you need a reason to access them. But that’s not how we work. We want to be open.”

“I feel like there is a lot of untapped historical research in our collections and books waiting to be written,” Loscutoff said.

“That to me is exciting. I also love the challenges of establishing new professional standards in the Archives and Special Collections department. It feels rewarding to see the progress and have more folks interested in the history here. That’s part of the reason I love this job so much. I see myself here for a long time.”

Campus Pulse

Friday, March 15, 2019 • Page 6

Roving Reporter Tell me a fun fact.

“People allergic to latex are probably allergic to bananas.”

“The tip of a sholecale is called an aglet.”

“Peacocks can fly.”

Lachlan Mountjoy

Elena Malova

Anton Rotach

“In Alabama, it’s illegal to have an ice cream cone in your back pocket.”

Corinne Dougherty

“The Freedom Tower is 1776 feet tall.”

“Can I come up with something when I’m editing?”

Ryan Callaghan

Audrey Dsouza

Word Search Members of the Board of Trustees

Stephen Boswell Saleel Awsare Lawrence Babbio Thomas Corcoran Philip Crowley John Dearborn Joseph Del Guercio William Destler Joseph DiPompeo Emilio Fernandez Sean Hanlon Matthew Hunt Daniella Kranjac Rainer Martini

Sudoku

Lisa Mascolo Elizabeth Pallone Samuel Reckford Annmarie Rizzo Richard Roscitt Virginia Ruesterholz Ronald Salluzzo John Schepisi Thomas Scholl Olivia Schreiber Frank Semcer, Sr. J. Scott Swensen Victoria Velasco Michael zur Muehlen

IS A LOT FUN, COME JOIN US

Creative Corner

Friday, March 15, 2019 • Page 7

Ephemeral

by Elina Tuder There’s something soothing about a pencil; The lack of permanence, perhaps.

But some day I crave to be a pen: To write with conviction and leave a mark.

Yet for now I keep erasing, Never sure of what to share.

Photo courtesy of Camille Simon-Al-Araji

Photo courtesy of Cole Yarbrough

Visual art courtesy of Natalie Todaro

Photo courtesy of Katie Sorber

Photo courtesy of Camille Simon-Al-Araji

Photo courtesy of Cole Yarbrough

A Siren’s Song

by Elina Tuder Flurries of snow above the skyline; They beckon to me like a siren’s song.

Notes are fading, quicker and quicker; Even faster than the beauty’s scales.

Yet everyone still stops to stare at the crystals, And even more so at what they shroud.

Visual art courtesy of Raden Pak

Opinion

Friday, March 15, 2019 • Page 8

The Stute Editorial

A love letter to The Stute Dear The Stute, Even before orientation, The Stute has always been a constant in my college experience. Starting at Stute Weekend, where I met some of my closest friends, to being a writer to becoming managing editor and then finally becoming Editor-in-Chief, my journey at The Stute is coming to an end. Now, after a year and a half, it is time for a change and new leadership.

Writing my last column is surreal. Yes, I found writing an editorial every week to be frustrating and often struggled to find something to write about. But now that this is my last one, I look back and I feel like I just got the hang of this whole editorial thing and now I have to stop. I will definitely miss having such

a unique platform to write about things that matter to me and having an opportunity to have an impact on people.

The Stute has changed so much since I was a freshman.

We used to cover mostly club events, with perhaps an occasional faculty/staff interview, or cover some sort of larger scale event. Now we have cut back a lot on club pic and blurbs, which used to be our bread and butter. Instead, we cover SGA news, changes in departments, and whatever else is happening at Stevens.

Sure, this has angered a lot of people from the SGA, faculty/staff, and various clubs.

At times, people’s outright hatred towards the newspaper was upsetting. After all, we never write articles with malicious intent, more be-

cause we feel it is important for people to know the information. And yes, sometimes we don’t go about articles the proper way and miscommunication happens, and some people don’t trust The Stute and refuse to talk to us.

Yes, all of that is really frustrating and upsetting. That being said, we also get positive feedback from the Stevens community to keep writing the articles that we are writing, to hold people accountable. You can never make everyone happy, and I also don’t think you should try to. But, I hope that in the future, The Stute and the entire Stevens community can build a relationship of respect, even if it’s not love and adoration (which is totally fine with us). We want to use our platform to “write Ste-

Mind of a Freshman

vens history� and to bring up issues that we feel are important, to bring around change and make Stevens better.

So, to the future e-board, remember that criticism will be coming from left and right, but just keep getting better and don’t shy away from your mistakes or criticism and do whatever you think is best.

To the always present critics, instead of spreading hatred and rumors about The Stute (you know who you are), instead reach out to the organization and voice your concerns, share you criticism.

Stepping down as editor is definitely bittersweet for me.

I don’t envy whoever comes next; it’s a thankless job, and the better you do the more thankless it’s gonna become.

But don’t lose your love for

the organization and all the crazy, wonderful people in it.

(That being said, these crazy, wonderful people will drive you insane, but it’s just a part of their charm.) I keep joking that I’ve had this power for so long, now what am I gonna do? So I’ve got a couple of days to become dictator, and turn my democratic ways around.

It will be a little bit of a challenge to step back and let the new e-board take charge. The Stute has been my baby for so long, and I will miss it dearly. But that being said, I am also excited to see what life is like outside of The Stute.

I will look back fondly on those stressful, late Thursday night layouts (also known as the reason why Maryia lost most of her sanity). I won’t be looking back fondly on the

bloopers channel that would stress me out every Friday. I have really enjoyed my time on The Stute and all of the opportunities that it has brought me. I am so proud to be a part of this organization and publication. But most of all, I’m gonna miss the time spent with my wonderful staff and e-board. Y’all are wonderful and I mean that, even though I would occasionally yell at you. I’m not planning on being a stranger, and I hope you aren’t either. I’m really excited to see all the amazing things you will do in the future.

With all my love,

Maryia Spirydona va

Editor-in-Chief

Senioritis

The waiting game

Money on my mind

years of experience?Nevertheless, I picked my way through hundreds and applied to a total of six that fit my qualities.

So far, I’ve heard back from three out of the six programs that I applied to. One of them, that I actually thought I had a good chance of getting, kindly rejected me with the explanation that they were looking for someone with more experience. Surprise, surprise!

I received an email from another program that they updated their online application portal, and if I was still interested in the internship I should re-submit my application. So I go and look at the updated internship description only to find they are now only looking for upperclassmen.

Now I have to add that this isn’t me being salty towards these companies and their policies; I’m well aware that getting an internship the summer after your freshman year is uncommon. I just wish that I had some kind of set plan for my summer.

