Issue 13

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF AMHERST COLLEGE SINCE 1868

THE AMHERST

STUDENT

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VOLUME CXLIX, ISSUE 13 l WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2020

AMHERSTSTUDENT.COM

Amid Issues With Work Authorization, International Students Given a New Pathway Sylvie Palmer ’22 and Ryan Yu ’22 Staff Writer and Managing News Editor

Photo courtesy of Zach Jonas ‘22

The college’s Native studies program has seen several financial boosts in the past, including the acquisition of the Kim-Wait/Eisenberg Native American Literature Collection and several Native-authored texts, as above.

$2.5 Million Grant to Bolster Native Studies Program Ryan Yu ’22 Managing News Editor The Five College Consortium announced on Jan. 14 that it received a $2.5 million grant dedicated to enhancing scholarship in its Native American and Indigenous studies (NAIS) program. The grant, which was awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, is among the largest ever received by the consortium.

The consortium’s program allows students to complete a certificate in NAIS, pulling courses, faculty and other resources from across the five colleges to mold the curriculum. Currently, a number of students across the five colleges, including Amherst, are completing the certificate.

According to Sarah Pfatteicher, executive director of the Five

College Consortium, funds from the grant will be disbursed over four years to create additional programming and academic support in NAIS, including three new faculty positions, one new program advisor, new courses, enhancements to existing courses and increased visiting scholars. Specific curricula and pedagogy will be designed and approved by faculty at each individual college in the consortium.

“There will be a steering committee for the grant that includes representatives from each of the campuses. The funding will be managed by the consortium offices, but most of the funds will actually be expended by the individual institutions, at the direction of the steering committee and administrators on the campuses,” Pfatteicher said.

Professor of American Studies Kiara Vigil, a NAIS program advisor who helped write the grant application, expressed “delight” at the award of the grant. “I worked hard on crafting language that would adequately convey all the work we do across the five colleges pertaining to NAIS and what more we can do with this type of support,” she said. “It was really exciting to see these things recognized by the Mellon Foundation.”

Vigil and Professor of American Studies Lisa Brooks, who also advises the NAIS program and contributed to forming the application for the grant, also pointed to the ability to support new faculty at the five colleges as one of the key benefits of the grant. “[Vigil and I] are excited that the grant allows for new hires in the five colleges, including other schools where

students really need Native and Native studies faculty, and schools that have faced retirements of vital faculty in this field,” Brooks wrote in an email interview.

“Having more colleagues will create new opportunities for the certificate program, the annual [five college] NAIS symposium and other types of collaboration we can’t even imagine yet,” Vigil added.

Brooks also noted the potential of the funds to allow for a more interdisciplinary approach to NAIS. “We advocate that Native knowledge and Indigenous methodologies should not just be taught in Native studies classes, but in biology and environmental studies, in political science and law, as well as in English and history,” she

Continued on page 4

The college recently approved an alternate pathway to work authorization for international students, a move that comes after many lost jobs and internships due to delays in the previous process. The federal program, called Curricular Practical Training (CPT), serves as a form of employment authorization for international students on F-1 student visa status, provided that the employment is for college credit and integral to the student’s studies.

Last year, several international students experienced delays in processing for Optional Practical Training (OPT) — previously the college’s only pathway for work authorization — which took upwards to five months for approval in some cases. Because international students cannot begin paid employment in the U.S. without proper authorization, many students had to push back or were no longer eligible for their offers. Comparatively, CPT takes between several days to a couple of weeks for processing.

In response to OPT delays, the college instituted emergency use of CPT this past summer and began considering CPT as a permanent work authorization pathway at the start of this academic year. A large number of international students

Continued on page 4

News Dec. 9, 2019 – Jan. 29, 2019

>>Dec. 9, 2019 2:49 p.m., 79 South Pleasant Street A vehicle was damaged from snow falling off a roof. >>Dec. 12, 2019 2:01 a.m., Plimpton House Amherst Fire Department and officers responded to a fire alarm and found it was caused by someone spraying a dry chemical fire extinguisher. There was no smoke or fire.

11:06 p.m., Ford Hall An officer responded to a report of marijuana smoke in a residence hall. >>Dec. 13, 2019 3:19 p.m., Wilson Admissions Office An individual reported strange phone calls that were not threatening. >>Dec. 16, 2019 11:46 a.m., Morris Pratt Dormitory An officer took a report of a snack machine intentionally broken. >>Dec. 18, 2019 4:11 p.m., Greenway Building B An officer took a report of several burglaries from a residence hall room. >>Jan. 4, 2020 11:38 a.m., Greenway Building B An officer confiscated a toaster oven and burned candle. >>Jan. 8, 2020

Billy Jang Thoughts on Theses

9:19 p.m., Nicholls Biondi Hall An officer responded to a report of offensive language written on a board directed at an individual. >>Jan. 9, 2020 9:55 p.m., Garman House An officer confiscated a bag of marijuana left unattended in a common area. >>Jan. 10, 2020 10:41 a.m., Moore Dormitory An individual reported that while they were sleeping someone opened the door to their room and left without taking anything. >>Jan. 19, 2020 3:19 p.m., Orr Rink Officers responded to a report of a coach upset at a youth hockey game and found no one in the area upon arrival.

Department of Computer Science

Billy Jang is a computer science and mathematics double major writing a computer science thesis on security in machine learning systems. His advisor is Assistant Professor of Computer Science Scott Alfeld.

Q: Could you tell me about your thesis?

A: At a high-level, my thesis is taking a look at security vulnerabilities found in a field called machine learning, which is pretty closely related to statistics. My thesis work focuses on whether a hypothetical attacker might be able to reverse engineer specific aspects of a dataset if they have the ability to observe how a given model updates when it receives new data. This is a great project for me since the work ends up being a decent split between math and computer science, which are my two majors. It’s also a great primer for graduate school because I want to eventually pursue a Ph.D. in machine learning.

>>Jan. 22, 2020 3:38 p.m., Orr Rink Officers confiscated ketamine from an individual.

Q: What do you think is relevant about your thesis for general audiences?

A: Considering how much data we put online now, I think these sorts of attacks are always something to worry about. That being said, my work does show that for specific situations there is a limit on what the attacker can learn about the original dataset. This might make us look at other questions related to data privacy, such as, “is a given person in my dataset,” rather than, “what is my entire dataset?”

>>Jan. 24, 2020 12:42 a.m., Alumni Gym Officers provided assistance to an individual that was lost by helping them reunite with friends.

Q: What are some real world applications of your research?

A: I think the canonical example that people think about would be a spam filter. Our data refers to an initial inbox for a person and the spam filter changes a little bit ev-

>>Jan. 21, 2020 3:19 p.m., Hitchcock Dormitory An officer took a report of a theft of money from a room that occured in January 2019.

ery time more emails come in. If an attacker is able to observe how that spam filter changes for a couple updates, in certain situations, the attacker would be able to know exactly how the spam filter would update for the future. One could also imagine higher stakes situations where an attacker is able to observe a couple updates.

Q: What sparked your thesis idea?

A: The idea mostly came from my advisor, Professor Alfeld. We were talking about a related topic called machine teaching, and I thought it would be interesting to extend some of the ideas in machine teaching to this setting in which an attacker gets to observe multiple changes to the model as they come in. Professor Alfeld took that idea and helped me make it into my current project.

Q: What kinds of research have you done for your thesis so far?

A: On a given day, I’m either reading papers about some related topic, doing some math to try and figure out a problem or writing code that will run an experiment so I can validate any of the theoretical results that I find. It’s definitely very time consuming, but I’m trying to strike a balance considering it is senior year. My advice would be to do a little bit of work each day. Ultimately, senior year is something that I think most of us want to try and enjoy, especially after a grueling three years of work.

Q: What is the most rewarding

part about the process of writing a thesis?

A: I’ve been spending a lot of time learning new things in math and computer science so that I can tackle specific problems for my thesis. For example, learning a new programming language or learning more linear algebra. Being able to use those new skills to arrive at some novel solution to a problem is really satisfying. In my situation, this was a bit off because I ended up not really finding a solution but I think the main idea still stands.

Q: What is the hardest part of writing a thesis?

A: Probably all of the mistakes.

I’ve spent hours in the lab working on some problem only to realize that it’s because there’s some tiny error that I forgot about, or that I made some assumptions about mathematics that are not necessarily true. For example, the latter situation ended up in me submitting work to a workshop that was actually completely wrong. That was definitely stressful, but overall the entire process is still really rewarding.

Q: Do you have any advice for students that plan on writing a thesis?

A: I would recommend that they find a way to strike a balance between thesis-ing and enjoying senior year. Easier said than done, but the entire process is still 100 percent worth it.

— Alexi Lee ’22 and Jake Shapiro ’22

News 3

The Amherst Student • January 29, 2020

College Implements Standardized Course Evaluations Zach Jonas ’22 Managing News Editor The college implemented a new standardized course evaluation system for the past fall semester. The evaluation system, which was approved in a faculty-wide vote last May, aims to more fairly assess tenure-track faculty members and to receive teaching assessments from students without implicit biases. The initiative comes in part through recommendations based off data collection from the Center for Teaching and Learning’s (CTL) over the last few semesters.

Though course evaluation systems existed among departments prior to the standardized system, questions differed greatly between individual classes and professors. Provost and Dean of the Faculty Catherine Epstein noted that pre-tenure faculty could not be fairly assessed because of the lack of uniformity in course evaluations.

“Since the Committee of Six evaluates all pre-tenure colleagues across the college, it seems appropriate that the same form should be used by all,” Epstein wrote in an email interview with The Student. The Committee of Six, the executive committee of the faculty responsible for issues including tenure and promotion, reviews the evaluations in consultation with senior departmental faculty when considering faculty for tenure.

Epstein added that “[the college has] heard for some years that pre-tenure faculty … desired a college-wide teaching evaluation form,” echoing reports from a 2018 accreditation review of the college by the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE) which found that “untenured faculty have requested a more standardized approach to teaching evaluations.”

In a statement to The Student, Director of the CTL Riley Caldwell-O’Keefe and Associate Director for the CTL Sarah Bunnell said that along with creating a standardized course evalua-

Photo courtesy of Zach Jonas ’22

The Center for Teaching and Learning (shown above) conducted student focus groups in its search for a course evaluation system. The research highlighted the needs for both a standardized assessment that mitigated the risks of implicit biases while allowing the students to critique the course. tion form, an ad hoc committee formed by the provost’s office was also tasked with designing questions that considered issues of implicit bias.

