Category: Uncategorized

Written November 7, 2022

Updated December 16, 2022

This November, Americans voted on an election that will shape the next two years of American politics. Every seat in the House of Representatives was up for grabs, as well as 35 out of 50 seats in the Senate. Most polls showed that Republicans were heavily favored to win the House, and slightly favored to win the Senate. Such a power shift would’ve meant a halt to all Democratic legislation, a refusal to confirm any federal judges, and further weaponizing of the debt ceiling—the same tactic that forced Obama to make $2.1 trillion dollars’ worth of concessions in 2011. However, despite predictions of a ‘red wave,’ Republicans lost the Senate and only eked out a small majority in the House. This shift is partially attributed to a higher-than-usual turnout of youth voters, indicating a looming threat to the current GOP.

For young people, the election had many far-reaching implications, including the hotly debated topic of student debt cancellation. President Joe Biden’s executive order, which is already imperiled by the courts, would almost certainly be killed by a Republican legislature. For many, this election meant the difference between getting a chance to start their lives proper—being freed up to afford a mortgage, children, or retirement savings—and being saddled with debt for the next chunk of their lives.

Outside of debt, students had good reason to consider what their futures would look like after this election. With many GOP members touting the “Big Lie” of a stolen election, voting rights themselves have been under fire, as many sought to discredit and overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Alongside this, the Republican House will likely dissolve the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack, stunting any consequences for the political attack that shook the nation. This volatile combination of condoning insurrection, stripping away voting rights, and casting doubt on the democratic process may have galvanized voters who were otherwise neutral—high-profile election deniers such as Kari Lake, Tim Michels, and Doug Mastriano all faced electoral defeats, indicating pushback against anti-democratic rhetoric.

Above all this, there is one issue that has young voters up in arms more than any other. Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June, the bodily autonomy of millions of Americans has been brought into question. For young women in conservative states, access to reproductive healthcare has been jeopardized, leading to dangerous ectopic pregnancies, forced births, and children as young as 10 being pressured to carry to term. Many have made it clear that they refuse to return to the era of dangerous “back-alley” abortions—an attitude that may have carried the election.

“Exit polls indicate that a large number of young voters are concerned about abortion and abortion rights, likely as a result of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said Edward Hunt, assistant professor of political science at Regis College. “The Tisch College of Civic Life, which tracks young voters, described the election as ‘the abortion election.’”

Historically, young people have been least likely to vote in elections, with only 50% of 18 to 29-year-old voters turning out in 2020, according to a Tufts University study. As Regis College senior H.E. said, “A lot of people our age have really strong opinions and really great voices, but, when it comes to actually making it to the polls, sometimes that’s where we fall a little bit short.”

At Regis College, responses from students were mixed—some indicated a desire to vote, but couldn’t find the time: “I do care but I’m just pretty busy,” said sophomore J.G. “It’s a time thing, but I want to,” echoed senior Z.L.

“There’s an election tomorrow? What for?” asked a few passersby.

Despite some lukewarm responses, many other students were excited to have their voices heard. Where one said, “I didn’t think about it, honestly,” another said, “Everyone needs to be informed for democracy to work. Get up and vote!”

Among those who voted, there was increased encouragement for other students to visit the polls. “You should definitely vote because it’s like your voice is being heard,” said sophomore L.D. “They should vote, and vote for what they believe in,” said freshman T.C.

The effect of these passionate youth voters can be seen in key races across the country, particularly for John Fetterman, Raphael Warnock, and Tony Evers. “Progressive candidates do better when young people turn out to vote in larger numbers,” said Hunt. “Young voters were pivotal in key elections in Georgia, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.”

Whether the increase in youth voters is the beginning of a larger trend remains to be seen—as Hunt said, the 2022 election is “both an outlier and a trend.” In one sense, the high youth turnout may be seen as an unusual outlier, being the second highest for a midterm election in the past thirty years. However, as Hunt pointed out, “we are seeing young people becoming increasingly involved in elections.” Rather than being an outlier, this election may be an indication of broader political activism from young people.

