Issue 1

THE AMHERST THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF AMHERST COLLEGE SINCE 1868

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VOLUME CLI, ISSUE 1 l WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2021

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Former Lacrosse Coach Alleges Racial Discrimination, College Denies All Claims Rebecca Picciotto ’22 Editor-in-Chief

Photo courtesy of Sarah Wishloff ‘19

Photo courtesy of Anna Smith ‘22

The administration’s decision to tighten Covid restrictions amid move-in led to student backlash.

New Covid Protocols: Necessary or Nonsense?

Sophie Wolmer ’23 Managing News Editor

Amid concerns surrounding the Delta variant of Covid-19, the college announced on Aug. 24 that it had tightened its public health rules for the first two-and-a-half weeks of the fall semester. The heightened restrictions prompted an open letter signed by more than 400 students that called on the administration to clarify and reverse the changes.

In response, the President’s Office issued another email on Aug. 28 explaining its rationale and revising some of its protocols, though most of the rules were kept in place.

Further student concerns were later addressed at a town hall meeting on Monday evening.

As they currently stand, the protocols mandate that students double-mask (wear two pleated filter masks on top of one another)

in classrooms and other academic spaces operating at 100 percent capacity if they are not wearing a KN95 mask. Students need only wear a mask when outdoors if they are in a “high-density” gathering for 10 to 15 minutes or have been identified as a close contact of a positive Covid case. Students are permitted to go into the town of Amherst to “conduct business” and pick up takeout meals, but are not allowed to go into restaurants, indoor cafes or bars.

The college’s Covid protocols have received significant media attention for their strictness compared to the restrictions implemented at peer institutions, with the topic trending on Twitter on Monday after being tweeted about by several journalists, including senior ProPublica reporter Alec MacGillis and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver.

Covid Safety Precautions Despite protests from students, parents and alumni, the college has decided to carry over — and in some cases increase — restrictions from the summer term due to the spreading Delta variant of the coronavirus. Upon arrival, all students received both a PCR test and a rapid antigen test.

The college has decided that in accordance with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), anyone who has tested positive for Covid will be put into isolation for 10 days in either designated dorm rooms or at home for students and staff respectively.

The college is not offering standard remote learning options this year, but class deans will assist quarantined students so that they do not fall behind on school work.

Close contacts of Covid-positive individuals who have been fully

vaccinated and are asymptomatic will not need to quarantine but will be tested more frequently and advised to avoid close contact with other community members.

Events and sports competitions are slated to take place as scheduled. Spectators are allowed but must be masked. No pre or postgame tailgating or celebrations will be permitted. Large events will be minimized and there will be no registered parties indoors on the campus grounds. No events with alcohol will be permitted throughout the two week provisional period.

In an email to the college community, President Biddy Martin stated that the college expects to be able “to relax some of the rules when [it is] confident the virus is not harder to control than we had predicted and is not beginning to

Continued on page 5

Former men’s lacrosse head coach Rashad Devoe has served the college with a federal legal complaint listing 11 charges, including racist discrimination, infliction of emotional distress and deceiving him into accepting the coaching role.

In the 48-page legal complaint, Devoe, who is Black, alleges that the college “lured him” to the coaching position by falsely promising to support him in addressing the lacrosse team’s culture of “elitism, discrimination, and racism.”

The complaint charges the college with using Devoe as a public token of Amherst’s progress and as a publicity device, but then consistently undermining his authority to actually enact change — often to the benefit of wealthy donors.

Devoe also accuses the college of wrongful termination, saying that the college’s claim — that he was fired because of his refusal to participate in an investigation into a case of racist stereotyping by members of his team towards a Black teammate — was a false pretext to get rid of him. According to the complaint, Devoe was the one who reported the event to the administration, but he feared the investigation would be biased and endanger the targets of the discrimination.

Despite signing a three-year contract upon his hiring, Devoe’s time at Amherst lasted a little over a year.

Continued on page 13

News May 19, 2021 – Aug. 21, 2021

>>May 19, 2021 10:47 a.m., Webster Circle Residential Life staff, Community Safety Assitants (CSAs), Community Service Organizers (CSOs), and officers responded to a large unauthorized party with alcohol and not following COVID guidelines. The group was dispersed.

10:35 a.m., Quadrangle Road An officer responded to a report from a motorist that nearly hit someone skateboarding into the road. Two people skateboarding were advised to move from the dangerous area. >>May 27, 2021 5:21 p.m., Campus Grounds Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) responded to a report of a bird in distress.

The bird was relocated to the woods. >>June 22, 2021 1:08 p.m., Off Campus Locations An officer took a report of an individual sending harassing emails and phone calls to numerous individuals on campus. >>June 25, 2021 11:58 a.m., College Street Joseph Mangano of 24 Ackerly Lane, Lake Ronkonkoma, NY was arrested for two warrants for their arrest

Jessica Bruder ’00

A Special Interview

and charged with Operating a Motor Vehicle without a Licence. >>July 2, 2021 3:55 p.m., Merrill Science An officer conducted a follow-up investigation after finding a broken window. >>July 29, 2021 9:58 a.m., Boltwood Avenue An officer stopped a vehicle traveling the wrong way down a one-way street. >>August 7, 2021 7:23 p.m., Charles Pratt An officer responded to an alarm and found it was set off by a bat.

The bat was caught and then freed from the building. >>August 11, 2021 1:46 p.m., Merrill Science EH&S and an officer responded to an alarm and found it was set off by cut wires. >>August 17, 2021 1:11 p.m., Seelye House An officer took a report of a window broken from a rock being thrown through it. >>August 26, 2021 12:50 p.m., Campus Grounds An officer assisted the town police with a vehicle stuck under a bridge.

Author of “Nomadland”

“Nomadland” is the candid chronicle of a growing community of American nomads who, after the Recession, turned their vehicles into homes to travel the country in search of work and a liberated lifestyle. The film adaptation recently took home three Oscars, including Best Picture.

Q: What was the initial motivation to investigate this niche of American life? How did you first learn about it?

A: I’m really interested in writing about subcultures — non-blood families, people who come together either through common interests or adversity and create their own worlds within our larger world. So when I learned about work campers and people who are out there on the road often at or nearing traditional retirement age, going from job to job on this seasonal labor circuit, this was something I knew nothing about. I remember growing up and seeing RVs from time to time and just thinking, “Okay, those are the last of the pensioners. There they go, grandma and grandpa, they are retired comfortably and they’re going to see all the sites in the U.S.” And the first thing I learned that suggested that it might be a little different was that I heard about Amazon’s CamperForce program, which recruits from this population to do warehouse work, usually in the lead-up to the holiday season. And the first thing I thought was, “Well, that’s not a vacation.” And it kind of rolled on from there.

Q: What compelled you to live the story you were reporting? Instead of documenting it from the outside?

A: As an outsider doing face-to-face, one-on-one interviews — like what you and I are doing right now — you get to one level with a person, but, you know, I might turn off the camera and go set something on fire. Do you know what I mean? Like, we’re not together all the time, which is probably good, because my apartment is a little messy. But we go one level with this and I might be kind of turning it on for you because I’m in an interview, or

you know, maybe I’m really a jerk — I mean, I hope not. But I feel like when you immerse with a population, you’re there all the time and you get to become part of the furniture. So anyone who’s turning it on for you just gets really accustomed to you and stops doing it. For me, that was important.

I wanted to be around 24/7. I wanted to be there at night. I wanted to learn just everything I could. So for me, immersion was definitely the way to go.

It wasn’t the idea that I could somehow merge with and become part of this population. The idea was if I really wanted to be a faithful chronicler, I would interview people but I would also observe them. And I would learn in both ways.

Q: How long did it take for you to make the van lifestyle a habit?

A: Well, it’s funny. I didn’t really expect to have that much of an adjustment process because I’m a longtime camper. I like the outdoors and, for me, this was more of a temporary reporting situation rather than “This is how I live now, and I have to change up everything.” So I somehow expected to be immune from the first-night jitters and was absolutely not. I was really worried about getting rousted by the police — just getting found out — [but] that dissipated over time.

Also, sometimes I would be camping and parked in wilderness areas where it was less of a problem. It didn’t completely go away, but I realized by the time I got home from that first trip, which was about two months [later], when I woke up in my bedroom, I felt incredibly anxious because I don’t live in a large place, but my bedroom just felt big. The ceiling felt far away. I was so used to waking up in that small den

of a van and that was how I realized I’d acclimated more than I even knew when I was out there — [it was] the contrast of coming home.

Q: Do you have any advice for storytellers-in-training or aspiring journalists?

A: Go out and do it. If you need a side hustle to make it work, do that too. I know somebody who has some marketing job that he feels really embarrassed talking about and gets paid reasonable money to tweet about stuff from a fake account or something.

But he just got a book deal for a really big-deal nonfiction project because he was putting gas in his tank one way and then doing his passion stuff in another.

But I think the biggest thing too, for me at least, was whenever I like a piece, I break it down. I’ve done really nerdy reverse outlines and I’m also really interested in where people’s ideas come from. So I’ll check out the Longform podcast or read things from them, just to be a better observer of the world around me. Because I feel like when you go to an interview or you meet an editor, the only thing people really care about is ideas. I have former students who come to town and say, “Hey, do you know any editors I could meet with and have coffee?” And, in my mind, I guess I don’t do that kind of networking. To me, it just feels not particularly substantial. I want to meet somebody when I’m really excited about an idea and I’m on fire about it and I want it to be contagious and I want them to catch it and, for me, that’s what has worked best.

See the website for the full interview.

— Rebecca Picciotto ’22

News 3

The Amherst Student • September 1, 2021

All Students Arrive for In-Person Semester on Campus Yee-Lynn Lee ’23 Managing News Editor The class of 2025 moved into campus on Aug. 25, inaugurating a semester that has brought all Amherst College students back in person for the first time since the pandemic began. Despite the persistence of Covid safety precautions, the new class was quickly immersed in pre-pandemic familiars like shared living arrangements, alongside cherished Orientation Week traditions. With the arrival of all returning students on Aug. 28 and 29, the total number of students on campus rose to nearly 2000, making the college the most populated — and overenrolled — it has been in years.

First-year students arriving last Wednesday were initially directed to the tennis court parking lots, where they were tested for Covid with both a rapid-response

antigen test and a PCR test. After waiting the requisite 15 minutes and receiving a negative result, students and families were given the green light to continue to the First-Year Quad, where they were greeted by student leaders, staff and faculty, along with a giant, inflatable mammoth.

Per the college’s Covid protocols, family members were not allowed to enter any of the residence halls to help students move in. Students, staff and faculty on site assisted the new arrivals with loading their belongings into carts and wheeling them to their rooms.

The inclusion of 43 students who deferred in 2020 has resulted in a first-year class numbering 514 students this year — even more than the 497 students who matriculated into the overenrolled class of 2022. To accommodate the large incoming class, several rooms on the Quad have had to be convert-

ed to increased occupancy. These include six previously single-occupancy rooms in North and South dormitories that are now doubles.

Across Appleton, James, Stearns and Charles Pratt dormitories, 19 rooms which served as doubles before the pandemic are now triples.

The crowding has caused significant dissatisfaction among some students. “Honestly, I’m very unhappy about it,” said Snigdha Ranjan ’25, who’s living in a triple in Stearns Dormitory, about her room situation. She explained that her dorm assignment consists of two adjoining rooms — one with a bunk bed and the other with a single bed — with furniture distributed unevenly between the two rooms.

“It’s taking me a lot to accept it and move on,” Ranjan continued.

