Issue 17

VOLUME CLI, ISSUE 17

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2022

amherststudent.com

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF AMHERST COLLEGE SINCE 1868

Covid Policies Spur Uncertainty Among Winter Athletic Teams Tana Delalio ’24 and Vaughn Armour ’25 Managing News Editor and Staff Writer

Photo courtesy of Emma Spencer ’23E

Twenty-three Dining Services employees were recently converted from casual to benefited positions, providing health insurance, sick time, and other benefits to a number of staff working full-time hours at the college.

Employees Reflect on New Benefited Positions Caelen McQuilkin ’24E Managing News Editor Following President Biddy Martin’s Nov. 17 announcement of the college’s new plan to convert a significant number of its casual employees to benefited positions, 23 Dining Services employees have had their positions converted from casual to benefited. These employees have since received a wage increase, as well as the entire range of employment benefits that the college offers, including health insurance, dental insurance, and paid vacation and sick time.

According to the college’s Staff Handbook, casual positions are defined as “those which at the time they are established are not

OPINION

expected to be part of the regular staff of the department,” with casual employees “usually employed for less than 20 hours a week.” However, in an investigation last fall, The Student found that many “casual employees” were working far above the 20hour mark in key, non-temporary staff positions without benefits.

“Casual staff who are serving in these high hour-per-week roles will have the option of accepting the benefited position, and we expect that most will,” read Martin’s Nov. 17 announcement. “However, some may wish to retain a more flexible relationship with the College; we will respect that choice, of course, and allow them to remain in casual roles.”

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Careers of Consequence: Charlie Sutherby '23E and Mason Quintero '23 discuss how Amherst can better support students going into public service.

In a joint statement to The Student, Director of Dining Services Joe Flueckiger and Chief of Campus Operations Jim Brassord reported that Dining Services now has 86 total full-time staff with benefits (not including managers), up from 63. The number of active casual staff — which Brassord and Flueckiger defined as part-time employees working less than 20 hours per week — has been reduced to 29.

With the goal of understanding this policy shift and its impacts on staff members at the college, The Student spoke with seven employees in Dining Services: a combination of longtime benefited employees, former casual employees who recently became benefited, and current

ARTS & LIVING

casual employees. All sources opted to remain anonymous in order to maintain a comfortable relationship with management at work. Every employee interviewed expressed appreciation for the introduction of benefits for employees working full-time hours, emphasizing how significant the support of these benefits has been. Many also testified, however, that while the new policy — which enforces that casual employees cannot work more than 20 hours a week — has been beneficial, it has also meant that casual employees who were not converted to benefited positions have had their hours cut.

Continued on page 4

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WAMH x The Student: Olive Amdur '23 reflects on stillness and slowing down with David's Berman 2019 song "Snow is Falling in Manhattan."

SPORTS

Throughout the winter athletic season, increasing Covid cases on campus have prompted a host of Covid safety policies that bar athletes from competing once their team reaches a certain number of positive cases. Many winter athletes have expressed that the heightened uncertainty resulting from sudden cancellations of competitions has taken a toll on their mental health.

The policies in place prohibit intercollegiate competitions when “sustained increased transmission occurs on a team,” said Director of Sports Medicine Maria Rello.

Rello also stated that the college follows advice given by the NCAA and supported by the NESCAC, which holds that “sustained increased transmission is likely occurring if teams with less than fifty members have concurrent positive cases of three or more, and if, teams with more than fifty members have concurrent positive cases of five percent or more.”

Additionally, athletes who test positive for Covid must follow a mandatory return-to-play progression before participating in practice and competition again.

The progression includes a min-

Continued on page 5

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Men's Squash Finishes Strong: Hedi Skali '25 recaps the men's squash team's third-place finish at the 2022 Summers Cup.

News POLICE LOG

Fresh Faculty Mekhola Gomes

Feb. 14, 2022 – Feb. 21, 2022

>>Feb. 14, 2022 11:24 p.m., Morris Pratt Dormitory Residential Life Community Safety Assistant (CSA) team responded to a report of a loud party. >>Feb. 15, 2022 10:52 p.m., Marsh House Residential Life CSA staff responded to a report of a loud party. The party dispersed prior to the CSA’s arrival. >>Feb. 17, 2022 9:57 a.m., Service Building Lots A boot was placed on a vehicle that is on the boot list and was parked in violation of parking regulations.

11:04 a.m., Alumni Lot A sergeant responded to a minor motor vehicle accident with no injuries.

9:37 p.m., Newport Parking Lot A detective took a report of a minor motor vehicle accident with no injuries. >>Feb. 18, 2022 3:44 a.m., Beneski Museum of Natural History A boot was placed on a vehicle that is on the boot list and was parked in violation of parking regulations.

11:40 p.m., King Hall Residential Life CSA staff responded to a noise complaint. >>Feb. 19, 2022 12:17 a.m., Morris Pratt Dormitory Residential Life CSA

staff requested assistance in closing down a party. Community Service Officers (CSO) responded.

12:37 a.m., Morris Pratt Dormitory A fake license was turned into the Registry of Motor Vehicles after being turned into a detective.

3:33 p.m., Orr Rink A sergeant took a report of a group of individuals urinating on the floor of a locker room.

6:48 p.m., Valentine Dining Hall A detective responded to a report of two individuals entering an unauthorized area that did not have prior access.

They left prior to the detective’s arrival. >>Feb. 20, 2022 12:20 a.m., Mayo Smith House Residential Life CSA staff responded to a noise complaint.

12:59 a.m., James Hall Residential Life CSA staff responded to a noise complaint.

2:26 a.m., Mayo Smith House A sergeant took a report of a thermostat broken off of the wall. >>Feb. 21, 2022 6:41 p.m., Mead Art Museum A sergeant responded to an alarm and found it was set off by an employee.

Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, History

Mekhola S. Gomes is an assistant professor of history and Asian languages and civilizations. She received a bachelor’s degree with honors in history from St. Stephen’s College at the University of Delhi, and her master’s degree, master of philosophy degree, and Ph.D. from Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Q: This past semester was your first semester at Amherst. How would you say it went?

A: I think it went great. I was a little apprehensive about moving to the U.S., because I was teaching at Durham University in the U.K. before this, … but [despite] all of the complexities that moving and teaching involved in a pandemic, it was actually a wonderful experience to teach, meet, and interact with [students].

I taught two courses this past semester. One [course, “Ramayanas in History, Ramayanas as History,”] was on one of the oldest and [most] preeminent epic tales from South and Southeast Asia, called the Ramayana.

[We focused on] tracing the history of South Asia through a close reading of this text, and seeing how the story has traveled and changed over time. The other course was an upper level seminar [called] “The Indian Ocean World,” which in many ways speaks to my recent research interests. Having been trained in South Asian history — and specifically Indian history — as a postcolonial citizen, my scholarly training was restricted more to study of the nation-state of India. But as I began finishing my dissertation and thinking about future research, … I began to be interested in connections across places, especially across the Indian Ocean. So to that end, my new research is now looking at these connections across the eastern Indian Ocean [and] across places like Malaysia, Indonesia, and India. These are the two courses that

I taught — I really enjoyed teaching them and I hope that students enjoyed being in my classroom.

Q: What are you teaching this semester?

A: This semester, I’m teaching a course titled “South Asia in the World.” This introduces students to the history of premodern South Asia, but [we’re] not looking at South Asia as this static place located outside of time, or in isolation, divorced from the history of the premodern world at large. [Instead, we are] demonstrating that people have always traveled across time, that people have always been mobile, and that things have always been connected. I think the challenge of this course is to try and understand the history of premodern South Asia as part of critical premodern history, and to see what happens when we study the premodern world [while] placing South Asia at its center, rather than placing Europe, for example, at the center of our frame of reference.

The other course that I’m teaching is called “Sex, Gender, and the Body in South Asian History.”

That traces the history of South Asia up until the contemporary times, looking at it through the lens of categories [such as] sex, gender, and the body, while at the same time historicizing these categories.

Q: What do you hope students take away from your classes?

A: One of the main takeaways that I would like students to come away with is a sense of the dy-

namism of the history of South Asia, and also to understand and recognize the importance of premodern history at large. A lot of contemporary exclusionary political claims — for example, those coming from various kinds of exclusionary nationalism — are based on dubious and spurious histories. Many of these dubious claims are based on deliberate misunderstandings, often of the premodern past. So I would like students to understand the ways in which the past informs the present, and continues to be a part of who we are today.

Q: When you’re not teaching or researching, what are some things you enjoy doing?

A: I really enjoy running. I love hiking, which is another reason I really enjoy Amherst — there are lots of opportunities to do these activities. I also really enjoy practicing my music. I recently resumed my training in Hindustani classical singing. That was an interest that I had kind of neglected for a while as I was finishing my Ph.D. Q: If the pandemic was over today, what would you do?

A: I would definitely love to see my friends more often, who are unfortunately located all over the world because of work. It was wonderful to be able to visit my parents in India after two and a half years, so I’m looking forward to being able to visit friends and family a lot more.

—Karina Maciel ’25

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

News

3

Used Bookstore The Option Revitalizes Through New Initiatives

Photo courtesy of Corri Hickson ’25

This semester, students shopping at The Option were able to browse a catalog of the store's more than 16,000 books.

Ethan Foster ’25 and Sofia Tennent ’25 Staff Writers If you had walked into the basement of Garman House at the beginning of this semester, you would have found students browsing rows and rows of gently-used books. In the background, checks dating back to 1982 adorn the walls.

Since at least the 1980s, The Option, Amherst College’s student-run used bookstore, has been pursuing the mission of providing students affordable access to course materials.

The bookstore recently completed its second selling period following its reopening in the fall after a yearlong pandemic-induced closure.

Students in charge of The Option’s operations introduced a number of changes this semester, including the introduction of a public catalog of the store’s inventory and new marketing techniques, in an attempt to attract more students and revitalize the resource.

The Option is a consignment bookstore, operating as a third party through which students can buy and sell books. The store aims to provide cheaper alternatives to required course materials while also giving students an opportunity to sell their own unneeded materials. As a nonprofit organization that receives no outside funding from the college, The Option relies solely on students to provide books to resell. Upon the

sale of a given book, the majority of the proceeds are given to the book’s previous owner, with a small percentage going to The Option’s staff.

Prices at the store generally range from $7 to $10 per title, though textbook pricing can vary.

Zhihan Xu ’24, who has directed the bookstore’s operations since the summer of 2021, said that, following the onset of the Covid pandemic in March 2020, there was “a lack of continuity and a good amount of turnover” in the store’s leadership.

The store paused its operations through the remote semesters of the previous year, and much of the store’s previous leadership graduated in the interim.

Xu, who entered Amherst College during its remote period, was hired before having even shopped at The Option himself. “Last fall was a lot of us just trying to figure stuff out still,” he said about the return to normal operations last semester.

Coming into this semester, Xu and his team looked for ways to improve the service. “We could see that there were shortcomings in our own system. So, my goal at the start of this semester was to reorganize it,” he said. Xu and his team spent January term sorting and cataloging The Option’s collection, which boasts more than 16,000 books.

This effort to improve the store’s accessibility has proved successful in the eyes of many students. Ankit Sayed ’24, who bought more than 20

books from The Option this year, considers the new catalog of the bookstore’s collection an “absolute game changer,” noting that he picked up more books than he would have otherwise.

Due to The Option’s closure during the remote semesters, however, the bookstore has declined in recognition among the student body. Ella Peterson ’22 recalled that, during her freshman year, lines at The Option would wind “all the way up the Garman staircase to the third floor.” Following the pandemic, “it seems less common for folks to use it,” she said.

Helen Mak ’24 said that one of The Option’s main goals this semester was to raise awareness of the resource among underclassmen, given that Covid hindered their exposure to it. In order to do so, Mak explained that she “created posters that we posted around campus, blasted on email, and shared on AmherstBussin.”

Mak also worked to improve The Option’s outreach through social media by setting up an Instagram page (@theoptionac). “Creating an Instagram account has also allowed students to ask us questions directly, and we feel more in touch and updated with the concerns and ideas that students had,” she said.

As a result of these new initiatives, The Option “had a more consistent flow of students coming,” Mak shared.

Xu said that he hoped The Option could alleviate some of the potential financial burden that book-buying can pose. “There’s got to be books down there that people need that they’re not aware of. If you want to have a physical copy of a book, that shouldn’t be the reason that you can’t access it.”

The books available at The Option consist of both classic works of literature and titles written more recently — including some by Amherst professors.

“You see a lot of Greek authors like Homer, and we have a ton of titles for big, intro classes. I think we have 20-odd copies of [William Nelson Cromwell] Professor [of Jurisprudence and Political Science Austin] Sarat’s books, and a ton of stuff by [Samuel Green] Professor [of Religion Susan] Niditch,” Xu said.

The store is also home to various textbooks, though the selection is largely humanities-oriented. Sayed acknowledged this, stating that it was much easier to find texts for humanities classes given their reliance on classic, foundational texts.

Xu, recognizing the limitations of the bookstore’s resources, stated that providing up-to-date STEM-oriented textbooks was a more complicated process, given the frequent release of updated editions with revised problem sets.

Xu does see opportunities to improve The Option that are within reach, though, noting that The Op-

tion has regained access to its official Amherst College email, which Xu is hoping to use to notify students of the bookstore’s re-opening at the start of each semester and of the dates of their “book-drop” events.

