Amidst Growth, LAMSA Criticized for lack of Communication with Players

Two minutes down the road from my house is Fournier Park, the site of what some people refer to as the best outdoor adult softball league in the state.

Amidst a growing community of teams and players, the Leominster Adult Mixed Softball Association (LAMSA) is dealing with criticism for its lack of communication.

The league has made several changes in the past few years. Perhaps the most important change – the league president – will feature a third new head of the league in as many years. This speaks to the pressure and weight of running a growing softball league.

Another controversial change introduced for the 2016 season is a division 1 player list and roster restrictions. This offseason, the board consulted privately to create a list of player they consider elite. Those players are placed on the D1 roster and cannot play in division 6 or lower. If a team wants to qualify for division 5, they may only have one D1 player. If a team wants to qualify for division 4, they are only allowed two D1 players, and so on. The roster list was posted publicly on the league’s official website.

It was met with lots of criticism on who was voted onto the list and who was left out. Some players criticized the league for leaving this decision to board members only, and for making these decisions privately, without hearing the opinions of the community before releasing a draft of the list. Questions have been raised about how the league will add and drop people from the list to make it final. The league has remained quiet.

To reach people, LAMSA has created a public Facebook group page called “L.A.M.S.A. Softball”. On this page, the league posts about important dates and information such as game postponements due to rain, or dates and locations for coaches meetings and banquets, and gives players who are looking for a team the opportunity to advertise themselves. If someone posts questions on the page, an unnamed person responds quickly under the name “L.A.M.S.A. Softball”.

A second Facebook page exists under the alias “Leominster Softball LAMSA Voice”. This page is not public; in order to participate on the page you must send a friend request only if you are a member of the league. Last year, I sent a friend request that didn’t get accepted until months afterwards. It is unknown who regulates the page, but it has 411 “friends” that are comprised of current or former league members.

The page is more dedicated to opinion and criticism. Examples of posts made on the page include complaints about the rain delay notification policies, complaints about umpire unfairness, and complaints about league fees and lack of financial disclosure.

One of the biggest problems that arose last year was a new multi-team fee. Since the league has grown from 42 teams to over 50 teams between 2012-2015, board members decided to hire and pay a league scheduler, a position that was previously done voluntarily by an unpaid league administrator.

The existing rule was that members of the league can play for up to three teams. A vote to drop that rule to only two teams did not pass due to the desire to maintain a growing community. As the league continued to grow, it became more difficult to create schedules for players on multiple teams.

For example, if I am on Team A, Team B, and Team C in different divisions, the scheduler must have an organized system to ensure that my Team A doesn’t play on Tuesday at 8pm when my Team C also plays at that day/time. The scheduler has to do this for every player on every day from April to September. As a result, the new scheduler gets paid to deal the nightmare of making sure nobody has conflicting schedules, and to update it whenever there is a rain postponement.

Nobody would disagree that the job of the scheduler is a difficult one. Initially, the league raised team fees to cover the expense of the scheduler. Last year, the alternate player fee was added as well, thus creating a double tax. This makes members who play on multiple teams pays $20 before the season starts, even though their already paying more with the increase in team fees.

Some players took to the LAMSA voice page to share their disapproval. Some board members will respond to justify the league’s decisions, but other times complaints will be seen but not responded to publicly.

The league only has a dozen or so people, between board members and administrators, in charge of everything. They need to take advantage of their growing community by establishing a better communication system right now. In the league’s defense, communicating with angry and frustrated people is a challenge. Not everyone is easy to communicate with, but nonetheless, the image of league administrators seeing posts and handling it in private meetings behind closed doors will continue to make league members upset.

DJ Hosley

 

References

Facebook. (2016). Leominster softball lamsa voice. https://www.facebook.com/leominstersoftball.lamsavoice?fref=ts

Facebook. (2016). L.A.M.S.A. softball. https://www.facebook.com/LAMSASoftball/?fref=ts

Pellecchia, R. (2016). Leominster adult mixed softball association. http://lamsa.org/

 

 

The Challenge of Finding a nearby Adult Basketball League

I never missed high school – that is, until I tried looking for an organized adult sports league in my area.

As an adult who isn’t good enough to play college-level ball, I still want to stay active. Every week in the summer, my friends and I will play some pick-up basketball in the overpopulated town street courts. In the winter, when outdoor courts are covered in snow, it becomes a challenge to maintain our activity level.

Our only option, or so we thought, was to sign up for a gym membership that has a basketball court. However, that requires paying a monthly fee – 28$/month in my town YMCA – to have access to a snow-free, heated gymnasium. Still, there are only certain hours on certain days dedicated to open adult basketball, and it’s only for more pick-up games.

We want to join an organized league. The problem – it is surprisingly difficult to find organized men’s basketball leagues in our area (within an hour’s driving distance). I took it upon myself to search on google.

