BY JOSEPH DARIUS JAAFARIAccess to fresh fruits and veg-etables in Jamaica is increas-ingly scarce as corner bodegas become the neighborhood’s primary source for food in an area that many consider to be a kind of urban food desert. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been reluctant to label any portion of the five boroughs as “food deserts,” a term they give to ar-

eas that do not have accessible supermarkets selling fresh pro-duce within a mile’s distance. And Jamaica is no different. There are only four large super-markets within the entire neigh-borhood, and most of them out-line the Northern border -- a good eight blocks in some cases for people who live anywhere south of the York College campus. ...SEE “FARMERS” ON PAGE 6

PByorkpbnews.comFall 2014 Ed. I; Monday, September 22, 2014

Pandora’s BoxServing York College of the City Univeristy of New York and the Sorrounding Jamaica, Queens Community

NEWS OP-ED A&E SPORTS3 12 8 15INDEX

NEWS: .................... 1-7 A&E: ....................... 8-11 OP-ED: .................. 12-13 SPORTS: ............... 14-16

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GET OUT THE VOTE, CUNY!York tries to register students for November elections

BY RODNEY GANTTIn collaboration with the office of Student Activities, York Col-lege’s Student Government As-sociation has begun efforts to promote voter registration on campus for the upcoming gen-eral elections in November. “We will begin our efforts on Na-tional Voter Registration Day,” said Anthony Andrews, assistant direc-tor of Student Activities at York.

On Sept. 23 members of student government and the Delta Sigma Theta sorority will be registering new voters and encouraging ev-eryone to vote in the upcoming elections, according to Andrews. The event will take place in the atrium from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. “I hope that we’ll raise awareness about the voting process and get students to vote,” said Andrews. In a related event, on Oct. 5

members of student government will partner with the York College Alumni Association to hold a meet-ing in the faculty dining room from 6 to 9 p.m. Student Government President Shaikh Amin said he hopes the meeting will help edu-cate young students on the impor-tance of voting. In preparation for the events Student Activities will provide promotional materials, including posters and pamphlets.

The pamphlets, decorated with the CUNY-wide campaign slogan, Voice Your Choice, provide infor-mation on how to register, enrolling in a political party and how to ob-tain an absentee ballot application. According to Amin, this year York will be a part of anoth-er CUNY-wide promotion-al campaign, I Vote Because. ...SEE “VOTE” ON PAGE 5

In Case You Didn’t Notice... ...York’s Got A New Cafe

BY ALLYSON GILLRotisserie chicken, quesadillas, and calzones, are just a few of the major additions to York College’s dining options under the direc-tion of Henry McCants, York’s new food service director and executive chef. The changes, im-plemented at the beginning of the Fall 2014 semester are in response to complaints about the lack of variety and pricing of food. McCants has been getting praise from workers who have worked at York for over 10 years. “Under the new manager with Aladdin, it is excellent.” said ca-shier Marva Pedler. “The custom-ers come in, they praise us and it’s very professional. He respects us and that’s what we weren’t get-ting under (prior management). We get a lot of respect, the work-ers, and with that we can relate out to customers much better. Greet them with a smile and feel comfortable what we’re doing.” “I like him,” said cashier Bren-da Williams. “He’s very pro-fessional, he listens to us. The changes are very nice. Henry is nice, very different than before.” With a culinary degree from

SUNY Cobleskill and over 20 years of experience in the food in-dustry, McCants takes much pride in his work and presentation. The entire cafeteria has been redec-orated and two new cooks have been hired. Even suggestion cards can be seen by the Starbucks and cafeteria along with cards to con-tact McCants directly, something that was never expected and even shocked the current cafeteria staff. “When I first came here I couldn’t believe this was a cafeteria,” said McCants, who began working at York in June, “The quality of food wasn’t to my standard.” The student responses have been overwhelmingly positive. “The food is actually edible now,” said senior Kevin Aponte, 20. The new cafeteria menu also includes an omelette bar in the breakfast menu, and a revamped pizza station. The increase in va-riety comes from looking at local restaurants, McCants said. To make options all inclusive, all foods sold at Starbucks are ko-sher and the soup station serves both vegan and meat soup daily. ...SEE “FOOD OPTIONS” ON PAGE 6

Bodega Fresh!Jamaica’s

availability to fresh produce limited

Alleged Gang Member Arrested in Q6 Bus Shooting

BY JANAE HUNTERPolice arrested a second sus-pect in connection with a May 2013 shooting that left a Ja-maica teenager dead. The suspect faces several charges, including murder and weap-ons possession, police said. Brooklyn teen Shamel Ca-pers, 16, was arrested on July 30 in connection to the murder of 14-year-old D’aja Robinson, who was shot in the head on May 8, 2013 while riding the Q6 bus from a party. Robinson and her friends left the Onyx Lounge on Rockaway Boulevard shortly after 9 p.m. and were on their way to another party when the shooting happened. Nine shots hit the side of the bus, one striking Robinson in the head, as the bus passed near Bais-ley Pond Park. She was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center ...SEE “SHOOTING” ON PAGE 5

NYC’s Green Cart Initiative gets fresh produce in urban areas that don’t have access to supermarkets, such as Jamaica. (PHOTO BY ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON FOUNDATION)

“Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.” -Edward R. Murrow

York Students React to Police and Race

How Ferguson and Ray Rice are Similar

Do It for the Vine & What’s next for the App

Women’s Volleyball Starts Rough

PBNEWSyorkpbnews.com2 Monday, Sept. 22, 2014

PBNEWSyorkpbnews.com 3Monday, Sept. 22, 2014

BY RODNEY GANTT

In the wake of the viral video of the killing of a Staten Island man by police, a memo was

recently issued by the NYPD Police Commissioner William Bratton’s office reminding of-ficers that it is legal for them to be filmed while on duty.

“Members of the public are legally allowed to record po-lice interaction,” the memo reads according to an arti-cle in The Daily News, which originally reported the story. The memo served as a warn-ing to officers that any attempt to prevent a person from re-cording such as blocking cam-eras or ordering them to stop “constitutes censorship and also violates the First Amendment.” “I think recording police offi-cers is a good idea,” said Staf-ford Nichol, a Far Rockaway, Queens resident. “It's better for the person being arrested be-cause it will give an account of what happened with the officer.” The policy clarification came less than two weeks after a bystand-er recorded an attempted arrest on Staten Island which result-ed in the death of local resident Eric Garner. The video showed a white officer tackling Garner, who was black, in a chokehold. Garner was repeatedly heard tell-

ing officers “I can't breathe.” The incident resulted in accusations of racism against the officers. “I have seen the video of Mr. Garner, such a shame I've seen a few others too,” said Cedlyne Jean-Joseph, a Jamaica, Queens resident. Jean-Joseph, who said she had been aware of the right to film the police, said she had never felt the need until now. “It's really unfortunate how police officers have the green light to do and act how ever they want,” said Jean-Joseph. “They are becoming the new KKK.” Both Nichol and Jean-Jean said, while they themselves have never been harassed by police, they have heard stories and know friends and family who have. “Growing up in my neighborhood I have seen peo-ple getting arrested just for com-ing out the park late at night, it makes no sense,” said Nichol. When it comes to record-ing on duty officers and exer-cising their right Jean-Joseph

and Nichol expressed different views. “I've learned to always mind my business, what they are doing to whoever is none of my business,” said Jean-Joseph. Speaking from personal expe-rience Jean-Joseph said she knew of instances where officers knew they were being recorded and became more aggressive, even snatching the camera away from the person. “It's kind of scary if you ask me,” said Jean-Joseph. Unlike Jean-Joseph, Nichol said he thinks police recordings will, “change how they conduct their arrest and how they deal with the community.” When it comes to exercising his right to record officers, Nichol said, “If the situ-ation calls for me to record police harassment I will.”

Rodney Gantt is a staff re-porter. He can be reached at

R.Gantt@yorkpbnews.net

NYPD Is Warned Not To Censor First

BY JOSEPH JAAFARIAs a group of about 20 shuffled onto the fourth floor terrace of the H-wing of York College, Professor Tim Paglione shielded his eyes and looked straight up. “There!” he said, and every-one craned their heads back. With squinted eyes – and hoodies pulled over their heads– the group was look-ing at one of the brightest stars in the night sky, Vega. Once a month, Paglione, an astrophysicist who is also the chair of the Earth and Physical Sciences Department, puts on an open sky observation night for the community and college stu-dents fascinated by the cosmos. This time, everyone was expect-ing to see the “summer triangle,” a constellation that around the early night-time hours draws an imaginary triangle directly above using the three brightest

stars from three separate con-stellations: Altair from the con-stellation Aquila; Cygnus from Deneb; and Vega from Lyra. Though sometimes view-ing conditions can be dubious (mostly because of cloud cov-er), the sky’s haze is matched with one problem that will just never go away: the lights. “Gertz is off tonight,” Pagli-one said and pointed to the darkened Gertz Plaza Mall signage. “That’s a blessing.” “Light pollution is the eas-iest pollution to fix, it’s not like you have to wait centu-ries for it to leave the atmo-sphere. I calculated it, it takes a millisecond,” Paglione said. New York is one of the few states in the nation that has no laws limiting light pollution. However, a bill was passed through the state Senate in June that would require facades on all lights to reduce glare and light pollution. It’s yet to be seen if the bill will be signed into law. California, on the other hand, has some of the strongest laws and has recently emboldened their program in places like downtown Los Angeles and Oakland by changing the or-

ange-hued sodium street lights (similar to the ones that surround York College) to a brighter, more cost-efficient, LED light. The switch between bulbs has the po-tential to reduce the overall num-ber of street lamps by 66 percent, according to some researchers. It also saves California over $5 million in electricity usage, according to the Los Ange-les Bureau of Street Lighting. “Light pollution is the only form of pollution where you can save money by fixing it,” said Scott Kardel, Acting Executive Director of the International Dark Sky Association. “We tend to think of air and water pollu-tion as a thing. You can touch toxic water, for example. Light pollution is a bit more nebulous than that. You can’t hold or smell it, but you can see it, and you can make an instant differ-ence in turning your lights off.” But light is a finicky particle. You can direct light into a beam by, for example, fashioning a piece of paper into a cylinder around a flashlight, but light photons bouncing off the paper will create a slight halo effect at the opening, creating spillover. “Light easily comes out in all

angles, all you can do is put lens-es in front of it,” said Dr. Robert Alfano, a distinguished profes-sor of the physics department at CUNY’s City College of New York. “Light emits everywhere, so you have a glow. The light bulb is glowing. Even tung-sten glows in all directions.” The inevitable spillover, cou-pled with city lights from sky-scrapers and billboards, wreak havoc on the ecological envi-ronment of many cities. In one example, Florida sea turtles that hatch at night have been affected by light pollution. “Instead of hatching and making their way to the wa-ter, they wander towards the lights, away from the water, and die,” said Paglione. “You know how the poster child of global warming is the polar bear? The poster child of light pollution is the sea turtle.” In 1993, Florida enacted legisla-tion to prohibit any illumination on or near beaches during nest-ing season in an effort to pro-tect hatchlings, which are also on the endangered species list. Jamaica lies roughly ten miles from midtown Manhat-tan, the most polluted region

of the United States accord-ing to The Royal Astronomi-cal Society. When it mapped out the level of brightness for each continent, the group concluded that the corridor between Washington D.C. and Boston was the brightest. Paglione contested the severi-ty of light pollution in Jamaica, and said that the neighborhood ranked low on the Bortle Scale (a nine-step checklist that anyone can check from their doorstep to see how dark their sky is). “Hundreds of measurements get logged all over NYC each year, and it's bad. But it's re-ally good just 30 minutes away in some directions,” he said. “The intangible factor is that for all of human history we’ve had the night sky,” said Kardel. “The stars have inspired count-less people for cool things in regards to art and science and religion and philosophy. Now that we’re cut off from that, it’s hard to say.”