The value of course evaluations as a tool to advance teaching is a debated topic in the academic world, Caldwell-O’Keefe and Bunnell added. The American Sociological Association (ASA) declared course evaluations “problematic” and affected by implicit bias in a statement last fall — especially evaluations of female professors in male-dominated areas of study.

In an investigation published

by The Student last winter, Editor-in-Chief Emerita Shawna Chen ’20 wrote that women faculty of color face more challenges receiving tenure.

The ASA described the challenges of implicit biases: “Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) …

are weakly related to other measures of teaching effectiveness and student learning … and they can be influenced by course characteristics like time of day, subject, class size and whether the course is required, all of which are unrelated to teaching effectiveness,” the association wrote.

SETs should instead be used as a part of a holistic process when evaluating teaching, the statement continues. SETs are better used to assess instructors by evaluating “patterns in an instructor’s feedback over time,” the ASA statement argues.

The statement also described how students use stereotypical gendered language when describing faculty and unfairly rate female instructors when evaluating women.

“But students provide the most consistent glimpse we have into the learning environment,

and if we ask the right questions that students can reliably answer, it can provide helpful insight about the learning environment,” Caldwell-O’Keefe and Bunnell said.

“Getting good course feedback depends on asking the right questions,” they added.

Some students on campus felt lukewarm about the course evaluations. Lucy Carlson ’22 said she completed all the course evaluations for her classes last semester as candidly as possible. Still, she felt as though the questions could have been better tailored for each class to give better feedback.

“I feel like the things I would have wanted to say about the class, anonymously, wouldn’t have been good responses to the questions asked,” she said. “I ended up filling out the ‘other’ section to give my thoughts,” she said.

Caldwell-O’Keefe and Bun-

nell also noted that the questions should aim to provoke responses on how the faculty member is promoting engagement and learning in the classroom. The phrasing and specific wording of the questions were discussed in depth while the evaluation program was created, according to Caldwell-O’Keefe and Bunnell.

While the course evaluations are the same for all departments and professors, one question at the end of the evaluation may be customized by the faculty members for their specific class. “[We are] continually impressed by the thoughtfulness of faculty,” Caldwell-O’Keefe and Bunnell said regarding the faculty’s support of these changes. “[We] appreciate the ways that this environment enables many perspectives to be on the table and considered in order to come to a decision,” they said.

The Amherst Student • January 29, 2020

News 4

“Already Strong” NAIS Program to Benefit from Grant Continued from page 1 said. “This grant will allow faculty across the five colleges to begin to think about how to bring Indigenous studies into their classes, and we’ll be thinking carefully together about how to make that possible in a way that is respectful and thoughtful in relation to Native nations here in New England and far beyond.”

Students also had a variety of hopes and expectations for the grant. “It is my hope that not only will we have more professors in Native studies but that they will be Native themselves,” wrote Sarah Montoya ’21, co-president of Indigenous and Native Citizens of Amherst, in an email interview. “I also feel that it would be lovely to hire faculty from tribal colleges, such as the Institute for American

Indian Art.” For Brooks, Vigil and Pfatteicher, the grant adds a significant boost to an already strong program. “The NAIS committee and the [five college] certificate that it created have both existed for more than two decades, and are doing well — the committee is active and certificate enrollment is strong,” said Pfatticher. “This additional expertise will enrich the content

of what is currently offered and create new opportunities and experiences that we haven’t yet imagined.”

“We’ve been well supported here since Lisa Brooks and I first arrived in 2012 with the mandate to build such a program within American studies at the college,” added Vigil. She pointed to the expansion of the college’s Archives and Special Collections to include

collections related to Native studies as an example of the program’s growth. “The acquisition of the Native Books Collection by Archives and Special Collections greatly enhanced my ability to offer NAIS courses here. Amherst received our own grant from the Mellon Foundation that will further support work with this important collection. It’s a very vibrant time for Native studies,” she said.

CPT Paves New Employment Paths, but Not Without Challenges Continued from page 1 petitioned the college to expand the CPT program, including in a letter obtained by The Student that was signed by 53 international students and addressed to Dean of Faculty and Provost Catherine Epstein and the Committee of Six. “As the international students of Amherst College, we write this letter to urge the Committee of Six to consider enlarging the Curricular Practical Training (CPT) program at Amherst College, as to enable international students to pursue their experiential summer opportunities without facing the troubles associated with current work authorization options,” the letter read. The letter cited the incompatibility of OPT with other academic opportunities like study-abroad programs, the financial burden of the delays and the widespread use of CPT at other universities and colleges as key reasons to implement CPT permanently.

CPT, however, comes with its own set of challenges. International students must meet an extensive list of qualifications in order to apply for CPT. One must be a full time student in the US for at least one academic year and prove that they are in good academic standing.

Then, unlike OPT, the student must pre-register for — listed as COLQ 390H: Learning by Doing: Internship and Fieldwork Reflection in the course catalog — after the summer employment opportunity.

Students are required to remain on campus in the fall semester immediately after their summer intern-

ship or job in order to complete the half-credit course, precluding fall semester study-abroad programs.

Beyond the academic requirements, the summer position in question must directly relate to the student’s declared major. The professor teaching the half-credit course must approve the student’s summer opportunity, and in turn, the prospective employer must provide the student a signed CPT verification letter. Moreover, students must prepare a number of documents to prove that they meet the standards required for CPT authorization, as defined by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The college’s policy outlines that students can only use CPT authorization for a total of two times.

In addition to these obstacles, international students must contend with other unique challenges related to work authorization for summer employment and internship opportunities. Phoenix Shaw ’22, an international student from the U.K., noted that “contributing to the already difficult search for employment is the fact that work authorization is often unclear and differs from employer to employer.”

“I am hopeful that CPT can solve some of the issues, but the process must be explained and students must be made aware of CPT. Only then will it avoid the Amherst curse of lack of awareness,” Shaw wrote to The Student.

Lidia Gutu ’20, an international student from Moldova, noted that applying for CPT won’t aide her search for post-graduation employment opportunities at the end

Photo courtesy of Matai Curzon ’22

International students study in the Center for International Student Engagement above.

Many of them advocated for the implementation of the CPT work authorization program. of this academic year because CPT can only be used in the summers before graduation.

However, she’s excited to see the college “join the lead of other schools that strive to help international students make the most of their undergraduate experience,” especially after facing difficulties with the work authorization process in the past. Still, she emphasized how long delays in programs like OPT have held international students back for several years.

The Center for International Student Engagement (CISE), a resource center for international students, pointed to requirements

from federal laws as the reason for the process it has developed around CPT. “Amherst’s CPT policies have been crafted to comply with federal immigration regulation and guidance and that failure to comply with these regulations would put our F-1 students’ immigration status in jeopardy,” Director of International Student Engagement Hanna Bliss wrote in an email interview. “Given the limitations of some of the regulations, Amherst’s CPT program has been created after much thought, discussion and deliberation as to how we can best serve and support our students.”

Because CISE works within the limiting legal boundaries of the federal government’s immigration regulations, the center is prepared to reevaluate the criteria for enrolling in CPT when that becomes an appropriate measure. According to Bliss, the office will re-work Amherst’s CPT policy “if and when federal regulations and guidance around CPT change.”

CISE encourages all international students to visit their office during drop-in advising hours, schedule an appointment via email, visit the CPT informational page or stop by a CPT information sessions this semester.

Opinion

w

A New Time for Media Literacy Thirty-two years ago this month, students at Hazelwood East High School outside of St. Louis would go from average teenagers to national celebrities as their school became the subject of a Supreme Court case. The case, formally known as Hazelwood School District v.

Kuhlmeier, questioned conceptions of censorship and free press as it evaluated Hazelwood East’s request for student journalists to remove articles on subjects including teen pregnancy and divorce from an issue of the school newspaper. In a defeat for student journalists, the court sided with Hazelwood East, arguing that public schools maintain the right to censor student press as long as its reasoning demonstrates “legitimate pedagogical concern.”

Invoking the anniversary of the Hazelwood decision, Jan. 29 marks the celebration of Student Press Freedom Day, a day of action put forth by the Student Press Law Center to highlight the ever-necessary role of uncensored student press, both historically and in today’s unpredictable political climate. The Student joins the many newsrooms across the country in reaffirming the need for an independent student press to report on issues relevant to the communities which we serve — untainted by the often competing needs of the institutions with which we are simultaneously affiliated.

For some, articles produced by The Student provokes unsavory and uncomfortable conversations that may otherwise go incognito. Last semester saw impassioned debates on affordable housing in the Town of Amherst after an article revealed plans for a single-room occupancy unit across the street from Pratt Field. In the semester prior, The Student was the first and only to report on the drawing of a swastika at an off-campus party; it launched an investigative series on college admissions in the wake of the Operation Varsity Blues scandal; and then the paper offered extensive coverage of the Common Language Document controversy — all in the same issue. The growing buzz these articles incite often requires our news writers to continue on the beat, reporting on the community’s reactions and responses from administration. And the Amherst community goes to great lengths to engage with these articles without much prodding from us editors, submitting op-ed responses to previous articles and weighing in on breaking news. These conversations are sometimes difficult — and even painful — to participate in. But in the everlasting words of the great artist Lizzo, the truth hurts, and it means there’s something more exciting.

And now, the stakes are even higher. By the time Student Press Freedom Day rolls around a year from now, we’ll have gone through a series of Democratic primary elections, an impeachment trial and a national election that will dictate who sits in the Oval Office for the next four years. It’s clichéd because it’s true: the upcoming presidential election is perhaps the most

important one to date, and for many (even most) of us, it will also be our first as voters. It’s an election that comes hot on the heels of the previous that put media and journalists under fire like never before. The very concept of truth itself has been challenged.

