The Radiology Technology club has been running and fundraising to help students raise money for their major for decades.
Meetings occur once a month and the club hosts fundraising events throughout the school year. T
he club is open to Radiology Technology majors and currently consists of 25 members.
The current advisers of the club are Angela Bowers and Gabrielle Yonika.
Members are split up into the categories freshman and seniors depending on how long they have been in the major.
The goal of the club is to raise money for the Kettering Program for the Radiology Technology students to go to the program.
Some of the fundraising activities include selling chocolate covered oreos in the spring semester and a tee shirt and hoodie sale.
“One of the things I like to see is how the freshman and the seniors come together for the fundraiser to make sure they can raise as much money as possible for the Kettering program”, says Yonika, who has been an adviser of the club for two years and a member of the faculty for three.
Most of the club planning for the events is done by the seniors as the money for the Kettering program is mostly for them but there is planning done by the freshman as well.
The club meets once a month on Tuesdays mid mornings after the seniors finish class. Club meetings usually consist of event planning, fundraising preparation, and a chance for the students to work together and get to know one another Yonkia described.
Student clubs have been a cornerstone and a touchpoint for school and universities for generations but the NECC community seem to be lacking in that department as of late.
Clubs and organizations are hard to contact, emails go unanswered and the school calendar is still not updated for the new semester which is now coming to a close.
NECC has constantly pushed for students to get involved with the school community and join clubs but the clubs do not seem to have as many participants as years prior.
The Tabletop Game club has experienced a decline in members, the environmental club is not running at the moment, and other clubs do not seem to be interested in interviews with student journalists.
This all leads to the important question of where has the school spirit gone?
This could be a multitude of things leading to a decline in clubs: students are busy with their own lives outside of class many of which include jobs and families but that did not stop the clubs thriving before so why now?
Clubs at Northern Essex Community College seem to be slowly fading away with the club and organizations page on the school website lacking updates for the current Spring 2024 semester.
When clubs have been contacted by this reporter, there have been few replies about the state of student clubs.
A majority of the clubs continue to say the schedule for the Fall 2023 semester, with the few exceptions being fairly hard to get in touch with. When contacting the student life email about this topic no reply was made.
“The Environmental Club, it has been defunct for the past year and a half due to a lack of student involvement. If there is interest in the Fall, I am happy to reconvene the club” says Mark Reinhold the Advisor of the Environmental club.
The website however still does have a schedule posted saying that the club is meeting for the Fall of 2023, just one example of clubs at NECC which have been seeing a lack of student involvement.
When attending an event for the Nursing club at the Irish Cottage few students seemed to be attending and the president of the club did not respond to any attempts to get in touch about the event.
When contacting other members and advisors of clubs around campus for information on club meetings few responses were made, or recommendations were made for other people to contact and the reporter reach out to those people and there were still no responses.
It seems as though NECC has not had as good of a turnout with events recently. An event taking place at the Irish Cottage for the nursing club did not seem to have that great of a turnout, but not many people seemed to know about the event. NECC needs to start advertising the clubs more and making the availability more open for students to get in contact. Update the calendars and answer emails so students can feel that their voices are heard when they have a question about a club or an event.
Student clubs are important for the students to connect with each other outside of class and to have a break to not think about work, class, or other stresses they may face in their everyday life and we need to find a way to get them back to where they once were.
NECC Tabletop Game club has been meeting once a week at 4:30 p.m. at the Knights Nook in the SC Building of the Haverhill Campus for years to allow students to gather around and have fun working together or participating in friendly competition over some fun games of their choice.
Meetings usually include members cycling through and playing multiple games while chatting, laughing and having fun. Multiple games can be played at once with members splitting up to play what they want.
Members say that people are also encouraged to bring their own games if the selection provided does not have what they want.
There is a wide selection available at the school with multiple bins of games displayed on the tables.
