A divided America went out and voted Tuesday, Nov. 8, and each vote truly did count during this presidential election. Winning by a difference of 58 electoral votes and 29 states when his opponent, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, conceded, Donald Trump was elected as the next President of the United States.

File Photo / Tim Smith

A close battle between Clinton, the Democratic nominee, and Republican nominee Donald Trump occured throughout the night, with Clinton finally conceding to Trump once he passed his 270th electoral vote required for victory.

The LA Times reported Tuesday night that Trump gained a majority of votes from the non-college educated, blue-collar white citizens, which have been a large support group for him throughout his campaign. Clinton’s votes were mainly from counties where at least 45 percent of the population were people of color, according to the Associated Press.

The Republican Party as a whole won the US House and Senate, and a majority of those elected in New Hampshire were as well. Chris Sununu (R) has been elected New Hampshire’s governor, while Congresswoman Ann Kuster was elected for District 2 in the House. Results for Senate between Senator Kelly Ayotte (R) and Governor Maggie Hassan (D) were not released before The Equinox’s publication deadline.

According to the LA Times, “The central story of the night was not Clinton’s weakness so much as Trump’s strength and the ardent support he inspired among voters who stood with him despite a campaign full of tribulations, many self-inflicted.”

Olivia Belanger can be contacted at obelanger@kscequinox.com

Other article in this featured series:

“Reactions to Trump winning”

I have always been a firm believer that one person can make an impact.

The significance of an Alternative Break trip is to enter a community with the intention of making connections that create positive change in the lives of those we serve.

When I found out about the Alternative Break program as a first-year student, I knew it would give me the opportunity to volunteer and make a significant difference.

Being given the opportunity to serve a community while simultaneously immersing into a new culture, to me, is as rewarding as it gets.

On my first Alternative Break trip last year, I chose the mission of urban education and traveled by minivan to Chicago, Illinois.

I have always loved children, and wanted to be able to gear that toward my service.

Olivia Belanger / A&E Editor

This year, I still stuck with my love for kids and decided the trip I wanted to participate in would have the mission of pediatric health care.

After being accepted as a member, I found out I would be traveling to Memphis, Tennessee.

My group’s service was at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, where we served as “Unit Buddies” for patients throughout the hospital.

Our task was to provide some comfort to the kids through this difficult time in any way that we could, whether it be through rocking a baby to sleep or playing football with a blown-up hospital glove.

I never thought that small, simple tasks such as those would provide a much deeper meaning to the children and to myself.

Along with being a “Unit Buddy,” there were several different carts that could be wheeled through each floor such as an activity cart, beverage cart and hospitality cart.

There was also an arts and crafts room and teen room that one of us were stationed in for an hour or so daily.

When it came to the different carts, no matter which cart was approaching the patient’s room, the amount of appreciation the parents and children gave us was overwhelming.

The activity cart was filled with coloring pages, stickers and crafts while the hospitality cart had complimentary toiletries for the families.

Such small things brought a huge amount of gratuity from all those staying at Le Bonheur.

Contributed Photo / Erika Grant

I spent most of my days with younger patients, especially babies, but the hospital ranged from infants up to 18 year olds.

When I would knock on a patient’s door and introduce myself, their eyes would immediately light up with the excitement of having someone to spend time with.

I was able to take away the pain for a little while and give some much needed love just by being present, and that is the most rewarding feeling to receive.

When I talk about my service at Le Bonheur, however,  it is important to understand that the opportunity I had is indescribable.

The work I did while I was there seems miniscule to those who did not get the chance to experience it.

No matter how hard I try, I will never truly be able to explain the feeling you get when a child feels cared for, comforted and loved because you were there for them.

I can never fully shed a light on the role of importance it gives you.

Olivia Belanger can be contacted at obelanger@kscequinox.com

Keene State College students flocked the polls Tuesday, Feb. 9, to exercise their civic responsibility and vote in their first Presidential primary.

For first-time voters, finally being able to vote on who will be the next Leader of the Free World is a right of passage into adulthood.

KSC first-year Brendan Felix said that he had voted in a state election last year, but is eager to have his voice be heard on a national level.

“I voted in a state election last year and that was pretty cool,” Felix said. “I know that the NH Primary has a lot of importance on the election results so I’m excited to make my mark on what I hope is going to be a revolution.”

