Howard Dean talks at NECC

Howard Dean stands at the front of the room speaking to an audience.
Howard Dean speaks in the Hartleb Tech Center at NECC. NECC Newsroom

Howard Dean, former six-term governor of Vermont and 2004 Democratic primary presidential candidate, spoke to NECC students Wednesday, Sept. 24.

“This is a new program, a speakers series, ‘Movers, Shakers and Opinion makers,’ and he’s the one who inaugurated it today,” said Richard Padova, a government professor at NECC and coordinator of the series. 

“I hope to have two more, at least two more between now and April of 2015.”

William Cox, the chairman of the NECC Board of Trustees, introduced the event. Padova gave the formal introduction for Dean. 

“I looked him up on the internet, basically, and I located where he works, where he’s a consultant, sent him an email, and then made all the arrangements with his secretary. There was a lot of emails and phone calls back and forth… details had to be worked out, coming up with the day and a time,” said Padova.

Dean is known for founding the grassroots organization Democracy for America and for revolutionizing the use of the internet in campaigning. 

He graduated Yale with a B.A. in political science in 1971, and he received his medical degree from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1978.

“[Padova] just wrote me out of the blue. I don’t usually do things like this, and I wasn’t going to. But then it turned out I was in Boston last night, and as soon as I realized that, and this was practically right on the way home, and I figured ‘it’s an extra two hours, so what?’” said Dean.

Dean opened the talk with optimism, and he held that optimism throughout.

“The world is actually getting better… it’s hard to see that when you’re 20 years old,” said Dean.

Dean spoke about how students of the generation often known as “millennials,” a generation Dean calls the, “first globals,” have changed society and can change society. 

“Community colleges are a big deal. We talked about this generation being disrupters in using technology. Community colleges are the disrupters of higher education.

“Higher education is much too expensive, and there’s a market solution, and it’s places like this. Kids who come here and pay like 4,000 dollars for a year’s tuition, or whatever it is — something like that, are going to force four year colleges to drop their prices. And I think that’s the way it should be,” said Dean.

Dean spoke about how the new generation uses the internet, online petitions and communication, to enact change within society. He touched on points including net neutrality, intellectual property rights, inner city education and economic systems. 

NECC students were given the opportunity to ask questions after the talk. Students brought up topics such as the Citizens United decision, U.S. prison systems, police militarization and Edward Snowden.

When speaking about how to be successful, Dean said. “I think A., you have to work very hard and B., always listen to your inner sense of right and wrong. And even that won’t be good enough. I’ve been blessed in three ways.

“I had a great mentor, all of them were women actually. I had two women chiefs of staff who weren’t afraid to tell me what I needed to do. And I had a wife who didn’t care about politics, which turned out to be a great blessing.

“She didn’t care if I succeeded in politics or not, she just wanted me to be true to who I was. And when I wasn’t quite strong enough to do that, she reminded me. And that’s a big deal,” Dean said. 

“You really need someone with you on the journey who’s going to keep you from making decisions that you might otherwise make that wouldn’t be right,” said Dean. 

“It’s pretty unusual to find somebody, and I’m not one of those somebodies, who doesn’t cut corners. Or doesn’t want to cut corners. It’s really tempting, and you’re almost always better off in the long run if you don’t.”

Editorial: The NECC Observer is free-press and student run

One figure, hand on chin, asks another figure, holding a notebook and with an angry look on their face, "I want you to cover my event. But I want all your coverage to be completely favorable, and I want you to let me read the coverage in advance, so I can make sure everything you’re saying is acceptable. And I don’t want you to use the words “complex,” “fissure” or “egg.” and I want you to call me a genius, but, like, in a way that you really mean it, okay? And I want you to insert this pre-written paragraph right here. And I absolutely don’t w ant to pay for ad space. ..." The text continues to outside the speech bubble.

Newspapers have more than one function. They serve to inform, create engagement, provide a voice for a community, sometimes entertain, and function as watchdogs against corruptions and abuses in a community. Free publicity is not among these functions.

Journalists report on the good and the bad to accurately communicate the state of affairs. As a basic mechanism of the value of news, readers need to be able to trust that the things the paper tells them are true, and that reporters aren’t deliberately leaving out information that they could reasonably predict a reader would want to know about the topic.

The NECC Observer is a free-press, student run newspaper, funded by the college to provide real world experience for students. 

Only students write the paper. The faculty and administration do not have say or influence in what the students write. This includes the faculty adviser for the NECC Observer, who has only limited editorial discretion to avert obvious and potentially catastrophic errors. Apart from that, she is here to provide guidance and supervise production.

News has been in a bad state for the past 13 years or so, so we can understand where students, faculty, staff and administration might have come to misunderstand or incorrectly infer our functions and goals.

We realize that this is no longer common, but as students, in our education and preparing for the best possible version of our future, we at the NECC Observer are committed to ethical, transparent reporting.

Free press means that stories are written for the sake of news and information value. The NECC Observer does not write for the school, and it does not write for its advertisers. We write for the community and for the students and employees who are a part of it.

For folks at NECC who would like the Observer to cover their business or event in exactly the way you would like, with maximum oversight and verification, we sell ads in several sizes. Details at observer@necc.mass.edu.

NECC Knights softball preparing for Spring 2015

The NECC Knights softball team is preparing for the second year in the program’s history, and their work has already begun this semester.  The Knights will be playing a short scrimmage season this fall, with practice through October and highlighted by two scrimmage games, one on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014 against New Hampshire Technical Institute and another the next day, Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014 against Southern Maine.

Both games are home games for the Knights, in the softball field next to the Sport and Fitness Center on the Haverhill campus.

