Tag: Ashley Seldon ’24
Pace Yourself
by The Cowl Editor on October 28, 2021
Campus
Are Self-Paced Classes Better at the Collegiate Level?
by Ashley Seldon ’24
Some classes at Providence College are self-paced in terms of homework and assignment deadlines. It is common for college students to complain about the workload they deal with and for them to experience time management issues. They are trying to balance time, take care of themselves, work, and make memories with friends under the newly relaxed COVID-19 restrictions. Implementing more self-paced classes could help eliminate the battle to complete assignments on time with hard deadlines. For instance, one of the bio-psychology classes taught at PC is self-paced. Students are still required to show up to lecture and their lab; however, the assignments for the week aren’t due every single class. Instead, assignments have a hard deadline set later in the semester (around the midterm period), and students can choose to work on the tasks when their workload in other classes is lighter.
The self-paced method puts more responsibility on the student to manage their time wisely and ensures that they don’t get too behind in bio-psych so that they are not overwhelmed playing catch-up. However, it also gives the student more autonomy instead of being restricted to immediate deadlines set by a professor. Self-paced classes appear more sympathetic to college students since they are adults. It represents a recognition of maturity. If the student performs badly because they cannot complete all of their missing assignments by the hard deadline, they’re responsible for poor time management skills. Self-paced classes also recognize that people make mistakes. There are times when a student saves an assignment for the last minute, and then they are too stressed because they don’t understand the material and cannot submit it before the next class. One hectic weekend could easily lead to a missing homework assignment. Self-paced courses acknowledge that college students are human and have busy schedules; one missing homework assignment should not penalize one’s grade so heavily. Math business analysis operates very similarly at PC. Every Sunday night, there is a homework assignment due, but that is only a soft deadline. Homework is not thoroughly checked until the middle and end of the semester, when everything has to be submitted. On the homework itself, the student has unlimited opportunities to try problems through the online format. However, quizzes have a hard deadline every two weeks, so the setup provides an incentive for the student to have attempted the homework assignments before taking the quiz.
PC should implement this method of self-paced instruction in more classes. The benefits for very involved students with busy schedules are clear, and the method can help teach adult-aged students life skills. However, this isn’t readily applicable to all classes. For example, English classes where students read books and have to be prepared to come to class to discuss would not operate well under a self-paced method because students would not be able to participate in class discussions. In addition, when a student gets too far behind in a book, who is to say they will genuinely go back on a free evening and catch up on 200 pages of reading? The same goes for every friar’s favorite class: development of western civilization. So, the self-paced method isn’t applicable everywhere, and there certainly should be hard deadlines for quizzes, presentations, exams, and essays. However, for measly homework assignments, the implementation seems simple.
More self-paced classes could help Providence College make itself more marketable to different students. An education article on Bright Hub explores this by explaining that “incorporating a self-paced learning component into current university programs could make them more marketable to different types of learners. Some studies show that self-paced or competency-based programs are better able to attract minorities and non-traditional students.” (Brighthub). While PC is a very reputable college in New England, it is often stereotyped as having a homogenous student body. The advertising of self-paced classes could open doors to students who juggle work or require more flexibility in their education. Keeping hard deadlines for testing will keep students motivated to complete work and help maintain the rigor that PC’s curriculum boasts.
If Not Justice For Everyone, Then For Whom?
by The Cowl Editor on October 24, 2021
Opinion
If Not Justice For Everyone, Then For Whom?
Addressing Racial Bias in News Coverage of Missing Persons
by Ashley Seldon ’24
It has been impossible for the tragedy of Jelani Day’s disappearance and murder to get adequate news coverage due to the prominence of the Gabby Petito case. Day, a graduate student at Illinois State University who aspired to be a doctor, went missing on Aug. 24. Two days after being declared missing, deputies found his car in a wooded area south of Illinois Valley YMCA, with the clothes that Day had been wearing when people last saw him. Nine days after the car was found, authorities found his body in the Illinois River after police received a tip. In the last week, autopsy reports shared the grotesque detail that Day’s body was found in the river with no organs or eyeballs in his sockets. However, these original reports are now being struck down by LaSalle County police, saying Day’s organs are not missing, but were severely decomposed because of how long Day’s body was floating in the river. Day’s mother, Carmen Bolden Day, has pointed out the differences in the management of Gabby Petito’s investigation versus her son’s. She accuses the police department of handling this case with no sense of urgency or “drive.” The Black and Missing Foundation co-founder, Derrica Wilson, has commented on this, saying, “They’re asking ‘But why wasn’t the same attention or resources dedicated to my loved one’s case’…There’s a lot of Gabby Petitos in the Black and Brown community.” Carmen Day has recently requested federal help to find out how her son ended up in the river. The police have not yet confirmed Day’s case as a homicide because they are awaiting results from toxicology tests.