In the future, Xu is also looking to introduce a reservation system to the bookstore. This would allow students to place books on hold and have them collected by the store’s staff for pick-up because, as Xu notes, Amherst students “don't always have time to go and browse.”

The Option staff has also thought about expanding their selling period past the dates of Add/Drop period, but, as a student run service, it is “a little bit hard to operate … during the semester,” Xu said.

“At the end of the day, it’s just kids doing this to provide a service,” said Sayed. “I think they’re doing a great job.”

Moving forward, Xu hopes to expand The Option’s presence and accessibility on campus. “I’d like to get faculty more involved. You notice trends on what books people are buying, and it would be nice to have faculty present us as a possibility, to be the best resource we can be. We have these books, we are an option,” Xu concluded.

Though The Option is now closed following the end of the Add/Drop period, the store will be accepting book drops during Reading Period at the end of the spring semester.

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

News

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Staff Speak on Workplace Changes After Employee Conversion Continued from page 1 A Welcome Change One employee, who will be referred to as Employee A, started working 40-hour work weeks at the college in September 2021 as a casual employee. They were converted from casual to benefited status in the policy change this past November, and expressed that they are “glad that the college was able to make that change and offer [benefited positions].”

“When I first heard about [the policy change], … what I heard was that students were pushing for … staff [to] get full-time benefited job[s],” Employee A said. “It was in the air, … and I was psyched and I was like ‘Oh, I hope I get offered it.’ I ended up getting offered the position, and for me it both changed and it didn’t change [things] … I was already doing 40 hours. The thing that did change was that …

I felt like my work was being appreciated more … and I was able to have the same benefits as everyone else.”

Many of the other employees who received benefits after the policy shift expressed excitement and appreciation for the change as well.

Employee B, who was also converted to a benefited position in November, reflected: “For me, personally, it has been a great transition. I’m getting really amazing health insurance and the college matches into a retirement fund, which — for the wage I’m being paid — would seem impossible elsewhere.”

Employee C, who believes they are one of the oldest employees working in Dining Services, has been working at the college since around 1987. They were converted to a benefited employee in the transition and said that they are happy overall, especially about the increase in wages. Employee C also emphasized the importance of being able to add money to a retirement plan, and how vital that is to employee well-being.

In thinking about the newly offered benefits as a whole, Employee A reflected on the significance of paid holiday and sick leave time.

“Those benefits do help a lot,” they said. “Sometimes it’s very long days here at work, and it gets really busy. … I feel like everyone deserves just a personal day. … Those things actually do help us, just to recuperate, you know?”

Other employees expressed their satisfaction with the step this change takes toward fixing a dysfunctional labor structure at the college.

“When I first started [working at Amherst], when I was seeing that the casuals were working 40 hours, I thought to myself, ‘What? Why aren’t we able to have those benefits?’” said Employee A. The Student found last fall that on one given week, front-of-the-house dining staff (those not working in the kitchen or on food prep) worked approximately 1,100 hours of labor, of which approximately 50 percent were filled by benefited employees and 50 percent by casual employees.

“I just feel like we all do the same thing, and we all put the same time and effort,” said Employee A. “Now it’s changed a lot. … We — including me — have the new full-time benefited jobs.”

In a joint statement to The Student, Director of Dining Services Joe Flueckiger and Chief of Campus Operations Jim Brassord called the change a “winwin scenario for the staff and the college.”

“This shift represents a significant investment by the college in our Dining Program and in our staff,” they wrote. “Martin made this employment model a priority in support of staff. Her commitment to this initiative has given our Dining Program a more stable employment model.”

Consequences for Remaining Casual Employees Employee A recounted that after the initial announcement

of the policy change, dining staff met individually with managers to discuss their schedule and whether they would be interested in accepting one of the newly created benefited positions.

After these shifts were made, according to Brassord and Flueckiger, the remaining casual employees working in Dining Services are “often high school students, or occasional staff for catered events. Also included are some staff who chose not to accept full employment.”

Because the conversion to benefited positions occurred based on hours worked per week, however, employees said casual employees who were not working a full 40 hours already, but

“I was already doing

40 hours. The thing that did change was that … I felt like my work was being appreciated more, … and I was able to have the same benefits as everyone else.

— Employee A

”

still worked more than 20 hours a week, were left at an odd in-between. Since casual employees could no longer work more than 20 hours per week, employees had to choose between cutting their weekly hours or finding work elsewhere.

“I think reducing the hours of the casuals is probably an okay thing, but I think it should have been more flexible instead of a hard 20-hour limit, like you can work between 20 and 25 or 30 hours,” said Employee B. “If I hadn’t been offered a full-time spot, that would have put me in a bad position and [I] would have had to look for work elsewhere.

Most of the casuals at this point are retired or are in school and

just need a little something to make money, which is fine. It just kind of stinks [that] if they wanted to work more, they can’t.”

All staff who chose to remain in their casual position are still employed with the college, Brassord and Flueckiger said. “We never intended for this initiative to displace staff. The idea has always been to promote and retain staff.”

Casual employees still working at the college reported that over January term, several had their hours cut due to the lower numbers of students on campus.

“The changes … it hasn’t helped … in my case,” said an anonymous employee, Employee E, who has worked less than 20 hours per week as a casual employee for several years now. “I didn’t get the proper heads up about what would happen with J-term, and being put out of work from before Christmas until early February, I was left with nothing. Nothing to do, really.”

Employee E was able to keep up with bills and rent, but remarked that “providing for myself, it’s hard. It was very limited.

I tried to find a second job, but that [was difficult] as well.”

Employee A corroborated this account, saying that the casuals who were not converted “had a whole change that they weren’t expecting.”

“They weren’t expecting the change of schedules hours-wise, and the shorter days,” they said.

“I know there’s another [employee] downstairs, … I believe [they] weren’t a 40-hour employee, but [they] did have longer shifts — eight-hour shifts for three days — and I know [they] got [their] hours cut and [they] don’t really understand why.”

Adjustments in the Workplace as a Whole The shift of so many casual positions to benefited ones has also affected dining hall operations. One former casual employee who was converted to a benefited job took the position to avoid having their hours cut

and gain better pay and benefits.

But this same individual is having a hard time adjusting to the position’s greater responsibility.

“You could say that we have to do a little bit more, and work on things a lot more. For example, for the line, I used to just serve … Now I have to do more in areas that you could say I’m not as comfortable in, for example, calling for food downstairs,” said Employee A. “That’s something that for me … I have to start getting comfortable with.”

Overall, the employees The Student spoke with expressed appreciation for a better work environment.

“I feel like it has changed a lot.

Now we have more help … Before we kind of had to all work a little harder and figure out ways, and now I feel like it’s running a lot more smooth[ly],” said Employee A. “Now that we have things assigned, like who’s going to be where, it just makes it a lot easier on us to go, you know, and it’s not all over the place.”

Brassord and Flueckiger had similar thoughts. “The conversion has been a very welcome change for us. While the operation has not shifted, our reliance on temporary help has changed dramatically,” they wrote. “Previously, there has been more turnover and hence more effort on hiring each semester to fill positions. Now that this initiative has been implemented we have been able to focus more on our food service programming in advance of the semester.”

Reflecting more broadly, one staff member, Employee F, shared that this policy change marks an important step toward a better workplace environment, but is not an end to the struggle.

Given the rising costs of living in the Amherst area, such as gas, another employee emphasized that the college needs to follow its wage increase for the converted employees with a wage increase for all employees.

“There’s still more that needs to happen to create a really great workplace,” said Employee F.

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

News

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Canceled Athletic Competitions Heighten Student Angst Continued from page 1 imum rest period of three to 10 days depending on the severity of symptoms, followed by a minimum of a five-day return-to-play activity program consisting of incrementally strenuous workouts completed approximately 24 hours apart.

Winter athletes’ fears of cancellation were realized when, on multiple occasions, training trips and games were canceled only a few days, or even hours, prior to their scheduled times.

Sabrina Comess ’24, a member of the swim and dive team, described that the sudden cancellation of her team’s training trip in January due to rising Covid cases prompted her team to constantly worry about whether they would be able to continue training and competing throughout the season. “Especially at the beginning of January, when Omicron was really bad, every time we had a meet scheduled there was always [this question of] ‘Will it happen? Are we about to lose our whole season?’” she said.

Fellow swimmer Gabriele Filippo-Lunardi ’25 echoed Comess’ sentiments. “It’s been very difficult to stay focused and motivated when you have to prepare for the worst. Mentally, I feel like I’ve had to step back from the sport at times just so that I don’t get too disappointed if everything gets canceled,” he said.

Leading up to the NESCAC championships, many members of the team altered their social habits to decrease their chances of testing positive, said diver Hannah Colaizzo ’23. “A little over a week before NESCACs we limited our social circle to just the swim team. ... Some teammates even slept in different rooms if they were worried about their roommates potentially testing positive.”

“We knew that if someone tested positive within like a week and a half [of the competition], then that was it; they weren’t going to be able to compete and [achieve what] we had been working towards the whole year,”

Photo courtesy of Emma Spencer ’23E

Despite roadblocks, some athletes feel that Covid has brought their teams closer.

Comess said. “It’s one thing to get sick yourself — and that’s a bummer — but if you were to get your teammates sick and prevent [them] from having that chance, that’d be really awful.”

Colaizzo noted that, while it was difficult to cut down her social circle and free time to just the team, “it made it worth it to finally compete.”

Although the swim and dive team was ultimately able to participate in all of their scheduled meets, other teams had no such luck. Sidnie Kulik ’25, a member of the track and field team, reported that the administration had prohibited her team from attending the 2022 Boston University David Hemery Valentine Invitational held on Feb. 11-12.

Kulik expressed disappointment that the meet’s cancellation would interfere with the team’s future qualifications for competitions. “[That meet] is the most important competition of the regular season to be able to qualify for nationals … so it was difficult to have to be pulled out for Covid precautions,” she said.

In addition to feeling angst surrounding potential cancellations of competitions, those who tested positive for Covid report-

ed even greater stress levels from their inability to practice and compete with their teammates.

Kulik said that her “mental health definitely took a hit with not being able to compete” after testing positive and missing two meets. “I missed the most competitive meet of the regular season, which has given me a lot of anxiety in terms of being able to hit a good time to qualify for postseason competition,” she said.

Yeshwin Sankuratri ’24, a member of the squash team, recalled that receiving a positive test the day before his team was scheduled to leave for the College Squash Association National Championships took a mental toll on him. Both Sankuratri and captain Charlie Sutherby ’23E received positive tests, taking two of the top players on the team out of the championship roster.

For Sutherby, this marks the third time in his college career where Covid stripped him of the opportunity to compete in the National Championships. Sutherby said that this tournament was supposed to be the “thing I’ve been waiting on for two years … the culmination of all that hard work.”

Even after accepting he would not have the opportunity to play

in Nationals due to the return-toplay progression, Sutherby held out hope that he could be with the team after the mandatory quarantine period had ended. However, he learned on the morning of his sixth day of quarantine — the second day of Nationals — that he was still Covid-positive, ending his hopes of experiencing the last National Championships of his college career with the rest of his team.

“Initially, my only thoughts were about the team and the hope that I had not exposed anyone else to Covid-19,” Sankuratri said about learning that he had tested positive. He noted that since he and Sutherby were both positive at the time, the entire team would not have been able to compete in the Championships if one more member had tested positive.

“I was extremely upset that I had potentially ruined the team’s chances to achieve what we were capable of at full strength,” Sankuratri recalled.

Marshall Richardson ’22, a member of the track and field team, similarly said, “My ‘fear’ of getting Covid was driven by the greater interest of my team rather than myself.”

Many athletes reported that

their stress levels still remained high following clearance from the Health Center after isolation, due to the mandatory return-to-play progression.

“If you were thinking about a meet, you couldn’t be like, ‘Only five days out [after getting] Covid [until you are able to participate].’

It’s actually over a week because you get Covid and then test negative, but you have to do all this stuff to get back in [to practices and competition],” Comess said.

Nicole Stanford ’24, a member of the basketball team, reported that she was unable to resume competition for nearly two weeks after testing positive. After quarantining for almost 10 days, she then had to participate in the fiveday return-to-play progression, which added an extra three days during which she was unable to practice with her teammates and had to miss a game.

Stanford recalled, “[The process] definitely increased my stress levels because I didn’t want to miss out on practices and let my team down; we were already missing a few people due to Covid.”

Additionally, she felt that the return-to-play process wasn’t even effective. “It just involved running and progressively running more each day until day three when I could practice without contact.

I wasn’t experiencing any symptoms that made it difficult,” Stanford said.

Despite the added pressures of suddenly canceled competitions and heightened angst around testing positive, many winter athletes expressed feeling closer to their teammates after a season of shared challenges. Kulik felt that “having Covid has changed my perspective about athletics in a positive way; it made me even more thankful for the opportunities I have to practice with my teammates and the ability to compete, which I lacked in isolation.”

Sankuratri echoed her positive sentiment. “I am proud of the way our team stepped up, held their heads high, and competed with class in the face of adversity,” he said.

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

News

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Mammoth Moments in Miniature: Feb. 16 to Feb. 22 The Editorial Board College Re-increases Covid Testing Frequency In an email sent on Feb. 21, Director of Student Health Services Dr. Emily Jones and Director of Emergency Management Matthew Hart announced that due to high levels of positive Covid tests last week, the college has resumed three-times-a-week testing for this week and next week. Friday, Feb. 25, was added as the third testing day this week — the testing center will revert to the Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday schedule next week.