Needless to say, it was an overwhelming, complicated process of digging.

Most sites that I found featured outdated leagues that either never started or were canceled due to a lack of interest.

Location was also a challenging factor; if I searched “adult basketball leagues in Massachusetts”, most leagues were in Boston, Cambridge, or other towns that are too far away. When I searched “adult basketball leagues in Worcester”, there were some leagues available that appeared to be active and fulfilled our specifications (days, times, prices).

Still, it surprised me there weren’t many options. What if I or one of my friends were unavailable on Thursdays at 7-9pm? We’d all have to request those nights off from work, or fiddle with our schedules to make sure we didn’t have any other commitments. What if the league required teams to be co-ed, but we didn’t have any women interested? There isn’t really a backup plan for different basketball leagues on different days with different rules and structure. Or if there was, I wasn’t finding it on google, so I explored Facebook.

I anticipated that I’d be able to find a massive group page for Massachusetts adult leagues where different sport leagues were advertised in different cities. I searched “adult basketball leagues Massachusetts” on the Facebook search bar. When I clicked on the “groups” tab, there was nothing identified in my search. Lovely.

Let’s broaden the topic. I searched: “adult leagues in Massachusetts”, but still found nothing. If I only searched “adult leagues”, several groups came up, but none of them were in my area and many of them were private.

If I searched “adult basketball leagues in Massachusetts” on the “Top” tab, it would just search for key words like a Google search does. And the same lack of results came up. Although, I did a league based in Danvers, which is an hour away.

The bottom line is that when you’re involved in youth programs like the YMCA, little league baseball, or even a high school basketball team, everything is organized and done for you. Not only that, but the leagues are advertised and spread much more conveniently. You can drive around the city, and you’ll see signs at intersections advertising youth leagues and camps. Elementary and middle schools will send home flyers trying to recruit students to join a league. Newspaper ads will include registration signups. The list goes on and on.

But when you’re older and want to stay active, you have to take it upon yourself to dig deep through the Internet to find leagues that fit your specifications, and it isn’t easy.

References

Bresnahan, E. (2016). Danvers indoor sports. http://www.danversindoorsports.com/basketball.html

Small, M. (2016). Worcester county recreation and parks. http://worcesterrecandparks.org/programs/adult-programs/adult-basketball-league

Despite Rule Changes, 2015 NFL Season Plagued by Concussions

Concussions are the kryptonite of the National Football League.

Last week, the NFL’s annual report on injuries for 2015 was released. This annual report has been published since 2012 when all of the rule changes were established. In 2012, there were 261 player concussions. In 2014, that number dropped to 206, leading the NFL to believe that their player safety-based rule changes had the game going in the right direction.

But they were wrong.

In the 2015 season, there were 271 player concussions; it’s the highest concussions total ever, just after the past three seasons experienced decreases in head injuries.

The NFL, just like the MLB, the NBA, or any other major sports organization, is a brand and a form of entertainment. The satisfaction of viewers, ticket holders, and merchandise buyers is supposed to be the mission of the NFL as they broadcast and release a product that millions of people follow and commit to.

Player safety had always taken a backseat to entertainment. That’s no secret. The NFL ignoring head injuries and their long-term effects is much like the situation of the tobacco industry ignoring the health risks of consumers using their products.

If you watched football before 2010, you didn’t hear about concussions. The ugly truth was that some fans were okay with being left out from that information. They didn’t want their game changed. And eventually, when the NFL was exposed and had to change their game for player safety, a large percentage of fans weren’t happy about it.

Since 2012, the league, under the leadership of Commissioner Roger Goodell, has gone head-to-head with the biggest problem in sports today. He has enacted and enforced 39 rule changes in the last 10 years dedicated to improving player safety. New unnecessary roughness penalties were enacted for defensive players who either lead with the crown of their helmet to make a tackle, or hit the head of another player. If such an act was performed, the defensive team is penalized 15 yards and the offense receives an automatic first down.

As a result, between the years 2012-2014, concussions dropped 35 percent while the amount of flags thrown seemed to have increased by the same percentage. NFL fans were not happy with the increase of flags thrown because they delay the game. NFL analysts were criticizing the game for being too oriented on player safety and less of the bad-boy, big-hitting contact sport form of entertainment that is always had been.

One thing became clear: player safety is, no pun intended, going head-to-head with entertainment, and either way, the NFL loses. People want to see the big hits that the NFL is known for, and people want the game to have less stoppage time from penalties. But at the same time, the NFL can’t hide from research and statistics anymore.

When research discovered the connection between football concussions and chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease relatable to Alzheimer’s, the NFL feared for its entertainment value and tried to shut down whatever information would force them to change the game as people have grown to know and love it.