“And it’s kind of stressful and worrying to think about how things

will be when we have exams, how we are going to study.”

First-year students nonetheless reported adjusting well to living with roommates, which the college has not had students do during the pandemic until this semester. “My roommate’s pretty chill,” said Zoe Callan ’25. “We are not 100 percent the same or anything, but we have fairly compatible lifestyles.”

Orientation kicked off later in the day on Wednesday, with the President’s Welcome taking place on a specially erected stage in the center of the First-Year Quad. The rest of Orientation was a mix of virtual and in-person activities, with Orientation squads Zooming into trainings and information sessions from designated offices and resource centers, and the whole class gathering on the Quad for larger events, including the DeMott Lecture on Saturday and Convocation on Sunday.

“It’s been pretty interesting,” said Callan about Orientation.

“The different activities have been fun. I did actually really enjoy the SHE [Sexual Health Educator] skits, and the Voices of our Class performance — that was hilarious.”

“It’s way better [this year],” said Abbey Skinner ’24, who served as an Orientation Leader. “For our [orientation] last year, everything was on Zoom, and we didn’t really get any of the fun things, just the required things we had to do. This year has been way more engaging.”

With the arrival of returning students on Aug. 28 and 29, the campus has become noticeably fuller, said Skinner. “I feel like there’s much more of a social life and it feels much more lively here and really like a college campus.

I’ve never seen so many people walking around campus, which is really cool,” she said.

College Adopts New Pass-Fail Policy, Revised Grading Scale Ryan Yu ’22 Editor-in-Chief Effective for the 2021-2022 academic year, the college is replacing its Flexible Grading Option (FGO) policy with a revised pass-fail grading option, and is transitioning from a 14-point grading system to a standard four-point grading scale. The change follows a pair of faculty votes in late spring that overwhelmingly approved the proposals.

Under the new grading policy, students can declare their intent to take a course pass-fail by the first day of the exam period, with permission from their advisor(s), after which they will receive a “P” for a passing grade (i.e. a “D” or higher) or an “F” for a failing grade. Students who enter the college as first-years will be able to use the pass-fail option four times throughout their college career, but can only use it for at most one course per semester.

The change in grading scale

is, for the most part, administrative and practically negligible in practice, but it notably removes the grade point distinction between an “A” and an “A+.” Whereas an “A” and an “A+” would correspond to grade points of 13 and 14 respectively on the old grading scale, they now both correspond to a 4.0 on the new grading scale.

These modifications mark a departure from the expanded FGO policy that was implemented at the start of the pandemic,

which built on the FGO policy adopted at the start of the 20192020 academic year. That policy allowed students to opt for a pass (“P”) for a designated FGO course after grades were posted, with additional usage of the FGO being permitted for the last three semesters due to the pandemic.

Faculty members who supported the changes voiced a number of arguments in their favor. For the transition to a pass-fail grading system, faculty members cited the simpler

process it offered compared to the “confusing” process that the FGO entailed, as well as the increased difficulty of exploiting the system under the new policy.

For the change in grading scale, proponents noted the irregularity of Amherst’s 14-point grading system compared to other colleges and universities, most of which use a four-point grading system, as well as the uneven usage of the “A+” grade between different departments and professors.

Alumni Ramp Up Calls for Asian/Pacific/American Studies Major Yee-Lynn Lee ’23 Managing News Editor On Aug. 10, the Amherst Asian Alumni Network (AAAN) wrote an open letter to President Biddy Martin, Provost and Dean of the Faculty Catherine Epstein and the board of trustees calling on the college to commit immediately to establishing its own Asian/Pacific/American (A/P/A) studies major.

The letter, published on AAAN’s website, has received nearly 250 signatures from students, faculty and alumni at the time of publication.

The administration has not publicly issued a response to the letter, but told The Student that they are working to hire more faculty specializing in A/P/A studies and do expect an A/P/A studies major to be formed in the future.

The AAAN is an alumni-led

group that seeks to support and advocate for the needs and interests of Asian-identifying members of the college community. Their open letter came in the wake of surging anti-Asian racism during the pandemic and student dissatisfaction with the administration’s response to such hate.

In the letter, the AAAN wrote that the college has not made good on its “commitment to educating

students on the experiences of Asian Americans,” pointing to the mere three courses in A/P/A studies being offered in the Fall 2021 semester. The letter professed that the establishment of A/P/A studies is indispensable for creating a truly anti-racist curriculum, as well as supporting Asian- and Pacific Islander-identifying students at Amherst.

The AAAN called on the college to prioritize the creation of an A/P/A

studies major, outlining six broad demands for the college to commit to immediately: 1) formalize a commitment to expanding A/P/A course offerings; 2) form a working committee to outline the steps to create the A/P/A studies major; 3) create new pathways for hiring of A/P/A studies scholars; 4) ensure that there are at least seven tenured or tenure-tracked

Continued on page 4

The Amherst Student • September 1, 2021

News 4

Encouraging Signs for the Future of the A/P/A Studies Major Continued from page 3

A/P/A Studies professors teaching courses each semester; 5) expand and regularize formal policies to measure and address faculty retention; and 6) allocate resources like counseling, mentorship and career development initiatives that focus on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI)-identifying students and faculty.

“We are confident that Amherst can become a more inclusive, more diverse, and more equitable institution,” the letter stated. “However, this goal can only be met through a serious commitment of time, energy and resources. The college must act with urgency to meet our demands, which are critical to Amherst’s mission and to addressing its history of racism, white supremacy and Eurocentrism.”

Chief Communications Officer Sandy Genelius told The Student that “the administration agrees that the opportunity to study A/P/A studies is indispensable for creating an an-

ti-racism curriculum” and acknowledged that “we have further to go” in offering courses on the experiences of Asian and Pacific Americans.

She added that “the administration hopes to work with the Committee on Educational Policy (CEP) to develop a cluster-hire initiative that will result in additional tenure professors at the college who specialize in A/P/A studies. … As the number of faculty in A/P/A studies grows on campus, we hope and expect that the formation of an A/P/A studies major will occur.”

Members of the AAAN also reported receiving a response from the administration stating their support of the continued development of A/P/A studies and describing their current efforts assessing the interest of different departments in partaking in a cluster-hire initiative. The administration, however, did not confirm in this response any intentions to establish an A/P/A studies major in the future. Additionally, the administration has not publicly issued any response to the letter com-

mitting to an A/P/A studies major or addressing any of the other demands made by the AAAN. Jiajia Zhang ’22, one of the senior chairs of the Asian Pacific American Action Committee (APAAC), the campus advocacy group for an A/P/A studies major at Amherst, noted that the administration’s proactiveness in approaching faculty about a cluster-hire initiative was encouraging. At APAAC’s last meeting with administrators in April, she explained, they had asked whether the administration could themselves encourage departments specifically to pursue a cluster-hire, which the administration agreed to.

“It was significant to me that they agreed to that, because in the past, it’s always been put on us, the students, to arrange meetings with all these individual academic departments and gauge their interest,” said Zhang. “[The recent communication] means they had followed through on what they had promised in April.”

AAAN co-founder Miu Suzuki ’16 said the open letter was intended

to “serve as more of an accountability check,” explaining that disparate efforts to advocate for A/P/A studies have too often restarted from the beginning instead of building on each other.

“After the tragic Atlanta incident, Biddy’s response was kind of outlining the same kind of support that we’ve always had on campus — there were not really new initiatives,” added ShoYoung Shin ’19, also a co-founder of the AAAN. “That was striking to see, in a time where there was so much violence and when students are feeling unsafe, especially.”

“We just want to see tangible next steps from Biddy, Epstein and all the people who hold decision-making power and can actually create movement when it comes to the development of A/P/A studies,” Suzuki said.

This idea of accountability and concrete steps underlied the specific demands made in the letter as well.

“Our demands are moreso a framework on the pathway to establishing A/P/A studies, enumerat[ing] the different steps necessary to create

it,” said Shin. She emphasized that the demands were written with an eye toward ensuring that any A/P/A studies program is developed with the care and support necessary for it to be high-quality and sustainable.

“We don’t want it to be, ‘Hey, we hired people, are you happy?’ We want it to be something that is made up in a really intentional way, where all the stakeholders are involved in the process as well,” Shin said.

The Five College Consortium has offered a Five ​​ College Asian/Pacific/ American Studies Certificate Program since 2000, which the college made available to Amherst students in 2005. The program is co-chaired

by Lili Kim, Center for Humanistic Inquiry fellow and visiting lecturer in history, and Michael Sakamoto, the UMass Amherst associate director of programming for the Asian arts and culture. Many of Amherst’s peer institutions, including the Claremont Colleges, Northwestern, New York University, Cornell and Duke, among others, have either an A/P/A or Asian American studies major.

Town of Amherst Approves Reparations Fund for Black Residents Yee-Lynn Lee ’23 Managing News Editor The Amherst Town Council voted on June 21 to establish a reparations fund for its Black residents, aiming to make amends for past harms. The vote followed an almost year-long advocacy effort by the grass-roots organization Reparations for Amherst (R4A). While the college has expressed interest in collaborating with the town’s efforts, it has not committed to a specific way of doing so. Many community members agreed that this is just the beginning of necessary work that should engage the whole community and has the potential to bring about real and impactful change.

Town conversations surrounding reparations began with a community petition in the aftermath of the death of George Floyd last June, as the nation grappled with questions of how to pursue justice in a system marked by institutionalized racism.

Amherst is perceived by many as progressive, equitable and untainted by the ills of structural racism, its his-

tory shows the very real presence of white supremacy, with documented slaveholding, exclusion of Black people from housing and public spaces, as well as anti-Black hate crimes. Sustained discrimination has also resulted in continuing disparities between Black and white residents in areas including housing, education, health and income.

Members of R4A — who led the charge in putting out the petition, meeting with town councilors and elucidating Amherst’s history of racism and need for reparations — modeled their initiative off of the reparations effort in Evanston, IL, which became in March the first government in the country to pass a reparations plan. On the national level, the late U.S. representative John Conyers Jr. worked to pass a reparations bill through Congress for more than 30 years, but only a handful of local governments have taken steps toward making reparations a reality.

In Amherst, $210,000 has already been earmarked to be transferred into the newly established reparations fund, which also accepts

contributions from private donors.

President of the Town Council Lynn Griesemer emphasized a distinction from the Evanston reparations program — which is planned to be funded from cannabis tax proceeds — explaining that while the funds are equivalent to a portion of the cannabis revenue from this year, the money is not the cannabis revenue. “We wanted to make sure that it was not that revenue, because we don’t know where that revenue will be in the future,” said Griesemer.

The Town Council also approved the formation of the African Heritage Reparations Assembly (AHRA) — to be made up of six Black residents and one representative from R4A — to conduct outreach to the Black community and develop a plan for reparations. Appropriations from the fund toward “lawful reparations purposes” will be made at the recommendations of the assembly, with a two-thirds vote from the Town Council required for approval, the Hampshire Gazette reported. Attorneys at KP Law, based in Boston, will deem what is lawful.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The Amherst Town Council established a reparations fund after almost a year of grassroots advocacy.

“It’s important, especially for non-Black people, to understand that reparations are always decided by the injured party,” said Michele Miller, co-founder of R4A and resident of Amherst. “In this case, because it is a municipal process, the proposals will need to be voted on by the Town Council, but my hope is that whatever proposals come forward from the Black community will be approved.”

As the town is still in the process of recruiting members to serve on the assembly, the specific purposes

for which the fund will be used have yet to be decided on, said Griesemer.

She noted, however, that likely uses of the fund include promoting housing ownership, expanding educational opportunities and reducing health disparities.