Joseph Jaafari is Editor in Chief. He can be reached at

Joseph@yorkpbnews.net

The Dark Night

NYPD officers patrol the streets of Manhattan.

BY ROSANNA SINGHThe Baltimore Ravens foot-ball player Ray Rice was re-cently let go and suspended indefinitely by the NFL for abusing his then-fiance Janay Rice in an elevator. It ignited many conversations regard-ing domestic violence, which is also why York College holds panel discussions to edu-cate students about the issue. The most recent footage of Rice punching the woman who has since become his wife in

an elevator then dragging her unconscious body out of the elevator, has started to shed light on the issue of domestic violence which is concealed behind many closed doors. The recent security foot-age not only made a differ-ence to the NFL, but also to survivors of domestic abuse. And the latest hashtag on Twitter #WhyIStayed, gave more outlooks and perspectives on the issue. “You have to teach people

how to prevent domestic vio-lence,” said Patricia Gregory from Transition Center Safe house, during a panel discus-sion at York College. “If some-one is in a domestic violence sit-uation, get them help. Healthy r e l a t i o n s h i p s don’t drag you out, they bring you up.” The topic is receiving un-p r e c e d e n t e d coverage by the U.S. media. In-timate partner violence entails aggression between two part-ners and it can happen to any-one of any gender or ethnicity. More than six million people are victims of domestic violence each year, according to the New York District Attorney’s office. Approximately 4,000 women and 900 men are treated in New York City emergency rooms each year for partner violence, while an average of 40 percent

of female homicide victims are killed by an intimate part-ner each year, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Vice President Joe Biden re-cently described domestic abuse as, “The most vicious form of violence there is, but not only

the physical scars are left but the psychological scars are left.” Many people choose to stay in relationships where domes-tic violence is present so they can keep their families together, or in some cases due to finan-cial situations. At times a lot of people who are abused feel that they are psychologically unfit to get out of their relation-ships with their abuser. Many

victims of abuse are sometimes those who have unstable im-migration and legal statuses and they are afraid to seek help due their vulnerable positions. “Domestic violence is a prob-lem. Even today it is still not being taken as serious in this day and age,” said Vishwam-

itra Persaud, a York Business Ad-ministration ma-jor. “It’s not just physical abuse, it’s emotional and psychological too. Sometimes there’s a lot of stigma.” Persaud said that he has wit-nessed the pres-ence of domestic

violence in many relationships. “People are emotionally chained to relationships and they feel they can’t get out, they want to stay and make it work anyhow,” Persaud said.

Rosanna Singh is a staff re-porter. She can be reached at

R.Singh@yorkpbnews.net

Get Them Help In Wake Of NFL, York Hosts Domestic Violence Panel

Members of the York College Domestic Violence stress the importance of getting help. (PHOTO BY ROSANNA SINGH)

Light pollution is problematic, but

manageable

BY ALLYSON GILLYork College is one of five CUNY schools, one in each borough, selected to participate in Gover-nor Andrew Cuomo’s Start-Up NY initiative, to spur economic development in the neighbor-hoods surrounding each campus. Initially focused on upstate, the initiative’s goal was to attract new high tech businesses to the state by connecting them with top talent on college campuses and creating tax-free zones around campuses where businesses can develop

without being obligated to pay taxes for 10 years. Employees working at Start-Up NY-zoned companies will also have the benefit of paying no income tax. “Employees hired for and whose jobs are certified as net new jobs in a tax-free area will pay no state or local income taxes for the first five years,” according to the Start-Up NY website “For the second five years, employees will pay no taxes on income up to $200,000 for individuals, $250,000 for a head of household and $300,000 for

taxpayers filing a joint return.” York seeks to attract businesses in the college’s areas of strength in-cluding, pharmaceutical research and manufacturing, medical de-vice research and manufactur-ing, water resource management and purification, supply chain logistics, aviation manage-ment and wireless technology. Ronald Thomas, Vice-Presi-dent of Administrative Affairs, is leading the initiative on cam-pus. Part of the negotiation to become part of York’s Start-Up NY tax free zone will involve student internships, he said. Thomas also stressed the im-portance of connecting busi-nesses with faculty doing potentially viable research. “We had to identify faculty who were interested in, and are doing research that might have some practical commercial value and identified a number of areas where we thought that would be true,” said Thomas. “We then worked with the respective deans of the schools to develop some ideas.” Faculty who are included in the plan have already begun doing research in these fields, includ-ing Computer Science Professor Shweta Jain, whose research in wireless technology is included in the York College Start-Up NY plan. She said she is interested in

connecting students with startups. “It would be nice if they involved our students so now our students get internships,” said Jain. “That’s how I work. I work for the school which is a non-profit and it’s not my company so I’m not looking to make profit. If there is something that comes up the startup compa-ny should benefit the students.” Professor Ratan Dhar of the Earth and Physical Sciences de-partment was also included in the Start-Up NY plan. He believes that his research in water resource management and purification can help Queens and New York City as a whole. All of the wa-ter running into New York City comes from upstate reservoirs and there may be a time when we need a water source closer to home. Dhar is looking into al-ternative sources for clean water in the city that he claims already exist right under the surface of Queens. His job is to find ways to safely extract and purify them. Dhar claims that it is possible to use the underground water to heat York College while simulta-neously purifying the water for use. His interest in Start-Up NY is to possibly work with a company to find ways to make this a reali-ty and become less dependent on water from upstate. Community awareness is important, he said.

“That’s one thing, the re-search, whatever we do it has to be transferred to the local peo-ple through the students,” said Dhar. “The social component is another strong component.” The major challenges lie in the funding and research. With little space to host businesses on cam-pus there have been discussions of developing site 9, a vacant lot of land on the southeast corner of the campus into an incubator space where the New York City Health and Hospital Corporation and The Long Island Jewish Hos-pital network may have interest. “In the college’s campus plan, we included that undevel-oped parcel of land on which a developer we hope to attract, would construct something that could be used as incuba-tor space,” said Thomas. “But that’s a longer term proposition.” York plans to lease space in the Southeast Queens commu-nity and sublet to businesses in-terested in working in the zone. Developments in Start-Up NY should be seen within the next six months.

Allyson Gill is Online Editor. She can be reached at Allyson@yorkpb-

news.net

Governor Cuomo signs recently passed Start-up NY law. (PHOTO BY RYAN SCHULTZ)

York College Involved In Governor’s Small Biz Initiative

BY ROSANNA SINGHNASA’s Science, Engineering, Math-ematics, Aerospace Academy (SE-MAA) at York College broke a record this summer with a 25 percent jump in enrollment, college officials said. The NASA-funded project has been serving the community for more than 14 years, yet despite its national-ly recognized success, it’s also one of the least-known projects on campus. The NASA-SEMAA program is

a national education project which is designed to increase the partici-pation and retention of historically underserved and underrepresented K-12 youth in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math-ematics (STEM) and operates at 15 sites which are located in 14 states. York College is the only fully funded site in the Northeast, and has served over 16,000 students. During the Summer 2014 Session, the SEMAA program was rated as

one of the best sessions in the past five years according to Dr. Nazrul Khandaker, Director for SEMAA at York College.In the fall and spring York offers two eight-week Satur-day sessions for students, grades one through nine and they offer a three-week session during the summer. Khandaker said that the program had about five hundred students in grades one through six enrolled in the summer session, a dramatic 25 percent increase. “We’ve reached so many mile-stones, it’s been productive through media and publicity, this has been one of the best in five years. We can assure everyone that we can reach full strength, we have the re-sources for teachers, classrooms and materials,” Khandaker said. Khandaker has been a part of York College and the SEMAA program for the past 10 years. He added that while major funding comes from NASA, Con Edison has been a great financial contrib-utor to the program since 2007. The summer 2014 session of the SEMAA program at York Col-lege received significant coverage and publicity by television news networks like NY1 News and

Telemundo, where they featured almost all the components that the program offers its students. SEMAA attracts students with an Aerospace Education Labora-tory, featuring dynamic aerospace technology. But what parents seem to like is the immense focus to use STEM programs throughout the experience and a Family Cafe to promote sustained parental in-volvement in their child’s work. “Kids go home and talk to their parents about the SEMAA program. SEMAA lessons help them in school and they do better in their exams, they’re finding a way to enhance math and science,” Khandaker said. The aerospace lab which was in-stalled by NASA is one of the essen-tial facilities for the SEMAA project at York. It is comprised of a wind tunnel, a weather station, aircraft design station and flight simulator according to Khandaker. He said that the SEMAA lesson has been ex-panded to multiple sections includ-ing robotics and lego, communica-tion technology and 3D printing.The Starlab, the college’s portable plane-tarium that can be seen popped up around York College (most recent-ly two weeks ago in the atrium), is

one of the more intriguing set piec-es for SEMAA. Younger students, mostly grades one through five, en-gage in activities inside the Starlab. “It’s really beneficial to the stu-dents, they get to learn in a different environment,” said Adley Thelus-ma, a junior at York. “It’s a new unique, exciting opportunity for kids to learn and gain new experiences.” The program has received nation-al recognition for its positive influ-ence on communities like Southeast Queens, where majority of its stu-dents come from nearly 125 schools within the Jamaica community. In 2003, SEMAA was classified by NASA as the agency’s top K-12 ed-ucational projects and York College has continued to uphold its excellent annual reviews and the site has also been known for its diversity and its cost efficiency according to NASA. “The kids learn a lot and it’s a satis-factory program,” said Shavan Ram-dial, a teacher’s aid from SEMAA. “There’s a balance with fun and learning in the program.”

