UMass Dartmouth hosts Bioneers Conference

By Katie Bresnahan

Attendees at this year’s Bioneers by the Bay: Connecting for Change Conference were welcome to attend UMass Dartmouth’s final farmers’ market of the semester.

The Bioneers by the Bay: Connecting for Change Conference returned to UMass Dartmouth last weekend, bringing with it various speakers, workshops and a Youth Initiative program, all dealing with sustainability.

The conference ran Friday through Sunday and brought together UMass Dartmouth students and people from across the nation. Bioneers conferences took place in locations around the country over the weekend and were connected via satellite.

In conjunction with Bioneers, UMass Dartmouth held its final farmers’ market of the season. The three day event was, by far, the largest farmers’ market held on campus this fall. The market featured many area farms and gardens, including Gourmet and Gourmand, the Artisan Kitchen, Silverbrook Farm, Quansett Gardens, Hana’s Honey, Tripp Farm, Kettle Pond Farm and Lucky Fields Farm. All the products sold at the market were locally grown and in season.

This year’s Bioneers conference featured various inspirational speakers. One of the more enthusiastic speakers was Van Jones. Jones is an activist who tries to “fight pollution and poverty at the same time.” He started his lecture by stating that “the United States is the number one jailer in the world.” A lot of the people in U.S. jails are young.

Of these young people, Jones said, “What we need for these young people [are] green jobs and not jails.” Jones expressed that if people who would otherwise be in jail were taught to install solar panels on rooftops then there would be less people in prisons and the environment would be better protected. He said that if these people learned to install panels, they would be on their way to becoming electrical engineers.

Jones says that this movement needs to spread from Oakland, California, where he lives, to the rest of the country. He then told those in attendance that he was going to Washington, D.C. on Monday to speak to the D.C. City Counsel. “[We must] combine the people who most need work with the work that most needs doing,” he said.

Jones said of his plan to stop pollution and poverty, “You save the soul of this country when you [do this].”

Another speaker was Diane Wilson. Wilson, who is a shrimper off the Gulf Coast of Texas, has been jailed twenty times for civil disobedience. When she discovered that her tiny county of only 1,000 people was rated number one for toxic release in the United States she was appalled. Wilson, who did not speak very much in her younger days said, “When I saw that…I called a meeting. Sometimes that’s all it takes.” She did this despite her lack of knowledge about the environment.

When Wilson could not get her community to stop releasing toxins, she decided to take action. The first thing she did was to start a hunger strike. She said, “I called up the only reporter I knew and told her, ‘I’m starting a hunger strike…I’m starting now!” Within two weeks, she got exactly what she wanted. She added, “Anybody can do what [Gandhi] did with commitment.”

She started several hunger strikes over environmental issues. During one strike, of about 30 days, Wilson decided to secretly sink her boat. “Most people thought me sinking my boat was like a farmer burning his own farm,” said Wilson about the boat that she loved.

Covertly, after painting her boat white and removing it’s engine (she did not want to be called a hypocrite for leaking oil into the water), Wilson set her vessel ablaze above a discharge pipe. However, as soon as she lit the fire, three boatloads of coast guard caught her, calling her an “eco-terrorist.”

At the end of her lecture, Wilson exclaimed, “I encourage all you women to just misbehave!”

Dean Cycon, owner of Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee Company gave a lecture entitled “Deepening Commerce: Can business really make the world a better place?” Dean’s Beans only buys beans from local farmers. They also give labor and benefits packages to employees

According to Cycon, Dean’s Beans is “breaking all the rules and growing like crazy.” First of all, the company does not have a mission statement. “Mission statements have no meaning,” he said, adding that they “are not worth the paper they’re written on.”

“We share profit equally and [we are] still profitable. We seek to have enough. Our profit margin is enough…Why do we have to have more?” asked Cyncon. Unlike most businesses, Dean’s Beans does not try to maximize their profit.

On Sunday morning, several members of the Youth Initiative came onstage to show the rest of the audience what they learned over the course of the three day conference. Some of them read poetry that they wrote for Saturday night’s open mic presentation. One high school student from Lawrence, Massachusetts spoke about the mural that he helped to create with other members of the initiative. Solar Youth, a group from New Haven, Connecticut spoke about what they learned, as well.

Callum Greive of The Marion Institute, which brought Bioneers by the Bay to UMass Dartmouth, said, “The Youth Initiative has been a phenomenal success [this year].”

Celebration in the quad

By Stephanie Luz

It was official: the Red Sox creamed the Cleveland Indians 11-2 at Fenway Park, securing the Sox’s spot in the World Series and assuring mass celebration at UMass Dartmouth on Sunday night.

At approximately 12:10 a.m., students were celebrating all over the campus community by screaming, yelling out car windows, setting off fireworks and shaking light poles and signs. The UMass Dartmouth Department of Public Safety, Dartmouth Police and Massachusetts State Police assisted in the quieting down of the relentless Sox-happy crowd on the Freshman Quad.

Fourth year student and ARD of Pine Dale, Retha Charette was watching the Red Sox game at Chestnut Hall and said, “After the game ended, I just heard yelling and screaming and a bunch of people just flooded in front of the building.”