Karen Sánchez-Eppler, the L. Stanton Williams 1941 professor of American studies and English, who lives in Amherst and signed the community petition for reparations, saw

Continued on page 5

News 5

The Amherst Student • September 1, 2021

Town-Gown Collaboration Works to Uncover Racial History Continued from page 4 the establishment of the fund as an important step toward redressing past wrongs. “I am pleased that Amherst is the first Massachusetts town to pass such a motion,” Sánchez-Eppler said. “Now we have to make it real.”

“My father was born in Berlin in 1930, and he and his parents received reparations payments from the German government that mattered for them both economically and, I think, psychologically,” she added. “So I do know in a fairly immediate way that reparations can be meaningful tools for healing historical trauma.”

When asked whether the college intends to contribute to the town’s reparations efforts, Chief Communications Officer Sandy Genelius responded, “An effective anti-racism plan is necessarily collaborative. Any effort that stops at the edge of campus would be myopic, incomplete and deficient. We have had preliminary communication with the town and are eager to hear more specific infor-

mation about the town’s plans, which we understand are being developed, and to respond as the Amherst College community.”

Miller said that R4A knew from the beginning that they wanted to engage the community with their work, especially large stakeholders like the college and nearby UMass Amherst. She lauded the college’s efforts in identifying its own history, explaining that it was presenting their research into the history and continued presence of racism in Amherst that really helped the community understand the need for reparations and laid the foundation for the town to commit to a reparations fund.

Collaboration on the research front is already underway, reported Anna Smith ’22, The Student’s managing design editor. She worked as a research assistant in the spring for the Racial History of Amherst College project led by Head of the Archives & Special Collections Mike Kelly, which examines the relationship that founders of and donors to the college had with slavery and the extent to

which they were holders of enslaved people.

Smith continued the research over the summer and just recently started working with R4A to compile evidence of the town-gown relationship throughout the years and show how the college has contributed to anti-Black racism in the town. Smith said she aims to use the research to compel the college to contribute to the fund for reparations.

Digging into the archival history of the college showed just how difficult it is to separate the college and the town in their entanglements with slavery and racism, Kelly told The Student. He cited the example of Reverend David Parsons, first pastor of the first church in Amherst, who is documented to have held slaves on the land that is now where the Octagon, the yellow building just west of South Hall, stands. “Even though that was part of the town at the time, that land was given to Amherst College,” he explained. “And so we know for a fact that there were three people held in slavery on land that is now

part of Amherst College’s campus.”

Kelly noted that such archival work has ability to inform what reparations should look like. “I can go on and on about these different historical documents in detail. But all of that is so that the community at large can start answering, ‘Okay, now that we know what we know, to whom does the college owe what?’” he said.

“This really is an opportunity for us to show what research and the humanities and good scholarship can actually contribute to a national conversation,” Kelly continued. “When I hear people being dismissive of reparations because you couldn’t possibly figure out who should get the money, my response is to say, ‘Well, let’s see if we can.’ And actually, we can.”

“Working through what we are collectively learning takes time,” said Genelius. “[The college can] bring its talents and skills, especially with regards to research and scholarship, to further uncover and interpret this painful history and join in the effort to repair the harm caused.”

Both Kelly and Miller also en-

couraged more Amherst students to get involved in putting reparations into practice, from learning about the history to contributing to the conversation on the form reparations in Amherst will take.

“I certainly think that students [should make] their voices heard with respect to what they believe is right,” echoed Mattea Kramer ’07, who led R4A’s research efforts and currently resides in Amherst. “What ought the college to do now vis-a-vis its racial history and what we know?

The answer to that question [is something] we all have to decide together.”

Kramer went further to emphasize the truly radical nature of pursuing local reparations and the lessons it can teach about effecting change: “For someone to say, we could do reparations here — to decide that it was possible, and then to take up the mantle of making it so — is absolutely abstract thought, and I want to underscore that. Having that capacity to create something from nothing, to envision what should be but isn’t yet, is what changes the course of history.”

Students Express Opposition to Tightened Covid Protocols Continued from page 1

take an even more virulent form.”

Amherst will require all employees, faculty and students to wear face coverings while inside campus buildings — regardless of their vaccination status, according to an email sent from Martin on Aug. 16. The masking requirement was enhanced as of Aug. 24: all students must double-mask (wear two pleated filter masks on top of one another) if they are not wearing a KN95 mask in classrooms and other academic spaces operating at 100 percent capacity. The college has purchased a bulk supply of KN95 masks, which have been made available for the Amherst community to take. Chief of Campus Operations Jim Brassord reported that the KN95 masks were delivered on Aug. 30 and put in student mailboxes on Aug. 31. Faculty and staff who request KN95 masks will also

receive them.

As of Aug. 19, less than 1 percent of students have requested a vaccine exemption. The college has been verifying vaccine status[es] for staff and faculty as they returned to campus over the course of August, Chief Communications Officer Sandy Genelius wrote to The Student.

Community members could originally unmask in their residence halls, but that is no longer the case. Masks are now required in residence hall common areas, until at least Sept. 13. Students may unmask in their own dorm rooms.

Alternatively, when indoors and outside of their residence halls, unvaccinated students must be masked at all times unless they are alone with the door closed. If outdoors, unvaccinated students must wear face coverings when a six-foot distance cannot be maintained. All community members must mask

up if they are attending a gathering of more than 25 people, regardless of the location on campus.

Student Reactions Though there is general acceptance of the original mandate among the student body, the enhancement of Covid restrictions on Aug. 24 prompted significant student opposition. An open letter, signed by over 400 students as of Aug. 26, called on the administration to be more transparent about its decision-making process, factor in student voice and repeal some of the new restrictions that the letter argues are unnecessary and unduly harsh.

“This updated set of guidelines appears to be out of line with the current CDC, state, local and peer institution standards for Covid-19 response, and we demand revision and clarification,” the open letter read. “It is currently challenging

to believe that Amherst remains committed to our full student experience, and difficult to regain the typical enthusiasm that comes with returning to campus each fall.”

Many students had expected the original masking mandate announced on Aug. 16. “I don’t think I was surprised with the masking mandate given that these expectations were communicated at the end of last semester and through the spring,” said Isabelle Lobo ’22.

“I think it’s a reasonable protocol to put in place given that the Delta variant cases are on the rise.”

Ella Vacchi ’23 expressed a similar sentiment: “Given the more we’re learning about Delta and the other variants daily, especially in the first few weeks of classes, it would be foolish to not have [a mask mandate].” Vacchi is hopeful that the administration will reassess further into the semester and consider a reduction in masking

restrictions at that time.

Despite the college’s acknowledgement of student remonstrance to the Covid policies in the Aug. 28 email, many members of the college community are disappointed that they will be beginning another semester governed by anti-virus regulations. Woohyun Kwen ’25 said, “I have to admit that I was disappointed in the situation after hoping that we would be able to enjoy a year without such strict restrictions.”

Kwen agreed with the college that it is better to start the semester with stricter rules that loosen over time, but expressed disappointment about the timing of the email which hardened the restrictions: “I disliked that these changes were announced the day before [first-year] move-in day. It was discouraging to have our expectations altered so suddenly.”

Continued on page 6

News 6

The Amherst Student • September 1, 2021

College’s Heightened Covid Protocols Trend on Twitter Continued from page 5 Christian Fagnant ’24 felt similarly: “I was with some friends when they received [the email], and the consensus seemed to be disappointment and a desire to return to a normal on-campus experience, especially if everyone is vaccinated.”

Several questions remain regarding who decides the Covid safety measures and the “confidential sources” that are consulted in their formulation. The email sent on Aug. 27 did not disclose who has the final say in determining the regulations. It did relay that “[the college does] not share the sources of information, analysis, or recommendations that [it] receives in confidence or in confidential meetings unless we have permission to do so.” The fact that sources of information used to make rules that govern student life are not divulged left many puzzled.

Olivia Stockard ’22, who did research in Germany for the past eight weeks, is frustrated by the disparity between restrictions at German universities and at Amherst.

“No university there puts tighter restrictions than the state which I think is where my frustration lies.

Amherst seems to be creating frustrating, temporary restrictions that do more to stifle student life than to be a preventative measure.”

There are some students who are pleased to see the college taking preventative measures against the

Delta variant. Lev Robertson ’23 said, “Maybe an unpopular opinion but I think a lot of the college’s Covid restrictions are necessary.

Infections are surging (including among the vaccinated!), and I think the school should protect elderly and immunocompromised members of the community. Plus, I would rather the school have these restrictions early on and greater freedom later than impose protocols after campus outbreaks.”

Students are encouraged by the fact that Martin responded to student protests and that the college is slated to reevaluate the protocols in two weeks. However, for many, the decision to sustain a majority of the restrictions serves as a sad reminder that the pandemic has yet to reach its conclusion. As Kwen put it, “The email on Aug. 24 was a wake-up call for me to realize that we were still in the middle of a pandemic, and it was unrealistic to expect a year back to normalcy.”

Stockard is still optimistic that the semester will be better than those prior. “I hope that these measures will be an improvement over last semester, particularly the reporting to the Office of Community Standards and having to wear a mask on your way to shower,” she said.

Creating Covid Policy A statement sent to The Student by the chair of the Board of Trustees, Andrew Nussbaum ’85,

addressed who makes the college’s Covid rules. “The Covid-19 protocols are the responsibility of President Martin and the leadership team, which consults very broadly with leading health and medical experts with direct background and experience in managing Covid-19, and other colleges and universities and with the Board,” he said.

Nussbaum explained that he speaks with Martin frequently, often daily, across a broad range of topics, including Covid and college operations. He emphasized that he and his fellow trustees fully support the steps that the college is taking to “keep [the] community well and safe, while also being together and engaged.”

“Last year, President Martin met weekly with a student task force that had just begun meeting again with the return to campus,” Nussbaum noted. “The Board also has an ad hoc committee of Trustees, with whom President Martin discusses developments on a frequent basis.”

Once decided on, Genelius stated, “the protocols are designed and put into place by the Administration/Operations working group, which works out the necessary logistics.”

The college has not disclosed the sources it consults to develop Covid policy. When asked about the confidentiality of sources Genelius said, “Confidentiality is necessary because, in an effort to gather as much relevant information as possible

on which to base decisions, some sources of expertise and guidance share what they know or advise as a favor, and they bear no responsibility for the ultimate decisions — that responsibility lies with the College.”

Media Attention The college’s new restrictions have received significant attention on social media. On Monday, senior ProPublica reporter Alec MacGillis tweeted about a recently published article in The Student detailing the updated restrictions, wondering if other colleges are taking “similarly stringent steps.” The tweet soon had the college trending on Twitter, as other big names like statistician and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver weighed in on the post.

“It’s pretty insane to put such harsh restrictions in place on a campus where **everybody is fully vaccinated**,” Silver tweeted. “Some people have really lost the plot.”

Journalist Glenn Greenwald added, “One of the most bizarre aspects of the Covid debate is the same people who insisted (correctly, in my view) that the vaccines are safe and effective in protecting against grave Covid outcomes still want to act as if we’re in a pre-vaccine world and the vaccine changed nothing.”

News of the media attention quickly circulated via the on-campus GroupMe chat, where one student commented on the irony that restrictions were not even enforced

over the weekend, and another wrote, “It’s just for the PR, let them have it i guess :woman-shrugging:.”

Information Regarding The Delta Variant The Delta variant, currently the most widespread coronavirus strain in the U.S., is more contagious than earlier variants. It may also cause more hospitalizations in unvaccinated individuals, who are the greatest concern.

