Issue 6

THE AMHERST THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF AMHERST COLLEGE SINCE 1868

STUDENT

CROSSWORD page 11

VOLUME CLI, ISSUE 6 l WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2021

AMHERSTSTUDENT.COM

Elevated Demand for Mental Health Services Strains Counseling Center Spencer Michaels ’24 Staff Writer Because of the sensitive nature of the topics discussed by some of the students interviewed in this article, their names have been anonymized to preserve medical confidentiality, to maintain their relationship with their counselor, and to prevent the possibility of future backlash. For these interviewees, all identifying information has been changed.

Photo courtesy of Emma Swislow ‘20

The Counseling Center has seen surging demand as students struggle with mental health problems like depression, anxiety, insomnia and addiction.

Outbreak of “Amherst Flu” Sweeps Across Campus Sophie Wolmer ’23 and Tana DeLalio ’24 Managing News Editor and Assistant News Editor Amid heightened concerns about sickness during the pandemic, a common cold outbreak has spread across campus, afflicting numerous students and increasing the workload of the Health Center. The upper respiratory virus, informally called the “Amherst flu” or “Amherst plague,” does not pose the same health risk as Covid-19 but has several overlapping symptoms. As a result, students have refrained from seeking healthcare services from the college in fear of being quarantined. To deter the spread of viral infections as flu season begins, the college is mandating that all students receive a flu vaccination by Nov. 1.

A poll conducted recently in the campus-wide GroupMe chat revealed that 161 out of the 319 respondents (just over half) believed that they had caught the “Amherst cold.” Usual symptoms of influenza include fever, body aches, cough, fatigue, headache, congestion and sore throat. All of these are also associated with Covid, which frequently comes with the additional symptoms of loss of taste or smell, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting.

For this reason, students that seek out care from the Health Center care will be isolated, Director of Health Services Emily Jones told The Student. “Students who have symptoms that could be influenza or Covid could be monitored in quarantine housing until Covid has been ruled out by testing when clinically indicated by history and exam. This often is

only for a few hours — but occasionally can be overnight.”

Due to the threat of quarantine, students have refrained from making appointments with the Health Center and reporting Covid-like symptoms.

Students who have fallen ill detail significant burdens to their physical and mental health. Callie DeLalio ’24 experienced physically taxing symptoms from catching the cold, but felt hesitant to reach out to the Health Center given the college’s Covid protocols.

“I started out with a runny nose, and then it progressed to a cough that lingered for about a week,” she relayed. “I considered going to the Health Center, but I wasn’t sure if that was a good idea, given that multiple friends of mine had been quarantined there for the same cold that I had. Some of the symptoms of my cold were

similar to Covid, so I didn’t want to wind up spending the night in the Health Center when I could just go to CVS and take cold medicine.”

DeLalio asserted that the Health Center should ensure that students feel comfortable going there rather than threatening them with isolation, which only instills a sense of wariness in those who are sick. “I think that they have to trust that the two negative tests we get each week from the testing protocol are sufficient,” she said.

“The Health Center should be focused on helping students feel better as opposed to detecting Covid and quarantining people.”

Unlike DeLalio, Will Dientsfry ’24 did utilize the Health Center, which he described as a positive experience: “The Health Center

Continued on page 4

Six weeks into the semester, the Counseling Center has been heavily overbooked as a record number of students seek help for their mental health concerns. According to director Jackie Alvarez, by the end of the fifth week of classes, the Center had seen 18 percent of the student body, exceeding expectations and nearing the number of students the Center usually sees in an entire semester, which has steadily been rising over the last decade.

The Center, Alvarez said, “anticipated that they would be seeing more students,” and have been adjusting their system accordingly. So far this semester, the Center has hired four new providers, with two spots in the process of being filled.

“It is often after a crisis begins to resolve that people begin to experience the full impact of what they have been through,” Alvarez said. “We are now in those beginning stages of recovery, and the numbers of students struggling

Continued on page 5

News POLICE LOG

Sept. 27, 2021 – Oct. 4, 2021

>> Sept. 27, 2021

6:26 a.m., Valentine Loading Dock Residential Life (ResLife) staff and an officer responded to a report of a vehicle blocking the loading dock from deliveries.

6:10 p.m., Chapin Hall An officer took a report of an image drawn on a whiteboard. >> Sept. 28, 2021

>>Oct. 2, 2021

>> Sept. 29, 2021

1:49 a.m., Moore Dormitory ResLife staff responded to a noise complaint.

1:59 a.m., Jenkins Dormitory An officer responded to a report of an individual being pushed. >>Sept. 30, 2021

12:59 a.m., Tennis Barn An officer responded to a report of a possible unauthorized individual attempting to use the campus fuel pump. There were no issues found.

2:53 p.m. Alumni House An officer took a report of a possible phishing attempt. >>Oct. 1, 2021

4:50 p.m., Science Center An officer responded to a report of 4 individuals skateboarding in an area that was damaged possibly by skateboarding.

There were no issues in the area.

Lee Spector

8:55 p.m., Hitchcock House Residential Life staff and an officer responded to a report of a phone ripped off of the wall.

11:14 p.m., Mead Art Museum Officers spoke with an individual observed urinating in public and with a group smoking marijuana.

9:50 p.m., Science Center Officers investigated a call of a possible threat to an individual.

Fresh Faculty

10:16 a.m., Hills Field An officer and Athletics staff responded to a report of loud music.

5:20 p.m., Mayo Smith Lot Residential Life staff responded to a report of students playing drinking games.

7:18 p.m., Science Center The Chemical Hygiene Officer and an officer responded to a report of a possible odor of a chemical. There were no issues found.

8:50 p.m., Cohan Dormitory An officer responded to a report of a broken window. >>Oct. 3, 2021

1:32 p.m., Morris Pratt Dormitory Residential Life staff responded to a report of people running and causing damage.

2:17 p.m., Morris Pratt Dormitory An officer took a report of multiple broken lighting fixtures and Exit signs.

2:39 p.m., Valentine Dining Hall An officer took a report of a broken bench.

Department of Computer Science

Lee Spector is a professor of computer science. He received a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Oberlin College and attended the University of Maryland, College Park, where he earned a Ph.D. in computer science.

Q: What are your current research interests and how has your research gone so far?

A: My research is pretty broad — I work in a lot of different project areas. Most of them touch on computing and AI in some way. For example, I have projects on understanding human creativity, quantum computing, and artificial life.

The center of gravity for a lot of my recent research is something called evolutionary computation. This is work at the intersection of AI and evolutionary biology. The core idea is to use nature’s creativity engine in our technology to make [it] do more than what [it] currently can.

The real goal of a lot of this is to solve problems that humans don’t know how to solve and to exploit the power of evolution and computers.

Q: What are some important applications and impacts of this research?

A: I think [that] there are problems in many areas of science that will have big impacts on humanity like climate change mitigation, alternative energy storage and artificial photosynthesis. If solved, there would be huge benefits — and AI could help to solve some of them.

Not every kind of problem is amenable to this, but for problems that meet the right criteria, you could use AI algorithms, and even evolution, to find solutions that no human has thought of.

I think [that] it’s also important to see and get some experience on the range of different things that technology can do. Most people see computers doing a certain set

of things and assume [that] that’s what they can do, but it’s important to open one’s mind to the different applications of computation. Some of the impact my research has is more on a general level — it helps stretch peoples’ imaginations on what is possible.

Q: What do you think makes Amherst different from other colleges?

A: Among the many things that I really appreciate about Amherst students and Amherst College as a whole is the seriousness with which people treat their intellectual work and their openness to new connections. I have been very happy with the ways in which other ideas are being taken very seriously by everybody. There is an openness to serious consideration of many ideas and the people really dedicate themselves to their work in a way that I find truly impressive.

I also have been impressed in the way that Amhest has a very long history, but it is not tradition bound. The questioning of that history has been forthright and the attention to new perspectives and the willingness to advance in new ways was a little surprising to me at first. I guess I sort of thought of Amherst as much more wedded to its traditions, and I am delighted to find that this is not the case. In fact, Amherst is quite open to new perspectives, originates them and takes them very seriously.

Q: How has in-person teaching been so far and how would you compare it to remote teaching?

A: In-person teaching is so much better in most ways than remote teaching! There is a kind of fluidity of discussion and communication on a topic that can happen in person that is very hard to do through Zoom. But I have to say that masks diminish it considerably because a big part of being together is how we read each other. A lot of our communication is visual, and faces are very expressive.

Q: What kind of impact do you want to have on Amherst?

A: I want to be a part of a few things — one is specifically about artificial intelligence. When I started working in artificial intelligence, it was something that many people were working on, but it was still quite a niche field. A lot of the big ideas about AI were still science fiction. Most people in most disciplines didn’t have much reason to think about it. There were a few areas in computer science and the philosophy of mind where it made a lot of sense to know about it, but for most people it wasn’t a thing.

The world is very different right now, and my view is that AI is now a major force in the world in society, technology, politics, and media, AI touches all parts of our lives every day. If you look at any news feed or social media site, what you’re seeing is being curated

by AI. Not only that, but AI is behind much of our science and media technology — AI is everywhere and it has huge consequences.

—Kyle Hur ’25

News 3

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Students Rally for Abortion Rights in Boston Women’s March Sofia Rodrigo ’24 Staff Writer Nearly 30 students traveled to the fifth annual Women’s March in Boston’s Franklin Park Playstead on Oct. 2 for a trip sponsored by ACDemocrats. Students attended the rally that preceded the march — during which several elected officials and women’s rights advocates spoke on the struggle for abortion rights — but were not able to participate in the actual march. Organized

by Sophie Goldsmith ’24, the trip provided students the opportunity to join other women and allies in supporting the cause for reproductive healthcare.

This year’s Women’s March was a response to the most recent jeopardization of reproductive rights across the country, including the attack on the right to safe and legal abortions in states like Texas. The march took place two days before the Supreme Court reconvened for its yearly term — which will review Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a challenge to a Mississippi law banning abortions after around 15 weeks of pregnancy. The review will allow the Supreme Court to revisit the precedent set in the landmark case Roe v.

Wade, prompting women’s rights organizations across the nation to gather and urge the Court to uphold the constitutional right to abortion.

Goldsmith told The Student that she began the process of planning the Boston march trip nearly a month ago, after hearing that the Texas abortion law was upheld by the Supreme Court.

Due to the Covid restrictions in place at the time, she was nervous that the plan would receive pushback from the college. Instead of being met with resistance, however, Goldsmith reported that she was encouraged by the administration to continue organizing.

Speaking from her own experience with activism, Goldsmith said that “planning the march was important to me because I really want to give people this feeling of

empowerment and that they are being heard [that] has meant a lot to me in the past.”

Students who attended the march expressed similar sentiments as Goldsmith, with Malia Chun ’24 voicing that she felt the march was important to attend because “it is important to get out there and make some noise to show the Court that we care about having access to safe and legal abortions.” Chun shared that she chose to take part in the march because she wanted to “be in a place where [she] felt empowered by other women and people who believe that it is a women’s right to choose.”

The march was organized as a rally that transitioned into a march after several elected officials and women’s rights advocates had spoken on the movement for reproductive freedom.

Due to time constraints, students were able to stay for the rally,

but not the march portion of the event.

Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey made an appearance at the rally to express his commitment to fight for the constitutional right to a safe abortion for every person, regardless of their race and income. “Abortion access is not a political issue — it is a people issue,” he declared.

Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley spoke at the rally as well, highlighting her own personal connection to the fight for reproductive freedom. She shared that, throughout her childhood, Pressley’s mother had instilled her with the responsibility to struggle for the liberation for all marginalized people, a struggle that her mother said she was born into. Encouraging everyone to get involved in the movement, Pressley stated that “the power of the people has always been stronger than the people in power.”

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey discussed the political context that has allowed for challenges to abortion rights, claiming “we are in this mess” because the Supreme Court has been systematically stolen by the G.O.P. She explained that, over the past 10 to 20 years, Republicans have strategically taken over state legislatures and subsequently have gerrymandered their districts. She questioned how it is possible that eight out of 10 Americans support Roe v. Wade, yet Texas and other states are passing laws banning abortions, remarking that the outcome is “anti-democratic by definition.”

Author and poet Mo Durden recited an original poem titled “In an Alternate Universe My Body Is Mine.” Her poem details the countless things that she would do in a world where she did not live in fear due to existing as a woman. “What a delicious day to

leave your keys in your bag and out of the spaces between your fingers,to take the pepper spray off of your key ring,’’ Durden said.

In response to Durden’s poem, Zoe Strothkamp ’24 reported feeling angry that the universe Durden imagines is fictional.

Strothkamp explained that she is angry on behalf of women who live in fear on a daily basis as a result of a society that does not acknowledge a woman’s body as her own.

Sydney Wishner ’24 echoed her urgency, commenting that “having access to reproductive rights is really important for everyone’s safety and health and it is scary how much this is being challenged.”

Revival Afolabi ’25 expressed feeling very motivated by those who spoke. “The people who spoke were really powerful,” she said after listening to the rally.

