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Busway Class Final Part One

Busway Class Final Part Two

Busway Class Final Part Three

Photos, video and audio story by Jason Cunningham.

Dan Malloy, Democratic candidate for governor of Connecticut, and Chris Murphy, current United States Representative from Connecticut’s fifth district, were at the Central Connecticut State University campus last week to talk to students.

Democrats Visit CCSU by The Recorder

Audio Story By Jason Cunninghman

Audio: James Hall Intruder Arrested on Sexual Assault Charge

Chlevera Trimmier, 19, of Hartford, was arrested on charges of sexual assault in the fourth degree, among other charges, after intruding on James Hall residents Thursday night, Sep. 16.

Trimmier , who’s not a student at CCSU, was a visiting friend of a resident at James Hall, and was allegedly able to enter several women’s rooms in multiple suites that were left unlocked. When questioned by residents, he allegedly claimed to be a resident assistant.

James Hall resident assistants called the CCSU campus police after the students who were disturbed by Trimmier notified them of his presence.

“There was a knock at my door, and then the door opened, and there was some strange guy I’d never seen before standing in my room. He asked me if ‘I could sleep there;’ I politely told him ‘no,’ and he left,” said Brooke DelGiudice, a junior majoring in psychology and resident of James Hall. DelGiudice added that Trimmier seemed intoxicated, but non-threatening.

Other students in the hall had similar experiences.

“He kept trying to shush me;  he said it was for an initiation,” said Hannah Simeone, a senior majoring in communications. Simeone says this was after Trimmier entered her room and was questioned who he was. After Simeone started to raise her voice, Trimmier left.

There is no confirmation as to whether Trimmier was a part of an initiation process.

“Students are still propping open the external doors and I’m sure they’re doing for completely good intentions or for convenience reasons, but that puts the entire resident hall at risk,” said Mark McLaughlin, associate vice president of marketing and communications at CCSU.

McLaughlin points to student responsibility as a key to improving student safety on campus. Sign-in records are currently being investigated  to see how many times Trimmier has stayed on campus.

CCSU police have issued a “persona non grata,” which means he is forbidden to come to campus.

Staff from Student Affairs, the Women’s Center, Counseling and Wellness, campus police and Residence Life met with students Thursday night to address the incident. From the discussion, one suggestion was established for heightening security which was to increase the number patrols of residence halls.

All students who attended the meeting agreed on the importance of enhancing their safety by locking their doors and being alert to and reporting suspicious activity.

Further meetings with the Counseling staff will be held upon student requests.

The CCSU administration is asking students to enroll in the University’s Emergency Notification System. The system can notify students via text messages and voice mails of threatening conditions or situations.

This can be accomplished by visiting www.ccsu.edu and clicking the emergency notification system link on the homepage.

Trimmier is facing several criminal charges including criminal trespassing, criminal mischief in the third degree, sexual assault in the fourth degree, 10 counts of burglary in the third degree, as well as 18 counts of disorderly conduct. Trimmier’s bail was set at $100,000 at his Friday, Sep. 19 arraignment in New Britain’s Superior Court.

He returns to court on Oct. 13.

A collection of photos from Culture, a fashion show/performance that took place Friday, April 16 in the student center. Photos by Kenny Barto, The Recorder.

Sophomore Nick Delgado looks down upon Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis before the Blue Devils’ game at Butler University.

By Melissa Traynor

Whether they were fascinated, genuinely interested or angered by his arguments, a large crowd of students assembled around a Christian preacher who spoke today for the greater part of the afternoon.

Jesse Morrell, a speaker from evangelist ministry Open Air Outreach, came to CCSU earlier today to share his interpretations of Christianity, gripping a Bible and the attention of dozens of students. His speech today focused on his beliefs, including his view that homosexuality and premarital sex are immoral. Among other arguments, Morrell also believes that homosexuals “have the right to get AIDS.”

“Morality is living a life of intelligence. Immorality is living a life of unintelligence, when you’re governed by your feelings instead of being governed by your conscience,” Morrell said.

When a student asked if he had feelings, he responded, “I have feelings, but I don’t live to gratify my flesh… I live to please God.”

Morrell said there were three strikes against CCSU as he pulled out a copy of this week’s The Recorder, which features a front-page article about Ron Jeremy’s visit to campus.

“Strike number one,” Morrell said, “you love Ron Jeremy… but you mock the gospel.” He later accused students of focusing on sexual stimulation instead of the gospel, watching too much Music Television, and being “Jesus-rejectors.”

“The fact that there are atheists on this campus shows that there are truth-neglectors,” Morrell continued.

In open defiance of Morrell’s condemnation of homosexuality, two female students kissed. One of them, a student named Tori Davidson, said that he provoked her by saying she was tainted by BET, or Black Entertainment Television, and that she was frustrated when he claimed that homosexuals were mentally ill.

During his speech and accusations, CCSU students were provoked to yell taunts back at him and many of them openly questioned his logic and right to preach on campus. CCSU graduate and former Student Government Association president Alexander Estrom joined in the verbal fray. Estrom, who is also a youth minister, sought to argue against Morrell’s opinions.

“It’s nice to give my seminary studies a little bit of a work out,” he said. “… Even the devil can quote scripture to serve his purpose, and that’s what we’re looking at here.”

When Morrell accused CCSU students of committing the “sin” of premarital sex, Estrom yelled out, “But where in the Bible does it say that premarital sex is a sin?”

Morrell persisted, even though many of  the students who formed a circle around him yelled out insults and enraged questions. Some even tried to begin a chant to drown him out.

