Front Cover artwork courtesy of Inka Urra Bodnar.

Back Cover Top artwork courtesy of Mars Weigley 

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On April 23 at 6:30 p.m. Platzer discussed his new book at the Honors Center. The event was hosted by SUNY New Paltz creative writing professor Kris Jansma, in which Platzer and Jansma discussed the new novel, teaching experiences, parenting, writing and various commonalities.

“The Optimists” comes as Platzer’s third novel and fourth book overall. His first novel “Bed-Stuy Is Burning” was released in 2017, with his second novel, “The Body Politic,” released in 2020. In 2019, Platzer co-authored the book “Taking the Stress Out of Homework: Organizational, Content-Specific, and Test-Prep Strategies to Help Your Children Help Themselves” with Abby Freireich. Platzer received his bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and continued his studies at Johns Hopkins University. His writing has been published in The New York Times and The New Yorker’s “Shouts and Murmurs” section. 

Local bookstore Literally Books’ co-owner Jane Liddle supported the event with a supply of Platzer’s novels that were available for purchase. 

To open the book talk, Platzer began by reading an excerpt from his novel before sitting down to discuss with Professor Jansma. They highlighted the difficulties of balancing teaching, parenting and being an author. Jansma then opened the conversation up to the audience, providing a space for questions and further discussion.

The novel is inspired by the life, humor, career and persona of Rod Keating, who was a middle school English teacher … but he wasn’t just any educator, he was Platzer’s teacher and long-time mentor. Considering “The Optimists” premises being built upon Mr. Keating himself, Platzer blurs the lines between memoir and fiction.

As an educator, Mr. Keating is a performer in his own right: captivating an audience, entertaining people, cracking jokes and breaking down the walls that middle schoolers build around themselves. In order for Platzer to properly execute this performance, another main character had to be involved.

A student’s perspective had to be intertwined in order to paint a vivid picture of Mr. Keating, and this is where Clara comes in. As the star student, Clara is an amalgamation of characters that Platzer sat beside in his class and those that he has educated in his own career as an English teacher.  

Clara is presently one of Mr. Keating’s students, although they knew one another long before this instance. A mischievous child-turned genius, Mr. Keating is in awe of his star-studded student. While explaining how these moving pieces fell into place, Platzer said that “[Mr. Keating] wants it to be entertaining, and [Clara’s character] lets him do his best to achieve that.”

“[Clara] is a way for him to have something liberating to talk about … she’s a way for him to not just be myopically focused on the self,” Platzer said. 

To commemorate its release, Platzer kicked off a book tour with various co-hosts ranging from actress and producer Sarah Jessica Parker to New Paltz’s own author and creative writing professor Kris Jansma. 

“Mr. Keating, who had an outsized charisma and life to him and … a magical quality that was so hard to capture on the page,” Platzer said, so “I tried to think of different techniques or different tropes I could use to manifest some of that personality in a way that maybe I could trend that would be more translatable to a reader.”

As for the real-life narrative, Platzer consistently visited and supported Mr. Keating after Rod suffered a major stroke. “I went home, and I just started writing every time I hung out with him, [to describe] what he might be thinking and what he might be feeling. I have a file of 800 pages of sad imaginations,” Platzer said.

“I took a step back and realized most of what I wrote wasn’t a novel. It was just catharsis for myself. And I thought, what story would he want to tell if he had this limited time and limited ability?”

In telling Clara’s story — one of a brilliant, successful young woman-turned ambivalent then corrupt — Mr. Keating tells his own story. Likewise with Platzer, telling Rod’s story is a catharsis for sharing his own. 

“I wanted to stay within the realm of the ambiguous a little bit, or at least the ambivalent, where a character could feel one way while feeling the other, and need to work through those challenges,” Platzer said. 

In his previous works, Platzer has explored narratives of victims of gun violence, police brutality and the aftermath of 9/11 in New York City.  Platzer’s latest novel maintains a consistently optimistic theme — despite its depressing undertones — for a lack of better words. 