Rosanna Singh is a staff reporter. She can be reached at

R.Singh@yorkpbnews.net

NASA-Funded Program At York Pushes S.T.E.M Learning With Youngsters

The planetarium for the NASA-SEMAA program. (PHOTO BY ROSANNA SINGH.)

BY VALERIE VICTORIn order to get more officers in the street and fewer pushing paper-work, the NYPD’s Summer All Out Initiative, created by Police Com-missioner William Bratton, turned office workers into street patrollers. Beginning July 7, about 300 NYPD members typically as-signed to desk-duty were placed in focused neighborhoods such as Canarsie, East New York, Crown Heights, East Flat-bush, Brownsville, Parkchester, Fordham, and Williamsbridge. The Daily News reported gun-shootings at a 25 percent de-crease in the targeted neighbor-hoods. There was also a 12 percent

drop recorded in citywide shootings as a result of the NYPD’s initiative. Neighborhood residents noticed the increased presence of uniformed police officers in their communities. “I did see a lot more cops this summer…I liked it, I felt safer,” said East New York resident Marsha Pierre, 30. There are still worries, though, about how an increased presence of police could mean more trou-ble for minorities in those neigh-borhoods, especially as tension between police and residents has increased since the death of Eric Garner, who died after an NYPD officer put him in a chokehold. On Monday, Sept. 8, a New York City Council meeting with

Bratton took place to discuss NYPD reform. The council meet-ing revolved around police tac-tics in New York and increasing the number of cops in the streets. Garner’s death prompted the meeting, which involved coun-cil members picking apart new NYPD training protocols and pro-cedures. Bratton not only testified on police tactics, he also urged

the council to approve funding to hire more than one thousand new NYPD officers in the year 2015. However, reform in the re-cent past has been denied, mak-ing some wonder if the new talk about police training is just hot air. The ideas outlined for NYPD reform were proposed earlier this year to Bratton just months be-fore the hearing and were denied.

Commissioner Bratton stressed that all officers will receive train-ing outlining the use of force in official-to-civilian encounters. The training also includes workshops that will be used to teach officers about cultural sensitivity, accord-ing to Bratton at the council meeting. Bratton said he continues to work closely with city lawyers about using aggressive defense cor-rectly and reverting to less lethal methods to avoid more civilian casualties. Expected costs and ex-penditures for training all the new officials were estimated at approx-imately $25 to $30 million, accord-ing to official reports.

Valerie Victor is staff reporter. She can be reached at

V.Victor@yorkpbnews.net

NYPD Gets Moved From Desk Duty To The Streets

The Summer Initiative Program involved police towers in neighborhoods like East New York and Brownsville.

PBNEWSyorkpbnews.com4

PBNEWSyorkpbnews.com 5Monday, Sept. 22, 2014Monday, Sept. 22, 2014

BY RODNEY GANTTMore than 150 images decorated the walls of the York College Fine Arts Gallery as students and facul-ty gathered for the Sept. 18 opening of Caribbean Carnival Portraits, a special exhibition featuring the work of photographers Mario Picayo and Mariano Hernández. The exhibit, according to Picayo, is a traveling exhibition, which start-ed at the Mariano Gallery in Hava-na, Cuba in 2013 and was part of a larger event, Cultural Diversity in the Caribbean. The exhibit was lat-er moved to the Gallery of Fine Arts in Santo Domingo. The debut exhi-bition in the York gallery, which he and Hernandez had been preparing since April, is the first in the U.S. According to York College President Marcia V. Keizs, Pica-yo’s mother, Professor Sonia Vi-era-Valdes in the foreign language department at York, is the one mainly responsible for the idea. “I just lucked out,” said Keizs. “We were lucky, she brought the idea to us.” Picayo worked on the exhib-it for so long, he said the photos almost felt like a family album. “There are 62 photographs and

close to 140 pictures,” said Pic-ayo. “It’s the work of 25 years of traveling throughout the ca-ribbean, photographing Carni-vals, from Cuba to Trinidad.” The different images represent 25 Carnival festivals from 15 carib-bean islands including Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. "All of the Carnivals are some-how connected, so it's like con-nect the dots," said Picayo. "You visit one island and find something, then you go to an-other and find something else." Hernández and Picayo are both caribbean natives and Picayo, originally from Cuba, moved with his family to Puerto Rico, then to the U.S. Virgin Islands where he spent much of his adult life. His inspiration for the exhibi-tion began by simply taking pic-tures at carnivals. The project grew as he learned more about the various cultures, said Picayo. "Carnivals intrigued me because of all the traditions and cultural history I found through my inves-tigation, research and traveling," he said. "It's not just the photographic aspect, but also the historical aspect." When putting together the

exhibit, Picayo and Hernán-dez sifted through thou-sands of photos and narrowed them down to a specific few. "We chose between ones that have never been shown before and photographs that represent-ed the different islands," said Picayo. "We tried to represent as many islands as possible." Many of the people who viewed the images called them colorful and vibrant. Many Caribbean students agreed that they were an accu-rate representation of the culture. “It was very naturalistic,” said Antonia Marmol, a student at York. “The faces were very unique and it showed how we enjoy life.” Russelly Castillo, a Spanish ma-jor, said the event was, “...a great reminder of where we come from.” The opening event featured mu-sical jazz performances by a live band led by Mark Adams, adjunct lecturer in the Fine and Perform-ing Arts Department, at York. “The music gave more of a Lat-in groove, it brought you more into the culture,” said Elisee Au-gustin, Computer Science major at York and member of the band. Many native Caribbean foods and drinks were served at the event, including Beef Patties, Jerk Chicken and Ginger Beer. Another performance was offered by the dance group Cachuas De Cabral, which performed Repique, a Dominican cultural dance tradi-tionally involving the use of a whip. Once the performance end-ed, the dancers presented Keizs with a whip and a mask. “Our performance was the best compliment to this exhi-bition,” said Mÿail Alcátara, a dancer with the group. “I felt like I was back home, watching the live show with my family,” Castillo said. The exhibition is scheduled to run until Oct. 15.

Rodney Gantt is a staff reporter. He can be reached at R.Gantt@

yorkpbnews.net

A Festival Of Photos: New Gallery Shows Off Carnivals Of The Carribbean

BY JOCELYN SOSAIt used to be uncommon to hear of truly amazing things com-ing from York alums, but the past few years has seen an im-mense wave of York alums not just doing great things, but also being awarded serious money. Robert Fernandez, who gradu-ated from York in 2013 with a B.S. in Biotechnology, was recently awarded the Soros Fellowship to help him get his PhD at Yale. Each year, the Soros Fellowship awards money to 30 graduate students across the United States to help further their education. Fernandez is the only gradu-ate among the other 29 grad-uates that came from CUNY. The Soros Fellowship was started by Paul and Daisy So-ros. Mr. and Mrs. Soros were Hungarian immigrants who felt it was important to give back to other immigrants and children of immigrants seeking a higher education. Almost 20 years ago they began the fellowship with a charitable trust of $50 million. In 2010, Mr. and Mrs. So-

ros contributed an addition-al $25 million to the charity. Fernandez was born in Peru and came to the United States in 1992 at the age of four with his parents and younger brother. Fernandez faced many problems when he trying to get into college. “Finding out I was undocument-ed in high school meant I could not go to college in New Jersey, as these colleges required a so-cial security number and want-ed me to pay out of state tuition, which was quite expensive,” Fer-nandez said. “My only choice was to go to community college where I made the choice of not giving up despite how hope-less things seemed at the time.” He graduated Union Com-munity College in New Jersey, with an Associate’s in Business and in 2010, he applied to York College. He worked hard to pay off his tuition and said that with the help of his mother he was able to continue his education. In his last two years at York, he was able to fix his immigration status and was able to work as a tutor and pay off his tuition. Fernandez is working on his PhD at Yale University in Mo-lecular Biophysics and Bio-chemistry. He said that get-ting this far was a struggle, but advises to never give up. “Despite how bleak things look, no matter how diffi-cult the hardship, as long as you have drive and motiva-tion it will get you through the tough times,” Fernandez said. “Never be afraid and ashamed of your immigration status, be proud you made it this far and keep on striving for a better life.”

Jocelyn Sosa is a staff reporter. She can be reached at J.Sosa@yorkpbnews.net

York Alum Is Awarded Grant For Ivy League Degree

BY ROSANNA SINGHAfter a low voter turnout last semester and a number of com-plaints from Student Govern-ment Association (SGA) over a new voting system, the members of 2014-2015 student government were finally named on Sept. 4. During elections last spring SGA members discussed the outcomes along with what their future plans for the next school year would entail and what they can get accom-plished for the York College campus and its student body. SGA President Shaikh Amin said he is pleased with the li-brary and cafeteria improve-ments and as they approach an-other academic year, they intend to have more teamwork within

SGA, an issue that has plagued past student governments. By having a good team, they can achieve and get more done for the student body, he said. During the meeting, Shaikh said that as president he wants York College students to be leading the path of success and at the same time getting a quality education for their tu-ition and being able to benefit from scholarships and educa-tional programs on campus. “It’s an honor to serve the student body. There has been a 70 percent improvement,” said Amin. “We want to improve the activities on campus, but we need to create awareness with ourselves first. We can do a bet-ter job this year, we are going to

negotiate for more club activi-ties and career service aspects.” In addition he said that SGA is working on improving the state of the bathrooms and the library services by creating a more settled studying environ-ment for students. Amin said having more quiet sections in the library, improving the Wi-Fi and more computer cubicles for students to study is a project that SGA will be working on. The Student Government Elec-tions were held in the spring 2014 semester from May 1 through May 7, where members of the York College student body voted to elect SGA senators. While some of the students’ focus was on the election itself, there were several concerns that were brought to the attention of numerous members of the stu-dent body about the election vot-ing process, according to Geneva Walker-Johnson, vice president of Student Development at York. The clash was reported in the May edition of Pandora’s Box, where students running for office had complained that the election process was un-fair and too complicated for York College students, de-spite a vast campaign by each of the contenders. There were also several complaints about various irregularities and five candidates were disqualified.

According to Johnson, follow-ing those allegations, during the period of May 14 through June 30 the Student Elections Review Committee (SERC) in-vestigated the accusations in accordance with the University bylaws. On Aug. 5, the pres-ident informed the students of her decision upholding the SERC Committee and the can-didate disqualifications. Three of the five students appealed the decision, but were rebuffed. The low voter turnout has giv-en SGA members the idea that outreach may be a better goal. “A lack of communication is one of our biggest problems. We’re trying to better Student Government and make it big-ger,” said SGA Vice President Gesmen Begum. “Students can come to us with their concerns and we can make a solution.” Some students, though, are happy with SGA as it stands. “Student government is doing great, they listen to the students and they get stuff done,” said El-liot Wiseman, Jr., a York Physics major. “They got us a better caf-eteria, I voted because I wanted people to change things around here.”