According to members anyone can join just by showing up to the meetings there isn’t anything specific people have to do but if they do have any questions they can feel free to email the current advisor of the club Jessica Angelini.
The club was without an advisor for about four months until one was finally found and they say they are always looking for new members.
The club meetings begin at 4:30 p.m. and end at 6 p.m. but members say students are welcome to arrive early and stay late if they want.
“The more the merrier, anyone is invited and if you are not happy with the selection you are welcome to bring your own game” says Charlie Morfill a current member of the club. “Weird(ness) is accepted and encouraged,” says John Lahey, a guest attending the meeting.
Current members of the club attending the last meeting included Morfill who has been attending meetings for two years, Duncan Brenner who has been attending meetings since the end of his first semester or the start of second semester, and Lahey a guest who has been attending meetings for two years.
This past meeting members played a round of the game Rapid Response in which the goal is to complete five missions which are all on different cards before they run out of tokens which are taken away one by one after a two minute timer goes off.
Then members played Doctor Who trivial Pursuit for the remainder of the meeting where members competed to test their knowledge of the TV show by rolling a dice with different color Daleks on each side and answering the question corresponding with the color rolled.
The event featured performances by students from the music program at NECC. The event went from 7-9 p.m. and served refreshments as well.
The event was put together by Professor Alisa Bucchiere who has hosted all 24 of the cabarets.
The event featured performances of students singing, playing different instruments, and showing off their musical skills, as well as some original material.
The event was five dollars to attend. About halfway through at 8 p.m. the event took a break for people to get refreshments.
“Cabaret is basically, it has evolved into singer songwriter,” said Bucchiere. “It originally, this is the 24th one I have done not counting COVID. When we shut down all of the performances on campus for a good six or five semesters depending on what the venue was, and that grew out of, I had so many soloists in my choir. They needed another vehicle to perform because they had so much music, which is a fabulous place to be in. Having so many performances ready to go and perform and not enough vehicles to have all these performances happen so that is how Cabaret grew out of. It came into existence I want to say Spring of 2010 is when the very first one happened.”
“Cabaret always tends to be a really awesome time we have a lot of great performers at the college that usually provide a really really wide diverse range of musical styles so it is always really cool to see what people are, you know going to do, what instrument they are playing what kind of song they are doing usually everyone brings the best they have to offer.”said Troy LaBranche a student in the music program.
“We have a very diverse set of talent here and it is great to see how different musicians interpret different songs and like what they are choosing to put out there and how they all come together, like perform together in different groups,” said Sara, a student in the music program.
Cabaret now “has people bringing their own work sharing it and what I really love is having the story behind why they wrote the song what was the inspiration behind, because you don’t get that sometimes with recorded music or music you are listening to unless you are diving deep in a instagram page of them being interviewed about their music,” said Bucchiere.
“To have that eureka moment brought to you before you hear the piece, it is goosebump city. I love that part,” said Bucchiere
Northern Essex Community College’s art club was formed in the fall semester of 2020, holding meetings over zoom.
The club is planning more in person meetings.
Currently art club meetings are being held every Wednesday from 7-8 p.m. over zoom with the exception of holidays.
The club adviser is Tiffany Esmerio, the Coordinator of Orientation and Student Transitions.
The club was formed at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and had to meet over zoom.
Meetings consist of the club presenting a powerpoint over zoom featuring upcoming events on campus as well as the activity that will be performed during the meeting.
When attending a meeting on Feb. 22 the activity for the class was making masquerade masks for the upcoming prom.
Throughout the class video tutorials were presented to help members get ideas and inspiration for their projects.
Students do not have to come to every meeting. The amount of attendants of the meeting has fluctuated depending on how busy the time of year it is, people are welcome to come to the club whenever they want, there is no requirement of people having to attend.