Though the debates facilitated between the pages of The Student seem a far leap from those occurring on national, televised stages, it’s all part of the same process. Engaging in democratic discussion begins on the most local level. Research has shown that when people see and understand how political issues affect them directly, they are more inclined to take action. It’s why stories about the affordable housing development at 132 Northampton St., the environmental and human rights harms of Cargill — whose CEO is a college trustee — and the challenges of work authorization for international students all matter so much. They remind us how the ins and outs of life in Amherst play out in agreement with key issues that find themselves in presidential platforms. With a college campus that functions as its own microcosm, the student paper is often the only place to illuminate where we see these challenges at home.

Moreover, as a student paper, we also have a degree of responsibility to teach as we inform. For most of us, The Student’s reporting remains relevant for the four or five years we’re on campus, and soon, what’s printed in the pages of The New York Times, The Boston Globe or The Chicago Tribune will become our local news.

In the nurturing spirit of a college, we have the unique role of being able to help young people, our peers, adapt to a shifting media landscape, one where opinion often passes off as fact, and facts are easily slandered as partisan biases. It can make your head explode trying to piece together what is real and what you yourself believe.

This is why we are launching our media literacy campaign for the year 2020 and announcing it here for the first time. We are going to dedicate the year not just to bringing you straightforward, factual reporting on the community in which we live, but also to shedding more light onto how we do that. We hope that by seeing what goes into crafting a news story, an opinion piece, a features article or an act of investigative journalism, we all can have a better sense of what the information each one carries means for our lives, the issues we care about and how we act upon them.

So join us, as we team up with groups across campus in this mission; read along as we showcase the work that goes into building different sections; listen to the speakers we bring in; and sit in on the workshops we host. And, as always, keep reading student journalism.

- Natalie De Rosa ’21 and Olivia Gieger ’21 Editors-in-Chief

THE AMHERST

STUDENT E X E C U T I V E B OA R D Editors-in-Chief Natalie De Rosa Olivia Gieger Managing News Zach Jonas Ryan Yu Managing Opinion Jae Yun Ham Rebecca Picciotto Managing Arts and Living Seoyeon Kim Arielle Kirven Lauren Kisare Managing Sports Jack Dove Henry Newton Camilo Toruno Managing Design Zehra Madhavan Anna Smith S TA F F Publishers Emmy Sohn Mark Nathin Digital Director Dylan Momplaisir

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The Amherst Student • January 29, 2019

Opinion 6

Seeing Double: No Library for You, Billionaire Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 Columnist About 45 miles away from Amherst and 187 years ago, the small New Hampshire town of Peterborough voted to establish the first tax-supported public library in the United States. The Peterborough Town Library, which is still operational today, uses tax money to buy books and make them available to all. Public libraries, shelved with books, home to educational events and foundational to community, now span across America. And so can their fundamental structure: the collective funding of a collective good.

This structure is known as a universal program, and libraries are a common example. Universal programs take their name from the fact that they benefit everyone in society.

Their most-prevalent opposite in the contemporary United States are means-tested programs, which only benefit people who fit a certain set of qualifications.

Apart from libraries, universal programs include public K-12 schools, Social Security and Medicare. Means-tested programs make up most of what is considered “welfare,” including the Earned-Income Tax Credit (EITC), housing assistance, Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

At first glance, means tests seem to be a good idea — after all, the wealthy shouldn’t receive SNAP or the EITC. And once families are on their feet enough to provide for themselves, they shouldn’t receive welfare either. Right?

Not quite. This argument about “deserved-ness,” trotted out in defense of means tests whenever new government programs are proposed, is dangerous. Means-tested government benefits are less effective, more divisive and less stable than their universal counterparts.

Let’s take SNAP as an example.

More commonly (and misleadingly) known as food stamps, SNAP is a federal and state partnership program that provides limited funds to

low-income recipients each month to purchase food from certain stores.

On its face, SNAP is a program that keeps people from starving. However, as a result of its means tests, it fails.

First of all, to obtain SNAP benefits, you must submit an application either online or on paper, depending on the state. The application requires a Social Security number and an address, so you must find a way to acquire those if you don’t have them. Then, you need to complete an in-person interview where you provide proof of eligibility. If you miss the interview, you can’t get benefits.

If you can’t provide documentation of the claims on your application, you can’t get benefits. The application is so onerous that it takes a huge amount of effort to even get started.

Let’s assume that you’ve made it through the application process and that you’re able to receive benefits.

Now, you must register for work recommended by the SNAP office to continue receiving benefits for longer than three months. If you can’t because of drug addiction, mental health issues or other conditions that make holding a job difficult, you’re out of luck. If you’re on strike protesting degrading working conditions, you’re ineligible. If you have over $2,250 in certain resources, like a car you use to drive to work, you’re ineligible. And if you start making enough money to put you above a certain benefit cutoff determined by each state, you’re ineligible.

Barring all that, you still need to reapply after a short amount of time to continue receiving benefits. And there’s one more big restriction: benefits can only be used for cold food not medicine, hot food, vitamins, toothpaste, soap, household products or anything else.

SNAP’s long and complicated application process is typical for government means-tested programs, and these processes serve to make them less effective. In 2011, only about 84 percent of eligible participants received SNAP benefits, according to David Ribar, an economist at the University of Melbourne.

Fewer than 34 percent of eligible participants received TANF benefits at the same time, and other federal welfare programs fared about as well.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Means-tested programs, like SNAP or “food stamps” pictured above, are more vulnerable to budget cuts and are difficult for beneficiaries to receive, says columnist Graber-Mitchell ‘22.

Ribar’s report identified “onerous application processes, confusing rules [and] misinformation” as causes of low participation. Means tests requirements are often so hard to satisfy that families who deserve benefits go without.

Means tests also divide us from one another, separating us into those who receive government benefits and those who don’t. Ignoring the fact, for the moment, that the middle- and upper-classes receive billions of dollars in benefits each year through the tax code, this division only serves to distract us from real sources of scarcity. Our government is starved for cash but not because welfare programs cost too much.

Welfare recipients aren’t the reason our government is in debt — tax cuts for the rich and non-existent corporate taxes are. Poverty persists only as long as we don’t care to alleviate it and instead prioritize wealthy, well-connected interests.

As a result of the divisions that means tests create in society, means-tested programs are more easily cut than universal programs, even when they are crucially important. Like SNAP and other means-tested benefits, universal programs like Social Security and Medicare were created to solve clear problems: high poverty rates and healthcare costs among the elderly.

Since they’re given to everyone after

a certain age, they’re wildly popular.

Despite the very real (but not intractable) solvency problems associated with Social Security, its longevity is a good thing — without the stability provided by universality, it’s likely that we would revert back to having no institutional guarantees for the livelihoods of our seniors.

For example, look no farther than President Trump’s proposed changes to SNAP rules last year, which tightened food stamp eligibility. According to the Urban Institute, around 3.7 million people and 2.1 million households will lose SNAP benefits as a result of the changes. Since they don’t apply to everyone, means-tested programs are much easier to restrict year after year, starving our nation’s most vulnerable from the assistance they need to obtain basic necessities like food and housing.

Universal programs — which apply to everyone, have little to no paperwork and enjoy widespread support — aren’t subject to these problems. They have their own problems, of course; we severely underfund public education, for instance.

However, by and large, the benefits enjoyed by universal programs far outweigh the costs they may impose.

And many of these benefits actually reduce costs, since universal programs have no need to require extensive checks, interviews or re-applications.

Some would call for means-testing every proposed government program. Most notably, some Democratic presidential candidates want to means-test tuition-free public college and student debt forgiveness, providing these benefits to families with certain, arbitrary incomes. Like means-testing in SNAP, TANF and other government benefits, this is a fatal miscalculation. Means-testing is a great way to create a patchwork of benefits that are prohibitively hard to access and don’t help the very people who need it most, just as our current welfare system does. We should reject means tests on any new programs, opting instead for universal tuition-free public college and universal student debt forgiveness. And we should re-examine our existing welfare programs, particularly SNAP and move towards a more universal system all around.

Whenever you hear someone advocate for means tests, apply those tests to public libraries or public K-12 school. Should Peterborough restrict entrance to its library to only those who make less than a certain income? And if they had, do you think that library would still be around now? Should public schools kick kids out if their family’s finances stabilize?

If the answers are no, then we shouldn’t means test on proposed programs either.

The Amherst Student • January 29, 2019

Opinion 7

The Need for a Sustainable Student Center Margot Lurie ’21 Contributing Writer

“The new center will be situated on the current location of Merrill and McGuire,” reads an Oct. 30 email sent by President Biddy Martin to the college community. To many, this line of the email probably wasn’t noteworthy. However, it filled me with distress. We have known that the college plans to convert the former Merrill Science Building into a student center. What troubled me was the assumption that McGuire needs to go too. Without student input or sharing the rationale behind tearing down McGuire, the college has decided to embark on an unsustainable path forward.

Taking down both Merrill and McGuire will release thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Though they are immobile, the buildings on our campus teem with embodied energy.

Embodied energy refers to all of the energy required to produce, transport and use a material, in addition to the carbon contained within the material itself. While the embodied energy of some materials, such as wood, is low, the embodied energy of materials like concrete — which Merrill is made of — is very high.

Once torn down, concrete cannot be reused. Instead, all of the carbon is released into the atmosphere.

Thus, rather than advancing the college’s goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2030 through the Climate Action Plan, this project undermines any effort to decrease our carbon and ecological footprint. I strongly urge the college to leave McGuire standing and retrofit the building instead.

Taking McGuire down after fewer than 25 years of use would be a tremendous waste of resources. McGuire’s embodied carbon sits between approximately 990 and 1,680 metric tons of carbon dioxide.

This is equivalent to the annual carbon emissions of hundreds of cars.

Globally, embodied carbon emissions from construction represent 11 percent of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Building on the Merrill site is already guaranteed to release thousands of metric tons of carbon dioxide. Amherst has the opportunity to substantially decrease its contribution to global carbon emissions by preserving the McGuire site.

McGuire remains a perfectly functional building. Unfortunately, McGuire cannot currently function independently of Merrill, because the electricity and HVAC between

the two are linked. However, there is no reason not to retrofit McGuire to overcome these concerns. Renovating parts of McGuire’s interior to meet the needs of the new student center would surely be more carbon-efficient than tearing down the entire structure. Moreover, maintaining McGuire will meet students’ desire for the student center to reflect both the old and the new.