The third company I heard back from actually offered me the opportunity to set up an interview to see if I would be a good fit for the internship. Of course I was totally ecstatic, but the com-

ally take much time off work.

By the time I was in middle school, I was helping out with the family’s side business — a small but flourishing shop in Trenton, run primarily by my mom while my dad worked full-time in NYC. During those years, I acquired a whole host of interesting skills. I learned the ins and outs of ordering inventory, the importance of restocking goods on shelves, and of properly gauging demand. Hell, I even worked the front counter, switching from English to nervous-but-passable Spanish to the delight and amusement of any Latino customers lucky enough to coax it out of me. (Thanks, school-mandated languages!)

Most importantly, though, my time there gave me a good grasp of the science and art of making money — and showed me just how fine the line between profit and loss could be.

Still — our family was comfortable. We were making money through our investments and not stressing about cash flow.

For a time, that was enough.

Then, during high school, things took a shift. A major investment went sideways. Virtually overnight, I saw our coffers get drained as our family paid the price for some very careless, very expensive investing mistakes. We were able to recover, of course, but things were tenuous for a while. It was very strange to suddenly go from never having to really think about money to suddenly thinking about money all the time.

So, naturally, the minute I got a ‘real’ job that paid well, I immediately knew that the money wasn’t mine to keep. Not really.

In my mind, I always felt that the majority of my earnings needed to be saved, not spent.

Before buying anything, I’d think: How many hours of work did it take for me to earn this purchase? And then, knowing that: Was it still worth it? Most of the time, I decided, it wasn’t.

As such, I haven’t really made any large, notable purchases. I’ve never bought pricey concert tickets or taken a day trip to a spa. I haven’t traveled anywhere on my own. Hell, I didn’t even get my nails done at a salon until last semester. Last semester!

The highlight of my past summer, spending-wise, was spending $50 at an informal, celebratory happy hour with my co-workers. With 10 of us

by NATALIE TODARO Freshman Music and Technology Major

For the past couple months I’ve been trying to sort out my plans for the summer. My main focus is landing an internship, and I’ve already applied to six different ones. The search for finding one was an obstacle in itself since 80% of internships require applicants to have completed at least one year of their undergraduate studies.

In the small pool of ones that I did find, companies further specified certain levels of experience that applicants had to have. As a freshman, I thought, how am I supposed to get an internship to gain experience when all internships require

pany doesn’t offer “advanced placement� meaning that I have to wait until the beginning of May to contact them again for an interview. I’m extremely grateful that I even heard back from them and that I’ll get my fair shot with an interview, but now is the tough part. The waiting game.

I find that the concept of waiting and living in a kind of unknown, fuzzy cloud is unsettling to not just me but human beings in general. We like to know exactly what is happening at all times, and we often find comfort in knowing a general idea of what the future holds. So when things become vague or foggy, I can definitely tell that I feel more stressed or unsettled.

I’m just in between the lines at this point. I don’t have any set plans, but I have a lead, but it’s not a guarantee, so if I don’t get it I’ll be a little stuck. I’m only a freshman, so I know it’s not the biggest deal. Maybe you can relate if you’re also thinking about summer plans. I really do hope I get something at the very least, even if it is taking lunch orders and cleaning closets.

by NAMANKITA RANA Senior Engineering Management Major

I have a complicated relationship with money. Though, in all honesty, complicated doesn’t even really begin to scratch the surface of it.

So let me just be straightforward and say it — large purchases scare me. Seriously.

I can’t fathom spending over $25 in a single sitting on anything, whether that’s food or clothing or fun times. Maybe I’ve gotten better at hiding it as of late, but there’s an insidious, unshakeable anxiety that still creeps in when I take a look at any bill that exceeds that amount. At that point, I usually have to give myself a quick, internal pep talk. Force myself to swallow down whatever vestigial guilt I’m feeling — even if the spending is on something I actually want or need.

This strange anxiety hasn’t gone unnoticed by those closest to me. My mother has jokingly called me kanjoos (a Hindi word meaning stingy) but that’s not entirely correct, either. I don’t dislike spending money on OTHER people (conversely, I find that I really enjoy it), but I rarely find myself able to muster the courage to spend that sort of money on myself.

No matter what the reason.

Part of it, I’m sure, has to do with my upbringing. Though I’m a first-generation Indian immigrant, I was lucky enough to have been born into a middle-class family. We were never super wealthy, no, but we also never conformed to the usual stereotypes of struggling Indian-Americans having to work at gas stations or 7-Elevens or Dunkin’ Donuts (see Joe Biden circa 2008. Love ya, dude, but not your best look đ&#x;˜Ź).

That said, growing up in an immigrant household came with its own life lessons. I never really saw my parents flaunt any material extravagances, indulge in any crazy spending, or even re-

there, the total bill came out to an impressive $500. Hardly an extravagant amount to spend for a party of our size, especially in New York City, and yet it felt coolly rebellious, in a way. This is what it must be like, I mused, to be young and carefree in the city. For a few moments, I thought I finally wouldn’t feel guilty about what I’d spent. I’d had so much fun, damn it! But of course, the buzz wore off just as quickly as the alcohol did. Just 10 minutes after leaving the bar, I started fretting again, the actual joy of hanging out with people I’d become so close with quickly fading into the background.

That’s the bottom line, really: I don’t know how to spend my money and enjoy it, too. Unlearning things that I’ve always accepted as fact — that’s going to be hard. And truth be told, I don’t think I really understand how much life costs. How rent and bills and needs and wants will factor into the grand scheme of things. I don’t know how to forecast those expenses, how to put a price tag on happiness. Nor do I know how to stop feeling so damn guilty about it.

It’s tough, but I’ve found ways to slowly toe that line.

Bougie Fridays, a joint venture I created with one of my co-workers and closest friends IRL, is probably the most direct way of challenging my views on spending money. The two of us, while we worked together, would generally bring food from home to eat at work. But every Friday, we’d opt to go out for something “bougie� instead, giving ourselves the freedom for one meal to try out a new place and not worry so much about the cost. Exploring the foodie offerings of Jersey City and NYC (and yes, taking pictures of it, too) was a great way to remind myself that it’s okay to splurge every now and then. That an expense here and there on something you really like certainly isn’t the end of the world.

There’s a part of me, subconsciously, that always has and probably always will associate spending money with feeling guilty. But I know this: I deserve to make good money. I also deserve to spend it in a way that I enjoy. Actually putting that into practice will take time, but I have faith that I’ll get there eventually — and hopefully, with some amazing memories and experiences along the way.