The details of Petito’s case have remained in the headlines for weeks. Whenever new information is presented, it is covered by all major news stations and done thoroughly. Her tragic story is interesting for many reasons. One is that Petito and her boyfriend Brian Laundrie had a YouTube channel with 6,000 subscribers where they have a vlog posted of their travels. The transparency is also interesting. Her boyfriend, Laundrie, returned from their trip early without her, forcing her parents to launch an investigation. Many have been invested in the Petito case since the declaration of her disappearance, with the FBI helping quickly to find her body. Now, there is a special called “48 Hours” on CBS and Paramount+ that goes over the disappearance of Petito and the hunt for Laundrie.
The differences between the cases are, first, that Petito had a small social media following. Second, Petito’s murder seems to have to do with a domestic violence dispute. Third, Jelani Day was a black man, and Gabby Petito was a white woman.
It is pretty apparent that Petito’s boyfriend killed her, or at least that he knows something. The only work left for the police is to track Laundrie down. Day’s case is a more time-consuming and, therefore, costly investigation. This immense effort is not something the deputies in his county seem to want to put forth. Petito not only gets a CBS program but also reports on protestors outside of her boyfriend’s family’s house in Florida. Not to say these efforts are not sufficient and necessary to bring about justice for Gabby, but have people forgotten about Jelani Day, whose case presents more questions and whose death seems to have racial implications? A black man being murdered in the woods and his body ending up in a river sounds more similar to a crime that would have happened in the 1950s than in 2021. However, it’s the true story of Jelani Day.
The frequency of Petito’s story being reported over Day’s is obvious, which inherently puts the mysterious death of a white woman at a higher importance than the same fate of a black man. It is scary to think that the perpetrators of crimes against Black Americans are simply never found or faced with any repercussions. This cycle allows hate crimes to persist, namely because no racist person has to fear that the system will not protect them. News stations will barely report the case, police will give up on the investigations after a few weeks, and the federal government will act as if they had not heard anything. This country’s most elite systems do not value the lives of African Americans. America’s inability to report the cases of marginalized groups and give them sufficient investigations is a recurring history in our biased justice system.
Technological Teaching
by The Cowl Editor on October 7, 2021
Opinion
Technological Teaching
Online Reading Puts Providence Schools at a Disadvantage
by Ashley Seldon ’24
The ongoing pandemic has undoubtedly transformed how teachers instruct, and technology has become embedded into school curriculums more so than ever. Upon entry into a seventh grade classroom, it becomes obvious that the students use their ChromeBooks and Google Classroom for all of their assignments, perhaps to accommodate the virtual students. During their class reading sessions, the teacher would ask the class whether they would like to read the book aloud or listen to an audiobook and follow along. Every time the students opted for the audiobook. This practice can certainly have its benefits when you have a hard time concentrating or want to highlight parts of the text in college. However, introducing a reliance on audiobooks and e-books as early as middle school is bound to be detrimental on the ways students develop in the classroom.
This produces an array of questions on how schools groom children to rely on technology for reading. How will these students approach different texts as they get older? What does this mean for future English teachers? Before these technologies were introduced into the classroom, there was far more interaction with the novels read in class. Students would have paperbacks available, leading to more engagement, including “popcorn reading” where each student reads a small passage. With audiobooks or e-books available, the options for classroom engagement are limited.
This change has been made especially evident in the switch from remote to in-person learning that occurred in the past year. Last year, students would read from e-books, as paperback options from the library were not available during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, when returning to in-person classes, students still choose to interact with online texts during silent sustained reading time. This means that a majority of students are reading picture books or comics, and some are even opening new tabs on the computer and becoming distracted by TikTok or online games. This would not be possible with a paper book.
Providence schools use websites like Clever.com, which are helpful to educators because they track the students’ reading levels based on colors and supply the student with books for that reading level. However, it is also easy for kids to select simpler books that are below their reading level. It’s difficult for one teacher to monitor an entire classroom reading at once; this is an excellent resource to help supplement instruction, but it shouldn’t be the main way elementary and middle school students are taught to read, mainly because the Providence school district has the most multilingual learners in the entire state. They represent 29 percent of their school district, as reported by Rhode Island in 2019. The students should be reading aloud or in their heads and trying to connect their primary language to the nuances of the English language. If these children are forced to rely on online systems to read the books back to them, that puts them at a disadvantage in the future. A Stanford study reveals that “Researchers at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education say reading fluency suffered dramatically, especially among second and third-grade students,” (ABC7news). Researchers also found that, a year later, that gap has not improved. Now that schools are entirely in-person, teachers need to ditch the screens and bring kids back to real books. Multilingual learners now have to overcome the gap from COVID-19 last year in addition to the language barrier. For native speakers, it is still ultimately easier to be distracted by a screen and the internet versus using a physical book. It would be naïve to say that technology usage should be discouraged in classrooms completely, but when it comes to critical skills like reading, students should begin by taking more traditional routes to establishing fundamental skills.
