Columns

GUEST ROOM | Funding EARS Reveals Deeper Issues About the Student Activity Fee

By |

When I read EARS’ application for funding, I saw serious issues with how they planned to spend their money. Unfortunately, I cannot disclose many details. Though it is certainly unethical that organization budgets being funded by student tuitions are not public. It speaks volumes about the relationship between the S.A. and the student body when the only details that are public are ones that are on the audio recordings for meetings.

Columns

BEARD | All EARS: It’s Time to Pay Attention to the Student Assembly

By |

Thankfully, EARS is back in a reimagined way providing mentorship training and similar services. Although more limited in scope, the newly designed EARS planned to open its doors once again to students which brings us to the recent actions of the S.A.’s Appropriations Committee.

Columns

GUEST ROOM | E is for Empathy: A Reintroduction to EARS

By |

Last week, the University announced that Empathy, Assistance and Referral Service would no longer offer peer counseling, as this kind of service is not insured by the University. EARS, however, will still continue as an organization, though now without the peer counseling service that we are best known for. Confusion, outrage, disappointment and dozens of questions like “Why?” and “How?” and “How do we fix it?” spread over Zoom calls, Facebook posts and even Reddit threads after the news broke. These responses are understandable. After all, how do you reconcile a peer counseling organization with no peer counseling?

Columns

POORE | I Think I’m Getting Empathied Out

By |

Warning: The following content contains sensitive material about suicide. I used to believe that empathy was the key to unity without understanding what it meant. So in my sophomore spring I did Empathy, Assistance, and Referral Service training, the on-campus peer counseling system, and last week I attended the first meeting of Education 2610, also known as Intergroup Dialogue Project. In EARS training and in IDP, we did active listening exercises in pairs. One person would talk for three minutes without the other responding.

Columns

WANG | Hear for You

By |

I always thought the greatest superpower anyone could wish for was the ability to speak the right words at the right time. Its potential would be substantial. Businessmen could use it to swing negotiations; socialites could use it attract the attention of others; politicians could use it to push their agenda across. And I? Well, I could use it to get me and my friends to calm down a bit.