O

o n d d n e d w y t , z e s d y d y . d s g , w d d w , p . d . y s t s o d t o ” e y f , s e n n . d e g e t t t e , s .

Opinion

Friday, March 15, 2019 • Page 9

Stars of Stevens

Stars of Stevens

Kelly, the Star!

Kelly McGowan is a fourthyear Visual Arts and Technology major from Little Falls, NJ. She is the founder of the Stevens Poetry club, and she is also a sister of Sigma Delta Tau. Her hobbies include photography, poetry, embroidery, and watching movies.

Kelly has been interested in photography since middle school. Later in high school, she started exploring the Adobe programs, like Photoshop and InDesign. She claims that she has always been stronger at the digital side of art but still loves hands-on crafts, like embroidery, collage-making, and water coloring. Her favorite artist is Pipilotti Rist, a Swiss experiential video and installation artist, and her favorite poem is “Hurling Crowbirds at Mockingbars” by Buddy Wakefield.

One of Kelly’s favorite things about Stevens is the Visual Arts and Technology department. “It’s a small, tight-knit creative community, with an art studio and a lab where I can hide away to get work done,” she says.

“I’ve always felt at home here. I also love how close Stevens is to New York City.

Especially for art students, it’s awesome to have such close access to some of the world’s best art museums.”

While at Stevens, Kelly has had many design projects.

Among her favorites is one in which she hung posters she had designed around the school with envelopes that included poems she had written about self-love. She says, “It was an attempt to brighten strangers’ days and to inspire them to be kinder to themselves.” Another one of her favorite projects was one where she designed the branding for

her own earring company.

Kelly made earrings out of recycled materials such as bottle caps, Legos, and game board pieces. “My current creative endeavor is my senior yearlong capstone project,” she discloses. “I am creating an installation of a bedroom full of objects I make out of sewn and embroidered fabric.”

As a fourth year on the brink of graduation, Kelly has come across a few pearls of wisdom throughout her years as a Visual Arts and Tech major. She has learned that in studio art classes, pursuing projects and concepts that you are really passionate about will make the projects so much more enjoyable to work on. She says that there will be times you feel uninspired and stuck, but that it is important to try to form some habits to get you out of that. She suggests turning to Vimeo or Behance for inspiration, or keeping a daily journal where you can collage, draw, and get the creative juices flowing each day.

Poetry Club has been another way for Kelly to channel her creativity. The creation of the Club was inspired by the OnPoint Music and Arts Festival at Stevens in Fall 2016. “I just wanted that creative energy to continue.” She added, “My high school poetry club

Starring Abby!

was also a big inspiration.

We would meet monthly in the library on Friday nights and take turns reading poetry behind the stacks of books.”

Kelly hopes that the Poetry Club continues to serve as a safe place for students to share their words with each other. She said, “I hope it continues to offer a creative outlet for students to express themselves, especially when they need a break from the stresses of schoolwork.

Our Poetry Nights are also really special, and I hope they continue to hold their magic for years to come.”

Looking to the future, Kelly shares that her ultimate dream job would be a nature photographer for National Geographic or a videographer for Planet Earth. “Traveling the world taking photographs of animals would be the best thing ever,” she exclaims.

“One of my current life goals is to visit 30 countries before I turn 30. I’m 21 and only at 9 countries so I guess I have a lot of traveling to do.”

Among her favorite quotes is this one by Sarah Williams: “I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”

For those interested, Poetry Club meets every other Tuesday at 9 p.m. in Peirce 218.

Photo courtesy of Kelly McGowan

“Stevens has brought me a lot of really cool opportunities and some of my best friends in the world,” said Abby Hulse, a third-year Chemical Biology major from Manchester, NJ. Much of her campus involvement at Stevens revolves around the performing arts. She is an active member of the Stevens Dramatic Society (SDS), President’s Ensemble, Choir, and is a sister of Theta Phi Alpha. Abby is a woman of many talents — she has been involved as an actor, costume designer, production manager, and social media manager. She is currently in this semester’s production of The Drowsy Chaperone and is also co-costume designer. In her free time, Abby enjoys listening to music, playing piano and ukulele, watching Netflix, singing, seeing Broadway shows, hanging out with friends, and exploring Manhattan.

Abby started singing when she was in kindergarten. “I decided I wanted to join my church’s youth choir, not because I wanted to sing, but because I wanted to wear the choir robes they wore,” she recounts. “I sang with my church choirs from kindergarten until I left for college, and sometimes I’ll sing with them when I go back home.” In sixth grade, she started theater. “When I got to middle school, I decided I wanted to join a club, so my dad encouraged me to join the drama club because of my love for singing,” she explained.

With her parents’ support, Abby stuck with drama club and ended up joining her town’s community theatre program.

She adds, “I’ve been involved in theatre ever since then.”

When Abby was in high school, she wanted to be involved in the drama club but was also on the bowling team,

and being on the team conflicted with rehearsals. She ended up making a compromise and chose the bowling team over the drama club and joined her community theatre in the summer. She adds, “But as much as I loved bowling, a part of me really wished I could have been in the shows at my high school.

When I started college, I decided I’d make up for what I missed out on in high school by getting more involved in the arts here.”

Abby admits, “I’m involved in a lot here at Stevens, and at times, it can be really hard to balance everything. Time management is crucial. Google Calendar and Wunderlist have helped me keep track of all the things I have to get done and all the places I have to be.”

Along her musical journey, Abby has had many inspirational and encouraging people by her side, especially her parents. She says, “My dad was the one who taught me to sing, and he passed his love of theatre on to me. Both of my parents have been incredibly supportive of every single thing I’ve done (both in performing arts and life in general), and I can’t thank them enough for that.” She adds, “I learned so much about acting from two directors I’ve worked with at Stevens — Mark Cirnigliaro and Bethany Reeves — and I’m really grateful to have had the opportunity to work with them.”

Some of Abby’s favorite shows include Natasha, Pierre, and the

Photo by Cole Yarbrough Great Comet of 1812 and Once on this Island. She also has come to enjoy the soundtrack from The Bridges of Madison County, saying, “The score is absolutely gorgeous.” In addition to her love of showtunes, she also likes to listen to classic rock, especially The Beatles, The Eagles, Billy Joel, and Pink Floyd, as well as singer-songwriter/pop like Ed Sheeran, 5SOS, Kacey Musgraves, Shawn Mendes, and Little Mix. If she could play the lead in any show, Abby would choose Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof, Rose in Dogfight, and Natasha in Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812. At Stevens, she has already been able to play two of her dream roles — the Baker’s Wife in Into the Woods and Wendla in Spring Awakening.