There were crowds of more than 50 people walking through the residential road between Oak Glen and Roberts that were chanting and encouraging onlookers to join. These massive groups made their way over to Roberts, where they met up with the students in the freshman quad. A few cars that waited for the large crowd to clear the roadway drove by with passengers cheering out the car windows.

At the time, I was on duty in Pine Dale. My duty partner and I worried about the escalation of the crowd, which had centered between Roberts, Chestnut and Maple Ridge. My anxiety built up with the sounds of loud yells and chanting, feedback from other residents and brief transmissions over our duty walkie-talkie. A few students asked us what was going on and other students went to go see what was going on even though they were advised against it.

One of the students yelled out “I was crowd surfing and I was thrown everywhere!” as he walked past. Second year student Potter Buchanan commented, “One person was tackled by five cops for shaking a stop sign.” He also added “There were smoke bombs [dispersed] everywhere.”

About 30 minutes after the Red Sox won, the police took action. “I saw a crowd t settle down and people began to disperse. People who went to see the commotion appeared disappointed as they walked back to their Halls. A second year student named Danielle Nawrocki commented, “The cops added fuel to the fire. It made the crowd more excited. I definitely think that the cops needed to be there but I just think that the situation wasn’t as bad as I expected.”

A day after the incident, Colonel Emil Fioravanti, Director of Public Safety, discussed the student celebration in the freshmen courtyard. Fioravanti was happy to report, “No one was arrested, no one was injured, and there was no University property damage [however] there was some minor property damage to students’ cars.” Fioravanti explained, “Students need to be able to celebrate a program and be respectful of other’s property rights.” He also made note that rights were announced to the masses of students which called for dispersion, “If we announce an order to disperse and if they refuse, they could subject themselves to arrest.”

On a good note, Fioravanti concluded, “People were very respectful and moved when they were asked to move.” We can only hope that people will continue to celebrate and have fun, but do so respectfully as the Red Sox go on to the World Series.

UMass Dartmouth honors Donald Howard

By Katie Bresnahan

Don Howard opens a gift at the dedication of the Donald C. Howard Student Leadership Wall.

The Donald C. Howard Student Leadership Wall was dedicated in honor of Don Howard last Saturday to honor a man who has devoted much of his professional life to UMass Dartmouth.

Lining the walls of the Student Affairs Office were various photographs of Howard along with different United States political leaders including former presidents Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. There were also photos sent to Howard with autographs from other leaders and some letters exchanged between him and President Truman.

Dr. Jean Kim, UMass Dartmouth’s Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs began the evening. Howard served on the selection committee for the new Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs last year. As a result, he was one of the first people who Kim met when she came to UMD. “This special occasion is to celebrate, to appreciate, to recognize and also to celebrate what is a lifetime’s work of one of our colleagues, Donald C. Howard,” she said.

Since he has been at UMass Dartmouth, Howard has served as Dean of Men, Dean of Students, Emeritus Dean of Students and he now works in the Alumni Affairs office. “He’s been milking that emeritus title for a decade,” proclaimed Senator Mark Montigny, a UMass Dartmouth alum, amidst one of the short speeches about Howard’s time at the university. This set a light-hearted tone for the remainder of the evening.

One of the highlights of the evening was the unveiling of a sculpture by UMass Dartmouth alum Jesse Green. Green created the sculpture entitled, “He believes in me” in honor of Howard. “This is the culmination of a four to five year mission or a journey to have this sculpture in it’s rightful place, the university and be dedicated to Don,” said Green who graduated in 2000.

The sculpture, Green explained, is laded with symbolism. The sculpture depicts one person holding another on his shoulders. “[It] symbolizes how Don would figuratively [let students] stand up on [his] shoulders to help them reach for their highest potential. It’s what I felt [he] did with me. I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” said Green.

“It’s hard to put into words how many ways Dean Howard has impacted me,” said Green. “I am just one of the many, many, many, many, many students who came before me and who came after me who feel this way,” he added.

“You’re one heck of a friend, and I love you. I love you to death,” ended Green.

Chancellor Jean MacCormack also spoke at the wall dedication. “There are three words that come to mind when I think of Don Howard. He is a mentor. He is a server. And he is a friend,” she said. “I think Don has literally been a mentor to thousands of students. I run into alumni all the time [and they always ask me] ‘How’s Don Howard?’ And they always tell me ‘Don Stories’…Don saw in them, something that nobody else saw in them.”

As her short speech drew to an end, Chancellor MacCormack said of her friendship with Howard, “Once Don becomes your friend you never lose him…and I feel really blessed.”

When Montigny got up to speak he spoke fondly of his memories with Howard. In one particular story, he received a phone call from Howard asking him to emcee Howard’s own surprise party.

“If every administrator on every college campus and in every high school would stop and read and listen to the legacy of Don Howard the world would be different. And certainly, the way we educate our children and young adults would be different,” said Montigny. “There is no question in my mind, it has always been about the student and about student affairs [for Don Howard],” he added.

Last, but certainly not least the man of the hour, Don Howard, got up to speak. “There isn’t one person here tonight who I couldn’t say I love you. I am so blessed in my life,” said Howard. He added, “All of you here tonight, especially those of you who have been students, I’m telling you, you are so uniquely, wonderfully dear to me. I can’t thank God enough.”