Tag: Madeline Morkin ’22
Struggling for a Slot: IMLeagues Registration Restrictions Need to Be Made
by kwheele4 on February 25, 2021
Campus
By Madeline Morkin ’22
Assistant Opinion Editor
In semesters prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, Providence College students often went to bed at night by setting morning alarms for class, the gym, or just as a wake-up for the general start of their next day. Just as COVID-19 has affected many of the once-regular ways in which students function around campus, it has led to the quite irregular use and practice of setting midnight wake-up alarms or reminders prior to the 12 a.m. IMLeagues release of gym slot openings for the following day.
Prior to COVID-19, PC’s Concannon Fitness Center welcomed any student or professor seeking to use the facility. With leisure and without thought, the PC community could make plans or last-minute decisions to utilize the gym’s machines, workout mats, weights, and other facility offerings whenever they wanted to go and for however long they desired to stay. Unfortunately, new COVID-19 restrictions on campus have led to a much more difficult and inconvenient process when one attempts to work out on campus.
Now, for the sake of maintaining safe social distances between gym-goers, Concannon Fitness Center allows only 50 students to work out simultaneously. Through a registration process on IMLeagues, students are forced to register for a one-hour-and-10-minute-long time slot in which they can utilize the facility. However, signing up through this platform is a difficult process in itself. Now, it is necessary to be awake at midnight in order to secure a spot in the gym for any time the following day.
During both this current spring and the past fall semester, students have had to say goodbye to the days of convenient workouts, last-minute decisions to head to the gym, and even the certainty of getting to work out every day. Sometimes, these one-hour-and-10-minute-long time slots fill up just minutes after their 12 a.m. release, pushing many students onto a waitlist with the hopes that one of the 50 lucky registered students may decide to cancel last-minute, making one more spot available.
Additionally, IMLeagues offers no restriction on how often a student may sign-up for a gym slot. With over 4,500 undergraduate students, and only 50 one-hour-and-10-minute-long time slots starting at 6 a.m. and ending at 9 p.m., many students are left without any option to utilize the facility at all.
While working out has been proven to be a great way to reduce stress and to stay healthy, students have been stripped of the ease and, often, even the potential of maintaining either a regular or irregular workout schedule on campus. Working out may fit into the typical daily routine of many students at PC, but IMLeagues’s spot release time does not consider that many students are—or would like to be—asleep at this hour. In addition, it does not consider that the students who are more prepared with set alarms and reminders are those who consistently secure these slots.
For the benefit of all PC students, IMLeagues should offer some type of restriction on how frequently a student may register for the gym. Whether this be developing a restriction on the maximum number of times in which a student may register for the gym per week, or how many days in a row a student may register for a gym slot at a particular time, the College should acknowledge that the campus community, as a whole, is not currently maintaining the once recent ability to achieve a healthy lifestyle by heading to Concannon Fitness Center. Developing registration restrictions would create a more fair and realistic process to allow more students to head to the gym, like they once could so easily.
Writer vs. Writer: Is LinkedIn Ultimately Helpful or Harmful for Students?
by kwheele4 on February 4, 2021
Opinion
Writer vs. Writer: Is LinkedIn Ultimately Helpful or Harmful for Students?
Helpful
by Emily Ball ’22
Opinion Staff
As college students approach the end of their four years, they must begin to think about their future careers. Applying for internships and jobs is a difficult and tedious process that is made easier through the use of employment and networking services such as LinkedIn.
Some argue that LinkedIn is not helpful for students, but it is in fact a useful tool that provides an easy way to search and apply for jobs. Although it does not display job opportunities for every career path (for instance, medical fields and educational fields), it can be a very helpful platform for people who are interested in entering the business or creative fields.
LinkedIn can allow you to connect with people who attended your school, which is a valuable feature for students trying to network and make connections in the professional world. When you create your LinkedIn profile, you fill out a section about your education. From then on, every company and job you look at tells you how many people from your school are employed there. This feature is beneficial for students because they can create connections with people who share the same educational background and experience.
