The Waltonian

Saturday, Feb. 1

Men’s Volleyball at Newman University @11 a.m.

Women’s Basketball at Wilkes University @12 p.m.

Men’s Volleyball vs. College of Saint Elizabeth @1 p.m.

Men’s Basketball at Wilkes University @2 p.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 5

Men’s Basketball at King’s College @6 p.m.

Men’s Volleyball vs. King’s College @7 p.m.

Women’s Basketball at King’s College @8 p.m.

Saturday, Feb. 8

Men’s and Women’s Track and Field at Alvernia University

Men’s Volleyball at Stevens Institute of Technology @11 a.m.

Men’s Volleyball vs. Rutgers-Newark @1 p.m.

Women’s Basketball vs. Delaware Valley University @1 p.m.

Men’s Basketball vs. Delaware Valley University 3 p.m.

Tuesday, Feb. 11

Men’s Volleyball at Rosemont College @7 p.m.

Wednesday, Feb. 12

Men’s Basketball vs. FDU-Florham @6 p.m.

Women’s Basketball vs. FDU-Florham

Saturday, Feb. 15

Men’s and Women’s Track and Field at Susquehanna Invitational

Men’s Volleyball vs. St. Joseph’s College-Brooklyn @12 p.m.

Men’s Lacrosse vs. York College of Pennsylvania

Women’s Basketball at Stevens Institute of Technology @1 p.m.

Men’s Basketball at Stevens Institute of Technology @3 p.m.

Men’s Volleyball vs. Lehman College @4 p.m.

Tuesday, Feb. 18

Men’s Basketball at Desales University @6 p.m.

Men’s Volleyball at Cairn University @7 p.m.

Women’s Basketball at Desales University @8 p.m.

In the fall of 2019, senior psychology major, Rebecca “Becca” Belotti traveled over 2500 miles to Ashland, Oregon through The Oregon Extension Program dedicated to college students’ learning outside of the normal classroom.

“Every autumn since 1975, several dozen college students from across the country have taken a step “out of the current” for an unusual semester of vigorous intellectual exploration. Students earn 17 credits, but focus on one topic of study at a time. Daily reading, small group discussion, and one-on-one conversations with faculty members comprise the heart of the OE program,” The Oregon Extension said on its website.

At first, Belotti saw a brochure for the Oregon Extension Program her freshman year at Eastern. Then, two years later, as a junior, she saw the same brochure and took it to her apartment on campus. However, this experience was still on the back burner for Belotti as she dealt with other college issues like class, work, etc.

However, fate seemed to come for Belotti when a professor from the Oregon Program came on campus.

“I first heard about the Oregon Extension Program [in person] when Professor Tad Cobb [from the program] came to talk in my Cross-Cultural Psychology class last spring,” Belotti said.

In this meeting, Cobb gave a slideshow about the general rundown of the Oregon Program. Belotti remembers how he emphasized that there would be no tests, a plus for any college student. Cobb also encouraged students to apply to the program within a few days, as they would be given a $400 scholarship if accepted, a bonus for early applicants.

She applied to the program shortly after Cobb’s presentation, hoping that receiving the scholarship would help her make this trip happen.

“My philosophy is always to apply and see what happens,” Belotti said.

However, even after the conversation with Cobb, Belotti was still not sold that she would want to spend a whole semester on the other coast of the country.

“I felt like I had to think about it a little more… it’s a big commitment,” Belotti said.

The main thing that started to push Belotti into wanted to go to Oregon was her passion for travelling. As she learned more and more about the program, she was informed more about the places that she would be able to see within the few months she would be there.

“As I was filling out the application, I got more and more excited,” Belotti said.

After contemplating all of the possibilities that could be offered in Oregon, Belotti decided to give the program a chance. The summer before going to Oregon, Belotti spent much of her time shopping at REI, an outdoor store with a location in King of Prussia, and breaking in her newly bought boots that would be used for backpacking.

“It didn’t seem necessarily real. It seemed far away before I would be using them [her hiking backpack and boots] in Oregon,” Belotti said.

