All posts by Janie Dunn, Correspondent

Arts and Entertainment

A breakdown of 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards

 

April is starting off on a high note thanks to the iHeartRadio music awards which premiered live April 1st on FOX. The iHeartRadio music awards celebrate the most-played songs and artists that were played on iHeartRadio stations and the app from 2023. This year, the event took place at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California and was hosted by hip-hop icon Ludacris. Since this is an award show that celebrates music, there were live performances from some of today’s biggest artists throughout the night. 

Justin Timberlake opened up the show by singing and dancing to his songs “Selfish” and “No Angels” off of his new album Everything I Thought It Was. Timberlake had a band and background singers that danced along with him, creating a fun and upbeat environment for the audience!

Rising star Tate McRae danced and sang her record-breaking hits “Greedy” and “Exes” off of her new album Think Later. Host Ludacris performed a mash-up of some of his greatest hits with special guest T-Pain. 

iHeartRadio honored three legendary figures in the music world with special awards. The three awards were The Icon Award, The Innovator Award, and The Landmark Award.  

Beyoncé received the Innovator Award, to which Northern Essex Community College student Elle Palumbo said that she “is so deserving of because her album [Cowboy Carter] was so personal and beautiful and she is 110% an innovator”. Stevie Wonder presented Beyoncé with the award. When accepting the award, Beyoncé thanked Wonder for “making a way for all [artists]” and smiled big when saying she is “honored to receive this recognition from [him]”. 

Cher received the Icon Award after delivering a beautiful performance with artist Jennifer Hudson. As a musical tribute performance, Hudson performed “If I Could Turn Back Time” by Cher before changing songs to “Believe”, in which Cher came out and sang alongside Hudson. Afterwards, Meryl Streep came on stage and presented Cher with the award, which excited fans of Mamma Mia! and Silkwood to see them reunite. 

Green Day received the Landmark Award and was handed the trophy by Avril Lavigne after their performance of “Bobby Sox” and “Basket Case”. 

Many artists, ones who have been nominated before and never-before were able to  bring home some iHeartRadio awards!

It is not a surprise that Taylor Swift won the most awards of the night after the incredible past year she’s had. Swift extended her lead as the artist with the most iHeartRadio awards as she won 6 awards at this year’s show, including both Artist of the Year and Pop Artist of the Year (which was a new category at this year’s show), and brought her total amount of iHeartRadio awards to 25. Surprisingly, Swift and her loyal, die-hard “Swifties” did not receive the award for Best Fan Army. The award instead went to K-Pop group BTS and their fans, “The BTS Army”. 

In second place, with 4 awards won, was Regional Mexican artist Peso Pluma and R&B artist SZA. Thanks to her smash-hit “Kill Bill”, SZA was able to bring home the award from the biggest category, Song of the Year. Pluma received the award for both Regional Mexican Artist of the Year and Regional Mexican Album of the Year, along with two other iHeartRadio awards. 

2023 introduced us to many new and talented artists who were nominated at this year’s iHeartRadio Music Awards. Breakout artist Jelly Roll won Best New Artist in both the Pop and Country category. “Dial Drunk” singer Noah Kahan received the award for Best New Artist in the Alternative and Rock category. New hip-hop icon Ice Spice took home the award for Best New Artist in the Hip-Hop category. “On My Mama” singer Victoria Monét won the award for Best New Artist in the R&B category. 

In summary, the 2024 iHeartRadio Music Awards reminded us why music is so important and vital to us. Music helps us connect, learn, and love one another, and most importantly, helps us sing our hearts out! 

The iHeartRadio Awards was full of fun musical performances that got everyone up on their feet dancing and singing. 

The Awards was also full of new, first-time winners who can add an iHeartRadio trophy to their trophy cases at home! If you are interested in seeing the full list of nominees and winners, check out the official iHeartRadio website (https://news.iheart.com/featured/iheartradio-music-awards/content/2024-03-31-2024-iheartradio-music-awards-see-the-full-list-of-winners/).  

Features

Stuff-a-bear event is a hit

 
A woman stands at a table in the Spurk building and puts stuffing into a pink hippo.
Participants got to pick an animal and then fill it with stuffing at the event in February. Photo by Janie Dunn

On Monday Feb. 13, the Office of Student Life at Northern Essex Community College hosted their event “Stuff-A-Bear.” This event took place in the first floor lobby in the John Spurk Building on the Haverhill campus.

The event started at 10:30a.m. and went until 12:00p.m. The event was hosted by the Coordinator of Student Life, Stephanie Haskell and Student Life Assistant Coordinator, Suzanne Reyes.

I attended this event and was pleasantly surprised.

When I walked into the “C” Building lobby, the lobby was packed with students. There were three tables that were covered in yellow tissue paper and had stuffing spread across them.