As for the novel’s namesake, Platzer drew upon inspiration from a poster that hung in the teacher’s lounge where he worked. The poster read: “Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.” Platzer initially found the quotation neglectful of countless other lines of extensive, exhaustive work, and namely, those requiring more physical labor. But as Platzer joked with his colleagues about its cliche and diminutive nature, he realized what that sign truly meant for him.

“Of course, the other side of [optimism] is [that] this is a guy at the end of his life trying to make sense of all of it and trying to not fold to the pessimism — the depression of being trapped inside his body, unable to communicate as a different version of himself, and I think that him writing this manuscript is an act of optimism.”

Platzer said that while this is not necessarily a “cheery story, I think [Mr. Keating’s] arc, his story, is an optimistic one.”

The post Author Brian Platzer Reimagines Optimism with His New Novel appeared first on The New Paltz Oracle.

The instructors who often play the most vital roles—mentoring students, providing advising and emotional support, and helping them feel they truly belong—are frequently the most insecure. Hired on short-term contracts, they work without genuine job security, sometimes receiving little or no explanation when their appointments end. At the same time, they perform essential but largely invisible labor: building relationships and guiding students through personal and academic challenges. 

After eight years of teaching in Black Studies at SUNY New Paltz, I was recently informed that my contract would not be renewed and in my specific case, I will not be asked to return. While this is, on one level, a decision impacting an individual, the response it provoked points to something much larger. Organically, students quickly organized, collecting more than 1,900 signatures expressing concern over the loss of connection and community. More than 200 faculty and staff signed a statement of support in just a few days. Most recently, the statewide membership of United University Professions—the nation’s largest higher education union—passed a resolution in explicit support of my roles on campus and beyond, highlighting the broader implications of this moment.  

These reactions are not exclusively about one person. They are about what the institution chooses to recognize, what it risks losing, and what kind of community it is willing to sustain, including patterns that contribute to the disproportionate precarity and loss of Black faculty and staff. It is just as important to note that this moment at SUNY New Paltz is not occurring in isolation. Black Studies programs and scholars face intense, widespread pressure across the United States. Since 2021, legislation restricting or limiting the teaching of Black studies and related topics has been introduced in over 40 states. The College Board revised its AP African American Studies course under political pressure, with early versions downplaying or removing elements such as intersectionality and Black feminism. At the university level, institutions have pursued rollbacks—including consolidations and program reductions.  

Here at New Paltz, the Black Studies department itself is currently under pressure to be combined into a center with Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and Latin American and Caribbean/Latinx Studies (LASLAX). Yet our legendary SUNY New Paltz Black Studies Department is presently responsible for educating more than half of all Black Studies majors across the entire SUNY system. Cutbacks here, much less the absence of persistent investment, would undermine not only the future development of the discipline but also the educational investment in the production of knowledge grounded in the Black community for the benefit of all students, including Black students. I am not arguing intent here, but impact. Regardless of intention, the outcomes of these decisions shape who feels seen, who feels supported, and who understands themselves as belonging within the institution  

The interdisciplinary nature of Black Studies equips graduates to contribute meaningfully across all sectors of society. Alumni go on to serve in C-suite boardrooms, operating rooms as physicians, sports management, aerospace (including spaceflight), prestigious law firms, and political leadership—such as serving as Mayor of New York City. This work strengthens communities, drives innovation, and amplifies voices that enrich the broader national experience. When institutions weaken such programs, they diminish opportunities for students and the societal benefits that flow from a well-educated, civically engaged citizenry. 

For years, much of my work—as is true for many in Black Studies—has extended far beyond the classroom. It has included creating and leading innovative, nationally recognized higher education initiatives such as Black Lives Matter at School @ New Paltz, organizing highly successful campus-wide events like Sound Your Truth, supporting summer bridge programs such as E.O.P., where students’ embrace of my intentional and consistent involvement led the program to create a new segment modeled after my contributions and to add a community institutions trip each summer that I personally helped facilitate and support in person, and registering all of my students to vote in every class each semester.  