First Sexual Misconduct Listening Sessions Take Place on Feb. 22 President Biddy Martin outlined the start of the college’s commissioned review of sexual misconduct on campus on Feb. 18 in an email sent to students, faculty, and staff. Students were invited to share their experiences

at the first day of drop-in listening sessions hosted by Gina Maisto Smith and Leslie Gomez of Cozen O’Connor on Feb. 22. More listening sessions will follow, to be announced in the Daily Mammoth and online. An online platform will also be set up soon to allow for anonymous submissions.

Housing Operations Begins Processing Room Change Requests Housing Operations communicated in an email on Feb. 18 that the room change process opened on Feb. 18 and will close on Mar. 11. Housing Operations is currently receiving five requests for every available room, and will only be able to process a small number of requests each week.

In an effort to “fairly address the large list of requests,” Housing Operations has developed a ranking system for requests based on urgency.

Free Water Bottles Available at Frost Café

Dining Services, the Bicentennial Team, and the Office of Sustainability have sponsored an initiative to offer students free reusable water bottles as part of the college’s sustainability effort. The water bottles were first offered to students during lunch at Valentine Dining Hall on Feb. 8 and Feb. 9, but are now available at Frost Café during regular hours, with cleaning services provided in Val. AAS Removes Requirement for Senators to Collect Signatures Before Running In a Feb. 22 email, the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) Elections Committee announced that the Senate had unanimously passed an amendment removing the requirement that Senate candidates collect petition signatures in order to run. Students have seven days to submit a petition contesting the amendment. A schoolwide referendum will be held on the amendment if a petition collects at least 10 student signatures.

Photo courtesy of Tana Delalio ’24

Free reuseable water bottles are available at Frost Cafe.

From the Red Room: Feb. 21 AAS Meeting Updates Liam Archacki ’24 Managing Editor On Monday, Feb. 21, the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) met for the third time of the spring semester. Unlike the previous week’s meeting, which was held in the Red Room with isolating senators joining over Zoom, this meeting was conducted entirely over Zoom due to “unforeseen circumstances.”

The meeting agenda included the induction of new senators, Budgetary Committee (BC) funding recommendations, committee elections, an amendment to the AAS constitution, a proposed change to the bylaws, officer reports, and updates on Senate projects and committees.

After attendance was taken, the senators elected in the Feb. 18 special elections were inducted into the AAS. In the absence of the Judiciary Chair, who is studying abroad this semester, Judi-

ciary Council (JC) member Lori Alarcon ’24 led the induction ceremony, wherein Sam Beach ’22, Chloe Wohlgemuth ’22, Jessica Yu ’22, Chloe Metz ’23, Gillian Quinto ’23, Sam Robin ’23, and Sophie Sweeney ’23 recited the Senate oath in unison, and officially became AAS senators.

Treasurer Jae Yun Ham ’22 then relayed the BC discretionary funding recommendations.

The largest requests came from the Muslim Students Association, Design House, and the Arts Committee. After some discussion, senators unanimously approved the BC-recommended total of $25,383.14.

Elections were held for open positions on two committees: one seat was open on the College Council for a member of the Class of 2023, and one seat was open on the Faculty Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid (FCAFA) for any class year. Sirus Wheaton ’23, as the only nominee, won the

position on the College Council.

Mia Griffin ’24, Isaiah Doble ’25, Dania Hallak ’24, and Wohlgemuth were nominated for the FCAFA opening, with Griffin winning the vote and position.

Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 presented an amendment to the AAS constitution, which would remove the requirement that Senate candidates collect petition signatures in order to run. A motion to vote on the amendment was introduced, and it passed unanimously, with an email sent to students explaining the change on Feb. 22.

Graber-Mitchell also presented a potential change to the AAS bylaws. The proposal outlined a plan to pay certain elected student officials — including senators, executive board members, and some at-large members of the JC and BC. Graber-Mitchell noted that the proposed alteration could boost civic participation in AAS elections. If enacted, the change

would not take effect until next term and would set a limit on the number of hours a week that can be counted for payment. Numerous senators provided feedback on the proposal, and it was not brought for a vote.

Officers then provided their weekly reports. Vice-President Basma Azzamok ’22 solicited topics for the officers’ first biweekly meeting with Dean of Students and Interim Chief Student Affairs Officer Liz Agosto on Thursday, Feb. 24. Hallak and Kya Rincon ’22 suggested that the officers both bring up the lack of academic accommodations for those in Covid isolation.

Several senators also provided updates on their Senate projects.

Wheaton sought advice on his efforts to provide access to free hygiene products and sustainable detergent in residence halls, since the college had elected not to fund his request for $28,000.

Graber-Mitchell suggested that

the AAS fund the sum through the Student Life Fund. Regarding her attempts to create a major fair, Hannah Kim ’25 asked about the permissibility of providing a cash incentive to students willing to speak about their major at the fair.

Although unsure about the prospect of cash incentives, senators agreed that Kim could reach out to passionate students through personal connections and the Daily Mammoth.

Two committees provided updates as well. On behalf of the Transportation Committee, Jackson Lee ’24 reported that the committee will meet this week to discuss Spring Break shuttles.

Hallak and Griffin, as members of the Sexual Assault Task Force, announced their plan to reach out to the @amherstshareyourstory Instagram account for input on how to best serve students affected by sexual misconduct.

The next AAS meeting will take place on Monday, Feb. 28.

Op pinion

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Expanding Equity in Admissions Next term, the Supreme Court will hear cases accusing Harvard University and the University of North Carolina of racial discrimination in their affirmative action policies — policies very similar to those employed by Amherst, as well as most of our peer institutions. Despite lower-court decisions in favor of affirmative action in college admissions, the majority-conservative Supreme Court will likely rule against the practice. While the outcome of the case is, of course, not certain, and no one knows just how sweeping the Court’s decision will turn out to be, race-based affirmative action in U.S. college admissions seems to be on the brink of extinction.

The probable loss of affirmative action poses a significant threat to equity in admissions. After the ruling, colleges across the country will likely have to completely rethink their admissions policies.

Amherst’s first priority should be to double down on its commitment to build a racially diverse community. Over the last decades, affirmative action has been essential in helping the college transition from an overwhelmingly white campus into one of the most racially diverse campuses in the country. Affirmative action has been central in opening up the closed system of private education to a much wider, more representative, and more equitable system.

The fundamental shift threatened by the Supreme Court case also, however, presents the opportunity for a wide-scale reflection on the shortcomings of existing admissions policies.

Beyond fighting to maintain the racial diversity threatened by the Supreme Court case, the college must acknowledge its current failure to promote other meaningful types of diversity.

The college’s extraordinary scores on diversity metrics compared to peer institutions reflect real progress. We have higher percentages of non-white students than almost any of our peer institutions, and the college allocates significant resources towards improving diversity on campus. However, over 20 percent of students at Amherst come from the top one percent of wealthiest families, and nearly 60 percent from the top fifth. Even more strikingly, only 4.7 percent of Amherst college students come from the bottom fifth of families sorted by wealth, demonstrating the college’s struggle to serve lowerclass families across racial lines. Over half of the student body comes from only four states, skewing geographic diversity as well as economic.

The decision to apply to Amherst derives from many factors, which are often outside the college’s

control. A student’s education is based on luck and privilege in so many ways that creating widespread educational equity from the college’s admissions office is an impossibility. Many students report that outreach to schools outside of the Northeast is disappointingly lacking. Moreover, even with better institutional outreach, just sending mail to places where applications are low won’t solve the problem with applicant numbers. The very reputation of a prestigious institution makes it seem unattainable for a vast number of applicants, regardless of their talent.These large-scale failures point to some basic oversights of the current admissions model: Amherst, for all the diversity it has on paper, does not ensure true equity in its admissions, and encourages students and observers to conflate the appearance of racial diversity with fully equal opportunity in education.

We recognize that the college can’t singlehandedly fix educational inequity. But the college can approach admissions more holistically by considering as many factors as possible. For instance, taking socioeconomic diversity more heavily into account would not only improve racial diversity, but reduce the college’s overwhelmingly large proportion of wealthy students and diversify the set of high schools that students hail from.

Moreover, admissions should examine factors such as parental occupation, geographic location, schooling, working background, and age. Doing so would be a step toward providing those students who traditionally face massive barriers to attending elite private institutions with fair and equitable access to the resources of one of the wealthiest and most influential undergraduate institutions in the world.

While attempts at doing better may seem fruitless, they are still worthwhile. Although we may incessantly call for more from an administration that isn’t all-powerful, the Editorial Board truly believes in the power of the college to improve the lives of those attending. Maintaining affirmative action — or some proxy for it — is a necessity, but it is not, by itself, enough. Our current admissions model has been unable to create a truly diverse campus — one diverse in race, in income, and in background. It’s time to change that.

Unsigned editorials represent the views of the majority of the Editorial Board — (assenting: 9; dissenting: 0; abstaining: 1).

THE AMHERST

STUDENT E X E C U T I V E B OA R D Editors-in-Chief Yee-Lynn Lee Ethan Samuels Managing Editors Theo Hamilton Liam Archacki Editors-at-Large Scott Brasesco Sophie Wolmer Managing News Caelen McQuilkin Tana DeLalio Assistant News Eleanor Walsh Sonia Chajet Wides Managing Opinion Kei Lim Dustin Copeland Assistant Opinion Tapti Sen

Managing Arts & Living Brooke Hoffman Alexander Brandfonbrener Aniah Washington Assistant Arts & Living Yasmin Hamilton Brianne LaBare Madeline Lawson Managing Sports Liza Katz Alex Noga Leo Kamin Nick Edwards-Levin Managing Podcast Sam Spratford Maggie McNamara Managing Photo Emma Spencer Managing Design Brianne LaBare

S TA F F Publisher Robert Bischof Digital Director Sawyer Pollard Social Media Manager Emi Eliason

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The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

Opinion

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A Better Amherst: Supporting Careers of Consequence Charlie Sutherby ’23E and Mason Quintero ’23 Contributing Writers This op-ed is the second part of a three-week series entitled “A Better Amherst.” In this series, we examine the inadequacy of Amherst’s support for students interested in impactful work and careers, and we propose a set of solutions that would make Amherst better for both its students and the world.

“Amherst College educates students of exceptional potential from all backgrounds so that they may … lead principled lives of consequence.” - Mission of Amherst College From the moment that Ben Gilsdorf ’21 arrived on campus, he knew that he wanted to pursue a career in public service. He felt like he had done all the right things at Amherst — he took the “right” classes, he did the “right” extracurriculars, he landed the “right” internships. But despite his best efforts, Gilsdorf’s transition into a public service career after graduation was anything but seamless.

After a few fruitless encounters with the Loeb Center, Gilsdorf learned to expect little help from Amherst in the pursuit of a public service career. He graduated without a job lined up, and moved to D.C. in hopes of finding work in the public sector. In the months that followed, Gilsdorf submitted over 90 job applications for politics, policy, nonprofits, and think tank positions with no luck. Most jobs never got back to him. For two months, he worked at Trader Joe’s to pay rent. Finally, by sheer perseverance, he landed a job in public service in November — half a year after graduating. Gilsdorf’s experience is not anomalous; it’s emblematic. In his words, “this is a typical story” among students from Amherst College pursuing public service work.

Amherst does not adequately support students who want to pursue impactful work. While it heavily facilitates entry into finance and consulting, Amherst leaves service-minded students like Gilsdorf to fend almost entirely for themselves. Students seeking public service careers dis-

cover that Amherst’s resources are, in Gilsdorf’s words, “out-of-touch and unprepared to deal with the way the industry works.” As we demonstrated in our last article, Gilsdorf’s alarming experience is reflected in the data: Amherst is one of the worst elite liberal arts colleges in the country at sending graduates into public service. But are postgrad outcomes even Amherst’s responsibility? And, if they are, how can Amherst better support its students?

First, let’s establish some common terminology. The Aspen Institute defines an “impact organization” as one "striving to achieve an explicit social [or environmental] mission; these organizations can range from community-based nonprofits to B-corporations to large government agencies or private businesses.” According to them, an impact career is “any role served within an impact organization.”

Some might assume that few Amherst graduates pursue impact careers because few students are actually interested in such work. But recent data would suggest otherwise.

Last week, we conducted a survey of Amherst students via the campus-wide Groupme to measure student interest in impact careers.

While these 77 respondents are not necessarily representative of the student body, the results certainly provide an illuminating pulse check of Amherst students. Among those polled, 62 percent of respondents were in the top two categories of interest in pursuing a role or career that focuses on creating social or environmental impact. Overall, these students overwhelmingly expressed interest in impact careers.

And I would imagine these results aren’t surprising: in my experience at Amherst, I’ve felt surrounded by students who care deeply about social justice issues, about climate change, and about improving the world. Thus, improving Amherst’s impact career outcomes isn’t a matter of convincing more students to care — it’s about improving institutional support.

To solve this problem, the college must start by taking responsibility.

Amherst must recognize that it is the essential hub between students and

careers — students learn what jobs are available, accessible, and desirable almost exclusively through the institutional and social structures of this college. While some might object that we shouldn’t be influencing students to pursue particular careers, the reality is that we already are: Amherst powerfully facilitates the entry of its students into high-wealth jobs.