If the results of the 2022 election demonstrate anything, it’s the fact that youth voters really can make a difference—the more student voters see their own influence, the more galvanized they may be to vote in the future.

“Everyone’s vote really matters when it all comes down to it. Everyone’s part of a statistic,” said Z.L.

Anyone still skeptical may consider those who are disenfranchised—the ones who need a win the most.

“Even if there’s not an issue that you care about for you specifically, think of all the people who don’t have a voice right now,” said H.E. “Use your vote to give them a voice.”

Written February 13, 2022

Updated December 16, 2022

We’ve all seen the headlines: an NFT of a smiling ape has sold for millions, the subjects of classic memes have sold their photos for hundreds of thousands, and digital artists have cashed in in the hopes of making it big. Celebrities the likes of Snoop Dogg, Ozzy Osbourne, and Serena Williams have jumped into the craze—even ringtone extraordinaire Crazy Frog has his own NFT in the works. With the growing hype, millions of dollars, and growing debate surrounding the technology, you may find yourself wondering, what is an NFT?

An NFT (or non-fungible token) is a unique piece of data stored on a blockchain, which can be thought of as a list of records. Platforms such as Ethereum maintain these records, allowing for the creation and trading of tokens between users. NFTs are generally purchased using cryptocurrency, which is an unregulated, digital alternative to traditional currency. While any kind of digital data can be used to create a unique token, the most popular use of the technology has been in trading digital artwork.

Tokenized trading is unique compared to the traditional sale of art—according to NFT proponents, the technology allows for the collection of royalties and ease of access to the market for artists, and allows collectors an added degree of security and a convenient network to hold and sell their artwork. Additionally, an NFT can be seen as an appreciating asset, something purchased as a future investment. According to Johnathan Mann, creator of the ‘Song A Day’ NFT collection, “The royalties on all secondary sales has become a fundamental part of what makes NFTs attractive to artists of all kinds. If you can find the audience willing to support you, it becomes the kind of passive income artists have only ever dreamed of.”

Indeed, some artists have benefitted greatly from selling their artwork as NFTs. Photographer Dave Krugman, based in New York, has minted several of his original photographs as tokens, and has auctioned them for the equivalent of tens of thousands of dollars. In a Whitehot Magazine interview with Mariepet Mangosing, Krugman expressed his view of NFTs as the future of art trading. “The fact that we have resale royalties built into the smart contracts is a profound change,” he said. “We’re seeing artists profit from their output within their own lifetimes, and we’re living through the greatest transfer of wealth into the creative class in human history.”

However, not all share Krugman’s optimistic view of NFTs. One of the biggest controversies surrounding the technology has been its carbon footprint, as the creation and maintenance of tokens on a blockchain uses large amounts of electricity. As Hiroko Tabuchi stated in a New York Times article, the creation of an average NFT creates “over 200 kilograms of planet-warming carbon, equivalent to driving 500 miles in a typical American gasoline-powered car.”

These concerns have not been lost on students—graduate student Wolfy, who has a master’s in Biodiversity and Conservation and is pursuing a joint master’s in Tropical Biodiversity and Ecosystems at the University of Leeds, is particularly concerned about NFTs’ impact on climate change.

“We are currently in a climate emergency, and the need of the hour is to invest in mitigating the damage we have already done over the years,” said Wolfy. “NFTs, and the crypto affair as a whole, seem to be the most ridiculous way of doing the exact opposite. Unlike other energy expensive activities like transport and agriculture, which can be considered necessities to some extent, NFTs seem much more irrelevant and easily avoidable. The growing popularity of NFTs is therefore almost an intentional choice to further harm the planet, a choice that more people seem to be taking everyday”

Another snag: a non-fungible asset is also non-tangible. Not everyone is convinced that a digital token can represent meaningful ownership of an image, leading some to think of the growing market as a scam. Indeed, some unscrupulous traders have even tokenized other people’s artwork without permission, profiting from the sale with no benefit to the original artist. “Their claim about ‘protecting artists’ is pretty transparently false,” says Northern Irish pre-law student Clubs. “It’s just a pyramid scheme aimed at people who had no interest in essential oils.”