The December 2015 movie Concussion, directed by Peter Landesman and starring Will Smith as Dr. Ben Omalu, will upset old school football fans as they are forced, just as the NFL was, to watch their beloved game change.

It tells the captivating story of several ex-NFL players who lived with the emotional and mental health problems caused by CTE, and died because they couldn’t control the trauma occurring in their heads. One man was depicted with a fiery anger and voices telling him to hurt his loved ones; he eventually dies because in a rage, he drove on the opposite side of the highway and collided with another vehicle.

When Omalu comes across these bodies and reviews their incomplete autopsies, he can’t piece together why some of these men acted the way they did before death. In the autopsy reports, the brain looks perfectly normal in every ex-NFL player case, but he discovers that the same doctor, who worked for the NFL, wrote fraudulent reports in an effort to hide the truth about what playing in the NFL did to these people.

The first autopsy report is of Hall of Famer Mike Webster, who is portrayed in the movie as a drug abusive, homeless, shell of a once-great man. He has no idea what is wrong with him, and the doctors have no idea to look for CTE. When Omalu speaks to Webster about his NFL past, Webster repeats one line: “All you had to do was finish the game. It didn’t matter if you were hurt, just finish the game.” As Webster’s voice echoes in the background, scenes of old 1970’s football games showed Webster taking big hits, clearly dizzy and concussed, staying in the game.

Today you can’t finish the game. An NFL rule change in 2011 introduced the concussion protocol where players who are concussed in game must exit the game immediately to be evaluated. The player cannot return to the game until they pass a series of cognitive and physical tests.

In the playoffs this year, two games have arguably been decided because of one concussion. With under a minute left in the fourth quarter of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cincinnati Bengals game, where Pittsburgh was behind 16-15 and pretty deep out of field goal range, star receiver Antonio Brown jumped for a ball, missed it, and was hit from behind by defender Vontaze Burfict and concussed. The Bengals were penalized for unnecessary roughness, specifically for the cheap shot hit on a “defenseless receiver.”

The Steelers were given 15 yards from the spot of the foul and a first down as Brown was helped off the field and out for the rest of the game. Burfict was furious with the call, insisting that he lead with his shoulder and that he couldn’t stop his momentum after realizing that Brown wouldn’t be able to catch the ball. Regardless, the penalty led to a game winning field goal for the Steelers.

In lieu of the concussion protocol, Brown couldn’t play the following week against the Denver Broncos because he didn’t pass the concussion tests. The Steelers lost a close game, and analysts pointed to Brown’s absence as a key to their defeat.

The point is that the NFL is in a battle they can’t win. NFL Chief Health and Medical Advisor Dr. Betsy Nabel insists that if the game is played right with safety at the forefront, with proper equipment and proper tackling, the NFL can defeat this concussion epidemic, but certainly at the expense of the league’s entertainment value.

As the NFL continues that battle, ex-NFL players continue to prove what Concussion portrayed is coming true. Of 91 ex-NFL players who donated their brains to concussion research, 87 of them were diagnosed with CTE.

DJ Hosley

(Image acquired from Google images)

Worcester State has a Green Man

About four years ago, one man changed the culture of a campus by bringing his passion of living “green” to Worcester State University.

Steve Bandarra is the university’s sustainability coordinator. He works every day towards the “green” mission – a seemingly impossible goal of extinguishing the campus’ carbon footprint by 2050.

Bandarra loves his job and loves both how far the campus has come and how fast the “green” awareness is growing. Conducting the eighth annual sustainability and food fair on Oct. 21, Bandarra and his “green” team have planned an exciting lineup of informative and fun events for the two-day fair.

A series on climate, food, and business and sustainability will be available for anyone to attend. Located in the Student Center and in the pods, a collection of 12 exhibitors will be available to talk to, as well as a farmer’s market, a smoothie bike, a “make-and-take” with water bottles and chemical-free cleaning solutions, a “green” lunch, and a brand new “To Do” contest with prizes that include a solar-powered backpack that can charge phones.

“The sustainability fair has come a long way from when it was just a one-day thing,” said Bandarra.

Among the other “green” events introduced by Bandarra and his team in recent years has been the “Ditch the Dumpster” sale. On moving day in the spring, volunteers help collect items that students are prepared to throw away. Instead of trashing the items, they are cleaned and re-sold on move-in day in the fall.

If the items fail to sell, they are either donated to clothing shelters or the Clark thrift store, where they are sold again.

“We try to give it as many chances before it becomes waste,” said Bandarra. “Overall, Ditch the Dumpster helps save 20 percent of move-out waste.”

Recyclemania is another event WSU partakes in to compete with other universities to see who can recycle more. According to Bandarra, WSU recycles about 26-28 percent of total trash.