“I’m ready to march now.”

Photo courtesy of Sydney Wishner ‘24

Students pose with the posters they made and brought with them to the rally. Students expressed feeling empowered by the opportunity to make their voice heard on the issue of abortion rights.

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

News 4

College Mandates Flu Vaccination to Prevent Outbreak Continued from page 1

was very helpful — they did their job to the best extent that they could. They’re really busy, so I can see why it can be stressful for them, but they got me in that day after I called in the morning, and I got tested for just about everything, including Covid-19. I had to wait for the test to come back, so that was a little time consuming, but that’s not on them [the Health Center], that’s on the outside labs.”

Dientsfry posited that the cold has spread so easily because of the

college’s small size, which students usually view as a positive attribute.

“Since we’re in such a full bubble, if one person gets something, we all get it,” he said “Most of my friends have gotten sick.”

Claire Callon ’25 has also had ongoing struggles with the “Amherst cold.” “It’s been three weeks and I’ve basically woken up with a new flu symptom everyday — sore throat, cough, congestion, headache, etc.,” she said. Callon continued to share that many of her friends have the same symptoms: “I think everyone around me has

been sick or is sick right now. This flu is definitely going around.”

According to Jones, the best way to deter the spread of upper respiratory infections is by adhering to the public health measures set forth for Covid — masking, distancing and hand-washing.

Jones also noted that Health Services continues to offer students the opportunity to receive the flu vaccine annually. “We feel strongly that it is in the best interest of our community to have students vaccinated against influenza,” Jones expressed.

This year, students are mandated to get the flu vaccine before Nov. 1. The college has partnered with Walgreens Pharmacy to administer the shots in the Middleton Gym of the Alumni Gymnasium. Students may sign up to receive the vaccine on one of four days during the semester: Thursday, Sept. 30; Friday, Oct. 1; Wednesday, Oct. 13; and Thursday, Oct. 14.

Director of New Student Programs Marie Lalor reported, “As of today, [Oct. 4,] we have almost 1200 students registered for the

four days of on-campus flu clinics.

The first two days of the clinic resulted in 650 vaccinations!” Lalor also communicated that another email about flu vaccination registration will be sent following Fall Break containing information about the Oct. 13 and 14 vaccination clinics.

“We want to use all of the public health measures at our disposal to decrease the spread of respiratory illnesses,” said Jones. “Decreasing the cases of influenza will decrease the need for additional Covid evaluations and quarantines.”

Nicka Smith Delivers Talk on Israel Trask and the Trask 250 Talia Ward ’23 Staff Writer Nicka Smith visited Amherst’s campus on Monday, Oct. 4, to present her talk about the people enslaved by Israel Trask, one of Amherst’s original trustees, and their more than 6,000 descendants.

Smith’s talk was titled “Held In the Balance: The Trask 250.”

She was invited to the college by the Steering Committee on the Racial History of Amherst. Smith spoke to the Amherst community in the Lipton Lecture Hall and to more than 300 people who were tuned into the live stream.

Smith’s talk and visit to Amherst are part of a larger project by the Steering Committee on the Racial History of Amherst College to investigate the college’s ties to slavery.

Beyond her talk, Smith visited Professor Herbin-Triant’s class “Slavery

in U.S. History and Culture” and the “Research in Black Studies” class.

Smith’s presentation went into the depths of her research, including her methodology and how she was able to find so much genealogical information that is often said to be “impossible to find.”

Nicka Smith herself is a descendant of the people enslaved by Israel Trask and his brothers, and she may be the first-ever descendant of enslaved people connected to a college or university to present their research on said university and its connections to enslavers at this level. For more than 20 years, Nicka Smith has studied genealogy, and she has extensive experience in the genealogical research of enslaved communities. Through her “Who Is Nicka Smith” Patreon and website, she shares her knowledge with other family historians. She is also the host of BlackProGen Live, a web series

about genealogy and family history “with a special focus on Black and people of color.”

Smith began her talk by locating the audience within her own family story. She talked about looking into her great grandfather Honey and not being able to find his mother listed in the census. This is what sparked her genealogical research, but it wasn’t an easy or simple journey.

In researching the enslaved, some major roadblocks are that there is no central repository for documentation of the enslaved and that there is a lack of access to the documents that have been archived.

Often, when researching the genealogy of Black Americans, people are told to look for the closest white person in the records because they will likely be well-documented. Instead of following this advice, Smith did the “unorthodox” and decided to research other people in her ancestors’

communities. For example, Smith was able to find her great grandfather’s mother through conversations with extended family and found her on the 1880 census, but she could not find her on the 1870 census. So, she looked at the other people listed in the same household in 1880 and found them on the 1870 census in a different location where Honey’s mother and grandmother appeared under a different surname. By expanding her search beyond biological relationships, she was able to track down Honey’s family.

Smith also recommended using the “trifecta” of sources for genealogical material about people who were enslaved: the Freedmen’s Bureau, Civil War pensions and wills and probates of enslavers. People who were enslaved were considered property and would this be listed in any documents about the “estate,” and the value of their labor was

monetized.

Smith divided this monetization of labor into three categories: physical labor, vital labor, and virile labor.

For example, the physical labor of an enslaved person could be quantified by their cotton bale production. The virile labor of a person who was enslaved would be the children, grandchildren and great grandchildren that they would have who would also be enslaved.

Smith ended her talk by naming the elders of the Trask 250. She acknowledged them and commented on how it was their labor that funded Amherst. Then she talked about the descendants, and how she has tracked over six thousand descendants of people enslaved by Israel Trask and his brothers.

Smith will be holding an open house for the public in the Amherst Archives Wednesday Oct. 6 from 4 to 5:30 p.m.

Harriet Washington Speaks on Racial Harm in Science and Medicine Yee-Lynn Lee ’23 Managing News Editor Medical ethicist and writer Harriet Washington visited Amherst for a conversation in Johnson Chapel moderated by Professor of Sexuality, Women’s and Gender Studies Katrina Karkazis on Thursday, Sept. 30. The two discussed topics ranging from racial health disparities to vaccine hesitancy. Washington, who also visit-

ed classes and met with students, faculty and staff between Sept. 27 and Sept. 30, is the first visiting scholar in the college’s Presidential Scholars series, which aims to deepen the conversation on racial history and justice.

Washington is a science writer and editor who teaches bioethics at Columbia University. Author of the acclaimed “Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black

Americans from Colonial Times to the Present,” she also wrote “A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind” and “Carte Blanche: The Erosion of Informed Consent in Medical Research.”

Karkazis started the conversation off by asking Washington to speak on the contemporary resonances she sees of the history she writes about. Washington responded that 19th century scien-

tific portrayals of African Americans — which were nothing more than “the opinions of people in power cloaked in scientific data to give them a semblance of being scientifically unimpugnable” and “the embodiment of myth” — still permeate discourse on racial disproportion during the pandemic.

Suggestions that Black people are disproportionately affected by Covid-19 because they fail to social distance and are at higher risk

due to personal choices to consume high amounts of alcohol, she explained, reflect the assumption that “we’re not intelligent enough to act in our own best interest.”

Washington noted later in the conversation that this assumption also underlies recent coverage of vaccine hesitancy in the nation. The dominant narrative that Black Americans are rejecting the

Continued on page 5

News 5

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Inaugural Presidential Scholar “Enlightening,” “Starts Conversations” Continued from page 4 vaccine due to wariness from the abuses of the infamous Tuskegee study, she said, is not supported by evidence. She pointed out that policies prioritizing the vaccination of the elderly and the use of online vaccination appointment systems both contribute to the lower vaccination rates among the Black population.

Moreover, Washington said that invoking the Tuskegee study to explain Black distrust of the healthcare system is ignorant and dismissive. “It is four centuries of abuse in the healthcare system, not one single study, that cause people to react,” she maintained. “This is important, because if you blame Tuskegee, you’re saying that Black people are overreacting to a single

study. Black people are appropriately reacting to four centuries of abuse.”

In response to Karkazis’s question about how to change blasé attitudes toward Black and brown deaths, Washington said, “I think you have to ask that question to the people who are tolerating Black death.” She noted that she was reminded by something her mother told her and her siblings when they worried about their father’s safety serving as a military advisor in Vietnam, that “life is very cheap over there.”

“I think that this uttering about life being cheap, this vocalization of the lesser or value of other people’s lives, is something that people do very often, and I think we’re looking at that right here,” she said.

Students who attended the

event expressed that Washington’s insights made them reconsider things they had taken for granted. “I thought it was a really great event to have,” said Nathan Thomas ’25. “She cleared up some of my misconceptions about things that I didn’t realize I had.”

“I definitely came away [from the event] with a reminde[r] to be a critical consumer of media,” added Sarah Lapean ’23. “The narrative around vaccine hesitancy has been reported on for months and months, and I’m just like, ‘Oh, yeah, that makes sense,’ but after hearing her speak, I [realized] there’s so much more going on behind the scenes than I was even thinking to look into.”

“The things that she says,” continued Lapean, “seem like things that should be obvious and yet like

no one has heard about them, and so it was very enlightening.”

Karkazis appreciated that Washington drew attention to the racial harms that come from science, noting that they often “fly under the radar, because they get normalized.”

“To hear her say that we’re still in the long wake and unfolding of slavery’s impact on Black people in this country from a scientific perspective is an incredibly important message regarding how much work we have to do,” she commented.

Equally important in Karkazis’s view was how Washington’s points underscored the importance of cross-disciplinary training of STEM professionals in the social sciences and humanities for promoting justice in science

and healthcare. She hoped that students would apply the new perspectives they gained from the talk to approach their studies in new ways.

“It’s one thing to hear things like what she’s saying — it’s another to internalize that knowledge and integrate it into other things that you’re doing,” she said. “Like, what would it mean to take that work into a class you have on biology, and think about problems with classification and categorization?”

The event certainly had students thinking in new directions, with Thomas noting that he’d be interested in taking a course on the history of medicine in the future. “It was the kind of event that starts conversations,” remarked Lapean.

Students Recount Varied Experiences with Counseling Center Continued from page 1 may reflect this.”

The Center has also changed its appointment system so that students who have to make last-minute cancellations can see their provider or counselor within a few days.

Nevertheless, students have reported a variety of concerns regarding the Counseling Center’s services, dating back to issues persisting from pre-pandemic semesters.

The result of this increased demand has been long wait times and difficulty accessing crucial services. Alvarez reports that wait times for appointments with on-campus counselors have been around two weeks at the time of writing — “if you’re lucky,” adds a sophomore, known hereafter as Student A. Student B, an upperclassman, describes feeling “brushed off ” by the Counseling Center at the beginning of the fall semester of 2021. They were seeking counseling for the first time and had no prior contact with the Center.

“There is one [counselor] who just started accepting appointments, and I was like, ‘Okay, so

can I get in contact with them?’” says Student B. “The response was, ‘Yeah, I'll send you the information.’ I still don't have that information four days later, so that's fun.”

A sophomore, Student C, also faced discouraging wait times.

They had been meeting with a counselor in the spring of 2021, but stopped over the summer due to Massachusetts law disallowing out-of-state care.

“I sent them an email in lateish October [of 2021], and I got an appointment for… around November 20. So about a three-week wait, which from what I could tell was actually pretty normal.”

They state that none of their “stuff has high pressure behind it,” and meeting every “two to three weeks” with their counselor.

However, they also state that for them, this appointment frequency is constructive and so their experience has been “pretty positive” overall.

Steph Masotti ’22 also reports a positive experience with the Counseling Center. “I have had a great counseling experience,” she says, “because I think I got the best counselor at the school. To be honest, I wouldn’t have survived

Amherst without her!”

Still, she notes that she’s one of the lucky ones: “I’ve heard from other friends, though, that they have not had great matches with any of the other counselors.”

Student B described challenges receiving responses and booking appointments with the Center, even as a current patient.

“I'm not sure if this is still the case, but you … couldn't have a weekly appointment, which I feel like some students kind of need.

Yeah, so that was frustrating but other than that, I really liked her [their counselor, who is still a Center employee].”

Even once a student has an appointment, there are reported challenges – one upperclassman, who will be referred to as Student D, describes a habitually late and even absent psychiatrist during their experiences in the spring of 2021.

“He would miss appointments and he would be late to appointments … we had a virtual appointment, and he was like, I'll send you the link 10 minutes into the session, and no word from him. I get an email saying ‘I'll send you the link’ — no link anywhere.”

“I end up calling the Coun-

seling Center and they finally get the link and it's at this point 45 minutes late … I hop on and he basically just blamed me and was like, ‘It's your fault, like I'm glad you finally showed up.’”

“After that, I was like, “Okay, that's the last time I'm seeing him.” And I haven't seen him since.”

However, Student D does state that they “like the counselors there – but the psychiatry and medication side I just despise.”

Students report being regularly prescribed side-effect heavy medication such as antidepressants and sleeping pills, and being discouraged from changing their regimen.

Emma Rial ’22 received a prescription within minutes of meeting her psychiatrist during the 2019-20 academic year. “I had an appointment with a psychiatrist at the Counseling Center who prescribed me 25 mg of desvenlafaxine, an SSRI commonly known as Pristiq, within the first 10 minutes of the appointment.”