In Ulster County, where SUNY New Paltz students have demonstrated exceptionally high civic engagement—including the highest voter participation rate in the SUNY system in 2020 with over 70% turnout and earning a Gold Seal from the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge—this kind of investment plays a deeply meaningful role in shaping regional elections and strengthening local democracy. This labor is often informal, relational, and uncompensated. It rarely appears in official metrics, yet it plays a critical role in recruitment and retention. 

A portion of the administration’s rationale for reallocating resources and not renewing my contract has been the claim of a steady decline in Black Studies majors. Yet this decline must be understood in context: it is, in significant part, the consequence of inadequate administrative investment and strategic planning to promote and sustain what has long been a unique and valuable legacy department. When institutions fail to actively support and market programs central to student belonging and institutional identity, they create the very conditions of jeopardy they later cite as justification for cutbacks. This is what makes the observation about “absence” so telling. 

The real question is not whether Black Studies “shows up.” It is how institutions define and support meaningful presence. When inclusion relies on informal networks and individual initiative rather than deliberate institutional design, the result is often the appearance of absence where there has long been deep engagement—especially when those programs and faculty already face external attacks. If representation at events like Accepted Students Day truly matters—and it does—then departments and programs central to student belonging must be properly resourced and structurally supported. Otherwise, universities risk misunderstanding the very values they claim to uphold, as faculty, staff, and students feel an absence of belonging.  

Moments like this also follow a familiar historical pattern that has been even more amplified as of late. Throughout history, individuals and communities who have pressed institutions to live up to their stated ideals have often been portrayed as too demanding or too disruptive. Figures such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, and Fannie Lou Hamer were routinely described in such terms—not because their claims lacked merit, but because they exposed institutional discomfort. These attempts to limit their public activism and value can function as a subtle tool for managing tension, shifting focus away from structural failures.  

This situation also raises other urgent questions about the role of contingent faculty in higher education. When those who contribute most directly to student success remain structurally vulnerable—particularly in fields already under siege—the long-term stability and integrity of the institution itself come into question. Universities that depend on labor they refuse to fully recognize or support create a fundamental misalignment between their public commitments and their operational realities. 

At its core, this is not about a single contract decision. It is about alignment. What would it mean for universities to bring their structures into genuine alignment with their stated values? What would it look like to recognize and sustain the relational labor that actually connects students to the institution—especially when those very programs face coordinated external challenges and proposed consolidations? And how can higher education move beyond symbolic gestures toward systems that reliably support the people and programs, particularly that impact unerrepresented minorities, who are historically and currently under attack, that make belonging real? These questions are not abstract. They are being asked right now—in classrooms, faculty meetings, union halls, and by students themselves. These are the kinds of questions asked when universities fail to retain what they celebrate.  

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In 2010, Hugo “was born in a nest overlooking Lake Minnewaska in the majestic Shawangunk Mountains of New Paltz,” according to a profile posted on the SUNY New Paltz website. “He came to the SUNY New Paltz campus and learned how to spread his wings and soar!”

Hugo was chosen by the student body after the Athletics Department was looking for an updated image and a change from their previous mascot Gussie the Goshawk. Hugo was chosen as the mascot, named after original founder Hugo Freer.

However, this story may seem a little more complicated than first thought. According to Hugo, he was chosen as the school’s mascot after a brutal competition with an equally brutal ending.

“It was between me and a rabbit,” Hugo said in a 2014 interview. “So I ate the rabbit.”

Hugo is a huge fan of strategy board games, finding them a great source of community.

“Nothing beats a classic game of Catan, because trading resources and building up a thriving community with my fellow Hawks is the ultimate way to strengthen our flock.”

Hugo also won SUNY’s Mascot Madness competition in 2013, where he emerged from a crowded field to reign supreme. He has yet to reclaim his former glory, but still has prepped himself for victory.

“I’ve been preening my feathers to a high gloss and polishing my beak. If I’m going to be the face of Mascot Madness, I need to look fly – literally,” Hugo said in an interview before this year’s Mascot Madness. Hugo lost in the third round of the competition, but maybe next year will be his year.

Despite his losing streak and his indeterminate age, Hugo continues to serve as our mascot with pride. Happy birthday Hugo!

The post Happy Birthday: Hugo the Hawk Turns 16 (or 34) appeared first on The New Paltz Oracle.

Sam McCullagh:

Hello, my name is Sam McCullagh and I will be one of The Oracle’s news editors next semester. I am an English major who cares about library sciences and the preservation of human records, and I hope to carry this passion into my role as news editor.

Working alongside news editor Theo Brown and Editor-in-Chief Ava Simone, I hope to build on the work that has been accomplished by previous editors. Delivering informative, fact-based articles on topics that are important to the community is my top priority, and I look forward to carrying this out.

Theo Brown:

Hi, my name is Theo Brown, and I am going to be the news editor for the foreseeable future. I am currently a second-year journalism major.

My cohort Sam McCullagh and I have massive plans for the news section next year, and we are excited to grow The Oracle exponentially. With their help, and the expert oversight of our future Editor-in-Chief Ava Simone, the section will flourish into the beautiful chrysanthemum that it ought to be.

I cannot wait to pour my all into this paper – take this letter as a vote of confidence.

Thank you for this beautiful opportunity.

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Prior to publication of this final issue, The Oracle’s Editor-in-Chief, Kyle Bredberg, mysteriously disappeared into the woods. Eventually, News Editor Sara Vala managed to follow a trail of empty Joggy cans to the side of the Hudson River, where Bredberg resided, bemoaning his lack of recognition. In exchange for returning to complete this final issue, Vala offered Bredberg one final interview, no cuts, no filters, just a simple, honest conversation.

Vala: Beautiful day out huh?

Bredberg: Well, I haven’t seen the sun in . . . eight months so it’s rather nice?

Vala: Right, we can just get started. So Kyle, can I call you Kyle? (Bredberg shook his head) No? In any case, you started in the Fall 2023 as a lowly copy-editor writing sub-par features pieces, and then two years later, you became the Editor-in-Chief. How did that happen?

Bredberg: There were a few steps in between those two steps that I think you’re leaving out. Quite frankly, I was just terrible. I was a terrible writer, I was a terrible photographer and I was a terrible interviewer. And then suddenly, I became great, and since I’ve become great, I’ve been great. And now I’m the greatest. Does that answer your question?

Vala: I suppose . . . for the reader’s sake, I’m wondering if you can tell me what you mostly do in the office. You have this position of Editor-in-Chief, but what does the Editor-in-Chief actually do? 

Bredberg: The Editor-in-Chief doesn’t do anything. 

Vala: Um … well, I more so mean, what do you do on those production nights when we’ve been there for 16-18 hours at a time?

Bredberg: I like to let my really extremely competent staff do all the work while I just coast on their backs and take all of the credit. This year, I really haven’t had to do anything. 

Vala: I note that sometimes during production nights, you’ll stand up, you’ll get really loud and energetic, or you’ll start standing on chairs and tables shouting. What impression are you trying to leave the staff with?

Bredberg: Fear.

Vala: Elaborate.

Bredberg: I tried running The Oracle by making the most unwelcoming environment possible, and a lot of people didn’t like that. But the reason for that is that journalism is an unwelcoming place. And so, by creating the most unwelcoming, hostile environment, they’re able to see what the world is really like. When my father would subject me to emotional abuse as a child, he would always tell me, “this is what the real world is like!” And I found that to be incredibly traumatizing. So, I figured that would be the perfect thing to put on my underlings at The Oracle. 

Vala: Continuing the generational trauma I see . . . moving on now, describe to me your editorial policy. The Oracle tends to deviate from AP standards. Speak to me about that.

Bredberg: You keep talking about policy, policy, AP style. Sara, there is no policy. There is only what Kyle wants.

Vala: And what does Kyle, I mean, Mr. Bredberg, want at this moment?

Bredberg: (pauses while leaning on a fallen tree) … A stable love life. Another thing The Oracle has taken from me.

Vala: It sounds like The Oracle doesn’t leave you much time to do other activities, schoolwork, work a steady-paying job, pursue any sort of hobbies. Do you feel relaxed?

Bredberg: I don’t think I’ve felt very relaxed since I became Editor-in-Chief. The one solace I did have from my life of suffering was my sleep, which I used to get a lot of. But now I can’t sleep unless I’m under the influence of substances.

Vala: Did you come into this paper with raging addictions or did the paper give you those?

Bredberg: The paper is my raging addiction. I’m obsessed with this paper. I love this paper.

Vala: Pivoting now, do you think that The Oracle has a major impact on the campus or the town? 

Bredberg: I think it has an impact on the town.

Vala: Comment further on the social impact–

Bredberg: Look, I tried to get rid of our paper. I tried to make it all digital. 

Vala: Did you now? 

Bredberg: I did. It was one of my ideas. It was shut down by the staff . . . It’s all ego. I’m egoless. So, I can let go of the print paper. I don’t need to hold a physical paper. Do I have a wall of every single issue behind my desk in the office? I do, but I don’t need it.

Vala: Have you considered the possibility that you may have an ego?

Bredberg: No. I don’t think that I do. As I’ve said before, every feeling I’ve ever had is true and is deserved and real. When you’re as great as I am, even being so humble can seem like you have an ego.

Vala: I want to touch on something more contemporary, specifically concerning artificial intelligence in journalism. If the AI revolution were to happen and journalists were out of their jobs, what would the next pivot be for The Oracle?

Bredberg: Oh man, we should lean fully into our namesake and become diviners. 

Vala: Elaborate.

Bredberg: We should convert The Oracle office into a . . . divining room, and we should fill it with orbs, tarot cards and these things that people use to predict the futures of members, and we should charge students to tell them their futures and give them prophecies.

Vala: Isn’t there a certain fee that students pay to already access many of these things for free?

Bredberg: I don’t know what that is. I’ve never heard of that.

Vala: Are you religious, Mr. Bredberg?

Bredberg: Not particularly, only in my own divinity.

Vala: And that is?

Bredberg: All-encompassing.

Vala: Poetic.

Bredberg: Tell me more about this fee.

Vala: You should know about it. You single-handedly saved it. I don’t know how your ego lets you forget that.

Bredberg: Ah, the Student Activity Fee. How I could I forget?

Vala: Well, you’ve saved The Oracle for the next two years until the activity fee goes up for a referendum vote again, and in two years, The Oracle is going to hit its 100th volume.

Bredberg: And what a symbolic volume to be completely defunded on.

Vala: Do you think that it’s going to be defunded because you won’t be there?

Bredberg: I think it might get defunded because I was here.

Vala: (pauses for a few seconds) . . . It seems I’ve forgotten my next question.

Bredberg: Well, that’s why you’re just the News Editor.

Vala: In any case, just scanning through my notes . . . Since you took office, The Oracle has been at the site of many controversies. Instead of rehashing all of the wrongdoings that we’ve done, what’s something that you wish The Oracle was in controversy for?

Bredberg: (sighs) . . . Well, I will say just looking back on all those controversies, I think the most difficult of those controversies for me was the one involving myself and my appearance. It’s very difficult to have people talk about how attractive you are online. 

Vala: I truly empathize. Let’s think in hypotheticals for a second — you’re good at those, considering your ego and all. Who’s one person that you look up to as inspiration?

Bredberg: Non-hypothetically speaking, I would say I don’t look up to anyone, because who is greater than myself? It’s hard for me to have a hypothetical scenario where I’m not the best. 

Vala: But you can try.

Bredberg: Hm, I would say I look up to Alexander the Great. He’s given some passionate speeches on YouTube. I also look up to past Editor-in-Chiefs, specifically one. Henry Cavanagh. I look up to him.

Vala: In your eyes, what is legacy to you?

Bredberg: What is legacy? Legacy means you’re dead. You’ve died.

Vala: What?

Bredberg: Mike Tyson? You don’t get the reference? That just popped in my head.

Vala: No … is that what legacy means to you?

Bredberg: Legacy is just preserving the good parts of what we’ve done. We’ve done some good things, we’ve made some mistakes and hopefully those get left behind. Legacy is learning from those mistakes, keeping those lessons going forward and carrying on the ways that we’ve served the community.