Students seeking to make a difference in the world deserve that same sort of help.

Finding impact careers at Amherst College is far more difficult than it should be. Peer institutions like Swarthmore, Smith, and Grinnell College (three of the best colleges in the country at producing public service graduates) highlight the lack of Amherst’s support. But they also demonstrate that our situation is not inevitable. Better yet, these institutions offer a blueprint for how to create pathways into impact careers. Based on the examples of these model institutions, here’s how Amherst can solve its problem.

Dramatically increase the visibility of impact career pathways. Expand the number of structured opportunities for students to learn about impact careers, like information sessions or alumni visits specifically in the impact space. For example, imagine if Amherst hosted annual impact-themed alumni panels: one

devoted entirely to environmental careers, another for government and policy, another for nonprofits, another for social work, and so on.

Take a proactive role in the recruitment process. Public and social sector organizations struggle to find top talent. So Amherst should help them find us, by developing partnerships with employers and organizing recruiting events. Imagine if Amherst hosted an annual “Social and Environmental Impact Hiring Cluster” where a dozen impact organizations come to campus to interview students: racial justice nonprofits, progressive policy think tanks, climate tech start-ups, city government offices, and B Corporations, all at once. For a great example of proactive recruitment, just look at Harvard University’s Center for Public Service and Engaged Scholarship.

Financially support students after graduation. The public sector often doesn’t pay very well, a point which is particularly salient for students from low-income backgrounds. So, Amherst should kickstart the careers of interested students by creating postgraduate fellowships and grants for students pursuing impactful work.

Swarthmore College already offers Social Impact Fellowships ($27,000 per student); other colleges provide graduates with housing for their first

year working at a nonprofit.

Fully integrate career advising.

Career advising shouldn’t be optin: such a model disadvantages FLI students who may find it harder to get engaged with career services. Instead, every student should be given a career and/or life advisor just like every student is given an academic advisor. Amherst should be a space where we think critically about our place in the world, and it ought to provide structured opportunities for us to do so.

Amherst is a world-class institution of higher education. By most metrics, this college is exceptional.

Right now, the college is missing the mark on sending graduates into impact careers. But with the changes we’ve laid out, Amherst can do far more to connect its students to impactful work. In other words, Amherst College has a tremendous opportunity. Amherst has a chance to provide empowering opportunities to its graduates and to deliver an extraordinary amount of good to the world.

The task of fulfilling Amherst’s promise is an ambitious one. But it is achievable, and it is a worthy project for our college’s third century. Amherst should make the changes we’ve proposed. And, when it does, it will be a better Amherst.

Graph courtesy of Charlie Sutherby '23E and Mason Quintero '23

A survey of Amherst students measuring current student interest in "impact" careers. A majority of respondents showed interest in pursuing a career focused on creating social and/or environmental impacts.

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

Opinion

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Coping With Campus: Harmony in Purpose and Use Dustin Copeland ’25 Managing Opinion Editor Building is an act of world-creation. The result of architectural construction is space, and not just space in the physical sense. Space is social, and its nature is determined by how people use it — something fundamentally influenced by the vision an architect has for the space. If one wants to change the social culture in a given built environment, then, they need only change how it is made.

The process of changing how the built environment produces the nature of social gathering is apparent across campus. The ballroom in Mayo-Smith House was once the greatest of many elegant open spaces that facilitated events from sports parties to formal events to dance lessons from off-campus instructors. The college’s 2001 Residential Master Plan, which was carried out extensively across campus for the following two decades, demolished those spaces which were once the primary expression of social gathering at the college.

Now, the grandeur of Mayo’s intricate fireplace is disproportionately confined, and there seems to be a dirty neon veneer pasted over historic living spaces that, perhaps because of the lack of respect afforded to them by the college, aren’t respected by their students either.

Plimpton House’s gorgeous Newton Library is an empty box which

feels sad, a shadow of what it once must have been. Our fireplaces are disused, our wallpaper is incongruous, and our furniture is dissonant.

Nothing is more strange than sitting at an orange table in a plastic chair in Plimpton’s first-floor common space, bathing in a wash of artificial light glaring off of century-old hardwood and a historic fireplace. Except maybe sitting in a neon-yellow “couch” on the floor of Newton Library, chilled by a breeze coming through the shattered window.

These changes in social space on campus came for many reasons, from preventing large-scale parties to making up for the loss of the social dorms and, ultimately, finding some kind of replacement for the social structure defined by Greek life. Losing the social hierarchy that was produced by fraternities on campus has driven attempts by both students and administration to find new ways to gather. Keefe Campus Center and its 2013 renovation tried to shift the center of student activities, and the Powerhouse’s redesign was centered around replacing party and event space that had been inconsistent since fraternity-built social spaces began undergoing changes.

But at every turn, the shrinking of social space and lack of consideration for informal student-driven events (be they parties or, indeed, dance practices) speaks of a disconnect between space-creation and

Photo courtesy of Dustin Copeland '25

An indoor view of Cohan Dormitory, showcasing its "odd geometry" and "dream-like" atmosphere.

its use, between the vision for the space and the reality of it. Sometimes, spaces at Amherst feels like they were built to impose a vision of student organization onto a population which would not naturally conform. But how could an administration build with the intention of controlling its students — and what would such a building look like?

The first thing I noticed upon entering Cohan Dormitory was the floor plan mounted to the wall. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only building on campus with a copy of its floor plan prominently displayed so near its main entrance.

The second thing I noticed was that this floor plan was for the second floor. To enter a building at what appears to be ground level and walk into the second floor is off-putting at first, but could be written off as a fun idiosyncrasy — if not for the rest of the building. To the right of the entrance is a staircase leading down into a wide common room, and every floor opens out into an open shaft to a skylight in the roof above that staircase. However, the stairs that appear to be central to social space in the building are about three-quarters the size of an average person’s foot — the adjective “ladder-like” comes to mind.

The interior thereby feels both somehow open and labyrinthine, with its tall vertical spaces and deceptively short sight-lines. Without the ability to even see very far in front of you without a corner or

some odd geometry messing with your conception of location, just getting from room to room feels almost dream-like. One quickly loses track of where they are or how they got there, and even if they can see to another vaguely-pleasant social space from where they are, its spatial relationship with the wanderer is utterly inscrutable. Social spaces in Cohan can certainly hold plenty of people, but any gathering would have zero means of organizing itself, simply because no one would be able to see anything not in their immediate vicinity.

As anyone who has lived in Cohan will certainly tell you, the dorm was built sometime after the Vietnam War with the explicit intention of preventing student riots. It is the primary example of an architect’s vision for the use of a space being exactly antithetical to its users’ vision. Cohan’s architecture, through its anti-gathering design, makes it harder for students to live in a positive social environment, forcing students who live there to either conform to the lifestyle prescribed to them or somehow work around the construction of the space they’re living in. Students in Cohan are forced to use “social spaces” that are designed to be antisocial.

In terms of hostile and controlling architecture, it doesn’t get much more hostile than actively inhibiting organized gatherings. Moreover, while the confusing maze of the building’s interior might be fun

to explore, it’s completely and totally inaccessible — not to mention dangerous.

Cohan is much more extreme than other attempts at building social spaces all over campus in the last half-century. Its construction isn’t representative of the administration’s attitude towards students, and even if it was wrong to build a dorm that is antagonistic toward its inhabitants, the climate that produced Cohan isn’t predominant anymore. Cohan’s design, by its extraordinarily obvious intention, simply calls attention to the constructed nature of all social spaces at the college. Every room on campus is designed with a purpose, and how “good” it is in the eyes of the students is often a measure of how harmonious its design is with how it is used. Harmony in architecture is often strived for — harmony with the natural environment, symmetry in a building’s forms, and harmony in textures and materials all elevate a building above being just a box, devoid of humanity. Harmony in design and use, therefore, is something the college should always strive for as it assigns spaces for students to live in. Especially as the college moves into the future, with a new student center and new academic facilities on the horizon, it should think about how its students like to live. Instead of prescribing how we should use campus, space should respond to how it is actually used.

Photo courtesy of Amherst College

The first floor plan of Cohan Dormitory, filled with numerous spaces marked as "social," and yet few actual social spaces for its inhabitants to gather together.

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

Opinion

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Satire: FAQs About the New Residence Hall Reservation Policy Andrew Rosin ’25 Staff Writer The Office of Student Affairs (OSA) sent out an email to students on February 14 detailing numerous amendments to the existing Student Hosted Events Policy (SHEP). The Student answers some Frequently Asked Questions regarding these new guidelines.

What Does the Email Say? The OSA has banned all parties that involve students.

Who Is Allowed to Host Parties?

Jennifer Herrerez ’23E is al-

lowed to host parties.

What Is the Goal of These Policies?

The college hopes to maximize the amount of fun OSA staff members have shutting down unsanctioned parties.

How Will the Policies Be Enforced?

The college will rely on the honor code to ensure that students follow their all the rules and guidelines, in addition to a highly invasive surveillance system.

Can I Drink at Parties?

Only juice boxes and chocolate milk are permitted at parties, and only for students who are over the age of 25.

In Which Residence Halls Can I Host Parties?

Students are allowed to host parties in Hitch on the third Monday of each month.

What Happens if I Violate a Policy?

Students who violate the new policy will have their ID revoked unless they can prove that their parents have made at least $10,000 worth of charitable donations to the college.

How Have Students Reacted?

Most students only made it halfway through the email before deciding that it would not be worth spending an additional hour of their time reading the policies.

Are There Any Loopholes?

The OSA does not have jurisdiction over parties that are overtaken by Five College students.

Will Students Follow These Policies?

The college would not have sent this email out if they didn’t believe that all students would abide by the policies.

How Do These Policies Compare to Other Schools?

The dining halls at UMass Amherst only serve alcohol and edibles on weekends.

What Can I Do For Fun Now? The OSA offers a multi-week training program for students interested in becoming college-certified event hosts.

Has the OSA Shut Down Any Parties?

The OSA shut down an outof-control group of students playing board games and drinking bottled water in the Ford Hall fourth-floor common room.

Seeing Double: Administrators Should Talk to Students Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 Columnist Administrators have the very difficult job of running a minicity that caters to the needs of a particularly obstinate and hardto-please group: students. I don’t envy that job, and I have a lot of respect for the people who choose it. But recently, the administration has only been making its job harder.

I’m talking about the increasing number of top-down decisions made with seemingly no input from students. When this happens, the decisions tend to be unworkable or under-developed.

They cause students undue stress, create more problems than they solve, and only lead to further uproar. Frequently, the administration has to walk these decisions back after student feedback or protest.

For example, take the recent decision — now paused — to convert the Nicholls Biondi studio into a fitness space with “an elliptical, bikes, a treadmill, and free weights.” That studio, O’Connor Commons, and the basement of Marsh are the only three places on campus where student dance groups can rehearse: dancers need mirror walls to see themselves and special floors to prevent injury.

The only other suitable spaces on campus are controlled by the Theater and Dance Department and no longer allow student reservations. So when the Office of Residential Life explained in an email that dance groups would lose one of their few rehearsal spaces, and the Office of Student Activities dutifully canceled all of the space’s reservations for the rest of the semester, dancers were rightfully pissed.

If the administration had taken a moment to ask students what they thought of the decision, maybe someone would have told them that dancers needed the space.

Maybe someone would have explained that dance is how many students promote their well-being, the reason touted for the change.

Even better, the administration could have asked what the space’s users thought of the change. Then they surely would have received feedback telling them that the space was, in fact, very important.

I’m extraordinarily sympathetic to the administration’s intent, and I was looking forwards to using the equipment there. But their execution is the problem.

Another example comes from fall semester: the email we received on Nov. 22 detailing moveout, interterm move-in, and new rules for who could be on campus

during winter break and interterm. In the email, the administration said for the first time that students had to move out by noon on Dec. 18 and that students planning to be on campus for interterm had to move in on Jan. 2. (In a town hall hosted by the Association for Amherst Students (AAS), Dean of Students and Interim Chief Student Affairs Officer Liz Agosto claimed that these dates had been communicated earlier, but a search of my email yields nothing before Nov. 22.)

First of all, this was far too late to inform students that they had to leave by Dec. 18. A month’s notice is not enough to buy plane tickets, which are cheapest about six weeks out. Many students had already bought tickets to leave campus on the 19th and 20th by the time of the announcement.

Secondly, and more importantly, it was ludicrous to ask students to arrive all on the same day for interterm. Like fall move-out, many students had already bought tickets. For me, arriving on Jan. 5 was hundreds of dollars cheaper.

Moreover, the new policies utterly annihilated some students’ plans to arrive halfway through January to work on projects or go to nearby conferences. Before the pandemic, anyone could be on campus during winter break and

interterm as long as they informed the administration of their plans.

If the administration had asked students about whether or not these dates and policies worked, someone would have explained the obvious problems with them.

Instead, the administration decided they knew best. And the result was typical: the email wreaked havoc in students’ plans, stressing students out and causing them to waste money switching tickets.

Then, after the Housing Operations Team was inundated with emails and did not respond to student concerns for weeks, the AAS sent an apoplectic letter to Dean Agosto explaining the policies’ problems. Eventually, the administration walked back their decision.