Additionally, the blockchain may not be as robust as once thought. The once-popular cryptocurrency exchange FTX, which held millions of dollars’ worth of NFTs, has since declared bankruptcy. With the company undergoing restructuring, all NFTs minted on the FTX exchange now redirect to a generic page. This loss reveals the fragile nature of digital assets, as the blockchain must be actively maintained for ownership to be upheld. As the FTX bankruptcy demonstrates, anyone buying an NFT is putting immense trust in the blockchain that records the trade.

Ultimately, the unregulated nature of NFTs and cryptocurrency leaves little room for oversight, with the potential for fraud just as great as the potential for artists to strike it rich. Environmental concerns raise serious questions over the sustainability of NFTs, with students and climate professionals raising the alarm over their growing popularity. Despite their booming success, NFTs still have a lot to prove regarding their sustained use in the future—a question which only time can answer.

“I think the jury is still out on this,” said Christopher Kubik, Professor of Finance and Accounting at Regis College. “I think more finance professionals see value in crypto and NFTs, but there are still significant numbers who believe there is little to no value. I tend to side with the latter group.”

Says Wolfy, “By the time we’re done fighting over accurately quantifying an NFT’s environmental impact and finding the mythical ‘sustainable’ NFT, it’ll already be too late.”

“In 1946 a ‘doughty seedling poked its vigorous head’ into the Regis College Community with the emergence of the new literary magazine Hemetera, meaning ‘Our Own’ in Greek. The magazine was founded as an opportunity to spotlight the creative talents of the student body. Published annually by the students of Regis College, the magazine welcomes submissions of poetry, prose, artwork, and photography”

Hemetera

This brief description has appeared in at least twelve editions of the literary journal Hemetera, appearing as early as the 2007 edition and being included in every edition up to 2018. It is an accurate description of the publication, which is edited and contributed to by Regis College students. However, despite being “our own” publication at Regis, many editions are not easily accessible by students; old editions of the publication are stored at the Regis Archives, but these copies are non-circulating and require special permission to access. Today, the seventy-five year history of the publication is unknown to many students, resulting in a large gap in the school’s literary history.

That’s why we’re proud to announce Hemetera: Your Life, Our Story, a Digital Humanities project created by Jacob Pardo and Katherine Colglazier. This project seeks to digitize and transcribe the entire history of Hemetera, making old editions of the publication far more accessible to the student body. As well as contributing to Regis’s history, this project will aid further research by providing a source of transcribed literature, making future text analysis of the journal possible.

The initial version of the project contains 14 editions of the publication, ranging from 2007 to 2020. These editions were borrowed with special permission from the University Archivist Justyna Szulc-Maziarz, and scanned manually using a flatbed scanner (with the exception of the 2020 edition, for which we had access to the digital master). The scanned images were collated and converted into easily readable PDFs. With the help of Jonathan Fitzgerald (Hemetera’s faculty advisor), these editions underwent optical character recognition and now contain embedded digital text. These documents were then uploaded to an Omeka-based website, where the documents and digital text can be browsed and downloaded.

Currently, our data exists in the form of the fourteen transcribed editions of Hemetera hosted on the Omeka site. The available texts will help to aid future analysis, such as that planned by Katherine Colglazier. In the future, we hope to include even more of the publication’s history, going back seventy-five years to the initial 1946 edition. However, even with only fourteen years available, there are interesting discoveries to be made. For example, I was not aware of the “doughty seedling” description before starting this project, despite it being included in the publication for over ten years. Additionally, there would have been no way to know that the 2008 edition is the only one to have evenly-numbered pages to the right, at least out of the fourteen editions that are available. Based on these findings, the historical value of the publication, and the accessibility afforded by the project, it is clear that this archival work is important and needs to be continued. Remember to watch for future updates, and please enjoy the editions which are currently hosted! You can find the project here.

You can read the full project proposal here: