🎓 Why college might look different this year

It’s Monday, Boston.

🙌 BREAKING: Aside from some possible thunderstorms late tonight, it looks like this stretch of stunning weather is sticking around through Thursday. Please clap.

👀 What’s on tap today:

• How to help Maui

• Mass. state seal survey

• Kowloon wedding recap

Up first...

HIGHER ED

Back-to-campus predictions

Move-in day is just around the corner. And Dr. Laura De Veau, a local higher ed administration professor and consultant, thinks this school year at local colleges and universities might look a little different.

Here are some trends she thinks we should look out for (and she’s already batting 1.000 based on one prediction from earlier this year):

🏃‍First-year students are going to hit the ground running. Unlike graduating seniors who started college during the thick of the pandemic, De Veau predicts incoming first-years are going to have the most normal college experience since the class of 2019. Many first-years had in-person proms, parties, and dates in high school. And that “traditional on-ramp to the campus” will set them up to “eclipse upperclassmen in terms of connecting to one another,” contributing to campus culture, and pushing schools to respond to their needs.

🪧 We’ll see more unionization across the board. One impact of the Great Resignation is employee empowerment, “and unionization and demanding better benefits is one of the ways it’s manifesting,” De Veau said. Like we saw with Boston University RAs joining SEIU Local 509 earlier this year, De Veau expects to see grad students, faculty, and facilities workers also joining the effort. Anecdotally, she saw a flyer in a dining hall advertising job openings in dining services with “union wages,” a kind of sign she predicts will be “unavoidable.”

🤖 Chat GPT and AI policies will become clearer. Some local schools have not yet adopted these policies, in part, due to the rapidly evolving nature of the AI world. But De Veau anticipates we’ll see some more comprehensive AI statements that directly fold into syllabi and academic dishonesty policies. We may even see schools hiring leaders for this issue. “Faculty like very clear policy,” De Veau said, so “they’re going to be seeking clarity so they can address it in the classroom.”

🎓 Holistic enrollment will be the buzz phrase of the year. And we’re already seeing this unfold with elite schools, including Harvard, adapting admission essay questions in response to the Supreme Court throwing out affirmative action. In addition to changing essay prompts, De Veau thinks we may also see the return of admission interviews, which originally fell off because they’re a pain in the neck. She wonders if “this may be the death knell to the standardized tests” as “we know those tests are flawed and privilege rich, white kids.”

QUICK QUESTION!

👀 We’re trying to learn more about our audience, so we want to know … how old are you?

GIVEAWAY ALERT

Free tickets to Guns N’ Roses TONIGHT!

We’re giving away two pairs of PREMIUM seats to Guns N' Roses tonight at Fenway. To be eligible, refer a friend below and have them accept your invite before noon today (August 21). If you’ve already referred a friend to B-Side (and they’ve accepted), you're eligible! Full details below*

CITY

Quick & dirty headlines

🏠 Mass. ain’t messing around with the new MBTA housing law. The MBTA Communities Act requires 177 communities across Eastern Mass. along MBTA corridors to pass new zoning to create denser housing. But some communities (*cough* Brookline), have flirted with the idea of ignoring the law and just paying a fine instead. So to discourage that, the state added some new rules to the law, threatening that if towns don’t rezone, they’ll lose out of more than a dozen state grant programs, which provide millions of dollars to those cities and towns.

🌪️ Toto, we’re not in Massachusetts anymore. Mass. and Rhode Island were serving big Kansas energy with three tornadoes on Friday. One twister hit North Attleboro and Mansfield, one touched down in Weymouth, and another was confirmed in Smithfield, R.I. A woman driving down I-295 in Johnston, R.I., reportedly got caught in the funnel, lifting her car 10 feet in the air. And while there’s no video of her incident, it seems pretty believable after watching this video of the twister cutting across I-295.

❤️ These local restaurants are supporting Maui wildfire relief. Here’s some news you can use: In the aftermath of the Maui wildfire tragedy, local restaurateur Brian Moy is fundraising for the Maui Food Bank, and he needs your help. Through the end of the month, each of Moy’s restaurants — Shōjō (Cambridge and Boston), Ruckus, and Nomai — are offering specialty cocktails and dishes where 100% of the proceeds will support the food bank. His family’s ties to Hawaii run deep, so this is their way of giving back.

🤔 Officials want your input on the new state seal and motto. Should the seal have a turkey (the state’s game bird) or a cod fish? You decide. The commission working to revise the state’s seal and motto just released a survey to the public, giving residents a say in the new iterations. You’ll get to rank how important it is certain natural features of Mass. are represented, and vote on possible new credos (my personal fav was “For the common good”). You can fill out the survey here.

THINGS TO DO

Weekday plans

🍿 See your favorite ogre on the big screen. There’s a new green monster taking over Fenway Park on Tuesday, thanks to a $10 showing of “Shrek” on the center field video board.

💌 Find the LOYL at Boston Public Market. They’re hosting CitySwoon this Thursday for a night of speed dating … with a twist. Fill out a five-minute profile, then be matched on a series of six to eight quick-fire dates with the most compatible mates in the room.

🍗 Taste the best in Boston BBQ and bourbon. The Smoke Shop and Chattermark Distillers are hosting a collab event on Thursday where you’ll get to sip three of the finest Boston spirits with a side of BBQ.

🚢 Set sail on a Taylor Swift cruise. Your ticket includes a Friday sunset cruise on Boston Harbor with food, drinks, drag and Burlesque performances, and a night of singing and dancing to Swift’s discography with DJ Joslyn Fox.

🚲 Take a spin class for a good cause. Cycle for Stepping Strong will raise money for trauma research and care at this Friday spin class fundraiser at Handle Bar in Kendall Square.

ONE LAST THING

Kowloon wedding recap

If you thought the Kowloon wedding was going to be a joke, prepare to eat your words.

Some behind-the-scenes photos from this weekend’s nuptials at the Route 1 restaurant just dropped, and it appears to be the love child of a Red Sox game and a red-carpet event. Catherine Band was the wedding photographer of the evening and documented the night on her IG stories.

She wrote that “never have I ever worn a jersey to photograph a wedding, but your girl follows a dress code, so here we are.” She then threw on an incredible, red tulle gown for her second ensemble, which appeared to be another piece of the dress code.

The night was complete with a spread of menu favorites, dancing, and for Band, plenty of leftovers, making for an “absolutely epic evening.”

Definitely keep an eye on her IG this week, as I expect we might see some more pics from the big day.

😳 Thanks for reading! I don’t know what I expected from a Kowloon wedding, but didn’t expect that.

🐀 The results are in: Nearly 60% of readers agree they would make the T run later if they had a seat on the MBTA Board of Directors, with one reader saying, “make it run more often and on time! I'll deal with the rats.”

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