Rosanna Singh is a staff reporter. She can be reached at R.Singh@yorkpbnews.

net

New And Continuing SGA Members Looking To Improve York

York Police BlotterEvery month York College’s Campus Safety is required by federal law to report any criminal activity to the cam-pus body on request. The following are events that have occurred between last semester and Sept. 10, 2014 5/6/2014; 5:18 p.m. ASSAULT II ; Queens Educational Opportunity Center

5/7/2014; 12:30 p.m. PETIT LARCENY; Student Support Services

5/9/2014; 3:30 p.m. ATTEMPTED GANG ASSAULT; 159th street between Archer and Liberty Ave

6/4/2014; 4:49 p.m. HARRASMENT; Academic Core Building

6/23/2014; 4:15 p.m. STALKING; Academic Core Building

9/2/2014; 12:10 p.m. CRIMINAL MISCHIEF; English Dept.-Academic Core Building

9/10/2014; 12:30 p.m. HARASSMENT; Escalator of 3F Corri-dor-Academic Core Atrium

Robert Fernandez is the only CUNY graduate to be awarded a Soros Fellowship.

Student Government Association has new plans for the students of York College. (PHOTO BY ROSANNA SINGH)

...CONT’D FROM PAGE 1 As part of the campaign, stu-dents who register will be asked to write down a reason why they vote attached with a photo, which will be posted on Facebook. An important part of the student government agenda this year in-cludes lobbying for more funds from the city and state, Amin said. He also said collaborative efforts and a high student voter turnout can help raise the profile of the school in the eyes of local elected officials. “When they see you have enough students to vote and strong alumni connections, then they care,” said Amin. Student government has also partnered the members of the University Student Senate, which includes student representatives from all CUNY schools, in a larger effort to promote voter registra-tion CUNY-wide. Members of the senate worked on the promotion during the summer to register vot-ers for the recent primary on Sept. 9. York’s voter registration efforts coincide with the larger goal of the Project Vote campaign. “Proj-ect Vote is a citywide campaign to get people out to vote,” said Andrews, who serves as the voter registration coordinator at York. “The coalition includes a number of different organizations including the City University of New York.” According to the website, the proj-ect is responsible for 60 percent of new registrants in recent years, and distributes over 100,000 voter regis-tration forms every year and more than 300,000 during election years. Despite the project’s broader goal, both Andrews and Amin agree that York’s efforts are targeted toward its students. “Our main focus is the school, and if we educate our students they can reach out to the community.” Andrews said he hopes to regis-ter as many students as possible. “If we can get one more person to vote than we did last year then that should be deemed a success,”An-drews said.

Rodney Gantt is a staff reporter. He can be reached at

R. Gantt@yorkpbnews.net

“VOTE”

...CONT’D FROM PAGE 1 and pronounced dead on arrival. Robinson was not the in-tended target of the shoot-ing and police believe it may have been gang related. Capers and another suspect are allegedly connected to the Snow Gang and the shot was intended for another girl on the bus who was friendly with members of a rival gang. Capers’ charges in-clude second-degree murder, second-degree criminal posses-sion of a weapon, and first-de-gree reckless endangerment. He faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted on the murder charge. Police arrested the first suspect in connection to the shooting, Kevin McClinton, 22, less than a month after the shooting after he fled to South Carolina. He also faces up to life in prison if convicted of the murder. Police said it is not clear if the shot that killed Robinson was fired by Capers or McClinton. Members of the community have set up a memorial near Bais-ley Pond Park where Robinson was killed and a fund.

Janae Hunter is a staff reporter. She can be reached at

J.Hunter@yorkpbnews.net

“SHOOTING”

Mario Picayo and Mariano Hernandez’ gallery shows off carnival life in the Caribbean (PHOTO BY KEVIN AVONTE)

BY GINA MARTINEZAn officer responds to a call about a sick person in Ferguson, Missouri, and with-in 10 minutes the situation led to an un-armed 18-year-old man shot to death in response to a convenience store robbery. The Michael Brown case caused mas-sive unrest all over the country, espe-cially in black communities that have al-ways felt preyed upon by police. In New York, especially in areas of Brooklyn, people still resent the NYPD after recent-ly seeing three unarmed black residents gunned down by police including Kima-

ni “Kiki” Gray in East Flatbush last year. But what’s more disturbing is the use of tanks and military combat gear that have been used against American citizens. In 1997, The Department of Defense launched The 1033 Program. According to the Huffington Post, "the 1033 Pro-gram authorized the Pentagon to transfer military equipment to local law enforce-ment free of charge, without established standards -- other than a requirement that the equipment be used within one year -- and no training guidelines." Whereas talking heads have contested that police may be naturally racist due to a poor ethnic mix in police departments, it’s diffi-cult to draw that conclusion in New York

after a recent study by the Associated Press found that the racial make-up of the NYPD more closely mirrors the population than departments in most major American cities. However, there are still issues of wheth-er too many police departments single out black communities, or is it their train-ing matched with their military-grade gear that have made them more hostile? We went to York College students to see what they thought about the subject.

Gina Martinez is a staff reporter. She can be reached at G.Martinez@yorkpbnews.net

A Violent Force

When it comes to cases like Mike Brown and Eric Gardner, do you think their deaths were

caused by police training that encour-ages violent force or were they tar-

geted because they were black?

ROBERTO BRUTUSThere are different variables. Police are on edge depend-ing on the town. For instance Ferguson has a population that is around 85 percent African American but you only have 3 officers that are black and may-be one of them is local , no one really feels safe, including the officers, because no one really knows each other.

I think the police are trained to be aggres-sive. They're not trained to solve the prob-lem. I don't want to say all police officers over react but the ones that do overreact stand out. They make other officers look bad. I think the most police officers tend to be afraid so that's why they over react.

NOSA EDIONWE

Race does apply to everything we do. To me at times I believe black people are targeted because of the area they tend to live in. But when they deal with a white person they are treated a different way. Race is a big factor, but its a combination. Of-ficers are being trained to be more aggressive and to target a specific race, it’s not so simple.

CHRISTIAN MARMOL

PBNEWSyorkpbnews.com

PBNEWSyorkpbnews.com 7 6 Monday, Sept. 22, 2014 Monday, Sept. 22, 2014

NEWS BRIEFS

A woman was injured close to York College after jump-ing from a van during a po-lice chase, leaving her in crit-ical condition, police said. On Sept. 14, after police tried to pull over a Ford Econoline van at about 4:40 p.m. on Ar-cher Avenue and 165th Street, the van sped away and a wom-an jumped from the car just south of the York College soc-

cer field, according to police. The woman was taken to Ja-maica Hospital where she was last known to be in critical con-dition while the driver, Jameson Golding of Brooklyn, was even-tually caught and charged with resisting arrest and reckless driving, according to police.

Woman Jumps From Van During Police Chase

A speeding car hit a Jamaica school bus, injuring 11 people including nine children who had to go to the hospital, accord-ing to authorities from the De-partment of Education (DOE). On Sept. 16, at 7:30 a.m., the bus was stopped at a traffic light at Archer Avenue and 183rd

Street when a car hit them, in-juring all the passengers aboard the bus, according to authorities. All the passengers were treated at Long Island Jewish Hospital and five suffered severe injuries, but were listed as stable at the hospital, officials said.

Speeding Car Slams School Bus

A middle-aged man was struck and killed while crossing Liberty Avenue on Aug. 30 police said. The 53-year-old man was hit by a 2007 Dodge Char-ger shortly before 5 a.m. as he crossed near Tuckerton Street, two blocks west of York’s campus, police said. He was taken to Jamaica hos-pital and pronounced dead, po-lice said. No charges were filed against the driver.

Pedestrian Killed Crossing Liberty Ave

Recent reports released by the NYPD’s 103rd Precinct which includes the area surround-ing York College showed that overall crime in the area is down 8 percent from last year. Rapes were significantly reduced

between last year by nearly 52 percent, and robbery was down 24 percent. Shootings were also down 26 percent from last year. Felony assault and grand larceny categories rose by 10 and eight percent, respectively.

Most Crime Down In 103rd Precinct

The Science and Resilience In-stitute (SRI) at Jamaica Bay was awarded $3.6 million in July from the Department of Interi-or’s Hurricane Sandy Mitiga-tion Funding, along with $7.7 million from New York State, giving initiatives that prepare for ecological disasters in urban areas one large step forward. SRI, a research consortium that is managed by CUNY’s Brooklyn College, concentrates on developing advances in technology that provide resil-ience to urban coastal regions. These advances are construct-ed by scientists, managers, policy makers and communi-ty leaders in order to manage the capacity of humans and natural system in dense ar-eas, such as New York City. The grant helps support re-search projects that further the knowledge on providing recoil in urban coastal areas. SRI will begin to unveil a se-ries of research projects that examine water quality within Jamaica Bay, as well as the re-

silience of it’s salt marshes, the small islands that pepper the water south of JFK Airport. The projects will be-gin immediately and con-tinue through late 2016. “The Institute's mission is to increase understanding of how disturbances impact natural and human systems in urban watersheds through resilien-cy-focused research of Jamaica Bay, and to engage government and community stakeholders in the translation of that knowl-edge toward a more resilient system,” said Gillian Small, CUNY Vice Chancellor for Re-search, in a press release by the National Parks Service. “This new funding from The Depart-ment of the Interior will signifi-cantly advance that mission.” Core partnerships with SRI in-clude the National Park Service and nine research institutions including CUNY, Columbia University, Cornell, and SUNY Stony Brook University.

$11 Million To Study Disaster Prep In Jamaica Bay

New York lawmakers failed to enact legislation that could make the state the third in the nation to regulate and tax marijuana as a legal product after Califor-nia, Colorado and Washington. The bill, Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act, wasn’t voted on before both houses adjourned in late June. But state Sen. Liz Krueger, a democrat represent-ing Manhattan’s east side, said she will reintroduce the bill during the next legislative session in January. "It is a win-win to decriminal-ize marijuana and regulate it and tax it," Kreuger told Metro News. According to the Huffington Post,

Colorado shops made more than $5 million during their first week. There are more than 100 recreational mari-juana shops open and retailers have sold close to $70 million. Within the first five months of the passed bill, Denver crime had gone down. Colo-rado has collected close to $24 million in taxes and fees from residents and tourists, according to colorado.gov. Washington is expected to collect approximately $190 million over the next four years, and legalization across all states could mean an in-creased tax revenue of $10 billion, according to the Marijuana Policy Project.

