News
Club Ento featured in The New York Times
By Ben Fields ’15
April 24, 2015
Few clubs at Hamilton can claim quite the same national publicity as Club Ento. The relatively newly-formed club was recently featured in a New York Times article on the “nascent entomophagy movement.” The article was published in the Education Life section of the Times on April 12. Club president Kyle Burnham ’15 credits Director of Media Relations Vige Barrie with getting the group their newfound national fame.
Club Ento, and Burnham, began the process of putting together their Times article in October when Barrie came to one of the club’s meetings. They were discussing future plans at the time, including recent events such as the club’s recent panel on edible insects and its event at The Little Pub. While some of their events have yet to be planned, Barrie took down the club’s mission and “worked her magic.”
Later in the year, Burnham began working with a Times Education Life editor who spent 17 minutes on the phone with him and had several follow-up emails. While he was happy to have the publicity, many of the questions proved more complicated than they seemed initially. “Answers to questions like ‘so do you eat bugs with every meal?’ involve a somewhat more complex answer than a simple ‘no,’” Burnham said. But after the process, Burnham expressed contentment with the feature in a national newspaper.
Despite the challenges of explaining how Club Ento came about and the movement as a whole, Burnham gained a new appreciation for publicity. He said that one of the greatest challenges for him was finding good pictures for the article. “Since proper documentation is not part of Club Ento’s mission, I tend to forget to take photos of events (let alone ones worthy of a [New York] Times article).”
The Times article covered more than just Club Ento at Hamilton, it discussed the growing bug-eating movement as a whole. While Hamilton may be in the vanguard of entomophagy, the Times noted that University of Texas at Austin has a club called Cramen that combines ramen and crickets and Stockton University in New Jersey has about 24 active members. However, Hamilton’s Club Ento appears to be at the forefront of the movement, boasting a roster of 92 students.