Widespread vaccination remains the key strategy to combat and control the Delta variant. Being vaccinated reduces the risk that an individual will contract Covid-19.

Additionally, research has found that fully vaccinated people remain contagious for a shorter period.

The CDC released updated mask-usage guidance for fully-vaccinated individuals on July 27 after a Delta-induced outbreak in Barnstable County, MA. A subsequent report from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health found that the viral load in vaccinated and unvaccinated individuals did not differ, suggesting that infected people who are vaccinated could still spread the virus once infected as easily as the unvaccinated. Vaccinated individuals should wear masks indoors in areas of high or substantial transmission, the CDC concluded from the DPH report.

As of Sept. 1, Hampshire County, MA has substantial transmission.

Karu Kozuma and Kevin Weinman Announce Departures Ryan Yu ’22 Editor-in-Chief Two major college officials announced their departures over the summer, via a pair of emails sent

by President Biddy Martin.

Chief Student Affairs Officer Karu Kozuma left the college at the end of July, returning to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) as the new executive director for college housing and academic services. Chief Financial and Administrative Officer Kevin Weinman will leave Amherst in early

September to become president of Marist College.

The Chief Student Affairs Officer is responsible for overseeing the Office of Student Affairs (OSA) in its multiple functions, such as the management of residential life, student activities, community standards, resource centers and accessibility services, among others.

The position of Chief Financial and Administrative Officer entails a combination of several roles, including oversight on the college’s financial planning, investments, facilities, information technology

and Covid response.

Dean of Students Liz Agosto has been appointed to fill Kozuma’s position and lead the OSA in the interim. No permanent successor has yet been found for either of the now-vacant positions.

Kozuma came to Amherst from UPenn in July 2018 after the departure of long-time CSAO Suzanne Coffey. Weinman joined the college in May 2013 after six years at Dartmouth College. Weinman also was Amherst’s first Chief Financial Officer and first Chief Administrative Officer.

Martin lauded both figures in emails announcing their departures. Martin was especially effusive in her praise of Weinman, writing that “[his] titles do not convey the significant impact he has had on Amherst. As time has passed, I have asked him to do more and more for the College, and he has always accepted the challenge and delivered consistently excellent results.”

Both Kozuma and Weinman offered fond farewells in the announcements. “The past three years have been incredibly engag-

ing and rewarding, and my respect for Amherst, its values, and its commitment to always strive for the best have only deepened as I’ve had the rare opportunity to know and work with an extremely talented and fantastic group of colleagues,” Kozuma said.

“Amherst means the world to me,” Weinman said. “I am incredibly excited about the opportunity to serve Marist as its fifth president, and I feel ready for this challenge, in large part because of the experiences I have had here at Amherst.”

The Amherst Student • September 1, 2021

News

7

Missed the Town Hall? Here’s What You Need to Know Rebecca Picciotto ’22 Editor-in-Chief After 400 students signed an open letter to the administration protesting the escalation of Covid protocols on campus, the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) hosted President Biddy Martin, Dean of Students and Interim Chief Student Affairs Officer Liz Agosto, Chief of Campus Operations Jim Brassord and Director of Dining Services Joe Flueckiger at an hourlong virtual town hall on Monday.

Students raised questions about a variety of aspects of the current campus experience, from long lines at Val to masking mandates to understaffing and over-enrollment.

Agosto followed up the town hall with an email on Aug. 31 with a summary of the most updated Covid protocols, a submission form for questions from the community and an announcement that KN95 masks had been delivered to all students’ mailboxes.

Below is a recap of the topics covered in the town hall.

Long Lunch Lines After shutting its indoor seating to students for the last three semesters, Valentine Dining Hall (Val) was slated to reopen with a reduced capacity of 50 percent. However, now that the college has changed its protocol, all students must retrieve meals to-go and will eat in tents outdoors. Campus dining will not be available to faculty and staff for the first few weeks of the semester.

For food pick-up, students can get meals at the main service area of Val, the Lewis-Sebring dining location and “grab-and-go” self-service in Keefe Campus Center Monday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Unlike the previous, restricted semesters, students will have the option of purchasing takeout food from local restaurants and having it delivered in a contactless manner to the door of their residence hall.

For many students, the prospect of Val reopening — even at a reduced capacity — was exciting.

Liam Loveless ’24 had yet to fully experience eating in Val. He said,

“I only got to experience Val on my recruiting trip to Amherst in 2019, but it was a lot of fun eating with the swim team then so I’m sure me and my friends will enjoy being able to go to Val everyday.”

Others were skeptical of Valentine’s reopening. “As for Val, it’ll be a disaster. The college is very overenrolled this year, and Val is already tight in normal years at full capacity,” Ella Vacchi ’23 stated.

Vacchi’s prediction seems to have rung true for the first few days of having everyone back on campus. AAS senator Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 recounted at the town hall that he had waited in a 43-minute lunch line on Monday — an unsustainable wait time for many students who need to eat in between classes. Flueckiger responded, “I’m not going to make any excuses for what happened today.” He explained that Grab-nGo is often not a well-known option at the start of any school year, which leads to frontloading traffic in Val. Even with the lines, Flueckiger noted that 96 percent of the student body got lunch that day compared to the 80 percent that is usually seen in the first two weeks of school.

Flueckiger explained that traffic tends to dissipate over the course of the first couple weeks of the semester. “I do expect that this will abate to some extent over the course of the next seven to 10 days, as students begin to better appreciate how much time they have between classes, which meal they prefer …

I think people will just get used to approaching lunch in a way that actually meets their needs,” he said.

Staffing Shortage Flueckiger acknowledged that the combination of an overenrolled student body and a widespread staffing crisis has contributed to the recent dining slowness. “Even for full-time positions, it’s been a struggle to find qualified applicants or any applicants for that matter,” he said.

To incentivize hiring, the college launched a couple of initiatives. Throughout the summer, the college was offering bonuses

of $1,000 to any employee who referred a prospective staff member to an “advertised, open vacancy in a casual, full- or part-time” position in Dining Services or as a Community Safety Assistant (CSA).

Additionally, on Tuesday, Dining Services put out an announcement in the Daily Mammoth that “Val Needs You!” The announcement provides details on the hours and available positions for students, and notes the $15 hourly wage and a $500 sign-on bonus. Non-student entry-level positions will receive a $750 sign-on bonus. Current staff members across the college have also seen a seven percent increase in their wages.

Besides queue delays, the staffing shortage has also contributed to fewer food options, including for those with food allergies, and it has postponed the start of the popular late-night dining options from last year. Though Val currently has an allergen-free menu, Flueckiger was open to adding specific items that students may want, with the caveat that he “can’t promise you when that’s going to happen,” due to the hiring struggles. Late-night Val has also been delayed because there are not enough people to work the shifts.

Without adequate staffing power, Dining Services has also

struggled to retrieve the green reusable to-go containers from their designated collection boxes inside residence halls. Even last semester, with around 1200 students on campus, two Dining Service employees would have to work an eight-hour shift to collect all the green containers. With 800 more students on campus this semester, “It’s that much more difficult,” Flueckiger said.

“We just don’t have the people to offer the product to you during that time period. I desperately want to offer all these services to you,” he continued.

So You Got Caught Breaking a Rule, What Now? Amid ever-changing Covid protocols, students found themselves wondering what actually happens in the case of rule violations.

Last year, the consequence of rule violation was often removal from campus,but without any remote learning offerings, the college will now address Covod protocol infringements using the typical process for Code of Conduct violations. The repercussions will thus be judged on a case-by-case basis depending on the severity of the violation.

Agosto said, “Our focus this

year is less on repercussions and more on community education.”

What happens if you test positive?

Without remote learning options this semester, Zoom is no longer the standard backup plan for those who must quarantine or isolate due to a positive Covid test. Students thus raised concerns as to what would happen to their academics if they were forced into quarantine. At a faculty meeting on Sunday Aug. 29, faculty brought up similar issues. On this topic, Martin mentioned that the Committee of Six had met to discuss how to handle such situations. The verdict appeared to be that faculty would be granted latitude in these circumstances to decide how to teach an absent student.

“It will depend on the faculty member whether they try to do something that is hybrid or whether they do something a little short of that, partly because not everybody is set up to do real hybrid class,” Martin said. Provost and Dean of the Faculty Catherine Epstein was not at the town hall to address the policy for these particular extenuating circumstances.

Agosto added that class deans would be involved in ensuring that students who test positive do not fall behind in class.

Photo courtesy of Ryan Yu ‘22

Covid restrictions, overenrollment and staffing shortages led to long lines outside of Val.

Op pinion

w

Repeating History Students were understandably shocked when they received an unexpected email from the President’s Office detailing a drastic shift in the college’s approach to Covid-19. The college had just implemented a new policy much harsher than those of almost any other college in the country, a move administrators said was necessary to stop the spread of Covid at a place that seemed to be barely affected by it. Blindsided by the sudden shift, a sense of outrage blanketed the campus and hundreds of students protested, calling for the reversal or moderation of the changes — but the administration barely budged. After all, in their eyes, they had the backing of health experts that understood the supposed direness of the situation — so what did they do wrong?

Dean of Students Liz Agosto answered that question succinctly in an email on March 10, 2020: “It was clear to me that one of the biggest concerns you all had was about communication.” But that understanding seemed to be lost on the administration when the tale we laid out above — of Covid entering the U.S. and the college asking students to leave campus three semesters ago — repeated itself last week, after the administration suddenly announced much stricter rules just a day before first-year orientation began.

Each time, hundreds of students protested the administration’s brusque and unexpected announcements, and, while the administration stood by its decisions, it acknowledged that its communication strategy was flawed.

Why has the administration gone back to its old ways?

When The Student’s Editorial Board met to discuss the issue, one editor somberly joked that when Agosto’s regular “drumbeat of communication” had served its purpose, the administration quietly slinked back into its earlier stance — authoritarian and alone — rather than maintaining the more open and consultative position students and faculty wanted.

Without this stubborn, go-it-alone attitude, community members — who are widely understanding of the benefits of two-and-a-half weeks of entry restrictions — would likely have been much more supportive.

The depth of student support is critical because, as the people who are most directly affected by the restrictions, students are also the ones with the most control over whether or not the policies are adhered to, and thus, successful.

The lack of enforceability of some restrictions, such as the double-masking requirement, calls into question the forethought administrators put into these policies’ eventual efficacy. Especially because restrictions without enforcement will only end up impacting the most cautious students (who are already likely to be Covid-safe) while being entirely ignored by those who are most likely to spread the virus in the first place.

In other words, they generate very little benefit while breeding distrust toward the administration — and even leading to trending condemnations online.

The main thing students sought was simply to understand why the restrictions were being put in place. As pointed out in an open letter signed by hundreds of students against the new policy, several of the new Covid restrictions directly contravened CDC guidelines. It was only under pressure that the administration revealed that it had consulted with experts

and created the new policies around a yet-to-be-released paper that detailed new findings on the Delta variant’s hypercontagious nature.

Perhaps that explanation was more shocking than the actual announcement though, as it confirmed that the administration was willfully keeping information concealed that would clarify the situation— a tacit acknowledgement that the administration simply did not value input from the rest of the community in making major decisions for campus life and a fact it had routinely denied after the 2020 debacle.

And that was something we simply couldn’t wrap our heads around at The Student. What logic prevents the administration from sharing its thoughts the first time around? For a school whose claim to fame is the trust it places in students to guide their own academic experience — its open curriculum — its treatment of students during the pandemic has represented a disconcerting level of disrespect.

