Gaining More Than an Education

By Amy McKeever

After class is dismissed, Freshman Stephanie Aguayo can be found at the Stonehill College gym.

First, she does 25 minutes of cardio, running on the treadmill then on the elliptical.

After, she moves on to the weight room for 10 minutes. She walks on the stair master and then rides the resistance bike, on strength training settings

She leaves the gym exhausted and confident she will avoid “the freshman 15”.

Seventy percent of students gain weight in their first semester, A Prospective Study of Weight Gail During the College Freshman and Sophomore Years said.

Gaining weight is a well-known issue for freshman, commonly referred to as “the freshman 15”.

“I would define ‘the freshman 15’ as the essential weight a freshman must put on in order to properly embrace college,” Johnny Baggia said, a freshman at Bentley College.

Many changes in the first year of college encourage weight gain.

“People freak out about it because they’re already worrying about so many new things in their life. Its just another thing to worry about,” Rianna Fasanello said, a first year at Southern New Hampshire University.

Some factors leading to weight gain in the first year of college are stress, lack of sleep, alcohol, pressure, lack of free time, and increased intake of processed food, according to students.

“People can be so stressed out that they stress eat,” Hannie O’Connor, a freshman at Stonehill College, said.

Jessica Greene, the Health and Wellness coordinator at Stonehill College, urges students to keep track of what they do, how they eat and exercise, to become healthier.

“It is important to write down what you’re doing and keep track to improve,” Greene said.

But some students think the freshman 15 is more hype than fact.

“I think the idea of it scares people more than the actual thing,” Jillian Cortese said, a freshman at Stonehill College.

Greene said that first year students do often gain weight, but much less than the predicted 15 pounds.

“It’s a myth. It’s more like two to four pounds for first year students,” Greene said.

Even so, the myth seems to catch the attention of more female students than male students.

“No doubt, it’s a problem that mainly girls worry about,” Jameson Hutch, a student at Stonehill College, said.

To tackle the issue, Stonehill College’s Health and Wellness Department created The Freshman Nutrition Workshop, for first year students to learn about common college pitfalls, such as unhealthy eating.

“It’s an old topic that always seems to resurface, but this generation is definitely more health conscious,” Greene said.

Aguayo is one of these health conscious students.

“I like keeping active and it makes me study more. I need to work out to not stress myself out,” she said.

Is 9/11 Being Forgotten?

By: Erich Maynard

            With the anniversary of the attack on the twin towers the question is, do people still remember the incident?

            Compared to people out of college, do college students really remember what happened on September, thirteen years ago?

            The Average College senior would have been in the fourth grade when the attack on the twin towers happened.

             Do these students remember what happened that day, in comparison their parents and grandparents? Does everyone believe 9/11 is being remembered in the same way?

            Stonehill Junior Amanda Pepe who is from Valley Cottage, New York was in the second grade, “I remember the principal coming over the owe speaker saying the school was on shut down, and not to turn on the Tv’s but my teacher did anyways, and we all watched the second plane fly into the trade center,” pepe said.

             She and her class mates were more concerned about being able to go out to recess that day then what was happening in New York City.

            “I realized later that day how serious everything was since my mother worked in the city and she wasn't able to come home until about midnight since everything was shut down.” Said Pepe.

`           When asked how does she feel about the way America remembers and honors what happened on that day she responded, “ Being from New York I have been to the 9/11 memorial many times and you really have a gray atmosphere remembering everyone there its really quiet and its all around the city remembering everyone. Coming from a New York standpoint no one really forgets.”

            In comparison to asking a New York Native, Blake Ducker a Sophomore who is from California had a different view on the incident.

            “ I don't remember much, I remember waking up in the morning and my mom watching the news since we’re three hours behind, as soon as I got to school we watched the news. We are all pretty young so we didn't really know what was going on,” ducker said.

            Both students remember the incident and realize how bad of incident it was but when it came to their opinions on how the country remembers the incident their opinions varied. While speaking to people who are older than college students their opinions changed even more.

            Robert Deloria age 81 who lives in Pittsfield Massachusetts vividly remembers what he did on september eleventh.

            “I woke up, I took a shower, when I got downstairs I turned on the radio for breakfast and thats when I found out. From that point on Joan and I were in front of the set all day listening to what happened,” Deloria said.

            As the conversation progressed and the the subject of how people remember the attack today his response was,

            “I think people are starting to forget it, when things are good, the bad things always get forgotten,” Deloris said.

            Lynn Maynard a 52 year resident of Pittsfield Mass also had an alternative view point of looking at how America honors the fallen that day in September.

            Firstly she spoke about what she remembered that day, “I remember driving to work and listening to the radio and thinking it was a joke until I changed the radio station and every station was telling me the same thing, I called dean and when he heard he said ‘whats the punch line?’ because he didn't believe it either. We were all just in complete shock,” Maynard said.

            She was even more stunned about the crash because had been in the city only a week before on a business trip. “I believe that its nice that the news stations continue every year having a day of remembrance, but at the same time I believe they need to stop. No one is ever going to forget but people need to stop bringing it up, it must be so incredibly hard family members and friends to have to relive the horrible incident every year.”

            Over 10,000 people visit the 9/11 memorial every day, it is a place of sadness, a place of remembrance and a place of peace. The attack on the world trade center was an event in which no one in America will truly forget, whether they are form New York itself or California.

            College students might not be able to remember as much as their older counterparts. They all learned the severity of the incident in the end.