Legal Weed Killed By NY Legislators

As she stepped to the podium to address Iowa Democrats at the Harkin Steak Fry, Hillary Clinton first spoke to the crowd about her coming grandchild and possible presidential run. It was Clinton’s first visit to Iowa after finishing third in the caucus that also was the launch-ing pad for President Obama and Clinton’s campaign back in 2008. And though Clinton has been fairly tight-lipped about a presidential run, it is a giv-en in the general public’s mind that she will be running in 2016. “I think she can run and win, but we are tired of the Bushes and Clinton’s name in our politics,” said Lloyd Ekengo, 45, an inves-tor from East New York. “We need someone extremely new. In 2008, Clinton was the brunt of criticism ranging from the type of pant-suit she wore to her inability of connecting with the middle class. But most prob-lematic for Clinton was break-ing away from her husband’s scandal his last term in office. “She can possibly win but hope-fully her policies are different from her husband’s,” said Chris Tale, 20, a security guard from Jamaica. Clinton has started off with ac-knowledging her defeat against Obama in 2008, and her advo-cates have said that she could start learning from her mis-takes to strengthen her 2016 bid. And people are ready for it. “If we were to ready to handle a black president then a woman can do the job just as the men,” said Laverne Williams, 35, a nurses’s aid.

READY FOR HILLARY?

In an effort to create a more open dialogue with students and the York College community, Pres-ident Marcia V. Keizs will be holding monthly “Open Fridays” meetings, during which students are invited to meet with her one-on-one and can voice their con-cerns about any issues regarding campus policies and procedures. The subject-matter at the

monthly event is not limited to a certain topic of conversation, Keizs said. By discussing a wide-range of topics, a number of issues regarding student devel-opment, problems with faculty and even personal matters, Keizs is hoping to open a wider con-versation about life on campus. “If I were going to meet with the president, I would give sug-gestions on how to improve York College,” said Babita Stephanie Bissoon, a Speech Communi-cations and Theater Arts ma-

jor. The opportunity presented by the meetings, she said, “...is opening doors for more de-mocracy and gives individuals at York College the satisfac-tion of not only being heard but also making a difference.” “This will allow the president, faculty and students to have a better relationship.. It gives a better perspective on what’s needed from York College,” said Jonathan Chery, a Com-puter Science major. “Open Fri-days would amend the school

by having increased knowledge on what to fund. It gives the president an idea of what needs more money and what doesn’t.” Open Fridays will be held at the York College Academic Core Building in the president’s con-ference room, 2H02. All appoint-ments will be limited to 30 min-utes and must be scheduled with Leteria Scott at lscott@york.cuny.edu or by calling the president’s office at 718-262-2359. The next scheduled meeting date will be Oct.17 from 2 to 4:30 p.m.

Hillary Clinton may be running in the 2016 presidential election.

OPEN-DOOR POLICY

Get quick facts from your neighborhood, city and nationwide

..CONT’D FROM PAGE 1Over the summer McCants brought in a Boar’s Head represen-tative to come in and create special sandwiches specifically for York. Along with the new food op-tions there is now a Hershey’s milkshake machine, a larger va-riety of Pepsi products and there are now 50 different drink op-tions across the campus includ-ing cold Starbucks beverages.

The increased variety is inspired by local food vendors and restau-rants. “I look at what’s here and I look at what people are buying and what is my competition,” said McCants. “So I just bring what they have outside in here and just make it a little bit better.” To combat pricing complaints, McCant is implementing fre-quent buyer cards for both the cafeteria and Starbucks and plans to run coupons and meal voucher cards in Pandora’s Box. The options may change as the semester progresses.

“I’ll make adjustments as we go along. We don’t know what everybody wants unless we of-fer,” said McCants. “We’ll see what sells first and we cut back here and there. We all benefit.” Aside from the college, Mc-Cants now caters to the day-care and pre-k across cam-pus as well as the Queens High School for the Sciences.

Allyson Gill is the Online Editor. She can be reached at

Allyson@yorkpbnews.net

“FOOD OPTIONS”

...CONT’D FROM PAGE 1 “Even if you think about it, a mile is a long way for people in New York City,” said Michelle Friedman, communications director for the New York City Coalition Against Hunger (NYCCAH). “It puts a huge burden on people who already have limited access to a supermarket.” The USDA definition of a food desert is too narrow and doesn’t make sense for urban areas like Queens or in the Bronx, where the problem of finding even simple markets with vegetables is becom-ing an epic issue, Friedman said. “A mile might not be a significant distance in a suburban area where people have a car to get around, ver-sus in New York City” where super-markets may not be accessible with-in even half a mile, Friedman said. Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Green Cart Initiative, the roll-around produce carts that aim to get fresh fruits and vegetables into low-income areas that have limited access to fresh food, is visible throughout Jamaica and the rest of Southeast Queens stretching as far as the Rockaways. But these subsidized produce carts are the government’s reaction to what many see as a problem with the lack of Farmer’s markets in the area. Every Friday, sponsored by the neighborhood non-profit gi-ant Greater Jamaica Develop-ment Corporation, Jamaica hosts a small farmer’s market on 160th Street just north of Jamaica Ave-nue. But the three farms involved in bringing their produce into Jamaica’s market have issues of

competing against more profi able markets in more affluent neighborhoods that utilize farm-ers markets more as a social tool than an economic necessity. “Farms usually rely on commu-nity representatives in low-in-come areas,” said Diane Eggert executive director of the Farmer’s Market Federation of New York. “They have to use methods to get people into the market by getting farmers to accept SNAP benefits.” But despite a 136 percent increase of farmers markets borough-wide in Queens over the past five years, there remain only two farmers markets available in all of South-east Queens and only 56 percent of all Queens farmers markets accept EBT cards, including the market in Jamaica, according to data compiled from the USDA. A new initiative by the NYCCAH includes creating Community Sup-ported Agricultures (CSA’s), which allow members within a communi-ty or neighborhood to buy shares of a farmer’s crop which, in turn, will deliver fresh produce to them. “Normally CSA’s have been ben-eficial to middle-income families,” said Friedman, but NYCCAH’s program is subsidized for those in lower-income brackets to pay for shares using their EBT cards. “If you make healthy produce physically available and econom-ically affordable, struggling fami-lies will flock to access it,” said Joel Berg, the executive director of NY-CCAH.

Joseph Darius Jaafari is the Editor in Chief. He can be reached at

Joseph@yorkpbnews.net

“FARMERS”

PBARTSyorkpbnews.com8

PBARTSyorkpbnews.com 9Monday, Sept. 22, 2014 Monday, Sept. 22, 2014

Can you make a break-fast omelet within six

seconds? Well, not many people can. Six

seconds may not seem like a long time, but Vine, the video

loop-sharing app that has become an internet phenom-

enon, has made it worth a life-time. Launched just last year, Vine now has over 40 million

registered users uploading short, clip length videos

featuring everything from the impressive (sky diving

out of a plane) to the talented (rapping over your favorite

beat) to the bizarrely random (screaming in public). They

all replay back on themselves making these users six sec-

onds of fame an eternity once they go viral.

The Explosion of Vine

According to The New Zealand Herald, Dom

Hofmann, one of Vines co-founders, knew he was on to something big, but wasn’t sure how much people would use it. “We knew that people all had

these smartphones with great video cameras on them, but they weren’t using them at all.” Hofmann, 26, and two of his other partners Rus Yusu-puv and Colin Kroll came up with a simple basic ideas of Vine. Users would touch and hold the screen to record and releasing it to stop, filming with the phone upright. Keep-ing it this simplistic allowed for easy to manage six second clips ideal for uploading and sharing quickly with friends. In October of 2012, the small company was purchased by Twitter and fully integrated into the social media service by June of the following year. What really separates a great vine from an average one de-pends on the message they are trying to deliver. The most popular vines tend to be the comedic ones. Many people on the service have gained a substantial following based on their ability to get people laughing in quick fire jokes. Vines have almost become a bit of a subgenre of com-edy. But upstart comedians aren’t the only ones getting their share of the popularity.

Some users gain their follow-ing through impressive tricks such as shooting a three point-er from ten feet away back-wards. Some users have man-aged to convey entire stories by distilling the key points to the limited time. In February 2013, Turkish journalist Tulin Daloglu middle eastern pub-lication Al-Monitor managed to document the aftermath of a car bomb using a series of Vines, showcasing just how useful the service can be if ap-plied to something more news oriented. Some of the other channels that have since grown in popularity include, music, DIY, news, family and food. Recently, large corporations are starting to see the value in using Vine as a marketing tool. According to a report by ABC News, industry ana-lysts say corporate America is forecast to spend “$4 billion this year alone on it, proba-bly twice that much by the end of the decade.” Connect-ing big corporate brands like Coca Cola with social media stars is the best way to influ-ence people because they can relate to it. In today’s internet

centric society, social media stars are often more popu-lar, relatable, and influential with watchers than Holly-wood actors and actresses. “If you give somebody con-straints, it’s easier to be cre-ative,” Hoffman said. “Mak-ing a vine that goes viral is more art than science.” It is a science that larger companies are trying to take advantage of. Instagram, another social media startup who met suc-cess back in 2011, launched a 15 second video function in June of last year. A clear at-tempt to compete with Vine, Instagram struggled to find its footing outside of the personal use of its user base. With more time to shoot a video, many wondered if there would be any effect in the steady growth in popularity of vines. Social media user and entrepreneur Tesfa Jones said, “At the time everybody was using Vine, then Instagram came out with video. Everybody seemed to go back to Instagram for a bit.” Unfortunately for Insta-gram, it failed to maintain the same sense of persistent com-munity associated with Vine.

Future of Vine

With the initial goal of get-ting the app out into the

public and making it simple as possible to use, what’s next for the service. Now the company is looking for better and more creative ways to keep their au-dience attached. Just this past August, additions to the ro-bust editing tools were made including importing captured footage, ghost shooting, slow motion camera and more. With them constantly refining the art of the six second video, only time will tell how Vine will continue to evolve. With Vine already having a bit of an advantage over any poten-tial competitors, its seems like they’ve monopolized a niche no one could have guessed ex-isted. In the meantime though, there are plenty of Vine’s out there to keep users and view-ers alike entertained as the sto-ry unfolds (and continuously loops) itself.

