Immaculata Academy Closing

By Adam Heftka

Immaculata Academy is closing. The Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph, which has operated it for 88 years,  announced they will end their sponsorship of the Catholic girls’ school at the end of this school year.

In a press the Franciscan Sisters said, “in light of the FSSJ’s current realities, the conclusion of their sponsorship, declining enrollment, and discouraging demographic data, the school’s current academic model is no longer sustainable and that the school will close at the end of the school year in 2016.”

Cynthia Zane, Hilbert College’s president, sent an e-mail to the Hilbert Community this week, acknowledging the ties shared between the two institutions, and noted that the direct effect on Hilbert’s day-to-day operations would be minimal.

“While this announcement does not directly affect Hilbert College, as we have maintained financial independence from the FSSJ for some time, it certainly does hit close to home for many in the Hilbert family,” Zane wrote.

This news leaves many students without a school for next year; however, the decision to close this year may benefit its students. Immaculata will look to “maximize available resources for both financial aid and scholarships to follow students to other Catholic Schools.”

In President Zane’s e-mail she asks to “keep the Sisters, faculty, staff, students, and families affected in your prayers.”

Overall, survey finds Hilbert is welcoming. A majority of black students say it’s “just okay.”

By Amanda Snyder

A Spring 2015 Cultural Climate Survey found a majority of Hilbert’s African American students and a majority of staff and faculty agree that there are racial and interracial conflicts on campus.

Most respondents to the survey – which was open to all students and staff — stated that Hilbert College is a welcoming and inclusive campus. Indeed, 96.5% of the campus community believes that Hilbert College “creates an overall positive cultural environment for faculty, staff, and students,” according to the survey’s executive summary.

But further evaluation of survey results reads that over 30 percent of survey takers believe there is racial conflict and tension across the campus, as seen by both students and faculty members. Diving a little deeper, one would also notice that 56.3 percent who were African American disagreed with the statement that “there is no racial/interracial tension on campus.”

When asked if there is a high level of respect for diversity on Hilbert’s campus, there is a significant difference in student responses of those who are African American and those who are white. This led data to read that the majority of white students see Hilbert College as a positive environment, whereas African Americans responded that the campus is “just okay.”

The survey results were highlighted by the Provost Advisory Committee for Diversity (PACD). The committee conducted a survey to evaluate the progress of diversity and inclusion on campus for students and staff members of all backgrounds. Three hundred forty-seven students, along with 64 faculty and staff, participated. This survey that was administered is the second Cultural Climate Survey to be given at Hilbert College. A similar survey was assessed in the spring of 2011 by the Office of Multicultural Affairs. Survey of 2011 reported a need for Hilbert to implement diversity improvements across campus, thus initiating PACD. Both surveys were used to understand the experiences of students, faculty and staff.

In an interview in February, Hilbert President Cynthia Zane said the work of making all students feel a sense of inclusion is ongoing. She pointed to monthly events held this school year that give her and others in the administration an opportunity to listen directly to students and their concerns.

One thing Zane said needs to be looked at is the timeline involved for handling disciplinary situations where race is involved. But she said changes can’t happen overnight, and not all changes can be imposed by the administration.

For example, Zane said, including more academic offerings related to diversity would involve working closely with the faculty, who ultimately decide whether to add classes to Hilbert’s course catalog.

On Tuesday, March 1, all students and staff are welcome to a Town Hall Forum called “The Politics of Hate.” The panelists include Yvonne Down, PH.D., Kush Haq, PH.D., Jeff Papia, MTA, and Megan Witzleben, PH.D. The discussion starts at 3:15 in Swan Auditorium.

By Kyle English

There comes a time in everyone’s life when it’s time to go for a job interview and you don’t have the appropriate attire.  Well Hilbert Students, you are in luck, St. Clare’s Closet has got you covered.

St. Clare’s Closet has been around since the mid-2000s, and is something President Zane heavily promoted early in her tenure to emphasize the importance of giving back to the students who are less fortunate and need help.  Since then, faculty and staff members have continued to make note of this opportunity, but it still lacks publicity amongst the Hilbert community.

Katie Martoche, the faculty member in charge of the service, says that she believes that there is a high demand for this but not many students know about it.  “Not all students can afford a suit or a nice outfit for a job, internship, or interview.”

If any student needs appropriate clothes for a job interview or a similar occasion, they just need to contact Martoche or Hilbert’s career center, and they’ll be allowed to choose from a selection of donated, professional clothing for men and women.

Martoche and Hilbert College do not ask for the clothing back.  “It is important to keep the integrity of the student in tact so we do not ask names, or for the clothing back.  The student is welcome to take as much as they need.” Martoche said.

The donation service is named for St. Clare, the nun inspired by hearing St. Francis speak, and who dedicated her life to helping the poor.