Vala: Wow . . . are you being truthful?

Bredberg: No. Legacy is everything to me. It’s all that I care about, all that I think about. I want my name to be sung in The Oracle office for generations. I never wanna leave. I’ll be back.

Vala: Yet miraculously, you’re graduating. Why haven’t you taken up another minor or microcredential or stayed enrolled long enough to run the paper for another year?

Bredberg: You know, it was very tempting. I thought, “what’s another class?” But I want us to think about Michael Jordan’s Washington Wizard years. No one likes that, no one wants to remember that. And when you are the greatest of all time, which I certainly am, you have to leave at the top. You have to leave when you know that stepping away will make everything crumble. So I want to leave now, when I am the greatest and when the paper will fall apart without me, just so that I can watch it burn and say “that was because of me.”

Vala: My penultimate question for you Mr. Bredberg: What’s next? You obviously tried to quit earlier, and I managed to talk you off the proverbial ledge, but we’ve got one more official issue left. Where are you going afterwards? What’s in store for your future?

Bredberg: There’s never been a future for me. The Oracle was it. I think I’m going to go into the woods.

Vala: Like you did just now?

Bredberg: (slurps inconspicuously with no response)

Vala: No future internships in mind? No careers in journalism?

Bredberg: Yes, yes, I’m a very talented journalist. I’m exceptional. I’m great. I’m gonna be the best to ever come out of New Paltz.

Vala: Some might agree …

Bredberg: For me, there’s never been a future past The Oracle, so how do those things even matter to me? We’ve done what we’ve done. 

Vala: So, what is The Oracle all about?

Bredberg: The Oracle this year was an experiment of how much two people can push the boundaries of a publication and influence a school while other people take the credit. 

Vala: And would you say that it was successful?

Bredberg: I think it was definitely successful. Do you think it was successful?

Vala: I’m not being interviewed, am I? I’m just the News Editor.

Bredberg: You are.

Vala: And you, the Editor-in-Chief, are about to leave this newspaper with 71 articles under your belt, either published on your own or co-published with someone else. Looking back on those articles, if you had the power to erase one of them from the face of the planet, both in print and online, which one would that be?

Bredberg: I would say there were a few articles I wish I could have rewritten that I could have done better. But I don’t regret going to a single event, interviewing a single person. I just wish I could have done them the honor of being a better writer and reporter at that time and to have covered them better.

Vala: Do you hold the public in high regard?

Bredberg: Sara, the great thing about journalism is you see the people doing. When you’re just observing the world and social media, you see a lot of bad things. When you’re in journalism, you see those bad things, but you also see the people that are doing, the people that are putting in the work every day, that are running the organizations that are fighting, that are trying to make change. The world feels a lot more active, and it feels like it’s moving in a lot better of a direction.

Vala: And what direction is that?

Bredberg: Hopefully one where I’m governor.

Vala: Oh! This is the first time I’m hearing of this.

Bredberg: Yes, I’ve never spoken about it before.

Vala: No, that’s quite the pivot: journalist to governor. New York State doesn’t really have a great track record for governors and political leaders as a whole.

Bredberg: Certainly, it won’t get any better under my leadership.

Vala: Do you think that any of these articles or maybe this interview will have an impact on your bid?

Bredberg: Yeah, maybe in 20 years if the public has no sense of humor . . . I don’t think these are gonna hurt me at all, Sara. I stand behind every word that I’ve said. I’ve never spoken ironically. I’ve never been sarcastic. I’ve always said how I feel. 

The post Vala Interviews Bredberg: A Satirical Interview appeared first on The New Paltz Oracle.

A group of friends drunkenly have the entire restaurant sing their taco buddy “Happy Birthday.” The lids and straws have run out at the drink dispenser. The drive-thru line is almost to the street.

It’s a Saturday night, and Taco Bell in New Paltz has opened.

The long awaited Mexican fast food branch, located at 238 Main St. celebrated its grand opening on April 18 after months of construction. The restaurant was decorated with balloons and held a ribbon cutting ceremony prior to opening. 