Kizuwanda Vialva is a staff reporter. She can be reached at

k.vialva@yorkpbnews.net

By Kizuwanda Vialva

Do it for the Vine: The Secret Origin of the Internet Sensation

BY GINA MARTINEZ & TRONE DOWD

Apple unveiled yet another iter-ation on the iPhone this month. The much hyped iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus features larger screens (4.7 inch screen and a 5.5 inch screen respectively) more akin to their most promi-nent competitor, the Samsung Galaxy. In addition to the larger screens, the phone also features faster processors for gaming and performance, an improved cam-era and launches with the new mobile operating system, iOS 8. More interesting than the long expected phone being

announced was the reaction it managed to muster out of York students. The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, has seemed to get the most negative to middling reactions of any iPhone to date. Despite nearly four mil-lion preorders set worldwide, here at York College, students seemed to be lukewarm on the idea of a larger, faster iPhone. In a poll conducted by Pando-ra’s Box, out of the 75 students asked about the new iPhone, only only 12 students actually shared any interest in purchas-ing it. The staggering amount

of “not interested” responses was a pretty clear tell that Ap-ple didn’t impress this time around. Reasons for the indif-ference varied. The most popu-lar reason given was the lack of interest in upgrading. With the launch of the iPhone 5S, a uni-versally praised piece of hard-ware, most students just didn’t see the point of the new model. The second most popular rea-son, was investment in Android phones. With the 6 Plus being a clear response to the Galaxy S5’s larger display, Android users accused Apple of playing catch

up. The final two most popular reasons for the poor show of interest was the lack of note-worthy improvements followed by the steep pricing of the de-vice, costing upwards of $850. Apple’s lukewarm unveiling didn’t stop there. The Apple Watch, the company’s first foray into the wearable tech trend that has picked up in recent years, didn’t impress many either. With speculation coming from credible Apple analyst John Gruber claiming higher end ver-sions of the watch could cost up to as much as $5,000, consumers

will start to wonder who exactly Apple is hoping to sell this to. If the result from our poll is any indication, it seems as though Apple needs to try much harder a year from now if they wish to appeal to students here.

Trone Dowd is the Arts & Enter-tainment Editor. He can be reached

at Trone@yorkpbnews.net

Gina Martinez is a staff reporter. She can be reached at G.Martinez@

yorkpbnews.net

iBORING: IS THE IPHONE CRAZE GONE?

PByorkpbnews.com 11

ARTSPBARTSyorkpbnews.com 10 Monday, Sept. 22, 2014 Monday, Sept. 22, 2014

By Jazmine BlakelyIn 1995 Athens, Ohio, there was much more to life than the average day of gossip-ing on Facebook and posting your latest selfie on Instagram. This month, the York College Performing Arts Center once again presented a compelling play titled, “She Kills Mon-sters” where the audience is taken on a literal journey full of laughs, relatable, encouraging life lessons wrapped up in the story of a girl trying desper-ately to reconnect with a loved

one, even after it’s too late. The play, based on Vietnam-ese-American playwright Qui Nguyen’s latest work, por-trays a forgotten (though not far back) time before the emer-gence of social media, an as-pect that gave the play a deep-er dimension than expected. The play focuses on two sisters who live very different lives. There’s younger sister Tilly, a lover of fantasy tabletop games with dragons, magic and evil villains, and Agnes, whose life consists of talking on the phone, hanging out with friends and

impressing boys. Because of the wildly different personalities, the two barely bond together the way two sisters typically do. Although never fully antago-nistic towards her sister, Agnes did look at her lifestyle with befuddlement. She never un-derstood her love for the fan-tastical and never bothered to ask. Instead, she always hoped that her sister would someday come out of her shell. One tragic day, when Agnes wishes Tilly’s life wouldn’t be so boring, the unthinkable happens. Agnes’ immediate family, Tilly includ-

ed, dies in a fatal car accident. As expected, Agnes is deeply affected by the sudden change in her life. After Tilly’s death, Agnes finds herself wanting to understand her sister once and for all. Discovering a game module book that Tilly wrote herself, Agnes finds herself absorbed by how much per-spective it give into her life. Agnes realizes there was more to the life of her younger sister than what was seen on the sur-face. The sister that she ignored for so many years before her untimely passing turned out to be a girl who was teased and bullied in school. She was ostra-cized for being a gay youth in a society that refused to accept her sexuality and considered a freak for her love of all things fantasy. While Agnes knew Tilly was an outcast, she didn’t know that it was to this extent. The games she immersed herself in was much more than fun for Tilly, it was a much needed outlet after all the adversity she faced in real life. In the game, she at least felt like somebody important, triumph-ing over all of her problems, big and small, real and not real. By the end of the play, Ag-nes understands her sister on a new level that she wishes she would have known prior to her death. She regrets that she found out about her sister’s

hardships as late as she did. However, she was happy that she was able to connect with Tilly at all, even after death. The director of the production, Jessica Pecharsky, highlight-ed the themes she tried to get across in her take of the play. She mentioned that gaining an understanding of those close to you is something we should all try to embrace before its too late. “It teaches us acceptance for who we are truly inside,” Pecharsky said. “And love those who are close to you now, while you can. Life is short and anything can hap-pen.” She also hoped to “in-spire other young women to be strong, powerful and magical.” Pecharsky expressed her grat-itude for the cast that came up with the idea of the play, which was a joined effort be-tween her and her co-workers. “I couldn’t be prouder of this production,” Pecharsky said. “The cast and production team has put so much hard work and they were so passionate. They made this play come alive with-in four weeks.”

Jazmine Blakely is a contributing writer. She can be contacted at

jazzmine.blakely@yorkmail.cuny.edu

PLAY SHOWS OFF FAMILY TIES BEFORE Above: Director Jessica Percharsky (left), and her cast) (right

By Dominique WIlliamsThe Department of Performing and Fine Arts hosted a screening of local director Joe P. Chan’s first feature film at York College on Sept. 4, with Chan in attendance. Part of the “Life in the Lens” series, which explores New York City professions in visual media, Chan presented his film “A Pic-ture of You” as part of York’s an-nual Week of Welcome activities. The annual event invites new and returning students back to school at the start of each academic year. The film follows a pair of es-tranged siblings, Kyle and Jen (played by Andrew Pang and Jo Mei), who travel from New York to rural Pennsylvania to pack up the belongings of their re-cently deceased mother. As they are forced to deal with each oth-er for the weekend, the siblings make a shocking discovery that sets in motion a mystery that the pair are conflicted about solving. The movie focuses on a number of elements, one of which is grief (juxtaposed to the film’s comedic tone at times). The two siblings ex-press their grief over their mother’s death in different ways while also dealing with their own strained relationship with each other. The movie starts off immediately as a bit of a downer with a slow, linger-ing, solemn scenes of the siblings packing up their mother’s things and reminiscing about their time with her as kids. The movie picks up once the risque discovery is found on their mother’s computer. “It’s based on my grieving process when my mother died” Chan said after being asked if the movie was autobiographical. “I wanted it to be honest to the experience I had.” The siblings try their best to un-derstand that their mother was liv-

ing a life they had no idea about. However, the different ways by which they deal with it show a contrast between the two main characters. While Jen actually wants to find out the truth, Kyle would rather bury whatever it is that their mother was doing and forget it for good. The conflict be-tween the two characters carries the film quite a ways as the two sides clash in compelling ways. Jen’s boyfriend Doug and best friend Meeka (played by Lucas Dixon and Teyonah Parris of Mad Men), accompany the duo helping them get to the bottom of the mys-tery behind the shocking discovery. Dixon and Parris give memorable performances, providing some of the film’s witty comedic moments. The movie was shot in primari-ly in Pennsylvania two years ago, where it took more than a year to finish and distribute. The film has received some rave reviews from reputable media outlets including the New York Times and The Vil-lage Voice, as well as a number of awards at indie movie showcases like . It is also worth noting that “A Picture of You” has gained positive buzz for bucking trends and star-ring two Asian Americans in the leading roles, (and another African American female actress as one of the two supporting characters), something forward thinking and refreshing by today’s standards. Chan’s first full length inde-pendent work has its fair share of laughs and tear jerkers. It is an easy film to recommend. The movie will be available on iTunes in early October.

Dominique Williams is a staff reporter. She can be contacted at

dominique.williams@yorkmail.comcuny.edu

LOCAL DIRECTOR SCREENS DEBUT FILM AT YORK

BY RODNEY GANTTSummer vacation may be over, but that does not mean the fun has to end. Before you find your-self drowning in assignments during midterms week and the weather gets colder, check out a few fun events coming up around the city as we head into the fall season. All of the activi-ties should pique your interest.MIDEVAL ADVENTURES Hear ye all, good sirs and and fair maidens! If it be mer-riment you seek you, shall find it at The 2014 Medieval Festival. This annual event brings the customs of the Middle Ages to the modern masses. In its 30th year, activities include displays of magic, minstrels, court jest-

ers, dancing even a live chess game done Harry Potter style. The festival concludes with a four-way jousting match by per-formed by the Knights of Ava-lon. Vendors will demonstrate medieval crafts and sell food. The 2014 Medieval Festival is chance for everyone to expe-rience life in a forgotten time. The festival will be held in Man-hattan’s Fort Tryon Park on Sept. 28 from 11:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Ad-mission is free. For more infor-mation visit whidc.org/festival. FOR THE TECH HEAD If knights and dragons aren’t your idea of fun (and shame on you if it isn’t), trade in your sword for a peek at the latest

gadgets. Whether you consid-er yourself a tech wiz or just the average joe consumer look-ing for the next big thing, Tech Week may have just what you are looking for. The annual event takes place in five cit-ies across the nation including New York and is, according to its website, “weeklong celebra-tion of technology and innova-tion.” A series of events held throughout the week, include a two-day technology conference and expo brings together en-trepreneurs and other experts to highlight exciting develop-ments in the local community. Tech Week New York 2014 will take place at 82 Mercer Street in Lower Manhattan. The event will run from Sept. 29 to Oct. 5 and host several guest speakers including, Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti, Director of Innovation at HP Andrew Bolwell and Red-

dit founder Alexis Ohanian. For more information including a complete list the week’s events and how to register visit tech-week.com/newyork.EAST COAST NERDS UNIITEWho needs the latest in technol-ogy when you have super pow-ers? Comic book fans, (which, let’s be honest, is almost every-one now) prepare yourselves. Comic Con is back in the Big Apple for it’s ninth year. The annual four day convention is one of the the largest pop cul-ture event on the east coast. Comic Con brings together the biggest artists, writers, directors and actors from some of the big-gest properties in popular me-dia across comic books, anime, manga, movies, television and video games. The convention includes vendors, panel discus-sions, meet and greets with fans and free swag at every corner.

This year’s event will feature actors from some of the most popular shows and movies, in-cluding the cast of Man of Steel, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and Guardians of the Gal-axy. It will also see the debut the “Eastern Championships of Cosplay,” a costume contest that will surely entertain attendees. New York Comic Con 2014 will take place at the Jacob Javits Center located on 655 West 34 Street in Manhattan. The event runs from Oct. 9 to Oct. 12. Tick-ets are on sale now and custom-ers are encouraged to buy on-line. But be warned, the tickets go fast. For more information visit newyorkcomiccon.com

Rodney Gantt is a staff reporter. He can be contacted at rodney.gantt@

yorkmail.cuny.edu

GET IN ONE LAST SUMMER HURRAH!