The college is concerned about the cost of maintaining the McGuire building. But how would constructing a new building be any more cost-effective? Retrofits and renovations are commonplace on old campuses for this reason. Think about how many spaces on our own campus have been preserved in this way: the Powerhouse, the Mead and Converse, to name a few. Moreover, if the college plans to meet its 2030 goal of carbon neutrality, it will need to retrofit nearly every building on campus. If retrofitting McGuire were actually prohibitively expensive, the college could not carry out the Climate Action Plan. Justifying the removal of McGuire with the costs of preservation opens a new conversation about the college’s ability to keep its carbon-neutrality promise.

As the college moves forward with a new student center on the

Snow Day by Emi Eliason ’22

Merrill site, I highly encourage the college to pursue the most resourceand energy-efficient building possible. While the new Science Center is a wonderful addition to our campus, claims about its energy-efficiency are somewhat disingenuous. The Science Center was built with steel, concrete and glass. The embodied energy of steel and concrete is among the highest of any building materials. The extensive use of glass means that the building’s R-value, or resistance to heat loss, is extremely low; it takes a lot more energy to cool or heat the building than it would if it were built with different materials.

When building the new student center, the college now has an opportunity to be on the cutting-edge of sustainable design. I urge the college to prioritize the use of carbon-efficient building materials, such as cross-laminated timber.

Living in Western Massachusetts, we are ideally located to take advantage of this exciting new trend in construction, while also contributing to campus and regional carbon neutrality.

Responsibly managed forests in New England have the potential to produce timber, all while sequestering carbon, maintaining wildlife

habitats and promoting recreation.

Our peers, Hampshire and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, have already made use of these advances in technology. The results at these institutions are beautiful, sustainable and efficient buildings.

The architect the college has chosen, Herzog & de Meuron, is equipped for this project; the firm is currently working on the new Vancouver Art Gallery, which is to be constructed from wood to reflect the local environment.

The new student center is an indication of the college’s values. The project demonstrates the college’s commitment to the community’s well-being. In the process of advancing these laudable goals, the college can also show its commitment to sustainability, which is enshrined in our Climate Action Plan. By maintaining the McGuire building and constructing the new student center from the most responsible materials available, the college can create a student center for this century.

A sustainable student center is not only the right choice for the planet, but will also send a message to our students and peer institutions that Amherst College is a place for forward-thinkers, innovators and leaders.

Arts&Living

The Unique Experience of Watching Movies on Planes

Photo courtesy of PxHere

While the need for entertainment on a long flight is understandable, Colin Weinstein ’22 suggests that passive movie-watching has potential dangers.

Colin Weinstein ’22 Staff Writer I spent a collective 36 hours of my winter break caged in a metal tube hurtling through the sky at 500 mph. For a person who’s 6’4” and generally hates flying, I’m lucky the trauma was minimal.

However, since seatback entertainment screens have made personal movie-watching a possibility, the experience of flying has fundamentally changed for me; planes are still a grueling hell, but with those tiny, bacteria-infested screens, the hours pass faster.

On the other hand, the screens are also changing the way I, and the rest of the 151 million annual average American fliers, watch movies — and arguably not for the better. They’re slowly but surely turning movies into a form of purely passive entertainment rather than a work of art with which to engage. And as a writer for The Student’s renowned Arts and Living section, I’m not going down without a fight (or at least a futile diatribe).

I’m a humanities major at a liberal arts college, so naturally my movie preferences tend toward indies, award-winners, documentaries and Wes Anderson. Yet, on flights, that all seems to go out the pressure-sealed window.

I guzzle the big-budget, Hollywood blockbusters until I inevitably pass out to the sound of someone blowing up another Death Star facsimile. In fact, flying is the only reason I’ve kept up with the Marvel universe over the past 12 years (for better or for worse).

Why do I put myself through this though? Because these movies are long, reliable and fastpaced enough to eliminate any room for thought. I can just slump over in my sleep-deprived haze and stop thinking about the fact that Hawkeye has been in every Avengers movie, but we still know nothing about his backstory (what is his trauma?).

My brain doesn’t have to do any work.

I’m not trying to say that watching movies on planes is bad

just because I pick bad movies.

Big-budget Hollywood movies actually can be great; I just usually miss what makes them great if I’m watching them on a plane.

For example, on my most recent flights, I grew bored of dialogue and explosions, so I watched “A Star Is Born” for a change of pace. The music definitely did the trick, but — after thinking about the movie days later — I realized that I’d completely missed the startling and nuanced portrayal of addiction.

Retrospectively, I really wish I’d paid more attention to that part. After all, complex portrayals of complex situations can be what make great movies great (“Brokeback Mountain” certainly isn’t renowned for its narrative simplicity!), but because I was mostly tuned-out when there wasn’t a guitar on screen, “A Star Is Born” could only be a good movie for me — not a great one.

But it’s not just a matter of enjoyment for me. As extreme as it may sound, I think passive movie-watching might mess with my morals, long term. Even if un-

consciously, we take away certain messages from movies.

To use the example of “A Star Is Born” again, one might draw the conclusion that even our idols are deeply flawed, or that it’s okay to ask for help. However, when you don’t actually take the time and energy to engage with the story, you might come to some dangerous conclusions.

A passive viewing of “A Star Is Born” could leave a viewer with the overarching impression that to be a good artist, you have to suffer from addiction and depression (or marry someone who does!). An impressionable viewer might end up a severely depressed rock star if they’re not careful.

There’s an equally worrisome flip-side to my moral argument; in the same way passive viewers might miss positive messages, they also might be less capable of discerning and rejecting flawed ones.

In fact, this actually almost happened to me with another movie from one of the flights: “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Though

I honestly didn’t like the movie, I loved the concept. Biopic of an iconic queer rockstar? Hell yeah — let’s get that representation.

However, while watching the movie, I didn’t actually pay any attention to the way it portrayed queerness; I was too busy humming along to “Another One Bites the Dust” (and trying to keep up with director Bryan Singer and director-turned-executive-producer Dexter Fletcher’s machine gun approach to film editing).

As such, I wasn’t aware of the problems with that portrayal until doing some reading on it before writing this article. Had I not done that reading, I might have inadvertently praised a fairly pernicious misrepresentation of Freddie Mercury’s life as a queer man. That’s not something I want to be doing!

Moral of the story: don’t end up like me. Be wary of what you watch and how you watch — especially on planes. Or just don’t fly. Planes emit too much carbon anyway. (Try Amtrak; it only lost $29.8 million last year!)

Arts & Living 9

The Amherst Student • January 29, 2020

Graphic Courtesy of Anna Smith

The quality of Kaur’s work came under scrutiny after she was named “writer of the decade” by The New Republic.

Lauren Kisare ’22 Managing Arts & Living Editor Before 2019 came to a close, Rupi Kaur, author of The New York Times’ bestselling poetry collections “Milk and Honey” and “The Sun and Her Flowers,” was declared “writer of the decade” in an article

by The New Republic. The general public was quick to launch a series of complaints against this decision, even topping Twitter’s trending page worldwide as many had criticisms against the poet’s new title.

Among the many complaints on Twitter, one particular viral comment stood out amongst others.

The user remarked: “Rupi Kaur won poet of the decade. Y’all need to read REAL poetry ... here’s some Lord Tennyson, Mary Oliver, Wendell Berry, Rachel Griffiths.” One commenter even went so far as to say “If Rupi Kaur is poet of the decade than my notes app from when I was 13 is also poet of the decade.”

For those unfamiliar with Kaur’s work, this isn’t the first time her poetry has been embroiled in controversy. Ever since the poet’s work gained traction in 2017, her popularity has been continuously disput-

ed due to the general dislike of an emerging style of poetry that Kaur popularized since the release of “Milk and Honey” in 2014: a form known commonly as “Instapoetry.”

“Instapoetry” describes a type of poem that is curated and written with the intent of being shared on a visual social platform. Minimalist in conception, these poems are typically two to eight lines long and accompanied by an abstract, hand-drawn doodle that represents whatever image the poem tries to evoke. For a generation that is moving with the ever-changing tide of technology, Kaur’s contemporary poetry presents itself as a natural combination between a previously inaccessible art form and a widely accessible social platform.

I’ve had similar contentions with the way Kaur engages the medium.

Now that The New Republic’s article has re-sparked the debate surrounding Kaur’s works, I’ve come to understand that the controversy stems from a discord between poetry made for consumption and poetry made for personal, emotional catharsis — more specifically, accessible poetry as opposed to inaccessible poetry.

Among Kaur’s critics, the consensus

seems to be that the best poets express themselves in the most obscure ways possible. By referencing poets like Lord Tennyson or T.S. Elliot, most critics suggest that poetry must be challenging, and Kaur’s work defeats that purpose by not engaging audiences in an intellectually, stimulating way.

Cynical critics seem to suggest that a poem should be emotionally distant from the experience it is trying to depict. Tucked behind complex themes and abstract metaphors, a poem by these standards should evade the reader, allowing them to gain an insight into the impression of the experience rather than engage with the actual experience itself.

Kaur, however, is direct and transgressive in the way she details her personal experience. Though it is simple, she has gained attention, mainly because people can identify with and understand what she is communicating. Unlike the classics who seek to evade readers and require time in order to understand, Kaur’s work doesn’t read like a jigsaw puzzle, and it still gives the emotional payoff that a more traditional poem would.

When we take all of this into con-

sideration, a good poet should be able to communicate her message in a way that is both representative of the ideas she wants to express while also catering her poetry towards an audience that can enjoy it as well.

In Kaur’s case, I believe she is pandering to her audience more than most poets. However, with every Instagram poem of hers that I’ve read and mulled over, I’ve discovered a disingenuous and hollow feel to her pieces. While I’m hesitant to side with those who gate-keep poetry, it’s difficult to avoid Kaur and the way she packages her poetry. In order to make a product accessible, the quality of the work itself shouldn’t fall as a result of that accessibility.

There should be a way to make poetry accessible without losing depth and soul, and yet Kaur’s self-indulgence seems to be a constant offender of this kind of accessible poetry.

With Instagram serving as the tool that powers the existence of her work, the quality of her poetry often gets pushed aside in favor of what the average Instagram user would find profound. This kind of marketing is not new, but my own grievance with this is that Kaur’s work is touted as being an honest reflection of what she hopes to impart to her audience from her own personal experiences.

