Winter Wind Down

After next Wednesday (at the latest), students can finally take a deep breath, and get ready for for everything to wind down over break. The upcoming holiday break will mean people will have to pay attention to changes in school provided services, and make sure they complete certain things before they leave.

Due to the break, students who are residents will have to take certain precautions and are required to do some things before they leave. Students with refrigerators/freezers will have to make sure they are unplugged, defrosted, and emptied, to make sure they do not contain foods that will rot over the break. Similarly, all trash cans in residents rooms have to be emptied, to make sure of the same thing. All things requiring electricity also must be unplugged from the wall as well. Before break, there will be room checks in the residence halls to make sure all of these tasks are completed.

Once the semester ends on December 21st, break will officially start on the 22nd. This means that starting on the 22nd, the campus will kick into break schedule, and will be closed. The spring semester won’t commence until Monday, January 23rd, giving students almost a whole month until they have to come back and start their regular schedule again.

Finals Freakout

Well, it’s that time of year again- it’s finals time here at Pace. This can be an extremely stressful time of the year for students, seeing as it is the wrap-up of everything they have been working hard for throughout the semester.

With all of the worrying about tests, projects, and papers due, it’s easy to forget about the different outlets available for studying and relaxing purposes. Pace is providing students with different hours and availabilities to keep them from becoming too overwhelmed with everything.

Need some place to study? Instead of having its normal hours, Mortola Library is now open 24 hours so students can have easy access to the library services whenever they need to, and have a quiet place to study at all times. This 24 hour schedule will continue into next week, up until Wednesday, when it will close at 10 p.m. While the library will seemingly be crowded with students, the study lounges in the residence halls are also always available on a 24 hour basis for students to use.

Aside from having more accessible study areas, students are also lucky enough to have the Alumni Hall Starbucks hours extended because of finals. While the store usually closes at 4 p.m., the hours have been expanded to 8 p.m., so students can get their late night coffee fix if they want.

Helping Out For The Holidays

The Pleasantville Cottage School

On Saturday, a small group of Pace students didn’t let the cold weather get to them as they set off to do some community service.

Leaving the D.J. Henry Clocktower at about 11:45 a.m., students who decided to volunteer spent their time with some of the kids who reside at the Pleasantville Cottage School. Pleasantville Cottage School was opened in 1912, and provides kids who have been victims of abuse, drugs, violence, have developmental diseases, and other issues, with a caring staff and place to live. All of the residents there are between 7 and 21 years old.

After listening to some of the staff members talk about the school and what to expect, volunteers jumped right in. For about the next hour, the group spent their time decorating the room, playing games like Monopoly or Jenga, or making bracelets. The volunteers and residents spent their time getting to know each other, talking about things like what kind of music they like, or learning about their upcoming school play.

Students seemed to have enjoyed the experience, and were glad they attended at the end of it.

“I did this last year, and I love doing it. It’s just a great way to spend some time with the kids and do something good during the holiday season.” said one junior attendee.

The event was put on by the Center for Community Action and Research (CCAR), and coordinated by Tyler Kalahar. While this is the last Pace volunteer trip planned for this semester, there will be more next semester for anyone interested in attending and helping out.

Catching Up With Kayfabe

Katie Szewczyk, a freshman originally from Garfield, New Jersey, is one half of the dedicated duo that puts on a new podcast every week here at Pace. Her and her partner, Alex Meister, produce Right in the Kayfabe every Friday, courtesy of WPAW. Sitting down with Szewczyk, a film major, I found out more about her and her podcast.

Q: When do you and your partner produce the podcast?

A: We put on the podcast Fridays from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

Q: What is your podcast specifically about?

A: Mainly our podcast is about professional wrestling.

Q: The title of your podcast is Right in the Kayfabe. What exactly does that mean?

A: So kayfabe is a wrestling term that means that something is presented as real but is still actually scripted. So basically since we cover news from stuff behind the scenes it was basically like you got hit “right in the kayfabe”- kind of like how people say they got hit “right in the feels”, because we’re uncovering the scripted stuff that was passed off by the company as real.