Since the New Paltz Town Planning Board first received an application for a site approval in August 2023, the restaurant has been long awaited by students and residents alike. In August 2025, the town issued a site plan approval and construction followed shortly after. Applications for hire went out to the public in December. 

Once the doors opened, the restaurant faced a heavy flow of customers throughout the day and night. “We had people lined up sitting outside waiting for us to open while we were cutting the ribbon,” said the district manager that oversees the store.

One of the reasons for the excitement surrounding Taco Bell is its proximity to campus. Prior to the New Paltz location, the closest locations were in Poughkeepsie and Kingston, both over 20 minutes away. “It’s just a little easier than having to go to Kingston or Newburgh and it just adds something. [New Paltz] is a great town for food … and it’s great to add something different that’s fast food,” a shift leader at the new location said. 

“I’m really excited for the Taco Bell grand opening, because I love Taco Bell. I love the food … It’s a really good place to just be here with my friends,” said Genesis Geismar, a student at SUNY New Paltz. 

“Trust me, we have been waiting for this place to open up since freshman year. The workers seem really nice, really welcoming. They even gave me a free drink, which was really kind,” she continued. 

“This has been in the works for about four months,” the district manager said. “We did hire some kids that were some students at [SUNY New Paltz], but we also looked for [people from other places].” She continued, “We had been training in Poughkeepsie, and then last week we got the building together, set everything up.”

That same manager shared that the reception to the Taco Bell has been great, “New Paltz is a great town. We love the community and so far they’ve been good to us.”

Employees, including that manager, were constantly checking in on customers’ meals and experiences. “We are customer maniacs,” she said. “People come here for great food, but we also like to make sure we get on great service.”

The new Taco Bell’s hours are from 9 a.m. to 1 a.m., Sunday through Thursday, and it is open until 2 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. The interior dining area is open until 11 p.m. all days. 

“Come get some tacos and have a taco-tastic day,” said the district manager.

The post Taco Bell Wraps Up Construction with Taco-tastic Opening appeared first on The New Paltz Oracle.

Bridging the Divide was organized by the SUNY New Paltz Political Science and International Relations Association, a student-run organization. The PSIRA, currently run by co-presidents Jordan Brown and Julia Montesano, meets weekly to discuss the state of local and international politics. To close out the spring semester, the group decided to host an open invitation event for anyone politically minded to come and participate in non-judgmental, neutral conversation.

The event was the first of its kind, according to Brown, who assumed charge and revived the club with Montesano in the fall. “The partisan polarization is one of my biggest pet peeves,” said Brown. “I think it prevents a lot of work that needs to get done. I think it prevents a lot of communication.” 

The night began with some mingling between attendees. There was a mix of students and faculty in attendance, along with some community members and New Paltz Town Supervisor Tim Rogers.

Though the event’s marketing aimed to foster neutral discussions from students across the political spectrum, PSIRA felt both disappointed but unsurprised to see that much of their attendance leaned primarily left-wing.

“We did a lot of outreach, didn’t get too many responses,” said Brown. “I think if we do it again, we’ll have better luck.” 

Attendants were split into groups and encouraged to talk amongst themselves and get to know each other before delving into questions carefully prepared by the PSIRA. These questions included general discussions about the importance of bipartisanship and whether or not attendants found it necessary. 

Each group was also presented with three theoretical situations that they were meant to discuss and form opinions on. These situations included a nuclear power facility being built, low income housing in the community and discussion of AI data farms. The groups were moved around between discussion questions to ensure that all attendants got to hear differing viewpoints and engage with each other. 

As the night wrapped up, tables shared their answers and discussions with the whole group, and conversation moved past the pre-established questions and on to more personal discussions on poverty, social security and how to bridge the gap between both parties using empathy and connection.

Though co-presidents Brown and Montesano are graduating, the club has not lost momentum. They continue hosting a yearly trip to Washington D.C., and plan on doing more events like this one in the future. The PSIRA currently meets every other Wednesday at 7 p.m. and is open to students of all political affiliations.

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