Student D recounted, “They prescribed me something which made me gain 30 pounds freshman year … I consistently said to [the psychiatrist] ‘This is an issue,’

and I consistently kept getting off of it and back on it because I was so stressed about the weight gain.”

“He basically told me, ‘Get over it, this is the right medication for you if you just got over the fact that it makes you gain weight.’

And I was like, ‘But that’s really flawed reasoning!’”

Similarly, Rial was never informed of the full list of side effects of Pristiq by her psychiatrist.

“He filled out the prescription slip and sent me on my way, without an extensive conversation about side effects.”

“He did, however, warn that there was a chance of developing suicidal thoughts and that, ‘If you feel like jumping off Johnson Chapel, you should let me know,” in a joking manner. I left that appointment confused, upset and scared.”

“A doctor, an authority figure, who I did not know, was telling me I needed this medication that could have extremely dangerous side effects, while I was already struggling with anxiety and depression, and was brushing it off as a joke,” Rial continued.

Multiple students also re-

Continued on page 6

News 6

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Students Turn to Off-Campus Mental Health Resources Continued from page 1 port being very easily prescribed anti-anxiety and sleeping pills.

Ativan (generic lorazepam) and Xanax (generic alprazolam) were reported to be commonly prescribed, despite high addiction and harm potentials.

“In my first meeting with the psychiatrist,” says Student A, “he prescribed me Ativan for insomnia. Despite the fact that I didn’t want it, I have a bad history with benzos [benzodiazepines] and an addictive personality.”

Rial had a similar experience with benzodiazepines. Like Student A, she was on a prescribed SSRI (antidepressant) at the time.

“My next appointment, the same psychiatrist put me on propranolol … and alprazolam … I was given little information about the side effects but was told to take them as needed, whatever that meant to me,” said Rial.

“Looking back now,” she continued, “I should’ve questioned him for his reasoning … but I refuse to blame myself because of the authority he had as a doctor and my understanding that he must know what is best for me.”

“If a student is unhappy with the services they received,” Alvarez says, when asked about poor

prescription choices and indifferent advice, “I’d urge them to talk to me to discuss their experience. I would listen to their concerns, and work with them to find a solution.”

“The next appropriate place to go to raise concerns would be my supervisor, Dean [of Students Liz] Agosto.”

Alvarez strongly requests that students contact her with any concerns or problems concerning the Center. “If there is an ongoing concern for them,” she says, “then we really should be working to get them in the care of somebody who they would feel confident working with … I would really encourage them to come and speak with me.”

Alvarez also explains that there is a caseworker in the Center who specializes in finding students therapists, psychiatrists and prescribers off-campus for students who don’t want to use the Center’s services.

Sam Spratford ’24 (who is also a podcast producer at The Student) reports having a disappointing experience with the caseworker in the spring of 2021.

“I first had to go through an intake process, during which I gave the Counseling Center detailed information about my diagnoses.”

Spratford was then directed to a database for off-campus men-

tal health service, which she was largely expected to coordinate individually.

“I wish we could’ve had a discussion explicitly about my needs and about the variety of options for addressing those,” said Spratford. “This one-time interaction felt completely unwelcoming and disconnected from my needs, which is the last thing you’re looking for from a mental healthcare professional.”

Some students, such as Students A and D, are turning to off-campus resources on their own to get the help they do not feel the Center provides — despite higher costs, wait times and inconveniences.

New resources for students outside of one-on-one counseling are being promoted by the Center.

MySSP is a counseling telehealth app that all Amherst students (regardless of location) are able to access. Further, new weekly classes and groups have been organized and faculty and staff are being trained in how to support students, according to Alvarez. Internal organization is also being revisited to accommodate the larger number of students seeking care.

Student B, who sought a telehealth counseling appointment during the pandemic, was referred

to MySSP by the Counseling Center, which is unable to use telehealth due to Massachusetts law.

After initial doubts and worries, the student was “pleasantly surprised at the counselor I was matched with – he is so wonderful, really caring. He set up appointments super quick, like within the week, I already had my first appointment with him, so that just made me feel so good.”

When they returned to campus in the fall of 2021, Student B tried to set up in-person appointments. They faced slow replies and miscommunications in the process, and were referred back to the telehealth system they had already been using and on-campus workshops.

“They essentially didn’t offer an avenue for me to get any sort of assessment or diagnosis, which was the whole point of me reaching out in the first place — to get that sort of service.”

Student A is using a different telehealth service, not recommended by the college, and said that the experience was “so much better” than the Counseling Center.

Rial agrees with Student A’s sentiment: “I also think finding another therapist and psychiatrist showed me how shitty that expe-

rience [the Counseling Center] really was.”

"My experience at the Counseling Center overall can be described as mechanical,” Rial continues, “I felt like they were going through the motions of our appointments in order to get me in and out of the office as efficiently as possible.”

Many students felt “lucky” for not having worse experiences – including Spratford. “If I hadn’t already been knowledgeable about and involved with mental health treatment,” she says, “this interaction might’ve deterred me from seeking it out.”

“The fact that this is the case for some of my peers is completely unacceptable from a college largely centered around community.”

Student A sums up many of their classmates’ thoughts about the Counseling Center when asked about their trust in the Center’s psychiatrists.

“Especially since I’m hoping to start new medications, I want to work with a doctor I trust… no, I don’t trust the psychiatrists at all at the Center.”

“Telehealth is a pain, don’t get me wrong, but they’re held accountable by their clients. Who holds the Counseling Center accountable?”

From the Red Room: Oct. 4 AAS Meeting Updates Karina Maciel ’25 Staff Writer On Monday, Oct. 4, the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) held its third weekly meeting since the newly elected senators took their seats. Senators discussed Student Advisory Committees, the Budgetary Committee and the role that the Senate has in responding to incidents that occur across the Five College system.

The AAS meeting kicked off with selections for the Student Advisory Committee for the new student center and dining commons.

Students on the committee will be charged with developing the role of the new student center in construction. Five Senators — Gent Ma-

lushaga ’25, Anna Penner ’24, Mia Griffin ’24, Sirus Wheaton ’23 and Gavi Forman ’22 — were chosen to serve on the committee. The remaining five members will be chosen from the campus community at large.

The recommendations of the Budgetary Committee, led by Treasurer Jae Yun Ham ’22, were also highlighted at the meeting. Numerous student organizations, including the Bioethics Society, Club Sailing, Mock Trial, Women in Finance and The Student, were awarded funding for their various events and activities. In total, 29 requests were made which amounted to $25,000.

The majority of the meeting was dedicated to a discussion regarding the series of racist emails that were

recently sent to Black student organizations at UMass Amherst. Multiple senators expressed that they had wanted to release a statement of solidarity to Black students at the college and highlight the perceived inaction of the Amherst administration in the aftermath of the incident.

However, the proposed response, written by Wheaton and Griffin, was withheld after other members of the Senate took issue with the email’s verbiage and particular statements, specifically pertaining to the implied responsibility that Amherst College has for the wellbeing of Black students in the Five College system. Some Senators believed the college is not responsible for Black students who do not attend the college, while others

claimed that as the “oldest and richest” institution in the Five College system, Amherst College has a responsibility to ensure a welcoming and inclusive environment for all Five College students.

Discussions about the email prompted an off-shoot conversation about the role that the Senate has had in addressing controversial incidents that occur at the college, both on and off campus. “We’re student senators … we’re here to support and represent the student body,” asserted Kya Rincon ’22. “We need to do better and organize better when it comes to things that actually harm students.”

The meeting wrapped up with five new committee appointments: Hannah Kim ’25 was appointed to

represent Amherst in the Five College Student Coordinating Board, which is responsible for initiating support and cooperation between the Five Colleges, as well as promoting communication and interaction between them. Taha Ahmad ’24 and Josh Kim ’25 were appointed to serve on the Library Committee, which discusses and recommends policies surrounding the library’s collections and services.

Finally, Rincon and Malushaga were chosen to serve on the Title IX Committee, which collects and reviews information regarding the college’s sexual misconduct policies and their implementation.

The AAS will not meet next Monday, Oct. 11, in observance of Fall Break.

Op pinion

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Double Down on Mental Health As President Biddy Martin acknowledged in her most recent update on the Anti-Racism Action Plan, the recent Needs Assessment Report found that the Counseling Center is not adequately serving the student body. For students, this comes as no surprise. Counseling Center staff are trying their best, but they simply don’t have the resources they need to serve a student body of our size — especially during a time like today when countless students are still struggling with the consequences of the ongoing pandemic.

The clear root of many students’ problems with the Counseling Center is the same as the root of many of the college’s other ongoing issues: understaffing. With just one case manager, one psychiatrist and a few counselors, the center simply lacks enough staff to adequately meet students’ mental health needs.

But a clear problem luckily means a clear solution: the college should double the size of its counseling center staff to restore service accessibility to an acceptable level.

Williams College, our lifelong rival with a similarly sized endowment and student body, has over twice as many counselors as we do. Nearby Smith College, also similarly sized, though with about half the endowment, also surpasses our counseling center in its number of staff, and thus in services offered.

The problems of understaffing are many. Counseling Center staff are forced to triage when assigning students appointment times — some within a two-week frame and others within a month — and students have been devastated to hear their problems don’t warrant urgency.

The disproportionate counselor-student ratio makes it extremely difficult for counselors and students to form the personal bonds integral to the success of the brief style of therapy the college offers.

Sometimes, the appointment never comes and the student is directed to an off-campus counselor, saddling that student with even more logistical labor. All these problems come together to create yet another barrier for students to overcome in order to access services — an especially harrowing challenge for the many who have never had experience with mental health services before coming to campus. For some, it discourages them from reaching out altogether.

The college is aware of the pandemic’s mental health impact on its students. Its response has been generalized, impersonal resources wanting in quality.

It has advertised the MySSP app and currently offers students free Headspace memberships. The Counseling Center holds groups for those struggling with various problems and advertises them in the Daily Mammoth, but students aren’t always comfortable with sharing their struggles in group settings and workshops can’t always be an adequate replacement for one-on-one conversations.

When students go to the Counseling Center, they often aren’t looking simply for these general resources — they’re looking for a personal treatment plan, whether that be in the form of therapy or medication.

And having the center understaffed while students need more help than ever means a heightened workload for staff — contributing to the college’s known issue of poor staff treatment. The stress borne by an undersized department, especially one dealing with the mental health of students at school, prevents the effective running of that department. Intake sessions are often half-filled with discussion of logistics, and counselors are sometimes forced to email students when they’re off hours to schedule appointments. These duties take time and energy away from both their work as counselors and much-needed rest time off the clock.

Increasing the staffing of the Counseling Center would allow for a greater delegation of roles so staff members can focus solely on their specific duties — whether they be case management, consultations, psychiatry or individual counseling — rather than trying to perform their role on top of the various other tasks that are necessary to keep the counseling center functioning. It would help students overcome the barrier of reaching out and make aid just that much more accessible.

We understand that the college is experiencing difficulty finding prospective counselors in light of a nationwide shortage of mental health providers. But as in the case of the national worker shortage cited by the college in regardings to other staffing issues, we reaffirm that labor shortages can only be considered shortages when employers like the college do what they can to make themselves competitive — to become places people want to, rather than have to, work. The college has the resources and the motive to offer enticing benefits and pay; failure to do so is the fault of the administration, not its prospective workers.

Change shouldn’t be forced or reluctant when the college not only has the capacity to broaden its mental health services but also promises to help every single student here thrive. Change shouldn’t always come after the repeated expressions of grievances from the community, but rather, it should be proactive and structural — instead of hiring counselors one by one in response to specific demands, Amherst should take bigger actions considering the problems we have been experiencing are pressing and cannot be resolved through slow and tiny steps.

The Needs Assessment Report is a good first step.

Doubling the Counseling Center’s staff should be the next.

Unsigned editorials represent the views of the majority of the Editorial Board — (assenting: 13; 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 Assistant News Caelen McQuilkin Tana Delalio Managing Opinion Scott Brasesco Skye Wu Assistant Opinion Kei Lim Dustin Copeland Managing Arts and Living Theodore Hamilton Brooke Hoffman Alex Brandfonbrener Managing Sports Ethan Samuels Liza Katz Liam Archacki Managing Podcast Sam Spratford Maggie McNamara Managing Design Anna Smith S TA F F Publishers Emmy Sohn Digital Director Sawyer Pollard Social Media Manager Emi Eliason

Letters Policy

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The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Opinion 8

Buying the Trask House: A Chance to Confront Our Past Anna Smith ’22 Managing Design Editor Israel E. Trask was one of the first trustees of Amherst College. He donated a total of $710 to the Charity Fund to establish the college, later making an additional donation of $300 upon his death in 1835. He also helped to secure the college’s charter in the face of challenges from Williams College. To do so, he guaranteed the pledges of women and minors to the fund, encouraged the purchase of the Parsons land — on which people were enslaved — where the Octagon now sits and helped to establish Jonas King as the first professor of oriental languages.