As he walked to the trash during the interview, Bandarra pulled out a Starbucks coffee and an empty Canada Dry soda, both recyclables that were place in the trash.

“It could be close to 70 percent, but I think the goal should be 50 percent because it’s so easy,” Bandarra said. “All people need to do is move their hands 12 inches.”

Still, recycling rates have increased since Bandarra helped establish the sustainability program as part of WSU’s “green” mission. He understands that there are so many things people can do to go “green,” and he feels in can be overwhelming at times.

“Everyone just needs to pick one thing, just one thing, and do it,” said Bandarra.

In addition to educational awareness on going “green,” Bandarra conducts larger scale energy saving projects. One case would be the transitions made in the parking garage and the Science and Tech building from incandescent and fluorescent bulbs to LED light bulbs.

The LED light bulbs save so much that, according to Bandarra, we have already paid back the money it required to make the switch. Perhaps even more impressive is that 10 10-watt LED bulbs have replaced 10 100-watt incandescent bulbs in the Science and Tech building. In other words, it now takes 10 times less energy to light the building.

Photo courtesy of Worcester State University

New England Tradition Rolls On

King of the Palace, other Web shows strive to save the sport of candlepin bowling

It’s a Saturday morning in November, and Elizabeth Marquis and Ashley Bedard have brought their mothers to Mason’s Bowling Alley in Leominster, MA, for three strings of candlepin bowling. Just like every other Saturday morning, the quartet divide into two teams – daughters versus mothers – in what they call their own personal “bowling league.”

On the same Saturday morning, just 57 miles across the state at Riverwalk Lanes in Amesbury, MA, Jonathan Boudreau, 20, is bowling against Mark Ricci, 44, in the Classic Candlepins Season 1 Tournament of Champions to be broadcast on YouTube later in the month. Both bowlers are popular picks as two of the best candlepin bowlers in the US.

On the same Saturday morning, the 2015 Youth Candlepin Championship is taking place at the Bowlorama in Portsmouth, NH, featuring hundreds of youth bowlers separated into age divisions competing for plaques and money while creating lifetime memories.

The current landscape of New England’s proud tradition of candlepin bowling portrays a grand mixture of men, women, and children of any size, height, weight, and age who continue to play this 134-year-old game both casually and competitively.

Described by the International Candlepin Bowling Association as Northeastern America’s secret sport, candlepin bowling is often overshadowed by tenpin bowling, the sport with the three-holed bowling balls and hour-glass shaped pins that began appearing a few years after candlepin.

The differences between the variations of bowling can be counted on one hand – the ball size, the pin size, the balls rolled per box, the lob line, and the clearing of fallen pins.

 

 

Candlepin Bowling (Source: Google Images)

 

 

Tenpin Bowling (Source: Google Images)

 

It shouldn’t make sense, then, that candlepin bowling is only popular in New England while tenpin has achieved nationwide success.

“I honestly feel that it isn’t nationwide because it is more difficult than tenpin,” said Dennis Nuzzo, a bowler from Saugus.

Gus Andries, 81, of New Brunswick, Canada, agreed. “Candlepin is a lot harder sport,” he said. “To a tenpin bowler, I would say try candlepin and see how good you are.”

However, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, a slew of candlepin television broadcasts were canceled either due to lessened interest or lack of money and sponsors. Most notably was Candlepin Bowling, a show that Don Gillis hosted from 1961-1996.

The show was taped on Tuesday mornings and broadcast on WHDH Channel 5 every Saturday morning. Bowlers would pay to qualify, and the top bowler in the qualifying round would bowl against last Saturday’s defending champion. At the end of the season, a tournament of champions would be televised live featuring the five champions with the top scores during the regular season.

1993 Candlpin Bowling championship show with Don Gillis and Ed Harding at Pilgrim Lanes in Haverill, MA (Source: YouTube.com/Wolfman12395)

“It showcased the sport’s highest level of bowlers, and showed how much fun and exciting the game is to play and to watch,” said Dave Chestercove, 31, president of the United States Candlepin Bowling Association.

“I wouldn’t leave the house until the show was over,” Nuzzo said.

In 1996, the candlepin community took a huge blow when the show was canceled and replaced due to the growing demand to broadcast Boston College football games.

The show, which lives on through viewable old episodes on YouTube, is still revered as a gem of the sport.

“The loss of the Candlepin Bowling show really killed the game,” said Nance Vestal, candlepin hall-of-famer from Lynn. “The drive to be great died with the show. There is nothing left for the above average bowler.”

According to Chestercove, candlepin’s downfall could be attributed to a lack of marketing.

“Candlepin bowling is a brand,” says Chestercove. “The loss of the old Channel 5 show was the brand’s primary marketing campaign. It had the highest payouts, which kept bowlers highly interested as well.”

