On Thursday, Oct. 15, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal took a visit to the University of Hartford campus to hold a press conference regarding a proposed policy that would restrict the funding for advanced prosthetic limbs for veterans and other patients.

The University of Hartford is the only school in the New England region that has a prosthetics and orthotics program. It’s also only one of several schools in the country that offers a master’s in prosthetics and orthotics, making it an ideal destination for a press conference regarding this issue.

Today Senator Blumenthal spoke at #Uhart on the need to maintain funding for prosthetics for veterans. pic.twitter.com/lIdEEotnBw

— UofHartford (@UofHartford) October 15, 2015

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ proposed policy would limit a patient’s prosthetic care to their current level of mobility, rather than take into account their potential improved mobility with advanced prosthetic technology.

Sen. Blumenthal spoke on the issue and urged those in attendance to oppose CMS’ proposed policy.

“What can turn around this decision is advocates saying, ‘This move is wrong for the nation, wrong for our veterans’,” Sen. Blumenthal said during his press conference. “We owe them the best possible healthcare.”

ICYM: @SenBlumenthal spoke on campus this week. Story:http://t.co/MlbeE6Mh3B video: http://t.co/ImFWuZLW8k pic.twitter.com/o1PT6u7dwQ #UHart

— UHartfordNews (@UHartfordNews) October 16, 2015

Blumenthal last spoke at the University of Hartford in Feb. 2014, when he came to talk about a bill he was co-sponsoring that would provide grants to colleges and universities to develop more technologically advanced prosthetics.

With both of Blumenthal’s visits, Marine veteran Greg Caron also spoke at the events. Caron, a Purple Heart recipient, lost both of his legs in a bombing while serving in Afghanistan. He also served in the same company as Blumenthal’s son.

But with the help of modern prosthetics, Caron has made progress and is now in a good place.

“When I’m in my prosthetics, I have the capability to do everything. I’m very independent,” Caron said.

The CMS policy would limit prosthetic care for veterans like Caron.

Having Sen. Blumenthal come to speak on this issue not only gives it more exposure, but it also gives a good look for the University and more importantly, it gives the students in the program a taste of what may ultimately be their future.

“For our students, the take home essentially is that they need to get involved now and help to determine their future,” co-director of the prosthetics and orthotics program Matthew Parente said. “When they do get involved, they can see this isn’t just their teacher standing in front of them saying, ‘Hey guys, you need to do this.’ Here we have a state senator coming in, talking to them and talking about the importance of this.”

Sen. Blumenthal and other members of the congressional committees on veteran’s affairs have signed a letter to the CMS that they should abandon this proposed policy.

It’s October, so that means it’s National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and pink is popping up everywhere.

Here at the University of Hartford, students are making their efforts to help contribute in the fight against breast cancer.

This past Sunday, Oct. 18, the American Cancer Society hosted the “Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk” at Bushnell Park in Hartford.

Cancer Sucks #makingstridesagainstbreastcancer #aepi #Hartford #alumniweekend #uhart pic.twitter.com/ocpAjzZfi0

— Doug Bearak (@dbearak) October 18, 2015

Thousands of participants dressed in pink were at the event on Sunday morning. Among those participating were over 200 members of the University of Hartford’s Greek Life fraternities and sororities, dressed in white long sleeve T-shirts with the words “Cancer Sucks” in pink lettering on the front.

Greek Life also contributed an over $1,100 donation to help the fight against breast cancer. The funds came from the sales of the T-shirts to Greek Life members and their respective chapters.

For Interfraternity Council VP of public relations and communications Jake Greenberg, it was a great sight to see some unity.

“Usually at an event like this, each chapter comes wearing whatever letters their chapter represents,” said Greenberg, who planned and coordinated Greek Life’s involvement. “The shirts were for Greek Life and it has everyone’s letters under it. We are, as a whole, Greek Life. Why cause a separation of 12–20 people when you can have 200 people representing one organization?”