All of this is to say that students should be involved in the decisions made by the college. I’m not suggesting that the administration send out an all-school poll for every policy change. That would only be absurd and irritating. But we should be able to at least expect them to reach out to student stakeholders, like the dancers who had reserved Nicholls Biondi for rehearsals, before making changes that affect them. And for issues as important as interterm, administrators should talk to the AAS, which, for all my co-columnist’s

ranting, contains a fairly representative collection of students.

This talking, and the listening that would hopefully follow, might make administrators’ jobs a little harder on the frontend. But the advantages on the backend — including better, more workable policies and buy-in from at least some students, who will help convince others — are worth it. Students are far more likely to comply with policies they helped set than those that seem arbitrary and tyrannical. And being involved in policy-making will help show students why some desirable policies are impossible, promoting compromise and a healthier administrative environment.

But students are more than strategically useful in policy-making. We live, eat, work, and play here; this is our home for the better part of four years. We should have a say in how it all works, as should staff and faculty.

Unfortunately, perhaps due to the ongoing Covid-19 emergency, the administration seems unwilling to cooperate by default with students in college governance.

Dean Agosto has committed to better communication from her office, but that isn’t enough. Students are plenty talked at. The problem is that we aren’t talked with.

Amusements

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The Amherst Student Crossword | Feb. 23, 2022 ACROSS 1 Radner of "SNL" 6 State you're probably in, for short 10 Where words are spoken?

14 Biddy and co.

15 Field of study 16 Director Ephron 17 Respond to a stimuli 18 Milk source 19 Worldwide: Abbr.

20 Attendees of 22-Across, inherently 22 A hot place to be from Feb. 24 to 27?, or a hint to this puzzle's theme 24 Orr surface 25 "Hilarious!," online 26 Like Narcissus 29 Author of "The Sympathizer" 33 Cartesian conclusion 36 One, in Weimar 37 Students, during finals 38 Golfer Palmer, familiarly 40 Chopper topper 42 WAMH hosts 43 Snowden's favorite vegetables?

44 Russian pancakes 45 Fleming and McKellen 47 Out of port 48 "Sul sul" speaker 49 With "The," many-award-winning literary magazine 51 Scammer's targets 52 Foot feature 54 MKS alternative, in science 56 Fraudulence 59 Prepare to operate 63 Pelvic bones 64 __-and-seek 66 University of Maine town 67 Sir ___ Guinness 68 ___ Romeo 69 Backyard barrier 70 Pizazz 71 Pulls along 72 Good study spot for a "snowy evening"

DOWN 1 Attire 2 Prefix meaning "thought" 3 25-Across alternative 4 Our "belle" 5 Shenanigan 6 It has its pluses and minuses 7 "___ we there yet?"

8 "I'll have you know I graduated top-of-my-class in the Navy ___s ..."

9 Don't see page 10 10 Emulate bloodhounds 11 Rodeway Inn affliction?

12 Marsh activities 13 Ice-cream concoction 21 Go for it 23 Of sound quality 26 Walks and runs 27 Garlic sauce 28 Kitamura's 2021 National Book Award Longlist earner 30 What the lights do at the start of a play 31 Pull paper 32 Limited-choice question 34 "American Idol" success Clay 35 Flat-topped formations 39 One who comforts 41 Actress Christina 46 1960's civil rights org.

50 "Ah, you mean this?"

53 Do a double take 55 Lauren '01 behind "Fates and Furies" 56 Natalie who won a 2021 Pulitzer Prize 57 Harvard Law's Woods 58 Grain storage facility 59 Black, White, Red, and Yellow 60 Pro ___ 61 Chapel Hill, Charlotte, and Greensborough: Abbr.

62 4-Down or 56-Down, for instance 65 '85 with unceasing humor, for short?

Liam Archacki ’24 and Ryan Yu ’22 Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief Emeritus

Solutions: Feb. 16

g Arts&Living

Netflix’s “Cowboy Bebop”: An Unwatchable Remake Alex Brandfonbrener ’23 Managing Arts and Living Editor

On Nov. 19, 2021, Netflix released its live-action adaptation of “Cowboy Bebop,” a beloved sci-fi anime show from Japanese animation studio Sunrise. As a longtime fan of the original, I was eager yet hesitant to watch.

Other live-action remakes of anime series, like 2017’s “Ghost in the Shell” starring Scarlet Johansson, have wildly disappointed expectant fans. So when I sat down this January to watch the remake of “Cowboy Bebop,” it was not a huge surprise to me that the show was unwatchable.

It was so bad that I couldn’t even make it through the first scene.

I can see why Netflix decided to adapt “Cowboy Bebop.”

The premise is enticing, even if you’re not an anime fan: in the year 2071, a cheeky gang hitman-turned bounty hunter named Spike searches for work and cash. He flies around in snazzy spaceships, all while a jazzy soundtrack whizzes through saxophone solos — the titular “bebop.” And I want to applaud Netflix for making efforts to stay true to the original: they recreated the original’s signature opening sequence, shot for shot.

Even that opening scene of the remake — the one I couldn’t get through — is a word-forword copy of a scene from the movie adaptation of the original.

But though the dialogue is the same, the two scenes couldn’t be more different. They demonstrate what I loved about the original, what I hated about the remake, and how these two visions of “Cowboy Bebop” are fundamentally opposites of each other.

Here’s the setup: a robbery is in progress. The leader of the heist recently lost his job at a tech giant. Using his insights into the company, he plans to steal from the corporation that

Photo courtesy of yam-mag.com

Alex Brandfonbrener ‘23 compares Netflix's live action remake of "Cowboy Bebop" to the original anime show.

Despite similarities to the original, the remake is so disappointing that he couldn't make it through the first scene. fired him. In the original, the setting is a convenience store owned by that tech giant. In the remake, it’s some sort of casino.

The difference in location is crucial. Spike ambles into the room with earbuds in. The robbers are aghast. Is he an undercover cop, or just some unlucky civilian? In actuality, he’s there to collect the robbers’ bounties. The remake doesn’t explain how and why a random man could stumble into this weird casino space. But in the original, it makes perfect sense: he’s just out to buy a cigarette.

Eventually, his farce is blown, and a gunfight ensues. In the remake, it’s your typical fight scene. The good guys take the bad guys by surprise, raining bullets on them all at once. Once again, the original is completely different, creatively juxtaposing the violent action and ordinary setting. Spike barely avoids whiz-

zing shots by hiding behind the aisles in the store. He surprises the boss with a party popper and knocks him into a coffee machine, which dribbles scalding coffee onto his face. Later, a different robber takes an old woman hostage and holds a gun to her head. Spike responds: “Sorry, lady. We don’t protect or serve.

This is business.” By startling the robber, he manages to get a clean shot in, saving the woman.

The remake omits the hostage moment altogether. Instead, the scene ends with some quippy lines and a flashy sequence: one of the robbers uses a laser cannon to blast a hole in the wall, exposing the vacuum of space. It was a spaceship all along.

This is another key difference between the two versions. The original features its sci-fi elements carefully, sparingly, and beautifully. Long shots of stars and space fill each episode, pro-

viding time for reflection. Just like the bare, empty desert in a western, space is a canvas for the lonely contemplations of the “cowboy” protagonist.

An undeniable similarity of the remake to the original is the soundtrack, jazzy and upbeat. I can’t fault Netflix in this regard, because they hired the same composer as the original, Yoko Kanno, and featured tracks from the original. But I don’t need a new version of “Cowboy Bebop” to appreciate, or even get more out of, the original’s music.

It’s blaringly fast and tauntingly playful, though at times mournful. The Seatbelts, a band Kanno formed specifically for the soundtrack of “Cowboy Bebop,” features Japanese singer Mai Yamane (I strongly recommend her 1980 album, “Tasogare”) alongside a talented set of blues musicians. It’s the highlight of the original for many fans, so much

so that The Seatbelts recently reunited for a charity concert benefiting the CDC Foundation and Doctors without Borders in support of the fight against Covid.

Beyond this simple message — don’t watch the remake; watch the original — I believe that the first “Cowboy Bebop” is a great anime show for someone who isn’t familiar with the genre.

While many anime series skim over the implications of their violence, “Cowboy Bebop” rests on it at length. There are no lasers or magic spells, only guns.

It’s only people shooting people, and those caught in between.

Even those who seek bloodshed are victims of systemic forces. By questioning its own violence, painting it as unjust even when the protagonist wields it, “Cowboy Bebop” is an answer to modern media’s numbness to violence. If only Netflix could have brought that to life again…

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

Arts & Living

13

“Texas Chainsaw Massacre”: Another Unwatchable Remake Cole Warren ’24 Contributing Writer In the summer of 1973, University of Texas Assistant Film Director Tobe Hooper and his friend Kim Henkel began the production of the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre.” With a budget around $140,000, a small cast of local Texan actors, and a 16 mm camera, they began to film in an abandoned farmhouse — all the while braving over 100-degree weather. The small budget resulted in a film with limited special effects that, more often than not, obscured its action behind a veneer of darkness, relying more on the audience’s imagination to create horror than actually presenting it on screen. The end result was a strange mixture of an exploitation film, horror, and even dark comedy — a movie that eschewed plot and character development in favor of the maniacal bickering of a murderous country family and the fearful performances of its actors, who had to endure the terror of this troubled

film shoot. Released almost a year after filming had completed, the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” which feels more like a depraved home movie than a polished Hollywood production, proved to be a box-office success and has become one of the most influential films in the horror genre. Although the film is certainly not without its faults, it produced a more impactful and memorable horror by depending on the skill of its actors and engaging the darkest depths of the viewer’s imagination.

You may wonder why I have spent so much time discussing a movie filmed nearly 50 years ago. That is because its remake, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (2022), now available to watch on Netflix, constantly attempts to remind the viewer of the original. Similar to the recent “Halloween” sequels, this film presents itself as a fresh start to a troubled franchise, essentially revamping the first film and forgetting the slew of critically reviled straight-to-video sequels.

As if to drive the point home

even further, the film begins with a montage of grainy footage from the first film, along with narration that provides a brief synopsis of the original movie’s plot.

However, as much as this film tries to appeal to the memory of its predecessor, it actively rejects everything that made the original “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” unique, succumbing to the worst impulses of modern horror cinema.

Like the original, the film focuses on a group of young adults who enter rural Texas only to be hunted by a crazed slasher known as Leatherface. Unfortunately, the original’s lack of special effects is replaced by a barrage of gratuitous violence, which left me feeling more disgusted than scared. The film is not afraid to show every gruesome detail, and although the gore is well rendered and realistic, it ultimately feels shallow and uninspired.

The movie has no suspense or tension, and the lack of memorable performances or interesting dialogue left me unable to care about any of the characters. In

fact, most of Leatherface’s victims have no lines and are merely present to fill the already short runtime with more repetitive action.

One of the more frustrating aspects of the film’s script is the return of Sally Hardesty, the main character and sole survivor of the original movie, as a vengeful Texas Ranger determined to kill the man who tormented her 50 years ago. Clearly, this is an ode to Jamie Lee Curtis’ reprisal of Laurie Strode in the recent “Halloween” movies, which similarly feature the return of a hardened horror protagonist. Yet, unlike Curtis’ character, who was the central figure in the entire “Halloween” franchise, Sally only appears in the original film, and most of her character’s fame is due to the performance by Marilyn Burns, who sadly passed away in 2014.

Overall, the character’s return only ends up feeling like a cheap attempt at fan service, one that I imagine would fall flat with any fan of the original.

On top of the problems I have already mentioned, what sepa-

rates this truly terrible film from any other generic schlock-fest is its exploitative use of societal issues as plot devices. For example, Lila, arguably the main character of this movie, is a survivor of a school shooting. However, the film refrains from actually grappling with this example of real-life horror and instead simply uses it as part of the character’s development. The literal juxtaposition of the victims of gun violence with the victims in a horror movie makes the film feel even more vacuous and exploitative.

Ultimately, this film proves to be the opposite of everything that made its predecessor the horror staple it is today. With a nonsensical plot, a lack of frights, and no memorable moments at all, this movie is a disappointment.

If you’re unfortunate enough to watch this movie, you will, at best, forget about it even existing as soon as you turn it off; at worst, it will actively make you upset. For a truly scary and unique horror movie, I suggest you stick to the classics.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

As with many other cult classics, Netflix recently remade legendary horror film "Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Cole Warren '24 explores all the reasons why the remake is a pale imitation of the original, exploiting sensitive subjects in favor of cheap scares.

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

Arts & Living

14

WAMH X THE STUDENT

Brought to you by the WAMH blog, where it can be found, and The Student’s Arts & Living section. Written by WAMH Music Blog Director Olive Amdur ’23.

Photo courtesy of The Guardian

For Olive Amdur '23, David Berman's 2019 song "Snow is Falling in Manhattan" has sparked new appreciation for chilly Amherst winters and the beauty of slowing down.

Until recently, my most potent memory of snow was a surprise blizzard sometime in December 2016. My grandfather had tickets to a musical in the West Village, and I was tucked next to him in the windowless theater when the storm began. At intermission, we stood to stretch our legs in the lobby and found all of Manhattan bright white through the wide windows. We watched the snow fall in sheets, emptying sidewalks, burying cars, and slowing the city down, still and quiet.

Since fall of last year, WAMH and the music blog have been putting together playlists of music recommended by DJs for each season, so these last months I’ve been editing blurbs and listening to all the songs recommended for the winter. Before, I would have told you that all I wanted when the temperature dropped was a song that reminded me of warmth — sun, hot weather, summer — but since December, I’ve been struggling to figure out what winter music this year

means to me.