A game played for fun has become a sport crippled by a vicious money cycle. Bowlers don’t want to bowl unless the cash payout is attractive. Daniel Finn, 28, of Franklin simplifies it as, “low payouts equals low turnouts, equals no sponsorships, equals no TV, equals lower payouts.”

Finn, who runs a kid’s bowling league at Ryan’s Amusement Center, says that the kids’ parents consider candlepin bowling practice for tenpin because “you can’t make a living on candlepin bowling.”

As a result, interest in bowling dropped in the 2000s. Bowling alleys were forced to raise prices to above $3 a game just to stay open.

“If the bowling alley in your home town closes, you don’t bowl,” Finn said. “You lose interest in the sport, which causes more alleys to shut down.”

“I have bowled in 136 different candlepin bowling alleys,” said Anthony Caron of Nashua, who has been bowling since 1979. “32 of those alleys no longer exist.”

“I remember having to wait for an alley,” said Dave Maattala, owner of New Palace Lanes in Fitchburg. “The 70s, 80s, and 90s is when you saw the peak. Bowling alleys would run 24 hours a day. People would wait for hours for an alley because it was the best enjoyment around.”

“Greed killed this sport,” said Nuzzo passionately. He explained that since Candlepin Bowling was taped on Tuesday mornings, only older viewers could be in the audience, thus creating a stigma that candlepin bowling didn’t appeal to the youth. Network executives, according to Nuzzo, wanted a younger viewership because they felt they couldn’t merchandize to older people.

Since the loss of Candlepin Bowling at the turn of the millennium, the landscape of candlepin bowling has changed. Today, candlepin bowling seems to be in a rebuilding phase.

There are bright movements, such as the Candlepin New Generation show hosted by Rob Taylor and Dan Gauthier that tapes the area’s best under-18 bowlers competing with partners and broadcasts on NESN.

However, if you search the NESN TV schedule online, Candlepin New Generation is nowhere to be found.

Web-based shows such as King of the Palace hosted by Dave Maattala, Classic Candlepins hosted by Mark Ricci, and New England

King of the Palace web show held at New Palace Lanes in Fitchburg, MA (Source: YouTube.com/NewPalaceLanes)

Candlepins Show hosted by Jay Horrigan are promoting the sport by uploading their own tournament matches to YouTube and local access television channels. Each show features adult bowlers competing for money, and like Candlepin Next Generation, the commentary and production is vastly different than Candlepin Bowling, giving the shows a fresh new feel.

In the case of King of the Palace, Nuzzo interviews the bowlers before and after the match. During the match, Maattala, Nuzzo and fellow commentator Steve Bronchuk are never afraid to crack a joke or venture off into discussion while there is a lull in the bowling action, providing entertainment when the bowling fails to do so.

Executive producer Travis Falk has become an expert with action replays, bloopers, and demonstrations of how the seemingly impossible is always possible in candlepin bowling. The show is known for its signature championship belt, similar to a WWE belt.

Perhaps most interesting is the interactive contests where YouTube viewers who email the show can guess match outcomes and win prizes.

Suddenly, the return of candlepin bowling on TV doesn’t seem so impossible.

According to Maattala, it all happened one morning when he was cleaning the basement where he found an old Channel 5 banner.

“I sat down and put pen to paper and decided that I was going to be the first in the new era to conduct a tournament that would air on TV and the Web, giving everyone a chance to showcase their skills and love for candlepin bowling,” Maattala said. “I wanted to be different, new, exciting, and I wanted to be an innovator.”

It almost didn’t work. Turnouts in the first season of the show were low, barely eclipsing 10 bowlers.

“I almost shut it down,” Maattala said. “I tried. I did what my vision was, and I was happy with what I had accomplished.”

But it was that point when King of the Palace became the perfect example of what the members of the proud candlepin bowling community have said countless times: Candlepin is not dead; it will thrive again.

And slowly but surely, they are proving to be right.

In the show’s second season, turnouts grew to over 35 bowlers. The 20-alley New Palace Lanes could barely fit two bowlers to a lane. Maattala knew he had to change things to re-invent the show, making it bigger and better to satisfy its growing audience.

Finding new sponsors made it possible to offer higher cash payouts. The championship belt was formed. Maattala described the show’s growing success as a “buzz that has not been around in a long time that started putting candlepin bowling back on the map.”

During the show’s third season, Fitchburg Access Television recognized Maattala, Nuzzo, Bronchuk, and Falk for on air personality. They all made it a mission to reach out to fans from all over the US and even countries like Canada, Sweden, and Switzerland that are supporting them now.

“I am humbled and truly touched by every fan out there,” Maattala said. “I respond to every single one and their response is that they did not think I would respond back.”

Other shows such as Classic Candlepins and New England Candlepins began to appear.