           

             

           

            

Ask a Question and Save a Life

By Kayleigh Lepage 

            Jessica Green, member of Health and Wellness here at Stonehill College, offered her tips on prevention of suicide.

            Last Friday, Green presented a slideshow to show how to prevent suicide and how to help someone who could be potentially going through it. She used a method called QPR that stands for Question, Persuade and Refer.

            QPR is not intended to be counseling or treatment, it is intended to offer help.

            This QPR method allowed anyone who is helping someone with suicidal thoughts by providing and allowing them to ask questions, to persuade any thoughts and/or advice, and to refer to anyone who can also help.

            “The more you hear things the more likely it’s what the person is thinking,” Green said.

            Green shared some statistics on the background of suicide, which included:

·      Suicide is the number one cause of death in youth

·      Mostly freshman in college or high school are adapted to suicide because of the amount of pressure

·      Social media is the number one cause of suicide

·      Massachusetts has the lowest suicidal rates because of all the resources available

Community, family and friends and individual skills are ways that people with suicidal thoughts can be protected.

Community includes people, faculty, coaches, residence life, or campus ministers. Involvement with programs on campus such as Anti-Bullying will increase your protection from suicidal thoughts.

Green emphasized that family and friends, loving relationships and faith, and individual skills such as coping skills, attitudes, and life experiences are very important when protecting someone from suicidal thoughts.

During this presentation, the audience was asked to play roles, one as an RA, and one as a student who is thinking about committing suicide.

After hearing conversations from the left and right, people who were playing the RA had a very tough time as to what to say to the person who is thinking about suicide.

This was Green’s motive, to get people to understand how hard it could be to be there for someone is suicidal thought.

After doing a second exercise, the audience found that it was much easier to know what to say to be able to help the person.

The audience was taught direct verbal cues such as, “I’m going to kill myself” or “I wish I were dead,” along with indirect verbal cues such as, “pretty soon you won’t have to worry about me anymore.”

We were also taught, to ask “have you been unhappy lately?” instead of just coming out and saying “you’re not thinking of ending your life are you?” Saying indirect cues will lead to more disclosure and more isolation and will increase the thought of suicide.

Green made sure that we understood the behavioral cues involved that could lead someone to attempting suicide. These cues contained previous suicide attempt, isolation from family, friends, teachers or coaches, and/or an increase and drug and alcohol abuse.

Art In the Backyard

by: Erich Maynard

            While everybody thinks about the great art galleries in Washington D.C, and New York City, many forget to look in the own backyards to discover the art galleries and museums that hold so many unnoticed treasures.

            Some say a museum on a college campus is an asset because it adds culture along with artistic outlets for students. while expanding many artistic horizons museums on college campus open students eyes to what the world has to show them.

            In one year at the Williams College Museum of Art over 33,000 people visited the museum.

            “Fifteen people if theres no event come in on an average week to see the gallery, and I’m being really optimistic, and probably zero when it comes to people who don't go here,” said Kelly Henry, a work study student in the art gallery.

            Leonie Bradbury, Vice president of the association of Academic Museums and Galleries who is the director and curator at the Montserrat College of Art Galleries Said museums on campus are important for students and the community at large.

            At Montserrat, a small college solely based on visual arts, in Beverly Massachusetts, the galleries in the museum are a central point of the learning experience of the school.

            “We organize workshops, do lectures, and have forty exhibitions every year, twenty two of those are by students and the rest are curated exhibitions. We’ve worked really hard to be fully integrated and to fully participate with students on campus. So i think our impact is pretty significant,” Bradbury said.

            Professor Allyson Sheckler at Stonewall College is a strong proponent of college campus museums and galleries.

            “I think they can have a great deal of influence they open up students eyes in terms of communication an what people are thinking about. I think that those are important things that we don't do enough of in the larger sense os campus. If the student takes the time to come in, that’s the thing,” Sheckler said.

            At Wheaton College, in Norton, Massachusetts the college has the Beard and Weil gallery. The gallery primarily focuses on dynamic features of art by contemporary artists in all media.

            Wheaton’s goal as a gallery is to encompass all forms of creative expression in an effort to forge meaningful connections between objects and their histories.

            “I would say its a pretty big influence on campus not only does our faculty exhibit in the gallery, but also our senior art major exhibit in the gallery and we also have a wide range of outside artist who come in and exhibit, we also exhibit our permanent collection,” said Jessica F. Kusaj, manager of arts events and publicity

             Having art by such a wide range of artists at the gallery on campus students don't have to travel to experience meaningful pieces of art because they have it right on campus.

            Professors and Museum workers alike they both recognize the benefits of having a museum or gallery so close to where one lives.

            Adam Branco a freshman at Stonehill college said,  “Not many students realize there us an art gallery on campus.”

            When asking Branco his opinion of having a gallery and its art on campus, “I have no idea what kind of art they have. In terms of the gallery overall, it doesn't improve anything on campus since nobody really knows about ion campus,” Branco said.

            “I believe the gallery is really interesting on campus, I’ve walked through it a few times since it doesn't take long with how small it is. I feel like many students don't really know about it because when they think of an art gallery they think of something much bigger,” Molly Birmingham said.

            Birmingham is a freshman at Stonehill college who see the importance of museums close by and appreciates how local art museums change a community for the better.

            “I really like art, I think its pretty important for a community, because it helps people see what others feel and how they think about certain issues that are going on in the world,” Birmingham said.