“The closet is part of the Franciscan Mission and giving back so we are really excited to have something like this available to the Hilbert students and alumni,” Martoche said.

Located in Bogel Hall 130, St. Clare’s Closet offers a variety of clothing including suits, belts, blazers, and scarves in name brands, including Calvin Klein, Alfred Dunner, and Express.  The Career Center is always looking for donations and will accept any and all gently used, professional clothing.

With the AMCC tournament starting this weekend at the Hafner Recreation Center, the buzz surrounding the #1 seeded Hawks may be at an all time high. At 21-4, this is quite possibly one of the most talented and deepest teams Hilbert has ever had. Not only are the Hawks talented, but the team is filled with a diverse cast of characters.

This following trailer is a sneak peek into the upcoming video known as “The SZN” with the inside look at the Hilbert Hawks Mens Basketball team. Be sure to stay tuned for this video which is a collaboration with the Sports Alchemy Group (S.A.G.).

S.A.G. is a club founded by Senior Swingman and Sports Industry Management Major Nehemiah Kornegay to use skills learned at Hilbert to host and promote sporting events as well as producing sports media.

This video was directed and Edited by Connor Kirst and written by Nehemiah Kornegay and Dalton Reynolds.

A rainbow makes an appearance to the north of campus in Hamburg on Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2016.

The 88th Academy Awards will air this Sunday night, hosted for the second time by Chris Rock. What is your favorite movie, and why isn’t it Space Jam?

By Amanda Snyder

St. Bonaventure University President Sister Margaret Carney announced this week she’s battling cancer.
In an email to the St. Bonaventure community, she said she had recently been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.
The illness is “a cancer of the blood causing abnormal plasma cells to collect themselves in bones and the bone marrow,” President Carney wrote. She said she’s been undergoing tests at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo for the past several weeks, and will begin “an intensive course of drug therapy” this week. The treatment may last six months.
Hilbert College President Cynthia Zane shared President Carney’s letter via email with the Hilbert community on Wednesday.
Sister Margaret already announced last month she was stepping down as president of SBU. She said her diagnosis may slow her down but it is not going to keep her down. She said, “I will be able to continue to fulfill my role as long as I somewhat reduce my schedule. This will cause me to slow my 88 mph daily speed to a more respectable 55 mph!”
Sister Margaret is the 20th President of SBU and has held office since 2004. She has obtained master’s degree in theology and Franciscan Studies, with a doctorate in theology. She holds nine honorary doctorates, including one from Hilbert. St. Bonaventure and Hilbert are “sister schools” , sharing the same set of Franciscan Values. St. Bonaventure’s School of Graduate Studies holds classes on the Hilbert campus. The two schools discussed a merger in 2013, but the idea was eventually discarded.
President Carney concluded her announcement with the high hopes and a bright outlook on her future and faith. “It will come to no surprise to anyone that I intend to do everything possible to win this battle with cancer. I will also find in this many opportunities to ponder the fundamentals of the faith with which I was gifted in baptism.”
In an e-mail to the Hilbert community, Hilbert President Cynthia Zane asked everyone to “Keep Sister Margaret in your thoughts and prayers as she undergoes treatment.”

By Kyle English

In 2008, Hilbert College received a $2.5 Million Title III Grant that allowed it to establish their Foundations Seminar class, GS101.  It was with this grant that the wheels starting turning and an organized plan began to be discussed.

The Hilbert Blueprint was formalized in 2013, to differentiate Hilbert College from other colleges, both in the immediate area and around the country.  The blueprint is an outline that every student that comes to Hilbert will share as a common experience.

Dr. Chris Holoman, Denise Harris, and Jim Sturm are the three co-creators of the Hilbert Blueprint and they explained that the process was surprisingly easy because everything incorporated in the blueprint already existed on campus.

This four-step outline indicates what each student will be doing at every level of their college education.  It outlines a major goal for each year they are at Hilbert.

Some departments already had their own departmental goals and capstone experiences. This new Blueprint made it mandatory that all departments added this to their goals.

Sturm is an advocate of leadership and he was eager to point out that the Hilbert Blueprint incorporates the path to becoming a good leader every step of the way.

“Dr. Holoman always used the arrow to illustrate our intentions and the growth of the student.  From there, we just filled in what goes where,” Sturm said.

Sturm noted that students will partake in GS101, juniors take PS402, seniors have their capstone, but sophomores did not have a primary focus.

“Most students transfer, or leave college during their sophomore year, so we needed to find something unique to keep them engaged,” Sturm said.  Hence, the creation of sophomore service in the Hilbert Blueprint.

The primary method of tracking the success of this blueprint, long term, is having the students create an E-Portfolio.  This is advantageous for the student, the college, and potential employers, because everything is in one place.