“I believe we are all competitive,” Maattala said. “But we are all supportive of what each show has to offer. We all do what we do for the love of the sport.”

For the older bowlers, the new web shows may not have the same grandeur of the old Channel 5 Candlepin Bowling show that they grew up with. But thanks to the collective efforts of pioneers like Maattala, Ricci, Taylor, and Horrigan, those fans finally have something to watch again.

For the younger generations of bowlers who were born after Candlepin Bowling was canceled, these web shows provide them with bowling they can learn from.

Most importantly, these web shows keep candlepin bowling alive. As they continue to grow in views, fans, and sponsorship money opportunities, the shows will expose the sport to the world.

More alleys will begin to appear across the nation. People will see it, and they’ll drive to their city’s alleys just to try it, like Marquis and Bedard did.

“We wanted to do something once a week where we could hang out but also be active,” Marquis said. “We’ve been doing it for over a year now. We’ve had so many laughs, we’ve made so many incredible memories, and we’ve become better bowlers!”

DJ Hosley

Worcester State is not Afraid to Evolve

If you saw what Worcester State University looked like in 1980, you may not have believed your eyes. Similarly, if you came back to WSU in 15 years, you may not recognize the school you attended for four or more years.

The university is not afraid to dish out the dollars to support its growth. In the past decade, WSU has spent at least $200 million through the facilities department, covering everything from the construction of new large buildings to smaller campus renovations.

According to Sandra Olson, WSU’s facilities director, the amount is five times the amount spent between 1980-2005. This includes the Ghosh Science and Tech building, the campus parking garage, the Wayslean, Sheehan, and Dowden Halls, as well as significant renovations to the Sullivan Academic Center, the Administration building, the Student Center, the Learning Resource Center, and both campus cafeterias.

“I’ve never heard anybody say ‘I want your job,'” said Olson in an interview this morning. Olson has held her position at WSU for over 12 years. She works with a staff of 67 people, ranging from janitorial services, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, painters, a grounds department, a sustainability department, and supervisors.

If you ever wonder what the facilities department is responsible for, Olson would answer, “If you walk on it, eat it, look at it, feel it, flush it, sit on it, it’s a facilities issue.”

Her job consists of daily operations, which is not-so-simply making sure everything within the university is up and running and ready for students and faculty to use every day. Her other focuses are what she referred to as “deferred maintenance,” consisting of planning and executing renovations and large building constructions.

Despite describing the budget as “tight,” Olson voiced her support for why the university is spending now. Her number one reason — expansion.

Since she began working here, WSU has tripled its bed capacity. A dominant commuter-resident ratio has become more balanced. What used to be 70 percent commuter and 30 percent resident is now 60 percent commuter and 40 percent resident, and quickly coming even closer, according to Olson.

In addition to that, Olson cites that we live in a “dynamic environment,” and the university has to evolve with it. New majors, new technology, and a need for new program spaces require up-to-date facilities.

“We may not have enough money for the bells and whistles,” said Olson, “but when you walk into a basic chemistry lab, you should have all of the updated functions you need, and that’s our main purpose.”

Olson also reflected on how seriously she takes her job, especially the high priority on resident satisfaction.

“We have people’s children,” Olson said. “You guys are the most invested. We want you to have a positive experience; that’s the final outcome. That’s what matters most to us.”

Still, the job is anything but easy. Olson, who earned an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and a master’s degree in business administration, is ready for anything. She has grown accustomed to endless planning and the fast pace her job requires.

Among her current agenda is updating the Science and Tech building. She says everything on the roof, like heat and vent systems, needs to be replaced.

One of the challenges Olson has gotten used to is executing a renovation, like the one that needs to occur in the Science and Tech building, without closing the building. A process that would take five months if the building were closed will take longer and require temporary systems while the permanent solution is constructed piece by piece.

The 2007 parking lot will be updated in the foreseeable future. The facilities department is also preparing for a second garage and three satellite parking lots, if needed.

 Photo Courtesy of Worcester State University

Another way to “Go Green” — Working with your Competition

Sustainability does not end with recycling and LED light bulbs.

In its eighth annual attempt to raise awareness on going green, Worcester State University’s Sustainability and Food Day Fair featured a handful of speakers to comment on the benefits and obstacles of sustainability in business.

Representatives from three very different businesses — Digital Federal Credit Union, Equal Exchange, and Future Focus Media – all shared the same three step model for a sustainable business.

Most important is working together. Collaborating with your competition creates strength in numbers.

“We know our credit union can not match up to a big bank. But a collaborative effort among the 700,000 credit unions in our country can certainly match up to the Bank of Americas, said John Lahair of DCU.

For Dee Wells of Future Focus Media, the same collaborative effort must be applied, but with people.