However, even though this practice seemed arbitrary, Belotti knew that she needed to be as prepared as she could be before going on any official hike in Oregon. This practice came in handy once she went to Oregon in late Aug. of 2019, officially starting the program. Once in Oregon, Belotti flourished and blossomed all the while backpacking in gruesome weather and reading dozens of pages of reading a day.

“I thought that it was going to be hard, but it wasn’t,” Belotti said.

At first, Belotti thought that keeping up with the physical labor and learning at an intense speed would be so overwhelming, but the program seemed to become easy.

“I felt like everything I was doing was already an extension of who I always wanted to be,” Belotti said.

Belotti encourages everyone to give Oregon, or a program like the Oregon Extension a try.

“At first it took some time to get used to, but by the end [of the program] no one wanted to leave. By the last week, we were all joking about returning our plane tickets out of Oregon, so we could spend more time together,” Belotti said.

After coming back from Oregon, Belotti has gained a passion for implementing what she learned in Oregon to her time left here at Eastern.

“Sustainability. Absolutely. No question,” Belotti said.

Belotti wants to inform the general campus about the importance of sustainable practices that can help lessen human destruction on the earth. To do this, Belotti joined Eastern’s Student Association for Sustainability, a newly formed club on campus. This club meets Wednesday night at 7 p.m. in Jammin’ Java.

Thursday, Jan. 30

4:00 p.m. | Walton Upper Lobby | 100 Days till Commencement Celebration

Saturday, Feb. 8

Oaks Center Ice | Ice Skating with SAB

Monday, Feb. 10

7:30 p.m. | McInnis 120 | Meet the Blackulty

Saturday, Feb. 15

8:00 p.m. | Gough Great Room | Evolution of Hip-Hop Dance

Friday, Feb. 21

8:00 p.m. | Gough Great Room | Movie: Harriet

Feb. 29- March 8

Spring Break

Friday, March 13

8:00 p.m. | Gough Great Room | Murder Mystery

Friday, March 20

7:30 p.m. | Jammin’ Java | Speakeasy Coffeehouse

Friday, March 27

8:00 p.m. | Gough Great Room | Movie: Frozen II

Monday, March 30

8:00 p.m. | Auditorium | Refuge Panel Discussion

Saturday, April 4

7:00 p.m. | Glen Foerd on the Delaware | Spring Banquet

April 10-14

Easter Break

Friday, April 24

8:00 p.m. | Gough Great Room | Movie: Star Wars- Rise of Skywalker

Sunday April 26

12:00 p.m. | Gough Great Room | Transformed! Final Show

Saturday, May 9

Olson Field | Commencement

The only solid path from the main part of campus to the gym (where chapel is held) and many dorm buildings is inactive for a non-specified amount of time, leaving students with disabilities on the back burner of Eastern’s interests.

A few months ago when a contractor was working on improving parts of Eastern’s campus, one employee used the Doane bridge as a driveway for their machine. This bridge was only built as a pedestrian pathway. This, in turn, made the bridge snap. Although this initial accident was not Eastern’s fault, the university has still not repaired the bridge that allows for non-stair access between the main side of campus (Walton and McInnis) and the gym and most dormitories.

In the long term side of things, Eastern is using this accident to try and pay for a project that could build a road over the bridge for cars. This would allow gym access from the first entrance of the university. This would discontinue the current path that leads to the gym through a local neighborhood behind Eastern. Although this, in the long run, would make Eastern’s gym more accessible, especially for sporting events, it still ignores the needs of disabled students now.

This issue was also met with many questions on how Eastern is bettering itself to be a more accessible campus in the long run.

As someone who is able bodied, I am often not faced with the implications of Eastern’s campus’ lack of accessibility. This is my privilege. To gain more of an understanding, I try to meaningfully take paths on campus that do not have stairs, steep hills and uneven ground. I know each time that this will be a hard task to follow through with, but I am also grateful that taking these paths, for me, is a choice. This is not a choice for other students, faculty, staff and visitors to the campus who face varying levels of disabilities. Many are faced with so many difficulties while getting around Eastern.