But the worst aspect of the administration’s approach is the predictable gulf between the student body and administration it creates. Several students have suggested that perhaps the announcement — sent after tuition had been paid and right after the entirety of the first-year class moved in — was timed to avoid first-year deferrals. Others have wondered whether the college is aiming to recreate the media praise that came with its ultimately successful March 2020 decision. Ultimately, the administration has created a dangerous environment in which a palpable majority of community members feel comfortable in their distaste for the administration and perhaps even in disregard for its policies.

Here at The Student, we wholeheartedly support the administration’s continuing consultation with experts and updates to restrictions as new information becomes available.

And we trust that Martin and the rest of the administration have our best interests at heart. However, we cannot support the way in which these decisions were made or announced.

Students deserve a say in what campus life looks like. We should be consulted about decisions before they are made and informed of the reasoning when new policies are implemented.

Faculty members, too, deserve a hand in how our community is governed. After all, isn’t the point of these restrictions to create the best academic environment possible given the pandemic — surely academics themselves might have some ideas of how to do so. And finally, we want to emphasize the role of staff on campus as well. They come face-to-face with students every day, and are at particular risk if the administration creates an environment in which student traffic is congested indoors or students rebelliously flaunt the rules made by a seemingly hostile administration. They should be consulted when new policies are created, as they have insights into the goings on of campus life that administrators sorely lack.

None of us expect the administration to be able to handle the pandemic perfectly, and we certainly don’t expect them to handle it alone. Keeping the community safe while consulting it is possible — and likely easier than the alternative.

Unsigned editorials represent the views of the majority of the Editorial Board — (assenting: 10; dissenting: 0; abstaining: 5).

THE AMHERST

STUDENT E X E C U T I V E B OA R D Editors-in-Chief Ryan Yu Rebecca Picciotto Managing News Zach Jonas Sophie Wolmer Yee-Lynn Lee Managing Opinion Scott Brasesco Skye Wu Managing Arts and Living Theodore Hamilton Alexander Brandfonbrener Brooke Hoffman Managing Sports Ethan Samuels Liza Katz Liam Archacki Managing Design Anna Smith S TA F F Publishers Emmy Sohn Digital Director Sawyer Pollard Social Media Manager Emi Eliason

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The Amherst Student • September 1, 2021

Opinion 9

Seeing Double: Down With Admission’s Double Standards

Photo courtesy of Matai Curzon ’22t

The Class of 2025 was admitted at a historically low rate — eight percent. Will the ongoing pandemic make things harder for the next class?

Thomas Brodey ’22 Columnist Applying for college is hard.

Every Amherst student remembers the frustration of studying for standardized tests, the stress of juggling application-boosting extracurriculars and, most of all, the disappointment of being rejected from Harvard.

Once we get to college, most students want nothing more than to put that whole ordeal behind us. We have a duty, however, to look back into that traumatic part of our past and recognize the outrageous double standard between how Amherst treats its current students and how it treats its applicants.

Over the last eighteen months, the college made a plethora of decisions intended to help its students cope with the pandemic. Among these were radical changes to the (now partially defunct) Flexible Grading Option, which essentially allowed any student to take a pass/fail on any course at semester’s end. Many

departments have also reduced their course requirements, and during the past two semesters, the recommended course load fell from four to three.

With all these reduced requirements, the college sent a clear message: it doesn’t want students obsessing over classes and grades while a pandemic disrupts lives around the world. It is more important, in other words, that students take care of themselves and each other than focus on achieving perfect academics.

At the same time, however, students applying to Amherst during the pandemic faced a far less charitable philosophy. Amherst admissions have undergone no major pandemic changes, with the exception of a new short essay about the pandemic (itself a measure to lower the pandemic’s presence elsewhere in the application) and making the SAT and ACT optional.

In fact, the class of 2025 was the most selective in Amherst’s history, with an acceptance rate of just 8 percent. While the ad-

ministration has encouraged Amherst students to take it easy, any slip up in GPA, any loss of motivation or productivity, puts an Amherst applicant at risk of rejection.

My point is not to praise or criticize either Amherst’s academic or admission policies by themselves, but to point out the contradiction between the two.

How can Amherst claim that even its own high-performing students require academic leniency while also scrutinizing the 2020 GPAs and resumes of its applicants?

In expecting that its applicants continue to perform at the highest level during a world-altering pandemic while giving its students lots of slack during the same period, Amherst is asking its applicants to achieve something it has shown it does not view as important in practice.

We might as well expect applicants to master juggling, yodeling, walking more than five minutes at a time, column-writing or some other skill in no de-

mand on the Amherst campus.

Two philosophies are in conflict here. Right now, Amherst functions as a kind of exclusive club, where admission is merciless and arbitrary, but once selected, members are showered in preferential treatment. That philosophy feeds into the worst aspects of private colleges as expensive ‘pat on the back factories,’ aimed only at helping their own members and preserving their own exclusiveness.

Instead, Amherst should adopt the spirit of a public-minded institution. In that mindset, Amherst would view those outside and inside with the same sympathies. If people on the inside receive advantages, it should always be for the end goal of benefiting everyone, both inside and outside the Amherst bubble.

Amherst should bring a consistent approach to its admissions. Since it is impossible to retroactively revoke the benefits students received earlier in the pandemic, the only fair solution

is to extend that same philosophy to applicants who struggled in that year. That would mean treating most Covid grades as either Passes or Fails.

Amherst students will always get benefits denied to the general population. After all, only so many people can fit into Valentine Dining Hall or Johnson Chapel. But these benefits should always take the form of services like on-campus housing or expert teaching, not an entirely separate moral code.

As Amherst students, we pride ourselves on being special, as though the process of receiving an email beginning with the words “we are delighted to inform you” somehow turns us into something new. But that’s just not true. I still love Billy Joel. My co-columnist still goes through one bottle of shampoo per week. The line between applicants and students is thin indeed, and we should never forget to extend the empathy we give our fellow students to those who will soon take our places.

The Amherst Student • September 1, 2021

Opinion 10

Letter to the Administration: Loosen Covid Rules

Sophia Sondey ’24 Contributing Writer

Dear Amherst College administrators,

I am a sophomore at Amherst this year. I am writing to you regarding the college’s Covid restrictions for on-campus students this year.

The recent emails outlining proposed plans and policies for the beginning this year filled me with anxiety, anger and confusion. After living on campus under last year’s many restrictions and seeing the enormous improvements in the state of the pandemic over the summer, I was expecting to finally hear that I would be able to experience a normal college year. However, what I read sounded like the beginning of quite the opposite.

The overall tone of these emails was fear. Beyond the fear-inducing Covid precautions, there was little to no information about how the college was going to try to make this year more manageable for students who are so clearly suffering under the past and now current restrictions.

I write this letter to ask that the college relax many of the serious Covid rules and allow students to have the college experience they have been looking forward to since they came to Amherst.

I understand the need for certain precautionary measures. For instance, masking is necessary in classrooms, since attending class is not a choice and is thus the most likely place for interactions between the vaccinated and unvaccinated. Precautions for interactions with staff who might be older or less healthy than a college student are also necessary to ensure that the non-student members of our community are safe. Additionally, some professors are at higher risk for Covid, and we need to do our part to protect their health and make sure that the college is a safe teaching environment.

However, I believe that any

Covid rules beyond masking in classrooms would not only be unnecessary, but unfair and damaging to our wellbeing.

The rules Amherst put in place last year took an incredible mental, emotional, developmental and physical toll on me and every other on-campus student I have spoken to. We were forced to socially isolate ourselves in every way, despite the relative safety of the Amherst Covid bubble. As a result, many students (myself included) experienced depressive states like never before. We were unable to attend in-person classes, and the few classes that were in person felt distant. The staff hired by the school, such as the CDCs, CSAs etc., rudely and unfairly enforced the extreme rules, establishing a relationship of fear and power between the students and administration. By the end of my first year, I was counting down the days until I could leave because I felt so incredibly stuck and alone in a place where I should’ve felt happy and at home.

There were times when other students and I tried to raise our voices and discuss the severity of the restrictions with the school’s administration, but in all instances, we felt insignificant and unheard. It felt like we were simply data points to be shuffled around in order to prove that Amherst had the “most Covid-safe” campus to the rest of the observing world.

I fully understand that a lot was unknown and uncertain about the coronavirus last year.

Numbers were spiking suddenly, hospitals were suffering and there was no known vaccine or treatment. As a result, I can see how the college’s extreme restrictions were an attempt to protect our campus the safest. However, while the restrictions might’ve been ensuring our safety from the virus, they put us at risk for numerous other issues, such as mental instability, anxiety, depression, substance abuse and much more. That fact didn’t seem to matter to the college when I and other students voiced this.

Photo courtesy of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health t

Percentage of Individuals with at Least One Dose Administered: Over 60 percent of the population of nearby counties are at least partially vaccinated.

However, that was nearly four months ago. Now, we know much more about how Covid affects people like Amherst students.

Most importantly, in August, we return to a campus where every student who can physically be vaccinated is fully vaccinated.

Alone, the fact that Amherst’s student body is made up almost entirely of young adults ages 1823 means that we are a community that is already at a low risk of developing severe Covid symptoms. Combined with the vaccine mandate and testing twice a week, that means that the majority of students on our campus will now be at an especially, and uniquely, low risk for being hospitalized or dying from the Delta variant.

Additionally, UMass Amherst has mandated vaccines for all of their students, and, according to the most recent government numbers, all of the counties surrounding Amherst have the majority of their population fully vaccinated.

When it comes to Amherst’s role in protecting students, ensuring we don’t become dangerously ill from Covid should be the college’s top priority, not preventing infection entirely, as the benefit of that would be much less than the mental risks posed by strict Covid rules. Remember,

we are all human, which means we get sick and recover all the time. We just need to make sure that we are safe when we do get sick, which is exactly what the vaccine is proven to do, if not prevent illness entirely.

Even with the new Delta variant of the coronavirus, there is significant evidence that the Covid vaccines are effective against this variant too.

Additionally, in reference to a CDC report published on Aug. 5, Dr. Anthony Fauci stated that breakthrough infections, hospitalizations and deaths in vaccinated people in the U.S. are happening at a “percentage of 0.01 or less.” He also discussed the unlikelihood of vaccinated people developing serious cases of Covid, stating, “the bottom line is [breakthrough infections] are rare, and they ... unusually result in hospitalization or death.” As for mask mandates, Dr. Amesh Adalija, a scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security said, “Reinstituting mask orders — particularly among fully vaccinated — won’t have much impact overall.”

This vaccine will protect our community. However, the college seems to have no trust in it. We simply can’t cower in fear anymore. We need to live our lives

again. There are things that we face in everyday life that carry significantly more risk than there is for vaccinated students to get seriously sick from Covid. We need to start putting our risk in perspective before you continue to increase the risk for things that actually pose a significant threat to our lives.

Placing strict restrictions on student life again this year will certainly be more harmful to students’ well being than helpful.

The mask mandates in non-classroom spaces, limits on gathering sizes, a closed campus, limited social opportunities, minimal classroom interactions and all of the other restrictions we faced last year will be insignificant compared to the risk they will pose to our student body. Amherst will be putting us at risk of depression, anxiety and countless other issues, some that are as severe as suicide.

We are young adults. We need to interact with others and live in a space where we aren’t told to be afraid of everyone around us. I know that you, the administration, have our best interests at heart — that is why I am asking you, please give us this opportunity. Stop the restrictions at mandating masking in classrooms.

We all deserve it.