“Every person can tell a story,” said Wells. “Every person is a photographer and a videographer, but not every person has an education on how to get their stories seen and heard.”

Equal Exchange works together with the small farmer who often doesn’t get as much money back from the conventional business system.

Exporters, importers, traders, and distributors that receive a portion of the money can be replaced by co-op mills and co-op markets. This creates a co-op business with equal trade products, and provides a more sustainable way connecting the coffee farmer with the coffee drinker with a shorter supply chain.

Once the collaborative effort is established and acts as the backbone of your sustainable business, belief in your company must follow.

“You have to believe that your company is making a difference,” said Cali Reed of Equal Exchange.

According to Reed, a record-breaking number of shareholders invested with Equal Exchange in 2015, a shining reminder that patience and belief in the company is critical.

The final step, according to Wells of Future Focus Media, becomes easy when the other two steps are completed.

“Show people your vision,” said Wells with a smile on his face. “You’ve got to do lots of walking and lots of talking, but when you believe in your company, it’s easy to educate others on it.”

The sustainable business model can be applied to everyone, not just business and marketing majors. Aaron Zabka, a WSU student in attendance for the presentation, is an English and communications student who has aspirations of a creating a co-op cooking company.

“The speakers were very good,” Zabka said. “The model seemed simple and applicable to my own restaurant that I’d like to run some day.”

With any developing model that goes against the conventional way of doing things, there are always obstacles.

“There are a lot of posers,” said Lindsey Miller of Equal Exchange. “They take good ideas without doing it the right way, and suddenly the marketplace is crowded with some companies who only want marketing benefits.”

The unpredictability of the economy and technology are also obstacles that Lahair and Wells cited.

Photo Courtesy of Worcester State University

How Brazil’s Pride Found its Voice

At the turn of the millennium, Rio de Janiero was a mystery. In 2016, Brazil’s second largest city will host the Summer Olympic Games.

The city’s discovery could be attributed to journalism.

With no Internet and no exposure, Global Media Group wanted a story written on Brazil’s second largest city, focusing on the violence in favelas, a term referring to densely populated urban hilly areas of small houses built on top of each other. But it wasn’t until 2008 when Orkut, Brazil’s equivalent of google, was gaining popularity.

In 2010, RioOnWatch launched, giving Rio’s community a voice. In her talk on Tuesday at Worcester State University, Theresa Williamson of RioOnWatch explained that in 2011, the program held journalism trainings in Rio.

Over 180 people in Rio learned how to take pictures, record videos, and post what was happening in their communities.

In Vila Taboinha, this media presence helped halt some demolitions that were ordered to make space for Olympic parking lots. The media recorded police harassment, leading the demolition to be reconsidered. Eviction notices for the community were eventually dropped.

When something in Rio is trending on social media, RioOnWatch writes an article capturing different voices on what’s happening. Today, there are over 1,200 articles focusing on specific communities that in some cases had no documentation of existence.

One’s understanding of favelas could change just by reading about them on RioOnWatch. “Favelas are not what they’re made out to be,” Williamson said.

Favelas have been stigmatized as centers for crime, poverty, and miserably dense conditions. However, the global perception of favelas is changing, according to Williamson.

Drug trafficking in favelas is down to 31 percent with no more than 1 percent of housed residents being directly involved. The average wage of favelas in the last 10 years has increased 55 percent, while the national average increase is under 38 percent.

Historically, favelas came to be in 1897 because of government neglect of returning soldiers who were promised land upon their return from battle. Favelas were established fully by the residents who had to take care of themselves with no outside regulation.

“Every brick and every tile was built by the residents in every single community,” Williamson said. The strong sense of belonging and the short radius of every building is what Williamson attributes to 94 percent of favela residents considering themselves happy. In addition to that, Rio Mayor Eduardo Paes promised upgrades to all favelas by 2020.

WSU seniors Ben Dussault, Jered Kent, and Nick Holland were amazed at the clarification they received in Williamson’s talk.

“I didn’t know anything about favelas,” Dussault said. “But I learned a lot from the presentation, and I’d definitely visit Rio one day if I could.”

“It definitely removed by stigma,” Holland said. Similarly in journalism, the stigma of favelas as “slum” may be vanishing based on a study that revealed that negative terms used to describe favelas have decreased from 50 percent in 2010 to 34 percent in 2014.

RioOnWatch continues to show how favelas in Rio are evolving based on culture and access to resources, jobs, and knowledge of the city.

“It was cool to see how this effort was able to depict the reality of favelas,” Kent said.