“It’s nice to see that instead of ‘this chapter donates $50,’ it’s ‘Greek Life donates all of this money’,” Greenberg continued. “It speaks volumes and that’s what I want from this University.”

Out early this morning volunteering at "Making Strides Against Breast Cancer" in Bushnell Park. pic.twitter.com/HHaqM063m9

— Hartford Cheer (@HartfordCheer) October 18, 2015

https://www.instagram.com/p/8-0Mf4OAg1/

Also there in attendance for support were the University of Hartford women’s basketball team, cheerleading squad and dance team.

The volleyball team also hosted their annual Dig Pink match on Sunday against UMBC. Fans were encouraged to wear pink to the game while players donned pink headbands and pink socks.

On Friday, Oct. 16, The Women’s Advancement Initiative hosted the American Association of University Women (AAUW) CT College University Fall 2015 Conference in the Konover Great Room.

The conference titled, “Women Empowering Women for Success in Career, Networking and Financial Literacy” included several speakers, lectures and keynote presentations, as well as panel discussions by both professionals and students.

Some notable in attendance was Connecticut State Senator Beth Bye,

Although the University of Hartford hosted it, the event was sponsored by Central Connecticut State University.

The Women’s Advancement Initiative program manager Margaret Gooch felt that hosting the event was a huge benefit in that “it helped a lot of people acknowledge who we were and what our programs are on campus. I think it gave the other schools a lot of information about what we do. We received very high accolades both for the venue, the planning and the information that came forward.”

“It’s put together to empower females in different roles,” Gooch said. “A lot of the conference was about leadership. It was about challenges women face in different careers and how to overcome them.

“We’re always trying to get the message out there about empowering women so this was a great group of women that came together under that umbrella that also wanted to enforce that message,” Gooch continued.

The TEDxUniversityofHartford student club was founded in Sept. 2014 with the goal in mind of bringing students together from across all of the University of Hartford campus.

Over the past year, the club has been working to put together a TEDx Talk here at the University of Hartford.

For this first event, it was decided that the deans would select a faculty speaker to represent each of the seven University schools and colleges.

“Ultimately, it’s kind of the face of the University,” assistant professor in ME and Acoustics and club faculty advisor Dr. Eion King said. “We wanted to make sure that the University was happy to support us. We figured for the first event, it would be nice to showcase all aspects of the University.”

The seven faculty speakers will be Carol Padberg from the Hartford Art School, Susan Coleman from the Barney School of Business, Seth Holmes from the College of Engineering, Technology and Architecture, Laura Pence from the College of Arts and Sciences, Mike Wininger from the College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions, Michael Robinson from Hillyer College and Karen Cook from The Hartt School.

The student club also selected their own faculty member to be the eighth speaker. Dr. Joyce Ashuntantang from the Hillyer College was chosen.

“The key was, I suppose, we wanted a speaker that would represent the college and had a message that would be suitable for a TED Talk,” King said.

“As soon as the speakers were nominated, I sent speaker resources to each of them. Like there’s an abundance of information about how to give a good TED Talk,” Coin continued. “It’s a bit of preparation for them. For some of them, it’s condensing that information to a 10-minute talk as opposed to a full hour lecture.”

As for the student speakers, there were two separate selection processes that went into choosing the four speakers.

The first one took place in April 2015 and asked for students to submit a 90-second video explaining the topic they would plan on talking about. From the students that submitted, six of them were selected as a finalist and each were invited to give a five-minute presentation to a panel of judges made up of faculty members.

The two student speakers who were selected from this were Liel Asuline and Hugo Santana.

• Apply to give TED Talk

The other student selection process involved students in the Undergraduate Research and Creativity Colloquium. Any student who was presenting at the colloquium in April could indicate that they were interested in speaking at the TEDx event and could have their research presentations assessed.

The two students selected from the Undergraduate Colloquium were Elizabeth Schorr and Puja Bhardwaj.