However, the wealth and the influence that allowed Trask to contribute to the college was a result of his status as an enslaver.

Trask enslaved hundreds of people on plantations in Mississippi and Louisiana and even brought at least five enslaved people to his home in Massachusetts. The Trask house in Springfield is one of the few standing structures in Massachusetts known to have housed enslaved people, and it is currently for sale. Amherst College should buy it.

As the college celebrates its bicentennial, it is confronting its past through the Racial History of Amherst Project, of which I am a part, and through collaboration with people like Nicka Smith, a descendant of people enslaved

by Trask who has dedicated her research to the descendants of those he enslaved. But this part of the history that our work centers on has received little attention. Only a handful of people

I have encountered even know Trask’s name, let alone those of the people he enslaved. Mary Sly, for example, was brought to Springfield by Trask but later emancipated herself and assisted others in doing the same through the Underground Railroad.

Why hasn’t Amherst been as attentive to its historical past as other universities studying slavery have? The answer likely lies in that there is no physical evidence of slavery on our campus: there is no Calhoun College to rename, as at Yale University, and we never used the family crest of an enslaver as our own, as at Harvard Law School. But we do have the words of the Black Student Union’s #ReclaimAmherst campaign, which reasserts that “Black people are the condition of possibility for the existence of Amherst College.”

Amherst College should purchase the Trask house to further its commitment to anti-racism and transform the space into the Mary Sly Center for Restorative Justice, a museum and community engagement center. As Mike Kelly, head of the Amherst College Archives and Special Collections, said in our email exchange, “Donations, service on the board of trustees and support for the charter all feel so abstract; that house is a perfect manifestation of wealth from slavery on public display in Massachusetts.”

Here, Amherst students and residents of the Connecticut River Valley alike could learn about the legacy of enslavement in the area and engage with efforts toward reparations and restorative justice. To do so would make Amherst College one of the only

institutions in Western Massachusetts to interpret enslavement in a space in which it actually took place — Royall House and Slave Quarters in Medford and the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Museum in Hadley are the only two sites already established.

The center would not be a space to learn about Trask and the grand architecture of the home — as is so common in many historic house museums — but to learn about people like Sly, who was brought to a free state as an enslaved woman, slept in the now-absent wings on the sides of the house and was able to escape.

L. Stanton Williams 1941 Professor of American Studies and English Karen Sánchez-Eppler told me, “Its location in Springfield could make its acquisition and donation for this use a true act of reparation — something Amherst can give to the Black community in this region. Moreover, standing right next to the federal courthouse, its placement expresses the links between the history of enslavement and the present [issue] of incarceration.”

Naming the space after Sly rather than any of the names that were once on the deed — the property is currently listed for sale under the name of the “Alexander House” — is itself an act of restorative justice. It is making her name known as one of the many Black people which made Amherst College possible.

There is certainly some credence to the idea that having a restorative justice center in Springfield would separate it from the Amherst community, making it feel like a hollow effort — what is out of sight is often out of mind

Photo courtesy of Amherst College Archives and Special Collections

Israel Trask was one of the first members of the Board of Trustees at Amherst College, as well as one of its most frequent and generous donors. He also enslaved hundreds of people in Mississipi, Louisiana and even Massachusetts.

Photo courtesy of Anna Smith ‘22

Trask’s home in Springfield, Massachusetts is currently for sale under the name “Alexander House.”

Smith proposes purchasing the house and turning it into the Mary Sly Center for Restorative Justice, in order to help the Black community in Springfield.

— but Amherst students have been able to work with the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. even in the middle of a pandemic, and have previously enjoyed field trips to local history sites during non-pandemic times. Even collaboration with Springfield has precedent: students collaborated with Springfield for Black Arts Festivals in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Moreover, the central location of the house makes public transportation a possibility, even if it is a time-consuming one.

And while the college is certainly capable of moving buildings, to move the Trask house to Amherst would be to divorce it from the community in which Sly lived and built her legacy, and from the Black community that lives there today. The col-

lege should instead work with local organizations such as the Pan African Historical Museum USA, which runs a walking tour of the Underground Railroad in Springfield, to ensure that the house remains in this vital location while still meeting the needs of the community. The local Black community should have an active and ongoing role in shaping programming at the center.

The simple purchase of this property is not enough, of course. The college must continue working toward its commitment to being anti-racist and must consider reparations.

But establishing the Sly Center would be a major step forward in not only acknowledging the ties between the college and slavery, but also doing something to rectify those bonds.

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Opinion 9

Seeing Double: Work-Study Aid is Less Not More Cole Graber-Mitchell ’22 Columnist

While writing our series last year on financial aid at Amherst, my co-columnist and I racked our brains to identify solutions to the problems we found. After going through my own financial aid award, I stumbled upon something that I hadn’t noticed before: federal work-study acts as aid.

Let’s talk about what that means in the context of Amherst’s financial aid system. The way that aid here works is pretty simple, if you ignore the complicated calculations behind the scenes. First, a student fills out the FAFSA, the CSS Profile, and the various other parts of their financial aid application. Then, the college uses the information from those documents to determine that student’s Expected Family Contribution (EFC) — the amount of money

that the college thinks the student and their family can pay.

After that, it just takes some simple math — though maybe not simple enough for my arithmetically-challenged co-columnist — to figure out the student’s aid awards.

The college takes its tuition, room and board, fees and other expenses (last year, about $80,960 all together), subtracts the student’s EFC, and gives the rest to them as aid.

This ensures, supposedly, that families only ever pay what they can afford. The college’s aid plus the EFC should cover all costs.

Most of that aid is grant aid.

But since work-study allowances count as aid, the college can use them to reduce the grant aid that it provides a student. The problem is that students have to work for that “aid.”

This year, I got $2,200 in federal work-study from the college (under the federal work-study regu-

lations, Amherst College has wide latitude to decide to whom it gives work-study — it’s “federal” because the federal government provides the funds, not the aid decisions).

That means that I start the academic year in the red, lacking $2,200 that the college itself thinks I’ll need to pay the full cost of attending Amherst. I have to work for that money throughout the year, only receiving my “aid” award after months of grading problem sets. And if for whatever reason I can’t work, that aid never materializes.

Meanwhile, students who don’t receive work-study, whether on financial aid or not, have no need to work to get their full financial aid amount. If they decide to work while they’re on campus, then that money is an added bonus on top of the college’s financial aid.

And there aren’t any meaningful benefits to being a work-study

student. According to the college’s website, “[e]mployment is open to all Amherst students, without regard to whether they are eligible to receive financial aid.” Work-study students don’t make more, don’t have access to more or better jobs and aren’t favored over other students for many campus positions.

Ultimately, this system is unfair to work-study students. We’re told that we have to work to get our aid while others have more time to spend on homework, extracurriculars, research and leisure.

And it probably increases student loan debt: this so-called “aid” trickles in over the entire academic year, but student expenses, whether they be fees, books, travel or other necessities, are concentrated at the beginning of each semester.

Students’ only recourse? Loans.

Even if you believe that students should have to work their way through college, federal

work-study poses an equity issue.

Right now, the system forces only some students to work to pay their tuition. If Amherst wants to lift up students with financial need, it shouldn’t put them at an additional financial disadvantage to their peers the day they get on campus.

Work-study makes life harder for those who get it, forcing us to use our paycheck for necessities while everyone else’s needs are covered. At the end of the day, work-study “aid” is really just the dubious gift of getting less in grants from the college. The only winner is Amherst College, which gets to employ its students at federally-subsidized rates.

The federal government paying a portion of student wages is fine by me. But Amherst uses work-study allowances to give needy students less, then turns around and presents it as financial aid. That shouldn’t fool anyone.

Why Is It So Hard to Get Mental Health Help?

Scott Brasesco ’22 Managing Opinion Editor “We hold students’ needs at the core of the decisions we make, and consider the students’ needs our top priority,” reads the Counseling Center’s Mission and Values page.

Yet, after going through my third appointment cancellation in just one week, I’m beginning to feel that they do not have the adequate materials to make that mission a reality.

I first reached out to the Counseling Center on Thursday, Sept. 9, after realizing that I would soon be running out of the anxiety medication that I had been prescribed over the course of the pandemic.

I hoped to renew the prescription or explore other options, like therapy or different medications, to address my anxiety.

They were prompt to respond, telling me that if I called the same day I could set up an appointment with one of their counselors to assess my options. I did so, and was able to set up an appointment for the following Tuesday. It wasn’t ideal, but I figured I could handle a

couple of days without medication, so it wasn’t the end of the world.

My Tuesday meeting was brief, and I left with one major takeaway from the Counseling Center: “We don’t have the resources to meet your needs.” I was told my desire for therapy was undoable inhouse, meaning I would need to meet with a case manager — who was unavailable for the next two weeks — to discuss options for therapy off-campus. Even worse, I was told that the earliest possible appointment I could make with the college’s psychiatrist to refill my prescription or look at other potential options was Oct. 4, almost a month after I would run out of medication.

I remember being irked at the long waits, but, knowing I couldn’t do anything about it, I just sucked it up and got in line.

Yet, this week, when my case manager appointment came around, I received an email that it had been canceled and that we could reschedule for the next day. That was alright, I thought, certainly not the worst thing that

could happen. The following day, however, I got another email from the Counseling Center that the appointment had been canceled again due to a medical emergency and that I would need to call in to come up with a new appointment time — in other words, my hopes of getting therapy in the near future were dashed.

I called in, and asked whether there might be some other case manager I could meet with while the other is out, but the Counseling Center told me, “No, sorry, we only have one case manager.” Understaffing thwarting the college’s missions, who could have guessed? But even that I could handle, because the most important thing was refilling my anxiety medication.

So why am I writing any of this right now, in a sad attempt to make my frustrations public? Because this morning, Oct. 1, I received another dreaded email from the Counseling Center, letting me know that the psychiatrist would be out unexpectedly and that, if I still needed medication, I could try to make another appointment

“later in the semester.”

At the direction of the Counseling Center, I’m looking for a therapist off-campus now. And they’ve said they’ll help me get a refill of my prescription whether I can see the psychiatrist or not, though there’s still not been any material progress on that front.

Nearly a month after I first reached out, it feels like they’re finally beginning to address my problems.

I want to clarify that I have nothing against the Counseling Center or any of the fine people who work there. I’ve not once had a bad interaction with Counseling Center staff for any reason other than understaffing, something that lies out of their control. And I think the Counseling Center can be a fantastic resource, otherwise I would not be trying so desperately and repeatedly to access it.

Even so, my problems with the Counseling Center speak to a deep problem that I’ve learned I’m not alone in suffering from. When I brought up these feelings with the Editorial Board during this week’s meeting, I was saddened

to hear that my experiences were utterly common; everyone in the newsroom had a similar story of troubles that they or their friends had gone through to access the college’s mental health services, and few of us had any positive experiences to report.

I wrote this letter as a cathartic experience to cope with the frustration of what seemed like indefinitely deferred mental health support, but my conversation with the other editors convinced me to share it with the rest of the community.

I hope that reading this will move someone to do something.

The Editorial Board this week has called on the college to double its counseling center staff and I wholeheartedly endorse that message. At the very least, I want the college to match its words with actions, and show us that it’s willing to listen and adapt to student suggestions for improvement.

For now, my story is just one of many detailing a tragically common experience, but I hope that for future students it will read like yet another satire piece.

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Opinion 10

The Nostalgia of Catching the Common Cold

Dustin Copeland ’25 Assistant Opinion Editor

A few days ago I woke up sick.

Not with Covid and not in any sick-of-the-pandemic sense either, but in the quotidian and familiar way that made me realize that I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a sore throat. So it was sort of comforting to stumble my way around campus that day, drinking absurd amounts of tea and having accidental little micro-naps — my congested voice reminds me now that I’m not all there, and I kind of enjoy the nostalgia of being mildly ill.

That’s not to say that being sick is a good thing. Given my past year and a half of pathological fear of any hint of sickness, it seems novel somehow to imply that the experience of getting sick is just an everyday sort of thing, that what I feel right now is common. And it is common: everyone I know has either had this cold, or has it currently, or is very, very close to getting it. It’s a shared experience, like that of a rainstorm over cam-

pus: “some cold, huh?”

Campus is the perfect place for such a cold’s spread, after all — we live in a tightly-knit community of really not very many students.

With so few degrees of separation between any of us, it makes sense that highly contagious (but not very dangerous) disease spreads like wildfire. This is the sort of College Experience that one normally expects of an early fall surrounded by so many new people, but it was still a little surprising to me. I suppose I didn’t really expect to get sick, given the vigor with which we all try to avoid it.

However, this cold is a little different — now, there is tacit understanding that we will ultimately end up healthy, that this physical manifestation of our recent and constant closeness will pass. Those of us with more severe symptoms skipped class for a better recovery, and all of us automatically switched into a take-care-of-ourselves mode of operation.

There was no expectation that we, as a student body, would stop this cold. Instead, we allowed our-

selves to be transported to a time in the past, taking sickness a little less seriously for just one moment, taking comfort in the knowledge that we will be okay.