With two years left at Stevens, Abby has big goals after graduation. She hopes to work as a forensic chemist. She adds, “That’s the practical goal. I’d also love to be on Broadway, but the odds of that actually happening are pretty slim.”

The Stars of Stevens

by Mia Hildebrandt Featuring Stevens Students in the Arts! Performing arts, music, concert band, choir, art and technology programs — there are many Stars at Stevens to learn more about.

Scientific Curmudgeon

Should Reality Make Us Glad or Sad?

by JOHN HORGAN CAL Professor

I’ve been brooding over the pros and cons of facing reality again. When we see reality, assuming that’s possible, how should we feel?

And when I say reality I mean Reality, Ultimate Truth, the way things really are. Below I consider three possibilities.

1: Reality Should Make You Glad Buddha and other sages have assured us that reality should make us happy,

no matter what the circumstances of our lives. And not just happy but serene, blissful, immune to the pains that afflict ordinary folk.

This is the state known as enlightenment, nirvana, awakening. You plunge into the timeless cosmic consciousness underlying the flux of ordinary mortal existence, and you feel fantastic.

According to Plato, when you escape the cave of delusion and step into the incandescent realm of eternal forms, you’ll feel a little pain at first, as your eyes adjust to the light. But then you will be overcome with rapture.

When you go back inside the cave and tell your benighted buddies what you’ve seen, they might think you’re nuts and kill you. But you’ll die happy, as Plato’s mentor Socrates supposedly did.

Spinoza agreed that real happiness comes not from ephemeral things but from contemplating God, which

he equated not with the emotional, judgmental, personal deity of the Bible but with the impersonal, rational order of nature. Happiness, you might say, results from worshipping quantum mechanics, relativity, the theory of evolution, and the second law of thermodynamics, which will never let you down.

2: Reality Should Make You Sad From another perspective, which unfortunately strikes me as more rational, all happiness is delusional, because we are mortal and hence doomed to lose everything we love. Dwelling on the second law of thermodynamics, far from filling you with joy, should make you despair. In an expanding cosmos, we’re headed for heat death, an eternity of cold, dark nothing, which renders everything that we do now meaningless and absurd.

Camus compared us to

join the stute !!! you’ll learn a lot and grow as a person! also free pizza and snacks helps

the mythological figure Sisyphus, whom the Gods doom to roll a rock to the top of a mountain, only to have it roll to the bottom again, over and over, endlessly. At least Sisyphus lives forever.

We, in a Godless cosmos, have no such assurance.

And to a hard-core materialist, mystical bliss, like that reported by Buddha, Plato, and others, is a quirk of biochemistry with no revelatory power. In Varieties of Religious Experience, William James pointed out that many mystical experiences are “diabolical” and “pessimistic.” James explained that “instead of consolations we have desolations; the meanings are dreadful; and the powers are enemies to life.”

These dark epiphanies are usually dismissed as products of insanity. But why, James asked, should we give credence only to heavenly visions and not hellish ones?

Good question. Novelist/

philosopher Rebecca Goldstein, a subject of my book Mind-Body Problems, was raised as an Orthodox Jew. Although she became an atheist, she misses the consolation of faith in a loving God. When I asked if knowledge brings happiness, Goldstein replied, “It hasn’t been my personal experience.”

3: Reality Should Make You Glad and Sad Maybe options one and two are both true. Maybe when we see things as they really are, we should somehow feel glad and sad, grateful and despondent, ecstatic and terrified at the same time. Ann Shulgin, a psychotherapist I interviewed 20 years ago for a book on mysticism, pointed out this possibility to me.

I asked her which response to reality she considers truer, ecstatic connectedness or terrifying alienation?

“The place I think the Buddhists try and get you

to,” Shulgin responded, “is right on the knife edge between the two. That’s where the truth is… The laughing Buddha is your best guide.

What the heck is he laughing about? You can’t explain that logically, but you can get into that state. And the final answer you’re looking for is the knife edge, because both exist: that terrible darkness, and that absolute life.”

I have good moments and bad ones. Maybe some day, like a flipped penny that lands on its edge, I’ll end up, through sheer luck, on the knife-edge between good and bad. Or maybe I’ll just become more content with flopping from one side of the blade to the other, the way I have been all my life.

John Horgan directs the Center for Science Writings, which is part of the College of Arts & Letters. This column is adapted from one originally published on his Scientific American blog, “Cross-check.”

GBMs are Tuesdays at 9:30 in the office 7th floor Howe Center

Opinion

Friday, March 15, 2019 • Page 10

Campus Liberal

Nevertheless, we persist

by JOSEPH DOLAN Freshman Cybersecurity Major

One year ago, it was 10 a.m. and hundreds of my fellow high schoolers and I stood outside in the bone-chilling cold. One of my classmates read a list of 17 names. They were the victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas Shooting one month prior. On that same day, millions of other Americans, from elementary school students to seniors in high school like me, walked out of school at 10 a.m., the same time the gunman opened fire. Some were braver than me. My school’s administration supported the walkout.

At other schools, students faced threats of suspension if they left class. They still walked out. At some schools, only one student walked out. A group of fifth graders in Virginia handed out their own press packets to the media in attendance.

I’m not going to lie to you, after the shooting in Parkland I was pretty despondent. I thought that there was no hope of genuine gun control legislation being passed in America. With the power of NRA lobbying, I figured we all may as well lie down and rot. Yes, this was an incredibly toxic and lethargic attitude, but it’s how I really felt at the time. And then, something strange happened. People weren’t giving up. Parkland students were speaking up online, even going as far as to attack poli-

ticians that they felt were indirectly responsible for the deaths of their classmates.

Eventually, the social media buzz from Parkland students morphed into real life action, and I heard about the national school walkout about a week after the shooting happened. My best friend, one of the smartest, bravest, and kindest women I know, took point on planning the walkout in our school. While I knew I would walk out, I still felt uncertain. In order to keep my nihilistic mindset going, I had to convince myself that this was just a flash in the pan, and all of the gun legislation hype would die out after this. And then, the walkout went off without a hitch, and it was beautiful and inspiring. I suddenly began to understand that people weren’t just going to lie down and rot like me. They were going to fight for what they believed was right.

When my best friend invited me to the first meeting of our county’s Students Demand Action chapter that she had started up, I attended and kept attending. I helped plan events and fundraisers, and we did good work to raise awareness and register people to vote in our county.