“If you give them the platform, you’d be surprised what ideas the students have. The students are more innovative than perhaps they are given credit for,” King said. “I like the fact that hopefully TEDx is giving students a platform to express their big ideas.”

For a full detailed list of speakers and their topics, click here.

Depending on the success of this weekend’s event, the TEDx Talk event may become an annual or perhaps a bi-annual thing.

In the future, it may include more student speakers or even alumni.

However, TEDxUniversityofHartford is still a student club and in addition to hosting TEDx Talks, the hope is that the club would break the “boundaries” between students of different schools and majors to come together and interact.

The TEDxUHart Talk event will be one of the highlights of Hawktober Weekened.

It will take place Saturday, Oct. 17, in Wilde Auditorium from 1:30 p.m. – 5 p.m.

However, the event sold out of tickets very shortly after they went live.

UPDATE: Tickets are sold out, but you can still email tedxuniversityofhartford@gmail.com to get on the waiting list!

— TEDxUHart (@TEDxUHart) October 8, 2015

A live webcast will be available to view online at hartford.edu/view.

There will also be a simulcast viewing party at Suisman Lounge in the Gengras Student Union.

Once the event is completed, videos of each presentation will be uploaded online to the official TEDx YouTube channel, as well as a to-be-determined online University of Hartford location.

This Saturday, Oct. 17, guest speaker Dr. Patrick Senatus will be speaking at the University of Hartford as a part of the Walter Harrison Leadership Academy.

Senatus earned his Medical Degree and Ph.D from Harvard University. He is a chief neurosurgeon and a professor of surgery and neurosurgery at the University of Connecticut and Yale.

The Walter Harrison Leadership Academy is a Greek Life initiative that has featured guest speakers with a variety of backgrounds and experience.

Although initially a Greek Life initiative and mandated for new Greek Life members, the speaker series is open to anyone on the University campus.

“It’s to teach these new kids valuable lessons and networking,” University of Hartford Interfraternity Council president Greg Maisch said. “They can meet these people after and connect with them.”

“The Walter Leaderships Academies was started to help and foster leadership qualities of Greek new members,” IFC VP of recruitment and new membership Nick Oliver said. “Now I’m trying to expand it to the whole school.”

Oliver’s focus has been to include more students in the University community to attend, instead of just Greek Life.

“If I make it more inclusive, it’ll give me a better chance of getting better speakers,” Oliver explained.

“Sometimes more engaging speakers cost money sometimes,” Oliver continued. “Maybe we can get some funding from the University.”

CEO Dave Walsh speaking to Greeks at the Walter Harrison Leadership Academy pic.twitter.com/L2AaL3Ntj4

— IFC Hartford (@HartfordIFC) November 15, 2014

It also has the benefit of having the University of Hartford President Walter Harrison stamp of approval.

“Walter Harrison actually sponsors the event,” Maisch said. “Walter has actually taken steps to reach out to these people for us because it obviously comes a lot further from the president of the University over a bunch of students.”

Walter Harrison Leadership Academy speaker events occur every month. Hillyer College Dean David Goldenberg will headline November’s talk while president Harrison himself will be the speaker at December’s event.

The Senatus talk is set for Saturday, Oct. 17 at 1 p.m. in the Auerbach Auditorium in Hillyer Hall.

For more information, you can contact Nick Oliver at noliver@hartford.edu.

Library spaces are beginning to change. What was once known as a pristine, quiet place to study or to read a book is now transforming more into a social environment.

In 2012, the University of Hartford with Sasaki Associates completed the Libraries Master Planning Process that overviewed the changes that would be happening to the Mortensen and Allen libraries and the reasoning for doing them.

Mortensen Library was originally built in 1969 and was expanded as part of the then new Harry Jack Gray Center in 1989.

“It was about 25 or 26 years ago and that’s about what you see on college campuses,” said associate vice president of facilities planning Norm Young. “You really want to start to think about renewing things after 25 years.”

Phase One of the renovation process will roughly utilize about a $7.5 million budget.