Eastern is known for its beautiful campus, but I think that its beauty hides a lot, including how accessible it is as a whole. When I ask the big questions about how students are encouraged to move around campus with a disability, I am told that they can receive help from CCAS, Eastern’s academic and counseling services office. I think that accommodations are great, but where is CCAS located? The third floor of Walton, Eastern’s main building, that does not have an elevator.

I think that there are many ways that the campus can become more accessible, but it has not been done yet. The new pergolas, updated Hainer basement, and string lights by Sparrowk are nice though.

The moment that I knew my roommate, Senior English Writing and Literature major, Nicole Markert, was not just a fantastic poet but a spectacular storyteller was when I watched her present her senior writing thesis last spring.

“In 2012, there were 4,738 people in the age group of 21-24 that were involved in fatal car accidents in the United States. My brother was one of them,” Markert said. This line was what Markert used to begin her thesis. Her poetry collection surrounded the passing of her brother, and how Markert dealt with grief, anxiety and relationships.

Last spring, I watched Markert solidify to a room full of professors, parents, siblings and friends that her poetry has the power to force us to come to terms with our own personal versions of loss. Even though the audience may not have faced the same struggles as Markert, her words brought them into her world. As an audience member, I felt like I was grieving alongside Markert.

Markert started writing at the age of nine. However, she did not know about the emotional power creative writing would have for her until she took a creative writing class in high school.

“In that class, I learned that I could express my feelings more openly. The environment I was in was very open… I didn’t have to hide from how I felt,” Markert said.

She knows now that she probably had been writing poems specifically since eighth grade, but she did not know that her free-verse creations counted as poetry. She thought that poetry had to fit into set forms and that they could not develop a form on their own through free-verse poetry.

“I didn’t realize that the little blurbs I was writing about myself was poetry,” Markert said.

After this discovery, Markert began challenging herself by experimenting with form. Although she appreciates poetry with set forms, she is especially intrigued with how free-verse poems can influence and challenge meaning.

“Poems can create meaning visually,” Markert said.

Sometimes, her poems have lines that, although only a word or two, span a line of a whole page. This allows the readers of her work to not just read but to also see what Markert is trying to convey. Often, Markert experiments with form by adding meaningful spaces in between words and line breaks throughout thoughts. This is a challenge within itself. Often times, Markert saves multiple copies of her poems that are in progress, each with different kinds of spacing and breaking. This allows Markert to see for herself what is and is not working for a specific piece.

While challenging herself to experiment with different free-verse ideas of poetry, Markert also learns so much from the English department, especially from Professor Rebecca Gidjunis, Markert’s writing thesis instructor.

“I learned a lot from Professor Rebecca Gidjunis. She challenged me to become the writer I am today,” Markert said.

While altering the spaces and breaks of her pieces, Markert often relied on her thesis critique group and Professor Gidjunis for vital feedback. In writing thesis, Markert would bring working drafts for her chapbook (a mini-version of a collection), and her class would critique it. During this process, Markert’s group members would discuss what was working and suggested what may not have worked in the piece. This feedback helped Markert see how her poems were working from an outside perspective.

On top of everything, Markert believes that her poetry is mostly impacted by the daily happenings of her life. Markert finds inspiration from what intrigues her each day or leaves an everlasting impression. Often, she thinks about certain experiences and how she can form it into a poem.

“I really like toying with dialect and direct quotes I hear from people around me, especially my family. I have a lot of poems where they either start or end with quotes. I find that the little things that people say to me in passing are what tend to stay with me,” Markert said.

Markert has had her poems published in Eastern’s literary magazine, Inklings as well as on SWWIM Every Day, an online journal. Her poem “The Quiz in the Grief Packet My Counselor Gave Me,” is forthcoming in Glass: A Journal of Poetry.

Currently, Markert is looking to attend graduate school. She wants to pursue her Master of Fine Arts in Poetry as well as learn more about the publishing industry. She is looking to apply to NYU, Rosemont, Rutgers, Vermont College of Fine Arts and a few others.