“So far it’s one of the more entertaining things I’ve seen and heard,” said CCSU student Jonathan Pare. “Apparently he’s read the Bible because he knows a little bit of it, but he’s twisting it in ways that it was never meant to be twisted.”

“Apparently he’s saying that homosexuals have three rights – one of them, which is the right to gets AIDS… He has the right to say so because he has the First Amendment right, but it’s just not good.”

While many expressed outrage at Morrell’s preaching, CCSU student Marlon Virtue agreed with his message.

“I think we should all be embracing Jesse, but we are very disrespectful, as on most college campuses that will be disrespectful,” said Virtue.

CCSU’s Associate VP of Marketing and Communications Mark McLaughlin stood by to monitor the situation.

“Think of it as he’s trying to scam the school,” McLaughlin said. “He’s trying to test the limits of freedom of speech.”

This is not the first college visit for Morrell, who has made a career of preaching at public campuses over the last five years.

Less than two weeks ago he was thrown out of the campus at Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, a private college, for preaching. According to the area news station WAFF48 News, Morrell said his First Amendment rights were violated and that campus police arrested him for ministering to students. AAMU originally wished to file charges, but let him off with a trespassing violation.

In 2005, Morrell preached in front of bars on Temple Street in New Haven, Conn. According to the New Haven Register, he filed a lawsuit and won a $25,000 out-of-court settlement from the city, alleging that police violated his right to free speech. The settlement, issued in August, 2009, also stipulates that the City of New Haven cannot enforce disorderly conduct laws against Morrell for preaching on public streets.

Audio, Interview with Jonathan Pare:

[podcast]http://www.centralrecorder.com/audio/JonathanPareinterview.mp3[/podcast]

Audio, Interview with Marlon Virtue:

[podcast]http://www.centralrecorder.com/audio/MarlonVirtueinterview.mp3[/podcast]

Video:

Evangelist Jesse Morrell Preaches at the Student Center Circle from The Recorder on Vimeo.

Alex Jarvis and Edward Gaug contributed to this story.

Interview with James Mallory and Coach Mac from The Recorder on Vimeo.

By Tonya Malinowski

Ron Jeremy was the big man on campus Nov. 10, as over 500 people packed into Alumni Hall in the student center to see him and author Susan Cole debate the effects of pornography on society.

Jeremy, who has starred in over 2,000 adult films and directed an additional 281, didn’t have to speak before he won the crowd. After Alumni Hall had reached capacity, students were lined up back to the bookstore hoping for a chance to get inside.

“We knew it was going to be a big crowd, but I’ve never seen an event where people started lining up an hour and 15 minutes before the start,” said Scott Hazan, director of student activities and leadership development. “It goes to show you how we think porn is so underground, but look how many people are here.”

The debaters began with opening statements and then opened the floor to questions. Cole, a graduate of Harvard University, opened the discussion by openly advocating masturbation and sex.

“If women don’t get to know their own bodies then they may never have two minutes of decent sex in their lives,” she said.

Cole has written extensively on violence against women, including “Pornography and the Sex Crisis” and “Power Surge: Sex, Violence and Pornography,” and believes pornography is an industry perpetuating the exploitation of women.

“You’re all living in a pornographic culture,” she said. “The question is: is it OK for you to get off on an exploited population?”

Jeremy, backed with cheers and laughs from the audience, countered her points by arguing that most of the porn industry, including Wicked Pictures, Digital Playground, and Playboy, is run by women.

“Most of the [pornography] business is run by women, so if women are being ‘exploited’, it’s by other women,” Jeremy said.

Jeremy was ranked by Adult Video News as the number-one porn star of all time and has toured the country debating pornography. The discussion ranged from placement of sex-based ads to the difference between porn and erotica, to which Jeremy said is “lighting.”

Cole argued that female porn stars have to have a specific look and almost unnaturally impeccable bodies, while male porn stars are not held to such high standards of physical appearance.

“In heterosexual porn, the male is basically just a prop,” Jeremy countered. “They’re not really looking at me; they’re looking at the girl on the other side of my penis.”

Hazan said he was surprised at the number of women who came to the event, and both he and Student Government Association president Andrew Froning were shocked at the turnout.

“If we could get attention like this at everything, we’d definitely be doing bigger things,” Froning said. “It just shows you that if we hit a topic that interests students, they’ll come out.”

Jeremy and Cole agreed on many points, including the use of condoms in porn. “Porn could do a huge public service by eroticizing the use of condoms,” Cole said.

Susan Cole

Though Jeremy agreed, he argued that their use could drive a nail in the coffin of an already dying industry. He went on to discuss how the porn industry is quickly losing money due to Internet pirating and the spreading popularity of free amateur sites.

“I think they both had really good points,” said Megan Funaro, CCSU ’12, who said she agreed more with Jeremy’s points. “I feel people have the choice to do and watch whatever they want, it’s not that big of a deal.”

The debate focused mostly on whether or not women are exploited through pornography and if it perpetuates violence and sexual abuse in our society. Cole used scenes in Jeremy’s own films, including one where he says the female actress is talking too much and then sticks his penis in her mouth to quiet her, to support her point.

Jeremy countered most of Cole’s points by defending the principle of comedy in his films as well as the support and right of consensual sex.

Though a topic of a serious nature, the discussion was interspersed with Jeremy’s signature humor.

After an audience member stood to ask a question and after having to lower the microphone remarked on feeling short, Jeremy said, “It’s ok, I [feel short too], until I lay down.”