Arts & Living 11

The Amherst Student • September 1, 2021

“Gossip Girl’s” New Progressive Veneer Falls Flat

Photo courtesy of Drcommodore.it

Despite claiming to feature more progressive and inclusive themes, the reboot ends up pairing many of the original show’s problems with terrible acting and dialogue.

Yasmin Hamilton ’24 Staff Writer As the youngest of three girls, I consumed a lot of media that I probably shouldn’t have when I was younger. One of the shows I was able to sneak in was “Gossip Girl,” a teen soap opera about the wealthy teens of the Upper East Side of New York City. The show premiered a year before the Great Recession, providing viewers with a voyeuristic escape into the excesses of the elite while the country struggled. While I was too young to really know what was going on, my sisters’ enthusiasm stuck and created a kind of fabricated nostalgia within me when I binge-watched it years later on Netflix, along with many of my peers in my generation. But my nostalgia was now colored by a critical and ironic lens my sisters did not have when they first watched the show — something I am, again, not alone in. There are countless articles that revisit the show and unpack just how politically incorrect, racist, classist and sexist the show could be, even when it was most popular.

When I heard about the new “Gossip Girl” on HBO Max, I was

already less excited compared to some people. It’s hard to be thrilled about the wave of reboots that result from corporations exploiting the financial security of nostalgia and eschewing the inherent risks of creativity in the process.

Despite these sentiments, I still (hypocritically) started watching the reboot with the same attitude that I approached the old “Gossip Girl” with. Part of me hoped that it would surprise me, but it proved to be harder to find any merit in the reboot than in the original.

While watching the first episode of the reboot, I became immediately aware of how awful the dialogue and acting are. Characters speak their lines in dead-pan voices and interact with each other as if they’re strangers, and not life-long friends and romantic partners with years of emotional weight. They make pseudo-intellectual movie references that don’t have any depth. At one point Aki (Evan Mock) seemingly randomly calls his group of wealthy friends “the Seven Samurai” and then emotionlessly exclaims, “Hey, one day you’ll get Kurosawa!” when they’re understandably dismissive of the nickname. Their frequent fights and snarky comments are

equally unexpressive, making it hard to gauge the severity of their emotions.

If you can get past the stumbling, shallow dialogue and the terrible acting, the show’s failure to meet its advertised goals is what makes it truly insufferable. Leading up to its premiere, the show’s creators seemed to emphasize the reboot’s progressive attitude in comparison to the old show. It seemed like the show would try to sell itself to new generations by being socially conscious and “enlightened.” In many superficial ways, the show succeeds in being more progressive than the original. The main cast features Black and queer characters, and their identities are not as tokenized as they were in the original show.

There are also countless references to political and social movements.

However, the show fails to back the representation in the cast with any substance in the plot, where it matters the most. The problems of the original persist within the reboot, played out by a more diverse, but just as privileged set of characters. There are frequent disclaimers and signposts meant to indicate that the show is progressive and politically

correct, but they usually preface plot points and lines that are still sexist and status-obsessed, ultimately focused on ensuring that there are still winners and losers.

There’s one scene where Luna (Zión Moreno) tells Zoya (Whitney Peak) that she wants to give her a makeover, but of course, one that will absolutely not be for the approval of a cisgender, straight man (Obie, played by Eli Brown).

Ironically, she proceeds to give her a makeover to ensure that Zoya is worthy enough in the eyes of the public to be the socialite companion to said cisgender straight man. Ultimately, Zoya only gives up this polished version of herself because Obie decides he prefers the ‘real’ her. The show ultimately prioritizes the straight, cisgender, white man’s preferences, even while claiming the opposite.

The middle-aged showrunners also still romanticize teens having graphic sex and engaging in questionable and sometimes exploitative relationships. There’s yet another student-teacher relationship that has graphic sex on screen, and Max’s bisexuality only seems to exist to facilitate relationship drama and threesomes. The creators’

fixation on the sex lives of teens is paired with the strange decision to choose the similarly-aged teachers to be the anonymous Gossip Girl narrator this time around. They spy on their students and claim that this creepy surveillance is necessary to their good behavior in school.

It is possible though, that the reboot contains a hidden critique on the hypocrisy and naivety that younger generations share with their on-screen representations.

Maybe the creators intended for their characters to be shallow and inauthentic, because that’s what they think viewers will relate to.

Maybe they know that regardless of whether or not viewers see past the thin veneer of political correctness, it won’t matter, because they’ll keep watching anyway.

That possibility would be equal parts optimistic and gruesome for the show’s worldview.

If you’re looking for a show to mindlessly consume, the original “Gossip Girl” is probably still more fun to watch than the reboot because of its authenticity — even despite its many issues. You could also check out Netflix’s “Elite,” which has as many flaws as the reboot, but pairs them with good acting, doesn’t promise to be perfect and takes itself way less seriously. If you’re looking for more teen dramas that actually deliver on the PC-front, HBO’s other teen show “Euphoria” does a good job of representing a diverse set of identities, is more relatable to the average viewer and features compelling characters and plotlines.

This reboot proves that representation does not mean anything if there is no intent behind it beyond marketing. It’s clear that the new “Gossip Girl” tries to market to both older and newer generations by including both references to the old show and representation of identities and political correctness. But because of the lack of sincerity in the second appeal, it looks like the reboot is just a feeble attempt to profit from millennial nostalgia while also attempting (and failing) to fit into the changed landscape of contemporary media.

Arts & Living 12

The Amherst Student • September 1, 2021

“Black Widow” Leaves its Protagonist on the Sidelines

Photo courtesy of marvelousRoland on Flickr

While Florence Pugh puts in a strong performance as the Black Widow’s sister, the film suffers from tonal inconsistencies and the sidelining of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow.

Lauren Kisare ’22 Arts & Living Editor Emerita At long last, Black Widow’s standalone film has arrived. Debuting a year late due to Covid, the highly anticipated Marvel prequel kicked off the summer with its release on July 9.

And while it has all the main features of a classic Marvel superhero movie — flashy chase scenes, a talkative villain and misplaced humor — “Black Widow” doesn’t feel quite as robust as other Marvel films.

Perhaps that’s because “Black Widow” isn’t an origin story. Given her character’s death in “Avengers: Endgame” (2019), it’s understandable why Marvel shifted gears for Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), opting for an edgier, James Bondstyle film in place of a conventional prequel. Still, it’s a shame, as there is something charming to the traditional origin story and the way it introduces a new superhero into the world.

The goal of any Marvel superhero film — especially the ones dedi-

cated to individual characters — is to make you love its heroes. Whether it’s through Iron Man’s wit, Captain America’s patriotic spirit or Spiderman’s infectious enthusiasm, these films mold their characters into superheroes you want to root for. Even when they are flawed, you always exit the theater believing in their integrity. And in a movie about Black Widow, a veteran member of the Avengers, I expected the same: an adventurous film weaving in those familiar story beats to spin super-spy Natasha Romanoff into Black Widow, a hero we would ultimately come to love. But it doesn’t, unfortunately.

Or at least not well enough.

The film’s shortcomings in this respect are partly the result of Black Widow’s morally ambiguous backstory. Unlike Iron Man, Captain America and Spiderman, Black Widow started out as an antagonist of sorts, spending her youth training to be an assassin in the Red Room, a secret Russian facility designed to turn young girls into weapons.

“Black Widow” opens in the year 1995, giving us a glimpse into Ro-

manoff’s childhood with her adopted younger sister Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) in Ohio. Behind the scenes, their father Alexei Shostakov (David Hopper) and mother Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weiss) are undercover Russian agents, posing as their parents under the direct orders of General Dreykov (Ray Winstone), the mastermind behind the Red Room. After S.H.I.E.L.D agents sniff the faux-couple out, the family escapes to Cuba, where the girls are eventually handed over to Dreykov and put through the Red Room’s repressive Black Widow training program. The movie then jumps to 2016, when a mysterious message from her long-lost sister brings Romanoff to Budapest, where she must once again confront Dreykov and the atrocities she committed before escaping the Red Room and becoming an Avenger.

The writers interestingly chose to focus “Black Widow” on the aftermath of “Captain America: Civil War,” where Black Widow is now on the run for breaking the Sokovia Accords, a legislative bill that placed the Avengers under the authority of the government. Based on this pattern of events, it seems the film’s goal was never to validate Black Widow’s importance to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), but to explore her dark past and its entanglements with her current hero identity. And while this approach makes sense within the Marvel timeline, it’s regrettable, as Black Widow’s pre-Avenger life is what gives her complexity, moreso than her Avengers career, where she is often sidelined by her superpowered male counterparts. Everything that is interesting about Black Widow stems from this history and not being able to see it in its entirety was a loss.

It’s a sticky situation, as most Marvel characters are able to slide into the MCU as decent, likable heroes who prove their merit and relevancy through their solo films. Black Widow, on the other hand, doesn’t always emerge as the clear hero. She doesn’t spew idealism like Captain America or have a clear sense of moral integrity like Spiderman — among other traditional heroic traits.

In “Black Widow,” it is Romanoff’s sister Yelena who emerges as

the representative Marvel superhero, a clear promotional opportunity since Yelena is set to fill Black Widow’s shoes in future Marvel projects, notably with a confirmed appearance in Hawkeye’s upcoming Disney+ series.

While the phasing out of a long-standing Avenger is inevitably awkward, Florence Pugh’s performance as Yelena was refreshing to watch. The “Midsommar” breakout star added a verve and authenticity to the role of Yelena that has been sorely absent from recent Marvel films. In many ways, Yelena becomes the star of this movie because she does what the writers were unwilling to do for Black Widow’s character: develop emotionally. Whether discovering the only family she ever knew wasn’t real or grappling with trauma from the Red Room, Yelena is a character you can’t help but side with.

The film is undoubtedly building hype for Pugh’s reappearance as the new Black Widow, and I admit, I am eager to see how her character evolves in the MCU. This generational turnover of older Marvel superheroes — from Iron Man to Spiderman, Captain America to The Falcon and now Black Widow to Yelena Belova — is exciting to watch.

My only qualm is that this debut had to happen in a film meant to commemorate Natasha Romanoff, who is relegated to a side character in her own movie. So, while Yelena is afforded many opportunities to showcase her dynamism as an individual and superhero, Romanoff, with all the depth of her backstory, is left fairly under-explored.

Of course, stoicism has always been distinctive to Black Widow, and it would have been uncharacteristic to make her more personable. But unfortunately, personality matters in Marvel movies, and the story would have been much more emotionally resonant had it shown viewers that Romanoff possesses more complexity as a character. For a superhero who has appeared in nine Marvel films thus far, you would expect a lot more character growth at this point.

That said, it may be unfair to wholly blame Black Widow for how wooden she came across when the film’s uneven humor made it difficult

to sympathize with her. Comedy has always been a staple of Marvel films.

Romanoff herself is known for making sarcastic quips and digs throughout the Avengers series, so it was no surprise when they reappeared in this film. But for a movie that covers darker themes than the average Marvel feature, it was disturbing how often the leads made light of the film’s heavy subject material. While Marvel humor is usually tolerable, the forced comedy in this supposedly serious film was unbearable.

As a viewer, it was hard to sense what mattered to Romanoff due to this off-kilter humor. Every time a sensitive topic was brought up, it was usually glossed over with a cheeky one-liner or drowned by witty banter. As a result, the tonal shifts were in complete disarray, and I came out of the movie not knowing what the film wanted me to feel for its characters, whether that be pity, contempt, sadness or anything.

Yelena emerges as a compelling lead in this film because she’s the only one who breaks out of this cyclical humor and authentically adopts the film’s serious tone. Although she does take part in the wisecrack jokes here and there, Yelena still has many intense, vulnerable moments that allow you to go deep with her character. Romanoff, on the other hand, shares nothing with the audience, and the dry humor unfortunately made her character that much more closed-off and hard to read for the rest of the film.