I never felt better than spending the end of my senior year of high school helping to work on something that really mattered. I’ll never forget how one of the greatest tragedies was able to be turned into a powerful youth movement. I’ll always remember the late nights I spent researching firearms legislation in my state so that I could help to educate my classmates. I may have graduated, but I still want to shout out Students Demand Action Essex; personal friends of mine still run the group, and they do great work. While many on the right believed that our movement was about coming to steal people’s guns and rescind the Second

Amendment, I hope whoever is reading this column knows that isn’t the case. At the end of the day, all we wanted was to feel safe. We wanted dangerous loopholes like the Boyfriend Loophole (a loophole that only bars convicted domestic abusers from purchasing firearms if they were married to their victim, which excludes boyfriends and stalkers) closed.

We wanted common sense gun legislation, so that we never have to go to class fearing for our lives again. We’re going to keep fighting to make America a safer place, because for some of us, it’s a matter of life and death.

P.S. Credit absolutely must go where credit is due.

Student activists in often-ignored cities like Chicago have been fighting for safer gun legislation for years.

Never forget the intersectionality of the struggle.

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Campus Conservative

Gun Control: Have we learned anything?

by ALEX MURTAGH Junior Civil Engineering Major

It has been roughly one year since the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, one of the deadliest mass shootings in the history of the United States. The atrocity left 14 children and 3 adults dead, and many more injured.

At the moment, gun-related crimes that steal the headlines have been quiet, which is a good thing, but have any local, state, or federal legislators had anything to do with that? While I couldn’t find any information about local gun law changes, changes made on the state and federal levels are well-documented. The majority of these changes have worked to restrict gun access for people under the age of 18 and anyone deemed “mentally defective,” both issues related to the school shooter. While I think the intentions of all these new laws are good, I think they ignore a few key facts.

First of all, as citizens of the United States, we all have the right to bear arms. A right protected by the Second Amendment. It’s important to understand the difference between a right and “right” according to politicians on the left. According to Benjamin Franklin, “Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.” Essentially the rights that we have defined in our Constitution are

based on the idea our rights aren’t something earned by the people from the government.

Rather, our rights should be protected by the government because they are fundamental to who we are as humans.

So how does this apply to the Second Amendment? Well, the idea is that you have the right to defend yourself and your freedoms. The word freedoms is key here because it allows us to bear arms in defense of our freedoms from tyrannical governments and other entities that seek to infringe upon our rights.

Now I know what reasonable people are going to say: “But we don’t have a tyrannical government.” At the moment, yes, this is true, but this may not always be the case.

After all, many liberals compare Trump to a dictator who threatens our rights. Doesn’t that qualify the government as tyrannical in their eyes?

What isn’t a right is the idea that we should all have free health care or housing. This would imply that if you are a doctor, I could force you to take care of me for free and never have to pay you for your services because that’s my right. Or, in the case of housing, a builder who takes months to build a house and isn’t paid for the labor or material. Basically, your rights can’t trump someone else’s rights.

So, why I am I saying all this? Because taking someone’s guns away without due process, a.k.a. them appearing in court before a judge and being deemed unfit by a trial by their peers, violates our Constitution. I agree that guns need to be kept or taken away from mentally unstable people, but they still have rights as people.

Also, the idea that raising the age limit to purchase guns from 18 to 21 will make someone more or less fit to handle a gun is nonsense. It is simply a red herring for many. Many mass shooters under the age of

18 obtained their guns illegally. The case of Stoneman Douglas is an exception, mainly due to the failure of government to follow due process, which I talked about in an article written in the weeks following the shooting. Many point to statistics collected by the Department of Justice in 2011 saying that 18 to 24-year-olds commit more gun crimes than older groups. True, but they also have the highest victimization rate. I believe this can largely be attributed to gang violence because homicides involving guns are disproportionately committed by gang members who typically fall into this age range. So, perhaps a better way to curb overall gun crime would be to keep guns out of the hands of gang members? This statement in and of itself deserves its own article to further justify, but let’s go with this premise for now.

Aside from gang members, who use guns to kill other gang members, those who have fired a gun have tremendous respect for the weapon and do not take the power lightly. Anyone who is 18 or 21 will have the same respect for that weapon across the board. Plus, this is denying someone a constitutional right because of their age. Many compare the age limit to the drinking age, but consuming alcohol is not a right. Additionally, what about all the young men and women who serve in the military and are trusted to handle more sophisticated firearms in combat, but not at home for self-defense?

At the very least, there should be an exception made there.

So, back to the premise of this opinion piece: Have we learned anything? I would argue maybe. We’re not looking at the perpetrators themselves, but rather characteristics so common that these laws make it harder for law-abiding citizens to buy guns to defend against those who don’t abide by the law.

Letter to the Editor

To those in elected positions:

by AUDREY DSOUZA

As club e-board election season will soon begin again, I ask that those who are running for the first time and those who are up for re-election consider only two things: One, take care of yourself.

Taking care of yourself is the most important responsibility you have that comes before any club or fraternity work you do.

You will not be able to deliver your best if you don’t first take care of your health, your mind, your family, and your happiness. There should be other people in your club you can rely on.

If there aren’t, there is a problem — whether it be internal conflicts, not enough interest in the subject, or you assuming

too much responsibility and not sharing, there is an underlying issue that needs to be resolved.

Two: Pursue elected positions because you want to better the organizations you serve. It’s exciting to say you’re on the e-board, that you’re the president, that you’re on a cabinet. But take a step back and first look deep inside yourself for the reason you’re running or are in a position.

As an elected official, you have a large responsibility. People voted for you because they believed that you would represent them the best. To thank them, you must work diligently and selflessly, always looking after the interests of those that you work with and those you serve. If you don’t have a passion for the organization you’re

in and for the people you work with, this will be hard. You have a greater responsibility than your own interests, which could include improving your resume, gaining more power, or feeling better about yourself.

People will count on you to do your best work, and if you’re only in it for yourself then you’re letting them down. Your eyes and ears will be closed to larger objectives like helping others learn or helping your organization grow. You become complacent, and would rather listen blindly to people above you than work with them to find a win-win solution by asking questions or sharing new ideas. “That’s how we’ve always done it,” is something an officer like this would say, because they would rather choose the

path that has worked before and requires the least effort.

Rather than being that person, you may find your club experiences more valuable and results more fruitful if you look for ways to improve yourself, complete your best work, and surround yourself with people that can keep you in check.

I am not the best student leader on campus, nor am I really well-known. However, this year I’ve been lucky to have been on two great e-boards that support me to do my best, challenge me to think beyond what I know, and do things I would not have come up with by myself.

And the thing is, both of them were not that way previously.

There were people that were only leaders in name, people that didn’t prioritize communi-

cation and the interests of members, were selfish and refused to take on roles or complete tasks that were outside of the direct responsibilities of their title.

Speaking from experience, with those type of people on your e-board, your club is sure to fail.