“During an internship search a couple weeks ago, I found a position I really liked but didn’t have any connections,” said Caroline Franks ’22. “I ended up finding an alumni that I knew that worked at that company through LinkedIn, and I messaged her. We set up a phone call, and she told me all about the position and made me very prepared for the interview. I really love the feature of connecting with alumni because it helped me with the internship process.”
If a job or internship application asks for an additional website, LinkedIn is the perfect link to include. Attaching a LinkedIn profile works as a supplement to the application that provides insight on additional accomplishments or accolades you have received.
LinkedIn is a strong first step for college students trying to enter the workforce. This tool shows how Friartown can extend beyond the borders of our campus as Friars continue to open doors, one connection at a time.
Harmful
by Madeline Morkin ’22
Asst. Opinion Editor
Whether professors require students to create a LinkedIn account or a student decides to develop one on their own, it immediately becomes a must-have for every college student. Early in their college career, this professional online platform is forced onto students as they are constantly reminded of the necessity of social networking and building professional relationships.
While the buzz around LinkedIn’s importance is loud, many students watch their semi-familiar connections, or network friends, succeed while they sit behind laptops—uncomfortable, lonely, and anxious because of their own lack of experience, professional employment, or prior successes.
LinkedIn is problematic in that it compels young, and often inexperienced, students to believe that finding a job or knowing what they are going to do in the future is a simple task. The site creates an anxiety-provoking environment wherein less certain site members constantly compare themselves to their more accomplished connections.
On a daily basis, students’ connections post about their acceptance into a new workplace, plans to start a new class, or successes as they enter into another full year with a particular company.
Just like other social media platforms, LinkedIn exposes today’s younger generations to strictly the best aspects of the lives of their “connections.” While other social media networks focus on the best of people outside the workplace, LinkedIn complements this practice by showing only the best of people’s professional lives. On this platform, students have access to any connection’s job experience, GPA, resume, skills and endorsements, number of connections, majors and minors, along with a whole list of other personal and professional information, as well as successes.
However, nowhere does the site provide a section for connections to view any bad qualities, worst habits, or unsuccessful employment history. So, students are left to focus strictly on other people’s best qualities and experiences, which are often greatly exaggerated.
Oftentimes, anxiety provoked by LinkedIn urges students to take jobs that they may not necessarily want to accept. Having a perfect first job or internship is oftentimes unrealistic, but students want one because their connections are constantly posting about a new job or internship that seems even better than their own. The reality is that these connections are likely not truthfully “extremely excited to join” their new workplace despite their post.
Ironically, through the constant bombardment of the professional and educational successes of others, LinkedIn often has the unintended consequence of making students feel worse about their current situation than they should.
The Upside of the Spring Break Alternative: Why the Scattered Days off are Better for Mental and Physical Health
by The Cowl Editor on November 12, 2020
Campus
sense of relief, as it is instead offering a number of
mental health days scattered throughout the semester. Photo courtesy of Pexels.
The Upside of the Spring Break Alternative: Why the Scattered Days off are Better for Mental and Physical Health
by Madeline Morkin ’22
Opinion Staff
This fall semester, Providence College students have become all too familiar with Continuity emails flooding their inboxes. These emails provide regular updates on the current academic schedule, the College’s social expectations, and other pandemic-related news. However, on Oct. 22, one particular Continuity update shocked our campus in ways far more severe than any prior update: “There will be no traditional March spring break.”
The immediate reaction to this email was one of unified apprehension brought on by sadness, disappointment, and intense irritability among students over the seemingly incessant lifespan of the COVID-19 pandemic. Upon further reflection, the reaction should instead be one of excitement and gratitude.
The decision to cancel the 2021 spring break was necessary to protect the Friartown community. Canceling spring break bypasses the worry of untracked flights to countless locations, uncontrollable crowded destinations, and an inevitable surge of positive COVID-19 cases on campus. Earlier this semester, we saw what a dangerous impact a small crack in our campus bubble can have.
Only a month ago, Friartown fell suddenly and unexpectedly into lockdown when over 80 students tested positive for COVID-19 in just two days. This quarantine forced healthy students to decide whether they should stay inside their residence halls or leave campus entirely, without any certainty of when or if they would eventually be allowed back into their home away from home.
