“This generation is far more likely to have a conversation about their mental-health journey or just their general mental well-being. “There has been a huge shift,” said Jack Wheeler, associate director of student wellness at the Hoaglin Center. Since this space opened, I see more students taking the time to do that.”Įven before the first spade of dirt was turned at groundbreaking, the university sought to accommodate a generation of students looking for resources to manage their own well-being.

“But I think there was a disconnect between what was being said and what was being done. “Before Covid, you would hear professors and faculty members say that it’s important to take time away from school work and just destress,” Runk said. More than 2,200 students and staff members registered for wellness programs in the first two months - a total that does not include visits for the medical and individual counseling services offered at Hoaglin. It’s clear students are taking advantage of the wellness-centered programs and opportunities within the limestone walls of the Hoaglin Center, a single-story structure that sits along Denison’s famed Chapel Walk and opened at the start of the 2022-23 school year. What Runk often witnesses, she says, is students using the 16,000-square-foot center for one of its intended purposes - a place to quiet the mind and recharge the body. She doesn’t observe them sitting in the spacious lobby or the outdoor meditation garden with noses buried in laptops. Runk doesn’t notice many fellow students scrolling through their cell phones. There’s a momentum that’s only ever heading one way as hand drums, pulsing electro and a cavalcade of buzzing zurna layer on like a game of Buckaroo, and then bosh! – the bass hits and you’re on a rooftop in Yerevan, staring at the mountains, techno fisting into the night sky.When Raina Runk ’24 walks through the Ann and Thomas Hoaglin Wellness Center, what she doesn’t see tells as much a story about Denison’s commitment to well-being as what she does see. But it’s ‘Right to Riot’ that stands as the album highlight, bringing together old and new in a rising, bona fide rattler of a track. ‘Raining’ swoons and groans with deep, dubby patience while the excellent ‘Round’ sounds deliciously like Embers -era Throwing Snow with its rich, woozy electronica and driving beat. Opener ‘Timelapse’ is sparse and hypnotic whereas the wailing ‘GL’ drops you onto the border of Europe and the Middle East before battering into a satisfying techno punch. After loitering and flyering outside the clubs of east London like an electro William Miller, Hagop found himself helping out Hot Chip and Four Tet on tour, observing their work and gradually developing a collection of his own sounds encouraged, and eventually co-signed, by Kieren Hebden for release on his own Text Records label.Īccording to Hagop, the sounds and vignettes that make up this debut album have been accumulating on a smartphone in his pocket for almost 15 years – from isolated snippets of videos sent by friends to recordings of street musicians – it all comes together on Bolts in a vibrant mix of lo-fi techno and manipulated folk instruments that vividly speak to his Armenian heritage. As a teen, and guitar player in ’90s post-grungers Symposium, he hit the Warped tour and played the main stage at Reading Festival, but also ended up in a debt-ridden split that pushed him away from guitar music and into a growing love of dance. The story of Hagop Tchaparian reads like a reanimation of Almost Famous.

Quiet punch