However, her content seems geared more towards branding rather than authenticity: aesthetic, inspirational quotes that say seemingly deep, but fairly obvious things in a clever way.

The same way a beauty influencer may endorse skin care she doesn’t use or a model promotes clothing he doesn’t actually wear outside of social media, Kaur also seems to follow this model of creating and promoting “poetry” that is purely for consumption and branding. Her Instagram poems are just thinly veiled marketing ploys.

While there is no such thing as definitively real poetry, I believe that the majority of Kaur’s poems are simply generic affirmations formatted to appear like poetry. Though there are a couple standalone poems of Kaur that I would regard as legitimate, most of her poetry can barely even be qualified as poems. It’s hard to justify whether or not Kaur is a poet when half of her collections read like cliché quotes you could find on the side of a coffee mug or

the inside of a Hallmark card.

If anything, I wish Kaur would differentiate between her actual, purposefully made poems and her diary entries or shower thoughts.

Kaur’s Instagram poetry conflates the two, and I think it’s valid that people are criticising the production of these poems when she interchangeably posts random thoughts and serious poems, while marketing both as forms of poetry.

Kaur’s work consequently collapses the idea that poetry is a skilled art form, and pushes the idea that any one’s random, effortless thoughts can count as being a well-regarded poem. It enforces the belief that poetry can be done by anyone who has a pencil or a pen, which we can accept to some extent, but in reality, poetry is a technical art that doesn’t just consist of lazy, random thoughts that give the impression of having depth.

That said, there is merit in Kaur’s “Instapoetry” just as much as there’s merit in the classics. While I do find her misleading, her style is unconventional, and purposeful experimentation makes great art. An artist should be able to have artistic license over the production of her work, but when the self-indulgence that comes with that artistic creativity interferes with the quality of the work, that is when I think it is time to reevaluate.

At the end of the day, Kaur is the “Twilight” of contemporary poetry — poetry that is fun and easily consumable by the masses, but, by academic standards, is somewhat devoid of advanced skill and technique, meant to be consumed the same way we devoured Stephenie Meyer’s teen vampire novels.

While I could go on and critique what Kaur lacks, I will applaud her for bringing a practically inaccessible art form off its dusty bookshelf.

For decades, poetry has always been an art form that only the elite could engage with, and to the credit of Kaur, she has placed poetry in the direct sighline of those who may have previously written it off as too complex. While she is no “writer of the decade” in my book, she most certainly has contributed to the genre an innovated with the technology of the 2010s in a way that is fitting of the title.

Arts & Living 10

The Amherst Student • January 29, 2020

“Watchmen” Shows Violence Behind American Hero Story

Photo courtesy of Wired

HBO’s “Watchmen” features the Seventh Cavalry, a terrorist group that is inspired by the Ku Klux Klan, in its portrayal of the 1921 Tulsa massacres.

Theo Hamilton ’22 Staff Writer Published in 1986, Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” has since earned both critical acclaim — the sole graphic novel to make Time’s list of the 100 greatest American novels — and a fanbase devoted enough to support an uninspired series of prequels and a truly dreadful 2009 film.

Fortunately, HBO’s new series takes a different path than these lifeless adaptations, and although it occasionally stumbles, it manages to refine and extend its predecessors’ criticisms of the superhero genre by exploring the role race has traditionally played in these stories. At the same time, its uniquely nonlinear storytelling and remarkable set of characters results in a gripping show.

The primary goal of the comics was to question America’s obsession with superhero stories. Set in an alternate 1980s, the story’s “heroes” are rarely heroic, running on 24/7 power trips and safely cloaked behind the anonymity provided by their masks; they tend to end up violence addicted narcissists at best. As a group, the superheroes, who for the most part lack actual superpowers and alter-

nate between violent vigilantism and government cooperation, are largely responsible for winning the Vietnam War for the U.S. through crimes against humanity on an unbelievable scale and for propping up a five-term Richard Nixon presidency.

The fact that they are nonetheless worshipped by many in their universe — and that we worship Marvel’s slightly more sanitized versions of them in real life, pushing each new Marvel film to ridiculous new box office heights — is meant to be an alarming statement on how deeply violence and imperialism have ingrained themselves into the American psyche.

The show — a sequel to the graphic novel set in the same alternate universe brought up to speed in the year 2019 — maintains the same critique of superheroes and the violent power imbalances they embody, but it also manages to bring its own ideas to the table and set the story in a context more relevant to modern audiences. The show’s most significant thematic additions revolve around race. What does it mean that throughout its long history, the idea of the superhero has been overwhelmingly white? How would the world react if that was

no longer the case?

“Watchmen” opens with a chilling depiction of the 1921 Tulsa massacre, in which white rioters destroyed the wealthiest Black neighborhood in America, leaving dozens dead and as many as 10,000 homeless.

The show immediately portrays the type of reactionary white backlash against any forms of Black power that recur throughout the show. As the show returns to the modern-day, the plot begins rolling through the lens of a conflict between a white supremacist organization, known as the Seventh Kavalry, and the Tulsa Police Force, which now includes a number of superheroes.

This conflict between cops and racists is at first the show’s most frustrating storyline, although it does not back down from displaying and criticizing police brutality, the narrative of a racially diverse group of police and superheroes abusing poor whites they suspect of Klan membership seems to spectacularly misrepresent the racial elements of real police brutality. Fortunately, there is more to this fight than there first appears, although it takes five episodes before it is exactly clear what is going on.

“Watchmen” excels is in its embrace of nonlinear storytelling. Flashbacks are frequent, and it isn’t exactly clear when certain scenes fall into place on the plot’s timeline; one major character spends almost his entire storyline on a distant moon before crashing back into the main narrative, and some of the best episodes zoom in on specific characters, flashing through their lives before returning to the present day. While all of this can be confusing, the moments when the puzzle pieces snap into place are some of the shows most satisfying. More importantly, the frequent journeys through time help establish each character and event in a firm context.

Built up via all of these cuts into the past, the characters of “Watchmen” are both individually compelling while also supporting the show’s major themes. A handful of characters from the comic return — the egotistical machiavellian Ozymandias (Jeremy Irons), the nearly omnipotent Dr. Manhattan (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and the cynical ex-superhero Laurie Blake (Jean Smart) — but new characters propel the plot forward.

Particular standouts are Angela Abar (Regina King), the show’s protagonist and occasional mor-

al compass, and her grandfather Will (Louis Gossett Jr.), a survivor of the Tulsa massacre who is revealed to have been the first superhero and to have very quickly entered murky moral territory.

Ultimately HBO’s “Watchmen” manages to use this vibrant cast of characters to extend the comic’s critique of the idea of the superhero in two ways.

First, it reframes the superhero origin story by presenting the transformation from victim to superhero not as an uplifting narrative of empowerment, but as an inadequate and almost pitiful coping mechanism. As one character observes “wearing a mask doesn’t allow old wou nds to heal, wounds need air.”

Worse than just preventing personal growth, the adoption of violent vigilantism creates a vicious cycle as new victims are made.

Secondly, the show argues that the traditional American superhero story is not just a glorified celebration of violence but also deeply racist, a refuge in which white heroes have both complete power and are portrayed as morally justified in their use of it, and where any acquisition of power by people of color is meant by swift backlash.

Arts & Living 11

The Amherst Student • January 29, 2020

2020 Oscar Nominations Disregard Year of Diverse Stories Isabella Weiner ’20 Staff Writer This year’s Oscar nominations, announced on Jan. 13, once again sparked a wave of critique and frustration. Narrowly missing another #OscarsSoWhite scandal, the sole acting nomination for a person of color went to Cynthia Erivo for her starring role in “Harriet” (rather ironically, the Academy selected two actors of color, “Insecure’s” Issae Rae and “Harold & Kumar’s” John Cho, to announce the nominations).

To put it in perspective, Scarlett Johannson alone was nominated for more acting statuettes — two, for her starring role in Noah Baumbach’s “Marriage Story” and her supporting turn in Taika Waititi’s Hitler satire “Jojo Rabbit” — than total for all actors of color combined.

It feels like tokenism — something Erivo herself has voiced in this awards season. For Erivo, this frustration culminated in the British Academy of Film and Television Arts’ (BAFTA) all-white slate of acting nominees. Erivo, a Tony award-winner for “The Color Purple,” had been invited to the awards show to perform her nominated song “Stand Up” from “Harriet.” But she took a stand, canceling her performance.

She explained her decision in a radio interview: “It felt like it was calling on me as an entertainer as opposed to a person who was a part of the world of film, and I think that it’s important to make it known that it’s not something that you throw in as a party trick, you know?” Lamenting the lack of diversity among the nominees, she continued, “I work hard, and every single person of color who is working in these films this year has worked really hard, and there are many of them who deserve to be celebrated.”

Though Erivo spoke out this year about the lack of awards acclaim for actors of color, her statement could be applicable in nearly any given awards cycle. Even those Black actors who have won Oscar statuettes in recent years — in-

cluding Marshela Ali for “Moonlight” and “Green Book,” Octavia Spencer for “The Help” and Regina King for “If Beale Street Could Talk” — have done so in supporting actor categories, rather than as the anchor of these stories. A Black actress — Halle Berry for her role in “Monster’s Ball” — did not win Best Actress until 2001.

This year, recent non-white award-winners including Awkwafina (a Golden Globe winner for “The Farewell”), Jennifer Lopez and Jamie Foxx for their basedon-a-true-story films “Hustlers” and “Just Mercy,” respectively, Lupita Nyong’o for Jordan Peele’s sophomore horror offering “Us” and Antonio Banderas for “Pain and Glory” — were completely shut out of this first round of awards.

Though the Academy touted its recent inclusion of 2,000 younger, more diverse members (a 2012 study conducted by the Los Angeles Times found out that the institution’s makeup was 94 percent white, 77 percent male, 86 percent age 50 or older and had a median age of 62), and people of color now make up more than 1,200 members of the voting body, these snubs are still dispiritingly similar to the days of #OscarsSoWhite.

This may be in part because there is a clash of ideas within what The Hollywood Reporter (THR) calls the “Old Academy” and “New Academy.” According to THR, members of the “Old Academy,” or long-term members, despise Netflix for disrputing traditional movie-watching, support ‘strong dramas’ like “Crash” (probably one of the most hotly disputed Best Picture winners of all time) and ‘empathetic characters.’ They believe you don’t “read a movie, you watch it.”