In the end, I expected a movie that would push Black Widow to be something more than the stonecold super-spy we know her as. If the filmmakers could do it for Iron Man, Thor, Yelena and many more, then surely they could do it for Black Widow, the last original Avenger to get their own solo movie. And while the quality of the cinematics was stellar, Romanoff doesn’t evolve here for me. She stays the same, and for fans of Black Widow, maybe that is enough.

With her character’s death in “Avengers: Endgame” and not much of a future left for her in the MCU, it’s clear this movie’s goal was to tie up loose ends and create a meaningful send-off for Natasha Romanoff. And it does just that, but nothing more.

Sp ports

Devoe: “College’s True Color Breaks Through the Smoke and Mirrors” Continued from page 1 His premature termination meant that he did not get to coach a single lacrosse game.

The complaint was filed on Aug. 13, just two months after the college removed Devoe from his position as head coach on June 10. It names as defendants the college’s board of trustees, Athletic Director Don Faulstick and Provost and Dean of Faculty Catherine Epstein.

The college hired Devoe in May 2020, following a racist incident where members of the men’s lacrosse team chanted the n-word outside of a Black lacrosse player’s suite in early March. Those events revived a wave of anti-racist student activism at the college with movements like #IntegrateAmherst and later Reclaim Amherst launched by the Black Student Union. In response, the college put the lacrosse team on probation until June 30 of this year and Devoe was hired to replace Head Coach Jon Thompson.

The men’s lacrosse team is now off probation, which means that the team is now allowed to have gatherings like team-bonding events and captain’s practices. It also means that the team is permitted to participate in NCAA postseason play this year.

Since Devoe’s departure, Amherst has hired Sean Woods in his place who previously coached at Colorado College. Woods declined a request for comment.

A Closer Look at the Filing According to the legal filing, Faulstick, Epstein and Martin promised — with little intention of following through — that the college would provide support and resources for Devoe to clean up the “frat-like” culture of the lacrosse team and recruit more students of color.

Devoe, who had previously been the men’s lacrosse head coach at Hampton University, claims that Amherst “intended to deceive” him into accepting the role through these false representations.

The college publicized Devoe’s hiring through a series of press releases and social media posts, which have since been taken down. The legal complaint alleges that the college owes Devoe damages for using his face in a publicity campaign without his consent to “clean up the school’s reputation, attract more students, and generate more tuition by enrolling students.”

Devoe’s starting Amherst salary was $90,000 annually, which was less than he was making at Hampton. Hampton, which is a

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Amherst men’s lacrosse team celebrates after a goal during a 2020 match against Hamilton College.

historically Black, Division 1 university, also provided Devoe an “inclusive environment” where he “received more notoriety.”

Despite that, Devoe accepted the position at Amherst because he “was passionate about the mission for which he (supposedly) was being hired,” according to the court document.

But the college’s persistent undermining of Devoe’s authority prevented him from realizing that mission, the document said.

When Devoe disciplined a group of lacrosse players who broke Covid rules and their team-wide probation by holding a practice, the college launched an investigation into Devoe’s conduct with the players — parents had allegedly threatened to withdraw financial support. A later investigation came after reports surfaced of Devoe making sexually disrespectful comments about women to the players. Devoe was cleared in the latter investigation, though he was required to take a sexual respect course.

The various investigations undercut Devoe’s authority as a coach and “betrayed the mission for which he was hired,” says the legal complaint.

Devoe was ultimately terminated when he refused to participate in an investigation into a report of racist stereotyping of three Black student-athletes. The complaint states that of the three athletes, one was a lacrosse player who confided in Devoe that they had been excluded from a party because they would “take all the white women.” It was Devoe who brought the issue to the college’s attention, emailing Faulstick “to even write this to you has me in fear of some type of retaliation or repercussion.” Ultimately, Devoe alleges that his withholding of information for that investigation was a false pretense for the college to retaliate against him.

In late June, Inside Lacrosse reported that “Devoe’s decision

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Former Amherst Men’s Lacrosse Coach Rashad Devoe, who recently sued the college for wrongful termination. not to return was mutual,” but Devoe’s legal team asserts that is inaccurate and that Devoe had asked to be reinstated but was refused by the college.

The lawsuit argues that the college “treated Coach Devoe differently from other coaches, not in his protected class,” and that he was fired “because of his race and in retaliation for engaging in protected activity.”

Further, Devoe asserts that his Amherst experience left him with lasting trauma, leading to his charges of infliction of emotional distress.

Response From The College A day after the complaint was filed, the college released a response to “categorically refute

the allegations,” claiming that “a full legal review of the complaint will support our position that it is without merit.” The college declined a request for an interview.

Shain Khoshbin, an attorney at Munck Wilson Mandala, LLP representing Coach Devoe, told The Student, “Simply put, we are disappointed by that statement

by Amherst College.” Devoe was unavailable for a direct interview.

Khoshbin continued, “Amherst College has had a history of wavering and ineffective responses to discriminatory, intolerant, and repugnant behavior, ignoring, trying to silence, or even punishing the victim for daring to complain, while handling the perpetrators with a velvet glove.”

The Amherst Student • September 1, 2021

Sports 14

Volleyball Rallies Behind New Coach Valerie Jones

Photo courtesy of Sophie Launsbach ’22

The volleyball team gathers to participate in a pre-game ritual in the 2019 season.

Alex Noga ’23 Staff Writer

After a nearly 22-month-long pause, Amherst women’s volleyball is finally ready to take the court again. Though the roster is noticeably different from their last match in 2019 — a crushing defeat by Middlebury College in the NESCAC quarterfinals after a successful regular season in

which they finished with a record of 19-6 — the Firedogs are primed and excited for a big year.

Longtime volleyball coach Sue Everden, who had coached the team since 1986, announced her retirement in 2020, leaving behind a coaching career in which she amassed over 700 wins in volleyball and over 1000 wins as an Amherst coach overall, as she also spent time as a coach for the

women’s squash, lacrosse and softball teams. The Firedogs have amassed 34 consecutive winning seasons, and the 2021 season marks the 40th year in the program’s history.

Taking Everden’s place is Valerie Jones, who most recently served as the head coach at Clark Atlanta University in Georgia.

Gabi Dias has also joined the coaching staff as an assistant

coach after serving as a graduate assistant at Providence College for two years.

Since it has been over a full year since the last time the whole group has played together, the Firedogs are excited for games to be back and to experience a real season again. The team has been participating in a vigorous preseason training regimen since Aug. 25, complete with lifts and practices at 6 a.m. and a second practice later in the afternoon.

Lani Uyeno ’23 describes the experience as intense but extremely beneficial for building team camaraderie. Uyeno characterizes their team culture as “amicable, eccentric and unified,” and, the team has become extremely close-knit through team building activities such as team meals.

Jacqueline Kortekaas ’23 echoed the sentiment. With regards to their new coach, Koretekaas says that Jones has done an excellent job integrating her own coaching style to the Firedogs’ team culture. “She wants us to improve, loves how we work

hard and loves to crack jokes with us,” Kortekaas said.

The Firedogs return five seniors and six juniors who were on the team in the 2019 season — the remaining seven members of the team have yet to play in a collegiate volleyball match.

Senior Sophie Launsbach ’22, who was selected to the NESCAC All-Conference team as a sophomore following the 2019 season, is one of four members of this year’s senior leadership team. Though the team lacks experience playing together, Launsbach is proud of the way in which the team has been able to mesh together under such unusual circumstances.

“The sophomores and juniors are really stepping up as leaders, even though they have only played one or no seasons,” Launsbach said. “It’s awesome to see how the team has rallied together under our new coach — I’m really looking forward to competing this year.”

The Firedogs open the season on Sept. 9 with an away game at Smith College.

Field Hockey Fights Adversity to Begin Season Ethan Samuels ’23 Managing Sports Editor

On Sept. 9, the Amherst field hockey team will open up the season against Mount Holyoke in what marks the Mammoths’ first game in almost two years.

Led by six captains — Sage Geyer ’23E, Beth Williamson ’23E, Natalie Hobbs ’23E, Sophia Kaplan ’22, Caroline Donahue ’22E and Coutney Lowe ’22E — the team is coming off an 8-7 2019 campaign. But the roster this year looks significantly different than it did pre-Covid.

The 2021 team is admittedly young, with nine first-year students making up almost half of the 23-person roster. “Our squad is young, but our first-years have been working very hard to come in and get ready for the season,” Gwen Allen ’23 said.

In fact, the team only returns

11 players from the lineup that last competed in 2019. Sarah Edelson ’23, one of only two first-years who recorded a goal during the 2019 season, remains confident in the team’s ability to contend for a NESCAC title.

“Our team has shown up physically and mentally prepared for a strong season, and we are excited about returning to NESCAC play,” Edelson commented.

While the ongoing pandemic is forcing athletic teams across campus to adapt their normal routines, the field hockey team’s lack of a field is adding a unique layer of adversity. In April, the college broke ground on an extensive renovation project of Hill Field, which aimed to install a new playing surface, irrigation system, LED lights, bleachers and covered benches to the existing field.

Construction was originally

set to take place throughout the summer in order to debut the new Hill Field this fall. The renovation, however, is running behind schedule, forcing the Mammoths to practice at the UMass Amherst field hockey stadium.

For the past week, the student-athletes have been forced to travel by vans to UMass, where they’ve had to work around the Minutewomen’s schedule.

Pre-season practice began at 6:00 a.m., but because of Covid locker room capacity limits, some of the athletes had to show up to practice as early as 5:20 a.m.

Even so, midfielder Julianne Ross ’23 expressed pleasure about the team’s first week of practices.

“Being out on the field all together again is the best feeling in the world. Regardless of the circumstances and the unpredictable conference competition, I think we would all agree that we had a

strong preseason,” she said.

After next week’s debut against Mount Holyoke, the Mammoths will play an average

of three matches per week until Oct. 26, when the team hopes to close the regular season at a renovated Hill Field.

Photo courtesy of Sarah Edelson ’23

Sarah Edelson ’23 high-fives teammate Olivia Henkoff ’20 before the team’s final game of 2019.

The Amherst Student • September 1, 2021

Fall Sports Preview: Football Liza Katz ’24 Managing Sports Editor In just a few short weeks, the college’s football team will begin their season for the first time in almost two years. Their contest at Bates on Sept. 18 will be their first game since Nov. 9, 2019, when they finished their 4-5 season against Williams College.

The Mammoths will be looking to both seasoned veterans and new faces to be key factors on the field this fall. With this mix of youth and experience, the team is confident in their ability to capitalize on their opportunities this season.

Offensive lineman Carson Webb ’24 emphasized this goal, saying, “We are taking it one game at a time … but in the long run, we really are working for nothing less than a NESCAC championship.” Defensive lineman Angelo Fodera ’24 echoed this sentiment: “That has been a common goal for everyone on the team, to win a championship.”

Since arriving on campus on Aug. 24, the team’s preseason days have been long, filled up by film sessions, meetings and hard practices every day. Still, the team has found the time and energy to enjoy their first season of football since the beginning of the pandemic.

When asked about how eager the team is to finally compete again, outside linebacker Clay Zachary ’23 responded with excitement. “The team has a lot of guys who are back with a lot of hunger. ... [We are] excited to get back on the field,” he said.