When I wake up in a few days without a completely impassable nose and with a normal, smooth swallow, it won’t be a major triumph of care and recovery — my immune system will simply have rid me of this cold. It is the everyday triumph of the human body over a little invader, something that I won’t even remember after the next few colds. I’m grateful to have the opportunity to forget this, to be fairly confident that I won’t have to go another year without getting sick.

None of this is to say that we are done with this pandemic. The pandemic still fundamentally alters everyday life, and the restrictions we abide by are evidence of that. We must continue to fight this disease so that we may again merely be inconvenienced by everyday sickness. After all, it is almost a rite of passage for freshmen to get a cold in their first fall,

right? And so this is the first time that I, and many of my friends, have gotten sick while being truly away from home.

Last night I sat with three of them, all of us in varying stages of sickness, and we worked together to make four cups of tea. I went to find my mug and an extra while one of us washed her own mugs, and another filled the communal kettle with water while the last collected blankets. We sat crosslegged under the light of a laptop screen and some halloween decorations and sipped too-hot tea and felt warm. We made each other comfortable because we wanted to, and our little kindness made this place feel a little more like home.

Ultimately, that’s what a college should be. The inconvenience of the sicknesses that sweep through and around campuses like little wildfires allows for experiences like the above.

Community is built around little adversities, like rainstorms over campus, or Insomnia being out of s’mores cookies, or a cold transferred from student to student

to student. Because I experience these things alongside other people, I learn a little about them, and I have support in dealing with them. I learned quickly that we are essentially allies here, that being brought together on this campus is for a purpose, one that we all share. It’s a fascinating dynamic, to be around people who are largely actually like-minded on some level, who believe in their education and who (by and large) like their fellow students. Instead of closing off at the intrusion of a cold, we started a kettle. That’s what college has been like, for me.

Exhausting, stressful, all-consuming, but warm.

So I am today more convinced than ever before that someday a cough won’t be scary. Someday I won’t be anxious in crowds. Someday I’ll wash my hands a little less obsessively. And someday, maybe, I’ll stop qualifying my statement when I say that I’m sick. In that way, my sore throat inspires confidence and paradoxically makes me feel just a little bit better. The runny nose could stand to go, though.

Satire by Rosin

New ACPD Report Finds ACPD May or May Not Exist Andrew Rosin ’25 Satire Columnist Following a string of inconclusive investigations into the presence of roofies and amphetamines on campus, the ACPD released a report that casts doubt on their own existence.

“We could be real, or we could be imaginary, but currently we just don’t know,” began the latest email from Chief of Police John Carter, which was sent to students on Oct. 2 with the subject line “Timely Warning: Unconfirmed Presence of ACPD on Campus.”

“At this point, we don’t have enough information to confirm that we aren’t just a figment of the campus’ collective imagination,” Carter continued. “We can reach out and feel each other,

know that we’re there physically, but we remain unconvinced that ACPD is a real thing.”

A student came forward to the Office of Student Affairs with information about an ACPD sighting at Hitchcock on Oct. 1, but she was turned away due to her “unauthorized presence” at the Triangle. “When the student first told me that she had in fact seen a real ACPD officer, I first thought to myself, ‘It’s extremely problematic that this student was at Hitchcock when she wasn’t supposed to be,’” commented Dean of Students Liz Agosto. “My team jumped into action and referred her to Residential Life for further questioning.”

Other students have reported similar consequences to reporting sensitive information:

“I went to file a report about getting roofied, and they spent over thirty minutes interrogating me about why I chose to drink punch that night instead of beer,” a senior added.

Like their investigation into roofies, the investigation into the existence of ACPD has stalled with minimum findings.

“We have to train our officers — who could be totally fake, by the way — to not get distracted by students on the roof or a toaster fire in a dorm,” Carter said. “And everytime we’re about to make a breakthrough in the case, we lose hours of our day petting Potato on the first-year quad.”

ACPD reminded the student body that it is the students’ responsibility to protect themselves on campus until ACPD’s identity crisis is resolved.

Illustration by Scott Wang ‘25

Might the ACPD be yet another conspiracy theory?

Amusements

w

Club Calamity | Crossword ACROSS 1 RSO maybe mistaken for George Michael duo 5 Great divide 10 Iftar-hosting RSO: Abbr.

13 1992 Robin Williams role 14 Negative critic, slangily 15 Sherlock Holmes creator, initially 16 Dominican singer Natasha 17 By the side of 18 Josh 19 RSO for verdant vaudevillians?

21 “Take ___ up here” 23 Source of grammatical confusion 24 Slowly, in music 25 Plural follower of re- and ex29 Debacle 31 Preserves, in a way 32 Hummus companion 33 First-rate 36 Young of the Hawks

37 First in the U.S., second in the U.K. 38 Noodles, at IYA 39 Star-gazing dept.

40 Neutrogena rival 41 All together 42 Shabbat-celebrating club 44 They’re found in geometry and the sky 45 Little guy 47 Lip-reading alternative: Abbr.

48 Person hired to hire, informally 49 Student poem publisher 55 Campus congress: Abbr.

56 ___ Jessica Parker 58 Hard thing to do after a late night 59 Not an ACPD officer 60 Mexican communal farmland 61 Prepared to be shot?

62 Barbie’s beau 63 RSO with emphasis on footwork 64 Winter coaster

Liam Archacki ’24 Managing Sports Editor

Solutions: Sept. 29

DOWN 1 Tear’s partner 2 Price to play 3 Dust bug 4 Patooties 5 Val at peak hours, perhaps 6 Heavenly headwear 7 Tiny particle 8 Precedes Duckworth or McConnell: Abbr.

9 RSO for off-the-cuff kidders 10 Fulfill, as a promise 11 Wells’s genre 12 Supplement

13 Food in a hurry, for short 20 Some NFL linemen 22 RSO that hosts La Platica 24 Precedes a strep test 25 Data Structures helper 26 May be tied in a knot or a bow?

27 Applies copiously, as sunscreen 28 Vaccine needle, hopefully 29 Semester ender 30 ___-bitty 32 Exotic dancer’s perch 34 Zilch 35 Celtics’ Kanter 37 Blue cheese feature

41 Screaming, over text 43 Ran out, as a subscription 44 Omega preceder 45 Wallop 46 Rectify, on an exam 47 Impromptu 49 Novelist Murdoch 50 Zilch, in Peru 51 Military truant 52 Subdue with a zap 53 Gave the green light 54 Hue of public speaking, for some 57 1977 Steely Dan album

Arts & Living 12

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

A Visceral Vision of Love: Ducournau’s “Titane” Shocks

Miles Garcia ’25 Staff Writer

In the world of French filmmaker Julia Ducournau’s Palme d’Or-winning film,“Titane,” humans are appliances. They work and move like cogs in a machine without a sense of agency. Set in a future where even the natural movements and reactions of humans seem programmed, “Titane” highlights the small insidious ways technology has creeped into daily life. While their movements may resemble gears in a clockwork system, the film’s characters don’t come off as robotic or lacking empathy. It’s quite the opposite: this is the most brutal, heart-wrenching, soul-crushing film of the year.

The emotional power of the story comes from its willingness to show everything and tell nothing.

The film is clean of unnecessary dialogue, and presents information through sparse, efficient symbolism.

For example, we see the main character Alexia (Agathe Rousselle) — a near-mute serial killer with a past cloaked in mystery — perform at a strip club where fancy, expensive cars dance alongside the women.

Both are objectified into material, metallic substances. It isn’t long before the physicality of people and that of their futuristic contraptions become deeply intertwined. People have blood; cars have oil. What’s the difference, really?

The film executes complex metaphors like this without needing to give every detail. For this reason, every scene feels climactic and beautiful. What’s more, the lush, colorful cinematography gives every surface a tactile feel and breathes life into this fictional world that reeks of decay and destruction. “Titane” contains a deep visual lore that, while never fully explained, gives immense materiality to every scene.

And most of these scenes are unbearable to watch. The leg of a stool goes through someone’s mouth, cracking their jaw open. A character forces herself to break her nose on a bathroom sink. To scare off an unwanted predatorial man, Alexia lodges her needle-like hairpin in his ear. The extreme violence always emerges from the erratic mental state of Alexia, revealing more about

her character and how far into madness she’s willing to go to save herself.

If reading those examples made you gag, you are no more faint-ofheart than the people who walked out of my own screening of the film.

But if you can stomach it past the 30-minute mark, “Titane” will not only make you gag but will also remove your heart from inside your chest and present it to you, beating and bloody.

It is precisely because of the film’s willingness to show brutality that its tender second and third acts feel so pure and full of love. I hesitate to describe the film’s plot any more than I already have because the experience is so much more powerful knowing as little as possible. Suffice it to say that when Alexia feels unloved by her family, she finds another that can fill those gaps. She attempts to shed her virulent persona and accept the love surrounding her. These high emotions feel just as violent as the physical barbarism. In one scene, an embrace between two characters contains just as much tension as there must be in Alexia’s fists when she attacks someone in an earlier scene.

Credit must be given to the actors, who lean fully into the darkness of their characters. Agathe Rouselle plunges deep into Alexia’s disquieting mystery, making it seem like Alexia’s entire life is visible before us. The childlike look in her eye or the shivers that run down her spine in uncomfortable public settings are just a few ways in which Rouselle makes her character tangible. These details in the performances turn what might otherwise be unredeemable characters into disturbed visions of humanity’s most ominous nooks and crannies. Neither emotion nor brutality are censored or held back in any way. For me, that made for a lasting impact. Just thinking about the final scene while writing this, I teared up immediately.

“Titane” deals with complex social issues too urgent for it to simply explain. There are themes of gender identity, incest, trauma, the fallout of a defective childhood, objectification and resilience. But “Titane” does not need to intellectualize its subject matter. Instead, Ducournau uses language and cinematography

to their highest capacities to make these issues feel as urgent as they are.

The film never cuts away from the brutality on screen and isn’t afraid to put the camera and the viewer directly inside the horror that ensues.

It demonstrates the abject, inescapable crisis that is the world we live in today, with a magnetic force that did not let up.

But what at first seems like a chokehold turns into a delicate, caring hug. The film has a visceral quality that extends toward the viewer, inviting participation and investment like a lonely, attention-seeking child.

Its body grows before your eyes. “Titane” has bone, muscle, a nervous system, skin, breath, fingernails and

fluids. It is a living entity. How is it possible to relate to a film so disturbing and vile? It’s because deep down, we have the same disturbing and vile qualities. Our hands are capable of committing the same atrocities as displayed in the film. The viewer feels complicit in these events because, considering the manner in which Alexia was raised, it is no wonder she feels forced to lash back at the world that screwed her up just the same. “Titane” confronts our capacity to perpetrate the most inhumane acts and our ability to feel the effects of these moments deep in our souls. The film is listed as “body horror” for a reason.

The line between function and

instinct is difficult to discern. How much of our internal selves are the result of hormones, memories, knee-jerk reactions and primal operations, things we can’t control?

And what decisions can we really make given our circumstances? “Titane” reminds us of our own beating hearts. Its thesis is that love reigns at the center of our being, but not in a place safe from change. It can become twisted and feral if tampered with. It can lead us down paths of rampage and abandon and unruly bloodshed. Love is the most violent emotion. And coming to terms with the reality of that violence will help us survive through a harsh world that needs love most.

Photo Courtesy of Neon

Filmmaker Julia Ducournau’s impactful new film, “Titane,” addresses the spread of technology in modern life.The film won the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival this July.

Arts & Living 13

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Balmain Festival 2021: Freedom and the Future of Fashion

Noor Rahman ’25 Contributing Writer

Last week from Sept. 28 to 29, luxury fashion house Balmain held its annual Balmain Festival at La Seine Musicale, a music hall on the Seine river in Paris. The festival included A-list celebrities, a pop-up Balmain village open to the public, live performers, a live fashion show and notably, a message from Beyoncé. For Balmain and the fashion industry, it was a triumphant celebration of the 10 years Olivier Rousteing has served as the brand’s creative director, one of the first Black heads of a major fashion house. The festival was an homage to a man whose mission has been diversity and democratizing fashion since before anyone was paying attention — before it was a PR tool, before “diversity” was a buzzword, before it was cool.

The festival featured areas open to the public, including access to the Balmain pop-up village.

The village included food trucks, stores with Balmain merchandise and even blow-dry bars. All proceeds from the festival were directed to (RED), an organization that partners with fashion brands to fight AIDS. The show inside the music hall was live-streamed outside on giant screens for viewers to enjoy. Total attendance, both inside and outside the music hall, was estimated at 6000.