“Parasite’s” director Bong Joon Ho ribbed American audiences at the Golden Globes for their failure to watch movies with subtitles, joking that “once you overcome the one-inch tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.” The “New Academy”, which prefers “mood and atmosphere,” consid-

ers movies an art form rather than a business and values films with subtitles. They bemoan “Pulp Fiction” and “Brokeback Mountain” Best Picture losses.

Stephen King’s recent comments perhaps most clearly represents the “Old Academy’s” mentality. The Academy member and prolific horror author, whose works have spun countless film and TV adaptations, tweeted the day after the announcements that he “would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality.”

But this color-blindness ignores the structural impediments in place against people of color and women and the continued acclaim lauded on white men.

And it puts “diversity” and ‘quality’ at odds when they shouldn’t be. King later — and presumably in response to the backlash — wrote on the platform, “The most important thing we can do as artists and creative people is make sure everyone has the same fair shot, regardless of sex, color or orientation. Right now, such people are badly under-represented, and not only in the arts,” adding three minutes later, “You

can’t win awards if you’re shut out of the game.” It is unclear how he can seemingly hold both of these opinions, and how, as one Twitter user pointed out, King could “give everyone a fair shot” without considering diversity.

The lack of nominations for female directors is also particularly upsetting. Issa Rae, in a statement that recalled Natalie Portman’s searing “And here are all the allmale nominees…” statement while presenting the 2018 Golden Globe for best director, voiced her frustration upon having to call all male names.

In this year’s Golden Globes, Rae, upon announcing Martin Scorcese (“The Irishman,” a threehour movie where one of its female stars, Anna Paquin, utters a mere seven lines of dialogue), Sam Mendes (“1917”), Todd Phillips (this year’s Oscar nom-leading “Joker,” a heavy source of controversy this awards season), Quentin Tarantino (“Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood”) and Bong Joon Hoo (“Parasite,” a film whose actors — all people of color — failed to receive a nomination in the major categories), dead-

panned, “Congratulations to those men.”

In the 92 years of the institution’s history, only two women have ever gotten the chance to thank the Academy in the category for best director, with the last going to Kathryn Bigelow for the 2008 Iraq war drama “The Hurt Locker.”

In this same period of over ten years, only five female directors have even been nominated. One of those arrived in 2018, going to Greta Gerwig for “Lady Bird.”

Her film this year, “Little Women,” received critical raves, in no small part for Gerwig’s inventive, modern directorial choices — but, as a New York Times article pointed out, men largely dismissed the female-driven, female-focused film.

It seems as though the Academy did the same — although I hope that in the less-celebrated Best Adapted Screenplay category, where Gerwig is the sole female nominee, she can snag the award.

Still, women’s voices deserve to be heard and valorized in these major categories. In 2020, the Academy remains hopelessly out of touch.

Photo courtesy of Macguffin007

Actor and director Greta Gerwig is the sole female nominee in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for “Little Women,” while no women were nominated for Best Director.

Arts & Living 12

The Amherst Student • January 29, 2020

Zumba at Amherst Provides Stress Relief for Students

Photo courtesy of Lauren Gladu

At the powerhouse, Lauren Gladu (left) leads Zumba classes —a great way for students to both get fit and escape from the stresses of academic life.

Kate Chang ’22 Contributing Writer Eight years after the exercise style was invented by accident (when its founder Beto Perex simply forgot his teaching music for an aerobics class and popped in salsa tapes instead), Lauren Gladu, academic department coordinator for Spanish and campus Zumba fitness instructor, can be found spending her Tuesday and Thursday afternoons bopping and dancing, teaching Zumba in front of a group of students.

As she teaches, she pushes the style forward, morphing its traditional Latin influences with pop styles and music of the moment. “I love hip hop and pop music so I use a lot of that style,” Gladu attested.

“Sometimes I will hear a song on the radio and think ‘I have to make up a routine to this!’ My newest

song is ‘Juice’ by Lizzo, and it’s so much fun.”

Zumba is one of the classes currently in Amherst’s “Wellness and Fitness Schedule” posted throughout campus. It’s headed by Gladu Mondays from 5 - 6 p.m. and Tuesdays and Thursdays from 4:15 - 5:15 p.m. in the O’ Connor Commons.

Gladu described her own induction into Zumba. Having started competitive dancing at eight years old and dancing throughout college, Gladu stopped going to dance classes and performing after graduation. “I missed dancing and started to gain a bit of weight,” she said. “I was starting to feel really bad about myself, [so] I was trying to figure out a fitness routine that didn’t cost a lot of money.” Finding it hard to be motivated on her own, she went to her first Zumba class for a mere five dollars and was instantly hooked.

“I thought, I have to become an

instructor! For me it was and still is a win-win, because I get paid to workout, I get to make up my own choreography, and I get a great workout too. I went on to the Zumba website and looked up a training that was close to me and off I went,” she said. “I spent a day with about 50 other soon-to-be instructors and got to learn the ins and outs of being a great Zumba instructor. I have been a licensed Zumba instructor since February of 2011.”

Zumba seems to accord with both wellness and fitness as a good outlet for stress relief with an uplifting program. “I try to balance each playlist with some high energy mixed in with a couple of strength songs,” Gladu described.

The latter may be somewhat unexpected, even for those who exercise regularly, given its ‘party’ misconception. A 2011 article by the New York Times noted that Zumba

Photo courtesy of Lauren Gladu

“classes are fast-paced and can be quite strenuous. Few participants leave without being drenched in sweat and at least a little bit out of breath.” That being said, one should not be dissuaded.

Gladu is reassuring that her class is “open to all levels of fitness and ability.” It also likely depends on how much effort you want to put in.

You can easily step out of a song and take a break as needed, and going at your own pace can help prevent injury. Gladu herself also tries to facilitate this by building in warm up and slow down stretch songs.

The greatest benefit of Zumba, however, and why many people seem drawn to the exercise, is psychological. Gladu observed that “I can tell when [people] had to drag [themselves] to class because they just didn’t feel like coming, but they did, they danced and now they feel great! To see everyone’s smiling fac-

es in each of my classes makes me so happy; I just can’t help but to feel great after class.”

The happiness that a Zumba class can bring plays an even more important role in stressful environments like our own. “I feel like Amherst College students put a lot of pressure on themselves and really need a resource to come to and lose themselves in the music and to just dance it out,” said Gladu.

Gladu’s own good humor and attitude during every session is not lost throughout the sessions.

She still keeps in touch with many students she taught in Zumba. “I never realized the impact Zumba had on the Amherst College community until I hear from others stating they look forward to my classes every semester,” she said.

“It’s extremely heart warming and [I] think about it in every aspect in my daily life.”

Photo courtesy of Lauren Gladu

Sports

Reflections and Predictions on the Premier League Ben Gilsdorf ’21 Staff Writer

The 2019 – 2020 Premier League season has been anything but ordinary: there’s the promise of a new champion, an impending relegation dog fight and a race for fourth place that no one seems to want to win.

The story of the season is undoubtedly the rampant success of league-leaders Liverpool.

It’s difficult to describe just how ruthless the Reds have been; they’ve won 22 of their 23 games, claiming 67 of a possible 69 points — the most ever claimed by a European club in the first 23 games of a season. Liverpool sits at an astonishing 16 points ahead of second place Manchester City, and the club seems laser-focused not only on a Premier League title but also on completing an undefeated season. The club only lost one match last year, a 2-1 defeat to champions Manchester City, and Liverpool is on course this season to become the first team since the 2003 – 2004 Arsenal team, known as the “Invincibles,” to go a full season without a loss.

While Liverpool runs wild at the top, the rest of the traditional “Big Six” have struggled to gain solid footing in the league. Last season’s champions Manchester City sit in a respectable second place, but the Citizens have already lost five games this season, one more than their total from the previous year. The loss of star center back Aymeric Laporte devastated City’s once formidable defense; the club has conceded more goals this year (27) than all of last season (23).

Meanwhile Chelsea, who currently holds fourth place, has looked remarkably inconsistent and will need to tighten up at the back as well find another source of goals outside of main striker Tammy Abraham if the club wants to keep that Champions League spot secure. The main reason Chelsea has stayed in fourth despite a string of poor performances is that Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham — ­ the usual chal-

lengers for the top four ­­— have been just as inconsistent, if not consistently bad. The imminent return of American winger Christian Pulisic should boost the Blues’ chances as well.

Chelsea’s fellow Londoners Arsenal leads the league in draws with 12 and has only won six games this season in the league, while Tottenham and Manchester United have each won nine games, losing eight. United and Tottenham are the closest to catching Chelsea, each on 34 points behind the Blues’ 40, but both have lost their star strikers to injury in recent weeks, with Tottenham’s Harry Kane and United’s Marcus Rashford suffering from a broken ankle and a back injury respectively.

Meanwhile in the bottom half of the league, it’s anyone’s game as to who could be relegated at the end of the season. Only ten points separate eighth-placed Sheffield United from nineteenth-placed Watford. Even the teams in the bottom three have a decent shot of avoiding the drop, as witnessed by Southampton’s recent run of good form inspired by in-form striker Danny Ings, whose ten goals in the past 13 games have moved the Saints from 19th to ninth.

This tumultuous run across the board brings me to my predictions for the end of the season: I think Liverpool have all but secured the club’s first ever Premier League title, even with 15 games left to play. Not only do I think the Reds will win the league, but I’m willing to bet they’ll beat the record for most wins in a season (32) and most points in a season as well (100). Although Liverpool is known for its inability to lock up Premier League titles (it let an eight-point lead slip last season and in the 2013 — 2014 season, had a three-point lead with three games left in the season and managed to lose the title by two points), I am certain the Reds will get the job done this year.

Norwich, Aston Villa and Brighton will all be relegated. Norwich currently remains six points off nineteenth place, and I don’t see any amount of Teemu Pukki hero-

ics keeping them up. Aston Villa is a one-man team behind star midfielder Jack Grealish, but I can’t see him being able to single-handedly save the club’s season. Meanwhile, Brighton just doesn’t have the squad talent needed to make it out alive. Watford, Bournemouth and West Ham are all flirting with the drop, but I believe Watford’s squad is too talented for them to get relegated. Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe is savvy enough to steer the team to safety, and West Ham has enough of a topflight pedigree to avoid relegation.