Especially for the team’s newer players, preseason has been an opportunity to build connections and return to sport. “[It’s] amazing to have the opportunity to play the sport that I love after a year and a half of uncertainty.” said defensive back Price Warfield ’24. “Even more than that, it’s great to be able to meet the rest of the team and build connections and make each other better as people and as players.”

However, Covid has had its

impact on the team and its players. With some of the team’s main contributors taking gap semesters last year to play another season, nerves abound regarding getting back to football and in-person classes alike.

However, the team has faced these challenges together, with Fodera saying that he “genuinely [doesn’t] know anybody that doesn’t get along with one another,” something that bodes well for the team as they confront the adversity Covid has created, and reaching their goal of winning a NESCAC championship.

Off the field, the team has started a new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) program, with meetings beginning this summer and extending into the fall. Wide receiver Bryce Lauletta ’22 said, “The team is improving every day on the field, but we are also trying to better ourselves and our culture off the field by … leaning into our new team DEI reps [Jack Elvekrog ’23, Carson Ochenshirt ’23, Clay Zachery ’23 and Tariq Muhammad ’24], having more frequent “Bay Discussions” about DEI topics and concerns, and more.”

These “Bay Discussions” are more open-ended forums to discuss current events and any concerns that the players would want to address or speak about in smaller groups. Since the subject matter is often sensitive, team members are frequently asked to take a look at educational resources, like articles or documentaries like “13th,” in advance of the meetings. These conversations have allowed the players to grow closer, and helped to shape a team culture that will hopefully aid them in achieving their championship aspirations.

While the college faces obstacles of the new Delta variant, the Amherst community is starting to embrace a sense of normalcy, something that has allowed the football team to compete this year. But rest assured, if their preseason is any indication, they won’t be letting the moment pass them by. Expect big things from the team this year.

Sports 15

An Exclusive Look at Olympic Silver Medalist Michael Hixon Alex Noga ’23 Staff Writer

Amherst native Michael Hixon took home his second silver medal in the men’s three-meter synchronized springboard diving championships at this year’s Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His first came in the same event at Rio 2016, which was the best result in the three-meter springboard in U.S. Olympic synchronized diving history.

Aside from growing up in Amherst and attending Amherst Regional High School, Hixon has strong familial connections to Amherst College. Hixon’s father is legendary Amherst men’s basketball coach Dave Hixon ’75, who coached for 42 seasons and holds the record for the most wins in school history for any sport with 826 victories, placing him 15th on the all-time NCAA basketball wins list. Coach Hixon, who won two national championships in 2007 and 2013, announced his retirement last April and still resides in the Amherst area. Michael’s father is not the only Coach Hixon in the family, however.

His mother, Mandy Hixon, has coached the UMass diving team for 17 years, winning the Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year award 17 times across both the men’s and women’s teams. She started her coaching career at Williams College before coming to Amherst for nine years. Fittingly, she was Michael’s first diving coach.

The Student sat down with Dave and Michael Hixon to get an inside look on their experiences leading up to and during the Olympics.

“A Hell of a Place to Grow Up” From a young age, Michael and his older brother Matthew spent countless hours at the Amherst athletic facilities. With just a hallway separating LeFrak Gymnasium and Pratt Pool, the two boys could move between

their father’s basketball practices and games and their mother’s diving practices and meets, often interacting with students and inventing games (like racquet baseball in the Coolidge Cage) to pass time. Their parents treated the experience almost like daycare — some of their student-athletes would occasionally babysit the boys when both parents were busy, something Coach Hixon believes was extremely beneficial to Michael and Matthew’s development.

When attending his mother’s diving practices, Michael constantly wanted to emulate the things he watched Amherst student-athletes do. His father describes him as a kid who “couldn’t sit still,” someone who would see other kids doing something and say, “I want to try that.” He trained at Pratt Pool with his mother when he first began diving, though he later trained at UMass once Mandy began working there in 2001, when Michael was seven years old. However, since Amherst recently renovated their three-meter board, both Michael and Dave agree that Amherst now has superior facilities, and Michael has trained there the past couple of years when he returned home.

Michael grew up playing a wide variety of sports, and was described by his father as a terrific all-around athlete, starting with travel basketball at age eight and primarily focusing on diving at 12. Michael was primed to be the starting point guard of his high school basketball team as a freshman, but the late practices conflicted with his diving practices, leaving Michael with a choice: basketball or diving?

Ultimately, he knew he wanted to take the next step in his diving career and compete at the collegiate and international level. Michael was even offered an arrangement in which he would only attend games and

miss practices with the basketball team, but with two coaches as parents, he declined, knowing that it would not have been the appropriate thing to do.

Even though his parents were highly successful collegiate coaches, Michael never felt pressure to pursue a certain sport.

Instead, he believes that having coaches as parents allowed him to see how college coaches think, what they value in an athlete and provided him a greater understanding of the path to success. He competed in international tournaments like the Junior Olympics in both individual and synchronized events starting as early as 2010, and as the number one-ranked diver in the country coming out of high school, chose to attend the University of Texas at Austin.

There, Michael won national championships in both the one-meter and three-meter individual springboard in his first year in 2014 but was always determined to achieve more. According to his father, “His goal wasn’t to win national championships at the NCAA level, his goal was to medal at the Olympics.” Michael subsequently transferred to the University of Indiana the following year because he believed their coach, Drew Johansen “would provide him the greatest opportunity to attain that goal,” his father said.

“A Moment of Doubt” Michael’s decision to transfer ultimately served him well.

In 2016, he represented the U.S. in both the individual three-meter springboard and three-meter synchronized springboard at the Rio Olympics, winning silver in the latter competition.

However, despite this triumph, Michael’s road to the Tokyo Olympics was not smooth.

After graduating from Indiana University in 2018, Hixon took two years to focus on diving pro-

Continued on page 16

The Amherst Student • September 1, 2021

Sports 16

“It’s Much Bigger than You”: A Look At Amherst Native Michael Hixon Continued from page 15 -fessionally with an eye on the 2020 Olympics. But when the Games were postponed due to Covid, rumors began to circulate that the games had been privately canceled.

Michael, who was still training in Bloomington, Indiana at the time, found himself at a crossroads. His original plan had been to end his diving career at the conclusion of the Olympics and begin an MBA program at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business in the fall, as he said it would be like “one chapter ending, another chapter beginning.”

Faced with uncertainty and doubt — not so much about his own abilities but rather over whether the games would even take place — Michael decided to do both. The Olympics weren’t a sure thing, but Michael remarked, “I didn’t want to postpone the rest of my life.”

Training in the middle of a global pandemic proved difficult, but Michael credits the diving community for being willing to lend a helping hand. When Michael first got to Michigan, he would train just about anywhere with a diving board, which occa-

sionally meant diving in the backyard pools of gracious residents.

When they couldn’t find pools, Michael’s girlfriend Kennedy Goss, who medaled in swimming at the Rio Olympics representing Canada, used spotting belts that function like harnesses so that Michael could practice diving maneuvers like twisters over a trampoline.

During the academic year, Michael volunteered as an assistant coach with the Michigan diving program and used their facilities to train, all while balancing his studies and networking opportunities as a first-year business student.

When a variant of Covid infiltrated the Michigan athletics department in January 2021 and forced all facilities to shut down for two weeks, Michael reached out to the Eastern Michigan diving coach and was able to train at their facilities and avoid taking a two-week hiatus.

“It’s Much Bigger Than You” To qualify for diving in the Olympics, divers must first secure quota spots for their respective country, either in the World Championship the year prior or at the World Cup just months before the Olympics, and then compete to

obtain their spots at Olympic Trials. Michael first had to compete at the FINA Diving World Cup in Tokyo in May with his synchro partner Andrew Capobianco, a 21-year-old junior at Indiana who first began diving with Michael in 2018, to secure a quota spot at the Olympics. Still ever the dedicated student, Michael had to give a final project presentation over Zoom for one of his classes while in Tokyo for the World Cup. With their quota spot secured, the pair still had to qualify in the U.S. Olympic Trials. They did so with ease, winning the event by over 100 points. Even so, Michael describes the process of qualifying for Team USA as the most stressful part of the journey, citing the pressure divers feel when competing to secure quota spots for Team USA, as these spots are for’the country rather than individuals, and divers must still then secure that spot for themselves at trials.

“It’s much bigger than you,” Michael said of the World Cup, which he described as “the highest pressure meet in the world” because it is the last chance for divers to qualify quota spots for their countries.

Add onto that the pressure unique to synchronized diving, where so

Photo courtesy of Ethan Samuels ’23

Pictured above is Pratt Pool at Amherst College, where Michael spent countless hours training in his childhood.

much of a diver’s success depends on the performance of their partner. “Specifically in synchro, I was competing both times with someone who hadn’t been to the Olympics,” Michael said, referring to Capobianco and his 2016 partner Sam Dorman, both of whom were first time Olympians when diving with Michael. “When someone else’s dream of becoming an Olympian depends on you, it is obviously more pressure.”

His father echoed this sentiment, as he and Mandy found themselves more nervous watching the World Cup and trials than the Olympic final because Michael was still competing to make the team. “When we were watching Michael at the World Cup,” Coach Hixon said, “Mandy and I looked at each other and said ‘we’re really out of shape.’ We haven’t watched him dive in about nine months now and we had forgot how to cope with that nervousness — you’re ready to throw up for crying out loud.” Even at the end of the trials, when Michael and Capobianco “could’ve done a cannonball and won it,” the pair still felt anxious watching the final dive. Once Michael had made the Olympics, however, he had already “earned so much [that] it’s like icing on the cake,” said his father.

“The (Silver) Icing on the Cake” Following their first two dives in the Olympic final, which are automatically assigned a 2.0 degree of difficulty, Michael and Capobianco found themselves in fifth place.

But, after scoring 83.64 points on their third dive, they rocketed into second place and finished the competition strong, recording at least 86 points on each of their last three dives and tallying their highest score of 88.92 on their final dive.

Their total of 444.36 points was good enough for the silver medal, placing them behind only diving powerhouse China, who registered 467.82 points to win their third gold medal in synchronized diving in four synchro events.

Like all parents of Olympic athletes, the Hixons weren’t allowed to attend the Tokyo Olympics in person, which meant they had to

stay up into the early hours of the morning in order to watch the action live. The finals started at 2 a.m.

EST, and a storm had hit Amherst the night before, so Dave Hixon was up at midnight to ensure that they had computers to stream the event in case their cable went out due to inclement weather.

Once the event had ended and Michael had won the silver medal, the Hixons were shocked at the amount of outreach and congratulatory messages they received, both after Michael’s success but also during the live event itself.

They decided to stay up for the remainder of the night and attended their regular 7 a.m. tee time at the Amherst Golf Club. For the next week or so, the Hixons couldn’t get through the parking lot following their golf outings without being stopped and congratulated by locals showing their support.

Numerous former players and Amherst alumni sent Dave messages as well, which he forwarded to Michael.

Though he was considered a veteran at this year’s Olympics — Michael was the oldest out of the five members of the U.S. men’s diving team at just 27 years old — Michael says it is too early to definitively close the book on his diving career. He will likely reevaluate this fall after taking some much-needed rest and will take his decision one year at a time. Since his triumph at the games, Michael has thrown out the first pitch at the Boston Red Sox game on August 15, and is looking forward to visiting the White House with the U.S. Olympic team. He is currently working at an internship with an Amherst alum as part of his MBA program, and will finish his second year at the Ross School of Business this year.

Coach Hixon is enjoying retirement, though he says he misses the exchange of ideas that would occur in between and after practices among himself and his players and young assistant coaches. He looks forward to attending games this basketball season, college Covid protocols permitting, and the Amherst basketball court has been officially named after him.