The Influencer Wears Prada
by The Cowl Editor on September 30, 2021
Opinion
The Influencer Wears Prada
How Social Media Stars Devalue the Prominence of the Met Gala
by Ashley Seldon ’24
The Met Gala has always stood out from the long array of red-carpet events held each year because of its unique themes. It is the biggest night in fashion where A-list celebrities grace New York City wearing one-of-a-kind gowns and other ensembles created by iconic high fashion designers. It celebrates fashion as an art form and allows celebrities to wear unique looks that do not necessarily have to be glamorous or over-sexualized like other red-carpet events.
The stars invited to the Met Gala have typically influenced the fashion industry in some way and perhaps have already developed strong relationships with these designers through parties and other events. Usual attendees are NYFW models, renowned actors and actresses, and talented musicians and athletes. Just being a celebrity doesn’t necessarily grant access to this exclusive event. For example, the entire Kardashian family has been invited except for Kourtney and Khloe because they lack a strong influence on fashion. The editor of Vogue, Anna Wintour, personally invites these celebrities to the fundraising benefit.
Knowing the exclusivity of the Met Gala, it was shocking to many that TikTok star Addison Rae was invited to this year’s event. Rae boasts 84.6 million followers on the app, where she has accrued fame through posting 30-second dancing clips. Recently, Rae released the movie He’s All That on Netflix, which has received much criticism. Twitter tore the film up; one user, @HistoryofPopcorn, tweeted, “Cringe and expected disappointment, that’s how we describe Netflix’s He’s All That.”
In the past, other social media influencers have gone to the Met Gala, such as Liza Koshy and Emma Chamberlain. However, the difference is that Koshy was asked to interview celebrities walking the carpet, and Chamberlain had a brand deal with Louis Vuitton. TikTok stars, in general, have been bashed for reaching fame through stealing dances created by lesser-known black artists or creators. Since Rae has the famous “it girl” look, she gets more views and likes than the creators making the choreography she mimics. So, her simply being a famous TikTok star should not have granted her an invite to the Met Gala.
Though Rae does have a brand deal with American Eagle and has launched a makeup line available at Sephora, these are more commercial business endeavors. Unlike Chamberlain, she has not developed a name for herself in the high fashion industry. Rae’s invitation devalues the high status required in previous years to go to the Met Gala. She has set the precedent that any famous and pretty social media influencer may score an invite. Could this lead to Wintour inviting Instagram models or other barely famous people in the future?
A viral Tik Tok blew up in the weeks preceding the Met Gala going over a leaked image of the seating arrangements. The video made by @charlesgross shows that Addison Rae would be sitting next to fashion icons Donatella Versace and Naomi Campbell and across from global star Beyoncé. The comments section blew up with one user saying, “My honest opinion is that influencers shouldn’t be allowed at something like the Met Gala. You’re telling me Addison Rae/James Charles hold the same power as Lady Gaga or Donatella Versace ” (koicrystals). While fact-checkers later proved the image to be fake, the idea that Rae, a person famous for quick dancing clips, would be in the company of people who have paved the way in trendsetting and making fashion perceived as art was unsettling.
Rae wasn’t the only member of Generation Z in attendance; perhaps Anna Wintour is trying to push the high fashion industry onto a younger audience. Though the Met Gala has never been a marketing event, it’s supposed to highlight the designers’ looks and showcase a walking Gala of their art. Perhaps this was a first attempt of reaching out to those who have yet to discover high fashion.
Rae wore a red, vintage Tom Ford gown with a classic blonde bob. She attempted to channel old Hollywood glam for the Met theme—American fashion. Nonetheless, her look came off very simple compared to the other celebrities who use the Met Gala to send a social or political message. Often these looks aren’t meant to be effortlessly beautiful but something that the average person questions. The outfit should be interpreted like most art and require onlookers to hypothesize the designer’s intentions concerning the theme. Rae addressed backlash surrounding her invite, saying, “Anyone who supports me, I love you, and thank you for everything. It means the world, and I couldn’t do this without you guys!” All in all, her presence as a D-list celebrity devalues the elite air the Met Gala once held.