This winter is the first I’ve spent at Amherst and the first time I’ve found myself enjoying the cold: being attentive to it, embracing it, getting out in it.

Instead of rushing from inside place to inside place, I wear my fall coat most days and keep my window open. I take long runs and walks on the streets through town at sunset just to feel the freezing wind on my cheeks and ears. Instead of wishing for the months to hurry by, I have been trying to slow the winter down and, more than ever, slow myself down in it.

There is one song that has helped with this: “Snow is Falling in Manhattan” from David Berman’s “Purple Mountains,” the last album he recorded before his death in 2019. “Purple Mountains,” and the project of the same name, was a collaboration between Berman and members of the folk rock band Woods.

There are 10 songs on the album, all of which Berman wrote in the

decade after the dissolution of his indie rock band, Silver Jews. Over the course of this decade, Berman fell deep into debt, lost his mother, and separated from his wife of 20 years. The album is saturated with this hurt. Nevertheless, most of the songs maintain Berman’s classic combination of light, upbeat guitar lines with mordant lyrics.

“Snow is Falling in Manhattan” is the fourth song on the album and perhaps the only song on it I find still and quiet — peaceful even, though a bit lonely. “Snow is falling in Manhattan / In a slow diagonal fashion,” Berman sings, “The good caretaker springs to action / Salts the stoop and scoops the cat in.” Berman watches the snow fall over the city, and listens to the sudden silence of the storm. In the chorus he softly exalts, “Snow, oh!” over and over. My favorite line in the song is: “It’s blanketing the city streets / And the streets beneath are fast asleep.”

Although I’ve listened to the

album many times, I only really found myself noticing this song for the first time a few weeks ago.

It was one of those deep gray January days and I was on a hill in Wildwood Cemetery, above and behind the center of Amherst. I had been walking quickly to the rhythm of the first three songs on “Purple Mountains,” but when “Snow is Falling in Manhattan” began, I found myself slowing down. I listened while looking down past trees and gravestones to the ice- or snow-coated roofs of the houses in town, feeling acutely the quiet of Berman’s scene.

Last winter, I took an art class called “Image & Text” over interterm. We began each class with something our professor called “slow looking.” He would put an image on the Zoom screen and we would sit with it for five minutes, and then talk about what captured us — what we noticed, what we couldn’t help but notice.

I would look and think to myself in the moment how good it felt to look, be still, and then go about my day as usual — quickly.

“Songs build little rooms in time,” Berman sings just after he tells us of those sleeping city streets. This song is a pocket of

quiet in an album overwhelmed with grief, dark humor, envy, and loss. It is a moment where Berman looks out to the world, watches closely as it moves, and allows himself to rest with it. My attempts to slow down this winter haven’t been constant, or always successful, but I have been trying to hold the moments when I feel myself walk, look, or listen my way into some kind of stillness.

So winter music, this year, is the music that helps me do just this.

“Inside I’ve got a fire crackling / You’re the old friend I just took in,” Berman sings in the last line.

It’s a winter song.

My most potent memory of snow, recently, is from the walk home from the cemetery that day.

I had “Snow is Falling in Manhattan” on repeat because I wanted to keep its stillness with me, and was moving slowly downhill on the long streets. It was getting dark, and warm lights began to turn on in the living and dining rooms of houses. When I got to the spot where the train tracks cross the road, I stopped and realized it was snowing: lightly, not in Manhattan, not in Berman’s slow diagonal fashion, but snowing all the same. I stopped again, looked, and listened, in no hurry.

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

Arts & Living

15

“Ants From Up There”: A Fulfilling Final Album Miles Garcia ’25 Staff Writer Black Country, New Road (BC,NR) has been busy this past year. Just a day shy of one year after releasing their debut album, “For the First Time,” they’ve already released their second, “Ants From Up There.” The albums are distinct from each other and from the works of other British experimental rock bands — namely Squid and black midi — that have been crawling their way to the top of the indie ranks over the past few years. The brooding aura and chaotic math rock of “For the First Time” put BC,NR on the map as a confident, well-rounded, and creative band (boasting seven members including a violinist and a tenor saxophonist).

However, “Ants From Up There,” which marks the end of frontman and lyricist Isaac Wood’s time with the group, takes a decidedly brighter tone that favors naivety and grandiosity all at once, juxtaposing Wood’s melancholic lyrics with a sprightly, theatrical, and at times harrowing backdrop of instrumentation.

“Ants From Up There” sounds like either the triumphant opening to an original Broadway musical or the grand opening of the gates of hell. Each song seems to construct itself in real time with great precision, making its melody known before evoking a wave of emotion through brilliant, glistening walls of sound.

The live, organic feel of the instrumentation certainly adds a visceral flow to the tracks, whose sometimes daunting lengths are balanced out by the density of impressive musical ideas and fearless execution that the band keeps consistent for 59 glorious minutes.

Each track has a unique personality that shines through.

Whether it’s the string-plucked flourishes on “Concorde” that sound like they came from the latest Animal Crossing title or the skeletal backbeats on “Good Will Hunting” that bend time signatures and saunter along like

Photo courtesy of Lalineaonce.altervista.org

Experimental rock group Black Country, New Road recently released "Ants From Up There," an album that marks the end of frontman Isaac Wood's time with the group. Miles Garcia '25 breaks down the ethereal and intense album. a stumbling body, BC,NR has a strong affinity for giving life to each composition. The purely instrumental songs “Intro” and “Mark’s Theme” make a strong impact even in their brevity: “Intro” sets the tone for the album’s madness with a 54-second romp that features complex wind-instrument harmonies sailing across an agitated drum pattern, while “Mark’s Theme” could easily be played at a downtown jazz bar.

The album’s instrumentals provide a perfect backdrop for its earnest, somewhat conceptual lyrics. The playful splashes of saxophone against jittery piano chords on “Chaos Space Marine” create the adventurous image of a cunning stowaway gliding gleefully through a field, far from their hometown. This matches the song’s lyrics, which chronicle Wood leaving his body and turning into a worm who won’t face the realities of his world, wanting autonomy, or a pure, naturalistic escape from his emotional turmoil. Meanwhile, “Bread Song” has a chorus — seemingly without a time signature — whose

quiet and swirling swells of cymbals and strings cushion somber lyrics about a waning connection between Wood and his lover.

“Haldern’s” conceptual focus on spatial and temporal distance between two people is complemented gently by luscious piano keys that glitter like stars above Wood’s singing.

BC,NR truly flex their muscles on the final three tracks, which take up about half of the album’s runtime. “The Place Where He Inserted the Blade” takes the childlike flare of “Concorde” and increases it tenfold, telling a thematically charged story about the passage of time and the act of looking back on one’s mistakes, or past selves, in the context of another heavily idealized partner. Complete with an intro reminiscent of the best parts of My Chemical Romance’s “The Black Parade,” the song’s sing-along background vocals and deceptively breezy instrumentation round out its passionate edges, like witnessing tragedy from a comfortable view on top of the clouds. It’s perfectly ephemeral, like the best dreams.

Then “Snow Globes,” already coming after one of the album’s highest highs, manages to take things up a notch. Its three-minute introduction feels expansive, like the prologue to an epic poem. About halfway through this nine-minute behemoth, the drums fully disconnect from the other instruments as though there are two songs going on at once. Drummer Charlie Wayne transitions from using simple embellishments on the toms or cymbals into a full-on temper tantrum whose chaos acts as a climax — the harsh comedown of the blizzard alluded to in Wood’s snow globe metaphor.

And just in case you didn’t think the album could get any more intense than that, the closer “Basketball Shoes,” nearly 13 minutes in length, takes all the best parts of the album and pushes them to their limits in a chilling finale. The song is separated into sections that act as either digestible pockets of groove or an ominous crescendo of noise that might populate an otherwise empty auditorium. The grand and terrifying guitars welcome

the listener into the band’s dungeon of sound, which eventually culminates in the hardest blow BC,NR delivers on the album.

The squealing background vocals add immense humanity to the crushing, explosive, warped instrumental void that arrives in the song's final two minutes. It wraps you in either the strongest hug of love or the harshest cries of pain before death.

The end of the album is apt given its lyrical and musical themes, which ebb and flow between childish fantasies and the eruptive swarm of social and romantic anxiety. Neither side of its optimism or its pessimism takes full rein — “Ants From Up There” displays the band’s emotional versatility as well as their musical talent and range. By the end, each instrument has a personality and a calculated purpose that moved me. Black Country, New Road has already achieved respectable status, but I wouldn’t say they necessarily have “potential” as a band — the kinetic energy on display here suggests they are already operations at maximum capacity.

Sp ports

Ephs Best Mammoths in Tight NESCAC Quarterfinal Ian Donahue ’24 Staff Writer A marquee matchup in the NESCAC men’s basketball quarterfinals between two of the oldest collegiate rivals in the country went down to the wire on Feb. 19, with the Williams Ephs barely outlasting the Mammoths in a 70-66 nailbiter.

After both teams had bypassed the first round of the tournament with a bye, the fifth-seed Mammoths faced off against the fourth-seed Ephs for the third time this season.

The two teams held an even 1-1 season split against each other going into the match. Amherst entered boasting a 15-8 record, having defeated the Ephs in their first matchup 73-65 — handing Williams first loss of the season. The Ephs came in with a 15-3 record, having emerged victorious in their most recent matchup against the Mammoths.

The Ephs shot out of the gates following the opening tipoff, going on an 11-4 run in the first five minutes by capitalizing on multiple offensive rebounds and putbacks. Meanwhile, the Mammoths offense struggled early, missing seven of their first nine field goal attempts. Buoyed by

back-to-back threes, Williams later extended their lead to 11 halfway through the first half. However, the Mammoths responded powerfully, scoring nine unanswered points in just over three minutes to bring the game to within just two points with 6:46 remaining in the frame.

Amherst’s explosive run was led by senior captain Tim McCarthy’s ’21 five points and was helped along by four assists from fellow captain Grant Robinson ’21. As the first half came to a close, Williams’ early lead shrunk to just four points, with the score sitting at 31-27. Williams shot a remarkable 42 percent from three in the first half. Amherst kept pace with Williams’ shooting barrage by means of their superior work on the glass — outrebounding Williams 20-17 — and by forcing turnovers, collecting five steals in the first half alone.

The second half began in an eerily similar fashion to the first, with Williams going on an extended run spearheaded by an even diet of inside penetration and outside shooting. Conversely, the Mammoths struggled to maintain their offensive rhythm from the end of the first half, converting on just five of their first

15 shots. With 9:43 on the clock, the Ephs drilled back-to-back threes to take a commanding 52-39 lead midway through the second half.

Once again, Amherst responded emphatically, orchestrating their most dominant stretch of the game.

Starting with a made jumper by Garrett Day ’21 with 8:30 remaining in the game, the Mammoths put together a 13-1 run marked by two 3-pointers from McCarthy, along with relentless work on the glass by Ryker Vance ’25 en route to two offensive boards. On the other end of the floor, aside from one made free throw, the Mammoths held the Ephs scoreless for three and a half minutes, blending together their best stretch on both defense and offense.

After McCarthy’s second 3-pointer in just over two minutes, the score sat at 53-52 with 5:10 remaining.

Following a made basket by Williams, a nifty layup by Day again brought the Mammoths within one point with 3:05 remaining. Foul trouble, however, would halt the Mammoths’ run, as the Ephs refused to relinquish their lead. Five consecutive fouls on the defensive end would prove costly, as Willaims would go on to convert nine of 10

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Senior guard Garrett Day '22 takes a shot in an earlier game against Williams. free throws, extending their lead back out to nine points with 41 seconds left. Despite a valiant effort that brought the game back within two points with 18 seconds left, the Ephs continued to sink their crucial free throws until the clock wound down with the final score sitting at 70-66.

McCarthy paced the Mammoths’ offense with 14 points, while Vance and Day each tallied 12 points of their own. Vance stuffed the stat sheet further, recording an additional six rebounds and two blocks.

Robinson totaled a team-high nine assists, in addition to a team-high (tied with Vance) six rebounds.

The Mammoths are now forced to wait and see if they are selected as one of 20 at-large bids among the 44 conference champions in the NCAA Division III Tournament.

The tournament selections are expected to be announced on Feb. 28.

Meanwhile, the Ephs will advance to the semifinal round of the NESCAC tournament to ultimately decide the conference champion.

Women’s Hockey Bags Top-10 Win, Quarterfinal Home Ice Mike Schretter ’23 Staff Writer The women’s hockey team had a stellar weekend up in Waterville, Maine, as they tied Colby 1-1 on Saturday, Feb. 19 and won 4-1 on Sunday, Feb. 20 to earn the third seed in the upcoming NESCAC tournament. Their recent run of play has set them up with home ice in their quarterfinal game against Bowdoin on Feb. 26. Colby, who was ranked No. 8 in the most recent rankings, could not keep up with the Mammoths, who were able to get three wins and a tie in their last four games to close out the regular season.

While the two games looked very different on the scoresheet, they were equally thrilling. On Saturday, the first period was marked by a quick start for the Mammoths, as Carley Daly ’23 scored off assists from Kate Pohl ’23 and Elizabeth Holubiak ’22 with 7:46 left to give the Mammoths a 1-0 lead heading into the second period. Unfortunately, that lead did not last long, as the Mules responded with a goal from Madi Aumann to even the score up at one apiece.