To those in elected positions, those aiming to be in elected positions, and those who were removed from elected positions: Think deeply about why you’re in the organization you’re in. If the reason has to do with you and you alone, then maybe you shouldn’t be on an e-board. To be on a team, you need to see beyond your self-interest and work with others to achieve a goal, a goal that you can all agree on. Someone who is only in it for themselves will not want to collaborate or find

the best way. They won’t actively look for new solutions, but only troubleshoot problems after they blow up and honestly consider it a chore.

To those voting: Know which qualities you want in your candidates. Choose the people who always deliver what they promise, who try to be helpful in ways outside their immediate role, and who put in the work when no one else wants to. People who push themselves to be more helpful every day are not only inspiring, but are the true leaders. They do it because they care more about the organization than themselves or the recognition.

With that, I wish you and your organizations a happy spring break and the best of luck during unified elections.

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Opinion

Friday, March 15, 2019 • Page 11

The Stute Music Review

Off the Press

Sigrid, the Next Big Pop Singer, Delivers Are you a Stevens on Debut Album Sucker Punch Student?

by CHRISTIAN BONAVITA Sophomore Chemical Engineering Major

The name “Sigrid” may not be instantly recognizable on campus, or at all in America for that matter, but in Europe, Sigrid Solbakk Raabe is on a first-name basis with pop fans and is widely considered the next superstar. With slow-burning, platinum-selling hit “Strangers,” Sigrid is inescapable in the U.K. but rather unknown here. However, with her debut album, Sucker Punch, Sigrid makes her claim for pop world-dominance.

While Sucker Punch lacks the cohesive thread of a proper concept project, Sigrid instead elected to create a collection of songs that defines this moment in pop music, showing concise but personal lyrics and a great natural ear for surprising mel-

odies. Sigrid has created the perfect spring pop playlist.

Sigrid’s style is pop, but her ability to subtly elevate her music with a bit of extra creativity sets her apart from others in the genre. “Sight of You,” a song about touring, features a backing string part, and when the arrangement gives a second or two for the strings to breathe just before the first chorus, the break from the otherwise fast-paced track is unexpected and welcome. In another example, after an excellent bridge in “Basic,” which is modern pop perfection, the penultimate chorus suddenly turns lo-fi; the arrangement backs off and a guitar and Sigrid’s bare voice are front and center, sounding organic and like they’re singing playing across the room from listeners. In a streaming culture where instant-gratification is rewarded, so few pop artists would attempt to break the momentum of a song in such a way, but doing just that makes Sigrid sound even more refreshing, and places her above most other solid pop debuts.

Sigrid’s approach to a pop-breakup song updates Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” or “Dancing on My Own” in its juxtaposition between the happy and sad, and again el-

evates Sucker Punch. While most pop breakup songs adopt a tone of either tear-jerking sadness or ‘f*** you,’ Sigrid explores the gray area between the two. “Strangers” places the heartbreak of realizing love is not like in the movies against the most rapidly vibrating synth of 2019 so far, creating a “crying while dancing” vibe that is just so necessary sometimes. Album highlight “In Vain” navigates placing too much faith in a relationship that ends up being unreciprocated, but explodes into a banger while Sigrid’s cracking voice switches from sadness to anger and back.

Add a bridge where Sigrid playfully repeats “give it give it up,” and the extent of her songwriting is revealed; juxtaposing the complicated verses with such a simple bridge, and similarly, the softness of the verses with the eruption of synths later on creates a mix of emotions seldom found in most of mass-appealing pop.

In addition to writing smart love songs, since breakout hit “Don’t Kill My Vibe,” Sigrid has displayed the ability to write pop songs that assert her autonomy and identity against adversity. In “Don’t Kill My Vibe,” Sigrid turned her experiences of feeling belittled by

older men in the music industry into a protest song, singing, “You shut me down, you like the control / You speak to me like I’m a child / … I know the answer / … You feel threatened by me.” This trend continues on Sucker Punch with “Business Dinners,” a glitchy pop track that, amazingly, manages to fit the term “business dinners” seamlessly into its chorus. Avoiding clichés and pitfalls that many artists fall into while writing songs about ownership of self, like being too preachy or general, Sigrid blends important messages with exciting production and music to stay above the average pop star.

Sucker Punch places Sigrid in the pantheon of pop’s rising stars, and although it is not a career-defining pop album like 21 or Melodrama, it shows her penchant for writing engaging songs that are more than just playlist fodder.

Sigrid herself described Sucker Punch as a time-capsule, or a collection of songs that define the last two years of her life, which explains why each song serves as a descriptive but isolated vignette of a part of Sigrid’s life. If you’re a fan of synth-pop, check out this album for the most exciting debut of the year so far.

by OFF CENTER

Are you a true duck or a wannabe waterfowl? Find out by taking the official Stevens Quiz!

1. You know all the names of the Pierce employees 2. You’ve taken an AMAZING NYC skyline picture from Castle Point 3. You’ve attended an event you don’t even know the name of just for the free food 4. You’ve pet Martini 5. You’ve set a sprinting world record for trying to catch the Red Line from Babbio 6. You still call it a swipe, not a Duck Card 7. You’ve missed two or more Convocations 8. You’ve pulled an all-nighter trying to finish your design lab 9. You know the names of all the individual lawns on campus 10. You’ve overslept on the day you were supposed to register for classes 11. You’ve seen an actual duck on campus 12. You’ve had your brain melted by Diff EQ 13. You know how many floors are in Howe off the top of your head 14. You’ve wrapped one or more presents in The Stute 15. Hoboken feels like home to you If you answered yes to 11 of these questions, please reach out to your local authorities immediately.

Ducks and every other member of the anatidae family have a long-standing ban from the property of Stevens Institute of Technology. This is due to a lengthy contractual agreement with Attila the Duck. He demanded that not a single duck set webbed foot on campus so that he may reign supreme as the champion bird

of all 55 acres of Stevens.

When asked to comment on the ban, Attila gave a thumbs up and did a little dance. It was very endearing, but not especially enlightening. When asked whether he’d consider lifting the ban in coming future, Attila gave us a high five and kind of just wandered off.

The duck ban shows no signs of being repealed in the near, or even distant, future. So until that day comes, stay vigilant and report any campus duck sightings.

Passion for Fashion

In Fear of God We Trust

by DANIEL KANG Sophomore Biomedical Engineering Major

The American high fashion label Fear of God was founded

by Jerry Lorenzo in 2013. The religious imagery, ’90s grunge, and contemporary hip-hop, combined with layering and oversized proportions, consistently deliver classical, comfortable takes on all-American staples such as the hoodie, flannel, jeans, sweats, varsity jacket, and more. The self-taught designer’s Christian faith drives much of his work, as evidenced by the name, but in no way is it meant to be ironic. Lorenzo himself said the name comes from a deep reverence for the Lord and, on the other hand, not knowing Him and the fear associated with being separated from an all-powerful being.