This article will contain spoilers as well as themes of racism and police brutality.

Just airing in the beginning of Nov., the Netflix adaptation of the play American Son has viewers on the edge of their seats wanting and longing for a positive ending to racial profiling, making the need for media with social commentary so much more prevalant.

American Son, starring Kerry Washington and Steven Pasquale, follows the experience of a biracial family trying to locate their son, Jamal, who is stopped by police while out with friends in Miami, Florida. Kerry Washington, playing Kendra Ellis-Connor, faces extreme racial discrimination when she arrives at the police station in hopes to find her son. After her estranged white husband, Steven Pasquale’s character, Scott Connor arrives at the station, the attending officer treats him with blatantly more respect. This created this staunch contract for the viewer that this particular officer favored Scott over Kendra. Was he racist? As a viewer, that’s what I saw.

Also, Kendra was treated as a hysterical Black woman, repeatedly being told to calm down. She was looking for her son, her child. Any parent who loves their child would act hysterical, including me if I was a mother. However, as a white woman, I would not have been seen as hysterical. How Kendra was treated throughout the movie was disgusting. In addition to how Kendra was treated by the officer at the station, she was also mistreated by her husband. Scott was not able to understand the harsh reality for many African Americans, especially young African American men, that being stopped by police in this country usually means that you are subject to racial profiling scaling from an unjust stop and frisk, to death by gun. Kendra was all too familiar with this reality. Throughout the movie, she recounted the times she had to teach her young son how to react if stopped by police, something that she knew Scott never had to deal with.

By the end of the movie, viewers are outraged by the treatment of Kendra as well as the assumptions made about her son. Ultimately, at the last minute of the film, viewers learn that Jamal was shot by police after exiting the car he and his friends were in. For over an hour and a half, viewers were begging for the outcome to be different.

“I was shocked and at first– I mean just really shocked. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt like, ‘Oh, this is how it has to be.’ Because to end it any other way, I think, would be almost disrespectful to all the people who have been in this situation where it has ended in a similar way. We don’t want to romanticize the issue. But I love that until the very end you are hoping against hope that it’s not gonna be that,” Washington said in an interview with The Wrap.

I think it is easy for movies to skate over important issues, but this is taking the easy way out. Movies that tackle the hard topics allow viewers, especially those who do not face those specific hardships, to see practically firsthand this realistic situation.

Sources: Americansonplay.com, Netflix, The Wrap

“How do we tie our shoes, brush our hair, drink coffee, wash the dishes, and go to sleep, pretending everything is fine? How do we laugh and feel happiness despite the buried things growing inside? How can we do that day after day?”

Over the summer, I read lines like this from I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez. This book, published in 2017, follows the young protagonist Julia as she deals with the death of her older sister, Olga, who is deemed the perfect Mexican daughter by Julia and their mother. Olga, however, has many secrets that Julia attempts to uncover.

Although at its heart this novel is a mystery with Julia trying to determine the extent of Olga’s lies to her family, it is also a novel that focuses on gender in relation to Mexican culture. In relation to being a young Mexican woman, Julia is often expected to dress modestly, help her mom with domestic chores, stay home, and to stay away from boys before marriage. These are the qualities that her perfect Mexican sister Olga possessed before she died.

Being a white woman reading this novel, I felt extremely honored to know the stories of an Hispanic author about Hispanic characters. Although a lot of the ethnic territory that was visited in the novel was quite foreign to me, Julia’s experiences in being a woman and the expectations that are placed on her made me feel completely drawn to her as a character.

I think that it is easy for me to gravitate to authors and main characters that relate to me, but I find it more important to challenge myself to read outside of my comfort zone.

Before coming to college, I think I read maybe two or three books in school by authors who were not white men. I might be a few books off in my estimation, but overall, I seldom read books that were not by white men. I think that the lack of diversity in classroom literature aided in my assumption that there were no books out there with characters that looked like me, a white woman, let alone women of color.