The third period saw Colby try to capitalize on a slew of opportunities, but their shots were stifled by the great play of Mammoths goaltender Caitlin Walker ’22, keeping

the game at 1-1. With a tie against a top-10 opponent in their back pocket, the Mammoths were able to gain both confidence and momentum heading into Sunday’s important contest.

After a low-scoring grudge match on Saturday, the high-flying Sunday contest was an unexpected change of pace for the Mammoths, who were able to dominate the Mules 4-1. The scoring barrage started with Daly once again, who scored only nine seconds into the game. The Mammoths controlled the opening faceoff and quickly made their way up the ice before Pohl connected with Daly for the tally. Colby responded only 52 sec-

onds later with a goal from Meg Rittenhouse to even the score.

However, the Mammoths responded with another goal from Alyssa Xu ’25 coming after only another 46 seconds had ticked by to give the Mammoths the lead for good.

The first period would end with no more scoring, with the game at 2-1 in favor of Amherst.

No goals were scored in the second period by either team, but the third period saw another offensive explosion from the Mammoths.

Pohl started the two-goal spurt with a goal off an Angelina Wiater ’22 pass that deflected off a Mules defender’s skate to give the Mammoths a 3-1 lead. The Mammoths

capped off the scoring with another goal from Daly, who converted an empty-netter with 1:30 remaining in the game to make the final score 4-1.

Because of the restrictions that Covid has put on the 2021-22 season, every team in the NESCAC will advance to postseason play.

With their recent run of good form, Amherst was able to earn home ice for the quarterfinal round of the tournament, which they will go into as defending champions — the Mammoths won the last edition of the tournament in 2020. The Mammoths will begin their title defense on Saturday, Feb. 26 against Bowdoin, with the puck dropping at 3 p.m.

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

Sports

17

Men’s Squash Finishes Third at CSA Nationals Hedi Skali ’25 Staff Writer The Amherst men’s squash team finished the regular season ranked 20th nationally with a 10-8 record. This qualified them for their second consecutive Summers Cup — the C division national tournament — this time earning the third seed at the tournament.

The draw placed the Dickinson College Red Devils against the Mammoths in the quarterfinals. The Mammoths’ earlier season match against the Red Devils was a nail-biter through and through, driven by the bottom of the ladder’s dominance and featuring an incredible comeback from captain Charles Sutherby ’23E to close out the match in stunning fashion and bring them their 5-4 victory.

The quarterfinal proved to be a similar match-up. While the Red Devils’ Nicholas Serna and Omar Ali again overpowered the top of the Amherst ladder, the bottom of the ladder’s domination continued with sweeps from Nate Mossé ’23, Matt Granovsky ’25, Andrew Leung ’23E, and Pavan Nagaraj ’22 leading the team to another 5-4 win. In the third seat, Neal Malani ’24 was able to hold against his opponents’ attempt at a reverse sweep. Their final game went back and forth numerous times, until Malani secured the 17-15 win.

After their quarterfinal win, the Mammoths faced a hot Navy team in another rematch from the season-opening day in Philadelphia. November’s match presented an excellent example of the team’s ladder depth, with the Mammoths sweeping seats six through nine. Additionally, Kedar Nagaraj ’24 played his heart out in an hour-and-a-halflong thriller to earn his first win for Amherst en route to a 6-3 victory.

While the younger Nagaraj brother was again able to cleanly win his match, the bottom of the ladder was unable to recreate

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

The team huddles before their first match at this year's CSA National Championships. In a successful weekend at the Summers Cup, they toppled No. 1 seed St. Lawrence College and recorded a third place finish. its previous glory. In an almost hour-long game, Abhi Gupta ’25 fought hard to come back from a 2-1 deficit, but was unable to put away his opponent in the final game. Still, dominating sweeps from Robinson Armour ’23E, Leung, and Pavan kept the team in the match.

The matchup came down to Mossé. He began with an easy 11-6 game to bring it to 2-1, but Navy’s Lucas Spiro eagerly sought to finish him off in the fourth game. Mossé had to fight off two match points but was eventually able to equalize, bringing the thriller to the fifth game. Starting the final game in dominating fashion, Mossé led 6-2 at one point, but Spiro was able to fight back, taking the final game 12-10. His win sealed a 5-4 win for Navy.

Mossé has already had a

couple reverse sweeps this season, so when he found himself facing a 2-0 deficit, with the match depending on him, there was little doubt his mental game could bring him out of the hole.

“When things get intense and the match gets close, we have a saying on our team, ‘big smiles,’” he said. “Reminding yourself to smile and enjoy the game in the big moments helps relieve some of the pressure and you’re able to have more clarity on court.”

The difficult loss to Navy placed the team in the consolation bracket, fighting for third place against the No. 1 seed, St. Lawrence University. Nevertheless, the match ended up being no less thrilling than the previous two. Adam Lichtmater ’24 and Gupta both lost their first games, but each rallied to 3-1 wins in the second and sixth

seat, respectively.

In the ninth seat, Pavan secured his third win in a row with another sweep. Granovsky found himself in another hour-long thriller, after coming back from a 2-1 deficit, but was, like Mossé against Navy, on the wrong side of a 12-10 fifth game.

Mossé found himself in another win-or-go-home situation, and again tried to climb out of a 2-1 hole, this time coming out victorious with an absolutely dominating 11-3 final game.

With the score at 4-4, a third place finish rested on Leung, who had not lost a single game in the tournament until this point. St. Lawrence’s Jack Turvey broke Leung’s streak to take the first game, but from there, like Lichtmater and Gupta, Leung won the next three games, including one by a ruthless 11-1

score, to clinch third place at the Summers Cup for Amherst.

Reflecting upon his first season on the squash team, Gupta stated, “I’m really proud of the games we won, and believe we will come out even stronger next year.”

Veteran Rohil Bathija ’23 echoed this sentiment, saying, “one thing that was prevalent this weekend was how much of a team we are and how much we all want to fight for one another regardless of what is happening in our own games.” He continued, stating, “This type of culture is one that we want to keep developing to make us an even more tenacious squad come next year.”

With numerous rising talents, squash fans should look out for Amherst in the coming season.

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

Sports

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Track and Field Nears New England Championships Maya Reiner ’25 Staff Writer On Friday, Feb. 18 and Saturday, Feb. 19, members of the men’s and women’s track and field team competed in their final regular season meet of the season at the Ruddy Invitational in Brunswick, Maine. Multiple strong individual performances brought the number of Amherst athletes who have qualified for the New England Championships next weekend up to 53, a school record.

The women’s team will travel to Colby, while the men’s team are headed to Middlebury.

Athletes on the women’s team won four events over the course of Friday, Feb. 25, and Saturday, Feb. 26. Three first-years won individual events, earning the marks needed to qualify them for next weekend’s meet. On Friday night, Annelise Romero ’23 started the meet off on a high note for the Mammoths, as she won the pentathlon with a score of 2,811. Ava Zielinski ’25 won the

800-meter, Sophia Price ’25 took first in the 3,000-meter, and Sidnie Kulik ’25 came in on top in the mile, running a blazing-fast 5:08.37.

According to Zielinski, the success of the team was fostered by the positive environment the teammates created for each other. “We competed with determination and everyone was super supportive of one another throughout the whole meet,” she said. “Tons of people also got personal bests or are now really close to their high school [personal records].”

Zielinski received her best collegiate time for the 800-meter, 2:18.15, in her first college win. Price’s time for the 3,000-meter, 10:37.61, was also her fastest collegiate race. Not to be outdone by her teammates, Kulik has also had an outstanding indoor season, winning all three races that she entered.

Continuing the Mammoths’ success, vaulter Payton Sorensen ’25 cleared the pole at 3.10 meters, earning her fourth place and qualifying her for New Englands. Teammate

Eve Giancarlo ’25 finished just in front of Sorensen, also clearing 3.10 meters.

Junior Sierra Donovan ’23 came in behind Zielinski in the 800-meter, qualifying for New Englands with her personal-best time, 2:23.44.

Especially noteworthy was the Mammoths’ success in the 60-meter hurdles. Anaya Thomas ’25 qualified for New Englands as she earned a time of 9.58 in a fast field, a personal best. Sophomore Nicole Barbaro ’24 also claimed a spot at New Englands in the 600-meter run with a time of 1:40.96.

The men’s team had a successful competition as well, with highlights including Owen Daily ’23 winning the mile, Kolya Markov-Riss ’24 capturing the 600-meter, and Wilson Spurrell ’24 coming in on top in the 800-meter.

Like the 60-meter dash for the women’s team, one of the men’s team’s races featured impressive performances from all its runners.

In their case, it was the mile, where

the Mammoths clinched five out of the six top spots. Daily came in first in 4:20.15, followed by senior Billy Massey ’22, who finished in a season best 4:21.55. Theo Dassin ’24 made his first collegiate start in the event, yet still managed to place third. Alex Rich ’25 finished fifth for the Mammoths with another collegiate-best time of 4:23.54. Will Merhige ’23 finished sixth, also with a personal record, 4:23.81. These Mammoths will all be competing in next weekend’s championships.

Many other events saw collegiate bests from the Mammoths as well.

Markov-Riss won the 600-meter with a personal best time of 1:22.95.

Keon Mazdisnian ’23 also notched a personal best in the 3,000-meter, coming in second place for that race by crossing the line in 8:43.44. Spurrell recorded one in the 800-meter at 1:55.63, and Gent Malushaga ’25 crossed in a collegiate-best 2:34.73 in the 1,000 meters.

To round out the New England qualifiers for the Mammoths, Ian

Dopp ’24 ran a qualifying time of 2:38.47 in the 1,000 meters, and David Brown ’25 also earned a spot in the shot put with a throw of 14.00 meters, placing him third.

“I think the team competed extremely well this weekend,” Rich said. “While the team faced limited competition, many people were still able to qualify for DIII New Englands.”

The Mammoths will continue their season with the Division III New England Regional Championships next weekend, Feb. 25-26, with the women competing at Colby and the men at Middlebury. They will then look toward nationals, where several members of the team have already qualified to compete.

“As we near the end of indoor season, I’m looking forward to seeing and supporting our teammates who will compete at nationals,” said Zielinski. “I am also excited for our transition to the outdoor season where we can build on the foundation we’ve set for ourselves this winter.”

Men Swim for Season Records, Third at NESCACs Nick Edwards-Levin ’25 Managing Sports Editor For the fourth year in a row, men’s swim and dive finished in third place at the NESCAC Men's Swimming and Diving Championships after a successful final night of competition at Colby College from Feb. 17-20.

Amherst finished with 1,069 points, trailing Tufts with 1,577.5 points and Williams, which won its third straight championship with 2,086 points. Five Mammoths earned Amherst eight total All-NESCAC awards, which are given to the top three finishers in each event.

On Friday night, senior Scott Romeyn ’22 won the 50-yard freestyle in a time of 20.06 seconds, breaking his own 2019 school record of 20.10 in the process. The first of his three All-NESCAC performances, Romeyn’s NCAA B-mark set a new pool record at Colby and ranked, at the time of the swim, top-five in all of Division

III this season.

The rest of Amherst’s all-NESCAC performances came on Sunday, the final day of the competition. Finishing in second place, the 400-yard freestyle relay team of Tyler Knightly ’24, Romeyn, Will Taylor ’25 and Kenneth Woodsum ’25 swam an NCAA B-cut time of 3:00.49.

Romeyn also finished second in the 100-yard freestyle, touching the wall with a time of 44.52. In the preliminary rounds of competition, Romeyn swam a 44.36, which was a top-20 national time this season, and all but wrapped up his 15th career All-NESCAC honor.

Woodsum finished in third place in the 200-yard butterfly with a personal-best time of 1:49.08 — an NCAA B-mark. Tor Metelmann ’25 also finished third in the 200yard breaststroke, with his time of 2:01.24 beating a personal best and hitting the NCAA B-mark.

But awards aren’t everything, and many performances that did not achieve All-NESCAC honors

were impressive nonetheless. On Thursday, the “A” 800-yard freestyle relay team of Taylor, Knightly, Justin Papagelis ’24 and Andrew Bernstein ’25 outperformed their seed time by 10 seconds, coming in fifth place with an NCAA B-mark, finishing in 6:43.61.

On Friday, the 200-yard freestyle relay team of Romeyn, Taylor, Kevin Ma ’23 and Christian Moy ’23 swam a 1:21.84, good for an NCAA B-mark. Knightley also swam an individual NCAA B-mark of 4:32.15 in the consolation finals of the 500-yard freestyle.

Saturday, the penultimate day of competition, saw senior Peter Baird ’22 finish fourth in the 400yard individual medley, swimming a personal best of 4:03.12. In the 200-yard medley relay, Ma, Liam Loveless ’24, Woodsum and Romeyn swam a season-best time of 1:30.68 for fifth place in the event and an NCAA B-mark. Knightley also individually finished fifth in the 200-yard freestyle, swimming

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Scott Romeyn '22 received three All-NESCAC honors in his final NESCAC Championship meet. a personal best and NCAA B-mark time of 1:39.96. Metelmann then won the consolation final of the 100-yard breaststroke with a personal-best time of 56.33 seconds.

On the final day of races, the personal accolades kept coming.