BEHIND THE SCENES AT NYFW

STORY & PHOTOS BY KATHERINE ORTIZKnown for his over the top shows, Marc Jacobs delivered a sensational finale for New York Fashion Week. Anticipa-tion filled the air as celebrities and fashion enthusiasts sur-rounded a pink house with-in the Park Avenue Armory. Influential stylists the likes of Miss J and Martha Stewart sat front row. As guests settled down, they were instructed to wear designated “Beats by Dr. Dre,” and listen to a pre-record-ed track of military marches. The showcase was for the Spring 2015 collection, which consisted of military fatigue-styled dress-es and uniformed dresses. Olive greens filled the runway fol-lowed later by beige, gray, navy and silver hues, giving a sneak peek into 2015 fashion trends. As in true Marc Jacobs ap-

peal, all the models wore sim-ilar shaggy black wigs matched with pale nude makeup, hiding many A-list top models behind the facade of uniformityKen-dall Jenner, for example, sis-ter of the Kardashian family, made her Mark Jacobs debut as she cat-walked along side Candice Swanepoel, Adri-ana Lima, and Karlie Kloss. Dresses with open backs and oversized buttons were the essence of the show. Alligator, suede, and mili-tary material were the must have bags for next season. Chirping birds cued the closing moments of the show as every model walked for the last time that evening. Designer Marc Ja-cobs came out, and with a call to Old New York, pushed aa cig-arette in his mouth and bowed to his audience. Deafening claps

filled the room as the “King of Fashion” presented himself. The explosion of soft col-ors, daring bags, and confus-ing sound track, left guests with a strangely satisfied. But what happens before the glamour is exposed? How did the pink house come about? What about the track? As ex-pected, quite a lot of work goes into the planning of a show like this. From the start, this event was all about the set built just for the event. Benedetta DeAglio, 21, a Marc Jacobs intern from Rome, Italy was one of the many who worked on creating the scene for the show. Before that evening, she spent day and night with production. “It was intense, ” DeAglio said. “For the last month, I ran around for days. These last two

weeks, I worked from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. There was so much to do. We had to pick a pink for the house, the headphones, find the carpet, build the house. And in the meantime, run around the city from end to end.” Even the day of the show, the 21 year old couldn’t call it a day. “We came early to set. I have been here for four hours and counting. But look at how everything came out.” The pink house was the pop of color that helped the dark-er tones of the clothing stand out. The most confusing part of the show was the pre-record-ed track. DeAglio commented stating that, “It was intention-al. ‘Make it monotone almost robot like.’ Marc told us. It was meant to go with the theme. You have these beautiful mil-itary influenced pieces, why

not create a contrasted record-ing with chirping and a mono-tone voice? It’s ingenious.” While some may still be a bit taken back by the recording, ev-ery small element of the show made for a spectacular finale. Endless hours at work setting up and then taking down the show were just as important. With a pattern to intentionally leave his audience in a confused and admirable state, Marc Ja-cobs wraps up New York Fash-ion Week in a unique pretty pink house all his company’s own.

Katherine Ortiz is a contributing writer. She can be contacted at Kath-

erine.Ortiz@yorkmail.cuny.edu

PBOPINIONyorkpbnews.com12

Welcome, New Students!

Pandora’s Box

Class of 2018

Monday, Sept. 22, 2014

BY XAVIER CRANDLE

Support for former Bal-timore Ravens running back Ray Rice isn’t at all

surprising. However, some of it as a bit disappointing. Rice was originally sus-pended for the first two games of the 2014 season by the National Football League for his role an altercation with his then-fiancée, Janay Palmer in an Atlantic City elevator in the early morn-ing of Feb. 15. The sanction was later increased to an indefinite suspension af-ter footage of the incident, which showed Rice knocking Palmer unconscious, was re-leased by TMZ Sports. Rice was then shortly released. #SupportRayRice includes arguments for Rice such as condemning the actions, not the person, everyone makes mistakes, and the thought that the NFL increased his suspension only after the punch was made public. A more troubling reason for support centers on the role

of Janay Rice in the incident and the idea that domestic violence can sometime work both ways. According to the court summons, and also in-dicated by the footage, she attempted to hit Ray first. Questioning Janay’s actions prior to her assault is a sen-timent loosely shared with supporters of Darren Wil-son, a Ferguson, MO police officer who shot and killed the unarmed 18-year-old Mike Brown in early August. The two incidents aren’t as isolated as one might as-sume, and together reveal the biggest hurdle to justice in regards to race and gender. Society’s biggest problem isn’t among race or gender lines. We have become a vic-tim blaming society. And we will never change the status quo until this is addressed. Rather than spearheading more “talks” about racial and gender inequality in the court of law and public opinion, attention should be focused on the sometimes ex-plicit attempts to circumvent

justice in these areas. The most common opposition tactics are collectively known as the 12 D’s. And few are as damaging, insidious, and effective than discredit. For Brown, this includes video footage of his “strong arm robbery,” and reports that he had marijuana (later updated by conservative me-dia to by laced with PCP) in his system at the time of his death. His aggression was validated, as Brown bore the costs of his actions. Ironi-cally, the marijuana motif was also used in the Tray-von Martin case last year. What is remarkable and quite upsetting is while some acknowledges the me-dia led the victimization of Mike Brown, few openly mention Janay Rice’s self driven victimization. In a press conference in late May, Janay Rice stated she deeply regretted “the role [she] played in the incident.” If assassinating the char-acter of the victim doesn’t work, an alternative is to

glorify the history of the ag-gressor. While Yahoo news was first to report Wilson received an award for “ex-traordinary effort in the line of duty,” Rice was spotted at his hometown New Ro-chelle High School the week-end following his increased suspension and subsequent release. The astute and con-venient reporting of the New York Daily News revealed Rice donated Nike duffel bags and Beats headphones to the members of the foot-ball team two years prior. An underlying theme among supporters of Darren Wilson and some support-ers of Ray Rice is they were “provoked,” or faced with an imminent threat by the vic-tims, thereby making their reactions defensible. Brown shouldn’t have charged Wil-son. Or he shouldn’t have tried to grab his gun. Or none of this would even be an issue if he didn’t allegedly com-mit a “strong arm robbery.” Or Janay should have never attempted to hit Ray first.

Bottom line: the aggressors don’t have to change their behavior. But the victims do. This notion dates as far back as 1885, when Ida B Wells published “A red Re-cord,” exposing the per-ceived justified lynching of black men. The New York Times countered with an edi-torial in the 1890s, claiming no “reputable or respectable negro” was ever lynched. The characters of the men and woman prior to their in-stances may have been im-peccable, admirable, hostile, or even criminal. But watch-ing these cases unfurl in na-tional, local and social media, it’s unfortunate that some in society can’t see that none of it should matter.

Xavier Crandle is a staff writer. He can be reached at x.crandle@yorkpb-news.net

“Society’s biggest problem isn’t among race or gender lines. We have become a victim blaming society.

”

What Has Ray Rice and Michael Brown Taught Us?

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EDITORIAL BOARD Editor in Chief: Joseph Darius Jaafari joseph@yorkpbnews.net Managing Editor: Crystal Alexander crystal@yorkpbnews.net News Editor: Yvette Brown yvette@yorkpbnews.net Arts/Ent. Editor: Trone Dowd trone@yorkpbnews.net Sports Editor: Raymond Mora raymond@yorkpbnews.net Online/Magazine Editor: Allyson Gill allyson@yorkpbnews.net Faculty Advisor: Bill Hughes w.hughes@yorkpbnews.net Faculty Advisor: Claire Serant c.serant@yorkpbnews.net

STAFF REPORTERS Laura Farrell l.farrell@yorkpbnews.net Rosanna Singh r.singh@yorkpbnews.net Janae Hunter j.hunter@yorkpbnews.net C.C. Atuanya c.atuanya@yorkpbnews.net Rodney Gantt r.gantt@yorkpbnews.net Graciano Clause g.clause@yorkpbnews.net Marvin Duarte m.duarte@yorkpbnews.net Kizuwanda Vialva k.vialva@yorkpbnews.net Gina Martinez g.martinez@yorkpbnews.net Jazmine Blakely j.blakely@yorkpbnews.net Valerie Victor v.victor@yorkpbnews.net

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Chris Singh Desmond Kenton Katherine Ortiz

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OPINION

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Monday, Sept. 22, 2014

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PB MagazineYork College’s new edition for profiles, fashion and more

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SPORTS14 Monday, Sept. 22, 2014

BY RAYMOND MORA

The 2014 season for the Men's Soccer team starts out decent with three wins

and three losses so far. Last season the team fin-ished 6-11-1 and came up short against Brooklyn College in the quarterfinals.This season assis-

tant coach Kafui Kouakou was promoted to head coach of the team after Coach Linval Cun-ningham resigned. The transi-tion from being an assistant to a head coach made Kouakou feel good about the opportunity. “It feels good to always be in charge of the team,” said Kouakou.“As an assistant coach you get to help the head coach, but as a head coach you get to implement a lot of things that you really want to do for the team and I will be getting the chance to do that.” This season the team lost seniors,recruiting new play-ers to fill the gap. Kouakou has also implemented a new formation with the team. Last year the team ran what’s called a “4-4-2 formation” -- four defenders, four midfielders and two forwards. This year, Kouakou is switching the formations to be more com-petitive with other schools. “I’ve seen lots of teams use that system because when you play you always want to have numbers in the middle,” said Kouakou. The new formations Kouakou has chosen for this semester gives an effective way to have many people inside the midfield, Kouakou said. Kouakou felt that this for-mation would also mesh well with the players, and team captain Jordan Chin, Sr, feels similar to the coach. “It is the perfect fit because Kafui already knows most of the players on the team so we both can help each other,” said Chin. “We look to him for the tactical aspect and he looks to us (returning players) for leadership.“All he has to do is work the new players into his system instead of having a new coach that would have

to work all the players into the system.” Chin’s presence, along with the returning play-ers, has eased pressure off the new players. This season he wants to win a championship with the team. He worked hard in the off-season, playing with his club team that helped him stay in shape and be on top of his game. Chin feels that he has to be more than 100 percent for this team to make a playoff run. “I think that I have to make sure my game is 110% always both in practice and games. I have to guide the new play-ers both on and off the field. We need all our players to be present at all times. We all need to work hard, “ said Chin. During the season teams go through adversity and those moments can be tough. Chin believed that it all de-pends on the roles on the team and to not do too much. “Its going to take all of us just reflecting on our indi-vidual game and see where we can improve. Also we all need to understand our roles in the team and try not to do too much,” said Chin. The coach also understands the tough times during the sea-son and wants the players to know that its not about win-ning all the time, its about how you play and learning from a game. Despite the slow start to the season, he's not worried. “All of the games are out of the conference so we have time,” said Kouakou. The team's next game will be in Long Island as they face Farmingdale State College.