As the son of former Major League Baseball Manager Jerry Manuel, Lorenzo had worked for the Los Angeles Dodgers and managed former Dodgers All-Star Matt Kemp right after college. While looking for pieces that would fit Kemp, Lorenzo could not find anything to his liking. He started experimenting with elevating clothing that was refined and not too dressy.

During this time, he was also the host of JL Nights, a thriving LA club that was visited by many entertainers and was able to build many important

relationships. Thus began the entirely self-funded journey for Fear of God, endorsed by A-list celebrities including David Beckham, Rihanna, Beyoncé, and Gigi Hadid today. Big Sean first wore one of his outfits and then Kanye West noticed, flew Manuel out to Paris, and then hired him on the spot. Working on Kanye’s A.P.C. collaboration, Yeezus tour merch and Kanye’s Yeezy Adidas footwear line changed Lorenzo’s life. He claims that Kanye’s single “Jesus Walks” gave him the courage to start his own brand. Everything came full circle when Kanye wore Fear of God ripped denim jeans at the 2016 Met Gala defying the white tie dress code.

Jerry Lorenzo has also designed wardrobes for many tours, including pop artist Justin Bieber’s worldwide Purpose tour in 2016, Grammy-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN tour in 2017, and Janet Jackson’s State of World tour in 2017. Bieber notably sold an old tour shirt of Marilyn Manson’s at Barneys New York and reinterpreted it as his own merchandise with the phrase “Bigger than Satan” and his name in goth metal script on the back of the T-shirt. Lorenzo’s extensive personal collection of rare vintage rock band tees has been well documented, so it is no surprise to see him incorporate those themes into his broader portfolio. Kendrick got fitted with a custom black satin baseball coach’s jacket with his last name on the back in white lettering. He was also gifted a yellow Fear of God tracksuit paying homage to Bruce Lee. Jay-Z also teamed up with Lorenzo for an exclusive release of clothing for his 2017 Grammy-nominated album 4:44 at Maxfield LA. The collection and album reference the Bible verse John 4:44 which states, “A prophet is with-

out honor in his own country.”

Fear of God has previously collaborated with brands such as mastermind JAPAN, Union LA, CLOT, Maxfield LA, Warren Lotas, Kendrick Lamar, New Era, and more. Last year, Fear of God auctioned off a cast-only Black Panther jacket for $1500 at an event following New York Fashion Week’s “Welcome to Wakanda” show. All proceeds went to charity called Save the Children.

Among Fear of God’s more well-known and affordable collaborations were with Pacsun in 2015 and Vans in 2016 to release hyped models of the Old Skool Vans. For the first drop, they released the Vans Era 95. For the second drop, they released 3 different models: Authentic, Mountain Edition, Style 147 Slip-On. Fear of God’s all-over repeating print is the signature look on these shoes. Each shoe came in two colorways: red/black and black/ white. The Vans Era 95 still rank in my top 3 best Vans of all time.

Most notably, his biggest collaboration ever was with Nike on two performance basketball shoes called the Nike Air Fear of God 1 (retail $350) and the Nike Air Fear of God Shoot Around (retail $300), which released on December 15 in Black and on January 16 in Light Bone. The shoes were in development for two-and-a-half years and Lorenzo’s 6th FOG collection was developed alongside it, which explains their appearance in the 6th Collection lookbook video.

Echoes of his luxury sneakers for FOG can be seen in his Nike collaboration. He also created 10 pieces of apparel for the collection meant to be for players before and after they step on the court. There are other colorways being released this summer: Orange Pulse, Frosted Spruce, and Amarillo (Yellow). Jerry Lorenzo was spotted rocking

Jerry Lorenzo wearing Fear of God coach jacket and baseball jersey, photography by Brad Torchia for MR PORTER the eye-catching yellow colorway on the Complex show with musician John Mayer, presumably to celebrate the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team. The shoes are meant to be basketball shoes and have been worn on the court most notably by LeBron James and Houston Rockets small forward PJ Tucker.

I’m glad that Jerry designed a brand-new silhouette, especially a basketball sneaker, instead of modifying an existing silhouette. Having the option to design for football or baseball, he chose basketball because of sneaker culture and streetwear’s roots in the sport starting in 1985, when Michael Jordan momentously stepped on the court in his first signature sneaker, the Air Jordan 1, that inspired a generation of creatives. This comes at a game-changing time, since the NBA recently announced in August that it would remove all color restrictions on sneakers for the first time in history.

No stranger to generosity and basketball, Lorenzo gave back to his high school, Wellington High, by delivering the highly coveted Air Fear of God 1 Light Bone for free to both the boys’ and girls’ basketball teams. Jerry was a 1995 alum and former

high school basketball player, which holds even more significance in light of the generous donation. In the past, he has also donated Fear of God sneakers that cost $1095 and two truckload’s worth of his brand’s wares and water to the homeless on LA’s Skid Row. He also teased different unseen colorways of the high-top sneaker model on his Instagram meant for his alma mater, Florida A&M University.

According to Lorenzo, the neon green and orange colorways meant for the HBCU’s athletic teams are among 20 to 30 colorways that he sampled during the process and some will see the light of day while others will remain in the dark. Anyway, it is always exciting to see a glimpse of a designer’s thought process.

Lorenzo also had the 1992 silhouette of the Nike Air Skylon II releasing in both Black and White. The shiny Swoosh and leather lining make for a subtle, luxurious shoe. There will be a Light Bone colorway releasing this year too. And as part of the FOG Essentials F/W 2018 line, Lorenzo also released a Fear of God Converse Chuck 70 High in “Black” and “Natural” with a contrasting leather tongue, rubber toe cap, and co-brand-

ed license plates. The elongated white laces that wrap around the ankle collar are a nice nod to Converse purists. That is not all Jerry has planned with the Swoosh for 2019. There will be an Air Fear of God Moccasin retailing for $170 and an Air Fear of God 180 retailing for $190.

Fear of God’s 6th collection that finally dropped in January featured actor and singer Jared Leto. 6th collection literally means Lorenzo’s 6th collection because he does not abide by the traditional fashion calendar where brands regularly release product each season (Spring/ Summer, Fall/Winter). The standout pieces of the collection are clearly the outerwear as Lorenzo hits the mark. The neutral tones and western prairie vibes continue the brand’s solid run. As an independent designer, I hope to see even more phenomenal work. Of course, there will always be the haters who doubt Lorenzo’s religious beliefs or are upset with his lifting other designers’ work for his own. However, you cannot deny that he has turned fashion on its head and accomplished quite the rise from preorder-only Fear of God collections to sold out Nike collaborations. Bless up.