As for the top four, it will stay the same as it is now: Liverpool, Manchester City, Leicester and Chelsea.

Liverpool will win the league; City is too good to not finish second; Leicester’s dream season will continue, and Chelsea has enough of a lead over Manchester United and Tottenham to round out the top four. Although City, Leicester and Chelsea have their problems, the teams below them are too inconsistent and injury-plagued to make a serious challenge for Champions League football next season.

It’s going to be a tight race for this season’s Golden Boot, but I’m backing Manchester City striker Sergio Agüero to win his second scoring title. If you’d asked me a month ago, I would have said Leicester striker and current top goal scorer Jamie Vardy was better positioned for the Golden Boot, but after his injury, I’m backing Agüero to reclaim the award.

Liverpool boss Jürgen Klopp will undoubtedly be named Manager of the Year — no explanation needed. Sheffield United manager Chris Wilder and Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers, whose teams have overperformed drastically this season, deserve special shout outs, but barring a complete disaster, Klopp has this in the bag.

The Player of the Year should be another man from Liverpool, star Senegalese striker Sadio Mané.

What’s incredible is that Mané is just one of five Liverpool players deserving of this award, alongside Trent Alexander-Arnold, Virgil Van Dijk,

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Liverpool has a strong chance to win its first Premier League title, Ben Gilsdorf ’21 argues in his analysis of the 2019-2020 season.

Jordan Henderson, and Mohammed Salah — a testament to the team’s dominance this year. But I think the award will ultimately go to the Senegalese striker, whose dazzling performances and late goals have been vital to Liverpool’s success this year.

The only non-Liverpool player in the running is Manchester City midfielder Kevin De Bruyne, who has a ridiculous 16 assists in 23 games this season.

Finally, I expect the Professional Footballers’ Association (PFA) Team of the Year to look like this: In goal will be the Liverpool shot stopper Allison Becker, who’s been a wall at the back for the club all season and has kept seven clean sheets in his fifteen starts.

The back four will consist of three of Allison’s fellow Reds, left back Andy Robertson, right back Trent Alexander-Arnold and Dutch center back and reigning player of the year Virgil Van Dijk. The only non-Liverpool player in the defense will be Manchester City’s star defender Aymeric Laporte, whose absence during his brief injury spell underlined how pivotal he is for the City backline.

The midfield trio should feature Manchester City’s star Belgian Kevin De Bruyne, whose aforementioned assists have been vital for his club.

He’ll be joined by two Englishmen, Leicester’s James Maddison and Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson, who’ve both been excellent all season

long. Maddison could be set for a big money move this summer, perhaps to a club like Manchester United, who could use his creativity.

The topline will look much like the backline, with Liverpool’s dynamic duo of Sadio Mané and Mohammed Salah on the left wing and right wing respectively and Manchester City’s Argentine phenom Sergio Agüero playing up top at central striker.

I would push for the PFA to give more credit to two of Leicester City’s defenders who’ve been excellent all season, center back Johnny Evans and left back Ben Chilwell. Although this season has been less exciting than last year, when Manchester City and Liverpool competed neck and neck for the Premier League title up until the very last weekend, I still expect the last third of the season to be full of surprises.

The Liverpool vs. Manchester City showdown in Manchester on April 4 is the biggest game left this year, and I recommend everyone tune in to see what will certainly be a cracking game. This was the only fixture last season that Liverpool lost, so the club will certainly be seeking revenge en route to a potential perfect season.

Even with the title all but Liverpool’s, the fight for fourth place and to avoid relegation will provide for some spectacle that should excite both new fans and Premier League veterans alike.

The Amherst Student • January 29, 2020

Sports 14

Men’s Hockey Begins Its End-of-Season Climb out of the Cellar Henry Newton ’21 Managing Sport Editor With the recent Amherst men’s hockey victory over Worcester State University on Saturday, Jan. 15, the Mammoths moved to a record of 5-9-2. That record, however, does not tell the whole story; rather, this season could best be described as a tale of two halves.

Before last week, the team sat at a dismal 2-9-1, foundering in last place in the NESCAC with the season looking all but lost. The team had a measly one conference win in the opening game of the season against Hamilton, but has since gone on to lose six conference games and three non-conference matchups.

However, in the last week, the team has flipped a switch. Starting against Connecticut, the Mammoths have gone on a tear, winning three games and tying once to pull themselves back into relevance and within shouting distance of a NE-

SAC playoff berth.

The aforementioned win against Conn. and subsequent victories against Tufts, Worcester State University and an overtime draw against Hamilton, have dragged the Mammoths from the conference’s cellar and within a game of a sport in the conference championship playoffs at the end of February.

Playoff hopes resurrected, the team now faces a crucial stretch of games against conference competition. With eight games left in the season, each contest a conference matchup, the Mammoths have much to play for.

Critical to the resurgence has been the reinvigoration of the Mammoths’ scoring attack. Patrick Daly ’20 has recovered his scoring touch in the new year, adding two to his season total in the recent victory over Worcester State.

Co-captain P.J. Conlon ’20 has also been dangerous as of late; in the recent matchup against Tufts

that ended in a 5-2 Amherst victory, Conlon tallied two goals and an assist. Since the Mammoths’ last loss, Conlon has been averaging a point per game, a number that leads the team.

More of the same will be needed when the Mammoths return to the ice on Friday to begin the season’s final sprint. Facing Trinity in Hartford, a team that beat them 2-1 in just the second game of the season, the Mammoths will certainly look to reverse the score line, and possibly vault themselves into a playoff spot.

Many of the Mammoths’ next games come against their closest competition for these coveted final spots in the NESCAC tournament.

Although a conference championship, there are only eight spots in the tournament for the conference’s ten competing teams; the Mammoths currently sit in ninth place in the conference, a game back of the seventh and eighth.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Co-captain P.J. Conlon ’20 has been rejuvinated, averaging almost a point per game in the new year.

The Recap: All The Sports You Missed This Week Jack Dove ’23, Henry Newton ’21 and Camilo Toruno ’21 Managing Sport Editors Men’s Squash The men’s squash team has rallied back from a disappointing start to the season by reeling off four straight wins and claiming victory at the Pioneer Valley Invitational tournament. Against no. 16 MIT on Jan. 24, the 22nd-ranked Mammoths faced their first and stiffest test of the tournament. The Mammoths jumped out to early leads thanks to Reginald Brewster ’21, Andrew Leung ’22 and Robert Parker ’21, and did not look back, cruising to a comfortable 6-3 victory. The following day saw the Mammoths face off against Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Hamilton.

Both proved no match for Amherst, as the squad swept both matches on the day 9-0. Against Haverford on Sunday, the final day of the invitational, the Mammoths again rolled through their competition with ease, picking up yet another 9-0 victory.

Women’s Squash The women’s squash team similarly dominated at the Pioneer Valley Invitational, only losing one match en route to three straight victories. In the first match on Saturday, the Mammoths faced Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and dominated up and down the lineup to finish with a convincing 8-1 victory. Soon thereafter, the women’s squash squad faced off against Hamilton. In what was perhaps the Mammoths’ most complete conference performance

to date, the Amherst women blanked the Continentals, registering a 9-0 victory. On Sunday, in what was their final matchup, the Mammoths continued their run of good form, beating Haverford College in straight games, 9-0.

Men’s Swim & Dive The men’s swim and dive team had an up and down winter break, finishing with both a closely-fought loss to Williams and a domineering victory over Connecticut.

Against Williams, the Mammoths and the Ephs went back and forth throughout the entire meet. The Mammoths took first place in seven of the 13 events, but Williams’ depth proved to be the deciding factor, as the team snuck by Amherst with a score of 129-114. The Mammoths broke five pool records on the day, with Scott Romeyn ’22 involved in two of them. His first victory of the day was in the 50yard freestyle event, where he finished in a time of 20.50 seconds, good enough to make the NCAA Championship B cut standard. Romeyn would then set a pool record in the 100-yard freestyle, finishing with a mark of 45.38 seconds and breaking a record that had stood for seven years.

Finally, Jack Koravos ’20, Tristan So ’21, Romeyn and Eric Wong ’20 edged out their previous pool record in the 400yard freestyle relay, bettering their time by almost a full half of a second.

Women’s Swim & Dive Women’s swim and dive struggled against Williams in its first meet of winter break, but came back to dominante

Connecticut and earn a fifth win on the season. Standout performances on the day came from the junior trio of Nina Fitzgerald ’21, Lindsey Ruderman ’21 and Julia Ruggiero ’21. Fitzgerald would set the tone in the 200-yard medley relay, where her squad finished over a second clear of the rest of the field. Fitzgerald would go on to win both the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststroke events. Ruggiero was next into the pool; in the first meet of the year where the mile event was held, Ruggiero set the pace early, finishing well ahead of the rest of the field with a time of 17:59.19.

Ruderman again dominated the diving events, notching victories in both the 1-meter and 3-meter diving competitions.

Men’s Track & Field Men’s track and field notched a historic victory on Jan. 11, as the team finished first at the annual Little III Championships for the first time in over 30 years. Williams had a 31-year winning streak in the event which the Mammoths ended.

Women’s Track & Field The women’s track and field team had a successful Upstate Challenge at Cornell University, with eight different team members setting personal bests over the course of the two day meet. However, the most notable performance came from Ella Rossa ’21, who not only finished third in her first-ever pentathalon, but broke the school record in the 60-meter hurdles, clocking a time of 8.88 seconds.

The Amherst Student • January 29, 2020

Sports 15

Women’s Hockey Poised Men’s Basketball Falls to Williams, Struggles in NESCAC Conference Play for Deep Playoff Run Jack Dove ’23 and Henry Newton ’21 Managing Sports Editors

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Goalie Caitlin Walker ’22 has been outstanding for the Mammoths this season, registering a goals against average of 1.33.

Henry Newton ’21 Managing Sports Editor Coming off an important 5-2 victory over Trinity College in Hartford, the women’s hockey team finds itself well-positioned for the stretch run and to potentially make some serious noise in the NESCAC and NCAA tournaments come postseason.

With a season marked by consistency and team play, the Mammoths have firmly established themselves as one of the top teams in the nation, ranking inside the top 15 in each of the four national women’s hockey polls. Amherst is ranked as high as eighth in the nation in two of the four polls.