Felix said he is a supporter of Senator (VT) Bernie Sanders because his policies will help re-develop the middle class.

“I agree with a majority of Bernie Sanders’ policies. I like him mostly for his policy on education and on prison reform, but also I like that he speaks to the middle class because I am definitely a middle class American,” Felix said.

In fact, Felix was not the only voter who supported Sanders in the primary.

Infographic by Jake Coughlin / Administrative Executive Editor

According to poll results in the City of Keene, Sanders led the Democrats with over 70 percent of the votes, while Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came in second with only 27 percent of the votes.

Even at the state level, Sanders still remained superior to Clinton, with 60 percent of the votes in his favor.

While there were many Sanders supporters represented at the primary, KSC sophomore and first-time voter Jacob West was not one of them.

West said that Former Governor (FL) Jeb Bush is the only logical way to go for this election.

“I’m supporting Jeb Bush because I relate to a lot of his views,” West said. “He would be the lesser of the evils for President, if I have to pick one.”

West said that he understands why most students are leaning towards Sanders because of his plan to make public post-secondary education free for all Americans, but West is not in agreement.

“I don’t have one specific issue that is important to me, but I guess my biggest worry is the cost of higher education,” West said. “I know Sanders is talking about free education but I don’t know if that would work out or if that’s best for our country. I think a lower tuition would be more sufficient than it being free.”

In the City of Keene, Jeb Bush was third for the Republican Party with 13 percent of the votes. Donald Trump trumped the other Republican candidates with nearly 30 percent of the party. Governor (OH) John R. Kasich fell behind Trump in second place with almost 20 percent of the votes.

Overall votes for the state revealed Trump and Kasich remaining in the top two positions, while US Senator Ted Cruz pushed Jeb Bush into fourth place by almost half of a percentage.

While the Republican Party has more candidates with a substantial number of votes, that does not stop KSC sophomore Olivia Miller from “Feeling the Bern.”

Miller said that regardless of the number of well-known names on the Republican ballot, that does not sway her choice on which party to vote for.

“I have liked Sanders from the beginning,” Miller said. “His policies on clean energy, education and foreign policy are too important for me to go to a different candidate.”

Being of age for the first time in a Presidential primary, Miller said being an active citizen by voting is very important.

“Our government gives us as much as they possibly can and we need to give them just as much if we truly want our ideas to be heard,” Miller said.

Olivia can be contacted at obelanger@kscequinox.com

In high school, engaging in sexual activity was completely taboo, and it was usually found in relationships rather than strangers. In college, especially in the current millennial generation, sex is commonly found at the bottom of a drink in a new partner’s bed.

This concept is often referred to as ‘hook-up’ culture and, with sex becoming more casual as the years progress, the pressures of having sex once you submerge into the college lifestyle can be overwhelming.

The stigma of students enrolled in colleges is that they are highly sexually active, which, according to KSC Assistant Director of

Jake Coughlin / Administrative Executive Editor

Emotional Health, Programming and Outreach and Coordinator of Sexual Violence and Prevention, Forrest Seymour, is incorrect.

Seymour said that he does not encounter a lot of students who seek counseling about sexual pressure, but he does not think it is because it is not a problem.

“Many students feel that it is such a normal matter once they enter college that they do not see a reason to seek counseling,” Seymour said.

He continued, “I think most of them have an attitude that social pressure is a normal feeling to have and since everyone else is having sex, they should be too.”

However, according to Seymour, the research shows that the amount of sex everyone thinks college students are having is completely overblown.

“It’s always less sex than people think and I think that definitely adds on to society’s perception that college is all about being highly sexually active, and many students are not,” Seymour said.

The social pressure of having sex, Seymour suggested, could also be coming from the student’s own internal pressure because of the fact that they think they are supposed to since “everyone else is.”

Even though Seymour is a bystander in the current pressures, students seem to have similar thoughts.

Sophomore and architecture major, Erin Conti, said that she feels more sexual pressure in college than she did in high school.

“I think that once we got to college the idea of ‘hooking-up’ became a lot more prominent,” Conti said.