Sports

Friday, March 15, 2019 • Page 12

Softball Welcomes New Paltz for 2019 Season Opener

ON DECK IN SPORTS

Friday MEN’S VOLLEYBALL

VS Bard College 7 p.m.

Hoboken, NJ

Saturday MEN’S VOLLEYBALL Stevens Sports Information

SSI - The Stevens Institute of Technology softball team welcomes New Paltz to Weehawken Waterfront Park tomorrow, March 13 for a doubleheader at 3 P.M. and 5 P.M. to begin the 2019 season. This will be the first meeting between the two team since March 15, 2010, where the Ducks fell 17-3 to the Hawks.

Stevens finished the 2018 campaign with an overall record of 21-13, including a 2-1 victory over No. 6 Moravian College. The Ducks ended their season with a loss to Alfred University in their second game of the Empire 8

Conference championship.

Juniors Samantha Schattin and Abigail Circelli will join senior Christine LaRochelle in serving as team captains.

Schattin ended last season with First Team All-Empire 8 honors after leading the team with 24 runs scored and eight stolen bases. The Princeton Junction, New Jersey native registered 38 hits and 10 RBI, which ranked second and fourth on the team, respectively.

Circelli tallied a career-high 11 putouts against Susquehanna University on April 29. The junior captain finished her second season on

Castle Point with a .969 fielding percentage, three hits, two runs and an RBI. LaRochelle pitched 106.2 innings in 2018 and struck out 53 batters. The Somerset, New Jersey native recorded a 1.71 ERA, ranking second on the team and third in program history. LaRochelle was named to Second Team All-E8 to cap off her junior season.

Sharing time on the mound with LaRochelle will be senior Marissa Cappello. The right handed pitcher was named to Second Team All-Empire 8 and the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Division III All-Northeast Region

Team. Cappello completed her 2018 campaign with a 1.62 ERA to lead the Ducks and finish second in program history. The Biomedical Engineering major struck out 105 batters on the year, which is the fourth highest single-season strikeouts in program history.

Sophomore Madison Gemma returns to the lineup for Stevens after being the go-to cleanup hitter in the 2018 season. Gemma started 27 of 31 games played and collected 10 doubles, which ties for fourth most in Stevens softball history. The Fairfield, New Jersey native ended her

rookie year with 23 hits, nine runs, five RBI and one homer.

The Ducks will travel to Plant City, Florida for Spring Break where they will face New York University, Messiah College, Babson College, Oswego State and The College of New Jersey between March 16-19. Stevens begins Empire 8 play on March 30 as they travel to St. John Fisher College for a doubleheader.

The team welcomes four newcomers for head coach Emily Kaczmarek’s second season at the helm of the program.

Women’s Volleyball Announces Summer Student-Athlete Experience Camp SSI - Head women’s volleyball coach Annie McShea has announced the program’s Summer Student-Athlete Experience Camp, which will be held July 18-21 in Canavan Arena.

Open to incoming high school freshman through rising high school seniors, camp participants will get the opportunity to experience four days of volleyball training and skill development. The student-athletes will get to experience the environment that mimics a typical four-day period in the program.

Participants will have the opportunity to not only develop as players and teammates, but the camp experience is designed to help each student-athlete learn the importance of interacting and building relationships off the court as well.

Camp participants will receive the full collegiate experience: from eating in Stevens’

dining halls and living in the campus dorms to using the university’s varsity locker rooms and athletic facilities. Participants will also be trained and coached by Stevens’ athletic staff and personnel, while getting to learn about the different academic offerings from current professors. Meals will be provided on all four days and an athletic trainer will be on-site for each session. While a camp package that includes housing is available, commuters are also welcome to participate (Please note: Breakfast is not available for commuters!).

On the final day of the camp, an optional full-campus tour of Stevens is available along with a question and answer panel with current women’s volleyball student-athletes. There is also an opportunity for camp participants to have optional individual meetings with the

Stevens Sports Information

coaches on the final day of the experience.

The cost for the four-day camp is $550 for overnight participants and $450 for commuters. There will be designated check-in/check-out times and locations available for commuting campers.

The Stevens Institute of Technology women’s volleyball

program has won six consecutive Empire 8 Conference regular season championships and has reached the NCAA Tournament Regional Final in two of the last five seasons. In 2018, two Ducks received Honorable Mention All-America status by the American Volleyball Coaches Association and five players earned spots on the E8 All-Con-

ference teams, including freshman Elizabeth Chu, who was named the conference’s Libero of the Year. A Stevens women’s volleyball player has earned E8 Player of the Year honors four times over the last seven seasons and the program’s coaching staff has received Staff of the Year honors in each of the last six seasons.

Opponent/Event

Score

Result

3/8 3/8 3/8 3/8 3/9 3/9 3/9 3/9 3/9 3/9 3/9

Men's Track & Field Women's Track & Field Wrestling Men's Volleyball Women's Track & Field Women's Fencing Wrestling Men's Volleyball Men's Lacrosse Men's Fencing Women's Lacrosse Men's Volleyball

VS NCAA DII Indoor Championship VS NCAA DII Indoor Championship VS Day One VS Marymount University VS NCAA DII Indoor Championship VS NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional VS Day Two VS Alvernia University VS Tufts University VS NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional

Complete Complete Complete 3-1 Complete Complete Complete

N/A N/A N/A W N/A N/A N/A W

3/10

VS Haverford College 1 p.m.

Haverford, PA

SOFTBALL VS New York University 1:15 p.m.

Plant City, Fla

VS Sewanee: The University of the South 3 p.m.

Stevens

Baseball Baseball

MEN’S LACROSSE

WOMEN’S LACROSSE

Date

3/9

VS RV St.Joseph’s College 12 p.m.

New York. NY

VS Messiah College 3:30 p.m.

Plant City, Fla

Duck Country Scoreboard

3/9

VS Hunter College 10 a.m.

New York, NY

VS Rowan University VS Hiram College VS Middlebury College VS SUNY Cortland

3-0 17-19 Complete 6-17 3-0 5-4 4-7

L N/A L W W L

Stevens Sports Information

BASEBALL VS NR/RV Tufts University 4 p.m.

Newport News, VA

WOMEN’S TENNIS VS Hamline University TBA Orlando, FL

FOR MORE INFORMATION, HEAD TO: STEVENSDUCKS.COM STEVENSREC.COM