Inside the music hall, live performances included Doja Cat, Franz Ferdinand and Jesse Jo Stark. Beyoncé, although not physically present, was featured in the form of a prerecorded video homage to Olivier Rousteing. Her message was personal and heartfelt, touching upon Rousteing’s dedication to opening up the runway to all, instead of just for the elite: “Once you made it through that door, you did not shut it behind you. For 10 years, you have been determined to keep pushing that door open wider, making sure that others can also have opportunities for reaching their dreams…”

For Rousteing, the festival was all about freedom, which may sound trite, but has implications

Photo Courtesy of Blogspot

The Balmain Festival, a yearly event held in Paris, celebrated creative designer Olivier Rousteing, one of the first and only Black heads of a major fashion house. He took over the position in 2011, bringing social media modernity to Balmain. both for Balmain and Rousteing personally. Rousteing became creative director of Balmain in 2011, succeeding Christophe Decarnin, whose modern, rock and roll take on couture was beloved by the industry and brought Balmain back from a long period of relative insignificance.

Rousteing, upon taking up Decarnin’s position, was quickly written off as over-the-top and gaudy. His clothes were partly traditional couture but were heavily influenced by street-style fashion, which had yet to become a major motif on the runway. From the outset, he utilized social media as a means of communication with the world at large rather than exclusively marketing to the elite. He was one of the first designers to launch an Instagram page, and he quickly secured the Kardashians as allies. And for a time, he was the only Black man at the helm of a major fashion brand. Rousteing has slowly but surely broken out of the box he was initially placed in at

Balmain, helping it to become one of the foremost designer brands in the industry. Most admirably, he did so without compromising the maximalism of his designs and his commitment to the accessibility of fashion.

Over the last decade, Rousteing’s public image has changed drastically from a blingy Instagram page rife with impeccably posed pictures of himself to a genuine story of someone unsure of his own identity. For a long time, the public had no access to Rousteing beyond his carefully curated image. That changed in 2019 when “Wonder Boy,” an unexpectedly raw and emotional documentary about his search for his birth parents premiered. Rousteing told the New York Times,“They think I am the designer who loves myself, because I post so many selfies. But I realized I had become a caricature of myself, and trapped myself; that the image was my protection, because it meant I did not let anyone into the truth of my world. I want

to lose it; I want to be myself rather than the person I pretend to be.”

The festival, specifically the runway show, was filled with symbolism and references to the journey Rousteing has taken. It celebrated all the elements that have come to define Balmain today: 1980s revivalism in the form of neutral tones, gold embellishment, sequins and pearls, shoulder-padded jackets and bodycon dresses. Keeping with his newly found tradition of openness and authenticity, Rousteing shared that he had been badly burned in an accident involving his fireplace last October, which served as inspiration for this show. The gauze with which he had become familiar through his recovery was a major motif. Many of the dresses resembled bandages coming undone, and material resembling gauze was featured abundantly. In addition, all of the models wore stacked gold rings, similar to those Rousteing had worn to cover the scars on his hands. “It made

me understand how important comfort is,” he told the New York Times. “And how clothing works to help you show what you can show, and hide what you need to hide, without anyone realizing what you are hiding.” This emphasis on comfort was reflected in the presence of baggy cargo pants and chunky, braided pieces.

The festival certainly accomplished its purpose in more ways than one. The event felt much more accessible to international viewers and those not directly in the fashion industry than the typical runway event. It also balanced the celebration of Balmain and Rousteing beautifully. The show signified perhaps a new beginning for Balmain, as Rousteing remarked “It’s a collection that talks about the freedom to be yourself, about having the confidence to move forward into a new world, both with the clothes and for myself. It’s been 10 years so I wouldn’t say I’m opening a new chapter. I’m opening a new book.”

Arts & Living 14

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Live From New York, It’s... Mediocre Comedy!

Madeline Lawson ’25 Contributing Writer

“I know everyone comes out here and says, ‘It’s going to be a great show!’ Is it?” So went host Owen Wilson’s “Saturday Night Live” monologue on Sept.

2, opening the first episode of the season. It was a standard SNL episode, but it felt underwhelming as a season premiere.

As the show has been receiving criticism for its reliance on celebrity cameos in the past few years, it lacked any beyond the appearance of Wilson’s brother Luke Wilson in the “Star Trek: Ego Quest” sketch. There were no elaborate musical numbers or over-the-top sketches. Instead, the writers played it safe and created an average episode.

The cold open was the best sketch of the night, especially considering newcomer James Austin Johnson’s performance as President Joe Biden. Johnson — known for his impression of

Donald Trump — captured the mannerisms and voice of the current president perfectly while delivering his lines with appropriate comedic timing. While new cast members typically don’t get substantial roles within their first few episodes — Aristotle Athari and Sarah Sherman both had smaller roles throughout the episode, although Sherman did feature in the “MailIn Stool Sample Commercial” sketch — Johnson was in four sketches and spent his first moments on screen as the leader of the sketch. He was shaky in places, but considering that he began his SNL run with a seven-minute cold open, that can be overlooked.

The cold open satirized the new infrastructure bill, and although seven people filled the stage, it did not feel crowded.

This season has the largest cast ever (something said of the last season as well). Since last season, only two cast members de-

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia.org

Actor Owen Wilson hosted SNL’s season premiere, which checked boxes but ultimately disappointed.

parted while three joined, creating a 21-person title sequence that feels longer than the monologue. The episode balanced each cast member nicely, giving everyone minor roles throughout the night. Fan favorites Pete Davidson and Ego Nwodim featured during Weekend Update, although popular cast member Bowen Yang only appeared in a supporting role in one sketch (“School Board Meeting”).

Relative to last year’s season premiere, a debacle hosted by Chris Rock that focused solely on Covid and was still finding its in-person footing, this episode was well-polished. There might have been no stand-out sketches — even the cold open, the best sketch of the night, was not particularly memorable — but there were no complete flops either.

Even the last few sketches, typically weaker than the rest of the show, were decent.

Owen Wilson, for his part, charmed as the host and shined

in each sketch while still leaving ample room for each cast member. He was clearly the star without being overwhelming. It is hard to imagine that this was his first time hosting, but despite a few flubbed lines, he delivered and likely will be asked back.

Kacey Musgraves was a solid musical guest. While she performed her songs “justified” almost nude — she saved herself from the censors with her guitar and cowboy boots — and “camera roll” later in more typical attire, neither of her songs had overly dramatic flair, although both songs lend themselves to understated performances.

Overall, Musgraves’s appearance on SNL was well-done but less high-energy than a season premiere might demand.

Of course, the most notable part of the night was the Norm MacDonald tribute after Weekend Update. It was a fitting collection of some of the best jokes the comic performed while on

Weekend Update, including one about the O.J. Simpson trial, which some speculate got him fired from the position in 1998.

The episode was perfectly average. It took no chances and followed what critics wanted to a T. Although it was underwhelming as a season premiere, if the rest of the season follows this trajectory, it will be a solid follow up to last year’s lackluster writing.

Next weekend’s episode, hosted by Kim Kardashian, is the most highly anticipated episode of the season at this point. Viewers love to see what non-actors, such as Elon Musk and Charles Barkley, bring to SNL, and although she is not a typical host, next weekend may prove to be more experimental than this week’s episode.

The next few episodes, led by Kardashian, Rami Malek and Jason Sudeikis, will form the basis for this season’s quality. Here’s to hoping SNL continues the solid path it’s on.

Photo courtesy of Flickr

Singer-songwriter Kacey Musgraves starred as the featured musical guest, performing songs from her new album, “star-crossed.”

Arts & Living 15

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Rockin’ Radio: The Roaring Return of WAMH

Robert Bischof ’25 Contributing Writer

Just over a week ago, on Sunday Sept. 26th, Amherst College’s very own radio station WAMH 89.3 FM went live on air for its first broadcast of the fall 2021 semester. The first show of the semester was “Southpaw Soundbites” hosted by Holden Orias ’24, a combination of soft rock and sports talk.

Since then, WAMH has continued to broadcast shows daily, from 4:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. from the studio on the second floor of Keefe Campus Center. Their programming covers nearly every genre you could think of, including sports, talk radio, classical, jazz and rock. One of the hosts’ primary responsibilities is managing the soundboard, which allows them to seamlessly transfer between the studio microphone, and music sourced from either Spotify, vinyl records or CDs. Hosts also manage the transition between the WAMH studio broadcast and the New England Public Media station broadcast, which plays at the start and end of each day’s programming. Furthermore, hosts offer two public service announcements per hour, which can range anywhere from weather reporting to public health information.

If you’re looking to listen without tuning in on the radio, WAMH also offers a digital stream. Since last spring, WAMH also contains music blogs, which have been led by head blogger Olive Amdur ’23.

These blogs range anywhere from recommendations on new music, thoughts and reviews on albums, and deeper discussions on the music industry.

You may have enjoyed some of WAMH’s weekly live concerts featured outside the Science Center on Friday or Saturday nights this past month. Performers included Origami Angel, Reggie Pearl, Theophilus London and King Cassius. The Theophilus London performance was co-sponsored with the African and Caribbean Students Union and the Black Students Union. Members of the WAMH team pick the artists, then negotiate the artist contracts with the support of the Office of Student Activities (OSA). Then the WAMH team handles the publicity for the events while the OSA handles the technical production. WAMH will continue to organize more live concerts throughout the year, so keep your eyes peeled for posters or check the WAMH Instagram account.

WAMH station manager and host of “The EZ Hours” Matthew Ezersky ’22 said that “WAMH

gives students the opportunity to literally broadcast their own voice, their own perspective.

Radio shows are vehicles for sharing who we are and what we care about. We get to share with our listeners what makes us joyous or angry or anything in between. And we get to say, ‘Hey, here’s a song we think you might like.’ We also play a vital role in bringing live music to campus.

It’s a real treat to put on concerts for our community.”

Elise Farley ’25, a new host at WAMH who runs the show “The Catacomb: Hits from the Past” echoed Ezersky’s sentiments.

“I signed up for WAMH as a way to put myself out there and share some of my interests with a broader audience. Even if I’m having a hard week, it’s nice to have at least that one hour where I know I’m doing something just for my own enjoyment and creativity and not thinking about anything else,” she observed.

According to Abhi Gupta ’25, a regular WAMH listener, “I love listening to WAMH when I study in Frost, or even just hanging out with friends. I really appreciate hearing new music and the chance to connect more with the Amherst community. I also like how convenient it is to listen to the stream on my phone or laptop wherever I am.”

From “Industry Baby” to “Third Chain,” Nii-Ayi Aryeetey ’23 plays chart-topping hits and soon-to-be favorites on his show “The Car Wash.”

Keeping with the creativity of its broadcasts, the walls of WAMH display vibrant imagery and lively paintings.

Photos courtesy of Alex Brandfonbrener ‘23

Adorning a wall in WAMH’s studio is the signature of rapper Cardi B, who visited the college in 2016.

On her show “Machine Sound Whatever,” host Karen Liu ’23 shares her top hits each Tuesday from 7-8 p.m.

Sp ports Men’s Soccer Picks Up Statement Wins Against NESCAC Foes

Photo courtesy of Brian Foley for Clarus Studios

German Giammattei, the reigning DIII Player of the Year, dribbles up the field in a 2019 match.

Leo Kamin ’25 Staff Writer Amherst men’s soccer is for real.

It’s hard to come to any other conclusion after this past weekend, which saw the Mammoths take down archrival Williams College 2-1 at home on Saturday, Oct. 2 before grinding out a 1-0 away victory over No. 6 Middlebury College, who had entered the weekend undefeated.

The Mammoths have now won seven straight games and hold the best overall record in the NESCAC at 8-1.

Williams The first few minutes of the Williams game were wide open, with scoring chances on both ends. With a large crowd in the stands at Hitchcock Field, though, the Mammoths began to settle into the game, commanding the midfield and winning aerial duels.

Amherst took a major blow when, just 15 minutes into the

contest, goalkeeper Bernie White ’22 was forced out of the game with an injury. He had been one of the Mammoth’s best players all season — allowing just one goal.

Kofi Hope-Gund ’22 came off the bench, making his first appearance between the sticks this season.

He had little work to do for the rest of the first half, however.

The Mammoths largely dominated the possession, outshooting the Ephs 12-4. Hope-Gund wasn’t called on to make a single save in the period. On the offensive end, Amherst created half-chance after half-chance. The Mammoths took shots from deep and sent balls into the box, but they failed to find the opener.

They came into the second period firing, though. Williams goalkeeper Ben Diffley made two excellent saves, each time denying Amherst forward German Giammattei ’22 from near point-blank range.

The dam could not hold forever though. The Mammoths found their opener in the 60th minute, as

Ada Okorogheye ’24 — who was dribbling past Eph defenders all afternoon — beat his man down the left before cutting it back for Nico Kenary ’23, who fired a hard, side-footed shot over Diffley’s outstretched hands. It was Kenary’s first goal of the season.

Less than 30 seconds later, with Amherst fans still celebrating and the PA system still announcing the Mammoths’ goal, the Ephs fired back with the equalizer. Immediately after play resumed, a long ball from the back found Ephs forward Nathan Song. He laid it off for Jake Suadek, who slotted the ball into the left side netting from 23 yards out.

After Williams’ goal, it seemed an entirely different game. Having played reactively through the first 60 minutes and struggling to absorb Amherst’s pressure, the Ephs began to dictate the game. They were able to string passes together in the Amherst half and find a few good looks on net.