She continued, “Apps like Tinder also have a big impact on the pressures we face. I don’t want to say that it promotes hooking-up, but it makes it a lot easier for people to get involved with stuff like that.”

Opposingly, music education major and sophomore, Karver Bosela, said that he did not feel more pressured to have sex once he came to campus.

Bosela said that in high school he felt that sex was a bigger deal, and people who already engaged in it would put more pressure on those who had not.

“In college we really discover more about ourselves and people are defined more by what characteristics you carry rather than if you’ve had sex or not. I rarely find myself getting asked if I’ve had sex or not,” Bosela said.

When asked if more pressure was felt on being sexually active because of his gender, Bosela responded that he absolutely feels more pressure from peers because he is a guy.

“For example, my friend had been dating a girl for three months last year, and he would get ridiculed pretty consistently for not ‘sealing the deal’ so to speak,” Bosela said.

He continued, “A lot of them would ask, you know, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Is there something wrong with her, something wrong with you?’” Bosela said that he thinks our generation does not go on traditional dates anymore and people are not chivalrous, no matter your gender.

Bosela said that immediate gratification is engrained into our minds, so the concept of a long-term relationship does not seem like a good idea to a lot of students.

“I can’t stress enough that I don’t think that it is because we are in college and experiencing new things, I think that it is because we are just used to this type of behavior. It’s the idea that we have grown up with,” Bosela said.

For those in a relationship at college, the situation is a little different. Sophomore at KSC, Jessica Conron, said she does not feel pressure to have sex either.

She said that since she’s been in a relationship for more than a year, both her and her boyfriend are passed the stages of feeling pressured.

“It’s never really been a problem for me at college. My roommates are comfortable with my relationship, since they all have boyfriends, too. We all respect the fact that we have sex, and I think the fact that since I’ve been in a relationship since high school it changes the perspectives,” Conron said.

It is hard to say what the right and wrong step is for sex when it comes to college students, but the pressures of sex are definitely prominent in college culture.

Whether the pressure of having sex is coming from your friends or yourself, sex is something that you should feel good about, not ashamed or embarrassed.

Olivia Belanger can be contacted at obelanger@kscequinox.com

If you could change one thing about your body, what would it be? This question seems harmless — surely people have at least one thing they would like to be different about the way they look.

The Multicultural Student Support of Keene State College and the Women and Gender Studies department teamed up to host an event on Thursday, March 27, to show what answering this question actually means.

The “You Can’t Eat Beauty” workshop showed how societal norms, the media and the beauty industry have influenced how we view ourselves and those around us. One of the coordinators for the event and a member of the Multicultural Student Support, Jessica Pierre, was focused on the hair and makeup that society expects women to have.

“Hair is something that I have always been passionate about,” Pierre explained, “Growing up in Haiti, my mother didn’t like me having my hair all wild and crazy, so she started having me relax my hair. I never liked it, but I thought that was what I had to do to be considered pretty. As a black woman, you are faced with a lot of challenges that society throws in your face, such as having lighter skin or having tamer hair.” Pierre shared her experience with the audience and expressed that you were born to look a certain way. The workshop was interactive, which allowed the message to be more close to home for the audience members instead of seen as a broad topic. Another member of the Multicultural Student Support, Carlos Bravo, helped with gathering information for the show.

Colton McCracken / Equinox Staff

“This topic is just so important in a college setting because it seems that every girl is so insecure and only focused on their looks, when they are here for an education,” Bravo stated, “Looks are important to an extent, but they shouldn’t only focus on that. There is more to beauty than just a face.”

After countless presentations regarding body image, complexity, hair and the importance of inner-beauty, the Multicultural Student Support got their message across, according to KSC student Kat Langlands. “I came to the event tonight because I am an RA and we are asked to go to certain events, but I am so lucky to have signed up for this one,” Langlands expressed, “I think that the event tonight did a really good job at framing how we feel as women in this society because what it means to be a woman is not just about looks. It emphasized that we are all the same, I always like to say that we are just accessorized differently.”

The take home message from this event is that no one is perfect. Women and men alike are the way they are for a reason, and even though you might want to change something about your body, as a society we need to learn to be happy with what we have got. The “harmless” question does not seem so harmless when you have been given the right perspective.

Olivia Belanger can be contacted at obelanger@kscequinox.com