The plans for Phase One includes small renovations inside to improve the look of the library, removing several book stacks, creating new seating and adding a new addition to the back of the building.

The size of the new addition has not been finalized yet, but it will be a two-story open-glass space that will extend out toward the river.

“One of the main benefits that’s going to occur out of this is to create better flow in and around the building,” Young said. “The reference area will be a little more upfront than it is now and a lot more open space for collaborative work. Bathrooms will be upgraded and the elevator will be more accessible for everybody in the building.”

Another big aspect of the project is to bring Allen Library to the first floor of Mortensen Library.

Many of the book stacks that are out now would be placed in storage to be brought out whenever someone would need them. This would clear up more space for seating, as well as being able to bring Allen Library into Mortensen.

Once that’s all completed, the Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies would then be moved into where Allen Library is located now. Currently, they are tucked away on the lower level of Auerbach Hall and have been fundraising for years for a space that they can call home.

A time capsule was buried today under @Mortensen_Lib which included trinkets from everyday library work life #UHart pic.twitter.com/fIxdFjXmUQ

— The Informer (@UHartInformer) July 24, 2015

Pending winter weather, construction is expected to begin spring of 2016 and will most likely continue for an entire year until spring 2017.

The library will remain open throughout construction and will require sectioning off parts of the building along with soundproofing as construction goes on.

It is still at a fairly early stage in the project process and while a lot of things are just about finalized, nothing is guaranteed.

Throughout the planning process, there was a lot of feedback from staff, faculty, the community and students from a few years ago.

Phase Two of the project is still largely unknown and will not be happening until a little ways down the road. Some possibilities that may come would be a further expansion of Starbucks at The Goodwin Café that extends out toward the front of the library.

An official announcement with more details can be expected from the University at around late October or during November.

Many times, students will struggle to get out of bed just to go to class. With social activities happening on weekend nights, getting students to wake up before 8 a.m. on a Sunday morning can be a bit of a struggle.

But, if it’s for a good cause to help the greater good, college students will get up for anything.

University of Hartford students involved in Greek Life organizations participated in the 2015 Walk to End Alzheimer’s this past Sunday morning at Bushnell Park in Hartford.

As the title of event says, it was a walk that helped raise awareness and donations for the Alzheimer’s Association. Sunday’s event in Hartford was one of six walks to take place in Connecticut throughout the month.

Each and every fraternity and sorority was represented at the walk.

Registration began at 8:30 a.m. with the actual walk running from 10 a.m. – noon.

It was a sea of purple at Bushnell since participants were given purple shirts to represent the awareness color for Alzheimer’s disease. They also gave out flowers of varying colors with each color standing for a person’s level of connection to Alzheimer’s.

“It was definitely cool to come together as a community,” Interfraternity Council (IFC) vice president of public relations and communications Jake Greenberg said. “It was still cool to share that bond, that information that ‘this is real, I support this.’ You don’t get that for most events like this so it was cool to have that more tangible component to it.”

Brothers at the Walk to End Alzheimer's in Bushnell Park pic.twitter.com/gS795fwvR3

— AEPi Hartford (@AEPi_Hartford) September 20, 2015

With what seemingly feels like constant negative attention in the media toward college fraternities and sororities — most recently, a hazing death at Baruch College in New York — the University of Hartford’s Greek Life really wanted to make a push to show that that’s not what happens here.

“Yes, we all like to have a good time and we are all college students, but we are the organizations that wake up at eight o’clock in the morning after a night of social activities,” IFC vice president of standards and practices Richard Hoover said. “We are the people that get there and when you look around, you don’t see a lot of college students there. We really wanted to push to the community that we are the ones raising the money, getting up on Saturday and Sunday mornings, making a push for community.”

“Especially at the University of Hartford, we pride ourselves on going on the complete flip side and making it all positive publicity,” Greenberg said. “At the end of the day, it’s all worth it.”