When I came to college, however, I took classes like Postcolonial Women’s Novels, Global Fiction, Literature of Women and Young Adult Literature, allowing me to see that there are more books out there that do not fit into this white man norm.

However, I was then faced with the internal dilemma when I went into bookstores. I was still assimilated to read books by white men, the norm from my upbringing, but I then started to consciously think about what I was reading. Who was a I supporting? What character was I about to follow? I started to sit on the floors of Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, and many secondhand book stores navigating these questions as I sifted through the books that I read synopses of. After liking what the book was about, I looked to the author. Where are they from? How do they identify? This lead me to delete books that were of more privileged voices. I did not automatically think that their stories were not good or did not need to be told, I just felt that as a marginalized person myself, I should be supporting other marginalized authors.

Last summer, I read 10 books. All of the books were either by a woman, a woman of color, or a man of color. I consciously think about who I support when buying books. I still think that I have a long way to go in supporting marginalized voices, but I think that any step in being more aware is important.

Source: Goodreads

When I was a kid, I insisted on only dressing up as one of the two characters- Dorothy or the Wicked Witch. I traded off these characters each year. Now, I do not know why I only had these two ideas in mind.

Maybe I loved Wizard of Oz, which was completely true, but maybe I was equally amazed by the appreciation I had for the good and the bad in this world.

These costumes are still very much a part of my time of Halloween. I am constantly thinking of the good of pumpkins and leaves changing, but I am also reminded of the ghosts and haunted memories that travel with people, not just on Halloween, but throughout their entire lives.

I think about this when I decide how to spend my Halloween. I mostly spend this holiday snuggling with my ESA (Emotional Support Animal), Troy, a black cat, who is inherently spooky, and watching scary movies.

I often find myself watching Scream on Halloween. These movies (there are four in total, but we do not claim the third one because it was utter trash) follow Sidney Prescott, a high schooler to a middle-aged woman when she is taunted by different people, all wearing the mask of Ghostface– a white ghost mask deemed to terrorize the teens of Woodsboro in the fictional movies– and asking her what her favorite scary movie is.

Even though viewers see these various stalkers and killers as the main bad guy of the films, we are also greeted with the ways where Sidney is her own enemy. Viewers watch her over multiple years as she slowly becomes her own enemy.

Sidney faced multiple killers across the four films of the franchise. Why wouldn’t she become flawed? Still, making her a flawed protagonist, one with literal scars and emotional ones impact her decisions in each film, adding to the depth of her character.

I think the sheer truth of Sidney’s character makes her all too real to the viewers.

Even if we all like to think that we are always Dorothy, there will always be remnants of the Wicked Witch. This is what makes us human.

Over the summer, the US women’s soccer team left the field with their third World Cup win to file a lawsuit against the United States Soccer Federation, claiming that they were being discriminated against on the basis of gender.

In March, all 28 players of the US team filed the lawsuit under what they describe to be institutionalized gender discrimination. Apart from their claims that their paycheck is significantly less than their malesoccer-playing counterpart, the team also believes that they are discriminated against with where they play, how they travel to and from, and their lacking access to sports medical treatment.

During the gap between their lawsuit and competing in the World Cup, the team spent their time spreading the need for their cause amid their tournament preparations. Many of the team’s members spread the hashtag ‘#EqualPlayEqualPay’ to call attention to the gender discrimination the women were receiving.

After their monumental win, the US Women’s team were, again, faced with gender discrimination. In the 2019 summer World Cup, the US team was awarded $4 million. Just half of this amount was given to the winning women’s team for the previous tournament in 2015.

This is an improvement, but although there was an increase in the general award, there was still a significant difference in monetary gifts when it came to the men’s soccer tournaments.

In 2019, FIFA awarded $30 million in total to the teams competing in the World Cup. At first, this seems like a lot of money, especially thinking that this amount has increased over the past few tournaments. However, for the men’s World Cup last year, FIFA awarded the competing men $400 million.

With this appalling gap, Megan Rapinoe, star player and one of the captains of the women’s national team, called out FIFA on the eve of her team’s win.