Raymond Mora is a Sports Editor. He can be reached at

raymond@yorkpbnews.net

BY GINA MARTINEZ

The women’s soccer season has started off disappointingly

slow, and coming off two sea-sons of consistent losses, the team is in need of a rebuild. Robert Rivas, the new head coach of the team, is taking over the program after the departure of Kafui Kouakou, who is now the head coach of the men’s soccer team. Rivas has a lot of coaching experi-ence from being a head coach of the NYU-Polytechnic wom-en’s team to training various club teams in New York. He likes the challenge and hope to bring a winning mentality. “When I took the job I knew it would be a new challenge in my life, taking something that is a work in progress and turning it into a masterpiece is the real regard,” said Rivas. “I know it won’t happen quickly but I know that with hard and dedication we will make it hap-pen. I never get intimidated at taking risks in my career.” Despite the positive outlook the team did not start out well in the season. Their record is 1-4 and losing each game by more than 5 goals isn't the ideal situ-ation for any team. The team overall scored only 10 goals in 5 games. But a slow start hasn't deterred players and Head Coach Rivas. Forward Estefany Delgado acknowl-edges room for improvement and believes in team chemistry. "I think we can improve

on communicating with each other while we're on the field. And having more ball control,” said Delgado. "All of us have a great re-lationship with one another which makes the team bet-ter. Were going to have a suc-cessful season by attending all practices and trying our best when we're on the field." While its still too early to tell where the season is go-ing, the team remains hope-ful that the beginning of their season may just be a fluke in the team chemistry. "Our goal for the season is to make it to the playoffs. We have a great team and with all of our combined skills with can reach it,” said de-fender Michelle Montalvan. But besides the team pull-ing together, most play-ers agree that their secret weapon to success is taking advantage of coach Rivas. "Coach Rivas is a great coach, he is pushing us everyday. We practice Monday to Satur-day, and our main focus is to have great techniques and tac-tics as team,” said Montalvan. “In addition he is always en-couraging us. He reminds us of bad we want this and that practice is really important in order for us to achieve it." Delgado also agrees that Coach Rivas is great and knows

exactly what he's doing and the areas that the team needs to work on. While the team has a long way to go before playoffs, they're determined and willing to put in the ef-fort to see a first playoff berth. Players and coaching staff are working hard to make sure this season is a successful one. “I think what makes us strong as a team is the fact we are will-ing to work for one another no matter the final outcome,” said Rivas.“We know we need work harder to.compensate the lack of experience we don't have a team. We are a young team that still needs to learn.”

Gina Martinez is a staff re-porter. She can be reached at g.martinez@yorkpbnews.net

Cardinal Games Spread

Women’s Tennis Schedule

At home against Lehman College Sept 24

At home against the College of New Rochelle Sept 27

On the road against Sarah Lawrence College Oct 1

At home against Hunter College Oct 4

At home against the College of Staten Island Oct 7

Women’s Volleyball Schedule

At home against Maritime College Sept 24

On the road against ManhattanVille College and against Mount Saint

Mary College Sept 27

On the road against the College of Saint Elizabeth Sept 30

At home against Yeshiva University Oct 1

At home against Albertus Magnus College Oct 6

Women’s Soccer Schedule

At home against Medgar Evers College Sept 20

At home against the College of Staten Island Sept 23

At home against St. Joseph’s Col-lege Sept 25

On the road against The City Col-lege of New York Sept 27

On the road against Brooklyn Oct 4

At home against Berkeley College Oct 8

Men’s Soccer Schedule

At home against St. Joseph’s Col-lege Sept 25

On the road against Hunter College Sept 27

At home against Medgar Evers College Sept 29

On the road against Lehman College Oct 1

At home against John Jay Oct 4

On the road against Baruch College Oct 8

Men’s and Women’s Cross Country

College of Staten Island Invitational Sept 28

The City College of New York Oct 12

St. Joseph’s College-Li Invitational

Senior Jordan Chin getting ready to kick the ball. (Phioto By Verity Rollins)

Roberto Rivas (Photo by Verity Rollins)

TACTICAL DEFENSE IS MEN’S SOCCER’S PLAN FOR A WIN

TWO SEASONS IN, SOCCER TEAM STILL NEEDS WORK

Sophomore Estefany Delgado fighting for possession. (Photo by Verity Rollins)

PBSPORTSyorkpbnews.com 15Monday, Sept. 22, 2014

By Raymond Mora

Both York’s men’s and women’s cross country teams placed in the top 12 at two separate invitation-als this season, but that is quite an improvement from last year for Head Coach Mark Benjamin The men’s and women’s cross

country season started out with two invitationals from Baruch and QueensBorough Com-munity College.The men’s placed 11th and 10th while the women’s placed 8th and 12th in both events. Head Coach Mark Benjamin sees improve-ments in both teams so far

“I see that we're going to do much better than we ever did in cross county even though my runners did not run re-ally hard that summer. They come to me and are not in great condition. They were sup-pose to run all summer lightly on their own,” said Benjamin Benjamin is taking all of Sep-tember to get them in condition and ready to compete at the end of October. At the end of October is the CUNYAC Cham-pionship for both men’s and women’s. Benjamin explains the training techniques used in be-ing prepared for Cross Country. “In cross country we do light intervals because mostly its LSD (Long Slow Distance). The key to cross country is can you work yourself up to where you can run non-stop for an hour and then use that to do a tempo run with pace for an hour,” said Benjamin. “If you can do that then you come in for your 8k, your 8k is only going to take you about 30 to 32 mins.” Benjamin likes what he sees in his new players and the work they put in. On the men’s side, Se-nior Jesus Medina describes the first two meets of the season de-spite the slow start and the goals. “Our goal is to just get the whole team to run PR’s (Person-al Best),” said Medina.“It went better than last year since I seen some improvements from fresh-mens last year and freshmens this year about 2 mins faster.” Although the men’s team is preparing for October, the

women’s team has other things in mind. Returning Junior Diana Cuevas wants to im-prove on her personal perfor-mances and is training hard. “To run a faster time and to gain more endurance this sea-son, I trained about two times a week even though I didn’t train as much and didn’t ex-pect to do very well in the first two meets,” said Cuevas. “But I’m taking advantage of coming to practice four to five times a week so I can get more milage.” Cuveas also wants to run 30 minutes in a 6k event. Both Cuevas and Medina are using cross country to be prepared for the indoor and outdoor season. To mo-tivated and mentally prepare the players for competition, Coach Benjamin sees the drive and commitment on winning. “We always talk about visu-alization techniques. We talk about how they need to step up to the plate. But a lot of it is their own internal competition,” said Benjamin. “They want to win.” The season is still early for the players and they have time to prepare for the indoor and out-door season. Coach Benjamin wants to see a championship in the indoor and outdoor season believes that it can happen. The team's next meet will be on Sept 28 in the College of Staten Island.

Raymond Mora is a Sports Edi-tor. He can reached at

raymond@yorkpbnews.net

BY GRACIANO CLAUSE

No sports team wants to lose, but the downward trend of the wom-en’s volleyball team has plagued them for yet another semester. The Lady Cardinals loss six straight games since the begin-ning of the season. For so long the women’s team has carried an abysmal record -- under .500 season records since 1998, ac-cording to York College Ath-letics records . It’s bad enough that the Lady Cardinals are los-ing, but it is worse when there appears to be no end in sight. On Sept. 7, the women’s vol-leyball team lost their first three

matches in their season opener. The team’s first loss came against Morrisville State College, in that game the cardinals put up a fight but couldn’t pull through to produce a positive end result. “One of our problems on the court is that we need to im-prove our communication, we can get lost out there when everyone is not on the same page and it end up costing us,” said Shauncia McClendon . Junior Joanne Ly also agrees with McClendon on the team’s status. “We have returning players & new players this year,” said Ly. “As any other team, we’ve been trying to find our flow/chemis-

try in playing with one another on the court to perform well.” Morrisville State came out

blazing by dominating the Cardinals with 15 aces. Senior Stayce Kay Muirhead and Sophomore Shauncia Mc-Clendon would lead their team with six kills apiece. The final score resulted in Morrisville State winning 3-0. The next day they would lose again to City College in four sets 3-1. The final match came against D’Youville which showed a less competitive effort com-pared to the first two matches. Murihead’s numbers stood out despite the team’s struggles as she would go on to lead the team with six kills. In the end they fell to D’Youville 3-0 . Certain aspects of the Cardi-nals’ 2014 season are a given, like McClendon and Muir-head producing more than half of the team’s points. They show inconsistent spurts in sets which never really al-lows the team to get a hold of any lead along with lack of c “We have the potential to turn games around if it weren’t for the minor mistakes that consis-tently piled up, we just have to be more aware on the way we go about things like serves or positioning,” said McClendon. The game against College of New Rochelle on Sept. 9 was another prime example of the problems the Cardinals face from lack of communication on the floor. The game had silly errors as they struggled with their own serves along with a few service errors. Almost every player on New Rochelle contributed in such good fashion totaling to 45 points. On the other hand for York that was not the case where a third of the team’s players didn’t score a single point. . York had a few good runs from time

to time, but is wasn’t enough to overcome the problems they put on themselves in. The college of New Rochelle would win 3-0 (25-13, 25-11, 25-19) over York. The team did win against Medgar Evers College 3-1, but Assistant Coach Stepha-nie Betancourt gave her take on dealing with the losses. “It’s a learning experience, we try not to beat ourselves up after a loss, all we can do is work on our mistakes to get better,” said Assistant Coach Stephanie Betancourt. She also mentioned how letting your emotions out after a tough loss isn’t the best idea because as a teammate you play col-lectively and not for yourself. With a minor portion of the Cardinal’s games already set and stoned, they still have enough games in the season to improve.

Graciano Clause is a staff reporter. He can be reached at

g.clause@yorkpbnews.netVISIT US ONLINE ATYORKPBNEWS.COM

Junior Kiranjeet Kaur tapped the volleyball as her teammates are looking. (Photo by Verity Rollins)

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL SEASON MAY DISAPPOINT

CROSS COUNTRY TEAMS SEE MAJOR IMPROVEMENT, LOOK FORWARD TO A GREAT SEASON

Senior Shanice Brown running on the track. (Photo by Verity Rollins)

VS Morrisville State Game 1- 25-18 Game 2- 25-18 Game 3- 27-15

VS City College Game 1- 25-20 Game 2- 25-18 Game 3- 25-27 Game 4- 25-16

VS D’Youville Game 1- 25-17 Game 2- 25-11 Game 3- 25-11

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SPORTS16 Monday, Sept. 22, 2014