Early season losses to conference rivals Hamilton and Middlebury have not slowed the Mammoths, as they have lost just twice since that first week of the season and now sit at a record of 9-4-4.

The Mammoths have also registered some critical and impressive victories over highly-ranked opposition, most notably against then sixth-ranked Norwich University. The Mammoths dominated the Cadets throughout, controlling the puck and scoring up and down the team’s lines, ending the contest on top, 4-1.

Recent NESCAC play has not been as kind to the team as earlier in the season. The last four games have seen the Mammoths play two games apiece against Williams and Trinity, losing one to

Williams, tying two, and winning the fourth against Trinity.

Forward Kaitlin Hoang ’21 has been the primary creator for the Mammoths, dishing out 11 assists and adding five more goals for a team-high 16 points. Linemate Jillian Mazzocca ’23 has been the most notable beneficiary of Hoang’s creative passing, registering seven goals and 15 points on the season thus far.

Another first year, Carley Daly ’23, leads the team in goals with eight, and Emma Flynn ’21 is second on the team with 10 assists; Daly and Flynn are third and fourth, respectively, on the team in points.

The defense has been anchored by stellar goalkeeping from Caitlin Walker ’22, who has started every game but one, registering an astonishing .954 save percentage and only allowing 1.33 goals per game.

Mia DelRosso ’21 is the team’s leader on the blue line, leading all defenders with 11 points coming from 10 assists and one lone goal. Not far behind is teammate Stephanie Nomicos ’22, with ten points on the season.

With seven games left to go in the regular season, six of them being conference matchups, the Mammoths are headed into a critical point of the season that could make or break their postseason hopes. The Amherst women’s hockey team returns to action this Friday against Wesleyan in a home conference matchup.

After a roaring start, men’s basketball has dropped four of its last six contests.

Amherst began the 2019-2020 season with a 9-2 record and a Ken Wright Invitational tournament championship victory over Fitchburg State. The Mammoths secured several marquee wins, including a home thriller vs. Springfield and a 116-point thrashing of Lesley to cap off the streak.

However, once Amherst hit NESCAC play, the season took a turn for the worst. The Mammoths blew a seven-point halftime lead at Wesleyan, losing by just one score. Amherst then suffered a substantial loss at Tufts; yet this 16-point defeat is a season high mark.

The toughest part of the skid might be dropping both games against rival Williams. In what was a consistently close-fought matchup, the Mammoths ultimately were unable to overcome the Ephs, who won with a score of 62-60.

Amherst started the game well, pulling out to an early 12-2 lead due to Grant Robinson ’21 and Michael Schretter ’22 combining for nine points.

Williams was unable to get on the board for almost four full minutes, registering its first basket three minutes and 40 seconds into the first half.

Garrett Day ’21 then scored eight consecutive points for the Mammoths, putting Amherst up 23-9 with more than half the first half left to play.

However, the Ephs soon came charging back due to a combination of timely shooting and clamping down on defense. Williams was able to cut the lead to just six points heading into halftime, despite the Mammoths holding a double-digit advantage for the majority of the half.

The Ephs started the second half strong, cutting the lead to just

a single point after a layup, and a three made the score 34-33. The Mammoths and the Ephs then traded buckets, until the Ephs used their superior three-point shooting and began edging ahead.

By the end of the second half, the two squads remained knotted within two points of one another.

With just over 20 seconds remaining, Day hit a pair of free throws to make the score 60-58 in favor of Williams. Williams then scored a quick bucket, making the score 62-58 with 18 seconds left to play.

Robinson then scored quickly, but then the Mammoths fouled. Williams, being in the bonus, had a one and one.

The Ephs missed the first free throw, and with eight seconds left in regulation, the Mammoths drove the ball quickly back up the court and got a shot off before the buzzer. Unfortunately, Amherst did not hit the shot and fell to Williams in a heartbreaking 6260.

While the game was close, the Mammoths let an uncharacteristically high number of opportunities slip through their fingers during the contest. Williams turned the ball over 13 times on the game, yet Amherst was only able to score points off three of these turnovers. By comparison, the Ephs had 22 points off 16 Amherst turnovers.

Additionally, the Williams defense was incredibly effective at shutting down the ball movement and game flow of Amherst. As a team, the Mammoths have averaged more than 18 assists per game; against Williams, the team was held to just seven.

With the loss, the Mammoths dropped to 11-6 on the season, while Williams improved to 9-8 on the season. Since the start of conference play on Jan. 7, the Mammoths have struggled, winning only two of the six games against NESCAC rivals.

Despite the disappointing beginning to conference play, the Mammoths have plenty of reasons to believe the season will reverse

course. Amherst’s two wins from the past six games are against Bates and Middlebury, who both sit in the top half of the NESCAC. Five of their next seven contests will take place in Lefrak Gymnasium, including key conference matchups against Hamilton, Wesleyan, Trinity and Connecticut College. Amherst is currently tied for No. 4 in the NESCAC standings and still received a vote for the DIII top-25 rankings poll, despite the team’s recent slide.

To add some statistical bright spots, the Mammoths are first in the NESCAC in three-point percentage (41.1), second in field goal percentage (47.1) and second in assists (18.2). Moreover, Amherst has given up the fewest points per game in the NESCAC (65.6).

The Mammoths are led by a dominant front court of Eric Sellew ’20 and Fru Che ’21, who both have scored 13.4 points per game.

Additionally, Day has averaged 2.5 three-pointers per game at a clip of 44.7 percent, providing a spark off the bench for Amherst.

These positive indicators were on full display against Hamilton last Saturday, as the Mammoths snapped their losing skid with a victory over the Continentals, winning 76-69.

Turnovers continued to be a problem for the Amherst squad, as the team squandered 12 possessions. However, contrary to the game against Williams, the Mammoths only allowed 11 points off of these giveaways.

Robinson was the leading scorer, registering 18 on the day to go along with his three assists; however, the bench again proved to be a source of strength for the Mammoths, as the reserves contributed 25 points, with Day standing out, draining 11 points and pulling down four rebounds.

The Mammoths return to action Jan. 29, in their final non-conference matchup against the Salem State University Vikings before a raft of five conference contests to finish out the season.

The Amherst Student • January 29, 2020

Sports 16

Women’s Basketball Remains Top of Conference Tyler Marshall ’21 Staff Writer The women’s basketball team just completed a four-game home stand after defeating Williams on Jan. 22 on Jan. 17, Amherst defeated the Bates Bobcats in Lefrak Gymnasium. Less than 24 hours later, the team faced the Tufts Jumbos in a matchup of foes. Both teams are undefeated in conference play.

Amherst started off strong with a 43-37 victory over Bates. It was a low scoring affair which Amherst fans have grown accustomed to seeing under Coach G.P. Gromacki whose teams have always been known for their tenacious defense.

Amherst held Bates to 25.9 percent shooting from the field and 10 percent from the three while forcing 17 turnovers. The Bobcats were unable to handle the pressure defense from Amherst and could not get in a rhythm all night.

However, Bates played exceptional defense as well forcing 25 Amherst turnovers in the game.

Despite the offensive struggles, Madeline Eck ’20 was able to lead the Mammoths to victory behind

a 19-point effort. She was the lone Mammoth to score in double figures in the game. While it was enough to get a victory, the Amherst women knew they would need to play better offensively to win again on Saturday.

When facing Tufts — the number one team in the country — Amherst came out ready to play on Saturday afternoon, closing out the first quarter at 16-10. Unfortunately, this was the only quarter where the Mammoths were able to outscore the Jumbos.

Yet, the game lived up to expectations as 40 minutes was not enough time to determine a winner. The teams went to overtime tied at 40, but Tufts squeaked out a 48-46 victory in Lefrak. It was another defensive battle as both teams shot under 35 percent from the field.

Eck and Hannah Fox ’20 scored in the double figures with 16 and 10, respectively. Fans have grown accustomed to seeing this duo perform well in key games; however, their effort was not enough to defeat the number one team in the nation on Saturday.

Amherst concluded the four-

WED

FRI

Men’s Basketball vs. Salem St., 7 p.m.

Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Branwen Smith-King Invitational @ Tufts

GAME SCHE DULE

game home stand hosting Williams on Wednesday night, Jan. 22. After defeating the Ephs on the road earlier in the season, the Mammoths came out looking for a season sweep of their Little Three rival.

After one quarter of play, Amherst led 19-7 with all five starters scoring in the quarter. A dominant third quarter where Amherst outscored Williams 22-4 put the game out of reach.

Ultimately, Amherst cruised to a 63-40 victory in front of the home crowd. Four Mammoths reached double figures, with Fox leading the way scoring 15 points.

Eck scored 13, Maggie Shipley ’23 scored 12 and Cam Hendricks ’20 scored 11. It was an impressive offensive performance for the Mammoths after they struggled to score the previous two games.

Amherst shot 47.1 percent from the field and 41.6 percent from three, which were both above season averages.

Amherst will be back in action on Saturday, taking on the Hamilton Continentals in Clinton, New York. The game will tip off at 3 p.m.

Women’s Hockey vs. Wesleyan, 7 p.m.

Men’s Hockey vs. Trinity, 7:30 p.m.

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Madeline Eck ’20 continues to lead the Amherst offense, scoring an average of 15.1 points per game.

SAT

SUN

Men’s and Women’s Track and Field Branwen Smith-King Invitational @ Tufts

Men’s and Women’s Squash vs. Wesleyan, 10 a.m.

Men’s and Women’s Track and Field NEICAAA Indoor Championships @ Reggie Lewis Center

Men’s and Women’s Track and Field NEICAAA Indoor Championships @ Reggie Lewis Center

Men’s and Women’s Squash vs. Tufts, 5 p.m.

Men’s and Women’s Swim and Dive @ MIT, 1 p.m.

Men’s Basketball vs. Wesleyan, 7 p.m.

Men’s Hockey @ Wesleyan, 3 p.m.

Women’s Basketball vs. Wesleyan, 7 p.m.

Women’s Hockey vs. Wesleyan, 7 p.m.

Men’s and Women’s Swim and Dive vs. Springfield, 1 p.m.

Men’s and Women’s Squash vs. Williams, 4 p.m.