Contact Information

1. Ben Dussault (Senior)

Email: bdussault@worcester.edu

 

2. Jered Kent (Senior)

Email: jkent@worcester.edu

 

3. Nick Holland (Senior)

Email: nholland@worcester.edu

Photo Courtesy of RioOnWatch

Social Media in Journalism: Interview with the T&G’s Bill Doyle

Bill Doyle is a sportswriter who specializes in coverage of the Boston Celtics and other New England sports teams for the Worcester T&G. I recently had the opportunity to conduct an interview via email exchange talking about the importance of social media with his job and how exactly he uses and benefits from Twitter.

Q: What is your job title/description, and how long have you been working at this position?

A: My job title at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette is sports writer. I have worked at the T&G for 35 years and I have covered the Boston Celtics and local golf since the early 1990s. I also fill in on other assignments, ranging from the Red Sox to colleges to boxing to high schools.

Q: In your opinion, what is the current status of social media in journalism? Do we need it?

A: Yes, I believe we need social media in journalism. It’s a great way for sports journalists to post breaking news and comments. At my newspaper, we are urged to post stories and comments on Twitter at least twice a day seven days a week. Journalists post breaking news or informed reactions, not silly comments. It’s all about building a trust with your followers, the same way you build a trust with your readers.

Q: What forms of social media do you use when working? How often are you using it?

A: I use Twitter. I tweet at least twice a day. At the Celtics media day last Monday, I must have tweeted two dozen comments from the players. At the Red Sox game on Saturday, I tweeted about a dozen game updates and postgame player quotes.

Q: How has social media changed your job? Is it more of a convenience or a hassle?

A: Social media has changed just about every journalist’s job, or it should have. You can’t sit on any stories any more unless you’re convinced no one else has them. If you wait until the newspaper comes out, someone else could tweet the same story. Even if no one else has the story, you could tweet the fact that you’re about to run a breaking story or you could tweet a link to the story you just broke.

Q: What kinds of restrictions do you deal with pertaining to social media?

A: Obviously, I don’t tweet personal information about myself, no vacation photos or what I had for breakfast. No one cares about that. I treat tweets the same as if I’m writing for my newspaper – keeping them professional and using shorthand only to fit into 140 characters.

Q: How do you gather information? How do you trust and verify what people post?

A: I gather information the same way I always have – by talking to trusted sources, attending games and observing. In that respect, using social media is no different than writing a story for my newspaper. As far as reading other peoples’ tweets, I believe the tweets of people who have earned by trust. Other journalists fall into that category. If I use a tweet from an athlete, I simply write what the athlete posted without saying whether I believe it or not – the same way I use a quote. Let the readers decide if they believe the tweet to be true.

Q: How do you interact with people through social media? How do you engage them?

A: I interact with people through Twitter. Some followers favorite or retweet my tweets. Others comment on them, and I comment back to them. When Kelly Olynyk of the Celtics got hit in the eye before a game last season and then played a good game with an ugly, swollen eye that night, I tweeted that he was a real, dead-eye shooter. All sorts of followers, including other sports writers, retweeted and favorited that tweet. I haven’t reached the point where followers have tweeted me scoops or story ideas, but I’d be open to that.

Photo Courtesy of Bill Doyle

Professor’s Profile: Dr. Timothy Murphy

PROFESSOR’S PROFILE

Name: Timothy Murphy              

Position/Department: Assistant professor/ Urban Studies

Specialty: Urban Anthropology, Latin America, Brazil

Professional Credentials/Experience:

• D. in Anthropology at the University of California, Davis
• A. in Anthropology at the University of California, Davis
• A. French; Communication and Culture (Dual Degree) at Indiana University, Bloomington
• Assistant professor of Urban Studies at WSU since January, 2013
• National Science Foundation Research Fellow 2010
• Lead Qualitative Researcher and Analyst for 2014-2015 LEI and WSU Research: “Pathways to Higher Education: Opportunities and Outcomes for Latino Young Men in Five Massachusetts Communities”

I’m currently working on: An article about heat and urbanization in a rapidly growing Brazilian city; and a research project about a group of performance artists and contemporary dancers in one of Brazil’s poorest states.

I chose this subject because: I am interested in questions of belonging and mobility among marginalized populations

My favorite part of my job is: Connecting with students – watching them learn and learning from them

Greatest achievement: Achieving near-native fluency in a language

Greatest passion: Living in foreign countries

Guilty pleasure: Corn chips

Do you use social media? (Facebook, Twitter, etc): Instagram

Nobody knows I: Once worked at a magic show in Hawai’i

I’ve never been able to: Pay attention to an entire football game

I’d give anything to meet: Amy Sedaris

My favorite hobby outside of my job is: Yoga

If I could change any one thing about myself: I would develop the capacity to fly

My advice to a student would be: 1) Be kind to yourself and to others, and 2) step out of your shoes and into someone else’s from time to time.

My favorite quote: “Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now”

-Fred Rogers

Photo Courtesy of Tim Murphy