Before Friartown’s comeback, emails continuously warned students that if they neglected to follow the harsh but necessary regulations, they might not return to campus for the spring semester. After about three weeks of life similar to solitary confinement, PC made its comeback. Students got healthier and made their way slowly, and happily, back onto campus. This comeback took great effort and strength from PC’s faculty, students, and even the state of Rhode Island, but it left everyone wondering: how do we avoid this scenario in the future?
While canceling spring break was necessary to secure the opportunity to finish next semester on our beloved campus, it is important to appreciate PC for recognizing the opportunity to turn this decision into a much-needed moment to tend to our community’s mental health.
The same Oct. 22 Continuity email that canceled spring break also provided a brief breakdown and description of PC’s newly added and dispersed mid-week break days that will be implemented in the spring semester to replace the original spring break week on the 2021 academic calendar.
This semester has taken its toll on the mental health of PC students, faculty, and staff. From the stress of adapting to online classes, to a lack of any social regularity, to mounting positive test and death rates in Providence, PC’s administration has recognized students’ need for a mental break. PC’s reallocation of spring break to single day, mid-week breaks shows an understanding of the needs of students, faculty, and staff, as well as the importance of keeping PC’s community strong together, even while social distancing.
By strategically scheduling these days off on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and sprinkling them between the months of February and April, the College is gifting students with safer and more controllable breaks, away from the stress of classes, while encouraging them to physically remain on or near campus.
All semester, students have spoken about the necessary incorporation of a break into the busy schedules of every student. These mini breaks next semester are an acknowledgment that the administration listened to the student body and that it understands the critical need in today’s uniquely stressful environment to take the time to relax, recuperate, and come back the next day more mentally stable and cognitively aware.
The administration would have been justified in simply canceling spring break for safety reasons, but it seized an opportunity to not only protect the PC community’s physical health, but also tend to its mental wellness. These days off will provide students with a chance to spend time with friends, study or do homework, and simply take several safe breaks to decompress and enjoy life on-campus despite all the changes made by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tangents & Tirades
by The Cowl Editor on October 29, 2020
Opinion
Remote Friars Are Still a Part of the Friar Family
By Katie Belbusti ’22
Opinion Staff
This year’s midterm week is more stressful than previous years, and a contributing factor to that stress is COVID-19. With such a large number of Providence College students studying remotely this semester, it can be difficult to check in with students’ mental health during stressful times.
PC has done a lot during this Mental Health Awareness Month to create an open dialogue about mental health with the students on campus. On Oct. 19, a thousand pinwheels were placed on Slavin Lawn in remembrance of college-aged people who died by suicide. Events such as this help to eliminate the stigma around mental health, but how does this help PC students learning from home?
The College has been busy planning “The Great Friar Comeback” after the outbreak in September. Amidst the commotion, though, the College seems to have neglected checking in with students studying remotely. These are very difficult times for everyone, and especially during Mental Health Awareness Month, the administration needs to show its support to fellow Friars who are not on campus.
We must encourage the College to demonstrate the same levels of concern for remote students as they do for on-campus students. These are challenging times for everyone; therefore, students and administration must ensure that all students are given the same support.
PC Should Have Gone Paperless
By Madeline Morkin ’22
Opinion Staff
COVID-19 has fueled an unyielding number of questions regarding how to go about maintaining a regular education at Providence College. Post-quarantine, faculty and staff have had to consider these concerns that much more. Professors are social distancing, meeting students both through Zoom and in class, and spending countless hours attempting to avoid the virus while preserving beneficial instruction for their students.
While this may be true, one notable issue still stands strong amidst even the hardest of efforts: the continuous spread of physical paperwork to and from professors and their students.
In making the many necessary changes to campus and academic life at PC, the College should have considered going entirely paperless for the semester. By going paperless, professors could have become more adept at the online schooling and grading forced onto them by the pandemic.
In addition to increasing adaptability and fluidity in the new online, hybrid, and in-person classrooms, the avoidance of physical paper handouts or submissions could potentially lessen both the risk and exposure of COVID-19 for students and professors. While professors are struggling to adapt to grading online, the reality of a paperless PC may seem understandably undesirable. However, in trying times like these, any potential of decreasing exposure is worth a shot.