With about 15 minutes left to play, though, the rattled Mam-

moths seemed to regain their footing. They began to ramp up the offensive pressure and earned a series of corner kicks.

In the 83rd minute, Okorogheye dribbled around an Ephs defender and was fouled a few yards outside the box. The Mammoths flooded into the box, awaiting the free kick.

He and Ignacio Cubeddu ’23, standing over the free kick on the right side of the box, saw the same thing: “They were in zone defense, and I guess they didn’t set it up properly,” said Giammattei. “The whole front post was open.”

He made a curling run from the left side of the box toward the right post. Cubeddu delivered a low, hard cross. Giammattei took the ball out of the air with his right foot, threading the needle between the Ephs’ keeper and the near post.

The goal, which put the Mammoths up 2-1, was his fourth of the year and undoubtedly his most important.

The Mammoth backline stayed vigilant through the last 10 minutes of play, stamping out Williams’ final few desperate forays into the box. With the win, Amherst is now 3-1-1 in its last five meetings with the Ephs.

Middlebury On Sunday, the Mammoths headed up to Vermont to face No. 6 Middlebury in what was, on paper, the harder matchup of the weekend.

Head Coach Justin Serpone described the Mammoths’ 1-0 win over the notoriously defensive-minded Panthers as his team’s “better” performance of the two, after the Williams game — between two opponents that prefer to press high up the field — became “a little too open.”

Middlebury mustered just five shots all game. Hope-Gund, who continued in place of the injured White, was forced to make just one save.

The Amherst offense was relatively quiet, too, taking just eight shots after a 23-shot performance against Williams.

All it took was one shot to give the Mammoths the result they wanted, though. In the 22nd minute, a free kick found the feet of Giammattei near the penalty spot.

He lost his balance but was able to roll the ball towards Sebastian Derby ’22, who sent a left-footed rocket to the top-right corner.

Serpone said that the Middlebury win was especially meaningful for his players. For the many seniors on the roster, the Panthers were the only NESCAC team they had not beaten. The team was desperate to take revenge, no one more so than the goalscorer himself.

“Derby’s been talking about beating Middlebury for the last two years,” Serpone said. “You couldn’t have written a better story.”

The wins moved Amherst up to number 13 in the NCAA Division III coaches poll.

It’s not all that surprising that the Mammoths, who entered the season as the number-two team in the country and are coming off a 2019 season in which they made the national final, are in this position after nine games.

Still, after a 1-0 loss to Bowdoin in the second game of the season, the team felt that many people immediately wrote them off, said Serpone.

“People started to forget about us,” he said. “We were motivated by that.”

The results speak for themselves: across the past seven games, the Mammoths have outscored opponents 11-1.

They will look to keep the train rolling in another NESCAC double-header next weekend, travelling to Middletown, Conn. to face Wesleyan on Saturday, Oct. 9, before a matchup with Bates at Hitchcock Field on Sunday, Oct. 10.

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Sports 17

Mammoths Go Cow Tipping, Beat Williams, Tie Middlebury

Photo courtesy of Angelina Han ’22

The women’s soccer team celebrates with fans sitting on the hill after their 1-0 overtime win over rival Williams College.

Maya Reiner ’25 Staff Writer

Women’s soccer faced two strong NESCAC opponents this weekend, coming out on top against rival Williams before tying Middlebury.

Williams The Mammoths hosted the Ephs on Saturday, Oct. 2., winning a double overtime thriller by a score of 1-0. The game, a nail-biter from start to finish, was the team’s

first win against Williams in six years.

Amherst dominated the entire match, but stellar play from Eph senior goalie Chelsea Taylor kept Mammoth scoring in regulation.

In the game, Taylor recorded a NESCAC conference and season-high 17 saves, with Williams also recording one team save. The Mammoths more than tripled the amount of shots taken by Williams, taking 28 shots (19 on goal) to the Ephs nine (five on goal).

However, despite many offensive

opportunities on both ends, the game remained scoreless through the first 100 minutes.

Just after the 100th minute mark, seconds into the second overtime period, the victorious connection was made between midfielder and co-captain Julia Ralph ’22E and forward Patience Kum ’25.

Ralph played a ball over the top of Williams defence, and Kum beat her defender to the ball, fired a shot to the bottom right of the net, and scored to end the intense battle.

“We were right on the cusp of scoring at times and could just not find the back of the net,” forward Alexa Juarez ’23E said. “But, we kept calm, continued to play our game, fought super hard, and finally, we were able to get the result we wanted.”

After the goal, the crowd, which consisted of over a hundred students watching from the hill of Hitchcock Field, erupted. As the fans started to celebrate, the entire team sprinted uphill, resulting in a mosh pit of exhilarated athletes and fans.

Defender Charlotte Huang ’25 spoke about the win and the celebration, “It was [so] fun playing in the Amherst-Williams rivalry

game. [...] We all worked so hard for each other throughout the game, and winning in overtime was one of the best feelings ever: it might have been one of my favorite moments in college so far.”

Jack Trent ’23, a fan who ended up in the center of the celebration, said that he couldn’t have scripted a better finish against the Mammoths’ bitter rivals. “The environment was one of the most exciting sports environments I’ve ever been a part of, [it was an] amazing experience to be a fan there,” recalled Trent.

Middlebury However, the team didn’t have time to rest on their historic victory. The Mammoths headed to Vermont within hours of the win to face the Panthers, where the results were not exactly what the team had envisioned.

“Even though we tied,” Juarez said, “that result felt a little disappointing because we definitely had the most chances to win and we just played so hard throughout the entire game.”

Both teams had solid chances at goal, but were unsuccessful in finding the back of the net. Most notably, the Mammoths had two

one-on-one chances at goal in the last six minutes of regulation that came mere inches from winning them the game. Middlebury also had some solid chances throughout the entirety of the game, notably during the second half when a shot hit the crossbar. The two overtimes were also uneventful, as the coveted golden goal did not come for either team. The Panthers took 17 shots in the game, while the Mammoths took 11 shots. However, the Mammoths led in corner kicks, 6-2.

Though this weekends’ results were mixed, the team is excited for the rest of the season.

“This team is super special and I really think we have a chance to win NESCACs again and even the National Championship,” Juarez said. “Comparing the team now to previous years, I can tell that we have a championship-caliber team and I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season shakes up.”

The Mammoths will head to Wesleyan University on Saturday, Oct. 9, where they look to defeat the currently undefeated Cardinals. Then, on Sunday, Oct. 10, the Mammoths will host Bates to try to clinch another victory.

Field Hockey Debuts New Field, But Struggles in NESCAC Play Carter Hollingsworth ’25 Staff Writer The field hockey team began last week with a decisive 8-0 win against Clark University on Sept. 28, constituting coach Carol Knerr’s 200th win of her career. Knerr, ranking as the 27th winningest active coach in Division III, is in her 20th season and 21st year with the Mammoths.

Clark It didn’t take the team long to find their groove in this Tuesday game. After only three minutes of game play, first year Kat Mason ’25 scored the first goal for the Mammoths on a penalty stroke. Doubling the score only 29 seconds later was Natalie Hobbs ’23, assisted

by Muffie Mazambani ’24 as she sprinted down the left sideline and

found Hobbs on the far right post.

Mazambani would have a goal and two more assists by the end of the game.

Forward Jackie D’Alleva ’23 would finish off the game with her second goal of the match, capping off the 8-0 shutout for the Mammoths.

“We were all really excited to finally be able to play on the new field, and to be able to have such a good win on it for our first game was even more thrilling. To be a part of [coach] Carrol’s 200th win was also amazing to be a part of,” said Paige DiBiase ’25.

Williams However, even coming off an impressive start to their season — they were ranked sixth in the nation — the Mammoths suffered a tough

two-loss weekend against Williams and Middlebury.

Losing 3-2 on Saturday to number nine ranked Williams, Amherst field hockey dropped their first game of the season in a tightly contested game.

The Mammoths went down two goals early in the second period, but that did not stop the offense, who came out aggressively after halftime. Abbey Kays ’25 scored her third goal of the season on a rebound, which pulled the score to 2-1, but Williams would stretch their lead to 3-1 with a goal at the end of the third period.

This score held until Sam Maynard ’25 gave Amherst hope, scoring her eighth goal of the season with 1:09 left in play. Despite the final push in the fourth period and outshooting their opponent 16-14,

the Mammoths fell short 3-2 to the Ephs.

Middlebury On Sunday, the Mammoths faced top-ranked Middlebury for a final challenging game of the weekend.

After going down 1-0 in the first four minutes and ending the first period down 2-0, Amherst kept Middlebury scoreless in the second period with three saves by goalie Kaitlin Broda ’23.

Looking to get on the board early, Amherst worked the ball around the circle before Kays lofted a shot from the right side towards the far post, but a Middlebury defender was there to clear the ball away.

In the fourth period, the Mammoths ended the shutout with a goal off a penalty stroke from Ma-

son, which would prove to be the only goal for Amherst during the match, despite finishing with an impressive 11 shots.

When asked about the games this weekend, Maynard said, “This weekend was definitely a tough one for us, but I’m really proud of how our team fought until the end in both games. Every single person on the team had their heart in the game despite what the scoreboard displayed. We always aim to play like it’s a 0-0 game and I think we successfully displayed this mentality this weekend.”.

The Mammoths look to improve their record with another double-header next weekend, taking on Wesleyan University on Saturday, Oct. 9 at 11:00 a.m. in Middletown, Conn. and Bates College at home on Sunday, Oct. 10 at 12:00 p.m.

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Sports 18

Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Race to Top Five Team Finishes Liza Katz ’24 Managing Sports Editor

This past weekend, the men’s and women’s cross country teams traveled to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania to race in the 47th Annual Paul Short Run against both Division I and Division III competition. Both teams performed extremely well overall, with the men’s team placing third out of 41 teams competing, and the No. 12 ranked women’s team placing fourth overall out of the 39 teams at the event.

In the Men’s Brown 8K, the team was paced by senior co-captain Billy Massey ’22, who came across the finish line with a time of 24:58.6, good for a blazing fast average mile pace of 5:01.5 on the day and a ninth place finish. Owen Daily ’23 was the next Mammoth to cross the line with a time of 25:16.8, followed closely by Ajay Sarathy ’22, who finished 15 seconds later with a time of 25:33.2 in 32nd place. Theo Dassin ’24

and Oliver Spiva ’24 rounded out the scoresheet for the Mammoths, finishing in 25:45.5 and 26:03.8 respectively, good for 56th and 76th places. Overall, the team came across the line with an average 8K time of 25:32, a great mark for the team in a race against stiff competition.

However, the team isn’t resting on their laurels. Massey said about the race, “[It was a] good first 8K for the team and especially for the sophomores and freshmen, who ran their first ever [collegiate] 8K. Our team has a lot of work to do in terms of getting healthy and in competitive form. That being said, this was a better performance than a lot of us anticipated so we’re looking forward to building off of it.”

Amherst runners’ success on the course didn’t end with the men’s team; the women’s team notched results just as impressive as those of their counterparts. The first Mammoth to cross the line in the Women’s

Brown 6K event was first-year Sidnie Kulik ’25, who finished the race in 16th place with a time of 21.43.1, with an average mile pace of 5:49.2. She was followed closely by Mary Kate McGranahan ’23, who claimed 24th place out of 342 runners with a time of 21:56.7 and Julia Schor ’25, who sprinted to a 22:22.9 mark and finished 48th overall. Also making the Mammoths’ scoresheet were Sophia Price ’25 and Eline Laurent ’22 with times of 22:27.3 and 23:04.2 and secured 52nd and 104th places.

In thinking about her team’s race, McGranahan emphasized a lot of the same points that Massey did. Of the race, she said, “Paul Short is always a really exciting meet for us because we get to race a lot of great Division I and national Division III talent, [and] the race went really well for us! It was a lot of people’s first 6K and the freshmen handled the longer distance [6K] really well, especially in a huge field of runners…

Photo courtesy of Amherst Athletics

Sidnie Kulik ’25, the Mammoths’ top finisher at the Paul Short Run, races at the Minutemen Invitational earlier this season.

[It was] overall just a really fun fast race, and a great way to carry us into the second part of our season as we head into more serious competition.” Evidently both teams are using their success as a jumping off point for the rest of their seasons, and it

is clear that both teams have a bright future ahead.

Next up for both the men’s and women’s teams is the Connecticut College Invitational on Oct. 16. The races are slated to start at 11:00 a.m. at Harkness Park in Waterford, Conn.

Mammoths Down Jumbos in Thriller, Move to 2-1 in NESCAC Play Jackson Reydel ’23 Staff Writer The football team picked up a 24-21 win against Tufts on Saturday, Oct. 2 — rebounding after last week’s loss to Colby.

Quarterback Brad Breckenridge ’24 ran for three touchdowns to lead the offense in the victory while the Mammoth defense remained stout, led by defensive tackle Matt Durborow ’22 and defensive back Ryan Monteleone ’24, who each recorded 12 tackles.