Q: How long have you been interested in professional wrestling? Do you have any experience in the sport?

A: I haven’t wrestled myself, but I have been watching the shows for about seven years. I’ve also attended many of their live shows, and read about backstage news daily.

Q: How did you get involved with doing a podcast about wrestling?

A: At the beginning of the year, I joined WPAW and signed up for a podcast time slot after I was trained with the equipment.

Q: What do you like about doing the podcast?

A: I really like that I can talk about one of my passions to others that understand what I’m discussing.

Q: Will you be doing the podcast next semester as well?

A: I’m still not sure if I’ll end up still doing it next semester, but if I do it’ll be at the same time!

The "Dog Days" Are Just Beginning...

With finals, the holidays, and New Year’s just around the corner, all students seem to be stressing out more than usual these days. Luckily, Pace students will have the opportunity to try and relieve some of that this week.

This coming Wednesday and Thursday (December 7th and 8th), students will have the opportunity to play with some things you don’t often see around campus- dogs. From 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., and 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m., therapy dogs will be hanging out in the Birnbaum Room in Mortola Library and Kessel Multipurpose Room, respectively. However, on Thursday, they will move to Conference Room C/D in Kessel starting at 1:00 p.m.

The dogs will be brought here by the “Good Dog Foundation”, a foundation that provides animal therapy for its over 350 partners. The group previously visited the New York City campus in October to help relieve students’ midterms stress.

“I think this will be extremely beneficial for us students who are about to take finals, because the dogs will help us distress a little bit, and they will help us enjoy ourselves before we suffer!” joked freshman Tess Petreycik, a Psychology major.

Dog therapy has been proven to help lower blood pressure, relieve depression, decrease anxiety, and release endorphins- all of which are beneficial for your health.

Relay For Life- Wednesday Night Kickoff

Even though Pace’s Relay For Life is still months away, students are already kicking off its celebrations.

This past Thursday, students gathered in the Willcox Multipurpose Room for the Relay For Life 2017 Kickoff event. From 9:00 p.m. until about 10:15 p.m., students learned about the event that will be held on Friday, April 21st, 2017 in the Goldstein Fitness Center.

Sitting around tables filled with different board games (to go along with the 2017 Relay For Life “Game” theme), students listened to different people telling them about the event and how they can participate in it. This included hearing one Pace student who is a cancer survivor tell her story, and watching different videos about where the money raised from the event goes to. Provided with different pastas and desserts, attendees also took part in an activity to decide on the goal of how much money to raise at the event, ultimately deciding on $50,000.

Kickoff, put on by Colleges Against Cancer, was put on to encourage students to sign up for the event and get other people to as well. Relay For Life is an event put on every year all over the world to raise money for the American Cancer Society. For 12 hours, students, faculty members, administrators, survivors, and community members come together to walk around the track, participate in events, and most importantly, raise money to fight cancer.

Before they left, attendees also placed sticky notes on tape that formed the word “hope” on the wall, leaving uplifting messages about why they participate in Relay.

Hello, Hollywood!

For any Pace student who loves acting, actors, or anything Hollywood related- they’re in luck.

Many are unaware of one interesting thing that Pace University regular presents. Inside the Actors Studio, an Emmy Award winning series, is produced and filmed on the New York City campus and hosted by interviewer James Lipton.

Seeing as the program is put on at Pace’s Schimmel Theater, students from both campuses have a firsthand opportunity to see the shows tapings. This Sunday, the show will be hosting and interviewing actress Jessica Chastain, who is famous for movies like The Help and Zero Dark Thirty.

While it’s easier for Pace NYC residents to attend, Pace Pleasantville students are just as much encouraged to attend. The show will film at 8 p.m. on December 4th, but students looking to attend will have to wait in line for their tickets. Luckily, students have a leg up on other people looking to attend the show.

The series, Inside the Actors Studio has been put on since 1994, and has been hosted by James Lipton since it debuted. Over the years, the show has hosted a wide range of guests, all the way from Robin Williams to Amy Adams to Steve Carrell.