Remote Friars Are Still a Part of the Friar Family
By Erin Garvey ’22
Opinion Staff
Being on campus with friends, living in the dorms, and meeting new people in Raymond Dining Hall and Alumni Hall Food Court are highlights that every Providence College student looks forward to each academic year. However, this year, many of those highlights have been taken away or changed to ensure the safety of all students during the ongoing pandemic.
All students at PC have seen and experienced the struggle that followed the return of in-person classes this fall semester. Looking ahead: should students elect for a remote spring semester?
If students decide to learn remotely next semester, they will not be able to enjoy the privileges that come with living on campus. Ultimately, however, safety must be everyone’s top priority.
Not only do students need to think about their own safety, but they also must consider how their return to campus will impact the safety of professors, staff, and fellow students. When living on campus, there is a lot of opportunity to mingle and interact with fellow students, and this can have dangerous health implications during the pandemic.
Although it is a difficult choice, electing for remote instruction during the spring semester will enable students, faculty, and staff to have a safer experience, as it will allow for learning to occur with far less contact than it would on a college campus.
Tangents & Tirades
by The Cowl Editor on October 1, 2020
Opinion
The Harsh Realities of Outdoor Classrooms
Providence College has attempted to normalize hybrid classrooms, in which both in-person and remote students are in class at the same time, but one new addition to campus has shown serious faults in providing all students an equal education—outdoor classrooms.
Big white circus tents lit with inviting, warm bulbs have popped up around all corners of campus. In theory, these tents may seem like a fantastic and innovative solution to the social-distancing mandates brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. In reality, though, any remote student attending a hybrid outdoor lecture over Zoom knows that this experience has been less than ideal and not an enticing opportunity by any means.
While the outdoor students benefit from fresh air, personal conversation, and larger physical gatherings, their Zoom counterparts are struggling online. Choppy audio, whistling wind tones, nearby dorm music, car engines and alarms, and hushed, critical information from professors and classmates fill the earbuds of online students who are attempting to listen on the other end. Although each group is paying the same tuition, in-person students leave fresh-faced and fulfilled while Zoomers log off confused and unlearned.
While PC has made some necessary and creative developments to on-campus learning and teaching, there must be a more precise structure or formula for outdoor learning before it can continue as a commonplace option for class. In order to provide both in-person and remote students an equal education during their time learning physically apart, hybrid classrooms must return to their more familiar location inside an on-campus classroom enclosed by four walls.
— Madeline Morkin ’22
Dress for Success on Zoom
Waking up to get out of bed just to spend all day sitting in front of your laptop does not increase the motivation to put on a nice outfit for the day. Many of us stick to sweatshirts, or even t-shirts for our daily Zoom classes. But is this what we should be wearing?
At a time when motivation may be lacking due to the pressures of the pandemic, dressing up ever so slightly for classes has the effect of increasing one’s spirits and productivity levels. It also shows care for the class and a willingness to learn. Zoom classes are not how many of us would choose to spend class time, and we may even find it exhausting by the second class. However, this is the reality we live in currently, so why not make it work?
Try wearing some comfortable shorts with a nice top. A t-shirt, maybe, that does not have writing on it but is instead a simple, plain color. As students, it is important that we try to make the best of this situation. It is easy to throw on a sweatshirt or simply stay in our pajamas, but we should try to fight the urge and come to class in attire made for traditional in-person classes, just as we would if this were a normal semester.
A simple routine of changing into a nice shirt in the morning could help quarantine go by faster, and your mental health may thank you. It will be nice to see everyone on Zoom wearing something slightly above pajamas, but less work than 9-5 attire.
—Erin Garvey ’22
Extra Lecture is Too Much
The switch to learning on Zoom has created a major disruption in the normal curriculum for most classes. Professors and students have had to adapt in order to find a balance that is as close to normal as possible. Yet, with this new mode of learning, professors have been posting additional virtual lectures and busy work in order to make up for these drastic changes.
Professors should not be assigning all this extra work solely because of the switch to online learning. Some may argue that adding these extra virtual lectures is necessary for the time lost due to the difficulty of learning online. However, online classes last for the exact amount of time that they would if they were in person.