I walked over to the table where Stephaine and Suzanne were and I saw there were boxes with the bears you could stuff.

There was a rainbow teddy bear, a golden teddy bear, a pink hippo, and a pink axolotl.

When you walked up to the table, you entered your Student ID into a computer and picked out which bear you wanted to stuff.

Once you had chosen your bear, you walked over to the yellow tables and started stuffing your bear.

Along with the stuffing for your bear, there were also little red hearts to put in your bear and little birth certificate papers to fill out for your bear.

When asked about what they thought of “Stuff-A-Bear,” NECC student Sarah Peirson said, “I loved it! I think it was really a unique idea for something new for students to do.”

NECC student Savanna Masters said, “I thought it was so cute and exciting and clearly there was a good turn out because they started running out of them [bears] so I think we should do it again”.

White stuffing for the stuffed animals is shown lying on a table in the Spurk building.
Participants enjoy putting the stuffing in their animals at the Stuff a Bear event in February. Photo by Janie Dunn

When asked why this specific event, Haskell explained to me, “In my job in Student Life, I pick out all the different events for students. Obviously sometimes my colleague Suzanne helps [pick which event to do] as well but this one was one that I chose.”
Haskell said, “This is like a fan-favorite everytime we do it with students. Literally always sells out super quick.”. This was the last Student Life event Haskell organized as she is leaving NECC to pursue a new job and she will be terribly missed.

As you can see, this event was enjoyed by many NECC students and it was a success.

For more events and information on events like this one, you can view the Student Life event calendar on the NECC website.

Editor’s note: Stephanie Haskell left her position with NECC later in February for another career opportunity.

 

 

News, Slider

Cyberattack’s effects linger for some students

 

The recent cyberattack had many effects on the students and faculty.

Luckily the college was able to reopen the night of Tuesday the 7th. The IT at NECC sent an email to the students and facility saying, “ NECC ITS would like to thank you for all of your patience while we are working diligently to investigate this cyber incident. At this point NECC ITS is happy to announce that access to Blackboard has been restored and you may now resume utilizing it”.

This whole event was very frustrating for students and the facility as they were one second able to access Blackboard and their emails and the next second they were not.

NECC student Olivia Barberian said, “I honestly thought it was crazy…, it was definitely something I just didn’t see coming.”
Barberian explained that, “thankfully a lot of my classes are in-person and I didn’t need to access my Blackboard or anything like that but it has been an inconvenience, only because as of right now, I think I’m still locked out of things, I can get into my email but I can’t get into Blackboard still.”

Barberian shared that in her Theater Directing class, “a student printed out materials for us because a lot of us still can’t get into Blackboard.”

NECC student Jessica Newey, who also works at the college, said that this cyberattack is, “something that just is part of our world today.”

Newey said she thought “I’m just gonna be affected by this and that’s life.” Newey had attempted to log into her Blackboard and email three times after the cyberattack but she just could not get in so she “had to physically go and talk to IT.” Newey was finally able to log into Blackboard and her email but she still could not log into her My Navigate or My NECC accounts. Newey explained, “I need [those sites to be] working because I’ll be helping students with their self-service banner next week, [to help them register for classes].”

Newey said, “honestly I wasn’t that frustrated with it but I recognize that for some students, especially when they have rigid professors that will not make accommodations for due dates and things, it’s more stressful than it should otherwise be and [I] feel like the professors who understand, understand and are accommodating, but the ones who aren’t, they impact the mental health of their students.”

Dean of Liberal Arts, Amy Callahan said the cyberattack, “was certainly an unexpected challenge for everyone at the college and unfortunately it was very disruptive to our students’ studies and the faculty’s teaching plans. My experience is that the faculty and the staff have been as accommodating as they can be, everyone recognized that this event was no one’s fault, we were targeted for this cyber incident and I have to say I admire how the faculty quickly made adjustments and tried to communicate with their students when possible about changes to the deadline schedules and assignment modifications.

“During some of the days that the campus closed, I was here with the other academic deans and many staff across campus, so we could meet students who hadn’t heard [about the cyberattack] and sort of explain to them what’s happening because most heard that the campus was closed and about the attack but of course, naturally, there were some who hadn’t heard,” she said.

“We did try our best to communicate with students, the deans sent emails during the shutdown that we [the staff] understood how disruptive this was and tried to reassure students that we were asking faculty to corporate as much as they could. There was a period of time coming out of the shutdown, where some students were still having trouble getting back on the network so that flexibility needed to be extended not just during the shutdown but sort of as we were all coming back and it’s kind of almost in stages where sort of everything gets rebooted and people are trying to do their password so I think unfortunately we’re in a world today where this is not completely unfamiliar, these sorts of disruptions, so I think, we’ve done the best we can and the semester is proceeding and students are doing their work and faculty are doing their work and I’m pleased about that.”