Knightley finished eighth in the 1,650-yard freestyle, swimming an NCAA B-mark and season-best of 16:04.18. Nolan Scanlan ’24 also swam an NCAA B-mark and season best in the 200-yard backstroke with a 1:48.12. Then sophomore

Jeff Gerber ’24 and classmate Loveless both swam NCAA B-marks in the 200-yard breaststroke trials, with Gerber swimming a 2:04.02 and Loveless a 2:04.40. Both times were personal bests.

After an impressive NESCAC Championship Invitational, the men will now look toward the NCAA Division III Championships in Indianapolis, held March 16-19. Selections for the Championships will be announced on Wednesday, Feb. 23.

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

Sports

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Women’s Basketball Win Streak at 10, Into Semis Carter Hollingsworth ’25 Staff Writer Amherst women’s basketball embarked on their postseason journey on Sunday, Feb. 20, taking on No. 11 seed Colby in LeFrak Gymnasium. The Mammoths — ranked third in the NESCAC and ninth in the nation, with a nine-game winning streak to top it off — entered Sunday’s game rested and more than ready for the challenge.

The NESCAC tournament marks a return to postseason play for the first time since Covid abruptly halted the 2020 season.

That year, Amherst’s run had ended during the NCAA Round of 16 for the 13th consecutive season — due not to a loss, but to a global pandemic. This year’s team sees five seniors returning from that squad, while the rest are getting their first taste of postseason action. Every Mammoth player will be seeking their first career NESCAC Championship as they try to win Amherst’s ninth conference

crown, and first since 2018.

Due to Covid cancellations and the uneven number of games played by the NESCAC teams as a result, this year’s postseason tournament was expanded to include all 11 teams in the conference. The bottom six teams met in first-round games on Friday, Feb. 18, with Colby, who came into the tournament as the 11th seed, defeating sixth-seeded defending champion Bowdoin in their matchup.

Facing off against the victorious Colby two days later, Amherst began the game strong with the first points quickly put on the board by Dani Valdez ’22. Then, with one minute left in the first quarter, first-year AnLing Vera ’25 set up Valdez with an excellent pass, putting the Mammoths up 10-6 with little time left to go in the quarter, which would finish with a 12-8 Mammoth lead.

Beginning the second quarter, Amherst maintained the momentum for which they fought so hard in the first. Their work paid off, as

the team got back-to-back scores after a steal and beautiful dish by Vera to Courtney Resch ’22 for an easy layup to put them up 2215 with three minutes left in the first half. The lead only grew from there, as a 3-pointer from Gabrielle Zaffiro ’22 and a Jade DuVal ’22 free throw put the Mammoths at 26-17 going into the half.

This strong first-half showing for the Mammoths put them in a good position heading into the third quarter, where they put up 22 points with scores from multiple players including Vera, Valdez, Resch, Reeya Patel ’24, and Zaffiro. This scoring outburst, along with their patented lockdown defense, allowed the Mammoths to balloon their lead, pulling ahead 48-30 to end the third quarter.

Despite the wide margin, the Mammoths did not take their foot off the gas going into the fourth quarter, keeping the Mules scoreless for six minutes. The Mammoths reached 59 points before Mules forward Caroline Smith

made a free throw to score the team’s first fourth-quarter points.

Amherst would only allow four more points in the game, ending the lopsided affair with a 30-point win. The Mules returned home to Waterville with a 65-35 defeat, while the Mammoths had secured a trip to the semifinal.

Amherst boasted an impressive 17 points off turnovers in the contest, with Zaffiro leading the way with three steals to go with 16 points on six for seven from the field, including three for four from three. But Zaffiro wasn’t the only source of offense for the Mammoths: nine different players scored at least once during the contest.

Resch said of the performance, “I think we have been playing really well as a team, and that showed today against Colby … We always talk about wanting to peak in March and I think as a group we’ve done a good job prepping and are ready to do that!”

With the win, the Mammoths advance to the semifinals next Sat-

Photo courtesy of Clarus Studios

Guard Gabrielle Zaffiro ’22 scored 16 points and hit three 3-pointers on Sunday against Colby. urday, Feb. 26, at Trinity. They will face perennial powerhouse Tufts, who barely scraped by in their quarterfinal matchup, beating No. 7 Wesleyan by three points after a last-second game-tying shot by the Cardinals fell short. The Mammoths and the Jumbos will tip off at 4:30 p.m., with a spot in the NESCAC final at stake.

Missed Chances Abound in Men’s Hockey Losses Ryan McIntyre ’25 Staff Writer After splitting a two-game road trip last weekend, the men’s hockey team returned to Orr Rink for their final two games of the regular season. They took on Middlebury on Feb. 18, and then battled perennial rival Williams on Feb. 19, in two important contests for NESCAC playoff seeding.

In the Mammoths’ first game on Friday night, Middlebury struck first, scoring with about five minutes remaining in the first period before adding another goal midway through the second frame.

Matteo Mangiardi ’22E then woke his team up by scoring first for the Mammoths with 10:42 remaining in the second period, which cut the Panthers’ lead in half to make it a 2-1 game. Sean Wrenn ’22 won the puck behind Middlebury’s goal and proceeded to throw it into the slot,

where Mangiardi connected with it for a one-time shot into the top right-hand corner for a slick goal.

The goal was Mangiardi’s eighth of the season.

The period continued with neither team able to capitalize on their big opportunities, but with 4:12 left to go, the Mammoths struck again.

This time it was Ben Kuzma ’25 who delivered the goal. A tape-totape pass from fellow first-year Matt Toporowski ’25 allowed Kuzma to easily push the puck into the vacant lower right-hand corner of the goal.

Kuzma has been stellar so far in his first season for the Mammoths: his marker was also his eighth goal this season, and tied him with Mangiardi and Wrenn for the team lead.

Despite their comeback efforts, the Mammoths fell to the Panthers in overtime by a score of 3-2. They had their opportunities to put the game away but narrowly missed their chances to do so. Kuzma al-

most added his second tally of the game to win it in overtime, but his shot from the slot hit the crossbar, and the Panthers ended up scoring a mere 20 seconds later. This was just Middlebury’s fourth win in NESCAC play this season.

The Mammoths had no choice but to quickly lick their wounds before heading into Senior Day and the last game of the regular season against rival Williams the next day.

With Amherst sitting at 8-8-1 in conference play and tied with Williams in the standings at 27.5 points entering the game, the three points awarded to the victor would be crucial for each team’s postseason seeding. After Williams took the lead on a filthy between-the-legs breakaway goal in the second period, Michael Pitts ’23 put the Mammoths on the board at the 12-minute mark, tying the game at one. Pitts had originally received the puck from Wrenn in the high slot, but he wasn’t fond of his

position and circled the zone again before firing a wrist shot that found the back of the net.

The game remained tied until the Ephs capitalized with a power-play goal to take the lead back with 3:14 left in the third. The Mammoths fought hard and had some chances to knot the score in the final minutes.

Tyler Bourque ’24 had a great chance on a close-range shot from the left circle, but it was stopped by the Ephs’ goalie. Not long after, Williams delivered the dagger with a one-time shot off of a rebound with 2:51 left in the period, handing the Mammoths a brutal 3-1 loss.

The Mammoths closed out the regular season at 9-12-2 overall, and 8-9-1 in conference play.

They received the No. 6 seed in the NESCAC playoffs, while Williams earned the No. 3 seed thanks to the additional three points they received from their victory on Saturday. The Mammoths will go on the road to

face their familiar foe once again on Saturday, Feb. 26, in the first round of the NESCAC playoffs.

Junior forward Evan Lichman ’23 described the Mammoths’ winning recipe for next Saturday. “I respect Williams a lot — they play a fast, skilled game and have one of the best goaltenders in the nation,” he said. “That said, they are young and shrivel up when the game gets physical. If we make things hard for them by finishing hits, competing for loose pucks, and picking up men on the backcheck, we will win.”

Forecasting a physical matchup, Lichman concluded, “This program has always prided itself on playing a simple, hard-nosed, and bullying style of hockey. Expect to see that in Williamstown next weekend.”

A spot in the NESCAC semifinals is on the line in the rematch between the two archrivals. The puck will drop in Williamstown at 3 p.m. on Feb. 26.

The Amherst Student • February 23, 2022

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Wordle, BeReal and The Beautiful Game Leo Kamin ’25 Managing Sports Editor 2022 seems set to be the Year of Simplicity for our generation. Over the last couple months, we — who have never known anything other than digital abundance — seem to have slowly realized that scarcity might be better. Wordle has become a sensation not because it is the most enjoyable game to play, but because we can only play it a tantalizing single time a day. The French app BeReal has swept college campuses, hooking many on its promise of a less constant, less curated social media. Many people are flirting with a switch back to the flip phone — celebrities like University of Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett IV and comedian Aziz Ansari have already pulled the trigger. After a few years of Airpod dominance, wired headphones are apparently now a fashion trend.

Some of this is certainly just an aesthetic trend, but there does seem to be substance to our digital decluttering: we have discovered that even in the age of Big Tech, we are the

owners of our own attention spans.

If you’re a sports fan who finds yourself drawn to any of these phenomena, chasing distilled and delayed dopamine hits over constant, shallow ones, I have another recommendation for you: start watching soccer.

I have long been and continue to be a big fan of American sports, but in recent years, I’ve found myself drawn more and more to the world of European soccer. I’m not alone.

Soccer recently passed hockey to become the fourth-most popular sport to watch in the nation. With the World Cup coming to North America in 2026, it seems it won’t be long before it overtakes baseball — our “national pastime” — in third. I believe its increasing appeal is altogether not that different from the force that has drawn so many to Wordle and BeReal.

American sports are often the opposite of scarce. There are 162 games in an MLB season and 82 in the NBA and NHL, all compressed into a less-than-six-month period (this is not counting the playoffs). In the English Premier League, on the

other hand, there are just 38 games and no postseason. Teams in the major European soccer leagues play just once, and on rare occasions, twice a week. (Though it may appear that the NFL has fewer games, with just 16, the season is much shorter, meaning the frequency is almost identical to that of the Premier League.)

On top of this, it is not only the number of games that matters, but the content of those games. For instance, an NFL team will typically score somewhere around five times per game, MLB teams often more than that, and NBA teams far more than that. The typical soccer game, on the other hand, sees something more like two to four goals.

This has often been the central American criticism of the game: not enough scoring. But that is like saying that BeReal does not allow enough posting. With so many fewer game-altering events, each shot, save, block, and cross is infused with so much more emotional weight. The excitement that comes from watching your Premier League team break a deadlock or score an

FRI

SAT

Men's Track & Field New England Division III Indoor Championship @ Middlebury, 2 p.m

Women's Track & Field New England Division III Indoor Championship @ Colby, 10:30 a.m

Women's Track & Field New England Division III Indoor Championship @ Colby, 2 p.m

Women's Swim & Dive NCAA Northeast/North Diving Regional Championships @ Smith College, 4:30 p.m.

Women's Squash CSA National Team Championships @ University of Pennsylvania

Men's Track & Field New England Division III Indoor Championship @ Middlebury, 10 a.m

Women's Swim & Dive NCAA Northeast/North Diving Regional Championships @ Smith College, 2:30 p.m.

Men's Hockey NESCAC Quarterfinal @ Williams, 3 p.m.

Women's Hockey NESCAC Quarterfinal vs. Bowdoin, 3 p.m.

equalizer is akin to the rush of a game-winner in basketball. Except that the average basketball team will have maybe one or two game-winners all season.

And I haven’t even mentioned the commercials. American sporting events have a commercial break every few minutes; the two 45-minute halves of a soccer game, though, are broadcast in their entirety without interruption. Soccer is very much a flip phone in a world of iPhones.

Understandably, though, many American fans have a hard time becoming invested in European soccer.

This is often because they have no hometown team. But, in a sense, this is kind of freeing. Despondent New York Jets and Sacramento Kings fans, for instance, can get a taste of greatness by casting their lots with European giants like Manchester City or Paris Saint-Germain. Fandom is in the end an act of habit, not some kind of birthright. Repeated watching builds familiarity. When you invest your time, you start to root for some emotional return, in the form of wins and trophies. The

big European soccer teams already have massive fan bases stretching to all corners of the world — they welcome newcomers.

Some good things are more good when they happen less often.

I was reminded of this this past Saturday. I woke up and immediately completed the Wordle. My Premier League team, Liverpool, entered the morning in desperate need of a win and hoping that the league leaders, Manchester City, would lose. We went down by a goal at the start of the second half. When we equalized with a spectacular bicycle kick, I screamed. When we took the lead off an assist from our goalkeeper, I screamed louder. When, a few hours later, Tottenham Hotspur scored in the 98th minute (eight minutes after the game was supposed to end) to beat Man City, I couldn’t help but interrupt the meeting I was in.

After each major goal, I exchanged a rush of all-caps texts with friends and family members. Only a few times in my life have I responded to a 3-pointer or touchdown with the same ferocity. With soccer, it seems to happen just about every week.

Women's Basketball NESCAC Semifinal vs. Tufts @ Trinity, 4:30 p.m.

Women's Squash CSA National Team Championships @ University of Pennsylvania

SUN Women's Squash CSA National Team Championships @ University of Pennsylvania Women's Basketball NESCAC Final @ Trinity (if necessary), 12 p.m.

GAME SCHE DULE