The students can email their portfolio to their potential employers and the founders of this plan can track the success of this implementation by seeing the quality of students’ work, and experiences throughout their four years at college.

Recently the Hilbert Blueprint underwent an analysis, using various assessments and evaluations, to evaluate its early success rates.  The results yielded exactly what administration had hoped for.

“It is a clear pathway for success,” Harris said.  “It gives the parents of our students comfort knowing that the college has a plan for their child. ”

By Mary Kate Wirfel

I have been going to Hilbert for three years now and I have had my run-ins with bad weather. My first year, I dormed here and what I noticed that this college never closes.

My freshman year, we had cold weather and bad roads and yet there was still school.  Immaculata Academy, an all-girls Catholic high school, located within walking distance of the Hilbert College campus was closed, but the college was still open.

I now commute, even though I don’t have my license, my family members volunteer to drive me.  From time to time, I was almost involved in several car accidents caused by the weather.

The commuter students outnumber the residents.  Some of these students commute from places like Springville, Arcade, and Tonawanda which are long enough drives and the snow makes it even harder to get here.

Professors here have an attendance policy and the students get penalized for not showing up to class.  Where the students are really getting penalized is in their paycheck.

The tuition here costs a fortune, over $20,000 per year.  In order to spend your money wisely, you have to show up every day and go to class.  The only break you get is if the professor cancels class, because they cannot make it in.

It’s okay for professors to cancel class and not show up because of weather but not for students to miss class because of the weather.

The only time this school was closed, while I was here, was during the epic November snowstorm in 2014.  If there was not a travel ban in Hamburg, I believe school would have still been open.

I do love it here. But I think you have to be safe. If the school is open and the weather is bad, just stay home you can make up your work later.

Your safety is more important than school even though you’re paying for it.

By Evan James

W/ Contributions From Connor Kirst

As Kanye West himself once said on Tyler, the Creator’s 2015 song “Smuckers,” “They say I’m crazy but that’s the best thing going for me.” If this statement is true, then The Life of Pablo should have been his greatest album to date, because the promotion of this album has been a year-long roller coaster ride that only sped up in the past two months.

After constantly changing the album’s name, revising track lists, changing the songs around, tweeting short bursts of nonsensical rants, and being vague on the album’s release, many fans are wondering if the album they have is even the final product. Whether it is or not, what was released this past Sunday (exclusively on Jay Z’s mess of a streaming service, Tidal), is a sound representation of this decade’s biggest musician going through a midlife crisis.

Many of the songs on the album show Kanye reflecting on his past relationships, romantic or otherwise. “30 Hours” talks about a friend with benefits he used to have, many songs pertaining to his marriage to Kim Kardashian and his two children, North and Saint, and even more about his mother, Donda, who passed away in 2007 from elective surgery.

The simplistic, heavy in reverb, piano ballad “FML,” a collaboration with popular R&B singer, the Weeknd deals with the media’s desire to see Kanye fail and be embarrassed, much like the buzzing “Feedback.” The somber “Wolves,” and a collaboration with Ty Dolla Sign called “Real Friends” are also an expression of West’s inability to trust people because everyone wants something from him. Seeing as this is just the tip of the iceberg, this is clearly a man with issues that run deep.

Sonically, this album continues Kanye’s trend of never making the same album twice. Working with producer Metro Boomin, a producer who has made beats for popular hip hop artists like Future, Drake, and Migos, gives the album a trap sound that’s just unique enough to not sound like what every other rapper is doing now.

Much like the modern day sequel to your favorite 80’s/90’s movie, the featured artists are almost better than the content itself. Frequent collaborators Kid Cudi, Rihanna, and Frank Ocean return, but so do newer artists like Desiigner, Kendrick Lamar, and the 23-year-old Chance the Rapper.

Born Chancelor Bennett, Chance the Rapper has what many consider to be the best verse on the album on the gospel influenced “Ultra Light Beams.” This song (along with “Highlights”) was played on Saturday Night Live this past weekend, when at the end, in an unintelligible mess, Kanye grabs the microphone and tells the audience the album was then out on his website and Tidal, a move he would later retract, announcing the album would never be for sale or streaming anywhere but Tidal.

The Tidal move worked, getting it to the number 1 spot on the Apple Store, but not for long. The service has been described as broken and problematic to put it nicely. Many fans are upset, especially with Kanye tweeting out he was $53 million in debt, and the album has allegedly been pirated over half a million times now. Due to Kanye’s erratic nature, even his most loyal fans can’t tell if he’s going to stick to his guns or not.

All controversy aside, this album is enjoyable and holds his own with anything else he’s ever released. If you can look past West’s ridiculousness, its undeniable. Kanye West is the truest definition of a rock star in 2016. Many may say that he has an ego, but if you listen to the music, he definitely backs it up.

Standout Tracks: Ultra Light Beams, Waves, FML