Rapinoe pressed FIFA for their lack of equal pay or equal care and attention between the men’s and women’s tournaments. In response to Rapinoe’s remarks, FIFA vowed to double the award money pool for the next women’s World Cup. Again, this sounds good and more fair at first, but this does not compare to the projected $440 million in the next men’s tournaments in 2022.

Rapinoe urged FIFA to double the women’s pool for the 2019 games and double it again, or even quadruple it for the next games.

Rapinoe also called attention to herself and her team by saying in an interview that she would not go to the White House if her team won the World Cup. This remark pressed Donald Trump, making him feel called to sub-Tweet the star player.

However, the sheer mentioning of Rapinoe’s name gave her more of an audience for her cause.

In the next few years before the next World Cup, FIFA promised to invest over $400 million into the women’s game.

This year, they spent $28 million.

Sources: BBC, FIFA, NBS Sports, New York Times

Although registering for classes can be an exciting time, it is also a source of many worries for students, but there are some ways to stay informed about the process to have a seamless a process as possible.

Registration is the three-step process. Said to be similar to online shopping, registering for classes is fairly similar while looking at the steps. First, plan courses in the portal found in MyEastern. Once logged in, click on ‘My Progress’ to view what courses are required for your major. Courses that are not completed are highlighted red. These red courses are where you want to start. Once you added courses to your schedule, go to ‘Plan & Schedule Courses’ to see your semester schedule on a weekly calendar.

After you have your desired courses planned, meet with your academic adviser. Your academic adviser is a professor that teaches in your major. Your adviser will then approve your courses, usually after meeting to discuss your progress through the major.

Finally, the last step in this online shopping experience is to register for your courses. You have to do this yourself. Although they are approved by your adviser, you still need to register oﬃcially on your own through the MyEastern portal. On the ‘Plan & Schedule Courses’ tab, under Spring 2020 (next semester) you will ﬁnd a button that says ‘Accept terms & Register Now.’ This must be clicked on to register. Courses planned will turn from yellow to green. Registration days are from Nov. 5-7, separated by how many credit hours have been earned. On Nov. 5 at 7 a.m., students that have earned 73 credits or more are able to register for courses. On Nov. 6 at 7 a.m., students that have earned anywhere from 32-72.99 credit hours are able to register for courses. Finally, on Nov. 7 at 7 a.m., students that have between 0-31.99 credits earned can register for courses. These times are designated to allow upperclassmen to register ﬁ rst in order to complete timely graduation requirements; however, you can register anytime after your scheduled time. Courses can be added until Jan. 21 and dropped until Jan. 28. However, even when following the three step process, there are still some challenges that students can face.

For one, if a student has a hold on their account from the Health Center Student Accounts or the Registrar are unable to register for classes until that hold is lifted. These students are still able to plan their courses and have them approved by an adviser, but the ﬁ nal step of registering cannot happen.

Sometimes, courses ﬁll, especially if they are a part of the general education requirement for Eastern. This can be frustrating, but it is encouraged, especially for ﬁ rst-years with not a lot of credits to select a few backup courses in case their ﬁ rst pick is full by the time they register.

For students planning to be a Teaching Assistant next semester, they must ﬁ ll out the Teaching/Research Assistant form and have it signed by their adviser and the professor they are working for. After turning this in, the Registrar Oﬃce will add this to your schedule.

At the Registrar’s oﬃce, a friendly face to see is Karen Thompson, Assistant Registrar for Advising and Registration. Thompson has been at Eastern for over nine years, and she got her Master’s degree here. In addition, Thomspon’s mom graduated from Eastern, making the university a staple in her home growing up. At Eastern, Thompson joins her sister and cousin, making work for her a real family reunion. In her free time, Thompson like to binge watch Parks and Recreation and her favorite show, Scrubs. On top of this, Thompson also likes going to concerts, being outside, touring museums, traveling the world, and doing yoga. Thompson is also a big fan of succulents. There is one in her oﬃce that is 2-years-old and will not stop growing.

If there are additional questions, please visit the Oﬃce of the Registrar, located in Mall Cottage.