The Mammoths got out to a great start, stopping the Jumbos on downs in the game’s opening drive. Breckenridge took the first offensive snap 69 yards on a quarterback keeper down to the Tufts six-yard line. Two plays later, Breckenridge finished the drive himself with a four-yard run for the game’s first score.

These would be the lone points

of the first quarter, as defenses on both sides were able to prevent their opponent from stringing together first downs.

The second quarter saw the continuation of strong defense until Tufts was able to break through with just 41 seconds left in the half. With 2:50 left in the second quarter, Tufts started their scoring drive at their own 34-yard line and quickly moved the ball into Amherst territory.

The Jumbos finished the drive with a one-yard touchdown run to tie the score heading into the half.

After an Amherst three-andout to start the third quarter, Tufts had a great punt return, allowing the team to start its first drive of the second half on the Amherst side of midfield.

Tufts used the great field position and quickly took the ball into the red zone. A 23-yard completion put the ball on the

Mammoth two-yard line, and the Jumbos punched in another rushing touchdown on the next play, taking the score to 14-7.

Breckenridge and the Mammoth offense responded well, putting together a drive that culminated in Conor Kennelly ’23 scoring a 39-yard field goal. Receiver Turner Garland ’22 had a huge 21-yard third-down catch to get into Kennelly’s range. Taking control of the momentum, the Amherst defense stuffed Tufts on their next drive to get the ball back to the Mammoth offense. Breckenridge found tight end Michael Immerman ’22 for a 38-yard completion to start the following drive.

Following four consecutive running plays, Breckenridge earned his second touchdown of the day, this time from 15 yards out. Tufts took the ball on the next drive and drove deep in Mammoth territory, but Ricky

Goodson ’22 and Raymond Dixon ’24 combined for perhaps the biggest play of the game. Goodson blocked Tufts’ game-tying field goal attempt, and Dixon scooped up the ball, returning it all the way to the Jumbo 19-yard line.

The Mammoths capitalized on the great field position early in the fourth quarter, as Breckenridge pounded in his third and final rushing touchdown from the Tufts one-yard line. With a 10-point cushion, the Amherst defense kept up their stellar play, as exemplified by a Michael Jeffery ’22 interception and forcing a turnover on downs after a Breckenridge fumble. Tufts was able to put together a late drive leading to a four-yard passing touchdown with 2:37 left in the game. The Mammoths recovered Tufts’ onside-kick attempt, and the offense was able to chew up enough clock to prevent Tufts

from scoring on its final drive.

Controlling the game’s momentum, the Mammoths were glad to leave Pratt Field with a wellearned three-point win.

Breckenridge was the main catalyst for the Mammoth offense accounting for 223 total yards through the air and on the ground. Senior running back Kellen Field ’22 added another 60 yards on the ground.

Carson Ochse–––nhirt ’23 was Amherst’s leading receiver with three catches for 60 yards. The Mammoth defense struggled against the Tufts passing attack giving up 337 yards through the air. However, the Mammoths were able to force key turnovers in the red zone, and Goodson’s blocked field goal completely shifted the momentum of the game. Amherst (2-1) will be at Middlebury (1-2) on Oct. 9, looking to avenge their 2019 overtime loss to the Panthers.

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Sports 19

MLB Season Returns to Normalcy With Some Changes and the colossal expectations that will follow him for the remainder of his career.

Photo courtesy of Adam Glanzman

Former Red Sox starting pitcher Rick Porcello warms up in the outfield of Fenway Park before a 2016 start.

Alex Noga ’23 Staff Writer

After the sprint that was the 2020 Covid-shortened 60-game season, the MLB returned to its traditional marathon of 162 games in 2021, which concluded its final games on Sunday, Oct 3.

The transition from an unprecedented shortened season back to normalcy facilitated a number of unusual trends in a sport that has been evolving over the last decade or so. Before getting into a preview of what’s to come during the postseason, let’s take a look at some of the most interesting outcomes from this year’s season The Year of Ohtani 2021 can best be described as the year of Shohei Ohtani.

Coming to the United States as an international phenomenon in 2017 after lighting up the Nippon Baseball League in Japan from both the plate and the mound, Ohtani was advertised as a generational superstar and the first true two-way player since Babe Ruth — enormous expectations to live up to.

Ohtani showed flashes of potential in his previous seasons, winning the American League

(AL) Rookie of the Year in 2018, but he has suffered unfortunate injuries that have greatly impeded his success, as he was attempting to play two different positions at an elite level.

In 2021, however, Ohtani seems to have cracked the code. His 2021 accomplishments will be remembered as one of the most remarkable seasons in MLB history.

Playing in 155 games, Ohtani recorded 130.1 (130 and 1/3) innings pitched and 639 plate appearances. From the mound, Ohtani finished with a 9-2 record in 23 starts, registering 151 strikeouts, good for 10.8 per nine innings, and an ERA of 3.18. His ERA+, which accounts for factors like a pitcher’s ballpark and the ERA of a pitcher’s league, was higher than AL Cy Young candidate Gerrit Cole.

From the plate, Ohtani had an arguably more spectacular year. He smashed 46 home runs and led the league for the majority of the year, only to finish third overall behind Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Salvador Perez, who tied for first with 48.

His home runs were spectacular, however, with 24 homers at 100 or more miles per hour,

the most in the league. He had a .965 OPS, good for fifth in the league, and an OPS+ higher than Aaron Judge, Paul Goldschmidt and Freddie Freeman.

His 78 extra base hits exceeds both Guerro Jr. and National League (NL) MVP frontrunner Bryce Harper. He led the American League with eight triples, making him one of only six players in AL history to hit 45 home runs and eight triples — the other five players are currently in the Hall of Fame.

To add the icing on the cake, Ohtani recorded 26 stolen bases, making him the only player in MLB history with at least 20 home runs, 20 stolen bases and 20 innings pitched in a single season.

If Ohtani the pitcher and Ohtani the hitter were two different players, both would be heralded as having incredible seasons. Considering he was able to achieve what he did in both aspects of his game, Ohtani is the sure-fire AL MVP. While recognizing Ohtani’s extraordinary successes, his next test will be proving that he can maintain his level of performance over the course of multiple seasons and overcome the stress of both playing two positions at once

The Return to 162 Games Though it was an interesting change of pace and a necessity to accommodate the challenges presented at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 60game shortened season in 2020 simply was not MLB baseball.

The professional baseball season is almost twice as long as the 82-game NBA and NHL seasons, and it is inherently a test of endurance. This year’s results after 60 games look dramatically different compared to the final outcome from Sunday. After the 60 game mark, the Cubs, Mets and A’s were all in first place in their respective divisions, and the Padres were in position to host the NL wild card game — none of these teams finished in a playoff position. The Braves, Brewers, Cardinals and Yankees all would have missed the playoffs if the season ended after 60 games.

The shift from a shortened season back to the norm had league-wide effects. Injury numbers took a huge jump, likely because of these changing dynamics. The number of players who went on the Injured List (IL) shot up 37 percent compared to the last two full seasons (2019 and 2018). Without even considering the special Covid-19 IL, the average team used the IL 32 times, up from 23 in 2019, and 216 players made multiple visits to the IL, compared to just 131 in 2019.

In terms of other statistics, the league average was the lowest it has been since 1968 at .244, possibly due to the sticky substances used by pitchers that plagued the first half of the season. There was a record number of batters hit by a pitch this year, exceeding 2,000 for the first time ever. Teams stole bases at the lowest rate since 1967, at only 0.45 a game, but the stolen base success rate was the

highest it has ever been at 75.5 percent, illustrating how important analytics have become in making in-game decisions.

Changes to Consider Going Forward Though there are many traditionalists who would say otherwise, baseball is and always has been an evolving sport, especially in recent years as teams have been driven by data and analytics more than ever. Given these changes in the game and its dwindling audience, it is important for the MLB to consider implementing changes to modernize the game and keep fans interested.

The primary area of concern is the lack of competition among the lower tiered teams in the league. Four different teams lost over 100 games this year in the Diamondbacks, Orioles, Pirates and Rangers. Before 2018, this had happened only once in MLB history — it has now happened twice over the last two full seasons. What is even more shocking is that the Diamondbacks and Orioles both lost 110 games, only the second time in MLB history this has happened and the first year in which two non-expansion teams lost this many games, as the first instance occurred during the first year of existence for the San Diego Padres and the Montreal Expos. The MLB desperately needs some sort of action to discourage teams from tanking and keep competition steady — there is a massive problem when multiple teams don’t have an incentive to win.

One possible solution is to alter the way the draft functions, such as implementing a lottery system like the NBA or limiting the number of times a team can have a certain high draft choice like in the NHL. Another consideration could be a reverse luxury tax that penalizes teams for spending too little.

Continued on page 20

The Amherst Student • October 6, 2021

Sports 20

Hectic End to 2021 MLB Season Sets Up Dramatic Postseason Continued from page 19 Speeding up the pace of the game is another area that the MLB has tried to address. In an attempt to shorten dead time caused by pitching changes, the MLB enacted a rule which states that relief pitchers must face at least three batters unless the inning ends first.

The policy has seemingly had the opposite effect, however, as the average for this year’s games was the longest it has ever been at three hours and 10 minutes. The number of pitching changes teams make per game has also reached a peak, as teams used an average of 3.4 relief pitchers per game. Many within the game agree that the rule should be overturned — Phillies manager Joe Girardi called the three-batter minimum his “least favorite rule.”

The number of pitchers used as an overall trend has also drastically increased. 846 pitchers took the mound this season, up from 642

ten years ago and just 560 twenty years ago. Five teams used over 40 pitchers throughout the course of the season — previously, only two teams had ever used more than 40 — while only one team used less than 25 pitchers. The MLB should certainly consider implementing the 13-pitcher roster limit that was intended to take effect before the pandemic, as the constant roster shuffling between the minors and majors greatly impacts the livelihoods of players.

2021 Postseason Preview The final day of the regular season was certainly not without drama. Possibilities abounded in the AL wild card, as there was a genuine chance for a four-way tie between the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays and Mariners going into the final game of the season, as the Yankees and Red Sox were tied with 91 wins, while Toronto and Seattle were only a game behind with 90 wins. To the dismay of the casual

fan, the 17th tiebreaker game in MLB history did not take place, as both the Red Sox and the Yankees won to set up a wild card matchup between the two teams that make up what many consider to be the most heated rivalry in all of sports.

The Yankees and Red Sox have met in the postseason only four times, with each team winning two series a piece, though the pair have never played in the wild card game. The AL leading Rays await the winner in the AL division series.

The Astros and the White Sox face off in the opposite divisional series, led by the two oldest managers to ever face each other in postseason history. The White Sox’s Tony La Russa, 77, has won 13 division titles, placing him second all-time, and is 28 years removed from his first title in 1983.

Astros manager Dusty Baker, 72, has managed five different teams in his career and finished first in his respective division at some point with all of them, though he

FRI

has yet to win a World Series title. The first time the two managers faced each other was in May of 1996, before five of the players between their two current rosters were even born, and the pair are 104-104 against each other in regular season matchups.

The conclusion to the National League was less exciting, though the San Francisco Giants secured the NL west division title and the best record in baseball with a win in their final game. The Giants were predicted to finish with 75 wins and miss the playoffs before the season began, though they have greatly surpassed expectations and finished with an impressive 107 wins, exceeding the Dodgers by only one. The Dodgers, on the other hand, are now forced to play in the winner-takesall wild card game, an incredibly bittersweet reward for having the second best record in the entire league by a margin of six games.

They are the first defending World

Series champion to win 100 games the following year and not finish first in their division since 1954.

This highlights the absurdity of the current playoff format, as, given the nature of the sport, anything can happen in a single game of baseball — a reliable pitcher could have a bad day, a powerful lineup could go ice cold and so on.

Many have argued that the structure needs to be altered, with series implemented at every round instead of single games, or that teams should be seeded based on overall records rather than where they place in their divisions. There is a strong belief around baseball that changes will be implemented next year.

The Dodgers will battle the redhot Cardinals, who had a 2.8 percent chance of making the postseason on Sept. 10 before beginning a franchise-record 17 game win streak. The Giants will play the winner, while the Braves play the Brewers in the other NLDS series.

SUN

Women’s Tennis @ Smith

Field Hockey @ Wesleyan, 11 a.m.

Women’s Tennis @ Smith

Volleyball @ Connecticut College, 7 p.m.

Women’s Soccer @ Wesleyan, 12 p.m.

Men’s Tennis @ Bates

SAT

Football @ Middlebury, 2 p.m.

Field Hockey vs. Bates, 12 p.m.

Women’s Tennis @ Smith

Volleyball vs Trinity, 2 p.m.

Women’s Soccer vs. Bates, 1 p.m.

Men’s Tennis @ Bates

Men’s Soccer @ Wesleyan 3 p.m.

Men’s Soccer vs. Bates, 3 p.m.

Women’s Golf NESCAC Qualifier @ Bowdoin Men’s Golf Blazer Fall Invitiational @ Belchertown, MA

GAME SCHE DULE

Women’s Golf NESCAC Qualifier @ Bowdoin Men’s Golf Blazer Fall Invitiational @ Belchertown, MA