Additionally, in the pre-pandemic world, professors typically did not assign extra lectures or work to complete outside of class on top of homework, so why begin now?
Additional work creates more stressors which weigh on students. Most already have stressors as a result of the uncertainty surrounding the pandemic and the stress caused by the difficulties of online learning. Adding superfluous work only serves to increase these struggles.
Because online learning is inconvenient for both professors and students, both parties should work together to find a balance that is the most ideal in creating a comfortable and near-conventional classroom setting.
Perhaps the solution would be to find a better balance between lecture time and discussion time during Zoom sessions, or designating certain class meetings to lecture and others to discussion. Nevertheless, the solution should not be to assign additional work, as that only amounts to additional stress.
—Emily Ball ’22
Some Classes May Be Virtual, But Your Professor Is Not
by The Cowl Editor on September 17, 2020
Campus
Some Classes May Be Virtual, But Your Professor Is Not
by Madeline Morkin ’22
Opinion Staff
While students lament a less social, more uncertain semester at Providence College, they need to realize that campus is different for everyone, especially their professors. Most of our professors were here long before us and will remain long after we are gone. During this strange and uncertain time, we all need to empathize with and appreciate the people who got us back to PC this semester, and accept that the necessary campus-wide changes that have been implemented affect them as much as they do us.
Just because our professors are respected adults does not mean that they are settled into the current situation themselves. Like us, they have never been through anything similar to this. For example, Dr. Richard Barry IV said he struggles with his face mask, explaining, “I feel this slight sense of panic throughout class as if I have this sort of drowning response.”
Similarly, Dr. Margaret Reid, chair of the English department, indicated that she also has concerns brought on by COVID-19. She said, “Many of us care for older relatives who are at risk. So, just like students, we have complicated lives! But you know, 2020 isn’t what any of us signed up for.”
Perhaps Dr. Barry captures what is missing with online teaching best. He said, “It’s so weird at the end of a Zoom lecture you just click off and then you’re all completely alone. It’s like the most alone feeling. You’re pouring it out, your heart, and then all of a sudden everyone’s gone.”
As college students, we rarely think about the energy and friendliness of PC as the same characteristics that attracted such great professors to teach and stay here. But, as Dr. J.T. Scanlan of the English department points out, Friar friendliness has fallen. “There is a lot less noise, there is a lot less comic chatter. People are all masked up and relatively silent, kind of waiting for something to happen.”
So often, we focus exclusively on our own personal lives, but in doing so, we leave others, including our professors, to deal with their stress, their fear, all alone.
During such a time of confusion, loneliness, and heartache, we must all learn to smile with our eyes, project “thank you” beneath our masks, hold doors open with Clorox wipes, and appreciate every single day we have here. As Dr. Robert Reeder of the English department argues, “It’s amazing that this [in person direction] is happening at all.”
Our faculty, made up of individuals with their own concerns, fears, and experiences related to COVID-19, spent an inconceivable number of hours in preparation for the irregular reality that has unfolded before all of us this fall semester.
Dr. Scanlan suggests that “reality is unyielding, and reality has ways of making plans obsolete very quickly.” So, for the time being, he suggests that we all “have to be loose, and to be nimble, and to be able to change at a moment’s notice. Otherwise, there’s just needless tension.”
Through small acts of kindness, a stronger effort towards patience, and an understanding of our professors’ own stresses, we can ease tensions and find new ways to show Friar friendliness. Professor Janet Letourneau of the marketing department brings attention to this by saying, “I don’t care what anyone says, people remember kindness. And people remember how they felt when they were misunderstood.”
While empathy may seem impossible during a time when smiles and words are masked, students should remember to reciprocate the hard work and open communication that their professors are exemplifying so strongly.
Perhaps Dr. Scanlan provides the best guidance: “Most of us are hoping that our better angels will lead the way. We are all trying to do the best we can, and we should all give people a little extra room, you know? A little extra space to try to find those better angels.”
This semester, give your professors a little extra space, let’s say six feet or so, but do not forget to smile at them with your eyes.