While the Knights would love to play more than two back-to-back scrimmage games this fall, that is all that is allowed by NJCAA protocol.  In addition, once practices end this fall, coach Robert Gillespie won’t be able to have team activities all winter.

However, many players on the softball team are planning to take part in a kickboxing club in order to stay fit over the winter break.  Coach Gillespie fully supports this, saying that he “would just like to see them stay active.”  Practice will begin again in mid-February, and more preparations for the main spring season will be made.

The first season in the program’s history was mainly a building year.  Unable to become a varsity team due to the uncertainty of fielding a full team, the Knights were classified as a club team, meaning they would not play a full schedule.  With the addition of terrible weather last spring, the Knights were only able to play nine games all season.  This year will be different, however.  The Knights have become a varsity squad this year, and coach Gillespie assures that they will play at least 20 games this spring season, a full schedule.

The Knights are certainly looking to be competitive this spring with nine returning players from the first year of the program.  In addition, Coach Gillespie has done a great job of recruiting, bringing in all-around talent like Tarah Reilly of North Reading, who Gillespie said, “has a great glove in the field and knows how to swing the bat.”  Coach Gillespie will be bringing in six or seven recruits to the Knights’ team this year, and he fully expects the team to be competitive.

Gillespie said, “we’ll really have a truer test with the scrimmage games this week, but we look good so far and I expect us to really compete this year.”

A big part of being competitive this season according to Gillespie is pitching.

“To me, pitching is huge.  We have a pitcher this year, which is what we were missing,”  said Gillespie.

The pitcher he is referring to is one of the new recruits that Gillespie has, Nodine Webster.  Webster, a Wells, Maine native, throws a lot of strikes and is “a legit pitcher” according to Gillespie.  He knows that the main problem last year was that the Knights had no good pitching, and it was almost entirely the reason they failed to win a game last year.

Gillespie hopes that with the additions of Webster and the other recruits, as well as his stock of returning players and a full offseason to get work in, the Knights are going to push forward in a big way this season.

Another way coach Gillespie hopes to improve this year is having a better mental approach to the game as a team, and playing the game with more flow and fluidity on the field.  He is convinced that this will certainly be improved as a result of their improved pitching staff and additions to the lineup.  These improvements will speed up the game for the Knights, keeping all the players ultra-focused and fully invested in each game.

Coach Gillespie is certainly happy with the improvements his team has made since the first season of the program, but he also knows that his work spreading the word about the softball team at Northern Essex is far from over.  Gillespie is always recruiting, telling prospective players about the advantages to not only playing softball at NECC, but also going to school there.

“I’m a firm believer in the community college system, so it’s easy for me to tell players about the advantages of coming here,”  said Gillespie.

He has also been spending time talking to high schools about the program, and pushing graduating seniors to come play for him.

Gillespie knows about the issues that some students have with playing sports in college, whether it’s other commitments such as a job or classes.  He would like to sit all of his players down with an academic advisor this winter so that they can work all of their class schedules in sync and have plenty of time for practice and games in the spring.

Fall 2014 Basketball Preview

The NECC Knights men’s basketball team begins their season in a few weeks, and excitement is building around the program this year. Although the Knights lost several players last year, a solid core of returning sophomores plan to anchor a young team with plenty of athleticism.

Ryan Grant, Parker Rogers, and Chris Corey plan to bring some veteran leadership to the relatively young Knights squad.

Chris Corey, a Knights captain this season, is excited to get the year started.

“I just want to start playing. I’ve been waiting all summer,” Corey said.

When asked about his summer preparations, Corey made it clear he is looking to make a splash this year.

“I’ve been playing more than ever this summer, anywhere I can get on the court. I’ve been really dedicated, I’m finally taking it seriously.”

Head Coach Darren Stratton says, because of the youth, the team will strive more for chemistry than anything else this year.
“I like the recruiting class we’ve brought in, we’re just looking to take things one game at a time and improve every day,” Stratton said.

The new Knights lack size, with their tallest player at roughly 6’5″. Because of that, Stratton plans to take a more up-tempo approach to the offense this season. He plans on playing an open post scheme, which focuses more on perimeter play and will showcase the Knights’ athletic ability and the open up many three-point opportunities.

With the abundance of wing players at Stratton’s disposal, the opportunities for slashing to the basket and getting points in the paint will be plentiful. If the Knights can also show the ability to team rebound, the Knights will be in it until the end.

In addition to running a wide-open offensive scheme, the Knights will be looking to do a lot of full and half court press defense. With a good press defense, the Knights would be able to put pressure on the opposing teams all the way up the floor, causing disruptions in the passing game and slowing down potential fast breaks.

The Knights will open their season Saturday, Nov. 1, 2014 at New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord, N.H. After that, the Knights will play nine of their next 14 games on the road, including trips to the University of Connecticut at Avery Point in Groton, Conn. and Vermont Tech in Randolph Center, Vt.
The Knights’ first home game will be 10 days later, on Nov. 11, against Gateway Community College of New Haven, Conn.

Other home games of note are a showdown with Roxbury Community College of Roxbury, Mass., whom the Knights swept in two meetings last season, on Thursday, Jan. 15, and a conference matchup with Massasoit Community College on Thursday, Feb. 5.

Practice hasn’t started yet, but the Knights had a meeting to begin the year on Monday, Sept. 9 at 4 p.m. in room D129 of the Sport and Fitness Center of the Haverhill campus. Twenty prospective players attended the meeting along with Stratton and Assistant Coach Joe Tardif.

The meeting was mainly an orientation to the program, with the coaches collecting physicals for players and handing out the rules for eligibility and the NJCAA Code of Conduct.

“We’re all looking for a productive, winning season and trying to build on last year,” said Chris Corey, the team captain.