#SigmaNu at the Alzheimer's walk at Bushnell Park, CT. .@SigmaNuHQ .@Hartford_IFC pic.twitter.com/z6VAdbK7oo

— Sigma Nu | Hartford (@SigmaNu_UHart) September 20, 2015

Participating in the event, as well as making donations, were not mandated by the Greek Life organizations. It was up to individual preferences on what they wanted to do or how much they wanted to donate.

“There’s no pushing ‘oh each chapter needs to raise this much money,’ or ‘each chapter needs to have this many people,’ because that numbs the process of this is for the greater good, this is a great cause,” Greenberg said.

Fraternities and sororities are required to have at least 15 philanthropy hours throughout the fall semester.

“That’s one of the things I really love about Greek Life,” Hoover said. “Being an Eagle Scout, I’ve always done a lot of community service and I wanted to stay involved with that. It’s one of the reasons I got involved with Greek Life.”

In addition to philanthropy events that individual Greek Life chapters will do, they’ll also be participating in an AIDS Walk/Run, Light the Night Walk for leukemia, Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk and the Nearly Naked Mile run/walk during Hawktober Week.

When one door closes, another one opens. In this case, a door had to be closed to make room for the future.

Educational Main Street (EMS) was a program of the Center for Learning and Professional Education in the College of Education, Nursing and Health Professions at the University of Hartford.

The program placed University students throughout local schools in the community to assist in tutoring and teaching.

In addition to getting experience with teaching and working with children in the classroom, college students were also able to be exposed to students from many different backgrounds of culture, race or social class.

Previously located where the new Career Services location is at on the second floor of the Gengras Student Union, EMS closed its doors earlier this year at the end of the spring semester.

Former director of Educational Main Street Mary Christensen had been there for the past 15 years but decided it was time to retire. Christensen is also an assistant professor of the Department of Education and is still teaching classes up until she retires at the end of the fall semester.

With no plans to continue with the program after Christensen left, the University decided to close the doors on Educational Main Street.

But as Christensen put it, they’ve had a huge influence in changing and supporting the students.

“After 25 years, Hartford schools have changed a great deal,” Christensen said. “Almost every school has a brand new building, there’s a stronger superintendent and the city of Hartford and a lot of the corporations have been funneling money directly to the school systems.

“Instead of my raising it from them to do work, they just decided to give it to the school system,” Christensen continued. “We were doing good things for Hartford, maybe now we can step back.”

Although the University has decided to move in a different direction, Christensen is ready and excited for the next chapter of her life.

“So after 25 years, it’s time to do something different,” Christensen said. “What they choose to do differently will be what’s the exciting part for the next era.

“I don’t believe in anything being done just because it’s been done. You got to shake it up, throw it up in the air, jiggle it around and say, ‘Oh! I got a new idea!’,” she continued. “But I loved every minute I worked here.”

The doors of Educational Main Street may have officially closed, but Christensen doesn’t want to see it as a closing or an ending, and rather a moment of refocus and opportunity to improve and make it better.

Earlier today @UHartfordNews Educational Main Street hosts over 70 local #hartford students at annual science fair. pic.twitter.com/7Qcihyvo3K

— CLPE (@CLPE_UHart) November 13, 2014

A part of the program has continued through the Center for Community Service. Students with federal work study can be placed in local schools to tutor students through the Center for Community Service.

With retirement on the horizon for Christensen, she plans to move to Boston with her husband to be closer to their kids and grandchildren.

Having transferred into the University of Hartford last school year as a junior, I found it difficult to really be able to meet other students outside of my classes and clubs I was involved with. Living in upperclassmen housing is a whole lot different than freshmen dorming since everyone tends to just keep to themselves and their roommates.

Outside of that, though, I think the bigger issue is that there really isn’t a central hub for students to go to here at UHart.

The closest thing we have to do that is the Gengras Student Union. It’s where many of the clubs’ offices are, it’s where mail services is, there’s dining options there and it’s where the Dean of Students office is, as well as Career Services and the Center for Community Service among others.