“My favorite thing about the art club has to be the friends I’ve made, the confidence I have gained, and how much I have grown as a leader. I don’t think I would have met half of the people at NECC if it wasn’t for this club, and I have rediscovered my passion for art once I took on my role as an officer.” says Kendall Tobin a Liberal Arts major. “My favorite thing about Art Club is the amount of diverse ways that members can creatively express themselves in different art forms, like collaging, drawing, origami, etc. Also, the activities allow art club members to think outside of the box and enjoy getting even more creative.” says Yomberly Rodriguez an Art and Design major.
“My favorite thing as the Art Club adviser is being able to connect with students over a shared love of art in our own micro-community. I enjoy learning just as much from them as I hope they do from me. It’s also a pleasure to help give members the opportunities to take different leadership roles and responsibilities,” says Tiffany Esmerio.
If someone is interested in joining NECC art club they can email neccartclub@necc.com. The club also has a tiktok and Instagram @neccartclub, as well as a Facebook titled NECC ART CLUB.
From left to right, Olivia Barberian, Jessica Newey and Gwynnethe Glickman recently performed a scene from “Lighten Up” at the Kennedy Center American Theater Festival in Hyannis. Photo courtesy NECC Newsroom
Students from Northern Essex Community College theater program recently went to the Kennedy Center American Theater Festival that took place on Jan. 31 through Feb. 4 in Hyannis, where they won awards for acting and their production of “Lighten Up.”
Brianne Beatrice has been a theater professor at NECC for 14 years. She began doing theater when she was a child.
Beatrice and her students recently went to the festival, where students performed a scene from “Lighten Up” and was awarded one of the top 10 productions in the region.
“…we took a selection, a scene from the production starring Olivia Barberian, Gwynnethe Glickman, and Jessica Newey performed the scene for a 300 person audience,” said Beatrice.
Gwynnethe Glickman and Mirrorajah Metcalfe recently performed at the Kennedy Center American Theater Festival in Hyannis. Photo courtesy NECC Newsroom
Students Gwynnethe Glickman and Mirrorajah Metcalfe also competed in the Irene Ryan acting scholarship competition where they were awarded third place.
A reception was held on Wednesday February 15th at 11am to 12pm in the theater in the Spurk building on the Haverhill campus.
This was the 10th year that Beatrice presented her Master Meisner Acting Workshop, which was presented to over 200 students. According to the Nashville Film Institute, this acting technique is meant to allow actors to rely on emotions and fellow
actors throughout a scene leaving only the character on stage.
Students who are interested in getting involved in theater are recommended by Beatrice to email her bbeatrice@necc.mass.ed.
“I will also be offering summer theater this summer so the best way is to reach out to me and to join the classes and that’s how students sort of begin their theatrical career at NECC” said Beatrice. If students are interested in theater they are encouraged by Beatrice to, “Come, I’m super friendly. It’s a very fun, very warm environment. It’s such a nice way to express yourself and to concentrate on feelings of self-worth and expression, and I think it also it helps increase confidence building skills”
Olivia Barberian, a Liberal Arts major from Manchester, New Hampshire says, “My favorite part has to be the community of people you see come together to share and create art, tell stories, and influence people in positive ways. As a performer here, I
feel included, safe, and encouraged to do my best work. Brianne has done an amazing job making sure our theater is a fun open space to explore and shine with everyone who wants to be a part of it.”
Jessica Newey, an NECC student from Burlington, Massachusetts who graduated with an associates degree in ASL and earned a certificate for the Interpreter Training Program who is currently taking acting classes says, “The theater department at NECC is very supportive and we learn how to be professionals, we aren’t just putting on educational
theater.”
Writing Major Mirrorajah Metcalfe from Haverhill, says, “Working with Professor Brianne has been a true gift; she really knows what she’s talking about. As well as having a safe environment created by the Liberal Arts department and
supportive community in which we can all express our art–that’s been the best part.”
The next performance scheduled is a play called Hurricane Diane by Madeleine George. It will be performed outside and it will be on April 27th and 28th at 4pm and on April 29th. and 30th at 2pm.
