By Evan Filandrianos, Currier Times Staff///

Now that Donald Trump is heading back to the White House after the latest presidential election, it is important to see how this election impacted the students and staff at Curry.

Getting opinions from people other than students is important, too, as everyone collectively makes up our Curry Community and impacts all students.

Kevin Blackmur, Associate Director of Fitness, Recreation and Sport, said the election left things a bit uneasy.

“There is a lot up in the air, a lot of change that could be happening that can affect a lot of our students on campus lives in dramatic ways,” said Blackmur. “I just kind of worry for the students in our areas and just how they’re going to be able to navigate that with the unknown and I think the unknown is what is so scary.”

Blackmur added, “I want to give everyone a chance and hope that we can break that down. I think we’ve been moving in the wrong  direction of moving farther apart and being more divided, and I would really like to see that change.”

Julian Hessmann, a Junior majoring in Public Relations, with minors in Communication and Marketing, said there are many areas of concern.

“So I feel like, for what I stand for and what my friends and people around me stand for, not many people were happy about it,” said Hessman. “Especially because of the stuff he is, you know, getting on trial for. Also, with like women’s rights and everything, I’m not really proud of it, but it’s good that this is the last time he can be elected, I guess. Hopefully Kamala will run again.”

Corynne Stollerman, Administrative Assistant for Career and Experiential Learning, was concerned that the election could exacerbate division.

“So what I would say is that I think people are super divided right now, and I think that getting even more divided is not going to do anything,” said Stollerman. “So people being like ‘oh yeah, I’m going to never speak to this person again if they voted this way’ I do not think is the answer. I think that’s going in the opposite direction.”

Stollerman said it was also important to not take another person’s views as an affront.

“Things about the election can hit really close to home, but I think people need to remember that people have so many different motives for voting for who they vote for that you can’t take everything super personally,” said Stollerman. “You can’t say, ‘Well, this person voted this way, so they must hate me’ because that’s not a realistic way to approach this, and maybe that person’s priorities are different from yours. I think for the vast majority of people, they want things to be better for everyone, and their opinion about that shaped who they voted for. It’s not just out of hate.”

Val Bastien, a senior Administrative Assistant for Student Affairs, was worried about student impacts worldwide.

“I feel like it’s going to be hard to get international students into colleges,” said Bastien. “Most people don’t know, but international students they tend to make each campus different, especially bringing in their own cultures and things of that nature.”

Bastien added, “In my position within the school, I care a lot about the students. So I just really want to make sure they feel safe, they feel heard, and they have to understand that everyone has opinions, nobody’s right, nobody’s wrong.”

Bastien also feels that one person’s opinion does not make the next person better, but rather that we should seek to agree to disagree and hear each other out rather than fighting people who disagree with our points.

Ava Andreoli, a senior majoring in Communication with a concentration in Film and a minor in Psychology, said while she wasn’t really into politics, she did feel some of her rights were in danger.

“I feel like going into this election, I was a bit nervous and didn’t really know what the outcome was going to be,” said Andreoli. “I kind of saw it as a lose-lose no matter who won.”

Hannah Ribeiro, a senior Nnursing major with a minor in Biology, had a more optimistic approach towards Trump being elected in this latest election cycle.

“So I feel as though I like the fact that Trump is in office now. Personally, I think that our economy wasn’t the greatest beforehand, so now having him in office will help because he is a businessman so he knows how to manage the economy,” said Ribeiro. “Then me, as a woman, I feel like a lot of people obviously say like, ‘Oh, he’s not going to be like a good thing with him being in office’, like he’s just going to take our rights away, which isn’t true. He’s not able to take our rights away, like [with] the whole abortion thing. He’s not able to take our rights away. That’s up to the states.”

Jordyn Covert, a senior Nursing major with minors in Biology and Psychology, said at the end of the day, most everyone wants the same goals in life.

“I think at a college, I think everyone’s goal is to get a house and making it more affordable for students and everything, or even people in general.”