However, one of the problems is that it’s situated deep in the “academic side” of campus. Once it hits around 2 p.m. or 3 p.m., GSU becomes a near ghost town.

Students living in their dorms don’t want to walk all the way across campus to GSU. Plus, there’s not much it has to offer at night other than food, and that closes at 7 p.m. (or 2 p.m. on Fridays).

Konover becomes the next best option since it has late night food options, but there’s no space to just hang out or relax.

Recently, I’ve visited two larger public universities in UMass Lowell and (the) Ohio State University.

These campuses had the benefit of being in the middle of a city, but they both had rather large unions for students to go to. It had dining options, offices for clubs and organizations and lots of couches and spaces for students to hang out, watch TV or study.

With GSU and library renovations planned to start during the spring semester, I’d hope that something be done to improve the options for students to go. I’m aware that we probably don’t have the same amount of funding and space as other schools have, but we can still make something work.

For the library, I think the obvious change that needs to be made is more seating and tables, and way more places for electrical outlets to plug in our laptops and phones.

I also hope that they could implement some kind of 24/7 hour study room.

It would be just a fairly small secured room that would have computers and tables in it that would require a ID card swipe to get in.

Being the night owl that I am, it kind of sucks having nowhere to go after 1:30 a.m. other than back to my room where I’ll just fall asleep.

As for GSU, I’d hope for it to become more of a social place to hang out while also being able to study and do homework. Suisman Lounge is nice, but make it bigger and add tables and desks.

Even better, add TVs that can be showing the news. It could also turn into a nice place for students to go and watch sports games or TV shows together.

All this would help with improving student interaction, as well as being more flashy things to show prospective students what the University of Hartford has to offer.

This past weekend I had the great opportunity to travel to Columbus, Ohio to be on the field at the 100,000-seat capacity Ohio Stadium, home of the defending college football playoff national champion Ohio State Buckeyes.

The No. 1 team in the country took on my hometown Hawaii Rainbow Warriors in front of a sold-out 107,145-person crowd at “The Shoe.” Although a great sight to see, I didn’t think it was too overwhelming.

When it came time to choosing what college I wanted to attend, the only reason I would consider going to a big state school would be because of the crazy gameday atmospheres.

When I had looked at the University of Hartford for the first time, I was surprised that it had a Division I athletics program despite having a relatively small enrollment size.

After having attended many Hartford Hawks games, I am left wondering where our own sense of school spirit, tradition and culture is at.

I appreciate each and every single one of the students and fans that have gone out to games to support, but I feel like the school spirit, personal pride is lacking at times.

Sure, we don’t have multi-million dollar facilities, a DI football team, a long line of national championships or anything crazy like that. But we have the same thing that every other school in the world has and that is: students.

After whining about why we don’t have any cool traditions or much of a crazy atmosphere, I realized that it’s all on us.

I guess we don’t have the luxury of having a culture and tradition to have been passed down to us.

We need to go and create that positive culture and environment ourselves.

Instead of waiting and complaining about what we don’t have, we just need to go out and do it ourselves.

It’s all on us.

Even athletics director Anton Goff said that it’s all about what the “Dirty Birds” want and what they want to do.

The athletics department and administration is not going to tell us what to do and they’re not going to create the culture for us.

It has to be built organically with the students.

Like I said earlier, it was fun and a cool experience to be at Ohio Stadium, but the crowd just felt so distant and far away.

But that’s an advantage Hawk Nation can have.

Our facilities aren’t overly ginormous so we can get right up in there in the faces of our players and the other team to give us a huge home-field advantage.

But it also extends past just athletics.

We all have friends or at least know people who go to other schools, and I’m sure we’ve seen them post stuff about cool events or traditions that their school does.

We may not have what they have, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t start it now.

There’s a ton of resources and help on campus, and it takes communication, awareness and a change of attitude to make things happen to become the best that Hawk Nation can be.